Misc

I realized I haven't written a thing since January. Well, it's mostly because we moved to a new house and are getting the old one ready to sell. Not very interesting for blogging.

We finally had some good weather on a weekend around here, so I took my son to the local airport to watch the private pilots fly the pattern. We lucked out and there was a lot of activity, so my son was happy. There was a helicopter parked on the field, and we walked over to take a look at it. A woman in a flight suit appeared while we were there; she turned out to be the pilot. Apparently they're in town to work for the US Forest Service. They have been using the copter to start controlled fires in the Sumter National Forest. Today she was on call to put out the fires if necessary.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Flight Simulator when I get my office put together. My friend Owen put together a custom 3D model of our airport that makes it look like you're really flying here.

I stumbled upon this blog. The author is also a Travis McGee fan and followed in Travis and Meyer's footsteps on a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico (from the novel Dress Her In Indigo. If you read some of the other entries, you'll see pictures and quotes from some of the places in the book. Cool! I really enjoy the McGee novels based in Mexico. Cinnamon Skin is probably my favorite.

My son is getting interested in playing around with the computer. Many of the shows he likes have eqivalent websites with stories and games. Several of these are on the Nick Jr. website. My son is smart enough to navigate these sites by himself for the most part. I was really disappointed when I found that several parts of their website have video ads that you have to watch or click "skip" before you can see the content. That's pretty desperate on their part. Don't they get enough revenue advertising on TV? Fortunately my son is faster to click the "skip" button than me, but I think I'll be pointing him to better kid websites in the future.

It's fun to watch the search engine hits to my blog when the Ohio State / Michigan game rolls around. My article from last year about jumping into Mirror Lake is getting a lot of traffic.

This year a writer from the Lantern happened upon that post, and asked to interview me. That's a first for me! A lot of Mirror Lake history and parts of our discussion appear in an article in today's Lantern.

I think it's the first time my name ever appeared in that newspaper. I didn't think he'd print the part about not jumping in 1990 because I was wearing my only good pair of shoes! I was prepared in later years with old clothes and ratty sneakers.

I wasn't yet steeped in the tradition of The Game when I arrived at OSU in 1990, and so I sold my student ticket for the Michigan game for slightly more than I paid for the whole season. But I kicked myself when I watched the game on TV from Cincinnati on Thanksgiving weekend; the crowd was so energetic that I wanted to be a part of it. Maybe if I'd have been there the Buckeyes wouldn't have lost 16-13! I vowed to not miss my next chance to go.

I had the luck of going to OSU during the John Cooper years, which meant plenty of wins during the season, but devastating losses to Michigan and bowl game disappointments. The Bucks lost to the Wolverines in Ann Arbor in 1991, 31-3. In 1992 I got my chance to see The Game. I screamed and hollered until I was hoarse, and maybe it did some good, because the Buckeyes pulled off a 13-13 tie with a late game comeback. I remember being genuinely excited about the tie; after all, it was a step up from a loss. OSU's president at the time, Gordon Gee, referred to the game as "one of our greatest wins ever." At the time it didn't seem unreasonable. It sure beat the 28-0 drubbing the Buckeyes would take in 1993, and it stood out as the only non-loss to Michigan when I was in school. So I relish that tie; perhaps if college football games had had overtime back then it would have been a win!

I'm glad the Bucks have turned it around in recent years, but I'll always be a little nervous and excited during Michigan week. GO BUCKS!

Jon Abernathy recently returned to Oregeon from Florida and blogged about the overuse of air conditioning there. I find it's much the same here in South Carolina. We keep the summer temperature in our house at around 78°F, higher than anyone else I know. It gives us a few extra bucks to spend or save. Stores and restaurants here are usually ridiculously cold.

His comment reminded me of a fitting 32-year-old passage in a Travis McGee novel, The Turquoise Lament:



Maybe those overworked compressors are part of the reason for the Atlanta Heat Island which sends storms and pollution our way.

Update 2006-08-06: I came across this Slate article on the same subject.

Last weekend a longtime friend came down in his Cessna from Rock Hill, SC. He took me flying last October too. This time we did some more buzzing of Greenwood County. Instead of heading directly for the lake, we flew over the city and then into the south part of the county. I thought it would be fun to see Ninety Six National Historic Site from the air. This was an American Revolutionary War battlefield. The British had an interesting star-shaped fort and the park has a grassy mound outline of the star. I had a little trouble picking the park out from the air with all the other open fields in the area, but I finally found it and we circled around. Click on the photo for a better look.

Then we headed up Lake Greenwood. I was surprised to be able to see the SC mountains from this area. Those mountains are up close to the NC/SC border. My friend said it was an exceptionally clear day. Then it was back to the airport, landing on the newly-paved runway. Lots of fun. Someday I'll get a pilot's license and start yet another hobby!

Last night we finally got some rain here, thanks to Tropical Storm Tammy. Except for a couple minor sprinkles, it's the first rain we've had since a brief shower from the edge of Hurricane Katrina back in August!

Update 2005-10-09: Maybe it was too much of a good thing. The airport data shows 3.23 inches of rain on the 6th and 7th. All that rain played havoc with our underground electrical feed. Yesterday morning, the major appliances wouldn't work, and the lights in half the rooms only came on slightly, glowing a dim orange. Very odd symptoms. After a couple visits by the electic company, I now have a temporary transformer outside the house. Apparently one of the feed wires was damaged by the inundation of water. So I guess they'll be digging soon.

This week I remembered that a recent U.S. law allows me to obtain my credit report for free once a year, so I tried it.

The site you use is annualcreditreport.com. You have to provide a good bit of info, including your Social Security number. Then it gives you the option of getting your report from one or all of the three companies they list. I decided to get them all at once because I'm sure I wouldn't remember to do this more than once a year anyway.

At this point, I was expecting to just receive something in the mail from each of the credit reporting companies, but instead I was able to view the reports online and print them. Unfortunately, they implemented this by making you go to each company's website and view/print the reports one at a time. Not only did this add to the time involved, but for each company, you had to figure out their unique interface. On each site, you had to authenticate yourself by answering a few questions about your financial situtation. But after that, the experience on each site was pretty different.

• Equifax: They decided to implement the free credit report as an "item" in their shopping cart/checkout process. Before letting me see my report, they subjected me to a page or two of add-on offers, like selling me my credit score for $5.95. Only after declining these was I able to see the report. They had the most wordy/lengthy credit report, coming out to about 20 pages for mine and my wife's.
• Trans Union: Another unpleasant interface. This website made me create a user account with name/password (like I'm going to remember those a year from now) and agree to EULA-style service terms. They also required my email address. Again, I was subjected to an offer to "buy" my credit score. This site had the most concise credit report format, coming out to about 6 pages.
• Experian: This site was the easiest by far. I answered the financial questions and they took me straight to the report. I noticed later that they had links there to buy my credit score, but at least they were unobtrusive. This report came to 9 pages.

One thing all the reports had in common was to show me how many companies obtained my credit information for the purpose of "promoting" things to me. So that explains all those annoying offers for credit cards, loans, and insurance. Apparently there's a site to opt-out of this stuff, optoutprescreen.com, but I'm a little leery of trying it. The site doesn't look that professional, and doesn't even come up if you leave out the "www". Their domain information is protected by Domains By Proxy, so I don't even know who's running the site. The article on GripeLog doesn't inspire confidence either.

So I guess if you live in the U.S., you might as well try to get your free credit report, but be prepared to spend some time and hassle in the process.

I know we Americans have had cheap gas for a long time, but I don't think anyone has been prepared for how fast it has shot up. Two days ago, the price here in my part of South Carolina was $2.49 a gallon. Yesterday, after getting news of Hurricane Katrina, it went up to $2.65. Today I drove by and it was $2.79. We passed by the same station 20 minutes later and it went up to $2.99.

If anything, I hope this is a kick in the pants to get moving on alternative fuels.

Anyone else getting a lot of these things? My wife and I keep getting credit card offers from Capital One. Included in the envelope are cheap refrigerator magnets. We received two more today and now there are 6 on the fridge, and I think we've already trashed one or two. Are these becoming the new AOL CDs? Soon we'll see websites showing all the artistic applications for these magnets.

Update 2005-09-30: We're up to 10 of these magnets. I need to see about opting out of credit card offers.