Oops!

So you thought you were having a bad day.  Imagine this poor sap’s surprise when he thought he was simply crossing a mud puddle, only to discover a 12 foot deep crater caused by a water main break.

[source]

New Neighbor

Tomorrow I’ll have a new neighbor at work and I’m predicting my ear buds will be getting a workout.  Stay tuned….

Fail Whale

No offense to those of you who Twitter, but I find it silly.  As it is, I think I spend way too much time blogging and reading other blogs.  I have absolutely no time/desire for Twittering.

Hitchin’ a Ride

[more animal photos]

It’s Come To This?

 

I hate to admit this but I have times when I don’t know what day of the week it is so this clock would really come in handy.  Who needs to know the time if you don’t know the day of the week?  (I’m always afraid I’ll get put away somewhere for not knowing the date!)

Government Nonsense

Today I tried buying Series I Savings Bonds online and I’m beginning to think the government is populated by 5th graders.  Here’s what you must do to make an online purchase:

1.  sign up for an account by providing the usual, name, address, etc., plus your date of birth, driver’s license number, bank account number and more.  You are then emailed an account number but you still can’t purchase anything until your super-duper decoder card arrives by mail.
2.  two weeks or so later, after you’ve forgotten the minimum 8-digit password that must include at least one number, one letter, and one symbol, your super-duper decoder card (above) arrives in the mail.
3.  since you’ve forgotten your password, you must now try to remember not one, not two, but three answers to security questions, such as what was your first pet’s name, who was your favorite teacher, who is your favorite author, what is your favorite movie (hey, I’m not kidding).
4.  once you get that all figured out, then you have to find that email you were sent two weeks ago, because it contains your account number.
5.  you now enter your account number and then enter your password on a virtual keyboard with the numbers and letters scrambled so absolutely no one can watch to see what your password is.
6.  wait!  you’re not done yet – you haven’t used your super-duper decoder card yet.  at this point you must select your serial number (from your super-duper decoder card) from a drop-down box and then 3 additional boxes appear.  here’s where you get to use the super-duper decoder card.  you must use the intersection of the codes within the boxes to find the answers, which are entered using the virtual keyboard.
7.  if you are lucky and everything went well, you can now purchase savings bonds.  at least I think you can.  I tried buying $5,000 worth in $500 increments but the history only shows $2,500 (5 transactions).  since the bonds aren’t actually purchased until Monday, I won’t know whether I need to enter a 2nd transaction for another $2,500.
8.  and since you are limited to $5,000 per SSN per year, I was forced to do this twice – once for me and once for mr. gyma.  and you should know that the super-duper decoder cards don’t have your account number or name on them so if they get separated from the paper with your name on it, you won’t know which one to use.

Egads.  My tendency is to blame Bush.

Drum Brothers

We saw this group at the Rialto Theater, our 450-seat refurbished local theater, a couple of years ago and loved their energy.

I find large crowds nearly intolerable, so I love going to my local theater and hearing great music.  They make this look sooo easy.

The Eyes Have It

Who knew this is what a fruit fly’s eye looked like.  The Village of Joy has a number of amazing photographs of eyes.

Beck & Hannity

I see Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck had nothing better to do this weekend.

Empathy, Anyone?

Vincent Carroll is one heartless bastard and I’m sorry The Denver Post agreed to hire him after the Rocky Mountain News went belly up.  Carroll was the editor of the editorial page at the RMN and he and his ilk were one of the reasons why I didn’t read the RMN.  Perhaps Carroll would feel differently about homeless children in this country if he had lost his job and wasn’t able to find another. 

Now that Carroll is working for The Denver Post it seems his column appears daily and I don’t think I’ve read anything worthy of the ink and space given him.  Although I don’t know what he was writing during the Bush years, I’d bet a month’s salary he was uncritical of the things BushCo did while in office.

Gee, it’s too bad that what really gets under his skin is the fact that we elected a president with empathy. 

[...]

Then Obama uncorked a whopper. “The homeless problem,” he added, “was bad even when the economy was good. Part of the change in attitudes that I want to see here in Washington and all across the country is a belief that it is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”

[...]

Bastard.