Andy's Blog

The intersection of Privacy, Commerce, and Advertising

I've been thinking a bit recently about privacy on the Internet. It seems that the new application model these days are applications that run in your browser, and are hosted on some 3rd party server. This model is all the rage these days, and for good reason. There is no software to install or upgrade, you can get at your data from anywhere, and when done properly, it makes collaboration a breeze.

However, nothing is perfect, and there is a problem with this model -- a loss of privacy. In the "bad old days", you could run Microsoft Word as many times as you want, write as many documents as you wanted with it, and nobody could know about what you were doing. Microsoft didn't get notified every time you booted Windows or started Word, so your privacy was ensured. In addition, there were a number of different channels through which you could have procured these pieces of software, which made it hard for the Government to track what you were buying.

With applications hosted on the Internet, however, none of the above is true. Every time you access an online application, the provider knows because you have to login with your pre-established identity. This is so that you can gain access to your, which is segregated from all of the other users of the site. So now, every time you author a document in Writely (for example), there is a log that shows when you logged in, and what you did.

In addition, in order to for you to be able to access your data from any computer, it must be stored on the server too. And currently, there isn't a good way (that I know of) to prevent the application provider from being able to read your data. Most application providers say in their terms of service that the data is "yours". But my data hosted on a corporate server and my data hosted on my own hard drive are two very different things.

In general, there doesn't seem to be any backlash from the user community against this lack of privacy. In fact, people seem to be willing to trade in their privacy in order to reap the benefits that I described above. And sometimes, I am one of those people. But this data appears to be quite valuable, both to the government (illegal wire taps anyone?) and also to advertisers.

And while currently, advertisers are pissed off at all of these Tivo users who are skipping their commercials, they are about to discover the power that advertising on the Internet brings them, in the form of highly-targed ads, with great feedback on ad response. As a result, when advertisers do really start going after the Internet, there is going to be tremendous pressure placed on all of these application providers to sell or otherwise use your private data to the benefit of advertisers.

And this is what I am struggling with currently.

I'm not so sure that I want all of these companies (and the government) knowing all of this detailed data about me. But what's worse, is that my moral compass is having a hard time figuring out what is right and wrong here. I am sure that there are lot of people, who are a whole lot smarter than me, already pondering these sorts of issues. So, the next step for me is to start doing some research, so that I can try to educate my moral compass in order to start making some more informed decisions.

Comments welcome.

-Andy.

My time has been eaten by the Mario Monster

I have been working on two projects lately, which are sucking massive amounts of my time into a giant sucking void. The first project I can't talk about publicly (yet), but unfortunately I can admit to the second -- I have been playing an inordinate amount of "Mario Kart: Double Dash!!" on my GameCube. What started as a minor addiction had a massive flare-up, when Kevin and I started to get seriously competitive on the race times in the high score table.

So, pretty much the entire month of February has been spent with the two of us playing this game, sometimes as much as 3 hours a day (which is a lot when you consider that we still have jobs). Many battles have been won and lost, but currently Kevin is winning the war (that jerk).

I have had other things to do this week, so it looks like I'm finally getting ready to concede defeat (and get my life back), but we'll see what happens this weekend. :)

-Andy.

The Wake

It occurred to me today that the purpose behind a Wake is not so much for mourning, but more so that you can see, in terms of pure volume, the number of people who will miss the person who has passed away. Well, there was a large volume of people who passed through the funeral home where my Uncle Mike was today, so that should tell you something.

It told me something. Something that I have always known on an instinctual level, but that I've never really pondered in my conscious mind:

Michael Baubkus was a pretty kick-ass guy.

By that, I mean, life dealt him one nasty curve ball, but he never let it get him down. I mean, I never heard him complain about being in a wheelchair, or lament his station in life. But, what I learned today, is that it wasn't just that he never complained around me, it was that he never complained at all. Period. And that is pretty amazing.

I could go on and on about my uncle, but there is one thing in particular that I do want to write about. When I first heard that he had died, I didn't really know what to think, or what I was going to say about. But as the days have passed by, things have started coming to me, bit by bit.

Earlier this year, when my wrists really started hurting, I was pretty upset about it. I felt the tailspin of "oh, I'm never going to be able to work again, I'm not going to be able to live the life that I want to lead, my life is over, and so on". There were a lot of things that got me to stop thinking those dead-end thought, but one of the primary ones was the example of my Uncle Mike. When I thought about my problems with my wrists, I immediately thought of the physical challenges that Mike faced every day. But yet he had a job. And a house. And a loving wife. And two dogs, some fish, and a parakeet. And it wasn't just that he had all of this stuff and was miserable. It is that he was reasonably happy, and he fought with the hand of cards that he was dealt, and he improved his situation in life. And all of these other things came to him through all of that hard work.

So far, I'm only about a quarter done with my life. And I've been thrown some curve balls by life, sure, but nothing truly major (yet). But I know, deep inside, that if my Uncle Mike can handle the volley that life sends his way, then I can too.

-Andy.

Going back to Illinois

After wrapping up the Thanksgiving holiday, I spent about four and a half days in California, before I decided to turn it around and head back to Illinois. The reason for such a quick turn-around is that one of my Uncles, Mike Baubkus, died unexpectedly on Thursday morning.

At this point, I don't really have a whole lot that I want to write about. My folks told me that I didn't have to come back to attend his services, but I knew it would be much harder being 2,000 miles away then being there in person. I know that this is going to be a rough time for me and for my family, but one thing about us is that we are resilient, and a lot of that resiliency comes from how we interact together, as a group.

So, while I'm not exactly look forward to this trip, I know that it's what I need to do. And I'm sure that I'll have more to say about this after it is all over.

-Andy.

Doc Oc

I received a bit of a jolt the other day, when a form letter e-mailed from Case informed me that one of my freshman year professors, Ignacio Ocasio (better known as Doc Oc), had died. In addition to the e-mail, I found a short two page article in the Summer 2005 Case Magazine about him. Click on his picture below for the full article:

Some additional links are a campus news article, and a blog.

What I remember most about Doc Oc was his passion for teaching. And when I say teaching, I mean actually teaching. The process of taking some new and foreign information, and helping a person to learn it, to the point that they understand it. Chemistry may not have been my thing, but I do appreciate the fact that Doc Oc took the time, effort, and energy to teach it to me.

Finding someone who is a good teacher is very rare in this world -- especially in higher education. That is what made Doc Oc special. And it is why I will always remember him.

-Andy.

Katrina: They knew it could happen

Stumbled across an interesting article yesterday, that simultaneously is and is not about hurricane Katrina. In October of last year, National Geographic did an article about Louisiana's Wetlands. The first four paragraphs lay out, in frightening detail, exactly what happened with hurricane Katrina.

It seems like there has been a failure of government, both in the time that preceded Katrina, and with what has occurred since. The optimist in me hopes that the government is held accountable, and grows and evolves to a better place as a result. But the pessimist in me doesn't think that anything is really going to change. :(

-Andy.

Still not invulnerable

So, generally speaking, my hands are feeling much better now after typing. The rest and exercise routine, combined with improved ergonomics at work, was successful. Most days, when I leave work, my hands feel fine. The only problems I have are when I use the laptop extensively (like when attending a conference), or when I am typing away from my ergonomic setup (like when attending off-site training).

But things still are not perfect, as I found today. We are getting into "crunch time" at work, and so I have been coding my little brains out for the last two weeks. Over the course of the last few days, in particular, I have really been going to town. Pretty much everybody has been busy with the visiting dignitaries that we have in the office this week, leaving me all alone to code. And while I have been greatly productive, I am finding that there is an upper-limit in terms of how much typing I can do in a day. A limit that I find, of course, during periods of heavy programming.

I'm hoping that once I get a proper ergonomic setup at home, and reduce my laptop usage down to near-zero, that I'll be able to type even more. But, I'll have to see how it goes.

-Andy.

Should probably be going to BAR Camp this weekend

I just found out about BAR Camp, the open alternative to FOO Camp. Normally, this is the sort of thing that I would be really hot on, especially since it is taking place in my back yard, but I'm just not feeling that motivated. Partly because I don't really have anything to demo and/or talk about. And partly because I just kind of want some "Andy time" this weekend. I have some stuff that I need to do that has been nagging at me for awhile, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to carve out some time this weekend in order to do it.

Hopefully.

-Andy.

New pictures posted

I have posted two new galleries: from my Birthday dinner last week, and from a short hike that I took with Stan and Anjali. Some of the hiking pictures came out really well, because Stan was driving the camera. His skills with the camera seem to be progressing a lot faster than mine -- but no matter, he's giving me some good tips that I can use in my photography.

-Andy.

Birthday

And so passes another birthday. Thanks to everyone who wished me well today, and big ups to my co-workers for buying me lunch and dessert today. And so begins, the last year of my twenties. I hope it's as good as all the rest have been.

-Andy.

Finally, a break!

So, last week was pretty crazy. On Monday morning, I woke up in Manhattan. Tuesday through Thursday, I hoofed it into San Francisco, for JavaOne. And on Friday, I woke up in Chicago, where I went to the Cubs game, and finally to see Woven Hand live at Schuba's in downtown Chicago. After all of that, I was ready to just kick back and relax for a few days (which I did). The Cubs game was pretty fun, even though they lost. The weather was absolutely beautiful for July in Chicago -- partly cloudy, nice breeze, not humid, and most importantly, not too hot.

After the game, the family and I checked out Chicago's new Millennium Park. Seems like a pretty sweet deal -- Chicago definitely has another showpiece to add to the attractions that they already have.

Woven Hand didn't disappoint, as well. David Eugene Edwards is simply amazing, and with Woven Hand, he is really cutting loose a bit more -- the performance veered a lot more towards hard rock, much more so than I expected.

Did the 4th of July with the family -- everybody came over to our house, and we had food, home-made ice cream (yum), and lots of good family time. My family is still doing their thing, and providing a good time as per usual.

But, it is back to the grind tomorrow -- after I fly back to San Francisco, of course.

-Andy.

Today is just not my day for catching trains

I have been a little off kilter all day today, primarily because I am tired from my extended weekend travels. This morning, it was my strong intention to ride the 7:58 Baby Bullet Caltrain into S.F. I got to the Mountain View station in plenty of time, but was confused (once again) by the signs for the overflow parking. The signs say to follow the normal Caltrain parking rules, which require that money be paid. However, the last time I parked here (January), the parking machines that do the taking of the money weren't configured for the overflow lot.

Fast forward to today -- I assumed that the machines just had to be configured by now, so I wasted a goodly amount of time walking to the machines, finding one that was inservice, and then finding that they still wouldn't take my money! But under normal circumstances, this little detour would have been a minor annoyance. However, when I went to buy my Caltrain ticket, there were lines at every machine. And of course, the woman in front of me was trying to pass a dollar to the machine that it wouldn't take. I jammed a fresh dollar at her, allowing her to buy her ticket and get onto the train. But the doors closed before I was able to punch up my ticket.

:(

So, I took the next train, which put me into the city at least a half hour later than I wanted to be there. This threw off the whole day, as I was going to use that half-hour in order to plan out the sessions that I wanted to see.

Now flash forward to this evening. I cut out of a BOF about 30 minutes early, in order to begin my walk back to the Caltrain station. For some reason, I lost track of time, and didn't start running for the station when I should have. I got there at 9:07:30, and the train left at 9:07. This is a much bigger "Doh!", because the next train is at 10:07 PM.

:( :(

Since the 4th & King Caltrain station can be a little sketchy at night, I decided to walk around. I happened upon a Borders, where I made an impulse buy that has made me feel a bit better. But still, I hope that I have better luck tomorrow, otherwise this is going to be a damn long week.

-Andy.

Important safety tip: don't wrap velveeta in tin foil

I learned an important lesson yesterday: never wrap Velveeta in tin foil. Why, do you ask? Because the Velveeta will actually eat through the tin foil! Clearly, it is some form of mutant super cheese. And actually, when it is mixed with shards of melted tin foil, quite gross.

This serves as my PSA for the day.

-Andy.

Astonishing X-Men #7

Back in the day, but I was a huge X-Men fan. There was a period of about four years or so, where following the exploits of the X-Men on a monthly basis was a fresh and exciting experience every time. Great artists, great stories - the whole thing. At some point, however, the stories just started becoming more and more derivative. I was buying out of habit, not because I was getting that "wow factor" from what I was reading. So, I stopped collecting comics. I figured it was just part of the natural progression of growing up.

And then for a long time, nothing happened.

And then, I found out that Joss Whedon was going to be writing a new X-book, Astonishing X-Men. Sense I am a total Joss whore, I just had to start reading this book. And it has definitely been worth it. So far, I think that I have liked issue #7 the best. Joss has been doing a great job handling the X-Men. Not to wordy, good action, and a fantastic dash of comedy. The man certainly knows how to infuse emotion into his characters, which is what really draws me and as a reader. So, I have been all about Joss' writing from the start. John Cassaday's art, on the other hand, has taken me a bit longer to appreciate. However, issue No. 7 really impressed me. Page five, where he drew the giant stereotypical monster of the day? Great. How he drew Kitty rescuing bystanders caught in the crossfire on page seven? Awesome. Wolverine on page eight? Amazing. Cassaday's art and Joss' jokes are really beginning to flow together seamlessly. It seems like these days, writers are struggling with the iconic comic book characters. So many stories have been told, that things have gone repetitive and stale. So there has been a lot of constructing, redefining, and breaking down going on. What I like best about astonishing X-Men is that Joss isn't doing any of this crap. He is simply telling fun and exciting Super Hero stories. No more, no less. And I am totally hooked.

-Andy.

The Snowsuit Effort

The Snowsuit Effort is an excellent photo blog that I found via the Bloggies. Actually, the word "excellent" doesn't do this blog justice. Not only is the design sublime, but the photos are truly astounding. If I were one one-hundredth as good at photography as the photographer behind The Snowsuit Effort, I would be a happy camper.

-Andy.

Obviously...

... while I was able to write that last post in Frankfurt, I wasn't able to get it posted until I got back home. I was having a weird problem with the Wifi in Frankfurt airport -- it was taking a super long time to establish TCP connections. But once they were up, data riding over the established socket was rather snappy. Anyways, I tried to hit "post" just as Luftansa started herding everyone at the waiting area onto several buses, so that we could be taken to the plane (which was out on the tarmac, not near the terminals). I waited as long as I possibly could, and when I saw the "error" dialog, I just went for the bus. Normally, I would have liked to do some network troubleshooting, but I really didn't want to miss my plane.

-Andy.

Auf weidersen

I'm sitting at Frankfurt International Airport, waiting for my Luftansa flight to London, where I will connect to another flight to San Francisco. On the whole, my trip to Germany was okay. I did a ridiculous amount of work, and when you factor in going out for 2+ hour dinners every night, I didn't really have a whole lot of personal time on this trip. But still, I am grateful to the EDS team in Germany for helping me out at every step along the way. I''m not really into this whole traveling thing, or even the training thing, but thankfully they made the task that I had to do over the course of the last 2 weeks a lot easier.

Anyways, the flight is boarding now, so I'll have to write more about my Germany experiences later.

-Andy.

Bowled over

Every once in a while, I find something on the 'net that just bowls me over. Last night, in as I gorged myself on Internet access after finally getting my T-Mobile HotSpot account working (more on that saga later), I surfed on over to the website for the Bloggies. I just sort of skimmed through the list of nominees, but I paid special attention to the nominees for the "best designed" blogs. I have been wanting to fix up the design of my blog since I first started it, so I am always on the lookout for ideas. Of the five nominees, one in particular stands out: Karen Cheng's blog.

This site is truly amazing. The design is spartan, precise, functional, all with a dash of whimsy. I love the separator graphics in between posts -- how the day is contained in the image, and how it slides along the line, depending on how far through the week it is. Even more amazing, are the banners that Mrs. Cheng creates for some of her posts. Most of them contain a blend of images, some of which are astonishing. She is clearly a photoshop genious -- the graphics are simply amazing.

So, after spending some time browsing, and taking in the design, I started reading. In particular, I read her post from January 4th, entitled "No Place Higher". Truly gut-wrenching stuff. Amazingly written -- it conveys the exact emotional tone of her recent experience, without being too wordy or melodramatic. After reading this, it is obvious that that humanity, for all of its flaws and weaknesses, kicks tremendous ass.

-Andy.

Visiting London

Since I had to spend a weekend in Europe, I wanted to pay a visit to the only European that I know -- my friend Fredrik. Unfortunately, flights to Oslo from Frankfurt for the weekend were rather expensive (around $500 US). Luckily, Fredrik was in London on business last week, and he offered to extend his stay over the weekend, so that we could hang out in London. Flights from Frankfurt to London being much more plentiful (and hence cheaper), I was sold.

Aside from freezing ourselves schtoopid on Saturday in the early afternoon (I misjudged how cold it really was, and dressed too lightly), we had a kick-ass time. London is an amazing city. For one, the size and scope of the city is amazing (definitely on a par with New York, and much bigger than San Francisco). For another, the sense of history that the city has is breath-taking -- there has been a city in this area of the world for well over 2000 years. America really can't hold a candle to that.

Fredrik and I took a bus tour of the city, and saw a lot of the major sites quick (since we really didn't have that much time). We also made good use of our Tube day passes, zipping all over the city. We checked out Madame Tussaud's, but it was rather expensive, and we wouldn't have had much time to see it before closing. That is one thing about London -- most places close rather early, especially in the winter. So, the next time I go, I'll have to start my day earlier, and plan the evening more carefully -- finding a restaurant that was open when we wanted to eat was a bit tricky.

In a shocking twist, Fredrik and I went to the theatre for the evening's entertainment. We saw a play called "Fix Up" at the National Theatre. It was interesting, to say the least. Not experimental theatre or anything, and not a big show-tuney production either. Fredrik and I went into it pretty-much cold, with no expectations. And I wasn't disappointed -- because I think that the play defied pretty-much any expectations that I might have been able to supply, given the opportunity. The performances were quite solid, and I definitely came away feeling that the experience was worthwhile. I think I could be guy who sees more plays, as long as they aren't in the Le Miserables/Fame/Jerry Springer vein.

-Andy.

Working Europe

Thing have been busy lately, and I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like. One reason is because I'm in the midst of my second business trip for EDS. This second trip is a two week affair, during which I am going to be training a team of engineers on how to support the product that I work on. The rub (of course, there is always a rub), is that this team is based in Rüsslesheim, Germany. So, last Sunday, I was dispatched to Germany.

From a work perspective, I would say that my first week in Germany went okay. My position on conducting training is somewhat lukewarm -- I generally like teaching, but I don't like being in the position of talking about things of which I'm not an expert. If I had plenty of time to prepare, I could have learned a whole bunch more about our product, and things would have been great. Unfortunately, like everybody else on my team, I don't have any extra time, so I really only know the parts that I coded well. And of course, as is my luck, the team in Germany won't be using 2 out of the 3 components that I coded. sigh.

But, the team in Germany has been great to me. They are quite helpful and friendly, and they seem to be interested in what I am saying. I'm getting quite a few questions, which is provoking some interesting discussion.

Now, from a me-travelling-abroad perspective, once again, things are only going okay. I was super sleep-deprived when I arrived in Frankfurt. I arrived on Monday morning, after leaving San Francisco very early the previous morning. I had a lot of material to cover, so I worked almost a full day on that Monday. But when sleep-deprived, things can happen. Within an hour of being in Germany, I had forgotten to get a receipt from the Taxi that I took from the airport to the office (which means I probably can't get reimbursed for that), and even more distressingly, I lost my cell phone.

My phone wasn't working in Germany, even though it is a "world phone". It was able to connect to several different European GSM providers, but I wasn't able to actually roam on their network. So, I was fooling around with the settings on my phone in the Taxi, and that is the last time I remember having it. So, I either left it in the Taxi, or dropped it on the sidewalk while walking to the EDS office.

Damn.

I'm not really too upset about it, however. The most important data on the phone (all of the phone numbers) is backed up -- thanks to Bluetooth and iSync on MacOS X. It is just been really annoying -- not only do I never know what time it is (on top of all of the jet lag), but I am also forced to screw around with pay phones again (ug). But on the upside, whereas before I was just toying around with getting a new phone, now I have to get one.

Other than that, I have been eating some good German food, recovering from all of the jet lag, keeping up with my American TV interests (via my Linux PVR), and experiencing a different culture. But still, I'm not much of a traveller, and I do miss being at "home", and going to sleep in my own bed. :|

-Andy.

Engineering is awesome

Every once in awhile, Wired comes up with an Earth-changing-amazing story about how some kick-ass people are doing some kick-ass stuff that is going to change the world. I just read this article in the dead tree version of the magazine after work today. Basically, this article is about how some engineers over at MIT are figuring out how to build basic electrical circuits, using biology. The implications of this work are simply staggering. I mean, I am continually impressed by what the principles of engineering are able to achieve. And now, applying those some principles to the biological realm just seems like it is going to bust the whole field wide open. I have been fairly skeptical of the whole biotech field (sure it's going to exist, but is it going to boom and change the world?). Now I'm starting to see the light.

-Andy.

Tsunami Relief

Following Mark's lead, I have also donated some money to the Red Cross and Care for their Tsunami relief efforts. I have been thinking about doing this few the last few days, and I saw yesterday on Omar Shahine's blog that Microsoft matched his donation. I thought it would be really cool if EDS did that -- and lo and behold, I had a message from the CEO in my inbox this morning, claiming exactly that. So, I just donated some money, and got EDS to double it.

I am starting to feel rather impressed at how different companies are contributing to the welfare of the world. After spending the last several election cycles mired in cynicism, this Tsunami thing has been refreshing (excluding the massive loss of life, of course).

-Andy.

Holiday Wrap-Up

So, I'm on my way back to San Francisco, after having spent about 10 days in Chicago and the surrounding areas. As always, spending time with my family & extended family was great. We went over to Aunt Cathy's for Christmas Eve, and had the extended family over to our house for Christmas. Everybody seemed pretty happy to see me, especially Scout. Good old Scout is getting on in years, and is starting to show his age. He can still bust out with his playful puppy antics of old, but now for much shorter bursts. But that is okay, he still makes for an able companion to our family.

I completed trips to Peoria and Champaign. I went to Chicago twice -- once to consume Due's pizza with my family ("true" Chicago pizza), and the other time to see Fall Out Boy. My dad and I installed grandma's Christmas gift -- a new ceilling fan for the kitchen. I went to Oak Park for Mark and Laura's New Year's Eve party. And my folks took me on a drive all the way out to Woodstock, IL (hint: it's pretty far from Wheaton), in order to swap-out the 1Gb SO-DIMM that I bought for my PowerBook (more on that later). I saw a couple of movies: "Flight of the Phoenix", "Sideways", "The Ladykillers", and "Love, Actually". And of course, I went to Fry's (since my dad is such a nut about that store).

It seems like my trips to Chicago are always jam-packed with stuff to do. This one was more successful than most -- in that I accomplished pretty much everything that I wanted to do. I was glad to be away from work, and am not looking forward to going back. Although, I am looking forward to finishing moving into the new apartment -- there is something about not having my house in order that I find unsettling.

-Andy.

Changes

So, Kevin and I are going to do the roommate thing, starting on Saturday, the 18th. This means quite a lot of upheaval in my life -- the biggest thing being that I'm moving. Again. It really hurts because -- despite my best efforts -- I'm not going to have Internet for awhile. DSLExtreme may be a good company, but they are royal dicks when it comes to minimizing downtime when moving. But I'm getting such a good deal, that they have me by the balls, and they know it.

*sigh*

So, what this means is that redefine is going down on Friday, and it probably won't be back until the new year. Which really sucks, because I had a whole bunch of stuff that I wanted to blog about while I was home over Christmas. So, my first-annual end of year "best of" lists will just be a little... late this year.

-Andy.

Why I haven't been posting

Why haven't I been posting so much lately? One word: "Metroid". To use a few more words, I have gotten sucked into "Metroid Prime 2: Echoes" for my GameCube. And pretty much all of my spare time has been going into it. My addiction has been a little better this week -- but only out of necessity. I have a lot of other things going on (that I have been neglecting), that can be ignored no longer.

But, back to the game. It's pretty fun -- just like it's predecessor, "Metroid Prime". I just went over the 50% mark in terms of completion last night, by getting the Spider Ball. Total gameplay so far: probably around 25 hours or so. Unfortunately, it's not looking like I'll be able to finish before the holidays, which means that my addiction will have to go into a painful withdrawal period...

-Andy.

Like waking up from a bad dream

... Every time the realization hits me that George W. Bush won the election on Tuesday, it feels like I am just waking up from a bad dream. Like, I really want to believe that it didn't happen, and that Kerry won. But it didn't.

Damn.

-Andy.

Incendiary

I am not a big Eminem fan, but I just caught his new video for the song "Mosh" on the MTV. Here is a link out to a stream, so you can watch for yourself. Not only is the video amazing artistically (a mix of hand-drawn animation, computer animation, and live action), but it's hard to believe that anyone could actually vote for Bush after watching it. Right Mark?

-Andy.

I'm surprised that Tex hasn't blogged about this one yet.

My CWRU friend, Jeff "Tex" Puckett, has been tracking the bush-cheated-in-the-debates conspiracy theory, but I haven't seen him blog about this one yet.

(found via Joi Ito's blog).

-Andy.

Case represent!

So, my alma mater, Case Western Reserve University, played host to the vice presidential debate last night. It looks like things went off without a hitch, although watching the debate on TV, it could have been taking place on the moon as easily as it could have been at Case -- you really can't tell where the debate is being held. The stage and everything is totally generic.

Anyways, the Linux gods were with me, and my PVR didn't crash so I was able to watch the whole thing. I think that Cheney represented the Republican side well, and while I'm not as down on Edwards as Mark or Kevin is, that could be because I wasn't paying 100% attention (the joys of multi-tasking). I did notice some contradictions in what Cheney said (that he had never met John Edwards before the debate, that he had never suggested a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda), which NBC news pointed out today. I'm sure that tonight's edition of "The Daily Show" will have a field day as well.

Speaking of which, I just managed to get caught up on several past episodes of the Daily Show today. Did anybody else catch Jon Stewart's interview with Seymour Hersh? It's on the Daily Show's website (here is a direct link). The whole thing is rather shocking, in that it made me feel like we're living in a modern day Nazi Germany. By this I mean, the classic refrain "How did the German people let Hitler take power?". After watching this interview, I'm wondering how the American people let Bush take power, and hijack our country's good name in the process.

-Andy.

Iraq: Truly Terrible

I saw some truly horrific footage from Iraq today on the NBC nightly news. I literally stopped what I was doing, and was taken aback by what I saw. They were covering the triple car bombings, that killed 34 children. Back when Bush sent our troops to war, I think that everyone kindof knew that there would come the part after the major fighting, when attacks were made on US troops. I thought that at its worst, it would be 1 or 2 US deaths per day. And so far, that has pretty much come true (I'm not sure what the daily death toll is).

But what I didn't expect, were Iraqi's attacking Iraqi's. Sure, some of the insurgents may be from other countries, but that alone doesn't explain the violence that I saw on my TV today. If you're purposefully killing children in order to promote your agenda -- I don't care what it is, but it isn't right. I don't understand how anyone in Iraq can support these insurgents. And my only hope is that days like today will jar the country away from the violence, on to the path towards peace and stability.

-Andy.

Getting even more dispirited about the election

I read a fascinating article over at Ars Technica today, about how Google news appears returning bias results when you search for "John Kerry", as opposed to when you just search for "Kerry". The crux of the issue are all of these right-wing websites that Google indexes, which have no problem writing John Kerry's name everywhere, as they blast him to pieces. What is truly disheartening about this isn't that Google sucks, but rather the nature of these so-called conservative websites. I read a few of them, most notably "useless-knowledge.com". I don't know what amazes me more: that a small group of people are willing to write utter bullshit about a political rival so that their guy can get elected, or that a slightly larger group of people actually believe this stuff.

At least I can be thankful that the average voter is an idiot (thanks Tex), so they probably don't read any of this crap...

No, wait, that's really not good at all.... :( I just want this election to be over, so that I can go back to not caring.

-Andy.

Bellingham, WA

So far, my Pacific Northwest trip is going pretty well. I hung out with Chee Wai, Hong Eng, Fredrik and Monica Tuesday and Wednesday (with some support from Rushabh, Kristen, Justin, and Sarah). Today I picked up Bill and Jim from SeaTac airport, and we drove up to Bellingham. After getting some lunch at a really good bagel place, Chris took us on a tour of Bellingham. The only problem was, Chris isn't from Bellingham, and I don't think that he has been out here for all of that long, so he had some obvious handicaps when it came to tourguidery. But, we persevered, and we got to see some good views of the bay, and the city in general.

For dinner, Tanya and her mother made us all an extremely good meal over at their house. Fresh samon, chicken, and steak, all cooked just right. My dad would have been quite jealous.

-Andy.

GO CUBS

While driving on Interstate 5 through downtown Seattle this morning, I saw a car with Montana personalized license plates that said "GO CUBS". This reminded me that when Suzie and I were in Berkeley last Sunday, I struck up a conversation with a father and Cubs-hat-wearing-son pair. They were apparently from L.A., but the father said that he grew up in Chicago, and passed the "support the cubs" impulse on to his son.

Last year, when the Cubs nearly made it to the world series, a co-worker of mine asked why there were still any Cubs fans left, seeing as how the (almost) always lose. Well, now I have a definitive answer. Being a Cubs fan is generational, and once you are a Cubs fan, it appears to stick for life, no matter what state your license plates have on them.

-Andy.

Andy goes to College

Last Sunday was a little bit of a surreal experience for me. I had Laura's little sister, Suzie Schornack, staying with me for the week. She is going to be a freshman at UC Berkeley in the fall (i.e., next week), and managed to arrive in town a wee-bit early -- like over a week before the dorms opened. So, she spent a week of that time at my place, just chillin' (and occasionally illiin'). And then on Sunday, I drove her up to Berkeley, helped her get her stuff out of storage (which thankfully, was far less stuff than what I took when I first moved to college), and then got her all moved into her dorm room in Ida Sproull.

The last time that I had lived in a dorm was about 5 years ago exactly (I spent the summer of '99 in Storrs, so that is why it is just about exact), and after seeing Suzie's living situation -- man -- I don't think you could pay me to go back to that life. She has a triple room, no not triple size, 3 person (her plus two roommates). Not only that, the size of the room is about the size of a CWRU double. Amazing. There are three beds (two bunks, one loft), 3 desks (2 shoved under the loft, one free-standing), small bookshelves, drawers, and closets. There is really no way to re-arrange the furniture -- there is exactly one way that it can all fit in there, and UCB Housing has figured out that way. One of Suzie's roommates was planning on bringing a mini-fridge, but nixed that idea upon seeing the room -- there really is no space for it. The only way to live there is to be young, I think, which I am no longer.

Suzie seemed to be remarkably unstressed out by the whole process. Admitedly, she had been to the campus a number of times since coming out for her orientation in July, and I will give UCB props for making the move-in process as painless as they could, given the circumstances of their environment. The UC had plenty of helpful people wearing "move-in day '04" shirts, so there were many targets for my questions. They also bequeathed a free parking permit, and cleared out some lots for move-in only parking. The only annoying part was the loading/unloading zone -- but the real problem is that Berkeley is located in a city type environment, so they really don't have that much space to facilitate the parents trundling up with their mini-vans and SUVs full of stuff.

Which gets the another thing that was surreal for me -- I was basically Suzies's designated "father for the day" (or at least, that is what it felt like to me). I think that parents have a certain role to play on move-in day, and I kindof got to play that role well ahead of the game (for me). Suzie was probably one of the easiest kids that you could wish for, move-in wise. But still, it was stressful, and after it was over, I had a goodly sweat going on. I don't know how really old people do it.

Which leads me to the last way in which things were surreal -- I was exposed to college students again. And not just any sort of student, but freshmen. And not just any sort of freshmen -- 18-year-old freshmen! I mean, I'm 10 years older than these people! I marveled out the random girl talking about an Incubus concert, the slackers already busting out with the pirated DVDs on the HP Media Center laptop, the jock-types going around to meet all of the new, naive, freshmen women (shudder), etc. And I was just left with the since of how this whole phase of my life is over, and it is so not a bad thing. I have done my time in the college gulags, and now I am out of there, a much better man for the experience, to be sure, but out of there just the same.

Suzie and I capped off this wonderful memory-lane-type experience (for me) by having dinner at none-other than... (wait for it...) -- the dorm cafeteria! Yes kids, I had dorm food on Sunday night! As Suzie's designated parental unit, I was treated to a free meal at the caf for my hard work, and as a thank-you for all of the bucks that I am (not) going to send down into the UCB sinkhole. The food was pretty decent (for college cafeteria food), but I'm sure they were putting on "the show" for the visiting parents. I'll have to ask Suzie in about a month what she thinks of the food.

So, in conclusion, college is great, and Suzie is going to have a wonderful time at UC Berkeley. But for me, college was great, and while it's interesting to see how much I have changed in 10 years, I'm glad that I have grown as an individual, and moved on with myself.

At least, until my midlife crisis, anyway. :)

-Andy.

No postin' 'round here

The subject reminds me of a Homerism -- "Hey, how come I can't get no Tang 'round here no more?". Anyways, my family was out in the bay area last week for a visit, and that was fun, but kindof busy. And it didn't exactly leave a lot of time for the computer. I got some new toys that I need to post about, and of course there have been doins-a-transpirin'.

The primary of which, right after my parents left, I went and picked up Suzie Schornack, Laura's (of Mark and Laura fame) little sister, from Kevin's place, and she has been my house-guest here in Sunnyvale ever since. Suzie is going to be a freshman at UC Berkeley in the fall, but the dorms aren't quite open yet. She caught a ride out to the Bay Area with her dad, but he had to go back to work a couple of states away, and so she needs to bridge the gap. And that's where "old reliable" Andy comes in...

Anyways, it's been fun having her here -- I kindof get to be tour guide of the bay area. I don't really know what I'm talking about, which makes sense, since I've only lived here a little more than a year... But what's to know, really? Drive, work, drive, eat, sleep, repeat.

Duh!

-Andy.

trips

Since I was last able to blog, I done been on several trips. For the 4th of July weekend, I was out in Chicago. I had yet another good visit out there -- I didn't accomplish everything that I wanted to do (Sara and I had 3 movies that we wanted to see, but we only made it to one), but still, it was good.

I went directly to Detroit, MI from Chicago, for my first business trip with EDS. The company has signed a big outsourcing deal with DaimlerChrysler, and I was tasked (along with a number of other EDS folks) with being on-site for the build-out of our monitoring and management infrastructure. As business trips go, I suppose that this one was okay -- I worked some killer hours (like 12/day), but I got to do it using my Mac, which made things better. Also, I blundered into some first-class seats on the way back from Detroit to S.F. (I had to go via Dallas -- ug), which is the first time that I've ever flown first class anywhere. It was pretty nice to fly first class, especially after my grueling trip to detroit.

After that, I had a little less than two weeks of non-travel (because a semi-planned L.A. trip didn't pan out), before it was off to O'Reilly's Open Source Conference in Portland, OR, with Mike. In general, the conference was a lot of fun. Perl rocks, python didn't impress me, and Linux continues to make strides (especially wine -- I actually saw Jeremy White demo iTunes running on Linux. Stunning). I was really hoping to blog more about this conference while I was there, but it didn't work out that way. I may try and post some more later.

But, I'm back from OSCON now. My parents & Sara come out to S.F. for a visit for a week starting on Saturday. Then I have a week of 'normalcy', and I am off to the Seattle/Bellingham, WA area for Chris and Tanya's wedding.

-Andy.

my schedule

A lot of things have been messed up ever since I moved, not the least of which being my schedule. I have been traveling, working, going into S.F. -- you name it. For example, right now I'm oncall, and dealing with a page that I got at like 12:30 AM Pacific. It is now 3:30, and I'm still waiting for this Sun box to be back up so that I can verify it.

So, my sleep schedule is messed up. My work schedule is messed up (I probably won't be getting to work before 11:00 AM tomorrow, that is for sure). My workout schedule is messed up.

On the plus side, it looks like I only have to hold out until September for things to get back to normal... (or whatever passes for normal around here, anyway).

-Andy.

my life -- packed up

This saturday, I'm moving to a new (to me) apartment, so that means that this machine, and all of the blogs, pictures, and name games that it hosts, are going to be down for awhile. It hurts, but there's not any way around it -- the new place doesn't have Comcast, and I'm of the mind to switch to DSL anyway. But I'm sure there is going to be some lag time between when I order the DSL and it is actually passing traffic. Until that time, redefine.dyndns.org is going to be down. So, no more blog posts from me for awhile.

-Andy.

jam-packed

So, I'm really freaking out these days. I had a jam-packed (but damn fun) weekend, consumed by having me good friend Chris in town, and going rafting and to see A Perfect Circle with him. The rafting trip was pretty fun -- exhausting, but fun. Chris and I were joined by Mike, Sheila, Kevin, Kalpana, Koji, and Anjali. Koji has posted some pictures, and Anjali has as well. I would definitely be game to do the rafting thing again.

But before and after Chris was in town, I have been searching for a new apartment like mad. Since I was unable to find a new roommate, I gave the current place my 30 days notice, with the intention of finding a 1 bedroom somewhere.

The full weight of this decision hit upon me when I realized that:

1. It's looking like I'm going to be in Detroit from the 27th - July 2nd (moving day is scheduled for the 26th)


2. I'm going to be super-busy at work next week (in preparation for this Detroit nonsense)


3. And finally, I'm a picky asshole, so it is hard for me to find an apartment that I'll actually spend money on...

It seems like there is some light at the end of the tunnel, however. I saw a place today that I didn't totally hate. I think I'm going to fill out the application tomorrow, which will give me 3 days to keep looking for something better. But if I don't find anything, I will have an acceptable backup. And this means that everything will be decided by Saturday, which is pretty nice to know.

I'm also trying to figure out how my blog is not going to be down for like 2 weeks. With the move followed by the traveling, I doubt that I'll be able to get new Internet service installed. So, I'm going to be sniffing out co-location options in order to keep this thing afloat. Mark and Rushabh, you have been warned...

-Andy.

As I predicted

My flight has just changed from gate C25 to gate C26. At least I don't have to walk back to concourse B, or anything... :)

-Andy.

(PS -- I tried to post this from the airport, but after about 90 minutes, it seems like the T-Mobile GPRS was out to lunch. Either that, or comcast took a nose dive again...)

Delayed

So, I was supposed to be on a 7:15 flight from O'Hare to San Francisco, but United has given me (and a whole bunch of other people) the old stinky "once again", and my flight isn't scheduled to leave until 9:10. Of course, this couldn't change, as the gate that I'm at, C25 (in case anybody wants to look me up) is supposed to service a LAX first. Of course, that flight isn't even here yet, so either I'm up for another gate change (2 so far and counting), or even more delays.

I must say, I was shocked when I found that the flight was delayed, because I haven't had a snafu like this in a long time. I've been flying a lot more since I moved out to the Bay Area, and this is the first time that I've encountered a serious delay. I think that since the amount of air travellers has dropped in the post-9/11 world, on-time performance has increased. But of cousre, there is no accounting for mother nature...

I also missed out on an earlier flight by one passenger, all because I "flinched". I was standing in line at gate B5, and they made an announcement saying that the plane was full, and that I should just go to my ticketed gate. So, I made haste over to gate C13 (which is a good walk at O'Hare), and the woman there told me that there was in fact room on the gate B5 flight, and that I should go back over there and get put onto the standby list. So, another brisk walk and line wait later, and I just missed getting on. Dang. That's what I get for listening to people.

-Andy.

Why I don't (yet) own an iPod

By this point, those that know me pretty-much know that I'm an Apple fan. But one thing that keeps surprising people who find this out about me is that I'm an Apple fan, but yet, I don't own an iPod. While there is no denying that the iPod is great, there are a couple of reasons why I don't own one:

1. I already have a Sony MiniDisc player, which unfortunately, is still working pretty well. I've had it for about 5 years now, so I've built up a decent library of home-recorded MDs. Also, the battery life of the internal NiMH battery is still surprisingly good -- at least 6 hours per charge.
2. I have the whole music thing covered at work, by plugging headphones into my work PC and running iTunes.
3. I have the car thing covered, with the 10 disc CD changer in the trunk
4. I'm not mobile enough anymore -- back in College, I used to do a lot of solo walking. But now with the whole work/South Bay thing happening, my walking time is kept pretty much to trips to and from the car. Certainly not enough to justify being wired for sound.
5. I don't travel all that often -- probably at most 4 - 5 trips per year.

So, in a nutshell, there you have it. Maybe if just one of those factors were different, I could justify buying an iPod. Or, if the MD solution annoyed me more (I could definitely see that when I travel, the iPod would conserve bag space -- I wouldn't need to carry extra MDs, or the bulky charger). But for the time-being, I'm just going to stick with my MD player. Unelss of course, I crack and buy a mini....

-Andy.

lacking

So, how about the lack of updates around here? Well, there are a couple of reasons for that. For starters, last week was a total wash. I (along with pretty much everyone else in my group) was sent to training over at Tibco, for the entire week. The first three days were spent learning their new product, "Business Works". The last two were more technical, learning how the Tibco adapter SDK works.

Anyways, the point being, that it was a really exhausting week. And of course, now that we have all taken a giant gulp from the Tibco kool-aid, we have to immediately launch into a quick-to-market project with an insane deadline.

But not only is work being, well, a bunch of work, but other stuff is happening as well. For starters, Sara moved out about a month ago, deciding that the job thing wasn't happening out here, and that it was time to move back home and give the Chicago thing a try again. So, now I've got a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment to myself, which is really a waste. So, I'm doing the whole "trying to find a roommate" thing. Which, so far, is not going well at all. So much for the fabled craigslist.

So, it's increasingly looking like I'm going to be moving out of here sometime in the next month, into a one bedroom. Since everybody knows how much I don't like moving, you know that I'm excited.

Oh, and I've been buying far too many video games recently (though that doesn't exactly translate to me playing them, but I'm close), and I'm going to get into comics again (damn that Joss Whedon! Plus, Claremont and Davis doing Uncanny!?!? I'm not made of stone here, people!). So, I'm thinking no girlfriend until 2005, Mike's Orkut gesture be damned.

-Andy.

Continuing

Once again, I find my self blogging at the airport. I'm sitting at the terminal for ATA flight 267, with non-stop service from Chicago/Midway to Mineta San Jose Airport. I've been home for a grand total of 7 days (it was last Tuesday that I arrived back in Chicago). It feels like I was home longer.

There some things that happened which I expected, and some that were unexpected. On the whole, I thought that the trip was going to be a harder, fraught with a lot more emotion. I'm not trying to downplay this whole thing, or say that the wake and the funeral were both total cake-walks, but what I am saying is that in my mind, as I prepared to come out here, I had things really built up to the point that I was dreading this whole thing. I think that part of that, has to do with for most of the weekend that preceeded this trip, I thought that Beth was going to be coming home, and that all of us were going to have to care for her until she passed. I knew that that was going to be really, really hard. Having her go while she was still in the hospital, with dad, was quite a bit easier, I think.

On the whole, I think that Beth's death is going to be one of the biggest harbingers of change that my family has seen in a long, long while. The last "big" change that I can think of is when we moved from New Jersey to Chicago. And this doesn't really even compare -- sure, there was a lot of churn and such before, during, and after the whole moving process. But at the end of the day, the jobs that we all had before the move, we more-or-less had afterwards. For my mom, though, this is no longer true. Her #1 job for the past 30 years has been to take care of her children, specifically Beth. Now that Beth is gone, my mom has to find something else to occupy herself. I heard via 3rd party that my mom said that this is like Beth "firing" her, but I prefer to think of this more like a layoff.

So, I think that the lions share of the dealing that is going to have to be done in the wake of Beth's passing isn't going to happen in the minutes, hours, or even days that immediately followed. It is going to happen months and weeks out, as my mom tries to start over again, and figure out what she is going to do now.

My dad doesn't have this problem, of course, because he's just going to go back to work, which he started doing again on Monday. And in a like vein, that's what I'm going to do too -- hence my flight back to California, so that I can go back to work tomorrow.

Because, as the old saying goes, "tomorrow is another day".

-Andy.

post wake

The wake today, wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. There were some hard parts, to be sure (especially at the beginning), but mostly, it was just like any other family get-together. I have always felt that my family is "fairly functional", and so we're able to not only deal with the everyday hardships, but also the out-of-the-ordinary, special-case hardships as well. I think that today and tomorrow are going to lend more credence to my theory.

One thing that surprised me is how many people read the obituaries. A number of people showed up today who read about Beth's passing in the paper, and were compelled to come and show their support. I was pretty amazed by some of the people who came -- some who my family hasn't seen or talked to in many, many years.

Fermi Lab also represented, showing dad some good support.

So, all-in-all, I think that today went pretty well. It was long, to be sure, but good.

-Andy.

pre wake

My dad and I went to O'Hare this afternoon, and picked up my Aunt Bibi, who flew in from Kansas. This is my dad's Sister, and it seems like he's pretty glad that she's here.

Last night, the parents were waiting for us at Midway, and then whisked us off for a night out on the town. We went to Apple's showcase store on Michigan Ave. My dad was planning, of course, so that's how we ended up there. It didn't hurt that the Apple Store is open until 8:00 PM, while most other stores on Michigan Ave. close at 7. After that, we had a nice dinner at Lowry's. I think that my parents declared last night to be a "cry free zone", and one way to do that was to have activities, and to just talk about the good times.

I've gotta get going here, so I'll try and post again after the wake. I'm sure that I'll be in a much different mood...

-Andy.

Going home

As I write this, Sara and I are at Mineta San Jose airport, waiting to board my 12:07 flight to Chicago Midway. Beth passed away early yesterday, so Sara and I definitely need to go home.

My parents are both taking a lot of comfort in the fact that we are coming home, I think. At least, every e-mail that I've gotten from my dad since Saturday has had the phrase "I'm glad you're coming home" in it. So, that will be good.

This is going to be a pretty hard trip, though, all things considered. I'm certainly not relishing the next several weeks.

On the plus side, I'd like to thank everyone who has expressed their sympathy for me and my family. To everyone who has e-mailed me, called me, or visited -- thanks. Also, work have been champs. I went in on Monday morning and told my boss and his boss. Their response: "1. go home; 2. take as long as you need; 3. don't worry about anything"

I just saw a woman at the gate, who not only had a little dog that she was taking on the plane, but she had a bumer sticker that said "Porn Kills Love". Goodbye California.

-Andy.

Not the post that I thought I'd ever have to make

It's the "end of the line" for Beth. After recovering well from her pneumonia last week, she took a turn for the worse towards the end of the week. Her fever returned, and her left lung started getting filled with mucus again.

At this point, the doctors say that medically, the only thing to do would be for Beth to get a tracheotomy, which would allow the mucus in her lungs to be drained at regular intervals. In addition, she would probably need a G-Tube , so that she could get food into her body.

So, to take that route, she would have a tube in her throat, and a tube in her stomach, and that would probably be the new "status quo" for her.

Consequently, my parents have made the decision not to go this route, and to let nature take its course with Beth. She has already lived far longer than an average Rett's girl lives, and up until this point, her quality of life hasn't been too bad. But if we kept her a live through artificial means, it would most likely be quite painful for her, which to but it bluntly, Isn't Good.

Her doctor thinks that by avoiding the tube route, she won't live longer than a month. My parents are going to bring her back home, and bring in some hospice care. So, at least she will be in her own, familiar surroundings. And it is our hope that she will experience little pain, and will have a peaceful time until the end.

I have made the decision to cancel my trip to Japan, and I will be going to work on Monday in order to negotiate some form of leave. I may work from Illinois, we'll see how it goes. I expect that I will be back in Illinois by the middle of next week, for a stay of indeterminate length.

-Andy.

Beth update (all over the map)

I got word from the homestead that Beth was moved out of the ICU this evening. That's pretty good news, because it means that she is getting better, and is on her way to getting back home. Apparently, some new antibiotic that the doctors put her on really gave those germs an ass-kicking today.

On a (slightly different) topic, Sara returned to the bay area yesterday. She was originally supposed to be gone for two weeks, but pushed things out for an additional week in order to help out with Beth. It's good that she is back, because we immediately kicked Kevin's ass in hearts (ohhh yeah!). And it also means I'm going to get to see a lot more movies -- we've already started talking up "Hellboy". And of course, "Jersey Girl" comes out while I'm in Japan....

And while I'm at it, I'm also currently under the spell of a band by the name of "Denali". I stumbled across them whilst trying to find Fall Out Boy's new video for Sara (which, of course, I eventually found: "Grand Theft Autumn"). I found the video to their single "Hold Your Breath" at a site called punkrockvids.com (look in the downloads section). Some more googling turned up a live show, that I downloaded and have been listening too incessantly (VLC is great for that).

So yeah, that irrepressible siren that is the iTunes Music Store is calling to me... If only I was convinced that locking my music up in the AAC format was a good idea...

-Andy.

Ignorance isn't bliss

So, I went and saw that new-fangled "The Passion of the Christ" with Mike and Kevin today. On the whole, I can't say that I really liked the movie. I mean, as a movie, it was pretty terrible -- the entertainment value was through the floor.

But, as a vehicle for inspiring thought, it fairs a little better. One "take away" that I have is that the whole thing is basically a treatise against ignorance. If Jesus' accusers had taken the time to do their due diligence, then they would have found that there was some evidence to support his claims, and that maybe killing him wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do. The Jewish rabble could have employed some independent thought instead of merely following their spiritual leaders, as well.

So basically, the whole movie is "up with science". And down with crucifixions -- those things look like they are kindof painful.

One weird thing, is that the theatre showed previews for several G-rated movies before the passion. Movies like "Two Brothers", "Home on the Range", and "Cody Banks 2". Clearly, somebody needs to do some better market research...

-Andy.

Sickness

So, I think I'm coming down with a cold. At this point, I don't think it's going to be one of those "Über Colds", from Germany, that you've all been hearing so much about. Rather, at this point, it feels just like enough of a cold to be annoying (like Urkel).

Now, who is really sick (since I'm on the subject) is my older sister Beth. She went into the hospital last week with a high fever (amongst other things), and she's still in the ICU as I write this. The good news is that the doctors & nurses at the hospital were able to stabilize her, and get her flu under control (that's right -- according to the doctors, this is just one crazy-bad case of the flu). But the bad news is that Beth is on a ventilator, because last week she was having problems breathing, and this week, her heart beats a little too fast when she is off of the ventilator.

Overall, though, she is expected to make a full recovery, and thus we should see a return to the status quo sometime this month. I don't think that she will be out of the hospital this week, but we're all pretty hopeful that she'll at least make it out of the ICU.

One really good thing is that Sara happened to be home when all of this went down. She's been a big champ, taking all of the night shifts at the hospital, leaving my mom free to get some sleep and be at the hospital during the day.

So, what was I pissing and moaning about before? Being sick? I guess I don't really have anything to complain about, eh?

-Andy.

A little better

So, I called my dad this morning before I went off to work at the sulfur mine, and he didn't sound so good. He said that he was still in a lot of pain, especially when he tried to sit up. Of course, that is what he was trying to do -- because they brought his lunch to him, and you know that he wanted to be up in that! But I hear from mom that his pain is under some better control now, and even my dad told me that he thought that things would be better tomorrow. So, I'll be calling him tomorrow before I go to work.

Of course, I'm going to be going in a bit early tomorrow (for me, anyway), because I have a meeting at 9:00 am. It isn't a meeting that I'm looking forward to -- I've been supposed to be working on a project for this guy, but I have so many different masters & projects at work, that I haven't been able to find the time for 9:00 am guy. I think that there may be some serious overtime headed my way.

And no, the server maintenance that I have to do on Saturday evening/Sunday morning isn't what I'm talking about...

-Andy.

Merch

Well, I've been trying my best to ignore the fact that certain accessories to my life have either been in need of replacement, are depleted, or are just plain missing. That has worked out pretty well, up until this weekend, in which it all came back to haunt me. As it turns out, I pretty-much spent the whole weekend shopping.

But I do have some new shoes, a printer, a bunch of food, and a new CD case to show for it. I was really hurting for that CD case -- all of the slots in my old cases have been "full" for awhile, but I didn't stop buying CDs. As a result, my music have been terribly un-organized for awhile, a fact that finally drove itself home 2 weeks ago. I decided that I wanted to listen to the Incubus disc "Morning View", but I couldn't find it. Finally, after I managed to track it down (in the case to some other totally unrelated CD), I realized that I have a job now, so I can afford to buy another CD case and get my CDs organized again, right before the become completely and utterly obsolete.

Now all I need to do is buy a receiver, and things will be great. Oh, and yeah, I need to clean my room...

-Andy.