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Among the many dandelion divots I've left across my front lawn is this bigass hole I found earlier today.

I have no idea how it got there. Some sort of burrowing animal is probably at fault. Bees were flying into and out of it when I was standing there, though. Maybe I should ... you know, close it up.

P.S. 100% word use fail. Fixed.

The interesting thing about a stretching clutch cable is that as it stretches, it becomes increasingly difficult to shift, as the clutch is dragging on the driven side of the transmission. This is fine when it stretches slowly and can be adjusted back into position at the end of the day.

But today the cable on the 914 stretched a whole lot at once and made it impossible to shift into 1^st while at a stop (sorry, synchros). So at stop lights today I either shifted into 1^st before stopping completely, or more amusingly, turned the car off entirely before shifting back into gear and firing up the engine with the clutch depressed.

Earlier tonight I had to run, piss-ass drunk, nearly a mile to catch a ferry from the pub on yonder Bainbridge Island back to mainland Seattle.

I estimate that I (and my four esteemed colleagues) caught the boat with about a minute to spare. We were the last passengers to board.

Layla and I have been watching David Attenborough's Life of Mammals series lately—today's episode touched on the Pangolin, found in areas of Africa and Asia.

I've never heard of the Pangolin before, but it's a fascinating creature. It's a lot like an anteater (with a narrow mouth, long tongue, and incredibly strong claws) but it grows scales and, in the case of the larger examples, doesn't use its front claws for walking. Balancing its body weight with its large scaled tail, it ambles up to termite mounds, rips them open, and then eats out the termites with its stickest saliva and proportionally longest tongue (to body length) in the animal kingdom.

Amazing animal. I'm astounded at some of the cool stuff that was never mentioned in my primary education.

We went to a Seattle Mariners game earlier. On the way there, we stopped by the Pyramid brewery for dinner and (a few) drinks.

The wait was 45 minutes. But due to a clerical error, we were bumped to the front of the queue and seated less than 5 minutes after we arrived.

Well played, Pyramid. I'll buy more of your beer from now on.

P.S. The Mariners lost to some kids from Baltimore.

I mentored an intern this summer. It was interesting stuff and I gained a good deal of perspective from it.

One of the more mundane parts was the fact that my intern and I shared an office. The office isn't exactly cramped, but two people and eight continually running computers made it a little cozier than was comfortable at times.

The most interesting part is that having someone six feet away all day long largely prevented me from spacing out at all while working. I'm not sure I could handle this year-round, but the last three months have been the most focused I've been in a long time.

I heard earlier tonight (in a taped discussion on legal discovery of electronic documents) that as many as 67% of emails go unprinted. If true, that means that at least 1 out of every 3 emails is printed.

Who the hell prints email?

Techies click here and scroll down to #8. That's right, New Mexico Tech is one of the top 10 schools with the saddest students.

Amusing quotes:

Hometown Socorro offers "absolutely nothing to do"

and

When you walk by people in the cafeteria, they're talking about algorithms. That's not a joke.

Algorithms!!! How sad.

Those of you who watch The Wire may be a little shocked when this guy opens his mouth and sounds nothing like a drug dealer from West Baltimore.

Amazing actor.

P.S. If you haven't already, watch this show.

Ignoring the choppy English in the header (would "Has a hacker stolen your identity?" have been too difficult?) I'm nevertheless baffled by the choice of stock photography.

Who is this guy, employed by a Red Lobster and holding a guitar? Is he supposed to be some sort of surfer-guy-looking hacker or pirate, coopting your identity for his nefarious purposes of buying more dime bags and surf board wax? Or is he supposed to be the victim? If he's the victim, who would want his Red Lobster troubadour wages and totally awesome uniform?

Baffling.

In celebration of the first day driving the Porsche without a dragging clutch, here is a photo of the clutch assembly, found right around where the passenger-side axle bolts into the transmission. For those of you who don't follow the minutiae of the 914, that's all under the trunk. This photo was taken from the back of the car, looking forward.

You can see the clutch cable snaking back from the pedal cluster, and then hitting that wheel-looking crank, and then finally mounting onto the arm that actuates the throwout bearing. The thing hanging down low in the photo is in the speedometer cable, which I must have pulled down while adjusting the clutch. Yes, it's fixed now.

And here's a bonus photo of the rear quarter of the car. It's low and seemingly fuzzy.

Apparently a mechanic who serviced the 914 long ago thought that a nylon-backed nut would be a sufficient means of securing the adjustment of the clutch on the threaded end of the clutch cable. Wrong.

So to fix this, I had to search all over the eastern Puget Sound to find a store that sold M7x1.00 nuts, so I could back two together on the clutch cable to keep it from falling out of adjustment. The problem is that apparently nobody carries these things and I had to go all the way down to McLendon's in Renton (woo McLendon's) to dig up a handful of exotic metric fasteners.

But now my clutch doesn't drag anymore. So that's awesome.

As you've noticed, there are some problems. Those of you with my email address can mail me if anything has gone horribly awry with the comments or anything.

Stuff still broken includes:

• All old entry archives (about 25% right now)
  
• RSS feed
  
• A bunch of the comment post-processing stuff, although it shouldn't affect you at all.
  

I'm sortof past this whole manage-your-own-MT-installation deal.

In an attempt to fix the search functionality (hint: it works) I accidentally flattened my theme.

Enjoy.

P.S. Read my last post, since it's got actual content for the day.

P.P.S Please hold tight while the archives are rebuilt. It'll be a few ... hours?

This article was featured on the front page of msn.com earlier. I'm not sure I agree with what's in it (I didn't read it carefully) but here's my take on GPAs and resumes: don't ever put your GPA on there.

Four reasons for this.

• You're wasting a whole line. Space is horrifically valuable on a resume. You're either crowding the important parts (oops) or you're pushing content onto the second page (resume -> trash).
  
• If they really want to see it, they'll ask. Employers who want you to hit some mark (> 3.0, for example) will ask if it's not printed on there.
  
• Don't give employers an opportunity to turn you into a number. Even though most employers don't care about the number, they're often in a position where they're trying to compare a stack of bloated and otherwise indifferentiable resumes. The number invites comparison. And there's always someone out there with a higher number.
  
• ...and if you really do have a 4.0, you should know better. If you're a superstar, you should be working your network to get a job instead of mailing out resumes. If you've got a 4.0 but don't know how to get a job before you apply for a job, then your skillset is lopsided and that's not something you want to advertise.
  

Come on, people. The number is the last thing you want employers to think about.