Sunday, June 17, 2012

I have been hearing some audible complaints recently that “we haven’t even had summer weather yet.”
Well… get ready. Ye ask, ye receive. Get your sweat buckets out, ice up the water, put the beer in the fridge.. and get ready to ring our your perspiration filled T shirts by noon: This week is going to see the first heat wave of summer 2012. From the looks of weather models and forecast maps, it will be intense.
Temperatures in D.C. will feel as hot as 105 or more. Places in Virginia could feel like 110.
Summer 2012 indeed here..

A big fat Greek election.
But this one has some very big implications for not only Greece but the world too.
The Greeks, sick of austerity, layoffs, and children being abandoned in the streets by increasingly poverty-stricken parents, may dump the Euro. Critics say if they do that, it could spark a world crisis on the economic front.
Get ready for a news blitz as events get crazy in Euroland.

Mitt Romney came to my home state of Pennsylvania this weekend.. He told people who were listening that he was going to win the state this November against Obama. Also while he was here, he was quite fascinated with Wawa, a chain of stores in the Southeastern part of the state. And he stepped into the debate in the state that divides it literally in half: Sheetz vs Wawa.
The Ticket writes it this way:
What inspired him: A computer at Wawa that allows customers to type in what they want on a sandwich, as opposed to ordering it through a human cashier. It was a technology, he said, that had been fostered by competition—competition he said the federal government lacks in delivering its services to Americans. He said the government’s lack of competition and bureaucracy was hurting the United States in keeping jobs that are moving to other countries.
But more than anything, Romney seemed blown away by the Wawa computers, which he raved about.
"You press a little touchtone key pad… You touch this, touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier, and there’s your sandwich," Romney said. "It’s amazing!"
I suspect Romney hasn’t had to be at a convenient store in a long time. This may be his moment of disassociation with reality. Remember in 1992 when George Bush senior was amazed with cash registers and the price of bread? … yes.. This candidate sometimes just can’t get ahead.
The irony of course is that people in Sheetz terriroty of PA, simply by default of the location, would have been more apt to have voted for him instead of the Wawa real estate portion. Maybe he also botched up some chances by siding with the Wawa market.
Father's Day Sunday Morning Sidewalk news
Despite how great of a day it is for me and other dads out there, the news goes on. Here’s a collection of what I read this morning .. I think I’ll stop for a while—it’s all too much—and drink some french vanilla coffee out of my new BATMAN mug…
Here’s the news. Read it and weep. Or just weep before you read.
Greek wildfire rages near Athens..
Wildfire in Colorado rages, destroying homes..
Welcome to another jobless cruel summer..
30,000 drones may be flying over the United States in the next ten years.. Civil libertarians cry foul while frankly no one hears their valid concerns.
Secret X-37B lands..
Radiohead stage collapses before show.. 1 dead..
New revelations released.. A sordid Secret Service history was hidden from public.. Drunken escapades, assault..
The final battle of Pope Benedict.. Struggle behind the scenes, along with backbiting and scandal..
And for all the dads out there who like solar flares (me included) this one is for you
Geomagnetic storms are circling Earth’s poles in the wake of a double CME impact on June 16th.. Earth’s magnetic field has strongly compressed after the flares and impact.. After nightfall Saturday Northern Lights were visible even in the Northern United States such as North Dakota and Wisconsin..
There aren’t too many times I’d say I would like to live in North Dakota, but I saw some pictures on SpaceWeather and Facebook of the Northern Lights over North Dakota and it looked like absolute majesty in the sky.
There is beauty to solar flares.. until that day when a series of X flares knocks out power and modern life. But at least Northern Lights will be looking pretty amid the lack of technology.
A big happy father's day to all the dads out there
It’s my second now (yea can’t believe that). Feel like a veteran. My gift was a beautiful framed photo of me holding my son minutes he was born.. and my other gift is a BATMAN mug for my coffee. Pretty cool.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Maybe America is kind after all
Remember a week ago when the author of a book about the kindness of America was shot?
I thought things online would be there 'forever'
I had a website YEARS ago hosted on Angelfire. I also had a Guestbook that, only this week, I found out was gone forever. Seriously.. they deleted it on me. You know, I guess… things change. So this guestbook existed since the year 1998. There were tons of memories in there. I signed up with an email address that is now non existent. So if I had an email that was existent as the main contact, I would have known since April it was going away. Alas! I didn’t.
So there goes that guestbook.. filled with as many memories as a photo album. Friends…long nights of messaging back and forth when the internet was in its infancy.. drunken stupors in text. All that in this guestbook. The world was able to read it.
And now it’s gone.
I know people say if you type something online “it will last forever.”
Tell that to people who had websites on Geocities. Or those who had Tripod guestbooks. Or slambooks (remember those!?) Or ICQ.
I hopefully think that somewhere, in the vast universe, the keys we stroked and letters we typed still exist. But with all these companies folding their ventures and replacing them with nothing, I dare to think that there are some things online that will never exist again. And that’s sad.
What will exist is Facebook. .Maybe Myspace? That’s up to Murdoch. Maybe Tumblr, that’s up to Karp if he makes money.. and Google blogger, which is probably up to the CIA more than anyone else.
Yes.. what you type may not exist tomorrow.
Kind of sad, in a way. Years of Guestbook entries back when the net was young have just been deleted from countless sites…
They better not get rid of Angelfire. Or else if they do, my entire 18 years old to 21 years old period of my life is gone. Forever.
The latest Lilo: Paramedics rushed to her due to exhaustion in her LA hotel.. but she wasn't taken to the hospital
THE MONEY QUOTE
Celebrity news website TMZ meanwhile reported that the 25-year-old had been working for two days almost non-stop, including shooting parts of the movie near the hotel.
Her spokesman Steve Honig told E! News: “Last night she worked from 7:00 pm to 8:00 am. She was exhausted and went back to her room to sleep.
"Producers were apparently concerned and called the fire department and paramedics found her sleeping but determined that she was fine, just extremely exhausted and slightly dehydrated.
The latest Lilo: Paramedics rushed to her due to exhaustion in her LA hotel.. but she wasn't taken to the hospital