With the recent activity surrounding the hearing for Army Lieutenant Dan Choi, an Iraq War veteran and Arab linguist who is also openly gay, I had a thought occur to me and I wanted to share it with y’all.
In my (limited) experience with the military, there’s still quite a bit of public resistance to the idea of allowing gays to openly serve. There are many reasons that one may take this stance, ranging from deeply principled to deeply homophobic and covering all points in between. If the objection comes from deeply held religious or moral convictions, I choose to respectfully disagree with you, but I understand and value the fact that you do have your beliefs on this issue.
From my anecdotal experience, though, the people who are usually the loudest about this issue (”I ain’t lettin’ no queer next to me with a gun; I’ll shoot his ass first!” is a representative sample I’ve heard recently) tend to be strongly grounded in the “mindlessly homophobic” rationale. This isn’t just confined to the military, though. I have plenty of memories of the charming functional illiterates at my rural high school indignantly asking me if I was gay, harrassing me for my presumed homosexuality, and making not-so-subtle meant-to-be-overheard comments about my lack of “real manliness”. These were the people who would always get in your face and confront you on your disgusting life choices — as long (of course) as you weren’t big enough or mean enough to be perceived as capable of handling the violence they always threatened to dish out.
Let’s take a representative example of this kind of person — we’ll call him Bubba. (Don’t assume that it’s only guys who do this; I’ve heard plenty of women who do too. ) Down at the bottom of it all, though, these guys and gals have one common flawed assumption, deeply rooted in raging sense of entitlement:
If that person is gay, they want to have sex with me.
I think the appropriate response here is a quote from Megan Fox’s character of Mikaela:
Oh God, I can’t even tell you how much I’m not your “little bunny.”
In other words, Bubba has committed the logical fallacy of assuming that just because a gay man is sexually attracted to some men, they must like all men — including, necessarily, Bubba. In other words, the defining characteristic of a gay man’s sexuality, according to Bubba, is the orientation; once a man is gay, they automatically must like all men even if those men are otherwise unattractive. Bubba, sad to say, thinks that being gay overrides any sense of taste or choice or other form of preference.
Bubba is a dumbshit. Bubba is, however, all too common — I’ve heard plenty of people independently reproduce this exact line of reasoning.
My thought and theory is: that for the Bubbas of the world, the objection to knowingly associating with someone who is gay comes down to projection of their own inner characteristics: Bubba wants to nail pretty much every female, or in the event that he has some self-restraint, is deluded enough to think that every woman wants to have sex with him. Being a paragon of self-control and discernment, Bubba is naturally are unable to conceive of someone who could in theory be attracted to them but isn’t.
What Bubba objects to, I believe, is not the gay person’s lack of taste and self control, but his own. It’s the same as the liar who in turn is convinced that everyone lies to him and is unable to see a truthful response without looking for the “real” answer, or the person who continually cheats others in big and small ways and in turn expects everyone to cheat her.
Do I think that everyone who objects to military service for gays and lesbians falls into this trap? Not at all. I just tend to think that the more vocal someone is about it, the more likely they are to have this motivation simmering at the bottom of it all. People who suffer from this attitude tend to have the crudest, most violent responses to homosexuality; they tend to be the loudest slanderers, the meanest and most illogical protesters. They argue from a well-deserved fear, because if everyone was just like them, all the sick, dark scenarios they fantasize would of course happen.
God knows that my gay and lesbian friends and acquaintances are no saints. Some of them are people I don’t willingly spend time around — but then, there are plenty of straight people I don’t want to spend a lot of time around either. Frankly, I’ve found that brushing off determined advances from a guy who likes me is no better and no worse than those from a gal who likes me — orientation having less to do with it than does their fundamental ability to hear and accept, “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”
Mind you, typically the Bubbas of the world are at heart hypocrites, because almost all of them have absolutely no problems with lesbians. Oh, no. They’re in favor of lesbians. Mainly because, along with all their other stinking thinking, they are under the delusion that those lesbians still secretly want them — so they’ll be able to score with the lesbian and her girlfirend at the same time. Because of this, it’s easy to spot a Bubba and identify his objection for what it really is.
Okay, okay…so updating my blog server took longer than I’d anticipated. Getting the old material out of Community Server into BlogML format turned out to be a lot easier than I’d thought and finding the time to get it all imported into WordPress wasn’t much harder. What tripped me up was getting all of the redirection for the old, legacy URLs working.
Community Server and WordPress store their content in very different ways, and so they generate the URLs for blog posts using different algorithms. I know there are a fairish number of links out there in blog land to various posts I’ve done, and for vanity sake, I’d rather not orphan those links to the dreaded 404 not found error. The solution was to find the time to buy the lastest edition of O’Reilly’s Apache Cookbook and bone up on the Apache web server directives.
So, I think all the relevant old URLs should now automatically redirect to their proper new places — there’s not much point in keeping all the old posts if you don’t do this. The nice thing, for those of you who are web geeks, is that I’m issuing permanent redirections so Google and other search engines will update their links as they re-trawl my web site, thus pointing to the new URLs. For those of you who are humans, you might want to take a minute to check your bookmarks and make sure they’re updated to the new links.
One note: some commenter data didn’t make the import successfully. I could probably dig into it and find out why, but frankly, at this point, it’s more important to get the site (and Steph’s blog) back up and running. So, sorry — if you were one of those commenters, I apologize. Future comments should be preserved properly, and I really don’t see moving away from WordPress anytime soon.
If you’re reading this, then the necessary DNS updates have finished rolling out and we’re back live to the world. Thanks for your patience!
If you follow along my blog, you probably already know that I think this is a good thing, so I won’t comment extensively on it here. However, there’s one section in the article I linked to above that just reeks of so much stupidity that I have to respond:
Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, a New Jersey group, said “once again, the most undemocratic branch of government is being used to advance an agenda the majority of Americans reject.”
“Marriage means a husband and wife. That’s not discrimination, that’s common sense,” she said in a press release. “Even in states like Vermont, where they are pushing this issue through legislatures, gay marriage advocates are totally unwilling to let the people decide these issues directly.”
Really? Ms. Gallagher, did you really just stoop to the “30 billion flies eat shit” argument to justify your position? You lose.
Okay, to unpack that for anyone who didn’t follow that train of thought:
Ms. Gallagher is relying on the tactic of telling people “the government is ignoring your opinion.” By telling people this, she’s playing on a fundamental ignorance of the design and intent of the American government system, which is the tired old myth that America = democracy = the will of the people = only tolerating Christian values. Let’s see what our founding fathers had to say about that:
It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.
Federalist No. 14
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
John Adams
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
Patrick Henry
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
Thomas Jefferson
I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should first be those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on them personally.
Abraham Lincoln
I could go on all day and find tons of quotes, but the key threads that I’m weaving here are these:
America is not and was never intended to be a pure democracy. Remember the phrase “the tyranny of the majority”? Basically, it’s great to be in a democracy if you’re part of the 51%. Not so much to be in the 49% Our democratic functions are not set up to allow citizens to directly decide upon laws and legislation and the handling of day-to-day governance; they are set up to elect responsible leaders who do that for us, and to give us mechanisms to take those leaders out of the picture when they fail to discharge their responsibilities. That’s the “democratic republic.” Remember the Pledge of Allegiance? “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands…”
By electing responsible leaders (including legislators and judges), we are in fact giving those leaders the mandate to act in the fashion they see as best. If we don’t like what they do with that mandate, then we’d better pay attention and give them feedback. You can’t leave the people out of the equation, but you can’t directly hand them the keys to the kingdom, either. That’s why we have checks and balances, including the judicial branch of government. It is their job to say, “No, these laws are causing harm and cannot be used, even though they are popularly supported.” The exercise of democracy should never come at the expense of depriving others of their liberties. How long did popular opinion support and uphold slavery, and how much damage did that do to our country (and continue to do today)? How long was racism enshrined in our laws? Sexism? If you’re counting upon the will of the people to make the correct choice every time, you’ve got a pretty grim track record of results.
America was designed to be a refuge for all religious belief systems, not just a narrow stripe of fundamentalist Christianity. This includes religious systems that directly challenge basic beliefs of Christianity. It was never designed to be a system that promoted Christianity over all others, even though the majority of founders were Christians, espoused Christian ideals, and wanted to see this country continue to be based on a set of morals not completely incompatible with Christianity. When push came to shove, most of the founders espoused liberty and freedom *over* Christian principles as a guiding principle for the government. They reasoned, correctly, that Christianity could flourish in an environment where liberty was pursued, but the reverse was not true (as had been graphically demonstrated). That is, the proper place for Christian values is on the individual level and in our relationships with others, not hard-wiring our specific interpretations into our functions of government. Religion + bureaucracy + power = corruption of values and lessening of liberty.
Let me leave you with this final challenge if you’re still thinking that it’s your religious duty to enshrine your notion of marriage into the laws of our nation:
Show me a comprehensive case in Scripture for collective Christian political activism. Remember the specific accusations the Pharisees made against Jesus to Pontius Pilate and his answers to Pilate in return. Remember his response to the commercialism in the Temple, how his fiercest criticisms were reserved for those who used religion to gain and maintain power. And then take a look at the agenda and funding of groups like National Organization for Marriage and Focus on the Family who are leading this fight to preserve marriage (whatever that really means) and tell me how they’re not gaining power and money from their collective activism.
Nine months ago I stepped outside of my comfort zone and started a month of karate at the local YMCA. I didn’t expect to renew for a second month. It turns out that I love it. I’ve gotten to the point that I start dreaming about the things I’m doing, which is scary on one level and very cool on others. At any rate, I’ve had a lot of thoughts that need more time to flesh out and probably will only interest my fellow students, but I do want to share a few correspondences I’ve noticed lately between karate and the number nine.
There are nine belts, or kyus, between rank beginner and black belt in my school of karate (which is part of the All-Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Matsumura Karate and Kobudo Federation, or OSMKKF). As of tonight, I have passed three of them. That makes me 7th kyu — what you might call orange belt, except that we don’t actually use the orange belt (or even stripes on the belts); we just have three blue belt kyus, three green, and three brown. I like this because it helps minimize rivalry between students.
The blue belt kyus use the same basic kata, with what look to be minor differences for each kyu — mostly in the blocking techniques you demonstrate. The footwork, though, is the same, and it requires you to face the nine cardinal points of the compass (the normal eight plus the center position for the beginning and end of the kata). All too often we learn the specific steps of the kata and don’t stop to think about how the overall pattern looks or rhythm flows. That’s the kind of stuff I’ve started dreaming about, and man, it is cool!
I have learned to examine the first kata at a whole new level with each additional kyu, and I have been told that this will continue. So the very first kata they teach us unpacks to at least nine separate layers! No wonder it takes years to really master this stuff! Some students make the mistake of thinking they’ve learned everything they need to know from the earlier levels; I’ve already had at least case of figuring out how a current technique I was mastering applied to an earlier technique, making both of them stronger as a result.
In a typical Tuesday evening workout, I will practice various katas an average of nine times. This typically includes polishing the kata I will next be testing for and learning the basics of the next kata. There are days this does not feel like it is enough — and that would be right. So we practice at home too; in fact, there are certain parts that I find myself practicing at work as I walk back and forth from my office to the kitchen or to co-workers’ offices. (Apparently I look really funny walking through the lobby practicing punches.)
For my next kyu, I start to fold in weapons work (which is the kobudo part; karate is technically only bare-hand work). I will first work with the bo staff, which is six feet or 72 inches tall — nine times eight. I’m tremendously excited to be working with the bo; somewhere in my head, the iconic definition or avatar of martial arts got associated with being a bad-ass with the staff, so now I feel like I’m finally stepping into the heart of what it means to be a martial artist. Intellectually, I realize this is silly, but it still feels true.
Don’t worry; I’m not trying to seriously assert that the number nine somehow has some sort of mystic foothold in karate (that would be number ten, which in Japanese is ju, and controls our workouts). I just noticed these and was amused. What’s been more awe-inspiring has been noticing the changes in the last nine months:
I’ve continued to lose weight. Granted, I’ve not experienced the same dramatic pace as I did in the first month, but it’s still a slow and steady drop. This is really cool given some of the interruptions and stressors I’ve had during these nine months that have wreaked havoc with my karate attendance.
My overall muscle tone has improved. You probably wouldn’t notice the difference, but I certainly do. Certain actions are a lot less effort than they used to be, and there is visible muscle definition amongst the remaining layers of pudge.
My endurance has increased. Right now I’m at that point where if I miss a week and a half of karate, I definitely feel it, but if I attend regularly I can make it through the workouts and not feel completely beat up. More importantly, I’m better able to keep up as the speed of some of the workouts increases; if I slow down it’s to perfect technique, not because I can’t do it.
My reflexes have improved. This has been the startling one for me, because as long as I can remember my reflexes have sucked. I’m still no Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee, but the other day I knocked a glass tumbler off the counter and caught it without looking directly at it. Whoa!
By some counts, these last nine months have gotten me a third of the way to black belt. I don’t feel that way; I feel that they’ve set my feet on a path that I’ll still be walking for years to come. I’m not worried about belts or kyus; that’s sensei’s job to track, not mine. I just have to get through each workout, each kata, each set of one-steps, each class having given my best and learned everything I can. The rest will take care of itself. I’d never have caught that glass if I’d been trying to learn it as a trick, but by focusing on each step while I’m at it, I’ve gotten my body — as out of shape as it still is — to a point where I can do things I’ve never been able to do before. And that, friends, is magic.
Life is full of synchronicity; most of the time, this is through the workings of chance, but every now and then we get to help it along. Two ships may pass in the night, but how often does the helmsman take a hand?
You’re the owner of a no-longer-working original PowerPC Mac mini. This awesome little piece of technology once rocked your world, but slowly, you moved on to bigger and better things. Maybe you upgraded; maybe it stopped working. This Mac mini, though, still hangs around, complete with a working SuperDrive. You may feel a bit of guilt over not passing it on or getting it refurbished.
I’m the owner of a proud original PowerPC Mac mini that is having problems with its SuperDrive. My mini wants to be a member of the OS X 10.4 generation but can’t boot from the internal drive, nor can it seem to find an external USB drive as a boot device.
If you’ve got a spare original Mac mini (or drive that fits) and you’re willing to part it with inexpensively, please drop me a line. No pina coladas or getting caught in the rain required.
Over on my Facebook profile, I got tagged by about five people with this whole “25 Things About Me” meme. I finally decided to respond. Am I glad I did — I’ve been having a great amount of fun with the ensuing comment thread. In fact, it’s so much fun, I figured I’d repost it here. (If you read this and my Facebook profile, you’ve already seen this; feel free to skip it.)
When I was a child, I once typed out over 3/4 of my favorite book so I could have my own copy to read. I couldn’t afford to buy one at the time.
I learned to read when I was four; we moved to a new house and couldn’t get TV reception, so my parents got rid of our TV. The next year, I figured out people got paid to write books. I’ve wanted to be a published writer ever since.
I enjoy karate, now that I’m taking it. I know that martial arts the world over teach a variety of armed and unarmed techniques, but I’ve always secretly thought of the bo staff when I think of martial arts. Now that I get to work with the staff, I *feel* like a martial artist.
I love peppermint ice cream, caramel, and Girl Scout thin mint cookies. However, my favorite dessert is chocolate chip cookies. My wife makes a killer variant: orange chocolate chip cookies. YUM!
I’m a sucker for all things feline, except for some pure-bred Persians and Siamese that are too stupid to breathe. When I was a kid, I got to play with a white tiger cub; white tigers are my favorite cat. I like some breeds of dogs, but not the small yappy ones.
I think that forgiveness isn’t a “get out of jail free card.” It’s a process designed to help victims divest themselves of the continuing karmic damage they inflict upon themselves and let go of any claims of vengeance or retaliation. True forgiveness does not absolve the offender of consequences, but it does open the door to mercy and breaks the cycle of anger and revenge.
I hated high school. I’d home schooled for five years, then moved to a new town and started public high school. So much wasted time and energy, especially on social hierarchy games! I wonder if I would feel the same if I’d been one of the popular kids…but we’ll never know.
After my son was born and my daughter was a toddler, we found out that my family has a history of autism. If you ever wondered why I was so weird, you can thank Asperger’s Syndrome. However, that only gets 65% of the blame; the rest is all me.
My first trip outside North America was a speaking gig at a roadshow in Lisbon, Portugal. I’ve always wanted to visit Portugal; they were the home of some of history’s greatest navigators and explorers.
I have discovered that I enjoy speaking in public; the bigger audience, the better. However, I typically dread question and answer sessions, even though I’ve been told I do them well.
The first time I saw Steph I knew I would marry her, even before we were introduced. The universe gave an audible and tactile “click” that was impossible for me to miss! This is why I was able to not get all nervous around her.
As I have gotten older, I have become more concerned with uncovering the structures and principles that events work on, and less concerned with arguing the particular details of a given situation. Getting axle-wrapped about details is a great way to keep anything from being resolved. Boring!
My favorite food? The Cheescake Factory’s Spicy Cashew Chicken. Screw dessert — I gorge myself on the chicken. Yum! If we’re talking homemade, then it’s the pizza that my wife makes, based on a modification of my mother’s recipe.
When format allows, I always leave blank lines between paragraphs. I also insist on serial commas in lists unless the style guide says otherwise. (Real writers can do whatever the style guide says, or rewrite to avoid the points they disagree with.) The sentence “I’d like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand” gives me all the justification I need.
My daily work involves Microsoft Windows and Exchange, and I’ve just been recognized for my third year as a Microsoft Exchange MVP. If you’d told me ten years ago I’d not still be working with Unix, Sendmail, and Postfix, I’d have laughed at you.
I don’t like kids, mainly because I hated being one. Adults always talked down to me and condescended in other ways. As a result, I try to never talk down to kids myself. I find they are better listeners than most adults and respond well to more advanced instructions that most adults would believe.
Before the Internet got popular, I used to run an electronic BBS. I had no games and the only files I had for download were basic utilities; I specialized in message forums no one else in my area would touch. My BBS was always busy, and over 80% of my callers came from out of state.
To me, the difference between a “friend” and an “acquaintance” is how much work is put into the relationship. You can’t really be a friend if both sides don’t work to make it happen.
I’ve been sporting a shaved head since college, when my best friend’s dad talked me into it. Although I occasionally grow my hair out, I’m resigned to shaving my head for the rest of my life. Nothing else really works well.
I have a simple philosophy about shopping: do your research and buy an well-made item that will last (even if it’s expensive) instead of buying for price and having to replace it multiple times. Your time is worth more than your money.
I can’t stand thrift stores, second-hand shopping, or even most garage sales. There’s a psychic residue to most of the items there that is very unpalatable. I’ve had to learn to let Steph do her bargain-hunting thing, but she knows how to find the good items.
I was never a Cub Scout, but once I got into Boy Scouts, I was a den chief to both a Cub Scout den and a Webelos Scout den. My favorite part of Boy Scouts, though, was being on the ceremonial Native American dance team for our Order of the Arrow lodge.
I’ve really enjoyed the Halo universe, both video games and novels. In fact, I’d like to build a set of Mjolnir armor, and one of my friends and I are planning to build a working Warthog. Geek!
I often have insomnia. Part of it is that I resent the time I lose to sleep. It feels like dying a little bit, especially because it can be a struggle to wake up again in the morning.
I want my wife to be a ninja. I mean, who wouldn’t
If you’re reading this for the first time, consider yourself tagged. Your turn! Post a link to your blog (or wherever you post your “25 Things” list) in the comments so I can go read it too.
Warning: the following post may not make much sense. If it does, it may sound bitter and arrogant. I apologize in advance; that’s not my goal here.
I finally got a critical mass of people dragging me into Facebook, so I’ve ben doing it over the last couple of months. I entered into it with a simple rule: as long as I knew someone or could figure out what context we shared, I’d accept friend requests. I only send friend requests to people I want to be in contact with, but if someone wants to keep up with me, I’ll happily approve the request. (Remember, Asperger’s Syndrome; I may be able to fake looking like I’m socially adjusted, but underneath, I’m not.)
This resolve has been sorely tested by a number of requests I’ve gotten from people from my high school days. I am not one of those people who thinks that high school was the best time of my life. Far from it, actually. Now that I understand about Asperger’s, I have been able to go back and identify what I was doing to contribute to my misery during those years — and boy was I — but I also know that there were a bunch of people who were happy to help. I was happy to leave that town, happy to never go back, and happy — for the most part — to not try to get back into some mythical BFF state with these people that I never shared in the first place. There are some exceptions; you should know who you are. If you aren’t sure and want to know, send me a private message and ask. Don’t ask, though, unless you’re ready to be told that you’re not.
Does this mean I want people to stop requesting? No. We’re adults. (At least, we should be.) Life moves on. I’m not that same person, and I’m willing to bet you’re not either. Let’s try to get to know one another as we are now, without presuming some deeper level of friendship than really exists. It’ll be a lot easier for everyone that way, and probably a lot more fun.
Observation The First: only paying a touch over $2/gallon for gas feels positively sinful.
Observation The Second: one way to survive Seattle winters is to occasionally say “screw it”, roll the window down in the car, and let the cold wet air in while pretending it’s an 80-degree summer day with blue skies.
Observation The Third: If you’re cutting back on caffeine intake and you’re down to approximately two bottles/cans of Coke a day, one should really not have one’s morning bottle of Coke during the morning commute and the thoughtlessly purchase and drink a 20oz. mocha latte (one of the approximately two a year I have) during the latter portion of that same commute. Hot damn, I can levitate right now.
Confession The First: I really like Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold. Sure, the song is pop glitter, but it’s fun pop glitter, and it makes me squee like a little girl every time I turn it on.
Confession The Second: When I say that I don’t dance, what I really mean is that I don’t dance standing up. I’ll dance at my car or desk, but I’ll do it in a way that’s deliberately bad and frightening, because I like to mess with people. You’d be amazed how well a properly timed desk dance can clear out your office of annoying project managers and co-workers.
Apology*: For the residents and fellow commuters along Avondale road between 8:20 and 8:23am who heard and saw a red Ford Focus (with a Decepticon icon on the hood) blasting Hot N Cold out the driver’s window at high volumes, I plead guilty. That was me in my overcaffeinated, car-dancing bliss. Same to the folks along 124th, especially at the 124th/Woodinville-Redmond Road intersection, who were treated to the same, only with Cyndi Lauper’s Into the Nightlife, from 8:31 to 8:34am.
* I don’t know if this is a real apology, because I can’t guarantee I won’t do it again. At least I’m honest.
Much of that vacation has consisted of quality Xbox 360 time, both by myself (Call of Duty: World at War for Christmas) and with Steph and Chris. (Alaric had a friend over today and we had a nice six-way Halo 3 match; the adults totally dominated the kids in team deathmatch, I might add.) However, I’d also slated doing some much-needed rebuilds on my network infrastructure here at home: migrating off of Exchange to a hosted email solution (still Exchange, just not a server *I* have to maintain), decommissioning old servers, renumbering my network, building a new firewall that can gracefully handle multiple Xbox 360s, building some new servers, and sorting through the tons of computer crap I have. All of this activity was aimed at reducing my footprint in the back room so we can unbury my desk and move Alaric’s turtle into the back room where she should have a quieter and warmer existence.
Yeah, well. Best laid plans. I’ve gotten a surprising amount of stuff done, even if I have taken over the dining room table for the week. (Gotta have room to sort out all that computer gear, y’know. Who knew I had that much cool stuff?) My progress, however, has slowed quite a bit the last couple of days as I ran into some unexpected network issues I had to work my butt off to resolve.
Except that now I think I just figured out the two causes. Combined, they made my “new” network totally unusable and masked each other in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. It was rather reminiscent, actually, of the MCM hands-on lab. I guess I’ve been practicing for my retest.
Ah, well. I still have one day of freedom left before I head back to work. I might actually be ready to go.
I really hate that there are things I want — nay, need — to write about right this minute and I can’t because it would be revealing too much about sensitive stuff that isn’t my place to talk about.
What good is a personal blog if you can’t use it to rant and kvetch and cry and work out dealing with the bumps the Universe throws your way?
This holiday weekend, I finally accomplished a task I’ve been meaning to do for a while: I got rid of my email.
More precisely, I’m no longer hosting my email domains on my own server here in the house like I have been for the past eight years. I’ve finally made the switch to hosted email. With all of the free email domains out there, this may have been an easy choice, but Steph and I are not your run-of-the-mill email consumers. We’ve gotten used to having the calendar and scheduling features of Exchange and Outlook here at the house, so it was pretty clear I needed a hosted Exchange solution.
Last night, I flipped the switch — I double-checked that all of our domains and email addresses were configured and then changed our MX records to point at the new service. (An MX record (Mail eXchanger) is an entry in DNS that tells the rest of the Internet who to send your email to. Almost all email systems use at least one of these records.). As a result, some time early this morning all mail to us started going to our mailboxes on the new provider. Over the next couple of days, we’ll be transferring our existing messages up to the new mailboxes and shutting down my trusty Exchange 2007 server here at the house.
Actually, I’ll be recycling the hardware — it’s one of my beefier servers, and I can use it to do some other tasks around here and upgrade some of my low-end machines. This helps me consolidate servers, shut down more boxes, get rid of more clutter, and lower my bills. It also means that we no longer need to have our current DSL line and static IP address; we can explore newer, faster options that will better fit a household with multiple Xbox consoles. It also helps de-clutter my time; running a healthy email server takes time that I wasn’t putting into it here. (I shamefully confess that I went to run backups on my email a couple of weeks ago and discovered, rather to my horror, that it had been over a year since I’d last done so!) Now I don’t have to worry about those tasks. I also don’t have to worry about spam; the hosted service includes a really decent anti-spam service (the same one we use at work).
Still, after a decade of being responsible for managing my own email services (eight years running thecabal.org here at home, plus another couple of years being a sysadmin at an ISP), it feels rather strange to no longer be able to put my hands on the physical box hosting my email.
For the most part, we have good kids. We get compliments on their public behavior all the time. Usually, this is because we’ve taught the kids to hold it together until they get back home, where we give them a bit more leeway. However, what it also means is that when they mess up in public, they tend to do it large and with style. Witness Alaric’s current example: getting caught taking his new pocketknife to school. In Washington, this is a bad thing, although not as bad as it could have been in another school district that has a “zero tolerance” policy. At least our district gives the principal leeway on how they handle things. Alaric’s a very lucky boy; he avoided suspension and has instead been spending the weekend writing two reports.
I’ve copied the first of the reports below, because I’m really proud of how it came out. He turned this out after three drafts and a day of research and notecard activities. All of the wording is his own.
The Importance of Responsibility
This is a report on the importance of responsibility and making responsible choices.
I found the definition of “responsibility” in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. One definition of responsibility is, “the quality or state of being responsible.” I think the definition that fits responsible is, “able to choose for oneself between right and wrong.”
This is what responsibility means to me: the habit of making the right choice. When I’m responsible, I make the right choices most of the time. I don’t make bad choices so bad stuff doesn’t happen.
Responsibility is important because it will result in affecting the people around you in a good way. Responsible behavior helps keep bad effects away; for example, if I eat too much junk food and not enough healthy food, I’ll get fat. One of the results of being responsible is making people pleased.
When you make choices, consequences come along. The type of consequence usually depends on whether the choice is good or bad. For example: I take my sister’s doll; I get grounded for the rest of the day. Some consequences will affect other people around you.
A responsible choice is a choice that is good. An example of a responsible choice is: I want to bring a toy to school, and it’s not toys from home day, so I don’t. When you make a bad choice, you get a bad consequence; when you make a good choice, you get a good consequence.
Making good choices is not always easy, so we need guidelines from other people. There are many ways to tell if a choice is responsible. Here are some of them: parents, teachers and principals, or the student hand book.
Now you know the importance of responsibility and making responsible choices.
He still is working on the one about the law on weapons at school.
I don’t remember which day it was two weeks ago that I discovered that my web server was no longer accepting queries, but I do remember the distinct annoyance I felt when I got home from work, made my way through the back room to the computer rack, logged on to the management console, and saw that the server was powered off.
That’s nothing to the irritation I felt ten seconds later when it wouldn’t power back up.
This server is an oddity in my collection; it’s not the standard desktop/server size for motherboards and power supplies. As it turned out through some testing a couple of days later (when I found some free moments), the power supply had given up the ghost. Unfortunately, I didn’t have another power supply that would fit into that particular case, nor could I locate one in the local area.
So, today I got to do a motherboard-ectomy. For the uninitiated, that’s where you take the contents of one computer (in this case, the motherboard and the disk drive) and transplant them into a new case. It’s a relatively straightforward process, just long and (usually) cramped in a couple of places. This process was actually simpler than normal — the web server motherboard is so much smaller than a regular one that the usual cramped space problems didn’t happen — but was complicated in other ways by the need to jury-rig a couple of things in place (very minor tweaks; the delay was more from finding the right pieces to do things as close to The Right Way as possible).
However, it all went well — and as you can now see, the web server is now back up and running. With some of the changes coming in my network in the next month, this is a temporary measure, but at least Steph and I can blog again.
Despite the fact that I’m now counting the hours until the election is officially over — election season has been *so long* and so incredibly divisive from all angles — I’m aware of the fact (and even somewhat excited by the fact) that no matter how it turns out, it’ll be one for the history books. The hope, of course, is that it’s one for the history books for the right reasons.
However, there’s a very disturbing trend I’ve seen here and there, both online and in interactions with various people, and that trend is this: if we can just make it to election day and choose The Right Candidates, we’ll be fine. All the wrong-thinking people will be shown the error of their ways during the next four years, the economy will be fixed, energy problems will be solved, and the world will be saved.
This, my friends, is magical thinking, and it’s precisely the sort of thinking that has led us to this point in history. It is the manifestation of the human wish for easy, single-solution problems and for immediate fixes. It is the failure of courage to realize that we’re in this for the long haul; if we really want to make a difference, we can’t just get riled up for a couple of months, go vote, and then go home and wait for everything to just suddenly get better. It is the ability to ignore or excusing the problems and deficiencies in Your Guys while fixating on those of the Other Guys. It is a failure of accountability and responsibility, the unwillingness to take meaningful action when confronted by broken promises and campaign lies.
Let me be clear, even though many will say that I’m being a defeatist: no single election will save the world, let alone America. There are too many people out there focused clearly on their goals (good or bad) who are willing to expend the type of energy and effort every day that some people have lately discovered in this election process. If you’re one of those people and you’re ready to step back down to a comfortable life after election day — you’re ready to end the last few months of reading and research and activism and just get back to “normal” — then here is my advice to you:
Don’t vote.
No, seriously.
If you aren’t willing to sustain that level of energy and drive forward with it for at least the next four years — to check up on your elected officials and make sure that they’re doing the things they said they would, that they’re being the responsible leaders they claimed to be, that they’re working towards the ends that you put them in office to work for — then don’t vote to put them in office. In order to do the job you want them to do, they need your support not just to get into office, but to actually do the work. If you’re not going to be there to support them, that’s like pledging to a charity and never writing the check; it makes you feel good, but there’s no real impact to you.
America’s problems will not get fixed overnight. They will not get fixed during a single Presidential term. They will not magically go away. Now that you’re up off the sidelines, if you really want things to get better, you have to stay up and active. Your elected officials cannot and will not make the changes themselves; experience has shown us this time and time again, regardless of party or affiliation.
If you haven’t already, go vote. But when you vote, realize that this is just the start. You’re in this for the long haul. If you’re not prepared to make that commitment, you’re got some thinking to do.
After looking at a lot of options, Alaric has decided that he wants to be the ninth Doctor for Halloween. This is good for us — it’s a simple costume, in theory, especially since I’ve already got a sonic screwdriver prop I can lend him. The Ninth Doctor has very simple clothing, especially compared to some of the earlier versions, and beats trying to put together a “Vader’s Apprentice” or “Master Chief John 117″ costume. However, finding a suitable jacket for an affordable (I’m thinking $15-20 here) price is going to be the challenge.
Anyone out there got good ideas of how to get a suitably sized jacket (boy size 10; men’s small is too large) for the boy in time, in an affordable range? It doesn’t have to be an exact match.
Nick has done a very bad thing. He bought me Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Xbox 360 as a late birthday present. After the stress of this last week, studying for (and passing) the Microsoft 70-237 and 70-238 exams (two-thirds of the Microsoft Certified IT Professional – Enterprise Messaging certification; I passed 70-236, the third, back in March), this led to a couple of enjoyable hours getting to wander through some very lush Star Wars locales and wreak havoc with lightsaber and Force powers.
This may have de-throned Call of Duty 4 as my favorite Xbox game.
In my previous post, I talked about taking a class at the local YMCA. You may have noticed that I didn’t mention which class I was taking; that wasn’t by accident. I didn’t feel like talking about it until I knew it wasn’t going to be another fad.
Well, last Tuesday, sensei awarded me my 9th Kyu blue belt, so now I feel comfortable announcing that I’ve been taking Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Matsumura Karate for the past couple of months. I started it in the beginning of July, the same week of personal vacation that the kids started their summer introduction class. Since that time, I’ve lost 20 pounds — desperately needed — and have started to gain some measure of confidence that I can do this. I’m no prodigy, but I can plod step by step really well, and I’m already seeing huge benefits to my physical coordination.
More importantly, I’ve discovered three very important things about myself:
I am no longer afraid of pain. I walk into every class knowing that the workout is going to wipe me out and that it’s going to, on some level, suck eggs. I am always right — I’m badly winded, have sore muscles, and more than once have been so dizzy I almost passed out. Yet I keep coming back for more, and I’ve finally gotten to the point that my brain isn’t desperately trying to find excuses for skipping class.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve started to internalize the philosophy of “one step at a time.” I haven’t really dwelt on the whole “Devin with a black belt” thing, because that’s a heck of a lot of work and is way beyond my capabilities now. Heck, being asked to test for my blue belt was a surprise (albit a pleasant one). Our dojo teaches that it’s discourteous to ask sensei if you’re ready to test; he knows when you’re ready and will tell you. For the first time in my life, I have absolutely no difficulty in following that advice. I really do not look beyond what sensei tells me to do in a given class; I’m content to work on that and trust sensei to keep track of the big picture. (For my autistic self, this is a HUGE step.)
Probably the biggest one: I enjoy this. It’s probably one of the most physically demanding things I’ve ever done. I’ve spent hours of time at home slowly walking through each phase of the simplest technqiues. A simple step-double punch technique is really hard for me, because it involves coordinating so many things — hand positions, feet placement, breathing, wrist rotation, proper fist alignment, and more. I don’t find this stuff at all easy, and now I have lots of things to keep track of. My response is to treat it like choreography for theater — break it down into small components and practice each of those. Unlike dancing, though, when I put the pieces back together, the results aren’t laughable — and I’m totally enjoying the process.
Since the classes are at the YMCA and not a dedicated dojo, things are relatively informal. We’re tied in with several other dojos in the area (most of them also in YMCA facilities nearby) and are part of a bigger federation. The teachers and students are all great; very supportive and not at all competitive or dismissive. I don’t feel ashamed for letting my health slide for so long; I just feel like I have help in going where I want to go. I’ve gotten to the point where I look forward to each class.
One of the reasons I’ve been a lot quieter on the blog front for the past month is Call of Duty 4 (actually, let’s be honest; that’s one of the ways I’ve chosen to spend a lot of my free time since Christmas). However, at the beginning of July, I added a new reason: I started taking a class two days a week at the local new YMCA.
This class has been kicking my butt, but it’s been good for me. Our main teacher — we’ll call him PT — is a doctor and can’t always be there. If that happens, we have a backup teacher (named ST). Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen a lot of ST, and his warmups usually have me breaking a good sweat. Well, PT was back tonight…and oh my GOODNESS, he is a LOT more grueling. I actually got dizzy and had to step out for a minute. My shoulders hurt, my legs hurt, my arms hurt, all in that “OMGWTF you did WHAT to us???” way that really lazy muscles get.
I do not like this. I do not like barely having enough energy to drive home, eat, and make it through a shower. I do not like being this out of shape. It seems that PT doesn’t like it either, and he’s determined to help me fix all these things. It’s a good thing I’m tired of being slothful and rotund; I know that, left to my own devices, I would never drive myself this hard. The class is small and I like the other students, enough so that my poor body image is outweighed by my desire to not look like a complete wuss in front of these people. And they have been very helpful and supportive.
I guess I get to continue this course of action. The only way out: make there be less of me, so that it doesn’t hurt so bad when PT gets his hands on me. I’ve even started noticing that I’m cutting down on the snacks and treats at work and at home — I look at them and find myself thinking about how they’re going to make PT’s next workout that much harder.
If you’re already having the kind of day where you feel a bit dizzy, and you’re walking through the parking lot at your place of employment after coming back from lunch, do not under any circumstances close your eyes for any reason.
One of my friends on LiveJournal posted a meme. Now, I’m normally not the kind to participate in various memes, but I like this one: go here and pick out five random quotes that somehow resonate with you (keep going until you find the right five), then post them. Here are mine:
If you want to catch something, running after it isn’t always the best way. Lois McMaster Bujold, “Borders of Infinity”, 1989
Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. Ralph Charell
Forgiveness does not always lead to a healed relationship. Some people are not capable of love, and it might be wise to let them go along with your anger. Wish them well, and let them go their way. Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, July 7, 2003
Women and men have to fight together to change society – and both will benefit… Partnership, not dependence, is the real romance in marriage. Muriel Fox
Never tell evil of a man, if you do not know it for certainty, and if you know it for a certainty, then ask yourself, ‘Why should I tell it?’ Johann K. Lavater
Your turn! I’m pondering whether I should tag anyone specifically; it only seems appropriate to do so as an appropriate evolution off of LJ. If I were to tag anyone, I’d tag Stephanie, Paul, and someone who claims to be not so clever (but lies).
Over time, any group of people and friends starts to develop its own set of euphemisms and textual substitutions.
Here are some of ours.
home friendship appliance — a sex toy. I forget where we ran across this one — somebody in the blogosphere was saying it sounded like a fine example of Japanese-produced English — but we like it and made it our own.
network performance testing — a common sysadmin term for “staying late and playing games on the work network.” Stephanie got very mad when she found out what this meant one time I came home at midnight from Premier1 after a long bout of Quake 2.
overdue personal issues — a polite notification from one spouse or partner that the other is expected to spend some serious time in bed with them soon (usually that evening).
Steph alerted me to the existence of a very cool product — a dock for Macbook Pro laptops that stands them vertically. This has two advantages: saves desktop space and promotes better cooling. Macbook Pro machines are industrious heat generators and you have to be really careful about what kind of surface you leave them on. I’ve found that mine will shut down or have BSODs (when running Windows) if I have it flat on a plastic or formica surface; wood seems to be okay. The best bet, though, is to put it on a little stand that elevates the rear of the laptop and allows air to cool the underside. So, yes, I was really keen to check this out.
What I found, however, was this dreck. I have to admit that it’s a very sweet piece of machined aluminum; very pretty, matches the look of the Macbook Pro. However, this is not a dock; it’s a stand with delusions of $305 grandeur. This is a dock; note the integrated plugs. That handy little lever at the top moves all of the plugs into matching position on the sides of the Macbook, allowing you to quickly and easily put the laptop in place and make connections (and here’s the important bit) without having to manually plug and unplug all of the various cables you’re using every time you put the laptop in or take it out. It’s not as sexy, and it takes up more desk room (quite a bit more, which is one of the reasons I don’t have mine actually in use yet), but it’s functional.
That other block of aluminum? That’s designer silliness. Sadly, I bet far too many Mac folks will fall for it.
Edit: okay, looking closely at the Balmuda page shows that they never call it a dock, simply a stand. Kudos for them — however, it makes the price tag even more mind-boggling. Razzes to Apartment Therapy Unplugged for the mis-identification.
Man. Just shoot me now, because not only am I about to blog about Miley Cyrus, I’m about to defend her.
Yup, that’s right. I, as a parent of a girl about to be a teenager, am willing to go on record and defend the already infamous photo shoot which has been characterized as the result of villainous Vanity Fair exploiting a minor to sell magazines.
What in the world can I be thinking?
Well, for starters, her parents and other advisors were on the set with her. There’s another picture from the same shoot that’s also drawing a lot of ire — one person I read described it as a “disturbingly erotic photo…like one of those old Calvin Klein ads, except with incest” — showing Miley reclining on the lap of her father, Billy Ray. I’ve seen the picture; I think it’s disturbing, but not because it’s somehow evoking incestuous thoughts. No, I just don’t like Vanity Fair’s visual style; they have this uncanny way of taking normal people and making them look alien. They reduce people to cold, otherwordly icons, rather than capture whatever it is about them that makes them human. All the kerfuffle about this picture is, in my mind, predicated on the growing bias and backlash towards males, the same socially acceptable prejudice that allows airlines to reseat male passengers who are sitting next to unaccompanied minors.
He’s her father, y’know? By all accounts, he’s a damned good one. He’s involved with her career; he’s got a good reputation for not just being a co-star on her Disney show, but for being a parent. I’ve never even heard a whiff of accusation against him before now, so why is it all the sudden acceptable to characterize a picture of a father and daughter as “incestuous”?
Oh, that’s right. Because this particular teenage girl is owned by Disney. Shame on Miley for being a growing young woman who is just 3 years away from being a legal adult. Shame on Billy Ray and his wife for actually being strong parents who feel entitled to make decisions on Miley’s behalf even if they don’t always correspond with Disney’s interests. Don’t they know that they should have just ceded control of her career and future over to Disney? Disney would have preserved her in amber to make sure she never displayed even a hint of sexuality (with one or two exceptions noted below) until the day she turned 18. That strategy has worked so well for so many other Disney youth — Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Hayden Panettiere come to mind. They’re all healthy young ladies who have a responsible outlook on what it means to be an adult in an industry that promotes people based on their inner qualities.
And let’s be honest — Disney doesn’t appear want its stars to have any healthy sense of sexuality at all, even when they’re older than 18. Look at the recent kerfuffle with Vanessa Hudgens, who was 19 when she had pictures taken that Disney disapproved of. This smacks of outright hypocrisy on Disney’s part; they’re aiming squarely at the tween and teen crowd, and you can bet that “I want to be just like ______” is a large part of their planned market appeal. Ever taken a close look at the Lolita-ish designs of the Hannah Montana clothing lines? Ever heard a group of tween girls giggling about how some Disney boy is so “hot”? (I have.) Heck, ever watched Miley’s stage show? The choreography is blatantly sexual. This does not match the “clean-cut” appearance that Disney seems to want its actors to portray so they can play the “family friendly” card, but somehow, nobody at Disney publicly protests these displays.
I’m betting that the genesis of Miley’s apology was just after Disney’s PR people saw the Vanity Fair photos and freaked. By all reports, Disney lawyers earn their pay; they write tight contracts. I don’t even pretend to have inside knowledge, but I’m guessing that Miley and parents weren’t “embarrassed” by the photos until Disney informed them that they were displeased and that Things Must Be Fixed. Is Disney really outraged on behalf of Miley, or are they worried about her earning potential somehow being diminished?
Now, having said all that, would I allow my daughter to take those pictures? At 11, not just no — hell, no! At 15, probably not. But then again, I wouldn’t let my daughter get up on stage and dance some of the routines that Miley Cyrus dances, either. Is the Cyrus family wrong to let Miley do it? Tough question, but the answer is ultimately theirs, not mine. I’m not Miley’s parent, I’m Treanna’s parent. My job as a father — and from all reports, Billy Ray seems to have this one figured out pretty well — is to teach my kids how to be healthy, responsible adults. As humans, we learn best from a combination of positive and negative reinforcement; some of our best-remembered lessons come from our failures. As my kids grow older, if I can’t extend them increasing amounts of freedom and larger opportunities to earn and display responsibility, I’m doing something wrong. I can’t protect them from consequences, but I must do my best to teach them about consequences before they learn them the hard way — and then if they make the wrong choices, I have to let them take those consequences and meet them appropriately. I suspect Miley’s learning all sorts of unintended consequences from this photo shoot, one of which is, “Don’t cross Disney.”
(actually, let’s be honest; that’s one of the ways I’ve chosen to spend a lot of my free time since Christmas). However, at the beginning of July, I added a new reason: I started taking a class two days a week at the local new YMCA.
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