It still has not stopped raining here and it probably will continue until the end of the week. It is really starting to hurt the farmers and a lot of local folks are worried about the crops and the economy around here.

I ended up making an 84 on my first Corporate Management test. Not too happy with that but now that I know how the tests will be layed out I should do better on the next one. I will be getting my Database Management test score back tomorrow and I think I did much better on that one.

Rodney Dangerfield passed away today. 🙁

I just found out the Nirvana box set will be released near the holidays right in time for the Christmas rush.

In case you did not know, I am very big Nirvana fan. Not because of their popularity but because I really enjoy the writing and the type of music in general.

Needless to say, I will buying this set the day it comes out. The remaining band members were finally able to come to an agreement with Courtney Love (who I can’t stand) to be able to release this set. It comes with a DVD and 5 CD’s of previously unreleased ‘B’-sides, demos, and acoustic recordings.

I may never eat fast food again. I watched Super Size Me last night and I am dumbfounded.

If you have not heard about this movie it is a documentary about the fast food industry (McDonalds specifically) and the health problems that it presents. The director of the movie is also the test subject and he ends up eating 30 days of McDonalds three times a day.

I am not going to go into details about the outcome (but you can guess) but I will say that it makes me question myself eating fast food anymore. We wonder why so much of America is obese, watching this movie explains a lot of it.

They spent some time in Houston (at the time the most obese city in the nation) in Memorial City and while he was there he was asked to “super size” 5 times out of the 9 total he was asked during his experiment.

If you haven’t seen this movie go and rent it and you will understand.

It’s starting to get pretty cold here. Last night the temperature dropped to 49 degrees, which isn’t too cold, it’s just abnormal for this early in the year.

I will be busy this weekend studying for my Management exam on Monday and a Political Science exam a week from Monday. Neither exam seems like it’s going to be too hard, the Management one is just covering so much material that I’ll have a lot of reading to do.

I am having more problems with the AirPort Express it seems that even if it is protected from the elements that it will not work if the temperature drops to a certain point. I am going to have to play with it a little more and see if I can figure out how to remedy the problem.

On another note, as Bri would say, last night I stepped out of my “comfort zone” and went salsa dancing at a local restaraunt turned into a salsa club for the evening. They gave lessons and everything but I still don’t think I got the hang of it (too much hip movement for me). A couple of the girls I was with were latino and they already knew the dances so I tried to pick up some from them but that did not work as planned. Ah well, I know my place is in a honky tonk now…

Today has been great! 65 degrees with a light breeze and nothing but sunshine. This is great compared to the 3-4 days of nothing but rain that we have been getting. Lubbock has literally been a lake and it finally starting to dry out.

I have a database design test in about 3hrs which shouldn’t be too hard, I’ll probably do a little review after my next class.

Today I came home to more internet woes… The AirPort Extreme that we use decided to be hardheaded and not work for about 5 hrs. After going out and purchasing a Linksys wireless router and then finding out that a Windows PC had to be present to configure the router the Airport started working again. Very strange.

Josh contacted Apple and they will be sending us a new AirPort ASAP. So as I type this from the library using Tim’s (my boss) PowerBook I am wondering how my internet situation will pan out over the next few days. If you see me on AIM I probably won’t be on long enough to talk so don’t be offended.

Classes are going ok… I will be spending this week and probably this weekend at the library trying to be as prepared as possible for the tests in all of my classes.

At work I have a few projects that are on my plate for the near future. The main one being an e-commerce solution and the second one being a task tool/time management solution for a local company. The e-commerce solution will probably present the most challenge since it will have to interface with so much “outside” stuff. I am looking forward to learning more about the whole process and how to effectively design systems for online shoppers.

I was wondering exactly how possible it was to be completely blind to facts, almost to the point of ignorance. I was reading the Sept. 22 article here and it completely blows my mind that the line about Bush was even related to the article. And I quote, “half the country still wants to re-elect Bush?”. How does that have to do with what is going on in that prison? Does this person truly believe that Bush is calling up the prison in his free time and saying things like “Hey, the news is kind of slow over here, you mind torturing a woman and killing her husband for me?”… To me, that is the only thing possible for a person to believe is happening to make that statement. Then the next issue comes up, do people really believe that Kerry could make such things go away? What’s he going to do, give a presidential order? Because, ya know, that’s really going to solve the problem </sarcasm>.

I was also reading this today and wondered if people actually read their own writing and look for logic errors. If I were to expand the article and make more comparisons it would go something like this:

• If the U.S. were Iraq (under Saddam) our Olympic baseball team would have been taken outside the stadium and shot for not making to the Olympics.
• If the U.S. were Iraq people wouldn’t come out of their homes in fear of being target practice for Saddam’s sons.
• If the U.S. were Iraq the Democrats would be rounded up, killed, and dumped into mass graves.

I could go on but you get the picture.

What I think people fail to realize is that these hostage takes and extremists thrive on chaos. This is what they want, what they enjoy because they are somewhat in control. The only reason these people didn’t do what they are doing during Saddam’s reign is because Saddam would have squashed it before it even got off the ground. He would have had his people go house to house and they would find these people, their families, their dogs, their bosses and then they would kill all of them. To Saddam, that’s problem solving, to the rest of the world that’s flat out wrong. But they didn’t have a terrorism problem in Iraq then did they?

Once again, the American Political Correctness meter would be broken if we did anything like that. People would have a fit.

You really have to love when you spend close to 50 hrs. working on a project and the client decides to change the entire structure of the site. I’m not talking little changes, I mean a complete strip down and start over.

Frustrating? Yes.

Ruining of a day? Completely.

So today will be spent going through 15,000 lines of code to decide exactly what stays and what has to be thrown out.

I’ve come to the realization that no matter what the government, president, or judicial system does in this country there is one group that will always feel it received the short end of the stick. Usually it’s not just one group it’s many and sometimes the groups that feel this way do not even agree with one another, they’re arguing their own side and are not worried about anyone else.

Maybe that’s the problem, too many people focused on number one. I understand why people are, they want what’s best for them and their families but at what point do we draw the line and say “just look at the bigger picture”. Political correctness needs to be thrown out the window. It should have been thrown out long ago. We are so worried about hurting someone’s feelings that we avoid saying anything at all.

What I find most <sarcasm>interesting</sarcasm> is the fact that a lot of groups that are calling (screaming) for political correctness are the same groups that are outright bashing others. They use no form of political correctness when addressing others but if they are not correctly identified bring on the lawsuits.

My last little part of my Tuesday rant is about the presidential race. I am tired of people bashing. If you do not have anything about your platform to say then just keep your mouth shut and get off the podium. It’s ok to say things like “His reform doesn’t include this”, etc, etc. but to full out say “His policies are idiotic”, where’s the necessity in that. That is like a 3rd grader calling someone a “doo-doo head” after not having a good comeback. Grow up Mr. Kerry. Grow up. What really makes me angry is the fact that you keep talking about how our boys in Iraq need more support and yet you voted against sending them more body armour and more vehicles. Hypocrite.

I have to spend most of this week reading to get ready for tests. That, plus a lot of little things at work will make this week extra long.

The only positive note is that the weather has been great, though a little grey. The temperature has not reached 80 for the past few days, which is always a plus.

I verbally jumped on a friend this evening during a discussion about religion and I feel really bad about it. I know, I know, religion is one of those things that you can’t discuss but we were talking about other things and religion just slipped in. I’ll call the person tomorrow and apologize for being a little too harsh.

My boss brought out his Canon AE-1 today and taught me a little about it. I was thoroughly impressed and definitely want one of these cameras. I played with the shutter speed and exposure time and he mentioned that he’d let me take it out and use it some time.