Tag Archives: adam

8903 – 4th of July!

Took Bugah & Co to Bob Evans for a farewell breakfast… MN was sneaky and footed the bill. We’re going to have to work out some sort of system of permissions for bill catching! Poor Boog didn’t want to head out, but Em seemed ready to head on home.

Relatively mellow after the fireworks on the 3rd. More grilling of hot dogs and veggie burgers (out of propane), Louise, Doug, Tina, Kendall, Adam and BHK all got together for some good eats and limited fireworks… every time we went somewhere to shoot off some airborne pretties, the police or a homeowner came out and said no sir, no sir. The fountains were quite pretty, anyhow. Areas we were blocked include the back yard, the private beach opposite the buildings, and “forbidden beach” which is public, but right next to some big homes. A fellow came out and took down the plate numbers of everyone parked there… sort of jerky behavior for the 4th. I can understand not wanting stuff too close to your house, but we were shooting the beach and it was just 9:30pm… not too late by any one’s estimation. Ah well, the food was good and we all got to hang out a bit, and enjoy a midweek day off.

There was a tornado watch in DC – just as well that we didn’t head to that mob scene. The National Mall was briefly evacuated around 5 p.m., forcing the thousands gathered for 4th of July festivities to take shelter in nearby monuments and federal government buildings. By 7 p.m. the Mall was re-opened, though everyone had to pass back through security checkpoints set-up in the area again.

We headed home – BHK and I just enjoyed a little peace and quiet come the end of the day… not a bad thing at all.

adam and em
[attach 4th of july google video here]

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8902 – Tuesday

BHK called me Scooter Libby ! (Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence. video_wmv Download (20263) | Play (28541) video_mov Download (9616) | Play (15158) ) WTF, mate? I’m not a rat… nor do I have cronies that can get me off the hook; maybe she thought that Scooter is too beautiful to go to jail? Perhaps they should have sentenced him to death by lethal injection; Bush seems to have no problem with that being too “excessive.”

Half day at work today – Good thing, because there’s so much to take care of before the fireworks tonight. BHK will be making some of her classic “mexican-bake-lasagna-thingie” of which I am a huge fan. Yes I am.

Got a kindly warning driving into work – 51 in a 40, a big traffic stop grabbing everyone who goes around a major turn. Police in Maryland are more polite to BHK than they are in Florida.

Also seen on the way in was a sickly-looking fox that got a “go home kitty!” and then “Kitty doesn’t look so good” before we realised what the animal actually was. I hope it wasn’t sick… odd to see a fox out in the city sidewalks.

Alerted yesterday by Jon at the DC Traveler that the mighty Titan Arum has begun blooming at the US Botanic Garden. He was, no doubt, tipped off by the oh-so-lovely smell of rotting corpse wafting through his window, which the flower uses to attract meat-loving (at least, meat-stench-loving) bugs to pollinate it. The giant, odorous plant seems to be falling into habit, blooming every two years since 2003 — before that it hadn’t bloomed in 12 years, and the species is usually known to bloom unpredictably.

Not only does the “Corpse Plant” feature the mouth-watering fragrance of dead rats, but it grows to fairly enormous heights, with some wild-growing plants (they’re native to Indonesia) reaching 12 feet tall, though most average a still impressive five feet. If you’re interested in seeing the purpley-crimson color that reveals itself as the petals open up, you must act quickly. The Titan Arum slowly began budding in June, but reached full bloom and began emitting its zombie-licious fragrance the day before yesterday, so you’ve only got perhaps today and maybe tomorrow to catch this unusual sight. At least for a couple of years.

The US Botanic Garden is located at 100 Maryland Avenue, SW and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m

Fireworks were quite lovely tonight; I didn’t expect a show of that magnitude from a small town… pretty close to the Miami show in volume… twin barges full of mortars just went to town at about 9:30pm. [attach flickr pictures here]

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8801 – Saturday!

shackshack2
Shacks seen in SOMd while road tripping with BHK.


More karaoke – I came in last, then jimmy and bhk – Tina barely lost to Adam by the narrowest of margins. We played on random… you had to sing whatever song was pulled out of a hat and I got 2 really hard ones in a row… both were songs I’d never heard before or at least was unfamiliar with – one was rap, and the other had a Spanish bit in the middle. For what it’s worth, everyone had some serious challenges. I was impressed that Tina’s singing skill was that well-honed. BHK now wants to get other Karaoke CDs with a broader selection of tunes. We drove around and saw the most ridiculously over-decorated house by one of the many historical graveyards nearby – if I had to seek shelter somewhere, I suspect I’d opt for the graveyard first. Also shown is an example of some abandoned shacks not far from the graves and bunny-fest.

easter wonderland, with graves.


pretty interesting model testing the eternal question of “do you get wetter walking or running to your destination in the rain?”


Start a OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet and enter the following formula in any cell and press enter:

=game("StarWars")

Oo.org will pop up a clone of the classic Space Invaders game


1 year ago – devo on fridays, lost, icon, SL designing, virus trained to build batteries, false alarm abduction, hurricane stockpile, took over haikuarena, quizzes,

2 years ago – Dr Russell, MASS, undercover brother, kitty cuteness, meet force with force, walkabout pictures, America we stand as one, BCT commercial

3 years ago – +20 min, underage girl charged with child pornography, LSD

4 years ago – creaky, PotC, Bro

5 years ago – put all of oz on my palm, boat name poll, vending machines, Newt activities

6 years ago – laundry, Herb KornfeldGeotargetVisitor Map

8790

Nice crew here at the County – working in the courthouse annex for the last week or so has been nothing but pleasant. Broad variety of issues and concerns, from migrating systems from 2000 to XP to major server concerns. Calvert is blessed to have so many skilled employees in the tech department. There are some politics, but those follow in any place with more than 5 workers. The department as a whole seems quite cohesive, and able to run as a pack. Additionally, it’s a pleasant surprise to see it pretty balanced gender-wise. Most of the tech-rooms I’ve been in have been either heavily male-centric locker rooms, or a mostly female-type library environment. The more balanced, the better it seems to me.

Since I’m temping, I don’t have a lot of security access or the like – my primary duties are getting the phone and setting up service tickets, since I’m still not totally in the loop regarding policy and can’t change many things from my end. I have, however managed to be useful, in addition to doing the standard help desk stuff like talking people through navigation on the file server, power user stuff like outlook or excel questions, and imaging drives for new machines. I would really like to see this gig change to a more permanent position, but that may or may not be happening, depending on what the county wants or needs.

One of the people over in GIS made a comment about snatching me up, too, so there is a possibility of a paradigm shift, I suppose. Mapping software is something I have a knack at, so I figure I could be of utility there.

This gig came at a good time… my savings were getting close to the depletion point, and it’s nice to have the ability to pay the basics off every month, and even maybe recover some a bit.

I have Good Friday off, and maybe that weekend will be a good time to go with BHK to Washington , DC for the cherry blossom festival. (http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org ) I’m way overdue to donate blood, too. Maybe a trip to the Red Cross can happen then, as well. I’d prefer to give platelets, but if I can only do whole blood, that’s fine. I missed the blood drive last weekend due to my cough and my back, and it’d been nagging at me for a while.


St Marys College Campus, originally uploaded by garyfgarcia.

Spring has really Sprung here… I’m used to evergreen Florida , but the shock of things coming back to life really drives the contrast here after a season of winter. There are all sorts of things flowering already – white popcorn-type trees, pink and yellows dotting here and there amongst the yellow-green of fresh shoots and leaves beginning to show. There are still a ton of bare branches out and about, but the blooms are just making things look so awake and alive.

BHK has gotten a real fascination with reality TV in recent months – America ’s top model, American idol, my sweet 16 and that pussycat club thing (I enjoy watching American idol with a group, primarily due to the social factor – I’m not as concerned about the outcome as I am the comparisons and discussion about it). My preferences are more in line with House and The Riches, though the 2nd episode wasn’t as good as the first. Dresden Files is surprisingly entertaining to me too, so far. I’m looking forward to new episodes of Venture Brothers and Hyperdrive – I’m hoping the next season of Dr. Who is better than the last. Heroes, I’m waiting to watch a season at a time, and I tried 24 again, but it wasn’t my thing. Polished off Police Squad on my PSP at lunchtime at work, so my next series in hand will be Red Dwarf and Invader Zim. (I still have the Incredibles on the memory card to fill the little Zefrank synch void left behind. I’m getting better at PSP’s Grand Theft Auto – Liberty City Stories, too.

My time on the Emergency preparedness committee hasn’t been as fruitful as I’d hoped. I fear that for it to be effective, I may have to take charge of it. I really just wanted to be on a team, but if I have to take the bull by the horns, I will. I’d like to plan out an evacuation strategy for North Beach, including how to contact as many people as possible – I’m going to try to push CodeRED notifications through for that, in addition to emails. It’ll cost the city about $5000 a year, but it’d be well worth it. I wonder how much it costs the city to put up a Stop sign, for usefulness comparison.

Newton and Pye are getting along pretty darn good these days… my only complaint is that Pye picks on Newt while he’s trying to eat or use the little box… both of which should be safe zones. Newt is still a bit hissy with Pye, too… it can be hard to tell when he’s playing and when he’s really POed.

Adam’s now on the Tennis team. From what I’ve seen, he’s a great athlete, but really needs to practice in the Tennis Department. Jimmy’s playing too, but I missed seeing his stuff. On the romance front, it seems that Adam and Kendall are going to prom together as ‘more than just friends’.

In-laws are going to Salem next week to work on the house… I wonder if BHK is going to want to visit them there at all for Easter? Tina is planning an Easter dinner with BHK and me, but that’s all I know so far on that front. I’d like to check out the dawn services just to see what North Beach ’s congregation looks like compared to Fort Lauderdale … plus, I do enjoy seeing the sun come up over the bay.


1 year ago – code template, interest cloud, pda cam dies, p&B in german, song tapper, bus on fire doodle

2 years ago – easter manatee, complimented, server/servant, spliced people, germs

3 years ago – Lj then and now (I spend less time now), bro, ice cream cake, Smokey & the Bandit

4 years ago – bro got me some Godzilla movies at the gift store up the road.

5 years ago – minority report poll, breakfast with Danny, grabber rabbit meme spreads, Words describing animal traits, Ketchup packet bear, Klaatu’s speech, scary dream, link-to poll

6 years ago – babelizer, mushy-feelings, book-burningGeotargetVisitor Map

8764 – Tuesday-

Dinner of taco-type stuff at the in-laws… we intended to get Cathy’s present, but got sidetracked. Nice to have some personal time with BHK, though the phone kept on ring-a-ding-dinging. We would’ve gone to Adam’s Swim banquet, if he’d called us more than three minutes before it was time to leave for it. Fortunately, his mom attended, and we got to see a highlight reel after.

Larry’s come down with a cold or flu-type bug, so it was pretty quiet, all told.


edit – according to BHK – “The day I proclaim “I am a hamburger sandwich.” I never.


doggie videos from sunday

8753 – Snow!

Boy, howdy did it snow today. Big, fat flakes… some about the size of a quarter. I’ve never seen stuff that big falling before… sort of like a cheesy pillow fight scene. After taking care of Tina’s kitties, we went over to the in-laws for breakfast – Pancakes and fruit salads were the theme, and we watched the snow fall in huge clumps from the sky. Our plans to go birdwatching and perhaps return to the train show were whited out, so instead, Adam, BHK and I took a walk down to the dock and fed the available birds some old bread while making a snowman. The weather warmed up and rain came down later… I suspect mr snowman now looks a bit like Edward James Olmos. Maybe we’ll take a peek at him tomorrow in the sunlight. The sun dropped below the horizon, so we went back inside for a nice viewing of Jackson’s King Kong and angel hair pasta & salad for din-din.

dock with snowman dock with snowman, scotto and bhk dock with snowman - adam bread-hungry birds gulls gulls and starter snowman gulls and bhk head back deck view the waterpark, in the distance snowy! more snowy... big flakes a single flake... about the size of a quarter. nest by tina's back yard, the snow was just starting.


1 year ago – sad endings for sea cows, compusa fruitful, movie server, out with danny, newtcam action pics, tortoise herd

2 years ago – ten things meme, cute newt pic, liberated games

3 years ago – Bro drama, free music

4 years ago – fates, evil idea, doc trip, sorghum

5 years ago – mail, fonts, Celtic Religion – Knowledge base

6 years ago – Haiku, thoughts, flatus, dream fragmentGeotargetVisitor Map

8752 –

Not getting all of my notifications from LJ. Perhaps flying_blind is right in his suspicions about bad Vox code finding its way back into lj.


Fairly eventful weekend – After tending to Tina’s kitties, BHK and I went with Larry to the model train expo… If I were still gaming, this would’ve been the perfect place to buy all sorts of miniatures, from old west, to 1920’s, to whatever genre hat could possibly contain a train (including some stuff for a Thundarr the Barbarian game, city ruins and folks on horseback were available… and Superheroes!) I think my favorites were the LEGO trains, though… the dioramas were not as detailed, of course, but there’s something quite comforting about snap-together blocks.

After the expo, we went to see Adam swim in the state finals at the University of Maryland.. the college park campus is really nice. Adam did quite well, scored a gold medal in the 200 meter relay. I was happy to see that the majority of his crew made it to see him swim – Father, step-mom, and all of his siblings.

Several pictures from Adam’s swim meet, The train show, and assorted escapades on Saturday. Primarily shots of HO scale and Lego train sets. take a peek

8721 – another day in paradise. no sarcasm there.

Current weather – 18°F (RealFeel 2°F)


Brother and Father in law jamming a bit last night before dinner. Adam was about ready to fall asleep, I think. Another swim meet tonight, if all goes as planned. BHK and I are going to take Tina with us this time! That means a bit of shopping and dinner tonight too, I expect.

Things have been quite great lately… I think that once I get a good solid gig, I’ll have nothing to complain about at all.

Side note – I’ve agreed to be on the City’s Emergency Preparedness Committee – maybe I can help out CodeRED a bit, and help to insure my region is more prepared in the event of rough tidings… not to mention, possibly network into a gig.

some pics –

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Happy B’Day, missv!


BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police have arrested three men for killing two young women to sell their corpses as “ghost brides” for dead single men, a Chinese newspaper reported, warning the dark custom might have claimed many other victims. Continue reading 8721 – another day in paradise. no sarcasm there.

8720 –


Some swim meet pics of my Brother-in-law – Adam, 17, Swim Team Cap’n.

Thumbs up for Northern! Swim meet adam frogbelly adam Grinnin' Adam

Quite a little stud muffin – he’s very popular with the ladies, especially while being all sporty. He’s really a great guy, and is very talented across the board – Physics, guitar, athletics. If he wants, he could go anywhere or do anything he might choose. He suffers a little bit from teenager-itis, but he’s generally a gentleman and all-around good guy. I’m glad to have him in my family.



DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – A partially mummified baby was found wrapped in newspaper in a warehouse self-storage unit and is believed to have been born sometime in the 1950s, authorities said. Continue reading 8720 –

8676 – pics and spam.

note to self – Write Liz / Chad letters.. good to hear from them both after so long! I have to send a note to Tomi, too.


Pics of Newt, the Xmas tree trimming, the in laws, bhk, adam and me. Bhk had me downright holiday giddy today… maybe too much rankin-bass in the bloodstream.

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Spam content is getting more interesting – most recent:

The cool air is a welcome relief, after a week of record-breaking temperatures.

I think that I may return to Hagerstown on Wednesday, so I can watch the students solo. It all started for me with a father employed by IBM.

Many of our family members who are over five years old joined the church choir and shared their musical gifts. Copies of the Championship game can be viewed on the LegalMatch television network in an office near you, courtesy of Ben. The ability to shape easily information, especially on a global scale, is democratizing. Arguably, as an academic, I often find the freely available web based dictionaries to lack substance and reliability, especially when comparing synonyms. I love to look at it, but I dislike feeling it. The value of timeshifting makes podcasting one of the most useful digital applications. How the PC has affected the face of America is one of the questions that have been rolling around inside of my head for over two decades. and I am not a normally a computer gamer! CAP Cadets Solo – flying – Says Dave CAP Cadets Solo I received word today that all of the cadets at the solo school in Hagerstown, Maryland had completd their first solo flights. As a child, I was taught to accurately compute my sales totals, estimate the sales tax, and determine the anticipated change that I would receive for each purchase that I made. Looking past the functional steps toward the applicability and the outcome-creation potential forms the bond of trust that is inherent in an embracing of any technology. I would have to ask my wife to be sure; she has a better memory for these mundane details, than I. I have found another helpful use for my handheld computer: logging my aircraft flights. These are brisk, factual and come out my recent experience; the content is often dispassionate and dry. She created a convenient dining experience, without intruding on our private conversation. The video recording that we made and burned to DVD will surely be one of our favorites, even fifty years from now. Skills not practiced are lost. We learn to like those we love across the piles of crab shells. The legal decisions require law enforcement to first show probable cause to believe that a crime has been or is being committed: the same standard that applies to search warrant requests. Dad felt that he owed much of his personal success to his being fortunate to earn a job with IBM after returning home from the Korean Conflict. now let’s go over to the losers where Diane is standing by. I have noticed this behavior before, on the part of the locals. A single e-mail message or web page download my comprise dozens of packets, each of which takes a different route to reach its intended destination. However, when listening to digital audio or watching online video, a delayed packet or two is not only noticeable, it is annoying.


1 year ago – val & rhonnie news, kreuger, bro issue, rs shopping, jellyfish

2 years ago – working with cubase / fruityloops, pork chop assault, manatee window kiss, mel 5

3 years ago – Ghost Bugs, Missing Chairs, News Stories about cats and physics.

4 years ago – holiday oranges, Joe Ostezewski, letter-words

5 years ago – evil news, bear suit update, walkies, visions

6 years ago – stinky week start, a pair of email fallacies, rhonnie has her incidentGeotarget