Middle America's Worldview

I had a great time over the weekend camping. I especially enjoy the peace and quite, being unplugged from the computer. Personally, I could really get into it. Cooking steaks over a campfire, pulling wood in, ect. Sigh. But as much as I like it, I have to return to the 20th century (or is it the 21st now?).

Shall I really provide yet another hectic week of todo's?

Not counting my real job during the day;
Monday - Cubscout meeting
Tuesday - My girls birthday party with my mom and her cousins.
Wednesday - My girls birthday party with wifes mom and dad (my dad my show up).
Thursday - 1/2 day at work, but last day of Co-op. That night Co-op Presentation.
Friday - A real night of with my wife! We re-plan to go see Fireproof.
Saturday - Wife works her 3rd (or 4th job), leave for Texas for a week.


If that isn't enough to make myself grey, I have a ton of crap to get done for the above and before we leave for Texas. Sigh.

A hot chick with a gun. Can't get much sexier than that.

I pulled this interesting article from One News Now.

You can read this article to make your own call. However, I think they are making the incorrect argument. Rather than postulate the immortality of it all, the issue is the tax-payer funding. If someone wanted to open a specialized school for gay/transgendered/homosexuals, I would think it's considered alternative education. If this city supports this and it goes through, then they should also have a dedicated 'non-homosexual' school opening (paid by the tax-payers), an all white, all black, all indian, ect. ect.

I am not sure of the state laws in Illinois, but normally the way it works is, if a public school opens its' doors to one group, it must do so to all groups. If not, they are on grounds of discrimination.

Similiarly, if the state is supporting a homosexual public school, it should also support a non-homosexual public school, all-white, all-black, all-indian, ect. ect.

Public school is just that. A government funded (your taxes) school for all children.

A battleground is forming in Chicago over a proposed "gay"-friendly high school for homosexual, lesbian, and transgendered students, or any other students who want to attend. According to reports, taxpayer money would be used to fund the school.





The school would be called the Pride Campus of Social Justice High School, and plans are under way to possibly open its doors in 2010. Advocates of the school say it is needed in order to combat the bullying, dropout, and depression rate among homosexual students. The Chicago Sun-Times quotes a member of the school's design team who says students at the school would be taught about "gay and lesbian historical figures" so those students "have heroes."

Laurie Higgins and her group, the Illinois Family Institute, are at the forefront of the fray. "A high school that is dedicated to or centrally focused on homosexuality necessarily requires that public educators have come to some prior conclusions about the nature and morality of homosexuality," she points out. Those are aspects of homosexuality that she says stand "far outside the purview of public educators." (hear audio report)

Pro-family advocate Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality [Caution: This website contains graphic images] takes issue with the fact that the school would be run on taxpayer monies. "The taxpayers -- whether they're Christians, Orthodox Jews, Muslims -- they will be funding [this] pro-homosexual indoctrination school for so-called 'gay' youth," he explains.

The activist also takes issue with the prospective principal of the school -- 29-year-old Chad Weiden -- who was asked what it would have been like if had had a school like Pride Campus to attend.

"...[H]e says quote: 'I would have made progress a lot earlier. I would have had a model of what it meant to be a gay man -- that a gay man could be in a committed relationship, a marriage; could have children. I didn't know that was possible.'

"Well, it's not possible," LaBarbera reacts. "Two men cannot produce a child -- and they can't, quote, 'have children.'"

Higgins agrees that public funding for the school would be inappropriate. And as for the rationale for the school being needed to combat bullying of homosexual students, she believes rules of conduct should be established and enforced on an equal basis. "The task is to combat harassment and abuse and bullying, while not affirming disordered thinking and immoral behavior," she explains.

And while she acknowledges that some homosexual students are bullied, Higgins' experience in public education reveals another group that she feels suffers more. "I can say with assurance that the kids who are very conservative Christians are probably the ones who are the most ridiculed or made fun of," she states.

Chicago Public Schools is soliciting public input for a vote. LaBarbera and Higgins both encourage concerned Chicago parents to petition that the school not be allowed to open.

I been meaning to ride my bike more, but having to be in a board meeting till midnight puts a drag on it.

My daughter had challenged me to a basketball game in the backyard. I thought, hmm, might be fun.

Not only did it put a sweat on me, but I actually one (fairly). LOL. Not sure if she was more surprised or I.

I totally enjoyed it.

I recall when this occurred.

In 2000, a hacker from Montreal known only as Mafiaboy managed to shut down five websites, including Yahoo, eBay and CNN.

After a manhunt, the FBI and the RCMP arrested Calce, who pleaded guilty to more than 50 charges and spent eight months in a youth detention centre.

In his book, Calce says hacking incidents are growing by the thousands and hackers are now no longer just competing with each other.

My wife and I were talking the other day and she brought up something I hadn't really thought of.

She usually gets up anywhere from 4:30 to 5 a.m every morning. In comparison my lazy butt doesn't want to till at least 6 a.m. Maximum for the kids is 7 a.m., although they are normally up around or before 6 a.m.

I have a tendency to do the breaksfast, ect. providing my wife till nearly 8 a.m.

This gives her 3 hours each morning to run, catch up on work, alone time, ect. ect.

That's the background, now back to our discussion.

She was referring to her extra 3 hours a day. "Did you realize that's an extra 21 hours a week?" I hadn't really added it up.

But looking at it, she is gaining nearly 3 days per week to get stuff done.

I thought more on that this morning, as my lazy butt remained in bed, while she is out running. : )

I had a great weekend. The fact of no on-call for work is a given. Friday night my son and I went to a Dad's/Lad's retreat. We camped out under the stars in a tent, with a little over 20 other dads and lads. Very nice. He was able to get muddy from waist down and we spent some quality time alone. This was our 2nd time to go to one of these. The first time, he fell out around 9 p.m. just when the campfire stories was going. This time, I had to pull him into the tent after 11 p.m. Such a drastic change since we been on that Gluten Free diet.

We arrived at the campsite around 6 p.m. and setup camp. Some were there, but many trickled in afterward. After the kids played, ect. we ate hotdogs, chili, ect. 3 dads had a hotdog stick each that had 5 prongs. They were knocking out 15 dogs at a time.

As the night fell, everyone sat around the campfire while singing commenced. Then out of no-where a Kapow! Someone came running toward the camp, turned and another Kapow!

One of the dads is a Civil War buff (and history teacher). He had a full confederate soldiers outfit with a replicate Muzzle used in the army. He portrayed a solider in the Civil War telling the kids of the battle he is in. (Speaking of the actual battles occurring in our area during the Civil War). Afterwards, he answered any and all questions regarding the war. The kids loved it.

The next day, we moved up to another area and had the kids play games, they use to play long ago (before electricity). Kick the bucket, capture the flag, and king of the bucket was among them.

All in all, a great time. It made me really want more of this type of time with the family.

Some people are just batsh*t crazy. Much like a sponge they just soak in whatever their given. Rather than doing some research and get oneself educated, they take their buddies nod as gold. Sigh.

Stop the ACLU posted an article showing some kids singing praises to Obama. Because he's going to save the world with peace and harmony. Whether Obama is aware of these acolytes is anyone's guess. However seeing the euphoric look on these adults is scary. The kids can't be blamed. They are only doing what their told. Hitler said control the children, control the nation (paraphrase).

The Stop the ACLU article is found here. They note the adults that put this together. Their not your average mom-pop.

Seems we continue to hear everyday more terrorist attacks partaking by those who follow Islam.



Woman Honor thyself, in this article has shown the full speech by Geert Wilders. Mr. Wilders informs everyone the extreme issue of Europe being Islamocised and taken over geographically/politically by those following Islam. It is worth the reading.

Andrew Bostom also has the full speech.

The great concern when I read this, is the fact, it may be already too late. You can hear their urgency in the message. So why isn't the media on this? It would seem the bloggers and internet writers are the last of free speech.

Speaking of the net and freedom of speech. The Religion of Peace has a very interesting/scary link on Jihad 2.0.

Front page Mag has an article showing the rise of Islamic websites recruiting, indoctrinating, and providing answers to would be terrorist.

Some things the article points out these sites are providing are videos of killing American troops, answers regarding Jihad, Islam's answer for Pedophilia (they are for it).

The servers providing many of these websites have been moved to U.S. due to our Federal Judges protecting said sites under the freedom of speech. Sigh.

Note this idea of Islam taking over geographically/politically is not new. I posted an article back in 2006 regarding Canada being hijacked by Islam.

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in
favor of
giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide
U.S.
Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every
man,
woman and child, so 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and
up.

Divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon - that equals
$425,000.00.
My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It
Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free, so let's assume a tax rate of 30%.
Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends
$25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam but it means that every adult
18+
has $297,500.00 in their pocket - a husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new gradsd Put away money
for
college - it'll be there Save in a bank - create money to loan to
entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth Pay for your parent's
medical
insurance - health care improves Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or
else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who
lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is
cutting
back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of
trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that is
being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult
U S
Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go
back to being American General. Sell off the real estate. Let the
private
sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't. Sure it's a crazy
idea
that can never work but can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We
Deserve It Dividend more than do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington
DC.
And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because
$25.5
Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Kindest personal regards,

T. J. Birkenmeier

Never freaking ends. I am in a somewhat bum mood this morning. Seems the weekends just fly away and we are staring at yet another week of work.eat,sleep, and running.

Sigh.

The endless cycle.

On a high note, I was able to attend the "Worldview Weekend" over the weekend. It was held locally Saturday night. There were 3 keynote speakers and each were awesome! I went in with a $50 dollar limit and purchased the $49.95 box special. Hundred dollars more and you could have every book, dvd, offered. But, I didnt really want to push that much anyway. The seminar was free to attend and it looked to have a full house that showed up. I didn't hear the head count, but the speakers mentioned more than once they were surprised how many showed.

The 3.5 hours went rather quickly. The archeologist showed rare video of findings at the real Mt. Sinai. Artifacts showing a mennorrah dating 5-6 hundred years before Christ, minimum. It looks to be the earliest known writings of the Jewish people. Very cool.

To check out Worldview Weekend, check out the site.

We had another special board meeting last night. We all hope this is the last one till our next regular board meeting.

This last weekend went too fast. I had to be up early Sunday morning for work. They were upgrading their servers again. This time effecting 4 facilities. After about 2 hours, they retracted and called it off due to complications.

So with the work Sunday, School Board Monday night, my work/eat/little sleep run continues.

I have at least 3 conference calls scheduled today, already.

I found this very interesting article regarding, what it takes to be a Hacker.

How to be a Hacker is a good read and defines a true hacker, very well.

Too often one's own ideas of a subject is simply incorrect. The real issue is if those individuals attempt to define their own incorrect ideas on others.

I survived the first day of 6 for Co-op. I was able to take 1/2 days for the 6 Thursdays in order to provide 2 hrs of computers.

The first hour I provided a powerpoint session on the history of computers, then ended the hour with shortcuts, speaking of the net as we went.

The second hour we touched on the history of the GML, HTML, XML and provided a brief look at HTML and its contents. And yes, another powerpoint presentation to move through the topics.

My boss ladies allowed me to leave after our 1 p.m est team call. But of course unlike our past cancelled calls, or 15 minute ones, this one dragged the full hour. I expected to be out of there by 1:30 est, but I swear, one of them purposely spoke this time to delay me. This same one had said 4 words (maybe) in the last 5 meetings, if we had them.

OH well, after leaving the house without the wireless router and turning around to get it, we made it to the church.

Being there a bit late and with myself and wife only putting together 10+ rooms, starting my class a bit late, one word on Co-op - EXHAUSTING.

Speaking 2 hours was a bit tougher than I expected. My class consists of twelve in the first hour and 14 for the second. I immediately conveyed to them, I wanted the class to be driven by them and their interest in what we covered. I did not want to provide presentations, rather an interactive setting. The class was to be given to them. "I am here for you and your interest." Only about 2 provided me some feedback in what they wanted to see out of these 6 weeks. So we will go with it.

This is an opportunity on both sides. Seems Co-op really doesn't offer much for the older kids, and this being my first time in this type of environment, something really oool can come out of it.

It did provide me a greater appreciation for both teachers and my wife directing this thing.

Although exhausting, it was very satisfying to see little light bulbs go off while explaining things. (smile)

This week and last has been exhausting.

Last week, I had on-call all week, 2 school board meetings, church, time with my Dad for his birthday, registration for a fall co-op, my wife being sick, and whatever else thrown my way. Sigh.

This week hasn't slowed down. Another school board meeting, first time at a cubscout meeting, church, work, and little sleep. The first day of Fall Co-op is tomorrow and I continue to worry of my first presentations. Sigh.

Off to church again.

Everyone takes some idea or statement and runs with it. However, Stop the ACLU seem to find a word for word copy Obama used at a rally.

Oh man, where can I watch this?

Very interesting.

Check out Jeff Emanuel's Comparison with Palin and Obama article. Yes, again a comparison is done on Vice-President candidate to President Candidate. However, this is too rich.

I learned of the article on Stop the ACLU's Call Obama (Uh-bama) a WAAAAH!bulance! article.


LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

I commented about one of my birthday gifts, 3 months of free Netflix in a prior post.

Now the 3 months is coming to an end, we are brought to a decision, should we keep Netflix?

We probably will. I normally do not rent that many movies. I have spells, where I will grab two or three movies within the month, if time allows me on a weekend. That is also dependent upon anything decent is out.

So if I don't rent that many movies to begin with, why is Netflix so cool?

1) The ability to view movies online, anytime. Netflix refers this as "Instant viewiing". I would like to see more options of the tv series for online viewing. I have been able to view many shows, I normally would not have seen. Namely, MI5, Sleeper Cell, documentaries such as Super High Me, ect. What's really nice is the ability to view without waiting. I must say, this particular function of Netflix has spoiled me. The normal turnaround of movies is 2 days. However, one you begin using 'Instant View', those 2-3 days seem longer. This has also provided a means to introduce me to great viewings, I wouldnt have otherwise known or been interested in spending money to "try". Normally at a video store, you put out the money to "try" a title, only to be disappointed with it. Whereas, on instant viewing you try out titles and if it sucks, you only wasted some time on it.

2) Search functions for movies. No more calling up the local video store or trolling through the store for a movie. Netflix boasts to have over 100K titles. That sounds good, but realistically for each individual, they are not going to want to watch them all. So each individual would need to view his/her interest within Netflix's database. I find the search easy for Netflix.





You can simply look for any title, via the search function or Netflix actually has a cool "More like this". This tab shows similar titles of interest upon the one your currently viewing. It's a great means to see a title you may not had known, but falls in the same genre of your interest.

3) One monthly balance. When I was running to the video store, the cost was dependent upon how many titles I chose. Whereas Netflix, you know how much your monthly cost of video renting will be. It remains the same, dependent upon your choice of programs. This may seem silly, but in the long run and on budgets, it worthy to be noted.

4)The rating system. Regarding the personal rating system, I am sure it has more implication on the movies Netflix offers than I am aware of. What's nice is the option 'not interested'. This immediately flags certain genres that you do not want to clutter your screen upon browsing for interested subject material.



Netflix continues to try to get you to "rate more movies". I suppose this is to help streamline those possible titles that interest you. It's a great idea. However, what I would like to see is 'family rating' and 'individual rating'. Each household would have different likes/dislikes and it would be interesting to allow up to 4 (for example) household members to rate. This would allow each individual within the home the means to narrow down and possibly open up additional options of viewing.

I wanted to share something today. In this past year, we have struggled with our insurance company to pay the co-pay on speech therapy. Last year, we had to fight up to December to get them to pay the full year co-pay. They did, eventually.

This year, we were pro-active in setting each thing they requested before the year started. However, again, we have been fighting throughout the year, with no end in sight.

Note, we have been paying cash for each visit since January. Needless to say, its added up.

Now, my wife and son are on their second trip to Austin for doctor visits. Again, paying out of hand, then have to submit the bill to the insurance. Last month’s submittals haven’t been processed by the insurance yet.

My wife called this morning, conveying the initial test was more expensive than last months, and they want additional test, we hadn’t foreseen.

OK, you get the picture and backdrop. What to do?

In comes the blessing. I had seen last week online our insurance finally paid back to the speech therapist a month (not the full year yet). So I knew it was heading their way. This uphill battle looked to be over. I received a call today first from my wife then from the speech therapist secretary. Not only did the insurance pay the co-pay, but more than expected. We have some money coming back to us. ( Since we were paying up front for all those visits).

So not only does the speech issue looks to be resolving, but with the money returning to us, we can pay for the extra test!

I am here to say God does provide blessings, even in this day and age.

My wife and son headed out early this Labor Day to Austin. A followup of doctor visits. God willing they will be back by Thursday night safe and secure.

My daughter stayed with me this time, so we have some quality time together.

We ran all day on Labor Day. We hit about 8 stores, played putt putt golf, and watched Star Wars Clone wars. I wont say who won the putt putt, but I did get two coupons for my birdies (wink).

All in all, I had a blast, enjoying not only the fun times but also my quite time in the car with discussions. I continue to grow amazed at the concept my young daughter has on certain events.

Regarding the movie, my favorite character has to be the new Padawan.
Not only is the character cute, but plays well with the young Skywalker.

I been watching Sleeper Cell off and on, when I was able at night (normally when everyone else is asleep). Last night I finished the second series.




The show was very intense showing not only subplots but very heavy character driven.

I found the behind scenes (online) interesting to learn the writer was indeed Muslim. The goal was to show not only the impact of terrorism in the world, but the struggle of the Islamic faith within the religion. The battle is two-fold. The obvious killings in the name of Allah by the radical thinkers and the battle of interpretation within the religion of the Holy Koran. I found it very fascinating.

What's also interesting to note is the banned books relating to Islam.
Recently, two books have been banned, Bangkok Post relating to the women in Islam.

It happens in Russia as well.

As well as Australia.

Pretty much around the world.

The Sisters in Islam created a site to promote the knowledge of censoring the freedom of speech/writing.

It sure is nice being home. I arrived Friday evening and slept like a rock in my own bed. It was nice to catch up with the family.

Fortunately, this time, when I left no-one got sick. Before, it would never fail, when I leave someone within the family would get sick.

However, the sickness turned to drama on my absence.

No details, but it seems everything regarding School Board, my side of the family, ect. had things occuring. Although, I wouldn't wish this type of drama for anyone, I am glad my family stayed healthy.

I found a free printable calendar online. The site is called Keep and Share. It allowed me to write out the family schedule and more importantly print it out, by month. Now I have the rest of the year on the refrigerator with an overview of what's coming up. I have included everything from speech to my on-call dates. It was a good find. You can also mark it so the calendar doesn't go public, online.

I had intended on mowing when I returned, but it keeps raining. I will have a jungle to deal with now.

One other thing, I had not realized I was scheduled off this following Monday. I had to use a number of vacation days, or lose them. So, it looks like I will have an extended weekend. This will make it nice since my last weekend was shot for work.

After my initial ACME run on Sunday, I grabbed these for the week. I think I am getting hooked on the AMP. They didn't have cherry (frown).





Here is the car I picked out this week from National.

I didn't get my nap Sunday, so my sleeping was shot.

I tried to sleep after the server upgrade (around 6 a.m.), but from text pages (no I am not oncall), phone calls, and the housekeeper banging on my door, I gave up and got up.

I walked the King of Prussia Mall to get some exercise as well as work out some soreness from the day before. I grabbed some food from TGIF's on my way out back to the hotel for both lunch and dinner.

I was able to watch some Netflix online shows, mainly Sleeper Cell, from Showtime. Talk about an intense show. I have grown to really like it.

Then I fell out, pretty much around 7:30 p.m. Sunday night.

This of course had me up at 4 a.m. wide awake.

I went into work early (I like it alone there). I was able to see some peers I hadn't seen in quite awhile. Hear the stories, between the cubicles and everyones fears.

I actually split at 5 p.m. that Monday night. Grabbed my staple TGIF and went to the hotel. The internet was pretty much dragging so watching Sleeper Cell was cut short.

I crashed early again Monday night.

Tuesday morning, I slept in till 6:30 a.m. head to work and had a busy day. I actually feel like I was able to get some work done Tuesday, as opposed to Monday. However, one of the guys commented I was quite and I looked intense. "Yeah buddy, its called working."

I love seeing everyone up here, but how they get anything done with the interruptions is beyond me.

Since the whole interface group is in town, we are all in a auditorium room together. It's nice to be together, but distracting for me. I have grown spoiled with my single room working alone (in a quite atmosphere).

Since a 5 hospital facility was upgrading their server (brand new one), I remained at work till after 7 p.m. I ran to a store to get my kids a surprise then some food on the way to the hotel. I made it in after 8, nearly 9 p.m. tonight. I already have my 5:30 wakeup call set.

I will be at Siemens 1/2 day tomorrow.

I want to see and speak to everyone here, but also miss my family.

I had to travel during Saturday evening. So, I wasn't able to view the full discussion forum of Obama and Mccain by Rick Warren. I was able to catch maybe 10-20 minutes.

I found a site that has the full discussion posted, via youtube.

Obama - Mccain at SaddleBack

Personally, I thought it was good means to simply ask the same questions to two different guys. Obviously, there will be different answers, but what is important is their answers to these questions. Hopefully, a) they were not given the questions prior and b) they can get through many of the questions.

If you don''t have time to view, below is a link to the transcript.
Obama-Mccain Saddleback transcript

Started up in Tulsa around 6 a.m. Watched Kel do the 5K. I attempted the 1K with the kids. Drove home, no time for a nap. Unloaded, and enjoyed some time with the family. Then off to the airport.

Now I am in PA. It was an interesting flight in.

I arrived at the nearby airport (early as usual). The ticket lady asked if she can help. I said I had a flight through Dallas to PA. She named me right off the bat.

Uh, yeah, how did you know it was me.

I was the only paying customer on the flight. Yeah. I was it. Crazy. So from Arkansas to Dallas, Texas I had a quite ride.

Yet from Dallas to Philly, I (among others) got to hear the screaming kid in the back.

I arrived in Philly and waited for the rental driver to pick me up. Fortunately, it wasn't a hassle to get a car and on my way to King of Prussia. So at 2 a.m. I made it to the hotel safe.

Now in 3 hours, we should have those servers upgraded. Then I can sleep for awhile.

Very interesting.

The U.S. may have captured one of the most important terrorism suspects yet -- a mother of three with a degree from one of the top universities in the nation, and ties to al Qaeda.

Until her capture last month in Afghanistan, Aafia Siddiqui was the only woman on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists. She is believed to be a top agent of al Qaeda.

"We've been looking for her for a long time, and we knew she's been involved in a variety of nefarious activities," former CIA officer John Kiriakou explained.

Siddiqui was a neuroscientist, schooled in America at MIT before her return to Pakistan.

Her captors found on her information on chemical, biological and radioactive weapons. She was also carrying maps of New York City and its subway system, Times Square and the Statue of Liberty, as well as the nearby Plum Island Animal Disease Center, home to many lethal pathogens.

"They found someone who is highly educated, who's very capable and who's willing to do the research," Kiriakou said.

The FBI said Siddiqui also possessed a computer thumb-drive storage device loaded with emails to potential terrorists. They hope it's a roadmap to terror plots in the works.

Siddiqui is now in custody in New York City, where friends and family have been protesting her innocence.

She's charged with trying to shoot the agents and soldiers who captured her, a fight in which she was shot.

The FBI is now trying to track down some of Siddiqui's classmates from MIT.

CBN News Terror Analyst, Erick Stakelbeck, says it's very significant that she was educated in the U.S.

"This is exactly what al-Qaeda wants. They want to place operatives in the U.S. who are westernized, who are fluent in English," he said. "Aafia Siddiqui fits both of those qualifications. And not only that, she's very, very intelligent."

Enterprise Security has an interesting article relating to modern day hacks. Long is the day for a simple phone call asking for a password into the mainframe.

I have taken some of the article below with comments, but it is a good read.

Want to break into the computer network in an ultra-secure building? Ship a hacked iPhone there to a nonexistent employee and hope the device sits in the mailroom, scanning for nearby wireless connections.

How about stealing someone's computer passwords? Forget trying to fool the person into downloading a malicious program that logs keystrokes. A tiny microphone hidden near the keyboard could do the same thing, since each keystroke emits slightly different sounds that can be used to reconstruct the words the target is typing.

Hackers at the DefCon conference here were demonstrating these and other novel techniques for infiltrating facilities Friday.

Their talks served as a reminder of the danger of physical attacks as a way to breach hard-to-crack computer networks. It's an area once defined by Dumpster diving and crude social-engineering ruses, like phony phone calls, that are probably easier to detect or avoid.

As technology gets cheaper and more powerful, from cell phones that act as personal computers to minuscule digital bugging devices, it's enabling a new wave of clever attacks that, if pulled off properly, can be as effective and less risky for thieves than traditional computer-intrusion tactics.

Consider Apple Inc.'s iPhone, a gadget whose processing horsepower and cellular and wireless Internet connections make it an ideal double agent.

Robert Graham and David Maynor, co-founders of Atlanta-based Errata Security, showed off an experiment in which they modified an iPhone and sent it to a client company that wanted to test the security of its internal wireless network.

Graham and Maynor programmed the phone to check in with their computers over the cellular network. Once inside the target company and connected, a program they had written scanned the wireless network for security holes.

They didn't find any, but the exercise demonstrated an inexpensive way to perform penetration testing and the danger of unexpected devices being used in attacks. If they had found an unsecured router in their canvassing, they likely would have been able to waltz inside the corporate network to steal data.

To keep the phone running, the researchers latched on an extended-life battery that lasts days on end. But they only really need a few minutes inside a building to test the network's security.

Eric Schmiedl, a lock-picking expert and undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, outlined several surveillance methods long used by government intelligence agents that have become more accessible to garden-variety criminals because of the falling price of the technologies.

After hearing about how important work is, I was given the OK to provide a Fall Co-op class! I had been wanting to provide some form of computer class to the kids, but the Co-op always fell during the day, where I was unable to. However, this year, I had some vacation time I could use. So I am taking 1/2 days for those Thursdays, during Co-op. I will give two classes, easy / not so easy regarding computers/internet ect.

Now that I have the go ahead, I can move forward with the planning. I am a bit excited and there really seems an interest in this group for such a class. It will be only for 6 weeks. Now the work begins.

I thought this was rather interesting. As ACLU constantly mis-reminds us the interpretation of church/state, buisiness's are moving toward appeasement of religious holidays. I know, I know, government and buisiness are different. Yet, I couldn't help raising my eyebrows on this one.

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. - Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be given the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr as a holiday.

According to a news release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new five-year contract at the plant included the change to accommodate the hundreds of Somali Muslims who work at the plant .

Eid al-Fitr — which falls on Oct. 1 this year — marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Union leaders say implementing the holiday was important for the nearly 700 Muslims, many of them Somalis, who work at the plant that employs a total of 1,200 people.

The Shelbyville Times-Gazette newspaper quotes union spokesman Randy Hadley as saying the negotiating team felt this change was "extremely crucial, since this holiday is as important to Muslims as Christmas is to Christians."

The newspaper also quotes the union as saying two prayer rooms have been created at the Shelbyville Tyson Foods' plant " to allow Muslim workers to pray twice a day and return to work without leaving the plant."

Yawn. I didn't want to get up this morning or yesterday morning for that matter. For some reason, with the kids and wife home, I become lazy. I seem to not be able to focus as much nor do I get anything accomplish around the house.

Perhaps it's due to me being more relaxed and comfortable knowing their safe at home.
I like to think that anyway.

I was checking out my new feedjit on my blog to see where some viewers are at. Then checking out Google maps, out of curiosity. Understanding the pictures are old (from Google), I am still amazed of the detail you can see.


Below two pics are Ottawa, Ontario.




This is about as close as I can get to the streets of Ottawa, Ontario.



Below two pics are Fort Smith, Arkansas.



I can get it this close, viewing some cars.



Seems, many have already started to incorporate this map utility.


Google maps with Geocaching
Web-Based Epidemiological Reporting System

I would think using the Google Map API in your projects would be pretty much limited to only your imagination.

My family returns tomorrow and I am glad for it. The wife and kids been gone all week, as of last Friday.

The time away, allowed me to get some home projects done, as well as catch up on some guy movies. Yet, I am glad to see them returning.

I guess the most difficult of the home projects was actually the weatherstripping in the door. Seems, I could never find the exact same fit as the builders of the home. I managed to rig something up, but that little gem took 3 trips.

The one project I kept putting off was redoing the cement rings around the trees. I don't mind yardwork, but when its still 90 degrees after 9 p.m., its a bit of a pain. I mowed our yard before work the other morning around 6:30 a.m., just to hit it before the heat was up. It's been ranging anywhere from 101 to 107, not counting the index around here lately.

All in all, I managed to do the most of the list with some additional items I had not originally planned for. So, I hope the family will be satisfied.

I had heard a special fox report regarding "honor killing in America". I have it recorded, but haven't watched it yet.

Stop the ACLU has the special on their website. You can see it here.

Of course we are speaking of the Muslim faith, regarding Honor Killings. I noticed the commercial I seen for it, didn't mention the religion, rather the killings.


Of course, this is nothing new in other countries. Yet, we are shocked in America. Why? Because some muslims are willing to be acclimated in our country, others are not.

Since the family is away, I been getting some things done around the house.
I've already managed to get half of my honey-do list done, and a couple of extra things I wanted to do.

I finished off the remaining 5 lb hotwings tonight. My dad has invited me to dinner tomorrow night. I plan to go over there. It will be a nice change. I think he was really surprised I said yes.

I've been watching the first season of Lost. I never seen it, and now see why the show was such a hit.

I miss my kids and wife, but glad to get some things done here.

This evening, my evening runs became this.

1) Return weather strips to a store
2) Grabbed some duct tape, reusable unit filter for the house
3) Ran to the alarm systems to pick up a new battery (from our 2 a.m call)
4) Ran to mother-in-laws work to pick up item
5) Run to bank to cash a check from the weekend
6) Run back home to finish my hot wings

I was able to put in the new filter and replace that battery tonight.

This is pretty staggering, or is it? It is estimated 8.5-9 billion web pages on the Internet now, indexed only. Index means what Yahoo and Google has in their database to search, not necessarily the number that exist. There is probably never going to be a true idea of existing sites as it changes per minutes.

Taking that in perspective, does this news seem so staggering?

"EVERY five seconds, a website falls prey to hackers and gets infected with malicious software. This puts visiting
surfers at risk of having their computer systems infected.

That startling figure is from a recently published report by IT security and control firm Sophos.

The half-yearly report, which was released last Thursday, documents the latest trends and figures on Internet security and cyber-crime within the first six months of this year.

According to Sophos, an average of 16,173 malicious webpages are discovered each day, and a whopping "90 per cent of these webpages are legitimate sites which have been hacked".

Surprisingly, these sites are prominent and esteemed ones.

The website of Cambridge University Press was hacked in April, and the website belonging to the Association of Tennis Professionals a month later. According to the report, even government agencies are not spared."

Full article here

Another awesome movie, called "The Kingdom".



I was able to watch this yesterdsy, simply awesome. The last 30 minutes was simply full of action and awesome! From start to finish action and drama.

Synopsis:
"When a deadly bombing attack targets Americans in the Middle East, a counterterrorism squad is dispatched to find the culprits. Once they arrive in the desert, the U.S. agents (an ensemble that includes Jamie Foxx as the group's leader) learn that in these parts, they are the true enemy. With their investigation hampered by local bureaucracy, the team realizes they may be the terrorists' next target. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman also star."

Talk about a cool movie! I watched it last night, while alone and it was a great guy flick.



Premis:
"Based on a true 1971 event, this thriller tells the story of Terry (Jason Statham), a car dealer who becomes involved in a London bank heist only to find that the contents of the bank vault will draw him deeply and irrevocably into the city's criminal underbelly. Murder and scandal abound in this tale of corruption populated with a surprising mix of offenders, from low-level thugs to government officials and all the way up to the royal family."

It has MI5,some nudity, drama, intrique and just all around great movie.

I realize Miley C. is on a bad train leading to the pits with her actions. However, I am more interested in the hack of her Gmail.

After getting to bed nearly 11 p.m., I was awaken by a siren going off in the house.
Man, was it loud. I jumped out of bed and did a dash like I was 18 again to the alarm system. I am not sure I even opened my eyes. If there was a robber, I would had sacked him like a freight train trying to get to that system.
After about 5 tries, I finally shut it off. The wife was asking "what the h###". I checked the doors, ect. and all were still locked up tight. Better call the alarm people to ensure I don't need the cops. Although, that would had made for some interesting conversation for the neighborhood.
So I called them and they asked what does the screen on the system show. The lady on the phone didn't realize it took me 4 minutes to find the right keys on the phone through my blurry eyes.

I checked the screen and it mentioned "low battery". This thing has a battery?
Evidently it does. It must use the battery, when the electric is out. Obviously, that's not the case. I wonder if those Cable guys screwed something up the other day?
So when there is light outside and I have more than 3 hours sleep, I will be crawling in the attic to check/replace the battery. Then do an alarm test. (at this point I am suspecting she didn't even know our alarm went off)

During all this drama, the kids remained asleep or non-moving. How they can manage, I have no idea. Even the dog was spinning like a top during that world war 2 siren.

I just read a very interesting article regarding the new step for internet users.
full article here.

It uses GovTrack.us as the example.

A full implemented website that harnesses all the current tech on the net.

Think of the site Tauberer has created as a virtual news fetcher, bringing all the relevant info right to your PC. No more need to surf around the Internet or plow through wordy government sites. It all comes to one spot, his Web site.

Such Web-service sites are just starting to catch on, thanks to technologies such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is sort of a lingua franca for Net programmers, and Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds, which make it possible for sites to easily share data. It's not a stretch to say they could revolutionize the way content is delivered.

This is what I been waiting for. It will remove the need for searching, to a great extent. Rather going out there looking all the time, you can bring the subject to you.

Other sites hope to use Web services to grab a chunk of the classifieds market. In March, LinkedIn.com, a social-networking site for 1.8 million professionals, will begin using a Web service to collect job ads from all over the Internet on its site.

Through the site's social network, a LinkedIn.com customer interested in a listing will be able to find out if the recruiter is a friend of a friend, and if so, get a referral, says Konstantin Guericke, LinkedIn.com's vice-president for marketing. LinkedIn.com is working out an agreement with sites like Feedster.com to post their jobs data.

It's only the early days of information Web services, of course. But the potential is huge. Consider this: Just 10 years ago, businesses were tiptoeing to the Web, trying to figure out if they could make money on it.

Today, the question isn't "if?" It's "how much?" Ten years from now, savvy business folks will be asking the same of informational Web services.

Awesome. Now we need the information to create our own personal "All in one' sites to really get going.

I am on the edge of like/dislike. The acting, action is great. The special effects were phenomenal. However, the message of the movie was bleak.




I understand they wanted to convey the horrible tragedy going on in Burma. This is akin to Darfur. Freaking Genocide. Yet, it would had been nice to see one lost soul saved by the christian group.

Over the past week (more like 2), I been delving into the online tutorials, book on PHP/MYSQL.

Ideally, I want to be able to pull the information from a database, and have it viewed on a configured, concise layout, via the web. This would allow me to simply update the database, and not to have to re-configure the webpage so much.

The hardest thing is getting the construction down. I am getting close in the understanding, but man it's time consuming.

The way I normally work, is take a existing working project. Unravel it to see how it works, then try to apply those same means in my own desired format.

I already pulled some scripts down from the net and going through them. I already have a PHP/MYSQL book I bought for reference. Yet, there is nothing the same as writing and testing your own code.

Currently Resource for the Christian is using an existing script/sql I had found. Yet, I want to do more with it, rather than being a hack.

I have another free site I am using to simply test out on.

I keep saying the mantra in my head, "Once you get the basics down, you can do anything with it". I truly believe this. I am just working on getting that initial "aha" to come through.

I have to give a shout-out and say, I am really proud of my wife. She has continued to run after her first 5K. She really seems be loving this.

This morning she did 5 miles. I find that to be estoric. So a shout-out to my wife to say way to go!

Yesterday marked my 13 years of marriage. Looking back at the old pictures, we were just kids. The best gift I received? A wonderful full year with my wife of course.


Yesterday, during a work break, I figured I would walk with the kids. Our area is made out, where if you walked from end to end 3.5 times, it equals out to a mile. My kids been doing this with my wife for some time now, but me, not so much. My daughter said, "lets run to the end". Sure, why not. By the time I was at the stop sign (1/2 way), my heart was screaming 'what the hell'.

I kidded with my daughter (after I regained my breathe and composure), my heart was asking me 'why are we running, is there a twinkie down there?' She thought it was hillarous. But in the end, I managed to walk the remaining mile.


Last night, the homeschool group had the water park to themselves. Needless to say, I played like a kid. Rather, I tried to keep up with mine. They had some neat slides we had to go down way more than once. However, you had to walk up bloody four stories to the top. The first 2-3 times were not bad, after the eight time up, I was not only feeling it, I was getting slower. My son the ever energizer bunny kept baiting me "Comeon slowpoke, old man". Sigh, I was feeling it. I am feeling it more this morning.

Irregardless, I think we all had fun.

So, with all the physical exertion I am not used to, I am feeling it this morning.

Not as young as I use to be

We had a relaxing weekend. Too bad, these times are the ones that seem to run faster. But these days, everyone seems to be running out of time.

From relaxing weekend to yet another busy week. All remote employees from my company should had received a call by end day last Friday. I know of 2 groups that are indeed effected. One a really good friend. The burden of choice is not so much as, where does my friend go from here. I hope the company realizes many families simply cannot leave their current locations. Perhaps they do realize it, or perhaps they simply don't care.


For this week I have a board meeting Monday night and 13 year anniversary on top of my regular schedule of events.

My wife and I finally watched "Defnitely, Maybe" last night. It was a cute movie. Worth renting.

I came across this interesting video where the news reports T-Rex soft tissue was found.



You can see additional videos at Resource for the Christian

T-Rex soft tissue found

More good news came my way yesterday. My dad's doctor appt. came in saying everything was good. He was obviously happy last night informing me. Yesterday, my wife's doctor appt. also came in good.

After being on stress alert, with all this good news coming in, I can't help being excited yet speculative. Isn't that like humans, always pessimist.


On another note, my 13 year anniversary is next week. I can't believe it's been 13 years already. Then I look at my kids and realize how far we have really gone. During our 7th year anniversay we joked about the "itch". Supposedly around 7 years, couples tend to get the itch to split. Obvioiusly, this had not occured for us.

I was told this morning, most men break the union around year 15 or 17. Guess, mid-life hits and they need that young blood to make them feel younger. Irregardless, we were mentioning the excrutiating things that would happen to me, if that had ever occured. Jokingly of course, ahem.

Although, unless I had the money by then, I am not sure what the young blood would want. Surely I will be fatter and with less hair by then, given my dilemma at this point.

Never fear though, if a dull knife doesn't scare a guy, this will. My wife works for two lawyers. Think a one room apartment with no weekend money sounds like a drag, think of a cardboard box instead. But I digress.

Fortunately for us, I really don't think any of that will happen. Personally, I have no desire to ruin such a good relationship. Everyone (including ours) has it's ups and downs. However, when I see the alternatives, there's no challenge there.

I had posted a bit of stress in the past. Part of the burden has been lifted. As my fellow 4-5 readers know, radical changes have been occuring in our company. We has an updated meeting early this week, indicating 25% of the IS Dept was remote and 25% were working one or two days at home. They felt this was unacceptable having 50% (at times) of the work force not working within the corporate building. So, the first phase was requiring all local employees to drive to work, removing the ability to work at home. Yes, that sucked for most, considering 4 bucks a gallon and traffic in PA pretty much bites. If hit wrong, 35 miles can take 1 to 1.5 hours to get to work.

The second phase was to pull in 1/2 of the remotes back to corporate. We were informed 16-18 remotes will be effected. All remotes will be given "the call" to inform them if they are indeed affected by this. If so, your two options were some assistance to move in, or some assistance to move on. Most thought the our team would be ok, but as I said before and still believe, you only know what is told to you.

Irregardless, I received the call yesterday informing me my position and team was not effected. I had to ask if the company plans to re-evaluate the remotes a year from now, as they are currently. I was told no. So at this point buisiness as usual. I am scheduled to go up to PA in August for a week.

It was a huge stress relief, to say the least. Everyone at work kept asking if I will have to go, will I go, ect. I couldn't answer. I really didn't know.

Now I am thankful that part is over with. I still feel sick for those who are effected. It sucks. They were hired as remotes, but now that's being changed.

Yesterday I had to go to the doc. I had another bad headache. So, if I acquire another one, my job was to call the doc. Note: I never use to get headaches. In fact, I rarely get sick, knock on wood.

So, I called them to inform them as I was chewing down 3 tylenols. They called back and said they happen to have a cancel, 'why don't you come on in'. Sure. Why not, what else do I have to do but work.

The doc suspects it's migraines. The uni-lateral (one sided) pain, more than one day, yada yada. Take this freebie drug and see if that helps. So I took it then and there, sense I was still having tension.

This morning it's better. At first, I didn't think it was going to help out yesterday, but the pain later subsided. However, having 85 mg/500mg running through me, I felt like a deadpan. So I wasn't much into conversation.

I kept conveying to the doc, I never use to get headaches, but no answer was found. Simply, let's try this.

Hmm, why might I be getting them now? I know my eyes are OK, I had them checked. I suspect stress.

My wife and kids are leaving for out of town in less than two weeks.
My son is having a procedure on the brain.
I am fighting with the insurance to cover what shouldn't be questioned.
My company is radically changing with little communication.

Hmm, yeah, some things going on.

Below is a full article regarding a UK school forcing the students to practice religion during class.
Although, this is the main part of the story, notice the last two paragraphs. It indicates Britain will soon see Sharia Law being put in place. To me, this is the more pronounced story.

---------
'If Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion there would be war'
Posted: July 04, 2008
6:15 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Two seventh-grade boys were given detention and their classmates forced to miss their scheduled refreshment break when the pair refused to kneel and pray to Allah during a religious studies class.
Outraged parents called the punishment of the boys for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration at Alsager High School near Stoke-on-Trent, UK, of how Muslims' worship Allah a breach of their human rights.
"This isn't right, it's taking things too far," parent Sharon Luinen told the London Daily Mail.
"I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that, but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer. Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.
"I don't want this to look as if I have a problem with the school because I am generally very happy with it."

Last month, WND reported Principal Robin Lowe was reassigned after staging a mandatory lesson in Islamic religious beliefs for nearly 900 students at her Houston-area school.
The controversy erupted at Friendswood Junior High when students were diverted from a scheduled physical education class and taken to a special assembly.
In the 40-minute session, representatives of the Houston office of the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization critics link to terrorist groups, presented a lesson in the religious beliefs and requirements of Islam.
The CAIR representatives instructed students that Adam, Noah and Jesus are prophets; announced "there is one god, his name is Allah"; taught the five pillars of Islam; told students how to pray five times a day; and gave instruction on Islamic religious requirements for dress.
The assembly had not been authorized by the district, officials confirmed.
In May, officials at a Minnesota charter school, housed in the same building as a mosque, attacked a television news crew investigating whether the publicly funded institution had complied with a state order to stop accommodating Islamic prayers and religious programs.
The investigation followed revelations by a substitute teacher who observed children being forced to participate in Islamic prayers.
In the Alsager School incident, the religion teacher, who was not named, made the class wear Muslim headgear and watch a short film. Afterward, she took prayer mats from her cupboard and said, "we are now going out to pray to Allah," parents claimed.
"I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable," said parent Karen Williams.
"Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right. They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."
"My child has been forced to pray to Allah in a school lesson," the grandfather of one of the students said. "It's absolutely disgusting, there's no other way of putting it. My daughter and a lot of other mothers are furious about their children being made to kneel on the floor and pray to Islam. If they didn't do it they were given detention.
"I am not racist, I've been friendly with an Indian for 30 years. I've also been to a Muslim wedding where it was explained to me that alcohol would not be served and I respected that. But if Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion there would be war."
Keith Plant, Alsager's deputy headmaster, said with summer break, many of the staff was unavailable and he could not comment fully.
"I think that it is a shame that so many parents have got in touch with the press before coming to me. I have spoken to the teacher and she has articulately given me her version of events, but that is all I can give you at the moment."
Cheshire County Council issued a statement telling parents "inquiries are being made into the circumstances as a matter of urgency.
"Educating children in the beliefs of different faith is part of the diversity curriculum on the basis that knowledge is essential to understanding. We accept that such teaching is to be conducted with some sense of sensitivity."
Revelation of the incident follows this week's pronouncement by the UK's top judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, that Islamic sharia law should be used in the UK.
In a speech to an East London mosque, Phillips said, "Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.'
"Those who are in dispute are free to subject it to mediation or to agree that it shall be resolved by a chosen arbitrator. There is no reason why principles of sharia law or any other religious code should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of dispute resolution."
Phillips signaled approval of sharia principles as long as punishments – and divorce rulings – complied with the law of the land.
In February, WND reported Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, chief of the 70-million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion, advocated the establishment of Islamic law in Britain.

The weekend was an enjoyable 3 day weekend. We had some friends and family over for the fourth. All very comfortable and peaceful.

Now the architect part of my new site, Resource for the Christian is put in place, I am simply adding more and more vids to it. Hopefully, it will become a pretty good resource, as intended.

I watched a very good dvd entitled 'Exodus Decoded' last night. I would highly recommend it. The preview is on my Resource site, under Biblical Archeology.

This coming Tuesday, we should hear the interpretation of working remotes and their future for our company. All remotes I know are basically waiting for this ball to drop. This has become such a topic, the son's owner is coming down to discuss it with the IS department, along with HR to help him. Our new CIO is holding this one close to his vest. I guess we will see tomorrow.

Other than that, another 5 day week, a tremendous headache and 2 weeks before my family goes to Texas. Sigh.

Standardization is hard for most. Your use to doing something in a particular way, then along comes someone to force you to do the same outcome, differently.

We are having this pain in the company I work for. So the stress is high. We just moved over to our new ticketing system, and believe me, I fumbled through my first one.

They have it setup for you to "acknowledge" it. This sounds simple enough. Yet, simply adding comments or putting your actions in the ticket does not "acknowledge" it. You have to go through a certain pathway to change the status to "acknowledge" it. Grr. To compound things, a text page is sent to you initially, then another one in 5 minutes, if you dont "acknowledge" it. after 10 minutes, the page goes to the whole group informing the others this ticket has not been "acknowledged". Within 15 minutes, it hits the team and the supervisor. Yeah, no stress. Just go in there and "acknowledge" the da*n thing. What's absurbing is you cannot text an "acknowldegment". Ahh progress.


Don't get me wrong, I understand the concept. You have everyone doing the same thing, thereby everyone understanding the process, yada yada. This is pretty much where the company is heading. The writing is on the wall, so to speak. Bringing everything in house, rather than outsourcing contracts. The technology is there, so why not utilize it to it's fullest potential?

Same thing for websites. First HTML was pretty much the standard. Then scripting came in to jazz it up. Now PHP/MySQL is reigning. The technology is there for everyone, you just have to go with the flow. Note, you can't keep up with the demand, so you just try to keep up with the requirements.

This is where the other part of the stress at work is having on the employees. No-one knows what the next ball will be. Everything is changing. For some, way too fast for their comfort zone.

Personally, I don't care how you want me to do it. The outcome is the same, the means is whats difference. Just train me to do my job. I don't even care to read those 50 dollar books on my own time.

Another thing which would be a no-brainer, but fails in most levels is communication. People perceive things differently. So, when the gaps are not filled with direct communication, everyone fills them in with their own insecurities. Yeah, you can see what that causes, more stress.

Well, this post turned from a meaningful thought to a rant, unintentially.

I am sharing this full story for STOP THE ACLU.

Seems Washington Post is after the Free Republic.com.


"The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post’s Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years."

Here is the hit piece at Washington Post.

I know I whined in the past, but when you plug 10 bucks in the tank and get less than 3 gallons, it's disappointing.

We are the cheapest in the U.S., so I am told.

A bad glare, but that is 10.04 for 2.602 gallons.

Linked-IN has to be one of the more interesting sites, I have come across. The idea is basically to put up your job experience, but more importantly to link to other professionals you had dealings with.



When your searching around, the site also shows 3 things on the side. The picture above is a snapshot of a random individual. It shows 2 to indicate she is a 2nd degree contact to me, 1 recommendation, and has 35 contacts in her profile.

The site also provides a easy way to ask others to join your 'network'. You do have to choose a means of association. Whether that be a prior company, collegue ect.

I always had heard everyone is 7 degrees of connection, but this particular site is proving it.

If your a part of Linkedin, fire me a comment.

I had already returned the Netflix movies yesterday.

I plan to mow the yard today (if it doesn't start raining again).

I continue to enjoy the new location of my desk. I feel like I have more privacy. The office was right by the front door. So I would basically hear all the action. In the back of the house, it's rather quite. Next is just figuring out a means to move my office phone. I may purchase a new personal phone for that.

Regarding work, we had another meeting yesterday. Clarification was brought in on the new cellphone policy, telecommunication and remote policy. Sigh. I guess we will see what else falls from the shaking tree.

My wife's birthday is in 7 days. I have already made arrangments, ect as of Monday. However, there is still alot to do before next Thursday.

So the plans for today:
On the personal side.
Continue to clean the house.
Mow the yard.
Make some personal phone calls.

On the work side.
I have 4 conference calls already scheduled.
Continue on my 15 projects.
Give a webex on the new change order forms.


Doesn't sound like much, but yesterday I had only 2 conference calls. Yet, each one was over an hour and half long. Pretty much kills your day.

The 3 initial Netflix movies arrived Tuesday. Kel noticed they were sent out from Oklahoma City. I was impressed how quick they arrived.

It was a bum day yesterday at work. Busy, alot of changes at the corporate office, and the morale seems to be way down up there. I head up there in August. Seems information isn't flowing up there, any better than to the remotes. Everyone is keeping their head down and doing their own work.

I will be submitting my work phone back to corporate this month. A new policy for all cell phones, ect. was put in place. Everyone that has, had a work phone, will need to either put that number in their own name, or use their personal one. We get a monthly stipend to assist in our phone usage. I had the work phone for nearly 5 years. However, I knew it was going to this, hence my recent purchase of a blackjack 2.

Yeah, it will kindof be a downer to have my electronic dog collar on all the times, but realistically, corporate had all my numbers anyway.

On another scale, I moved my office desk last night. Having the kids growing up fast, we decided to change the office to a homeschool room. It was way past time to do this move. I moved my desk to another location, which will be a nice change for me, and the kids will have a dedicated educational spot. We are all excited about it.

Regarding work in itself, I read an interesting article called No way to be a programmer expert. It touched base on the fact, we now live in such a fast pace world, with technology changing too fast to keep up. There is simply no way, one individual can be an expert on any given programming language. Rather, the programmer is required to be knowledgable and capable of learning many small bits of many languages. I am finding the same thing at work. We are at a point now, where, yes it's good to be an expert in one particular area. However, the worker needs to be good at 're-learning', as the company changes and moves in different directions.

My only statement is, "I don't really care what direction the company moves toward, just train me to allow me to keep my job."

I have been enjoying one of my gifts from this weekend. A 3 month unlimited Netflix account. I can have up to 3 dvd's at one time. I opened the account Saturday and began strolling the huge database of availible movies/tv shows/documentaries Netflix provides. Not only am I really impressed with the massive amount of choice, but there are quite a pick from their "watch now" shows.

I have been digging MI-5 as of last night. The one question Kel had was, can you choose dvd's not released yet, or find those true new releases. Seem's you can. The love of the internet is, chances are someones already found it or created it for online.

I found a posting from a search on Netflix hacks showing all new releases. Here is the link.

Choosing movies couldn't be easier. Netflix has what they call "Your Queue", which allows you to choose an unknown number of desired dvd's. For me, they fire out the top 3 availible on the list. I can continue to build my queue, and then move my more desired dvd's to the top of the stack.

Not only that, but they also have the 'watch now' queue, where I can create a list of those as well. No need to push them to the top. Simply hit play when I am ready to view. The kids already watched Kangaroo Jack on the PC. I so far seen a Ben and Teller, and 4 episodes of MI-5.

Interesting enough someone already found a means to copy the 'watch now' videos. I read it, but it sure seems alot of work to me. The link is found here.

Next, I am looking to see if it would be feasible to keep Netflix, if I continue to use it to its full potential. I am also looking to crop down the cable, removing those higher channels we really don't watch. Maybe it will work out to being the same rate. (I doubt it though).

The only other thing I can think of is having a PC to TV cable to view/listen to the streaming movies on my living room TV. Yeah, that would be cool.

The big drawback I can currently see is Netflix is a big diversion. You find yourself spending alot of time, simply looking for stuff to watch. Personally, I am interested in those titles, not availible in my area.

We should be getting our first 3 dvd's in today. The queue tells you when your items are shipped and expected time of arrival.

I may post a followup as I learn more about it.

So a Clinton-Obama ticket this year?
Now that Obama looks to be the Democrat candidatefor this years presidential race.

Gee, I thought this would occur around January, sigh. I guess it was fodder for the news outlets.

Maybe now we will learn more of Obama on his stances, like anti or prowar, ect. I would like to learn more from him, rather than these preachers everyone is flocking too.

Recently, a new video emerged showing Obama is anti-Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali Abunimah, I wanted to ask you about the candidates in the United States. You’re speaking to us from Chicago, so let’s start with Barack Obama. The stances of the presidential Democratic and Republican candidates on the Israel-Palestine conflict. I can’t remember when in a debate they were asked about the mounting crisis there.

ALI ABUNIMAH: I don’t know if they’ve been asked in a debate, but whenever they have been asked, they have all gone out of their way to express full support for what Israel is doing. Barack Obama is not distinguished from the rest of the pack, except by for how far he has moved to try to appease AIPAC and pro-Israel movements.

I remember, Amy—I knew Barack Obama for many years as my state senator—when he used to attend events in the Palestinian community in Chicago all the time.

I remember personally introducing him onstage in 1999, when we had a major community fundraiser for the community center in Deheisha refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. And that’s just one example of how Barack Obama used to be very comfortable speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation. And just yesterday, he apparently sent a letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador at the UN, to urge the US not to allow any resolution to pass criticizing Israel and saying how Israel was forced to impose this barbaric medieval siege on Israel.

None of the other candidates in the mainstream have spoken out for Palestinian rights. The only ones who have taken forceful positions opposing the current US strategy are Dennis Kucinich on the Democratic side and Ron Paul on the Republican side. The mainstream are all perfectly comfortable with the war crimes that Israel is committing, no matter how much they talk about human rights elsewhere.