One is an Anomaly. Two is a Coincidence. Three is.. Probably Not a Trend.

Scientifically speaking, I guess you'd need about 60 articles or so all pointing to the data and forecasting water woes country wide in order for it to be a trend.Still, water news tends to run dry (heh) right about this time of year and yet I keep seeing articles like this, and this.

When water scientists are talking shortage forecast, without raising alarm bells, they are typically looking at a multi-decadal planning horizon that takes net population increase trend lines (and therefore water consumption trend lines right along with trend lines for increasing efficiency) into account. Gotta make the argument here (which is probably why I'm not an Urban Geographer); if no new resources can be brought online, and increasing efficiency standards can't meet demand, why would city planners keep trying to bring in more population to increase the city's tax base? Money can buy water, it's just that to engineer your way to a solution could take more than most people are willing to shell out for.

And while you can raise the price of gas and milk and most people won't tear their hair out, I know for a fact that politics gets real ugly, real quick, when managers start seriously considering jacking up the price of water to pay for public waterworks to increase supply. Some congress-critter with a smarmy smile and greased back hair will claim his respectable opponent wants to force little old ladies on short budgets to die of dehydration in order to line the pockets of his friendly neighborhood construction company.

Georgia... Sweet, Georgia

The secret lair has moved from its undisclosed location in North Carolina to a second undisclosed location in Georgia. The primary reason for the move is so that I can go to grad school to start on my PhD (which, surprise, I've already started on my PhD!)

Moving kind of sucks. Everything has to be packed just so, everything has to get moved, then unpacked. Meanwhile, there's yards to mow, things to fix, and, oh yeah, school work to be done too. Driving back and forth across a couple of states every weekend is starting to be kind of a drag too.

Then again, at least I'm down here in GA, actually working on getting a PhD instead of thinking/wanting to work on it. The difference between motion and action, then.

Still, I'll be glad when this moving business is over with.

Stupid Name, Cool Service

Just a head's up that services like this exist. Need to get a spare key to your place to someone out of state? Too busy to go by a hardware store? Have a weird key that's hard to get a match on? This seems like a pretty good deal. There's been times in my life where arrangements had to be made on getting a key to a person, and it involved having to hide the damned thing in odd places and giving them directions on how to find it. Seems like this is much more secure.

Shloosl is still a pretty damned stupid name, though, no matter how you slice it.

Doesn't Seem Like a Credible Expert, Does He?

<sarcasm>Joe Biden looking elated after hearing that his advice to his wife on home defense landed her in jail.</sarcasm>

You know, I kind of figured that this would happen.

 People are really ignorant about what the appropriate, narrowly defined corridors are for using a firearm for self defense. This leads to all kinds of wild and silly assumptions about what is and is not legal, and what gun owners can get away with. Let this be a lesson to folk of all stripe; you can't just blast some rounds in the air and expect everything to be copasetic.

At the very minimum, don't take self defense advice from someone who makes their hay by lying for a living.

Yard Sales!

My better half and I are conducting a series of yard sales, both to raise funds and to reduce the volume of objects that we'd have to move to Georgia this fall. So far it's going pretty well, aside from the house being a complete wreck and initial crankiness because neither of us is used to 4:30 am wake ups.

Yard sale customers are an interesting mix, makes for good people watching. Folks range across the political spectrum and in apparent income. Plenty of folk drop by that either speak limited English, or rely on their children to translate for them. I've seen people dressed up like they're heading to a social event, and folks who look pretty far removed from their Sunday finest. The one thing that they seem to have in common is an eye to buy some used stuff, which we have plenty of.

Been mighty pleased with the results of the initial yard sale, despite heat, annoyances and the odd biting bug. If we do half as well today as we did yesterday, I'd be tickled silly.