Nick Postagulous
Friday, June 11, 2004
Alison's Getting Over-Ronnied
Al's coworkers have Reagan's funeral on the TV there. She's trying to do stuff that's horribly boring and she has a headache. Meanwhile, I have very little to do, as the mail is not running today and besides, hardly anyone came into work today. But she just sent me an email telling me to write something for her to read, and that The Sneeze was really gross today. It's a "Don't Eat It" entry.
Leafy's Funmobile
You know those dunebuggy-like fiberglass minimalist cars from the 1970s. I think there was a cartoon called Superbuggy or something, really weak, a rip off of Josie and the Pussycats, which I never watched either. Well, in any case, Leafy just dropped by and came to my office. I knew he was off work as he was wearing a pseudo-Hawaiian-ish type shirt untucked and denim knee shorts. Possibly not the Leaf's best look, but, in any case, he got me to show me his dunebuggy.
Wow. I sure don't need a car like that, but I'd sure like a car like that. Very loud. Rear engine. Weights nothing at all. Not terribly powerful. No top at all. Controls were just steering wheel, gas, brake, clutch, and emergency brake. I don't even think it had blinkers. Probably did.
It was originally red metallic gelcoat, but it's been painted over in glittery blue and silver. Very run-James-Bond's-new-gal-friend-down-on-the-beach, circa Roger Moore era.
Long Blather About Batteries (possibly boring to some)
They shipped the new battery for the Sony TRV250 today. I'll be able to keep the digital Handycam going for four hours at a time now, and also have the dinko 1.5 hr battery as a backup. We also picked up 48 AA batteries the other day at Costco. We ran out of the EAS protein that we usually drink for breakfast and just got the Costco kind, which is a little easier to mix, but I think I like the EAS better for flavor.
The AAs are to power the Motorola FRS radios, my MP3 player, my CMG Infinity tactical flashlight, and the Sima CP-150 portable hard drive/CF card reader. My Palm IIIxe, yes, very ancient, and it's Palm Portable Keyboard are powered by AAAs. My normal usage of it will have two AAs last me over a month. However, when that keyboard is draining the batteries, it'll last about 3 days. I'll use the IIIxe and PPK to document the trip to China. The Nikon 3500 has proprietary batteries and an external charger. I have three of the batteries and each one tends to give me about 60 pictures or so depending on how much flash or goofing around I do. The Nikon only has one CF card, and it holds 128 megs. However, the CP-150 has six gigs and can read the card anywhere, it doesn't depend on a computer.
We still have an issue about AC sockets. I need to get a converter. The TRV250's power supply cord can actually take between 110 and 240, so it would just require an adapter, but the Nikon, I'm assuming, needs 110. I'll look.
Natural Oil: For the First Time
Since I've had my Miata, it's only run on synthetic oil. Well, I cheaped out and put in Valvoline High Mileage normal oil yesterday. 3.4 quarts of 20w50 and 450 ml of 10w40. I always put 3.5ish into the engine and then run it, then check the level a few hours later. My dipstick has a 800 ml range that's acceptable and you can use that to figure out how much you need.
I did, however, change my oil like a total bonehead. Put the car on ramps rather than jackstands, though it's Alison's car you can do that with. My car requires me to be able to have the front right tire hanging down and turned all the way to the left so I can hug the tire and reach the oil filter. Also, I changed the oil after my 25 minute, 80 mph, commute from work. The engine was hot hot hot. Since I couldn't get at the filter easily, I just scooted under the car. I didn't realize how much I'd pushed the oil drain pan out of the way, until I finally got the filter loose and about an ounce of very hot oil dripped onto my chest. One more stain for the stained Don't Mess With Texas shirt.
I actually ended up getting the oil filter out from the top, snaking it past the air flow meter. Normally, this would have burnt me pretty well, but my sister got me some mechanics gloves for Christmas. I had wanted normal ones, but I think she thought I was going to use them as winter gloves, so she got special temperature resistant ones. Worked like a charm.
Celebrity Poker Showdown and Weekend Plans
When I finished, I was totally exhausted, mostly due to the heat. I took a shower and then sat around watching TV the rest of the night. It was one of the first nights in a long time that we didn't have to do anything. I stayed up too late watching Norm McDonald and Michael Ian Black duke it out on Celebrity Poker Showdown. This was a great episode, though not so much witty banter, as Norm being very serious and nearly villain like. He really wanted to win the $100,000 for his charity.
Alison and I should go see Chron o' Riddick this weekend. Maybe buy some shower curtains. Alison's birthday is at our house tonight and we've made the coffee dessert that we had Monday when my parents and sister were over.
I'm Blanced, Brain-wise
I did a little online test and it said I gathered info via sound and vision equally and was basically not left or right brain dominant. Here's the overly wordy summary at the end:
Nick, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant with a balanced preference for auditory and visual inputs. Because of your "centrist" tendencies, the distinctions between various types of brain usage are somewhat blurred.
Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor, unless it requires total spontaneity and ability to improvise, your weaker traits. [Untrue! Untrue!] However, you are far from rigid or overcontrolled. You possess a degree of individuality, perceptiveness, and trust in your intuition to function at much more sophisticated levels than most. [That's more like it.]
Having given sufficient attention to detail, you can readily perceive the larger aspects and implications of a situation or of learning. You are functional and practical, but can blend abstraction and theory into your framework readily.
The equivalence of your auditory and visual learning orientation gives you two equally effective sensory input systems, each with distinctive features. You can process both unidimensionally and multidimen- sionally with equal facility. When needed, you sequence material while at other times you "intake it all" and store it for processing later.
Your natural ability to use your senses is also synthesized in your way of learning. You can be reflective in your approach, absorbing material in a non-aggressive manner, and at other times voracious in seeking out stimulation and experience.
Overall you tend to be somewhat more critical of yourself than is necessary and avoid enjoying life too much because of a sense of duty. You feel somewhat constrained and tend to sometimes restrict your expressiveness. In any given situation, you will opt for the rational [Untrue! Untrue!], and learning of almost any type should be easy for you. You might need certain ideas explained to you in order to fit them into your scheme of things, but you're at least open to that!
Yawn!
They forgot my lightning fast reflexes, dashing good looks, and pony pal Pokey too.
Actually, TC here has a real superpower. He can smell ants.
