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

Categories

Calendar

July 2026
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

Pics from Nov 2014

937 pictures for the month. First cut got it down to 50. Second cut got it to the required 1 per day 30 for the month of November.

IMG_8704

2014-11-01 01:13 UTC – Remember I divide things based on Universal time, so in Seattle Trick or Treat is early on November 1st and that is how we start the month. For the second year running, Brandy made Alex a train as his costume. He also wore a conductor-like outfit.

IMG_8735

2014-11-01 02:08 UTC – The train leaves the station with Grandma Ruth right behind.

P1060649

2014-11-01 02:14 UTC (picture by Grandma Ruth) – At first, all the stops were like this. Alex insisting on hiding in the train while begging me to do the doorbell ringing to collect his candy.

IMG_1899

2014-11-01 02:34 UTC – Later, after a bit of coaxing, we got him to actually go up and ring the bell.

IMG_1901

2014-11-01 02:34 UTC – After which he would immediately turn and run. He would then hide in the train again.

P1060656

2014-11-01 02:56 UTC (Picture by Grandma Ruth) – Eventually toward the end, he finally (reluctantly) did the whole thing himself a couple of times.

IMG_1960

2014-11-01 03:57 UTC (picture by Brandy) – This was Amy’s first outfit for Freaknight.

IMG_1946

2014-11-01 04:04 UTC – Trick or Treating over, Alex wants us to inspect some food he found.

IMG_1976

2014-11-02 01:1? UTC (picture by Brandy) – Amy was going to be Chell (from Portal and Portal 2) for her second costume for Freaknight, but it was canceled for this evening. Amy was sad.

IMG_8773

2014-11-02 01:14 UTC – Amy was not the only one in the family into Portal though, and Alex wanted a turn at the Portal Device.

IMG_1992

2014-11-04 20:35 UTC – Alex was working hard in his workshop on new train layouts, but it wouldn’t do quite what he wanted, so he was getting very frustrated. Not much later, this particular layout was no more.

IMG_8849

2014-11-07 00:54 UTC – I got a pic of a nice sunset in Lynnwood, WA.

IMG_8882

2014-11-08 20:23 UTC – Roscoe wants to know why I am taking his picture.

IMG_8941

2014-11-13 21:59 UTC – Alex had a trip to the dentist that required him to be asleep via anesthesia. This was right afterwards. He had roused enough that they were OK sending him home, but he was still basically asleep.

IMG_8947

2014-11-13 22:19 UTC – Once he woke up his first request was McDonald’s. We had to tell him he wasn’t supposed to eat for another hour or so. He was very unhappy about this. He really wanted McDonald’s.

IMG_8972

2014-11-15 21:52 UTC – A few days later though it was all forgotten. He wandered the aisles of a drug store choosing things he wanted, including the hat, glasses and brush, and asked to pose with his loot. (Which he did get to have.)

IMG_0116

2014-11-17 22:42 UTC (Picture by Amy) – Um, then Amy totaled her car. Nobody was hurt except the car.

IMG_0111

2014-11-17 22:?? UTC (Picture by Amy) – Amy was very sad though. Poor car.

IMG_9012

2014-11-20 22:39 UTC (picture by Brandy) – Brandy got to go with Alex to a Thanksgiving thing at his school. Alex made faces while he ate.

IMG_9025

2014-11-22 01:56 UTC – I’ve got Alex pumping gas for me.

IMG_2037

2014-11-23 04:58 UTC – Alex decided that to be warm he needed to join me inside my sweater.

IMG_2044

2014-11-23 18:37 UTC – Alex is starting to REALLY get into Lego. Usually it is vehicles of one sort or another, but this time he made this, which he said was “a dog in his yard”.

IMG_9093

2014-11-27 03:16 UTC – And when he visits Grandma Ruth, he plays with MY old Lego from when I was a kid. You can also see the Mr. Potato Head that was modified to look like my High School Physics teacher Mr. Posa as part of a Rube Goldberg project my senior year of high school.

IMG_0006

2014-11-28 01:45 UTC – Amy is not amused as I attempt to take pictures of her as we get ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

IMG_0018

2014-11-28 01:50 UTC – A few minutes later, Alex elaborates on a story he wanted to tell before dinner.

IMG_9134

2014-11-28 05:49 UTC – Later in the evening, food cleared away, Alex starts on some crafts.

IMG_9147

2014-11-28 21:00 UTC – Pair of pants on head as a hat? Check! Second pair of pants in case you lose the first hat? Check! Blanket? Check! One of mommy’s purses? Check! Lets go on an adventure!

IMG_0048

2014-11-29 16:26 UTC – Alex and Roscoe check out the first snowfall of the season.

IMG_9211

2014-11-29 18:24 UTC – Daddy is just cold.

IMG_9234

2014-11-29 18:36 UTC – There wasn’t that much snow, and it wasn’t very good for packing, but this was our pitiful attempt at a snowman. It was about 4 to 5 inches tall.

And thus ends November.

@abulsme tweets from 2014-12-31 (UTC)

Congressional Velocity (December 2014 Update)

Standard Into:

This is the latest in a series of quarterly posts on congressional legislative output. I started these in June 2013 in response to a flurry of commentary about how the 113th congress was lagging behind in output compared to previous congresses. Now, it is fundamentally debatable if passing fewer laws is a good thing, a bad thing, or just a completely meaningless number since of course the impact of laws varies widely. I’m guessing in reality, it is a pretty meaningless number.

But I noticed that in many of these debates, there was a lack of rigor in the ways these numbers were used. For instance, it seemed common to compare the current number of laws passed in the 113th, to the TOTAL passed in the 112th or 111th. Or maybe talking about the “pace” at which legislation was being passed as if there was an expectation that this would continue linearly. Never did I hear a comparison that actually looked specifically at where the previous congresses had been at the same point in the cycle. So I made one.

Now the new stuff:

Bottom line, although the 113th Congress lagged slightly behind the 112th congress for most of its existence, with only a handful of short periods being ahead, on December 16th the president signed 32 bills into law, and the 113th pulled ahead of the 112th. Then on the 18th the president signed 51 more bills. On the 19th he signed 10 more. With all this activity the 113th left the 112th in the dust in terms of laws enacted.

So all the hand wringing about how little this congress got done (by this metric at least) in the end just disappears in a flurry of legislative activity during the lame duck congress. Now, as usual, many of these bills aren’t all that consequential, thus the caveats in the first paragraph. Never the less, the 113th matched and exceeded its predecessor in terms of number of laws enacted, and in fact even came close to the 111th.

The totals for each of the three congresses on the 727th day of their existence (Dec 31st for the 113th and 111th, Dec 30th for the 112th):

  • 111th: 349 bills passed and signed into law by the president
  • 112th: 239 bills passed and signed into law by the president
  • 113th: 294 bills passed and signed into law by the president

In both the 111th and 112th congresses, there were additional laws from that congress signed by the president well into January… even after the next congress took office on January 3rd. I’ll of course keep an eye out to see if that happens again, but with the big flurry of signing in mid December and congress not in session since then, it seems unlikely there will be much, if any, of that this time around.

Here are the graphs:

Screen Shot 2014-12-31 at 20.17.38026

Screen Shot 2014-12-31 at 20.18.00517

Next up, we’ll see how the 114th does!

@abulsme tweets from 2014-12-30 (UTC)

@abulsme tweets from 2014-12-29 (UTC)

@abulsme tweets from 2014-12-28 (UTC)

@ElecCollPolls tweets from 2014-12-27 (UTC)

@abulsme tweets from 2014-12-27 (UTC)

Curmudgeon’s Corner: 2015 Predictions Show

In the latest Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and IvГЎn talk about:
* Introduction
* Politics Predictions
* Economy Predictions
* Technology Predictions
* International Predictions
* Hodgepodge Predictions

CCCover20141121-bigheads-2
Recorded 2014-12-26

Length this week – 2:10:41 – Longest ever – again!

1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
Download MP3 File
View Podcast in iTunes
View Raw XML Feed

@abulsme tweets from 2014-12-26 (UTC)