Well, apparently my connection and server outages are still happening. I contacted my host to see what’s up and they said that they are still having issues with the server I’m on and they hope to have it fixed next week. This is really making me think about not renewing with them this year.

Okay, it’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened, but my web presence has been pretty limited. Two words: Moving sucks.

Let’s see what all has happened…

Well, I graduated. I really wondered about my grade in my Theoretical Foundations of Computing class, but I did manage to pull it off. It was a little stressful waiting for the grades to get posted, but all was well.

Graduation Day was interesting. We got lucky in that the weather was cloudy and cool. I’ve been to plenty of graduations out in the sun and that sucks. Heck, it even rained on us, but they gave us rain ponchos as we walked out onto the field. President Bush made quite an entrance with the helicopters flying over the stadium. They (“they” being the President and his entourage, filling 4 or 5 helicopters) landed on the practice football field just east of Gallagher-Iba. President Bush’s speech was a good one. It was short at about 20 minutes, but that’s not such a bad thing. Many keynote speakers drone on forever. It was pretty much non-partisan and very much a graduation speech; not a political speech. It really made those protesters seem stupid. In effect, despite what many of them claimed, they were protesting our graduation and not the government’s policies. I didn’t walk down to the protesting area, but from the signs I read, and the stuff I heard from their PA system, they were pretty pathetic. They assumed the speech would be political and wound up making fools of themselves. The media gave them a heck of a lot of coverage, though.

After the preliminary speeches were done, everyone left for lunch and got ready for the 2 graduation walk ceremonies in the afternoon. We went to Pat’s apartment for a little gathering Pat and Mom put together. They did a real good job. Pat’s apartment is pretty small, but we managed to just fit.

For the walk part, we were inside Gallagher-Iba. I was far from the last person to line up for the procession from the A&S gathering site to the arena, but lots of people pushed forward so as not to look like they were late and I wound up at basically the end of the entire walking process. It took so long I think I might have fallen asleep waiting for my name. I’m sure glad that is over.

The next day was a moving day for me. I intended to move out before noon, but it wound up taking until nearly 21:00 for me to get done. That was a long day. I then spent the week with Pat.

The next weekend was for moving my stuff out to Memphis. That was one heck of a drive. I hate driving. Have I mentioned that? I hate driving.

My next week consisted of me catching up on a season worth of TV shows. Except for Survivor and Grey’s Anatomy, I had Beyond TV recording everything I wanted to watch for the semester. Wow was that a lot of shows, but I did get caught up.

When Shinta got back to Memphis, we went to see Mission: Impossible III. It’s a fun action film. I don’t get all the negative press over it. I thought it was about as good as the second film. I particularly enjoyed the action. It was constantly moving forward. They had it cram packed with HK weapons too. I also noted that some of the mercs in the bridge scene were carrying Krinkovs. Gotta give props to the great AKS-74U.

The next day (Saturday) we caught Over the Hedge. It’s a really funny film. I enjoyed it. I didn’t exactly enjoy the little kids and the huge mess they made in the theater, but it was a good film. I recommend it. As intended, it’s good for all ages.
Then, Sunday, was Marrina’s graduation. So, I made the long drive back to OKC for that. While there I picked up the grandparents so that they could spend the week with us in Memphis. It was a wonderful week. It has been a long time since I’ve been around them for such a period of time and it was great. We took them to the Wat Buddhasamakeedham for the yearly memorial of my dad’s death and Uncle O took them back to OKC with him. I hope it wasn’t the last time they stay with us.

When we got back to Memphis, we went to see The Da Vinci Code. It’s a good thriller. I never read the book, but the story was really good. Most of the twists I didn’t expect and they were interesting. I don’t understand why the critics didn’t like this one either, but I did. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read the book, but it was good.
Last night we went to see X-Men: The Last Stand. That was a good film too. At least in the summer blockbuster sense. It thought it was about as good as the first film (the second was the best of the three). It was well done and I think well written. The special effects were mostly good. There were a few things that the special effects could have improved on, but for the most part it was fairly seemless. No spoilers here, but there were a couple of interesting twists I didn’t expect.

I think that catches things back up.

I saw some new signs in the dorms today.  They say “Protest Bush” and have a couple of URL’s.  I think this one is the one to look at:

http://www.oklahomansfordemocracy.org/

Well, I have a problem with this.  I may be a conservative, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the problem I have.  The problem I have isn’t that they want to protest the President.  The problem I have is that they want to protest a graduation.  Now, their site says:

This is not an effort to disrupt or disturb the commencement or graduation (graduation is being held later in the day seperate from commencement). This is an effort to express our concerns in a peaceful fashion without causing a major disruption in the events. This is not an effort to affect the ceremony inside as that belong to the graduates. There is a group of concerned graduates that has formed which can be found here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ostategradprotest. The graduate group is not associated with this protest.

Well, phooey on that.  They time they are doing it is from 8am to 12pm and on campus just across the way from the stadium.  It’s before during and after the commencement portion of the graduation.  That’s protesting a graduation.  I don’t care how they want to put it, that’s protesting a graduation.  That’s protesting my graduation.  If they want to protest a political event, fine.  If they want to protest a meet and greet, fine.  Protesting a graduation is not fine.  If the President was going to be at a wedding, would it be okay to protest the wedding?  NO!  Just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should.

I don’t know.  I just rubs me wrong that they’d protest a graduation.  If Hillary is elected in 2008 and she gives a speech at a graduation in my area.  I wouldn’t even think of protesting that.  If Carter were giving this speech (and were still a sitting President), I would be lining up to hear him speak.  It doesn’t matter to me that I don’t agree with their politics.  Being there and hearing what they say without having the media be the intermediary is a special thing.  We should all hope to be in the presense of our leaders at least once.  Not because they are better than us.  Not because they are powerful, but because what they do affects the world.  We need to evaluate them on personal experiences and not just what we read/hear/see in the media. Okay, rant mode off.  I’m just frustrated to see all this talk of protest on what should be a happy day.

I just heard the most stupid quote I’ve heard in quite a while.  I quote:

“12 million people can’t be law breakers.”

This was said by an illegal immigration…er…undocumented worker proponent in a mini-debate segment on Fox News in response to a statement by one of the Minutemen founders saying that these people are breaking our laws by being in the country illegally and should be dealt with.  The lack of thought in that statement is astounding.  Let me quote another statistic from the Bureau of Justice:

“In 2004, nearly 7 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at yearend 2004″

That’s just for the year 2004.  So, that’s 7 million law breakers that were in or went through the justice system in just 2004.  These 12 million immigrants have built up since the last amnesty in 1986.  Big difference in number and it goes to show that there certainly can be 12 million law breakers.

So, now I have a proposition.  The statistics I’ve read say that in 1994, 59.1 million American adults owned firearms.  We should all build unregistered machine guns.  59.1 million (surely higher now, as the BATFE states that 60.4 million firearms transfers were checked through NICS between 1994 and 2004) people can’t be lawbreakers.  That’s right not only should we go and do that, since there are so many, we should be given amnesty.  Yes, that’s right we should be given amnesty and allowed to keep the new machine gun (maybe pay for the tax stamp after the fact).  I’m sure that’ll go over real well.

So, it’s late and I’ve got Fox News going as background noise and I see a little preview for a Hannity and Colmes segment on eminent domain. I try not to watch that show as Hannity really gets on my nerves. Anyway, the preview included a little clip of a woman that looked an aweful lot like my Mandarin professor. It even sounded like her, but they mention it being in Kansas. Well, I was curious to find out if it really was her, so I watched the episode to see what it was all about. Sure enough it is my old Mandarin professor. Apparently she owns a store up in Manhattan Kansas that is being taken under eminent domain. Well, it turns out she is still in Stillwater too (and still teaches here), so I don’t know the logistics of how she has a store almost 300 miles away. Looks like she’s fighting a losing battle, but I wish her the best. Here’s some quick things I found about it through Google.

http://www.kstatecollegian.com/article.php?a=9337

http://manhattanfreepress.com/freepressissues/2006/March-06/March-9-06.pdf

http://www.ci.manhattan.ks.us/documents/Agendas/…/EminentDomain%7DDowntown.pdf

So, I’m sitting here taking a break from my killer night of homework.  I decided I needed some icrecream to make me more hyper (not that I get that hyper with it).  I walked over to Twenty Something to get a pint of cookies and cream.  It’s snowing.  The weather people said that it’d come after midnight, but it’s already coming down now.  I hope it isn’t too bad.  I want the moisture, but it would suck to get just enough to cause us traffic headaches tommorrow.  Of course it would be nice if we got enough snow to get school cancelled tommorrow.  I could go for that.

Another thing.  So, I was driving earlier today.  I was on the highway going the the speed limit in the right lane.  The roads were rather crowded.  A semi was in the left lane also going the speed limit, about a car length behind me.  I believe that the truck would have moved over into the right lane behind me, but was waiting for a bit more clearance.  Depending on the grade of the road, I would inch away from the the truck and it would inch back up on me.  We’re talking 1mph differences here.  Well, I check my rear-view mirror frequently to keep a heads up on the traffic all around me.  I see this Acura coming up on me pretty fast, weaving back and forth between cars.  Then the idiot uses that barely-a-car-length space between me and the semi to whip around and between us at least 20mph over the speed limit.  I’m sitting there silently wishing ill-will on that driver when not a minute later, somebody else, in a much larger and older car goes and does the same thing.  Had there not been such a gap between when those cars went by I would have thought that they were racing.  I hope they don’t take anybody else in their future fiery demises.  It might be nice if I could see it happen on TV.  I know, I’m evil.

This political correctness madness that’s going on is going to destroy the country.  I mean, I remember making fun of it back when I was in elementary school.  Yet today it’s not just something of a laughing matter.  I saw several examples on Fox News this afternoon that were so ridiculous that they they are simultaneously laughable and pathetic.  How we could have gotten to this point is more than just a matter of speculation, it’s seriously real.  I fear how far this may go.

So what is it that I saw to make me make this post?  Well, let’s start with the primary story.  Apparently, around the country there are schools that are now banning the game “tag”.  How can you ban tag?  It’s been played since the beginning of time.  It’s one of those games you don’t have to be taught how to play, it’s built in.  All kids know what tag is.  Yet, suddenly, it’s a seriously dangerous game for kids emotionally.  I’m sorry, I just don’t see this as being a problem.  Kids need to learn how to deal with those emotions.

What else?  Well, at some schools football can only be played during gym class (sounds reasonable), but there, no running is allowed.  Football just isn’t football without running.  I don’t know a thing about football, but I know you have to be able to run.

There’s more.  At some school in New York, they don’t play “tug-o-war”.  No, they play “tug-o-peace”.  How ridiculous is that?

And the last one.  This tops them all.  Some lady out in California is going on the news proclaiming that the new movie “Curious George” is not politically correct and not suitable for children.  She goes on to cite things such as bad parenting, truancy, and the kicker — the capture of a monkey for purposes of putting him in a zoo.

When will it end?

Welcome to Memphis, my soon to be adopted home. It kind of gets me thinking when on the evening news they announced that Memphis now has 4 murders in the first 5 days of 2006. This last case being a man mugged and shot to death in front of his apartment. My understanding is that the rest of Tennessee jokes about the crime rate in Memphis, but this is ridiculous. I’m used to Stillwater, where we can go a year or more without a murder. One thing is for sure. After I officially get moved out here, I’m getting a carry license as soon as I can. The precedent has been well documented in court that the police can not be held responsible for our safety, so I sure as hell will be responsible for my own.

First off, my condolences to the families and friends of the 12 WV miners.

Now, until the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s second stroke, this was going to be the biggest story of the day. I happened to be watching the news during this entire saga from before the “announcement” that the 12 were found alive, to press conference correction where it was announced only 1 had survived. Who’s to blame for the accident? Time will tell. The investigation is already under way. Who’s to blame for the “miscommunication” of the fate of the 11 presumed dead then alive then dead miners? It’s the media. The media was too eager to have be the first to announce *something* that they didn’t care whether or not it was right. Journalism 101 is to confirm reports before reporting them. If you hear a rumor that the miners are alive, get the company to confirm it before running with the story. The mining company had been doing press conferences every 3 hours to keep the media updated. Worst case is that they would have had to wait 3 hours. It could have saved those families a lot of grief. It’s just a shame that sensationalism so trumped the meaning that the news had to the people it affected. And as if to throw salt in the wound, all the reporters did during that corrective press conference was pass the buck and imply it was the company’s fault that the family was suffering from the media’s incorrect reporting. I wonder if they even realize how stupid they are.

Well, I’m sick. Based on what has been discussed on the news, it may be the California flu. It sucks. I’ve got plenty to post, but maybe after I feel a little better. More later.