Farewell Herbie, Hello (name to be determined)

I took the plunge this week and traded my truck in. I am now the proud owner of a 2006 Pontiac G6 GT Sedan in Electric Blue. Herbie and I had a lot of good times together, but he was worth more in trade-in than I owed and just isn't quite the best choice for the large amount of driving I do now (25,000 miles since moving to WI). Herbie will be missed and I hope he gets a good new owner. Given that I have a GM Card limited me to GM and I got the supplier discount plus the Red Tag sale so I got the car for a good price. The difference in payments will be more than offset by the fuel cost savings.

As of yet she is unnamed. Yes, it will be a female name since it is a sports sedan. It is now the third car I have purchased and has more features than the previous two, but not quite as many as my New Yorker had. The original idea was to get a coupe, but that had awful visibility and wouldn't be practical for my day-to-day use since I used the back seat of the truck a lot and figure I will do the same with the car. My favorite new items are the keyless entry and starter and having my sunroof again. It also has a good Monsoon stereo system and plenty of power with a 201hp V6.

The funny part is that my mom also got a new 2006 G6 GT sedan today as well in Stealth Gray Metallic.

Too bad it is supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow so I won't get to play much until next week, but I have to go to Appleton at least 5 times in January so I will have plenty of highway time for break-in and acclimatization.

Anyways, she's pictured below.

Here she is. We'll be spending a lot of time together, I'm sure. 

This is the Knauf Space Station. 

Here's Kohler Castle. 

This is Fort Keller. 

This is the Train Station. 

Here are the pictures of Camp Rokilio in my district. This is the Gunderson Viking Ship. 

A Christmas Ficus Tree. 

Holiday Happenings

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years folks. I didn't send any Christmas cards this year, but really kind of see it as pointless and a lot of work.

I started my holiday out on Thursday out on the town with Eddie and his roomate. It began as dinner and ended up as bar hopping until after midnight. This was not a good plan since I had an appointment for my truck in the morning before driving back to MI. We decided that we should start our own rating book for the local establishments rating them "classy" to "trashy" and publish it. Both ends of the spectrum were visited that night. The "classy" location was the Penn Ave Pub where I catch lunch occasionally and of Memorial Day weekend fame for a truly enormous amount of various bombs consumed by Eddie, Scott and Bill. The "trashy" place was easily the worst I have been to here in Sheboygan. It was the "Wild Side" a coyote ugly bar on the south side of town. No, there were no coyote staff on that night, but there were plenty of white trash there who were amusing at best. We stayed for one drink and left. I felt dirty for a while after leaving. We ended at our home, the Sky Box.

The trip to and from MI was uneventful and tied the record at 8 hours each way door to door. It probably will be my last trip back until next fall looking at my calendar. We'll see.

Christmas was fun as usual. As I mentioned previously, I am now the proud owner of a handgun complete with all the shooting accessories and a brick of ammo. Now I just need time to shoot it. I got some other stuff, but that was the high point. Also good was Chicago defeating Green Bay and making the spread and that the Lions won, barely, with Joey at the helm.

The most entertainment while I was back was the flying laptop. My sister had her laptop plugged into the wall with the cord stretched to the table where the laptop was sitting with her brand new iPod plugged into it. Enter Bungholio (nickname of my brother's puppy). At the sight of a squirrel in the yard he started running circuits around the downstairs. This was fine until he changed course and caught the power cord just right and the laptop and iPod went flying a good 5 feet through the air to land on the dog bed. Amazingly neither device was damaged. The iPod cable was another story as the USB plug pulled apart into a bunch of pieces. I would never have guessed that the plug had that many parts. It was really kind of neat to watch the laptop fly.

I have to work this week, blech. Not that there is much I can do with most people not working and on vacation, but I have to press my associate to finish his units and get them in so that the boss(es) are more happy.

Anyways, hope your holidays were good.

Weird week in the news

Okay, so I strongly dislike December. It's too damn busy. My distraction is reading the news so here are some highlights from the week (no hyperlinks, I'm feeling lazy):

What is up with Iran? Their president goes on in multiple speeches lately saying that the Holocaust didn't happen and if it did that Israel belongs in Europe because Europeans did it. Then he goes and bans Western music and movies. How is this possibly a good idea? Oh yeah, they are intent on a ostensibly peaceable nuclear program while at the same time spouting crap like the above. That's real comforting...

Penguins are not pets. It seems someone stole a young penguin from a British zoo apparently as a gift. The penguin was not old enough to be taken from its parents and will likely die if not found and returned to custody. I don't get birds as pets in the first place, but a penguin doesn't strike me as a fun pet at all--too formal with the tux and all.

Boliva elects a coca-farmer president. Great way to win the war on drugs, elect a guy whos livelihood comes from crowing the base crop for a nasty drug. Oh yeah, he and Chavez and Castro are buddy, buddy so he's on the "I hate America" team. We're his best market, just check out the crackheads in Pontiac. We'll see what happens there.

The US government is openly discussing post-Castro Cuba again. Do they know something he doesn't or is someone thinking the Bay of Pigs is due for a repeat?

Merry Christmas is preferred, according to a recent survey, over Happy Holidays and the percentage in the favor of the former increased by ten percent this year. Either way it's still a retail holiday these days regardless what you say.

Finally, New York transit workers go on strike. I've never been a union fan in the first place, but this really makes it worse. They have grieveances so instead of negotiating they seriously inconvenience millions of people. There's a great way to win public support especially doing it in a cold December. Stupid. I'm sure they feel their concerns on both sides are valid, but anything that has that large of an impact needs to be dealt with more reasonably on both sides. I'm glad I don't live there.

Happy Winter Solstice, the days only get longer from here. Amen.

Baked Good-ness among other things

I finally took time to visit the bakery this week to buy bread. It's heavenly. There is simply no comparison between grocery store bread and the bakery loaf (the loaf in question is a loaf of Half and Half Rye bread). The best part is that I got a large loaf of bread, dozen "hard" rolls aka buns, and an apple coffee cake for $6. I will admit that it is out of the way, but that's survivable.

So other than baked goods, I just (literally) finished reading an excellent book Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan. The book is apparently the first in a series and is his stories of visiting American troops all over the world and impressions from that. The title implies the presence of an American Empire and he spends some time on comparisons between modern American missions and those of the British Empire and of the American interventions of the 30's. It really is well-written and while it contains critiques of the system they are well-explained and supported by the experiences he describes and the conversations he relates from the troops. I can't say that it's light reading, but certainly worth it if you want to get a soldier's and ground level viewpoint of American foreign policy today.

On a much less serious note, I am having trouble connecting that it's the Christmas season. I just took the time to decorate the ficus tree with ornaments and lights as per my annual tradition and am listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra while I sit here, but it still seems a bit surreal. One good thing is that my shopping is done, now I just have to wrap the stuff and prep it to take home.

I have gone to two Christmas parties thus far, both Scouting related. The first was at a Cubmaster's home and was way out of my class. I should have guessed that when I pulled into the driveway and parked behind two Jag's. It was a bit higher class crowd than I am comfortable especially in jeans, but they were all really friendly and his family made me feel right at home. It still was not exactly the most enjoyable affair. The OA chapter party last night was much better even though I spend part of the time discussing work related things. The rest was spend playing pool. The chapter adviser has an awesome basement with a ping-pong table, pool table, air hockey and fooz ball. There was also a lot of food. That was a lot more fun. The staff party is this Friday which should be interesting.

Anyways, I have to do some work now. So long.

We're Havin' a Heat Wave

NOT! Oh my goodness, it's felt like freakin' February in Alaska the last few days. The high got to all of 10 the other day and was 3 below when I left that morning. That doesn't even begin to include the wind chill. I know it's Wisconsin, but this is way too early for that cold. It could be worse, I could be in Colorado or Montana I suppose. It is a balmy 30 outside right now and feels like shirt-sleeves weather.

Ed was home this weekend and really suffered having come in from 80 degree weather in Mexico. Kohler has a great policy for employees on temporary out of town assignments in terms of rental cars. Ed's choice for the weekend was a 2005 Mustang. It was pretty plain jane with a 6 in it and automatic tranny, but was still a lot of fun. When you turn the traction control and over drive off you can spin the tires no problem on dry pavement and even better in the snow. It handles well and isn't uncomfortable to sit in or drive. I'm told that the governor kicks in at about 110, but I wasn't there to see that.

The Lions suck. Oh wait, Garcia is the team's salvation. Sure. He can't even throw a decent pass. I thought the new coach was supposed to be decent. Joey has played better this year than Garcia, look at the stats. If they would start playing as a team it might help or even just throw the ball more than 10 yds. I should be used to this by now, but it's something to whine about. It's not even enough that the team sucks, but now the security has to go all jackbooted and assault a guy for his "Fire Millen" sign. They're lucky there wasn't a riot. This Sunday will be fun, Pop Warner style with Green Bay and Lions on Sunday Night football. At least there will be some good laughs.

Outside of the cold weather and fun with the Mustang and visiting with Ed, it's been pretty ho-hum around here. It's a typical December in the BSA, hurry up and wait on new unit projects and overdue membership. The days have been long, but the people are at least pleasant. A new phenomenon was getting my fundraising goal for '06, it was based on what happened, not the old goal so my goal is 10k less than this year (which we missed by 20k). It will still take work, but is more than feasible just with past givers that we missed this year. Actually it looks like next year should be overall positive for the district after this rather messy and low year.

It doesn't look like I will be home long over the holidays since we will probably be expected to be working on the 27th thru the 30th. I'm not sure where they expect kids to be found and convinced to register, but we'll at least put up a front. At least I get the 23rd off as a drive day and the 26th to return on. Oh well.

Read NOAA's forecast--it's better, just like Barry said.