Bad Day

My scooter was blown over by the wind during the work day and dented a car parked next to it. I left a note for the owner but haven't heard back from him or her.

I went to the dentist this morning and found out I have two small cavities that will need filling. These are the first cavities I've had. Despite my recent efforts to be very diligent in flossing and brushing, I still lost. Apparently I'm doing something wrong.

Sigh.

I wish today had gone differently.

God Cancelled Church Today

This morning, in the middle of church, the tornado sirens went off. One of the church security guys quickly ducked out out of the service to verify (somehow) and came back in to report that, yes, the National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for our county. The pastor told everybody to round up their kids from children's church upstairs while they figured out the best course of action. Again, by means I know not of, they were able to ascertain that there were no active tornados in our county and decided it would be best if everybody went home as a preventative measure. I overheard the pastor say that if our church had a basement, we probably would just go down there and continue as normal.

I was talking with the sound guy about this while we were waiting for more information to be gathered and he wished the National Weather Service wasn't so cautious. If he was running the show, he said he would only active the sirens when an actual tornado was seen rather than just when there is rotation in the clouds (as was the case this morning). His point was simple: the high number of "false alarms" encourages people to disregard the sirens when they do sound.

His point is a good one and my complaint regarding the system is similar: our finest level of resolution for warnings is an entire county. There could be a very deadly tornado dozens of miles from me and the sirens will still go off. In fact, the National Weather Service could be virtually certain that there is no danger to all of Wichita but if there is danger to some part of the county, the sirens will sound.

For better or for worse, most people respond to the sirens by first turning on the TV or radio rather than seeking shelter immediately. In a city that deals with dangerous weather frequently, ALL of the "serious" local TV stations have invested a great deal of money in their weather forecasting equipment, sets, and staff. You can be sure that if the sirens have sounded in Wichita, every one of these stations will be carrying a very in-depth and seemingly interminable analysis. It won't take but a few seconds to figure out what course of action is appropriate.

Lastly, one of the things I brought to our marriage was a Midland weather radio which has been serving us well these past few days. Every hazardous weather watch and warning issues by the National Weather Service sets this thing into loud beeping mode followed by automatically tuning in to the continuous National Weather Service weather channel where the cause of the alarm is explained. The radio is great; even if a tornado came late at night, we would be immediately awaken. On days like today, though, when National Weather Service is issuing warning after warning, it can be quite annoying.

The other advantage of having this radio is that we are never in need of the latest weather forecast, current weather conditions, or weather almanac entry for the day. We have "Misty", our friendly speech-impediment prone, computer synthesized voice who is vigilant in keeping us up-to-date and tirelessly, hour after hour, provides the latest in weather related news. Even during slow weather days, we sometimes tune into Misty to hear her mispronounce words; our favorite is "cloudy".

The Mystery Of Ants

Now this is the kind of research paper I would like to write. Check it out. This guy figured the best way to learn about the physical structure of an ant colony was to pour liquid plaster down it, let it set up, and then dig out the casting. Reading into the article a bit, it sounds like molten metal has also been attempted with varying degrees of success. Fun quote from the article: "Pouring red-hot aluminum in the bottom of a 2-meter pit runs the risk of having ones socks catch on fire from the radiant heat."

I read the abstract of the paper but not the full article itself. For best results, scroll down to the bottom of the article for all the neato pictures. Here's the first and most eye-catching:

Jeff Wenzel

This past weekend a prominent member of our church passed away after fighting a brain tumor for four years. Today was the service for Jeff Wenzel and I was glad to be a part of it. There are a lot of trivial things I could say about the service today and maybe I will some other time.

One significant truth became more clear to me today, though: the repeated Biblical command to care for the orphans and widows is a significant and needed service in the corporate Body. Though I have read it many times throughout Scripture, the reality of what this means moved from a mental exercise to living practice today. Jeff's three children no longer have a biological father to provide for them. The role of fathering, for now, has been passed on to our church body as a whole. I don't know what kind financial provisions are in place but I know a trust was established to help with the education of his children. As one of the pastor's at the service said, "It is appropriate to donate generously." This is probably one of the most significant ways my wife and I will be able to help Jeff's family.

Ironically, Jeff and another member of our church founded an organization here in Wichita ( Youth Horizons ) geared towards mentoring the fatherless children of Wichita. I pray that God will provide good father-figures for his children.

Name That Dot

Just recently I was able to do something I've wanted to do since I moved to Wichita: I used the telescope at Lake Afton Observatory to take a photograph of the heavens. One evening a month the observatory allows anybody with a camera to come and use the telescope for photographic purposes. The subject for the evening is pre-selected and the staff at the observatory provide the hardware you need to connect the camera to the telescope.

Part of the reason it has taken me this long to participate in the program is that it usually takes place at 11pm Sat. night; this is WAY past my bedtime. Additionally, the weather has also stymied a few past attempts. Things worked out great this month, though, as the skies were clear and the shoot started at 8:30pm Sunday night.

As for the quality of the photo, well, I don't have a ton of excuses. It was my first time on the telescope so that didn't help. The heat of the day rising off the cooling ground also added a lot of, uhmm, shimmer making a nice, solid, National Geographic photo pretty much out of the question. Plus, this particular subject is quite a ways away so even through the telescope it wasn't very large.

The mystery object: Venus.

The observatory is doing also Jupiter and Mars this year but I think I may hold out for the moon as I expected the shots to turn out much better.

Stillwater Don't Need No Netflix

This last weekend my wife and I were down in Stillwater, Oklahoma for a two-year old's birthday party (cute pictures to follow soon) and afterward spent some time with my wife's brother, Ben. We decided to watch a movie and Ben suggested we stop by a local video store there in town called "Video Vault". Ben thought I would like the place and he was absolutely right.

Probably the simplest way to describe Video Vault is by saying it is a specialty video store. You could also say that Video Vault is the exact opposite of Blockbuster; in the way that Blockbuster promises to have all the latest greatest movies in stock (or at least they used to), Video Vault "promises" to have a whole bunch of old, odd, and unusual movies you may or may not have heard of, like, say, the Academy award winner for best picture from 1962. They got it. Its in the in "Academy Award" section which is near the "Anime" section which is near the "Organized By Director" section which is near the "Blacksplotation" section which is near the "Date Movie" section which is near the "Rent At Your Own Risk" section (whatever that is).

I'm a Netflix member so that I have access to virtually all the movies found in these sections that don't really fit the summer-blockbuster mold. If I had a store like this in Wichita, I would probably quit Netflix; Netflix provides by mail what this store provides in-person.

By the way, if we have a store like this in Wichita, it isn't in the phone book. We've got Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, a locally owned Blockbuster wannabe, and a bunch of "adult" video stores. (Why does the preface "adult" seem to connote "vice". "Adult beverage" = alcohol, "adult gaming" or "adult entertainment" = gambling, "adult video" = sex and pornography. Kind makes being an adult seem like a license to sin rather than the obligation to be responsible.) This being the case, I'm adding this to my list of potential things to do with my life: open a speciality video store in Wichita.

Rolling Again

After nearly six weeks of being out of commission, I recently got the flat on my scooter fixed and it is up and running again. What I thought would be a relatively simple task (hey, it SHOULD be) of replacing the rear tire turned into a lengthy ordeal. I knew that it would take a bit of work to get the wheel off due to things like the muffler, rear suspension, and rear brakes mounted in that area. When all was said and done, it took two visits from the mechanically inclined friend, borrowing a specialized tool called a "gear puller" from the auto parts store, and taking off a sizable portion of the rear body and seat compartment.

Ironically, there ended-up being nothing wrong with the tire; no punctures or holes of any kind. I took it in to the motorcycle shop, we ordered a new tire, and they called me back a few hours later to say the existing tire was still holding air. I ran back to get the wheel and when I tried to put it back on, I discovered a fully inflated tire can not be squeezed past the engine block to slide all the way down the axle. (This scooter is quickly earning low marks in my mind when it comes to maintainability.) Letting out some of the air and whacking on it with a rubber mallet got it back on. In a few hours I had reassembled the bike and took it out for a test ride: all was good again.

This experience has also brought to light just how poor the quality of this bike is. Several of the bearings I had a chance to inspect in this process are starting to stick and the gear meshing at the rear wheel-axel is fairly loose. "You get what you pay for" and that has played out true here as well. Fortunately, I suspected nothing less from the low price I payed and plan on making the most of this opportunity to become a more knowledgeable mechanic.

This attitude will serve we well in the near future as there is a funny rattle I need to hunt down and a front headlight that needs to be replaced.

No rest for the weary. Or those who buy cheap scooters to save a few bucks.

Frozen River

The river that runs through Wichita is frozen over in some places, including the area right near our place. I was out this Saturday morning exploring and took a few pictures from the adventure. The ice seemed quite thick in some places (maybe as much as two inches) but it was obvious that there were other spots were it was considerably thinner. I was tempted to try to crawl across the river but, given the fact that my intended route took me close to areas where liquid water still existed, I decided against it. The neatest thing I saw, by far, was a school of small fish swimming under the ice. Sadly, none of the pictures I took capture how cool this looked so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

To the Parents of Hardy Child

This afternoon our non-existant child received a box of eight books from Scholastic. We have no idea how or why we were blessed with this delivery and haven't quite figured out what to do with it, yet. (My guess is that a certain brother and sister-in-law of mine signed us up but I have not proof of this.)

We carefully read through the invoice and it was very clear that we owe money for this unrequested "introductory package" and had obligations for future book purchases. We haven't opened the package just yet and are trying to decide what do from here. Some of the options:

Do nothing. We haven't ordered anything and to the best of our knowledge they don't have our credit card information (though this may or may not actually be the case). Despite what they would like us to believe, we have not obligated ourselves in any way. Though I feel very confident that we are legally on safe ground that doesn't mean our lives can't be made unpleasant by people trying to extract money from us.

Return the books. Our little invoice lets us know that if we don't want to be members of this club we can simply return the books (they pay for shipping). This would be the polite thing to do and cause the least amount of hassle. For them, at least.

Call Scholastic and pretend to be offended at the implication that we have a child. I could pretend to be frustrated not-yet father who really desires to have a child but haven't been blessed in this way. I could pretend to be gay and make a big deal about how Kansas won't allow for the adoption of children by homosexual couples. I could pretend to be single (this despite what their database probably already knows.) We could pretend to be elderly and only have grown kids. There are all kinds of fun things you could do with this.

At this point, we're probably going to do nothing and just see what happens.

Sticking It To The Man

This past month, much to my surprise, the Wichita city council ruled against a re-zoning request that would have allowed Wal-Mart to build a third store here in town. Wal-Mart already has numerous Supercenters here in Wichita but most are on the edge of town; this was a more central location. I found out about it a few days before the vote and wrote to the council members to let them know that I didn't think Wal-Mart ran the kind of business that had the interests of Wichita in mind. I would not consider myself a wholly anti-Wal-Mart citizen (here are some that are) but definitely lean more that direction.

I wish I could say that our city council sided with the grass-roots efforts to keep Wal-Mart at bay but my reading of the minutes from that meeting (starting on page 98) lead me to believe that the council was more interested in getting the issue settled rather than give Wal-Mart time to work its PR machine to change the mind of the public. Regardless, the re-zoning request was turned down 5-0 and Wal-Mart was kept out of that particular location.

All that leaves is the rest of the city to defend.

Flickr Update

New pictures from Christmas break have been uploaded to Flckr. Enjoy!

Audit #2 Wrap-Up

This second audit turned out to be MUCH simpler than the first. To prepare for this audit, I used the same procedure as last time:

-Assemble all tax related documents from last year.
-Redo the math and make sure the total claimed on the tax return matches the total from all charitable contribution receipts.
-For each charitable contribution, match the donation receipt with a withdrawal from an account (checking, credit card...)
-Compile all this data in a nice spreadsheet to make the job of the examiner easier.

This self-audit revealed a small error I had made in the return and after thinking it over a bit, I decided to highlight this on the spread-sheet rather than hope nobody would ask about it. Honesty with the IRS seemed the most trouble-free course of action. (It turns out that the examiner asked up-front if I had found any errors during my preparation. Unless I wanted to lie, this question pretty much made irrelevant and rationalization I might have had for not mentioning the error. )

I made my way through security and on my ride up the elevator with the examiner, our conversation revealed that I had just been here eight months ago for my 2004 audit. This surprised him and he made a point of mentioning this to his supervisor who was going to sit-in on the audit.

We went through the cursory is-there-any-income-you-are-forgetting-to-tell-us-about questions (Any income from gambling? Trusts? Bartering? Garage sales?) and then proceeded to dig into the issue at hand: charitable contributions. I handed the examiner my spread-sheet and after unfolding it, he spent several seconds looking stunned. I don't know what he was expecting to see but the number of transactions he was going to have to check must have seemed daunting. He slowly turning around in his desk to grab a calculator and, with a sigh, started to ask me about the first item on my list.

At this point, his supervisor jumped in.

"What did you say your 2004 audit covered?"

Same as this one, charitable contributions.

"How did the 2004 audit turn out?"

No change to the filing was made.

"Tell us about the mistake that you found in your filing."

Due to the weird way my church reports my financial donations with them, I accidently counted $65 I paid for men's retreat as a charitable contribution. A closer examination of the receipt clearly shows that this was not a tax-deductable contribution.

"$65? That's it? If that's the extent of the error, I don't see any reason we need to continue with this. Do you have the 'case closed' letter they gave you at the end of the last audit?"

Now I was the one who was stunned. I slowly turned to my stack of folders to find my records from the 2004 audit. I handed the examiner the letter, he went to make photo-copies, and that was that.

As the supervisor explained, the IRS customarily does not examine the same person for the same item two years in a row. My impression was that this practice was not governed by law, but more by some internally-established procedures. If there had been other items of examination in the audit, they would have proceeded checking those and my charitable contributions. He said the computer that figures out who needs to get audited doesn't take into account any previous audits and when it saw my abnormally high charitable contributions, it flagged me and I got a letter. This also means that if I get flagged again in 2006, instead of scheduling an appointment I can simply call the examiner and let him know I've already been examined twice for this item.

With that, I was done. In and out in under an hour. Best of all, I don't have to file any kind of amendment to my return for that silly mistake I made. The fact that I don't have to do any extra paper-work is reward enough for me.

Hail, Sleet, Snow, and Freezing Rain

In the words of the National Weather Service, Wichita has been experiencing a "wintery mix" of precipitation this weekend. As a variety of precipitation has been falling from the sky an old debate between my wife and I has once again emerged: what exactly is sleet?

My stance has been that sleet is the same as hail and the term is a regional one. We in the northwest call it hail, in the midwest it is called sleet. My wife's view has been that hail MUST be larger and must come from a thunderstorm, thus, any winter-time small balls of ice must be sleet. After much thought and a little bit of digging on the internet, I am here to say that while there is validity to both views, hers is more correct.

Both sleet and hail are balls of frozen water; in this sense, I am correct. My wife, though, is correct in that the process for these two forming is quite different. Sleet is rain that has frozen on the way down. Hail DOES form during thunderstorms and is also frozen water but it circulates in the thunder clouds, gaining mass until the winds cannot keep it aloft any longer. Sleet must be small, hail can be large.

For the sake of complete-ness, snow is water vapor that freezes directly to a crystal, freezing rain is liquid rain that freezes on contact with a cold surface.

In the final assessment, Wichita has experienced sleet, snow, and freezing rain but will have to wait for this spring for the hail.

Power On Start-Up

At my brother's request, I measured the power consumption of my computer during start-up. As I kind of guessed, power usage is relatively variable, anywhere from 65W to 105W. Using my finely honed real-time, eyeball-powered skills, I would say the average during the whole process was around 90W.

Scooter Flat

I got my first flat tire on my scooter this morning. I don't think that flat was there when I started but coming around a corner not far form home I was certain something was up with the rear tire. I pulled over and confirmed my suspicions. I wasn't too far from home so I decided to just push the bike back; this took more time and effort than I would have guessed.

My wife gave me a ride to and from work and when I got home I took a closer look. I can't identify what caused the flat but I was thankful to see that getting the rear wheel off won't be as difficult as I would have imagined. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get everything working again.

You know you're a nerd when....

This Christmas, I requested and received something that many of you will find highly nerdy and not all that interesting: an electrical power meter. I have long wondered just how much various items around the house use (home electronics, mainly) and I now have a way to measure and see for myself.

First up, the computer. Instead of shutting my computer (iMac G5) down every time I am done using it, I put it into "sleep" mode. The display turns off, the disks spin down and the computer appears to be off except for a pulsing heart-beat-like light below the display. Power consumed in this state: 9W. Considering most house-hold incandescent lamps are 60W or greater, this is not much power at all. Overnight in the state, my computer consumed 0.08 kW-hrs. Even at $0.10/kW-hr, this is only pennies a month to avoid the hassle of shutting down and restarting my computer every time I want to use it.

Other misc. measurements I made on the computer:

-The display can be set to turn off after a period of disuse. The display consumes about 15W at full brightness. This is a lot less than I expected considering...
-During my normal usage, my computer consumes about 70W. This varies quite a bit depending on what I'm doing but the normal email, web-surfing, typing all weigh in about the same.
-When I'm doing processor intensive work like photo-editing or DVD-rendering the computer consumes about 110W.

I'll be measuring other stuff and probably (maybe) post on it later but I'll leave you with this one highly practical tidbit: those compact florescent lamps REALLY DO use a lot less energy than incandescent bulbs. The ones I've measured have all met their advertised power consumption. These light sources consume only 14W and provide the light of a 60W incandescent. Do us all a favor and go out and get yourself some of these for all the high-usage areas of your home. They'll probably pay for themselves over the life of the bulb and provide the warm fuzzy that you get when you save energy.

Well, at least I do.

Audit #2

Our mail was on hold while we were out on Christmas break and, due to Gerald Ford's death, we didn't get our mail until Wednesday. Waiting in the stack on my desk was a little letter from our friendly neighborhood IRS office.

Yes, once again, I am being audited.

The last audit was for my charitable contributions during the 2004 tax year. This audit is for contributions during 2005. I guess the good news is that I haven't filed my 2006 return so I can't be audited for it. Yet.

I don't know what to make of this. Katie thinks that once you're audited, you stay on the IRS watch list. I'm skeptical but don't have a better guess at this point. I haven't started to assemble the documents yet but I'm not very worried. Additionally, since I've done this before, I have a pretty good idea what to expect.

Two audits, eight months.

Sheesh.

Early Speilberg

My wife borrowed a copy of Close Encounters of the Third Kind over Thanksgiving and we watched it the other night. I know it was quite popular at the time but when all was said and done, I have no idea why. Well, that's not quite true, the visual effects used to create the alien spaceships were quite well done. I would say that to this day, they hold up quite well and don't appear fake at all. (This is not true of the make-up used on the aliens. They looked like small children with rubber masks.) Aside from that, though, I found the film rather disappointing.

This isn't the only early Speilberg film that was popular when released and that I find mostly unentertaining. Just a year or two ago I finally saw Goonies, about twenty years after the peak of its popularity. There were many moments throughout the film where I had flashbacks to grade school and finally figured out the pop culture references I had missed at the time. The "Ah-ha!" effect was probably the only redeeming part of the film for me. That and the fact that it was filmed on the Oregon Coast (along with other run-away hits like Free Willy and Kindergarten Cop).

For me, the most annoying part of these early Speilberg films is the dialog/relationships between the main characters. If I had to say, the rule seemed to be that all family units must be dysfunctional in a painful way and all dialog must include at least three people talking at the same time. In the case of "Goonies", the dialog must also be loud and obnoxious.

Obviously, Speilberg went on to make other films that will probably stand the test of time: my votes are on Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. Oddly enough, there were also two films that received critical acclaim when released and were made in-between "Close Encounters" and "Goonies": The Color Purple and ET. I haven't seen "The Color Purple" but I remember the buzz surrounding it and it has been a while since I've seen ET but I know I generally enjoyed it.

So maybe early Speilberg is more inconsistent than anything else; I'm sure some would say that this just isn't early Speilberg but all Speilberg. For me, though, I think I am much more able to tolerate his more recent films than his early ones.

That said, it looks like Jurassic Park IV is in pre-production with Mr. Speilberg as the executive producer. I think I'll pass.

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving Travel:

Wednesday Night: Wichita, KS to Enid, OK
Thursday Night: Enid, OK to Mutual, OK
Friday Afternoon: Mutual, OK to Hitchcock, OK
Friday Evening: Hitchcock, OK to Stillwater, OK
Saturday Afternoon: Stillwater, OK to Wichita, KS


Why all the driving? Well, Katie's extended family all showed up for Thanksgiving day but the turnout was not so fantastic the following day, her birthday. For whatever reason, almost everybody had made other plans so we decided to take the initiative and go and see them. It made for quite a bit of driving and we were definitely vagrants for most of the weekend (a different bed every night) but we didn't have much of a choice; family is important to Katie

So how did we end the weekend? We rolled back in to town Saturday afternoon and proceeded to do nothing most of the day. Katie signed up for a bow-tying and wreath-making class at a gardening store near here, we went through the mail, and then watched a movie while having delicious pizza for dinner. Oh, and we had cake and ice cream afterwards. Though her actual birthday day wasn't that spectacular, I think her birthday weekend is going to end up just fine.

UPDATE: Sam's Club and Aviation

As a follow-up to my previous post, it should be noted that the jet has sold.

UPDATE: Sorry for the bad link; it's fixed now.