I’m just going to let these speak for themselves.

Found via MetaFilter.

Here’s a bullet-point update on my situation these days:

• I’m biking to work pretty much daily now; it’s about (I’m told) 6km each way, so it’s a bit of exercise I wouldn’t otherwise be getting, and it’s pretty decent exercise. It’s excellent that our workplace has a shower.
• I’m taking class in the morning and working late, which means that anyone that wants to make plans with me has to take into account that I won’t be home until 7:30 or so each weekday. Having said that, I’d love to do evening things with people, so please call any time.
• Work is up & down; I want to work on new things, but old things keep cropping up.
• Char is away this week, and I miss her.
• XBMC is the greatest thing since sliced bread. No AppleTV for me, my new (old) Xbox does everything I would want the aTV to do.
• I’ve read a few books recently, notably “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which I bought for Char. It’s excellent, and I highly recommend it.
• On Sunday, with the blessings of Lyal and the qualified non-refusal of a shoulder surgeon, I’m going to fly again.

Next weekend, weather permitting, I’ll be doing #26.

At any rate, other watchers probably noticed the democratic convention and the concurrent terror alert level increase. It’s more than probable that several of those that noticed jumped to the conclusion that the alert was politically motivated, geared at taking some of the steam out of the convention’s traditional boost in the polls.

I feel sorry for the US intelligence community. Much like the phone company down there, and the newly deregulated utilities here and in California, they’ve been given conflicting and mutually-contradictory missions by the government, and more politically significant, the media.

On the one hand, they’ve been excoriated for failing to act quickly enough to the warning signs that preceded the september 11th attacks. At that point, there had never been a reason to believe that an attack of that nature could successfully be carried out on American soil — the previous bombing of the WTC notwithstanding.

On the other hand, in the years since then, as the intelligence community has been more paranoid about their data, and more forthcoming with warnings and notifications, they’ve been torn apart in the media for being fearmongers and accused of using alert levels as a political tool.

So, if you’re the government of the US of A, and you see information that — viewed as a series of connected events over a span of several years — strongly suggests upcoming attacks, and this happens to tie together during a political convention, what do you do?

Personally, I think that the alert is a good idea. Imagine the fallout if another attack succeeded just because the CIA didn’t want to appear politically motivated. Then we’d see some hangings.

About 2:30 this morning, my dad had a heart attack.

I’m kind of at a loss on this one. I guess first thing, it’s not as bad as one would think. Which is still pretty fucking bad. He’s okay, but they had to pop open a vein in his heart, put a stent in, and tomorrow they’ll be assessing the damage.

It’s scary, really scary. This is my DAD. He’s not supposed to be, well, vulnerable… But all those IV tubes, all that … vulnerability. It’s really hitting me. Time is ticking onwards, and…

Fuck, i just don’t know. I don’t even know how to feel about this. I think, maybe, I’ll just let this one sit until i know more.

Be well, all.

I feel like i always do before things go bad, that’s how i feel. It’s a feeling of impending doom, hanging over my head, and i don’t have anything i can see telling me what’s coming. Life isn’t perfect, but I can’t see any signs that the really important things in it — School, Char, friends — are going anywhere…

Yeah, i know… “precognition”. Feh. Pseudoscientific bullshit psychobabble. Crap. But this is a feeling I’ve learned to heed, because it’s been right more often than it’s been wrong. It’s not deterministic or anything, but it makes me nervous all the same. I only hope i’m wrong and my life — so good until now — isn’t going into a tailspin around me.

Wish me luck