Home Front

On the home front, all is good. We have much to be thankful for. We have the prospects of a new job that promises a substantial increase in the standard of living. Previously, the Mrs.’s term of service with Huntsville City Schools came to an end. With a child on the way, neither of us thought it very sporting to start a new school term that everyone concerned knew she would never finish. We’d planned from the outset that once she had the baby, she’d stay home. We both felt and thought that would be the best plan for all concerned (in this case, all concerned are Mommy, Daddy, and Baby).

With approximately one third of our income drying up in a couple month’s time, we realized that we needed to do some belt-tightening, and we have done. Amy is now driving me to work most days, under the pretense that it is cheaper by about $30 -$40 at current prices to fill the car twice in a week than to fill the car once and the truck once. Also, I am brown-bagging lunch more often than not, and this leads to further savings. Since we reload our ammunition, we can save quite a bit, and still get to shoot fairly often. We’re waiting on a batch of Hornady 123 grain, .310″ diameter spire-point bullets to arrive. These will allow quite cost-effective plinking loads for the No. 4 Enfield.

Last week, we found out that my uncle, Greg, had started work on the same NASA contract on which I work. He has taken up with a very challenging group; the Russia Services Group, which will require bi-annual trips to Moscow. Greg is flexible, and perhaps a good deal more hardy than we. There is an amount you could pay us to travel to Moscow, but it ranks in the mid seven-digits. Per day. In dollars, not rubles. We wish him well, but there is no need to wish him success. He is after all a Steele, and due to the heartiness of our constitutions, we achieve what we set out to accomplish. Perhaps it is not a testament to our constitutions, but rather us being too thick to completely understand and comprehend the nature of failure.

The weather is mostly dry. Too dry for our tastes, but it is not without benefit. The fauna do not enjoy it, nor the flora. It is quite dusty and asthmatic, but the pollen and other allergens are down to a most manageable level. Our local water authority has just imposed strict lawn-watering rations, and we are not at all upset about this. I have only had to mow the lawn four times this year, and I’m quite happy about the prospect of keeping with that rate for the rest of the year.

Amy and I have been taking afternoon walks three days per week, and are delighted to report that wildlife is flourishing in our bedroom community, despite the drought. Eastern cottontail rabbits are plentiful in our neighborhood, though we have only two rather scrawny ones. We’ve also seen the requisite squirrels, one chipmunk, many various birds, and a spotted fawn. Odin the cat has taken a particular fancy toward chasing the sprinkler, getting thoroughly soaked in the process. He still doesn’t care for being bathed, but will chase the sprinkler for hours. Several times, when we haven’t had the sprinkler on, he’s resorted to running towards whichever neighbor has the closest running sprinkler. We also have taught him to chase a frizbee. Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite worked out what to do once he’s caught the thing except wait for one of us to throw it again. Freya the cat will have none of it. She is more interested in the rabbits.

Most importantly, Amy and I went to the doctor today, and they confirmed that the Tot of Steele is in fact a daughter. Mother and child are both quite healthy at this point, and everything looks normal. We could not be more happy, but I suspect we will be once Amy has hatched-out. The doctor gave us permission to go right out and procure a new shotgun and large-bore handgun to protect the Tot of Steele’s honor. We are already well-provisioned here, but doctor’s orders are doctor’s orders. We’d hate to disobey them. Perhaps a nice Beretta 12-bore O/U. The wife asked if a .45 wasn’t already enough, to which we replied “Not when a .50 is available! Only the best to protect my daughter!

We’re going to Atlanta next week for an SAP training class (ADM 100), so possibly we will have some travel log postings.

F.E.A.R.

Conservative commentators have often noted that the political left in America have a strange love affair with fear. They fear death, they fear life, they fear that someone might get hurt. They fear that drinking coffee or eating eggs will kill you, and they fear that we’re destroying the planet. Fear of being offended. Fear of being judged. The list goes on so far that we could be here all day and not name a tenth of the things the left is afraid of.

It does not escape me that when the left tries to insult us, they label us as either being afraid of something or as “fear-mongers.” Take for example the epithets “homophobic” and “islamophobic.” If I understand correctly (and I do), a phobia is an irrational fear of something.

Regardless of the name-calling, I can assure those on the left that I fear no evil. What have I to be irrationally afraid of? People can do as they wish, until they step on me to do it. They don’t live their lives to please me, nor do I live to please them. The only harm done is perhaps a wounding of pride or a pang of conscience, but there’s no more damage done than there is to me when the leftist tells me that I’m afraid of gays or Muslims.

The pioneer spirit is what made America great. We’ve torn that down, and replaced it with a nation of hand-wringing ninnyhammers, afraid of the merest sunburn. It’s time to sort that out. We need to grow a national back-bone. We start that process by toughening up individually. We’ve become too sensitive, like a tooth that is offended by cold. Life is too short to allow other people the power to offend you. Simply ignore it and move on.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist
in nature, nor do children of humans as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

-Hellen Keller

Hmm…

Feeling quite good today. I probably shouldn’t be, since Chrysler just charged me $80.08 to replace a freaking $2.50 fuse. I probably won’t do business with this dealership again… punks.

The other thing is that I have to work all weekend. They’re shutting off power to the data centre. I have to go in tomorrow to help shut-down about 80 systems, then back in on Sunday for the restart. We usually do this at least once per year. At least this time it is not during Christmas.

The reason I’m happy is that I was contacted by a recruiter that works for Cisco Systems. This isn’t some head-hunter looking to fill an opening at Cisco, the guy is actually a Cisco employee. Looks like I’ll probably get an interview for a full-time Cisco gig in Nashville. I’d prefer not to have to move, but if the money is right, what choice do I have? I’m hoping when/if I interview, they’ll tell me that I can work from home, but will have to travel to client locations in the South East.

It is really enjoyable to be talking to people about a job when I’m not in the spot of “needing” one quickly. Most of the jobs I’ve left have been ones I really wanted to get out of soon. I still like my job here, so I can play the game with Cisco on my terms, and not feel like I’ve really lost anything if I don’t get it. At any rate, I’ll certainly get some practice for negotiating future jobs. And if I do get it, great. Cisco is on the list of the top two or three companies I’d like to work for, and probably second only to Sun Microsystems (if they’d ever get their act together).

So this is the new year? (Hat-tip: "Death Cab for Cutie")

I don’t do New Year Resolutions. So, this year will be no exception. However, it is not all that uncommon for me to set a few goals from time to time. So this year, I think that I’m going to dig up some books by and about the founding fathers of our country. The goal being mostly to remind myself that the people who founded this country were all right-wing-kook-extremists, just like me. As the post-election left-wing meltdown continues, with liberals screeching about how “Red State” people are ignorant morons, it will be nice to read the words of these intelligent men, and to remember that they are largely responsible for me
thinking the way I do. I am a conservative, I do believe in God, I am patriotic. I am not an uneducated simpleton fool. I sense that I’ll probably write two or three screeds about this in the coming year.

Specifically, I want to look through the Federalist Papers, some Washington, some Jefferson, some Ben Franklin (particularly, I’d like to reread his autobiography), and revise on some of the minor/obscure founding documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Also, I intend to finish the 9/11 commission report.

Also, for career development this year, I’d really like to learn to write useful code in C. Really, as a full-time UNIX systems administrator, I am often ashamed of that fact that I can’t program in C. Perl is great, and as a rule has gotten me out of (also in to) many sticky situations, but really I should learn C.

Finally, I’m really going to try to write more. I will probably use this LiveJournal thing as the medium, since it is easy enough. Nobody but Chris will read it anyway, and the only reason that he will is that he gets all of my posts emailed to him automagically. Chris, read-on. I promise it will be hella boring.

Some things I want to write about:

• Chapter 8 in the new Ann Coulter book, and how she isn’t quite right.
• Good/Bad points in the new Bill O’Reilly book.
• Dr. Strangeconserviative, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the US.
• The current un-official charter of the United Nations
• Canada: Frozen Bombing Range of the North
• Linux Hippies are ruining it for the rest of us
• My favorite line to use at parties: “I’m slightly to the right of Rush Limbaugh.” That one always gets GREAT responses.
• My prediction that the “Half-Blood Prince” in J.K. Rowling’s new book is . . . Haggrid.
• The real American Idiots, Anna Nichole, Paris Hilton, Reality TV, MTV, etc.
• My life-change from Linux+Windows on PC to OS X on Apple G5, how I have adjusted, and if it was worth it.
• Several other topics I can’t remember right now.

I had no champagne for the new year, I’m afraid. I had a nice bottle of Chimay Grand Reserve (a.k.a. Chimay Blue) that I was going to enjoy, but decided to save it. At $9 per bottle, it is packaged like champagne (750 ml, cork finished, wire bale), but tastes better than any champagne I’ve ever had, and is WAY less expensive. Vouve Clicot is probably the best tasting champagne I’ve ever had. It is currently at about $45 for the same 750 ml bottle. Also, I have one bottle of Left Hand Imperial Stout that I am saving for a cold night. I am worried that winter may be over though. We had those two days, just before Christmas where the high
was in the 20’s. Right now, we’re having upper 60’s. Happy January in North Alabama.

I got several new books for Christmas, including the Bill O’Reilly book, Who’s Looking Out for You? Anyone who thinks that O’Reilly is a conservative after reading this book should go have a mental exam or perhaps go look at a dictionary. This book was closer to a “Self Help” book than anything I have ever read before. As it turns out, I like Bill’s writing style much better than his interviewing/commentating style on his TV show (I’ve never listened to his radio show). Perhaps it is because he’s not interrupting someone else’s every third word. I’ll talk more about the book in another entry later because I thought it was actually good and made some points I hadn’t thought about.

Oh, and I swore off Slashdot just over a month ago. Haven’t found a good replacement for it yet, we’ll see how long it lasts… Annoying pratts. So far, I have done well. Been there less than 3 times in the last month. Haven’t missed it, per se. But I do miss having a good source of computer geek news updated several times per day. If not for their agenda of left-wing politics and slamming any company out there that has the nerve to actually try to (gasp) make money, I’d still be a (many-times-a-day) daily visitor.

In summary, happy new year to you all. Really, I plan to live 2005 just like I lived 2004. Keep moving forward, doing what I do, brewing a few beers, fixing a couple of computers, and generally enjoying life in North Alabama with my wife.

Blogs…

I hate to say it, but I am morally opposed to blogs. I just really don’t see a good reason for them.

Maybe it is because I don’t think that people honestly care about what I think about life and the world we live in. And why should they? I really don’t care what they think about it either! And to make matters worse, I don’t even care about persuading people to adopt my views. I don’t normally even care about telling people about my views or ideas most of the time. And when I do, it is usually in a sort of one-on-one small social situation. Preferably one complete with beer.

Perhaps I can make this useful by posting here only so that I can come back at a later time, and revisit my own thoughts. Do I even own my own thoughts once I type them in and submit them to the database these Live Journal people have provided?