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City Hall loses
Earlier, I described my attempt to fight a parking ticket. Today I got a letter saying:
Based on the credible testimony and credible evidence presented by appellant the prima facie is not established. Photo evidence presented by appellant shows compliance with CVC 5204(a) and EMC 14.40.015. It is recommended that the above citation be dismissed ( Read more... ) -
Fighting City Hall
I've had a '93 Acura Legend for a few years. It's been very reliable, but I had a feeling that sooner or later I'd take it to the garage and get a massive estimate for work that needs doing. A few months ago, this finally happened, so it was time to sell it and get a new car. Before I used it as a trade in, I wanted to find out how much I could ( Read more... ) -
Hay
My three-year-old son addressed his grandmother and great aunt as "Hey ladies!". I have no idea where he got that from. His grandmother replied, "Straw is cheap, but grass is free." -
Traits
I just finished reading Traits: a new and useful template technique by Nathan C. Myers. It's an interesting and powerful approach, but I had trouble getting past the elephant in the motivating example. He wanted to be able to support streams of arbitrary character types, but for each character type he needs an "int type" that is strictly wider, ( Read more... ) -
Healthcare, least to most
Ezra Klein writes in the Washington Post:
If you crudely ordered America's different health-care systems from least government control to most, it would look something like this: individual insurance market, employer-based insurance market, Medicare, Veterans Health Administration (Medicare is single-payer, but VA is actually socialized medicine, ( Read more... ) -
Mother-daughter conversation at bedtime
M: Did you have fun today?
D: Yes.
M: What was the most fun thing you did today?
D: The Slip 'n Slide. What was the most fun thing you did today?
M: Watch Daddy use the Slip 'n Slide.
In other news, I also dug out a flower bed and planted vegetables. Why are my shoulder muscles so sore?
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An easy mistake to make
When I was home recently, one of the things I did was to help my mother buy a new MacBook to replace her old iBook. I spent some hours carefully setting it up for her. She wanted to give her old iBook to my nieces, so I wiped it and reinstalled, setting up new user accounts for them and everything. I boxed up the old computer for her to leave ( Read more... ) -
Chicken
I am normally responsible for putting my five-year-old daughter to sleep. I get her ready for bed, and then I read stories. Then the trouble begins, because she wants to ask an endless series of questions. One night, instead of just saying "No more questions!" I decide to be more cunning and say:
G: Alright. One more question, and then time ( Read more... ) -
Another first
My five-year-old daughter wants me shut her closet door because of monsters. But, she offered, she knows monsters don't really exist.
