Today I spent way too much time replacing the interior light fixtures of the van. Two had crumbled when I took them out to change the bulb, so I ordered some more.

The time was mostly spent figuring out which wire goes where, because VW doesn’t wire things the way I think they should. All switched ground leads are supposed to be brown with a white stripe, not just some of them.

Anyway. It all works fine now except for the passenger front door. I hope my passengers don’t need to see anything when they get in. I didn’t wire it because the lead is so short it barely comes out the hole in the roof, so there’s no way to get it onto the little connector on the fixture. O well.

Also: Yesterday I finally installed the headlight upgrade relay kit. The Vanagon headlights are wired through the switch on the dashboard, so their brightness is limited to the resistance of the switch, making them notoriously dim. And if you put brighter bulbs in, you end up with a burned-out switch. Van-cafe to the rescue, with a couple of FETs you wire in-line with the switch. It’s a really simple kit, if you know anything at all about wiring stuff up. If you can install a stereo in your car, you can do this. The only trouble I had was not following the directions. I mixed up the two yellow wires.

I haven’t had much opportunity to drive around at night, so I can’t say it’s a night-and-day difference or anything, but maybe I’ll make it a point to cruise around somewhere tonight.

I had just been putting all this off because of rain. Which is a real lame excuse in Seattle.

Update: The lights are *much* brighter. As to where I went: I went to get Chinese food at the Black Pearl (highly recommended, quick, cheap, they deliver), Half Price Books (‘Idiotocracy’ on DVD), and the grocery store.

What I need is an opportunity to argue with someone about how great life is.

“No, I think you’re missing the big picture… Things are even better than that! And here are the facts…”

Ira Glass on storytelling.

He’s good at it, too. Ya know.

(Updated below)

I was poking around the government’s volunteerism web site, as I’m wont to do, and came across something that looked so very perfect as to be unbelievable. Rocky Mountain National Park has a program called the Bighorn Brigade. Here is the description:

Duties: Assist the public to safely watch the Bighorn Sheep at Rocky Mountain National Park. Volunteers answer questions regarding Bighorn Sheep, assist rangers with keeping visitors along the roadside and occasionally assist park employees with traffic control.

So the gig (unpaid, except in fresh air benefits) is to go into the national park, wear a uniform, and stand around what is basically a rest area in an alpine meadow. And then tell people not to get too close to the herd of bighorn sheep. Oh, and please don’t run them over when they cross the road.

If I lived in Colorado…

There are other interesting volunteer opportunities (that’s what they call them: ‘volunteer opportunities’) at RMNP.

For instance, they need people to help them monitor raptor nests and reintroduce boreal toads, but I think I’ll let some budding research biologist have that one.

There’s also a stipended job as caretaker for an historic guest lodge in the headwaters of the Colorado river. Keep it maintained, do interpretation for people who wander through, fish for trout. Such a deal. Take out the interpretation part, and I’m a shoo-in.

Some of the other volOps (I just decided to call them that, cuz it sounds kewl) sound like the kind of research that the government should be paying for. Like, for instance:

Borehole tomography is done to map fractures in crystaline rock with environmental applications in mind. Help is needed for data processing, visualization, and production of color hard copy. Volunteer duties may include data processing, development of improved methods of data visualization. If volunteer is skilled in mechanical design, some equipment design is possible. Volunteer will gain experience in processing geophysical data working with the “C” computer language and DOS and UNIX operating systems.

What this says to me is: ‘Design a computerized borehole tomography system.’ This is the USGS looking for volunteers to design their equipment. Are they really that underfunded?

Oh, and you could also be the Environmental Education Program Leader at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. The arsenal was where they built chemical weapons during WWII and the Cold War. It’s a refuge because it’s contaminated. This is a volunteer position.

I’ve applied for a couple of things in Washington state (being where I actually live and all). Nothing so grandiose as reintroducing boreal toads, but still. Whitman Mission NHS needs some stuff I can do.

Update: So I forgot to link to the federal volunteer website. Go there and look for stuff. Umnenga also asks about work permits and so forth… The various ‘VolOps’ are with different government agencies, all of which could have different policies about this. Some require background checks, some require that you just show up. Some are more tailored towards students looking for professional experience (as in the borehole tomography example above), while some are just simple tasks that anyone could accomplish. Others are just… Well, take a look:

The position will be located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The primary duties of this internship will be to administer the Snake River Fund, a donation fund managed by the Snake River community to finance improvements to the river corridor that would otherwise have to be funded through the implementation of a fee system for all river users. The fund has been in place for several years. Administrative duties for the intern will include: bookkeeping, correspondence with large numbers of people, issuing press releases, working on marketing projects, assisting committee members, planning large events, writing articles, and acting as a liaison between the public, the Forest Service, and the fund’s management committee.

For this you get $600/month.

The other day I was at the local uber-cool movie-nerd video store, gazing at their case of Criterion Collection DVDs, and I wondered what it might be like to watch all of them.

The Criterion Collection is film nerd manna from heaven. They’re the most lovingly-assembled DVD editions of all kinds of important films from all over the world.

So the prospect of watching all of them is a bit like the prospect of spending every day in the Louvre for a year. Plenty to learn, and maybe even too much.

But it’s funny that I thought about it when I did, because lo and behold here’s a guy who’s doing it, and ‘blogging about it.

The reviews are thorough enough and hold just enough information. Lots of screen caps to illustrate points. We like.

Gathering of Eagles was pure political theater. A non-existant threat to the Vietnam Memorial was ‘guarded’ against by 30,000… oh, wait… More like 1,000 counter-protestors. But plenty of opportunity to rail against the liberal media for getting the number wrong.

Chipotle. The Worst Web Site Ever.

Here’s your task using that web site: Find the phone number of the Chipotle on the Ave. Start by searching for stores in the 98115 zip code area. (Hint: There isn’t one. There’s no phone number. There’s no 800 number. There’s no ‘email us’ link. But there sure are a lot of profoundly annoying Flash animations. Plus I can read all about the benefits of fresh ingredients and family farms.)

It’s depressing, because they’re a really good chain.

I hate spam.

Just a few more than 200 bounced spams and vacation notifications and email list rejections, which all have [random string]@mile23.com as a return address, and I feel like I’m getting off lucky.

Grr.

They’re all stock-inflation scheme spams for this company, a Chinese youtube clone. I say we invade China.

That web site, by the way, is spamnation.info, and it’s a really interesting read.

The ‘blogs rule.

That’s the condensed story of Talking Points Memo, which is an ironic name, by the way. Irony aside, they’re pretty much the guys that broke the story on the US Attorney firings. It was a well-researched ‘blog entry before it was a news story.

xkcd starts aping Chris Ware, which is just fine with me.