New Camera Envy, Fixed A/C, Prep school Yearbooks & More!

Pentax K-30 (So want this!)This is the latest Pentax midrange DSLR set to come out next month. It is very similar to my current and most excellent camera (the K-x) except it is weatherproof, has 2 control wheels, and 19 megapixels instead of 12! It also currently lists for pre-order on Amazon for $850!

I had the privilege of doing another photo-shoot for Weatherford Now Magazine this week! This one is of the new superintendent for the Weatherford School District, in his new office.

The big news this week is I got my daughter’s air conditioner fixed on her truck! I had taken it in for an oil change and asked them to look at it and see if they could tell me what might be wrong and what it would take to fix it. I had figured the compressor or evaporative coils had gone out and that would be big bucks to fix. It turned out to be simply a small leak and so they just charged it up and added some dye and now it works!! The dye is to eventually show where the leak is. I had previously told her that it would probably be expensive to fix and therefore I probably wouldn’t, unless she wanted to help pay for it. My a/c on my college beater went out my senior year in high-school and my dad’s mechanic had said that it was the evaporator coils gone bad and it would probably take $500 (equivalent to a cpl. grand now) or so to fix it and my dad jovially asked me if I had the money. Of course I did not, and so, of course it never got fixed! One thing I looked forward to upon graduation and landing my first career job was buying my first new car and it having AIR CONDITIONING! Some of you from up North may not understand this, but here in Texas, air conditioning is (almost) a necessity! My daughter thought I was mean for not offering to run out and fix it regardless of the cost, but hey, it didn’t work when she bought it and besides, I didn’t have a/c until I graduated and bought my first new car, so I guess I’m too much like my dad, lol! Anyway, I did really start feeling bad for her and so was covertly looking into getting it fixed, and, as luck would have it, was able to do so fairly easily! After all, it does feel hotter now (to me, now older) than it did when I was growing up! (global warming, maybe? haha)

A friend of mine who went to school with me posted this link to an online copy of Lion’s Roar, Yearbook of the North Texas Junior High School, 1969; from the prep school that we attended until it closed after our second grade. I never got nor saw the hardcopy then because I was only in the first grade. This was the Laboratory prep school at the University of North Texas. It was very small, with only one class of 25 students per grade in the lower grades. I’m not sure about the middle and high school though. I was so sad when it closed and I got transferred to the big intimidating public school for third grade on. I’m actually in the page that comes up on this link! Thank you Tracy for this awesome find!! I was fascinated looking through the pictures of us and of the various teachers we had. We had numerous “circuit teachers” that each taught a specific subject and that would come to our classroom each day and teach their subject. My favorite was our math teacher named Dr. Hurd, who was also a university professor.

Image courtesy (c) Redorbit.com.

Here we go again – Interest rates setting record lows, Stocks tumbling, Europe imploding, Unemployment up, No economic or investment growth. The “grasshopper economy” just roars on and on.

Venus Takes Center Stage in Upcoming Rare Sky Show!
by Alicia Chang, Associated Press, June 1, 2012.

Here He Goes Again: Bloomberg Set To Ban All Sugary Drinks Over 16 Ounces
by CBS News.com, May 30, 2012.
me:WTH, I thought communism fell years ago?!

SWAT rampage destroys Iraq vet’s home over guns!
by Emily Miller, by Washington Times, May 28, 2012.
me:OMG, an Armed Citizen with an UNREGISTERED GUN here in the “Land of the [once] Free and Home of the Brave”, Quick, Send in the Army, Oh Wait, He was IN the Army fighting real criminals that shoot back!

Quote of the Day (me, to a liberal facebook post opposing pipelines): You can compel companies to clean up their messes, which is far better than just banning pipelines and energy projects. I’m sorry, but the world does not run on flowers and hugs, it runs on petroleum. Petroleum has done more to improve the lives of humans and make possible a cleaner environment than any alternative ever conceived. (coal, steam, horses, oxen, slave labor anyone?)

‘Your’ Car Won’t Be After 2015!
by Eric Peters, The American Spectator, April 25, 2012.

Chris Hayes: I’m ‘Uncomfortable’ Calling Fallen Military ‘Heroes’
by Mark Finkelstein, NewsBusters.org, May 27, 2012.
me:WTH, just WTH!

Kaspersky antivirus use Linux to rescue Windows.
by Bill Toulas, Unixmen.com, May 29, 2012.