Have You Ever . . .

Have you ever been so not-awake as you walked around that blinking your eyes caused an auditory sensation?  Right after the bad part of a bad dream last night my Darling Wife woke me up and told me she thought one of the kids was crying.  I got up and walked to their room, and listened by the door.  Silence.  I went in and found only solid-sleepers.

 

On the way to their room, when I blinked as I was walking,there was a fuzzy noise with each blinking of my eyelids, I kid you not.  The noise I heard as I walked back to the Master Suite was an airplane.  An airplane with a strange engine noise that sounded like a child crying.

WHY Do People...

I sell stuff on eBay for walking-around money.  I sold three things in the last couple of weeks, worth around $400 total.  NONE of those winning bidders has paid.

• You bid on an auction and click a dialog agreeing that this is a commitment to pay
• You get an e-mail telling you you have won
• You even got an invoice from the seller
• And you don't pay?  

WTHPPL?

Piss In The Wind, Go Ahead

The system is broken.  Badly broken, and beyond repair.  I repeat my hunch that our society is headed for breakup in a big way.  The news I got today was just another reminder.

There's a video on Youtube showing people voting multiple times.  No, not average citizens casting a half-dozen election year vote-fraud votes.  These were legislators, casting ballots for other legislators who were absent at the time of the vote, making the laws that you and I live by.  In one case, a legislator who was PRESENT had someone else cast a vote for him . . . while he was casting a vote for someone else!

Nota bene: It was against their OWN rules they made for themselves for legislators to vote for each other on the voting machines.  This video shows them doing it.  No, it shows ALL of them doing it.  Either they do it or they let it happen.  The Speaker of the House was supposed to be punishing this sort of thing but it didn't happen.  The Speaker is supposed to make sure the rules are followed, but look how concerned they all are.

An extra kick in the stones is that you didn't hear about a wave of prosecutions after this video came out FOUR YEARS ago.  One more kick for those of us from Texas, because it's happening here.

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Legislators jogging around to beat each other to empty desks to push buttons.
TWO examples of fat guys pushing their own button, then the button on the desk next door, then the on a desk behind, and then a fourth button on the desk behind/next door!.

Watch.

Then either complain to the Speaker, or shut the hell up and watch our society fall apart.  I'm guessing the result is the same.  This was in 2008.  Who wants to bet there's a rule for ALL the legislatures in Texas forbidding this apparently-very-common multiple fraudulent voting activity?

A New Personal Record

This was the largest thing I ever erected, and it took longer than I have worked on anything since I converted the Hot Rod to a manual transaxle.  My Darling Wife and I put up a shed in the back yard today.  Well, yesterday and into the wee hours of today.  The shed is just a hair smaller than my room at my Dad's house when I was in high school.  It is about 200lbs of stamped sheet steel, and maybe that much again in lumber under the shed for a foundation.  Three trips to the store, total (one to buy it last week, two today for "hey I also need...") and we probably put 25 man-hours on it, total, and that's not counting the "help" from two- and four-year-old sons. 

The forecast was wind and rain.  I prayed and the rain held off until the roof was finished.  The wind was more of a breeze.  The really heavy rain held off until the doors were leaned up in place to keep it out.  Now at 01:00 the next day it's done except for the interior flooring, and my toenails hurt (?!) and it's bed time.  Thanks Jesus everyone is okay, #1 did a good job watching the rest of the Zoo, and DW and I only got a minor nick each on one hand.  If I hadn't worn gloves, the day would have been over almost before it started due to a trip to the emergency room, because one glove took a nasty gash to the palm.

WHEW!

Nobody Can Paint A Sky Like God

These are 1680x1050 pixels, for use as desktop backgrounds on increasingly-common 20-24" wide LCD displays (like mine).  Click to embiggen, before deciding not to try them out!  Right-click the bigger image that comes up and tell it "view image" then click the magnifying glass to see the detail in the trees (which Blogger blurs).
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I took these locally last night. "Then I think to my self . . . what a wonderfuuuul woooorld."  Credits to our Lord, who does a pastel wash like nobody.

Sweet Grille Bro

AusTex was working a wreck as I was on my morning commute.  This was taken from the sidewalk with no worry of a car spoiling the shot as all SIX lanes of Braker were shut down.  The perspective is great; it looks like you're about to be run over!  I love the way I got stars off both headlamps.  Click the picture to embiggen!

I guess I ought to list out the gory details from now on if I'm going to be posting pictures eh.
Nikon D70 18-70mm@25mm, f/6.3 1/160th sec. ISO200

VFD, First On The Scene!

Apparently I *barely* missed being tied up in traffic stopped for a mile this morning . . . so I went back and spent several minutes looking at the mess and taking pictures.

This was the scene at Braker and Parkfield in Austin earlier today.  Trust me when I tell you that by the time I had arrived (maybe 5 minutes after I decided to turn around) the line of cars was at least over the hill, probably all the way back to Lamar.

A tanker truck driver missed his turn by a foot or two, and damaged his trailer as well as a utility pole.

The pole was well and truly embedded in the side of the tanker trailer

The trailer took heavy damage and appears to have only stopped when it hit the tank-supporting structure near the rear wheels of the trailer.  A hose on the side of the trailer was ripped in pieces, and the ladder was destroyed.  The dank obviously was badly dented/crushed where it touched the pole

This is usually a nice suburban neighborhood street.  Nothing much happens, till all traffic on a the busy thoroughfare is stopped by a random crazy situation.

Braker is full of cars in the morning.  This morning it was full of stopped cars as the Austin Police Department stopped traffic in both directions so AusTex Towing & Recovery could safely get this tanker disentagled from the pole.

The wrecker lifted the rear wheels of the trailer, and pulled the trailer away from the pole as a driver in the blue tractor slowly drove backwards onto Braker

Blue police lights are reflected in the waves of crumpled steel in the side of the trailer. 

Austin Energy was out in force.  Here their linemen are examining the pole struck by the truck.  It had a significant amount of wood rubbed off by the truck, here seen as long strips of wood laying around the base of the pole.  The pole was shivered all the way through, and will have to be replaced as soon as practicable.

My favorite shot of the morning is the beautiful front-end of the AusTex rig.  I like the way both headlights got stars, and the perspective is really great.  For this shot, I knelt down low on the sidewalk as the truck was stationary.  Don't forget: you can see these images bigger by clicking on them.

Hiring divers?  Looks like maybe one needed a little more training, unfortunately.

Something you don't see every day: The Austin Fire/Rescue Special Operations truck rolled out.

Cleaning this whole mess off of Braker took about 15 minutes after AusTex arrived and pulled out into the street.  Not too shabby, actually.  The driver of the truck

A Mistake You Can Only Make Once . . . ?

So North Korea is talking big talk about how they are going to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US of A.  Excuse me while I tremble in my boots.  Even if they did manage to make a working nuclear bomb (which is not entirely a certainty), and even if they managed to decapitate our entire government by delivering it at the State of the Union address, I am pretty sure our military would know just perzactly whose ass to kick, and they would go about kicking it quite soundly.

On the other hand, if they only managed to get a dirty bomb to damage San Francisco's harbor a little bit, I wonder if the current set of limp wrists in Washington would have the stones to respond with force.

That we even have to ponder this threat makes me think we have been far too lenient with the NorKs to date.  We'll see what (if anything) happens next.  I don't think they'll be able to goad us into a shooting war, but it seems like they might be trying.

Frosty the Photo Bomber

A little known fact about Frosty the Snowman (and snowmen in general) is that he is starved for attention. Think about it: you build them and forget about 'em. Well, he somehow made it into my photography studio last week and we had a blast. He's a real cut-up, this one. The first I saw of him was a well-played photobomb.

He seemed friendly enough so the cameras and I let him hang out with us for a while. He even managed to get in a pretty convincing duckface once or twice.

Oh frosty, you silly goose!

...then, of course, he melted under the hot studio lighting. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I just wish he'd had the courtesy to melt onto a paper towel at least....

Beware the Student Driver?

They just opened a new State office a few miles from my house.  This place is just for Drivers Licenses, and it's pretty big.  This is to supplement the REALLY big place they have in the Godless City to our immediate South. As we were driving home from church today, I made an amusing/alarming observation about this place.

Scattered around the region of Central Texas are various creeks and drainage ditches.  Where they cross under or pass near a road, there will be a steel roadside barrier, like so:

 These are usually a few dozen feet long, sometimes a hundred or more yards long.

Today, I noticed a damaged guard rail as we were driving along.  Then another one.  Then the drivers license office.  Then we turned the corner and went around a different side of the block where there is this new drivers license office.  And there was another dinged guard rail.

The area in question, thanks to Google Maps.  The red lines are the locations of the rails nearest the DL office.

All three of the guardrails closest to the Drivers License office where they give driving tests, are dented.  My wife and I LOL'd and I advised her to avoid the area during weekdays during normal business hours.