A mixture of random links I've collected in lieu of content: Idiot Compassion - A reflection on the idea that sometimes the best thing to do for somebody who has a problem is the opposite of what they want you to do, or what feels good. Farming on Mars? - Well, actually Milwaukee, not Mars. But the ideas in this interesting if long article point out the kind of intensive agriculture that would...

For my Canadian readers, happy Canada Day ! ETA Ooops! That's tomorrow (embarrassed grin). Well, enjoy anyway. For jeff_duntemann , happy (a day late) birthday!

jeff_duntemann , Carol, their nephew, Brian, Q-Bit, and Aero came by to join us for dinner tonight, as Jeff and Carol are about to hit the road back to Colorado. I grilled hamburgers and hot dogs while Katie and Julie enjoyed playing with Jeff, Carol, Brian, and the very bouncy -- but child-wary! -- dogs. And a good time was had by all. :)

For the people out there (hi, Mark!) who truly enjoy torture by hot peppers, Chile-Head is a good reference point.   Me, that’s overkill. Jeff Duntemann has a fun article about a local-to-him diner in Des Plaines, IL called the Sugar Bowl that is worth a read. I tried this BBQ place in a Beavercreek, OH location ; it’s not bad at all, but it’s not stellar.   Central and Western Ohio sorts...

Well, if they hadn't delayed the start of last night's Cubs game by 35 minutes waiting for a phantom thunderstorm that apparently missed the ballpark -- we had about two minutes of rain and they covered the field at about 6:55 PM -- they might have finished the game on schedule. As it was, the rain arrived in earnest after the seventh inning and I left. They played another half-inning before covering...

The first Capricon meeting of the year is tonight, so I'm heading home to grab dinner with daisy_knotwise , jeff_duntemann , Katie, and Julie beforehand. In work-related news, after beating my head against the wall for a while, I think I've finally figured out the correct way to handle the initial updating of the views in our application, which is made more complex by the fact that...

jeff_duntemann pointed me to A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages . I was thinking about composing a suitable entry for APL , the first programming language I used professionally (1977-1984), but it is late and I need to go to bed.

So we had this beef brisket that I picked up at Sam's Club last weekend. Today, we had jeff_duntemann , Carol, samwinolj , and Bonnie over for dinner. This greatly reduced the amount of potential leftover brisket while giving Katie a chance to run around the back yard with Q-Bit and Aero, Jeff and Carol's Bichons. To help keep Katie happy when not in the back yard, we also had screenings...

Over the weekend, jeff_duntemann mentioned that he thought he smelled gas down at the back edge of the yard. I had thought it might be due to the storm drains back there, but when I wandered back there with Katie this afternoon after work and smelled gas, I checked the drains and they didn't seem to be the source. So I called the gas company and they sent a man out. His sniffer shows that...

Well, we were going to try to take Katie out with her uncle jeff_duntemann today to go fly a kite. But Jeff correctly figured we needed a different kite than he'd used last weekend given the light wind we've got today. So we went looking for one. And didn't find one at Hobby Lobby or K-Mart. *sigh* I finally did find one at Sam's Club when I went to stock up on meat, but Jeff had to...