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dmackey
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Name: David
Country: United States
Gender: Male
Interests: History, Computers (repairs, troubleshooting, ASP.NET 2.0, website design), Wargames (Chariots of War, Strategic Command), Christianity, Current Events, Youth Group, Reading, Movies.
Expertise: Computer Hardware and Programming
Occupation: Network Administrator
Industry: Computers (Hardware)
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
5/4/2004
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| Well, I don't really use Xanga anymore, though I do still read everyone's blog subscriptions as I receive them in my email. Figured I'd just throw out there what I'm up to these days...
- I'm leaving Collages (after three years) to go out on my own, running Informed Networker, a web 2.0 social news startup for IT Professionals.
- We finished remodeling the upstairs of our house. Charity now has her luxury bathroom, the cats have their dedicated mini-bathroom, and I have my bookshelves in the office (and Charity has a new big closet in the master bedroom to replace the walk-in we knocked down to expand the bathroom).
- We have three cats - Hermione, Barclay, and Piper - whom we love.
- We still lead the youth ministry at Calvary Community Church of Penndel.
- I just got the new Apple iPhone 3G and it is wonderful.
- I use Facebook now.
- Lots of other stuff....
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| So, for the last few weeks my OCD has made a sudden and aggressive comeback. Its funny, as I think about it now I haven't written about OCD for a long time. Not because it hasn't been ever-present, but b/c it sat in the background...tapping quietly on my shoulder but overall leaving me alone. Not lately. A feeling of unrest stirs in my soul and a desire to "find the cause" rises within me. Unfortunately, there is no cause. It is all internal. Thankfully, this is most of the battle for me. Yet it continues to attack, and I must continue to push on and ignore it.
Other than that, things are going pretty well. Hope everyone has a great Easter Weekend!
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| Have I ever mentioned how much I like CBS' Jericho? After its first season it was canceled, but do to around 50,000 lbs of peanuts (in reference to a line in the season finale) to the CBS offices the show was renewed for a mini-season of seven episodes with the possibility of further extension. Unfortunately, at this point the ratings are not that great (around 6 million viewers) and I have my doubts the show will be renewed. This is, in my opinion, extremely unfortunate.
Ahh, well, it seems to be the fate of all my favorite shows. The last being Joan of Arcadia which lasted for two short seasons but was both entertaining, funny, and theologically challenging.
So, why do I like Jericho so much?
- Its a post-apocalyptic drama set in the United States' near future after terrorists detonate a number of nuclear bombs. It involves not only the struggle for survival in a world where the commodities we use so readily are scarce but also the thrilling ride to figure out who the terrorists are and what their motivations were.
- It has deep characters.While there is an advancing overall story episodes also focus on the relationships of the individuals in the town of Jericho. With a host of fascinating characters there are always new revelations and dynamics to be explored.
- Its relatively clean. Sex or nudity is essentially absent, language is exceedingly minor.
You can watch the entire show from the first season pilot on www.cbs.com/innertube. I understand that CBS and every other broadcast station has a limited number of hours in which to broadcast, but with internet technology - why not keep the show as internet only? Sell it on iTunes for goodness sake. Or, a cable channel could pick it up - the Sci-Fi channel is a natural choice (they have already acquired rights to show reruns of both seasons)...it'd be a lot better than the majority of the crap they currently show.
It's unfortunate, because Jericho like so many other shows that are worth watching require more dedication than most viewers are willing to dedicate to a show. CSI, etc. offer an instant attraction appeal while continuing serials such as Jericho require starting from the beginning, but over the long haul offer little continuity or ongoing draw - since they are so isolated.
Okay, one other thing and I'll digress. I think more TV shows should have set limits in which they perform a definite story arc. Lost is the first show I am aware of that has declared a definitive end time. This makes sense for any show that is based around an ongoing story (Jericho, Lost, Prison Break) rather than isolated episodes (e.g. CSI, Monk, Psych, Bones). It ensures that viewers get a feeling of fulfilment when the show ends and that the screenwriters don't keep just writing baloney to fill time. Prison Break is, unfortunately, a perfect example of the baloney factor. The first two seasons were masterful pieces of art, the third season was an adrenaline rush that lacked the rush. The first two wove together personality, intelligence, etc. to make something amazingly powerful - the last has turned into a, "grab the cash while people still put up with us."
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| So, I found a pretty inexpensive VPS (virtual private server) host. $20/mo. gets you 256 MB RAM, 10 GB disk, and 100 GB transfer. You can step up significantly for around $40/mo. (shhh...don't tell charity...no she is very good about my little projects). Anyways, the idea is to install a LAMP stack on it. LAMP stands for Linux (the Operating System), Apache (the Web Server), MySQL (the database), and PHP (the language). Then get Informed Networker running on it. Right now I'm using a shared host, which is great and all - but I share with who knows how many other people. This makes it kind of like I have my own little server, and as I need its easy to shell out another $20/mo. to step up to the next level - or to create redundant servers.
I'm mainly a Windows guy...so this will also give me a chance to get my hands dirty with Linux...and an open source development stack (I'm mainly a .NET guy, which is also a Microsoft product).
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