Almost Back
Well, I'm moving a bit slow, but I think I'm mostly recovered from the nasty effects of ragweed (which peaked this week — about a month late — at a high of 134 grains per cubic meter, substantially higher than the 50 grains per cubic meter that is considered “high.”). Nasty stuff. It has made me feel worse in the past, but it seemed to have a longer lasting period of “attack” this year. Right now, the main remaining issue is a cough, which, normally will stick with me for a few weeks.
Well, enough wallowing in self-pity. Today is 9/11. I cannot believe it has been three years since the World Trade Center was hit. I can still remember hearing the breaking news on CBS Radio News (via KMOX) early on that beautiful September morning. On the other hand, it seems like terrorism has been the top headline for ages now — I miss the time before we were so worried about it.
Still Down, but Not Out
I'm still not in the best of shape, but I hope to be back among y'all tomorrow… we'll see.
Scratch that False Alarm Stuff...
..allergy season is in full swing, at least for me. It hasn't been the best of days — I've been about useless for accomplishing anything that requires more than a small amount of effort; I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.
Organizing
I spent a number of hours organizing my computer today. I have a bad habit of leaving old files in a mess when I reinstall my operating system. Some stuff is still sitting on a long retired Pentium II on its SuSE 7.1 installation that got left behind when I switched to Mandrake in 2001. I'm not going back that far just now, but I am dealing with several years worth of mess.
As it stood, I had a folder in my home directory on my G5 that contained everything from my PC prior to me removing Fedora and reinstalling Mandrakelinux 10.0 in June. Eventually a copy of that will go back to the PC (as well as remaining on the Mac), but first I wanted to merge that with the directory structure I was using on the Mac. To make matters more complicated, I still had a backup folder within that backup folder of stuff I had never reorganized from when I switched from Mandrake Linux 9.1 to Fedora Core. Each of those folders had files in a number of different places and few things were properly sorted. Some of the files were duplicates, since I had started copying and reorganizing the files last year. I decided it was time to redo them so that I could easily get to my documents in the future.
So far, I've organized about half of my text and word processor documents (alas some are in the incompatible KWord format, which will require some time to convert to something I can use on my GNOME and Mac desktops conveniently), 9,066 photos, several hundred images of other sorts (animated gifs, logos from projects, etc.), 1,030 musical tracks, 107 MPEG-1 video files (from my digicam) and numerous other tidbits. My goal, by the time I've finished, is to make it so that I can call up any particular file with minimal searching. I hope I'm successful!
On another subject, today is Wictory Wednesday. It is too late to donate to the Bush campaign, but don't forget to volunteer or do other things to help the President's campaign. I'm skipping the Wictory Wednesday blogroll for today, since it will make this mostly non-political post too long. I'll post it tomorrow.
Allergies
My eyes are burning and I've been sneezing for the last hour. I hope this is not a precursor to worse things tomorrow… this does not bode well.
QOTW #15: Pie
As always, please feel free to respond in the comments or use the QOTW as a meme for your own blog (if you do, consider linking to your blog entry from the comments).
What is your favorite flavor pie? If you could have one cream pie and one pie of another type, what would you choose for the type that your favorite did not fall under?
My favorite pie is — hands down — Lemon Meringue pie. A really good Lemon Meringue pie should send a super sour sensation throughout your mouth followed by the simple, sweet enjoyment of the meringue. Other than Lemon Meringue, I also really enjoy Banana Cream pie and Chocolate Silk Pie.
Since my favorites all fall in the cream pie category, the tough question is what type of “other” pie would I pick as a favorite? I really like most pies, but my favorite non-cream pie would probably be Pumpkin Pie. I love that too.
How 'bout you?
Beat
I don't know why, but I'm dead tired again. Guess I'm still catching up from last week. I'm hoping this week will be quieter. Anything special y'all planning to do for Labor Day?
Busy Again
What a crazy couple of weeks. I think we've finally gotten my uncle moved in, but traveling to the second floor of a condominium complex dozens of times over the past few days moving stuff in is taking its toll.
The family has given him a stern warning: he better not decide to move again… we don't want to have to carry everything back down again.
RNC Day 2: Governator
I'm not feeling energetic enough tonight to cover days 2, 3 and 4… so I'm just going to do day two right now. Tomorrow, perhaps I'll do both of the remaining days. On a side note, it seems a new Time poll is showing our President with a 11 point lead of likely voters even before his nomination! Exciting, huh?
Arnold Schwarzenegger might be a liberal Republican who is pro-abortion, pro-gay rights and so on, but he is still a very big asset for the GOP, I think. He seems to get along well with the more conservative portions of the party and his name and speaking ability makes him a great way to get people excited about the GOP. If Arnold, liberal or not, can get more people to vote for a pro-life, pro-family President like President George W. Bush, that's great.
His “How to Tell If You are a Republican” part of the speech was great. His humor was good and — dare I say it? — his speech was every bit as energetic and engaging as Barak Obama's was in July. I have no doubt that if the constitution allowed it, that Ahhhnold could win the presidency after his term as governor. He really rallied the troops, so to speak, at the RNC, but he also had non-Republicans excited. He emphasized some fiscally conservative policies, too, which was great.
Certainly, it did not hurt that he managed to fit in the phrase that terrorism will be terminated. Same goes for the story about the wounded soldier that told him that “he'd be back.”
The good governor also is exactly the type of person Democrats don't want the GOP to have. They see themselves as the party for immigrants. Well, guess what? Here's an immigrant that said that when he arrived in the U.S. he became a Republican because he thought the Dems' policies sounded too much like the socialist policies of the Soviet bloc he was familiar with. They see themselves as the preferred party in California. Well, guess what? Their candidate was recalled. They see themselves as the party of those whom John Kerry called the “heart and soul of America” — Hollywood. Well, guess what? One of Hollywood's biggest stars seems to have no love loss for the Dems. And the bitterest pill of all, I am sure, for the Dems: thanks to Ahhhnold, a Kennedy has set foot in the RNC. How's that for an accomplishment?
Overall, he was the highlight of the night. Although I shouldn't overlook the very good speech made by the first lady. Her speech was far less self absorbed than Mrs. Kerry's speech in July and focused most of its attention on her husband (whereas Mrs. Kerry seemed to focus more on herself and her late husband the Republican Sen. John Heinz). Unfortunately, Mrs. Bush had to start off her speech on a very low note.
All the momentum of the night up to that point was just thrown away thanks to the Bush daughters. Their incoherent, horrible example of a bad speech was the worst I've seen in a long time. The ten or twelve year old who spoke at the Democratic convention did a far better job than the Bush twins. They came across as immature brats. It would have been far better if they had just not said anything at all, and someone else, perhaps nephew George P. Bush, had given the introduction speech.
His speech earlier that night was very good. I got the same impression on Tuesday that I did in 2000: if he so desires, George P. Bush has the public speaking skills to do well in politics. I expect to see more of him in the future. Perhaps the GOP finally has its equivalent of the Kennedys in the Bushes.
RNC Days 2, 3 and 4
Unfortunately, not today either. Tomorrow…
