It does appear that some measure of sanity has been brought into the Abraham Cherrix case which you can read about HERE. I still find it most disturbing (as does my friend Paul at Josiah Project) that after he is done fighting all these legal issues he still has to fight cancer. What a stupid thing this is! What gives anyone the right to tell this young man how he shall treat his cancer?

It’s so irritating to wreck a new car… well, new to us anyway! It was a three car accident, the area of Franklin I was in can be pretty congested, and so it was yesterday afternoon. I stopped behind a long line of cars… The guy behind me stopped… The guy behind him DID NOT!!!

I heard the screeching tires, by the time I heard him hit the car behind me I had sat back in my seat and squeezed the brakes as hard as I could. I figured it would be nice to keep from hitting the car in front of me, I didn’t want to involve more cars than I had to. I came pretty close to hitting him, but was shy by a couple of inches. I pulled over, and thankfully so did both of the others involved. The damage to my car wasn’t horrible, but enough to make me want to fix it. The bumper has a big nice dent in it, the reflective piece that runs along the back of the trunk is cracked and busted in a couple of places, something is wrong with the driver side rear light, and the trunk no longer seals properly as the trunk lid is bowed upward in the middle!

I can say however, that I’m thankful no one was hurt.

Can someone please tell me what right the state has in telling someone what treatment for an illness they can or cannot accept? The state has no right here! This is not the states jurisdiction. The state’s job as defined biblically is to punish the evildoer. We are told in the bible the government bears a sword to punish the evildoer, yet this doesn’t look like a very good use of the sword to me! I’m talking of Abraham Cherrix!

For a great take on this issue please look at my friend Paul’s POST on his blog Josiah Project about it.

It occurs to me that the grass grows the most at the hotest time of the year. Since I was so busy, and it was so hot, I got about 2 1/2 weeks behind on mowing the lawn. I might add that my lawn is a little over twice the size of the average lawn. I think I sweat out about two gallons of water this evening (I might be exagerating) and I only mowed half of it. Why can’t the grass grow more when it’s cooler out?

So it appears that Google is taking over the world, and I don’t think I am doing anything to stop it either. I use Google’s Gmail, Firefox with Google Browser Sync, Google Chat, Google Reader for RSS and Atom feeds, Google’s personalized home page associated with my gmail account, and of course I use Google’s search engine exclusively. It would be very hard for me not to use Google’s FREE services. Here’s what I like about each of the services:

Gmail
I use Gmail for all my email because you can now send from any of your email addresses using Google’s webmail, a VERY awesome feature! So now, by having all of my email forward to my Gmail inbox, and setting up all my addresses to be able to send from Gmail, I can go to one interface (a very nice, easy to use interface) for all my email needs when I am away from my laptop, and therefore away from my software based email client. In short, Gmail is great, well thought out, and very user friendly!

Google Browser Sync
I used to use Safari almost exclusively, but there are a bunch of plugins not available for Safari that are available for Firefox. But when I discovered Google Browser Sync, it pushed me over the edge and made me switch! Google Browser Sync does more than just sync your bookmarks across computers, it syncs cookies, preferences, passwords, and if you set it to do so, it can even sync open sessions complete with tabs! The only improvement I would make is to make the bookmarks accessible through their web based bookmark utility (which I don’t currently use because it isn’t integrated), that way when I am not at one of my own computers I could still access my bookmarks.

Google Chat
Google Chat is of the jabber protocol and can therefore connect to all my other chat mediums through transports which is the main reason I use it. It is associated with my Gmail account as are most other services for Google.

Google Reader
I had been using Safari for RSS feeds, but again the problem with this was the feeds were only available to me on one machine, or rather the status of my feeds. Google reader is an online utility and works great. It is also associated with my Gmail account.

Google’s Personalized Home Page
Here’s the beauty, I have my Gmail inbox, Google Reader, Netflix, Weather and several other things all summarized on my Google Personalized Home page. It really is great. Can you guess? It is associated with my Gmail account.

Google’s Search Engine
I like Google’s Search Engine because it seems like they are the best at turning up what I am looking for.

Should all this be cause for alarm? Does Google have us right where they want us? Well sort of, but there is nothing forcing us to use their services. And while life wouldn’t be as easy without them, I personally would still be able to live life without Google. I choose to use Google because they make my life easier. I can understand the concern that some people have about Google, but at this point I’m just not buying it. One of the arguments is that Google is tracking everything I do. Well sort of… They can track what websites I go to from their site via what links I click on in their search. So? I’m not doing anything illegal! If I’m using their service, there is nothing wrong with them tracking how I use it! Every other website on the planet monitors what links you click on their site, why should it be any different with Google?

Anyway, I’m not planning on terminating my use of Google because it makes my life easier.

I may be a Mac head, but I still have one PC. It is a desktop machine, 2.0 GHz Celeron w/512 Megs of RAM, 2002 model HP Pavilion. I bought this computer before I knew much about Macs (yes I’m a relatively recent convert to Macs), I was planning on using it for my audio recording, which I did a little bit. I have an interesting history with this computer:

I buy the computer, proudly bring it home… plug it in, hook it up, press the power button. Commence Windows XP’s, “Wait while I make you wait for the first time startup waiting period.” (Windows was pre-installed you see… Windows XP HOME ugh). Stupid Bill! About the time you loose interest in computers alltogether (because you are now an elderly person in a wheelchair by the time XP decides to greet you for the first time) it finally gets to the set up process. The little round ball starts talking to me in the form of comic strip type bubbles!?! Go away little round ball, I want to use my computer. Stupid Bill! Spend 5 minutes telling Micro$oft how I want my compy set up. More waiting..............................................................................................

If you ever set up XP for the first time you know what the dots mean… a succession of them across the screen make you think that when they get to the other side of the screen it will be done and you can now use your desktop… WRONG. When the dots get to the other side of the screen, they drop down a line and keep going! Stupid Bill!

Finally they reach the middle of the second line, then I see the desktop. Now mind you that I still can’t use the computer for 2 more minutes while it chugs away doing something! Stupid Bill!

Begin Standard Windows challenges. I want to print using my HP Deskjet. The CD says plainly on it, do not connect printer until you have inserted the CD and installed the printer driver. I insert the CD, it starts installing, it tells me exactly when to connect the USB cable, I follow all instructions to the letter. Print one test page… Now I’m ready for action right? NOPE! So I open my Word document, click print, and watch while Windows wonders out somewhere to sit under a tree and take a nap (or thumb its nose at me I’m not sure which). In other words, Windows locks up stone cold! This is a new computer, just turned it on for the first time! I shouldn’t have to hard kill the stupid thing! Stupid somebody (Not sure this one is actually on Bill). Restart the computer, expected Windows to gripe at me about an improper shutdown. Nope, didn’t do it. It just started right up. Can Bill actually do just one thing right? And like the oaf that I am, I try printing again. Same thing happens. This time, I uninstall the printer and re-install it. Same thing again! This is getting old! Call HP support. “We can’t help you!” “We don’t like you” “Who cares” Etc. etc. I hate tech support people!

Finally talk to someone who KNOWS SOMETHING! They say, what OS are you using. Says I, “Windows XP.” Says they, “O, just plug in the USB port, Windows has it’s own driver and will install it automatically. Installing the driver from the CD was causing some sort of conflit.” I’ll say it was. Gee Thanks!” So, I go plug in the printer’s USB cable, and presto, it works like a charm. That’s the last time I ever follow instructions. I knew the male instinct was right all along!

Next day, I’m messing with some sound stuff. I go the Windows Explorer for some reason I can’t recall, but I do recall the warning message I saw shortly thereafter. It says, are you sure you want to delete such and such file. I told XP I was absolutely not sure since I had made no deletion request. Screen goes black. Can still move my mouse. That’s it? I can mouse over a black screen? This is what I paid for? Hard kill! Restart… “Windows cannot start because such and such file is missing.” (the one I told it not to delete I’m guessing). Stupid, stupid, STUPID BILL!

Friend has a copy of Windows 2000 he’s not using (He’s a Microsoft programer and he had several more licenses than he was using). I used that for a while and hated it. It was ugly and had no multi-media features (2000 is a business OS you know). Stupid Bill!

Service Pack 1 is released. One month thereafter I go back to XP. This time, I bought a copy of XP Pro (no more of this Home user garbage says I.) XP Pro worked okay for about 3 months. Started getting slow and sluggish. I can’t have that, I’m trying to do audio. Backup files, fresh re-install. 3 more months, same thing. This is supposed to be better than 98? (well okay so it is, that doesn’t make it good though!) Stupid Bill!

Buy a Mac, Powerbook G4, 1.33 GHz, 768 Megs of RAM. Hello lovely, beautiful OS X. Get my laptop out of the package, press the power button. One minute later I’m looking at the, “Give me your info screen.” This is good, that didn’t take long at all. 2 minutes later I’m looking at my desktop, READY TO USE! Thank you Steve! (I’m still using that same laptop to type this post at 2 years old).

So now I have this computer that I want to make use of somehow. It sits for quite a while, but finally I re-install Windows and make it a network storage server and music server (Via iTunes). Long story short, I re-installed twice since that time. This last time I re-installed was about 2 months ago. A couple of weeks ago I got it a virus that I could not get rid of. I’ve had enough, I downloaded PCLinuxOS and installed it on the PC. It’s taking a little time to get used to, but it’s much more stable and more usable than Windows save that I have not yet cracked how to serve music over my network with it yet. I have been unable to get iTunes to run on it VIA WINE yet (WINE is supposed to allow you to run Windows programs on Linux). But I’m sure I will crack it soon! While Linux has a way to go to be anywhere near as good as OS X, it’s a far better OS than Windows. May my Windoze days be over FOREVER!