Fingertoe.com

Kerry won. At least for the most part.

20/20 hindsight is a very nice asset to have on your side. The odd thing is that there is very little indication that Kerry would have done anything different if he where president. He advocated invading Iraq unilaterally if nessesary at different times in his career.

I found it contridictory that he would criticize the president for using a coalition to negotiate with N. Korea rather than going it alone with them.

The war in Iraq is not a disaster. It is a war. In wars people die. It is very impressive that we could take possession of an entire country without losing thousands of fighting men. I would challenge anyone to name a war where so much has been accomplished with so few casualties. Yes, there is still a lot remaining to be accomplished, but we are making progress.

The reason that Al Queda hates America is because we have a military presence in Saudi Arabia. The reason that we have been forced to have a military presence in Saudi Arabia is because of Saddam. Something had to give. Letting it be us would be a very bad precedent, and would endanger the stability of the entire world. We are the only country in the world that is capable of enforcing any agreement, If we don't have the resolve to hold folks like Saddam to their commitments, then there will be a whole lot more thugs like Saddam running around.

Kerry's gaff about pursuing sanctions against Iran is indicitive of one of the problems I see with the whole "Farenheit 9-11" mentality in the Democratic party. They want to blame Bush for the entire situation in the middle east. Bush was dealt a hand, and had to play a card. I don't think there has been a pretty hand dealt in the middle east since Moses. It was not Bush's fault that the situation is what it is. Al Qaeda has been bombing us for at least 11 years. We have had troops in Saudi arabia for 13 years. France Germany and Russia would never invaded Iraq unless Iraq invaded somebody else first. We don't really want to wait for that to happen. The only reason it hadn't happened is that our boys have spent 13 years putting their lives on the line. How many Russian, German or French planes have been threatened or shot at while patroling Iraq's no-fly zone lately? All the while, Al Qaeda had been becoming more and more angry and more and more militant with us precisely because we can't leave Saudi Arabia. Those who died on 9/11 dies as an indirect result of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Saddam didn't kill them, but he created the climate that did.

Posted by at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

The AP leaked their story about the Presidentail debate 3 hours before it took place!

Reading this story, knowing that it was written well before the event took place, is there any way that you can say that the AP is not biased?

Swimming through the Spin: More news from the Future: AP reports from the debate, 3 hours before it happens!

Posted by at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

One day when I was in college, I wanted to do something but couldn't because I had a 3 hour job to do at my fraternity house..

Levi Kettle took my duty. Never asked anything in return. I knew that Levi was a nice guy, but he wasn't one of my best friends or anything. I would see him in the hall, and at fraternity functions, but we didn't usually run around together. I don't remember ever doing any big favors for him. I remember trying to negotiate a trade, but he wouldn't hear of it. As far as I can tell, this was just a totally selfless act.

I don't remember what it was that I wanted to do that night. I don't remember who I was with, I don't remember the weather, I don't remember the time of year. I don't remember if I had fun. 12 Years later, the only mark left from that night is the one left by Levi's selfless favor.

Selflessness is a rare virtue these days.

Posted by at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

For some reason, John Kerry removed this from his website.

:: John Kerry for President - A New Era of National Service ::

As part of his 100 day plan to change America, John Kerry will propose a comprehensive service plan that includes requiring mandatory service for high school students and four years of college tuition in exchange for two years of national service.

SpinSwimming has more detailed analysis.

Since 9/11, The democrats have proposed several bills to re-institute the draft. The GOP has opposed these and prevented them from being seriously considered. John Kerry is now accusing the GOP of secretly re-instituring the draft after the election. I am afraid he has it backwards.

Posted by at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Okay, so I have a couple of Gmail invites that I have been holding on to for quite some time. Gmail is pretty cool. If you want to try it out, let me know, and I will try to hook you up. Just leave a comment, and I will send the invite.. I am not sure that I have 2 regular readers, but it is worth a shot ;-)

Posted by at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Can someone tell me why this is in my top stories on my.yahoo.com???

Yahoo! News - Franken Takes Radio Show on Campaign Trail

Does anyone even listen to that show?

Posted by at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Yesterday I was taking my kids home from Church, and I decided to take the ccenic route as they both looked like they could use a little sleep. Nathan (1 1/2) fell asleep right away. Julia (3 1/2) was quite chatty.

When noon came along, a local Christain radio station was playing their "hymn hour". I explained to Julia that hymns are songs about God that have been sung in churches for a very long time. She listened intently for five or six minutes, then asked. "Daddy, are these songs all the same?"

(I told her no)

Posted by at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Here is a clever blogger... Had to add this one to my New/Untested list right away!

Swimming through the Spin: These aren't the Droids I'm voting for

Posted by at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

I think it is very cool that consumers can have thier voices heard. It keeps the vendors accountable.

wingedpig.com: Seagate Has A Problem

Mark Fletcher is the Honcho at Bloglines.com, and his blog has at leaste 630 subscribers.

I notice that when I review products on my blog, I get hits.. I have had a ton of people find my site because I mentioned The Sipura SPA-3000 for example. I get hits from BasecampHQ.com.

In the future, companies will need to take good care of their customers in order to survive. Technology is enabling one mistake to be noticed by thousands of people. If you hurt a lot of your customers in the same way, you will have a tidal wave of negative word of mouth publicity.

Posted by at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

So I have had my Broadvoice account up and running for a couple of weeks now. It is pretty nice, I can make unlimited calls on that line for 19.95 per month.

Julia seems to like it, but I think some of her relatives are getting a little tired of hearing her jabber.. She can really go.. It is amazing to see Julia ask relevant questions of each of her relatives.

The sound quality on Broadvoice has been fair. It sounds a tad bit more staticy than would be nessesary for comfort noise. I have noticed that when I call some PBX based systems either myself or the recipient will hear ocasionally hear a pretty load echo about 1 or 2 seconds behind their own voice. When I dial POTS lines I have never noticed this, and I don't think it happens all of the time. There may be an easy way to fix it. I have not investigated much.

My caller ID did not work for the first week or so. I emailed Broadvoice and got back a letter that gave some suggestions, but also said "our engineers are working on the problem" A few days later it started working okay.

I have not configured the Sipura 3000 to use my POTS line yet. Don't know if I will or not. I could set it up so If I dailed 911 from one of my VoIP phones it would route out my normal phone line. Right now I am keeping my old fashoined number, so there shouldn't be much issue.

One of the features I love about the Broadvoice plan is that you can configure it to simultaniously ring other phone numbers. I have it ring my old land line at the same time as it rings my VoIP phones. You could also configure this so it would ring a cell phone or any other phone.. All of this can be turned on or off from the Broadvoice website, and seems to take effect immediately..

Now I am getting ready to gear up and start working on the Asterisk PBX system. Basically i am initally building it to be and IVR/Voicemail system.

Posted by at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Apparently Microsoft is attempting to force everyone to upgrade to window XP.

Microsoft to secure IE for XP only | CNET News.com

If you con't pay for an XP upgrade, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 will be stuck using an insecure version of I.E

All the more reason to use Firefox!

Posted by at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Well, I was critical of the republicans in our local congressional race a week or so ago, so I figure I need to be fair and Balanced.

My wife just got off the phone with someone who was a apparently Democratic Pollster. They where doing a push poll for Don Barbieri. Mr Barbieri is running a well funded campaign to take the congressional seat being vacated by George Nethercutt. (The Demcrats still call this "Tom Foley's seat.)

I hate push polls. How stupid do they really think that we are? I see that as one of the worst forms of negative campaigning. "If you knew that my opponent wanted to Burn down all of the forests of Eastern Washington, would that make you more or less likely to vote for them?" (No, this wasn't an example from this particular pollster, but it may as well have been) If you call and ask my opinion, I am doing you a favor by giving you the time to let you know what I think. When you take advantage of my generosity, It makes me dislike you.

If you are going to be using a negative campaign be bold enough to let everyone see what you are doing. If you message is true, put it in a TV ad, where everyone can judge. Doing this over the phones is a cowardly gossipy method of spreading your message. What is more, Push polls don't even have to be true.

I am planning to write down the questions from any pollster that calls me. I will post them on this Blog, for the whole world to read. I notice that this blog gets a lot of hits from people searching for information on Don Barbieri, and I have only made one post about the race.

Posted by at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Very strange story coming out of my favorite football program.

Yahoo! News - Two Arrested in Fatal Idaho Shooting

If I am going to post about 48-8 loss, I figure I better post about this much bigger loss. Seems so totally senseless.

Posted by at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

In an otherwise fluff article in my local business newspaper Spokane Journal of Business, I see this lead paragraph:

Cora Glass' divorce might well have been a blessing in disguise. After her split, the Spokane administrative assistant decided to try something new in life.

It is amazing to me that we treat divorce so casually. I don't know Ms. Glass or her family, but I think divorce is rarely a blessing. I am slightly offended (But not surprized) that the Business newpaper would casually indicate that trading Dad for an eclectic Dance hall/restuant/consignment shop was a good trade. Especially without elaborating. Leave that sentence out.

Most people probably won't even notice. They may remember the message when they are having family problems however. We probably hear little subtle comments like this nearly every day.

Update: I am worried about this post being taken the wrong way. I do not want to venture any opinion about the subject of this news story. I don't know their situation. The problem that I have is with the reporting, which I feel trivializes the pain of divorce by mentioning it in such a casual and positive way.

One of the missions of this Blog is to expose the cultural erosion that is evident in the media and culture of today.

Posted by at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Yahoo! News - Kerry Aide Talked to Retired Guard Officer

Apparently the Kerry campaign called Burkett regarding the Bush TANG story at the behest of CBS's Mary Mapes.

Joe Lockhart denied any connection between the presidential campaign and the papers. Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.

I would suspect that this is a pretty big breach of ethics. CBS refused to name their source to the public, but was happy to give that info to Joe Lockhart How can you claim to be unbiased when you are doing legwork for one of the campaigns?

Posted by at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

That John Kerry's Boston accent seems to be coming back? The other day I heard him talking about Iraq, and it sounded almost identical to the accent he was using in his infamous monolog before the 1971 senate hearings. Most of the other times I have heard him speak, it was much less pronounced..

Perhaps this is just his "I am trying to sell you a whopper of a lie" voice..

Posted by at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

I have been reading about this for quite some time. I am glad to see more schools are doing it, and that it is getting some press!

Old computers good as new in Linux labs - The Honolulu Advertiser - Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted by at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

The Corner on National Review Online

But I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things. -- Dan Rather

Posted by at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

This does not look good:

Yahoo! Sports - NCAA Football - Box Score

On the bright side, It could be a lot worse...

Posted by at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Perhaps I am a victim of Ivy league Marketing hype, but I thought if you had a Yale degree, you at least got an interview with pretty much any employer who was hiring.

I bet there where a lot of guys who got into the Texas Air National Guard without degrees from Yale.

Posted by at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

the cluetrain manifesto Is an aging book and website detailing how the Internet is allowing the consumers to gain a very powerful and credibible voice in the Marketing Discussion.

It contends that the consumers are quickly becoming deaf to the typical engineered propaganda that corporations tend to spew out in their attempt to impress customers .

This book was written well before the Blogging revolution, but it is interesting how relevant it is to the CBS situation.

Investors business daily Is running an interesting article regarding the power of Bloggers, and the advantages and disadvatages that they have over traditional media. CBS is demonstrating the cost of ignoring the cluetrain.

Some choice points from "The Cluetrain Manifesto ":

"There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone."

"Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity."

"Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them."

If you haven't heard of the "Cluetrain manifesto" Check out their website, they have 93 other points like this, and slowly companies in every industry are going to learn that they are dead on.

UPDATE: The guys at Powerline blog seem to have a firm grasp on what is happening. People have information. People now have the power to share their information. The mainstream media needs to adapt fast. Or someone is going to innovate a replacement for them. It seems that CBS has been 3 days behind since this broke.. People notice, People talk, People laugh.

Posted by at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Search:

I find it interesting how every story mentions that this guy is a "Fraternity Member" Although there is no indication that anyone in the fraternity was co-conspiring with him.

Pretty clever crime. I wonder if the victims where actually guilty.

On a side note, I have always wanted to rig my car so that when somebody reached for my windsheild wiper, the car detected the motion and turned on the Windshield washing feature.

Posted by at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Dick Morris's analysis of the trouble that Kerry is in seems pretty convincing: New York Post Online Edition: postopinion

The polls already have shown how Kerry's own voters break almost evenly on the issues, with half supporting the war in Iraq and half opposing it, and almost equal numbers saying we must stay the course as say we should bring the troops home.

So Kerry can't use issues to hold his own in the debates: Whatever he says will antagonize some of his base. And now it's plain that he can't rely on personal popularity to hold them, since most are just voting against Bush.

Posted by at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Wow, I don't even know what to say about this...
(I don't have to ask. Andee will say no!)
7300 CXT SS.pdf (application/pdf Object)

I love the logo at the bottom "The Brilliance of Common Sense"

UPDATE: More details: Yahoo! News - New Pickup Makes Hummer Look Rather Puny

Posted by at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Rathergate.com

Funny how the Hoax naysayers are sticking to the arguement that these Documents are real. They indicate that it was possible to create a document that matches the default word settings of today back in 1971.

The likehood that Killian actually went through all of the trouble to replicate a 2004 word document font when he was just writing a CYA memo to himself is bordering on insane.

Killian's family says that he couldn't hardly type, He never kept notes like this. The military policies forbid this kind of document.

The document matches the formating templates that the military uses today, not the templates that they used back then.

I think the most definitive website I have seen on this is JOSEPH M. NEWCOMER's

His website is complaining of being a bit overburdened from the traffic, so I will quote his conclusion here.

So we have the following two hypotheses contending for describing the memos

* Attempts to recreate the memos using Microsoft Word and Times New Roman produce images so close that even taking into account the fact that the image we were able to download from the CBS site has been copied, scanned, downloaded, and reprinted, the errors between the "authentic" document and a file created by anyone using Microsoft word are virtually indistinguishable.
* The font existed in 1972; there were technologies in 1972 that could, with elaborate effort, reproduce these memos, and these technologies and the skills to use them were used by someone who, by testimony of his own family, never typed anything, in an office that for all its other documents appears to have used ordinary monospaced typewriters, and therefore this unlikely juxtaposition of technologies and location coincided just long enough to produce these four memos on 04-May-1972, 18-May-1972, 01-August-1972, and 18-August-1973.

Which one do you think is true? Which one would a 13th-century philosopher think made sense? How many totally unlikely other juxtapositions are expected to be true? How could anyone believe these memos are other than incompetent forgeries?

Posted by at 6:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Newsday.com - Money and Careers

Increases in the American standard of living in the last five decades haven't produced a corresponding change in surveys of depression and contentment, Diener said. And the study noted some very poor nations score high on the emotional well-being scale.

It is funny to watch my kids with their toys. Once they have had a toy for a day or two, it seems that it's main purpose becomes something to fight over.

Really our big kid toys are not much different. Once we have had them for a week or two, the usually don't bring us nearly the happyness that we thought they would.

Posted by at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Yahoo! News - Company Making Fake Urine for Research

You have to wonder, what makes somebody decide to go into the Urine manufacturing business. Sheer genious!

Posted by at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

This is a pretty neat idea:

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Institution Lends on Faith

I remember my college days. I worked in factories to pay my way through school. I was astounded at the some of the highly talented, brilliant people that you would find wielding a soldering iron for a living. Many of these people could make a big difference in their community if somebody believed in them enough to give them a chance.

Posted by at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

A friend forwarded this Ben Stein column to me by email, so by now most people have probably recieved 300 copies of it. Most people know I often delete this type stuff without reading it, so I am outside of the gossip-superhighway. Still worth reading if you haven't.

Monday Night at Morton's - 12/20/03 - Page 1 of 3

Posted by at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Yahoo! Sports - NCAA Football - Box Score

Posted by at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

This seems to be one of the best demonstrations of the forgery I have seen yet:

CBS Forged Documents

Posted by at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Okay, So, Boise State clobbered Oregon State. As much as I hate do admit it, they probably have a pretty good team this year. Perhaps thier drubbing of Idaho last week was not such a bad sign.

Yahoo! Sports - NCAA Football - Boise St. 53, Oregon St. 34

Go Idaho!

Posted by at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

We have a substantial race for George Nethercutt's congressional seat here in Eastern Washington. It is funny to notice the media still considers it Tom Foley's seat. Democrat is a real threat to retake Foley's old district

I was pretty startled yesterday to see the RNC running ads criticizing Don Barbieri for laying off workers at a dairy that his company bought. Mr. Barbieri is trying to play himself off as being a good boss to work for who has created good jobs here in Spokane. I know various people who have worked for his company, and some love it and some see it as another dead-end hospitality job.

I believe that the reason that you buy companies is that you believe that you can run them more efficiently. If we don't allow people like Mr. Barbieri to make our companies and industries more competitive, then they will not be able to compete on a global market, and even more jobs will be lost. You can't afford to give your employees excellent benefits and adequate pay if you are subsidizing unproductive and unnecessary positions in your company.

I am sure the the RNC knows this, They believe in free enterprise. They are compromising their principles to take a potshot at a rival.

Don Barbieri is a substantial threat. He has raised over 1 million dollars for his campaign. The way to beat him however is to challenge him on his positions, which are diametrically opposed to the positions held by most eastern Washington residents. If we start pretending to be left wing liberals who know how to run businesses better than the businessmen do, then we are strengthening the position held by most in the Democratic party, and thus weakening our own position.

Posted by at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

I seem to see a lot of speculation on how Jesus would vote. This annoys me. If Jesus where to vote, he would vote for the winner. As he has the power to direct the outcome of any election. His vote is really the only vote that matters. I think in most cases however he does not intervene, and lets us reap the consequences of our national "free will"

If where only to pray as much as we complained and politiced, perhaps we wouldn't have half of the messes that we have in our culture today.

If we where to obey the direction that He gave us, we also wouldn't have nearly the mess that we have today. I think it is quite rare today to find an obedient Christian. We all value something to the point that we put Christ in second place. Be it our money, our legalist philosophies, our lust for power, our desire for the respect of our peers., Our overindulgence in the pleasures of today... Any of these can interfere with us having the kind of relationship with Christ that overflows into our community and changes people's lives for the better.

I feel a little guilty every time I blog about politics. It is such a dirty game. In the end, George W Bush and John Kerry only have so much power. It is miniscule compared to the power of God. Putting too much emphasis on this human power is a form of idolatry.

Posted by at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Letters to the Editor - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED

Posted by at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Here are some of the things people have been searching for when they found my humble weblog:

lid tack welder
indian larry (Tons of hits on this one)
sipura pbx problem
antisocial intp
monogomy
thermocron
voicepulse coupons
old testement legos
al quada
kerry campaign lies (My second Favorite)
ewu newspaper dan perdue (My Favorite)

My hits will probably go way down once my spellchecker starts working.

Posted by at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Amazingly, the lead story on My.yahoo is " Yahoo! News - Questions Raised About Bush Guard Service

If you read the story, you will find a the following quote in the third paragraph

But the authenticity of the memos was questioned Thursday by the son of the late officer who reportedly wrote them. One of the writer's fellow officers and a document expert also said Thursday the documents appear to be forgeries.

They gloss over the real story to perpetuate the hoax.

The AP story continues to quote the late officer as if he actually authored the forged documents.

This from the wire service that hears phantom booing and reports it as real.

We should be thankful for bloggers like Powerline who are out there keeping the media accountable.

The whitehouse released these forgeries after they obtained them from CBS news. It will be interesting to find out where CBS news got them.

Hopefully this fiasco will spell the end of Dan Rather. His vendetta against to Bush family has always been outside of the realm of reality. Newsmen should hold themselves to reporting truth, not spreading slander.

Posted by at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

It looks like the latest character assasination attempt on the president is a forgery, further undermining the Democrat's credibility. Power Line: The sixty-first minute

The Vietnam issue is a big loser for Kerry. Those who went to Veitnam are going to be perpetually angry about being called war criminals by Mr. Kerry. Those who joined the reserves, national guard, or got college deferments and the like are not going to take too kindly to having their americanism challenged because they did not go to the war. Basically an entire generation is being alienated from Mr Kerry the longer this stays in the news.

Proven forgery is going to further degrade any credibilty the democrats had left.

Posted by at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

This is a repost of a entry I made in January on my old blog... This topic came up again recently and I thought it may make for an interesting topic. Sorry if you have seen it before:

So, I have this strange habit of taking what most people would think of as a 'harebrained' idea, and trying to sell it to as many people as I can. Here is this weeks attempt:

I think that sabbaticals should be an encouraged benefit within more companies. I have been asking around, and a sizable portion of the people I unscientifically polled said that they would be willing to accept a reduction in pay in order to have 6 to 12 months off every few years.

So many people define their lives based on there employment. I think we quickly become slaves to the paycheck, and our true passions get buried or subordinated to advancing our career. Our vision becomes so focused on one very small part of the world that we lose a substantial amount of are capability to be creative. How can somebody be asked to think outside of the box when they have been trapped inside the box for years and years?

Today's businesses have to be extremely agile in order to be successful. When people do the same thing year in and year out, they get comfortable with it. They resist change. Commonly, there is such narrow perspective that an organization may not be able to see the big picture to even understand that change is necessary.

If we want people to think outside the box, we need to let them out of the box once in a while.

I see very good benefits to both parties in an organization where sabbatical are commonplace.

The employee gains the ability to spend time serving the real passions in their lives. Their family, churches, charities, Learning more, Relating to people more. They will feel like they are working for a company that is enabling them to do what they love, not a company that is preventing them from doing what they love.

The employer gains a workforce that has a better perspective on the world that they are serving. They gain a workforce that is used to change, The common absence of key people makes the rest of the team stronger, and more understanding of the whole operation. Infrastructure will naturally develop to adapt quickly to changes that need to happen.. Their employees will be better known in the community, and the company will gain goodwill from the community involvement as well as a more healthy community to draw its workforce from. Employees will also be more loyal, and less susceptible to burnout. .

The costs exist, but they probably could be split between the employee and employer, and both parties would feel that they where getting a pretty good deal.

What do you think of that idea? God made a similar 'suggestion' to Israel, but I don't believe they followed it. They didn't follow many of God's rules.

Posted by at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

I am home sick again... My kids where pretty excited about this:

Yahoo! News - Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Into Utah Desert

My 1 1/2 year old kept pointing at the TV and Saying Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh. My 3 1/2 year old kept saying Where is the tractor? Why aren't they digging?

Funny how NASA TV can keep my kids entertained. That is pretty much the slowest chanell on TV. I would suppose that is a benefit of not allowing the kids to watch much TV at all.

Posted by at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

Well, I spent most of Labor day weekend pretending that I wasn't sick. Went to the doctor and got anti-biotics, but they don't seem to be helping. I wish I could find my webcam, I could post a picture of the white spots freckeling the back of my throat. I hear it is really cool looking..

Posted by at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

I always find studies that say "this problem costs the economy X billion dollars" Cost accountants must have way too much time on their hands.

The New York Times > Health > Sick of Work: Always on the Job, Employees Pay With Health

If everyone quit their stressful job, wouldn't that cost billions of dollars too? These studies always point out a cost, but they ignore the fact that just doing business has a lot of cost built into it. It is quite difficult to know where the baseline should start.

Computer viruses are another example. They always say it costs x billion dollars to deal with this virus... The problem with these figures is that it treats the employees and equipment as if they where variable costs, when they are not. You are going to pay the Security guy weather he is eradicating a virus or doing something else. Unless you lay him off whenever there is no virus, it is not really costing you any money. It is a hassle, and there are probably more productive things that your staff could be spending their time on, but there is no guarantee that the other activities will make your company any more money either.

The truth is that most cost is infrastructure... It is the cost of doing business. If you drive in a car, you will eventually experience and accident. If you go to work, you will eventually experience stress. If you buy something, eventually it will break. You can't say how much any one of these things cost, because if they didn't happen, something else would.

I think that putting a dollar amount on each and every facet of our lives causes us to make bad decisions. We ignore the spiritual and emotional side of the world, and make decisions based on imaginary figures. We try too much to make all of our decisions objective, when we actually live in an unquantifiable sea of simultaneous experiences.

Posted by at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

So, it is a new season. Lots of new activities starting up.

My BSF class starts next week. I am pretty excited about it. We are covering Acts of the Apostles this year. If you are looking for a good bible study, you should see if there is a Bible Study Fellowship class in your area. It is a pretty big commitment, but you learn a ton from going through the study.

My fantasy football league starts up about now too. I seem to be lacking the drive to devote ample time this year. I have been consistantly competitve over the last 4 years or so, and we play with the same group of college buddies every year. It is a great way to stay connected. We just play for bragging rights.

Speaking of college, According to my.yahoo.com, Idaho (My alma matter of the heart, not the alma matter on my diploma) apparently lost to a team without a name 65-7. They where kind enough not to put the words "Boise State" on my screen. I don't remember checking an option for censoring words in the my yahoo setup, but if there is an censor option, I am sure I would have checked it.

Posted by at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

One of the fun things about having a blog is seeing the odd sort of things people search for when they find you.

In the last week I have had two referals from google searches for "Old Testament Legos" If that is what brought you here, please enjoy my blog, then follow this link:

The Brick Testament

Another key to generating web traffic is to use poor spelling. If you mispell other people who mispell usually find you. If you spell correctly, you are just one of a million blogs talking about the same stuff.

Posted by at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

This was the story that they posted:

Boston Globe Online

Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them.

Here is a link to the audio clip.

Seems like somebody got that one pretty wrong.

The media is so hungry for the negative that inaudible the boos are more newsworthy than the overwelming majorty in the audio clip that are applauding. Apparently the media is totally deaf to compasionate conservatives. It is like we don't exist. I doubt that they intentionally made this up, as it is easy enough to disprove. The reporter probably actually percieved this booing, and had difficulty discering between his imagination and what what truely going on.

I think we have two realities that we live in. Bush is going to win because most people who hear that clip will not hear the boos. The Leftists believe that conservatives are evil at heart, but they keep pointing and the invisible, inaudible, and indiscernable evidence.

The AP to their credit did retract the story.

Posted by at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

So, My PBX project hit a snag. I recieved my fancy Sipura SPA-3000 which was supposed to connect my PBX to the world. It came with all of these coupons to try out the various Voice over IP providers. I signed up with BroadVoice.

Broadvoice is going to save us a small fortune. So my SPA-3000 is busy working on running our Broadvoice connection, and I don't really want to mess with it to play with the PBX. I will persevere I am sure. May have to buy another SPA-3000 darn it!

For 9.95, we could amost eliminate our long distance bills. Nearly all of our long distance goes to Oregon. We got a Portland Telephone number, and now can make unlimited calls to Oregon for 9.95 per month. All of our friends can call us for free as well. For 19.95 per month we can have unlimited US phone calls. Pretty good deal!

I ran into a friend at church today and was talking to him about my new-found phone fettish. He asked me if I knew of a cheap way to call the Dominican Repuplic. Said he has been spending a fortune in phone cards calling down there. His friend there has a DSL connection. I told him that if he signed up with Broadvoice, and got a 509 area code telephone number, his friend could plug the phone into the DSL and have a full featured phone that was able to call to and recieve unlimited calls from Spokane for 9.95 per month. It was fun to talk to somebody about this stuff who wasn't humoring me. ;-)

I wonder how the traditional Telcos are going to adapt to the commoditization of their products? With the devices being built now, all that you really need to pay them for is bandwidth, and they suddenly have to compete with the cable companies, and other high speed providers.

Posted by at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

Check out the popularity of "Indian Larry"StatCounter (Fingertoe.com)

If I just wrote about Motorcycles every day, I could have the hottest blog on the net!

I am not really much of a motorcycle fan. I am a problem solving fan. I am addicted to "American Chopper" because I love to watch people solve problems. Paulie tends to have a lot of problems, and they always seem to find a way to fix them.

I have always said that if I where detail oriented I wouldn't be a good problem solver, as I wouldn't have had enough problems to practice with.

Seemed that the few shows I saw about Indian Larry, he was not nearly as interesting to watch, as he did most things right the first time.

Posted by at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments ()

I have been confronted quite frequently with questions about the Christian view on war. Tonight I see a interesting study posted at Radical Congruency on the toplic.

Radical Congruency » What Jesus Said About Violence, Nonviolence, Pacifism, etc

It is too late at night for me to add my two cents, but this looks like something worth sharing.

Posted by at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)