The season finale of Dr. Who tonight was just crazy. Crazy!

I won’t say any more, in case there are people who haven’t seen it yet and hate spoilers. I will say that problem I was having with this season doesn’t look like it’s going to be a problem anymore.

And now the long, dry desert of a wait for new Who…

Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) describes this policy as alarming, and I would certainly agree with his assessment.

But wait, it isn’t just laptops and electronic devices!

The policies cover “any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,” including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover “all papers and other written documentation,” including books, pamphlets and “written materials commonly referred to as ‘pocket trash’ or ‘pocket litter.’ “

It appears to me what this policy says is any time I cross the borders of my own country, just about any of my belongings can be confiscated, held, and rifled through without there even needing to be probable cause to do so. In other words, we are all criminals until they decide we aren’t. Somehow, this policy doesn’t make me feel any safer.

It’s really long past time for people to wake up and get angry about the state of things in the United States. Freedom in this country stepped on a greasy, slippery slope some time back, and too many people were willing to give up rights and freedoms to obtain what is essentially a false sense of security. It isn’t hyperbole to say we are less free now than we were before the Twin Towers fell. It’s a fact, and it makes me physically ill. It should make everyone physically ill, and it should make everyone angry. If we don’t stop this now, the children growing up in this mess we have made for ourselves are going to believe this is the way things are supposed to be, and this isn’t the way things are supposed to be in the United States.

How the hell is crap like this even considered constitutional?

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

How does this “policy” not just stomp all over that small bit of the founding document of our nation … the very source of the freedoms we enjoy? Where are the warrants? Where’s the probable cause? Where are the people “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” from invasive and uncalled for searches and seizures? It completely ignores the Fourth Amendment!

I am not proud — not proud at all — of my country. I am disgusted, and I am sick and tired of being disgusted and angry about the way things are going in the USA. More of us need to get angry, and more of us need to make noise about our anger. This crap should not be accepted, and it should not stand as policy. It makes us neither freer or safer.

Write your representatives. Write your senators. Write anyone and everyone and start expressing your feelings on how things are going in the USA. I do. I get a lot of form letters back thanking me for my input too, which tells me they are rarely, if ever, actually read. But maybe if more people took the time to do this, maybe someone somewhere would actually pay attention to the de facto government of this country — we, the people.

Not the best birthday portrait ever, but until you have tried grabbing 32 pounds of multiple cats, getting across the room to a seated position, and getting everyone to look at the camera before the ten second timer goes off, you have NO IDEA just how much fun that can be. This was the fifth and final attempt. I value my flesh too much to try again. The children were getting grumpy, something I think is quite obvious from the expression on their grouchy little faces.

But … our kitties are two years old today! They don’t realize that means they are adult cats, of course. They are both thoroughly convinced they are still little kittens, and let me tell you, they have been acting like little baby brats all day, but they have been excessively adorable while doing so, which means they have been getting away with all their mayhem and craziness. They are so spoiled!

As much insanity as these two have brought to my life over the last two years, I love them so much. They may be little monsters, but they are MY monsters, and they have me firmly wrapped around their pointy little claws.

This weekend, when there is another able-bodied human in the house to help with the cat herding, I’ll try to get a better family photo. This one will do for now, but there’s only one creature in the photo that looks happy, and that’s the human. Because I am … I am so happy to have two such cute and adorable monsters in my life!

Sat on the front stoop in the dark, listening to the sounds of night in the city. I can see why some people never find peace in cities. Too noisy. I don’t mind the noise. I don’t even hear it unless I decide to hear it. When I lived in the country, I no more heard the sound of the wind rustling the leaves than I do the sounds of tires on highway pavement now. It’s just background music, and in some ways, it’s comforting. If the highway is humming, all is well with the world.

An unusual sound was heard over the nightly din of airplanes, big rigs, trains, and other modes of transportation that make up the soundscape of Austin — that particular din being the equivalent of the rural wind in the leaves — which prompted my sitting on the front porch in the dark. Listening to the melody of the city kept me out there longer than necessary. I determined in the first five minutes the sound wasn’t worth fretting over. An unusual sound that doesn’t spawn other less usually heard sounds, like multiple sirens or the sounds of human distress or further unusual sounds, is a non-threat and can be safely forgotten. The city is full of background sounds — the sources of which you will never know. So long as the utilities still work, no one is screaming nearby, and the highway is humming, all is well with the world.

While I do love the sounds of a city at night, there is one thing I miss from my more rural days: looking at the stars. Only the biggest and brightest make it through the light pollution, often not even enough of them to create an entire constellation. I haven’t seen the Milky Way stretched across a pitch black sky in far too long. I just take it for granted it’s still up there being as awe inspiring and beautiful as ever. That’s a little sad. I should do something about that, like find a place to go where the stars can still be seen in their full glory.

I’m feeling contented but wistful tonight. It’s an interesting combination of emotions. I believe I’ll go sit on the porch and listen to the sounds of night in my city and squint in the direction of the stars.

“Yo, gimme a cheesesteak wit, will youse?”

I should make an audio post of myself saying that, but I am too busy having the giggles and laughing at myself. I was attempting to sound like a Yankee, but it keeps sounding more like John Wayne. I sound pretty hilarious. I think even the cats are laughing at me.

Recently, I have been fixated on the idea of having an authentic Philly Cheesesteak at some point in the future. I mean, I want it to be really authentic, as in the kind of thing one might buy on a street corner in Southern Philly. I’ve had things calling themselves cheesesteaks, but they were our own Texas variety. I want the real deal.

Any of my Austin readers have any suggestions for finding such a thing in the metro area? Cheese Whiz being mandatory for the experience, or so I hear, but I suppose a non-Cheese Whiz Philly would do too, so long as it’s really, really authentic.

Why am I suddenly fixated on having a Philly? No idea why. It popped into my head, and it won’t go away. I think I’ve seen too many of them on TV, and they look so greasy, disgusting, and tasty.

The dirt pile mystery continues. A dump truck, a small backhoe, and three guys just came and scooped up all the dirt piles. I went out to investigate after they passed, and there are no breaks in the street paving that I can see. There are no holes anywhere from which said piles of dirt may have come, and it would have had to be a fairly large hole. It appears they went along the street this morning, depositing piles of dirt topped with orange cones at random intervals, and they returned this afternoon to scoop them up for no reason whatsoever.

My tax dollars at work! I am confused but not amused.

These dirt piles with orange cones are all over our street and the next street over, effectively making our one lane street a half lane street. I had some fun getting out of the neighborhood to get to the feed store. It was quite the obstacle course with the dirt piles and the trash bins all over the roads.

No idea what these are, who did them, or when they appeared. I have to guess they were dug up after the trash trucks came through, because there’d be no way for the trash truck to get down our street without running over them. I had trouble getting by some of them, and my truck isn’t exactly huge — not trash truck huge, anyway.

I knew something was up on our street a few weeks ago when I noticed the spray-painted markers left behind by the people that must be called before digging to show where all the underground utility pipes and lines are hidden. Those appeared a few days after they blocked off our whole street for a few hours and Rose Lady had a city crew digging around in her front yard for some unknown reason.

I wish I knew what was going on, because I suspect they are looking for a gas main leak. The only utilities buried on our street are gas and water, and water leaks are somewhat more noticeable, seeing as there is usually water, mud, or changes in the ground level caused by the drenched soil settling. A underground gas leak is more difficult to discern. If it isn’t an especially bad one, it won’t cause any smells. In fact, the only sign could be dying vegetation. We learned that when there was that bad gas leak on my mom’s street, but they didn’t dig up holes all along her street to find it either. They just drilled little holes everywhere. I’d hope Austin’s means to find such things were at least up to the standards on my tiny hometown, but who knows. Maybe in Austin they dig big holes in streets to look for gas leaks instead of drilling little ones.

And would it kill the city to let us know they are going to be doing something on our street? They wouldn’t even have to go door-to-door. A simple sign or two saying they’d be digging and how long they expect things to be messy would be nice. I suspect this is only the mere beginning of the mess, and we’ll never know what’s going on unless one of us grabs the first city worker we see and asks.

Anyway, I’d like to know what’s going on and how long it’s going to be going on and when the hell the dirt piles will be gone. Our street is narrow enough as it is, thank you very much, and it’d be grand if these things weren’t out there causing the drivers in my neighborhood added grief for months on end. The city has torn stuff up on our street before and left it a mess for months on end, and it didn’t make any of us terribly happy. I don’t imagine it will take months for us to all start complaining this time. I know it won’t take me that long. The dirt pile in the photo is directly across the street from the end of my driveway making getting out of my driveway more challenging than it needs to be.