As I was eating my breakfast (english muffins with butter and wonderful Bon Mammon preserves) I had an opportunity to contemplate children and their behavior. Now I like children, as I hope friends of mine with children will attest, but I like well behaved children. I am not so draconian to believe in the “Seen but not heard” theory, but I am bothered immensely by the situation I was placed in over breakfast: “Heard but not seen.” And this is a situation that happens often enough.

Given the noise coming from our neighbor’s house, I am continually amazed (and disappointed on occasion) that I do not see an ambulance arriving to take away a dismembered child. But day after day the screaming continues. Maybe I live next to a franchise of hell?

Have a nice day.

Braz and Kris give us an excuse to go to Outback. Unfortunately I had started dinner 10 minutes before they called. damn.

Fall is here, and we are entering the cold-and-wet season in Williamsburg. My theory is that Williamsburg has three major weather types: hot-and-wet, warm-and-wet, and cold-and-wet. It is suprising how the body changes in response to the climate. Growing up in Connecticut, I was able to spend large amounts of time in the cold. Real cold, not this sorta-kinda wimpy cold that we get here in Virginia. But my blood has thined as the saying goes and I am now a man of the South. It is cold, and it is supposed to be a colder than normal this winter.

That all said, I really like fall, (especially when it isn’t raining). The cool, clear air and the colors of nature are wonderful. I am able to indulge in my photography and provide them for my friends viewing pleasure. Unfortunately the drought that our area has been enduring has hurt the trees enough that I do not expect as spectacular foliage as we have had in previous years.

Not much else has been happening the last few days to report on.

I know the title may seem like an redundant, but in actuality spammers are often quite intelligent. They have a hard job avoiding the various technological blocks people keep throwing at them. That hardly implies that I respect their inteligence; they are still scum.

But a stupid spammer is even worse; in a funny way.

This is snippet of an email I got this afternoon. I looked at it in disbelief for quite a while before chuckling to myself. The sender of this message knows who I am, but was unable to configure their spam-o-mater to put my name in the greeting.

Sad, so sad. What is this world coming to?

Hopefully more dumb spammers.

Jeff, one of my friends from college, has succeeded in getting his PhD in Chemistry and is teaching his first classes this semester. It is quite interesting to see college from the other point of view, and unfortunately quite sad to hear his stories about his intro to chemistry class. Jeff recently gave his second test and is in the process of grading them. He has been relating the weird answers he has gotten in addition to the successes and failures of his students. Unfortunately there are a lot more failures than successes.

Number of electrons in one metric ton of silver. 5.58kg.

Jeff is having a difficult time getting his students to think. The are so used to just regurgitating facts as they did in high school, that they are unable to take the facts that they have learned and apply them to the problems he has given them. Apparently this is a higher standard than the other professors in his department are using to judge their classes. Jeff is also having a hard time balancing the concern of being “too hard” on his students with actually feeling like he is treating them appropriately as college students.

How many electrons in one silver atom? -2

They also appear to lack the common sense needed to look at a problem and get a ballpark answer in their minds as they go through a problem. This is a skill that improves with time, but I would hope that by the time someone has entered college they at least have a general idea of how to approximate an answer.

So as Jeff was talking about this exam, I suggested that maybe Matt and I could take it and he could use us as an example for his class. Jeff didn’t think he should tell his class how we did, but he was amused by the idea of us taking the exam. Now as a point of reference, the last chemistry class I took was about 8 years ago, and I think Matt indicated it was 10 years since he took one. I have a physics dgree which gives me some edge, and Matt has an English degree.

I took an hour, a periodic chart, and a calculator (the same as his students) and completed as much of the exam as I could and Jeff said he would look at it in the morning, so I will hopefully get an answer I can post tomorrow. I am quite confident I should do better than his lowest grade seen so far; a 5 (and you get 4 points for signing your name). But we will see if I pass :)

Not much to talk about today. Today was a day of rest. Funny how that should happen on a sunday given my atheist nature. Some might like to say that is a sign of my very wrongness. Oh well. I just call it being productive yesterday.

I finished the third toilet today. I am getting quite good at that. Maybe toilet repair is a potential fallback (ok, fall WAY back) career. Now all of our bathrooms are operating at peak efficiency. Woo Hoo!

I did some layout updates to this journal. Nothing major, just the continuation of some of the tweaks I have been making for the last few days. Some small font changes, an actual “title” to my journal, and some other small stuff that is insignificant to any but me.

I am such a nitpicker when it comes to graphics and layout. I remember someone once calling personal websites “mental masturbation” and although I can see it being that, I don’t think I am doing this for my ego. If I am, I am doing a crappy job.

In a return to one of my youthful activities I worked a little on a bird-feeder this afternoon. When I was in middle school, I was the owner and sole emplyee of Beker’s Beautiful Birdhouses and had two sizes of bird-house and bird-feeders available for sale in my neighborhood in Connecticut. They even came in three colors.

At the height of bird season here, the birds can empty our current little birdfeeder in a week or so and we hate it when we forget to fill it. So I want to make a few more bird-feeders to help our feathered friends.

Back to work tomorrow.

A misadventure of sanitary proportions The toilets in our house have been getting annoying. There has been an increasing tendancy for them to not stop filling after they have been flushed. No overflow or mess, the flapper inside just doesn’t drop back into place when it has let all the water out. So today, I put on my plumber hat and decided to fix them.

Trip 1. Go to Lowes and buy new parts.

I am basically replacing all the moving parts in the toilet. This involves taking the tank off of the bowl which isn’t hard it just exposes areas normally not exposed to the light of day. Crevices on toilets are a bad idea. Toilets should be completely round, no edges, no corners, and definately no crevices. Life would be better. I am sure that is a patentable idea.

The removal (and cleaning of aforementioned crevices) all went quite smoothly until I turned the tank over to unscrew the ring that tightens the drain and flapper assembly onto the tank. This required a wrench that could open about three inches. I didn’t have anything anywhere close.

Trip 2. Go to Ace (which is closer than Lowes) and get 16” Chan-nel-lock pliers.

With this new tool, the ring came off just fine and I was able to attach the new parts to the tank and replace the tank on the bowl. Just one thing left to do, reattach the water to the fill valve and we are all set. Jeremy is foolishly lulled into a sense of accomplishment at this point.

I need to put the new compression nut onto the old water pipe. The old one comes off, but the new one doesn’t fit. I fight with it for a while and then try using the old compression nut. But it is a different size and doesn’t quite fit (which results in water squirting out when you turn it on. Water is supposed to stay in the toilet; Not acceptable.)

Trip 3. Return to Ace prior to our haircut appointment for new water pipe. The ones they have don’t look right and I left the old one at home. Trip aborted.

Interlude 1. Get hair cut, go grocery shopping. Come home. Plant Clemitas in the back yard. Get eaten alive by mosquitos. I swear they were just waiting in their little homes during all the rain we have been getting and came out today shouting “Paaaarty!”

Trip 4. Return to Lowes with old pipe for comparison. Get new pipe.

Now I have what I need. The final installation goes wonderfully. First bathroom done, two left.

The installation in our master bathroom went quite well even though their is alot less space. Inserting one’s head in between the wall and the toilet is not exactely what I recommend as a “fun” activity for every weekend (aka “becoming intimate with your toilet for fun and profit”). We keep a pretty clean household, but I found a few areas we missed. They are clean now. Thanks for asking.

At this point I have put off doing the last bathroom until tomorrow. It is the smallest and I am sure I will have to attempt all sorts of contortions to get everything done, but I have the process down and it should be good (he tells himself).

I logged into my work windows box from home today to test something out, and what was there but spam. Things brings to light the fifth type of spam I have seen.

1. Paper spam (aka junk mail)
2. Phone spam (aka telemarketers)
3. Email spam
4. Voice-mail spam

And now, new for 2002!

1. Windows popup spam

This is just sad. I am amazed on one hand with the creativeness of the spammers, but on the flip side, I think they should be run out of business.

Make the pie higher

Today was a drippy day. Well, my demo at the SIT team meeting went quite well. Took about 45 minutes as I was constantly peppered with questions of what we could and couldn’t do with the system that often ran off on bizarre tangents. But I honestly like demos more when they are interactive. I think that is the root of my dislike of public speaking.

The un-interactiveness of giving “speaches” makes me ill. In contrast, when I am in a meeting or a group of people where I am presenting an idea or just participating in a discussion, I always sepak up, and I often end up running the meetings. I find that I act as a sort of human catalyst and focus the work of the people around me into one cohesive whole; GAH! that sounds like I am a leader or something.

I was going to give the demo again at our staff meeting in the afternoon, but the other people in the meeting (I was not going to get involved) got sidetracked on numerous other topics. The only thing I spoke up on (and was a hard-ass about) was a few security issues. People didn’t seem to realize that if there is a security issue with a system, not distributing a tool that could be used to access the stuff you don’t want them too is not the solution. I need a big sign; “Security through obscurity is not security!”

Our Clematis arrived this afternoon. I think these are definately fast growing plants. In the time that it took them to get from Connecticut on Wednesday to Williamsburg on Friday, the two plants had started to grow into and cling to each other. Very needy plants; probably had traumatic childhoods. We seperated them and put them out in the rain to keep them happy. Planting will probably take place tomorrow.

We are making a new recipe tonight; Chicken in Garlic and Shallots. Wow it smells good. I can’t wait to eat it. Yum Yum Yum.

Good night.