I had never even heard of this guy before and its tough to read.

If you're gonna read this, BE AWARE, it's a letter written by a soldier in the event of his death. You may think it won't affect you but it will. Maybe not immediately, but it will.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html


About half an hour after reading it and as much of the comments as i could take, it occurred to me why it affected me so much. And its nothing unique to me. It's just how it is.

The 5 stages of grief
1. denial
2. anger
3. bargaining
4.depression
5. acceptance

Halo 3 = crack

that is all.

A little late, but funny nonetheless.


http://www.break.com/index/turkey_the_new_date_rape_drug.html

It's not exactly a Hubble quality picture, but it's definitely the first photo I've ever been proud of taking. Hope you guys enjoy it too. It's posted at least for now at

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Bosko-Gajic-BoskoGajic17PHolmes10-30-07_1193873342_fl.jpg

( pic )

A great quote from a great article.


Why should anyone "in the right" have to bow down before ignorant people with power? It doesn't matter if it is "needing" to show a receipt, turning off a phone, or not invading a country that doesn't have WMDs.

People with power must exercise that power with respect. I don't care how much of a "hassle" their jobs are. If you take a job that is a hassle, don't abuse your power because you need to dick wave.

@btdown: Asshole. Why is the flight attendant so special that everyone has to follow his inane and stupid orders?


http://consumerist.com/consumer/travel/ata-tries-to-have-you-arrested-for-using-your-iphone-in-airplane-mode-309421.php

After much craziness, I have AC again!! Just gotta put the doghouse back and pack the tools away tomorrow.

Turns out the new AC compressor was defective. All that work for nothing. The AC worked for under a minute before it started leaking. And After I pulled it out I learned that it introduced metal shavings into the front half of the system. Has to be flushed now... Have to wait till tomorrow for the new, just as likely to be defective compressor to arrive and I can start again.

The Joys of van ownership.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=54522&in_page_id=2


Now that's just funny.

When people in positions of power, with the inherent trust and responsibility that go with it abuse that power that just pisses me off.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070625/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_bong_hits;_ylt=Agb9aYWdcpeYiwtzrc2t6lms0NUE

WASHINGTON - A high school student's "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner got slapped down by the Supreme Court in a decision Monday that restricts student speech rights when the message seems to advocate illegal drug use.


The job of the Supreme Court is to rule as to what the Constitution says, not what they think it ought to say in their personal opinions.

Last time I checked I thought The First Amendment read
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

not

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech unless said speech seems to advocate illegal drug use, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances


It just pisses me off that this happens EVERY DAY and no one in a position of power does anything about it.

We all know that they do the same bullshit with the second amendment. All of you people that don't get what I'm saying need to wake up. If this goes on without some serious reform or impeachment or something, we're in serious trouble.



straight from dictionary.com
oligarchy
1. a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
2. a state or organization so ruled.
3. the persons or class so ruling.


The check on the judicial branch is that laws can be passed and nullified, but if we let the Supreme Court continue to make their rulings regardless of the laws state, then there is no check at all and we will continue fall into this dark hole.

It finally got here after all the waiting and it rained today (Its a Meade ETX-125PE for those interested). I was able to play with the drive system and the computer interface put the sky had solid cloud cover... until about 1 am. At that point only half the sky was cloudy. Lessons I learned tonight.

1. Carrying a telescope in component form through a sliding glass door (to wet ground)that has to remain shut and assembling in the dark is not that easy. Next time, I'm taking the tripod, extending the legs, and lining it up with north before I even think of bringing out the telescope.

2. There is something in or near my backyard with a magnetic field close enough to through off a compass by probably about 10-30 degrees. Looks like I'm not gonna be able to use the nifty auto-alignment until I figure that out.

3. If you leave the telescope in the middle of the alignment procedure, the red dot will stay on so you can use it to manually line up on stuff(theres gotta be a better way, but I don't know it yet).

4. A telescope thats way out of focus is not that easy to set up when you don't have any particular alignment to work with (or a red dot for the first while..). If I hadn't read that little telescope guide from half price books, I probably wouldn't have gotten the telescope focused at all tonight.

5. Stars look smaller through my telescope with the factory eyepiece (73x zoom). That little lesson truly surprised me as it seems so counterintuitive. The optics are just so bad ass that they focus the light into a tiny point. Again, surprised me a lot. Gonna have to try higher zoom to see what happens when the rest of the eyepieces show up.

6. Jupiter is bright enough to see through trees, but with varying resolution depending on how many leaves are in the way. (could see a sharp white circle with a red band across the middle, and 5 moons around it) I think I'll see a lot more detail on a better night.

7. Everyone knows this one.. Mosquitoes are evil.

8. I've got quite a bit of reading to do.

9. Tomorrow is gonna be a late, late night. (And a late morning/afternoon for that matter.)
The waiting is a lot worse than waiting for the order because the telescope is right next to me ready to go. Now I'm getting riled up thinking about it. Damn muggy weather..

to get my old M80 back together would cost about $150 shipped

rear derailleur $56
cassette $35
brake levers $25
xt chain $25
http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/11148-065_SHII79-3-Parts-51-Cassettes/Shimano-LX-HG70-Mega-9-Cassette.htm
http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/11276-104_SHIXS9-3-Parts-57-Derailleurs/Shimano-XT-M750-SGS-Mega-9-Rear-Derailleur.htm
http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/15253-035_AVD2L6-3-Parts-159-Brakes/VBrakes/Avid-Speed-Dial-7-Levers-2006.htm
http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/16362-070_SHI937-3-Parts-381-Chains/Shimano-XT-CN-HG93-9-Speed-Chain-2007.htm
http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/CH707B07-Shimano+Hg-93+9Sp+Chain.aspx

I'd order the chain from pricepoint, but I'd have them match jensonusa's price

Just something to think about now that I have income and all.

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Says I scored higher than 99% on Idealism, Nonconformity, and Nerdiness.

I guess that means I'm just as off the wall as Zach or that the percentage calculation is off as he thought.

I was browsing through some of the slightly older posts in the astronomy community and ran across a really interesting idea.  The Big Bang theory says that the universe expanded and is getting pulled by gravity whether or not the pull is strong enough to make everything collapse back on itself we don't know, but other then that, it's a straight forward idea.  But I knew that observation showed that instead of galaxies slowing down as they used to, lately they've been accelerating away from us which didn't make sense to me.  Some of the books I've read mention this which is how I had heard about it, but they suggested that this was unexpected, not understood and offered no possible explanations.
This part right here is what I read in the astronomy community.  What if the universe is collapsing back on itself, but we are further away from the center than other galaxies.  Gravity would make them accelerate faster then us and when they slowed down more then us, they would seem to accelerate away.

I'm curious if the data for galaxies accelerating away from us shows the motion as independent of direction.  What I mean is are the galaxies in some directions accelerating away faster then in other directions? Also what direction are the galaxies accelerating towards?  Links to where I could read more on this would be great.

I don't want to steal anyone's thunder.  The post where I read the idea came from
http://community.livejournal.com/astronomy/458599.html

I posted a copy in the community too.

working on the old benz...  could be worse though, I could be fixing my van.

    Don't really have anything spectacular to say but I figured I should make a post to start out.  I was pretty surprised at how much time I've spent reading through different communities.  I think I'm gonna like this a lot.  I'm thinkin either the van or my bike for a user icon but still not sure.  Wait it's the van.  Gotta take a picture first though.