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4.29.2003
Well, my dad's aunt Helen died the other day. She had had cancer. It's a bit hard to fathom something like that - I last saw her about a year and a half ago, and at the time I couldn't believe in what great shape she was in. Especially since my grandmother (her sister) was in much worse shape at the same age. It's scary to think that you can be in excellent health one day, and the next you've got a disease that will kill you in short order. I'm of course sad for those who are gone, but I'm even more scared to think of what might happen to those who are still with us.

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4.27.2003
Scientists break their silence on Iraqi weapons
In separate, lengthy interviews this week with Cox Newspapers, four scientists who were at that meeting insisted their country does not have chemical or biological weapons.

Two of the men, Hussein al-Jabber and Laithe al-Azawi, are considered by U.N. weapons inspectors to be among Iraq's 25 most prominent scientists. The two, confident in their reputations, said they were certain that their country could not have produced chemical weapons without their knowledge.
Yeah...

In other news, since we moved in we've wondered why the dishes always come out with a white film all over. More soap, less soap, Jet-Dry, no Jet-Dry - it didn't matter. The house has a water softener, which I never thought much of. I went down to look at it recently, and thought it was strange that there didn't seem to be any less salt than when we moved in. After doing some checking, it turns out it wasn't actually drawing the brine through to recharge itself. All due to one tiny little seal being broken.

Long story short - we now have soft water. Hopefully the dishes will come out nice and sparkly like.

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4.25.2003
Have a good time, Brian and Carrie;-)

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4.17.2003
Debian Part 2

Since my last update, I've started over using the 2.4 kernel. That meant going through the install process about 5 times. Because you see, something kept deciding it wasn't going to work. Either packages wouldn't install, or X wouldn't work, or...something. What I'm saying is the Debian folks really need to think about re-writing the installer from scratch.

dselect is Debian's package management program. It's fairly powerful, but once again, the interface SUCKS. To quote the man file:
The dselect package selection interface is confusing or even alarming to a new user.

dselect doesn't handle Recommends: field very well, and doesn't understand Replaces: at all.
Yeah...

At any rate, I finally have X up and running (although for some reason my desktop size is *always* 1280x1024 no matter what resolution my monitor is set at - it just scrolls), Appletalk and Samba servers working, printer set up, etc... So for the moment things aren't going to badly. Hopefully things stay that way.

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4.16.2003
So, I've decided to enter the crazy world of Debian. I've been using Mandrake for all of my Linux boxes, and while it's really nice for installing and setting up, trying to upgrade is a major headache, to say the least. So I thought I'd try switching.

Unfortunately, the install process for Debian pretty much sucks. A major problem seems to be the lack of help in a LOT of places. Also, one of the GREAT things about Mandrake is the hardware auto-detection - auto probing of your mouse, video card, etc. The Debian installer is pretty damn dumb when it comes to that type of thing. Despite all of my best efforts, X just did NOT want to run. I finally got it working after trashing a few config files and running the setup program again, but even now I seem to have a virtual screen at all but the highest resolution. And apparently the kernel that gets installed is an older one that doesn't have support for ext3, which just happens to be what my public partition is.

Oh well. I'm in KDE as I type this. I think I'll poke around a bit and then try and start over again now that I have a bit better clue as to what's going
on.

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4.11.2003
So, I mentioned some possible job news a few posts back. Here's the scoop. One job that sucks but has decent pay, and one that's really cool but pays nothing:

- this week I started training at Sears to sell hardware. It could be worse, I guess.

- next week I start an (unpaid) internship at The Onion. Obviously the hope is it turns into something paid. And I can say I worked at The Onion.

That's all for now, I think.

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You want nostalgia? Try this. Amy made us get it last night:
04-11-03-1t.jpg

04-11-03-2t.jpg

Ahh, memories of that little Sony tape recorder, playing that song (taped off the radio - the intro was cut off) over and over again.

Although I honestly don't remember the fashions of the day.

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4.07.2003
Think you can't be against the war and support the troops at the same time?

BULLSHIT

After protest arrest, soldier's mother says, 'I'm fighting a war.'

Needless to say I'm damn surprised this was on CNN's front page.

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4.05.2003
What the hell happened? On Tuesday it was sunny and probably upwards of 70 out. I was outside doing yardwork and working on the roof. The past two days have been COLD. Last night we got a combination of rain, sleet and snow, which combined to make the streets glare ice. Luckily most of the was gone by today, although the driveway is still one large piece of ice.

Random piece of nostalgia. Random guy (to Zach): "Do you believe at love at first sight, or should I come back later?"

I still love that one.

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4.04.2003
So, I'm sitting here listening to Pete Townshend - Scoop. I'm reminded of going to buy it at the Exclusive Company on State Street, the Fall semester freshman year, not long after arriving. And bringing it back to that tiny little dorm room (823 Rawlings Witte A to be exact) and fighting with Zach to play it instead of DMB (if not that day then some time soon after). On one hand that doesn't seem very long ago, but on the other hand it seems like an eternity.

It's amazing (for example) the details I can remember from certain times of college, but other times are just kind of missing from my memory.

Blargh. I hate it when other people wax nostalgic. But it's ok because I'm doing it (or something)...

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In relation to my last post, have you ever believed that something was a certain way for a long time, only to realize you were wrong all along? The other day we were driving, and I noticed a sign that said "Reduced Speed Ahead". I turned to Amy and said "don't those signs usually say 'Reduce Speed Ahead'?" "Yeah, I think so." "Well, that one just said 'Reduced Speed Ahead'." Apparently both of us had been misreading those signs for as long as we can remember...

In other news, I've decided to set up a new toy to play with. While it's still not quite ready for prime time, hop on over to Forums dot lukpac.org to discuss music, politics, or anything else you feel like chatting about. I initially set it up with music in mind, although I think maybe things like politics might get bigger play. Check it out.

The job front is currently a bit strange/interesting. More when I know more.

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The Simpsons Archive

Vital stats:
DOB 2/16/79. I'm a web developer at the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. I like lots of old music, including The Who. I spend a lot of time working with computers. And my favorite TV show (when I actually decide to watch TV, that is), obviously, is The Simpsons.

Education:
In May 2002 I officially graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BS in computer science. In 1997 (man that seems like a long time ago) I graduated from Washington Park HS. Yes, I know, that site isn't very impressive, and no, I haven't touched it for several years.

WFS Logo

WFS:
One of the best experiences I have ever had was on a trip called Western Field Studies. This is a 33 day adventure throughout the western United States. Students travel on a school bus to national parks, monuments, forests, and places of historical interest and camp out (in tents or under the stars). I was a part of trip 25, which took place in the summer of 1996. A first for WFS was we took along a laptop computer and kept up a web site. That link will take you to the 1996 site, where there is a link to the current site.