avablog

This is the view that greeted us when we got out of the car at Briar Cliff this morning. Really quite pretty. From what I could tell, this is about as good as Sioux City ever looks. Oh, and here’s our rental car: This is apparently what Enterprise is handing out for a “standard” model […]

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I’m off to a conference in Sioux City today at noon.  It’s tomorrow, actually, for half the day.  So we’ll drive for five hours this afternoon, eat dinner at Famous Dave’s in Sioux City, then listen to a vendor tell us about data mining tomorrow.  We’ll leave at 3:30 or so tomorrow and drive like […]

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A man’s greatness is not estimated by the size of his body or of his purse; not by his family connections or social position, however high these may be. He may bulk large in public estimation today, but tomorrow he will be forgotten like a dream, and his very servants may secure a higher position […]

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I had this impression of Iowans as a hardier lot.  The temperature got down below 50 this morning, and everyone here at the office is walking around talking about how “freezing” it is.  Sheesh.  I have no idea what these people are going to do in the middle of February. In other office-related news today, […]

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There’s a box sitting on the floor in my garage that contains hard copies of just about every paper I wrote in college, complete with handwritten commentary from my classmates and professors. It seems like I should empty it into the recycling bin on Friday, but I don’t know if I can muster the guts […]

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This is an amazing story.  Via BoingBoing. It’s incredible the way we (humans) are still stumbling around in this world, almost completely blind.

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The Gerbera daisies and the big red box from Redenvelope. What could it be? Detail shot of one flower in natural light. Oooh! The bottom of a box! Thank you! A jewelry box in rose-colored leather. “What’s this piece do?”

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Who was it who came up with all these silly anniversary gifts?  I mean, it’s helpful to have some general areas to use in coming up with a gift idea, but tin anniversary?  Copper?  Are blacksmiths to blame for this hierarchy?  Diamonds and silver I can understand, but celebrating a second anniversary with some sort […]

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How is it that even a three-day weekend can seem so short?  I don’t know that it was perceptually any longer than a standard two-day break.  Bah.  Whatever.  It was nice while it lasted. Leah’s parents were in town Saturday and Sunday, and we took them out to the MacBride Raptor Project so we could […]

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From one of our local papers today: In Tuesday’s meeting, the Iowa City City Council will consider raising the fines for littering from $35 to $70 – a move that would bring the city’s penalties in line with state fines. I hope this passes. I don’t hope it enough to go and represent my views […]

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Leah’s convinced that our great little house is going to be too crowded if we can manage to have another child. Maybe she’s right. I like to point out that the 97-year-old woman who sold Leah the house raised two sons there with two bedrooms and one bath, but Leah says, “that was then; this […]

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Leah and I need a new phone. I was on the fence for a while on the issue, but last night I saw the light at last. We got a call from Leah’s sister, and I went to push the “talk” button on the phone. This button has been getting more and more difficult to […]

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Sometimes I feel like I’m surrounded by style addicts. I live with a woman who, along with her sister, wears (knockoff) designer sunglasses on a pontoon boat in the boundary waters. It’s like vacationing with the Hilton sisters. For the most part (OK, heck, for the whole part), I’m entirely oblivious to fashion and style. […]

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Fittingly enough, yesterday they began installing the speed humps on our street. Here you can see the two guys who got stuck with the job of staying all day until the humps cooled enough to apply paint to them. The fellow standing is holding a styrofoam coffee cup filled with tiny reflective pellets that get […]

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…to do this to you right after lunch, but this* is what happens when stitches pull out of an incision. Here’s what it looked like pre-separation. They can’t stitch it back up now, so it’ll stay like this until it heals (a week, the doc says). * I’m not kidding: Don’t look at this link […]

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Our city council last night approved the installation of speed humps on our street, which is awesome.  The vote was 7-0.

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Some _ _ _ _head came in in the last seconds of the auction and outbid me.  Fine.  He can have them.  I wasn’t going to spend more than $20 on them anyway. I hope they split up the crotch.

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So, here’s a shot of just one of my surgery sites from the Great Mole Removal 2006. This one is on my left shoulder, just under the clavicle. I think there’s one other shot in the public photos in my flickr stream, for the brave. There are also pictures of pretty horsies from the parade […]

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So the mole extraction went well. Pretty much exactly what I was expecting. My range of movement is a little limited today, owing to the five sets of stitches I have on my chest and back, but everything is otherwise fine. And this happy outcome is due in large part to the wonder drug Lidocaine. […]

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There’s been a lot in the news for the last couple years about how being married or otherwise socially engaged is good for one’s health.  Without reading the stories very closely, I’d always assumed that the constant stress of a relationship helped condition the heart and other vital organs.  Turns out I was wrong.  People […]

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