Lessons from Life

Opera has been acting a little strange the last few days, I think. Something with the "Friends" pages, some postings and links, etc.

A recent update perhaps?

I'm not often affected by updates. My pages are pretty basic, with just a few simple links and even fewer photos. When there are s, I tend to just wait patiently for the Opera techies to get the kinks out, because they always do. They're good at that.

You know, how they keep this community up and running like they do, and make all the cool updates the way they do, AND keep everybody relatively happy like they do should be patented.



Anyway, if anybody seems to be slighted or offended by something technical going on over here, please just let me know, if you can. If you send me a message and I don't respond, there's a somewhere. If you attempt to answer a friend request I've made, or if you receive no answer to one you've made of me, please be patient. There are people in the background that are running around with flyswatters and bug spray, chasing those lil' critters out of their hiding places and flattenin' them.



In the meantime, enjoy.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnrhH1ZlfHo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVKp899kRmw

Had an amazing day today. Started out running some necessary errands, making some necessary phone calls, an early lunch. Then I just couldn't resist getting outside and working in the yard.

The last few days have been absolutely gorgeous here. Sunny, clear blue skies, low humidity, and temperatures in the 60's. Saturday was the first chance I had had to do any yard work since I moved here, and I had spent some time pulling weeds and grass away from the foundation of the house, the gas meter, and the outside air conditioning unit; clearing vents; chasing ants and spiders; and generally cleaning up around the yard. Today I got out the weedeater and really tidied up around the foundation. Then I tore into an old brush pile, pulling out sticks, briars, weeds, roots and decaying leaves and branches; swept my driveway, sidewalk, and carport; and knocked down cobwebs. Inside, I unpacked several boxes of books and put them on shelves, washed my dishes, swept my floors, and found time to watch the family across the street play with a big red ball while the grandmother sat in the shade in her wheelchair and laughed along with them.

Just got out of the shower, and I'm very pleasantly exhausted.

I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight.

There have been three earthquakes in central Arkansas in the last 24 hours. Quakes in Arkansas are not unusual, but they're almost exclusively limited to the northeast corner, along the New Madrid Fault, where some of North America's strongest ever quakes occurred in the winter of 1811-1812. But it is kinda strange to see measurable quakes in the central part of Arkansas. It's really strange to see three measurable quakes within a twenty-four-hour period in the central part of Arkansas.

No damage reported, and as of yet, I've not even heard of any reports of the quakes having been felt, which is kinda strange in itself, because one can usually feel a quake of greater than 2.5 magnitude. But, we've had a lot of rain lately--a LOT of rain (we're twenty-one inches over what we should have had by this time of year )--so maybe the very wet ground absorbed some of the shaking.

Who knows?

Lots of strange goings-on lately.

Car for sale, asking price $1.25 million. (That's not necessarily what this specific car looks like. This photo is from the Wikipedia article, but the subject car is the same kind as pictured here.)

Yep. One point twenty-five MILLION U.S. dollars. It's a Bugatti Veyron, and there's only 200 of them that are known to have been made. Why, you may ask?

The Veyron consumes more fuel than nearly any larger car (not including buses or heavy trucks), using 40.4 litres per 100 kilometres (6.99 mpg-imp; 5.82 mpg-US) in city driving and 24.1 litres per 100 kilometres (11.7 mpg-imp; 9.76 mpg-US) in combined cycle.[citation needed] At full throttle, it uses more than 115 litres per 100 kilometres (2.46 mpg-imp; 2.05 mpg-US), which would empty its 100 litres (22.0 imp gal; 26.4 US gal) fuel tank in just 12 minutes.

Oh, and

The cost of the first scheduled service on a Veyron is £13,645 ($22,322), with later services getting more expensive. Tires need to be replaced approximately every 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi). The cost of tires for a Veyron is £6,325 ($10,347) a set, and they can only be fitted by Bugatti. Bugatti says that labour is the bulk of the cost at £6,000 ($9,815), which also includes checking the many complex systems on the car. At every third tire change, the roadwheels must be replaced. The cost to extend the original two-year new car warranty is £38,000 ($62,164) for 1 year, and £63,000 ($103,062) for 2 years.

Somebody in Jonesboro, Arkansas is selling this car. Somebody in Little Rock, and somebody in Texas, is interested in buying it.

I wonder if they would accept my 1996 Geo as trade.

Maybe not.

But then again, I've never paid more for a car than what I've paid for a house. Or a small country.