Sunday, December 12, 2004

President Reagan’s funeral was back in June and yet I still get a consistent amount of traffic from searches on “Mansions of the Lord.” Taking a peek at the link, I see that I am ranked #2, below NPR’s coverage of the funeral. Cool.

Listeners of Laura Ingraham‘s radio show will know that the composer of the lyrics for that song is the same guy who wrote the screenplays for Braveheart and We Were Soldiers, in addition to writing novels. His name is Randall Wallace, and he wrote that song for We Were Soldiers. He’s a great patriot who understands the sacrifice required and given for the cause of freedom. If you haven’t seen those two movies yet, then you must rent them and rectify that mistake post haste.

For those looking for the lyrics to the song, I originally posted them here.

To fallen soldiers let us sing
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord.

No more bleeding, no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night
Just divine embrace, eternal light
In the Mansions of the Lord.

Where no mothers cry and no children weep
We will stand and guard though the angels sleep
Through the ages safely keep
The Mansions of the Lord.

Thanks for visiting!

Saturday, December 11, 2004

ECD’s birthday is Monday and I took her daughter shopping for a gift today. We also managed to find a Christmas gift for her from Nee.

Nee had musical practice this morning, so ECD took her. I ran a couple errands and then I picked up Nee when practice was over. We took a large ziplock bag full of coins to the change machine where Nee raked in $25.01. Add the $5 bill in her pocket and she was a rich little girl ready to spend her money on her mother.

We went to Panera for a quick lunch and then hit two stores where we managed to find the perfect birthday and Christmas gifts. Nee had enough money left over to buy herself a fuzzy blue little purse thingy.

Nee’s an easy kid to be with, but it was still a tiring experience for me since I’m not used to entertaining an 8 year old for several hours. Add the Christmas traffic at the mall, which was worse than a normal rush hour commute, and the unbelievable crowds of people strolling the mall, and I came home ready for a nap. I was reminded today why I do my Christmas shopping almost exclusively online anymore. That’s pure craziness and takes every bit of joy out of the purpose of the shopping for me. That said, God provided an extraordinary amount of grace to me today - I had patience in abundance with it all. That’s definitely not normal and had to be supernaturally gifted to me today.

My plan was to drop Nee at home and then head back out to the grocery store. But we got home and I crashed - I’m done for today. And we have a full day tomorrow as well, with the children’s musical at church and then my parents and I are taking ECD and Nee for a special lunch for ECD’s birthday. At some point I need to make 6 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange I got roped into in the neighborhood this Wednesday**.

**I say I got roped into it. Truth is I could have rejected the invitation, but I didn’t want to start out my tenure in the neighborhood as the anti-social one. Of course, I am the anti-social one, but I don’t want them to know that.

I love it already and it hasn’t even recorded anything yet. Set up was a challenge only because I had an idiot moment with the VCR. I knew the VCR needed to be set for channel 3, but it wasn’t actually tuned to channel 3 and it was confusing me - we don’t need cable boxes for the level of service we receive, so we were using the VCR for channel changing.

First love is because it gives me what a cable box would (on screen TV Guide, show info, etc.); it’s been a little frustrating to try to learn the channels without the visual cues the cable box extras gives you.

Second love is because the TV and receiver are now programmed to the TiVo remote and therefore we’ve eliminated the need for two remotes.

Third love is because I already have TAR and Lost set for Season Pass recording.

TV-addict’s bliss.

Friday, December 10, 2004

You’re going to get tired of me mentioning Fisher House. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop mentioning it.

I had the thought that ECD, Nee, and I could go visit patients at Walter Reed after Christmas (they’ll be out of the area until the new year). So I clicked over their website and found that Nee is too young to be in a patient’s room. That’s a shame.

Anyway, in my perusal of the website, I found their link to Fisher House. From there, you can take a peek inside the Fisher Houses at Walter Reed. This is what you would be giving your money to - a warm, welcoming home where families can gather around a dining room table for a home cooked meal. A private bedroom and bath for married couples. There’s no better way to recover from devastating injuries sustained in war than to be in a home with your family. If you look closely, you’ll see that the house is beautifully decorated for Christmas in a few of the photos.

Please consider giving a donation to Fisher House this Christmas. Your small contribution will help provide this affordable facility to families of military personnel at a very stressful time in their lives.

Go, Joe, go!

[via jared]

There’s nothing the government likes to do better than invent stuff. Reinventing is even better, then, right?

Our district spent some money to send me to some basic computer classes - to learn how to become more proficient in things like MS Excel and MS Access. The idea was that we’re using these things, I should know how to actually maximize my use of them.

OK, so I came back from the Access class all fired up to create a database for managing our process logs - basic document tracking for the pieces of process we receive and send in a given month. That database has been a great tool and has saved me a lot of time and aggravation when it comes time to do my monthly reports to HQ.

Yesterday I was working on that monthly report for November, but I noticed that I was missing a report from the criminal desk. I sent her an email reminding her of the report. She responded back that HQ has her working this pilot program for the process logs and that she’s still trying to figure it out, she’ll get the report to me as soon as she’s able. “OK,” I said, “Is this just for criminal process or will it include civil as well?”

Turns out HQ has developed this tracking system that they’re planning to launch next month! This is the first I’ve heard about this. So this database that I spent hours fine-tuning and preparing to launch within our own district is going to have been a wasted effort. Ya gotta love that. Your tax dollars at work, people!

LATER: Then again, maybe it’s not a bad thing that they didn’t put the word out about the new system. They’ve been promoting a new payroll system for longer than I’ve been around and we still haven’t seen it implemented. We even got email last year with training dates scheduled that they had to cancel because it wasn’t ready. Why it takes more than 3 years to get that system launched is a mystery. In the meantime, I continue to battle a DOS-based program that is ridiculous.

As a Nextel phone user, this interests me. I switched from Sprint to Verizon when I moved back to this area because Sprint was awful. I miss my Verizon Wireless service because I never dropped calls or lost service. But my Nextel is free, so I can’t complain.

I’ve already mentioned Fisher House to you. I found another mention of it at Sgt Hook’s, where he mentions the fundraising drive of a local radio station here in the DC area - Operation Homefront.

One of the talk hosts, Michael Graham, has penned a letter to Michael Moore, challenging him to do more than pay lip service to supporting the troops that he’s exploited in the past couple of years.

Mr. Michael Moore
XXXXX
New York, NY 10XXX

Dear Mr. Moore,

No doubt about it: The American soldier has done a lot for Michael Moore.

Hundreds of thousands of them are serving right now in Afghanistan and Iraq- two wars you opposed-defending you from a terrorist threat you claim does not exist. As you frequently point out, more than 1,000 of these soldiers and Marines have died, and thousands more of them have been injured.

These soldiers have also made you quite a bit of money. The most powerful scenes in your film Fahrenheit 9/11 feature soldiers and their families, specifically those servicemen who were wounded or killed in battle. Your new book, Will They Ever Trust Us Again–a collection of letters you’ve received from members of the military who served in Iraq-will likely gross hundreds of thousands of dollars for you and your publisher.

As I said, America’s soldiers have been very good to you. Most of them don’t like you, but they’re prepared to die attempting to protect you from terrorism so that you can continue to crank out your profitable propaganda.

They’ve done all this for you. I’m writing to give you the opportunity to do something for them.

My radio station, 630 WMAL, is leading a fundraising effort on behalf of the Fisher Houses here in the Washington, DC area and the Fisher House Foundation. Given your obsession with the costs of the War on Terror, you are no doubt familiar with the magnificent work done by the Fisher House on behalf of wounded soldiers and their families.

These families are struggling with the emotional consequences of a battlefield injury and its treatment. Fisher House helps solve some of the short-term financial and logistical challenges for the wives, children and parents who have wounded loved ones receiving treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Bethesda Naval Hospital or Malcolm Grow Medical at Andrews Air Force base.

The message of your books and films is that the American soldier is a victim. The soldiers I’ve spoken with at Fisher House vehemently disagree with you, as do the majority of my active-duty military listeners. However, we all agree that the soldiers who have been the victims of Iraqi terrorist violence (I think you call them “the true patriots, the Minute Men") deserve our support.

Therefore, I am writing to challenge you to give back just a small portion of the money you have earned as a critic of their mission. Your film Fahrenheit 9/11 has grossed around $150 million. Our entire goal for the Fisher House this holiday season is a tiny percentage of that amount.

Though I am a confirmed right-winger, I believe there should be no partisan divide when it comes to standing by our troops. My fellow WMAL employees and I are dedicating our time, efforts and money to that proposition. The question, Mr. Moore, is whether or not you will do the same.

Many Americans feel that you have exploited the injuries of our soldiers for partisan purposes but have no real concern for them or their families. On behalf of the Fisher House, I would be thrilled to receive your generous donation as evidence that we are wrong.

If you feel, however, that the money can be better spent on yet another trip to France, nobody will be surprised.

You can send your check made out to the Fisher House Foundation, care of 630 WMAL, 4400 Jenifer Street NW, Washington, DC 20015.

Thank you for your time.

Michael Graham
630 WMAL
Washington, DC

LATER: Just so you know I have put my money where my mouth is, I have given to Fisher House already. I’m thinking about making it one of the regular charities I give to in the new year as well.

My roommate bought me a very generous Christmas gift that arrived at our house yesterday - TiVo. She was all set to hook it up last night. I’m patient enough to wait until tomorrow morning, when I’m not mentally exhausted from a long day of commuting and working, to do the work of comprehending the instructions and deciphering the cord configuration she’s got going on with her entertainment system in the basement.

We are very excited about The Precioussss. Yes, we are.

I have a couple of persistent spammers. I just zapped more comments - only a dozen, but I’m now getting that many a day where I used to get that many a week. And I know it’s nothing compared to MT blogs that are zapped by that blacklist plug-in.

My spammers managed to post their comments on posts where I had closed the commenting feature. So they must have bookmarked those pages and were somehow still able to add their spam.

I can hardly wait to make the switch to EE. Just one more month - it’s going to be my Christmas present to myself.

Oh, and for my own part in the anti-spam public service - the IPs banned were

Thursday, December 09, 2004

There are times when I get caught up enough in minutae (trees) that I miss the larger picture (forest). But lawyers have to be the worst in this regard. I’ve had three of the most frustrating conversations with lawyers this week about writs of execution/garnishment because they wouldn’t listen to what I was telling them and they were so concerned by little details that were not important or relevant.

I’m convinced that getting into law school isn’t based so much on intelligence but on a decided lack of common sense. Those who do the best in law school have to have little to no common sense.

Dang.

**This post is obviously riddled with glittering generalities about those who serve in the legal profession. I’m sure there are some lawyers out there with a good amount of common sense. I just don’t happen to deal with many of them.

I usually don’t remember my dreams, but when I do it’s because they were vivid and odd. I was awakened at about 3:36am (by my clock) by a dream where I was being pursued by Satan’s minion at a concert. I have no clue what prompted the dream itself or the subject matter, but I was disturbed when I woke up.

I was at a concert - one of those with many artists, not just one - and it was a bunch of Christian artists, although no one specific one was in my dream. It was at an arena, but not the any of the ones I’ve been to. I was there with people I knew, but they weren’t in the dream.

I was walking along one of the hallways - it was narrow and dark and there were other people in front of me. All of a sudden this odd man stepped in front of a couple in front of me and handed them a booklet. They opened it up, glanced through the pages, and disappeared. Poof! For some reason I wasn’t too spooked yet, but I thought that was weird. I continued walking and this happened to all of the people around me until I was the only one left.

At that point, a different man stepped up to me (I don’t know where these men were coming from - they sort of just appeared) and tried to hand me a similar booklet. I refused to take it and started running. But he was always ahead of me and stopped me frequently to try to force me to take the booklet. Eventually, he overpowered me and forced the booklet into my hand. Then he started forcing my hands to open the booklet, but I wouldn’t look at it. I looked at him instead and I could see how angry he was getting.

“Look at the book!” he growled at me.

“No, I won’t,” I answered.

He turned to a page and said, “Look a page 4.”

“No, I won’t,” I answered again.

This continued several more times and then he grabbed by head and turned it toward the booklet, “Look!”

“No.”

In my peripheral vision I could make out the layout of the page and see the title on the page that he wanted me to look at. I can’t remember what the title was, but it scared me. He demanded that I look one more time, and I said, “I will not look. You cannot make me look. You cannot take me. I’m covered by the blood..."**

And then I woke up.

** the rest of that statement is “...of Jesus Christ.” But in my dream, I never got to complete the thought before I woke up. Just in case anyone was confused or thinking I was having a Carrie moment.

I just deleted about 15 comments from one spammer who was determined to sell his shares in Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. Why they hit the old posts that no one looks at anymore is a head scratcher. Fortunately this was one spammer with one IP, which has been banned. I’ve closed comments on those posts.

*sigh*

Oh, yeah and just for giggles, commenting is closed for this post. Get used to this, I might start employing selective commenting availability in the future, which sux.

LATER: I opened the comments again. I realized that as much as I hate the spam, I hate not seeing the comment link on the post more.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

I mentioned to ECD that I need to stop at CVS to get a few things and she asked what I needed. One item is toothpaste. She asked which kind I use. I told her and she was all excited because she uses it too. She’s very adamant that she only use that one brand and version and hates it when others are given to her (by her mother or whatever). I said I was the same, although I would use one other brand, but only the original paste version. So it got me thinking...are others like us in their allegiance to their toothpaste?

I’m giving you only two options and death is not one of them.

Which is better (original paste version only)?

Crest

Colgate

Post your answers in the comments.