586

586

As of 6 PM on Saturday April 28th, I had 586 page views today on my blog. That's about ten times my normal. They started trickling in around six this morning and became a somewhat steady stream. All day. They appeared to come from just the United States. But multiple web browsers.

At one point I noticed they were reading my blog consistently stepping backwards. The oldest entry was finaLLy read. But then there continued to be more page hits at about the same rate, only no named pages, it was just blog reading activity addressing the main page.

Surprisingly there were NO comments! How do you read back through what appears to be 500 plus reads without leaving a comment?

I have had a few days where I have had a hundred page views, but never two, three, or four hundred, certainly not 586 in one day. And any heavy volume days saw readers from over a huge number of countries. This seems very bizarre.

Update: 2012.04.29 05:40

The total for the previous 24 hours reached close to 900 then fell sharply back to normal at around midnight. This means that CindereLLa could be the cause.

If this is just some computer programming nonsense, why? Who has nothing better to do than pretend to read me?

Nanokelvin

I learned a new word today while studying physics.

Nanokelvin

Kelvin is the absolute temperature scale where the size of the degree is the same as Centigrade.

Absolute zero is the coldest temperature, eXpressed as 0 degrees Kelvin. That is approximately 273.15 degrees Centigrade below the freezing point of water.

Nano is the prefix meaning "one billionth" - and the scientists were doing a physics eXperiment at 170 nanokelvin.

A thousand nano's equals a millionth, so less than a millionth of a degree. 17 percent of one millionth of a degree.

Wow.

I think as a number it would be 0.00000017 degrees above absolute zero. In exponential notation that is 1.7×10⁻⁷ K.

I think it is interesting that they can create something that cold, can do science at such a cold state but more impressive that they think that they can know the value of the temperature in such smaLL quantities.

Reference: Bose–Einstein Condensate

iPad Aero Losers: Who Are These People?

I rarely misplace my iPad for a variety of reasons. It is almost always with me and if it isn't, it is hooked to a charger, and it recently became my Skype phone. I spend several hours a day on it and the device cost more than 700 dollars. That doesn't include the cost of the music, e-books, and WSJ magazine subscription that are loosely tied to the iPad.

As soon as the iPad learns to hover in mid-air, and has a decent weapon system we wiLL almost be living in author Iain M Banks future world.

I realize that because iPad "things" are stored on the iCloud, that losing the iPad doesn't mean I would lose that content just by losing the physical device.

But what I found disturbing today in the Wall Street Journal was an article about people leaving iPads on airline flights, and then they go unclaimed. Unclaimed iPads?!?!? How does that happen? My iPad has slowly crawled up the evolutionary love scale to be held in the same regard as my dog, my children and my wife. Yes! I know you find it hard to believe on the same level as my Cooper!

I would not run into a burning building to get my iPad. That's what iCloud is for. I might rescue my beloved pineapple plants, though, as they are right by the back door.

I know intellectuaLLy that the iPad could be replaced easily and the iCloud recovery has worked once when I had to totaLLy reset the device when Notes stopped working. It was a bit of an Alzheimer computer moment.

But leaving it behind on an airplane? You crawl into a big shiny metal tube with only just so many carry-on things, then you are zO^OOOmed somewhere and how can you not remember the last place (big metal tube with wings) you last iHad your iPad? Do these iPad losers not have other people to help them remember where they last had their iPads?

There are serial numbers. There is device registration. Warranty coverage? Device tracking is actuaLLy built into the device. As I was slowly driving away and out of the mess that was the Dallas-Fort Worth Texas highway system last December there was a colored dot on the iPad screen showing me where I was constantly located. The dot with shadow slowly moved across the glowing map sending a soft warm light into the truck cabin. Now months later I suddenly realize it was teLLing me where IT was, not necessarily where I was, subtle distinction.

Perhaps these people are so wealthy that a sub one thousand dollar item is just a disposable, like a toothbrush. "Oh, i'LL have my servant pick up another iPad when they go to the market." I shuddered just now with the thought that the super wealthy may have spare iPads just laying around. Imagine a harem of iPads and Kindles, and Nooks and Fires, with an old PC laptop in the corner running an aquarium screensaver complete with sound. I suddenly remember I left a pre-iPad days Android tablet in my large welding toolbox, now unused for several months. That's its punishment for crashing aLL the time.

I would like to know their Lost iPad iStories. But i doubt i ever will.

A Bunt Cake of Bubbles

While doing a -few- of the dishes this morning I left the water running in a sink of hot water with dish soap. There was nothing else in the sink, nothing to disturb the mound of bubbles that slowly built a tiny volcano looking mound of bubbles, so I let the sink fill up. It created a bunt cake type mound, about five inches tall, so I carefuLLy slid a plate underneath it. I set the bubble mound on the stove to photograph it. As soon as I get to a PC there wiLL be a picture here.

[photo here in the future]

For now you can have thoughts about my thought bubble of bubbles.

Now I am not sure that my little bracket statement is a thought bubble, so my confidence in whether this blog post is funny or entertaining is plummeting. Perhaps I should just pretend it is an educational blog post(?) for aLL those people who ever wanted a bunt cake sized shape of bubbles. I am sure their number worldwide must be in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands. I do what I can to help.

My wife is stiLL asleep so I have not got her response yet. I have no idea how long the bubbles last. I wiLL update a little later today ...

Pi Helper

I have lotza hobbies.

Growing pineapples, language and culture study, air conditioning, poetry, a vineyard and a dog are but a few.

One of my favorites is math and numbers.

I like to memorize the populations of aLL the nearby cities and I know a few license tags. This came in handy yesterday when I saw my best friend's car behind me in traffic. So I stopped to say hi, only it was one of her daughters driving with friends. So her friends were probably surprised by my behavior, although she wasn't. She knows I am wonderfuLLy siLLy.

I also like pi. I try to memorize it out to several places.

Today I was able to come to the rescue when a cartoonist accidentaLLy misused pi. He had stated that the number of seconds in a year is close to pi times ten raised to the seventh power, which is correct, but then followed it up with the number 3141592, which is pi truncated times ten raised to the sixth power. I believe the number he wanted is 31415926. The number of seconds in a years with 365.25 days is 31,557,600.

It is late. I hope I am doing my math calculations correctly.

His cartoon displayed several math approximations, very cool stuff for nerds and geeks.

Link to cartoon xkcd #1047

Us pi people have to stick together and help each other in times of trouble!

Worst Sell

I needed a refrigerator because my big old cold box died and assumed a room temperature pose.

I found a replacement frig at Best Buy, but when I tried to use my B.B. card for a time delayed purchase with no interest, it no longer worked. It seems that the card I had for probably a dozen years was no longer functional because B.B. had changed banks. So I applied for a new card at their new bank, but I discovered there was no semi-instant way to make a purchase, plus shipping fees, or spend 50 dollars on fuel to get it myself.

So we scraped our money together from a variety of other places and purchased from a local appliance dealer and got it the same day. I already told my water flood story of the instaLLation in an earlier post.

But I noticed that the new B.B. MasterCard would be able to be used anywhere, so I thought that was cool.

BUT ... when I got the card I discovered that it was semi-useless with a credit limit of only $300 - not even close enough to buy my frig!

BUT ... it gets worse: the new card has an annual fee of $59 !!!!!

Why would anyone want a credit card with such a low limit and a high fee?

I don't activate the card.

BUT ... a few days later they send me a monthly statement and they have already charged me the annual fee long long long before an annual has taken place AND now my available balance is $241.

$241 might buy a very tiny refrigerator.

I spend several minutes with their customer service to get it aLL canceLLed. HopefuLLy.

I can begin to understand why Best Buy is in trouble.

Update: 2012.04.24 21:00

The day after I s'pposedly have the entire account canceLLed, I get another statement in the mail saying I owe the $59 fee. I realize that the statement, which seems to be eXactly the same as the first one, was most likely already in the mail system before I initiated the cancel request. But it stiLL seemed strange and funny to me.

Update: 2012.05.29 11:00

NOW I get another statement in the mail. It seems that their human failed to cancel my account. They have tacked on a $25 Past Due Amount Fee, AND wonder-fooly added $1.20 for interest. I talked to another human today and they told me it would be handled.

Bill Is In Town

Former United States President William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is going to be 80 miles away from me today.

He is speaking at my old school.

The admission price is free.

Seating is on a first come basis, so if you show up early enough you'll get a seat.

The headline of a gossip magazine at the groc store the other day said Bill Clinton was dying and his daughter was trying to make him a grandchild desparately, I think that was the word in the headline, "desparately".

My wife pointed out the headline to me.

I told her that we are aLL dying. Slowly. A little bit at a time. At that moment I didn't know that Bill was 65.

I told my wife that he probably only has 15 to 20 years to live.

But I traveled in the opposite direction yesterday about twice as much and fixed a roof, so I am not feeling up to a second trip so soon. Ergonomic strain. It would also involve fiLLing my diesel tank with 4 dollar fuel. Economic drain. I think my puppy needs me to stay home and play.

Old president, old school, listen to Bill fill a room with words? I think my old tired body wiLL stay home with my old wife and my old dog. Besides, it is s'ppose to have record heat today and the grapes and pineapples don't water themselves.

Coffee is ready to start my day.

I almost forgot to mention this, George Bush The Younger is coming to the same Texas city later this week to go on a bike ride in Palo Duro Canyon. I haven't heard that he is speaking anywhere.

Complete.

My life is now complete.

How?

I received an update info e-mail today from Pandora Internet Radio to let me know they have stand-up comedians. Oh, sorry, I should have ended that sentence with an eXclamation mark.

I received an update info e-mail today from Pandora Internet Radio to let me know they have stand-up comedians!

Well, I am going to go back to giggling now ... I deserve it after my previous Thursday. Thursday was so terrible after receiving two phone caLLs from very close friends who live far away. They each had a terrible thing happen to them that I can not talk about. I even wrote a blog post about my day, but I was too devastated to publish it. Then the neXt day I found out that my very best friend had a double disaster. At least she is close enough that I can give her a hug. So I am slowly coming out of Double Trouble Disaster Days.

On Friday I told my wife that I was going to the bar to drown my sorrows. She then had a strange eXpression on her face because I don't typicaLLy do that sort of thing with alcohol. I told her that I am going to drown my sorrows in a griLLed chicken sandwich and Dr Pepper. My diner seLLs far more alcohol than griLLed chicken sandwiches.

Later that day while groc shopping together I got a loaf of rye bread and a fresh container of grape jeLLy. We rarely buy bread any more, much less rye. I told her I planned to drown my sorrows in toast with jeLLy. This was after the griLLed chicken sandwich confusion, so I didn't have to eXplain myself.

My loaf of rye is now two days later over half way finished, but I have plenty of jeLLy.

What Is Wrong With The Presidential Race? No Me

I noticed that the Republican presidential nomination was progressively leaning toward one person long before I get a chance to vote. The states of Texas, California, and New York are among the leading states by population, yet none of them have voted yet, and the "winner" Romney appears to have been picked.

Delegates
TX - 155
CA - 172
NY - 95
Group:422

National Total: 2286

I wonder how the states that have already voted in the primary would like it IF the final national election was an equaLLy long drawn out mess AND the order the states voted in was reversed from the primary process.

Tiny Cannibals Screaming In My Corner

There are people yeLLing and screaming in my bedroom.

I go in there but there are no people.

Just a box.

Sometimes there is music.

Sometimes there are gun shots.

In the night the box glows.

The box wants me to buy things, many things for $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

A man is semi-yeLLing at me in Spanish to "come buy a car from him", at a place where "there is no problem".

I like no problemas.

I know what he is saying in Spanish simply because he does the same yeLLing in English at other times.

I like no problemas but I like my current truck and he is just a tiny yeLLing bilingual flat man. I have touched the box while he is yeLLing and he feels flat and glassy. When I put my fingers on the screen to try to touch him he does not appear to be able to feel me. Why would I want to buy a car from a tiny yeLLing bilingual man who appears to be so insensitive?

I have noticed there is another larger shaped glowing box in here in the livingroom that has the same tiny little yeLLing bilingual insensitive car selling man sometimes in the middle of the night. But when the tiny man is inside that box he is bigger! Thats right, he has grown about 50 percent larger! Amazing. And scary.

Why would I want to buy a car from a tiny yeLLing bilingual insensitive man who can't control his size? He has grown fifty percent just in the distance of going the twenty feet between the bedroom and the livingroom. How large would he be 70 miles from here? What if I finaLLy give in to his demands and buy a car from him and when I go to where he lives in a giant box somewhere far away and he is reaLLy gigantic and he is hungry and then he eats me? Because who can trust a giant hungry yeLLing cannibalistic car salesmen, they are the worst kind.

Besides, I slept wrong last night and the left side of my neck is sore. My dog is hungry and there is no mesquite smoke flavored deli sliced turkey breast or sliced American cheese, his favorite things. So I should reaLLy go buy groceries before the dog eats me, instead of buying a car from a cannibal.

Ouch! I just tried to move again and the pain is severe. So it is just a race of pain between my current pain or the possible pain of being eaten alive by a dog. Decisions, decisions. I wonder if I taste like turkey and or cheese? My guess is someone would say, "chicken".

Oh, the horror! There is now a man on the box singing Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues' very poorly at about 70 percent speed. That is more than enough incentive to escape this house, neck pain or no neck pain, to get the dog's food. Time to go to the groc store where their non-Johnny cash register glowing boxes only want money in eXchange for turkey and cheese, and where there usuaLLy is no problema.

Hail-zard

How is your spring?

Mine has been fairly nice, but at the moment I can barely move, body totaLLy eXhausted, sore. I know eXactly how a marathoner feels at mile 27, but a marathon is only 26.2 miles long.

Air conditioners don't fix themselves, well, at least not usuaLLy. Death comes in the form of shorts and longs. Pain is multi-dimensional.

But weather, the weather in my burg has been nice, a rainy spring, so much unlike last year. And the winter was mild, no blizzards, no long periods of freezing weather. Only the smaLLest of snowmen were constructed, certainly no personal backyard glaciers, my favorite.

On Wednesday I took a trip for critical supplies about hour west and south. At least four vehicles appeared to have slid off the road, judging by tire tracks and the positions of the abandoned vehicles. I had briefly heard the storm was bad in this area but this is April. Sliding off the road?

Bold Discovery: there were bergs near our burg

Also, as a side issue the number of emperor penguins appears to be much larger than previously known. Source: WSJ

During the evening news I learned that about 50 miles west of our town they received four feet of hail. No, that's not a typo! Not four inches of hail but four feet! When I was watching the news, the yesterday's local weather was the main news story. There was a picture of a man standing beside hail that came up to his chest. And I know that photos can be doctored, but then they showed video footage of the same man in the same location. They had several pieces of heavy equipment out clearing the hail off the roads. Four feet is 48 inches, and I have eXerienced at least one rain several years ago that dumped 8 inches in an hour's time period, but that is SIX times as much water! Our typical average ANNUAL preciption total is close to 20 inches, that's 20 inches in 365 days. Big difference.

So maybe it is time to clean out our storm shelter soon. Monsoon season is here. All of last year's missing rain showed up in one day as an ice cube. I don't need more ice, my new frig dispenses it right in the door, crushed or cubed.

My Crack Wife

So I am laying in bed trying to go to sleep.

Its late. No, oopz, early.

I have a short early journey tomorrow.

Something is broken.

I must fix it.

Suddenly out of the dark dark (one mo' time:dark) blue, my wife says, "One of my children must have stepped on a crack and broke their mother's back" - and giggles.

I crack up laughing.

She says, "What's the matter, haven't chu ever heard that before? Its when kids are playing and they step on a crack in the sidewalk ..."

I interrupt and say, "Yes, I have heard the original version, but I've just never heard a mother use it to justify her sore back."

Surprisingly in the time it took me to type this plus get the dog a piece of cheese, she has fallen asleep and I'm now the one wide awake with a severe headache that just happened, bizarre.

Fade To White

We have a variety of products and services in our business.

One of them is a tanning salon. It is a small portion of everything we do, as we only have one tanning bed.

So we went through all the state mandated application last year and finaLLy receive their blessing after waiting several weeks after we have paid all the fees.

One of the many requirements is to post warning signs regarding the practice of tanning. We purchased the signs from the state of Texas. I posted one in the front window to meet the visibility requirements.

Today I was passing that part of the window and wondered why there was a blank piece of poster board in the window. It was the warning sign. I had completely forgot about the warning sign because it was no longer functional - the sun eXposure had faded the ink on the sign so the words were just barely visible at close distance. It hasn't even been a full year since we posted the sign!

Sir Mick

I saw something on a google search that indicated the Mick Jagger was possibly dead, and I thought, what, I hadn't heard about that, even though I'm not a fan. So I went to his wikipedia article and it indicated that he was still alive. But then I read a little ways into the article and discovered that he had been knighted back in 2003.

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger

Hmmm. Knight? I realize that rock stars tend to be rather nocturnal beings, so I could believe 'nighted' without a k, that makes sense. But knight?

I would like to go back in time 500 or so years and have a talk with a few English knights, real ones, and ask them about this nonsense, what it means to become a knight, the process, to be a knight on a daily basis, saving dragons in distress and slaying damsels.

So I tell a real knight that 500 years in the future you can become a knight by singing in a rock band, [I have to eXplain rock music (twice, he didn't get it the first time)], writing songs, partying, having lots of women, drinking and doing a bunch of mind altering drugs. The confused real knight looks at me and says, "That's not a knight, that's a jester"

After making it back to the present I wonder, does Mick even have a suit of armor?

Today Is Thor's Day?

I am not sure how it happened.

But I thought today was Thursday.

I am surrounded by all sorts of ancient low and modern high technology that could have told me it was Wednesday.

But I must been in ignore mode.

Perhaps it was too many days of too little to no sleep in a row.

I am often awake at 3 AM.

Could it have been the sudden brief cold weather and rain and tiny hail storm?

I didn't discover my wrongedness until 7 PM when the teleBision didn't have my favorite gang of four funny physicists show.

Do you like my word 'wrongedness'? It is pronounced with three syllables with -ed- in the middle, with the accent on the wrong part.

Maybe it was the refrigerator dying.

Possibly it was because I was forced to run at eXtremely high velocity for a brief and a half time yesterday when the appliance deliveryman severed the waterline to the ice maker and the shut-off valve hadn't worked and (oops, sorry about that) I went triage scrambling to get the main supply turned off before my kitchen flooded. I had been in mid thought with my mouth wanting to say the words, "say, lets undo that line at the end with a wrench ..." but I was too late as he had pulled a tubing cutter from his pocket and the gush of water happened before I could say the preventive thing. 

The second thing the delivery man said was, "Do you have a towel?" .. while water is coming out at a rate of AT LEAST 2 gallons a minute .. at least a garden hose was right outside the backdoor and I was able to get it positioned quickly to capture part of the disaster while I scrambled for the main valve for the entire house...

(I thought it was appropriate to change the font color to blue in the previous paragraph since so much water was involved.)

Hours later I couldn't eXplain eXactly why there were three then four sore small bumps on my right forehead possibly from the mad dash, as weLL as I almost lost three batteries when I yanked a toolbox lid off too fast sending them rolling down the driveway out of my truck during my frantic tool hunt, and the abrasion I found much much later on my right forearm was most likely from the water meter housing. Abrasion is the word my wife used for my wound. It sounds like a CSI word.

Maybe I like Thursdays more than wet mess days, I mean Wednesdays.

Perhaps I am confused by aLL these people blogging A to Z. I wonder if anyone ever does it Z to A?

Maybe its a tumor. No, its not a two more.

ActuaLLy I just realized it is two more hours until it reaLLy is the real Thursday.

At least the four physicists are on in syndication on another channel, bye, I gotta go!

Update: In the middle of a Toyota commercial I heard them use the word 'Tudor styled house'. I asked my wife, "Would you like a Tudor style house?"

Her answer, "No"

Then I asked her, "Do you know what a Tudor style house is?"

Her answer, "No"