1000, say it ain’t so Joe, dirt and mulch, reverse
I just noticed that I have exactly 1000 comments on the blog right now. I guess that is cool.
Unfortunately, Joe the Plumber of all people, resulted in comment 999 which I found to be the most significant comment of the blog’s existence. My sister read my thoughts on Joe, the unlicensed, state tax owing plumber and somehow contorted my thoughts into some sort of personal attack against her and my brother-in-law. She felt so close to Joe the Plumber that any negative comments towards him translated to negative comments towards her which is of course ridiculous. However the craziness didn’t stop there when my sis felt the need to launch a vicious comment that basically attempted to invalidate my entire professional career and adult life as “easy” and “safe”. She threw in the word “communist” for good measure.
Of course I did not react well to the attack. I thought that her turning my opinion on a national political situation into a personal attack against me vaulted across the line in the sand. I responded in email with an equally aggressive attack that debunked her assertions as well as launching a few personal missiles of my own. Hey, she fired first. Well it spun into something very ugly as you can imagine. It also resulted in another blog first, my first ban of someone from reading my blog. I figure if she is unable to discern opinion from personal insults then it is best for all parties involved for her to be cut off from reading my communist, harsh, overly critical thoughts. I’m sure it will take some time for the wounds to heal on both sides. It sucks, it really cast a negative shadow over my entire weekend.
I continued work on the landscaping project which meant going to pick up another 20 bags of mulch and 18 bags of dirt. I also grabbed some plastic edging to replace the rotting borders around the butterfly garden and banana trees. The dirt was used to level out the back part of the garden. It still could probably use another 10 or 15 bags but for now, it’s good enough. The mulch was just enough to finish up everything. I took some pictures of the revamped landscaped areas for you to check out here.
The weather Sunday was fantastic. It was the first day in 6 months or more where the temperature gauge dipped into the upper 60’s in the morning. All day it was pleasant with low humidity. I am ready for some cooler temps.
The grass growth has slowed recently and it’s a good thing because it means I don’t have to weed whack as much. Weed whacking is what I think is the primary culprit behind the tendinitis I have been feeling in my right forearm. However I did need to weed whack this week. In order to minimize that agitation of the problem I reversed my hands when operating the whacker this time. It’s funny how foreign the movement can feel with that simple change. I felt clumsy and imprecise weed whacking with the reverse grip but I muddled through it. I am worried about the tendinitis becoming a chronic, long term issue, which is very easy to do since your forearm is involved in so many everyday movements, not to mention the exertion it faces at the gym.
Sunday afternoon I finished up the chores and actually took the time to set up my rc plane with my aerial photography rig. It has been a little more than a year since my last aerial sortie. I have been wanting to take some overhead pictures for awhile now to get pictures of our latest changes, especially the fence. Unfortunately the wet spots that existed on our property for the last few months made the possibility of a splash down landing too likely.
I snapped off over 100 pics in the 10-15 minutes I had the plane in the air. It was less than ideal flying conditions with substantial wind. I did my best to steady the plane to get some good shots. Some came out really well, some not so good. The pictures where you see waviness in the image are a result of electrical interference from the motor. The ideal scenario is to get the plane up high, cut the motor and glide while you snap the photos. Unfortunately the wind made it tough to do much of that. Here are the pictures.
There is a new WoW patch that was released last week leading up to the expansion to be released in mid-November. The patch contains a boat load of changes, the most I can ever recall being unleashed at once. So many things are different as well as a ton of totally new content being added. It totally refreshes the game which has honestly started to get rather stale. My play in recent months has been very slim overall. The patch gives me lots of new things to do in game. The question is if I feel like doing them long term or not. I never have replaced the group of close online WoW buddies that left the game with new ones so the game still feels a bit empty for me.
Colin Powell endorsed Obama, a very cool thing. Things seem to be coming together down the stretch. Barring some sort of disastrous turn of events or a large scale voter fraud campaign similar to the 2000 election year taking place, things are looking good for giving the new guy a shot behind the wheel.
Over the weekend we watched the Michael Moore movie Slacker Uprising. It is a film that he made during the 2004 presidential campaign. It was a free download on Amazon.com. The movie basically followed his 62 city tour around the country trying to raise support to overthrow Bush. The footage got repetitive and somewhat boring but I held in there waiting for the ending where I expected there to be some sort of segment regarding the shady voting practices that took place in Ohio during that election. Instead it left me hanging. The movie basically ends by saying “Bush won” It was a real letdown. I am not sure what purpose the film serves unless Moore was just looking for a lazy way to drum up democratic support in the 2008 election by revisiting how ridiculous it was that Bush managed to get reelected in 2004. I’d give it a C-.