Curve Balls

Yep. Today was going along pretty good. Wife and I were swooning over the little one, who from here on out will be referred to as Lil'Guns, from the bassinet. I was making a grocery list, sitting down at the PC getting ready to put some Lil'Guns photos together for the family and she had turned on the water for a shower.

Then I hear a noise...not quite loud but it was there. So I head down the hall...turning towards the basment stairs..what is tha..? "Aww-fuck"...water is pouring down into the basment. I ran down to the bathroom and shut off the water. Sorry wife, no shower for you.

A pipe had broke at the shower head. So, being the handy motherfucker I am I started taking the drywall down to pin point the problem and start the repair job. The leak was right up at the top and apparently a hole had formed after the copper fitting in the silver shower rod thing that the shower head atatches to. I first tried to back out the silver part but the pipe dope held it tight and the threaded part snapped off inside the threaded portion. I will have to replace the small copper section and shower head rod thing shown in the picture.

At this point I have started it and should have done by tomrrow. Not that it actually takes two days, but considering that the firewood guy showed up, I got in the grocery shopping, picked up dog food, the parts for the plumbing job, cooked dinner and washed all dishes...I think it's ok.
Wife just had to have Lil'Guns suck on the boobie and poop chinese mustard all day ;)... i think i like what I had to do better.

AM pic

Heres a better pic this morning. I got Tchaikovsky going and he fell to sleep.

He made it

After 50 hours he finally arrived. PHEW!

Better pictures soon!

Phrase-ology -TAPE IT

Driving into work today I was thinking about phrases I use that in the future my son (not here yet) will think I'm a weird ol' coot about. So I let my brain drift and I thought of the phrase:

'Tape it'

...as in to record a tv show or song on the radio or whatever.

Because for the most part tapes really don't exist anymore. No more betamax, vhs, cassettes, reel to reel. None of it. It is all been superseded by digital. mp3, dvr..etc.

Since it seems I have a wide variety of readers. I want to know is;

What phrase do you use, or your parents use, that is out dated?

Holy Bat Shit!

Science is amazing to me. Amazing because one can study bat shit, write about it and get published.

What brings this up? Well, last week I received my latest copy of Geology and as I was skimming the abstracts during my Saturday morning post-coffee poo I come across the paper titled: "Stable carbon and hydrogen isotopes from bat guano in the Grand Canyon, USA, reveal Younger Dryas and 8.2 ka events". Thats quite a title for something I might have called 'Bat Shit in a Grand Canyon Cave'.

This group basically showed that the Carbon 13 and Hydrogen isotopes analyzed in bat crap shows the affects of the paleo-climate. It is important because it helps increase, or the term they use is -develop high resolution, of the climate on a more local scale. Additionally, because the Grand Canyon is a semi-arid environment other depositional features (lakes for instance) are rare or non-existent, so this is providing another method to gain information.

The information this adds to the world is that during the Younger Dryas (~12,900 -11,600 years ago) this region of the southwest US seems to have been cool and dry at this time and that the small 400 year change detected during about 8,400 -8,000 years ago was also a cool period. The second event is the first time this anomaly has been detected. Possibly indicating a semi-local effect. EUREKA! A DISCOVERY!

So for fun....why the Ace Ventura reference?

Ohh lets do a drunken post

yeah, so wife is away for the evening and I am 7 shipyards and one double jack an dcoke into some web surfying when the great idea of making a brilliant blog post hits... so here we are.

so far I see idiots on the Nat'l geo tv. bitching about driving at high altitutued and commercials about genetial herpes :s oh the lack of o2. you fuckin' pussy.

i am wondering what the facts of terrorism are and after i google it i come up with:

- Terrorists Practice a Radical Form of Islam: Twice the murdering, half the bathing
.- They enjoy blowing themselves up, and we enjoy blowing them up. You’d think we would get along better.
- Their favorite military hero is Napoleon Blownapart.
- They will riot and kill each other over a few stupid cartoons. We should make more of those.- Terrorists want to sneak explosive liquids into airplanes. If you see any children on your flight, tackle them and confiscate their juiceboxes.
- Our latest intelligence indicates the Koran is really just a bomb-making manual.
- If a guy is being over-sensitive to racial profiling, he may be a terrorist. Strangle him with your shoelaces just in case.
- Terrorists act all hurt if you draw Mohammed, flush a Koran, or bomb Mecca. What babies.

So today was a good day. rode with bro and Dula' 21 miles....oh wifey just got home I should publish now....
latah....

A World of Hulks

Imagine a world where everyone was like the Incredible Hulk. Crazy i know. Everyone running around saying shit like;

'don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when i'm angry.'

This crazy idea popped into my head after reading a story over at the NewScientist web site about a gamma ray burst that is/was directed and coming towards Earth. Apparently on March 19 some astronomers using NASAs Swift x-ray telescope and the Optical Ultraviolet Telescope saw a record 4 bursts of gamma-rays.

'Gamma-rays bursts are thought to be caused when massive, spinning stars collapse to form black holes and spew out jets of gas at nearly the speed of light. These send gamma rays our way, along with visible light produced where the jet heats up surrounding gas.' -Rachel Courtland NS

The two NS stories are HERE and HERE. And if Marvel Comics has any this to do with it we may all be needing some purple pants and anger management classes.

Origin of the Hulk

Lance Returns

It seems that Lance Armstrong will be coming out of cycling retirement and riding again. This is very exciting.

Here are some stories about it:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/09/armstrong.returns/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6271

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=ap-jimlitke-090908&prov=ap&type=lgns

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=reu-armstrongdc&prov=reuters&type=lgns

It seems his main mission is to raise HUGE cash for cancer. The second mission is to prove that at 37 he IS the fucking MAN!.

He will probably ride for Astana and with Levi and Alberto on the team, maybe Hincapie will make a jump who knows, but it is likely to be one of the strongest teams ever. Shit even if Lance were to suck ass he'd still rake in big cash for the sponser, teams, Tour and cancer. It is a no lose situation.

http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-3-623-17832-1,00.html

SlingShot Thought -9-8-08

So I am sleeping and I have this thought about politics and vice presidential candidates. I'm sure it's not a new idea but one to re-state anyway.

Why exactly do the Presidential candidates get to pick their own veep? The whole process of the campaign is just a big long job interview. Shouldn't the guy who comes in second become the VP?

Doesn't that make sense logically? I mean currently we have two real contenders running. Each one pretty much represents one side or the other. Collectively most of the voters will be voting for either one guy other the other.

The candidates always say they will work with the other side to get past partisan politics. I think it would be a great kick in the ass if say Obama said something like ' And if I win, I will take on John McCain as my Vice President.' or vise versa. It may really unify the government and people.

Wasn't this the way in the past? Someone with a better knowledge of US history help me out here.

****I found the answer***

The Constitution originally provided that the presidential candidate receiving the second largest number of electoral votes be declared vice-president; this method of selection was superseded by that prescribed in the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804. The vice-president is chosen for the same term and in the same manner as the president; if, however, no candidate for the vice-presidency receives a majority of the electoral votes, the election is thrown not into the House of Representatives, as with the presidential office, but into the Senate, which then chooses by a majority vote one of the two leading candidates.

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I like the original way better.

Workin' Man

Yeah, I finally got a field day!

This past week a a co-worker and I went to a site on Cottage Street in Bar Harbor (pronounced, Bah-Ha-bah) to conduct a soil gas survey. The picture is of me using a hammer drill to make a hole through the asphalt; And that hammer drill kicks like a friggin' mule I tell ya! *side note* Once thing about B.H. is that in addition to all the tourists there are also a lot of hippie kids with fat bank accounts and rich parents who just hang out all summer and smoke pot. Annoying, at least take a shower. oh and petruli oil is fucking rank. *anyway..*

Since we were making holes so close to underground pipes we vacumed out the hole with that shopvac and pvc pipe down about four feet. Then insert the steel rods and turn on the PID to check for gasoline vapor. The whole deal worked slick as shit. A little bit physical, but it was better than doing paper work. I've got to say too, that the data was good and the methodology for the assessment of vapors solid.

So I did that at two sites last week and hopefully laid the ground work for more of these types of jobs at the company.
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While I'm here and writing; notice that I added a music download to the right side bar. Feel free to download any of the music that I put up there. It is my brothers band and the songs are from a CD they made a while back. He thought it was pretty cool that I could starting spreading his stuff via the webs. Ill have to add a link for him once he gets something up.

I also decided to add a PayPal donate button. I figure I might as well start pimpin'. Why not? Beside if you really like the music or my wittings you can throw some spare change this way.