- December 31, 2004 -
Tonight
I'm going to go to Mary Lou's house for New Year's
Eve.
- December 30, 2004 -
It's been
almost four days since a major tsunami hit the in
Indian Ocean. 100,000 have been declared dead now,
but they have just discovered more cities in Indonesia
and Thailand that have been totally washed off the
face of the earth, so it's believed that the death
toll will double and probably go much higher than
that. When it first happened they quoted 12,000 dead,
but it seems to double very quickly.
Last night
was Ben's going away party at Lin & Brian's. Teresa
worked the crowd to find jobs for us to make money
for San Francisco, and we may have gotten a few too.
Ben-jo-ivia (Trivia about Ben) went over very well,
and everyone seemed to find it extremely funny. It
was a very good night... and Bob made the most wonderful
pizza square things! Mary Lou's spinach balls were
also very good.
I made
an Origami sphere after I got home from the party...
one of the geodesic spheres made out of sixty sheets
of paper. It took me about seven hours, but I was
talking to Eric on ICQ and downloading the Stargate
Atlantis episode I've been trying for so long to get,
so it's not like I was doing just that... Perhaps
I'll make some more stuff to take to work, or give
to people.
I saw that
I got noted on www.ditl.org on the 27th for pointing
out an error in the math for warp speeds, Sara would
be proud I think, everyone else would probably be
a bit confused... or sad.
Christine
Gregoire, the Democratic Gubernatorial candidate for
the state of Washington was declared the winner today
finally after a number of vote recounts that at one
point separated her by 8 votes from her opponent.
I'm still
pondering ideas for how my site will look next...
This incarnation that just became my blog was a test
in I-frames, which is basically how you can scroll
content within my webpage, but browser support is
very spotty with this, so unless you're using Internet
Explorer, it's probably doesn't appear how I intended
it. I started into CSS, Cascading Style Sheets, which
is all the rage now for how one should lay out a web
page, and it is very neat, but again different browsers
view things differently, which is a problem no matter
what method one uses, but unsupported features in
that can be really bad, so now I ponder just going
the old fashioned way, with tables like how my old
site was technically done, but do it in a way that
can support more content and expand as needed like
I did with Brent's Dojo site.
- December 28, 2004 -
Christmas
went well, though Mom was still really sick for it
and she kept a mask on the entire time we were at
Grandma's house. Carrie has fluid in her ears now
from being sick, so she might need tubes put in again,
and I guess each time you have that done you lose
a bit of your hearing,... and she's already had it
done a couple times already.
Now I have
to ponder my new year's tech purchases! I Need a printer,
cause I've given up hope that my Epson will ever print
again... I'd like more Ram and a new 200GB hard drive....
and I've always really wanted a digital camera.
Tonight
after work I went to Susan's to help install a CD
burner Pat got for Christmas (That I also helped pick
out), and he had tried to install it, but it wasn't
working, so I was a little concerned that perhaps
it didn't come with XP drivers or some'n, but it was
just a jumper thing, so I told the new one to be the
master and their old CD drive to be the slave and
Mr. Blinky was all happy once again...
- December 24, 2004 -
It's the
night before Christmas! Mom and Carrie are both sick.
A guy in
Houston is E-baying off his three son's Christmas gifts...
He said they were so bad this year that they could not
have them. They said on the news that he would return
them to the store if they didn't go very high in value...
And I'm totally plexed by this. 1st) If the children
were bad all year, why did he buy the gifts in the first
place? It showed new things like a Nintendo DS that
just came out... 2nd). Why did he go to Ebay to sell
them? Would people really buy them from him and then
pay shipping when they could just go to a store and
buy it cheaper?
MY CD's
ARE CRACKING! I came to that realization last night...
not all of them, but I have a book of my most important
CDs, and I think the book holds them all too tightly,
and slowly over much time... they slowly get little
stress cracks.
It's been
SO cold here the last few days, and yesterday morning
I went and got gas, and the new gas station attendant
guy was fighting with the windshield washer squeegee
that had frozen in the fluid. It was just so cold, like
-3 with the wind chill, and it was windy... I didn't
even fill up my tank fully cause I pondered; "That's
enough to get me to work and back twice, I don't think
I need any more gas today!" So the attendant guy was
still fighting with the washer fluid, and I told him;
"I don't think anyone is going to want to use that today."
Cause it was just horribly cold.... and he said that
a guy had been in and complained about it yesterday,
so I changed my original statement to; "Ok, perhaps
no one in their right mind will want to use it then."
And he laughed.... So then that night Dad had come home...
and it was really cold then because it was late, and
I started to talk about the guy fighting with the frozen
fluid, and Dad said; "Yeah, I complained to him about
that yesterday...." Oiy VEY.
- December 22, 2004 -
I've still
not been able to fix my printer... I saturated it with
the ink solvent last night, and today it was able to
print about 5% of the magenta test line, and before
it could do about 3%, so I flooded it again, and we'll
see how it does tomorrow I guess.
The Army
Reserve has an interesting new commercial. It's states
you "remain a civilian" and that it would not be your
"Full-time job" and it really gives the impression that
if you join the reserves that you will not be sent to
a duty overseas. I'm not sure if this is true or not
though... I'll have to ask Bob, the commercial just
seemed deceptive to me.
- December 19, 2004 -
I've got
most everything wrapped. Carrie went back to Troy and
called shortly after she left because her tire was flat
(and pretty much shredded). Mom called a tow truck to
help her and we went out too, so now that I'm back,
I plan to spend the rest of the night compressing video
files, working on a couple projects, and trying to download
more of a Stargate Atlantis episode I've been waiting
for weeks to download.
- December 18, 2004 -
Oiy, an
eight hour day of shopping, and I still have a couple
more people to shop for, and now I have a ton of things
to wrap (mostly Carrie's stuff) and I need a nap.
- December 17, 2004 -
Oh my,
just one more week until Christmas! I went shopping
last night with Teresa... I got a number of people crossed
off my list, but I still have some shopping left to
do. Tonight after work I worked on a couple posters
for Brent, reviewed my forums and wrote a few e-mails.
- December 13, 2004 -
Ok, I now
have 1/3rd of my Christmas shopping complete! There
was a thing in the news about Target not having bell
ringers this year, and the Salvation Army was upset
with them because that could lower their collections
by 6 million dollars. Target put out a statement that
they give $100 million to charities each year, including
the Salvation Army, but some people are now trying to
start a boycott of Target... I think it's just meh,
do we really need people outside of every store? There
were a few at Hypermart this weekend, and they were
just bad, they were ringing the bell as loud as they
could, and they were also shouting "Merry Christmas".
There's just some aspect of "Merry Christmas" that is
lost when you shout it at people as loud as you can...
the merriness seems to fall away and it's replaced with
a sort of hostile; "Look at us, and give us money!"
....I don't blame target at all for doing away with
the bell ringers, they are still giving a great deal
to charity.
I thought
of another good gift idea for Craig:
10) Small earbud headphones, you know, the kind that
fit in your ear. There are some on the market that and
just huge though, and others have foam glued on, but
that always seems to fall off very quickly. There are
lots of junky headphones out there... so no junky headphones!
I saw that they have really expensive headphones...
like $200, that's crazy I feel... for that much I expect
them to be able to show video too.
John McCain
asked for Donald Rumsfeld to resign today, I doubt he
will, but it's nice to see Republicans being outspoken
against the administration. I'm rather torn on how to
feel about moderate Republicans, they did tend to highly
support Bush in the election, but when you compare them
to Bush on the issues, they are not so bad really. Kansas
had a shift to the left a couple weeks, which was really
quite a surprise to me... Democrats have not taken over
mind you, but it was reported that in the State House
& Senate moderate Republicans took over a majority.
I don't think they did a head count on who was moderate
and who was conservative, but the new leaders of the
legislature were both moderate... I hope they will all
be able to work together now.
Scott Peterson
will receive the death sentence it appears now... I'm
not really sure to think about it, he certainly was
not a good person, but I don't know if I could have
voted to put him to death since there really wasn't
evidence that he did it. I feel that the death penalty
should be reserved for cases where there is conclusive
proof that the person is guilty.
Turkey
is in talks to join the European Union, and I ponder
just how far the EU is bound to spread since Turkey
is considered a Middle Eastern country. Europeans are
more concerned over Turkey's strong Muslim faith, and
that that might be counter to what Christian Europe
stands for, I doubt that will really stand in the way
though, and I think the EU will be stronger for being
more diverse. I wonder what the greater implication
is going to be for the US in the future, as more and
more countries join the EU, the more they trade with
one another in an effort to raise their new combined
economy... and I ponder how long it will take before
the EU becomes a clear rival to the US... we've had
a number of issues with European countries over the
war in Iraq, we've pulled away from the world in general
in the UN in a number of ways, and conservative Republicans
often question why we are even in the UN... we backed
out of the Kyoto Accords, and we've had a few small
trade wars with EU countries in the past year- even
with Britain we had a trade war over steal exports.
Perhaps we should look for more land and people wanting
to become a state? Hopefully a blue state.
- December 8, 2004 -
Wednesday, It's official, in March I'm going to go to
San Francisco. Mary Lou booked tickets for a play today
for everyone, and we haven't booked the plane tickets
yet, but we'll probably do that soon. It's been quite
a while since I've gone anywhere, so I'm looking forward
to seeing the touristy things and such. This is a good
reason to revisit digital cameras... but I'm unsure
how much I will spend on the trip, and how much I should
spend on a camera.
I worked
on Brent's dojo site
some more tonight, I've really only gotten to the photo
galleries to start, but the site does have working buttons
and pages to put stuff on now, perhaps tomorrow morning
I'll try to get another gallery of images scanned in
and up.
I really
need to get to the Christmas shopping, but I'm still
not really sure what to get anyone. Suggestions on what
you'd like are always welcome. I pondered a few more
things for my list:
8) A black
leather belt (but with a fairly simple buckle)
9) The I-Robot DVD, I really liked that movie.
A good
question was asked of Donald Rumsfeld today as he addressed
troops preparing to be deployed to Iraq: "Why do
we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for
pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass
to uparmor our vehicles?" Rumsfeld was rather stumped
on the question and asked for it to be repeated, and
then he said that the US had to go to war with what
it had, not what it wished it had, and then shortly
after he went and got in his armored limo and was driven
off... I ponder the logic of his armored limo, when
we do not fully armor the military vehicles over there.
Do all the White House senior staff really require that
much protection?
Also in
the news was a story of a brainwave mouse. You've probably
seen the brain images in rainbow colors to show what
part of the brain is active, well they've used that
technology and a plethora of tests, asking subjects
to think about moving an arrow upward to a box, and
then they inform the computer: "When the person's brain
makes this pattern, move the arrow up... After a number
of these inputs, the system became nearly as efficient
as using a regular mouse, and it was capable of adapting
quickly to new users who might have slightly different
brain patterns. I feel it will probably not be too much
longer before people will be able to use a keyboard
in the same manner, or perhaps even be able to think
the entire word.
In a nearly
related story a couple years ago I read in Wired Magazine
that scientists were able to take a blind man who had
never been able to see due to a genetic problem with
the optical cords between his eyes and brain, and scientists
were able to set up a direct connection between the
man's brain and a web cam, it was fuzzy, and only in
black and white, but as he used it more, his brain was
getting better at interpreting what the webcamera was
sending to him.
- December 6, 2004 -
Monday,
most of the day I had a dog strapped to me. Mom brought
home a malnourished Chihuahua, so I held it in a blanket
for her... after an hour though I pondered I really
needed to get things done though, so I took the dog's
blanket and tied the ends together and then wore it
around my neck with the dog in it.. It was most content
after that for hours while I wrapped Christmas gifts
and worked on the computer some. I just call it "Little
One"... and now it cries when I go downstairs cause
it wants me to hold it... and it doesn't cry for anyone
else too... It's a ward of the court, so perhaps it's
soon to be homeless, and that's probably for the best.
Sunday
Robert, Teresa & I went to KC to eat Korean food
and go to the plaza... it was rainy/misty and not very
good weather for walking about outdoors so we gave up
and went back to Topeka. We did get to go to the Overland
Station and watch the fireworks for Topeka's 150th birthday...
it was a neat event, but there were really very few
people there, and the fireworks show was nice, but the
music was bad that went with it, and there were several
pauses in the show, so it didn't seem all the well planned
out. Also I ponder that it was kind of a waste of money
as they said it was more costly than the show on the
4th, and I bet only a small fraction of people actually
saw it.
- December 4, 2004 -
Friday
after work I went out with Beca and Andrew... we went
to Lawrence and ate at the Mad Greek, I had the Chicken
Marsala, and after that we went to the Java House...
I had hot chocolate and they had coffee, but I did try
theirs... Coffee is just horrible I think, I've never
enjoyed it at all.
Today Carrie
and I went to Topeka to do some Christmas shopping,
and I think I now have Dad covered... just everyone
else left.
- November 30, 2004 -
Nekochan
is all sorts of sick again... I only got two hours of
sleep last night too on account of what was going on.
We're not even really sure what's wrong with him now,
but he seems better today.
Epson sucks
I say... and never buy printers with the scanner built
in! Bah! The Magenta in my printer has dried up or something,
and even with new inkers it still didn't print. So I
went to the printer forums and read up.... It would
cost anywhere from $100 to $350 to get the printer fixed,
because Epson does not allow any of their authorized
repair people to work on the model I have... I paid
just under $200 for it to start with though, exactly
one year and four days ago. Before I put "new printer"
on yee ole Christmas list I ordered a printer repair
kit... which is basicly an instruction booklet and a
super special ink solvent that can reliquify dried up
ink. The Epson support e-mail was no help at all, cause
I wrote them first and told them what it was doing,
and that I instructed it to clean the print heads six
times and it still did not work...... ....and they wrote
back that I should tell it to clean the print heads.
Ok... What
do I want for Christmas:
1) River rock for the fish aquarium
2) Stress Coat &/or Stress Zyme to keep the fish
happy
3) That new Sum 41 &/or new Jimmy Eat World CDs
4) A flash for my camera*
5) Supercool Laptop*
6) Supercool Digital Camera*
7) Large rubberbands for my rubberband ball
*These are more future wants and not really expected
Christmas wants.
I guess
I need to ponder a median gift... some'n that falls
between rubberbands and great technology.
- November 29, 2004 -
It's beginning
to look a lot like Christmas now because we got our
first snow this morning. I pondered I'd have to start
a Christmas list on here of things I want and need,
the simple things really... Like rubber bands for my
rubber band ball, or river rock for my aquarium... good
stocking stuffers and such.
From yesterday's
blog, I fear I failed to put up Christmas lights, as
it was snowing and icky outside, but I did work on Brent's dojo site some, I
left the paper with what sub-pages he wanted, so I couldn't
really do the buttons and such yet, but I got started
on the overall design, and scanned some of his karate
photos to put in a gallery.
Susan called
this morning and said that Terri was very happy that
I got the newsletter in to her a week early, and that
she was very happy with it in general too. Hopefully
I hear from her soon about revisions and such.
Enterprise has been very good lately... Its currently
in the middle of a three part story of how the Vulcan
High Command has strayed from the ancient teachings
of Surak, and a pacifist underground movement led by
T'Pau is being hunted down because they oppose actions
taken by the government to launch a pre-emptive strike
against the Andorians. There are many influences of
from the politics and culture of today in it... so if
anyone has missed it, and would like to see it, I can
give it to you on CD in .wmv format.
I never
get much feedback from blog readers, and I know I have
a few thanks to the Google page hits per day... I like
any e-mail that isn't spam.
- November 28, 2004 -
I got a
lot done today really, I cleaned out the fish aquarium,
and I think I've won the war against the bad snails.
When I have more plants in the tank it seems like I
don't have to clean nearly as much, maybe like half
as much even, because it seems like I haven't cleaned
it in a couple months, and it really wasn't that bad
today, but the water level was down a couple inches.
I got a
letter from Yuka today! It's been nearly a year since
I heard from her, so I was starting to worry if she
was ok or not. Hopefully she will write more, and I'll
certainly try to incite more writing too.
Saturday
after work I went over to Brent's and put an extra chip
of ram I had in his computer. He was bumped up to 120mb
from 80mb, so he seemed happy. Tomorrow I plan to work
on the design of his dojo website... and to put up Christmas
lights up outside.
- November 27, 2004 -
Thanksgiving went well, and I didn't overeat too much.
Olivia seems to be starting to understand things, and
she's very mobile now.
I guess
now it's time to start Christmas shopping, but I really
don't have a clue what to get anyone, except Sara at
work... and I really don't know what I want for Christmas
myself... a digital camera or laptop would be nice,
but I want kinda pricey ones, so those certainly are
not going to be listworthy items. I guess unless I can
get the magenta working in my printer I'll need a new
one of those... or an add-on flash for my camera.
The new
homeland security bill seems to have stalled in Congress...
it's something Bush has been for, and if it came to
a vote it would pass, but the Republican leadership
in the House blocked the vote, so I guess it will be
stuck until January.
- November 24, 2004 -
Turkey
Day! Well, it's 4am and I woke up very early... it was
less of "going to sleep" as it was a really late nap
I guess, but I've been spending so much time on the
newsletter and stuff, that I wanted to play games. Homeworld2
is a great game!
As of today...
I've made $13.12 off people clicking my google ads...
It only took four months to break the $10 mark, but
it's still nice to get a wee bit of change each week...
I'll have that digital camera in no time! Well, it's
not really a matter of raising the money for it... it's
more picking out the best one for what I want to do...
What do I want to do with it? Yeah, I'm not fully sure!
It's be nice to get a professional grade one... but
then I ponder perhaps something very nice, but cheaper
in a lower range... and then I'll wait for a really
nice one to come along.
- November 24, 2004 -
Today it
was very busy at work- all the pages were off, and Teresa
abandoned her post to go home early, so it was just
Debbie and me, and you would think the day before Thanksgiving
people would stay away from the place... nope! I even
got a headache from it all.
I got the
Newsletter for the Capital-Journal done, at least ready
for them to proof-read, so I won't have to worry about
that for a couple days, so now I'm back to working on
Brent's site.
Tomorrow
we will go to Aunt Karen's as usual for the Turkey Day.
I will be sure to keep a record and report what I ate.
Ben got
a new job in San Francisco this week, so there is talk
that in March a group of us will go and see him and
do the tourist thing. It would be neat to go back and
do that again, it's been quite a while since I've gone
anywhere neat, and the last time I was there I didn't
get to wander to everywhere I wanted really. It's also
a good reason to get me that digital camera I've been
wanting!
- November 20, 2004 -
This weekend
I started working on a newsletter for the Capital-Journal,
Susan got me the freelance job, which was very keen
of her... It's been a little while since I've worked
in Quark and I fear I've forgotten a thing or two, but
its coming together now, so hopefully tomorrow I'll
have it done and I can send it in for a first review.
It has consumed most of my Saturday, so we'll see how
much of tomorrow it will eat up.
- November 6, 2004 -
Saturday,
this morning Mom & Dad took Grace to the vet to
be put to sleep. She had diabetes and other problems,
and over the last month she hadn't been doing well.
We're not really sure how old she was, but we've had
her for a long time, and she had a very good life after
being rescued.
I went
to Topeka this afternoon and went shopping with Teresa.
I got a new leather jacket and a cool T-shirt. We also
went over to Brent's house and got the full tour.
- November 3, 2004 -
Election
Day + 1, to say that a part of my soul was crushed today
is any understatement, Kerry lost, seats in the House
and Senate were lost, Tom Daschel lost his seat, Nancy
Boyda lost against Ryun...
So from
here, I'm not really sure where it is we are headed
as a country, more tax cuts, the Patriot Act will be
extended or made permanent, and many political analysts
say there will be a power struggle inside the Democratic
Party for who will be the next leader.
- October 28, 2004 -
Yesterday
I got an e-mail back possibly from a virus. My computers
are not infected (I scanned them with two different
programs) So I ponder someone that has me in their address
book is infected. Viruses often send out from computers
but make the reply to address just another address from
your book, so it looks like it comes from someone else...
This makes it less likely that the person will then
contact the right person and say, "Hey, I think you
got a virus man," so the person that is actually infected
is oblivious to what's going on... You can scan your computer
online if you are uncertain if you have a virus or not.
- October 25, 2004 -
The election
is just eight days away! There is talk of an election
return party around the office. I'm on the edge of my
seat reading and watching all the current events going
on and how the polls go back and forth.
My weekend
has been ok, I wrote a letter to Yuka, it's been so
long since I've heard from her, and I wonder what all
she's up to.
Friday
I went to the first Topeka Tarantula hockey game, it
was ok... The mascot is very lame and beaver-esque.
It only had four limbs and two eyes! If someone just
saw it on the street, I think they'd be hard pressed
to guess what it actually was. Overall the game was
interesting though, even though they lost... mayhaps
I'll go again, a lot of work people went, so there will
probably be return trips.
- October 15, 2004 -
Yes, yes,
I know I've been very delinquent about blogging, but
did you really think that I was so interesting that
I needed to keep you up-to-date on every aspect of all
my days?
My computers
are all happy now, and I've replaced the burner, I really
should make a backup of all my files too.
We had
the Pet Fair earlier this month for the Humane Society,
and this year I did doggy photos with Santa, and Teresa
came to help. She was very good help indeed, but most
people really weren't in the Christmassy spirit, so
we didn't do that many. They raised over $5000 though,
which was twice as much as last year.
- September 27, 2004 -
Its been
a while since I made an entry because I've been house/dog
sitting for Bob for the last week. I've saw "The Forgotten"
yesterday with Carrie, it was an ok movie, neither bad
nor exceptional. I found the entire story to be somewhat
meh, but it was slightly interesting. I also saw Sky
Captain and the World of Tomorrow this last week as
well and it was very good.
The CD
burner on my new HP has been acting up, and after talking
with four different HP customer service people online,
and one on the phone, who I could not understand at
all, I should soon be getting a replacement burner in
the mail. Goes to show that you really shouldn't buy
the extra warranty, because Tiger Direct really tried
to sell me on it (it was like $118), and the HP people
didn't even ask about it... They just asked how long
ago I bought it, and said they'd send a new one. I really
don't believe in the warranties.. because if any given
part of it does break on it... I'm sure I can find it
for under the price of the warranty.
- September 13, 2004 -
I made
a discovery today... and solved the mystery of the really
loud pop... Several months ago right after I got my
new monitor I heard a very loud pop, it was equal, if
not a little louder in volume if I were to try and clap
as loud as I could once... It was so loud that it was
very alarming, and I searched for what caused it. It
was so sudden that inexplicable that I couldn't figure
out where the sound came from, and I asked around at
what computer wise could have caused it, and a couple
people suggested that a capacitor in my computer or
monitor exploded, but such an occurrence is usually
accompanied by smoke and the smell of burnt plastic,
and I found it hard to believe that my computer could
still work perfectly ok. Today the pop occurred again.
But unlike the last time today I also had to change
the batteries in my mouse right after the pop, and I
noticed one of the batteries had ruptured, and I recalled
that I had noticed that there was dried battery acid
in my mouse before. How long a battery can keep providing
energy after it is ruptured I do not know, last time
I didn't notice anything wrong with the mouse, but this
time it was very instant after the pop that the mouse
became sluggish... I'm just glad it was an old AA battery
and not a vital computer component.
Sunday
I went to a Jazz concert with Mary Lou, Teresa, Lin,
& Brian... I thought the music was very good, but
with Jazz I think it's best in certain settings as background
music rather than to just sit and listen too as an activity
in and of itself.
Saturday
I went with Carrie to see Cellular, and I found it to
be a very good movie and I'd certainly recommend it
to anyone. I felt the credits were carried out in an
innovative way as it showed clips from the movie at
times when he'd look at his phone, and on it would be
the text for the credits... it made things a lot more
interesting, and most the theater stayed seated for
them.
- September 10, 2004 -
Today is
Sara's birthday at work, She's an ever-happy sort and
she loves Star Trek just as much as I. She's a big collector
of Star Trek, so I got her an action figure.
Politics-
I found this site that has every Party
Platform since they started writing them.
- September 6, 2004 -
Labor Day,
and today Teresa and I went shopping, I got new shoes,
a pair of pants, and three button down shirts, and some
jelly beans.
I've made
54 cents on adclicks, this is just from setting it up
to test, I'm not so happy with the results though, cause
the more people that see my blog and do not click an
ad, the less I make per click, so if you came here,
now I shall force you to click the ad! I'm also not
so happy about how it loads in the same window and doesn't
have a scroller, it was how I designed my site, but
that conflicts with how the adclick works, so I think
I'll soon move the ad to a different page or something.
- September 5, 2004 -
Sunday,
and I didn't do very much really today besides clean,
and compress video. Tomorrow Teresa and I are going
shopping for shoes and assorted other things... Teresa
likes to read about herself in my blog, I need to get
my ads up so she can click them too.
Saturday
at work I looked up information on Isabelle Jenkins...
When I was a sophomore in high school we were going
to have a cemetary study project in social studies class,
and Kathy and I found a tombstone of Isabelle. She died
in 1931 at the age of 20, and her picture is on a ceramic
oval on her stone, so it really made us ponder about
her. So yesterday I found her obituary in the Holton
Signal. It did not say exactly how she died, just from
illness. I'm glad medical science has advanced so much
in the last seventy years.
Lin gave
me a collection of plants for my aquarium Friday, Thanks
Lin! I'll have to take pictures of it now because it
looks so much better with live plants, and the fish
seem happier too... as much as their mental state changes
anyway.
- August 31, 2004 -
Today at
work we had a micro-party, Teresa made me a key-lime
pie, Lin got me a chocolate cheesecake, and as gifts
I got a micro zen garden, and a magnetic aquarium scrubber.
I'm still rather amazed at the magna-scrubby, it cleans
much better than trying to do it from the inside of
the tank.
Republicans... bah, tonight's theme was "Compassionate
Conservatism", I really don't understand how they can
present themselves as they do. Laura Bush spoke about
how Bush has supported stem cell research in a responsible
manner, how he has passed a health care bill, and how
no child has been left behind. -If you ask any scientist
in the field of stem cell research if Bush has had a
positive or negative effect on research, well, I guess
they would shrug because most of them moved to Britain
where they could do research. Basically as stem cell
research exists now in the US, there were a dozen stem
stem lines that were being studied when Bush banned
funding for any new research for new lines, but the
old lines could still be studied. So Bush is able to
tout how he has supported the study, but the fact that
most of the lines that were under study were found to
have later been contaminated and not worthy of study,
the US is now unable to continue at a pace it could
be. Laura Bush proclaims that study would not yield
immediate or magical results no matter what... Still,
I feel more secure in knowing that people are at least
attempting to work towards the goal of cures for diseases,
but they cures next year, or two decades from now. -Healthcare,
oy. The pharmaceutical companies wrote the new prescription
drug bill. 60 Minutes had a report on how a lot of the
language from drug company lobbyist literature is the
same word for word in the new bill. In the end we have
a bill that most seniors are too confused to even try,
and their new discounts are counterbalanced by a recent
increase in all the medications seniors commonly use.
So to them the price is the same, only it's more complex.
Yeah for Bush. -And no child left behind... Improved
standards for testing, and for certification of teachers,
and then the bill wasn't funded, and educational funding
was not increased to keep up with rising costs. If Bush
were so brilliant and his policy successful, why then
to the teachers unions not support him?
I've been
researching modem problems, tonight I learned of retraining
a modem, which is what I think is wrong with the Compaq.
Retraining is telling a modem to go slightly slower,
because often a modem tries to go as fast as the line
will allow, and when a problem comes up it has to slow
down... and then the computer and the server get a little
plexed at just how fast each should be communicating...
so telling them a slightly slower speed to communicate
at makes things much more steady. I also found a new
modem Debbie could have, so we'll see how that goes
tomorrow.
As of today
I am 27 years old, the Olympics has ended, and today
the Republican National Convention began. I watched
McCain and Juliani talk tonight and I found both of
their speeches lacking any substance or talk of any
issue besides 9/11 and the War on Terror. I feel that
there are numerous reasons why Bush has been
very poor in his job as it pertains to terrorism...
well, as it pertains to everything. I could go on and
on about why I disapprove of his judgment, the Center for American Progress has
a list of 100 mistakes Bush has made in office &
"The Cost of War" website has the current amoung spent at $130,210,231,932
spent on the Iraqi war. I feel we did need to remove
Saddam, but how it was done was such a waste. After
9/11 President Chirac of France proclaimed, "After today,
we are all Americans." and now most of the world has
a very poor view of America, and why? I feel 90% of
it rests in Bush violating the UN mission of the weapons
inspectors to determine the truth of the Iraqi threat
to our country. The world looks at us having misled
them into war, and I feel the war has only played into
the hands of terrorism..... The radical muslim groups
want nothing more than to create a real jihad with the
west, and in pushing to war on false pretense we have
become their greatest recruiting tool. As Bush said;
"If they're not with us, then they're with the terrorists,"
and I realize in the partisan atmosphere I feel the
same way with my vote. I the last election I actually
voted for more Republicans than I did Democrats, but
this time I feel that party loyalty is paramount, anyone
with Bush is against common sense.
Ok, end
of political talk for the night... I'm going to have
to ponder different subjects to talk about I guess that
will be mutually interesting to all the random people
I know.
I signed
up for Google Ads today. I've always really disliked
any and all site advertising, but these ads are kinda
different. Unlike an ad that you see on someone else's
homepage, I'll get paid if you click the ad and allow
the next page to open. I have a couple net friends that
have them on their sites, and they were able to make
$100 a month, so I pondered that I might just try it
as well. So, Come here and read my thoughts, learn more
about me, and click an ad so I get my money!
- August 5, 2004 -
I got a new HP today and named it Chroniton. I ordered
it from Tigerdirect.com and got it
for $900 after shipping. I saved a number of images
from the site and put them in the log folder. Tachyon
is still running well, and I hope to sell off the Compaq
and some other stuff that's old, but still of value
to someone that might not need to be as up to date.
Chroniton has a 2.8GHZ processor, but came with XP Home,
and I've found that the Home edition is very limited,
so I ponder it shouldn't be too long before I put Pro
on.
Last
week Carrie, Jeff and I went to the Maroon5/John Mayer
concert. We got very good seats on the second tier behind
the VIP seats. We didn't have to stand at all, and that
was nice, because people in other sections had to stand
for the entire time for hours on end. The concert was
very good, Maroon5 and John Mayer both sound very true
live to how they sound on their CDs.
- March 31, 2004 -
I
started my new job yesterday at the Kansas History Center
(the museum and state archives), as "Administrative
Assistant" Most of my work will be scanning ancient
books and documents on a big planetary scanner. The
computer is somewhat old, a Dell before the black cases,
but the monitor seems newer than the machine, and it
only has Photoshop 5.5, it's seems to get the job done,
but it's really slow. The people there all seem very
nice, happy, and interesting sorts. Robert works there,
and there's another guy named Robert that holds the
same job as I, but in the mornings so I didn't really
get to meet him. My supervisor's name in Teresa, and
she's very conversational with lots of stories.
Tachyon has been working very well for a year now, but
just the other day the video began to shift and jump
in the most annoying manner... I fear the video card
is close to death, and I got the internet bill the other
day, so I now know what "nifties" I'll be
putting my paycheck to! I'm sure I'll get some'n frivolous
as well.
I put a TV Capture card in the HP and converted it into
a media center, and then ran it through the VRC so I
can convert VHS or Cable TV into a digital file. I've
also been learning to edit video so I can take commercials
out and such, so I've been rapidly filling up my drives
as I collect all my favorite programs.
Carrie
called last night and asked if I could teach origami
for the art teacher in Hanover... it was phrased much
more as a "when could you" because I think
she kinda pre-volunteered me to do it, and to talk about
the history of it. They've already learned the crane
so I'll have to ponder what should come next, and maybe
take some of my more complicated things and books.