scottkursk

This is actually bot interesting and surprising to me. Growing up, which is quite a few years ago, Houston was always in a race with Chicago for being number 4. Considering the recent influx of people from New Orleans, I would have expected we'd be back. Mind you, Houstonians can now say they have been shown size doesn't always equate to quality. <dig> Sugar Land is the 3rd best place to live in America according to Money Magazine.

Texas is actually much smaller than it used to be. Here's a picture, although not the best, of how big we used to be. We stretched 3/4 of the way to Canada. My weird fact is that it takes 850 peanuts to make a normal 81oz jar of peanut butter.

Try looking here. My wife who was really opposed to the concept of guns before taking a couple of the classes. She did learn some basic self defense stuff as well as how to shoot. They also talked about picking out guns that are appropriate for women. Of course, she went from hating guns to having picked out a $1200 Detonics Combat Master. Meanwhile, I am happily trucking along with a girlish Walther PPK. You are very right, an ounce of prevention is well worth a pound of cure. One thing they drilled into my wife was always be aware of your surroundings. It's amazing how we go through life hardly noticing much. Once you actively pay attention, you see so much more. It's kind of like when you started understanding Objectivism, you could see so much more about and of the world with clarity. Plus, short of driving a sports car with a stick shift, hardly anything is hotter than a chick that can shoot. I am from Texas after all.

I agree with you about Bush. It's ALL a plot. Toothpast tubes running low, the ozone layer, problems with the internet, the fact I can't find 7th gear on my new Shimano shifter no matter how many times I work on it. It's all Bush's fault. Though, I did go to 1und1 and and that Pocket Web looks pretty cool. Darned Bush and his National Socialist friends.

Ha ha. Very true. Chicago does have a tradition of people loving the democratic process so much that they keep voting even after they die.

It was far worse than a bad movie. I like b movies, and this was just jingoistic crap. I personally like the zombie genre so I did check it out. I think if they had a blinking neon sign saying "message", it would not have been as obvious as the story itself. Yes, the dead come back to vote and then collapse and die. Of course sinister scientists and spin doctors try to spin the return of the dead but there is also a blatantly obvious Sidney Sheehan character. Dawn of the Dead and the Romero descendants had a very real political and social message and managed to get it across without being so blatant.

Actually, I had that poster with the Rand quote in French on my wall in my 1st place after college. I always wondered what would have happened if the tank had not stopped. If it had just blatantly shown the brutality of an evil dictatorship instead of a monument of a individual who refused to stand up in a world whose concepts he can't agree with. Still, given the lack of response by the west for the most part it probably wound't have changed much. I think of an example of when a suicide is probably acceptable is like when the Soviets were battling Afghani's, the Muj would target them with a Stinger and it was game over for the pilots. They wouldn't eject. They'd just say a prayer/curse/whatever and wait for the inevitable since the alternative of ejecting and being captured was REALLY unpleasant. To misquote Kipling, "When you're lying on Afhanistan's plains, Arfghani women come out to cut up what remains, jus roll o'er your rifle an blow out your brains and go to your God like a soljer." So in examples where your choice is of the way you die, not death vs. life, then it makes sense for their to be a rational basis.

We just got this pushed to our desktops at work. It took a bit of adjustment and complaints from staffers about the UI but once you start using it, it really works. That is "it works" in the Macintosh "everything is where is should be and you don't have to think about it" school of design. I am impressed. We REALLY use the callendering and contact info and it's also a good bit of an improvement. Excel is still Excel. Haven't used word enough to notice any change. Still, I think it's a realization from MS that the way we communicate has changed. We used to type letters/documents and really needed Word to be the be all end all. Now, we just use Outlook for just about everything. Well, short of doing a resume or fax cover sheet that is. So, it makes sense that they are really pushing alot of improvements onto Outlook vs. the other apps. I still use OpenOffice at home but literally never use an email client per se. I just use gmail or yahoo. I can't remember the last time I used an actual full blown email client outside of work.

In all honesty, my first thought when I saw they won was that Gwar was sitting back in the 15 year old Ford Escort Wagon they tour in screaming that in Europe they'd get taken seriously here but here in the US, nobody takes them seriously.

Whoa. I'm naked with envy. Congratulations to the new papa. Definately something worth firing off a cigar for. I especially like the Peace Officer Edition graphics. A great way to fly the colors so to speak.

I do. Actually you added me as a contact a while back. I'm also on Orkut simply for the reason they have that amazing 6 degrees of seperation/less sums thing going on. Though I really haven't started using Flickr like I want to yet. I just broke down and got a decent camera. Something I haven't had for a while. One I call "The Battle of Quotron Ridge". It's a broker joke.

I took the course on "Courting Success in Love and Marriage". It really helped me identify what was important to me in finding a spouse and what I wanted in a relationship. I did and met this really smart, funny, gorgeous blond sitting next to me right now.

I used them to register my wedding site. They were pretty cheap and quick. But that is one of those things like a Quadrajet carb: it either works or it's on fire.

To encourage them to leave town? My favorite quote"Federal expenditures on education are unconstitutional and promote revisionist history and statist sociology. Our schools continue to teach the discredited theory of Darwinian evolution. 1" Or how coincidentally the largest number of people listed in their exodus yellow pages are real estate agents. Hmmm, coincidence?

Actually, I've noticed on Orkut there is a huge concentration of Desi's on the various Rand and Objectivist groups. Considering the concentration of Brazilians and Americans, it's a bit lopsided.

I'm using Firefox 1.0.5.3 and I'm working pretty much without problem. The only problem I'm encountering is opening any images in posts. I tried opening the ostrich in the TESTING thread and one that's still on my profile that I posted in the past. I get the "required file" warning. Both edits work and my posts aren't returning a blank page back. I wonder if the lack of blank page has to do with a quirky plug in issue.

I did. But I noticed when I cleared my cache the problem didn't happen again. It could be something completely unrelated but it seemed to fix it.

Well timed. I was just thinking about this joke yesterday. I chuckle. Thank You Felix.

Congratulations. It was a pretty good uptime restore considering it's not a full blown commercial ecommerce site. Very very good.

Congratulations and best of luck! If you can make it through being a 3L, you can make it through anything. On a side note, my wife finds out about the February bar results tomorrow. eek.

It's interesting that Jennifer mentions Houston. We've actually got quite a large Canadian expat community here. A large number are medical professionals that come south to work in the medical center. Plus, there are lots of oil and mineral companies here. So, it makes sense that a whole bunch of Canadians here given there particiaption in both industries. I used to work for TD here in Houston. So, we got a LOT of Canadians coming in off the street looking for atm's and the like. Though they are always pretty nice about when we explain we're not a bank in the US but a brokerage. The people that I knew that transfered down here from Toronto were pretty universal in that they liked the change in the quality of living. While many things are a bit different like culture. Though Houston is pretty free wheeling when it comes to most things. There is no zoning here, so you can pretty much build a business where you want, and there is a very wide variety of jobs to be had. Though, it is a whee bit hotter here than Canada. Most of the Canadians that I've known have made comment that they have alot more opportunity here but to one extent or another bemoan the lack of the welfare state. Though the longer they have been here they tend to compalin less.

Hey hey, is that a Smiths shirt I see.

Bill Swanson's book is actually pretty good. It's relatively bs free as far as booklets written by management people go. He cuts to the point and has 1 principle per page with a very brief explanation. It's mainly meant to start people talking. Which is actually what I do in that when I have a meeting, we cover 1 point and talk about it and how it applies or doesn't to us. Most of them do. Best of all, it is free. You can get as many copies as you realistically need from here which is the official Raytheon site. It's a quick read and for the most part common sense. Still, it's a good refresher.

True, there was the 1 hit wonder Big Country by The Big Country but the Bela Fleck song is pretty nice. Anyone who incorporates kettle drums and soprano sax makes it work is nice. Though I've always been partial to bluegrass. Of course, I always thought of Bela Fleck as a bluegrass Rippingtons.

I agree about Big Country. Sometimes the simple chords are the hardest to execute well. It's like a hamburger. Anybody can make one, but to make a good, no, a really good hamburger takes skill. That is one of the things I like about playing a ukulele. It's a deceptively simple instrument. Anyone can learn to play a passable ukulele in just a few hours, but to be good at it takes a whole lot of practice. The same is true for the trombone. Alot of people who use instruments like woodwinds or keyboards looked down on us since all we had was a single slide. Problem is, really subtle positioning of the slide makes a real differnece in pitch and tone as well as tounging. Plus you have the ability to "bend"notes unlike any other instrument for the most part. The first time I saw a synthesizer in the 80's that had a wheel to play with the pitch blew me away. It is so similar to what trombes do.