I Blog, Therefore I Am

I have no idea what this will be about, or where it will go. The pressure to post has been building, so this should hold some people for a while.

Why are teachers Crazy?

I don't know, but I am starting to learn how to spot them. Green vests knitted from some fuzzy stuff with cartoon characters sewn on. And the noses have to be buttons or little bells. I swear they all shop at Canton. We went to Nikki's school Christmas party, better known as the Island of Misfit Humans. The last two years I have sat at the very end of the table, using Nikki as a shield. And the last two years a different woman with too much makeup and an Energizer mouth has come in at the last minute and perched herself down at the end, next to me. Both were divorced outcasts from the land of McMansions, and boy are they bitter. And not shy about it. They haven't adjusted well. You really shouldn't be wondering where to hide your diamonds in your one bedroom apartment. Needless to say, I won't be attending next year, not sober anyway.

Why did she do that to my hair?
I got a haircut today. Those that know me can tell you that among my many, many faults, vanity is not one of them. I just want a haircut. A number 3 and don't make my head look square. Now, I don't usually talk much to the lady that cuts my hair. Her English is better than my Vietnamese, but only marginally. I will drift off, thinking about something, not paying much attention. Next thing I know, I am getting a vigorous head message. WTF? Too late, I have been North Dallas Gelled. She always asks, and I always say no. Not today. So, for the rest of the day I felt the urge to buy an Emo CD and put a DVD player in the dash of my truck. What the hell is Emo, anyway? Now I know how a candied apple feels.

Romosexuals
He's a pretty good football player, but come on. Get a grip, people.

My Inner Geek
I finally figured out how to make a home server with Linux. And I was excited. Please pray for me, this can't turn out well. Help me Baby Cheeses.

MySpace
Nikki has one, and enjoys talking to the kids in our church through the web. Not for me, I don't have any tattoos. I'll leave that to the 14 year olds.

See ya',
BT

I Suck

I realized it's been months since I posted. Something to follow soon.

BT

Getting in Touch with my Inner Geek

Recently, for some reason I cannot explain, I have become fascinated with Linux. I don’t have anything against Windows, or for that matter OS X. Maybe it has something to do with learning something new and different. Maybe it’s like being part of a super secret club. I’m pretty sure owning a Mac makes you feel like this, however Linux makes the MacBoyz look pretty mainstream. Real Squares, Daddy-o.

The truth is that the above reasons are what got me to try it. What has me hooked is the fact that people are coming together on a global basis to spread Linux usage. Why? Hell if I know, but it’s cool. It’s a very liberal movement, very organic. The software is free and the source code is shared. You can always find someone that will teach you whatever it is you need to learn. I also like the fact that my computers just run better. Linux has little to no kludge to slow it down. I think the actual term for how Linux is designed is “elegant”. My old laptop has a new life, and has been entirely stripped of Windows and is now exclusively running a Debian based distro called Ubuntu. I had to strip off the stock desktop and put a lighter, no frills desktop interface to make it run, but it’s much faster than when it had Windows. I have tried it out on my Dell, and it made the machine run pretty snappy. June 1^st a major upgrade is coming out, and at that point my second hard drive will be installed with Linux, making the Dell a dual boot with Linux/XP. I’m going to try to never boot back into Windows and see how that works. If after a few months I can’t find anything that I need Windows for, I will probably make the machine 100% Linux.

Holy crap, it was an April Fools Joke!!

We're going Down Under !!

We finally got the word Friday that I got the Toyota job in Australia. I’ve been working on this quite a while, and N is really excited. It’s for the same company I work for now supporting a new model launch. I don’t have a ton of details just yet, but basically it will be import manager from Japan and Mexico into Australia. Someone else is responsible for the ocean side, but I will be in charge of transportation to and from the ports. We’ll be living somewhere around Port Melbourne. We’ve got a few months before we go. N will finish out the school year here. Tentative time frame is late July, so July 4^th will be extra special this year. The cool thing is N’s parents are going there on vacation late in the year, so they can visit. More to come later when we find stuff out.

Geek Snobs

I did some upgrades to my old Dell this past weekend, and thought it was worth sharing what I learned. If you know me, you also know I usually research things to death. With that said, for days I went to every forum I could find, manufacturer's sites, and the usual tech sites, to find out as much as possible about my machine and the hardware that's compatible. My issue was the thing just seems to run slow. After the normal sludge removal, it was still a little slow in changing apps and such. I made a HUGE mistake when I got this thing of not buying a ton of RAM, so that was the major issue. The other was my 4 year old hard drive. It's been great, but it never shuts off, so who knows how much life is left. That and it's getting pretty friggin' full. Through all the reading of "computer expert" posts I found a few things:

• No matter what you own, it's a piece of crap unless you built it yourself
• Your stock power unit is way too small
• You got ripped off
• Michael Dell is Satan
• LT's driver Vijay from Bangalore is missing because he works at Fry's. He's a better driver than a computer person.
  

And you know what, the "experts" are wrong. I love my Dell. It's been a great machine and would recommend them to anyone that cannot, or could care less about, building their own. I will build my next computer because in the long run it's cheaper, and because any prebuilt machine is going to be somewhat proprietary and harder to upgrade. But for 99.9% of the users out there, that's ok because you will never have a reason to crack that case and change a thing. What I ran into was talking to some pretty smart people that thought anyone that bought a machine off the shelf wasn't really serious about this whole computer thingy. The above bullet points are of course tongue in cheek, so here's what the overwhelming majority of people felt was true, and what turned out to be reality. I share this in case someone really wants to upgrade their computer and can't get a straight answer:

• The PSU isn't powerful enough. Long story made short, Dell rates their power units at mean, not peak. By the way, most of the industry rates their PSU's at peak, the stock Dell is 250W mean and 345W peak. Not too shabby.
  
• RDRAM sucks. It doesn't suck, but it's pricey.
• Parallel ATA is bad. Well, it works perfect for what I need, however it's getting hard to find PATA drives.
  
• My BIOS won't handle over 127G storage. It's true, but it can be fixed. I just don't need that much C drive to chance the change in a BIOS upgrade, because sometimes the upgrade doesn't work.
• You can't get a decent video card for under $300. I found one that is about as fast as my unit will run for just over $100. 256mb to boot.
• Dell PSU's are sometimes wired backwards. Sometimes this is true, so be careful. It looks like a normal ATX but some of the wires are crossed that can burn up the motherboard. Mine seems to be industry standard, but I'm on the edge of when Dell finally switched back.
  

If you want model numbers, etc, e-mail me. For comparison, here's what's running right this second, upgrades are in red:

• Dell Dimension 8200
• 1.8G Intel P4 400mhz FSB (850 Williamette chipset)
  
• Seagate PATA/100 250G hard drive 7200 RPM 8M cache (boot drive) partitioned to 127G and 104G
  
• Maxtor PATA/100 40G 2M cache hard drive 7200 RPM
• 1.25G RDRAM PC800 (1G upgrade)
• NVidia GeForce FX 5500 video card, 256M onboard RAM and cooling fan on a 4X AGP
  
• Samsung DVD-ROM
• NEC CDRW (soon to be switched with an NEC DVD dual layer RW to save power and not use the LaCie external firewire)
  
• 3.5 floppy
• HP deskjet
• iPod

In conclusion, with the exception of the RAM, everything was relatively cheap. It's certainly not smokin' hot, but will get me down the road a few more years and play most games, even if some are at lower settings. If you have an older machine (5 years or less), there is hope. Unless you are a fairly serious gamer it will be fine. Most of you were probably smart enough to get enough RAM in the first place, and hard drive storage is running around 40 cents a gig, so that's cheap. I did find an upgraded PSU, but the NEC DVD RW was cheaper and still solves the same potential power issue. When I do build a new machine, I have no idea what I will use since the entire technical landscape will be different. I know I will go for a large, well ventilated case (I can't wait to overclock). Also at least 1000mghz of FSB on the mobo (a lesson from Apple). And everything else is now industry standard and easily interchangeable. We'll see how it goes next year. After I put it together, I will either have an easily upgradeable machine or a fire claim on the insurance.

Be careful what you ask for....

I have to ask you, dear reader, that if you have any knowledge of the situation I am about to write about, please keep it to yourself. You'll see why.

N and I, along with others, are involved with the teenage youth at our church. You get to know them and things about their lives pretty quickly. One of the hardest things is knowing when to offer an opinion or advice that you know is treading waaaay too close to parent territory. However sometimes you also know that they are either not getting what they need at home or feel the need to talk to someone that isn't as personally vested in the subject. Most of the time I bite my tongue and pray for the best. The more I thought about this, the more I thought that this isn't always the right thing to do. Even though my intention is to let their parents do what's right, whether I agree or not, I may not be doing what is ultimately good for those kids. And you have to know that I couldn't love all of them more if they were my own.
Fast forward to last week. I was in a meeting at the church. At the beginning we did a rather extended devotional that centered around God granting us strength and courage. One of the reflection questions was how we would use this strength and courage. My immediate thought was to not be afraid to be involved with these kids, their problems, and give of myself whatever they needed. I resolved to be involved when I strongly felt it was necessary. So far pretty easy, I mean, what could come up?
Last night out of the blue one the kids asked to speak to me in private. She has never known her father, and has always been told that nobody knows where he is or what he is doing. All this I knew, and we have discussed before. But in a casual conversation with another close family member, it slipped out to her where her father lives. It took her all of about one second to realize that her family had been not so honest with her all these years, since in fact they did know where he was and what he was doing. For good or ill, she wants to find him and meet him. And she wants me to help. My first dilemma is how her not-so-balanced mother will react. It won't be good, that I know. But as I sat with this crying, hurt child, I realized that this was a burden I could, and would, gladly accept. After all I was married before, I can handle a freaked out psycho woman. My next, and still nagging dilemma, is the fallout from all this. As N pointed out, most likely the outcome will not be a movie of the week sort. If her father rejects her, we will all surround her with love and help her deal with it. My fear is that this man is not a nice man, and could cause more pain in her life. What the Hell do I do then? Once again, press forward, pray for the best, and prepare for the worst.
So now, I have a piece of paper with a man's name on it. It is written in a child's handwriting. I can't imagine the emotions that went through her head and heart as she wrote his name on this scrap of paper. What hopes, fears, and concerns she had. And, oh-my-God, she has trusted me to help her and guide her through this. I have to be up for this, it's not my choice. I told God I would, and he took me up on it.

iPod Madness

I'm not much on fads, but I have to say I love my iPod. It was a long road to actually get me to own one. N wanted one and her Dad got it for her for Christmas a couple of years ago. I thought it was a pretty cool little unit, but I had no personal use for one myself. The next Christmas N got me a Shuffle. The shuffle is a small thing that looks like a pack of Wrigley's gum and holds about 100 songs. I didn't use it much at first, but over the past year have used it more and more, but I still had no use for the big kid's iPod.
Then two things happened that changed my mind. Now, I drive about 45 miles each way for work. In the mornings I would listen to Howard Stern, and a local talk radio guy in the afternoon. While not a huge fan of either, they were pretty good when graded on the local radio curve. Rush hour radio in Dallas-Fort Worth sucks. Equal parts talk, music, and commercials. And none done well. But at the end of last month, Stern moved to Sirius satellite radio. I toyed with getting one, but again, I don't like Stern that much. So I tried his replacement (David Lee Roth) and it was predictably awful, so I was looking for some kind of entertainment to keep me sane. Now, when we travel we take N's iPod and hook it into an FM transmitter. That way we can listen to her iPod over the truck's radio. The only issue is that it's very weak and is overpowered in any large metro area. There is, I found, a cure for this. I have to say at this point that if you are with the FCC, any and all modifications were made for experimental and hobby purposes. Basically these transmitters are little radio units that put out a signal to about 3 feet. Ten minutes with a soldering gun extends that to about thirty feet. This solved the issue of not being able to use this little gem in town. And I get to share what I'm hearing with every car within that thirty feet. I'm sure they appreciate that.
So, I went out and got a used iPod, which still has more features and capacity than I will use. I paid about half of what a new one costs and the thing is like new. I spent a week dumping everything in the house that I might listen to into the iPod. I have also had a pleasant surprise, Podcasts. I'm most likely the last person on the planet to discover these, but so be it. I won't even go into the variety available, but in case I'm the next to the last person, and you are actually the last person, here's an idea. I can, for free, download other radio shows, or shows that showcase a certain kind of music, books, comedy, political analysts, etc etc. You get the idea. Either way, I can customize in multiple ways what I hear through the stereo depending on what I feel like right at that moment.
All in all I am very happy with the iPod. It does more than I thought, and the more I use it the more I like it. And if I can ever teach my silhouette to dance, I think that gets me up to speed on the whole iPod culture.

Peyton Manning: Crybaby

Let me say right off the bat that I like Peyton Manning. The funniest commercials on television are Peyton acting like a crazed fan for everyday people. The best is when he is cheering on the waitress in a diner and chanting "D-Caf, D-Caf". They crack me up every time. Peyton went to the other UT, in Knoxville, Tennessee. I had a guy that worked for me at the airport there, and right before the draft, Peyton was flying in and out of the little hanger we were using. My understanding is that he was always a down to earth, humble guy. Everyone there said when he had to wait, he would spend time doing your regular guy chit chat with anyone that happened to be standing near. I suppose that's why I was so disappointed at his post game mini-meltdown. He basically threw his offensive line under the bus. I am not a Colts fan. They don't appear to be a very physical team, and that's a big part of football. They execute about as perfect as you could ever want, but beat up on them a little bit and you win the game. If Peyton has a dirty jersey, he lost. I thought he was going to cry at that news conference. He was rattled for most of the game because the Steelers went after him, hard. Maybe he's just used to not having to deal with being knocked around, I don't know. But if he is ever going to win big post season games, he's going to have to do what every other NFL quarterback does, get up, shake it off, and run the next play. His O-line might have had a mediocre day (it certainly wasn't bad), but he's the one that fell apart that day. And his team, the ones that look to him for calm and leadership when facing adversity, saw him fall apart mentally. And that may have been what sealed the deal. It's time for Peyton Manning to grow up and play like a big boy. Or as N likes to say, "Shut up, put on your big girl panties, and deal."

If you voted Democrat, proceed directly to www.lifetimetv.com

I wouldn't consider myself a gun nut, but I do like them. I have several, but my favorite by and far is my shotgun. It's a 1964 Remington 870 Wingmaster 12 gauge. To those of you that have no idea, the 870 is the classic hunting shotgun. More of them have been sold, more are used by police and military, and more are seen in the field than any other shotgun in the world. In all time classics, they sit with the Chevy 350, the DC-3, and the Ford F-150 as the perennial standards of their breed. They are just a quality piece of work. Don't get me wrong, you can spend the bosco bucks and get a better gun. Most are too pretty and you probably wouldn't take them hunting. But for something that won't ever let you down and will get the job done, this is a good choice. I was lucky to get this gun over 20 years ago in very good shape and had no idea what I was buying. All I wanted was a 12 gauge bird gun. I knew the 870 was a good gun, I just didn't know how good. The Wingmaster is the premium version. It has a solid walnut checkered stock, and a chrome bolt and lifter. But lately it was showing it's age, and I didn't really want to use any newer, non Remington parts. So for the last several months, I have been searching for vintage replacement parts. While the actual design and construction haven't changed much in the last 50 years, much of the detail of the parts that make this a classic Wingmaster haven't been made since the 1970's. I finally got the final piece last week, an original chrome shell lifter. It was the first part I looked for and the last that I found. Tonight I tore the gun completely apart and put it back together. While it has some "character" from over 40 years of field use, the gun really looks great. I wish I knew how many thousands of rounds have gone through this gun, how many birds have really been taken. I've had the pleasure of shooting some nice guns over the years, but nothing feels sweeter than this old pump. The only non original piece is the actually much older, a factory Remington PolyChoke equipped barrel. It's very rare, so when I stumbled across it and I couldn't pass up the chance to get it. I still have the original single bead, straight Modified choke barrel, and it looks good. I've dropped many a bird with that barrel, so no complaints there. The PolyChoke gives me the flexibility I want while retaining the old time look, feel, and quality. I haven't hunted in a few years, and the gun mostly sits in the closet, but there is just something about the feel of shouldering something that has endured for so long while still retaining it's beauty and faithfulness to it's design. We don't get much of that anymore, so maybe that explains why I am so attached to this gun.