Middle America's Worldview

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.

What I don't like about Netflix
Although the rating system is comprised for a means to mold your interest, it at times seems restrictive. I wonder if I rated some thing differently, would more diverse titles be shown to me? Yet after 1000 ratings, I really don't want to go back and 'play' with them to see.


As I mentioned earlier, I would like to see a multiple rating option per family member.


I would like to see their database opened up to allow programmers to create their own search engines. This may already exist somewhere, but it would be interesting to see an open API, or protocol to allow personal search engines to be created.


I really can't think of anything else. I might write another article as I learn more of Netflix. I would say, it's definitely worth checking out.

They have a deal of 4.99 per month offer, currently. Check out the top of the blog to hit the Netflix button.

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.

A similiar tact was shown on a MI5 show. The target was given cuff links as a gift. They had a small mic within that allowed this same technique.

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.

Moore's law has already proven this, time and time again.

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.

Ingenious.

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.

Gotta love it.

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."

Source

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.