outskirts: life and times in charlottesville

As I said, I was heading off to visit the local court. I got assigned to my seat and now I’m getting to hear a fascinating story that has it all: smokers, NASCAR lovers, convoluted/family-integrated relationships, drive arounders, wallmartaholics, accents that pronounce “here” with four syllables, and cowboy hats. This has everything. To top that off, there are emails, IM’s, cell phone miscommunication, and digital media.

Oh the fun…too bad I can’t watch the news, read any form of media, or even see any comments people may leave here…so comments closed for now. In a few days I’ll have a much better story for you…if all goes smoothly. Wow. This needs a TV movie on one of those country-ish channels that I’ve never seen.

So what will Apple announce tomorrow? Everyone wants to know! I think I may end up ordering a new iMac tomorrow, and maybe a new video iPod (if they actually announce the long rumored full screen iPod).

Trying to play with lots of photos on my cute little iBook makes that a bit tough, and I can’t stand dealing with my old CRT’s that I have on my old school dual G4 beast. Now the question will be should I go with the new Intel version, or a refurbed version of the model from 1.5 months ago. Decisions, decisions. Maybe I should try to get my taxes finished first (although it looks promising).

The historic downtown mall has one of these fancy standing ash trays every 50 feet or so along the entire mall. Maybe there are as many of them as trash cans. People are supposed to throw their stubs in these so they don’t litter the sidewalk or clog the sewer systems.

Now, as people pitch their lit cigs in to a pile of chemically treated papers, bad things often happen. About once every month one of these fancy ash trays ignite. Smoke often rolls out for an hour or so. Someone had kicked this one over, but the smoke kept rolling. Even a few flames were licking the tip of this for about ten minutes.

It almost looks like it has turned in to a big metal cigarette out enjoying the afternoon as reaches out and tries to touch the people passing by.

After taking a few shots it was off to lunch. When I came back it was standing up at full attention awaiting the next cigarette. It was obvious someone had given it a nice shower, since it was surrounded by a glistening circle of water. It will be standing strong for whatever comes at it tomorrow.

In Gig Harbor, Washington on a blustery sunny afternoon. I tried a few different shutter speeds and had pictures ranging from all three blades motionless, to all three a quick blur. This one was in between. So much science in this photo, and really pretty (at least in my tiny mind). Science and art often mix.

I’m going for the upgrade to the latest WordPress. We’ll see what breaks

Shot from the stadium after Seattle won a preseason game.

So it is going to be rather warm and sunny today, but down to the 40’s until next Wednesday. I guess I’ll go run today rather than do the gym since I won’t want to run again until it warms up a bit. I’m really not in the mood to run, but maybe I’ll feel better once I start. I’ll wait till around 3 or so when it hits the peak temperature, and when we may have wind gusts up in the 40mph range. That sounds like fun.

It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood…for a shooting. Nothing like a little shooting in the Belmont area to brighten up the morning news. Since no one is cooperating maybe it is just a bit of gang activity. For a city of 40,000 we have a very lively gang community.

Police tells us the weapon was a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun which they recovered next to the victim. They are still trying to figure out who shot him. Charlottesville Lieutenant Gary Pleasants stated, “At this moment, we do not know whether it is self-inflicted, accidental, or intentional by someone else. We’re investigating that right now.”

Police say the victim does not live in the townhouse but may have been a relative of the people who do live there. There were other people home when the shooting took place but police say they have not been receiving a lot of cooperation. They say none of the evidence points toward the existence of an intruder in the house. Investigators say that until they piece together what happened, there are no suspects in this case.

Latest rumor is that Ricky didn’t do any drugs and it was a false positive. Mort is the one who stated this one and he is often on top of situations. Let’s hope this is the correct rumor.

So here in the village everyone is excited today. The House snubbed the smoking ban before it even made it out of committee. The Senate passed it along for just one reason, they knew the House would snub it without even twitching. There is no change this smoker’s paradise will ever get rid of that lovely chemical composition called a cigarette. Killing three million per year is not quite enough. They want more. The politicians of this commonwealth LOVE tobacco companies. How else would they get the big house, summer cottage, and servants. Ahh…the south.

Is Virginia a sane location. No. Killing via toxins rocks the world.

Another sense of sanity runs throughout the planet. People actually like PC’s (piles of crap) and don’t like Macs. If you plan to do more at home than send email and browse the web the choice is obvious. When you turn on a computer should you look forward to using it, or should you think of it as a metal object that hurts you in certain ways? In the world of technology, having a PC is like a low-def TV, and a Mac is HD. And as any human that has ever seen HD, once you see it, you can never watch another LD show.

Just to make things more fun, they are getting ready to give money to low income people here in the village so they can get any house they want. What the hell happened to this country where you are supposed to work hard for what you get. Should everything just be handed to you? Shouldn’t you try to obtain an education, and then go after a job you have skills for? A house will not change you, but education will. Don’t take my damn tax money and just give a person a house. Take that money and force them to go to school. If you don’t want to go to get an education that will provide you with income, go smoke another pack so you’ll die quickly relative to the non-smoking population.

OK…since I’m here in VA I guess I should go have a few kids, smoke a few cigarettes, go to church and give away some money, and then shoot a possum for dinner. Mmm….now that is sanity.