Edakation is Importunt

Reel importunt!Jon Karry told us so -

You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Yeah! U tell um Jon! Doughn't be like this hoser head!

Prince Harry is to be sent to Iraq next year as a troop commander and is likely to patrol the hazardous border with Iran, defence sources have disclosed.

The third in line to the throne will join the Army's 1st Mechanised Brigade, which will be deployed to Basra in May 2007.

Christmas in Virginia

Late December here in Virginia has been unusually mild. While the family back in Denver get slammed with another major snow storm tonight, we had temperatures in the upper 50's. I spent a fair amount of time yesterday working in the yard.

Here's a shot Winnie took of me Christmas Eve over on the Riverwalk in Yorktown. That's right, no jacket, just a cotton sweater.

Welfare Stud

I am alternately appalled by this story, and impressed with the man's, ummmm, vigor.

Serge Régnier (as some readers may remember) is a 47-year old Belgian with three wives and thirty children. In 1986 Régnier married Christine Wuest (who is now 38). They have fifteen children, between 19 years and 11 months old. A couple of years later, Christine’s homeless sister Karine Wuest (now 35 years old) came to live with the couple. Soon she fell in love with Serge. Christine consented in her husband taking her sister as a second wife. Serge and Karine have six children, between 10 years and 10 months old.

All that time, Serge had been meeting his former girlfriend Judith De Leenheer (now 38 years old). When Judith’s marriage broke up – which was not altogether surprising since all her children were Serge’s rather than her husband’s – Serge asked his two wives whether they would mind taking her in. They did not mind. Serge and Judith have nine children, between 18 years and 10 months old. They all live together in Serge’s house in Marcinelle, a town in Wallonia, the French-speaking South of Belgium.

How can he afford this? Silly boy! He's disabled and the women are on welfare.

On one hand, I'm appalled at the cost this is passing to society, but on the other at least he has done his bit to prop up the non-Muslim population there. You could argue that his kids will pay back every penny in their 'earning years', but as the article makes clear, this area of Belgium has "several families that had been on the dole for three generations and did not have a single relative who was officially employed."

Engagement

Michael and Winifred Ryan, PhD of Gloucester Point, Virginia are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Erin Lee Ryan, to Mark David Lacy, PhD, son of David and Penelope Lacy of Worthing, Sussex, England.

Erin is a 2002 graduate of the University of Arizona with a degree in Astronomy. She is currently a PhD student in Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, and resides in Minneapolis. Mark is employed by the Spitzer Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, and resides in Pasadena, California.

No wedding date has been announced.

Kudos

Today I got a framed certificate from Keane commemorating my recent "K-PIN" award. This was my third such award, so I got the certificate.

The award was based on the appreciation letter my VDOT boss recently submitted. Apparently he's not ready to "fire my ass" just yet.

I also got a $100 gift certificate. It looks like I owe Scott a lunch.

Professor Ryan

So, Dr. Winnie will soon be an "Adjunct Professor" at Thomas Nelson Community College where she will start by offering "Principles of Sociology". She'd like to see what other courses they'd be interested in having her present. I'm sure I'll be writing more about this over time.

When the Going Gets Tough...

...the French get going. Even cowering in Kabul is too much for them.

France is to withdraw its 200-strong special forces from Afghanistan, all of its ground troops engaged in the U.S anti-terror operation there, authorities announced Sunday.
France has balked at sending its 1,100-strong NATO contingent outside the relatively safe Afghan capital, Kabul.

Santapalooza

Last night Winnie and I attended the Santapalooza concert at the Norva Theater. On the bill were Leigh Nash (formerly of Sixpence None the Richer), Sister Hazel, and Barenaked Ladies.

All of it was great. I would have appreciated hearing more from Leigh Nash (her set was only about 5 songs). I have "all two" SPNTR albums, and really enjoy them. I went down and bought her new album (and got her Christmas album, gratis), but missed getting it signed. Rats!

Sister Hazel was quite the deal with the guys playing so hard that guitar strings popped. I'll probably be shopping around for their stuff too.

The Barenaked Ladies were awesome. I wouldn't have thought these guys, who are all around 40 now, could show that much energy on stage. They didn't play everything I might have hoped for, but if they had they would have been up there a long time. "The Old Apartment", "One Week", "It's All Been Done", "Alcohol", "Call and Answer", "Brian Wilson" were all in the set, and in their three encores they finished off with "If I Had A $1,000,000." There were more, but I don't remember them all.

The Norva is kind of an odd theater. Their website notes that there is some seating, but the best view is standing. Wrong. The only view is standing. The seating is all clustered around the three full service bars in the place. We weren't drinking, probably to their financial detrement. I'm sure they make a lot that way.

As we entered, the ground floor was really crowded already. I suggested we check out the upstairs. We did, and eventually found us a place off to the side where we had a really good, unobstructed view. It was kind of hard on us old farts (no chairs, etc.) but most of the rest of the crowd was of a "similar" age. Most of them were getting really well lubricated though.

By the time BNL were a couple of songs into their set, the bouncers decided we weren't looking too dangerous, and let Winnie and I right up to the rail, where we really lean over and watch. Didn't figure we'd throw any beer bottles or anything. These photos are absolutely indicative of the sort of spot we had. It was great.

The trip home was 'something' too. There was some sort of major accident on the Interstate, which they entirely closed. We were left driving around a part of Norfolk or Virginia Beach, where we had no idea where we were. Eventually we made it back to the Interstate in an open section. Then, when we're almost home we got stopped again. This time right at the foot of the Coleman Bridge, only a mile from home. Sobriety checkpoint. Hmmm, maybe it was fortunate we weren't drinking after all.

Political Patronage

This state runs on it.

Governor Kaine just proposed his new budget to the General Assembly. Included was $305M for a few new construction projects for VDOT. The list included building a bypass around the small western town of Hillsville. Intrigued, I looked it up. The project is $24M to build a 3 mile long bypass around the town. The population is about 3000.

The traffic they are looking to reroute is on US 58. With the town only being a couple miles of I-77, about 15000 vehicles per day travel on US 58 between the town and the Interstate. Only around 5000 come out of town on the other side on US 58. We can safely guess that, for at least a while, that traffic won't change much.

Is this cost effective? How does it help the town? Will the economy of the town improve when cars no longer pass through it?

I live on a suburban street, and VDOT has measured the traffic on my street at 2900 vehicles per day. I wonder if we could get them to invest $12M to reroute some of this traffic?

I can only assume that this is a sop thrown to the rural areas to get their support. Otherwise such a project just doesn't make sense.

Power Lines

No, silly, not that other blog. You know, lines carrying electricity. Apparently building these for the benefit of people in cities will destroy all that is holy about rural Virginia.

Power line opponents were sensitive Monday to the perception that a few well-heeled gentleman farmers concerned about the views from their estates are blocking progress and jeopardizing electricity for the region.

"This is not about a few wealthy landowners' self-interest," (actor Robert) Duvall said at the news conference. "This is about corporate vandalism."

Martha Toomey of Orlean said the power lines would hurt a region that has eschewed residential growth and sought to build an economy based on agriculture and tourism.

"We're not sitting out here making daisies. This is about business," Toomey said.

Having recently driven through those areas, I'm skeptical to any proclamations about farming. Robert Duvall may indeed have a farm, but most of the 'farmers' living in Fauquier are raising horses, not growing soybeans. Rich people with their toys.

You know, some other areas of the country have found that tourism can be a part of their local economy even when it's not rural. Take the above photo. The little, out-of-place house in the middle originally sat on 32 acres all by itself in the middle of rural Manhattan. Now it's near W 141st St in NYC.

That house belonged to Alexander Hamilton, patriot, war hero, and first Treasury Secretary. Sounds historic to me. Maybe they ought to restore it by tearing down all those other cluttery buildings around it, huh?


Heaven forbid, what would they think today about this second picture. See the peninsula in the upper left corner? That's Jamestown. You know, Captain John Smith and Pocahontas. Pretty historic stuff!

See the peninsula in the lower right? The one with the little straight canals? That's the Surry Nuclear Power Station. Could they even think about building that, today, only 4 miles from the first permanent English settlement on the continent?

Well, at least while Duvall and his cronies are burning horse poops for warmth, I'll have a nice electric supply.

Now, That's a Heavy Sleeper

I've slept through some things in my life (or at least pretended to), but this one takes the prize.

Dustin Noffsinger is lucky he hasn't been banished to the couch for all eternity. The last time he fell asleep there, his wife gave birth to their son in the bathtub, and he slept right through it.

On the night of Nov. 28, Noffsinger and his wife, Rhonda Richardson, went to bed in their Rifle home. Rhonda slept upstairs by herself because she wasn't feeling well.

Then early Wednesday, the 22-year-old Richardson started having contractions. Because her baby wasn't due until Christmas Eve, she called her midwife and was told to take her medicine, relax and take a hot bath. So she did.

A few minutes later, Richardson had an urge to push, and she could see the baby coming out. "I started screaming for my husband when I saw his head," Richardson recalled. "But no reaction. I could hear him snoring."

She screamed again but no luck. Noffsinger was crashed out, having stayed up with his wife for the past few days.

The baby came out but was still inside his amniotic sac, so Richardson used her fingernails to breach it.

At that point, finally awakened by his wife's screams, Noffsinger, 30, raced upstairs. "I woke up, and she had Dorian (the baby) in her arms, and I said, 'What the heck is going on?"' he said.

They called 911, and an ambulance took Richardson to Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. On Sunday, baby and mother were allowed to go home.

Keep the U.N. Out of Our Beeswax

The U.N. is dreadfully worried that the Internet causes users to need to create user IDs and passwords, which they will inevitably re-use elsewhere. Their proposed solution is that we do reuse them, but that a better job be done coordinating this. (Great, so one gets hacked, they all get hacked).

The number of passwords and logins web users need makes it inevitable they will re-use phrases, warned the International Telecommunications Union.

Re-using these identifiers puts people at serious risk of falling victim to identity theft, said the ITU report.

It called on regulators and businesses to find better ways for people to identify themselves to websites.

Why am I suspicious of their motives? Hey, Kofi! Mind your own business!

Stuck on an Airplane

Normally, I prefer to sit next to women on an airplane as opposed to, say, some big beefy guy.

Well, maybe not this woman.

Flatulence brought 99 passengers on an American Airlines flight to an unscheduled visit to Nashville early Monday morning.

American Flight 1053, from Washington Reagan National Airport and bound for Dallas/Fort Worth, made an emergency landing here after passengers reported smelling struck matches, said Lynne Lowrance, a spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority.

The plane landed safely. The FBI, Transportation Safety Administration and airport authority responded to the emergency, Lowrance said.

The passengers and five crew members were brought off the plane, together with all the luggage, to go through security checks again. Bomb-sniffing dogs found spent matches.

The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal body odor, Lowrance said. The woman lives near Dallas and has a medical condition.

The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane.

"American has banned her for a long time," Lowrance said.

She was not charged but could have been. While it is legal to bring as many as four books of paper safety matches onto an aircraft, it is illegal to strike a match in an airplane, Lowrance said.

Good Day / Bad Day

This was one of those days at work that had it's ups and downs.

On the good side, I found out that my company has given me a commendation. These go to around 10 people per month, out of a workforce of around 10,000. This is the third time I've received one. Pretty cool. I assume they'll be mentioning this at my service anniversary dinner on Thursday.

On the down side, while checking my current vacation balance with the HR folks, I found out that I earned one week more of vacation this year than I had thought. (I thought the increased rate didn't kick in until next year.) Why is that bad? Because our vacation is use-or-lose every year, and my customer doesn't want me to take off 2 1/2 weeks in December. (I was planning to take 1 1/2 weeks anyway.)

So, unless the company gives special dispensation to allow this "commended" employee to roll it over into next year, I'm going to lose a week of sorely needed vacation.

Argh!