Don't Back Down

  • Congressman Robin Hayes just called me!

    I am so proud. I just received a message from Congressman Robin Hayes. Who would have thought that he would called me personally? I sure wouldn't have expected it! Even stranger, when he called, the caller ID came up as a Private Name and Private Number….

  • Rebuilding Empty Categories

    One thing that I've seen requested from time to time is the ability to rebuild empty categories. The problem is that Movable Type doesn't make this easy to do because when you rebuild entries, the rebuild routine loops over the entry table in order to determine which categories…

  • It's Tourney Time!

    The second annual Don't Back Down NCAA Tournament is open for business. That's right, Patrick's reign as last year's champ has come to an end and it's time for someone new to ascend to the throne (I so hope it is me this time around). Anyway, head on…

  • Department of Redundancy Department

    From the print version of this morning's paper: "Knight Ridder, the nation's second-largest newspaper company in the United States"… nice….

  • Open Other User's Folder Grayed Out

    While moving a customer's Exchange installation, one of the users told me that she manages another user's mailbox. This means that she needs to open their mailbox from time to time. In actuality, we typically open them through the 'Advanced' tab of the Exchange settings. But I went…

  • Telecom Reunion

    In 1984, AT&T (Ma Bell) was split up into 8 Regional Bell Operating Operating Companies (RBOCs, also called Baby Bells). In 2001, two of these Baby Bells, Southwestern Bell (by then, SBC Communications – it sounds so much nicer) and Southern Bell (by then, Bellsouth) joined forces to…

  • Do you see a circle?

    Scientists have allegedly found a crater in Egypt. A really big one. 19 miles big, if their figures are correct. I've seen the picture. What I don't see is the crater. The article talks about the untrained eye, and I'm rather certain that it would be difficult to…

  • What happened to the people?

    I heard that America was founded for the people. I don't think that's true now, and I don't think it's been true for a long, long time. We have odds on American Idol. We have groups of people who band together every week to buy lottery tickets in…

  • The UAE Ports Deal

    Ted has another post about the UAE ports deal (which in turn references another post). I've been reasonably quiet to this point because I don't have much to say. This pretty well sums it up. In a nutshell: The people running the port at the highest and lowest…

  • People Are Just Stupid

    A reader of Scott Adams' blog has written in to express her concern over the willy-nilly way in which Mr. Adams portrayed the listless, drunken, bib-wearing hillbilly in a recent cartoon. Get a life, people. It's a comic strip, and if you don't like it, look away….

  • What about the draft?

    Marty wants to know how I feel about the draft. Well, Marty, unfortunately, I don't know. Or perhaps that is fortunately, because the draft has not been active in my lifetime, at least not to that point where I was able to talk. So I don't really have…

  • Get Off My Back

    After the folks at the American Community Survey demonstrated their persistence by not only coming back over and over again, but actually changing the address on the form so that it reflected the correct one (it did say "drive", where it should be "avenue"), I finally broke down…