1. Why are so many people uptight when they travel? 

1. People jockey for position to board the plane where they will sit in misery for several hours.  I would think you would want to avoid getting into the metal tube.
2. People rush to get to baggage claim so that they can fight for a position to retrieve luggage that is not going to be on the conveyor belt for awhile

1. Personal observation:  I prefer to take my time getting to baggage claim.  Visit the restroom after being cooped up on the plane.  Get a coffee.  Saunter to baggage claim watching the other folks rush.  Usually by the time I get there the bags are just starting to arrive on the belt.
2. Why does everyone jam up front making it impossible for most people to see when their bag comes through.  It would make more sense to stand back and approach the belt when your bag appears.

1. Personal observation: When I am headed away from home I am not nearly as concerned about delays.  The customer can wait.  If I am delayed it is a fact of life and we will make up the time as we can.
2. Personal observation: When I am headed towards home delays are of great magnitude.  Every delay is stealing precious time I could be spending with my wife and kids.  I guess this is partially because I spend so much time on the road and cherish the time at home.

the border edges on my links.

I had set them to Groove which should give them a button like offset.  They showed a black border.  I was a bit miffed.  But not to be daunted I opened them up in Mozilla Firefox where they also failed to render.  Okay, pissed…

I opened them up in every browser I have installed with the following results.

Why do the two most popular browsers not render the standards properly?  Shouldn’t the big boys be able to get it right?

< > ! * ’ ’ #

^ ” ` $ $ -

! * = @ $ _

% * < > ~ #4

& [ ] . . /

| { , , SYSTEM HALTED

Translation

waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,

Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,

Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,

Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,

Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,

Vertical-bar curly-brace comma comma CRASH.

My tastes have always been varied.  Music, art, written word and technology.  I like to be at the near edge, but I can also appreciate that which has gone before.

Music

I enjoy everything from Gospel to hard rock, although now-a-days most of my listening is Christian Rock, Gospel or talk radio, I have been known to listen to progressive, hard rock and classical new wave.  I can enjoy many styles of music and have even been known to listen to the occasional country tune.  About the only styles I can’t stand are discordant musical arrangements meant to be jarring.  For example, the Dadaist movement of the 20s or punk rock intentionally jarring for the sake of disharmony.

Art

I enjoy the classics, the masters and the modern.  What matters to me is if the art moves me.  It can be a Picasso or a  León Ferrari, a Van Gogh or a Vallejo.  What matters is that is what is depicted moves me on an emotions, intellectual or psychological level.  I do have a hard time relating to a lot of the “starving artist” factory produced schlock that is produced in the name of art and adorns the walls of some of the finer truck stops.

Writing

I enjoy fiction, and non-fiction, history and intrigue, science fiction and spiritual, most books that are crafted with care.  I am currently reading the Joel C. Rosenberg series on terrorism and the Middle East.  I just finished reading a book on hermeneutics.  Next on my shelf is a set of science fiction books purchased from half price books.  The only books I do not enjoy are those pulp fiction style series that have been ground out for the purpose of keeping the masses purchasing their monthly or bi-monthly opiate.

Technology – the real focus of this posting

I got involved in computers before computers became the “in-thing” to own and/or understand.  I played with Timex Sinclair, Commodore Vic, 64, Amiga 1000, 500, 2000, Macintosh SE, SE30, IIfx, PS1, PS2 and 286.  My hobby became my passion and I ended up working for a hobbyist at minimum wage (back when it was still under 4 dollars an hour). 

From the nascent budding of home computing I took a position working with a System Integrator for Apple corporation.  I was an integration specialist.  I had to understand Novell and AppleTalk.  This led to an need to understand mainframes, PCs and Apple Macintoshes.  I came to the position that they all had an appropriate place in the technology ecosystem.  A position it seemed many of my coworkers did not share over the years.

I ended up having to focus on a single platform, not because I disliked the other platforms, but because the expanse of applications and systems made it impossible to focus on the broad spectrum with any level of granularity.

I moved solidly into the Microsoft/PC camp and dug deep on Microsoft technology.  The problem is I have found myself needing to dig deep into a single focus over and over.  Increasing the narrowness of my scope.  But this is not in my nature.  I like to dig into anything I am curious about.  But how do you dig into something when the nature of the data expands at a faster rate then you can even begin to cover let alone comprehend.

So I find myself becoming more and more of a generalist with only a few key pieces of one technology set that I did deeply into.  Even for those areas I feel like I am providing a disservice since I do not have the time or facility to drive to the level I desire.  I am sure I am not alone in this feeling. 

The ultimate question becomes will we drive technology silos to the point where cohesion between the various practices will become not only impractical, but impossible as well.  What do we do when the guru’s can no longer relate.  We already see it in a rampant misunderstanding of the various acronyms and definitions that change within a single entities structures.

At one point I thought that metadata and extensive ontologies could help us describe the space, and yet even those seem to be ill equipped to keep pace with the constantly expanding delta.  I we vectoring into an information meltdown.  I do not mean to cry wolf, and this is really just about my feelings, but I hope that those of us who have a responsibility to the next generation can begin to put in place the mechanisms to cope with the ever expanding wealth of information.

I was reading the word this morning and given the current environment the words of Peter kind of leaped off the page.  There are times I feel like I suffer trials and tribulations.  There are also times when I feel like I love the Lord.  But typically I blow the trials out of proportion and my love of the Lord is a tepid thing with little of the fervor that I desire.

We, meaning privileged Americans, have little knowledge of true suffering.  We can talk about it.  We can write about it.  A few of us have lived it , typically overseas.  But we do not know the true meaning of suffering.  Suffering is not having to give up a 5 dollar latte because things are a little tight at the office.  Suffering is not being unable to replace or fix appliance when they get old and break.  Suffering is not even being unemployed or losing our homes to an overweening banking industry.  Suffering is being put on the point of emotional distress, torture or even death for the things we believe in.

The early church had a faith that blazed across the Roman empire.  They were 100% committed, because being committed to Christ was a potential death sentence.  Where is the church thriving today?  In countries where it is outlawed, pushed underground, tortured.

What is true love?  John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  One person laid down his life for all of mankind.  The early church was aware of that.  In the post Christian era in the US we seem to have forgotten that.  They remember that in countries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia and many others.

We are called to be a witness.  The root word for witness is μάρτυς martys from the Greek and from which we get our word martyr.  In reference to this discussion I think the first and second definitions are most apropos. 

“1: a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion”

“2:a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle”

What should I be sacrificing?  What is my “sacrifice of love” going to be today?  If I truly love the Lord, if I am truly sold out for God, what am I willing to give up for him.  The true answer should be everything.  Even my life.  I don’t know that I have that level of commitment.  Nor do I think that I want to find out.  But I can take heart in this:

James 1:2-8,12

²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

¹²Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

A final note.  Trials versus temptation was the study that prompted this digression.  It can be found on Love Worth Finding at www.lwf.org.

House OKs $410B bill to boost spending – Capitol Hill- msnbc.com

We, the American people, have moved from an industrial society to an information society.  Access to pornography and the "sex industry" has sky rocketed.  Alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant.  We are rudderless and without compass.  I think that as the citizens grasp for some lifeline to hang onto they may well be as willing as the Germans to clutch onto whatever is offered.  I am very concerned for our country and believe we are at a crossroads where we will either go on to greatness, or be dashed to pieces with little or no recovery in our lifetime.

I must admit the speech scared me to the core.  I can only hope that other “frogs” are shocked into wakefulness before the water boils.

BAM’S BOLD GAMBLE at DickMorris.com

Grandpa was stationed in Wiesbaden which is at the lower left of the map below.  He flew missions between Wiesbaden and West Berlin during the sixties.  Phyllis was raised through kindergarten in off base housing in Wiesbaden

It helped make bring a bit of history to life.  I know both Phyllis and I enjoyed the time.  I am hoping our children got as much out of it as we did.  We do not want them to forget the sacrifice of previous generations.  When you look at the attitudes of selfless sacrifice in the Berlin Airlift and juxtapose it to the prevailing sentiment of our culture today it almost makes you cry.

We must teach our children so that they can learn from the past.  The people who lived through the time of the holocaust continue to pass on.  We owe it to them and to our children to pass on their legacy and to continue to fight for the ideals that they stood for.

You can read more about Ken in his book A Military Pilot’s Exciting Life and Visit From the Hereafter.

I also recommend reading about The Berlin Airlift or the Candy Bombers (Gail Halverson).  There are also  some excellent children’s books and a video available.

They served the usual fair of pizza, soda and chocolate chip cookies.  It was of course sports themed although neither Christopher nor I watch much in the way of sports.  Christopher does like Nascar.

They had a very inspiring talk.  It was about spending time with your son.  They showed a video from You Tube about Patrick Henry Hughes.  It is worth watching.

Afterward they had an object lesson about spending time with your sons.  They said the average father engages 3 times a day for 5 to 10 seconds at a time resulting in only a couple of minutes of face time a week.

Christopher and I discussed it and figured we average about five hours  a week.  He was very enthusiastic about the fact that we do things together.  I did not know it would have that big of an impact.  I imagine if most of the men there took the time to brine their sons to the gym for a Friday evening, they probably spend more than the norm with their sons. 

I will post some pictures of the event later.  Need to resize and clean up the photos.