one month to Turkey Day!

No, I am not calendar-challenged. We leave for Turkey the night of Oct 6, and I believe I just made the FINAL lodging reservation, after months of unpleasant surprises, schedule changes, and logistical complications.

Not only that, but I wrote a detailed complaint letter to the tour operators, explaining how their many failures to communicate logistics and changes to policies had caused me to not only spend a zillion hours talking to Customer Service, researching alternatives, and arranging the details, but also had cost us approximately $500 more than expected. This morning, they wrote that they are giving us a $500 credit.

The system works.

We are off to Sisters around 1 pm, to spend a weekend there at the Sisters Folk Festival - staying at a condo at Black Butte. With any luck, nothing could possibly go wrong.

best metaphor about Sarah Palin seen so far on the blogs

"Tonya Harding with a speechwriter".

God is sending us messages

First, He sends Gustav towards New Orleans, to let the GOP know that they have sinned and must pay the price.

Since they didn't get that message, and are now pandering to the wacko Right-wing God squad, He's (pronoun intentional) making it more clear now, by aiming the next hurricane at George Bush's (for now) house:


Meanwhile, speaking of messages...

a first for me!

my very first scam email in Spanish:

Me llamo . Me director adjunto de la empresa de .

Nuestra empresa seocupa en el desarrollo aplicado de la empresa, las sistemas integracionistas, las cadenas corporativas y otras soluciones de software para el negocio, las haciendas y otros tipos de problemas. Nuestra empresa esta situada en Ucrania. Gozamos de buena fama y somos los socios seguros y dignos de confianza. Trabajamos con exito con muchas empresas de la Europa Occidental y America del Norte haciendo el software seguro para ellos. Casi un ano trabajamos con los clientes de los paises extranjeros y no teniamos los problemas con ellos a excepcion de los terminos del pago. Transferencias financieras en sumas de 3000-20 000 EUROS van al Ucrania cerca de 3-5 dias + lo mismo termino para la comprobacion por el Banco. En total, junto con los dias de descanso, este termino puede ser desde 10 dias hasta 2-3 semanas. Ahora estamos trabajando con los proyectos grandes, que tienen necesidad de los inversiones grandes de dinero y no tenemos las posibilidades para esperar el pago tan largo tiempo. Por eso, en este momento estamos buscando los socios en su pais, quien nos ayudara aceptar el pago mas rapido. Si Vds. quieren ganar el dinero complementario, Vds. pueden ser los representantes de nuestra empresa en su pias. Vds. podran recibir 8% de cada transaccion, que realizamos con la participacion de su cuenta. Su trabajo consistira en la aceptacion del capital en la forma de los giros postales a su cuenta y la salida del dinerom a nosotros. Esto es un metodo muy comodo y rapido de recibir los ingresos adicionales. Ademas, estudiamos la posibilidad de la apertura de la oficina en su pais en el futuro proximo y entonces Vds. podran tener los privilegios de recibir el trabajo de plena ocupacion. Si Vds. tienen interes trabajar con nosotros, entonces, estamos en sus ordenes.

Pueden contactar con nosotros con ayuda de E-Mail:

y envien a nosotros la informacion siguiente: Su nombre y apellido Educacion Direccion Numero de telefono/fax Conocimiento de la lengua Inglesa Su edad

Por favor, respondan a nuestra carta y nosotros daremos los datos adicionales sobre la cooperacion. Este colaboracion no vale nada para Vds. , pero esto la posibilidad de recibir los ingresos adicionales muy comodo y rapido. Si Vds. tienen algunas preguntas, no tienen escrupulos en contactarse con nosotros.

better and better every few hours

hmmmm

i'm lovin' it

Since the GOP has declared that a candidate must surely be held responsible for attending a church whose pastor makes 'controversial' comments, guess what?

I'm expecting audio and/or video to be hitting YouTube quite soon, and the MSM will surely not overlook this, right? The link on the HuffPost piece to the Pastor's recorded sermons is here. Better grab those files before they disappear!

hot off the presses!!!!!!

Consider this:

'Sarah Palin' is an anagram for Sharia Plan

The International Muslim Conspiracy is far more devious than we ever suspected! My brother must be right, after all.

a diverse weekend

We drove over to Lincoln City Saturday morning, to join a group of 6 others on a kayaking romp up the Siletz River and then out into Siletz Bay. Amazingly, it was timed with the approach of high-tide, so, for the first leg, all you had to do was point upriver, and the current hurtled us along.

Beautiful day - I was in t-shirt and swim-trunks. Once we turned around and headed downstream to the bay, the wind was a factor, and, out in the bay, we frolicked among the pelicans and sea-lions. The final push back to the marina, although the wind was at our backs, was tiring due to the swells. Fortunately, the organizer had made reservations at a wonderful restaurant in Depoe Bay, where we feasted on many wonderful things.

After a walk on the beach at sunset, we retired to our motel room, which I felt darn lucky to have been able to get. I slept like a baby - Karen, not so well.

Sunday morning, though, I had a life-changing experience - my first ever restaurant experience ordering off the Senior menu (55+). The waitress didn't ask to see an ID, which was disconcerting, but the portion size, reduced from a giant omelett to a smaller one, turned out to be just perfect. Uh-oh.

More shopping at the Outlet Stores, then back to Portland by 3 (stopping briefly at the Dollar Store in Newberg to buy a couple more pairs of $1 reading glasses). I see a trend here.

The, last night at home, we watched this sweet movie - highly recommended.

Happy Labor Day, everyone.

oh, the irony!

When I first heard that McCain had picked Palin for Vice President, I was thrilled, thinking that this is a person who can really bring something new to American politics.

Once my hopes had been dashed, I reflected on the thinking and this is what I think:

I believe McCain fell victim to the Right-Wing Noise Machine meme that millions of Democrats are utterly disenchanted because the majority spurned a woman, and, buying into that Rovian-generated fantasy (that had significantly-limited validity), he made his decision accordingly.

I could be wrong (uh, yeah!) but wouldn't it be delicious if this was indeed the case.

Still reeling from Pat Buchanan's praise of Obama's speech last night. I never thought I'd live to hear anything like that.

Heading to the beach tomorrow to go kayaking, and spending the night in Lincoln City. Back in Portland Sunday afternoon.

Then, off to Sisters for the Folk Festival next weekend. Busy days (not including the three hours I spent on the phone and web this morning, modifying our travel itinerary for the return from Turkey).

an unusually-optimistic note

Went out for a walk in the neighborhood with The Dog. He had a splendid time, as always.

Four years ago, there was ONE house in our neighborhood that had a Bush sign. This year: Barack.

Watched the convention this evening. Clinton was good, Kerry, shockingly, was *great*, Biden was OK (he really did flub a couple of statistics, but his McCain wrap-up was well done), but I think the star of the night was Biden's son.

And, when Obama appeared on the stage at the end, that was pretty darn cool.

All in all, this has been a great week for Dems - it's almost enough to make me believe they can pull it off.

In other news, I must say that the first five words in this headline gave me momentary pause.

gustav projected track

uh, oh!

kucinich at the DNC

amazing

synchronicity

Simulatneously, as I opened an email from Joe Biden, the phone rang and it was the local Obama campaign loooking for volunteers. So many people working on this, how can it possibly fail?

Let me count the ways: fraud, theft, lies, corruption, fear...

Karl Rove strikes again?

this sure sounds like one of his stunts - he's done this sort of thing many times before.

Meanwhile, as we are immersed in the trivialities of the political/media circus, there's this minor detail. Oops.

the earth may be doomed, but this is pretty cool

Microsoft has a new product called 'Photosynth'.

Here is the National Geographic video of Stonehenge, using this tool.

astonishing news from Thom Hartmann show

Mark Crispin Miller was on, discussing recent developments in the civil case currently working its way thru Ohio courts, that is about to blow the whistle on Karl Rove's election frauds, going back to his involvment with George HW Bush's races.

A reputable GOP-connected cyber-expert is publicly acknowledging that, at a minimum, the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen (duh!).

The clearing-house for this case, with materials and interviews, is here. So many elections have been compromised over the past few years, that my head swims with the wonderment that this story has been so successfully suppressed for this long.

3rd time's the charm

Left the house at 7:15, with Ben driving, to go to the Sherwood DMV office, where he took and passed his behind-the-wheel driver test. We left there significantly happier than the previous two times.

the critical importance of a vice president with experience

I see this meme everywhere: Obama must pick someone like Joe Biden, to calm 'fears' that his inexperience on the international stage is tempered by a Vice President who has been a public figure for many years.

Hmm - wasn't this same argument advanced to argue for W? Cheney had been a fixture of inner circles since the Ford years, and his supposed cool head and big-picture awareness was supposed to compensate for a President whose foreign experience was limited to a Spring Break in Mexico.

I kinda like Biden, and think he'd be fine.

Meanwhile, McCain panders to the crazies by, at yesterday's religious forum, proclaims his belief that a 'baby' begins at the moment of conception. What year is this?

the united states of hubris

This guy was on Bill Moyers' show last night, and it was refreshing to hear his plain-spoken message, that the US public and military and government are delusional, as far as our place in history.

Rather than being Rome in 20 BC (the unchallenged military master of the known world), we are really the Rome of 450 AD: overconfident, broke, corrupt, living far beyond our means, and on the verge of joining the endless parade of collapsed economies and empires.

Read all about it here and here.

dog day

hot, hot, hot in Portland. Neither of us slept well last night, me due to a lingering cold and the heat, Karen because of the residual effects of her colonoscopy prep and the heat.

taking the day mostly off. I drove her to the facility this morning, then went to Powell's in Beaverton to sell some old books and buy more. Then, at the nearby coffee place, with WiFi, plugged in my laptop and actually did billable work.

Now I am back at the medical facility, waiting for her to be discharged. She hasn't eaten in a couple of days and, depending on her energy level, we will go out for lunch and errands soon.

I am finding free WiFi wherever I need it, and it's great being a high-tech nomad.

I told my New Mexico client (the BLM office in Carlsbad) that I don't think I can complete their project in their budgeted amount (it's turned out to be a rats-nest of embedded forms, table-based audit rules and queries-upon-queries-upon-queries). They like what I've done so far and want me to tell them how much it will cost to fulfill their vision. I don't think they are going to like the answer.