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Recognizing America as more than just a scapegoat

I got an e-mail this morning from a friend that I wanted to preserve in my own blog. In light of the way the current administration seems to be rather apologetic for many of the things this country has done. Not to say that we don’t make mistakes, but we should not discount what our ideals have paid for.

At a time when our president and other politicians tend to apologize for our country`s prior actions,here`s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our country.

These are good

JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO.. DeGaule said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded “does that include those who are buried here?

DeGuale did not respond.

… You could have heard a pin drop …

When in England , at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.’

… You could have heard a pin drop …

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?’

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

… You could have heard a pin drop …

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, ‘Maybe it’s because the Brit’s, Canadians, Aussie’s and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

… You could have heard a pin drop …

AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

“You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

“Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.”

The American said, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.”

“Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France!”

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, “Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.”

… You could have heard a pin drop …

Posted in Thoughts. Tagged with .

By merana
1/11/2010

1 comment

A Remembrance

I was attending a vendor sponsored conference at the Hartfeld GCC when I first learned of the tragic events. I sat at the bar with the rest of the conference attendees riveted to the screens of televisions present as we watched in horror as the second plane impacted. I can clearly recall the hollow surreal feelings as my mind struggled to reconcile what I was seeing on the television. As more news of other events occurring in other locations was learned the conference was quickly ended and we all rushed home to be with our families.

As I drove up I-95 north I heard on the radio that bridge closures were starting and I frantically raced to the nearest bridge that would bring me back into New Jersey. News was spreading quickly as I was joined on my path to the bridge by hundreds of others that were all attempting as I was to reach home before we would be sealed from the bridges. The scene at the Commodore Barry Bridge was very much like a Friday afternoon during during the summer season. A sea of cars all heading to the Garden State crammed together to get into one of four lanes on the span. A notable difference was that the west bound side was equally busy with vehicles heading the other direction.

As I learned more of the events occurring in Manhattan, my thoughts drifted to my family that lived and worked there. I was praying that they were all well and not within the immediate area of danger. I was also angry at the people who had perpetrated the heinous acts. The reactionary side of me was screaming for vengeance and that voice was all that I could hear. I also felt sadness for all of the families that would be affected by loss as a result of the days events.

My thoughts roiled like troubled seas and at the time I could not give voice to my feelings. Entries posted from that day reflect the chaos and numbness I was feeling. I was drunk with the sadness and morbidity of the moment and I wallowed in my stupor.

Today I look back at all that has happened since then and I wonder if things are any better off. In my assessment I would have to say ‘No. Not really’. The threats of the past have not gone away. Mere changed and adapted to the environment that evolved as a result of what happened. The current global economic crisis is probably one of the few things that have helped to suppress the terrorist a lot. I am sure that every ones attention on what is happening is captured by recent realities and while the anger is not gone, there is something else that distracts from it.

I worry about what the future holds. There is very little that I can do to affect things other than trying to concentrate on the things that I can make some impact on. My family and my job are, as always, where I will choose to focus my efforts on. I am hopeful that as a nation, we will all try to do the same.

Posted in Opinion, Thoughts.

By merana
9/11/2009

2 comments

Testing out embedded slide shows

I just wanted to see what an embedded slide show from my Zenfolio site would look like. It’s nice that I can use the work done there over here…

Posted in Uncategorized.

By merana
8/25/2009

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Aging and the ability to stay up…

I dunno about you but I am finding it hard to stay up after driving all day now. Maybe it’s just the toll of the effort rather than age but irregardless it’s still a bear!

I’m in for the night now. I spent the whole day driving from South Jersey to Westford, Mass. From the initial planning it looked like a cake walk but I knew deep down that just the fact that I was going to be driving through NYC pretty much put the 3:30pm arrival time as a pure wish list. I left the house around quarter after eleven and stopped to fill up before I hit the turn pike. I remember grumbling over the $3.39/gal price that Citgo was charging as I was doing it too.

The drive up route 73 and then onto the NJ Turnpike was routine with no real slow downs UNTIL I hit the tolls after the Meadowlands on I95. That started the long string of slowdowns that followed. EZ-Pass made it somewhat more tolerable as I was able to get through the tolls quickly (once I managed to reach them that is) but it still wasn’t enough to salvage the cost of subsequent delays. Getting onto the George Washington Bridge was an exercise in Zen meditation. It took an amazing amount of forbearance and deep faith in humanity that all of the other idiots on the roads really were not like the way they drove all the time. After clearing the bridge and then making my way through the various boroughs of NYC I had added almost an hour to the drive time and likely paid with five years of my life thanks to the tolls of stress involved. This should give one a clear indication of why I like to go to work at 4am… Simply to avoid the traffic!

Made my way through Connecticut without issue and then into Massachusetts. There was some kind of slow down on I-495 that had the east bound direction totally jammed stupid! I hope it won’t be like that on Thursday! All through this I only stopped once at a service plaza when my stomach and bladder staged a revolt that I was hard pressed to supress. Therefore I recuited the hordes of McDonald’s Nuggets and Fries to help quel the rebellion with some assistance from the noble Sir Urinal (he’s not really very talkative but at the same time quite efflusive).

The troops once again at peace, we continued on the journey. The whole time the GPS kept saying that we’d arrive at around 5:34pm… And damned if it wasn’t right!!! I found the Hampton Inn and then after checking in and gathering provisions for my stay (soda and chips) I started trying to motivate myself to head out for some food. I was going to simply hit the Chili’s I saw down the corner but thank’s to Elliott’s save, I was re-directed to Bamboo. It was wonderful! I simply chose the buffet and a side of Hot and Sour soup (which was wonderful as well!) and I discovered that I chose well indeed! All of the dishes were fresh and tasted wonderful. Unlike the normal buffet’s I’ve had around out area, the dishes served at Bamboo were all very flavorful and really held my belief that this was Asian Cusine rather than a western copy. They even had sushi with fancy rolls in the buffet (which I of course sampled as well and loved!) that were rotated regularly by attentive buffet personnel. The restaurant decor was a bit on the dark side for me and I wasn’t into eating on the patio serving the mosquitos their dinner as I dined on mine. The feel of the place was quite nice and I think that during daylight hours it would be quite pleasant inside.

After a glorious meal I headed back to the Hotel stopping of to fill up the car. I made the drive on less than a tank of gas and when I filled up 10.35 gallons was the total consumed. The only downer was that gas here is $2.649/gal! So in retrospect the earlier $2.49 really doesn’s bother me as much any more… Elliot was off work and offered to hang out but my tired old ass is just too tired. Sooo I begged off for tonight and took some pictures and here I sit blogging.

I write and put up some more pictures after tomorrows class. Elliott was also talking about Chinatown so that should be picture worthy for sure!

Posted in Opinion, Photo, Thoughts. Tagged with , , , .

By merana
8/16/2009

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Back

Back to real life again. It’s the first day after being out of the office for six days and I am trying to wade though the accumulation of stuff in my Inbox. Mostly it’s e-mails from the Service Desk or the monitoring system but there are a few project related things in there as well. Today will be largely a write off for normal productivity as we have a full departmental Summit that will be taking place. All of the IT members from the two larger sites have gathered in Berwyn for this so we’ll be cloistered for the event from 8:30a onwards. That means that I’ll be sneaking in my other ‘normal’ work as I can during the day.

The time off was nice. We spent a lot of family together time driving each other crazy (well, ok… It’s mostly the girls driving us crazy…) and doing a lot of fun stuff. We went to Hurricane Harbor Friday last week, followed by G.I. Joe that evening. Then off to the season opening for the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire for the weekend where we got a good drenching as well as a chance to see and visit with friends. I spent the majority of my time at the faire shooting and I expect that this season will continue that trend.

It was a busy shooting weekend even with the rains. I personally shot off over 900 snaps with Sarah contributing another 300 or so. All of those images are published either on my facebook profile or on my ZenFolio gallery. Some interesting challenges based on some shooting requests that I am trying to fulfill but I am looking forward to the effort. This coming weekend I’ll only be heading up solo on Saturday to shoot and wander about on my own. Even then I won’t be staying too long as I still have to pack and organize for my drive to Westford, MA on Sunday. That’ll be a really long one.

Another new thing we started is teaching Sarah tennis. We spent close to an hour yesterday on some public courts in Erial just to introduce her to her racquet. Next we’ll keep working on more more basic forehand swing drills. I need more tennis balls as well as a ball bucket to make it easier to gather them. We’ll see if we can squeeze out any more time this coming week.

Well enough dawdling. Time to dive back into my inbox!

Posted in Biography, Family, Thoughts. Tagged with , , .

By merana
8/12/2009

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Getting ready for the season

It’s only ten more days until the start of the 2009 PA Ren Faire season. This Sunday will be the Cast Picnic and I am looking forward to meeting all of the new people in the cast. It’s also a good chance to meet the other members of our little crew of avid faire goers as well.

I hope to break some new ground with my work this year. I want to try some new techniques in my photography of the season that will hopefully move the level of my work up a notch. I’m also starting a new direction for how I will be sharing my images. Rather than posting all of it to my gallery, I will use my ZenFolio account. I hope to be able to sell some of my photos as prints or even the actual files themselves. One of the reasons for this is to begin to make my hobby/passion/obsession a bit more self sustaining. I know the ZenFolio account itself will be costing me a nice chunk of change to use. If I can atleast make enough this year to offset that cost I’d be more than happy.

One of the things I want to do more of is to improve my portrait work with what I have on hand. I have a set of three hot lights that I can setup for static work, but as I’ve learned that’s really quite rare. Perhaps in the winter if someone want some indoor work they will come in handy. But for outdoor shooting they’re pretty much a bust. I managed to get a new Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash this year and that’s opened up a lot of new capabilities with my 40D. My older 550EX still works as a slave but it’s no where near as flexible as the new 580 is. Now I can use the Speedlight IR system to shoot Off Camera Flash (OCF) shots either with the primary 580 on the camera turned on or off acting as a master for the 550.

The thing I need to learn now is the actual execution of the shots with the OCF unit. Static stuff’s pretty easy so long as you’re able to bounce the IR signals between the flashes. I’ve heard that this can be problematic in harsh daylight but I have yet to experience that myself. I’m now starting my research on more of the methods of how to do this. I found this site that shows some really great examples of OCF work. I’m contemplating buying the book but I’m holding off for now.

I also have another variable to contend with this year. I’ve submitted my application to University of Phoenix so I can get back on the path to finishing my degree. It looks good so far but then I haven’t even started yet. My planned start date will be this Aug 11th and then the week right after that I have a three day training class on the Firepass up in Westford, Mass. So there’ll be a LOT of goings on in that month.

In about a week we’re going to start a week long ’staycation’ and hopefully get a chance to recharge the batteries and spend some nice quality time with the girls (hopefully without any casualties). Becca’s cast should be coming off soon and that will end another episode of drama for our little sorority. I hope and pray that will be last of the major health matters for the remainder of the summer.

Posted in Family, Photo, Thoughts. Tagged with , , .

By merana
7/29/2009

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not forgotten

It’s been some time since I last posted here but despite that, I’ve certainly not forgotten about this journal. My life is really pretty much in a very deep groove of repetition with only incremental changes that infrequently occur. I suppose that this is a good thing since it provides one with comfort and familiarity as befits my personality.

_MG_9186.jpgOne of the major life milestones that I can post would be things like Sarah’s graduation from Middle School to High School. It’s really odd to think that she’s starting this phase of her life already. The thought that Shirley and I are parents to a high school student are somewhat unsettling in that it brings fore where we are in our lives. Although I can and often do think quite deeply on things, I still have trouble disassociating myself from the person I was in earlier days. The fact that one of my children is walking the final years from child to young adult really highlights the reality.

I am still trying to make time to get more of the old photos into the Gallery. I think this will continue for some time as I am usually caught up in my reading whenever I have a spare moment. I’ve even relegated getting my big gaming box back up to running to the back burner thanks to my all consuming obsession with reading. There are some geeky projects that need more attention sooner rather than later though. The drive where the websites are located on is showing unhappy fsck results and I think that it’s time to change it. That means running a full backup of the sites and then downing the server for the replacement. Thankfully, most of the drives out today are very cheap. I hope to get that done in the next few weeks.

I’m starting to gear up for the coming faire season’s photography. I also have some family events for friends that I will be providing photography services for as well. I recently acquired a Sekonic L-358 Flash Master light meter. Now all I have to do is actually work out how to use it. So far in some basic testing I’ve done it seems that the light meter is providing readings that appear darker when shot with my Canon 40D. I need to spend some more time getting used to the combination and then hopefully start to get some improvement in my photos.

Mom and Dad are visiting right now. With the improving weather outlook for this week, I hope that they get some more chances to hit the links. We were out at Wildwood yesterday and we spent the day with the girls with the earlier part of the morning on the beach and the remainder of the day on the boardwalk. It was a nice family day.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m going to try and improve the posting frequency as well as getting more coherent material to write but we’ll see as time goes on right?

Posted in Biography, Family, Parenting, Thoughts. Tagged with , , , .

By merana
6/24/2009

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Ya gotta give to get

I’ve been reading ALOT lately. Not formally published stuff but rather, fiction written by largely unknown authors. Their work brings me much pleasure while at the same time humbling me. Some of the stories I have read are fairly short (around 100 pages long) while some others are truly massive in scope and scale (over 2 million words). The quality of the writing also varies but for the most part the stories are engaging and allow me an escape into other lives, times and places. The ideas and outlooks presented in the stories are also captivating. While I do not always agree with what I read and how it is presented, I am open minded enough to simply accept what is given and to then extract my own meaning from them. Some concepts (like the title of this post) while simplistic, are quite universal and often evoke moments of epiphany for me. In my present stage of life, I am gladdened by my continued ability to look past my current views and to see things in new angles and in so doing continue to grow as a person.

I suppose that the satisfaction I feel from all of my reading stems from my loneliness. Not that I am short of company in either my proffessional or personal life, but rather that I haven’t developed any relationships with others similar to those I have had in my past. While I have made greater efforts to expand and deepen communications between Shirley and I, there is still a void that I cannot explain. I feel the emptiness and I am disgusted with the self pity that I feel. I have so much to be thankfull for yet I cannot seem to find solace in what I have been so graciously given. I try not to let it affect me in how I interact with others but I cannot help but suspect that I continue to lose my ability to improve relations with others because of this unsettled state.

Aside from the moaning and groaning, life does proceed quite well. Sarah is still happy with her violin lessons and has recently earned recognition from her school and our township school district for her efforts. Her star student achievements brought me great pride in her as my daughter and as the person she is growing up to be. Madison’s made it into the Honors Choir program and even got a small solo in last nights concert. Shirley is happy (for the most part) in her job as am I. The challenges at work contiue and the pace has helped to move my life through this year with alacrity.

I hope that as the year continues onwards that I will be able to resolve some degrees of my condition and despite the seemingly grey outlook, I remain hopeful.

Posted in Biography. Tagged with , .

By merana
3/27/2009

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Slashdot | Cybercrime-As-a-Service Takes Off

via Slashdot | Cybercrime-As-a-Service Takes Off.

This is wrong. Not on the ethical level (although it scream so) as much as the whole concept of cracking. The fostering of script kiddies retards their ability to discern the systems they work on as a whole. Old school hackers/crackers would usually proble and actually ‘learn’ about their subjects and in so doing could develop an appropriate level of ‘respect’ for the scope of their subject. By giving this kind of a crutch to those who do not have the ‘work-ethic’ and empowering them, we unleash a horde of gremlins into a world that is heavily interdependent on the various systems that run it.

I suppose that’s perhaps the older (hopefully wiser) me, and the revised position on anarchy as opposed to the younger wilder one. * sigh *

Posted in Opinion, Security, Thoughts, g33ky. Tagged with , , .

By merana
3/13/2009

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Sports and humanity

I got into a loooong comment discussion on Facebook about this topic and it was frustrating trying to get a coherent thought string put together with the comment limitations on posts there. So, I will continue to bent here. Joules posted about it first and after first reading it I had to think a bit. As much as I admire Joules and all of the similar opinions we share we are diametrically opposed on this matter.

Read this article first (apologies for incomplete references):

DALLAS — A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 game has a case of blowout remorse.

Now officials from The Covenant School say they are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the margin of victory.

Samantha Peloza grabs a rebound in practice a week after their 100-0 loss.
“It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened,” Kyle Queal, the head of the school, said in a statement, adding the forfeit was requested because “a victory without honor is a great loss.”

The private Christian school defeated Dallas Academy last week. Covenant was up 59-0 at halftime.

A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers — even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.

“I think the bad judgment was in the full-court press and the 3-point shots,” said Renee Peloza, whose daughter plays for Dallas Academy. “At some point, they should have backed off.”

Dallas Academy coach Jeremy Civello told The Dallas Morning News that the game turned into a “layup drill,” with the opposing team’s guards waiting to steal the ball and drive to the basket. Covenant scored 12 points in the fourth quarter and “finally eased up when they got to 100 with about four minutes left,” he said.

Dallas Academy has eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school. It is winless over the last four seasons. The academy boasts of its small class sizes and specializes in teaching students struggling with “learning differences,” such as short attention spans or dyslexia.

There is no mercy rule in girls basketball that shortens the game or permits the clock to continue running when scores become lopsided. There is, however, “a golden rule” that should have applied in this contest, said Edd Burleson, the director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools. Both schools are members of this association, which oversees private school athletics in Texas.

“On a personal note, I told the coach of the losing team how much I admire their girls for continuing to compete against all odds,” Burleson said. “They showed much more character than the coach that allowed that score to get out of hand. It’s up to the coach to control the outcome.”

In the statement on the Covenant Web site, Queal said the game “does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. We humbly apologize for our actions and seek the forgiveness of Dallas Academy, TAPPS and our community.”

Covenant coach Micah Grimes did not immediately respond to a message left by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Queal said school officials met with Dallas Academy officials to apologize and praised “each member of the Dallas Academy Varsity Girls Basketball team for their strength, composure and fortitude in a game in which they clearly emerged the winner.”

Civello said he appreciated the gesture and has accepted the apology “with no ill feelings.”

At a shootaround Thursday, several Dallas Academy players said they were frustrated during the game but felt it was a learning opportunity. They also said they are excited about some of the attention they are receiving from the loss, including an invitation from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to see an NBA game from his suite.

“Even if you are losing, you might as well keep playing,” said Shelby Hyatt, a freshman on the team. “Keep trying, and it’s going to be OK.”

Peloza said the coach and other parents praised the Dallas Academy girls afterward for limiting Covenant to 12 points in the fourth quarter. She added that neither her daughter nor her teammates seemed to dwell on the loss.

“Somewhere during that game they got caught up in the moment,” Peloza said of the Covenant players, fans and coaches. “Our girls just moved on. That’s the happy part of the story.”

Continued…

Posted in Opinion, Thoughts, rant. Tagged with , , .

By merana
1/26/2009

1 comment

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