Timmerov's Blog
work
work is currently in a rather sucky phase. fortunately, these don't last long. one way or another. ;->
fuel cells
fuel cells kinda suck. well, they're great if you want to make electricity. however electricity kinda sucks if you want to move stuff. like say a car. bmw's hydrogen powered car just burns the stuff. and it goes like hell. as one would expect from a bmw. current fuel cells generally require exotic materials like platinum or paladium. which they consume. there just isn't enough of that stuff on earth to feasibly put fuel cells in our autos. sorry. next idea.
diets
i hate dieting. but i hate gaining weight even more. the diet most effective for me is this one: eat anything you want, as much as you want, as long as it takes longer to prepare than it does to consume. it basically cuts out the high calorie low nutrition snack foods. and if you time it right you can make food prep a social thing. it counts as quality time with your sweetie and/or kids.
alo3
hydrogen would make a great fuel. the problem of course is storing it safely. as a gas it's not very dense. if you fill your trunk with hydrogen you can drive about as far as you can on half a tank of gasoline. kinda sucky. liquid hydrocarbons contain lots of easily releasable hydrogen in liquid form. unfortunately that doesn't solve the fundamental problem. interestingly enough, water also holds lots of hydrogen in liquid form. and it's perfectly safe. the problem of course is how to release it. one wacky proposal is to burn a metal like aluminum or sodium using water as the oxidizer. you end up with aluminum oxide and hydrogen. and heat. feed the hydrogen into your engine. mix it with air. and off you go. no emissions other than steam. you end up with rusty fuel pellets in your tank. which you exchange at the fuel station for fresh ones. in theory the spent ones can be recycled. neato. it still weighs twice as much as gasoline. but it's a lot smaller than compressed hydrogen gas tanks.
climate warming
i came a across a funny thing the other day. is global warming caused by human activity? yes absolutely. why am i so sure? heh. well, by definition. climate change is caused by lots of natural processes. like solar variation, volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate movement, ocean currents, etc. global warming is /by definition/ caused by human activity. like changing forests to farms and burning stuff.
basic physics
some people like to question basic physics. like whether you can build an anti-gravity device. or whether coating a thing in co2 will increase its temperature. or evolution. should you even engage them in debate? sure seems like a waste of time. some do it cause bucking the mainstream makes them feel important. or it sells tabloids. or gets people to reading and posting on your blog. some just do it cause they're too stupid to think for themselves and are only capable of regurgitating whatever drivel their idol vomits. but i suppose it's worse to leave ignorance unopposed. heh. how does your wife look in a burqa?
little league
when i was a kid every parent wanted to get their kid on the phillies. the coach was great. he'd been a little league coach forever. he had a ball field on his property. i got on his team by dumb luck. and he made me a better ball player. i don't think i was ever what you'd call a good ball player. as i got older he started coaching older kids. he was pretty much the only baseball coach i ever had. it was almost as if he wanted to see one of my teammates play in the majors. heh. it sure wasn't me. one year i came home from college and asked about him. he had passed away. heart attack. i wonder if he followed us our entire lives because he knew we'd be the last group of kids he'd ever coach.
merge lanes
in michigan when they close a lane they put up signs for miles to form one lane. they don't put up cones that slowly take away a lane. they put up signs that say do not pass. or $250 fine for passing. one lane is empty. the other is stopped. you can use the empty lane. you just have to stop. it doesn't make any sense. and it doesn't get people through the construction zone any faster. it's just dumbness.
status
i don't like going to luxury places. like disneyland. and plush hotels on the beach. the people that do like to go there think they're better than i am. and they show it in little ways. like teenie bopper girls walking three abreast down the sidewalk and knowing that the peons will jump out of the way for them. i hate that. it's incredibly rude. course so is knocking them down. but man. it would be so satisfying. BOOM! oh i'm sorry. did you think this sidewalk belonged to you?
games
baseball is a head game more than a physical game. yeah sure skills are absolutely necessary. but you also need to psyche out the other guys. baseball is my third sport. my first sport is wrestling. wrestling goes deep to the core of my very being. i was reminded of that today. the opposing farm league coach pissed me off with his made up rules. in wrestling pissing off the other guy is dumb. real dumb. incredibly fucking stupid actually. sheehs.
signs
the other day i was driving along. and i happened to glance over and i saw a speed limit sign. it was completely concealed behind another sign. a street sign. seemed kinda dumb.
passport woes
a friend of ours came to the u.s. on a student visa. he went to a bar with some friends. and he used his british passport as id. the bouncer said, sorry this is expired. uh oh. the bouncer continued with, i have to keep it. oh shit?!?! a few fast talking moments later and my friend has his passport back. with a change of plans. i wonder if he could have legally kept it. your drivers license is property of the government. so yes clearly. but a british passport is property of the british government.
w
folks think i hate w's guts. that i think he's the worst president evar. well, that's not quite accurate. i think he's a great president. for a small number of people. a very small number. for the vast majority of humans on this planet he is the suck.
age
every now and then one of my little ddo friends asks me my age. heh. i could just say i'm X. but that would not be the timmer way. i tell em one or more tidbits so they get the general idea. like i saw star wars on opening night. i went to the sound of music in a theatre. i watched the eagle land. i can name most of the pittsburgh steelers players who crushed the vikings in super bowl ix. i remember a time before calculators. i remember when pong was new. i had an evel knievel lunch box. fonzie had not yet jumped the shark. we had an 8-trak. gas was 39 cents/gallon.
taxes
our taxes this year were way up from last year. probably because of poor planning on our part. somehow we had failed to make the first estimated tax payments for both state and federal. oops. way up in this case means 24% which includes state, federal, estimated sales, and property taxes.. last year's rate was 17%. 24% is still less than half of what people in the lowest 99% income brackets think the people in the top 1% should be paying. so what exactly am i trying to say? you're getting screwed. still.
badger
badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom
razors
i shave my face once every 5 days or so. the hairs grow to be the perfect length to get jammed between the two blades of a twin bladed razor. damn fool stupid invention if you ask me. and triple blades? quads? pah. i like single blades. pink preferably. makes me feel like i'm stealing one from alisa. maybe even one she used to shave her legs so they're silky smooth and all for me to touch and stroke and paint and uh gah! nuts. sometimes i forget this is a public blog. ;->
bezoar
i want a bezoar. i didn't know i wanted a bezoar. i don't even really like bezoars. i just like the word bezoar. i want to have one to use as a paperweight. or to take up space in the bottom of a glass vase. i want people to ask, what is that thing? oh it's my bezoar. i also want a curta. but for completely different reasons.
profile
i'm always surprised by pictures that show my profile. i never see it. not even in the mirror when i try to. most of the time i'm looking mostly at the camera. so it's not there either. but sometimes i'm like, gawd! who's mellon is that? it can't be mine. it's not that it's ugly or anything. it just doesn't match my conception of self.
tubes
we started to suspect garrett was having trouble hearing. at first we thought he was just ignoring us. but he was ignoring things like, hey g want a cookie? he insisted he could hear fine of course. the doctor said his inner ear was full of fluid but was not infected. if it persists he should probably get tubes put in to drain the fluid. he didn't like the idea at first. then he started to realize he really couldn't hear well. and he hates to feel like he's missing out on anything. we were walking down the hallway from his room. i told him to tell me when he could hear the music. he said, what music? halfway down the hall. there's no music. we're practically on top of the stereo before he hears a song he knows well and likes to dance to. later i hear him tell his little friends he's going to get tubes in his ears in a scary operation that won't hurt. and he did. and it didn't. now he can hear just fine. and is happy as a clam. though he had to put wax plugs in his ears to boogie board in hawaii. which had the added benefit of also keeping the sand out. unlike the rest of us.
smoke alarms
smoke alarms should not have clocks in them. and they definitely should not be programmed to first tell me that the battery is the tiniest bit low in the middle of the night. i'm frikken asleep. and i gotta figure out which one of some 50 million is crying. ha ha. the temptation to yank them /all/ from the ceilings and smash their little plastic puck bodies with mjolnir is soooo tempting.
local news
local news stations that have web sites should clearly identify where they are. it's annoying to read an interesting article about an outbreak of bubonic plague or a small plane crash and to have no idea whether such events took place in the next town or australia. sheehs.
keez
the beautiful and talented alisa came up and said, giv me keez. so i kissed her. always happy to oblige those kinds of requests. i could tell by her reaction that wasn't quite what she had in mind. so i took her in my arms, and gave her a big kiss. still not satisfied. well then. okay. i gazed deeply into her eyes, touched her soul with mine, and kissed her with such passion as to light the room and make the flowers spontaneously burst into cacophonous bloomage. after we recovered a bit she tapped me on the chest and said, give me the keys to the rental car.
change
i often drop change on the store counter on purpose. everyone always hands out the bills first then the coins. i guess this is some sort of game the ringer uppers play to amuse themselves. i guess it's funny to watch the contortions people go through to keep the coins from sliding off the bills. do they all go to the same school? do they think i want to count the change to make sure they got it right? i frikken watched em pull it out of the drawer. do they hope i'll drop the coins into the donation cup? just give me the damn coins first. then the bills.
blogs
it seems folks wonder how i can find topics to blog about every day. well i'll tell you my secret. i keep a list in my wallet. and every time i come across an idea to blog i add it to the list. immediately. otherwise it's quickly forgotten. course i have to make good notes. looking at the list i see 'in between stuff'. and i have no idea what i might have been thinking. i unashamedly stole the idea of keeping a list in my wallet from a friend of mine who keeps a list of blender settings in his wallet.
reuse
spiders are amazing. they produce this stuff that's lighter and stronger than anything man has made. they craft patterns weepingly beautiful. and they are the most efficient recyclers ever. most spiders only have enough stuff to produce silk for two webs. when they need to make a new web they ingest the old web and recycle it. dozens of times. top that monkey boy. and the next time a spider web is in your way, please remove it in such a way that the spider can collect up her silk and make a new web out of your way.
g soccer
baseball is garrett's second sport. he liked to kick soccer balls when he was little. at 14 months we'd go to the park with the dad's group. and there'd be a group of older kids playing soccer. garrett would look at me. i'd say, you want to go play ball with the big kids? okay, but don't hurt em and give the ball back when they cry. the other dads would laugh. and i'd busy myself with dad stuff. i didn't need to watch what was going to happen. garrett would take a line on the kid with the ball, knife between them and be gone with it. if there was a goal set up he'd go score. then the game would change. one thing garrett likes better than soccer is keep away. a kid would take a line on him. he'd make a small kick one way. the kid would turn. g'd make a big kick the other way. the kid would turn half way around and fall down. g'd go running by squealing with delight. then they'd cry. and g would give the ball back. for a while. the dads would watch this with unblinking eyes and silent gaping mouths. me? i'd be humming the theme to superman.
elderliness
i pulled a gray hair from my chest the other day. i feel so old.
gop me
heh. last post i agreed with bush. this post i kinda sorta agree with coultier. one has to wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. she was wailing against the anti war crowd (in her oh so special way) for being upset that wars are deadly bloody affairs of destruction. or they should be. heh. yeah it's a point. if you're going to invade another country plan on killing people to pacify them. sort of an un-natural selection process. sick. but that's how it's done successfully. if you don't have the stomach for it, if you have to sell it as some immaculate war where only the bad guys die... don't start it. you'll lose.
gw farms
george bush has been pushing legislation to reform farm subsidies. the goal being to dole out federal funds rationally. it's not real popular with a certain farmer's lobby group. so it's not likely to go anywhere. i haven't actually looked at it. so i don't know for sure if it is really what it claims to be. sure wish he would have spent his immense political capital doing something useful for the country instead of that whole iraq thing. sigh.
gw science
i bash religion because it's not science. to qualify as science your theory needs to be testable and reproducible. you can't test god. god does whatever he wants. and as a practical matter science needs to make useful predictions. so what about global warming? heh. i'd love to set up a few hundred identical earths. and change just one thing in ten of them. like say doubling co2. and change a different thing in ten more. like say decreasing insolation by 2%. let the experiments run for a hundred years. then i'd have the data to support saying with god-like confidence well, whatever the results turned out to be. heh. if only. until you give me 100 earths, you're gonna have to live with my best guess. sorry. course casinos make fortunes this way.
