Month: September 2008

Categories
odds and ends

I’m back!

I am on my own computer again. I can post without it, but I really prefer to use the programs on my computer to post… A few observations:

I hate Fed-ex. They may be excellent in next day deliveries, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never used them for that. All I know is that EVERY TIME I have used them for ground service, they have screwed up and/or pissed me off. I understand that things happen from time to time, but I think they’re 5 for 5 with me. This time, I ordered a new power supply. The website said that it would take 1-5 days. That’s fine, by Thursday, it had gotten to the Hampton distribution center. I had been tracking it and they had estimated that it would be delivered on the 15th but here it was the 11th and it was a truck ride away from me. So the next day, I checked the tracking, expecting them to have put it on the truck. Nope. The tracking info said, “Not due for delivery.” They didn’t deliver it on friday, I had to wait until Monday. WTF? It was there, and they didn’t deliver it. I had sworn off shipping via Fed-Ex a long time ago, now I’m going to make sure that I won’t be using them for delivery…

I’m not out of the woods yet. I allowed my battery to wear down in the computer… for a week. Now I have both power adaptors (one for home, one will live on my computer bag), but my battery is not being recognized by my computer. I’ve read a few forums and it sounds like the battery is going to need to be replaced. If I’m lucky, Apple will replace it for me, they had a recall on them. I’ll let you know how it goes…

So I used mom’s computer in the meantime. It was nice of her to leave it over the weekend for me. I gotta say, I’m glad to be back on my machine. Firefox 3 seems really unstable on Vista, at least it was on that machine. It kept crashing. Oh, and how did I ever live before RSS feeds? It was weird to have to actually go to the websites to see if anything new had been added…

I had an awful weekend. I had been told early n the week that I needed a root canal. It didn’t surprise me, the thing was hurting quite a bit. I was on a steady diet of pain killers. Nothing too heavy. I still have a bottle of vicadin extra strength left over from my previous tooth issue. I try to stay away from narcotics because, like alcohol, they scare me. However, I do recognize that, like alcohol, they have their uses. No, I was on Alieve, Tylonal, and Excedrin. Not all at the same time, I rotated them. The hell of it is that my tooth didn’t bother me this weekend, but my GI system tried to kill me. Without going into details, I didn’t sleep for two nights… I’ve stopped with the pain pills, and now my tooth and my stomach are fine. I hate side effects…

Anyway, I’m back and I will try to put up a few more posts both here and my music blog too…

Categories
politics

What’s going on in North Korea?

Rumors are flying that Kim Jong-Il had a stroke. There’s no telling what kind of maneuvering is going on behind the scenes now. He has a couple of sons I think, but neither of them are in line to inherit anything. My guess is that some sort of military group will be the next to come to power. With any luck, this will be the beginning of the end for North Korea’s isolation. Down with Kim Jong-Il! Just about anything will be better…

Categories
politics

Are they going to blow it?

If you had asked me 8 months ago if the democrats could lose this election, I would’ve said “No way.” Without even knowing who was going to run, it was clear that the dems would have the election handed to them on a silver platter. Well, take a look at this.

I treat the elections a lot like the NFL. I don’t have a team that I follow, but I do enjoy watching the contest. If the democrats lose this (and let’s be clear, this election was theirs to lose), it will be one of the great choke jobs of all time. I’m not loosing any sleep over it, our next president will be a big step up no matter who wins…

Categories
odds and ends

Had a good time at the beach

Not that I went to the beach much 🙂 What can I say? Im not a beach person. I don’t like being in the sun (or using sunscreen), sand, or salt water. I did go down a couple of times and it was a really nice beach, just not my scene. We did, however, have a pool right by the house, and a hot tub. Those were really nice and I used them quite a bit.

The house was huge and the weather was basically perfect. The best thing of course was seeing everyone. I never get to see Kelly and Patrick, Carolee, and I only see Brian on occasion. It was great to see everyone, we need to get together more often.

Of course everyone made fun of me the whole time for avoiding the kids. It’s true that kids put me on edge, I just feel totally out of my element around them, especially the really young ones. But I have to admit that the kids were very well behaved, and I was downright impressed with Sean (K&P’s kid), he didn’t bother me in the slightest!:-) Seriously, it’s probably a good thing for me to be in that situation from time to time, edge or no. So the kids were fine, but I am glad it was a big house… 🙂

Categories
odds and ends

Grrr…

I left my power adaptor up at Rick’s. So I may or may not post anything or be in touch for a little while. I use this tonight until my battery runs out. Grumble grumble grumble.

Categories
odds and ends

A slight change in plans

Well, we came back from NC today. Hanna passed by us to the west, all we got was some rain and some stiff winds, no big deal. I’m going up with Rick to Falls Church. The car situation got a little crazy and I have to go up with him in order to bring mom’s truck back. I was planning on staying there for a week or so, but my tooth is acting up. It’s the same one that i just got a new filling for. It had been annoying and really sensitive to cold, but no big deal with some pain killers. That all changed last night when it really flared up. We’re talking drenching the sheets with sweat kind of pain. It went away and it’s OK now (with some aspirin) but I’m not about to have another night like last night. I’ll take my vicoden up to Rick’s in case I have a repeat, and with any luck I’ll have this thing takes care of on mon. or tue…

So I’m not sure when I’ll get up to the DC area. One of my friends will be moving soon, so I need to get up there before too long. Maybe next week…

Categories
christianity religion

Reading

I brought “The Logic of Political Survival” along with me to the beach house. I haven’t touched it though. Instead, I have been listening to “Orthodoxy” by Chesterton. It was one of two books that I downloaded from emusic when they started their audiobook service. The other one was “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

In any case, I hadn’t listened to either of them yet. Mom offered me the use of her iPod (I should get one of those at some point) and I’ve been listening ever since. I had been expecting something about Eastern Orthodoxy, but it is simply Christian apologetics. He does a good job, good enough that I’m still listening to it. It’s been a long time since I have delved into any philosophy, so it is a bit hard to get through at times. It does help to be familiar with Plato, William James, and several other, mostly materialistic philosophers for the first part of the book to make any sense.

So far, there are two things that have stood out to me. The first is how he made clear the difference between things that must be true vs. things that happen to be true. The essence of that distinction is that in one case, we cannot imagine it being any different and the other we can. For example, 2 plus 3 is 5. There is no imaginable alternative to that outcome (assuming base 10). If I say that she is my mother, it always means I am her son. Contrast that with the idea that grass is green. It’s easy to imagine an alternative to that. How about the idea that if you snip an apple off of a tree, it will fall. Maybe, if it were on a satellite, it would just hang there…

The other, less pedantic, idea that really resonates with me is how Christianity is built upon paradoxes. This is in fact a strength, not a weakness. I’m in the middle of his explanation, so I’ll report back if it is explainable in a way that I can handle.

This is slow going stuff, even for me. I usually will listen for 20 minutes or so and then switch over to music while my head explodes. Of course then Cara (one of my nieces… step nieces?) wants me to read a book to her. I can do it, but going from religious philosophy to talking about colors under the sea gives me extreme intellectual whiplash. We’ll see what I get out of the first run through of this…

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Categories
odds and ends

More kids say the darndest things

I have been assured that these things are commonplace with kids, but since I’m not really in the loop, i still find them humorous. Today a bunch of us were sitting around the table when the inevitable head count started. One kid was running around outside, the other had gone to the bathroom some time ago. The father grabbed a roll of TP and went looking for her in one of the many bathrooms we have at the vacation house. He said he found her sitting on the john singing “The star spangled banner,” and complaining that there wasn’t any TP. We all waited until the mother explained that the star spangled banner is her potty song…

Categories
odds and ends

Comic moments here…

My sister-in-law was trying to corral the kids after having come back from the beach. They were being washed off in a shower that is outside the house. She then told them to go in to their rooms and get dressed. The two oldest walked by the foosball table and said they wanted to play. “No naked foosball!” was her reaction. I mentioned to her that I had anticipated going through my entire life without hearing that sentence. She replied that she says things all the time that she never expected to have to say. I went upstairs and got another example. “Please do not smother the baby…”

There is a store around the corner that is called “Birthday Suits.” I haven’t looked in it yet, but I’m thinking maybe I ought to…

Categories
politics

My choice

As much as I bitch about the political process and politicians in general, I don’t want to give the idea that the candidate doesn’t make any difference at all. I don’t think that they can do most of what they claim that they are going to do. Even if it were all possible, which it never is, they would need congress’ help. There’s no telling what will come out of the bill that ends up passing through both houses. Inevitably, there are all sorts of things added, and the bill is watered down, it’s the only way it can be passed.

So a president isn’t as powerful as his campaign makes him sound, but the president does wield significant power in other areas. In many aspects, the president can implement foreign policy unilaterally. He does have to contend with the established bureaucracy of the state department, but the president is going to have his way…

I think this is a weak point of Obama’s. He has no real foreign policy experience to speak of. There’s no telling how he plans to implement his rather vague ideas about how the US can rehabilitate itself in the world’s eyes. On the other hand, we know exactly what McCain has in mind. Call me crazy, but I’ll take the lesser evil of the uncertainty of Obama to the known evil of McCain. We already know what McCain’s strategy leads to, lots of dead people (on both sides) and people hating us more than when we started.

I think that most of what I heard of Obama’s economic plan sounds like a disaster, but I know that there is very little likelihood of it being passed in the way he thinks it should be. Who knows how that’ll end up. As much as I hate to say it, I think that Obama could very well “change” things for the better in the foreign policy department. The problem with McCain is that we know what to expect. Some of those things aren’t so bad, but the whole warmongering thing has to stop. The American economy is robust enough (despite the doom and gloom you keep hearing, there really isn’t any consensus as to whether or not we’re actually in a recession. That means that if we are, it isn’t much of one) to survive fiddling by politicians. It’s done pretty well so far despite the best efforts of the jackasses in power. Waging unjustified wars has no upside. So go Obamaa!

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