redkanga

Yesterday, while out running errands, I found a great price on a 20gb iPod at Costco. I really, really wanted to buy it. It would have been an irresponsible purchase, mainly because I could use that money for other things (like food). But for $239, it is only $10 more than a refurbished 20gb iPod at Apple’s web store, but only $10 less than a 4gb iPod nano. Hmmm, maybe I should save the money and get a new 30gb iPod, it retails for $299.

ABC News has posted an AP article on a Wi-Fi cloud in rural Oregon. A Wi-Fi cloud would be awesome in the rural area of Smithfield, UT where my in-laws have a house. I love the area up there but the lack of high-speed internet access where they live is big issue for me. I’ve had high-speed access for so long that I don’t think I could easily give it up. I’ve used dial-up while travelling for work and let me tell you, it sucks. I wonder if I could get together a start-up and sell high-speed wireless access to the county up there…

Update: I found a WISP (Wireless ISP) in Logan, UT called TeamWiFi that claims to cover about 95% of Logan Valley. I may have to check into them if I move up there.

I heard it on the radio yesterday, but I wasn’t sure I was really hearing what I was hearing. I sit down on my computer today and bam! on my Google toolbar (yes, it is pretty darn cool) I see a web clip for Wired’s article on God bloggers. I’m down with God and all, but really do we need Evangelical Christians pushing more of their agenda on the rest of us? They are already an outspoken minority in the country, pushing their agenda in various levels of government and spreading hatred towards the gay and lesbian community.

The Wired article points out that many God bloggers are talking about poverty, world hunger and religious oppression. I support the fights again poverty and world hunger. I have a couple one.org links on the site, I have in the past given money and food to Mazon, Foodbank of Southern California and other organizations that fight hunger in Southern California. I have donated to the Red Cross, especially when there is a disaster or other tragedy. I support the cause of religious oppression. It’s not easy to escape the bigotry and hatred that exist towards Judaism and I’m sure that there are other religions that are equally oppressed and have hatred directed towards them.

That being said, I do not consider Evangelical Christians to be an oppressed religion. I really don’t have the energy right now to go into the reasons why I feel that way, but suffice it to say that Easter and Christmas are considered National Holidays and they are decidedly Christian holy days.

Enough for now…

Business Week has an article titled “Google satellite photos worry India leader“. I wonder if any politician has figured out that if a terrorist really wants to target a location, they will do their own reconnaissance and not rely on information found elsewhere. Any information on the Internet or any other publicly available source is only a starting point. I’m not a terrorist, but I can think of more than a couple things that I would want to know about a place if I was planning something… and the info that I want is not going to found except by firsthand observation. If governments want to focus on security, they should look at internal leaks and social hacking before pouncing on satellite imagery. Besides, terrorists could buy the commercial imagery if they needed to.

By the way, Google Earth is really cool. I found my house in no time and even identified the cars in my driveway. The image was taken recently, when I had borrowed my father-in-law’s car because mine was parked out at work…

Update: Wired has posted a similar (ok, maybe the same story even) as India: Google Maps Too Graphic

I got tired of the pseudo-retro look that I had going on, so I created a simpler look for the site. I’m not done yet… I’ve got some graphics to replace, and I’m sure that there are some other bugs that I’ve got to work out… but I’ll get to those.

The Times UK has an article about how the Catholic Church no longer swears by the truth of the Bible.

Funny stuff…

Presidential Speechlist

Note: This is a parody clip… check out who the speech writer is…

well, because I’ve been travelling for work.

For those of you that might not know, I work for a smallish electrical and communications company. For the last 5 or 6 weeks, I’ve been working on a project that involves a major grocery store chain, an advertising company and us. I (the communications tech) and my partner (the electrician, and I will refer to him as Mr. Bean from now on) have had to leave town and drive long torturous hours to work on several of these stores. It’s interesting visiting so many locations of a grocery store chain. Mr. Bean and I have noticed that there is in incredible variation in the attitudes of the store staff from location to location. And it doesn’t correlate with the physical conditions of the store. Some stores are very dirty, messy and busy and have great staff… others just as dirty, messy and busy have staff with lousy attitudes. It makes a big difference in how our day goes.

I’m working locally for the rest of this week and all of next week. Then we are working the San Diego County area. I sense two weeks with lots of driving ahead…

I just found some funny sh!t on the web. If you like local to Provo, UT you can try to get a date with a guy named Lance. Check this link out: DateLance.com

Well, it is now Wednesday and I now have the clarity of thought to talk about what happened with my car, which happens to be a 1995 Chevy Astro with over 110k miles.

I got the car back on Saturday morning. It ran great! I was stoked to get it back so fast. I moved all my stuff from the little brown truck that work lent me to my car, in preparation for taking the little truck back. I ran out of time on the weekend and figured I could get the truck back to work on Monday evening. It’s a good thing that I ran out of time.

Monday afternoon, I was getting ready to leave the job site that I was working at in Fontucky. I opened the door to the car. Without getting in I put the key in the ignition and turned it. rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr. The car was turning over, but refusing to start. I try again. rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr. Hmm, same thing! I was thinking, ‘Damn!!!! I just got this back from the shop.’ Thinking that I had somehow managed to drain the battery, I start looking around for jumper cables. I couldn’t find any. Nobody at the job site had them. I called Katie, she was sympathetic, but I knew that it would be hours before she could come out and get me. I look around under the dash, check a couple fuses and notice that I had knocked loose a couple of wire for the ‘factory installed’ ignition kill-switch. I fiddle with that for a while with no change in my test results.

I try getting a hold of Ron, but he is out of the office and hasn’t gotten home. I try my mechanic, Owen, but he can’t really tell me anything except it’s either no spark or no gas. Pretty much what I had figured. He couldn’t tell me how to bypass the kill switch, so I was pretty much stuck. I finally got a hold of Ron, asked him how he had fixed the kill switch the last time something happened, but he didn’t remember. Stuck again.

It was about 2:45 p.m. I decided to call AAA and get a tow truck out to jump start my car. AAA quoted me a 60 - 90 minute wait and gave me a couple of local shops, since I was about 65 miles from home. I call the shops and they both say that they will take my car but that they don’t know when they could get to it. Ok, so I have to towed to somewhere in Fontana and they keep my car until it is fixed and then I have to get out there during the day to pick it up. Bad.

I talk to Katie and Ron again and we decided that if I can’t get the car started they will come pick me up and we will trailer the car back to Long Beach. Ron suggests that I go someplace and get a cold beer. I decided to stick it out for the tow truck. I wait, then I wait some more. After 1 hour and 45 minutes, I call AAA and asked where the the tow truck is. They politely tell me that they will back off the service call from my account and they call the tow company. The tow company said that they were swamped and that it would be another 30 minutes. 45 minutes later, I’m pretty much delirious from the heat and the sun… I forget to call AAA to ask them where the #$@%!!!! tow truck is. At around 6:30 p.m. the tow truck shows up. The driver is convinced that my fuel pump is gone. He says that a jump won’t do it. I say screw it and ask him to take me to a bar.

He drops me off at a local place. I walk to the front… and it’s closed. I walk two blocks down the street and stagger into a Denny’s. There I sat until 9:00 p.m. when Katie and Ron got there to pick me up.

I just called Owen and asked him if he had a chance to look at my car. He said that it’s got no spark. He bypassed the “$5 cheapo alarm” and it still has no spark. He told me that he’ll know more tomorrow after he starts taking the wretched beast apart.

I’m just glad that I’ve still got that little brown truck to drive.