Friday, July 18, 2003

The witty Bryan McAnally posted yesterday about greetings and salutations in the workplace (post titled “interpersonal communication - a primer “ if the permalink isn’t working). A snippet:

Rule Four—The “And You?” Rule—When asked “How are you?” and you give the correct response, “fine thanks,” you must then immediately follow your response with the reflexive “and you?” Failure to do so will identify you as a frigid shrew who obviously isn’t a team player. When answering “and you,” be certain to answer “good,” if they answered your “how are you?” with “fine.” Answer “fine” if they answered you with “good.” If you answer with the same answer they provided, you will be pigeonholed as original, and immediately and perpetually obstructed from promotion.

Did you?

I remembered hearing that Mars and the moon would be visible in the early morning sky sometime soon. Yesterday when I was walking Annie, I noticed that the moon was still pretty bright and then I could see a much smaller light just to the right. And I remembered that little snippet about how Mars would be in the path (so to speak) for the first time in 50,000 years or something like that.

Again, this morning, I could see that little light, which is further to the right now. And it’s not white, it’s sort of pink. So I thought I’d check online to see if there’s word of this phenomenon - there is, of course.

PHILADELPHIA - Skywatchers across North America saw a rare nighttime encounter between the Moon and Mars during the early morning hours today.

Under clear skies here, the two objects were so close as to almost appear to touch. Mars hung just off the right shoulder of the Moon at 4:30 a.m. local time, high in the southern sky. The planet was vividly red in contrast to the powerful white face of the Moon.

Even as darkness eased into daylight, the two beacons of the night sky remained starkly apparent at 5:30 a.m.

[...]

From many other locations, Mars gradually slid over the top of the Moon, from left to right, as the pair glided silently toward the west. By 5:40 a.m. in the Eastern United States, Mars was off to the Moon’s right and clearly moving away but still easily visible.

Thursday, July 17, 2003

I was busy today. The Marshal is meeting with a Congressman tomorrow and wanted some Wanted Posters to add to the packet he’s giving the Congressman. So I spent all day working on adding “Apprehended by US Marshals” to the files we had.

In this case, they weren’t fugitives that we were hunting down, but local bad guys that we nabbed for various police departments in the area.

My challenge was adding the phrase, in the form of a “stamp,” to the .pdf files. I figured out how to create a stamp, but when I went to modify it, I couldn’t make it work. I spent hours trying to recreate it with no success. Then at about 4pm I happened upon a trick to get the result I wanted.

The Marshal was pleased with the results. We’ll see if the Congressman even looks at them.

No, Jared, it’s not Magnolia. I’ll watch that this weekend, and then we can discuss it.

I watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days last night. My very quick review is that it was cute. Make of that what you will…

I saw a post about the delay of some troops’ homecomings over at Thinklings last night and I posted the following as a comment in response. I had been thinking about writing my thoughts for a couple of days, then I heard about the ABC News video of some soldiers complaints about it, Rumsfeld, and Bush. On my way home, a local talk radio show was discussing it, taking phone calls from folks. Since I live in an area with a large military presence, I was interested to see what caller felt. To a man, every single caller said it was reprehensible for these soldiers to speak out like they did. I agree, but with that said, here’s my two cents:

Yes, there’s free speech for all Americans under the 1st Amendment, but those who wear the uniform are bound by the Military Code, which says that they NEVER speak disrespectfully of or to a senior officer and that includes the Secretary of Defense and the President. So those soldiers who complained to ABC were wrong on many levels. It’s unfortunate, but they know those rules and they’ll have to suffer the consequences. More than the DOD rescinding their home orders, their complaints to a news outlet harms morale for all of the troops. And it makes our position there politically precarious as the perception could be spread that we’re waffling, whining, losing focus, giving up.

My additional comments come from my perspective as a Navy brat. My father was career Navy - he flew bombers. So…

They need to suck it up. This is what happens in war. It happened to the soldiers in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Afghanistan and Iraq. And it will happen to troops in future wars we may be involved in. War isn’t pretty, it isn’t predictable. Neither is the peace in the immediate aftermath of war. And so our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines need
to suck it up (even if they’re reservists). This is their job. They signed up for it, they took the oath. And that means with no complaints.

On a personal note, and I may have mentioned this here already (and I plan to tomorrow when I post my thoughts at my own blog), my father was on deployment to the Indian Ocean during the Iran hostage crisis in ‘79-’80. He was on the USS Kitty Hawk, part of the Pacific fleet, which at that time had 9 month “cruises” as standard deployments (they’re now 6 months, as are the Atlantic fleet). The KH was headed home when President Carter sent them back to the IO. So my Dad (and a lot of other dads) were gone for just about one full year - a year of missed birthdays, his wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter, etc. But it was part of the job he signed on for when he took that oath. Did he like it? No. Did we? No. Did the families of the men who lost their lives that year (there were several fatal accidents on that ship in that year)? No.

And I know that’s true today - those troops just want to come home. Their families want them home. So do Rumsfeld and Bush. But we need them to stay there for a little while longer. So it will take some patience and prayer to get them, their families, and us through these months/years while we (the US) try to get Iraq stabilized.

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

I’m putting out the call for help. LW and I are ready to do another practical joke on The Marshal or some other management type in the office, but we’re out of ideas. So if you have a good practical joke, explain it in the comments section.

Some guidelines:

1. It must be legal (we are law enforcement, after all)

2. It must be clean (nothing that involves potty humor or sexual stuff, this is
the workplace)

3. It must not cost too much money (we prefer no cost at all)

4. It must not involve humiliation of the victim (we want to keep our jobs)

I think I’ve covered all the bases. I look forward to seeing what you’ve got!

LATER (9:45pm):  As of this update, there are four suggestions, two of which we’ve already done (Tony and Carlos). The other two have potential, although given the computer issues we already have, I’m hesitant to initiate those on these particular people. However, I will keep them in mind for my own private prank on LW. Heh.

I noted on my post about the Baseball All Star Game last night that the artist was lip syncing the National Anthem and that I’m a purist about that - it should be sung live.

There are obvious reasons to have the anthem pre-recorded:

1. It’ll sound better over the PA system - and you have the option of full band or orchestra with background vocals without having them set up on the field.

2. It reduces errors by the singer such as forgetting the words or singing flat.

3. It minimizes the echo effect of the stadium PA system.

As one who has sung the anthem at sporting events several times (none for a pro team, yet), in several types of venues, I can sympathize with singers who have forgotten the words or been screwed up on the timing because of the weird echo in a larger stadium.

There was a time in college when Kirby and I were to sing the anthem before a basketball game. He panicked that he would forget the words, so there we stood in the middle of the court with a hymnbook so that he would have the words handy. I was mortified and refused to hold the hymnbook.

Anyway, back to the main point. I know that Whitney and Faith pre-recorded their SuperBowl renditions of the anthem, and I admit that they were great. But the Dixie Chicks sang it live for this year’s SuperBowl and they rocked. So it can be done well.

I think the problem is that the people they select aren’t really suited to sing that song in that kind of environment. The chick that “sang” it for the All Star Game last night - I had never heard of her. She’s probably some recording company favorite that they’re trying to promote, so she gets the gig. But because she doesn’t sound that great live, they pre-record the anthem so that she won’t suck on national TV. Because the one they had last year (Anastasia?), if I’m remembering correctly, was terrible on many levels - she mangled the words and just generally sounded bad. Actually, now that I think of it, I think Anastasia sang it for one of the World Series games, but my point holds - she was awful.

LT Smash answers reader mail and links to others in the Sandbox who are blogging. I know I plan to give the ones I haven’t read yet a visit.

Patty has an excellent post on the Bright™ meme. She said some of what I have still been thinking, but couldn’t figure out how to articulate.

Christians can be damned annoying. Their belief in God and what happens to you in the after-life compels them to convince you that you don’t want to spend eternity in hell and should believe in God. Atheists and agnostics and people who really just don’t give a s**t want to be left alone. However, it would be a pretty poor Christian who cared so little about you and their own beliefs if they didn’t try to convert you at all.

For an atheist or agnostic, convincing someone to believe as they do is an argument to be won by intellect, it’s a matter of pride, of showing an ignorant supernaturalist why their beliefs are just so much vapor. Convincing the Christian to become a non-believer has no consequences except to make one less person in the world that doesn’t believe “in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny - or God.” (Dennett’s article)

For the Christian, to convert a soul to God is to bring the person to their completion. The Christian belief is that a convert becomes united with God for all time, and they become complete. Now, believe that or not, that’s what a proselytizing Christian thinks, believes and is acting upon. If you get someone trying to convert you that says they are elect, better than you, more moral, etc., etc. they aren’t a good Christian. A good Christian is always, first and foremost, humble.

I subscribe more to the St. Francis school of conversion: Preach the gospel, use words if necessary.

To the dude in the Expedition:

1. If you need to pull over, please don’t use the beginning of the exit ramp, you’ll be blocking traffic. Especially during the rush hours.

2. If you must pull over at or near an exit ramp, please move your huge vehicle to the shoulder.

3. There’s a button with a red triangle on the dashboard inside your car. When pushed it turns on some blinking lights on the outside of your car that alert other drivers that you’re not planning to move any time soon. Those lights are called “hazards” (at least that’s the common term for them). The reason they’re called hazards is so that you and the other drivers avoid the “hazard” of an accident. It is stronly advised that you push that button.

This guy wasn’t broken down as far as I could tell. He was just parked at the entrance of the exit ramp to the Fairfax County Parkway (from Route 50). He was writing something.

I’m finding the Brooke Alexander teasers on Fox News Channel to be a little weird and annoying. Anyone else?

I have one piece of advice to all aspiring actors, actresses, singers, dancers, pageant contestants, etc.

If, while you’re still “aspiring” to be famous but you’re not yet famous, you think that you’re not going to want those nudie shots of you to be made public and sold to the highest bidder when you are famous, then don’t have the nudie shots taken in the first place.

Welcome home. I figured when I didn’t get a call last night that everything was OK. I look forward to hearing all about your adventures in Hot-lanta. Dad and I missed you.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Does it strike anybody else as odd that the organist at the Baseball All-Star Game would be playing showtunes while the teams are announced?

“Tonight” from West Side Story
“When You Wish Upon a Star”

What’s up with that?

LATER: She’s lip syncing the National Anthem. I’m a purist on this. It needs to be done live. Wussies…

Next week I get rid of the dial up. I was online, responding to email, and I got disconnected about 45 minutes into my original (second) dial-in. What the? It then took me the better part of a half hour to get another good connection - four dial in attempts. I almost gave it up for tonight.

I’m so ready for this to be over…