Redirections

I have moved my blog since I got me a domain name and if I ever figure out the redirect thing I'll close this one, until then go here.

I can haz domain

I am moving to my very own domain name. Now I just need to figure out how to redirect because copying and pasting is slow and dumb.

I have a confession I have paid no attention to American motorcycle racing since DMG bought out the AMA for the rights to AMA roadracing but this makes me sad. (and I know I’m late, like I said I haven’t been paying attention) Superbike Planet notes that Kevin Cameron wasn’t at Daytona this year his reasons are sound but it’s still a sad day for Motorcycle racing. Not as sad as Honda not being involved in the sport anymore but still pretty sucky.

Cash for Clunkers

  It's been slow at work for the last 8 months but really slow the last two, now February and March are typically kinda slow in the auto repair biz but this is pretty amazingly bad. Yesterday in my ample free time at work it occurred to me that I had forgotten one of the probable contributors to this time of suckage... Cash for Clunkers.
  Anyone who had the cash or credit went out and bought a new car because our federal government subsidized the purchase price and then required said old cars drivetrain be permanently disabled so those cars didn't go back into the market.  So people with the money for repair or maintenance on their "gas guzzler" bought a new car, after all if Uncle Sam wants to help pay for it, why not?
  Well here are a couple reasons 1) New car sales crashed after the program ended putting lots of stress on dealerships and their commission paid salesmen. 2) It depresses the vehicle maintenance market which means a lot of small businesses and their employees are heavily stressed and dipping into their cash reserves. Some shops and techs will die from this drop. 3) It creates a market bubble very similar to the housing bubble there are economic incentives to get people in cars now and worry about whether they can afford them later. 4) It means I need to go get a part time job or start doing side work at home which I hate for a multitude of reasons but pays pretty well as I have little traditional overhead.
  Those of you who don't know an automotive mechanic or technician as we sometimes like to be called are asking what does he care if it's busy or not that just means more time surfing the web or whatever and getting paid, nope to the paid part. See most techs work on what is best called commission meaning I get a piece of every billed hour of labor. Some shops also guarantee their techs a certain base salary, usually an unattractively low number to encourage productivity, but many don't and where I work is one of those, so no work equals itty, bitty, teeny paychecks that don't cover expenses. I'd get a new job but no one is hiring....the market is depressed by a much higher than normal number of new cars on the roads which will need little to no maintenance for the next 100,000 miles.
  It is another example that shows government interference in markets always damages some other portion of said market.

I don't have a Zombie label

Zombies, now I do.

Tuna smackdown

  Some friends* of Sari's and I created a goof called the Tuna hotdish smack down last year mostly to give us all an excuse to get together over the winter and visit. So as reigning champion I decided this year I needed to twist things a bit. 

  My initial thoughts were to deconstruct the ingredients, foody talk for using traditional ingredients in a different arrangement, so one way to do it would be instead of a casserole you would have a plate of pasta like tagliatelle with a mushroom cream sauce and sliced tuna steak with Parmesan and ground pepper. That seemed needlessly complicated for something that needs to travel 30 miles before eating. I agonized, I pondered and then I found the idea. 

  I made tuna hotdish using seared tuna steak, coconut milk, ginger, a bit of ancho chilies with slivered Parmesan cheese, French Fried Onion and coconut flake for some crunch. I also made a couple testers in ramekins for quality control purposes.

Update: I have retained my crown, it was close, because the head chef from the Harbor View Restaurant showed up too late to be judged. Without that misstep of the pro I would have placed second.


Abode Gallery has some furniture that makes me drool, if you need beautiful stuff for your house this would be a good place to go. 

Rewarding the good guys

So Sunday I'm going to give money to Starbucks in a show of support as detailed by gun bloggers everywhere but I think I'm going to pass on the political statement to the barista because Stingray brings up a couple good points. I have emailed Starbucks and will fill out a comment card Sunday when I make a 30 mile trip for a cup of coffee.

The tasters were surprised

Well this sucks for someone but evidently not for the super evil corporation. What I do know is as work has gotten slower and my paycheck has shrunk because of said work slow down I am spending more of my money on groceries from WalMart and less and less at the Co-op. At this point The Wedge or The Seward Co-op gets money for coffee, seafood and some specialty fruits and veggies that the HP Lovecraft corporation. doesn't carry. Another nice plus with this shift is I can buy ammo at the grocery store now which saves time. Life is good. 

H/T to Instapundit

So there

Created by Oatmeal

More Heinlein

  So I was looking for photos of Bonny Doon after Roberta X reminded me of Heinlein's second foray into architecture and came across his bibliography while practicing my google fu and came to the startling conclusion I have read everything he wrote, most of it twice and some is read biannually. As I have mentioned before he had a huge influence on both my political and societal outlook. A quote from my search is pretty apt, "Large numbers of white middleclass teenage boys, still the biggest demographic of science fiction readers, embraced Heinlein's ideals of personal freedom and minimal governmental control. As a result many of them also joined the Libertarian party."
   My personal favorites in no particular order are Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, A Citizen of the Galaxy, Time Enough for Love, Farnham's Freehold, Podkyane of Mars, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Glory Road, Number of the Beast, J.O.B. a comedy of Justice, Orphans of the Sky, I will Fear no Evil, Methuselah's Children, Red Planet and The Rolling Stones.
   In my last read through of Heinlein's writings I noticed that his early stuff, say up to the fifties has a large portion of socialism and trust in government authority that disappears in his later stuff which is pretty solidly libertarian and minimalist government wise. There was also a undercurrent of distaste for organized religion.  I found seeing the change in his political outlook fascinating and wonder at the reasons for the change. The obvious ones are the atrocities of both the Nazis and Soviet regime under Lenin and then Stalin would give pause to any rational human who could look at the difference in  socialist theory and the reality of humans but was that it?  I haven't really found anything to answer that yet. I tell you one thing I was hoping for more than this lousy dystopian government we are stuck with.
Oh yeah the pictures, Bonny Doon , they aren't great but they seem to be all there is.

Hard water racing

About the only winter sport I ever liked. Vid

Non gun related

One of my favorite authors was Robert Heinlein who apparently designed his own house back in the day. Some very interesting ideas built into a small space.