Year: 2003

Was I The First To Run It?

At the end of our street in this subdivision there is a stop sign. The road you come to, Two Notch Road, is a through street. It is 1/4 mile away and parallel to a big thoroughfare so sometime we get a lot of traffic traveling on this cross street. And because it is considered a “shortcut” when the bigger road gets busy, speed limits don’t apply, it is posted at 30 mph, but please don’t let that slow you down. In the past 2 years 2 motorcyclists have been killed right near our intersection (1 t-boned a car turning left in front of him and the other just lost control) because they were traveling at a high rate of speed. For the past 10 days or so we have had one of those radar things the cops use that flashes your speed at you on Two Notch near our intersection. We use that road to go to and from work every day so it has been fun to see how accurate it thinks my speedometer is.

Today on the way home the radar thingie was reading the usual 34 (I routinely travel at +5 and the Miata’s speedo was right on 35,) but right before it was a sign proclaiming “One Lane Road Ahead.” As I approached the intersection I noticed to the right a SCDOT truck and there were broad white stripes in my lane and another on the other side of the intersection in the other lane. As I made the left into the subdivision my wife and I speculated on what was coming, a light? Or a 4 Way Stop?

Forty-five minutes later as I went for my evening rollerblade I purposely went in that direction to check out the intersection. As I rolled up I noticed under the usual stop sign there was a little addition that said “4 Way.” Sure enough there were stop signs up on Two Notch Road. That didn’t take long to put those up. Or did it? With the new sign, new stripes and the Department of Transportation truck to distract me at a very familiar intersection, were they already up and I missed them? Was I the first to these new stop signs?

Burning Precious Petrochemicals Wantonly

It was another beautiful day today. At our 10:00 PM walk around the parking lot, we decided to go for a drive at lunch. So we ate our lunches at our respective desks at 11:30 so at noon promptly, we walked out to the car and after removing the cockpit cover just drove around the back roads of Aiken County for 40 minutes burning precious petrochemicals wantonly.

Purchased Today: still nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $81.38
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 54

NASCAR Pizza

I’m not a fan of NASCAR, I believe until proven otherwise that NASCAR is to auto racing what the WWF is to wrestling. I’m not a fan Domino’s Pizza either preferring Papa John’s when I’m just to lazy to travel the 3 miles to a local pizzeria. But the two of them make a fine commercial, I just love the way the “pit crew” hop over the couch to “set” the table, nicely done folks.

I found a place where somebody hates this commercial, it is amazingly enough on a forum entitled, “Commercials I Hate.”

Weekend Warrior Legs

Back to work after a great weekend. It is not all bad, for one I needed to rest my achy weekend warrior leg muscles after the hike on Saturday and biking on Sunday. And two, it is a short week because we get Friday off because it is “Good Friday” so it is already Tuesday.

Purchased Today: zippo
Money spent since 03/03/03: $81.38
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 54

Men Are Such Beasts

Today we got all 4 of the Netflix movies in the mail due to the weekend before last’s movie marathon. So tonight we watched one of them, Playing Mona Lisa. Funny movie but the main attraction for me was watching Alicia Witt.

What is it about us men that makes us terrible that way? I am sitting on the couch enjoying a movie with the one I love, but I am thinking about being with Alicia. If you know the answer let me know.

Boy Was My Butt Sore

Good news is that today was as nice a day as yesterday, bad news is that the pine pollen is not finished. Man the car looks spiffy as heck with it’s new wax job, but there is a small layer of yellow dust all over it. Didn’t get the interior done because my wife talked me into going for a bicycle ride. First time I’ve been on a bike since sometime last fall and after 20 miles, boy was my butt sore. Doesn’t feel too bad now, but I’m sure if I went back out and sat on the seat again the agony would return full force.

On a whim we decided to replace the area rug in the dining room. Off we went to our favorite rug store, Lowes. We have hard wood floors and they really need refinishing, but we just cover them up with cheap $100 8 x 10 rugs. All the others are just plain tan/beige things, but this time we went with a pattern that has most of all the colors in the wallpaper and curtains. Fortunately today was sunny so we could get this rolled up rug home in the family pick-up truck, the Miata. On the way home we had to stop in a mini-mart for a quick item. Donna ran in and left me in the car guarding the rug (like anyone would steal a 9′ long, 12″ diameter roll.) While lolling around waiting I noticed the tag on the rug, underneath the plastic wrapper, it said, “Contents: 100% undetermined fibers.” Soda bottles? Tires? Mattress stuffing? Barbershop floor clippings? I think I’ll keep my socks on.

Purchased Today: zero
Money spent since 03/03/03: $81.38
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 54

Zone Alarm

Though I was going to have to reformat the PC this evening. I rebooted and when it came back up everything was really slow and whenever I tried to open an explorer window or the control panel, nothing would happen, then it would lock up. Rebooted in safe mode and even that seemed to take forever. When it finally did come up I copied all my files to the 2nd hard drive incase something bad was happening. I exported the run tree of the registry and then deleted all the keys pertaining to programs. I cleaned out the start up folder and rebooted regular. Tried to open an explorer window and it was still crapola. I then realized that Zone Alarm was running. It must have been started somewhere that I missed. As soon as I shut it down the explorer window popped up. I got on the net unprotected and went to TrendMicro and ran their free online virus scan just to be sure it wasn’t something besides ZoneAlarm. They gave me a clean bill of health. Next I uninstalled ZA and then reinstalled it. Same thing. So I uninstalled it again and pruned the registry of anything with Zone Alarm or Zone Labs in it. Downloaded and installed Sygate Personal Firewall.