Debra Lafave... I sure didn't have any teachers like this when I was in high school! Link Today I have several friends that are teachers, and many of them are hot 20-somethings. Where were these teachers when my hormones were raging? I feel cheated.

On the way to work today I saw a Toyota Sequoia, basically a house on wheels, with the license plate "ERTH1ST". I don't know if that is funny or sad.

It bothers me just a little how litigious American society has become. An effect of this is the warning labels that we see on so many products. Some of these serve a genuine purpose, but many of them are simply companies covering their backsides. I can’t blame them for protecting themselves; I just wish they didn’t have to. For each of the outrageous safety warnings you see on a product you have to wonder what moron prompted the need for said warning. “Do not drink” on a bottle of liqu...

The other day a friend, who knows a good deal about my back-story, asked me the question, “Do you regret the bad things in your life?” Back in the fall of 1991 my grandfather died. I had barely known him due to the insanities of his wife, my grandmother. She wanted nothing to do with her daughter’s family. I did have one tie to the old man, and that was through talent. My grandfather was a professional artist (drawing, paint, sculpture) in the San Diego area, and by his death had becom...

Recently someone expressed an opinion to me that went along these lines: education today isn’t about learning, but rather about scheming and finding a way to make it past the tests. As a former student and teacher, I can agree with that to a point, but disagree on another level. The education system in America today seems to reward the people that can make it past the test. The question I have is whether that is a good thing. Does passing a test really indicate that you have learned? I...

Finally, evidence showing what many of us have known for a long time! Link "They have the right to remain silent...and tender and juicy..."

Finally, evidence showing what many of us have known for a long time! Link "They have the right to remain silent...and tender and juicy..."

So I work for a rather large company that, among many other things, produces software for the U.S. Government. Today we have a code freeze for our next release. A code freeze is pretty much what it sounds like... no more coding after this point. The thing that is bothering me is that tomorrow the powers-that-be are going to meet to decide what should be done for this release of our software. Let me rephrase that. Tomorrow they are going to decide what work we should have done by today....

I just don't understand some of the sickness we see in the world. Take this extremely sad situation. What drives a man to do this sort of act? I've always prided myself on being able to step into other people's shoes and view the world from differing perspectives, but I just can't get my head around someone like this. Is this evil incarnate?I need to go find something a little more pleasant to contemplate.

Eight to ten years ago I maintained a personal web-site at my university. All faculty and students had web accounts available on some Unix servers, and I took advantage of this to learn HTML. My personal site contained a number of pages, ranging from personal/scholastic/professional news to pictures of my self/friends/family to my initial attempts at learning Java and Applets. Aspects of this site made up what was essentially a blog (though the term had not been used at that time). ...