Game of Thrones is back on Demand next week. I think I'll watch it again. Hopefully the heat won't be quite so oppressive then. There were far too many names and stories all happening at the same time to take in at a single viewing.

I'll have to buy the books though. The library has them reserved until shortly after the next millenium.

- Jim

It seems I may have spoken too soon. I had more than a day to watch Game of Thrones and I was able to finish it in time, though just barely. I suppose procrastination continued to play a part, but less than the weather. The heat here is unbearable and the dog takes refuge in my room where I do all my stuff. The tiny air conditioner is fighting a losing battle with heat indices well over a hundred... indexes. I like that word better.

Anyway, in deference to the dog, I've refrained from watching television during the hottest parts of the day. It's only a few degrees, but it's still a few degrees.

- Jim

Life and circumstances conspired against me and I have but one day to finish the Game of Thrones 1st season before it leaves HBO OnDemand. The first two episodes seem interesting, but I'm horrible with names. Which one is Boromir again?

- Jim

Okay, it ended on Friday night. And I finished all of them. It's hard for me to watch eight hours of television in three days. Still, I think I did good. Next step, lots of DVR stuff.

- Jim

Dangit! I don't watch a lot of television, but I just found out last night that the John Adams miniseries is on OnDemand. It ends tomorrow, or tonight, knowing the odd way Charter sets these things up. I've been wanting to see it for a while, but something always came up, usually a lack of Cable access.

Well, I'm going to try and watch them all in one afternoon.

- Jim

Just wanted to say, Happy Birthday to the United States of America!

- Jim

Stolen from The Janesville Gazette at: http://gazettextra.com/news/2011/jun/22/defense-attorney-questions-cause-death-double-fata/ without permission.

Defense attorney questions cause of death in double-fatal crash

By DAVID BRAZY ( Contact ) Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Photo by Bill Olmsted

Omar Tavizon Ramos, right, looks on while his defense attorney Michael Murphy questions a witness in court. Ramos is accused of killing Margaret Worden and her grandson Jeffery Bauer in an Easter crash while Ramos was driving drunk.

Photo by Bill Olmsted

The family of Margaret Worden and Jeffery Bauer displayed their photographs during a court hearing for Omar Tavizon Ramos in Janesville.

JANESVILLE — The defense attorney for a Janesville man charged in a double-fatal crash questioned Tuesday if one of the victims died as a result of the crash, if the accused was at fault in the crash and if his client was on pain medication when he spoke to investigators.

Omar Tavizon-Ramos, 21, is charged with two counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle for the deaths of Jeffery S. Bauer, 19, of Janesville and his grandmother Margaret Worden, 61, of Janesville. He also is charged with injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle for injuries caused to his passenger, Gilberto Vargas-Cano of Janesville.

Ramos left University Hospital 15 days after the crash and boarded a bus before he could be arrested. He was taken into custody in Janesville two days later.

The accident occurred at 2:45 Easter morning at Center Avenue and Racine Street. Worden was driving a minivan south on Center Avenue and was turning left onto Racine Street when it collided with a car driven north on Center Avenue by Ramos.

Bauer was thrown from the minivan and died at the scene. Worden was transported to Mercy Medical and Trauma Center, Janesville, and died 12 days later at the hospital.

Dr. Muhammad Alkhan testified Tuesday that Worden’s death was caused by a stroke she suffered because of trauma from the accident. Alkhan said an artery in her neck was torn, likely in the accident. As her body healed, a clot broke loose and caused the stroke.

Defense Attorney Michael Murphy questioned if age or disease could have caused Worden’s stroke.

Alkhan said that was possible, but he believed it was caused by the accident.

“You cannot blame the age for the death,” Alkhan said.

Members of Bauer’s and Worden’s family attended the preliminary hearing. They placed a picture of Worden and a picture of Bauer with his dog, which also died in the crash, on the bench in front of the family.

Janesville police officer Benito Rocha testified that he spoke to Ramos at University Hospital in Madison on May 3. Rocha said Ramos told him he he’d had two or three beers the night of the crash and was going about 5 mph over the speed limit.

Ramos told Rocha the minivan had one of its doors open at the time of the crash and was going too fast, which caused the accident.

Murphy asked Rocha if he saw Ramos take any pain medication or if he asked Ramos if Ramos was on any pain medication. Rocha said he did not see Ramos take any medication.

Ramos and Cano were at a bar in Beloit before the crash, according to the criminal complaint.

Cano, who testified from his wheelchair Tuesday while wearing a cast on his right wrist, said he did not remember getting into the car and did not remember the accident. He said the last thing he remembers was drinking two beers and later waking up in the hospital.

Ramos’ blood-alcohol concentration at the time of the crash is unknown. He was not breath tested at the scene because he was being treated for his injuries. Blood samples drawn at the hospital after the crash still are being tested at the Wisconsin State Hygiene Laboratory.

To convict Ramos of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, prosecutors must prove that Ramos was intoxicated and that his intoxication caused the crash.

The hearing was postponed until 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, when test results on Ramos’ blood samples are expected to be available.

I'm not going to comment much on this. Not yet. If they actually determine that he didn't kill her or that he wasn't at fault, I will be livid. I see they cleaned him up though. Typical defense move.

The benefit for baby Blake went very well by all accounts. I'm afraid I didn't make it. Even if I thought I was going, I hurt my knee the night before and was up all night in pain. Lots of people showed up and it's pretty apparent they had fun. That's what counts.

Blake is doing much better now. Now they've just got to pay for all of it.

- Jim

No, I'm sorry, I haven't changed my mind about the blog. Though technically still online, there's no way for the public to access it. It's hidden, and then some. Forever is an awfully wrong time, so I don't think I'll be able to guarantee that it will remain hidden for all time, but I don't see any chance of its current status changing soon. Even searching for it won't find it, not only is it hidden, but the door is locked.

In its absence, it has grown beyond the boundaries set up for it to be public and any change in that status would require changes to existing posts. No, I'm not talking about you behind your back, but there are things that really can't get out.

I suppose, if you're really worried about it, you could drop me a line and ask for a private permission, which is possible. I don't know if that would work, but perhaps your powers of persuasion are stronger than I thought.

- Jim

Some days are just made for being an Imperial Pilot.

I don't have any screen shots, so you're just going to have to be content with the Wikipedia description here.

I'm not entirely certain I like this version over the others ones. It's prettier, mind you, much nicer to look at. Still, my TIE fighter engines sound like they need space oil or something. The engine is knocking.

- Jim

For those keeping track of the Seti@home numbers on the side of my blog over there ===>, they had a problem with a server, that they're still working on fixing. They've moved most of the data to another server and are slowly getting things fixed. It's not a solution yet, but a temporary fix until they can fix it for real.

I took the time to stop downloading new work so that I could upgrade to a new version of Seti@home without risking too much data. I had one upgrade that went bad once and though it's never happened again, I don't want to go through the experience again. It was hardly the end of the world for anyone - after the work expired without me doing it, it was rereleased so others could do it. Still, it's a personal preference, probably OCD.

Anyway, between those two, the numbers will and actually have already fluctuated wildly. I figure three or four more days until it gets back to normal, assuming they can get the server situation straightened out. I'm still doing work, I technically only stopped for a short time, but there was a slightly longer period when I did less work as well. Anyway, we're back up now here, so future fluctuations aren't real, just apparent.

- Jim

With my hearing loss, I doubt the military would have ever accepted me. By the time I thought about it, my knee injury made it a moot point though. It's one of my biggest regrets.

Still, to those who served and more to those who lost their lives while serving, THANK YOU on this Memorial Day.

- Jim

I managed to get to the library just in time.

I'm currently reading Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

I haven't finished it yet, so I'm not recommending it or anything at this time.

- Jim

If you are looking for more information about the Voyager probes and their missions, then Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery - By Stephen J. Pyne probably isn't the way to go. Yes, it contains some detail, but the details are somewhat sparse and the entire account is littered with comparisons to other ages of exploration as defined by the author.

The comparisons can be similar, they can be relevant, but they are not necessarily so. The problem with such an analysis is that it's less a historical record than a commentary of our own time - which is neither the time of the earlier voyages of discovery nor the time of the Voyager missions. Sorta. Technically, the Voyager probes are still out there doing science, but they are done with the work that made them famous to regular people.

I have to admit, I hated the book in the beginning. I was looking for a true historical record (as true as such things are) and got this by accident. But... it might have just been what I was looking for. It has certainly caused me to think about thinks and given me new ideas and directions for writings of my own. In that, I suppose it's served it's purpose.

This isn't a traditional review of the book, I realize. I'm not recommending this book to anyone because what people bring to books is different for every reader. I had a specific purpose for reading the book and the purpose was fulfilled, in a way I hadn't considered earlier. It did its job.

- Jim

I finished Time: January 10th, 2011 and have moved onto Time: January 11th, 2011.

- Jim

I'm not recommending these, mostly because I haven't finished reading them.

- I am currently reading Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery. By Stephen J. Pyne.

- I am also reading Time Magazine: January 10, 2011.

Yes, I'm a bit behind on my periodicals. Sadly, the pile is much lower than it's recently been.

- Jim

Well, I'm not going to hide it. This decision has been a long time coming, despite claims to the contrary. Originally, the blog was to serve as a personal journal. The whole point was to move such things to the "cloud", though the term wasn't really there at the time. I had just suffered a hard drive crash and wanted the safety associated with the internet.

The recent Blogger.com crash changed all that, though again, the decision has been long in coming. Despite being a private journal, there were many things I couldn't post because it was too public. If the whole point of the blog was to help me in writing, it was also a big impediment since I could rarely share such thoughts here. Even worse, there's no point in using this blog as a backup if the backup remains insecure.

Of course there were people who got mad at what I posted, whether it was about them or something they cared about. There were people who tried to use what I posted against me, as if they could win arguments by using my past to insult me. And there were people who misunderstood the concept entirely and thought that I was either crying for help, suicidal, or dying. For the record, I am none of these. Well, technically, I suppose everyone is dying from the day they were born, but that's it. My only medical issues are that I have allergies and a bad knee. A very bad knee, but just a knee. I don't think it will kill me any time soon.

So, there it is.

No more personal thoughts, ideas, or concepts. I'm taking the journal out of the blog. Oh, I imagine I'll fill it up with things that interest me, but that's it.

Oh, in the meantime, I have backed up the former blog. I'll be transferring it back to my hard drive where it will become a real journal. Nothing is lost, it's just no longer public. I'll also be backing it up in other ways as well.

- Jim