"(d) SELECTION FOR MILITARY SERVICE - Based upon the needs of the uniformed services, the President shall--
(1) determine the number of persons covered by subsection (a) whose service is to be performed as a member of an active or reserve component of the uniformed services; and
(2) select the individuals among those persons who are to be inducted for military service under this Act."
This is taken directly from Senate Bill [S.89.IS] and House Bill [H.R.163.IH] both of which can be read after a bit of searching at the House web site.
"In March 2003, a teenage girl named Courtney presented one of her poems before an audience at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Albuquerque, then read the poem live on the school's closed-circuit television channel.
A school military liaison and the high school principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to give substance to its "No child left behind" education policy.
The girl's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job."
This is just plain stupid. It gives the Bush campaign way too much political hay. It smells of desperation. The sad thing is, even if he disavows the idea, the rest of the campaign will continue to stink of it.
Fot those who may have been trying to email me, my main personal email address has been inaccessable for the last day or so. Most people who really need my attentions in the immediate future should have an alternate address to use to contact me. The rest should have my phone number. Those who have neither have no immediate need to contact me and can go stuff themselves.
Update: I can access my mail again. Move along. Nothing to see here.
RUSH TURNS UP THE “FEEDBACK”;
BAND MARKS 30TH ANNIVERSARY WITH FIRST COVERS COLLECTION,
FEATURING VERSIONS OF SIXTIES CLASSICS BY
CREAM, THE WHO, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD, YARDBIRDS & MORE;
“ AN EVENING WITH RUSH” TOUR TAKES OFF MAY 26TH
Anthem/Atlantic recording group Rush has unveiled details of their upcoming new
collection, dubbed “FEEDBACK.” This unique set sees the renowned trio – Geddy
Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart – celebrating the band’s 30th anniversary by
performing cover versions of eight rock classics from the Sixties. “FEEDBACK” is
slated to arrive in stores on June 29.
“Geddy, Alex, and I were channeling back to 1966 and 1967, when we were
thirteen- and fourteen-year-old beginners,” writes Peart in the liner notes to
“FEEDBACK.” “We thought it would be a fitting symbol to commemorate our thirty years
together if we returned to our roots and paid tribute to those we had learned
from and were inspired by. We thought we might record some of the songs we used
to listen to, the ones we painstakingly learned the chords, notes, and drum
parts for, and even played in our earliest bands.”
“ FEEDBACK” marks the first time that Rush has recorded songs by other artists
and writers. Included are such groundbreaking staples as Buffalo Springfield’s
“For What It’s Worth” and “Mr. Soul,” the Yardbirds’ “Heart Full of Soul” and
“Shapes of Things,” and the Who’s “The Seeker.” “FEEDBACK” also features
versions of two songs which defined the heavy rock power trio tradition that gave
birth to Rush – Cream’s explosive take on Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and Blue
Cheer’s still-extreme rendition of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues.”
As previously announced, Rush will commemorate their 30th anniversary year by
playing dates across North America, as well as in Europe, where they have not
performed live in more than a decade. The first leg of the 2004 “An Evening With
Rush” tour will kick off on Wednesday, May 26th at the AmSouth Amphitheatre in
Nashville, Tennessee, wrapping up with an August 22nd homecoming concert at
Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre. Following the conclusion of the North American
trek, Rush will begin their European journey with a series of sold-out shows in the
U.K., starting with a September 8th date at London’s Wembley Arena.
Since releasing their self-titled debut album in 1974, Rush has been
universally regarded as one of the most inventive and dynamic groups in rock, famed for
their virtuoso musicianship, epic soundscapes, and dramatic lyricism. Each of
the band’s 24 albums to date – including such acclaimed works as 1976’s “2112,”
1981’s “MOVING PICTURES,” 1996’s “TEST FOR ECHO,” and 2002’s “VAPOR TRAILS” –
have been certified gold-or-better by the RIAA. To date, Rush has achieved
worldwide sales exceeding 35 million units.
Track Listing of “FEEDBACK”
1. “Summertime Blues”
2. “Heart Full of Soul”
3. “The Seeker”
4. “For What It’s Worth”
5. “Shapes of Things”
6. “Mr. Soul”
7. “Crossroads”
8. “Seven and Seven Is”
For most of the past six months, very little of interest has gone on in my life that would be worthy of comment. Much has gone on in the world that I might have once comment on, but I have lost my tolerance for futility.
Finally, though there are a few interesting developments in my life. First off I am beta testing Charter's new Video on Demand (VOD) system. It has been slowly rolling out, but I am one of the first off of my node to get to play with it. It is possibly the coolest thing in TV since Tivo. It allows the user to call up certain movies and programs any time one wants, rather than waiting around for it some come on. You can pause, rewind, fast forward and even stop and come back to your program. VOD comes in two flavors. One is attached to the premium movie channels (HBO, Skinamax, Showtime, Starz and Encore). A user who subscribes to these channels can watch a selection of the movies and original series (I'm loving Deadwood) any time one wants at no extra charge. Also included in this part of the VOD is Mag Rack, a collection of video "magazines" one can watch for free. The second type is an updated Pay Per View system in which one "rents" for a fee the movie or show for 24 hours to be watched at one's convenience. It is rather neat.
I am also beta testing Google's Gmail. So far, it is proving to be a well put together web mail interface. I don't get enough mail to need to make us of the advanced search feature. So I guess in that regard I am not the best beta tester.
Finally, I just yesterday interviewed for a new job in Charter. After nearly five years in Tech Support/Customer Service, I am more than burned out. I am ready to move on to a new and different position. This new gig, if I get it, will be more of a hands on gig. I'll be building and maintaining computers, along with some other related tasks. I will have to still do some internal phone support, but I will also be doing a lot of onsite support at various Charter locations around the midwest. It may not be my dream gig, but if I get it, it should be a lot less of a nightmare than the one I have now.
For a guy who thought he would be an apartment dweller his whole life, owning a home is an interesting state of affairs.
We bought this house without getting it inspected. We just wanted to grab a house in our price range before our lease needed to be renewed at our apartment. So far, this gamble has paid off. As we do little project after little project, the house becomes a better and better place to live.
We got through one of those projects recently. One of the first things we noticed about the house when we moved in was the fence. The previous owners had three dogs and the world's ugliest fence. I've put up pics before, so this may look familiar:
This was the biggest piece of white-trash engineering we had ever seen. It looked like they had taken industrial fencing sections, like the kind you would rent to fence off a construction site, and drove them into the ground. It was actually worse than that, but we didn't know that yet.
We knew they had probably concreted them in, as we found a chunk of concrete the exact shape of a concrete bag - we bet they let a bag get wet and set. Anyway, it was going to be a big job. We tried to think of ways to break up the concrete and rip out the fence. Steph thought a large metal rod that her folks had used on a project would be a good idea. We bought it, but I wasn't sure. Our neighbor offered to attach the fence to his four wheel drive truck and rip them out. As nice as that was, I knew that would be messy (in hind-sight, I should have accepted!)
I had an idea. I remembered playing with an old car jack when I was a kid. The type you would hook to a bumber and lift the car to change a tire. I figured if it could lift a car, it might be able to pull the concrete posts right up. Maybe if we found two, and coordinated the lift. I mentioned this to Steph's Dad, John. He asked me if I had ever heard of a farm jack? Nope! New one on me. John told us that four wheel truckers use farm jacks to pull their trucks out of the mud. It sounded like what we needed, eventually, we ordered one - at $40, it was a value - if it worked!
As you can see in the picture, the first chunk of fence is on the ground behind me and the farm jack - so, yeah, it worked. On March 20th, Steph and I struck back at the fence - and the fence fought us the whole way. I was worried that the concrete posts might have been under the sidewalk, but that wasn't where I should have been worried. The first piece came up quickly and easily. The second was a little harder, and they each section got harder from there. There was tons of concrete, some of the posts were wired together. A few of the posts were screwed together - we found that out the hard way. As we were jacking up one section of fence, I couldn't understand why the posts weren't seperating and breaking the concrete as had happened on most other sections. Then - POP! - the screw holding the posts together broke and the posts nearly knocked both of us in the head. Whew!
The fence tried to kill us a few times. We got a good look at what they had done to this poor fence. They had obtained (bought? stole?) these sections of fence, then they had taken out the bottom pole giving them three posts that they concreted down. Strong - yet ugly as sin. In one place, they had taken one of the cut off posts, about six feet long and pounded it into the ground, then they screwed that to one of the sections, before they added the concrete. But, the farm jack did the job - along with that metal rod and some other tools and eventually, we had a pile of fence and an overgrown yard.
We had not yet bought a gas powered lawn mower. We thought that since we have a small yard, a reel mower would do the trick. But, the yard is hard packed earth, filled with pits and hollows. We actually filled a couple holes with cuttings from the shrubs. The grass is more crab grass than anything. The reel mower didn't cut it. Pun intended. Our yard looked like a local church cleanup project.
The coolest thing about this project was that we knew we would make things look better when we were done. After the first section came down it already looked better. As we were taking the fence down, neighbors we had never met were driving by and cheering us on! We knew we were onto a good thing.
So, on the advice of a neighbor, we put out the chunks of fence with a sign saying "FREE" in the hopes someone would drag off the fence so that we wouldn't have to pay to have it disposed. Big metal fence = a big dumping fee.
It took a couple weeks, but one night we heard some noise outside. Sure enough, some other neighbors were outside taking some of the fence. This has been a great way to meet our neigbors! They didn't take it all, but they took about half.
We moved the remaining fence, cut back the grass and hoped for the best. We figured if it was out there for more than a week we would just dump the rest and consider ourselves lucky. About a week ago, some neighbors came by and grabbed the rest of the fence. Yes! We were excited, we were doing little happy dances. It was over.
Then they bought the fence back!
I swear to the gods, we walked outside and the fence was back. We don't know why they brought it back, but they did. They put up the sign and everything. We figured that maybe someone else might take it or we would just go dump it. Well, I'm happy to report that other neighbors came by and took the remainder Friday night. They haven't returned it yet, so we hope they are going to keep it!
A few days ago someone walked by and remarked on the changes to Steph. He said that we had changed the neighborhood! Well, I'm not sure we've done that good, but, you be the judge.
Long time readers and friends know that I have a recurring problem - I come up with an idea and sometime later I find it on the market. There have been books, pet items, movies, all kinds of stuff that I thought of but someone else developed and marketed. It's like a nightmare. They are making money off ideas I had but never had the power to do anything with.
It happened again yesterday. This idea, I rejected because I thought it was too lame to actually suggest. Almost three years ago I bought a little bonsai kit from an Asian market, this was the second kit of this type I had purchased - you can see the details of these two kits here. This kit was made by a company called Toysmith - they are an importer of cheap toys and novelties from Asia, they are also located here in Washington. They make more than just bonsai kits, they have all kinds of neat little "office toy" kits. For Christmas of 2001, Steph bought me a Zen garden from the same company. Zen gardens in real life are made of lots of pebbles, but in these little kits, they tend to use sand.
This got me thinking. Would a little "Sand Castle" kit be a fun thing? Sure! A little plastic tray, big enough to be fun but not too big, these kits are meant to be small. The tray should be blue, to simulate ocean water. A bag of sand, some shells and rocks, a few plastic tools and some little "buckets" - little forms that will make building the castle easier. They make big versions of these for kids playing on the beach, smaller versions would be cheap to produce and darned cool! All you would need is a little water and you are playing at the beach while never having left your desk!
So, being that Toysmith had produced the kit that inspired me, I found their address and began work on a note. About half way in, the little voices of doubt in my head began screaming. This idea was dumb and it would get me no where. They would never buy it, even if they did they would never pay me for the idea. Why bother?
Yesterday, I went to the little gift shop in the building where I work, and, behold!, there was a new batch of desk kits - one of them was for sand castles! And, the topper, the kit was produced by Toysmith. It wasn't as I had envisioned it, but it was still there.
I'm a moron!
I'm so tired of other people making money off my ideas! One of these days I'm just going to take one of my ideas and run with it! If it breaks me or kills me, I don't care. I'm sick to death of having great ideas and no way to do anything with them. This idea was a throw away and someone still thought it was good enough to produce! Auuuugh!!!
