The instructor that emailed yesterday emailed me back today and informed me that there was a class available, Advanced Web Page Authoring, and it started tonight at 6:00 PM. That sounded interesting, so I get my stuff in gear and got myself registered. Should be a cool class. We will learn some ASP.Net and some Server Side VB.Net. I am excited and relieved. Its bad enough that I am accumulating credits at a snail’s pace, missing a semester would’ve been terrible.

It appears that Deion is indeed coming, although it is very funny that everyone (me included) is making this much of deal about a 37 year old nickleback.

I’ve add the Google site search to my page, but it doesn’t work. This is because Google hasn’t indexed my page yet. My traffic stats say the google has checked the site, so it should index it before too long. I hope. I’ll leave the code in place. The Web Search Feature still works fine. I also have the AdSense ad down the on the sidebar. In theory the ads it puts in place should some how relate to my content. I am forbidden to click on them, cause that against the rules. I am curious about how it gathers click thru percentages and such. So if you have nothing better to do click on one and let me know what on the other side.

I have managed to give to Gmail invites away and for my efforts Google in its infinite wisdom has granted me another invite. The offer still stands.

The O’s managed to win in the 12th inning against TB. They had better find 3rd place in the AL East and keep it if Lee Mazzilli wants to keeps his job. I like the guy, but Angelos spent a lot of money to make this team better, I don’t think he is going to be patient if the Orioles finish in 4th place for the 6th straight year.

I’m doing my best to ignore the Republic National Convention. I realize that I have a Civic Duty to pay attention and all that. But they make me so mad. Tributes about 9/11. As though 9/11 belongs to the Republican Party. That the Terrorist attacks on our nation prove that Bush is a good leader.

“You can count on him, especially in a crisis” - Laura Bush
“He is a leader who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t waver, does not back down” - Arnord Schwarzenegger
“He has been tested and has risen to the most
important challenge of our time, and I salute him,” - John McCain

Now that I’m Fired up let hit a couple more points. You may recall the Republicans try to paint Kerry as waffling and indecisive. For example. All I can say is Karma’s gonna get you baby. Bush has put himself squarely on both sides of the statement he made about not being able to win the war on terror.

And I’m real sick of all this talk about the liberal media. Please! The media does what it does for reason that have nothing to do with politics. The don’t support Bush (although it seems like sometimes.) They don’t support Kerry. They move only where the mighty dollar tells them to go. And right now the dollar pushes them to the right. Don’t mistake cold calculated marketing for a political preference.

I still have 5 invites left. I truly do not want them to go to waste after I worked so hard to try and find invites myself. It seems Google has kind of flooded the market, so to speak, and I’m having trouble unloading these. Drop me a comment with a way to contact you. I’ll send an email just to make sure you’re still interested (and to make sure you’re for real … I’m just funny like that.) When you reply I’ll send the invite. If there is anyone left out there who still wants gmail that doesn’t have it, let me know!

No. No. No. Seems to be word of the day. My three year old might tell you that No is the word of the day every day.

I went to register for my Intro to VB class today on my lunch break. And the lady there told me … No! The class was cancelled due to lack of interest. I attempted to explain to her that I was very interested in the class and maybe they should reconsider. She would have no part of it. I am not put off that easily, so I figured I would just sign up for another one. (My work had only approved payment for that particular class, but when you sign up for classes on the day that they are scheduled to begin you need to act fast!) I asked her if I could register for Into To Java Programming. No! Cancelled. How about Principles of Computer Technology? No! Cancelled. How Microcomputer Operating Systems? No! Cancelled. How about the Internet Section of he VB Class? No! Cancelled. I am beginning to wonder if the ole Community College still has a Computer Information Systems Program. I sent off an email to one of the program advisors, but for now it looks unlikely that I will be able to take a class this semester. On the positive side, this may be enough to push me in to getting off of my ass and finding an actual undergraduate degree program to pursue.

No Internet Explorer! At least that is how I feel about it. I can’t stand it. Even with the fixes in XP SP2 it still just ticks me off. It seem that a lot of people still use IE because they don’t realize they are allowed to use another a browser. You are! Don’t know what your Choices are? Go Here! Its a cute little site that gives “success” stories of people who have made the switch. Kind of a take off of the Mac commercials from a year or so ago.

No! Deion “Prime Time” Sanders is not a Raven … but he could be as early as tomorrow. (So technically this is really a yes, but I had to keep with the no theme.) Chris McAlister did report to the team today, signing his one year tender that locks him in the team’s Franchise Player. It also pays him a cool $7.1 Million. It seem that the Ravens and C-Mac are still no where near agreement on a long term deal. It is unlikely that they will negotiate once the season starts. It is not unreasonable to imagine that C-Mac is going to get “tagged” again after this season.

Took a nice drive today up into Pennsylvania. Drove past Caledonia State Park throughout the Michaux State Forest to Pine Grove Furnace and from there up into the Cumberland Valley to Boiling Springs. In Boiling Springs we stopped at the Appalachian Trail Conference Regional Head Quarters. There wasn’t anyone there, But I looked through the register and saw that many thru-hikers I met this summer had made it that far. Very pretty country up there, not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow, I should be starting a new class. Intro to VB. I don’t have much programming experience, so it is a real blast for me to take these classes. I hope get to learn some cool stuff, what I can do now in VB is very limited.

I watched the Ravens third preseason game last night. The offense still looks a little lack luster, but they are making progress (slow but progress.) And I see a glimmer of something exciting between Kyle Boller and Kevin Johnson. They seem to be getting on the same page. And BJ Sams looked good. I think Lamont Brightful will be looking for work when the next round of cuts comes around.

The O’s won. Breaking a 12 game losing streak. I wish I had more to say but…

I am now up to 6 gmail invites. I can’t seem to give them away. So please, please let me know if you want one.

I liked The DaVinci Code so much that I bought Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. I’m most of the way through it and in a lot of ways I like it better than The DaVinci Code, of course how it ends will affect my final judgment. At any rate, I can safely say that I’m becoming a big Dan Brown fan.

We just finished our fantasy draft. I did pretty good considering that we have 12 players this year.
The Starting Line-up looks like this:

QB Marc Bulger
RB Clinton Portis
RB Stephen Davis
WR Chad Johnson
WR Charles Rogers
WR Reggie Wayne
TE Alge Crumpler
K Josh Brown
DEF Dallas

Not exciting, I know. But my running game should be solid. And Running Backs win fantasy football. I pledge (or threaten depending on your opinion) to keep you updated on the progress of my fantasy team: the Charm City Bruisers. Unless of course, I really start to suck then I might find something better to blog about.

ESPN.com - MLB - Recap

The good news is football season is almost here. 11 in a row! Yuck. It’s not like I thought they would go to the post season, but maybe at least stay above 500 and keep third place. Its all pitching … well a lot of its pitching.

Speaking of football … My fantasy draft is Sunday … stay tuned!

The Men’s Olympic basketball team is now playing for the Bronze. On the bright side US Women’s Softball and US Women’s Soccer have won the gold. And the US Women’s Basketball Team is playing for the Gold. I still haven’t watched much of the Olympics. Seems kind of pointless. I know all of the results before NBC bothers to air the events. It just seems too packaged to me.

In the NFL Preseason game apparently Eli Manning had a rough night. What’s surprising is that anyone is surprised about this. I don’t care how good he is… he’s still a rookie. And part of me (the part that bleeds purple and black) is happy to hear it. A lot of teams have rookie or second year quarterbacks right now and those teams know that the kids will have some bumps along the way. But since Eli is in the Big Apple everyone acts like he’s going to be as good as … oh just Peyton… overnight. What short memories we have. Everyone knew Peyton was gonna be good, but he’s just in the past two season’s really started to come into his own.
The Ravens face the Lions tomorrow night. Still with a weak secondary, but should be able to put on a good show. I am really looking forward to seeing Randy Hymes get some time at Wide Receiver since Travis Taylor probably won’t play. And BJ Sams will have a chance to beat out Lamont Brightful for the Return Specialist position.

Anyone want to venture I guess as to how many the O’s will drop before they break this streak. I’m scared to even think about it.

Long week at work this week. Ironic. It was only a 4 day week. It was a good week, made some progress on several projects. Also found out that our General Manger is leaving us to go to a larger division. That makes me sad, he’s a good guy and I know he has faith in my abilities. It will be fine, though, the guy taking over for him is pretty good too.

I found a great article (via onegoodmove.) It is authored by Garrison Keillor of Home prairie Companion fame. The gist of is that the Republican Party has moved from a mainstream Party in the 1950’s to the Ultra-Right wing hate machine that it is today. Of course, he says it better than I could ever dream of. He’s hit the nail right on the head. Both of my parents were raised Republican. They are registered Republicans to this day, but the party has left them behind. When they weren’t looking they became moderate Democrats, although they still resist admitting it.

My wife’s birthday was this week, also. And bonehead that I am, I didn’t realize it until after I got to work. And to make it even worse, I was kind of giving her a hard time that morning about taking care of this or that. A couple of emails and phone calls apologizing and wishing a happy birthday helped some, taking her out to dinner helped some more, getting her the laptop she has wanted didn’t hurt either. I still feel like a complete heel. We get so busy, people just shouldn’t have birthdays during the week.

I’m still feeling a little beat up from the hiking trip last weekend. I’ve been walking around real gingerly, try to keep my sore toes from making contact with my shoe. Thank goodness its the weekend and I can be shoeless or in sandals.

I still have 4 Gmail invites here that I’ willing to give away. If you are interested, leave a comment with your email address. I’ll send an email just to make sure you’re still interested (and to make sure you’re for real … I’m just funny like that.) When you reply I’ll send the invite.

Yahoo! News - Marbury Leads Dream Team Past Spain 102-94

Is it really fair to the “Dream Teams” of Olympic past to keep referring to this team as the Dream Team. First, they are not even the best of the NBA. Too many of those found reasons not to go. Second, they aren’t playing that well. Let’s simply refer to them as the US Men’s Basketball Team. If you want a dream team, check out the US Women’s Basketball Team.

AP-Bush Denounces Ads by Outside Groups

It would appear that Dubya has indeed done the right thing. Of course, I’m not going to leave it at that. I am glad that he stated publicly:

“I think Senator Kerry served admirably and he ought to be proud of his record.”

The real trick will be whether or not the noise that is associated with those ads dies down or not. I’m not going to let him of the hook with just one press conference saying the right things. He needs to use the full extent of his influence to make sure this stops. And as much as I despise this administration, I agree with the President that 527 attack ads must stop. Even those against Bush. This country will be a better place when the citizens of the United States start choosing their elected officials based on the public record and their own research, not based on what they saw in commercials, learned from emails, and heard from pundits on the TV and radio.

BTW— It is probably a good thing I am back to work tomorrow, I obviously have nothing better to do with my time.

It looks as though no one I know is interested in taking my GMail invites from me. So I’ll open it up to all of you out here in cyberspace. If anyone is interested let me know. I only have three, but I’m willing to share.

Julius Civitatus has put together a great chart showing the relationship between Bush’s Approval Ratings and release of Terror Alerts. If you haven’t seen it yet you should check it out. And while you are at it; check out the rest of his blog.

Actually, I’m sick of the conservative tactic of slinging mud in all directions and seeing what sticks. They did it for 8 years with the Clintons. And they are up to it again. Back in February, The Drudge Report claimed to have a story that John Kerry had cheated on wife with an intern and then had hid her away in Africa. It spread like wildfire over various right wing outlets. It was revealed shortly thereafter that the story was complete bunk. Now, it is the Swift Boat guys. And they are spread ridiculous lies. Of course they play on some small nuggets of truth, but their falsehoods continue to spread. Michelle Malkin tries to take these insane claims to the mainstream on MSNBC. Luckily Chris Matthews holds her to task and demands that she give a source for claiming that maybe Kerry shot himself. She does not. You’ve got to see it to believe it. (Malkin feels she was set up, decide for yourself.)

In all fairness, it does seem that Kerry’s Purple Hearts are not for the most extreme injuries. I, for one, will not question the Navy’s wisdom on how they hand out Purple Hearts. And I don’t care how small the injury is, I won’t claim to comprehend what it would be like to shot at and injured while in defense of my country.

So I’m already fired up about this and then yesterday I see this headline: “Vietnam Vet Says Has No Proof for Claim Kerry Lied” It seems to me that this whole swift boat thing is not proof that Kerry isn’t what he claims, but that it is nothing more than a bunch of guys (who either don’t like Kerry personally or don’t want him to be president) saying that they never saw a bullet hit him. I’ve never seen Barry Bonds hit a homerun either. Should we take away the records?

I don’t know if I can express in words how mad this makes me. Were there aspects of Kerry’s tour in Vietnam that were screwy? Probably, it was a screwy war. If Purple Hearts were given out more freely during that conflict, who are we to question it. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that young men were fighting a war that, increasingly, we could not win. Yet, they kept putting themselves in harm’s way. That is bravery and that is patriotism.

If it is all bunk, you might ask, where do they find all these veterans? I’d imagine it is not that hard. I’m sure many of them felt betrayed by Kerry leading Vietnam Veterans Against the War and testifying to the Congress. I have no doubt that these guys are all Republicans and fans of Dubya. Of course, the Swifties have no direct ties to Bush campaign; everyone is very clear about that. Of course, I don’t believe that for one second. And neither do you.

This brings me to my final point. Every Bush supporter I’ve spoken to goes to great length to tell me how he is a man of principle and integrity. I hope that is true. And I hope that Dubya has the integrity to call on these Swifties to stop sling mud about Kerry’s service. You don’t get to award yourself a Purple Heart (or a Silver Star or a Bronze Star.) The more the Swifties attempt to discredit Kerry the more they take away from all of the others who have served in that conflict and were awarded Purple Hearts (and Silver Stars and Bronze Stars.)

Prove me wrong Mr. President, and do the right thing.

As planned, I hiked about 23 miles on the Appalachian Trail this weekend. My father, my brother, his dog and I got on the trail at Shippensberg Rd (about 20 miles North of the Pennsylvania Line) around 9:00 AM. We hadn’t walked a mile before the rain started pouring down on us. No problems though, we’ve walked in the rain before and certainly will again. Once you get soaked it sort of doesn’t matter any more. We walked 8 miles to Pine Grove Furnace just in time for lunch. We had tasty hot sausages from the General Store. I read through the register at the store and was pleased to see that many of Thru-Hikers I had met in June, down in Shenadoah National Park, were still on the trail and had made this far: Puck Finn, Saffron, Chuggs, T-Bot, Goose, Rider and Buckeye, to name a few.

If you are not familiar with the Trail, you may find the list of names I just rattled off a bit odd. Obviously, those are not their given names, they are their “trail names.” And, of course, we have trail names, too. I christened my father, “Short Term,” on account of his tendency to block the negative parts of walk out after a couple of days. As a matter of fact, if he remembered how much its wears him out, he’d probably stop walking with us. My brother goes by “Death March.” It’s not as ominous as it sounds. It’s just that when he gets worn out he starts stomping in this determined way, and he doesn’t want stop for anything. He refers to this behavior as the Death March, so it makes a fitting trail name. My trail name has been Hawkeye, for no good reason actually. Since I was off on yet another trip in the rain, they decided to rename me the Rain King. Like its actually my fault it rains when I hike.

After Pine Grove Furnace, we passed the Official Halfway Point on the trail. 1069 miles to Springer Mountain in Georgia, 1069 miles to Mount Katahdin in Maine. (Not really, due to trail relocation and maintenance the exact distances change, but close enough.) Pretty cool, even though I haven’t walked anywhere near that far (only about 240 miles total on the trail including this weekend.)

We usually don’t walk more 13 miles in any one day, but on Saturday we went 16 miles. By the end i was ready to crawl. I was exhausted and hungry. My soaked socks had rubbed a couple of blisters in me feet and those annoying rocks in the trail had jumped up and collided with toes several times.

We finally did arrive at the Tagg Run shelter, which was very nice. No one showed up so we had the place to ourselves. After getting some food and some coffee in me, I did start to feel better, but the feet were still in rough shape, had walk gingerly around the camp.

The next day started great! After, a nice hot breakfast and some coffee we got on our way. The sun was shining, the trail wasn’t bad and everything seemed to going smoothly. As we walked further the pain in my feet got worse. After 5 miles or so we ascending a pretty good climb … about 700 feet. It was pretty steep but I pushed to top pretty quickly. Only a mile to go till our pick up point. Only one mile… It was terrible. The trail looped through and over boulder after boulder on top this ridge. At one point I slipped and fell hard catching myself with hand. It hurt bad. I do not really like complaining about it but I mean for a minute or two I was truly concern it was broken. At any rate, I got off the trail in a pretty foul mood. Which is a shame cause usually I feel better, emotionally anyhow.

If you are reading this and you have never done anything like it, you may be saying to yourself, “that doesn’t sound like much fun.” And you would be correct, it doesn’t sound like it, but there is some satisfaction to it that is more difficult to explain. Some of it has to do with the beauty of the outdoors, some of has to do with a feeling of accomplishment. That alone, however, would not be enough. I think the most compelling reason for is this. In my day to day life, I have a fair amount stress, work, kids and home, the usual. It’s not overwhelming or terrible, but it’s there. Day after day: what about the bills, is the lawn mowed, do the kids need new clothes, will the project at work be on schedule.

I can tell you this with certainty, after walking 15 miles on Saturday, I had only one thing on my mind: get me to the shelter and get these boots off. That’s it, that’s all. And there is a certain Zen simplicity to it that makes all of the negatives worth while. It’s a reminder, that most of our concerns are artificial, a product of society. And for two days my concerns were much more primitive, just food and shelter. I need that every once in while, even if it does beat me up a bit. So it won’t be long before I’m outfitting myself for my next stretch of trail.

We got Red Hat all installed and rebooted and … Nothing. Nothing at all. My wasn’t that fun. It seems that it cannot mount the boot partition. Not good. By the way, I feel a little funny talking to my kid about the OS mounting things. Next step … We may try to install Slackware, I’ve never seen it run, so it would be an experiment for me too.

This year we finished Migrating our data at work off of an old Netware server to our new shiny Dell Windows 2000 servers. This left us the question of what to do with our poor old antiquated server. I decided to adopt it. I brought it home, its really not too bad. 450 MHz Pentium II Xeon Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 SCSI Hard Drives (although I am pretty sure that 1 of them is Dead,) Redundant power supply. I decided that I would put Red Hat 9 on it. I also decidied I would have my 11 year old son help. What better to gain exposure to computers than that. Certainly better than whatever they are doing in school. Having them play educational games or run word processor on a computer and claim that they exposing the children to computers. That’s alot of what is wrong with the way computers are used today. People who run software successfully on a computer are considered computer literate. But there’s more to it than that. This is reason malicous worms can propagate by simply say click me. The clickers do not truly understand how the tool they are using day in and day out works, so they make the same mistakes again and again. It the same problem with spyware, I can’t tell you how many people I run into that have been infected with spyware and don’t even realize it. There are new toolbar in Internet Explorer, therre are new shortcuts on the desktop and they didn’t even notice it till I point it out.

Jeez! I guess I kind of went on a little rant there. The point here is that I am gong to use this oppurtunity to educate my boy, so that he does not grow up to be one of these people. And we can get a little father/son time in while we’re at it.

My tastes in movies is a little funny, I guess. I consider Pulp Fiction great but think 2Fast 2Furious is dumb and Caddyshack is funny as hell to me but I find Jim Kerry obnoxious. I’m very picky about movies so it is a treat when I find one that truly entertains me. Last night on HBO i caught Bend It Like Beckham. I thought it was very good. The simplest way to explain it may be to say that it was a cross between My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Sixteen Candles, and every sports movie ever made. If you are looking for something a little smarter than average American flick, you might want to check it out.

I have been having trouble with cable modem. Pretty much since the time I signed up for it. Of course at first I did not realize the modem was the problem. I had two computers hooked up to a SoHo router/switch and it seemed to freeze up every so often. I removed it and found that the cable modem was “locking up” every once in a while. I call the cable company … they send out a tech to give me a new modem. After a while the same thing is happenning. When the modem is up and running, it runs like a champ. But it seems to have trouble renewing the IP address somet times. I got the Cable guy out here for third time. He ran anew line directly to the modem re-terminated the cables going to the modem, the house and the connection to the tap box. So far so good, but time will tell. On the upside the cable guy gave me his cell phone number so I don’t have to go back to help desk/customer support line.

I called Eureka! yesterday and the lady there was more than happy to give me a new set of poles as a warranty item. She didn’t even want any proof of purchase from me, which confirms my suspicion that these poles tend towards this nature of defect. The only problem is that the poles are on back order till November at the earliest. I asked if it was possible to upgrade to aluminum poles. And it is. So for the small sum of 21 denarios, including shipping I will have a new set of stronger and lighter poles for my tent. Unfortunately, they won’t get here until Monday. So this weekend I’ll be taking my chances with the old poles, if tenting is necessary.

The Ravens have given Deion Sanders a deadline to decide about this comeback. So the suspense will be over soon, one way or another we will find out if Prime Time is going to be a Baltimore Raven.

After almost a week of testing, troubleshooting, phone calls, and emails we finally have the handheld units for our new software package syncing data with the database. Now we get the users testing and this project moving forward again. Yea!

I am surprised at how much I like the gmail account. I am in
the process of moving mail over to it. The interface is very nice
It’s more of a web app than a series of web pages (like Yahoo does.)
I love the keyboard shortcuts. The conversation feature I thought was
silly when I heard about, but now that I’ve seen it action I love it.
It is great way to organize my mail. Hell, this beta is more complete
than the full versions of many email clients. And to top it off, I
just got awarded three invites. I realize that by bringing up the invites I am risking people coming looking for them. I have a couple of friends who may be interested, so that’s where they’ll probably go. If I do end up with some extra’s I’ll find some way to get them out there. But don’t get your hopes up, quite yet!

I finished the DaVinci Code today. Pretty good read. I felt a bit of let down when I was done with due to all of attention it received. For me, I found it very interesting, but not as shocking as I’m sure some people did. Over the years, I’ve read about all kind of crazy secret societies and conspiracy theories. I won’t claim that I’ve heard of all the theories and stuff in the book. As a matter of fact I’d never heard of the Grail as an allegory before, but I’ve heard of enough things like this, I wasn’t surprised by any those twists. If you want hear about really wild conspiracies, then the Illuminati is your secret society. But wait — I’ve said too much. Don’t tell the Freemasons. Nonetheless, it was a good read. If you are one of three people who actually procrastinated longer than me on reading this book, Go get it and read it! It’s an enjoyable read.

Yahoo Sports NFL New charge filed against Jamal Lewis

I probably shouldn’t even comment on this piece of news, but it looks like this more a matter of changing the way they are prosecuting Jamal as opposed to some new evidence.

Only trial will bring out all the information, or at least most of it. What has been made public so far doesn’t sound that insemination. Yes, Jamal’s childhood friend is a coke head. Yes, he took a phone call from some other crackhead, who, as it turns out, was an informant at the time. And that’s it. She (the informant) did all the talking. If she would have been a cop, you’d being talk of entrapment. I can’t help but wonder if this new charge is not a move by the prosecution to get Jamal to testify agents his friend. It just doesn’t seem like there enough evidence here to found him guilty of anything.

Let’s put this in perspective. If Jamal did everything the State is accusing him of,then what he did is this: He thought about purchasing some drugs, talked to this informant about it (after she approached him,) and then he decided against it. That’s right. No drugs were even sold.

I find it hard to believe that our tax dollars are being spent on bringing charges on a prominent athlete for deciding to not buy drugs 4 years ago. Just makes my blood boil. It might be different if he was on your team, but he’s not. He’s on my team and we love him. 2066 yards last season, 2nd most ever, 295 yards in one game, most ever. Funny that the D.A didn’t notice him before those accomplishments.

Yahoo News–Iraqi Peace Mission Najaf Baghdad Blast Kills 7

I’m not paying as much attention to this as I should, I can’t help it — the whole thing just upsets me. It seems to me that the situation in Iraq is going no where. These headlines could be recycled from last month or the month before that. I can only attribute this to a lack of planning. How else can you explain the same problems happening over and over again. If this mess was being managed you’d think we would see some progress. Like I said I really don’t have enough information to say this authoritatively, but when I see headlines like that they make so mad. We are negotiating with Moqtada al-Sadr, we negotiated a truce with him this spring. Obviously, that didn’t turn out to well. So why are we negotiating with him now? Anyway, just had to get that out of my system.

Next weekend, it’s look like I’m going Backpacking. My Dad, my brother and I will walk about 20 miles on the Appalachian Trail. I’ ve been going with them and occasionally by myself for about a year and a half. You often hear about people who walk the whole length of the trail, from Maine to Georgia, or the other way around. Since, I can’t just pack up and hike for 4 or 5 months Thru-Hiking isn’t an option for me. What we are doing instead is to section hike. We walk over a weekend or once a year a whole week. We pick up the trail where we got off of it and over time we aim to hike the whole trail. It will take 10 to 15 years to get it done. I have covered almost all of the trail from the Calf Mountain at the south end of Shenadoah National Park to just a bit north of Caledonia State Park in Pennsylvania. This weekend will be working our further north past Pine Grove Furnace which is the unofficial halfway point on the trail between Georgia and Maine.
Last time I was out, I used my tent for the first time (usually I stay in a Shelter.) The tent was fine except on of the sections of the fiberglass pole was cracked. It still worked, but left the tent lopsided. So, waiting till the last minute (of course,) I started looking today for a replacement pole. I could not find an exact match, but I did find a few reviews of the tent online that indicated that this often happened with poles. I am disappointed. I am going to call Eureka! tomorrow and see about ordering a new pole. Hopefully, I can get one by Friday.

ESPN.com - NFL - Prime Time special: Deion weighs comeback

According to the Baltimore Sun and ESPN.com Deion Sanders is considering playing football Again. And the team he is eying up? The Baltimore Ravens. General Manager Ozzie Newsome and Head Coach Brian Billick are playing it safe, saying that Deion is retired and until they hear differently they have to assume he is unavailable.
I’m not sure that this is a great move for Ravens, if Deion were to actually come to Baltimore. That’s a whole lot of ego to add to a locker room that already has plenty of ego. And to put it gently, Deion is not as young as he used to be. But the bottom line is this, the Ravens have a need at nickelback. So I say, if Deion is the best player available, bring him aboard.

I’ve been reading The DaVinci Code. I’m really enjoying it so far. Besides the plot, I love the fact each is just a few pages long so I can read a chapter here and then whenever I have a few minutes. Of course, I think my wife is getting a little pissed that every time she’s looking for me, she finds me attached to that book.

I found an interesting chart showing the relationship between the terror alerts and Bush’s approval ratings. Of course not all terror alerts are politically motivated, but it does seem that in some cases the Bush Administration has used them for its own purposes. Many of the comments to those post seem to get bogged down in details, but I think the thing to take from this is that the administrations has repeatedly acted in its own interests (and not those of this country.) Many are happy to point to Clinton bombing Sudan during his testimony to Starr commission, and maybe that was a distraction tactic, but it was also a strike against a legitimate terrorist target. The timing can be questioned, but not the actions. With Bush, often times are there no actions, just vague threats.

This morning I helped my dad down a tree and cut it up. It was already leaning pretty badly and he figures better to get it down than to have this left over hurricane weather that is due to come through tonight knock it down. He took it down by himself this morning but as it fell it go t hung up in another tree. The end result being a large tree hanging about 15 feet above the ground across his driveway. It took some work but my brother and I helped him get it down. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning, but I was help to help.

I bought Young Frankenstien on DVD last night. My wife had never seen it so we put it in. I’m not sure that she actually liked it, she fell asleep about 30 minutes in. I still think its funny.

Here is my analysis of the Ravens first preseason contest. I know .. its not like anyone wants to hear that… I mean most Ravens fans wouldn’t want to be bored with my analysis. But that is why I have a blog. So I can ramble on and on about what ever my heart desires. So here it goes…
Overall the Ravens looked good. The Defense, as expected, looked great. They kept Vick quiet (for all tree snaps he was allowed) and they did not allow Atlanta to score. A shut out is a shut out … preseason or not. In particular, I was happy to see the secondary playing well even while they were playing short handed. The Offense got off to a slow start, but Kyle Boller was able to lead the on a 95 yard drive down the field that resulted in a very pretty TD pass. There are still some who can’t seem to help themselves in criticizing Boller, but I think all thing considered he looker good. I was impressed with Kevin Johnson who stretched out and grabbed a pass to keep that drive alive. The first team Offense looked to me as though it was very much missing the presence of Orlando “Zeus” Brown at Right Tackle. Ethan Brooks was filling in and got beat by defenders several times letting the Atlanta defense in the back field.
Other Notes…
I thought Kordell Stewart looked horrible. This guy has oodles of experience and he led the Steelers to playoffs in 97 and 01. And there he was making poor decisions and looking confused against a second string defense. Not only that, but when he did manage to throw a touchdown pass , he ran towards the endzone like he was going to celebrate but no one was there for him to celebrate with. If he can’t inspire those he’s on the field with he serve no do us no good as a back up quarterback if we ever need him.
If Jamal Lewis is going to miss some time this season due to his pending legal situation (I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that as the court date gets closer,) Musa Smith is going to have to step it up. He looked OK, but I hope to see significant improvement from him over the next few preseason games.
Overall, this team looks to me as though they could go deep into the postseason this year, as long as Boller continues to develop and the team stay healthy (and out of jail.)

So last night I lamented in this blog that I just wasn’t going to be able to get a gmail account. After that I cruised off to read some blogs. I stopped by buzzwords, a blog by a law student named Monica, and read the latest post there. The post was about many things including a mention of the song Girl from Ipanema and this groovy link. I love that song and felt compelled to leave a comment to that effect.
Well Todd, who keeps a blog on the same server, read my comment and followed my link back to this blog he read my entry about giving up on gmail. He commented to that and offer me an invite. And now I have gmail. Amazing, I should have given up weeks ago.
Astute readers will note that I have added links to Monica’s and Todd’s Blogs on the side bar over there. So go ahead and check them out.
I can’t help but be amazed by the way things like this come together. A funny little chain of events that led up to me getting the invite I desired. I couldn’t have planned for that to work if I wanted to. I must have built up some good karma somewhere along the way.

baltimoresun.com - O’s remain in zone out West, win 8th in row

Go O’s!! The lowly Orioles… owners of 4th place in the AL East for 4 straight years … the team with no real pitchers … Sydney Ponson an ace … hah … playing in the shadow of the Red Sox and the Mighty Yankees … those O’s have won 8 in a row and are heading for a respectable 500 record.
They aren’t likely see the wild card race, but it is nice that they are playing like a Big League Team. For the first time since May, I’m excited about baseball. Melvin Mora and Miguel Tejada are playing extremely well and the pitching is improving. People are talking about the O’s and in Baltimore that’s hard to do this time of year. Usually the Ravens steal the show and the O’ plod to mediocrity. This is a nice change. I can handle having two winning teams in town. I hope it turns out that way.

I hated that assignment when I was a kid. You know the one where you had to write a short paper about what you had done over the summer. I never felt like I had anything to write about. Or perhaps, more accurately, I had plenty to say, but I wasn’t able to break it down to a simple paragraph. Now look at me. I can’t help myself, I write down all kinds of stuff (so to speak.) I still think of this as writing although I’ve abandoned paper and pencil completely.

Anyway, on with my vacation or at least part of it. We took the kids and two of my nieces to Skyline Caverns in Front Royal, Va. I was very disappointed, actually. My parents had taken us to Luray Caverns when I was a kid and we loved it. We should have gone there but we opted for trying someplace that none of us had been to before.

The kids did have fun, and that’s what really counts. The tour guide was a dead ringer for Harry Potter, it was amazing. I kept looking at him and expecting to see that the resembance wasn’t as strong as I thought at first. But to the contrary, the longer the tour went on the more his appearance and mannerisms begged the comparison. Unfortunately, Harry Potter seems to much better at Quidditch than he is at guiding tours. There were some cool things to see, but it seemed that we walked by some incredible formations without a chance to look at them, much less get any information. I know I’m just a big nerd, but it seemed like they were trying too hard to make the cavern seem fun. I think just being in the cave and seeing these geological formations was pretty fun. There is no need to make into a carnival. In the next chamber you’ll be amazed to see … and so on and so forth. In one chamber they actually had a pre-recorded spiel about how man had built over all God’s creations above earth, but down here the Creators work was here in all of it glory. Please! It was very cheesy and it sounded like it was recorded in the 60’s.

In the gift shop, however, I found a very cool chess board and pieces. All made out of stone (soapstone, maybe) the black has white marbled through it and the white has pinkish red marbled through it. It was only $50 dollars, which is a good price for a nice chess board. So I bought it and am very glad I did. It has been given a prominent place on the coffee table in the living room. And we’ve actually been playing a fair amount. I hope that keeps up. A good game of chess beats TV any day.

That’s right. I’m done trying. I’ve posted several potential trades on gmailswap.com I’ve tried my luck on geevite.com. I begged and pleaded with several people whom I’ve never actually met. I even went so far as to sign up for a credit card I don’t need through some free ipod scam, in the belief that the guy I did that for would give me an invite. He did not. He claimed it expired. Whether or not it really did, it has just shown me that its just not worth it. I think GMail is going to go live very soon, and once that happens it won’t have nearly so much appeal to me. I mean I’ve been doing free email since Yahoo first started doing it. Its not that its free or that it has a 1 GB limit that intrigues me. It is simply the fact that it is not publicly available. I love to get in on things like this before “everyone” does. But the chances of that look increasingly slim, so I give up. It is pathetic the amount of time and energy I have put it to that anyway, so I’ll have to move on to some new distraction… hmm well it is about time for fantasy football.

Stupid Bagle Virus or Beagle (depending on whom you ask.) The latest version was discovered around 11:30 am yesterday. By 3:00 pm, one of my users could not resist clicking and had got himself infected. Symantec did not have definitions available until some time after 6:00 pm. Needless to say, this left us a little vulnerable. To make things worse, Trend Micro, who corporate would have had us switched over to already, had definitions available around 4:00 pm. So, there was a tad of political pressure to make sure this was contained. I was able to delete the files manually from the computers I knew where infected. What a pain. By noon today, I had everything scanned and confirmed as clean. Only three people had been foolish enough to click on the price.zip files that were attached to the incoming emails — all three of them are senior managers. Just goes to show.

Well, I have returned from vacation. A week away and really I don’t feel recharged at all. I’m sure I feel the difference at work tomorrow. Sometimes, I think I’ll never get enough down to really feel full of energy again.
Vacation was good did some fishing. I didn’t catch any keepers, but son caught two (which really was just as fun as if I caught them.) He even cleaned the second one, with only a little trauma. Did some reading. Got almost finished with the tenth book in Wheel of Time series. I enjoyed it, But I’m not sure if the series will ever end. Is it an Epic Story or a fantasy styled soap opera, As the Dragon Reborn turns?
Tomorrow, its back to work, and I almost dread to find out where all of our projects stand or what crises may have popped up.
Got too much on mind now to try to get it all out now. I will do my best to get my thoughts in to some posts through the next week.

Tonight I am on my way for a week of fishing, swimming, reading and relaxing. Ahh… sounds good doesn’t it. With any luck I will, I will shake this cold. The only thing worse than going to work sick is going on vacation sick. Anyhow … I just bought the DaVinci Code, and I will read it over the course of the week. If it is as good as everyone says it is, I suppose I will add my opinion about it here.

Which reminds me, I signed up for that Amazon Associates thing and put some links to books I have enjoyed. I find it highly unlikey that I will make one red cent off of this, but if someone would happen to want to buy a book cause of my recommendation … Cool.

A couple of thoughts before I go on vacation:

I keep reading about how John Kerry is too stiff and not engaging and “seems to require endless, occasionally tiresome explication” Newsweek 8/2/04
I can’ t believe that we are worrying about this stuff in a president. I don’t want this guy to be my best friend, I want him to lead. The fact that he can explain himself is a plus for me. Quite a change from the utter lack of real substance with the current administration.

Training camps have started across the NFL. I can’t wait for the season to start. Go Ravens!

I’m not really much of a fisherman. So I have been reading up some of the tricks of the trade. The ironic thing about that is .. I don’t really like to eat fish. If I actually catch something worth keeping I’ll have a dilemma about what to do. I know I could always catch and release … but part of the problem with being not a very good fisherman is I usually hook them in an ugly way. So I don’t have much confidence in its survival if I were to release it.

The Olympics are coming and I don’t really care. That’s terrible, and I know it. Maybe once I actually start watching the events (I’ll probably watch) then I’ll care. It just seems like everything about these games is negative. NBA players feeling too self important to represent their country. Marion Jones Doping allegations. The only positives I have heard are about Michael Phelps.

Well, I’m sure I’ll have some thoughts to post from vacation. And hopefully, I’ll get to really unwind.