Back from Seattle

I just got back from the Seattle area, taking a Microsoft training class with one of their partner/reseller's in the Bellevue area on Windows CE. Interesting stuff. They pointed me to a lot of resources out there covering CE.

Lots of things to do, so little time

I've been meaning to do a lot of things around here, but I haven't had the time. Things like fixing the default style sheet to render properly in Firefox, removing a lot of unused content to make space, cutting out crufty backend-code, etc. Unfortunately, I've been way to busy for these things to even register on my radar.

Just got engaged

This weekend I asked my girlfriend of almost 2 years (and friend of around 8 years) to marry me, and she accepted. For collateral, I offered her a expensive lump of crystalline carbon on a white gold band, a questionable tradition at best. But you have to do what you have to do to get the girl you want to marry you.

"Brain and brain! What is brain?"

Today while listening to Marty Kaplan's show on Air America Radio, I heard that some theater troop is putting on a stage version of my absolute, 100%, all-fscking-time favorite episode of Star Trek, "Spock's Brain". God damn, this was one excellent episode. For readers out there not familiar with episode 61 of The Original Series, some women alien comes on the ship and replaces Spock's brain with a Twinkie or some shit. What a great plot idea.

The scam is this—these alien women called Eymorgs ganked Spock's best organ to run their underground city, dubbing it "The Controller". On their quest to retrieve the controller, the crew of the 'Prize rig up a remote control for their science officer's lifeless body. They end up with a pimped out RC vulcan and they get to hear Spock's disembodied voice spout trippy little quotables while searching for his brain in the Eymorgs' underground city. "I seem to have a body which stretches into infinity..." Does it get any better than being captured by the givers of pain and delight who use Spock's brain as their master computer? I think not.

Hailed as the best and worse of Star Trek, this episode is now being done in the theater. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

No more Super Size?

A cultural era has truly come to an end.

McDonalds has dropped the Super Size meal portions from its US menu.

Source

You might be surprised to hear that McDonalds has done away with it's Super Size menu. Or maybe not if you eat there a lot. It might be a part of McDonalds corporate strategy against critics who claim that the obesity problem can be blamed on fast-food companies. I've seen commercials for new salad lines with some sort of free fitness-oriented gift and now they are axing the Super Size menu. Personally, I can't place blame on any business for what is ultimately a personal choice, but I suppose the corporate execs have to deal with their image problem, fair or not.

McDonalds worked hard to introduce the phrase Super Size into the cultural lexicon and now they are dropping it. Times are changing fast. I'm told by my girlfriend, however, that they still Large Size, and it might as well be as big as Super Size. So maybe it isn't changing as fast as I might think.

Donate a book

I saw this notice over at blunted's site early last week when I was in San Diego, about a book donation drive for Costa Rican children. So when I was there, I picked up a book to donate at the local bookstore and I was able to get it in the mail yesterday.

The goal for the end of July is 1000 books, so if you can, send one along—any book suitable for a K-6 student would be appreciated. The address is below.

Ray Smith
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.
Attention: Project Apollonia
17311 NW 47th Ave.
Miami Gardens, FL 33055

If you run a website, make sure to include a link to the site run by David Anderson at Group Utopia.

More on the murder of Patrick Anderson

More info on the murder of Patrick Anderson. Contrary to what I thought, the funeral was not last weekend, but yesterday. I understand it was a very large funeral, and while I don't know the exact number of those who came to show their respects, I heard offhandedly that it was "over 1000 people." Patrick was someone who took care of people in the community and was well liked. Two men have already been charged for the vicious murder—a cowardly shot through the back, puncturing both of Pat's lungs.

The weirdest thing about San Diego

I'm getting into what is hopefully the last week of my more than a month and a half business trip to San Diego. My weekend has been undemanding, giving me time to read and relax. It got me to thinking about one of the weirdest things I've noticed about San Diego.

Cats here are crazy about the little dividers between groceries in the checkout isle. You know the ones I'm talking about—the long, thin plastic bars that divide your groceries from the next person's on the checkout conveyor belt. Everyone here, without exception, has insisted on using these dividers. Generally, where I live, people are relatively confident that the cashiers can figure it out and only resort to using the dividers when the grocery lines are long and cramped. But not here. You can be one of the only two customers in line with a small handful of groceries and the person behind you and in front of you will both still insist on setting one of these plastic dividers down. It's god damn creepy.

I really don't think the cashiers are exceptionally stupid here, so I chalk it up to how cramped San Diegans are. People here are so used to being smashed up against the person that it makes them paranoid about having to ask the cashier remove an item from their ticket that belonged to the person behind them. Weird.

Anyway... The best part about San Diego? Are you worthy?

Murder in the family

I just heard that my girlfriend's cousin, Patrick Anderson, was murdered just the other day. It doesn't seem to have made the papers yet and I'm not sure it will, being a small town homicide, but it's chilling nonetheless. I've not heard the circumstances surrounding the murder or any other details yet. Stop the fucking violence, people.

Update: Thu Jun 3 10:02:26 CDT 2004

A few news organizations are now giving brief reports of the murder. WDAM is carrying a story with Pat's name describing the killing. The Hattiesburg American is also carrying a story dated yesterday that does not include Patrick's name.

Patrick is survived by his young wife and two children, as well as by his father. The funeral will probably be this weekend.

Back home and bad news

I'm sitting here in the San Diego airport catching up on various blogs and news and waiting for a flight back home. I'm heading back for a few days out of my month-long trip to take care of personal business. I'll also have the chance to see my girlfriend, my family, and her family. We just had some bad news the other day, when we heard that doctors think her mother may have a serious, debilitating disease. These past couple of days have been pretty rough and I'll be glad to get a few days out of Cali.

Update: Thu May 6 17:32:37 CDT 2004

Just touched down in Houston. If you've never been to the Bush International Airport, consider yourself lucky. It can be crowded and it is very dirty, especially the bathrooms. One more flight to go and this day will be over.

Weekend wrap up.

In case anyone is wondering what I've been up to, I'm winding down my weekend here in San Diego, sitting around the pool, drinking locally brewd beer. An Arrogant Bastard Ale to be precise. I went record shopping in Hollywood yesterday as a road trip. It took a solid 2 hours to get to LA from here, but it was worth the gas. I wandered around the area for a while and made it to Amoeba Music; I meant to go to Fat Beats too, but it was too late. I picked up a bunch of used albums at Amoeba, ate some Baja tacos, and walked around for quite a while. Hollywood is pretty interesting—it's the only place I've been besides Vegas where you can get flying trapeze lessons for beginners and see a child molester's walkway star.

I spent today by the pool reading about Microsoft's XFS standard, which is an extention for financial services to their Windows Open Services Architecture. Anything with the words Windows and open in the same acronym makes me laugh. Pretty boring stuff.

More from San Diego

It's been a very busy couple of days, but I'm having a good enough time in San Diego. There's something to be said for a place where I can go right across the street from my hotel and eat Vietnamese, Japanese, or Denny's. I wasn't able to get out much tonight, but I can't complain much.

First batch of pictures from San Diego

I just posted up some pictures from here in San Diego. All I have is my Sprint vision for data access, which is slow and spotty, so posting much has been a pain. More to come later.

Leaving Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning, I leave for San Diego. To keep me entertained in the airports, I bought Bob Woodard's new book, as well as Paul O'Neill's book, which should both be good reading. I'll be posting trip pictures here periodically, so stay tuned if you're interested in that sort of thing.

This car I'm pushin

What a weekend. I hit 70k in my Escort not too long ago and being the responsible me, I took the POS in for the regular maintenance. $Cha-ching$ TCO goes up another $230. In addition to all of the standard stuff they do at 70k, I needed the engine decarboned, a new drive belt, and my brakes looked at.

Current total: $1515

And not 10 minutes after driving off the lot, the ghost of Henry Ford popped up again to torment me. The damn engine light came on AGAIN. I'm 99% sure it is the %$@#% IAC valve that I've had replaced several times acting up again. Funny thing is, looking through referrer logs for LAB-Y, I get a lot of hits from people for info on Escorts with IAC valve problems. What the hell was Ford thinking?

So it's another trip to the dealership soon. At least I can hold out, as it won't cause me noticeable problems. Hopefully, it will still be under warranty, like last time. Replacing it then didn't cost me a dime (not even for the diagnosis).

Operation: San Diego

I just found out Friday that I'm heading to San Diego for about a month on business. How crazy is that?

I haven't been to San Diego (or anywhere in California for that matter) since I was a child, which I have little to no recollection of. So when I volunteered was drafted for this assignment, I was pretty hyped. Cali has my name written all over it. ;) I put my name in for the mission to hopefully catch a show with one of the Beat Junkies or one of the former Skratch Piklz.

To prepare, I'm buying a digital camera, probably tomorrow. With any luck, I'll be posting pics over a Sprint PCS connection periodically. w00t! Hopefully, my girlfriend will be able to fly out and join me.

Anyone have any hints for what I should see in San Diego? Anyone familiar with the hip-hop scene there? Or should I just bite the bullet and drive up to LA?

I'll show you beef. Where's my hot iron poker?

Wow. I saw this one over at Stupid Evil Bastard—a foster parent was caught abusing her two adopted children by a man who installed a wireless surveillance camera in his house. What a way to be caught.

The guy bought the camera for the security of his own home but mistakenly picked up a feed from a neighbor. He saw two children, standing for more than an hour, arms outstretched.

He decided to tape the event and later witnessed a woman enter periodically to beat the children with fist and stick.

God damn. What in the fuck is wrong with people?

To my surprise, neither Les nor Dave talked much about what kind of abuse this was. It looks like some sort of sick "punishment", forcing the children under penalty of beating to stand for hours with their arms outstretched, not allowed to move. And with the wonderful power of affordable, wireless security cameras, the evil bitch could constantly monitor the children. Anytime one of them lets their arms drop or otherwise change positions, whamo, they get battered.

With this technology, in almost no time you have dominated the children mentally, convincing them you monitoring them 100% of the time. That is, they think they are being watched even if you pop off a bit from watching the camera feed to do other stuff. This shit is mental and physical torture, not just abuse. The cruelty this woman demonstrates is inhuman. What can someone get out of torturing children like this?

If I wasn't against the death penalty, I'd like to go find a hot iron poker and have a bit of fun showing her what her intestines look like up close. And I'm not the kind of guy who always asks "but what about the children?"

Smile! It's the McDiet.

This just in from eclecticism—fast food may be hazardous to your health. Within 30 days, a diet of McDonald's may cause vomiting, high liver toxicity, rocketing cholesterol, sexual dysfunction, headaches, splotchy skin, hefty weight gain, and, not surprisingly, depression. As Michael points out (via Kottke), who would have thought?

I do have to admit, I'm a bit surprised at how fast Mr. Morgan Spurlock, the subject of the film-documented, self-experiment, fell apart. He didn't even make it a month on the McDiet. We all know, "people don't go to McDonald's looking for diet food", but they do expect to not fall over dead after a month or two.

If you want to know more about what's in your fast food, check out Fast Food Nation, by journalist Eric Schlosser. See if you can eat Mc'eeDees and enjoy it the same way after that book.

And if you want to see first hand what the McDiet will do to you, you'll have to wait for Spurlock's documentary, "Super Size Me", to make it out of the Sundance. Good glub I love self-experiments. He should have blogged it.

Got this monkey on my butt

Something tells me this must signal the end of the world.

Be the first on your block to get Funky Monkey Panties. Or for the guys, "bright red briefs for men featuring Chinese characters for wealth and prosperity," (via AP).

The Chinese new year is almost year, and 2004 is the year of the Monkey. So get your Monkey Panties in time, and you too may be prosperous and successful.

Strangest thing I've seen in a while.

I found this over at found objects and it is the weirdest thing I've seen in a long time.

Head on over and check out the box of reject vampire teeth someone found in South England. I guess Europeans don't make vampires like they used to.

What's even more strange is that something like this was thrown on the side of the road.

Maintenance Man Mishap

This made me so mad I just had to say something about it.

I rent an apartment and, like all apartments, periodically a maintenance man has to come in and fix something. No biggie. It is a fact of life for renters and as a matter of fact, I appreciate the service.

For the past month or so, my shower has been leaking. And not just leaking, but pouring water constantly. Now, I don't pay for water—it is covered in the rent—but it is annoyingly loud. The apartment manager has known about it for a while and the maintenance man promised a while back to fix it.

Today when I came home for my lunch break (the double-illusion hour), I found a set of keys in my lock. Just sitting there. A few other tenants were going about their business but there was no maintenance man or apartment manager to be found. Just keys hanging in the door, which I quickly found to be unlocked. When I came in, nobody was inside.

So I took the keys out and went on inside. A bit later, the repair guy came around and knocked on my door. Stumbling over his own words and scratching his head, he informed me that he fixed my shower; he didn't mention anything about any keys. Before he walked off, I showed him the keys.

He quickly offered an explanation, which made the situation much worse. "When I have to work on a bunch of units, I leave keys in the doors that I need to come back to." Greeeeaaaaat, so he does this all of the time and to everyone here.

The worst bit about the whole situation was that he didn't even remember that he had left any keys in my apartment. For fuck's sake, anyone could have come by and snatched them, since he was nowhere to be found when I came home.

I haven't decided what to do about it. I asked him to please not do that again, and after an initial protest, he agreed. I just hope he doesn't decide to do something nasty in return, like giving my keys out or taking something out of my apartment.

Happy New Year

Happy new year, everyone. Party like the end of the world is here, cause it's 2004 and our robotic overlords and masters are a few years late. We're living on borrowed time so make the best of it.

In the throws of boredom

What do you do to escape the throws of holiday boredom? I'm marooned at my parents' house for the jolly season while they themselves are out visiting other relatives. And goddamnit, I am bored out of my mind.

Samsung VGA 1000 (A620) Pictures

One thing I've been trying to do to alleviate my present condition is hunt around for pictures taken from one of the camera phones I want, the Samsung VGA 1000, also known as the A620. Googling around turns up a lot of garbage.

However, one great resource I've found is Textamerica.com. It is a site that hosts "moblogs" or mobile photo-blogs. These are sites where people post uninteresting pictures of themselves or their pets—usually not the kind of sites I dig around at. However, these moblogs go from useless to quite useful when the author designates what type of camera-phone he or she took the pictures with. Then, they become sample image galleries for phone shoppers, like myself.

So here are some moblogs with sample images from the SPH-A620. They were found using the site: operator at google, like this search string.

• Kurtz on the go
• Sean Fay's Traveling Pics
• Meaning of Life
• DactylX Moblog
• chaosan//moblog
• TheFunHouse v.4.5.1: Pictures by the Penguin
• blackunicorn dot pics
• Moblog Yoblog
• Phillip's Moblog
• organ

Next up: the Sanyo 8100

As Google turns up...

• Laura Burstein's Moblog
• Schtuff I Want
• Joe Szilagyi's Moblog
• Around Texas
• Kacie's PhoneCam Craziness
• 3DW.net MoBlog
• Pharm.D 2005 "prn Playboy"
• Silico's Stream
• Proof of Life
• Kacie's PhoneCam Craziness
• Mr. Danomyte's World
• Tom's MOB Space
• Orangekat
• Andrews Phone adventures
• MacDaddyZ World of the Cell
• ScubaJason Moblog
• What The Fu%@ is an Unkin?
• CPU_Angel's Camera Phone Log
• Cat Handcuffs Moblog
• Tom's MOB Space
• the stiphead moblog
• Dazed And Confused
• James' Pictures
• A FAT KIDS LIFE
• Welcome to my world...
• guzugi mania
• Bob Ratekin's camera phone pictures Moblog
• She's Mobile!
• Dan's Photo Blog
• Moving Sale

One thing that is immediately obvious is there are a lot more 8100 moblogs than A620 moblogs. However, I'm not sure how long each phone has been available, so it may be that the 8100 is simply newer, or perhaps it is less expensive. Anyway, dig around in these links to find all kinds of real-life example photos.

Two Week Vacation

I'm off for a two week vacation today—happy holidays. I probably won't be posting much, and if I do, it will be sporadic.

The college disappearing person act you won't read about in the national news.

What happened to those 700 grad students? Were they abducted after enrolling? Nope. They were enrolled without their knowledge in a scam to artificially inflate the enrollment of a certain Mississippi university. A university, I might add, that has been taken over by IdiotPresident Shelby Thames, who has allowed the of faking the enrollment to meet his goal to ballooning class size in order to funnel more state money to the university. Nice scam, huh?

Not so nice, cause people found out and the story was broken in the student newspaper. The scoop made its way to the city newspaper, but, as I hear rumored from a little birdy, it won't make it to the Clarion Ledger, from Jackson. I hear that the Ledger has been pressured not to run the story.

But we didn't really need another reason to remove Shelby Thames. Send him an email to let him know how much of a nutsack licker he is. He's the man who claims faculty input is critical for his butchering of the university—critical to ignore.

Roadblogging

I'm at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, enjoying the food and family times. However, being the geek I am, I've been trying to get connected all day. My Sprint PCS Vision service has been returning network errors all day—I don't know what the deal is. Only just now have I been able to establish a connection, either on the phone directly or from my laptop.

Whatever was causing the problem, I'm wired now, so this is the first real test of my roadblogging setup. Happy Thanksgiving from the road.

Random Linkage: Origins of Thanksgiving

• http://www.appleseeds.org/thankgiv.htm
• http://www.linguatics.com/thanksgiving.htm
• http://www.twilightbridge.com/hobbies/festivals/thanksgiving/history.htm
• http://www.genealogyforum.rootsweb.com/gfaol/Thanksgiving/Origins.htm

Every now and then

Every now and then, one of those things happens that makes you smile. A KKK initiation goes bad when one bigot shoots another in the head (via suburban blight).

The Horror, The Horror

My god, Doc Searls is right, Michael Jackson does look like a homeless woman in his mug shot. Peep this:

(Photo via The Globe and Mail). Naaaaaasty. Look at his left eye bugging out—I swear it is about to fall out of that skull of his.

Do you want to know...what...it...is?

(Via Living On Earth.) For an entertaining, somewhat basic overview of the problems caused by large agribusiness on commercial meat production, head over to themeatrix.com (requires Flash).

If you find yourself interested in this topic, I highly suggest the book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, written by journalist Eric Schlosser. Be forewarned, however, you may never feel the same way about that McFatty Burger you eat when you find out under what disgusting conditions the meat is produced and how that delicious flavor is engineered and added to the food.

I'm not vegan and I'm all for killing animals. Meat is just disgusting.

Ask yourself if this is appropriate

(Via Beats & Rants 2.1.) State District Judge Timothy Ellender, a white judge from the Terrebonne Parish, attended a Halloween party in black-face makeup, an Afro, an orange jail jumpsuit, and shackles. A fucking judge!

This case may go to the Louisiana Supreme Court if it is recommended by the state Judiciary Commission; I really hope it does. This kind of shit from a judge—a man whose job it is to put people in jail, mostly for non-violent crime I would bet—is unacceptable.

How can anyone in Ellender's court expect to get a fair trial? And for that matter, assuming they did, one would expect more mistrials declared and more appeals granted, on the mere suspicion of racial bias. That is a disservice to every citizen of Louisiana.

Examine this

Why do people blog and is it interesting?

You can head over to NPR and check out Scott Simon's bit on blogging, why people blog, and whether it makes for interesting reading. His conclusion was that most blogs are garbage and examining your uninteresting problems is "bad for literature".

I was on my way to the local Ford dealership this morning, taking my car in again for IAC valve problems, when I heard Scott's piece. It hit home after the amount of self-serving bitching I've been doing on my blog.

However, I have to side with Rayne at Radio Free Blogistan, when he respectfully disagrees with Scott. If you go hunting around the blogosphere looking for crap, you will find no shortage of it, but if you spend just a moment looking for the bloggers who drop the gems on us, you should have no problem finding worthwhile material.

I couldn't possibly give linkage here to all of the bloggers out there who entertain me, inform me, and inspire me, but all of you have my thanks. Thank you for writing about what interests you or just bitching about your life, even if it is "bad for literature".

Of course, you couldn't expect someone with a blog to say something much different.

Through the lens of a soldier

Check out "Through the lens of a soldier" over at pbase.com for the view of life from an American soldier in Iraq. (Via Metafilter.)

Fuck it, I won't lie, my ride is a joke

God damn it. Really.

Yet again, the engine light in my 1999 Ford Escort has graced me with its dreadful luminance. It's back like a bad habit I can't get rid of and I'm FUCKING SICK of it. Ahem. Sorry.

My best guess is that the source of the sickly light is, once again, the idle solenoid, also known as the IAC valve. I don't know if Ford designs them to fail every few months, if the stars have aligned to produce another random failure in mine, or if somehow an unknown fault in my car causes them to fail, but that fucker had better be covered under warranty. Otherwise I'm going to be very mad.

I've got an appointment with Ford "service" this weekend.

On a positive note

My girlfriend is coming into town this weekend! At least I should have a good time waiting on some idiot mechanic to tell me he doesn't have the part available to replace in my car. Wait, I was trying to be positive. Should be a good weekend.

I did get all of my Xmas shopping done, except for my Girlfriend's Mother (all in one day). What do you get your significant other's mother?

Write on your own time and get suspended

These days, if you are a highschool student who writes on your own time, there is a good your school may suspend you or identify you as a problem student. Tough shit too, as there isn't much you can do about it. We've all learned recently the dangers of your employer reading your blog but this is going too far. The material on the student's journal was simply rude—not threatening. We need to stop cowering our heads in fear every time a highschool student coughs sideways.

I have to admit, though, I've cut out a few of my blog entries on sensitive topics, just in case. What kind of world is this? Maybe it is time to start a 100% anonymous blog for myself.

Busy week setting up new laptop

It's been a busy damn week here—work is still running me ragged and I've been spending my evenings setting up my new laptop. All of the core components except the integrated wireless and modem are supported with open source drivers; I will be putting up a compatibility report soon. In the mean time, if you have an IBM Thinkpad G40 and you are looking to make it work under Debian GNU/Linux, have a look at these hints.

And I thought I had a bad week.

Good glub, I thought I've been having a rough week/month/whatever. This guy has been having a much worse week. First fired from Microsoft for running around with a camera, it looks like he unintentionally jumped down the throat of some university network admin for ganking his website design.

Hang in there, Michael. Admitting your mistakes makes you bigger, not to mention gets you new regular readers of your blog.

Why is this not surprising

Why is it that some American POW's are treated differently after their return to America? Read on (via Blunted On Reality).

Some things I need for Christmas

I got to thinking today about stuff I need and might request for Christmas. The first thing that came to mind is a new computer chair. I'm here, typing up this entry, sitting in a shitty, metal folding-chair, which is about as comfortable as having your festering flesh eaten by maggots. So a nice, new, leather office chair would be nice.

New Laptop Ordered

I just ordered my new laptop through my employer today. w00t! I finally settled on an IBM Thinkpad G40 instead of the Thinkpad R40 SMB I had been thinking about. The new rig should ship sometime tomorrow.

I have to give it up to my employer here, this is a pretty sweet program. It amounts to a 2 year, 0% interest loan for computer hardware. If my employment ends, it all comes up due (deducted out of the final paycheck).

Count these Rock's, biatch!

Last night I picked up my tickets for Chris Rock's upcoming show at the Beau Rivage Casino. I guess casino's are good for something. I'll be up in Section 206, Row T, Seat 1 with my girlfriend this Friday, which happens to be Halloween.

Weekend Roundup

Somehow it is another Sunday but the story seems the same—I'm back for the weekend to begin another day at my hopeless job. I haven't had 10 minutes to live for myself, but life doesn't give a fuck what I want to live for, so I guess it doesn't matter. *grits hits teeth and sets his alarm clock*

"Keep Laughin At My Car And You's A Gonner"

That check from Courtesy Ford came in the mail with the reimbursement I requested for their shit job with my fuel filter. For their idiocy, I should have demanded more but that is what I get for being a reasonable guy. With this in mind, I took the ride in to have them address the reason my fucking engine light was on again. They didn't find anything wrong and suggested the other Ford place just didn't clear my computer last time. Whatever. They didn't charge me anything to simply clear it so from this point I'm just going to watch it and see what happens.

Me Vs. Courtesy Ford, Round 1

This past Saturday, I had that IAC valve installed in my car at a Ford place in another city, no worries there. The mechanic also addressed the starting problem and that smell of petroleum in the cabin of the car.

Turns out that Courtesy Ford didn't install my fuel filter properly when they did the 60K mile scheduled maintenance, leaving a dangerous fuel leak in my car. This was the cause of the smell inside my car. So here's a bit of advice, if your fuel efficiency drops about 10-15 mpg and you smell gas inside your car, take it in immediately.

The mechanic at this Ford place was quite courteous (no pun intended) and charged me only a half-hour of maintenance labor to fix the problem. However, Courtesy Ford still left my vehicle and my life in grave danger with their bumbling.

Below is a copy of the letter I faxed them.

September 13, 2003
Courtesy Ford
XXXX XXXXXXXXX St.
XXXXXXXX, XX XXXXX

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXX XXXXXX Ave.
XXXXXX XXXXX, XX XXXXX

Dear Service Manager:

On September 6th, 2003, I brought my 1999 Ford Escort LX to Courtesy Ford for a scheduled 60,000-mile maintenance and to address a problem with my idle air control valve. As a part of the scheduled maintenance, your mechanics replaced my fuel filter. However, they were unable to replace the idle air control valve because the part was unavailable.

Unfortunately, the fuel filter was installed incorrectly. When I drove the vehicle off of the lot, the cabin smelled of petroleum and the car had difficulty starting. I assumed this was due to some problem related to the IAC valve that was not replaced.

On September 13th, 2003, I brought my Escort to Ford-Lincoln-Mercury to have the IAC valve replaced. At that time, William Wilson, the Service Advisor of XXXXXXX Ford noticed that the fuel filter was incorrectly installed, causing a leak of gasoline. This left my car in a dangerous state, according to Mr. Wilson, that could have resulted a fire causing in "total loss of the vehicle."

With this fax, please find included a copy of the invoice I received from XXXXXX Ford-Lincoln Mercury. They removed and reinstalled the fuel filter of my Escort. I request that Courtesy Ford reimburse me for this cost in the amount of $24.50. This covers one half-hour of maintenance labor—a small sum, considering the danger to my vehicle and my person resulting from the negligence by your mechanic.

If you have any questions or concerns about this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. You can reach me on my cellular phone at (XXX) XXX-XXXX. Please leave a voice-mail message and I will return your call. You can reach Mr. Wilson at XXXXXXX Ford-Lincoln-Mercury at (XXX) XXX-XXXX. He will be happy to explain any of the details that may be unclear.

Sincerely,

Update: Freeshell is back online

Freeshell.org member homepages were having issues but they seem to be back up. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Update: Running Total

I forgot to add: I spent $65 this weekend to have the IAC valve installed and the fuel filter reinstalled.

Current total: $1285

Courtesy Ford told me over the phone today that they would be happy to reimburse me for the amount I requested. Fucking super.

"Whatever it takes—sleep here if you have to."

Something you never want to hear your boss say. But since the company I work for apparently thinks software is free and it takes zero time to write, I didn't get 5 minutes to myself today. But oh well, I don't have to work weekends yet. [Bitch mode off.] I'm glad I have a job.

Weekend Report

I'm back from the weekend and what a weekend it was. Even after wrangling with Ford mechanics, I somehow managed to limp home in my car.

Another Fridge

After bitching enough to my apartment manager, he finally got me another fridge. My old fridge froze up too often for me to keep much food in it. When I got home from work for lunch today, I find in its place an old, torn-up unit that barely qualified as an ice-box. But it seems to work, at least for now. So maybe I'll be able to keep milk for more than 5 days.

In Other News

I've decided to start naming headaches like the National Weather Service names Hurricanes. Today's Tropical Cyclone Headache name is Robert. It is moving quickly to batter the coasts of My Sanity.

I'm More British Than Simon?

On a humorous note, I took the Britishness Test and I found I was more British than Simon Willison.

TCO of a 1999 Ford Escort.

Here is a quick run down of recent shit that has gone wrong with my car, a used 1999 Ford Escort, which I bought in August of 2002. I'm keeping a running total of how much I spend on maintaining it, minus very small things like oil changes.

Flat Tire: 03/04/2003

Okay, this one isn't Ford's fault but it set me back $200. I busted a flat on the way home and had to replace two of the tires. This is the first major maintenance I had to make.

Current total: $200

EVAP Leak: 05/06/2003

On the way back from New Orleans, not too long ago, my car sprung a leak in the EVAP system of the air conditioning—not a horrible problem but it caused the engine light to come on. Set me back over $150 to fix it. This is supposed to be common on Escorts according to the Goodyear mechanic I took it to.

Current total: $350

Idle Solenoid, AKA the Idle Air Control Valve and More Tires: 08/01/2003

Shortly after that the engine light comes on to annoy me again. This time it is the idle air control valve that determines the amount of air your car consumes when sitting idle. It stuck, but thankfully not at 0%, which would have caused my car to die every time it idled (think being suffocated under a pillow). The same Goodyear mechanic didn't see much wrong with the solenoid so he cleaned it and reset the computer. That cost me about $100. Then I went ahead and installed two new tires to have 4 new, which cost me another $200.

The fucked up thing is, the idle solenoid problem didn't go away. The engine light came back on not too much later.

Current total: $650

Sixty-thousand Mile Maint, Brake Work, and Idle Solenoid: 09/06/2003

This time, rather than going to the previous mechanic, I went to an official Ford mechanic. Since I bought my car at approximately 40K miles and I was at 63K, I figured it was a good time to get the scheduled 60K mile maintenance. (Very expensive.) I also needed break work, as I was hearing a high-pitched squealing while driving (but not breaking, strangely enough). They looked at the idle solenoid but didn't have one on hand to replace it. All-in-all it cost me right about $500. It did fix the squealing, however.

The only upside of the Ford place is they were open on Saturday. But after going there, my car is now having problems starting! The fun never fucking stops.

Current total: $1150

New Idle Solenoid Ordered: 09/08/2003

I called the Ford place in the city where my girlfriend lives and had them order an idle solenoid for about $70. This Saturday I'm going up there to have it installed and have them address the starting problems.

Current total: $1220

Busy Day

Damn it has been a busy day and I've been up to quite a bit. You'll probably notice that all of the blog entries at LAB-Y now have category links. Follow any of them to search for entries that fall under the specified category. Just a smidgen of PHP and another feature falls out of the sky.

USB is nifty.

I went ahead and ordered my Sanyo SCP-4900 to eventually have wireless internet access under Linux from anywhere. It only set me back $170 (which included tax and an inflated shipping cost, fsck websites charging tax) and it is on its way.

To get this setup tested, I finally got around to getting USB working on my workstation. I've had the capability for quite some time but I've never used the kernel modules, partially because I don't have any USB devices. The only exception to that is a keyboard PS/2 to USB adapter that I have for use with my Playstation 2. It works great with any PS/2 keyboard I can dig up on the PS2 so I used it for testing USB under Linux.

I already had all of the appropriate modules compiled and installed, they just never got inserted into the kernel. A few insmod's later, I was up and running with a USB keyboard, no sweat. Now I'm waiting for the phone to get it activated. Then I'll buy the data cable and I should be good to go.

Put you on the floor quicker than Tyson did McNeely

Wanna know how to make that great, deep pain in your jaw? I call it the "Mike Tyson Lunch"—the one that leaves your jaw inoperative for hours.

In order to improve my vegetarian diet, I'm trying to phase out Roasted Garlic Triscuits (which are one of the few whole-wheat crackers available in my local grocery store) in favor of carrots.

Mike Tyson Lunch

So here it is, the power-punch to the jaw of lunchtime here at LAB-Y. If you want to feel like you've been hit in the face by the famous Mike Tyson, eat this.

• Sandwhich, consisting of:
  • Two slices of whole-wheat bread
  • Extra-sharp cheese (gotta have the Calcium)
  • Mustard
  • Tomatoes
  • Green Peppers
• Raw broccoli (as much as I can eat)
• Raw Carrots (as much as I can eat)
• Apple Juice

At this point, I'm beginning to feel like a rabbit except that I can't feel my jaw after eating lunch.

UPS customer service is getting better.

Well, I have to say, UPS customer service is getting better. I'm still waiting on the new J Rocc mixtape I ordered and UPS has tried twice to deliver it. Calling them on the phone, for the first time in my life, they were helpful and polite.

Their website doesn't tell you, but if they fail to deliver your package 3 times, they "postcard" the item and hold it for 5 days while they wait for you to come pick it up. And even better, when I left a note on my door to not leave my package with anyone other than the apartment main office, they actually respected it.

Alps Glidepoint in Debian GNU/Linux.

I just disconnected mine and set up another mouse, but if you have an Alps Glidepoint touchpad mouse (PS/2), have a look at instructions for getting it working in Debian GNU/Linux. I've since hooked back up a standard mouse because I have room for it on my desk now.

Getting back in the groove.

There is one part of going on vacation that sucks—I've gotten out of the workout routine. So today I'm trying to get back into the groove. Ugh.

Update: My opposition will have to recognize my steez

I just added the LAB-Y theme switcher. You should see it in the sidebar. Read about questions and problems with the theme switcher if you have any difficulties.

Update: Oct 11, 2003

Updated some links in this entry.

Worldwide travelers in your sector.

I just posted some pictures I took back in December of 2001, when I went to Amsterdam. Check out the Amsterdam photo gallery.

Update: A whole shitload of new galleries.

Also posted up the following galleries:

• My Computers
• Family Dog
• MPI Software Technology
• Memphis Trip

I also updated the gallery of pictures of my girlfriend.

Update: Oct 11, 2003

Updated some links in this entry.

Grand Canyon Vacation

I've finally finished scanning photos and doing a write-up of my vacation to the Grand Canyon. Check out what we did and have a look at some of the photo galleries here.

Update: Oct 11, 2003

Updated some links in this entry.

Back At Ya With the Realness

Well, as you can see from my previous entry, I'm back from my vacation and it was a blast. I'm currently in the process of doing a writeup on the trip, scanning in all of the photos (nobody brought a digital camera), and getting things back in order.

(Adjusts his radar detector). All of this should hopefully be done soon. I hope to be working on it over the weekend from home. Just after I get back, I'm out the door to go home. Have a good weekend.

Destination: The Big Ditch

There won't be any more updates here at LAB-Y until sometime past August 9th, as I'll be on vacation. My parents, my brother, his girlfriend, my girlfriend, and I are packing up and heading to the biggest ditch in North America. After a quick stop off in Vegas, we will be spending almost a week hanging around the gigantic hole in the ground known as the Grand Canyon. Then we have another night in Vegas before we get back.

Hopefully I'll be able to put up a bunch of new image galleries when I return. Until then, however, there will be no further entries or updates.

I'll see y'all suckahs later!

Image Galleries Now Available

I've done more work on the code behind the scenes here, including the code behind image galleries. You can see the results in the two galleries available, images of my Girlfriend and the Dilbert Hole archive.

Update: Oct 11, 2003

Updated some links in this entry.

Sad, Sad Day

Last night, I spent several hours pulling soaking notebooks and folders of old classwork out of the milk crates they were stored in. My recent apartment flood destroyed a lot of it. Many years of effort and work went down the proverbial drain during this flood. Everything from Intro to Anthropology to Neural Computing was soaked.

So I set all of the material out to dry around my place. We'll see how much I can salvage after they dry up. *sigh*

I Bring the Element H With the 2

Broken hoses on toilet tanks suck. A lot. Especially when it happens just after you leave town and it floods your entire apartment. That is exactly what happened to me this past Friday.

I have to give it to the guy who manages this apartment complex; he caught it, cleaned up, moved all of my stuff out of that area into my living room, and cleaned all of the carpets. I spent all last night putting everything away. The result isn't perfect (my place now smells a bit) but it is better than the damage that could have happened.

I've got a lot more cleaning to do but all in all, I can't complain too much.