Timmerov's Blog
some stats
okay, imagine a stranger standing on a railroad track. a train is coming. you're the only one that can save him. if you try, you will be seriously injured. you'll be out of action for months. and there's a small chance you'll die: 0.01%. further complicating things, there's a 30% chance he'll die regardless of what you do. the obvious question is, do you save him? but i'm not interested in that question. suppose i choose not to save him. am i a criminal because i wasn't a hero? okay, imagine a fetus in a womb...
power
i bought a power converter thingy for in the car. it can also be used on an airplane. we used it on the drive to and from san diego. it plugs into the power thingy in the car where the cigarette lighter used to be. the laptop charger then plugs into it. the boys watched a scooby doo video. we could have also plugged the cell phone charger into it. i suppose in case of emergency we can use the car as a generator. woot! it was worth every penny of the $50 i paid for it.
vacation blogs
going on vacation sure is good for blog topics. i was getting tired of posting on the same old things.
parking
there were plenty of places to park in san diego. sorta. i don't have a big car. but it didn't fit in any parking space. even legoland where there were acres of empty space devoted to parking. every time we stopped i'd say to the boys, please don't bang your cardoor into the car next to us. sometimes it even worked.
training
my friend shoo's dog has his people very well trained. all socks on feet belong to him. the people either wear shoes or go barefoot. otherwise they get their feet chewed on.
pam
i always thought my friend shoo's wife should start a line of hair care products. then she'd be pam shoemaker the shampoo maker.
shoo's
we dropped in on shoo again. this time we called first. last time we got directions from an unnamed co-conspirator (robert). and just showed up. shoo stopped at a strip joint on his way home. so we were embarassingly early. it took a while to convince his wife pam to let us in. then we took them out for dinner. they chose vietnamese. the bill was about $4. anywho, was good to see old friends again.
tommy's
another trip to los angeles and another missed opportunity for a tommy's run. ah well. maybe sometime. we went around la on the way home. so we didn't stop then either. ah well.
griffith park
we stopped at griffith park on the way to san diego. we rode the train and went for a little hike. coming down was exciting. a nice man with a pretty dog suggested we take this tiny goat trail that goes directly to the parking lot. it was fun. the boys aren't so keen on hiking. but they toughed it out without too much complaining. and the rapid descent through the weeds entertained them.
day off
alisa and the boys went to the science museum. grandpa wanted to go. my car only comfortably holds 4 people. so i volunteered to stay at uncle joey's and /work/. it took nearly two hours to download and install ddo. i earned an action point before the father-in-law's girlfriend's grandsons kicked me off the pc. now i blog. therefore i am.
legoland
we finally made it to legoland on wednesday. bennett soaked me on the aquazone ride. no one would go on the knight's tournament ride with me. two seat, slow moving ride that spun you around upside down and stuff. most people rode it barefoot. probably smart. it's better than having you shoes fly off and land in the pond. the best part of legoland was miniland. alisa and i discussed where we could put all the lego sculptures we wanted to build.
beach
we went to the beach on tuesday. it was cold. i got sunburned. the boys dug a hole. a man brought a shovel to the beach and dug a bigger hole. the boys took it over. the highlight was when the dump truck got stuck. a sand grater came along and pushed it free.
seaworld
one lucky family got to meet the dolphins. mom's task was to hold the rope. she tripped and did a total face plant into the side of the tank. then the dolphin popped out of the water and startled her. it was pretty funny. the trainer held both the little girl's hands. just in case she walked anything like mommy.
what parents say
parents say the darndest things. garrett bit bennett's hair. why? don't know. don't care. bennett of course yelled, stop biting my hair. which made me say, garrett stop biting bennett's hair. garrett said, i was getting the juice out. i said, garrett leave the juice in bennett's hair. parents say the darndest things.
gas
what happens to fart gas if you don't pass it? it's not saved for later. apparently it gets absorbed by the body. and presumably it's outgassed through the skin. is the smelly part outgassed too? or just the methane? curious minds want to know. especially bored curious minds that have driven 1200 miles.
comfort inn
alisa booked us at the comfort inn in san diego. she got a kid suite. they had a bunk bed in their own little room. it was way way better than the holiday inn. and cheaper too. alisa wins.
holiday inn
i booked online a holiday inn express for the first night of our vacation. i requested 2 adults and 2 children. the computer suggested a standard room. i couldn't get it to tell me what exactly was a standard room. i assumed it had two queen sized beds. wrong. one king size bed. bennett slept in a rolly bed. alisa and i had the king. and garrett insisted on sleeping in the chair and using a towel for a blanket. kids. i swear i have no idea where he gets it.
boof boof boof
my favorite character in ddo just bought a +3 repeating heavy crossbow. apparently, i've been talking too much about my characters at home. garrett and i were walking home from school and i randomly said, boof boof boof. ie the sound a repeating crossbow makes when you fire it. and garrett responded correctly, crank crank crank. which is what you do to reload the thing.
comments
readers may have noticed that comments are disabled on my blog. long ago i had comments enabled. they quickly got filled with spam by bots. and were thusly rendered useless. that was a long time ago. blogger has probably addressed that issue by now. but the real reason is i don't care what your comments are. either they are positive like telling me amen brother. which makes blogging feel like public masterbation. trust me. my ego doesn't need any stoking. or they're negative comments. to which i'll be obligated to reply and brutally let you know why you're being a pumpkinhead. so it's probably just better to leave comments disabled. ;->
honey
so i was playing ddo with voice chat with some girl who was bored. garrett climbed into my lap and said, there are bad guys there. and i said (into the microphone) there are bad guys there, honey. the other player was like uh... then after the fight i explained my comments. i consider her to be my friend but i certainly don't know her well enough to be calling her honey.
bio break
in ddo, a bio break is a potty run. happens to us old geezers every can of soda. i was playing one evening when alisa made the secret noise and gave me /that look/. i wasn't about to tell the dorks on the chat line that my wife was feeling amorous. so i said i needed a bio break. yeah, that's it. back in a couple of hours. so now when someone says they need a bio break i get the giggles.
legoland
we're heading to legoland next week. it'll be great fun. if it stops raining. before we go we have many things to do. last night we packed up all the food in the pantry into boxes. we'll store the boxes in the neighbor's garage until we get back. we do this every time we leave town. just kidding. one reason for this trip is the house needs to be tented for termites. we have to go somewhere. might as well be somewhere fun. and the food has to either leave the house or be stored in special double bags provided by the poison gas company.
marriage tax
the marriage tax is the difference between what alisa and i pay filing jointly and what we'd pay filing as individuals. so far the total is over $65,000. ouch. homosexual couples don't have to pay this tax. couples living in sin don't have to pay this tax. it's pretty stupid to tout family values on the one hand and then on the other hand to impose this extra tax burden on us.
warrants
the president can monitor communications that happen completely outside this country all he wants. no warrant necessary. we're pretty happy with that. but to wiretap a communication that happens completely within this country we really want to see a warrant. i think we'd be pretty unhappy to find out that politicians are listening to our conversations with our lawyers and doctors. that leaves communications that cross into or out of the united states. we'd like some protection for those. but not as much as for the pure domestic case. that's what fisa warrants are for. fisa is a secret court that all but rubber stamps secret warrants. at least it did until this administration. one has to wonder what communications bush wanted to monitor that fisa denied. apparently now he's monitoring them without fisa's approval. is he monitoring political enemies like nixon? if so the fucker should be incarcerated. perhaps he's just monitoring foreign nationals inside the us communicating within the us. that's okay with me. but the law needs to be updated instead of ignored.
taxes
as we're finishing up taxes for this year, i noticed something unusual. our tax liability is less than my salary. that hasn't happened very often in my 13 years of marriage. might even be a first.
