OmniBlog

After convincing him to switch his site to Wordpress, he has put his php skillz to werk. He managed to make short work of fixing my problems with both the Header Image link and the RSS feed problem. Since switching to Firefox, I have become a huge fan of the RSS feed. Here is a good breakdown on the reasons why! Yes my friends the opensource world has some very strong communities chipping away at the mighty Micro$oft. Mozilla Firefox is but one of them. Two other communities I am happy to see such an explosion of activity in are both Wordpress and Wikipedia (and it’s affiliate communities). The affiliate wiki’s I am most excited about are both the Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Of course, the PHP, MySQL, Apache combination have long lead in the area of website hosting technology. I am very new to these technologies as I have long been subject to working with iis in my professional life.

In my humble opinion, it is not just the big companies like Micro$oft that need to be worried about this. The information age is is so infantile at the moment that it is maybe not even equivilant to a newborn. It’s rate of growth is so phenomenal and it so potential so unlimited, that I believe it will fundamentally change societies around the world. Too long have the powers that be controlled the flow of information. In this emerging age information may flow freely for good and for bad. I think too many see the internet as little more than a way to surf porn from the privacy of your own home. Most of us are not yet capable of viewing this thing from outside the box. But I for one am very excited and can hardly wait to see what the next ten years look like, let alone the next fifty (God willing). I am certainly an optimist, but I think these freedoms will break down the barriers between us all and ultimately lead to a more harmonious existence!

Actually I just feel like crap, but I am not sure that it has anything to do with the weather. I went to work this morning, but as soon as I got there I started to feel really run down. I am home just for a few minutes so I can get my passport. I have a meeting with Big Blue today and need to give them evidence I am no illegal and can therefore be gainfully employed in the eye’s of my uncle Sammy. Afterwards I am coming home to pass out. It’s really a shame to be feeling this way as in fact the weather of late has been quite spectacular.

Today is the first day in quite a long time that I have been up before sunrise. I woke up at four and just wasn’t able to get back to sleep. I think it was this incessant/ persistent drone of a mosquito trying to attack us that might have woken me up. And it was probably all the work stuff on my mind that kept me from being able to go back to sleep. In any case I am glad to be up early enough to be able to have a nice relaxing morning before what is sure to be a hectic day. In fact, I will even have plenty of time to ride my bike into work which is a much more pleasurable way to begin my day. The thing I am most surprised by is the rising level of the cacophony of birds singing their greeting to the new day, and the thought that this is something I am normally able to sleep through. I think I really could sleep right through a nuclear attack!

Regarding my volunteer activities last night, it turned out that there wasn’t a lot of reading with the Homies. It was more like bring in some magazines and sit and talk with them. I was expecting to be with the 15-18 year olds and instead we were in with the 18-20 year olds. Most of them are from the places you would expect like Inglewood and South Central, others from Artesia and Bell Garden. One from near my neighborhood in Highland Park. Most were in for robbery or similar charges, but several I talked too were in for murder or attempted murder and were looking at some long sentences in the adult system (of course they told me it was a case of mistaken identity). It really is tough to see such young kids looking at being incarcerated for so long. I definitely walked out of there with a new perspective. Unfortuantely, I don’t think I really want to go back. The problem is that these kids are in there for a long time. So if I wanted to go back once or twice a month I could start to form some relationships with them and gain there trust. But with our plans to move to Chicago in less than a year I just don’t think that is really a great idea. Plus I would like to interact with them in a way that would be more productive. I want to have the potential to make more of a difference for the time that I invest in something like this. Who knows though, maybe I will have a change of heart.
After I left, I stopped off at a going away party for one of my team members who is moving on to Cap Gemini. He was a fun guy to have around. It was really nice meeting his wife and I hope that this summer sometime we will have a chance to get together for a surf outing. Of course the best part of the evening was free dinner on the Mouse while watching the end of Game 6 (I still can’t believe my Homeboy Ben Wallace shaved off his bitchin fro)!