Patriot Guitar News
Why Skeptical Matters
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For those of you who don't know Michael Spencer (aka the Internet Monk), he speaks for an entire generation who have gone into what he termed the 'Evangelical Wasteland'. His writings have had the most impact of anyone I can remember, his words and his transparency in struggling with the Evangelical Church as it exists today have let many of us know we are not alone. Michael for the last few months has been battling cancer, his wife posted an update yesterday and you can read it here: Internet Monk Words cannot express the sorrow I feel at this news, I only just discovered Michael and his writings. The best I can come up with is that he set me free, he showed me that it's OK to have serious questions and doubts about the Evangelical Church today. It was his blog that led me to the Anglican Church, which bridged the gap of having a rich history and tradition in liturgical services, and the ability to adapt to a modernist and postmodern world without compromising it's core scriptural beliefs. For those of you who don't know, that's almost impossible to find in any church today in America, I know because I've been looking for a very long time. Please include Michael and his family in your prayers during this trying time. -Paul-
I Can Only Shed Tears At This Point…
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I've been reading with some interest the story about a student suing LowerMerionSchool District in Philadelphia, the story goes something like this: The school handed out macbooks to all their students for their classwork, installed in each is a program that allows the school to turn on the embedded camera if the laptop is stolen. The idea is that school can take a picture of the criminal and track them down (why they just don't use GPS is beyond me). So a student was supposedly in his room eating some Mike and Ike's hard candy's, an administrator enabled the tracking software and captured images of said student. The candy's look like little pills which would set any nosy school official into a self righteous tailspin... Imagine the students surprise when he gets called the principles office and suspended for illegal activity, I'm sure the student protested at which point the administrator pulled out a picture of the student take from the laptop. There is so much wrong here I'm not sure where to start, but before I do it gets even better... The school district admitted that the laptops had this ability, but that it was *only* used when a laptop was reported stolen and that only two employees in the whole district had access. The Super of the district tried to calm the situation down by saying it was blown out of proportion first, and then later after more bad press (because frankly his message seemed out of touch with the technology) that the option had been turned off. Now the FBI's involved to see if wiretapping and privacy laws have been violated by the school... Now your up to speed, and here's why I'm so concerned about all this... As parents my wife and I have had run ins with the gestapo style mindset that pervades our schools today, we have run into administrators lacking the common sense to apply rules fairly or justly, there are countless newspaper stories of kids expelled for all kinds of ridiculous reasons. But with the current administration in the white house and socialism starting to rise in this country, many of these left leaning halfwits see no danger in violating privacy in the name of the better good. And because the schools are run by unions that put the Car Workers Union to shame, little if anything will come out of this. We have trained generations now to be sheep, so most will simply shrug their shoulders. But this is an opening salvo in a much greater war, these people only care about 'their' rights, if your not one of them then your simply not smart enough to understand that they are trying to help. This is the liberal mindset in action, it's why Obama and the democrats keeping trying to push healthcare, they know better and we just don't get it. These school officials are all telling themselves this is not a big deal, but it is a big deal. They violated the privacy of a family without any permission, they used the evidence they illegally acquired to prosecute a student and worst of all it looks like he wasn't even doing anything wrong. People should be fired, and the school district should come under heavy review and some drastic changes made, but alas this is a government run office with corrupt union backing and nothing will happen and more importantly nothing will change. This is what happens when we allow idealists to infiltrate our systems and it's just a taste of what capitol hill will do given half the chance. -Paul-
When Schools Attack!
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I'm an Olympic junkie, I love the sport, the spectacle and the competition. Watching Shawn White dominate the half pipe took me back to my skateboarding roots (before even Tony Hawk was skating), I love the precision of speed skating and the reckless danger of downhill. I haven't quite figured out Curling just yet, but I can see why it normally goes so well with beer :) But what has marred almost every Olympic experience is a new slogan I've come up with for NBC, originally it stood for the 'National Broadcasting Company', but times change and now it should stand for 'Nothing But Commentary'. I challenge any normal thinking person to watch any downhill skiing and not have to finally either fast forward or turn the volume down, let me give you a taste of what I hear every time: Rick Moranis As Luis Tully Every time I watch downhill, I could swear that Luis Tully is the second announcer, and I'm, pretty certain they are getting paid by the word. Look if you have something interesting to add then do it and SHUT UP, so I can enjoy watching the sport. I dream of a day when I can have a seperate remote that will turn off the announcers and their vapid prattling about technical details I simply don't care about. I want to watch the games, not listen to a commentary by the Rain Man... -Paul-
NBC Olympic Coverage (Nothing But Commentary)
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AGW is the new religion for lefties and people not smart enough to think for themselves, even Bill Nye the science guy declared that all the snow (records amounts of it by the way) that we are getting pounded with in some areas of this country are the fault of AGW. Lefties and news reporters are falling over themselves to make this case, 2 years ago JFK Jr predicted that there would be no more snow in D.C. In Minnesota there is a supposed drop in the moose population and of course it's AGW's fault, despite the fact that in many other states the population is exploding. But no fact is worth checking when your selling your world ending vision. After Katrina a whole host of idiots ran around telling everyone that there would vast destruction in the years to come from far bigger hurricanes (including Bill Nye and Al Gore). How many AGW events in the past years have been snowed out, canceled or delayed because of cold weather, or stopped because of the very thing they are predicting we will never have. Congress was going to open an AGW office in D.C. but the SNOW STORM delayed any chance of that. Now on top of all this we have scientist who have falsified data, entire doom and gloom predictions done on the work of students who where simply postulating and scientist who have started to openly admit they lied!!! Weather trends have been showing we are entering a new ice age, 40 years ago time even reported that the new fear was a new ice age. When that didn't work, enviro-nuts switched to AGW and have been selling this nonsense ever since. So if your going to watch the Olympics, just be prepared to hear the whining of the clueless talking heads prattle on about a subject that many of us never believed in the first place. -Paul-
AGW – Belief without reason
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It's been a week of firsts around here and 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year, here are the highlights... 1. Brown Gets Elected... Scott Brown did the unthinkable, he took not only a democrats seat, but the ever loved (by liberals) Teddy Kennedy's seat AND in a state that is heavily blue. With this one victory he also removed the democrats super majority and I have a feeling they will never see it again. 2. Air America Goes Offline For Good For years Liberal talk radio station Air America has been bleeding cash and making a mockery of intelligent thought and dialogue, it's demise has been predicted for years now. It was only surviving because of Angels who kept pumping cash into this liberal lemon, and this week they finally closed their doors for good. A good end to a bad idea! 3. McCain/Feingold gets dissected by SCOTUS Free speech is now again well free, SCOTUS took a scalpel to sections of the bill and removed the parts that where clearly not constitutional, and it's about time. 4. Health Care Died Nancy Pelosi declared she no longer had the votes, democrats have been running for the doors to get away from this disaster. Even Chris Matthews is arguing that it's over, the idea that Capitol Hill would just 'pass' this and we would all learn to love it (ignoring the growing anger against it), shows just how out of touch these idiots really are. November 2010 is going to be the wood shed for the Democratic party. 5. Michelle was hired for a new job! She's been out of work for 9 months, we cut way back on everything and have been living very frugally (at least for us). She interviewed for two positions last week, one with the state and one with BSU, I have never seen her as excited about a job as she was for the BSU one. So we prayed, a lot, I mean a lot. And Thursday not only did they offer her the job but petitioned for a higher salary than what was first posted because she was so perfect. I am so proud of her and we give all the credit to God who answers our prayers and blesses us even when we often don't deserve it. 6. My Job Took Off This Week!! I've been working on an internal project for over two years, it's been something that I have a great deal of passion for. But we have never been able to get real traction, I was asked to lead the effort and along with two other very driven co-workers we got full traction this week. I've been waiting so long that the minute we had approval I stomped on the gas pedal and we are now moving, it makes me happy because I feel like I've been caged for so long and to finally be able to actually make decisions and go is just wonderful. 7. The Political Landscape is changing A number of very liberal democrats are now vulnerable in November, in fact a number have simply retired to avoid the mess. Harry Reid, evil incompetent clown is being best in Nevada by *two* unknown rivals, political newcomers. Boxer is no longer safe in California, even socialist Feingold who has been secure for years, is not polling negative. I need to make more wine so I don't run out of things to celebrate with :) -Paul-
The Best Week Evah!!
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For the last two years speculation has run wild that Apple will release a tablet, with each new press conference that Apple holds the rumor mills go wild. Apple has announced another press conference on January 27, 2010, speculation has again run wild, but this time I think the rumors are true and here's why: The technology timing is right 10 years ago all tablets used a stylus, but in the last couple of years touchscreens have evolved to support multi-touch capabilities. Along with that we now have processors that are quick, battery friendly and do not run as hot as their ancestors, the intel Atom line being an example. While these are not CPU's meant for blazing computing needs, they do fill a great niche for small devices that don't need to drive as much real estate as say a desktop computer. The interface issues are quickly maturing It's take some time to move from the stylus to a true touch pad, but one look at the iPhone and iPod and there's not doubt we have finally arrived. While there's still room for refinement, the majority of the hurdles have been passed. The market is ready I've heard lots of people talk about how tablets have been around for years and have never taken off, true but those tablets all where nothing more than a laptop with a stylus. They where expensive and limited in power and scope, but now you buy a netbook for under $500, a wireless router for $40 and within a short time be sitting on your couch surfing the net, reading email or any number of other tasks. Net books have exploded and they have lead the way for tablets to now storm onto the scene. We even now have netbooks and devices with 3g wireless meaning you can have internet access (albeit slow) from just about anywhere. The rest of industry is already onboard Microsoft showed off a new tablet running a touch version of windows 7 at CES, there are at least a dozen touchpads running android already being announced and some available now. Some of the early ones have been less than successful, but almost all the big players are now promising tablets at some point this year. With our without the rumor mill, there's no way in my opinion that Apple is going to let this slip by. The iPhone allowed them time to polish the interface, they now have the technology to actually create a tablet that consumers will flock too. I can think of a myriad of uses for a small thin tablet, that has both wireless and 3g, given the app base for the iPhone they already have a head start on applications. The coding structure for iPhone apps would apply very well to a tablet, they have all the pieces. Now all they have to do is pull the trigger, if they can keep the cost reasonable then I think they could take the entire market by storm. We'll know for sure on the 27th, but I'm already saving my money ;) -Paul-
The Year Of The Tablet
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I've been doing some work on the blog, I've turned on the ability for the site to send out updates via twitter anytime I post something new, that means you can use an RSS or Atom reader, or just sign up to my twitter account, the url is My Twitter Account Enjoy... -Paul-
Twitter Support Added
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If you read through some of the news postings you'll notice that the format is wrong, I'm not fully sure why just yet but I'm working on it. Something to do with the CSS and the boxes, WordPress is not very easy to fully customize, it could use a more mature template system than what they have today. But no fear I've got some ideas on how to approach the problem and get it resolved. -Paul-
Site Maintenance
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In keeping with my new years resolutions, I'm starting on the table saw. I actually cheated a bit and have been doing little pieces over the past two weeks, but there is still a ton of work to be done before I can write this one off, first let's start with a list of problems with the current setup:
Shop Project: Table Saw Update 1
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It's the time of year again to make loads of promises and resolutions that by march we completely forget, but bring up again the next new year. I'm as guilty as anyone of this, for years I've promised to lose weight, but it wasn't until I reached a breaking point that I actually implemented the changes. I've actually done very well, losing over 30 pounds in 4 months, so that's a resolution I no longer need to worry about. So my question now is what resolutions make sense to set for the coming year? After a bit of thought I've landed on these: 1. Spend more time learning about God: That may seem like a weird goal for some, but I've come full circle on this. Starting out as a believer at 18, leaving the faith and ultimately making my way back. It's been a long road, but unless I put him first I'll not succeed at anything else. I've been consuming vast amounts of information on this topic, running from Free Will Theology to the origins of the bible and the christian faith. The more I learn and seek him out, the more I change, the more I change the more I want to seek him out. That's not to say there haven't been issues, crashes, heartbreaks and trouble, but those help me grow, I'll share my story in a another entry but for now this is the key point of my direction. 2. Take more time for my family: In years past I've worked long hours on projects, some weekends and let it consume me. It's not a healthy way to live, so this year I'm going to take time to stop and enjoy my life, spend time with everyone and not allow work to consume who I am. 3. Finish the shop this year: We've been in our house for four years now, I have a fully functioning shop but going from a three car garage to a two is not easy and I'm out of room. I've been trying to think up ways to condense everything and finally last week I had a epiphany: Instead of tackling the shop as a whole, I should attack smaller 'areas' of the shop. For instance this year I put the table saw and router station on a rolling stand, but I realized last week that I could use the stand to store *all* the parts and pieces the table saw uses. It's a small thing, but it clears up tons of wall space AND everything I need to run the table saw is always within reach! So I've already started on it, I'm re-building the drawers, adding shelves and fixing it up to math the rest of the shop AND give me a space to hang everything I use and need for it. It's so simple I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before. Next is the workbench, which is getting cut down from 9 feet to 6, shelving and drawers added too. And basically updated, painted and upgraded to store everything I need AND match the shop. Then it's onto the drill press and the bandsaw and well you get the idea. My goal is to have it finished by summer so I can stop moving stuff around the shop to find space to work, and instead be able to just concentrate on the work. Everything will have locking wheels (including the workbench), so I can move stuff around anytime I need to. My *big* project is to build a large floor to ceiling shelving unit that has at it's base an island setup to specifically work on guitars. I've had the design for a couple of years now (I got the idea from a manufactuer who has a similar setup), it will provide *tons* of space for all the parts and pieces AND a place to work on, setup and repair guitars. 4. Finish the guitars in the shop: I've had two guitars sitting on the workbench for a while now, I intend to get this finished this year. The classical has a fully finished top, I have the back joined, the neck partially done and just need to get started. The other is a new steel string model I've been planning for some time, the bracing will be different than anything I've done before. I did a good deal of research into a new bracing pattern based, I just need to cut the braces and get going. 5. Start on the new violin: I've been working on CAD drawings for a violin, it's based on a stradivarius (what violin isn't?), I have the top and back already modeled, and the main jig, all that's left is the bending pieces and a pattern for the neck and I can get started. I've got one hanging on the wall of the shop (unfinished), but I'm going to start from scratch, I even have the raw wood to make it so instead of buying wood I'll use what I have. The only piece I need to buy is the wood for the neck which I'll look for locally. It should be an interesting project. That should be enough to keep me busy for a while, hopefully for the full year :) Oh and a happy and healthy new year to everyone.... -Paul-