Category Archives: Home Life

Stuff going on in my personal life.

Christmas update

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Nothing new on the PNNL front just a report on our activities.

Xenia reported on her view of things. She took in a goodly amount of stuff.

We went to my parents place for Christmas Eve where we had very white Christmas Eve including some snow drifts that were probably eight to ten inches deep in places on the county road. There was a snow drift in our driveway too but not a big deal. It was starting to rain when we came back to Moscow and by the middle of Christmas day most of the snow was gone. We had a nice time with all the visitors. Daughter Kim and her fiancée loved the new laptop computer we bought them. Sara has been staying with us and went to my parents place as well as being with us on Christmas Day. Barb’s sister Nancy and her family were here too. Nancy likes to make funny faces and I told her the picture below was was going to be on the Internet in ten minutes. Barb said, “No!” So instead of ten minutes I waited 48 hours.

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Here is another picture of Nancy. This time with Barb while they are in deep concentration in a game they were playing:

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This is Caleb and Kim with our bare backyard in the background

Quote of the day–Dave Barry

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You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want.  They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday-morning cartoon-show advertisements.  Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices.  If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you’d better get it.  You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child’s antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you’ve seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift.

Dave Barry
Christmas Shopping: A Survivor’s Guide
[See also my next post.–Joe]

Merry Christmas

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Being an atheist I don’t usually take much pleasure in Christmas. But this year is something very special. Last year was very tough for us after being fired from PNNL. However this year is much better. I got a good job last April. The lawsuit against PNNL and my former supervisor, Bryan McMillan, was filled October 30th. And then just in time for Christmas I received word yesterday that McMillan and his wife Torrie (community property state, in order to get full access to his assets we needed to fill against his wife too) got served with the papers.

Merry Christmas Bryan!

Sorry Torrie, but it’s not my fault you married someone of such low character that he committed a felony. I’m pretty sure there will be some more unpleasant surprises for you about his character in the coming years as the lawsuit details come out.

To the people at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous that I asked not to mention the details I talked about, you are now free to blog as much as you want.

It’s the accessories that make an outfit.

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Speaking of Oleg Volk, Say Uncle points out this picture from Oleg. It makes me wish I had taken pictures of my girls when they shot guns for the first time.

The title for this post is stolen from the commenter dantheserene to Oleg’s post.

Handles

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Ry says they don’t have handles and gives this page as reference. However informative and useful the reference I beg to differ with the claim they don’t have handles. Even most Manx have a little something that can be used as the rear handle and the scruff of the neck works well for the second handle. This presumes of course you have heavy leather gloves to prevent the slitting of the wrist of the hand utilizing this handle.

I have successfully accomplished the task with only minor wounds and scars that, after 15 years, only barely show. The biggest problems were the two girls, ages four and six I think, that were climbing on my back and screaming, “Daddy’s trying to drown the kitty!!” Once Barb dragged them off of me things went pretty smooth–all things considered.

Taking power to Seattle

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The power is on for both James and I where we work so we need to be back at work tomorrow. James has power at his apartment but I don’t have any at my place so I’m taking my 3500W generator. I should be able to get the gas furnance working and if not my roommates and I can continue to burn wood in the fireplaces. The generator should keep the refrigerators and the computers up. Candles and kerosene lamps for lights and we will be comfortable. We should also be able to run the washing machine if we shut down some of the other stuff to wash clothes. The water heater is gas and hasn’t been affected by the power outage.

We head out in a few minutes and hope to get over Snoqualmie Pass before it snows too much.

Pictures from the Seattle area

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See also the Seattle Times article here. These were all taken on Friday December 15 between 8:30 and 12:00. I took the first one and James took the rest.


Typical residental street


Near Redmond on Highway 202 on our way out of town


Near Redmond on Highway 202 on our way out of town


Notice the power line is down on the left as well as half of highway 202 is blocked

No! (to being in Seattle without electricity)

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The power flickered many times with the first record in my uninterruptable power supply logs at about 17:00 yesterday. There were numerous 10 and 20 second outages until it went out for the night about 22:30. For James it was very early this morning. Work was closed and although I could have kept our computers up it just wasn’t worth the effort. We drove back to Idaho today to wait for the power to be restored to the Seattle area.

The snow on the pass and all the way to just a few miles west of Vantage wasn’t bad but it was coming down pretty good so we were glad to make it across when we did. The worst part was making it through all the traffic on the Eastside of Lake Washington. With no power all the traffic lights were 4-way stops.

Ry reports in and is doing fine.

Phil at Random Nuclear Strikes hasn’t said anything but I’m sure he is doing well unless he suffered a direct hit from a tree.

Mr. Completely has several reports and seems to be doing well:

James and I took a few pictures and I’ll put something up later. I need to make supper before Barb gets home from work.

Quote of the day–Jeff Cooper

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During our recent motor touring, we noticed on several occasions the road sign “Gusty winds may exist.” Now I find that pretty fascinating. The notice that gusty winds may exist suggests some thought be given to the relationship of reality to existence. Whether such winds may or may not exist opens the door to questions about what constitutes existence. Descartes declaimed, Cogito ergo sum (I think: therefore I am). Whether winds may or may not really and truly exist calls for serious thought. I almost ran off the road considering this matter.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
[Gusty winds do exist. Seattle without power is proof of that.–Joe]

Must be a Google alert

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Last night I posted about a letter I received from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This morning they came visiting:

Domain Name   usda.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address   199.156.60.# (USDA Office of Operations)
ISP   USDA Office of Operations
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  Colorado
City  :  Fort Collins
Lat/Long  :  40.524, -105.1396 (Map)
Distance  :  730 miles
Language   English (United States)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1024 x 768
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Dec 14 2006 8:37:30 am
Last Page View   Dec 14 2006 8:37:30 am
Visit Length   0 seconds
Page Views   1
Referring URL
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…1d-6c7a83021e29.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…1d-6c7a83021e29.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-8:00
Visitor’s Time   Dec 14 2006 8:37:30 am
Visit Number   120,426

Finalizing a plan

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Barb and I own a little bit of farm land and because of various government programs intended to help farmers (yes stuff related to the subsidies, but also “helpful” stuff mandated by the environmentalists) we get mailings from the Federal government every once in a while. The one I got the other day made me laugh. It must have tickled my sick humor funny bone. This one is from the United States Department of Agriculture. FSA stands for Farm Service Agency:

Dear Clearwater County Producer:

The Idaho State FSA Office has been instructed to devise a plan for closing offices in Idaho. In keeping with that directive, a Committee was formed last spring to identify and prioritize the offices with the State that could be considered for closure. Now six months later, after extensive debates, discussions and arguments, the proposal is out — Clearwater County tops the list as the first office in Idaho to close should that become a requirement.

It is important to note that no directives have been issued to actually close offices at this time. The Agency is simply looking forward, and in an attempt to be ready should future budge restrictions force the issue the office closure plan would be ready for implementation. It is also important that you know that the entire process will take approximately two years to complete. After the plan is finalized in Idaho, it is submitted to the National Office for approval, then on to Congressional Representatives for review, and finally back to the local community for comment. All in all, it can take as long as two years for a plan to be finalized.

[… blah, blah, blah…]

Two years just to come up with a plan??? How long to actually close the office? A decade if they really work at it? If it were a private business wanting to close an office the size of that one the plan would take a couple weeks and by the end of the next month new renters would be occupying the office space.

There are very, very few things government can do well. Examples abound from the airport security issues to prohibition (alcohol as well as modern day recreational drugs) to gun bans. Government is colossally incompetent at nearly anything they do. My favorite example is that for 70 years the USSR tried to increase food production in their country. During essentially those same 70 years the U.S. government tried to decrease food production in the U.S. Both governments failed.

More shooting in the winter pictures

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I updated the Lewiston Pistol Club website with results from the last Action Pistol (IPSC) match and threw in some pictures. Not only did the snow not slow us down but Adam shot with his knee all messed up from sword fighting a few days earlier. He had surgery on it a couple days after these pictures. Adam is the guy sitting on toolbox with his left leg out straight in the last picture.

The dance and the skunks

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Saturday evening Xenia went to the dance with Jesse. Never mind she is engaged to another guy. Jesse is gay so it didn’t matter. Jesse came over early and had dinner with Barb, Xenia, Sara, and I. I took some pictures and about 21:30 or so Jesse and Xenia left for the dance. Xenia tells the rest of the story with a bunch of pictures. Here are some pictures she didn’t post:


Sara and Jesse


Dmitri and Xenia


One of the skunks

Why we live in Idaho

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This is just part of the reason. This was the view out our living room window last Saturday. Picture by Sara.

Xenia coming back from State competition

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It’s 2:39 AM at Moscow High School on December 2nd. Xenia and Ms. Cooke the drama instructor. Xenia and Meghan had come in first in the entire state. It’s been a long day and the appropriate level of excitement really wasn’t showing:

Mark of the beasts?

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Coming back from the Seattle area yesterday afternoon I snapped this picture. I was trying for 66 MPH but I think I missed.

Christmas tree time

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Rather than cut off the bottom of the tree to make it fit in our living room Xenia figured it would be easier to cut off the top.

First she tried the bolt cutters but she wouldn’t let me put any of those pictures up even though (perhaps because) I thought they were quite amusing.

[Shrug] The result is satisfactory.

Dietary changes

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I don’t need to modify much. Just a little. I already eat lots of cashews and granola. I just need to up the foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids. Here are the detail:

Like many aspects of health, our sex drive is affected by what we put into our bodies. Certain foods affect the body in different ways. Depending on what you consume, wining and dining a date can induce more sleep than romance.

…

To really get your blood going, consider circulation-enhancing dishes. Food that’s high in Omega-3 fatty acids such as mackerel, salmon and wild salmon are best. “Omega-3 makes your nervous system function better,” says Dr. Barbara Bartlik, assistant professor of psychiatry and sex therapist with the Human Sexuality Program at Weill Cornell Medical Center. “Sex is really about circuitry.”

…

Improved circulation results in greater erectile response. To accomplish that, go for food rich in L-Arginine, such as granola, oatmeal, peanuts, cashews, walnuts, dairy, green vegetables, root vegetables, garlic, ginseng, soybeans, chickpeas and seeds. Studies show that L-Arginine is helpful for improving sexual function in men.

Xenia and Meghan are top in the state

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Friday and Saturday Xenia and Meghan competed at the State of Idaho drama competion. In the humorous ensemble catagory, with 168 entrants, they came in NUMBER 1. Yes. The number one entrant in that category for the ENTIRE STATE OF IDAHO.

Their other entry, The Duel also went to state made it into the finals (top ten) but did not place.

Here is the video I took of that a few weeks ago at the district competition of the one that won–“Open To Interpretation”:

Video: Open To Interpretation

[The video is a messed up in the middle for a minute or so. I’ll try and recapture the video next weekend and fix it up.]

Xenia has her own Live Journal posting on the results here. There are some pictures there too.

Barb and I are very, very proud of her.

Lowering the standards

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Phil points out that about half of last year’s 10th graders in Washington State failed the math test they are currently required to pass in order to graduate. (Barely) Governor Gregiore wants to fix that–by lowering the standard.

This reminds me of a quote from a Heinlein book:

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.  At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

The character Lazarus Long in the Robert Heinlein book Time Enough for Love

I’m with Heinlein on this.

Of course I’m going to get the evil stare of death from Xenia the next time I see her. She uses this cartoon as wallpaper on her computer:

Xenia’s mother and I, her father, met each other in algebra class and both frequently got perfect scores on the tests. We took four year of math in high school and both did very well. How can she claim to our child and not like math? [heavy sigh]