Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Although I don’t keep up with this blog as much as I might like, I am often pleased when I can go back and see what I wrote at some point in the past. I just ran across a post from April 1st, 2007. I think it needs an update:

• Last year I started my container garden with pre-started plants from Lowes. But we had a frost and they died. I bought more. The assorted pepper plants weren’t especially fruitful. However, I have managed to keep them alive through the winter and I’m hoping that they can be at least mildly productive this year. Sadly, the one with the least enjoyable peppers is the one that has best survived the winter.

  This year I’m starting my plants from seeds. I should say that I have started my plants from seeds. After about 1 month I have 20 tomato plants and 30 pepper plants started.

• I’m well overdue to produce some home brew.
• I’m very glad that I purchased Hank III’s Straight to Hell and the Spinal Tap sound track
• I only read about 5 pages of the PHP cookbook. However I have done a hefty amount of PHP work since then.
• I only got about halfway through Power System Economics
• I did finish Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions. It’s an OK book. But I suggest that if you choose to read it, you should attempt to explain the premise of the book to yourself at the end of each completed chapter. If you can do so, quit reading. The rest of the book will add no further depth to your understanding.

• I bought some of the new Forever stamps from a machine yesterday. As change, I got my first dollar coin that features a POTUS. I like it and still wish they’d stop printing $1 bills. I also received a 1943 “Wartime” Nickel (P-series if you care). It may be worth up to 99 cents on eBay.
• I found out today that I may be an elitist (maybe I already knew it?). It came up because of a suggestion I made.
  In a discussion about transportation, and given the conditions that someone can’t afford gas, a new car, can’t live close to work, and has no access to public transit, I suggested they buy a moped. So I now hate poor people.

• Whereas last year I began my container gardening of peppers and tomatoes from seeds, this year I opted to buy plants at Lowe’s. Hopefully my bell pepper and jalapeño plants enjoy their new home.
• I’m enjoying the fruits of some home brewing labors I undertook a few months ago. The first batch, as with many of forays into brewing with Mr. Beer, was flat and somewhat cidery. The 2nd batch, which is a Nut Brown Ale type beer is crisp and bubbly. Unfortunately it kinda tastes like club soda. Further brewing will commence after my move to DC. It will also include better brewing equipment and glass, instead of plastic, bottles.
• I’ve been enjoying some new music. Hank Williams III’s Straight to Hell is exceptionally good.
• The full length songs of Spinal Tap are not as enjoyable as the clips played throughout the movie.
• I’m reading several books concurrently. One is a PHP Cookbook. I’m just starting, but some hardcore coding education seems pretty exciting.
• I’m also working on Power System Economics. It’s an interesting read. Suffice it to say that I’ll know more about the subject that any of you within 6 months.
• I’m also reading Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions. It’s a good reminder that some people — wrongly in my opinion — simply view the world in different terms. However, juxtaposed upon current American politics, both parties pick and choose from the two visions in whichever way fits their interests.

That’s enough for now.

I’ve roamed my way down through Charlotte and Clemson and landed in Athens for a brief period to catch some college baseball (go Beavers!) It’s been a trip full of crazy drivers, good baseball, and extremely good food (barbecue, brats, and filet mignon). I’ll add more on all that later.

Some of you may have noticed that the blog went through some upgrades lately. In addition to getting up to date with the latest WordPress software, I changed a lot of the underlying theme code in both this blog and the Sporting Gnomes. You probably won’t notice much difference with the Gnomes site, where I mostly cleaned up a bunch of loose ends. On here, however, I made a lot of changes with respect to CSS and how things loaded. Hopefully the important things will load a little faster and everything will look a bit less cluttered. Please let me know if you notice any issues or just find the changes to be unbearable.

As time and creativity permit, I think things will eventually morph into an entirely new theme. We’ll see how it goes. Got any ideas?

• I had to take the Girlfriend to the airport today. Charlottesville’s airport is tiny; I like that. I also have no idea what to do with the Girlfriend out of town, but drinking a lot of beer and not shaving seem like great ideas.
• Speaking of great ideas, stealing undies in Great Britain may earn you a spot on the sex offenders’ register. “The point of including theft is because offences such as stealing underwear from a washing line obviously has a sexual motive.” I think the trend of labeling sex offenders has officially gone too far. (I in no way support or approve of the theft of women’s underwear.)
• Firefox has been upsetting me lately. It was hanging up frequently. However, the problem seems to have really been with ForecastFox. (UPDATE: maybe it wasn’t ForecastFox. I hate that Firefox will get snagged while I can open any other browser and it will actually download the pages of my bidding.)
• Since I also just re-installed Google Desktop, I should be able to use that for all my weather related needs. Hooray!
• Firefox 2.0 seems ok. Upgrading is slightly annoying. I really wish it did a better job of importing settings from previous versions. Also, I hate that the quicksearch now doesn’t include “next” and “previous” buttons. IE7 is taking a little while to get used to, but it is definitely leaps and bounds better than IE6.
• OnRebate.com is excessively close to pissing me off. I decided to pay a 10% fee on a $55 rebate so that I could have a check mailed within 3-5 days of rebate approval. It’s been a solid week since approval and their “guarantee” looks disgustingly meaningless.
• Gawker published a list of bad blog-media clichés. If I avoid those phrases entirely, don’t expect much blogging from me for the upcoming year.
• My online Christmas shopping ground to a halt after 3 different retailers were sold out of the items I wanted from them. Gift cards for everybody this year!
• Froogle gets worse with each use. I love the wishlist feature, as it makes it easy to point my favorite gift-buyers in the right direction. It’s getting worse primarily because it too often lists a bunch of vendors I’ve never heard of and don’t want to deal with.

Well that’s enough I guess.

Oh yeah, one more:

• I found out that Steven Tyler (you know, the Aerosmith guy) has more than one daughter. One’s hot. The other looks the same except 100 pounds heavier and goth.

• UP: I went to the career fair, spoke with several interesting companies. And in the “it’s a small world category” one of the frat brothers was recruiting.
• DOWN: Frat brother could get me a plant manager/engineer job, but he warned I would be severely underpaid.
• UP: I scheduled an interview with the US patent office.
• DOWN: They prefer candidates with lower grades and low ambition.
• UP: I can be paid well enough to become ambitionless.
• DOWN: I saw a string of about 8 cars make illegal left turns and I didn’t get to hit any of them.
• UP: I sold a used book for $75.
• DOWN: On the way to the post office to ship the book, my pen leaked all over my nice shirt. I have to spend $35 on a new shirt.
• UP: I will still have $40 leftover for beer.