I’ve been reading the TSA’s blog Evolution of Security pretty much since day one. It was a fine idea to try and improve their PR in the minds of the more savvy travelers. However I think I can declare it a failure. It is all PR no conversation. Even when they try to answer reader questions they just selectively pick the questions and answer them in a way that just back’s up their point of view.
2. What will the TSA due if a majority of the states refuse to issue READ ID cards to their respective citizens?
What’s READ ID? 
We’re already reading IDs…
We will be prepared to address that issue if it happens. Thusfar, every state in the union is working with DHS on REAL ID.
While it is true that the DHS has granted all the states an extension for REAL ID compliance it is false to state that every state in the union is working with DHS on REAL ID since several states have passed laws stating they are NOT going to comply with REAL ID. PR spin plain and simple.
I’ve noticed something when I travel. Since I travel a lot on government business and I have a government ID I can use government rates for travel.
I’ve taken advantage of government rates for a hotel reservation I’ve NEVER been asked for an ID.
Of course if I didn’t have my ID I’m sure I’d be asked for one…….
and not entirely pleased with Southwest.
We were booked on a 2:55pm flight to Midway and then on to BWI arriving tonight around 10:45pm. Sadly our flight was due to be approximately 2 hours late in arriving at ABQ. This meant we wouldn’t be able to make our expected connection in Chicago. Worse still if we ended up in Chicago we couldn’t fly out tomorrow since all flights to BWI were fully booked. As such the best option I was presented with was to stay in Albuquerque another night and take a direct flight home tomorrow. That’s all bad enough but what bugs me is the following 2 items. Our flight delay was never announced at the gate and our luggage was rerouted on a direct flight to BWI while we were not.
Since our luggage was redirected it means we are stuck here without our toiletries. *sigh* So much for saving a couple dollars in not booking a direct flight.
the (too big) antique (1920s) ring on Danielle’s finger:
About a week and a half ago I put a new kitchen floor in (just cheap vinyl tiles but it was still a BIG improvement). To go along with the new floor I went shopping for a new refrigerator and range. Surprisingly the range was much easier to find and purchase. I stopped by a Lowes Saturday on my way to a party and placed my order for a new range. They had it in stock and I scheduled delivery for today. The 4 hour windows was between 9:30 & 1:30pm today. They delivery guys knocked on my door at 9:10am. The had the old stove out and the new one in in about 15 minutes.
When I got home tonight I read the instructions and with a healthy amount of paranoia connected it up. Everything is working just fine with no gas fumes in evidence.
Here’s what it looks like:
Now if I could only find a 28″ wide Energy Star rated refrigerator that has at least 18 cubic feet of space I’ll be happier with my kitchen.
If you live near Johns Hopkins campus this summer you should be aware that on Friday’s from June 20 to July 25 (minus July 4th) you can catch a movie, outside at JHU. These aren’t nearly as crowded as the ones in Little Italy but equally enjoyable and FREE to the public.
Here is what is on the schedule this summer:
June 20 : 8:30 p.m. The Simpsons Movie
June 27 : 8:30 p.m. October Sky
July 11 : 8:30 p.m. Ratatouille
July 18 : 8:30 p.m. Stardust
July 25 : 8:30 p.m. Some Like It Hot
Want to add it to your iCal or Google Calander download an ICS file with the dates, time, and IMDB links to the movies
Friday I took the day off from work (I had to burn vacation time or loose it anyway) and redid my kitchen floor.
Now the vinyl tile floor that came with the house when I bought it had seen better days wen I moved in. Three and a half years later it was truly showing its age. After helping with a “Rebuilding Together” Project for a friend’s synagogue 2 years ago and having a easy time re-tiling the person’s kitchen I got the idea for a quick, inexpensive and easy re-do of my floor. We went and looked at both lowes and home depot a couple times but never found anything that really looked good enough to spend the money on. This changed this week when I stopped in at a Home Depot and found some tiles on sale, cheap. How cheap, I could buy enough titles to re-do the kitchen floor for about $50. So I picked up the tiles and went to work Friday. 12 LONG Hours later I was done. It ended up being hard work. The work was all in removing the old tiles. But the new floor looks so much better than the old one. I even had a couple friend’s stop by after I was done Friday to try and get me to go grab a beer but I was beat and had to decline.
Now that I have a new floor I’m inspired to get a new refrigerator. I want to buy an Energy Star rated model but have been frustrated in this desire. To match my current 1995 vintage refrigerator I need an approximately 18 cubic foot model that is a slim 28″ wide. To date I have not been able to find such a model.
In re-tiling I did discover one happy thing the natural gas line behind my stove is still active. Which means I can get rid of my old low-end electric model and replace it with better gas model.
(as an aside all my new appliances will be a nice neutral white b/c I think it will age the best in an old house like mine)
That was Friday, Saturday I woke up still tired and a bit sore so I decided to just do a small project. The small project had in mind was replace the transom in my bedroom. There was glass, calked in there when I moved in. But in an effort to open up and get better air floor in the house on the cool spring and fall night I ended up breaking that glass. As an interim replacement to keep AC and Heat in the bedroom I put some plastic up. It worked but looked bad. Recently I found some old plate glass in my basement. Free glass plus a little wood == new transom. Sadly it wasn’t that easy. I had two problems, the transom opening is no longer square (as you might expect from a 110 year old structure) and I had problems at my first attempt at cutting glass. I did manage to do a passible job such that I no longer have plastic up for the transom but what is currently in place is definitely version 0.9. Version 1.0 will be much better.
For Sunday my home improvement project was weeding my small garden (which I need to take some picture of…..), and catching up on season 12 of Dexter.
Last week I got a copy of “King of Kong” from Netflix. I got it for me, but Danielle was interested so we both watched it and very much enjoyed it. It was a fun look into a sub culture I never even considered existed: Classic Video Game records and competitions. If you have cable or satellite you don’t have to wait for a DVD from Netflix since G4 has decided to air this at 5pm this Sunday (1 June). Give it a try you might like it.
Until a couple days ago I wasn’t aware that postfix could filter mail it receives as a back-up MX as it can for domains it hosts directly. Once I realized it could I added some of my filtering to the domains I back-up for mail also. This has seen a significant drop in the emails I’m processing and a significant increase in the emails I’m rejecting. This is illustrated best by these 2 graphs:
and
I can’t point to what exactly put the idea in my head but I decided a few weeks ago to set up a water barrel to capture rain water from my roof and use it to water my food/herb plants, when possible. To that end I acquired 2 15 gallon barrel from a seller on ebay. The important thing to look for when getting your barrels is they were only used for food grade contents. My barrels formerly held olives, or so said the listing on ebay. After they arrived a sniff of them confirmed this was the case. Here is what they look like:
Once I had my barrels I needed to set them up to capture water running off the roof and for the one barrel to overflow into the second. Thankfully there are lots of guides online to help you figure out how to do this. I can’t point to using any one specific one because I read a bunch of them and used the knowledge gained to build my own.
The first thing I did was drill 2 holes in each barrel. The first hole was drilled low to allow water out for my irrigation:
The 2nd hole was drilled high to allow overflow to be handled in a controlled manner:
After I had drilled the holes I needed to put the appropriate hardware on the barrels to allow them to drain out water in a controlled manner. For the lower hole I used this:
and to control the water coming out I added a normal faucet end you might find for you garden hose:
For the upper overflow I used slightly different hardware it looks like this:
For both holes I used some general purpose caulk to make sure that everything was sealed.
Since this is DIY they fit on the faucet wasn’t perfect but it is functional.
The next step was to cut a hole in the lid of the main barrel to allow rain water to enter it from the downspout. To re-direct the downspout I used a flexible attachment from my local hardware store.
In order to filter out anything larger that might wash off into the barrel I added a normal window screen over the top. This also acts as a screen to prevent mosquitos from laying eggs in the standing water. Here is the final setup:
That hose connecting the two barrels is just a normal washing machine hose. And since I used the overflow on the 2nd barrel to accept overflow from the first barrel I added a 2nd over flow from that barrel. Another thing I did was drill a couple holes in the lids of both barrels so any rain water won’t collect there.
In doing some tests with my soaker hose and normal hose I found that the barrels don’t have enough pressure to make these effective. So next up on my to do list is use a smaller hose, punch some small holes in a targeted manner to water just where I’ve planted.
