joyfulchristian

Dead

That pretty neatly summarizes what my child would be if she was involved in this:

A 10-year-old boy has been charged with stealing a car and leading police on a 75km pursuit along West Australian roads at speeds of up to 170km/h.

Police say it was lucky no-one was hurt as the boy and his three passengers led officers on the high-speed chase along dark country roads south of Perth.

Officers said the pursuit began in Narrogin at 4.15am (WDT) on Sunday after officers tried to pull the car over, suspecting the four boys inside the car had been doing burnouts in the town.

I've heard of some pretty young kids stealing cars, but this is pretty extreme.

Mi vida loco

Sorry about the lack of posting lately.  Between the end of our last busy season of the year and finding a new job, I've been swamped.  I've found the job I was looking for, though.  Unfortunately, that means we'll be looking for a new house and getting ready to move to OKC.  I don't know how any of this will affect posting.  We'll see.

In other news, if you haven't seen Elizabethtown, you really should.  The wife and I saw it last week and loved it.

Stop it already!

I've been getting barraged by comment and trackback spam today.  Whoever you are, you might as well cut it out.  It's all getting caught by moderation anyway.  You're just wasting my time and yours.

Comments and trackbacks

The spam has been driving me nuts so I've turned on comment registration as well as comment and trackback moderation.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but that's the way it is.  My comment policy is the same as always, but now any comments I would have deleted in the past will simply be blocked.

Catching up

Well, the wedding is over! Yay! We're still in the process of unpacking though. It will probably be a few more days before things get back to normal around here. (Assuming I can figure out what normal is.)

I just flew back from D.C.

... and boy are my arms tired.

More later.

Well, I'm back

My computer is up and running again! Yay!  Stupid hard drive crashed, but I've got a new one. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't find much to talk about today.  I did, however, find this post about splitting the procceds from their blog to be pretty interesting.   (There really is something interesting about a pay scale involving square roots.)

Hopefully, I'll be back up to speed soon.

Sorry for the long absence

Sorry I've been gone so long.  I've been out of town followed by violently ill. (The doctor had to give me Vicodin just so I could swallow.)  On top of that, my laptop is down (The hard drive crashed.) and tax season has already started eating my lunch.

I hope to be up and running next week.  Thanks for the concern.

By the way

a) Thanks for all the good wishes.  If you checked the comments out, you'll see that the wedding has been moved to June 18th (some silliness about wanting a bridesmaid to actually be at the wedding), but every thing else is still a go.

b) Sorry for the lack of free ice cream.  Things have been real hectic AND my laptop is on the fritz. Grrrrr.

c) I'll be trying to post more regularly now. Until I hit the tax season wall that is. Who knows what will happen then?  (No, not even The Shadow knows.)

You are entering a low-pondering zone

For the next couple of weeks I'm going to be spending time with someone special, or on the road.  Or both.  I have no idea how much I'll be blogging during that time.  My travels will end January 2nd.  If it hasn't already, blogging should return to normal shortly after that.

Sorry about the lack of free ice cream

Wednesday and Thursday I had CPE in Tulsa. By the time I got home I was beat. Between that and spending enormous amounts of time on the phone I just haven't had time. I'd blog now, but I don't seem to have anything to say.

Normal blogging will continue as soon as I can figure out what exactly normal is.

Yay Holiday!

I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving in Amarillo and don't plan to return home until Sunday. Blogging and e-mail responses will be slow to not at all for the next few days. Enjoy the holiday.

Just a reminder

I do not tolerate swearing on this blog.  Any comments containg swear words or that take the Lord's name in vain will be deleted immediately.  If you can't figure out how to express your thoughts without swearing, then chances are you haven't really thought out what you're saying.

Also, this blog exists to talk about what I want to talk about.  If you want to talk about something, please leave the comment in a post about that subject.  If you can't find a post that your comments are relevant to, that probably means  that I have no desire to talk about it.  If that's the case, you should probably get your own blog.

Thanks.

Sorry about the lack of posting

I went to Amarillo to see family over the weekend and wasn't where I could easily get to the internet.

It was a pretty good trip. I got to see my cousin Richard, his wife, and their new baby. (Who was very cranky because he had the hiccups.) I also got to see my cousin Jenny and her 5 kids. I was over there quite a while. I really enjoyed that. Those kids are growing up so fast and I miss so much of it. It sure does warm the heart to see their eyes light up when they see me and rush over to give me a hug.

Kids are really wonderful, aren't they?

I'm tempted to shut down comments until after the election

In the last 24 hours I've had to remove several comments left by lefties with one diatribe or another. I didn't delete them because they were anti-Bush. I deleted them because they were totally irrelevant to the post they were left on. It's enough to make me wonder if there isn't a concerted effort to do this kind of thing on right-leaning blogs.

I am not amused. If you disagree with me, fine. But comments left on this page are to be relevant to the post they're left on. I've tried being nice about this, but it doesn't seem to be working. No non sequiters. From now on, any one leaving them will be immediately banned.

I'm going to say this again

Anyone posting comments unrelated to the post will have their comment deleted. Repeat offenders will be banned. Come on people, show some common courtesy. If you want to talk that bad, please get your own blog.

FYI

Next week I'll be going to Boston. I'll be gone three days, but should have internet access.

I'll be working with a team that develops simulations for the new computerized CPA exam. (No, you can't have the answers.) I've been on several of these trips and have never ended up hooking up with anyone I know through the blog world. However, the one time I forgot to tell people where I was going, at least two people chastised me for not telling them I was coming. (In my defense, I didn't even know where one of them lived.)

So, for the record I'll be flying into Boston next Tuesday and returning Thursday.

Sadly, that means I'll miss my Wednesday lunch at one of my favorite Mexican places with one of our congregation's elders. Mmmmmmmm. Mexican food.

Indefinite hiatus

First, some notes.

There was a time when I could make obscure references to my personal life without churning p so much speculation. Not that I mind, but it was a bit of a surprise.

Kristin, that's what you call it when you know you're having fun but aren't sure how where things might go from there. At least that's what I call it.

Space Monkey, if you're asking for a name because you think you know who it is, you're almost certainly wrong. For now, no names. Sorry.

And now for the big news. I started this site becaus it was fun. Over the last three weeks or so, it's simply ceased to be fun. I knew there was a problem when I realized that the only reason I was posting at all was because people expected it. Right now, I just don't enjoy blogging. I expect that will change, but for now, I'm hanging up my keyboard. I'll still be around on other blogs from time to time. In fact, I probably won't stop posting completely. I've just got too big a mouth for that. But, for the foreseeable future, blogging will be erratic at best.

I want to thank everyone who's made this such a great experience and I hope to be back eventually.

For now though, goodbye.

Blurnout

Yeah, I haven't posted in a few days and I probably won't for a few days. Just thought I'd put this up since a friend of mine has already e-mailed to ask what was up. Well, I'm just kind of burnt out on being caught up. I'm going to do my best to have no idea what's going on in the world for a few days.

Back later.

On the road again

Sorry for the lack of posting today. I've been busy all day and now it' time to hit the road. I'll be in D.C. by noon tomorrow if everything goes well. I'll probably post some from there.

Later.

Travel News

In the past I have been occassionally berated for not announcing trips by those who were, I found out later, actually very close to where I was going to be. In that light I'll be in D.C. next week for a committee meeting. I'll be getting in early on Tuesday the 22nd and leaving Friday the 25th. I'm going to be staying down town about 12 blocks north of the National Mall.

Just in case anybody cares.

Warning! Warning!

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

This site has come under a rather concentrated and persistent spam attack over the last few hours. (Not as big as some of the big boys get, but bad enough.)

I'm deleting them just as fast as I find out about them.

Sheesh

I'm feeling a bit burnt out. My life has been a real roller coaster of late and it's making it hard to concentrate. As a result I find that I have trouble getting interested in what's going on in the world. When I can't get interested in what I read, it's hard to write either.

I'm not saying that I'm going to stop posting, but if you see longer than normal absences, it's just because I don't have anything to say.

/claustrophobia

Just got home a little while ago. I've spent the whole weekend doing dial-up. *shiver* I'm so glad to be back to my cable modem and wireless router.

I have no idea what's been going on the last couple of days, except of course for Memorial Day. I'll be posting again some time tomorrow.

Lack of free ice cream

Yeah, I know I've been pretty quiet today. Our office has been moving today so I haven't been near a computer much today.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Amarillo to visit friends and family. I have no idea how much I'll have access to the internet while I'm gone.

I should be home Monday night.

Later y'all.

Update: I fixed it Sarah. Hope you can sleep easy now. :)

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality1

I thought I'd be posting more while I was out of town, but I had a horrible headache all day Saturday and it really put a crimp on a lot of my plans. Any way, I'm home now. Posting will return to normal as soon as I can determine what exactly is normal anyway.

¹ If you don't recognize it, I feel sorry for you.

On the road again

I'm about to hit the road and go see my folks. Probably no more posting today. See ya'll later.

I missed my blogiversary!

For some reason I'd forgotten that my first post was on April 16th, 2002. You'd think I'd have remembered that I started this experiment on Tax Recovery Day.

My brain must have been bloggered. (And if you don't know what that means, you've never been hosted by Blogger.)

Long day today

I'm exhausted and still have work to do tonight. Probably no free ice cream today. Sorry.

For the last few days ...

... Type Pad has been randomly putting stuff in bold. Sometimes my blogroll is in bold; sometimes it's not. Sometimes blockquotes are in bold; sometimes they're not.

I've been searching high and low for an open blockquote tag somewhere, but I can't find it. Any advice would be appreciated.

Updating the blogroll

You may have noticed that I've trimmed the blogroll down some. Doesn't mean I have any problems with any of the blogs I removed. It's just that the blogs I took off no longer post about things that interest me. In some cases that's cause they changed; in other cases I've changed. And in a couple of cases the blog simply disappeared without warning. (Or at least I didn't see the warning.)

Anyway, my blogrolls are predominatly about what I want to read. I realize that some people put together blog lists in order to highlight people they think need more attention, but I doubt that I have enough traffic to make a difference. I use my blogroll to be easily able to find what I want to read. If I no longer want to read it, it's probably time to take it off.

Just so you know

Tax season is really starting to kick my tail. Probably lots of long hours from here on out and I'm unlikely to want to spend what little free time I've got reading anything that's worth posting about.

I'm not saying I won't post between now and the 15th; i just want you to know if I don't, that doesn't mean I'm dead. Probably.

It's that time of year

Yes, it's finally happened again. Tax season has officially driven me insane again. Things are really hectic here so I'm going to have to scale back my blogging activity for a while. That's not to say I'm going to stop posting, but I'll probably be posting dramatically less for the next six or seven weeks. Sorry about that, but I don't see any other choice.

Not that I'm complaining

Traffic is up rather substantially this month and I'm on track to break my bandwidth allotment. It wouldn't bother me at all if someone wanted to hit the tip jar to help me cover the overage.

In other news: I'm home sick today. The doctor thinks I might have strep. That means I have a lot more time to blog. It also means I don't really feel like doing much. Posting may be lighter or heavier than normal depending on how I feel. (That really cleared things up, didn't it?)

Note: This post originally said that I was "hope sick". I didn't notice it myself, but I seem to have acquired a very thoughtful editor. She knows who she is. (And that wasn't a complaint either.)

Now hear this

Quite some time ago I posted a link to the website for the documentary, "Michael Moore Hates America." The entirety of the post was a link to the trailer and a suggestion to follow the link. That was it.

However, that post has somehow become a troll magnet and I'm sick of policing. I've closed that post to comments. It's just not worth it.

Yeah, I know

There hasn't been much in the way of free ice cream today. I just had to take a break from blogging for a day or so. You know you're too into this stuff when it starts giving you bad dreams. Two days ago I dreamed Mickey Kaus was reaming out Wes Clark. Last night I dreamed I was arguing with Kucinich supporters.

I may take tommorrow off as well. That's just going to depend on how stressed out I am.

Update: Spelling fixed.

Blegging for suggestions

Yesterday I put together a post I called, "What others are saying" where I rounded up a wide variety of quotes from the blogosphere about the State of the Union address. In response Joe Carter said I should try to make this a regular feature.

That's an interesting idea, but frankly I'm not quite sure how it would work. With the SOTU it was fairly easy because I knew that a rather large and diverse group of people would be posting their comments in a rather brief period of time. However for most issues this is not the case; unless something pretty dramatic happens you can't really count on very many people discussing the same topic. Even when lots of people do post on a given topic those comments are generally spread over a span of several hours, or even days. Given the normal time span for this type of thing, how would a post like that work on a regular basis?

I suppose that I could just wait a while until the issue had played out, but it seemed to me that the value of that post was it's immediacy. Also, how would that differ from what I generally do besides focussing more on a particular issue?

It's also possible, I guess, to not limit the post to a single issue. If I did that though I really don't know what the point would be. That would be almost exactly what I'm doing now, except maybe grouping a lot of it together in one post.

If anyone's got some ideas, now's the time.

Just so you know

Anyone who leaves comments using obviously phony e-mail addresses will be IP banned.

BTW

My main computer is down and I haven't had time to get it fixed. I've been blogging from my work laptop, but for practical reasons I don't have my e-mail account installed on this machine. For some reason I can't get webmail to work either. So, if you've e-mailed me in the last week and a half or so and haven't gotten an answer., that's the reason. I have been able to get some mail, but overall it's been hit and miss.

Back again

Sorry for the longer than planned hiatus. Blogging should be returning to normal (whatever that is) now.

Happy New Year

I expect this will be my only post today. My college roommate is coming to town tonight with his wife. We're going to hang out with some other friends tonight and and on New Year's Day so you may not hear from me until the second. Hopefully I'll be able to establish a semi-regular posting pattern again. It seems that December always screws up my schedule. Oh well, at least it's screwed up because I'm travelling and seeing friends and family.

Have a great year everybody!

I'm back

Truthfully I was back yesterday, but I didn't feel like net surfing. Sorry. I had a great Christmas (or 3) and got to spend a lot of time with family and friends I don't see much anymore. Thanks to those who left Christmas wishes.

I'm bailing again

Off to see the family for Christmas. Posting will be sparse the next few days. See you Monday if not sooner. Have a Merry Christmas.

Lack of free ice cream

Sorry for the lack of postin since I got home. I had a good trip, but some where between Dallas and home I started getting sick. By the time I got home, I was horrible. The good news is the doctor says it's not the flu. The bad news is, whatever it is pretty much feels like the flu. I've got codeine now and I'm going to bed. See you when i don't feel so lousy.

Going out of town

First thing tomorrow morning I'm off to Austin for a conference. I'm going to be packing tonight. Probably not much in the way of posting until Saturday.

Missing mail

I seem to be missing some e-mails from last week. I have no idea what happened to them, but if you've sent me anything important in the last week and a half or so, you should probably send them again.

Or maybe not

My boss has been real sick this week so I've been having to pick up a lot of slack today. (Goodness knows when I've been sick he's had to pick up a lot of mine.) The upshot is that I've been to busy to think straight this today and I'm not sure how much longer this will last. Blogging will probably be light and sporadic this week.

Sorry.

Ughh

I haven't been feeling well today and I've got a lot to do tomorrow. Hopefully posting will resume Tuesday.

I'm off.

I'm about to leave for Thanksgiving. Turkey, dressing, pie, family, and cute little kids will fill most of the next few days. I'll be back home on Saturday evening. I won't be posting in the meantime unless I'm REALLY bored.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Sheesh

Today's been a REALLY long day. I may not get any posting done today. Sorry.