Ice, Ice, Baby

Posted on February 3, 2011

The upside (or downside, depending on how you look at it) of being off work due to weather is there is ample time to blog. I finally went into work and got my good camera and took some pictures on the way back.

I wasn’t so crazy to want to traipse all over town to get back home. I took the Clarian shuttle bus from Riley Hospital to Methodist Hospital, which is where I took the photo of these ice covered bushes.

While many vehicles are being used and have been deiced, this Acura/Honda SUV looks like it has been sitting in the same spot since Monday or Tuesday.

An ice-covered parking lot behind the former studio of Fox 59 WXIN. This lot is just needs a Zamboni to turn it into an ice rink.

Ice covered sidewalks are really hazardous. So much so that it is often safer and easier to walk in the street than to use the sidewalks. According to @IndySnowForce (an official Indy government Twitter account):

Did you know: Businesses, homeowners, and those occupying other premises are responsible for clearing sidewalks of snow and ice.

The original tweet is here. It doesn’t mention the penalties, but in Colorado, most cities and towns gave people 24 hours to clear the sidewalks after the start of a storm, or else face a fine. People would also be legally liable if someone slipped and fell because the sidewalks weren’t cleared. Letter carriers with the Post Office also had the right to refuse to deliver mail if they thought it was too hazardous to go to the mailbox.

There are some civic organizations (Boy Scouts, etc) that can help out with snow and ice removal, so there aren’t many excuses for this.

The Benjamin Harrison Home (former US President) is just down the street from my apartment building. Behind the home is a barn that was built a few years ago. The barn is pretty nice, though built with modern materials and code standards. This photo shows the roof of the barn and a nearby tree, both covered in ice. I think the picture would have been nicer without the power lines, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Egypt

Posted on February 3, 2011

Like many people, over the past week or so I’ve been following the events in Egypt via online news sites. It’s strange, because Egypt is so far away and I have no connections there, but it’s fascinating in the same way that watching the August coup attempt in the Soviet Union was fascinating.

As I said, I don’t have any connections over there, so I’ve sort of been ambivalent about it all. The protesters are fighting for democracy – that’s good. I can relate to that. But I also wondered if Hosni Mubarak is really that bad. Yes, he’s been in power for a long time – three decades, but each country has their political traditions, so who am I to judge. He supports Middle East Peace™, mostly plays nice with Israel, and supports the War on Terror™. He’s our guy in Egypt.

The largest opposition group in the Egyptian parliament is the Muslim Brotherhood, who would like to turn Egypt from a secular nation into an Islamic one, like Iran. Bad as Mubarak may be, I wonder what would happen if the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Thinking about that unappealing prospect reminded me of the old saying “Better the Devil you know…”.

After a time, the protests seemed to have produced results. Egypt got its first vice-president in decades and Mubarak said he wouldn’t stand for re-election. However, the elections are scheduled for September and many protesters worry he won’t keep his word. Still, it seems like a good compromise. Is it too much to ask people to step back and wait for the elections?

Then I read this. (Hmph. His site is suspended now, so here’s a mirror of the article on Google Docs. I’ll post a mirror here if it continues to be a problem elsewhere).

For most of the article, (cheekily-named) Sandmonkey explains why they are protesting. They’re fighting for democracy and an end to corruption. It’s not about the Muslim Brotherhood, because they are still a minority and they’re sort of Johnnie-come-latelies to the whole thing. They fear if they leave now, the Mubarak supporters will eventually come for them.

The most powerful paragraph is the last. Sandmonkey wrote:

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

Damn.

The passion with which they are fighting for democracy humbles me. They are my heroes.

Rainy day food

Posted on January 17, 2009

When grocery shopping, I have this concept of “rainy day food”. It’s not a very original idea, but I hadn’t seen anyone describe it as a formal strategy, so I gave the concept a name to make it easier to understand.

Basically, “rainy day food” is non-perishable food like pasta, macaroni and cheese, instant potatoes, etc, that I can make and eat when I’m broke or when the weather is too bad for me to want to trek to the grocery store. I try to keep about a week worth of “rainy day food” in the cabinets, just in case. Since the temperatures have warmed up from the sub-zero temps we had earlier this week, I went to the grocery store today to replenish.

Pasta and canned sauces are good. Not only are the canned sauces cheaper, but they won’t break if you drop them. They ought to keep me going for awhile – at least until payday.

Beware of minivans

Posted on December 9, 2008

Coming into work this morning, I got clipped by a minivan. As a pedestrian, in a crosswalk, with a signal to cross, I assumed they would stop or slow down. It was dark and rainy, so maybe they didn’t see me, or maybe they thought I was walking faster than I was. I knew the van was turning, but they didn’t stop or slow down. By the time I realized this, it was too late – if I stopped they would have hit me square (coincidentally, this was right outside of a hospital ER). I walked faster and just as I was getting out of the way, the corner of their bumper hit the calf of my left leg. Almost, spilled my mocha from Starbucks.

Too bad I didn’t think to get their license plate number, but I wasn’t in pain or injured, so I let it go, while muttering a few choice expletives.

Consolidation

Posted on July 18, 2008

I broke down and got an iPod Touch, apparently forgetting that iPods don’t read .ogg files (shakes fist at Apple, extending middle finger as well). I’ve collected hundreds of CDs over the years, and for the past six or seven years I’ve consistently ripped them as .ogg files, not .mp3′s. This weekend, I plan on re-ripping them as mp3 files so I can put them on the iPod. Since it’s supposed to be 90° F and I need to do laundry, it looks like it will be a good weekend to stay in.

Je suis fatigueé

Posted on February 5, 2008

I am fatigued, though a better translation of the title might be “I am tired.” For me though, I mainly feel fatigued. Last night I went to bed around 6:30 or 7:00 with a little sinus pressure. It’s been rainy here, so that might have something to do with it. I woke up at around 1:30 am to some lady in the alley shouting at somebody. I didn’t hear them, but she was going on for awhile. I couldn’t get back to sleep after that, but I slept well and felt mostly refreshed so I didn’t care too much. I got up, turned on the computer and started surfing.

Since I’ve been awake, I’ve been coughing a fair amount. It’s not a sore throat, but it feels like a little tickle at the back of the throat and drinking coffee and water hasn’t made it go away. Around 6:00 this morning, I headed to work early. Shortly after I got into the office I noticed my whole body felt fatigued and my head felt a little congested. While I’ve felt much more congested, my body felt as if it had been beaten up or as if I’d been working out for a few hours. Still coughing too. I took some extra-strength Tylenol hoping the muscle pain would go away, but it didn’t. I stuck it out until a little after lunch then headed home, where I am now.

My body is tired but my mind is not. And after drinking copious amounts of coffee and water to try to fix the cough, neither is my bladder :-/ I may take a hot bath to see if that helps with the muscle pain. After that, I don’t know.

Review Haiku – Munich

Posted on February 5, 2008

Bitter September
The hand of God is absent
Served with a cold heart

Munich at Rotten Tomatoes
Munich at IMDB
Munich at Amazon

Rating:  

Read more

Dropping

Posted on January 29, 2008

Crazy day today. Work was busy and will be busy tomorrow. It was mostly cloudy and drizzly today, but the temps got into the low 50′s so it wasn’t too bad. In the evening, during class, a thunderstorm rolled through and there was a tornado warning. We finished class about half an hour early during a break in the weather. Good thing too. By the time I got home it was snowing.

To top it off, about an hour after I got back to the apartment, the fire alarm went off. Strange, because we had a fire drill at work yesterday. Anyway, I put on a jacket and shoes, pretty much wearing what I was wearing earlier, but the temps were in the low 30′s and it was very windy. Most people who left the building went to their cars, but since I don’t have one, I just sort of huddled next to a minivan, using it as a windbreak. The drizzle started turning to ice, so the roads will be chaotic tomorrow.

Right now, weather.com report the temperature as 14 degrees F with a wind chill factor of -5 F. The wind is supposed to continue tomorrow, so it will be an interesting trek into work. Luckily, no classes for me tomorrow, though I have a test in French on Thursday.

Karma

Posted on August 20, 2007

Perhaps it was karma.

This weekend, I intended on doing laundry, but the few times I checked the machines in my building were being used, and I didn’t go back and check on them very often. So today, I went to work and on my way back I got caught in the rain. The clothes I was wearing were thoroughly drenched, and I don’t know if I have any clean clothes left.

To make things worse, when I got home and strted my computer, the monitor didn’t come on. I did bring my laptop home from work, which is how I’m typing this. I hooked the monitor up to the laptop and it didn’t work, so I am fairly certain the storms we had today got the better of my monitor, despite it being plugged into a surge protector.

I got a raise at work and had been planning on upgrading my PC, but I planned on keeping the same monitor. I guess the PC will have to wait until I get a new monitor. There are some cheap ones at Staples. There are also some nice, inexpensive laptops at Staples, also. Pricewise, getting a new case, motherboard, CPU, memory, and monitor would be roughly the same as getting a new laptop… at least based on the prices I’ve seen. for the moment, I still have my nice old P3 IBM laptop. I will also be getting a brand-new laptop from work soon, but it will be running Vista, and I plan to use it almost exclusively for work.

Hot and cold

Posted on August 8, 2007

Normally, I like my apartment around 68 – 70 degrees. At night when I go to bed, I drop the thermostat down to about 68 because I sleep better when the place is cool. When I go to work, I turn off the AC to save some money and energy. Most of the Midwest has been going through a heatwave lately and temps in Indy have been in the mid to high 90′s, but with the humidity it feels hotter. Since the AC is turned off when I’m at work, it’s natural that the place gets warmer. I don’t know if it’s because of the heat, but I know it’s bad out when I enter my apartment and feel cooled off by an apartment that’s about 78 degrees.

Since I don’t have a car, I’m kind of ambivalent about the weather. I take it as it is. Reading weather.com helps me prepare myself mentally for what to expect. Coming home today was kind of nice because it rained for a while. If you are in a high heat/high humidity situation, a nice rain can feel refreshing.

On the other hand, I’m thinking about starting to ride a bike to work. I’ve actually got two bicycles that I haven’t ridden for a year or two. Indy isn’t a very bicycle friendly city. Also, both bikes need tune-ups and there’s the question of where to lock up the bike at work. The former I can probably deal with for a while and I think I’ve figured out the latter. The tough part will be when it rains or snows, but I can deal with that too. By bicycling, I will spend less time out in the weather, whatever it is. These days, spending less time in the heat sounds like a great idea.

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