A Few Thoughts…

It’s not yet memorial day, but this sentiment is not reserved solely for one day. Memorial day has been held yearly since 1866, though wasn’t officially know by its current name until after World War II. It is intended to be a time to remember those who have died in combat for this country.

I enjoy watching war movies – especially some of those made recently like Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, and the HBO series Band of Brothers. These movies are violent, gruesome, and probably only show a very little part of the life the soldiers lived. They open a window to a world that you and I can only imagine the pain, suffering, grief, and shear courage of the men and women of the United States armed forces. But because of their dedication to this country, and all it stands for, I can sit in my condo typing whatever I want, whenever I want to. And you can sit anywhere in the free world and read this.

Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II. I do not know the full details of either of their times on foreign soil because they died when I was very young. They lived through the war, and came home. If there was one thing I could change about my childhood, it would be to have them around so I could talk to them, listen to their stories, and learn lesson which only they can share.

The men and women who have given their lives for this country must never be forgotten. Even today, they make the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I can live our lives in whatever way we choose. You may not approve of the war, but don’t hate the warrior for doing their job. I urge all of you, if you know a veteran, thank them, and ask them about their story. Find out about any honor services happening in your area on Monday from the local VFW post. And if you are a veteran, thank you for all you have done.

My salute may not mean much to those, as I do not hold a position of distinction in any way shape or form. But to all the fighting men and women, if any may read this, I salute you, and sincerely thank you for the job you do.

“A bidirectional debugger allows programmers to run a program backwards in time as well as forwards. UndoDB requires no recompilation or other modifications to the program being debugged, nor does it require any specialized hardware, kernel patches, or kernel modules.” Free for non-commercial use – see comments.

read more | digg story

This just makes me sad…not that I could afford owning one, but I have always wanted one. I guess I’ll have to get a humvee now. Maybe I could retrofit some biodiesel engine into it. Or make a hybrid electric-hydrogen version down the road!

General Motors Corp. said Friday that the 2006 model year will be the last for the H1, which has been the foundation for the automaker’s Hummer brand. Based on the military’s Humvee, the about 12,000 put on the road since 1992 defined the Hummer name.

From http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3860397.html

I was going to post some of this yesterday, but my sheer lack of enthusiasm for anything (including writing) won over because of the day’s events. The day started off well, I got to work and did the normal Monday morning things. Out new phone system was implemented over the weekend, and some of my coworkers figured out how to send LWC messages to each other. The only problem with this is we have no way of retrieving or canceling LWC messages, so now all of our message lights are on constantly and we don’t know when we have voicemail.

Lunch rolls around, and instead of bringing my lunch as planned, I ended up going out to pick something up. Made a quick trip to a few other desks to see if they were interested in going to the Pasta Wagon (weird name, good food), and got one taker. I have to stop at the bank, so I volunteer to drive. Bank stop finished it’s on to food. Food arrives quickly and we head back to work to eat. Then the fun starts.

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From a company email about our recent phone system upgrades – parts which contain any real information omitted.

“Also, if you are having issues with your new system please call x[9999] and a [Phone Company] technician will assist you.”

This sounds a lot like the computer message everyone laughs at: “Keyboard error, press any key to continue.” Obviously, if my keyboard was working, I wouldn’t be getting the error. Likewise, if my phone system isn’t working, how am I supposed to call for help?

September 11, 2001. For any American who was over 10 at the time, they will certainly remember the place where they stood and what went through their mind on that fateful day. United Airlines flight 93 was one of the four hijacked planes aimed at attacking our nation. Flight 93 was the only plane which did not reach its destination.

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Recently I have been wanting to play my sax more, and I haven’t gotten a chance to. I’ve been listening to a lot of music from sax ensembles, which has pushed me even more to want to perform. I seem to remember some saying about how you can take a performer away from a performance, but never take the performance out of a performer. It has been a long time since I’ve been on stage, in a group (or in the spotlight) making music, and I miss it. I would LOVE to get involved with a quartet and do regular gigs, but my time is already crunched pretty far, not to mention I have been away from the performance repertoire for a long time now (although, I think I could handle bari quite well since that’s what I’ve been playing the most of recently, alto is right-out until I can get my embouchure back).

If anyone knows of a quartet looking for a bari player who has studied mostly classical alto (though never at the collegiate or professional level), and been mostly playing bari recently, let me know! I think I might forgo cleaning today and go play for a while….

Here’s a few links about saxohones:

• The Saxophone family
  
• The Cologne Saxohone Quintet (translated)Â < - I want to get their CD, but it has to be imported!
• The Soprillo – the highest pitched saxophone in existence
• The Eb Tubax contrabass
• The Bb Tubax subcontrabass
• The Eb Contra-Bass Saxophone – the largest saxophone (and probably woodwind) made

Ever since college I feel as though I have been a bit out of the loop on some of the linux kernel development activities because I haven’t had as much time to tinker (don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep the paycheck over the tinkering). Following a few links from some comments on a digg article I found this site: http://bcm43xx.berlios.de which, lo and behold, has a driver which sits on the Devicescape 802.11 stack for linux (currently being considered for inclusion in mainline kernel). There is a driver in the kernel already, but it doesn’t have support for all of the features in the 802.11 stack. Anyway, I think this will be a suitable project for the upcoming laptop rebuild! No more ndiswrapper for me, no sir!

For details on how they built this driver, check out http://linux-bcom4301.sourceforge.net

Okay, no you can’t vote right here on this website. Voting is the single most important act asked of Americans on a regular basis, and most people don’t bother to head the call. Voting is simple – and especially in off-year elections, doesn’t take much time to do either!

Don’t go empty-handed. My Dad has a saying that if you don’t know a name on the ballot, how can you make a good decision. Find out who is running for what positions. Don’t just listen to what has been said on TV, go read candidate’s positions on issues if you have time!

Here are a few links to help out

• Current Election Information
• Butler County Poll Lookup
• Hamilton County Poll Lookup
• Clermont Count Poll Lookup – Nice website design, the image was taken from there…
  

I don’t care who you vote for – that’s your choice, just GO VOTE!

Today’s QC is just funny – I like Martin’s idea of taking charge, I know I’ve done that before! Hooray for self-pride in getting food from the store. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors would be proud. I can imagine the world of a bachelor man in those days:

“What do I want to dine on tonight? Boar sounds good, I haven’t had boar in a while.”
[walks to dark area under tree where food is kept, sees nothing]
[Silence except for a few bugs and crickets]
“Hmm….maybe squirrel, that’s a lot less work…”

Squirrel, the earlier human equivalent of soup in a can, or microwaveable dinners….I kinda like equating them to that! Though, I think the college version of the aforementioned problem would have said “BUGS! w00t!” In which case we can probably equate bugs to Ramman noodles (never had them, this is not a commentary on the noodles themselves, though they do look somewhat grub like….).

Oh, and this t-shirt is just cool…