One more link before bed..

09Nov - The duToitification of the Western Conservative:
"His main thesis is that Western males are becoming wimps, and his essay itself proves that there is at least some truth in the thesis; never before in human history has there been so much puling and whining about such inconsequential irritations.
...
I do agree with du Toit to some extent, and I do think that the threat of wimpification is worth discussing. That’s why it’s too bad that du Toit’s essay is such a piece of crap--the wimpification point gets lost in a torrent of bigotry, falsehoods, and right-wing fantasies."
(Link from jazzfish)

Fender-bender, door wiring, and a book on Australia

In a fender-bender between a beat-up old Ford Bronco II and a fairly new Audi A4, the Ford wins.
Sometime before lunch, one of my co-workers asked me to come outside, something about my truck--given where I'd parked, I though maybe I was blocking him in, but that wasn't so much the case. He was driving another co-worker's Audi, backing it out of the space, and misjudged the length of the car--backing the middle of his trunk into the corner of my bumper. Damage to my truck? A scrape of plastic off the bumper guard--the bumper that was bent much more by the impact of a Honda Prelude a couple years ago. Damage to the Audi? Broken backup light lens, scraped bumper, slightly dented and bent trunk lid. Glad that repair's not on my wallet--and I shrugged off the minor damage to my own truck. :)

Spent most of the day completing the wiring of the ADA door, which wasn't the simplest task between assorted relays, solenoids, switches, magnets, and an air compressor. In the end, one part of it wasn't working right, which stumped us for at least an hour before we tried patching in additional power, and then common grounds, before it finally worked right. Damn inadequate power supplies--especially when we're only running one door with two control panels!

Started reading Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, recommended by macguyver, which is already fabulously entertaining a mere 19 pages in--and had in fact attained "fabulously entertaining" by the second paragraph of page 1. :)

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