Just stuff and things...

I'm getting by still. It's been a fairly useless day, although I did send off a couple of applications that I found in the paper this morning. I haven't heard back from very many of the companies I've sent resumes to, and so far every one that I have heard back from has been a negative response. Either I'm not qualified enough, they have already filled the job, or I'm overqualified for the entry-level positions I've applied for. It sucks. Aside from that, the day was mostly spent copying data from my old desktop computer to the new laptop. I do hope to eventually get everything moved over onto here, so I can retire both of the old beasties, since I really don't use them any longer. Once I make sure I have everything off the old laptop, I do believe I'm going to load Ubuntu Linux onto it. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep my career moving along the computer track, but at least I can kind of keep up with the whole Linux deal. It won't hurt, anyway...

I think I managed to kill my sourdough starter. I think I tried adding the tap water a little too early in the process, and it killed off the yeast. I guess I'm going to have to try it again, and this time I'll keep using the filtered water for the duration. I guess it really doesn't cost anything, so I might as well. Not sure why I really bothered using the tap water anyway. Live and learn, I suppose...

Hockey's on again tonight. Canada's last hope, the Canucks, got eliminated by Chicago last night, damn it. I just really don't think Chicago is going to be able to do very much against the Red Wings, and I have the feeling the Red Wings are going to close out their series against the Ducks tonight...

Because of all the hockey and playing with the new computer, I haven't had much chance to watch a lot of baseball lately. Oh well...

Sports report, 4/18...

I got to see the Montreal Canadiens play the Boston Bruins, but I almost wish I hadn't. Montreal looked just awful, and wound up losing the game 5-1, giving Boston a 2-0 lead in the series. They move to Canada for the next game, so maybe the Canadiens will be able to give them a bit of a challenge, but I'm really not feeling like they're going to make any kind of a serious comeback in the series. They just looked bad out there last game.

In other hockey playoff results, Detroit dominated Columbus with a 4-0 shutout, to bring their series lead to 2-0, too. The visiting Rangers shut out the Capitals 1-0, to bring that series to 2-0. New York has pretty much completely turned around the "home ice advantage," and the Capitals look like they're going to be in dire straits as they move the series to Madison Square Garden. And Chicago edged out Calgary, 3-2, to also take a 2-0 lead in that series.

In baseball, the Blue Jays outlasted the Oakland A's in Toronto. It took them 12 innings to finally outscore their visitors, 4-2. That win brings the Jays' record to 9-4. Everyone else in the AL West followed the A's lead: The Angels lost in Minnesota by a final of 9-2; the visiting Royals knocked off Texas, 2-0; and the Tigers also made themselves unwelcome guests in Seattle, knocking off the Mariners 2-0. That leaves the AL West standings pretty much the same as before: Seattle leads the division at 8-4, Oakland holds down the middle spot at 5-6, and Texas and the Angels pull up the rear at 4-7 each.

Ichiro was hitless in the Seattle game, striking out twice in four at-bats. As usual with a goose-egg performance, he had no RBIs. Surprisingly, he also had a throwing error in the game. I know it's not realistic to think he'll go completely without an error all season, but it's still kind of surprising to see it on the stat sheet. He's now 4-for-17 for the season, stuck at 5 RBIs.

And, not that it really matters to my AL West standings, but the final score in that Yankees game wound up being 22-4. That's just really got to make the people with their spendy season Yankees tickets feel great about paying for that new stadium. Heh...

Oh, my...

I'm watching the Indians play the Yankees on TV now. And the Indians just finished shelling the Yanks for 14 runs on 13 hits in the top of the 2nd inning. That's gonna hurt the ol' ERA, methinks...

According to the announcers, here in the third game in the Yankees' new stadium, they just got shelled for the all-time team record in both runs allowed in an inning and hits allowed in an inning. Heh...

Sports report...

In hockey action last night, Carolina managed to wrest home ice advantage from New Jersey in a 2-1 overtime win, while Pittsburgh held serve with a 3-2 overtime win over the Flyers. And Vancouver had little trouble taking a 2-0 lead over the Blues, shutting them out 3-0 in a testy, physical sort of game.

In baseball, a double negative for my teams happened in Toronto, where the A's knocked off the Jays, 8-5. That drops the Blue Jays to an 8-4 record, still at the top of the AL East. Texas knocked out three solo home runs in their game against Kansas City, but that was their only scoring. The Royals, on the other hand, pounded out 19 hits while scoring 12 runs to knock off the Rangers in Arlington. The loss knocked Texas down to a tie for third in the AL West with the Angels, who lost a high-scoring game in Minnesota. The Twins just nipped them, 11-9.

Meanwhile, up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Ichiro went 1-for-4 with one RBI, putting his overall batting for the season at 4-for-13, and his RBI total goes up to 5. That was in the course of a 6-3 win by the Mariners over the Tigers, despite the fact that that Tigers outhit them 9-8. Combined with the Toronto loss, that result gives the Mariners the top record in the American League, and tied for the second best overall in the Major Leagues, after the Marlins, who are burning it up at 9-1.

In the AL West, the standings are:
Seattle, 8-3
Oakland, 5-5
LA Angels, 4-6
Texas, 4-6

Yesterday's sporting news...

Texas and Oakland didn't play baseball yesterday. Toronto spanked the Twins 9-2 behind a 7-run 7th inning, bringing them to an 8-3 record. The Angels beat the Mariners 5-1. Ichiro went 1-for-4 with a single. That puts him 3-for-9 for the season, with 4 RBI still from the grand slam yesterday. He also set the record for most hits by a Japanese player, with 3086. The loss still leaves Seattle in first place in the AL West, with a 7-3 record. Everyone else in the division is tied at 2.5 games behind at 4-5. It's still very early in the season, of course, but it's a promising start...

Hockey didn't have a whole lot of good results for me last night. Boston beat Montreal 4-2. That was one of the games I really would have liked to see, but of course that was the only game that Versus didn't have any coverage of last night. Looks like it was probably a pretty good, if somewhat testy, game, too. Detroit beat Columbus 4-1. That was pretty expected, being a battle of #2 vs. #7. But then, in the #1 vs. #8 opener, Anaheim managed to beat San Jose to take the home ice advantage away from the President's Trophy winners. And, in the only overtime game of the night, Chicago beat the Flames by a final of 3-2, scoring about 12 seconds into the first overtime. And more hockey will be played tonight, of course...

More sports than news...

In baseball yesterday, Boston beat Oakland 8-2 after the Red Sox lit up Oakland's bullpen with 6 runs in the 8th. Baltimore started strong in their game in Texas, but things fell apart for the O's starting around the 3rd. They gave up 8 runs in the 4th, and wound up losing the game 6-19. Ian Kinsler managed to bat around and went 6-for-6 in the game, becoming the first player to accomplish that task since 1894. Toronto bounced back from their extra innings loss by pummeling the Twins 12-2. 4 of the Blue Jays hit homers, and they had pretty solid scoring all through the game. Their record improved to 7-3 with the win.

Seattle beat the visiting Angels 11-3 in a game that had some historic hits. Ken Griffey, Jr., hit his 400th home run in a Mariners uniform. Also, Ichiro returned to the Seattle lineup after spending the first 8 games of the season on the DL. He hit a grand slam in the 7th to tie the record for the most professional hits by a Japanese player, with 3085. That includes a single he hit earlier in the game. He's well on his way toward that typical 200 hits per season record, going 2-for-5 in the game.

That leaves the AL West standings as follows:
Seattle 7-2
Oakland 4-5
Texas 4-5
LA Angels 3-5

Hockey playoffs started yesterday. I watched most of the two games that were on. Aside from the fact that I like Montreal and I want Detroit to lose, I don't really have a whole lot of teams I'm really following this year. I guess I'll go for Vancouver in the West, since I think it would be kind of cool to have an all-Canadian Stanley Cup final.

Anyway, Pittsburgh beat Philly 4-1, and New Jersey beat Carolina by the same score. The Rangers edged Washington 4-3, and Vancouver beat St. Louis 2-1. Of those, the Rangers were the only road team to win. The remaining series begin tonight, and of course the game I'd really like to see (Montreal vs. Boston) isn't going to be televised. Damn it...

The girlfriend and I watched the new episode of Mythbusters last night as something of an interlude to the hockey games. It was the second Alaska special, and they oddly only did two myths this time around. Usually they manage to get in at least three, but I guess these were larger ones than usual. The "kids" did the myth of a car that hit a parked snowplow directly on the point of its wedge-shaped plow. This supposedly split the car in two, and the passenger and driver both walked away unharmed. While the second crash, at 70 MPH into a reinforced and sharpened snowplow, was incredibly dramatic to watch, there ain't no way that anyone would have walked away from it unharmed. Probably not at all. It was almost disturbing, actually.

And the main myth was about the substance called Pykrete. During World War II, a British engineer named Pyke (I forget his first name) came up with the idea of creating some aircraft carriers out of a substance he named for himself, Pykrete. Basically, it's sawdust mixed with water and then frozen. Apparently, according to the tests done by Adam and Jamie, the stuff is much stronger than regular ice. A one-inch thick slab secured by clamps at one end held approximately 350 pounds of weight and still took a few hits with a hammer to break, as opposed to a similar piece of ice which broke after only 40 pounds. And bullet tests showed that the Pykrete was seriously bullet resistant, losing a conical chunk an inch or so deep to a point-blank 45-caliber shot, compared to a piece of ice which pretty much just turned into a snow cone when hit with the bullet. The Pykrete also took significantly longer to melt than regular ice. Jamie made a serious improvement to several of these properties by substituting newspaper for the sawdust in Pykrete. This made it less like particle board and more like plywood.

For their main experiment, the two went to Ketchikan, Alaska, and got a group of lucky high school students to soak a bunch of newspaper in water. This was then layered into a plywood mold and frozen solid in a freezer truck. A motor and steering were mounted to it, and it scooted along the bay quite well before melting down too much to remain structurally sound. So, the myth was considered plausible, but impractical.

Now, my complaints, or comments, at least. One was that they commented that this was the first boat like that made, but I think they actually did make a demo model of such a boat in Canada during World War II. I'll look for the details, but I seem to remember seeing something about them making a demo version but finally deciding that it wouldn't be ready in time to be very useful. I don't recall if that's the whole reason, but I think it was most of it. And the second comment, made by Jamie, was that a carrier made of this stuff wouldn't work very well because it would melt in the tropics. But that wasn't the original intent of the idea. It wasn't supposed to be an all-purpose carrier that would go anywhere. It was originally intended to be a nearly stationary platform which would close the gap in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where U-boats roamed at will because of the limited range of Allied patrol and antisubmarine aircraft. And the carriers would also be much larger than their little boat, plus it wouldn't be traveling through the water at much speed. Thus, for a particular purpose, namely being a fairly stationary base in the middle of the North Atlantic, they would have been quite feasible.

In addition to watching Mythbusters, we watched Toy Story before going to bed. I hadn't seen it before. Kind of a cute story, and it seems to have actually held up pretty well in the twelve or so years since it was made. Certainly not something I'm going to watch over and over, but I'd definitely recommend it to someone with a little kid...

And now, I need to get off my ass and go fill out some more applications. Damn it...

Ideas...

So this morning, I called the company that handles my old 401(k) from back in Oregon. I talked to the guy there for a little longer than I had anticipated and got some good information from him. Part of the information was investment advice (diversify, and go into bonds), but the majority was just some of the information about what I need to do in order to access the money that's in there.

Unfortunately, what is involved is getting some forms from my old work, which I should already have but which I've probably thrown away, and getting them mailed back to my old work, then having the fund management company cut a check. So it's probably going to be something like two weeks before I can actually have the money, and I think I might be running out of cash by then, damn it. Linda, the HR manager at the old company, said that they management company might be able to send the forms via e-mail, so that would cut the time about in half. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I haven't seen anything just yet, and I called four or five hours ago...

After I made that call, I ran down to the storage unit to do a little organizing and pick some stuff up. I really need to take some photographs of stuff that I have and get to work trying to sell things. People certainly aren't going to beat a path to the door when they don't even know there's anything to be had inside. Sigh... I also paid the bill for the storage unit while I was there, racking up a little more on the credit cards, and I paid one of the credit card bills before I headed over there. But the cash is still getting mighty low...

I was thinking about a couple of things while I was driving to and from the storage unit. I would like to either go back to school or start a business of my own. I just don't know what I want to study or what kind of business I'd like to start. And those are pretty large problems, honestly. I would like to either start a bookstore or something to do with cooking, but I don't know what would make either of those businesses better than any of the ones already out there. And I think I'd need to differentiate myself from other businesses in order to make some kind of a serious go at it. Startups tend to go under if they don't have something that really sets them apart from the crowd.

As far as school, I'm thinking either an accounting or library science line of study. Of course, to get any kind of degree or anything like that in either of those fields is going to take a couple of years, at least, and that's time that I'm just not sure that I have to spare. I'm not getting any younger. Fuck, I've just pretty much wasted a lot of my life, and it sucks...

Oh, and the Rangers gave up a 4-run 10th inning yesterday. They put up a valiant effort with two runs of their own in the bottom of the 10th, but wound up losing the game anyway, 7-5. I got to see the end of that game on the tube. Toronto also lost in extra innings, losing 2-3 in Minnesota. And despite having given up three runs in the top of the first, the A's came back to beat the Red Sox 5-6 in Oakland. They took 12 innings to win, so pretty much every team I'm following this year went into extra innings.

AL West standings:
Seattle, 6-2 (.750 win %)
Oakland, 4-4 (.500 win %, 2 games behind)
LA Angels, 3-4 (.429 win %, 2.5 games behind)
Texas, 3-5 (.375 win %, 3 games behind)

More later...

Wasting another evening...

I watched the season premiere of Deadliest Catch, as well as the "Best of" for the last season. The girlfriend got home while the premiere was going on, so I didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to parts of it. I'm sure they'll show it again anyway. We had leftover Easter dinner and Salisbury steak for dinner, which hit the spot pretty well. I should probably cook dinner more often, but I'm just not feeling all that ambitious about anything lately...

I saw that the Mariners took 10 innings to beat the Angels, 2-3, but at least they managed to win it. That puts the M's at 6-2 and the Angels at 3-4. Remaining games are going on. Texas is currently on the tube, tied with Baltimore at 3-3. The Blue Jays are tied with the Twins, 2-2 at the end of regulation play. And early in the game, Boston is smackin' the A's around, 3-0. We'll see how all of those games play out, though...

Another day's useless energy spent...

I've been sitting around watching history shows for a few hours now. The girlfriend and I watched another episode of Freaks and Geeks, and then I watched the last couple of outs of the baseball game I'd been watching earlier. After that, I watched the debut episode of Doing Da Vinci, where a group of engineers and such try to build weapons designed by Leonardo. This episode they built the giant round conical tank, and it seemed to work pretty well, although it certainly would have been loud. During their tests, firing one of the cannon in the tank generated a sound pressure level of 116 dB. I'm quite sure that any soldiers manning the vehicle without serious hearing protection would have certainly been deaf. But, aside from that, the vehicle did appear to be a viable war machine.

Following that show, I switched over and watched the debut episode of Patton 360, which details the battles of General George Patton during World War II. That show was interesting, and told me a lot of things that I didn't know before about Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa during World War II. I haven't really ever seen something that just follows his career in the war that way, so I think it should be pretty interesting to watch the whole thing. Actually, now that I think about it, I think the movie The Big Red One might follow his unit through World War II, but it's a dramatized version, not a documentary. In any case, I'll keep watching it unless we decide to cancel our cable to save money...

After that, I watched a repeat show about the Battle of El Alamein, and now I'm watching a repeat show about Kublai Khan's failed invasion of Japan. Both interesting shows, even though I've seen them before. The girlfriend isn't tired, so she's making some chocolate chip cookies. I'm not sure when she's going to want to go to bed, but I'm getting pretty close to that time myself...

The baseball game I watched today was National League, so not all that important to my teams, but here are the results that do matter. Texas continued their losing streak, at the wrong end of a 10-9 result against visiting Baltimore. That drops them to 3-4. Toronto went to 6-2 with an 8-6 win in Minnesota. Toronto's in first place in the AL East, half a game ahead of Baltimore. And Oakland moved to a 3-4 tie with the Rangers by mauling the Red Sox 8-2 at home. Seattle and the Angels did not play today.

AL West Standings:
Seattle, 5-2 (.714 win %)
LA Angels, 3-3 (.500 win %, 1.5 games behind)
Oakland, 3-4 (.429 win %, 2 games behind)
Texas, 3-4 (.429 win %, 2 games behind)

A useless, depressing kind of day...

I did a little test a few minutes ago, and I found that, unlike with some of the blogging software I've used, Blogger apparently allows you to insert older posts before you're more recent ones, so I don't need to update all of my vacation posts before doing my regular postings. That makes things a little bit easier for me...

Anyway, yesterday after getting home from the Easter festivities, the girlfriend and I lounged around for a bit. Neither one of us really felt like moving all that much after all we'd eaten at dinner. I didn't actually eat anything else except one of her cookies for the rest of the day. Definitely had more to eat at dinner than I'd had for a while...

After we'd rested and digested for a bit, she called Hastings to find out if they were open, which they were, and we headed down there so she could find a book to read during her downtime at work. They were indeed open, so we headed on down. Unfortunately, they didn't have the next book in the series she's been reading, plus they didn't have the book that we're supposed to be reading for our next book club. And they really didn't even have anything else she wanted to read. So we headed over to Barnes and Noble.

Even if it wasn't Easter, B&N would have been closed. It was already almost eight by the time we got there, and they close at seven on Sunday. So we had to admit defeat and headed back home.

After we got home, she wanted to watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and I didn't, so she headed off to the bedroom and I sat out here in the living room and watched a baseball game. After the game was over, I went in and watched some of her home shows with her before we tried to get to sleep. It was another one of those nights where neither of us could sleep very well.

She had to be at work at nine this morning, and I should have got up at around the same time, but I didn't. Instead, I drifted in and out until almost noon. I finally decided I'd better get up and do something with the day. When I got up, I saw that there was something taped to the door. Turns out it was the new utility bill, even though we only received the last utility bill last Sunday. I guess the landlady is a little behind in getting the bills distributed. That made me feel even a little more depressed than I already was, because I certainly can't afford to pay even my share of that bill, let alone the whole thing like I've been trying to do for a while. I did finally write out the check for the last utility bill, figured out how much postage it needed, got the envelope addressed, and got it all put together. Now I just need to get down to the post office and mail it off. I also found out that the cost of a stamp goes up two more cents in May. Great...

After I took care of that, I made myself another pot of coffee. I figured I'd at least do something useful with the day, so I emptied the dishwasher and folded the towels that were in the dryer. I dug the classified sections out of the newspapers, but I really haven't gone through them yet. I also went through the musicians classifieds on Craigslist, but I haven't sent off any replies to any of the ads I found interesting.

The girlfriend came home for a short lunch around three. We had some leftover brisket and potatoes from the Easter dinner for lunch, and I again feel like I might not have to eat anything else for the rest of the evening. That stuff's a lot more filling than I thought it would be for as much as I ate.

After she headed back to work, I dragged the top of my desk in from the car and upstairs. I got it attached to the main part of the desk and started getting things hooked up, but I realize that I'm going to have some problems because I don't have a wired network connection up there. I think I'm going to move the wireless card from my music computer to my regular desktop, then hook everything in that room using my wired switch. I don't really need an internet connection from the music computer or any of the project computers, so just having the wireless on the main should be all right...

Now I'm sitting here watching another baseball game, after watching some history stuff earlier. The girlfriend is in the bedroom watching her home shows. I was a bit standoffish when she got home, and I hope she's not annoyed at me. I guess I'll find out when the game's over. Sigh...

The daily rundown, May 6

I had a pretty damned useless day today. I got up fairly early, but then I began working my way through some more of the e-mail and such. I was sort of caught up in that most of the morning, which is not unusual at all for me.

I called David, the guitarist, but I haven't heard back from him yet. Considering how long I've waited between e-mails and such, I don't find that terribly surprising.

I made myself a pot of coffee in the late hours of the morning and, surprisingly, didn't have any booze in it. I didn't have any booze all day, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, I didn't do very much of anything else, either. I watched a little bit of Food Network in the afternoon. Made ramen for lunch and had some leftovers for dinner. I did get myself ready to head out into the world by the later part of the afternoon, but I never actually managed to get myself motivated to leave the place. I also got myself ready to start working on the cross stitch, but didn't do that either. I did get rid of all the old e-mail, though, so now everything in the inbox is stuff that needs to be followed up on. And I'll start doing that tomorrow. But I desperately need to do a bunch of other stuff, too.

As I type this, I'm watching the Mariners get absolutely pummeled by the Rangers. It's 10-1, and the Mariners have only scored the one run since the fourth inning of yesterday's game. Pretty damned pathetic, really, and it looks like the M's are going to drop down into last place in the AL West. It's been a pretty damned quick fall, since they were a contender just a year or two ago. Well, at least they're not the absolutely worst team in the whole league. But pretty damned close. The announcers kept talking about their lack of offense, but when you're giving up 10 runs in a game, that doesn't say a whole hell of a lot for your defense, either. Sigh...