New Slant

This blog may take a new slant. Since my work is a big part of my life, I may start posting technical notes here.

Love, Life and Work

I read the beginning and end of Elbert Hubbard’s Love, Life and Work as a Project Gutenberg etext tonight. I skipped the middle. Looks like a very nice work. Here is a beautiful quote:

The Best Religion

A religion of just being kind would be a pretty good religion, don’t you

think so?

But a religion of kindness and useful effort is nearly a perfect

religion.

We used to think it was a man’s belief concerning a dogma that would fix

his place in eternity. This was because we believed that God was a

grumpy, grouchy old gentleman, stupid, touchy and dictatorial. A really

good man would not damn you even if you didn’t like him, but a bad

man would.

As our ideas of God changed, we ourselves changed for the better. Or, as

we thought better of ourselves we thought better of God. It will be

character that locates our place in another world, if there is one, just

as it is our character that fixes our place here.

We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best

character is to be kind and to be useful.

THINK RIGHT, ACT RIGHT; IT IS WHAT WE THINK AND DO THAT MAKE US WHAT WE

ARE.

I agree with the author on the subject of character.

Charley

Storm coming. We’re staying home. Chris and Marr staying with us because green zone is better than purple.

Repair x 3

So I took delivery of the Audi yesterday (mechanic put my crappy, $50 used, pulled power steering pump in it for $112.00.

It laste < 1mile before it burst. Christ.

So I took the Audi to Wayne Purdy’s European auto service today. Marty’s going to put a new pump in for $404 + ~ $75 labor. They’ll work in it Thursday or later (today is Tuesday).

I picked up the bike today — the tire had a piece of glass in it.

iPod

Broke down and bought a generation 4 (G4) 40GB iPod today from the Apple store in International Plaza mall, Tampa, FL.

Wow. I’ve copied ~ 1.9GB of MP3s to it so far. Sounds awesome.

Running it in Gentoo Linux using gtkpod to get my music onto it. Working okay.

I had to put it on my Windows XP Pro box to format my new G4 iPod to a FAT32 filesystem (using the included software from Apple).

Wow.

I don’t even know what time it is now. But it’s definitely Sunday night.

Yesterday

Yesterday went pretty much as planned. But it rained, so no go-carts.

Picked up the Audi. Dropped it off at the mechanic. I only drove about 3 miles, but that car really drives!

The bike blew a tire. Dropped it off near the bike mechanics’ place.

Gotta price a Metzeler M1 rear tire.

Should have eaten better. Chips/salsa for breakfast with a banana chaser. Then steak at 7pm.

ZOË

I’ve been testing and experimenting with ZOË, billed as ~ “Google for your email” at home and at work.

I’m excited. It seems to be intended as more of a proxy for your email. That is, it doesn’t necessarily replace your email client. You would like check the same mailbox(es) with both it and your mail client and use it for an SMTP relay for your sent mail so they get indexed too.

That’s already great. And I’m not complaining. But I was rather hoping it would replace my mail client. Maybe it will surprise me.

Long Saturday

I have a lot to do tomorrow.

In the morning I’m sleeping in.

Then I’m not going to the bike dealership to have them look at the faulty low-gas gauge on my motorcycle.

In the afternoon, I’m picking up the Audi(!).

In the evening we’re going to dinner somewhere to celebrate the Swiss Pimp’s birthday.

Then we’re going to race go-carts to continue celebrating the pimp’s day.

Whew!