Next week is going to be fun, we are hosting naacsos here at cmu, and the casos programmers get to be the tech support. I will have to come in at 7am and stay til 6pm, oh the great joy of it, oh well, I do like my job as a programmer, so I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

Of cource I might be insain, I do enjoy debugging, I deffy you to find another programmer that like to do debugging, I really like trying to break programs, even when they are mine.

Well last week I did it I got a better bike (I know some were advising against a Hybrid, but I ended up with a Hybrid) the Raleigh c40, 24 speeds, it is nice, I got it at Bike Tek a nice local bike shop. Well I was going to give my old cheap-o bike to the Parish Pastor at my church, but a part had fallen off, so we went over to walmart (where I got the old cheap-o bike 1 month ago) and they could not get us the part, but what they said what they would do is to take the bike back and refund the money.

Well that night My pastor and I ended up over at biketek again, and he got the Raleigh sc40 (still a hybrid, but closer to a mounten bike then my c40, mine is closer to a road bike then his)

Now at my church we got 4 people that just got new bike (read in the last 2 months) first the Assosiate Pastor and his wife, both got Raleigh c30, then I got my cheap-o bike, then last week had to get a new bike the c40, and the Parish Pastor got the sc40 yesterday. This prompted his eldest daughter and eldest son to pull out their bikes from the basement, so after Pastor and I gave his new bike a test ride around the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, we returned to repair his kids' bikes, and clean them up a bit. 2 other people at the church have bikes too, they got them 2 years ago, but have not used them much since them, Mike F. brock his collor bone shortly after getting them, and now they are starting to ride again. Plus since we have a campus ministry to the 5 (or is it 6) collages in the area, we could see more people biking to church in the fall.

Now the only problem we are having is more and more people are starting to bring their bikes to church (comuting) and we think we should provide a bike rack, we have found that biketek can get us a 6 bike, bike rack for $90, does any one know if we can get cheaper but still have something people can not steal easy price must include shipping the church does not have alot of money and we would like to save some if we can? Right now we have to watch where people put their bikes, not because of posable theft but some times people might lock it to a stair ralling, but if they do this presents a danger to the blind people that come to our church, so right now are keeping an eye where people are locking them, we are incorging them to take them behind the church and lock it to the fence.

You can see a pic of me and the new bike here also you can see all the pics I been taking around Pittsburgh

Ok 3 weeks ago I got a cheap bike to see if I would like biking or not, well the anser is I LOVE biking. But now my problem is that since I got a cheap bike, I am at the limit of what it can do. So my question to all my friends, friends of friends, and maybe foes, what should I look for in a good bike, what price should I expect to pay, I have heared from 250 to 450, yes I am looking at new. I am looking at this place www.biketek.com (they have 2 stores here in pittsburgh) also do you know of a on-line store that would be cheaper (including shipping, I am thinking this is not posable but I am willing to look)

Thanks to any one that respond

Why is it wene people find I am on a diet they just have to tell me about thier favorit fad diet, and say you must try it. And they will not take no for an anser. Admitdly I am doing it the old fashion way, cut the cals, and work out. (The diet part will only be temp, but I know the exercise will have to continue for the rest of my life, unless I want to gain the weight back)

But why do people fell they need to convince you to do some fad diet, I am tired of hearing about the ackens, south beach, glucos index, and wilcons diet. I don't want to do a fad diet, it is called a fad deit for a reason, it is only a passing fad.

I saw the Passion last night; it is a very strong and moving movie. I would recommend any one over the age of 17 should go see it (unless you have a very weak stomach). As for children under 14 I would strongly recommend against taking them to see the movie, it is extremely violent, and for teens between 14 and 17 only the parent can tell. I will be going again on Friday; I kept flinching during the beating of Christ. And to think it was my sins that Christ having to go to the cross.

Submited this story. but I was wondering what others think here
(well it been rejected
2004-02-03 16:37:42 slashdoted sites vs googled sites (askslashdot,internet) (rejected) oh well )

I found this page while looking at google's fractals search.
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/quaternionjulia/
Now my question is the same question they have at the end of the page Question: Should Google ask permission before potentially sending huge traffic loads to a single page/server?

Well this is an odd day for me, this morning I hear this "THUD", it sounded to me like a very large newspaper hitting the ground outside of my door. When I say very large I mean about a double to triple size sunday paper. I just ignore it at the time. When I leave the house this morrning I see a yellow tape around the elevator shaft, odd but I think nothing of it. Well when I get to work my mom calls to see if I am ok, she saw on the news that a 20 some guy fell down the elevator shaft in my apt complex. Well I started to add and figure I might have heard the guy land, and the yellow tape now make sence to me as to why.

The odd thing is I still doubt the Thud I heard was the guy landing, because I think it should sound a bit more wet. But it not like I heard people die before.

UPDATE: As you will see in one of the posts the guy apperantly did live (Thank God, but ouch still to fall like that) I still don't like the fact that I heard it.

Yet another update: I talked to the land manager and found that the news had it wrong again, he did not have his arm amputated, that got there because when the police were removing him the talked about how it might need to be, but it turned out that he did not need it amputated. He is going to walk away in about a month or 2 with no lasting amputated, I must say that he is one of the luckest guys alive.

the news story I am talking about is here, and was posted by my friend jason for me

Its that time of the year for the people that like to be ahead of the game (yes guessed it it timre for the early filers to file their tax returns) And this year I hope to bee on of the ones that file before the end of Jan, that way it is out of the way and done. I pretty much have it done now, all that is left is to mail the dame forms to the SOB's (aka the irs.) But as I was looking around to see if there are any resources I can use to lower my taxes a bit, I find this interesting commentary
I wish they would go flat tax, I am very pissed this year, for a time last year I work 3 jobs, and finally got a new job that pays well, and what do I get in return, I get instead of 10% tax and $400 refund, I get 15% and no refund. Who ever though of this shit called the graduated taxes should be shot then burned.

What I think would be a fun to get all the files of slashdot, aka all the old articles and their comments from the beginning. It could be interesting to see how the geek culture has change over time, and what people cared about over the years. What people though was the new hot tech and how it really did. This could be an interesting field of study.

Update Jan 14

DumbSwede had an intersting entry in hi Journal about the same thing see http://slashdot.org/~DumbSwede/journal/57963

This has not been a good weekend for me, it all started on firday when my debit card eather got losted or stolen. I hope only losted, and now my tolit in my appartment back fushed, I have reported the problem 3 times, it is when some one else flushes it comes out my tolet, the problem was I just did laundray recently and all my clean cloths were in a cloth bag in my bathroom witch was completly flooded, now I have to spend another 2 hours up so I can have cloths for tomorrow, well atlest cloths that will not smell like shit (litrualy) it is now 1:30 am for me, and I have to be up at 5:30 to help clear the snow from the parking lot at my church. and I have plans from 5:30am till atlest 8pm tomorrow (our should I say today, I tired I only got 5 hours sleep last night)

Oh well I should not worry to much, there are probably people that have much worse situations then I.

I have had my iBook for about a day now, I have found it it to be instantly usefull. The isync program is good for my new cell phone ( a sony ericsson T610 ), I do not think that it is good for use with a palm pilot, but it is excelent with the cell phone.

It has also helped me save my mp3's from a dieing Archos Jukebox. I am trying to see if I can save the device now, but I am not all that hopefull.

I have also started to play and work with the unix core of OS X. It has all that I need for my job, cvs, gcc, gdb, and emacs, I am only having some problems with getting gnuplot working. But I am sure that it will be in place soon, this is panther, so there has not been much time since it came out to get things all running the way one would hope. All in all, I think OS X is a fine OS, I still like my Linux better, but I could easly become a Mac advocite because such a small % of the pop could even understand what they need to know to even think about linux, so Mac is a beautiful blend of Unix power, and an easy to use GUI.

One of my office mates is now thinking of getting an iBook now that I have one. It has been so long since I been on the edge of tech, but now that I got this new job, I can be that again.

lets see what have I gotten since I got this job, a sony ericssson t610 bluetooth phone, and headset, and an iBook. This is fun.

And I am hopeing to get an iPod soon, I have hinted at that to my parents, and when they asked what I wanted for Christmas that was the only thing on my list, but even if they don't get it for me no big deal. I can get it in jan, and Christmas is not about things, I am just going to be happy that for the first time in 2 years I will have Christmas off, ane I plan on spending it with my family, my brother is comming in from Portland, and my sister is comming in from Austria. so it is going to be fun.

Well later to any one that read this far and hope you have a safe and happy Christmas, and New Years.

I finally got tired of sprint promising a CDMA bluetooth cell phone, which they have been saying is coming "soon" for the last 8 months see this page, so since they now have the wireless number portability laws in effect I am going over to a GSM carrier, T-Mobile, and ditching sprint. I got the Sony Ericsson T610. I got the phone for free, unless you count the cost of leaving sprint before my contract is up but that is only $150 and well worth it to get a bluetooth cell phone.

This will be nice, I have had bluetooth on my laptop and my palm pilot for the last 10 months now, finally my cell phone is catching up with my other stuff. I have also ordered a bluetooth ear mic for it, so I probably will never have to touch the phone for a call, dial from the palm talk on the ear mic, and then surf the web on the palm after the call.

I am still just wanting for the number to be moved over from sprint to t-mobil, I bought the phone on Friday the 28 at 8pm and here it is Saturday 11pm. They said it could take as long as 72 hours to port the number, I figure it will take the full 72 hours, because sprint will want to make it as painful to leave as they can, but I am willing to want the full time I need to. But for now I still have to use the sprint phone till the number gets ported.

I also like the idea of the SIMM card being activated and not the phone, so in the future if I ever want a different cell phone I just have to put the SIMM in the new phone and not have to deal with activating the phone or the related cost, with sprint (and verzion) you have to activate the phone there is not jumping from phone to phone easily.

Update: Monday Dec 1, 2003 9:30am
I finaly got the number moved, sprint does something very odd, on the bill there was a -2 at the end of the account number, so they put it in at t-mobile, so sprint was rejecting the request, only when the person at t-mobile try droping the 2 from the account number did it go though. So now my cell phone number is on T-Mobile and not Sprint. Finaly bluetooth and SMS messaging.

I been wanting a mac iBook for a while now, and I finally payed of my current laptop, so I ended up at apples web site today, and took a small apple loan out to get an iBook, I know I know, I should not just gotten it on credit, but I plan on paying it off fast. I got my current laptop in April and payed it off in 8 months, and now that I have a better job that pays 2 times more, I can pay it off in 4 maybe 5 months (and if I do it in 6 months or less they will credit back to me the interst) so in a few days I will have a new iBook, I hope they have the new OS X Panther on it. I probably will spend alot of time in emacs and g++ on it anyways

it is a 800Mhz box (any one know how to think about that in the way I am use to thinking in ix86's I know a Mhz on a risc is faster then a Mhz on a cisc)

The funny thing is soon my new job will be getting me another laptop so I will have 3 laptops will all 3 of the major OS's

Windows
Linux
Mac OS X

Finally, after 2 years of looking for a programming job I finally got one. I am now officially a "professional" C++ programmer (for what ever professional means). I am so stocked up about it that I am still walking on clod nine and I started on Wednesday this week (Nov 5, 2003). The point of this journal entry is just to brag. I got a programming job finally. To give you all an idea of just how long it has been, I graduated from Pitt in April of 2001. I now work at CMU as one of the many programmers here.

The USA today site (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2003-07-13-microsoft-linux-munich_x.htm)has a story of how MS tried to prevent the Munich goverment from using Linux, but despite the effort of MS they still went with Linux. They went with SuSE

update
submited to slashdot and
2003-07-14 20:15:25 Linux vs MS in Germany (linux wins) (articles,linux) (rejected)