Category: Blog

Things are going along-had to hold off work because of PO issues. Started up again. Not much else.

What happened in my exciting life: edited the Sealight, meetings, went to Sharky’s on Friday, church, day off Monday, went to Ikea, watched the Olympics, Matt has the week off. WooHoo. Go me. I’ve been sleeping part of the night in Colin’s bed, having vivid dreams and my RLS goes away too. Odd. I guess I’m sleeping better there, and Erika says the dreams are because it’s a kids bed. Dunno.

I decided to post some things to experts-exchange.com, mostly in the religion and philosophy area. I don’t have enough expertise in anything else, other than Tai Chi, kiteflying, some sports, analysis & design and UI stuff-nothing highly specific, which is what e-e is good at. So I immediately got in an argument with a guy about Epistemology. And this guy isn’t much on making arguments, so I’m making arguments and he’s just not saying much in support of his position at all. I finally got fed up and wrote a big flame, deleted it and stopped talking in the thread-no one seems to know philosophy, even though the thread is all about that… I hope further ones aren’t like that…

Here’s my obligatory Olympics paragraph. Ohno lost again, as did Bode. Ohno just didn’t skate smart races-we’ll see how he does in the 500.Bode has had an off season, though his one ski save was spectacular. Curling is huge this time-millions of hits to the u.s. curling website. Ice dancing is gay. I just don’t see the appeal-but then I don’t see the appeal of Dancing with the Stars and the DanceSport™ bit too.

A big Iraqi Shiite mosque was destroyed-riots ensue-civil war is impending. And this is surprising to who? The Administration most likely. Everyone else has seen it coming-just need a few things like this to tip things.

Bush didn’t know about the sectarian divide-From Kos. Typical. Channel 4, so this is likely a true account. The dude is so clueless. Someone else was saying similar things about the infamous “al Qaeda determined to attack U.S.” security briefing. I’ve been listening to Air America on the way to and from work. Can you tell???

One of my co-workers sent a clip of Frank Caliendo from Letterman-the guy said some funny stuff about the Chimp Man-his impression is dead on too. Sad, but funny, and true.

Software-not much-the torrents are slow-I get eclectic stuff-I did pick up FLAC and free rip mp3.

Page 23, Sentence 5: “But the place I feel I’ve had the most impact is on the silver screen.”

Here I am again. Another week gone, gone, gone. <sigh> I’m tired. I slept in today and I’m still tired. Dunno.

Here’s the past week: Matt did great with getting fillings. He got smoothies afterwards. Erika had a meeting, played with the kids at school-they play HARD. Parents visited for Matt’s birthday Saturday, went on a walk in Laguna Canyon. Church, Olympics, kids went to the jacuzzi Sun and Mon. Got a card and flowers for Erika on Valentine’s, she got the candy. And work, work, work. I’m also helping out with the computers at school, as well as updating the website as necessary. We’re probably going to change things up a bit there as well.

I’ve been slacking on my chores because I get up, get Matt to school, work, get home from work, put the kids to bed, eat, and work until bedtime. It’s tough-I had to take the morning off because it all caught up to me. I also have RLS, so sometimes I have to take a sleep aid, and my shoulders are getting better but still twinge a bit from time to time. Wrestling with the kids at school is fun, but my shoulders feel it.

OK, I’m actually keeping track of current events again. Coretta King died, and the funeral was big and long. A huge contrast to the one her husband got. Chimpy was there, and got jabbed by all the liberals, politicians included. Her daughter ranted about a cancer in the body politic and secular. It was a bit odd and out of context-disjoint and jarring. I kept going “what is she talking about” and “this makes no sense”. But it ended up she was going apocalyptic on us. Yuck.

Betty Friedan died. This was less noted than King, but no means less important-she was a linchpin of the modern women’s movement, much like King was for the black civil rights movement.

Borland is getting rid of dev tools. They’ve been signaling this for a bit, but need someone to buy them. They’ve been dying on the vine and getting superseded by Eclipse. Glad I don’t have to worry so much about that right now…

The Winter Olympics are this week-we watch it after the kids go to bed, and watched curling this morning. They liked it. Nothing really is striking me, other than that men’s skating is progressing, I loooove short track speedskating, and I wish I could ski more.

And the big one-Cheney shot a fellow hunter in the face trying to shoot quail. The guy’s in ICU, had a heart attack. There’s a bit of a dustup because he didn’t let local law enforcement see him until the next day. He gave a softball interview to RNC TV (aka Fox News). He had been drinking (no one has one beer at lunch.) There’s a parody of the Aerosmith song-“Cheney’s Got a Gun”. Heh™.

More torrents, CSound, Dojo, sajax, scriptaculuous, lava rnd.

Page 23, Sentence 5: “We cannot do that; we can only develop the outdated will, that is, through an intellectual education we can only develop intellectualism.”

The past week just flew by. Didn’t even upload the last bit. Busy working, tired.

We went to a Kindy meeting, ran sound for a memorial service Sat., church Sun., Matt had cavities and got fillings. Not much else. We didn’t watch the Super Bowl. I think I’m getting tired of doing this-just too much going on-working 2 jobs…It’s helping finances a bit, though…

I didn’t speak to events last week-just stopped writing. There’s so much going on-not like this is anything new. Does the domestic spying surprise you? It shouldn’t. It does have do be combated-there is NO justification for violating the law-NONE. Every justification is just an excuse-talk to MLK, Lennon, anyone who was spied upon in the 60’s. I like the hypocrisy of invading Iraq for the hypothetical threat of WMD’s, and then insisting on diplomatic means to resolve Iran’s nuke program. The whole cartoon thing is amazing-my feelingis that the Islamic street is being deliberately whipped into a frenzy. They were in bad taste, but the hypocrisy of saying bad to make fun of Islam, OK for us to make fun of everyone else is amusing. Sorry guys, can’t have it both ways. Can’t remember more right now…

I’ve been doing a lot of torrents. Dance, Picasa, FreeMind, WikiCalc, some others also.

And it is now the end of January. I’ve been quite busy-several projects and I picked up a second job working for a Florida company on a contract that I can’t say much more than that I’m doing graphic design for a web interface. Not much excitement-I’ll go over that past 2 1/2 months next.

And here’s the past 2 1/2 months. The kids are sleeping in their room, I’m the webmaster for Journey, physical therapy hurts and worked after I got a cortisone shot, sound for Dorothy Nolte, church concert, LBCCB, lantern walk at school, marketplace, visit parents, yule, christmas, got a pool cue, rc car, cool islamic hats, rainy, Tracy got married and Erika did the ceremony, kite Sunday, second job, new computer, wireless net, school workday, Matt’s birthday.

The normal events of life, basically. Playing a lot of pool. Matt loves kindergarten. I’m the chair of Building & Grounds at church, doing sound. Thinking about trying to write & do music, etc.-read a thing-even if it’s crap because then you’re actually doing it rather than talking about it.

Well. Haven’t picked this up for awhile…

I’ve blown this off for a few weeks. Busy, uninterested, sore shoulder, pain, pain, pain.

Doing this on Saturday-no time during the week. Kids are napping, there’s a church pledge thing tonight, and my shoulder aches. I went to the Dr.’s Monday, he sent me to a physical therapist Friday. Ouch. Dude totally dug into painful parts of my left shoulder. Says I have tendonitis. Got some painkillers, which helps…

Weekly recap (easily the best part of your week, right?) Erika went to the Dr.’s Sunday-they took x-rays at the hospital-she doesn’t have a broken nose-messed up cartilage, though. New office on Monday-set up everything, dead hub, docking station. Got to put up more of my toys and stuff. Got a blood sample taken Tues., more move ins, Erika & kids visited twice. We had some rain. We got new cellphone service Thurs., canceled my old one. Physical therapy Fri., ouch. Went on a lantern walk at school for Michaelmas-made a lantern. Dinner at Chili’s afterwards. Dorothy Nolte died. Lazy today. Erika visited an aging church member today and is shopping now.

Not much happening this week that I want to talk about-a bombing in Jordan, French riots are subsiding, gas prices are going down, Quest had good earnings, Schwartzenegger lost all the ballot measures, an 18 year old is mayor of a small Michigan town, Dems did well, Paris Hilton was in a car crash-Lohan was in one a few weeks ago, Lost is huge and we’re not watching it, but we are watching the “category 7” thing-horrible, it is. Yesterday was Veterans Day.

Chimpy trotted out the old “questioning anything about what the administration does hurts the troops and helps the terrorists” line. What BS that is. They used the same line during Vietnam-it’s just a feeble attempt to deflect attention away from the serious problems that exist in the runup to war and how the war and its aftermath was handled. Questioning things is patriotic, doesn’t tell the troops anything but that we’re in a functioning Democracy-the opposite is the real problem-either stifling dissent or there being none at all.

I only picked 2 things-xPlorer2-a Windows explorer replacement and Liferay-app server portal. Check out Tribenet-it’s pretty cool, sort of like mySpace…

It’s Saturday, no Sunday, and I started this a few minutes before we take the kids to a pajama party and we go to the Melting Pot. So we had a nice fondue dinner with friends. Erika fell on her face when we picked up the kids & prolly has a broken nose.

Busy week. Helped with the Harvest Festival at school, birthday party for our minister’s son, wash, church, wash. Halloween Monday, dinner at a church friend, trick or treating, visit 2 other church friends. Flew indoor kites every lunchtime-lotsa space at work. Church meeting, a few beers after work Thursday, packed up and moved Friday. Went to San Juan Capistrano. It was our anniversary Tuesday, Erika’s birthday Friday. Dinner, church today. Erika went to the Dr’s. Tomorrow is the first day at the new place, parent/teacher meetings at school. I’m prolly going to the Dr’s after to look at my painful hips and shoulders.

Libby got indicted, is gone. Long live Libby. He pled not guilty. Couldn’t get him on the leak, just on perjury and obstruction. You really shouldn’t lie to a grand jury…Rove is next, and everyone says he should resign, or get his clearance pulled.

Samuel Alito is the new Supremes nominee. 15 years on the bench, lotsa rulings. He’s good for the base. Don’t like what I’ve seen so far.

Congress is desperate to keep on message-bills with cuts to food stamps, medicare, child welfare, drilling in the Arctic reserve. Typical. Alan Alda on West Wing was parroting this line tonight. <sigh> Gotta roll back everything enacted since the New Deal.

The riots in France are spreading. Shades of ’68. It’s poor African/Muslim immigrants, though. This rage has been simmering for years. No idea how this will play out. IM and cell phones are helping people to coordinate things.

Chimpy’s trip to S. America was a failure. No big surprise here-most people there dislike him. And he’s weak, and people smell blood in the water.

IBM researchers have been able to slow light down to 1/300th of its regular speed. This is an advance for optical switches and computing.

Downloads: Xara Xtreme, Open Office and gnuStep.

Thursday again. Tomorrow is Harvest Festival at school, Monday is Halloween, and next Friday I leave this office for the last time. Cyclical events and transitions. Not much else happening.

Pretty quiet week-Erika got an ultrasound Friday, worked on a fraudulent debit card charge-B of A gave me instant credit for it! Worked at school Saturday-cutting sod for a digging area. Sunday-left church to do sound for the concert band-Erika had to go to a funeral in San Diego-our sitter bailed so I had to leave the gig before the band played-I was pissed…Ate at IHOP on Tues pm, lunch for a departing co-worker Weds, Colin’s carseat got stolen.

AOL & Novell lay off a bunch of people-well, AOL at least. Novell is denying it. But the source is “close to the company”…so more likely than not. This is prolly more evidence that the industry is contracting and consolidating-AOL has been having a hard time competing and Novell is seeing declines in old lines of business.

Bush picked a new Fed chief-Ben Bernanke-well known and respected by insiders. For once Bush has made not a bad choice. The guy is mainstream, middle of the road, good on the things Fed chiefs need to be good at-inflation, basically. He’s also super smart, plain spoken and a fan of transparency. And he said “stay the course”, and the markets liked that.

Rosa Parks died. She was old. She gets mad props for kicking off the Civil Rights era.

NY Times says that Cheney was the one who leaked Plame’s identity. No one else seemed to pick it up, though. And indictments may come down tomorrow, so who knows? This will end up I don’t know how. It’s a fine distraction for the White House, though.

Harriet Meiers withdrew her nomination. This isn’t a big surprise, given the pressure cooker she’s been under… Now the big question is who will replace her… This might be a case of better the devil you don’t know than the devil you don’t know. Hee.

The count is 2000 dead in Iraq. Lotsa vigils. Lotsa press, on both sides. Chimpy is standing his ground, even while it shifts underneath him. He’ll suddenly decide that it’s not worth it. His approval rating is abysmal. Only his base remains. Some interesting stuff on Democracy Now. You need to listen to this show.

The only software I got was Petals-a service bus platform. Here’s three websites to look at: askTam-my sister in-law’s blog, totse-alterna-stuff, and Cliche Site. That’s it!

Halloween is getting closer-Erika bought costumes for the boys-a dragon and a knight. The Foamy this week was a rant about how Halloween isn’t scary anymore.

As usual, not much happened this week-went to Javier’s at the Spectrum, cleaned up Friday & Sat. morning-parents visited. Swam & played racquetball, set up chairs for a wedding at church Sunday. Rainy & thunderstorms Sunday night, band practice & pictures Tuesday. <yawn>

Here’s the news-the Iraqi election went by as expected-not like it means anything. Robert Fisk was on Democracy Now today and said some fascinating things. Check him (and the interview) out.

Riots in Toledo-neo-Nazis marched in the ‘hood and a riot started. Something new here? Nope.

The Angels lost. Something new here? Nope. Sports means so little to me. I’m sure there are people who are devastated by this. Don’t care.

Saddam’s trial started. He was defiant. Something new here? Nope. He got a continuance. They’re trying him for one small massacre. It’s a show trial-no due process, just sound bites.

Tom DeLay has had a warrant issued, got mugshots and asked the judge to step aside. Well, I guess that proves that he’s not guilty, if the vehement denials of any wrongdoing and the vindictive witchunter accusations didn’t. Absolute arrogance-he totally believes that he hasn’t done anything wrong! Talk about drinking the Kool-aid…

Hurricane Wilma’s diddling around the Caribbean-it was a cat 5 and the strongest Atlantic storm ever-882 millibars. It weakened, slowed down, is lashing the Yucatan and probably headed towards Florida-these storms are driven by upper level winds. It’ll probably be a cat 2 or 3-cooler water in the Gulf of Mexico… It’s also the last named storm, and a tie for the number of storms in a season-double the norm. And people still think global warming isn’t here. Piffle-this and melting polar ice should be enough proof.

Avian flu, Avian flu, Avian flu. It’s all over the news this week. And while it is a worry, it hasn’t jumped to humans or spread in numbers that indicate a pandemic. That said, if it mutates into a form easily spread by contact (basically saliva-sneezing and coughing being the most common methods), we could see bad things, depending on infection rates-looks like about 50% mortality. If there’s a pandemic, most of that will be in crowded, poor cities. Scary, though-prolly a good idea to pick up some surgical masks if things start to look bad.

More Meiers stuff-she supports an abortion ban, based on a questionnaire she filled out. She didn’t fully answer the Judiciary’s questionnaire, and some answers were wrong- (the Daily Show made fun of this). Senators on both sides don’t like that. People are questioning whether she is qualified, and Chimpy is still saying she is.

Anda correction-last week I said that there are 13 years of peace to write the Constitution-WRONG. “This Day in History” had a snip on the battle of Yorktown this week-which ended the war in 1781. So, only 8 years to make the Constitution. Still much longer than Iraq…

Software. Back to my normal rate-Go-to fill out my games. I also found a nice tutorial online that I need to do again. I suck. Jabber-an IM server, Ruby-a hot new programming language, and River-a Java 3d wrapper. I finished setting up databases on my new Windows boxes. Open office came out-may or may not get it.

OK, here we are, mid-October. Yesterday was Yom Kippur. We’ve been reading Yom Kippur to the kids for the past week or so. Now it’s Halloween books. Samhain is coming. No idea what we’re doing. The school has rules about what to wear.

Here’s the recap-Friday-a school friend of Matt’s slept over. Got a carseat from storage, Erika messed up her shoulder, went to the gym. Church, home, caught a cold, played racquetball and swam with the kids. My racquetball skills are not bad-not great, though-I can hit well and low, but not all the time. Lunch with kids on Monday, more suffering from a cold, blue screens at work. Came home a bit early Thursday-Erika got sick. Parents are visiting tomorrow.

I love our country-I just hate the people who run it…Rove is testifying again the the Plame case, word is he’s going to get indicted, along with Libby. Judith Miller was there again about a “just found” notebook. This is just “business as usual”. Gannon/Guckert might get it too. And all of Chimpy’s photo ops…and the staged “chat with the troops” <sigh>

Some of the firefighters in the recent fire were ordered to stand behind Arnold for a photo op. Again, business as usual. Again, everyone involved is denying that an order was given. So, who’s lying? Or is it just hairsplitting taken to the nth degree?

There was a big earthquake in Pakistan, if you haven’t heard. The rescue/relief effort looks eerily similar to the one in New Orleans-but I haven’t noticed anyone talking about it. No one wants to admit that we live in a 3rd world country??? I saw a screed about that in the ‘net awhile back, but I can’t find it…

The Iraqi election is tomorrow-the drumbeat of violence continues. Everyone is saying civil war. At least they amended things to let changes get made later on. The Sunnis may actually participate. Ours took 13 years to craft…and it was during a relatively peaceful time. And we had brilliant guys on it. And things moved slower then. And there was no instant global media and travel and modern weaponry and a zillion other things complicating matters, not to mention an occupying military from the global hegemon (we had succeeded in throwing out the one that was there…) What does that mean? That it’s more complicated than Chimpy could ever imagine, even if he got a brain transplant from Einstein.

Apple released a video iPod. Rumors about this have been flying… And they’ve teamed with Disney to sell TV shows for 2 bucks. And the screen is microscopic. At least there’s a new iMac.

The Million Man March ii is this weekend. whoopee. The concept is laudable, but I don’t think this will have the impact that the organizers desire. The last one showed some small changes, but this isn’t the way to do it-black men need education, employment, and moral instruction rather than inspiring speeches.

Pretty much nobody likes Meiers. This is true on both sides of the fence. There are champions on both sides as well, and there’s some evidence that she’s a moderate. Having said that, Dobson says that Rove talked to him, and guaranteed that she had the right religious qualifications. Sounds like a religious litmus test, which is against the law.

IBM released RUP to Eclipse. This is a good thing. Having a solid, modern software development process be open source helps us all.

I went on a bit of a download tear-nosing around Carnegie-Mellon, UIUC and Stanford and Cal CS research departments…Here’s what I got: Alice-3d graphics programming tutorial,Winboard (gnu chess), crafty-I wanted to get a good chess player to complement the backgammon one (it was kicking my ASS-now I need go),Acme studio-visual software architecture editor,Panda 3d-a Python 3d rendering library,Nyquist-a souud synthesis language,Denim-UI design blackboard,Gauge-software metric and monitor system,Outpost-collaborative web design blackboard,Demais-multimedia design blackboard and Xina-web database IDE.

Another week (a month!!!) flashed past-just fast, fast, fast. I still marvel at this. I’ve been trying to find freelance work. If you need writing, graphic design, programming, website design, etc., let me know. Here’s my resume. Nothing yet, though. We’ll see.

Here’s what happened this week-not much. Matt took our camera to school-caused too much disruption. Lazy Saturday, went to the bank, grilled. Church, boys played upstairs, another party swimming, worked on the bare spots in our lawn. Erika has plantar fasciitis. She got sick Monday and I came home early, ran some errands with the kids. We saw Dennis Rodman at the Ralphs-he has a white Mercedes with flames-“wormcedes” on the back-whoopee. Everyone fell asleep early Tues., I went to the gym. We got a dresser for the kids.

The usual stuff happening-violence flaring up in “Mess’o’potamia” in the run up to the referendum-they thought they’d sneak in a law that would chill a no vote. Sorry-everyone from the UN said no… A bomber made it into the green zone.

Sun and Google are trying to cross-pollinate each other, Micro$oft and jBoss too. This may be a trend-if you don’t want to do an acquisition, partner. Beehive hit 1.0. Open source is really the way to go for infrastructure and tools-you only need to buy the truly value added stuff… Sun released starOffice and M$ is going to support PDF. And Massachusetts is going with openDoc, which freezes M$ out. Open source, open standards. Buh bye M$…

More bombings in the tourist section of Bali. This is sad, because Bali is such a nice place otherwise. Not a bad tactic, though-high-impact area, makes tourists scared to go there. Dunno how strategic it is-scaring tourists doesn’t foment revolution, and the repression of civil liberties is moot when you’re away from home. Thet’s why the WTC bombings were more effective-they curtailed civil liberties throughout the target nation. We can still see that now-both in New Orleans, and when Chimpy says he’ll send in the military to disasters and to effect quarantines in a flu epidemic. Then there’s the spreading interrogations and detentions. We’re sliding down that slope to fascism. More big disasters, lack of organized dissent, apathy. At least Chimpy’s numbers are low-all he has now is his base. And Rove is nowhere to be seen.

And that brings us to Harriet Meiers. If ever there was a more public display of cronyism, this is it. No judicial experience, close associate, just the wrong choice. No paper trail, and both sides of the aisle dislike this choice. It’s odd, though-she gave money to the Dems, switched sides, and is an evangelical. She’s basically a corporate lawyer, and probably vetted everything passing around the White House. This one will be fractious. His base may start leaving him because of this (probably not, though-they’re all sheeple anyways…)

Chimpy will veto a bill defining how prisoners should be treated. Why is this a big surprise? On related front, the BBC is reporting that Bush told the Palestinian ministers that God has told him to do everything. And the White House is loudly denying it. Why is this a big surprise?

DeLay got indicted on a count of money laundering, loudly proclaimed his innocence and attacked the prosecutor. Wait. Haven’t I heard this one before?

The monkey trial ii is going on-I read today that a witness testified that ID comes from creationism-not a good thing for the ID folks to hear… I agree with the contention that the only way to discredit ID is to stand up and offer clear arguments, but our country is such sheep that it’ll fall on deaf ears-most everyone already has an opinion and won’t change their minds-especially all the evangelical sheeple… Or are they lemmings?

OK, here’s the stuff I downoaded. I went looking for clock software-ds clock (not bad), close enough clock, clox, Clone Cleaner for finding duplicate files, Super PNG is a Photoshop plugin for PNG’s-not what I needed,kWiki-the wiki that runs SocialText.

Whew! That went by quick. A busy weekend, busy week. Hopefully I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow. We’ll see…

“And now, the week in review” Got my kite stuff out of storage, circle supper Friday with new families, Erika had to supervise the youth group, Jonah came over Saturday, we swam and made pizza. Erika got her mom and she stayed over. We went to the poker night in Emerald Bay. The dude had a zillion dollar house. We all got 100 chips and I promptly burned through mine trying to get other people to fold. I walked around, ate, got another 100 chips from a guy at the craps table, lost a little there, went back to poker, got another 100 chips, and proceeded to win. I took out an old lady in head to head and ended up with 850 chips. We changed them in for raffle tickets and didn’t win a thing. So what else is new… Sunday was the Seal Beach Kite Festival. Took Erika’s mom and the boys. Our tent is broken, so it took me awhile to put it up. Boys played, I did demos at noon, 2 and 4. Spark, the Ice Age thing and a mystery-I think it was Berlin… Everyone likes the Spark one. Tracy, Hannah, Darryl and Jessica stopped by & watched the 2 PM demo. Me & the boys ate, ran around, they got soaked, got some candy in the drop. We got our picture in the paper! (OC Register) We left, came home, showered and went to bed. We finally got the OK to ship backpacks to Houston, watched the boys Weds. for Erika’s Dr.’s visit. Went to a meeting in the new office-it’s nice. Had to leave early Thurs.-Erika’s dad has pneumonia and Erika drove him and mom there, with Colin, so I had to go pick up Colin and get Matt at school. We swam and there was a birthday party at the pool. An Elvis showed up-uck-young guy in the jumpsuit. It brought the whole “you’re either an Elvis person or a Beatles person” thing. I am so neither.

OK, here’s the news. DeLay got indicted-about time. He loudly proclaimed his innocence and attacked the prosecutor. Whatever. He has to step down as leader. Well, it’s about time. You have no leeway as a bigshot, and he figured he was above the rules. Same thing applies to Frist and insider trading. These guys are power-mad. The almighty dollar rules.

Japanese scientists got pictures of a giant squid, alive. Amazing photos-the tentacles are huge. And it was a small one. Cool stuff-they’ve wanted pics for a long time.

Rita missed Houston, flattened where it landed. More evidence of climate change. It did change direction at the last minute, but the small towns were 80% wiped out. More bad for that area, but not as bad as New Orleans. Etan Thomas (a basketball player) gave a blistering speech at the Saturday peace rally in DC.

Check this study out-it shows that the U.S., as the most religious developed society has the most societal problems. It’s still preliminary, and I question the level of correlation between religious belief and some of these issues-poverty and racial inequality seem more tightly correlated to violent crime, suicide was inconclusive, but std’s and teen pregnancy seem plausible given the recent stats showing no difference between teens taking abstinence oaths and ones who don’t. Though you could lay that at the media’s doorstep too…

the iPod Nano is getting cracked screens. Oops-I wonder if they did any tests before they shipped?

The fires in West L.A. county are still burning-smoky-one in Riverside is on 50 year old growth. It’s been hot and windy. Prime fire weather. Plus the heavy rains this spring. Not many buildings, though-people who live here know what to do…

Here’s the kicker: Bill Bennett has jammed his foot so far into his mouth you can see shoe leather out his ass. He said that aborting black babies would reduce crime. Ouch. Double ouch. Oops-I’ll bet he wished he could take THAT back. Even the White House has condemned his remarks. Sounds like a Pat Robertson quote too, doesn’t it? Idiots.

Alright-the software I’ve downloaded. winaXe, Advanced WMA Workshop, GNU Backgammon, Ocean-Free Software Library of the World’s Religious Literature, Zimbra Collaboration Suite.

Have a good weekend!

Here we are again. Fall equinox, another week gone. Big weekend ahead. A thing on each day-circle supper, Church poker night, kite festival. woo-hoo. Got DSL set up, and running. I also got some webspace for podBlogs and webcam… nice. Now I need a wireless router. Work is busy-real artwork this week.

The recap: worked out Thursday, went to a birthday party at an equestrian center Sat., ate at Hometown Buffet later, early at Church Sunday to set up, child care, swim-Matt got in trouble, I got in trouble Monday and Weds-this time for electricity bill messup, ate at Peppino’s. A JetBlue plane had a messed up front gear and landed in a shower of sparks, no problems-kudos to that pilot.

Oracle is going to buy Siebel-lots of m&a activity right now. I wonder if we’re on the block? Oracle is looking to compete with SAP-we’ll see. Peoplesoft seems to have been swallowed successfully-Siebel is close to Oracle HQ, so it should go pretty easily too.

Hurricane Rita is bearing down on the Gulf coast. It was the 3rd strongest Gulf storm ever, but it seems to have weakened as it hit some cooler water-to a category 4. Still a killer. Oil prices are up. People are running-mostly because of Katrina. We’ll see. New Orleans and the outlying areas are still a mess.

Got Eclipse test performance tools platform, Firefox 1.07 (a 1.5 beta is out there too), net Transport to rip a realVideo stream, xMing to try to xWindows into my Linux and Solaris boxes, and Croquet, which is a new OS from Alan Kay.

Back into the swing of weekly postings-things are more back to normal. Next is moving the office. I have a checklist, plans, our office location, but no exact date. It’s either 10/21, 28 or 11/4.

The week in review: ran errands, Matt got in trouble, no church on Sun-had to scramble to find someone to setup, parents on Sun., mini golf, swimming, worked out on Mon. That’s it.

So, here’s a report from the U.N. that is just more justification of how things are going: World Social Situation 2005. I haven’t read it yet-scraped it, and looked at the summary. Basically it says that things are getting worse, and we can blame ourselves for it, and it’s only going to get worse unless we do something about it. Take action, folks. On this and on everything else.

Here’s a rant about Katrina. It just seems to be getting worse. The Feds don’t care, and help is coming from regular people. If this had happened in Florida, it would’ve turned out differently.

Mike Brown from FEMA quit. Not really surprising, given the amount of heat he was taking. Now he’s blaming it on higher-ups. Everyone involved has to take blame. Sorry. Shoulda thought about all this a long time ago.

The Roberts confirmation is going on-the dude is a slippery as an eel, and just as smooth. He should sail through, and it should go down party lines. He’s a fair trade for Rehnquist.

The only software I’ve picked up is IBM Easy Website Builder.

Slowly going through my record collection-I just finished up book 1 of 4 with Immortal Memory. I’ve really got some challenging stuff here. And I haven’t even gotten to Glass or Alva Noto.

It’s been a month and a half since I’ve posted-things are finally settling down a bit. We moved to an apartment in Laguna Beach mid-August. It was a ton of work. Now we’re in a smaller place that’s more expensive. The bit about ca$h still applies-we need money!!!Anyways, we’re getting settled in-Matt started Kindergarten Tuesday. Colin is really sad about it-he wants to go too.

OK, here’s a longish recap: visited parents, swam, got sunburned, went to a baby shower for our minister, had to install XP on my computer-was really slow, packing, Erika got a UU chalice tattoo, we moved-kids went to Wild Rivers and kite day at Seal Beach, more LBCCB, work day at Journey school, party at Emerald Bay, got DSL for $14, started Tai Chi & dropped it-no Yang. Got a Yamaha QY-10-fun. Got a flat tire-it failed, I was having a bad shimmy and it was the tire… That’s it! We ate out a few times, the usual work, shopping. So, what else is there? I laid sod in our yard, we haven’t finished unpacking, Matt loves school.

And here come the rants.

M$ finally named Longhorn to Windows Vista-this is old news now. They also just released WinFS to beta. It looks OK, with cool transparencies and layouts. Problem is that it doesn’t address a lot of what’s wrong with Windows-secure code, outdated and bloated software, closed architecture, outdated UI. Linux-not sure either-though it has more promise. We need something simpler and with a more intuitive UI-it’ll eventually need to land on phones, eyewear and rollable screens. We’ll interact using voice, fingers and head motions. Having to train someone to use a computer means something’s wrong.

CAFTA passed. This is a mess-NAFTA was nothing, or nothing but bad, depending on who you ask. And it’s all tied up with immigration issues. Having a free trade zone is useless if it doesn’t regulate working conditions and environmental issues. Hmmmph!

OK. Here we go. So the guy from FEMA is so fired. Bush is taking heat, and some guy said on air to Cheney-“go fuck yourself”. What am I talking about? One of FEMA’s 3 biggest potential disasters, after a New York terrorist attack and a big California earthquake. FEMA’s batting .667…wish they had actually listened to their own forecasts… Here’s a scathing rant from a guy in London: When, America, when?. Here’s a story from 2 EMS folks: The real heroes and sheroes of New Orleans-I’m actually not 100% sure of the veracity of this story, but it’s convincing… It’s hard to say more-Katrina has flattened more than just New Orleans. Democracy Now! has been hammering this story too. Team Chimpy has been lying, even when the cameras have clearly contradicted them. We’ll see how this plays out. The problem is that the human cost is so high, and the displaced so overwhelmingly poor and black, that everyone wants to turn away when all the body bags are counted. The White House is desperately trying to force the media to not take pictures of dead people-sorry, too late. My wife is trying to get school supplies to kids in Houston. Regular people are the ones that are making the difference here.

Rehnquist died. Chimpy nominated Roberts to replace him-a good conservative-for-conservative swap. He’s light on experience (sound familiar?) and paper trail, and may not be able to handle the job, but he will get confirmed easily. Whoever he nominates for the O’Connor slot is going to have a tougher time-since O’Connor was a swing vote there’ll be pressure to nominate a moderate. I think Team Chimpy is completely unable to do that-they so live in la-la land…

Here’s the software I downloaded: IBM Able,rob fantastic mp3 encoder,old next apps, synergy,google talk,rife,adieu,ibm htp,espeaking,enigma sim,NetStumbler,Guitar scales,derby,jsf,cpaint,asterisk,uima,gnu source installer.

Here we go again. And I put it off another week… Not much has happened.

Here’s the recap: bounce place party, kites at Seal Beach, Polly’s, Erika’s car died, went to LBCCB practice, gig at Festival of the Arts, got new apartment, OC fair, edit SeaLight, RainForest Cafe, birthday party, bought furniture, reading Harry Potter, bowling, ate at Pick Up Stix.

We watched the ’04 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. And we wonder why people hate Americans, and why there are so many grossly obese people here. Just a symptom, naturally, but makes a nice exemplar…

Rove is getting hammered. When the White House and his lawyers start stonewalling, evading and changing their positions, you know for sure that he did something. What he did, I don’t really care, someone needs to take responsibility. I think what bugs me most is the Republican attack dogs using completely specious arguments to deflect things. Just annoying.

Here’s a blast from the past: the FBI is keeping files on liberal groups like the ACLU. I thought that went out with the 60’s… I guess not, what with an Administration stuck in the 60’s…

John Roberts is the nominee for the Supreme Court. Now this guy is truly a blast from the 60’s-as is his family. Unbelievable. His wife is a pro-life warrior. He has 3 years on the bench. He has no opinions. I don’t like him-he’s too clean. The right loves him, the left is mostly silent. He’ll sail through, but I don’t think he deserves it.

Here’s the software I got: free VMS, a new version of FireFox, Pure Data, Daisy, Java Blueprints, Clam AV.

It’s Thursday night. I like having a laptop. I added Amazon links to the bibliography page. woo-hoo. Trying to find a new apartment. We’re up at the end of the month, and rent is going up. We are going to be SO broke. Send money. Paypal donations, clicking on the Amazon links, winning the lottery, MKM, anything! I have an idea for investment funds too. Send money. Erika says “hi”. She wants a “black hills gold” jewelry 3 ring bridal set.

Here’s the week: More physical therapy, pizza at B.J.’s, looked at apartments on Sat., church, meeting Sun., did sound for the Laguna Beach Community Band at the Sawdust Festival, watched fireworks at the Mission Viejo lake.

Sandra Day O’Connor resigned. This was (and still is) big news. Everyone was expecting Rehnquist to go first. She was a moderate conservative, and the first woman on the court. She had a mixed legacy, no matter what your political persuasion. The nomination process is going to be interesting-Christian conservatives are putting pressure on Team Chimpy to nominate a hard right, and Bush is pushing back. Pray, pray that he nominates someone who isn’t going to undo years of hard work-especially Roe and environmentalism. We’ll see-this may get ugly.

Live 8 was this weekend-MTV botched the coverage completely. It was bad. Great performances, and they would cut away, or chatter inanely over it, or run a commercial. Uck. AOL nailed it. I can’t get to them at work-oh whell.

Interesting piece on NPR about evolution in the schools-this time in Maryland. Yet again Christians making noise over teaching science in science class-they want religion taught there too. I don’t think so, and so did the board of education. One preacher said: “if we reject the first 12 chapters of Genesis, then why can’t we reject the rest of the Bible…if Genesis is a myth, then there was no fall, no sin, no need for salvation, no need for Jesus.” Not such a bad thing. These people are amazing. As if one thing has anything to do with the other. The Bibble wasn’t made to be taken literally. <sigh> They just don’t get it, and aren’t smart enough to figure it out. You don’t need to take it literally to get the message. Love everything, act right-it’s pretty easy. Fuckin’ sheeple.

The United Church of Christ has OK’d gay marriage. YAY. This completely contradicts the previous paragraph. At least some Christians get it. I mean, really. Would you rather have committed, monogamous pairs or singles? If the goal is strong families, who cares how you get there?

Time, Cooper and Miller have been forced to give up their sources or face contempt of court. Time and Cooper acquiesced, Miller want to jail. This is all about outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Apparently Novak is cooperating too. Word has it that Rove is definitely involved. I’m of mixed opinions about this-on one hand, reporters and anonymous sources need to be assured they can talk freely. On the other hand, if this involves criminal activity, all bets are off. I don’t know. I do know that there’s no shield law in Federal court…

Deep Impact succeeded in nailing Tempel I. Bigger plume than expected. We should find some interesting things out about the early solar system. I wonder what the crazy Christians think about this? Some nutball is suing NASA for altering the heavens and her horoscope. Fuckin’ sheeple.

And the big one-Al Quaida bombed 4 sites in London. Many people dead and injured. Pigs. They interrupted G8-now they want to talk about terrorism rather than poverty and pollution. This won’t touch the English at all-they went through the Blitz, fer chrissake! I’ve gotta give them respect, though. I don’t like innocents getting hurt, but from an operational standpoint they’re really good-they only undertake one or so operations a year, but everyone expects another one immediately. They succeed, or try again. The tactics are working-they may not get to their strategic goal, but people pay attention.

The end of the month. Woo hoo. Short cycle-didn’t get around to posting last week’s until Monday.

Not much has happened since then-Erika got a chalice tattoo. Kids went swimming. Working on icons.

Looks like Team Chimpy is flipflopping more than John Kerry in a Presidential campaign. Or a 650 pound catfish. Now they’re going from never negotiating with terrorists to negotiating with “non-criminal insurgents”. Political hairsplitting at its best… I guess they figure the only way to stop the “in its last throes” insurgency is to get them to the table-then ask them operational questions they should already know if they had anybody doing intelligence. Guess not.

Then Bush gives a speech to the nation, basically saying “we’re going to stay the course” “thousand points of light” Wait. That’s his dad. (Who by the way has said he wouldn’t have gone into Iraq. Smart guy.) I don’t think it worked. No one believes the 9/11 Iraq thing anymore, unless they’re brainwashed or braindead. I don’t think the staying the course thing is working, guys.

The Supreme Court split on display of the 10 commandments. They’re tiptoeing back and forth over a line about what the rules for displaying religious items-seems it’s OK when it’s one item of many, but not on its own. I have no idea if this is the right place to draw that line. I think it might be better to say “if you have one, you have to have others from other traditions”.

I downloaded SnagIt for getting a video capture of the Linda Ellerbee piece on the Shoah. I also got GlassFish, the Sun Java App Server and Google Earth, which doesn’t like proxies…

Here I am again-a very busy week-Erika’s at GA, the kids are at a day camp, and I’ve done not much work at all. And it doesn’t help that I’m going to physical therapy twice a week. <sigh> At least it’s Friday… Correction-Saturday. Correction-Monday.

Here’s how the week went: meeting, went to UUFLB for a concert-did sound & lights, dinner afterwards, walked there Sat., Erika left for GA, IHOP, bowling , kids at camp all week. Colin was upset Tues., went to Boomers with church and won! Glass concert Friday, Erika’s parents came down. Church, scavenger hunt at Top of the World in Laguna Beach, picked up Erika today, cleaned the car, etc.

Sen. Danforth did a nice guest editorial(sorry-gotta pay now) in the New York Times last week. It was a very well written piece about how the right wing doesn’t speak for all Christians. I give him a lot of credit for standing up and saying what a lot of Christians either feel or will feel.

Check this out. There’s no denying these statements. Nope. Not at all. All well documented. When are they going to pay the piper? Hopefully before we all go to jail.

Here’s an interesting analysis of how conservatives end up reacting to things. Basically that they run on fear.

Here’s what I downloaded: the new jBoss portal, BIRT, a new MagicDraw UML, Startup Cop, Super DVD Ripper.