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Painted on the door of an interstate service plaza in Indiana:

No Pets
No Shirt
No Shoes
No Service

Minnesota Vikings fans were treated to another painful, classic Vikings loss yesterday.  When the best offense in the NFL (Minnesota) meets the worst defense in the NFL (Arizona), something had to give.  Naturally enough, the giver was the Vikings.  What did they give up?  A berth in the postseason.  Even as the last two minutes were winding down yesterday, and the carnage that was the Vikings’ season was being ground out relentlessly by Arizona’s previously punchless offense, dread infused my bones.  I watched the clock ticking down towards zero, all the while hoping against hope that Tice would use the three timeouts the Vikings had in their pockets to stop the clock.  After Arizona recovered the onsides kick, it became immediately obvious that the Vikes would need time to get down the field and kick a winning or tying field goal.  Of course, Arizona scored a touchdown as time expired, giving them the lead, and the game, and the Vikings had no chance to salvage their season.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the Vikings collapse yesterday.  However, one person deserves a larger than average share of the blame:  Denard Walker.  What is this stiff even doing on the team, much less on the field?  He made two completely brain-dead plays in the last two minutes of the game alone.  All year, his MO has been to enter the game, make a bonehead play or two, commit a penalty or two, and give up a few long passes or two until he is yanked.  What is even more unfathomable is why Tice and Co. keep putting Walker in the game week after week after week.

What made that loss even more painful is that I work with scads of Green Bay Packers fans.  And who should benefit, almost exclusively, from the Vikings stumble?  The Green Bay Packers.  My co-workers wasted no time this morning letting me know that they were fully aware of which team got into the playoffs and how that scenario came to life.

Yesterday, we had fifty degree weather (in December!), so Sarah and I took advantage of the mild weather to work outside the house for a change.  It certainly didn’t seem like December in Wisconsin when we were outside without jackets, hats, and gloves.

Sarah and I got back last night from our Christmas trip to Cleveland, OH.  Her family lives just outside of Cleveland proper, and since we visited my family for Thanksgiving, we visited her family for Christmas.  It was a long drive to get there and back, so we both are enjoying car-free days today.  There’s nothing like a good bike ride to work out the kinks of 9+ hours (each way) spent in the car.

While we were in Cleveland, we visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I had been putting off a visit to that particular institution for several years, simply because I did not think it would be very interesting or fun.  However, having now been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I would recommend that all Cleveland visitors pencil in at least half a day to visit it.  If you’re really into Rock and Roll, you could easily spend the better part of two days at the museum.  My favorite nugget of information that I gleaned from the exhibits (and I learned quite a bit, actually) was that Howlin’ Wolf, a blues singer, did not trust banks.  So, he carried all of his cash and valuables around with him in a suitcase, even on stage.  The suitcase is in a display case in the museum.

Sarah’s father took us to eat at Slyman’s in Cleveland.  They are famous for their corned beef sandwiches.  I’m not a corned beef fan.  Most everyone else in our group does like corned beef, however, so I simply kept my reservations to myself.  Having now been to Slyman’s, however, I can say that not only is their corned beef (probably) really good, but that their turkey melt is fabulous.  Nearly everyone else had a corned beef sandwich or a reuben, all of which were at least four inches tall and almost all of that height was meat.  My turkey melt was may just a touch shorter, but juicy, warm, and tender.  The rye bread was flavorful and fresh.  In short, it was a perfect turkey melt.  My favorite picture on the Slyman’s web site, shows their corned beef sandwich in all its heart-stopping, artery-clogging glory.  Check out the reuben!  That sandwich seems to say, "If you eat me, you’ll keep your cardiologist in business, but I’m worth it, all the same."

The Salvation Army bell ringers really get on my nerves.  They suffer from the same problems as public radio.  When public radio has a fund raising drive, everyone suffers.  People who give money to the station suffer just as much as people who don’t give money to the station.  I’d be more likely to give money to the station if it would make the fund raisers go away.  But, no.  It doesn’t matter if I give money to the station on the first day of the pledge drive, the last day of the pledge drive, or not at all.  The fund raisers will continue to interrupt my favorite radio programs with their inane chatter regardless of my actions.  Salvation Army bell ringers suffer from the same disconnect between the actions of those who donate money and the ringing of the bell.  If I could make bell ringers stop their ceaseless ringing by putting money in their kettles, I’d be more than happy to do so.  However, giving money doesn’t stop the ringing any more than walking by the bell ringers everytime without giving any money away.

f you’re an X-Men fan, issue 150 of the New X-Men is an instant classic.  Powerful story, excellent artwork, this book has it all.  Unfortunately, the sister book, The Uncanny X-Men, seems to be lost in the wilderness.  A less than compelling story arc, reasonably unpleasant artwork, characters that are neither here nor there.  That book would do itself a favor to dump Archangel already and bring back Longshot or Gambit.

Last night Sarah and I had an interesting discussion about the capture of Saddam Hussein.  News sources were reporting that Hussein would be tried in a "civil court."  We debated exactly what sort of civil court could try someone like Hussein for crimes he committed.  Clearly, all current Iraqi civil courts derive their authority and mandate directly from the US military.  What sort of laws are currently being enforced in Iraq?  Federal law leaves most of what we consider crimes (murder, theft, rape, assault) in the hands of the state.  Are there special Federal laws for unusual circumstances (like foreign nations that have been captured by US forces)?  Certainly, we can’t try Hussein under laws that have just been created.  The US seems quite clearly wedded to the idea that laws can’t be created criminalizing past behaviors.  Will that policy be chucked overboard in Iraq?  Hussein committed crimes against humanity, but those crimes really ought to be tried in an international court.  Of course, the US couldn’t control all the actors on a stage like that, so the chances of that trial ever happening are none and less than none.  So, in the end, it doesn’t matter what court has jurisdiction over Hussein and his crimes, the Bush administration will punish him however it sees fit.

There is no water supply shut-off valve for the toilet in our basement bathroom.  To turn off the water to the toilet, a shut-off must be turned in the room next to the bathroom.  Unfortunately, that shut-off did not have a handle on it.  So, I bought a handle and tried to install it yesterday.  The handle went on quite easily.  I turned the water off to test the handle and shut-off.  All was well.  I then turned the handle again to restore cold water to the bathroom.  All was not well.  Water came spraying out around the shut-off handle at a reasonably fast rate.  So, I turned off the water again, and cursed cruel fate.  At this point, my knowledge of water shut-off valves had been exhausted, so I turned to my handy-person encyclopedia:  the Internet.  Ten minutes of reading about water shut-off valves later, I knew about the valve packing nut, where it was located on the shut-off, and how to use it.  Some small application of a crescent wrench, and the basement bathroom was back in business.  Obviously, the wily water shut-off valve did not reckon on the speed and breadth of the Internet when it tried to drown me in spray and hassle.

Christmas decorations have been overtaking our house slowly, but relentlessly.  Sarah has been digging them out of boxes in the basement and putting them up all over the house.  I expect to come home one of these days to a fully functional recreation of Santa’s North Pole Workshop and Factory Outlet.

Saturn dealers will happily put Mobil1 Synthetic oil in your Saturn at a cost of $6/quart (about $30/vehicle).  The Saturn web site specifically recommends not using synthetic oil in a Saturn.  Is this profit motive winning out?

Wow, it takes a great deal of water to produce a car. An interesting fact I saw on the web site today:"It takes 39,090 gallons of water to manufacture a new car, excluding the tires."  That, of course, instantly made me wonder how many gallons of water are necessary to manufacture a bicycle.

For all the H2 lovers out there, may I recommend www.fuh2.com.  My favorite picture and caption has to be the one of the H2 up on the flatbed truck.

We got our first snow of the season the day before yesterday.  Of course, it only stuck around on the grassy areas for a few hours before it melted away.  Where is this legendary Wisconsin winter we’ve heard about for a year-plus now?  Wisconsin has got nothing on South Dakota, Massachusetts, or the Sierras when it comes to snowfall or cold weather or a combination of the same.

Traffic engineers just love to install traffic loop detectors in roadways.  Then, they don’t have to worry as much about light timing.  A car comes along, trips the loop detector, and the light changes.  All is well.  Except if you’re a bicyclist.  Bicycles in their normal orientation (i.e., upright) do not have enough mass/metal to trip the loop detectors.  This leaves cyclists deciding whether to run the red light, wait for traffic traveling in a parallel direction to appear (thereby tripping the loop detector), or to get off their bike and push the pedestrian walk button.  Some very small number of intersections actually have smaller, more sensitive loop detectors designed to detect bikes, but those intersections are outnumbered 10 or 100 to 1 by intersections that are not so equipped.  Thus, dealing with such short-sighted traffic engineering is something of a continuous bicyclist hassle.  Now, a fourth option has been added to the arsenal of bicyclists who come upon poorly engineered intersections.  In this newsletter, read the section titled "Triggering traffic signals" for information on a fourth option.

The best way to avoid a traffic ticket?  Cream a cyclist.  Studies show that the best way to avoid getting a traffic ticket is to crash into a pedestrian or bicyclist.  "…drivers are at fault in 70% of cyclist deaths and 92% of pedestrian deaths there. And 74% of them didn’t even get a traffic ticket."

Sarah and I were wondering about what, exactly, a canola is and how does one get oil from it.  As it turns out, there is no such thing as a canola. Instead, canola oil is derived from the rapeseed plant which is native to Western Canada.  Those smart marketing folks decided that selling something named "rape oil" on supermarket shelves was going to be something of a nifty trick, so canola oil (can from Canadian and ola for oil) was born.  I learn something almost every other day.

When Sarah and I lived in California, we obviously had no need of a snow shovel, so we never bought one.  When we moved to Wisconsin last year, we didn’t buy a snow shovel because the house we were renting came equipped with one.  Now that own our own house, it seemed like the right time to buy a snow shovel, but we just never quite got around to it.  Last night, finally, we bought not just one, but two snow shovels.  Now I can stop feeling guilty.  I kept worrying that we would get two or three inches of snow and there wouldn’t be a snow shovel to be had within the city limits for love or money.  You’d think we’d never seen snow before going into December without a snow shovel in the house.

It’s obviously been a while since I wrote anything in this space.  Sarah and haven’t been that busy over the last few weeks.  However, I just never quite got around to putting anything down in digital ink.

There is now an RSS feed available for those interested in following bogen.org in their newsreader/blog-reader of choice.  Simply point your RSS feed reader towards http://www.bogen.org/feed.  This feed is somewhat experimental at this point, though it does work with the RSS readers I’ve tried.  This took me some time to generate since I don’t maintain my weblog in any of the standard weblog systems.  So, I can’t simply point and click like most people.  Instead, I had to kludge something together in perl that produces the feed from the HTML source of the site.  Ugly, but effective for the moment.

After something like sixteen hours of repairs and adjustments, the bikes we bought at the Madison Police Auction are on the road.  Both bikes have new, fat tires.  Sarah’s brakes didn’t work all that well, so we replaced her front brake pads with some Kool Stop brake pads and all seems well now.  Her front derailleur doesn’t quite work as well as I might like, so fixing that is the next project.  That might be fixed by replacing the cable and if that doesn’t work, we’ll look at the shifter on the handlebars.  Once I got a part from the bike shop to replace the missing part on my bike, I was able to get my bike on the road.  My bike is currently riding on some reasonably aggressive, wide mountain bike tires.  As such, the bike is somewhat hard to get around due to the high amount of rolling resistance created by the tires.  I’m waiting for some snow to see how much the tires help to keep me upright.  If the tires aren’t spectacular, they’re coming off and will be replaced with some less aggressive tires that are currently sitting in the basement.

Sarah, Dalla, and I made the trip to South Dakota over Thanksgiving.  The drives there and back were generally uneventful.  After nine hours in the car each way, I was more than happy to declare today a "Car-Free Day."

A sixteen-gauge shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a BB gun made the trip from South Dakota to Wisconsin with us.  Once we got home, Sarah said, "It’s amazing how quickly a house can go from no firearms, to multiple firearms."

For those interested parties, Kris is not dead.  Not only did we spot him in Watertown, but we ate and drank with him as well.  We also saw Kris’ brothers, and a pair of the Holien brothers during our brief stay.

If the Vikings continue to play as badly as they have been, don’t be surprised to see them out of the playoffs when the year ends.  A good high school team could beat them at times.  Unfortunately, Sunday was one of those times.

Some of today’s entries might be incoherent.  Might?  Should be incoherent if my general inability to drive the keyboard is any indication of my ability to string thoughts together.  It’s late and time for me to go to bed.

On my way into work today, I biked past a "Clark 04" yard sign.  That got me thinking about how many Democrats think Clark is their best chance to win in 2004 because he has credibility on national security and military issues.  What, exactly, does that mean?  Who doesn’t have credibility on those issues?  How does one get credibility on those issues?  Clearly, GW Bush had no more credibility on those issues in 2000 than Al Gore did.  I’d even go so far as to say that GW doesn’t have any more credibility on those issues today than he did in 2000.  The US hasn’t suffered a new terrorist attack since 2001 more due to luck than due to any of GeeDubya’s initiatives.  The USA PATRIOT Act has snared more money launderer’s, strip club operators ("In the urgent push to pass the Patriot Act, she says, ‘never… did the FBI say we needed additional tools to keep this nation safe from strip-club operators.’"), and other forms of garden variety criminals than terrorists under the Bush Administration.  Bush and his administration have all acknowledged at one time or another that there is no link between the war on Iraq and terrorism.  So, how does one gain or lose credibility on national security issues?  Does one have to vocally advocate for an armed overthrow of the government by a hostile, foreign invader?  Why doesn’t Dean or Kerry have as much national security credibility as Bush?  Clinton certainly didn’t have any, according to conventional wisdom, when he ran against GeeDubya’s father and he still won two terms in office.  GeeDubya, the draft dodger, certainly didn’t have any, again according to conventional wisdom, when he was elected.  Why should I care about Wesley Clark or any other Democratic candidate possessing or lacking national security credibility?

When Guster’s new album, "Keep It Together," came out this year, I was initially unimpressed with it.  The band seemed to be incorporating more garden variety drum kits and whatnot, and moving away from its acoustic origins.  However, even though some of the songs on the album are poppy dreck, several really stand out.  The title track, in particular, is a haunting number that is always ready to jam itself into all the nooks and crannies of my brain, making it hard to eradicate.