Tele-Propa-Cram Calls

That’s what I call the proliferation of telephone calls from political entities trying to persuade me to vote for one or more candidates. Making A Call, by Eric Meyer, is another person who’s tired of it, what scares me is the number of trackbacks in the comments from other people writing the same thing.

I am going to write to my congress people to add their politicial drubbings to the list of parties not able to call me when I’m registered on the national ‘do not call’ list. Why is it that they are absolved of this sin simply because they’re ‘educating’ the masses?

Remotely2

I’m working remotely at my in-laws in Washington and have to chuckle because their desk in the front room is right next to the front, right surround sound speaker. What these means is that while I do have headphones on listening to the likes of Roper, Chevelle and Blindside I’m also getting a bit of 13 Going on 30 in my left ear. It ends up sounding like, “Don’t Fake This!/Don’t Fake This!” mixed with Michael Jackson’s Thriller. In other words, it’s not a nice soundtrack to code to.

Profanity

Sometimes words race through my mind that are less than flattering, and are all-together unwholesome. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen sometimes. Most commonly when I get comment spam I think, “Those 57Up1d 84574rd5!” And then I cool off, pray for the Lord to purify my thoughts, and delete the spam. However, what really bothers me is that if the comment spammers are from Asia, there is nothing I can (or ICANN) do about it. That is the real source of the frustration. If I could shut people down (I’ve already shut down one source of spam thanks to the help of the ISP that was hosting the goober) I’d feel a little better. Even if I could just get ISPs to block computers that were contaminated with whatever program was being the relay I’d be happy.

However, some fool in Asia, who keeps using profanities for his comment spam posts, is hitting my server over and over again. I’ve gotten hundreds of posts from this ‘person’ (which sounds like too high a ranking for such slime) within the last three and a half days. Each one is almost completely identical and would really not help his search engine ranking anyway. I know Phil reported some comment spam, and in chatting with Trint I learned that he got hit with some, too, but has anyone else gotten these sorts of ‘treats?’

I’m using Moo-Kitty’s Comment Spam blocker to prevent it from being published, but I still have to remove it from the WordPress database.

I can say Spam tastes OK when wrapped in rice (not ricin!) and sea weed ! My aunt made some for me back in the day. Yummy!

While writing this three comment spams were blocked by my filters, but had to be removed.

Lacking Spinach

After this weekend I feel like I need a very large can of spinach to regain my strength (Popeye reference). I had been working out zero days in a row prior to this trip and the current labor has been refreshing and exhausting at the same time. Today I have to get back to mental work which requires me sit on my bum and type a lot. However, I’m working on some interesting stuff that will require some good mental effort.

I’m looking forward to driving up the Columbian Gorge later on this week. I hope to get some good pictures so that I can post them. I’ve been taking a few pictures off and on but I need to crop them and get them ready for ‘online use.’ I love to go to Multnomah falls, and I hope that I’ll get some really nice photographs there. That way I can be yet another multnomah photographer (YAMP).

Abby sure loves being spoiled by her grandparents, Linda dedicated yesterday to sugar. No, not because of the eve of all saints day, but because while Clair and I worked on their new house the females consumed calories and turned their brains off whilst watching moo-vies that they ponied-up for, or in another farm vein, chick flicks.

I’ve got to get used to the time change since I’m an hour off from CO time plus daylight shavings time shaved an hour off of the clock so I’m all disoriented. Anywho, I’ve got to ‘get back to work.’ Fortunately that will require taking no steps and driving no miles, but will require me hitting “CTRL+Tab” on my nifty Firefox browser.

Sure Sore

I am completely sore from yesterday’s working on the house. However, I slept really well since I was so exhausted. I learned that I have almost completely lost any skillz I once had with a hammer. I have forearms that need some serious exercise if I plan on using them for this sort of work again (and I do). Today we’ll go back up to the house and continue working.

I’m also enjoying the time with my father-in-law Clair. It’s good to be here and working myself silly. Not to mention the Washington weather is so radically different from Texas or Colorado weather. Yesterday we arrived and it was raining. Then it cleared up after a little fog. Blue sky opened up with sunshine and a beautiful clear view of the Columbian river. Then it got cloudy and rainy again. Then the sun came out and was lighting our work area so that we got a bit more sun to make up for day light savings time.

Sweet. Potatoes.

Tonight at dinner I was taking a bite of potato when I coughed. In a really bizaare moment a piece of that potato came shooting out of my nose. This was a little awkward and made everyone at the table laugh. However, this was not enough. Nope. I had a large piece of potato lodged in my nasal passage. I had to blow and blow to get those pieces out. Jessica was not impressed and threatened to uneat her dinner if I brought it up again.

So, dinner was good, I enjoyed it, but I was stuck with roots in my nose and a semi-nausious wife all due to coughing. Has this happened to anyone else?

‘This New House’ or ‘Extreme First Over’

So this weekend I shall be working my hands off (I’ve never fully understood what the phrase ‘working my butt off’ meant) at the Forland property helping Clair get the house closer to completion and further from being started. This means that all of the weekend will involve sweating like a pig, toiling, hammering, nailing, being board, and screwing around. With that in mind I’ll try to take more pictures of things around there so that you can see what we’re up to.

When this house is finished it will be quite a treat to live in. Or at least it better be since so much time, energy and money has gone into it. Of course it they don’t like it they can give it to me 😉

Washington State

Like Texas Washington is a state. Also like Texas people live here. But apart from that and having two senators in the United States Senate, the states are absolutely different. Colorado feels like an interesting blend of the West coast and Texas. Maybe it is because it nearly touches Texas and because Californians and other West coast nut jobs move to Colorado. Maybe it is because Trint is from Texas, moved to Colorado but lives in Texas again.

It is a little weird to see people leaving Washington wearing signs ‘The end is near! Mt. Saint Hellen is a warning!’ It would also be weird to be wearing a sign like that and have a matching pink leotard and tutu. The guy at one of the 350 Starbuck’s shops in this neighborhood was a little put off by my red sweatshirt that said (and I quote), “Indiana. Hoosiers.” My father-in-law John sent it to me for my birthday and it’s come in quite handy as well as looking stylish. In case you didn’t know Starbuck’s was started back in 1611 – the same year the King James Version was first published – in Seattle while the Russians were starting to beat the British in building the Grand Funk Railroad and out whaling Bob Marley and the Chinese fishermen.

Washington is beautiful, and God was generous and let the sun shine on us. Apparently around here that is as common as Beattle’s Reunion Tours. However, unlike Cher’s 3 year long ‘fairwell tour’ the sun went away and the clouds returned.

So anyway, I’m here now 🙂