The Wild and Crazy Bachelor's Party

Sushi and ...

... what more can I say.

Just me and 25000 of my closest friends

Picture of the class of 2009 marching in.

I came to town early for the graduation exercises for both Sarah and David as well as for the upcoming wedding. The instructions for the 4:00 pm commencement were to be in your seat by 3:15 pm.

My attempt to make the 5 minutes drive, leaving at 3:00 pm, to the event center turned into a traffic jam, filled parking lots, and stumbling into a faculty parking lot by catering services resulted in me finding myself looking for a seat at 3:30. I found one on the top row, with a view of the proceedings, that was only improved by being at the top of the staircase where nobody could sit in front of me.

Carolyn decided to stay at home; Squirt needed a nap. She got to watch the proceedings live on TV with a far softer seat. And David's name wasn't listed in the program, as he is officially graduating at the end of the summer term, staying on campus to work on a research project and present a paper at a convention in Las Vegas.

ESC - Eurovision Song Contest

For those that may not be aware, the competition is heating up. For those that really may not be aware, there is a competition... Here's a couple of the highlights.

Spain makes a respectable showing this year:


On the other hand, Sweden misses on the choreography, and the mixture of pop and opera almost works, but goes a bit too far near the end; the mixture of English and French isn't too bad:
The link for the ESC TV site is: http://www.eurovision.tv/mediaplayer/2009/player.html

"New" Oven ... Elementary

The result for now is repair, rather than replace. Here's the repaired oven in action. The important thing to remember when installing the new element (or for that matter, removing the old element) is to turn off the power at the circuit breaker. And no, I won't tell you how I know this to be the case; there were no injuries and no tools destroyed as part of the repair. Two sheet metal screws, pull out the old element; unscrew the power connectors. Rush to the parts store so that you get there at least 12 minutes before closing. Installation is the reverse.

Fire in the ....Oven?

You've read on Susie's blogspot that we had a "fire". Here's the gruesome details.

It started as a couple of quick pizzas in the oven, so I could eat something before leaving for conference. It ended up with two pizzas in the garbage and , missing the first half hour of conference.

When it started, Susie noticed a spot on the right side of the heating element that was shining brighter than the rest. Our thought was that something had spilled on it and that it was burning off. We closed the oven and let the pizza's bake. Coming back we could see that it slowly progressed, like a giant slow motion sparkler on the fourth of July, burning along the element, leaving a somewhat charred version of itself in its wake. After 15 minutes (the pizza was supposedly done, but not really), and turning off the oven the coil kept burning... and the unburned coil kept growing brighter and brighter.

We decided that it was time to get serious about putting the fire out. (Shutting off the oven didn't stop the fire). As class D extinguishers have NaCl (or so I'm told), Chaelomen tried smothering it with salt. It kept on burning. Next trick was the ABC extinguisher in the garage... again no effect. At this point the smoke form the oven has set off the smoke detectors (we have 11 interconnected detectors in the house), so we opened windows for ventilation and evacuated the house.... and called 911.

I figured we were in no great danger, as the fire was confined to the oven, but was not too comfortable with a fire that I couldn't put out... I was worried about it progressing to wiring that was not in the oven. I called 911 to get some advise as to how to put out the fire. I was transferred from the 911 operator that the cell phone connects to, to a more local 911 operator,... provided all the information, the fire department was dispatched, and the 911 operator told me to call back if there were additional problems.

15 minutes after I called 911, I got a call from 911. Prior to that, we'd pulled out the stove from its cubbyhole in the kitchen, just to make sure nothing was going on behind the stove (there was... a mouse hole in the corner, but that's another story). As the fire was still burning, I decided it was safest to cut the power to the range at the breaker box (even though the oven control indicated "OFF". The fire died out.

Anyway, 911 called... The fire department couldn't find us. As I was giving directions, the fire engine pulled up. They'd been dispatched from a station 8 miles away - - - the closest stations were all busy with a big fire north of us. They came in the house, took a report on the make, model, and age of the range, nature of the fire and our efforts to put it out, pronounced the fire scene safe, mourned with us at the loss of our pizzas, let Jack-Jack see the fire truck... and left.

In all seriousness, we were very lucky. I don't know what a metal fire could have burned through and / or burned if it had been left unattended, but I have a vivid enough imagination.

I am curious about what was actually burning in the oven's heating element. After all, it's supposed to get hot and not burn, right? Any thoughts?

When it's Spring Time

The commute this week has been quite nice, for the main part... during spring break, there's so much less traffic - we can actually drive at freeway speeds during rush hour.

The exception was our spring blizzard. The office shut down early, and the commute home was SLOW. I'm glad that I had swapped cars with Scooter for the week (so that I could fix the radio and the window crank). The Festiva handles so much better in the snow than the Insight, which is so close to the ground that it gets high centered and/or scrapes the bottom on whatever snow is on the roads.

This mornings drive was on snowpacked freeways. It's exciting to be driving on freeways without lane markings. The car right in front of me about 2 miles from the office was moving too fast and he started fish tailing, then slid off the road. Always good for a bit of excitement. Tonight the roads were all clear. I wouldn't be surprised if by tomorrow night all the snow has melted.

And Scooter's car is "fixed", the necessary spare parts were donated by the spare parts Festiva, "Steve".

The Wizard Needs

Top 10 list from google:

1. The wizard needs food badly


2. The Wizard Needs No Bailout


3. The wizard needs to be pluggable


4. The Wizard needs to load the new Wizard image


5. The wizard's node name needs to be confirmed


6. The wizard needs Previous and Next buttons


7. The wizard needs information from users


8. The Wizard needs your teens


9. The wizard needs your help


10. The wizard needs at least 1024 x 768