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Vox is nice for some things, but the fact I cannot easily get my content out of the service is something I cannot ignore any longer. There's, quite simply, no benefit to me having my content on Vox versus having it on my own servers. Okay, maybe they're not my servers, since I'm using a shared hosting environment, but I am paying for them and I have a lot more access to the data on them than I have on Vox.

The stuff you formerly were looking for here is over on http://phoneboy.info. I might migrate stuff off of Vox or I may simply delete it all. Haven't decided.

When I was about my son's age, I was in Cub Scouts. One of the things you inevitably do in Cub Scouts is build a Pinewood Derby car. Or, rather, your father mostly builds it.

My son is not in Cub Scouts, but we are doing something similar through the YMCA. We are doing a group campout and one of the activities is a Pinewood Derby.

I have no illusion here that my son wants to do most of the hard work. I know at that age, I didn't. What I did ask him to do was come up with a basic car shape, which he came up with. I then went to work cutting the block of wood into something approximating the shape he drew.

I never took shop class. I don't know the first thing about wordworking. I barely have any tools for this stuff. However, I am determined to turn this block of wood into a car.

After some sawing and sanding, here is the result. It is not completely smooth--there are some divots I still need to even out--but it vaguely looks like a car!

More work on the car tomorrow.

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A friend of mine did this and I thought it was cool. Do this: Google "<your name> needs" and write out the first 10 results that complete the phrase.

1. A haircut
2. To rest and evaluate
3. A new website
4. A long overdue bath
5. Kato Unitrack layout with 19.25" radius (WTF is this?)
6. Scams Letters from Dating Scammer Svetlana Shestakova
7. $21441 to live here
8. Knoppmyth
9. Free streaming MP3s
10. The PhoneBoy Blog :)

When people say it rains a lot in Seattle, they might envision the kind of weather we've had the past couple of days, which is to say fairly constant and sometimes heavy rain. Having lived several winters here, I can tell you that while it is not unusual to have periods of heavy rain, it's not usually this constant.

The additional 2 inches of snow we got on Sunday quickly became a non-issue thanks to rising temperatures and all this rain. However, the Puyallup River is now flooding, so it's causing some problems in the area, though nowhere near me, thankfully.

Global warming? Doubt it. According to Professor Don J. Easterbrook, who is in the Dept. of Geology at Western Washington University, suggests we just exited a 30 year "Global Warming" cycle and are now entering a 30 year "Global Cooling" cycle. These ~30 year cycles go back ~500 years--well before we humans started causing the large-scale CO2 emissions that are supposedly killing the planet!

In other words, we can expect more rain and snow here in Seattle over the next few decades. Great.

This morning, I awoke to the news that Nokia is selling their Security Appliance business to long-time partner Check Point. It wasn't what they told us was going to happen, but given the current economic conditions, this arrangement is the best way forward for everyone involved.

While I was disappointed that Governor Bill Richardson didn't win the Presidency, I am glad that he's still going to the White House--as Commerce Secretary:

As I know I've mentioned on phoneboy.com, Nokia is selling off the part of the company I work for to a financial investor of some sort. Who knows who it is--they won't tell us until the deal is done.

Right now, the trick is staying busy, not worrying too much about that which I don't know about the new company, which if you think about it, is quite a lot. Oh sure, my boss and management line won't actually change. But there's a lot of underlying infrastructure that simply must change as a result of having to break away from Nokia.

It's a lot to digest. It's a lot to think about. And, unfortunately, a lot of questions can't be answered until the deal is officially signed. That's life.

Meanwhile, back to work. There's certainly no shortage of it right now.

I can't draw, but my daughter insisted. My son draws better than I do.

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