Random Access

Friday – 02 May 2008
Good start to the day:

• Sleeping in.
• Breakfast with SaraRules.
• Having the Schoolhouse Rock! DVD playing while doing work.
• Seeing Iron Man in just a few hours.

How’s your Friday?

Thursday: Coda
Post-work, I got stuck in the northbound crawl to Salt Lake. There was an accident a few miles north of where I got on the interstate, so what should have been a 30-ish minute drive turned into a nearly hour-long trek. I don’t know “when” the accident occurred, but by the time I got to the scene, the vehicles were on the side of the road and being loaded onto tow trucks. But that didn’t mean that everyone had stopped rubbernecking. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yay for road monkeys!

I met SaraRules, in town for a group presentation, at her parents’. The presentation went well, she said. We hung out with her family for a while before heading to coffee – it was nice to see and hang out with the usual suspects.  Tomorrow, after work and a certain “team-building” exercise (involving personal armor with offensive and defensive capabilities), we’re heading to Cedar… where we’ll hook up with her parents again.  Saturday, she graduates with her MFA.

Stray Toasters

• The classic Jonny Quest still kicks much ass. Yes, there are some outdated concepts and stereotypes, but a lot of today’s cartoons could learn a lesson or fourteen from this toon.
• Sarah Chalke, who portrays Dr. Elliot Reid on NBC’s Scrubs, was also (the second) Becky Connor on Roseanne.
• Iron Man: The Science Behind the Fiction
• 
• Most of you have undoubtedly heard the phrase “…a quantum leap.” Many people assume that it means a major change. It doesn’t.
  

  In real physical systems a quantum leap is not necessarily a large change, and can in fact be very insignificant. A good example of this can be taken from the Bohr model of the hydrogen atom, where the observed energy shifts associated with shifts of different quantum states (quantum leaps) span a wide range from large to small (when compared to the energy required to completely free an electron). In the popular sense, the term is usually applied to mean a large or significant change, which is thus not strictly correct.

• From woot.com: Winners’ Gallery – the Best of Contest 170
• To avoid complication
  She never kept the same address
  In conversation
  She spoke just like a…
  

Namaste.

I use iGoogle as my home page.
I formerly used the classic Google search page as my home page, but I’ve come to like the iGoogle one more.

When I loaded a new browser window, I glanced at the CNN.com headlines, as I usually do when the page opens. And there it was, big as day and twice as bright:

Barbara Walters: I had affair with U.S. Senator

Do we really care – or need to know – about this?!

*sigh* And people still wonder why I always think of Dirty Laundry (1, 2) when I think of news.

It was still snowing when I woke up this morning.
And there was a trace of accumulation.
Madness!

Workout
Today’s routine was less… stellar than some recent ones have been. But, it was a workout, nonetheless:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets / 20reps
• Bench Press (barbell): 3 sets
  • Set 1: 5 reps, 225 lbs, 5 res, 185 lbs
  • Sets 2 & 3: 10 reps, 185 lbs
• Curls (barbell): 3 sets / 10 reps, 55 lbs
• Flys (Nautilus): 3 sets / 15 reps, 95 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell, Hammer grip): 3 sets, 10 reps, 20 lbs
• Decline Oblique Crunches: 1 set / 10 reps per side

The inside of my shoulder started to twinge a bit during the first set of bench presses, so I decided to back off on the weight. That seemed to help some, but there was still a little sore-/tenderness. I’ll be keeping an eye on that.

Pre-workout weight: 172.8 lbs.

Stray Toasters

• Last night, while waiting for dinner to cook, I read this week’s four-color haul. There were a LOT of reveals in different books:
  • Action Comics
  • DC Universe 0
  • The New Avengers

  And not just throw-away stuff, either. Some good solid “Oscillating blades, meet fecal material” setup for this summer’s events.

• By way of : Stupid, stupid burning brightly or how not to win an election
• You’re charging me for what?! Airline fees way up since January 1
• The bottom line.
• pinged me this morning to say that he had just seen the new trailer for The Incredible Hulk. As he put it: “…didn’t realize there was going to be Hulk-on-Hulk action” I explained that it was actually The Abomination… but that it technically was Hulk-on-Hulk action.
• I am going to miss CSI: tonight, as SaraRules and I are going out with friends, but this amuses me:



• As I neither saw a mushroom cloud nor heard calls for evacuations from the valley, I am going to take it on good faith that now has his PS3 and GTA4… and that no innocents were unduly harmed in the process of him acquiring it. The guilty, however… well… sometimes, you just have to set an example.
• Speaking of GTA4: For everyone who is so worried about its content, repeat after me: “It’s a GAME. I really should get over it.”

/lunch

Namaste.