Second Week = Easy; Condo = Pain in the A!#

Halfway into my second week at the new job and things are going well. I had a client meeting this morning to explain the company CMS and then spent the rest of the day working on a huge web form for another project (the majority of the time spent writing a nifty module to create a series of radio buttons from a database. Enough nerd talk.

My efforts to take a picture every day on my way to/from work have proved futile, but on the way home I played around with the camera a bit and think that I'm finally getting the hang of some of its manual settings. For a point and shoot, it has a lot of capabilities (like manual focus, flash, aperture, etc.). I don't fancy myself any kind of good photographer, but it's still fun to play with. One has to consider that almost 70% of the country lists photography amongst its hobbies... so there are probably 1,000 pictures of every picture that I take already out there. Just check flickr.

The only other thing happening around here besides work is some standard condo association turmoil. I'll see if I can summarize it all in ninety-nine words or less:
ON October 17th 2006, washer of current stackable starts making horrible noise. Repair man says that bearing are shot, $700 to fix. Condo has meeting and, after much communication on the message board and answering of questions about fitting new stackable, connecting, cost, delivery, removal, etc. fifth unit finally votes and puts us above 66% for the 6 units in the building on November 23rd. One unite votes to repair instead of replace and is a total dick about the whole thing (which is their MO anyway). Unfortunately, the last unit caveats her vote with the fact that she only wants to replace the washer when it is "really" broken. This seems to make sense and the vote passes.

Fast forward to March 12th when another unit finally complains that the noise has gotten too loud. Three other units (including me) agree that the unit is finally "broken" and I start to move towards replacing. Sudden emails regarding questions about the same matters "will it fit?", "who will install it?", "what if it doesn't fit?" start flooding in from the remaining two units that were hesitant. The unit that originally voted to repair and raised such a stink starts insisting that any replacement stackable washer "must separate into two pieces, otherwise it won't fit through the doorway." I measure doorways, call to confirm that we can return it the same day if it doesn't fit, etc. It doesn't help. The last unit still keeps insisting that if it can't separate into two pieces, it won't fit. I call. It can't separate. We have the 66% to go ahead and get it anyway and we already voted on the model... so I think I'm just going to order this week. This will cause a HUGE problem with the asshole unit. Oh well. I think it's time to man up.

Enough about me. In the news:

Gore goes to testify 20 years after he first brought up global warming

Bush draws the line on the Attorney Scandal, but there's a huge email gap that's being looked into. Bush sounded like a total idiot last night during his little speech. I was just glad that the new job has me home at 5:25pm to be able to watch that kind of stuff. And is it just me or does Kyle Sampson (right), former chief of staff to the U.S. attorney general, look a lot like a young Karl Rove. Have they figured out how to clone people or what?!?

DC is probably not going to get voting rights no matter how hard the mayor tries because Bush is just going to veto it anyway

The D.C. vote measure easily cleared two House committees last week, with strong Democratic support and votes from several Republicans. Democrats have pledged to use their 32-seat House majority to pass it. Friday will mark the first time the full House has considered granting the District a full seat in Congress since 1993, when a statehood measure was defeated.

But the threat of a presidential veto could harm the bill's chances in the Senate, where Republican support is needed to avoid a filibuster.

What ticks me off is that something would have a tough time in the Senate because of a veto. Who cares about a veto? Who wants to align themselves with this idiot who's only pulling off a 41% approval rating? I see their point, of course. DC isn't a state and these guys are "strict constructionists". DC could always merge with Maryland or VA (never) and give them an extra rep, right? Wouldn't they be happy to inherit the lowest literacy rate in the country.

The Kurds and their western ways are prospering in Iraq

and Obama is in trouble for an ex-employee of one of the companies that contracts for his website having made a YouTube video. I interviewed with the Tech at Obama and I know that they only hired Blue State Digital a week before Barack made his announcement, because they only needed three days to build the site.