As I was riding BART this morning I noticed a guy with a big backpack looking under all the seats. I though he was just the typical kook. It turns out, though, that he was actually looking for "suspicious packages".
It was a strange, sobering moment. I could be one of those people that die in a terrorist attck.
While on my NEw York trip I never watched the tv news (except for the weather), never read the paper, and never read any of the online news websites. Today, on my way into work, I read the paper. Between the continuing crsises in Iraq, Afgahnistan, and Isreal, stories of even more erosions of our rights, and problems here in the bay area, I was longing for last week, and I asked myself if I should even bother reading the news. After thinking for some time, I decided I should.
In a way, it's part of our civic responsibility. How can we vote if we don't understand what we are voting for?
The flip side, as my very wise wife has pointed out, is that information without action is "mental masturbation". So, I find myself in the position of trying to find a way to make a difference and not knowing what to do.
My wife and I are travelling to New York City. We have friends taking care of our house and our cat. It's funny, but it was realy sad leaving our cat. I wonder if she misses us as much as we miss her?
My wife bought me a couple of new toys last week, both special because they use Bluetooth.
The first is a Logitech Cordless Desktop MX. It's really great. Not only because Bluetooth allows the mouse and keyboard to work wirelessly, but also the keyboard is really quiet and has a good feel. The mouse also works really well for me either left or right handed (I use mice both ways so I avoid wrist strain). It works really well on my Linux box. I just had to emerge all the bluez bits, and I was away and working.
The long term goal is to have my computer in the closet, and use the wireless keyboard/mouse to connect to it, that way I don't have to be bothered with the slight hum my computer puts out. The biggest barrier to that is now my monitor. If you have any ideas for a wireless monitor hookup, I'd be very interested.
The second is still a bit of a challenge. It's a BlueTrek G2 earpiece (warning, that link will resize your browser). It's designed to work with my Sony Ericsson T616, or any other mobile phone that supports the Bluetooth handsfree profile. It usually works well, but at times I get a bit of static, and, sometimes, for no good reason, it doesn't connect well to my phone. I'm sure, with time, I'll figure out what's going on, but for now it's a little frustrating.
I just noticed at the BlueTrek website that I should upgrade the firmware of my mobile phone and that should help with the sound quality. Time to find out how to do that with ATT Wirless.
My long term goal is to have the headset on, dial the phone from my PDA, and never have to take my phone out of my pocket or bag. I'm not there yet, but maybe soon.
I also got one of the original iMacs (I think it's a 233) from my mother-in-law's boyfriend. I just burned a Gentoo disk for it, so expect to see some comments on my challenges with that little beastie. I hope to set it up as a web server, file server, print server, and maybe mail server for our little home network. It will also be in the closet, and I'll access it via remote X when I need to work on it.
