fluff stuff

Leaving, I guess

2008-11-03T08:59:00.001-05:00

Hey, so I've recently become obsessed with hosting and owning all of my own data, so I'm starting a new blog.

You can reach me now at ryan.waldroop.net

see you there!

Things in Fours

2008-05-06T08:41:00.003-04:00

I've been tagged by Mr. Shope.

Four jobs I've had:
1. Exterminator
2. Janitor
3. Freelance Computer Technician
4. Call Center Worker

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. The Patriot
2. Men in Black (I and II)
3. Pirates of the Caribbean (all of them)
4. Lord of the Rings (all of them)

Four places I have lived:
1. Fort Mill/Indian Land
2. Edgemoor
3. Indian Land
4. umm...that's it.

Four shows I love:
1. JAG
2. Boy Meets World
3. Family Guy
4. This is a tossup between Red Dwarf and The IT Crowd

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Townsend, Tennessee (the quiet side of the Smokies)
2. Walt Disney World
3. All over VA, PA, DC, and MD seeing Civil War battlefields and Lee's Retreat to Appomattox
4. The Senior Cruise to Cozumel and Grand Cayman.

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Mashed Potatoes
2. Filet Mignon au Poivre at the Parson's Table
3. Cheesecake
4. Anything else at the Parson's Table

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Gmail
2. Wired
3. Slashdot
4. Google Reader

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Disney
2. The Parson's Table
3. Working ON computers (making money) instead of WITH computers (writing papers and answering phones)
4. Smoking my pipe.

If you read this, consider yourself tagged.

Response to Josh's Entry on Immigration

2007-06-14T16:21:00.000-04:00

I just wrote (what I think) is a good response to Josh Shope's blog entry on immigration. He makes great points, I just wanted to point out some other things to consider. I've already posted this response to his blog, so some of you may have already read it. A lot of my ideas come from this video on immigration.

Josh also wrote another immigration blog entry that I commented on.

Now enjoy your feature presentation!

I agree with most of what you said, Josh, and many of the comments. We should love ALL people, because they are a part of God's creation. Also, as Jerolin said, we as Americans must insist they obey the laws and come here legally. Whether those laws are correct, moral, good, or stupid should be saved for another debate.

While Mexicans (for example) are indeed very poor, they are still somewhere in the top 25% (I think) of the world's wealth. Where does that leave America when it comes to helping the rest of the world? I'm sure we can all agree that as Americans we are very lucky, and we should help the poor and oppressed of this world. **BUT bringing them all here is not the solution!**

What I think many of you are failing to see is that America is what America is because we have always been a very LARGE (in land mass) country with relatively FEW citizens. If America allowed the bottom 25% of the world's population to move here for a better life, there would be NO better life for ANYONE...because there would then be about 2 Billion people living here. Just think: the bottom 25% of the world's poorest people is five times larger than our current population!

So what do we do about all of those poor people? We can't let them starve, they deserve a better life, and we can't let them all move here. Well, there are other rich countries...but those are relatively small and crowded as it is. See Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and the more developed parts of China, for example. The ONLY thing we can do is aid them where they are. We have to do a better job protecting the oppressed peoples of Africa from the ruling regime. We have tried sending money, food, and machine equipment over there, but it all ends up being taken by a dictator.

And...Well I kinda forgot where I was going with all of this...but you get the point. We need to help people, but moving them to another part of the world is not the way to do it.

Barack Obama

2007-05-02T17:26:00.000-04:00

I think Barack just (well, actually a while back) won my vote for 2008. It's going to take a crazy freaking awesome Republican to make me change my mind.

Barack Obama on Iraq

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Yo, Yo!

2007-01-10T18:20:00.000-05:00

So Christmas was a TONNE (yes, a metric ton!) of fun! Laura and I did a lot of traveling: 23 Dec 06 with my dad, then Santa came to his house for Christmas Eve Morning, then we stopped to see Laura's mom's parents on the way to her dad's parent's house out in the Westminster/Walhalla area, then we got back to my mom's house at about 12:30am Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning, where we spent most of the day opening presents and eating, then went over to my grandparent's house (even though they were there for Christmas morning) for EVEN MORE PRESENTS. whew...Yeah, my family does a really big Christmas.

Just before New Year's, my grandfather was hospitalized because of breathing difficulties, and we later found out he had a heart attack. We're not sure when he had the heart attack (I think it was in the hospital because the stupid nurses wouldn't give him his medicine and he got upset). We're also not sure if he had the heart attack because of his breathing (emphysema), or vice versa.

My Paw-Paw still made me go to Westminster with Laura for New Year's. Anyone remember what my resolution was last year?

My New Year's Resolution is to kiss a girl at midnight next New Year's Eve... if not New Year's '07, then definitely by '08.

Hooray! I kept my resolution! Laura and I kissed right after the ball dropped, then she fell asleep. :-P

Class has started back now, and I've got a very busy schedule trying to juggle work and school. I'll be at winthrop for about 12 hours every monday and wednesday. I think classes will go ok though - as long as I do my work. And I won't get to see Laura a whole lot because of my 18 hours of school and 15 hours of work plus breaks between classes, so I *should* be able to buckle down and get my stuff done. Emphasis on *SHOULD* ;-P

Also please come to Something Else Bible Study. I will be leading a discussion (I hope) on the Passion Week, and a harmony of such. (Thanks to Mr. King for the Bible Class project!) We will be meeting Wednesday Nights at 8pm starting next week. Hope you can make it! :-D

Well that was entirely to long for you to even want to read. Now back to "work." If you're bored, please listen to my podcast the "Weekend Meltdown"

Update, plus boring Linux crap

2006-12-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

First, a word from our sponsers...well, my sponser...well, myself:

How about checking out the Weekend Meltdown, eh? That would be fun, right? yeah...head on over. And join the forum! Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

I went to Trinity's 1944 USO Christmas show last night. That was cute! They had Mr. Gold playing Kaiser, the King of Swing. He was a big band director/comedian from that time period. Also, be sure to come check out Trinity's game tonight as they take on New Covenant.

Now some techy stuff: So I found my windows XP install CD, and am re-updating to SP 2. Here a few reasons why, not that most people who read this would even care. Part of it is a repeat of stuff I said in my last post, but really, just skip it if you don't care about linux.

From my recent slashdot post:
I just installed Linux again on my Gateway 400vtx laptop [as you've read]. I've tried many many distros of linux, including (but not limited to): Knoppix, Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linspire, and (most recently) openSuSE. Last night, I finally found my XP install disc and today I've been re-updating to SP2. Here's why:

Ubuntu (live cd) and SuSE wouldn't even boot for a while, thanks to not being able to see a literally burned up internal wireless network card that I don't even use because it's wireless B. Why would they freeze during the boot instead of just booting and forgetting about it? Knoppix works, so that just doesn't make sense since SuSE has MS backing them now. I manually removed the internal card, and bingo - it starts up. Of course, this isn't really a major problem with Linux since I got it fixed; however, XP just *works.*

Knoppix was the ONLY one to support my Netgear WG511 PCMCIA network card right out of the box. And by support I mean it works fairly well, but not like it does under Windows. I couldn't even get SuSE to install the drivers for it because it was missing a C compiler or something. The same lack of C compiler also prevented me from using gaim. Of course, this is actually more of a problem with Netgear not offering Linux drivers (something I didn't even consider or know about several years ago when I bought the card). With Windows, it's easy: just install a little .exe (I couldn't connect to the internet to get the drivers automatically - I need my wireless card for that, which isn't install...catch 22), and plug in the card. Again, XP just *works.*

My biggest problem with EVERY version of Linux was that NONE of them (as in no Distro I've ever used) has supported my video card, an integrated Intel 82852/82855 WG/WGE piece of $#!+. And by supported I mean it works at 800x600 on Linux, but 1024x768 on Windows. I tried everything: drivers, editing my X11 files, etc. Once again, this is more of Intel's fault for not offering decent drivers (even though they had some labeled "linux"), but XP just *works.*

Another major problem was seeing my ATP ToughDrive 2GB usb thumbdrive. Linux could open my Sandisk cruzer micro just fine, but not my ATP. I didn't have time to fool with that, mostly because I was too sick of 800x600.

Now I am happily running XP again. Don't get me wrong - I *LOVE* open source, particularly Gaim, OpenOffice, VLC, and Firefox. I've used Windows 3.1 and up through XP, and the others have been bug ridden and would simply crash the system if a single file screwed up. XP rarely crashes on me. I haven't used Vista, but doubt I ever will because of the insane requirements for it. In some ways I miss my few short days of using nothing but Linux - particularly *not* having to use the mouse. I liked just using the keyboard to get around. My next computer will either be an Apple (a friend just WON a macbook pro intel core 2 duo and I am so jealous!) or I will build a system generic enough to run Linux (with Beryl...oh so pretty!).

So am I a Microsoft XP fanboy - No. I HATE IE, the Zune, MS Word, and any Windows OS (except XP).
Am I an XP fanboy - Maybe. But that's more because it works *well* for me, and nobody makes my hardware work with linux.

------------
< /end slashdot post>

See? I told you that you wouldn't care. I'm out. Peace.

Stupid Linux, Stupid Gateway...GRR!

2006-12-13T02:47:00.000-05:00

Do you ever do something and find out it simply won't work, then think "Hey, I haven't tried THAT in a year, maybe it'll be different!"

The definition of insanity is to do something repeatedly and expect a different outcome each time.

For some UNGODLY REASON, I decided to INSTALL LINUX on my laptop AGAIN, which I KNOW will NOT work...and I did this WHILE I was writing a paper for my final exam which is PAST DUE.

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID...

I see you people and my friends using Linux and OS X, and I think "that's so nice...I wanna do that too..." Man...As much as I hate Microsoft the company, Windows JUST WORKS(tm) on my laptop, and nothing else does. You can argue all day about other computers and other systems, but my laptop must be REALLY "Special" (as in education :P)

Next time I try that...just shoot me or something...I don't know...:(

Jimmy Rocking Out

2006-11-29T11:56:00.000-05:00

So a guy I work with just told me about another guy I work with who plays guitar...a small, pink, heart-shaped, children's guitar! HA! but for real - he's good!

Click Here if you can't see the video.

I Hate Going to the Doctor

2006-11-28T22:38:00.000-05:00

I went to the Doctor yesterday because of my sore throat and waited for about an hour and a half before I was ready to walk out the door. Then the receptionist told me she was entering my info into the computer. Usually they are pretty fast at Riverview, so I decided to wait a few more minutes.

After a little while, I was taken back to the room, where a nurse took my pulse. Then, once she walked to the other end of the facility to find a thermometer, she took my temperature. She said it was 97, but it had been over 100 a while back, but that could have been a bad thermometer at home.

So the doctor came in after a few minutes, looked at my ear and throat and listened to my chest and said "well, your throat is kinda red, I guess I'll give you some antibiotics and steroids for the swelling...wait here while I write a prescription." I seriously only saw the Doctor for 2 minutes.

I waited 15 more minutes and a nurse said the prescription was up front and I could go. Now I'm feeling MUCH better...Thanks for asking!

That's 2 hours total...I can't complain about the long wait too much though - I got a little nap while I was waiting and the co-pay was only $15, plus about another $15 for the drugs...plus another $6.50 for the hour of work I missed...

Another Late Night...

2006-11-25T04:02:00.000-05:00

what is it with me getting started on something relatively unimportant and not stopping until I finish - no matter what time it may be. That's right - it's 4am and I've been screwing around with http://www.weekendmeltdown.com ALL DAY LONG...but it's finally up. Just so you know, that's the new website for the podcast I've been talking about. Notice that I hand coded that sucker using a text editor...oh, yeah...you know you like that!

I hope you like that new website (don't worry, I'm not leaving my personal blog here), and I hope you'll give feedback on it soon. I know it's a little plain-jane right now, but I'm not really an artist and can't really do a lot of graphics...SOOOO...if YOU are an ARTIST and can do web logos, that would be great! If you need more info, just let me know. I'm pretty sure there will even be a surprise for the winner!

Um, I guess that's all, now that I've successfully put off my schoolwork that is past due...

g'night!

oh, one more thing - the weekendmeltdown.com doesn't display properly in IE. This is IE's fault, not mine, because my website validates and displays properly in Firefox and Opera.

edit: episode 3 of the Weekend Meltdown is available through the NEW podcast link or from Spencer's googlepages site.

Episode 2

2006-11-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

Episode Two of the podcast currently known as Common Sense is now up, after editing, converting, updating the RSS feed, and uploading all night...and yes I DO mean all night - I finished at 7am, then took a shower and went to church.

For those of you who didn't download the last one, you may be more interested in this as it is not all politics. I hope we can get a little more organized next time.

Sorry for the poor sound quality...David was swallowing the mic. We'll get some filters and more equipment to prevent that for next time.

The link is the same as before: http://fluffman86.googlepages.com/commonsensepodcast.xml

see the previous post below (or contact me) for directions on what to do with that.

As a side note: I need a haircut, but my trimmer's battery died, so now my hair is very icky looking. It looks like a weed-eater got into it. Hurry up and charge, dang it!

South Carolina Kicks Geogia's ASS!

2006-11-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

David posted this on his blog recently. I freaking crack up every time I watch it! That's right - we from da upside of S.C., y'all!

Also - David, Matt, Spencer, and I are starting a podcast. Spencer couldn't make it to the election day coverage, but he should be around for the rest. If you aren't into politics, you may want to skip the one that's up now, but go ahead and subscribe because we will be covering a range of topics.
Clicking here will take you to a page that will let you subscribe like a news feed in Firefox 2.0, or let you subscribe with your RSS reader like Google Reader.

For this, however, you may want a podcast receiver like Juice (what I use) or iTunes. To subscribe to our podcast in iTunes, just drag the above link (http://fluffman86.googlepages.com/commonsensepodcast.xml) onto the iTunes program and drop it into the podcast folder. Or you can copy and paste the URL into “Subscribe to Podcast” under the Advanced menu.

Thanks for listening! I hope to hear some criticism from it!

Good News!

2006-10-31T21:57:00.000-05:00

So on Saturday my sister and I went to see Prestige, which is a pretty good movie. It kinda reminded me of Minority Report, because it was a little confusing the way it went back and forth in time. Go see it, fo' sho' (maybe with me, eh?).

Just as a refresher - I lost my keyless entry remote in the spring of '05, so for that Christmas my mom bought a replacement from Norton's Car Stereo. It looked the same, but wasn't, so they had me return it so they could send it back and order a new one. They kept telling me it would be a little longer before it came in, and by March they just shut down on me (without calling or refunding my $90).

Anyhoo, while we were in line for the movie I saw Tony from Norton's. I wasn't going to say anything because I knew I would come off sounding like an ass. While we were having our tickets taken, Tony did a double take and recognized me. He's like "Hey, you! I have your remote!" We had like a half-hour before the movie, so he took me across the street to his apartment to get it. He said he was going through a divorce and he left it at his Ex-wife's house, but gave me his number and said he would have it Monday. Sure enough, he had it and even set it up for me! I'm happy when I don't lose a $90 present!

Now for the latest good news...I might have a job! Ashley Jane Sagmoe emailed me to let me know there was a job opening in Winthrop's IT department, and I go back tomorrow to get started! It will be mostly desk work and answering phones, but I have to start somewhere, right? Pray everything goes well!

*RING* [British accent] "'ello, oy-tee ... 'ave you tried turnin' it off and on again? ... Roight, 'ave a noyce day."

lol...good night! ;-)

Firefox 2.0 Final

2006-10-24T15:32:00.000-04:00

Jay has brought to my attention that my link to Firefox 2.0 Final (the banner on the right) currently links to Firefox 1.5.0.7. I realize this. Firefox is expected to update officially "sometime this afternoon, Pacific Time." I happened to have some spare time to update the banner, so I went ahead and did that.

In the mean time, you have several options:
1. You can download Firefox 2.0 release candidate 3 by clicking here.
2. You can wait for a few hours and get the final version.
3. Either way, Firefox should automatically update sometime in the near future...I just don't like to wait.
4. While you wait on Firefox 2, you can visit some of the sites I have listed to the right, like Gaim! Gaim has released 2.0.0beta4, which is very pretty!

Have a nice day!

Edit - 10pm: Firefox 2 is official! Grab it by clicking my banner to the right!

Disney Rocks, (S)Carowinds sucks...'nuff said.

2006-10-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

So I'm back...for like a week now. Disney World was absolutely awesome. Laura had a great time for her first trip down there. I love the friendly nature of all of the ~~employees~~ cast members. They are so organized - you walk up to ride something, and someone is there to make sure that there are no empty seats on the ride, making everything run much faster. When we got to stay in the park after hours because we were staying at a Disney Resort, they gave us wristbands.

That really stood in stark contrast to (S)Carowinds. We went into Carowinds at about 5:30pm and had our passes made. Then they kicked everybody out of the park, and didn't let the people with Scarowinds tickets back in until after 7pm. The whole time was just a bunch of hurry up and wait, with Laura getting sick from all of the people smoking around her. The fog was so thick that we couldn't breath, much less see. That made us both sick. The "scary" attractions were boring, so we attempted to ride Drop Zone. 3 times people couldn't follow directions and get on the appropriate car, so they just kept breaking in front of us. Nobody was there to direct people. When we finally got on, the guy came around to make sure the chest harness was tight (and it was already a little too tight on me). He push on Laura as hard as he could to make it tighter - crushing her chest - then push on mine to where it crushed my, um, private area and chest. I'm already claustrophobic, and not being able to move at all didn't help. I was so pissed...

anyway, that's my rant for the day...I need to scurry on over to Civil War History! :-D

Bible Study and Disney World

2006-10-10T23:14:00.000-04:00

So I have officially (as of 3 mondays ago) started teaching Something Else Bible Study. Like, for good. Jon is still helping me with the lessons and lesson plans, but his hope is to do one or more of several different things. One thing may be that I lead something else on one night, and it's so big that he needs to lead something else another night. Another possibility could be that he goes another direction and ends up leaving SE. Another possibility would be that SE expands onto other college campuses, and Jon goes there. Of course those all sound nice, and I got really excited when Jon told me that. But then he brought up the possibility that none of that could happen, and we simply die out. I thought "huh? die so others live, right? but how?" and Jon reminded me that "we may die, so others will die justly." If nothing else, we are here to make sure that other people hear the gospel.

Either way, I'm looking at a lot of new responsibilities in the coming months/years, and I'm not sure how it's all going to work out. But when has God ever told any of us how things would work out? when has he given us a script? Basically, my first night was a "train wreck" acc/to Chris, then the next time was better, then worse. Keep me in your prayers as I continue to lead the Bible Study discussions Mondays at 8pm in SIMS 108 (Winthrop University). < /shameless plug > Really, though, I'm not sure where this is heading, but I know I love God and I love something else, and I definitely think I should serve Him in some capacity through SE. I just need to find out exactly how that will be.

Well, I'm going to wrap this up. I need to finish packing for Disney World - we leave in the morning and I'll be gone through Monday. I have a national plan now, so if you need me, call me...I may not answer, but I will check my messages since the phone may be off.

Also, since Jon, Laura, and I will all be out of town this coming Monday, there will be NO Something Else then. I'm not sure about the RealZoo on Sunday night - call up Mr. Shope about that. Once again, there will be NO BIBLE STUDY on Monday, October 16, but we will resume as per usual on Monday, October 23 at 8pm in Sims 108.

PS - anyone who wants to go to Scarowinds let me know. Laura and I are planning on going either friday the 20th or saturdy the 21st. Let me know which day is better (sorry Erin, I forgot which one you said). It's about $17 with a season pass, and the season pass is currently $55, which includes free parking and admission to Carowinds for all of 2007.

Holla!

Firefox 2.0 Beta 2

2006-09-23T03:16:00.000-04:00

Hey, click the link in the title. Or here. Firefox has released 2.0 beta 2 (several weeks ago, actually). Now you may hear a lot (especially from firefox) about not running beta's because they are not stable or supported yet. But this is different. I've been running beta 2 for over a week now and have had NO problems. Feel free to go ahead and try it out! It's got some really nice new features, including: inline spell checking, phishing protection, better support for xml/rss feeds (so subscribing to websites don't look like gibberish), and more. That link will give you more info.

Before updating, be sure to back up your profile, which contains your bookmarks, extensions, and other settings. Your profile is in C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\application data\mozilla\firefox. You can also get there by going to start > run > type "%appdata%" (without the "quotes") and press enter.

If you are still scared of trying a beta (or even firefox), then check out http://www.portableapps.com which offers Firefox (and many other programs) which run without installing or changing any files on your computer. This can also be added to a usb drive or a regular CD-R for use on a computer that normally wouldn't let you install another program. This is great, because I use it on the computers at school which only have a basic firefox without the ad-blocking ability...I also can use the portable gaim for talking to you guys since the school computers don't have any IM clients.

Also, Gaim has updated to 2.0.0 Beta 3.1, which keeps your MSN account from crashing. Better grab that update ;-)

Well, goodnight...or morning...or whatever... :-D

Quotes

2006-09-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

I saw these famous quotes in my "Quote of the Day" widget on my Google Homepage and figured I would share them.

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.
- Gary Zukav

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

Pretty cool, huh? :-D

howdy

2006-09-20T00:35:00.000-04:00

howdy guys! Just wanted to post something to let everyone know I was still alive.

School is going pretty good - I just presented my first assignment (on "Antipope" by Max Ernst) for the year and it went well...other than the fact that I had to skip 2 classes to finish. Now I just need to write a book report on whores in Medieval England by Monday, and study for a major Civil War test (all essay) and write an article review on archaeology in the Holy Land by Tuesday.

I also need to study a passage from James for Something Else Bible Study because I am teaching that on Monday at 8pm (for anyone who wants to come ;-P ).

Oh! and Hooray for ME! I just learned (last night) how to make a podcast and an RSS feed manually! how cool is that? very cool, I know... Anyone who wants me to make an RSS feed or podcast for your website just let me know, because I'm dorky and enjoy that stuff :-D

oh boo, I didn't realize it was this late...goodnight!

Another Response to David's Blog

2006-08-20T10:34:00.000-04:00

Yet another response to David. I could have just posted there, but...why? This makes for a decent entry for my own blog, so :-P

From David's Blog of Common Sense:

Ok lots of people say they can do certain things do to free speech. Homosexuality, burn flags, grose expressions of art.......But where in the world do they figure that is free speech? And why in the world does the Supreme Court rule it that way? Let's take a look at the first Ammendment shall we?

Amendment I - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now I don't see where people get this free speech is free expression. I see Speech, which is the verbal, Press, which is the written, and Peaceably assemble, which is the physical. Where in the WORLD do they get free speech is equal to free expression?

That is completely incompetent and ignorant. And yes I am referring to the Supreme Court when I issue that statement. They should know that this was not our founding father's intent. How stupid have we become?

On one level, you are right. But there are certain things that the people should have a right to do, or at least not be told what not to do (if that makes sense). Like someone smarter than I (John Locke?) once said: "My freedom to swing my fist ends where your face begins." As long as something isn't hurting anyone, what's the big deal?

If anything, flag burning should fall under the right to peaceably assemble, since most people do that in a crowd and as a petition against the government.

As for art: art should be acceptable for the general public, as long as it is paid for by the people and in the public eye. If it is privately owned art, then that is a different matter altogether. Basically, anything goes as long as it is kept out of the public eye.

The same goes for homosexuality. You know that as a Christian, I think homosexuality is sin. But who am I to force one biblical principle upon someone else? The same people who complain about "the sins of the world" and want to punish those people are the same ones who are not being good stewards of the earth God has given us; and are the ones who are fighting and killing others because they don't believe the same as we do. That's hypocritical and pharisaical.

America has always been (supposed to be) a bastion of freedom - no matter what those freedoms are. When the government starts to take away certain freedoms, we start down a slippery slope and into a nazi abyss.

Response to David's Blog

2006-08-02T13:29:00.000-04:00

"What really needs to happen is Castro just needs to pass on and then the country will become a democracy."

Who's to say that Communism or some form of it (ie, Socialism) isn't what is best for Cuba? Cuba has an excellant healthcare system, available to everyone. And the literacy rate is higher than here in the US - 98%, if I recall correctly.

Not to mention that (at least from my gleanings) the Bible appears to support a Socialist lifestyle. Jesus had his disciples give everything to the poor, then follow him. In Acts, the Apostles were collectively responsible for feeding the widows and orphans - not just those in the church, but in the entire community.

The same principle applies to Iraq. Yes, I agree that Saddam should have been taken out, but that does not mean that a democracy should have necessarily followed. The Iraqi leaders and Imams wanted a Theocracy, but President Bush forced the people to vote for democratic rulers. If anything, the people should have first voted for what type of government they wanted. If they wanted a rule by God through their established Imams, then so be it. The Koran has good teachings in it, like taking care of widows and orphans...now where have I seen that before?

Basically, I hate the current idea (which was also prevalent over 100 years ago with the Victorian Era) that the current basis of life and government is the ultimate and best you can ever do. This is especially true with the crap state that our "amazing, capitalistic" country is in now. Capitalism has led us to arresting people for taking pictures on their phones, US kids being wimps, throwing Chinese people in jail for free speech, Starbucks, higher tarriffs on Spock toys, a national ID law, no right to privacy, and doctors being PAID to drug us.

"There are too many other more important things going on in the world."

Agreed, but once again, our country is failing to notice them. Washington only thinks "Immigrants, Israel, and Iraq" instead of African Genocide and Aids, South American Genocide, People's Rights, Major Fighting in Mexico, and Chinese Suppression of religion and free speech.

still alive

2006-08-01T00:31:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to post so the few people that read this know I'm alive and want this blog to stay alive as well.

Somthing Else was the biggest it has been in over a year now. Hopefully this year we will bring in a new crop of students - get a little fresh blood in there. We had 3 new people - that was really exciting! I guess because the 2 girls were very sanguine and fun-loving...kinda crazy-like, you know?

Jon is still talking about me doing more for the group. He says I could lead a small group, but what does that mean? The "large group" on Mondays are usually 5 people. I'm open to what God wants - pray for direction in this area.

Well, I'm off to bed for now. Good night!

strep? guess not...

2006-07-19T19:41:00.000-04:00

So for anyone who saw my away message today, Laura in fact did NOT have strep. Doc said it was just a very sore throat...AFTER we paid her $90 and 3.5 HOURS at the office. NEVER walk-in to North Central Family Care Center on Saluda Street - they don't like it when you do that.

So Laura was still feeling bad and didn't really want to go to work, meaning she missed the full $80 for the day, which equals $170 to find out she wasn't sick at all. Even so, I'm happy to find out she didn't have strep. My mom knows people who have died from that - so if you ever think you have it, get it checked out!

Oh, so I guess the above post requires that you know about L.J. getting a full time job...so...um...she got a job! Kids-R-Kids Daycare/Summer Camp finally gave her a call back, and offered her full time with benefits at $10/hour. Not bad considering her degree is in ART, and she has like...NO...experience with 3 year olds. I just know you guys were anal about the math I did up there... ;-P

Otherwise, the summer is going well. I spent a lot of time over at my grandparents (because LJ lives over there - in his trailer behind his house) until she got a job last week. My days are pretty much free now, so please call if you want to do lunch, see a movie...ANYTHING. I'm pretty bored when I'm not hanging out with Laura full time. :-)

Well that's about all for now. Let me re-iterate the last point: PLEASE call if you want to hang out - I'm not on the computer as much as I used to be. I'm up for about anything as long as you can let me know a few hours (sometimes a day) in advance.

Church

2006-06-14T13:05:00.000-04:00

I know it's been a while without a post, and this isn't even a good one. Deal with it, punks.

I finally finished school with an A in CTQR (math) and a B in Michelangelo. That pulls me up to a cumulative 3.033. What am I going to do now that I can get my scholarship back? I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!! (sorry, couldn't resist!) No, but really, Momma told me that if I get my Life scholarship back she would take Laura and me to Disney World over fall break, which is really cool. I also get to continue my pursuit of a 4-year degree at WU instead of starting over at York Tech. Yipee (?)

Also, LJ has been moving into her new trailer for the last week and we still aren't finished. Albert Patterson just finished painting it, and it looks wonderful now. The previous tenant had but white trash stickers and yellow paint all over the walls. She even painted her lovely cherry-wood-colored cabinets with yellow and green paint, followed by wood-colored contact paper. It looks like most of the paint will come off though. I certainly hope so...

Lots of new ideas about church have been coming my way lately. See my cousin Lauren's post about church, along with my reply (posted below her article and also this entry). My reply is mostly a summation of what David Taylor [see Monday, June 12th, 2006 entry] said at the Something Else cookout on Sunday concerning his withdrawal from Oakdale Baptist Church in Rock Hill, SC.

BTW, David is going to be touring churches in South Africa as a missions trip. You can learn more here.

Here are some of my thoughts that I wrote out in reply to Lauren:

It's so true what you say about just getting people to church to boost numbers. More and more churches are doing that. If we were to follow Christ's model, church would be reserved solely for for teaching and discipling members, while the time outside of church would be for evangelism and service to the community.

Some churches will claim to have 20 souls saved in a service each week, while the people of the church are hungry spiritually and not growing in Christ. If that church has 500 members who were properly discipled, and everyone could reach just 1 person for Christ each MONTH, you would have 500 people saved instead of 100. Imagine the impact of service to the community if each person would participate, rather than sit back and do nothing.

On the one hand, I can see the need for an evangelistic service, because some people DO come to church - some seeking answers, others wanting a social club. If we follow Christ's example, many people would be turned away to get their lives straight before joining. Christ went and reached out to people in order to train them. Who are we to break from HIS example?

Well, I suppose that's all for now. That turned out to be a much longer post than I had planned. Catch ya on the flip side...

playing catch-up

2006-05-26T16:47:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting - I've been really busy with school...and Laura.

She came out last weekend - SOOO much fun! It's taken me till now to catch up on the lost sleep. Basic run-down of the weekend:
Friday - We went to Landsford Canal to see the rock lilies. If you haven't seen them, you really should go! Then we went to see The Da Vinci Code. Laura hated it. I thought it was pretty good, but if you've seen any movie like National Treasure, you've pretty much seen this movie.

Saturday - Went to see Laura F's graduation in Columbia at 0830. VERY early in the morning. It would have been fine if we would have at least SEEN the graduation - it was supposed to be outside, then it started raining, and the chapel is too small to hold everyone. BAH.

Sunday - Went to Carowinds. I wish more of y'all would have bought a season pass. Oh well.

The rest of the week was pretty boring. I'm REALLY starting to miss Laura again - she's not coming out this week and she won't be here for another week. I guess it's a good thing though - I have several papers to work on for school. I actually should be doing those now. Maybe after supper...

More Class

2006-05-14T20:50:00.000-04:00

So I start Maymester tomorrow. Monday through Friday I'll take CTQR 150 (math/statistics) from 11 - 1340. Then (Monday - Thursday) I'll clean the preschool after CTQR, then book it back to Art History (Michaelangelo) by 1645. That lasts till 2000. That's 6 hours of school, all day, everyday. I'm not used to that :-P. At least it's only 3 weeks. Everything ends June 2...That's when Laura moves here! YAY!

Oh, I added an update/edit to the previous post - just to kinda close out the post. It kinda trailed off there near the end.

Oh, and I was just reading through my older entries...check out what I found:
"I've kept myself busy with classwork and my girlfriend - wow that sounds weird, but good!"
--me on 2/19/06 in the 1/13/06 post.

"I tell ya, being engaged is a pretty weird feeling...you go from boyfriend to fiancee in an instant. Ah, but it's well worth it."
--me in my previous post, 5/14/06

I said the same thing about LJ as my girlfriend just 3 months ago. I haven't even had a chance to introduce her to people as my girlfriend yet, now she's my fiancee. Pretty cool, huh?

um...that's all for now. Don't you hate it when people don't update for months at a time, then give you several pages at once? Not that any of you care, since you probably don't even read this mess. :-P

The call is still out there for anyone with a CTQR book, btw...

g-city

2006-05-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

So Laura and I aren't dating anymore. Here's the story:

Laura and I met in Greenville, SC on Friday. We went to books-a-million, then she took me out to eat at Jack in the Box, then I took her to the (very cool) Greenville Zoo. After that, we went to Reedy River Falls Historic Park - a really cool and romantic park right in the middle of downtown Greenville complete with waterfall and suspension bridge. We walked around there for a while, then found a nice little spot on a rock under a tree where we sat and talked.

I had some graduation presents for Laura, including a card, a zippo (just for kicks), a bluetooth headset, and the Kingdom Hearts II video game that she's been wanting for a while. Because I'm lazy and didn't wrap anything, I had her turn around while I pulled them all from my bag. Each time she would tell me I better not have anything else for her. Psh...like I would listen to that. :-P

Oh, here are some pictures of LJ at the park. Notice anything?

I had her turn around for one more present, but had some trouble pulling it out because it was in a pretty big box. I pulled out the present, got on my knee, and had her turn around as I said "Ok, here's your last graduation present, but you have to say 'yes' before you can have it. Laura, will you marry me?" Of course, she reaches for the ring before saying yes, but I stopped her...lol ^_^ She promptly said yes, and now we are engaged, which explains the first line of this post.

I tell ya, being engaged is a pretty weird feeling...you go from boyfriend to fiancee in an instant. Ah, but it's well worth it.

edit: Just to finish the story, we went to Sticky Fingers for supper. Laura felt bad because I bought her so much stuff, so she bought me dinner and tobacco. Isn't she SWEET! I have the best ~~girlfriend~~ er...fiancee in the WORLD!

Hope all of you had a weekend as eventful as mine! or not, whatever...;-P

ho-hum

2006-05-09T19:55:00.000-04:00

:-(

Today was boring without LJ. I really don't know what to do. Luckily I'll be able to focus on maymester now that she's graduated and is living at home for 3 weeks.

Yesterday was pretty fun, though. Matt, Dave, Spence, Angie, and Steph all came over for a high school reunion of sorts. We sat up in my room talking and laughing for a while. That was lots of fun. Thanks guys! It's always great to talk about stuff from 2 years ago in High School as if it were yesterday. Living in the past is the only way to live, baby! Especially when the past was so freaking hilarious.

Hmm...what to write, what to do... I have a full hour to fill until 9pm when I'll be calling Laura.

Oh, and if any of you Winthrop people happen to stumble upon this blog and have a CTQR 150 book, let me know. I taking it for maymester and could certainly use one in less than a week if that is at all possible.

I'm going to go lie down now.

w00t

2006-05-03T00:22:00.000-04:00

yes, I just said wOOt. Classes are out, and that includes CRTW. Now I might have some time to get back to posting a real blog. If any of you care, I had to use xanga for my CRTW blog. That sucked. Luckily, I ended up with a B on my blog, which is pretty good. I wrote 10 semi-interesting articles if you want to check it out.

well, bed time! I've got to head to work pretty early in the morning, so I'll post on here again later.

peace.

roller coaster of ailment

2006-02-24T14:45:00.000-05:00

This has been like the weirdest week. Like I said - I got sick on Monday, but my fever broke on Tuesday and I was feeling pretty good. It was like a 12-hour virus. Then Tuesday night I started feeling kinda bad, but I was better on Wednesday morning. Then I started taking a head & chest cold by Wednesday night, and I went home and straight to bed because I was feeling pretty nausious again. Thursday was pretty rough because my head & chest sickness was getting worse and I had a lot to do. Luckily I'm feeling a bet better today.

On Wednesday I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which was actually pretty good. Probably not as good as the Prisoner of Azkeban (the only other one that I've seen all the way through), but still pretty good. This one was very dark and creepy, and Ron Weasly has a potty mouth :-P. And don't rag me because I watched Harry Potter - Laura wanted to see it, I got to spend time with her, and it was only $1.50 (which Laura paid for anyways). ;-)

Laura left last night to go home again because I'm supposed to be going to my dad's house for the weekend. Turns out my sis doesn't want to go up 'til tomorrow, so I'm not really doing much today. Kinda boring...I suppose I could be doing classwork. She's coming home on Sunday this time, so it won't be so bad.

And for those of you about to say that I should complain about not getting to see Laura, she just went off last weekend, then I was to be going off this weekend, and I was sick over the week so we didn't get to see much of each other, even for normal people's standards. :-P

another post on a different subject, coming soon...like...in a few minutes, I hope.

sick...

2006-02-20T19:07:00.000-05:00

oh hey - one thing I forgot to mention in my catch-up post was that my sister broke her ankle about a month ago. She was supposed to be put on a boot (instead of a cast) the other day, but the Doctor said no. The next day, Hillary got sick.

ugh...now the whole family is sick, even me. I have a slight fever, headache, backache, nausea, some nasal congestion (but that is getting better), and some cold feels like it's moving into my chest. I am not a happy camper right now, more because I want to go to Something Else than because of my illness. I still don't know if I'm going, but I guess I better decide soon.

Jon wants me to take on a bigger role at Something Else. I'm not sure what that would mean for me. I don't know what I could do there. I want to do what God wants me to do, so pray that He gives me guidance into the area I can best serve, or even if I should serve there.

I guess that's all for now.

s'wonderful! s'marvelous!

2006-01-13T02:47:00.000-05:00

Those are the only words that can describe this feeling. But first:
"So it's been a week. Hope I don't make a habit of that."
That's what I said on Dec. 29th, meaning I didn't want to go more than a week without updating. Oh well...

Now back to your (ir)regularly scheduled blog. Yes, as anyone who reads this already knows, Laura Jones and I are now dating, and have been officially since January 16th. I also know that you are all dying to ask if we've kissed yet. The answer is a resounding "YES!" ~~Laura gave me my first kiss.~~ [edit] I stole my first kiss (happy now? ;-P ) [/edit] It was before we were actually dating, as a matter of fact. ;-)

Since then, I've kept myself busy with classwork and my girlfriend - wow that sounds weird, but good! My first Valentine's Day went very well. The Friday before we went horseback riding, then on Saturday we went to a Valentine's banquet to benefit the youth missions program at Lowry's Baptist Church. On Tuesday, I gave Laura a dozen and a half roses, then we went to the Hallmark store and gave each other cards (then put them back, lol). Laura also treated me to "$1/Scoop Ice Cream Tuesday" at Baskin Robbins.

That's all for now, but I'm formulating another post for later this evening.

wierd...I edited a draft I had saved on 1-13 so that is the date that this was given.
this was actually posted on 2-19, and edited on 2-20 at 1236.

new year's + resolution

2006-01-03T20:15:00.000-05:00

My New Year's Resolution is to kiss a girl at midnight next New Year's Eve... if not New Year's '07, then definitely by '08.
*note: not just ANY girl. This isn't something just to say I kissed someone. I said that because I'm hoping to be in a relationship by this time next year. *hint, hint* ;-P

Anyhoo... I spent New Year's weekend with LJ out in Westminster. I got to meet like her whole extended family, her Sensei, and "Silas Jones, the Baby Pirate...ARRGH!!!"

Last Friday I got to bust the window out of a car and take out a CD player... That was really cool. Glass went EVERYWHERE. So much for safety glass :-P

After that, David, Laura F, and I went to WinterFest at Carowinds, which kinda sucked for the price, but David bought a ticket so that helped me out (thanks, bro!). I had fun hanging out with them, but there wasn't a whole lot to do. All of the food places were closed, as were most of the rides. The show was pretty good, and the brass band playing Christmas Carols was EXCELLENT! Riding Top Gun at night in the cold was also quite exhilarating.

um...I guess that's all for now.

Uh-Oh...Merry Christmas!

2005-12-29T20:12:00.000-05:00

So it's been a week. Hope I don't make a habit of that.

I went to see Narnia again on Christmas Eve eve...yep, that makes 3!

Speaking of Christmas, I hope you all had a very happy one. I know mine was great. Much better than I expected. :-D

I spent Christmas Eve with my dad and his family, then Christmas at home.

I'm going to Westminster again on Saturday and coming back Sunday. LJ invited me to a cookout, so that should be fun. Oh, and I need to get fireworks for New Year's!

Hopefully I won't be so slack about updating anymore. Lo Siento. :'(

Narnia (again) and Anniversaries

2005-12-21T22:56:00.000-05:00

So today I went to see Narnia again, this time with Laura Ferrara. That was fun. It's good to have Laura back in town. Of course, the movie was just as good this time as it was last time. :-D Thanks again for taking me for Christmas, Laura!

(Un)fortunately, I had (got) to leave right after the movie to go have supper at my house for my grandparents' wedding anniversary. That was really sweet. I think this was #58 for them. I can only hope my marriage lasts like that. My step-dad cooked steak, which was absolutely delicious, and my mom made cherry cheese pie for dessert. My grandpa also brought some roasted pecans for my sister and I to eat later.

Just to clarify the "(Un)" and "(got)," I mean to say that while I was having fun with Laura, I also wanted to go see my grandparents. But I'll get to see Laura again tomorrow, so it's ok.

Ok, so that's about all for now. Tomorrow I get to purchase a computer for QHPC...um...yeah ok NOW that's all.

Westminster

2005-12-20T13:39:00.000-05:00

*note: see previous post for any clarifications. I went to see Laura JONES in her hometown in the Armpit of SC.

Yesterday had it's difficulties, but ended up being a lot of fun. I woke up an hour and a half later than I wanted to because I didn't set my alarm clock properly. I was pretty upset about that, but it turned out ok for several reasons. If I had left at 7 am like I wanted to I may have ended up in Greenville/Spartanburg rush hour traffic. Also, it was still pretty foggy when I left at 8:30, and there were still some patches of ice on our deck. If I had left earlier it probably would have been foggier, and there may have even been some ice on the bridges.

Man it was a long drive out there. Between 3 and 3.5 hours, counting enough time to stop and get gas. Luckily I got it for $1.97 at the Flying J in Blacksburg, but it had gone up to $2.04 by that night. I burned over 20 gallons in my truck. Glad I decided to get some that morning or I wouldn't have made it.

Laura's house was really easy to find. She was going to meet me somewhere, but her battery was dead and we had to jump it off. Our batteries are on opposite sides of the car, and she only has a 12' jumper cable, so I had to back into her driveway, then PUSH her car up next to mine. Who knew a Focus was so heavy to be so small?

I mentioned Stumphouse Tunnel in my previous post. Once we got her car started and some batteries for my flashlight (which came with a nifty Aslan snowglobe :-D) we drove for 20 minutes up a mountain only to discover that it was closed. We drove on to Stumphouse Ranger Station, but they said they don't take care of Stumphouse Tunnel. I think they need a new name. Me and Laura also tried some other parks, but I guess they are closed for the winter.

We ended up going shopping in Anderson, about an hour away. That was pretty fun. She was kinda upset that there wasn't much to do, but I don't have to DO something to have fun. Even though the parks were closed on such a beautiful day, we still got to look at the mountainous scenery and spend some time together. I can't wait to see Oconee County in the summer and fall...absolutely gorgeous!

I left that night around 9 or a quarter past, and still made it back at about midnight. I guess there was even less traffic on the way back, even though I had to stop for 20 minutes at the Flying J to get some food and walk around to wake up. Man I was tired of driving. I really don't want to get in a car at all today, though I probably will end up doing something tonight.

Sunday

2005-12-18T23:15:00.000-05:00

Yeah today was a really good day overall. Church was really bad...the pastor pulled random verses out of thin air while talking about his mom's Christmas decorations.

Lunch was really good after church, then I got to see Laura (Ferrara) after lunch so it MORE than made up for a bad service. I got to work on Laura's computer and the Ferrara family computer, which was lots of fun. It's not too often you get to spend a solid 2 hours removing spyware. :-D The family computer was chock full of little nasties for me to get rid of. The computer seriously run like 50x faster now. I took it from about 50-60 running processes to just under 30 startup processes.

As for Laura's computer, I updated Firefox to version 1.5, converted her to Gaim, then installed Thunderbird for her. She can now check my atom feed, along with some other friends' blogs AND her brand new Gmail account! I'm so proud of her for at least TRYING something new and better. Hopefully she is enjoying all of her stuff! ;-)

We (me and Laura [F.]) went to Moe's for dinner, but nobody showed up like they were supposed to, except for her brother and future sister-in-law, so we just went to Taco Bell. I returned a phone call from Laura Jones for 8 minutes and Laura F got a little mad...but she can't stay mad at me for long! ;-P We made up and still had a REALLY good time...well, when she wasn't asleep while I was fixing the computer...we were having fun separately. It was the first time we've hung out in like a month, and she didn't get too mad at me, so I consider today a success.

Tomorrow I'm waking up early in the morning to drive to Westminster, SC and see Laura Jones. We're going to see the mountains around there, and visit some state parks like Stumphouse Tunnel...an old Civil War era train tunnel going straight into the mountain that they never finished. I hear it gets pitch black in there VERY quickly. *BOO, SCARY* lol.

This week is certainly looking like it will be a very nice week. Let's hope it continues that way!

Wow...it's almost depressing how cheery I sound... :-P

oh, more stuff

2005-12-16T22:48:00.000-05:00

yeah, I thought of some more stuff.

1. I bought (that's right, bought!) the Chronicles of Narnia Soundtrack. That's something I haven't done in a long time. People said they couldn't find it, but I did! And it's AWESOME! But what can you expect from the best movie EVER? :-D Now I want to hear the music inspired by the movie again. I really like that Turkish Delight song.

2. What's the deal with gaim? They were supposed to update to version 2.0.0 two weeks ago, then said it would be done by today, and it's still not done. I'm not complaining, just pointing it out. I really enjoy gaim, btw. there's a link over on the right. It's a multi-protocol IM client, because otherwise, I would be running 6 separate IM accounts. Anyway, hurry up guys!

3. There's a new JibJab cartoon. Check it out!

night, y'all!

Christmas Shopping

2005-12-16T21:26:00.000-05:00

I am now right at half way done with my shopping. I just went with my dad and sister up here in Gastonia.

I also got Laura Ferrara her gift ;-) See, I mentioned you, too!

She also asked me to list her livejournal and xanga. oh, and happy birthday to Mr. Ferrera!

that's all i've got for now.

got a hankerin'

2005-12-16T00:47:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I have a hankerin' to write something tonight, but I'm not sure what. I guess it's just because this is new, and I think it looks cool or whatever. I'm sure the newness will wear off soon enough.

So I'm driving up to my dad's tomorrow (today). It's supposed to freeze pretty bad again tonight. It shouldn't be a bad drive, especially since I'm driving up about lunch time. If it's not too bad out on Sunday, I'm going to leave my dad's and drive down to Spartanburg for a family dinner (dinner as in lunch, not supper). Hopefully, Laura Jones will drive to Greenville so I can meet her there. She hasn't called so I don't know what she's going to do yet.

My mom is crazy. She's going to let me drive my sister up to my dad's and drive her home...I do it every other weekend - that's 1.5 hours round trip. For some unknown reason, however, she doesn't want me to drive my sister to Spartanburg (a 1.5 hour drive) because "it's so far, and the roads aren't as good." Instead, she's going to drive 45 minutes to my dad's on Saturday night, get my sister, drive 45 minutes home, then drive my sister to the family reunion (2 hours from her house) on Sunday morning. If she was worried about my sister, she should reduce her drive time by letting me take her, and it would save her a lot of mileage. But I digress...

Well, I think that's all I've got for now. I'll end up posting later with details...not that anyone cares... :-P

fun with css

2005-12-15T12:53:00.000-05:00

I've had a lot of fun over the last 12 hours. I took an HTML/Computer class in High School, and over the last few months (or year) have wanted to learn other languages like CSS (cascading style sheets, not counter strike: source ;-) ). Every time I would start to learn, I would realize that I was starting from scratch and I had no idea what I was doing.

After posting last night, I realized that I could edit the template code directly. I stayed up 'til about 3am farting around with this code and the code for a friend's myspace. I hate myspace, btw. It's an internet popularity contest with ads all over the place and poorly designed, hard to read pages. Just my rant for the day.

Of course, I have to give credit to AB and his 2005 redesign...that showed me some basic commands like float, etc. I actually ended up changing this code very little, but had fun trying, nonetheless.

The little bit that I did do was pretty simple stuff, like adding links, decapitalizing my header, and adding the nifty firefox 1.5 logo :-D

Well that's all I've got for now. I need to shower and get ready for work. Yeah, I'm gonna be late...we had a good bit of ice here last night. Ice + the south = very bad because nobody knows what to do, and we don't have the equipment to clear the roads.

Have fun slipping and sliding, y'all!

[still looking for a cheesy sign-off line, lol]

starting out

2005-12-15T00:03:00.000-05:00

So...writing my first blog in a long time. Maybe I can keep up with this. Do it kinda regularly, you know? meh, I doubt it, but I'll give it a shot, nonetheless.

Of course I'll start off my first post like any respectable blogger:
"well, it's late, so I better get going..."

[insert cheesy sign-off line here]
;-)