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Capitola Begonia Festival is Live Blogging FAIL #2

By Kernut, on September 6th, 2010%
Capitola Begonia Festival 2010. Outlaw 36 Gang's Octopus's Garden.

Capitola Begonia Festival 2010. Outlaw 36 Gang's Octopus's Garden took third place. (photo courtesy of/borrowed from The Santa Cruz Sentinel.)

What is it with me and these Live Blogging fails?? Seriously.

I don’t claim to be a techno genius, but it shouldn’t be this hard. Twitter hates me. That’s all I can think of.

Or, my unicorn force field has disturbed the ability of my technology to function correctly.

Crap.

Well, on with the AWESOMENESS that was to be my live blog from the Capitola Begonia Festival.

For my seven non-local readers, Capitola is a small coastal town, near surfing-central Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz County. The annual Begonia Festival is an opportunity for anyone to build a nautical float covered with donated begonia flowers. There are usually eight to ten entries built by families, groups of friends or small local businesses. I volunteer with the Friends of The Windmill House group.

It was a fabulous weekend filled with surfing dogs, BP being stabbed by the God of The Sea, and billions of begonias….

Noelle, inside The Love Shack. http://twitpic.com/2lajol She’s the generous hostess of the Friends of the Windmill House. They’re the BEST group of float building folks! We may not win, but we have the most fun.

This is Dune, the surfing dog. http://twitpic.com/2lbnv5 You see things like this in Santa Cruz all the time.

Neptune stabbed BP. As it should be. http://twitpic.com/2lbuw3 I don’t know if they won the sand sculpture/castle contest, but they’ve got my vote.

. . . → Read More: Capitola Begonia Festival is Live Blogging FAIL #2

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I Had Da Powers – Nuclear, That Is

By Kernut, on August 4th, 2010%
Boiling Water Reactor Schematic

A Boiling Water Reactor schematic. This one is SOOO much cooler than the black and white schematics we fixed. Ours were just Xerox copies.

General Electric builds boiling water reactors (BWR), a type of nuclear power plant. I drew fixed the seriously degraded schematics that trained the new power plant employees.

No, I’m not a nuclear scientist. I’m not an electrician. I had skills as a pen and ink artist. That’s it.

Yes, that should scare you.

No, I was not an exception. None of us working there had any experience in nuclear power or electrical backgrounds.

My step-mother wrote the technical documents that went with the schematics. She didn’t have any experience in nuclear power or electronics either.

Oh, I almost forgot – I was a teenager.

AND they gave me a fairly high security clearance.

HA! So much for thorough background checks.

On the news this morning they mentioned there’s a computer worm out that is specifically designed to attack nuclear power plants and utilities. Stuxnet is the name of the malicious software. (Industrial Virus Revives Power Grid Hacking Fears.)

Really Hackers/Terrorists? That’s totally lame to have wasted all that time developing some software – one that has been detected, mind you. All you had to do was send some kid down there to apply for a job. Any job.

I was a teenager with no real skills. This was my first real job that wasn’t babysitter or Radio Shack clerk. (Supposedly, drinking doesn’t count as a skill. Whatever.) I . . . → Read More: I Had Da Powers – Nuclear, That Is

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UPDATED Sometimes It’s Not Funny

By Kernut, on July 29th, 2010%
Not an actual picture.

Not an actual picture.

It’s not always funny.

Believe me, I would much rather be posting something else right now, like the details of one of my tumultuous dating adventures.

You ever have one of those days?

Weeks? Years?

No, me either. And this past week (year? God bless my short memory!) has NOT been one of them.

Ok, not in the last five minutes because I’ve been blogging for the last five minutes and I LIKE blogging.

Yes, it’s taken me five minutes to write the few previous sentences. I’m new, leave me alone.

When I’m Not Here I’ve Been Out Getting Blood Tests

Huh, wha??  Unfortunately, it’s true. Lemme explain…

In the process of changing to a new job, and the expected 90-day gap in insurance coverage, I scheduled my annual physical exam. This includes a blood test taken before the exam. It came back with really high levels of iron and cholesterol. Besides that charming bit of news, I eat very little (it is often organic and green) but I am gaining weight. WTF??!

Usually my doctor is VERY concerned about my cholesterol. The same cholesterol which is now EVEN HIGHER than it was last year.

Again, WTF?!

But this time he didn’t even mention the higher cholesterol. At all. He focused on my ‘enlarged red blood cells‘.

Um, what?

Marcocytosis is the official name. New word of the day.

He told me this could be caused by a few things, the least of which . . . → Read More: UPDATED Sometimes It’s Not Funny

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