Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative

Drive-By Morons

3 Comments

The post on the Virgin Galactic rollout problems seems to have attracted some trolls. I just got a comment there, that was held in moderation, from some creature calling itself “Joe PAO” with an email address (probably fake) of “joe@nasa.gov.” But the IP address is from an AT&T account in mid-town Manhattan.

I’m not going to approve it, or repeat it here, because it consisted of nothing but a completely baseless personal attack on me and my journalistic integrity. But it is strange to see which posts bring these cretins out of the woodwork.

Administrative, Space

Off To Mojave

4 Comments

I know posting has been a little slow this weekend. Dale Amon is visiting, and helped me get a lot of things done around the house that I’ve been putting off since we moved back, not to mention cleaning up the fall leaves on the roof and patio in anticipation of the first winter rainstorm here, which is likely to put somewhat of a damper on today’s festivities. They’ve scheduled the rollout for later afternoon (after dark, actually), probably with a light-show extravaganza, but that’s when the rain (and up there, perhaps snow) is likely to be heaviest, according to the forecast. On Saturday night, we attended Alan Boyle’s book signing up in the Fairfax district, and Dale reported on it at Samizdata.

Anyway, we’re driving up to Mojave this morning to see it, and other things (reportedly there will be spill-over parties at XCOR and other places). If the weather permits, we’ll be back late tonight.

[Update a few minutes later]

I wonder why they chose Pearl Harbor Day as the rollout date? I assume they did so despite, not because, or perhaps they didn’t give it any thought. But that’s strange, because Virgin (or at least Burt) are quite into anniversaries. I would have thought they’d rather do it on the 17th, the 106th anniversary of the Wright’s first flight.

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark Lindsey has a roundup of related links.

Administrative, Popular Culture

A Benefit Of Being Back In LA

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If I were still living in Boca Raton, I wouldn’t have been able to drive up to Hollywood (the one in California, not the one south of Fort Lauderdale — I could drive to that one whenever I wanted, but why bother?) last night for drinks and sushi with Iowahawk, Iowahawk female-confrere-in-hotrodding, and Armed Liberal at Yamashiro. The former looks just like his picture, except they don’t allow dogs in the restaurant, so he had to smoke something else in his pipe. It seemed to be pretty high-octane stuff. It would actually explain much of his output. He also turns out to be both a gentleman and a scholar. No pictures, though — the pipe is very shy. Beer and old fashioneds were consumed, politics was discussed, last year’s electorate and the current leadership of the country were bewailed, other bloggists who had the effrontery not to attend were gossiped about brutally.

A good time was had by all. And by “all,” I mean of course, at least me. It’s at least conceivable that my drunken table-top fandango-kabuki may have put off my table-partners and some of the other patrons.

But it seemed like a great idea at the time. This morning, with the cat stomping around? Not so much.

[Update mid-morning]

I suppose that I should put out a standard disclaimer: The descriptions of some of the events and people in this post may have a truth value of somewhat less than unity. It is (sort of) an Iowahawk post, after all. Let’s just call it fake but accurate. If it’s not true it should be, and anyone who didn’t have a good time didn’t deserve to. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Administrative, Popular Culture

Busy Weekend

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We’re making a big push to get more moved into the house this weekend, including setting up an office for Patricia and the guest bedroom, and starting to straighten out the garage. I also have to clean the gutters, even though the leaves aren’t all down yet, because there’s a Pacific storm coming in on Tuesday or Wednesday of indeterminate strength and rainfall.

I did watch the Michigan game yesterday, though. In the past two weeks, I think they’ve gone from being the worst 4-0 team in the country to the best 4-2. They’re only two turnovers away from being undefeated, and if they hadn’t had so many last night, they’d have beaten Iowa handily. The defense is actually starting to look better, which gives me some hope for the rest of the season, if the quarterbacks can figure out what color jerseys they’re supposed to be throwing to. Also, I see that the Lions are off to a good start on the new losing streak to break their previous record, with a loss to the Steelers today.

Administrative

Yes, I Am An Idiot

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I’ve been getting messages from my server that I left my header template and stylesheet in mid edit in vi. I got tired of getting them, and went in to close it out. Did I back up the files first? No, I did not. After doing ‘vi -r style.css’ and trying to exit, and it asked “don’t you want to save that?,” of course I did. As the post title says, idiot.

This by way of explaining why my blog is once again leaning left. But only in appearance, not in content.

Administrative

Back Home

11 Comments

I got in this afternoon, but this is the first chance I’ve had to log on (using…borrowed…yeah, that’s the word, borrowed… bandwidth from a neighbor’s unsecured Dlink router. I’ll return the bits after I get my own set up in a day or so…if he can figure out the passphrase…).

I returned to a house full of boxes to unpack and find a place for their contents, so the next few days/weeks/months will be a massive exercise in entropy reduction. I hope to get back to a semi-normal schedule this coming week, though.

Administrative

Back On The Road Again

18 Comments

Sun’s up in Tallahassee, so I don’t want to waste the light. Hoping for the bayou by lunchtime, and when the times comes for tonight’s appointment with Hypnos, I expect to be (as the old song goes) deep in the heart of Texas.

Though the radar indicates rain on the road ahead. At least this time, unlike my trip coming to Florida five years ago, the air conditioning works in the car (or at least it did as of last night), so I won’t be getting rained on with windows open in the steamy climate.

[Friday night update]

Yes, I’m alive, didn’t sleep in a truck stop, wasn’t abducted by aliens in Roswell, and wasn’t tempted to stay in TX by the brisket, contra comments.

I stayed in a Days Inn in Kerrville, about forty-five minutes west of San Antonio, that had free wifi. It was worth twice the price. Or half. It doesn’t really matter, because either way, the point is that it didn’t work. Some hotel could do good business by advertising “Free wifi that really works, or we’ll refund half your room rate,” and make it happen.

Anyway, I’m in Phoenix, staying with a niece and her husband and new (well, relatively new — seventeen months) son, whom I hadn’t seen. Back to LA in the morning.