A Real Homeowner

I've had my house for more than a year now, and there's still a place in it I've never seen.

The attic.

Wrong word.  Actually, it's the "crawl space."

Yesterday morning, the heater repair guy came.  He fixed my busted heater, cleaned out the ducts, all that business.

Last night, my alarm started showing a "No AC" signal.  This morning, I called the alarm company.  I mentioned, casually, that I had no idea where the damn thing even plugged in.  So the nice man looked it up and said, "Says here that the transformer is in the attic."

Well, shit.

Looks like I've gotta get the ladder.

Update:  Got tallest ladder I've got.  Stood on top step.  Removed panel.  Put head in crawl-space.  Scanned around with flashlight.  Saw what may have been the outlet, but did not see a plug in it (nor could I see it nearby).  Need to jump in there and poke around.

Problem:  When I stand on my tippy-toes on the top step, the crawl space entrance is about shoulder height.  I put my arms inside for leverage and tried to pull myself up.  Did not work.  Also, other problem:  Not sure if I'd be able to get back down the same way.

Called Handyman. 

Oops

My, this is embarrassing.

I'm getting all ready to go on my next vacation -- part of this process includes charging up the battery for my camera and checking the memory card and ...

OK, remember last summer?  When I went on that totally amazing trip (which I blogged, apparently starting with when I had to buy a new watch at LAX -- it got way better, honestly) which involved a cruise from Athens to Istanbul?

Yeah, I apparently forgot to upload the photos.  Had I done this within, y'know, a month of actually returning, I would have remembered where every photo was taken, whatever silly stories went with it, and (in some cases) why the heck I took a picture of that.  It's a mystery to me now.  I suppose, if I had a day or two, I could cross-reference against the blog posts and figure out the great bulk of it, but I don't have that kind of time.

So, with that apologetic introduction out of the way, here are some of the more notable of the 390 photos I just took off my memory card...

Here's the stadium at Delphi... I have a vague memory of hiking up a very great distance to get to it.

I am particularly proud of this next set ... although it requires a bit of imagination to see it. First is a metope from the Parthenon.  They have it on display at the British museum.  Beneath it is the place on the actual Parthenon where it came from.  You can totally see the outline of where the centaur goes.

Just a few random shots of things in Greece and Turkey

 

 

And some stuff from Istanbul ... at the Blue Mosque and the Harem at Topkapi Palace.  I shot a lot of surface decor here, because it was just so freakin' ornate.

... Yeah.  I should probably be a little more prompt about the uploading from Ireland.  Looks like I should add my card-reader to my packing list.

Explain This

I ordered some stuff from eBags.  Some of it shipped by UPS Ground, and some of it shipped by FedEx Ground.

The UPS Ground item appeared at my door today in a great big box.  

The FedEx Ground items were not delivered -- I instead got a door tag and a request for signature.

The undelivered FedEx Ground items were smaller and cheaper than the UPS Ground item left waiting at my door.

WTF?

It's a Good Thing and a Bad Thing

Sometimes, I'm a little late to the party.

Recently "discovered" Pandora -- it's a website where, if you give it the name of a song or an artist, it'll put together a "station" based on music that's similar to that.  (It won't play the "All U2" station if you ask for U2 -- it'll play a few stray U2 songs and a bunch of other artists it thinks are similar.)  And you can continue to customize your stations, by voting thumbs-up or thumbs-down on each song that it plays.  You'll end up with a station that's very you.

I actually had to try four times before I got a station for which I vote "yes" on nearly everything it plays -- a station that threatens to makes my mp3 player obsolete, because it plays damn near exactly what I want to listen to (and is even reminding me of stuff I should download).

The good news is that I now have such a station -- it plays music that I already know and like, and it's all the perky stuff that I want to listen to in order to keep going when I'm slogging through something difficult at work.  It sometimes astonishes me that it will play two songs in a row that I would think have absolutely nothing in common except that I happen to dig them both.  (Like, "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel right after "Vacation" by the Go-Go's.)  

The bad news is that I actually generated the station when I wanted to give Pandora a challenge and asked it for songs similar to "I Will Survive."

One Last Time

Looks like I'm going to have to explain this again (not that anyone who needs to read this is reading, but, at this point, it's just cathartic to get it out).

This the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Pay attention to the first five words for a minute here.

"Congress shall make no law...."

Now, for reasons that I don't need to get into right now, this amendment has been interpreted as also applying to the States.  So what we're actually saying is:

"Congress [and each State] shall make no law...."

Think about this every time some dickhead says, "You're abridging my freedom of speech!" or "I have a First Amendment right to say this!"

Because the First Amendment protects your rights to speech (and religion, and assembly, and petition) against government action -- not against people shouting you down.

Example:  Dr. Laura gets a bunch of bad press after using the "N-word" on the air.  People say she should lose her job; threats of boycotts; whatever.  She then quits radio, saying, "The reason is, I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what is on my mind."  Sarah Palin followed up on this with her tweet, "Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence'isn't American,not fair')."

I will set aside the fact that a woman who was a major party candidate for Vice President of the United States (and likely wants to make a run at the POTUS office) doesn't understand what the First Amendment is, and just point out where she and Dr. Laura both got it wrong.

Did Congress pass a law saying, "You can't say the N-word on the radio?"  Did the FCC try to impose a fine on her station because she said it?  Did a State she was in try to throw her in jail?

No, no, and no.

Conclusion:  Nobody messed with her First Amendment rights.  She said something a lot of people didn't like.  Those people voted with their voices, and perhaps threatened to vote with their wallets, letting Dr. Laura's sponsors know that they don't want a person spouting that sort of talk on the radio.  Result:  She's no longer on the radio.

That's exactly the way it's supposed to work, people.  Dr. Laura has a constitutional right to say whatever the hell she wants -- and not one federal or state authority tried to tell her otherwise.  She can keep on saying it.  But, she has no constitutional right to keep her radio show, and nobody is messing with her constitutional rights merely by threatening to boycott her advertisers if they don't cut her loose.  

With me?  Now take a look at the idiot Pastor Terry Jones who is planning "International Burn a Koran Day."  He says it's speech and he has a right to do it.

It is, and he probably does (there are some issues about complying with local fire ordinances, but that's not my point).  No State (or Federal) government is saying that (as long as he complies with reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions) he CAN'T do it.

Instead, what everyone is saying is that he SHOULDN'T.

In the case of Pastor Jones, they're trying to persuade him that doing it can endanger our troops and our interests abroad -- any video of Americans burning Korans will be an Al-Qaeda Recruitment Film.  Not to mention that it's just plain insulting to the zillions of moderate Muslims out there who, Pastor Jones admits, are not the target of his outrage.  

So, yes, Pastor Jones, you have a constitutional right to do this.  But that's just the start of the debate about whether you should, not the end of it.

Which is really my point here.  I'm sick of hearing people say, in response to critics, "I have a First Amendment right to do this," as though that should immediately shut the critics down.  It doesn't.  In fact, the critics have an equally strong First Amendment right to tell you to shut the fuck up -- not because you're violating state or federal law, but because you're doing something really stupid, with which they disagree.

Things That Are Just Wrong

Driving to work, I passed a "Colbert for Congress" lawn sign.

I thought it was a joke.

Apparently, my local Tea Party candidate is named Colbert.

(This is so wrong.)

Query

Best way to keep track of your account balance when you pay bills online?

Or, putting it another way, it's starting to feel pretty silly balancing my checkbook.  OK, there is the occasional check, but most of the money out (and all of the money in) goes electronically now.  It made sense to write those random debits and credits in the checkbook when writing checks was still the main way of doing business, but now it seems downright awkward.

Example:  today I noticed the balance in my checkbook didn't match the account balance online.  And I checked them against each other and realized I'd forgotten to record a handful of online payments I'd made last month.  Now, did I go back into my files for each payee verify the amount?  No, I just took the numbers off the screen and copied them into my check register.  And I thought, "You know, if I trust the screen enough to take these numbers off of it, why aren't I just trusting the screen on the whole?"

So, what do you folks do?  Just go with the online account balance, and keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't do anything wacky?  Print out a copy of every payment made and keep it in a great big notebook?  Something else?  I want to keep track, but the old school method of writing everything in the check register seems hopelessly outdated.