Photos

LEFT: Me trying to take a picture of myself. I guess I'll be normal and have someone actually take my picture. Until then this is what I look like in the mirror holding a camera. I still have 2 eyes. RIGHT: Mt. Rainer from the sky. We went back to the area on a clear day and took pictures but they didn't work out. We gave up and took it from the plane.

Torch Carrying Mob - Assignment 2: Microsoft

Men and Women, Girls and Boys, light up your torches and grab your pitchforks. We are going to show Microsoft our version of a firewall.

The Torch Carrying Mob asks: Are we attacking Microsoft because they are an evil monopoly?

I respond: No, even though their tactic of injuring their competitors as opposed to developing a better product is bothersome, that is for the courts to resolve

The Torch Carrying Mob asks: Does this have anything with the recent trojan you found in your system?

I respond: No, but I was upset that a vulnerability in IE allowed it. Removal of the trojan was time consuming. I didn't click on a spammed email link nor visit any site out of the ordinary. I think I may have used IE too long. I usually use Firefox, which was unaffected. I only use IE to check Hotmail and get Windows updates, since the Firefox browser isn't compatible with Windows Update and Hotmail occasionally screws up. But sometimes, if I have the browser up, I use it for other things.

The Torch Carrying mob asks: Then what's your problem?

I respond: I'm bothered that I spent a good 30 minutes driving in and around the Microsoft campus looking for building 22. Microsoft has 50 or so buildings all numbered from 1 to 50 (or however many they have, I have only seen up to building 41). Now, if you had numbered buildings, what does logic tell you? Mine told me that there would be some sort of pattern to the ordering, distribution, and placement. Buildings were ordered by number: 1 was grouped with 2, 3, and 4. So, going back to patterns, where do you think building 22 would be? If you said right next to building 40 and 41, and about a quarter mile, separated by a few unnumbered buildings and a busy street, from 24, then you may be interested in this and this. If you said somewhere in the area of building 21 and 23, then I you are like a majority of rational thinking people, including myself.

I drove around the campus looking for buildings in the 20's for about a half hour. It took so long since I was unable to make any u-turn after my many unsuccessful searches. I found building 22 on a fluke. I exited the campus by crossing the major street and drove into the parking lot of a building on the other side to call my student and ask for directions. When I told here where I was she said I was at building 22.

To make matters worse, I had wait outside, in the cold, for a bit for security reasons. Too bad they don't use the same security precautions in their Internet Explorer.

It really doesn't make sense, but then nothing about Microsoft has to. If only I was geeky enough for Linux or eccentric enough for Mac, but, alas I am like the majority of people, a slave to the Windows operating system.

My Dream

I had a very vivid dream/nightmare today (I dropped the man off at the Victoria-bound ferry early this morning, came back and slept until noon). I was driving on an unknown road with my cousin in the passenger seat (this is my cousin who lives in Seattle, and who I have been spending a lot of time with). As I was driving towards the freeway I noticed a diesel going in the wrong direction, so I pointed it out to my cousin, and expressed my fear of seeing this guy run into other cars . When I finally got on the freeway, it was foggy and I was now driving downhill at a high elevation alongside a mountain. I saw more cars going in the wrong direction, but this time they were headed towards me. Suddenly, the problem wasn't the imminent head on collision, but rather, non-moving traffic going the proper direction. I tried to stop, but my breaks wouldn't work and my only choices were to run into the cars or drive off a cliff. I remember saying, "Oh, no," and feeling bad that my cousin had to die too. Then, I woke up with a jolt.

I've been obsessed with the dream all day, since I rarely remember my dreams, and this one was so clear. I think there is some meaning to dreams, though I don't trust the assessment of those on the web or in the psychology section of the bookstore. Maybe I need to get my brakes fixed.

Go Angels!

Though I hate the cheapening of Anaheim to Los Angeles, I'm still a halo fan. Go , beat the Soxs off Chicago.

Bush does something right

He must be doing something right if he has managed to get the religious conservatives angry at him (YAHOO! NEWS: Miers, the Iraq war and hurricanes prompt GOP to confront Bush).

I left the GOP in 2003 because I felt it had been hijacked by the "religious" wing of the party. With the Republican party no longer representing a substantial portion of my views, I became a librarian, oops, I mean libertarian, since the party seems consistently opposed to small government -unlike the GOP's big brother in the bedroom approach to social issues. Thus, I take great pleasure in the fact that conservative Christian whiners are now upset at their former front man.

If Bush's latest move causes a major rift within the party, I say it's a good thing. I hope the end result is a mass religious fanatic exodus from the Republican party. After that they can become the God party and damn us all to hell as part of their policy, because that is where we will end up if we don't agree with them anyway.

Unfortunately, such a split will probably weaken the GOP to fringe status and the Democrats will have total control. Our only hope is self destruction within that party as well, which will happen when misguided compassion finally surfaces and the environmental wing really takes on world overpopulation.