Weird Dream Channel

I'm washing kitchen items in the sink. A blender, a butter dish and one other item I don't recognize. Some kind of thick glass container. The blender had been used to fine-chop peanuts for ice cream topping, and it was difficult to get all the pulverized peanuts out, but I managed after some time. I placed each of the items next to the sink to dry.

Some time later, I returned to put the items away, and they were all lined on the inside corners with crushed peanut. I washed them again, put them aside again, and the same thing happened.

This repeated three times, each time the washing was more difficult, the peanuts just wouldn't completely wash off. I finally gave up, figuring that over time they would dry out enough to fall off by themselves.

Controversy?

Enough time has passed, I  think, to comment on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' extraordinary tenure in Congress after she was shot in the head.

The rules say that when an elected official is unable to perform her duties, she is supposed to be replaced by someone who can. In the case of a Representative, the governor of the state is supposed to appoint someone to fill the rest of the term, and then a regular election will determine who gets to serve next.

But in this case, due to emotion  the Republican governor of Arizona waited for Giffords to resign. From the time of the shooting to the time of her resignation it was clear she was unable to serve as a Representative.

I'm moved by her tragedy and amazing recovery, and even more moved by the deep love her husband has shown. But this breach of common sense and protocol bothers me.

Infrared

Most of today I plugged away at work with the automation system, and created a couple of tests. Then I found a bug in the automation software, but the automation guy went home sick, and will probably be out tomorrow too, so I'm stuck because all of the rest of my tests require this bit to work.

After work I went to the Sunnyvale Library an hour early for the talk, so I could log into Toshiba's site and foolishly order an Ultrabook. This is the competitor to the Asus Zen I bought from Office Depot online yesterday.

Here's why:
A. I'm stupid
B. There was a compelling review of the Zen on Amazon.com by someone who had done the same thing and wrote a feature-by-feature comparison which gave the Toshiba the WIN on everything except Bluetooth (Toshiba's i5 version has none, the i7 does for $$ more) and the display - though that was a wash because while to Toshiba had a lower resolution and a too-flexible cover, the Asus was off-color. Several reviews noted the latter.

If I read both sites' return policies, I should be able to return either one within 14 days. The main concerns with the Asus besides the display color are an unpredictable touchpad and keyboard.

The Toshiba cost $300 more (I opted for the i7 because I want bluetooth for the mouse). The plan is to try the Asus Zen for a day or two, and if it's good enough I'll just send the Toshiba back unopened, because it really is overkill.

That done, I moseyed on over to the program room for a talk by Dr. Erin Smith of NASA Dryden on the SOPHIA project, an infrared telescope mounted in a 747 which had been based at Ames, but got moved, apparently for air traffic control reasons. I think a lot of the science is still done here. The talk was aimed at children, but most of the audience were adults, except for two boys in top knots who kept talking and talking. Dr. Smith tried to include them in the presentation, since they were shouting out things like "that looks like a space shuttle" and "it's Air Force One" but they got out of hand and thankfully after about 15 minutes of this their mother took them away.

Though the presentation mostly stayed grade school level, which was how it was intended (part of a Girls4Science series) the audience questions were all grown up, and she also chatted after the presentation right up to 9 pm closing time.

Home, had a nourishing dinner of pigs 'n' blankets and pizza, both dredged from the deepest recesses of the freezer. Domino vacuumed up (with her teeth) any bits of meat I put in front of her.

She is still yowling like a rabid crow if I'm in another room for too long, hopefully a toy I ordered will help keep her company. Furreal Friend 

Oh yeah, while I'm linking:

Asus Zen

Toshiba Ultrabook