^ The "married" thing is truth. Doesn't even have to involve a ring.

Getting seriously involved with a woman who shares your love for great food has its downsides. I'm not saying that they outweigh the upsides, just an observation. Still haven't lost all of the weight I gained on that outing.

The divorced thing isn't too far off either. I got diagnosed with Graves disease after losing 30 plus pounds almost overnight about a year after the divorce. Wasn't fun to learn that an autoimmune disorder could have been triggered by the stress/depression.

They're setting train tracks on fire !!
 

Cold enough for you?


PS> Joe, where is your station's coverage of this??

No idea. I avoid the news department where possible.

Irony: the only major equipment failure we had today was (drumroll)...

The air conditioning.

You wouldn't think that air conditioning is important when it's -20° outside, but the main equipment room has over a hundred racks of equipment which generates some serious heat. And, of course, no windows. And it's sealed off from the rest of the building from a ventilation standpoint. So when the outside heat-exchanger quit, the room rather quickly got up to nearly 100°.

Wound up opening a hole in an exterior wall and setting up some fans and ducting to draw outside air into the room. It's still warm, but seems stable-ish.

Here's a live shot of railroad tracks on fire on WGN-TV:


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5b0cc52998.png


Explanation for non-Chiberians: They only burn those parts of the track that contain switchpoints. This is to prevent the switches from freezing solid, so that trains can continue to be properly switched between tracks. Frozen switchpoints is the most common cause of rail lines having to be shut down during extreme weather.


Also, look at how beautifully the chroma-keyer deals with motion-blur on Tom's hand:


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f2b78566b4.png


That's not even an Ultimatte, it's the built-in keyer on the Ross Acuity. I freaking love that switcher.





Edit: 3am. Shit got bad after I posted that. Temps climbed back over 105° when the wind shifted such that my outside-air inlet was no longer inletting. I used duct tape for its intended purpose; taping a duct. Maybe a historical first.

I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to explain to the GM why there is a crudely-smashed hole in the side of the building that wasn't there yesterday.

Just got home. Had about a dozen machines fail in total. The AntennaTV network was off the air nationwide for 32 minutes. More patch cords in place right now than on Keith Emerson's Moog.


Really proud of my crew. They were just utter professionals throughout. Problems were swiftly solved in order of importance, and despite utter chaos surrounding.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f909b438fc.jpg

I try to never use those things. grocery stores arent going broke. scan and bag my stuff please.

But I can do a faster and better job than the poptart behind the counter.

?

My favorite grocery chain recently closed entirely, citing insolvency, https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...010-story.html

To be honest, I'm kind of offended by people who just stand there as their groceries slide down the post-scan section, doing nothing and waiting for a bagger to arrive. It seems incredibly pretentious and lazy. Kind of like people who, during the era when most gas stations were transitioning from full-service to self-service, would just sit there in their car tooting the horn and waiting for someone to come out and perform the extremely demanding and grueling task of aligning a metal tube with a hole, and then squeezing a handle.

In most places where I have lived, it is considered normal for the customer to bag their own groceries. SoCal and Chicago are really the only exceptions I can think of. Even in NYC, it's customary for you to be standing there, stuffing your items into your bag as the cashier passes them down.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...907bdd1e46.png



Also, I seriously want to know what kind of bizarrely-shaped ears some people have, such that rigid earbuds (Apple, Samsung, etc) actually fit into them and stay in place.



https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b0405ee220.png

Now that you can actually buy real beer and wine at the grocery store, this isn't an option.

The way the law was written, you can't purchase beer or wine at a self-checkout.