Gary
1/31/11
Yow, what a saga! There were about eight different points in that story where, if it had been me, I would have just gone home and stayed there. :-)

My own car story ended happily. The repair guy called to let me know it was just a loose clamp around a hose leading to the radiator, which caused the antifreeze to leak away. They replaced the clamp, added new antifreeze, and then watched it all afternoon for leaks. Total charge: $0.00. (I couldn't believe it, either.) I got a ride to the shop, and drove home in a warm car. So now, as far as I'm concerned, let it snow!

I was scheduled to get the body work repaired to my car tomorrow but postponed that now for a week. This snowstorm they're predicting sounds really bad. I'm tired of winter. But still better than last year!

I'm driving home last Saturday night and I noticed the heater was taking a long time to warm up -- it was still blowing practically ice-cold. I glanced at the temp gauge: uh-oh, the needle is way high. Not in the danger zone, but much hotter than usual. So there is thermostat-type trouble somewhere, and I figured I would drop the car off at the repair shop on Monday morning.

Which was this morning. I scraped the layer of ice off the windows and drove off on the slick streets. With no defroster, I had to stop the car about every three blocks to scrape off the windows, and even so I was driving nearly blind most of the time. Plus, my route took me through two busy school zones. (LPS didn't call off school today, but I bet they will tomorrow.) A nightmare drive!

Finally arrived at the shop, and one of the mechanics kindly gave me a ride to my office. And even though I was more than an hour late, I was the only one here. As I was sorting through the phone and email messages of all the no-shows, one more person arrived. So there are only two of us here today, ready to enjoy a quiet peaceful day. Until we have to drive home....

Stay safe, everybody!

It's a big step up, back to where we were two years ago. :-) And thanks for testing it! --Gary

Also, the recipe page has been updated with the textbox. Do you have anything to add to the 101(!) recipes already there?

Thanks for testing it! Later today I will update the recipes page with the textbox, and also will put up the Oscar ballot. --Gary

Thanks for writing and breaking in the new/old system! --Gary

This is a by-product of getting the Oscar ballot ready. The process is the same for that page and this one. Stay tuned! The Oscar ballot will be ready within a day or two.

In the meantime, though, here are the nominations for BEST PICTURE:
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

One, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is actually leaving early. His last show will appear about a month before the end of the season. The reason being, according to this article, to give viewers a little time to get used to the show without -- let's face it -- the main character.

Some of the comments which follow the article speculate about who the replacement might be. Several people mention Ricky Gervais ("David Brent"), but they also acknowledge that won't happen. My pick of the ones mentioned? Jason Bateman.

Two, speaking of Ricky Gervais: He will appear, briefly, on the January 27 show, as his old character David Brent -- the boss of the original UK version of the show. More on that here.

But this problem got me thinking. I don't know if any of you use Google image search, but I use it a lot when I'm looking for a particular image. Just like the text version of Google, you type in a query and it displays thousands of results in picture form. Very handy when I worked up the "Five Pictures, One Word" games, for example.

I always wondered, though, if there was a reverse version of this -- where somehow you could give it an image and you would get back some information on it. Like I could feed in a photo of some unknown politician, say, and it would reply "That's Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon." Well, it turns out (I learned this morning) there are a few sites sort of like this. One site (GazoPa) will find images that look like your image -- so if you feed in an image of a white sailboat on a blue lake, it might find an image of a white polar bear on a blue ice floe, plus many other white-on-blue things. Another site called TinEye will find exact matches to your photo.

So I used TinEye to find other sites which currently were using today's photo and found a site where, interestingly, people were having a discussion about where the photo was taken! None of them knew for sure, it turns out, but one person claimed to have a source that identified the photo as "Angara Island." Okay, now we're getting somewhere!

Some "Angara" and "island" googling turned up this site showing a similar view of the same scene (but no location given); and this site with a photo showing what appears to be the same scene -- and the caption identifies the buildings as "summer houses" or "dachi." "Dacha," for those of you who never saw Dr. Zhivago, is a Russian word for summer house. Though there doesn't seem to be an actual "Angara Island" anywhere according to Google, there is an Angara River in Siberia (Russia) flowing into Lake Baikal, and along the way it flows through a town called Angarsk. So I'm going to assume "Angara Island" is a small (perhaps unnamed) island with a few summer homes on it, in the Angara River perhaps near the city of Angarsk in Siberia.

Bottom line of this long post: What did we do before Google??

Sorry, I don't have any info on that picture. I found it online somewhere and filed it for future use, but I don't know when or where I got it. I have fixed the front page so you can click on the photo and see it full size. --Gary

Bottom line: big water + small cars =

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what invited meant. Too bad about the play, Tristen! And Karen, that's true -- just think back to last year and this looks pretty nice. --Gary

The day itself is beautiful: bright sunlight and blue skies. Really pretty out there.

The street crews seem to have been ready for this one. The main streets and even some side streets are scraped down to the pavement, so driving is not a problem. Even walking isn't much of a problem, as this snow is the dry fluffy non-skid kind.

Stay warm and safe, everybody, and enjoy the snow-day!

Lincoln schools are closed too. Weather guy just now (8 am) said we have 10 inches on the ground, and we can expect light snow for the next 24 hours. Enjoy your snow-day, everybody! --Gary

Well, like I said UNL usually jumps long after the gun has fired. But in this case I think they pictured hundreds (thousands?) of students on the road heading to Lincoln after the break, driving through a major storm. An accident or two, and talk about heat.... --Gary

All classes and nonathletic events are canceled and all offices and clinics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will be closed Monday, Jan. 10. Only individuals required to report during weather closedowns should report to work.

The decision for Monday's closing was made in the interest of student safety as they travel back to campus from winter break.

Only a few inches on the ground right now (3:30 pm), and it's not even snowing ...right now. Radar shows a huge blue blob heading this way.

Done with the first week back to school (actually just three days). Glad it's Friday -- short weeks always seem harder than the full ones.

The campus is still ghostly quiet, with classes not starting until Monday. We have a shuttle bus (actually just a large van) that makes a circuit of the campus and one of the stops is right in front of my building. Normally there is always a handful of people waiting for it, and the shuttle would stop, load 'em up, and zip off. Yesterday when I went outside, the shuttle was parked at the stop and the driver was asleep -- not just "resting my eyes" asleep, but head back, mouth open, and snoring. So yeah, it's kinda slow around here.

About a week ago, John sent in a link to a video. I see now I should have posted it right away, but I didn't look at it when it arrived so I didn't know what it was. So, with my apologies (and with thanks to John), here's a cool new year's eve video from London -- one week late!