Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in robbbbbb's LiveJournal:

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Friday, May 16th, 2008
10:07 am	The Part of My Job I Do Best I just cracked open my stems notebook and spent an hour working through heat transfer equations on a project for a customer. They will be dazzled by my brilliant equations! I'm doing math! (Comment on this)
9:36 am	Not Ready for Prime Time So, the President of the United States gave a speech to the Israeli Knesset on confronting terrorism. There isn't much new there; it's a pretty typical George W. Bush speech on the subject. He reached back into history a bit and commented on the uselessness of appeasement, reminding us all of 1939: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." The Obama campaign immediately denounced this section of the speech, saying, "Quit talking about us like that!" Oof. You guys are not ready for prime time. Sometimes, it's best just to let things slide. Not mentioning the President's speech at all would have let these remarks pass unnoticed. Instead, you've re-focused attention on your candidate, and let the voting public mull over in its mind whether or not you really are an appeaser. That's not a winning situation at all. Not ready for prime time. It's mistakes like this that remind me of the Dukakis campaign in '88, and give me hope for McCain in '08. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
9:36 am	Absent Friends This one got passed to me by a friend this morning: Dear HMC Graduates of 1995, 1996 and 1997, It is with a heavy heart that the Alumni Office must share sad news with you. Last Sunday, May 4th, Nemo Nicholas '96 passed away in a tragic head-on auto collision. Nemo was survived by his wife Bethany (CMC '99) of almost nine years, and their two children, 17-month-old Kaitlyn and 4-year-old Nash. Nemo was working for Datasoft Corporation located in Chandler, AZ. Link to related article: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/05/06/20080506cr-fatal0507.html I knew Nemo. Not well, but I knew him. He LARPed with us in a couple games, and he was always a quick thinker and good at playing a role. Fun guy to be around, too. We had some fun chats during parties. Is this what it's like to get older? You get to watch friends drop, one by one? Added: I need to go out and hang out with my boy tonight. That's gotta be the cure for this. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
4:18 pm	The Shoe's On The Other Foot Well, at least Barack Obama is being honest about his Christian faith being a driver for his policy choices. I look forward to a good many of my friends voting for John McCain in the fall because, y'know, that kind of discourse has no place in American public life. Right? (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 12th, 2008
10:57 am	Dreams It is no fun at all to wake up from a nightmare. At 4:30 AM. About giant space cockroaches. Oh, well, I had to be at work at six this morning, anyway. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 9th, 2008
5:21 pm	Stairway to Heaven Y'know, it's kinda weird when the same song is playing for almost the entirety of my commute home in the evening. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
4:35 pm	I'm Hopelessly Addicted on Game Design Yeah. So, I'm back on Decision Among the Stars, my space strategy game. Last time I discussed this was back in January, before I became Dad. ( If you want to read about robbbbbb's game design stuff again, by all means, click here... ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
9:09 am	Yeah, Clem, But it's a Good Kind of Hurt I'm reminded of that famous Far Side, with the cowboy leaned up against the wagon wheel with three arrows in his chest. I went out and played ultimate last night. Oh, do I hurt this morning. But oh, it felt good to get out and play for a couple of hours. Alex came out with me for the first hour, then his mom picked him up and took him home and I got to play until 8 PM. Glorious, glorious two hours of play. Some new guys came out and played with us for the last hour or so. It reminds me of where I was when I first started playing. And it can be a lot of fun to take advantage of other players' inexperience. Heck, that's all I've got these days, considering how out-of-shape I am. (Was I ever that bad? I suspect so.) It reminds me: Y'know, I've been playing this game for almost sixteen years, now. I gotta do this every week. I'm happier and healthier when I play every week. I don't need as much sleep, I don't need to eat as much, and I feel better when I exercise regularly. Plus, I like the company. Good folks. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
11:47 am	Fairness, Idealism, and Other Atrocities P.J. O'Rourke gives the commencement speech you won't hear elsewhere. I have to file what he said about fairness so I can use it on Alex in ten years. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 5th, 2008
9:54 am	Oh, Please I have it on good authority* that Barack Obama is an agent of the Cuban government. He's planning to nationalize all American industry and lead us into a glorious communist revolution. Oh, and Hillary Clinton's lesbian lover confessed to me that Hillary's a softy in the bedroom. No whips or chains, even.** I wait breathlessly for the denial from the Obama and Clinton campaigns.*** ( Read more... ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
3:45 pm	Fuckin' Yankees Yes, boys and girls, it's that time of year again. My Mariners roll into the Bronx for a three game set at The House that Ruth Built. So you can all start channeling your innate hatred of the Yankees. Focus it well. Help Derek Jeter go hitless with three errors tonight. In all seriousness, the M's have a good shot in this series. They've just brought up a couple kids who are going to hit well and help the team, and their three best pitchers are scheduled for this series: Erik Bedard tonight, King Felix tomorrow, and Carlos Silva on Sunday. And tomorrow, Felix is facing Mike Mussina, former Major League pitcher. Now if we could just get rid of Jose Vidro. (Comment on this)
8:34 am	Good On Ya! John McCain promises to veto the next Farm Bill. “I’d like to start out by saying to you that I have to give you a little straight talk about the farm bill that is winding its way through Congress,” McCain told the audience of about 250 people. “I do not support it. I would veto it. I would do that because I believe that these subsidies, the subsidies are unnecessary.” I've had my disagreements with Mr. McCain on policy, but on this one he's spot-on. Farm subsidies suck. Cutting out farm subsidies and opening up foreign markets to American farmers is very good policy all the way around. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
3:12 pm	The Banality of Sedition It's the first of May. Commies everywhere are celebrating the imminent revolution. I suppose I'll be first against the wall when The Revolution comes. And they're still out there, recycling Marx and Engels and Trotsky and Lenin for the consumption of the ill-educated. On Capitol Hill in Seattle, for instance. There's a statue of Vlamidir Illych Lenin in Fremont. Every time I wander by there, I make sure to spit on the statue. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 25th, 2008
3:53 pm	Stoopid I'm reminded of a famous Winston Churchill quote: "We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." This whole stimulus payment thing is stupid. It's just going straight onto the bottom line as either increased taxes or more debt. It doesn't even have the benefit of a tax rate reduction, which at least offers the incentive to work harder and be more productive. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. (Comment on this)
3:49 pm	Lunch Today Erica came down to visit for lunch today and brought Alex. We went out to Pick Quick, our favorite hamburger joint in Tacoma. It's a little 50's era walk-up with outdoor seating. Great burgers, greasy fries, and real ice cream milkshakes. I know one of the girls who works there. Her brother is Jon, my brother's best friend. Jon was sitting in the seat behind Alex in the wreck, and he held my brother in his arms as he died. So, I placed my order, and Jon's sister sees me and says, "Hey, what's new?" So I picked up the car seat and set it at the window. There was much cooing from the women working behind the counter, and saying, "He's soooo cute." (Which he is!) I told Jon's sister, "This is my son, Alex." And she stopped, and she looked at me, and she didn't need to say anything. She knew my brother, quite well. Alex spent a lot of time over at their house hanging out with Jon. A look passed between us, this look that encompassed sadness and joy and heartache, all at once. She gave me a smile, and she gave the baby a smile, and that's all we needed. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
1:52 pm	1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione I'm wearing this shirt today, and co-workers keep asking me what it is. (Thanks, ruleslawyer! Old gift from you and your lovely wife.) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
9:19 am	Twenty Four Hours on 'The Big Stick' P.J. O'Rourke, one of America's better writers, spends twenty four hours on USS Theodore Roosevelt. Her crew calls her 'The Big Stick.' He asks, "What can you learn about America from the deck of an aircraft carrier?" (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
8:08 am	Equal Opportunity I was coming back from our plant in Portland, Oregon last week and saw a car with a pair of bumper stickers on the same car: "Obama '08" "Ron Paul '08" Hey, you've got all your bases covered. One guy's mentor thinks whitey's the devil, and the other's closest political allies want to blame darkie for all the problems in the world. The symmetry is beautiful. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 21st, 2008
9:56 am	FAB: Bulge I bought a new game this weekend. It's a block game of the Battle of the Bulge. It looks like it plays cleanly and easily. I got all the stickers on the blocks and have been playing around with it a bit this weekend. I have a habit. But, fortunately, it's a habit that I can share with my boy in another ten years or so. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 19th, 2008
10:04 am	Happiness is a Warm Gun No, really: "Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group. Nor are they "bitter." In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were "very happy," while 9% were "not too happy." Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy." (Via Instapundit and Marginal Revoluotion. I don't need to provide links, do I?) (Comment on this)