Merry Christmas!

So it's christmas time again and Kim and I have been traveling all over the state of CA. Well, just to the Templeton and then down to Sherman Oaks, but it sure seems like a lot. The best part is that we have to leave tonight (christmas) so that I can get back for work tomorrow. Yay, for being in the real world, but I think we'll survive.

A lot of things are poised for change right now. I'm going to be starting school in January, Kim and I are preparing to move to Clovis, and Kim is going to be able to get me free coffee every day! (She going to work part time as a Barista with a company called Caffe e via). Sean is giving us a real "I told you so" for moving to Clovis now instead of originally, but at the same time appears to be benefitting from the fact that we're looking around at apartments and getting information.

We have a new addition to our group dinners and games that have been going on at our place. Previously Sean and David had graced us with their presence consistently and now we have Sean, David, and Charlotte. She makes some really good brownies and is quite the nutsy player, so she has been a welcome addition to the group festivities.

On another note of holiday cheer, Sir Cheese Meister Lyle is visiting briefly from Benin and Kim and I were able to have a coffee with him. He seems quite worldly nowadays and gave Kim and I the itch to travel. Hopefully, the upcoming Ireland trip will give that a small satiation while I finish schooling.

That's all for now. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morning!

Real ID Act, H.R. 418

So apparently on 5/11/2005 President Bush signed into law a bill requiring some reform of the state issuance of ID cards and Driver's Licenses. Why is this suddenly brought to my attention? Well I saw the below quoted chain letter.

"Everyone the government has passed has already a bill stating that in 2008 every american will have to have a chip in their forehead or in their hand and withouth this chip you will not be able to buy or sell anything....you wont be able to get a job, shop or anything...THIS IS NOT A JOKE! we must band together and get this billed repealed! if you think im just pulling your chain im no, look at the website...NoNationalId.com.

please tell everyone about this...the goverment wants to have a way to control everyone we must not let this happen!if u are registered voter we must band together and vote against this bill!"

So I decided to just that. I went to NoNationalID.com (which won't be hyperlinked so as to not boost their relevancy), and found out there was a mandate being made for Identification. It was not however in the form of implanted microchips (phew), but according to NoNationalID.com it may be "the prophesied 'mark of the beast'".

So I looked further and actually read H.R. 418 here and was shocked to find out that there is going to be a national ID, distributed in the form of a state issued driver's license or ID card. Man, the whole of America is going to thrown in an uproar if this gets out. The idea that states would issue driver's licenses...scary. Well, ok, for some of the issued licenses it is, but that's another topic.

In all seriousness, the bill is basically a federally mandated quasi-standardization of state issued licenses and a linking of databases for more accurately verifying identities. That doesn't sound like such a bad thing to me, in fact, it would probably help to alleviate some (granted not all) identity theft. It might even help to make American immigration more fair by forcing the inflow to use legal channels. That's probably a big might.

The problem I do see with it, is that there is not enough funding being provided by the federal government to help implement these new requirements. That's fairly standard though for any federal program. So overall I think the bill is a good thing and that EndTime ministries is something the public should be warned about in chain forwards. Not mythical, Ayn Rand-style societal impositions. Besides, I'm sure we're all microchipped already anyway. :)

A whole week

I have completed my first work week of commuting to work on my bike.   Today was an especially hard ride home because there was a very strong wind going the opposite direction of me.  While I was riding home I was doing a few calculations for fun.  Let's say that for every 10 I work I will make 1.50 (based on 9.00/hr).  Then by taking the extra 20 minutes every day I am losing 3.00 of pay every day.  If you expand that out to 5 work days a week for 3 weeks that comes to $45.00.  Now by the same token if I were to have driven to and from work, it would take approximately 2 gallons of gas every 3 two days, (based on 24miles/gallon).  Therefore in 3 weeks it would cost me $32.50 to have driven.  That is a difference of $12.50 every 3 weeks assuming I actually make the trip in 30 mins.

Having said all that.  I still fully intend on continuing my riding every day and think that the $12.50 is considerably cheaper than a gym membership would be. So I can just think of the opportunity cost as a cheap gym membership.   I also find that my exercise is considerably more consistent when it is something purposeful like riding to work.  Consistency is good when it comes to exercise.

Speaking of work.  I have a new job in Fresno that I'm not sure I mentioned.  This job is still a software development job and he has recently (today) given me keys and alarm codes to make me a full-time employee.  Right now that doesn't mean much, but 3 months from now as long as I'm still impressing him I should be getting benefits and a considerable rate increase over what I am making now.  That would be wonderful.  Especially since three months from now I should be attending Fresno State University.  I turned in my application for that this week and should be finding out sometime in the next 3 weeks whether I will be getting in there or not.  I also filled out the FAFSA to see if I qualify for any aid.  I don't qualify for the Pell Grant, and they expect me to contribute $15,000 towards my education.  That is a little over half of what Kim and I made in combined gross income last year!  There's the efficient government for you.  I'll see if I can get any money elsewhere.  Maybe there is a scholoarship for a young married couple, who both work full time jobs and want to go to school.  Anyway, Adieu.

First Day Biking to work

I have had my first adventure of many while biking to work this morning.

The link to the left is the map of my route to help clarify the story.
I started off by deciding not to go the same route that I had gone on Sunday and managed to get myself heading north, thinking I was heading east. Then I followed a really nice bike path that I knew was going kind of the wrong direction, but a lot further in the wrong direction than I thought. Then I was sure how far I was and backtracked to get to familiar terriorty. All-in-all this morning I biked approximately 11.6 miles in slightly under an hour. This evening on my way back, I biked approximately 6.4 miles in about 30 mins.

It was a good ride all the same though. I'm looking forward to doing it daily. I also am happy with the fact that I have new slick tires on my bike, which has made riding on the road much less of a chore. Now I've got to make sure I stick with the biking long enough though to justify the addtional $110 I spent (Tubes, tires, bike pump, and labor) on my already expensive bike.

Anyway, biking is fun and good. You should all do it. Over and out.

World's Saddest Laptop

For those of you who know my laptop, you might think the title is referring to my laptop. In which case, I hate you all. The truth is I have found a laptop that is much sadder than mine is and even weighs more too. Take a gander at this.

Independance Day #230

I also wanted to make sure that I wished everyone out there a wonderful 4th of July.  Be proud of your country and be safe with those illegal fireworks you purchased and plan to blow up a small portion of your country with.

SSP

So I just spent the last week working with a bunch of kids that I didn't really know and co-counseling with a person I didn't know.  It was quite surprisingly a lot of fun.  Aside from my co-counselor, all the unknown people were wonderfully fun and excited about helping out the family we built a deck for.
This poor family was living in a mobile home with no method of getting from the 42" high door to the ground below aside from jumping.  So my team came in and built an 8' by 14' deck that slid right up underneath the door jam.  There were a few things that weren't quite measured properly, but would is very forgiving.

I also came to the conclusion that my ankle is not fully healed.  While out playing a game of dodgeball with the kids I had to sit out because my ankle was so sore I couldn't even stand anymore.  At least I managed to play for 2 hours before that happened.

At the end of the trip I was exahausted from having slept on the floor all week and seen the sunrise each morning, at 5:45.   In spite of my exhaustion, I really felt quite fulfilled at the end of the week and remembered how much fun the projects I participated during high school were.  Yay for good wholesome work and yay for my team "The Porch Wranglers".

Relocation 2/2

Mad props go out to Sarah, Sean, and Davidyo for being awesome enough to help Kim and I move. We are now completely relocated and very happy to be so. Now comes my week of Sierra Service Project.

Relocation 1/2

With huge kudos to Sean and Sarah and also to the whole van Kranenburg family, Kim and I have successfully moved into our first of two Fresno locations. S&S were good enough to drive our beloved Volvo all the way to Fresno for us. Driving for us was in addition to helping us haul things into the moving fan and out of the moving van. They were just awesome.

For those of you not in the know, in 3 weeks Kim and I will be moving again from one floor plan to another in the same complex. Hopefully a relatively painless move because very little unpacking will actually be taking place at this apartment.

Pictures of the mess that is 1/2 of will follow as soon as the camera is found. Peace.

Moving Day

As of Sunday May 21st, Kim and I will be relocating to 250 W Nees Ave, Fresno, CA 93711.   You can give me a call for which apartment number.  Kim has an optician position already over there and is making 20-25% more than at her current job.  I will probably be telecommuting to work 4 days a week and actually commuting once a week back to SLO for awhile because of the awesome job I have here. The plan is for me to finish my degree at Fresno State, in Computer Science after about 2 to 2.5 years.  Then we'll see where life takes us.

You won't believe it!

This is two posts in the same week! I had some exciting news that I just had to share.

So a long, long time ago in a state far away. I attended Jr. High School. At this institute of quasi-education I met a man by the name of William Louks, some of you might recognize him as the Best Man who slept through my wedding. :) Believe it or not though, he is a dear friend of mine and has moved himself up in the world.

On July 10, 2006 he will begin working at NEC in Roseville, CA. This is exciting one because now he's an officially adult status, graduated and everything, and two because he will no longer be 20-24 hour drive away but a mere 5.5 hour drive away from me. This is quite exciting and I plan on visiting him often. I was so excited in fact, that I just had to share with all of you.

That is all.

Software Developer

While attending the classes at Cuesta that I have mentioned, some of the students informed the class that their places of work were hiring. After waiting some weeks, I now work part-time for CDM Technologies as a software developer. I'm working mostly with PHP but with some other stuff as well. It is quite exciting and will be great Resume fodder.

In other news, Kim and I traveled to San Jose this past weekend and spent some time viewing the Winchester Mystery House. After which we stopped by the Northridge Mall, which was highly unimpressive, but fun all the same. All in all it was a most pleasant trip that we both enjoyed quite a bit. It would be a lot of fun to visit the Winchester house if you're planning on building your own home, just because there is such a variety unique designs in the home. It would maybe provoke some good ideas for your own building.

Worst Service Ever

So the other night (Monday) David, Ellen, and I went to Spike's for dinner. Normally we are a Huuuuuge fans of Spike's and I would say that we still are, but Monday night was awful. We all arrived at about 7:00 PM and ordered pretty much immediately and beer came promptly. Food however, was not so forthcoming. At about 8:00 we inquired why our food had not presented itself, and are waiter, Steve, the owner of Spike's, had neglected to put the order into the Kitchen.

That was supposedly done promptly yet, we did not fully recieve our food until 9:15. Well we are regulars at Spike's and fully expected some small token of apology from Steve such as a free round of drinks or maybe even some bill compensation. Instead we had to total the bill ourselves and pay for it fully. No tip was left and we got out of there very disgruntled. We'll still go back, but I had to rant and now I am done.

Smile and be Happy!

Snow!

So I can't believe I didn't mention it.  The weekend before last we had snow here!  It was crazy.  I got some really nice pictures though that you can check out in my gallery.   Garrett made snow balls and everything it was crazy weird.

Mozilla Thunderbird feature

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am taking a few Computer Science courses at Cuesta College. For these courses it is necessary to email source code to the instructor as part of turning in assignments.

I switched to using Mozilla Thunderbird several months ago and have been very satisfied with it. However, upon submitting a few of the above mentioned assignments my instructor told me that I needed to get a different account or "credit will prove elusive." That is when I discovered one "feature" of Thunderbird that is particularly annoying and a little tedious to turn off.

After thoroughly going over all the GUI options in Thunderbird 1.0.7 I began Googleing for the answer. I found this as the fruits of my labor managed eventually to turn of the "feature." What is the "feature" I keep mentioning? Sending out emails with attachments Thunderbird graciously place all plain text attachements in the body of the email for you. So when multiple source code files are sent, all files are displayed in a row as the message of the email.

Now you too can turn this "feature" off and continue to use Thunderbird quite happily.

Validated

My website is now succesfully validated by W3C for XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS.  Yay me.  Now I just need to figure out how to generate an RSS Feed.  That is it.

Did I mention?

I'm enrolled in Cuesta College this semester. I am only lacking about five classes to achieve an associates degree in Computer Science. I'm taking 12 units right now. 4 units in a series of classes that ultimately will end up with me being a Cisco Certified Network Associate. Not really worth much, and the classes are cake, but it would be some nice frill for a resume. I'm taking two other computer classes, one in C programming (*yawn) and one on Data Structures and Problem Solving (very interesting).

The final class that I am taking is, Multicutlural Health (ugh). This course reminds me of the Social Studies courses I took in Jr. High. Granted the material is up to at least High School level, the teaching style and the questions asked are ridiculous. I have forced myself to get through the homework and so far have been doing very well (I'm missing 3 points out of 98). I just have another 13 weeks to go! (I hate the semester system)

Other than that things are going well. I'm walking without the aid of a boot and I am seeing more and more progress each day. That's all for now.

For the first time ever!

I have actually managed to contribute to an open source effort. A plugin called batch-categories for Wordpress was not updated for WP 2.0.1 and I was able to update it! Yay me!

Hail from California?

I actually witnessed hail falling from the sky in San Luis Obispo County. Albeit small hail, but hail all the same. It was quite shocking to me and so I had to let all of you know.

On a seperate note, I made a discovery that sandwiches involving either tomato or avocado benefit highly from a pinch of salt over the top. After all, salt is a flavor enhancer, why shouldn't it benefit?

Welcome to Wordpress

Kim and I now have a consolidated blog. This is partially to do with our being married now, but mostly to do with our joint lack of blogging. No need to have two seperate places that aren't updated. We are also now running Wordpress 2.0. Woot.

You might have noticed the change prior to this post, but there was still some tweaking needed. That is now done, enjoy the change.

When you wish...

Following Sean's shameless, yet creative idea, I am adding a link to my Amazon Wish List at the top of my web site. Feel free to peruse at your leisure.

Food!

Just in case anybody out there still glances at my blog occasionally, you are all invited to come to our place in North County for a potluck on the 21st in honor of Kim's birthday. Only your presence and food required. No presents.

Oh, and it's not a surprise. Feel free to drop me an email or a comment if you think you might come or I'll more likely talk to you in person.

2005 in Review

Instead of a long entry regarding the New Year I think a few of my highlights from the past year are in order.

• Became a licensed professional
  
• Dropped out of school
  
• Bought a Jeep (with a loan)
  
• O'pa past away, God rest his soul
  
• Ended four years of rooming with Sean, a sad day
  
• Got Married
  
• Went to Alaska
  
• Bought a Honda (outright)
  
• Broke my ankle
  
• Re-enrolled in school
  
• Visited many friends in OR
  

And that about sums up 2005 for me.