Friday, May 9, 2008
Whatever you do...
Posted at 10:02AM | link | comments (0)... don't press the big red button. Don't do it.
estenger.com
Ed Stenger's online homeSunday, 11 May 2008
... don't press the big red button. Don't do it.
So the first week of this month my wife Jean took our 2 monkeys (Zach and Ava) down to Louisiana to visit family. I stayed home by myself to get some work around the house done. My assigned task was to paint our (rather large) master bedroom. Easy.. right? Not really. I always seem to underestimate how much work it is to properly paint a room. Most of the time is spent in prep, cleanup, and painting the trim. The walls were in bad shape, so they needed a lot of prep work. The ceiling hadn't been painted in ages, so it needed a couple of coats. And our room has 5 windows, 3 closets and a door - which means LOTS of trim to paint. Throw in all the cleanup and 2 coats on everything and you get 5 day's worth of solid 10 hr days of work. Not much of a vacation .... the room looks nice though! So that's why I didn't post much late last month or early this month. My excuse for the last couple of weeks is that Rush kicked off their 2008 tour last Friday and released a new live album earlier this week. So I've been busy with the Rush site. That's all for now.
This guy is recreating Stonehenge using surprisingly simple methods. He may have just discovered how the original builders did it. Very neat.
Wow. It's been 5 long years and 4000 dead soldiers since the start of Dubya's war. Wow... how time flies. One great thing about having a blog that's 6 years old is that I can search back through my archives to see what Ed-from-the-past was doing/thinking. So I hunted through my archives back to March of 2003 and checked out some of my War-related posts. Guess what... I was right - though I wish I'd been wrong:
From the archives:
Monday, March 17, 2003: War Sucks
War sucks. We're having a good time tonight, but we're gonna kill a bunch of people next week. We're making a terrible mistake. I feel like I'm in a giant SUV and the driver is drunk as a skunk.
- Neil Young
Yup. I agree Neil.
Monday, March 31, 2003: Military Victory, Political Defeat
Saddam is an evil, evil guy so getting rid of him is a good thing. Go USA! This is about the extent of most Americans thinking on this war and I can't help but agree with it. But there is a lot more to it. Militarily, we will win this war. But it will be (already is) a costly political defeat for this country that will have far-reaching consequences and ultimately will be bad for us and the world.
Monday, March 31, 2003: No Imminent Threat
Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. The following are his comments regarding the war in Iraq reprinted from www.cato.org
President George W. Bush and the White House's pro-war allies in the media routinely cite an array of reasons a U.S. military campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein is a good idea.
There is no doubt that Saddam is a murderous tyrant. But that characteristic does not distinguish him from several dozen other rulers around the world. If overthrowing a dictator is sufficient reason for the United States to go to war, one must ask how many other holy crusades are in our future.
When does the United States attack North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Sudan's genocidal slave-masters, or Burma's murderous military junta -- to name just a few of the world's most odious regimes?
[Supporters of the war argue]: If we do not oust Saddam, Iraq will someday use its weapons of mass destruction to blackmail the United States.
The United States successfully deterred the likes of Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong -- two brutal and erratic rulers. And those dictators possessed nuclear, not just chemical and biological, weapons. The pro-war faction has never explained why the United States cannot deter a garden-variety thug like Saddam Hussein.
Going to war is serious business. The issue is not whether Iraq has complied with U.N. resolutions. The issue is not whether the Iraqi people would be better off without Saddam Hussein. The issue is not even whether Iraq possesses chemical or biological weapons.
The only pertinent issue is whether Iraq poses a serious, imminent threat to the United States, thereby justifying pre-emptive war. The pro-war camp has utterly failed to make the case that Iraq poses such a threat.
Wednesday, April 9, 2003: Where be da weapons?
Though I'm vehemently opposed (mainly due to the political implications) to this unnecessary war, even I was almost certain that we'd have found or Saddam would have used chemical/biological weapons by now. But he hasn't and none have been found. So why did we go to war without the support of the UN? What happens if we don't find any weapons? I really hope they find some or we're really screwed in the eyes of the international community- even moreso than we already are. Although I'm sure Americans won't care- as long as they get to see the cool explosions on CNN and go to Support the Troops rallys.
Friday, April 11, 2003: Remember Afghanistan?
Alright. The military confilict in Iraq is essentially over. No surprise there. In fact, I think the US/British forces executed the attack brilliantly. Good for them. I was never opposed to this war because I thought we would lose. I was opposed because we did not have the backing of the UN and I don't believe that the US should be in the business of liberating totalitarian regimes unless they pose an immenent threat to our country. If this is our foreign policy then I ask who's next?.. Syria, Iran, North Korea.. China?? I also don't think we are capable of forcing democracy on a nation like Iraq. This is where I think we will fail. Remember Afghanistan? That other country we liberated. I was for that war because it was backed by the UN. And because the Taliban was harboring Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda (they actually did attack our country- unlike Iraq) and refused to give him up. We gave the Taliban an ample number of warnings and opportunities to surrender before we invaded. It was unfortunate that it came to that, but I backed that war for all those reasons. However, reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are not going well and I don't think they're going to get much better any time soon. We will probably slowly leave that country over the next several years and, when we do, it will slip back into the war-torn non-democratic country it once was. But no one in the US will care by then. I also think this will be the ultimate fate in Iraq, although we'll spend billions of dollars and a lot of people will die in the process, our democratic experiment in Iraq will fail. These countries need to liberate themselves, in their own time. We can offer revolutionaries in these countries our support and assistance, but the idea that we, the mighty US of A, can somehow force democracy on these countries at the point of a gun is at best absurd and at worst arrogant.
I hate this war...
[Arthur C. Clarke, 90, Science Fiction Writer, Dies]
One of my favorite authors Arthur Clarke died yesterday at the age of 90. Next to Isaac Asimov, there's no other author I admire as much as Clarke. He was a brilliant man and a great human being. The New York Times has a great obituary for him up on their website. The fact that both Asimov (died in 1992) and Clarke are now both gone is huge blow to the world of science fiction and marks the end of an era for the genre I believe. Luckily there are still some great sci-fi authors like Orson Scott Card and Charles Stross around to pick up the torch.
First off, I have to wish myself and my wife a happy anniversary! Today is our 8th wedding anniversary. Jean and I aren't into huge celebrations for these kinds of events; we went out to eat a couple of weeks ago and declared that our anniversary dinner. That's probably about all the celebrating we'll do. We'll do something more special for our 10th I think.
I also hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's day. I wore green, but didn't celebrate otherwise. My big excitement for the day was that I had to take my car in to get a flat tire fixed. I went out on Friday night with some old school friends; we shot some guns at a gun range (yee haw!) then went out for burgers and beers. Shooting guns was a blast (pun intended). I haven't done much shooting since I moved out of my folks house in the country (a looong time ago) and I'd forgotten how much fun it is. It was also the first time I'd ever been to a gun range. When I was a kid all I had to do was step out into my backyard; instant gun range (we have 50 acres). Anyways, when we left the place I discovered I had a flat. It's a new car - a 2008 Honda Fit - so that was a real bummer. I didn't even have 3000 miles on it yet. And what really sucked is that the spare tool kit was missing from the vehicle! Luckily my bro - who has a Honda Civic - was with me and I was able to use his toolkit. Needless to say the dealer is going to get me a new kit for free.
Oh yeah... by the way, last fall I finally replaced my beat-up old Jeep Cherokee with a brand spanking new Honda Fit... which I love. It's a great little car with very good gas mileage; about the best non-hybrid car you can get as far as mileage goes. We'd also replaced our Subaru Outback with a ... *gulp* ... minivan!! ... ahhhhh! We finally crossed over to the darkside this past summer. The Subaru was getting pretty old and we had a trip planned to drive to Monroe, LA (where Jean's family now resides) in August. So we thought we'd bit the bullet and get the minivan. I must admit I really like it. We did a lot of research and settled on a used 2006 Toyota Sienna. It was really great for the 3000-mile round trip down South.
So as far as catching up, I'll just give a quick overview in this post. And I'll post some more details along with pics over the coming weeks as I get the chance. Our little family is doing great. Zach turned the big 5 in May and started kindergarten this fall. He's doing excellent in school and really loves it. Ava keeps getting bigger, cuter and more of a terror as she gets older. She turned 2 in September and she's constantly on the move, getting into stuff, climbing things and just being the epitome of the terrible two-ster. It's actually a lot of fun to see the contrast between the two kids. They play really well together for the most part. Ava is not in any kind of daycare or preschool yet; she has a sitter 2 days a week when Jean's at work. We may put her in some sort of program in the fall; we'll see.
As I'd mentioned, we took a vacation and drove down South in August - I'll have some more details along with pics later. I also attended RushCon 8 in September.
I'm still working at the same place but my boss (the guy who hired me over 7 years ago, and taught me a lot) quit and is moving out west. So that was a bit of a shock to the system, but I've adjusted... and - better yet - I snagged his office when he left. :)
Ok. That's enough for now. More to come later.
Yes. I finally got the site back up and running. At times it seemed like it would never happen, but I had some extra time recently and just decided to throw it out there. It's not perfect, but it's much better than before. It doesn't look much different - most of the changes are under the hood. I essentially copied the underlying code from my Rush site because I had made several enhancements on that front already over the last year. That made things a bit easier. The main thing users will notice is that you now need to register an account to post comments. Designwise I kept things essentially the same although I did add the 3-heads-of-Ed image to replace the old square-head Ed picture. The 3 pics are me as a baby, a teenager, and an old 30-something respectively. I also added my Rush starman YinYang image that I often use as an avatar on various messageboards. I integrated all my old book and movie reviews into the regular blog and the quote-inator is still around. I'll be adding features as I get time - such as a blog roll and a site search. I have a lot of catching up to do so I'll be putting up a series of posts letting you know what I've been doing for the past year.
Oh yeah... happy b-day to my big bro Eric. And also ... happy Pi Day. Later.
UPDATE - 3/12@3:10PM: Here's the separate post with the Traveling Music review.
It's 2008 now and still no estenger.com. I had figured that when Rush finished their tour in October I'd finally have some time to sit down and do something about this site. But alas, Rush went and decided to continue the tour into 2008. For the past few weeks I've been working like a madman on the RUSH site, trying to keep up with all the ticketing/tour information. It doesn't look like I'll be doing anything with estenger.com until later this year.
On a side note, I recently was made aware by one of my RushIsABand readers that the paperback edition of Neil Peart's latest book Roadshow referenced a review of his earlier book Traveling Music that I had posted on this site. I thought I'd better dig it up and post it here in case anyone gets directed here from the book. This was the coolest thing ever by the way. :) I'm in Neil Peart's book!!!
Book Review: Traveling Music by Neil Peart
This is Neil Peart's 3rd and, in my opinion, best book to date. It's a meandering autobiography set to music - that's the best and most succinct way I can describe it. In his first book, The Masked Rider, Peart described a bicycle tour of West Africa - interesting stuff, but it was mostly just a travel book with a few bits of philosophy thrown in. His second book, Ghost Rider detailed his long motorcycle trip around North America in which he attempts to heal from the loss of both his daughter and wife within 1 year of eachother; interesting, moving and very powerful. This last book has Neil more relaxed and content with his new life; he found love again, moved to LA and remarried. He reflects on his life, where he's been and where he's going. All of this done through the use of music as a memory recollection tool. He takes a drive around the American Southwest, listening to different CDs which evoke all kinds of emotions and call up random memories from his past. It's really a reflective book. You get a detailed autobiography of Peart's life up until joining Rush and also a lot of insight into his musical tastes and how music has shaped his life. This is a great book - especially if you're a Rush fan.
If you need to get in touch with me, just use the contact form on my RUSH site here.
Due to my horribly outdated code and design, not to mention time constraints - I am shutting down estenger.com for the time being. I certainly plan on relaunching at some point but right now I just don't have the time to make the necessary changes to the code and design that I need to make. I had to shut down comments a few weeks ago because of an inundation of spam and my code is very old and in need of an overhaul. More importantly, I don't see the point of keeping the site around if I'm not going to update it. I had been in the habit of posting something at least a couple times a week. But over the last few months that fell off significantly to the point that I was lucky to get 1 post in a week (and nothing at all in the last month). The main reason this happened and the reason why I don't have time to redesign the site right now is because of the effort I've been putting into my RUSH site. It's taken off in popularity the last few months and requires most of my free time. Like I said, I will be back at some point with something better- you can bet on it. Until then, go visit RUSHISABAND.COM! :)
Today is my wife and I's 7th anniversary. We ran off to Niagara Falls on a cold, sunny day in March back in 2000 and eloped. 7 years later and here we are with a house and 2 kids - typical American dream. It's been hard sometimes (I'm thinking sick kids, late nights, home improvement issues etc.) - but mostly wonderful. To celebrate we went to an expensive restaurant, had great food, a bottle of wine and some yummy dessert. Today we're just gonna hang out with our beautiful kiddies in our cozy house and take it easy. :)
Yeah, I've neglected my blog lately. I know. Go check out my Rush blog and you'll know why. I really need to update this old thing...
The Cars. Magic. Enjoy.
[Lakers will deal with shot to the heart]
My nephew Joe is in his senior year at Pymatuming Valley High and just finished up his last season of playing basketball there - and man ... what a season it was. They went undefeated in the regular season but unfortunately lost a heartbreaker last night in the District tournament. Star Beacon boys basketball beat writer James Johnson had this to say :
... The Lakers have already learned a valuable lesson that goes far beyond basketball. You fall down, you get back on the horse and try again. You get beat, you come back and play even harder the next time.
Even PV seniors Brenton Harvey and Joe Stenger, who played in their final varsity game for the Lakers on Tuesday, learned something. Don't let one big disappointment ruin something far more special in the future. They all have their whole lives ahead of them and that loss will definitely make them stronger as adults after graduation.
Isn't that the whole point of high school athletics? ...
I can attest to that. When I was a senior in track our 400 meter relay team was all set to win our district meet and possibly break a school record ... and we dropped the baton. In that same meet, I missed moving onto the Sectional tournament in the 300 meter hurdles by one one-hundredth of a second. It was a tough day. But looking back, I'm glad I went through that- I came out a tougher person in the end.
Anyways, they all have a lot to be proud of. I certainly know that I'm a very proud uncle.
One of the better rock/rap groups to come out of the 90s - this is Down from 311:
Here are some recent pics of my boy Zach. I can't believe he'll be five soon... and then kindergarten!
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest
Rating: 3
ARRGH! This was a somewhat entertaining film with great special effects. Not as good as the first though.
I've been getting into British industrial metal monsters Killing Joke lately. They're probably best known in the states for influencing such bands as Metallica. Their 2003 comeback self-titled album is absolutely amazing - and very heavy. This video is from their 1994 album Pandemonium. The song is Pandemonium. It cuts off towards the end, but most of the song is there.
Some pics of my almost 18-month-old precious little girl.
An Inconvenient Truth
Rating: 4
This a very well-done documentary. I have a newfound respect for Al Gore after watching it. It's an important film too. Whether you believe that global warming (global warming is occurring- regardless of the cause) is caused by mankind or not, you should see this movie- it'll probably convince you. Even so, do some research for yourself- never rely solely on a movie to make up your mind.
