Spam comments while away Aug 6, 2007
Having a website/blog means there will be spam comments, just like having an email address means getting spam email.  I could very easily disable the ability to leave comments, but I sometimes like to hear what people have to say.  Currently, I have a very simple yet effective method of preventing spam involving basic arithmetic.  It works great at filtering out (a) people with math disabilities and (b) robots who leave spam comments.  Every once in a while, a spam comment gets through, either because it was left by a real human (which I find surprising, seeing that most spam is done by automated means) or because the robot happened to guess the correct number to type into the box. 

But what I find most surprising is how much spam I get while I'm away from my computer.  I spend a good 9 hours per day at a computer, so I can quickly delete spam comments that get through.  I might get one or two spam comments per week normally, if any at all.  But as soon as the weekend rolls around, I suddenly get three or four.  And if I'm on vacation like I was last week, I suddenly get all kinds of comment spam.  It's like the robots know when I'm not around, so they all gang up and abuse my website.  Be careful robots, I might disable commenting altogether.  Don't ruin it for everyone. #technology
Faceball Aug 6, 2007
Faceball is an "office sport" played by throwing beach balls at fellow employees' faces.  Opponents sit 10 feet apart and try to hit each other directly in the face.  Glancing blows don't count, and ducking is not allowed.  The one with the most points after 5 rounds wins.  (via Neatorama) #sports
Montana Aug 6, 2007
I just spent a week on vacation in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, stopping off in Missoula to visit a friend from college, the National Bison Range to check out some roaming buffalo, Glacier National Park to see some snow-covered mountains, and Yellowstone National Park to visit the nation's first national park.  Here's a list of interesting things I learned: 
  1. Glacier National Park doesn't have many snow-covered mountains during the summer.
  2. Montana stays light until around 9 or 10pm during the summer.
  3. Most, if not all, Montana towns have a large white letter painted or somehow otherwise emblazoned on a nearby hillside, representing the first letter of the name of the town.
  4. Most, if not all, Montana farms and towns have irrigation ditches (essentially a small stream of fresh water), which carry water to plants and lawns.  You can use water from the irrigation ditch, but only if you have rights to it.
  5. In the mid- to late-90s, Montana's speed limit was "Reasonable and Prudent", which essentially meant "whatever you want".  This was changed in 1999 to be slightly more reasonable:  75 on interstates and 70 on most other roads.  Montana is the first place I've ever felt unsafe while going under the speed limit.
  6. Meth is a big problem in Montana, or at least it was assumed to be big enough to attract the attention and advertising dollars of billionaire Thomas Siebel for something called the Montana Meth Project.  The weirdest example of this was driving hundreds of miles on a state highway and seeing nothing, until suddenly coming to a barn whose roof had a large painted message reading, "Meth ... Not Even Once".
  7. Wildfires are essentially good, unless they get too close to houses and cities.  Many plants and trees actually depend on fires to survive, so most fires are allowed to burn.
  8. Yellowstone National Park is essentially a national park located inside the crater of a volcano, complete with hot water springs, geysers, bubbling sulfur, and boiling mud.  All these phenomena are caused by underground magma, which, like all those Discovery Channel disaster shows talk about, will eventually erupt and cause the biggest natural disaster in the history of the universe, likely ending all life on earth.  In the meantime, it's a pretty cool place to walk around.
  9. Moose (plural) sometimes eat by standing fully submerged in a lake and nibbling plants off the bottom.
  10. Bison (plural) stick their tongues out when they roar/moo.
Here's a list of interesting things I experienced:
  1. I ate an almost completely organic, all-natural, and, more importantly, sustainable meal with my friend's family, complete with garden-grown vegetables, lake-caught fish, and gun-killed deer and antelope.
  2. I ate fresh kohlrabi, a garden-grown vegetable that looks like a head of cabbage and tastes like a radish.
  3. I/we drove 1700 miles in 8 days.
  4. I ate a buffalo burger right outside the National Bison Range.  This was later proven to be morally acceptable because many of the bison from the range are sold to local breeders and herders in order to further purify the bison currently living on the protected range.  The breeders and herders can do with these animals as they wish, which most likely means killing and eating them.  Bison meat is relatively low in saturated fat and cholesterol, but tastes surprising similar to beef.
  5. On the flight home, I had to fly from Spokane to Seattle to Newark.  My flight out of Spokane was a little delayed, but I had no problem making my connecting flight out of Seattle.  My bag (which was checked in Spokane), however, was unable to make the connecting flight.  But don't worry, it caught the next flight, which was 4 hours later.  I was unaware this was possible, and I was surprised no one in any of the three airports told me about it.  Airports are weird.
Pictures:

[gallery /img/2007/08/mt01.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt01-150x150.jpg:::A view from somewhere in Idaho, on the way to Montana.:::/img/2007/08/mt02.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt02-150x150.jpg:::Rolling golden fields somewhere in Idaho, on the way to Montana.:::/img/2007/08/mt03.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt03-150x150.jpg:::A view from Coralynn's family's house in Montana.:::/img/2007/08/mt04.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt04-150x150.jpg:::Coralynn and Wendy in a tepee.:::/img/2007/08/mt05.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt05-150x150.jpg:::A view from Coralynn's family's house, this time with smoke from wildfires.:::/img/2007/08/mt06.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt06-150x150.jpg:::National Bison Range - A chipmunk resting comfortably on a road.:::/img/2007/08/mt07.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt07-150x150.jpg:::National Bison Range - Big bison, little bison.:::/img/2007/08/mt08.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt08-150x150.jpg:::National Bison Range - A bison sticking his tongue out while roaring/mooing.:::/img/2007/08/mt09.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt09-150x150.jpg:::National Bison Range - Wendy watches a bison from a safe place.:::/img/2007/08/mt10.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt10-150x150.jpg:::National Bison Range - Rolling hills and mountains of Montana.:::/img/2007/08/mt11.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt11-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Entrance.:::/img/2007/08/mt12.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt12-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Wendy standing in a lake with some smoky mountains in the background.:::/img/2007/08/mt13.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt13-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - A glacial stream carving its way through rocks.:::/img/2007/08/mt14.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt14-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - So many trees!:::/img/2007/08/mt15.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt15-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Mountains and waterfalls.:::/img/2007/08/mt16.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt16-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - A chipmunk nibbling on an almond someone gave him despite all the signs that say not to feed the wildlife.:::/img/2007/08/mt17.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt17-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Waterfall down the mountain.:::/img/2007/08/mt18.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt18-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Mountains with a little snow.:::/img/2007/08/mt19.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt19-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Wendy and me with a view.:::/img/2007/08/mt20.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt20-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - A chubby ground squirrel trying to get me to give in and fork over some food (I didn't).:::/img/2007/08/mt21.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt21-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Mountains and rocks.:::/img/2007/08/mt22.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt22-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Thumbs up!:::/img/2007/08/mt23.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt23-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Big-horned sheep.:::/img/2007/08/mt24.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt24-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Mountains, lake, snow.:::/img/2007/08/mt25.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt25-150x150.jpg:::Glacier National Park - Big goat, little goat.:::/img/2007/08/mt26.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt26-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Entrance.:::/img/2007/08/mt27.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt27-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Rolling golden hills (a view from Gallatin National Forest).:::/img/2007/08/mt28.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt28-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Sulfur pots stink!:::/img/2007/08/mt29.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt29-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Sulfur pots look cool!:::/img/2007/08/mt30.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt30-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A grizzly bear (and her unseen cub) take a nap on the side of a hill, as hundreds of people get out of their cars and watch.:::/img/2007/08/mt31.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt31-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A butterfly stopped flapping its wings long enough for me to take its picture.:::/img/2007/08/mt32.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt32-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Looks like a foreign planet.:::/img/2007/08/mt33.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt33-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A field we hiked through.:::/img/2007/08/mt34.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt34-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A huge waterfall carving its way through the rock.:::/img/2007/08/mt35.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt35-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A view from the top of the waterfall.:::/img/2007/08/mt36.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt36-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Bubbling muddy water, caused by carbon dioxide escaping from below the ground and heated by magma.:::/img/2007/08/mt37.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt37-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A beautiful blue pot of water about 10 feet deep, probably hot enough to melt your skin off.:::/img/2007/08/mt38.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt38-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Hot cocoa makes Wendy happy when it's rainy.  That's Old Faithful in the background.:::/img/2007/08/mt39.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt39-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A bubbling pot of hot water broke through the surface.:::/img/2007/08/mt40.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt40-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A geyser near Old Faithful.:::/img/2007/08/mt41.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt41-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - A bull elk, easily the size of two or three deer combined (the picture doesn't do it justice).:::/img/2007/08/mt42.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt42-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Don't swim in the river because there's boiling hot water flowing into it!:::/img/2007/08/mt43.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt43-150x150.jpg:::Yellowstone National Park - Cold air + hot water spouts = disappearing Wendy.:::/img/2007/08/mt44.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt44-150x150.jpg:::Wendy and I stop off for a lunch break on a road near a lake in Montana.:::/img/2007/08/mt45.jpg:::/img/2007/08/mt45-150x150.jpg:::Coralynn, Wendy, and I on our last day.:::]
#travel