Timothy S. Carlson's Blog

... but it's slow going. Many fees, many requirements, many documents to obtain, many authentifications of those documents to be done, many more fees to be paid.   But . . . it's all worth it.

[Note: This is a government shutdown related post that, for some reason, has been in my 'drafts' folder. Oops] I'd been hearing rumours that the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) has been closed due to the US government shutdown, so we decided to take a trek out of the house and take a look for ourselves. We live in Taguig City and the Cemetery is within a few kilometers of our house. On October 7th, 2013, a Monday morning, we drove around a bit and finally found the MACM. We arrived at noon and the gates were locked. Normal business hours for the MACM are 9am-5pm, pretty much every day of the year except for Christmas and New Year's day. I saw two guards at the guard house and lots of maintenance staff on the grounds. I talked to one guard who explained that the Cemetery was closed due to the shutdown. I asked if they were running at reduced staff and he replied "No, we are fully staffed, but we are unpaid at the moment." I asked him if the ...

We’ve been painting the house for the past month. Oh, not me – I’m just the financial guy. A _very_ happy filipino gent has been doing the labor for me. Our flat (penthouse? bunker?) was dark green and ‘amazing’ green for the past 4 years. Then my sister-in-law painted her house, which is just across the way, 'amazing' green. And the Pure Gold building, that dominates the view from my front and side windows, is various shades of green. Dammit. Time to change and plus the paint was peeling due to the lovely atmospherics in the islands (read: constant humidity, occasional freakin’ heavy rain). I sure hope continue to love pale yellow / BRIGHT yellow. What started as painting/repainting the 3rd floor flat has turned into a complete repaint of the entire building – 5 floors in toto! *sigh* I hope everyone in the family enjoys their bags of sugar and cans of tuna for Christmas, because we are _broke_. Oh well, at least we are weather-proofed – sorta. Did I mention we paint...

Ephrata, Pennsylvania - 03/25/2013: Batangas, Philippines - 03/24/2013: Exhibit #53 on why I live in the islands.

I've been under the weather, but my brothers-in-law have been busy working on the patio/kitchen off from the office. It's looking good - but still needs some cabinetry, paint and electrical work (that's my job - I get to be shocked). Once it's ready, we'll get a new refrigerator and oven. Can't wait to bake - I miss lasagna and meatloaf. And especially looking forward to the turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

The website www.timothyscarlson.com is back up! This blog wasn't down, but the website that pointed to it had expired. So - I needed to get a CC here in the Philippines. Which meant I needed to get a land line first. 3 months later - mission complete! Yeah, they move at a different pace here in the islands...

www.timothyscarlson.com is down. Fortunately, this blog is still up. The website should be back in a week or so. Don't panic.

And, again, not really. But I had another project posted on Hack-A-Day: Click HERE to see the article.

220kph sustained winds. 270kph gusts. It will cross Mindanao tomorrow (Tuesday) and give the Metro Manila area grief starting late Wednesday and all day Thursday. Batten down the hatches!!! UPDATE 12.1206: We are fine. Only overcast skies - no rain or wind. But south of Cebu is a different story - hundreds dead, thousands homeless.

The People's Republic Of Kalifornia has decided that in order to follow a healthy lifestyle, the slaves citizens of the republic SHALL NOT EAT MEAT ON MONDAYS. WTH? Doesn't Kalifornia have other issues to deal with that are more important - like the dire financial straits they are in? I'm thinking I need to send this picture to the Kalifornia Legislature members on Monday:

Yesterday was my beautiful Asawa's birthday. We had a wonderful celebration with lots of food, lots of family and friends, and LOTS of Karaoke. Mahal na mahal na mahal kita, asawa ko. My heart belongs to you forever and ever. This is my Asawa, Ronalyn. Still as beautiful as the first time I met her. I'm a lucky, lucky man. And this is me, eating crispy pork skin (lechon). Hmmm - masarap!

I'm done with my post-election meltdown. Back to what is going on as it relates to my personal experiences in Paradise. My new outlook:

We play too nice. Romney is a really nice guy - too nice. It's time to bring out the bears. If they mess with the bears, they lose a fucking arm. And a leg. We need to recruit someone that will tear into the opposition with no hesitation. The media is going to try to kill us no matter what we do, so we might as well go for the jugular and than laugh as the opposition bleeds out. Benghazi is a Impeachable nightmare and we should have gone for Obama's throat on the matter. Screw the old guard media - they have Obama (or whatever lefty jerk) so deep down their throats that they couldn't respond if their own asses were on fire. And their asses are on fire - oh, yes they are, and I plan to fan the flames and hope it consumes them. It's time to stand up for what we really believe in. No more mamby-pamby pandering to those we fear we might offend. Screw them, they aren't going to vote for what is right for this country anyway and they make up a small percentag...

OBAMA 59,584,661* ROMNEY 56,959,312 (from Drudge - 12.1107) Are 60 MILLION Americans really that fucking stupid? Oy, vey! Hopefully the well deserved nuclear apocalypse won't make it all the way to the islands...

It was a nice run while it lasted - 237 years. I doubt you'll survive the next four. You can call me when you have returned to your collective senses - until then, goodbye and thanks for all the fish.

Well, not really. BUT - the hits on one of my websites has gone up dramatically! One of my goofy projects - A Dual Die Emulator, using a PIC 12F629 - was picked up by the website Hack-A-Day . So, there you go - I'm linked from another BIG website and I'm getting all sorts of traffic. And several smaller blogs have picked up the article from Hack-A-Day. The 'net is an amazing thing. Here's the project on Hack-A-Day: A PIC Powered Pair Of Electronic Dice Here's the project on Embedds: Dual Dice Project On A PIC Here's the project on some Japanese blog (translated): PIC AVR Blog Workshop   And here's the project on MY website: Prototyping A Dual Die Emulator (PIC12F629)   Cool, huh?

Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. At capacity, with thousands turned away. Oh, wait - this wasn't a rock concert. This was a ROMNEY/RYAN rally! This picture makes me feel _so_ good.