Yes, that’s right.  It’s that time again.  It’s the Vernal Equinox!

What is the Vernal Equinox?  Well on any equinox (vernal is spring, autumnal is fall) the sun spends roughly the same amount of time above and below the horizon.  It is exactly the mid point between the solstices (the longest and shortest days of the year) where the struggle between day and night is most evenly balanced.

The Vernal Equinox is also officially the first day of spring, meaning that winter is now over.

And, supposedly, the equinox is also a day when you can balance an uncooked egg to stand upright.

So have fun outside!  Go out and say hello to the growing plants and flowers!  It’s the first day of spring!

Faithful readers may have noticed that I haven’t been writing as much as I usually do lately. The problem is, I’m burnt out. On computers.

It happens. Every so often I just go through a phase where I’m basically sick of computers. For a computer programmer, it’s not exactly conducive to work, which poses a bit of a problem. The only real solution is just to use computers as little as possible and basically do other things. You know. Life. For example during these times I love to cook and I love to read. I also like to get out and do stuff, like go for a walk, or a swim.

Only this time around I’ve been more house-bound than usual because it has also coincided with being generally sick. With my allergies combined with Pennsylvania’s rampant warm winter/spring so far, there’s been a lot of pollen, mold, mildew, and disease in the air. Viruses and bacteria didn’t get a good solid deep freeze over the winter, so they’re a little too vibrant this spring. As are the trees and plants. And with all that nice weather combined with humidity and rain, even the mildew is going strong. Most people are having a darn time of colds and flus. With my allergies on top of it (and I’m allergic to darn near everything: dust, dander, mold, mildew, pollen, etc.) I’m just happy to still be alive. But for weeks now I’ve had a rough voice from coughing a fair bit. And I don’t even smoke!

So I’ve been feeling like crap, on top of being sick of computers. Mostly that makes for a lot of reading and TV watching … when I’m not working of course. Lazy lazy. But what am I to do? It’s a good thing I just picked up The Great Book of Amber (which is basically just a reprint of all 10 of the Amber books in one big book) by Roger Zelazny. I highly recommend the read. Roger Zelazny is a genius in my opinion and the Amber books are just marvelously imaginative.

But anyway, so that’s been my sitch. I’ve just been plum burnt out on computers. I’m tired of pixels and electrons. I’m sick of staring at a screen. And I have to wonder, am I the only computer geek that gets that way? Or is it something that happens to even the best of us? Is it a geek thing? Or is it a human thing? Could it be that the human body simply doesn’t like sitting there looking at a glowing screen all day? Or even that the human brain doesn’t like something about the setup? It makes me wonder. What about you?

It’s the Vernal Equinox. Yay! Winter is officially over! (In theory. Looking out your window may reveal different results.) Personally, I’m already seeing flowers bloom and rain fall like mad. There’s not a speck of snow on the ground. Spring has sprung!

But while Mother Nature is doing her best in spite of our efforts to poison the Earth and bring about “Global Warming”, technology has taken a few serious blows. Oh my! Is it some nefarious plot by nature to reclaim her power over us? I’ll let you decide.

Pennsylvania, the state you may remember as being previously bone-headed when their roads iced up, causing major highways and even their famous state turnpike to be down all night long with many stranded motorists, and heard PA state officials say things to the tune of, “the roads aren’t being salted because ice gives more traction,” has done it again. Any and all voter registration forms completed online in PA were made quite available for anyone to view all of the included information such as name, date of birth, driver’s license number, and political party. All by simply changing the unique number request parameter included in the URL of the voter registration site to a different number. Since each online registration is given a unique number, all you had to do to view someone else’s was change that number to a different one. Go through all of the numbers possible, and you’ll have gone through all of the online registrations. Can we say, “Oooops!” Once again PA proves their genius to the world and renders online voting unsafe for everyone in the state.

Meanwhile the US military has run into yet another nasty snag in their efforts to crossbreed a helicopter and an airplane. The V-22 Osprey is having problems with their AE1107C “Liberty” turboshaft engines made by Rolls Royce. The engines simply wear out too fast, making it costly and difficult to keep the Osprey in the skies. While not exactly new to problems in its development, this is certainly no boon for the V-22.