On the road again...

The family just got back in town tonight from a short vacation up in Anniston, AL to see daughter Jennifer, son-in-law Jeremy, and the two dachshunds Oscar and Nacho.

Tomorrow evening, I fly out to Houston for three days at HP-Compaq, returning Thursday evening.

Well, it could be worse: it could be six months in Lynchburg, VA. That was... difficult.

I don't know that I'll be able to see the elementary schools I attended when I lived in Houston, which is kind of a drag. There are a couple of teachers - Mrs. Blankenship, in particular - I'd love to look up and say thanks to. Well, there's always mail or email, I suppose.

I'm also not keen on some Texans, especially the one in the White House, but hey, it's also the state that gave birth to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Freddy Fender, and Los Lonely Boys, so it has its plus side.

If only I were going a little further northwest... ah, someday.

More Dilbert blog zingers

Okay, so perhaps I spam the Dilbert blog too much, but today's post has some zingers:

I think you can see many problems with this plan. But you have to compare it to the current political process where idiots elect liars to transfer wealth to crooks. How's that working out for you?
...
At the risk of oversimplifying, our current energy policy in The United States involves shooting bearded people.

Why is it that some of our sharpest and most honest political commentary comes from entertainers (Stewart, Colbert, etc.)?

Hmm, that's actually a good answer for the conservatives who always kvetch about people like Sean Penn (who actually put his butt in a boat in New Orleans and helped out after Katrina) who involve themselves in politics.

To boldly split infinitives...

Came across this, which had an interesting nugget:

The split infinitive has been present in English ever since the 14th century, but it was not until the 19th century that grammarians labeled and condemned the usage. The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. The thinking is that because the Latin infinitive is a single word, the equivalent English construction should be treated as if it were a single unit. But English is not Latin, and distinguished writers have split infinitives without giving it a thought. Noteworthy splitters include John Donne, Daniel Defoe, George Eliot, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, William Wordsworth, and Willa Cather.

They left out Shatner and Roddenberry: tsk, tsk, tsk...