Pipes Network Clog Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

Summer Almost Over?

Where the heck did the summer go? All of the sudden, its the last day in July. Pretty soon it will be Labor Day, and then I have to start school again (hopefully for the last time in the fall though).

If time could just slow down until Labor Day, that would be great.

Its supposed to be almost 100 degrees here today, so stay cool.

Playing with Google Maps

You can do some interesting things with Google Maps, thanks to the API they have released.

I've been wanting to play with it for a while to try and do some things, and have finally had some time recently to do so.

www.pipesnetwork.com/maps

All I did so far was make a google maps page that is centered on a zipcode, and then made the map to dynamically fill the page. Also, you can click on points on the map and it will add/delete markers. This is useful if you want to make maps for directions, etc.

More to come...could be useful for wedding maps, etc.

Skype

In case you don't know what it is, go to www.skype.com and check it out.

I've been using it a little bit for around a year now. It started off as a way for my professor to hold office hours with the distance learning students for the class I took last fall. Now, I have completely replaced my home phone with it, and I can use it to see my 6-month old nephew who is over 1,000 miles away.

Not only can you make free calls to anywhere in the U.S., but for $38 a year (with free voice mail), you can receive calls from anywhere as well. Thats a heck of a lot cheaper than the $25 a month for a phone I never used. The only downfall is right now you have to either use a computer microphone, or buy a USB phone which plugs into your computer. You can however by cordless USB phones, so that is the ideal solution, but then run around $80. Even figuring that into the cost though, $118 instead of $300 for a years worth of service seems pretty darn good to me.

Also, in the near future they are coming out with Wi-Fi skype phones that will not need to be plugged into a computer to work. These however are expected to cost between $250-$300, so that is way more than I would spend on a phone.

So far, I'm content with my $20 wal-mart special that looks like an old cell phone.

College Expenses

How does the government really expect people to go to college when many people have problems like this.

As of finishing my master's degree, my debt hovers around $70,000 -- it will grow to over $100,000 by the time I pay it off. My repayment schedule reaches into my late forties, at $650 a month. If I do the kind of low-paid, meaningful work I want to pursue -- teaching, writing, grassroots organizing -- I will likely struggle to make each payment.

This makes me feel pretty happy about the $400 I am pissed off about having to pay for grad school this year, not to mention that my parents paid for my undergrad so I don't have loans from that. $650 a month for student loans is a HUGE hole to have to climb out of.

We landed on the moon?

I'm not one to believe conspiracy theories, however I do find them interesting. Some people at work were talking about how we never really landed on the moon, and so I ended up with a link to this site, which shows a lot of facts that make it seem we haven't. Read the article, or at least the 2 points from the article below and you'll understand.

There should have been a substantial crater blasted out under the LEM's 10,000 pound thrust rocket. Sceptics would have you believe that the engines only had the power to blow the dust from underneath the LEM as it landed. If this is true, how did Armstrong create that famous boot print if all the dust had been blown away?

An astrophysicist who has worked for NASA writes that it takes two meters of shielding to protect against medium solar flares and that heavy ones give out tens of thousands of rem in a few hours. Russian scientists calculated in 1959 that astronauts needed a shield of 4 feet of lead to protect them on the Moons surface. Why didn't the astronauts on Apollo 14 and 16 die after exposure to this immense amount of radiation? And why are NASA only starting a project now to test the lunar radiation levels and what their effects would be on the human body if they have sent 12 men there already?

I'm not sure that I doubt we've been on the moon because of this, but it definitely makes you wonder.

Byebye Mico

Well its official. 3 weeks shy of having the little fur ball for 2 years, he is no longer mine. Since he is such an attention hungry cat, I felt he was being neglected, and in addition pets are not allowed at my new home. That being the case, my friends parents now have a 3rd cat to go along with their 2 dogs. He's in a better place, so while I'm sad he's no longer going to be around with me, he'll be happier there.

As a tribute, there are pictures posted of him here

He was the best cat a lonely single guy could have ever picked up.

I'm back!

After a week hiatus without internet, I am back online now. I have Comcast internet, so we'll see how this is. I've never had anything but DSL before.

I haven't blogged in the last week because, other than being busy moving, I had a problem when I upgraded to the latest version of Movable Type. I have now fixed it (I think, if you're reading this its ok).

Anyway, I'm getting all setup in my new place, where I even have an office :-)

Have a great weekend.

Is this week ever going to end?

This seems like the longest week ever. And its only Thursday morning. I've got a big weekend ahead, with moving into the new place, thanks to some help from the guys in the Fort. I don't mind moving, I just hate the packing up part. At least when you're unpacking its into a new place so its kind of exciting (or something like that). Of course its supposed to be 90 all weekend, so it will be nice and hot moving everything, but at least no rain. So much for a relaxing weekend...

Fireworks & Idiots don't mix

Never let an idiot play with fireworks.

Conclusion

I have come to a conclusion lately. This site sucks. For one, its pretty ugly. It doesn't have anything too interesting here, except for those few people who actually care to see what is gonig on with me, and catch an occasional interesting article that I find. There's really only 2 reasons to be on the web in my opinion. One is to stay in touch with people, and the other is to make money. Right now this doesn't do either of those. Time to figure something out so it does both, preferably...