Happy birthday, Judy!

I want to preface this before asking this question.

• I do not smoke. It’s a choice I made after trying it many years ago and I stick to that choice.
• I’m not against anyone else smoking. Hey, if someone wants to smoke who am I to tell them “NO”? I have a hard enough time managing my personal life that I don’t need to manage anyone else’s personal life.
• I am against the government telling bars and restaurants that they had to ban smoking. No, I’m not a fan of smoky bars. I just feel that the business should determine its own policies (within the law), not government. Here in town there were successful businesses that didn’t allow smoking when it was legal. That was their choice and I applaud that.
• I’m against the government telling casinos that they need to ban smoking. (That’s a law that is currently being discussed here in Iowa). Again, it shouldn’t be up to the government; it should be up to the business. Of course, all things being equal (and they NEVER are) bars, restaurants and casinos should be subject to the same laws.
• If the government votes out smoking for businesses, no government institution should allow smoking. Period. There should be NO exceptions. Public schools (including universities), government buildings (including the Governor’s mansion which is currently exempt), etc. should ALL be subject to these laws. We shouldn’t pick and choose which to enforce.

My question is this: Why do so many smokers think the entire outdoors is their ash tray?

I see it time and again. Going down the highway and you see ashes or cigarette butts flicked out of the window. You see cigarette butts lined on sidewalks in places where it is clearly marked that there is no smoking allowed (like the business where I work).

Smoking has been stigmatized in our society. Yes, I know it’s unhealthy and it is definitely a dirty habit. It is the target of many groups in the media who use TV, radio and web ads to urge people not to smoke. It is taxed plenty. Here in Iowa, each pack of cigarettes has $1.36 in state tax on it. (New York is the highest with a $2.75 per pack tax.) The feds tax every pack at $1.01, which makes each pack of cigarettes sold in Iowa have $2.37 in taxes alone.

With all of this taxing going on and the media blitz demonizing tobacco products, you’d think that smokers would take note and be as clean and conscientious as possible. You’d think they’d be model citizens so as not do draw attention to themselves. You’d think they would simply respect others. But you don’t. I still see them taking that final inhale before entering the grocery store or some other store or restaurant, flicking their cigarette butts onto the sidewalk outside the door where there is clearly a bin to dispose of these butts and then going in to the establishment before exhaling the smoke. I see them driving both on the highway and in town flicking ashes and cigarette butts out the window.

So I ask: Why do so many smokers think the entire outdoors is their ash tray?

Happy anniversary, TC and Jena!

Happy Birthday, Doug!

I installed OpenSuse 11.4 on my main desktop computer Saturday. Here is a breakdown of the installation and the result.

The installation was fairly easy. First, I backed up all my important data to my home server. That took a couple of hours. Then I rebooted, inserted the OpenSuse DVD and ran the install. Pretty painless. It asked me a few questions: time zone, how much hard drive to use (all of it, of course!), language, etc. Pretty much what any OS install asks (even Windows). Then the install took about 30 minutes or so. After a reboot all was ready to use. Now, for the customization.

Didn’t have to customize my Logitech wireless keyboard or mouse. Both were recognized during the install. Even the media buttons on the keyboard worked as they should. No driver CD, either! My monitor, a ViewSonic VA2012wb 20″ widescreen, was also detected and configured properly. Also the network was detected and installed so I was able to connect to the internet immediately after rebooting. AWESOME!

The sound wasn’t working at first, but after changing the default sound to the Azalia sound card, everything worked fine.

Next, I added in the repositories that I use on my laptop. For you Windows folk, a repository is where you get your software. No need to go to some random web site and download a file (that could carry a virus) and then run a setup. Just add the repository and it will show up in Yast – Suse’s version of the Control Panel. To add the repositories, simply go into Yast Software Repositories.

Also, I had to configure my two printers, an HP LaserJet 4050 and a Canon PIXMA MP160. The laserjet was easy. It’s a network printer, so I told the Yast Printer app what the IP address of the printer is and then told it what kind of printer it is. No driver CD like Windows (although it is built in to Windows 7). After a few seconds, I successfully printed a nice test page.

The Canon is a multifunction unit, a scanner/copier/printer, and took a bit more. The printer was easy as it is attached USB. No driver CD like all versions of Windows need. I told the Yast Printer app to search the USB ports. It found the printer and detected what model and asked if I wanted to install that driver. Simple. A few seconds later I had a color test page printed. Then I tried to add the scanner. I was told to add the SANE library in Yast Software Management. That took about 10 minutes. Then I scanned a photo and a text page successfully. Wow. It took me a couple of hours of struggling with the driver CD in Windows to get a good scan out of it.

To add software you simply search for it by name (or by function or by… well lots of tags to search by) in Yast Software Management. Then you mark a checkbox, click “Accept” and wait for Yast to do its thing. Dependencies (the Windows equivalents are DLL’s, OCX’s, etc.) are checked and added if needed. The hardest part of all this is getting out of the Windows mindset that you have to go to some web site and download a setup file.

I spent Sunday choosing what apps to install beyond the typical. Finished up tonight. For those of you who don’t know, OpenSuse, like all other Linux distributions, offers literally thousands of applications to choose from for installation. Oh, I also installed one of the Widgets on the desktop, specifically, the Weather Widget. Now I can see the current weather conditions and the thee day forecast.

• I went with Zimbra Desktop for the email/contacts/calendar client. It’s by Yahoo so I don’t have to pay for a Yahoo Plus mail account to get my Yahoo emails. Tried Thunderbird, which I used in Windows, but Zimbra Desktop is much more complete. I could have gone with Evolution or Kontact but they didn’t have any way to access my Yahoo account.
• I went with QmmP for the music player. It’s a no-brainer for me. It accepts Winamp skins, playlists and presets, so it’s now looking like the familiar Winamp and playing songs just as well.
• I went with Cairo Dock for the docking app. I used Object Dock in Windows and it was OK, but tended to take up a lot of resources. Cairo Dock has all the same abilities as Object Dock and then some. Plus there are LOTS of tweaks and configurations that are changeable.
• Other apps that are installed by default are:
  • LibreOffice, a Microsoft Office replacement that includes Write (MS Word replacement), Calc (MS Excel replacement), Impress (MS Powerpoint replacement), and Base (MS Access replacement)
  • Firefox of course! (I am a Firefox affiliate)
  • Gimp, a Photoshop clone, although not as many features as Photoshop
  • Audacity, an audio editor. I use this to edit out downloaded music that has dead space at the beginning and end of the file
  • VLC, a video player – it plays pretty much any video file
  • Kate, an advanced text editor to use when I work on coding
  • k3b to burn CD’s and DVD’s
• A host of other programs that are installed by default.

And now, the end result is this desktop (of course, by default you have four different desktops in OpenSuse):

Happy birthday, Buck!

Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?

Below is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS – 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of ‘lie,”play,’ and ‘run’.
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6. What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)
[Do we even know what this is??]

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication.
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
7. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
8. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
9. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete. Gives the saying “he only had an 8th grade education” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?!

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Now playing: Seven Mary Three – Wait
via FoxyTunes

Happy birthday, KC!

You are my life, my heart, my one true love, my soul mate. I thank God each day for the blessing he has granted me in you.

Well, at least new to me. I’ve been searching for several months now online using Auto Trader. Doing searches with and ever-increasing radius, and I couldn’t find a good deal. Well I couldn’t find a deal that was what I considered worthwhile. I could find a number of the vehicles I wanted but never at the price I was willing to pay with the mileage as low as I wanted. So this weekend KC and I went over to Des Moines to visit the kids and the granddaughter and decided, “Why don’t I try the search here?” Just for fun, I plugged in the numbers and whaddyaknow? I found one vehicle that was priced suitably (even lower than I was hoping) so KC and I went over to check it out. It was at Willis Auto Mart on the west side.

We got there at about 4:00pm and test-drove. I liked the attitude of the salesman, who said “Just take it for a drive – see you soon”. No license copy, no keys held, just drive. Gotta like that amount of trust! The test drive proved a lot. There was more room in this vehicle than in other similar models I had test drove (probably due to the lack of a sunroof). It rode wonderfully and handled very well. Quiet, turned nice; we even went on I-235 a bit just to see how it did on interstate driving. All VERY well. When we got back it was a whirlwind. We decided (after some hemming and hawing) to buy it. The place closed at 5:00pm, but the whirlwind ensued. They stayed late and got all the paperwork taken care of. At 7:00pm we drove off with the vehicle.

What vehicle, you ask? My Ridgeline!! It’s a 2006 Honda Ridgeline with only 44,000 miles on it. Awesome vehicle! Gets roughly the same mileage as My Element did but has more room, a larger engine and is a pickup so it has a bed.

We’re moving in to the March Madness time of year when NCAA college basketball begins its tournaments. In honor of that event, I changed my theme to my own Basketball 2 theme. While I know the Iowa Hawkeyes men’s basketball team will not do much in the Big 10 tournament and probably won’t be invited to the NCAA or the NIT tournaments, I can still root for the 19-12 UNI Panthers (although they have been swooning since the loss of Lucas O’Rear) in the tournament as well as the 22-7 Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team and the 21-8 Iowa State women’s basketball team and the 23-5 UNI Panthers women’s team. (Hmmm…. there’s a trend here for women’s basketball being better than the men’s basketbal….)