Daniel Von Fange

Evasive Procrastinator Project.

Sometimes programing and designing is a joy. Sometimes I don't want to touch a project with a 15 foot pole. Today I should have been designing - instead I downloaded the "new" version of Konfabulator and had a good old time making a little widget to track the status of the servers I take care of. Up in one corner of my secondary LCD are two floating transparent "Korean faces". When a server goes down, the face goes red, changes to beat-up, and my computer starts beeping.

:

(About the computers: Doc is a Windows™ Powered machine, and it goes down from time to time. Wallace has an uptime that corresponds exactly with the length of time that has elapsed since I mounted it in the rack at the colo facility - He is really monitored to test my own connection to the internet.)

Clever Lawyers.

Lawyers have sometimes been painted as following ambulances around, looking for clients. Today, after our little incident, we got in a good chuckle over our mail. Three letters from lawyers offices, and one from a autobody shop.

One lawyer, smarter than the others, had written "accident report enclosed" on the outside of his letter. (The accident report is not even available online yet.) Coincidentally, that letter was the only one we opened - the rest went into the trash.

Hit and Run II.

Here is my "little" brother's account of what happend while I was out of town, the next day after our little smash.

Time, 5PM, location, Chiropracters Waiting Room, reason, getting my back put back in the right places.

The guy next to me, was talking in his cellphone, I didn't pay much attention, until I heard the words, hit and run. Well, he was desribing how a guy flew into the parking lot he was sitting in his car in, barely hit him, and took off. Well, the guy who just got hit, took off after him. I heard a nice description of a chase soundling like ours, 90MPH, crazy driver, etc...

He described how eventualy, the guy slowed his truck, and jumped out, and ran into the woods. He said he stayed with the still rolling truck, to stop it if it would hit a house, but it went off the road into the woods.

He then, told how name X(Can't remember) sniffed the guy out, I am guessing it was police dog, or officer perhaps to.

Well, he said they found the guy, he described him as a...."Big White guy"....when he hung up his cellphone, we started a conversation, "Are you a policeman?". He said yes, we told him of our hit and run last night said the driving styles seemed similar. He asked where it was, Told him the road, he said "Thats the road we caught the guy". I described the truck, big red checy, well, the guy who hit the cop, was a big red chevy!

So, apperently, after losing us, this guy flew into a parking lot speeding, and hit a parked cop, and took off. He was drunk, etc. The guy had 14 charges written up on him for the incident.

So, we dertimed, that Mr. Smart driver who hit us, was the same Mr. Smart driver who hit him.

Small world, to sit in the same waiting room, with the cop who caught the guy who hit us, caught him for totaly different reasons.

Hit and Run.

I was just about to make a nice long post about Dan James' post on stupid drivers. Well, tonight, we ran into one - or more truthfully, he ran into us. Riding home tonight with my brothers, we were stopped at a red light waiting for a chance to turn right onto the interstate entrance ramp. Suddenly BAAAM. We got slammed from the back by a red pickup truck. After the usual Dang-Did-we-really-just-get-hit thoughts, we put on the flashers, and John stepped out to talk to the guy. That is when he backed, up and floored it on past us. We were not able to see the license tag number. John gave chase to see if we could read the tags, but we lost him. ( He had a good head start, flipped his headlights lights off, was fond of driving through red lights and in the oncoming traffic lane.) I thought it was too risky try to catch up. So we lost him. We went back to the light and spent 25 minutes waiting for the policeman to show up. Then reports, etc.

So now it is 1:15am as I am writing this, and I have to be up at 5:45am.

And if anyone wants to go on a photo scavenger hunt in the south east charlotte area and surrounding towns and countryside for the pickup that hit us, here is a description.

• Red
• Meduim sized I think
• Huge letters across the tailgate, "Chevrolet"
• Driver a white, possibly heavyset, male.
• Year model between 1988-1998
• Will have sustained minor damage to the right front.

Ow, my neck hurts.

[ Update, looking on eBay, it kind alooked like this, except it was red, not maroon ( I think) ]

Busch Gardens.

We went to Busch Gardens yesterday with some relatives. The Williamsburg Busch Gardens theme park is built into little "countries", each with their own distinctive archetecture, music, rides, and eating. (When visiting Europe we were reminded a lot of Busch Gardens.)

I'm not a theme park person. My line wait tolerance is only about twice the duration of the ride, and that only happens on off days for a park. I also see very little point in rides in which you have no control. Going with relatives whom you can watch scream and shout is not so bad, of course. And taking little kids who really like moving fast through space is fun too.

Now next time I go to a park, and get bored in the first twenty minutes, I'm going to play bounty hunter. Pick a person, briskly walk off to the opposite part of the park, and then HUNT THEM DOWN. Should give me something to do.

The "4D Haunted Lighthouse Film" was our first stop. It was one of those 3D steroscopic films where you wear the glasses and see depth in the screen. The story was very well written to the medium and for the audince. The movie had everyone watching it off ballance and surprised the entire time.

After that we went over to "Escape from Pompii". As I overheard one not too bright young man say to his girlfriend, "Escape from Pompii is this ride where you go in a boat through Atalantis." The fire inside the ride was pretty fun. It's spooky with nothing between you and the fire inside. I've gone down one log flume in the last ten years, so it was a bit of a thrill at the end of the ride as we emerged from the darkness at top of the building and took the dive toward the ground. I was hanging onto the hat to keep it from flying off my head when the little dawrf inside my head began to panic. I let go of the hat and grabbed for the rail. A few seconds later, I was hatless. "Scratch one hat, I announced to the air as we were riding the boat in. Then somebody behind me tapped me on the shoulder, and handed me my hat. Phew!

I noticed on some of the rides that they used had a bunch of prerecorded "yell" messages for things like "Do not spin the swingy-chairs around or we will stop the ride." The ride opperator just presses the appropate button, and out of the speakers comes the appreate cease and desist message recorded by a professional actor. It lets someone with almost no English skills run a ride.

The rides seem much tamer at Busch Gardens this time then I rembered. I wonder it is me, or the park.

I also noticed that all the rides have the one way turnstyle. I'm guessing the primary reason for them is not crowd control, but as a counter. I'm would be willing to bet someone walks around at the end of each day and writes then totals down. The really fun thing to do would be to put them on ethernet and have live stats during the day.

Traveling in the RV.

Here is a typical photo inside the RV as we eat up the miles between us and grandmother. Dad's driving, John is playing Axis and Allies on his laptop while two large dogs sleep on his feet, Elizabeth knits, and Mom holds Elizabeth's iBook on her lap so we can all watch the DVD. Andrew and I usualy sleep most of the way.

PS: I'm posting from the road via my Treo. COOL.

Gas Station Hawkers.

On the way up through Charlotte, we stopped to put gas in the RV. No sooner had Dad gotten out of the RV then a stranger walked up and began trying to sell him a tool kit, a set of jumper cables, and a stuffed doll. Looking around the gas station we could see two more vendors.

When we were gawking around in Italy this sort of outdoor street vendor solicitation was not a surprise, but in Charlotte, North Carolina right off of I-85 it surprising. I've never seen in-your-face-at-the-gas-station-selling around here.

The RV has a big gas tank and we were at a very slow fuel pump, so we got to watch the men at work for a while. Not too long after we arrived, a SUV pulled up and the driver began a tirade on one of the vendors. His speach lasted for seemingly ten minutes, and then the unlucky young vendor vanished. We could not guess if he was the owener of the gas station, or the ringleader of the vendors, but new arrival's emphatic hand guestures were a thing of awe to behold.

As we left, the other two continued pouncing on cars as the cars drove up.

Those extra limbs.

I've been doing some work over at JAARS, working from a computer that is not my own. I kept feeling cramped and unable to do "simple" things. I realized what it was. I was missing an extra limb or two that I'm used to - Ruby and Rexexps. Boba Fett without his jet pack. Indiana Jones without his whip. Me without Ruby and Rexexps. I use them so many times during a day that I never even think of them

Over at interconnected, matt talks about watching an excavator work. We had one in our backyard for day clearing out stumps. Honestly, we called off work, pulled out chairs, and watched it work. It was hard to believe that the thing was not alive.

Oh, and unless you happen to have a friendly construction worker that lets you drive one, you can have no idea how must skill it really takes to be smooth with big construction machinery.

The Confederate flag is a symbol.

Unlike concepts like "Truth" or "Dishonesty", a flag is symbol - it provides a visual focal point for a nation/organization/concepts behind it. While the nations behind a nation's flag are unambiguous, the concepts and ideals that it symbolizes to the person looking at it vary with the person looking at. So it is with the Confederate flag.

Some folks see the confederate flag as a symbol of the belief that black folks are worth less than white folks. Fortunately, this view of the flag is in the minority. Unfortunately the folks that see it representing this are very noisy ( Whether they are from the KKK side, or NAACP side).

Others see it a symbol or rebellion. Bikers, truckers, and drug gangs see and use it this way (Yeah, I'm over generalizing). Oddly enough this group takes very little trouble from either of the other sides Maybe they don't care. Maybe nobody wants to mess with them.

Others, like I and most southerners, look at the confederate battle flag and think fondly of the outnumbered "grey's" whipping the "blue's", of the right of the people form their own government, of courage in the face of privation, of chivalry, of skill, and of daring.

One of Scotland's unofficial nationals anthem begins:

O Flower of Scotland,
When will we see
Your like again,
That fought and died for,
Your wee bit Hill and Glen,
And stood against him,
Proud Edward's Army,
And sent him homeward,
Tae think again.

Scotland is now a part of EnglandBritain, but many scots are proud of being scottish. It's the same thing with Southerners. We are American's now (and proud of it too), and we are also proud of have "whupped" the yankees on numerous occasions against ugly odds. Just mention Lee, Jackson, Stuart, or Forrest, and a southerner's face will light up, just like a "true Scot's" face would light up at the mention of Wallace or Bruce.

Next time you hear a "debate" on the flying of the southern flag, remember that for all practical purposes the sides could be arguing about totally different flags, because to different people, the flag represent very different concepts.

It's true, some confederate leaders were total racists. (By the same token, so were many Yankees. That does not excuses the southern ones, of course.) There are bad things in almost every nations history. Learn from and avoid the bad; be proud of and repeat the good.

We don't hide the US flag because of what happened to the indians. We say, "that was stupid of us, won't do that again", move on, and hang the Stars and Stripes out on the front porch in honor of our freedom and in memory of those that died to keep it for us. So it is with most of the people flying confederate flag.

(Though my parents with from the "North", and I have one or two soldiers in blue in my ancestry, I was born in the south, raised in the south, and live in the south. Therefore I am southern. These are southern opinions and I can't vouch for the opinions of "Yankee's". Any Yankees around? Let me know what people in your area think)