Fortitudine Vincimus

Ninety years ago this day, Shackleton's polar exploration ship Endurance sank after being trapped in the Weddell Sea pack ice since January.

For those interested in preserving the history of the Endurance expedition and the memory of Sir Ernest Shackleton: Join the James Caird Society.

Hint Hint

If I wrote a letter to Santa on the Internet, would he read it?

Got the wrong counter girl

Went to a really big Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles service counter this week. I needed a title transfer, temporary plates, and to put in my order for a special type of permanent plate. I swear that if I didn't need the temporary plates I would've just mailed the stuff in, but in Wisconsin you can only (legally) drive around for 48 hours without a valid plate or temporary tags. If you need valid tags this month, you're pretty much compelled to go for counter service.

I suppose I was lucky that six of the eight counters were staffed, but it was still a half-hour wait for service. During the wait I played at judging the experience and effectiveness of the employees, hoping to land one of the old hands when my number came up. I wasn’t so lucky. The woman I got had never heard of "Vehicle Collector Special" plates, and required protracted consultation with senior coworkers on how to handle my forms. That was after she tried to get me to fill in a separate pamphlet for regular collector plates. Those plates wouldn't help me though on my winter car. In Wisconsin, you're generally not allowed to drive "collector" plated cars in January, a regulation intended to force collectors to have at least one automobile they pay annual registration on.

So it took awhile, plus forty-five bucks for the title transfer, fifty-five bucks for registration, fifteen bucks for issuing the new plates, and five bucks for the honor of seeing a real live DOT employee. Oy!

Oh, and since we're on the subject, who's the genius that came up with disabled motorcycle plates? No, I don't understand. Unless somebody explains this to me, some day I'll be walking through the parking lot and see a motorcycle with these plates in the handicapped parking stall, and my brain will just blue-screen, right then and there.

Rare editorial

Here's an intro you won't see every day on the editorial page:

What a week.
Not only are we in the throes of shearing and election time [...]

That from page two of the November 4th Penguin News (Falkland Islands). On page 15 there are lengthy procedures regarding the elections, undersigned by an elections official. In the Falklands, there is only one place to vote in town, but multiple other polling stations that travel by air and Land Rover to reach voters in the countryside:

Whilst bearing the above in mind electors are urged to attend their particular airstrips and voting areas promptly in order to save time.

All electors in the Falkland Islands are requested to give any assistance required in order to maintain the smooth running of the polling process.

Translated, that second line probably reads: "Please help pull if you find the polling station mired in the peat."

How blind is blind?

Saw a fellow walking on the sidewalk the other day, kind've idly wagging a red-tipped white stick in front of him. He certainly wasn't using the broad sweeping motions of the cane that I'd come to associate with blind pedestrians. But then he also:

(a) was wearing spectacles, and
(b) had headphones on.

Probably the guy has severe myopia or macular degeneration or something such that he's "legally" sightless, but if you're okay with blocking out all environmental noise with your headphones while you walk the city streets, how blind are you really?

And is this the sort of person the braille on the drive-up ATMs is intended for? I've long wondered about that.