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I have only a few active readers for this blog, but I know most, if not all, will appreciate this. I’m not a huge fan of art, but make sure you take a look at this.

(copyright Akiane)

“The Prince of Peace”

…who is eleven-years old, but when she was only 4-years old, she woke up one morning wanting to paint, although she’d never done it before. She started with sketches and by 8-years old she was creating masterpieces that now sell for up to $100,000.

This girl, named Akiane, painted that picture at 8. Thats right..8 years old! Click that copyright link for her website. Those buyers dropping 100k on her paintings now will happy cats in 10 years when they are worth 10x the purchase price.

I’m bored, so I wanted to once again profess my love for the game Battlefield (any and all editions, some more than others though). In light of that I present you with a link for the newest 1.3 patch, which in good EA form seems to break more things than it fixes.

::^–Young soldier in training, props to The Bartenders Son::
Be sure you drop by BF2S.com and bookmark it - there is no better site around for technical help, game tips and quick fixes for annoying Battlefield rashes. Their forum search works remarkably well compared to many of the other game forums I’m a member of. Be sure you check out their STATS utility as well..I’m including my own and Justins stat pages to encourage you to look and leave your link in my comments.

Oh, and if you missed it, make sure you check out the screenshots from the newest booster pack Armored Fury.

Speaking of good presents from Megan..

Something I’ll always treasure Pretty cool huh?

For Christmas Megan bought me a beautiful frame for my college diploma. She did a good job keeping it a secret from me too, even though I was on the verge of buying one myself.

So there it is. A $150 dollar frame and a $30,000 dollar piece of paper. Thanks Boo

(forgive the weird angle, I’m not the best photographer)

I’m a World War II nut, but maybe this movie will be a segue into peaking my interest in World War I.

I can’t wait, this looks like a great movie.  Check out the trailer here. Props to Joel for the find, have fun at boot man!

On this day (5/22) the genius behind Sherlock Holmes was born.

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? 

I really like this quote. One day I hope to do a little sleuthing on my own.

The Massive Yet Tiny Engine

Imagine dumping the big V-8 in your SUV for a 25-pound, 2.4 liter engine that gives you 150 miles per gallon on biodiesel - with a boost in horsepower and torque to boot. Meet Raphial Morgado and the little engine that could… With up to 40 times the power to weight ratio of a conventional engine, flexible fuel compatibility, a displacement of 850 cubic inches and the torque of a 32-cylinder engine, the MYT is the beginning of a new paradigm for engines in the 21st century!

I thought this was pretty interesting. Not that our fuel driven economy has any interest in such an engine, but I think Americans in general are getting pissed off enough that developments like this will be taken seriously. This is a great invention (pending any major downsides), but just like Hybrid vehicles, cars that run on corn and the future of hydrogen technology under the hood — it will take time, and most importantly, money.  Check out the article here if you’re interested.

I have a problem, so hopefully having some geek friends (being a sub geek myself ya know) and network administrators will pay off.

Last year when I moved into this townhouse I had to buy a new cable modem (Motorola SB5120) to deal with all of the noise on my badly wired apartment cable lines. It was a painful but effective solution, until now. Through process of elimination I’ve eliminated my wifi card, desktop NIC, and router as problem hardware when I finally got down on my knees today and bypassed everything with a straight CAT5 to my desktop. In 3 minutes I had my answer.

I used a seemingly surfboard specific (but other modems probably have this too) utility that gives me signal information and came up with the following:

Here’s my current setup, one I really don’t want to change if I can help it.

• New wall plate connector
• 3ft high gauge line running to a splitter
• 3ft high gauge line running from splitter to modem
• 20 ft low guage line running from splitter to tv across room
• 6ft CAT5 modem to router
• 6ft CAT5 router to desktop
• Modem powered thru power strip (wont reach APC)
• Desktop/Router powered thru APC

There have been a few heavy storms that have passed through recently which I know can reek havoc on a line system, but these problems began before those occured. I can’t translate those signal readings, but to anyone who can, are those nominal, is there something I can do in my home to help this or am I gonna have to have Cox come back out and tell me again “it’s not them”. Mind you I cancelled my line insurance a month or two ago so that Murphy’s Law could screw me.Help!

**Edit*
I guess I left out what the problem was in all this. For the past week or so my modem keeps dropping the connection. It’s very random, and when I reset everything (unplug modem, unscrew cable from modem, unscrew cable from wall, put it all back together) it all works fine for about 5-15 minutes before it drops it again. It’s usually around that point that I’m tired of resetting everything, so I’ll leave it alone and it will eventually connect again without my resetting everything.

And to answer your question directly Brandon, it drops the connection when it’s connected directly to the NIC, and when it’s connected through the router. Which naturally lead me to the modem…

A few months back Megan and I were headed back to my house and noticed one of the dorms at ECU was surrounded by firetrucks and smoking.  Out of the hundreds of false alarms I’ve seen during my time at ECU this was the first time it was a real fire

Naturally a stupid freshman started it because she was pissed at her roomate and decided to punish her with ARSON.

ECU police say the fire at a 10-story dorm back in March was the work of an arsonist.

Latasha Isler, a freshman from Grifton, is accused of starting the fire at Clement Hall.

Investigators say she was having a dispute with her roommate, and got so mad, she decided to set her roommate’s bed on fire.

The smoke from the fire spread throughout Clement Hall, and left hundreds of students without any place to stay for a night.

One student was trapped in the smoke and had to be rescued from her 9th floor form room.

She was the only person hurt.

Early on, investigators knew the fire was not caused by an electrical problem, and they began to view Isler as a suspect when she provided conflicting pieces of information.

Not only did she lie about what happened, but she submitted anonymous tips to police using Crime Stoppers trying to point the finger at someone else. In those tips she even used her original motive (grudge against her roomate) as the motive for SOMEONE ELSE to set the fire in their room. They sealed the deal on her when they had images of her near her room when she stated she was elsewhere just before the fire began.

…*sigh*..Idiot

For anyone who owns a home or rents and has homeowners/renters insurance, make sure you check this software out. It’s free from the Insurance Information Institute (III) and allows you to document everything you own in case you lose it and need to file a claim.  By losing it I mean, fire, hurricane, etc ;).

I’m convinced my state is gonna get nailed this year, and while I love severe weather I would’t mind being wrong about this.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you may have heard that Barry Bonds is on the verge of hitting home run #714, tying for second place with Babe Ruth. When I first heard this I was pretty interested, but the more I learn about this Bonds character the less I care.

“I know he’s probably made some mistakes in the past, but come on, give the guy a break,” Pujols said. “Respect the numbers in the career he has put up.”

Noone seems to have anything good to say about him. At first I thought this was a typical love/hate reaction to a player, but I’m realizing more and more that this guy is nothing more than a budget drain. He’s not a team player, refuses to take team pictures, and when he hit #713 a service man caught it and he refused to sign it. What a dick. Theres even rumor of him being a racists prick, which really wouldn’t surprise me given his attitude about everything else. He may hit home runs, but I don’t see how a coach and team manager is willing to pay this ass his salary (see budget drain above) when he acts like he’s his own little baseball world and that nothing else matters. Yes, I acknowledge that these could just be rumors or singular opinions, but when sports casters, baseball fans and non baseball fans alike all seem to have a negative consensus on him it really gets my attention. And lets not even touch the steroid stuff..old and new baseball cards should be evidence enough.
A few nights ago Juan Pierre denied Bonds #714.

“I know I probably ruined about 40,000 people’s nights tonight,” Pierre said. “He can hit as many as he wants once we get out of town.”

I smirk with you Juan Pierre, but I wouldn’t have hid it with my glove.

Since President Bush’s recent speech announcing plans to place National Guard troops on the US/Mexico border all sorts of protests and other absurdities democratically protected demostrations have popped up all over the place. This one takes the cake though..

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Mexico warned Tuesday it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops detain migrants on the border and some officials said they fear the crackdown will force illegal crossers into more perilous areas to avoid detection.

Give me a break! Until now I really had no idea another country could sue us in our own courts. Regardless, this is how I stand on things. Finding, ‘due’ processing, and deporting each illegal immigrant in this country is a logistical and expensive nightmare.  It’s also an issue that would rip some families apart. I have no problem with an enforced registration phase, a stipulation that all registered immigrants must start paying taxes (and must pay back taxes!), and a required level of spoken English.  If all of these requirements are met then they should have an opportunity at citizenship just like anyone else. I think it’s a fair policy, and these immigrants can finally contribute to our economy and society instead of leeching off it.  The days of ignoring this problem are over - citizenship shall be earned.