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

June 2026
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  

Four for Kelly

I coulda been in at 13 today. Alarm rang at 11. Was concious by 11:50. Out of bed by 12:10. But I took my time again. Put away laundry. Tidyed up in case the maintenence people come again to fix the closet. Watched an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. See, I knew my first meeting wasn’t until 14. But it means another $4 gone. Oh well. Time to get ready for that meeting.

Day 4

Day 4 of my redesigned site. Woo! I am about to do the sleep thing. But before I do… I’m all curious about just how long it will take before someone from my regular top ten actually notices this revised site and comments on it. I wonder which of them (of those who have made my top ten in the last year) will notice and comment on it first. Dunno. Could be any of them I guess.

Greg and Brandy knew I was working on adding the blog, cause they helped me test and set it up on a different URL before I made it the home page. But neither of them have commented on it since I actually activated it on the site. And certainly nobody else has.

Dunno. Perhaps I should offer a prize for the first person from the last year of top tens who notices and says something to me. Or not. :-)

Anyway, bedtime. ZZZzzz…

Justice Department Defies Court

If they didn’t want to comply, justice should have dropped the charges themselves to avoid the need. But for outright violating the courts order, not only should the case be dropped and Moussaoui set free, but the Justice Department officals responsible should be charged with contempt of court and sent to the slammer themselves.

Story on cnn.com

The Justice Department on Monday refused a federal judge’s order to allow accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui access to a captured al Qaeda leader because it would damage national security.

If there is real evidence against this guy, and it certainly seems there is, then he should in fact go to trial, be convicted if the facts weigh out the case, and then he should be sentenced appropriately. But the man is entitled to a full and fair trial. Which means he should have access to *all* evidence against him that the prosecution intends to use, and he should be able to have access to any potential evidence or witnesses that might be able to provide evidence to clear him. If the government feels it is unable to prove its case in open court, with full defense (and accused) access to evidence, then it can’t make the case, and needs to let him go.

Now they are directly defying the authority of the court? Even after already losing appeals several times? Who do they think they are?

Checking for DirecTV with the Moon

I just did this a couple weeks ago at the potential new place. I was a few minutes off on the time I looked outside, but it looked pretty clear, so I think I am good. Which makes me happy. But some guy was having the same problem, so I thought I’d try to help and answered the thread.

TivoCommunity Thread on Tools to Check Dish Placement

I pointed the guy at:

http://perso.numericable.fr/~gjullien/satellite.htm

which is the site that actually does the calculations.

Hopefully it is helpful. I love that moon check thing. It is cool. I’ve used it a bunch of times. :-)

Locked Now

Called both Ivan and Rebecca for advice. Ivan said don’t lock cause it might go down again before closing, and probably wouldn’t go up again. Rebecca said lock because it would give me more piece of mind and make one less thing for me to worry and stress about. Rebecca also recommended not paying any points, because it would take 6 years to break even with that, and who knows if I will stay that long, plus I will need the cash NOW for various things I’ll find I need when I move in.

I decided to go with Rebecca’s advice. Ivan’s might make more sense in raw financial terms. But Rebecca’s also takes into account soft fuzzy emotional factors. I didn’t really want to sell any more stock than I already had to finance this house thing, plus I *will* need the cash. As it is I’m thinking I will be pretty tight for the rest of the year.

Paying the points back down to where it was would cost the same as the fridge I need to buy plus the vacation I plan to take, plus the cost of moving. At least. If I paid points, I’d still have to do something to take care of the rest of that. So screw that. Long term it may make better sense. But short term it does not.

Having said all that, I’m still pissed at myself for not having paid closer attention and locked a couple weeks ago instead of now. And I’ll be pissed at myself again if rates do go back down like Ivan thinks they might. But oh well. Locked and loaded now. I don’t have to worry about it any more.

OK. Back to work stuff again. And I have to fax one last paper related to this lock back to the mortgage people. But I am locked now.

But I should have done it last week. Let me slap myself in the head a few more minutes. :-)

Damn Rates!

So this morning on the way to work I see a story on CNBC that mortgage rates are starting to go up again. Damn! I had expected them to basically stay flat, or maybe, just maybe, drop one more time before my closing. So I called Brandy to get my lock in NOW. But my rate had already gone from 5.375% to 5.75%. Which translates to an extra $50 a month or so for me. To buy it back in points at closing would cost me 3 grand or so. To do that I think I would have to sell stuff I don’t want to sell. But maybe it would be worth it. Poo. I’ll probably buy back at least half a point. Gunna run and check my finances real quick, then sign the lock in paper work. This blows. Should have locked in a week after the last fed rate once it was clear the mortgage rates were not going to drop because of that. Poo.

Air!

Stopped by at home on the way between offices for work. Just needed to pick up something here. The AC repair guy was just leaving. Cleaned the filters and recharged the AC, and supposidly now it will cool the place to 68. Of course they left it turned off. I just turned it on. We’ll see if it works. If so, it will be the first time my place has been below 77 degrees in almost four weeks! It will be nice for it to be a decent temperature for the last month I’m here!

Paint?

Just had lunch with Joe & Chu from work. Joe says between closing and moving in on the new place, I should paint and stuff. I hadn’t even thought of that possibility. I don’t think I’m going to. Don’t want to spend the time and money on that sort of thing right away. On the other hand, it will be an empty house… Dunno.

14:08 UTC

Yeah, I didn’t make it. Didn’t try all that hard. If I had really wanted to, I might have been able to if I skipped my shower and such and just got dressed and ran out the door as fast as humanly possible. But I didn’t. I took my time. And I put away some laundry and tidyed up the place a bit before I left. And other stuff like that. Also, instead of going in to my office in the close building, this was a day for me to go to our other building, so I drove further. Could have stopped at the first building just to pay less, I passed it at 13:44, which would have been $5. But my first meeting was in the second building, so I kept driving. Got to the desk here at 14:08. So $7. Bleh. There goes this being the last week of this!

Oh well. Time to work now. I”ve been fighting with the stupid old laptop I have here for work for the last half hour. Finally have it all rebooted and operational. Meeting in 20 minutes. I’ll get ready for that and clear out some simple work email.

Yawn

Well, alarms started going off at 10:30. But I didn’t actually leave the bed until 12:20. In theory it might be possible to make it by 13. But the chances are VERY slim. Oh well. Suppose I should try. Yawn!