Author: cdwan
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Good gig
That was the best gig I’ve done in quite a while.
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Hotel
How is it that I selected, at random, the hotel with the late-nite screaming kid party in the pool area, the screaming *at* the kids party in the hall, and the “stomping around fretfully” party upstairs? Sheer dumb luck?
Fortunately I’m tired as all heck.
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Another day, another dollar
Extending my stay with NASA for another day, since I found a user for the cluster and he’s totally psyched to get up and running. Good times all around, except that now I need to go buy a clean shirt and a pair of underwear. Or else I could show up in my running shorts and tivas. Hrm.
My new hotel is smack between Hooters and the Outback. I’m hungry, but not that hungry,
I saw a family of deer as I came out of the facility this evening. The doe and fawn ran really fast. The buck stared me down.
When I unpacked my suitcase, my clothing was *hot* from being in the trunk of the car all day.
–Update–
Found sushi, unexpectedly good. Sometimes the per-diem works out well if you skip breakfast and lunch. Also found the mall, and thus clothing. Now, to sleeping!
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Hot.
At least the Post has a sense of humor about it.
VERY HOT CONTINENTAL AIR MASS FROM THE PLAINS WILL CONTINUE TO BUILD SLOWLY TO THE EAST . . . EXPECT CONDITIONS TO BE HOT. DAMN HOT. JUNGLE HOT. SATAN-IN-A-SPEEDO HOT. ANGRY-GOD HOT. PETS MAY OPENLY CURSE. PEDESTRIANS MAY COMBUST. HAVE A NICE DAY.
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AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
In many places — the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fiords of Norway — some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading. Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked. Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago.
Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, says we are witnessing “the rise of slime.”
…
“We’re pushing the oceans back to the dawn of evolution,” Jackson said, “a half-billion years ago when the oceans were ruled by jellyfish and bacteria.”
As noted by jwz: It’s Lovecraft via They Live: “they are turning our atmosphere into their atmosphere…”
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Virginia
The Hurricane Hunters found much stronger winds than expected in Chris this afternoon.
Duh.
The 2:50 pm EDT eye report indicated a central pressure of 1007 mb, down 2 mb from the most recent advisory. Most surprising were the winds in the southeast quadrant, which were in the 55-60 mph range. Radar out of Guadeloupe shows this intense band thunderstorms rather nicely. The northern side of Chris is still devoid of thunderstorms due to the dry air and wind shear.
Yeah, that plus a slight hangover. I was all better by this morning though.
The storm’s appearance on satellite imagery is improved from this morning, and shows the beginnings of a Central Dense Overcast (CDO) feature typical of strong tropical storms. Wind shear has dropped another 5 knots this afternoon, down to 10-20 knots, so some continued strengthening is possible. The latest set of model runs are quite divergent on what Chris might do, and I think we really need to wait until the next set of model runs is in before we can rely on the computer models.
Like the computers can tell you anything.
Unfortunately, tonight’s flight of the NOAA jet was cancelled, so we’ll have to wait until Wednesday night for the jet to fly. Most of the computer models are still dissipating Chris by five days from now.
What? Hello? I’m right here! I’m not dissipating…
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Saturday
Good times this evening running around Providence with Dustin. We ninja’ed and scared the poop out of a few people by dropping from above, in spaces where people would normally think that there *was* no “above”.
Earlier in the day, I wrestled with the deck. The story, for those who have not heard goes like this: We bought this house, see. The previous owner painted the deck. Painted decks suck, because you need to re-paint them basically every year if you wish them to not look like poo.
I painted the deck last fall, with a gentle nod to scraping and painting, and this spring it looked like poo.
So this spring, I decided to go whole hog. Really, seriously, do the job right. I powerwashed, scraped, wire brushed, power-washed again, scraped again … at each stage, I was always left with scraps of paint that I could pick off with my fingernails. Is this because my technique sucks? Sure. Fire. Whatever. I don’t really want to paint the GDMF thing every year, so I’m not prepared to paint on top of non-adhering paint.
Went to Home Despot today. Bought four sub-$10 solutions:
* A planer.
* Stripper (har har har)
* A wire brush attachment for the drill
* A scrubber attachment for the drill.None of these worked really well. The scrubber attachment was a close tie with the planer…but either requires about half an hour of work per board. At 25 boards, that’s too much.
I could replace all the material on this deck for $400, For $800, I could get the awesome recycled plastic decking. I’m starting to think that’s a good idea.
However, before that, there is this: I pried up one of the boards and realized that, true to form, doofus previous owner did not paint the underside of the boards. Therefore, I’m going to try flipping them over and staining them. Hopefully this will work.
Wish me luck.
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Introductions
robotify, meet technolope and capital_l.
All three of you live in Boston now, instead of just two. You should meet and hang out in person, since you’re all cool.
