Over the last few weeks I have been going back to church, I cant remember If I have said in an earlier post that I was a Latter Day Saint www.lds.org or a Mormon as we are also known. Anyways through the wonderful testimony from a friend of mine Diva in th US of A and the way she lives her life she has helped me to become stronger in my faith and return to The restored Church on this earth. I know that I have big steps to take, and that I have many sins to repent for, but I am finally back on that narrow path and although the progress may be slow at this stage It is at least forward again after so many years.

Pretty skin

My Girlfriend runs a website called sassy sigs n stuff where they make all pretty pictures that they attach to emails etc, I saw this and thought this would be great to marry the two together to make a personal statement, sure beats fuzzy dice and seat covers.

No Spam for dinner

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has registered the world's first legislative code of practice for internet service providers (ISPs), Dealing with unsolicited email commonly known as spam costs business and home net users millions of dollars a year and it seem's that as one email craze fades out another starts

(Hmm I wonder if I could control my micro remote control car with my viagra enhanced penis)

Under the code, ISPs will have to offer spam filtering options to customers they will also have to impose reasonable limits on the rate at which subscribers can send email, Spammers can face penalties of up to $1 million under another act, the Spam Act, which came into force two years ago.

Nano tech causes hearing loss

Apple is facing lawsuits over the ipod range including the Nano as it causes hearing loss or could cause hearing loss as they produce between 104db and 115db sound levels, see here for a comparison. They have released a patch that lets users set the maximum volume and it even allows parents to lock the volume with a PIN. This should stop the non hacker types, I give it less then a week before a "patch" is around to bypass the PIN protection.

Restless sleep

I had a really restless sleep last night, I was having lots of minor seizures on and off all night and I felt like I had been hit by a truck, well my own fault for not taking my meds at the right times.

New phone

I went in to Harvey Norman in Warragul today and was just looking around, I had thought of buying a new game for the Playstation 2 but ended up putting a deposit down on a new mobile/cell phone. The phone I m getting is called the XPhone and it is from the company O2. Not only is it a mobile phone but it is also a Smartphone running Windows Smartphone Edition 2003.

So with this new phone that I get in about 4 weeks I should be able to do podcasts and Vidcasts :) while I am out and about as well as blog to it

Affairs of the Heart

I guess I am really the last person to be giving relationship advice to anyone, that said this isnt advice at all, when I was a teenager I was involved in helping out with kids with special needs, next to the highschool that i went to was a school targeted at these wonderful kids, while there I made friends with one of the parents of a student, her name was Hazel.

Hazel was a lovely lady from California who had immigrated to Australia, she was always there to help people out if she could and one instance that sticks in my mind is the day we saw the car in front of us slide of the road in the rain. When we spoke to the driver of the car we found out that he had just lost his job, had a new baby and that his car had really bald tyres. So Hazel in her usual compassionate way took him down to the nearest tyre fitter and paid for a set of retreads for his car, and yes there are people like that in this world.

Well back to the story at hand, we fell in love. Now that may not sound like anything until you take in to consideration the following, I was 16 and she was 42 hence why I am never one to judge relationships based on the age diffrence. She was also married and choose to leave her husband to be with me. Now I am not proud that I broke up a marriage for our relationship to contimue but what I do know now in my life was I really was in love with Hazel and I honestly belive we would still be together if she was still alive.

Now this is the heart of the post.

Hazel fell pregenant with my child, She was a diabetic that unknown to her at the time had early stage renal failure, the pregnancy caused her kidneys to fail completely I blamed myself and this in turn required her to abort the pregnancy to save her own life. It was devasting to both of us and it made our relationship that much stronger.

The renal failure resulted in Hazel having Peritoneal Dialysis wikipedia four times a day, this went on for about 2 1/2 years. One day Hazel was out and about and I got a phone call from the hospital informing me that a kidney was ready for transplant and we had 50 minutes to get to the hospital. Now this was before mobile phones, so I started ringing the shopping centres and had them page her while I was getting her daughter organised to take hazel to the hospital. Well we did manage to find her and get to the hospital, the transplant itself went really well and her urine output was really good even before she had woken up from the surgery, but (theres always a but isnt there in these stories) during the operation a blood clot had gone to her brain and she suffered a major stroke resulting in complete paralysis of both sides of her body I blamed myself .

It took 18 months of intense physio but Hazel was progressing to the point that she had been able to come home for a weekend or two and was able to take a few steps unassisted, things seemed to be shaping up. Then one morning at 10:17 I got a phone call from Hazel and just before she hungup she said to me "Dont worry, everything will be ok!", Now you might be asking why I highlighted everything. It is because she knew what was coming next and that is why she didnt say "Dont worry I will be okay" because at 10:39 the doctor rang me to tell me that Hazel had died I blamed myself from a blood clot that had blocked off the blood flow to her lungs. (That day is imprinted in to my mind)

It is only just recently that I have realized that she was right, I shouldnt worry as everthing will be ok and I also now know that I should not blame myself, Hazel fell in love with me, she knew she was pregnant and knew the risks she was facing trying to carry the baby, she made that choice because she loved me and for that reason and that reason only I needed to move on with my life, and it is because she did love me that I need to say to her that I am sorry that it has taken me more then 15 years to do it. Maybe that is why I have had problems in relationships as well as the borderline, I hadnt let Hazel go, I was clinging on instead of respecting her memories, but then when Ive been in relationships that make me feel bad for mentioning someone I loved who had died, they were jealous of her, maybe I gave them a reason to be jealous. Well not any longer. I have moved on. I Dont blame myself as blaming myself is blaming you for loving me and me for loving you.

Hazel I loved you..
Hazel I was in love with you..
Hazel I will always love you..
Hazel You will always be in my Heart..
God bless you..

Blossy's Beast

Yesterday I took Bloss to buy her new car, her old Ford meteor had really reached its use by date as it was getting on in years and it also had had a pretty hard life from the kids, long miles and dirt roads. So last week we went in search of a new car, the requisites where pretty minimal. It had to be a 4 cylinder as fuel is only getting more pricey, it had to be younger then her old car and it needed to be ready to drive away as we didnt have time or faclities to carry out repairs.

We went in to Chris Lieshout Motors to have a look, Chris himself was there to help us out and as I had once been in the used car industry in Queensland I didnt beat around the bush, I said to him that we had a Metor as a trade and that we had AU$2000 cash, we wanted a small sedan/hatchback late 1980's to early 1990's that we could drive away. Well low and behold he took us out the back for a servicing (or is that the cars) and he had a Holden "beep beep" Barina there. Bloss liked it as it was a pretty blue, I liked it as it was in good mechanical condition for its age.

So no mucking around, straight swap with the cash and Bloss is now the proud owner of a New (used) car that we spent the day driving around in.

Training wheels

I have always loved riding motor bikes, but with the balance problems that I have just walking I think that my days of crusing around on two wheels are over (if I am honest with myself) but maybe I can get around on three wheels instead. Over at Gizmag they have an article on a new car/motorcycle that looks cool. Because of its size it is classed as a motorcycle and I would like to go for a few laps in one if I had a spare $80,000. Ahh well maybe one day I will win the lottery.

Anti Viral "virus" causes damage

McAfee released a virus definition file recently (Defintion file 4715) that went on a rampage of users systems and started deleting files that it flagged as a windows virus that first was discovered in 2004. The only problem was that the files that it flagged in fact were not infected with a virus. Programs affected included Excel, Flash and even some Google files, maybe McAfee was upset with Google's decision to include Norton's AV in its essential software pack.

McAfee rushed out a new definition file (4716) but for many of the users that reguarly update the damage was allready done to their machines. Mkaes you wonder at point does a software program become viral itself..

Snakes and ladders

Over at TechEBlog they have an article about a "robotic" snake, it is actually remote controlled so dont know if it is a true robot, although once the mobility package is there autonamy can come later I guess. What makes this snake diffrent from thje previous ones that I have seen is that not only can it do the usual things expected from a robot snake this one, like its real counterparts can swim. There is also a video for you to check out.

Light the way

The street lights around drouin and longwarry need serious work, I was at a major intersection the other night and out of 12 street lights 6 were not working, This in an intersection where cars are travelling at 100kmh and on a dark night they may not see cars that are side on to them and Tbone them. I will have to ring the power company and report them.

Cricket rules the world

I was watching the television show sunrise the other morning and they had a segment on promoting australia overseas, In the clip it showed G. Bush playing cricket and in the segment he was refered to as "The president of the free world" now dont get me wrong, I know that the US is a free nation and that its a big and powerful free nation but that DOES NOT make him the president of the free world, I am australian and also live in a free nation that allthough is an alli to the US it isnt governed by them..

Australian and Proud..

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Surfing the "Block" and Me Myself and I.

I was sitting around this lovely Sunday afternoon not doing anything really constructive, really procrastinating would be a better description. I really have a lot to do not least of which is fix up DIvergence as I went through a stage for a couple of weeks where I was of my tree a lot and was just pasting press releases instead of actually typing something, which is really lame and is going to make my Google standing suck :) not that I have one YET.

So I was looking at all my RSS feeds that I have on my google homepage and was checking out WWDNix, this in turn led me down the rabbit hole so to speak and I went to this blog by a guy called Sean Bonner, which in turn led me to a blog by Tony Pierce where he talks about writers block and blogging. Here's two quote's from his blog article about writers block...

"to me writers block happens when you are afraid to say the things that you want to say. It happens when you self edit yourself before you start writing or while you are writing"

"to me writers block is the devil whispering "you suck, this sucks, you cant write, nobody cares, so and so has said this before and better, bloggings dumb, your blogs dumb, your dumb," and you listen to those whispers as opposed to the siren song of your muse."

This is pretty timely as just last night I said to Bloss I was thinking about my blog, and some of the things I wanted to write but hadn't because I was afraid to put them out there in public because it might make people that I know/knew pissed off or think less of me.

Well I was in two minds about how to proceed with the blog, do I just say that's it and exercise my rights as an adult to express my views and opinions or keep my mouth shut so to speak and just blog about topics that wont rock the boat.

Well thanks to Tony's post I have made a decision and am going to bite the proverbial bullet and post how I feel, I am NOT going to self edit anymore apart from maybe some spelling and grammar. As for the content this isn't an exercise in English it is an exercise in expressing my thoughts and feelings, typos, grammatical errors and all will be there in future If I miss them.

"Don't like it people" No problem see if I care, If I can go and spend AU$20+ on a novel by a reputable author from a large scale publishing house and it has typos in it then my throw together blog of my live is going to be just that. A mismatch of thoughts feelings and desires, it is going to be about me, by me and ultimately this blog isn't for anyone else but me.

So if this blog helps someone else that is a bonus it wasn't the aim when I started writing, the aim was to help me manage my life and for be to grow and develop, and I guess by making this decision I am growing.

"What was that, Get off my high horse.. Sorry Im here to stay this time"

Message Ends.

Fear Factor +5

The other day I wrote this in my Diary as I wasnt ready to blog it, well now I am..

"I feel so lost and afraid right now, I was reading some stuff online about borderline and I suddenly just felt so lost, so scared like a little kid. The fear is so bad it hurts. I am so scared of hurting Joanne and the boys, of making them scared and afraid of me like all the other people in my life that I have cared about. I know that Joanne has told me she is not going in blind but I don't know, she says she will cope and work out ways to deal with this but what if we cant, what if I am just a lost cause that has no meaning in this world we live in. I have read that people that have to live with someone suffering from BPD suffer post traumatic stress disorder after the relationship, I dont want to put anyone else through that, I don't know if I could live with myself If I did that to someone again, I know I always have good intentions at the start, a plan to deal with me when I am not well but it has always fallen apart when it counts the most. I also feel like hurting, using pain to make this all go away, to smash my fist in to my face or break my hand again. To feel complete again. What most people don't understand with BPD is that we don't only get angry all the time but we get EMOTIONAL... We lose focus on the general picture and obsess with a particular facet of the situation, we might cry easily at the movies, or become obsessed with the one we love, we feel guilty, suicidally guilty. It sucks right now I want to hurt so bad and it is taking everything I have to stop my self from smashing my fist or head or something in to the wall. "

Happy Camper

I posted a few weeks ago about my laptop that I brought on Ebay.au and how great it was, well it was until stupid me didn't get all my ad aware, spybot and antivirus stuff running straight away and when I did (read a week or so) my OS was hosed. Now all of those Linux folk out there are going to tell me how great GNU\Linux is and it is when it works.

I looked at a heap of different Linux builds and tried quite a few of them as well but they all suck in some way or another for what I want.

Tried Knoppix, worked great everything worked out of the box except sound :( and when I finally tracked down the information I needed to make noise it worked when it wanted. I would get the sound working after using alsaconf and then after a few minutes using X\KDE it would crash the sound server and nothing I did short of a reboot worked to get it back.

Now call me lazy maybe but I was persistent, I tried tinkering with config files and the such to no avail.

Now don't get me wrong, I am still using some Linux stuff and in server environment's it is great, but then I don't need to have sound working and flashy desktops, Linux in the server\big iron arena for sure, but after spending 2 days playing with Linux in one of its many variants made me want to pull my hair out, on the desktop not yet.

So after a few days of piss farting around with Nix I reinstalled 2k, took me about 10 hours to go from a completely hosed box to one that is setup how I want it including time to look for new software on sourceforge, everything worked out of the box first go, wireless, sound, graphics everything except some shortcut keys but Ill get to that soon and they didnt work in nix.

And after all that I am glad I got hosed as now my laptop is better protected then it was, and I am going to image the HDD soon to make future installs easy. I found a lot of great software over at sourceforge and it is written to work not to be bloated, now I have more functionality then my previous install and it runs faster and I am a happy camper again.....

On a side note reading about Vista TM I am actually interested, it is the Second M$ OS that really makes me want to go and buy it, the first was windows 95 on floppy :) so I will have to wait and see how it turns out at the release and I might be going shopping soon.

Arrgghh

Okay I have had it with spyware and adware and puups and popunders, so I am installing linux on my laptop, I am playing with knoppix at the moment and am doing a harddrive install as we speak.