OK, who dreamed up Christmas break? No seriously, I'll bet it wasn't parents.
Damn teachers.
I pay them to watch my kid all winter - and yeah, if he gets an education that's fine too, but that's not the reason for school. School is about my sanity. I say if the teachers need a break, well, let's put an open bar in the teacher's lounge. I don't care if they're liquored up, just as long as the bus comes to get my kid at 6:30 and doesn't bring him back for at least 7 hours (8 or 9 would be better, in fact I wouldn't mind if a couple days a week they kept the kids overnight).
Think I'm kidding? The last 4 hours have consisted of "Dad, dad, dad, dad. Look! Look! Dad, dad, dad I got the high score myplaystation starwarslegogame. ThestormtroopersarestuuupidcanIhave asnackandcanyoucallmrsmurblefurleandaskiflittlejohnnycancomeover soicanshowhimmyhighscore andcanihaveanothersnackhowaboutasodadadadadadaa! In the background the dog is barking, the phone is ringing, the legos are knee deep, and the wolves have begun to howl. We're out of milk. My wife left for work this morning, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
Obviously, I will not be writing much this week.
Sigh.
My kids are older so I'm beyond that. In fact, we're scoping out colleges.
ReplyDeleteBwahahahaha!
Neener, neener, neener.
I hate to go off topic here...Oh, who am I kidding?
ReplyDeleteJim, My GF just pointed out to me that if you google my name, the last hit on the first page is your blog.
Our combined powers can take over and rule the world.
Bwahahahahaha
Nathan, I wondered if that was you running the google search on your name. This was last night, right? I happened to look at my stat collector, and it showed several searches on your name. So I ran the same search - and that's how I learned you are an independent location manager and that you have really shitty mail service. :)
ReplyDeleteIntel Officers, once and always.
Although I have googled myself (teehee), last night my GF was seeing herself through a bout of insomnia by googling everyone she knows.
ReplyDeleteAnd, oh yes, Mr. Intel Officer, I'm afraid...very afraid.
My kids are scoping out college, too, Janiece - in fact the oldest got his admissions letter last month and starts early in March. But...
ReplyDeleteThey are still annoying as heck on the electronics front, and in fact one is upstairs thumping around playing DDR (dance dance revolution), the other is in his room playing Portal, and the hub is in the living room playing baseball on the Wii.
We had to have a talk tonight about limiting gaming time and getting homework and housework done first. Sigh.
Kids, can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em for the wolves.
ReplyDeleteSorry Jim, but Nathan doesn't seem to want to blog for himself.
Talking about Googling Nathan and contacts, hey Nathan, I've got a nephew who is going to grad school for script writing. If he was doing fiction, I could give him lots of pointers and "do this, don't fall for this" kind of advice. Most of what I've got is, "there's special formatting you need to follow" and "if this was a novel, I would do this plot this way" kind of stuff. If I could ask some questions of you, would you go to my blog and send me an email? TIA.
Done!
ReplyDeleteJeri, we've had those rules in place for years and years. Because teenage boys aren't really known for their restraint in the gaming department. I'm just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteAnd Nathan, Stonekettle Station doesn't appear until page 2 when you google me. Perhaps because I have a blog.
Signed, the society to encourage Nathan to blog
Yeah, google me and you get a woman chiropractor, and a pheasant hunting guide. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Jim,
ReplyDeleteDid you know the F-15 groundings have got you a brand new squadron of F-22's in Alaska, but that in November they had to call in the Canadian Air Force (or National Guard or whatever they have), to fly recon intercepts over Alaska? I welcome our new Canadian Overlords. At least they'll be really polite, eh?
Actually, Nathan there are two squadrons of Raptors here in Alaska. - Big flashy, stealthy, gas guzzling, fucking unbelievably expensive Raptors.
ReplyDeleteI was up on base last week with my son, and we drove around to the rear section near the fighter base and took a look at a couple.
Cool planes, but I have no idea what their purpose is - other than providing employment for out of state contractors, since they MUST HAVE new shiny hangers and support facilities - because, of course, they can't use the older F-15 facilities.
Argh!
And yes, I was aware of the Canadian intercepts, but Canadian aircraft fly out of here all the time. Nothing unusual - in fact the head of NORAD is currently Canadian, if I remember correctly (I could be wrong, I've been out of the loop for a couple of months now).
The intercepts aren't all that exciting any more. Russian TU-16's or TU-95 fly out over the Bearing Sea, we go out there to escort them around. They wave, we wave. Everybody takes pictures. Big deal. Russian planes often land in Anchroage or even at Elmendorf.
However, with all that said - I too welcome our Canadian Overlords, not only are they polite, they brew really good beer...
Google me, and you get umpty thousand pages for 'Jim Wright,' corrupt asshole congressman from Texas.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even on the first page of the google results, even if I set google to display 100 results per page.
Grin. I'm good with this.
Google Stonekettle Station though, and my page is the top result. Which would figure since Stonekettle doesn't appear anywhere else, and the two words together are unique.
We won't discuss what comes up when you google "Hot Chicks." "Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men" sends you straight to my blog, though. I suppose I should be thankful.
ReplyDeleteplug "Stonekettle" into Ask.com and the first result is...The Brain of Shawn. You get two pages and not a single link directly to Stonekettle Station.
ReplyDeleteYeah, ask.com directly interacts with a chip in my brain. I'm surprised I hadn't mentioned that earlier...
ReplyDeleteOooh. How about an Ask.com review? Not strictly unix related I know, but I bet you can figure an angle...
ReplyDeleteI'm cool with this site being a little difficult to find.
ReplyDeleteI'm pulling anywhere from 200-300 unique IP hits a day. Peak day was Dec 8, pulled just over 1000 hits that day - on the Edwin Hill/Pearl Harbor hit (in fact, if you do a google on 'CWO Edwin Hill' the first hit is Stonekettle Station. 2nd most popular page? Kreplach soup. This one continues to pull in people regularly through search engines). Weekends average about half that, and friday is usually the lowest hit day - usually averaging 120 unique hits.
Site visits are growing about 5% monthly.
I'm good with this. I prefer quality over quantity. So far we have avoided any kind of trollage, and only get the occasional spam comment - which I no longer even acknowledge. I just delete it without comment. Only been a couple per week, which I usually catch before you guys even see it.
Email surges come and go. Got quite a few on Pearl Harbor and some of the political posts. About ten on the Abortion post so far, though that is beginning to attract attention.
Hmm. The top result on my real name is something about potatoes I once posted in rec.food.cooking. o.O After that, it's mostly science papers and presentations. Heh, before I went to grad school it was a lot more interesting - way more Usenet posts, also some roleplaying related things.
ReplyDeleteI'm 5th one down on a search for "Siram." Most hits that come in on that are usually looking for info on an ethnic group in India, or something to do with big trust funds.
When I google my name, the first page is mostly social bookmarking site links - Mashable, Linked In, etc.
ReplyDeleteMy quasi-pro site (ungeekit.com) comes up on the second page, and still -- halfway down the second page -- is Scalzi's abortion thread.
Sigh. Not exactly what I want a potential employer to see when they google my name.
Smug Puppies doesn't come up at all under my name, since I only use first name there.
My website is the first thing that comes up when you google just my last name. My brother and father's websites are also on the first page.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, almost all results are my immediate family.
Google my whole name, and the first two pages are all about me.
This is why I don't use my last name on blogs. Especially since people find me when they're looking for my dad.
In a way it's nice, since I'm easy for people to find, but in a way I don't much like it, since anything I write is going to be associated with my name. So no going of half cocked somewhere that I can't remove what I write after I've thought better of it.