Living in the Scoot Utopia

I have an established 30-gallon freshwater tank at home... it's been up and running fine for 5 years now.

About 10 days ago I added 4 platies to the tank. The next day one died, but everyone else seemed fine.

Yesterday one of my older fish died, but everyone else seemed fine.

Then, last night, every single fish in my tank died! This includes the 3 remaining new fish plus the 2 remaining old fish.

There were no signs of anything wrong with any of them yesterday, and today they are all dead. The temperature is right, aeration and filtration are good.

All of the dead fish were covered in white fuzz this morning, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or if that's just natural decomposition. There was nothing on any of the fish yesterday.

Anyone have any ideas what could kill so many fish so quickly without any symptoms beforehand?

Posted by ScooterJ at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The flag above the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Kansas City is currently flying upside-down. Are they under attack? Sinking? Revolting?

If you want to see it look quickly, one of my co-workers just called over there to let them know.

UPDATE: They're fixing it now.

Posted by ScooterJ at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I built Ken build a huge DVD display case this weekend...

Continue reading "My Weekend Construction Project" »

Posted by ScooterJ at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When the city of Independence banned smoking in its bars, many wondered "What will they ban next?"...

Continue reading "Proof of the Slippery Slope!" »

Posted by ScooterJ at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, the year is at an end, so I thought I'd look back at some of my favorite things to happen on this blog in the past year.

Favorite Barhopping Trip
I made 11 posts about barhopping trips this past year, including a trip though JoCo, a trip through East-Central Kansas to Salina, a 2-day trip through southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri, two separate trips through KCK, a trip through outlying areas north of town, a trip through outlying areas northeast of town, and a trip down 40 Hwy.

The barhopping post that received the most hits, feedback, and private emails (surprisingly to me), was Drinking NEMO, part 2 of a 2-day barhopping trip in June. The people in that region who read this post were just tickled that we visited their towns and had photographed and written up their favorite watering holes.

But my personal favorite barhopping experience was the day before where we decided to see how many bars we could have a drink at in one day. Driving the first part of the day and walking the rest, we ended up having drinks at 30 bars and I connected with a distant ancestor as part of the experience.
Read all about it here: The Big 30.

Favorite Walking Moment
This is a tough one. I walked from Liberty to Olathe [photos], walked from William Jewell to JCCC, and so far have led about 50 people on 3 group walks totaling about 40 miles. But the best moment wasn't part of one of these walks...

In May the Kansas City Star did a writeup about my walks and for the next several weeks people would stop me in the street and ask me about them. But the very best walking-related moment for me came from someone who did not recognize me. It happened in an elevator in one of the downtown office towers, as two women chatted with each other as a rode down with them.

Woman #1: "Where are you going for lunch today?"

Woman #2: I figured if he can do that then I have no excuse to not at least take short walks on my breaks.

I smiled and slinked away when the doors opened. It was the best feeling I had all year.

Most Unexpectedly Successful Post
On August 11 I wrote the story of a successful old quest of mine to find the source of a faint childhood memory involving a witch who makes happy pancakes and lots of polka dots.

Little did I realize how many people were haunted by the same memory!

Just look at the comments and feedback to my post about the Happy Pancake Witch...

I don't know what 2008 will have in store but I'm sure it will involve lots of walking and lots of beer, though I make no guarantees about magical pancakes.

Be safe New Year's Eve and have a Happy 2008!

Posted by ScooterJ at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Now that 2007 is nearly over, it's time to see how I did on my goals for the year.

Goal 1: To break the elusive 30-mile barrier with a long walk somewhere in the metro area
On April 15 I walked from Liberty to Olathe, a distance of 37.5 miles. Then on July 1 I attempted a 40 mile walk, which I had to cut short after injuring my left foot. I did make it from William Jewell to JCCC, a distance of 34.5 miles.
Status: SUCCESS

Goal 2: To weigh 20 pounds less on December 31 than I do on January 1
No comment.
Status: FAIL

Goal 3: To have an HbA1c blood test result of 5.9, which would essentially be diabetes-free
I ended up pulling this off for the entire year!!!!
Status: SUCCESS

Goal 4: To visit 50 new bars while still achieving the above two goals. ;)
Much to my surprise I actually ended up visiting a whopping 203 new bars this year, almost doubling the number of bars I've been to in my life! However I achived only 1 of the 2 previous goals so this was not a complete success.
Status: PARTIAL SUCCESS

Goal 5: To throughly clean my place sometime this spring, and clean out my damn closet
Done... three times... and you still can't tell.
Status: PARTIAL SUCCESS

If not for the weight, this would have been a pretty successful year. Guess I'll have to try harder in 2008!

Posted by ScooterJ at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other day I was meeting one of my friends (who shall go unnamed to protect his pride) and as I was walking down the hill, where he was standing about 20 yards ahead facing me, it was impossible to not notice the large gaping opening on the front of his jeans.

I'm gonna put the question to all of you. If you're a dude, and you notice that another dude's fly is open and that dude is a friend, what do you do?

Do you ignore it and hope he'll find it on his own or that someone else will tell him?

Or do you tell him, knowing that if it were you with the fly open you'd rather find out sooner than after you parade about in front of a bunch of people?

And if you tell him, how do you put it without it sounding like "So I was looking at your crotch, and..."

(In my case, I did tell him, though I admit my mind mulled it around for a bit trying to figure out a wording and looking for an opening. No pun intended!)

Posted by ScooterJ at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My family moved across school district lines halfway through my high school career. This created a disconnect in my life in terms of high school -- I was no longer considered a member of the graduating class of only a few dozen students that I had been part of for 10 years, and officially became a member of a graduating class of several hundred students that I was only part of for two years.

I didn't get to know very many people during those two years. First off, I'm a very shy person by nature. But secondly, it just seemed pointless to me at the time to establish bonds with people that Iknew I would only know for less than two years. However I did get to know a handful of people well enough to think of them as friends.

Flash forward 20 years.

Since I was home sick with a cold today, I got bored and started googling the names of several people from both of my high schools. Most came up with nothing, a few people did turn up. But then I made a very disconcerting find.

There was one fella who was probably the person who came closest to being what I could call my "best friend" during my senior year in high school. We always hung out an lunch, I went to his house a time or two, and we roomed together on a school-sponsored trip to St. Louis. He was very intelligent, seemed destined for a career in biochemistry, and built a holography studio as an extracurricular class project. Together he and I pulled various pranks at school, such as placing small contact explosives all over the school during lunch hour so that they'd go off when people came back to their lockers after lunch. (Ahh, the things you could get away with in the pre-Columbine/pre-Heathers days!)

I found out today, in my searching, that he died a little over a year ago.

What's odd about this is that he is someone I have tried to reconnect with, several times, over the years, and always been unable to find him.

It's a very strange feeling. I should be sad, but I'm not feeling it. I am disturbed and down about it. But I just don't know how to react. How are you supposed to feel when find out someone you were once close to, but haven't seen in 20 years, has been dead for over a year?

Rest in peace, Kris.

Posted by ScooterJ at 07:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I got my notice last month that my neighborhood was next in line to get their Time-Warner DVR's "upgraded" from Passport to Navigator, I was worried. I'd heard plenty of horror stories from those further south who had already received the "upgrade". Tales about how all of their recordings were erased. All of their scheduled recordings wiped out. Boxes constantly rebooting. Being unable to record anything. Having to drive 10-20 miles to one of the poorly-located stores (why isn't there one anywhere near the Plaza or Downtown??) to wait in line and exchange their DVRs for new ones that might work better.

Fortunately they got those issues worked out before the "upgrade" came to my neighborhood. When it came to my box, everything went smoothly.

Or so I thought.

After a few weeks, my saved recordings started randomly disappearing for no reason. Including one irreplaceable saved recording of a live broadcast.

Then it randomly started deciding it no longer wanted to record various series. No warning, no error in the log, scheduled recordings just up and vanish from time to time.

Then this week it started flagging programs as NEW when in fact theey were reruns that it had recorded before.

The interface is ugly. The white letters on blue backgrounds are difficult to read, especially on standard televisions.

It is also poorly designed from a usability standpoint. For instance, when searching for a show in the old Passport system, you would be taken immediately to the alphabet keypad. Now under Navigator you are taken to a scrolling list of every show title that no one in their right mind would ever want to use, and you must navigate to a second screen to get to the more useful alphabet menu.

The system is S....L....O....W. Last night I added two new series to my recording schedule. Under the old Passport system, this would have taken about a minute, maybe two tops. Last night, under Navigator? It took just over twenty minutes. No joke. This includes time that it had to sit and think and process my scheduling requests... for multiple minutes... with all buttons on my remote frozen and unusable until it was done.

Good grief.

To paraphrase my best friend, it's like being used to using OSX and then being forced to "upgrade" to Windows 98.

Time Warner Cable has reduced the features and services they have given us by dumping this clearly not-ready-for-market software on us, yet has not lowered our rates to compensate for this reduced service. It's time for TWC to own up to their mistake and either lower their rates or switch back to the old software until they are capable of developing a product that is actually usable.

Posted by ScooterJ at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I spotted this Chinese food delivery service magnet stuck to a vending machine last night...

Posted by ScooterJ at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)