So last night and this morning I spent a couple of hours and hammered out a very basic bit of blogging software using HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. It doesn't do comments (yet) and doesn't do searches, but it suits my needs as a way to get fresh content out to my friends, family, and internet stumblers that happen across it.

So, off you go now: KBlog 0.1 awaits!

When we picked out paint colors for our house we were worn out from our renovation, so we generally went we "safe" colors. Well, "safe" can mean "drab". I've never felt that we managed to get enough color in our new bedroom to give it life, so I suggested we repaint. I was thinking about a tuscan red of some sort. Elizabeth was game, so we grabbed some swatches and stuck them on the wall for a week.

None of the earthy colors worked at all, but Elizabeth had thrown in a few others that caught her eye. Among them was the color we chose: lupin. Easy choice (you can always paint over a bad selection!), so we bought two gallons and a couple of fresh rollers and brushes, and I set to work bright and early Saturday morning with a little help from my daughter.

It took most of yesterday, and much of today, but here are the results. With our furniture and prints it gives the room a Caribbean feel (perfect!), but the color of lupin blooms with our spruce-colored winter down comforter should make it feel like a cozy bit of Maine in the winter months. It's exactly what I was hoping it would be. In fact, I think by repainting it with a bit more personality, I finally feel a real sense of belonging in our room. I'll sleep well tonight -- but that might just be due to all the work!

I especially like his "On the Shoulders of Giants" series.

While I'm here, let me point you over for more Tikitastic Stuff from Konakai.com. See where watching Tiki Bar TV gets you?

We took off Thursday and Friday of last week as a prolonged anniversary celebration. What did we do? EVERYTHING WE COULD THINK TO DO!

Wednesday evening we had dinner with our friend, Katie (who is of Irish descent) over at WB Yeats Irish Pub. Tasty! If you get lucky, the bartender there will be the one that draws shamrocks in the head on your Guinness. From there we decided to try East End Martini Bar on Franklin Street. Good drinks, hip styling and hip staff, but the music is more dance hall volume than martini bar. I'm not saying loud music is bad (I'm guilty enough of that!): I'm just saying you have to hit the right volume for the venue. In a martini bar it should provide background without masking the snatches of conversation around you (much less your own!). LOUD music is for dance clubs where it makes people move in very close to one another. In any case, though, we had fun there!

Thursday was a day trip to the beach (Wrightsville). It's the beach: of COURSE we had fun. Stopped by a Smithfield's on the way back for tasty and cheap BBQ. Yum...

Friday we started with an adventurous, hot, sweaty Geocaching hike (what did you THINK I was going to say?). Yeesh. It's not that kind of blog! Found the cache, found some chiggers. Such lovely little creatures!

Friday afternoon we drove to Greensboro to an indoor shooting range and shot fancy handguns. I'd never fired a handgun before, and Elizabeth had only shot her dad's revolver years ago, so it was a cool experience. We brought back our bullet-ridden target as a memento, named him "Steve the Stiff", and put him up temporarily on the wall. I figure if anyone tries to rob our house they'll see Steve and decide there MUST be a better place to hit down the street!

After burning through 150 rounds of ammo, we drove over to Grove Winery, sampled their offerings, discussed the merits of various oaks for barrels, and toured their facility. A bit of a varied day, no?

Saturday was a putter-around-the-house day until that evening when we went to our favorite French restaurant (Provence). I can't believe we have such a great place so close to home! We're just luckly that way!

Sunday was the day after our anniversary, so we went back to a bit more normal middle-class American lifestyle and went grocery shopping and steam-cleaned the carpet in our daughter's room. Anti-climactic? Perhaps, but after all we'd done, we were just about celebrated out!

Then again, July 4th is just around the corner... is that a second wind I feel coming on???

http://www.wikimapia.org/

We'll also be doing some individual site design, though. This morning we finally finished the first such site: an 11 page layout for Elizabeth's dad's vacation rentals. You can check out the site and the cabins over at Winkler's Creek Cabins.

Step by step! Starting a business takes a long time to get it off the ground.

See for yourself.

I'm not saying you should expect great fiscal responsibility from the Democrats, either, but the Republicans need to put up or shut up. Controlling spending? Who? Where? All I've seen in the past few years is a government grown bloated and corrupt with massive diversions of public funds into the pockets of private contractors and perks for politicians while one bill after another is introduced to protect the profits of large corporate benefactors at the expense of the pocketbooks and rights of American citizens.

In any case, we couldn't wait the weeks it would take to get it repaired, so we bit the bullet and bought a new MacBook.

Side note: Some of you that know me as a Sysadmin might be surprised by that fact that we're a Mac family. What would really surprise you is the number of people that work on Windows professionally that won't touch the thing at home. OS X just has more functionality for the power user (like built-in ssh, perl, apache, bash, ftpd, and on and on and on) along with a great user interface and application suite that just work.

Anyway, my review after the jump...

In Soviet Russia, the government owned the corporations. In modern America, the reverse is true.

As I watch our intellectual property laws become more and more regressive in hopes of protecting corporate profits for companies that can't figure out how to compete in a changing world, I realize that our patent and copyright law has become exactly the failure Thomas Jefferson warned it might.

Our democracy has been undermined by two dreadful rulings in our courts:

1 - That corporations are people in the eyes of the law and enjoy all the rights thereof.
2 - That the spending of money is free speech.

Bull on both counts.

Corporations are legal entities whose right to exist stops when they act contrary to the public good. They have the right to try to make a profit, but not if they do so in a way that makes our undermines our common best interests.

Money is not speech. That ruling is nothing but a clever tactic to quiet our voices by letting those with wealth control our elections by controlling campaign finance.

Kevin's simple guide to election reform:

1 - If you can't vote, you can't fund campaigns, parties, or PAC's. Donations from citizens only.
2 - You can't provide funds to candidates for whom you can't vote (i.e.: if you live in NC, you can't donate to a California senate candidate). That's their election for their representation, not yours.
3 - No corporation or individual can fund perks for politicians: no junkets, no fancy meals, no "educational travel".
4 - No politician can become a paid lobbyist upon leaving office. Serving our country is a privilege, not a cash cow.

We seriously need to get the corporations out of the process of running our country. I'm not a consumer, I'm a citizen.

"New technologies will change how we live and how we drive our cars which all will have the beneficial effect of improving the environment," Bush said. "And in my judgment we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and at the same time protect the enviroment."

Dear Mr. President:

1 - Not all technological changes lead to an ever-improving environment. In fact, it takes a lot of active effort to make sure that new technologies do as little harm as possible. It doesn't just happen.

2 - We know the rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere are caused by human activity. I think you must have been trying to discuss global warming and not greenhouse gas concentrations. However, that has also been a dead-and-buried debate except for a few folks such as yourself as the scientific consensus is wide and deep. You are also wrong as to whether or not it matters. It matters because the most effective and cost-effective method of protecting our environment is dependent on understanding the causes of global climate change.

3 - "focus on technologies" What does that mean? Does that mean you now support higher CAFE standards and requiring the installation of technology to reduce the generation of greenhouse gases during manufacturing? What about requiring higher energy efficiency in homes and home appliances to decrease electricity consumption? What about better mass transit? These are technologies that do exactly what you describe: they improve our lives while reducing pollution. Unfortunately, these are steps that you have never shown interest in taking.

It's nice to see you addressing the issue, but you need to address with more than simple platitudes devoid of any vision or strategy. Some leadership of some form, perhaps?

1. Network Systems and Data Communications Analyst
2. Physician Assistant
3. Computer Software Engineer, Applications
4. Computer Software Engineer, Systems Software
5. Network and Computer Systems Administrator
6. Database Administrator

Cool... I have expertise in numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, with number 5 being my "official" current position.

Maybe Governor Easley will wake up and raise university salaries a bit since they are woefully out of line with the industry? Nah, he'll wait until everyone with real expertise leaves for greener pastures and will then farm it out to the private sector as a huge hand-out to industry. The taxpayers will pay for the higher salaries AND a profit margin to the private companies that will take over. Of course, the private sector will be more efficient, so maybe it'll be a wash for the taxpayer, though our universities will have to live without immediate onsite service (instead they'll have to call in their contractor), which has its own costs.

FYI: the problem with carbon dioxide isn't its presence in the atmosphere, but the quantity we have added from the use of fossil fuels.

Does anyone ever fact check anymore?

The Times is running a story on it on the front page of the website in the top news. From the article:

A minor traffic accident involving Representative Patrick J. Kennedy caused a major stir today as questions arose about the congressman's condition at the time of the mishap and the treatment accorded him by the Capitol police afterward.

But CNN reported today that a police report said Mr. Kennedy had been drinking, and that his ability was impaired. The police report attributed the accident to speed and alcohol influence, driving on the wrong side of the street and inattention by the driver, according to CNN.

It goes on to cover the burgeoning scandal in detail. Where's the frigg'n cover-up?

Of course, blogging from the left of the spectrum isn't much better: Raw Story has a story that spins a principal's refusal to allow an elementary school student to perform "Dear Mr. President" by Pink at the school talent show as being an infringement of rights to political free speech. Of course, the lyrics contain words inappropriate for elementary school performances, drug and alcohol references, and address issues that many parents would rather not have their kindergarten children dealing with at school.

Considering how many real issues we face, is it really necessary for bloggers left or right to be beating war drums for silly or imaginary reasons? The level of discourse in this country is low enough already.

Glad our CongressCritters have all our more pressing problems solved...

Tiki Bar TV follows the adventures of Dr. Tiki, La La and Johnny Johnny as they hang about their in-home tiki bar. Episodes 9 and 10 are my personal faves. I think you could make a great party theme centered around this vodcast.