I’d love to be posting something political about the court’s decision to force Jose Padilla to be either charged or released, or maybe some insightful but slightly paranoid rant about the coincidence of a new bin Laden threat being announced on the same day as that ruling.

But really, while truth, justice and the ‘merican way are all muy high on my list, the only thing I’m really caring about right now is getting out of town for a three-day SoCal birthday roadtrip. Me, Pongo and the iPod’s roadtrip playlist blaring through Nissantruck’s stereo. Getting the left arm all tan and letting Pongo pretend he’s flying as we celebrate my 41st. If you’re interested in joining us and will be in the Palm Springs area this weekend, have your girl call our girl. Attorney-client privilege will be extended to all birthday related debauchery proceedings.

Still a bit sore from yesterday’s water polo, but certainly not as much as I expected to be. A good night’s sleep and Pongo had me up and at ‘em early this morning. Not sure who ‘em was, but Pongo was quite insistent that we go look for them. So we did. Pongo’s mere presence must have scared ‘em off though. We found nothing that I thought was interesting.

Good breakfast, some mental stimulation, and now I’m tinkering with the sites. Exploring the backends of WordPress and Coppermine. I also put up a new gallery over at Vista from last year’s Crew Classic. Some of the images had already been posted, but I wanted to test out some of Coppermine’s features with a larger gallery. I hope to be posting several new galleries in the coming weeks and wanted to be certain I understood what I could do and how to do it.

The more I use both packages the more impressed I am with the features and flexibility of the software. Especially when more and more others would charge me for similar software, it’s nice to still find good resources out there free of charge.

Worked out with a local club water polo team this morning for a couple of hours. It was something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, to meet some new people and get out of the rut of swimming laps back and forth, back and forth, but boy am I tired. And sore. But I had a great time and I’ll be back.

Yes, it was sex, but since the act was such that “no reasonable person would expect could result in pregnancy” the father can sue the mother for damages. But her (mis?)use of the sperm is not theft because they were freely given.

Findlaw: Man Can Sue Over Surprise Pregnancy. Also at the S.F. Gate.

“She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift — an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.”

My favorite quote from the article though is from the mother’s attorney: “There’s a 5-year-old child here. Imagine how a child feels when your father says he feels emotionally damaged by your birth.” Imagine the child’s questions to the mother when he learns that his mother had herself artificially inseminated with the (results? residue? gift received? Please use comments to help here) of an oral sex act.

Just remember, its not smut and its not tawdry – its your legal system in action.

After getting rained on for the cube people too many times in the last week, I’m pretty sure now that I’m getting sick. Feeling run down and blah, with a little bit of something not right in the throat and ears. I left the office early rationalizing that after some meds and a nap I’d log-in from home (not on the good connection, but over their slow-as-molasses dial-up account) and finish up things needed for tomorrow. Now, after meds and nap and dinner and Pongotime I’m rerationalizing and thinking I’ll go in early tomorrow. Then again, if this crud doesn’t get out of my system, I may not go in at all.

At least Sunday’s dinner went well. Good food with some great people.

As for the rest of the week, storms, storms and more storms. And I think I’m getting a cold.

Upgraded to WordPress 1.5 this morning and spent some time tinkering with the layout. I’m still not certain if my fixes from earlier are holding, mostly because it looks like the flow of spam has stopped for the time being. Regardless, I’m still very happy with WordPress and its flexibility in dealing with the problems.

I’ve been spending a lot more time the last month or so tinkering with Howling Point’s new pretentious artist colony, so I still really haven’t explored WordPress as I much as I would’ve liked to. Despite that, I’m really glad I made the change over from Moveable Type.

Unwinding is what Sunday morning’s supposed to be about. Recovery, maybe, if Saturday was particularly successful. Clean-up only if they’re your clothes, toys or drinks still spread around the apartment.

One should not wake-up to comment spam. One should definitely not try and install new plugins to prevent future outbreaks prior to morning coffee. I managed to crash the backend this morning, before heading out for a swim and some breakfast. It’s back up now, and I’m tinkering with the filters again to prevent more annoyance.

I like comments and missed them when they were down. I don’t want to turn off comments on old posts as so many others have done because I still get good comments at times on the archives.

I think things are fixed now. This particular spammer has a slow ‘bot, commenting once an hour. I guess the scum is trying to avoid triggering flood-control flags, but what it means is that I won’t know if my fixes work for another 35 minutes or so.

Back to the Times while I wait and see.

Swam longer and further this afternoon than I have in a long time. It was a long and frustrating week, and I knew I needed to unwind, but I guess I didn’t realize how much I needed to unwind. The amazing part is that despite the distance I don’t really feel sore – just relaxed. Maybe my boss should call me with a non-emergency as I’m pulling in to the gym parking lot more often. At least it’s better that these crises come up before swim/therapy instead of after. The crisis was dealt with, and mere moments later its residual stress was washed away. Certainly a better option than having a fresh crisis dumped on a still dripping stress-free body. Of course, maybe if the source of the stress were eliminated… hmmm. Something to think about over the weekend.

A smoker in an SUV attempts to litter but fails, with Mother Nature retaliating at the attempted offense by blowing the smoldering cigarette butt back in the smoker’s SUV where it ignites the upholstery. Panicky SUV owner then attempts to park his behemoth, but fails at that as well, and the veHICle rolls about 100 feet before it crashes into a guard rail and burns to the frame.

In the final insult, it appears the CHP will cite the driver for littering even though his butt didn’t hit the ground.

The S.F. Gate article is here.

I wonder if Mother Nature would have thrown in a nice lightening bolt if he’d been on his cell phone as well. Or maybe just a nice *splat* from a carrier pigeon.