"If you have an intestinal tract, you're going to want to stick around and watch this program."
Um… Doesn't everybody have an intestinal tract? Maybe they were just trying to scare away The Blob. Although, I hear he farts…and to do that you need an intestinal tract.
This is from last week's bowling tournament. The only thing is that I can't remember if I was supposed to make sure everyone saw it, or I was supposed to make sure that no one saw it. Oh well. 
I've been working for the past couple months to build an enclosure for my GPS and tracker unit in the car. Right now everything just sort of hangs out and is generally quite scary and messy looking. So, I finally found a cheap toolbox in Wal-Mart that I won't cry over when cutting it up for the project. Since I was in a dealing mood, I decided to check with the guy that looked like he was supposed to be working if they had any broken ones or any without lids that they wanted to sell me. After his stunned silence, he said, "yeah" and that he had one he had just pulled because the lid broke. I asked how much they could sell it for and he said the same price as the normal ones. Uh… I understand that they need to get paid for their product, I'm not doubting that, but at least knock off a bit so that I'd actually buy something that's broken rather than them sending it back. Oh well, I got a toolbox with lid intact. It should be fun breaking it.
In other news, be sure to check out the Special Olympics set on my Flickr page. Joey qualified for the state bowling tournament and won a silver medal. Congratulations Joey! It was also nice to see everyone before Thanksgiving since I get to work during the holiday again. I checked my schedule tonight and they actually changed my schedule so now I have to work earlier than normal. Sure, it means I don't have to be there all night, but there goes the binging on the left over green bean casserole.
Well, obviously, the upgrade didn't go so well. Apparently the new version has different wildcard matching so my alarms that used to work didn't anymore. Lucky for me, it only took 3 days to figure that out. </sarcasm> I have most webpage stuff back to normal. Child Abduction Emergencies are being posted again as AMBER Alerts, but I can't get them to post if the office issues them under the Civil Emergency Message heading. I think it relates back to the problem with wildcards. Later this week when I'm up at a normal time, I'll reset the alarms that go to cell phones and pagers. I just don't want to do it now while normal people are asleep. 
I pulled off the public chat widget on the right sidebar for a bit. Tonight I noticed it was causing popups on some systems, so in the interest of not wanting to piss people off, it's gone. I'll check back with it periodically to see if the site it comes from has fixed the problem. Until then, you can still send me messages through the MeeboMe box. Even if it says I'm offline, you can also send me messages and I'll get them the next time I log in.
I'm updating the software that sends out weather and AMBER Alert messages and emails. Unfortunately, since the computer this software runs on is a little slow anyway, the upgrades will take me a little longer than the planned overnight outage. I'll post back when things are running again. This also will take down the PepperCam and live WX Warning Map linked to the right.
I know I said I was going to bed, but maybe that 30 hour nap yesterday is still with me. The good news is I'm starting to get tired, but before I go, I thought I'd share probably the closest race I've been able to find. And who says an individual's vote doesn't make a difference?
//edit, and yeah, I just noticed it says vote for 2. That's why you don't vote when you're hopped up on cold meds!
The elections are over, the votes are counted, and the winner is… well, actually, I never really got to see any of it. I'm sure I will find out when I'm back at work tomorrow later today. The tape delay using the server worked out just fine, and that's really all I've got for this post. I got out of the station shortly after 2am and now have to be back there at 3.30. So, yeah, it's off to bed with me!
I just finished a sleep marathon to try to get rid of my cold. I do feel a bit better, but the cold is still here. Either way, after 31 hours of sleep I do feel better than I did.
Tonight is the normal routine with Mill-Pond in Ankeny, but then I'm going in to work at about 10pm to babysit the server and help with the tape delay of Letterman & Ferguson. In July I said nothing was going to happen and I ended up being there until about 2am. This time, I'm not saying anything because I know it'll be a late night..especially with the close races we're having, I don't expect concession speeches to come very quickly. Should be interesting.
And now, just for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, here's the latest donation to YouTube from Fox News Channel.
