Casa de Kerr Part 2

Well, the wife and I have been looking all over for a better deal on a new home. Thus far we haven't found anything comparable. Lets be honest, 121.5 for a new home in the NE side, Judson school district, 4k off in options, and a good rate for the lot. That’s a damn good deal. We only have one concern though. Steph's company does grounds testing and they have found that the soil has a high plasticity rating. While this is not great, we can still build if the builder uses 36" braces for the foundation instead of 30". While I'm not 100% sure what they mean, I do have a really good idea as to what to look for. Steph's company has also offered to inspect the foundation whenever they do start building. The only thing to do know is to talk with the builder and see if they'll build on 36" braces. If not, I guess that's a sign not to build there. Deal or no deal, I will not risk my family's well being.

Quote of the Day

This is probably the best quotes I've seen, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if real life supported control-Z?"

Slashdot Vs Work's Web Filter

Go figure, it finally happened. Our web filter at work has blocked games.slashdot.org. This suck big time. Now I have to wait until I get home to get the all my game related tech news.

Casa De Kerr

My wife and I have been browsing for houses for some time now and we have seen a variety of builders. We've looked at homes from as low as the 80s to as high and dreaming of the 250s. We'll after looking around we've secured the possible new Case De Kerr. It will be a single story 2082 square foot home located on the North East side of town by Rolling Oaks Mall on top of a hill. The best part is that we're getting this house for around 130 with options. They'll be raising the base prices about 5k in a 2 weeks and since we secured a lot we get 4k off our options! Not to mention, since the land is not in the Hill Country we saved an additional 20k alone! Plus we also get two weeks to cancel and get a full refund. Needless to say I'm stoked about this.

Wurzbach Parkway

I used to live on the Norht East side of town off of O'Connor and Naco. I remember the headaches of when the city began working on the Wurzbach Parkway. While the idea of providing a 'quick' route to get from I-35 to I-10 is nice, the construction was a major pain. The project lasted for about 2 years and despite being a major pain, it was doable. When the parkway was 'completed' I was happy because I had a faster way to get to work. Or so I thought. The speed limit is 45mph. Who the hell goes 45 on a 4 lane highway? Despite the fact that the speed limit is 45 and all the cops do 60, I still used it from time to time. Now that I live on the North side near the 281 & 410 area I have the other 'half' of the Wurzbach Parkway right by me. Yes the speed limit is 45 there too, but it does take me right to I-10.

To recap, there are essentially two halves to the Wurzbach Parkway. One on the North East and the other on the North side. Which means that there is a big gap in the parkway. And where did the city, in all of its wonder and glory, decide to run the parkway thru? Bitters and 281! For those of you who don't live in SA, Bitters and 281 is a nightmare. Traffic is fine if you're on 281, a nightmare if you're on Bitters. While some might say, what’s the big deal, you won't fully understand the situation unless you live by the area. The NE side of the parkway stops at Bitters and Jones Maltsburger. Now the city can finish the NE side of the parkway and make it run right by the airport. The only problem is that they'll then be building over houses and small businesses. As for the North side’s parkway, I live right by it. It just stops at Blanco road, mainly because of the apartments right in front of it! The city has bought some of the buildings from the apartment complex and has torn them down. But just 100 yards behind the torn building are houses! All around that area are houses! Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how the city pulls this one off.

The Country that Cried Wolf

CNN is reporting an article about an anti way billboard that was to be placed in New York's Time Square. The billboard was blocked by Clear Channel but after some negotiations, the billboard will go up. So what’s all the fuss about? The billboard is to have an image of a bomb with the words "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war." by it. Clear Channel rejected the billboard "because the image of a bomb would be offensive in a city that had been a target of the 9/11 terror attacks." There are a couple of things I find wrong with this.

To start off, doesn't it seem a little strange to place an anti war sign in New York where attacked on 9/11. When 9/11 hit, everyone including New Yorkers wanted retribution. I'm sure the New Yorkers we're "screaming for blood" more than others since they were the one hit. Based on that, we then again tell the world that we will not tolerate terrorism and we're going after all terrorist. We even warned other nations that if they harbored terrorist, they were acting as a threat to us. Everyone was in unison with this statement. The mission was to rid the world of terrorist and the USA rejoiced. So we go kick Al Queda's butt and everyone is happy. But remember we said that we're going after all terrorist. It only makes sense that we turn our eyes to Sadaam. My question is why the hell is America upset with the war? America wanted the damn war. America screamed, "Give me blood" and they got it. America screamed, "Take out the other possible threats" and they got it.

OK. I know some of you are thinking what about the CIA's false intelligence, the prisoner abuse, beheadings, etc. First of all I'ld like to point out that Bush apologized to the world about the prisoner abuse and the Secretary of Defense said that it was ultimately his fault. Shit rolls up hill. I've never heard of or seen another country admit they were wrong like that. The beheadings were going to happen one way or another. The prisoner abuse just added fuel to the fire. Now the big one, the CIA's false intelligence report. I seem to remember that the CIA was reporting that Sadaam had 'weapons of mass destruction' when Clinton was in office. If we had known that the Iraq didn't have 'weapons of mass destruction' should we have still gone to war? Read the paragraph above. Iraq was harboring terrorist and lets face it, Sadaam needed to get the boot.

America wants action and as soon as they get it they claimed to have never wanted it. As for the billboard's words, "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war." Yes democracy is best taught by example. But when words fail, action is required.

"If we don't get no tolls, we don't get no rolls"

It seems that the city of San Antonio is planning to put a toll road on 1604 from I-35 to I-10. This is a pretty good chunk of road, 19 - 20 miles I believe. The reason they say is because of all the horrible traffic at 1604 and 281 which is halfway from I-35 to I-10.

While I'll admit that intersection gets pretty bad, I don't understand the city's logic in adding a toll road right there. Lets see, we have a 4 lane highway (2 lanes on each side) with bad traffic and we need to help it get better. So lets put a toll road there. Not too smart. The 1604 - 281 interchange gets busy for a reason, its the only way for those that live in the Hill Country to get to the city. Yes there are some back roads, but they'll take you twice as long. If there we're quicker ways for the thousands of people to get home besides 1604 and 281, we wouldn't have this problem. So instead of trying to make the 'quicker way', they want to make it worse.

Aside from the 1604-281 interchange, 1604 is still a 4 lane highway with a small medium between the 2 sets of lanes. The city's idea is to add another lane to each side for either something of another. I need to read up on that part still. The question is, 'is there room for another lane between the 2 sets?'. Yes and no. Yes there is room. No there is not room because of all the overpasses over 1604. The support for the overpasses go right dab in the middle of the lanes the city is thinking about adding. Needless to say this should be interesting.

I'ld like to point out another observation. While driving through Houston a couple of times I've noticed that even with their 8 lane highway, their toll roads get backed up all day long. Maybe its me but that didn't seem to alleviate traffic....

Sony vs The Redmond Giant

As any real gamer knows, the PS2 has done exceptionally well. It outsells both the Xbox and the Gamecube world wide and has the most games available. While one might argue that the reason they have more games is because they came out before the others, I'ld just like to point out that if you consider the games since all systems were on the market, the PS2 has had the better titles. Moving on, Slashdot has an article where M$ says that their Xbox2 can take Sony's PS3. Is it me or are they dreaming?

IE Vulnerabilities

Slashdot is reporting 4 New "Extremely Critical" IE Vulnerabilities that are getting ready to poke their heads out. Once again I feel 'warm and fuzzy' inside.

.NET + Oracle

At work I wrote a small application that connects to an Oracle db and queries it after the user has selected certain fields. Its small, simplistic, and it works for me. Problem, no one that I installed it for has Oracle installed on their computer! Nevermind the fact that all the necessary DLLs to connect and retrieve data from Oracle were installed. No you must have the Oracle client. Maybe its me, but that seems rather annoying.

Windblows continuation

I've installed Windblows on my PC and once again downloaded some of the updates with my Gentoo box. The funny thing is that when I checked to see if there were any updates using Firefox I got a funny error message:


Thank you for your interest in Windows Update
Windows Update is the online extension of Windows that helps you get the most out of your computer.
You need to be running a version of Internet Explorer 5 or higher in order to use Windows Update.
Download the latest version of Internet Explorer
Once Internet Explorer is installed, you can go to the Windows Update site by typing http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com into the address bar of Internet Explorer.
If you prefer to use a different Web browser, updates to Windows may be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.


Rather amusing since Internet Explorer is the most insecure web browser in the face of the planet!

Windblows

I have two machines at home, a laptop with Gentoo and a PC with Windblows. The Gentoo box has been stable since I got it configured correctly. That took me about a week off and on but it has been we'll worth it. Minor annoyance but not bugs/crashes/blue screens of death. On the other hand, my PC has been reinstalled numerous times. In fact, I'm reinstalling right now! Why do you ask, because its WINDOWS. The installation process is a no brainer, just load it in the CD-ROM, point click and your off. The only problem is that as soon as you connect everybody and their dog can own your box. I've been pretty good about keeping my box secure as possible. I do the updates through my Gentoo box, installed Norton and keep as much spyware off as possible. Yet some how I always get funny things happening to my Windblows box.

For starters I noticed that my internet connection was going rather slow. Just for S&G I reboot my Windblows box and sniff some of the traffic that's comings from it. Lord and behold I've got open ports and traffic running in and out of them. After investigating I learned that an anonymous person installed some crap on my box while I was away. I guess the question then is why didn't Norton pick up on it. To make things better after reinstalling I managed to keep the box pretty clean. Then my boss asks me to install IIS, it was like painting a big target sign on my box. Sure enough after running it for 2 weeks, I've been noticing those funny quirks. I guess this is the reason M$ Sys Admins get paid well, they have to bang their heads against the wall every damn day!

So why do I use Winblows if its such a pain, good question. Unfortunately for me my family has a very difficult time adjusting to anything they don't already know. I've shown them Gentoo and all of it's Open Source Linux glory but they just can't get over that small mound. Plus the only other reason I run Windblows is for games. Lets face it, if you want to play games, you pretty much need Windblows. Yes I know there are ways to run Windblows under Linux and that some games are Linux compatible, but my machine couldn't hack running a Virtual PC and a game and I don't have any of the games that are Linux compatible.

Winblows, its a loose - loose situation.

4th of July

Went to Atlanta this past weekend. This was my first time to visit the east cost state and it was nice. First of all, Georgia has some really pretty greenery. Lots of trees and the costal climate keeps everything nice and green. There is also a Japanese vine called kutsu, I'm most likely slaughtering that, that grows over everything at the rate of one foot a day! Needless to say its overrun most of Atlanta. Moving on, Atlanta has lots of hills. I was there for 4 and half days and I never saw a single story house! I'm from San Antonio and we have the "hill country" here. But Atlanta has some really big hills. On the flip side, Atlanta was very...congested. Lots of pretty land, but too many people.

Anyhow, the reason for the visit was a birthday/mini family reunion/family picture visit. We surprised my wife's sister on Friday at Chili's. Upon getting back to their house we were 'surprised' by the in-laws. Later on that night as my brother in law and I go have a 'guy's night out' we picked up my wife's brother and his wife. Full House has nothing on this. I was amazed that we were able to pull this off. We had this planned for a month and a half and my wife's family including herself can't keep secretes. All in all, it was a great vacation.