2008 Wrap-up and 2009 Goals

2008 is over. What happened? The year began in a deep freeze with the most snow Iowa had seen in a long time. Spring brought an end to the low temps and heavy snows only to bring one of the worst floods in history to Iowa. In June I picked up and moved myself all the way to Seattle, Washington and started a new job focusing on Microsoft Exchange server systems.

Throughout 2008 I aquired a few cool new toys. I finished building a new AR-15 rifle, built a few new computers/servers, bought a Playstation 3, a 42″ HDTV, and a new 2008 Ford Escape Ltd.

I’ve been reviewing a list of goals for 2009 in my head and I’ll record them here for reference:

1) Get healthier. Need to quit smoking and I need to eat better. In the last six months I’ve packed on some extra pounds and I’m not really cool with that. I guess this means its time to break that out still brand new Cannondale mountain bike.

2) Get smart. I’ve wanted to read more for a while now and I just havent ever done it. I would like to set a goal of reading ten books this year. Ten might not seem like a big number to some people but its a hell of a lot more than I read normally.

3) Blog it. I should try to blog more this year but I swear I will only blog if it seems somewhat interesting. I may use my blog as a book journal as I have been told that can help keep one interested in the books he/she is reading.

4) Political action. The last year and a half was full of campaigning and was busy and annoying and everything in between. Now that the election cycle is over and my “side” lost its time to help the team get back to power and in the GOP’s case… back to principles. I’m going to try to get involved in a few different organizations and projects mainly focusing on bringing tech to the RNC.

5) Great outdoors. I’m in the great Nortwest and am surrounded by lots of great wilderness. I plan to go hiking at least three times this year. These hiking trips should consist mainly of day hikes but it could be interesting to do an overnight. I also want to go camping at least three times and would like to go snow camping sometime so that might be the first trip.

6) Auditory excellence. I need to make sure to get to at least six live music events this year. I thought it might be interesting to add the stipulation that one of the concerts should be country music and one should be some sort of mainstream Top 40 show. The rest can be metal!

7) Revive the e53 Shootout and BBQ Supafest.

Go on a vacation.

These are all things that I would like to do. They are goals not resolutions. If they dont all get done its not a failure its just a goal that wasnt reached and I will try next year.

That is all.

Fake David Blaine Profile Pics

Screenshots from these videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY

Put them on your Twitter account, IM accounts, Facebook. Its what the cool people do. Really. Trust me.

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire’s war on Christmas?

Just got this in an email from the King County GOP. If this is true… *shakes head* I just don’t understand what these people are thinking sometimes.

A MESSAGE FROM CHAIRMAN LORI SOTELO
I’ve seen it all . . .

Two years ago, we were saddened when the Port of Seattle decided to remove Christmas Trees from SeaTac Airport instead of honoring an appeal to include a menorah display. It is a busy time of year and the airport staff didn’t have time to be cultural anthropologists – we were told. Instead of opening their hearts to the spirit of the season, the trees were taken down in the middle of the night when people were less likely to notice.

But this week takes the cake . . . icing and all!

In our state’s Capitol Building amid the “Capitol Holiday Kids Tree” charity drive for rural fire departments, Governor Gregoire has approved a display by the Freedom from Religion Foundation that states “At this season of the winter solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” The antagonistic statement serves no other purpose but to degrade the spirit of the season.

As if that was not enough, let’s consider the Christmas ornament submitted by Washington’s 7th Congressional District for the National Christmas Tree. The artist, Deborah Lawrence, well known for her anti-war positions, submitted a red, white and blue 9-inch ball carefully decorated with the words “Impeach Bush”. The tawdry bauble featuring the face of Congressman McDermott was rightfully rejected.

The events here in the Northwest illustrate that our religious freedom cannot be taken for granted. Chipping away at one freedom, weakens all freedoms enjoyed in the United States. You can take a stand for freedom in our state by speaking out against religious intolerance. Make your voice heard on the insensitive display at the Capitol in Olympia, call Governor Gregoire’s office at 360-902-4111.

As we approach the holiday season, take heart, the best example is a life well lived. Make merry in this most joyous time of the year and share your happiness with others.

Lori Sotelo
Chairman
King County Washingont GOP

A Few Little Things

Upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.7 RC1 and so far I am fairly impressed. I like the new look, however, it is a bit cramped on small monitors such as this laptops 12.5″ screen and probably worse on a netbook. Looks great on a 19″ widescreen on up.

Still searching for the right Wordpress theme. Something that will probably go on forever. I was fairly disapointed by my first premium theme buy. I might revisit it at some point in the future but for now I’m trying other things. I am really thinking about making the blog portion of this site a secondary page and havin a primary (front/home/splash) page that is more of an aggrigator for my online presnece.

Tonight I am heading over to the local Ford deal to see if I can squeeze a good deal out of them. I’m not holding my breath but if they can make the deal sweet enough I may be driving away  a new vehicle. Currently I am looking at a 2008/2009 Ford Escape Limited Ed.

If I dont end up with a new vehicle I think my Christmas gift to myself will be a revamp of my current tech situation. I need to redo my media server and get a full time Windows Home Server online. This will involve buying hard drives and RAM. I may decide to build an HTPC which would then shift some of my current hardware to that and enable me to buy/build an Intel Atom based machine for my WHS. I am really looking forward to Boxee coming out on Windows, however, I may need to build a good HDMI capable linux box to run it in the mean time.

That is all. Cheers.

JAILBREAK: iPhone On The Loose

So I went ahead and jailbroke my iPhone. Not really sure what good its going to do me but at least I can add some cool apps now and I have VIDEO recording capabilities. Wow, fancy tech..heh.

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Motrin Moms: A bug, Not a feature

A recent comment from me regarding the whole “Motrin Moms” ordeal. Snark FULLY intended..

It’s rather funny how things like this “Motrin moms” issue are viewed as some amazing show of power for social media when in fact it does little more than to show how a few herders can gather their flock, generate false rage, and create a “movement.”

The only thing to come out of this in my opinion is the fact that there are a lot of people out there so very willing to take something so clearly innocuous and blow completely out of proportion using such simple minded interpretations of what was actually said or meant by an ad.

So, when someone asks me, “what’s this social media thing anyway”, there is little to stop me from telling them that its a part of the internet where people who think they are a lot more important than they really are gather around faux celebrities who think they are even more important than the aforementioned group, waste obscene amounts of time and money, and in the end produce no real worthwhile results for society as a whole.

And as much as I enjoy tweeting, facebooking, and scrolling through endless blog entries and comments I’m sorry to say that it’s the damned truth and if “new media” doesn’t watch what they are doing they will quickly find them selves in the exact same position that “old media” is currently facing.

Now, excuse me while I go post this to my blog and tweet about it.

Until Next Time

My guy didn’t win and I remain convinced that John McCain was the better of two bad options. With that said there is only one thing to do: move on. There are more battles to come and those should prove to be interesting. For now I can only hope that Barack Obama moves towards the center and realizes that while he won he did not receive a mandate for far left “change.”

When one considers the power shift in Congress it is quickly realized that there are fights coming. Some of the important battles that are coming include fighting against Card Check and Fairness Doctrine legislation. We also have to keep a close eye on round about anti-gun legislation in the form of excessive ammo taxes and firearm requirements.

The biggest battle is for reform of the Republican Party. Not to change but to fall back to what makes the party great. It’s time to clean house. No more RINO’s. No more big government big spending “Republicans” it’s time to remember what President Ronald Reagan gave the party and the nation. Reagan once said that “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” This is what we must fight against. We must renew our fight against government. The power is the people. We give the power to the government to use on our behalf the government does not take FROM us and pretend to know what we need.

We Fail. We learn from our mistakes. We move on with our lessons learned. Until next time.

From Gov. Mike Huckabee:

I’m very proud to have supported Senator McCain and the only regret is that more Americans didn’t share my conviction that he would have made an outstanding President. I not only recognize, but respect that we are a nation in which the people choose and tonight they have chosen Senator Obama. He was not my choice, but he will be my President and I will pray for him to lead this great nation with God’s help and grace. He will face serious challenges to lead our country and he will need all Americans to give him a chance.

The campaign is over and now is the time for governing and leading. The Republican Party must now reassess where it is and where it is going. Our problem is not that our views aren’t acceptable, is that many in our party have abandoned the very principles that once drew Americans to trust us. Our party will be back with strength, but tonight we should all celebrate the historic nature of this election and put our country ahead of our party.

As disappointed as I am that we have lost the election, I can’t help but feel that many courageous leaders of the civil rights movement look down from heaven tonight with a smile that the day has come when a man is elected without regard to his color. I salute President-elect Obama for his discipline and tenacity that has given our country the opportunity to witness this significant event.

Politics is not an event but a process. We sometimes lose the events but it never gives us the right to stop being faithful to our principles that enlisted us in the process. We shall live to fight another day.

Cheers.

Bar Stool Economics

From an email:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said,
‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.  Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected.

They would still drink for free.  But what about the other six men–the paying customers?

How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.  But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before.  And the first four continued to drink for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

I only got a dollar out of the $20,’declared the sixth man.
He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’ ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man.
‘I only saved a dollar, too.

It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!’ ‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man.
‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?
The wealthy get all the breaks!’
‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison.
‘We didn’t get anything at all.  The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him.

But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.  They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of  Economics
University of  Georgia

Fox News Smacks Charles Barkley

Charles Barkley is a known left wing mouth piece who hits out at anyone that is a Republican. He also likes to cry about how “unfair” Fox News is. For the most part he is just following the other sheep in a quest to complain nonstop about Fox News but one big reason is that he gets some of his income from fellow liberal supporter Ted Turner owner of CNN.

In an interview Tuesday Charles Barkley stated the following:

“I watch CNN, they’re not fucked up like Fox,” Barkley told B&C.  “They are a mouthpiece for the Republican Party. I watch [Fox] a couple times when there is someone I want to see on there. But they’re corrupt.”

When asked whether he is just shilling for his parent company (TNT and CNN are corporate cousins), Barkley denies that he has to stick up for his team.

“Hell no, I don’t,” he says. “I like Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper and John King. They at least try to give both sides.”

Nothing to special about that as it is pretty much the same talking points that all Liberals use to go after Fox News. The awesome part comes in the response from Fox News (from the same article):

But Fox News Channel doesn’t see it that way, as a network spokesperson fired back immediately.

“It’s hardly a surprise that Charles is a shill for a Turner owned network…. He obviously needs the steady paycheck to pay off his consistent gambling debts,” the spokesperson told B&C.

OH SNAP! Charles 0, Fox News 1. *zing*

[via broadcastingcable.com]

The Wire

I recently finished season 5 of HBO’s critically acclaimed series ‘The Wire’ and I have to say it’s one of the best shows I have ever seen. Considering the past HBO has a damn good eye for quality TV. In my book The Wire is tied for first with the Sopranos when it comes to premium channel series rankings. Up there with it would be aforementioned Sopranos, Band of Brothers (mini-series), Dexter (Showtime), Weeds (Showtime) and Deadwood.

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