Jan
18
2012

SOPA Highlights

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January 18, 2012

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are two bills currently mingling in the United States House of Representatives. It would take too much time and effort for me to explain how ludicrous it is that we have misinformed politicians writing litigation for an internet that they apparently do not understand. Instead, I’ll assume you understand the basics of these bills, and I’ll just point out my favorite things I’ve seen relating to them as the bills have progressed. If you do not understand these bills and are confused by an internet search for them (they are extremely complicated), you can ask me about them apart from the blog, and I’d be happy to explain them to you as best I can.

 

So, these bills just stop online piracy, right? How could stopping illegal activity be bad? This is the notion being perpetuated by the media, the MPAA and RIAA, and some big copyright holders–translation, the supporters of the bill. It’s also a sentiment shared by people who generally don’t understand how the internet works. The truth is, these bills do far more in what they don’t say than in what they do say. Ultimately, they’re creating an internet blacklist controlled by the government. Translation: government censorship.

The bills were proposed by a Republican Congressman from Texas named Lamar Smith. Yes, this is the same Lamar Smith who got the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed. It’s also the same Lamar Smith who has admitted that he does not have a full understand of the internet. Two things seem ironic here: first, we have politicians who admit that they do not fully understand “something” passing legislation against that “something”. Second, we have apparently “small government” Republicans trying to pass censorship bills.

Today, the Internet Blackout is taking place, and it’s essentially the first day the media corporations have at least nodded their head in the direction of this legislation. Why? The bills have been tossed around for months. By all appearances, it would appear that the media was trying to keep the bills hushed up so they would quickly pass. Unfortunately, the internet giants have made sure to get the word out. Only now, after people have started hearing about the bills through other sources, has the media started covering them. That makes sense, considering the MPAA, RIAA, and other media outlets have financially supported the drafting of the bills.

When SOPA was shelved last weekend, that was the first time the media really covered the story. They were very careful to use strong language like “killed” and “terminated” in reference to the SOPA bill. However, the bill was not “killed”. It was temporarily shelved, sure to come back in the near future (quietly, they’ve said they’re taking it back off the shelf in February … that’s not far from now). And there sure was a lot of attention focused on SOPA being shelved when PIPA was still alive and well, proceeding toward a vote.

There are several provisions at the beginning of the SOPA bill which state the bill intends to defend the First Amendment, protect the integrity of the internet, and promote cyber security. Interestingly, the very nature of the bill breaks down each of those things, which illustrates the lack of understanding the drafters of the bill have in regards to the internet.

This next point is particularly controversial, but SOPA and PIPA assume all forms of copyright infringement are intentional and inherently evil. Recent surveys indicate that over 20% of Americans have pirated something at some time. Over 70% of Americans 25-35. And over 90% of Americans under the age of 25. Does this mean 90% of Americans 25 and under are actively striving to steal? No, it means that the very nature of the internet is advertising and publicity. It may seem a stretch to suggest that piracy is publicity, but it’s no more a stretch than the MPAA and RIAA make when stating that every pirated download is a lost sale. More importantly, however, this illustrates that much of the internet’s piracy is not intentional theft, and therefore cannot be counted as “lost sales.”

Lamar Smith, lead supporter and Congressman who introduced the bill to the house, actually illegally hosted copyright material on his website until a few weeks ago. The background image of his website was a photograph taken by DJ Schulte, used without permission. The website went down shortly after a news article pointed this out, and the image has since been removed. However, SOPA doesn’t have any clauses for forgiveness. He hosted copyrighted content without permission. Shouldn’t he be held responsible? This is not an example of how copyright infringement is okay or should be tolerated. This is illustrating how even well-intentioned websites would be subject to blocking merely because they inadvertently used copyright infringing material.

But Alex, you say, shouldn’t copyright holders be able to force someone to take their content down if they are using it without permission? Yes. And they can. There are already laws in place for that. SOPA is not meant to do that, SOPA is meant to give the government the ability to force blocking those websites.

Of course, under SOPA Lamar’s website would not actually be taken down. SOPA strives to block foreign websites, as most copyright infringing hosts are not domestic to the United States. An example of this used time and time again is ThePirateBay.org, a Swedish website, Hollywood’s nemesis, that hosts torrents of anything and everything. Unfortunately for Congress, though the registrar and servers to ThePirateBay are foreign, the registry of the domain is hosted on a .org domain, which is actually domestic to the United States. Some have argued whether this is truly what the bill meant to say, so it may prove to be a moot point, but on the surface it certainly looks like their poster child for evil is immune from the bill.

When chief analysts and internet architects (including Vint Cerf [TCP/IP], Jim Gettys [HTTP/1.1], Leonard Kleinrock [ARPANET], and more … read: “the guys who created the internet”) approached Lamar and Congress to explain to them that their bill was fundamentally flawed, would break the internet, and would destroy the constructs of cyber security, Congressman Smith replied by saying that the opinions of the opposition “do not matter.” Which, in my opinion, is a great way to get re-elected. He also went on to say that the opposition was a “small minority” of the internet. Really? You would consider hundreds of millions of users, not to mention every internet giant and nearly every other tech corporation to be a “minority”? I guess we’ll see how big a “minority” can be after the petition results come out after today.

After the bill started receiving heated response from the internet community, the White House came out with their opinion on the matter. They expressed that they did not approve of the bills, and it was implied that President Obama would simply veto the bills if they were passed. This was when SOPA was shelved. However, when asked about the White House’s response, Lamar and other SOPA supporters said they were “glad to have the support of the White House,” and that they were now “looking forward to pushing this bill through to passing.” Sounds like denial to me.

 

Ultimately, this legislation does nothing to stop the problem they claim to be solving: piracy. It slaps a band-aid on a symptom (or at least tries to), but in doing so it sinks to the level of China’s internet censorship. The proposed laws also draw very solid lines in where the government would have to stop censoring. Copyright protection laws already exist. SOPA and PIPA merely try to take the burden of maintaining their rights off of the copyright holders and moving them onto the content providers. For small providers, this might be manageable. But for giants like Google, Facebook, or Twitter, it’s absurd to suggest that those companies should monitor what their users are doing (First Amendment violation) and remove linked content based on what another website is doing.

What I have pointed out are only surface level absurdities to the SOPA and PIPA bills proposed. I have many other opinions when it comes to matters of piracy, the figures of monetary “losses” the MPAA and RIAA claim each year that are apparently due to pirating, and internet censorship. But it would take far too many blogs to explain all of those as well. But it comes down to the fact that the verbiage of the bills is tamper not just with the content of the internet, but with the security and the infrastructure of the web as well. They may appear to simply be “protecting copyright material”, but you shouldn’t just rip up a street because the street may lead to an unrepeatable city, or to the house of a thief. Go arrest the thief. Don’t prohibit anyone from driving on a road near him. And, as Congressman Lamar Smith should probably learn, you may want to better define what a “thief” truly is.

 

If you’re interested in understanding the evils of SOPA and PIPA, check out this article on reddit—the Devil is in the details. I also strongly urge you to sign Google’s petition against SOPA and PIPA before January 24th.

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Nov
03
2011

Investment vs. Loan Payoff

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November 3, 2011

The Thought

A few weeks back, I was contemplating various ways Jess and I could possibly payoff school debt sooner rather than later.  I had a spreadsheet detailing my current Loan Payment Plan, but I was more than willing to knock months off the bottom of that plan, if at all possible.  So I mulled over several schemes for paying them off sooner: embezzlement, bank robbery, pirated movie sales.  The usual.  But none of these options gave me complete confidence that they were bullet proof.

And then another, slightly more ethical thought crept into my mind: what if I pulled money from my own investments and used that to pay off school loans?  After all, my investments were earning less interest on a monthly basis than the loans were accruing interest.  Surely it made sense then to use the money from investments to payoff the loans.

Additionally, though I would be lowering the balance of the investments for the short term, I would more quickly be able to put larger monthly contributions toward them, as I would no longer be putting those monthly payments to my student loans.  This seemed intuitive.  And, after Googling the idea, I found that this isn’t all that uncommon of a practice, and many of the articles encouraged this practice.  The other half of the articles suggested that it’s not possible to take money from a mutual fund (like a 401k or an IRA) before you’re 59 and 1/2, but this isn’t true.  I know.  I called several brokerages.

 

The Realization

However.

Upon further research, and with an Excel spreadsheet that was the brain child of my brother, I have found these assumptions to be untrue.  It seems common sense—and it seems reason would suggest that pulling low interest investments out and putting the money toward high interest loans would save you money in the long run, but the long-term ramifications of this were actually quite startling.

The attached spreadsheet, I believe, will speak for itself.  But the understand you at least need to have going into it is knowing why the these posts suggesting pulling from a mutual fund is a good idea; they’re missing the concept of exponential growth.

In the short-term, you believe that pulling a few thousand out of mutual funds now won’t matter, because you’ll quickly pay that few thousand back, with interest.  But you’re missing how fast mutual funds start to grow exponentially each subsequent year, and the more you pull out, the more difficult (or even impossible) it will be for you to catch up with payments over the long-term.

 

The Big Idea

Download the spreadsheet, plug your numbers in, and see if pulling from your investments is a good idea for you (there are a few circumstances where, if you’re disciplined, you can pay yourself back soon enough).  But I would suggest against this.

But here’s the Big Idea, and the real heart of the issue.  Withdrawing money from your investments, whether you can ultimately pay the amount back in full, or whether you’ll save money by paying off your loans sooner, gives you a dangerous mindset toward long-term investing.  It puts the thought into the back of your mind that, if absolutely necessary, your mutual funds may be liquid cash.  And they’re not.  They shouldn’t be.  You will need those funds for you in thirty years when inflation is catching up with your finances, when your kids start looking at college, and when you’re thinking about retirement.

 

 

 

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Oct
30
2011

The Government Sucks at Budgeting

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October 30, 2011

Most recently, I wrote a post regarding the proposed cuts to the United States Defense budget.  In that article I detailed that, when budget cuts are being discussed in Congress, Defense is always first and foremost on the chopping block, it seems.  Defense is the figment that Americans take for granted because they can’t see it; it isn’t tangible to them.

I suggested, in turn, that the Entitlement Programs be more thoroughly evaluated for cuts instead.  Naturally, I was not presuming no cuts to Defense.  I’m open to some cuts from Defense, but primary cuts should come from elsewhere.  Unfortunately, that suggestion is exactly what would never get me elected.  Cut Entitlement Programs, lose those votes (which is most of America); cut Defense, people foolishly assume they’re not affected.

The simple fact is, however, something must be cut.  I believe we’ve past the point of mutual exclusion, unfortunately, between Republican ideas and Democratic proposals.  It’s time for a compromise.  The only way our country will ever truly recover from our governments reckless spending will be to raise taxes and cut programs.  Let’s see how the U.S. Government’s current budget looks …

 

Two things you can easily identify from the above charts: first, the expenses for 2010 exceed the income by 1.3 trillion.  This seems a problem, if you ask me.  Second, if you cut the entire Defense budget, we would still have a deficit.  This would lead me to the correct assumption that Defense is not the entire problem.

Though the above paragraphs and diagrams have been factual, from here we can only continue into opinions.  Opinions of what you believe government should be to people.  Personally, here is what I believe: Social Security is a ponzi scheme (wait, that one’s a fact, not an opinion) that assumes the citizens of the country aren’t smart enough to think and plan for themselves.  While this may be true, I don’t believe this is the place of government.

Medicare and Unemployment Insurance are for the government to manage, but they are secondary to the government’s primary responsibility, which is the protection and security of its citizens.  Therefore, the two combined should be equivalent to the government’s Defense budget.

But guess what?  Cutting these programs out or down still wouldn’t resolve our budget issues.

Here’s my point: we continue analyzing new budget proposals, but no politician will properly look at the areas that are truly pushing the budget over because it wouldn’t get them re-elected (or elected in the first place).

Don’t you love politics?  I sure do.  Formulate your own opinions on what should be cut, but the simple fact is, some of everything needs to be cut, and Defense is more of a necessity than the average American believes.  I’ll leave you with a few more fun graphs regarding the U.S. budget.


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Oct
27
2011

Urge Congress to Support Defense

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October 27, 2011

Not sure what your stance is on this issue, but in the case that you lean toward cutting Entitlement Programs rather than National Security programs, please fill out the templated letter to our Congressman below.  It literally takes less than fives minutes to fill out and read the pre-written letter, so if you agree with this, then exercise your right as an American to voice your opinion!

 
 

For a bit of background, Defense is almost always the first thing Congress looks to when trying to cut the budget (they’ve cut 460 billion from the Defense budget over the last ten years), presumably because the general public believes Defense does not directly affect them.  Obviously this is not true, but regardless, the currently proposed cuts would have a severe impact on the protection and security of our country, as well as over one million jobs throughout the country.  Obviously, jobs are affected either way: cut National Security, Defense jobs are affected; cut Entitlement Programs, those employed by those programs may be fired.  But I would argue that you won’t have Entitlement Programs at all if you don’t maintain a defense of the country that’s promising them to you.

The current defense budget is about 4.9 percent of GDP—the lowest ever during wartime and well below the post-war average of 5.3%.  In 1970, Defense took up almost 40 percent of the federal budget; today it makes up less than 16 percent of federal spending.

The thing that worries me most is that people talk about the defense budget as though that’s where the deficits and the debt have incurred. You could wipe out the entire defense budget and not solve the debt problem.

The first responsibility of government is to protect the American people. It’s important to have priorities and a strategy and know what you would like to do and then fund against those priorities and those strategies.

- Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

 

 
 

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Oct
18
2011

Puppy Potty Training

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October 18, 2011

Dante, our little Shih Tzu ball of fluff, is finally fully potty trained (now I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t just jinx things by announcing that).  I can finally relax when the chubby little guy waddles out of the room unattended–I no longer have to chase him down and ensure the door is closed so he sticks close by.  I don’t wander about prolonged silence anymore.  But, after Jess’ and my potty-training endeavours, I feel compelled to share with my audience two key points it seems all of the puppy potty training guides I ready seemed to conveniently (and frustratingly) ignore.

You see, Dante isn’t exactly the quickest, most intelligent of his breed.  In fact, it took him well over a month to even grasp the concept of not peeing inside, and nearly two months before I would say he was truly potty trained (to the point where he’d come tell us when he needed to go out).  Yet every how-to guide I read on puppy potty training said the same thing: do x, y, and z for one week and your dog will be potty trained.

First, I wonder if their definition of “potty trained” simply means that, when your dog is outside, it knows to go potty.  Dante had that figured out after a few days.  But that certainly didn’t mean he didn’t regularly continue to have accidents inside for more than a month after learning outside was the place to go.  If this is the definition of “potty trained” they are meaning to use, they all need to be much more clear about it.  And if you’re finding this blog after making the assumption I did (that “potty trained” meant, you know … fully potty trained), then I’m hear to offer you hope: there is light at the end of that tunnel.  Or at least dry carpet.

Second, none of the guides I read were written with apartment dwellers in mind.  And I know we’re not the only apartment dwellers with pets, since every one of our neighbors has yappy dogs.  Oh, as a little tangent about training and obedience: just like a child, yelling at the offender, empty threats or whatever springs into your crazy mind, does nothing if you don’t actually back it with discipline.

So, the lesson that I’ve learned in potty training a puppy that I’d lake to share and encourage you with is this: it takes time, patients, and consistency.  But most of all patience.  What the guides won’t tell you (though you should probably just assume this … duh) is that every dog is different.  Dante wasn’t disobedient in any other way.  He’s good with commands, he loves doing what makes his masters happy, and he tries oh-so-hard to please us 100% of the time … but he just has a tiny bladder.

I did read many guides that straight up said, “If it takes longer than a week to potty train your dog, you’re doing it wrong”.  I submit the writers of these guides either don’t really know what they’re talking about, or maybe you just need to refer to my first point (on the definition of “potty trained”) … or I don’t know what I’m talking about.  Which is also possible.

My point is, whether I know what I’m talking about or not, and whether I properly potty trained my dog or not (I was consistent, stern, and determined, and followed The Guides to a T), he is now potty trained; it just took a lot longer than expected.  So if you’re in the process of potty training your puppy, and you keep finding all these “I’m so good at training a dog, listen to me” guides that are discouraging you, don’t fret!  There is hope!  Keep doing what you’re doing, and keep encouraging your puppy when he does what is right.  Someday, he’ll have a bladder big enough to oblige the desires of his heart (which are to make you happy) and your request for him to not soil your shoes.

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Sep
24
2011

Information You Won’t Find Useful, Vol. 5

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September 24, 2011

UARS, the Forgotten Satellite

For those of you who don’t have interaction with the outside world (and I’m honored that you’ve chosen your first interaction to be with my blog), you’re probably not aware that a satellite recently came crashing out of the sky.  The satellite knows as Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was a research satellite used to track and observe weather patterns and the Earth’s atmosphere … this is code for saying it was a spy satellite, obviously.

At any rate, UARS launched into space in 1991 with the Space Shuttle Discovery.  Twenty years later, UARS was out of fuel and out of options as it slowly (“slowly” being loosely defined as, you know, 15,000 MPH) lost momentum in its orbit and inched toward the Earth.

Finally, early this morning, it crashed into the Pacific.  Somewhere.  We’re still not actually sure where exactly it hit.  There are rumors that fragments of the 6-ton satellite may have scattered into parts of Canada’s land mass, which is totally fine since no one lives up there anyway.  Luckily, the populated portions of the Earth are safe.

If you do happen to be an adventurous traveler in the confines of Canada (a moment of silence for the poor lost soul) and you find debris from UARS, NASA says not to touch it.  They promise there’s no space radiation on it, so my guess as to the reason they say not to touch it is that the small martians that live on it may jump out and bite you.

 

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

This week, Obama repealed the infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell restriction for the United States military.

On Thursday, a few audience members booed a gay soldier who asked Rick Santorum if he would reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell were he the newly elected president.  Yes he would, he said, and most conservative candidates tend to agree with him.

I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military—that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege [...] removing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I think, tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.

Now, as a Christian, I do not agree with a homosexual lifestyle.  I believe it is wrong, and I do not condone it.  However, I disagree with Santorum, because I also believe my beliefs on the morality of your sexual orientation have little to do with politics or your ability to serve your country.  And it seems to me that reinstating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would be more of a social injection than removing it has been.

I believe issues of legality should be things we take into consideration when allowing someone to serve in the military.  However, homosexuality is not an issue of legality, it’s a matter of personal lifestyle.  The United States will not kick you out of the military for being a particular religion, or if you are an habitual liar, or if a heterosexual has been unfaithful to their wife.  Yet somehow Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell assumes that homosexuality is just that sin that goes too far.

The apparently obvious conclusion Santorum and other conservatives try to come to is that “any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military”.  However, people who make statements like these generally just stop the assertion wherever is most comfortable for them.  For instance, this assertion seems to stop at soldiers and feelings and lifestyles.  It seems to make the assumption that soldiers are robots that have one duty and one duty only: “to defend our country”.  Anything beyond that, apparently, is wrong for a soldier.  So, for conservatives to truly stick to their word in reinstating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, they’d also need to ban any heterosexual activities or discussion that would indicate his sexual orientation or personal lifestyle.  That would even prohibit a soldier from talking about his wife back home.  That would obviously be silly and pointless.  Good, then I’ve made my point.

And the loud-mouth idiot(s) in the audience booing the gay soldier asking the question of Santorum enjoys the safety and peace this homeland offers him because of that very soldier.  Now that’s gratitude.

My final thought: government regulations or not, it doesn’t really matter—the people you fight next to and live and die with are going to know more about you than a silly regulation allows or bans.

On a lighter note, Jess pointed out to me, “You know, if they do reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and we ever have a draft, just come out and say you’re gay.  Then you won’t be allowed to serve.  That’d be an amusing way to stick it to ‘em.”

 

Juanita’s First Scratch

Juanita, the new VW Jetta SE Jess and I purchased in August, has been given her first scratch.  Observe.

Really, not that bad at all.

We were on our way home from Red Robin (I’m currently eating the leftovers as I write this), and we were making a left off Collins to Edgewood.  There are two left turn lanes there—I was in the leftmost lane—but the old man in the right lane didn’t seem to notice that.  He seemed to think he needed to move into my lane now.  And he did so.  Well, he tried to, anyway.  No blinker, by the way.

Somehow I suspected he was going to try this, so I already had my hand on the horn and let it blare as he inched his way into my lane.  He quickly veered back into his lane, and we both safely made our left turns in separate lanes to Edgewood.

Jess and I both let out sighs of relief, and we discussed in length the craziness of the man who did not use his blinker, nor did he look over his shoulder.

“That would have been the first damage to our car if he had hit us,” I mused.

Moments later we heard a loud *whack*.

“Oops,” I muttered.

“What was that?”  Jess shrieked.

It was someone’s bumper.  Not on their car, mind you.  It had fallen off their car.  It was just in the middle of the lane we were in.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen it until it was too late, and there was a car to our right anyway.   I ran it over, it got caught up in my tires, and half of it flew up and scratched poor Juanita.

Luckily, I happen to have the interior/exterior protection plan, which covers this sort of thing.  Juanita should have that scratched buffed out of her by this time next week.

 

Mass Effect: The Movie

According to an announcement at Comic-Con, Legendary Pictures plans on creating a movie adaptation of the popular video game series Mass Effect.  Or rather, they plan on making a film based upon the first installment of the video game.

The writers and directors have put the trilogy on par with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which I would tend to agree with … in video game form.  Mass Effect is by far one of the best and most immersive video games I’ve ever played, and this goes for the story, gameplay, graphics, and character development equally.  For those of you who have not played Mass Effect, the game mixes role-play with first-person-shooter in a choose-your-own-ending sort of way.  Literally.  There are thousands of choices that you make within the Mass Effect series, and dozens of game paths you can travel down.

In the grand scheme of things, your character develops one of two personas: paragon or renegade.  Paragon being the diplomatic, quick-witted, honorable soldier that is known of for his dignity and heroic acts, and renegade being the insolent antagonizer who is known for the fierce antics he uses to get the job done.

And that’s really just the problem with the possibility of a movie.  Shepherd, the main character that you control, could be one of two very opposite personalities, or anywhere in between.  Not only that, but players of the game are used to not just controlling Shepherd’s actions (like the average video), but also choosing the words he speaks during conversations.

The writers for Legendary Pictures have said that they’re aware that most movie adaptions of video games have failed, but they believe that this movie will be different due to Mass Effect’s immersive and intriguing story.  I think that’s the very reason the movie will be a pretty big disappointment to fans.

Anyway, assuming there is a movie, you’d better get caught up by playing the games.  Follow the links for the images below to purchase the series from Amazon.com:

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Sep
11
2011

Remebering 9/11

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September 11, 2011

To anyone old enough to remember the events of September 11th, 2001, a picture of the Twin Towers is one of the most iconic symbols of their lifetime.

“You won’t need to write this down,” my dad said to me that evening.  ”An event like this is one that you will remember vividly for the rest of your life.”

And it’s true.  I do remember.

 

I remember waking up at 7:30am (CST).

I remember that my mom and Ashley were in Alabama for the week; I remember Dad was out at the Showman’s farm for the morning.

I remember receiving a phone call at 7:50am.  ”Hey!”  I’d recognize that southern twang anywhere: Spencer.  ”Put Andrew on the phone,” he said.

“He’s in the shower.  I’ll have him call you back when he gets out,” I said, moving to hang the phone up again.

“Wait,” Spencer spoke urgently.  ”Turn on the TV.  And get him out of the shower.  Something just blew up at the World Trade Center.”

 

I remember pounding on the bathroom door and urging Andrew to hurry out to watch the TV with me.

I remember having a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats.

I remember Andrew promptly calling Spencer back, and we had Spencer on speaker phone for the morning as Andrew and I sat in the Family Room, eyes glued to the TV.

I remember we watched ABC News, one of the few channels that actually had an angle that witnessed the second plane approach the second tower—so I clearly remember watching the second plane smash into the second tower at 8:03am.  I remember the haunting realization at that moment that these were thoroughly planned and intentional attacks.

 

I remember hearing reports a little over thirty minutes later of a third plane that had crashed into the Pentagon, and I remember beginning to wonder how many more planes might be hijacked all over the country.

 

I remember seeing hundreds of people jump from the upper floors of the World Trade Centers on live television.  I remember asking, “What is that sound?” to my brother.  ”It sounds like car windows smashing out, or like something being smashed …”  I remember a news reporter stating that the sound was jumpers hitting the pavement …

I remember the second tower collapsing at 8:59am (CST).  I remember the first tower collapsing four minutes later.

 

I remember Dad trying to call from the Showman’s all morning, but Andrew was on the phone with Spencer—busy signal.  I remember Dad finally faxing us a form that said, “GO BUY GAS.”  We thought it was a strange request, but we drove the van to fill it up with gas.  Andrew and I asked the attendant at the station, “Is gas about to go up?”  ”Not that I’m aware of,” the lady behind the counter said.

By the time we got back to the gas station ten minutes later with the car, the price of gas had risen $1 per gallon.

 

I remember waiting the rest of the day for news of the next building that had been crashed into, and being relieved at the end of the day when the news finally stopped coming.

 

I remember on September 12th, 2001, waking up, going outside, looking at the sky, and seeing a perfectly blue sky.  Not a single cloud.  Not a single contrail—something you take for granted that you see on a daily basis.

 

 

I think it’s important to remember from time to time.  Not to bring us down, but to continue to bring us together the way we woke up unified on September 12th.  Whether you believe the true story of the planes crashing into the buildings, or you buy into a delusion conspiracy theory filled with plot holes, the fact remains the same: thousands of innocent people lost their lives that day.  And thousands of people gave their lives to save thousands more.

 

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

— Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

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Sep
09
2011

The Look and the Tumbles

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September 9, 2011

Look, the site has new features and widgets and headers (oh my)!

But enough about that … about my lack of blogging recently.

I’m a very pressured person, you know?  On the one hand, I get ideas for blogging on a daily basis.  Numerous times a day, usually.  But with that I feel that there is a certain length of post I must meet before it makes the blog worthwhile.  This may or may not be true … but it’s how I feel, anyway.

Somehow I’ve escaped this feeling with Tumblr.  Maybe it’s the implication of the name, but Tumblr just feels like a spontaneous blurb sort of a blogging place.  So, to my loyal followers who continually pester me about regular posting (like Texas Girl … actually, Texas Girl is my only real “follower”.  So why are the rest of you reading this?), subscribe to my Tumblr feed, which will give you daily doses of things I stumble upon (ha!) and just want to share one or two brief paragraphs about.

I’m working on an elegant way to work my Tumblr into my main website, but as it stands now, I’ve got nothing.  So I guess this leaves me with two blogs: one that contains lengthy, more meaningful posts, dissertations, and tirades, and a second more spontaneous and brief blog … er, Tumblr.

Tumblr can be accessed by the second “T” on the header of any page on my website, or you can click here.  To subscribe to my Tumblr feed, click here.  My Tumblr promise is that I will post at least one thing each day.

For my blog, I’m going to try to make an effort to post at least one thing per month.  We’ll see how that goes.  Starting … tomorrow.  Well, or I guess right now.  This post doesn’t count.  Anyway, see you again tomorrow.

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Aug
31
2011

What’s the Deal with Gift Cards?

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August 31, 2011

As you can probably imagine, my wife and I received a lot of gift cards for our wedding.  Now I’m not complaining about gift cards or free money−if you can call a gift card free money … it’s like free money, but with a leash attached to it−they’re especially great when they’re to a relevant house-warming type place, like Target or Bed Bath and Beyond.

But I’m really digressing from my main point.  My main point is that gift cards are incredibly inconvenient.  (As an aside, to all of you who got us gift cards … thank you).  It’s interesting, because up until this point, I would get people gift cards because they seem more convenient, or more personal.  And I imagine that’s why most everyone else gives them as well.  But they’re not.  Sorry.  Give cash.

Perhaps my largest complaint with gift cards, aside from the bother of having to decide where you want to shop based on your remaining cards (and … how much is on each one again), is largely a technological shortcoming in them.

Example.  You go to Target, you browse the aisles, you fill your cart with your merch, and you hit the registers.  Upon scanning all of your items, your cashier tells you your total, and you scan your gift card.  A few awkward seconds will go by, and the cashier will ask you, “How much is on that gift card.”  Well, I couldn’t say.  I have fifteen of them in my wallet … this may have been one of the ones with $20 on it.  Of course, I may have already used $8.75 of that $20, so there’s really no telling how much is on it.

You stand there awkwardly for a few more seconds, waiting for the cashier to finish the transaction, when you suddenly realize that the cashier isn’t actually going to do anything until you give them a number.  So you throw one out.  $20 wasn’t right, apparently.  You try $10.  How about $50.  None of these work, so your gift card is rejected.

You pay with your credit card and drive home, open up your laptop, go to Target.com, look up the remaining balance of your gift card on their website, and jot that balance down on the gift card.  With a Sharpie, just so you don’t lose it again.  There, that should do it.

Wait a minute.  Did you look up your remaining balance on Target’s own website?  Yet their computers in the store weren’t able to automatically obtain this information for you?  Don’t be deceived by the “our computers aren’t equipped for that” speech either.  I have found (after having this happen to me many, many times) that you can actually ask the cashier to look up your balance for you before they start scanning your items.  However, once the items start being scanned, Target’s amazing mainframe is unable to ping the balance of your gift card … yet it’s allowed to charge it … and decline it if the funds are insufficient.

This isn’t localized to Target.  It’s actually happened at Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart, and BestBuy, just to name a few.  Developers, is it really so difficult for you to incorporate this check automatically into the systems?

That is all.

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Aug
29
2011

Loan Payment Update

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August 29, 2011

I updated the Loan Payment Plan spreadsheet to allow for minimum payments on loans. This is a fairly small update, but definitely worth mentioning if the loans you’ve entered into the old spreadsheet have minimum monthly payments that aren’t incorporated into the old spreadsheet (or you’ve been incorporating them manually).

So, if you have the old spreadsheet and need to enter monthly payments, or … you have the old spreadsheet at all, you should download this latest one, which has a few other tweaks to it, I recommend it.  Obviously.  Because I wrote it.  Anyway, the link on the old post has been replaced, so just refer to that.  Oh, sorry, you’ll have to re-enter your loan information in the new spreadsheet …

 
 
 

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