New website!

So I wanted to host my own website. If your not sure what that means, it is where my website resides on a computer I own. Previously I always had my websites online on my ISP's servers, and most recently on Microsoft's Office Live servers.

I also purchased a new domain name. My site is now www.blackcatgeek.com

When you go to that URL, you are pulling up the website from my own Linux Fedora 7 server sitting in my office! Ya, ya, who cares right? Well, I guess I can be a real geek, because I think its pretty cool, and am having a lot of fun building it. Its fun creating things and sharing them with friends right?

Anyway, feel free to check it out. It is only about 2 days old, so I have a ways to go, and some things may not work right yet, but please keep checking back to see my progress.
Oh, and if you have any suggestions please let me know. I am always open to a different perspective!

Nothing.. Nada

So, nothing stuck below about 1,500 feet. We did get to see some impressive snow flakes at home though. To bad they evaporated the moment they hit the ground.

Here is a quote from Mark Nelson at the KPTV weather blog regarding the lack of snow... "milkshakes are getting ready to be thrown at passing meteorologists this afternoon!" I love it!

The Weather...

Once again it is the time of year when people get excited about the weather. And also once again it is time for false hope and disappointment.
If you try to watch the news stations in Portland to get an idea about what the weather is going to do, then you know what I mean. The last two nights have been prime examples, and I think everyone is in for a big disappointment come Saturday Dec. 1.
Wednesday night we saw a bit of snow falling, and everybody started buzzing about how much snow we were going to get. I was sitting there looking at the temperature, and could only think "they are all crazy!". It didn't look like anything was going to happen with the temperature around 35 or so... and what do you know; I wake up the next morning at 3:00.. and its 45 degrees! I was imagining all the disappointment for the people waking up expecting snow on the ground.
Last night was the same thing. The temp started dropping as the sun went down, and it dropped to 38 at our house in Troutdale. In the back of my mind I knew I would wake up and it would still be 38, but I WANTED to believe the predictions of upper 20's or around 30 degrees overnight. It was 38 when I woke up.
Now for Saturday... they say 4 inches of snow in the metro area. I say none. I say none below 500 ft, and probably more like none below 1,000. If we do get a dusting, it will be melted within a couple hours.

I have only lived here for 6 years or so, but I came from a place (Dufur OR) where we often see snow around Halloween. From my experience, to see snow on the ground, and definetly to see it stay you need to have a few days of 20-30 degrees. Then when the moisture rolls in and it warms up into the upper 20's and low 30's... thats when it snow, and you will see snow on the ground for more than a day. Thats what it takes, and that is something we have not seen yet this year in Portland. I think its to early.

So my point is, we should all ignore the weather forecasts we see on the news. They don't seem to know what they are talking about, and are not usually right unless its a 100% deal. They try to generate excitement (and viewers.. money) by saying what everybody wants to hear. If you don't want disappointment, turn it off. But if you are anything like me.. its easier said than done.

If you want snow, move. It happens every once in a while, but its actually pretty rare here in the city. I use to live in a house that did not see the sun from Nov to March, and it was at about 1500 ft elevation. It sat on the side of a hill in Dufur Valley, and all winter when the sun dropped to the south, it would go behind that hill. Many in the area knew it as "The Ice House". We saw icicles that you could not wrap your arms around that were as tall as an NBA player, and we saw them every year hanging off the eves. When it snowed in Oct, it stayed until spring. It would be the only stretch of road in Dufur valley that didn't thaw when the sun came out (until spring).
Call me crazy, but I miss it. Can you tell?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Say goodbye to gasoline...

http://www.teslamotors.com/

You may have heard of it already, and it is here. If not, go to the link above. These people have created what will become the end of gasoline vehicles. They have created a sports car that is 100% electric, and faster than nearly anything on the road. They are taking all the money they get from selling these sports cars, and they are putting it into creating an affordable mass market version of the car. This will most likely prompt all the major automakers to come up with there own version very soon.
To me this makes the cars we are driving around look like Dinosaurs. It makes me ask why. It seems like we should have been driving electric cars 50 years ago. The problem was rechargeable battery technology, which has now caught up to the point that this is possible.
Within the next 10 years our cars will be obsolete. All I can say about that is... goodbye, and good riddance. The internal combustion engine belongs in a museum, and will soon be there.

Who is Ron Paul?

I dont really know yet, but I like what I have heard so far. As far as Republicans go, he seems to have the right idea on what it means to be President.
Check out --> www.ronpaul2008.com/issues

Al Gore..

This is in response to "35 things Al Gore forgot to mention"...
http://troutdale.blogspot.com/2007/10/35-things-al-gore-forgot-to-mention.html

My question is, where do you get this information? Where is your evidence?
Many of us have seen Gore's evidence, or have noticed that his evidence was validated by the the Nobel Prize he won (half of).
If you are trying to make an argument, or a point, you have not done very well. It takes a bit more than unfounded preaching to convince people with minds of their own that your argument is valid.
I just get tired of seeing people try to do something good, and then getting attacked by the mindless (often) Republican drones.

Do it yourself!

As some of you know, I got a 50 inch rear projection LCD HDTV for my birthday. We went with the projection because they are much cheaper, but the picture is just as good. The only downfall is that you cant hang it on the wall (who cares), and you have to replace the "bulb" ever 2-4 years or so. The nice thing about the bulb type tv is that after replacing the bulb the picture looks as good as new. With Plasma or regular LCD tv's the picture degrades over time.

So anyway, a few weeks back we had a power outage, and when it came back on the tv started telling me I needed to replace the bulb and the picture looked horrible! Its only been 6 months, so we were pretty upset. The cost of the bulb is around $200, and whatever it takes to diagnose/replace it. Well, a normal person would have probably called a tech, or got a new bulb and just replaced it. I am just not one to fork over tons of $$ for something that with a little research could be done yourself. So, I thought... maybe I will pull the bulb out myself and look at it. I was a little reluctant because its an expensive tv, and I didnt want to screw it up and end up ruining it. I pulled the bulb out, and decided it looked fine. So I plugged it back into the tv just to see what would happen, and what do you know! It works fine, and has been ever since! I am guessing that the power outage had somehow tripped an alarm or something and confused the tv, and by resetting the bulb I reset the alarm.

Lesson learned. Dont pay someone to do something you can do yourself. Pay yourself!
By the way, the whole procedure for changing the bulb took about 2 minutes, and could probably be done by a well trained monkey.

Nascar..

If you are not a Nascar fan you probably wont want to read this.
I just wanted to comment about the race this weekend. This was the first "restricter plate" race in the new car, and there were a lot of worries about how it would go. Now all said and done, It turns out that it was a very uneventful race. Most of the Monday morning Nascar headlines were about how boring the race was, and how things "must be changed" in order to make it more interesting! Well, as a die-hard Nascar fan, I have to say... not much has changed. As usual, the last 20 laps or so were the most exciting, and this is exactly how it was before. Dont get me wrong, I did watch the whole race as usual, and had a pretty good time, and I very much so was on the edge of my seat for the conclusion of the race like every week. The long strung out lines at Talladega are not anything new. Just the fact that the winner from the spring race with the old car was the same winner of this race in the new car tells you how much things have NOT changed as far as racing at Talladega goes. If Dale Earnhardt Jr had not blown his engine and had went on to win the race, many people would be saying how it was so much more exciting with the new car, and how much of a success it was. Jeff Gordon winning races is nothing new, and not very exciting either. So all in all, it turns out all the fuss this weekend was just the media, doing what the media does. Making something out of nothing. The race was exciting in the end, and it was fun to watch. Nascar just needs to listen a little closer to its most popular driver when he says "these things should really be about 100 to 200 laps shorter". All those extra laps just cause the drivers to end up riding around the track waiting for the last 20 laps as the fans sit around waiting for them also. The only people who are actually befittingly from a 4 hour race are the advertisers, and thats not likely to change.

Things will change...

Things will change...
I was thinking this morning while in the shower about the wars we have had in this country. The great wars, and the ones before them were very different than the ones we have now. The great wars were about defending ourselves. We were attacked by a great power, and we responded, I mean the government responded with overwhelming support from us, the people. This is the recipe for success.
The new wars, and the one we have today could have been avoided. Our country was not truly threatened until 911, and had not been since the cold war (by Russia), and before that WW2 by Japan. The cold war was resolved without military action, and was in my opinion the perfect response to a great threat. A resolution without true War. Thats one out of the last 4.
So anyway, I think a lot in the shower as you can see! Here is the conclusion I came to about the war in Iraq. It cannot be won. The reason I say this is because first of all Iraq was not a true threat to our country. Second, Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 911. And third, Iraq was not becoming a threat to our country. The true threat is terrorism, It is Radical Muslims/Islamics, not a country. This is a very different thing.
My other thoughts were on how this started. In my opinion it started because this country is still run, and strongly influenced by the "religious right". What is this "religious right" you might ask? Well, Wikipedia does a much better job of defining it than I could, and also take note what religious groups Wiki mentions when defining it. Christianity and Islamics!
The people running this country, the Baby Boomers and their surviving parents are very much a part of the Christian religious right. I do realize this is a generalization but hear me out. Why is George Bush Jr. our president? It is because of them, they are still the majority, but barely. Many of us voted for Gore, and then Kerry. Yes, many of us, meaning, a majority of this country. Many will debate that but check the history books. It is fact. George Bush Jr. is a religious fanatic, and it influences his every decision. So, when you put 2 + 2 together, you get the situation today. The religious right is at war, the Christians and the Islamics, and they have been for thousands of years.
If we hadn't ran around the world trying to convert people to "our way", our religion, and our way of life (which the Christians and Islamics have been doing forever), these people wouldn't have attacked us. They attacked the Christian religious right,.. which is a dying breed in our country, and is barely if at all, a majority of our citizens. Ya, this is going to offend somebody, and they are going to close off all thought other than what their religious upbringing allows them, and they are going to think I need to be "shown the way", and/or converted. AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM. This is why we are in the situation we are in today. This is why we are fighting a war that has no end, and goes back to ancient history. This is why we are wasting thousands of lives, many of whom wonder "why" up until the moment they are wiped away by a roadside bomb planted by a cowardly radical Islamic on his/her own soil.
The answer is to stop fighting this unwinable war, start protecting our own country, our own soil, and our own people. If 100% of our military power and money was spent on protecting our own soil we would be nearly invincible. It seems profound, but think about it. We are spread to thin, we are stretching our arms to far, and we are losing. Bring those arms in, wrap them around this country, and just let somebody try to hurt us.
And for those who think I am a "liberal", and "atheist" or whatever, I am not. I could write another 10 pages on why I am not, but it would fall on deaf ears. You would be too narrow minded to even start to consider how someone could think this way and not be "one of them". All I have to say to you in the end is this... You are a dying breed. You are going to lose. Yes, you may win the next election, but it will again be very close, and soon, that hair will be gone, and you will lose. The younger generation of this country might be lazy, might be dumb, or whatever, but we know one thing. We know how to lose a war! We have been shown how not to do it. We are going to have to clean up this mess, and we will. I like to think, someday soon when our generation is in power, Things will change. We will lead by example, we will be open minded, and we will be strong.