I had a very strange dream last night (this morning). I was at a wedding and a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in years was there. We hung out and spent quite a bit of time together before I woke up.
It seemed as if something was different about him. He was less focused on himself and more focused on everyone else around him. That’s not just him, it’s the same with many teenagers and early to mid twenties people in America. When I thought about that, I realized it was a change I haven’t completely made, myself.
I wish it was either more difficult to move apart through the years, or easier to let go when separation happened. Some friendships seem like they’ll never be fully replaced.
Life
I was hoping for something big to happen today, but it didn’t. I guess God has something bigger, but it’s really hard to notice anything bigger when what you do see doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to.
I guess that’s just the way God made life… so that we can learn to appreciate everything He’s given us.
ConcealedCampus.org
I ran across this site this week when browsing my usual news sites. The organization is dedicated to keeping or reestablishing our right to carry concealed handguns on campus. Setting a standard of having “gun-free zones” does absolutely nothing for innocent, law abiding citizens, and tells those who would do us harm exactly where they could do the most damage with a lower risk of being stopped.
I don’t currently have a license to carry a concealed handgun, but I will in the not so distant future. I believe it’s part of my responsibility in having a family. I know I will probably not have my family with me at school, but isn’t it also my responsibility to do everything I can to return home in the same condition that I left it? I need to support them, but will not be able to if I am suddenly a victim of a random act of violence.
What do you think?
Chuck & Journeyman
I believe that NBC is currently my favorite television network. I started tuning in on Monday nights to watch Heroes, but I’ve fallen into the desire to watch the shows that surround it.
Chuck is a fun show. I can predict a lot of what’s going to happen, but the premise of the show is awesome. There’s a few technical details that they really messed up on, such as the dead hard drive incident in the first episode, but I find myself watching anyway.
Journeyman, I believe I’ve stated already, has even better circumstances. They have really impressed me with the thought that goes into this show. I’d have to say that this is my favorite between the two.
I’ve heard, however, that Journeyman hasn’t been getting the ratings that NBC was expecting, so it might not make it. They need to give it more time… it’s got staying power. Apparently Chuck’s getting OK enough ratings to keep it on the air, but I’m sure that if they switched the two time-slots that Journeyman would have better ratings. I know that’s probably hard to do with a show as complicated as Journeyman, but I’m sure it’s just the time-slot.
WordPress Upgrade
I’ve upgraded to the newest version of WordPress. It was relatively easy. Let me know if you notice any bugs in the site.
It took a little longer because I had to figure out which FTP software to use since I’m on Ubuntu. gFTP looked like the program I should use, but FileZilla turned out to have the functionality I needed.
I’ve gotten almost everything I need working in Ubuntu so far. I haven’t run Windows on my computer in almost a month!
A lot more has happened over the past few weeks. I hope to expound soon.
Drew Carey on Medicinal Marijuana
Ubuntu 7.10 – Gutsy Gibbon
OK, so I have spent the last week strictly using Ubuntu at home. It has been quite nice learning my way through the installation and configuration.
I’ve gotten the advanced desktop working – you’ve probably seen the videos online of people using it and having a cube of desktops to spin through. I’ve got DVD playback, DVD ripping, software to sync my iPod with my music collection, and a way to share my files with my xbox media center.
I’ve read a lot of stuff about converting to Linux over the past several months, even over the past few years. Linux and the experience around it is improving quickly. I showed my mom the desktop effects on my computer, and she quickly said, “I want mine to do that!”
The articles out there that explain switching their mother, grandmother, or aunt over to Linux are missing out on a very critical point. They are the person that got it set up for their friend or family member. The articles make me want to install it for myself, so I can enjoy the ease of converting.
Therein lies the problem… I installed it myself, and it isn’t as easy as they said it was. My computer has an onboard Realtek network card that apparently has a problem. When Windows shuts down, it disables the card until Windows is restarted. I had to spend approximately 2 hours searching forums before I found out that all I had to do was disconnect the power to my computer for a good 15 seconds and then boot into Ubuntu to have a good network connection. Sure, it was my computer’s network card that caused the problem, but it was something that held up my work on the rest of the system.
I could enable the advanced desktop. Then I had to figure out how to activate the restricted drivers. Then there was installing the yet to be named video settings tool so that I could activate and set options for the advanced video card drivers.
For every thing that seems simple in Windows, it takes an average of an hour to set it up in Linux. Sure, maybe next time it will be quicker, but for the people who aren’t used to searching online forums all the time for code to make their video tool play DVDs or make something work just right are just going to give up and go back to Windows.
My PC is only a year old. The hardware is great. It just doesn’t fit into the specs of an ideal Linux candidate. I do a lot on my computer, and I have to make sure that everything I do works before I can make the full commitment to Linux.
So far, everything works, but I’ve had to put a lot of time into figuring out how. The Samba share was one of the dumbest things ever. I changed setting after setting, until I finally found a reference to a samba.conf file that I decided to read to see if there was a problem. Sure enough, six little semicolons were the only things standing in the way of what I was trying to do. I deleted them, saved the file, and all of a sudden I could see the folders from my xbox.
Ubuntu has come a long way in a short amount of time. I am going to continue using it at home until I find something that I cannot do that I need to do on my PC. Gutsy Gibbon is a strange name, but in the Linux community, they need the humor to keep them going.
If you really want to try Linux, try out a Live CD. Ubuntu distributes Live CD images on their website. The CD loads in memory so that your hard drive isn’t affected. Once you determine that you want to install it, they put a nice little icon on your desktop that says “Install”. It’s real easy up to that point. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to try and answer them. I have a little experience.
Where is Common Decency?
Over the span of my short life of 29 years, I have seen human decency fall lower than I thought it could. Respect for other people’s space, beliefs, health, privacy, property, and rights (to name a few) is almost a myth.Â
Just 10 years ago, when someone noticed that a person didn’t cuss in their everyday speech, the person who cussed would normally keep their cussing down to a minimum when around that person out of respect. People who smoked wouldn’t smoke around children (of course, after scientists discovered that it was bad for our health). When a person said they were having trouble at home, the boss wouldn’t ask for all the gritty details. Drivers didn’t drive on your property without expressed permission or damage your things just for the fun of it. I remember living in an area where the neighborhood kids could ride bikes and play in the street without worrying about anything but letting people pass when they were driving down the road.
IMHO, I’m positive that the major reason for this trend is the fact that parents don’t go to church, or bring their kids to church any longer. Church is an important place for a child to get involved and learn how to treat others. I guess the real problem is that people today don’t have a relationship with God… I mean, how can they if they aren’t taught what they need to learn on a regular basis. There are many children out there who want to know about God, and want direction/correction in their lives, but they’re not getting it. We have children coming to our church without their parents that yearn for basic discipline.
I know what you’re saying… “yeah, right… what kid wants discipline?” Every kid has it built into their DNA to look for authority. The problem is that most of them never find it, and decide it doesn’t exist at a young age. Just a few years later, they don’t look for or respect authority. If they don’t believe in an authority, why on earth would they respect anyone else?
I’m bringing this up because someone I know is not being treated right. The argument actually applies to more than a few people I know, but I’m upset about one in particular right now. What is the best course of action for dealing with someone who is being rude, hurtful, and disrespectful to someone else you know? I am currently questioning how to react.
Texas Rice Festival
It was fun. I had a good time. The food was great.
I have something else to talk about, but I don’t feel I can do it without serious repercussions.
I hate it when something is going on that I can’t write about, because I really need a way to vent. Oh, well…
175,000,000 Listeners
A guy (we’ll call him L) at work today was talking during lunch about Howard Stern. He made the statement that Howard Stern got as rich as he is because he is the highest rated talk show host in the country. I objected to his claim, and he retaliated by claiming that Howard Stern has over 175 million listeners.
Everyone at the table froze. I began by asking everyone at the table if they listened to Howard Stern, and everyone said that they did not, even though a few have subscriptions to Sirius. I then started explaining that there are only 303 million people in the United States. You could see the fear in L’s eyes begin to show as he realized how dumb his argument was, however he continued to defend his statement by claiming that a superior at Circuit City stated it as a fact when going over sales of Sirius radios.
Needless to say, everyone at the table sat in awe as L explained why he thought that 175 million listeners was even possible, and that because his superior was convinced of it, he believed it. He then tried to convince me that Howard Stern was also available on the standard radio stations… just not in our area. Maybe he didn’t see the news when Howard left radio to join Sirius. I may be wrong, but his site doesn’t list any affiliates other than Sirius.
Sirius has just under 5 million subscribers. They estimate that for each subscription, there is an average of 2 listeners. Through an independent study, they found that around 58% of all subscribers regularly tune in to listen. Based on estimates, there are just over 5 million listeners to the Howard Stern show each week. Compared with Rush Limbaugh’s ratings of 13.5 million listener minimum each week, I may be wrong, but Howard Stern is not the highest rated show.
I have called L out before, but this one was awesome. We’ll be having fun with this one at least until he admits it was a stupid thing to say, much less believe.
I know that there are instances where something way out in left field may be easy to accept as truth, and I don’t approve of having this much fun at just anyone’s expense when it comes to being gullible In this case, however, L was either pulling the number out of thin air, or he was dumb enough to be that gullible. In L’s case, he has always given me the impression that he is fairly intellectual, so that evidence suggests that he made 175,000,000 listeners up to make a point.
87% of all statistics used in arguments are completely made up, and we just need L to own up to it.
If I am wrong about anything I post on here, let me know. I’ll admit it as soon as I see the evidence.