Football with the girls away

One of the great pleasures of life is to watch football when your wife is out shopping with her girlfriends.  You know she won't be back any time soon.  I got my writing done early.  

Georgia plays at 3:30 against Tennessee, always a good one.

Sam's club

God is on the side of the big packages.  And Sam's has BIG packages!  It's so good for having more than you really need.  The Albany Sam's, though, does not have a liquor store.  No good!  Back at the library I got ost but found a favorite Agatha Christie.

Odd incident in DC

No real idea what that was all about.  The Congress is an excrescence on the American posterior.  Debt ceiling and government shutdown related??!!  Duh!

Shutting down the government

The oddest thing about shutting down the government is how little difference it makes to anyone.  Gee, you'd think most of those six-figure jobs weren't necessary!

The political gamesmanship is appalling.  Everybody's trying to be a hero to a particular constituency.  This particular shutdown is a perfect storm, coming as it does in the first days of Obozocare and in the middle of the debt ceiling debate.  Hmm, maybe all these things are related!?

October finally

Stayed up watching Monday night Football until almost midnight.  Then up at 4:03, which I thought was 5:03, because, oh, let's say I just hope I remember to change it tonight because I really don't want to get up at 3:03 tomorrow, thinking it's 4:03.

Good busy day, despite the tired flashes at the backs of my eyes.  3000 words, too.  Not as hard as I thought.  Not deathless prose, perhaps, but the living word.

It's obozocare day!  And the mountain labored and brought forth - a little spinning circle with an arrow on it.  And millions of lives are saved because they can't go to the doctor who, through sheer reductionism, would kill them.

End of the month

Those ends of months come around so slowly!  Only 18 more until retirement.  Putting myself back together.  Martha sent an email from Leiden, NL. September successful, though, in a couple of ways.

Found my E. Tufte graphic design book.  Lots of info AND white space.  Makes me want to design a book.

Dinner out

Sherry and I going to dinner with Uzma and Jean-Marc.  Last day of utterly unnecessary grammar lessons.  When is a colon not a colon?  Friday is a joy.

Watching Morse again.  Love that Jaguar.  Ned out tonight, going to a geo-party, I guess.

Airplane Repo

Great cable show on the guys who "swipe airplanes" for a living.  Just goes to show that a great idea, well executed, can be an instant hit.  Who would have thought this particular niche would be so exciting?  But it's at least as good as Duck Dynasty!

Morse redivivus

Discovered the old Inspector Morse series on Netflix.  Haven't seen those for years.  John Thaw is a grumpy old detective with a beautiful old red Jaguar saloon that gets banged into at least once every episode.  He likes classical music and good Scotch, and always has to have one up on his lieutenant, Lewis.  Colin Dexter, the author of the Morse novels, was an interesting fellow.  Crossword champion or something.  I need to write a detective story.

Enough sleep

Only had five hours last night.  Not enough, even at my age.  They say as you get older, you don't need as much sleep.  I haven't noticed that.  I still need my eight hours to feel right.

So nice to have Monday off

I love my 4-day weeks.  And now that I can take Friday or Monday off, life is just that much more - flexible!

Trying to make the Google books app work on my iPad.  Crashes all the time.  Would be nice to have another whole source of books.  Multiple libraries I can carry in one hand.  Useful.

Learned to cook bacon in the oven, too.  This is going to come in handy!  And for Sherry, it means she doesn't have to stand at the stove tending bacon. 

One more long hot summer before we're free to avoid a good deal of it.

Football and more football

Porkchops and cognac make our Sunday perfect.  And Duck Dynasty!  World's largest duck call.

Still re-reading Antifragility, too.  Fed the veggie plants and it rained, too. No fires.

Saturday fire

Almost had a fire when some oil got overheated on the stove.  Makes one realize how uncertain life is and how quickly things can change.  Luckily I got it out without any great danger.

Football Saturday went on as usual.  Florida and Georgia won.  So the season goes on towards Thanksgiving and the bowl games.  Just like every other year, despite Obama and the other know-nothings.  Life goes on in the United States of America.

Raise

Stiil glowing after getting a little raise at work.  Bigger than I thought.  Nice to be appreciated.

Becoming very enamored of my writing skills, or, at least, my persistence. The three thousand words a day take precedence over everything else.  But they don't take so much time that I can't have a life, too.

Splurged on some Courvoisier.

Ned's not home yet after a light day of classes.  He's taking Geohazards and Mexican history.  So he'll be all ready if Mexico is swallowed up by a giant sinkhole.

Hints of coolness in the air, but still too darn hot.

Russian exceptionalism

Right.  So Putin has been telling us how we think too much about how America is exceptional.  What does he want?  Everyone gets a prize?

We all know what Putin wants.  Piece.  A piece of Ukraine - no, all of it.  A piece of Belarus, or White Russia to us traditionalists.  The Baltic Republics?  Not so much.  Too much trouble.  Moldova?  Too small, not worth much, full of Bessarabians.

Now I'm not saying Putin wants to reconstitute the Soviet Empire.  He would be satisfied with the extent of Catherine the Great - and really mean - from the 1700s. And he might even forego Poland.  Too much bother.  Full of Poles.  Right next to Germany, never a good idea.

So, no, Russia isn't exceptional today.  It's just doing what it's always done, being Russia.

Proper history

I like Mencius Moldbug:

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately, he doesn't post much.

Standardized tests

Vox Day today was going into the nature of standardized tests, in connection with his continuing (NOT "ongoing") war against a Mr. Scalzi.  So I thought I'd trot out my credentials, however irrelevant they may be .  I was a National Merit Semi-Finalist.  I got an 800 on the Graduate Record Exam (verbal portion, in 1974)  I passed two state bar exams, eighteen years apart, one in New Hampshire, one in Florida at the age of 55.  As to IQ, my parents wouldn't tell me the number.  They said there wasn't one.  I was "off the charts".

There, now, aren't you impressed?  C'mon, admit it!

Personally, I can't think of much of anything less relevant to my everyday life than standardized tests, except for the bar exams, which have enabled me to eke out a precarious living.

I am grateful for intellectual power and grasp, though, which, when combined with long-overdue persistence and perseverance, have enabled me to start writing something I think might be good.  See my other blog:  Europe1870.blogspot.com

Remembering twelve years ago

9/11 marked the first time I used internet news services instead of Dan Rather and the boys.  It happened in the morning, so the daily news wasn't able to deal with it.  But Drudge and Instapundit were.  No need to listen to local news to get a distorted picture of events.  Now we could get raw facts, from a lot of sources and do our own analysis.  Talk about scales dropping from eyes!  Even the New York Times would never be the same.

September coming on

September is such a traitress.  Promises cool breezes and delivers 90-degree humidity.  But at least we know there's something cool out there waiting for us.  I am looking forward to some tap dancing tomorrow trying to fit Nietzsche into the events of 1870.  There must be some connection, right??

Back to Work

Is Obozo still whingeing about Syria?  Will a real man called Putin have to pull his donuts out of his coffee?  Well this is the first Monday night football game and my wife is out doing something called Zoomba, so, hey, does it get any better?  I think it involves automated vacuums, so when She (who must be obeyed!) gets back, I expect the rugs to be really clean!