promises, promises

I have not been living up to this goal lately. I have promised my son that I would do a few things for him, but I have not done those things yet. Some reasons for this have to do with the way that he acts sometimes. We all know how kids can be.

Other reasons have to do with the fact that I spend entirely too much time on the computer. He said something to me the other night that made me think about it a lot. I had promised him that I would setup the XBox now that we have our new carpet installed. I did not get to it that night and he asked me about it again when it was time for him to go to bed.

I told him that I would not be setting it up that night, but I would get to it. As I was headed down to the computer room, he asked me what was more important “him or the computer”.

Today, my plans are to go home, change out of my work clothes, grab a football, and toss it around with him for a while.

See more progress on: be a good father | tags: parenting, children

Hurricane relief?

I was listening to the Slashdot Review podcast a little while ago and it mentioned a story on Slashdot where FEMA is requiring people to use Internet Explorer to file a claim. I guess if you are a Mac or Linux user and have survived the hurricane, then you are out of luck for filing a claim.

read more | tags: FEMA, Hurricane Katrina, Internet Explorer, apple, Mac, Linux, stupidity

Air Force banning promotion of religion

I just read a news bite on Fox News that points to an article at the N.Y. Times which talks about the Air Force's decision to ban the promotion of religion in any official communications or functions.

read more | tags: religion, faith, Air Force

What the ...

OK... let me get this straight. Mayor Nolin is standing in front of the camera in New Orleans yelling, screaming, and cursing the federal government about no action, yet he has several hundred buses sitting in a flooded area that could have been used to get people out of the area? Where were these buses Tuesday morning? The A.P. has published a photo of this.

view photo | tags: New Orleans, hurricane katrina

Digital Rebel (300D)

My father just picked up a steal on a Canon Digital Rebel. This is the original (300D), not the XT (350D) model. I got to play around with it today a little when he dropped by to try out my 75-300 mm lens on it. One thing that I noticed real quickly is that the 300D is a lot bigger and a little heavier than my Canon EOS Rebel G (film camera).

Unfortunately, my father is going to have to send the camera off, because we finally figured out why someone took it back to the location where he got it. It will not fire a shot when the lens is set in AF (auto-focus) mode. According to posts that I have found on a few forums, the original Digital Rebel had an issue with the secondary auto-focus pin breaking after a few months of use. One person’s description of the problem was exactly what we were seeing here. :(

Nonetheless, it does take some pretty nice pictures in manual mode. I believe he is probably going to keep it and use it in manual mode for the next few weeks until my nephews high school football season is over and then send it off to be repaired under warranty.

This pretty much seals my desire on the Digital Rebel, but I will be getting the 8 megapixel XT model, though. :)

See more progress on: Save for/Buy a Canon Digital Rebel XT

tags: camera, Canon, Digital Rebel, Digital Rebel XT

From bad to worse!

NBC News is reporting that a bus carrying evacuees from New Orleans to a location in Texas has crashed and overturned. At least one of the refugees has died in this accident.

read more | tags New Orleans

Gasoline situation

The situation with gasoline prices has gotten out of control. It went up about 30 cents per gallon last night in our area. By the time I got home from work, It had gone up another 20 cents per gallon. I know it is bad in other places, but $2.99 per gallon is very high for Alabama.

I just came across this picture on FoxNews.com that is absolutely absurd, however. This is at a BP station in Stockbridge, Georgia. I cannot see where this is anything other than price gouging.

Update: I just received a link to a page on Snopes regarding this picture. It turns out that this was in fact true, but it only lasted for a day as the Governor of Georgia enacted legislation to bring sanctions against retailers who were in the practice of price-gouging.

read more | tags: gasoline, price gouging