www.tulok.net : Earlier Entries
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Entry 71 August 8, 2003 12:00 am |
Times change, and so
does my version of The List, first referred to back in January.
Ya know, the list of the five celebrities
that you would be allowed to sleep with and your spouse can't say
anything.Back then, I had to mention a First Alternate, because my fifth choice had not yet turned eighteen, and the legality of listing such a name over the net is iffy at best. Still hasn't seen the Big One-Eight yet, so I still have to have a First Alternate. Miss Kudrow, I'm sorry to say, is no longer it.
After seeing nearly 75 episodes of the home-redecorating TLC series Trading Spaces, I have to add designer Genevieve Gorder to The List, displacing Miss Kudrow, and relegating Miss Aniston to First Alternate. Gen can redesign my house anytime.
Once again, The List can't become official until there's a Significant Other in my life, and I'm no closer to seeing that happen.
Lots has happened since the last entry, on both ends of the yo-yo. Guess I should do this chronologically.
Two Wednesdays ago: my last night on nights before my vacation started (still on it, return next Wednesday). At the beginning of the shift the entire group was gathered together for some very unsettling news.
Our department has an exact duplicate in the Raleigh-Durham area that does the exact same job: we do it half the week and they do it half. The point was so that if something disasterous happened to one Network Operations Center the other one could take over with very little disruption.
Well, apparently running two centers costs more money that the benefits a backup center would bring. So, even though everybody we have contact with says ours is the better group, the Tulsa department is nevertheless being decommissioned, and the North Carolina group will take it over full-time. Any of us who wish to tranfer out there will still have a job. The rest of us are being laid off.
Relocation is not an option for me, everybody and everything I know is here. Besides, being called "The Roadolinian" doesn't have as much of a ring to it. So, in about two months, I will be out looking for work. And given the current state of conditions in the Tulsa area from the American Airlines, WorldCom and Williams layoffs in recent months, things do not look promising.
Trying not to worry about it yet. I am on vacation, after all; I'm supposed to be having a good time. I'll start worrying next week. Meanwhile, I am open to any ideas.
Last Friday: the storm that came through the Tulsa area Friday evening knocked out power to the entire neighborhood. Tried to call PSO, kept getting a recording saying that all operators are busy answering calls about the outages in South Tulsa. I live in West Tulsa. From that recording it was apparent they didn't even care about my part of town, and there was no way to get through to them because when the recording finished it hung me up.
But get through I did. Power came back up briefly, then slowly went out again. Slowly, as in a gradual dim of all lights, definitely not something you want to see happen with complex electrical equipment running. When everything finally went back out, I started smelling smoke. Went outside and found that a tree branch had broken off, and fallen onto the power lines in my backyard, and the branch was arcing.
Cell phone call to 911 and the fire department was there in about 90 seconds (station's the next block over). Since the branch wasn't actually on fire, and they felt it was wet enough that it wouldn't catch fire, they left. But since it was knocking out power to the entire neighborhood, they went back to the station, but not before calling PSO themselves to tell them of the situation. Crew was out in five minutes. After all, the entire neighborhood was out. Including power to two transmitter towers up the hill. The fact that the blinking red lights along the length of the tower creates a serious hazard for aircraft probably didn't hurt mattters, either.
Long story short, if that's even possible now: power came back on just before midnight.
Monday: had been planning to do some roadtrips during this vacation, so I took the car to Wal-Mart for an oil-change and general check-up. Note to self: they don't do anti-freeze.
Tuesday: due to the nature of the major roadtrip I had planned, I decided to do a minor one, finishing up the southeastern part of the state, just to see if the car would have any problems. Only six endpoints on five highways, the whole trip lasting only 353 miles, but the car ran like a dream. All ready for the Big Trip. My first Roadklahoma Overnighter.
Wednesday: left for the Panhandle, the first time I've ever been out there. Everything seemed really flat, but in reality I was going uphill the whole time. Case in point: the three panhandle county seats, and the two counties due east of them, have elevations of (going east to west) 1351, 1791, 2500, 3126 and 4165 feet.
Finished with most of my panhandle endpoints before 8:30, then retired to the Guymon Days Inn. (Was going to try staying at Motel 6, the preferred choice of Eric over at OKRoads, but there doesn't appear to be one of those anywhere in the panhandle.) BTW, if you've got a Triple-A membership, use it to get a hotel room. My membership dues were more than paid for by the AAA discount I got with the room. Half-price!
The Wednesday road trip also marked several personal bests and/or firsts. First time I've been in Colorado in 23 years. First time I've ever been in New Mexico (being 20,000 feet over it notwithstanding), even if just for a few minutes. First time I've ever entered the state of Texas without crossing the Red River (again, plane flights don't count). First time I've ever crossed into the Mountain Time Zone and back twice in one day. And the first time I've ever seen a West Texas TV Guide (The entire Oklahoma panhandle is in the Amarillo television market).
Went 756 miles this day. Not my longest web-related trip, but keep in mind, I didn't have to worry about return milage this time. The high temperature in Guymon on Wednesday: 102.
Thursday: finished the panhandle, then headed south, and started getting pics in the west-central part of the state. Was going to work on this area until it got dark, but even with the car's air conditioning it was just too damn hot. So I wound up limiting my journey to just the endpoints north of Interstate 40.
Did stop in Clinton around 4:30 for a little while, and took refuge in the Route 66 Museum (hey, it was only a block away from an endpoint). Took the whole three-dollar tour and everything. If you're ever in the area I strongly recommend stopping in and taking the tour. Just don't listen to the optional pre-recorded tour guide that comes with. I've been told that I can put people to sleep with my going-on about roads. All the guy on the recording was doing was talking about Route 66, and he was putting me to sleep! The visual part of the tour, however, is well worth the three bucks.
I would later discover that while I was stopped in Clinton, they were reaching their high temperature for the day: 108! Due to the too-damn-hotness, I was finished with my last endpoint a little after 6pm, just west of Watonga, then headed back home. The last three days I had traveled 1736 miles, but it was well worth it. If I leave early enough in the morning so that I get to the first endpoint just as the sun comes up, I should be able to finish the state with one more roadtrip. Next time, however, I'm gonna wait to see what the forecast is for that part of the state before heading out.
Later Thursday: when I got back home I discovered that my gas had been shut off, "due to emergency" according to the door-hanger. Too late to call them then to see what the problem was, so I had to wait until this morning. Turns out it wasn't any problem with my line at all, but they did have a leak in the main line right in front of my house.
As long as they were digging right next to my gas meter anyway, they decided to go ahead and change it out. I had one of those below-ground meters that's reached by opening up a little manhole cover. Warning to others in the state with this kind of meter. They don't make 'em anymore. In the next few years ONG will be changing all of these kind of meters and replacing them with above-ground meters.
I can see their reasons for changing the meters, but now it makes it harder to mow.
Well, I've been on this entry for almost an hour now, and I'm pooped. I know I've missed a few things, I'll try to get to them some other time. L8r. 11:44pm
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Entry 72 August 12, 2003 12:00 am |
What was meant to be a quick jaunt up to Missouri to update my Powerball tickets turned out to be a 500-mile roadtrip, gathering more highway pictures before my vacation ends (return to what's left of work tomorrow). Got a few in the Joplin-Carthage area before swinging over & getting several in southeastern Kansas, including a resigned highway that's not even a month old.
A couple of quick links. First up: the biggest oxymoron in the history of oxymoronity, the Fox News slogan "fair and balanced", is itself involved in a lawsuit, as the Fox people are trying to squelch the use of the term as part of the title for Al Franken's new book.
Noteworthy in this article, third to last paragraph, is an accidental slip of the tongue by the Fox spokesperson, which turns out to be possibly the most accurate thing ever spoken by anyone at Fox News, when they made the terms "journalist" and "television personality" mutually exclusive.
Here's a fun site: plug in your name, first or last (but not at the same time), and Name Statistics will tell you how popular that name is in the U.S. For instance, I have the 85th most common first name and the 990th most common last name in the country.
Extrapolating the numbers together, this means I would have the 84,150th most popular name, first and last. Based on these numbers, there should statistically be 6,480 Martin McMahons in the nation. To each and every one of them, my sincere condolances.
And, pending verification of signatures, here's the list of people who will be running for Governor of California in the recall election this October (comments mine):
A. Lavar
Taylor
Angelyne
(porn start who has appeared on thousand of Southern California
billboards)
Arianna
Huffington (political columnist who was a regular on Bill Maher's old
show)
Art Browns
Audie E.
Bock
B.E. Smith
Badi
Badiozamani
Beverly
Thompson
Bill Prady
Bill Simon
(lost last November's general election to Davis)
Billy Ray
Smith
Bob Lynn
Edwards
Brian
Tracy
Brooke
Adams
Bruce
Martin Margolin
Bryan
Quinn
C.T. Weber
Calvin Y.
Louie
Camilla
Cochran
Carl A.
Mehr
Charles
Pineda Jr.
Cheryl
Bly-Chester
Christopher
Ranken
Christopher
Sproul
Chuck
Walker
Cruz M.
Bustamante (the current Lieutenant Governor)
D.
Dan
Feinstein
Daniel T.
Watts
Daniel W.
Richards
Darrin H.
Scheidle
Darryl L.
Mobley
David E.
Kessinger
David R.
Sams
Diana Foss
Diane
Beall Templin
Don
Houston
Donald A.
Novello (a.k.a. Father Guido
Sarducci)
Dorene
Musilli
Douglas
Anderson
Ed Beyer
Edward
Thomas Kennedy
Elizabeth
Swaney
Eric
Korevaar
Erik Smith
Frank A.
Macaluso Jr.
Gary
Coleman
Gary
Leonard
Geoff
Nathanson
George B.
Schwartzman
Georgy
Russell
Gerold Lee
Gorman
Gino
Martorana
Heather
Peters
Iris
Adam
Ivan
Alexander Hall
J. Leonard
Padilla
Jack
Grisham
James
Henry Green
Jamie
Rosemary Safford
Jeff
Rainforth
Jeffrey L.
Mock
Jerome
Kunzman
Jim
Hoffmann
Jim Weir
Joe
Guzzardi
Joel
Britton
John
"Jack" Mortensen
John
Christopher Burton
John
J. Hickey
John W.
Beard
Jon
William Zellhoefer
Jonathan
D. Miller
Joseph
Morones
Joseph R.
Evanns
Kelly P.
Kimball
Kevin
Richter
Larry
Flynt (good one; any dirt on this guy, he'll be the first to bring it up!)
Leo
Gallagher (yes, the "Sledge-O-Matic" comedian)
Lingel H.
Winters
Marc
Valdez
Mary "Mary
Carey" Cook
Mathilda
Karel Spak
Maurice
Walker
Michael
Cheli
Michael J.
Wozniak
Michael
Jackson (not that one)
Mike
McNeilly
Mike P.
McCarthy
Mike
Schmier
Mohammad
Arif
Nathan
Whitecloud Walton
Ned Fenton
Roscoe
Patricia
Tilley
Paul
"Chip" Mailander
Paul James
Nave
Paul
Mariano
Paul Vann,
Peter
Miguel Camejo
Peter V.
Ueberroth (former MLB Commisioner & organizer of the '84 L.A.
Olympics)
Ralph A.
Hernandez
Ralph S.
"Rotten" Sherwood
Reva Renz
Richard
Andrew Gosse
Richard J.
Simmons (I doubt it's him)
Robert A.
Dole
Robert C.
Mannheim
Robert
Cullenbine
Robert
McClain
Ronald J.
Friedman
S. Issa
(the guy who put up all the money for the recall, hoping his would be
the only name on this list)
Sara Ann
Hanlon
Scott A.
Mednick
Scott W.
Davis
Sharon
Holland
Sharon
Rushford
Shu Yih
Liu
Stephen L.
Knapp
Tim
Sylvester
Todd
Carson
Todd
Richard Lewis
Tom
McClintock
Vikramjit
S. Bajwa
Warren
Farrell
William B.
Vaughn
William S.
Chambers
Wolfgang
Georg Neckien
And do I consider all this stuff going on a California another Sign of the Apocalypse? No, it's just another indicator of Californians being Californians. Now, if Gallagher should win,... 9:52am
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Entry 73 August 18, 2003 12:00 am |
There's
an exit eastbound along
the south leg of the Inter-Dispersal Loop in Downtown Tulsa with an
unusual sign. At the actual exit itself, the exit sign is marked "Exit
94D". Why? there's no Mile 94 anything
in Tulsa. Looking at other roadgeek pages, I started
to notice that nobody seemed to know the reason. A couple of theories
out there presented as fact, but they're really just guessing.I know why that exit is called 94D. There is a logical explanation, which I have given over in my newest Sidetrip. Actually my first Sidetrip since I've had the Roadklahoma spinoff. Need to work on a few more of those. (Oh, click on the graphic above to go to the Sidetrip.)
Only other thing I've got tonight is, I just finished watching Monday Night Football, and every time they went to new sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero, she was holding her microphone weird. At an angle and way off to the side.
Almost as if she didn't want either her arm or the microphone to block the camera's view of her breasts. 10:20pm
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Entry 74 August 24, 2003 12:00 am |
OK,
went ahead and made another Sidetrip. This one's been floating around
the Internet for several years, and I wanted a copy of it in a spot
where I could find it easily, so here it is: the "Is Hell Exothermic or
Endothermic" question. Click on the pic to see the page.Added a countdown clock to the top of this page, with plans to count down to various events. Currently it is counting down to 6pm on October 10th, the moment when I will no longer be employed at my current job. Of the twelve people in my department, it looks like five of them will be transferring to the North Carolina office, while the rest of us will be staying here, joining the already-scarce job market for alternate work.
If anyone out there has any pull with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, could you please put in a good word for me? As long as I'm traveling the state anyway might as well find a job that'll pay me to do it!
One of the dates I may eventually use the clock to count down to is 21 December 2012, the day that, according to the Mayan calendar, the Earth ends. Started looking on the Internet for background, and found this site, giving some very thorough theorems as to why this event is entirely possible.
Much more disturbing: that Bible Code stuff that's been bandied about for the past decade or so? This site claims to have possibly discovered just how the world will end.
A comet, similar in size to the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, will strike Canada and open a hole all the way down to the crust. Suffice it to say, we'd be facing total global cataclysm here.
That entire site is interesting, especially the part about Jerusalem being destroyed by an atomic blast in 2006: well worth a read if you're into that kind of thing. Personally, I don't believe anybody or anything can foretell the future that far in advance. Most of the so-called predictions, especially those told by Nostradamus, usually deal with events that, years later, someone went back through the texts and tried to match up with one of the quatrains, which are usually so vaguely-worded that they could wind up meaning just about anything. As far as this Bible Code goes, if you've got enough letters to work with and are allowed to lay them out in a near-infinite numer of patterns, you can come up with virtually anything. There's probably a grouping that says "OJ Did It," as well as another that says "OJ Framed." I'd be willing to bet that there's a grouping of words in the Bible Code that translate as: "Martin McMahon Worst Lover Ever."
Will quite likely wind up true, but that doesn't mean the Bible foretold it.
And as far as Jerusalem's atomic destruction in 2006: if it does happen, it would likely be caused by some wacko terrorist who did it solely to make the prediction come true.
Here's a much more fun event to count down: the day that the Olsen twins finally turn 18 and men all over the world can start legally lusting for them.
Saw this in Reader's Digest while waiting at the eye doctor's the other day. Professor asked his students to write a concise essay containing the subjects of religion, royalty, sex and mystery. The student who always gets the A-plusses in the class wrote:
"Oh my God," said the Queen, "I'm pregnant. I wonder who did it?"
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Entry 75 August 26, 2003 12:00 am |
Went out last night to see some friends who live out in the boonies, several miles north of Vinita, broke out the telescope and got a look at Mars. First time we caught it in the viewfinder, it looked just like microbes that you'd find in a petrie dish when looking under a microscope.
Then we cleaned the lenses.
Still didn't see much 'cause the telescope wasn't that strong. It finally looked more like a black-and-white closeup photo of the sun. But interesting nonetheless.
Was still a wonderful night. Got to see the Milky Way for the first time in a few years, watched what we believed to be the International Space Station flying across, and saw several shooting stars. One of them was either very close or very large, because I was able to differentiate between the meteor and the firetrail it created.
Just to show how stupid Fox News' attempt to get an injunction against Al Franked for his use of "fair and balanced", Paul Newman has sinced joked (?) that he plans to sue the Department of Housing and Urban Development because their acronym (HUD) was the name of a character he portrayed in a similarly-named movie, and he's afraid people will confuse the two.
Hey, come to think of it, I can sue American Family Publishers for hiring Ed McMahon as their spokesman, making it virtually impossible for anyone else name McMahon to be allowed to win the top prize. Relation or not, the fact that McMahon is not that common a name means most people would probably think that a relative of their spokesman won, and therefore the contest is fixed, which would be a death knell for the company. So to avoid that problem, who's to say they didn't fix it in the other direction?
I'd be interested to know how many McMahons have won anything in their contests: it's not that rare a name, either. 7:47pm
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75C: So I Wonder What Would Happen if the Subject Name Were So Long It Required Two Lines August 31, 2003 12:00 am |
First test from the evaluation copy go bye-bye. Using this one to see how two messages look together on the same page. And while I'm at it, let's see how the links work
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75B: Second Test August 31, 2003 12:00 am |
Trying to decide with this one whether or not I want to keep the entry numbers. I'm thinking to dump 'em
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