My Avalanche barely fits into my garage so I decided to take the hitch off and store it in one of the topboxes and put in a hitch cover.  That way I’ll have a few more inches to work with and maybe not have to park with the nose almost touching the front wall.  I found that etrailer.com has a bunch of trailering accessories available, including hitch covers. 

While browsing through their catalog I think I may have discovered the ultimate redneck truck accessory (aside from the bull balls). 

On a more serious note, this one could be handy given the number of tailgating assholes I see around here (some of whom get so close that all I can see of their cars are their antennas above my tailgate).

Scientists are just now showing that there is merit in “sleeping on it” when it comes to problem solving.

From Coleridge’s epic Kubla Khan to Mendeleyev’s periodic table of elements, it’s long been believed that sleep can help fuel artistic creativity and scientific insight.

A recent experiment designed by German neurologists at the University of Lubeck now provides scientific proof for the phenomenon.

For their study, the researchers recruited 66 students to do a memory task. The students were taught two simple rules to help them convert a string of eight digits into a new order.

By following the two rules, the calculation took seven steps.

But there was a third way to solve the problem almost instantly, which the students weren’t taught.

The human guinea pigs were trained, then tested and after eight hours, retested. During the eight-hour period, half the group slept, while the other half were awake.

During retesting, sleep was found to have worked wonders. Sixty per cent of those who slept discovered the secret rule, compared to 22 per cent among those who stayed awake.

I suppose most of us had already arrived at this conclusion empirically, but science has to take a more methodical approach.

I decided that I would chance flying to the NRA Annual Meeting.  It’s faster and it’s less expensive overall.  I don’t know how the security will be, though, as that’s the big unknown.  I’ve heard a lot of conflicting things about the TSA.

In an effort to be better informed, I checked out the TSA’s website and came across the list of prohibited items.  They also include some items that are permitted, just for clarification.  I was slightly amused by the following item, though:

I guess someone got their butt chewed for not allowing the robot through the checkpoint, which led to this entry.  It’s a perfect example of the problem with government droid personality types.  They have to have every damn thing spelled out to them and freeze up when demanded to think for themselves.

Or perhaps they will come and build it is more appropriate.

IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced it plans to build a store in Frisco, TX as its first store and restaurant destination in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and its second store in the state. (IKEA Houston opened in 1992 and will move in August into a new building twice the size.) Pending city approval, construction of the proposed IKEA Frisco could start as early as Spring 2004, with an anticipated opening date of Summer 2005.

Bordered by the Dallas North Tollway on the west and Texas State Highway 121 on the south, the 25-acre site will include a 310,000 square foot IKEA store at-grade with 1,400 parking spaces. Located in the very successful ‘Frisco Bridges’ shopping district, this store will blend local design features with the unique architectural design for which IKEA stores are known worldwide.

I guess I’ll finally get to see what all the fuss is about.  I know my sister seems to like them, especially because they have some space saving designs (she bought two of these loft beds for the girls and put desks under them so they could take better advantage of the existing space in their room).

I’d heard of Myth Busters on Discovery before, but I hadn’t watched them until their “Explosive Decompression” episode.  Not only did they disprove the myth that a handgun could explosively decompress an airliner, they had a lot of fun doing it.  And after tonight’s episode I’m hooked.  They examined the “frozen chicken” myth by building a chicken cannon (!) and firing frozen and thawed chickens at aircraft windshields.

I was toying with the idea of going to the NRA’s Annual Meeting in Pittsburg this year.  I found that a nonstop roundtrip ticket on American can be had for $236.70.  I was surprised to find it that cheap.  I was considering driving, but according to MapQuest it’s a 2506 mile roundtrip.  Considering that my Avalanche gets 17MPG on the highway, that’s 147.4 gallons of gas.  At an average cost of $1.60/gallon (I can get 89 octane for $1.49 or so here, but I expect it to be higher out east), that would be $235.00 in gas alone.  Flying would also get me there in about 3.5 hours versus 20 hours driving. 

Of course, the intangible benefits of the freedom of your own vehicle and seeing the country are harder to figure into a calculation.  There’s also the hassle factor of having to be scrutinized by the TSA.  You can’t put a price in time or money on dignity.  Further, I’d be more secure on my own (I wonder how long it takes to turnaround an out-of-state application for a carry permit in PA; there are a few sherrifs there that will issue them without a lot of hassle).

For the past three days I’ve noticed F-16s flying over the area on my daily dog walks.  It makes me wonder if this is part of some routine exercise or if it’s somehow related to air security.  We aren’t that far from DFW airport here, so I suppose it’s possible.

So it appears that the Dallas Police will be out in force today to enforce a new ordinance designed to put a stop to a serious crime that is being committed every day in the city.  What is this horrible infraction that will require so much time and effort on behalf of the city?  Shopping cart theft.

Darryl Johnson is homeless and doesn’t have a car. So he uses an abandoned shopping cart he found near a creek to move around his blankets, clothes and other belongings.

Because of a new city ordinance that police will start enforcing today, Mr. Johnson may want to ditch the cart – or face jail or a fine. The measure makes it illegal to possess a shopping cart off the premises of the business that owns it.

They’ve also established a hotline just to report shopping carts that have been taken.

Grocers hope a newly established hotline will help solve the problem. Anyone can call the hotline to report a cart off the premises of a retail establishment.

Don’t mistake my disdain for this silly ordinance with approval for the actions of the homeless.  Taking a shopping cart is theft, so I fail to see the need for this ordinance.  Couldn’t it have been handled under existing law?  Why was this needed?  Given the budget problems that Dallas has been having, how can they justify the expenditure for this enforcement as well as a new hotline.

I suspect that this is just another of the sham attempts by “Mayor Mommy” to make it look like something is being done about the crime problem in Dallas.  That, and I get the impression that she gets off on controlling other people.

I took a nice relaxing vacation from work and blogging.  I had family in town for part of the time and spent the other part laying about doing next to nothing.  Actually, I had little to say, so I suspect that time on the weblog would have been wasted (and boring to those few of you who are still around). 

Anyhow, more to come…

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