I started a new project at work yesterday that promises to take up a lot of my free time until the 18th.  It looks like I’ll be busier than a one-legged man at an ass kicking contest until then.

I’m hoping that I can actually get it done a bit sooner by spending the coming weekend on it so I don’t have to get into a nasty crunch at the end.  Anyhow, updates will be sporadic at best until I get this thing knocked out.

I went to a NOAA SkyWarn class on Saturday morning.  It was held at the Richland Hills High School auditorium and several hundred people showed up.  Unfortunately, the guy in the row behind me spent the whole morning hacking and coughing.

This is exactly why I hate going out where there are big crowds.  You always get some shmuck who is bound and determined to attend the event despite being sick.  The rest of us be damned.  With both crowds and airplanes I seem to get sick about half the time within a few days of the event.

As expected, I feel like I’m coming down with the flu (or at least something similar) today.

Why can’t people have a little consideration for others and stay home when they’re sick?

The cleanup I mentioned in the previous posting has extended itself far beyond its original scope.  I went back into that closet and pulled out four more boxes, three of which had old software in the original boxes.  It took up a lot of space so I took the manuals and CDs I wanted to keep out of the boxes and threw the rest away.  I also threw out even more obsolete computer junk as well as a bunch of catalogs and magazines that had piled up.  In all I put out seven big trash bags of junk and I’ve got a bunch of old phone books to put out Friday when the recycling truck comes by (it doesn’t help that at least three competing companies cover this area, all of whom leave monster phone books on my door; it seems really wasteful as I hardly ever use a phone book anymore, instead using online search tools to find phone numbers).

It really pained me to throw out some of that software, since I spent so much on it.  For example I had four obsolete copies of SuSE Linux Professional Edition (6.1, 7.1, 8.0, and 8.1; the current version is 9.2), each of which cost approximately $70.00 when new.  Unfortunately, this kind of software gets stale really quickly because of security updates and other changes, so it really wouldn’t do me much good to install an older version since it would be so far behind (especially in terms of security updates). 

Then on Monday I went crazy in my office and pulled out a large table I’d been using for a computer desk as well as a large bookshelf.  I mounted some shelves on the wall to store a lot of the stuff from the bookshelf and rearranged the remaining furniture, which opened up a lot of space.  Unfortunately, all this activity has aggravated my back, which started giving me trouble just after Christmas. 

Now that I’ve got some space I’m looking into creating some sort of workbench/workcenter.  At present I’ve been working on computers at the dining table, which is annoying for several reasons (not the optimum height, have to string a long ethernet cable to connect it, have to drag all the peripherals in there for testing) not to mention messy.  I’ve also been cleaning my guns in the living room on the coffee table, which is very bad ergonomically (and makes my back problems worse).

I haven’t seen anything that I really like so far, so I’ve been considering custom building something (I have some rudimentary woodworking skills, but this would be something of a stretch for me).

This whole organization kick is turning into an obesssion of sorts.  Between it and work it’s been taking up all my time.  I just hope my back can hold out.

Ack.  As soon as I came up with the title to this post that damn Animotion song started playing in my head.  Crap.  Now it’s going to be there all day.

Perhaps it’s just an accident of perception, but I’ve noticed that vehicles don’t act “quite right” after a panic stop.  Friday night on the way back from the range I was almost in an accident at 1709 (Keller Parkway) and Keller-Smithfield road.  It’s a dangerous intersection due to the fact that the left-turn lanes are slightly offset (similar to 1709 and Rufe Snow), which means that people turning from 1709 onto Keller-Smithfield don’t always see traffic in the oncoming inside lane (especially if there is a vehicle waiting in the oncoming left turn lane).

Someone in a Suburban who was turning North onto Keller-Smithfield pulled out in front of me just as I was approaching the intersection.  The speed limit there is 45-mph, so a full speed collision would have been pretty messy*.  Fortunately, I hit the brakes as hard as I could (I felt the antilock system pulsing) and the other driver floored it to get out of my way.  Between those two actions we missed having a collision by just a couple of feet.  But afterwards I noticed that the engine wasn’t running quite right until I was a block or so away.  I wonder if the sudden G-forces of the deceleration had an effect on the fuel system?

Anyhow, what irks me is that I had absolutely nowhere to go without hitting someone in this situation.  There was another car in the oncoming left turn lane, so even if I could have somehow gone over the curb (the lanes are divided at this point) without losing control I couldn’t have gone there.  And to top it off, some idiot in another Suburban decided this would be a good time to turn right onto 1709 from Keller-Smithfield (i.e. I was in the left lane and he turned into the right lane).  If I had hit the first Suburban, I guarantee I would have pushed it into the second one, compounding the carnage. 

The problem with these two intersections and people turning left seems to be pretty commonplace.  It seems that there is at least one serious accident at either intersection every month (that I have personally come across—I don’t know the actual stats).  Whoever designed these intersections made them look pretty (like everything else in the silly Keller “master plan”), but they’re very dangerous.  Until they’re redesigned, the simple solution would seem to be to allow left turns only on a green arrow.  But I doubt that that change would get made, since people would complain about having to wait two or three minutes for the turn signal.

I’ve always been wary of these intersections, to the point of slowing down slightly if someone was waiting to turn from the oncoming direction.  I’m not sure how much more wary I can be without stopping completely, but I suppose this is a good reminder to be especially cautious at these intersections.

*  My Avalanche has a curb weight of 5600-lbs and the Suburban is listed at 5200-lbs.  Advantage: Avalanche, by a nose.  However, I suspect a broadside hit to the Suburban would probably negate a lot of the advantages of its weight.  Regardless, I’d prefer to avoid such unplanned vehicular meetings if at all possible.

When I bought my first DVD player in 1998, I got a free offer for Netflix with the player.  At that time Netflix had not yet moved to a subscription model.  It worked a lot like any other video store (you picked individual titles and were charged for each one), except that all business was conducted online.  The utility of Netflix at the time was that most video stores had a very limited DVD selection (if they had any at all).

When they went to a subscription model I balked, since I didn’t see myself paying $23.95 per month given that I typically rented only three or four movies per month.  I also never had trouble with late fees, since I’m pretty anal about returning movies on time (I’ve only ever been late once, when I had to stay late at work unexpectedly), and since I wasn’t renting from Blockbuster.  While living in Denton I used the local Payless Video across the street from UNT, which had decent prices, a good return policy (movies due by store closing, not noon like Blockbuster), and generous rental periods (e.x. rentals on Saturday weren’t due until Monday, but you were only charged for one night). 

It was only after moving to Keller and experiencing Blockbuster’s weird return policy that I realized why so much of Netflix’s marketing was devoted to the issue of late fees.  Since Blockbuster required movies to be returned by noon, it effectively took away the last day or your rental period (i.e. if you get a three day rental you had better think of it as a 2.5 day rental or you’ll get hit with a late fee when you forget to return it on the morning of the third day).  And to top it all off, their new release rental fees were higher than Payless.  At those rates, renting only four movies per month (one per weekend), after taxes, now costs about $17.25. 

So, when Netflix reduced their subscription price to $17.99/month it finally seemed worth it.  I’ve been with them for about a month now and I’m fairly pleased with it.  They have a distribution center in Coppell, so it doesn’t take long for the movies to make it to and from my mailbox. 

But one of the interesting things about the service is that it has actually encouraged me to take more chances on movies I otherwise would have passed up.  In essence, the cost to me of renting additional movies is now zero, since I’m paying the same fee regardless of whether I watch 20 movies or none in a month.  If I have to pay $4.00 plus tax for each one, plus make sure to shlepp over to the Blockbuster to return it afterwards, I tend to be more careful about what I rent.  With Netflix if I decide I don’t like it, I can just stop it, put it in the return envelope and be done with it.

Right now I’ve got about 50 movies in my queue, so I guess I’ll have movies to watch on weekends for the forseeable future.

I found it slightly ironic that Blockbuster announced the end of its late fees about two weeks after I joined Netflix.  In a way I’m not surprised that this would happen, since everyone has been pounding them over this in advertising (not only Netflix, but the cable companies with their On Demand and DVR offerings).  On the other hand, it’s a little surprising that they’d abandon what was probably a pretty lucrative revenue stream.  I suppose in the end, though, the launch of their own subscription service signalled the end of the late fee model. 

Interestingly enough, I just saw that Blockbuster is offering their subscription service at $14.99/month (through 1/31/2006).  It’s normally $17.49/month.  What’s interesting about it is that while my cost analysis of the cost of Blockbuster per-rental pricing versus Netflix induced me to go to Netflix, the savings in cost from Netflix to the current Blockbuster offer isn’t enough to make me switch to Blockbuster.  For some reason (perhaps their late fee policies), I was just never comfortable in their stores.  I just don’t have enough good will towards their brand to go back to them, even to save $3.00 per month. 

This isn’t to say that I’m going to be burning my Blockbuster card in the street.  I’ll keep it for those times when I have friends over and I haven’t had a chance to plan to get a movie from Netflix.  But I don’t expect that to happen very often.

I’m back and after I sort through another 160 or so emails I might have more to say.

I do have a small gift for the new year, though.  I’ve implemented comments as a pop-up window.  It was getting kind of annoying to have the comments open in the main window (or to remember to tell the browser to open the comments in a new window).

Ok.  That’s it.  I’m done for the year now.  I don’t have to be back at work until January 4, 2005. 

At some point tomorrow I’ll pack up the dog and head for East Texas.  I should return around Tuesday, but I don’t know if I’ll have anything more to say on this weblog until after New Year.  I guess it’ll depend on whether something irritates me enough or not.

This is an interesting time of the year for an agnostic.  While I’m not a believer, I suppose the secular aspects of Christmas as it manifests itself in our society still appeal to me.  And despite the religious theme, I like a lot of traditional Christmas music. 

Anyway, I’m not above wishing all of you who are reading this a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I’ll leave you with these thoughts on the season from some character called Foamy, whom I discovered at Cinomed’s Tower.

It looks like someone forgot to tell the weather gods that this is Texas, not Minnesota.  Yesterday it was 64.  The day before it was 73.  Right now it’s 26 with 30mph wind gusts (and blowing snow). 

Ugh.  I think I prefer hot and humid.

I’m just now starting to feel like one of the living after a bout with some kind of damn bug.  It was pretty annoying because it would pop back up just when I thought it was over.  I’m hoping it’s done now, but we’ll see.

I’ve been feeling like some kind of virus is working on me.  I’m tired, having trouble concentrating, and feeling slightly feverish from time to time.  So I haven’t been exactly on top of things, which is my excuse for the dearth of new content this week.

But at least I’ve got some good music to listen to while I laze around, thanks to Instapundit and the new fast/free shipping at Barnes & Noble. 

For those that know me, the seriousness of my malaise can be judged from the fact that I’m not going to the range this afternoon…