… with a hose and his thumb.
Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, writes:
Our new automatic sprinklers are currently being installed.
They have detectors in them. They read the amount of moisture in the ground and only go off each day if the moisture content is below a certain amount (i.e., not if it is raining or has been raining).
How freaking cool is that?
Pretty freaking cool. Meanwhile, at NewMexiKen’s the doggone plastic pipes keep cracking.
Researchers asked two sets of subjects to take IQ tests. One group had to check e-mail and respond to instant messages while taking the test. The second group just sat down and did the test without distractions. Surprise, surprise, the distracted group didn’t do as well on the test—10 points worse than the control group. In similar testing conditions, people intoxicated by marijuana had scores 8 points lower. So researchers drew attention to their study by noting that multitasking is worse for your ability to concentrate than getting stoned.
NewMexiKen sat next to an off-duty flight attendant on the trip east Wednesday. She told me that once while she was administering CPR to a passenger who had had a heart attack, the man behind her across the aisle tapped her on the shoulder and asked if she was going to get his drink or not.
What’s the deal with public libraries anyway? Everywhere I’ve ever lived they start herding people out the door with announcements, flashing lights, computers shutting off and dirty looks well before the actual closing time. It happened to me again tonight. They close at 8:00 and at 7:45 they’ve got more rounding up going on than a well-led cattle drive.
NewMexiKen managed a public research facility for ten years. I well remember that some diehards would hang in until the last minute, but I don’t remember having to be rude about it. And I don’t remember my staff or I ever getting agitated if the last stragglers were still pulling together their belongings and filing out at two minutes after quitting time.
Who do these public library staffs work for anyway?
(For the record, I left the library tonight at 7:50, ten minutes before closing. I know what time it was because as I was leaving they made an announcement saying it was ten minutes to closing and you could no longer use your library card.)
If you like Steve Martin, Stephen Hunter has an article about Martin in today’s Washington Post that will probably make you like him even more.
Now this is a frightening concept.
Caring for Your Introvert by Jonathan Rauch.
[First posted by NewMexiKen on August 7, 2003. Relocated online today thanks to Nick Bradbury.]
For some reason earlier today NewMexiKen got to thinking about his very first day of work. It was Thanksgiving 1960. The place was the Cliff House restaurant in Tucson. At the time, the Cliff House was considered one of the best restaurants in town — great menu plus a wonderful view of the city from its foothill location on Oracle Road. The chef was known simply by his first name, Otto.
Thanksgiving was a very busy day at the Cliff House. I started at noon and got off sometime around 10:30. I was the dishwasher’s second assistant. The dishwasher, who on a regular shift worked just by himself, needed all the help he could get on Thanksgiving. He sprayed the loose residue off the plates and out of the cups and glasses and loaded the racks to go into the machine. The first assistant took the clean dishes out of the machine and got them back into circulation. My job was to clear the trays as the busboys brought them in, scraping the uneaten turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes off the plates into the garbage pail. For more than 10 hours. For $1 an hour.
I did well for my first day of work, being reprimanded only once — by Otto himself, no less. I was throwing out the uneaten dinner rolls instead of returning them to the bread warmer. In chefly like fashion he blew his top, but calmed down when he realized no one had told me differently (and I was a nice deferential kid whose mom was a waitress).
As the day went on into evening, however, this fine restaurant developed a mini-crisis. The Cliff House ran out of cranberries. Now there is one thing a restaurant must have on Thanksgiving and that is turkey. And there is one thing a restaurant must serve with turkey and that is cranberries (or cranberry sauce). And someone had miscalculated and none was left.
It was the dishwasher’s second assistant who saved the day. As the dirty dishes came in from the dining room I not only rescued the dinner rolls, I now also recycled the cranberries. From each plate I corralled the dark red glob and scraped it into a bowl. Periodically Otto would come over and switch out my trove with an empty new bowl. He’d take the cranberries I had reclaimed and scoop them (not so generously as earlier) onto some eager gourmand’s plate.
Amazingly I still love cranberries (especially cranberry relish).
PostSecret will make you happy, sad, nervous. It will make you laugh, and shake your head, and maybe cry.
First mentioned here in May. There are numerous new cards.
The news item Recruits Sought for Porn Squad reminds NewMexiKen of one of the things I don’t list on my résumé. I’ve already served on an FBI “porn squad.”
About 25 years ago, a lawsuit was brought against the National Archives and the FBI for violating the Federal Records Act. The Archives, it was alleged, had allowed the Bureau too much independence in deciding which records to keep. As a result of the litigation, the Court ordered the Archives to exert much more oversight. In effect, it was almost as if the Bureau couldn’t empty its wastebaskets without the Archives sifting through to make sure there were no valuable records.
Things began to pile up. Among the heaps were whole warehouses full of confiscated pirated copies of popular films and music, particularly in Los Angeles (that is, Hollywood) where I was the National Archives’ regional archivist. Ultimately I was dispatched to the Los Angeles FBI field office to “review” these tapes and affirm they were not legally records and that they could be disposed of consistent with the court order. I’d slap a cassette into the VCR, watch enough of it to attest that it was in fact just another copy of “Patton” or “The Empire Strikes Back,” sampling my way through endless boxes and palettes. Then I’d go back to the office and draft a document saying such-and-such was trash. The Deputy Archivist of the U.S. would sign it and file it with the court. We cleaned out a large warehouse this way. (Keep in mind that this was just confiscated material. A sample was retained with the case materials to serve as evidence and to provide a historical record.)
[I was not, however, allowed to apply my sampling process to the confiscated cars in the FBI garage. Even then, L.A. drug distributors drove some fancy automobiles.]
It turned out about this time that there was a big bust of audio-visual materials in Honolulu and the FBI field office there was bursting at the seams with worthless junk. “Could I go out to Hawaii for a week and help them out?” “Well,” I said, “OK, if I have to.”
But, in Honolulu, the pirated copies of popular movies were interspersed with confiscated pornography — and in those days at least, the pornography the FBI confiscated wasn’t smut. It was animals and kids and stuff. So there I was in a darkened room at the FBI offices in Honolulu putting cassettes into the VCR and sampling enough to attest that it was in fact just another pornographic film and not a federal record.
Take it from NewMexiKen, there are better ways to spend one’s time than on an FBI porn squad.
CHICAGO (September 20, 2005) — The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today named 25 new MacArthur Fellows for 2005. Each received a phone call from the Foundation this week informing them that they will be given $500,000 in — no strings attached — support over the next five years.
Hmm. Perhaps they called while I was in the shower.
An article in today’s New York Times tells us that:
Many women at the nation’s most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. Though some of these students are not planning to have children and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others, like Ms. Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with motherhood their main commitment.
Much attention has been focused on career women who leave the work force to rear children. What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children.
An interesting article.
You know how very old people sometimes wear that style of eye-glasses that look almost like goggles; not only thick lenses, but the wrap-around thick frames? Well, it has dawned on NewMexiKen that they don’t choose that style simply because they need them to see better. No, I think it’s because that style of glasses is just easier to find when you leave your glasses laying around the house.
At least that’s what occurred to me when I was looking for my wireless frame glasses, which turned out to be well camoflauged by a placemat.
Almost Before We Spoke, We Swore:
Yet researchers who study the evolution of language and the psychology of swearing say that they have no idea what mystic model of linguistic gentility the critics might have in mind. Cursing, they say, is a human universal. Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, living or dead, spoken by millions or by a small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech, some variant on comedian George Carlin’s famous list of the seven dirty words that are not supposed to be uttered on radio or television.
Key quote: “Even the quintessential Good Book abounds in naughty passages…”
Key discovery: “The investigators have found, among other things, that men generally curse more than women, unless said women are in a sorority, and that university provosts swear more than librarians or the staff members of the university day care center.”
For those who must, here’s Carlin and his seven words you can’t say on television. [Note: Audio file. May be offensive to some.]
A master sergeant assigned to the 58th Training Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico has claimed a $93.4 million Powerball jackpot. John San Cartier correctly matched all six numbers drawn on August 10. San chose the $52.2 million lump-sum option. After federal withholding taxes of 25 percent and state withholding taxes of six percent, he will receive a one-time wire transfer of approximately $36 million.
Expected Jackpot tonight about the same: $92 million.
Here’s the best I can come up with:
Does anyone besides me find it odd that people will come to your door soliciting your business or attention (house painting, stucco repair, charity, religion) but not bother to pick up the morning newspaper in the driveway and hand it to you as an act of kindness?
It was cool enough today I had to turn off the ceiling fans. Fall, which is awesome in Albuquerque, comes on fast at 6,000 feet above sea level.
Mack, the oldest Sweetie, has lost his first baby tooth. He decided he could wait until his daddy returned from a business trip for the tooth fairy to visit. (Realizing full well in his little nearly 5-year-old mind, I assume, that daddy spends more freely than mommy.)
Observations at the club:
Beats Per Minute blogging from New Orleans.
(Actually, he’s in Birmingham for now, but lives in New Orleans.)
He begins Thursday’s entry:
For me, yesterday was the lowest point during this whole ordeal. I had such high hopes after hearing some news on Monday afternoon, after the hurricane had passed, that our part of town might have done really well. I imagined eventually going back, having to clean up, putting things back on shelves and on the walls, letting the dogs run around in the back yard, hearing them bark, watching them jump and play. In other words, moving back into our home. Then when I woke up yesterday morning and I heard about the breach in the levee, it was as though the ground ripped opened at my feet creating a wide chasm, and I spent all day trying to balance on a narrow ledge, trying to keep from falling in.
It was first light, the twilight just before dawn. Two shots rang out. The campers awake in their tents and RVs were startled; then they relaxed and fell asleep. They realized that it was just some right-minded person meting out justice to the jerks breaking camp with all the subtlety and quiet of the circus leaving town.
The federal officer standing over Yuliana Huicochea fired off a question that no one had asked the high school honor student before: What was her immigration status?
Huicochea knew that her parents had brought her to the United States when she was 4 years old. She experienced an all-American childhood in Phoenix, excelling in public schools, eating at IHOP, watching “Law and Order” and dreaming of becoming an attorney.
But in June 2002, when Huicochea was 17, she and some classmates had gone to a national science competition in Buffalo, N.Y. As a treat, their teachers took them to Niagara Falls on the Canadian border — where immigration officials caught up with them.
After nine hours of detention, Huicochea found out the answer to the agent’s question. She and three of her classmates, who had come to the U.S. between ages 2 and 7, were illegal immigrants. The federal government sent them back to Phoenix for deportation hearings, which have dragged on for three years.
…
The four students and their classmates met after school to build a solar-powered boat and gave up their Saturdays to test it on lakes in the Phoenix suburbs. It won a regional contest, and the group flew to Buffalo for the national finals that June.
Two teachers who were escorting the students had planned a side trip to Niagara Falls during their down time. At the visitors’ center, one teacher asked if student IDs would be enough to allow them to cross to the Canadian side to get a better view of the cascades.
But immigration officials at the center spotted the students waiting outside and detained them. They told the youths during interrogation that they stood out because they were Latino.
“It was the same questions over and over again,” recalled Luis Nava. “Where did I cross? I said, ‘Man, I was like 2. I have no idea.’ ”
Millions of people illegally in this country; why hassle these four?
Great Plains — You know you’re in the land of severe weather when you see that the interstate rest area restrooms have signs that say “Men,” “Women” and “Tornado Shelter.”
Small Town America — There are still places in America such as Jenks, Oklahoma, where the fireworks show commemorating the town’s 100th birthday is delayed 15 minutes because the firemen there to oversee the pyrotechnics were called away on an actual call.
Great idea — A kindergarten co-located with a nursing home. (Aside: NewMexiKen was amused while visiting to see a number of very elderly women in the lobby watching the Spike channel.)
Nostalgia — The Love’s truck stops along Interstate 40 reconstructed their price signs some years ago with space only for $1. (Seems rather short-sighted.) Unable to post $2, they simply post the cents. To the unsuspecting it would appear that gas was 269 cents.
Religious symbolism — The purported largest cross in the Western Hemisphere at Groom, Texas, makes one wonder what the universal symbol for Christianity would be if Jesus had been executed by a firing squad or a lethal injection.
Unfortunate advertising — Showing burgers and steaks with steer horns protruding from them is not appetizing. I prefer to strongly compartmentalize my food thoughts from my animal thoughts.
Slap — Mosquitoes suck.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A group of stranded illegal immigrants facing death in the parched Arizona desert saved themselves by using a cell phone they found to call rescue services, the U.S. Border Patrol said Thursday.
The group got lost in the desert near Arivaca, south of Tucson, Arizona, Wednesday after their guide abandoned them during a four-day trek across the border from Mexico.
Lost and low on water, they used a cell phone they found in their guide’s bag to dial 911. Rescuers dispatched helicopters and located the group in the desert shortly after sunset.
Former President Gerald R. Ford is 92 today. He was born as Leslie L. King, Jr., on this date in 1913. He took the name Gerald Rudolf Ford, Jr., when adopted by his stepfather.
Ford is the second oldest former president ever, after Ronald Reagan, who died at age 93. John Adams and Herbert Hoover both lived to be 90.
NewMexiKen had several meetings with President Ford in the years after he left office in 1977. In fact it can be said that on one two-day occasion I helped him clean his garage. The most astonishing incident however, was in 1981.
The Gerald R. Ford Museum was about to be dedicated in Grand Rapids. As the representative of the National Archives nearest Ford’s retirement office in Rancho Mirage, California, I was called with an urgent request. It seemed flags had not been ordered for the replica Oval Office in the Museum. President Ford would lend them his. I was asked to go to his office, pick them up and ship them to Michigan.
The next morning I was ushered into the former President’s office. He was standing at his desk browsing through some papers. After the routine “Hello, Ken” and “Hello, Mr. President” exchange, I went about my business with the flags. He continued his business with the papers.
The U.S. flag was on a brass stand with two wooden staff pieces screwed together at the middle and a brass eagle, wings outstretched, at the top, about seven feet from the floor. I unscrewed the two pieces of the staff, a task made difficult by the weight of the flag and the eagle above.
As I began to lower the top half at an angle, the eagle took flight. It was just set on the top of the staff, not screwed on as it should have been.
Stop and picture this. The former President of the United States is a few feet away. His gorgeous White House presidential desk is even closer. And we have a brass eagle weighing several pounds in free fall. I’m holding the flag and can’t do anything but watch.
Poor President Ford I thought, he is about to be in the news for being clunked (or worse!) by a flagpole eagle in his own office — and this after years of being portrayed by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live as a clumsy, stumble-prone klutz. (In reality Gerald Ford was an All-American football player at Michigan in the 1930s and still looked exceptionally fit at 68.)
It wasn’t my fault the eagle hadn’t been attached but I was about to be a footnote to history.
Amazingly, the eagle missed Mr. Ford. Even more miraculously, it missed the historic desk and fell harmlessly to the carpet with a thud.
The former President had to have noticed. He never said a word. For that alone he has my enduring admiration.
Happy Birthday, Mr. President.
[Reposted from 2004]
but why is this kind of thing a part of it?
Authorities planned an autopsy today for a man who fired repeatedly at neighbors and police, and for his 17-month-old daughter whom he used as a shield before police stormed his apartment.
… early reports indicated that the suspect “continuously had that baby in front of him while he was firing at officers.”