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10:22 PM - 72.6% of a bird (that won't fly) Came across a bizarre datum today suggesting that we had between 33 and 32 aircraft in the AWACS fleet in 1995, rather than a whole number of aircraft as is usually the case. This made little sense to me until I came across this article which pretty much explained everything, right down to the third decimal place. (
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November 29, 2004
09:19 PM - Money matters I got a nice fat check today as "merit compensation" for my fine work in 2003. Well nigh four figures. I suppose it is a decent slice, considering that in 2003 I nearly lost the company a contract worth millions over the years. Then again, we'd have won it easily had my bosses heeded my advice and bid on people instead of software. Truthfully, we'd never have won the contract at all but for my presence on the team, so I suppose it is a fairly meager slice after all. I try not to think about this too much. Now, I know that I'm in no position to complain - I already own or have ready access to the vast majority of the things which I have ever coveted (XBOX, laptop, dog door, etc.) and I even drive the car of my choice. Still, the fact that I only get to keep a mere 60% of my bonus, with which I intended to buy gifts for my family and the less fortunate, is a real pisser. In effect, I work all day Monday and Tuesday to pay for the various levels of government and their massive Ponzi schemes (e.g. Social Security) and I get the opportunity to work the rest of the week to support my own family and pay my own bills. If I was not already an activist Libertarian, probably this would do the trick. (
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November 28, 2004
12:34 PM - Sunday Sermon (Young Jewish Girl, Interrupted) Today's sermon kicked off a new series entitled "Divine Interruptions" in which we are taught to react positively to major (and minor) life changes. Today's role model was (as you may have guessed from the post title) Mary, the mother of Jesus. The main thrust of the message is that we are to accept change as it comes and focus on God rather than the fact that we are inexplicably knocked up just on the verge of our weddings. Perhaps I'm not generalizing enough, but you get the idea. (
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November 27, 2004
11:45 PM - Babysitting Spent the better part of the day trying to keep three to six children from utterly destroying my mother-in-law's home. Turns out my kid is actually fairly well-behaved, and I've failed to appreciate it until just now. (
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November 26, 2004
12:34 PM - Black Friday Today is a feel-good middle-class non-event called Black Friday by enthusiasts and Buy Nothing Day by detractors. Personally, I'm too lazy, apathetic, and comfortable on the couch to get excited one way or another, but I suppose I'll have to buy something just to avoid being lumped in with the anti-capitalist hippies. (
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November 25, 2004
11:45 PM - Thanksgiving Spent the day communing with my wife's relatives and giving thanks that no one said what they were really thinking or did anything else to reify the intangible emotional walls which have been built between the various members of that wonderfully dysfunctional crowd. During the Thanksgiving prayer this evening, my mother-in-law mentioned that somebody told us that we ought to be thankful on this day, but she did not tell us of whom she spoke. Personally, I'm still wondering. Perhaps she meant Washington or Lincoln, or some other president who declared a day of thanksgiving around this time of year. (
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November 24, 2004
12:07 AM - After midnight If I'm not asleep by the midnight hour, I usually give up trying and head back into the living room to watch the weather radar and listen to the gentle drip-drip-dripping of the dining room ceiling and the mysterious and various noises of mice rooting about the kitchen. (
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November 23, 2004
11:59 AM - Caffeine & contracts Spent the better part of the evening at Barnes & Noble, listening to Professor Berman-Barrett expound upon the basics of acceptance and revocation while my wife and her study buddy fretted over their first end-of-rotation exams. Many of the cases this evening involved the application of UCC § 2-207, about which few good things have been said. Our prof made it fairly accessible, though, and I suppose that is her gift. (
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November 22, 2004
09:45 PM - 25 years! As of 21:45 hours this evening the U.S. AWACS fleet been in operational service for exactly 25 years. Hurrah! (
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November 21, 2004
11:21 AM - Sunday Sermon (The Truth About Thankfulness) In timely accordance with the beginning of Thanksgiving week, this week's sermon was entitled "The Truth About Thankfulness." Pastor Newkirk explicated Philippians 4:6 for application in our everyday lives, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." The fundamental message presented today is that adoration and supplication in prayer are the essential tools in overcoming our anxieties. At the risk of sounding overly Buddhist, I would contend that prayer and meditation are of little use without some practical action to either reduce one's desires or fulfill one's genuine needs with respect to one's particular situation. Put another way, faith without works is dead. By way of personal application, my greatest anxieties at this point involve the ongoing deterioration of my home via a leaky roof up top and a rodent invasion on the ground. I could pray sincerely and tirelessly for a drought on the land and a plague upon the vermin, or else I could take active steps to fix the roof and kill the mice myself. Since I've not yet done either of these things, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which method would be more effective. (
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November 20, 2004
02:53 PM - OU v Baylor Baylor put up a good fight in the first half, and you have to give them credit for that. (
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November 19, 2004
11:59 PM - Birthday Party Went to a birthday party this evening for a woman named Gail. I've not felt quite so out of place since that night at the lesbian coffee bar. Not that it bothers me in the least being the only person in the room to understand the ordinary psychological effects of testosterone from firsthand experience. I enjoy meeting new and interesting people, even if they are a bit iffy on why I am there in the first place. In truth, my wife and I were invited by the homeowner and hostess, who put on a tasty spread for tasteful people in an artful place. We greatly enjoyed the food and company. (
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November 18, 2004
11:45 PM - O'Connell's vs. Goldie's This evening, I met up with a motley crew of stimulating folks to indulge in libations, rations, and conversations at O'Connell's Pub & Grille in Norman. We were denied service, accused of vandalism, and searched without probable cause before finally adjourning to Goldie's down the street, where things went much better. No doubt there is a lesson in all this, but it eludes me at the moment. (
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November 17, 2004
05:37 PM - Quote for the day The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. (
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November 16, 2004
09:08 PM - Murder & procedural legerdemain Spent the evening at Panera Bread studying criminal law. Turns out that a bustling restaurant is a less distracting venue than my own living room, even when a busful of high school swimmers are passing through (the restaurant, not my home). Tonight's classroom discussion centered about a discussion of Patterson v. New York, in which we must ask ourselves whether a state law requiring that a defendant in a murder trial prove the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance by a preponderance of evidence (in order to reduce the crime to manslaughter) violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Short answer - no. As usual, I found the dissent more persuasive. Still Patterson is controlling, at least for now. (
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November 15, 2004
11:45 PM - A Perfect Monday Rainy, dreary, and gloomy. Today was the sort of day during which I would almost prefer to be deep within the windowless womb of a mile-long brick hangar than driving in my car or relaxing in my home. Probably the highlight of my day was an attempt to renormalize relations with my little brother-in-law, who has estranged himself from us on account of his lover. I doubt that anything will come of it in the short term but you cannot fault a guy for trying. (
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November 14, 2004
09:54 PM - Sunday Sermon (The Truth About Parenting) Today's sermon was a Biblical perspective on childrearing, via an explication of Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." I've heard variations on this sermon a few times before, but this is probably the first time I've heard it as a father rather than a son. Probably the most striking part of the sermon was the analogy to woodworking, which was said to be essential to an understanding of the Hebrew root meaning in this verse. The pastor described a process by which wood was fashioned of old into a yoke for oxen, in which the carpenter continually tightens strong ropes which bind the wood to a tree over a long period of time in order to bend it into the desired shape. Now, this strikes me as a fairly unpleasant analogy for childrearing. The notion that children ought to be forcefully warped into a predetermined and unnatural shape seems more abusive than healthful. Perhaps I'm reading too much into the analogy. God, I hope so. (
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November 13, 2004
11:34 PM - OU vs. Nebraska This "great old rivalry" fell flat today, which had to be the high point of an otherwise dull and unrewarding day. Spent the entire morning cleaning up the house in order to throw a party which I knew that I could not possibly enjoy. Pfeh. (
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November 12, 2004
12:11 PM - Vermin! Those little buggers have crossed the line, crippling the dishwasher drain line once again. After putting it off for as long as possible, I spent the evening wallowing about in a puddle of dishwater which stank like raw sewage in a futile attempt to fix the dishwasher. We laid out over a half dozen glue traps under the sink, after cleaning out the old nest. If the vermin make it through the traps, they will be rewarded with packets of tasty rat poison. Yum! (
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November 11, 2004
11:11 AM - Veteran's Day Since this is the only holiday dedicated to a group of folks into which I may officially be classed, I'm taking the day off. The kid is at school, the dog is at the groomers, and I'm kicking back at IHOP enjoying my nth cup of coffee. This is the life. (
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November 10, 2004
04:16 PM - Working lunch Today was wholly unremarkable except for the company meeting at lunch, where I had to resist tearing into pizza and my fellow employees. Could be worse, though I won't say how. (
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November 09, 2004
07:11 PM - Alumni One of the peculiar (dis)advantages to attending a military academy is that you will invariably run into other alumni pretty much everywhere you go. I tried once to get out of the military, only to wind up sitting next to (and working for) my old branch chief from the good old days of seeing red, wearing green, and living in a blue state. These days, of course, I’m living in an entirely red state and it’s giving me the blues. I’m still wearing green, though now it is a personal fashion choice rather than a matter of enforced uniformity. Where was I? Oh yes – alumni, or rather, alumnæ. More precisely, I ran into an alumna this afternoon at the ALC. This is not at all uncommon per se; it seems that ¼-½ of the people in uniform around here graduated from my beloved alma mater, but this one I recognized on sight, which is a bit more unusual. (
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November 08, 2004
08:50 PM - SG-1 I'm slacking off this evening, having spent the better part of the weekend studying. I've decided to make peace with Corin Nemec and all the plot devices used to get in into and out of the series in the course of a single season or so. (
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November 07, 2004
04:16 PM - Christians & Authority Today’s sermon outlined the proper relationship between Christians and earthly authorities. Unsurprisingly, the pastor led off with Romans 13, in which Saint Paul claims that all earthly authorities are ordained by God and that Christians must subject themselves thereto. He went on to state that it is just as imperative that we submit to ungodly authorities as to godly leaders whom we would willingly follow. Surprisingly, the pastor took evangelical Christians to task for somehow perpetuating the mainstream view (recently expressed on MSNBC) that they vote on faith rather than reason. He said that “The things we do and the attitudes we express bring shame to us,” creating the impression that Christians are “not intelligent” Dennis applied the Scriptures in this context, saying that “by doing right, you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” such as Chris Matthews. He stated that the proper way to remedy this situation is to spend at least as much time praying for our leaders as criticizing them, and to respond to people who “are not of our political persuasion” or “who make decisions we don’t like” with “thoughtfulness…prayerfulness, and respect” rather than defiance and hostility. Of course, there are times when one must defy earthly authority, as per Acts 5:29, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” If a leader in any position requires one to act in a manner which is clearly immoral, unbiblical, or illegal, then a Christian must resist such orders openly and respectfully. However, it is not enough that someone advocate a lifestyle that is immoral and unbiblical if they do not require such action from those under their authority. By way of example, Dennis calls to mind an openly atheistic professor (a figure that many parishioners can relate to, excepting those that attended private Christian schools and colleges) and notes that submission and support are required to be rendered even to such onerous persons unless they specifically require immoral action of their students. Such moral reasoning immediately brings to mind some interesting borderline cases such as a court order to legalize abortion on demand or an injunction ordering the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from government property. (
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November 06, 2004
04:16 PM - OU v. A&M As a congenital pessimist, I am uncomfortable with cheering for a team with the expectation of victory. I'd rather be a Cubs fan than a Yankees fan, since no one seriously expects the Cubs to win the World Series. Similarly, when it comes to college football, I'd rather cheer for the Illini (or even the Falcons) than the Sooners, since it is easier to root for a team which is not expected to win all the damn time. (
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November 05, 2004
08:21 PM - Fine dining & vulgar cinema Spent a lovely dinner relaxing with the in-laws, celebrating one of my sister-in-law's few remaining thirty-somethingth birthdays. The whole family was invited, but (thankfully) most of them did not show. Those that did constituted a motley crew if ever there was one assembled in a single booth at the Pepperoni Grill. My sister-in-law and her lover are the sort of couple that Tom Coburn would happily drive back to the East Coast, if not into the Atlantic itself. Liberal, lesbian, and loaded, they are the sort of power couple that one might well expect to find thriving in D.C. or NYC, rather than languishing here in the heart of the heartland. My father- and mother-in-law, by contrast, are prototypical red staters - hardworking small business owners and social conservatives who invariably drive Fords and have never considered bought car for the sake of a status statement. As usual, I was the only person at the table who did not vote for either Kerry or Bush, I was interested in hearing the thoughts of those that felt strongly one way or the other. I provoked a discussion about the presidential level, which produced far more heat than light. I am left with little insight into the thinking of the everyday liberal or conservative. Alas. After dinner, I met some friends for a screening of Team America at the local cineplex. It was even funnier in the theater than on the laptop, and you catch a number of small details which were beyond the resolution of the bootleg. Kim Jong Il's bedroom decorations, for example. JTFC, that movie is hilarious. (
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November 04, 2004
08:59 PM - Exhausted This week has been taking its toll. I doubt that I've slept more than a few hours on any given night. I'm done for tonight, though, and so I'm off to bed. (
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November 03, 2004
11:45 PM - Santa Fe It's a faith, a town, a variety of chalupa, and a relatively small SUV. Of these, we only acquired one tonight. (
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November 02, 2004
10:59 PM - Bush wins! Bush wins Florida according to ABC news. (AFAIK they are the first to make the call.) This means that Kerry is pretty much going to have to clean up every other swinging state to have a fighting chance, which is highly unlikely. Seems to me that the GOP is going to keep the White House and the Congress. That is my call. Perhaps we'll see in the morning. ;) 12:34 PM - Electile dysfunction Speaking of uncertainties of which we eagerly anticipate a resolution, it is Election Day here in the States, and the first of these since the U.S. started knocking off tyranical regimes in the Middle East. I voted this morning, and I've spent the day eagerly awaiting the results. I hear there is a 1-3% chance of an electoral deadlock, and naturally I am rooting for the Worst Case Scenario (TM). (
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November 01, 2004
09:31 PM - Breakdown I have often expressed my wish that my wife's car would last at least until she finished school. Today, I learned why people say that you should be careful what you wish for... |
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