A new year is coming, and it's just hours away. I look back over 2009, and there is so much for which to be thankful. We had a minor scare last night with Mama Ruth. Her heart beat was racing and I took her to the emergency room. She was checked out and seems to be ok. She has an appointment now with her doctor for more tests and hopefully they'll be able to find the cause.

My own trips to the doctor have been successful as well. My sinuses have almost completely cleared. I have also had a biopsy done on a spot on the side of my nose. I should see the results from that on Monday. If it's as we expect, I'll be back at the dermatologist on Friday to have it removed. I haven't had to go to the doctor in quite some time and now I have two appointments next week. One as a follow up for my sinuses and the other is the dermatologist. *sigh. I hate getting old, but it sure beats the alternative.

It's been far too long since I've updated this blog. Since my last update much has changed. We are now on the verge of President Obama's vision of the future. Congress is preparing to send to his desk the most monumental change in America since the Great Depression. While no one truly knows what affect this will have on our economy, I can't see this as a good thing. Legislators may have good intentions with this bill and think they know what is best for the American people. I beg to differ. There will always be those who can not, or will not help themselves. Those that can not deserve our support. Those that will not deserve nothing from us.

We are entering into a new decade. Will our children be better off? History will tell us, but I don't think it will paint this time in a good light.

I've finished with my morning run and am having a cup of coffee. I've catching up on my emails while the sprinkler runs on the front lawn. Soon I'll have to move it over to the back lawn to let that run for a little while. It's 6:00 a.m. and it's already pretty muggy out there!

As I said in two Twitter posts, I have managed to get some things done tonight! I have finished off my quarterly report for the Grand Lodge. I have to submit a report on my official visits during the proceeding quarter. It was technically due the first day of July, but with the holiday I hope they can forgive. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

I also managed to finish and put in the mail (US Post) letters to newly initiated Entered Apprentices. One of my goals when I accepted the appointment as District Deputy was to send letters to each candidate after his initiation. I need the cooperation of the lodges and in particular the lodge secretaries to get this accomplished. I hope that the letter is well received!

Supreme Court Decision

I see that SCOTUS found for the firefighters from New Haven, CT in their discrimination suit. Please notice I didn't say REVERSE-discrimination, but what it truly should be called, discrimination.

Discrimination makes no notice of the color of your skin. The Oxford dictionary says discrimination is "• noun 1 the action of discriminating against people." Recent history here in the United States has given it a connotation of discriminating by whites against blacks.

When you read the stories from the various press outlets they all say the same thing. White firefighters brought the suit. White firefighters were protesting the results. Yet no mention is made of the Hispanic firefighters who passed the test. In my opinion the city of New Haven was in a no win situation. No matter which direction they decided to turn they were going to get slapped with a lawsuit. Yet throwing out the results based mostly on a fear of a suit the Supreme Court said was a big no-no.

The thing that bothers me most about the coverage is the slant taken by the MSM. They are trying to make the firefighters out to be racist. By only focusing on the white firefighters, they are intentionally leaving out the fact that Hispanic firefighters and black firefighters passed the test as well.

Cookout

We had a great cookout last night. Angie and I joined up with our next door neighbor Joe and his girlfriend Cary. We had burgers and hot dogs, beer and wine and people that came brought sides and dessert. I'm not sure how many people came but we had a wonderful time. Gary took charge of the grill and did an excellent job on the burgers. My wife and Cary did a tremendous job putting this together!

We finally got to bed last night around 1:30 or so. Of course I woke up and was out getting things cleaned up by 7:00. I finished while my wife slept. She put so much time and effort into getting things organized and ready I thought the least I could do is let her enjoy her sleep.

Happy Anniversary

Today is Angela and my one year wedding anniversary. In just under 40 minutes from when I type this blog we will have been married exactly one year. While the year has had it's rocky moments I can't believe how fast it has gone.

Angela you are the most special person in the world to me and you hold the key to my heart. I love you very much!

Update

Since it's been some time since I've posted anything on my Linux experiment, I'll do that this morning.

I have started using Evolution to handle the work that Outlook does in MS. It's a basic email, contacts, and task program with very few bells and whistles. I first tried to set it up over a month ago. I found I could get it to receive mail (I used a Gmail account for the experiment) but I couldn't get it to send mail. I attempted numerous things but to no avail. Finally I just set it aside as I was out of time to fool with it.

This weekend, I took up the task again to make it work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked just fine. I had made no change to it, yet it received and sent mail perfectly.

Here are some photos from today's snow. It is still coming down and getting to work tomorrow might be a bit tricky!

This is a photo taken today at the Massing of the Colors at the Scottish Rite center in Greenville. These two distinguished gentlemen are Roy Mcjunkin and Colonel Victor Feinup. They were both WW-II veterans and POW's in Germany. It was my honor to have a photo taken with these two fine gentlemen.

Massing of the Colors

I have just returned from the Massing of the Colors at the Scottish Rite center here in Greenville. This is an annual event where different organizations present the flag of the United States. Afterwards, there is a speaker. This years speaker was Colonel Quincy Collins, USAF ret.

Colonel Collins was a POW for 7 years during Vietnam. During 3 of those years, he shared a cell with John Mccain. He gave a very good speech on patriotism and it's meaning.

After his speech, there was an introduction of two veterans of WWII. Both had been POW's in Germany. They were both given a standing ovation. After the event, I asked to have my photo taken with them. They both were somewhat reluctant at first. Both told me that they hadn't done anything special, that they had just been there. I couldn't disagree more. They were part of the greatest generation, and served our country with distinction. I have the photos and I'm going to upload them tonight.

Slumdog Millionaire

I am usually not one for Oscar hype. It seems that more often than not, the movie that wins the Oscars is not one I would enjoy. So it was with no little trepidation that I went to see "Slumdog Millionaire" last night with my wife. We had wanted to see it on the weekend but with so many things going on that just wasn't in the cards.

We both really liked this movie. I liked it enough that it will be one I will own when it comes out on DVD. The acting was wonderful, the score was great and the scenery spectacular. Now the scenery wasn't spectacular in a National Geographic fashion. It depicted the slums of India and the daily lives of its inhabitants. It is not a pretty way to live. I have seen slums, but they take on a whole new meaning when your population is north of a billion souls.

The one thing that kept nagging at me after the movie was I felt I had seen the movie before. The themes during the movie reminded me of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations (to a lesser degree). I just wish I could put my finger on it.

But no matter what, this is a very good movie and one I highly recommend.

Roses

These are the roses I got for my wife for Valentine's Day 2009. I know that they aren't the traditional red, but my wife loved them. I was shooting for a Clemson Orange, but didn't quite get there, but the fact that she loved them is all that really matters.

Valentine's Day

I took my wife out for Valentine's Day to Stellar. We had a wonderful dinner and a very enjoyable evening. The only thing that put a damper on the night was her knee. She is having trouble again with the same knee she had operated on in December of 07. She goes to visit the doctor today and we'll wait to see what he says about the whole thing.

Friday the 13th

Well don't let any black cats walk in front of you, stroll under any ladders and for heaven's sake be careful with that mirror!

Today is the day many fear, Friday the 13th! Now I am not one prone to triskaidekaphobia, or an irrational fear of the number 13. However it is good to remember one significant event which happened on this day.

On Friday the 13th, 1307 King Phillip IV of France, in league with Pope Clement V betrayed the Knights Templar. King Phillip had issued orders to arrest every Knight of the order on October 13th. Between the two conspirators they rounded up every knight they could find, put them in prisons and tortured confessions from them. The Grand Master of the order was also arrested, Jaques de Molay, and executed. Most believe the true reason behind the conspiracy between King and Pope was to lay their hands on the money in the Templar's coffers.

A dog named Beau

Thanks to Momma Ruth for sending me the link to the youtube video posted above. It features Jimmy Stuart reading a poem about his dog named Beau on the Johnny Carson show.

If you are a dog lover, it's great. If not, enjoy it anyway. There will never be another man like Jimmy Stuart.

Justice?

Is this justice or is this nothing more than another abuse of the American legal system? I can not believe that a man no longer has the right to defend his property against criminal activity.

Now make no mistake about it, the poor souls crossing the border are searching for a better life. There are many who come here in a similar fashion and become productive citizens. However that doesn't excuse the fact that they got here by violating the law. Here is a man who is protecting his property and livestock from harm. According to the article he never drew his weapon. He called his wife and the Border Patrol came to take them into custody.

Had Mr. Barnett committed an actionable offense the local prosecutor would have rightly brought charges. And this should be a local matter not a national forum for a public wailing and gnashing of teeth over illegal immigration. But since no such thing happened, a group hoping to make a name for itself has brought a suit against him accusing him of violating their civil rights. I wasn't aware that detaining someone during the course of an illegal activity amounted to a violation of their civil rights. Regardless of their immigration status, they were trespassing on his property. He had every right to detain them until the proper authorities were summoned and the situation turned over to them. Who would truly and rightly remember exactly what was said during a tense situation five years ago? I would suspect that both sides said things they would otherwise never have said. Does that make it a civil rights case? I hardly think that it does. I think this is nothing more than an attempt to fleece his pockets of cash for their cause, and garner attention.

Photos

Ok, I'm done downloading the photos and have backed them up. Now if I can just put them in folders and tag them I will feel like I've accomplished something today!

Photos and Facebook

So I have finally given in and joined the Facebook crowd. I was enjoying my time as one of the last humans not on Facebook. I wore it as a badge of honor! But my 25th High School reunion is coming up and they are trying to get in touch with as many people as they can. One of the ways they are trying is by Facebook. So after much badgering from my wife and friends (all in good fun!) I took the plunge this morning.

Now as I sit here doing chores around the house I can tackle a few more on my laptop as well. I hooked up my Nikon camera to it and downloaded 129 or so pictures that have been quietly residing there. Now I just have to go through them and put them in some logical order. Oh, and BACK THEM UP! I don't expect there to be a problem, but then that's what I thought last time too!

update

Just on a whim while I was catching up on my reading I tried an experiment. I had managed to save some of the files off of my old hard drive onto the Free Agent hard drive. Some of my music made it onto the drive before the big crash.

So I opened up Songbird and tried to see if I could bring that over. Since I am limited in time, I just tried one file. It came over with a drag and a drop and now happily resides inside the Songbird.

That does bring up a minor annoyance. I'm not sure why this is, but the icons for both Firefox and Songbird aren't stable. They will look one way one day, and different the next. It is only an annoyance as they both do work. Now if I could only get Firefox to remember the tabs! That however is another project.

I really need to start a project list and keep up with it. That is now becoming more and more necessary.

Linux can't "touch" this

Ok I know the title is bad. Really bad. But it is true none the less. Last night I attempted to hook up my ipod Touch (2nd gen) and see what would happen. Linux could see that it was attached, and that it had photos, but was completely oblivious to the music that was on there.

So now it's back to the ol' google search. Now while this might be somewhat frustrating, there is some fun to be had. I am getting what I truly wanted. I am learning what Linux is all about. That is a part of the process here and one of the things I was looking to do.

Since my time was very limited last night, this will take just a bit longer than I expected. My time over the next three nights will be just as limited. Getting Linux and the iPod to play nice may have to wait until this weekend.

Superbowl

My wife and I attended a Superbowl party last night at a friend's house. This is the second year in a row that we've done this. There was a very good group last night and we all had a great time. My wife made a new buffalo chicken and cheese dip that was superb. I brought along as well a peach salsa from Abbott Farms in Gaffney, SC. This is fantastic stuff as well and was well received.

Before leaving, my wife asked me who I was wanted to win. You see, I am a Panther's fan. I told her that I liked both teams and truly would be happy with either one winning, I was just hoping for a good game.

You have to be careful for what you wish for, because you just might get it. Well I think we were treated to a fantastic game last night. The quality of the play was fabulous. The only thing that I felt marred the performance was that Arizona committed too many penalties. That kept Pittsburgh going when the could have been stopped. But other than that, I felt it was a great game. My only question was why, with just a few seconds left on the clock they didn't review the fumble made by Kurt Warner. While watching it on the replays, I felt the argument could have been made that his arm was making a throwing motion. Then it would have been an incomplete pass, and Arizona would have had one more shot down the field. But nevertheless we watched a great game, and enjoyed the company of good friends. That certainly was a great way to cap the weekend.

Seagate Freeagent

So after losing my hard drive to an untimely and somewhat messy death, I decided to go out and get an external hard drive to back up my data. I went to Best Buy and picked up a 250 GB Seagate Freeagent hard drive. During the final death throes I did manage to attach it and retrieve a few of my files.

I was a little hesitant to hook it up to the new laptop. I really am not sure why that was. But I finally got up the nerve to attach it to my new system this weekend. When I first tried to attach it, Ubuntu could see it but couldn't do anything with it. Not to worry, as I know there is a lot of support out there I just have to go find it.

Hop on to google, and do a search for the problem. Voila'! Up comes a number of similar problems and the solutions that they found. Before I went too far however I wanted to see if it was a Linux problem or a Seagate problem. So, hook it up to the home Windows system and see what happens.

Well, the problem couldn't be disastrous. Windows can see the drive and more importantly see what is on it. One of the error messages from Linux (didn't screen shot them - file that one away for future references) was that the device hadn't been closed properly or some such. So, now that I'm done on Windows, use the "safely remove the hardware" option and let's hook it back up to the Linux machine.

I move the hard drive over to the laptop and Linux sees it as before. But this time, not only does it see the drive - miracle of miracles - it can see the files and open them!

Now this does make me curious as to why it had the problem with the hard drive before. Was it a momentary glitch, or was it because I hadn't shut down the drive properly the last time I had used it? To be fair, when that happened the whole system crashed and there was no way to do that.

But I suppose that all is well that ends well. I don't think that trying to replicate the problem is such a good idea. That is definitely a sleeping dog best left alone.

Day two and Firefox

Some more observations on Ubuntu. I brought out my jump drive this afternoon and plugged it in to the usb slot. I wasn't greeted with any obnoxious noises from the machine but didn't see anything happen either. After a brief moment of holding my breath, I notice on the desk top in big bold letters the name of the jump drive! I was able to open up the drive, and see a list of the files I knew to be on there.

Now for the big test. Could I open the files and see what was on them. There was a Powerpoint presentation, a MS Word document and a spreadsheet. Open Office was able to open all and I was able to work with all three. Hurray, another minor hurdle overcome and yet more (mostly) seamless and (basically) painless work with Linux!

However, here comes the sticky point. I am sure it's on here somewhere, but for the life of me I can't seem to find it. When I exit from Firefox it kindly asks me if I want to save my tabs. I thank it kindly and tell it that I really would like to save them. Unfortunately, when I re-open Firefox it hasn't saved the tabs. It looks at me with that dumb expression and says, "Tabs? What tabs are you looking for?". Sigh. I am certain that I am missing a preference box somewhere I will just need to hunt down that little sucker!

Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux!

So I have now made the leap from a Windows operating system to Ubuntu Linux. How I got here is a tale unto itself.

Back up your hard drive now. Back up your hard drive now. Back up your hard drive now. What I tell you three times is true. Go do as I say and not as I have done. I usually am the one preaching the gospel of backing up your data. But do I listen to my own advice? In this one (and vitally important lesson) I did not. Hence my silly time since before Christmas.

Shortly before Christmas, I noticed I was having difficulties with my laptop. It would freeze up during odd times. It wouldn't respond to keyboard commands and had to be powered down. Finally, I was faced with the dreaded blue screen of death. Grrrrr! Now what do I do? The system would boot up, come to my desktop and then promptly blue screen out. Too late to back up my files, the hard drive was dead, dead, dead.

Luckily for me, I was not without a network of people far more knowledgeable about computers than I. After letting Mark from my office (huge tip of the hat to you Mark!) take a look, he pronounced the death of my hard drive to be official. However, he thought he might be able to at least pull off my documents. Hurray! At least I wouldn't be without my pictures and documents. A quick trip down to Computer Direct Outfitters, a small payment, and out I came with a brand new Seagate hard drive.

The next step was to install the drive and decide what to put on it. I have my Windows XP disk some where. I am quite certain that with a little bit of hunting I could put my hands on it. However I have a golden opportunity! I have, essentially, a clean slate. I've wanted to experiment with a Linux operating system for some time. Now seemed like the perfect time to give it a try, so why not? So now here I sit typing away and generally speaking the transition is painless and almost completely transparent.

As I do more with this system, I will update this site, so stay tuned!