Patrick’s Rants

Ok, I admit it. I like to read other people’s blogs. My friend Jake has one that is a mix of links and personal rants. I read one regularly – when she doesn’t run off on vacation – that really shows the development of style over a couple of years with fanciful posts mixed with rehashings of childhood memories that make me afraid to let my daughters out of the house.

Mine, well it’s kind of a mish mash of different things, some politics, some bumber stickers that I’ve seen driving down the road. Sometimes it’s something you won’t read anywhere else. My rants about the credit card industry have yielded interesting comments (most privately) about what people don’t really know about their credit scores – which gets me to thinking that I need to add a section or a category about credit. So I’m not really focused and hopefully that’s not a bad thing. I think I have all of three semi-regular readers, but maybe that’s not a bad thing either.

There are my dry spells that I seem to not be able to post anything even though I have ideas floating around in my head. It’s these times when I look at the screen and wonder why I even set up a blog in the first place. Then I come up with something and the doubt is gone.

Until my next post though, I’m going over to read some more of S*’s blog (I’ll post a link if she says it’s ok )

I’m probably not going to make any friends in certain circles for this post.

On August 18, 2006 Kyle R. Garcia, 23, was shot and killed by members of a state gang task force known as GITEM. The task force is comprised of members from multiple agencies who work and train together. The Arizona Daily Sun reported that members of the task force attempted to stop a car in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Flagstaff because they were unfamiliar with the car and the music was turned up very loud. Garcia then attempted to run them down with his car as reported by both the police and later by his passenger.

The newspaper further reported that six shots were fired at the car by officers and that one bullet struck and fatally wounded Garcia. He drove a few blocks where he fell out of his car and was handcuffed by the officers who called for paramedics. He was taken to Flagstaff Medical Center where he died. Outside the hospital were individuals dressed in gang attire; some snapped photos of the officers involved in the shooting reportedly to make sure what needs to be done gets done. Some might say the words were an attempt at a threat on the officers.

Now, his criminal history, including two convictions for assault on police officers and convictions for drug use is coming to light. His passenger – whose name is unavailable for fear of retaliation – claims that they both were smoking meth earlier in the day and that Garcia was “agitated” when cops attempted to pull him over. His parents had problems with drugs as well and divorced when he was young. This too according to the Daily Sun.
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It was noted in a recent email that I don’t have much identifying information on my blog. I tend to be a private type which really goes against the idea of the blog I guess. On the internet we are as anonymous as we can be or as we choose to be. You might have noticed that I don’t have any photos of myself posted. I also don’t mention my kids’ or wife’s name. Not that that keeps people who really want to know about me from finding out, but I like to think that it protects me a little. I am perplexed by those who put photos of themselves and their kids on the internet. My sister-in-law has a MySpace account and posts photos of my four year old nephew. The internet makes it easier to find out about people, get their names and even stalk them.

Why give someone an upper hand when they have most of the tools they need to snatch our kids up off the street? I am a bit of an internet paranoid, thinking of the (few) stories of people who have fallen victim to foul play because they put too much personal information on the ‘net for others to read. I guess that’s really not the majority of the stories out there or we would hear more about it. For instance, my ex-wife met some guy online (and ran up a $9,000 long distance bill to boot) who lived in Italy. She flew there to meet him and everything. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I can tell you this: she was not killed or maimed by this guy. I’m very puzzled. I have never met anyone IRL (in real life) whom I have met through chatting or blogging, but I certainly chat with those whom I have met in the flesh. In fact, after having met my wife (before she was my wife) I started chatting with her online. Sometimes the internet is like alcohol, it makes us freer, looser with the other person. We are more willing at times to tell strangers about our flaws than our closest friends or even our spouses while still pretending that no-one knows our secrets. Next time, I may have to point you to my web site circa 2000, and yes it’s still floating out there.

PS – any grammar errors are attributed to a wine called Wrongo Dongo. It’s good stuff, but it can’t type for crap.

Regular readers of Slashdot – of which I consider myself – will recognize the posting at the top of the page. Moderator points are a double-edged sword of regular Slashdot readers. First, it means that you have visited more than your boss would like and now that you have points you have to intelligently read the comments to stories. Of course, it also means that you haven’t been “modded down” or said something Slashdottedly Incorrect. The other, bloody edge of the sword is that it swings towards you when you have the least amount of time. Yep-use ‘em or lose ‘em means for the next three days you will be reading comments to see if they are Insightful or Trollish – that is unless you don’t care about the greater good that is the Slashdot community. And you do care about the community don’t you?

This week I don’t.

I was in Payson for a couple of days this last weekend.. and now it’s almost next weekend before I chanced to write about it. I had a few unusual experiences thatI just have to share.

I took a football team from a local high school – well “took” isn’t the right word, but that’s for another time, maybe – and they were practicing on a field in the public park. This particular park was interesting in a few different ways. First, it’s a large park with several fields for football, soccer, baseball and even volleyball. On the same piece of land is the public library – saving the taxpayers money I’m sure. The port-a-potty was particularly humerous in that it was chained to the fence. So they either had trouble with vandals tipping the thing over or had a port-o-john theft ring in town. The other interesting thing was the sign posted on the field fence. Oh sure , there were the usual, “No dogs on field” and “No alcohol”, but the sign that struck me odd was, “No golfing”. Serious. There is was. Not only that, it was an ordinance – meaning that it was a big enough problem that they had to pass a law making it illegal to golf on astroturf.

Another interesting thing is that some little kid playing Pop Warner football or something like that walked right up to me and asked if I had a cell phone that he could use to call his folks to come get him. I’ve only been through Payson a couple of times stopping at Dairy Queen and the Super Walmart – and had lunch a couple of times at the Payson airport (a friend of mine owns a single engine Cessna that I get to ride around in once in a while) so for some kid to come up to me like that is just weird. What happened to, “don’t talk to strangers”? I let him of course but I made sure to dial since I have a wallpaper photo on my phone, that while not indecent, might evoke questions of why a picture of that? Hmm… how did I get here from redneck? Dunno, but I’ll send you a free email if you can guess what the photo is. I just might have a reader out there who can guess.

I believe in life beforedeath.

Wow…

Kenmore washer and dryer. These are the 70 series washer and electric dryer. I’m asking $75.00 each or $100.00 for both. If you live in Flagstaff we can arrange to deliver them to you. If not, well then they aren’t so cheap at that point are they? email me: washerdryer@rwcinc.net

I’m not about to put a Truth Fish eating the Darwin Foot Fish* on the back of my truck or the fam-mobile, but I’m beginning to think that Darwin was wrong. Before you think that I’m going to preach “intelligent design” think again – there are too many stupid people in the world to believe in intelligent design; especially if you believe that whole “made in his image” thing. And I don’t think the earth is only 6000 years old like some of the thumpers out there. I mean if dinosaurs and people existed at the same time, it would be written down somewhere. You know, if people rode their “Jesus horses” to church there would be at least one more book in the bible that mentioned it. I’m sure it would be the book of Barney.

But still Darwin has to be wrong. There are too many dumb people walking around. Survival of the most adaptable (not fittest) means that stupid “works”. That the dumbest would be chosen through natural selection or intelligent design. Neither of these makes any sense.

PS- before you slam me for anti-religious views, I used to be a bit of thumper myself. I once told my younger brother that the reason he put so much pepper on his eggs was because he was going to hell and trying to get used to the heat.

*Admit it, you thought I wrote fetish at first didn’t you?

I’ve been working on a custom ad display program. I know there are others out there, but I want something that I can use on all my sites. I could try to find a plug-in for WordPress that would only work for WordPress. That really won’t get me what I want. I know a little about coding in PHP so I thought that I could work something up. I decided that the code really needed to be well thought out and take advantage of Object Oriented Programming. It also needed to have a decently designed database and use code that prevents or protects from SQL Injection attacks.

So I’m learning to use classes and functions, but most of the code I’m writing without mapping it out on paper – not too much anyway. I’m really hoping that I learn a thing or two about classes and functions. I’ve already put most of the code into reusable functions, one of these days it might even be up and working well. And since Steve won’t email me those algorithms I have to come up with some of my own.

There’s a geek phrase that goes, “Without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows?” And really it’s a great question. It posists that if the world were “open” and not walled off into proprietary, closed source systems we would need Bill and Co. I got to thinking about this, not because I’ve spent way too much time using the software of exclusion lately, but because my “neighbor” is installing a fence.

The thing about this fence is that it’s not the first fence to go up within spitting distance of where I park – the first really needs a separate post since it’s just that funny. My parking space is in the alley right next to my “front” door. I live on the second story in this red building that looks like an old barn. The entrance to my place is really in the alley and I have a walk up a flight of stairs to my “other” front door. It’s kind of like I’m an old time immigrant with a business downstairs – except these days the business isn’t mine. Right next to my truck is usually the fam-mobile – the minivan. Since the first fence grew up on the other side of the alley from me, the Cancer thrift shop has had to park on “my side” of the alley.

I guess that didn’t go over well with the owners of the flooring shop so they are moving their fence to be right next to the alley, right in line with their building. That’s gonna be fun. Here’s what I see happening. These guys with their nasty lot full of weeds and pallets of aging floor materials are going to use all of “their” space. Then 5:30 Tuesday morning when the Waste Managment truck rolls down the alley to empty the dumpster the driver is going to curse them. He’s going to have to work even harder to avoid the fences and phone lines when he cranks that green monster of a garbage can twenty feet up into the air. Assuming that he is so good he never drops anything on the truck and the fam-mobile and also manages to miss the danged fence I predict that big truck might just roll over the fence.

Assuming that he doesn’t roll right over that metal monstrosity, winter will be interesting. While it doesn’t snow that much all the time, there are times where it will literally snow feet. Add a snow plow down the alley (somefuggenbuddy better, four wheel drive only gets you so far) and there are two fences to sheer off right at the ground. And I’m sure the Cancer Society will be really happy about the additional fence.