Patrick’s Rants

Beliefnet.com has a review of the six commandments. If we do away with all the faith stuff, can we agree that these are a pretty decent set of rules to follow - even if the original punishment for breaking any of these was death by stoning?

Against Abortion?
Don’t Have One

It is day two or three in my firewall saga. It all started with a seemingly minor update. I ran swaret on the newer laptop. It was a little out of date. The firewall was too. I decided to install the updates and ended up with problems related to the kernel version… both machines ended up throwing “kernel too old” errors. This normally would have been a simple fix. I would just grab my Slackware CDs and reinstall some older software to get it working again and then upgrade the kernel. In the process I determined that most of my install CDs were bad; they randomly failed. I’m guessing that the CD burner at the office has been bad for longer than I thought¹. Remember children always test your burned CDs. It’s a pain to do, I know. But it saves finding out that the last four versions are crapped out in some form or another - especially when it’s emergency recovery time.
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This is a great letter from a lifelong music lover to the music company that forces him to look to alternative sources for his music. We should be able to listen to music on whichever device makes sense, not have to deal with nonsense like this.

How I Became A Music Pirate - Consumerist

Once again Dubya is refusing to have any of the White House aides or Cabinet members answering questions on the record. You may remember his last refusal, the 9-11 Commission interviews. Tony Snow says they have nothing to hide, but they only want to talk off the record with no notes and no transcriptions. So the firing of eight US Attorneys has risen to the point where we are going to start hearing claims of executive privilege. Have we still not risen above the bar of a blow job? Pun intended.

Buzz Aldrin’s sound bite after walking on the new glass shelf at the Grand Canyon was, “A wonderful vision and a vision of hope for the future.”

Is it hopeful to look 4000 feet down through the bottom of a glass walkway to the bottom of the Canyon? I guess if you’re 77, looking down that far is hopeful. But what do I know?

You’ve seen this commercial, there’s a man sitting in his chair watching TV. They’re reading the lottery numbers. His wife is in the kitchen cleaning. Suddenly he starts yelping, “whoa! Whoa!” His wife gets really excited, runs into the living room yelping and whoaing with him, thinking they’ve won the lottery. He tells her that smells clean. Lysol.

No man gets that excited about the smell of Lysol or any other cleaner - no straight man anyway. Maybe that’s what Lysol is trying to tell us: sluggish men sitting in the easy chair are so excited about the clean smell of Lysol that they start whooping and whoaing over the smell.

Whatever.

Now, when I make some kind of computer mistake it costs me a little time to recover it. But usually, it’s really just an annoyance. I can’t get my email or there aren’t as many clicks on my ads on the blog. I just spent an hour trying to get my firewall back up after a “bad” upgrade. But I’ve never had anything like this:

Computer technician accidentally wipes out info on Alaska’s $38 billion fund - International Herald Tribune

Recently large demonstrations have taken place
across the country protesting the fact that Congress
is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration.

Certain people are angry that
the US might protect its own
borders, might make it harder
to sneak into this country and,
once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand
the thinking behind these protests.
Let’s say I break into your house.
Let’s say that when you discover
me in your house, you insist that I leave.

But I say, “I’ve made all
the beds and washed the
dishes and did the laundry
and swept the floors. I’ve
done all the things you don’t
like to do. I’m hard-working
and honest
(except for when I broke into your house).

According to the protesters:

You are Required to let me stay in your house
You are Required to add me to your family’s insurance plan
You are Required to Educate my kids
You are Required to Provide other benefits to me & to my family

(my husband will do all of your yard work because
he is also hard-working and honest, except for that
breaking in part).

If you try to call the police or force me out,
I will call my friends who will picket your
house carrying signs that proclaim my
RIGHT to be there.

It’s only fair, after all, because you have
a nicer house than I do, and I’m just
trying to better myself. I’m a hard-working
and honest, person, except for well,
you know, I did break into your house

And what a deal it is for me!!!

I live in your house, contributing only a
fraction of the cost of my keep, and
there is nothing you can do about it
without being accused of cold,
uncaring, selfish, prejudiced, and
bigoted behavior.

Oh yeah, I DEMAND that you to learn
MY LANGUAGE!!! so you can
communicate with me.

Why can’t people see how ridiculous
this is?! Only in America .
if you agree, pass it on (in English).
Share it if you see the value of it.

If not blow it off………
along with your future Social Security
funds, and a lot of other things.

The other day I drove girl’s softball to Sahuaro Ranch Park in Glendale. I decided to take a walk around the park while the games where ongoing. There were some lemon trees off to one side and as I got closer I could smell the light fragrance floating from the blossoms covering the trees.

Memories from my childhood flooded back. As a child my brothers and our friends would hang out in the abandoned groves not too far from our home. Parts of the old groves were used as bicycle trails, the old grey mud turning into a slippery clay like substance when it rained. Some of the other boys put rope around their tires to turn them into mud tires. We called that part “crazy eights” due to the way the paths crossed each other.

Hidden deep in the center of the grove was an abandoned rock pit. We spent summer days swimming in the rock pit, jumping from the tree swing, rowing around in an old half-sunken boat. My brothers were always a bit more adventurous than me. I worried about what was under the water while they swung from the rope with abandon.

As I was mentally entertained by ancient memories, I walked in between the trees. There was a certain coolness about the air. In the desert when you want to farm you build dirt berms to hold in the water, forcing it into the roots of your crop. The path I walked down rose and fell as it went between the trees and over the top of each subsequent berm.

I noticed that it was irrigation time. The water was slowly seeping towards me. I climbed to the top of the next berm to walk on the sidewalk. Behind the wrought iron fence I noticed more irrigation. Chickens, peacocks and doves were marching around plucking at worms and other bugs scared out of their holes by the miniature flood. A mallard and his mate were confused by the four inch deep lake and were swimming contentedly around.

The park is an interesting patch of green with a touch of history where you can have a picnic and walk through historical homes. And if you’re like me, maybe a pleasant flashback or two.