The World Needs More Ninjas

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Deleting a buffer without changing your window layout - Vim Tips Wiki - a Wikia wiki

The Definitive Guide to Bash Command Line History
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Inside Source for College Admissions Requirements
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This is my rationale on who I have chosen to vote for next month (barring any true October surprises, of course). I believe in the wisdom of crowds (in general), so hopefully this is just one data point in your larger decision as to who you vote for because I definitely wouldn’t want to live in a world where everyone thought like me.

First, a pre-condition: I almost always choose to vote for viable candidates (e.g., at least double digit polling). I understand and respect the decision to vote for third party candidate, I just choose not to vote that way. That being said, given the choice, I would have voted for Ron Paul over either Obama or McCain (so, something to keep in mind for those that think all people voting for Obama have a socialist/Marxist worldview). So, given this criteria, my evaluation comes down to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Second, a little about my view of the presidency. I view it as the CEO of our country. To me, their primary responsibility is to be a manager of our country’s finances, advocate for our country to the rest of the world, provide security, and keep the American brand competitive and admired. I care more about a person’s ability to deliver in this role than about their views on issues for which large gray areas exist (e.g., abortion) (or what their middle name is, whether they smoked pot, etc.). Of course, I weigh all these factors as a whole, but I don’t automatically discount someone over one issue. I don’t feel there is one mainstream moral issue that is significant enough for me to vote solely on that issue while giving a pass to any other flaws a candidate may have. According to the CEO view, I don’t expect whomever is elected to make a bit of difference in my life in the short term. But I do believe the president has influence over the long term direction our country takes, which can definitely affect my life.

As I mentioned earlier this year, I like McCain and thought he was the best of the mainstream Republican candidates. I think he was the strongest too, as he always polled significantly better in the general election than any other candidate against both Obama and Clinton. Unfortunately, his decisions of the past few months just don’t seem like the person I always thought McCain to be.

First, some of the things I like about McCain. He was consistently one of the most influential conservative voices against many of Bush’s actions with which I disagreed (e.g., challenging the administration in its handling of Iraq, keeping the Senate’s filibuster intact for judges, voting against the Medicare prescription drug benefit). He understands war better than most anyone in Washington. McCain has always been relatively open with the press and fairly candidate for a politician who’s been in the limelight as long as he has. He has always been a major spokesman for fiscal discipline in stark contrast to the Bush’s and Huckabee’s of the Republican party.

Now, some of the negatives I see with McCain. First, his extensive understanding of was seems to have come at the cost of seeing a military response as the first option against any threat. When your military has like 30 times more funding than the next nearest country, you’re perpetually susceptible to the “if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail” syndrome. Aside from the morality debate, I believe America is at a point where pragmatically we need to learn to better exhaust diplomatic efforts before military action due to budget constraints and from a PR perspective if we want America’s opinion to continue to be more valued than that of, say, Russia or China (a good book to read on this is The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria). I believe in military responses. Afghanistan was a no brainer to me after September 11th. Even Iraq, I supported, though now I’m evidently a lot more reflective as to whether Iraq was truly doomed to be a mess from the get-go or whether it could have been done more efficiently (and the fact there was a lot of information hidden at the time of the invasion that is known now). I feel that Obama more likely to lead successful diplomatic efforts to situations like the Middle East and Russia than McCain.

Next, I have major problems with McCain’s temperament. Everything from watching reactions in the debates, to the hasty decision to suspend then un-suspend his campaign to help with the bailout, to choosing Palin as a running mate having had only one face-to-face meeting, McCain does not strike me as cool under pressure. Quite honestly, given the infamous 3 a.m. phone call, I expect Obama to be the one to take a step back and try to arrive at a more rationale decision while McCain would shoot first and ask questions later. In the past eight years, we’ve had the first attack on American soil and worst financial crisis in most Americans’ lifetimes. If ever there was a time in my lifetime which could fulfill the opening lines of Kipling’s poem If, that time is now:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

My other major problem with McCain is his judgment in choosing people for cabinet and other influential appointment. I consider this an important measure of a the president. Let’s face it, the person selected to the president is not going to be America’s top expert in all matters with the economy, foreign policy, education, agriculture, and veteran’s affairs. The ability to delegate well is crucial. His choice of Palin for the VP causes me serious doubt. While I imagine she is a solid choice for Alaska’s governor, she’s not the person I want being second in line to navigate our country through the economic crisis and foreign affairs (again, a Zakaria article that does a good job of making this point). Put another way, if the CEO of my company were to appoint someone to be their successor that had the same qualifications to run the company that Palin has to run the US government, I would be looking for new job opportunities pretty quick.

Combined with some of the personnel decisions, Bush has made (e.g., Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General, Mike Brown as head of FEMA), it’s very disappointing for me to see the party I thought placed more emphasis on merit push for so many lesser qualified folks for political and loyalty reasons. By in large, I may not agree with Cheney and Rumsfeld, for example, but they were clearly well-qualified to hold their respective positions. Inevitably, there is going to be delegation to people with whom I do not agree. I can accept that. I have a major problem with delegation to people whom I feel are not qualified to hold that position.

To me, McCain’s campaign highlights some major structural problems with the Republican party that are likely to extend beyond the 2006 and 2008 elections. The best way I can put it is when Reagan led the party, it was a party of hope. Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, virtually any American that watches clips of Reagan will come away with an optimism towards America and that better days lie ahead. Now, it’s become the party of fear. We’re on the brink of Armageddon and voting Republican is the only way to have any chance at avoiding a complete meltdown. It saddens me when I look through my mailings from Republican candidates and by in large see that the only reason I should vote for them is for fear of (1) illegal immigrants, (2) gay marriage, (3) big spending (hard to take this serious after eight years of Bush leading the party), and (4) terrorists (roughly in that order). And, notice there’s virtually no mention of the economy, which actually is my biggest fear right now. It’s like the national Republican party has given up on having positive ideas and chosen to advertise the brand as a firewall against scorched earth scenarios. I really hope there is internal movement to purge the party of fear presentation in favor of Reagan’s party of hope.

OK, so now on to Obama, starting with the problems I have with him. First, I am likely to have philosophical disagreements with anyone he appoints to the Supreme Court (remember, Ron Paul would be my first choice). Second, he hasn’t done a very good job at answering questions about questionable associations he’s had in the past in a timely and transparent manner. Third, his opting out of public financing when to his advantage despite his past strong philosophical beliefs to the contrary cause me to question his commitment to his beliefs when they may not be to his advantage (e.g., increased transparency in government). Fourth, he has done some obvious pandering (e.g., exempting Social Security taxes only on income between $100-250K is something no serious economist, regardless of political affection, would advocate). Fifth, I’d generally like to see US abortion laws converge (preferably at the state level) closer to those of Europe (e.g., generally allowed unrestricted only in the first trimester) whereas Obama seems content with US abortion law as is.

On to the reasons why I like Obama. I’ll start with the style points. Listening to him makes me more optimistic about the future of America than any candidate in the past two elections. His tone is more of Reagan’s, telling me why I should have hope for the future rather than fear. Second, he presents himself with an amazing temperament which seems vital to the position of presidency. As conservative writer Charles Krauthammer points out “he’s got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament”. I think that the temperament part is in stark contrast to McCain and very significant.

Obama seems more intent on moving to post-partisan politics to solve problems rather than antagonizing the other party. Whether this actually happens (remember, Bush was going to be a uniter, not a divider) remains to be seen but he seems to have more of a desire to try and make it happen. I don’t think trying to see what you can get through Congress with 51% of the vote is generally in the best interest of the country.

Regarding delegation, Obama seems to have done a superb job of surrounding himself with competence in this campaign. He hasn’t appointed any one to a significant position that I feel is obviously unqualified. Also, he has done an amazing job of leading a team which has put him in a position to win the election in a landslide. It is no small feat to put together a campaign which not only beat the strong Democratic favorite in the primaries but is also currently smashing the Republican candidate that polled the best against the Dem’s candidate. Whatever you feel about Obama, that has to speak positively to his leadership abilities in some capacity.

I feel that Obama advocates more fiscal responsibility than McCain. He is in favor of pay-as-you-go rules which seems like one of the positive budget steps most likely to actually pass. Basically, taxes would have to be more tied to spending. In general, I like this rule. If someone wants a war or social program, it would be great if they understood their taxes would go up X% as a result. I don’t believe McCain has committed to this.

Honestly, I don’t see how anyone who voted for Bush can be that concerned with Obama being a “socialist”. Remember that the Bush administration which has overseen some of the largest deficits in history (which means higher taxes in the future), the largest entitlement program expansion (Medicare prescription drug benefit) since LBJ, and now the nationalizing of banks left and right. If Obama turns out to be in favor of a bigger government than Bush, then I undoubtedly wouldn’t vote for his reelection. Neither candidate is that great to me from a fiscal perspective, but I feel that Obama is slightly better overall and both are a significant improvement over the Bush years.

So, my conclusion is that were I tasked with choosing a CEO for a company in which I had a financial stake, I would select Barack Obama over John McCain. And, that is my vote for president.

Regarding some of the other votes I plan to make:

• NC Governor: Pat McCrory (R) since he seems to have done a solid job as seven term mayor of Charlotte and Bev Perdue (D) hasn’t distinguished herself to me.
• Senate: Both Dole (R) and Hagan (D) are incredibly crappy candidates in my eyes. I’m planning to vote for divided government here, so I’ll hold my nose and pull the lever for Dole.
• House: B.J. Lawson (R) over David Price (D) despite the fact I like Price because his office was very helpful in an issue we had with our economic stimulus check. Lawson is like a Ron Paul Republican favoring a complete revision of our tax system as well as the country’s approach to the “war on drugs”. He’s definitely more in line with what I’d like to see the national Republican party become.
• Other Races: I spent about 4 hours going through trying to make an semi-informed choice about from Commissioner of Insurance to Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor (still not as good as Champaign where I got to vote on County Coroner). And folks wonder why US voter turnout is so low when they make it so daggum complicated and time consuming if you don’t want to vote a straight ticket. I probably ended up about 60/40 in favor of Republican candidates. For judges, I vote for the incumbent unless a Google search turns up some good reason not to. This mainly reflects the fact that I don’t believe in voting for judges. Actually, I do this same algorithm for a lot of offices that I feel should be appointed by rather than elected.

Famous Awk One-Liners Explained, Part I
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Kaelyn’s loves onomatopoeias. Here’s a list of some of her sounds…

II EE (in a squealing fashion, for a monkey)
Arf, arf, arf (usually for a dog, but sometimes for a bird too)
Roooaaarrr (tiger)
Room, room (kind of a grunting noise really, for a car)
uck, uck (duck, not sure if she is trying to say duck or trying to quack)
eeeooowww (cat)

She does a few baby signs now. The most common is an arm sweeping motion that she uses in her high-chair when she is “all done” eating. She recently started doing the sign for butterfly which is super cute. She can also recognize and point to a few body parts: nose, hair, her whole self, and bellybutton.

She loves to climb…up and down the stairs, up and down off the couch, up on the dishwasher (when it’s open), and up and down the inside of the refrigerator. The other day I had the fridge open while I was busy cooking dinner. She usually plays with the bottles in the door. On this particular day she was climbing up onto the fridge and she had found a bowl at the back of the bottom shelf. This bowl contained watermelon and was covered in saran wrap. She had managed to pull the bowl to the front of the shelf and take off the saran wrap, and there I found my little lady very proudly eating some juicy watermelon.

She is so enthralled with the world. She is always making her mouth into this little “O” shape and she points at everything and says “oooohhh” like she is in such amazement. She loves seeing her baby friends, airplane, food, her wagon, and the list goes on. She will just get so excited and point and “ooohhh”. One of her favorite things right now is candy corn. I try not to let her have too many pieces each day, but every time she sees me having a piece of course she wants one too. I guess she is doing a good job of making sure I don’t eat too much candy.

I’m sure I could go on for pages about Kaelyn, but I do have a couple of other Miller news items. One very exciting thing is we just got a new tv last week. Now this is very exciting because our previous tv is literally the tv I got from Santa when I was in the 5th grade. It still works, but everything is kind of green. Our new tv is a big, shiny, flat kind with HDTV. It’s amazing how much better everything on tv looks. I had to call Matt into the living room the first night we had it because I was so excited about how pretty the colors were on “Wheel Of Fortune”, haha. Matt has really been enjoying watching football on the new tv all weekend.

Also last week I decided to start a part-time job for a company called Freedom Managers. It is a completely work-from-home job and very flexible. I hadn’t been looking for a job, but this opportunity came up and it seemed like too good to pass up without at least trying it out. I just worked on my first job assignment this weekend and I think it went really well. I’m excited about doing a little professional work again and making some extra spending $$$.

We went to SC a couple of weekends ago for my high school reunion. It was really great to catch up with some old friends. I also got to take Kaelyn to her first Clemson home game with my brother and my friends Lisa and Michelle. We also had a bunch of family and friends over one afternoon to have a mini-birthday party for Kaelyn since most of my extended family couldn’t come to her big party in August. It was a busy but very fun weekend.

I added some more pics of Kaelyn for September, including her first ever Clemson game (luckily, it was one of Clemson’s “good” weeks beating up on SC State), her first tractor ride with Papa John, and the aftermath of her first MMA fight. OK, it really wasn’t a MMA fight…she fell on her face at the pool and bloodied her nose. She’s OK and definitely doesn’t have a glass jaw.

8 hacks to make Firefox ridiculously fast
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For the most part, babies love creating noise and in general adults like eliminating noise. Here’s a couple of stories to prove my theory.

Squeeeeek No More - this is one of the BEST products ever invented. If you have any squeaky spots in your floor, please spend the $20 for this tool. I promise you will not regret it. Matt and my dad used this on some spots in our floor last week and it has been amazing! We had a couple of really loud squeaky places right in the middle of Kaelyn’s room and another at the top of our stairs. We always had to be extra sneaky getting in and out of her room at night, but not anymore! Btw, it’s really easy to do, but a little hard to find at the store. Lowe’s and Home Depot don’t carry it, but we found it at our local Ace Hardware.

Kaelyn has a few stuffed animal toys that sing songs when you press their belly. She loves to push their bellies and dance while they sing. In fact, she will push many bellies at once and have a whole little chorus of singing animals (all singing different songs of course). She loves doing this so much that she goes around to any stuffed animal trying to push its belly to see if it will sing or not. It’s so cute! I’m waiting for her to try pushing my belly…I think I’ll sing if she does.

I forgot to mention in my last post that as of her 1-year doctor visit she weighs 18lbs 11oz. and 28 inches.

Wow - it is so hard to believe Kaelyn is already a year old! It was the longest, shortest, hardest, best year of my life ever! We had a big birthday bash at our house over Labor Day weekend to celebrate. My parents and brother, Matt’s parents, brother, and sister-in-law, Matt’s aunt Jeannie, my BFF Lisa, some of our friends, and about 12 of Kaelyn’s little friends and their parents were all here for the party. Our house was PACKED.

I think Kaelyn enjoyed every minute of it. She ate her ENTIRE smash cake, loved it when everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and opened all of her presents like a champ. It’s like she knew exactly what she was supposed to do.

Matt already posted a link to the pictures, but I’ll put it here again. And here are a few highlights…

Also, we had Kaelyn’s one year photos taken which can all be found here.

She’s not walking yet, but is close. She walks all over the place if she is behind her walker or pushing her babydoll stroller. She is doing all kind of talking now. Some of her favorite words: bye, up, arf, duck. If you ask her “where’s Kaelyn?” she smacks herself right in the face.

Pigskin Addiction Fantasy Football
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Are here! Uncle Jared did an excellent job as the official party photographer.

Exactly one year ago today I was almost dilated to 10 cm and my life was being changed forever. At 5:45pm we welcomed into the world Kaelyn Rose.

It’s been the most amazing year of my life. It’s hard to even remember how life was without her.

Happy Birthday Kaelyn - I love you more than you’ll ever know!

Love,
Mommy

For parents-to-be, I’ve learned a couple of important metrics: Time-Til-Trouble (TTT) and Time-Til-Fussiness (TTF). Basically, once the baby starts moving, you always have to be aware of these metrics for any given place in the house that you place them. For example, our front room has a TTT of about 15 seconds…if you set her in there, that’s about how long it could be before the fish bowl is overturned or some glass thing gets broken or she can be headed up the stairs. However, it has a relatively high TTF because, since she’s pretty much never in there, there are lots of new things to keep her attention.

By contrast, our maximum security playroom, has a TTT of virtually infinity, but the TTF can have a high variance. If she gets distracted by her toys, the TTF can be around 30 minutes. If, however, she notices you escaping through the gate, the TTF is like 5 seconds. So, for example, if you need to run to the restroom, then you have to make sure the baby is in a location with a TTT of a few minutes.

Speaking of the little lady, I posted some more pictures, including Nana’s visit, in our photo gallery.

Kaelyn is doing all kinds of cute new things lately. She is definitely working on her verbal skills. If you ask her “What does a doggie say?” she will answer “Arf, arf, arf”. Also when someone says “Bye” she will throw her little hand up and wave and say “Bye!”

Also, if you say “Tada!” she will throw both of her arms up in the air in a tada pose. Too cute! I think she says “duck” also, but it sounds more like “uck”. She said that just this morning when we were reading a book and she saw a picture of a duck.

She can walk pretty well behind her little walker now. She hasn’t attempted to walk by herself as of yet, but she is definitely comfortable standing and climbing on anything including all the way up the stairs and onto the open dishwasher.

She continues to be such a good eater. Today I gave her a whole plum and she just ate the whole thing up skin and all (well, not the pit in the middle)!

I can’t believe she is almost a year old!

Making eyes at Daddy

Fun in the bath

11 month picture

Post hoc ergo propter hoc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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…and I’m addicted to bargains.

Whenever I find a good bargain I seriously get on a shopping high. I am not kidding. My heart starts beating rapidly. I immediately have to call Matt, my mom, and at least one or two friends to share my bargain find. I get all jumpy and excited. The feeling lasts one to three days depending on the size of the bargain.

July 2008 has been an especially good bargain month for me. It’s like the stores are putting out all the good stuff to get me hooked. As if I weren’t already hooked on Old Navy, they had their giant “extra 50% off clearance sale” last weekend. I went to multiple Old Navy stores at least 4 times during the weekend. I purchased over $300 worth of clothes for only $60. Kaelyn now has a full wardrobe for next spring and summer. Come on folks, how can you NOT get excited about that?

Today Harris Teeter, a local grocery store, was offering triple coupons meaning they would triple any coupon up to $0.99. I purchased $75 worth of groceries and only paid $25 (and about $10 of that was actually things I needed that weren’t on sale or without coupons like bread and eggs). There were multiple items I actually got for free.

To top off my grocery shopping this morning, I got a free Venti Raspberry Mocha at the Starbucks inside the grocery store thanks to a coupon I got from signing up for the Starbucks club. (Whew, that was a long sentence.)

As if all that weren’t enough I’m getting ready to take Kaelyn to a nearby science museum thanks to a free admission coupon I got in a magazine (value = $11).

See, told you I’m addicted. Anyone else have any good bargain stories to share?

My new lullaby for Kaelyn. To the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (obviously).

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Today at Ultimate we were sitting on a blanket under a big shade tree with our shoes off to the side. A few minutes after we arrived I realized that a bird had pooped right on my flip-flop. I told Matt, “Uh-oh, I hope we aren’t in a poop zone.” He had no idea what I was talking about. But sure enough about an hour later another bird pooped on our frisbee right where my shoe had been sitting before. (You thought I was going to say it pooped on my head, didn’t you?)

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I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t enjoy playing this game. It’s one of my most favorites. It says the recommended age to play is 8, but I think we’ll have Kaelyn playing much earlier than that.

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Kaelyn has discovered how to cross her fingers…you know like when you were little and you told a fib and you thought if you crisscrossed your fingers then it meant it was okay. I wonder if kids still use that same trick these days?

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I have infectious lips. Hmm, wonder how many weird google hits that will bring to our website?

So I had what I thought were really bad chapped lips for over a month. Cracked, bleeding, horrible lips. It looked like a seriously botched botox job. I was using (no exaggeration) about 3, yes, 3, tubes of chapstick a week to not be miserable.

I felt really silly calling the doctor for chapped lips, but I had finally had enough. I went to the doctor on Friday and he said I probably had a lip infection. Not really sure what caused it in the first place, but could have been a sunburn or mild allergic reaction that got infected. The doctor gave me steroids and instructed me to use that and aquaphor. Seriously by the very next day my lips felt a million times better!!

The worst part is I am not supposed to use any kind of lipstick/gloss for about the next month. I don’t think I’ve ever gone two days with out lipstick or glass, but it’s totally worth it to have my lips back. Hooray for (legal) steroids!

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That’s all for tonight. I’m signing off to watch The Business of Being Born documentary. We are now official Netflix subscribers.

Kaelyn and I went on our 2nd beach vacation of the year to the Isle of Palms, SC. Since we’d already been on vacation once Matt couldn’t join us again for this one. We missed him lots but we had tons of fun! We went with Matt’s parents, aunt/uncle, and cousins. There were 14 of us in all including 3 baby girls and 2 preschoolers. The house was always hopping to say the least.

It was almost impossible for the entire group to do anything all at once since there was almost always someone napping or eating at any given time. We spent most of our days in the swimming pool at the house. We went to the beach a couple of times, took some long walks, rode bikes, and enjoyed some good seafood. Kaelyn especially enjoyed riding in the wagon and the golf cart.

We also went into downtown Charleston one day to do a little sightseeing. This was quite and interesting day. I won’t go into all the details, but due to the insensitivity of the carriage ride company and through a series of events Kaelyn ended up with sunscreen all in her eyes which resulted in about an hour of screaming thus cutting our day in Charleston short. Poor girl couldn’t even open her eyes because it hurt so bad, but she still really wanted to eat her cheese doodles…

Another fun day was when Kaelyn ate her first lollipop. Not just any lollipop, but one of those GIANT kind. I originally intended for her just to suck on the outside of it, but soon discovered the red lollipop juice was seeping through the plastic wrapper. So I went ahead and took the wrapper off and…well…see for yourself….

She was on a sugar high for like three days following this. I think this might of been her first AND last lollipop. It sure was fun watching her enjoy it though, and, yes, I managed to wash it completely out of her clothes!

Pappap stayed behind at the house to watch over the sleeping babies while the rest of us enjoyed watching the 4th of July fireworks on the beach. All in all it was a really fun trip and a great chance for Kaelyn to spend time with some of her extended family.

In other news…

• She crawls “regular” style now and is cruising on all the furniture
• She plays peek-a-book all by herself (hoping to get a video of this soon)
• She can climb all the way up the stairs
• She has 6 teeth with a couple more on the way

And lots and lots of pictures…

• June
• July
• Isle of Palms

While I’m personally not a big fan of handguns, I think the Supreme Court’s ruling was a fair interpretation of the Constitution. One of the common arguments against the ruling is along these lines:

That is just to mention the fact that a huge number of gun deaths are suicides and very few from protecting hearth and home from some intruder, who in many instances uses the victim’s own weapon on the victim, adding insult to injury.

To me, this completely misses the point of what the Constitution is all about: to guarantee rights that the government can’t take away because they don’t like outcomes of that freedom. Yea, suicides and gun accidents probably increase because of the Second Amendment. But, freedom of religion gave us Jonestown and Waco. Free speech has given us Hustler and the KKK. I would imagine most any police officer could given an example where adherence to the Fourth Amendment resulted in a worse crime being committed.

While most people would argue that each of these examples in isolation is bad for society, I doubt many would support doing away with the First or Fourth Amendment. The freedom is more valuable to society than the harm it can cause.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!