• Apartment Living – Discarded Drug Paraphernalia and Unauthorized Laundry Room Use

    Apartment Living – Discarded Drug Paraphernalia and Unauthorized Laundry Room Use

    In this episode, expanding upon the use of Swisher Sweets as wrappers for cannabis, we examine a couple of other items of detritus, and abuse of the provided facilities Item 1 – used hypodermic syringe While walking our dogs the other day, my wife stumbled across a discarded hypodermic syringe in the bushes at the…

  • The new near-homeless

    A continuation of a series on our (hopefully) temporary apartment living experience. This episode is around the increasing number of people who are living in their vehicles. Not quite the overt homeless living rough, these are people with enough resources for a camper, or a van large enough to sleep in. Walking the neighborhood with…

  • Cycling: Road vs. Mountain

    Today, since I didn’t want to deal with the muck on the trails, I dragged the road bike out of the closet, dusted it off, and headed out for a ride. It has been only a month or so since I last rode it, in the interim focusing on the mountain bike and offroad riding.…

  • Drugs Inc. – An at times brutal view of the drug trade

    Drugs Inc. – An at times brutal view of the drug trade

    Life with Netflix Streaming is never dull. As they increase their library, and more importantly, improve their algorithms for matching what I would like, I get some great recommendations. One such recommendations is a show on the National Geographic Channel called Drugs Inc. Netflix is missing the first season, but I practically binged on the…

  • Music Appreciation – Keith Emerson

    Music Appreciation – Keith Emerson

    When two progressive rock (prog rock) fans get together, there is really only one question that matters. Wakeman or Emerson. If neither of these names rings a bell with you, then you might as well navigate away now. The question is who do you prefer, Rick Wakemen (keyboard player from Yes, and who has had…

  • Time – How barbaric is DST

    Time – How barbaric is DST

    Having lived for 11 years in the civilized enclave that is Arizona, my first cycle back to barbarism is today. I speak of the biennial changing of the clocks. Today is supposed to be the “good” switch, where you gain an hour. At 2:00AM the time is magically 1:00 and you get this extra hour…

  • Saying goodbye to an old friend

    Saying goodbye to an old friend

    Today, I lay to rest an old faithful friend. She joined our household for Christmas in 2007, and has been a faithful servant ever since. Alas, the end must come for all, and that day is today. Of course, I am talking about our Capresso coffee maker. Back when I bought her, it was the…

  • Walking Away – A Facebook Group was taking over my life

    Walking Away – A Facebook Group was taking over my life

    There is a closed community that I participate in on Facebook that I have been a member of for about 7 months. I was invited to join, and I thought I had found a den of like minded people to share our common goals. It was an amazing and safe place to hang out. Really…

  • Whatever happened to … Adobe Flash

    Whatever happened to … Adobe Flash

    Remember a few years ago (was it really 2008?) when the iPhone was hot, Android was beginning to take root, and the big argument was … Flash support in internet browsing? Yep, I was just thinking about how much outrage that Steve Jobs dared to say that Adobe Shockwave Flash was awful. At the time…

  • Initial Thoughts – Mac OS X 10 – Yosemite

    I have been using the latest OS on my MacBook Air for about a week now, and in general I really like it. Not Earth shaking, but solid, and the improvements really add up to a better experience all around. The UI – briefly The first thing that you notice is the flat visuals. Bowing…