Sorry for the absence, folks. I've been on somewhat of a sabbatical. Things here have been bizarre to say the least. I was working on my mobile ham radio antenna project and then other distractions followed suit. First and most importantly, the wife was in the hospital for a week, but she's OK and recovering nicely. I promised her I would not divulge any more information on that, so just keep her in your prayers for her continued recovery. Secondly, before that little incident, she got me an early birthday present: an HTC Pure smart phone with a two year "unlimited" contract with AT&T. Believe it or not, that's what we get the best reception on where we live. Anyway, this thing's got Windows Mobile 6.5 on it and FWIW, I find it to be a remarkable piece of equipment. There have been many poor reviews on this phone, but since it's a Windows OS, I've been hacking the crap out of it for the past two weeks. I've just about got it to where I want it, but it's going to take me a few more days playing with it to get it there.
The user interface is driven by HTC's Touch Flo 3D technology. To put it mildly, it sucks. So does all the bloatware that came with it. I ripped out that lame interface and installed SPB Mobile Shell 3.5. It's an awesome user interface with a 3D carousel and other 3D features that make it much more versatile and enjoyable. Plus there's lots of apps out there for download to play with, most notably, the GPS apps.
Then I got news that an old friend of mine from 20 years ago passed away back in September. After hearing about it, I spend the next few days looking up old friends who knew him in order to pass the word along. There was good news, however; His brother who was fighting Leukemia at the time was reported to be alive and well and living only 20 minutes from my house. Unlike his brother that passed away, this guy had a heart of gold. He was a firefighter who left the fire company before 9-11 and ended up beating the cancer! It's been a trip down memory lane calling up and chatting with friends you used to hang with from 20 years ago, always wondering what ever happened to them. Kudos to Facebook for making these reunions possible. Turns out that after one of those recent conversations with one of my closest friends, I found out that he lives right up the hill from me not 3 minutes away! Damn, we had some great times together and I can't wait to see him again someday soon.
As far as politics are concerned, I've already placed several calls to my US Representative's office in DC and although I have little hope of him changing his vote on Obamacare, because he's a hardcore Dem, at least I gave it my best shot. Weather it passes or not, I hope every last statist assclowns in Washington gets the boot in November. If this monstrosity of a health care overhaul does get passed, it will be tied up in courts for months to come and it will end up getting shoved down our throats one way or another. If it doesn't pass, the leftists are going to shove it through in a piece-meal fashion, regardless. Either way, like I said back on November 5th, 2008, we're screwed. Even if in the next two subsequent elections we get a government that holds strict adherence to our Constitution and even if every last commie in both elected and appointed office was hung by the neck until dead for their acts of treason (my little wet dream), it would still take more than 20 years to fix the damage done over the past two years by Obama, Bush and all the criminals in the US Congress.
Cup still half full??? Yep, despite the fact that somebody replaced my beer with turpentine.
