Sturgeon’s Law Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, “Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud.” Oddly, when Sturgeon’s Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to ‘crap’.
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 We had a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express (guess I should make this an acronym — HIE) for Sunday night because our original plan called for us to drive up on Sunday morning to watch the Professional Road Race Championships that are being held in Greenville. Decided to drive up today and catch a few Post Offices. Ten fell before the shutter. Most interesting: Tigerville.
Last night, six FRS pitchers gave up nine runs and 13 hits to the Baltimore Orioles. Tonight, 1 pitcher gave up no runs on NO hits. In 23 year-old Clay Buchholz’s second big league start he faced only three more batters than the minimum possible.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 369
 One R2D2 mailbox and
Fourteen Post Office pictures in the morning.
One hundred fourteen professional cyclists in the afternoon.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 373
 At least that is how many it seemed like as the peleton streaked by us yesterday afternoon in Greenville. It is also the mileage milestone that the Miata moved past this afternoon somewhere south of Laurens, SC.
We took the “long” way home today by circling north of Duncan before heading south to visit 9 more Post Offices for photographing. That made a total of 33 POs for our three day trip. Going to take a while to get all of those photos edited and online. I know I’m going to have a heck of a time remembering anything unique about every one of them for captioning. Good thing we are not going anywhere next weekend.
Even with all driving, picture taking and bike race watching I still had time to finish one Spenser book and start another. This one won’t make the Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules page, so I’ll post it here:
There was no answer when we rang the bell. The house had that stillness that had Paul had mentioned. In the interests of not looking like a jerk, I tried the doorknob. It was locked.
“I already tried that,” Paul said.
“It’s a Dick Tracy crime stopper,” I said. “Always try the door before jimmying it.”
“Great working with a pro,” Paul said.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 376
 Once every couple of weeks I’ll have a snack attack and head into the cafeteria to quench it. My usual extinguisher of choice is Lance’s Peanut Butter on Nekot cookies. These have two draws, 1) I like ‘em and 2) they are only 50¢. Today I opted to go wild and get a candy bar of some kind. It had been awhile since I had a Butterfinger bar, so I pressed E9. I know it had been awhile because the last time I bought one it was 65 cents, today the price tag below my selection said 75¢.
The only problem with buying a Butterfinger from a vending machine is you don’t usually get to bite off pieces to eat, falling from the E Row always busts the bar up into a bunch of uneven chunks. When I got back to my desk, I opened up the wrapper and sure enough there were 3 big pieces and one small piece inside.
As I savored that crispety and crunchety candy I read the label and discovered that each English word was followed immediately by it’s Spanish counterpart — Bar followed by Barra on the front for example. I’ve noticed some of the larger chain stores around here have goten ino the same act, Wal-Mart, Lowes, etc. Men with a smaller Hombres underneath. Doors -> Puertas.
I don’t like it. Not for the reason you think either, I don’t like the cacophony (ruido) of it, English and Spanish. Just pick one. Hell, I don’t even care if you pick Spanish. With immersion, I’ll figure it out.
Butterfinger in Spanish is still Butterfinger.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 378
 I’ve got all 30 odd Post Office photos from this weekend uploaded to the gallery. I’ve got some sort of verbiage for each photo, but in a bunch of them you can tell I’m really reaching. In the beginning it seemed easy to write a blurb for each Post Office, but it is getting harder as the total goes up. It becomes especially hard when we take mass quantities of pictures in one weekend. They all kind of blur together. Tomorrow I’ll try and get them up on Flickr! and this weekend get them geotagged.
Before my keyboard was having trouble with the letter ‘O’, I took it apart and but it back together and the problem went away. For a couple of weeks. Now it is dropping the letter ‘T’. So if you read some of my photo captions and a word doesn’t seem right, add a ‘T’ to it. If that doesn’t work I probably just missed the connection between brain thought and finger press.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 379
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Grocery shopped this morning. Washed the car this afternoon. Bike rode over cross town to watch the balloon glow at dusk.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 385
 The building on the right is billed as the World’s Smallest Police Station on RoadsideAmerica.com, but it isn’t even the smallest in the US, there is one in a phone booth in Florida. When the town of Ridgeway, SC outgrew it in 1990 they moved into a much larger place — the building on the left.  Ridgeway is one of 8 towns we visited this morning on our Post Office Safari. Blair, Blythewood, Jenkinsville, Peak, Pomaria, Rion & Winnsboro were the others. Their photos are already up in the gallery. 267 down, 193 to go.
Before we headed out of town we went over to the Balloon Fest to watch the morning’s mass ascension. We ended up volunteering to help one crew launch their balloon. They really didn’t need too much help, so I took a bunch of pictures as we they got ready. You can see the Internet worthy ones over on my Flickr! site.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 387
When I first started my Spenser Crime Buster Rules page I had read 4 books and found 3 rules, since then I have only come up with 5 more rules in the last 17 books. Clearly, I got lucky and found the highest concentration of rules in my first few books.
I still have 14 more to go, maybe I’ll hit another vein of Crime Buster Rules in these books. I have found a few other referrals to crime stopper tips, gumshoe manual excerpts and Dick Tracy, like this one from the book, Crimson Joy, which I just finished:
“Is this in the bodyguard manual?” Susan said. “Take the woman you are protecting to look for the man you’re protecting her from?”…
“I can’t leave you alone, and I have to find Felton. So we do it together,” I said.
“I know,” Susan said. “If it weren’t so deadly, I’d kind of like it. Makes me feel like Lois Lane.”
“Well, you are with the right guy,” I said.
I uploaded the balloon photos to my gallery here, but haven’t edited he titles and captions yet. Why let Flickr! have all the fun. I’m probably going to try to separate the Post Office photos into their own gallery soon. I’m thinking of sorting them by zip code. All the SC zips start with 29 and I’ll make 10 directories using the 0 to 9 of the third digit. The number of Post Offices in each directory will vary from just fifteen in 292xx to seventy-three in 296xx.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 389
I gave up too soon on them again.
Tim Wakefield who has practically owned the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the past, he is 20–2 against them lifetime, was pulled in the top of the 4th inning after giving up 10 hits and 7 runs. By he time the top of the fourth was over the FRS were trailing 8 to 1. To add insult to injury the MFY were beating Toronto Blue Jays 8 to 2. Figuring we would probably get swept by the Yankees this weekend, I had pretty much seceded the division and the rest of the season, but…
The Sox batters didn’t feel he same way. In the bottom of the 4th they go 4 runs back. In he bottom of the 5th they scored three more. In the bottom of he 6h they scored 6 to take the lead 14 to 9. Suddenly the sun is shining and things are looking up.
From Chapter 43 of the Spenser novel Widow’s Walk:
“Do you have a conclusion?”
“No, I can’t figure her out.”
“Maybe you need to,” Susan said. “Maybe you need to find out more about Mr. Smith’s life as a gay man. Maybe you need to find out why Mrs. Smith married him.”
“A tip?” I said. “A crime-stopper tip?”
“Two tips,” Susan said. “I have a Ph.D. from Harvard.”
“A hotbed of crime-stopping,” I said.
“A hotbed,” Susan said.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 391
But maybe not after tomorrow though, once I have watched Killer Klowns From Outer Space: Special Edition. Or I may be even more speechless, but I do know how I’m going o dress for Halloween this year: Slim Klown
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I have created a new gallery For the South Carolina Post Offices, the old one is still there for now, but I have changed the link on the sidebar to point to the new one. I was built using the Simple Viewer skin for Jalbum. I like it a lot, but there are a few things that I don’t like, so it may or may not be permanent.
I’ve got the pictures segregated three ways, Alphabetically, Chronologically and by Zip Code, but it takes three separate directories of the same set of photos to accomplish this. Plus I haven’t figured out how to make the text any bigger or in a different location. Let me know if it works for you. For some reason it doesn’t work at home with Firefox. Works with my portable version of Firefox that I carry around on my thumb drive… Works with IE at home and at work. It works with Opera.
South Carolina Post Offices
Ooooh, what a lucky man he was. Not David Ortiz, but Brian Bogardus. Last night Big Papi produced his first walk-off hit of the season and I had 9/12 picked in the contest over on The Joy of Sox, so not only did the FRS win a game last night, I won a book.
Did not watch Killer Klowns From Outer Space tonight. I’m scared.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 395
Turns out the galley wouldn’t work with any browser, anywhere. When I thought it was working, it was only because it was loading cache images from the PC. I fixed it this evening after reading the Simple Viewer FAQ page. I had to turn off Hotlink Protection on the server. I also think I have figured out how to add a title and a link back to this blog too. All I have to do is relearn frames.…
South Carolina Post Offices
A co-worker just bought himself some new wheels for his Lexus IS and I snapped a couple of photos for him.
He was of the same thinking as I, the OEM wheels on our cars are very well matched to the vehicles and we would be satisfied to keep them on there, but whenever we see all the other cars with the same wheels we crave a little individuality. Plus all those other cars out there with different, sharp looking, after market wheels aren’t helping.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 397
 I went in 1995, Spenser did in 1996. He tangled with mobsters, I on the other hand took a couple of pictures and bought a T-shirt. If you have been, you will recognize it in this passage from Robert B. Parker’s Chance, if you haven’t, after reading this you won’t need to go — it will be safer, no mobsters, and easier, you can find images on Flickr! and buy a shirt online.
On the Strip the dry desert night air was full of people and cars and lights, thick with the smell of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, and deodorant spray and hair spray and mixed drinks and cologne and desperation. There was a lot of energy on the Strip but it was feverish, the kind of energy that makes you sleepless, that makes you drive too fast, and chain-smoke, and drink heavy. The Strip was coked with people from Keokuk and Presque Isle and North Platte. It wasn’t like it was supposed to be. It wasn’t the adventure of a lifetime, but it had to be. You couldn’t admit that it wasn’t. You’d come too far, expected too much, planned too long. If you stayed up later, played harder, gambled bigger, looked longer, saw another show, had another drink, stretched out a little farther…
In Chance I did get a Spenser’s Rule, but it was un-numbered. There were a couple other crimestopper reference’s too — early in Chapter 20:
“This is Detective Cooper,” the gray-haired one said. “I’m Detective Sergeant Romero, Las Vegas Police Department.”
“You know I’m a famous detective, and you came here looking for crimestopper tips,” I said.
“Never heard of you,” Romero said, “until we found your card at a crime scene.”
“Pays to advertise,” I said.
And this at the end of Chapter 32:
If I couldn’t find Abbey Becker in Needham, Massachusetts, I’d turn in my file of Dick Tracy Crimestopper tips. As I started back across the bridge to New Bedford, I was calling information on my car phone.
Killer Klowns From Outer Space, the Special Edition sits unwatched on the coffee table. Maybe tomorrow afternoon, before the Killer Klowns from New York invade Fenway Park and are hopefully rebuffed by those scrappy kids in an ice cream truck.
After last night’s ballgame, I felt cheated by this afternoon’s contest, even thought Boston won, because the game only went for three hours and thirty-seven minutes. Compared to the four hour and forty-three minute marathon loss on Friday, today’s contest was a minute waltz . Tomorrow’s FRS / MFY game is going to be on ESPN and won’t start until 8 PM, which means it probably won’t go off until at least midnight. I may just go to bed without seeing the whole game, the FRS are going to win or lose whether I’m watching or not.
After the game this evening Donna and I decided to ride the tandem downtown and get a scoop of ice cream at the Sweet Cow Creamy. We have a fairly powerful headlight and a flashing taillight, so night riding in our small burg is a fairly safe proposition. Things were going smoothly until we were about a half mile from our destination and crossed some the railroad tracks. We hit a rough spot that wasn’t too visible and slammed the back wheel pretty hard. About 50 yards later a loud bang was heard. Gunshot? Firecracker? Nope, back tire. We had a flat.
Fortunately we had a spare tube and pump and were not too far from a well lit street corner. I popped off the back wheel and put in the new tube. Donna showed me the big hole in the tube, I showed her the bent rim and for good measure, the nice split in the tire (thankfully not all the way through.) Got everything back together and pumped the tire back up with a small collapsible pump that we got when we bought the bike. Because you can only get 1/2 to 2/3 the air pressure recommended for the tire with the bity hand pump, we finished the trip, including the ice cream stop, slowly and carefully.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 398
 For the first time in about 4 months Donna and I ventured into Hitchcock Woods. The weather was very cooperative as it was in the low 60s, so we both got to dress in layers to start. We even got turned around once and although Donna likes to say we got lost, I like to think of it just not being sure of where we are at that moment.
OK, I watched Killer Klowns From Outer Space this afternoon, well, 20 minutes of it anyway. Maybe if I was magically transported back to the 80s…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 398
The FRS dropped 2 of 3 over the weekend to the MFY and their lead in the East was then down to just 4–1/2 games. But I was not worried, for the Yankees to tie us at the end of the season they would have to finish 11–2 if the Red Sox just won half of their remaining 12 games.
Tonight the Sox lost to the Blue Jays 7 to 1 and right now the Yankees are beating the Orioles 7 to 2. Looks like after tonight the division lead will be down to just 3–1/2 games, smallest since sometime in May. I’m now worried. Not only that I think I might have jinxed them because I opened my mouth saying how improbable it would be for them to lose the division. Is it 1978 all over again?
Since I revamped the Post Office Gallery, I decided to experiment with a couple of related pieces of software for some other galleries.
Phototime Tuesday is now running something called Postcard Viewer, a free Flash image viewer. The interface is based on the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface. And the Gnorthwest Gnorm gallery is using AutoViewer. It is designed to display a linear sequence of images and captions and has a slide show feature.
Check ‘em out:
Phototime Tuesday
Gnorthwest Gnorm
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 398
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
And if he had a blog it might look something like this:
The Miataman Adventures
Maybe not really imitation, but definitely influenced.
Still not sure about those new galleries, I still like the idea of having some captions which is not really possible with those flash style viewers. I like the stripe background though and I think that maybe it is time for a template change for here incorporating that stripe. Probably take a week or two to find one I like and modify it to fit me. For those of you who really like this theme, I’ll leave it available as an option.
Can you tell that the weather has been perfect for convertibles the last few days? The count hasn’t changed since last Friday morning when the top went down for the trip to work.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 398
I shrugged last month when the Yankees swept the FRS in the Bronx cutting their lead in the East to 4 games. No big deal, with a month and a half to go we were still playing good baseball and the Yankees were red hot and bound to cool off.
The Yankees did cool just a bit and when we started a 3 game series in Boston last week their lead over New York was 5–1/2 games. I was not worried until they only won one of the three and the MFY left town only trailing by 4–1/2. Still, it seemed like we were OK and in command of our own fate.
But maybe being in command is not as easy as it looks. After Monday’s loss to Toronto and NY’s win over Baltimore the lead fell to 3–1/2. Crap.
Last night was the last straw. The Yankees won again. The Sox were winning 2 to 1 and the FRS manager sent in trade deadline acquisition, Eric Gagne. This was troublesome because all Mr. Gag-Me has done since putting on a Red Sox uniform is blow 2 of 2 save opportunities, lost 2 games with an ERA of 9.00 in 15 appearances. Well you guessed it, a walk, a single and a walk to load the bases. He should have been pulled out of the game right then. Nope, he then walked in the tying run. Did he come out now, nope again. The next batter doubles in two runs. I stopped listening to the game, I just couldn’t take it any more.
I started rooting for the FRS at about 8-years old, mildly at first, but the hook was set in 1967 when Yaz had his Triple-Crown year and they made it to the World Series. They lost in seven games. There have been quite a few terrible years with a few notable exceptions, 1975 and 1986 when they made it to the World Series again. Only to lose both in seven games. For about the last decade they have started fast and have lead the Eastern Division before cooling near the All Star break and eventually finishing 2nd or 3rd behind the Yankees. Somehow the cosmos shifted and in 2004 they won World Series for the first time in 86 years. Right after 2004 they returned to their old ways. This year they have lead the East since sometime in April, but it doesn’t look good for them to stay there. Another loss and a Yankees win last night cut the lead to 2–1/2 games. Tonight in the seventh inning of both games the status quo prevails, the Yanks are winning and the FRS are losing.
 I can’t take the mental abuse any more, to the left you can see my divorce petition dissolving my relationship with the Red Sox. I am not listening to tonight’s game, I have washed my hands of them. My blood pressure may even go down a few points. I am now officially not following any team for that matter any sport. I can stop reading a section of the paper. I can drop several channels from the TV. I’m not sure what I’ll do with all the free time yet, maybe needlepoint…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 398
And I don’t mean doing the South Carolina State Dance either. Although, I’m sure there are a few residents of the Palmetto state that might consider this horizontal variation the real official state dance.
Always wanted to try and join the Mile High Club, but were afraid that the flight attendants would report you to the FAA? Or maybe you didn’t think you could manage it such a small space as the lavatories on airliners? If you live near Charleston, SC your worries are over, you can now book a flight on a Cessna Centurion that is especially outfitted for you to join he club.
Club Mile High
I think I’ll just stick to finding a cheap motel and dumping a few quarters into the Magic Fingers machine. Same sound, same vibration, just close your eyes and imagine…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 399
 In July we discovered CarTrek, a public art project of fiberglass cars in Darlington County. We did manage to take few pictures of some of the cars, but we never did make a concerted effort to try and get them all. In August, while taking a Post Office photo in Beaufort, we stumbled on a decorated mermaid which was part of their community art project called Beaufort’s Big Swim, but we never did make it back to take any more mermaid photos.
New month, new art project. We are spending the night in Anderson, SC to do some upstate Post Office hunting this weekend and while researching things to do around town, Donna found a web site promoting, Fish Out of Water. Thirty two 6′ painted and decorated fiberglass large mouth bass. She printed out the page and we headed out, destination downtown Anderson, where most of the fishies were located. We found some that were mis located and we found some that different from what the brochure said should be there. We found the Arts Center on Main St and inside discovered that we had a flyer from the first event back in 2004. Good fortune was smiling on us because they were doing it again in 2007.
We snagged almost all the downtown fish except one, called Fingerprint Fish, that wasn’t any where near the Farmer’s Market as advertised. The woman in the Arts Center thought it was still in storage or something. We couldn’t find a couple that are supposed to be near the Civic Center this evening and may go back and look again. Tonight we headed over to the hospital to get 5 that are there. Tomorrow including PO pictures we will see about two more near a downtown lake and there is one at the SC Welcome Center on I-85 that we will probably get when we go over that way.
The daytime pictures are up on Flickr already, tonight’s and tomorrow’s will get uploaded on Saturday. Fish Out Of Water 2.
If you ever find yourself in downtown Anderson around lunchtime, you can not do better than dining at the Main Street Deli. On Fridays they grill burgers fresh right outside the door. Donna had a cheeseburger and it was great. But it was overshadowed by the absolutely marvelous Broccoli Salad. I had a sandwich called The Benson Street (Pepperoni, Bianco D’Oro Salami, Bologna & Jalapeno Havarti Cheese on Focaccia Bread) that was the best eating I’ve had in quite sometime. For a side I choose the Cole Slaw and while it paled in comparison to the Broccoli Salad, it was the best slaw in the gastronomic universe.
We dodged light rain and sprinkles all day, so the top did a lot changing.
Started up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 409
 The Emperor passed through the 67,000 mile mark not too far from the Oconee Nuclear Station. We stopped in and photographed Gnorm sitting on a concrete block just outside the plant. He really liked the looks of the round water tower that had rings around it so it took on the appearance of an atom. In case you can’t read the words on the yellow tag, it says, Radioactive Material, RWP Required for Entry, Notify RP Prior to Entry, Authorized Entry Only.
We finished up taking pictures of all the fish we could find and ended up missing only two (well, three because we just have a picture of the empty base of one.) All 46 photos can be seen in my Flickr photo set: Fish Out of Water 2.
On the Post Office front, we did 13 this morning and 7 more tonight. May do some more on Sunday morning before heading home (may not either.) So it will take me a while to sort through and post them.
We also brought along my Godson Gnorm and snapped about 10 travel log photos of him that will need to be tweaked and uploaded to Flickr! as well.
Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 413
 I was wrong about the number of Post Offices we did yesterday, we did 16, not 13, in the morning, so with the seven nighttime photos, we did 23 in one day, a new record for us. Though I don’t think we will do too many more nighttime shots. Sometimes you will get a nice picture, but you don’ get a real good sense of what they look like. Plus, these places are hard enough to find in the daytime, what with the usual lack of addresses on buildings and all, making it darn near impossible sometimes once the sun has gone down.
For the first time in quite a few weeks I have no Spenser novel to read. Finished my 26th book last night and I have no others waiting in the wings. I am missing the latest book and the rest are from the first dozen novels. Just this afternoon my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I had no answer, maybe I’ll ask for an Amazon gift certificate and buy some used copies of the earlier books.
I’ve finished up my new theme. Because I left the old theme, ‘Painted Desert’, as an option, most all of you noticed no change. When or if you clean out your cookies, when you come back you will see the new look. If you want to see the new look now, scroll down, look for the Theme Switcher section and click ‘Brian’s Red’. There are a couple others to try if you want. Should you decide you want the old standby, all the themes have a place where you can just pick ‘Painted Desert’ and get back the familiar.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 414
My DVD Burner was delivered by a guy in a brown truck today. Drive went in smooth and XP recognized it for what it is on boot up. I have played a DVD movie and an audio CD. The PC had 2 drives in it to begin with, a DVD player and a CDRW drive. I pulled out the DVD player to put in the new CD & DVD read/writer. Now I’m wondering which one I should keep as the second drive, the DVD player or the CDRW drive?
Because I went cheap, my package didn’t include a free copy of Nero or one of those other big name burning software titles. A quick trip over to Sourceforge and 2.6Megs later I was in business — InfraRecorder. So far I can highly recommend it, but all I’ve done with it is back up all my MP3s to 5 DVD +R discs. Further testing is required.
I pulled the fancy flash gallery/viewers from the the two picture galleries I did last week. I did like the interface, but hated the lack of captioning. I guess I’ll have to get busy and change the galleries to have the same red/maroon color scheme as the new WordPress theme.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 415
They won’t be here in time, but my birthday present is going to be the last eight of my unread Spenser books. They are all used, mostly paperbacks and from 4 different Amazon affiliate vendors. Figured it would be a lot easier to get them this way than to keep poking our noses into used book stores in the cities we visit.
Changed the gallery style to more match my new default theme. I’m on the fence with the new Post Office Gallery, it seems like more work than I want to do. I’ve got 23 new photos to add into 3 different directories and I have manually added the files to three different ext files so they can display 3 different ways. Plus there is that whole no descriptive caption thing, even though I am sometimes at a loss for what to write, when I do, it personalizes the photos. For now all I’ve done is stick the new images into the old gallery (which I may end up going back to.)
Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 418
When I first started dealing with GERD a couple years ago I was prescribed Nexium by he ENT specialist. It was on the non-preferred list of drugs and carried a much higher co-pay ($50 or 25% of cost.) I used it for about three months until my sore throat cleared and then I started using an OTC antacid. Pecid, for maintenance.
This worked good for a while, but the sore throat returned and my GP doctor wrote a prescription for Nexium. After he first month, my insurance administrator company (BCBS of AL) balked, they wanted me to step up to Nexium if this was to be a maintenance drug. I needed to start with a generic or preferred, we went with Protonix off the preferred list for a $25 a month co-pay.
The Protonix has worked out fine for the last year or so. The other day I got a letter in the mail telling me that starting October 1st, Protonix is being bumped to the non-preferred list, meaning a bigger co-pay. Guess what is replacing it on the preferred list? Nexium.
For grins I called my pharmacy to see what these medicines cost. They could only tell me list prices; 40mg Nexium is $180 a month, 40mg Protonix is $150 a month. The generic, omeprazole (AKA Prilosec) in a 20mg dose costs $110 a month and if I needed 40mg that would double to $220. Seems kind of backwards to me, the non-preferred drug is now the cheapest while the generic is he most expensive.
And just is what’s up with the generic, omeprazole, at $110 a month? You can get Prilosec OTC for less than $20 a month at the local drug store.…
I know these costs don’t really accurately reflect he price of these drugs because the discounts negotiated by Blue Cross Blue Shield. The pharmacist told me to call BCBS to find out the real cost, but I didn’t feel like dealing with that today (maybe tomorrow.)
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 420
 I had uploaded last weekend’s Post Office photos to Flickr! and the old gallery, so tonight I uploaded them to the new gallery too. The Flickr! and old galleries have some captioning, 9 of 23 photos, and the Flickr! ones have been geotagged so that they show on my map. Unfortunately the 200 photo limit on the free ride takes away a lot of the map’s impact because as I fill in one spot of the state, another clears out…
It is also almost October and that means Halloween. Time to break out the decorations, including the Vampire teeth for the Emperor.
Started down, wen up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 421
Haven’t talked much about eating out since I stopped keeping track of expenses. And I might not have said anything about tonight either because we didn’t pay. A coworker, who took me out to eat when I first got hired at ASCO, after 18 years, got around to doing it again tonight. He and his wife took Donna and I out to eat at a local B & B that serves dinner only on Friday and Saturday evenings.
When Eddie and his wife Lee moved out of town twenty years ago the 16 acres they bought was way out in the sticks. As Aiken has grown there has been a little bit of developing out that way, but not too much. Within the last five years though, out northeast of town has become a haven for polo players with large chunks of property being broken up into slightly smaller sections for polo farms. With it has come some money and road improvements, why even, Lee and Eddie no longer live on a dirt road.
A few years ago a couple bought a big house across from a polo club and opened a Bed & Breakfast. That B & B is just a stones throw from where Lee and Eddie live, so consequentially they have befriended the Innkeepers and with that have found a place to eat their Friday evening’s dinners, the General Elliott Inn.
I can see why they like to eat here every Friday night. The food was excellent, plentiful and rich, but for that very reason I know Donna and I couldn’t eat there every week. Once every couple months is about our tolerance level for that sort of decadence.
Thanks Eddie. I’ll be looking forward to 2025.
Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
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 This morning the local horse set celebrated the 125th Anniversary of Whitney Field and Polo in Aiken. There was a parade that started from downtown, winding it’s way through the horse district and ending up at Whitney Field for a couple of demonstration chukkas of polo.
Because it was a beautiful fall day in Aiken and Whitney Field is only about a mile and a half from home, Donna and I walked up to see the parade. There were local politicians in shiny cars, polo players on sleek ponies and regal carriages pulled by teams of horses. After the parade we went over to watch the polo action for a while. The players dressed as players would have in the late 1800s with hats instead of helmets and shirts with no numbers. The teams consisted of five members instead of today’s four. Also, the rules were slightly different in that back shots were not allowed then and today’s players had a hard time curbing that instinct.
You can see about a dozen photos from the parade and the polo on my Flickr! site.
Started down, still down.
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 Gnorm went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods with us today (some peektures) It was another beautiful fall day, almost a carbon copy of yesterday; cool, crisp with the very definition of blue sky overhead. It was great to get out and take a hike. Because we got a late (for us) start we had to share the woods with dog walkers, runners (Hi Anne) and horseback riders. We probably saw 10 people! Donna and I took Gnorm down our favorite trail, but it just made him sad because his new girlfriend from yesterday wasn’t with him.
At the end of last week, every time I came home from work the internet connection was down. I would have to reboot the modem, and sometimes the router too, a couple/few of times to get it stable. Yesterday it was fine, but today as I prepared to listen to the FRS’s last game of the season, it just wouldn’t work no matter how many times I rebooted everything. I ended up on the back porch with the laptop and took a ride on the internet on a neighbor’s dime. Someone close by has an unsecured WAP… After on more reboot of everything, including the PC, I now have internet on the desktop. I can connect to my wireless network with the laptop, but I cannot see the desktop nor the internet. Plus I can no longer get the router’s admin panel from the desktop even after resetting the router. Fixing that will be a job for tomorrow after work.
The Emperor got a bath this afternoon and had the royal scary dentures installed. They will add a little spice to some of the October Post Office photos.
Started down, went up, still up.
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We had a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express (guess I should make this an acronym — HIE) for Sunday night because our original plan called for us to drive up on Sunday morning to watch the Professional Road Race Championships that are being held in Greenville. Decided to drive up today and catch a few Post Offices. Ten fell before the shutter. Most interesting: Tigerville.
