edgewood libertarianism

The Lost Symbol: 1 of 33

2009-10-07T10:13:00.006-06:00

A week before publication, Knoph Doubleday released an online promotional game called Symbol Quest for its soon to be published Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol. If you answered all the questions right, which involved selecting a symbol to match a given clue, and you got all 33 symbols right without missing any, you heard the following recorded message:

"This is Dan Brown. Congratulations on playing Symbol Quest and reaching the 33rd degree with a perfect score. I’ve just finished signing 33 first editions of the lost symbol which are locked in the vault, waiting to be sent out to the 33 different winners. The 33 first winning code breakers who call the secret phone numbers, encrypted on the book jacket, will receive this reward. Good luck."

High resolution images of the front cover (and later the spine) had been available since earlier in the month, so a lot of people were starting to look for that phone number. Given what was available in the images, and presuming that the number was most likely in the block of numbers used by Random House (Knoph Doubleday's parent company)... 10 numbers were most likely.

I apologize to the seven or so employees who have real work extensions at one of these 10 numbers. I hope you have been able to change your number and for the week of annoying phone calls.

Turns out that the actual phone number was just answering with "Leave a message..." until late afternoon on September 14th. At 4:30 pm MDT I called the number which instructed all those that called to send an email to a randomhouse.com email address with "Robert Langdon's favorite symbol" as the subject and contact info as the body.

Then the wait...

Around October 2nd, first reports of people having received a signed book started appearing on Twitter... seemed that people closest to the Manhattan Offices of Random House were reporting first. I held my breath everyday I checked my box, but nothing. Then on October 5th, someone in the Midwest got theirs and I was sure that it was the day. Nothing. And nothing the next day (I live in New Mexico).

I had all but given up hope. It was the first Tuesday, Lodge night. I was getting ready to head over to the Lodge when a ring sounded on the doorbell. My wife answered and found the UPS package there... stiff yellow envelope... one of the seams had split and you could see the spine of The Lost Symbol through it. I ran around the house a little more than I'd like to admit.

Congratulations! You are 1 of 33 winners of Symbol Quest.

By the way... finishing Symbol Quest now, give you the following message:

"This is Dan Brown. Congratulations on completing the symbol quest, in reaching the 33rd degree with no errors. As you may have noticed the book jacket in the US is covered with symbols and icons. Encoded within them, are five hidden messages for you to find and decrypt. Best of luck and i hope you enjoyed the novel."

As far as I know, only 4 of the hidden messages have been discovered. Also if you call the phone number now, the message has changed to what can only be described as some sort of chant... speculations abound.

The Lost Symbol: ALL GREAT TRUTHS

2009-09-15T15:24:00.002-06:00

The back cover of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol contains a classic Masonic cipher that decodes to the following...

"ALL GREAT TRUTHS BEGIN AS BLASPHEMIES"

...a quote from George Bernard Shaw's Annajanska (1919)

The Lost Symbol: POPES PANTHEON

2009-09-12T21:56:00.011-06:00

The Lost Symbol cover has these two number sequences:

"22-65-22-97-27"

"22-23-44-1-133-97-65-44"

which can be decoded (using substitution) to "POPES PANTHEON" perhaps referring to the Jefferson Memorial which was designed by John Russell Pope, but more likely refers to the House of the Temple, Home of The Supreme Council, 33°, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction.

UPDATE: It appears that a gentleman named Billy Gates notified (or was working in conjunction with) with the Secrets of the Lost Symbol blog on August 26 at 4:22 p.m. even though they didn't publish the find until Sunday September 13. I'm glad that there is now confirmation of this find and that it appears to be on the right track... to what is still anyone's guess. At least one other gentleman named "Ted" came up with the same independently, his comment is at the Cryptex.

UPDATE 2: Whereas, There are people, including myself, that were working on this code before the book was released; and whereas, Billy Gates has also tried explaining the same to the commenters here; and whereas, Most people working on these codes presumed they were page or chapter numbers and could therefore use mono/poly-alphabetic substitution; and whereas, The book having been published, we can all see now that the numbers refer to chapters; and whereas, We all know that this is the same strategy Dan Brown used in Digital Fortress; and Whereas, People have called my cell phone to personally tell me that I'm "making this all too complicated" and such; NOW, BE IT THEREFORE Resolved, that any post published before September 15, 2009 is most likely referring to efforts to decode clues on the cover without physically having the book.

Open Letter to Zend

2009-09-03T09:01:00.003-06:00

Dear Zend Technologies Ltd.:

We want a 64-bit Zend Debugger for Mac x86_64. I think it's about time.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Morin (and every Zend PHP developer who's bought a Mac since Early 2008)

UPDATE: A hardy round of applause to Zend for releasing a Debugger for Mac x86_64. It is available here.

7th Anniversary

2008-11-24T00:01:00.004-07:00

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. I couldn't ask for a more loving and caring wife and best friend to spend my life with. You're an amazing mother, and we have the most beautiful boys. I love being a father, a husband and... I love you, Bunches.

Wedding Day 2001

Justin Caleb 2003

Zachary Stephen 2005

Maine Trip 2006

Puzzllotto Hints Interpreted

2008-11-03T12:24:00.005-07:00

Here's my interpretation of the United Lemur hints for Puzzllotto. If you just want the solution, go here.

Day 1: "If you think you've solved Puzzllotto, you haven't. When you solve Puzzllotto, you'll know."

Just because you got to the screen without Ovay doesn't mean you solved anything. If you have to ask, "Did I win?" You didn't. I believed this one from the beginning, but at first I thought I'd do something within the game. Later it became obvious that I'd know because it was external to the game.

Day 2: "Puzzllotto keeps returning you to the beginning because it makes the puzzle easier to solve."

In hindsight, this is true. It's an indication that if you just focus on what you're doing, even on level 1, that you have everything you need to decode the ultimate solution. You do need to at least see the hidden screen after level 4 or be really good with iPhone screenshots to take one in between levels, but this was why when I was stuck I just kept playing level 1. It was supposed to help me figure out the pattern, and did, eventually.

Day 3: "If the game were called Nunnllotto, the Fosa would be a ruler."

It's a jab in the ribs to let us know that every time we hit a Fosa we were being disciplined for having done something wrong, and therefore had to start at the beginning again, metaphorically getting the ruler to the knuckles. More importantly, this is to let us know that the Fosa on the solution screen is a 0, or None.

Day 4: "Solving Puzzllotto doesn't require rhythm or arcane gestures. Think twice, tap once."

This was to lead people away from rumors that you might have to shake or tilt or otherwise contort their fingers into odd gestures. You didn't. At the time, when I was still attempting to analyze the order of things instead of the state of things, I took this to mean don't press the same spot twice in a row, and I actually solved level 1 avoiding double taps, even found most efficient method of flipping bits (requires a double tap). In the end, you only needed to tap out the phone number.

Day 5: "The lemurs are there to help you. The butterflies are there to guide you."

I was confused by this at first since on the official Puzzllotto site, it says when describing Lemurs, "Let them be your guide..." Now we're being told that the butterflies are the guides. I didn't use this hint too much, but in the end, both butterflies and lemurs in the playing field are on bits and the absence of either is an off bit. On the solution screen, lemurs are the on bits and the butterflies indicate which direction the binary encoded digits should be read (this is also why, I believe, that level 2 and level 4 flip horizontally and why the butterflies line up from right to left on these levels).

Day 6: "The order of the puzzles in Puzzllotto has more to do with playability than solvability."

This is when most people started to think, if they hadn't already, that just solving the levels doesn't mean anything. My guess is that most people started thinking that they needed to find the right solution on the levels or that they had to be played a certain number of times each. To me it told me to stop thinking about the order of the taps. I spent the next day or two just looking at the solution screen trying to figure it out because I figured all the play had been completed, eventually deciding to map the state of the whole board instead of the order of the taps.

Day 7: "Finishing Puzzllotto is not the same as solving Puzzllotto."

This is essentially the Day 1 hint over again, but it does reinforce the fact that if it seems like there's no play left after level 4, you're right. It's time to take what you learned beating level 1 and apply it, but it takes some work to see what you're learning in level 1.

Day 8: "The male lemurs are the ones with the wrist glands. This has no relevance to the puzzle whatsoever."

My guess here is that because of the press event prior to Puzzllotto's launch where it was announced that David Lanham's artwork was so "so detailed that you can tell the difference between male and female lemurs" OR because some people were uncompressing the Puzzllotto.ipa looking at the Puzzllotto.app Contents and asking if there was significance to there being both a Lemur-scared-female.png and a Lemur-scared-male.png, United Lemur decided to help us quit wasting time looking for armpits on scared lemurs when Fosa was found. Personally, I found the presence of male or female lemurs to be random after only 15 minutes of wasted time... admittedly.

Day 8: (Portland time) 3:19 PM Oct 30th from web...

Dave Hayden posts on Twitter he has solved Puzzllotto, "for reals." This means he just got off the phone and everyone else is basically out of luck. It would be about another 21 hours until I finally figured out the solution and made the phone call myself. The first time, the phone rang and rang with no answer. The second time I called it I got the recording.

Puzzllotto Solution

2008-11-01T15:34:00.016-06:00

Here's the solution to Puzzllotto... I figured it out around 2:00 MDT the day after Dave Hayden submitted his solution (and just after he posted that he had been called with confirmation of his win). I'm really happy for Dave (and I'm uploading all this using Transmit, so I guess he wins again)... I'm really bummed, though, that I didn't solve it first. I don't even know if I was second, so perhaps the United Lemur crew will release a list. Here's the details:

Level 1 & 3 Layout

Level 2 & 4 Layout

Level 1 & 2 Solution

Level 3 & 4 Solution

Puzzllotto Solution

(Read these from top to bottom and towards the butterflies or the closest side if there is no butterflies, e.g. 101=5)

The Win

Finally... format the 10 numbers you get and reach out to Norwalk, CA (let your fingers do the walking).

2 Ticks for Libertarian Bob Barr

2008-10-18T17:46:00.010-06:00

My wife and I voted today at the Edgewood Fire House in our county's early voting. There's at least 2 votes for the Libertarians in Precinct 78, Edgewood, Santa Fe County, New Mexico. I better see them as the election results start rolling in!

Vote Libertarian!

Adobe Acrobat: "Could not initialize Organizer database."

2008-09-03T10:18:00.006-06:00

There is an imbedded MySQL server that runs the Organizer. To check which configuration files it's attempting to load, run the following at Terminal:

"/Applications/Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional/Adobe Acrobat Professional.app/Contents/MacOS/mysqld" --no-defaults --verbose --help

What it shows for me is:

Default options are read from the following files in the given order: /etc/my.cnf /usr/local/mysql/data/my.cnf ~/.my.cnf

If you run your own MySQL server, an Apple installed MySQL server, and/or if any of these files just happen to exist on your system, it could be conflicting with the embedded Adobe MySQL server. On my system, I run MySQL to do local web development against and I use /etc/my.cnf as my configuration file, setting all sorts of options that the embedded Adobe MySQL chokes on or wasn't compiled to provide (InnoDB for example).

SO... what I did (your milage may vary) is rename the embedded mysqld and mysqladmin to mysqld.old and mysqladmin.old and then create the following script as both mysqld and mysqladmin in their stead:

#!/bin/sh "$0.old" --no-defaults "$@"

This executes mysqld.old and mysqladmin.old with the additional flag --no-defaults ignoring any configuration files that happen to be on your system and use only the compiled in defaults.

It would appear to me to be a gross oversight on the part of Adobe to have the embedded mysqld read a global options file or any options file other than one it supplies OR it should be passing in --no-defaults when invoking the embedded server instance.

For those curious, the command line options getting passed to mysqld are:

--skip-networking --socket=/Users/[your name here]/Library/Caches/Acrobat/8.0_ppc/Organizer70 --skip-grant-tables --skip-innodb --myisam-recover --lower_case_table_names=1 --tmpdir=/Users/[your name here]/Library/Caches/Acrobat/8.0_ ppc/ --datadir=/Users/[your name here]/Library/Acrobat User Data/8.0_ppc/ --language=/Applications/Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional/Adobe Acrobat Professional.app/Contents/MacOS/

Command line options being passed to mysqladmin (when you shut down Acrobat) are:

--socket=/Users/[your name here]/Library/Caches/Acrobat /8.0_ppc/Organizer70 shutdown

UPDATE:

I've been asked for help getting this to work by those not familiar with the command line. Here's the step by step which should work for most people (first shut down Acrobat):

sudo -s

cd "/Applications/Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional/Adobe Acrobat Professional.app/Contents/MacOS/"

mv mysqld mysqld.old
echo '#!/bin/sh "$0.old" --no-defaults "$@"' > mysqld
chmod +x mysqld

mv mysqladmin mysqladmin.old
echo '#!/bin/sh "$0.old" --no-defaults "$@"' > mysqladmin
chmod +x mysqladmin

Richard Krug 4/2/1945 - 4/12/2008

2008-05-08T11:04:00.010-06:00

On April 12th, my step-dad and mom were in a motorcycle accident while on an afternoon ride between Kingman and Bullhead City, AZ. My mother was airlifted to Las Vegas where a plate was screwed into her leg to repair a fractured tibia. Dick didn't survive the accident. His obituary follows...

Richard T. Krug, 63, of Kingman, Ariz., and formerly of Oil City, Penn., died Saturday, April 12, 2008, while riding his motorcycle near Bullhead City. Born April 2, 1945, in Oil City, he was the son of the late George and Blanche Krug. He graduated in 1963 from Oil City High School.

Mr. Krug served in the U.S. Army in the Finance Corps and as a Military Police Sergeant during the Vietnam era. He attended Clarion University and graduated from Youngstown University.

While living in Oil City, he was well known as manager of the First Seneca Bank in Oil City, Penn.

In Kingman, Mr. Krug was president and CEO of the Mojave Federal Credit Union. He owned and operated Village Auto West in Kingman and the business was so named because of his close association with his friend Bob Fry’s Village Auto in Oil City, Penn.

An avid and knowledgeable automobile collector, Mr. Krug’s restorations won many awards at car shows throughout the Southwest.

His friends everywhere remember him as a spontaneous person who enjoyed life to the fullest and as an absolutely loyal friend to all who knew him.

Surviving are his loving companion of many years, Dianne Morin of Kingman, Ariz.; his stepsister, Betty Lorraine Ellert of Fla.; two stepchildren, Eric Steffe and Amy Hartle of Oil City, Penn.; several cousins, including Sam Krug and his wife Paulette of Ninety Six, S.C., Polly Krug Harshbarger of Mt. Dora, Fla., Tom Stuck of Avon Lake, Ohio, Bob Stuck of Carmichaels, Penn., Dr. Beverly Snyder Settlemire of The Villages, Fla., Linda Snyder of Ala., Dr. Chuck Snyder of Ohio and Tom Reagle of Fla.

Also surviving are two uncles, Elmer Mohney of Oil City and Lee Dinger of Meadville, and an aunt, Fern Snyder of Oil City, Penn.

He was a much-loved father figure to Benjamin Morin of Edgewood, N.M., and Matthew Morin of Denton, Tx., and he was “Grandpa Dick” to 12 grandchildren.

Memorial donations may be made to any of the Kingman, Ariz. dog shelters.

Nuts!

2007-08-10T13:45:00.000-06:00

From my good friend Dave West...

The Republicans campaign on a platform of kicking you in the nuts. They tell you it’s for your own good, and if you don’t like being kicked in the nuts you’re secretly a terrah-ist. They get elected, and then start kicking you in the nuts.

The Democrats hold hearings decrying nut-kicking, go on and on about how bad the Republicans are for kicking people in the nuts, and claim that kicking you in the nuts is not only unrelated to the war on terror but actually hurts both you and national security. Enough people now have been kicked in the nuts and found it unpleasant that a slim House and Senate lead was handed to the Democrats in 2006.

They get elected, and immediately start kicking you in the nuts.

Disappearing Rights Mug

2007-07-21T11:12:00.001-06:00

This mug depicts the text of the Bill of Rights. When you fill it with hot liquid, the text slowly vanishes, simulating the effect of the Patriot Act.

You can buy one here.

The Ballad of Marty Minolta

2007-07-20T10:08:00.001-06:00

An entertaining take on Albuquerque's Red Light Cameras from my good friend, and a good man, William H. White, municipal judge of Edgewood, New Mexico:

The Ballad of Marty Minolta OR Saga of the Shutterbug Stalin

W.H. White, June 2007

Albuquerque had a mayor,
he was a camera fan.
He placed 'em here, he placed 'em there,
he spied throughout the land.

It started with the red lights;
some folks were slow to stop.
But there was little revenue
in tickets from a cop.

So Marty sat and Marty thought,
there came some sly insights.
"I'll simply change the law a bit;
who cares about their rights?"

"No need to come before a judge;
Craig Loy can write a law.
We'll make 'em prove they're innocent."
He smiled at what he saw.

Then this camera Alcalde
looked at speeders like some sheep.
He could help some special interests
if he made those fines real steep.

And the camera crazy Council,
noting revenues were thin,
said, "Click and flash and take their cash.
We'll fleece them to the skin."

And the people still stayed silent,
when they should have formed a mob,
so these scheming politicians
looked for other ways to rob.

Now Marty likes to talk a lot,
and one day upon his cell
a fine idea came to him;
"We'll have fines for this as well."

"If it's good enough for Santa Fe,
it's good enough for us.
I've already trashed their freedoms
and they haven't made a fuss."

But someday soon we'll have enough
of the way that we've been shorn.
They'll, none of them, deserve our votes,
they'll only have our scorn.

And what of little Marty
and his fascist camera plan?
The day is near when all will sneer,
"Why, he's barely half a man."

HAD ENOUGH?

Had enough of arrogant public officials, their Big Brother programs, and their Star Chamber hearings?

With the stroke of a pen, Mayor Chavez and the City Council have taken away your RIGHT to be presumed innocent.

They have taken away your RIGHT to be individually and personally charged with wrong doing.

Your case has now become a "Public Nuisance" hearing:

The hearing officer works for the City.
The City and a private company, Redflex split the revenue.
The video is reviewed by City and Redflex employees.
You must PROVE you are not guilty.
Good luck, sucker!

The City Project Manager of the camera enforcement program is Lt. Haarhues of the A.P.D. Automated Enforcement Division.*

The Redflex project manager is the same person.*

The Project Managers are required to hold regular meetings.*

I wonder who takes the minutes? There are, of course, no meetings. And no minutes. And no one to hold the City accountable.

*14 December 05 Agreement between the City and Redflex.

WHAT YOU CAN DO?

Contact the Mayor (768-3000) and your Councilor (768-3100). The City's website is: http://www.cabq.gov follow the links.
Politely, but firmly, demand an end to the whole camera enforcement program.
Remember like an elephant, and "throw the bums" out if they persist in this heavy handed, greedy program.
If you are cited, demand a hearing. It may not be fair and you may be busy. The Americans at Valley Forge, Bull Run, and Wake Island could have been "busy", too. This is about principle, not about your time or your money. FIGHT BACK!
Spread the word. Feel free to reproduce this. Put it on the bulletin board. Put it on the net. I'm "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more." How about you?

New post

2007-05-22T22:08:00.000-06:00

This is a new post so Larry can't give me a hard time about not posting anything. <g>

Gravatar Browser

2007-02-16T21:38:00.001-07:00

If you haven't already checked out the new Gravatar 2.0, then you should. It's pretty cool. Did you ever wonder what people choose for their Gravatars? Every want to just browse through them? Me too, so I whipped up a little PHP script to do just that. Not sure how long it will work since they may have not intended for images to be loaded directly, but for now we can have a looksee.

Gravatar Browser

Mint bans melting coins

2006-12-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -- Given rising metal prices, the pennies and nickels in your pocket are worth more melted down than their face value -- and that has the government worried. U.S. Mint officials said Wednesday they were putting into place rules prohibiting the melting down of 1-cent and 5-cent coins, with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for people convicted of violating the rule.

Because of the prevailing prices of metals, the cost of producing pennies and nickels exceeds the coins' face value.

A nickel is 25 percent nickel and 75 percent copper. The metal in one coin costs 6.99 cents for each 5-cent coin.

Modern pennies have 2.5 percent copper content with zinc making up the rest of the coin. The current copper and zinc in a penny are worth 1.12 cents.

AP

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency

2006-08-21T09:10:00.003-06:00

In a gross violation of civil liberty and further proof that our Legislature and the the Judicature are in serious need of reform, the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court has ruled...

...that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled, "United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit took that amount of cash away from Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, a man with a "lack of significant criminal history" neither accused nor convicted of any crime.

You can read the court's full opinion here. (Case No. 05-3295, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit)

We wouldn't have this problem if there were more [Federal] Judges like Judge White of Edgewood.

“Neglected Principles and Lost Freedom!”

2006-04-20T14:34:00.000-06:00

By: William H. White, Municipal Judge, Town of Edgewood

Picture the scene. An airy conference room, men in suits, women with well coiffed hair; there's none of the stench of a smoke filled room, but the human impulses are the same as in the FDR or Nixon White Houses. Impatience is in the air. If only they could take step X to solve problem Y, but the Constitution stands in the way... Back to our well dressed bureaucrats and the more mundane problems they are addressing; red light runners and school zone speeders. They are frustrated that violators must be observed and cited by an officer. Even when caught red-handed, these individuals must be presumed innocent and given the right to a trial. What an inefficient system! Perhaps technology in the form of automatic cameras offers a solution? The difficulty is, of course, that these infractions are crimes, crimes must be charged against an individual, and individuals have rights. There's that troublesome "presumption of innocence" and the onerous "burden of proof" on the state.

At that moment an idea is born in the mind of some too-clever-by-half staffer or opportunistic politician. The idea is not necessarily evil, nor is the person who conceives it, but it is as destructive to our freedom as anything ever devised by king or tyrant. What if, instead of charging a crime, the offending vehicle was simply defined as a "public nuisance"? Gone is the need to prove that a particular person committed a particular crime. Instead, just mail a letter to the registered owner. No need to worry if the car was borrowed or driven by a co-owner, just shift the burden of proof from the state to the individual. The registered owner must either pay up or prove his innocence.

This concept represents a fundamental change in the social contract between citizens and our government. Notice that this dangerous threshold was crossed, not after a lengthy public debate or a campaign to amend the Constitution, but with little fanfare and even less protest by the people or the press. Even the ACLU, that ubiquitous guardian of the most obscure "rights", has been mostly silent on this matter. Its concern was seemingly focused on the issue of an accused being required to pay a fee to protest his innocence. This is rather like haggling over who pays for the kindling at a witch burning; it misses the essential point.

Forget other flaws in this policy, such as encouraging dishonest or heavy-handed enforcement through financial incentives to governments and private companies. Forget the inevitable expansion to other offenses or other objects. Picture a mandatory GPS in every vehicle with speeds monitored and down-linked to a company which then imposes a "public nuisance fee" and sends a cut to the government. We must recognize this threat for what it is; the use of legal sophistry to turn logic and the Constitution on their heads.

We would all like to think that, if Freedom fails, it will be in a grand struggle with some titanic and obvious evil, a Gotterdammerung at least worthy of a tale. The sad truth is, however, that freedom is lost one tiny piece at a time to the expediency of the small-minded functionary or the arrogance of the public servant who thinks that John Locke must be a device for securing the bathroom door. It is our job as citizens to demand better. I respectfully urge Mayor Chavez and the City Council to rethink this program and return the proper Constitutional balance to the City's law enforcement efforts.

The big THREE THREE

2006-03-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today my age increments.

++age;

Happy Birthday To Me

Happenings...

2006-03-06T08:54:00.002-07:00

It's neither baseball nor football post-season, so I've made a full recovery. I really don't want to talk about it. Let's just move on to complete randomness about the current state of things...

Work is great and things are really starting to pick up. We did our first trade show and word is still getting out about what we're doing. Feedback has been good. We've started a blog over there too, and it's filled with really useful things for our clients.

My lovely wife and our boys are a pleasure, as always, and we're preparing for their birthdays in May (they have the same birthday two years apart). It's really nice that we both get to work from home and get to see them grow up that much more. She works awfully hard to do the books for our company (among others) and still manages to teach our boys a ton. I'm so thankful for her and she supports me in all my efforts and is paramount in my successes.

Things are starting to get interesting here in Edgewood. The town is growing and there's still the talk (and debate) of a Wal-Mart coming to town. I'm all for it since the need to go to Albuquerque again be reduced in addition to Smiths and Walgreens getting a healthy bit of competition to keep their quality up and their prices low. Free markets at work.

The Freemason's Lodge (Edgewood Lodge #82) is doing well and might someday get an online presence if I ever get around to making the site. Right now it just redirects to the Grand Lodge of New Mexico.

My brother has finally decided to join the masses and has actually started using his e-mail address. We're playing chess by e-mail. I'm not sure he's using it for much more than that, but it's a start.

I guess that's it for now. Nothing too exciting for the majority of those that happen to stumble across this space (usually for iTunes related PHP scripts or for modified ATI mobility drivers). If I'm neglecting anyone's need for information (insofar as I have it), let me know, and I'll try and come up with something interesting to post.

Thanks to Etienne Stegmen in the Netherlands, who bought my old ATI M9 card for a generous amount over postage and got it working in his Dell C810.

Patriots Win AFCE

2006-01-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

Wow. Somehow, the Patriots have managed to win the AFCE with a 10-6 record. Not exactly an awesome regular season, but enough in the East apparently. My wife likes to remind me that Denver is 13-3. I've gotten a little criticism about my ranting about the Patriots losses. Believe me, I'd rather not have to rant. I do however rave when appropriate and I congratulate the Patriots on making the payoffs. I AM proud of you. Time for y'all to do your thing. Good luck against Jacksonville. Oh, and please don't give me anything to rant about... you're making me look bad.

Last 3 Sundays

2005-11-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

The last three Sundays, my blood pressure has been normal, but only because I couldn't watch the games. Two of the New England games were not broadcast locally and I had to do with the all too slow updates while watching some other game. This last Sunday I was driving back from Denver. Because of my ongoing bet with my Father-In-Law, I somehow managed to have $5 on Dallas. Since I couldn't respect myself in the morning if I had to cheer for them and they actually won, I had to make a $10 bet on Denver with my Brother-In-Law who is a diehard Cowboys fan. So I got to avoid having to cheer for Dallas and the Denver win covered my pre-existing bet with my Father-In-Law. So all is good... except that the Patriots have resigned to being an average team this year losing to KC. *sigh*

Patriots defenseless on MNF

2005-11-08T12:29:00.003-07:00

I feel sorry for all those people in Foxborough who paid good money to go watch the Patriots play a football game with no defense at all. Having to watch half the team play must have been pretty upsetting. After the third quarter, I decided a two week old episode of Survivor on Tivo was more and would piss me off less (even if only slightly).

Observations that might help you: Pretend you actually want to win (starting in the first half). Play with a defense. Don't fumble the ball. Complete passes. Don't onside kick unless you REALLY have to. Return kickoffs. Get within field-goal range (ever). And for the love of all that is right and just, get first downs.

You started the season saying that you're "not defending Champions" because "everyone is trying to win." You proved that, except for that everyone part. Does every New England team in every sport always have to get in on a wild-card and put on some dramatic underdog show? Just win, already. If I believe you can, why can't you?

It may seem I'm a little hard on the New England boys, but damn it... you're supposed to be the new dynasty team and it's only because I love you. Damn.

Now I'm seriously needing a (or a ). Seriously.

Blog worth

2005-11-03T10:14:00.002-07:00

Just to jump on the bandwagon, here's my how much is your blog worth posting. Should I add this to my net worth in Quicken?

My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

Patriots Lead AFC East

2005-11-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind on my Patriots ranting and raving, so here's my update:

Two Sundays ago, the Patriots didn't lose and make me very happy (because they had a buy week and didn't play). Last Sunday, they had to play but managed to make me happy, but not until the last ten minutes or so when they scored two touchdowns to comeback and win. I'm not sure why New England sports teams like to toy with the fans emotions so much.

All this resulted in the Patriots taking sole lead of the AFC East (by one game, but I won't get into the 3 losses right now, especially that one to the Broncos).

This week, skip the excitement and just go out and win it, would ya? Please? When we're up by a few more games, you can go and make it interesting again.

Oh, and welcome back, Bruschi... you were a maniac!