Geek Habitat

But it sure felt good to vote for Obama/Biden and the dream of a stronger, more positive and more united United States of America again.

Realize not everyone has the same agendas as I do but thought I’d share these since they’re among some of the resources available to see where candidates stand on various issues.

• League of Conservation Voters - grades serving politicians by how they vote regarding environmental issues/energy issues/etc:
  http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/
  (Search by state; not surprisingly, most everyone running in Texas has a very LOW environmental score, but some are good)
• Wikipedia section on Future election candidates – will have to search page for names from our ballot but useful for high level overview of each candidate
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Future_election_candidates
• League of Women Voters – grades serving politicians on a BROAD range of issues (not just women’s health issues, equal pay, etc. ALL issues incl. immigration, energy, etc.)
  http://www.lwv.org/Election2008/index.html
• Sportsmen & Animal Owner’s Voting Alliance (SAOVA) – Their site design sucks so you will have to scroll to below their left nav to see any of their content. Anyway, I look at who these people support not to see who I will vote for but who these folks are just in love with. The organization feels it necessary to oppose animal rights issues across the board, calling it the “AR Threat” and lumping the ASPCA and Humane Society of the USA with PETA (whom I loathe, just in case this isn’t clear) as the same type of “animal rightist group”.
  Not surprisingly, they endorse McCain/Palin (surprise — her type of hunting includes “hunting” wolves by helicopter. Not my type of sportsmanlike behavior. Shiver in a blind like a real hunter, or learn to track animals.)
  http://saova.org/2008endorse.html — you can see where TX elections fall as well. Remember, to them, “animal rightist” means you even support the ASPCA and Humane Society.
• NRA traditionally always supports Republican candidates and this year’s no different. It’s Texas. We all love our guns. Seriously don’t think we’ve EVER had a candidate in U.S. Presidency that wants to ban all guns. We should figure out what’s up with all the school shootings, though, no? Or do teenagers have gun rights, too?
  http://www.nraila.org/
• T. Boone Pickens?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens
  He was a huge supporter of G.W. Bush & the Republican party so I pay special attention when he talks because if he’s swung away from Bush & Co. I find that notable. Unfortunately, he’s opted out of endorsing anyone this election cycle and is instead calling on WHOMEVER wins to get their a** in gear regarding U.S. energy dependence/usage/supply. I wish he at least had a PAC that endorsed candidates as it would be telling, given he’s actually putting his money where their mouths are — “We need to harness ALL types of energy, not just oil, and do so now.” It’s what even the staunchest Republicans are saying (hence, “drill, baby, drill” in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, etc.) but I suspect he’d disagree with many. For one thing, he thinks as I do, that we cannot “drill our way out” of our dependence on foreign oil.

One last thing — depending on your position on the $700 billion bailout/rescue bill (remember, they went through two rounds on it so there were 2 votes) — you might also want to do a Google search to see who voted for and against the bill(s). I haven’t gotten around to that yet and I’m on the fence on what that would really tell me. We should have left the voting on that up to the astronauts & cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station because it seems like one needs *that* high level of a view of our economy to really determine what good, or ill, that bill will actually have. Obviously, short-term, it seems better than worse but it’s a hell of a lot of money at a time when a lot of other things (our infrastructure, healthcare, Social Security, the military and, not the least of which, the American people) need a hell of a lot of money, too.

I urge everyone to watch at least a couple of the U.S. Presidential (and the only Vice Presidential) debates leading up to the election. CSPAN’s Debate Hub and CSPAN’s YouTube channel are terrific sources.

CSPAN’s Debate Hub is especially handy, providing videos broken out by question and full information on the dates and locations of each debate as well as carrying the debates LIVE as they occur. The next and final U.S. Presidential Debate for this election is at 9 PM ET on October 15, 2008, in Hempstead, New York, and you can watch it live on CSPAN’s Debate Hub at this URL (bookmark it for viewing on debate night): http://debatehub.c-span.org/index.php/debate-4/

Note: This entry was actually started on MONDAY, July 28 –

It’s clear from my infrequent blog posts that I’ve been fighting “the crud” (sinus infection and, for awhile, lower respiratory infection) for months, really. About the time I’d get so fed up with it that I’d entertain going to the doctor, it would seem to abate, but only long enough to sneak up on me by the following weekend. When you have bad allergies (forget “seasonal”–these are omnipresent) you sometimes forget when you’ve crossed the line from “Geez, this is a horrible allergy season and I can’t remember the last time I felt really GOOD,” to “Geez, I feel really, utterly awful…the worst I have in a long time. And I don’t seem to ever being getting WELL.”

I woke up Monday morning feeling especially crappy, and finally decided it was time to drag my sorry carcass to the Texas MedClinic. I’ve known I was dealing with a full-blown, tenacious sinus infection. (It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to correctly identify a rocket!) However, by Monday morning my left eye was painful and the area around it was swollen, red and purple, itchy and… numb, like I’d been shot with Novacaine. I know, how can you be numb and in pain in the same area? Go figure!

Anyway, the sinuses in the left side of my face have been especially angry, so much so for several days prior to Monday’s “eye opening” experience (*groan*), I’d been unable to chew food on the left side of my mouth because my furthest molar in my upper jaw couldn’t handle any pressure without sending shockwaves of pain through my head. Think exposed nerve. Think the kind of pain you imagine you’d feel if the dentist forgot to numb an area of your mouth before setting to work on a root canal.

All the pains, and now numbness, were puzzling and setting off alarm bells, but the eye is really what made me go straight to the doctor. As I posted on Flickr, “More than four weeks of recurring sinus pain and congestion and it took this to finally make me haul my ass in to the doctor. I’m not playing around with something that could turn into orbital cellulitis.

To make matters worse, Justin is out of town from midday Tuesday through much of Saturday, shooting photos at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (the world’s largest airshow) for General Aviation News. Not only would I be on my own with our beautiful, full-of-energy 16-month-old, but I’d be on my own and potentially in need of an emergency doctor visit if I didn’t act a *little* proactively! The fact that Jus had taken Monday off to prepare for Oshkosh turned out to be doubly beneficial, since it meant I could go to the MedClinic and he could be with Sara, removing one more mental “obstacle” I’d set up for why I didn’t want to go to the doctor.

So I dragged my arse to the MedClinic down the street on Monday morning shortly after they opened at 8 AM. From my Twitter feed on Monday:
“Going to medclinic. Sinus pain unbearable and now eye is swollen. Sigh 07:18 AM July 28, 2008”
Other than going to the doctor and picking up my prescriptions on the way home (10 day course of antibiotics, corticosterioid nasal spray and prescription eyedrops), the only thing I did other than SLEEP was post a couple illness-related photos to Flickr -> http://flickr.com/photos/wildtexas/tags/sick/. What a gripping life I do lead, eh? {Bridget Jones’ Diary reference}

Anyway, it’s now THURSDAY at 10:30 PM and I can report I have been feeling progressively better since the meds started coursing through my system. I am still not 100%, but today was the first day I felt up to dropping Sara off with her other grandfolks’ (Justin’s parents) so she could play with her cousins who were also there for the day. With Sara safely and happily ensconced in games with her cousins, I came home and made a whirlwind attempt to catch up on all the things I had fallen behind on during my sickbed days:

• laundry (even WITH Justin’s help before he left for Osh, I was still depressingly behind on laundry loads & folding/hanging the clean stuff.)
• mowing & edging the front lawn which was starting to make the (not good) neighbors’ DEAD lawn look somehow “nice and manicured”
• dropping off recyclables and donations at their requisite spots
• an impromptu visit to my folks’ to chat with Mom (who had a very rough day) & grab lunch
• checking our business P.O. Box
• decluttering, etc.

I was also eager to indulge in some World of Warcraft, but my desktop computer was slightly out of commission–slow as molasses. Last night, right after Sara fell asleep, I managed to complete the initial installation of our business’ shiny new HP MediaSmart Home Server (shipped with one 500 GB drive and upgraded with two 1TB drives; still with one hot-swap HD bay free) and I didn’t pay attention to its default backup routine so it started dutifully backing up my desktop computer. Problem — MOST of the 850 GB of data on my desktop computer actually is migrating *to* the server, so I don’t really need/want a backup of it made on the server…. certainly not when it takes from midnight to 3 PM to reach 3% completion. So anyway, I let it run but killed it when I got back home with Sara this evening. I will start the data migration soon, maybe tonight? Sara’s down for the night; she blissfully went to bed without any crying and without fighting, even though she slept an amazing 2.5 hours with her grandma & grandpa Moore today.

PS: Sara is amazing and I really wish I could find the time to blog about her every single day because there is something to share–a photo or video or anecdote or new thing she’s doing–every single day. She has her domain names still, like any good geek gal over the age of 12 months. She has seemed to know I’m not operating at full efficiency, and on Wednesday she even cuddled me in bed early in the day and indulged me as I watched Fraggle Rock with her (normally a nighttime routine for us).

I’ll try to resume a more predictable blogging schedule, but I am insanely behind on the sites I own and manage that generate actual income, so forgive me if this site remains a forgotten stray for awhile longer.

Last message to Justin this evening, sent via my Blackberry to his and repeated here because it’s so true: “Love you hon. I wasn’t built to be a single gal. Miss ya.” I don’t mind him traveling, and before Sara joined us a one or two night business trip was kind of exciting–a change from the norm. But almost a full week away, and with Sara now, and with being on the mend from illness? Gah. Bring my babe home… when they’re done with him, anyway.

I’ve found that as my time gets stretched in more directions, it’s far easier to post short (maximum 140 characters) “tweets” on Twitter.com and avoid blogging altogether. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it is what it is. I’m making some great contacts, not just professionally but other moms and fellow geek gals or outdoors enthusiasts, folks trying to lose weight, etc. Twitter was even fun on our camping trip, even when Sara and Justin had to leave I had folks tweeting to me that they had enjoyed the camping pics thus far, or that we looked like we were having a terrific time (we were, up until 3 AM!)

So, anyway, here I am blogging but not really… I only opened WordPress so I could pen an entry that I could work my TweetCloud (slow to load) into, as well as a reminder link to my Twitter profile.

I did have to turn off SMS alerts for Twitter direct messages today, however. We have an unlimited voice and data plan, but we only carry 200 SMS text messages per phone–anything over that is a money-hungry $.10 per message. Since it’s only April 8th and the stats lag behind by at least half a day, if not more, and I’m already at over 130 SMS texts sent it’s clear that’s gotta stop. I need SMS to text my parents; thankfully both Justin and my brother (also both on Twitter) are Blackberry users so I can Blackberry Messenger them, and I do quite often.

If you’re reading this and you’re a mom or dad, by the way, be sure to get yourself on the respective Ultimate Twitter List for Moms and Dads–
Ultimate List of Moms on Twitter, created by eMom

Ultimate List of Dads & Husbands on Twitter, created by dereksemmler (I already requested you be added, Justin)

If you don’t quite see the point to Twitter, you aren’t alone. It sort of has to grow on you. I’m in the addicted phase, and I think at the rate of adoption I’ve gone through I’ll be heading to the “useful, but not essential” stage at some point soon. (I can hear the folks who follow me on Twitter clapping and breathing a collective sigh of relief, already!)

Pssst, I learned Flickr now supports Video today thanks to Twitter, direct from TechCrunch (TechCrunch.com) the moment they announced it. Twitter FTW! (World of Warcraft shorthand for “For The Win”, to my non-MMORPG playing friends and family.) Friends and family, be on the lookout for a flood of Sara videos as soon as Flickr stabilizes a little from the crush of traffic due to today’s launch of Flickr Video! In the meantime, this is why Flickr Video is so cool (good read for web-footed folks everywhere.)

{Insert Insightful Commentary Here}

Been busy, but not with anything blog-worthy (though some of it was shared as “tweets” via my Twitter.com account.)

Sara’s doing well, though she did bite her lip during a fall today. I think this makes she and I  finally even on bloody lips–she tends to head-butt me and has caused me several bloody lips. After a short round of whole body, heaving crying, in the process spreading blood on us both, she was back to her chipper self for the most part. She’s definitely discovering her self and attempting to exercise her newfound autonomy, which quite frankly demonstrates as her having mini-tantrums now (very, very short-lived ones, but probably an omen for her Terrible Twos?)

I am growing increasingly behind on our small business tasks, which is paradoxical since I’m the one that stays at home and works from home (somewhere amidst playing with, protecting, feeding, cleaning and observing an increasingly mobile, energetic and curious almost one-year-old). Justin’s rocking it even though it remains a wholly part time gig for him, and he remains the primary (by far) breadwinner. I’m not complaining, except when I see my revenues at the end of each month and know, with adequate time, I could triple them, if not better. I guess I should outsource to China… hey, if they’ll goldfarm in WoW surely they’ll nuke their fellow Chinese spammers from my forums, post “seed” threads in slow discussion areas, populate my content databases on a few existing sites, and stub out the ones for the many sites in waiting.

I’m not that desperate yet, although to top it off I haven’t done any bike trainer rides this week and suddenly it’s nearly Thursday? Shit… I have a dental appointment tomorrow, so that throws a wrench in my morning and early afternoon. I need a holographic (but secure, visible only to me) heads up display-type touch screen interface to all of my websites and the data on our computers. Then I could get things done when I’m sitting in a dentist’s chair, parked at a red light, waiting in a checkout line, waiting for water to boil to heat a bottle, pumping gas (though I only do this once a month), and staring at the ceiling wondering how Sara and Justin are passed out in 10 minutes flat but I’m awake for the next 70 minutes, etc.

{Insert Witty Summation Paragraph Here}