Misc. Ramblings

The lava from Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii continues to make its way to the ocean. Occasionally, the land that is built up due to the lava cooling breaks off and falls into the ocean. The Honolulu Advertiser has a story on just such a lava bench.

This first shot is what this area of the Big Island looked like before the break.

This second shot shows what it looks like now with a huge chunk of land having slid into the ocean. Let this be a warning to all you folks who hike out to get pictures of the lava flowing into the ocean. The land you may be standing on could break off and cause your death.

When these so called lava ledges/benches do break off, you sometimes end up seeing lava pouring out of lava tubes like the photo below. That is molten rock shooting out like water from a fire hose. That is how a new ledge will develop and perhaps how the Big Island will get even bigger.

As always, if anyone is interested in some hot, prime ocean front property, see your local realtor. I'm sure they'll give you a good deal and maybe throw in part of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Aloha!

People who create copyrighted work have a right and obligation to ensure that their works are protected. However, no law is absolute and few if any laws or rights operate in a vacuum. That is, there are usually competing rights. For example, my right to throw my fist ends at your right to keep me from injuring you. One right trumps the other.

Similarly, although authors have a right to protect their works, that does not mean that right trumps all other rights.

J. Alex Halderman of the "Freedom to Tinker" website is reporting that the recent Sony rootkit debacle isn't the only Sony DRM in the wild. It seems Sony is also using something called MediaMax (it is reportedly also used by other music labels).

Mr. Halderman is saying

MediaMax phones home whenever you play a protected CD, automatically installs over 12 MB of software before even displaying an End User License Agreement, and fails to include an uninstaller.

Part of the software that MediaMax installs is a driver meant to interfere with ripping and copying from protected discs. I had believed that MediaMax didn't permanently activate this driver-set it to run whenever the computer starts-unless the user accepted the license agreement. As it turns out, this belief was wrong, and things are even worse that I had thought.

You can read the rest of the gory details at his site but it is becoming clear that certain companies wish to own your PC and don't take into consideration competing rights. All I can say is vote with your pocketbook by avoiding these companies and by spending your money on people who treat you and all the laws with respect. YMMV. IANAL. Insert disclaimer here.

For those installing the Linux version, there's only one tar ball for i386 but it works in Xandros Deluxe 3.01 except for a GTK2 error that doesn't seem to cause any noticeable problems. If you want a Debian specific version, you will need to try searching Google for a backport. Otherwise, just use the tarball and extract the files. No need to compile and I didn't need to add any libraries or other programs. Just extract and click on the "firefox" file. All your current Firefox settings will be read. Amazing. Now, when the day comes that installing all Linux applications is this easy will be the day that Linux is ready to replace the Windows desktop. That day has just become a bit closer.

In a Wired article, writer Annalee Newitz says the spyware/adware wars are over and spyware/adware has won. Newitz chronicles the rise and fall and rise again of the hated Gator/Claria as an example of how ever more money is being made by tracking your web surfing habits.

Whether it is Gator/Claria or Google, or Yahoo! the goal is the same - even if the mechanism used may or may not be different. What is different is that the watch dogs have been muzzled.

The mere use of the word spyware can lead to a law suit. Said legal threats have chilled the environment and made anti-spyware companies gun shy. Hence, these companies are no longer raising the alarm when these spyware/adware programs install themselves and begin phoning home.

I have no solution for this other than eternal vigilance because it appears we can no longer trust the watchdogs.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

The MorningPaper ran a story about shipping discrimination to Hawaii . The paper checked 50 websites and found that more than half refuse to provide free shipping to Hawaii even though they routinely do so for the lower 48 states.

In addition, the shipping rates that these sites charge are double, and sometimes triple, what the residents of other states pay. So, for example, we pay over $20USD for even the smallest package sent via UPS. This, even though the US Postal Service offers a shipping rate of $7.70USD to ship two pounds ANYWHERE IN THE 50 UNITED STATES in no more than three to five days. I don't understand why these companies don't use this US postal service. I mean, the US Postal Services comes to your business to pick up the package just like the other guys. And unlike the other guys, the postal service delivers on Saturdays . So why not increase sales to Hawaii when it doesn't cost you anything more and, in fact, costs your customers less?

Aloha!

Talk about the weather outside being frightful. The weather over the weekend was, as they say, unsettled. Yesterday morning dawned bright and clear. But by noon, the sky was filled with black clouds bringing sheets of rain, lightening, and thunder. There was even a report of a funnel cloud. No report yet of locust plagues but who knows?

For us, we momentarily lost power. Sometimes, this causes more problems that it just going out for a longer period because delicate electronics don't like getting zapped by power going up, going partially down, and then back up so rapidly. Even though we have quality surge protectors, one of our security cameras went poof. Fortunately, we have a spare so we were back up in a few minutes but I think I need to get a line conditioner to smooth things out.

I find Hawaiian words being used for company names all over the place. Yet another is a Paia Electronics , located in far off Edmond, Okalahoma. I'm not a musician so I've never heard of them but they apparently sell build it yourself electronic kits that feature analog circuits. For a segment of the public with golden ears, the sounds that come from digital electronics is not as pleasing nor, according to them, as accurate as those that flows through analog circuits. Hence, there is a small minority of the buying public that is willing to spend almost any amount to have amps, pre-amps, and other electronics with analog components.

Well, Paia has analog circuit-based components but they sell them at very reasonable prices. For example, their Vocoder , something even I have heard of, sells for $139USD, (not including a power supply or front panel). Other devices are similarly priced. The bottom line is buying similar products from other vendors would cost you several times what you pay here. YMMV. I have not bought anything from these folks. Insert disclaimer here.

The Hawaiian connection is the middle name of John Paia Simonton, from which the company apparently got its name. Although the site says it's not related to the small Maui town with the same name, it doesn't say how John got such a middle name. In any case, the English translation of the name can have several connotations (depending on if and where the 'okina and/or kahako are placed). The one I kind of like the most roughly translates to garbled sound. As in not being able to clearly make out what music is being played...

Aloha!

This haunting image was made from the submerged deck of the battleship USS Arizona looking upwards towards the structure that memorializes what happened here on December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy...

The US National Park Service has a short history of the events leading to the beginning of what we call World War II.

Thank you to all who had their lives taken from them that early Sunday morning. Their supreme sacrifice, and the sacrifices of thousands of others, eventually bore the fruit of peace, for which we are eternally thankful. May they rest in peace, secure in the knowledge that their sacrifice was not in vain.

Aloha!

The CEO of Google has a short article on good management called Google: 10 Golden Rules . Although, there isn't much new here (they tip their hats to the writings of Peter Drucker in the late 1950s), it's worth reviewing what works in the technology areas:

• Hire by committee.

• Cater to their every need.

• Pack them in.

• Make coordination easy.

• Eat your own dog food.

• Encourage creativity.

• Strive to reach consensus.

• Don't be evil.

• Data drives decisions.

• Communicate effectively.

Aloha!

Sorry, but the next few days will be very busy around here so I may not have a post up every day. Talk amongst yourselves until things settle down a bit.

Aloha!

Early this past Saturday morning, SWMBO and I went walking around Kapiolani Park. This is part of our regular routine and something we enjoy because you have the beauty of the park and the calm Pacific Ocean in one short three mile loop. However, perhaps this was not the wisest thing to do on this particular Saturday morning because this is the finish line for the famed Honolulu Marathon. Of course, the race is held the next day but even on Saturday, there are hundreds of people out for a run.

People from 48 of the 50 United States and over 40 countries (especially from Japan and Canada) came to run 26.2 miles (about 42km). Twenty-eight thousand people signed up to run and about 25,000 actually arrived at the early morning start line. Of those 25,000, all except about 380 completed the run. That is a phenomenal 98 percent completion rate! That is so high I have to wonder about the accuracy of the numbers reported in the MorningPaper but that's what they have.

For trivia buffs, the Honolulu Marathon is sometimes referred to as the people's marathon because everyone is welcome and the finish line is not shut down until the last runner finishes. Even if it takes 14 hours and nineteen minutes, as it did for the last two people to finish yesterday.

For all that, what I noticed on Saturday was that one of the runners, who may have been a Japanese national although I could be wrong on that, carried a trash bag with him and was picking up rubbish as he went along. I think local people should be ashamed that it takes someone from Japan to come here to pick up our own rubbish. We live in such a beautiful state but some residents seem to think public spaces are their own private trash bin. Shame on them and arigato gozaimas to the gentleman who by his actions was doing more than his part to make things a little better.

Aloha!

As the end of the year approaches, expect to see more top ten lists. The first up is the Top Ten Weirdest USB Devices from Sweden's fosfor gadgets site. I think I've already seen the Tiki Drive, but I have to agree with his number one choice. Just don't loose your head over this one folks.

Sorry, today is going to be a very busy day so I gotta' go.

Aloha!

One of the Christmas presents I got for SWMBO is the Motorola RAZR V3c (no, it's not a secret, I've already given it to her). The V3c is very similar to the V3 that I have but is designed to work on CDMA networks (like Verizon Wireless) and is EvDO compatible (although, and I could be wrong about this, I don't think that is available yet in Hawaii).

Cosmetically, the V3c has a dark gray finish that I rather like and a slightly different keyboard layout (in place of the web key, the V3c has a key for the camera. I like this tradeoff because I use the camera much more than the web. YMMV. Another keyboard difference is that the menu key is gone. I'm not sure I like this change as much because I tend to use the menu key a lot.). Speaking of the camera, my V3 came with a VGA (640X480) resolution camera while the V3c comes with a 1.3megapixel version. To store all those pictures, you get a relatively spacious 30MB to work with.

The case that Verizon sells for the V3c is okay but I like Motorola's version better because it (the Motorola version) completely covers, with clear plastic, the internal display (which is a fingerprint magnet if there ever was one) and has a removable belt clip (the Verizon version is permanently affixed and not that easy to use).

The operating system that comes with the V3c is also slightly different. I don't know if it boots up and shuts down faster than mine because of this or if the V3c has a faster processor. But in any case, the interface does seem to be more responsive.

I haven't yet taken it outside so I can tell you if Motorola has fixed the problem of not being able to see anything on the display screen when outdoors and the sun is shining but I'll let you know when I do.

Overall, I think SWMBO likes her new phone and so do I. That said, I'll wait for my carrier (Cingular) to bring out a rumored version 2.0 of the V3, Real Soon Now. This version supposedly has more storage, a sharper camera, and perhaps even a version of iTunes for playing audio files. Why this phone hasn't been released yet, given it's almost Christmas, is anyone's guess.

Aloha!

Yesterday I talked about the Motorola V3c I got for SWMBO. If you want to access the phone, via Linux, you may or may not be able to use the application called Moto4Lin (link to the Moto4Lin site for info and download the application from KDE-Apps here) .

I say may be able to use Moto4Lin because, as with most Linux applications that you have to compile yourself, you have to have the correct libraries, compiler environment, and in this instance, kernel module.

The libraries you need are libqt3, libusb-dev, and zlib. I won't go into the compiler environment because it varies so much by distribution. You also, according to the documentation, need a kernel module called the USB Abstract Control Model (ACM). Where you get that and how you install it I haven't figure out yet. [UPDATE: See below]

In using Xandros Deluxe 3.01, I was able to install the required libraries and then at the command line change into the directory where I unzipped the downloaded file and, as root, type in qmake [enter]. Then type in make [enter]. And finally type in make install [enter].

The instructions also say to type in the following so that you can run the program as yourself (as opposed to root):

chown root /usr/bin/moto4lin [enter]
chmod u+s /usr/bin/moto4lin [enter]

So, I now have the Moto4Lin application running but I can't connect to the phone.

When/if I can find this ACM module and get it working maybe things will work. Or not. You never no with Linux. But I'll keep you updated as things go forward.

Speaking of updates, I tried viewing the internal display screen of SWMBO's Motorola V3c outdoors yesterday and it has the same problem as my V3. Namely, the screen washes out and you can't see what is being displayed. Oh well, maybe in the next version of the V3 they'll get that solved.

UPDATE: Okay, apparently the module loads automajically but it is in a location different from the default that Moto4Lin looks for it. I will lay out two methods of how to get things going on a Motorola V3 from Cingular Wireless.

1. Plug in the phone to your mini-USB cable and then plug the cable into your PC's USB port.

2. At the command line, type: echo AT+MODE=8 > /dev/ttyACM0 [enter][note: the ttyACM0 part has the number zero at the end, not the letter O.]

3. Still at the command line, start Moto4Lin by typing: moto4lin [enter]

4. With Moto4Lin running, click on the "Connect/Disconnect" button.

5. After a short wait, it should be connected. If successful, you then click on the "Update list" button.

6. If that works, the Directory window should display "Phone", an icon, and the plus sign "+" next to the letter "a" to indicate you can open that directory. Do so.

7. This should lead to a "mobile" directory. Expand that directory and you will be viewing the root folders of your phone. Done.

Now, if at step four above you don't get connected, you may have to click on the "Preferences" button and edit the default connection directory from /dev/usb/acm to /dev/usb/tts/ . I had to do this and maybe this is specific to Xandros Deluxe 3.01 using the 2.6 kernel. I don't know. All I know is I had to do it otherwise I couldn't get connected. YMMV. Use at your own risk. Insert disclaimer here.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Aloha!

So I was over at the American Conservative site [whoa! You, at the American Conservative site? -ed]. Ahhh hem. So, as I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, I was over at the American Conservative site when I stumbled across an article by Robert Locke entitled "Marxism on the Right" .

Locke is referring here to what is generally referred to as Libertarianism. As I understand it, his main thesis is:

If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism.

I don't know enough about Libertarianism to say whether he is right and even if I did (and he is), it's still up to you to decide for yourself. What I can say is Libertarianism, taken to extremes, is full of self-contradictory statements that don't work in the rough and tumble world known as real life (I believe the same is also the case with Conservatism and Liberalism but we're not talking about them right now). Locke goes through a list of them: Libertarian approval of slavery, the abolition of all child labor laws, the abolition of clean air/water/land laws, and the abolition of government backed money to be replaced by money issued by banks.

All I can say is that the great majority of people have exercised their freedom of choice and have chosen not to be Libertarians (nor to have a country run by them). Perhaps this is because absolute freedom, like absolute power, corrupts absolutely? YMMV. Insert disclaimer here. Use at your own risk.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Hmmm, the sweet smell of ceder fills the air as strong hands shape the wood. Sand paper meets timber as it slowly reveals the form within. Then, after two weeks of hard work, the wood is sealed in six to eight coats of epoxy to keep the water from ruining the board. The hollow core wooden surf board, that is.

Although Hawaiians, who invented surfing, originally used solid core wood surfboards, almost no one now uses wooden boards. Except for these guys. A company in far off Maine called Grain Surfboards is making wooden surfboards and charging people $1,500 USD to buy one. Although cost is a disadvantage to using a wooden surfboard, the surfers buying these board say the "wooden boards handle like a dream, absorbing the jolts and bumps of the waves to create a ride as smooth as silk." YMMV. Use at your own risk. Watch out for splinters.

Aloha!

On a lighter note, a high tech ground penetrating radar was used to scan the foundation of the Hawaii Supreme Court building where I work. The radar was used to find a hollowed out time capsule cornerstone that was set by King Kamehameha V, a Freemason, in 1872. Although accounts of the day noted the laying of the capsule, and its contents, it was unclear exactly where it was placed. But using the radar, a geologist found it in about 10 minutes, surprising everyone as to how quickly it was found. Plans are to lay a commemorative plaque to mark the location of the capsule (which will be left sealed).

As an aside, King Kamehameha V died 10 months after laying the stone capsule. He passed on his birthday at the age of 42. It is not clear as to what he died of but it may have been heart or kidney disease. He was the last direct descendant of King Kamehameha I, the first king to rule over and unite all the Hawaiian Islands.

In a way, they are right. There is a war on the winter solstice.

WARNING: Political content. Skip on down if you are offended.

I've posted before on how I believe the so called Patriot Act was a call to shred the Constitution. On how it would allow acts that are contrary to the letter, sprit, and intent of the form of government our founding fathers died for. On how our hard fought system of checks and balances, which was purposefully designed to make Government inefficient so that it could not act precipitously, without due care and regard for the rights of its citizens.

But after the horror of September 11th, many people said we needed to give up our liberty so that we can be safe. That we must give up our Constitutional rights and system of checks and balances because we have to trust President Bush since he is the only one that knows everything and can therefore protect us. That we must radically transform the Executive Branch into the one, ultimate, ruler over all others since only the Executive Branch could be trusted to know what to do and could do it efficiently.

However, now we begin to see that President Bush broke that trust. That the President could not be trusted to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when he laid out his reasons to bring war on Iraq . That the President could not be trusted to protect the Constitutional rights of all when he signed a secret order to allow the National Security Agency to spy on US citizens without proper judicial oversight. And that the President could not be trusted to protect the citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina blew the dikes down .

So what to do? Since impeachment, although well deserved, is not likely with a Republican controlled Congress, what must happen is Congress must begin to fulfill its Constitutional role of a check and balance against the Executive Branch. So far, only the Judicial Branch has stood firm against the lies, mistakes, subterfuge, and innuendo of President Bush and his administration. But the Judiciary can not stand alone. Congress must act, now. Congress must resist the easy way out and begin to Just Say No to President Bush. Congress must begin to force accountability on this Imperial President.

will this happen? Not unless the American people force them to, it won't. Most politicians won't do anything that is hard unless he or she is forced to. What many want to do is simply look the other way as our country slowly sinks into dictatorship. Only you can stop this from happening. Already, President Bush has been forced to admit some of his mistakes. Not because he believes they were mistakes. In fact, he says they weren't and not only did he commit them, he's going to do them again, just as former President Nixon denied any wrong doing. Indeed, he is daring Congress to stop him.

Rather, if he is to be held accountable, it will be because the American citizens do not trust and support him. So, get off your okole and let your Congressman or woman know that you don't trust the President, and neither should they. Restore the system of checks and balances before it is too late.

Do extreme Islamic terrorist read Mao? I guess President Bush's Department of Homeland Security must think so. It seems a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (that hot bed of revolutionary activity since 1895) who is taking a class on "Fascism and Totalitarianism", requested an inter-library loan of Mao's famous tome on godless communism "The Little Red Book."

The book was to be part of a research paper for the class. However, based on that request and perhaps his travels to Europe, two Homeland Security agents knocked on the student's door demanding to know why he wanted the book.

Now, I realize "connecting the dots" is not an easy thing to do. And I'm not pointing fingers at the individual agents. I'm sure they're trying to do the best job they can given an impossible mission. More over, get it wrong and people could die. There are in fact terrorists out there who mean to kill US citizens. So, you can be sure Homeland Security will probably err on the side of safety.

But that said, there is no evidence, that I am aware of, that deeply religious Muslim terrorists are looking to Mao for enlightenment. The man was an atheist and preached a godless government system antithetical to Islam. Communism is discredited as an economic failure that collapsed in Soviet Russian and is collapsing in China due to widespread government and business corruption. Why would extremist Muslims study Mao's teachings for anything - much less reasons to attack the US?

Secondly, how is it that the government is spying on what books are being borrowed? Was there a court order to allow this? Was there any prior, independent judicial review to ensure no rights were being trod upon by Big Brother Government intrusion into citizen's private lives? Or was all of this made legal by the so called Patriot Act or President Bush's signature on a piece of worthless paper?

Where's all this so called profiling that the security experts were going to use? Yes, Homeland Security may be looking at more that just Middle Eastern terrorists. But should they? Do we have so much time and money that we will monitor what Chinese communist books people borrow as proof that they are threats to the US? Shouldn't we be focusing more? Shouldn't we stop wasting time on wild goose chases and start tracking down real terrorists?

Heck, I'm more afraid that China will buy the US (since they are major holders of our debt instruments) than afraid that they would invade us. Yet, Mao's book is on some kind of terrorist watch list. Sigh. Your (Big) Republican Government at work. Or as Mark Twain is quoted as saying: "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." Right now, it's hard to see how it deserves it.

Aloha!

The local Republican controlled radio station is touting the low rate of inflation and points to this as proof that Republicans know how to run the economy efficiently. Once I stopped laughing and got up from rolling on the floor I thought about what I call hidden inflation.

Hidden inflation is when you get less of a product or service but pay the same price as before. The cost, per unit of product increases, but the price you pay stays relatively level. Hence, the price increase is hidden.

I recently saw what may be an example of this when we went shopping for dog food. Dog food you say? Yes, dog food. We went to the Longs Drugs (a very popular store here in Hawaii that sells everything from sushi to slippers) to buy some dog food for our grand dog. It seems little "Chica", a terrier-mix breed may have an allergy to some types of dog food. We don't know yet what she is allergic to so we decided to try different brands of dog food and see her reaction to each. But in reading the ingredients on the back of the cans, we found this had very little relation to what the front of the can said it contained. For example, if it said "Hearty Beef" (all names are fictitious to protect the guilty) on the front, the back label ingredients would say water, poultry products, barley, rice, wheat, etc., followed somewhere by "beef byproducts." So we took a look at a can saying, on the front, that it was "Lively Liver." But the back label said water, poultry products, barley, rice, wheat, etc., followed somewhere by "liver." In fact, every single can of dog food we looked at, regardless of the brand or what the front of the can said it contained, had the same major ingredients: water, poultry products, barley, rice, wheat, etc.

Another example, SWMBO recently made up some goody bags for Christmas. Part of what she included were some small bags of candy. These small bags were part of a larger bag that held about 20 of these smaller bags. She noticed that while the price had not gone up much since last Christmas, the number of smaller packets contained in the larger bag had decreased and the weight of each smaller bag had also gone down.

A last example, some products have made the change from the English measurement system to metric. But instead of doing the math and just labeling it with the correct metric equivalent to what was there before, they gave you less and then listed that metric equivalent. Since most people don't carry calculator with them and don't know the conversion tables even if they did, it was a sneaky way to cover a cost increase.

While I certainly haven't taken any kind of scientific survey of products, I get the feeling that there are many other examples of products or services that have been reduced but without lowering the price. This literally increases the price per unit but hides the cost increase (or at least attempts to hide the increase).

But the net effect is you pay more if you purchase the same amount you used to get.

Aloha!

Sorry, no post today. Even though the year is winding down, things get busy around here because the Legislature opens next month. Hearings are already scheduled for our budget requests before the session even officially begins. So, move along. Nothing to see here.

Note: since Christmas falls on Sunday this year, I will probably do my Christmas post tomorrow (although that could change, depending on what happens between now and then).

Aloha!

If you are using Xandros Linux Deluxe 3.01 and running CrossOver Office 4.1-2 to run Internet Explorer 6.x you may have noticed that you cannot connect to nor view any web page on a SSL-secured web site. This is because IE, when running under Xandros/CrossOver, has its cipher strength set to 0-bits (open IE's Help menu, then click on "About Internet Explorer" to display the cipher strength, among other things). Why this is so, is not clear to me but a check of the support forum at Xandros found the following work-around:

1. Navigate to your /home/USERNAME/.cxoffice/dotwine directory (substitute your own login name for "USERNAME" when navigating to the directory).

2. Make a backup copy of the system.reg file found in that directory.

3. After making the copy, open the original system.reg file with your text editor.

4. Find the following line and delete only that line: "ComputerName"="localhost.localdomain"

5. Save your change and exit the text editor.

This worked for me and I now have 128-bit cipher strength in Internet Explorer and I can now access secure sites.

Aloha!

I hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas. We know our grandchild did. What with this being baby's first Christmas, you better believe we spoiled the kid rotten. Of course, the toy he liked the most was the simple rattle that we got as an afterthought from Longs Drugs. That said, I'm sure he'll eventually grow up to appreciate his other toys but he really likes the rattle...

Sorry, no post today. I'm at home trying to get over a cold. I am slowly getting better but I can't wait until my head no longer feels like it is full of cotton.

Aloha!

Sorry, no post today.

This is my last post for this year. My next one will probably be on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006. I wish you all the best in 2006. May we have peace, joy, and understanding.

Happy New Year, Everyone - Aloha!

I saw this local TV news report recently in which a woman alleges that the iPod she bought from the Honolulu Wal*Mart actually didn't have an iPod in the box. What she displayed to the camera looked like plastic wrapped dog food. Sites like Gizmodo and Engadget picked the story up and eventually updated it saying an internal Wal*Mart investigation indicates a former employee made the switch to that, and other iPod boxes.

So, to all you kids out there who got a lump of meat in your stocking for Christmas, it's not because you were naughty.

I'm back at work now and I guess, staying up late and getting up early for all the Christmas festivities must have lowered my resistance. By Monday night, I was aching in all my joints, coughing, and had a sore throat. I tried going to sleep at 8:30pm (20:30) but awoke every hour or two until my usual wake up time of 4:45am.

Staying at work on Tuesday was really difficult because the A/C was turned down so much my nose (and other appendages) was turning blue. But since I needed to be at work for a scheduled conference call I came in and stayed the day. I didn't make it in after that but have recovered enough to drag myself in for the last day of the work year. But enough whining. As a poet once said, it could be verse.