Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Last night was eaten by locusts. I didn't leave work until 6:30, trying to get my hours in as I won't be working Friday and I have no vacation left. I had to pick up the tables and chairs we borrowed from my parents on Sunday and return those. When I got to my parents place, the pastor and his family plus several out-of-town relatives were combing my parents' property for morels. So that wasn't a quick stop. Then I headed for home and everyone followed me to see if there were any morels at our place. So with the chatting, tours of the place, etc., it was almost 9 pm before I started looking for something for dinner. Debbie was off doing the mega-laundry thing and didn't get home until after 10 pm. We just talked and vegged until 11 pm and went to bed.

I finished my exciting code changes at work today; now I get to check 80+ pages of general ledger entries against what came out of the production system last pay period to see if I broke anything. I'll be cross-eyed by the end of the day.

Not much else to say. Nothing really jumped out at me when I hit all the usual web sites, other than Jerry Pournelle's discussion of the difference between police and soldiers. Primarily, soldiers exist to kill people and break things while preventing the enemy from doing the same to them and their buddies at any cost. Police are concerned with maintaining order and protecting civilians. Two very different goals that require two very different approaches. We have trained our police in military tactics that result in crimes like Ruby Ridge. Now we have our soldiers performing police duty in Iraq with equally dismal results. All of which is predictable and in fact was predicted by many.

Ah well. I guess it doesn't matter now. Our masters... er... leaders seem to think they know what they are doing and don't need advice from me or anyone else. I wish I could share their confidence.

On the bright side, it's bright. Outside, that is. Blue sky, sun and 70 degrees F. I looks like there will be some rough weather moving in just in time for us to fly down to Florida. Rough flying weather doesn't bother me, but Debbie can't take any shaking around in a plane. In any case, there probably won't be anything here before next Monday. We will be enjoying hot weather in Sunny Florida this weekend and not worrying about anything for about 72 hours.

Everyone have a great weekend!

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