The past week has been a wild ride. And wild rides often result in some of my more interesting articles (in my not so humble opinion). This week has been different though. I don't know why either. But there have been so many articles that I wrote in my head, I reasoned through, I argued with myself, yet never actually made it into existence. Some were articles born out of frustration, some out of relief, some the offspring of a silly mood, and others the spawn of white-hot rage. I...

Whew, we made it. Yesterday was travel day, flying from Durham, NC to Salt Lake City, UT. . .with a 5 year old and a (not quite) 2 year old. Always an adventure, it actually went pretty well. Aubrey amazingly fell asleep the majority of the second flight, but since it was a tiny plane, and I am not too little, it was a bit cramped with her in my arms. Northwest doesn't know their earlobe from their butt-hole, and so my parents had been told time and again that our plane hadn't lef...

So I know that there are a few people here who have been posting photos. And I know that some of them (wink wink chiprj) are hoping the host they are using doesn't figure out they are hotlinking the photos. In an effort to help us all out I registered at Imageshack.us and tried uploading a photo to see how the service is. And I am pretty impressed so far. Here are the results: If everything works out when I hit submit there should be first a small thumbnail that opens a new...

Since my decision to blog more frequently I have, on more than one occasion, sat in front of the computer with a glazed over look. "What should I write?" Eventually an idea will come or I will simply ramble on about some insipid thought I had (hey now, I don't need anyone pointing out that all my blogs are like that, I know they are!). Or I even ramble on about nothing in particular at all, perhaps just my inability to come up with a good idea. In fact it wasn't too long ago I wrote a...

You just blabber. And sometimes it actually works out. I honestly believe that the at times simply the act of writing gets the creative juices flowing, allows your brain to actually think about something that, while it may not be entirely worthwhile, at least is more fun than sitting here and writing about nothing. But the writing about nothing is important as well. I like to think of it as an exercise of matter over matter. Yep. Not mind over matter, because in this case the matt...

. . .or simply particularly unispiring? Whatever the case may be, as can be evidenced by the fact I haven't written an entry for around two weeks now, I have been feeling quite uninspired. In the past I have written articles that have (however vaguely) dealt with some of the zany antics of all of us here. I have also written about music. And at times I have even written about *gasp* personal goings-on (or would that be going-ons?). But lately none of those have sparked even the most em...

I decided to attempt a dual-boot install of Linux over the weekend.  Yes, I am that big of a geek.  Installing an OS sounds like fun. Alas, I was not met with success, and conferencing with a Linux using friend were eventually fruitless (though I am extremely grateful to him for sacrificing precious board-prep time to assist!).  As it ended up I had a copy of Linux installed that eventually got me into KDE, but the computer didn't recognize there was a copy of Windows to boot i...

I have been putting this off for a while now. As I look back it is at least a month or more in coming. But I just wanted to let those friends I have made here know that I can't help but feel it is time to step away for a while. There isn't any specific reason, I just have felt I needed to force anything I have written, and I don't care for that. I would like to chalk it up to RL, but I simply am not enjoying this at the present. And that alone tells me I need to take a break. So I a...

Perhaps it is the joy of having our new son with us now. Perhaps I just mellowed out. Perhaps I grew up a bit (I certainly hope so). Whatever it is I just wanted to say that, as of today, I am starting with a clean slate. There have been bloggers here who have pissed me off, to be sure. But today I just want to forget all that. My blacklist is empty, and I hope it will stay that way. Here is too a new life in our house, and a new start for me here.

I recall reading the book "Grendel" and being introduced to stream of consciousness writing.  It was interesting, unsettling, and difficult to wade through.  I always wondered if my stream of consciousness was that random, that jumpy, that incomplete.  Consciously, I tend to think in pretty complete sentences.  But am I just making myself think that way?  Or do I suppress real stream of consciousness by forcing my thoughts in a particular direction?  I wonder. So...

Multi-tasking can be quite a pain With windows all open it becomes a real strain Chatting in one, homework in another Composing an email, perhaps to my brother? Update my system, snag the latest file The desktop is crowded, ain't seen my wall in a while These programs must go, far too many I say! Click the upper-right corner, make them all go away Then, like a brick, the thought enters my mind One of those windows had a blog, at least a few lines But alas, it is gone now, I closed i...

Untitled I have a confession to make. I don't relish doing this, but I must be honest. I am narcissistic. Did you catch that? Yes, it is true. I am narcissistic. Hopefully not to a terrible degree, but I have realized that I do like who I am and my writing, and won't complain about a little attention now and then. What brought me to this epiphany? Good question. Well, the category is blogging, so it has to do with that. I have, on occasion, seen folks recommend other ...

Suddenly it hit me.  I had just written my 201st article. It was interesting to realize that.  I recall quite vividly my planning out carefully just what I was going to write for my 100th article.  It seemed like such a landmark for me.  Interesting that 200 was a nonissue.  I have been wondering what changed over the course of the last hundred articles, and I think I have it figured out. It took me a good portion of my first 100 articles to feel like I was "settli...

For my first year here on JU I avoided using the blacklist. To be honest, it is largely because I don't attract the attention of some of the more contentious factions of our cyber-community here. But it was also out of some sense of having a high level of tolerance, of being able to "deal with it" or tolerate any behavior that might come my way. Last night, as my wife an I sat in another training session for our new role as therapeutic foster parents we had an interesting discussion abou...

Are there any known problems with the RSS feeds here lately or is it just me? I ask because even though Blog Navigator is successfully pulling in new articles from many of the other news sites I have it set up to get articles from, I am not getting anything new from JU. The most recent articles I am getting from here are dated Jan 31, even though I know there are folks who have written since then (and are set up in Blog Navigator as feeds to be checked every few minutes). Just wondering i...