Random and occasional thoughts on

After a couple of Tuesdays without a dedicated Good News Tuesday, it is about time for another edition. I ran across the first one today, but the story is from last week. It is a story of how people from all over the world heard about a family in need of financial help to keep their house. They needed $10,000 (US Dollars) in 2 weeks to keep their house from foreclosure. That was their financial situation after mechanical problems, health problems, job loss and an unexpected pregnancy. A friend posted an entry on her blog about the families situation and word spread. Read the story for a great tale of Christmas spirit. I read another story about some folks that anonymously paid off layaway items for some Sears customers before Christmas. I think this another great story because the donors are not doing this for publicity, but just to help some people have a little better Christmas. They chose to payoff necessities like children's clothes, shoes and even some toys. Read the ...

OK, I saw this on someone else's blog so I thought I would use it once in a while. Except she said things she loves whereas I am setting the bar a bit lower. They only need to be things I like to be included in my TILT. Rainy Days Living in a desert, we don't get a lot of them, so we tend to enjoy them more when we do get them. One of the things I like about them is when you get a rainbow the rain. Since this is Christmas Day (Thursday), I would be remiss if I did not wish you a Merry Christmas. That does not mean that you need to be a Christian (much of a typical modern Christmas celebration has nothing to do with church, religion or Christ) and I wish you an equally Merry Christmas if you are Jewish, agnostic or a follower of any other religion. We can discuss the merits and flaws of different religions another time. For today, lets keep Peace on Earth and Goodwill on the Internet.

OK, you can blame Nettie for this, but of course, she will pass the blame on to someone else. As long as we don't need to take accountability for our own actions, then everything is ok. Right? Typealyzer analyzes your personality based on your writing. Here's what it said about me after it looked at my blog. Seems pretty accurate to me, especially the part about starting something new and not following through. The brain picture really is almost identical to one I got after taking a much more complete personality test. Maybe even stranger is that after listening to a few songs by the "Artist you might enjoy", I actually think it does sound like something I could get into. ESTP - The Doers The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They ...

I just read this blog post about perfection and really liked it. No, I usually do not beat myself up over perfection in most areas of my life. The bed does not need to be perfect when I make it in the morning (and if I'm in a hurry and it does not get made, I don't spend the day worrying about it). The Sunday newspaper can be on the couch next to my seat past Wednesday without giving me an ulcer. I can write an email and not worry that the grammar police are issuing a warrant for my arrest. When I do my work, it is important for me to do what is needed to keep my employer in business. That does not always mean the best database design or the most efficient SQL, and I have to be ok with that. When I work on my photography though, I tend to put a lot more effort into making things look the way that I feel is professional. Sometimes that means I delete a picture that is 95% great. Other times that means that I spend way too many hours getting it from 95% great to 99% grea...

I spent Saturday with my oldest son, my Dad and a long-time friend of my Dad's. We started off the day by going to the gun show. It had been a few years since we had been to a gun show, so we headed out to the State Fairgrounds to see what there was. More photos at Flowing Desert Photography There was a lot of people with the same idea. More photos at Flowing Desert Photography There has been some speculation that a Democrat in the White House would be likely to try and make changes to restrict gun freedoms. I think Obama winning the election has spurred a lot of people to hedge their bets and consider buying a gun (or another one) as well as some extra ammunition. This is probably a good idea within limits as firearms have typically been a good value holder, and if gun laws get tightened much, some types of weapons might see a tremendous price jump. We weren't looking for any new guns, just wishful thinking. Window shopping was all my budget could handle. There was ...

Copied this from some friends blogs. If you play along, mention it in a comment here. 1 Wrapping paper or gift bags? I prefer wrapping paper unless I need to wrap it. 2 Real tree or Artificial? Fake 3 When do you put up the tree? Usually a day or two after Thanksgiving. 4 When do you take the tree down? New Years Day usually. 5 Do you like eggnog? Yup. Sometimes with a bit of Rum if I'm not driving. 6 Favorite gift received as a child? I got so many great gifts, it is hard to pick. Probably the Atari video game system the year we got that. 7 Hardest person to buy for? My oldest son. 8 Easiest person to buy for? My sister. 9 Do you have a nativity scene? A nice wooden one we got when the boys were little and they could play with it. 10 Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. (I don't read ANY email cards unless I am expecting them and they are attachments I can download and scan. I can't stand getting eCard links and that will earn you a spot on my naughty list. 11 Worst Chri...

Many, many years ago, soon after Al Gore finished creating the first release of the internet, I made a few web pages. Nothing fancy, just some text and pictures to prove I could do it. About a year later, I was in a new job and was responsible for our corporate network. As a result, I learned about configuring routers and understanding more about the technologies to access the internet from a corporate network. At my next job a few years later, part of my job was taking care of the servers that maintained my employer's DNS information. That put me in close contact with some of the core operations of the internet. Other than those periods of time, my experience with the internet has been mostly as an end-user. I surf, I email, I game. From time-to-time, I would also dabble in looking up information with a "whois lookup" to find out who was behind a web site, but usually I have been away from the infrastructure of the internet for about 8 years. Having recently regist...