Rantings Diversified

There is a new post forming just off the coast. It is being driven by a Bermuda high coming out of the south. There is also a Canadian low holding it’s own and making the going slow for the high. Chances are that the high will replace the low on the homefront but we are also watching a mixed up system coming from Washington, DC that could interfer with the high too. Stormy nights are expected to be replaced with sunny days but a thunderhead is on the horizon and we’re hopeing it exits, stage left. Some of the computer models show the large high breaking up and giving everyone a little high.
This whether report was brought to you by
Nat E. Dread, climb-a-tologist.

You can, once again, click on the photo to embiggialize it, Grandad!
The other week I wrote about getting the outline of this, part two of my left arm tat.  Well on Saturday I had the shading and color fill done and I can only rave about the cat who did it.  His name is Eric and he works at The Illustrated Man.
This guy has got some skills!!!  Ya’ want to talk about the best of the best?  He is in that conversation.
Jen was right.  The outline I had done the other week was a whole lot more painful than the shading and color fill.  In retrospect the work I had done on Saturday only hurt a bit.  Not a lot.
This coming winter I’m going to get with him again and get part three done so someday I can then move on to my other arm.  Part three has yet to be determined but I already know what part four is.  First off, this patch won’t go below my elbow so I can still go to work in a short sleeved shirt.  Part four is going to be a bunch of small shamrocks all connected by a vine.  This will be all around the existing and even extending up on to my shoulder.

I have 18333 hits since I moved my site to this URL.  That is the past 18 days.  That means I have been getting around 1000+ hits a day.  Ha!  I freaked out, at first, thinking that 1000+ folk suddenly, out of the blue, found my site.  They didn’t.  The big question is what are Hits?  What are Page Visits?  What are  Unique Visitors?   What are Page Views?
The first thing that came to mind is….Fuck if I know!
Through some study I have found that Page Visits are the most reliable stat.  I get around 50ish Page Visits per day.  That relates to what I always thought hits were.
Page Visits are the number of folks who visit my site.  If you come to my site twice in a day, well that’s two Page Visits, see?
Unique Visitors is all the different IP address’s that have come to my site.  This is not a good indication of the number of people coming to my site because if you come to my site twice then I have two , “HITS”, as it were, see?

OK, I’m getting bored with all this and I want to go fire up the grill and cook some boneless pork ribs on my grill and eat like a carnivore should.  This whole discussion about stats is horse hockey if you hold to the antiquated idea of HITS.
I get about 1800 hits a week and nobody reads my site!!!
Know what I mean?
Now ask me how many Page Visits I get and you’ll get a more correct answer as to how many folks check me out.

This is just a quick note to remind everyone to go to Jefferson Davis’ site and download the last episode of The Jefferson Davis Saga podcast.  It is by far the funniest show we have ever done.  You’ll like it.  We have redefined multi-culturalism, globalism and a couple of other ism’s that are still being worked out.  It may have taken us awhile to record a funny one but I’m fairly certain that we got this one right.
So, if you have ever wondered what bloggers around the world sound like here’s your chance to find out.
The cast of characters are:
Headrambles
The NZ Pubcast
K8 the Gr8 (featuring The Accidental Terrorist)
Bainosbanter(featuring Drummerboy)
Jefferson Davis
Granny lost the Plot
and my humble self, Brianf.
So, go on, get amongst it.

on Jupiter, except for the meteors. Ha! Name that tune. Extra points if you can spell the name of the band correctly.
I’ve got nothing tonight. I have no idea where this post is going. If the interwebicals were a bit more interactive then I would say, “You got any ideas?”, but by the time you read this I’ll have figured it out on my own.
Today I started training on a piece of software called JAWS. It is an Assistive Technology software that allows blind folk to use a computer. It’s pretty cool. The computer reads the screen to you out loud. It is a very complex software. It can be set up to translate the web site or whatever program you’re using and it can shift from mode to mode on the fly. You may need one reading mode for one particular web site and another mode for a program or you can jump from reading mode to reading mode while in a single application. It is somewhat amazing in what it does. I am learning how this program works so I can teach blind people how to use a new web application the Commonwealth of PA is rolling out this fall. That is going to be an interesting challenge.
What else? Let’s see. I had the most disgusting sandwich for lunch today. It is called a Thai Wrap. It is nothing more than pieces of vaguely chicken chopped up and wrapped in a piece of shoe leather with something red resembling a tomato, construction paper painted green to simulate lettuce and the worlds worst curry powder. I’m pretty sure that’s what it said on label of the industrial drum she was shoveling it out of. It was bad, really bad. I mean it was bad. I ate it anyway.
How was your Monday?

You can click on these photos to embiggialize them.

I have started part two of my multi part patch. What you are looking at in the above pics is what I had done yesterday, 7.12.7.  This is only the outline of a multicolored knot/armband.  I’m getting the shading and color fill done on Saturday 7.22.7.
I have said many times in the past that when I got the first part of this tattoo it didn’t hurt.  It was very, very uncomfortable but didn’t really hurt.  Well let me tell you, dear readers, that part two hurt like hell on ice!  In a little more than a week I’m going to have it finished and the artist told me that that part is going to hurt more than what he did yesterday.
If you have taken the time to look at the pics and read all this, please let me ask you a question.  I am thinking of getting a barbed wire armband tat directly under this knot.  Waddya’ think?  Good idea or should I just go hang myself now?

Claudia was born in Carnac Texas in 1912.  She was one of the last, if not the last true genteel southern ladies.  She was an environmentalist before that word entered the lexicon.  Though I didn’t think much of her husband she was always interested in both the children of the country as well as the environment.  Far from being a radical she worked well into this decade to fight illiteracy and to help keep a lot of Texas range land just that.  She was given the nickname Lady Bird in her youth.  It is said she hated it.

To our former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, Rest In Peace

You think I’m joking? I’m not! The Commonwealth of PA is closed until further notice. I half expected signs across the highways at the state line pronouncing the State of PA closed. You see they did not pass a budget so as of midnight last night the state is closed for business. The Dept of Transportation is closed. All the State parks kicked all the campers out. Most all of the state-workers who populate the downtown around here are at home. Now essential employees are still hard at work. In all their wisdom the PA liquor stores and the state run casinos are all open.
Our governer, Commandant Rendell, wants a bunch of new taxes passed and wants to raise some others. Well our Senate said a resounding NO! So Fast Eddie Rendell has dug his heels in and closed the state.
I’ll tell ya’ more and more every day I believe in the old saying, Those that seek political office are the least desirable for the office. Good men should be cajoled and dragged into public service.

UPDATE:  7.10.07 They passed a budget in the wee hours of morning today so all the state-workers are back at work and the parks and museums are open again.  What worries me is that they did it in the middle of the night.  The last time they passes legislation in the middle of the night they gave themselves a huge pay raise and the people of PA ranted and raved until they recinded it.  A couple of judges and a  whole lot legislators lost their jobs over it.   Something tells me that when the dust settles and we find out what is in this new budget we the people are gonna’ be screwed.

Here are three more web sites that you guys should all check out.

Absolute Vanilla Yet another brilliant writer, funny and intellegent.

Curratech If you need some code written for your web site send these guys an email. The best of the best.

Urban Ruins My favorite Photography web site.

I done been tagged by K8 the Gr8 to do another meme. So, is it Mem-EE or Me-Me? I think it’s Mem-EE. Apparently I am to once again tell yous’ guys’ some things about me that I have never revealed here on these here interwebicals.
Ok, here goes.
1) I have received every Catholic sacrament except Holy Orders. One I received twice.
2) I hate wearing shoes. I did not have a pair of shoes on my feet for the entire first two years I was in school in Tucson, AZ. I wore sandles. To this day the first thing I do when I get home is to take my shoes off. When I work out in the yard I wear an old pair of hi-top All-Stars. In the winter I wear wool socks around the house.
3) I can juggle. Quite well, thank you.
4) I love B-grade 1950’s Sci-Fi movies. Day of the Triffids, It came from Beyond, Lost Planet, etc. The lower the budget, the better.
5) If I could buy any car in the world I would get a 1953 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, two tone green and creme, 300HP, 320 cubic inch ‘Rocket’ motor with a 700cfm double pumper 4-barrel carb and dual exhaust. It was the first production car that came with a guarantee to do over 100mph.
6) Have you ever seen, maybe on TV, those African dudes that stand around on one foot with the other foot rested on their opposite knee. I can do that for hours at a time. I do it from time to time just to freak people out.
7) I was a flaming liberal in my youth. I got better.
Eight) I don’t mind that my once red hair is turning grey and receding or that my hearing is going downhill but I am REALLY REALLY bugged by the fact that my once better than perfect eyesight is failing.

Right! There ya’ go. I’m not going tag anyone because that was a PITA. I hope you enjoy it.