On the van ride out ORD airport this afternoon the driver spontaneously begins a monolog gesturing at the golden arches through his window and an item of historical interest: ‘this McDonalds eatery (Des Plaines) was the first in the chain, opening circa 1960’. We rode a little further pondering the legitimacy of his claim. I began to wonder whether I could at all trust of believe any of his spiel. ‘The O’Hare airport was named after WW2s first flying fighter ace…’ was another trivia bit. Maybe he’s working on a routine to increase tips. Was any of his info legit? Were we had?

There is a belief perpetuated by Hollywood that the US government knew or was warned in advance of Pearl Harbor. I’m sure that intelligence, some real – mostly false, filters through the system constantly. If this generic info were to be passed on to the public as some would insist, people would either (a)refuse to leave the relative safety of their homes OR (b)get tired of hearing WOLF and tune it all out. I do know that the airlines receive vague security bulletins all the time. So just assuming that such a warning was passed on last September or at any other time — would that have made one-iota of difference in the way events played out? Would an air travel industry employee, be allowed to heed such a warning as grounds to stay at home for the duration? For that matter, as a ticked passenger, can you change your itinerary? Not show up at your scheduled conference? Would folks who work in tall buildings decide on their own to stay out of the city? Do you think your supervisor would buy off on that — being thoughtful and understanding? So therefore we don’t want hear this ‘nice to know’ bureaucratic CYA drill. It’s bad for business Sound the alarm only when there is action to be taken.

I thought I would write the hiaku poem a wrote during 6th period. This is for you A.R.:

The water spraying
The wind blowing through my hair
Wakeboarding, big air.

If you arrive at school before th 8:00 bell than the 7th graders must wait in the auditorium. So I went to the auditoruim and started talking to my friends in front of the fire exit. No sooner than I do this the drama teacher comes over to me and says ‘Sir, you cannot stand there. Your an obstruction to the fire exit. What would happen if there was a fire and you were blocking the way?’ What would happen! I would no longer be an ‘obstruction’…I would be the first out the door!

At the middle school it was supposed to be racial profile er..uh.. international day. Young Guy is costumed as samurai sushi chef but his buds teased kamikaze. dude! sayonara

This was a good day! I crafted a user authentication and secured the website. S’mans sub domain is now configured and running. Also, Airborne Express delivered (left at the front door and then high stepped hurriedly back to van because he saw/heard HawkDawg going spazz thru the storm door) the new NetGear Router. It’s up and running without hitches or glitches. All systems are GO! Bossouringurl hates it when I say that 🙂 Finally, the most important good news of the day is — Mom H is putting up the good fight and is hopeful to leave the ‘horse pistol’ manana. Good show Mom! Keep it going. We love you.

Today was the last day of the ‘EOGs’. i’m glad it’s over. Now our teachers won’t be so up tight about us getting a good score. I can now write about something other than the ‘EOGs’. I don’t know why they have a reading section in the test. I don’t know when we are to ever use this in real life.

Why are teachers over concerend about tests. They tell you the stupidest stuff you could possibly dream of. Heres an example, Mr. Hampton my math teacher comes into my homeroom right before we continue with our ‘EOGs’. He says ‘class i just want you to remember that you make sure you fill in the bubbles after you have found the answer’. NO DIP CAPTIAN OBVIOUS! we’ve been taking these tests for about 5 years now! i think we can handle it.

Well because of our ‘EOGs’ our schedule is pretty messed up. We have lunch right after the 6th graders. usualy they let the 6th grade lunch out early so they don’t ‘incounter’ us in the hall. well today they kinda forgot to do that. can you say traffic jam. i was 8 feet away from the cafiteria but of course because of all 3 grades in the hall at the same time it took a little longer… about 8 minutes longer. 8 minutes to walk five feet!!!

The ‘diesel’ (DSL) has been replaced with Cable. Henrik was reporting 1500 bps down and 300 up while my ‘old baudband’ was variable 700 to 1000 and 200 up. At 50 per mo. you can’t be outdone by the neighbor. The installer showed with the hardware (only 4 days late) had a look at the power booster cable amplifier on the TV setup and said that he was unsure that the cable modem could co-exist. His solution? ‘either re-wire your house’ or ‘move your pc to another room’. Nearly ready to thank him for coming – bye, he says he’d see if it worked anyway. okay. Maybe that was just cableguy humor.

The last time I read about a Ferrari transplant was in an old R & T issue where Bill Harrah (Reno) decided he’t like to drop a V-12 into his Wagoneer… Now, decades later check out the quintessential hot rod reviewed in [AUTOWEEK] mag. The Zausner Torpedo with it’s 8C Alfa nose and 550 Maranello Ferrari 12C is an art form.

I muzt haf zis cah!

Like father like son — S’man built his own webblog page. I’m proud of you boy! [click here] to check it out.

There’s testing, testing and more testing. Everyday in school (I’m in 7th) for the next three days we have testing. It’s the End of Grades. It’s funny though, the teachers seem to be more worried about it than the students. I guess it’s more of their butts on the line than ours. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have someones career in my hands. What ever happened to the good old days when you would only pass a grade if your made good marks on your report card grades. Of course that was over five years ago in the 2nd grade. I always thought that ‘EOGs’ sounded kinda corny. I can’t wait until i’m in high school when i can call them ‘Exams’.