Another Darwin Award - when will they learn?

Why won't these people learn to read?

A 28-year-old man died early this morning in Pueblo while trying to steal electrical wiring from a high voltage electrical box, the Pueblo police said.

The man, Brian Repinski of Pueblo, was brought unconscious to Parkview Hospital suffering from high voltage burns, said Sgt. Mark Duran.

He died shortly after his arrival.

Nobel Prizes

OK. the Nobel Peace Prize thing was funny, but I hadn't realized that President Obama also has two Grammy Awards.

Also, if we want to make friends with the world, couldn't the USA lighten up a little? The Nobel committee has named the awards in the six categories, with a total of 13 recipients. Of those 13, 9 are Americans, and only 4 went to the rest of the world. Quit being such hogs.

Geography of Jobs

Here is a nice animated visualization of the increase and decrease of jobs in various metropolitan areas from FlowingData.

Writing

Yesterday and today I spent a total of 12 hours writing a draft of a users manual for training people that work under me, and for another state agency. (That sounds more grandiose than it is.) A 36 page document: title page, "version" page, TOC, and 33 pages of useful stuff and appendices.

Remind me again why they cut my contract rate 10%?

How Insensitive

How insensitive can VDOT be? Well, they're all racists, and didn't even realize it.

There's a new turn in the debate over high occupancy toll lanes or HOT lanes.

A lawsuit filed by Arlington County last month claims the lanes benefit wealthy white people and discriminates against minorities. While the only rule to get in the HOV lanes on Interstate 395 is you must have three people in the car, Arlington claims adding HOT lanes would cut out poor and minorities by defacto.

'Cause you can't get three minorities in a car without... I guess I'd better stop right there.

"It is not our intention to play a race card. I think that's a very divisive approach," Favola told FOX5.

But we will, because we think there's some money in it.

The PhD Cook is in the House

Winnie has started to post some of the things she is cooking for us. Yup, we're Cooking with the PhD.

Public Humiliation is Sweeeet

Nope. I didn't do it, but here is a sign that popped up on the edge of the parking lot down the street by some local businesses. Winnie says "better them than us", as we used to find the MD20/20 bottles out in front of our house.

Can anyone tell me how to look up, for free this VA license plate? It might be nice to send her a copy.

Plate Tectonics

650 Million Years in 1 Min. and 20 Sec.

What a scam!

I got my AT&T bill today. $34.99. Out of which $2.57 was actually for 21 minutes worth of calls. The rest was "plan" fees, connectivity fees, cost recovery fees, and tax. Yes, $2.57 for the product, and $32.42 for overhead.

Damn VDOT!

You'd think they'd contact us directly before turning off our water tonight.

Work on the Route 17 project in south Gloucester will result in a water outage for customers along the northbound lanes of the highway from Lafayette Heights Road to the Gloucester Point Shopping Center and a small section of Greate Road.

The water outage will extend from about 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., said Martin Schlesinger, director of the Gloucester Department of Public Utilities. The work is required in order for newly constructed water lines to be placed into service.

VDOT and Transurban - Part 2

So, I have my doubts about how viable this toll road is (8.8 mi, $2.75 one-way) given that it connects together two Interstate highways, and not much else. But they may have an actual, real solution. The Airport Connector.

The original agreement with Transurban requires them to build a 1.6 mile connector to the south end of the Richmond airport. This $50M connector will save travelers up to 10 minutes of travel time!

I guess they've done a sophisticated analysis of airport user patterns to determine how all of this will work. From their advertising though, travelers going east onto I-295 will pay $1.25, and the travelers going west will pay the full $2.75.

How much does this make for them? Well, that's where you need that sophisticated analysis.

Right now RIC gets about 3.5M passengers per year. Unfortunately, the April 2009 statistics show travel was down 2.6% from the year before. Well, it's the economy again.

Yeah, and in April 2008 the travel was down 4.0% from 2007. And in April 2007 it was up 4.0% from 2006. So, I guess about the best we can say is that their passenger traffic is flat.

Even so, if half the passengers use the connector (1.75M/yr), and 50% each go east and west, then the roundtrip cost of $4.00 (average) comes out to an increase in tolls of $7M per year. Not bad! An increase of over 50% from what they're collecting now.

Except...did you notice the problem? The assumption that 50% of travelers arrive via the connector? Via the Parkway?

Why would anyone coming from east of the airport arrive that way? They wouldn't.

Why would anyone coming from the north in Henrico or Hanover come that way? They wouldn't.

Why would anyone coming from the West End come that way? They wouldn't.

Why would anyone coming from Richmond come that way? Maybe a few would, but most wouldn't.

That leaves the south end, Chesterfield, Petersburg, and the surrounding areas. Convenient for them, so they'll use it. But is it enough to pay another $50M in loans plus operating and maintenance expenses?

VDOT and Transurban - Part 1

In May 2006 the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and a consortium including the Australian corporation Transurban signed an agreement under which Transurban will operate the Pocahontas Parkway (State Route 895) as a toll road. This route connects Interstate 95 to Interstate 295 just south of Richmond.

In the agreement, Transurban agreed to pay the Commonwealth an estimated $552 million plus a percentage of the toll revenues above Transurban's operating and maintenance expenses. Transurban agrees to operate the toll road for 99 years, and will be required to build a 1.6 mile connector road to Richmond International Airport.

So, how's that working out? Click on the the picture.

Traffic in the last year is down 14.6%. Revenue, despite an increase in the toll, is down 2.8% to a total of about $13M per year.

Their annual report notes that traffic grew during the first half of the year, and then dropped in part due to the toll increase, and of course the mandatory "economic conditions".

I think they should elaborate a bit on these economic conditions that are affecting them.

Are they talking about high gas prices affecting overall driven mileage? If so, that hardly explains the drop in traffic compared to the same time last year. The first quarter of 2009 had gas prices that were about $1 per gallon lower than a year ago.

A decrease in commercial traffic? Well, maybe. It certainly can't all be a decrease in just non-commercial travel. People still need to get home every night.

Right now the real problem is that this road doesn't go anywhere. It connects together two roads that intersect both north and south of this location. They are also connected by several other free roads. So why use the toll road?

In any case, revenue of only $13M per year is going to be a problem in trying to pay off a $552M debt while paying for operations and maintenance as well. Do you suppose that their financing is as cheap as 2%? If so, their interest payments alone are $11M per year.

Overall, it doesn't appear from their corporate financial statements that toll roads are doing that well. Through the end of FY2008 they lost $140M. Still, that was better than the preceding year when they lost $152M.

So how long, at this rate, until they come back and want to revise the terms of the deal?

I guess I won't buy this...

Not too fond of the new Honda hybrid.

Much has been written about the Insight, Honda’s new low-priced hybrid. We’ve been told how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you’re easy on the throttle and how it is the dawn of all things. The beginning of days.

So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.

So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.

Man, Obama is up early!

At 8:33 am EDT I see this article, posted by AP at 6:22 am EDT:

US President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to pass comprehensive health care reform by the end of the year, arguing it was necessary for the country to maintain its competitive edge.

That man must get up and start making speeches really early!

How not to clean up a dead whale

Uh, oh! Here they come again.

I made it past the first round of budget cuts, but they're back!

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said yesterday that the ongoing recession will force even deeper cuts in state spending in the coming months.

Kaine said he has instructed the heads of all state agencies to reduce spending further, because revenues for April, May and June are expected to fall below estimates upon which the budget for fiscal 2009 was based.

That means the state could fall up to $225 million short of the revenue it needs to balance Virginia's budget through the fiscal year that ends June 30.

Richmond Baseball

Richmond lost their Triple-A team to Gwinnett County, Ga this year. apparently there is a deal in the works to bring in a replacement Double-A team from Connecticut

Richmond Baseball Club LC will close a deal to acquire the Class AA Connecticut Defenders any day now, according to Eastern League President Joe McEacharn and Bryan Bostic, RBC’s chairman, and will do so without a firm plan for a new ballpark here.

The Defenders, contractually bound to be a San Francisco Giants’ affiliate through next season, will continue this season based in Norwich, Conn., then relocate to The Diamond next season, even without a firm plan for a new Richmond ballpark. Minor League Baseball officials previously expressed reluctance to approve the franchise’s relocation without such a plan for a new ballpark.

Well, it's something. They'd be playing against teams from Binghamton, Harrisburg, Erie, and the like. Still they apparently need to work on the stadium issue.

Richmond may be at risk of losing the Class AA franchise, Minor League Baseball officials have suggested, without a long-term ballpark solution.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. The stadium in Richmond is twice the size of the stadium the Connecticut team plays in now, so obviously it's inadequate.

The Auto Industry is Doomed

Well, not totally doomed. And not just the US auto industry. And for different reasons than usually cited.

The usual mantra is "the US auto industry is doomed because they have really high legacy costs, and their quality isn't up to international standards, and they only make gas guzzlers."

My thoughts are that it's the middle one that's going to hurt them all.

See, 20 years ago you were lucky if your US car lasted 50,000 miles. Foreign cars were better, but not much. Now, 100,00 mile warranties are expected. And if quality continues to improve, you can expect that to increase.

How many miles can you really expect to drive a car, though? If the 100,000 miles was a pure mean value the answer would be "well, on average 100,000 miles." But auto makers don't actually want to have to make good on the warranty. Therefore cars last more than 100,000 miles. Given their thin margin, would it be safe to guess that most cars will actually not die until, say, 200,00 miles.

Now the US DOE estimates that the average car is driven about 12,000 miles per year, so most of the new cars we currently have will last for about 16 years.

Given there are already about as many cars as people in the US, so there's no room for growth, what kind of profit can you make selling a new car to people only once each 16 years?

We Are Not Amused

This morning we took Curry, the oldest dog, to the Farmer's Market in Williamsburg. As usual, he was wonderful. The center of adoring attention.

When we got home we found the other dogs had expressed their displeasure at being left behind by peeing in our beds.

True Genius

I went out to work in my yard this morning, and the neighbors, two houses down, were out too.

See, where we live is semi-rural, and it's legal to do open burning. So, a lot of people burn yard waste. But it's not legal to do it before 4pm. (This was about 8am.)

And they've got a freakin' bonfire going.

OK, a technical violation only. I've burned leaves in my driveway at times that barely skirted the 4pm rule. But, they've got two more strikes against them.
1) They use propane and their 250 gallon storage tank is only about 10 yards from the fire.
2) As you can see in the picture, their house backs onto a gas station, so this fire is only about 30 or 40 yards from the gas pumps and storage tanks.

Hey, doofus, I don't mind if you blow yourself up, but leave me out of this.

I called the sheriff. They had the fire department come give them a little talk.

I can't imagine what they were thinking.

Lebron - Underhanded, Three-quarters Court

Model Trains

I always wanted a model train layout, but this kind of takes the fun out of it for amateurs.

Newspapers are Worthless

I've been pawing through every on-line version of a newspaper in this state and can't find any statement by a Representative or Senator regarding any damn thing that is happening in this country. I will admit, our local pols seem pretty useless, but I imagine they are making some public statements on occasion. So, why is nothing in the paper?

Summer Camp

An article about families trimming back on their kid's summer camp expenses.

It's the fireside tale that spooks parents every summer: A few weeks at camp can cost thousands of dollars.

To avoid that scary fate, Gabriel and Jennifer Griego and their friends plan to take turns watching the kids for part of this summer.

"In the past, we always sent them to camps the whole summer," said Gabriel Griego a 43-year-old father of two in Berkeley, Calif.

"This year we're looking to reduce that by about half." Translation: No more than $1,000 for both kids.

In the past you sent your kids away for the whole summer? I'm not clear on this. Was it because this was cheaper than day care? Camp, for the whole summer, only cost you $2000 for both kids? That probably is cheaper than day care.

That doesn't mean parents are opting out of the national camp tradition altogether. In fact, enrollment numbers are on track to hit the 10 million mark that has held steady for the past several years, according to the American Camp Association.

This is something that clearly has grown a lot. 10 million kids? Their are 81M kids between age zero and 19 in this country. If you figure only half of these are old enough to go away to camp, that leaves 40 million kids.

Of those, 25% are going to camp? When I was a kid I don't recall even knowing anyone that actually ever went to a summer camp. Unless they're counting Vacation Bible School. The closest I ever got to summer camp was watching The Parent Trap.

The Price of Airfare

I was theorizing about what it would cost to visit England to see my daughter after she moves there this fall. Not wanting to skew the results with the cost around holidays, I picked a date in mid-September as a comparison point.

Hey! That seems very affordable. $750 is doable. In fact, given that an eight hour flight in coach would nearly kill me, I wonder what first class costs.

A factor of 10 to 20 higher? Ummm, maybe not.

The Crisis of Credit

This should be required viewing. Certainly for our so called leaders.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Mortgage free - again

Three and a half years ago we had some renovation work done. Wood floors refinished, new deck put on the side of the house, electrical retrofit and upgrades.

Paid for it with a 'line of credit' against the house. A small mortgage where we had none before. The terms gave us 20 years to pay it off. I made the last payment today.

< $1,000

My home improvement line of credit gets paid off on Friday. Then, we will again be mortgage free. Just in time for Obama to declare the workers proletariat.

So, I got a promotion

I am now the "GIS Roadway Centerline Manager" for the Virginia Department of Transportation. I have a staff of five editors working for me, and a QA/QC manager to come (my old assignment). We will be trying to get all of the centerlines up to snuff so we can build a decent linear referencing system.

To date the Interstates build pretty good, and short little subdivision secondaries are OK, but lord what problems in every oher road! We have crazy deadlines for trying to get at least some sort of LRS working. This is causing me to do 50+hr weeks right now because, frankly, I'm a good editor, and have the best understanding of the data model, so I'm doing a lot of it myself.

I'm still an IT consultant, so they can still "fire his ass" at will. Interestingly enough, my main contact outside of VDOT may be my former manager that originally coined that phrase. The job change also resulted in a higher pay grade, and a sizable increase in my hourly rate. Now I'm dealing with my own company where my immediate supervisor is telling me that my getting a raise out of this is "not automatic". Like *expletive* hell!

How messed up is that?

George Mason University just elected a drag queen as Homecoming queen

George Mason University senior Ryan Allen dresses in drag and doesn't mind being called a queen — homecoming queen, to be exact. Allen, who is gay and performs in drag at nightclubs in the region, said he entered the homecoming contest as a joke, competing as Reann Ballslee, his drag queen persona.

Granted, in 1974 one of my fraternity brothers was elected homecoming queen. We were so proud. But what kind of a school has homecoming in February?

You know what they say

You only rent beer.



OK, I stole it from Ace. So sue me.

I'm Confused

At the Egypt-Gaza border -

Hamas negotiators left Egypt without a long-term cease-fire with Israel on Thursday — but not before some members of the militant group's delegation were stopped at the Gaza border carrying millions in cash.

The delegation walked away from the cease-fire talks because of disagreements over the blockage on Gaza and border security. Talks will continue at a later date.

An Egyptian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the group initially refused to be searched by Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing. When the group relented, authorities found $7 million and 2 million euros ($2.5 million) in cash in their suitcases. Another security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said $9 million and 2 million euros were found. The discrepancy could not be immediately explained.

OK, I can understand a terrorist group would have lots of uses for cash, but why would they be smuggling it into Gaza? Is there something special there they have previously been unable to buy? Or steal at gunpoint?

Dude!

The growth of Target

There is a cool visualization at FlowingData about the spread of Target stores.

They also have a similar visualization for the spread of WalMart stores.

Insanity...

...is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

So, some of my coworkers kept dropping $1.25 in this vending machine. The slot for the green Gatorade has been problematic since day one. It always gets stuck. But what's with the others? Did everybody else figure this was like a slot machine, and they were just waiting for the big payout?

Military Judge to Obama: Go Pound Sand

The Obama administration had asked for a suspension of the military commission proceedings at Gitmo. They are contemplating how they may decide to change the nature of the handling of the prisoners there. The judge was not impressed.

"Congress passed the military commissions act, which remains in effect. The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future."

In other words, even a popular President can't just order trials stopped.

Of course he does have an alternative. He could just pardon them all.

Sex & Alcohol

Just more proof, if you ever needed it, that sex and alcohol don't mix.

A FEISTY raccoon has bitten off a pervert’s PENIS as he was trying to rape the animal.

Alexander Kirilov, 44, was on a drunken weekend with pals when
he leapt on the terrified – but toothy – fur ball. “When I saw the raccoon I
thought I’d have some fun,” he told stunned casualty surgeons in Moscow.

Now Russian plastic surgeons are trying to restore his mangled manhood.

“He’s been told they can get things working again but they can’t sew back on what the raccoon bit off," said a pal.

“That’s gone forever so there isn’t going to be much for them to work with."

Gobal Warming - the Persian Gulf edition

Today's report from the United Arab Emirates on the ongoing effects of global warming climate change. -

Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.

So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it.

According to the RAK Government, temperatures on Jebel Jais dropped to -3°C on Friday night. On Saturday, the area had reached 1°C.Major Saeed Rashid al Yamahi, a helicopter pilot and the manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, said the snow covered an area of five kilometres and was 10cm deep.

“The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow,” Major al Yamahi said.

Oh, Good Lord!

Winnie wasn't quite ready to make up what I'd gotten out of the freezer for dinner, so we went out. After she had a salad and tiny burger, she said she wouldn't mind a dessert. I had had a half pound burger, but was game to try. So, she ordered this monster.

I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight.

U.S. Airways Hudson River Crash

I don't watch much TV, so I'm sure everyone but me has seen this CCTV video. The crash happens at 2:02. The operators don't react to what has happened for another 30 seconds or so after that.

Kittens are good eating

You know that anything that PETA is against just has to be tasty. Now they are referring to what you and I call "fish" as "sea kittens". Because "nobody would hurt a sea kitten"! Normally I don't like eating fish, but I could make an exception in this case.

Classifieds

How bad is the Florida real estate market? The on-line version of the Newport News paper, here in Virginia, has a special section just for Florida foreclosures.

Wingsuit Base Jumping

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.