Sparky's_and_Sandy's

To commit a crime

As the old saying goes, "if you're old enough to commit the crime, then you're old enough to do the time".

Recently a sexual predator was on the loose in my quiet little neighbourhood of Mississauga. He attacked 9 times, one of which was an attack on an 11 year old girl at 3p.m. in the afternoon, while going into her apartment building. Creep!

The school at which two very sweet children (D&L) who mean the world to me attend, had to under go a lock-down because a man was seen wondering the hallways. When confronted, he took off running. Could it have been the predator? I guess we will never know for sure, but the fear of the children, teachers, parents and Aunt, will always be there.

I am glad to say that last week the fine officers of the Peel Regional Police force (hi Sam) made an arrest and we, the women and children in my little neighbourhood are feeling safe again. Well, as safe as you can while living in a big city.

It just makes me sick to think that this creep attacked 9 innocent women and children and he will walk free in about 3 years or less. Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that he was only 16 years old? Yup, 16 years old! So, he is classified as a young offender.

These women and children whose lives have been forever changed have to swallow the fact that the man, oh, I’m sorry, did I say, "man", I meant heartless coward, who did this to them, will walk free after a few years. Can you believe that? A few years and then he will be free to continue on with his life, (don’t forget as a Juvenile his record gets sealed at 18 so he can start life with a clean slate) while the women, children and their families have the rest of their lives to relive the horrors that happened to them.

I think it is about time that the YOA (Young Offenders Act) gets revamped. Maybe young offenders would think twice before committing a crime if they thought they may have to do real time in a real prison. Well, to be honest "real time" probably wouldn't be that much either because our legal system is a bit lenient, but it would be more than the few years they get for being a young offender.

I think it is about time that Canada has the same legal system as the United States.. You commit a rape, murder, bank robbery, etc, in the United Stated and you are put a way for a very, very long time. I don't see a problem with that. Commit the crime - do the time.

I just don't understand why some children are the way they are today? I don't mean to generalize, because I know that there are many, many kids out there that are great kids, have fabulous manners, were brought up well, but then there are those kids who just don't have a clue as to what RESPECT is. When I was a child, I was taught respect and if I did not show that respect at all times, then I was in big trouble. I just shake my head in disbelief at some of the kids I have seen showing no respect to others.

If I have a child, I will instill in my child what was instilled in me --- respect, manners, and morals, and I will pray that outside sources won’t take the respect, manners and morals away from him or her.

Might as well post both from the Press...

As an addendum to the last Press, my mom e-mailed me and mentioned, 'What about teacher soandso...?'

Here's the thing, well, maybe two things--

Family members and friends of family cannot go on my list 'cause it may look like nepotism smile So my music teacher, Mrs. Baron, or Aunt Joan outside of school (mom, don't send me another e-mail stating that she isn't my aunt--she's your cousin, and we called her 'Aunt Joan' smile ) didn't get on the list.

Nor did Mr Jack, who, when I was quite new to the whole schooling thing, was a very influential person. The thing is, he was also a friend of the family, and I saw him outside 'school proper'. Kinda shows favouritism.

It's really sad sometimes when there are lists like this that people are missed. In my life, as stated in the other article, I have had many wonderful teachers. At this time, I can't think of a single one I didn't appreciate (though, again my mom may send me an e-mail reminding me of some...)

I thank you all--each teacher I have ever had--from Mrs. VanNessen in nursery school to Prof. Koyzis at Redeemer--each one of you has left a lasting impression on me and I would not be who I am today if it wasn't for you.

Thank you.

(formerly on my Press Page...)

So here I am sitting in Tim Hortons last weekend, having my weekend coffee with my good friend John, when all of a sudden someone walked up to me--"Dave? Dave Koudys?"

I look up and see someone I thought I recognized but couldn't quite remember. I'm terrible with names anyways so, eh, fake it like normal--put on best smile and say, "Hi!"

He introduces himself--turns out to be my grade 6 teacher and phys-ed teacher/coach for my latter years of public school. Now friends, public school was, well, I can't even count that high anymore, but it was many many years ago--first that my grade 6 teacher recognized me after 25ish years, but more importantly, that he wanted to say hi.

From my perspective, he still looked as fit as he did when he was our phys-ed teacher. Beyond that, we chatted for a bit--turns out that he just retired and is heading off with his wife to Scandinavia for a vacation. Scandinavia!! Wow!

This little chance meeting in a coffee shop got me thinking about all the teachers in my life. When I think about it now, I don't remember the 'bad' ones (every student has a "I hate this teacher!" story, but I can't think of a single teacher over the course of my life that I can emphatically state that)

The following list is by no means complete, but it's a small tribute to all the teachers that influenced me beyond the classroom--

Mrs. Bice - she was my kindergarden teacher in '71--most people have a soft spot for their kindergarden teacher.

But then there was Mrs. Clarke in grade 2. She was a wonderful person as well.

Miss Knox - Had to start here 'cause I did have a crush on her when I was in grade 9. The truly sad part is that I didn't recognize her at a retirement party a few years back.

Mr. Beamer - Those of us who knew him, loved him. Those of you who didn't--your profound loss.

Mr. St. James - Thanks Ed, for everything, especially the listening.

Mr. Krause - If there was a teacher with a 'legacy'... the retirement party alone showed the impact you had on many many people.

Mr. Oikawa - Though my sister should probably write this one...

Mr. Elliot - I still have all my fingers--no table saw has got them yet.

It was only for one year, but Mr. Gunnell, thanks.

Noticing most of these teachers taught me in my high school years--possibly one of the reasons why I have so many great memories of that time. Too many teachers at WHS that I appreciated to list here.

I think that the reason the Winona High School 'spirit lives on' is primarily due to the quality of the teachers the school had through the years.

Oh I just remembered one person during my scholastic endeavours that I didn't appreciate--nay, stronger language can stay out of it--but one guy who had no consideration, no appreciation, and absolutely no redeeming qualities as a worker in the education field. The only thing--he wasn't a teacher, he was a principal--Idiot.

Anyway, onto college--Ms. Ethier, and with that my humblest apologies.

Professor Wolters and Professor Haas--'twas amazing that you actually got this kid to learn anything, but you did.

Last in the list ('cause he's the last guy I bumped into), Mr. Garside, thanks for taking the time to say hi last week. It showed the same committment to and caring for others that you tried to teach us all the way back in grade 6.

Think nostalgia time is over. In the end, I've been blessed with so many great educators during the course of my life.

Thank you.

Much younger than I am now

We used to go out 'insulator hunting' in the spring. 'Insulator hunting', for those not in the know, is when one looks for all those insulators sitting atop the telegraph poles running along railway tracks.

Years and years and years ago, when train travel was the defacto standard of travel, the very intelligent engineers decided to run their telegraph wires vast distances alongside the railway tracks--it was easier than foraging new paths in the uncharted wilderness--the track was right there and you could get the labour and materials where you needed 'em easily and quickly.

Anyway, these telgraph poles basically were renamed to telephone poles when the telegraph became obsolete and the telephone took over. The world still needed to run lines of telephone cables vast distances, and sometimes used the same poles running along the railway track.

Anyway, to have these wires tied to the poles, an insulator had to be used to separate the wire from the wood--wet wood is a very good electricity conductor and that'd be bad for the long string of telephone wire.

So these insulators were made of a very good insulating, yet readily available material--melted sand, a.k.a. glass.

So the melted sand was formed into an insulator which then sat atop the telephone poles, ready to have a telephone wire attached to it.

This is pretty old stuff, these glass insulators--for, after the advent of microwave relays and satellite communications, who needs to run telephone lines across the continent anymore? So these telephone poles--the biggest. brightest and best way of communicating across our great country at one time, were basically abandoned and left to rot.

Here's the good bit, however--people love antiques. They just love 'em. Especially if antiques are like glass or something 'cause then it's like all frageelee and stuff! Well, most insulators on top of poles running along the tracks were made of glass (some were porcelain, and, after it became easily produced, some were made from rubber) and, if intact, were really nice to look at! Some glass insulators were completely clear, some had a green tinge in the glass, some blue, and the ultra rare ones (and therefore the most expensive for antiquing purposes) were purple! Purple coloured glass insulators! Does life get any better?

So this brings us right back to when I was a kid. See, moisture gets up under the insulator and pushes it off it's wooden peg that's on the telephone pole. Then winter sets in, moisture turns to ice, therefore expanding, adn ends up pushing the insulator off the pole, and, obviously, then falls to the ground. Now this happens over the course of many seasons. One could pre-empt the eventuality of the falling by just climbing to the top of the telephone pole and taking the insulators off--but where's the fun in that?

So in the springtime, after the snow was (mostly) melted, every Sunday after church, dad would drive us to a secluded stretch of track to go insulator hunting. Most times friends of the family would come with and we'd have a great time running from telephone pole to telephone pole along that particular stretch of railway track.

To find the insulators you basically walk around the telephone pole, dragging your feet--the grasses are usually still pushed to the ground from the recently departed snow, and sometimes that'll hide the insulator. Using your feet, you feel around the ground and if your foot hits something, 99 times out of a hundred it's a rock that just stubbed your toe.

But ahhh, that one time... that one time makes it worth the excercise, for you found a glass insulator. K, 99 times out of 100 the insulator you just found broke in the process of falling off the pole, but whatever--we did find many insulators. I think my dad still has some in boxes in his house.

Final analysis is it was a good day out in the early spring, enjoying family, friends and fellowship.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one--

So here we are, the lot of us, walking along the railway track, periodically running down to check around a telephone pole for insulators. One time, whilst everyone else is off running around telephone poles, dad and I just happen to be walking along the train track. Well, he was probably walking beside the train track whislt I endeavoured to walk balancing on top of the actual railroad track, probably holding his hand and thinking, "look at me! Look at how good I am at balancing here", not thinking that my dad was holding onto me...

Anyway, railway ties are (usually) made of wood and, after the course of many seasons of rain, heat, snow, frost, etc, these railway ties start to rot--there was a pretty large rotted section in the middle of one of the ties we walked by. A 2 inch wide by a foot long crack in the tie was in evidence.

Dad stops to have a closer look at the hole in the tie.

He tells me to come have a look to. Being the kid that I am, I drop down to get a real close look. Didn't see much besides a crack in the railway tie and told him so.

Pops tells me to look closer. I start concentrating furiously at looking at the hole. Then I see it--very tiny little critters moving around. Like really tiny--almost to the point of microscopic (to an 8 year old anyway). Could be tiny ants, or tiny spiders, or just some critters that I didn't even know about yet, moving around on the walls and at the bottom of this crack--a whole bonch of them.

"Do you see them, son?" says my dad.

I, pretty much enthralled at this discovery, told him, "Yep!"

"This hole in this railway tie is their entire world."

Pause

See, it's not that it was a huge revelation--probably noted by others (I'm sure), but, for an 8 year old to have this thought opened to him--that to these critters, this crack in this piece of wood is their entire lives--that they were born, live and probably die all in that little space, was just something.

I'll always remember that day, that moment. It's like something clicked--that maybe me, laying down on the train tracks looking at the tiniest living things I had ever seen until that point, wasn't the biggest thing around, and maybe, just maybe, there is something or someone bigger than me, looking down on me, whilst I go about my daily tasks of living on this little blue/green planet, oblivious to the watcher.

Quite large concepts for an 8 year old.

Well, if you reached the end of this one, you're doing pretty good--possibly the record for my longest blog entry.

or lack thereof...

Being a Canadian, I might as well adhere to the stereotypical image that Canuck's first concern is hockey, and everything else is secondary.

To start, I'll state that my love affair with hockey, and then paranthetically all professional sports, ended when Harold Ballard traded number 27.

I'm sorry--right there is when I realized that owners were in it just for the money, and not for the love of the game. Then years went by and the players started getting these million + salaries, and then I realized that they weren't in it for the love of the game, either.

Yes the hockey players train and train and train since the age of low single-digits--I have a cousin who was drafted by the Islanders in the '80's and I know about the early morning practices at the age of 8, the running around our Lord's great creation to get him to various games, the constant workout sessions (my cousin lived next door to us so pretty much saw it all...)

And he was drafted by the New York Islanders! Wow! Of course, he had to get drafted when the Islanders won the coveted Stanley Cup a few years in a row, therefore he wasn't pulled up from the farm team...

So he became a full-time professional firefighter.

That's irrelevant to the point--I have no problem with players getting a good paycheque for what they do--they should probably get paid lots more than me doing my tech support analyzing--i just went to school for a few years to get where I am.

So geting paid a reasonable salary is fine--say, what Darryl Sittler got paid--300 K per season--that's not unreasonable.

But the millions + dollar contracts? For chasing a piece of rubber up and down the ice?

"Yeah, but they fill the stadiums, keeping the workers working!"

Sure. I keep the computers working, and therefore keep the school busses on the road, therefore getting your kids to school--what's your point?

Here's an arguement I'm sure no one has heard before--there are doctors begging for money for research to cure the ailments facing humanity today. These doctors would probably jump at the chance to receive one season's salary of one of the top players in the NHL.

I personally would rather have a cure for cancer than pay a very athletic person money to move around on oversized razerblades.

(My girlfriend is loving me right now--she owns season tickets to MLG (k, now the ACC) and is a pretty big Leaf fan)

Again, I reiterate--I have no issue with professional sports--everyone had their talents and I love to watch the poetry-on-ice that hockey sometimes provides--watch some old clips of Bobby Orr sometime--talk about talent!

Anyway, the players should have taken a huge paycut. The owners should reduce the price of admission so that if a family wants to go to a game, they wouldn't have to get a bank loan to do so, and people should all be there 'for the love of the game'.

Right now the only people who seem to care about the game are the fans, and they're the ones who are getting hurt the most by this strike.

Of course, the reason why the owners charge so much for tickets, and the reason why the players get to ask for such big salaries, is 'cause the fans keep buying the tickets, no matter how expensive they are, or, in the case of the local NHL franchise (no names mentioned *cough* Toronto *cough*, how bad the team is!

It's you, the fans, that are enabling the owners to charge 100 bones for two people to watch a game (and that's just for the seats--forget about buying something at the concession). It's you, the fans, that are enabling the Mats and the Jagrs to get their millions+ contracts.

Here's a thing--after the strike, no one buy tickets.

Seriously--not one person buy a ticket to an NHL game for the first few games--then you'll see the price of tickets go down, then you'll see the salaries come down.

But maybe this is all just the tirade of some guy who had a bad experience regarding the NHL when he was a kid.

Done deal.

ran over my Dogma...

That joke never gets old.

Turns out that if you don't exclude your 'cgi-bin' directory from web 'bots/crawlers/spiders/whathaveyou, they might throttle your karma ratings

Googlebot, I guess, whilst browsing through my website, came across the Karma links and basically voted on each blog page. Thought that that was rather interesting.

Actually, adding the cgi-bin directory to the exclusion in the robots.txt file might not help, 'cause Googlebot (and others) will just hit the link on the pages, and have more random voting.

Time for more research.

The good news is that Googlebot voted positively for 66 percent of my blogs, and negatively for 33 percent. That's a passing grade!

Eh, Karma, Schmarma...

Just wow!

We are just beginning to understand that we don't have a clue.

I'm sitting in the middle of a blizzard right now in southern Ontario. I bring this up because it factors into the conversation.

To start, I have a goldfinch feeder hanging in the back yard--I like to try to take care of God's little creatures where I can and when I have the means. If you have the means, I seriously recommend picking up a goldfinch feeder and a bag full of Niger seed--it's wonderful seeing all the littlebirds congregating around the feeder.

Anyway, here's the feeder, hanging there in winter. Only on weekends do I really get to enjoy it 'cause I'm usually at work when the birds feed. This weekend I was home and specifically got up to enjoy watching the little birds feasting on the seed.

Voracious little critters let me tell you!

Usually I have to fill up the feeder every 4-5 days but this weekend, I filled up the feeder Saturday morning, and had to refill it Sunday--that's a whole feeder full of seed gone in 1 day! I was very shocked! I've had the feeder for a half a year and never had to refill it that quickly before.

So that was today. Now tonight there's a blizzard.

Coincidence?

I read that in the clean-up after the tsunami that the workers found very few animal carcasses in the mess. That was so noteable that it was worth mentioning in the news--hardly any animals were killed in the horrible catastrophe. Some scientists hypothesize that the animals have this 'sense'--not that they could predict the future, but probably have an inate sense to 'vibrations' or change in pressure around them. Smartly, then, the animals and birds vacated the lowlands and headed 'for the hills'.

Perhaps all those goldfinches could 'sense' the weather that was going to occur this evening and not knowing when they may get another meal again, they 'loaded up' on Niger seed.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting--enough to post it here.

So there you are.

The thing about cliches...

is that they work.

Sure they're overused, hence, they're cliches...

Let's look at where that word came from--

Many years ago the printing press was used as the way to 'transmit data'. The workers had to 'build pages' by putting steel punches into a frame. These steel punches had the imprint of letters on them, such that when ink was applied to the steel punches, it would be transferred onto paper when the entire frame was pressed to the paper--it was a really neat process. Oh, that's also where we get the term 'typesetter'--the guy who 'sets the type' (puts the punches in the frame). 'typeset'--a specific 'font family', etc. Many of todays terms for the typing and printing process derives from the centuries of the printing press.

Here's my favourite--

'Watch your "p"'s and "q"'s.

There are a variety of myths where this chiche originally hailed from. The one that makes most sense (and probably is the real one)--

When the typesetters took apart the frame and had all these steel punches with letters on the ends, he sorted these punches back into bins. There was a bin for each letter. These typesetters were pretty intelligent--they kept the small letters readily accessible because one would use small letters more when setting up a frame for the press. The capital letters would also be sorted into their respective bins. Here's the thing--the small letter bins were usually at the front of the workspace (readily accessible) and the capital letter bins were placed above the typesetters working space. Hence the 'upper case'--capital letters, and 'lower case'--small letters. I thought that was so cool.

But the really cool part is that when you look at the lower case 'p' and the lower case 'q' in most fonts, they're basically mirror images of the exact same thing. When the typesetter was sorting the steel punches back into the bins, he had to make sure he was putting the 'p' punches in the 'p' bin, and the 'q' punches in the 'q' bin--many trainees were warned to 'watch their "p"'s and "q"'s.

Now for the cliche--

Smart typesetters realized quickly that they would often reuse the same series of text many times. Instead of typesetting individual punches each time, the typesetters would make up groups of phrases and bind the punches together, to be able to reuse them when needed in future presses.

That's where we get 'cliche' from--just an expression used enough times to warrant that permanent grouping.

Anyway, I've always had an affinity for cliches. Yes the very meaning of cliche is 'overused' but what do I care--there's truth there, which is why they're overused. Some contend that cliches are so overused that they lost the original meaning. Well, truth can never lose meaning--truth isn't a 'sales technique' that just gets diluted from overuse and doesn't work anymore.

Not that there's anything wrong with that (if you were looking for a modern day cliche, there's one for ya ;) )

I was going to go somewhere with this but I've changed my mind--I'll leave it at chiches and now i'm nipping off to the pub where I'm going to mind my pints and quarts...

Blankety blank blank

more blanks than I know what to do with...

Should be onthe front page of every newspaper

and the lead story on every televsion/radio news program

http://us.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/17/global.warming.reut/index.html

But probably wont be. Reputable scientists have been stating this case for the last 40 years. Yet tehy were written off as 'environmental crackpots'. Still today, some people, including the current US administration, don't believe that humanity is the root cause of global warming.

Well hi-de-ho neighbour! Looks like your little 'hiding your head in the sand' is over now--nature's on a vendetta and is going to start punching back. And who can blame it--we've abused God's green earth for too long. 40 years ago it would have been easier to fix the environmental issues. Now that we've waited, the difficulty has exponentially increased, and if we continue to wait, well, won't that be a real clam-bake.

K, that's two ranting blogs in one day for me. I've got to stop.

Though I played a politicion on TV...

(no, not really)

I was trying for a minor in Political Science, but left the college before I graduated, thus saving both myself and the school alotta hardships...

Anyway, tangents aside, who here thinks the 'Jeff Gannon' story is actually going to be a 'Watergate' issue for Dubya?

I can only hope. The more I find out about George W. Bush and the way he and his administration does things, the more I fear for the future of democracy and the safety of people everywhere.

When you have to start paying journalists and 'supposed journalists' money to preach your ideas, then you have crossed the line--Propaganda, some would say.

An old expression--"no matter how long it takes, the truth eventually comes out"--or from the sticks--"chickens'll come home to roost." Dubya, I'm thinking that all the deceit, the cover-ups and the not-so-carefully-construed lies are now coming back to haunt you, and it is, and has alwaysw been, your administration that has lost touch with reality. You should have realized that the moment when the good will of the entire world was turned against you within a matter of weeks.

You would think that any intelligent bloke would have made the stories a little more plausable. Then again, Bush was never hired or elected on his intelligence.

The truly sad thing was that I liked his dad. I thought George Sr. was an honourable man who tried to do his best. He served his country both as a military person as well as the 'leader of the free world' in the best capacity he could.

Anyway, I hope the Gannon story exposes more than just skin on some gay porn website.

If I were an American citizen, I certainly would be calling for a full investigation. But that's just me.

No stealing from the rich and giving to the poor...

That said, I live by one unadulterated motto--'You do what you can'.

For example, we were driving home tonight from dinner at the Mandarin--she treated 'cause we were out celebrating her wonderful work news--and were en route back to her abode.

Well, there in the turning lane was a white Honda with a few people standing around. It was dark (being after 8 p.m.ish in February) and the lights of the vehicle were off and the hood was up. I deduced that there was probably some sort of dead battery or something so I slowed down, rolled down the windows and asked the stranded persons if they needed any help. Well, I found out later that people in the Mississauga area are not known for stopping and helping stranded motorists 'cause there may be 'issues' with robbery or muggings or whatever.

Me, being the small town country hick doesn't take such ideas into consideration--I help where I am able.

Turns out that these kids needed a boost--battery was dead. Probably the alternator was failing--I remembered when I owned a Honda for 10+ years the alternator went a few times--so whilst connecting the booster cables between the Mighty Dodge and the poor little Honda, I chatted with the driver with the 'infinite experience' of failing alternators of Hondas.

Anyway, after the wires were connected, the driver started the Honda and it purred--I had forgotten how wonderful Honda engines sound. Anyway, we left the wires conencted for a few minutes and talked about our respective 'rides'--the Dodge vs the Honda. After a bit, however, we disconnected the wires, closed hoods, and went our separate ways.

Trying to drive away from where the Dodge was positioned to connect the cables is a story unto itself and won't be dwelled on here.

Anyway, for me the bottom line is with this one simple small act there was at least 3 people who were thankful, and, as they say, there was no sweat off my nose.

You do what you can.

There's also the flip side that states, 'Don't sweat the stuff you can't fix'.

Ying and Yang, baby!

Well, that's about it--the Mighty Dodge comes thru again when needed!

Yeah, I wrote about this before...ish

"What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee"

- some guy named Markus something-or-other

Here's the thing. We talk big about preserving personal rights and freedoms and such. We're so keen on protecting the individual, to allow the person to do whatever he or she damn well feels like, all in the name of life, liberty and the pursuit of the instant personal gratification, that we have sacrificed our society.

Mankind (and again, no disrespect to females intended but you know what I mean) is a society. Not exactly like bees but we are, indeed, interdependant on one another like the hive. When one of us suffers, we all suffer-and I do mean this seriously. You might not realize, accept, or agree with me on this but, hopefully, I will demonstrate.

One example to start-Vandalism, be it as simple as littering (to me is a type of vandalism), graffitti, or throwing rocks through windows (or worse) is an act by an individual, by a person, (or relatively few persons) against society in general. Sure you say that some types of vandalism is directed from one individual to another, such as, 'Oh, you parked in my spot so I'm going to slash your tires', or (and here's the real intelligent vandals in the world), 'Oh, you're skin's the wrong colour so I'm going to spray paint racial slurs all over your house.'

Here's the rub on any type of vandalism. We all pay for it in the long run. You say, 'I'm getting personal gratification (read vengeance, whatever) from throwing this rock through that idiot's window. I am doing harm to him and I feel better because of it. This can't get back to me (unless the police catch me so I'll run away like the sulky coward I am, not standing up to even what I believe in).' Okay dopey, you just cost all of us, including yourself, more tax dollars, more 'fear on the streets' for everyone, more of the general 'badness' that is permeating society.

The burglar, who steals from his neighbours (and aren't we all neighbours) says to himself, 'I'm 300 dollars ahead now that I've stolen that stereo (t.v., vcr, what have you) from that guy's house.' Over the crooks lifetime, however, he more than has to pay that back, in insurance premiums ('but I don't have insurance, so there!') and inflated prices of products and services because the shopkeepers do have to pay insurance premiums, and while there is thievery in the world, the premiums keep going up. Sure, when it comes down to it, it's a matter of cents per small product, but we do tend to purchase a lot over the course of our lives. And if you look at 'the big picture' you end up paying more out of your pocket over the course of your life than you gained by that moment of stealing.

Added to this, is the common everyday litterbug. 'Ahh, one more piece of trash in the street isn't wrong-that's why I pay taxes-so others can clean up my mess.' Meet Mr. And Miss Intelligence. They are obviously so finely tuned to how society works. We pay our city people lots of money to go clean up your litter. More litter, more hours and more city workers, higher property and services taxes.

If it was just the money issue, some say, 'What else are we going to spend it on?' I have numerous ideas myself but that's for another article. There is, as you hopefully know, more to life than just money.

There is the aesthetic aspect of life. Who among you have come across graffiti at one time or another and said, 'Oh, this is great, there should be more of this!' There are people who say it's an art. Art, to me, shouldn't be against the law. Beyond the law, these graffiti 'artists' are damaging other people's property. Spray your 'art' on your own house. Don't go wrecking someone else's property to fill your need of creativity. Don't make other people feel degraded because you want to satiate some inner need to express yourself in this fashion.

And this brings up my final point for such a short article covering such a large issue (for I could go on for pages 'standing on my soapbox against society's ills', but I won't--today). We, as people, as the society, have to stop thinking of our own personal gains, unless those personal gains contribute positively to the society. We have to start looking at the big picture. I'm not suggesting that the individual be sacrificed to the society--I'm saying that the individual has to work in the society. Just think about what you're doing and how it affects those around you. You might be surprised.

Be a busy bee--contributing to the hive and, in the big picture, yourself in the process.

In the 'I'm so dumb sometimes that it hurts' dept.

To start, I've just recently found out about Bit Torrent. It's supplanting all the Kazaa's and Napsters out there--it's, as someone else stated, 'P2P file sharing with a brain'.

So I wanted to download some episodes of Battlestar Galactica, a new sci-fi series that I'm most impressed with (I loved the original as well, but I've already blogged about this). So I download Bit Torrent on my system at home and start looking for episodes to download. What I haven't mentioned to you yet is that I installed Bit Torrent, not on my gaming PC, but on my webserver, supposedly so I can get remote access to see how the downloads are going.

Well, this brings my webserver to a crawl. Silly me, I should have known that before I started--after all, I'm in the IT field and know about bandwidths and such.

Anyway, that's not the dumbest thing I've done recently. So let's go back a few days--

It's about 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. I'm hungry. Foraging for food at my house is beciming an epic event--spending time between her place and mine, I lose track on what I have and what I don't in the way of sustinance. I'm frequently finding that I don't have much in my fridge these days...

But wait! There's a can o' soup! I'm saved!

So I put the soup on the stove on low heat (figuring that a nice slow warmth over a while is better than boiling/burning the soup)

That's what I did, then I went back upstairs to watch the telly and/or talk to the significant other on the phone.

She calls, we chat, I crawl into bed at about 11 p.m.

I wake up in the morning, go to work, and complete my daily duties for my chosen profession.

5 p.m. shows up, I'm leaving the workplace, going thru my checklist--making sure I didn't forget anything--cell, wallet, keys, laptop, what am i going to do for dinner when I get home...

Waittaminit! I left the soup on!!!

I don't usually swear--profanity and I don't get along--But Frick!! (I have no idea where I got that word, but I've been using it since I was a kid--'Frack' came from Battlestar Galactica, but, again, I already wrote about that...)

So I hop in my truck, and tried to get home as quickly as possible, thinking that there'll be fire engines around my abode, that water'll be dripping off the walls and ceiling, that Philip and Avis, and Holly (my most wonderful neighbours) will hate me for the rest of my natural life...

En route to my place, I call up my girlfriend--"Wanna know how dumb your boyfriend really is?" I ask, and I proceed to tell her, with a little orchestration and 4 part harmony, the story about the soup on the stove.

Cutting to the chase--when my stove is on 'low', it really means 'low'--the remnants of what was once soup weren't completely dryed out and smoking yet, even though the pot had been on the stove for 20ish hours.

Again, that's not the dumbest thing I've ever done...

I was sitting at Tim Horton's the day the Columbia broke up whilst returning to the Earth. It was a woefully sad day for me, and for pretty much everyone. I went home after coffee and turned on CNN and watched the coverage of the disaster. About 3 in the afternoon I was feeling a little peckish and decided to have some toast--it's quick, easy, and I can watch the coverage.

So I put the bread in my old toaster and sit back down to CNN.

30 minutes goes by and I'm smelling something burning. I look up and could not see my ceiling thru the smoke. The toaster basically got stuck and proceeded to turn what was once two wonderful pieces of nutritional value into two pieces of blackened coal. The smoke occupied the top half of the air volume throughout my entire apartment, and I had to open all my windows to get the smoke out.

Those that remember, the day the Columbia was lost to us happened on, well, the end of January/beginning of February--not exactly the warmest of days for southern Ontario. But I'd rather be cold than breathing smoke, so I left the windows open for a while and continued to watch the coverage.

2 hours go by (and here's the really dumb bit) and I'm still hungry.

I got an idea--toast! This time, however, I'll remember that I put the bread in--making sure that it doesn't burn.

So I put the bread in, put the toaster on, and watch the continuing coverage.

Without word of a lie--30 minutes later I smell smoke.

I didn't even bother to jump out of my chair. I just kinda hung my head in shame and shook my head--'How could anyone be *that* dumb?'.

Unplug the toaster, and, with the two burnt pieces of coal still in it, proceeded to throw it into the trash can.

I could also add the 'pizza in the oven' story, but I already blogged about that.

I think it's cold cuts and non-cooking for me from now on...

In the 'Continuing a Theme' Dept.

Just continuing my theme. Took more pics of churches this weekend. Didn't stray too much from home for these ones, and, after putting these three churches on my page, it dawned on me that I've been in all of them.

I'll continue adding churches from the area of where I grew up. I don't know if I'll add a blog entry every time I update my Church picture page, but I did it this time...

Enjoy!

Churches Picture Page

Something my Blog software can do!

P012040 (13k image)

K, this was just a test, but looks like a successful one...

So there you are.

Also used to reside on my Press Page...

(from November 17, 2004--working my way thru the page...)

I honestly don't know why, but there were a few 'children's stories' that my pastor, one Rev. David E. Reid, told us when we were to leave for Sunday School (circa 1974ish) that just stuck with me.

For example, one poignant story involves one of my favourite past times--camping and hiking, especially in the Niagara Penninsula. This one story involved the birch tree.

Now I might not remember exactly what he said (I was still in single digits for my age at the time) but the idea went something like this (this is a 'Classic Retelling of a Story by Dave')--

Ever been camping in the woods?

You know those beautiful trees with the wite bark that looks like paper? What are they called again?

(Of course, at this time like 8-10 kids scream out "Birch!", and have a serious giggle for being allowed to yell in church)

That's right! The Birch tree. All of you have seen a birch tree, right? (bunch of kids nodding their heads)

I don't know if any of you have gone camping with your family and saw them chop wood for the firepit...

(Again, considering it's Winona, and all the kids love camping, more nodding of heads)

And you would have to go out and grab more firwood for the fire? Have you seen how sometimes birch logs that look good from the outside, might not be so good on the inside? You reach down and grab the birch log and sometimes it just falls apart in your hands?

(And by now the kids are all picturing the scene, and pretty much all of us had experienced it--at least us 'older' kids...)

Yes, sometimes when something looks perfectly all right on the outside, might not be so good on the inside--there might be some rottenness in there. Sometimes we have to cut down a tree because it's rotten on the inside and can be dangerous to us.

When you look at people, you see the outside. They can look big and strong, or attractive, or rich, but that's just what you can see from the outside--like the birch tree. Not until you really get to know them would you know what they look like on the inside.

Yet isn't it more important to be strong and solid on the inside? Doesn't that help you more? A good solid tree is safe for you to climb--a rotting tree isn't. A good solid tree can be used to make lumber for houses and furniture. Rotting trees aren't good for much and have to be taken down because they're dangerous.

Keep this in mind the next time you're in the woods and see a birch tree. Ask yourself if you want to be the one who looks good on the outside, but might be rotten inside, or the tree that is strong all the way through.

- - -

Everytime I see a birch tree, I am reminded of that childrens story. Things stick with you like that sometimes

Reducing my Press Page...

(I'm planning on eventually replacing the Winona Press web page with something else, so I'll be moving all web Press articles to their very own blog entries. This one was first written on April 19, 2004. I should differntiate between The Winona Press paper, published from '89 to '93, and the ramblings contained on the web page 'Winona Press', but they're all about Dave just ramblin' so, eh, whatever...)

I don't try to give out advice to anyone. I am reminded of a story I heard once long ago about a famous painter who was accosted by a cobbler regarding a current painting. The cobbler noted that the person's shoes in the painting had an error--there was too many clasps (or something). The next morning, the cobbler was pleased to note that the painter had rectified the error with regard to the shoes. The cobbler then started critiquing something else in the painting, at which point the painter spoke, "Sir, your expertise in footwear is appreciated. Do not, however, take that as a sign that you may find fault with everything else."

(Or something like that...)

This is just a parenthatical way of bringing about my idea about giving advice--don't! I know that, for myself, I don't have the answers for me so why would I attempt to pass on my screwy knowledge to others?

That said, if I were to offer any advice to others, it would be (and here's where the cliches rear their somewhat uglay heads...)

'Be true to yourself'

Don't sublimate who you are for the sake of others. Eventually bitterness creeps in there and that ain't ever a good thing!

This sage advice does not give you leave to be an idiot, or to be a stubborn jackass. Rather the contrary--doing what is best for you should take into consideration what's good for you this minute, next week, next year, and obviously the rest of your life.

If you're so inclined towards intoxicating substances, you might get that 'high' this minute, but the ramificaitons when you come crashing down (and you will come crashing down at some point) do not outweigh the temporary high (in my humble opinion)

So maybe I'd rephrase that old cliche--instead of 'To thine own self be true', I'd say 'Do what's best for you-take care of yourself' (with all the time-frame considerations as mentioned above)

Anyway, this little tangent has gone on long enuf. Time to go do something else.

'The most difficult part in any person's life is the point in which one has to let go.'

When did we start finding other people’s pain funny?

I’m sitting in the food court at the local mall and they have one of those video screens showing advertisements, previews and such-like.

As well as that, they have a segment called ‘Food Court Funnies’—I guess the intent is to provide a little entertainment whilst the patrons of the mall are eating overpriced pizza slices.

Whatever the case may be, it’s an ‘America’s Home Videos’ redux, which is fine if ya like that kinda thing.

So there are cute animals doing silly things, and people having cake thrown into faces—all fine and dandy. Then you get the people falling off chairs, falling down stairs, falling off whatever—doing faceplants into the ground—some of which really looked extremely painful—yet it’s labeled as ‘Food Court Funnies’.

Now I appreciate a good laugh as much as the next guy, but when did we, as a society, start thinking that another person’s pain is something the rest of us should find humourous?

I dunno. Probably the same time when we started cheering in the movie theatres when people got killed. “Didja see that spectacular death?!? It was awesome man!!!”

I think these two things are symptomatic of the same problem—we, as the ones who didn’t split our chins open on solid concrete, or we, as ones who didn’t get spectacularly blown up (‘He blowed up real good!’), feel, what? Some sort of relief that it wasn’t us?

No, that ain’t it.

More than likely it’s just the ‘evolution’ of entertainment—in the ‘20’s and ‘30’s a pie in the face would make folks laugh and Cagney could get away with looking mean—not being mean. (Here’s a little known fact—when King Kong premiered back in the 1920’s, people were fainting in the aisles from fright—Fright from King Kong—think about that!)

After a while, however, the pie just wasn’t funny enough, the mobster wasn’t mean enough. And, logically, the next step, and the next, and the next, until we have people falling down stairs and we laugh, and people getting brutally killed and we cheer. K, the brutal kills are ‘Hollywood’—fake, but we cheer nonetheless.

But you look at almost all the genres of the entertainment industry—the ‘evolution’ of the horror movie—watch a movie about Dracula from the ‘40’s and ‘50’s and watch a movie about Dracula made in the past decade (almost every decade the Hollywood types seem to want to remake that one)—completely different movies.

So we become numb to the sensation after a while—and, like any addict, we require something bigger, scarier, meaner, more spectacular to get the same thrill.

So I think that’s what it is—an addiction. I’m not the first one to make this observation, nor will I probably be the last. The thing about all this that is on my mind lately is, ‘where does it end?’ I mean, movies get scarier, gorier, faster, more violent each passing year (as far as I can see), so, logically, it’ll probably get worse.

So where does it end? Or will it? Will movies 50 years hence make people of today ‘faint in the aisles’?

Logically, you can only do so much in 120 minutes, so there has to be an ‘upper limit’ to the amount of action, gore, violence, or what-have-you, so there has to be an end to it.

Anyway, I’m basically done on this topic. For myself, I’ll see movies that I want to see. I’ll never give money to the horror genre—if you don’t like a movie that ‘Hollywood’ made, forget the petitions and the picket lines—vote with your pocketbook—‘they’ll’ listen then.

Whilst investigating other issues…

I’ve been looking through my access.log file. See, my web server, Apache, logs every single request from those of you who have taken the time to visit my little site. So if you surf over to, say, my America Trip page, Apache logs that you’ve viewed my America Trip page on such ‘n such a date, at such ‘n such a time, from such ‘n such an IP address (or domain name). A few other miscellaneous things are also logged, like what browser you’re using and if you were referred (or linked) to me from another site like Google.com.

So all this stuff is documented in a log file. Most people running servers don’t concern themselves greatly with a log file and the only time someone should concern themselves with the recorded logs is when hack attempts occur, or if there’s something else wrong with the website.

That’s basically what happened this week—someone was maliciously tampering with my website. The details if said ‘spoof’ can be found on this page—Blog Entry 48, so I shan’t dwell on that particular aspect.

What I came here today to discuss is what I found whilst perusing my log files.

To start, I’m a Christian. That said, I have a little page on Sparky’s Space dedicated to the beautiful Elin Grindemyr (well, I think she’s beautiful…) but some people have questioned my Christianity—“How can you call yourself a Christian and have those naughty pictures on your website???”

Well, they might think that’s a legitimate question but I don’t believe it is. I don’t see how those pics can, or should, call into question my spiritual, moral, or religious beliefs. I may write more on that later.

This topic is about what I found in my log files, and that is the following—

Christian people are just like everyone else.

No really, they are! Whilst perusing the log file, I’ve noticed that there are many log entries for my Elin pages, and these requests came from “Christian” domain names. Some were from Christian high schools, some were from Catholic parishes, some were from Catholic grade schools! Seriously—Christian-type grade schools! And most of these domains have shown up in my log file multiple times! Now, my brand of Christianity wouldn’t have an issue with consenting adults of any spiritual persuasion viewing the Elin pages, and there's no issue with anyone of any age visiting the rest of my website--I actively encourage people to come to Sparky's Space. In my opinion, it's one of the nicest places on the internet! But that’s the way I look at things.

However, if you’re going to get on your soap box and admonish me for having these pictures of Elin on a site made by a guy who calls himself a Christian, then I’ll kick that soap box right out from under you—you go clean up your own back yard before you come and tell me how "bad" mine is.

One of my favourite ‘Daveisms’ is—“there are two people I have to live with my entire life—me and God.” I’m going to add a clause—“there are two people I have to live with my entire life, and two people that I’m answerable and beholden to for my entire life—myself and God”

The rest of you can take a seat. I’ll take your suggestions under advisement, but, in the end, I’ll do what’s best for me and my relationship with God.

As a tangent, in the log files there were entries from police stations, gov’t offices of all levels and locations, as well as, well, everyone else—Elin’s page is my most visited page.

Idiots 'R' Us...

In the continuing theme of 'hackers have no lives' dept...

I'm running a few 'analytical tools' for Sparky's Space. These tools are mostly for fun and stuff--y'know, so I can see how many visitors come to my little corner of the 'information superhighway'.

I'm running a little program called 'Webalizer' and it's been chugging along for a few months. What it does is 'parse' my Apache log files, and tells me, as well as those of you who bother to look at the first link above, how many visitors have come to Sparky's Space, what browsers they're using, country statistics, etc.

What Webalizer also shows is what 'Search String' was used on a serch page like Google. For example, if you go to Google and type in "David Koudys" in the 'Search' field, more than likely my little website will come up. If you then click on the link to my website from the Google list of results, my log file notes that you came to me from Google by using hte search string 'David Koudys'. Now I think that's neat--seeing what search strings people have used in order to surf to Sparky's Space.

Turns out, however, that anyone can 'fool' your web server with false search strings.

This is where I'm more than a little, well, politely, peturbed!

I go looking at my stats page and right there in the list of search strings is 'inces incest ncest'.

Now I know what's on my web site--on every single page, and not one of them have those words (until now). I did a little searching because I was quite concerned that somehow my website had been compromised. Well, turns out that it's not my website that's been compromised--just a stupid hacker fooling Apache.

So this is what happens--

Hacker fools web server by faking a google search string of the above phrase.

Web server logs this as a legitimate search string.

Webalizer parses the log file and adds the search string to the list of search strings.

Webalizer page shows search string

Google 'bot (or other 'web 'bots) finds text on page and adds it to the database.

So now when you use Google, or other web search pages, and type in anything remotely close to the above search string (and I won't add other 'hits' to a web 'bot by typing in that search string again), my page will appear in the list, even though my page, as well as others so affected, have nothing, *NOTHING* to do with said topic.

What I did was cut and paste the exact phrase into a Google search, and every single page that I saw in the list had exactly the same problem I did--running Webalizer and having that search string appear in the list, and, whereas I can't vouch for every page in that list, I can more than likely state that none of them were dealing with the topic, either.

That just burns me.

What to do?

First, when I get home tonite I'm editing the Webalizer file and removing hte offending entry. I'm also going to go look at my log files and see which IP originally sent the fake search string.

I'm also going to edit my 'robots.txt' file such that web 'bots don't add my Webalizer pages to their search databases.

But, in the end that's fixing the barn door after the horse has fled. But what ele can a person do? Idiot hackers will always find some way to screw things up.

Eh, whatever...