Fish Fear Me

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving. Little bro is hosting the festivities here and I have the very easy task of just bringing some wine. I can handle that. I could actually handle the entire meal if I had to, I've cooked a few turkeys over the years, but having a tiny house makes it tough to handle a traditional sit-down dinner like Thanksgiving. And no, I didn't plan it that way. Ahem.

By the way, I love the standard Thanksgiving dinner. I love the leftovers just as much, if not more. I've heard people complain about having to eat turkey for days and days after, but I say bring it on. Turkey sandwiches, turkey and gravy over rice, whatever. So I have to scoff a little bit at these two posts I read last night:

So as long as turkey is going to sit like a colossus atop the Thanksgiving meal, we may as well figure out a way to reduce its suck factor.

and

Ever noticed that your favorite dishes from your traditional family Thanksgiving are all sides? And that that one time you had Thanksgiving dinner outside your traditional family gathering the best dishes there were sides? And how when your friends organized a fauxsgiving festival the week before Thanksgiving the best dishes were sides? That’s because turkey doesn’t taste good. Not that it has to be terrible. But at best, you come out with a neutral flavored bit of protein that’s not so dry as to have a repugnant texture and therefore becomes a decent vehicle for gravy.

Um, gentlemen? You're not doing it right. That's the only explanation I can come up with. I mean, if you don't like turkey, you don't like turkey.  But to lay some blanket statement out there such as turkey sucks or you get a neutral flavored bit of protein is ridiculous. And no, you don't have to chop a turkey into pieces in order to cook it well. Mom doesn't have to do that. Grandma didn't have to do that. Heck, I don't have to do that. Maybe it's a "who are you gonna believe, me or your own lying taste buds?" kind of thing.

I gently scoff here, but it's kind of sad actually. Perhaps the Office of the President-elect will note the tragedy of the turkey challenged and get some help on the way so that every American who wants to can enjoy a properly cooked turkey by this time next year. I'll handle the leftovers

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...cont.

On the way back home Saturday I noticed quite a few Iowa plates on the cars headed north with me on I-35. Most were going to the Metrodome for the Gophers-Hawkeyes game no doubt. Apparently a couple of those Iowa fans were either so excited or bored by the game that they decided to get very friendly in a bathroom stall of the Metrodome and were cited by police for misdemeanor indecent conduct.

Now that is not particularly shocking these days, though it's tough to think of a more disgusting public place to get intimate with someone. I mean, they really do try to keep those restrooms clean, but there were 55,000 football fans there, most of them drinking I'm sure, so that's just nasty. Nor am I shocked that both were intoxicated. What is kind of weird about this story is this:

He was released to his girlfriend and she to her husband, police said.

I bet those were a couple of long and, shall we say...awkward, rides home.

More: Heheh, What Happens in Metrodome...

And the line of the day, since that was the last Gopher football game there: "Stadium goes out with bang."

Ba-doom boom, ching!

Thanks folks, we'll be here all week.

Things I've Done

I got this one from Sheila O'Malley. The ones in bold I've done. I'll try to keep the comments to a minimum.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain (well, hiked up. No ropes or anything. Does that count?)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing (I'm going to count Lake Superior here)
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Weekend Good, Bad, Ugly

Good: My dad teaches a graduate level strategic planning course and this year he has a section at one of the school's small campuses about an hour drive south of Minneapolis. They meet every three weeks(I think) and cram that into Friday night/Saturday sessions. He had a guest speaker crap out on him so he tapped me to do a presentation on a real world project I drove, and how we completely revamped the product and the related business processes. I was a little rusty I think, but it seemed to go well. At least I got a warm round of applause at the end and a few people came up to chat when they took a break after my presentation.

Bad: Stick a fork in my FFL team, they're done. I played the league leader this weekend in a must win game and was holding my own until Atlanta's Michael Turner scored four freakin' touchdowns. I still have a chance with Ryan Grant playing for me tonight. If you call Grant having to score four touchdowns a chance. I don't.

Ugly: The at-one-point-ranked Minnesota Gophers played their last football game at the Metrodome in an ugly loss to Iowa, 55-0. It was a fitting tribute to some 25 years of mediocrity masquerading as major college football. Not that the dome was at fault for that, but it never turned out to be the major positive factor that boosters assured us that it would be. Now we get to spend a couple hundred million building a new stadium on campus to replace the perfectly good one that was torn down 25 years ago. This all makes sense to someone, somewhere. I've just never actually met them.

Warning to Surfers

000
WTNT35 KNHC 062037
TCPAT5
BULLETIN
HOFFICANE SURFER WARNING NUMBER  01
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HOFFICANE CENTER MINNEAPOLIS MN
5 PM AST SAT NOV 22 2008

...HOFFICANE CONFIRMED...

TODAY AT APPROXIMATELY 5 PM AST...2100Z...A BRUTAL HOFFICANE WAS REPORTED AT THE COALITION OF THE SWILLING...A SITE KNOWN TO BE HIGH RISK FOR HOFFICANES. A HOFFICANE URGENT RESPONSE AND LOCATE (HURL) TEAM WAS DISPATCHED TODAY. THE HURL TEAM CONFIRMED THE PRESENCE OF AN INTERNET HOFFICANE AT THAT LOCATION...AND THIS HOFFICANE IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE ON THE MAIN PAGE FOR THE NEXT 3 TO 5 DAYS.

...NOTE:FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS DIRECTLY LINKING TO A HOFFICANE...(WELL, IT SHOULD)

THIS IS A DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 HOFFICANE...CAPABLE OF CAUSING UNCONTROLLED WEEPING, RENDING OF GARMENTS, HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS AND LOSS OF FAITH IN GOD.

...TAKE ALL APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS WHEN SURFING TO A HOFFICANE INFESTED LOCATION...

REPEATING THE 5 PM AST POSITION...THE COALITION OF THE SWILLING...

THIS IS THE LAST PUBLIC ADVISORY ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HOFFICANE
CENTER ON THIS SYSTEM.

FORECASTER DAVE E.

$$

000
WTNT35 KNHC 062037
TCPAT5
BULLETIN
HOFFICANE SURFER WARNING NUMBER  01
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HOFFICANE CENTER MINNEAPOLIS MN
5 PM AST SAT NOV 22 2008

...HOFFICANE CONFIRMED...

TODAY AT APPROXIMATELY 5 PM AST...2100Z...A BRUTAL HOFFICANE WAS REPORTED AT THE COALITION OF THE SWILLING...A SITE KNOWN TO BE HIGH RISK FOR HOFFICANES. A HOFFICANE URGENT RESPONSE AND LOCATE (HURL) TEAM WAS DISPATCHED TODAY. THE HURL TEAM CONFIRMED THE PRESENCE OF AN INTERNET HOFFICANE AT THAT LOCATION...AND THIS HOFFICANE IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE ON THE MAIN PAGE FOR THE NEXT 3 TO 5 DAYS.

...NOTE:FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS DIRECTLY LINKING TO A HOFFICANE...(WELL, IT SHOULD)

THIS IS A DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 HOFFICANE...CAPABLE OF CAUSING UNCONTROLLED WEEPING, RENDING OF GARMENTS, HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS AND LOSS OF FAITH IN GOD.

...TAKE ALL APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS WHEN SURFING TO A HOFFICANE INFESTED LOCATION...

REPEATING THE 5 PM AST POSITION...THE COALITION OF THE SWILLING...

THIS IS THE LAST PUBLIC ADVISORY ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HOFFICANE
CENTER ON THIS SYSTEM.

FORECASTER DAVE E.

$$

Question of the Day...or not

But the real question, in an age that cops to an over 50% divorce rate, isn’t “Why aren’t more men getting married under 30?” It’s Why are any?

That's from this post by Michael Weiss today at Pajamas Media. He is examining this piece by Kay S. Hymowitz at City Journal: Love in the Time of Darwinism.

This seems to me to be a continuation of a discussion that took place about a year ago on the web. That Hymowitz article had me alternating between guffaws of laughter and little gasps of horror. I mean, who are these people who...

Oh, hello B9. Yeah, you're probably right and I should just leave this alone. See the thing is though, I have all of this personal exper...

Oh right, the too much information thing. But I'm sure I could avoid the TMI and help those people out with some sound advice about the old "war between the sexes"...

But...

Right.

So, about that grouse the other day...

I Don't Think So...

I'm having one of those angel on one shoulder and devil on the other moments:

That’s right, the first U.S. Attorney General with a mustache in nearly a hundred years. And I say, it’s about time.

Think, Roger, think hard.

Things You Don't See Every Day, cont.

Over the years I've seen plenty of grouse that were unafraid of humans, pretty much all of them when I was on canoe trips in the BWCA. On more than one occasion while portaging they have barely moved off of the trail as I passed by. I'm sure that some grouse deep within the BWCA have never been hunted by or seen any aggressive behavior from a human so that doesn't surprise me.

This is a bit out of the ordinary though:

The background story at the Strib is here and he has a couple more videos of "Ruffy" on YouTube here.

Murdoch Gets It

I'm sure that just the title of this post is enough to give some people the vapors, but I think what he is quoted as saying in this post from Charles Cooper at CNET cuts to the core of what ails the news media today.

Item 1:

"It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news-and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren't satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven't always responded well when the public calls them to account."

Item 2:

"Mr. Rather and his defenders are not alone," he continued. "A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let's be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves."

Heh, now that's "Truth to Power", baby!

The Internet has brought real revenue challenges to the news industry that can't be denied. The killer issue that it has brought though, one that for the most part has not been addressed, is the growing credibility gap between the stated goal of old news media, informing the public, and the actual product they deliver, which basically sucks in that regard. People are not fleeing the old newspapers or the broadcast news programs because they have lost interest in the news, it's because they have lost faith that those outlets will provide them with reasonably accurate and full information. Instead, consumers are increasingly aware that they are getting politically correct narratives that are really parodies of news reports.

It's not rocket science, and Murdoch knows it. Old Media: Ignore him, and your customers, at your peril.

The NTSB and the 35W Bridge Collapse

The NTSB has concluded that the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last year was primarily due to a design flaw that remained undiscovered for decades:

Washington, DC - The National Transportation Safety Board has determined the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error by Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates, Inc., of the gusset plates at the U10 nodes, which failed under a combination of (1) substantial increases in the weight of the bridge, which resulted from previous modifications, and (2) the traffic and concentrated construction loads on the bridge on the day of the accident.

Contributing to the design error was the failure of Sverdrup & Parcel's quality control procedures to ensure that the appropriate main truss gusset plate calculations were performed for the I-35W bridge and the inadequate design review by federal and state transportation officials. 

Also contributing was the generally accepted practice among Federal and State transportation officials of giving inadequate attention to gusset plates during inspections for conditions of distortion, such as bowing, and of excluding gusset plates in load rating analysis.

The full report will be released in a few weeks. The rescue effort was still going on that night when I saw this asshole on TV, El Tinklenberg, blaming Gov. Pawlenty's veto of a gas tax increase for the collapse. I'm no fan of Michelle Bachmann, but I'm glad that prick lost to her. Others quickly followed suit and to this day, even after this report, some are still trying to make it a political issue:

But state Sen. Jim Carlson, DFL-Eagan, vice chair of the Senate Transportation Committee and a retired mechanical engineer, said the NTSB's findings had done little to change his mind about the meaning of the collapse.

"We're not maintaining our infrastructure," he said, adding that there also "wasn't the seriousness in figuring out the loading on the bridge."

While Carlson said Pawlenty "didn't cause it to go down," the evidence shows that "very few did something to keep it up." The governor, he added, "really ought to be lowering his head and saying, 'I'm sorry.'"

This was not a "maintaining infrastructure" issue, as much as Carlson would like to make it one. The primary cause here was a design flaw, and secondarily flawed processes for recalculating loads over the years that failed to go back and check underlying assumptions. That last being a terrible and tragic lesson that needs to be heeded across the country.

By all means let's talk about what we need to do to improve and rebuild infrastructure in this state and the country as a whole. Just don't do it by falsely and cynically using this tragedy as a talking point.