This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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 So, as seems to happen a few times a year, Brandy and I were driving down the street and saw a loose dog running around and playing in traffic. This time in the snow with the cars all around barely able to control themselves properly, not being all that used to snow in this part of the country. We pulled over. After maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and with the help of another passer by who happened to have meat in her bag, we caught the dog. The tag said he was “Hoshi” and had a phone number, but the phone number only yielded voice mail. The woman with the meat pointed out a house she thought the dog MIGHT be from, but there was nobody home. So after leaving a voicemail, we took Hoshi home for a bit to be warm and safe. Even thought we kept them on separate floors, Roscoe was NOT happy with this development.
Hoshi was a pretty good dog. Very friendly. Spent some time with Brandy and Amy while I tried (and mostly failed) to keep Roscoe from freaking out too much that there was another dog in his house.
After about an hour, we got a call from Hoshi’s owner. They were mortified that Hoshi had gotten out. They were at the mall doing Christmas shopping. Hoshi had apparently let himself out.
Because of the bad weather, it took them more than another hour to get back, but as of a few minutes ago, Hoshi went home with his parents and is safe and happy.
Ever since Friday, they have been predicting snow, then canceling it, then predicting snow, then canceling it. Places all around here got snow, but aside from a little bit over the weekend we didn’t get much. Until last night. We finally got the predicted snow. Only a few inches mind you, but for this area that is enough to pretty much shut everything down. So, snow day. Working from home on a few things, but also just taking it slow.
I’ve decided that while I am very tempted by the Kindle, and Brandy loves hers and swears by it now, that I do not want one quite yet. But I have determined what my threshold will be, and when I will want one (and most likely get one soon thereafter). After I finish each book, I’ll look at the last 20 books I have read and if more than 50% of them are available on Kindle, then I’ll officially start wanting one. This will be affected by two things of course, if new books I read are available on Kindle, and if the earlier books that were not available on Kindle originally have become available.
At the moment, 7 of the last 20 books I have read are available on Kindle, making for a Kindle ratio of 35%. We’re not quite there yet.
Once we are though, I’ll jump all over that. And I imagine after that point, reading an old fashioned physical book would immediately become a rarity, to be done only when there is something I either must read, or really really want to for some random reason, that is not available on Kindle. But I know now, that once I’m mostly on Kindle, I’ll be pissed off every time there is a book I want to read that is not on Kindle.![]()
Our house is JUST below the 400′ contour line. Probably at around 390′.
City of Bellevue prepares for snowy weekend
(Joshua Hicks, Bellevue Reporter, 10 Dec 2008)
Weather forecasters this week predicted snowfall in Bellevue for Friday and Saturday.
Icy roads are also likely throughout the weekend as rain and melted snow could freeze when temperatures dip into the 20s, as expected on Saturday and Sunday night.
City utilities crews say they are be prepared to work around the clock if necessary to clear roads.
Snow is most common in Bellevue south of I-90, where elevations reach as high as 1,500 feet in some parts. Most neighborhoods in the city are below 500 feet.
Forecasters projected snowfall on Friday night at 400 feet, with an 80- to 90-percent chance of precipitation.
This will be the first time this season. Woo!
We didn’t record the podcast until Monday (UTC) this week. I didn’t get a chance to edit it and put it out last night. I was going to do it this morning before work. But of course I’ve been paying attention to this Blagojevich stuff instead. So… I think it probably won’t be out until tomorrow. Apologies to anybody who is anxiously awaiting it. :-)
I always make sure to never buy ANY Christmas presents before December. It is now December 1st. A few seconds ago I made my first gift purchase of the season. On Amazon of course. There is no way in hell you will catch me in a physical store between now and Christmas unless I have absolutely no choice and can’t find what I want online. :-)
I started these tallies when I took time off during the conventions to watch the conventions and to get some stuff done during that time. When I wasn’t taking time off, I of course didn’t get as much done, but I still got some done.
In the two weeks that included my time off, I did:
- 7 hours of random things from my projects list
- 5 hours of catching up on putting things in Quicken and/or paying bills
- 4 hours on genealogy stuff
- 2 hours of catching up on old email
- 1 hour of reading
In the 12 weeks since then, I’ve done…
- 15 hours of catching up on putting things in Quicken and/or paying bills
- 3 hours of catching up on old email
- 2 hours of reading
Yeah… I need to pick up my pace a bit. And I can’t use the election as an excuse any more.
Pretty much as soon as I got home from work, I fell asleep. Many many hours earlier than I would normally sleep.
Soon thereafter I was in an airport terminal waiting to board a plane to somewhere in Eastern Russia. Somewhere in Siberia. It was a random trip. I was supposed to be staying with some family at my destination, but I was getting nervous because I just realized I didn’t speak even a word of Russian and was traveling alone. They started boarding the plane. Somewhere around this point I thought, “Hey wait, maybe I need a visa to go to Russia” and I called Ivan. Ivan was whispering, because he was also on a flight, and was not supposed to be using his phone. I asked him what to do. He told me of course I needed a Visa, and I should not get on the plane. I looked for a help desk to ask what to do, but I could not find one. So I got out of line and left the airport.
And then I woke up.
Meanwhile, while I was sleeping, things continued to play out in India. While normally this is something I would have been glued to the TV for, this time it initially happened while I was at an all day meeting at work, and then I just came home and fell asleep, so I am a bit behind.
I am running WAY late this morning because when Brandy got up and left for her morning class, somehow the door wasn’t fully latched or something. When I came out almost an hour later, the front door was open and the dog was not at home. So Amy and I started searching the neighborhood. I found Roscoe calmly walking (and greeting another dog that was being walked) along the way back on a route we often walk him… to the neighborhood grocery store and back. He found the door open, and just decided to do it on his own.
Anyway, that was much excitement, but everybody is fine. Although there was a half hour or so that was very worrying.
And now I need to run to work.
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