The Halls

I am now the undisputed champion of our racquetball group. At least for this week. Chad has a $80 raquet, and Bill was bragging about his new $250 racket, and I'm still playing with my $25 racket from wallyworld.

My truck might be at the end of it's useful life for me. I always said I was going to drive it until lit was dead, but I guess that may be a subjective term. I'm pretty sure the clutch pressure plate has failed. It has several other small problems, but that one is getting to the point where it's almost undrivable. It has a trade in value of not even $1000, and it will cost $800 to fix the clutch.
sigh.
So it's $800 into a vehicle that may or may not have something else go horribly wrong soon, or it's $800 towards another vehicle all together.
I've been tempted to get another vehicle for awhile now, but I thought I would have more time to look.

EDIT: ok. I had a discussion with a friend who actually knows stuff about cars, and he pointed out there was a possibility that the clutch hydraulic fluid was just out or had air in it. I didn't even know that existed, let alone know to check the level. So I check the level, and sure enough, no fluid in the reservoir at all. That's gotta be a problem. So I add fluid and we're good.
Perhaps I'll get another couple years out of this truck yet.

Posted by Aaron at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We just got done carving pumpkins. It took a long time, but it seems that everyone had a good time.
I also got the riding mower running, and Ann and I tore down the gazebo so it wouldn't get destroyed by the winter weather.
I seem to have my multisite gallery working, as near as I can tell. Now I'm going to try to get some other sites configured, and then maybe something interesting can happen.
Ann and I had a "discussion" tonite about how when I go to the store to pick up stuff, I always end up buying lots of frivolous stuff. This, sadly, is true. I am 100% guilty of this, and I have no self control.
Last nite, I got sent to grocery store to get a free bale of straw, that's it. I came back with $80 worth of stuff, from ice cream 3 kinds of liquor, a case of beer, and a dustpan.
Hey I needed that stuff!
Which brings me to a new favorite of mine.
For over 15 years now, gin has been my drink of choice, and Tanqueray has been gin of choice.
It has now been replaced, although perhaps only for the short term, by Magelleon Gin.

I've also tried Hendrick's Gin, which seems to be all the current rage, but I was not as impressed. Shoot, I like Tanqueray better than Hendrick's.
It's been extremely unseasonably good weather the last two days, so I rode the GS to work for the first time in two weeks. Then I got home, and saw that the rear tire now has steel threads exposed, so I currently have no motorcycle to ride. Boo hoo for me.
I think I'm going to get a set of these tires for that bike.

Then I can do some serious off road riding!

Posted by Aaron at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I'm trying to setup a multisite gallery installation, which makes thing much more flexible for me, and pretty much means nothing to you. Except for the fact that for a short time, it will be broke.
So sorry, it's gonna be broke for a couple days.
Then it will be back and look exactly the same, but I'll be excited.

Posted by Aaron at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My new favorite show is "little people, big world"
Ann and I have an infatuation with midgets, or I should say, I have an infatuation, and she has an outright phobia.
Never forget, it's a known fact, "every time a man's nipple is pinched, a midget is born"
I just watched the episode where the twins go to there winter formal, and the girl gets her hair done for the formal. When the dwarf twin's dwarf date shows up in the airport, she's got long blond hair.

While I am in fact, literally married to blond hair, I have not only been attracted to blonds, but there is one universal truth for me, and that is hair length.
So blond, brown, red, blue or green, I like it long. Now, my definition of long is really anything past the middle of the neck.

I am so adamantly against the whole short hair look that it could almost be described as militant. My wife's hair is awesome, and I realize she keeps it long purely for me. God knows from a functional point of view, and I know, a shaved head cannot be beat. But to me, Sinead O'Conner is uglier than this woman.


So that was the longest possible way around to say that this little blond date of the twin in the show had really good looking, long blond hair, then for the formal, she has it all pseudo-corn-rowed for the formal.

How is that a "formal" look? I think it looks trashy at best, and circus-freak moronic at worst. And I would say the vast majority of the weddings we've attended have the bride's hair all tied up in a manner that is meant to only display a minimal, short look. It constantly makes me say to myself, "she looked much better yesterday at the rehearsal".
This (clearly only an opinion of mine) makes me thankful even now that Ann kept her hair long for our wedding.
Isn't she awesome!
Crap. I just spent 10 minutes looking for the old wedding pictures I had on the gallery, but they're not there right now. I was going to show a kick butt picture of Ann in her wedding dress, cool long hair, but it will have to wait.
I can see it in my head.
You know why?
Cause she still looks at good today as she did then.
I don't, but she somehow does.
Guess I'm just lucky.

Posted by Aaron at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So Chad ended Thursday poker at Misty's because of football season, and waning interest. So I suggested that we all still get together to play somewhere once a week, at one of the many other bars still doing free poker. Then we could play for cash / bartabs like we used to, and which I really enjoyed.
Chad liked Mondays so he could watch Monday night football, and I really don't have much of a preference.
So we've been going to one bar for the last two weeks, but it's been just us, so no real possibility for a cash game. Last night we went to a new bar that's the closer to my house, so I like that, and we knew quite a few people there. So when it was over, there was initially four of us who all knew each other well who were going to play, Me, Chad, Bill, and Kim. Then a young couple, both of whom used to work for Chad, asked to join us. They were very immature throughout the earlier part of the nite, and were quite drunk. I was a little hesitant, but since Chad knew them, we agreed.
But then we told them we were playing dealer's choice, for $1 a chip. They both thought that was too high of stakes. We spent a short time debating it, and then they suddenly got bent out of shape that we were implying it was too high of stakes for them.
What!?!?
This should have been a red flag.
The guy of this couple was an idiot all night long. He had a strong opinion about everything and would comment on how bad everyone else's play was. In short, my absolute least favorite kind of guy.
This should have been another red flag.
So we play a while, and the girl is kicking our butt's all over the place, and now she's getting very aggressive. The guy isn't, so he's constantly griping. Chad, Bill and I are getting crushed by her short-term luck. But I figure long-term, there's no way she could hang with us.
But no before I call what I thought was an act of over-aggression on her part, and have to buy another $20 of chips from her.
Humiliating.
Chad is in the same boat, maybe even worse off than me.
But the guy is basically not playing, being very tight. Finally, he finds a hand he likes, and pushes his last stack in for a $10 pre-flop raise, which is 10x the blinds. He clearly wants no callers, but Bill calls him just because he's got ace-suited, and plenty of chips. The dude, Devin, I guess, flips A-K off suit, and Bill flips A-2 suited. It wouldn't be a story worth telling if Bill didn't win, merely catching the 2 no less, and Devin storms off swearing. He steams and swears at the bar the rest of the nite, never letting it go.
But his wife, Jill, continues to crush us for some time.

But slowly things start to change, and I hit a big hand when I flop two pair, and I know she's got a lone ace. I talk her into betting, and double up through her. Then I do it again, then Chad does.
She careful to keep her initial $20 buyin stack separate, though, so that she can see she's still up.

When the guy comes and tells us he had to clean up and it's going to be the last hand, I flop top pair, and slow play / trap her into another $10, such that now she finishes down in the chip stack, but she's still got me $20 from me buying chips from her.

But when we leave, she's so drunk that she doesn't understand math anymore, and we can't convince her why she's not leaving with the huge amount of money she had so recently had in front of her. Even her husband, who had been so confrontational earlier in the nite, to the point where I seriously thought there was going to be a fight, was with us trying to explain that it all worked out right. But she never got it, and when they left, she was livid, and jumped in their car and predictably, drove away as fast as possible.
There's something I don't get. If you're mad, why speed? Especially if you've been drinking, you only call more attention to yourself.

At one point, we determined Chad hadn't won a single pot, and was down almost $70. Then he pushed with aces, got called, and Bill ended up making quads. Chad jumps up, run away from the table screaming "Are you kidding me!?!?". He nearly runs into the waitress while doing this, and says something to her like "I'm not going to be able to pay my tab now".
We all laughed because we knew he was kidding, but the waitress didn't, and went back to the bar and told all the staff that "those guys are playing for cash, and now that one guy can't pay his tab"
Great.
So Chad goes over and smooths things over, but it retrospect, I can't believe all the things that went wrong with that nite.
We've decided we're going to boats instead of this crap anymore.

Posted by Aaron at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So congress and the president have outlawed internet gambling, most notably, internet poker. Initially, I didn't really care,up til august, I had played a minimal amount of online poker for real money, and had always done poorly. But in August, my poker club hosting site had a deal where if you signed up for party poker thru them, you got $75 for free! I figured there was a catch, but BJ did it, and got it all as advertised. So I tried and got it too. It was pretty cool.
Even cooler, something different from all my previous online poker happened, I was winning.
It didn't take long for me to turn the free $75 into $210.
So now I'm a little bummed about the ban, because I wasn't doing that bad. Maybe I should be thankful it came when it did, as I recently had some bad swings for awhile, and dropped nearly $100. But then the ban hit, and I couldn't lose anymore.
So I cashed out for $125, all free.
Given my history for online poker, it's probably for the best. I'm an infinitely better player in real life.

In fact, I have a game here tonite. But it does lead me to another observation, and that is that for about a year now, I've noticed the poker craze on a steady decline, and I'll predict here and now that this internet poker ban will put the final nail in the coffin, and we'll no longer see it's past popularity. Something very big would have to change.

Posted by Aaron at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I took my personal favorite black bean chili to a lincoln chili cook off, Lincoln, of course, famous world-wide for it's chili, is certainly the place for such a competition.
As usual, I had little self-control when it came to adding the hot peppers, but I figured, "hey, it's a chili competition, it's supossed to be hot!"
But predictably, it turned out to be about 3 steps hotter than I really wanted. So it quickly became the joke of the competition, because almost no one could eat it. And when the judges did try it, things gto very animated and there was a lot of yelling, jumping, and swearing.
At the end, it turned out there was a prize for hottest, which the comment was "no surprise here, the prize for hottest chili goes to "spicy black bean chili", which has also been called, "chili from hades""
Oh well, it got me razzed, a $20 gift certificate, and free beer.
A good nite in all.

Posted by Aaron at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been calling some drywallers, but unbelievably, only one has returned my call. His bid was pretty much what I thought it should be, so he's gonna win by default, I guess.

Til then, I'm working my tail off here at work. But I still think it's going well. In fact, I'm in pretty good spirits, all in all.

Tonite I'm going to make an extra large batch of my famous black bean soup/chili and take it to a chili cookoff tomorrow. We'll see how it measures up. For one thing, it's not really chili, but it's awfully close. Plus, I'm going to make it so freaking spicy that I'm sure everyone will hate it. But I will get a kick out of it. Then I have some homework to wrap up. Then I was going to meet Jeff for some beers.

Yeah, I'm going to have time for all that.

Posted by Aaron at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Work is a lot of work anymore, and I'm liking it less and less. Work is supposed to be fun, right?
oh.... perhaps not.
Class is kicking my butt. I need to step it up a notch there, which is going to be hard. But at least the drywall is done!

I played and won some raquetball today, but my knee is hating me for it. Getting old sucks.

Posted by Aaron at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Very busy weekend, but good.
Friday I went to poker Pete's game, and made $50. It was business as usual there.

Saturday, we got up and went to Aubrey's flag football game, and then went and got donuts. I love creme filled long johns, which is probably the gayest thing I've ever said.
Speaking of which, Ann pointed this out to me because it kind of stands out. The funny thing about it was, we looked at it in the usual juvanile way, laughing that someone would put that in the paper, but then I looked at it closer, and realized that one of the guys was my neighbor where I grew up. It suddenly pulled it inside my monkeysphere, so I was instantly offended at her laughing at it.

Saturday nite, we went to Jake's acreage to shoot skeet, eat, and hang out at a bonfire.

The best part was when I playfully switched my beer for Shelly's soda, just so she would inadvertantly take a drink of my beer. When that happened, I took a picture.

So I was previewing the picture, and zooming in on Shelly's look at disgust, and laughing. Then panned around while zoomed in and saw this.


Which we all got a good laugh at, because Chad always complains that all the pictures I take of him makes him look 50 lbs heavier and retarded.
You be the judge.


Anyway, the bonfire was fun, and we eventually went home and passed out.

Today, I slept in, and hung drywall to finally complete it, and make it ready for the mudding. I highly doubt I'll do that. Too messy and I'm no good at it anyway.

Posted by Aaron at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

David Wong needs to get  Nobel prize for this article. It's spot on.

Well, I'm the official leader of this office now, running all aspects. I need a raise, as this is a very measurable increase in stress.
But so far, I think we're doing pretty good. I'm still waiting for the honeymoon to be over and then see how it's going then.

Posted by Aaron at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So here we go again. Here's an excellent example of how I think I wish it would go more often.

Assault victim fatally shoots assailant outside Westlake Center

By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter
A bizarre case of what appeared to be justifiable homicide rattled the heart of Seattle's swanky downtown shopping district late Saturday morning.
Seattle police are still piecing together what happened, but this much is known: A young man was killed on the crowded sidewalk outside Westlake Center, and the confessed shooter was allowed to walk out of a police station.
The case, according to police and witnesses, began at 11 a.m. Saturday with a 911 call.
Witnesses reported a man in a yellow shirt acting erratically, insulting and threatening passing pedestrians at Pike Street and Boren Avenue near the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, said Seattle police spokeswoman Deb Brown.
A half-hour later, a man matching the same description was reported near Westlake Center. At the same time, a second man, described by witnesses as balding and wearing a leather jacket, was walking through the nearby plaza after finishing his lunch.
Neither man's identity was released by police on Saturday.
The man in the yellow shirt apparently focused in on the second man, saying, "I am going to kill you," Brown said. He then began punching and kicking the second man until the man fell to the sidewalk.
"He was down there, minding his own business. There is nothing to think he was anything but a random target," Brown said.
The victim happened to have a concealed-weapons permit, Brown said, and he was carrying a handgun. He pulled out the gun and fired once, hitting his attacker in the abdomen.
"It looked to me like he shot him in self-defense," said Linda Vu, who was across the street from the shooting, handing out fliers for political activist Lyndon LaRouche. "It's kind of crazy."
The man in the yellow shirt died after being taken to Harborview Medical Center. The King County Medical Examiner was trying to determine his identity, a task complicated by the fact that the man carried no identification.
Several nearby Seattle police officers heard the gunshot. When they arrived at the shooting scene, the victim, sitting on a streetside planter full of purple pansies, handed the gun to them and said, "I am the one who did this," according to Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel.
The man was arrested, but after questioning him and other witnesses, detectives determined they did not have probable cause to book him into the King County Jail. The man was released. Police said they were withholding his name as a crime victim — of the assault.
It will be up to the county prosecutor to determine whether the man will face charges. But Pugel said, "It could be considered justifiable homicide."
The shooting stunned Jim and Edith Welsh, tourists from Australia who'd just left the Nordstrom store across the street when police arrived. Peering across the police tape draped across Pine Street, Welsh hugged his wife. "I think we're going back to our hotel right now," he said.

Ok, great. It sounds cut and dry, but listen to this argument:
Seems like a fair report to me, and if the facts are as reported the shooter is almost certainly not guilty of any offence.

He has a permit so therefore I presume he was in lawfully possession of the firearm.

There was a verbal statement of intent - 'I'm going to kill you' - which appears to have been witnessed, as well as a history of previous erratic and threatening behaviour by the deceased towards others, and a sustained assault - punching and kicking the [shooter] until he fell to the ground. The spontaneous nature of the attack appears to preclude the best option - escape.

The ground is not where you want to be in a fight. So, up to this point, the use of appropriate force in self defence is, at least to me, clearly justified.

The rub is that the response should [under UK common law, which I presume given our shared history is similar to US law] be justifiable in terms of the level of assault the victim suffered - i.e. reasonable force.

So, is it justifiable to shoot someone who has given you a moderate beating [no mention of any serious injuries to the shooter]?

Ordinarily, to use a deadly weapon on an unarmed opponent in a fistfight - for example, you grab a knife and stab the assailant - you have a lot of explaining to do to show why you were then and there in fear of your life. It could be you are on your own, with no chance of assistance, and have taken a serious beating. It could be that your opponent is built like a brick outhouse wall and you make Peewee Herman look like Chuck Norris. But you would still need to produce a lot of justification to show that you did not unreasonably or excessively escalate the situation.

However, if you are lawfully carrying a gun, then shooting most probably is justified, because if you get beaten unconscious and the gun is taken off you, you could then be shot with your own weapon by the clearly violent assailant, as could any number of bystanders.

That is the issue that intrigues me most - if the gun was not present, would deadly force have been equally necessary?

Great, this is an argument I've not considered, and now I have even more reason to not approve of every idiot being able to have a gun. If you figure every third guy has a permit to carry a concealed handgun, what happens when the unexpected fight breaks out, and the bad guy gets ahold of that gun? Nothing good. And while you'd like to think that wouldn't happen very often, how often did we really expect there to be a lunatic to walk into a public school and just start arbitrarily killing people?

Not enough yet, it seems...

Posted by Aaron at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's been raining here a lot lately, and our first big freeze of the season is on it's way. So I got home last nite and had to quickly blow the sprinklers out. I'm a little disappointed because my peppers in the garden are still producing quite well, so that's gonna stop that.
So far so good, with the new job. Although I'm much busier, I'd like to think I've got it all under control. Especially considering that Aaron just quit too. Aaron and Steve were the first guys to form imagine, and then a salesman, and then me. Now I'm the only one of those first four left.
I think it's time to ask for a raise....

Posted by Aaron at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Updated the MT to the latest and greatest. I'm sure you care.

The trip to Vegas was good. It seemed fast this time, I guess because we tried to do more than usual, first by going golfing on Friday. That doesn't sound like much, but I challenge you to go golfing after:
1) getting up at 8am
2) working all day
3) flying to Vegas
4)begin drinking and playing poker at 10pm
5)play poker and drink until 9am the next day.
6) sleep 2 hours
7) get up, go golf, still not seeing straight

This recipe make Tom sick, but we did play 9 holes. Predictably, I was the worst one, although by some miracle, I actually won a hole.

So we got in around 9pm, and by 10pm, we were at the plaza, my new least favorite Vegas hotel.
I told everyone to get the players club cards, since we bought the rooms directly, and then could get the rooms comped if we played enough. The poker room rates I found published on the web were quite cheap.
We couldn't get into one rooms, as the key didn't work. I went and explained it, and they said to go back up there and wait for engineering to come fix it. I waited for 15 minutes and said "forget this. We can call those idiots later."
So we hit the poker room and started playing. I went and explained to the pit boss that we were staying there, and we would be playing there all nite, so we wanted to be sure to get the poker room rates.
"oh, we don't have the poker room rates anymore"
"what?!?!?"
So I'm stuck with the MSRP room rates!?!?! ARGH?!?!
I was torqued. We even considered trying to find a room somewhere else, but ultimately, we were too lazy.
But we played there all nite anyway. We played for so long, that the only two dealers on duty started playing with us. Joel sallyed out early, so it became a home game, with just Tom, Beeline, me and a rotating dealer. We'd get the occasional delinquent who I'd bust out, and then they'd leave.

At 8am, we went to get some breakfast, and then went back to the room.
We got into the extra room only because Broady had gone to bed early and waited for engineering to fix the door, which they showed up and did not do. So he was stuck in the room. We wandered in, and passed out.
2 hours later, he was waking us up to go golfing, and if I had had the energy, I might have killed him right there on the spot.
It took us a long time to get going, but we eventually got there, and started golfing.
Sally Joel, who had slept for 8 hours, was ready to start drinking right away, but Tom, Beeline and I  were definitely not. We played 9 holes, and were beat.
We went back to the room, and felt better, except for Tom, who got sick from the van ride back, and went to the room and started puking.
Joel and I went to Binions to play some poker there. I played no limit until about midnite, leaving up around $100. I went to a 2/4 table to talk with Joel. I played completely opposite as I usually do, very loose and aggressive, which is fun once in a while. But it ultimately cost me $25 to play that way, and when we left, I was only up $75. But it was still better than losing.
We went to bed at 3am, and got up at 6am to go to the Mirage to watch football.
Tired does not begin to describe how I felt.
But we started watching games, and making parlay bets. I made two three team parlay bets based on Beeline's advice, and exactly two games went the way he predicted.
Awesome.
The sports book is right next to the poker room, so I would check it out occasionally, especially as my parlay cards died off.
I found that around 1pm, they spread a 1-5 spread limit seven card stud game, a game I had never played in Vegas, so I was really wanting to try it.
I went to check it out, signed up, and sat at the table. I was the youngest person there by at least 25 years. There may have been one guy who was in his mid fifties, but all the rest were at least in their 70s, if not 80s. I couldn't believe it.
I played there all afternoon, taking all these old people's social security, leaving up $100.

After I left the table, we watched a little of the Nebraska game, but the best thing was after that, the valuev fight was on, and that was a good fight.
Then we went back downtown and had a sushi and wings dinner.
After that, everyone was quite tired, and everyone but me wanted to go to bed. I ended up talking Tom into playing more cards with me. We played cards all nite, until it was time to leave for the airport. I left up another $100.

So all in all a successfully trip, even if it was a small number of guys, and the worst hotel experience in recent memory. I still had fun.

Posted by Aaron at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

4 hours til I leave for Vegas!!
woohoo!

Posted by Aaron at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again, maybe this time a little more emphatically;
I'm a supporter of the 2nd amendment, but only for me. Everyone else clearly does not deserve that right.
It is being proved time and again that the general public is not capable of having unlimited access to handguns. How many school shootings have to happen before enough people say "you know, maybe there shouldn't be unlimited access to guns..."
It's nice to say "we need the right to bear arms, otherwise there is nothing to stop the government from oppressing us, since we will have no means to revolt"
Yeah.... I'm kindof feeling pretty oppressed already, and I don't see any government revolts in the future. I think that's what the electoral process is for.
I propose we make the waiting period something like 2 weeks for any gun. You have to have an above average IQ, and have an absolutely spotless criminal record. No more just "no felonies", but nothing. Maybe speeding tickets are ok, but that's it!
Burglary? no gun for you!
assault? no gun for you!

But if we make having a gun a crime, only criminals will have guns, right?
Strictly speaking, yes. But the pure number of guns out there will be so few, that there will also be far less crime that involves guns. There are few crimes thwarted by the a gun-toting citizen or homeowner, as much as I'd like to think so. Believe me, I'd love to think that I could use one of my guns to stop a potential robber of my house, but first and foremost, I have to keep them locked up so kids can't get to them. That alone renders them useless for home defense. Let alone the prospect of having it taken away in the middle of the firefight and used against me. I'm no dirty harry, it's probably the far more likely scenario.
I'd much rather take my chances with hand to hand combat in that case, at least I have some skill there.

So that's it. Let's get rid of them. I love to shoot my guns, but I do so infrequently, and they're more hassle than they're worth. I'd give mine up if everyone else does, just so there's no more of these random shootings.

Posted by Aaron at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Had a pretty good weekend. Played some cards, and did so well, for once. It helped to have some amazing suck outs, and good flops, too.
Did a little hanging of the drywall, but still have plenty to go. Watched a little WSOP, too. I am really starting to get a backlog of shows to watch. I'm 3 weeks behind on prison break, and I don't want to stop watching that show. I'm going to check out studio 60, heroes, boston legal, lost, the office, and amazing race.
Thank God for Mythtv.
Vegas in 3 days, baby!

Posted by Aaron at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)