Found this while following links and as it's been a long time since I've posted a quiz, I thought I'd go ahead.

The quiz asks who's your inner artist? And appropriately enough, considering my expanding hobby of photography, though not as much as my little sister has done:

Your inner artist is Ansel Adams!

So you might not have the gray beard and black-rimmed glasses, but chances are you share a few things with the master of photography – like your appreciation for honest living and the great outdoors. You don’t need the flash and panache of big-city living to get you going. (Though there’s a time and place for everything). But it wouldn’t surprise us if it’s the simple things in life that mean the most to you – like true friends, family, and the call of the wild. Like any true pioneer, you probably have your hands full with multiple projects at one time. And from the outside, it may look like you’re burning the candle at both ends. But those that really know you would say you’ve always got an eye on the big picture, and that nothing short of a mountain will stand in your way.

Adams happens to be one of my favorit artists and one of only three that I've chosen to decorate my apartment with their work, besides a couple photos of my own. The others being Monet and some of my little sisters works.

(via kung-foo.tv)

Nick Schulz has a good article discussing why it's not always good to listen to "allies." Discussing a new book coming out, The French Betrayal of America, by Kenneth Timmerman. Some of the interesting things that are pointed out in the book include:

• The French president lied to Bush and to the public about the war in Iraq.
  President Jacques Chirac had personally told President George W. Bush well ahead of time that France would be at America's side.

• France urged Saddam to commit genocide.
  Saddam launched his genocidal campaign against the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq to make their region "safe" for French oil engineers.

• France helped build Saddam's long-range missiles and nukes.
  Based on exclusive access to new documents, provided by Iraq to the United Nations -- that French defense companies were key partners in helping Saddam Hussein perfect the long-range missiles that killed U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia in 1991 and rained terror onto Israel.

• Chirac has blocked cooperation on a high-profile terrorism case.
  France's top counter-terrorism judge was ordered to stop cooperating with the United States in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui despite mounds of documents that would have helped the United States to convict Moussaoui of conspiracy to commit mass murder.

• France illegally sold U.S. military secrets to Saddam Hussein.
  A prominent French defense company shipped U.S.-designed laser designator pods to Iraq in the 1980s that compromised the most high-tech weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

• President Mitterrand, a Socialist, became Ronald Reagan's best ally in Europe.
  The French Betrayal of America reveals the extent of French strategic and intelligence cooperation with the United States at the peak of the Cold War, in areas that will surprise readers on both sides of the Atlantic. The French ran a key agent inside the KGB, whose "cosmic" reach -- right up to the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.

• President Chirac almost went to jail for corruption.
  Chirac was on the verge of getting indicted on corruption charges in 1999 until he cooked up an immunity deal with the head of the French Supreme Court, former Socialist foreign minister Roland Dumas. While the French corruption scandals are well known in France, they have rarely been reported in the United States and will alternately shock and amuse American readers.

Another article by Ilya Shapiro discusses the ever popular question, "Why Do They Hate Us?".

(via ProfessorBainbridge)

I find the proposal for affordable broadband for all by 2007 made by President Bush today an interesting one. There are several questions that come to mind with this issue. Such as how will the infrastructure be developed to support the additional traffic. Additionally, there are a lot of issues that need to be settled in regards to regulation of broadband in this country. The industrialized countries of SouthEast Asia and much of Europe have access to faster broadband pipes then we do in the states mainly due to the Baby Bells and other telecom corps lobbying hard to hold up development of the needed infrastructure (WSJ: Broadband Fiasco (subscription required) or TCS: Broadband Misinformation for another viewpoint).

In the end though I do think I'll support this drive for the simple reason it'll help lower prices.

Like most of the people I know in this area, I hate BellSouth. They're over-priced, have crappy customer service, and the quality of service itself is often poor. After a recent string of dealings with them, I decided to try and dump the POTS of BellSouth and see what else was available. Enter Vonage.

I heard about this initially from a friend of a friend. I was a bite sceptical at first about the voice quality that this service claims to provide though. Afterall, I played with Net2Phone and other VoIP services back when first appeared a few years ago. We even at a Cisco VoIP system at Darwin Networks before that company went down the drain. But I never remembered it having anywhere near a really decent sounding connection. The best was the Cisco at Darwin, but it still had an echo that sometimes made the conversation a little troublesome. But there's definately been some progress over the past few years.

Being the impatient type, after researching Vonage and it's competitors online, I went out and bought the boxed version at Circuit City. I've been pleasently surprised with the quality of the service. Within 10 minutes of getting home I was making calls using the new VoIP setup.

I was a bit worried about dealing with tech support, but I've found them to be extremely responsive despite what many have stated in comments around the web about the service. I did have a bit of a problem with the service not having a dailtone for a bit, but after a firmware update to the Motorala VT1005V it seems to have worked itself out. Tech support has been very responsive and generally respond within the hour to emails. I haven't used the phone support, but I'll update this post when I do.

The best thing about it though is what you get for the price. Before my monthly phone bill was around $100-150 a month for service (one line, 3 #'s) and long distance. Now it's going to be around $65 a month for 3 lines (2 regular, 1 fax) with no other charges. And to top it off, the sound quality has been superb. Talking to my parents in Western KY, they made the comment that it actually sounded better from their end than the old POTS line. And the voicemail system is great too. You can check your message via the web or even have them emailed to you as a wav file attachment. With this and my cellphone, it's time to say bye to BellSouth.

If you'd like to sign up and get a free month of service, drop me an e-mail and I'll make sure you get the coupon for a months credit of service.

Bad news came upon arriving home yesterday. Someone stole my grill on Sunday afternoon. My nice big charcoal barrel grill/smoker is gone. Now some people would hate to lose a piece of property, but this was one of my main ways of cooking. I'm the type of guy to grill out during the middle of a blizzard, sleet, rain, or good weather (and I've done it at all those times). It's just another large sum of money I'm out and insurance doesn't cover enough of it after the deductible for me to even take the time to buy a new one. Fortunately a neighbor saw the people that took the grill and hopefully we'll catch them soon (and they get some jail time).

I spent most of this weekend in Somerset, KY at Sarah's parent's house. Saturday was a beautiful day and we spent a good portion of it walking around the fields.

It was nice to take a simple walk for a change with no where in particular that I had to go. The weekend overall was a rare time to really relax for me. The horses certainly didn't mind us being out there with them as they were too intent on eating the grass.

Sarah and I also just sat out at this little gazebo they have out in the middle of one of the fields that they keep the horses in. From it there's a great view of the surrounding area as the entire property is up on a hill.

We also got a chance to go out and see the new lot that they just bought on Lake Cumberland. Right now there's a little trailer on the lot (as in camper), but they're going to pull it out and build a cabin in it's place. I think they're expecting me, and everyone else for that matter, to help build it. Personally, I think it's a great idea. I know Dr. Perkins (Al) wants to get started as soon as possible and I can understand why with the view they have. Plus the private boat dock, can't imagine a better little get away.

We ended Saturday night with a bonfire back at the house. If you look in the right-hand bottom corner you can see people sitting down to give you an idea of how high the flame got. I hadn't been around a fire that big that I could remember since I was in Boy Scouts back in high school. It reminded me of my inner pyro as I helped keep the area around the fire clear. I tried to relax and smoke my pipe that night too, but for some reason (probably incompetance on my part) I just couldn't keep the thing lit. Just sitting there and having some s'mores was a nice end to a great day.

Sunday turned out to be a good day too, though the weather definately didn't help things. It was Sarah's grandmother's birthday, which was the primary reason we had gone down, that day. So about 15 people were over at the house to celebrate and we ended up grilling out. I, as usual, manned the grill after helping prepare the kabobs. I think that Sarah's mom felt bad that I spent most of the time they were eating out by the grill watching over the next set of the kabobs, but I didn't mind. I definately enjoy grilling out and still had more than my fill of the food. I just hope Grandma liked everything.

Another thing I like about this family is that I've played more games in the past few months of dating Sarah than I have in probably the last two years. At least since Hatfield and Jeff moved out of town. We use to play Risk or some video game all the time over at Hat's place. It's just a nice change of pace to do something besides watch TV or movies all the time.

BTW, if you want to see some more pics, click below or check out the pinacotheca.

Some additional pictures.

Sarah took this one of the view from her parents lot out on Lake Cumberland.

For more photos, see the gallery.

Two years ago today I started blogging using blogger. Thankfully, I didn't stay with that very long. The blogger code has been updated as appropriate.

Ok, the server overall seems to be going ok, but it's managed to break quite a few of the MT plugins that I use. Mainly because several perl modules are no longer there and it's taking awhile to rebuild them all.

All the sites I host should be back up and available, but if I missed something just let me know.

Well, I've been doing a GREAT job of keeping this site up-to-date lately. So, I guess it's time to bring things up to the present and see if I can keep up with posting better in the future.

First, the site will be going down for a period of time over this weekend. I'll be doing some serious server maintenance that's effecting everyone I host along with most of my own sites. It's going to be fun, though better than the past week of stress.

This week I've had to deal with two mid-terms (I'm only taking two grad classes) and Condolezza Rice speaking in town. I'll say that when you're handling ticket requests, most people are nice and understanding. However, there's always a group that are nothing but a pain in the arse and no matter how many times or ways you tell them the same thing, they never get it through their thick skulls.

Fortunately for me I have a wonderful girlfriend that took the time to drive to Louisville and surprise me Tuesday night. She brought stuff to fix me dinner and help me relax before my test. I also had a chance to visit my parents over the weekend, which brings with it some minor stress right now due to how they feel about certain things in my life, but it was a good time. And with going to Lexington to see BNL on Friday, the weekend was really good. I took the time to buy and download the mp3's from the performance today and I'm burning them to CD as I type this.

Other things going on:

The Louisville Patriot is back up and running and I've joined up to be production chief. That means I get to do all of that layout work that I always loved when I was Editor-in-chief of it the last time it was up and running.

I've had a large number of friends and fraternity brothers get engaged lately. Aaron Hatfield got engaged to his girlfriend Chrissy after dating since around Labor Day. Brent Selch got engaged to Emily after even less time. And Alan Wild got engaged to his girlfriend finally after she had moved to Texas several months ago.

On the note of relationships, I have had a first in my experience with women. Sarah sent me flowers last week. I've never had a girl send me anything like that, it was a bit weird to me to say the least. But she's been great. She even came out a couple weekends ago and helped me reorganize my whole apartment. It's hard to believe that we've only been dating since November and didn't even know each other before October. But an interesting thing happened while going through old photos that weekend. I came across the CD's of the photos from the CR convention in 2000 that I helped chair at UofL. In one picture you can clearly see the two of us. Same room, less than 60 people, and we still didn't really meet each other until a few months ago.

On a final note, I probably won't have another post until the middle of next week. I have the layout of the paper to do and the major server maintenances that I have to perform before Monday. Plus, I'm going down to Somerset with Sarah and spending time with her and her family. Maybe I'll get a chance to go horseback riding again.