Too Damn Many Numbers

While cruising over at JimSpot, I came across this post, covering something that is one of my major pet peeves when it comes to the telecommunications industry.

Phone numbers. Or rather, the proliferation of phone numbers.

Here in the US, as in many nations, telecommunications has spread everywhere. There are your plain old telephone system (or POTS) phones, cell phones, one-way pagers, two-way pagers, fax lines, data lines (for those using dialup connections to the ‘net) ad nauseum.

All of these new gadgets and services eat up phone numbers. This has caused more and more area codes to be created, either by splitting existing area codes into two or more or overlaying new ones over old ones. One of the complications of all of this has been the requirement for people to dial 10 digits (or 11 digits if the local phone company also requires you to dial 1 at the beginning) even if you’re only calling your neighbor across the street, rather than dialing 7 digits as has been done since sometime in the 60’s.

Despite protestations to the contrary, it isn’t that phone numbers are being used up at such a prodigious rate, but that phone numbers are being allocated at such a rate.

When a group of phone numbers is allocated to a phone, cell, or pager company, they are given out in blocks of 10,000 numbers. This block of numbers constitutes an ‘exchange’, (i.e. the first three digits in a seven digit phone number is the exchange number). As an example, a block of 10,000 phone numbers is given the exchange of 555. The block of numbers for that exchange run from 555-0000 to 555-9999.

Now what happens if, of those 10,000 numbers allocated to a telecommunications company, only 500 are ever used? It means 9500 numbers in that block are ‘lost’, not usable by anyone else. It is this allocation system that is eating up 10,000 numbers at a time, not the number of phones and so on, actually being used.

My home state of New Hampshire narrowly avoided having to add a second area code because exchange numbers were rapidly being depleted. It took a lot of work with the NHPUC, the FCC, the Regional Bell Operating Company (Verizon), a number of competitive phone companies, cell providers, and pager companies to change how numbers are allocated. Rather than being given out 10,000 numbers at a time, the phone numbers are now given out in blocks of 1000. In other words, if WeekendPundit Telecom wants to get a block of numbers for its new cell phone service, it will receive 1000 numbers: 555-0000 to 555-0999. JimSpot Telecom also wants a block of numbers for a new pager service. It gets its thousand numbers that run from 555-1000 to 555-1999, and so on. Using this system, the worst case scenario will create only 1000 ‘lost’ numbers, greatly reducing the demand for numbers. In effect, the exchange numbers are now 4 digits, i.e. 5550 or 5551, rather the 3 digits. The extensions (the last 4 digits in your phone number) are now 3 digits. The phone numbers won’t look or work any different than anywhere else in the US, they’re just given out differently.

One idea I’ve always liked is that cell phones and pagers should have their own area codes. It’s no different than overlaying area codes as is done now. It’s only how the overlay is performed. POTS lines would be able to keep the ‘original’ area code, while cell phones and pagers would all be given distinct area codes. If memory serves correctly, this was proposed at one time for one state out West, but I have no idea if it was ever implemented. It certainly makes a lot more sense than someone dialing 11 digits for a local call does.

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Thanks to Jim over at JimSpot for giving me tonight’s topic.

A Clueless Voice In The Netherlands

My brother posted earlier about eight great voices in Europe, friends and allies of America that chose not to be silent, not to follow the lead of France and Germany.

Then comes a post by Bill Whittle that shows that idiotarians know no national boundaries or cultures. Marius in the Netherlands claims that Bill is making him ill, that all of our cowboy ethics and antics are the real reason for war. I’m surprised that he didn’t also accuse us ‘cowboys’ of causing cancer, dandruff, ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, Mikhail Gorbachev’s birthmark, agita, halitosis, male pattern baldness, and Britney Spears. (Well, I guess we do have to take the blame for Britney.)

Bill is being a bully, presenting poor Marius with facts that might confuse him because they are in opposition to his beliefs.

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“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what ‘the stars foretell,’ avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable ‘verdict of history’ – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!” – Lazarus Long

What A Crowd!

All it takes is one link from a popular blog and all of a sudden the hits keep on coming. In this case a WeekendPundit post was linked from U.S.S. Clueless. Shortly after lunch yesterday I checked our blog stats and was surprised to find 3 times the number of hits that we’ll sometimes see in a single day. It wasn’t until I checked the referral log that I saw the hits were all coming from Mr. Den Beste’s blog. It appeared that my dear brother had managed to post during the workday, disagreeing with a point or two in Steven’s assessment of the State Of The Union address. By the end of the day we were about 8 times above the normal volume that we usually see.

Wow.

I mean WOW!

This is just so cool!

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We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog….

The State Of The Union At First Glance

I'm not going to delve deeply into President George W. Bush's State of the Union address as this point. Like many of you out there, I'm going to read the transcript on the web or in the morning paper, and only then will I comment. But a few things stuck with me, particularly in relation to Iraq and our relations with our supposed allies in the UN.

“The course of our nation does not depend on the decisions of others.” (Emphasis mine)

This appears to be aimed at France, Germany, and other of our allies in Europe and to members of the UN Security Council. George is telling them that we will do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves with or without their blessings.

Many of his critics say that, unlike JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis, George has not provided concrete evidence that Iraq has and is still working on developing weapons of mass murder. He's answered those critics by announcing that Secretary of State Colin Powell will provide that evidence and more before the UN Security Council of February 5th.

He was also forceful in his pronouncement of America's effort to track down Al-Qaida operatives.

“...many Al-Qaida operatives are no longer a problem for America, its friends and allies,” and, “One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.”

In other words, George is kickin' ass and takin' names. And Saddam has been invited to a well deserved and long overdue Texas-style ass-kicking.

N’ Hampsha’ Humah

It seems that forces beyond my control keep dragging me back to the subject of regional dialects, as well as the accompanying humor. If you want to blame anyone for this, I can point the finger to Fred at Fragments From Floyd. He started it all.

But the question I have pondered has been whether to focus on the regional dialects or the regional humor? Both have their amusing parts, but sometimes the regional humor doesn’t work very well without the regional dialect. A Down East Maine story doesn’t have the same impact if it’s told with a Brooklyn accent, does it?

But there are a few here and there that can escape the need for the appropriate dialect. This one is near and dear to my heart because it so aptly expresses some of my own prejudices.

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There are four men driving in a car together, one from Maine, one from Vermont, one from Massachusetts, and one from New Hampshire. Down the road a bit, the man from Maine starts throwing bags of potatoes out of the car window.

“What are you doing that for?” asks the man from New Hampshire.

The man from Maine replies, “We have so many damn potatoes just lying around our state. I'm just sick and tired of seeing these things.”

Down the road a bit more, the man from Vermont starts throwing jugs out maple syrup out of the car window.

“Why are you doing that?” asks the man from New Hampshire.

The man from Vermont says, “We have so many of these darn jugs just lying around our state. I'm just sick and tired of seeing these things.”

Moments later the man from New Hampshire throws the man from Massachusetts out the car window.

SuperBowl Ad Superstars

As I mentioned in my previous post but one, the ads run during the SuperBowl are the stars of the show.

Even the opening sequence with Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his role as the Terminator was pretty damn impressive, as were the teasers for The Hulk and the next two Matrix movies.

Then there was the Visa Check Card ad with Yao Ming and Yogi Berra. My, but Yao is a big guy!

One of the ads I truly enjoyed (even though I know I’m going to get hate mail on this) is the beer ad where a poor schmoe is rehearsing in front of a mirror, trying to figure the best way to tell his girlfriend that he really likes her roommate. He visualizes her response, a slap, but faces up to the consequences. What he didn’t anticipate was her response being, “Well, then you should date both of us.”

Iraqi Duplicity

A full White House report on the Iraqi Apparatus of Lies illustrates that nothing is as it appears in Iraq.

The report lays out Iraq’s manipulation of foreign media by staging shows of grief, supposed destruction of civilian areas by Coalition forces, and purposeful deployment of military assets in civilian areas to cause as many civilian casualties as possible in order to sway public opinion in the U.S. and elsewhere.

(Link via Samizdata)

Random Thoughts On Superbowl Sunday

Even though it is the day of the Big Game^TM, domestic chores must still take precedence. In this case it’s time to do the laundry here at World Domination, Inc. HQ. (Our motto - “Subjugating Humanity One Individual At A Time.”)

That’s right. The secret’s out. The WeekendPundit is actually a front for WDI. Betcha’ didn’t know that, did you? Though my brother has made mention of this in passing now and then, you probably weren’t paying attention, were you? And now our evil plan to take over the world will soon come to fruition!

Bwuh-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!

And don’t think you can hide. We know where you live and where you work.

And your little dog, too!

But still, the laundry must be done and it’s up to me to do it. After all, even Evil Overlords need clean underwear.

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Though neither of my favorite teams will be playing at the SuperBowl in San Diego today, I’ll still be watching the game. Not for the football, but for the commercials. It has become a SuperBowl tradition for some of the best ads on TV to make their debut during the festivities.

Does anyone remember the first Apple MacIntosh ad that looked like something right out of Orwell’s 1984? It was a slam against ‘Big Brother’ IBM. It was run only twice, but a lot of people still remember it. You can still see it on some of those ‘Best Commercials’ TV shows that pop up now and then. Or you can watch it here. (Requires Apple’s QuickTime viewer plug-in.)

The following year Apple had another ad that was a dark take-off from Disney’s ‘Whistle While You Work’ of Snow White fame. While not nearly as popular or as memorable, it was still pretty darn good.

One of my all time favorite SuperBowl TV ads was for McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce. It was all of 15 or 20 seconds long. All it showed was a man sitting outside his tarpaper shack in the bayou, a pizza box at his side. He takes out a slice, pours Tabasco sauce on it, and eats it. As he munches on his pizza, a mosquito lands on his arm and starts to drink his blood. The man stops munching, watches as the mosquito drinks his fill, then flies off. A few seconds later the mosquito explodes in midair. The man smiles, pulls out another slice of pizza, and douses it with more sauce.

Simple, to the point, with no music or flashy graphics.

And memorable.

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Does anyone know where Glenn Frazier went? All we get is an error when trying to connect to his blog. Or has he purposely pulled the plug?

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It’s snowing after a hiatus of over 2 weeks. It’s been so cold due to the push of arctic air out of Canada that all of the storm systems have passed well south of here. But now we have a blanket of new snow, pristine white, covering over the older snowfall. The snow banks had started to look brown and black, collecting the dirt and grime from the passing traffic. Now it all looks pretty again.

Of course New England will be heading back into the deep freeze for a few days, but I think this might be the last gasp of really cold air we’ll have to deal with. With February and March rapidly approaching, we should be seeing some real humdingers in the way of snowstorms. February and the first week of March tend to have the heaviest snowfalls of the winter up this way.

I’m looking forward to it!

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There’s an interesting debate going on in the little college town of Plymouth and neighboring town Holderness, New Hampshire.

There’s an old steel girder bridge that spans the Pemigewasset River that is in need of replacement. The river is the boundary between the two towns and is the closest river crossing to the center of Plymouth. Townspeople in both communities have been lobbying to replace the old girder bridge with a new covered bridge.

Even though the state Department of Transportation doesn’t like the idea, and the cost of constructing the bridge will be up to $5 million dollars higher than a steel and concrete bridge, there is still a lot of support for the covered bridge.

Personally, I like the idea. As a former resident of Plymouth, I can understand the appeal of replacing a rusting eyesore with something more traditionally identified with New England. But there’s another reason that I like the covered bridge idea, one that appeals to my engineering background.

Covered bridges last longer than steel and concrete. At least in this climate they do. They require less maintenance and aren’t prone to the problems that steel and concrete spans exhibit.

From an aesthetic viewpoint, they’re also a lot prettier. Check the two concept sketches at the top of the article I linked to above. Which one would you choose?

There are tradeoffs involved with a covered bridge, but I know the folks in Plymouth and Holderness well enough to know they’d be more than willing to deal with the downside as long as they get a beautiful bridge. It’s certainly better than what’s there now.

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“Cheops’ Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or under budget.” – Lazarus Long

It’s All A Matter Of Perspective

I am constantly reminded of this small truth.

It was as I was composing an e-mail to Vicky that I was reminded of this truth.

I work for a small fiber optics firm based here in New Hampshire. Our parent company has a facility down in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where one of our employees is based. This morning he called our project coordinator to ask what he should charge the ‘snow day’ they had enjoyed down there yesterday.

Snow day? In South Carolina?

Yup. South Carolina.

They had a massive snowfall of four inches, which closed schools, highways, and workplaces throughout the affected parts of the state.

Around here, four inches is barely enough to plow, let alone cause a snow day to be declared.

But then I thought about it all being a matter of perspective. Four inches down there is damn dangerous while here it is something of a nuisance. Here we have snow plows and snow tires and chains. Down there all they have is shovels, front end loaders, and road graders. We’re prepared to handle weather like that and they aren’t.

But still, four inches?

France And The Marginalization Of Europe

I was checking out one of the more unusual blogs on our WeekendPundit links list and came across this over at Methuselah’s Daughter. Both her post and the link to Stephen Green’s post (The Vodka Pundit is back!) certainly helps put things in perspective.

MD writes:

“In the case of France, this was a World Power of the Old Continental Europe- a nation to be reckoned with whenever any nation sought to make any sort of power play in wide swaths of the world. They handed America her independence simply to annoy the British, and in the process sowed the seeds of their own demise- the collapse of the Royaume de France in to revolution essentially eviscerated nation’s ability to remain a world power. Unlike the United States, France descended in to the Reign of Terror that most modern revolutions spawn; rather than a Stalin or a Mao, they begat Napoleon (after some serious struggles) who proceeded to seal their fate as an essentially failed world power. That France has been able to remain the force it is today is a tribute to American charity and the social inertia that plays such an immense role in the post World War II miasma that is modern Europe.”

And from Vodka Pundit:

“Cheap shots aside, France is – or rather, was – a truly great nation. French generals out-generaled the German General Staff in the opening weeks of the First World War, resulting in a nation-saving victory at the Battle of the Marne. French soldiers held their trenches against German onslaughts at Verdun, never cracking despite Falkenhayn’s promise to ‘bleed them white.’ It was the French who provided arms, tanks, and training to the green American Expeditionary Force in 1917 and ’18.

French soldiers and ships helped bring us victory in our Revolution. French farmers gave us brie and crème fraîche and the wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux. French thinkers gave us Voltaire and Victor Hugo. France stands second to only the United Kingdom as the European nation contributing most to Western Civilization.

But after WWI, France went as bad as potato salad left out at a sunny summer picnic.”

Is France’s denunciation of America’s intention to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime and rebuild Iraq a true concern for the effects of war, or a knee-jerk reaction to hold back an upstart ascendant world power that it denigrates in an effort to say, “See, we were great once, too!”

Regardless of the motivation, France’s reaction and behind the scenes machinations have come to show how marginalized one of the great powers of Europe have become. Of the old powers, the only one that still shows the greatness of its past in its actions today is Great Britain. It understands what the term ‘ally’ means. It has shamed France and Germany, illustrating that even though its’ great empire is gone, it is still a power to be reckoned with. A stauncher friend the US could not have.

Flatlander News

It’s Thursday and it means that guest blogger Brendan Smith will grace us with his thoughts on the ‘not normally seen as mundane to flatlanders and natives alike’ issues here in New Hampshire.

His timing is excellent (as always) because Fred over at Fragments From Floyd had gotten into a similar situation regarding regional accents and the meanings of words. But Brendan puts things to right (sort of) in the great Underwear/Rubberbands Debate.

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The Results Are In!
By Brendan Smith
The Weirs Times

It's been quite a month. The emails, snail mails, phone calls, drive-bys and late-night visits from perfect strangers has finally slowed. Each and every one weighing in on the crucial debate started here a few issues back. Is it “underpants” or “underwear”? “Rubberbands” or “elastics”? Today the results will finally be revealed.

Apparently the question of language and its usage by both native and Flatlander always strikes a chord with many readers. The last time I had such a response was when I touched on the irritating usage (at least to me) by many native New Englanders of the term “So Don’t I” which, logically, should mean “So Do Not I.” That meaning, being poor grammar itself, would be excusable since it makes some sort of sense. The fact that the term “So Don’t I” means “So Do I” can only make one ask when and how this contraction was added. Don't you wonder? I don’t. (But I really do...I think.)

The “underpants/underwear” controversy was further confused by the "exact" definition of particular forms of undergarments (that word itself a more proper form of “underwear” I was informed.) Most Flatlanders agreed with my designation of undershirt as a “shirt worn under another shirt” but some took me to task for calling it a “T-Shirt” when worn without another shirt. Many claimed that A T-shirt can only be an “Undershirt type without the sleeves.” Others agreed with the term “Underpants” but only if worn by women and then those too are even more commonly referred to as "panties.“ On the men’s side, only they can wear “briefs.” Some made the whole idea much easier by just referring to the whole mess as “Undies.” (I must admit, interesting e-mails to be opening up all the same.)

Some wrote to me with, what I took to be, dictionary definitions to defend their insistence on the proper terms. Looking in the dictionary I found definitions for both “Underwear” and “Underpants” and neither of them matched the ones emailed to me.

As far as the “Rubber Bands/Elastics” debacle is concerned it seems that the further south down the Eastern Coast you have moved here from the more likely you are to say “Rubber bands” and the further North you go the faster it is for the term “elastics” to begin to take hold; even though the word “Underpants” is still hanging strong (no pun intended...I think.) For example, most people from New York will say “Underpants/Rubberbands” while in Massachusetts there becomes a strong mix of the “Underpants/Rubberbands” & “Underpants/Elastics” crowd. (Confused yet? Good it serves you right.)

On the other side of the coin, the whole “Underpants/Rubberbands” brouhaha has opened a whole new can of worms for me. The vote was pretty much a 50/50 split between natives and flatlanders so it is apparently always going to be a regional issue. What concerned me was the slew of other language idiosyncrasies and differences which made it clear that the cultural gap between natives and flatlanders was still pretty wide and possibly in need of a Flatlander/Native dictionary.

For example: one reader, whose first concern was that she was actually spending time responding to the survey, grew up on Long Island like myself and voted for “underpants/rubberbands” as expected but also reminded me that I've probably been caught asking for “sprinkles” instead of “jimmies” on my ice cream cones. It made me ponder the whole ice cream language barrier. There’s shakes and frappes and sundaes but depending on where you grew up they all meant what the other was to someone else. That’s why those lines at Dairy Queen are always so long in the summer - it’s a translation problem. Then there’s the Grinder/Sub/Hoagie mess along with the Tonic/Pop/Soda Tug-Of War. The list seems endless and as hard as I might try to mediate the whole fiasco, I'm afraid I won’t see a resolution in my lifetime.

Even dialects became an issue. Is your brother‘s sister your “Ahnt” or your “Ant” as we say in New York. One woman who wrote told of an argument where she told a New York Flatlander friend of hers: “An ant crawls on the ground” and he responded with “yes, my favorite Aunt did that.” Ahhh... that brings back memories.

Anyway, it seems as this issue isn't entirely, or might not ever be fully, resolved. Feel free to continue to weigh in on the subject and I'll do my best to keep tabs and update the debate whenever I can. I'm hoping to get more input also at the next F.A.T.S.O. meeting. I would also like to thank everyone who did respond and I hope I can count on your continued support for the future.

In the meantime, during these long, hard winter months where tempers may get a little bit on edge, try to keep the “Underpants/Rubberbands” arguments down to a minimum. When someone says they say “They call it this” or “they call it that ”just say “So don’t I” and everything will be alright.

A quick personal note: Thanks for the earmuffs Lee!!

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Brendan Smith can be reached by email at brensmith@metrocast.net

Guns, Gun Control, and Crime

For some time now I’ve been reading the posts and listening to the debate on both sides of the Atlantic about guns, their owners, and their use in crime prevention. Frankly, I’m not hearing anything new. But too many innocent people are being caught in a ‘Catch-22’ when it comes to defending themselves or their families using a firearm.

Tony Martin in the UK is being sued by the burglar he shot who was in the process of raiding his home. Martin is presently serving time in prison for killing the burglar’s accomplice.

Then there’s Ronald Dixon in New York, a hardworking father and Navy veteran, who stands a chance of being sent to jail for up to a year because he defended his family against a career criminal who had broken in to Dixon’s home and threatened his 8-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son.

Obviously the rights of the criminals has far surpassed that of the victims when the victims are the ones being sentenced to prison rather than the other way around.

I’ve mentioned here once or twice that at least in New Hampshire, gun control means, “Hitting what you’re aiming at.” The state constitution prohibits restricting the rights of law abiding citizens from owning or carrying guns.

News Editor Tom, a friend of mine that I helped to escape from the People’s Republic of California, was amazed at the ease with which he obtained a permit to carry a concealed weapon here in New Hampshire. That’s when I told him that any law-abiding citizen (i.e. not a convicted felon or committed mental patient) above the age of 18 can carry a gun openly. A permit is required to carry one concealed. And in Vermont, no permit is required to carry concealed.

A large percentage of the residents of New Hampshire own and/or carry guns.

Coincidentally, the crime rate here is one of the lowest in the nation. Could there be a connection?

Baby, It Is COLD Outside!

Though BogieBlog beat me to it, I have to say that it is damn frigid out there today! I’ve experienced colder temperatures and higher winds, but never at the same time, at least not while I was anywhere except the Mount Washington Observatory one winter as a volunteer.

The wind chills at the warmest part of the day today were still between –25 and –30 degrees. And tonight it will hit about –15 degrees without the wind chill.

This is the first day I’ve actually felt cold in three winters.

Looks like it’s time to break out the flannel sheets and the woolen long johns.

Is This Thing On?

As I wrote from work earlier today (something I am loath to do as I'm busy enough without posting to the blog), my cable modem bit it late last afternoon or early evening. The post I had written has now been consigned to the “It was a great post, but it's no longer timely” pile, and I haven't decided what I'm going to post in its stead. I certainly don't count this as a viable replacement. It's more of a filler until I can decide what great words of wisdom I shall pass down from on high.

But my adventures with the cable TV company/ISP (now called called an MSO, or Multi-Service Operator) certainly fills me apprehension. Let me explain.

I called the cable TV compa...um...er...MSO and explained that my cable modem was on the fritz. After being transferred to a couple of different people, each more clueless than the previous one, I finally got to talk to someone I thought was technically savvy.

After explaining what had happened, this Joe Q. I.T.person told me point blank, “It must be something else. We've never had a modem fail. Are you sure it isn't your cable connection or network card?”

Hmmm. I thought I'd already told Joe Q. Idiot all of that, including the steps I'd taken to prove it was the modem that was at fault. One of the biggest clues that something was indeed amiss was the fact that none of the indicator LEDs came on when power was applied. No self test, no power indicator, no nothing. I explained it again.

“What are you, some kind of engineer?” he asked in a tone that told me he thought he was being smart.

“As a matter of fact, I am. Hell, I helped design some of the fiber optics test equipment that you use to test your network.”

“Fiber optics? We don't use fiber optics in our system,” he replied.

That's when I knew I was wasting my time. Just about every MSO uses fiber optics in their system. Most of the 'cable guys' know that. But this wasn't a 'cable guy'. It was someone on a help desk that had little or no knowledge of how things work.

After another back and forth over the next few minutes, I was able to get authorization to return the dead modem and get a new one.

After work I swapped the modem, took it home, unpacked it, plugged in all of the appropriate cables, powered it up, and just like that I was back among the bloggeristi.

I have to say I was getting a little anxious, thinking I'd have no connectivity at home. No e-mail. No web. It's was frightening to think tha jhsoncvu8aw4hcv be785jfgia0fn[ hi;nekvjq'en.....

---TRANSMISSION TERMINATED---

France And Germany In Cohoots With Iraq?

Steven Den Beste has a chilling post about possible motivations for France and Germany's reluctance to support a possible attack on Iraq. According to Steven, it has nothing to do with domestic resistance to such an action and everything to do with possible discovery of their duplicity in regards to violating the UN sanctions on Iraq.

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Note: My connection to my ISP went away yesterday afternoon when my cable modem died. So a post I had put together still sits on my computer at home. Hopefully I'll have a new modem in hand by this afternoon.

Just Say Yes!

Megan McArdle has an answer to all of the anti-war protestors signs and tee-shirts. It’s this logo that can be found on tee-shirts and other articles of clothing here.

I’ve already ordered mine. Get ‘em while they're hot!

Thoughts On A Chilly Sunday Afternoon

The Boys Day Out was a success. No bail money was needed and they’ll never prove it was us in any case.

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It was another cold night on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. I don’t know what it is about full moons, but they always seem to make a cold night feel even colder. Maybe it makes the snow cover look colder. All I know is that it was damn frigid last night. When I got up at 7 this morning, it was –10 degrees. Even the trusty Neon knew it was too cold because it absolutely refused to start. This also tells me it’s time to get a new battery for the Neon.

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Jim of JimSpot down in Rhode Island has also been having fun with the cold weather. In this case he’s wrestled with windows that leak air, trying to seal them up with the heat shrink plastic and double-sided tape.

Ah, the joys of living in an older home in winter! I’ve also had fun with that here at The House. Sealing things up has certainly helped keep the heating bill to a minimum. I just went through my first tank of No. 2 heating oil, last filled sometime back in October. I figure this tank should last me until April, then one last fill until the October. Of course, my last place of residence would use one tank of oil a year. I could have stayed there rather than moving here, but no, I just had to move here to the lake and closer to work. The cost of the two extra tanks of heating oil (about $600) would have more than paid for the longer commute to work, with some left over.

What a mistake that was.

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I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the Philadelphia Eagles today. Since my favorite AFC team failed to make the playoffs, I can at least root for my favorite NFC team. Of course my dream Super Bowl would be to see the Patriots play the Eagles.

Well, maybe next year…

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I had to see about replacing the Neon’s battery today, rather than waiting until Monday morning. I managed to resurrect it by putting it on a battery charger, but it was only a short-term solution. We were still looking to more below-zero nights here at Lake Winnipesaukee over the next 4 or 5 days, and I doubted that the Neon’s 4-year old and much abused battery would handle them very well. So I made the trip to the local VIP Auto Parts store to get a new battery, pulled the old one out, dropped the new one in, and then returned the old battery to the store to be recycled.

I had no doubt that I was only one looking for a new battery because cold weather like this has a propensity to kill weak batteries. The clerk at the parts store told me I was right – I was the tenth person in that afternoon looking to replace a dead battery.

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Another down side to the cold weather is a dirty car or truck.

That’s right. A dirty vehicle.

As one of my co-workers was reminded late last week, it’s not a smart thing to run your car or truck through the car wash the night before a big freeze. As he explained it to me, he couldn’t open the doors of his pickup truck one morning this past week because they were frozen shut. He’d run it through the car wash after work the day before. Over night the temperature was 0 degrees or pretty close to it. The next morning he couldn’t even budge the doors no matter how hard he pulled and tugged. Finally he had to pry the driver’s side door open using a claw hammer.

Many of us know of this problem, and that’s why our normally pristine cars and truck are all the same color – salt gray. And they’ll remain that way until we know we’ll have at least a few days of warmer weather, warmer meaning overnight temps in the 20’s rather than the single or double digit negative numbers.

Of course, some of the A.S.S.’s will learn this lesson the hard way after they’ve had their SUVs washed, waxed, vacuumed, and frozen shut.

Snicker, snicker, chuckle, Bwuh-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!

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One thing I haven’t had to deal with too much around here yet is frost heaves. I won’t go into a lot of detail as this subject has already been well covered over at BogieBlog, but for those of you in much warmer climes here’s a brief explanation:

Frost heaves are what happen when melting ice and snow work their way under the pavement surface and then freeze, causing the pavement buckle. It’s hell on the suspension and a driver’s nerves.

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The effort has started to move WeekendPundit off of Blogger and to a new home. Quite frankly, my brother and I are frustrated with the constant repairs to our template and regenerating our archives after every other post to the blog. Obviously there will be some changes in the appearance of our blog, but for the most part it will look very similar to what you’re seeing now.

We will post updates as we get closer to making the move.

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This quote is for Laurence over at Amish Tech Support:

“Never try to outstubborn a cat.” – Lazarus Long

France Attacks!

Bill Whittle has a couple of interesting posts where he corresponds with Francois in France. It is apparent that Francois has an interesting, though horribly twisted, view of history starting from World War II through the Cold War.

Francois writes:

“One or 2 thousands of Us troops dead in Europe, that's right and 30 millions of Europeans and Russians, 3/4 of them were civilians.

How bright are your governments! Have you ever heard about an institution called NATO. Originaly the US troops couldn't fight the Soviets by themself in Europe. The Us generals are in command of thousands of foreign troops all paid by European tax payers.

The Marshall plan was good for reconstruction of Europe but the money was paid back ten times to Us. The Us troops came back to Europe to protect the Us investments and the Us economy boomed thanks to the hard work of Europeans.”

Bill fires back:

“Francois' letter seems to me to be an astonishingly perfect example of getting the facts exactly backward. He says, in response to my post below, that we may have suffered "one or two thousand dead" Americans in World War 2, dying to liberate his nation from the Germans. Francois, we sent fleets of B-17 bombers, each with a ten-man crew, over France to bomb Germany pretty much daily for three years. We would, on very bad days, lose 100 bombers -- that's a thousand men A DAY. To claim one or two thousand dead Americans, fighting to aid France, over the course of two self-inflicted European wars is a mortal insult. Claiming many millions more in European civilian deaths does nothing to negate my point that it was WE who were over there dying for YOU.” (Bold emphasis mine)

If Francois’ point of view reflects that of the French in general, then that would certainly explain Jacques Chirac’s attempts to prevent the U.S. from defending itself or of its attempts to pre-empt future attacks by taking on Iraq now.

My suggestion to you, loyal reader, is to go to Bill’s blog and read the posts and the comments. As always, he does a much better job of responding to Francois’ allegations and twisted view of history than I ever could.

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“A generation that ignores history has no past – and no future.” – Lazarus Long

Poor Frozen Fred

Fred at Fragments From Floyd was lamenting his state of comfort this morning. Apparently it was quite cold in Floyd County, Virginia when Fred tried to type this morning. I think he said something about it being 5 degrees outside his humble home. For Virginia, that’s cold.

What he really needs is a Mad Bomber Hat like Brendan Smith’s to help keep him warm, or maybe something like this or this or this. With one of these he’d even survive a winter up here, where this morning it was –8 degrees at Lake Winnipesaukee and even colder north of the notches.

A Boys Day Out

The weekend is upon us and already plans are in hand for a Boys Day Out. In this case the ‘boys’ mean yours truly, good friend and networking wiz Submarine Tim and his two boys, Peter and Paul, NewsEditor Tom, possibly Eddie of ‘Eddie and Kim’ fame, and if I can talk him into it, my brother.

I haven’t got a clue as to what we’re going to do, but you can bet it will probably have something to do with firearms, movies, large furry meat-eating animals, and Apres Ski Snobs.

I’ll keep you all updated as time (and bail money) allow.