Recently in Current Events Category

Here's the stuff I read while I was on my summer vacation. Not as high volume this year because of a lot of other things going on. Still was productive.

Clapton, The Autobiography - Not really a tell-all like recent rock biographies. More like a story of a guy from England that overcame his addictions. It just happens that this particular guy's one of the most influential rock and blues guitarists ever.

Chessplayer by William Pearson - Somewhat typical 80's era cold war US/Soviet spy book. It was interesting. Lots of action. Lots of cold war paranoia and spycraft. Good ending.

Flower Net by Lisa See - Another cold war era book. A murdered Triad honcho puts an LA lawyer together with a Chinese cop to work out what happened and who's responsible. Lots of more cold war intrigue in both LA and China. It was alright. Lots of twists and turns. Interesting ending. Good lead-in for the Olympics being in China this year.

The World is Flat by Thomas L Friedman - This was a crazy book. Also good timing with the Olympics in China. Basically, it's a book talks about how various factors have flattened the world in the context of global economic competition. Lots of information about where we are, how we got here and how to deal with it going into the future. Very eye opening.

The Good War by Studs Terkel - Memories about World War II from the people that lived through it. The people that fought the war from all sides, as well as the people that were left on the home front. It's a testament to the hell that is war and also to the men and women that went through it. They are the greatest generation.

The Shack by William P Young - It's a story of a man who meets God in the shack where his daughter died and spends the weekend learning about the nature of God and himself while working through what he calls The Great Sadness. There are reviews of this book all over the place but make no mistake...this is a Christian book. It was interesting. I haven't really decided what I think about its message.

The Idiot by Dostoyevsky - I tried...I really did. I wanted to make it through this book but I couldn't. Well written classic literature. Not enough action to keep me going while I'm at the beach.

The Murderer Next Door by David Buss - This is more of a psychology and anthropology thesis than a regular book. The author's theory is that while most of us won't ever kill another person, the drive to kill is built into how our brain works. He works to prove his theory by using both modern crime statistics as well as archaeological evidence. I'm not done with this book either. It's interesting though. Should finish it off in a week or so.

We were at UMCP Friday to see my sister's Masters graduation and she took us into one of the Engineering buildings she worked with. Tucked away in a corner of the room, there's a sandbox with robot rovers in it.
I think I just found the set they used to fake the moon landing. I hope the Illuminati doesn't track me down now.

The video edition of Samantha Murphy's SMtv launched last night and I didn't even notice til this morning. Maybe I can save my reputation by pointing out that I heard about it from Samantha Twittering it.

I watched the first episode so far. The featured artists are Jonathan Coulton (I can't get that Portal song out of my head...huge success!) and Jesse Malin who were both previously featured on the SMtv audio podcast.

I was surprised by the format. Samantha has been talking about a video version of SMtv for quite a while now and I was expecting just a video feed of the podcast recordings. Parts of the show include video from previous podcasts, there's a lot more to it. There's an interview with Terry McBride, part of Jesse Malin's performance at IOTA, and Mike Schmid fawning over Johnathan Coulton (I would too, probably so it's OK) and a couple other surprises.

It's definitely worth a look. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's not in the podcast feed yet so you'll have to go direct from the website for now. I'm going to try to get through episode 2 before I head out to work.

Link: The Samantha Murphy Show

I hate doing these kinds of things because it feels like I'm just running around following the crowd. This particular thing is going around the Lotus Notes/Domino community.

I do tend to get some odd results on these things though. This is no exception.

Image by jan2eke.

I'm learning to play guitar these days. I'll have to remember this if I ever have an album to do.

The game goes like this:

Band name from Wikipedia random page, the album title is the last four words from the final quote on the random quotes page and the art should be the third image from the Flickr Interestingness / Last 7 days page.

I'm not an economist or anything, but it seems to me that something's really wrong when our economy doesn't work unless people are being financially irresponsible.

We're having a subprime mortgage crisis in the US. To get to this point, when rates were low banks started selling adjustable rate mortgages to high-risk borrowers. As the rates went up, a lot of these mortgages defaulted. The housing market was crazy while this lending was going on and now, it's in the toilet. Wouldn't it have been better for the market if the lenders hadn't put out so many subprime loans?

Congress is working on sending out rebate checks to US taxpayers this year. The financially responsible thing for us to do with those rebate checks is save it. The reason the government is sending them out is for the opposite reason...they're expecting that everyone will immediately go out and spend that money. It dumps a bunch of cash into the system and hopefully gets things moving again.

I'm not one to go running around protesting "the system" but it just boggles my mind that reckless spending is the primary driver of our economy. How did this happen??

Wait, I don't want to know.

It's not as exciting, but wouldn't be a lot better for our economy if we all saved and invested the way we should? Some cash in the bank, some invested here and there? IRA's and 401(k)? How is that a bad thing? People struggling with debt and going bankrupt aren't good for the economy either.

Just in time for Lotusphere, Lotus911 has released BleedYellow as a resource for the Lotus community....those of us that bleed Lotus yellow.

It'll be interesting to watch this evolve. As it is, it's a good way for Lotus software enthusiasts to meet and exchange ideas and learn from each other. I hope that eventually it will become a place where non-Bleeders can come and see that Lotus software isn't as ugly as it used to be and learn about why those of us that do bleed yellow love this software so much (the reactions to the news of Notes coming to the iPhone last week show that Lotus and the Lotus community still have a long way to go with that).

via Chris Whisonant, Chris Blatnick, Ed Brill, Duffbert, the Connections Blog and probably some others that I haven't seen yet.

I have ben thinking of what to write about Ideajam since it came out this week. When I started thinking, I figured it would be easy, but it turned out to not be as easy as I hoped.

The idea behind IdeaJam is simple enough...it gives members of the Domino community to post ideas for projects, changes, improvements, etc and allows other community members to comment upon and promote or demote the idea.

With a bunch of smart, active users, IdeaJam could be really fertile ground which could grow great projects at IBM, various business partners and would-be open-source developers. From where I sit, it's a great way for the community to give feedback on what they want in a more direct way than normal.

For me, personally, it's a way to keep connected to the Domino community now that I don't work with Lotus software in my new job. I've been thinking of ways to contribute to the community over the last couple of weeks. I haven't had any great ideas on my own yet, but participating in IdeaJam is at least a small contribution in the mean time.

I hope IBM and the Business Partner community see it as the opportunity that it is.

I'm also really curious to see how the IdeaJam framework works outside of the Domino community when Elguji puts it out as a product. While I think it's a great idea, I'm wondering how big a population it takes in a corporate setting to reach critical mass for it to drive itself.

I'm watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning (Tivo'd it). So far, I've learned that Broadway is just awful.

Legally Blonde, Young Frankenstein and Xanadu??

It's been pretty obvious that Hollywood is out of ideas for years. Apparently, Broadway is too. Wow.

I've been gone the last week and a half or so. Will have another couple posts in a bit but I have some catching up to do.

At least I have decent mail filtering.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

I was feeling pretty good a couple of weeks ago when I chemically unclogged the master bathroom sink. A couple days ago, Margo went to get something out from under the kitchen sink to find everything soaked. Great. A plumbing leak in the kitchen.

Me being a gadget guy, I start thinking that it's a good reason to get one of those new disposals that can take a pineapple (the Insinkerator Evolution Excel). Sweet. Oops....lowest price I can find on it is $270 and highest was $500. Ouch.

I get back under the sink to see if maybe the problem is something other than the disposal. Running water isn't leaking out anywhere. When I turn the disposal on, water comes shooting out of a hole in its side. Great.

So I'm ordering a cheaper disposal tonight and when it comes in, I'm going to try to install it. I have a plumber ready to take care of it if I can't get it together. When I first bought this place, I never thought I'd have to learn plumbing.

Technorati Tags: Housekeeping, DIY

Looks like the FDA extended the deadline for comments on the proposed chocolate changes another month to May 25th so there's still plenty of time to comment.

Guittard set up a site called Don't Mess With Our Chocolate that takes it from the point of view of a maker of fine chocolate. There's a lot more information there on the issue.

Update: I caught a link to this site from Slashfood.

Updated Update: This is entry #200 on the current iteration of this site. Go me. I still have a backup of some of the older stuff that was lost in a previous cutover that I will get to adding this year. Nothing hugely interesting, but adding it for completeness.

Technorati Tags: Current Events, Food, Politics

Wow. Slashdot picked up the possible chocolate change.

Someone put in more effort than I did and got the FDA page for the change and a link where you can send in your comments by April 25th.

I'm not up for turning this space into a political soapbox but I'm posting the links in case someone reading this stuff loves chocolate and doesn't read Slashdot.

Technorati Tags: Current Events, Food, Politics

We can put a robot on Mars. Why can't we put robots in a mine? We're in the future now and people still die in mine collapses. WTF?

Rescuers Dig for 2 Men After Mine-Wall Collapse - washingtonpost.com

Technorati Tags: Current Events

I don't really have much to say on this that hasn't already been said.

My sister was an engineering student at Tech until she graduated last year. She spent a lot of time in the room in Norris Hall where most of the killings happened. I don't know what I'd do if she was there today. A couple of her sorority sisters were shot but fortunately not killed.

We're praying for the improved condition of those that are injured in this incident, both physical and mental injuries. While I'm grateful that my sister wasn't caught up in this mess, there are 33 families out there that can't say that.

Technorati Tags: Current Events

Every year, information on the internet becomes completely unreliable.

Well, more unreliable than normal. You always have to filter and think about what you read but today, even people I trust start posting stupid crap. I'm better off just marking everything read when I do an RSS refresh tomorrow night.

Looks like a good guitar practice day.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

I've been trying to think of something to say about what went down over on Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users blog the other day but I just can't do it.

It just goes to show that there are a lot of messed up people out there and the internet can give them an audience where previously they would either just be ignored or locked up.

zabuni at Metafilter points out that it's more proof of Penny Arcades Internet Fuckwad Theory though.

I hate letting someone speak for me on my own site, but I'm making an exception today. Though in this case, I don't think the fuckwad in question started off as a normal person. I hope this issue gets resolved soon. I'd hate to see Ms. Sierra's current state continue because of some asshole out there somewhere.

Business & Technology | Starbucks launches Hear Music record label:
via Slashfood

So is this part of Starbucks' new strategy to re-find its soul?

Things like starting a label and signing Sir Paul take time so it's my guess that this is another way Starbucks us losing it instead. It kinda makes sense given that part of the "Starbucks Experience" is the music played in their shops. The Hear station has been on XM for a while...I even had it in my presets before I dropped my subscription.

I'm still waiting for a coffee-related change that shows they're serious about getting that lost soul back though,

Technorati Tags: Food, Marketing, Music

I've said before that all I want is a phone that's a phone.

Maybe it makes me a hypocrite but I want an iPhone. I can't help it. It's small, slick and smart. I think that the voicemail inbox idea is almost worth the price by itself. It would give me an iPod that has a better interface than my iPod. A phone that's better than my phone. It'd sync with iCal enough for me to be able to actually use it effectively. I'm still not really into the camera or photo functionality but I could see how some people might.

I do have some concerns though:

• Sometimes Apple screws up 1.0 devices. The first Nano, the first Intel systems, the cube for example.
• How hardy is the touchscreen? Better than the face of the first Nano's I hope.
• Movies, TV shows, music videos and music, your contacts and calendar in 8GB?
• A phone that's 5 years ahead of the rest has EDGE but not 3G?
• A phone that's 5 years ahead of the rest has 802.11g but not 802.11n?
• It's running OSX but there's no indication of how much of OSX and what the hardware's capable of. What kind of games can I play? What other software can I run? NewsFire? Ecto? Lotus Notes?? Depending on the capabilities of the hardware and how much of OSX is on it, this could be huge to me
• I don't understand the pricing when you consider it with the fact that they're putting it out with Cingular and it's going to be sold at Apple stores and at Cingular. Does that mean the price is $499 or $599 with or without a contract with Cingular, or are they going to be signing you to a contract with Cingular in the Apple stores (which seems odd to me)?

I'm looking forward to the June release of this device. I want to see what happens when this thing gets out into the world. Barring any horrible problems, I would expect to try to pick one of these up as a Christmas present to myself. I just hope my Ebay'd t610 lasts.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Gadgets, iPod, iTunes, Marketing, Technology

So, the guitar that I won from Otto's Daughter arrived on the Saturday before Christmas. The band wanted me to send them pictures, which panicked me a bit because my digital camera's been down for quite a long time because of a missing battery charger. I got a replacement and got it done over the long weekend.

Here's the stuff that's packed with the guitar:

An Otto's Daughter yo yo (a yo yo? I love yo yo's!)
G's sticks with an initialed note that they're from the show
The setlist from the 15 Dec show
A screw with a nut on it (!)
Mo's strap (I almost feel bad about this one, but it is a comfortable strap)
A promo poster for the show and guitar giveaway signed by the band ("This ain't the poster - JVB" on the back)
An OD promo card
Four Otto's Daughter picks from HorrorPicks
A dirty rag (ooo...sweat from the show)
OD stickers
(not pictured) Bubble wrap personally squeezed by Jacqueline Van Bierk
(not pictured) A plastic tag (couldn't find it)
(not pictured) A business card for a place in CA that does guitar lessons

Not a Gibson, in front of a tree

SG Hearts OD

Everyone needs a screw with a nut on it...and staples...

Baby's first chord. With me anyway (JVB has had her way with it already). Em if it's not obvious from the way the photo came out...the 1 and 4 fingers aren't touching.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be poking around the local pawn shops for a decent amp. I don't think I'm up for the commitment of having actual live lessons yet. Will see what I can do with what's available online (I'm working on chord transitions with pivot and guide fingers lately, plus I'm looking through some tabs) and will do a progress check in a couple of months. The goal at the moment is to be able to say that I can play it by the time Otto's Daughter get around to playing somewhere around here.

My longer term goal is to be able to hang in there at Lotusphere's JAMfest next time I go. I'm not going to be at Lotusphere 2007 so I have at least a year to learn how to play the instrument and figure out how to work my musical sensibilities into more of a blues influenced situation.

This could be interesting.

Technorati Tags: Gadgets, GuitarHero, Jamfest, Lotusphere, Music

Happy 2007 everyone!

I have a couple of things that are a bit late (for me) that I'm going to have posted in the next couple weeks I hope. I'm not doing a 2006 in review here. It looks like I started 2007 with the site offline. Something got goofed up with my account. Should be straightened out now. Sometimes inexpensive hosting is good.

In the mean time, Overman and Zarathustra Studios has a present for the New Year:

Father Frags Best has been re-released in video format, so we can watch it without having to dig out those Quake 2 CDs. Yay! This was one of the first real hits of machinima back in 1999. It looks a bit crude watching from my 2007 eyes but I remember the tools that were available back then to do that stuff and it was heck of an achievement in Quake-based animation at the time.

I mentioned this movie in a previous posting that I'm actually in this movie for a couple of short scenes. I could only really hook up with them during production for one night but it was still fun. Watch the whole thing, but around in the section that starts at 12:33 or so, I think I was the boyfriend til he gets to the stairs. Then again at 16:44 I think I was the little brother in that scene. There was an outtake from that scene that was added at the end of the credits too. For the movie itself, the dialog was dubbed in from the guys that were picked to do the voice acting. The audio from the outtake, however, was all of us that were there on the “set” that night. It's an interesting look into a little bit of what it took to do stuff like that then..between what it looked like at filming versus what it looked like in the final release.

Technorati Tags: Machinima, Technology

Lovely. I'm posting about politics on Halloween. sigh.

As important as the 2004 elections were supposed to have been, I don't recall being contacted by either party during that whole cycle.

As of yesterday evening, I have been contacted by the local Democrats and Republicans about their respective candidates. In the Virginia senate race, George Allen is the Republican incumbent and Jim Webb is the Democratic challenger. I live in the 10th congressional district so for the House race, the Republican incumbent is Frank Wolf and the Democratic challenger is Judy Feder. Both races are polling pretty close and with the Republicans needing every seat they can keep to maintain their hold on congress, it's been a very active campaign so far. Lots of ads. Lots of nasty negative flyers in the mail on both sides.

Now, I guess they both feel the need to actually reach out to the politically boring suburbs. I've never been interested in discussing politics with people. Especially these days with as angry as people tend to get with opposing points of view. I'm not a member of any political party either, so I tend to view elections like college football games...the competition is interesting but I don't have anyone to root for.

What's interesting to me is the different approaches of the two parties.

Saturday morning (11-12 sometime) someone comes knocking on my door. It turns out to be a probably local Democrat campaigning (mostly) for Judy Feder...campaign flyers and talking points in hand. I'm still absorbing my caffeine at this point so I'm less prone to chatting than normal so when he asks me what issues I'm most concerned about for this election cycle, I said something like "nothing, I'm good, thanks". He expressed his disbelief that I wasn't worried about the war (I am, but not in the way he's expecting), or healthcare (I have a job and insurance, thanks), or the economy (seems to be working alright to me, but I'm not an economist). Margo pipes up with the Northern Virginia complaint that our Democratic governor hasn't done a very good job with spending our tax dollars in our area but that was brushed off as not being important since that's not up to congresspeople (true, I guess). I stuck with my "everything's great, good luck" routine til he decided it was time to go.

I was a little annoyed by what I took as his disbelief that I didn't see the world the same way he did, but I do give him credit for at least trying. He was humping door to door trying to talk to people about the Democratic congressional candidates and either try to change minds or count what kind of voting trends are happening in my area.

Yesterday evening, I got a phone call from the Fairfax GOP. Margo answered the phone, but they asked for me so I got the phone. The volunteer quickly started in on her script about how important this election is and why I should be voting for Republicans. It was probably 2 minutes of script, then she thanked me and hung up. No pause for questions, no asking me what I thought or who I was going to vote for.

So now I've seen their pre-vote ground game. Very different approaches. I'm curious about what the differences means to the local party structures and what they're expecting to gain (or not lose) from these contacts.

Next week should be fun to watch.

Technorati Tags: Politics

I watched what I think is the most recent South Park episode this afternoon: Mystery of the Urinal Deuce

(sometimes it's hard to tell when something came out when you love your TiVo as much as we do)

The episode went into the 9/11 conspiracies out there that the government was behind the attacks and how stupid it all is. I got a different lesson though (maybe because I already knew that conspiracy theories are stupid).

If I post something on the internet that's stupid enough, and then wrap it up in enough false intellectualism and paranoia, maybe Trey Parker and Matt Stone will notice and put me in an episode and kill me twice too. That'd be cool. I've always wanted to be in a cartoon. Actually, I have a print out on my fridge from the South Park Studio already. All I need is animation and voice. And a stupid idea to turn into a conspiracy theory.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Television

...or why I shop at Amazon....

I had a series of dental visits recently (and two more to come next month) that has convinced me to pick up an electric toothbrush. The dentist recommended a Sonicare brush, which they sold and dispensed in-house (some variant of the “Elite” that's only distributed through dental offices). I didn't get it there because I like to shop around a bit before I buy. When I got home, I did some comparing of the different Sonicare models and found the top of the line Elite 9500 Custom for a couple bucks less than what the dentist was charging. Sweet. Click, click, ordered.

We seem to get really quick delivery here in Centreville, so I pretty much always pick Super Saver shipping from Amazon. They estimate 5-9 days, but I tend to average 2-3 days for most items so there's no reason normally to pay for faster shipping. I made the order on Thursday night though, and I had a change of heart thinking that Super Saver might push the delivery to the next week, so I modified my order to ship 2nd Day instead so I'd (probably) get it on Saturday.

Not long after, I get the ship notification. I check the tracking and it looks like it went out UPS Ground, and that the estimated delivery date was Tuesday (6/6/06 by the way). That's not 2nd Day. I checked my invoice and I was charged for it. I must have changed it in time for Amazon's billing system but not in time for the shipping system.

I emailed the Customer service system this morning explaining what the expected result was, what happened instead and what I wanted (my $10 extra that I paid for faster shipping).

I got an email back a couple hours later apologizing for the mixup, informing me that a credit for the $10 is being processed (and I should see it in 2-3 days) and:

Because your business is important to us, I'd like to give you a
$5.00 promotional certificate for use toward your next
Amazon.com order.

This amount has been automatically redeemed onto your account.
You will not receive a claim code.

I expected not having any trouble getting getting my $10 in unused shipping back but was completely surprised by the $5-off on top. It was a minor problem and I really didn't consider it a big deal. To Amazon, $5 is nothing but the offer says that they're interested in doing something extra to make their customers feel appreciated.

I appreciate it. Especially in an age where most companies have dropped “customer service” in favor of “customer management”. Thank you, Amazon. Keep it up.

Technorati Tags: Amazon.com, Blogging, Customer service, Shopping

I love Peeps and I love crazy people. Put them together and you get stuff like this. Too bad I couldn't find any more of them.

I know it doesn't really have anyting to do with the real Easter, but I like it anyway.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Holiday, Peeps

I just scored tickets for the November 2, 2005 Nine Inch Nails concert at the MCI Center. Queens of the Stone Age and Death From Above 1979 will be opening.

I've been a fanboy for Nine Inch Nails since about 1992 or so. I have most of his official releases and a bootleg or two, but have never been to a Nine Inch Nails concert. I'm really excited that I finally have tickets on order and am really going to go.

I don't really care about Queens of the Stone Age. Maybe they'll be OK. Death From Above 1979 sound interesting though...two guys, one on drums and synth, one on guitar and vox. Interesting sound.

I really hate doing business with Ticketmaster, but I wouldn't have tickets without them probably. The face value on the tickets is $45. DC has a $3 facilities charge, but then Ticketmaster's web convenience fee is $9. Per ticket. With taxes and fees, I spent almost $60 per ticket on $45 tickets. Eesh.

Technorati Tags: Music, Nine Inch Nails, Concert

While it's still the 4th of July, I thought I should post my pics from this evening. We went to Washington, DC to see the fireworks on the Mall this year. We set up at the special event on the lawn of the Department of Interior South Building. Good stuff. My camera's not too good for taking fireworks pictures though.

Pictures over the fold...

Technorati Tags: 4th of July, Holiday, Independence Day

...or how I was reminded that it takes more than a love of beer to make it through events like this. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

This weekend was the Old Dominion Beer Fest at the Old Dominion Brewing Company in Ashburn, VA. Since I'd heard that it was going, I was excited about it. 50 (mostly) craft breweries all in a row ready and eager to sell a taste of their wares.

Of those that I remember, I liked Rogue's Dead Guy Ale and Delirium Tremens the best. I had other great beers...whose names escape me at the moment. I intentionally avoided breweries that I was familiar with so I didn't try anything from Old Dominion, Sweet Water, DogFishHead, Brooklyn Brewery, and some others.

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that the Fest was a reminder. As good as the above sounds, you're still wandering around in 90 degree heat with 80-90% humidity in the sun and heat. In weather like that, drinking beer and dehydrating myself, my endurance wasn't what it should be.

It definately put me in the mood to go out and try some new brews...so maybe it was Mission Accomplished anyway. Good thing July is American Beer Month.

Technorati Tags: Beer

No, I never did get around to going into how the trip to Orlando went. A good time was had by all most of the time. I was glad to get home. It's too late to go into deatil, I think so that'll have to do.

At least it isn't another "I upgaded MT again" posting. I did renew the domain name a couple of days ago though.

I'm behind on a lot of things...some at work, most at home, a bunch online as well and when I have to prioritize, the online stuff like this site gets dropped.

I've been extending my Christmas a little bit and in the next week or so, I should start getting the fruits of my fun. I ordered some spices and some natural salts which should be here today or tomorrow. I also ordered a couple fun things from Apple that should get here in a couple weeks. I also have some things coming for Valentine's day too which could be fun. More on that when they arrive (including links maybe).

We're going to be spending some time next week at Hilton Head Island before we see Nathan graduate from boot camp. Not sure what there is to do there but will work it out over the next couple of days. Might be a short enough list to get it posted here. Who knows?

Too long of a title. Too bad.

Spent the week in Orlando doing the Disney and Universal studios thing. More on that later. Spent the entire week without computer access, no reading papers and almost no TV news.

Found out on Friday that Dimebag Darrell was murdered in Ohio. That sucks. I've spent a lot of time listening to Pantera over the years. Not as much since 1994 when Far Beyond driven came out. I really liked that and Vulgar Display of Power and Cowboys From Hell. I wasn't that big on The Great Southern Trendkill or Reinventing the Steel. I saw them in concert the first time with Slayer and BioHazard sometime in 94-95, and a couple more times later at the vasrious Ozzfests that I've attended over the years. I bought a lot of issues of Guitar World Magazine in the 90's to read his articles...even though I've never gotten the hang of playing guitar. I haven't thought a lot about him or his band in recent years but it still sucks to go like that, and from what I've read by the people around him, he'll be missed a lot.

There was also a stabbing at the USDA last week. Normally, violence in DC isn't that big of a deal, but it's unusual to have it happen in federal office buildings. This incedent in particular happened in the stairwell next to where Margo worked, and the victim made his way down the hall and collapsed into the office across the hall where she worked. Wierd.

That's all for now. I'll get into the Disney things (and maybe update the above with links) later. I need to get going on putting the Christmas tree up.

Will be busy this holiday weekend. Happy Independence Day to all!

No barbecueing for me this weekend since we’re car shopping for most of it probably. Will try to make up for it next weekend. I only have a couple weekends to get ready for Margo’s birthday party on the 19th.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Current Events

This is Scott and Margo sometime in 1997.