Horsepower
I always wondered where the term horsepower came from. Does one horse have one horsepower? Well according to Wikipedia ...

The horsepower was first used by James Watt during a business venture where his steam engines replaced horses. It was defined that a horse can lift 33,000 pounds force with a speed of 1 foot per minute: 33,000 ft·lbf·min-1. This is sometimes called a mechanical horsepower to distinguish it from the other definitions of horsepower below. Wikipedia

Well, one question answered and then another question answered that I didn't even think to ask. Apparently the Watt came before the horsepower. Who knew? No one gave a shit until the steam engine came about. People just counted the number of horses required for a task and it was all done.

Bow before me!

Stewie Which Family Guy Character Are you? brought to you by Quizilla

I particularly agree with the movie where Stewie meets himself from the future and he is just the run of the mill geek who never conquered the world. As a matter of fact, he hasn't gotten laid. Yes, that sounds like me. Well, the old me.

Work
First day back to work in a while. It has been over a week. I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I only had a couple of voice mails and a couple of dozen emails. Most of them were junk anyway. I only missed one kind of important meeting. The vacation was good for me. I definitely feel like my batteries have been recharged.

Nat
Poor Nat is feeling all the stress of the wedding. She is under the weather. I've heard from friends that this is normal. Women seem to take a hit to the health after something that stressful. Men do too, but weddings are just not as stressful on men as it is women.

SuSe
I installed SuSe on a spare hard drive.  I got everything set up. I figured out where the HTTP server was and got it up and running. I figured out how to get the login to stop defaulting to  a user and let me log in properly. I even figured out how to set the static IP as I need. Then, something happened to the USB and I lost the mouse and keyboard. It would not let me log in at all. I could hit the keys just fine in the BI/OS to get to the login. I could hit control alt delete to make the machine reboot. I re-installed the OS on the update setting and nothing. I tried resetting the keyboard and mouse in the BI/OS. I tried running the recovery thing on the DVD. Nothing.  I had to start from scratch. I love the complete lack of accessibility in SuSe. Frigging Kraut OS.
I could not get Apache to work in Ubuntu. Apparently, I'm the only one in the world who has had problems. Ubuntu would not play MP3s either. I can't figure out how to get any of the video co-dec systems to work. All the screen shots of Linux show some movie playing in the background that terns out to be straight from a DVD or the like. This whole Linux for the desktop thing is a bunch of crap.
OK, I'm just grumpy. I'll keep trying.

Day
Let's see, our lantern is in with Ken's stuff. Our table is in Ronnie's Parent's RV. We had one of those cheap camping fold up chairs break out there. So far, we have gone through two of the small propane tanks. We got use out of our stuff. Nat and I were talking about going out today, but I don't think it is going to happen. It is 1:00 as I type. It is OK. I'm enjoying sitting here and spending time with her. If we go out tomorrow we still need to cut it short to get Elle back. I miss having Elle around. She has been with her grandfather for the honeymoon week. So far, the first week of marriage has been pretty cool. Come back and read more in a year or ten.

Wedding Site
I updated the list of pictures on my home page. The wedding has been well documented. I'm still waiting for Brian and a couple of others before the list of media is complete. The MPEG4 video files my father's camera took are not going to work. They refuse to convert to DivX. I'm just going without them for now. I'll figure them out later.
I also sent out an email with the current links. I intend to grab most of the pictures and make DVD for everyone.

Day
We put pictures together. Nat put the physical photos in books and collections. I put together links on the site. It was fun. We went on our Friday night out. We saw Jarhead. Not a bad flick. We of course saw it at the Alamo Draft House. It was Nat and I's first date as a married couple. It was nice. There were several marines in the audience so the "hura" that came out in the movie were well received.
We are about to watch Reality Bites because we had discussed the film earlier. I will grab some water or a glass of wine from the case that we have left after the wedding. A bunch of people said they were going to come and did not. I'm not sure why. We had over 150 people say they were coming. Many never showed because they assumed it was on Saturday and made Sunday plans. It turns out there was another wedding of a bunch of Rennys that all the Chaoss people went too so we lost most of them. We only found this out Sunday. We had food left over. We did a lousy job of predicting how many people would show. Oh, well. We have had our shot. We never got a practice run.

Honeymoon
Castle Avalon
We went to an amazing place for our honeymoon called Castle Avalon. It is awesome. I cannot say enough good things about it. They have many weddings there on the weekends. We were there on a Monday and Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning we met Stephanie. (We lost your email Stephanie. Please email me.) She served us breakfast and helped us check out. She was gracious enough to take us through the rest of the castle and let us take a bunch of pictures of the ballroom and the spiral staircase. It turns out she will be at Fair this weekend. Unfortunately we can't make it. That is too cool though. We are running in to all kinds of Fair people in the random places we go.
San Antonio Zoo
We kind of randomly ended up at the San Antonio Zoo. I took a million pictures. I ran out of room on my gig card and Nat took a bunch of pictures on her phone.
Natural Bridge Caverns
We went to Natural Bridge Caverns. It turns out to be right around the corner from Castle Avalon. It is 99% humidity in the caves so I did not take my camera under ground. I snapped a couple above though.
Wine Place
I'm not even sure what this place was called. It was one of the little vineyards tucked away in the hill country. This is not the place we bought wine. I didn't have the camera then. That was Dry Comal Creek. We took the tour and bought two bottles of wine. It was fun.

Professional Photographers
Dana's site Married to Kim.
Kim's site Married to Dana
Paul's site Paul is cool.
Roland's site He hasn't updated in a while.

Wedding Notes
OK, I put up some of the pictures. Please enjoy. If you have a collection of pictures from our wedding please get in touch (email to the right) and let me know. I can put them up on the picture site.


The place we got married.


The happy couple.


Elle was exceedingly cute the whole time.


Organization


The food

News
I have no idea were to begin.  How about the middle somewhere?
Nat and I got married. Everything was perfect. Nothing went wrong. The world stopped. The sun smiled. Then we both woke up. I suppose i could dwell on things that went wrong. Perhaps they make an event seem more important. We got married. We made it work. The good thing is that we were surrounded by friends and family. People seemed to have a good time. I only had to yell at one person for sitting in the wrong spot. I think it was my aunt from Pennsylvania. I hope she gets over it, but I'm not that worried. I wish I  could think every person who made a difference in the event, but every one made a difference.
Heath busted his hump to get the kitchen out there as a backup for the caterer. That was awesome of him. That is just the kind of guy he is. That is only one example. I think we managed to put some weight off on every single person who hangs out at Camp Safe Haven. Every one pitched in and made things go smoothly. Thanks.
The caterers were paid, so thinking them doesn't really count. The caterers don't have a web page or I would site them here. It was Todd Mission Grill.
All the bride's women and all the groom's men did a wonderful job.
I'll have a bunch of pictures up soon. They will come up in waves. I'm going to put my pictures as well as Bill and Sylvia's pictures up as soon as possible. Then will come Mikes and other private collections. Then will come any professionally links I can muster. please bare with me.
Anyway, pictures soon.

Good Times.
We are back. I'm about to put up the first set of pictures. Give me a moment. Check back later tonight and tomorrow.

Wedding Information

This post will stay at the top until the big day. 2005-11-06 11:30 AM.

Where; Texas Renaissance Festival (map) in the Wedding Chapel
When: November 6, 2005 at 11:30
Registered: Target, Foley's and The Knot.com.

Reception: There are two receptions. The one that came with the wedding package is inside Fare right after the wedding ceremony. Only the wedding party and immediate family are invited to this one. You know who you are already. The second reception is for whomever shows up in the campgrounds at 2:00 row 6. Look for the huge army tents and possibly strobe lights on a big pole. Ask for Camp Save Haven.

Dress Code: It is Fare. Dress comfortably. If you show up in jeans and a T-shirt you will not be turned away. Please try to be in garb if you can. It is just more fun that way. We want the event to be fun for everyone including those in the wedding.

What do I do?: Listen to the wedding coordinators. They will be on site and barking orders. If you received a yellow card that says "Kelly and Natalie .. Scholastic" pin it to your cloths. This will identify which wedding you belong to and people will help direct you to the proper place. Have fun, that is an order.

Links
Weather Forecast Nov. 6 2005: Sunday:Sunshine. Highs in the mid 70s and lows in the upper 40s.
Wedding Party Description
Texas Renaissance Festival
Clothing (garb) source: House of Dra

Test
The Ubuntu Linux trial run is going well so far. I installed the client side of the OS. It works great. I have it reading text aloud to me. I can zoom in the bits of the screen. I'm still using many of the same programs that I use on the MS side of the fence. This really looks nice. Got straight up on the network and installed a bunch of additional programs. No servers installed. I need the server though. I want to use my main machine as a backup in case my web server takes a dive again in the future. That means all the trouble I've just gone through was really just a learning experience. It needs video/audio codecs. Gmail works just fine. Blogger looks like it works so far too. I approve!!! Now to test the server install.

Citizenship Test

You Passed the US Citizenship Test Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct! Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Well, I got 3 out of 10 correct on the first try. Google got the rest. That counts, right!? Google is not cheating, it is fact checking.

Getting Married
Nat already took of for the camp site. She is going to try and mark off enough space for the reception Sunday. I have some things I need to get done Saturday. The best man and I intend to camp Saturday evening out at fair.
Tonight, however, I am a bachelor. Elle is with the grandparents. Nat is already out at fair preparing. I want to install Ubuntu Linux on one of my machines to try it out. Last night it kept giving me a "failed to unpack blah blah at the same point every time. I burned a new copy of the DVD. I don't think it is going to work. I'm kind of at a loss because SuSe did the exact same thing. Maybe it is the hard drive I'm installing too. Whatever. I'm not giving up that easy. I'm sure I'll post on my results.
I also need to charge batteries and change out the cat box tonight. I'll get around to it, I'm sure.

Joke

New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for Classmates.com!  There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25 years.  It's because you don't particularly like them!  Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn. New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull.  People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili.  Hey, it cost less than a dollar.  What did you expect it to contain?  Trout?  Luckily, it was only a finger!  If it was a whole hand, Congress would have voted to keep it alive. New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blond teachers are permanently damaged.  I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards. New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you're gay.  If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols.  If you're a grown man, they're pictures of men. New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone.  Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them?  OK, we're done. New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste  Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink  You want flavored water?  Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt.  That's your flavored water. New Rule: Stop f***ing with old people.  Target is introducing a redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label.  And the top is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it, his ass will be in the morgue.  Congratulations, Target, you just solved the Social Security crisis. New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole.  If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one Nutrasweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole. New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual.  It's right above the crack of your ass.  And it translates to "beef with broccoli."  The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant.  You're not spiritual.  You're just high. New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport.  It's one of the seven deadly sins.  ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting.  What's next, competitive farting?  Oh wait. They're already doing that.  It's called "The Howard Stern Show." New Rule: I don't need a bigger mega M&M.  If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms, I'll go nuts and eat two. New Rule: If you're going to insist on making movies based on crappy, old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the cineplex a remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens.  Let's remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie. New Rule: No more gift registries.  You know, it used to be just for weddings.  Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab.  Picking up the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting. New Rule: and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants.  After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael.  I can't even tell if he's supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish.  I don't want to be on your web cam, dude.  I just want to wash my hands. New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in months. "27 Months."  "He's two," will do just fine.  He's not a cheese  And I didn't care in the first place.

I don't agree with all of those. Some are funny thought. Besides, someone has to keep those whipper-snappers in line. If I'm not going to complain, who will?

8-|
I'm g-getting m-married Sunday.

Hits
Wow. A pretty good day. It is 18:30 and I'm already over 80 hits. I got a bunch off a single comment to a blog talking about Linux. When I left the comment, I had no idea it would be so influential. It was an early post to a blog that got mentioned on Slashdot. I suppose I deserver some slop. It is a one day thing. It is a nice shot in the arm though.

Fair rant (continued)
Remember the Fair rant last week? Well Nat and others say the proper spelling is "faire". Places like this, this and this seem to think so. Until Answers.com and Dictionary.com have an entry for it, I'm spelling it fair. So, there. It's my blog and I'll spell the way I want to.

Jen is busy these days

This Saturday, Nov. 5, I'll be at the Vintage Bar, with Lena Shammas, and Zed Daniels.  We will do a songwriters in the round.  You'll love Lena's and Zed's music--very thoughtful stuff.  The music starts at 8:30p.  The Vintage Bar is on Mid Lane, just inside the loop.  From the galleria, travel east on Westheimer.  Turn left on Mid Lane and it's half a block on the left.  www.vintagebar.com.  If you haven't been there, you'll love this place.  By the way, it's non-smoking. But that's not all!  Come have a nice dinner at Tommy's Seafood next Thursday, Nov. 10, from 6-9pm.  I'll be singing some soft jazz classics with New Orleans musician Matt Lemmler at the keys.  Tommy's Seafood is at 11660 Westheimer, between Kirkwood and Hayes.  Great food and wine!  Oh, and entertainment! AND!  I'll be at Maxwell's Grille for Friday and Saturday night, Nov. 11 and 12, from 7-10pm.  Maxwell's is in Atascosita, at the corner of 1960 and West Lake Houston Parkway.  If you live out that way, come have dinner.  I'll be playing and singing as you eat and drink. Thanks for reading this far down!  There's just one more thing! I'll be on JaiJai Jackson's Woman of Jazz radio program on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 8pm (PST), that's 10 pm here.  If you're up, you can tune in to xradio.biz.  JaiJai is the daughter of famous jazz bassist Chubby Jackson.  I'm honored to be chosen for her show! Thanks a bunch for your interest and support.  Come see me this week! Jen www.JenRathbun.com

She has a calender on her site. Nice touch. I could use one over here. I have my own server, I should put one up. Anyway, go catch Jen's show somewhere. It is a lot of fun.

Halloween
Well, it is a heck of a Halloween. It is raining outside and has been since like 5:30 or so. I was kind of hoping to get some snapshots of little goblins that happened by our place. Alas, was not meant to be. So, here are some random snaps I took last Friday.

This is Tiger's infamous "I know where you sleep" look.

Just plane cute Elle.

Elle trying to traverse the huge pile of shit at the front of our apartment so she can look out the window.

Too Cute.

Blog Game

Your Halloween Costume Should Be A Flying Monkey What Should You Be For Halloween?

I don't get it. I suppose I could go back and try to force the different answers to find out what my options are, but I really don't care that much. They misspelled Halloween for goodness sake. I'm not sure I like this game.

Fortune Cookie
"Promise only what you can deliver".

Texas Renaissance Festival
Well, this is the last weekend before our wedding.

Costume of the week.

His left eye is artificial. You may remember him from such favorites as this picture. When he and I do things together we like to say "We only have one good eye between us."

The care wreck aftermath.

This was Halloween weekend. A guy in a sheep outfit showed up at camp followed closely by an even uglier guy in a Little Bo Peep outfit. That was pretty much the highlight of the camp. Nat and I got ready to stay out there for the night and then decided to pack everything up and head home before midnight. We got caught in a traffic jam behind an obnoxious guy who ended up falling asleep in his vehicle before they let traffic through. Life flight took off and everything. I have to tell you I could not see the cop on the right hand side. I didn't even realize  He needs one of those reflective vests.
Everything else I want to write sounds too much like a complaint so I'm going to stop here.

Plans
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."
Things change. This weekend we were going to go out to TRF early on Friday to help set up. Well, Nat got another headache, poor thing, on Thursday so that fell through. We then planned on heading to my parent's place to make some skirts for the chain mail clad women who are in the wedding party on Saturday. We find out that Mike is going on Saturday to get some parts for his costume so we have to change that sewing thing to Sunday. We plan on sleeping here tonight, getting up early in the morning and heading out to Fair. One minor change.
Next week is the wedding. We plan on my parents taking Elle until the wedding Sunday. Then Bill takes Elle until after the honeymoon. My best man and I  plan on camping out Saturday night at Fair. Nat will be right down the street in an RV with the Bride's maids. They have  a tone of last minute things to get done on Saturday. I intend to buy some cloths for my aunt and uncle somewhere along the way. My best man will also need some outfit bits. What things are going to change on these plans you ask? Well, this is the third set of plans as far as I can remember.
Honeymoon
We found a cool place for the honeymoon. It fits nicely with the theme of our wedding. It is Castle Avalon. It looks like a cool place. It is on a big piece of land with trails and such. I hope we have fun. I want to take some pictures. Wish me luck..

Buddy's blog
We went out to eat with friends this evening. While at dinner the subject of blogs came up. My buddy has a blog. He had three anecdotes to tell us this evening. I think he was trying to figure out which were worth blogging because he asked us to rate them. It was funny because Nat, his wife and I all had different rankings for the three stories. I'm not going to do the stories justice here. He will go into far greater detail I'm sure.
Baseball Tickets
Buy on line, or buy face to face. My buddy was trying to get baseball series tickets. One person tells him to buy them face to face to make sure he gets what he is buying. The other person tells him to buy them on line because you get a better deal. Well, my buddy goes on line. He picks out some tickets. They call him back and switch the tickets on him. The tickets still don't make it. He calls them back and gets switched again. Not only do they not send the original tickets, but he gets a completely different set of tickets on the day of the game. He sweat bullets all week. These were expensive tickets. From now on, face to face for those kind of tickets.
Client
My buddy has a really cool client opportunity. The hardware they make not only impressed the client, but it impressed the client's customers who had no idea the new hardware was coming on line. That is so cool. That is the kind of things engineers live fore. This client is going to brag about my buddy's company at a conference soon. That might mean a bunch more sales.
Getting Yelled at by His Boss
My buddy works for a small company. The owner of the company exists to make the company work. He started out years ago screaming at his employees. now he gives a stern talking to. My buddy was getting his ass reamed by his boss for a delay due to a bug in the system of a new product still under development. This went on for like two hours. When my buddy gets out of his meeting, he checks his voice mail and finds out that fifteen minutes after he went into this meeting, the bug had been found and fixed by one of the other developers. Irony is a bitch.
Now, he damn well better blog about at least one of these stories or I'll feel like a dope.

Jen Rathbun

All music donated to the Programme by the artists. The running order for Programme 3 is: “oneRedPix” - Miniluv “Play In Traffic” - Vanessa John “Dry County Blues” - Eric Wrong And The Do-Rights “Married, Buried Or Gay” - Jen Rathbun “Her Indoors” - Si Jubb Carruthers “The Bloodwerk” - Viktoria Matthews “Bengalesium” - Zombie Skull Death Cult “Fliers” - Theory Anesthetic “The Happy Song” - We’re Not Really A Group As of last night, the Apparat Programme has 372 subscribers. Programme 1 was also direct-downloaded 1,865 times. Programme 2 was direct-downloaded 1146 times. Direct downloads of previous Programmes: 1 | 2 WarrenEllis

This is not the normal News Letter from Jen. This is her mention on a blog called Warren Ellis. Warren ( I assume that is his real name) lives in England. It is pretty cool that he would publish an artist from South East Texas. Good show Warren.

Answers vs Dictionary
I use links to www.dictionary.com a lot. I use links to www.wikipedia.com too. I posted recently about the word "fair". I got the following email.

Hi Kelly,     I found your blog as I was searching for quality blogs that list reference sources, such as Dictionary.com. I'd like to introduce an alternative: www.Answers.com.     Answers.com is a free reference source that, aside from serving as a dictionary, displays quick snapshot facts in entertainment, politics, current events, health, and much more. Our pages are free of pop up-ads and have a clean, user-friendly interface.      Answers.com provides clearer, cleaner and more accurate information on over one million subjects.  For an interactive comparison of Answers.com and Dictionary.com features, click here.     There are several ways to boost your blog's readership using Answers.com. Easily link words, names or phrases on your site to Answers.com explanations. Make searching even simpler for your readers by providing them with an Answers.com search box directly on your blog.  For various style options, see our Webmaster Tools Page.     Once last thing to spread the word on your blog: Make your blog an Answer on the Answers.com Blogger Directory. Submit your blog, and, if approved, you and your blog will become an entry on Answers.com.     Feel free to write me with your comments and ideas; we'd love to hear your thoughts! Liz Cohen Communications Coordinator Answers.com Get the Answers.

"Communications Coordinator"?? I think this means Marketing. That's OK. I went and looked at www.answers.com for the purposes of linkage. Check out the entry for the word "fair". Tons of information. As a matter of fact, too much information. It took me a minute or two to find the synonyms for "fair" itself. They have one really cool feature at the bottom of the page. The American Sign Language page has a video clip. Nice touch. I tried to figure out how to submit my blog, but I could not find the link. I don't think personal blogs are not what they are after.

It is "Fair" Goddammit!
I've gotten crap for using "Fare" and "Fair" [I think I used "faire" once] when talking about The Texas Renaissance Festival. OK, "Fare" Is completely off. Check out synonyms for the word "fair". Scroll down to the noun section.

Main Entry:   fair Part of Speech:   noun Definition:   carnival Synonyms:   bazaar, celebration, centennial, display, exhibit, exhibition, expo, exposition, fall fair, festival, fete, gala, market, observance, occasion, pageant, show, spectacle www.dictionary.com

I'm not going to go back and correct anything. I never do.

Pictures

I used to have a toy one of these when i was a kid. I thought it was some kind of snow thing back then. It is to flatten gravel roads and driveways. Taken Monday.

Monica's RV. Takent Monday.

Elle brushing her teeth. Ain't she cute?

The picture looks better than the real thing. There is more to come.

Closer view of the side window.

SuSe
I tried SuSe Linux 10 on my primary machine last night. They have this thing called a Live DVD. What it does is allow you to boot the OS from a DVD without installing any software on your computer. This means you can test your hardware for compatibility before committing to a full install. I've always wanted to try SuSe. The last time I looked at it you could only do the FTP install. I could not get the install program to recognize the network card in the computer I tried so I gave up pretty quickly. Even this time the standard Intel Pro100 NIC (on the motherboard) took two tries to come up. The sound card acted like it was not working, but every time the "no sound device" error came up, the proper error sound would play through my headphones. I'm not sure what that means.
SuSe also comes with some sort of support for EmacsSpeak. This is a program that reads aloud. I have come to rely on that feature a great deal in the last few years. Anything over a couple of paragraphs I pop it into a reader and go on about my day. It has enabled me to read 10 books all in the 700 to 800 page range known as the Wheel of Time. I have also started using it to proof read my writing. It is amazing how much better one writes when one proof reads one's work before one publishes it. There are dozens of packages for Linux that tout reading aloud. This one appeared to have professional looking documentation. I also know that Emacs has been around for a long time and has a wide support base. Wish me luck.
SuSe will also have a full Apache web (HTTP) server install. This will make my primary machine a backup web server if my old Clunky Gateway/Frankenstein box goes down again. Remember Rita? She somehow managed to blow the power supply in my old web server. It was not plugged in during the storm. I'm still blaming it on the weather.
I have a 40 gigabyte drive laying on my desk. I intend to use it for the SuSe install on my main box. This will give me an opportunity to test out the EmacsSpeak and other features. I look forward to the day I realize it has been a week since I booted in windows. I don't do the multi partition thing, so my boot will be hard drive based. I'm terrified of blowing away my current install by mistake. Thus, I pull the hard drive out of th box while messing with the OS install.
This is what I want to do anyway. I hope to get started soon. The more I know about Linux the better. I can't help but feel that the next version of MS/OS is going to really piss a lot of people off. Mark my words.

From SuSe
This is a test post from the middle of Suse Linux Live DVD.

Snow in Pennsylvania.
Click for a larger image. She, my aunt, was complaining about an early cold snap. Her email stated
"It is only October 24th and we have not even had a frost yet. The snow weighed down the trees and broke off the branches. Many people in Waynesburg have no electricity and schools were delayed for 2 hours! "
Complain, complain.

Day
I took the day off to go sign the marriage license. That effort took about twenty minutes plus travel time. The rest of the day was dropping off wedding stuff with family. That took all day.
Monica, 49, just bought a brand new minibike. It is cool. I meant to get a picture, but everyone was too cold. The weather has definitely turned toward Fall/Winter in these parts. Florida is getting a dose of hurricane for the third time this season. We get some of the most beautiful weather of the year. Hardly fare, but that is just the way it is.
I'm making a backup of some of my data to DVD. I found out ISO will only support just under 2 gigabytes. LDF apparently supports larger files. I hope the damn thing works in a computer if I ever need to retrieve the data. Well, it works on this machine.
I went to change Elle's diaper. She hates it when I do it. I'm not sure why. I must not do things correctly. I found out it pisses me off no end when she won't look me in the eye because she wants to tell me a lie. She has an easy time lying to me when she is in the next room. She can't get the words out when I'm looking her in the eye. Even when I turn her away and ask her the question she still has a very hard time. I'm not sure where that is going. It is just an observation.
It is past my bed time. I'm worn out. Elly got about five naps in the car. None of my friends blogged today. Off to bed.

Kilts Kilts Everywhere
While I was walking around Fare, I could not help but notice that every other guy there was waring a kilt. Half of them wore clean shaven heads. I think I may have found my popular fashion to follow. I stumbled across a store there that sells Utilikilts. They are generic kilts for every day use. They have mostly solid colors and are quite manly. I say if it is not made from a tartan, it is a skirt. But, I'm not going to say it to this guy.

Another Picture

This is the group of folks I hang out with at Fare. They are a interesting bunch of people. I'm glad I fell into hanging out with them.

Sunday Thoughts
So, it is Sunday afternoon. I'm trying to think of something to blog about. I'm trolling other blogs looking for material to steel when I notice a bunch of stories about that report about who killed the Lebanon Prime Minister. Originally, the story is that an organized group of Syrian officials did it. Well, someone turned "track changes" on and got a bunch of names including the brother in law and uncle or something like that of the Syrian government. Anyway, This is about the tenth time I've heard of high level people getting screwed by track changes in MS Word. Maybe now that some highly dangerous governments are getting stiffed by MS, there will be a backlash that will get something done. The official line from MS is that "this is a feature, not a bug." That has pissed a lot of people off. Well, a lot of people who have been bitten by the problem. Let's see if the combination of the UN, who has gotten bitten by the MS Word bug recently and is trying to take over the Internet, and now Syria, a murderous corrupt family driven dictatorship, can convince MS to fix the "feature" without resorting to violence.
I suggest Open Office. You can save to PDF format straight from the application without any additional software. You are not tied to MS Windows either. That closes a slue of NSA infiltration and other hack attacks. Think about it.

Back Early
We went out to Fare Friday early. Well, early for us. Everybody said they were going to bring their kids. We brought Elle. No one else brought their kids. We came home Saturday evening. Oh, well, it was fun. We tried to arrange a single day for Elle to be out there. It just didn't work out. I didn't get any videos. I was really waiting for Sunday when Elle was to be in the parade and sporting some child sized chainmail. As I type this, the guys are out there having a great time. We will have a double good time next week.
Link to Pictures

Pictures

This sword is made from Damascus Steel. That means several layers of different hardness to allow it to be both bendable and stay sharp at the same time. This is what $5000+ buys you in a modern sword.

Pictures

That is what a $16,000 sword looks like. It is amazingly well balanced. The detail is all beautiful. In a word, "wow".

Elle Directing Traffic.

A friend of ours waring some nice sparkly necklace.

Where do i cash in?

My blog is worth $4,516.32.
How much is your blog worth?

Peta can eat a dick
Natalie has a link to Peta video depicting the cruelty to animals in an oriental country. It is extremely graphic and designed specifically to offend. It shows animals being tortured and then skinned. I don't have a problem with cats' skins being used as leather or fur. I disagree hardily with the treatment they receive in the video. Animals should be respected as fellow living creatures with the exception that they can be killed for food and products.
Peta can go fuck themselves. I refuse to acknowledge that Peta does any good anywhere. Their terroristic methods of attention getting make them a dangerous activist group in my book.

In the Corolla's Trunk
2 folding cots
1 queen size air mattress
2 adult sized folding chairs
1 child size folding chair
1 Igloo cooler
1 Colman stove
1 Colman lantern
4 canisters of Propane
1 portable folding table
1 large backpack with Fare garb outfits.
1 bag of canned food
1 Iron pot
1 small box full of cooking flatware
1 small lantern

In the Corolla's Back Seat
2 Sleeping bags
3 Bedding blankets
2 large pillows
1 Elle in a car seat
2 bags with Nat's Fare garb

Driving
While we were packing up this weekend I had to haul a bunch of stuff from the GP Large to the car. The car was parked at one end of the tent and we were sleeping at the other end. It didn't pay to walk through the tent. So, I had to climb over a rope and walk everything back to the car. I pulled the car forward about 30 feet. Nat said th breaks are sticky on the Toyota. She wasn't kidding. Once I got it rolling, I had to ride the break a bit to keep it from accelerating over the 1 or 2 mph I wanted to go. I still had to climb over a rope, but now I didn't have as far to fall.

Bigotry
Last weekend at Fare, two black men walked up to camp and started talking about the camping experience. I was a little nervous, because they were young obnoxious and a bit hyper. Normally, at the camp grounds, people are pretty laid back. These guys were animated and loud. We also met a very attractive black girl at Fare. She is in many of the pictures. I found myself relaxed around her, but still mindful of her race. There was a time in my life where I was dead set against interracial marriage. I was automatically on guard around black people. I used racial terms to describe whole groups. I've grown a great deal in the last twenty years. There is, however, still a tickle in the back of my mind that I must overcome on occasion. I hope that I will grow further and take every person I meet on a case by case basis and not prejudge based on ignorance.
That said, there are these couple of men in my work who congregate at the intersection near the elevator outside my office. They seem to meet nearly every morning a half hour or so after the place opens. I've herd them talk about cars, boats, TVs, and building tree houses. This morning one of the men was talking about the dangers of eating at buffets. He said it was unclean and germs got around easily. He also mimicked an oriental person at one point in the conversation. I don't remember what he said, but it was clearly offensive. I happened to be on my way to the bathroom at the moment and noticed it was a black man performing the impression.
Now comes the question to me. I find irony in that above paragraph. I've made fun of people based on race at different points in my life. I've always regretted the action. It was in the name of "belonging" to a group. I've always tried to belong. If it had been one of the white men performing the mockery, would I have even remembered the incident? Have I not noticed the same thing happening before?
The funny thing about reflection upon one's own world is you still use your own eyes to see yourself.

Video
I'm trying to compress the video from the Texas Renaissance Festival last weekend. First of all, the video is terrible quality. I don't know what I'm doing yet. I have much to learn. It is jumpy. It is blurry. It is dark. It is an early attempt.
I had trouble capturing the video. I tried using Nero Capture to convert the video to Divx 5.2, but the files were corrupt. Then I tried the same thing with MPEG 2 and got the same result. I tried to capture to another format and something else blew up.  I ended up capturing to raw DV format (still an AVI) and then converting it with VirtualDub to Divx 6.0. It is much slower than doing it all in one step, but it is about the only way I can get it to work at all. I am having trouble getting the audio compression to line up properly with the video. Think a bad kung-fu film. I'm trying several different CoDec settings to find one that works. I like the noise reduction of Divx, but the sound has to align. The one that aligns nicely sounds like crap. The one that sounds good is off by a smidge. I'll keep trying. The final product will be a Divx 6.0 video and some version of MP3 audio. It will be around ninety megabytes. It will be hard to watch because it shakes so much.

UPDATE: The video is up. Forgive the quality.

Note
I was listening to BBC Five Live today with Peter and Jane. They read out emails and text messages on the stories all the time. It is so much better and easier to screen than taking callers. They do take callers, but they are highly pre-screened. Every once in a while, they have a funny text. Today they had the following (from memory) "Please tell my husband Joe to turn off his mobile [cell phone]. He is connected to the house and all I can hear is Jane and Peter."
Now, that is a public service announcement.

Humor

Observations of Steven Wright If you're not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he's the famous erudite scientist who once said: "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen...and replaced by exact duplicates. His mind sees things differently than we do, to our amazement and amusement Here are some more of his gems: 1- I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize. 2- Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back. 3- Half the people you know are below average. 4- 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. 5- A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory. 6- If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. 7- All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand. 8- The early bird may get the worm, the second mouse gets the cheese. 9- I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met. 10- OK, so what's the speed of dark? 11- Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm. 12- When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane. 13- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to avoid work. 14- Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now. 15- I intend to live forever -- so far, so good. 16- Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. 17- What happens if you get scared half to death twice? 18- Why do psychics have to ask you for your name? 19- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. 20- The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread. 21- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. 22- Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film. And some of my personal favorites........................ 23- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. 24- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up. 25- My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder." Israpundit

I don't normally steel an entire blog entry from another blogger, but this one was so concise and complete I couldn't bring myself to remove any of the entries. Steven Wright Quotes has even more great bits of wisdom.
Here are a couple more from that site linked above.
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.
If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?
I had some eyeglasses. I was walking down the street when suddenly the prescription ran out.
If God dropped acid, would he see people?

Locked Up
So, people got locked up. Have you ever been to Fair and seen the jail? It is right between the jousting grounds and the Sea Devil Pub. Nat and a bunch of other folks were nabbed by someone just after the chainmail fashion show and dragged off to the jail. Nat and Rozen were handcuffed. There were nine folks in in chainmail in the jail cart. Then, the jailers kept adding regular people who would pay to get in just to have a picture taken. Remember it is smaller than an elevator. Anyway, this guy paid to have every one locked up. It was a big funny joke. Only, the people in chainmail were not laughing after about fifteen minutes. It was hot. Most of them were getting claustrophobic. They had just run threw the whole grounds in the 12:00 parade then dancing around in the fashion show in all those heavy pieces of real steel mail. Things were getting a bit touchy. I paid for Nat to get out. She leaned over and said "Hey honey, want a kiss?!?" When I kissed her she snatched the money out of my hand. She paid for herself and one of the other girls who was starting to  feel bad. She and I had a quick conversation about how serious the situation was becoming. I coughed up my emergency $20 and bailed out all but one of the remaining chainmail folks. They wouldn't let us get the other girl out. Finally a friend of hers showed up and borrowed some money to get her out as well. All in all, it was a minor fiasco.
Now, one good thing came out of it all. When Nat informed the girls who paid for their freedom, I got gang kissed by most of the girls. Nat says I had the biggest smile on my face. There is a blank spot after the kisses induced by bliss. Chris actually gave me permission to take two pictures of him. That is huge for him.
In the far right picture is a guy in black leather armor. He is the guy who started it all. In his defense, he meant it all in fun. I don't think he meant for the chainmail clad folks to have to pay for their freedom. He only paid for three people to be locked up. Nat got him though. She got him to volunteer to be locked up, hence the picture. It turns out he was in there for forty five minutes. Payback is a bitch. =]  He is going to go out next weekend even though he has to work to make it up to folks.

Elevator
So, I work on the third floor. The snack machine is on the first floor. I get on the elevator at the third floor and press the (1) button. The elevator stops on the second floor. A guy gets on. He does this triple take of the floor number. I mean, I had to stop my self from asking him "what floor do you want?" There is no basement. I thought for a moment he meant to get on an "up" elevator and would ride this one back up, but no. He got off at the first floor and headed out.
I got my PayDay bar and went back to work. It is one of those things that has stuck with me all afternoon. It plaid repeatedly, like a crappy song that won't go away. I had to blog it to evict it from my mind.

Fest Pictures
You can find the latest Fest pictures Here. A wonderful time had by all, or at least those with a talent for it.
Here are a few examples.

That is the kitchen. Yes, Heath has won several awards for brisket, chicken and other forms of roast beast.

Why I go to Texas Renaissance Festival.

Some of the "fun" going on between friends at Fest. I think I ended up paying for six people to get out of the jail.

Bacon Bacon Bacon Bacon Bacon BACON!!!

We head out Friday evening and set up in Christal's tent. I finally figured out how to properly pump up the air mattress. That was kind of nice. I got to change in front of a dozen people. We got up Saturday. I tried to put on my armor, but all the Chicago screws kept coming apart. I ended up buying a shirt and some "wrap-pants". These pants are just a single cut piece of cloth with draw strings that hold them on. They are sixty bucks. They probably take twenty minutes to sew by some one who has done it for a while. Anyway, the pictures are from the whole weekend. I had my life threatened six times I think. Some of the same people are the first to ask about the pictures. Well, here they are. Enjoy.

Alexis
Alexis has a new blog. Check it out.

New Cop Car

For the 2006 model year, the pursuit-rated 5.7-liter Hemi version and the Hemi Charger sedan join the lineup. Rated at 340 hp and 390 lb-ft, it gives the Magnum/Charger a power-to-weight ratio of less than 12:1. (Crown Victoria: 16.5:1, Impala: 15:1.) This translates into 14.0 quarter mile times at 100 mph and a 146 mph governed top speed. RoadTest.com

And it looks tough too. (click the image for a larger version)
I've asked cops about police cars. They all say they would rather have one that took a curb over one that took a corner. The description of the suspension on this vehicle makes it sound like plenty of thought went into it. (hat tip The Daily Brief)

Joke

Sammy rubs an old lamp and a genie appears and grants him a wish. Sammy wishes for peace in the Middle East, and the genie looks at the map and says: "Look, mate, I can grant you many things, but this one is an impossibility... people have been trying for this one for 5,000 years and it's a killer... isn't there anything else you'd like to wish for?" Sammy thinks for a moment and says: "Well, my wife Miriam... she's a bit timid in the bedroom area... is there any chance you could get her interested in oral sex?" The genie scratches his head for a minute and thinks. Then he says: "Can you just let me have another look at that map of the Middle East?" Stolen From NormBlog

Shamelessly taken out of context for shits and giggles.

Ubuntu Linux
I've been wondering which Linux to try on a desktop machine. A couple of weeks ago I had my Linux web server go down due to a blown power supply. I had Fedora Core 4 ready and waiting for a quick install. Fortunately, the system came up without much incident. It has Mandrake 9.? on it, but that is a French distribution. Thus, I'm looking for something new. I've never used Fedora before. It is the RedHat excuse for using open source software for an enterprise operating system. Well, now I'm hearing more an more about Ubuntu Linux. Slashdot ran a story yesterday about the new release. Now I'm hearing about it on blogs. DistroWatch has an extensive list of links on Ubuntu.
So many people want to compare Linux to MS Windows. That is not a good comparison. They fulfill different needs. I have only used Linux in a server capacity so far. However, I want to get off the Windows habit. I'm not just cheap. I am genuinely worried about the direction of both the company and the operating system. The company wants to become AOL, which is a failed company by the way. The OS wants to become a TV box with a single button labeled "Next".. I want a choice in the matter.
Has any one out there in vast Kelly readership used or had experience with Ubuntu Linux? What is your favorite distro and why?

Fuck-Up Levels

Level	Fuck-Up Description
1	Reverse Fuck Up, actually works in your favor
2	Ends up being a moot point. Nothing good or bad happens.
3	Loss of property
4	Loss of job or income
5	Loss of friend
6	Loss of best friend
7	Loss of love or separation
8	Permanent damage to person (below level 9)
9	Loss of limb or sense
10	Someone dies

This came up today. I had a level a potential level 7 fuck-up. Don't ask the details. A friend and I originally wrote this list in middle school. I think I got it right. I'm sure there is room for interpretation. You get the idea.

Words
I love this kind of thing. I always wonder where words come from. The blog Done with Mirrors has some posts every now and then that simply define and trace the history of words. I can't get enough of it. I do not even have the patience, but I think I would love to track down the meaning of words and phrases.
The meaning of Halloween among other related words.

Top News
I'm getting complacent. Let's look at the top news for Yahoo today. What is "news" coming to?
Latest Iraq Suicide Attack Leaves 30 Dead
I see this same headline nearly every day. It just doesn't grab me any more. Something like 35,000 U. S. Troops survive another Terrorist bombing in Iraq, now that would get my attention. Well, for a while anyway.
Natural Gas Users to Take Hit This Winter
This hurts. I knew it was coming. How much? A lot. There is going to come a point where people cannot afford to drive to work.
Economic Fallout From Bird Flu a Concern
Oh, not to mention the piles of bodies that have not yet materialized. They say it could kill 1.2 million Americans if it does what they think it might. Scary stuff. I'm investing in canned food and shotguns.
Apple Expected to Unveil Video iPod
It is about frigging time. If it does satellite TV and surfs the web, I'm in.
Report: It's Over for Jude and Sienna
Who put this up as a "top story"? Who Cares? He banged the babysitter. He deserves it. She was right for leaving his cheating ass.

Day
Work was work. I'm busy. It is kind of nice. We had an update at our company to Windows SP2 and it screwed up a bunch of my stuff. Most people have no troubles at all, but some loose some registry connections. These glitches cause a prompt to come up every time you hit save in an Office product. I wish these annoying things just wouldn't happen. It is the reason I have a job though. Today, I had to track down yet another bad registry entry that popped up for the same old reason. It is a drag.
I got home and we washed one of the bed rolls (sleeping bags). It survived the washer, but I am terrified to dry it because of the plastic outer skin. It is laying across some bins right now, but I doubt it will dry properly.
Then, as we are putting Elle to bed, she zigs when I zag and she head-butts me in the nose. I haven't had a bloody nose in years. I had forgotten how much of a stun effect they have. It was only a drop or two. Now my nose hurts. I'm afraid it will swell. That will make my sinuses even more messed up. I hope I'm back on track by Fest this weekend.
Speaking of Fest, I've been looking at swords on eBay. They look pretty good, but they are amazingly cheap. I wonder what the problem is. They must be made in China or be hollow or something. They scare the heck out of me. Maybe they are cursed.

Chicken and Dumplings

Dump into pot:     * Can of Chicken Broth (large one)     * Can of Cream of Celery Soup (can use chicken, I just like celery more)     * Can of chicken. On each of the cans, after dumping contents then fill the can about 1/3 full of water and swish around to get any last bits of contents and dump that in also. Bring to a boil. Take a can of refrigerator biscuits (the ones that come in a tube) and divide each biscuit into about 4 pieces and add to boiling soup.  It takes a while to tear or cut the biscuits into pieces so I usually do that while waiting for the soup to boil. After adding the biscuits, cover and turn the heat down to a medium-low and it'll be done in about 10-15 minuets.  DO NOT STIR or the biscuits/dumplings become water-logged and sink to the bottom with out puffing up.  I actually like them that way too.  After you scoop out the first course, the dumplings will sink anyway.  YUM! You can blog it if you make it. Next time I make it I want to add some vegetables too. Anna

Well, I have not yet made it. Since Chicken and Dumplings is Nat's favorite, I have a good feeling about his one.
I wish Anna would blog more often. She is an interesting person. She could just cut and paste half our emails and have a collection of rich posts.

Instant Message out of the blue.
"His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult to chew..."
James says he got this off SlashDot, but I can't find it.

Question
"What is with the guy coated in blood?" This is a question Adam put forward about this picture. Well, Jen, the blond in the background, is an EMT type person. I'm not sure what her exact qualifications are, I'm using that term in a lay fashion. The guy to the left (the Amish beard) is called "Doc", so I assume he has some kind of medical background as well. Jen is the one the cops call though. The guy had impeded the path of a fist for reasons unknown. Something to do with a girl. Unfortunately, he needed stitches so the guys couldn't do much for him besides clean him up. He did repent when that ice cold water hit him in the fifty degree chill.
The next morning, a girl stepped in a hole and twisted/broke her ankle. Jen and Doc were Johny on the spot again. That sort of thing happens often out there. They are good folks.

This just in, Dark Matter is a load of crap, Kelly was right.

Good bye Dark Matter, Hello General Relativity Posted by Hemos on Monday October 10, @10:30AM from the all-einstein-quotes-you-know-are-wrong dept. dr. loser writes "The CERN newsletter reports that a new paper by scientists at the University of Victoria has demonstrated that one of the prime observational justifications for the existence of dark matter can be explained without any dark matter at all, by a proper use of general relativity! What does this imply for cosmology and particle physics, both of which have been worrying about other aspects of dark matter?" SlashDot

I knew it! I said ranted several times that Dark Mater is a load of CRAP!.

Fest Fact
We only went out to TRF on Sunday last weekend. While getting ready to head out, one of the guys, I think it was Doc or Chris, said something very profound. He said something like "You know, when we [the guys] all ware armor, we are ready in half the time than when we ware the other costumes." He continued that it is because the armor is finite. You know when it is done. Whit the other cloths, you can keep trying different things and you will never really find a "complete" uniform. A frightening point. Frightening, because he is right.