tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:47:59 +0000<center>A Claar family blog. Because blogging is cool.</center>http://www.claar.org/blog/noreply@blogger.com (Doug)Blogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-3581225477472614985Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:07:00 +00002009-12-04T20:47:59.052-08:00The global warming hacking incident reminds me of the part in the "Wizard of Oz" where Toto pulls the curtain back. "Pay no attention to the fraud behind the curtain. The great and powerful science has spoken!" Or maybe the witch's question; "But what kind of science are you? Are you a good science, or a bad science?" Let's investigate.Real science follows the data. This science says "the data http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/12/are-you-good-science-or-bad-science.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-719266550918126556Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:59:00 +00002009-08-15T15:18:37.350-07:00I've spent some time (probably, waaay too much time) cruising googleimages, and I give you...The full armor of God, as visualized by many,many different people! If you have some time, check out a few! Note, all of the characterizations below are mine. I don't vouch for the contents of any of the sites below!ArmyModern soldierLogo sketchMangaUmmm...MulletShinyTshirtWomen's TshirtAnother shirtYA http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/08/full-armor-of-god-as-visualized-by.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-7550739431392629742Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:24:00 +00002009-08-14T22:34:52.903-07:00My wife keeps wondering why I want a tablet computer, maybe something like the very intriguing Touch Book, or maybe the TouchNote. The former is quite unique, reasonably inexpensive, but it is still "beta", and can't run windows, and--having tried to live in the linux world--I know that there are some things that don't work too well in linux land (I still can't get any of my three wifi cards to http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/08/my-wife-keeps-wondering-why-i-want.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-3981961911120180714Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:20:00 +00002009-08-14T21:15:03.156-07:00Someone suggested that we help shuttle folks from the parking area for an upcoming event as a group project. I'm still trying to figure out how this works: There are 12 seats in the van, and 12 people in our group..."I'm sorry, we're full up! You'll have to wait for the next trip.""Five times? Well, I'm very sorry! Maybe you'll have better luck next go around.""Why yes, same folks as the last http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/08/and-around-and-around-we-go.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-7333435315793407980Sun, 02 Aug 2009 03:15:00 +00002009-08-01T20:36:32.408-07:00Somehow I managed to lose the Thru-bolt Cap for one side of our front door. It has been bugging me forever--I lost it years ago--but they don't sell such things at Home Depot. I came across the brochure for the lock set we had, and there was a URL, so I figured I'd surf on over there and see if I couldn't find one. I was only able to find the actual thru-bolt (order in quantities of 100!) so I http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/08/schlage-lock-company-is-awesome.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-4517195897376265210Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:30:00 +00002009-04-07T08:04:30.162-07:00Magazine articles on taxes are like bible commentaries: They can be useful, but you need to check the source, the bible. Turbotax is like the New American Standard bible: Not as simplified as Today's English Version, or as user-friendly as The Message, it is still much simpler to understand than the IRS publications, which are the King James Version of the tax world. Like the KJV, a lot of peoplehttp://www.claar.org/blog/2009/04/putting-tax-in-taxonomy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-4530754291187158561Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:08:00 +00002009-02-18T21:28:12.919-08:00"Who are you? And what have you done with my father?!Oh. You are my father. Damn."Lines Spielberg left out of Star Wars.Yeah.That's what it is.http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/02/apropos-ofsomething.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-2470416993000733254Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:16:00 +00002009-01-24T22:37:29.235-08:00Another annoying thing about Northwest is that, when you go to book your flight, they tell you that all of the seats, except for some middle ones, are booked. So we were going to have to sit behind each other. But the truth is, those seats aren't really booked. Some time before the flight (it might only be a day or two), they offer to sell you those seats for an extra $20-$25! Pretty cheeky, if http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/01/and-another-thing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-7959826766695628800Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:42:00 +00002009-01-26T20:51:45.315-08:00Our luggage is found...no thanks, really, to NWA. I think my brain is still mssing, though...Here's how our return trip broke down, and our luggage was...misplaced.Our plane, which was scheduled to leave at 6:40 AM (meaning we had to get up at 4 AM, which was 1 AM our time) had "mechanical problems". What this meant was that someone was too lazy to do the maintenance, so the Oxygen tank wasn't http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/01/our-tail-of-woe.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-1739587956730950807Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:26:00 +00002009-01-19T21:27:53.598-08:00Our luggage is still lost. So is my brain.Must sleep now...http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/01/lost.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-7064831403033840070Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:22:00 +00002009-01-19T21:26:22.136-08:00From Reuters: "Countdown to Obama presidency as King remembered"I'm not ready for King Obama...http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/01/lets-hope-not.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-6969730127764697822Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:05:00 +00002009-01-01T11:20:39.753-08:00No, that's not my Mario impression ("itsa cold"). It's the sad fact that I didn't so much ring in the new year as rhin it in. And, while all the kleenixes wouldn't qualify as weapons of mass destruction, they could be weapons of mass discomfort.My jokes get worse when I'm sick or tired...cue Bill Cosby: And tired always followed sick. Worst beating I ever got in my life, my mother said, "Well I http://www.claar.org/blog/2009/01/baby-its-cold-inside.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-1370082776729167763Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:40:00 +00002008-10-15T21:47:23.409-07:00Bought two Emprex (no, I won't link them, that would be too good for them) products for our vacation. The first, a multi-format memory card reader, failed before we left, and I was able to return it.The second, a 16 Gb thumb drive, failed after we got back, with all of our vacation pictures--over 5 Gb--on it! Fortunately, I had offloaded them to my PC, but it was a close thing. Now I have to try http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/10/emprex-products-stink.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-3192399856511654464Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:46:00 +00002008-08-14T12:01:19.446-07:00Now, here's a really smart web site! On this auxiliary page (only read by paranoids like me), it says (emphasis mine):Please do not put the email address of the participant being donated to in the email address field of the donation form. This may cause the participant record to be overwritten in our database with the donor's information.Wow. So any random person can accidentally (or purposefullyhttp://www.claar.org/blog/2008/08/stupiddangerous-web-site.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-6135132195547795719Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:01:00 +00002008-08-04T21:12:18.431-07:00I read that US Airways is now charging for drinks, and JetBlue is charging for pillows and blankets. What's next, seat belts and toilet paper? "In the event of a sudden cabin depressurization, please slide your credit card for 15 minutes of air. Should the airplane be forced to land over water, flotation devices are available for 3 easy payments of $19.99. Flight attendants will distribute the http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/08/new-airline-charges.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-1549763690848432671Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:54:00 +00002008-07-07T20:46:17.999-07:00Some folks we know are getting married on the 19th. We've sent in our RSVP, we're going. Now we find out that the Sabercats division championship will be in San Jose, and we have tickets! ...at the same time as the wedding. Who woulda thunk I'd face the playoffs vs. wedding stereotype/dilemma?Think it would be tacky to go to the wedding looking like our friend Mark, shown here in his Sabercats http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/07/didnt-see-that-coming.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-2957014291176519344Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:28:00 +00002008-04-07T22:34:28.579-07:00Maybe it is just me, but when I saw Omaha Steak's "40% off Friends and Family" sale, I thought "Why would I want to do that"?! Or, as the joke goes: "Good lord, a pig like that, you can't just eat him all at once."http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/04/it-just-sounds-wrong.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-3439998520582473917Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:40:00 +00002008-04-03T22:16:48.344-07:00It's amazing how inexpensive an entire season of arena football is, compared to--say--one Sharks game. Of course, we like the Sharks, too, but row 7 for one of their games is really going to hurt. Our seats are really cool--actually, when the pyrotechnics go off, you can feel the heat--although the noise level is pretty high. It's really exciting when they make a touchdown. Oh, and this one's forhttp://www.claar.org/blog/2008/04/two-words-season-tickets.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-3178041392388105671Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:16:00 +00002008-04-03T22:21:04.537-07:00This is just sooo wrong, on so many levels. In particular, the "organic" part. It's just against nature!. "We make it easy for you to blast out some nice, fattening pancakes".Speaking of things that are wrong, I was at a doctor's office this morning. Up until today, I thought the old magazines bit was just a comic shtick. But now I have that fine medical insurance (initials KP).There were two http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/04/fat-blaster-and-revenge-of-sith.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-6916422130881855728Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:45:00 +00002008-02-19T12:12:50.073-08:00Yeah, the weekend was pretty boring. As in, my son and I bored a hole underneath our driveway for a sprinkler pipe. We rented a power tool, and did the 20' in an hour. It's pretty cool working on a project with your son when he's old enough to actually help, and even contribute some good ideas. We had a blast! (Not to say that we used explosives..now, that would have been really cool!)http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/02/it-was-boring-weekend.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-3921233325840492618Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:48:00 +00002008-01-21T18:13:06.996-08:00So we went away to Pacific Grove for a couple of days. It was nice there, and we had a good time. Which was pretty much totally wiped away when we got home.We had contracted to get our fence replaced, as the last storm had knocked part of it down. (I'd repaired that section, but it was clear that it needed replacing). When the fence company didn't show up on the appointed day, and didn't answer http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/01/well-it-was-relaxing-time-away.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-6331640780906977211Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:30:00 +00002008-01-15T18:32:10.826-08:00So, as of 6:30 PM, we've received 2726 bounces from this spam attack. Heaven only knows how many went through, or were silently dropped by spam filters. Sheesh.http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/01/spam-update.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-862382535615416826Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:11:00 +00002008-01-15T12:15:00.249-08:00I use a program at work named Fanfare SVT. It is horrible about stealing focus! This means that, at random times, it will decide that you don't really want to be using that browser, you want to be talking to it! So it takes the things you were typing into that other unimportant application, and puts it into fanfare....Which explains how kp.org ended up in a Fanfare test case, and why I had to http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/01/i-hate-programs-that-steal-focus.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-138270349583680274Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:56:00 +00002008-01-15T10:49:10.413-08:00Wow, claar.org is getting hammered by email bounces. 600+, and the hits just keep coming. Looking at the IPs, it appears that some zombie army of spambots is sending "medical" spams and forging the "from" address as somejunk@claar.org. A lot of the emails identify their originating system as gosha+stuff, although the IP address keeps changing, so this is clearly a lie. Hopefully they keep http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/01/getting-hammered-by-spam-bounces.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882820.post-5904637521407370551Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:23:00 +00002008-01-10T10:40:32.984-08:00(Well, except perhaps for the one I got for flinging myself off the top of a telephone pole on the ropes course at Hume Lake).Get yours today!http://www.claar.org/blog/2008/01/best-tshirt-ever.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Doug)0