We were discussing how the National Hurricane Center comes up with names for storms. Nobody here knows how names are retired. There isn’t any threshold which earns a Camille or Hugo-size storm retirement. This led to the idea of allowing companies to sponsor storms. Rather than having to come up with scores of names each season, the weather service could sell the naming rights.

Imagine! “Hurricane Home Depot is heading your way. Get all your weather supplies now for a great low price!” Or how about “The State Farm Insurance Storm will strike land tomorrow, spawning Lowes Home Improvement tornadoes and damaging Johnson Roofing winds.”

It could happen.
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Here’s a cool idea. The creators of AmIHotOrNot are giving away $100,000 and you can win it just by being registered to vote. To register, go to the Vote Or Not website.

I’ve sucessfully put myself out of a job. The PERL project I’ve been working on is nearing a successful completion. The customer’s happy with the code and my work.

I got to work with again a great bunch of people, I learned a lot about building websites, and I had a front-row seat for two of the biggest hurricanes of the year. I really can’t complain.

If you know of anyone looking for some contract sysadmin stuff, give me a holla. Until then, I’m going to consider underwriting some local public radio stations and sprucing up my website.

Labor Day always lives up to its name, don’t it? I’ve been busy knocking out things around the house. The biggest of which is the yard. Since its full of weeds, it needs to be totally nuked so we can start over. I kill it with glyphosate and two weeks later, a lawn company seeds new grass. It’s taken the past three days for me to painstakingly walk the yard, spraying this stuff on the yard. I’ve made a few trips back to the store to resupply myself, too, having judged the yard too small.

My task ended early Saturday evening, as I had to grill up some hamburgers before whisking Hallie off to my parents to visit my sister’s family, who was visiting from Shelby. Yesterday, I failed to finish the yard again, simply running out of time before Hallie’s bathtime. Today, I messed around inside long enough for the rainclouds to wash out any attempt. Crum. With the forecast looking wet most of this week, my yard may be half-dead.

But I did get stuff done today. For instance, there are now actual things on our walls, other than handprints and scuff marks. Kelly and I spent most of the morning hanging up pictures. It was a something we put off since moving into this house, what, well over 2 months ago? Now it actually looks lived in. A scary thought.

I also began painting (and repainting) the shelves for our bookcase. The coat of latex I applied previously seems to be far too sticky for the shelves. So this time, I decided to paint the remainding shelves with spray paint. It won’t look as even as the others, but it will be smoother. And, heck, these shelves will have books on them, anyway. No one’s gonna be looking at them closely.

That bed will feel quite nice when I hit it soon. It’s always nice to check off those things that have been begging for a while to be done.

Doc Searls speaks tomorrow at UNC. Hopefully I can tape his talk and post it somewhere.

That is, after I post Eric Raymond’s talk and my own Asterisk presentation, of course. (See, Tanner? I am listening…) 🙂

This morning we were treated to the coolest visitors yet to our back yard. A pair of hawks perched on the edge of our woods! They were huge, majestic birds. Kelly, Hallie were in awe of them as we watched them perch on a log. I ran to get my binoculars but by the time I returned, they had flown away.

So the hawks bump the fox off the top of our backyard’s food chain list. It’s now hawks, then foxes, then groundhogs and rabbits (tie for last, though the rabbits are faster than groundhogs).

Queensryche comes to Winston-Salem October 28th. That’s the night before my son is scheduled to arrive, so alas I won’t get my cheesy rock fix. Who would’ve thought a song about lucid dreaming would become a hit?
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SILENT LUCIDITY
Music and Lyrics by Chris DeGarmo

Hush now, don’t you cry
Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You’re lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream
Spinning in your head
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As Hurricane Frances plods across Florida today, it occured to me that another devastating hurricane hit this day eight years ago: Hurricane Fran.

We North Carolinians feel your pain, Florida.

My friend Matt alerted me to this thought-provoking Flash animation about the Pentagon Crash. Watch the animation and your appreciation for that amazing, indestructible Pentagon lawn will grow and grow.

That’s the kind of lawn I need to have here at the new homestead!