11. February, 2003 - not frozen yet

• Major suckage on the home front. The forced-air furnace in my place crapped out (due to a dirty filter that was supposed to be changed over a month ago) yesterday morning. The highest the temp got inside was 60F (15C), and it got as low as 50F (10C) inside my apartment (and into the low 40s in the basement, where all the water pipes are). After leaving a half-dozen messages on my landlord's answering machine, and spending the afternoon sitting in a coffeeshop and bar to stay warm, I finally ran into my next door neighbor about 8pm. He told me that the landlord's out of town until tomorrow sometime. The guy who usually fills in for the landlord is in jail. The other “helper” is out on a bender and useless around the furnace anyhow.
  
  My neighbor and I headed down to the basement to see what's up. After partly disassembling the furnace to figure out where the filter is on it, we found it. There was a half inch of dirt clinging to the old filter. Pull that out, put a new one in, slap panels back on the furnace until all the safety switches are satisfied and it fires up, and there's heat. Only took until 5 this morning to get back up to room temperature in here.
  
  The most annoying part about the whole affair was that I lost a lot of work-time to distractions last week, and was planning on spending this week catching up. Instead, I got four hours work done by noon, and then had to quit because I was too cold to type anymore. I'm not sure what it is, but so far this year, every time I start making real progress on the paying work, something has come up to sidetrack me, and it's getting pretty old.
• In case of terror attack: Food, water, duct tape… Okay. Is the government trying to get me to panic? Frankly, I'm too busy trying to keep from freezing to worry about terrorist attacks right now. [strib]
• New biometric ID cards may be needed for Canadians who want to enter the US: Under the USA Patriot Act, passed by the U.S. Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, all Canadian citizens and landed immigrants will need ID with either a fingerprint or an eye scan to get into the U.S. Of course we won't stand for that sort of thing here in the U.S., so we'll still be able to go to and from Canada with just a driver's license. Hmmm.... [boing boing]
• The London Obeserver investigated Colin Powell's “poison gas factory” in Northern Iraq. It's a cinder block compound full of heavily armed Muslims. No signs of any gas. [Jim]

Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek. Last updated on Tue, 11 Feb 2003 07:02:29.