kevan.emmott.net

Make me an offer.

(Steve Jobs strikes again.)

Trying out a new, simpler theme with Gallery, and uploaded pics from the Christmas activities we’ve done so far. I’ve got a bunch of albums to upload from the fall still, so look for them to appear at adventures soon as well.

Having the news channels on all day long at work is just weird. I’m sort of tuning them out, but I know way too much about useless things happening around the world.  And I get to experience all those cultural memes like the HeadOn advertisements.

Keith Olbermann, being justifiably scathing: Crooks and Liars » Countdown Special Comment: Death of Habeas Corpus: “Your words are lies, Sir.”

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies, that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” …you told us yesterday… “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas Corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror. Last week’s arrests demonstrate how real security doesn’t focus on possible terrorist tactics, but on the terrorists themselves.

…

And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized.

…

If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose — even if their attacks succeed.

From Schneier on Security: Last Week’s Terrorism Arrests

So I switched projects at work - and I ended up working on an Air Force project at the Pentagon. Probably not what my parents expected, and I’m sure not what my high school teachers (at the Quaker K-12 school I attended) would have guessed. Lots of security clearance/classified stuff, pass swiping, a significant amount of money (like everyone in my entire area is sitting in an Aeron Chair), and boatloads of acronyms… technically, for example, I’m doing work for AF/CVAC, in the CRC, which is next to the CAT, all inside the RSAC. Anyways, I just read this NPR article: A (Nearly) All-Access Pentagon Pass, which captures some of the feel of the place, including Rumsfeld telling a “joke”: “You know why a yuppie can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance?” I won’t spoil the punchline for ya.

The whole “bottombar” thing is pretty nice. Plus the clean look. I’m digging Hemingway.

My own meme:

Go to Google Maps. Punch in your home address - it should take you to a view of your house at a neighborhood view - I think two levels higher than the lowest (”Street Level”). Can you, on the same map, see your work location? If you can, congratulations!, If not, how many clicks on the zoom out button do you need so that you can? (more…)

Following Kottke’s post, here’s a picture of 2005 in cities:

Washington DC *
Philadelphia PA *
Columbus OH *
Syracuse NY *
Duck NC
Charlottesville VA
Cerrillos NM (near Santa Fe)

One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Short and sweet. *’s are basically family, and the rest were vacations.