• Describe what you did before you saw this message (kottke.org)
  OMG!
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• Finkbuilt » Blog Archive » 2 Miniute Dueling Lightsabers
  Oh, just wait till I have children!
  (tags: starwars diy projects)

• 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write : [chrisbrogan.com]
  Might start writing from this list.
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• Coudal Partners Shopping Cart | North May Co.
  Field notes: What a lovely notebook
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• Mango Beta Launched!
  Life goal: Learn German, just got a lot easier
  (tags: education language tools Web)

Yesterday was my first day at the new job. I’m a systems analyst, in the Information Technology Department at a small liberal arts university. I have been looking forward to my new job, it really fits into my new career goals. I have my cubicle, which is still getting setup, and while it is nice, I have a fluorescent light right above me, which I think will lead to a lot of eye fatigue. I have yet to get all of my stuff loaded into my cube, but i did bring in my TeaDrop. This little tea brew station is quite a nice little addition to my cube. The pendulum has again swung to me wanting to not drink as much coffee/caffeine, so tea is now my drink of choice. At only $11, it was a steal. On to the German engineering portion of this post. Esther was having car troubles yesterday, a dead battery, so I was resolute to repair it last night. I got to Walmart, looking through the car batteries, I found out there are three different versions of the 1999 Beetle and two of the versions take one model of battery, the other takes a different one. So I went home and found out which of the versions Esther has been driving. The second trip to Walmart was quick, back to the car batteries, grabbing the 50 dollar battery and then back home. When trying to take apart the battery enclosure, I found that I was either missing a tool, or my fingers and tools were some how all wrong. That makes the third trip to Walmart, to buy extender for the ratchet set. With the additional tools in hand, I finally was able to remove the battery and replace it. Mind you, this was at 9 in the evening, my activities lit by a work lap, bugs swirling around. So VW, in their engineering wisdom has used plastic to cover, hide and contain all of the engine components. And while it makes look good under the hood, but to change anything, you have to rip out a lot of black plastic. The problem comes when you have to put it back together, nearly an hour of cramming and banging on things. Ugh. Needless to say, It was late when I finally finished, I hadn’t eaten, and I was sweat. Cooling down with a soda at 9:30 wasn’t the brightest either, the caffeine kept me awake. Oh well.

• iWebMore
  I think I need this…
  (tags: apple freeware osx software iweb)

Esther and I went to McDonald’s today, not something we normally do. Today is a special day, my last day of work at the College of William & Mary, so a special breakfast celebration was in order. This is also the first time we have been to McDonald’s since becoming vegetarian, figuring breakfast would be much more veg friendly than any burger. We step up to the counter, Cee Cee behind it, waiting to take our order. Esther offers her order first:

I’d like an Sausage Biscuit with Egg meal, please.

Why don’t you just order an egg biscuit?

Let me tell you, there is no egg biscuit on the menu. Everything on the breakfast board labeled one through ten has some form of meat on it.

Ok, I’ll have an Egg Biscuit

Now I get ready to order.

I’d like an Egg McMuffin with no meat

*Laughs* Why don’t you just get an egg biscuit?

I don’t want a biscuit, I want an English muffin.

Now I know that being a vegetarian is “weird”. I understand that I’m not the normal customer she runs into everyday, and I also know that I’m not at Burger King, where I can “have it my way”. But seriously?! You are going to mock and question my choice of breakfast sandwich. I said I want an Egg McMuffin with out the meat. Is it really that hard to punch into your register? I didn’t ask for the sense of disdain that came along with me giving my order. To top it off, Esther’s meal got downgraded to just the sandwich, with a side of ridicule.

Friday was my first run in with the law in a very long time. I got pulled over for speeding. 60 in a 45. I thought that the cop running with lights on was responding to another emergency, I started to pull over. When he pulled over too, I thought “Oh, crap…”. So I pulled out my license and registration, rolled down my window and turned off my car. For some reason I was really nervous, probably because I had never really been pulled over before.

“Sir, do you know why I’ve pulled you over?” “I was probably speeding officer.” I replied. “Do you know what the speed limit is on this road?” “I’m guessing it is around 45.” I gulp out. “Do you know how fast you were going.” Getting ready to sweat bullets, I answered: “Honestly, I do not know. I was not paying attention.”

Apparently, Fridays leaving from William and Mary causes me a little case of the lead foot. Who knew? I got off with a warning… but now I have to really watch my speed, when driving on the Colonial Parkway, the park rangers have my number. Should I be embarrassed that it was a park ranger that pulled me over and not a “real” cop?

I got an email from Heidi that she couldn’t comment. That should be fixed now. Changed the blog URL… www.jeredb.com and jeredb.com apparently aren’t quite the same thing, even though my hosting should automatically redirect. Oh well. If you’ve tried to comment in recent history and got either a blank page or an error, please comment away.

• Partial Face Transplants Pictures Gallery - Photoshop Partial Face Transplants Pics
  Whoa. Very scary
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