I finally got tired enough of my old coffee and end tables, so I went by 2 Danes and got my new ones.  They gave me a deal (I think they felt bad because they've still not delivered my last piece of  bedroom furniture that I ordered back in October!); I talked them down even from their sale price (which, the sale ended yesterday)

I like the change.  The old wooden set was too big, and always in the way.  Walking around it, especially between it and the chair, was a chore.  I've bumped my shins on it more than once!  The new table just about floats out of the way.  While it looks a lot less obtrusive, the surface area is almost identical.

My new coffee and end tables!

Now to sell the old set of tables.

Well, if you can call it relaxation.  Let's see, we got all kinds of new technology -- 3 new laptops, a new printer, and I got some cool new software that turns the video capture card in the desktop PC into a really nice PVR.  Far better than the old proggy I had.

Unfortunately, it's been problematic getting to this point, and my week quasi-off (I've been working half days to use up the vacation time I can't roll over) has been sucked up with more Windows problems than I care to recount.

Both kids got back from Clanton last night, and were wicked sick today.

It's lunchtime, and rather than mindlessly roam the Internet, I thought I'd write about my recent trip to the folks' home.

I just found this cool feature on del.icio.us where you can generate HTML from your links.  This would allow me to completely revamp the front page on my site, using links that I can store from anywhere.  By using the right tags, I can easily categorize stuff there also.  It will take some kind of a background process to update the HTML, as they don't want you accessing their site for every page hit.  I guess I can understand that -- what would be really nice would be a button on the page I could hit that would generate the background process to do the updates.

Very brief documentation on the page generation tags is available on del.icio.us' site.

We're baa-aack!  What a great trip!  Let me tell you all about it...

Deanna turned 14 the other day, so we had a birthday party at my place last night.  She had a mix of boys and girls over, and I think everyone had a fine time.  Even me.  Although we've got so much leftover food, I don't know what to do with it all...

Nah, I've not done much, just learned a lot!

I spent most of the weekend cleaning up around the house.  I'd gotten a rash of spiders on the outside that I had to wash away, plus a couple mud dauber nests.  Decker did his job while I mowed the back hillside with my manual reel mower, but I never got around to repositioning the one sprinkler head behind my neighbor's new fence -- it just got too hot, too fast.  Oh, and something's up with Decker's charging circuit -- I can plug him in, but he starts complaining about a charging problem shortly thereafter, both with an audible alarm and also with a warning on his display.  I may need to tinker with the charging circuit.

One of my other neighbors got a new sprinkler system installed yesterday; the installer was quite nice and considerate of Decker's fence.  The workers got a kick out of watching him mow while they were working, too.  Speaking of sprinklers, I also sent a note to Hsv Utilities to get them to add a second meter onto my system -- I didn't realize until recently that they'd not done that when they installed the system.  That should save me a few dollars on my utility bill!

I ripped a few more of my CDs, too.  I've still got another box to go, but once I'm done, I'll be looking forward to getting all the CDs put into storage!

The computer in the Benz told me it was time to have my Service B performed -- it alternates back and forth between a simpler A, and the more thorough B, every other 10K miles or so.  Since I'd passed the 40,000 mile mark, I figured this would be the first one I'd have to pay for.  And then, they started finding other things wrong, too.

Today was day #3, so the sprinkler system came on and did its job.  Everything looked like it did its job just fine, but as I backed the car out of the garage, I noticed that zone 1 was still leaking.  And not just a little, but a pretty good stream out of each of the sprinkler heads.

I got my new cell phone finally, after waiting my obligatory 2 years.  It's a Motorola e815, and although it's kind of big and clunky, it's got the features I want.  I can make phone calls with it (a priority), it includes Bluetooth, a memory expansion slot, and even has a 1.3MP camera  Wow, it plays MP3s, too (just what I needed -- another MP3 player!)

Okay, only the first 2 were real priorities.  The memory expansion slot is handy because Verizon cripples their Bluetooth to prevent you from using OBEX to move files around.  Sucks, but there are hacks.  But that hasn't prevented me from using the phone to connect to the Internet, even from my Zodiac, which is one of the main reasons I wanted a BT phone.  What was really cool was using ssh to connect to my home server, from my PDA, over Bluetooth, via my cell phone!  (That's geek-speak to say that I established connections between multiple products from various vendors and service providers, using 2 wireless technologies, through multiple encrypted layers, to go from my dining room to my study. Via New Jersey.)

It's also got a great speaker phone, and does a pretty darned good job with voice recognition!  Overall, I'm pretty impresed considering my net price works out to be about $4.

I've setup shared areas for my files and my kids' on this server, using this really cool script I found on SourceForge.  This is so neat, 'cuz it will allow us to save files and access them anyplace, anytime, as long as we can get to a web browser!  It's easy to manage, a cinch to setup, provides a variety of authentication methods, and also allows us to share those files (without fear of browsing) once we've posted them!  It's really cool that it's a single script, too, which makes it so much easier to manage.  Big thumbs up!

Check out HP's OpenVMS site for a Success Story about your's truly!  After you read it, be sure to head over to OpenVMS.org and vote for my story as the best, so I can win the DS10L that Island Computer is giving away!

I'm so tickled that I'm in such a close race for the lead!

In a press release from the American Humanists Association, a lucid and progressive statement was made about Dubber's continuing crusade against the betterment of our society.  What was really inspiring to me was the rest of their website.

I've heard of this organization for many years now, but have never found their website (probably because I've not taken the time to look for them).  This press release that I picked up through my RSS aggregator gave me a portal into their site, and quickly opened my eyes to the parallels between their goals and my own.

I may have finally found a like-minded group of humans that I can feel comfortable with.  Not a militant anti-theistic group, nor an organization with no clear direction, AHA's manifesto reads like someone peered inside my head and stole my deepest desires for our society.

I've got some more learning to do.  I wish the Dubber could admit that.

Found out this week that at least one of my credit cards had been compromised.  Here's a good page from the FTC about ID theft that's got some useful info on it.

Still watching accounts, filed a police report, contacted credit bureaus, the FTC, my banks, and am now waiting for the FBI to call.  If this wasn't so stressful, it would be interesting.  And I've got more to do next week.  Not fun and a big waste of time.  And it's only starting.

And I try so darned hard to make sure that all my stuff is secure.  It will be interesting to see what my CC company shows as being the source of the fraud.

I got my new GPS receiver and software this past week.  The kids and I put it through the paces this weekend!

The plans are coming together for our trip to central Florida to do some indoor skydiving and spend a lot of time in the water, some with sharks, and some by the pool.  And we'll be staying at a nice New England style resort.  Oh yeah, I'll be visiting my folks, too.

I was reading this week's JREF commentary, the SWIFT newsletter, when I came across this excellent speech given by Phil Plait, the author of the Bad Astronomy website.  For anyone who is interested in reality and what the scientific process can offer humanity, especially versus pseudo-science, magic, and superstition, this is an excellent, brief, and to the point synopsis.

Have you done a Google News search on the word "Impeach" recently?  I'd say it's shaping up to be a hot summer in Washington, DC.

And if you haven't yet, I'd recommend reading the Downing Street Minutes just so you're familiar with what was really said.

It's been really quiet here, and I apologize to those who'd like to read about all the exciting things I've done lately.  But, I'm sad to say, there's not much to report!

I got the news from Seeker today, that an old acquaintance and a person I looked up to, died earlier this week.

So, did you find that the previous article echoed your sentiments?  Do you like what Amnesty International is doing?  Do you hate what the US Government is doing in your name?

Then sign the petition and let's see if we can do something positive about it!

Some fascinating insight on the Secretary General's message.  Some quotes:

"In 1973 AI published its first report on torture. It found that: “torture thrives on secrecy and impunity. Torture rears its head when the legal barriers against it are barred. Torture feeds on discrimination and fear. Torture gains ground when official condemnation of it is less than absolute.” The pictures of detainees in US custody in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, show that what was true 30 years ago remains true today."
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"Instead, the US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Conventions and to “re-define” torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques, the practice of holding “ghost detainees” (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention) and the "rendering" or handing over of prisoners to third countries known to practise torture. The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process."

"The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity."

I'm ready to join their cause.  If this is the only organization not afraid and willing to stand up and decry the abuses carried out by the Bush regime, then they have my support.  You can join too.

Kevin's birthday was Wednesday.  He was so excited when he realized he had saved enough money, together with his birthday money, to buy something he's wanted for several months.  It wasn't cheap, but he had enough to buy it on his own.  So I couldn't tell him no Wednesday night when he asked to go to the store to buy his own Sony PSP.

Especially when displaying my photo gallery!  I got a chance to look at it using Internet Exploder for the first time the other day and realized  that IE does a horrible job at displaying a lot of the really simple CSS I've written!  Hopefully the new IE v7 that's supposed to come out next year will have a lot of bug fixes in it so that the page will render properly on Micro$oft machines, too -- at least some of the early articles describing it have indicated that fixing CSS bugs is big on the agenda.

In the meanwhile, I don't think I'll be putting a lot of effort into hacking together kludges just to support a feable, broken IE, so if you use it to view my site, accept my apologies up front, and then go get Firefox.

Why the buy-bull thumpers, that's who.  They just want to replace the ones in there now (you know, the ones who protect the freedoms of all Americans, not just the majority) with their own brand that support their narrow minded bigotry.

And that is what all the hoopla about filibusters is really all about.  If King George has gotten 95% of his nominees, I'd say he's been pretty successful and should just quit whining!

The big veep from Atlanta came over this week.  We hit him up for pizza, and he graciously bought a bunch of pies for us at lunch.  The person who ordered made sure there was a veggie pizza in the bunch for me, but when they delivered them, the veggie was a total mess -- all the toppings and cheese had slid off.  The baker speculated that the ingredients had been put on "upside down", preventing the cheese from adhering.  Either way, they wound up bringing us back another veggie later in the afternoon.

No, I don't, not yet.  But this UNIX admin guy sure does.  For those familiar with UNIX, this may come as a shock: yours is not the best operating system.  It's not the most secure.  It's not the most reliable.  It's not a lot of things.  Sure, it's a lot more than Windows ever will be, but while you're smugly enjoying your view down upon Windows, you might take the time to look up -- because there's plenty of OpenVMS admins looking down on your kludge of an OS from an equally higher perch.

I Miss VMS

Fear this, America!

The Unitarian Jihad manifesto.  Watch out, or you'll be overwhelmed with pockets of reasonableness and harmony!  The threat of "calm, well-reasoned discussions" by "non-idealogues who have carefully thought through the issues" should send a shiver up the spine(less) Fox News!

Well, it's good for a laugh.

Here's one of the most profound pieces I've read in a long time in a major public forum.  Herein the author says the emperor has no clothes, and as I have labelled it for a long time, religion = superstition.

What a sad counterpoint to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.

The majority of the comments appear to be positive and supportive of the author, although there are the folks still posting who just don't get what the author's saying -- and in the process, just prove what he's saying!  More people talking sense like this in public may help keep the bible thumpers (aka religious zealots) where they belong -- in church, not in congress.

We were heading out to eat dinner when my folks told me about the new garage in the area.  I thought it would be nice to swing by and check out their inventory, to see if there was anything exceptional.

I was not disappointed.  It's not every day you get to see one of these.  The salesman was very gracious, and not only allowed me to take photos, but also took down the ribbon around the car so that I could get an unobstructed view.

Check out all of the photos in my gallery.

Who remember's Uncle Mike's Folbot?  Well, lookie what Seeker just sent to me!  This is so cool!  One bag and it would fit in my hatchback!  The Cooper is a single seat version, and they've got a 2 seater.  You can also get the optional rudder, just like Mike had...

I took a handful of photos yesterday when Kevin got Classic Reader 3; you can view the whole collection in the photo gallery.  Yesterday's photos start at 3794.  There were only two other kids in the whole school who got the level of award Kevin got, and he's got 2 others ahead of him

He's almost done with The Fellowship of the Ring which is the first of 3 he needs to finish for Classic 4.

If video games kill, what about the Bible? is an interesting piece that says "the emperor has no clothes".  As I said in my comment on CNET's site, video games are no different than movies or books or music, and the classic principle of GIGO applies here as much as it does in computer programming.  However, any computer program worth its price will process garbage as garbage and not crash.

But will that make any difference to the Bible thumpers?  Probably not.  It's hard to look at oneself with a critical light when you've god-given powers to control the rest of the world!

I got a kick out of the tagline for the News Hounds blog: We watch FOX so you don't have to.  I admire their tenacity to put up with such tripe!  What else would you call it when a "news" program advocates bombing a free country that's held democratic elections, solely because they voted in a government that the US government doesn't like?

Intelligent design ... leaves the purposes of the designer wholly mysterious. Presumably any pattern of data in the natural world is consistent with his/her/its existence.

Must be nice to have all the answers in one -- "God did it, now what was the question?"  That's not science, and anyone who says it is must either be lying to further their socio-political agenda or are themselves deceived.  Science is just the opposite -- asking questions and accepting whatever answer best fits the data.  When better answers come along that fit reality better, throw out the old and accept the new.  There's nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong -- more people should do it!

Just like we should throw out the "God did it, now what was the question?" lack of reasoning.

Rumsfeld says he offered to resign twice, but both times, the Dubber turned him down.  Now, he's not going to go to a meeting in Germany for fear of being arrested on war crimes.

What a great country we live in, where abuse is ignored and our heads of state are afraid of being arrested because of their actions!  I'm proud to be an American, but am sadly ashamed of our leaders.

It sucks, but we lost 5 more people today across our entire division (1 locally), due to "involuntary departures".  We lost one more person locally through a voluntary departure.  Those of us who remained behind applauded her -- she was all smiles and happy on her way out the door.  One friend said it was like we were a bunch of prisoners cheering on a fellow inmate who'd slipped past the guards and barbed wire.

And I was all up-beat when I came to work this morning -- I'd an ortho appointment, and the doc said I'd get my braces off either next month or the one after that.  Of course, he then proceeded to tighten them up like never before to the point he had me wincing!  But to compensate for that, he said I no longer need to wear rubber bands.  Phew!  I hated those things!

• Slideshow
• MPEG movie support
• Photo information display
• Automated creation of alternate size images
• General cleanup of display
• Support for multi-level galleries (galleries inside galleries)
  

I'm not sure when I'll get around to these features, but I'd sure like to have them.  I think the slideshow may come first, but automating the creation of the images is high on my priority list -- it's really quite burdensome to have to create them on my laptop, then ftp them to the server in all the right directories.  Blecch.

So, if you find any bugs in the software, please please please let me know!  You can easily leave a comment here -- the system will email it to me straight away.

Overall, I'm feeling really good about the new software -- I've been wanting to do this for months, and it's good to see it up and running, even in its somewhat clunky current form. Hurrah!

So what the Republican Party has done is that it has co-branded with other powerful brands — like country music, and NASCAR, and church going, and this larger proud-to-be-a-redneck identity.  Policy is pretty low on the agenda, in terms of why people identify as Republicans. They identify with these packets of attributes...

You have to answer the language of faith with the language of morality. You can speak in powerful moral terms about the violence of war and the violence of an economic system that's excluding ever more people...

When the siege in Fallujah happened (days after the election), and the violations of the Geneva Convention were at a completely new level, there were no questions raised in the mainstream press. The New York Times reported these incidents without even an editorial or interview of experts on international law about whether it was legitimate to attack all the medical care facilities and so on. This to me is Kerry's legacy. I blame Kerry for this more than Bush because we expect this from them. We expect them to do whatever they can get away with. And Kerry let them get away with it. An election campaign was the one time there was a real opportunity to put the war on trial. And even if a principled anti-war campaign had lost, these issues would still be on the agenda.

Ah, another weekend slips by.  This one was a bit fun and a bit tiring.  I took the kids, including Steph, up to Opry Mills in Nashville.  I think this was the first time I made it through the 65/440/24/40/40/Briley Parkway nexus without getting mixed up, at least in a very long time.  It's horribly confusing, having to take 24 West to go East and such -- then there's the construction to deal with -- blecch!

We ate lunch at Wolfgang Puck's (I like that place), then went to Opry Mills, where the first thing I did was make reservations for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  We then wandered around the mall.  Actually, I've never been terribly impressed with the mall -- it's a long hike from one end to the other, it's a loop design, with no connection in the middle from one side to the food court on the other -- you've literally got to walk nearly a half mile to get around the silly thing!  I think it's a bad design, but the kids have always enjoyed it.

Personally, I think they enjoyed Jillian's the most, as that's a pretty big arcade.  We did something a little different this trip, and went bowling at Jillian's.  When we came out of the bowling alley, Kevin noticed that it was snowing outside!  It was really coming down, and everything was covered in a blanket of white.  Fortunately, it was a fluke, and it was all gone long before we had to drive back to Huntspatch.

But boy, did it turn cold!  The temp dropped to 21 by the time we left, and the wind must have been hitting 20+.  We were really glad to get back into the car and start driving back home.

The long Saturday made for a short Sunday, as we all slept in late.  Overall, not a bad weekend, and the kids were good together -- not a single fight all weekend long.

Phew!

I found this piece entitled " The unifying force of catastrophe" on the Boston Globe's site.  Read it and pass a link on to your friends, before we return to our normally scheduled man-made horrors.

As always, I'll also refer you to the PBD.

I just read this excellent opinion piece from the St. Pete Times about the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales called "Tortured answers".  People like this guy help to reinforce my opinion that the government of the US has gone down a very dark path, similar to those travelled by some of the most reviled governments in history.  It's interesting to note how few people on the inside of this country's borders refuse to acknowledge that this is a bad thing, but somehow twist the evil we do into a right that we have.

Get real, America.  I mean torture???  Flouting international law?  Invading other countries for oil?  These are not, or at least should not be things that America is known for!