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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Wigwam Falls Light Clarks Hill - 29821 Richburg - 29729

Miles Per Gallon

Fuelly Fuelly

Carpet Of Ferns

Carpet of Ferns

After break­fast at the usual place we went for a walk in Hitch­cock Woods. A nice lit­tle 3–1/2 mile trek and we had the woods prac­ti­cally to our­selves, only see­ing a group of three peo­ple walk­ing one trail over and a woman walk­ing what looked like a dozen leash less dogs, some of whom trot­ted over to give us a closer look. When Donna asked her how many dogs she had with her, she replied, “Too many.”

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1220

A Walk in the Woods

Memorial Gate

For the first time in quite a while we went for a walk in Hitch­cock Woods. From slightly chilly at the start to just right at the fin­ish, it was a great day for one. For the drive home we even got to drop the top on the Emperor. It was a busy day in the woods too, we saw 5 folks on horse­back, 3 fox squir­rels, 2 peo­ple enter­ing as we were exit­ing and 1 lone jogger.

Fri­day we ordered the cab­i­nets and counter top. Yes­ter­day we bought a pen­dant light for over the sink, the white sub­way back splash tiles and picked up our online ordered faucet. Today we meet with the con­trac­tor and set a date, he starts demol­ish­ing our kitchen on Feb­ru­ary 4th. I also wrote him a deposit check of 30% of his fee and it took two tries. I ran out of room the first time when the fig­ure was X thou­sand, X hun­dred, X tens, X ones point XX cents, so we rounded up to X thou­sand & X hun­dred dollars.

This evening we spent our $200 microwave allowance on a really cool retro look­ing microwave, a 4 slice toaster and a new elec­tric teapot.

The only thing left for us to buy for the project now is the under cab­i­net lights and it is turn­ing out to be harder than I thought. The lit­tle puck lights I first picked out were going to be like $80 for both sets. The con­trac­tor poo-poo’d them as they were more home­owner DIY and not really set up to be hard­wired in like he planned. So I started hunt­ing the web for some­thing more appro­pri­ate and mostly found stuff the pushed the $400 mark for our set up. Gotta find a sweet spot some­where in between those two.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1192

Poke Berry Field

We went for a walk in Hitch­cock Woods this morn­ing to take advan­tage of the slightly cooler tem­per­a­tures. We did a lit­tle 2.9 mile loop* and we passed through a spot I’m not so sure we have been before, Poke Berry Field. If we have vis­ited this spot before it was so long ago that I have for­got­ten it. The berries must be about to get ripe as some­one has parked a pur­pose built Poke Berry Trailer here in the field in prepa­ra­tion for their harvesting.

*I say lit­tle, because when we got home my wife felt she hadn’t walked enough, so she went back out and did her 3 mile loop on the dirt roads of the horse district…

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1143

Chalk Cliffs

Memorial Gate

Colorful Walk

We went for a 4–1/2 mile walk in Hitch­cock Woods this morn­ing. And like last week­end at the Gap, the trees are past peak color, but there are plenty of spots that still look pretty darn good.

We drove the Sonata to DD for break­fast, the Miata to Fire­house Subs for lunch and if we had thought about before now, we could have rid­den the tan­dem some­where for din­ner, instead we will dine at home.

The Pur­ple Whales started the day pre­dicted to get 125 points and were a 35 point favorite. Dur­ing the first 3–1/2 hours of NFL foot­ball this after­noon the 125 fell 45 points to just 80. For­tu­nately for me, my opponent’s 90 fell to his now pre­dicted 60.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1092

The Trail With No Name

The trail this photo was taken on goes from the Mange to Rab­bit Val­ley cross­ing sev­eral major thor­ough­fares in the woods, includ­ing Pio­neer Trail, yet it has no des­ig­na­tion of its own. I like to call it the Clint East­wood Trail.

We did in fact go find the new cache in Hitch­cock Woods this morn­ing, but we didn’t just park, walk to, find and leave of course, we took the long way. The tem­per­a­ture was in the mid­dle 70s, but the humid­ity felt higher and by the time we were done with our 3–3/4 mile walk my T-shirt looked like I had been run­ning from the “Oth­ers” along with Jack, Kate and Hur­ley. It was a very nice walk and I think we saw or heard more wood­peck­ers eat­ing break­fast than we saw humans.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1056