massdestruction

SS Dave

Today I was pointed to the following auction on ebay. Hell yes! A medium-class icebreaker ready to sail? Man, I could do so many cool things with this ship. I could get a crew and have adidas make us matching shoes. We could start an off-shore pirate radio broadcast (that is capable of broadcasting from the arctic as well). It could be a right-wing show and we could entertain the audience by chasing greenpeace boats. I could show up to fancy docks like in Monaco and try to anchor it beside all the fancy rich-people yachts. The choices are endless!!

All I need now is enough to buy the boat and some living cash. Anyone?

stick a fork in me

I just read this:

Wednesday: Hazy sunshine and quite hot. Highs in the low 100s. An excessive heat warning is in effect today. It will feel like 110+ this afternoon. This is dangerous heat! Do your best to stay out of the sun during the hottest part of the day which is from noon to 6pm. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke can come on easily in this kind of heat.

The TV weather people put part of it in a red font too. Sure, TV people are always a little over dramatic but, yesterday I had two different asthma attacks from simply going outside to my air conditioned car. All I can say is that I am very tired of hot.

Payola

The news today is that Sony has settled their big payola lawsuit.

I was thinking about this... should payola charges be settled? Isn't that sort of like payola itself? Has Sony learned their lesson from this or have they simply decided that paying people off really does work?

Holy Shit!!

As far as I can tell she is fine.

Gunther

From what I understand, Gunther Gebel Williams was the more 'butch' lion tamer during the 70s. Also, from the information I have gathered, some folks found him quite handsome.

GloboTax!!

If they weren't in charge and so scary it would be real fun to sit back and watch the neo-cons go. This is one of my most favorite far right ideas... the whole black helicopter thing. The story this time is that we need John Bolton to stop the U.N.'s plan for a GloboTax!!.

Oh No!! Not the GloboTax!! The GloboTaxCollectors most assuredly fly around in those black helicopters, you can count on that.

Mt. Mitchell

Old Mitchell Trail

Beth, glad to see you got my flowers.

Cate and I went to the mountains this weekend to escape the heat. More specifically, we went to Mount Mitchell as it has a nice campground somewhere around 5300 feet (the summit is around 6400, highest point east of the Mississippi). Because of the altitude, and Mitchell's own way of making weather we spent most of that time in a cloud, literally, and had a good storm overnight but that was welcome as our tent is sturdy and there is nothing like sleeping in a storm.

It is good to escape our brutal heat every once in a while and spending the weekend in the mid-to-upper sixties helps clear the head. I am also a sucker for Mt. Mitchell. I like everything from its hard-core trails (Deep gap trail is probably the 2nd hardest I have been on in the state), to its corny exhibits. We spent the weekend at the one car-camping site at the park and took lots of extra comforts, including the dog. As soon as we got home and felt the heat, I think we both decided that we should do it again soon

For you perusal, these photos were taken this weekend.

Here Come the Press

Reading today's transcript from the daily White House press briefing is a breath of fresh air. The whole Plame Outing case is complicated and too much to get into right now except that seeing a colleague go to jail for protecting Karl freakin' Rove has fired up the White House press into actually taking the White House to task (read: their jobs). You can read the transcript from today here but I will quote my favorite question (a follow-up really):

Scott, if I could point out: Contradictory to that statement, on September 29th of 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one to have said that if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then, on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation, when the president made his comments that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved. So why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you’ve suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, 'We’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation'?

Damn! who was that? I don't know but I'd like to.

There are two things to think about in this case to me: (1) what would the Republicans have said if this incident happened during Clinton's presidency? Wow, talk about "Un-American" diatribe - kinda makes me sweat just thinking about it. (2) It is good to remember that this whole thing revolves around the White House trying to create evidence of Saddam buying nuclear material to justify their war to the world. National Security took a back seat to politics, simple as that.

Treason

So Karl Rove told Matt Cooper that Plame was a CIA agent... but he only called her "Wilson's wife", so in essenece he didn't Name her. Uh... yeah.

So here is my question. Can the President give a pardon to someone convicted of treason without committing treason himself?

This just in...

Evil Dennis

My friend Paul has told me to take a very close look at that satellite photo of Dennis as something is very odd... he has a good point, there is evil in that photo.

Dennis

As you may know already, I am a bit of a hurricane buff. Well, buff is probably the wrong word, I have been through enough bad ones to not want to go through them. So there is no "like" in there, but I do like the science associated with it and following them when they do come.

Dennis is amazing to me as its so early in the season and it is so tight - just look at that eye. That's a powerful storm. I hope all goes well at landfall. I am especially glad its not going to hit us as I am a bit under the weather and I can't imagine trying to get those usual things in order right now. At any rate, hang tight there in the gulf coast.

Mom would have liked it this way

The Raleigh paper had one of the most amazing obituaries I have ever seen. I have "reprinted" it below because it is hard to find on the paper's page and with that URL I don't think it will still be up past Saturday.

Let me highlight some of the better passages:

...daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.

Poor Calvin, but what if Calvin had lived to hear about his heiress granddaughter Carol?

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter, Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last minute arrangements - hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the last will, etc. - happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Well, something is going on here!

...all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

Ouch! Wait, is the obituary really the place to put such sibling rivalry though?

Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.

Well, as long as Mom would have liked it like, I suppose its OK.

Here's hoping I never want to write an obituary like that!

Full Obit:

ON JUNE 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tennessee, Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out.

The mother of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and other community charities for much of the past 25 years.

She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.

Native Marylanders and long time Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in 2001, where she lived with her son, David.

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter, Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last minute arrangements - hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the last will, etc. - happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong, resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family children, all while working a full time job, volunteering as Girl Scout leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the neighborhood Catholic Church.

Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic, mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.
Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell Gibson of Fallston, Maryland; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City, Maryland, Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tennessee, David Cully of Raleigh, North Carolina and Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Maryland.

Contributions to the Wake County (NC) Hospice Services are welcomed.
Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.

Celebrating freedom with spam

Yesterday Cate and I went to my brother's house to have a leisurely Independence Day with him and his family. My brother has a smoker grill and he knows how to use very, very well. However, in true American freedom style, I came home to over 1200 pieced of spam added to the comments of this blog. Comment spam. Over Twelve hundred entries. Its almost enough to make me wipe this whole website away from the server and replace it with two simple, non-html words... "people suck".

No, I'll keep the blog at least a little while longer. However, no more comments for you lot. If you have anything to say to me you will simply have to find me. This thing wasn't supposed to be work.

People Suck

If I were rich

I read today that there is a possibility that privately owned toll roads could be legal soon. If I were rich I would buy the road where a new Wal Mart is being planned just outside of town. The Exit to Wal Mart would be $100 with all proceeds going to a fund for all their part-time employees (read: all) to give them benefits. Once Wal Mart closed I would get them full-time jobs in my "Dave's Museum of Crap I Like" that I will move into the ugly Wal Mart Carcass.

Just so you know.