So, lucky me, I got to have a root canal this morning. Everything went smoothly, and I'm glad I was able to take care of the situation on such short notice. Both doctors I saw were great, very professional and intelligent and kind. The novocaine is now wearing off, but I've already ramped up a dose of naproxen so I'm okay. I have to go back on July 1 to finish the procedure, but in the meantime everything should be fine, and I won't have any more pain.

To deal with the financial aspect, I cashed in some savings bonds which I'd been saving for an emergency rather like this one. Although they were money set aside specifically for medical costs and emergencies, it's still depressing to have to draw on that resource because...I don't know. Because I wanted to not have to, I guess. Whatever.

I know I did the right thing; I took care of the problem a full week before I'm due to leave on vacation, which is great because if there are any complications I can deal with them without worry. And the money was already set aside for just this reason. And it needed to be done, because, you know, pain hurts.

But somehow none of that makes me feel any better.

In other news, we had minor casualties in the garden from yesterday's exciting weather. We lost the main tip off of one of the brandywine and one of the grape tomato plants. The brandywine may or may not have a chance to bear again, given the shortness of our growing season. I'm pretty sure the grape tomato plant will bear at some point. But this is why I buy two of every tomato plant, because usually I have about a 50% casualty rate, so at least there are other undamaged and healthy plants which are even already setting fruit. Everything else made it through without any problems.

No tornadoes were actually spotted in Denver; the storm waited until it was out on the plains before spawning an actual tornado, which destroyed a car dealership and moved a house off of its foundation but didn't hurt any people. So that's okay.

Tornado warning has expired, but there is hail on the way.

elusis and I have covered the tomatoes and peppers to protect them.

Very strange weather out. It feels like tornado weather, except it's about fifteen degrees too cool. No reports or video of funnel clouds (let alone tornados) on the news, which leads me to suspect that this was a radar-triggered warning. But when you look outside because the civil defense sirens are going off, and you see a wall cloud looming ominously in your direction, you tend to take notice.

Things have taken on that calm-before-the-storm feeling too. The lightning is picking back up, so I will go and back out and keep an eye on things.

But I should be safe, at most I'll be dealing with hail.

AFK, tornado.

We had a vacation planned. We were going to leave on the 18th and go to Cortez, Colorado for a family reunion, then spend several more days roadtripping around New Mexico. We had an itinerary and everything.

But now I have a toothache, and a dentist appointment on Friday. And because I don't have dental insurance, this will probably cost me all the money I've saved up for the vacation.

Suck.

Republicans in the House of Representatives have quietly introduced a measure to make it easier for churches to support political candidates, just days after the Bush campaign came under fire from liberal groups for inviting church members to distribute campaign information at their houses of worship.

The bill is actually just a section (#692) in a larger omnibus bill called the American Jobs Creation Act. ( The full text of Section 692... )

Why is this bad? Because it will open up the doors for crap like this (here's the actual pastoral letter (warning: pdf, view it in HTML via Google). Churches will also be able to donate to political campaigns, neatly sidestepping existing campaign finance reform. Churches will be able to do things like this three times each year without fear of loosing their tax-exempt status.

This bill will give churches a very loud voice in politics. Churches should not have any voice in politics, not in the United States. Church members and leaders should certainly have a voice (and they do, they can vote just like everyone else) but they should not be allowed to invoke the power of the church to force, coerce, or convince others to vote in any particular way. This is one of the founding principles of the United States, and one of the reasons why people settled here in the first place.

This bill is being snuck (it's not even mentioned in the summary of the omnibus it's latched on to) through congress quickly and quietly. The people responsible for it are:

Rep Brady, Kevin [TX-8]
Rep Camp, Dave [MI-4]
Rep Collins, Mac [GA-8]
Rep Crane, Philip M. [IL-8]
Rep Dunn, Jennifer [WA-8]
Rep English, Phil [PA-3]
Rep Foley, Mark [FL-16]
Rep Hayworth, J. D. [AZ-5]
Rep Herger, Wally [CA-2]
Rep Houghton, Amo [NY-29]
Rep Hulshof, Kenny C. [MO-9]
Rep Johnson, Nancy L. [CT-5]
Rep Johnson, Sam [TX-3]
Rep Lewis, Ron [KY-2]
Rep McCrery, Jim [LA-4]
Rep McInnis, Scott [CO-3]
Rep Portman, Rob [OH-2]
Rep Ramstad, Jim [MN-3]
Rep Ryan, Paul [WI-1]
Rep Shaw, E. Clay, Jr. [FL-22]

All are Republicans.

Instruct your employees to vote against this bill. If you have Representatives in the House Ways and Means or Agriculture committees, tell them to rip the offending section from the omnibus so that the rest of the legislation can still be considered.

Yoinked from twistedchick.

DRACO: *cries for Daddy*
HAGRID: Lord. Tell Madam Pomfrey to pull out the smelling salts, I gotta bear Miss Malfoy here off to the fainting couch.
DRACO: Faster, plebe! I do believe I have the vapors!

Um, spoilers warning. Duh.

Well, the last couple of days here in Denver have been unseasonably hot. Today at 1:30pm, the thermometer in my back yard read 110F (43C). Yesterday was almost as hot.

Possible casualties include both hanging baskets of flowers, many of the flowers in the window boxes, the mesclun beds, and the chocolate mint. Everything else seems to be fine, especially the peas, which have grown at least an inch today. The tomatoes have begun to set fruit: the yellow pear, grape, and brandywines all have tomatoes with more blossoms on the way. Mr. Stripey and the Romas (sounds like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, doesn't it?) aren't yet ready to do much, though they all have buds for blossoms coming. And I've got at least one poblano pepper coming on, too, with a few other sweet pepper plants preparing to blossom.

Audrey the Arabian Jasmine is about to bloom again. She really likes it in the sun room.

To note the passing of President Reagan, a quote:

Lewis Rothschild: People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.
                    -- from The American President

I see a lot of people drinking sand today. I suppose some of it is due to the traditional "speak no ill of the dead," and some of it is simply seeing off someone who was admittedly the most amiable president we've had in decades.

You know you're tired of dealing with a problem if you write a snippet of code that looks like this:

$thankYouSoVERYMuch = justParseTheFrellingDateAlready($theGoddamnedDate);
if (!$thankYouSoVERYMuch) die "Error: incorrect sacrifice; try firstborn son.";

See, the problem with programs is you can't hit them. If you could hit them, they wouldn't try half the crap they do. I'm sure of it.

Okay. I'll join elusis and cavalorn in their urgings.

Testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer developed by men between the ages of 20 and 35. The older you get, the lower your chances; once you're about 40 or so you're pretty much off the hook. (Of course, once you cross that line you get to worry about prostate and colon cancer, which have their own fun examinations.)

As with every kind of cancer, early detection and treatment of testicular cancer is the key. Treatments for early stages of testicular cancer have a 98% success rate, which are incredible odds especially when compared to other forms of cancer.

Yes, treatment of testicular cancer can mean the removal of the cancerous testicle. But we have two testicles for a reason: redundancy. You can loose one and not notice it. You'll still be a hot fertile stud.

So how do you detect testicular cancer? Through a physical examination of the testicles, of course. The thing is most guys don't like having their doctor fondle their balls. Fortunately, it's not necessary to involve your doctor if you learn how to do a Testicular Self Examination (TSE). Just like with a Breast Self Examination you check yourself out regularly, and if you find something abnormal you go see your doctor. And just like with BSEs, TSEs can radically increase your chances of survival.

So if you don't already, you need to learn how to do a TSE, and then you need to do it monthly. Here's some web pages that show you how:

So you wanna perform a testicular self-exam?

This one has pictures.

And of course there's always Google.

I check my testicles regularly, because one of mine was undescended (I had surgery to correct it as a child) and guys with undescended testicles have a much higher risk of testicular cancer than average. But every guy should check himself regularly.

Remember, early detection and prompt treatment means life. Late detection--or worse, delay in treatment after detection--can mean death. If you find something abnormal, go see your doctor promptly.

The peas have begun sprouting. The aphids appear to have been eradicated from the roses, and instead have taken up housekeeping on the columbine out front. Once again it's pyrethrin spray to the rescue.

Lenore has decided she wishes to dig up my pepper plants. I've threatened her with the hose. For now an uneasy state of detente is in place.

For those playing along at home, here are May's spam totals for my server (which is the primary mail server for three different domains):


That's a 6% decrease in total spam over last month. Probably just a statistical fluctuation.

I should start graphing this stuff. Because, y'know, I'm a geek like that.

Two new rows dug in the garden. This means I dug up an area about 9' x 5' to a depth of about 20", then mixed in peat moss in the rows. The rows aren't straight, but then.. *rimshot*

That gets all the pepper plants planted. 6 sweet red, 6 sweet yellow, 6 sweet purple, and 2 poblanos. They needed to be planted ASAP since they were unhappy in their little containers.

The tomatoes are still fine, so far. I need to do two more rows for the 8 tomato plants we have, but I just didn't have it in me today. It'll happen.

I also planted the herbs: thyme, sage, and four different kinds of mint (peppermint, spearmint, orange mint, and chocolate mint). Yes, I know that theoretically means that eventually my herb garden will be a mint garden. However, I have yet to be able to grow mint successfully; I anticipate all of these dying this year as well.

So we now have two herb garden-ish areas, one for perennials and one for annuals (that's where the basil and parsley are). The annuals are in between the two salad beds.

Speaking of which, during the time I was digging the mesclun mix I planted the other day sprouted. I also have much sproutage of the wildflower mix and the sunflowers I planted by the side of the garage. So I'm still a little kid when it comes to having seeds I planted sprout. It's just so cool. (Still no sign of the peas, but it's still too soon for them.)

Window boxes planted: various pansies, dianthus, violas, petunias, and lobelia.

Hanging baskets purchased and hung (snapdragons and lobelia).

Planters on side of house planted: decorative grass, sunflowers, wildflower seed mix. (We'll see if these cement and asphalt-locked plants can stay alive during our upcoming hot summer temperatures.)

Side of garage dug up and planted: hollyhocks (volunteers), sunflowers, wildflower seed mix.

Herb garden near Insanely Happy Rosebush dug up, garlic chives transplanted from other areas to new location.

Pea row planted: sugar snap and snow peas.

Salad beds planted: mesclun mix (two beds, three rows each--we like salad), five Genoa basil, two Italian parsley.

Tomorrow's planting agenda:

Finish herb garden near Insanely Happy Rosebush: plant peppermint, chocolate mint, spearmint, thyme, lavender, oregano, sage.

Dig up small planter near entrance to garage; plant New Zealand Flourescent Impatiens.

Dig at least one more row in main garden for pepper plants. Two rows would be better, because then all pepper plants could be planted. At the very least the poblanos need to get in the ground. We have many pepper plants: 6 sweet red, 6 sweet yellow, 6 sweet purple, 2 poblano.

Tomatoes may have to wait for another day unless I go insane and decide to do all four rows in new garden. We have many tomato plants, too: 2 roma, 2 grape, 2 brandywine, 1 yellow pear, 1 Mr. Stripey.

Perhaps I should make a gardening icon.

David Bowie is the coolest person in the world.

Just sayin'.

You remind me of the child with the voodoo...

Have you ever known someone and thought they were a decent person who held themselves to a higher than average standard of responsibility and understanding and self-awareness and just general coolness, and then had that person go and do something really selfish and just plain stupid?

Yeah, me too.

I've been pretty cynical and misanthropic in my time, but in general I believe people are basically good. Ignorant of anything that doesn't directly swat them in the asses, maybe, but still basically good. But every now and then someone does something to make me question that, to make me think that maybe people are all selfish fucks who are only interested in covering their own asses and assigning blame.

I know, I know. Mind the generalizations. Some people may be like that, but most aren't. But still.

Meh.

Poll #298147 Say something fun
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Fun things to say?

Clicky thingy?

Chorizo and eggs good.

Chorizo and eggs friend.

The Apostolic Congress

Bush and his cabinet meet with these people all the time.