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___________________________________ Subject: Chevron and Texaco Credit Card Billing Inquiries Sent: July 31, 2011 03:12 PM EDT You Wrote: Hey, thanks for the nice note in my bill saying my minimum payment has increased because of my past late payments. I didn't bother going through the calculations to see if my current minimum payment was right. Strangely it fails to mention late fees that were refunded due to your inability to get GE money to correct their billing emails which caused the problems to begin with. I've always paid my bill in full whenever I could discern I had a bill.  I wish I could avoid in the future any more use of Chevron products and this credit card. But you are the only aviation fuel supplier at my airport so we are stuck with each other.

Pretty funny.

Jenai stops me on my way into the building and apologizes for falling asleep in a big design review meeting last week. 

1.       I didn’t notice

2.       I fall asleep in meetings all the time

3.      ;  I’ve had about 4 hours of sleep, the likelihood is high I will again today

 

 

 

This is why I will happily vote for Al Franken : Pharyngula

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/this_is_why_i_will_happily_vot.php
Al Franken makes me laugh in so many ways.

Directly.
http://youtu.be/318DYr_K8J4

Teach the controversy!

It cracks me up every time I hear "students should make their own decisions" about evolution vs ID vs creationism taught in schools. Especially when in the same breadth only abstinence sex education is acceptable in many places. No condoms or birth control. No choice on abortion. No questioning the bible...

NTSB: Four dead in Watsonville plane crash including two children - Santa Cruz Sentinel

NTSB: Four dead in Watsonville plane crash including two children - Santa Cruz Sentinel

WATSONVILLE — Four members of a Santa Cruz family headed to a weekend getaway with relatives near Yosemite National Park were killed when their four-seater plane plummeted into the grounds of Watsonville Community Hospital, authorities said Friday.
David Houghton, 44, wife Dede, 44, and sons Luke, 12, and Ryan, 10, all perished in Thursday's crash, which witnesses say occurred after the plane turned sharply offline after taking off from Watsonville Municipal Airport.

It is hard when people who contributed good to the community are lost suddenly, especially when there was so much more lost with with them and their sons. All it takes is a mistake or two and the laws of nature will deal swift consequences if any are broken. We know and try to understand those laws, we don't always succeed in satisfying them all in our endeavors. Endeavors are what makes life worth living.

The Ledge - A movie to see.

Madman or Something Worse?

Does Jesus deserve our love or respect?  I don't think so.

Yum!

So after dinner Liz says she has some special desert and she'll bring it to me.  I pause the Dexter.  After some noises and bottle openings she brings me a coffee mug of ice cream and IBC root beer.  Mmmm... root beer float!  :-)  She goes back into the kitchen to make her's.  More mug rattling and bottle opening and...  "Hey!  Does yours taste all right?"  "Yeah, mine tastes fine!" I say.  "This tastes like soap!"  She pours it out and gets a clean mug, scoops more ice cream and more root beer into the mug and comes in to sit next to me so we can continue to watch Dexter.  "This still tastes like soap!  What is wrong with this?"  That is when Liz notices that she had opened a bottle of Fat Tire.  We laughed and laughed.  :-)

LM News... more layoffs.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems to Eliminate Approximately 1,200 Positions Lockheed Martin

"Space Systems, which currently employs approximately 16,000 employees in 12 states, will implement a broad-based workforce reduction of roughly 1,200 employees by year-end. It is anticipated that middle management will be reduced by 25 percent, with significantly smaller percentage impacts in other levels and disciplines."

Oh hell. Here we go again. I wonder if I should start looking for a new job just to head off the pain and agony of WARN notices and wondering if I'll get replaced. Probably.

Recollections of a Vagabonde: Riding on the TGV Train No. 9321 to Brussels, Belgium

Recollections of a Vagabonde: Riding on the TGV Train No. 9321 to Brussels, Belgium:
"fly44d said...

Despite being a pilot, I've always enjoyed riding trains! :-) Thanks for opening the memories."

I do like riding trains. Too bad there are so few good ones in this country. I'd like to see the California high speed line get built, but I bet it gets scrapped. Too little too late probably, I don't see our politicians having the will to get it done.
Trains... From East Pakistan (Bangladesh) to northern Norway to California. I am going to spew out some memories:

• California Zephyr - riding in the observation dome.
• Dacca to tea country and back - crowded with people hanging on everywhere. Very slow and rickety.
• Oslo to Bodo Norway - seeing the sun not set one summer day, Bodo was as far north as we could get on the train.
• Bonn to West Berlin - East German guards checking ID at the borders in the middle of the night
• Frankfurt to Mainz - Traveling by myself for the first time in a country where I didn't speak the language
• Malmo - Spent the night locked in the train station with some old women for safety

Answers in Genes: Show me the Sausages!

This cracked me up. Very nice.

Show me the Sausages!

"A philosopher designs a marvellous sausage machine. A scientist comes
to marvel at this wonderful creation, and raises an eyebrow.
The philosopher says, 'Ah, behold the wonderful cogs and sprockets and
temperature-controlled mixing chambers in my wonderful machine -
surely you can see how it must produce the most fantastic sausages!'
The scientist says 'Yes, that is all very interesting. Show me the sausages.'
The philosopher says 'How dare you, a mere scientist, question my
wonderful philosophical reasoning?'
Scientist: 'I'm not questioning your reasoning - I want to know if
your machine really produces sausages.'
Philosopher: 'Can you point to any flaw in my argument that it
produces sausages?'
Sci: 'I don't know - I just want to know if it produces sausages. Here
is some meat. Why don't you feed it through and see if you get any
sausages?'
Phil: 'And sully my wonderful machine with mere offal?'
Sci: 'You said it was a sausage machine. I want to see the sausages.'
Phil: 'Are you questioning my ingredients?'
Sci: 'I'm just questioning whether it produces sausages or not. Show
me the sausages.'
Phil: 'Ah, so you cannot attack my premises and you cannot attack my
argument. Therefore I'm right and you lose.'
Sci: 'Don't be such a melodramatic prancing arse. Show me the sausages.'
Phil: 'The sausages inevitably flow from the argument. You see my fine
machine. You can even inspect the meat & onions. The sausages
necessarily flow.'
Sci: 'Show me the sausages or I'm off to Tesco.'
Phil: 'You are a mere scientist with no understanding of philosophical matters.'
Sci: 'Bye.'

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story' | Science | The Guardian

Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story' | Science | The Guardian:

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark"

A couple of comments I liked this morning

An Ohpelia Benson comment:

God I hate sanctimony. I hate it more than some worse things, probably – it grates on me more. I hate it when people make it very obvious that they think they’re super-good people, sent to Enlighten all the rest of us.

The truly “nice” people I’ve known didn’t/don’t do that. They don’t do anything even resembling that. They just are kind and unself-obsessed and easygoing. They just do it, they don’t tell you they’re doing it, they’d laugh if you told them they were doing it, they don’t lecture you about doing it, they don’t talk solemn bullshit about doing it, they don’t give themselves big hugs every ten seconds for doing it. Not one of them is remotely sanctimonious.

A PZ Myers coment:

complexity and design are independent properties of an object. One does not imply the other. You cannot determine whether something was designed by looking at whether it is complicated or not.

Lliz's graduation.

Yay!  Liz graduated yesterday with her Master's in Special Education and her level 2 teaching credentials.  Quite the relief!  We got some pics with her professors and then went to dinner with Becky, Bram, Allena and Heather.

Field Trip

120 3rd graders from Calabasas Elementary School came to WVI on 20 May on a field trip.

Note to the organizing teacher and the volunteers I had with me:
Yasmin,
I got the thank you letters from the classes and have had a good time going
through them.

Your kids were very well behaved but more importantly were interested and asked
a lot of questions.  It was my pleasure to let them in my plane and to talk to
them about flying and the airport.  I am sure the other volunteers feel the
same.  I hope to see them again around the airport, because airports are cool!

To all the volunteers ("airport people") who helped out:
Chris, the loudspeaker worked great, thanks!
Theresa, thanks for the great ideas, display in the terminal and putting up with
us
Rob, thanks for getting power up and being Rayvon's mechanic
John, thanks for the airplane to show and bringing a great friend who got 120
kids through map reading exercises
Dennis, thanks for showing your plane and let the kids climb in
Mary, thanks for leading the crowds out to the compass rose and back, did you
get your walk in?
Juan Carlos, thanks for the models and ground school help
Jim, thanks for the help on the ramp and ground schools
Abby, thanks for showing Theresa's airport info in the terminal
Rayvon, thanks for the great intro speech and showing your beautiful Bonanza.

I hope I didn't forget anyone.

It was a good day.
Tom