I have not been doing these anywhere near fast enough. I need to speed up or I will not have figured out all the items on the ballot before election day. Lets see, looks like I have 31 more ballot items left to figure out my vote on. I have five days to do it. That means I have to do six or seven a day from now until election eve. Urgh! Well, lets knock one out right now…

REFERENDUM 1
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AD VALOREM TAX EXEMPTIONS FOR NEW BUSINESSES AND EXPANSIONS OF EXISTING BUSINESSES

Shall the Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County continue to be authorized to grant, pursuant to Section 3, Article VII of the State Constitution, property tax exemptions to new businesses and expansions of existing businesses?

OK. A few seconds on Google finds a Florida Today Editorial that explains basically what this is (and endorses it). Basically there is a program that gives tax breaks for “new businesses” or businesses that are undergoing significant expansion. It is to encourage new businesses to locate or expand in Brevard. They say it has resulted in thosands of new jobs for the county. This referendum will allow them to continue the program.

I only spent a few minutes on it, but was not immediately able to find many opinions against this measure. And I’m all for lower taxes and such. And more businesses in the area make for a more healthy county (as long as there are not TOO many). So this is fine with me. So…

My vote: YES – FOR AUTHORITY TO GRANT EXEMPTIONS

OK. Lunch is over. Back to work. I’ll do more of these tonight.

Finally! The DSL modem arrived today. I am all configured and up and running. No more 56k Dialup! Yea!!!! This is very exciting! Abulsme.com is now going at fullspeed again! Well… not like this is mega-bandwidth or anything. But much better than dialup. And should be reliably 24/7 again.

I still have to find where I packed my hub, and a serial cable to connect my antiquated old mac and its keyboard, which of course is so old I can’t just pick it up in the store any more. I just spent an hour crawling over boxes in the garage, sticking my head into holes between 6 foot tall stacks of boxes and prying open individual boxes trying to find the box where I had those cords. I found the keyboard, but not the cords to connect it. Urgh! Anyway, once I find that stuff, I’ll actually set things up a little differently than I have now. But everything is up and running.

So yea! Broadband!

Finally!!!!

Every once in awhile, I google the word antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian. So far, there has never been a single site on the web using this word, at least not that Google knows about. I was amazed at this fact! This word has been one of my favorites for many many years. So, given that it has not yet appeared on the web, let me be the one to introduce it. Woo! Let me tell you the story.

When I was a child, living in Durham North Carolina… this would have been before I was 9 years old as we were still at the apartment on Trinity Avenue… the first time… not after I came back from Indiana. I think it was during the era when I had pet brown snakes. But I’m not as sure about that.

In any case, my father would occationally clip articles from the paper he thought I would be interested in. One time, it was an article about long words. I’m not sure if it was from the local Durham paper, or from some other newspaper, or from an AP story… no idea. I don’t remember the exact text of the article, or even the point of the article. I think it mentioned a few words that often come up when people think of long words, like antidisestablishmentarianism. And it mentioned that some scientific terms can be quite long. But then it mentioned a word, quite possibly made up right then and there, I don’t know, that I would remember forever:

antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian – noun – Person who hates long words

I loved it!!! A long word that meant a person who hates long words! How could any word be more wonderful than that!!!

My father explained the parts of it to me. (Or perhaps the article did, I don’t remember.) Anti – against, hyper – many, syllabic – having syllables, sesqui- one and a half, pedal – having feet, ian – relating to or a person who is. So, literally interpreting the roots, it is a person who is against words having many syllables that are a foot and a half long. Or something like that. That is all from memory, I have not properly researched it or anything. The details could be wrong.

Anyway, it is a wonderful word, and I can’t believe it is not used more often!

At a page on long words at The Straight Dope I found references to a few other long words. First one that seems related, hippopotomonstrosesquipidelian, which supposedly just means long. I find it no where near as appealing as antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian. Then the longest word in the original Oxford English Dictionary: floccinaucinihilipilification which is the classification of something as trivial. And the longerst word in the Oxford English Dictionary 2 which is the revised modern version of the work: neumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. And finally some scientific name of a specific protein which extends to 1913 letters which I shall not reproduce here.

Perhaps floccinaucinihilipilification comes close, but none of these have the same endearing quality as antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian. Antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian is a word that deserves to thrive and prosper, not wither away in obscurity.

Use it. Use it as often as possible. You know you have been in situations where it is needed. At least once a week, without even thinking of it, I use a word that someone around me does not know. They look quizically at me and repeat the word, and I have to explain what I meant using more common words. Sometimes they say something about using SAT words, or how sometimes the plainer word is better. (When in fact I know that the word I used often better conveys the meaning I intended… if only they knew it!)

In those situations, take the opportunity. Ask them what is wrong with them, are they antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian?

Use it online too! I will be honored to be the first and only hit on the web for a Google search on antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian. But how much better would it be to revive the use of this word. Use antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian in your writings and on your blogs! Lets turn no results on Google to one result. Then two. Then hundreds! Hey, perhaps I will make a graph!

Long live the word antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian!!

(But don’t be an antihypersyllabicsesquipedalian yourself, OK?)

Time for another Darkflash! This one was sent to friends and family 2 September 2004 04:25:02 UTC.

So, this week has been pretty interesting. Lets see…

Thursday: We started looking at houses again for the first time in a couple months, now that we are fairly settled. We weren’t going to look again for a few more weeks until my company finishes paying me back my relocation money, but the agent sent us one that looked really good. So we looked. And liked it.

Saturday: We went back to the house. To check it out in a lot more detail. We still liked it a lot. It was near the top of the range we had been looking at, but it was larger than most we had looked at in the same price range. It needed a little work, but nothing major, and all things Brandy wanted to do. And otherwise it had almost all the things we had on the list of things we wanted. A couple little things missing, but nothing major, and on balance good.

Monday: In the morning I speak to my boss to see if he can assure me that I’ll get all my relocation money by the end of September. Because if I have that money, making an offer on a house would be viable. If I do not, then it needed to wait. He gave me enough assurances to move forward. We put in an offer. If we get it then we may be a little house poor for awhile. We’ll have to cut back on other things. It will be a little tight, but we can do it. I then immediately left for a business trip to New York City. I was supposed to be there from Monday night to Thursday night. Basically completely overlapping the Republican Convention. I found out on the plane though that the trip had been extended, and we (me and two other people from the company) would be staying until Friday night.

Tuesday: We had a great meeting with the people we were in NYC to see. And in the middle of the day I got notice that our offer had been officially accepted by the sellers of the house we liked. But by the time we left the meeting, the “well, maybe it might be an issue” thoughts on Hurricane Frances had turned into the forecasts explicitly saying there would be a good chance of a direct hit on us in Melbourne. There was much conferring, and it was decided that we were leaving on the next flight out. All the rest of the meetings would be canceled. MEanwhile, the AC in Melbourne started leaking, and soaked the rug in Amy’s room. Complete soaking stinking mess.

Wednesday: We got up at 4 AM, and took a 6 AM flight home. After a layover in Atlanta, we were home just after noon. Now it was all hurricane all the time. Oh, and Brandy had the AC folks fix the AC. But the rig in Amy’s room still was soaked and smelling very bad. But with the hurricane, there were more pressing concerns.

Accent had decided that on noon Thursday the whole company was being relocated. (And families as desired.) They are relocating to a big block of rooms they reserved at the Dolphin Hotel near Disney. The idea being (I think) that even if Orlando got clobbered too (which looks likely) that Disney would be up and running more quickly. However, no pets allowed, so we have to go elsewhere.

Now, to answer a question several have asked… We have a bunch of fish, 4 birds, 2 lizards and a dog. How do I have a dog? Am I not allergic? Won’t I die? Brandy has had the dog (Princely) since it was a puppy 9 years ago. It is a 115 pound rottweiler malemut mix. It is super friendly with people, but not so good with other dogs. Excepts its “brother” Sammy. Yes, Sammy. Anyway, the original plan was that when we moved to Florida, both dogs would stay with Brandy’s mom. But Brandy’s mom decided she couldn’t handle both of them. There were not many other options, and none of them were satisfying. So we brought Princely with us. Now I *AM* deathly allergic to dogs and cats and imaginary friends named Shmoo. But it is Florida, and there is an enclosed porch thing called a Florida room here. So that room is where the dog lives. I don’t go in there much, and aside from a couple times in major storms, Princely does not come inside, and thus we can coexist happily.

OK, now with that out of the way, that whole pets thing means we can’t stay with Accent in Orlando. So our plan is to just head roughly northwest, leaving by noon Thursday, and go as far as we can get. There will be lots of evacuation traffic, so who knows how far we will really manage to get, but we’ll try out best to at least make Tallahasee, if not beyond. Cause all the hotels in Florida are already booked apperantly. Brandy has relatives in Tallahasee. And perhaps beyond that we might actually be able to find a cheap pet friendly or pet oblivious motel.

Meanwhile, back at home, we spent Thursday afternoon moving stuff around in the garage to try to block up (a bit) the garage window, and to make space so Brandy’s second car could go into the garage. Then after that, after getting news that the Accent people who were going to help us board up the house a bit had some of the needed supplies left, but not all, we spent several hours in a fruitless search for places that still had things like masonry anchors and such. There may be such, but we didn’t find. In the morning two people from work are coming to help us, and we’ll improvise any way we can to board up as much as possible, tape up what we can’t board up, and then when time runs out, we’re just leaving.

We’ll have packed the animals and the most valuable stuff (both dollar wise and sentimental) into my Saturn and Brandy’s Nissan, and we’ll be on our way.

And no, I am not loading the email archive into the evacuation cars. If my old print email archive from CMU gets destroyed, I certainly will not be happy, I’ll be quite upset. But I’ll get over it. And frankly, if things get messed up enough that the email gets messed up, it will be bad enough that a lot more than that will be ruined, and it will be the least of our concerns.

We’ll put stuff as far away from windows as we can manage. Hope we don’t get it bad enough that the roof comes off, and just hope for the best.

Of course, we will actually hopefully be at least on the other side of the state by the time it hits. We may lose stuff, but we have no intention of being one of those idiots who stays around for a hurricane this strength.

Oh, and there is that house we put an offer in on. The offer that was accepted. Well… we have 14 days to schedule an inspection. That will be after the hurricane. If there is major storm damage, that may just not happen. At the same time, the added expenses of relocating the whole company may screw up cash flow at accent, in which case they may have issues getting the relocation money back to me in time. Also a case in which the house thing may not happen. We shall see.

A lot in flux right now.

Anyway, it is just after midnight. Brandy has already turned in. I’m also going to catch a quick nap. I’m meeting the folks from work who will be helping with this house at 7 AM. And before then we need to get a bit more packed and ready to leave, and a bit more of what is here in order. If the clock strikes noon, we’re leaving, even if we haven’t gotten everything together that we would like to have done. Noon, we go. We will not be here any longer. So it will be short sleep and up early to try to get everything set to go as much as possible. Whatever isn’t done, oh well.

So, having said that, time for me to take a quick nap, then wake up and get back to work.

I’ll update again if I have a chance later, but it may well be a few days.

Yesterday I was walking around the house cleaning up some in preparation for the arrival of Brandy’s mother. She is staying with us for a week because at 19 October 2004 09:54:54 UTC Amy will be exactly 9 years old. (Although, not being as precice as I am, the date she considers her “birthday” is a day later.)

Anyway, as I was walking around the house I noticed something wrong with my car. I had just had it detailed last week because it was a mess, and so I saw something. It took me about 5 seconds, then it suddenly came to me when the problem had originated. And with horror I determined it had been there for over a year and a half…

I had been screwed back in March of 2003. You see, back on my 2003 Q1 random trip to Ohio, I had busted up my back right tail light… Click below and check out the picture about 1/5 of the way down of my smashed taillight.

2003 Q1 Random Vacation – Day 3

OK, that was on 15 Feb 2003. On 1 Mar 2003 I went back to Ohio to pick up the car. Check out the picture about 1/3 of the way down of the fixed taillight below…

2003 Q1 Random Vacation – Epilogue

OK, what is wrong here???

Now, I should have noticed it right when I was picking up the car. Or at least sometime in the same year. Or maybe earlier this year. It isn’t like yesterday was the first time it was visible. And yes, I don’t wash my car as often as I should, but it isn’t the first time it has been clean, and I should have seen it anyway…

Do you see it???

When they put on the new back right panel, they did NOT restore the pinstripe!!!! It goes down the right side of my car to the back door, then STOPS. It does not continue through to the back like it is supposed to!!!! In the March 3rd picture of my car covered with snow on the page above, if you look carefully, you can see how the line stops at the end of the door and does not continue like it should.

(In both the 1 Mar 2003 and 3 Mar 2003 pictures there is something that looks a little like a pinstripe, but if you look carefully you can tell it does not match the pinstripe from the 15 Feb 2003 pictures and is really just a reflection from the shape of the car at that point.)

So now, I haven’t even noticed this for a year and a half, but now that I HAVE noticed it, it is driving me nuts and disturbing me. The car is uneven! The left side has the pinstripe all the way and the right side does not! It is all unbalanced!! I now feel self concious about driving the car. It is just WRONG.

It has been a year and a half, and Ohio is a long way again, so I’m certainly not running back to Ohio to complain at this point. But you can be sure when I go to my next regularly scheduled service with Saturn in about 3000 miles, I am going to have them fix this!

Argh!!!! I can’t believe I’ve been driving all lopsided for so long and not even known it!

Why didn’t anybody tell me!!!