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We’re supposed to get another storm tonight. For our particular area the last forecast I saw said that most of the snow will be a little east or a little west of us, but we are supposed to get a LOT of wind. Sustained Tropical Storm force winds, gusts of Hurricane force winds. Trees are expected to fall. Power outages are expected all over the place. The wind hasn’t really started yet, but is due soon. We shall see how that goes. We stocked up on a few basic supplies yesterday just in case.
Hoshi was a pretty good dog. Very friendly. Spent some time with Brandy and Amy while I tried (and mostly failed) to keep Roscoe from freaking out too much that there was another dog in his house. After about an hour, we got a call from Hoshi’s owner. They were mortified that Hoshi had gotten out. They were at the mall doing Christmas shopping. Hoshi had apparently let himself out. Because of the bad weather, it took them more than another hour to get back, but as of a few minutes ago, Hoshi went home with his parents and is safe and happy.
Ever since Friday, they have been predicting snow, then canceling it, then predicting snow, then canceling it. Places all around here got snow, but aside from a little bit over the weekend we didn’t get much. Until last night. We finally got the predicted snow. Only a few inches mind you, but for this area that is enough to pretty much shut everything down. So, snow day. Working from home on a few things, but also just taking it slow.
Bottom line, I liked it. This really isn’t your action movie chase kind of thing, although it has a tiny bit of that. It is more the hang out with the inscrutable alien type. Keanu plays said alien, and does an OK job of being unemotive most of the time. There was a kid too. I mostly could have done without the kid. He wasn’t really bad, but I’m not sure he added a whole lot other than as a plot device to help the alien learn about how humans care about each other. Whatever. Anyway, it was a fun movie. I enjoyed it. Worth seeing. And I’ve added the original to my Netflix queue.
I’ve decided that while I am very tempted by the Kindle, and Brandy loves hers and swears by it now, that I do not want one quite yet. But I have determined what my threshold will be, and when I will want one (and most likely get one soon thereafter). After I finish each book, I’ll look at the last 20 books I have read and if more than 50% of them are available on Kindle, then I’ll officially start wanting one. This will be affected by two things of course, if new books I read are available on Kindle, and if the earlier books that were not available on Kindle originally have become available. At the moment, 7 of the last 20 books I have read are available on Kindle, making for a Kindle ratio of 35%. We’re not quite there yet. Once we are though, I’ll jump all over that. And I imagine after that point, reading an old fashioned physical book would immediately become a rarity, to be done only when there is something I either must read, or really really want to for some random reason, that is not available on Kindle. But I know now, that once I’m mostly on Kindle, I’ll be pissed off every time there is a book I want to read that is not on Kindle.
So, this was one of these “I really should read this to improve my knowledge of things relevant to my job” books. I must say, I did an awful job of it. At least in terms of keeping up a decent speed going through the book. Rounded to the nearest whole number, I averaged 4 pages a day. (Really, it was more like 3.6 pages a day.) Sad. It is somewhat typical for when I read books of this type, but of course if I really prioritized it, I would spend more time. The pattern here was to read a few sections one day, then put the book down and not pick it up again for a month. And of course, the way I manage my reading, that blocked any other book reading in the meantime. I wish I could use the excuse that it was slower because, I didn’t just read, but instead I went through all the examples, tried them on my own computer, made sure I understood exactly what each line of code was doing and why, and that I internalized the syntax and such. I did do that for the first chapter or two… basically the “Hello World” sort of stuff, but after that I rapidly transitioned into a mode of reading for the concepts and for getting a general sense of things rather than the mode I would have needed to be in to finish the book being able to actually sit down at a computer and do much with it. Having said that, I did manage to get the general overview. It did give me a bit more depth than I had, although probably not as much as I would like. I still have on the agenda for 2009 to actually try to DO some simple Java stuff, going back and using this as a reference guide rather than an overview. In terms of the book itself, I guess it was a fine overview, organized in such a way as to start with the simple stuff and build up, rather than just as a true “reference”. So it was good for starting from scratch and getting the basics. If there is one thing I would have liked, it would be examples that were more grounded in some sort of real activity… perhaps linking all the various examples to build a toy application of some sort, showing how all the bits could fit together. As it was, many of the examples were things like kicking off two threads and having them count independently, or having a method print its own name, or having a button that when clicked would print a message saying “Button was clicked” or whatnot. Those are fine I guess, but I tend to like examples that seem like they have a point of some sort. They are easier to engage with. It was obviously not a big page turner though. I can’t say that each evening I’d find myself so drawn to see what was in the next chapter than I’d grab the book and read for hours. Just not that kind of book I guess. At least not for me. :-) Damn it. Unlike the last two elections, there appear to not have been any faithless electors at all in the Presidential Election (the real one) that happened yesterday. It’s official: Barack Obama elected 44th president
(via MyDD) Of course the headline isn’t actually correct. It will not be official until the results are reported to congress and certified by congress in January. I continue to hold out hope that one election, the right series of events will occur such that the electoral college will actually be able to act as a proper deliberative body, with each member of the college making an independent decision on who to vote for, rather than feeling bound by the results of the general election where THEY were elected, not a President. I also want to see electors running on their own merits and under their own name rather than by being pledged to some candidate or another. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever see that, but I can still hope. |
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So, as seems to happen a few times a year, Brandy and I were driving down the street and saw a loose dog running around and playing in traffic. This time in the snow with the cars all around barely able to control themselves properly, not being all that used to snow in this part of the country. We pulled over. After maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and with the help of another passer by who happened to have meat in her bag, we caught the dog. The tag said he was “Hoshi” and had a phone number, but the phone number only yielded voice mail. The woman with the meat pointed out a house she thought the dog MIGHT be from, but there was nobody home. So after leaving a voicemail, we took Hoshi home for a bit to be warm and safe. Even thought we kept them on separate floors, Roscoe was NOT happy with this development. 
Sam and Ivan talk about:
