12am Ack... I was ust falling into deep sleep, and a call comes in for a 6 year old Haitian-American girl - - sister thought she was going to the bathroom, and walked right out the front door. I came within one second of launching the calls and the officer in charge of what was going on called me back literally seconds before I hit the button to call about 600 people in the vicinity to get up and look for the child... she was in the house under the kitchen table.

Well, thank goodness she's all right...and I'm glad the policeman in charge was on the job.

I've taken a hot shower (with the phone right on the other side of the curtain) and hopefully, the adrenaline rush will wear off soon so I can get some sleep.

It's never dull... was tonight the slow night I mentioned earlier? I was mistaken.

1am Guess who got another call?

tricky one this time, a 14 yr old habitual, that normally would not be called in until morning, had her 3 yr old sister and 4 yr old cousin with her. I recorded and gathered information about where she started from and where she was headed to as rapidly as I could... sent out 1385 calls, 371 of which were answered by either human or machine. I've called officer Garcia's beeper back, to let her know that the calls went out, and to what extent.

Ok... I'm tired for sure, now. night night, dear journal.

7:15 am

another call at 5:25 am. eep-opp-ork-aa-aa.

I've decided that the Star Wars Wompa Action Figure will be my "work posts" icon, as well as What the?! It looks like me answering the phone, asking for information, though my horns aren't as prominent.

I'm hoping Isabel treats folks to a comfortable rain, and causes no serious problems. She appears to have weakened, and ideally, it'll just be a wet, windy day off for those concerned.

Not looking forward to completing that PowerPoint presentation today... Though the SQL reporting should be interesting, and a bit more up my alley. Prop2 was ill yesterday, and went home early. I wonder if she'll make it in today? She was a good advisor on the 3-kid call last night.

8:47pm

Don't forget, Friday September 19 is Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Ah, wonderful! "You are sire to 72 other vampires, including: LdySaphyre (7040 pints), MissV (2613 pints), Liliana (2570 pints), gilbella (1266 pints), mixedresults (1246 pints), Morgoth (564 pints), Nathanael (302 pints), night_flyer (300 pints), wchmum (281 pints), King of Ice (222 pints)." Well on my way to having a gang of 100 by Halloween. Care to be a part of my gang of vampires?

I can tell every time the lemmiwinks episode of South Park comes on, because I get massive hits looking for the lyrics.

Via - Any Photo on Playing cards Deal yourself in for fun with this pack of photo playing cards in a tin! Your favorite photo is featured on the back of every card in this standard, 52 card deck (plus 2 jokers). You also get a matching tin to hold your cards in! Makes a uniquely personal gift for card playing friends or family members. That's a pretty cool idea, although a wee bit pricey for what you get.

I took an hour nap this afternoon, and I feel pretty good, even after yesterday's poor night's sleep. Only

Ok, I worked out what was partly fubar with my system...MSIE had a lot of damaged items. If your system is being naughty, feel free to try the following. (I take no responsibility for your system, so go at your own risk.) I still need to replace my power supply and add, confirm the rest of my hardware. Yanking out and reinstalling Java runtimes seems to have helped a lot.

RESOLUTION

To troubleshoot and resolve this behavior, empty the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder, and then delete the files in the Downloaded Program Files folder that are listed as either Unknown or Damaged. To do so:

1. Start Internet Explorer (if it is not already started).
2. Empty the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder. To do so:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
   2. Click the General tab.
   3. Under Temporary Internet files, click Delete Files.
   4. When you are prompted to delete all temporary Internet files, click OK.
3. In the Downloaded Program Files folder on your hard disk, remove the files that are listed as either Unknown or Damaged. To do so:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
   2. Click the General tab.
   3. Under Temporary Internet files, click Settings.
   4. Click View Objects. The list of program files that are downloaded to the SystemRoot\Downloaded Program Files folder on your hard disk appears in the Downloaded Program Files window.
   5. In the Status column, note the files that are listed as either Unknown or Damaged. Remove these files. To do so, right-click the file, and then click Remove.
   6. When you are prompted to confirm the removal, click Yes.
   7. Close the Downloaded Program Files window, and then click OK two times.


If the issue continues to occur after you remove all downloaded program files that are listed as Unknown or Damaged, try removing the other downloaded program files that are on the list.

Note: The next time that you need one of the files that you removed from the Downloaded Program Files folder, you will receive a prompt to download the file to your hard disk in Internet Explorer.

Something that may dismay ol' Danny when I tell him... or maybe not - MOND - (Modified Newtonian Dynamics)

Mordehai Milgrom started looking at dark matter and galactic revolutions. The dark matter/energy thing has some flaws and problems. He starts doing math, discovers a relatively simple mathematical adjustment to gravity that fits all known galactic weirdness.

There are several esthetic problems, the major one of which is there is no theoretical basis for MOND. It's observational. This has most other astronomers leery or dismissive about it. But, well... it works.

MOND works as follows... gravity is not always the same, and behaves differently under low accelerations. Essentially, gravity at low accelerations is stronger than would be determined by regular gravity laws.

Below this acceleration, called a0, acceleration becomes the square root of gravitational force. A0 x age of the universe (as far as people guess) happens to be around the speed of light. There is apparently something relating a0 and the cosmological constant.

As goofy as this sounds, there are several points that support the idea... one, it fits galactic observations better than dark matter. Two... Pioneer 10 and 11.

Both left the solar system and, before shutting down, mysteriously showed deceleration that did not fit what people were expecting. Engineers frantically looked for gas leaks, possible other bodies, etc... nothing. It is still a mystery why this happened. However... it fits MOND. Farther than about .1 light year from the sun you hit a0 levels.

It also explains why we never observe it here... everything in the solar system is under acceleration of the sun, well above a0.

If MOND is true, it means inertial and gravitational mass are not tied strictly. Which is f-ing weird.

But there are a lot of puzzles right now... perhaps MOND will uncover why the expansion of the universe is accelerating (which makes no sense).

For more fun physics, try - Amusement park physics: Design your own roller coaster online and see why you design succeed or failed.

Zombie City in 3-D (The Zombie simulation is now an exe, and you can get a better feel of how the city looks at an isometric tilt. C++ Source in the Zip)

8:53pm Latest Case - 58-year-old white female Alzheimer’s patient, roaming the Pembroke Pines area, stopping in bars asking for beer and cigarettes, but hasn't been caught up to by the police yet. Sprinkled over a small area between last seen and her residence, attempted 432 numbers, connected with 260 of them. I'm hoping that the service will be of help to the PPPD. We'll see. I expect a call back within the hour one way or the other, or at least a fax tomorrow morning at the office.

[9:12 update] - She was found, not far from the police department. They got a number of feedback calls, and they believe it was a help. I'm happy that the lady was located and is in a safe environment.