Well, 2008 is in its last hours.

It’s been an eventful year.

First of all, we have a new baby. Baby Bear is fast becoming a participating part of the family, and having a new member of the group keeps us on our toes.

Next, Girlie Bear started living with us full time. That alone would have made this a great year.

On a non-personal note, the country went through the most contentious election I’ve ever seen. Even though I don’t agree with the result, I hope we can remember how to get along and work together. We’re going to need it. The Zombiepocalypse is just around the corner in 2012, and we haven’t even begun to dig trenches around the neighborhood and fill them with oil.

The price of oil has been the highest anyone has ever seen, and now it’s at almost historical lows. I’m not sure I like that large a swing. Extreme changes in markets result in extreme reactions and consequences. If OPEC and the other oil producing 3rd world crapholes cut production too much, it’s Road Warrior in Kentucky, and how is that going to help us get ready for the zombies?

The war in Iraq is finally looking better, not that anyone is giving the troops and President Bush much credit. I expect that the new administration will start drawing down our presence in Mesopotamia quickly after they take power. My hope is that I won’t be seeing a withdrawal ala Vietnam 1975. A lot of blood and treasure will be wasted if we withdraw too quickly and the government we’ve propped up in Iraq collapses.

The war in Afghanistan, well that’s another matter. My guess is that any forces that are taken out of Iraq will be re-directed to Afghanistan. Hopefully, we will be able to stabilize that area a bit more. Western powers have been able to bring peace and order to this area since Alexander, so I’ll probably be talking about this next New Years Eve.

The economy this year has taken the biggest gut punch I’ve seen in my lifetime. A lot of the trouble seems to be that no-one in the past few years seems to remember that it’s not a good idea to make loans that the recipients have no way to repay. Funny, I seem to remember that one from finance classes in high school almost 20 years ago.

Anyhoo, hope y’all had a good year. Thanks for stopping by and have a great New Years Eve.

A young man in New York has earned each and every one of the merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America.

He earned his first 62 in five years. To put it in perspective, I only earned 5 merit badges in the 3 years that I was a Scout.

Congratulations for a lot of hard work!

H/T to Phil over at Random Nuclear Strikes.

My home state of North Dakota has had a significant drop in the number of murders statewide this year. 2 murders in a state, even one as sparsely populated as North Dakota is pretty darned good.

And I need to do some reading on the gun laws back home. Got to know what I’m getting into when I convince my employer to put the next datacenter in Minot.

OK, you’re driving your 11 and 12 year old children to their mother’s house so they can spend Christmas with her.

It’s snowy, the wind is blowing, and it’s below freezing out.

Your truck somehow gets stuck in the snow. You are 10 miles of highway away from your destination.

Do you

A) Tell the kids to stay in the truck while you work to get it out and continue on getting your truck unstuck?

B) Call the children’s mother to come get them while you try to get your truck out of the snow?

or

C) Tell the kids to bundle up and walk the 10 miles to their mom’s house while you get your truck out of a snowbank and go on your merry way?

Guess what some trogladyte in Idaho did?

This idiot caused the cold, lonely death of his daughter, and almost killed his son to boot. I feel very sorry for the mother, who is innocent in this, and I really pity the son. He’s going to question himself over whether or not he should have gone with his sister or forced her to come with him for the rest of his life. And that’s not to mention the little girl that died cold and alone when the parent who should have died for her was warm in a nice heated truck.

But for the moron who put those two children on the highway and sent them on their merry way? I hope he gets life without parole and is forced to have pictures of his daughter taped to every flat surface in his cell.

This isn’t a momentary mistake that went wrong. This was an overt act of stupidity that he could have either not done or stopped at any time. It took those kids a long time to get too far away from their father for him to get them and bring them back. He could have stopped them and prevented a stupid mistake from turning into a tragedy.

I hope he rots, and I hope he lives a very very long time with what he’s done.

but it definitely got my attention.

Scientists are reporting that clusters of small earthquakes are happening with surprising regularity in Yellowstone Park.

So why, as a somewhat willing resident of Kentucky, should I worry?

Because Yellowstone Park is actually an active volcano, that’s why. If you believe the Discovery Channel, then if Yellowstone blows big, it’s the end of most of North America as we know it, at least for a generation or two. That’s a worst case scenario, but they make a good case that it has happened before and it will happen again.

I’m not running to Kroger to buy milk, bread, and eggs yet. But I do keep emergency supplies at the house in case of some kind of disaster. This is just one of those doomsday scenarios that never seem to end well when you think about them.

What do all of y’all think? If it’s just a series of small earthquakes that go nowhere, no problem. If it’s a major natural disaster, what do you think the consequences would be for the US and the world?

To noone’s surprise, as soon as the “cease-fire” between Israel and Hamas sunsetted, Hamas started rocketing and mortaring the area of Israel that butts up against Gaza. After a few days of this, Israel called in the fighters and helicopters and started making bad things happen to bad people. Unfortunately, because said bad people had intentionally mixed themselves in with civilians, a lot of civilians are being hurt and killed. And the media are howling about Israeli tactics that kill civilians. And of course, there are the more than slightly more than unfriendly demonstrations in front of Israeli embassies worldwide.

The Israelis have a lot to answer for in their history of relations with the Palestinians and the US, but they can at least say that they don’t park their military (read “valid targets”) next to their civilians (read “non-valid targets”) in order to either deter their enemy from firing on them or to give CNN something to crow about when civilians get hurt or killed.

Israel has, for the most part, been an ally to us in a sea of Mid-East opponents. They have counted to ten more times than I can count when Hamas shells their neighborhoods. So now, I say have at it when they decide to whack Hamas upside the head. They should, and I expect that they will, do what they can to minimize non-necessary casualties, but enough is enough. You don’t answer artillery barrages with diplomacy, you answer them with airstrikes and artillery.

how much marriage is like the Act of Contrition?

What have I done?
What have I failed to do?
In thought, word, and/or deed?

I am wholly sorry, and I humbly repent.

Please stop crying. Please?

Since I’ve had some down time over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to do a bit of reading.

I started reading John Ringo’s “Legacy of the Aldenata” series. I’ve read “A Prayer Before Battle” and I’m about halfway through “Gust Front”. They’re very good reads, and they’re available for free download from the Baen Free Library. That is an excellent program they have there. I’ve been able to read up on some old Hammer’s Slammers editions that I missed, and I’ve discovered a few works by David Drake and David Weber that I hadn’t come across before. Go to Ringo’s WikiPedia page for direct links to his books.

I also got two Harry Turtledove novels for Christmas. I’m almost through “Opening Atlantis” and I think I may buy its sequel. Turtledove is a founding member of the alternate history genre, and although he’s not the best author and writer around, his storytelling is usually interesting and entertaining.

Both of these are pure escapism, but I am going to do some non-fiction reading when I’m done with them.

I’ve been reading “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen Ambrose off and on for a while, and I will finally find some time to just sit and read it. Since it’s non-fiction, and it’s history that touches on my home state of North Dakota, I want to be able to concentrate on it. It’s easier to fly through a novel, even a good novel, and still get the gist of the storyline. Historical non-fiction, for me at least, requires more careful reading.

Anyhoo, hope y’all had a good holiday!

Quick update since I haven’t posted in a few days.

We had a really nice Christmas Eve with the kids. This was the first Christmas I’ve had with Junior Bear in a very long time, and we also had Girlie Bear. Little Bear was at his Mom’s house, but I got to see him for a few minutes.

We had an early morning on Christmas and had a good breakfast of homemade blueberry pancakes and ham. MMMM Ham….

Baby Bear was, as expected, more interested in the wrapping paper than the presents, but he did very well. Junior Bear and Girlie Bear also got a small pile of their own. I’m the boring parent, so mostly the kids got clothes and books.

I got a new sweater and some other small stuff. Irish Woman got a claudagh ring and her very own iPod.

After we cleaned up the debris from presents, I took Girlie Bear over to her mom’s house so she could spend the rest of Christmas break with her. She then got to open more presents.

We made the rounds of the various families for the rest of the day, and when we were done, both Irish Woman and I were very tired and starting to feel crummy.

By the next morning, we were both quite sick. Irish Woman went to her office to gut her way through the day, and I headed over to the urgent care clinic. I was pronounced a classic case of sinus and ear infection. The doc threw a couple of prescriptions at me, and I went home to get some rest. Irish Woman went to the clinic after work, and she had bronchitis.

Lovely.

We flipped coins over the weekend to see who got to take NyQuil every night. The other one did the best he or she could do to get some rest and still be conscious enough to take care of Baby Bear or hear the fire alarm.

I’m feeling marginally better today. Still not approaching 100%, but I’m human again.

Junior Bear is at home working on some homework, or at least that’s what he’s telling me.

Both Irish Woman and I started rotations on pager support today, but hopefully things are slow enough that we won’t have too rough a time of it.

Overall, I had a good holiday, but the rest of the weekend was a waste. But I can’t complain.

Ford has announced their new Fusion, which comes in a very aggressive hybrid. The price for this car appears to only be a few thousand for the hybrid model over the standard.

My questions now come down to availability, reliability, and actual mileage savings.

If you can’t get the car, Ford loses.

If the car gets a reputation for being a garage junkie, Ford loses.

If the car gets significantly less gas mileage during actual driving as opposed to the best case scenario 41 MPG Highway, then Ford loses.

Here’s hoping this helps Ford pull its fat out of the fryer.