Current Events, Irrelevant Thoughts

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I do hope everyone had a wonderfully happy Christmas with their family!

(None of that 'Happy Holidays' politically correct nonsense around here...)

I just returned from a week with the family - and I wish it could have been longer!  Just as you begin to re-acquaint yourself with family & friends you haven't seen for a year, it's over again... until next year.  This year, we met in Sacramento California - and had a wonderful time celebrating life with each other - and eating really great food! (Thanks ladies!)  Hmmm... one of these days us men ought to get together and kick the ladies out of the kitchen for at least the Thanksgiving meal.

Upgrading From Vista to Windows XP

Yep - many people refer to moving from Vista to XP as "downgrading", but I think it's more accurately referred to as an upgrade. I recently purchased a Toshiba L305-S5913 laptop - nothing particularly fancy, it was a good deal at $499.95 - but it was running Vista Home Premium, which I have no particular interest in using. I feel that I'm probably in the majority of informed computer users - XP Pro is a perfectly suitable OS - while Vista is wonderful if you like 'eye-candy'. I suspect that Vista is only becoming more 'popular' because it's downright difficult to find new computers that have XP as an option, let alone already the primary OS.

Proposition 8 - Definition of Marriage in California

In California, we just finished voting on Proposition 8, and it's no secret to any of my friends & family, I voted 'yes'. California shares with just 23 other states the ability of the citizens to override their elected officials and directly vote on state law. Although with the strict requirements for signatures that many states have, just 6 states, Arizona, California, Colorado, North Dakota, Oregon, and Washington, pass 60% of all citizen originated initiatives. This ability of the citizens to step up to the plate, and over-ride unpopular judicial or legislative law is direct democracy in action.  Many of you reading this may envy the states that allow direct participation in the making of law.

Statistics - Determining the Health of Your Website

Keeping a close eye on what's happening with your website is alot like visiting the doctor... checking your pulse, blood pressure, weight, general health... I'm a firm believer in having as many statistics available as possible about your website.  It allows you to zero in on any problems, or take advantage of any patterns you see developing.

I must confess... I didn't think that I would make use of the blog portion of BurningKnife, I figured that anything I write would be a regular article for the site.  Then I've been toying with Twitter - a good place to put a quick comment, a sentence or two to describe what's happening.

The scenery around here in SE Minnesota is getting really beautiful! The advancement of Autumn has sent our hardwoods into such an awesome display of color!! I love Autumn with the crisp feel of the air, the scents, the reds, rusts, oranges, yellows...the apples!! The only thing about Autumn that I don't enjoy are the allergies and knowing winter is just behind it! How's the color in your neck of the woods?

I've just completed a move to a new server - HotDrupal.com, and so far, I like what I see - the speed is just blazingly fast!  I hope everyone enjoys the new speed, it will make this website far more friendlier to use.

I'm still squashing bugs however... a logo problem and a Forum CSS problem are being worked on - please bear with me.  I think you'll agree that the raw speed is worth it!

There are a lot of online jobs now a days. What is the best online job that fits for you?

I like content writing. :)