does it seem like a strange pairing of requirements?

I started browsing some pages of Department of Energy technology transfer, and somehow as I was browsing randomly, I ended up flipping through the job postings at National Securities Technology, LLC. (a.k.a. Bechtel Nevada).

Explain to me how is it that they list as job qualifications for one position:
- "Professional experience in event investigation highly desireable..." (where "event" refers to one involving radiation exposure)
- "working knowledge of ... 10CFR835" (which is Code of Federal Regulations, Article 10, Part 835) ...
- "Computer Skills with software applications such as MS Office"

Which of these seems like you shouldn't have to list it? If you are in the government business of dealing with radioactive substances (whether it be medical sources, energy creating, or weaponry making), I would think that you are savvy enough person that MS Office doesn't pose much of a challenge.

Or should I be worried? Are there people out there in the Department of Energy, or contractors, or on site at production/processing facilities who investigate "events", but who... have difficulty with MS Office? That would be a little bit scary.

so much for dental success

36 hours after a long, yet seemingly successful root canal, I was awakened (again, at 3:30 am) with pain. This time, in the tooth next to the dead one. Somewhat different pain, but just as intense as the pain from a week ago, which had abated, or so it seemed.

Definitely bummed out by this - I thought it was over, but now it seems like it's going to drag on and on. [crossing fingers and hoping that it's not going to need surgery of the slicin' and choppin' kind]

The Ditziest of the Animal Kingdom

I can't figure it out - are squirrels dumb as rocks, fatal procrastinators, or just plain suicidal?

Surely you've had encounters just like this: a squirrel on the edge of the road, or maybe even in the middle of the lane, sits frozen. You drive/ride/walk unperturbed since the creature sitting on side of the road, is safe from your wheels/boots. At the last instant it darts out, gets to the halfway point between it's former resting place and future certain death, does a double-pump-fake stop/start, and with just barely perfect timing, scoots under the bumper right in front of the wheel of a car going 45 mph, probably brushing tail against the rubber of the tire. Of all the places and times to be on that stretch of road, they pick exactly that time and place. The threat of a crushing death only exists at that spot for 100 milliseconds, but somehow they wait for and find that point exactly.

Yesterday it went a step further - riding the bike up and down the hilly spots on Huron Parkway (on the wide path), a squirrel 100 feet ahead of me runs across the path, and perches on the brickwork ledge between the path and the 4-lane road - about to cross the road. But not until I'm right up even with it does it turn back, right across the path and into me. Too quick to react physically, the flash through my mind is of seeing my first ever bike roadkill with the front wheel rolling over and breaking either neck or back of the creature. Well, in Typical Squirrel Fashion, he/she managed to hit the gap behind the front wheel and back wheel, but didn't count on the rotating uphill Pedal of Death. So for a nails-on-blackboard, sudden-wave-of-nausea flinch-worthy moment, I feel something on top of my right foot as I make half a pedal revolution. The rough part of this: the squirrel was moving left-to-right across the path, which means that unless he jumped THROUGH the frame to land on my foot, he got around the front of the sharp chainring, was on my foot starting when the pedal was at about 3 o'clock, and either got forced off by the returning chain at 7 o'clock, or had incredible reflexes to recognize and avoid the impending doom.

I clipped out and pulled both feet off the pedals to let him out as quick as I could, but I swear, for half a second I could have sworn that I had snapped the back of the little guy/girl. And like that [poof] it was gone. I turned back to look for the wreckage, tufts of fur, blood, or body parts, and found none. Not on the trail, not beside the trail, and nothing formerly squirrel stuck to me or the bike. That squirrel, while apparently having amazing reflexes and/or flexibility, and/or luck, sure is going to have a good story to tell at dinner tonight.

MegaChurches - cults in the making

Having been a creeped out by MegaChurches for a while, this article just pushes it over onto full-blown heebee-geebees. As they grow and grow and encompass more and more of their parishoner's lives - how is it indistinguishable from a cult? I understand that people may want to live a religious life, but how exactly do some of these things in Table 3 make any sense mixing with a church, unless it's the need to influence or control every minutia of parishoner's lives? Auto repair clinic? (let's say a prayer so that Jesus will bless this carburetor rebuild) kickboxing class? (Who Would Jesus Roundhouse Kick?)

The closing of the article says it well:
"The megachurch phenomenon is, above all, an awesome tool. I fear the day when its wielders decide just what they mean to use it for."

Panama Canal opening anniversary

As feats of engineering and logisitics go, the Panama Canal is a pretty good one. It also turns out that today is the anniversary of the first day it opened to traffic - courtesy of Wikipedia's "On This Day" section. Interesting thing - I had no idea that that canal had so much competition out there. I would have thought it posessed a fairly unique purpose and position in the world. Goes to show - there is no such thing as job security, even for geographic features.

as if taking your shoes off wasn't knee-jerk enough...

I'm sure you've been hearing about all the heightened security at airports and on planes lately in light of the foiled terrorist plot in Britain. But with all the heightened security, have you seen the list of new items that are now prohibited in carry-on baggage? Even rougher is the British list of allowed items (and my favorite quote "nothing may be carried in pockets"). Note that books and children's toys will not be allowed. There are going to be some REALLY cranky airline passengers in the air over the next few days. Imagine the screaming infant that just can't be soothed/distracted from crying it's head off - all the way across the Atlantic.

It's like the whole taking-shoes-off-at-security-checkpoint thing. After Richard Reed (shoe-bomber) did his thing, now we've got thousands of people taking their shoes off at X-ray checkpoints - but if shoes are such a threat, where was the TSA in thinking of that threat beforehand? It's a response to something, not actual prediction/prevention.

Now that you can't bring toothpaste on the plane, and you probably can't brush your teeth with baking soda ('cause they'll probably think it's cocaine or anthrax)... there's gonna be a bunch of people on long international flights that are going to arrive at their destination with some fuzzy teeth and stinky breath. Of course, maybe this is an opportunity for a new product - toothpaste in dissovable tablet form. And the prohibition against gel shoe-inserts? Bummer for Dr. Scholl's... "you gellin'?" "nope."

Funny consequence - among those who travel as part of their job, one trick is to pack luggage/clothing so that everything fits into carry-on-able luggage to avoid having to check baggage. Now, the simple toothpaste prohibition means that everyone traveling overnight has checked baggage. Stupid Conspiracy: it's all a plot by the baggage handler's union and cosmetics/toiletries industries to either make jobs for the bag throwers, or sell more travel-sized toiletries when arriving at one's destination. Gotta wonder - will the increase in checked baggage mean that the amount of luggage that gets lost will increase, or decrease? hmm....

planets and such...

I've been feeling a little out of contact with the daily news, so I dug in today to see what's going on... it appears that the planet Pluto might be getting the boot from the solar system (as a planet, that is...). There was the discovery of Sedna a few years ago, and though I initially thought the 12th Planet theorists would jump on it as proof (yes, some of the people I used to work with were... well... 12th Planet "enthusiasts" would be the nicest word I can come up with), it appears the 12,000 year orbit might not be the right one. Ah well, I guess the pseudoastronomers will just have to keep on searching. In the meantime, it'll be interesting to see what happens with Pluto - if the newly discovered 2003 UB313 is accepted as a planet (or Pluto gets dropped), there sure will be a lot of textbooks and solar system models needing updates.

my 300-mile week

OK, maybe it's no octo-century or anything, but I managed to stack on 301 miles as of this morning, and since it's probably a first time for me, I'm feeling good about myself...

So yeah, that includes a little mountain-biking on Tuesday, the gonzo-apeshit AAVC ride on Thursday (when it gets to be 28mph I can only hang on for a few miles, which might be exacerbating my bad case of the gettin-dropped-sies), and... oh yeah, falling off the back today too. At some point I'm going to get it through my head that I need to not be afraid to hurt myself some more while trying to close the gap... 'cause if the gap stretches out you're pretty much done, and the ride home is lonely.

dental update

No meaningful news tooth-wise - still on the anti-biotics, still off the pain meds, still waiting for the actual surgery (root canal). At least it's scheduled for Tuesday. Until then, I'm just hangin' out with my dead tooth.

Perry Bible Fellowship

Funny comic strip... (and another one from PBF)

I hate Thule

So I've been doing some mountain-biking lately up at the Pinckney Rec. Area (aka "The Poto")... enough times that I've gotten aggravated with taking my bike apart to fit it in the trunk, so I went shopping for a bike rack for my car.

I didn't think I wanted the permanent-ish roof rack, since, with gas prices what they are, who wants decreased fuel economy? And Acura tells me that they don't sell a hitch for my TSX, and for the 2004, recommend NOT installing a hitch of any kind. Looking under the bac of my car, I understand what they mean - I can't figure out where one would mount anything. So I resigned myself to a trunk rack. Goofy, clunky, and potentially paint-damaging, but it seemed the only option. At local shops, there was Thule, and Saris. Saris supposedly doesn't fit the TSX, so I went with the Thule #978 "Easy Rider".

What a piece of shit.

If it's not the goofy assemblage of aluminum tubes and nylon straps that pissed my off, it's the shitty hooks that are supposed to grip the edge of decklid to stabilize the rack, or it's the retarded little rubber-strap bike-hold-downs that I can't believe will last very long. What's even worse is that it holds the bike so high and so far away from the car that it flaps in the breeze somethin' fierce. If I try to strap the wheels together to hold the front wheel straight, the bike becomes a sail and the bottom tips out in the wind like crazy. If I leave the rear wheel loose to tie the frame/front wheel down so it doesn't flap, the rear wheel spins alarmingly fast in the breeze (when I got home, the mounts had shifted so the bike was now at an angle). And that was driving really peacefully (under the speed limit) for only 30 minutes. There's no fucking way I would drive this rack cross-country with my gear on it.

I mean really... doesn't anyone at Thule product-test these before selling them? For example, get a focus group of 20 off-the-street Joe Schmoes (or, since they're Swedish, Josef Schmøë), hand them prototypes, and see what they say. What they would have told them is that these racks are... well, they're shïté.

Luckily, I only paid $80 for it, so I'm not completely depressed about the purchase. And realistically if I drive out to a trail with others, it's the only way I can transport more than one bike in my car anyway. But seriously, if you are looking for a rack and plan to use it often, just go with the full-on roof rack (i.e. good ole Yakima), spend the money ($400-ish), and be done with it. You'll be glad you did.

slow day, dentistry-wise

Not much happened today - no root canal, no oral surgery, but no pain, either. Been taking antibiotics for the past 4-5 days and it seems like they've kicked in. They fight the bacteria that produce the fluid, which builds up, which produces pressure, and thus pain, in my jawbone. Fewer bacteria, less pain. So I called the doc, and communicating via passing messages through the receptionist, was told to "keep on the antibiotics, call back tomorrow, and when we see how things are tomorrow, we'll schedule the root canal then." Okeedoke, then. Until tomorrow.

My trip down Dental Ave.

No root canal today (but for sure, some time soon there's a root canal in my future). More importantly, what I do have is a dental cyst - a big one apparently. This would be a hole (bubble) in the bone of my lower jaw, which apparently has become infected due to the dead nerve tissue in the tooth above it, which explains the pain in my jaw. A good thing, for sure - knowing why something is, and not just blaming it on demons or spirits or living a sinful life. A bad thing for my dental health.

Luckily I didn't find out the hard way: "Some people only find out they have a dental cyst when their jaw breaks after trauma (because the jaw is weakened by the cyst). " Thanks, Addenbrooke's, for that little bit of oh-shit-ness

Either the dead nerve cause the cyst, or maybe the other way around. Anyway, the doc said it might also be a granuloma, but it's difficult to tell from the X-ray (he actually called it a radiograph, and I don't know whether that's because he's an academic, or whether he was trying to impress me with his doctoring). The Wikipedia entry for granuloma sounds a little scary, especially when they have the context of Crohn's disease and syphilis. But I really prefer the explanation on the UCLA denstistry page: "A granuloma is a highly vascularized tissue containing a profuse infiltrate of immunological competent cells i.e., lymphocytes, macrophages, plasma cells, etc." I love the idea of immunonlogically competent. It's like they're cells that have a special trade-craft. Or a certification of competency, where the rest of the cells are immunologically incompetent.

So... for me it's more antibiotics and wait a few days... the best case is a simple root canal. The worst case is oral surgery (cutting my gum open) to remove the cyst/granuloma. Stay tuned, kids - it's looking like an eventful week.

Aztec pyramid alarm clock

Gotta love that Red Meat. Makes me chuckle just about every time.

Frank Gehry can kiss my ass

"Sketches of Frank Gehry" was playing at the Michigan Theater today, so I thought I would go see it. What a piece of crap. And not just the movie.

Don't get me wrong, I like architecture, and I like sculpture, and Gehry does a decent job of bridging the two, producing Architectural-Works-of-Art. And some of his buildings are truly beautiful. But so often they are just wrong. Bad and wrong. But few will say so, with the notable exception of Hal Foster, who makes a damn good point in his criticism, that there is a cult of adoration and few are willing to speak a disparaging word.

One of the most famous of his buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain is a beautiful and majestic thing. But it fails as an art museum. An art museum should not want to BE the art. It's not the purpose of the museum. Buildings must be functional on some level, and even if it's a beautiful work of art, it should enable the purpose of the building, not distract from that purpose. Otherwise, they should have just built the building and put nothing in it and let the building be the art.

One of the artists interviewed made a point of "if it distracts from the art, then maybe the art isn't good enough, eh?" Well, interviewed in his bathrobe with a snifter of cognac, wearing sunglasses, slouched in an antique chair, and filmed from below, all I can say is: when he doesn't have to pose for the camera, I'll consider his opinion to have documentary credibility. Until then, he's just a poseur.

The whole movie was essentially a Gehry love-in. A gushing sycophantic masturbatory affair. Go ahead and skip it, you'll be better off.

trepanning?

Who knew? Apparently trepanning is alive and well in this decade...

Who... me? Root Canal? awww, you shouldn't have...

Over the past few days I've been having some tooth/jaw discomfort that, after waking me up at 3am a couple nights in a row, led me to a dentist's office. I haven't exactly been too good with dentist upkeep (haven't been in for a cleaning/maintenence in 10 years or so - yeah, I know, I know...), and it's something I've been meaning to get to. Now is as good a time as any, eh?

So basically, I have this pain in one of my lower front teeth, as well as sensitivity on the bottom of my chin (hurts when I press on my chin)... I get a next-day appointment, go in, do the description of everything, and he pokes around. He's a little unsure exactly what's causing it, but after taking an X-ray, suspects a dead or dying nerve, which probably explains the pressure/itch I feel in the bone and the weird face pain. Er... weird facial pain? "weird face pain" sounds like a pain that you get from making a weird face ("If you keep that up, your face is going to stick like that...")

So quicker than you can say "though they probably aren't related, this is what you get for waiting 10 years to see a dentist", I'm on my way to consult with an endodontist for a root canal. And I thought it was supposed to be a big deal - like something you build up to and plan ahead for. They just toss it around like they do them all the time. Oh wait, they DO do them all the time. So that's the way my Monday is shaping up. Root Canal Day.
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Let's see, add to this my "recall" trip to the Allergy Clinic (I had an allergy screening about 2 years ago after that weird hive thing, then got a letter in the mail last year "There may have been false negative results due to the use of allergens past their expiration date, so come back for a complimentary re-screening") and the check-up/physical about a week or two ago and it's just been a doctor-filled month for me. Of course, after not having seen any for 10 years, I guess I'm due. Just wait another ten years and then I can start to wonder about whether my prostate is in good health or not. Golly gee whiz, I'm starting to feel old. I better go get some more fiber in my diet.

Zingermans out of control

I rarely go to Zingerman's these days, mostly because of what I'm about to bitch and complain about, but I decided to stop by... they've got free Wi-Fi, and instead of sitting around the house, I can sit around at a public place. So anyway, they (Zingerman's) have lost their friggin' minds. Sandwiches now averaging $12, coffee gone up to $2.50, and I swear, if that sandwich shows up and the sliced meat is all balled up in the center, I'm going to have a Furious Embollism. The only good explanations I can come up with are that either they have become a tourist trap (like the baseball field charging you $7.00 for a hot dog), or one of the owners has an expensive drug habit and is using the sandwich business to fund it. Best quote to describe the ZingPrice phenomenon...
"Zingermans: good food, bad service, mercenary prices"

emo

funny tag line I saw on a post today:
"I wish my lawn was emo,
so it would cut itself."

Kansas Board of Ed. - no flying spaghetti monster?

It appears that there's been a shift in the new makeup of the Kansas State Board of Education - AWAY from the teaching of so-called "intelligent design" (hooray!). While this gives me great joy simply in the hearing of it and the apparent success of reasonable people (see also the voting-out of the Dover School board after the I.D. controversy), the only problem is then... since the I.D. people were pushing the all-possible-theories-for-life-on-this-planet should be taught (to leave room for religion), what about the teaching of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism? It was through the Kansas Board of Ed. that FSM could have been taught... but now what's a Pastafarian to do?