Mark Pemberton's Blog

HL7 Engine written in VB.NET

2011-02-08T20:46:00.001-05:00

Here's a link to my other site looking for opinions about an HL7 Engine I wrote in VB.NET.
HL7 Engine written in VB.NET
Thanks for your feedback.

Maher: Obama Not Acting Like A 'Real Black' President...

2010-05-30T00:19:00.000-04:00

Bill Maher making comments like this no shocker:

"I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants. That's -- (in black man voice) we've got a 'motherfu**ing problem here?' Shoot somebody in the foot."

What is a shocker is the response by the media. Or should I say lack there of. If this were from Limbaugh or O'Reilly, they certainly would be hung out to dry (saying that mildly). Ok, maybe it is a little early since this was posted today, but mark my words, there will be no response by the media, the administration, or anyone on the left. I look forward to being surprised by a response....

Quote From Ronald Regan

2009-08-11T15:04:00.002-04:00

"But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our childrens future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Ronald Reagan Inaugural Address January 20, 1981

Adrian Rogers said it best

2009-08-11T15:00:00.001-04:00

“Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for. That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.”
Adrian Rogers (said in 1984)

I don't think I need to add any additional comments to this since it basically said it all.....

Week 4, Day 4

2009-02-23T09:23:00.001-05:00

One note about my crutches - the ends wore out! I was given a pair of lightweight metal crutches and under normal use, within the first month the ends started to wear out. When the crutch wears through the end, there is a plastic plug on the end of the crutch that will be supporting your weight, and if that plastic plug comes in contact with any smooth surface, it WILL SLIDE across the floor! I had to catch myself numerous times. Fortunately, I never fell. I went to the place where I got the crutches to tell them how disappointed I was that they only lasted a month. Their first response was that I could go buy some more for a few dollars. I wasn't in the mood to go and do anything! But before I said anything ugly, they got a couple old pair of crutches and gave me the ends. These ends were definitely different, made of the harder material that resembled the ends of my old crutches 24 years ago. Thank You!!!!! Now I can walk again without slipping and sliding across the floor. :)

Day 28

2009-02-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

A week or two ago I had stopped by CVS to find a different ACE bandage, preferably a slip-on wrap that would cover my knee and be a little bit easier to put on. I found one and bought a medium. Got home and it was quickly obvious that it was going to be too tight. Well this evening I stopped by and exchanged it for a large. It fit quite comfortably. Excellent!

Also found a variation of one of the exercises seems to be helping with my range. Laying on my back and pulling my leg back, like I'm pulling it into my chest. I'll do a couple back and forth and then I'll pull it back and let my foot drop by relaxing and letting gravity pull it down. It seems less painful than trying to pull it. I'll continue with it to see if the results are positive. I've got my next PT appointment this Friday - the start of week 5. Wow!

Day 25

2009-02-18T14:43:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I caved and took off my steri-strips last night. Wow, I really think that is where some of my uncomfortableness was coming from. Pulling my skin I guess. I still didn't sleep well last night, but there was a specific pain missing. Weird.

Anyway, going to keep cycling and stretching. I've got about three weeks before I start therapy twice a week. My guess is that is when it could get ugly. Going to try to get as much of my range back as I can before then.

Day 23

2009-02-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update, I've went to the gym Saturday and yesterday and I can really tell a difference. With my brace on, I can go from maximum extension (still at 30 degrees) to pulling in as far as the brace will let me (marked at 120, but not sure if that is correct) and I have very little pulling or tightness on each extreme. Definitely seeing the benefit of the bike.

Also, this Friday, I'm going to bump the extension from 30 to 20 degrees. Just one step closer to putting weight on it. I'm also going to take off the last set of steri-strips because I think my incision is pretty well healed. Last, I'm going to stop taking my aspirin as this marks my 4 weeks. Can't wait until Friday!

Day 21 - PT Day

2009-02-13T12:13:00.000-05:00

Went to PT today and did some stretching, then on to ankle pumps with weights, and surprisingly he put me on the bicycle. I struggled at first on the bike, but after getting through a couple minutes it started to feel pretty good. He pumped the resistance up to 20 (maxed out) so it was a bit slow, but I liked it. Did that for 10 minutes. He said I could do that at the gym as long as I was careful. He measured my range and pulling back was only at 110 degrees. And it hurt pretty bad just to pull it back that far. A little discouraging, but I know it's going to take time. Off I went back to work.

During this past week, I've been doing more leg lifts (front, back, and both sides) and I've noticed a lot of strength coming back. Along with that I do stretches throughout the day. Again, sleeping at night still isn't the best, but I'm tolerating it.

Day 14 after surgery and visit to surgeon

2009-02-06T18:45:00.002-05:00

The past couple of days have been about the same. Sleep is still messed up at night, waking up at 4am and "dozing" off and on until 7am or so. During the day is somewhat uneventful, but I've definitely been able to see some slight improvement with the dull achy pain that is annoying but bearable. I haven't had to take much Advil since my pain level has been quite low.

Today I went to see my surgeon for my first followup visit. Once in the room the nurse took out my stitches from the incisions where they used the scope - 3 incisions, 4 stitches. Next, my surgeon came in and brought in 7 pages of color pictures she took with the scope. She went through each picture attempting to describe to me what I was seeing. From the ACL reconstruction through the meniscus repair to the MCL repair. She was quite thorough. Next, she showed me the post-op xray to show me the ACL tunnel. Quite fascinating.

After going through the surgery, she took my brace and proceeded to give me an extra 10 degrees toward going straight with my knee. Next, she started looking at my knee. She started to pull off the steri-strips that covered the two larger incisions. Everything looked good to her. Healing up quite well. She then started to test the knee stability and was quite pleased. At some point right around this time, and for whatever reason, I started to get light-headed. I told her about it and she quickly asked me to lay down. Immediately my color came back. They gave me a cold rag and after a short period they took my BP to confirm I was ok. Weird. Well, that was it. An assistant put some new steri-strips on my larger incision, but left them off on the smaller incision. I didn't get to talk any more about my surgeon, since her day doesn't stop with me, so I may e-mail her some of my final questions. I wanted to see if there were any more thoughts as to when I will be able to put weight on it. My guess is that it'll be at least another couple weeks. I go back to therapy next Friday and I hope to be stronger within the range I'm at right now.

Day 12 after surgery

2009-02-04T13:48:00.002-05:00

After almost a week without posting, I figured I better post the latest. Nothing much has changed, and after a terrible night on Sunday I thought I was doomed to have restless sleep until I got this brace off. I went to work on Monday (first day back) and was overly tired, but I was hoping that this would promote normalcy in my routine.

Monday night was actually a good nights sleep. No drugs (except advil), just being immensely tired. Woke up and went back to work. Tuesday was good. And last night wasn't bad either - all except some uncomfortableness in my belly.

Over the past week, I think I have seen a slight reduction in some of the discomfort that I've been feeling. That nagging dull pain that seems to never go away. Seems a little better now. Still have the numbness which in my opinion is causing most of the remaining irritating dull pain. Definitely tolerable, just annoying. I'm also still working on my stretching. Tomorrow or Friday I'll bump it up another 5 degrees. I do need to work on some of my strengthening exercises, just to build up and/or keep some tone. I've got an appt with the surgeon on Friday to have my first post-op visit. Not sure what to expect.

Day 6 after Surgery

2009-01-29T12:20:00.002-05:00

With the exception of uncomfortable nights (nearly sleepless), tired of being tired, and tired of sitting, all is going well. After about 2 days of not taking Vicodin, I decided to try one last night to see if that would help me sleep. Apparently it had the reverse affect. Not the least bit sleepy. I think it did help with my mild discomfort, but I tossed and turned until 2:30 when I took another pill. Shortly after that I dozed off for a few hours. Woke up a couple times, and finally woke up around 8am before deciding to get up. My goal is to not nap during the day to see if that will help with nighttime sleeping.

Throughout the day, my pain is very minimal. It's nothing more than a dull ache. Maybe I'm used to having an achy knee (after 24 years). Who knows. If I can get a good nights rest, then I should be good to go.

I've been doing my stretches throughout the day and I seem to be getting more and more limber. I say that, but my scale is small. I could probably push it and get 100 degrees right now, but my PT goal is to do 10 degrees a week.

I took off my brace and wraps this morning to let my leg breathe. What a good feeling. After about an hour I wrapped it and put on my brace to do some stuff around the house. I walked down to the basement and back up twice! I could really feel it in my heart and lungs. I also vacuumed a little bit and cleaned up. Standing up doesn't really give me much pain any more (on my left leg). The swelling seems to be reducing ever so slightly in my knee. I still have an issue with the lack of feeling or tingling right below my kneecap that extends to each side of my knee. What an unusual sensation. I'll live with it if I have to, but I'd love for that feeling to come back. I think I had read somewhere that cutting a nerve there was a possible risk. Bummer.

First Therapy Visit

2009-01-27T12:02:00.002-05:00

Had a good night last night. Originally opted to not take any Vicadin, but at midnight decided to just to make sure I was "medicated up" for therapy. I had already taken 800 mg of Advil, but my pain was minimal - nothing more than a slight nag. Went to sleep pretty quickly. After getting up, I made some coffee to give the colon a kick-start. Worked like a dream. Praise the Lord! I took a couple more Vicodin before heading to therapy.

Once at therapy, I was assigned to a therapist named Brad. Being on a new computer system, they apparently have not interfaced with the inpatient system, so I had to explain to him everything that I had done. Started to make me nervous. Once he asked enough questions, we took off my brace and then proceeded to take off my wraps and gauze pads. Sutures looked good. None infected. It REALLY felt good to itch my skin! :) I do have a patch below my kneecap that is still numb, but dad had said that is surface nerves and should go away in time. Brad cleaned the suture area and put my pads and wraps back on. He then unlocked my brace so I could have full motion to move my leg backward. My leg was originally locked at 60 degrees, and I was able to pull my leg back to 90 degrees with a little help. I think 140 degrees is my goal which is basically all the way back. He showed me a number of exercises and stretches to do. Due to insurance limitations, we've scheduled the next 3 visits to be every other week. Since I can't put any weight on my leg, there's not much more I can really do.

Once at home, I did set a limit for my leg at 100 degrees just for safety. I was worried something might happen. Overall, I was really happy about my first therapy visit. It did hurt to pull my leg back, so I've got my work cut out for me. But I'm going to push it pretty hard to try and get my range back.

My goal now is to completely get off of Vicodin and manage any pain with Advil. I'm in no pain right now, and typically don't have any pain when walking.

Day 2 and Day 3

2009-01-26T14:38:00.001-05:00

This was another uneventful day, just laying around doing nothing. I did lose my cookies again, but attribute it to being constipated from the Vicodin. My system isn't running like it should be, but I'll get there. This brace on my leg seems to be pressing on one of my sutures, which tends to add to my pain. Especially when I stand up. I've been doing my foot pumps as requested to keep down the risk of blood clots. I'm also taking an aspirin every day (for the next 4 weeks). Had some more swelling, but elevating it helps. That's about it. I think this type of day is going to be repetitive.

Day 3 was about the same. I do think that my pain level is coming down some, but I'm not going to change my medication until after Tuesday's physical therapy. I'm sure I'll need to be drugged up quite well for that.

Something I should note, the Vicodin has some side effects. One is mild itching. Not enough of a nuisance to take benedryl or something to ease the itchiness, but I itch a bit more than normal. Another side effect is the crazy dreams it produces. Really crazy and annoying. Most often I dream right when I'm falling asleep. Last, which I've noted before is the constipation. Definitely got to get my plumbing going. Recommendation is taking a stool softener every day.

Day 1 After Surgery

2009-01-24T14:27:00.003-05:00

The Next Day
After a decent night sleep, the surgeon came in around 6am to check up on me. She thought everything looked good and that I'd see her in about a week. Once Physical Therapy came in today that I should be able to go home. I took Vicodin every four hours and both Carrie and I took advantage of the waiting by sleeping. Every so often someone would come in and bother us, but it was quite relaxing. Sometime during the morning, some residents came in to check my drain and sutures. All looked good and they decided to pull the drain tube. My pain level stayed pretty low through the day. It wasn't until 3:30 when PT finally showed up. She was apologetic for not realizing I was waiting on her to be checked out. We didn't mind. The goal of the PT was to make sure I was mobile by using crutches. As I had told Carrie, I told the PT that back in the winter of 84-85 when I was in a full length cast that I had climbed a mountain with crutches. She had a good laugh. After passing her test, we were able to finally check out. Right before, they brought me dinner, so I ate it. Not bad.

Home
On the way home, we decided to stop and get my prescription filled (Vicodin). Praise the Lord that we made it to CVS before 6pm which is when the pharmacy closes! They filled it and we headed home. Once home, I got propped up in the recliner and dozed some more. It was good to see the kids. I think I had some swelling from being on my leg, and it was a bit painful to be on my feet, so the more I could sit, the better. I think the rest of the evening was uneventful. Nothing more than laying around and doing nothing.

Surgery Day

2009-01-23T13:42:00.000-05:00

Arriving at the Hospital
I was called yesterday telling me that I had to check in at 6am for my surgery. Yeah, right. Being a night owl, I figured I'd just stay up the whole night. Actually, I did get a few hours sleep. I checked in right at 6am (with Carrie) and were called back about 30 minutes later. I put on the "modest" hospital attire, and they started my IV in my hand. A few minutes later the anesthetist came in and talked about my options. I think the obvious option was general anesthesia, and opted to have a post-op nerve block done on the top of my leg. No idea what it meant, but it was recommended. Fortunately, my doctor came in right then and she agreed that it would be best to have it. I think there may have been another option, but don't remember. The doctor then confirmed which leg it was and proceeded to mark it with a pen. LOL! The nurse had already marked it too. Once all that was done, they wheeled me back to the OR. I didn't have my glasses so I couldn't see anything, but I did see a lot of people. They moved me from the gurney to the OR table and they got me situated, and no more than 1 minute later I was out. No notice or anything! Didn't care, didn't feel a thing.

5 Hours later
Surgery was done. The surgeon came out to talk to Carrie and my dad and said it went well. The only thing that was any surprise was the amount of damage to the cartilage that is on the surface of the bone. With that damage, the MicroFracture wouldn't have been worth it. At 12:30, they came out and told Carrie that I was moved to recovery. It wasn't until closer to 3pm before they moved me out of recovery to a room. Not sure why it took that long, I do remember one or two things while I was in recovery. They did do the nerve block at some point (either while I was still in the OR or when I was moved to recovery). I remember them performing the block that they were 'tickling' the nerves on the top of my leg. The muscles on the top of my leg felt like they were contracting. Weird feeling, and I think I felt a little pain. Later, they were asking about my pain levels and sensation in my foot, and there may have been a concern about that, but don't remember.

In My Room
Once in my room, they were asking me about my pain levels and they were pretty high. I thought that the nerve block would have taken most of the pain away, but obviously not enough. They gave me a dose of Vicodin which didn't appear to touch the pain. Maybe 30-40 minutes later, they gave me a shot of morphine. Again, it didn't appear to help much. Maybe a little. Another period of time had passed and they gave me OxyCodone. I think that eventually subsided the pain. Right before dinner time, they came in with another dose of OxyCodone. Not long after that, my stomach had enough and lost my cookies. My pain level was tolerable, and after eating something for dinner, I felt pretty good. Not too much swelling either. I think I took one more dose of Vicodin which was sufficient until midnight when they started me on Toradol via IV. It's a strong anti-inflammatory. I slept well through the night.

One week to go

2009-01-16T11:56:00.002-05:00

One week to go before surgery. A little excited to get it done, but not really looking forward to the post-surgery pain that I'm expecting. That and the lengthy rehab....

Reciting my life verses Phil 4:5-9 which states "Do not be anxious about anything..."

PreOp Assessment

2009-01-06T12:40:00.002-05:00

Spent the morning meeting with several people going over details of my upcoming knee surgery. First I met with my surgeon. She and I went over the whole game-plan. My ACL will be reconstructed using an allograft (donor tissue), my MCL will either be "tightened" or will be strengthened by using a graft from my hamstring, and my meniscus repaired. Also, depending on the condition of my meniscus, I may have tiny holes drilled in my bone at the joint which will obviously bleed and creates scar tissue. This procedure is called Microfracture and after researching it, the results can vary. In general, my surgeon was pretty confident that the success rate of the surgery is very high.

I then met with the inhouse DME group to pick up my knee brace, some cold packs and crutches. Although I wasn't very impressed with their expertise, I got my stuff and left my opinion at their door.

Last I met with the PreOp Assessment team. And I want to reiterate "team". I checked in, filled out the necessary paperwork, and went to return it. The lady took it and asked me to step through the door to talk to someone on the phone. Huh? I don't remember who it was, but I had to sit there and talk with some lady to confirm who I was and my information. Weird. Anyway, after finishing, I went back to the waiting room. They called me back a few minutes later, they took vitals, asked a few questions, then went to sit and talk with someone else to confirm more info. Went from there to a room where not 1, not 2, but three other people came in to confirm more stuff. Wow. They were pretty thorough. I left feeling a bit overwhelmed, but relieved it was over.

The only concern I had was that if I had a cold or something that I had to call and reschedule my surgery. Since this is January, and having two small kids, contracting a cold or something is highly possible. And I tend to hold on to a cold for a while too. I really don't want to push the surgery out any longer, and I'm going to have to research the risks of having a cold during surgery. I want to have the best possible outcome, but don't want to push the surgery out any longer. We'll see what happens.

Don't think there is anything else except to wait until the 23rd....

ACL, MCL and Meniscus Surgery is Scheduled

2009-01-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

After 24 years of having a "troubled" knee, I'm scheduled to have surgery on January 23rd. I've read a couple other blogs of people who have had knee surgery and found them very helpful. My surgery is a bit complex because I have to have ACL reconstruction, a "tightening" of my MCL (or may need to be grafted), and I have a complex tear in my Medial Meniscus (at the horn I think). Before my surgery, I thought I'd provide a history to set the context. After surgery, I will try my best to keep the blog updated with my status. Maybe this will help someone who is having similar surgery.

The Injury
Back in August 1985, I was at a Scout meeting and we were playing football before the meeting. I don't think it was an actual game, more like whoever has the football gets tackled. Well the last person who was tackled threw the ball and it was laying on the ground. I was going in to give it a mild kick toward someone. Another scout had the idea of diving for it. What happened next would plague me to this day. I planted my left foot to kick with my right foot. Not milliseconds later the other scout made a dive for the ball head first. Unfortunately his body fell right into my left leg which was fully extended, foot planted to the ground, and bearing all my weight. He hit the outer part of the knee which had no where to go but inward. I don't recall a "pop", but I immediately went down. Although I don't recall feeling much pain, I knew something was wrong because after getting up, my knee kept popping out of place when I tried to put my weight on it. I had to be helped off the field.

The Doctor is In
When I got home, I told my dad about it and he looked at my knee, which was swelling some. Coincidentally, my dad was a PA for an Orthopedic Specialist (specializing in sports medicine). I went with him the next day to work so his boss can look at my knee. They bent my knee all over the place and after some deliberation decided to put me in a full length cast. Fun. The cast was bent slightly, maybe 15-20 degrees, but don't remember. I don't remember if they actually told me what was wrong, and if they did I probably wouldn't have known what they were talking about.

Nothing but Cast
Fast forward to the beginning of March the next year (1985). It's time to get my cast off. After 6 months with this silly full length cast, it's finally coming off. When they took it off, my leg was so small, I couldn't believe it. Weak wasn't even good enough to describe. They fitted me with a brace that was locked in at about the same degree the cast was set. I didn't have any "therapy", and don't fully remember if dad told me what to do and when. I do remember going from a locked position to a small range of motion, and progressing from there. That's about all I remember.

Unstable but working
After getting some tone back in my leg, I started to walk without crutches and get back to normal life. However, my knee still had some instability. Didn't know if that was permanent, but I accepted it. I did get a brace to play sports with, but it seemed that when I wore the brace, my knee would pop out more than without it. So I chose not to wear it. I simply accepted that my sports days were over.

Knee Life
Through the years, I had a normal life, but always favored that knee. I found that I had good stability if I kept my knee bent, and was able to play some raquetball. On occasion, my knee would pop and I'd have to quit. I think it was 2005 I started working out at our church's "Boot Camp" that met each week at 5:45am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I was able to work out with little problems for about 5 months and was noticing a good bit of strength in my knee. Then one morning we were doing sprints in the parking lot which was on an incline. I was running quite well and all of a sudden my knee popped. I knew it was over for a while. It took me a while to recover from that. A little swelling, lots of popping, and mild pain hung around for a while. I wasn't able to return to Boot Camp.

The Last Straw
The last straw was in June 2007 when I went to Atlanta on a week-long mission trip with my church to help renovate a 127 year old church. I enjoy construction jobs like this. I had no problems through the week, but on the day before we left, I was on a ladder helping put the roof on a new storage building we built. I must have been on that ladder most of the day. When I got down, I could tell my knee was stiff and felt like it needed to pop. It was also a bit weak. It made some noise and nearly gave out. It complained to me for weeks afterward. I could tell there was excess fluid on my knee and felt stiff when I bent it all the way back. About a month later I decided to schedule an appointment to have someone look at it.

The Jury is In
A few weeks later I went to see a PA and he ordered an X-ray. He could see there was some premature arthritis and decided to schedule an MRI. I had the MRI done that same week. He called me the next week and told me what he saw and I think his exact words were "it looks ugly in there." Oh great. What does that mean? He said he wanted me to schedule an appointment with a surgeon to talk about my options. Maybe a month had passed and finally saw a surgeon. She went through all the MRI images with me and told me what she saw. I apparently had a completely torn ACL, a stretched MCL, and a complex tear in my Medial Meniscus. As a result, I had developed some premature arthritis. Although she presented one option as being just therapy, she and I both were on the same page that therapy alone wouldn't do much for me. So surgery was the best option.

Surgery is Scheduled
I asked her if I could postpone the surgery until the first of the year to make sure I put enough money in my FSA account to help distribute the cost of the surgery. Not a problem. Eventually got it scheduled for the 23rd which is a couple weeks away.

Now all is left is the waiting.....

Liberals voice concerns about Obama

2008-12-08T14:08:00.002-05:00

Time for some "armchair analysis" from one who doesn't know enough to give 2 cents. This will be more like a 1 cent analysis from my cozy office chair.

After reading this article I couldn't help but think "Who can I call and rub this in their face!" If you didn't or don't care to read the article, it basically highlights that Obama-nation is making his own party feel very uncomfortable by 1) not choosing more liberal cabinet members, and 2) changing some of his "glorified" promises he spewed on the campaign trail. It only takes one who is grounded to reality that some of his promises were a bit over-the-top. Now it appears that reality is smacking him in the face. Ok, granted Obama isn't even in the office yet, so let's cut him some slack. And he's probably getting some serious education on all those topics that he thought he knew about.

Take for instance the military in Iraq. Obama wanted a specific timetable to get our soldiers out. In fact, his January 2007 plan would have already had them out. Now he's saying he doesn't want to pull them out too soon and not ignite "any resurgence of terrorism in Iraq that could threaten our interests." It's pretty obvious his tone has changed, and probably due to getting some education on the issue.

Another issue is the windfall tax on oil companies. He preached that quite well, but now he's changed his mind since gas is cheaper now. Ok, so what happens when it goes back up?

There are numerous other issues of his reversal on his promises, but you get the idea. I do hope and pray that he does learn that it isn't about pleasing the people of this fine nation with promises that can't be kept. I also hope that he understands that this isn't a socialist republic....

The last line of the article probably sums up what I envisioned happening as I listened to his promises on the campaign trail - "But the headline of his op-ed sums up his point about Obama’s Cabinet appointments so far: “This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned.”"

UNC libraries to forgo Christmas trees

2008-12-05T14:46:00.003-05:00

I couldn't help but comment on this story. I saw the link from DrudgeReport and thought I'd check it out since it is close to home (literally). Here are my conclusions.

First, when did a Christmas tree (oh, excuse me, holiday tree) offend someone? And really, how is it "linked" to Christianity?

Second, the article states "Michalak's decision followed several years of queries and complaints from library employees and patrons bothered by the Christian display, Michalak said this week." So how many complaints (and queries?) does it take to force them to stop a tradition of being festive by decorating the library with a tree that doesn't have any relevance to Christianity?

My last and main point of this is driven by a poll that was attached to the article. The poll asks the question "Should public libraries present Christmas displays?" I simply couldn't do justice to the results without posting a snapshot of the results (taken 12/5/2008 at 3pm).

So what does this tell us. To me, this tells me that 4% is dictating what is acceptable and what is not. If this were the only case, I wouldn't be so vocal about it. Another example is the prayer in schools issue. I remember my wife finding statistics on a poll stating only 14% (may have even been 10%) of the population complained about it. Wow. So basically a small percentage of our population is forcing us to be tolerant and removing those items that may offend them.

So how in the world do we remove the apparent power of this minority? Unfortunately I don't have an answer. It is also unfortunate that it probably won't get any better with a liberals liberal entering the White House come 2009.

As you can probably imagine, there were a number of comments posted on this article, one stating "I am surprised that the Christmas trees lasted this long in The Peoples Republic of Chapel Hill." by a poster named PullNoPunch. Thanks for the good comment!

I gave up on Linux Wine

2008-11-25T13:43:00.002-05:00

Ok, to catch up, please read my recent post about switching to Linux. Through the issues of using Wine (windows emulator), I gave up trying to make my games work. The graphics issues were just bad enough to warrant a change. But I still wanted the luxuries of what Linux offered me. So I tried to find a good middle ground.

Ultimately I decided on a dual boot configuration. That way I can have my cake and eat it too (almost). The only side-effect would be the Linux box (specifically my shared folder) would not be accessible if I were playing games. Doesn't matter to me, but it would my wife. Small price to pay (at least I say that now).

This past weekend I did just that. I first wanted to see if I could resurrect my 120GB Maxtor drive that had died on me this summer. Even though SMART was telling me it was bad, I was still able to boot off of it. I worked with it for a while, but it was tremendously slow. Slower than what I remember. I thought that after cleaning the partition SMART would mark it good, but apparently not. So instead of taking a risk on a faulty drive, I decided to use my spare 500GB SATA drive. The problem was my copy of XP Home was pre SP1, and it wouldn't recognize my SATA drive. Remembering a utility I stumbled on a while back, I decided to give it a try. The utility is called nLite which will allow you to create a new Windows installation disk that includes the latest SP as well as any custom drivers. I first booted up my old Maxtor drive since it appeared to be working, although slow. After a successful installation of nLite, I started going through the wizard screens. On the third screen, it crashed on me. I started having doubts, but then realized this drive is going bad and had a ton things fsck had to do, so I went to plan B. Plan B was to boot up Linux and use VirtualBox that I used to setup a Windows XP partition. Loaded nLite on it and it got past the point where it failed before. I was able to go through the whole setup and build the image to be burned to DVD. I tried to burn it from the VirtualBox session of XP, but it really doesn't support writing to DVD's. So I copied the image file over to a shared Linux folder and was able to create the DVD via growisofs application. Whew!

So I get the new drive hooked up and booted on the newly created DVD and it worked like a dream! All I can say is that nLite is the BOMB! Excellent program. I get Windows installed, with all updates, so now I'm ready to go to the next step.

I hooked the new Windows drive as my secondary SATA drive since my primary SATA drive is my data drive. My 250GB ATA drive is my Linux Boot drive. I booted Linux and searched for notes on how to add a boot option to Grub. There wasn't any real cut answer, but I did see some that were similar to my setup and went with that. But nothing was working. Took me a couple hours of trial and error, I finally got it to work. I had to setup my BIOS to recognize my secondary SATA drive was to be ahead of my primary SATA. Weird, but it worked. I tested it several times and everything is working great.

I've loaded and patched all my latest games and loving it! Whew!

Dynamic Forms at Runtime

2008-11-25T08:38:00.002-05:00

I've been toying around with the idea of creating an application that would replace a vendor-supported application at work. So I've been putting together a "proof-of-concept" application shell using VB.NET 2005 that mimics a lot of the features our current application has. Most features seem reasonable and I think I can get by without having any 3rd party components. However, there is one feature that I haven't been able to find a reasonable solution - dynamic forms at runtime. Let me clarify exactly what I mean by that since that is a bit vague.

The requirements for these dynamic forms are:

the application will need to open up and scroll through x number of predesigned forms (sort of like a wizard using next form/prev form buttons at the bottom.
the forms will need to be able to share some data elements on an as needed basis.
preferably the forms will need to be in their own application domain thus not affect the main application if a problem arises.
each form will have the ability to have code-behind.
each form will have the ability to store data.
each form will have the ability to build a text result that will be passed back to the main application.
speed is crucial - opening, scrolling, saving data, etc.
forms will need to be able to be "refreshed" with a newer version of the form.

A hefty list, but doable. What are my options (at least that I've found so far)? Years ago with VS.NET 2003 I created a test application that created controls on a form at runtime, so that is easy. This test application was more geared toward developing an IDE to manage these custom forms, and I never to the code-behind section.

I've looked at the compile-on-the-fly functionality, using CompileAssemblyFromSource but my fear is if I have 8 forms that I have to compile on the fly that performance will suffer.

The current application we have uses a proprietary language to code with, but I really don't want to go there at this point. I always say, why recreate the wheel when there are so many different wheels to choose from?

Another quite interesting option would be to use MyXAML which does on the fly compiling. I found this on CodeProject and has definitely intrigued me. The examples I've seen appear to be pretty fast, it meets a lot of my criteria, but haven't confirmed if it meets all my criteria. The biggest feature that I like about using MyXAML is that the form is all built from code within a text file. The downside is that MyXAML is quite complex and would take a while to go through it. This is probably my most probable option since it lines up with what I had originally had in mind.

One last thought would be to use something like a web framework where the forms are generated from a web back-end. I haven't put much thought into this because of the whole introduction of the requirement of having a web server. We're talking about 1000+ users using this application (most are heavy users). I simply don't want to go there right now. However, if I were to do anything web-based, it would be the whole application. I simply haven't put any thought into this to see if all the features of the application would be available in a web environment.

In summary, this one feature of my "proof-of-concept" application has definitely made my head hurt. I was hoping VS.NET 2008 would offer a little more with its XAML, but you can't have code-behind within XAML. Bummer. And I haven't heard if 2010 offered this as a new feature.

I'll continue to explore the MyXAML option until something else comes along....

How long do we have?

2008-11-20T08:46:00.003-05:00

This was from an e-mail forwarded to me from a buddy of mine (Kent) who sends me some of the most interesting e-mails. This should be an eye opener. One comment from an unknown source said "Several points are argumentative, but the trend is clear---you can see it coming. More simply said ‘there is a reverse correlation between the size and interference of government, and individual liberty and economic growth."

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?
This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier. 'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.' 'A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.' From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.'

'The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years'

'During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage'

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29
Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000, Republicans: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million, Republicans: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2, Republicans: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...' Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message. If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE

Google Notebook - a must have

2008-11-18T10:14:00.001-05:00

I recently found out about Google Notebook (and the associated browser plugins) and see huge potential with this nifty tool. The premise of this neat tool is to store bits of information (text and images) for later use. You can have an unlimited number of notebooks to store your clips. Within each notebook you can also group clips into sections making it easier to find what you are looking for. And if that weren't enough, you can also add labels (tags) and comments to each entry.

Pretty spiffy. Recently I had the need to keep clips of info and this will definitely come in handy.

I haven't used the IE browser plugin, and from a friend who uses the Maxthon browser (IE based), it seemed clunky. But I use the Firefox browser and it seems to work quite well. Just another reason to use Firefox.

Notes on my switch to Linux

2008-11-13T11:27:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a good 5 months since I've switched my desktop from Windows XP to Linux (OpenSUSE 10.3) and I'm still glad I switched. Through this time I have experienced some benefits and pitfalls that I'd like to share.

To start off, I've been working with video processing, converting captured video (MPEG 1) to AVI (XVID) and removing unneeded clips (commercials, etc). On XP, I was using VirtualDub which is a fantastic product and highly recommend it. The closest thing to VirtualDub on Linux is Avidemux which is highly comparable so that transition was minimal.

The next thing I wanted to do was burn some of the converted items to DVD. Most of the canned products are simple apps that write data to the DVD, but don't author a Video DVD. I have yet to find a decent DVD authoring tool for Linux that is comparable to some that are available on Windows. Back in February I had bought a copy of the latest version of Nero and love its interface. And I had recently found out they offer a version for Linux, but you can't use the Windows license on Linux. Bummer. However, I may just have to bite the bullet and get it (assuming it does most of the same things as the Windows version does).

Audio processing was another item that I explored. There are a number of Windows tools that are quite impressive, especially on cleaning up audio. I've been using MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab which is VERY impressive, but I have yet to find anything like it in Linux. Specifically, I've been ripping audio from CD's that are digital copies of audio from cassette tapes. The digitizing of the tapes were horrible (at best) and needed a lot of cleaning up. An audio tool called Audacity is available for both Linux and Windows, but doesn't offer the vast amount of options that the MAGIX product has.

Next is gaming. I have a small number of games I like to play on occasion - UT, C&C Generals, BF2, BF2142, Splinter Cell, etc. I thought I'd give Wine (the Windows emulator) a shot at running these games. WineHQ has a Windows Application Database that will tell you what works, what doesn't work, etc. The first game I installed was C&C Generals. Installation went well and started the game. It actually started! However, my cursor was invisible. After looking at the Wine AppDB, I noticed there was a patch to fix animated cursors. Unfortunately that required me to download the sourcecode and build Wine. Took me a while, but I did it and it worked. C&C Generals played great! I then installed NWN and UT which had Linux binaries and those played very well. Next came BF2 and Splinter Cell. Didn't have a lot of success here and required a lot of tweaking via winecfg, loading DirectX, adding manual entries in regedit, etc. Even tweaking it, there are graphics issues that are borderline playable. I have to play them at low graphics so the FPS are high enough to play.

In summary, as a result of the graphics issues with the games, I'm probably going to create a Windows partition that will simply be used to play games (and maybe author DVD's). However, getting there may be pretty difficult with my current setup. My machine is a bit dated and doesn't appear to allow booting from one of the SATA drives, which I have many of. I only have one PATA which is where my Linux OS is loaded and from what I've read, it doesn't appear possible to start with Linux and load Windows as a secondary OS. What I may do is try to recover my old Maxtor drive that semi-crashed on me (it used to be my primary Windows OS drive). Since I'll only be using this drive as my Windows drive with nothing that needs storing, if it were to crash again I wouldn't be too upset.

One last note, there are other services I use on my Linux box I didn't mention - personal web server, SSH, FTP, Samba Shared folders, printer queues, and much more. Oh, and I don't have to tell you that Linux is free, right?

Linux Server Upgrade and swap

2008-05-24T01:13:00.002-04:00

A couple years ago my bro-in-law and I installed SUSE 10.0 on an inexpensive but new box and have liked it for the most part. Since then SUSE has went through several versions, which unfortunately none did not allow for "upgrading" from 10.0. I've liked SUSE for the most part, but they use a directory structure that is slightly different than the default that most linux distros use. So I'm shopping around for a possible new distro.

In addition, my bro-in-law's friend gave me an "almost new" video card which is PCIe that will fit into this box. This box is a little better than my current desktop, so my idea is to switch my linux box with my windows box. Probably going to take a whole weekend to do, but looking forward to it. Two problems, I've got lots of video and photo data in various places, and I have a very active family. Not complaining about the latter, especially because it is by choice, but does limit the amount of time I can spend on a project. And with a 10 month old who loves to put things in her mouth, I'll definitely have to be careful.

Todo: Decide what linux distro to use and schedule a weekend that is convenient for the family and I'll switch everything out. Definitely looking forward to it. I may end up buying a portable drive (maybe a NAS, that would be cool) to help with the data moving. I'm definitely going to do fresh installs on both OS's.

"Fun computers they are." - Yoda

MoneyBaron.org

2008-05-23T16:35:00.003-04:00

Started up a new site for the new project I started. It's called MoneyBaron and will be "yet another" personal financial program that will allow you to keep up with your daily transactions, budget, with reporting, etc. Writing it in VB.NET 2005. Development has stalled but one day I'll get back on it. I'm actually looking at putting together another application on the same lines, but more focused on managing your budget. What I want to do is combine the "Envelope Budget" method with touchscreen capability. The whole purpose is to maximize the efficiency of posting new transactions. I use an online service that pulls in my financial transactions from my credit cards, but does not pull in my credit union transactions (which is a key component). Maybe I'll even combine both worlds - downloaded transactions from the major carriers and manual transactions entered by you. How sweet! And the back end can be my MoneyBaron application that will allow you to run reports, look at recurring transactions, modify your budget, etc! Ok, blood is pumping... Must go code now...

Blogger Beta

2006-10-31T15:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been a gmail user for some time and have now converted my Blog over to their beta version of blogger.com. Something to do I guess....

Finally, a news validation site

2006-03-06T16:28:00.000-05:00

I've found an awesome site (from a link off of DrudgeReport) that is excellent! Go to www.newsbusters.org to get the real scoop on some of the stories that the media has been covering and putting "their" spin on it. Even the more conservative FOX News seems to ignore some of the facts. Thank you NewsBusters! I encourage all to go there and get the facts, not a spin based on a personal bias or the need to attempt to keep a captive audience. Just give me the facts!!!!

Bode Miller - almost not worth the webspace

2006-02-27T14:01:00.000-05:00

I try to distance myself from commenting on an individuals' actions, but I had to say something about Bode Miller. I confess, I didn't know him before the 2006 Winter Olympics, but after seeing him on the slopes, I was a little disappointed. Then, when someone interviewed him, my disappointment turned to disgust. Here we have a man who apparently was a good skier at some point, but his trash mouth, party life, and lack of respect for the Olympics really misrepresented the USA. Have a look at a couple of these articles to get an idea of the man behind the mask.

MSNBC
NY Times

A quote that gives good summations of Miller's 2006 Olympic experience:
"He bombed in the men's downhill, the first major event of any Winter Olympics. In his next three races, he was disqualified, did not finish and finished sixth. In between, he was spotted in various nightclubs late at night in the little village of Sestriere. He occasionally granted short interviews, where with spectacularly poor timing, he professed his general lack of interest in winning Olympic medals." - nytimes

Well, I've written too much about this issue. My heart goes out to the person who could have went to the Olympics instead of Miller...

Our Personal SUSE Linux Server

2006-02-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

My bro-in-law and I built a linux box this past Christmas, running SUSE OSS 10.0. We got a tremendous deal on http://www.tigerdirect.com for a barebone system for nearly nothing (AMD64 3700+, Gig ram, Ultra Case/PS, + accessories). We also bought a 250gb drive for dirt cheap to compliment the system. After a scary issue with one of the processor pins being bent, we finally got it working. Since then we've loaded on it several things.

Teamspeak server, UT2k server, NWN server, some nice web based apps (calendar, photo gallery, geneaology stuff, webmail, etc). Working on streaming video now.

Good links to finding some awesome apps are:
http://www.sourceforge.net
http://freshmeat.net

We have a ton of fun working on the server and seeing what we can do with it. I encourage those of you with a little extra time and a spare PC to load up one of the linux distributions and have some fun with it. I've also recently loaded Debian on a very low-end PC. Worked great. The installation was quite easy.

Maybe I'll blog some more about the things we've done on SUSE. One day....

PHP WYSIWYG Editors (or lack there of)

2006-02-22T22:59:00.000-05:00

I've joined in on a SourceForge project, phpMyGenealogy, to create a simple, yet powerful web site that will allow you to view as well as edit your personal genealogy. There are a few other projects that will allow you to do this, but I'm not very fond of anything I found. The originator of the project is a German man by the name of Peter Siegmund. I look forward to working with him.

Now on to the reason of this post. Much of my work has been in either a 100% text environment (unix) or 100% Windows (I'll include web development here since it does entail a level of forms designing). Using VS.NET, I rewrote a full blown web portal that was originally written in Classic ASP. Some of it was easy, other parts were quite difficult (full integration with Active Directory). Using VS.NET, the forms development were relatively simple. In preparation of this new PHP project, I was sharpening my skills with PHP (which I was somewhat of a novice to much of the syntax). Through that process, I was looking for a decent editor. I found some very impressive (free) editors but haven't chosen a specific editor of choice. One reason is the free editors tend to be a little buggy. One that I seem to be leaning toward is PHP Designer 2006. It's still in Beta, but seems to be well written and has a decent layout. However, this as well as most others do not have an actual form editor like VS.NET has (for ASP.NET). I'm thinking about exploring some non-free editors to get the functionality that I'm looking for, but I wasn't sure how much time and effort I was (or would be) able invest in the project. Thus, I don't want to put money into something that I may use for a short period of time.

So, if anyone has a STRONG recommendation of an editor that has the flexibility like VS.NET has, bring it on. Obviously I prefer low to no cost, but I'll take what I can get.

VB.NET - Using the Framework Desginer

2006-02-22T09:59:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping this is the first post of many regarding how to use the built-in Designer in the .NET Framework using VB.NET. This has been quite an exiting (and learning) experience and I think I've just opened the door for a lot more.

History:
My goal was to design a custom forms editor to develop forms for one of our applications at work. The forms are built based on parameters within text files, but they mimic how forms are designed in the .NET development applications. So I thought it would be relatively easy to design an editor that would be able to edit these forms. I had already went through most of the parsing of the form text files and creating the controls on a form. I even found some code to be able to move the controls around and resize them using a rubber-band style editing that we're all familiar with. I thought I had made some serious breakthroughs getting to this point. With that done, I thought I would start generating main application with MDI controls so I could have multiple custom forms open at one time. All was going well (especially since 2005 really makes this part pretty easy) until I was trying to create a the custom form within a child form that had multiple splitter bars. The custom form within the child form (which was actually within a panel) I couldn't make it look like it was active. I had some other problems too, so I decided to do some hunting around the net finding examples of other custom forms designers.

During my searches, I found out that the framework actually has within it the designer that vs.net uses. The first awesome site I found was:

http://www.divil.co.uk/net/articles/ or
http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/show/4351/

The first article listed is about Hosting Windows Forms Designers. There's a C# and VB.NET example, and it worked nicely. However, it made me recognize that I don't know as much as I thought, so started doing some additional research on services, interfaces, etc. These were done by Tim Dawson (as well as some other links you can find on either site).

Here are some other links I found that might help in your situation:
These first four are all from Mark Treadwell's Blog. I provided the specific links to each of the items I found useful for this purpose. Mark has some other good posts as well.
http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/archive/2004/11/23/15763.aspx
http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/archive/2005/01/06/19342.aspx
http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/archive/2005/01/06/19343.aspx
http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/archive/2005/01/11/19745.aspx

SharpDevelop also uses the framework, but not originally built around 2.0. Good info though:
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/

Some decent Microsoft examples:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=813808
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/12/CustomFormsDesigner/default.aspx

I had some other links, but I think that is plenty. I do think I have one other link that was specific to developers creating custom form designers, but can't find the link. If you have any links you'd like to submit, please do so.

The last example I wanted to share I found was on MSDN. The text is actually in the March 2006 edition of MSDN Magazine:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/03/DesignerHosting/default.aspx

This was quite awesome, but it was written in C#. Not that I have anything against C#, I just don't know it as well as I know VB.NET. So I converted it to VB.NET. Download Code Please let me know if you find anything wrong with it. I'll be glad to update it.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say today, but please look for more in the near future regarding the creation of a custom forms designer.

New Arrival in our home!

2005-04-19T21:04:00.000-04:00

Well, believe it or not, God has blessed us with our first child (04/19/2005 9:04pm). Ruth Alice Pemberton was 7lbs exactly and 20 1/2 inches long. She is so beautiful. Go check out some pics on our website - www.markpemberton.com. I designed the photo viewer myself. Wasn't too happy with any viewer that I reviewed. I wanted something simple and automatically resized the picture based on the users' desired picture size. I'll probably get the source published somewhere, but if you would like it before do, just e-mail me at mpemberton5@gmail.com.

Back to the ole blog

2005-03-09T17:21:00.000-05:00

I was so excited when I registered my new url - www.markpemberton.com, and the web host seemed loaded with features, I had a hard time getting any canned Blog software to load. I messed around with it for a while, but nothing would work. I was quite upset. So I decided to keep this blog to get my words out. I'm going to try to be more diligent at posting. One day I'll either host my own server, or find a decent host. Ok, just to clear the air, my current host is cheap. There. I said it. The reason I'm hosting with them is because it's costing me $1 for the next year. After that it's $54 a year I think. Can't really beat, at least with the kind of response I get from their server. Oh, my site is not up yet, but just about there. Give me time, will ya? :)

Just to throw this out, I also didn't find a good photo gallery with source to put on my site. That's the biggest thing I need to get working. I tried several, but wasn't happy with the outcome. Either it didn't work, or it wasn't efficient for users who are still on dial-up. Yeah, I've got some family still on dial-up. Anyway, we're expecting the new addition to the family in about 6 weeks and I need to make sure I have a place for the pics to be displayed. I'd really like for it to do auto thumbnails and auto sizing based on their preference. Of course the broadband folks will want as big a picture as they can get, but the dial-up folks, well, they'll be happy with just about anything that doesn't take a week to d/l. Also don't want to have it open up new windows for those who have pop-up blockers and don't know how to work them. :) Ok, that was a low blow. Sorry.

Anyway, I also want to say that we're 95% done with our basement. Carpet came in last Saturday, so we were able to start moving furniture in. Baseboard is almost completely put in, but need to fill some gaps around the corners.

Well, 'nuf said. Best be going....

Nerd Quiz. Figures....

2005-02-02T14:09:00.000-05:00

Code of Ethics for Blogging?

2005-01-21T14:59:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is going to raise a stink. But not with me. Blogging is nothing more than someone's opinions, experiences, an extension of their personal web space, and/or basically just some stuff you would probably put in a regular journal.

I'm guessing this is coming from those select people who get paid to present "their" opinion on something. They must feel like blogs are "crowding" them. Sure, it's a new standard to express your opinion, and many blog sites are free sites, geez this one is. I express my opinion about something, and if someone reads it and takes it as the truth, I'm not responsible. It's just as if I had a conversation in a chat room, on the phone, or even in person with someone and stated my opinion. Nothing different.

But it's written, you say. Sorry, that holds as much water as a rusty bucket with holes. If I were getting paid, I'd probably have to abide by some standard. Otherwise, back away from attempting to push a standard on us unpaid folks who just want our voice heard.

Happy January 21st! It's Friday and I'm looking forward to the weekend!

Free iPOD? Definitely Legitimate

2005-01-17T14:26:00.000-05:00

Ok, I had seen this before, but wasn't for sure if it was legitimate or not. But according to Wired News, it is definitely legitimate. I've also seen some blogs that have documented their receipt of the iPOD.

So, I went for it and it was quite painless. Basically, the offer I chose was to purchase some ink cartridges that I already needed. I'm not out anything, just the opportunity to possibly get a Photo iPOD. If you so incline to help me out, I need 10 nice folks to click my link to the right to sign up for the free iPOD.

Blockbuster's new marketing ploy

2005-01-01T21:55:00.000-05:00

Have you heard about Blockbusters "No Late Fees" ads? I was a little skeptical about it so I checked into it. Go here to check out their new terms.

In summary of their new terms, if you don't bring back the movie/game after a week after the original due date, Blockbuster will charge to your account the selling price of the movie/game. Ok, that's not so bad if you really liked the movie and you wanted to keep the movie (which isn't bad except that you pay their price of the movie, assuming it is full retail price). One other benefit, is that you get to basically keep the movie/game for an additional 7 days without any fees. That's nice.

Now for the bad side. Let's say you really didn't want to keep the movie/game and attempted to return it after the 1 week grace period. Well, they'll take it back, but it's going to cost you. They state it's a "minimal restocking fee", but don't say how much it is. I'm going to go on a limb and say that it is probably about the same as the original late fee. Ouch.

Lastly, there is a disclaimer that it's at "Participating Stores only." Not sure what that means, but I guess there's a chance that they may not offer it where you are at. Hmm, anyway, I guess there's some good to this new scheme, with the 1 week grace period, but if you don't adhere to that plan, you'll either pay for the movie at full price or pay the restocking fee.

My conclusion is that many people will do like I would probably do is wait until the last minue to return it, and sometimes not make the last day (which is probably what Blockbuster is betting on). With this extra amount of time, it's definitely going to be easier to hold on to it for that time period "just in case you want to watch the movie again", which you probably won't, and the movie will get tossed underneath the couch or the paper and then it's lost. This is when the law of the unknown falls into place - "Out of site, out of mind".

Good luck Blockbuster.

2004-12-03T15:32:00.000-05:00

12-04 pic - Am I cute or what??

2004-12-03T15:31:00.001-05:00

12-04 pic - Come on, is there no privacy here???

2004-12-03T15:31:00.000-05:00

12-04 pic - Check me out!

2004-12-03T15:30:00.000-05:00

12-04 pic - I'm a little cramped in here.

2004-12-03T15:29:00.001-05:00

12-04 pic - Pretty decent sized foot. Takes after mommy (hehe).

2004-12-03T15:29:00.000-05:00

12-04 pic - What a profile.

2004-12-03T15:27:00.000-05:00

12-04 pic - Here's looking at you!

2004-12-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

Pic 2 from Dec 2nd. Solid looking leg. She was kicking mommy pretty good. I actually felt her!

2004-12-03T15:24:00.000-05:00

Here's a couple scans that we had done on December 2nd. We weren't scheduled to have a scan since it was just a doctors visit, but Karen worked us in. Both are pretty good pics of the legs (crossed). We also found out what we were having. IT'S A GIRL!!!! Check out the next set of pics to see.

Political Unrest after the elections

2004-11-17T09:35:00.000-05:00

I was really looking forward to getting beyond the elections hoping that the division within our country would be minimalized. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Our local paper, the so-called conservative talk radio, and others have kept pace with the intensity of their bias which continues to fuel the "divisive" fire. I won't put full blame on the media, but they definitely love to throw a "log on the fire" because that's what they think "news" is. Ok, I'm getting off track. Back to the political unrest. Maybe a week or two before the elections, I was talking to my lovely wife, and I told her that we, the USA, will continue to be divided if President Bush wins. Was I wrong?

Here's my spin on it. First of all, I've been trying to not "categorize" people, because categorizing someone as one thing doesn't necessarily reflect everything that the category labels them as. But to make my point I have to define some categories (which most are just general assumptions). It's probably safe to say that most conservatives consider themselves as a Republican. These are people who lean more toward faith-based morals (which typically don't change). Democrats aren't necessarily 100% opposite a Republican, but many of these liberals do not hold to the same standard as conservatives. A lot of their values are based on societies views (which tends to change).

With that said, here's why I didn't think there was going to be any political unrest if Bush were re-elected. Based on their values, it is easier for a Republican/conservative to accept the election results than for a Democrat. Granted, there have been a couple so-called Republicans who have gloated in the win, but that is not the dominant reflection of the party. Since the results of the election, the "liberal" media has continued to fuel the division of this country by peppering their stories/articles with their obvious lean to the left. It's obvious they are still mad at the results. The negative connotations are quite obvious and is really getting old.

Now if the elections would have turned out differently, my personal conclusion would be that those considered conservative would probably deal with the loss more appropriately than to continue to bash the President. The appearance of a division in the country would definitely be different.

One last blurb. As I was writing this, I just realized how "controlling" the liberal (and even some so-called conservative) media is in this country (and I'm sure many others). It's very sad. Since Bush won, they have pushed the negative tone which continues the division. If Kerry would have one, they would have focused on him in a positive light, making him the "best thing since sliced bread". Again, I'm all for freedom of speech, but please don't taint the "news" with a political agenda. I don't want to turn on the TV and watch "WFMY Opinions 12". I want to watch "WFMY News 12".

An impressive quote brings up a good discussion

2004-11-01T20:00:00.000-05:00

I was doing some research on several of our candidates running for public office (which I STRONGLY encourage everyone to do), I uncovered a quote that probably has been used before, but has struck me pretty hard. The quote "Without religion there can be no morality. Without morality there can be no law" was quoted by Fred Morrison Jr who is running for NC Supreme Court Associate Justice. I don't know much about Morrison, and my intention isn't to support or not support Morrison's views, but his quote seems to accurately describe what I've been attempting to do for a long time - making the connection between our beliefs and the our laws of this nation. Ok, I admit I struggle sometimes with finding the right words to say, and sometimes I just have to borrow someone elses. I did a search on this quote and didn't bring up any matches, but I bet the concept of this quote has been used before somewhere (not to discredit Morrison in any way).

Ok, where am I going with this. Oh yeah.... Let me make one more point before I go there.

To qualify the definition of morality, here are some definitions of morality:

The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.
Virtuous conduct.
A rule or lesson in moral conduct
The relation of conformity or nonconformity to the moral standard or rule; quality of an intention, a character, an action, a principle, or a sentiment, when tried by the standard of right.
The quality of an action which renders it good; the conformity of an act to the accepted standard of right.
The doctrines or rules of moral duties, or the duties of men in their social character; ethics.
The practice of the moral duties; rectitude of life; conformity to the standard of right; virtue; as, we often admire the politeness of men whose morality we question.
concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct
motivation based on ideas of right and wrong

Ok, if you'll look at these definitions, you'll see a pattern. Just look for the word "standard". And if the definition doesn't say "standard", it's obviously implied by using words as "system" or "doctrines". Ok, still don't see it, how about the comparison "between good and bad", "right and wrong"? What scale do we use to determine what is right, or what is wrong? Ok, I hope I have "prepared" you for the conclusion of point 1.

Here's the answer formed in a question: What has been our scale? What has been our "standard"? What has been used to form many of our core laws in the USA? The answer is the Holy Bible. It's Scripture! Believe it or not, God's Word has been the basis for many laws of our land.

So getting back to the quote, Morrison uses "religion" as a source, meaning the Holy Bible, to defining what is right and wrong (morality). If our morality not based on Scripture, we have a distorted idea of what is right and wrong, which can cause some devastating results (which we have already seen in the recent past).

No morality = no laws. Simple enough. If we don't know what is right or wrong (or it is distorted) then our laws are pointless. I do pray that our elected (and non-elected) officials of our country seek to know and understand the definition of morality and using the "standard" of Scripture. Maybe that's a little nieve, but that's my prayer.

Warning! Loose Cannon in the Kerry/Edwards Camp

2004-10-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

I am totally amazed at what comes out of Heinz-Kerry's mouth. Well, ok, maybe not that surprised. Please read the whole article to get the full message.

Here's the quotes that was said:
"Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good," Heinz Kerry said. "But I don't know that she's ever had a real job - I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things."
Heinz Kerry said she sees her age as a benefit - she is 66 and Bush 57. "I'm older, and my validation of what I do is a little bit bigger - because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about," she said.

Can you believe that? These kind of "belittling" statments are highly unnecessary. Not only has she reduced herself to "bashing" someone's character, but she may have devastated the Kerry Campaign. Oh, wait, here's her apology.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Heinz Kerry said: "I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children. As someone who has been both a full-time mom and full-time in work force, I know we all have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as first lady and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past."

Major backtracking. The Kerry/Edwards camp must have made her come out and apologize. What a loose cannon. Do you really want this type of person as First Lady of the Country? How about this: Do you really want two lawyers running the country? I don't recall EVER hearing this type of trash coming from Laura's mouth.

I have no words to describe my feelings....

Paul Bremer's true comments about Iraq

2004-10-19T16:07:00.000-04:00

This is interesting. Context is everything. Please read this. This was posted in the NY Times, and you can follow the link to the source (but you have to pay for the full copy of the article). Here's the full article:

October 8, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What I Really Said About Iraq
By L. PAUL BREMER III

In recent days, attention has been focused on some remarks I've made about Iraq. The coverage of these remarks has elicited far more heat than light, so I believe it's important to put my remarks in the correct context.

In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to undermine President Bush's Iraq policy.
This effort won't succeed. Let me explain why.

It's no secret that during my time in Iraq I had tactical disagreements with others, including military commanders on the ground. Such disagreements among individuals of good will happen all the time, particularly in war and postwar situations. I believe it would have been helpful to have had more troops early on to stop the looting that did so much damage to Iraq's already decrepit infrastructure. The military commanders believed we had enough American troops in Iraq and that having a larger American military presence would have been counterproductive because it would have alienated Iraqis. That was a reasonable point of view, and it may have been right. The truth is that we'll never know.

But during the 14 months I was in Iraq, the administration, the military and I all agreed that the coalition's top priority was a broad, sustained effort to train Iraqis to take more responsibility for their own security. This effort, financed in large measure by the emergency supplemental budget approved by Congress last year, continues today. In the end, Iraq's security must depend on Iraqis.

Our troops continue to work closely with Iraqis to isolate and destroy terrorist strongholds. And the United States is supporting Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in his determined effort to bring security and democracy to Iraq. Elections will be held in January and, though there will be challenges and hardships, progress is being made. For the task before us now, I believe we have enough troops in Iraq.

The press has been curiously reluctant to report my constant public support for the president's strategy in Iraq and his policies to fight terrorism. I have been involved in the war on terrorism for two decades, and in my view no world leader has better understood the stakes in this global war than President Bush.

The president was right when he concluded that Saddam Hussein was a menace who needed to be removed from power. He understands that our enemies are not confined to Al Qaeda, and certainly not just to Osama bin Laden, who is probably trapped in his hide-out in Afghanistan. As the bipartisan 9/11 commission reported, there were contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime going back a decade. We will win the war against global terror only by staying on the offensive and confronting terrorists and state sponsors of terror - wherever they are. Right now, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Qaeda ally, is a dangerous threat. He is in Iraq.

President Bush has said that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. He is right. Mr. Zarqawi's stated goal is to kill Americans, set off a sectarian war in Iraq and defeat democracy there. He is our enemy.

Our victory also depends on devoting the resources necessary to win this war. So last year, President Bush asked the American people to make available $87 billion for military and reconstruction operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military commanders and I strongly agreed on the importance of these funds, which is why we stood together before Congress to make the case for their approval. The overwhelming majority of Congress understood and provided the funds needed to fight the war and win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. These were vital resources that Senator John Kerry voted to deny our troops.

Mr. Kerry is free to quote my comments about Iraq. But for the sake of honesty he should also point out that I have repeatedly said, including in all my speeches in recent weeks, that President Bush made a correct and courageous decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutality, and that the president is correct to see the war in Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism.

A year and a half ago, President Bush asked me to come to the Oval Office to discuss my going to Iraq to head the coalition authority. He asked me bluntly, "Why would you want to leave private life and take on such a difficult, dangerous and probably thankless job?" Without hesitation, I answered, "Because I believe in your vision for Iraq and would be honored to help you make it a reality." Today America and the coalition are making steady progress toward that vision.

L. Paul Bremer III, former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, was the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004.

(copyright 2004 New York Times Company)

Media bad, mostly

2004-10-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

To preclude this, I use the word "media" loosely. Many, not all, mainstream news organizations are typically biased. Some people may say differently, but that's because they are living in a "Hollywood" world. I typically watch FOX (both local and network) because they tend to lean between the middle and the right. That's ok, but they are definitely closer to the middle than all the others.

This morning I had my coffee and went to turn on local FOX. They've been on a kick where they have this doctor come in and answer questions (boring). So I turned to NBC (what was I thinking). Katie Couric was talking about Iraq. Not exactly sure of the point of the story, but it was OBVIOUS that she was against it and focused heavily on the deaths, and any negative part of the war. She tried to make it "non-biased" by adding in some comments from a widow of a soldier who lost his life in Iraq. The widow was talking about the letters her husband sent back. The letters described the actual results of what freedom does to a country. He was continually being reminded of why he was over there simply from the results of freedom. Other than that, Katie really beat into the ground the strongly negative stance on the war. Very disappointing.

Although we don't "elect" our media, we can definitely turn the channel. Let Neilson call me, I'll tell them who I'm watching and why.

Home Improvement

2004-10-17T22:05:00.000-04:00

I've been working on finishing our basement (sorry no pics yet) which has about a 300 sq ft area that we want to use as an office area and play area. I'm 95% done studding the walls, and about to get Tony, my electrican, out to connect up my new outlets. The gas man will also have to come out and run a pipe straight down the wall to connect our wall mounted heater. Hopefully I can have these two things done in the next week or so. Then I have to put up the insulation and then the drywall. Fun stuff.

On Saturday I started working on the front porch. The paint on the railing has started to peel and looks horrible. It appears that they didn't primer the wood first. Thanks a lot. Anyway, I took my trusty power washer and sprayed off all the loose paint (and there was a bunch)! I was able to do one side of the porch and should be able to paint this coming Thursday. I'd like spray down the other side on Saturday if I can. I should have started this earlier in the fall because it is getting a little cold and that water spray chills the bones.

Anyway, that's what's going on at the home front. Many other things need to be done, but one thing (ok, maybe two things) at a time. Got to get ready for the baby....

NeverWinter Nights Rocks!

2004-10-12T23:02:00.000-04:00

Ok, I may be behind the times, but this game is awesome! Me and my buddy have been faithful to Dungeon Siege, but have been looking for something similar. NWN has been out for quite a while, along with some expansion packs (modules) and tons of user created modules. I just played the demo (quite short) but really enjoyed it. Same type of game play as DS, but enough different that it is quite enjoyable. We're probably going to buy the Platinum version which includes all the latest expansion packs and some popular user modules. If you are so inclined to try, check it out at http://nwn.bioware.com. One other game I'm going to do more looking into is Balder's Gate which apparently has some similar gameplay. Anyway, I might as well write off a few hours a week on this game.

Kerry/Edwards into healing??

2004-10-12T14:26:00.000-04:00

I freqent www.drudgereport.com and found a novel quote by Edwards. Granted I don't know the context, but geeze, is there any other way to interpret this?

'When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again' - Edwards

First of all, if Christopher Reeves were still alive, bummer huh, he'd probably take this quote as an insult (at least I would). The John's (that's how I like to refer to Kerry/Edwards) have elevated themselves as the guys who are going to be able to do what Reeves was unable to do in his 9 years as a paralytic - to make himself walk through the power of healing (or technically, through some medical miricle).

Second, have they elevated themselves to be like Christ? How arrogant! Very poor choice of words Johnny boy. The attempt to tickly my ears didn't work pal. I know better.

My third point goes along that line of "medical miricle". If the John's think that using the stem cell research to fix/repair/replace/regrow/etc a spinal cord, they are barking up the wrong tree. After discussing this with some of my friends in the medical industry, this just isn't possible with the knowledge we currently have. Sure, I think using stem cell research can benefit certain medical ailments, but there isn't any evidence that it will fix "everything".

Final point, I stand behind Bush on this. He agrees that there may be benefits with stem cell research, and has funded it accordingly. But I do not believe the science is that important to use a fetus for testing. Bush has allowed the use of those fetus's that have already been taken from the mother, but he stands firm on not using any new fetus's. I applaud Bush for sticking with the right decision even though it may not be popular. For those who oppose, just think about this, how far will we go to pursue longer life? Is the life of an unborn child worth taking just because someone made a bad choice? Please don't get me started on what I think about abortions. That's for another day.

VB.Net - Active Directory

2004-10-11T21:28:00.000-04:00

Well, time to get technical. Last year, I worked on a web portal that authenticated users via Active Directory. During the development of the project, I put together a lot of notes on how to make Active Directory calls from VB.Net. My goal is to start blogging about those notes, hoping to help those who are possibly going through what I went through. I've answered many questions on www.experts-exchange.com and typically scan through the unresolved questions hoping to find those questions about Active Directory issues. So, look for upcoming blogs with some detailed code examples.

Lucy - the head of the house

2004-10-11T20:52:00.000-04:00

As our dominant kittie, she thinks she owns the house. Lucy and her sister, Priss, sleep, eat, and you know the rest of the story. Lucy loves getting in my lap so I can pet her. Once I stop petting, she's gone. It's all about her....

Priss - our "pretty girl"

2004-10-11T20:51:00.000-04:00

Lucy's sister. Priss has what we call a little "weight problem". She has tiny paws, a tiny head, a pencil for a tail, and belly that sweeps the floor. She can be quiet and stealthy, or as loud as a herd of cattle.

Baby Pic 1

2004-09-17T20:34:00.000-04:00

This is the first picture of our baby! He's 9 weeks old right now (about the size of a peanut). Isn't he totally awesome! We're calling him a "he" because "it" just doesn't sound right.

Baby Pic 2

2004-09-17T20:32:00.000-04:00

Here's picture number 2 of baby Pemberton. Same visit, just different. :)