Say Hey!

Well, since June, time has flown by. If I recall correctly, at times, things were tough at work, lonely at home, and boring all around - it was time for something new to hit.

Fortunately, mid-July, I started talking to Jenna, and after this past weekend, none of that stuff even matters.

Everything started the same night Wizard, Sarge, and I went out on an all-nighter kayaking trip near the Gaylord Texan. I found her profile on match.com (when your social circle is considered to have gotten bigger because your friends had a baby, it's time to start branching out) a few days before, and sent out a wink. Late that night while I was out in the lake, I got a text message - which normally doesn't happen when I'm with all the people who normally txt me. I checked it, and it said "jrdejong has winked back at you." But I didn't recall winking at a "jrdejong" - and thought it was another girl being brave and making the first move, that I was going to have to decline, because I'm not as attracted to Asian girls. So I tossed the phone back into the drybox, and we finished our trip about 6am.

Well, later that morning, I checked my profile via my phone, and found that I *had* winked at her, and she was not Asian - she was, in fact, one of the girls I was hoping would wink back. I happened to be at The Lackey's, and showed them out of curiosity, mainly to see what Mandy thought, because I prefer her to screen the girls I date for any psycho-vibes. She approved, so I sent off a rather unique email with some rather unique and different questions.

For the next week, Jenna and I asked quirky questions to get a different side of each other's personality, until she had to go to Florida on vacation to visit with her family and friends there for 2 weeks.

She came back to Texas the Saturday Sarge and I were supposed to go fishing, but he stayed up too late, and it looked like rain anyway in my area that afternoon. I headed out alone in my boat, and the rain showed up about 5 hours earlier than I expected, and I saw it consuming the lake in a white haze that was moving towards me faster than I could row to get under a bridge.

She called that morning, to set up our date for that evening, and we went to Sweet Tomatoes In Irving, TX as our first date. This might have little significance to you, but to my synesthesia, Sweet is Red and Tomatoes is Green - those are our favorite colors, and I just realized that nifty little connection.

We spent the evening talking about all kinds of things - family, friends, interests, jobs, life, religion, politics, everything. Afterward, she piped up first that we should do it again, and all I could say was "Definitely."

So we scheduled a second date for the following Friday when she had off...but my work nearly put that date in jeopardy when XO Communications and All-Tek Communications couldn't get their schedules straight and their jobs done on time, and I had to stick around after work, yet still make it back home to change/shower from the sweaty task I was suddenly assigned to, and then get to Lewisville in time for a 6:50 movie, during rush-hour traffic.

We went to see Funny People at Studio Movie Grill, and afterward, we headed out to the nearby Lake Lewisville. On Google Maps, I found a spot I wanted to drive out to, but when we were actually in the car, I missed the exit or something, and ended up finding the exact same one that Hambone, Sarge, Wizard and I took when we went kayak fishing for one of the first times but and nearly died taking it because of its sharp turn we didn't know about. This time, I took it much better.

I happened to have had some of my fishing stuff in the Cube with me, and that included some catfood I use to chum the waters when I go fishing. So we pulled into the Marina there, wandered out onto the floating gas station, and found a bench to sit on while we tossed catfood into the water and watched some old people across the marina play games near their boat. We got a chance to talk some more, until we had to go - because she ate cheese at the theater on her pizza and wasn't supposed to.

The next weekend was Quakecon - and I invited her to come out to it, since I had registered a second account, like I have done every year since 2005, hopeful I'll have a girl that I can loan it to. During our emails she told me she was into WoW and the gaming scene, which was awesome.

I went out there Wednesday night, but we were firing someone the following morning, so I had to come back home after I dropped my computer off, in order to change the passwords on all the work accounts. On the way home, I stopped by the office and picked up a bunch of boxes and packing materials from the warehouse dumpster that was emptied the previous day, and loaded them up for Jenna to move with.

She came out to Quakecon Friday after she got off work. There she got to meet Wizard and Sarge, and see me in my element...around all the technology one can stand, and without the pretenses of a date or any date-like attitudes. It was kind of a boring night for her though because she brought a Mac - and I have very little experience with a Mac. So we all went to dinner at Whataburger, and we did our best to play games we both could play on my computer. Then I found out she shouldn't eat meat or french fries, so we had to call it a night, and I loaded her boxes into her car.

Saturday she was supposed to register for classes, but they were closed - so, much to Wizard's surprise (after seeing us as we are, and having the very easy option to stay home) she came back to Quakecon! This time I was prepared though, because Friday night afterward, I went home and looked up what it would take to get her Macbook on the DC++ server and in the IRC chatroom...as well as a couple other issues. When she came back Saturday, I also realized there was a Terminal window on her Mac, and that made my life much easier - having been a Linux admin for a couple years. I got her connected, showed her how to use the software, and she had a blast downloading music, and going to the booths with me, and trying to get a Quakecon Girl shirt in a crowd full of no-deodorant-wearing teens.

Quakecon was a blast this year, and afterward, Sunday was as lame as possible. With one exception though: Jenna sent me a facebook invite to help her move. However, quickly thereafter she said she didn't expect me to actually come help her, she just wanted to see me again. I told her that wouldn't be a problem, and we scheduled to spend some time the following weekend together with just some "us" time - no friends around, and since we were more familiar with each other, in a quiet/non-public location - my apartment. Which needed to be re-cleaned, in a hurry.

We both cooked breakfast (I made the waffle batter, eggs, and bacon...she handled the waffle iron while I was cooking the meats). The eggs were for me, though - but she ate one anyway...but I don't think it made her sick this time. And we also cooked a dinner, some indoor Grilled Chicken, and she cooked some white-wine asparagus...both were awesome. We got to showcase our culinary talents and we approved.

The private time during the weekend gave us a chance to talk about other things that needed to be mentioned and between movies and conversations we decided that we're both exactly what we've been looking for...and made it official.

So this would be my first official girlfriend since 2006, and it's a nice feeling to have someone like you more than you would expect someone to like you - but also a little difficult for me to accept it at times. And after all the searching through my past and relationships of the past that I did in 2007 and blogged right here on this very journal, it has finally paid off to know exactly what I'm looking for in a woman, and to know exactly when I find it. Yet, every day I get to spend with her, I learn something new about her, so I'll probably never know everything there is to know about her...

But I know...one thing...

Fear Not

As I'm sitting here watching a show on the History Channel, called The Next Nostradamus, I realize that the reason the Middle East is in such turmoil is, of course, religious-based - but more specifically, because they believe everyone should believe as they believe. And if they choose not to, the consequences are "death to the gentile."

It makes me wonder, what if the [militant] Islamic people didn't have a clause in their doctrine that required them to go out and convert or kill anyone who accepts or rejects, respectively, their beliefs. What if the [Israeli] Jews weren't so obsessed over a particular piece of land that it rose to heated conflict. What if [Dark-Ages Catholic] Christians didn't go out in their crusades "back in the day" and kill all the "heathens" or perform all those "witch hunts."

What if everyone just lived their life - asked questions to learn what other people believed, why they believed it...and then applied it to their own lifestyle if the moral fit. I'm not talking about accepting a better belief system because of the "mystical" rewards in the afterlife. That should be a separate post about choosing religion based on greed.

I'm simply wondering how the world would be if the militant sect of Islam wasn't militant. If their neighboring countries, including Israel, took it upon themselves to show love (the same Love that their God represents - technically the same God that the Islamic people believe in) and compassion to have the half-brother relationship the two people have. If the old-skool Catholics didn't hate the Jews for killing Jesus (when it was the Romans...the same people that created Catholicism...that did).

Granted I have a very naive understanding of the intricacies of the Islamic, Jewish, and Catholic interpretations of religion. But as with most things, I don't have to have such intricate knowledge to explain concepts - concepts that those WITH the intricate knowledge would understand how to carry out.

Consider a world where there were no wars among different people in different regions, and instead there were talks, lectures, documentation of how a particular society lives their life - why they follow certain practices - how those ideas have developed over time - and provide some kind of quantifiable proof for what benefits and disadvantages their particular methodology has. And then the different nations of the world share their "best-practices" in some sort of forum with the rest of the world to gain and benefit from. How different would everything be?

Different industries do this in business. What works for an automobile manufacturer assembly line does not necessarily work for food production. You can't reasonably pass down a hamburger bun to the next person, let them apply the mustard, the next apply the lettuce, then another tomatoes and so on. However, in concept - allowing particular people to be in charge of a particular part of the meal as a whole DOES work. So you have 3 people working on one meal (hamburger, fries, drink) at the same time and it comes out in 1/3 the time as it does with one person doing it all.

If you have one nation that uses a particular kind of seed it has developed that can produce 3x as much food as the seed another country is using - yet that country has equipment that allows them to harvest food 3x as fast as the first nation - why not combine the ideas of the two. Grow the first nation's seed on 3x the land, harvest it with the second nation's equipment 3x as fast, and you can produce the combined effect of 9x the food output.

There are herbal cures deep in the African and Amazon jungles that a lot of modern doctors probably have never heard of. If they ventured into the jungles to learn about these techniques and herbs...and left behind specific knowledge of other cures to diseases the people die from (common cold, small pox, etc) then both communities benefit...and so does the rest of the world.

I think - no, I know that most of what drives people's division and purported hatred is simply a lack of understanding about something. I know that my parents had a strong hatred for those Magic Eye books (the kind where you crossed your eyes, and an image popped out). They said it was demonic and it was inviting you to relax your spirit for the devil to enter in - and then would scour the seemingly random patterns of dots on the pages to try and find sequences of dots that resembled (in one's mind) the image of a face/demon/devil.

Had they only understood how the eyes actually work, and that one eye sees from a certain angle, and the other eye does as well - the book takes this mathematical knowledge and through the instructed process causes your eyes to find the precise angle for which the image was designed so that the dots on the page became an image in the brain.

That's all it was - math and biology. There's no demons, no devils, no relaxation of the spirit.

Fear is what drives everything apart. Understanding is what brings everything together. If you can understand how something works, you no longer have to fear it. You should still respect it - and the consequences of it's output if used incorrectly - but you don't have to live in fear of it.

The phrase "fear not" appears 62 times in the King James bible...maybe there's something to it.

Just some [vented] thoughts...

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I need something to do...

I need something to do. This is going to be a long post.

I'm at a point in the year, where I am in limbo between spending the Winter couped up in the apartment expanding my education and doing tecky projects, and entering into spring/summer where I am trying to be more social and have more human interaction after a figurative "social hibernation," if you will.

I moved to Plano at the on-set of winter, and so being at home, couped up in the new apartment was great - I got to soak in all the newness without having to shun people I'd normally spend time with during the part of the year. Had I moved any other time during the year, it would have been a struggle between spending time elsewhere, and getting things set up at home (I guess girls call that nesting, and commonly do it before child birth...I don't know what guys call it...fortifying? Preparing the Castle for presentation to friends/family/interests?)

At any rate, my social circle in Plano is slightly smaller than the one I had back in Fort Worth...and doing things with them is even more difficult now that they've had a baby. So I'm left to my own devices for entertaining myself.

So, I joined an online dating site, in an effort to meet new people in the area, however, I keep finding people that live back in Fort Worth. I came here thinking I was going to find someone within my apartment complex that I could hang out with - but that doesn't seem to be happening as easily as I'd like...mainly because I don't know of any social functions or any real reason to strike up conversation with anyone that I do encounter.

I can only psyche myself out so long before I snap back to reality. I've tried to focus solely on work, thinking "If I can just get my career in line, I can afford to go out and do social stuff later." I've tried to focus solely on education, thinking "If I can create these extra sources of income, I can keep myself busy until everything is up and running on its own." But those thoughts are only good for a couple weeks or until I finish the project that they are based on.

I set up a server and learned about how to use it in January, but that effort fizzled once it was up and running, and I couldn't do much more with it. I designed two online stores in February, one for work and one for personal gain, and that effort stopped once they were released in March. Then I spent March working with some API codes to learn how to do web mash-ups between Twitter & Google Docs and Wordpress & Ping.fm & Twitter. But once those were finished, that effort lasted about a month until April - which was when the push to become more social took hold.

I've found it extremely difficult to describe myself, especially in 4000 characters or less as the site requires, without sounding too much one way or the other. It's either totally serious, or completely humorous. I may have found a good balance with the description that's up there now - but as I go on these dates, or interact with these matches, I find out other things that I didn't warn them about. For example, my fluid political views that change as my understanding does - or my secular understanding of the purposes and practices of religion. It's stuff that I can't fit into a 200 character box on the side, nor can I just slip into a 4000 character description without leaving out some part of the necessary back story.

However, what I am finding out is that all I really want/need is the same thing I've always said that I wanted/needed...female companionship. It's probably the very reason I'm uninterested in "The Pursuit" these days, and would much rather find someone that I can get along with, talk to when talking to is needed, or just sit and be with when that is needed. The trouble comes in when my multi-tasking ability grants me a lot more free time than it should. And if there is someone new around - a new friend, a new outlet for ideas, whatever, I tend to want to use it as frequently as I can.

Maybe I just need to blog more, and remove my blog from syndication - maybe, and not that I'm interested in doing this, but maybe there is some kind of medication that can suppress an overabundance of thoughts - maybe I need more change/chaos in my life than there currently is, to keep my mind from having all this free time.

I think a lot of it has to do with the stagnation I've run into at work, where I'm expected to take more time to do things than I want. I have sat on the same project for nearly 3 weeks, and the same portion of the project for nearly a week, because I was asked to come up with a requirements document. Granted, while coming up with one did bring up things I hadn't considered at the time - it also brought up the need to discuss things that are WAY beyond the scope of the intended project. What was intended to be a cost-free initiative now may require thousands of dollars in new equipment.

Why though? Well, it's because I was asked to sit and think about it. My mind is creative, and the more I have to think about something, the more complex and involved it can become. This is because as I'm thinking about the feature list, I'm having to write the code in my head to make sure it's possible. As that happens, I discover other things that are possible, and it branches out from there.

The irony of it all is that for those 3 weeks, I sat around and worked on my own websites, drew on my whiteboard, and started a new comic strip - as well as released another comic strip website. I tested the waters with what kind of reach my syndication has, and what kind of traffic a single mention can generate to a specific location. And when it was time to hold a meeting about the project, I did my research in 30 minutes before the meeting because while I was jacking around with all the other stuff, my brain was subconsciously processing everything it takes to make this one particular big-picture work.

I hate stagnation, and not doing anything. I know I fail when God's plan says to "be still" - that's nearly impossible for me. There is too much to know, too much to think about, and too much else I'd rather be doing than to sit and be still...even sleeping is only done because its necessary for me to fit into the 8-5 time frame that I'm supposed to be present for work. If I didn't have to, I might work for 40 hours straight so I can go do whatever else I need to with the rest of my 128 hours in the week.

This is a long entry - and it's because I haven't updated in so long. I've had a lot to think about, but mostly because I haven't had anyone to really talk to. My normal outlet has been gone from work and the Internet pretty much, since March 31. That's a long time to be left to your own devices. And despite the nice girls on I've met on the dating website, they haven't shown themselves to be very good conversationalists. I thought girls were supposed to be good at that.

Thoughts on [My] Religion and Politics

Last summer, I didn't have any interest in following anything related to politics because it was just too stressful to listen to them argue, and I didn't really like my options anyway. I decided I would not vote, and stuck to it.

But when I started a new job, in a new town, it came up in conversation with my Boss (the owner of the company) what my preference was regarding the political candidates. Being naive about the ramifications of expressing [what would be] opposing views, I said I was leaning towards the economic policy Obama had put forward (because of how well the economy was under Bill Clinton [even though I didn't want him to win], and how well it did under FDR during the Great Depression).

Immediately, I was bombarded with words like "Socialist," "Communism," "Terrorist," and "Corrupt."

Now, I try to trust people until they give me a reason not to trust them...and I had no reason to accept those words as valid, because they were negative buzzwords used to get people riled up, especially coming off the War on Terror rhetoric (that even I supported back in 2003 when it started...but grew tired of it in 2005 when it should have ended by then).

I had nothing to explain myself with every time my boss wanted to talk about politics...so I had to start watching the news to figure out what he was talking about, and form my own opinions on the talking points. And I started hearing things that I agreed with....

I'll stop there, and talk about religion, because the two do meet, conceptually...

I was raised hardcore southern baptist - so much so, to the point of believing that any other protestant doctrine would send someone to hell, if it was not Southern Baptist. That was, until my parents up-and-changed churches. I have no idea why they decided to do it, or any of the many confusing, mind-changing, life-altering shifts they made while we were growing up. But all the sudden - one didn't have to be Southern Baptist to get into heaven anymore...you could be Non-denominational, or Southern Baptist now.

"All right, I can handle that...just so long as you're Southern Baptist or just plain Christian it's ok...but anything else is hell-bound." I thought.

Then they changed to a Methodist church - one of the very churches they spoke so negatively about because it had a woman preacher.

"wtf? seriously?" my thoughts were.

After I was "forcibly relocated" to my Dad's, I went to a church my family had gone to just before moving to the country. It was familiar, and I knew it was acceptable by their standards [whatever they were, if any] so it would be ok for me.

I went there for 2 years, but started realizing I wasn't getting anything out of it, and it was more for socializing than for anything at that point. And when I moved out on my own, I reflected back on everything I'd been through, and realized one important thing:

Jesus was Jewish - not Southern Baptist, not Methodist, not Non-denominational...he was Jewish.

From then on, what church one went to was only an indication of the finer, man-made interpretations of one what one believed...called Doctrine. Doctrine doesn't save you, doctrine isn't supposed to tell you how to live - doctrine is just a common interpretation of the "rules" of the bible that everyone in your church thinks you're supposed to live by...and every church is different - and they will fight each other over the differences in those doctrines, or impose them as "The Way" that non-Christians are supposed to change their lives and live.

I disagree with that concept. I do not subscribe to a doctrine - refuse to.

My beliefs are based on what I've read in the Bible, and how I am able to apply it to my life. Parables, prophecies, and miracles - they all have a purpose, and they all have a real-life component.

Parables are simply stories to explain a greater truth, in a broader, simpler way so everyone can understand what's being said, and apply it to their life - without the speaker having to tell each individual person (whether it's applicable to them or not) how to live their life. It's to get people to think on their own.

Prophecies are warnings that the current track you're on will either bring you blessings or destruction because someone (a third-party to the issue) can see from outside the box, the direction you are heading in. It's to get people to think beyond themselves (i.e. unselfishly).

And Miracles all have physical manifestations of some unusual act. I don't have examples to use, and would rather not explain away miracles. However, their occurrence (regardless of the initiating force) don't just "happen," there is an actual physical activity that is going on to produce it.

And as I started thinking about these things, I started finding things I agreed with...


And now the two meet: The more I found that I agreed with, the less interested I was in accepting things that I knew better about - whether they were naive statements that were poorly researched, or misquotes that were taken out of context and altered for a particular purpose.

I have no problem getting my Christian views to work with logical thought. Everything in the bible has a purpose - and the basis of it all is for the reader/believer to be able to live a better life while they are here, helping others, and not themselves, because true happiness is found in selflessness.
And I have no problem voting someone into office that has the best answers (or at least proven methods) of fixing the issues that we're currently facing. Obama, McCain, Hilary - they all make no difference to me...but Obama planned to use the same concepts that FDR used during his New Deal to bring the country back from recession. If we weren't in a recession, then I'd probably have voted for McCain so we could wrap up this war stuff.

My goal in conversations I have with people about either of these two topics is not to say they are right or wrong, but to say what my opinion is that would yield a better, more productive result. If it's about religion, you don't have to stand on street corners yelling "REPENT OR DIE!!" in Fort Worth...you can explain it to people in a way that shows the benefits their lifestyle would receive if they were to follow the examples of Jesus. If it's about politics, you don't have to straight-up disagree with the other party just because it's the other party. There are good ideas on both sides, and they need to be presented in a manner (and to people) that will be willing to make the compromises necessary to get the issue solved. Every solution is going to have unforeseen consequences, but that doesn't mean the answer is completely wrong.

As a good friend told me recently, the path to happiness is found when neither person is worried about "my turn to be selfish," and is working to help the other person. This holds for every kind of relationship possible.

Those are my thoughts.

Professional or Expert/Guru/Genius?

"All I know, is that I learned more on my own than I have in college classes - and experience always says more than education - otherwise, the newest college graduates would have better jobs and better pay than the seasoned workers, simply because their degree is newer, and theoretically more current." - [[Neo]]

I had been needing some blog fodder for a while - something that wasn't tired, old rhetoric based on political news.

And then I saw @Xemion post this message:

Retweeting @brandoncorbin: Why not replace Genius, Expert or Guru with Professional? this way you won't sound like an egotistical a** head.
about 6 hours ago from twhirl

to which I replied:

@xemion what if the people that use Genius, Expert, or Guru don't like the culture that "Professional" implies, but know just as much?
about 6 hours ago from web in reply to xemion

Then I read a non-reply reply from him:

I'm not sure what sort of culture "professional" implies, but it's got to be better than the one "guru" implies (IMO)
about 6 hours ago from twhirl

and I explained what I meant:

@xemion it's all opinion. IMO, "Professional" says "commercial corporate monkey"; Guru/Expert/Genius say "ultimate, life-dedicated hobbyist"
about 6 hours ago from web in reply to xemion

Which is pretty much how I view it. Let me explain...

I got my first corporate job doing accounting, but had always had an interest in IT stuff since college - it was the reason I went to college, after all, to extend my hobby into a degree.

I was a "power user" at work, and went through 3 computers during the first couple months because the crappy old Windows NT 4.0 machine couldn't handle the kind of work I wanted to do with it. Neither could the low-grade Optiplex GX-1.

When asking the IT people questions, I was always viewed as some dumb user who didn't know what I was talking about (and granted, I was in a lot of areas - but that's why I was asking the questions).

Everyone that I knew that was in the IT field, whether it was my parents, the company's IT people, or professors - they were all doing it to get paid, and had no interest in doing it because it was what they liked to do. It was a job choice...like my doing accounting work. They were (quote, unquote) "Professionals."

Now, I am the guy in that field, doing the things that they were doing. My predecessor at my current company is someone that I would consider a "professional" but then again, I don't know what his does in his spare time - though I'm sure it's nothing like what I do.

I wouldn't call myself an "Expert," "Guru," or "Genius" in any particular definition of the words. However, I would say that I am an extreme hobbyist that is not doing this just as a job, but because it's what I have essentially devoted my life to learning and doing. I take great pleasure/pride in the fact that I do not operate under any pretenses of coming in to any past or present job wearing the standard white shirt, black suit, and tie. Even when I was required to wear a suit to work, I never wore (never even owned) a white dress shirt.

I guess it's part of my "corporate identity" and my idea of the Corporate Environment 2.0. What one wears to work doesn't have anything to do with what one knows or is able to do. However, it does say something about how they view or conduct themselves. (And how they view themselves is portrayed in how they dress.)

So, would I prefer to tell people that I'm a professional or a guru/expert/genius when it comes to teck? Well, it would depend on the context - but frankly, if I were hiring an employee to help move an IT department forward, I would prefer the latter. If I wanted a warm body to just do tasks without new ideas, I'd probably hire a "professional."

All I know, is that I learned more on my own than I have in college classes - and experience always says more than education - otherwise, the newest college graduates would have better jobs and better pay than the seasoned workers, simply because their degree is newer, and theoretically more current.

This is [[Neo]] Live from The Pizzy...

I just spent most of yesterday evening, and most of this evening writing two different blog posts on thepizzy.net/blog. I found out that I am #1 on a google search for "openvpn connection to active directory" so I decided it was time to actually write a real article since the one people keep finding is only a Proof of Concept article.

I also gained 3 followers to my blog sometime today because of the stuff I've been writing, so there's a little incentive to produce some worth-while content more frequently.

After writing part 1 of this OpenVPN blog post though, I realized that I could get used to this kind of thing, and wouldn't mind doing a lot more instructional articles like it.

I'm probably going to be writing one for how to set up a couple more game servers, and will also start writing more of them for the various ideas that I come up with as "Proof of Concepts" and then go back and actually do it as a How-To when I figure it out.

Heh, it feels like the person at thepizzy.net is nothing like the person that runs the-spot.net - it's a whole other technical side of me over there. (and of course, there is a more blatant side of me over here at The Black Journal too).

This new tech writing thing may even give me some material to start doing podcasts like I had set up the site for. I think I will give that some more consideration now that I have a content direction for the blog.

That's all for tonight, and that's all for the weekend.

Guns don't kill people, bullets do...

Well, tonight, I was prompted by @winkydo's tweet about all the store's he's visited that are now out of ammo.

I asked if he knew why, and got a response from @txsarge and from @winkydo talking about how Obama plans to ban guns and ammo, and how Clinton did, respectively.

So, before putting my foot in my mouth, I asked for proof, and then did a Google Search for "obama proposed tax on ammo" and the first link was for a Washington Post article: "NRA Ads are off target about Obama and Guns"

While it is true that Obama favors tighter gun laws, it is a huge stretch to argue that he wants to take away the guns and ammunition most commonly used by hunters. The claim that he favors "a huge new tax on guns and ammo" rests on a confusingly worded nine-year-old newspaper article that has little relevance for Obama's platform as a presidential candidate.

Without enumerating the list of all the things the WP cited as being inaccurate about the NRA's Ad, essentially the article is saying the NRA is claiming Obama wants to do away with all handguns - when their research shows that in 1999...

...Obama, then an Illinois state senator, supported a "500 percent" increase in the federal tax on the sale of "weapons he says are most commonly used in firearm deaths."

Personally, I have no problem with that; why not discourage people from buying the guns that are the cause of unnecessary deaths? That doesn't infringe on hunters and their rifles. I then went and found an article by the New York Times: "Clinton proposes ban on armor-piercing ammunition"

"If a bullet can rip through a bulletproof vest like a knife through hot butter, then it ought to be history," Mr. Clinton said in accepting an award from the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence at a police station house accompanied by Chicago's mayor, Richard M. Daley.

Again, I have no problem with that. Why would we want to allow irresponsible people to have the ability (legally) to shoot through armor? Shouldn't the police have the ability to be protected from incursions, and have superior firepower than who they are going up against? (Granted, there is another side of the conversation - the sale of full-body armor to criminals.)

I passed those two links on, and clicked on another link from FOX News, criticizing the Washington Post article for being incomplete, saying:

The Washington Post analysis only discusses two issues: the Kennedy ammunition ban and the 500 percent ammunition tax. On the Kennedy bill, the Post makes the same mistake as FactCheck.org. Regarding the tax, the Post doesn’t deny that Obama held that position, but points out that the legislation Obama supported was in 1999 and that it is not clear what guns would have their ammunition taxed. CNN’s discussion appears unwilling to admit that Obama has supported large-scale bans on gun ownership.

and enumerates all the points it makes from FactCheck.org. It is at this point that it is, once again clear, depending on who your sources are, the perspective of the article will be skewed to the agenda.

Having settled on that, I decided the only place to get valid, legitimate information is from the actual source, and I went to the WhiteHouse.gov site, did a search for "gun ban", which returned one result: an article to Obama's Agenda on Urban Policy. A CTRL + F find for "gun" takes you to this bullet point:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

Again, I have no problem releasing the information on who registered a gun so they can be held responsible for its misuse; and I have no problem banning assault weapons for the greater good of the rest of the people.

Meanwhile, I got 4 responses from @winkydo:

• ABC News: "Obama to seek new assault weapons ban"
• The Volokh Conspiracy Weblog: "FactCheck flubs Obama gun fact check"
• The Sean Hannity Forums: a post from alias die hard republican "Obama supports a 500% tax increase on firearms and ammo"
• The Connecticut Tristates News Channel website: "IL gun insurance proposal"

Now, having gone through the stuff I've just read, and deciding to focus on actual fact listing or as close to 1st-person sources as possible, it's hard to lend any kind of credibility to anyone in the media but the source these days. Every news channel has a political leaning, and every reporter has a personal leaning. My preference is a bullet list of the actions as they happened from ontheissues.org. So I went and got a list of Obama's stance on Gun Control. I did the same thing before the election to see what McCain's real stance was on issues as compared to Obama's.

It's been my view that the major difference between the two parties, Republican and Democratic, is boiled down to two perspectives:

• Republican: personal rights, guided by conservative morals imposed on others.
  
• Democratic: civil rights, guided by the populous imposed on everyone.

Over the years, my opinions have shifted, and I can see how I believed things in the past that were not held because they were for the good of other people, but because it was what I thought was best for everyone else - with utter apathy for anyone experiencing adverse affects from such beliefs.

That's not to say I don't still have apathy for a lot of things, but it is to say that I can now see it from the other perspective. Maybe I'll write more on what my perspective is and why it's changed, and hit the main talking points that both political parties touch on.

That's all for now.

Pokin' around the code

I've been messing with some more codes as of this past week, and weekend.

I've finished up completely rewriting the Product Pages for the new release of HitRunScore.com, and have finished up all but a couple graphics for the FreeformFrog.com store. I even started looking into creating a Twitter Google Talk bot replacement.

I've got the concept written down, which didn't take long to deduce. I just have to get all the pieces working, and then make them work together. There are a few things that I need to find out if they're publicly accessible, or if only Twitter could access them. If they are the only ones that can access a few particular features, then recreating the bot will be a little more difficult, but not by much.

I also finally got around to updating the CSS and adding/removing some Widgets from this blog. Got my Last.fm playlist up finally, and installed Songbird on all my computers where I listen to Music, so I can start scrobling my songs as I listen - since I am listening to them for nearly all of the workday.

That's about all for now - all I do lately is work: at work, at home, and in bed (with a laptop on the nightstand).

Post-Valentine's Day update

Well, I've been focusing a lot of my spare time on my tech projects that I have going lately...and that seems to be the pattern around times like this weekend: when ever there is relationship fodder going around in my life, during those time that I cannot participate, I turn my attention to technology.

This month is dedicated to getting the Freeformfrog.com store online for the first legitimate time in the previous 5 years of conceptualization. I've been keeping up with how things are going via a blog so that people will get to see what goes on behind the scenes of a store, but also to use it as a platform for extending the reach via twitter, feedburner, and (later) the social sites.

It's been a good full-duplex experience for me, because at the same time, I have a parallel project at my real job, that is essentially redesigning our entire yahoo store. During my own store setup, I've gotten to implement some of the ideas for utilizing social networking that I was not immediately permitted to use in our own store...but also developed new ones, that we *did* utilize (primarily by just doing first, and asking later, if at all). I figure if it helps my job, or helps my personal store, it will help me.

I also discovered today that Google allows for syncing one's Windows Mobile phone, via ActiveSync, to get one's Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts. Unfortunately, you can't sync multiple calendards from Google - just the main one. So that gave me the outlet to cancel my subscription with OggSync, which I had been using before - and which I had no problems with (except the annoyance of the popup when I tried to exit, letting me know that it'll start up as needed because I told it to - granted, this was a setting I chose, but the notification still annoyed me).

So now, I have an interest in setting up [[Apoch]], my Windows 2008 Server, to house an Exchange Mail Server, and redoing [[Oracle]] from XP to Windows 2008, so that I can set that up as my phone's remote Exchange Server. Then I'll be able to get my home emails to my phone over the mobile internets. That will help with fulfilling orders on my new store, since I'll have to be on top of it, if they order a 1-day delivery.

Otherwise, on the social front, there have been a couple contacts made with people from my distant past. I find it interesting how memories that has since moved to the furthest part of the back of one's mind, can be brought immediately to the forefront - as well as the physical/mental affects this resurfacing can induce.

Anyway, this weekend went by quick...the week went by quicker than it felt like it would last Monday too. I didn't do anything on Saturday, but tonight I saw Bolt with MoriEndi, NarcolepticTime, and Beef. It was good for what it was - but wasn't something I was terribly interested in seeing when I saw the previews. It was a typical Disney mushy-adventure-sad-happy story. But it was also only $1.50 - so no complaints there. I did notice that they also have Yes Man and Day the Earth Stood Still showing at the same theater. So I will probably go see those on my own for such a cheap price.

But for now, I'm off to bed. I have to finish my project tomorrow at work, because I'm now a week behind due to several unforeseen complications with regular work, mixed with trying to get things right on the first try with the project.