FMC 3.0

It amazes me the little coincidences in life. My wonderful, always running, only had to change the batteries once wireless keyboard may be headed to peripheral heaven. It’s survived years on my desk, and the messes I cause. It’s survived countess LAN parties - some of them drunken. Not once had a mishap or spill threatened its life. Until this morning, when a poorly placed glass of Code Red got dumped on it as I reached to kill my alarm. At first I didn’t think it was that bad, and threw a paper towel on the keys. Then, of course, I went back to bed. When my alarm went off the second time, the controls on the keyboard didn’t stop the music. So I picked up the keyboard, and Code Red came pouring out of it. At the moment, the keyboard is completely disassembled. I pulled it all apart to wipe it down, and wash all the buttons. Of course, I’m also going to send a bit through the dishwasher. Once thats done, and my keyboard button washing machine is done, I’ll let everything dry out and put it all together. Hopefully, once reassembled, it’ll be operable. If not, I guess I go keyboard shopping.

Other than that, been a quiet few days. Haircuts and new shoes. Nothing special.

I think I’ll go backwards. Yesterday morning I dropped off Nighthawk for its 20000 mile checkup at mile 20504. (which oddly enough is a zip code in Washington DC, a place the car has been often.) I picked it up this morning. The maintenance costs on it haven’t been as bad as I expected. In the meantime i’ve been in dad’s Ridgeline - which, while it is a nice truck, I don’t like as much as the Element. Also, I took advantage of the sunshine and mowed the lawn.

Previous to that, it’s been a normal week, just with more dogsitting. Caught up on the Sopranos, which is having a great season. Watched a crap ton of Veronica Mars, which is also a great show.

Sunday I spent mostly nursing a hangover. Saturday I cleaned up Nighthawk pretty well, it looks tons better on the inside. Saturday night I did the drinking that gave me the hangover. Friday I attended a class thing for a friend, and then stepped foot on the Dover Downs campus for the first time. I only had dinner there, no racing involved. I haven’t gone that far over the deep end.  After that, I went and saw "Lucky Number Slevin".

It was an interesting movie - pretty good story, and great cast. It got a little slow in the middle, but the twists and turns made up for it.

That’s pretty much it for the last few days. Possibly another movie in my future this weekend, just another excuse to put even more miles on the car. I’m certainly racing through them.

So Nighthawk did indeed roll over 20000 miles last night on the way to the office. I’m 1/5th of the way through my warranty :) It happened sooner than expected, thanks to a suprise trip to Annapolis, and some extra jaunting around this week.

Slightly larger on the scale of historical importance, today marks the 25th Anniversary of the first Space Shuttle Flight into orbit by the Shuttle Columbia. Seems oddly fitting that the fully functional shuttle program and I are about the same age. Astronaut John Young, who went to moon on the Apollo Missions, said the following to his rookie pilot that day: "any time they’re getting ready to light off seven-and-a-half million pounds of thrust under you and you aren’t a little bit anxious, you don’t understand what’s going on." Talk about a hell of a way to make it into the history books.

Not much else going on, but the day is still young - who knows what else might make it into the books.

In James’  blog entry Wednesday, he mentioned that he reached 20000 miles in his car, which he bought almost exactly a year before I bought the Element. (Apparently he named it Fiona, but I somehow doubt my sister is gonna let that last.) He mentioned that my car, a year newer, is probably about to catch up. Well, he’s right. When I parked Nighthawk today, it was at around 19570. It’s gonna blip over by the end of next week. Guess that means I need to schedule my second oil change (which may well be 2 more than James has had.)

In other news, air base operations around here are back on track, if not short a runway. The C5 that came down Monday is still sitting the field. In person (I drove by there the other day) it seems even bigger in such a weird place for it to be sitting. But I definitely heard a Galaxy yesterday, as one roared right over the house (assumingly into the scantly used third runway at Dover) as I was getting out of bed. While the details of the crash are still trickling out, my biggest question is how they’re gonna move that big of a dead plane. That, and where they plan on putting it. It’s too big to go in a hangar (the hangars at Dover, while huge, can’t fit a whole C5 in them - they have special holes in the doors to pop the tails through.) I guess that’s not a problem, since the plane is in pieces. They’ll prolly be able to squeeze it in now.

Also, you know a you’re a geek when the checkout girl at Best Buy starts to recognize you. As I was checking out, she asked if I had their rewards zone card. I don’t, mostly because I generally don’t buy stuff in there large enough to make it worth it. I said I didn’t, and her reply was "You know, as much as you’re in here, it’d probably help you out." Personally, I don’t see once or twice a month as very often, but apparently I get noticed.

Lastly, I found another entertaining image generator in my travels - this one is Einstein at the blackboard. It’s a little different from the normal eye candy, but I got a kick out of these:

Another week, another 70-snow weather pattern. Don’t know what I mean? Over the weekend, it was over 70 degrees. Today, snow in the forecast. Not much, but it’s cold enough in the atmosphere to make it freeze. In fact, I think I saw a few flakes earlier. The 70 degrees can come back whenever it wants - I have plants to kill :)

Other random tidbits of interest:

I found this page over on SomethingAwful - it’s a list of things the government could have paid for instead of the war in Iraq. There’s a few interesting ideas.

Also, for the Natalie Portman fans, she’s gotta a pretty slick pictorial in an unlikely spot - the Russian newspaper Pravda. Fear not, it’s the English version of the site. They have a pretty interesting take on the world too.

Parts of dover are still closed off due to the world’s largest lawn ornament. Also, if you want to see it, it’s visible from the highway, at least the north bound side. It somehow seems bigger not in the air or on the tarmac. It rather dwarfs the field it is in. The odd part is that the base rerouted all truck traffic too, though I’m not sure why. They make them take a nearly 14 mile detour. It’s a little nuts.