Rinsefirst

There’s something off this holiday season, and I can’t quite put my figure on it.

I should probably go back and read some of my previous posts, because perhaps I felt this way last year, and thus, this is actually how I normally feel this time of year.

But yeah, I have no idea where it’s coming from, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing… Maybe it’s coming from being married this time around. Maybe it’s coming from my ideals. Maybe it’s coming from work. Maybe it’s coming from the world… Who knows. I want to write more in detail about it, but alas, I won’t write about anything I don’t quite understand fully.

Did I have a good Christmas and Birthday? Yes.

Was it the best ever? Don’t really know.

Is Christmas over yet? No (still 1 more major thing left which will probably take place tomorrow).

I’ll try to have a few more posts about it when I’m out of my current mood. Until then, thank you everyone for the happy birthday wishes. Thank you all for the christmas wishes. And if I fail to post before the new year, have the best New Year’s eve you can, and start the new year off right!

I’ll leave you with one last thing: An Itunes link to what I have deemed my “favorite new christmas carol of the year”. It may not be new this year, but it’s the first time I ever heard it… So without further adu:

Just in time for christmas, the product I ordered over a long time ago finally arrive. I’m glad that I too can now confirm like so many others that this isn’t vaporware anymore… Just a tad on the not-quite-so-good ware. And so far, I’m still a tad bit curious about if this should have even been allowed to be sent to me… Here’s what I can say for certain, and more as I play with it:

1) It’s boot loader is fairly locked down at the moment. I haven’t looked through the support documentation (if there is any) on how to get past their normal boot loader and have it say… boot from network or from USB, but I figure that will pass with time.

2) They did send a t-shirt with. Not sure I will wear it, but a nice gesture non the less.

3) They sent along a post card inside (printed on what appears to be a photo printer no less) with a few notes (this is all the documentation that came with it). some of the notes sound a little funny… like this one for example: “your initial userid and password are limeos/limeos. Please don’t change password and userid until further notice.“… I’m not sure what further notice is… but that sounds like a security flaw, if SSH is enabled on these suckers (which it is). Thankfully it’s behind a security firewall in my case.

4) The box is running on a powerPC based processor, and a heavily modified version of Ubuntu 8. Apt is still around and appears to be working, however it doesn’t seem to be treating me as well as I would like.

5) The machine seems to be slightly underpowered for what is installed. Certain programs take forever to start. That’s ok though… I don’t intend on running their software for long.

I really don’t understand how a company tells their users to keep the default username and password set, when they leave SSH running by default… I mean seriously… anyone can get into the box, and do ANYTHING they want to it. Come on Cherrypal…

My recommendation remains at this point: don’t buy one, at least not yet…

In just under a few hours, Amber will complete her final lecture. Her homework is done. Her laptop is being returned, and pending any last second grade debacles (non forseen), she will be a college graduate with a degree in history. And to top all that excitement off, her new Macbook Pro awaits her (it’s her Christmas/work/college graduation present). I couldn’t be more proud of her accomplishment (although I apologize if my level of excitement doesn’t seem to come up to the level of some other peoples… I’m just not built that way).

She did this despite having a husband who plays World of Warcraft.. Which according to recent studies, is one of the leading causes of college dropouts. I thought that was funny… but the game is seriously an evil thing… and you realize it when you have played it for a week (I’ve been on a break because Amber has been using my computer for finals).

With Christmas just around the bend, I look forward to celebrating it with her, knowing that we don’t have to worry about her going back to school in January. Now if only we could find her a j-o-b :-).

One of the greatest challenges in my life is to overcome a natural self defense mechanism that keeps me as far away from risk as humanly possible. Some would say, that it risk-less approach to life causes me to “live” less. I want to state right now: I agree with them.

It’s strange how some of the best moments in my life have been high-risk propositions for me. Some of the worst moments, also very high risk. But all of those moments have built up to define who I am.

It’s strange though. In the past, I had things I wanted. I had things to gain or lose.  The risk came when I made a decision as to how to try to get what I wanted.  When things succeed, I would be at some of the happiest moments of my life.

But what do you do when you don’t have things to risk anymore?

It makes me wonder if this is why “make-up” sex is supposedly so good.  Think about it: If most of the time your in a relationship that isn’t at any risk, then there really isn’t anything to be gained or lost… When your fighting though, it at least feels like your relationship is at risk, and the joy of overcoming that leads to well… better sex. Ok, so I’m probably crazy, and I should not be allowed to blog on this topic.

For those of you not watching the news, there is a huge recount going on in the US Senate race here in Minnesota. The two candiates are less than 300 votes apart (I’d give the number the paper says, but it changes every day).

They have been allowing candidates to “challenge” ballots, meaning, put them in a pile for review. Some of them are designed to get them challenged and removed as a valid ballot, others are to be challenge to try to get them added as a ballot.

What is very quickly becoming a judgement call, is creating a question with the state board that decides this… What is a valid balot? The law doesn’t say what to do percisely. So my bet is, the idiots will do something like have 9 people look at it, and if 5 say aye, it’s good. This is not the right way to do it my mind.

In fact, the way they should do it is rather simple.

The question is whether or not the ballot should be counted towards anybody. So here’s what you do. You go and get 2 voter machines (3 if you really want to play it safe). You take the stack of contested ballots and put load it in. You then run them through all the machines. If all the machines come back with the same answer… That is what you use. If not, you figure out what ballots are sometimes getting read one way, and sometimes getting read another, and then use your judgement on them.

Why is that the best option?

Because a valid vote was defined by the machine, even if it wasn’t defined in state law. And if people who voted failed to play by the rules of the machine, that’s their fault.

So there’s my two cents… Leave it to the computer who’s job it was to do it in the first place. And while your at it… You’ll get it done in half the time.

Here’s something you probably didn’t know about me… I love Latin.

I have no real reason to… And I don’t love it enough to actually learn anymore than some phrases that I think sound cool in it. But I can honestly say, there are no “phrases” in english that I simply think “sound cool”. But really, I have no idea why I love it… Maybe it’s stems from a latin pun I heard on Frasier onces:

Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

Which translates to “always where under where” (yes, i meant where). Hence the pun.

Or maybe it a was a “joke” my english teacher used to say with her classmates while taking Latin in school.

“Latin is a dead language. It killed the Romans, now it’s killing me.”

But truth betold… I just simply like it. Just like some people think French sounds romantic, or spanish sounds mexican (hmmm).

So todays latin phrase:

 O Fortuna, Velut Luna (O Fortune, Like the Moon)

Google it if you want to know more (it even has it’s own wiki page)