Author Archives: Heather

Where You’ve Been

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Thanks to Caitlin for this bit of fluffy goodness!

Legend: bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /


Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Makin’ it MAC

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photo of a Mac g4
I’ve been looking into getting a MAC for the next computer I buy.
In the past, I’ve assembled my own PCs; from the 286-20 I built in 1989 and started the BBS with; through the intermediate AMD machines; to the Pentium-4 tower I use these days. From MS-Dos with DesqView and QEMM through Win 2000, all have been on the WinTel hardware platform.

Frankly, its just too vulnerable anymore. I’ve got antivirus and firewalls and all of that – but MS just leaves too many opening for their “partners” that translate to open doors for all the crackers and scammers out there. Well, no more.
All I do is webwork and graphics anyway – why not use a machine better made for such work. I’l look them over for the next couple months, and hopefully by June … I’ll decide and … get either a G4 or G5.

Imperial Humour …

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Troops
One of the folks in a list I read had this to say:

“A group of very talented videographers got together with a project idea… to make a parody of the “COPS” television program in StarWars style with StarWars characters and StarWars special effects. The premise is that the Storm Troopers from StarWars are the “COPS”, in this case “TROOPS”.

There are several ‘incidents’ filmed. I find the Jawas (who scavenge for parts, build robots, etc) scene, where they are apprehended, particularly funny. The characters are kept true to form: the Storm Troopers do not hesitate to shoot, they are rather disconnected from any emotional connection with their opponents. Jawas are slippery little schemers. The husband and wife altercation is sort of odd in a StarWars way.

There is actually work related information in this. The videographers managed to get many authentic flying and hovering craft in primary and secondary background of the shots (primary background is interleaved with primary characters, secondary background is behind primary characters). The costumes are excellent and the scene placement is near perfect. We some of the same professional video production tools at the CTO and have he capability to apply these techniques to captured video (AUSA, Signal Symposium, etc) in a very professional “broadcast quality” way. ”

Glorious morning

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I came down with that flu bug New Years weekend, and it stuck with me into this next week! I stayed home sick on Weds and that seemed to help – by Friday I was breathing clearly and by sunday mostly myself. So this weekend I could just take some time for myself and relax …

photo of feet proppped up on a footstyle, two cats sleeping nearby, and a norfolk Pine glowing in sunlight, indoors

Sometimes there’s nothing finer than time spend reading, sitting in a quiet room, morning sun rising through the trees, surrounded by sleepy kitties, with good coffee and tasty biscuits at hand … ahhh…
and yes – this is the same living room with the floor to ceiling bookshelves – but looking the other way (the bookshelves are behind me) …

Thats Dali Llamma Diva on the hassock, Sir Teddy is sleeping in sunlight under the coffee table …

Nag Hammadi and the Gnostic Library

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I’ve gotten quite intrigued by the Gospel of Thomas – one of the documents found at Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Its a series of 114 sayings from the early years of Christianity – and has what we think of now as a very eastern feeling – many of them sound very much like Zen koans.

  • 3 Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
  • 68 Jesus said, “Congratulations to you when you are hated and persecuted; and no place will be found, wherever you have been persecuted.”
  • 77 Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”

Anyway – its quite fascinating stuff! I’ll write more as I get time to read further.
This stuff was all considered heretical – much of it was written as a way to find esoteric knowlege, truth, without requiring a need for a larger church community – which wasn’t a desired or helpful view in the early days of the Christian church community. Small wonder these writings disappeared between 340 and 400 CE.

Yule Blog Catchup!

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living Room Shelves
Click for a closeup

The holidays were very busy time for us. I’ve been working through a number of pre-holiday projects putting up new shelves to finish the Living Room, trimming out and painting the TV room – but the finished look was worth it.

There wasn’t a lot of shopping heading towards Christmas – Emma and I keep the presents low-key so its make it more a time of family and love (and cookies!) than any big consumer spend-fest.

We’d made plans for my Dad to came over Christmas Day, and we fixed a classic dinner with turkey and ham and all the sides … then the next morning we headed to Richmond to be with Emma’s family.
Her dad is a Methodist Minister, retired after 50 years in the pulpit!
This fall Emma’s mom was diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis – basically,
her lungs are failing. Its a slow slide downward – but they’ve
already signed the living will and have contacted the hospice folks.
They live across the street from her sister – which is a lot better than when they lived in Roanoke, nearly 5 hours away.
Anyway we travelled to see them, and to give her sister some well earned time-off. We zipped down there again after work Weds to be with them on New Year’s eve. We came back late New Years Day – and I was looking forward to relaxed weekend. Weather forecasts were calling for warm days in the 60s! I had visions of pulling the bike out of the shed for some New Year riding – but instead I came down with the flu, and stayed indoors all weekend – congested and sneezing and miserable. Yuck ….

Tax Credit for Incinerator and Extravaganza?

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Just a questions to follow up on – as time allows …
I hear that SUVs (SportBrutes) above a certain size (GVWR) get a tax credit … yes, a tax credit …! I want to know what happened to the so called Gas Guzzler tax that used to exist on inefficient vehicles, and why there are incentives to get folks to buy such inefficient oversized behemouths as the Hummer, Lincoln Navigator, and Cadillac Esplanade. If we want to cut our dependance on foreign oil, why encourage such vehicles with a tax credit??
Similar stories at http://www.tbotcotw.com/archives/001260.php

quaked

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I got home from work early and sat in the living room chair, catching up on the paper (the Washington Post). I’ve been redoing the living room over the last month – throwing out the old Doxsey shelves from the Door Store, putting in new floor to ceiling shelves, so it was nice to sit in the open space, put my foot up on a cushion and open the paper. And when my cat Dolly jumped onto my legs a few moments later, it seemed the perfect time to put down the paper, close my eyes, and rest a bit before Emma got home.
Some time later I heard the furnace kick in, and then I heard a rumble starting up. Now, we are near a hospital, there are ‘copters flying in day and night, and we are close enough to Dulles Airport that we hear the air brakes kick in for some of the incoming flights … but this rumble was closer. I actually thought it was bearings in the furnace motor failing … the floor shuddered pretty good for 20 – 30 seconds … and then it faded away. 5 minutes later the phone rang, but I was pretty comfy and drifted back into that half-asleep state …
Emma got home 20 minutes later, and as we fixed dinner, she told me she’d felt the rumble a mile away at church. We figured it was an earthquake, and a few minutes later when I turned on the evening TV news, they confirmed it – a magnitude 4.5 quake near Richmond VA.
We didn’t even lose any of the glassware on our shelves – but between this and all the rain and winds we’ve had this year, it sure has been strange …

Psalm 2(00)3

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I found it on The Right Christians web site – they said:
Making the rounds and courtesy of Democratic Veteran:
Psalm 2(00)3
Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want.
He leadeth me beside the still factories,
He maketh me to lie down on park benches,
He restoreth my doubts about the Republican party.
He guideth me onto the paths of unemployment for the party’s sake.
I do fear the evildoers, for thou talkst about them constantly.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy deficit spending,
They do discomfort me.
Thou anointeth me with never-ending debt,
And my savings and assets shall soon be gone.
Surely poverty and hard living shall follow me,
And my jobless children shall dwell in my basement forever.