Tag: random

Categories
life

We Must Be On The Same Page

I started reading a book today that I randomly picked up at the library a couple of weeks ago. After reading the introduction I flipped to the authors bio. At the end of the bio the author lists a couple books written by his wife. One of the titles sounds very familiar. After a minute I realize that it is a book I’ve never seen but I’d heard of it because it was so highly regarded in the home of one of Laura’s high school friends that it became a running joke with Laura and I. I made a note to mention to Laura that my book was written by the husband of that author.

While reading on my way home I thought it would be interesting to read the two books in parallel since their topics were basically parallel.

When I got home I intended to tell Laura but she derailed my thoughts by asking about the package I had brought in from the mail. I didn’t know what it was and she said she couldn’t even remember what she had done ten minutes ago. That jogged my memory and I remembered to ask her if she remembered the Michaud Family Bible (our jesting name for the familiar title). She exclaimed, “of course, I’d forgotten I ordered that. I take it you opened it already.”

With that statement I was only partly surprised when I opened the package and pulled out the book that has been on my mind all day even though I’d never seen it before.

Obviously Laura and I are on the same page. Just like I randomly picked up the husband’s book in the library, she randomly came across the wife’s book again and decided to buy it after all these years.

Categories
life

Mr Fill-in-the-Blank

This morning started with the phone ringing as Trent Hall asked for someone to give the closing prayer in sacrament meeting – I accepted the invitation. Laura and I decided that it would be prudent to keep most of the family home rather than spread last week’s flu/RSV type bug to the rest of the ward since everyone who had been sick was probably still contagious. I went to church with only Mariah and Laura asked me to take her place in the library since she was staying home (having been among the sick this week). As I settled in to my chair for the beginning of priesthood meetings a member of our bishopric approached me and asked if I would lead the music there.

I’m trying to decide – is it a good thing that I’m able to do all those things so that I can help out in many different ways, or is a bad thing that I have a wide variety of skills so that I have no excuse to decline?

Categories
life

Leap Day

After I hit the “Publish” button I realized that this is the first leap day since I started blogging. Amazing that it’s been almost 4 years (since June 2004) and this is the first February 29th.

Categories
politics

Candidate Compatibility

Overall Candidate ResultsI found the results of this candidate compatibility calculator interesting. The calculator consists of 23 issues that you rate your support as Yes/No/unsure and the importance of the issue as High/Medium/Low. I visited to find out what candidate my views supposedly corresponded with. I have been surprised by some calculators before. Aside from the top candidate I thought that the calculator did pretty well with me (My Candidate Matchup). I may agree generally with John Cox on the issues, but I don’t know that he is much more prepared than I am to be President (except that he’s over 35). I was disappointed to see that until I expanded the list of top candidates and found that Mike Huckabee has the same percentage of compatibility with my views followed by Ron Paul. Mitt Romney, John McCain and (surprisingly) Tom Tancredo were tied below that followed by Fred Thompson. I knew that the calculator was right to put Rudy Giuliani at the bottom among the Republicans on my list (below a Democrat no less).

When I saw the results I was surprised to see the aggregate results which show that 55% of respondents lined up with Republicans when the prevailing wisdom is that Democrats have the edge in the 2008 election. Complicating this surprise is the fact that the number one individual candidate with the for respondents overall was Mike Gravel – a Democrat. Perhaps one of the reasons for this interesting combination of results is that the scoring does not penalize candidates who oppose your position on issues of high importance to you – they are scored the same as candidates who take no position on the issues of high importance to you. Perhaps the high success for Mike Gravel is that he is undeclared on most issues where there is not much consensus on the issue. This would allow him to get points with every respondent who did not list the issue as being of high importance.

UPDATE: I used the calculator again and took a stance on some of the issues I had marked as unsure before. This time Ron Paul topped my list. More interestingly Rudy Giuliani was now significantly below two Democrats and tied with a third. (Is it any wonder that I won’t vote for him?)

Categories
technology

Windows Genuine Safari

Apple ported their browser, Safari, to Windows and released a public beta this week. Having heard great things about Safari from a web-standards perspective I got it and had a look. Aside from the standards compliance it was just a browser – nice, but nothing compelling about it. Then this afternoon a window popped up on my screen:

Safari - Genuine Windows Software

Less than one week and Safari has its first security patch (it was cracked within hours) – I thought to myself “It’s genuine Windows software.”

Categories
life

Use Your Privileges

Last night right after I got in bed, Laura and I have a fun little interchange:

Laura: Can I make one last Mother’s Day request?
David: Sure.
L: Can you go shut the window in the girls’ room?
D: Good thing you asked now. (as I get out of bed)
L: How many minutes do I have?
D: Nineteen.

After I was back in bed Laura got up. Soon I hear from the darkness:

L: How many minutes do I have?
D: Six.
L: Can you help me? . . .

Categories
technology

Behind The Caucus

Random wanderings took me to the code view of the New York Times political blog – The Caucus. Like the Library of Congress blog, it is based on WordPress. They have modified it enough to make it difficult to detect, but they have left some small clues and they use a very popular WordPress plugin – Ultimate Tag Warrior.

Categories
pictures technology

Snooping Around

While reading through my feeds today I learned from Kim Cavanaugh’s Brain Frieze about the official Library of Congress blog. I went over to have a look and got curious about what software they had running the blog. Maybe it was something about the familiar format of the postmetadata section that got me looking. I looked at the bottom of the page to see if there was a footer stating that it was powered by WordPress. I was not surprised to find no such mention – it’s easy to take that out. I then looked at the page code and found that the meta tag named generator was also gone – another place that WordPress identifies itself unless you change it – but I did find that the code looked very familiar again. I quickly spotted a reference to the “wp-content” folder – it is a WordPress blog running the Library of Congress blog. Here’s proof:Library of Congress Blog code
Screenshot of the code to the Library of Congress blog

By way of comparison, here is a screenshot of the code from my WordPress blog:My WordPress blog code

For anyone who might still be skeptical (or who might care) I later found a more obvious reference to WordPress in their blog code:Library of Congress Blog code with WordPress comments

Categories
life

Myers-Briggs

I am not once to follow these things too often, but when D’Arcy listed his personality type I wanted to go see how I would fare. I already knew my personality type, but it’s always interesting to see if there are any changes..


You Are An INTP

The Thinker

You are analytical and logical – and on a quest to learn everything you can.

Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge.

Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat.

A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it.

You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor.

What’s Your Personality Type?

I knew I was INT and I am virtually evenly split between P(perceiving) and J(judging) (barely leaning P)

For those who are not familiar with Myers-Briggs personality types the breakdown is simple:

  • Introvert(I) or Extrovert(E)
  • Intuitive(N) or Sensing(S)
  • Thinking(T) or Feeling(F)
  • Perceiving(P) or Judging(J)

Nothing is better or worse than its counterpart. No combination is more desirable overall than another. They are all just different traits with different strengths and weaknesses which you can learn to expect or compensate for.

Categories
life

Honorary Eagles

I was at a Boy Scout Eagle court of honor tonight for one of my younger cousins. This is in the same scout troop where I did my scouting as a youth. At the end of the ceremony all the Eagle Scouts in the audience were invited to come to the front. As I stood with the rest of the Eagle Scouts I noticed one thing that was surprising to me – still in the audience were three of the men who had been the most active with the scouts over the last two decades. These three men had been responsible for dozens of boys from this troop earning their Eagle Scout award and yet they had never achieved that honor themselves.

As I thought about the great influence they had on the lives of so many young men over the years I thought that they deserved to be honored. I know that the rank of Eagle is one that must be achieved as a youth and thus they could not receive it now, but I thought that they deserved a notice in this small corner of the web – if nowhere else.

In my book Rick Frandsen, Bob Wood, and Karl Mortenson are honorary Eagle Scouts. I hope that I can do as much good for others as an adult as they have done for me and others in our youth.