mundell.org » Misc

Stop the nonsense

Carrick — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:05:22 +0000

OK? Now everybody back to business.

A few things

Carrick — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:25:36 +0000

Think I saw a Cooper’s Hawk in the backyard yesterday afternoon. Could have been a light colored juvenile Red-tailed. Whatever it was, I hope it found a mouse to eat.
It’s supposed to be a wet and cold winter. Time to invest in GORE-TEX® and wool futures, if there is such a thing.
What should I think when my wife brings home a bottle of “Mad Housewife” chardonnay? (Note: it wasn’t half bad.)

Goodness

Carrick — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 02:42:15 +0000

There’s nothing quite so nice as delicious food eaten outdoors with good drinks, good company, and well-behaved children.

Them!

Carrick — Sun, 29 May 2005 18:57:57 +0000

Bugs I have known elsewhere but never seen in Seattle:

cockroaches
beetles the size of your big toe
winged ants
fireflies (a.k.a lightening bugs)
crickets

Seattle is just not a very buggy place. Even the bees and mosquitoes seem laid-back. Something we do have a lot of are spiders. Though technically not bugs, they are rather creepy, but we like our spiders for several reasons:

they eat bugs, lots of bugs
they are shy
they don’t fly up your nose or sting the soles of your feet
they make pretty webs
they save pigs from slaughter (see: Charlotte’s Web)

Clean shaven

Carrick — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 04:28:20 +0000

I’ve had a beard since the spring of 1994. That’s a long long time. Lately, I’ve been curious to see what my face really looks like, you know, under all that hair.

I remember the first time my dad shaved off his beard. I was around seven years old. He didn’t tell anyone he was going to do it. When I saw him walk downstairs afterward, I didn’t recognize him and thought he was a strange man in our house. I think I screamed. I’d never seen him without his beard before that.

Now that I have kids, I think that they should watch me shave it off so they aren’t tramautized by the sight of my wiskerless face, that is, if I do decide to do it.

(See more progress on “Shave off my beard”…)

Bald eagle

Carrick — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 17:39:09 +0000

Around 7:00 PM yesterday, while playing with the girls in the backyard, we spotted a bald eagle reconnoitering the neighborhood. A half dozen crows swarmed it in apparent defense of their territory, nests, and offspring. What a sight. What a racket.

Meteor or other over Seattle?

Carrick — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 16:41:08 +0000

Last night we were awoken by a low rumbling sound and the shaking of our bedroom doors. At first I thought it was an earthquake but the bed didn’t move nor anything else but the doors. It was rather freaky. News reports this morning indicate it may have been a meteor but there are scant details at this point. Did the meteor actually crash into the surface or explode in the atmosphere? Was it a meteor at all? Flashes of light in the sky were reported seen all over Western Washington, parts of Oregon, and British Columbia.

LibraryLookup

Carrick — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:02:40 +0000

Ok, I’m obviously a bit behind the times, but Jon Udell’s LibraryLookup bookmarklet is a marvel.

After you’ve “installed” your bookmarklet in this way, you can look up books at your local library. Let’s say you’re on a book-related site (Amazon, BN, isbn.nu, All Consuming, possibly others), and a book’s info page is your current page. (Specifically: its URL contains an ISBN. Choose a hardcover edition for best results — see tips below.) You can click your bookmarklet to check if the book is available in your local library. The bookmarklet will invoke your library’s lookup service, feed it the ISBN, and pop up a new window with the result.

Many pre-built bookmarklets are ready to copy and use, including one for the Seattle Public Library. I was able to easily construct my own for searching the King County Library System. Drag this KCLS link to your personal toolbar and try it.

Update: I neglected to provide the bookmarklet for Seattle Public Library. Here it is. Just drag and drop the link to your toolbar.

Three is too many

Carrick — Sat, 28 Feb 2004 21:32:32 +0000

There are many examples in life where one is too few, two is just right, and three is too many. I can confirm this is true when it comes to pints of Mirror Pond ale consumed late on a Friday evening. Today I am paying the price of forgetfulness.

The four o’clock Friday rule

Carrick — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 21:24:54 +0000

I have developed a rule, a very important rule, that helps maintain my sanity. I call it the “four o’clock Friday” rule. It’s very simple. The rule is that I do not answer my telephone at the office after four o’clock on Friday. It’s never good news. Like a call in the middle of the night is always regarding someone who has died or else a wrong number. I always pay close attention to the caller ID info on my office and mobile phones and do occassionally, okay, often choose not to answer based on that info. My office phone caller ID is fickle and cannot be trusted, therefore, I simply do not answer that phone after four on Friday. And I’m thinking of upping it to three o’clock.