I live in a house with a forced hot air heating system by natural gas, and at 4 AM three days ago, the circuit board that controls the fan died.
It’s a semi-old system, we think it was installed around 1990, so getting parts is a challenge because the circuit board manufacturer has changed the design.
Thus, it’s a guessing game which new version is compatible with my system.
George Bush Has Made the World More Dangerous
So what makes those Europeans so much smarter than half the voting public in the US?
Problems Solved
I’ve been having a weird problem for weeks, if not months, with Visual Studio .NET, my main development environment.
VS.NET crashed every time I tried to open a file from the IDE.
This is more than a minor nuisance, since there are times you HAVE to open a dialog window; for example, if you want to add an unregistered reference to a project. It had become such a vexation that I was ready – more than ready – to replace my PC.
To the Trash
I’ve been increasingly irritated by the spam mails from John Kerry, which seem to be more frequent now that the Electoral College vote has been made official.
Conspicuously absent from any meaningful participation in the election protests, Kerry now seems to feel he has a right to lead the loyal opposition through four more years of George Bush.
Well, at Least the Computers are Happy
My faithful computers, which live here without complaint when the temperature is over 80 degrees, have been in their little glory the past couple of days.
Right now, it’s a little over fifty in the house, due to a failure early yesterday of the circuit board that runs the furnace blower.
Best Employers For Over-Fifties
AARP has published its annual list of best places to work for people in their target demographic, i.e., ages 50 and above.
Lest one take too much heart from this, one needs to read the responses to Anne Fischer’s column in Fortune magazine about the AARP’s sanguine report.
Kidnapped Child Returned to Parents…
Kidnapper melodramatically drops to the ground and weeps
That’s what the headlines should have read in the case of Evan Scott, a little boy who was adopted – against his natural father’s wishes – and has finally been returned home.
Babies Don’t Keep
Spent the whole day having fun with DIL and grands.
What the heck. This is the reason I’m in business for myself. Babies don’t keep.
Sociopathy and Rules for Living
Bonnie and I were talking today about the new book, “The Sociopath Next Door”, by Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Martha Stout.
In her book, which is due out next month, Dr. Stout says that 4% of the population, or 1 out of every 25, are sociopaths: people who display 3 or more of 7 characteristics, such as deceitfulness, the ability to sham emotion and a lack of remorse.
Progress…
This morning’s frustrating experience with Microsoft MSDN notwithstanding (no one can find my subscription ID), this week is going reasonably well.