Ever since I posted about helping people out I’ve tried following my gut when it comes to people asking or appearing to need assistance. Not too long ago I noticed a man who seemed as if he was living out of a backpack almost by choice rather than necessity. At first in passing I gave him some slices of Hot Mama’s and some extra stuff Pike St Fish Fry gave me. He reminds me of an older wise man with a gnomish white beard, he just seems relaxed and peaceful at all times.

One late night walk with Terra not too long ago I stopped and got to asking him about my gut feeling, just to see if I was right. In a very relaxed conversation Norton and I talk about being in the flow, feeling a general unease building, and about luck and opportunity. Over an hour later, with Terra being a chill puppy, we’ve managed to cover topics like music, politics, human rights, and new forms of society. Talking Žižek, Kierkegaard, and Examined Life; geeking out on thoughts of the Universe and the interconnectedness of everything.

Walking from my stop on Broadway still reading the comments my Gramps had written in his copy of the Denial of Death there was a girl with a dog and some art. One of the pieces she had just happened to catch my eye. So I stopped and turned around, I’m not even sure why, perhaps it reminded me of being a kid and visiting my Dad for weekends at the beach. I asked about what inspired her to make the girl the way she did and commented how the rays of sunlight flew off the board. I asked how much she wanted for it and she commented about how she’s living out of a car so make an offer but in the past they’ve gone for $200. My gut says eh, go for it, my brain says, bit rich for my blood. I tell her I’ll see what I can do and after hitting up the ATM a couple blocks down head back with $200. Telling her about how my Mom does stained glass and has always been a bit of a starving artist I hand over the cash. She began to thank me profusely, tells me how far out and down to Earth I seem. She signs the back and mentions about driving around from place to place and to check her out on MySpace. I end up getting home and am like, wait did I just do that? Have I been taken? I search for her name and sure enough she’s got some other awesome stuff posted online.

After not talking to Norton for a while I stop by again to see how he’s doing and to actually ask about whether or not he’s living out of a backpack by choice. Either I couldn’t bring myself to ask him the first time or I was just too busy thinking about other stuff to ask previously. Turns out that my gut feeling was almost dead on here as well. I’ll spare the details now since I’m still curious about what got him to this point, if he’s settled and actually peaceful and what would he need in life if he’s not. I think when I do speak to him next I’ll give him this $25 Amex gift card I received, seems like the least I can do considering how much enjoyment I’ve received from our conversations.

Meanwhile off the topic of gut feelings I have mixed feelings about non-profit awareness and the general pushiness of those requesting donations in public. I usually pick one a month and donate enough for Microsoft to match, sometimes more. I’ve lost track of the various causes I’ve donated to and I guess this is where I become uncomfortable. I usually stop and see what’s what, then after remembering that I’ve donated prior and even after mentioning that I’ve donated, instead of saying thanks they’ll sometimes say, “well why not make a regular commitment”! Great, but if I donated to every cause I’d like every single time I’m asked  and did so regularly I’d be the one asking for donations before too long. I guess I’d prefer if they’d just state what they’re out for, hand over some info and call it good. If I want to take the time to donate there don’t try and push for regular installments or a minimum amount. Doing otherwise just makes it easier to justify avoiding you altogether.

The more I think about these gut feelings though the more I realize that when I follow them the happier I become and the happier I seem to make the people around me. This surely can’t be a bad thing.

When I regained consciousness I thought perhaps it was just from the long hot shower, change in temperature, who knows. It was a bit of a trippy experience that’s for sure. Fast forward a couple months, a dozen or so incidences of syncope occur. After a number of visits to the doc, chiropractor, neurologist, and cardiologist I’m told that I can try drinking less water (I was drinking about 120 ounces a day) or add some electrolytes to it, try some blood pressure medication, or go in for heart surgery. What the fuck!?

One of the immediate side effects of all these fun trips to nothingness was a pretty bad depression, probably some of the worse I’ve experienced. I couldn’t help but ask myself some big questions; contemplating life more deeply I told myself something major has to change otherwise I’ll get lost in this nothing. Sounds overly dramatic I know, but the feelings were very real. Thanks to the depression I lost my appetite for a month or so, this was a good thing really, it got me started on my original goal of getting down to 180 pounds. I also realized that drinking wasn’t really helping make me lose any weight or make me feel any better so I stopped that too. Sure enough 222 to 190 in the course of 2 months or so. My stomach and appetite have shrunk drastically by this point.

Another couple of months go by and I’m on a much better and more balanced albeit reduced calorie “diet”. Lots of fruit, veg, protein, less bread (oh how I love bread), less sugar, no HFCS, the usual normal crap that everybody tries to do. Nothing special. Now down to 180… My back pain is pretty much gone by now though I’m still getting dizzy randomly.

So that brings me to today. I’m now apparently 165 pounds and the scale says about 15% body fat. I used to wear a 34/36 with a belt and am now wearing a 29 (grr more money for new clothes, at least I could donate the old).  I’m eating quite a bit, or at least I feel like I am, but am still losing. I can only guess that perhaps my metabolism has gotten a nice kick in the ass, I’m not sure. At any rate, and more importantly, I’ve been trying to make some of those major changes. To help reduce the stress, I’ve been working from home for the past month and it’s made a huge difference on my general happiness. Especially with not having to commute, this makes me feel good on so many levels; if only I could sell the car now. I also found the most amazing puppy off Craiglist and so far Terra has been awesome at keeping my life active and structured. Six daily walks with her including errand runs and I’m probably averaging 10K. Instead of sitting on my ass waiting for the computer and the tools to respond, I take the time to do some exercise with an exercise ball (my chair), 35 pound kettle bell, and a pull up bar. It’s a bit surprising how often I’m actually doing some sort of exercise thanks to complicated modern technology . I did join a local CrossFit which will be amazing but I think for now it may be a bit too much for me and the heart, perhaps I’ll start that up again soon.

There really isn’t any point to this other than to mark the moment in time so I can look back a year from now and measure the results and think about the changes. I’m not really a fan of the MySpace dude pics but I do like the idea of recording a photo a day for a year to do a time lapse. Posting now and doing another in a year might help me a little bit with getting into shape, though I really don’t know what I’d call “being in shape”. Even now I still get dizzy randomly but am much more aware of the symptoms and can work around it. Perhaps in shape for me means the incidences dropping to null. We’ll see .

The second link is PDF, clicking show more results gives me the 100% of the PDF’s I need. A simple right click Save Target As and I’ve probably just saved at least 5 additional clicks and a good 30 seconds. Not only that, notice the 3rd link.  That one is arguably more valuable as far as getting additional help and resources regarding the Denon receiver.

Compared to Bing, same exact search… I know the first link is best, but if I were to look around the page I really see nothing that’d point me to a quick and immediate download of the PDF. Obviously there’s going to be a few more clicks involved here.

Anyway, I’m sure this will change soon .

In the process of trying to fall back to sleep I pretty much thought about the following:

1. Design a tattoo in Illustrator and Photoshop that fits the scene in my head/dream.
   • Think about a conversation with Grandma in a hypothetical future situation. “I’m not getting it yet, but as soon as I get into great shape that tattoo is coming.”
   • Use Illustrator and Photoshop design as background for site.
   • Use Illustrator design to create a movie with AfterEffects.
   • Convert movie to Silverlight/Flash for site.
2. Print some photos I’ve taken at Costco.
   • Design and create a DIY wire photo frame which features the photos in between two pieces of glass suspended in a 1x4x9 frame.
   • Share results online with a process video.
3. Join the CrossFit gym across the street so that I can go every Thursday morning in addition to the regular gym visits every Tuesday evening.
   • Buy some weights for home and figure out some more home workout options.
   • Get in great shape.
4. Get tattoo.
5. Looking at ceiling from the bed realizing that I should take a photo of what I’m looking at. Then using Photoshop and Illustrator convert it to a line drawing to then create a design for what I’d like to have built.
   • Thinking of the design. Thinking of how it’d best be accomplished. Creating the mental lines.
   • Use screen capture app to record the process of converting a photo into a design.
   • Take design get it built then do a making of the entire thing.
6. Take long beach vacation.
7. Take a road trip to visit family in California after November 2nd.
   • Return from California very chill and ready for great times ahead.
8. Idea for blog post about the way I think.
9. Need to buy camera gear for Leetspeak’s first show.
   • Need to attend show and hook up audio recorder to monitor output to be able to make a decent quality video.

Trying to go back to sleep now… Thinking… Man I need to find something new to fall asleep to. I’m really starting to pick out individual instrument patterns. Damn, that really is a pattern. I wonder if I could recreate this. I should try and recreate song, record process.

Okay, I need to sleep… I’m laying on a beach listening to the waves and there’s an awesome girl next to me. We go snorkeling in the really clear waters and see some turtles. Chilling on a board, now there’s some dolphins off in the distance. Flash forward to getting out of water after splashing around a bit with the awesome girl. Have sex with awesome girl in awesome villa on the beach. Lay out on beach as the stars come out and fall asleep to the sight of the milky way.

And after all that I eventually fall asleep, I think, at least that’s the point where I forget everything and eventually wake up. Getting ready for work, realize I need to create a list of shit to do. Realize that I should just record every idea I had while trying to fall back to sleep.

Record list.
Post.

The Explorer was a great tripod, and I’m pretty set on getting the new version. It wasn’t quick to set up but it was infinitely versatile. The Acratech was also a great ballhead, I can’t think of any complaints really, at least none that aren’t solved by the new Acratech GP ballhead.

I’m sort of thinking though that this new ballhead should have a pan arm though for video usage on the 7D. Thinking about it now, it’d be awesome if Acratech just added a screw hole to the right side of the quick release plate. That way you could screw in a pan arm. There’d be no question about the ballhead then. For now, it’s not that way so I’m considering options, next in line is a RRS BH-55.

Help me decide Internet! Too many forum discussions to read!

At any rate, the 7D with the EF 24mm f/1.4L II is awesome, I need to get off my ass and update the theme here and create a decent gallery. I wish this was all a lot cheaper it’s such a relaxing and enjoyable endeavor, it sucks that paying for it creates such stress.

A couple nights ago I got in the car and it was especially cold, turning it on and the tire pressure monitoring system said the tires were low. Sure enough, go to check at the Chevron outside the office and they’re all pretty low with one being below 30psi. Grab the hose, inflate to 38psi or so and call it good. After resetting the TPM and driving to give the sensors time to calibrate, all is good.

I knew about the temperature affecting TPM’s so didn’t sweat it, but still, it’s kind of nice to see that they’d send out emails to customers just in case. To top it off the link takes you directly to a video about how to reset the TPM.

This sure beats the other email I got from ISTA my water and sewer provider… Yet another thing to waste time on. Stupid e-bill shows $65 this period vs. $25 the last. Grr.

Example Dell’s Studio One 19.

While Apple and the Microsoft Surface along with other research has clearly sparked the entire multitouch movement. Right now is not the time for people to be going crazy and buying these PC’s. Apple is at least being smart about it and only adding it where it makes sense, handheld devices, touch pads, the Magic Mouse. You probably won’t ever see Apple add it to an iMac screen.

On the PC at this point I’d probably tell anyone who asked to fore go the expensive multitouch desktop PC’s and simply buy Wacom’s multitouch tablet.

It’s not even really that the features for multitouch aren’t there in software. Windows 7 and Snow Leopard both have awesome support. Right now at least the hardware just doesn’t match reality when it comes to usability.

Multitouch for desktop PC’s really isn’t going to get anywhere till we have real haptic input via a secondary display surface that can replace both the keyboard and mouse. A good start might be Senseg’s stuff. There was another thing I remember seeing but can’t find the URL at the moment.

Imagine just having a surface below your primary screen that’s a secondary display that replaces your keyboard and mimics the feel close enough. The feedback areas could easily change with what’s being displayed on the secondary display. To the right or left of the on screen keyboard could be an area for your entire hand to control and touch multiple pointers, see 10/GUI.

This is the sort of control surface that’ll replace the mouse and keyboard in time. It’s certainly not going to happen over night, but until the technology really gets to this point, multitouch displays in the primary vertical orientation just don’t make sense.

I honestly don’t know what’s with PC manufacturers, they just don’t seem to get what Apple clearly does. Here’s another example from Dell, their new Adamo XPS laptop. From the looks of it, a pretty amazingly cool piece of hardware. I’d love to know just much time and energy was spent on adding the ridiculous heat sensing strip. What real purpose does this serve? Speaking of strips that serve no purpose Dell yet again with their EdgeTouch on the Z600. Engadget has it right, “makes overcompensated CEOs out of us all”. Why the hell does anyone really need a touch sensitive strip on the right side of the laptop screen that’s going to require some crapware that undoubtedly causes more issues than anything else.

Dell isn’t the only guilty party. It’s not like Toshiba, Sony, HP, you name it have decently designed crap that isn’t just a bunch of plastic. Microsoft Hardware has done their fair share of stupidity as well. Compare the new Apple keyboards which are simple and refined to some Microsoft keyboards and you’ll notice a bunch of extra multimedia buttons those F-Lock functions, you name it. Then each new generation they change what’s included as well as the behavior. My original Natural Pro has a complete different set of buttons than my Entertainment 7000. I prefer the Natural keyboards over Logitech and Apple and just about anything else. Microsoft has an *amazingly* awesome sense for ergonomics far above Apple, that’s for sure (I’m looking at you Mighty Mouse nipple). But they’re far from perfect. I don’t really get why it’s so hard for everyone that isn’t Apple to figure out how to make decent hardware.

There’s probably 2 or 3 well designed and well made machines from both HP, Dell, Sony, hell some even like Lenovo laptops. But the bulk of the crap that’s put out by the industry is rehashed plastic crap that has bloat inside and out.

Jonathan Ive’s was right, it’s not about what you add but what you remove. This doesn’t just apply to the design of the products but the entire product line.

What gets annoying is when you have a phone call earlier in the day where a customer complains about crap not working that used to work or relatively new stuff not working. No drivers, bad drivers, whatever.

I mean come on, it’s not Microsoft’s fault. It’s not like Vista wasn’t in beta for 6 years and 7 for 2+. Hell Microsoft even helps people write their drivers. Still, we get crap drivers way too late which just pisses people off.

I’m not blaming M-Audio here. I’m just frustrated at the statu quo. I’ve not completed my search for updates bits yet so for all I know it’ll be working in 5 minutes. I’m a bit miffed it’s not just a simple plug and play. Or updated drivers off Microsoft Update. My philosophy would be to release early at every point of the process. It’s understandable if the stuff doesn’t work perfectly during the beta. But at least you won’t have customers out in the cold come RTM.

And I do have to say, Vista’s only failure was in its public perception. Yes UAC was overblown, yes they failed to deliver half what they promised at PDC03, but at the same time it was a huge improvement over XP. People will forget that XP was considered crap until SP2 made it what it is. Vista is the same deal. SP2 is amazing most of the time.

Now with Windows 7 people are finally saying it’s what Vista should’ve been, this is rather funny really because even with 7 being as awesome as it is, there’s still a lot left that was still promised and shown at PDC03.

Perhaps Microsoft’s priorities have shifted, for example multitouch wasn’t as huge as it is now. Perhaps Microsoft’s resources haven’t quite been allocated as well as they could be. Or maybe what’s actually being engineered is just a little more complicated than we expected.

I’m still thinking of that amazingly good demo from PDC03 with the millions of photos and albums shown in 3D that was completely fluid, all driven by meta data in a WinFS powered back end. The reality unfortunately is that despite what Microsoft is delivering in 7 and Apple has been delivering in Snow Leopard really doesn’t match up to demos.

Still, 7 is pretty awesome, it’s definitely the best OS Microsoft has yet to release.

You know, it could just be a consequence of trying to move technology so quickly. On both the hardware and software side.

Example, 1080p 56″ LED DLP about 3 years ago was about $3400. Now you could probably find one for $900. LED LCD purchased about two months ago, $3200, at a steep discount no less. Now, $2500, via Amazon.

That’s a pretty fast progression in both price and obsolescence. Maybe everyone just expects too much too quickly .

Maybe Michael Moore has hit on something with Capitalism, I’ve not even seen it yet but I get the feeling we in general have expected exponential growth but have the lack of widespread focus to actually get anything accomplished. And this is due to the current state of Capitalism in the US. It doesn’t seem like everyone is as focused on a singular task as they were when getting to the moon or fighting the Axis powers.

It’s not just technology either, where’s the focus on health, energy, and sustainability? I think Dawkins and Maher might agree that to some extent the lack of focus is exacerbated in part by the lack of reason and the divisiveness of US politics and religion.

But anyway, I just want to make some music damn it .

“Think you can you taste the difference between our fresh brewed and new, breakthrough instant coffee?”

If I can’t taste the difference why would I ever go visit you again? I sure hope you guys make more money on the instant stuff since the opportunities to supersize me on a Venti Mocha Frap aren’t going to work out if I start drinking your breakthrough instant stuff at home.

The world doesn’t need another instant coffee it needs… wait, err, that’s the wrong ad.

Way to play right into where McDonalds and Nescafe want you… they’ve started taking your core on the go coffee drinker away. Pretty soon all that will be left are the deliciously evil foo foo drinks that have as many calories as a damned quarter pounder with cheese:

• 24 fl. oz. Mocha Frap with cream = 500 calories / 17 grams of fat
• Quarter Pounder® with cheese (apparently McDonalds owns the rights to calling a 1/4 lb. burger that, yay for gratuitous copyright law) = 510 calories / 26 grams of fat
• Kill the cheese and the Mocha Frap has 90 more calories and only 2 grams of fat less than the burger.

I guess I’ve never been the target audience. I’ll drink Starbucks because it’s there. I refuse McDonalds and the like even if free. I’d rather make the time to prepare coffee in a French press than develop road rage just trying to get through a crowded drive-thru.

I filled in that dot next to his name for the fact that he’s an very intelligent grounded leader with good morals and a strong philosophical sense – a passionate open thinker.

The problem for what I think is a disproportionate amount of Americans is that they’re lacking in these very qualities themselves.

They’re probably the same people that would like to think they’re some how resembling a person with good morals themselves, the type that probably feels like someone who speaks with intelligence is talking down to their them. When you get right down to it, the people who just can’t get over the fact that they voted against a President because he was black and they lost.

So in the end, because the battle in America ultimately boils down to a dichotomy in ways of thinking. The roots of distrust, fear, and irrational thinking are ingrained in so many Americans.

It allows stupid bullshit to delegitimize his position and cause even logical thinkers to throw rationality to the wind and prevent anything getting done. Of course if you point out the irony in this persons fear the shut down even further.

So really, I figure that could be what causes History to not reflect his Presidency as being a completely effective.

At this point I should probably clear up the fact I have a sense that, in the grand scheme of things, Humanity is inherently flawed and destined to destroy itself. Humans by nature can’t possibly have enough time at any given moment of their short life to actually process every piece of information. It just can’t be done. So instead we make quick and often rash decisions without thinking about the future consequences. We’re probably just not evolved enough to get past this. I mean crap, we’re only about 425~ years away from Galileo and Copernicus and the rest of their Science vs. Religion drama. Look how well that logic argument has gone.

By the time we’re old enough to actually be able to be wise and give the time and thought to these things, our original values are too instilled in us to change. We’re probably just not evolving fast enough for a cataclysmic event not to happen. Whether that be from a natural evolutionary event caused by irresponsible population growth — or from a man made event caused during the process. World War, Global Warming, Global Disease, take your pick.

I guess I shouldn’t be a glass half empty type of guy and have some faith here. Maybe it’s because in my gut I really know that faith without fact isn’t always going to be best? Or maybe I’m simply not evolved and intelligent enough to always be right every time I go with my gut instinct. Bummer.

No matter how Humanity goes, I get the feeling that there’s bound to be some major event that will determine either which way everything turns out. Maybe we’ll discover we’re not alone in the Universe and take a giant leap forward. Hell, maybe the first Mayans were already visited and all the 2012 crap is true, here come the end days.

To me it would really just suck to not be around to witness this event. I personally believe so what, if I’m dead then so what, it’s not like I will have the ability to care anymore. So everyone else being dead too won’t really bother me. However, it would sure be a shame to not have lived to the fullest should all life continue and I not had a positive impact on those around me.

I’ve definitely been having more of this self reflection and outwardly contemplation time lately and the entire thread with Dan basically plays into it. There was also this chat I had with Chad the other day at work about Dawkins and being a “militant atheist” that I’ve been thinking about as well. I’m definitely generalizing things a bit and being argumentative about the entire “radical religious right”.

If you missed the first or second parts be sure to check those out before reading on.

From: Corey Gouker
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2009 11:08 AM
To: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Cc: John Gouker
Subject: RE: FW: PHOTO TO THINK ABOUT

I’m sure in 2 years things will look quite a bit different, though you’ll still be the same and will have your next crazy thing to be forwarding about.

Yes I’ve used a government run health system. I lived in England for a year where I used their National Health Services. It was fantastic. There was a doctor seemingly on every corner. My doctor was around the block, I called, next day walked in sat down and was taken care of. I needed a prescription, I walked next door paid the equivalent of $12 if I remember right and was given both prescriptions (having had them in the US, they would’ve cost over $90 here).

The government already runs a health system here it’s called Medicare. The government already runs a lot of Socialist services, unemployment services, your Military, the Education system, your highway system, etc. Of course no system is perfect there’s flaws everywhere, typically the flaws are human based though.

Not sure what Indian reservations have to do with anything. I’ve not had a chance to read up on them, but my understanding is that they’re on sovereign soil.

It’s funny that you mention serving our country. In a previous email you talked about blindly following. I think this is kind of ironic since I don’t think there’s been a single war since World War II where America’s interests have been at stake, where American freedom has been at stake. If you can name one I’d love to hear know, 9/11 doesn’t count either because it was a terrorist attack and completely unrelated to the Iraq war.

I’m assuming you went to Nam; ever stop and wonder why you even went, why America went? Maybe that’s why you’re so jaded now, because you were fucked then and you’re afraid of being fucked now. You certainly weren’t fighting for our country then, you were fighting for people in power so they could have more control and more wealth. It’s extremely unfortunate that Americans had to fight and die in battles that they should’ve never been in.

With that said, I certainly don’t equate intelligence with being in the military or having served in any Government capacity.

Frankly, I don’t think you should be the one to tell me I’m uneducated in history.

• The reason EVERYTHING is made outside of our borders is all the folks that whined about the air quality due to steel mills than “acid rain” remember that?
  • Excuse me? Provide some data here that backs up your statements. So everything America imports is made out of steel in other countries?
  • We import goods from other countries because they’re either produced more, can be produced for less, or America simply doesn’t have the ability to produce them.

• Then it was the coal fired power plants, now it’s we can fix EVERYTHING in a few months with out reading any of the bills and tax the crap out of EVERYONE (yes you also) if “cap & trade” gets passed ,everything will go up, you don’t think for a second the power company’s will let the profit drop do you?
  • There’s really no argument here, reads to me like a sentence from Palin. I’ll just refer to this article about Goldman Sachs and cap and trade that I sent a while ago. Guessing you didn’t read any of it then?

See, I respect those who have served in battle. I respect them for the courage that it takes to be part of that. With that being said, I certainly don’t need to join and blindly follow. Just because you served in Nam and witnessed some fucked up shit doesn’t give you any special rights to tell anyone they don’t know life or haven’t lived it. Not me or your son.

I quit school at 13, worked ever since, went to England for a year, have travelled to a few other countries, had a pretty fucking good time ever since. I’ve also had the fear of dying or killing too when some fuck tried to mug me. It doesn’t take military service to know what living is.

It’s advisors and czars, the only people complaining are those that haven’t done their research and those who have something to gain by negatively portraying the fact that Obama has been picking people to advise him in matters that he needs advising. What’s not normal about this? Or do you forget that George W. Bush had 26 czars and appointed more than Obama?

Quit being a fucking idiot and lecturing me on doing my research when you clearly haven’t. Most of them suck huh? Well give me an example, give me some data.

• But Everyone that has been in power for the 65 years has had a lot of faults but this administration sure seams to have more than the normal what ever that is.
  • As soon as you figure that one out do share. Why is it that when people like you are uncertain of something you fall back on some generalized faith based assumption that has no merits?

Yeah, you’re right, American life was probably better for you in 1950. I mean just think, Obama would’ve been sitting at the back of the bus just where you’d like him to be. Plus you got to enjoy LSD and listen to Elvis while freaking out about that Russian nuke that never came.

FYI, I still don’t lock my front door or the car.

Keep living that American dream, old man.

Another reply after realizing Snopes updated their post:

From: Corey Gouker
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 12:17 PM
To: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Cc: John Gouker
Subject: RE: FW: PHOTO TO THINK ABOUT

Oh and Dan… You might want to check out Snopes again:

“However, the characterization of the pictured book as “a Muslim’s view of a defeated America” is erroneous: The book does not posit a “defeated America,” nor does it express a Muslim point of view.”

See, that’s the beautiful thing about a world based in fact and science. New facts come out, people admit they were wrong, and then things progress from there, with the new facts as the basis for future thinking.

I think I must’ve worn down Dan’s attention span since all I got in return was this one line response:

From: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 12:40 PM
To: Corey Gouker

Subject: Re: FW: PHOTO TO THINK ABOUT
Thanks I will,this is one of the Great things in our nation the chance to exchange ideas !

LMAO… Pretty sure that’s short for “man, it’s good thing you’re not standing in front of me otherwise I’d kick your ass and give you a taste of my first amendment rights”. We’ll see if I get anything more noteworthy soon enough.

From: Corey Gouker
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 2:21 PM
To: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Cc: John Gouker
Subject: RE: FW: PHOTO TO THINK ABOUT

Well since you sent this directly to me, and since it went to my Inbox instead of the Junk E-Mail folder, I guess you want a response. So…

Have you even read the book?

If so, please tell me why you think it’s a problem that the President is reading this? Or are you just basing everything on the caption below the image?

Since I’m almost positive you jumped to conclusions and assumed the most paranoid thing possible here’s the description:

“This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.” So begins Fareed Zakaria’s important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the “rise of the rest”—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.”

Having actually read this book I can say it makes me happy that:
1. The President can actually read.
2. The President is actually reading something of substance.

You probably haven’t watched the movie IOUSA, you should. Had you either read this book or watched this movie you’d understand just how relevant both are to the current situation in the United States.

The problem isn’t just government, it’s the people too:

1. Americans don’t save nearly enough anymore.
2. Americans don’t sell enough domestic goods to counter the foreign purchases.
3. Americans take too many risks without thinking about future consequences.

Foreign countries own nearly 45% of the debt in the United States. In publicly traded companies there’s something called “controlling interest”, in the simplest form it means that the controlling parties have a 50% + 1 stake. Thus they can control the outcome of the company.

With foreign countries owning so much of your debt they can basically control your outcome. That’s what this book is about – that and the climate change. Since at this point solving the energy problems and fiscal responsibility are the two ways for America to actually survive.

So please, wake up, there’s very little threat from foreign radicalism, the threat is clearly at home. If you can’t understand that then you should ask your God for some insight and pray that everything will magically work itself out.

Next, the book itself, it’s a best seller, written by an Indian man who went to Yale and Harvard. Are you telling me because he’s Muslim that makes it bad? Are you really that much of a paranoid racist? According to Wikipedia, he supported Ronald Reagan in the 1980′s, I guess that meant Reagan had radical ideas and intent for the country too? Even the Snopes article talks about the authors secular upbringing.

Maybe the problem for you isn’t really the fact Obama is reading this book. Maybe your real problem is that you rely on headlines without depth, faith without fact, paranoid delusions without rational thought. You’re too busy thinking Obama is the non-American anti-Christ, who is going to kill your Grandma on a death panel while turning her corpse into biofuel for his hippy-mobile.

I honestly wish I could actually understand the way you think. In my view, it’s your actually your inability to think and understand basic Scientific premises that has me dumbfounded. What’s stupid is that we probably actually agree on many many things, it’s unfortunate that we simply take different approaches in thinking about them.

You probably believe in God, thus you probably believe the Earth is 6000 years old and that God created Earth and Man in 6 days. So somehow you throw away all fact because it scares you or you don’t quite understand. You’re too scared that you “don’t know” so you take comfort in your faith. It’s such a big part of your core that it takes over everywhere in your life. Someone sends you an email that the Government is going to kill your gran instead of treat her and you believe it.

The sad thing is you and I couldn’t even have a real debate. You simply wouldn’t even take the time to actually read, become informed, do some research. You’ll just shut down your brain and throw out some more bullshit that relies on faith and no fact. Instead of sending out dozens these really fucking stupid emails every day, why don’t you actually take the time to read or listen to one good discussion about this stuff? Something with a little substance.

Since that’s obviously not going to be the case, since you’re probably just going to get out of your chair, scratch your ass then grab a Bud Lite from the fridge, do us both a favor. Stop sending me any of this lame email, it all goes to my junk folder anyway. If you do have something constructive and want a debate, by all means, but quit sending me this crap that’s full of right winged-paranoid-red necked-Christian views. It’s not informative because it lacks anything of substance.

Well, tell you what, here’s something in return for you to review. Consider it an example of what I’m talking about. It ties into the book and the movie as well. It’s another bit of the puzzle for the recession of American dominance and the rise of proper globalization. So here’s the TED talks from Hans Rosling (he’s Swedish just so you know):

Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset
Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen

In some ways what’s happening around the world is the great equalization of wealth and power. Some would say it’s Socialism, suppose so in a way. It’s probably got something to do with the corrupt rich that are in power trying to keep their wealth and power instead of reallocating it to the lower-middle class of America. With so much of America owned by other countries and with America stumbling to correct the problems, others are bound to catch up. In many ways it’s a very exciting time to be alive and to witness a radical shift. With so much on the line,  no matter what the outcome is, it’ll likely be drastically different from the way things are now.

-Corey
P.S. To share the discussion I’ll be posting this over to my website for others to chime in if they wish.

Dan’s reply:

From: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 7:33 PM
To: Corey Gouker
Subject: Re: FW: PHOTO TO THINK ABOUT

Let’s do this young man let’s wait 2 years and we will see just what happens to our nation. Have you ever used or know someone whom has been in a gov run health system ?? Check out how OUR gov treats the people on the res ?? If you get hurt or sick after 6 or 7 months into the year see what you get. And I’m not as dumb as you may think by the way what branch of the military have you served in and ever fight for OUR country ?? The reason EVERYTHING is made outside of our borders is all the folks that whined about the air quality due to steel mills than “acid rain” remember that? Then it was the coal fired power plants, now it’s we can fix EVERYTHING in a few months with out reading any of the bills and tax the crap out of EVERYONE (yes you also) if “cap & trade” gets passed ,everything will go up, you don’t think for a second the power company’s will let the profit drop do you? If you read HISTORY you should all ready know how this will turn out.
You sound just like my thirty year old son that has never experienced much in life,other than school . We had a saying at KHE SANH  ” you have NEVER lived until you almost die. For those who fight for it,Life has a flavor the PROTECTED will Never know.
You never know what the “advisers, Caz’s” what ever name you want to hang on the people with obams ear think unless you study them have you ? I have and most of them SUCK ! But Everyone that has been in power for the 65 years has had a lot of faults but this administration sure seams to have more than the normal what ever that is. Hope this will give you something to think about, And your probably right we could sit down and agree on alot of things but I’m most likely more than 45 years older than yourself and I remember how much better life was here in the 1950′ than today no crack,car jacking etc. in fact we never even had to lock our houses or cars can’t do that any more here how about there ?? And no I not a racists just a concerned citizen ! You just don’t have enough time in to know what is happening to this nation. Good Luck  kid

From: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 7:26 AM
To: Corey Gouker
Subject: Fwd: FW: PHOTO TO THINK ABOUT

And yes it’s TRUE PER SNOPES !!!!!!!!!!!

What does Obama   read?

The  name of the book Obama is reading is  called The  Post-American  World, written by a muslim/ Post-America  - The world After America ???

Please  forward this picture to everyone you know,  conservative or liberal  to expose Obama’s radical ideas and intent for  this country!

photo  verified by snopes

It’s amusing to see that at least part of the replies are getting through since more of these emails now mention that they’ve at least tried to verify what’s said via Snopes.com. As if something posted to Snopes makes it true or false, I imagine they check here then call it good rather than doing a generalized search cross referencing material from multiple sources. Then again, that’s a wider problem on the Internet. More amusing is that Snopes updated things just today to say the description is inaccurate.

Look for more of these soon, it’s bound to get interesting.

Example; Budweiser, here in America certain people take pride if something is American made, even more so if it’s almost 200 years old. “Gee, that’s almost as old as the United States”…

Another; Stella Artois, apparently with roots dating to 1366 (now that would be old than America, “folks”). It says so right on the label. Budweiser’s spin is practically the same. Funny thing, since to a Brit I know, apparently Stella is “Belgian mans’ piss”; I’ve come to think of Budweiser the same.

I don’t particularly like either lager really. For what it’s worth I’d take the Stella any day, but neither are amazing in any way. I’ve been on a Tripel kick lately…

They’re no different than any other well traveled international beer. They all sell and remain popular because of the same, “made with its roots in history” – marketing crap that is universally appreciated around the world by those with love of country over pragmatism. Dos Equis (though the original dude was German), Carling, Molson, Heineken, Sapporo, the list is quite extensive really.

A special lesson I’ve also been told by another Brit. “Americans need to learn there are other countries a lot older than America”. You know sir, they do. I took this to mean that these older countries probably have lessons to be learned? You know, like the entire tax, health care, well… Socialist thing?

Isn’t it about time people realize that it doesn’t really matter what country you’re from? The roots of your history and values aren’t that different than that of your fellow man abroad? Stop worrying, drink beer, be merry, and for fucks sake pass the pitcher around.

At home though, what the hell is the point? The only email I get are bill reminders, for bills I’ve already paid; and receipts for crap that are stored anyway. Then every day I get a handful of emails from family. Nearly all of which is some random thing that spread around the web months ago, is likely false, inaccurate, makes no sense, full of bold faced type with tons of spelling and grammatical errors, etc etc etc.

To top it all off most of the time it’s sent out to a bunch of other people which just perpetuates things. I’ve tried informing family about sites like snopes.com and to just do a simple search before sending stuff out, you know, simple fact check. I’ve given links to the Microsoft security pages so they know what’s what, I’ve provided links to all the virus information things and so on. Yet every year I get an email about Bill Gates giving money for every email sent. Crap about Obama’s birth certificate, or the same crazy talk over and over…

I’ve just decided to post up this email through though because it’s a prime example… I’ve gotten into the habit of replying all to most of  my Dad’s stuff, mainly because most of it is bullshit and the first hit off Google reveals the stupidity. Anyway I love this reply from the person who forwarded the original email, he goes on this right wing rant. Why? I’m not sure, since the original email was about some supposed Smart car accident which wasn’t even a Smart car:

——————————————————————————–
From: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 1:40 PM
To: Corey Gouker
Subject: Re: Still want a Smart car?

You may find alot of things unbelievable, but that’s ok, if the left wingers keep getting their way EVEN You will be in deep shit if you can’t think and defend you and yours ! obama folks wants servants not citizens !! Ask yourself why does the black house need over 40 carzs ? That are not accountable to the “PEOPLE” ?? But you spend more time to point out things that DON”T mean Shit kid. We are LOSSING our Nation and those of us that have given body parts to Protect your rights can’t see what is going on today. Hell you are probly at work stealing your employers time and money sending e-mail, but you Don’t see anything WRONG with that do you ! I wish people like your generation would spend as much time looking and thinking about why you have the FREEDOMS you have and are about to lose. Just something for you to think about. Dan

On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Corey Gouker wrote:

This isn’t even a Smart Car. Not saying that a Smart Car wouldn’t have the same fate, like you said, any compact car would likely have the same outcome from being sandwiched in between two trucks like that, especially with the rear one going at any speed.

But these stupid crappy emails that get sent around are just stupid when they can’t even tell the truth and real story.

First, look at the wheel right beneath that red trucks’ bumper. Notice it has 5 bolt holes. Smart Car’s have smaller wheels and only have 3 bolt holes which you can see in the picture below. In fact, most sub-compacts (like my Mini Cooper S) only have 4 bolt holes. Most likely this was a regular sized/compact car. On top of that, all the body panels on the Smart Car are plastic and pretty much snap and lock into place. These would’ve flown off the car in a bunch of pieces, clearly the car in the photo is a huge hunk of steel aluminum and other junk.

For more info about this stupid email see here:

http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/f3/crash-not-24793/
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/photos_two_cars_overturn_in_wr.html

This was linked in the forum. What’s amusing about it is that both the Smart and SUV overturned. The driver of the Smart was able to just get out on his own. The driver of the SUV needed to be rescued after the officer smashed the window open. The SUV was smoking and leaking.

At any rate, I find this to be really amusing considering the number of people that’ll drive a motorocycle but wouldn’t think of driving a Smart.

Take a look at this video though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s

Shows a Smart going into a wall at 60mph. Sure you’d still be dead from doing 60-0 in a second (would happen in any car), but they could still open the door without any issues to remove your corpse.

-Corey

——————————————————————————–
From: J. Clinton Gouker
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 11:37 AM
To: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
Cc: bill d shuster; Breanna Gouker; Corey Gouker; dave; sallyshopr; Stan

Subject: RE: Still want a Smart car?

Hey Dan! LOL, No need to spend $,$$$.$$ on a casket !Same goes for any small “COMPACTABLE” car. Honda ain’t no different in that situation. They didn’t crash test it that way. It’s obvious they don’t want to scare the customers away !!!!

——————————————————————————–
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 08:03:15 -0700
Subject: Fwd: Fw: Still want a Smart car?
From: JACKIE/DAN ROBINSON
To: J. Clinton Gouker

Here’s a “obama motors car” If you go “green” you die !!!!!!!!

Well, I’m not really sure what to say in reply to Dan. I mean it really made no sense in the context of the prior thread, except maybe that little jab at the Smart car being Obama’s “green” car of choice or soemething. The racist and incoherent brainwashed tripe about the down fall of America really doesn’t coagulate for me.

One thing I’m bummed about is that I can’t seem to find any of the Homegroup stuff in Server 2008 R2. I have a feeling I’m going to be let down. Was seriously hoping to just have the server be the media and file source but alas… Maybe I’m destined to just run Windows 7 on the server and use a WAMP type thing, no more IIS. No more virtualized server.

We’ll see.

UPDATE: One small hiccup that I ran into was with IIS after the upgrade from 2008 to 2008 R2. Any websites that had failed tracing enabled kept bringing up 500 errors. To resolve this I simply deleted all the previous FailedReqLogFiles folders, disabled the tracing, then enabled it once more for any of the sites that had it on in the first place.

But like I said, I just wanted a quick way to be notified if my server is getting to hot. Twitter has the benefit of texting me directly for stuff I choose so I figured it’d be an easy way of being notified. With the help of a few searches and some hacking and slashing of code I’ve got a nice little way of keeping tabs on my server through Twitter now. Technically since it’s using WMI, keeping track of just about anything is possible. There’s a load of data available if you check out MSDN. In my case, Dell exposes quite a bit of data against my PowerEdge 2900. In most cases this script and this sort of idea will work with just about any system out there running Vista, 7, or Server 2008. Straight out of the box no less.

First things first, I wanted to make sure I could pull the right data. In this sample, we use some simple VBS to query the WMI service and create a query to pull the current reading and status from the temperature sensor. In my first version, I omitted the if statements to make things simpler but later to make it work with the Twitter portion of the script I needed to write the WMI values to a variable. I did this a second time to pull the fan speeds as well since the first test with the temp worked well.

On Error Resume Next

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2\dell")

Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select CurrentReading, Status from CIM_TemperatureSensor")

For Each objItem in colItems
 if typename(objItem.Status) <> "Null" then
  if objItem.Status(0) <> "" Then
  sStatus = objItem.Status(0) ' write to variable
  Wscript.Echo "Status: " & sStatus ' print out the info
  end if
 end if
 if typename(objItem.CurrentReading) <> "Null" then
  if objItem.CurrentReading(0) <> "" Then
  sTemp = objItem.CurrentReading(0) ' write to variable
  Wscript.Echo "Temp: " & sTemp / 10 & "c" ' print out the info
  end if
 end if
Next

Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select CurrentReading from CIM_Tachometer") ' switching context

For Each objItem in colItems
 if typename(objItem.CurrentReading) <> "Null" then
  if objItem.CurrentReading(0) <> "" Then
  sFan = sFan + objItem.CurrentReading(0)  ' increase the sum of fan speeds
  sCount = sCount + 1 ' increase the count of fans
  end if
 end if
Next
Wscript.Echo "RPM:  " & Cstr(Round(sFan / sCount)) ' take the sum total of fan speeds and average it out 

So this first VBScript really just comes in handy for making sure you’re gathering the right data and writing it to a variable then printing it out to the command line fine. Perfect little test bed really.

Next, we’ll want to make sure we can write to Twitter just fine. To do this I used this sample VBScript:

if not wscript.arguments.count > 1 then
   wscript.echo "Not enough options provided"
   wscript.quit
end if

sUrl = "http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml"
sUsername = wscript.arguments(0)
sPassword = wscript.arguments(1)
sMessage = wscript.arguments(2)

wscript.echo sUsername & ", " & sPassword & ", " & sMessage
sMessage = "status=" & sMessage

HTTPPost sUrl, sMessage, sUsername, sPassword

Function HTTPPost(sUrl, sRequest, sUsername, sPassword)
  set oHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
oHTTP.open "POST", sUrl,false,sUsername,sPassword
  oHTTP.send sMessage
  HTTPPost = oHTTP.responseText
  WScript.Echo HTTPPost
End Function

The usage is pretty simple, from the command line you run the script, twitter.vbs you pass it your username, password, and the message you want posted. If it updates Twitter you know that bit works. I honestly borrowed this code from some random find on the web, I wish I could remember which result it was but I don’t (if you recognize it please give me a link for proper credit). But honestly there’s a bunch of samples out there, Twitter does a good job of helping people with their API.

Now finally, I took the two samples above, then combined them into the code that now reads the info through WMI and posts to Twitter:

Dim strUsername, strPassword, strMessage, sStatus, sTemp, sFan, sCount ' declare variables

On Error Resume Next

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2\dell") 'specify wmiService

Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select CurrentReading, Status from CIM_TemperatureSensor")

For Each objItem in colItems
 if typename(objItem.Status) <> "Null" then
  if objItem.Status(0) <> "" Then
  sStatus = objItem.Status(0) ' write to variable
  end if
 end if
 if typename(objItem.CurrentReading) <> "Null" then
  if objItem.CurrentReading(0) <> "" then
  sTemp = objItem.CurrentReading(0) ' write to variable
  end if
 end if
Next

Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select CurrentReading from CIM_Tachometer") ' switching context

For Each objItem in colItems
 if typename(objItem.CurrentReading) <> "Null" then
  if objItem.CurrentReading(0) <> "" Then
  sFan = sFan + objItem.CurrentReading(0)
  sCount = sCount + 1 ' take the sum total of fan speeds and average it out
  end if
 end if
Next

strUsername = "corego" '  Twitter username
strPassword = " " ' Twitter password, remove for testing
strMessage =  "automated message from @corego's server: the status is " & CStr(sStatus) & ", the ambient temp is " & CStr(sTemp / 10) & "c, and average fan speed across " & sCount & " fans is " & CStr(Round(sFan / sCount)) & "RPM" 'mesage that's posted to Twitter.

' strMessage is where the big ass string is put together.
' Use CStr to ensure the values from WMI are in a string format, divide the temp by 10 since it needs it.
' Take the average fan speed across the number of fans and round them to make it pretty.

' Calling the function and store the result in a variable.
Dim strTwitterXMLResponse
strTwitterXMLResponse = SendToTwitter(strMessage, strUsername, strPassword)

' Post back the result with a messagebox so you know something happend.
' MsgBox strMessage, VbOkOnly, "TWITTER STATUS UPDATE"

' The MsgBox is disabled for live, enabled for testing, uncomment this and comment your password for testing.

Function SendToTwitter(strMessage, strUsername, strPassword) ' actual send function

     ' This is the function which does all the work.
     ' It uses XMLHTTP to post your message to Twitter.
     Dim objHTTP
     Set objHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
          objHTTP.open "POST", "http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml", false, strUsername, strPassword
          objHTTP.send "status=" & strMessage
          ' The function stores the Twitter response to the result of the function so you can use this later
          SendToTwitter = objHTTP.responseText
     Set objHTTP = nothing 'Release the object
End Function

And that’s pretty much that. You could run this as a scheduled task to update regularly. You could maybe add some refresher code to leave it running all the time and only update when the temperature changes. Options are pretty much open. You could also modify this to spit out some HTML for your WordPress blog, something I might do at some point.

In the end, I used Dell’s Open Manage stuff to use the built in alerting. I’ve set it up to basically run this VBS any time the system is in the Warning or Critical levels I mentioned previously. If the temp hits 42c it’ll kick off the alert and Twitter will get updated along with the SMS sent to my iPhone. Another future idea is to write a very simple iPhone friendly web page that’ll let me manage the server. Maybe cycle IIS, restart, shutdown, etc. For now this is good enough.

I was going to create an account just for the server on Twitter but that seems excessive. I don’t like managing multiple accounts and this should only alert when it really needs to. But there you go. Enjoy.

Oh and one last thing, I’ve tested this against only a single machine, so YMMV, I’m also not a Dev, you can probably perfect the code, make it simpler, cleaner, whatever. Feel free to provide constructive feedback.

Why? Because, I enjoy helping people and figure why the hell not. I could easily diagnose the problem in 15 minutes.

Just now I was at QFC down the road. On the way out a lady in her Sebring as parked in a disabled spot with her placard. Anyway, she stopped us and started asking slowly for some cash. She said she had cerebral palsy and apparently forgot her wallet at Shell around the corner, when she went back it was gone. By this point she was bursting into tears. Apparently she had no cash and no gas, and with her wallet gone she was in a bind. Figuring that was the case I already grabbed my wallet and pulled out $5. Handing it to her she grabbed my hand and thanked me kindly.

I felt bad and all and honestly $5 isn’t much to help someone in a bind. I’m more than happy to give when I know pretty well it’s going to go do some good. I mean it’s not like she was outside a Wine and Liquor store asking for booze.

Though this reminds me, a while back at a Safeway a guy asked for money for food. I had none, I don’t normally carry cash as I prefer plastics. I said I’d be happy to grab him some food, a sandwich or something. He wanted a ham sandwich. Five minutes later I came out with a ham sandwich and a bag of chips. But the dude ditched. Seriously!? I got stood up by a homeless guy and couldn’t even get him the food. Sigh. I guess maybe he figured I wouldn’t really be helping him out.

So when I got home tonight the thought did cross my mind. How do you really know when someone needs, requires, deserves help? I mean really. I honestly don’t know if that lady really needed help. She could’ve easily been a crafty scam artist doing that to every easy mark. Hell she’d probably gather at least enough cash to buy her groceries or whatever for the night. Then again why go to all that trouble for $5?

How does one really know? When do you help, when do you not?