Politics and the Press

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Tom Long

I have finally come up with a combination that affords me the privilege of being an informed voter without the overload and spinning that comes from my previously obsessive media exposure.   Here is my very simple approach.

1. Watch debates on C-Span.  No commentary – just candidates representing their own views.  I don’t care about polls or who has to prove what to someone else.  I know the issues I care about and my vote is the only vote for which I am responsible.

2. Find out whether what was said was factual or misleading.  I do this by a quick trip to FactCheck.org.   This is one of the few sources that minimizes their spin.

Just in case someone besides myself was looking for a way to endure till the election without putting their head in the sand, I thought I would pass on my little political strategy.

Listen and Learn (see the 2 steps above)

Ponder and Pray

Decide and Vote

How do you cope with the political season?

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They also serve

Posted on March 7, 2008 by Tom Long

Three external drives and one on the way.  One printer and two laptops.  No way to keep everybody hooked up to everybody else.  Need a home network.  Rats.  Shouldn’t have sold that old laptop.  Buy an old junker computer for $40.  Make a Linux file server to hook the external drives to the home network.  7 year old router craps out.  Buy a new one (Apple Airport Extreme Base Station) with Ethernet switching hub and a USB port.  Leave the Linux/3 external drive network down except for housekeeping.  New hardrive into router’s USB.  Backup always available.  No muss no fuss.  At least I’ve had a chance to play with Linux a bit (the Ubuntu distro for the initiated).

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Make your own kind of music

Posted on February 8, 2008 by Tom Long

This old dog has been playing the guitar since he was 10.  Recently I made two purchases.  One was a new keyboard and the other was a new guitar.  (I like to buy a new guitar every 20 years or so.)  My greatest area of weakness in playing the guitar has been rhythm and consistency.  The keyboard has an auto-accompaniment feature that includes rhythm.  By recording the piano with this rhythm track I have a guide when I play the guitar.  If I lose the beat or change the number of beats during the transition between verses I get out of step with the keyboard playback.  Suddenly, I am learning to stick with the beat and repeat each verse the same way so that others can sing and play along.   What a blast!

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Geese gone

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Tom Long

I saw a couple of birds on my walk I have yet to identify.  Nothing unusual there.  What was unusual was that I had walked well over a mile without seeing a single goose.  Usually folks here complain about geese hissing at them as they walk and goose guana everywhere.  They are also quite noisy.  Their absence made the lake seem very quiet.

When I did come up on a goose he neither moved nor hissed, even though I was close enough to goose him.  I assume he was to ill to travel with his or her compatriots.  As I neared the cove on the west end of our building a pair of geese slow paddled by.  Between them were four or five adolescent goslings.  It was kind of funny because the little ones heads were bobbing up and down rhythmically like teenagers listening to their iPods (TM).

The sky was blue with cirrus clouds smeared a little here and a little there.  Another great day.

 

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A New Home

Posted on April 19, 2007 by Tom Long

Other than teaching and preaching, most of my jobs have been little more than labor exchanged for living expenses.  Here at the EPA things have been better than that.  I love nature and it makes me feel good to be involved in practical activities directed at saving our environment.  It was a wee bit on the cool side today and I opted to walk indoors which resulted in my touring buildings A and B (on the far end of the complex from my building).

For Earth Day there was a band playing in the atrium.  A group of old (my age) geezers with their hair worn in the style of the sixties and their outfits just as retro.  These graybeards were rockin’ out the tune “Why Don’t You Admit You’re Addicted to Oil.”  They had all the choreographed hand motions and their musicianship was very good.  They’re children (and maybe grandchildren) would have been embarassed to death.  It put a smile on my face to think that these were the kind of folk I was working with.

Hope your day at work is just as fulfilling.  Time for me to get back to my MSATs, HAPs, and other toxics.  Have a good one!

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