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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 Rebecca’s baby has traveled back in time from the future! I found him!!!
(Well, actually Brandy found him, then told me, and I’m sure Rebecca and Chris already know… after all, he must have contacted them, right?)
Gideon
Band Members:
Gideon Hart – Vocals Guitar Bass Keyboards
Non conventional instrumentation, opium den songwriting, huge guitar tones and hyptonic rhythms are key. Listen up.
Opium den soungwriting. Yup, that has to be the little Morrow, coming back via the DeLorean at 88 mph. He’s just hiding the “Morrow” part of his name to be discreet. I know it has to be the same Gideon Hart, because there can be only one.
So, we (myself, Ivan, Rebecca and Chad) were driving from the DC area to my old house in Pennsylvania. We had been doing Interstates, but near Baltimore, we got off to do some things. Rest stop, food, a little shopping. Then it was time to get back on the highway and continue. Ivan was driving. It was his car. I was navigating. I wasn’t using my GPS, but was going by memory, and was trying to backtrack a route I had taken earlier. I had Ivan turn onto a dirt path going through a construction zone. It was a shortcut to the onramp to the Interstate. I knew it would come out right by where were needed to get on the highway. There were sharp hills and valleys and ditches. and I knew you had to basically go around to thr right, but couldn’t see the way clearly. So I hoppped out of the car and ran ahead to check out the right way in order to make sure I knew how to navigate.
Then I turned around and headed back to the car, and in one of the dips, I suddenly saw just the roof of the car, slowly sinking in a hugh pit of quicksand. The car was almost out of sight and huge bubbles were going “glug glug” from the sides as it sank.
Suddenly, I saw Ivan’s head, then Rebecca’s, then Chad’s. They had managed to get out of the car and were trying to get out the quicksand. They got to the point where they were not sinking any more, but were still chest deep in the mud. I told Ivan I was sorry about his car. I expected Ivan to be very upset, but he was amazingly calm and said it was OK. Meanwhile, Rebecca was pretty upset at me for giving the wrong directions and making them almost die. Chad did not say a word.
And then I woke up.
It is just before 07:00 UTC. I have to wake up around 11:30 UTC to be at work at 13:00 UTC in order to drive to Orlando to catch a 15:45 UTC plane to Newark. I will arrive at 18:11 UTC if all goes according to plan. Then will be at my old haunts in Plainsboro, NJ for a 21:00 UTC meeting with my old co-workers who are now clients. This will be the first of four meetings with clients in the NYC area between Monday and Wednesday. Then I’ll come home.
But we noticed that while the high temperatures are due to be in the 80’s here most of this week, that is not quite so much true in New York and New Jersey. So Brandy and I went out to get a new coat for me that would work with a suit and such. The winter coats I have just weren’t suit worthy. And the last coat I had that really did go with a suit fell apart years ago. So it was time I guess. But I’d completely forgotten about needing warm clothes in the winter. What’s up with that?
Anyway, it is a business trip and I will be with another guy from work, so I won’t have a lot of flexibility to go visit all the NJ/PA/NY friends, but I’ll see a few just because they are who I am seeing for business. Which will be fun.
So anyway, off for a trip.
And I have to be awake in just over under four and a half hours. So I’d better get to bed.
I notice it has been a long while since I last posted anything on news or politics or anything like that. The last time was November 3rd, right after the election. It has been a month. Wow. The main reason I guess was that I was just newsed out. The election was exciting. It was over. It has for the most part been a slow news season since then (with a few exceptions). And I had other things to think about and talk about on the personal front. All that is still true.
But while I don’t have time right now to comment much on them, I found a couple of interesting articles I thought I’d at least post links to. They center on how Democrats are responding to the current “War on Terror” as compared to previous Democratic responses to Germany and France in World War II and the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
An Argument for a New Liberalism: A Fighting Faith
(Peter Beinart, The New Republic)
and a response to it (which I actually saw first):
Liberals and Terrorism
(Kevin Drum, Washington Monthly)
Both are good reads and bring up good points. And you can see some responses from folks that disagree with both of them in the comments after the second article. As usual for comments threads, some are just flames, but a few are well thought out as well and have good counter arguments to the first two.
It is an interesting and thought provoking debate and definately worth the read (including the comments).
Right before lunchtime today I got a very upset call from Brandy.
One of her two pleco fish, which she’d had for around six years, had died overnight.
She had spent a lot of time and effort and love on these two plecos. Gotten them when they were like an inch long. They had grown to over six inches long. They had survived when a disease wiped out all the other fish in her tank in Pennsylvania. They had survived a long harrowing trip from Pennsylvania to Florida in a cooler. They had survived many days without electricity for their water pumps and filters after the hurricanes, and were still thriving.
We’re not sure exactly what happened. He had seemed fine. There had been no signs of problems, and all the other fish still seem fine. He might have gotten stuck behind a rock. But that rock hadn’t moved for months, and there had never been the slightest problem before and they can get out of tight places. Chances are we will never know. In the end though, the reason doesn’t matter, we lost a memeber of the family.
For those of you thinking “its just a fish”… Plecos have personalities and character and interact with each each other and are very charming creatures. They are just nice and sweet, and help take care of the tank by eating the algae that builds up naturally. There were many hours spent watching him do his thing. They are so cute.
He was a sweet pleco.
When I got the news from Brandy I rushed home earlier than I normally do for lunch, and we spent a couple hours mourning and comforting each other, and we buried the poor guy under a bush in the back yard. These guys have been with Brandy for years, and been through a lot with her. It is especially hard on her.
After they lived through everything in the last year and seemed to thrive and be happy, we were so sure they would live for years and years and years. I am so sorry Brandy.
It is a sad day today. And the other pleco is lonely.
Goodbye sweet pleco. We will miss you. You were loved.
Edit: Brandy says I got the wrong pleco. I am so sorry. I tried. But they do look alike. :-( Here is the best picture I had of the correct pleco. He didn’t want to look at me…
A while ago I made a post about various people using my pictures. Well, one of them found that post through their own referral tracker and posted about me:
The dying whimper of Pandagate …
(Zoe, CrazyBrave)
My sister told me, after seeing her compost bin on the internet, that I needed a new hobby. Not as badly as this guy does.
She was refering to my Email Contest which she linked to in her post. Now, now, I know I am behind a bit on the count at the moment due to having to reconstruct September in the way I am, but no need to toss that out completely as a hobby!
But perhaps a couple new hobbies too wouldn’t be bad. :-)
Well, it is now Monday, and the nice four day weekend is over. In just over six hours I need to be getting up to get ready for work. Which means I need to head to sleep shortly. But as I am returning to work, I thought I would share something about work.
At work there is a painting. It is above the copy machine. Near the printers. I walk by it many times. It haunts me throughout the working day and it follows me home and torments me in my dreams! This is it:
OK. Naked girl in a funny pose. I’m perfectly OK with that.
But what the hell is the red face thing floating above her and taunting her??? It looks like it is happy and celebrating in her obvious agony. What kind of sadistic pokemon sort of thing is it?? I have visions of it bouncing up and down in glee as thousands writhe in pain and torment. And probably singing some sort of song in a voice somewhat reminicent of Barney, but higher.. and perkier… and more insistant! A cross between a happy gurgling baby and a floating disembodied demon head spawned from the depths of hell. And she can do nothing but slap her head in disbelief and pain as it tortures her through all eternity!
Um, or something like that.
It is signed “B. Zong”. But I could not find any reference to such an artist googling on the name. If anybody knows more, feel free to let me know.
B. Zong, whoever you are, your painting is slowly driving me insane!!!
Um, or something like that.
 I got an email recently from PhotoSig asking why I haven’t submitted anything in a long time. So I looked through the last year of pictures, and nope, there really wasn’t anything worthy of submitting either there or to the Nikon Challenge, both of which a couple years back I was putting things up on a couple times a month. I’ve got a bunch of snapshots, but no “Photographs” of the frame and put on a wall sort. Oops. That stuff was fun. I have to do that again sometime. I should try to get into it again in the new year.
In the meantime though, when I looked through the pictures, I did find one I meant to blog about at the time but for whatever reason never did.
Last year they had an oil spill at Amy’s elementary school in Pennsylvania. They had to move the kids to another school for a month or so while the cleaned it up. When they moved back into the school, they put up some decorations that reflected what they just gone through. Their mascot was a dragon. There had been an oil spill. So an oil well of course. And they should be together. Thus, this modified version of their dragon was on the wall of the elementary school gym for the rest of the year. Um… I just thought there was something not quite right about that. Oh well!
Back near the end of September I notified the winners, but it is now posted here. Yea!
August 2004
No time to write very much for this top ten. I am writing by battery power while Hurricane Jeanne is roaring overhead. So no really exciting analysis. Kelly decided to win and did. Ivan and Ron are back after being gone awhile. Marilyn fell off the list.
Of course, the sad thing is, the web is now completely caught up with the actual count. Because of the hard drive explosion in October, the September count is still not complete. I have all the raw material needed at this point to recreate the count as best I can (although not perfectly). And I have done some of that work, but not all. I need to get back to that. I am way behind. Then after that I have to do October, which will be similarly labor intensive!
Without October’s results, I won’t know who has to get Christmas presents! Now that August’s results are posted, I can buy presents for people with October birthdays who have made the top 5 in the previous year. Once September is posted I can do November birthdays. The finally once October results are posted, I can do December birthdays and Christmas.
There may not be Christmas presents until February folks! Sorry about that! I may be running a bit late this year! :-)
No, not pictures from this Thanksgiving. We’re not that organized, and we’re delaying the whole Thanksgiving dinner thing since neither of us have been feeling well this last week. And it is hard to get everybody together into one picture since some of us live in cages.
But I figured it was a good time to put up a new bunch of pictures to show the expanded family since I put up the Pets and People page awhile ago.
So, being it is the whole Thanksgiving thing (well, it was yesterday, I missed the end of the day by a few minutes UTC) I figured I’d be thankful for the household here full of people and animals. We make a good bunch and I am glad we are together.
So, in the order they came into my life full time…
Sam:
Nacho:
Brandy:
Amy:
Nala:
Zuri:
Cheese and Skittles:
Brandy’s Fish:
Princely:
Amy’s Fish:
Mike:
Thank you to all of you above for being a wonderful family here in Florida.
And thanks also to all of the rest of my family and friends who are scattered all over the country for putting up with me all these years. I know how difficult it is sometimes!
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