Not a whole lot of links today, but that’s okay. It’s been a time of rest. Yesterday I got through another of the tasks I’d assigned myself for the time off from work, and this slow and steady progress is making me feel pretty good. Again, the task was only a couple hours, but was one of the few I was pretty unsure about getting done. It required ventilation because it was working with solvents and good ventilation is generally tough to come by in Minnesota in the winter, but it was very warm yesterday (42 according to the national weather service, and nearly 50 according to the thermometer in my truck - warm enough that I was working in just a T-shirt for a while), so I set up the workmate bench in the garage and got to work. Then when I was done, I talked with a neighbor I haven’t met before while the fumes dissipated. A darned good afternoon.
Thursday saw a successful trip to the bank and a trip to St. Boni to get my truck fixed. And while I was at the dealership, the mother of the guys I know there decided that they needed to add to the horse-trailer portion of their website. One project down, another added.
Today begins the list of real obligations. Don’t get me wrong, most of them are fun, but my time is not my own today and tomorrow. The schedules are set by other people, and that’s just the kind of thing that will make a control-freak like me a mite twitchy. I’m sure I’ll enjoy hanging out with the various folks over the next few days, but when I got the call last night telling me that today’s festivities had been moved a few hours early, my eyelid started jumping around like Doctor Strangelove’s arm.
But hey, it’s the time of the year for good cheer and presents that make people scratch their heads. And I realized yesterday that I still need to buy one last present. I need to get something from mom for me. Not sure what it’ll be, but at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it came from a gas-station. Then again, maybe I can find a local source for a memory-card for my camera to help with the picture taking that will accompany the events this weekend.
- No real surprise here: NY Attorney General Threatens Op-Ed Writer. Give the cops (and AGs) more power, and at least a few of them are going to abuse it. That’s the problem with government power, especially since once given, it can never be taken back without resorting to revolution. [police state]
- Speaking government not relinquishing power, Senate Passes Patriot Act Extension. Only for six-months, but they did it on a voice-vote late on Wednesday, perhaps hoping nobody would notice. [fark!]
- How about all the people who pick a Political Party as Fashion Statement? Warren points out many of the inconsistancies I’m sometimes too polite to mention. [coyote blog]
- The student who ordered Mao’s Little Red Book and reported Federal agents’ visit was a hoax, as many suspected. [tcf]