Utah Weather Patterns

Time was, when I lived in California, you just knew when the weather was turning bad when the seagulls would come inland. Here's it's all inland, so the seagull predictor doesn't work quite right.

Yeah, we have THE inland ocean, and there's some arcane story about crickets I won't bore you with.

Yesterday, I was in Vernal, and at one point, the weather was quite balmy. Since the calendar does say it's Spring, that would work. But that was before a storm front came through, and was with me all the way back to the Salt Lake valley.

The weather here makes one at a loss for words. An article in Monday's Deseret News (oh no, here we go again) spoke of the difficulties of weather reportage here and the need for discussion on climate change - specifically that of global warming. Hard to talk about that, short-term anyway, when the wind chill is in the low teens.

Anyway, it makes for some interesting discussions, particularly now, since I work out-of-doors on a regular basis, working on [expletive deleted]'s in the cold and rain.

And snow.

Chinese Proverb

Yeah, I know - these things are SO un-PC. Anyway:

Confucius say,
If you are in a book store
and cannot find
the book for which you search,
you are obviously in the...

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday. Well, it would have been if he were still around. Rather, I suppose today is the anniversary of his birth.

The time? I'm not sure sure of that. But the place? Springfield, South Dakota - that much is certain. As is the day: March 30th.

In the year 1910.

Yes, my Dad would have been one hundred years old today.

Does that surprise you? He wasn't the oldest kid in that family of seven kids. There was, in order: Loretta, Lysle, Wallace (my Dad), Shirley, Grover, Clarke, and Gene. Gene was the last to go at 92, three years ago.

The others? Long since passed.

My Dad died in 1980 - two weeks shy of his 70th birthday. Thirty years ago. I often think of how lucky it is for my close friends that they still have their fathers around. Me? I've always felt I was born into a different generation than them.

Life is so precious, folks: all I can say as far as that goes is to cherish what time you've got left. Don't let it slip away.

Wallace Marion DeLong was never a father to me - he was just DAD.

Rethinking Those "What Are You Doing?" Posts

Folks, have you ever wondered just what information you're supplying to your "friends"?

Now might be the time to go over your Facebook and Twitter followers, particularly if you mention you're going to be out for the evening, as this woman - who ironically works in the home-security business - found out:

"A woman from New Albany, Indiana says that one of her Facebook "friends" burglarized her house after she posted an update indicating that she and her fiancé would be out for the evening."

From the Inquisitr (full article).

In the Crosshairs?

Sometimes I wonder if the liberal media gets a bit too testy at the conservatives (read Democrats and Republicans). If it's all hogwash, or if it is real. After seeing a blog post at CNN, I'm sure they're right "on the mark".

A recent post on Facebook by Sarah Palin's PAC suggests that Democrats who voted for Health Care Reform should be done away with. How? You be the judge:

Yes, folks, those are crosshairs.

From the blog post, Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine says:

"Republican leaders are themselves engaging in actions and rhetoric that previously would have been limited to fringe elements of the Republican Party," Kaine said. "Sarah Palin has invoked health care 'death panels' and has now placed gun sights on 20 Members of Congress who supported reform."

Does this woman really think she can be elected to anything other than the NRA?

I shudder to think.

NBA to NCAA Time-Lapse

From Energy Solutions Arena, home of the Utah Jazz, site of the NCAA 2010 Sweet 16:

Is There a Poster for Apollo 11?

I'm wondering if NASA thought this all the way through.

From the Telegraph (UK): "Design wizards at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas have spoofed film posters such as The Matrix and Star Trek, using NASA staff in place of actors, in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to brighten up the dangerous work of space exploration"

Images of the posters at NASA space shuttle missions get Hollywood-style movie posters

Awesome Commentary on Health Care Reform

When it hits close to home - literally - you tend to pay much more attention:



That's not just any Utah couple, but Heather and Jon Armstrong of dooce.com!

THE Best Dilbert Cartoon EVER

From May 29, 1995:



"Move the mouse up... up... over... more... Now click it!! Click it!!"

"NO!! YOU FOOL!!"

Too damn funny.

Googull Maps Street View

The following is making the rounds today on the intarwebs:

They're called Photobombs. That which happens when Google's Street View cameras take photos of something that isn't a street, cars, or building.

Like seagulls:

Photo above taken in the South Coast resort town of Brighton in the UK.

Never Been Better

What the hell does that mean, really?

Literally, since there's always room for improvement, if you say "I've never been better", doesn't that mean something's wrong?

OK, so I haven't posted anything new in four or five days. Is there sonething wrong in Bob's life?

Never been better. NEVER.

More to come in the following days.

Somewhat Symbolic Anniversary

Happy Birthday, dot-com's!

Twenty-five years ago today, the very first dot-com domain name was registered. It went to a company called Symbolics; their domain was symbolics.com.

Why them? As my feeble mind recalls, there was a mad dash that day, and they just happened to be first off the blocks.

Sadly, Symbolics is no more, as a company, anyway. But in a fairly significant turn of events, symbolic if you will, the domain name lives on.

Owned by a domain-name broker.

Utahns for Ethical Government Youtube Video

I knew you'd look for it, so I thought I'd post it here:



Gotta love living here.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is a good thing, when taken in bite-sized pieces. The following, in my humble opinion, is a bit too much.

Photoshop this over-enthusiastic cheerleader:

And...

That contest is from Friday morning; as of Saturday evening, I'm seven behind the leader. What are the chances of going over the top? Care to assist?

The Dusty Sploosh

Birds just do not get the concept of “glass.”

So says a recent article in Mother Nature News. It says up to a billion birds are killed annually in the United States due to birds flying into windows of homes and businesses. That's a major statistic.

Still, there are those who say that windows aren't birds greatest enemies, rather, cats of the feral and outdoor house variety are birds' greatest fear, on the order of hundreds-of-millions.

Now, wait a minute. If that statistic is to be believed, that's almost TWO BILLION birds killed annually. Maybe there's more to this story.

After sending the link to that Mother Nature News story to a good friend who has seen her share of negative press about ferals and outdoor house cats, she wrote back with this choice piece of evidence:

"A couple weeks ago I saw a serious collection of feathers by the back laundry room door - outside. Was sad that my new feral had apparently reverted to his ways. But then I was talking with a friend and doing laundry on Saturday - and saw the dusty sploosh of where the bird had hit the window. Sad indeed, but at least the cats were only opportunistic, not homicidal..."

Indeed.

Church Signs and More

I'd commented on the classic Church Sign Generator a while back, and re-visited again this morning. Come to find out that there are far more signs to put your important messages on now. Even this one:

Be sure to answer in the form of a question.

From Says-it.com.

Stupid Customer Tricks

While this IS about work, it's from another time and place. So it's OK. Sort of.

"Stupid Customer Tricks" refers to an occasion where a customer had tried putting a 9x12 Tyvek envelope into a laser printer so as to print an address thereon. It was rather surprising that the printer actually fed it in, but it never came out.

Tyvek is, under the right circumstances, as strong as steel. But when subjected to the high temperature of a laser printer's fuser, it melts as easily as wax. Needless to say, the service call was billable.

The customer in this case was stoopid, as was the "trick".

The moral of this story is that one should never trust a customer.

Did You Mean... Extremist?

Marilee gets on me on a regular basis for correcting others' grammar faux pas'. What can I say - my parents were always correcting me when I was growing up.

So it comes as no real surprise that while surfing the web, I'll cringe when I see others mangling the English language. Oh how I wish I could correct every single one of them...

Ahem.

This morning's Fark Photoshop is simply Photoshop this soaring cycle and airborne extemist:

And...

There's much work yet to be done.

This Too Shall Pass - Again

In just five days, OK Go's video has gone rather viral, with over three million views on YouTube.

So you may ask - I know I did - just how did they do it?

Following is the four-part video of how they did it:






See the original article from PopEater.

So You Want A Minimalist Home Page?

I don't go in for an over-abundance of stuff on the first web page I see in the morning. Or afternoon. Or... any time at all. Most often, it has been iGoogle or just Gmail. But as I just learned, there's an even more minimalist approach, and it's called fav4.

Here's my new start page in all its simple glory:

From left, that's iGoogle, Blogger, woot!, and Twitter. The four sites I visit most every day.

You should try this; there are many other selections to choose from for your four fav sites, and there's even a search box - configurable of course - you can display with your fav4.

Go take a look at fav4.org!

This Too Shall Pass

Saw the following video on dooce last night, and just had to share it here. I don't know what entity designed or produced it, but it really, really, needs to awarded SOMETHING:

Reminds me of this classic video from several years ago, "Isn't it nice when things just... work?"



Rube Goldberg would be so proud.

Is it Time to Hang Up the Snow Jacket?

[I'm gonna get comments about this one.]

Traditionally, the Eubank's on KSL have always worn a "snow jacket" on the evening news whenever a snowstorm is forecast.

Now, this isn't a down-filled, puffy, water-resistant parka, no, this is a white suit jacket. In the past, Mark Eubank would wear it; since his son, Kevin Eubank, is now the primary weatherman on KSL, the torch has passed to him. And the tradition.

But this winter, we haven't seen the jacket all that much. It still gets cold at night, but all the snow here in the valley is all gone. And while today's rain did on occasion turn a bit icy, there was no snow to speak of. And the snow coat? Yeah, it was out, but we've come to expect a sloshy day when we see it.

Not this time.

Maybe it's time to hang up the jacket, Kevin.

At least there's that Jay Leno gig to think about.

Do Programmers Have A Problem With Math?

It's not like this is Boolean Algebra, after all.

Seems that many Playstation 3's had a little problem over the weekend, coming up with an oh-so-descriptive error of "8001050F". On Monday.

Why?

Apparently, some dim bulb programmer screwed up the leap year calculation to make the consoles think it was February 29th. So when the Playstation network said "No, it's March 1st", they shut down in protest.

It's the Y2K bug all over again. Well, sorta.

Armstrong11 Attention Grabber

Folks, you just never know who is going to visit your blog.

Apparently, the whole Reagan Advertising billboard blitz that has been going on along the Wasatch Front for the last couple months has gotten the attention of one National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Yes, NASA.

I suppose it's not surprising. Any time you mention history for your own financial gain (face it, that's got to be the reason), someone is bound to notice, particularly those who made the history in the first place.

But wait, dear readers, how exactly do I know that NASA has been poking around Armstrong11's neck of the woods? Because, dear readers, they have been reading MY BLOG:

Yeah, you just never know...