Eye Doctor
So, I went to the Eye doctor yesterday. It was enlightening. The doctor has a new toy. he has a camera that takes a picture of the inside of your eye. I don't know how it works, but it works pretty well. It only gets the back wall, so my surgery areas didn't really show up. It was still cool. My doctor also showed me some examples of diseases and how they look in the pictures. Scary stuff.
My summary is, other than where I had surgery, my eyes are quite healthy. Even where  I had surgery, the problems are isolated, hens the surgery. Yay me!
Nat wants to go in next week for a check up. She mentioned that she just may be ready to get some glasses. Don't tell her I blogged this. She will kill me. I don't know what the problem is. I've worn glasses all my life. Someone out there enlighten me.
The doctor let me walk out with a sample pare of contacts. They work great. I'm going to wait for a couple of days to make sure they work for me and order some. I miss waring contacts. They are a hassle, but I can just plane see better with them. I plan on ordering another pare of glasses eventually. I'll get them from that online place I used before, or maybe Wal-Mart. I'm definitely not spending a lot of money on them. They will hopefully only be a backup.

Can't type. Eyes dilated.

Vista
I'm hearing a resounding yawn at the release of the new Microsoft OS. Most people have the same plan. If they get a new computer and it comes with Vista, that's OK. No one has plans to upgrade really. I don't blame them. So far, the biggest advantage I've read about is a one click presentation mode for laptops that disables the screen saver and beeps and such. Thats .... nice. There are some security updates. That is handy too, but not much more than you could get from third party folks.
The 64 bit support is supposed to be better. No one cares about that until it doesn't work.
The only thing that I really miss from Windows is playing games. I don't have time to play games anyway. Pretty much everything else I can get done via Linux. It is getting to the point that I do not need to mess with too much to get things to work any more. It was really bad a couple of years ago. Everything you wanted to do required massaging the code a bit to get thing to work on your box. Nightmare. There are easily a dozen projects out there to allow Linux to run Windows games.
In Linux, some programs like Adobe and Open Office take ages to open up. This is because the whole program is running when you click on the file or evoke it from the command line. In Windows, many programs have a pre-loader that just sits there eating up environment resources waiting for you to click on something that they pay attention to. This approach does make applications like Office and Adobe pop up faster upon a click, but enough applications do this that it causes a general slow down of the computer. You can't even tern most of the m off. You don't get the choice.
So, I click on programs and it takes a while in Linux for the application to pop up with my data file. I have to remind myself as I sit there twiddling my thumbs that I will not suffer as much slow down or crash time because of this. I think in the long run it is faster the Linux way. Though I understand why MS has made the choice it has. People notice the initial delay more than a general slowdown. It won't be much longer that computers run so fast that it won't make much of a difference. I hope that is the case any way.
People say Vista has a new look, but from the screen shots it doesn't look that far off. I still like Mac OS feel better than any other I've used. Gnome sucks only slightly less than KDE so I stick with it on Linux. One of the guys at work got a Mac and told us stories of getting nEdit to work and other programs that he was used to using from Linux. it sounds like a snap if you find some good examples on the net. Apparently there is quite a following of Mac OS for hackers willing to share their talents at getting things to work.

Birth Announcement

Well other then the rats life is good.  We had the baby.  Cheyenne Jazmin Laurel [last name censored] born 1/11/07 at 100mph in the front seat of the truck.  And when I say born she was out and on mom's chest completely born at 100mph.  The birth went well and mom and baby did and are doing wonderful....the truck is finally just about back to normal.  Had to call a crime scene clean up company to get some stuff they use.  Worked really well.  James (proud papa)

Oh, the rats. That is an interesting story too. A rat died in a buddies cubical at my old work. It got stuck in a trap in the hall and drug itself bleeding to his filing cabinet. Pretty damn disgusting. They had squirrels in the celling at one point. I wonder if they ever fixed the hole.
James, it would have made an even better story if she were borne in the back seat of the Camaro at 100 mph.

No clear winner

No clear winner is emerging from the deadly fighting in Gaza between the Hamas and Fatah movements, a sign that neither is strong enough to knock the other out. The bitter rivals have been buying, smuggling and building weapons for months trying to gain an edge, but they have held back from all-out battle and find themselves in a stalemate. That leaves many Palestinians with grim hopes that a power-sharing deal still can be worked out between the Islamic militants of Hamas and the more moderate President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. Chron.com

Imagine that, no clear winner in a fight in th emiddle east. You know, that article makes it sound like the writer would like one side to get it's ass kicked just to have something else in the news. I agree. I would love one side to really pull the stops and just anialate the other side just so there would be some freash news.
So, the Palastinian people are at each other's throats trying to decide who will lead them to victory distroying Israel. This kind of thing shouldn't even make the news any more. This was behind other stories like Mided Reviews for Clinton in Iowa, Ripple effect of Windows Vista Rollout and Racial strife at Quaker school.

Money is waisted on the young
Watch the after math first.

Happy to be alive, but still spouting stupidity.

Then watch the actual wreck.

Proof that some people have more money than brains.

Internet Panic
So, I wanted to hop on the internet last night about 3:00 am to check what year that car was on my blog. (by the way, I think it is a 56 Victoria) Only, the internet was down. No lights on the modem and no web pages on any of the computers. This sort of thing has happened before. I remember really hoping it was just some glitch that would take care of itself. This is not out of laziness. This is because I dread calling tech support for DSL.
I use Linux. No one at the tech support for DSL has herd of Linux, nor do they have any scripts ready to deal with Linux. I could write them some, but they don't care. These people are Americans somewhere in this country. I can tell by the accents. They mostly sound like idiots fresh out of high school who are kicking it back at this job until something better comes along. I mean hell, they get to sit the whole day. That is a great benefit.
I miss dealing with the tech support in India. The tech support we had at my old job was lacking most of the time. I would come in early to call tech support before the U. S. people started picking up the phones. The folks in India would not depend solely on their book of scripts to get them through. If you had some odd ball case, they would at least understand what you were trying to do and hear you out. This is because they had been to college. Where the Americans had not. I never asked, I could just tell. I can just tell that the infants I get here in the states, for the most part, just don't care if my problem ever gets fixed. I have to use Nat's machine because it has Microcrap as an OS and go through the script "No, I don't get any web pages." "No, I can't get a connection." "Yes, I hooked it straight up to the computer, not through a modem." When I started the conversation with "I can't DHCP an IP through the DSL modem. any more. It worked yesterday and every day for a year before that."
Thank goodness it just came back up today. I was genuinely worried I was going to have to deal with those idiots again. I wish the phone company would just outsource the jobs. It isn't like the Americans really want them anyway. Hell, half the applicants are probably illegal immigrants any way.

We need these in the states

We need these in the states. I would like them place around our neighborhood and only vehicles that belong here are aloud through. I want another set at the end of my driveway.

Atempted Murder on YouTube

Just how many counts of atempted murder are there in this video?

Question for the masses
Can someone tell me what make and model this car is?

Good Save

This guy gets more cheers for saving his ass than he would have making the top.

Big

There is just no other word for it.

Just plane fun

Balloon tires get you further off road than a big engine. Of course, both doesn't hurt a bit. Besides, these guys seem to get the idea. They are just having fun.

I'm sold

I don't car if I can't understand a word the announcer is saying. Watch to the end.

The Man at Home
Elle's father, Ted, is headed to war in Iraq week after next. Most of the people who know Ted don't really picture him as the Marine kind of guy. The only time I've hung out with him, he seemed like a "slider". That is someone who slides along in life until something happens. Then they scramble to cover. That isn't a bad thing really. I do not mean it as an insult. I've been a "slider" too.
I am Elle's step father. Ted was not ready to  be a dad. I'm not sure I was either. I'm not sure any one is except my friend Adam. It seems like he spent his whole life making himself ready to be a dad. It was pretty cool when he and Laurie finally adopted Cecilia. They make great parents.
Nat and Ted made a wonderful, beautiful little girl. People say "How did you two make such a great kid?" Nat and Ted both seem to hate that. I would too. I have to say it scares me that Elle seems so low maintenance now because I can tell she will be preppy when she gets older. I can soooo see her as a cool kid or whatever the equivalent is in a few years. I am practicing cleaning my shotgun in front of an audience.
I've said before that it seems I should have been a soldier. I am disabled. I cannot go. I feel left out. I feel I should have gone and fought.  The funny thing is, I'm a woos. I far prefer to avoid fighting. I would rather swallow my pried and avoid a fight.
I read military blogs. I watch videos from the war. I pay attention to the MSM because you have to read between the lines to figure out what is really going on. My over all opinion is "It's a war zone." Things get done. Sometimes good people die. Bad people get away. The thing about a war is that the situation has gone too far for talking to resolve the issues. Things have gotten out of hand.  The U. S. is sending troops to Iraq and the whole Middle East is sending troops to fight us there. There have been reports of Egyptians, Syrians, Chinese, and God knows who else being captured or killed trying to fight us there.
Yet, here I am. I sleep at home every night. I get hot meals regularly. Even when I go "camping" it doesn't resemble camping much. No one is shooting at me (mostly). Yet, I'm a provider for a family. I do my best to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.
Ted is doing his part too. In a broader sense he is protecting his family. I'm not belittling what he is doing. It is an important contribution. I would rather the fight be taken to some foreign land than be fought on the streets of the U. S..
Nat works as hard as I do just keeping things a float. I don't know how families do it where both spruces work full time. It is like climbing a haystack. It is wonderful when Nat can run an errand or help a friend of ours while I'm stuck at work. It really does take two people to keep the family going.
So, yes, we all have our parts. I enjoy being a family man. Nat complains that I spend too much time on the computer, but hey, that's part of being me. I should not let myself feel like less of a man because I am not on the front lines. But ... I do. A little bit.

Weather and Racers
It's funny. Last night was clear and cool. The racers were out in force. Running up and down the road. It was a Thursday night. That didn't seem to make any difference. Don't these people have jobs? Then I remembered the weather report. Friday morning (this morning) was clear, and beautiful, but this evening is supposed to be cold and wet. I'll have to remember that the Racers watch the weather channel.

Pills
I've become a pill-popper. Through this whole winter, I've been sick. I remember a week where I said "I haven't felt snotty all week." Then I got all snotty shortly there after. This has been a real problem since last year. I think moving to the sticks and mowing my own lawn have made things worse. I've had this constant cough since I moved to Houston at the ripe old age of five or so. This year has been particularly brutal.
Every morning I wake up and start coughing. I hack up a lung, spit it into the toilet and start take a warm shower where I proceed to hack up the other lung. It has gotten to the point that I don't like taking showers on the weekend because of the coughing.
At some point, I start popping over the counter (OTC) drugs to dull my symptoms. I take the following.
# Decongestant - make things move around better.
# Antihistamine. - keep the body from making more.
# Expectorant - loosen what is already there.
These medicines all work together very well. That is the trouble. They multiply each other's affects. You have to be careful particularly with antihistamines. You can screw up your urinary system pretty good if you are not careful. I take low doses of all of them when I mix them up. I chase them down with a analgesic or two some days.
All this makes me feel like an addict. I can tell days that I don't take this stuff. I clog up and can't breath. I'm sick of being sick. I don't know what to do about it. I've been to doctors. I've tried everything I can think of. I need a lung transplant or something. My body is just not meant for Houston weather.
My last doctor hinted that I might have asthma.  That would suck. There is just plane nothing you can do about asthma. I fear being diagnosed because it will fuck my insurance for the rest of my life. The president is about to do that for me with his new pay for it yourself insurance. I suppose we are all just supposed to shut up and die like good little nobodies. I hate the way this country treats it's people sometimes. Most of the people who run things have enough money to not care how the system is broken. We should make our elected officials live like us poor folks for a while before they can get any power. Yup, that will happen.
It makes me angry that I have to deal with insurance when I'm sick. I don't worry about getting better, I worry about getting over charged because I'm the only sucker who has insurance. No one else bothers to pay their medical bills, so I have to take up the slack.
I better leave it at that before I start really ranting on the subject.

Wasabi Funyons
I found Wasabi Funyons at the Exxon at Westheimer and Dairy Ashford. They were all I dreampt of. I still think they should be all over the place. I hope the company doesn't think no one wants them because no one can find them. Well, now you know.

Wonderful News

docinthemachine writes with news of felines getting human retinal implants. The cats were afflicted with a version of retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that also blinds humans. The implants are 2-millimeter-wide chips surgically implanted in the back of eye. Each chip's surface is covered with 5,000 microphotodiodes that react to light, sending electric signals along the eye's optic nerve to the brain. The article makes clear that the implants don't allow the cats to see — what they get is impulses of light. The hope is that the electrical activity in the optic nerve will encourage new retinal cells to grow. The article notes: "The chips, which provide their own energy, have shown encouraging results in clinical human trials, in some cases improving sight in people with retinitis pigmentosa or at least slowing the disease's development. Narfstrom said chips have been implanted in 30 people." SlashDot

This is wonderful news. Retina problems are the most common reason for blindness. I keep hearing little bits here and there about new things in the field of curing different kinds of blindness. One of these days, someone is going to get a new retina or eye. I know too many people who suffer like this. I'm not going to soft cote it. Not being able to see sucks.

Give them a hand

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Why don't I have this kind of free time? This looks like someone's class project. I think they did a pretty good job.

Ken's Birthday
So, it wasn't that big a surprise. It was fun. I think we had more fun keeping the tarp under control than partying with friends. Well, Maybe not.


And then there was smoke.


The boob crown


The Handcuffs ... followed closely by forced tickling.


The biting of toes.


Then we went dancing and then we went to I-Hop. I was too ill to eat. Poor Nat had to take me home. I hadn't drank more than a single shot, but I was coughing all day. Imagine that, me coughing.

All the pictures here
.

Will it help me with my web surfing?

"There are always those who are willing to take things one step further than others. A group of guys known as OC Team Italy is one of them. They recently pushed an Intel Pentium 4 631 to over 8000MHz using an ASUS P5B with modified voltage regulation and liquid nitrogen. Overclocking is cool and all, but this extends beyond what some would perhaps call useful. Still a milestone though." Slashdot

It used to be so cool when someone would get a chip to go some screwy-fast speed. This time they double the going rate of 4 GHz and I just don't care. Computers are not about speed so much as can it help me do my homework faster and better? Or, can I play games on it without skipping? They will pretty much all play moves and music. They will all play You tube videos. They will all pretty much do anything with a spreadsheet or email or PowerPoint or most any other office task. Some computers will still not play all the games, but who cares. They do most of the stuff. And they don't need 8 GHz to get it done.

Suburban Death From Above
I'm trying to think of a good use for this at Faire. We  could paint it up like a dragon or something like thatl. It could only be a blaast flying around faire blowing fire at people. <giggles like a little girl / mad scientist>