Harry's Ruminations

Okay, my brain is off-the-wall sometimes. I was watching some sort a show about Bradd Pitt and Angelina Jolie and thought. "Dang, guys are just pigs. All we think about is sex. Our nature is to be promiscuous." Brad had left Jennifer Aniston to be with a "better" (?) woman, Angelina. Something, though, made me think that wasn't quite right: WOMEN should tend to be more promiscuous than men. Here's my thoughts, ignorning the obvious moral concerns and thinking anthropologically: Consider a society of people. That society will have a bell-curve distribution of traits, with some butt-ugly morons and some beautiful geniuses. To maintain social cohesion, as well as to provide for the best environment to rear children, that society arranges itself as mating pairs, as we would say, husband and wife. The husband provides protection and livelihood for the family, and the wife bears and rears the children. Here's the catch, though--the wife needs the hu...

Mechanic’s Tale: Junkyard Dogs - The Car Connection : "In the crazy Jac Nasser years at Ford I kept hearing rumors of Ford attempting to buy up large numbers of junkyards. He chased every unprofitable business strategy that came down the pike, so I guess he could have taken the profit out of junkyards too." (to the tune of "Oh, how I love Jesus") Oh, how I hate Fo-ords, Oh, how I hate Fo-ords, Yes, Oh, how I hate Fo-ords, Because they first hated me. People speculated that Ford wanted cradle-to-grave control of their product. I have a different theory. He probably figured that by delivering the new Ford products directly to the junkyard, they cut out the costly dealer network and distribution system. He could also avoid dealing with those pain-in-the-neck old guys who actually bought Ford products and complained when they didn't perform right."

:-) Can't believe I have 700 posts on here...wow. * * * Ah, the weekend: Joey, Whitney, and I went up to da Ville to attend a wedding. Small, neat affair off Peterson St in the Highlands. For a simple wedding-on-the-porch, it had lots of mishaps--Firetruck went by during the special music, flower-girl pancaked on the dancefloor (with exciting bleeding!), and the photographer's assistant passed-out. Whitney felt faint and my persistent hamstring injury kept us off the dancefloor :-( We spent the night w/Stu and Rachel. * * * We spent all of Saturday at the Louisville Science Center . Awesome place; pricey, but worth it. * * * Sunday was pretty awful...I was cranky and tired, and didn't really "wake up" until after 3pm.

Republicans: People who will stay out of your business, but dictate your personal life Democrats: People who will dictate your business, but stay out of your personal life. Woohoo!

Whitney: [describing the our if-then chart from Doorposts ] Pastor: That sounds great could you bring those in? W: Sure. Pastor (joking): Bring in the one for Harold as well. Me: That one takes up the whole outside wall of the house.

I am SOOOOO happy today: Whitney is 7 weeks along with our first child!!! She gave me the news only a few weeks ago, and I couldn't be happier. Her first OB appointment was today, and they did bloodwork and gave her brand-name neo-natal vitamins to take. I thank God for blessing us with a new soul to bring into this world, and pray that he give us the guidance in raising him or her. (Whitney think's it's a girl, BTW...terrible morning sickness!)

Hardik Tank's Weblog : Weblog That's just bizarre

Neat "Battle of the Bands" type thing tomorrow night, courtesy of Sam Rhodus, my former team lead and all-around cool guy: This Wednesday night (6/21/06) my band D-Sul will be competing in WKQQ's Decent Exposure at the Blue Moon. This contest is based entirely on fan votes so I'd love for you guys to get out and vote for D-Sul. The prize money would be enough to get our EP out the door. We're on late (Midnight), but you don't have to stick around late to vote for us. You can come, hangout with us, vote (as often as you'd like for $5 each) and leave. I would encourage you all to watch the show as it's pretty good, but your vote really counts here and it IS a school night : ) Show starts at 9pm, we're on at 12. This is in Lexington, KY, if you're interested... ...I'll be doing bible study that night, but hey...:-)

Just read Nehemiah this morning, the account of the Persian governor of Judah, rebuilder of Jerusalem's walls after the Chaldeans destroyed them under Nebuchadnezzar. Alright, from Joshua through Nehemiah, I can pretty much boil it down to this: Nation israel = new Nation(); for ( ;; ) { israel.forgetAbout( GOD ); israel.getPunishedBy( GOD ); israel = new Nation( israel.getRemnant() ) } GOD, of course, is a global constant, visible to everyone. * * * I mean, granted, just look how much Americans have screwed-up our own society in only 200+ years, which is a mere drop-in-the bucket compared to Moses->David->Jesus, but could these people NOT understand what was going to happen? Ultimately, Israel (and then Israel + Judah) was a peon little nation at the crossroads between one big hairy power to the South (Egypt) and a REALLY bad set of guys to the northeast ( take your pick--Assyria, Neo-Babylon, Persia, Alexander the Great, the Selucids ). God (YHWH) was pretty much the...

Dropped the beamer at Paul's foreign auto (2nd street & MLK ) and then walked the 2.5 miles back to Lexmark in about 30 minutes. Good exercise for my pulled hamstring and just good "me" time. Read John Eldridge's Wild At Heart over the weekend I must say, REALLY challenging book, written like a bad Freshman Composition paper. How shall we convince our audience to get off the couch and be real men? Let's quote a bazillion "Real men" and make constant appeals to emotion. Let's move from that to some Dave Ramsey-esque personal anecdotes that (obviously) apply to everyone out there. Let's speak of broad vistas, of mountain climbing, kayaking, and other rather extreme sports. Did some of John's buddies die doing those sports? Yep...but hey, that's the point right? Life's an adventure, not a burden. Marvelous message, muddied by subpar, overwritten prose. This is a 200 page diatribe that could be a 100 page booklet. "E...

Yooooooooooooooooooooo...tengo un amigo que me ama me ama me ama Yo tengo un amigo que me ama su nombre es Jesus! :clap: :clap: :clap: Welcome to VBS at Northside Christian church. We'll happily take your kids off your hands, 2 hrs/day for 5 nights (6-8 pm). We had a class of up to to 7: Drew, Jamie, Faith, Brooklyn, Shelby, Sierra, and that gal I can't remember. From the 2nd night on, we were lucky to have 5. Pretty awesome week, but it wasn't too spiritual, just rather practical. Really liked all the yummy snacks we had had from the Church women, and interacting with the kids was neat. Drew's a blast. He knows about Charlotte. :-)

Cars Cars is, possibly, the best pure movie about cars ever made: It celebrates all that is wonderful about automobiles--freedom, exploration, and competition, all the while ignoring environmentalism, urban sprawl, and the disconnectedness that the automobile has imbued. Cars is the latest effort from John Lassiter, renegade 3D animation pioneer and partner of Steve Jobs in Pixar. It follows 3D monuments like Toy Story, a Bugs Life, Monsters Inc., Nemo, and the Incredibles, and like them it's a character-driven story. This time the protagonist is Lightning McQueen, a "Piston Cup" (wink, NASCAR!) rookie car who ditches his team in his quest to win the title himself. Surprise, he blows a tire on the last lap, forcing him into a 3-way runoff with King, played by Richard Petty, and Chick Hicks, the antagonist. McQueen gets lost (literally!) half-way across Arizona and ends-up in Radiator Springs, a fictional town patterned after Winslow, Arizona. What follows is "D...

Article Overall it looks like Amazon Groceries may earn a few pennies of some family dollars, and it does make a never-outdoors life slightly easier to achieve. If the feature finds some traction in the market, it's not hard to imagine a nationwide Webvan 2.0 operation in the future, riding on Amazon's infrastructure and pushing the old-fashioned country store concept further into Hades. Greaaaaaaaaat.

On Father's Day. This is a new "day" for me, and I must say, I like it. I got some cools gifts and Joey, Whitney, and I really liked it. Whitney got me some neat cologne + aftershave ("Truth" from Calvin Klein), which I've been wearing for the past week, and Joey got me a baseball glove. Joe-man and I played catch for the first time, and it was AWESOME! :-) * * * Anyway, watched Bob Roberts on VHS last night, a long-term loan from Erik. Awesome, yet horrifying flick: A divisive, anti-intellectual demagogue arises and manipulates the Pennsylvania populace. An ensemble mockumentary, this movie skewers most of Washington, and it still seems current & appropriate. How much of our national budget goes to defense? How much needs to? How do you "win" a war on terror? My biggest regret from watching this film is noticing how different Congress is today from how it was in 1990. There are no moderates, only radicals on both sides.

Bud The third stage is when things get a little difficult. There are too many new cars out, too many magazine covers taunting you with "NEW!" and "BEST EVER!" and "THE NEW BENCHMARK!" Too many cool cars coming out and showing up in your town, on your streets, and all of a sudden, you're drivin' yesterday's news. At this point, you either stay the course and don't waver from your original plan, or you start to get edgy and you start distancing yourself from your choice. You like it okay and all, but you're looking around and starting to spend far too much time reading car reviews again. You don't quite have The Fever, but you can feel it coming in about six months or so. Stop the train, I wanna get off. I want a car so old it's not even yesterday's news. Oh wait. :-)

My old "private" blog is no more. It went to the scary delete button purgatory of Blogger, complete with its so-not-me-anymore sentiments. In its place, I have a new public blog: Bimmer Whoa's , to document my time with my 1990 325iS. Should be interesting.

TCL thread Okay, I take several things from this thread: Just as cars used to be designed to rust/break, they're now designed to run forever, but require dealer visits for all maintenance. Old cars rock. Engineered by rules-of-thumb and experience, not by CAD tolerances down to 1 mm / part. Understressed, overbuilt engines that were evolutionary. Wow, I don't want to own a new VW. Oh yeah, I knew that already.

Haven't been under 200lbs since I was in like 6th-7th grade. But that's where I need to be, BMI-wise.

Car lounge link Coupla thoughts here: Since cars have more computers, does this imply they'll have bugs, by definition? Will any inside engineer even admit to "defective" products, especially given the legal ramifications? Interested to see where my CL thread goes, if it goes anywhere.

One ride. Yep, one trip from the park entrance directly to The Beast killed our day. Me with a bruised ribcage, Whitney with debilitating feminine issues. Tip for those headed to PKI: Put your arms DOWN if you're a big guy through the turns, I got racked back-and-forth between the 1st hill & the helix (after the braking run) and seriously couldn't breathe for the rest of the ride. They've built the seat bolsters up so much that it's just PAINFUL. So, we left church, drove 92 miles to PKI, stayed for 3 hours, then drove back. Thank goodness it was on LXK's dime, minus the 1/4 tank of gas. In other news, if you go to PKI's first aid stations, they'll give you free over-the-counter medication, no-questions-asked. :-)

I been up, I been down. Take my word, my way around. I ain't askin' for much. I said, lord, take me downtown, I'm just lookin' for some tush. * * * Yike, it's been an uneven few days. I'm totally pumped today, and I was a wreck yesterday. I'm having some integrity questions, and I don't think this next management cycle's going to be very good for me or my team. :-) But, it's Friday.

Beat all 8 levels on Tower blaster , with a score of 40523. fun times!