A couple of movies I'd recommend

I'd recommend Eight Below. It's in theaters now. Sure, it's a kids' movie, but it's a good one, not full of fart jokes or gross-out humor. The characters are honest and have reasonable emotions. The dogs' stories are personable, but not outlandish. There's drama and comedy suitable for all ages. Kim and I both think you should go see it.

I'd also recommend Rent. It was in theaters for some very short time, like 3 weeks. Kim (and I) had really wanted to see it, but somehow we missed it. But, now it's on DVD, so we snapped it up. I'm not big on musical theater. I guess a few junior high school experiences and The Producers turned me off, but I didn't really care for Chicago, either. But Rent had good songs (I found myself humming them at work today - we'll probably buy the soundrack "for Kim" at some point), a lot of energy, and a halfway decent story mixed in for good measure. And there was much less rough gay sex than in Brokeback Mountain! (Actually, there was none, in case that's a sticking point for you.)

A Home Project gone right! (i.e. not an exprovement)

So here's the problem:



Nasty, huh?

And here's the cause of the problem:



This is the toilet in our upstairs bathroom. According to the fellow who came out on behalf of the homeowner's warranty company, a broken flange under the toilet was leaking into the space above the first story ceiling. Broken flanges are the result of unusual wear and tear (than why would it be usual to expect this to be the problem?) so I could hire them to come back out to fix it, or I could do it myself. Hah!

So I got the toilet off the tile easy enough, especially since the leak had caused the bolts holding the toilet to the flange to rust through on one side, and almost on the other. But I couldn't get the tank off the toilet for the same reason. The bolts holding the tank to the seat were rusted tight. I tried everything to get them apart - vice grips, screwdrivers, box wrenches, crescent wrenches, and all of the elbow grease I could muster. But I couldn't budge it.

I needed to break the bolt. So I went to Target.

I got safety towels:

(They were in the clearance section.)

I got inspirational music:

(The little black sticker in the lower right means "Good Bolt-breaking Music".)

And, most importantly, I got WD-40:

(In the mosquito-themed bottle.)

But I still couldn't break those bolts!

So I called a home-repair and toilet-reseating expert.



And he said the thing to do it was hack it!



Boy, was it!

So, once I had it apart, I gave it a good cleaning, because how often can you flip your toilet over for a cleaning? And I took a look at that flange. I couldn't find a crack. Can you?



But the wax ring had had it! I think that was what was leaking, especially since the toilet was rocking and turning on the uneven tiles.



So I cleaned it up, put on a new wax ring, and by expert suggestion, put a bead of silicone under the base of the toilet to stabalize it, and bolted it back down.



And I left it that way overnight.

And the next day, it looked pretty much like this:



I still have to figure out what to do about that ceiling.

PersonalDNA

If there's one thing I am (not, according to the following link), I'm a follower!


My DNA report

A Lulu recommendation

When I was first looking into Lulu.com as a place to self-publish, I thought I'd buy a book from the site to check on the quality. I came across The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect when I was looking for something in the same sort of area as my story, a genre which I like to congratulate myself into believing is "speculative fiction".

My recommendation of this book is strongly positive and negative. It's a very clever, well-written, interesting and captivating story. It is also filled with the worst examples of masturbatory sadism that I have ever, ever read. And I didn't even read them all. I recommend it anyway, especially since it's available for free online if you do a little googling (the author, like myself, is more interested in people reading the story than paying him), but if you vomit a bit while reading, don't say I didn't warn you. (Of course, you could always do what I did and start skimming when your sensibility restrictor puts your brain in blur mode.)

I suck....

I failed my second CCNP test in a row today. I wasn't too happy about it.

Unlike last time, I studied very hard for this test. Unlike any of the tests before this, I felt like I actually understood and knew the material very well. Unlike the test before, I had the right book for this test. Just like the test before, I was not at all prepared for the material covered on the test. I would estimate that 60% of the questions were later verified as not addressed in the study guide. Of those, probably half were topics the guide said may come up on future versions of the exam. That means new revisions (like when they changed from the 640-831 test to the 642-831 test, not the 642-831 test just on a different day). There were two of the new virtual router questions, and I'm pretty sure I failed both of them because they disallowed the version of the command I use. (The virtual routers are only equipped with the commands Cisco thinks you need to complete the assignment, with no helper commands allowed. If there is more than one way to accomplish something, even if both ways are correct, standard, and approved, bad on you if you use the method the testmaker didn't choose.)

I was very frustrated, mostly with myself. The tests aren't cheap, and I used a lot of time that could have been spent on A Diamond in Snow to study for something I had no real chance of passing, given the study materials I'd chosen.

I'm going to start studying again in March.

Religion: Ex-ians

I came across this link on reddit today:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/buckner/no.html

I felt like I had a lot in common with the author. We both left Christianity after extensive reading of the Bible (actually, because of extensive reading of the Bible). I went through a lot of the same emotions he describes at this site. Most of my objections to fundamental Christianity are listed on his site.

Of course, there are things we don't have in common, too. He went further than me, into atheism, while I stopped at liberal Christianity (though that's the difference between infidelity and heresy in the old me's eyes). He was much more thorough and organized and serious in his studies than I ever was, and he went from firm entrenchment in Christianity with Church and Family. My journey was more lonely but with less resistance, and I wasn't the trailblazer.

I've read through almost all of his site, and I've seen his detractors, but most of all I'm really impressed by his consistant ability to be polite, be considerate, and to say the right thing. There are lapses into conceit and sarcasm, but in an ironic way, his enthusiasm in his new-found freedom reminds me of Paul's enthusiasm in the epistles.

I really think this is an especially good read for intelligent Christians who are interested in talking to intelligent non-Christians. I think there is a lot to be learned from honest eager apologists on both sides of the fence.

CoeraBlog is out of contruction

(Crossposted with CoeraBlog)

Hurray! I've finally finished with the face-lift/restructuring of the CoeraBlog. I'm hoping the final result will be something a little more approachable and interesting. Though the face-lift is finished, I'm very interested in any suggestions, comments, or questions about ways to make it more accessible or better, or about any of the stories. Very interested.

Philosophy: Stop me if I'm too self-absorbed, but...

I was talking with a friend at work about religion this evening. I was mostly listening, actually - I think I'm learning how to listen more than talk, a skill of which I was (am) sorely in need. But I still haven't learned how to totally concentrate on what people are saying instead of thinking my own thoughts.

I care a lot about what people think about me. I think a lot about it. I talk about myself so I can judge other people's reactions; I "gossip" about other people so I can hear it come back about me. I like hearing good things about myself, but what I want to hear even more are valid criticisms - things that are true that I can fix. I don't have any illusions that I could every be perfect, but I want to try as hard as I can. Even more than that, it makes me happy to know that I am making other people happy - that I am activly increasing their level of pleasure, or, failing that, not causing them trouble.

But I'm learning to understand that this position - trying to make people happy - is fundamentally flawed, in that most people are most pleased by a person who is self-confident, self-directed, and unlikely to change much about themselves to make other happier. Of course, a lot of people with those characteristics are just jerks or bastards, but a lot of spectrums are circle.

The reason this is important is that to me it is evidence against a religion/purpose-driven existance. God created us to enjoy sex so that we would want to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. God created with a God-sized hole so we'd search Him out. Why did God create us to respond favorably to people exhibit self-love before other-love? I think because religion isn't the purpose of our lives. It's a hobby.

A Light Dusting

Though it wasn't anything like Anne's wonderland, we had a little fairydust of our own:

My kind of sports

The winter Olympics kicked off yesterday, and I am very excited. As much as I don't like watching football, basketball, baseball, etc, I do like the Olympics. To a large degree, I don't think it's the sports involved - I'll watch basketball and baseball during the summer Olympics. I think part of my excitement has to do with the fact that the whole series goes so quickly - I can follow the dramas because they only last a couple of weeks at the longest.

But I think the reason I like the Olympics the most is that I really feel there's a reason for supporting your local team. There's really no connection between the city of Atlanta and the Atlanta Falcons - few (if any?) of the players are local, few (if any) have any real connection to the city or it's people - they're mercenaries who would change affiliation for the right sum of money, and nobody expects otherwise from them. Sometimes the whole team will pack it up and move somewhere else.

In the Olympics, if someone represents Canada - they're Canadian. You may see a Jamaican cross-country skier who actually lives in Minnesota, but he was born in Jamaica and has dual citizenship, at least. He's still a Jamaican in part. When the US hockey team took on the Soviet Hockey team, they were like the champions taking the field between two great armies. Lugers don't change their affiliation when they get a better training run in another country.

There's also the bit about these athletes representing the peak of physical perfection in their particular event - even more so because they have a very brief moment to shine - not a whole season. While events like hockey or ice skating are similar to American sports, others like the ski jump or speed skating are really about achieving a particular ideal, which can be easily understood and appreciated.

Kim is very nice and lets me watch all the Olympics I can.

An Excursion to California

I just got back from a quickie trip to Orange County, courtesy of Netifice (the company I work for). They sent me out there to "finish training" Robert, a west-cost Netificer who had been out in Atlanta a few weeks earlier to learn how to do Activations. That's what they told me, anyway - actually, I was out there to receive an award for good service, which means Kim and I will be going on a little mini-vacation next month for a few days, all expenses paid! I have to admit, I suspected something was amiss when I was being flown out at a cost of more than a thousand dollars to train someone who, by all accounts, was doing an excellent job, and no-one could come up with what I was supposed to train him in.

In any case, I took a few pictures, especially from the plane, as is my wont.


Downtown Atlanta


I really like this view (out an airplane window, that is)


A city in the shadows


Downtown Somewhere else


An Arizonan volcano (quite extinct, but you can see the river of lava-stone)


Impacts


More impacts?


City Planning


Costa Mesa


Sunset at 20,000 ft


SNA

I got there a little early so I could visit a bit while out. I spent a day with Todd and Cindy, and an evening with Jill, Gavin, Dad, and Grandma Charlotte.


Good Times


Dad


Jill et herbs


Grandma

I'll probably post a few to my photo account on DeviantArt after I've had a chance to balance and crop a few of the plane pictures.