It's still Elvis Week!

Let us bow our heads as we listen to the good word of the King:

Moonbeams play peek-a-boo
Three awake became two
And my song was almost done
When the land of Nod took one

-Five Sleepy Heads

Pretty girls eighteen to twenty-three
If their technique ain't what it should be
Get love instruction for free from me
Through the courtesy of the
Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce

-Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce

Raise your hand quick

I had a business trip to Spokane today. I have a project under construction that I haven't seen since before bids. Now the cmu walls are up, but the steel hasn't been put in yet. So it's just a big concrete room under the blue sky. Stark but nice. I think the client will want a roof, though.

For my return flight, I'd booked the 5:30, just so I wouldn't feel rushed at the site. I returned to the airport at about 2:15. The ticket agent said she couldn't put me on standby for the 2:30 since it was less than 30 minutes before the flight. So she put me on standby for the 3:30.

I walked over to the gate and saw that they were just starting to board the 2:30. The agents at the gate counter had a stack of a dozen or more standby tickets, but they started calling names out. After all the ticketed passengers boarded and they still had several standby tickets they were calling, I asked if there was a chance I could get on. One of the agents said, "No, all the seats are taken." So I sat down.

But I kept watch on them.

They called the last few of their standby tickets, but one guy wasn't showing up. They called him a couple more times.

And then she said, "We have one seat remaining. Whoever can. . ." I start to stand up. ". . . raise their hand the fastest--" My hand shot up like no tomorrow. She pointed at me. "I saw you first." And I got on the plane. She didn't even bother to print out a boarding pass.

Anything to get out of Spokane.

All hail the King!

I know you all are deeply distraught over the destruction of His teddy bear, Mabel, but we must persevere, for today marks the beginning of Elvis Week.

So let us all remember the words the great King sang:

If I have wounded any soul today,
If I have caused one foot to go astray,
If I have walked in my own willful way,
Dear Lord, forgive!

-"An Evening Prayer"

and:

I roar like the jungle, I fight tooth and nail
I just gotta get you, you'll fall without fail
I'm ready for the kill, I'm right on the brink
It's animal instinct

-"Animal Instinct"

Can I get a "Huh-huh-huh!"?

Surprise!

Went on my first hike in a while yesterday. Beautiful day for a walk in the woods. We went to Surprise Lake near Stevens Pass, which is where I wanted to go for the backpacking trip back in June, but there was too much snow then. No snow now.



First thing I did upon arriving at the lake was go for a swim. Not very cold at all, as alpine lakes go. 50° or so. The only other person to go in was Matthew, and he didn't go very far out at all. He said it was colder than Copper Lake last weekend.



And everybody else wimped out.



A couple more pictures:

My Geopolitical Analysis

The Good Guys:
United States of America
Israel
Australia
United Kingdom
South Korea
Taiwan

The Bad Guys:
Iran
North Korea
Syria
Saudi Arabia
China
Russia

Pet Peeve of the Day

Clients who email me to say "Please call me."

Why don't they just call me themselves like they did the day before??

Or at least say their piece in the email itself?

Faith in Our Legal System

I have great faith in the U.S. legal system. They always get the right answer. . . eventually:

A Pennsylvania appeals court over-ruled a lower court and declared that Miller Genuine Draft is actually beer. The case revolved around the defendent's claim (after he was caught driving around town with a beer-chugging teenager) that he didn't realize MGD was alcoholic.

I wonder, is the defendent an idiot or did he just expect that everyone else is an idiot? We definitely need some wasting-the-courts'-time penalties.

(I got this from James Taranto, who merely commented on the advertising value of the headline.)

What Shall We Do with a Deadline Misser?

To the tune of "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?":

What shall we do with a deadline misser,
What shall we do with a deadline misser,
What shall we do with a deadline misser,
Early in the evening?

Stick him in the closet till he's sorry,
Stick him in the closet till he's sorry,
Stick him in the closet till he's sorry,
Early in the evening.

Keep him there and make him draft it,
Keep him there and make him draft it,
Keep him there and make him draft it,
Early in the evening.

Pull out the toner and ink him all over,
Pull out the toner and ink him all over,
Pull out the toner and ink him all over,
Early in the evening.

Tie the power cords around his ankles,
Tie the power cords around his ankles,
Tie the power cords around his ankles,
Early in the evening.

Give him a taste of the end of the straightedge,
Give him a taste of the end of the straightedge,
Give him a taste of the end of the straightedge,
Early in the evening.

Drag him from the back of the FedEx van,
Drag him from the back of the FedEx van,
Drag him from the back of the FedEx van,
Early in the evening.

Stick him in the shred bin till he's mangled,
Stick him in the shred bin till he's mangled,
Stick him in the shred bin till he's mangled,
Early in the evening.

Heave him by the leg straight out the window,
Heave him by the leg straight out the window,
Heave him by the leg straight out the window,
Early in the evening.

That's what we'll do with a deadline misser,
That's what we'll do with a deadline misser,
That's what we'll do with a deadline misser,
Early in the evening!

Truth in Advertising

Don't say I ever said the AP wasn't good for anything. They can dig up the best of the weird. Like this story from Tahoe:

STATELINE, Nev. (AP) - A Lake Tahoe casino that promotes a "habitat for everything wild" found truth in advertising over the weekend when a wayward bear wandered in through a rear loading dock.

The 150 pound yearling walked around employee hallways at MontBleu Resort Casino and Spa early Saturday and sauntered toward a cafeteria before it scurried out the way it came in, apparently frightened off by several workers, employee Earl Zeller told the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

In one MontBleu television commercial, a cocktail waitress walks past urban-dressed guests in lounge, then throws a fresh fish to a waiting bear.

"Evidently the bears out there heard the story that bears can be fed at the nightclub at MontBleu," Zeller quipped. "I guess we reached our target audience."

General Manager Patrick Basney said employees got a laugh from the incident but also recognized the "need to secure our area a little better."

Montbleu is the former Caesars Tahoe.

a reason projects are overbudget:

As long as we keep going in circles, eventually we'll get there!

It's harder than I thought.

A two-person, four-vs-four game is fairly simple. Move the pieces around until you get lulled into a sense of complacency and thus make a mistake. Bam, you lose.

A three-person, four-vs-four-vs-four game is a bit more interesting. Since the players are on the attack and defense at the same time, I found myself teaming up the attacks together against all three defenses. Does that make sense? Green and red attack blue together; green and blue attack red together; red and blue attack green together. I'm not sure there's even another option, if you want to win.

I haven't made the rest of the pieces yet, or the landscape. It's still fun enough without.

Here's the board I made (with the lunchtime version beyond):


Wanna play?

New Boardgame I Designed in My Head Last Night

What's a good name for a boardgame on a circular board divided into hexagons where the object is to capture the opponent's lowest-ranked piece and you have to move all your pieces every turn in order of rank from top down?

How about "Knights of Tékasara"?

Oh, and there could be forests and ravines and fortresses and other complicating factors.

I made a board and played myself a simple game (4 v 4) at lunch. Make a tiny mistake and you lose a piece. Lose your head honcho piece numero uno and you're done for.

Whoops

When you try to restart the voicemail computer in your company's server room, make sure you're not actually turning off the entire network. "Well, it's not that one. It's not that one. And it's not that one. Therefore, I think I'll hit the power button on that machine." Which happened to be the UPS (glorified surge protector) for all the servers. Whoops. You know that sound of a computer turning off? Multiply that by ten, as all the computers in the room power down at once. And then coworkers come running and yelling.

I really shouldn't be allowed in that room before eleven.

The voicemail computer was actually the little one two up from the UPS. Unlabeled.