http://pinette.org/jack ...where jack sometimes does stuff, but mostly not Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:46:15 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I hate it. Hate hate hate. It has stolen my brain and I want it back. I wish for Vishnu arms so I can hear no evil and see no evil at the same time. http://pinette.org/jack/2008/09/17/the-election/ Daphne and I went on a looong bike ride the other day, down a bike path that winds behind the rec center and through some pretty areas of town.  She is still angry about the time I took her training wheels off, but with them on again she was comfortable enough ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/09/09/bike-ho/ My poor brain is tired of trying to absorb all the stories about all the crazy junk that whatsername did up in Alaska. Is someone making a list with the help of a suitable computerized digital electronic list-making device of some kind, I hope? I'm pretty sure I heard that ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/09/03/must-stop/ It's been a weekend of politics-as-dadaist-performance-art, and didn't we have fun?  Whether McCain wins or not, Sarah Palin is a harbinger of the future. The fact there was no one able to prevent McCain from choosing such an obviously inadequate imperial manager, and choosing her in such a bizarre, ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/09/02/the-crazy-pole/ Daphne had her very first day of Kindergarten today. She was a wee bit excited. She's carrying a lunchbox (exciting!) shaped like Hello Kitty (double exciting!!) and has a backpack stuffed with school supplies (excitement overload!!!) Of course, nothing stomps on a 5-year-old's enthusiasm like being asked to wait in line. Seriously, she ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/08/19/first-day-of-school/ Dig that hot Russian-on-Georgian action! Cold warriors all over the country are wetting themselves with glee over this opportunity to wax moralistic over The Great Bear, cuz' man, if we're going to warp domestic and foreign policy by framing everything in terms of a grand conflict, those cold, white people with ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/08/15/do-svidaniya-millennium/ ...waking up at 1:00 A.M. to retrieve a cotton ball that your child has inexplicably inserted in her nose. Apparently she did this many hours ago and it took this long to become painful. Pulling it out was also painful in that she was screaming. Actually this served to remind me how ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/07/16/parenting-is/ This heartwarming story of TSA officials confiscating airplane meal utensils from a pilot is a pretty hilarious example of what I've long been thinking of as the Soviet-ization of America. A less hilarious example is the recent craven capitulation of Congress to President Bush's every whim on the whole warrantless wiretapping ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/07/11/your-papers-comrade/ Here is a nice brief pictorial overview of the 2008 floods in Iowa City. The parts you saw on CNN were probably Cedar Rapids, which is located nearby but is on the Cedar River, not the Iowa River like we are. The flooding involved several different waterways. http://pinette.org/jack/2008/07/03/retrospective/ Remember when the army covered up Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire? Well now they are covering up this young woman's death by friendly fire: The additional wrinkle is that along with friendly fire, LaVena Johnson also suffered friendly rape and friendly getting-burned-with-acid and friendly being-set-fire-to. Oh, and since we wouldn't want to ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/07/01/friendly/ If your job involves some sort of ongoing operational responsibility, and if your brain works anything like mine, you probably worry a bit about any extended absence, such as a long vacation. Something will break, right? And you won't be there to fix it! This is how I ended up ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/06/12/catastrophe/ Bread dough climbing up the hook on your fancy mixer instead of kneading gracefully? Hit that hook with a little non-stick spray before you start. I've been making bread in this machine for years and got the best result ever today with this little nugget of information. They ought to put ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/05/04/hot-and-doughy-tip/ Hard to believe, but our little munchkin is turning 5 this week. No, not on Thursday. That's just pizza day, is all. I swear we didn't teach her how to do this. She asked for help spelling Thursday, but that's it. Holly remarked that if we actually did any kind of ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/04/09/pizza-on-thursday/ The University of Iowa (where I work) and area schools were on lockdown this morning due to news of a gunman on the loose. I got a text message from the University's automated alert system, saying to watch out for an armed man in a tan Toyota Sienna minivan with ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/03/24/damn-it-all-to-hell/ I stumbled on this interesting story about Iranians at a shopping center attacking a group of religious police who were attempting to arrest a young woman for a dress-code violation: That was when the large crowd, predominately made up of young people, rose up against the police and attempted ... http://pinette.org/jack/2008/02/27/oh-futile-bloggering/