"This city letter carrier posed for a humorous photograph with a young boy in his mailbag. After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples."
Vacation, Part One
Posted on Sunday, June 15, 2008
My vacation began Saturday at Ocean Beach, NJ, and ended Sunday. Now it's back to work for two days, and then back to the beach again for the rest of the week. That means lots of driving, but as much vacation as I could get from work on short notice. My photos of the trip (so far) are on Flickr.
My Car is BACK on eBay!
Posted on Saturday, June 14, 2008 My car has once again been listed on eBay for your bidding pleasure. Earlier this week my eBay account was hacked. eBay security forces quickly sprang into action, ended my previous auction, and locked me out of my account. Hours of time with customer support has resulted in my reinstatement to eBay, and the re-listing of my car. So without further ado, please check out my *new* old listing on eBay.
Details for item number: 270246459932 Listing URL: link Start date: Friday, Jun 13, 2008 21:01:51 PDT End date: Friday, Jun 20, 2008 21:01:51 PDT Duration: 7 days
Strawberry Poppy Seed Salad
Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008
Holy crap -- Panara Bread's Strawberry Poppy Seed Salad is freak'n good. It's made with crisp romaine lettuce, fresh strawberries, blueberries, pineapple tidbits, Mandarin oranges, pecans and a fat-free Poppyseed dressing. And clocking in at 90 or 200 calories, for a half and whole size portion, it's good for you too! They'll throw some chicken on top if you're one of those people...
Strawberry Poppyseed Salad (for 2 servings) Romaine Lettuce chopped Slice strawberries - 1 cup Fresh Blueberries 1 cup Mandarin Oranges 1 cup Pineapple chunks in juice - 1 cup Pecans 1/2 cup sprinkled on top Grilled Chicken breast chunks (if you're one of those people) Mix the above ingredients - it's a beautiful salad.
Dressing: 1/2 cup light or fat free mayo 1/4 cup skim milk 1/4 cup Splenda 1/8 cup white vinegar 1 tablespoon poppy seeds Mix all ingredients, pour over salad and toss.
A new supercomputer code-named "Roadrunner" is being touted as the world's fastest machine so far. Designed and built by IBM, this super computer, costing nearly $100 million, can operate at 1 petaflop per second, which is equivalent to one thousand trillion calculations per second.
This makes it twice as fast as the reigning "numero uno" aka IBM's Blue Gene system at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Again, Blue Gene is nearly three times faster than top contenders on the current 'top 500 supercomputers' list.
Additionally, "Roadrunner" is also billed to be the world's first hybrid supercomputer. Interestingly, it has been designed using components originally designed for video game platforms such as the Sony Playstation 3. "Roadrunner" operates on open-source Linux software, works in conjunction with x86 processors from AMD, and has 80 terabytes of memory.
"Roadrunner" will be primarily used at a US government laboratory to monitor the US nuclear weapons stockpile. It will also find use in research in the fields of astronomy, energy, human genome science, and climate change.
No Hair, No Job.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 A ridiculous case out of Toronto, Canada that will probably be getting a lot of press in coming days.
From Yahoo! Canada News: Waitress loses job after shaving head for cancer charity Thu Jun 5, 9:49 PM
TORONTO (CBC) - A 36-year-old waitress at an Owen Sound, Ont., restaurant lost her job this week after she shaved her head to raise money for a cancer charity.
Stacey Fearnall raised more than $2,700 for the charity Cops for Cancer, a local fundraiser for cancer research.
Then the 36-year-old waitress at Nathaniels restaurant was laid off when she showed up for work earlier this week with her newly shorn look.
Up until a week ago, Fearnall had long red locks, but she said she made the decision to have her head shaved because she has a friend battling cancer and she lost her father to the disease.
"I felt like this was a pretty easy thing for me to do to raise money to help people," she told CBC News on Thursday.
She said she told her bosses what she was planning to do, but when she arrived at work at the restaurant practically bald, she said they sent her home and told her she wasn't welcome back.
"'We'll call it a layoff.' That's what he said," Fearnall said her boss told her. "'Spend the summer with your kids.' I call it losing my job."
Oh how I want to believe...
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 As a die hard X-Files fan, I'm extremely excited that there's a new X-Files film making it's way to theaters on July 25th. Yahoo! Movies has posted an exclusive new trailer. It's *far* better than previous trailers! Check it out, right now!
Front yard in bloom
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008
About three hours of work today weeding, trimming, poking, prodding, and cleaning resulted in a front yard to be proud of! Flowers pictured: Marigolds (most grown from seeds!), Impatiences and Pansies. More photos on Flickr!
What an Asshole
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 The worst president that the nation has ever seen just keeps getting worse.
From The Huffington Post: Senate Report: Bush Used Iraq Intel He Knew Was False June 5, 2008 10:44 AM
More than five years after the initial invasion of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally gone on the record: the Bush administration misused, and in some cases disregarded, intelligence which led the nation into war. The two final sections of a long-delayed and much anticipated "Phase II" report on the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence, released on Thursday morning, accuse senior White House officials of repeatedly misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq.
In addition, the report on Iraq war intelligence harshly criticizes a Pentagon office for executing "inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities" without the proper knowledge of the State Department and other agencies.
Although...
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 Although I supported her, voted for her, and think she would have done a better job ... This feels like it was a long time coming. Let's do our best to move on quickly, and work hard to keep another Republican out of the white house. And let's keep our fingers crossed that Obama will see how important allying himself with Hillary Clinton will be to winning the presidency in November.
Hillary Clinton will withdraw from the race to become the Democratic candidate for the US presidency, and back her rival Barack Obama, her campaign says.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama gained enough delegates to win the nomination, after the final votes of the primary season.
Mrs Clinton has not publicly admitted losing, but at an event on Saturday she will do so "and express her support for Senator Obama", aides say.
Mr Obama has already announced a team to help select his running mate.
Reports that Mrs Clinton was ready to concede came after she made a conference call to senior Democrats in Congress.
At a Democratic Party event in Washington, Mrs Clinton will also "express her support... for party unity", her communications director Howard Wolfson said.
Earlier, it had been announced that the event would be held on Friday, but Mr Wolfson said it had been delayed a day "to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend".
The BBC's Jane O'Brien in Washington says that as Mr Obama was claiming victory, Hillary Clinton stunned even her own supporters with a speech that offered no indication that she was giving up.
There is speculation that the delay in conceding was an attempt to position herself as a possible vice-president, our correspondent adds.
Breaking News!
Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 From NJ.com...
Flemington man charged after losing cool over cookies by Ralph Ortega/The Star-Ledger Tuesday June 03, 2008, 1:31 PM
A man who lost his cool over cookies at a McDonald's drive-thru in Hunterdon County, was charged with a disorderly persons offense because of his temper with police officers and employees at the restaurant, authorities said today.
Alan Prassl became "irate" after he claimed he paid for 13 cookies, and only got 3, at the fast food chain's restaurant on Center Street in Clinton Township on Saturday, according to a news release from Lt. Ryan Melsky.
Lost Deleted Scene
Posted on Monday, June 02, 2008
From TVSquad...
"There have been a few hints about Miles' abilities in previous episodes... We already know that he communicates with the dead and can sense things about the living (Michael and Charlotte, for example), and now we can add sonar detection to his list of skills."
Wherefore Art Thou, Gardenburger?
Posted on Sunday, June 01, 2008
Does anyone know what's going on with the Gardenburgers? In the last week I was unable to get a Gardenburger from NJ Subway and Cheeburger Cheeburger restaurants. As a vegetarian, it's hard enough to find something to order in most chain restaurants, and now there seems to be a Gardenburger recall?
Of the little news that I've been able to find, OregonLive.com has reported that "restaurant workers noticed abnormalities in the look and texture of patties" and that Kellogg's (the parent company) "told its customers last week that construction work at its Clearfield, Utah, plant may have affected the quality of some Gardenburger products. The voluntary withdrawal was limited to products produced during the two months from March 4 to May 6. A Kellogg statement Thursday emphasized that food safety was not involved in the withdrawal."
No official word from Gardenburger or Kellogg's has been issued to the public. The FDA seems as surprised as us. So far, the only news seems to be from the Pacific coast. What's going on? Does anyone have any information?
"This city letter carrier posed for a humorous photograph with a young boy in his mailbag. After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples."
