Ubikuberalles Inarticulate Grunts

Ker-plop. OW!

2009-08-18T23:25:28Z

On Saturday, August 15, I sustained my first hiking injury of the season. Actually, it was the first hiking injury I've had in a long time - and the worst.

Here's what happened: I was hiking in the Sandia mountains with my hiking buddies (taking the Cedar Crest trail to the Tree Springs trail - if anyone cares) and was in the last leg of the hike, approaching the end - maybe 15 or 20 minutes from the parking lot. I was walking down the trail when suddenly my right foot hit a rock or tree root. Normally, when my feet trip on something, I just stumble and recover quickly. Not this time. I was caught completely off guard and fell forward, suddenly - apparently the tree root trapped my right foot and I couldn't disentangle it in time to recover. I only had enough time to put my arms forward and grunt "oh crap!". My belly - just below the sternum - and my chest took the brunt of the fall. I stood up right away but I had a very hard time breathing. When the lady in front of me asked what happened, I could barely speak; there wasn't enough strength in my lungs to speak in my normal voice. I sounded like a ninety year old man.

Before long I had to sit down because I was getting dizzy (shock was setting in). The hikers behind me caught up and a couple of the ladies offered first aid. I had a scrapped knee and a couple cuts on the palm of my left hand. Anti-bacterial spray and band-aids were quickly applied. The main problem was my chest. It started hurting pretty bad. Especially when I tried to take deep breaths. We quickly determined that I suffered some bruised ribs since broken ribs would have been an order of magnitude more painful.

I spent maybe a total of 15 minutes sitting down and I was ready to continue the last leg of the hike, which took another 15 minutes or so. I even had lunch with some of my fellow hikers after the hike. I more or less felt fine, just a constant low-end pain in my abdomen.

The following Sunday was spent at home convalescing. It hurt a lot to move around. Getting out of bed sucked as it required my abdomen muscles which rubbed against the bruised area.

This is not the first time I bruised a rib and I doubt it will be the last. Back in the late nineties, I bruised a rib when I was crewing for a hot air balloon. I went to the doctor and he said "you got a bruised rib". Treatment was plenty of Ibuprofin and rest.

The next time I bruised my rib was back in 2006. I even blogged about it in this blog entry. I didn't go to the doctor that time and I saved myself about $10 in a co-pay fee and about an hour in the waiting room.

It took only two weeks to recover last time. I'm hoping it won't take much longer this time around. However, it's been nine days since the incident and I'm still in pain. The good news is that the pain is lower than before and I am able to do more things (like bend more freely with less pain and lift heavier objects). Increased activity helps too but there is a price to pay. Saturday I went hiking. I felt pretty bad early in the morning but during the hike I felt good and felt good the rest of the day. Yesterday I went bike riding and I felt much better. This morning, however, I felt like crap: the pain around the bruise site was much worse. That also might be because I was in bed longer Sunday night, where I slept for 7 or 8 hours. Saturday, I only slept for four or five hours. Less time in bed = less time putting pressure on my ribcage.

This morning, like I said earlier, the pain was worse. Ibuprofin only ameliorates it. I have heard that chronic pain can cause depression in patients. I can attest to that from firsthand knowledge. Sitting at my desk with that constant feeling in my chest does not do my spirits any good. Fortunately, simply getting out of the office to walk around or take a lunch does wonders for me.

If I'm lucky, only one more week of this pain thing to go. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Time for another Caffeine fast

2009-08-11T23:41:47Z

According to Wikipedia, a palpitation is the "abnormal awareness of the beating of the heart". There are lots of causes for this condition including "overexertion, adrenaline, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines, and other drugs". It may also be the symptom of some kind of disease - which is scary - or just a panic disorder.

I mention this because on Saturday evening I had some palpitations. I was in bed, trying to sleep and I could feel my heart beating (which is normal for me but usually I ignore it). My heart would skip a beat once in a while and I would start getting panicky about it. So much so I had a hard time getting any sleep that night. The next morning, I checked my heart rate and it was skipping on every beat!!! Oh, wait, that just means I had a slower heart rate. /embarrassed. Obviously I'm somewhat over anxious about this.

The thing is I had no chest pains or other symptoms that would indicate a heart problem so I'm sure it's more of a mental thing (in fact I rode my bike 52 miles the next morning and felt fine throughout the exercise). I've had mild anxiety attacks before (typically only enough to deprive me from a sound sleep) and usually it's not always about my heart rate but other things that normally don't bother me (noises in the house, ex-girlfriends, bills, etc.).

In fact I remember once, when I was a kid, listening to my heart beat and then suddenly it skipped a beat. The heart skipped just that one time - it wasn't a repeating irregularity - but that didn't stop me from running out of my bedroom to tell my parents. "Mom! Dad!" I gasped. "My heart skipped a beat! I think something is wrong with me." Both of my parents looked at me, looked at each other and then said, in unison, "Go to bed!". I skulked back to bed, thinking sullenly the whole time "If I die in bed tonight, they're going to be sorry."

My conclusion is that I'm taking in too much caffeine. Daily, I've been drinking at least one cup of coffee in the morning and then I drink one or two soft drinks in the afternoon. Although the coffee intake has been normal (for the past four years, anyway), the soda intake is a significant change from a month or two ago when I was drinking no more than one or two cans of soda a week.

For now I'm going cold turkey on the caffeine. No soda or coffee for at least a week. I may resume to drinking coffee in a week but I'm going to stay away from the soda for at least another month or so. I may also switch to decaff coffee next time I'm in the store. Decaff coffee still has caffeine in it but only 10% the caffeine that regular coffee has.

That should help reduce the anxiety and palpitations, I would hope.

Mobile Meth Manufacturers

2009-07-29T15:54:46Z

Clip from the local news: "Police said mobile meth labs are becoming a growing problem around the Duke City."

Damn you Breaking Bad and Walter H. White!

This does bring up a question: Did the writers of Breaking Bad know about mobile meth labs when they wrote the show or was this an idea they came up with themselves? Either way, did Breaking Bad inspire any meth manufacturers to go mobile?

Meth is indeed a big problem in this town. I've driven by a number of Meth sites seized by the police - area closed off, big white vans, techs in decontamination suits, etc. - even a mobile one (small truck camper). Even a video game store I visited a couple times turned out to be a meth lab.

Plumbing Problem in Space

2009-07-20T21:10:08Z

The ISS Astronauts fixed one of their toilets today. They were flushed with excitement.

Apollo 11 moon rock secretly launched into space

2009-07-20T18:40:42Z

NASA Secretly Launched Apollo 11 Moon Rock to Space

Weird. It's like sending coals to Newcastle or something like that.

What a meany!

2009-07-20T15:35:22Z

Headline on todays entertainment section:

"Harry Potter" smashes "Spider-Man" records

How rude! What did Spiderman do to deserve getting his record collection smashed up?

Listen to the Apollo 11 mission on 40 year delay

2009-07-16T19:18:00Z

Get your geek on:

Streaming broadcast of Apollo 11 transmissions

Asimov’s First Lines

2009-06-26T01:12:52Z

A while back I was thinking about famous first lines of novels like It was was the best of times, it was the worst of times or Call me Ishmael. It made me wonder if any of the authors I read regularly had any memorable first lines to their novels. Isaac Asimov was my favorite Science Fiction author when I was a kid and I wondered if his first lines were any good. So I went to my library room (I have a LOT of books in that room), grabbed the Asimov books I could find in short notice and started typing in the first lines. Below are the results. Decide for yourself if Asimov created anything memorable:

Andrew Harlan stepped into the kettle. – The End of Eternity

Lije Baley had just reached his desk when he became aware of R. Sammy watching him expectantly. – The Caves of Steel

Stubbornly Elijah Baley fought panic. – The Naked Sun

Elijah Baley found himself in the shade of the tree and muttered to himself, “I knew it. I’m sweating.” – The Robots of Dawn

The man from Earth came to a decision. – The Currents of Space

Two minutes before he disappeared forever the face of the Earth he knew, Joseph Schwartz strolled along the pleasant streets of suburban Chicago quoting Browning to himself. – Pebble in the Sky

The bedroom murmured to itself gently. – The Stars, Like Dust

His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before. – Foundation

Bel Riose traveled without escort, which is not what court etiquette prescribes for the head of a fleet stationed in a yet-sullen stellar system on the Marches of the Galactic Empire. – Foundation and Empire

There is much more that the Encyclopedia has to say on the subject of the Mule and his Empire but almost all of it is not germane to the issue at immediate hand, and most of it is considerably too dry for our purposes in any case. – Second Foundation

“I don’t believe it, of course,” said Golan Trevize, standing on the wide steps of Seldon Hall and looking out over the city as it sparkled in the sunlight. – Foundation’s Edge

Suppressing a small yawn, Cleon said, “Demerzel, have you by any chance ever heard of a man named Hari Seldon?” – Prelude to Foundation

Gladia felt the lawn lounge to make sure it wasn’t too damp and then sat down. – Robots and Empire

Death sits in the chemistry laboratory and a million people sit with him and don’t mind. – A Whiff of Death

“No good!” said Lamont, sharply. – The Gods Themselves

“If you’ll take a seat, sir,” the surgeon said, gesturing toward the chair in front of his desk. – The Positronic Man (Written with Robert Silverberg)

He sat there alone, enclosed. – Nemesis

“Why did I do it?” asked Golan Trevize. – Foundation and Earth

My reaction? Big fat meh. Asimov readily admitted that his writing lack style. He didn't even know what writing style was for many years into his writing career.

Call me Scotty

2009-06-04T19:55:45Z

Your results:
You are Mr. Scott

Mr. Scott		95%
Geordi LaForge		85%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		80%
Chekov		65%
Jean-Luc Picard		55%
Spock		49%
Data		44%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		40%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		40%
Uhura		40%
Beverly Crusher		35%
Will Riker		30%
Worf		30%
Deanna Troi		30%
Mr. Sulu		15%

You are a fun-loving foreigner with an
amazing ability to get any job done on time.
Often described as a "Miracle Worker".

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

W00t!

2009-06-02T03:00:23Z

I got this E-mail today:

We now have delivery date(s) for the order you placed on May 08 2009 (Order# XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX):

"Amazon Kindle DX Leather Cover" [Electronics]
Estimated arrival date: June 22 2009 - June 26 2009
"Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7" Wireless Reading Device (Latest
Generation)" [Electronics]
Estimated arrival date: June 22 2009 - June 26 2009

June 22nd! Yippee! I can't wait.

A little story.

2009-05-11T18:14:30Z

Punkoffgirl ask for a bedtime story in Facebook. I obliged her with the following tale:

Once upon a time, a young woman - Let's call her Jaime - couldn't get to sleep. She went to the internet and asked for help. A few minutes later the sleep fairy showed up and gave her some sleeping pills. "Take only one!" the fairy said "or you'll regret it!" So Jaime took one pill and went to bed. Ten minutes later she was still tossing and turning and she decided to take the second pill, despite the fairy's warning. Twenty years later she woke up.

When Jaime woke, she felt the sharp pounding from the beak of a six inch tall penguin wearing a red bow tie. It was Mr. Flibble and he quickly explained to her that when she wouldn't wake up, doctors sent her to a secret government lab located deep underground the desert in New Mexico.

It took twenty years but they finally discovered how to wake her...penguin urine.

"Ugh!" Jaime shouted, "The doctors made me drink penguin urine?"...

"No" Mr. Flibble answered. "It was mixed with some Aloe Vera and was applied to your skin."

"Ewwww!"

The last 20 years have not been good to Mother Earth. Jaime discovered that Global Warming was much worse than the scientists predicted: the whole world is now one gigantic desert and humanity's survivors now all live underground, eating hydroponically grown fruits and vegetables, breathing recycled air and drinking filtered water.

Life in the future was miserable and Jaime longed for the good ol' 2000s.

"If only there were a time machine that would take me back!" she sighed....

"Well, actually," Mr. Flibble hinted.

Jaime lay in the center of the massive time machine, strapped to a rather uncomfortable metal bench, wondering if she made a mistake agreeing to this experiment.

"Don't worry" Mr. Flibble intoned, "You'll be fine and back to the year 2007 in no time." Mr. Flibble grinned at his little (very little) joke.

"2009!" Jaime exclaimed, rolling her eyes....

"Right. Right! I knew that!" Mr. Flibble turned away, typing on a keyboard out of Jaime's view.

As the massive machine started rotating, a question formed in Jaime's mind. "Mr. Flibble, how did you get involved in this time travel thing? I thought you were just a SCUBA instructor. And how long have you been doing this time travel thing?"

"I've been researching time travel for over 50 years." Mr. Flibble raised his left flipper over the large red "Engage" button.

"What?" Jaime exclaimed. "Your Facebook profile says you were born in 1981! That means you are only 48 years old!"

"I'm a lot older then that!"

Mr. Flibble punched the "Engage" button and the machine spun faster and faster. Meanwhile, Jaime was getting dizzy from the constant spinning and was about to pass out. Before she did, however, she heard Mr. Flibble shout "Don't forget to give that microchip to the 2009 version of me!"

Jaime strained her eyes to look at the microchip attached to a silver necklace around her neck. "I won't!" she groaned, struggling to remain conscious.

The spinning increased even more and Jaime started having strange thoughts about witches and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. She glanced at Mr. Flibble spinning around her and she could swear he started looking like a scarecrow....

And then she blacked out.

The annoying repetitive beeping of the alarm clock slowly awoke Jaime from her sleep. As she stretched her arms, she remembered what had just happened. She put her hands to her neck but found no necklace with a microchip attached. She was wearing the same nightgown she wore the previous night and not the high tech smock (made out of natural, green friendly fibers) Mr. Flibble gave her. There was no sleep fairy. She didn't sleep for 20 years. She wasn't sent back by a time machine. Mr. Flibble wasn't a scientist but a plush toy penguin. It was all a dream. It was all confusing but it only elicited a smirk from Jaime's lips.

Nevertheless, Jaime decided to heed the global warming message of her dream and decided to ride her bicycle to work that day.

As Jaime rode off on her 18 speed bicycle, a mysterious figure sat in a small sports car across the street; watching her. A small microchip attached to a silver necklace lay inside the figure's clutched right flipper....

THE END...?

The above is Copyrighted 2009 by Ubikuberalles (just covering my base here.). :)

I'm thinking the above will teach POG a lesson about making requests on Facebook. :D

Milestone

2009-04-16T04:13:33Z

Today I witnessed my car reach the big 200K:

That's right, 200K miles. W00t! It took 17 and half years but I finally did it.

I could tell my car has been wanting to flip over the digits. For the past 100 miles the odometer has been looking something like this:

As you can see, the digits on the left can't wait to go to the next stage. I was hoping my trip to Oklahoma last weekend would make the digits flip but I was 74 miles shy of that when I goit home. A couple trips to work later and it's over.

I feel a little sad now because this just another reminder that I'll be getting a new car soon. I haven't decided on what car to get yet but I plan to get one before the year is out. And then it's goodbye to the Ubikmobile. Sniff.

Ridiculous Headline

2009-03-30T14:54:28Z

This is the headline of a Hollywood Reporter article I saw today:

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly boycotting Sean Penn films

A question in the interview:

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: ARE THERE ACTORS WHOSE POLITICAL OPINIONS DISTURB YOU SO MUCH YOU WON'T SEE THEIR MOVIES?

O'Reilly: Just Sean Penn.

How is that blacklisting?

Stupid press.

It's missing an apostrophe

2009-03-18T22:53:44Z

A restaurant I frequent has this sign on display as you walk in:

Which prompts the question "I know you were open but are you open now?"

School Anxiety dream

2009-03-18T19:51:44Z

The above cartoon hits home for me in so many ways. I graduated from college in 1986 and I still get college anxiety dreams. Dreams where I show up for class for the first time in weeks and the teacher is handing out a test and I have no idea what the material is about. Dreams in which homework is due at each class and I haven't turned in the last three assignments.

When I started taking class at CNM (Central New Mexico Community College) back in 2005 those dreams went away for a while. Mostly because, I think, I attended every class and I turned in all the homework on time (or even early). After a year or too, unfortunately, the dreams came back again. All of the dreams take place at the UNM (University of New Mexico) campus and none of them occur at CNM campus. I guess those bad old days when I was a lousy student at UNM will forever haunt me.

When I first attended CNM I was hoping those dreams would go away. When I was laid off in the spring of 2004, I was having a bunch more of those school anxiety dreams. I figured it was my unconscious mind telling me to get back in the school saddle again. So I enrolled and the dreams went away. It felt good. Now they're back. Not as frequent as they were five years ago, but they still happen occasionally. In addition to working full time I am currently taking a class at CNM. I attend every class and turn in my homework on time or even early. So what gives?

I'll just have to resign myself to the fact that these dreams happen. I suspect that when I'm on my deathbed (many years from now, I hope), I'll have the anxiety dream the night before I die. I'll wake up wondering, "Dammit, what is my subconscious trying to tell me? It's too F*ing late now to go back to school!"

Too Many Financial Terms

2009-03-04T16:15:37Z

When your car is worth less than the money you owe on it, your loan is upside-down. However, when you owe more on your house than the house is worth, your loan is not upside-down, but underwater. Why two different terms for essentially the same concept? Is it perhaps to immediately distinguish between home loans and other loans? Is it a mass conspiracy to confuse loan consumers and cause the eventual downfall of civilization? I dunno. I do know that it is one more financial term we all have to know, especially now during this recession when newscasters are talking about the record number of "underwater" mortgages in the country.

It makes me wonder what they call it if I owe more on my boat than the boat is worth. "Underwater" has already been taken. Perhaps my boat loan is "underground"? Or maybe it's just listing a little.

P.S. I don't actually own a boat. That was just an example.

Red Light Cameras

2009-02-10T00:25:17Z

I found this site which lists the red light cameras throughout the nation. Red light cameras have been a big political thing here in Albuquerque because our current mayor had a bunch of them installed five years ago and it caused a lot of political uproar.

First, the fines were outrageous ($100 for first offense, $200 for second, your first born for the third...). This caused a lot of shouting and finally the state intervened and this year a new fee structure was implemented ($69 for running a red light regardless of how many offenses). The interesting thing about the state law is that it only affected cities with a population greater than 200,000. The second largest city in New Mexico is Las Cruces at 89,000 so it's obvious the legislators were aiming the law at ABQ but were too chicken to actually mention the name of ABQ in the bill (lots of Anti-ABQ bias in this state). The original version of the law also stated that a (large) portion of the funds go to New Mexico (the amount of States share got mitigate a bit by Mayor Chavez after he threatened to shut down the whole program and deny the state any money). The cameras made a lot of money for Albuquerque and the State wanted their piece of the pie (greedy bastards). Bill Richardson sponsored that bill (greedier bastard).

Second, many felt that drivers weren't given enough warning about the cameras so signs were installed and grooves put in the pavement (to make a loud sound when you drove over it) to warn the driver that they were approaching an intersection monitored by traffic cameras. It didn't stop people from speeding through the intersection or running red lights but it did stop all the whining (OK, some of the whining).

Third, if you want to dispute the ticket (which is automatically mailed to you with a picture of you running the light), you can't go to court. You have to go to a city controlled arbitration board which is notorious for denying the dispute. This was one of the reasons for the states intervention (of course the BIG reason was all that MONEY the cameras were generating).

As you can see, there was a lot of news stories, debate and controversy generated when Mayor Marty Chavez put up the cameras back in 2004. I have no strong feelings either way on the matter since I don't routinely speed, run red lights and I have yet to get one of these tickets (knock on wood). However, when I discovered the above site I was fascinated. I found a table that listed the number of red light cameras in each state and I wondered what the per capita red lights were in each state (number of cameras per million in population). So I pulled the data, used Wikipedia to get the population figures and came up with the following table (sorted by cameras per capita):

State	                Number of                  # Cameras 
                        Cameras	     Population   per million
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
District of Columbia	      56	591,833	    94.62129
Delaware	              65	873,092     74.44805
Maryland	             327      5,633,597     58.04462
Rhode Island	              40      1,050,788     38.06667
Illinois	             452     12,901,563     35.03451
California	            1217     36,756,666     33.10964
New Mexico	              65      1,984,356     32.75622
Texas	                     700     24,326,974     28.77464
New York	             504     19,490,297     25.85902
Missouri	             141      5,911,605     23.85139
Arizona	                     152      6,500,180     23.38397
Hawaii	                      26      1,288,198     20.18323
North Carolina	             179      9,222,414     19.40923
Ohio	                     211     11,485,910     18.37033
Iowa                          55      3,002,555     18.31773
Louisiana	              80      4,410,796     18.13732
Georgia	                     168      9,685,744     17.34508
Tennessee	             102      6,214,888     16.4122
Washington	              97      6,549,224     14.81092
Oregon                        55      3,790,060     14.51164
Colorado	              55      4,939,456     11.13483
Australia                    217     21,468,700     10.10774
Kansas	                      20      2,802,134      7.137417
Canada	                     193     33,545,000      5.753465
Florida	                      84     18,328,340      4.583066
Nebraska                       8      1,783,432      4.485733
Pennsylvania	              42     12,448,279      3.37396
Wisconsin	              16      5,627,967      2.842945
Mississippi	               8      2,938,618      2.722368
Minnesota                     14      5,220,393      2.68179
South Dakota                   2        804,194      2.486962
New Hampshire	               3      1,315,809      2.279966
West Virginia	               4      1,812,035      2.207463
Kentucky	               9      4,269,245      2.108101
Nevada             	       5      2,600,167      1.922953
Wyoming	                       1        532,668      1.877342
North Dakota	               1        641,481      1.558893
Michigan	              11     10,003,422      1.099624
New Jersey	               9      8,682,661      1.036549
Massachusetts	               6      6,497,967      0.923366
Idaho	                       1      1,523,816      0.656247
Alabama	                       2      4,661,900      0.42901
Utah	                       1      2,736,424      0.36544
Arkansas	               1      2,855,390      0.350215
Oklahoma             	       1      3,617,316      0.276448
Indiana	                       1      6,376,792      0.156819
South Carolina	               0      4,479,800      0
Connecticut	               0      3,501,252      0
Vermont	                       0      3,501,252      0
Maine	                       0      1,316,456      0
Montana	                       0        967,440      0
Alaska             	       0	686,293      0

(Notice that DC, Australia and Canada were added to the list. I'd be interested in seeing any red light camera data on Mexico. I guess they don't have them - or they simply didn't release the data).

I'm not surprised that New Mexico is in the top ten. In fact, since all the red light cameras are in Albuquerque and the city has less than the third of the NM population, ABQ would be at over 100 cameras per million (of course, Los Angeles would probably be right up there too).

TANJ

2009-01-28T04:12:58Z

Since I started working at my new job last year the code needed to get a bag of Fritos at the vending machine downstairs was B3. Last week they moved them...to B9!

Dammit! Is there no justice in this world?

It's like weight

2009-01-08T17:54:34Z

Read this little tidbit on from this article on Yahoo news today:

Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it's 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it's denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight. (emphasis mine).

That's not a big deal to most of you reading this. For me, however with my engineering training, I could only smack my forehead and shake my head slowly. I can just see my high school physics teacher's face go red with anger as he growls "No, it's not like weight." He said that a lot to students unable to grasp the concept of mass. I seem to vaguely recall my college physics professor emphasizing the difference in class (although the college students were able to grasp the concept very quickly and the professor never struggled to restrain himself like my High School teacher did).

I hope my old high school physics teacher didn't read that article; he'd have a heart attack.

For Rob

2009-01-04T01:23:22Z

Found this on the local paper yesterday (Albuquerque Journal):

The correct word is intersession (a period between two academic terms).

For the record, intercession means:

1. an act or instance of interceding.
2. an interposing or pleading on behalf of another person.
3. a prayer to God on behalf of another.
4. Roman History. the interposing of a veto, as by a tribune.

I sincerely hope the Journal made a simple spelling mistake. Otherwise UNM has some really weird stuff going on during the semester break.

The mistake doesn't stop at the photo title. It keeps going on in the text of the story:

Xmas cards and weird postage

2008-12-19T08:07:35Z

I just finished with my Christmas cards for the year. All I have left to do is deliver them tomorrow morning on the way to work.

I'm feeling a little guilty and annoyed about it because I'm mailing them off at least a week later than normal. I've been pretty busy - what with school, work and all this meetup.com stuff I've been doing - but the main reason for my lateness is that I was completely disorganized with my mailing list. I could swear that I listed all the names and addresses of last years card in a spreadsheet but I was unable to find it. I spent two days looking for that list on my computer to no avail. Perhaps I put it on paper instead. Either way, it's no big deal now as I found the addresses I needed from various sources (E-mails, my memory, other Xmas cards, forum posts and even my resume for a couple addresses). To avoid future disorganization, I've put the addresses in a Google spreadsheet (and save a backup on my computer).

Another problem with the cards this year is I was running out of the proper postage. Postage is currently $0.42 but I didn't have any 42 cent stamps. I had a bunch of 39 cent stamps, a few $0.41, $0.20, $0.14 and a bunch of 2 cent stamps. No one cent stamps and only three 3 cent stamps. Of the dozen of so cards I've processed, only three or four had the correct postage. Most had one or two cents over the correct postage. A few had as much as $0.17 over the correct postage. No big deal except it might prove a little embarrassing if the recipients notice the postage discrepancy. In all I may have spent about 50 cents over what I would have if I had the correct stamps.

The alternative would have meant waiting until I paid a visit to the nearest USPS office, stand in a looooong line and buy new stamps. That would be Saturday, which would increase the chances of the cards not reaching their destinations before Christmas. Now I can visit the Post Office at my leisure (or until the next bill arrives).

Anyway, one less Holiday anxiety behind me. Now I got the whole shopping and wrapping the presents thing to do. Fortunately I'm mostly done in that department.

Vote Early - Vote Often

2008-10-24T00:36:37Z

On the weekend of October 18th Bernalillo county expanded the number of locations for "Early In Person" voting. On Tuesday, October 21, I took advantage of that and voted early.

Although the place was busy, my total voting experience lasted maybe 35 minutes. That Monday's paper said that the wait time for some of the locations took as much as two and a half hours. I guess I lucked out by selecting a location that was relatively quiet.

The first part of my voting experience took place waiting outside the office door. There were about 15 people in front of me when I got in line. That first wait took about ten minutes. While I waited a women stepped out of the office and loudly proclaimed that she "voted for the right guy". She didn't actually say who she voted for but she made it clear she didn't vote for Obama. That ticked me off. I don't care who you vote for but proclaiming your preference outside the polling area shows a complete lack of judgment and tact.

When I got to the start of the line and entered the door, I was handed a clipboard and a form and asked to fill out the form. I filled in the information (name and address as it appears on your registration), signed it and handed it back. The woman checked the form, validated it (some time stamp machine), handed me back the form and directed me to another line.

The second line lasted another ten minutes and when I got to the head of the line there were four desks with computer screens in front of poll workers talking to voters. When one of the poll workers waved me in, I handed her my card and she quickly typed the info into the computer terminal. She wrote down my precinct number from the computer screen and then handed the form to another worker who then went into another room to get the paper ballot for my precinct. I thought that was pretty cool: having the ballots for all the precincts in one office. That meant I could go to any location to vote early instead of going only to one location for my precinct.

While waiting for the ballot, the lady pointed out to me the instructions posted on the wall on how to fill out the paper ballot. Pretty simple, just darken the circle for the candidate you are voting for. I've done paper ballots before. Pretty easy. These instructions were pasted on every wall in the place (wouldn't surprise me if they were in the bathrooms too).

The lady also told me that I was voter #16205 which meant 16205 people had voted so far in the early in person voting. That's pretty darn good. According to the paper, that was much more than what it was at the same time during the last general election.

The guy comes back, I get my ballot, I find an empty voting booth and I start voting. When I'm done voting I put my ballot in the ballot machine. On the machine is an LCD display showing the number of ballots processed by that machine. Once I insert the ballot, I'm supposed stay there until the number increments by one or the machine starts beeping, indicating that my ballot was rejected. After a few seconds, the LCD number changed from 514 to 515. One of the poll workers thanked me and handed me a sticker that said "I Voted" on it.

My civic duty as a voter was complete. :)

In addition to the loud lady, there was one other incident that made my voting experience more interesting. Just when I started filling in those little circles, one of the ballot machines started beeping. Someone's ballot was rejected. Sure enough, one of the poll workers tells someone that their ballot was rejected. The poll worker takes the voter to the vacant voter booth next to mine and explains to the voter that the ballot was rejected (the voter crossed the circle instead of filling it in). The poll worker gives the voter a blank ballot and tells him he'll have to fill in the blank ballot.

The voter responded by stating that he needed the old ballot because he forgot how he voted. The worker could not give him the old ballot because a voter could have only one ballot in his possession (I presume the old ballot was either destroyed or put into a vault or other safe location). The voter rejected this news and decided that he won't vote that day and he'll just wait until election day to vote. The poll worker tells the voter that it's too late, since his name was already registered that day, he can't vote later: he has to vote that day. Again the voter rejected what he is being told and restated that he wanted to vote later. This goes on again at least one more time until the voter decides that he wants to talk to the poll workers supervisor. After a few moments a woman shows up and the situation is explained to her. The voter restates his intentions to vote during the regular election instead of that day. I don't know what happened after that because I finished voting and I went to the ballot machining, hoping that my ballot won't get rejected (it didn't).

It's a week later and I still shake my head at the incident. That voter spent more time arguing than I spent at the booth voting. Why didn't he just cope with the situation by trying to remember how he voted. The whole thing begs the question: what process did he use when he voted on the first ballot? He obviously didn't bring notes. Did he just randomly picked votes? I don't get it.

After I voted I read about a woman who voted while drunk. She created a disturbance passed out with a bottle of vodka in her possession and police wondered if it was illegal to vote while drunk (it wasn't).

It's incidents like these that make me think that we deserve the leaders we get. Us voters are idiots.

It's DOT COM!

2008-10-09T18:32:22Z

Check it out:

If you go to ubikuberalles.com or ubikuberalles.net or even ubikuberalles.org, you will be directed to my LiveJournal home page. Yes, that's right, I got my own domain name (3 of them, actually).

I don't have any specific plans for my new domains. Eventually, I'll want my own website. I do have a GeoCities account and I may move my .com domain to that site (and keep my .net domain on this blog). However, Geocities sucks and I need to get a decent (and yet cheap) web host for my web page. I'm in no hurry, at the moment. Partially because I know it'll be a lot of work. Mostly, however, I'm not prepared for the possible nightmare my website could become if it gets hacked. My internet security skills are lame (although I'm sure whatever web host company I go with would provide me some security tools). Also, the only driving force for me to get a web site is I need a place to post my Javascript programs. Geocities has placed enormous restrictions on JavaScripting (you can't use separate .js files, for example) and the few Flash programs I wrote would max out my Geocities bandwidth if more than two people in the world downloaded them on the same day.

In the meantime you now have an easy way to get to my blog: just type ubikuberalles.com. The hard part is learning how to spell ubikuberalles. ;)

Just for Grins

2008-09-26T04:15:30Z

The Slow Dancer

Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLD)

Steady, reliable, and cradling her tenderly. Take a deep breath, and let it out real easy...you are The Slow Dancer

Your focus is love, not sex, and for your age, you have average experience. But you're a great, thoughtful guy, and your love life improves every year. There's also a powerful elimination process working in your favor: most Playboy types get stuck raising unwanted kids before you even begin settling down. The women left over will be hot and yours. Your ideal woman is someone intimate, intelligent, and very supportive.

While you're not exactly the life of the party, you do thrive in small groups of smart people. Your circle of friends is extra tight and it's HIGHLY likely they're just like you. You appreciate symmetry in relationships.

Your exact male opposite:

The Hornivore

Random Brutal Sex Master

Always avoid: The Battleaxe (DBLM)

Consider: The Maid of Honor (DGLM), The Sonnet (DGLD)

Link: The Online Dating Persona Test | OkCupid - dating services | Dating
My profile name: : ubikuberalles

Raising the Bar

2008-09-02T05:43:02Z

I just watched TNT's newest original series Raising the Bar. Here's my review:

Hated it!

There wasn't one character in that series I gave a crap about. The lawyers in that show were unprofessional hacks and should have been tossed off the bar years ago. They weren't even real characters, just caricatures of characters from other, more popular crime and court room drama TV shows.

I don't get angry at shows very often but this show made me very mad. Grrrr.