Found "The Photographer's Cache VII" recently, but haven't been able to find the 'Canada, eh?' cache, much to our chagrin and consternation. Our car is finally paid off - no more car payments!   =)

Had a wonderful dinner and game night with Gene and Ronda, and Ben and Deanne last night. Men versus women on the 'A-to-Z' game, and the men were victorious yet again. Ho hum (happens every time, nothing new). Played a few good rounds of 'It Came to Pass' after that, but my scores were anything than stellar. I'm looking for a Mr. Stellar. Mr. Stellar? Yes, Mr. Edwin F. Stellar.

Watched "The Pelican Brief" (1993; Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, John Lithgow) again a couple of days ago. Always love a good Denzel flick. Misti made some wonderful Chicken Fajitas tonight for supper (Great American Recipes, Group 1, Card 6). Mmmm.

I searched Brad's blog for cheese, and wasn't disappointed. Nice work on the search function, eh? And, yes, the Kaman/Fleetwood scenario is very strange. Must be an inside joke.

Tried the new Sugarfree LifeSavers Sorbets yesterday - a little too much Aspartame aftertaste for me, but not horrible. Also tried some Trident Strawberry Fusion Sugarless sweet & sour gum - very tasty (both the sweet and the sour ones).

Lucky Jared received five shots yesterday, but wasn't the least bit happy about them: MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella), Varicella (Chicken Pox), DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), and Hib (H. Influenzae, type B). Ouch.

Found a nice, concise article on Mondrian at Wikipedia. I tried painting my first Mondrian knockoff a few weeks ago with watercolors (!). Comical indeed.   =)

The English word 'pogonip' (from the Shoshone pakenappeh) seems to be a term that most people aren't familiar with, even locals (even though they've experienced it). It's important to note that the term 'pogonip' actually has two distinct meanings. The first is a frozen icy fog, and the second is Hoarfrost or Rime Icing. Pogonip can, and does, mean either: the ice fog, itself, or the resulting hoarfrost (or Rime) we see on trees after the fog clears. In local media and books, both meanings are routinely used, as seen here:

Nevada Appeal
(main article uses it to mean fog, while sidebar uses it to mean hoarfrost)

Nevada Proud
(photo captions use pogonip on photos of both fog and hoarfrost)

California BLM
(same; fog-induced frost defined as 'hoarfrost')

Mike Wishart
(pogonip defined as frost on trees, but not on the ground; no mention of fog)

Pogonip Magic
(same; in a book entitled "Pogonip Magic" by local authors)

Well, it was a joy (not!) to find out that our apartment isn't safe, according to Nevada State Housing Division Weatherization guidelines. As it turns out, our bedroom doesn't have enough combustion ventilation air to support our furnace if the door is closed, so now we have to keep the door open (not the outside, just an inner door). Also, our water heater in an outside closet also doesn't have enough ventilation, and our stove produces a little too much CO (carbon monoxide). Yeah!   =(

Photos! Squeezy Son:




Jared likes his truck he got for Christmas:




Fish Face:




I got the lowest possible score in Yahtzee:




Misti has the high score (for now):




Ben and Deanne's wedding:




Tongan/Basque Reception:




8' tall icicle at my folks' place:



Found a good article on .htaccess server error codes. Always love a good article.

When diesel trucks (the little ones, not the big rigs) start accelerating, they sound like they're constipated - I chuckle every time I drive off from a red light and the truck behind me sounds like it's really having a hard time...   =)

We were bummed to hear Emilie's update, of course - but fully confident that we'll see a little Emilie/Brad hybrid appear, all of a sudden, one day - a cute one.   =)

Was sad to hear that Johnny Carson died two days ago from emphysema (he was 79).

Found the 'Cache-0-Saurus Rex' [sic] cache yesterday, after having been thwarted once before a couple of weeks ago due to the snow.

Recently polished off a box of Luden's Wild Cherry throat drops. In doing so I learned that pectin is an oral demulcent, an antidiarrheal dietary fiber, an LDL cholesterol lowering agent, helps prevent gallstones, lessens the effects of diabetes, and can help prevent against colorectal cancer - and, oh yeah, it thickens jams and jellies, too. Pectin is apparently found most prominantly in Jonagold apples - guess the old adage holds true: "An apple a day, keeps the doctor away!"

Tried some Everfresh Cherry Blast Clear Fruit Lite juice last night, and also snagged one of the new Hershey's Take 5 candy bars at the checkout line (an impulse buy). Maybe if I eat the candy bar near midnight I can split the calories over two days and then it won't be so bad.

We attended Ben and Deanne's wedding and reception on Saturday. A lot of Misti's extended family has been in town for the festivities, so it's been fun to see them all again. The combination of Tongan and Basque food at the reception was unique and quite tasty. I liked the raw fish, and the corned beef wrapped in a Taro leaf, while at the same time enjoying the Crème Patissière and garlicy Basque chicken. I also managed to snag some banana jello, but am a little confused at whether that was supposed to be Tongan or Basque... I'll post a photo or two within a few days (of the newlyweds, not of the jello).

Lazy pronounciation test: say the phrase "Little Gift Cottage". Did you properly pronounce the T's, or did you really end up saying "Liddle Giff Coddage"? If you say your T's as D's, then you're using the so-called "flap T" instead. We Americans, it seems, tend to be horribly lazy about our T's, whilst the Brits (and possibly Canadians) say them properly (I guess that's why they always sound so formal).

Just realized today that there are hidden faces embedded throughout the film "Ella Enchanted". Weird, but interesting. Speaking of which, Misti's Aunt Koreen looks just like Hattie (Lucy Punch) in "Ella Enchanted".

It's always nice to hear a headline like this: "Flaw found in Office encryption". In lighter news, I found the Human Clock to be rather amusing.

Here's another headline from today: "Darwin flaws survive in Apple's Mac OS X". I simply repeat what I've always said, "No one is safe."

Tried some Lorina sparkling lemonade yesterday, imported from France. Didn't care for it much, actually. I think Ella of Frell (Anne Hathaway) looks like Jodi Keele.

We visited the Little Gift Cottage across the street from WinCo on South Virginia Street yesterday, since I had the day off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Interesting little shoppe, too bad they're closing their doors at the end of next month.

Had some wonderful angel hair spaghetti last night for dinner with Rosina meatballs. Tasty. Maite thinks that Misti looks like Herman Munster when she waves her hands in the air. Becky kicked all of our tushes tonight at Yahtzee - she got a 420, and none of the rest of us even broke 300.

Picked up a small container of Time & Again bergamot and grapefruit scented car air freshener. It smells like old lady perfume. We couldn't stand it, so it was relegated to the bathroom to cover up (or add to) other potentially unpleasant odors.

Tried the new Crest Whitening Expressions "Refreshing Vanilla Mint" flavored toothpaste for the first time yesterday. It wasn't as good as I was hoping for.

Finished reading "Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets" by Dav Pilkey today. Fun kid's book.

Watched "Ella Enchanted" (2004; Vivica Fox, Anne Hathaway, Minnie Driver, Cary Elwes, Eric Idle) tonight on DVD. I liked it. Kind of a cross between 'Shrek' and 'The Princess Bride'.

First church meeting of the year (due to the recent snowfall). Becky's in Primary now, and she looks so little compared to the bigger Primary kids. There were so many nursery kids that there are now three Sunbeams classes. Wow.

Becky scored a 'Dave the Barbarian' inflatable sword yesterday in her Happy Meal, and got to show it to her Uncle Dave just a few hours later. Funny.

Misti made a wonderful meal last night, "Stuffed Round Steak" (Great American Recipes, Group 6, Card 14). I loved the combination of onions, cheese sauce, and steak. Mmmmm.

It's rather hypocritical, I'd say, that Mozilla/Firefox fanatics rant and rave about how slowly Microsoft provides patches for IE, and how Firefox can turn out a patch in a matter of days - ummm, hello?!! People don't want to patch their browser every few days!!! If you think back, dorks, MS used to do patches all the time, and everyone got sick of it. Since they've gone to monthly patches, everyone's happier (for the most part). If you weirdos get your way and everyone in the world actually dumps IE and starts using an 'alternative' browser, then you're going to have to follow in Microsoft's footsteps and only do your updates once a month, too. So long to the nightly builds, constant patching, and annoying 'Hey! Your copy of Mozilla is more than four weeks old' messages... Who wants to install a new browser every month? Mozilla better figure out an automatic update solution, too, because having to uninstall and reinstall installations simply isn't going to happen for regular users.

eWeek's article on how DNS is being impacted by spamming tactics caused a minor stir today, and the comment rebuttal by DNSstuff's R. Scott Perry was particularly enlightening.

Gmail's security hole and the recent slew of Linux 'highly critical' security holes that were patched yesterday made the news today. Interesting reads.

It seems to me that there are two types of banana people in the world: those that prefer them yellow with brown spots, and those that like 'em yellow with just a tinge of green. Rarely can you find a banana that's 100% yellow (with neither brown nor green) because they ripen so quickly, and no one wants to do anything with a completely black one except to make banana bread out of it. Of course, there are probably those that don't eat bananas, but they obviously wouldn't identify themselves as 'banana people', now would they?


It seems to me that the problem with "Internet Time" isn't the time, it's the date. If it's "@699" (pronounced 'at six ninety-nine') everywhere in the world at the same time, that's great, but what day is it? You can't really tell someone in China to 'email me @699 on Friday' because Friday there wouldn't be Friday here. They need to come up with a corresponding "Internet Date", as well, for the whole scheme to work.

It's amusing to me the rogue snow lanes that develop after a snowstorm, and how very different they are in contrast to the regular painted line lanes on the road. Where there are usually two lanes, now there is only one. Corners that normally have strict or tight cornering suddenly become quite liberal in their angles. My favorite is the fact that you can now park in the middle of the street and everyone is okay with it. And who said having this much snow on the roads is a bad thing?   =)

NASA's Deep Impact rocket blasted off today, which is interesting. They had a one-second time window in which to launch the rocket, and apparently they pulled it off. Now let's see if their trajectories and calculations were correct - and lets just hope that splitting a comet in two isn't going to cause a Hollywood-style deep impact of it's own here on Earth. Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?

Okay, but did anyone else hear about the idiot that ate a raw duck, drank filthy bayou water, and waved his underwear around on his gun recently when he became lost while hunting? He was rescued 12 hours later, but apparently felt the need to eat a raw animal and drink bacteria-laden water "just to survive". After only 12 hours? I think I'd do a week-long fast before I'd eat a raw duck and drink some filthy water that would probably kill me a few days later... What's this guy thinking?

Oh, the humanity: phishing scammers turning to trojan horses attacks and the emergence of hybrid cell phone malware that is both worm and virus. What's the security world coming to?

Misti likes her new Scünci Steamer that she got recently. I don't feel that it lived up to it's claims (as per the infomercial - I thought it would blast away the mold in the shower, but it didn't), but it is good at cleaning some stuff really well. Misti made a wonderful tasting meal last night, "Roast Chicken" (Great American Recipes, Group 5, Card 4).

Becca really likes her LeapFrog videos ("Letter Factory" and "Code Word Caper"), and her new "My First LeapPad" and "Story Reader" and associated books ('Finding Nemo', and the 'Nickelodean Library') that she scored for Christmas. The LeapFrog videos are hilarious because now she runs around the house randomly spouting phonics rules, like "Silent E makes the first vowel say it's name" and "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking". It's very cute!

Jared really likes "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" - whenever the 'sunbeam!' part happens he throws up his hands and starts laughing. It's great. He's also got some more teeth starting to come in now, so his cute little grin is looking a little more toothy (but not toothsome).

I really like Biotène mouthwash, it doesn't burn your mouth like all the rest. Plus, it contains Xylitol, so I'm all for it. (Just don't drink too much of it - ha!)

So much of spam today could've been prevented if when we were children we were properly taught the difference between letters and numbers. For instance, it should've been made abundantly clear that a number one is not just a vertical line (which looks like a lower-case letter 'L'), but that it is incomplete (and therefore unacceptable and unrecognizable) without the little tail on top and the horizontal line at the base: '1'. If everyone only saw a vertical line as a lower-case 'L' instead of the number one, then a lot of spam messages would be easier for the average person to recognize as garbage; indeed, most of the spam we currently see would not even exist because spammers wouldn't even be able to read what they were writing! If no one could read this: "cIa1is", then how effective could the message be? (Spammers spam because it's effective - they 'earn' lots of money doing it, plain and simple.)

Of course, aside from the public education system falling short, the real reason spam is so lucrative is because the human brain is clever. It can recognize a pattern (i.e., a word: a pattern of letters) even when the pattern is corrupted (misspelled or purposefully camouflaged). The average person will be able to read all these variations of the same word (and many more) with little problem: Viagra, vIaGra, v1agRa, Vi@grA, vlagra, v|agra, \/iaGr@, v!aGra, v(agra, V Iagr a, VIa gra, viA Gra, etc.

I like the new Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta program. It seems to be more comprehensive than most antispyware programs. It has promise, but there are a few notable bugs that need to be ironed out before the release version debuts.

In the news: the most recent IE security flaws and the Firefox phishing flaw. No one is safe.

More snow and slush outside: we've had nearly seven feet (2.1336 meters) of snow in Reno, and up to 19 feet of snow (5.7912 meters) up in the Sierras. Wow.

Procured some great-tasting Musselman's Apple Butter at the store last week and am enjoying it. Mmmmm. Also enjoying some Berry Burst Cheerios Strawberry Banana cereal. I was impressed by the real sliced fruit.

Misti is loving her new Mr. Coffee Cocomotion hot cocoa maker that she scored for Christmas. (Well, okay, she's not the only one enjoying it.) Selah.

We watched Alfred Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" (1947; Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore) on VHS tonight. I like old black and white movies, but the ending on this one was lacking, we felt.

I've made an important discovery concerning the Fart Filter: there is a right side and a wrong side to the product. Using the correct side is critical to its efficacy.

Ever since Dave's been back from Wisconsin, we've tried both Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ sauce and their regular BBQ sauce. I think I prefer the honey variety. (Dave's the one who introduced this brand to us.)

We watched the fourth quarter of the Seattle Seahawks vs. St. Louis Rams NFL opening wildcard playoff game this afternoon and were disappointed that the Hawks lost the game in the last 27 seconds, with only just five yards to go.

I finally broke 20,000 points on Activision's "Spider Fighter" classic video game today. I completely suck at classic "Pitfall!" and "River Raid" now, but I remember being a lot better when I was a kid, playing on an Atari 2600 back in the day. (I play now on the Jakks TV Games Activision console that I scored for Christmas.)

I watched "Timeline" (2003; Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, David Thewlis) on VHS today. I really liked this film.

Everyone thinks that there are only three (3) books in the 'Bourne trilogy', but there are actually four. The first three are written by Robert Ludlum, whilst Ludlum turned the fourth over to another writer, Eric Van Lustbader. I'm actually watching and reading them out of order, as it turns out, but here is the correct order:

"The Bourne Identity"
"The Bourne Supremacy"
"The Bourne Ultimatum"
"The Bourne Legacy"

And to further confuse matters, there appear to be a renegade film and book out there, one entitled 'The Bourne Conspiracy', and the other entitled 'The Bourne Secrecy', which as near as I can tell are simply alternate titles in different countries.

Additionally, there also appears to have been a TV movie/mini-series version called 'The Bourne Identity' (1988; Richard Chamberlain, Jaclyn Smith) and a gay parody film called 'The Bourne Identity Crisis' (2003). And it that weren't enough, I had a companion on my mission named Gavin Bourne. And apparently, there are quite a few Gavin Bournes in the world, including one that's in a rock band, and two or three that are vice-presidents of major tech companies. Very confusing.

Couldn't find the 'Cache-0-Saurus Rex' cache this morning - it's under two feet of snow. Duh, I guess I should've thought of that before setting out. Oh, well.

Finished reading "Quidditch Through The Ages" by Kennilworthy Whisp (J. K. Rowling) tonight, another book I scored for Christmas. A good read.

Also finished listening to "Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire and Other Stories" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on audiobook, as read by Christopher Lee (Count Dooku from 'Star Wars: Episode II'). The 'book' actually consisted of four separate Sherlock Holmes mysteries: 'The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire', 'The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place', 'The Adventure of the Illustrious Client', and 'The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger'.

I finished reading the book - Holes - yesterday. It was the story that the Disney movie Holes was based on. And I found it really cool that the man who wrote the book, Louis Sachar, was also the person who wrote the screenplay for the movie and he played in the movie as an extra - Mr. Collingwood. Pretty cool.

The book was really fun and explained a little more than the movie portrayed. One thing that I never could figure out was why Elya Yelnats had to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain. I thought maybe it was because she was old and couldn't walk up the mountain to the stream by herself. But, it was because she only had one leg. And for a second or two in the movie you see her sitting there and you only see one leg. I had never noticed before. She is missing part of one leg below her knee.

Anyway, I think Louis Sachar did a great job on his book and the screenplay. It is one of my favorite books/movies! I love how it's a story within a story! It's also one of Jared's favorite movies!

Finished reading Harry Potter's copy of "Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them" by Newt Scamander (J. K. Rowling) last night, which I scored for Christmas.

Finally hit the 6,400 mark for Seti@home today.

You know, if you're a commercial printing service and you claim to support MS Publisher documents, you'd better have something more recent than Publisher 97 loaded on your machines... Duh! (1997 was eight years and five versions ago. I mean, come on - honestly.)

Upgraded to the new Adobe Reader 7.0 today. Looks surprisingly simpler (more 'bare bones' - no transparency on the splash screen), but doesn't open any faster than previous versions. (Despite the hype. Using a startup pre-loader doesn't count.)

It's hard to not notice all the recent PHP/perl server security holes in the news lately - I counted seven within the holiday season (but there may've been more): the Santy family of worms (A, B, C - which prey upon the phpBB script injection vulnerability), the Spyki worm [Net-Worm.Spyki.d], the Anti-Santy worm [Net-Worm.Perl.Asan.a], and the more generic Perl.PhpInclude vulnerability.

I was happy to see that Blog awareness was definitely up in 2004. It was also good to read about the recent history and the current state of the LDS mission in Haiti. It's also encouraging to see that the Church is sending obviously needed aid to the tsunami victims.

For future reference, here is a (hopefully) complete list of Nevada State Symbols, Emblems, and other official features:

Nevada State Animal: Desert Bighorn Sheep (a.k.a. Nelson Sheep) (Ovis canadensis nelsoni)
Nevada State Bird: Mountain Bluebird (Sialia currucoides)
Nevada State Fish: Lahontan Cutthroat Trout (Salmo clarki henshawi)
Nevada State Reptile: Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii)
Nevada State Fossil: Ichthyosaur (Shonisaurus)
Nevada State Tree (1): Single-Leaf Pinion (Piñon) Pine (Pinus monophylla)
Nevada State Tree (2): Bristlecone Pine (Pinus aristata var. longaeva)
Nevada State Christmas Tree: the now 95' tall Colorado Blue Spruce fir tree planted in the Capitol square in Carson City back in 1876 by George W. G. Ferris, Sr.
Nevada State Flower: Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata or Artemisia trifida)
Nevada State Metal: Silver (Ag)
Nevada State Gem: (Virgin Valley) Black Fire Opal
Nevada State Semi-Precious Gemstone (mineral): Turquoise
Nevada State Rock: Sandstone (a.k.a. Quartzite)
Nevada State Flag: click here to view
Nevada State Seal: click here to view
Nevada State Artifact: Tule Duck Decoy
Nevada State Grass: Indian Ricegrass (Oryzopsis hymenoides)
Nevada State Colors: (Cobalt) Blue and Silver (sometimes mistakenly called 'Gray')
Nevada State Song: "Home Means Nevada"
Nevada State Slogan: "Battle Born"
Nevada State Motto: "All For Our Country"
Nevada State Tartan: click here to view
Nevada State Soil: Orovada Series Soil
Nevada State March: "Silver State Fanfare"
Nevada State Holiday: Nevada Day (October 31)
Nevada State Nicknames: Battle-Born State, Sagebrush State, Silver State

For more information:
http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/nsla/services/nvfacts.htm
http://dmla.clan.lib.nv.us/docs/nsla/services/nvflags.htm
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/General/FACTS.cfm
http://www.washoe.lib.nv.us/mod.php?mod=userpage&page_id=111
http://www.nevada.com/facts.html
http://firstlady.state.nv.us/NevadaStateSymbols.htm
http://firstlady.state.nv.us/NevadaSymbols.htm
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/71st/bills/sb/sb347.html
http://leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-235.html

And all this time I've been thinking that Dory from "Finding Nemo" was a John Dory fish, but she's not - she's a Blue Tang fish. Church was cancelled today because of the snow.

Something I didn't know: it's been suggested that the fish referred to in Matthew 17:27 was supposedly a John Dory fish (a.k.a. St. Peter's fish, Zeus faber). Others, however, have suggested that it was a Tilapia instead (the first fish in space). The latter seems more likely, considering their differing habitats.

There are, of course, many different species of Tilipia alone (not to mention Cichlids in general), so it's tough to pinpoint which species (or even genus) it most likely was, in reality.

First post of the new year, and I have nothing to say, how ironic.