Back Home...

I returned home last night from my trip to Virgina to visit my folks.  It's always good to get back home after a trip, and the more trips I make, the more true that is...

Debbie had a difficult day yesterday: our oldest cat (Pana, at right) had reached the point where it was time to say good bye, and Debbie had to both make the decision and act on it in my absence.  Tough for her, but she did it.  We've waited too long for some of other other animals, and have regretted it for years afterward; she was determined not to let that happen again.  And she didn't.  Little Pana was between 22 and 24 years old, a small all-black cat that was likely part Turkish (because he liked to play in water) that we rescued when he was quite young.  He had a long, happy, and safe life in our home...

This morning I did all my usual chores, then fired up our Kubota diesel tractor for another one: digging a grave for little Pana.  I was surprised when the tractor fired right up, as I hadn't started it for over a year.  But start it did, on the first turn of the starter.  Then I lifted the front bucket and the rear backhoe bucket and started moving toward the grave site.  Moments later I was swarmed with yellow-jackets, especially on my right hand.

They were in full “defend the nest” mode, stinging away as fast as they could.  I got stung quite a few times on my right hand and arm, twice above my right eye, and several times on my back and rear end.  Ouch!  I jumped off the tractor, leaving it running, and ran far enough away to escape the horde of angry yellow-jackets, then killed all the ones still stinging me.

The last time I had something like that happen to me was when I was a child – as an adult, I've only had one or two stings at a time.  I was worried what sort of reaction I might have to so many stings, but now (two hours later) all I have is some localized swelling.  My hand is by far the worst, but I expect it to go down within a few hours.  I've taken Benadryl and iced the hand; all the advice I can find on the web says those are really all I need to do.  Then wait :)

I found the reason why those yellow-jackets were so mad at me: they had constructed a nest under the left rear tractor tire.  When I moved the tractor, I ripped the roof right off their nest.  If some monster came along and ripped the roof off my house, I'd be pissed off, too.  I'd probably let him have it with my “stinger” (in my case, a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun).  Tonight, assuming it gets cool enough to slow the yellow-jackets down, I will destroy their nest.

I don't think I'll leave my tractor parked quite such a long time again :)

Quotes of the Day...

These quotes are all from a single article, and mostly what makes them notable is who said them.  Read the quotes first, then click on the link to see who said them – and read the whole piece:

If Americans are worried about money in politics, there is no larger concern than the Clintons, who are cosseted in a world where rich people endlessly scratch the backs of rich people.

I never thought I’d have to read the words Ira Magaziner again. But the man who helped Hillary torpedo her own health care plan is back.

You never hear about problems with Jimmy Carter’s foundation; he just quietly goes around the world eradicating Guinea worm disease. But Magaziner continues to be a Gyro Gearloose, the inept inventor of Donald Duck’s Duckburg.

Clintonworld is a galaxy where personal enrichment and political advancement blend seamlessly, and where a cast of jarringly familiar characters pad their pockets every which way to Sunday.

Until Harry Truman wrote his memoirs, the ex-president struggled on an Army pension of $112.56 a month. “I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable,” he said, “that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency.” So quaint, Packer wrote, observing, “The top of American life has become a very cozy and lucrative place, where the social capital of who you are and who you know brings unimaginable returns.” 

The Clintons want to do big worthy things, but they also want to squeeze money from rich people wherever they live on planet Earth, insatiably gobbling up cash for politics and charity and themselves from the same incestuous swirl. 

Ouch! Who dumped on the Clintons?  Hint: it's someone whom you'd expect would be leaping upon the Hillary bandwagon right about now, winding up for 2016...

How To Safely Keep Those National Secrets...

Passed along by reader and neighbor Marisa S., who says “Good One!”:

I wasn't able to confirm that it was actually Mike Huckabee who said this, but it does sound like him...

What a Bug!

The programmer made a common error: converting a floating point “double” to a 16 bit signed integer (a “short”). 

For my non-programmer readers, this is a little like trying to use a quart jar to store water, then transferring it to a drinking glass.  It works fine if your quart jar only has a little water in it, but if the quart jar has more water in it, that water won't all fit in the drinking glass.  In this case, it's the numeric value that won't fit.  For example, if that double had the value 200,000 in it, the short would end up with something very different – the biggest number it can hold is 32,767 (don't ask why unless you really want to get into the weeds!).

So the programmer made this noobie error.  Most of the time, the consequence of this sort of error is just a “Aw, crap!”, and the programmer fixes it.  This time the consequence was the loss of $500 million dollars – because it blew up an Ariane 5 and its cargo.

Major bummer...

Ouch!

This Map Pretty Much Says It All...

Below is a heatmap of gasoline prices around the country.  Red is bad.  I live in California.  Ouch.

And the predictions in the news, if one is to believe anything coming from such muddle-headed fools, is that prices are headed to $6, $7, and possibly more $ per gallon.  I may work from home more often...