I've heard a lot about Dells and proprietary hardware. Enough so that when looking for more memory for my computer that badly needs upgrading from its 256 MB state, I went to the Dell site first. They wanted $90 for a 512mb stick of RAM, $150 for 1 GB. Well, I know I can beat that price. The question is, will Dell take it? So i hunted it down on Newegg, which is kind enough to feature a memory configuration checker of some sort...something that TigerDirect doesn't do, to my knowledge. My mach...
The school year's almost up, and as much as I am exhausted, I am also exhilarated. I've proved something to myself, and, quite honestly, I've decided I enjoy being back in school. And something dharma said hit me. As she is mulling going back to become a doctor, she mentioned that with all the years of schooling, she'll still be older, she'll just be older with a degree. As I've thought long and hard about where I want to go from here, since I will have my associate's by the end of the yea...
Tonight's soundtrack provided by Neil Diamond: Far, we've been traveling farWithout a homeNot without a STARFree, only want to be freeWe huddle close, hang on to a dream I was born in 1970. While it is a distant memory, I do remember America's bicentennial and the patriotism it inspired. The halcyon days of Bruce Jenner, Mary Lou Retton, and Mohammed Ali. The days when Pete Rose was a hero, not a national disgrace, and when Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw were the subject of many schoolyar...
As I edge closer to middle age, I feel the pressing need to confess my failings, my imperfections. OK, so I don't. I just think it makes for a damn decent story. It was many many years ago (How many years ago? How long is the statute of limitations for this offense? Take that and add one year). We sat around drinking intoxicating beverages and playing increasingly modified games of Axis & Allies (Kamchatka gets two turns in a row...take THAT Mongolia!). Somewhere between the game and t...
As I edge closer to middle age, I feel the pressing need to confess my failings, my imperfections. OK, so I don't. I just think it makes for a damn decent story. It was many many years ago (How many years ago? How long is the statute of limitations for this offense? Take that and add one year). We sat around drinking intoxicating beverages and playing increasingly modified games of Axis & Allies (Kamchatka gets two turns in a row...take THAT Mongolia!). Somewhere between the game and t...
This morning, on my way in to class, I made a detour. I picked up a box of Russell Stover chocolates and three Hallmark cards. I continued on to school and presented them to the school secretary for her and her two work study assistants. They gushed over them, especially since the Dean of the college had neglected to get them anything (It was Administrative Professional's Day, BTW). Now, some might consider this to be a generous act on my part, but I will make no bones about it. This is a lea...
OK, so I'm driving into class this morning and flipped on the radio station. Pretty decent playlist this morning, then they put on "Truckin'" by the Grateful Dead. Very nice. Until. The DJ. Starts. TALKING. OVER. THE. SONG!!!!!!! I was not happy. DJ's that talk over the songs they are playing should be first against the wall when the revolution comes. I found out right after that it was a lead in for a "song of the day" call in and they didn't want people thinking that was the time to call...
I was on a recent forum talking about a traffic stop. The guy being stopped was basically being a douche, from how the story was presented. But what got me were the replies. Several people wrote in that "you never argue with a cop". I have to take exception to that. The idea that police officers are some sort of unimpeachable authority, that they have unlimited rights and we're just supposed to sit there like timid sheep doesn't sit well with me. If a police officer asks me to do something h...
Having just started a Netflix subscription, I decided to take advantage of the "Watch it Now!" option which was a major reason for my purchasing decision. Although the current offerings are somewhat limited, there are nonetheless several decent movies in the offering. One of those movies was "The Motorcycle Diaries". Based on Che Guevara's early travels throughout South America, "The Motorcycle Diaries" is somewhat of a Latin "On the Road" with a moral conscious, and without the self serving ...
Not long ago, Myrrander wrote an article about the war. While I didn't agree with his position, there was part of his sentiment I agreed with, and I understood. I don't comment much on blogs about deployments, about separation of military spouses from their families, because there's truly not much I can say. I hate to see the families going through the uncertainty of separation, of deployments stretching into infinity. As to whether the war in Iraq was necessary, I truly, I honestly do not...
Jared's hardened eyes scanned the horizon. The head rose off the landscape in waves, distorting faraway objects and causing even the hardiest anomals to scurry to the shelter of their shaded, earth cooled burrows. While an occasional lizard presented itself, daring to dart below the watchful eyes of the circling hawks overhead, most animals had long put themselves away from a nighttime of activity and were resting for the next night's hunt. While those animals had yet been out in the night be...
Well, we got through another round of storms unscathed. In fact, it really wasn't a major lasting storm, not as bad, at least, as last week's snowstorm (final tally -- 9 inches. I tagged a photo out in the work parking lot when just a couple inches had fallen). We got home and I told my neighbor I could tell it hardly rained here. Heck, only HALF the road's surface was gone...a good gullywasher'll take out the whole thing! I love thunderstorms from one perspective. But, truthfully, from a tec...
It looks so ominous: Link A line of T-storms off to the west headed this way. Yeah, it's part of living in this part of the country, but it's kinda cool and scary at the same time to WATCH the front moving in gradually. Now, those who know me know I LIVE for these kinds of things, so I'm hoping we get hit with a pretty decent maelstrom. I'm just wishing I could be out to chase it.
He wasn't much to look at. A slightly overweight teenager with a baby face and a few stray whiskers trying to burst through to assert his adolescent status. The jeans he wore were generics from the local mercantile, and his feet were adorned with what he and his friends described as "Chinese Nikes", the particular brand of generic knockoff carried by KMart at the time that carried an upside down attempted ripoff of the "swoosh" logo. His shirts were thrift store castoffs, and his hai...
Well, I'll tip my hat to most of JU, at least, for maintaining rational thinking in the wake of the VA Tech school shooting. I wish, however, that that was the case on all of the forums I frequent. But on many forums, there's a general panic, a general rush to ban anything that's projectile flies faster or further than a compound bow with a 65 pound draw. and that rush is, of course, misguided. When Columbine occurred, I was working as a representative for our area homeschool group. Not in...