Stressing a bit about the upcoming reception. Nothing seriously wrong, just enough going on that’s out of my control that I get stressed. But I stumbled on this a few minutes ago at our photographer’s website:

Pretty pictures take my mind off everything else that I should be working on.

The photographer who will be working at our reception, Bryson Kim, has an gallery of his work at the 5th Annual Fire Knife Competition at his site, Island Pix. I always love watching these guys in action, and Bryson did such an amazing job capturing the motion in still images that I had to give a shout from here.

The House of Representatives decides to show spine and pay some attention to detail for the first time in years, and this is the issue they pick? Never woulda thunk it. Now, would they kindly replace the so-called leadership of both parties and get down to business?

There’s big thunder rolling though the skies of north county this morning. No rain, in fact mostly clear skies, but one of those dry desert storms is rolling through, making lots of noise, and keeping little Diego on edge. As though he didn’t have enough trouble with the devil over the weekend, now the gods are upset. Poor little dog’s going to develop issues.

Holding the Vice Presidential debate during Banned Book Week is simply priceless. The timing opens up so many possibilities for the candidates to distinguish themselves on their attitudes toward literary freedom, the role of libraries in a modern society and their respective reading tastes and levels.

There’s a list of some Southern California events at the L.A. Times.

The fall household decor came out of storage this afternoon. Halloween stuff, Thanksgiving stuff, turned leaves and the earth’s plastic bounty in a cornucopia centerpiece. Diego sniffed around a bit. He was obviously tempted to play, but not sure what he could get away with.

Then came the Voice of Temptation (also the winder-uper of Temptation), Spinner, to push him to the edge.

The Voice of Consequences at the end of the video is provided by yours truly.

Spent a big chunk of the morning in a Denny’s trying to do some work, with a crying baby in the booth behind me and a curious toddler watching me from the booth on the other side. Other kids seemed to be trying to see how fast they could run down the aisles, but mostly they just screamed until their Madre screamed back. Despite all that, I got more done and had a more comfortable wait than I would have in the awful seats and and with sludge called coffee they offer at my mechanics’ place.

Started smelling antifreeze in the GreenTracer’s ventiliation last week when I was in Ventura, and figured I should get it looked at before the fumes’ brain damage became irreversible.

End result: I’m going to be driving a car without a heater for a while. The estimate from the mechanics was high, much higher than expected, but the bigger problem was that they wanted the car for at least two days to replace the heater core. Sorry, it was tough enough clearing the calendar for one day, and they weren’t offering a loaner. Better to bypass the heater, stopping the radiator leak in the process, until a change of seasons forces me to re-prioritize. Wait, I live in San Diego. We don’t have seasons here. Maybe Santa will bring me a new heater core. Or gloves and a little blower for fog on the windshield.

At least I got a good swim in after they finished trying to find my wallet. Very relaxing.

I remember my first Nigerian scammer, back when I was still in Togo and the thieves were still sending their pitches around the world by fax. I don’t see them as often these days. I suspect that’s the result of better spam filters, not a newfound respect for the law, but one never knows. But this brought back some memories. The classics just keep getting better.

Busy today, but not much in the billable category. Accounts receivable, car problems, and people who don’t understand the common courtesy of RSVPing kinda sucked the day away. I owe myself a good swim if I can get the car back from the shop at a reasonable time tomorrow.

Diego’s morning walk got cut short this morning after stumbling on two pit bulls running loose in the neighborhood. They had that ‘mmmmm…. bacon‘ look going and didn’t act like they were going to fall for Diego’s ‘I’m the loudest, baddest, butchest blur of fur y’all will every meet‘ routine.

I ended up carrying the Blur for a couple of blocks while the pit bulls lurked behind us, apparently hoping we’d set their brunch plans back within jaw’s reach. Wasn’t going to happen. Spinner says he’s seen these two in then neighborhood before, and I suspect this is one of the consequences of all the local foreclosures and house vacancies. Losers moving out and don’t care enough to make certain their dogs are taken care of. Good riddance, and don’t spend your bailouts all in one place.

Don’t know why I stuck with that dark masthead all summer and am finally lightening it up just in time for fall.  Sometimes things just happen that way.  No real structural changes, just finally getting my act together with the CSS.