Took the plunge!

Well, I am writing this on my Toshiba Satellite P15-S479, but this time is is different. I replaced Windows Media Center with Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (you-BOON-too len-ucks, or at least that is how I pronounce it). I have been doing a test drive using an USB version, found here, for a few days and made the change this evening. While I don't have all the kinks worked out yet, I am enjoying it.

I first tried Linux, Slackware to be precise, back in 1996 or so, that should make it around version 3.5. (It wasn't on this laptop btw) I finally got it to work, but later dropped it going to Windows NT before going to Windows 98se. Things have progressed nicely in that time. The Window system was auto detected and comes starts by default. There is a wonderful "Update Manager" and "Package Manager" that is included for "Windows-like installs".

I plan on sticking with Ubuntu on at least this laptop. If I can't get some software to work under Wine then I can always use the desktop in the office, once I clean a path to it. (I had a bookcase fall over last week; spilling books, magazines, and manga from one wall to another.)

Must all Christian books be about how you are doing it wrong?

Ada Lovelace Day 2009

FindingAda.com
My wife, Leah, is a MRI Technologist. She works with multi-million dollar medical machines, and because she works for Alliance Healthcare Services -- the magnet, servers, and all cooling systems are in a 18-wheeler trailer. She doesn't "work on" the MRI machine (that's a Technician). These are machines that use magnetism, cryogenics, and several helper computer systems to produce images that will help save or extend lives, and she orchestrates the whole process. I wish I knew more about it, but I don't. But Leah is amazing at what she does and she carries on the tradition of Lady Ada.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or Obama's Socalization of America Act

Read the text of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" here all 1,434 pages.

Running?

I had a really strange encounter this weekend. I had a woman stop me in a gas station and ask where I was preaching. I said that I don't really do that anymore. She asked isn't that what I went to school for. I said yes, but it didn't work out and now I'm a computer programmer making much more than what I would have made preaching. She said that is probably true because she doesn't think I'm the type of person that will tell people what they want to hear but what they need to hear. People will pay handsomely to have a preacher tell them what they want, but pay little to one who tells them the truth. I said thank you mostly because I didn't know what else to say. She then went on saying that I was 'running from my calling'. She said that people who rush in front of a microphone and say 'I was called! I was called!' probably were not, but people who run from God do so because they don't have faith in themselves. Again I say thank you, but I really didn't know what to say. I did have to go, so I excused myself from the rest of the conversation.

This is really strange because of other things that have happened over the last couple of weeks or so. I've spent about a year on the 'sidelines' and mostly involved in Internet related discussions, but I've managed to get on board with Transforming Theology blog (I'm reading the book Tripp, really), prepping for a series of classes on John (Sunday 9am Room 107), and planning a Disaster Preparedness document - all the while having my belief system rocked by reading Queermergent and the apparent march of America toward Socialism.

Maybe, but then again I might still have some more miles to travel.