points out many errors in the climate study sited by
many environmentalists over
the last several years. We still don’t know if this
data is the final word, but it seems like it’s MUCH more
accurate than the original study. What can we learn from
this? Well, it shows that the effects man has on the
planet pale by comparison to natural occurrences.
I do not like it when animals become extinct. I want clean
water and air. We should (as individuals and countries)
do our part to keep our environment habitable for us and
the plants and animals that share our environment. But
we should also use common sense and logic to make decisions
instead of emotion. Stopping the construction of a dam to
save one species of minnow does not make sense to me. I am
not anti-minnow, but I am pro-human. And since we are a
product of nature nothing we do is unnatural. Yes, we humans
change our environment. That doesn’t mean we are evil or
unnatural. Yes, we cause the extinction of some species.
But species have been going extinct due to environmental
factors since life on Earth began.
Oh, and movie Matrix Revolutions just started showing
all over the world. Now that's Earth-shattering news. There's
no way it can live up to the hype, but what movie could.
October 27, 2003
Hello, my name is Scott and I am addicted to
Yu-Gi-Oh.
I have to admit I am really enjoying playing Yu-Gi-Oh.
When I started playing Yu-Gi-Oh with Kyle I did it because
Kyle enjoyed it, not because I enjoyed it. But after a
few months, I got hooked. What hooked me was when I
started building a Toon Deck last week. I put a lot of
thought into it and made adjustments after getting trounced
repeatedly by Kyle and the other kids at the game store
we pay at on Saturdays. (By the way – Toon Decks aren’t
very good. I found that out the hard way.)
Yu-Gi-Oh is like a card game version of chess in which you
get to choose your own pieces by picking 40 to 50 cards from
the hundreds of cards that have been published. Each kind
of card has it’s own unique set of properties. The cards
are divided into three types: Monster, Magic, and Trap.
Within each card type, there are several sub-types. The
cards are sold in starter decks, booster packs, and collector
tins. Each booster pack costs about $4 and contains 9 cards.
Some cards are extremely rare, so to get them you either
have to buy a lot of booster packs or buy them as single cards
from a game store or from the internet. The rarest cards
sell for $50 or more when they are sold as singles.
I don’t know how long the Yu-Gi-Oh phenomenon will last,
but I believe that Yu-Gi-Oh-like phenomenons will be around
forever. They combine many different forms of entertainment
(cartoons, comics, video games, card games, collectables)
into a single experience that transcends any single experience
and can attract and sustain the attention of a broad range
of people. Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely dominated by boys between
the ages of 7 and 15, but there are the odd exceptions like
myself who get drawn into the experience and wind up
liking it.
October 24, 2003
Baby Scorpion Update: The baby scorpions are doing great.
I have lost a few, but most are now thriving. I was worried
for a couple of weeks, because they did not seem to be eating
well. I had been chopping up mealworms for them, which some
of them did feed on, but not very well. But yesterday, I
gave them a few small live crickets and within 12 hours they
had eaten all of them. I got the smallest crickets the pet
store had, but they are still 5 times larger than the baby
scorpions. I was a little concerned that the crickets
(which are omnivorous) would eat the scorpions, but those
baby scorpions are tough little characters. They cooperate
(possibly unintentionally) to subdue and eat the crickets.
Two to three scorpions feed on a single cricket. Now I feel
confident that most all of the scorpions will survive to
adulthood. The mother scorpion is still doing fine. These
scorpions live about three years, so I suspect the mother
(who is full grown) only has 6 or 8 months left.
October 23, 2003
Here is an interesting article about methane releases
causing ships to sink. This may explain the mysterious
Bermuda Triangle. It underscores my belief that there
is still a lot about the world we live in that we don’t
understand. Some scientists believe that extremely
large methane released may have been the reason for past
mass extinctions. It’s kind of scary to think that another
massive release could happen at any time. Kind of reminds
me of some people I know.
Does anyone remember when you used to say, “I wonder what
ever happened to that guy that played Oscar on the Six
Million Dollar Man? What was his name?” Questions like
that have pretty much become extinct due to the Internet.
There are no unanswered questions anymore. Google knows
all and sees all. I guess that’s a good thing. But I
remember the main reason I was interested in science as a
child was that I had unanswered questions. I had questions
that the people around me (even the adults) did not know
the answers to. This encouraged me to seek out answers
on my own. I experimented. I observed. I craved knowledge.
This (and many other factors) let me to a career in engineering.
I wonder if I would have been as curious if every question I
could ask could be answered by doing a search on Google.
Maybe we need unanswered questions. Maybe answering,
“I don’t know.” to your child every once and a while is a
good thing, even if you do know.
October 11, 2003
I had a busy and productive day today. This morning while the
kids were having Spanish lessons, I went out and bought
a new power supply for Kyle’s computer, picked up some
flush mount halogen ceiling lights I ordered a few weeks
ago, and bought some mealworms for my baby scorpions.
I then came back home and replaced the power supply in
Kyle’s computer and replaced the light in the kid’s room.
Then Kyle and I went to the game shop that hosts Yu-Gi-Oh
tournaments on Saturdays. Kyle played several games.
We came back home after a couple of hours. Tess, her
Mom and Nicole went out shopping and Kyle and I cut up
some mealworms to feed the baby scorpions and replaced
the light in Tess’s office.
October 10, 2003
So, Rush Limbaugh is addicted to painkillers.
I wish he had admitted it when the news first broke
instead of waiting a week. I’m surprised someone
with Rush’s personality and opinions would become
addicted to drugs and stay addicted for five years.
I know enough about morphine-like painkillers to
know you don’t take them for extended periods of time.
This incident will certainly raise questions Rush’s
judgment or lack thereof. And it should. I’m sure
Rush’s own words about Clinton (and others) will come back to
haunt him.
October 8, 2003
Well, I’m glad a republican won California’s gubernatorial
election. I’m a big fan of Arnold. I’m sure he’ll be an
entertaining governor. And I’m sure he’ll be better for
California’s economy than Davis was. Davis really screwed
California. There’s no way Arnold can be any worse. And
I suspect he’ll do a lot of work to reduce California’s
taxes, balance the budget, and bring business back to the
state. He may not be the best man for the job, but I’m
sure he’ll be better than Davis. Everyone in the US should
care about California’s economy because it’s a significant
chunk of the US economy.
It was on this date in 1918 that Alvin C. York participated
in the killing of over 20 Germans and the capture of 132 –
for which he received the metal of honor. If you read his
diary entry that describes the day, you will see he regretted
killing and only did it to save himself and his comrades.
Mr. York was just an average American who did not even want
to enter World War I. We enjoy the freedom we have today
in the US because of men and women like Mr. York. All
veterans are heroes as far as I’m concerned.
October 6, 2003
Today I discovered that I participate in an activity
dominated by teenage girls – blogging.
Although teenage girls create more blogs than any other group,
they tend not to maintain them once they create them.
I suspect that active blogs are dominated by techno-savvy
males between the ages of 20 and 40. And that’s the
group that really matters. Blogs that aren’t maintained
might as well not exist (or be counted).
October 2, 2003
I suspect the news about Rush Limbaugh being addicted
to pain pills is true. I think it’s true based on his
public statement about the issue. He said he would
cooperate with any investigations. After listening
to Rush periodically for years, I think he would have
said the claims were completely untrue if they were.
He has not said that. If he’s guilty, I hope he
admits his mistake quickly and accepts full responsibility.
If he tries to worm out of it (a la Clinton), everything
he has ever said will come into question. Either way,
he’s in big trouble, unless he’s totally innocent. But
based on his “I will cooperate” statement, I doubt he is
innocent. It could just be the end of his long and
successful career. I bet Rush's ratings are going to
be through the roof for the next few weeks.
September 30, 2003
I met Glenn Beck today at a book signing for his book
The Real America. I had to pass right by the bookstore
he was at as I was coming back from an appointment. So
I decided to stop by. The book signing was scheduled to
begin at 7:00 pm, but being the genius that I am (and
being in the neighborhood) I stopped by at 5:00 pm.
And it worked out perfectly. As he was coming out the
door to grab some food before the signing, I snagged him.
I shook his hand and said “Hi ya sick freak.” (He calls
all his regular listeners “sick freaks”.) He smiled and
said “Hi, how are you doing.” I then went on to say that
I really loved what he did on his show and that I thought
his show was the funnies stuff I have ever heard on the
radio. His wife (I think it was his wife) then asked,
“So, are you going to buy Glenn’s book?” I said, “No,
I’m not buying your stinking book.” (Glenn uses the word
“stinking” a lot, so it was kind of inside-talk. I’m sure
the non-fans around thought I was being extremely rude,
but I was just talking in Glenn-speak.) Glenn’s wife
then asked why and I said that I just don’t read much.
I could have also said that I’m not into buying books
just to get an autograph of a radio personality, but my
better judgment took over. After telling Glenn again how
much I liked the show and how smart I thought he was, I
made for the exit. Glenn was a very nice guy and I think
he really enjoyed the encounter. But he could have despised
every moment of being in my presences and was just being
polite. Either way, I was glad to express my praise for
the work he does.
September 29, 2003
Sun Microsystems
is in trouble. I saw Sun’s demise
coming over 3 years ago. If I had had the nerve to
short the stock back then, I’d have big pile of cash
right now. I knew that the combination of Intel + Linux +
Microsoft would spell disaster for Sun’s high-end server
business. I applaud Sun for its creation of Java.
But there is no way Sun can make much money from Java.
I’d bet that within a couple of years, IBM will own Java.
IBM will either buy Sun outright or just become the
dominant Java player by pouring money into Java R&D.
Sun has no one to blame but itself. For years Sun had
the attitude that it was untouchable in the Unix Server
market. It laughed at Microsoft and Linux. It’s not
laughing now. It will be interesting to see exactly
how Sun’s collapse takes place. I would like to see
IBM buy Sun, but that’s probably not going to happen.
IBM is smarter than that. They can simply wait for Sun
to dry up and blow away. Then IBM will simply fill
the void.
September 28, 2003
When I checked the scorpions today, I noticed that
all the babies were off their mom’s back, so I
separated the mother into a separate habitat. They
all seem to be doing fine. The babies are tiny, but
several were walking around just like perfect miniature
versions of their mom. The babies are now 16 days old.
September 24, 2003
I never thought I’d say this, but it turns out I
do have something in common with Barbra Streisand:
We are both bored by her songs.
September 23, 2003
Today I accompanied Kyle and his classmates on a field
trip to the Chattahoochee Nature Center. The CNC in decent,
but it suffers from being in the middle of an urban area.
There really isn’t much real nature to see there. If it
weren’t for the animals that are being house there due to
injuries, there would have been no “wildlife” to see except
for a few turtles and a couple of spiders. It does give
city kids a window into the natural world without having
to travel very far, but it is a far cry from the nature
to be seen in places like The Okefinokee Swamp or the
Everglades.
September 17, 2003
Here is an amusing article about a high school student who built a
fusion reactor. He is quoted as saying “I bet I'm the only high
school student that has one.” Yeh, I bet there aren’t
many college students with one of these either. I wouldn’t
even want to stand close to one of those.
Here’s another news story about an issue near and dear
to my heart: You really don’t know what you are doing
(with regard to a software development project) until you
start implementing it. Sometimes, you encounter minor
issues. Other times, you encounter issues that make you
rethink your entire design. This is what I like about Agile
Development: It doesn’t risk everything on a single
all-encompassing (rigid) design. I think that’s one of the
primary advantages of Open Source software development
as well. The software IS the design. If it (the software)
doesn’t work, eventually it will be replaced that an
implementation that will. Of course, Agile Development
is not a panacea. The Agile Development approach brings with it it's
own unique challenges. But it’s a great way to avoid overruns
due to designing a system that looks great on paper,
but can’t be realized within the constraints of the project.
September 15, 2003
I had an interesting experience today. I had some very
minor oral surgery scheduled for today and I requested
Nitrous Oxide because I had never tried it before and I
was curious. Well, I got to try the NO, and my surgery
was deemed unnecessary at the last minute, so I got the
NO without having to go under the knife.
It was a pleasant, but strange experience. It did not
make me laugh. It was pleasant, but not overwhelmingly
pleasant. It made me feel drunk. In fact, I think I
even have a slight hangover from it. I’m not really
sure. It’s not nearly as bad as an alcohol hangover,
but I don’t quite feel 100%, and it’s the only thing
I can attribute it to.
I would probably request it again if given the opportunity,
because it really does make you feel relaxed. At the time
the doctor decided the surgery wasn’t necessary, I was a
little disappointed, because I wanted to stay under the gas.
September 13, 2003
Here are some pictures of my scorpion that
recently had babies. Pretty good pictures,
considering the fact that the mother is so
small, it could easily sit on a Nickle.
September 12, 2003
One of the most exciting things to happen in the
Smith household in quite a while happened yesterday.
My little brown scorpion had babies. I had thought
she was fat, but I did not suspect she was pregnant.
I didn’t even know it was a she until I noticed
lots of little white baby scorpions riding on her
back this morning. I caught this scorpion in my
kitchen back in May of this year. I’ll try to get
some pictures of it up on my web site soon.
Here's a couple of great scorpion links:
The Scorpions
Scorpion Resources
September 9, 2003
Today is the anniversary of the first actual computer
bug being found. The early computer operators
(and other kinds of equipment operators)
would joke about a bug being in the machine
whenever it didn’t act as expected. Then on
September 9, 1945, they actually found a moth
inside one of the computers at Harvard.
August 28, 2003
A few days ago I heard on the radio that a formal
scientific study has shown that there is absolutely
no validity to astrology. Of course, being the
logical Scorpio that I am, I already knew that.
August 27, 2003
I had a weird dream last night. I dreamed I was at
my late Grandmother’s house with the kids. We saw a
boy there that seemed ghostly. He had blond hair and
somehow seemed like a ghost. He did not speak, but
wanted to play with the kids. Later in the dream I
was describing the incident to someone that lived nearby.
They said, “You must have been dreaming.” I realized
that I must have been dreaming, but I did not realize
I was still in my dream. Weird.
Every once in a while, I realize I am dreaming. It’s
really cool, because I can consciously control what
happens in the dream. I usually wake up shortly thereafter
because it’s hard to maintain that conscious awareness
within a dream without becoming conscious (awake).
August 22, 2003
My least favorite time of year is quickly approaching.
As I’ve said here before - I’ve never liked the Fall.
The site of the leaves turning brown and falling seem
so morbid to me. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer
to live in subtropical regions like Southern Georgia
(like Savannah where I was born) or Florida. It does
get cold in Savannah in Winter, but the majority of the
trees there don’t drop their leaves in the Fall, so you
hardly notice the ones that do.
Not much has been happening lately, so I haven’t been
posting. We are all consumed with the daily activities
of life: work and school. I’m not complaining. Working
is much better than the alternative. Even when I have
enough money to never have to work, I will still work.
I would decay into a lifeless blob without having
something to do every day.
August 13, 2003
Kyle's first day of first grade was today.
He told me that his teacher is “very serious”
about staying in line.
August 12, 2003
I've been pretty bad about updating my website the
last couple of weeks. I just now got around to
entering a description of our vacation to Massachusetts.
I think the vacation is one of the reasons I haven't
had the time to update my web site. I've been playing
catch-up trying do the things that piled up while we
were gone.
Nicole's first day of school was Monday. Kyle will
have his first day of First Grade tomorrow.
August 10, 2003
My mom and stepfather were in Atlanta for a wedding
yesterday and they stopped by today. My sister, Kristen
and her husband, JP came over from Athens Georgia with
their new baby, Sophie . We had some quality family time.
August 2, 2003
We took our time eating breakfast and packing up before
our long trip to Atlanta. We said goodbye to the Sons of
Mary, then went to Kay's apartment to get a few things we
had left there. We then set off to Atlanta. We drove
until about 10:00 pm. We spent the night in a motel in
Virginia. We set off at about 11:00 am the next morning
and due to bad traffic in and around Washington DC, we
didn't get back home until about 4:00 am on the morning of
the third. It was a fun trip.
August 1, 2003
After all the running around we had been doing,
we decided to stay put for a day before we had to make
the long drive back to Atlanta. Tess wanted to prepare
a meal for everyone, so she went shopping. Kay picked
the kids up and took them shopping while Tess spent the
day in the kitchen. We all had a great meal that night
and I helped clean up the kitchen afterward.
July 31, 2003
The next day we went to Salem. We visited the Peabody Essex
Museum there. It's a a very good art and furniture museum,
but I prefer natural history museums myself. After the museum,
we went by one of the Salem witch houses, but it had just
closed so we couldn't go in. We drove back to Framingham
and Kay took the kids out toy shopping while Tess and I went
to yet another Irish restaurant with Brother Kevin. I had
the best bowl of clam chowder I ever had and a very nice cur
of prime rib. Tess had a seafood platter that included half
a lobster. Yum, yum.
July 30, 2003
The next day, Kay accompanied us to The New England Aquarium.
It was a decent aquarium (but not as nice as the Sydney
Aquarium in Australia). They had a very nice penguin exhibit
and a nice sea lion show. Another notable feature was a large
cylindrical salt water tank that was three stories tall where
we watched dives feed the fish. My only complaint is that is
cost my $30 to park in the parking deck next to the aquarium.
Yikes!
After leaving the aquarium, we returned to the Sons of Mary.
That night we went out to eat again. We went to an upscale
steak place that had a talking buffalo head on the wall.
They also had talking geese and a talking fish. The kids
loved it and the food was excellent.
July 29, 2003
Upon arriving at the Sons of Mary, Brother Kevin greeted us
warmly. You can see part of the house that Brother Kevin
lives in at the bottom left corner of
this aerial picture
I found on the City of Framingham's web site.
Our first day in Framingham was spent talking and eating.
In the evening, Brother Kevin and Father John Coss accompanied
us to a local Irish pub where we ate and drank.
July 28, 2003
We arrived at Kay's apartment at about 6:00 am in the
morning after driving all night. Tess drove for the first
5 hours, and I drove the rest of the way. Driving at night
is great for the kids because they get to sleep the whole
way. But it's hard on the driver. After getting to Kay's
house, I collapsed and slept for a few hours. After
recuperating, we all went to see the Sons of Mary. The
Sons of Mary are catholic missionaries (priests and brothers)
that Tess and Kay met while they were attending college in Manila.
Father John Coss (of the Sons of Mary) married Tess and I
back in 1995 in Manila. The Sons of Mary headquarters is
in Framingham. Kay's apartment is just a few miles from
their place. They graciously allowed us to stay with them
while we were in Framingham.
July 27, 2003
After getting up and getting dressed, we went to a very
nice Italian restaurant for brunch. We then returned to
Wally and Becky's house to pack our things and set off for
Framingham Massachusetts.
July 26, 2003
Wally is a cardiologist who specializes in shunts and
angioplasty. He had to check up on a few patients in the
morning, but he was back by about 11:00 am. After Wally
got back, we all piled into the cars and went to a nice
Chinese restaurant for lunch. After lunch, we walked around
a little then continued on to a nearby pool. The pool was
more like a small water park. If you aren't a member you
have to pay to get in. It had an Olympic pool and a large
children's pool just as big as the Olympic pool. The children's
pool had a 15 foot tall water slide that was a lot of fun.
Kyle and I spent most of our time going down the slide.
Nicole napped for quite a while, but she eventually woke up
and joined Kyle and I at the pool. I took her down the slide
a couple of times, but she really didn't like it very much.
July 25, 2003
We left today for a mini-vacation up to Massachusetts
to visit Tess's sister, Kay. We decided to drive in order
to stop by Tess's cousin's house in Raleigh North Carolina.
The drive to NC was uneventful. We left Atlanta at around
6:00 pm and arrived in Raleigh at about 2:00 am. We work
Wally and Becky up, but they were still glad to see us.
Wally and Becky have FOUR cute kids ranging in age from
7 to 1 years old.
July 24, 2003
I just bought a used copy of StarTrek: Nenesis. I
never went to the theater to see it. I think it’s
the first Star Trek movie I didn’t go see at the theater.
I thought Nemesis was very good (for a Star Trek movie),
but since I’ve seen so much of TNG (and Star Trek in
general), I didn’t really enjoy watching it that much.
These days, I find myself watching Star Trek movies for
the special effects, rather than the story or performances.
I know all the characters (and actors) so well, that I
take their performances for granted. I know the story
lines so well that it’s hard for me to get involved in
the story line. I also think I’ve been spoiled by the
long story arcs and character development that the TV
series offer. A single 2-hour movie can’t come close
to matching the depth and breadth that a TV series can
provide. When I watch a Star Trek movie, I feel like
I’m watching the Cliff Notes version of the TV show.
I hope that Nemesis is that last Star Trek movie with the
TNG cast. The movie I really want to see would be a 2 or
3 part movie series involving casts from multiple TV shows.
I continue to watch the current series, Enterprise. I
have watched Star Trek since before I could talk. I was
born in November 1965 and Star Trek’s first episode aired
in September of 1966. I don’t know exactly when I started
watching, but my Grandmother told me that when she babysat
me, I would point to the TV when Star Trek came on. That
was before I learned to talk. So Star Trek holds a special
place in my heart. I think one of the many reasons I
choose engineering as a career was the early influence of
Star Trek. I always identified with Spock (the Science
Officer) and Scotty (the Engineering Officer) more
than the captain.
July 22, 2003
They lived by the sword. Now they
die by the sword.
Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay are no more.
July 21, 2003
It looks like more and more software development jobs
are being sent overseas. This trend will certainly
have a lasting impact on software developers here in
the US. I think this outsourcing of development is
here to stay. The US economy is becoming more and more
global.
But it’s not all bad. I think this trend
will improve the quality of the remaining US developers.
The mediocre developers will be forced to find other
types of work. I remember back in the wild days of the
Internet Bubble (just 5 years ago), it was extremely
difficult to find good developers. Everyone and their
brother had become a software engineer overnight.
There were many people entering the field that really
had no business being there.
There will always be a need for software developers in
the US. For smaller projects it is not economically
feasible to hire developers an ocean away. There is
considerable overhead and risk in outsourcing development
to a group of engineers half way around the world. For
large projects with long lifecycles, it does make sense.
But you still need IT managers here to define and assign
tasks, and oversee the effort (and check the grammar).
There will be many IT support jobs shipped overseas as
well. And that’s probably a good thing. Not many Americans
are satisfied sitting in a cube answering support calls
all day. It’s not something many people want to do.
I don’t think I would recommend that young people choose
a profession in IT right now. I think it’s better to do
something that requires person-to-person contact, such as
Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry, etc. Five years ago, I
never thought I’d say that. But nothing lasts forever.
July 18, 2003
I guess I’ll have to stop writing about all
the positive health affects of aspirin.
New benefits are emerging almost every week.
The latest news is that aspirin reduces the
risk of severe infection and
breast cancer.
As I have stated before here, I take one 325mg
aspirin a day. I have seen some studies that
indicate that a smaller does might not be
affective for all people. I have not had any
ill affects so far, so I plan on continuing to
take the larger dose.
July 14, 2003
Wow, wow, wow. I just listened to the audio of a
lecture given by Stephen Wolfram concerning the
topics of his one-year-old book A New Kind of
Science. I am blown away by what he said.
Wolfram is a modern day Isaac Newton. I think
his theories will revolutionize Physics, Chemistry,
Biology, and Mathematics (and just about everything else).
What he has to say has enormous implications. However,
it does take some knowledge of mathematics and algorithms
to understand what he is saying.
I have not read his book because it is so overwhelming.
After hearing him speak, I may have to go buy it. I am
also tempted to create a page (or two or three) on this
site to try to bring more attention to this subject.
Wolfram’s ideas are going to take decades to be digested.
We are witnessing a revolution. And I didn’t even realize
it until I heard him talk.
While hearing Wolfram talk, I couldn’t help but think
that Einstein was right when he said, “God does not play
dice with the Universe.” Einstein devoted the last several
years of his life to developing a grand unified theory
that would explain physical observations without resulting
to the randomness exhibited in Quantum Mechanics. I believe
Wolfram’s research will lead to such a theory.
Please see this site for more information.
The audio lecture can be heard here.
And here is a video of another lecture
given to a more technical audience.
Update: Upon further research, I have found many negative reviews
of Wolfram’s book.
July 12, 2003
I find this story very amusing.
It’s supposed to offer advise on how to combat spam.
But the author starts out by saying he receives 200
spam messages a day. Does anybody really want to
take advice regarding spam from someone who gets 200
spam messages a day? He does make some good points,
but he says some stupid things too.
He states “The program has filtered thousands of pieces
of spam since I installed it a month ago, and has only
stopped a few messages that I considered to be legitimate.
When that happens, you highlight the message and click
the "unjunk" button and the message is moved into your
in box and the sender is added to a "white list" so that
the mail will no longer be blocked.”
So what he is saying is: you still have to look through
all the junk so you don’t miss any real messages. This
is not a workable solution. I get an average of 3 junk
emails a week. When I start getting too many, I simply
change my email address. He mentions temporary email
addresses, but I guess he doesn’t use them himself.
But temporary email addresses are not enough. You have
to avoid getting your email address on web sites.
Spammers most often get email addresses by scanning web
sites with an email address harvesting program.
This period of history will be remembered as “the old west”
period of the Internet. It’s really amazing how unregulated
and free-spirited the Internet is today. It’s what has made
the Internet so successful. But I don’t think this free
spiritedness will last. Just like the Wild West, eventually
the Internet will become tamed. But I’m not sure if that’s
a good thing.
July 11, 2003
I have always been suspicious of “credit counseling services”.
In the past couple of years, their radio ads and unsolicited phone
calls have become pervasive. We have excellent credit and no
bad debt, so they obviously aren’t too discreminant about who
they call. I did not realize just how
unscrupulous those guys were
until I did a Google search this morning. Tess recently told me
that a friend of hers had an entry put on her credit report just because
she talked to one of these “non profit” credit counselors. So people
wind up hurting their credit score just be talking to them. That old
expression is so true: “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”
July 10, 2003
I have to say I am not overjoyed by the performance of
my recently purchased
Moquito Magnet. It did catch 10
or 20 mosquitoes the first night it was out, but since
then it has only caught about 5 mosquitoes. And it’s
not as though we have run out of mosquitoes. We still
have plenty in our back yard. But they are ignoring the
$300 machine. It’s supposed to protect half as acre.
If I go and stand next to it, a mosquito (or two or three)
will flock right to me within a few seconds. But I see
none flying around the Mosquito Magnet. They say it
takes 4 to 6 weeks to cause a “collapse in the mosquito
population.” We’ll see.
I have started using Ximian Evolution (on Red Hat Linux 8) as my
email client and Personal Information Manager. I have
used Outlook Express for years, but I would really like
to use Linux as my desktop platform if possible. The
work being done by Sun (OpenOffice)
and other are making that an option for me now.
We’ll see how it goes. I hope I can stay with Ximian,
but old habits are hard to break.
July 8, 2003
As of today, Tess and I have been married 8 years. But I remember the
heat of being in a tuxedo in Manila in July like it was yesterday.
Tess and I were introduced to each other by a mutual friend. We dated for
several years before tying the knot. A few weeks before the religious ceremony
in Manila we got married by a Justice of the Peace to make sure we didn't have
any immigration issues upon our return. But we consider our religious ceremony
on July 8, 1995 our official wedding date.
July 7, 2003
Over the weekend we took a mini-vacation to
Stephan C. Foster State Park.
We went to the park last year and
decided to go back this year because we enjoyed it so
much. We drove down on Friday (July 4th). We arrived
at about 5:59 pm and the park office closes at 6:00 pm.
But it really isn’t a big deal to arrive after six.
You just check in at the office in the morning to pay.
You just have to get there before the park gates close
at 8:30 pm.
Upon our arrival we picked a campsite and setup camp.
While looking for a campsite we saw two adult whitetail
deer. They seemed very accustomed to people and cars.
They hardly paid any attention to us.
As usual we packed pretty heavy. We had our large tent,
and a screen house to protect us from the yellow (biting)
flies and mosquitoes. Even though we had the tent, screen
house, and insect repellent, we still got a lot of mosquito
bites. The mosquitoes there are really heavy. Next time
we go back it will be in early Spring to avoid the insects.
I didn’t sleep too well the first night. I usually have
a hard time sleeping on the hard ground inside a tent.
We brought an air mattress, but it wasn’t a very good one
and it deflated within a couple of hours. In the morning,
we ate and then went to the office to rent a boat. We spent
over 4 hours on the water. We went to Billy’s Island where
some American Indians used to live and where there was a
logging camp (really a small city) at the turn of the century.
There was a very small graveyard on the Island. It was fenced
off so we couldn’t go inside. But I was able to read the
gravestone on one of the graves. It was the grade of a young
woman who had died at age 17. Life sure was hard back then.
There were lots of butterflies on the island. They were
getting minerals from the ground. They would flock together
in groups to drink the moisture from the ground. After leaving
Billy’s Island we went to a rest area near a small Lake.
There, we saw more butterflies and some really large spiders
and a blue-tailed skink. We stayed for a few minutes to eat,
then got back on the water. Along the way back to the dock we
saw several medium sized alligators. We stopped near one that
let us get really close. He must have been used to people
because he stayed within a few feet of our boat. He was watching
us close, but did not seem scared.
After the boat trip we went back to camp to eat and take a
siesta. It was hot. We had a fan in the tent, which helped
but it was still very hot.
After our siesta, I took the kids to the playground. Just after
we arrived at the playground, Kyle saw a snake. It was a gray
rat snake about three feet long. I picked it up to let the kids
see it up close and touch it. I shouldn’t have done that. You
are not supposed to touch any wildlife at the park. But I don’t
think they care if you kill mosquitoes. It started raining so we
headed back to camp. The women (Tess and her mom) prepared supper.
We ate and went to bed. I slept very well that night. I guess I
was so tired from the day’s activities that the hard ground didn’t
bother me.
The next morning, after eating and taking showers, Tess and her
mom took the kids back to the playground while I packed up. We
met up at the playground and them proceeded to the nature trail.
The heat and insects made the nature trail hard to enjoy. The kids
got tired pretty quickly. We went back to the office. I walked
back to camp, got the car and drove back to the office. We then
all got in the car and headed back to Marietta.
On the way back home something really funny happened.
Kyle started asking me how much longer it would take.
He kept asking me and asking me and asking me every couple
of minutes or so. So I finally had to tell him to stop
asking how long it would take. After I told him, a couple
of minutes passed, and then he asked, “Dad, does this place
look familiar to you?” I said yes, I’ve driven this way
before and it looked familiar. He then asked, “When you
were here before, do you remember how long it took you to
get back home from here?” Tess at I looked at each other
and started laughing. We have a very smart six year old.
I enjoyed the first couple of hours of the drive because it took
us through many small towns. We got back home a little after
10:00 pm. It’s always nice to get back home after a vacation.
It was especially nice to have air conditioning and a soft bed
to sleep in.
You can see the pictures
here.
July 1, 2003
For the last month or so, Kyle and I have been spending
a lot of our time together playing
Yu-Gi-Oh.
If you have a young son, then you already know what Yu-Gi-Oh is.
But for those of you who don't…
Yu-Gi-Oh is card game invented in Japan. There is also
a cartoon show that is based on the game. It’s a surprisingly
complex game. I’ve been playing it with Kyle for about a
month now and I still don’t know all there is to know.
There is hundreds (maybe thousands) of card each of which
have unique properties. Some of the best (most powerful)
cards are extremely rare. There is a game store near out
house that has some cards priced at $50. Cards are sold
in “Starter Packs” that have 50 cards and in “Booster Packs”
that contain 9 cards. The designers of the game really knew
what they were doing. The rarity of some of the cards
encourages you buy many booster.
After learning the game, I must admit that I do enjoy
playing it. Kyle is quite obsessed with it. But I hope
this is a fad that fades quickly. I don’t like the addictive
aspects of the game that encourage kids to keep buying more
and more cards.
June 30, 2003
I sold my lot in Ellijay today. The person I sold it to
is planning on building on it ASAP. I hope he enjoys it.
I held it for over ten years. About two years ago I
came to the conclusion that I would most likely never
build on it. It took me a little over a year to sell it.
I tried a real estate agent first. It was listed with her
for six months, but it really wasn’t worth her time to put
much effort into selling it. So I decided I could do better
on my own. I created a Google Ad and I started getting
inquires almost immediately. I would highly recommend Google
Adwords to anyone. The only problem is that your keywords
need to be very specific. It’s not well suited to sell some
things, but it worked well for me.
June 29, 2003
Yesterday I bought a Moquito Magnet.
During the first 24 hours it caught about 20 or 30 mosquitoes.
We have a lot of trees and bushes in our back yard that
are loaded with mosquitoes. Every time I go out there
I get swarmed within a couple of minutes. I’ll post
updates as to its effect on the mosquito population
around my house as events warrant.
June 27, 2003
Tess and I refinanced our house today. We got a rate
of 5.5% with no closing costs. When we refinanced 3
years ago at 6.625% I thought that was the last time
we’d be refinancing our home. It’s truly amazing how
low interest rates are now. We could have done a 5%
if we paid closing, but I really didn’t want to fork
out four or five thousand dollars. I’m happy. We
took about $250 off of our monthly mortgage payment and
it didn’t cost us a dime.
We got the loan through Josh Moffitt at
Silverton Mortgage
and we used my favorite closing attorney, Curren Bowen of
Sturgeon, Harbin & Bowen, LLC.
I highly recommend both of them.
June 22, 2003
I took the kids to see my sister’s new baby today.
You can see pictures from the trip
here.
June 16, 2003
I just read a new report that found that women that
take aspirin often had a 50% lower risk of developing
adult leukemia. Amazing. I think it’s just a matter
of time that aspirin is added to multivitamins. It
seems anti-inflammatory chemicals have broad benefits
throughout the body. The inflammatory system evolved
to protect us from acute and mostly severe assaults
to our bodies. It seems the inflammatory system
produces many undesirable side affects that were
tolerated by evolution due to the overwhelmingly positive
survival benefits it offered. Now that we live so long,
the cumulative adverse affects of our own defenses become
significant. I wonder if families with extraordinary
life spans have reduced inflammatory response. I’d bet
some do.
We bought a digital camera yesterday. It’s an HP 850.
It’s a 4.1 megapixel camera with a decent lens. This
is the first digital camera I have owned. I always
wait before jumping on any given technology. I’ve
found it takes 2 to 4 years for the kinks to be worked
out of any new technology. For someone like myself,
who maintains a personal web site and it an avid computer
enthusiast, a digital camera is a sweet sweet toy to
have. I think I’ll be expanding the Pictures section
of my web site. Since I host this site at home on my
own machine, there is no limit to the number of pictures
I can put on the site. I’m only limited by the size
of my hard drive.
June 14, 2003
"From each according to his ability; to each according to his need."
You might think the quote comes from the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
It actually is Karl Marx's famous communist slogan. It’s funny that this describes
the US tax system so well. Maybe we lost the Cold War and don’t even know it.
June 13, 2003
I'm proud to announce the recent arrivals of a new niece and
nephew this week. Tess’s brother and his wife welcomed
Francis Burton Tanchuling into the world on the seventh. Then today my sister Kristen
and her husband welcomed their daughter Sophie into the world. Everyone’s
having babies.
June 5, 2003
I stayed up late last night fooling around with my
RedHat Linux 8 box. I setup Samba so I could access
the Linux disk from my Windows machines. When I finished
configuring Samba and started browsing the disk from
Windows I had to laugh. It’s so easy to work with Linux.
It works so well. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do.
Today I’m going upgrade it’s memory before transferring
this web site back to it. My Linux box only has 128MB of
RAM and it was having a hard time running JBoss.
After finishing with my Linux box late last night I dropped
a cricket in the scorpion’s container. I then sat there for
30 minutes to see it catch the cricket. It missed it several
times, but when it did finally catch it, it was an awesome
site to see. It turned, grabbed the cricket and stung it
all in about 0.25 seconds. It happened so fast that it was
hard to see. I don’t think watching lions in Africa take
down a gazelle would be any more exciting than that.
June 2, 2003
This past weekend was very eventful. On Thursday, my Aunt Kelly
visited with her husband Mark and her two sons, Dean and David.
They came up here to Atlanta (from Savannah) to go to Six Flags.
David has just graduated from 8th grade and Dean has just graduated
from high school. They ate supper with us Thursday evening.
It was a short, but nice visit.
Friday, my mom arrived. She stayed all weekend. On Saturday we
went to go see the new Pixar movie, Finding Nemo. I liked it, but
I don’t think it’s as good as their previous films. The story was
good, but the gags were limited due to its underwater setting.
On Sunday we went to the Atlanta Zoo. We had a great time. It was
a beautiful day. My favorite exhibits were the new Komodo Dragon
exhibit and the bat exhibit. We hadn’t been to the Zoo in over a
year, so it was very pleasant for all of us. The kids had fun.
It was a great weekend, but way too short.
May 30, 2003
Today was Kyle’s last day of Kindergarten. There was a mass
in the morning in which Kyle read a part of the second reading.
He did a great job and I was very proud of him. We got Kyle’s
Iowa Test scores back yesterday. Kyle scored in the 97th percentile
in Mathematics. He scored very well on the rest of the test too.
May 24, 2003
I feel like an underpaid system administrator.
I started the day by going to MicroCenter and getting some network cable,
a network switch and a couple of hard drives. I went back home and ran
the cable up in the attic to connect Tess’s new laptop to the LAN. Then I
put a new drive in Kyle’s computer. It was a very productive day.
Earlier in the day I saw one of the turtles that lives in our back yard.
Turtles must have excellent ability to detect movement, because he froze
almost the instant I stepped out on the back deck. I just saw a leave twitch
and that was it. If I had not had been looking in the right place, I would have
missed him entirely. He was under the leaf and impossible to see, even from
three feet away.
The scorpion is still doing fine. Scorpions are nocturnal. The one we have
hides under a piece of sponge all day, and then comes out at night. Last night
I checked on him, and I caught him walking around the container.
May 23, 2003
I have a lot to talk about today.
Yesterday, Kyle had his Kindergarten graduation ceremony.
It was nice. They sang some songs then picked up their diplomas.
Kyle went out drinking all night with some of his buddies.
(Just kidding.)
Today, we had Nicole’s end-of –year ceremony. She won’t “graduate”
from preschool until next year. All the kids were so cute.
They sang songs, then the 4-year-old class picked up their diplomas.
A few days ago, I found a small scorpion in the kitchen.
Yesterday, I took the kids to a local pet store and we bought a
small container and some small crickets for him to eat. We went
back home, set up his new home and put him inside along with the
crickets. He ignored the crickets all evening. The crickets
would climb right on him, and he would just ignore them. This
morning I looked in the container and there were no crickets.
During the night the scorpion had eaten all 5 crickets. I couldn’t
believe it. I thought the crickets must have been hiding under the
piece of wood or sponge. But no, they are gone. There is no
trace of them.
Yesterday, we added another computer to our household. We bought
a Toshiba laptop. It’s a 2GHz Celeron with 512 MB of RAM and a 40
GB hard drive. It’s a nice little machine. That brings the total
number of computer in this house to eight. Two of them belong to my
employer though.
May 21, 2003
Seems like it has been raining solid for the last month here in Atlanta.
We are now at a water surplus for the first time in about 5 years.
I'm glad I had my roof fixed recently. I'm really getting my money's worth.
May 18, 2003
Last night, while everyone else in the house was asleep, I snuck out and saw The Matrix Reloaded.
I liked it very much. It was everything I was expecting. I want to give my theory on how to interpret
what happened in the movie and what might happen in the next movie. If you have not seen the movie
yet, PLEASE don’t continue reading.
--------- MATRIX RELOADED SPOILERS AHEAD ---------
At the end of the movie, I think Neo realizes that the real world is actually still in The Matrix. The
computers created Zion to fool the few people that realize the world is not as it seems. The computers
allow these people to wake up into a second Matrix which keeps them satiated. They have had several
failed attempts and finally realized they needed several levels of nested Matrixes to keep the more
ambitious people occupied.
I do not think the architect cared which choice Neo made. Either way, the Matrix would provide a
suitable outcome to satisfy Neo. However, Neo did something unforeseen. He realized the real
world was not real. When he blasted the sentinels, he had realized the real world was not real.
I think Trinity might be a program designed to keep Neo occupied. Who knows, maybe Morpheous
is a program too. There’s no telling at this point. Maybe every real person becomes The One during
the course of his or her fantasy. Anything’s possible now.
I’m not sure how to interpret Neo’s comma. Maybe the computers need time to figure out how to
handle his unanticipated realization. Maybe Neo’s realization made him wake up in the REAL real
world.
I have some predictions for the third movie. I think that it will turn out that the computers really use
humans for their computing power, not as an energy source. The fake real world has humans being
used as an energy source to help hide the true nature of things. It might turn out that humans went
willingly into the Matrix because they preferred it to the real world. And the
computer/human war is just part of the fake real world’s back-story. I suspect that the REAL
real world is not ruined, but will instead turn out to be like a Garden of Eden. Who knows, at the
end of the next movie it might be Neo and Trinity alone in Eden.
It’s hard for me to see how all this is going to be resolved. If Neo wakes up in the REAL real world,
what can he do? If he is alone how can he make a difference? Maybe he will just seek out Trinity
and start over in Eden. Maybe in the REAL real world the computers have no weapons and will be
totally defenseless to Neo. I am very curious as to how it’s all going to turn out. And in the end, we
still might not even know if Neo is in the REAL real world or still in another nested level of the Matrix.
May 16, 2003
I just added lots of new pictures of
Kyle,
Nicole,
and our recent trip to the
Okefenokee.
May 15, 2003
The Matrix has you. You cannot be told what The Matrix is. You must see
it for yourself.
May 12, 2003
Today I feel talking about Object Oriented (OO) languages and code reuse.
About 5 years ago, one of the hottest topics in the software development
community was Object Reuse. Object Reuse refers to the ability of a software
developer to make use of existing code instead of having to develop everything
from scratch for each new project. As is common in many arenas, once something
comes to be, it’s no longer talked about. I can’t remember that last time I saw an
article regarding Object Reuse. It’s now passé.
The way Object Reuse has been realized is not exactly how I expected it to be
realized. The best examples of Object Reuse today can be seen the Open Source
Java movement and in the Java platform itself. We also have C++ Object Reuse
in the form of the Standard Template Libraries, but that pales in comparison to degree
of Object Reuse in the Java community. Some commercial companies have made
a go at providing reusable objects. The now non-existent TurboPower and the soon
to be non-existent RoqueWave Software come to mind. I think commercial ventures
aimed at providing reusable objects were doomed to failure once the Open Source
movement took off. People want free control and access to the code that implements
their system.
In the Java development community there are many examples of Object Reuse via
Open Source Java Projects (OSJPs). The JBoss and Jakarta projects are probably
the most well known examples of OSPJs. But there are hundreds of others out there.
Most of which provide high quality solutions to a variety of problems free of charge.
It seems like this is the future of software development. It’s an efficient and reliable
way to develop solutions. Any new language (like C#) has a very steep hill to climb
if it is to supplant Java. There is a huge amount of momentum built up in the hundreds
of Open Source Java Projects (OSJPs) that are out there. There is hardly any topic
for which there isn’t an associated OSJP. Communities of experts spring up around
these OSPJs to maintain them and answer questions for new users. Going forward, I
think this trend will only accelerate. The efficiency of these OSJPs makes them hard to
beat.
Java is well suited for the creating of Open Source projects. C++ on the other hand,
has a number of attributes that hinder code reuse. There is much more reusable C code
on the Internet than C++ code. But reusable C code tends to get reused at the
application level instead of at the API level. I’m sure the dominant computer languages
50 years from now will maximize code reuse. I don’t know what that language will be,
but I’m sure it will have many of the attributes of Java.
May 10, 2003
This week I added another computer to my home office. That
brings the total up to 5 computers in my office and 2 in
the kid’s room. The latest computer is a 200 MHz Sun Ultra2.
In it’s day, it was a mean machine. Now, one can be had for
under $300. But it can run the latest version of Solaris.
May 9, 2003
At the end of this month, it will be 20 years since I graduated
from high school. So to celebrate, I am going to add a page to
my web site dedicated to the Benedictine Military School Class
of 1983. I hope that my former classmates will find this site
and send me an email regarding their present whereabouts.
I have not maintained contact with any of my classmates from high
school. I’ve always been a loner. I have always had few close
friends. But I do get a little sentimental regarding my younger
days.
I led a double life during high school. I went to a Catholic
military high school. In school, I was a good kid. I did my
homework, followed the rules and made decent grades. Outside
of school (especially during the summer), I hung out with the
wrong crowd and did things that could have gotten me in a lot
of trouble. I was lucky to come out of my high school years
without any major scandals.
It just so happens that my cousin, Dean is graduating from
Benedictine exactly 20 years after I graduated.
May 8, 2003
For almost a year I have been out of the stock market. I made and
lost (what is to me) a great deal of money on the Internet bubble.
After the downturn, I decided to sit, watch and wait. Well last week
an opportunity too good to pass up came along. I’m proud to say that
I made almost 30% on my money in less than two weeks. Of course,
that’s before taxes. I bought some CMNT at 4.87 and just sold it at
6.2. I wish I had sold yesterday at 6.6, but I’m happy with my 27%
gain. If I could do that every two weeks, I’d be able to quit working.
It’s much easier said than done. I’ve always had my best luck in the
market by getting to know a few stocks very well, then waiting for an
opportunity to buy after the market overreacts. Even if I only have
3 or 4 of these trades a year, I’d be doing considerably better than
the market.
May 5, 2003
Here’s an ironic story for you. Last week I took the kids camping on some
property in South Georgia that my father owns. One of the highlights of the
camping experience was finding a small turtle. The kids had fun holding it
and watching it walk around. Well the day after we got back home, Kyle
was out back cutting some small trees with a hand saw, and Nicole and I
were up on the back deck supervising. And what did I see on the grass -
you guessed it - a turtle. Almost exactly the same size we saw while camping.
It’s still in our yard after 4 or 5 days. I think it’s looking for a site to lay eggs.
It’s that time of year. We don’t often see turtles in our yard, but it’s not the first
time. About 5 years ago I found a baby turtle in the yard. In the back of our
property there is a small rainwater runoff depression. It’s overgrown with bushes
and thorns. I think the turtles are coming from down there.
Yesterday, Kyle and I were doing some more yardwork and found ANOTHER turtle.
We now have (at least) two turtles making their way in the world in our backyard.
May 4, 2003
Tess strongly insisted that I do not have Asperger Syndrome.
I did not know that she has treated kids with Asperger Syndrome.
She is convinced I don’t have it. I guess I just have Nerd’s
Syndrome. It’s not that I want to have any syndrome. I don’t.
But when I see a description of something that seems to fit me,
I tend to self-diagnose. I have heard that nurses have the same
problems. They catch everything they study in nursing school.
I was out all day yesterday with some sort of stomach virus (or something).
It really knocked me down. It was hard just standing up. It was
short-lived though. Today, I feel almost back to normal.
May 2, 2003
I recently read an article that suggested that Einstein and Isaac Newton had Asperger Syndrome,
which is like a mild form of Autism. Based on the description of Asperger Syndrome,
I think I probably have some form
of that condition as well. Although I was diagnosed as having Dyslexia, I was never diagnosed with
Asperger Syndrome. Since I’ve never heard of it before, that doesn’t surprise me. One trait:
“sounding like a little professor” fits me perfectly. When I was a kid, some of my friends called me
“The Scientist”. I was proud of the nickname. Based on my own case, my guess is that the behaviors
associated with Asperger syndrome diminish with age. I am still not one for small talk, and I still
interact with other people in strange-not-quite-normal ways, but for the most part, I’m fairly normal -
whatever that means. I don’t really care too much for these very specific labels (Dyslexia, Asperger
syndrome, etc.). Human behavior is so complex and varied it defies labels. I guess we need labels
so we can talk about it easier, but there is so much variation within these conditions, it makes the
labels a little meaningless.
Now THIS is a US President to be proud of:
As opposed to:
May 1, 2003
It's 1:50 pm and I saw the first hummingbird of the season. It’s easy to miss them though,
so this may not actually be the first day they have come to the feeder. I hate to see those little
guys go. It means Winter is near, and I’m not a Winter person. I'm always glad to see them return
from their vacation in South America.
Now I’m going to talk about buying a machete. When we went camping last week with
my dad, his friend, Keith brought his machete to clear some brush. When I got back home,
I thought I would get one to clear brush in back of my house. My back yard is a natural area
with lots of trees and underbrush. Well I when to my local Army Navy surplus store and
bought the nicest machete they had. It was $22 and had a plastic handle with a hand guard.
I thought the hand guard would be a good idea. I thought it would protect my hand. Well it
actually turned out to be a bad idea. When I swung the machete at a large branch, I had a
loose grip on it and the force of the blow caused my pinky knuckle to hit the hand guard. I
thought I had broken a bone. As long as I keep my grip very tight, my knuckle doesn’t hit the
guard, but if I have a loose grid, I bang the hell out of my knuckle. For anyone wanting
advice on buying a machete, I would definitely recommend getting one without a hand guard.
April 29, 2003
There was a 4.9 magnitude earthquake this morning at 5 am in northwest Georgia.
It woke Tess up, but I slept right through it. I’ve wanted to experience a relatively big
earthquake for a while now. This one wasn’t very big, so I’m not disappointed I missed it.
I would rather have the sleep.
April 27, 2003
I was glad when morning came, but sorry that I had not slept. We rebuilt the fire to
warm us up then had a light breakfast. We then went back to the river, because Kyle
wanted to fish again. Kyle did a great job casting the fishing line, but the fish
would have no part of it. It was a beautiful day. We drove around the property a
little and saw the fox again. We also saw some wild turkeys and rabbits.
After packing up the tents, we sadly started back to Atlanta. We all had a great
time and I hope we can do a similar but longer trip this summer.
April 26, 2003
We woke up, ate, bathed, and dressed, then drove about 45 minutes to Blichton
Georgia where my great-great grandfather (Walter Payne Williams) had a farm.
The farm was divided up among his many descendents and my father owns about 8
acres of it. The land borders the
Ogeechee River.
My dad’s friend, Keith came with us. We set up camp and them took the short
ride to the river to do a little fishing. The first were not cooperating.
Keith caught one baby bass, but that was it. We found a small turtle that
the kids enjoyed playing with. On the ride back to the campsite we small a
small red fox resting in his home up in a live oak tree. It was a great
nature experience.
We built a fire at the camp, cooked some burgers, drank some beer, talked,
and then went to bed. It got extremely cold (for this time of year). I was
not prepared for it. The kids slept fine, but I could not get to sleep on the
cold hard ground.
April 25, 2003
We woke up and I let the kids watch a few cartoons on the Nickelodeon channel.
We don’t have cable here at home so the kids only see Nickelodeon when we are traveling.
After taking showers and getting dressed, we proceeded to the Eastern entrance to the
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.
It was overcast with rain predicted for the afternoon,
so we quickly rented a small boat
to get in as much site seeing as we could. We went to the
through the man made cannels to the swamp prairies where we saw lily pads with flowers and
swamp irises. It rained a little, but we were well prepared. Kyle had his poncho and Nicole
and I shared an umbrella. Kyle steered the boat for par of the trip. When ate lunch in a
swamp prairie.
When the sky started getting dark we started back to the dock. On the way back we saw
a small alligator and a large turtle. Conditions were not good for alligator watching.
It was overcast and the water was high. The best time to see gators is when the water is
low and the sun is out. Just after we got back to the dock, the rain poured down hard.
Our timing was just about perfect.
We then watched a short film in the visitor’s center. After the film was over, we stepped
out on the patio of the visitor’s center and watched a six-foot long alligator swim around
in the rain.
We then went back North to Waycross to visit the private park again. We went on a short
train ride through the park. The kids enjoyed the ride. Afterwards, we saw the nature show.
Kyle and Nicole both touched snakes and some small alligators at the nature show.
I was proud to see Nicole touch the snakes. We then looked at some black bears they
have there. We bought a few toys in the gift shop, then preceded to Savannah where we
spent the night at my dad’s house.
April 24, 2003
The kids and I will be leaving this morning to go on a mini-vacation. Kyle is on Spring
break, so now’s the time to go. Unfortunately, Tess has too much to do up here to go
with us. We are going to the Okefenokee Swamp first then to Savavnnah to camp out
with my Dad. I will post a full report when we get back.
OK, we are now (4/27/2003) back. Our first stop was at the privately run
Okefenokee Swamp Park in Waycross Georgia.
As soon as we got out of the car, we saw a 7-foot long alligator in the
water beside the parking lot. I got my video camera out and started filming.
The alligator climbed out of the water toward a smaller alligator and gaped it’s
mouth open. I’m guessing it was some kind of territorial display. This is the
time of year that the male alligators are competing for territory prior to mating.
It was quite a show.
Next, we went inside the park and paid for a day pass. Since we arrived late
in the day, they gave us a two-day pass for the price of a one-day pass. We
took a quick walk to see a stuffed alligator named Old Roy that was almost 14
feet long when it died of old age.
We then went on an hour long guided tour of the swamp. We saw several alligators.
The guide identified some of the plant life and explained the history of the area.
It was a decent tour and I would recommend it. After the tour we drove another
30 miles to Folkston Georgia when we spent the night at the Western Motel. The
motel was small, but well maintained. They have a refrigerator and microwave
oven in each room.
April 21, 2003
Easter was nice. We had a very low-key Easter dinner here at home. The kids received
large Easter baskets filled with books, toys, and candy. The Easter Bunny left a couple of
dozen plastic eggs out in front of the house.
Each of the kids got a bug container in their Easter basket. We found a caterpillar outside
and put it in one of the jars. We put in some leaves, which it started eating almost immediately.
I hope it survives long enough to turn into a butterfly. I replaced the leaves today with some
from a tree that I know caterpillar like.
This is a weird bit of time trivia I just ran across. It turns out that every so often a “leap second”
is added to the official time to keep clocks in sync with the Earth’s slowing rotation. So once in
a while, a time like “23:59:60 Dec 31 1972” is leagal. Strange but true. Some people are
advocating doing away with leap seconds because they cause more harm than good.
April 20, 2003
I filed my Taxes electronically again this year. I received my refunds (federal and state) in
less than 10 days. I love it. I used TaxCut this year. For the past few years I used TurboTax,
but I did not want to deal with the product activation stuff they added this year, so I switched to
TaxCut. The biggest weakness I found in TaxCut is context sensitive help. In TurboTax, it is
very easy to get help specific to the task you are currently doing. In TaxCut, you have to hunt
for the help you need. It’s pretty inexcusable these days to have such a primitive help system.
I certainly hope they improve it. Other than that, it worked well. Accessing the raw forms in
TaxCut is actually easier than in TurboTax.
April 12, 2003
Today I am going to start another batch of beer. It’s been about nine months
since my last batch. This time, I’m not using extracts, but steeping the gains
myself. It will be the first time I’ve done that. I’m making a sweet stout.
I won’t know how it turns out for about 4 weeks.
April 11, 2003
I just downloaded and watched the
Final Matrix Reloaded Trailer.
I just have one word to say:
F__K
I kept hearing that the next movies would blow the original off the screen.
Now I believe. Can’t wait to see it.
This afternoon Kyle lost his first tooth. When I picked him up from school, he literally
begged me to pull his loose tooth out. He was so impatient that he wanted me to pull
it out right in the car. I convinced him that it was better to wait until we got home. At
home, I used a damp paper towel to get a good grip on it, and pulled it out with one
quick jerk. Kyle did not react at all. He was very calm about the whole thing. He’s
much less anxious about things than I was when I was his age. He’s so self-assured
and confident. It’s great to see.
April 9, 2003
Today is a great day for freedom and democracy. Today the people of Iraq and the rest of the
world are free from Saddam Hussein. Whether he is alive or dead, no one yet knows. However,
what is certain is that he is either dead, or hiding like a rat in a tunnel somewhere under Baghdad.
Many innocent lives have been lost and more will yet be lost. However, if he and his sons were
left in place many many more innocent lives would have been lost or wasted under their rule.
No one likes war. War is hell. But in this case it has ended something that is even worse. Let
us all hope that the United Sates succeeds in bringing democracy and freedom to the Arab world.
The leaders of the Arab world should be sweating. Once their people taste freedom, there will be
no turning back. I am happy for the people of Iraq. They deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness - and now they are on their way to having all that and more.
April 8, 2003
I thought I would address the question: “Why do I do write this web log (blog)?” Well, for me, it started with the desired to
host my own web server here at my house. I am a software developer and I wanted to maintain a site here in order to have a
way to experiment with different web-based technologies. In addition to wanting to learn and keep my skills current, I also
wanted a place to keep my family and friends informed about current events in my families’ life. Another reason for keeping
this diary was so that my kids could read it many years from now to gain insight into the kind of person I was. I also look
forward to reading this stuff many years from now. I tried to keep a diary several times in the past, but did not have the
motivation to keep it up. Having this one be public keeps me motivated to keep adding entries.
April 7, 2003
I just finished doing my taxes. I used TaxCut and submitted electronically. I’m getting a
lot of money back this year. I should have filed earlier. I was going to take a home office
deduction, since I work at home, but it was just too complicated. I have self-employed
(1099) income and employee (W-2) income, using the same home office. But the forms
do not explicitly say how to handle that case. I was on the phone with the IRS for over
an hour trying to figure out how to handle it. I was transferred to three different people.
The last guy I talked to said I needed to use a time multiplier to split my office use between
the 1099 portion and the W-2 portion, then include a statement to the IRS explaining what
I did. But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to file electronically. So I decided not to take
any home office deduction. The home office deduction comes back to haunt you when
you sell your house. You have to pay taxes on the portion of your house you used for your
home office. So it’s really not a big deal. They get you one way or another.
April 3, 2003
I went to the dentist today. It’s been about 8 years since I’ve been to
the dentist. But I take really good care of my teeth. I brush at least 3
times a day and it’s not unusual for me to brush 5 times a day. I did have
some work that needed to be done. No major cavities, but I did have some
decay in two of my back teeth. I also had four teeth that had small patches
where the enamel had come off due to my grinding my teeth at night. The
dentist is going to make a night guard for me to prevent further damage.
I also have a twenty-year-old metal filling that has to be replaced.
The dentist was great. He has a very modern office. He put in three resin
(white) fillings using an air abrasion device instead of a drill to prepare
the teeth. The air abrasion drill uses a “sand blasting” to drill into the
teeth. It uses pulses of air instead of a continuous stream to fool your
pain receptors. Since he did not have to go very deep, he did not have to
use any anesthesia, and I felt no pain at all.
The resin fillings are an epoxy that he layers onto the tooth. After putting
a layer of epoxy on, he shines a bright light on it to cure it. Afterward,
it’s polished down to the correct contour. It was much more pleasant that
having a metal fillings put in.
He wasn’t able to finish everything today, so I’m going back next Thursday
to finish up. He will do the most serious work then: replacing the old
metal filling with a new resin filling.
March 30, 2003
Today we celebrated Nicole’s fourth birthday. This was the party for her and her friends.
We had it at a dance company and Nicole’s Ballet teacher presided. It was a girls-only party.
They dressed the girls up in ballet costumes and had a one-hour lesson. Afterward, we had
pizza, cake, and opened presents. It was a small party, but very nice.
All the kids and parents had fun.
March 29, 2003
About a year ago, I used to take 1,000 mg of Vitamin C a day. I stopped,
because I was worried about overdosing. I just found a
great article about
vitamin C that has motivated me to start taking it again. Another bit of
vitamin C information I found on the web is that large primates in zoos get between 1,500 and
5,000 mgs of vitamin C a day (depending on their size) to match their intake in the wild.
However, the recommended daily allowance for humans is 60 mg a day.
Does that make any sense?
March 27, 2003
I took the day off from work today to go on Kyle’s field trip to Cagle’s Dairy Farm.
It was a lot of fun sharing the experience with Kyle. They took us on a hey-ride and
showed us where the Cows sit, eat, and poop. They also showed us the pregnant
cows that go out to the pasture to prepare for the birth of their calves for the last two
months of their pregnancy. Forty-eight hours after the calves are born, they are
separated from their mother. They showed us how they feed the calves. They showed
us how the cows are milked, and how the milk is pasteurized, homogenized and bottled.
After the tour, we ate lunch in there. After lunch we headed back to the school.
March 26, 2003
I’m starting to think that the job market for software engineers is improving slightly.
I recently received two emails from recruiters from a job site I posted my resume to
back when I was looking for a job. I’m not looking any more. I’m very happy where
I’m at now, but it’s encouraging to see a little more action in the job market. Four years
ago, I would have had 10 to 20 emails the next day after posting my resume. These
days, you’re lucky to get two or three emails a month. How things have changed.
I feel sorry for the kids graduating from college these days. I was lucky that when I
graduated from Georgia Tech, in 1989, the job market was great. Luck has a lot to
do with what you get out of life. It’s a shame, but it’s true. Life isn’t fair.
And now for something completely different: After much soul-searching, I have come
to the conclusion that average brandy is much better than expensive vodka or gin.
March 25, 2003
I’m going to get on the soapbox again. This time I’m going to talk about web services.
I am starting to doubt that web services will ever deliver on it’s claims of being able to
allow automated transactions on a global scale. Instead, I think we will see small islands
of web services. The complexity of coordinating web services requires a lot of hands
on customization. It’s easy to publish a simple web service that returns a stock quote.
On the other hand, it’s extremely complex to publish a web service to allow a customer
to place an order with 500 line items and the associated logic to handle substitution rules
for items that are not available. If a company publishes such a service, they would have
to provide support to anyone who wants to use the service. Human-to-human interaction
will be required to setup and test each new consumer of the service.
There is a case where hands on customization may not be required. When both sides are
using the exact same web services implementation, then little or no hands-on customization
would be required. For example, if both parties are using Apache Axis to implement their
web services, then there is a good chance that all details of the services being coordinated
can be completely expressed and communicated. However, if one party is using a
Microsoft implementation and the other is using Apache Axis, then much hands-on
customization would likely be required. Microsoft will NEVER make things easy for other
web services frameworks. Microsoft will always make their implementation just different
enough to insure incompatibility.
So we have all this effort being put into creating standards for web services to ensure
vendor compatibility. But you can be assured that Microsoft will never adhere to those
standards.
Web services was a brilliant move on the part of Microsoft to distract the Open Source
movement from creating a Java-based solution that would have put Microsoft at a disadvantage.
Java provides object remoting via RMI that is much more robust and versatile than web services.
If web services hadn’t come along, all the energy being put into web services by the Open Source
community would have been directed at solving the same problems using Java RMI. This would
have made Microsoft’s DCOM technology a second place finisher. And eventually Java RMI
would have become the de facto standard. By inventing web services, Microsoft hit the reset
button, giving themselves time to catch up. Microsoft touted open standards to get the other
companies involved with web services, but you can bet that their own implementation will always
vary slightly from their own standards. So being compatible with Microsoft will always be a
losing battle.
I wish the Open Source community would give up on web services and instead focus their
efforts on using Java RMI instead. The only real advantage web services have over Java
RMI is language independence. And web services have MANY disadvantages that Java RMI
does not have. That fact that Java RMI is not language independent can be hidden from the user
the same way that the complexities of web services are hidden from the user. Tools could be
created to map any object-oriented interface to an equivalent Java RMI interface.
An object-oriented approach like Java RMI is infinitely flexible. New interfaces defined to
handle any level of complexity. Whereas the flexibility of web services is dependent upon the
standards that define their interaction. Eventually, web services will have to become more and
more Java RMI-like (or DCOM-like) in order to be expressive enough to handle any real world
problem no matter how complex. But we already have Java RMI, so why not just use it and
avoid a lot of waited effort.
March 24, 2003
I am convinced that my local phone company (BellSouth) monitors my
phone line for outgoing calls and passes a signal to one or more
telemarketers to let them know I am at home. I almost always get a
hang-up call (a telemarketing
computer call) within a minute of hanging up on an outgoing call.
What scumbags. I’m looking forward to getting my name on the
national Do Not Call List.
March 23, 2003
Back in the 1980’s, I was an avid video game player. I spent my life savings
perfecting my Missile Command, Tempest and Star Wars skills. Anyone who
played the video games of the 80’s will really enjoy MAME. MAME is a video
game simulator that runs on Windows. After installing MAME, you can download
video game ROMs from your favorite video games. MAME is able to play
thousands of ROMs. It really brings back memories. The best part is that it
doesn’t take a quarter to play a game. When I was in high school I dreamed
of having my own video game machines at home so I could play them as much as
I wanted. Sometimes dreams do come true.
If you want to try MAME, I would recommend you download
MAME32 for
Windows, then go here to download ROMs. You will have to create an account
to be able to download ROMs. The ROMs are zip files that should be
downloaded to your MAME’s ROM directory. No need to extract there contents.
MAME will load the zip files directly.
Here are some of my favorite ROMs:
Star Wars,
Tempest,
Satan’s Hollow,
Galaxian,
Galaga.
In 1983, I was probably one of the best Star Wars players in the world.
My best score was over 55,000,000, which took 6 hours to play.
I played that game my freshman year at Georgia Tech in the arcade in the
Student Center. I finally stopped playing when I got too tired to continue.
March 22, 2003
Today is Nicole’s fourth anniversary of her birth day. To celebrate, we were
planning on going to the Atlanta Zoo, but when we got there, the parking lot
was completely full and there were cars circling like vultures looking for a space.
We made several circles around the lot, then decided to do something else.
We went to the Olympic Centennial Park.
The first thing we did was look up the location of the bricks we bought
back in 1995. They sold bricks to help finance the building of the park.
We bought two bricks. One says “Scott Penn & Teresa Smith”. The
other is dedicated to Tess’s parents and says “Francisco & Lilia Tanchuling”.
After we looked up the location, it took us quite a while to find them. The
numbering system they us makes no sense. Our bricks are in section 169,
which is on the other side of the park from section 168. And section 170 in
between them. I’m not kidding.
After we found our bricks, we took the kids to the new kid’s museum on
the edge of the park. I wasn’t too impressed with it, but the kids say they
loved it. It was $11 per person, which I thought was a little steep, considering
that it was really just a deluxe indoor playground.
We spent a couple of hours at the “museum”, and then we bought some ice
cream from a street vendor in the park. While we were eating our ice cream, a
peace rally marched through the park. There were a couple of hundred people, I’m guessing.
Which isn’t many compared to the 25 to 40 thousand that participated in the Rally for America.
On the way home we stopped to get some BBQ, cake, and balloons for a
small part for Nicole at home. Her big party will be next week.
It’s going to be a ballet party.
Wow! I just discovered that Nicole has the same Birthday as William Shatner.
March 20, 2003
On March 7, I wrote about spam (junk email) and I put one of my temporary
email addresses on my website. Now, 13 days later, I have started received
spam emails on that address. I guess the moral of that story is NEVER put
your email address on a web site. I am now going to remove that address
and create a new one.
March 19, 2003
Yesterday, I went to the monthly Atlanta Java User’s Group meeting.
The speaker was David A. Chappell from Sonic Software. He authored
the O’Reilly JMS book (which I own). The talk was a not too disguised
sales pitch for Sonic’s JMS products. I really didn’t learn anything
new, but it was kind of cool seeing an author up close and personal.
One of the demonstrations he gave failed, proving authors are mere
mortals too. After his talk, I thanked him for writing the JMS book.
I told him that I used it during a three-month application integration
project, which turned out very well.
March 16, 2003
Yesterday, a local radio station hosted a Rally for America in Atlanta.
About 25,000 people were there. There are lots of
pictures of the Rally for America
online.
March 13, 2003
I don’t know why I thought of this today, but I thought I would
share one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me.
This happened about 3 years ago. I was at the checkout at my
local grocery store, and I was watching the casher enter ring
up the prices. When she rang up my beer, I saw her enter ‘112065’
on the register. That happens to be my birthday. I asked her why
she just entered ‘112065’. She said that to sell alcohol, the
register makes them enter a birthday. They are supposed to ask
for a driver’s license, but when someone is obviously old enough,
they just enter a random birthday. She said that she always
entered that date 112065. I told her that was in fact my birthday,
and proceeded to show her my driver’s license. We were both a
little freaked out by it. What makes it more unusual is that
not only did she have to enter it, but I also had to notice what
she entered. I don’t usually watch the register that closely.
If you maintain a blog, you might want to go fill out
this survey regarding blogs. I just completed it myself.
It only takes about 3 minutes to complete.
March 12, 2003
I just had almost $2000 worth of work done to my roof.
Sounds like a lot, but it was just to fix a small leak
at the chimney and another leak that had caused some
wood rot. I just hope that’s the end of my roof problems.
My chimney has given me problems since I bought this
house 8 years ago. First it was the cap, and then it
was where it met the roof. The joys of home ownership…
March 10, 2003
Spring is in the air. I am definitely a Spring/Summer person.
The leaves of Autumn really annoy me, because they remind me that
Winter is around the corner. I grew up in Savannah Georgia, where
there are very few deciduous trees. Because of that, I have no
emotional attachment to the leaves of fall. When I first came
to north Georgia while I was in high school, it was Autumn and
I was shocked by the amount of leaves on the streets and sidewalks.
That just doesn’t happen in Savannah. I love subtropical climates.
The palm trees and the humid air are what I grew up with. I think
we must be pre-programmed to get emotionally attached to the place
we grew up. I know I am. I hope to move back to the coast once the
kids are in college. I've only got about 15 more years to wait.
March 9, 2003
Kyle, Nicole and I did some work in the back yard today. A couple of
years ago I had a dead tree taken down, and the terrible tree guys I
got to do it accidentally took down another live one while they were
at it. The logs have been sitting in a pile for a couple of years.
So today, I went to Home Depot and bought a wood-splitting ax. It was
a beautiful day. I went out and worked for a few hours. I split up
several of the larger logs, but it was harder than I thought it was
going to be. There are some really huge logs that need to be split.
I think I’m going to have to find someone with a chainsaw to help me
cut them down a bit.
I don’t burn logs in my fireplace. I use them to help build up the
low areas in my back yard. I live on a small mountain, and the backyard
dips down about twenty feet from the basement level. When it rains,
water runs across the back yard from higher up on the mountain. I use
the logs to slow down the water and catch the sand washed down from above.
I have built up the back yard about 2 feet in some areas in less than
2 years. I’m glad I don’t own one of the houses at the top of the ridge.
They are loosing quite a bit of soil to erosion. The two houses at the
top of the ridge were built a couple of years ago on very marginal lots.
I don’t think the builder properly prepared the lots. I think those
houses are going to have some serious foundation problems in a few years
if the erosion continues at the current rate.
March 7, 2003
Spam (junk email) is a big topic of discussion these days, so I thought I would write about
how I deal with spam. Since I have my own domain, it’s very easy for me to change my
email address whenever I want. A few months ago I changed my email address because
I started to get too much spam on it. For me, “too much” equates to at least one spam
message a day. (I have a low tolerance.) I don’t give my email address as text on my
web site, because spammers can acquire new email addresses by autonomously scanning
web sites.
I also create temporary email addresses just for use in on-line forms that require an email
address. So any time I fill in a web form I make a choice as to whether I want the company
to have my “real” email address or a one of my temporary email addresses. That way,
I can categorize my incoming email, and quickly change temporary email addresses without
having to notify anyone. My current temporary email address is temp03@scott-smith.com
which I don’t mind putting on my web site, because it only takes me a minute to disable it and
create a new temporary address.
I like this approach (of frequently changing email addresses) better than installing email filters.
A filter can always make a mistake, but I can actively select the people and companies who
I want to notify of my new email address. Since I have my own web site, friends and family
can always go to my site to get my latest contact information.
I recently reactivated one of my old email addresses. I started receiving spam the first day.
The address had been invalid for over a year. I promptly deactivated it again.
March 6, 2003
More aspirin news. Aspirin reduces risk of colon cancer too. So let's sum up. Aspirin reduces risk for
heart attack, stroke, throat cancer, and colon cancer.
We had a hell of a storm here last night with lots of thunder and lightning.
One hit very close to our house. I’m not sure where it hit, but it was close.
The sound woke me up, and as I opened my eyes, the flash of light was fading.
It sounded like it was right outside the window.
But I don't see any evidence of it this morning.
I remember when I was a kid (I must have been about 6 years old) a bolt of
lightning hit a tree outside the apartment complex we were living in.
My mom was at the stove, cooking. She received a small shock. I remember
going outside and looking at the tree that got struck. The upper 30 feet
of it was ripped in two. It was a very big pine tree. It’s funny how strong
an impression it made on me. I remember it clearly after 30 years.
March 5, 2003
I just found a web site were you can sign a
petition against celebrity pundits
that are speaking out against the war with Iraq.
Aspirin really is a wonder drug. It turns out that aspirin protects against mouth
and throat cancer. I have been taking aspirin almost daily for its heart attach
and stroke prevention properties. Strange that most of these articles warn that
you shouldn’t start taking aspirin until long-term affects are known. Well, I’m
taking that risk. Aspirin has been around for a long time. I would think that
any serious side affects (like Reye's Syndrome) would have been discovered by now.
March 4, 2003
Today is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Kristen.
March 3, 2003
I just wanted to add that the eminent war is not with the people of Iraq. The war is with
the dictatorial/terroristic government of Iraq. Once US forces have left (in a year or so) the
people of Iraq will have a democratic government that will give them the freedom to thrive.
Right now they live in fear of their own government.
March 2, 2003
This story is almost too good to be true:
Maria Ermanno, chairwoman of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, cited reports
that Iraqi officials were arranging transportation, accommodations and news conferences
for the human shields.
"To go down to Iraq and live and act there on the regime's expense, then you're supporting
a terrible dictator. I think that method is entirely wrong," Ermanno told Swedish Radio.
Those people are so naive it's painful to watch. What did they expect? I lump all the
anti-war celebrities into the same category. They are either extremely naive or extremely
stupid or both.
War in general, is bad. However there are instances (like the one we have now) when the alternative to war is worse
than war itself. The people that are protesting the eminent war are the same kind of people that surrendered to Hitler.
They are the people who put blinders on and hoped for the best until it was too late. They hope and talk while the
ruthless dictators/terrorists laugh. They are “useful idiots”, who naively think everyone can be reasoned with. And
they will try to reason with them all the way to their death. Has history taught them nothing?
February 28, 2003
The Germain-Robin brandy was very nice.
I bought a VS and it's as good or better than French VS Cognac in my opinion.
February 27, 2003
I was surprised to hear that Mr. Rogers died. It’s really kind of a shock because he
always seemed so ageless to me. However, I have to admit that I never liked
watching Mr. Rogers as a kid. I thought it was too slow and boring. I’ve always
admired his work though. He was a known constant. He was an institution. I read
this morning that one of his sweaters in on display in the Smithsonian. He was a good
man. We need more like him.
I heard that King Friday and Prince Tuesday are flying in from Barbados to
attend the funeral.
I bought some Germain-Robin brandy this morning.
I am looking forward to having some tonight. Because of current political events, I have stopped
drinking French Cognac. The Germain-Robin brandies have beaten French Cognacs anyway,
so it looks like I won’t be sacrificing anything by switching.
February 26, 2003
Kyle (my son) never ceases to amaze me. A few weeks ago he started
drawing multi-perspective drawings. He will draw the same object
from the front, side, and above. No one told him to do that. As
far as I know, he came up with the idea himself. His drawings are
consistent with each other to a high degree. I think that’s pretty
good for a six year old. I learned how to do that as a freshman at
Georgia Tech.
Of course Nicole is extremely bright too. She can read many two and
three letter words and can easily complete Kindergarten-level workbook
pages. Her vocabulary is also excellent. She will turn 4 next month.
February 25, 2003
When I was a kid, I did not like sitting down at the table and eating.
I thought that eating was a chore. I remember telling my Grandfather
that once, and he was shocked. He looked almost insulted. He said
“Oh, no. Eating is one of the most ple
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