Google Earth

I found my mom's 2000 Toyota Camry on Google Earth. It's not easy finding someone's vehicle but I guess if you're parked at the same spot almost everyday then the chances are you're going to be there when they take a picture from space.

The picture shows my parent's restaurant in Greensboro, NC. My parents always park on the far left next to the dumpsters.

BBC Rocks!

This used to be in the "Links" section of my blog but I decided to move it over. It's a great article...fine journalism.

BBC Article

Department of Homeland Security: Advocates of the Mile High Club

While reading over some of the new rules for airports, I came across the following bit of information. This is from the Transportation Security Administration website (http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm):

To ensure the health and welfare of certain air travelers the following items are permitted.

• blah blah blah
• Up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications including saline solution, eye care products and KY jelly

I guess what they're trying to say is, "We're sorry we're making it such a pain in the ass (for some, literally) to travel but please understand it's really not our fault. You see, it's those damn terrorists who ruin it for everyone and we can't afford another tragedy like Sept 11 (who knows which country Bush will go after if we have another incident? Hell, Osama Bin Laden could strike again and he'll probably wage war on North Korea). Even though it's not our fault, we're nice people so we're going to try to make it a little better for you. Let's see...what can we do... Larger bags of peanuts? One free beer coupon per person 21 years of age or older? Oh oh oh...how about a nice high altitude fuck for those boring flights? You likey?"

Do I feel safe? Not really. I truly belive that if there's a will there's a way. Put MacGyver in a flight with a wooden toothpick, a rubberband, a paper clip, and 4 0z. of KY jelly. He'll blow that shit up in no time and still find the time to make a parachute for himself using peanut bag wrappers.

TightVNC

My freshman year in college, I bought an IBM desktop for school. The thing is huge...it weighs about 40 pounds. Despite its large size, it has a 13 GB disk and 128 MB of RAM. Pretty pathetic when compared to today's standards but back then, it was top of the line.

The computer has been sitting in my brother's room for the last couple of years but he continuously breaks it by infecting it with tons of spyware and viruses. He states most of them are from porn sites...at least he's honest. So being the big brother that I am, I stole it back from him in hopes that this old beast could have a nice new home to live in and live the rest of its live without suffereing from constant popups about penis enlarging supplements.

After a couple of hours, I had Windows 2000 installed on it along with all of the newest patches from Microsoft. In addition to the OS and related patches, I have an old version of Norton, SpyBot, and other minor applications installed. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with it but I figure it would be nice to have a mini server hooked up to my network.

I definitely didn't want to have a monitor hooked up to it but rather wanted to control it from my laptop. Unfortunately, since it's running Windows 2000 I couldn't set it up as a host for the Remote Desktop Connection that comes with XP so I started off by using NetMeeting. I like NetMeeting when it's used for video conferencing. In college I would video conference with my family in Korea using NetMeeting and the picture and sound quality were pretty good. There was a 2 second delay but when you consider packets going all the way around the world and the fact that it was free, I could deal with a 2 second delay. When it comes to Remote Desktop Sharing, however, NetMeeting is pretty useless.

After searching the web, I found a open source project called TightVNC. It's basically a client server application that lets you see the desktop of a remote machine and control it. It's pretty easy to set up and works like a charm and I'd even prefer it over XP's Remote Desktop Connection. Working at blue, I've come across a couple different open source applications out there and I must admit all of them are pretty impressive. This would definitely be something you should check out if you're an open source advocate.

Chloe

Most people go to the golf course and bring back stories of a birdie or, on a lucky day, an eagle. I'm a little different... About a month ago, I came back from the golf course with a puppy.

I was on the driving range and my glove was coming apart. The loose threads inside the glove felt weird and I wasn't striking the ball as usual. So I sat down at a nearby bench and started tearing my glove apart and when I looked up there was a little puppy sitting right next to me. She scared the shit out of me at first because I spotted her with my peripheral vision but once I saw her wagging tail I calmed down a bit.

There's a house right across the road from the club house that houses about 20 dogs. It's annoying as hell sometimes on the driving range because a loud chopper will go by and all 20 dogs go ape shit. I figured she came from that house so I took her and knocked on the door but no one seemed to be home. If she was an ugly dog, I think I would have left her on the golf course but she seemed hungry and dehydrated and her puppy eyes pleaded not to leave her by herself so I decided to take her home for the night and take her to the animal shelter the following day.

When I got home, Michelle fell in love with the dog instantly. We were talking about getting Brownie a playmate anyways and instead of purchasing another pure breed with tons of health problems from the constant Arkansas/West Virginia tradition of cousin-fucking, we figured this would be a cheaper option. Of course when we took her to the vet we found that she was infested with fleas and worms but nothing a couple of shots and pills couldn't fix.

It's potty training all over again for us but it's getting better with time. Chloe is a hell of a lot smarter than Brownie and she already knows how to sit, stay, and shake hands on command. We're expecting her to be about 60 lbs when she's fully grown and that should add a nice little feature to the home security system. Some people pay a monthly fee for home security systems. Any burglar is welcome into my house as long as they're prepared to deal with a 60 pound dog and a possible 30-06 round from a high powered deer rifle. That's right...I'm redneck...Korean by birth, Southern by the grace of God.