Realm of the Shadow Redux

I remember when we first got our first “family” computer back in 1986 (Jean and I). It was shortly after Nikki was born and it was a Radio Shack Tandy Color Computer II. It was Tandy’s answer to the popular Commodore 64 platform which was one of the leading home computers of the day. We were so proud to have such a high tech machine and we spent many a night typing in code by hand for many days in order to get a calendar program or a simple game to work on it (courtesy of the Rainbow Magazine that we had to subscribe to in order to get software as there were not many after market companies that targeted the CoCo II market). We upgraded after a year or so to the newer 128 Kbit CoCo III which was tremendously more powerful and allowed us to use single sided 5 1/4″ floppy disks which eliminated the necessity of typing in all of that code. There still wasn’t much of an after-market support system though. After that came our first Tandy 1000 RX (an actual PC with a 8086 processor). So why am I going through this old history? Well I just watched this video about how the Internet has changed society and got to thinking about how my own experiences have been. Watch this and think about what it is saying about society and technology. It could be inspirational or it might be scary, depending on how you look at it:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Electronic Device Evolution – What’s Next (georgevanantwerp.com)
• 15 Cool & Crazy Concept Computers (weburbanist.com)

Tags: Le Roy Acres Pages, Tech, Uncategorized // Comments Off

Here is the photos of my dad’s headstone. I will place more about it here later today or tomorrow.

Tags: Family, Uncategorized // Comments Off

Title: McFreecycle Free For All
Location: Anderson Park, Normal, IL
Description: McLean County’s Freecycle” rel=”homepage”>Freecycle event (semi-annual) held at Anderson Park in Normal, IL. Bring your items to gift to whomever needs them and take something home with you as well. Remember that Freecycle is about finding a new uses for your unwanted items. See you there!
Start Time: 09:00
Date: 2009-09=19

Tags: Uncategorized // Comments Off

My first official website for my Digital Media class has been submitted. I have also placed the site online for your perusal. The requirements for this site were as follows:

• Five pages in length
• Easy navigation on all pages
• At least one image per page (could be more)
• Must provide the appropriate DTD (Declaration statement) for XHTML 1.0 Strict
• Provide a valid email link with the appropriate fields already filled in (the to: and possibly the subject: fields)
• title each page
• validate each page according to W3C standards for XHTML 1.0 Strict

So far this class has been a rewarding experience. Where I have been coding in HTML for many years (since about 1994 or so) I have had little actual coding experience with XHTML and not really spent much time worrying about validating my code. I am learning the newer XHTML standards and am looking forward to the next few weeks as we start to delve into CSS. There have been a few gaps that this course has now covered for me and I suspect that I will find more as I have been self-taught up til now.

I am also finding it rewarding to be able to share my knowledge with my fellow students. I’ve been able to find most of my answers that I need through my discussions with fellow students and/or google searches on the Internet (searches has been my usual mode of learning code until my decision to take this class). I am currently considering continuing in the design field as a secondary course of study to better round out my education in the IT field. I figure that more knowledge and abilities can only be a plus when I go to an interview for my career change.

But anyway, here’s the linky to my first OFFICIAL DMED 110-96 Website. Be certain to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Remember, this is supposed to be a plain jane style of webpage, the fancy stuff will come later on.

Tags: Tech, Uncategorized // Comments Off

In an interview on NBC this morning the once Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has once again claimed that he is innocent of the accusation that he tried to sell the vacated Barrack Obama Senate seat. It is my opinion that this interview was more about the sale of his new novel The Governor for it’s monetary value than it has ever been about his supposed innocence.

In his interview and his book he claims that “there is nothing in my private conversations that would verify I was trying to sell the senate seat” but when challenged on this issue he verified that he made the following two statements:

1. “I want to make money on the senate seat” and…
2. “I got this thing and it’s (bleeping) golden and I’m just not giving it up for just nothing”

Blago claims that these statements were taken out of context, that they were in the “context of politics.” Now I ask, just what the heck is this “context of politics” he is referring to? I am postulating that this means he was just doing business as usual. Keeping up with the status quo. Performing the infamous behind closed doors shady politics that has plagued our state’s political entity for almost as long as I can remember. Does this make it right? Heck NO! But it seems as if Blago believes it is ok for him to work in this manner.

So, let’s take a look at this political context that the EX Governor is referring to. According to Blago, his supposed deal is not unlike President Obama‘s deal with Hillary Clinton

where the President wished to commit fund raising events to eliminate Mrs. Clintons campaign debt if she agreed to step out of the presidential race. For some reason I just don’t equate this with opening up a senate seat for sale. According to Blago, the deal would have been to place Lisa Madigan into the senate seat if her father (Speaker of the House Madigan) would pass Blago’s bills concerning 500,000 new jobs from investment of Public Works, Healthcare to working and middle class families, and a written guarantee to not raise taxes. This comes from a person who has proved himself untrustworthy by not raising taxes but instead raising all types of fees on such items as hunting and fishing licenses, gas price taxes, “sin” taxes, service fees of all types and other shady money gubbing tactics. This is the man who tried to hold our state government hostage by threatening and subsequently shutting down numerous state parks, historical, and recreational sites in order to get his bills passed. He is also attempting to bring other people in to this scheme of his in order to share the blame. He specifically names Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Dick Durban, Head of Senate Campaign Congressional Committee Senator Menendez, and Harry Read claiming that they all knew about his inside deal with the Madigans. No one to date has verified any of this information.

Oh and lest we forget, he is still harping on the issue that the prosecution won’t release the full tapes of his conversations before the trial. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that releasing those tapes could lead to a mistrial or possibly make it so that the justice system would be able to choose an unbiased jury? Blago is a highly skilled lawyer and is well aware of the reasons why certain evidence needs to remain out of the public view until after justice is served, don’t every forget that. He claims that part of his motive behind writing his book was to prove his innocence. In what way could this prove his innocence, the most it could prove is that lot’s of people will read it, essentially excluding them from being able to serve on a jury in his trial. Evidence is going to come from other sources than his book. I personally feel that the book is merely a means to an end, that being able to eliminate a large number of potential jurors and a method of providing some much needed funds for his defense.
The biggest question is this, will the U.S. Attorney turn the book publishing around and use it against Blago? This and the question of wether or not justice will be served only time will be able to tell. It is my desperate prayer that Blago will find himself in a jail cell in one of the institutions he attempted to shut down in order to “save” our state some money. Pontiac would be a good choice I think.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Blagojevich Maintains Innocence In Memoir To Be Released Next Week (inquisitr.com)
• Ousted Ill. Governor Explains Himself in New Book (abcnews.go.com)
• Ousted Ill. governor explains himself in new book (ctv.ca)
• Blago Book Published Next Week (politicalwire.com)
• Ousted governor tells his story (thestar.com)
• Blagojevich Wiretaps To Remain Sealed: Judge (huffingtonpost.com)
• Blagojevich Launches His Own Web Site (huffingtonpost.com)
• Emanuel, Blagojevich traded calls about grant (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Blago’s Book Leak (chicagoist.com)

Tags: Uncategorized, politics // Comments Off