Jeff’s Amazing blog

After an hour of standing in line I cast my vote today. I didn’t comment before the elections, but most people have made up their minds by now, so here goes.

Last presidential election I voted based on one or two specific issues and I got George Bush. It seemed right at the time. It certainly takes a lot of the work off of me. I don’t like the results, though. I don’t feel George Bush upheld the moral beliefs I have.

I have a friend who is passionate about abortion and that’s why he’s voting for John McCain. He’s a Christian and it’s his sacred belief that abortion is always wrong. He goes on and on about it. For the record, the Bible doesn’t have anything to say about abortion or the “sanctity of human life.” Just read it and it won’t take too long before God orders Israel to kill entire nations and destroy all their stuff. That’s a topic for another post, though.

My religious beliefs are central to who I am, but I don’t think God wants me to care about just a few pet Christian issues. That kind of black and white thinking is one of the things Jesus challenged people over. Look at when he broke the law by working on the sabbath to show people things aren’t always cut and dried.

So this time I decided to consider everything each candidate had to say and compare their platforms. I planned on reading the policies on the issues from both McCain and Obama’s web sites, but I didn’t have the time to read every word. I did read a lot of the top issues for me and compare point by point and build up a tally.

What I found is that I agree with Barack Obama more than I agree with John McCain. Obama’s policies are complete and well thought out. He is intelligent and more willing to speak the hard truth (neither candidate is willing to be completely honest about how screwed this nation is).

I find McCain’s policies to be behind the times and out of touch. He’s still calling for a Summer gas tax holiday as part of his economic plan. Has no one told him the summer is over? He also plans on increasing the value of the dollar so we can buy more. Is there some switch you can flip in Washington that regulates how much the dollar is worth?

I’ve read economists who believe Obama’s economic policy will have more effect per dollar spent than McCain’s. That’s important to me. I really like Obama’s stance on education. His energy policy is much better (hint: if oil and nuclear power were the answer, we wouldn’t have a problem).

I could go on, but the point is I voted for a man and his ideas, not his stance on one issue. You may disagree, but spend your vote however you want.

I’m going to light a cigar, pour me a beer and wait for the results to come in.

From Jono

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

This must be what I look like at work. I scaled the picture, but that’s not editing.

“It’s not just about grep” - Jono Bacon (Lugradio Season 5 Episode 12)

In other news, I really should blog more. I’ve got interesting stuff going on.

I’ve been programming BASH script and Perl lately (for a project for my home server), and am learning C. I’ve always wanted to really learn C, and it seems like it’s sticking this time. I’ve even got some VBA code (however small) in production at work!

More later… (hopefully).

After months of the life of hermitude, I finally have the mighty tubes reconnected to my house. It’s nice to be back, but it is also good to go through a period without Internet access. My life is more balanced now because I see what the Internet  is good for, and where it can be a time-wasting pain in the ass. It has also readjusted my thinking on the importance of computers in my life in general.

It’s really easy for me to sit down in front of the computer and just waste time. That’s OK if that’s what I need to do, but I hate to get up hours later and find that I’ve done nothing. I need a certain amount of productivity balanced with a reasonable amount of leisure time to stay sane. Now I leave the computer off most of the time, and when I sit down to work, I do what I came to do then walk away. I gain lots of time that way.

On some subliminal level the computer symbolizes work so much that when I sit down at my desk at home I have this feeling of anxiety about getting things done. If I plan what I’m going to do when I sit down, do it, then get up it works.

I do a lot of journaling, and I’ve moved that mostly to paper and pen. I miss being able to have backups of everything I’ve written and being able to search my writing based on date or keyword. Other than that, writing on paper really has advantages. It keeps me from bleeding away time with editing stuff I may never read again, it gives me more of a 2D approach to layout, and I can carry a journal and write anywhere.

So it’s nice to be forced to re-establish my priorities a bit. Sometimes it takes an unavoidable external influence to get me there.

I have temporarily lost access to my home E-mail account. That account died completely (and probably won’t be resureccted) around Jan 10. I’ve got a few hundred E-mail boxes available on the server that serves up this very site (thanks to 1 and 1), so I’ve created a new acount there.

I’m not going to post the address here, but if you have an address for me just take the username (the part before the @ symbol) and graft it onto @jeffratliff.org, and it will probably work. If you get it wrong I’ll probably get it anyway as all mail going to jeffratliff.org gets to me eventually.

If you have my Gmail address that one is still good also. If you don’t have it, it’s because I usually only use that one for mailing lists and other boring stuff. It’s not because I don’t like you.

Sorry about all the chaos. I prefer stability, but I can’t control a lot of things (or actually anything).

OK, so I’ve got too much time on my hands (lately). I read a lot, but mostly non-fiction books. I like to have something around just for pleasure so I don’t feel like I’m working all the time.

 I went to Half Price Books and picked up a copy of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card for a few bucks. It’s one of the many Science Fiction books I’ve always wanted to read and never got around to.

I’ve read nearly everything Robert Heinlein ever wrote. I’ve read Asimov’s Foundation trilogy and the Robot novels and a few other things. I’ve read Dune, the Hitch Hiker’s guide series, 1984, Brave New World and a lot of other books. There’s still tons of good Sci Fi out there I haven’t read, though.

I found a list of the top 20 Science Fiction novels (evar!!!) that I had saved somewhere, and plugged all the ones I haven’t read into my Amazon wishlist. It’ll give me something to work on for the next few months. Probably won’t make me any less of a geek, though.

I’ve finally gotten around to adding a link to my Amazon Wishlist here on the blog. See it at the right under “My Stuff.” This is a pretty cool feature, and if you haven’t got one I’d recommend looking into it.

Even if you have no intention of shopping at Amazon, it’s nice to have a list of books (and other stuff) located somewhere on the web. You never know when you’ll be dislocated from your normal resources and need remote access to your brain. I’m sold on having stuff available across the web, especially if someone else is paying for it. :) I give Amazon money on a pretty regular basis, though, so I don’t feel bad.