beep-beep-beep-beep-beep
I quickly shut the door, hoping that it would deactivate the alarm. A few seconds more of beeping then a
beepbeepbeepbeepbeep
and then a
WAH!!-WAH!!-WAH!!-WAH!!
as the alarm klaxon sounded. It's quite loud. I was not looking forward to explaining to the police what happened.
Fortunately, we encountered the school janitor, who called the church's business manager on his cell phone. I think that he must have deactivated the alarm remotely, because it turned off before anyone did anything in the office.
We quickly fled the scene to go to the college we were supposed to give the flyers out at. And there was no one there. No one. So we did the only natural thing: We went to prison! The SC Department of Corrections was across the street, so we left a stack of flyers there. We also gave some to a local soup kitchen, a YMCA, a gas station, an Army/Navy surplus store. The last one was my friend's suggestion; she wanted to check out the camo/uniforms. I can't wait to find out if she actually told her parents everywhere she went.
So, instead, we played in the snow at my house. It packs even better today than it did yesterday, so much so that I've gotten e-mails announcing a snow-sculpting contest at BJU. We even... found this giant egg outside:
Imagine our surprise when we found my little brother in it!
We even thought he was dead for a while.
But soon, we were proven wrong.
But then the pod-version of Jason attacked! (No witnesses remained on the scene)
I'm sleeping in tomorrow morning! Woo-hoo!
Another reason why it's good to be a town student.
This is what passes for a blizzard here in South Carolina.
Isn't snow great stuff? This is the first time this year that we got real snow, instead of just ice. And it's the good kind of snow too; it packed really well. Now we have to spray it with the hose to get it to stick really well.
I've got more pictures, but I'll hide them in an extended entry for the benefit of dial-up users.
This was our first snow man. Yes, that's right! We got enough snow for TWO snow men! :-)
We invited my dad (who's from Idaho) to help out with the other one. It came out better, if only because of his greater experience with the stuff. And because we sprayed the snow off with the hose of course.
You can see the nose Jason built for it better in this shot. I think it looks cool.
Jason professes his love.
I think this is the coolest picture ever. Look out!
Do you guys get a lot of those little e-mail surveys with lots of questions to ask your friends? Well, here are my answers.
This is why Movable Type made Extended Entry.
1. What time is it? 7:43 a.m
2. Name: Jeremy
3. EDIT deleted as protection against ID theft
4. Nicknames: None, really.
5. Number of candles on your last birthday cake: 2, representing 19. Those number candles
6. Birthday: August 15
7. Pets: My little dog, Suzie!
(What happened to 8 & 9?) I don't know. you wrote the survey.
10. Eye color: brown
11. Hometown: Spartanburg, SC
12. Town you live in: Spartanburg, SC (so, what's the difference between 11 and 12?)
13. Favorite food: My foods are like my children. You can't have a favorite! Oh, except that I have my generation's fondness for pizza.
14. Been to Africa? No, but my little brother will be going soon!
15. Been toilet papering: I toilet papered a friend's car once. Only to find out that someone un-toilet papered it a little later.
16. Loved someone so much it made you cry? What kind of stupid question is that?
17. Been in a car accident? Um... I hit a car in the little, tiny Rodehaver parking lot at school once, but other than that... No.
18. Croutons or bacon bits? Croutons.
19. Favorite day of the week? I like thursdays. I get to sleep in 'til 6:30 on those days!
20. Favorite restaurant? I like Coronas, for their excellent mexican food.
21. Favorite flower? Flowers are pretty. That is all.
22. Favorite sport to watch? I like seeing my high school play basketball, but that's about it.
23. Favorite Drinks? Dr. Pepper
25. Disney or Warner Bros? Pixar
26. Favorite fast food restaurant: Wendy's
27. What color is your bedroom carpet? Brown. And my walls are a wood paneling. And the ceiling is white, with a blue part that holds a ventilation duct. It's almost nature-esque.
28. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? According to the date stamps, a message from dad about a scholarship.
29. Which store would you choose to Max out your credit card? Probably Circuit City
30. What do you do most often when you are bored? Play stuff on the computer. Do homework. Sleep.
31. Most annoying thing people ask me? (At Chick-Fil-A) Do you sell hamburgers?
32. What is your bedtime: 10:30pm-ish
33. Who will respond to this email the quickest: It's not an email anymore, Bwa-ha-ha
34. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? ::shrug::
35. Favorite TV shows: America's Funniest Home Videos. Absolutely hilarious, almost every time.
36. Last person you went out to dinner with? Probably my family. If you asked about lunch, I'd tell you some friends at school.
37. Ford or Chevrolet: Don't care. Probably Chevrolet, because I've heard all sorts of bad rumors about the reliability of Fords.
38. Last CD you bought: I think it was Freedom Through Christ. The last track on the CD is absolutely awesome.
39. Time you finished this e-mail: 7:57am
So, as discretely as possible, I took out the camera. Then I noticed the spare rechargable batteries I keep in the same pocket were just radiating heat, and were hot to the touch. I wrapped them in some scrap paper to keep them from touching anything, and waited for class to end.
After class, I looked at the batteries, and the plastic coating that was supposed to be around the whole battery had been partially ripped off. (I tried to take pictures, but they came out all fuzzy. And I've thrown them away now. Sorry.)
But, it could have been worse. According to the label, opening the battery could have caused it to heat causing personal injury, ignite, leak, or explode.
What business does the government defining what marriage is? That's the realm of religion and personal morality.
None of the government's business.
The school said, in response to a concerned parent, that "the bathroom is a privilege, not a right." Oh, really? And what, pray tell, are you going to do? Clean up the mess and pay for whatever psychological damage that wetting his pants would do to a seventh grade boy? (Because you *know* that his parents would sue. I would.)
The school says that the policy was designed "to monitor the school restrooms and stop students from skipping class" and to respond to bomb threats.
Lawrence Middle School's new motto: "Teaching kids about runaway government regulations in the name of safety."
(Via Common Sense and Wonder)
There's a reason I prefer to use laptops.
Anyway, the point of the essay was that I like all the great economic news coming out of China (hundreds of millions new jobs and new customers), but that capitalism requires freedom to work properly. However, I think that China's new-found tolerance of capitalism will likely bring them more freedom as time goes on. It will be a gradual thing, but it will come.
Fortunately, I was able to trick my computer into thinking it had a disk drive by hooking it into my home network and mapping the A drive of our desktop as my laptop's A drive. It worked quite nicely, and I was able to do my accounting project before my class.
Ha! Take THAT McGraw-Hill Programmers!
There are thirty or forty computers in the lab, and I sat at one in the very back. A class was about to start, but only ten or so of the computers towards the front of the room were occupied. As soon as the bell rang, the teacher announced that everyone who was not in her class needed to log off (and presumably, get out).
This would not have been that bad, if any of the other unoccupied computer labs had the stupid software on them.
I have another free hour at 2; I'll try again then.
Fortunately for me, the Chick-fil-A I work at is a drive-through only, so, come closing time we just put a rope across the lane and start cleaning up. (AFAIK, the rope only been driven through once). We also have the advantage of being able to make fun of our customers when they're ordering, since they can't hear us. (No, we don't sell hamburgers. Please don't ask, it wasn't funny the first time.) On the other hand, LummoxJR works at an actual store, which means he he can't kick his customers out at will, and he has to wait to make fun of them on his blog.
He also restates his case for his mall's weekend curfew policy, which I disagreed with earlier. I still hate the idea, but I completely understand why they implemented it. I've never lived in an urban environment nor had to deal with gang problems (although I've read a great novel about them), so I am probably a bit naïve about such things. If you've got hordes of teenaged thugs wandering about the mall, by all means, you have to get rid of them, and there's really not another policy that's effective. You can't get rid of the bad without getting rid of the good too.
And there's also the epic tale of his former coworker Adel, which I found quite amusing. His experience reminded me of one of my current coworkers, a youngish teenage girl who I count myself blessed to never have to work with (She leaves at 4:30, which is when I show up). She has to be the most inattentive worker I've ever seen. One time she tried to leave without getting someone to take her headset for her, just leaving it on the counter. Another time, I heard last night, she almost left with the headset still on her head. Her worst incident in my experience was she was handing out drinks to some people (members of her family, I think) who apparently did not order or pay for them (they weren't on the screen). (I wasn't sure what was going on.) Worse, she hadn't made the 5 or 6 drinks before they drove up to the window, so I'm stuck having to make them as she's handing them out. Meanwhile, paying customers have to wait a long time for her free-loading family to get out of the way, and I look bad because they're waiting.
But, since Chick-fil-A apparently has a "no firing" policy or something, she's still here. Seriously, the worst thing they will ever do to you is ask you to go home early. Very, very frustrating.
So, if anybody knows of a job that doesn't involve dealing with other people that has very flexible hours, let me know.
(Rats! I just invited spammers to walk all over my email box. Hmm. Guess we'll see how good Thunderbird's spam filter is.)
When I last looked at it, it was going for roughly $16,000. Now, I think that it must be a business that wants this thing; think of the free publicity it has! No one would ever forget the number. And if you buy the rights to use the song... Wow. That number will be worth every penny that the company spends on it.
Ah! The wonders of transferable numbers.
(Via Slashdot)
It's up to $33K.
Update: Ebay suspended the auction, because the guy didn't technically "own" the phone number. It was over $200,000 when the auction was closed.