Jeff Schultz in the sport opinion section of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution - AJC

Jeff,

You are really sounding like one crotchety old man. I’m no spring chicken, 41 this year, but I can at least remember what it was like to have a heart.  No I was never an athlete at the level of these kids, perhaps you were, but I was an athlete in high school and I know what it takes to excel and what it is like when you don’t.  From your first article on Michele Kwan to the blabbering about people falling on ice and how you think this is a medocre olympics.   To today’s again negative tyrade about Miller. I just stop reading now after the first paragraph and move on.  You are clueless!  The first day you ripped Michele Kwan - do you research your subjects? Do you even listen to the announcers.  They say she is probably the best figure scater, ever.  She has won more titles then anyone.  She is an athlete and has an ego and if she felt there was a chance for her to get a gold after so many years she should try. Come on, be realistic - she wasn’t hurting anyone, really. Hughes is young and terrific and just glad to be there - she will shine in the next four years.  And what Kwan did to step down was not egotistical, it was good and right.  I’m not an eternal optimist lost in a panacea of happy thoughts - I was sad when Cohen fell and amazed that she won - but again I have to listen to you blubber about mediocrity when her scores were clearly higher in all but one of the categories - she dances with the grace of a ballerina not today’s obsession with more more more and perfection. Think about what she did do - so many people would give up after her start and fall - she only got better in the “long” program - it was truly amazing and maybe a turning point.  I don’t watch these things year to year - only in the olympics.  I have two daughters, though and they thought she and the other skaters were amazing - in the short and the long.  I saw it in their eyes.

Finally, I don’t know if you noticed Ohno’s race yesterday but wouldn’t it be nice to write about his triumph over the rigors and challenges of that sport. Oh, and Hedrick’s rookie year - and his amazing wins of three medals.  Ego and infighting aside, that’s all media hype - he had a great olympics and next time it will be even better.  How about this - look for good, when you look for good everyone gets a little happier.  Look for bad, you score some points with the synics but in the end everyone feels a little sadder.  Maybe not every article but some try and look for good - opinions are like.. well you know the rest.  We pay you for yours, how about mixing it up a bit.

Thursday’s AJC - the idiot who wrote about “the Jews in Israel.”

Quick response to a letter in yesterday’s paper. I’m not asking you to publish this but I think it was ridiculous for you to publish the letter from the idiot who wen on about the poor Palestinian people and Jews controlling the US Government and Israel occupying the Palestinian state. The guy is like so many ignorant people out there who have no idea of reality - only what they talk to each other about in their local pub or football practices. Perhaps he would like us to give back our land to the Native Americans, reverse the lines drawn by the Greek, Roman and Ottoman empires. Do we go back to the beginning of modern history? There was no Palestine before Greece, Rome, the Turks, England, and so many others occupied it. There were no Palestinian people - they are Arabs. The last real kingdom on its own was that of the Jews in 70 AD and the Christians all know how that ended. The Arabs came after and though most Jews were disbursed, many stayed. There was no “Palestinian Kingdom or Nation” only a land or region named Palestine. Until WW1 it was Turkish and nobody wanted it - the French and British created “Palestine” as a country. Until 1882 when Jews started returning from Russia and Europe and reviving the land. in fact, after WW2 when the two states were created the Arabs invaded claiming it was al part of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc! They wanted their land back. In 1948 there were two countries - if they had left it alone there still would be. They invaded the Israeli’s fought back and that’s your “occupied” land. Is Its mostly been given back - your reader is clueless. The “Jews” have done more for that region and the world then anyone there - let this man think about the kids on busses blowing up and he will see why there is a wall. Let him see how Israel and Palestine were invaded in history by the Arabs around. You shouldn’t be fueling the fire of the ignorant idiots who think the wealthy Jews control the media - they obviously don’t control the AJC.

What’s with all the Jewish American Ice Scaters?

I am very much a speed scater, snow boarder fan but I do have two daughters and they love the girls on ice. I must say - Sasha Cohen, Emily Hughes and her sister Sarah Hughes? The couples on ice - Ice dancer Melissa Gregory, Jamie Silverstein.

I thought we were a desert dwelling folk?! Well my POV - the sport is that of dedicated, driven kids who tend to overachieve. And the generations these days can probably afford to support these endevours.

Sasha Cohen is unbelievable - her mother’s Ballet past shows in her grace and flexiblity and she is strong - and so damn cute. I hope she wins today.

as healthy as bread and as succulent as cream

“They stopped under a ________________, the fruit of which, as healthy as bread and as succulent as cream, was amply partaken of and appreciated.”

I’m reading Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days to the kids these evenings and this is a sentence describing:

“They stopped under a clump of bananas, the fruit of which, as healthy as bread and as succulent as cream, was amply partaken of and appreciated.”

My kids (and I) are learning a lot of new vocabulary words and they often ask me why “he uses so many words.” Well, the book was written in 1873 when not many people had the means to purchase many books and (as a librarian once told me) they wanted their money’s worth - so descriptions were detailed to give them all he could. But this sentence really proved another point - how many people in France or England in 1873 had ever eaten a banana? Is that the way you describe a banana, or do you simply take them for granted?

Jim

Ahh - the old Microsoft vs. Mac thing

A friend made the mistake of saying ” I’ve never been an Apple fan” and you know what a prick I can be….

Well - he works for a J2EE comapany so I pointed out:

J2EE - know that world well, the company I just left (Financial Fusion - now blended into Sybase) was a J2EE shop. Beans and all that. To answer your question…Your allegiance, It should align with Unix based technology - like Linux and ……. Mac OS X. Java guys love the mac, get on the bandwagon. Mac OS X Developer Page

OK, here is my reasoning (I tend to rant about this stuff). When I left Docucorp to try and be a consultant a few years ago I had to buy a laptop - I picked a Mac Powerbook because I wanted something I didn’t have to worry about. like a toaster - it just needs to work. What I found was that it wasn’t easy switching - getting my stuff over but it was more stable and had no problems with drivers, plug-ins, etc - stuff just worked when I plugged it in. When an application crashed - only that application crashed, not the whole mac. And people were wowed when I could walk into any board-room and plug in any projector for example and it worked. I got MS Office for OS X and it is a cooler application then the XP version. When I went to Sybase there were enough geeks in IT that knew the mac and they let me put my Thinkpad on the shelf and use my Powerbook. Heck - I was selling thin client Web Banking - didn’t matter. And it worked better. Now I only use it at home - Stephanie is converted and the kids learned on it - they now know both, OS doesn’t matter to them.
The next release of Windows may be better - it certainly will be more Linux like, and integrated into the web. And the new macs run on Intel chips so I expect some geeks will start hacking together a hybrid box. But that won’t work because the reason Mac OS X is easy is that its tied to the hardware - Apple makes both so you are buying an appliance not an operating system.

Of course the company I work for today, Digital Insight, is an XP shop - all our servers run it too - our websites too! So I’m stuck - though they have just put in Citrix and I can web-into my email and some applications on my Mac. I’m just into simple, smart technology - not bloated, unstable, virus infected proprietary stuff. My mac keeps itself up-to-date and my Mom can even figure it out with her iMac while I’m constantly reinstalling stuff on my pop’s xp laptop. And well, look at the iPod - like the Blackberry - its a smart simple tool, why would anyone need a “start” menu on their phone or mp3 player. And on the business side: I bought the same amount of stock in both companies three years ago, MSFT is the same, AAPL is up 500%.

spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

does anyone really respond to emails like this:

Hi,
Hope I am not writing to wrong address. I am nice, pretty looking girl. I am planning on visiting your town this month. Can we meet each other in person? Message me back at cq@goodmtmail.info

I mean seriously - they just keep coming and coming - I must get at least 60 messages a day - 30 or so caught by my mail server filter and an other 20 caught by my email client filter and 10 get through.

This kind of email is particularly insane. The email is obviously capturing responses to show its a good email - its right in the address folks! Those desperate souls that respond to a message like this get put on a list and spammed even more!

I’ve considered going to white lists (only accepting mail from approved senders) but that might be to exclusive. For now the filters catch most, I’ll deal with the rest.

Big Trip to Rock City and the Lost Sea - TN - Pack 1818 Cub Scouts

Here is a quick and dirty slide/movie of our trip.

Slideshow (Quicktime) Move

Apple - QuickTime - Download - Standalone QuickTime Player

Scouts - send me pictures from the whole year for Blue and Gold!

Yea- I just got a program to let me encode WMV files for all my Win XP friends.

Slideshow (Windows Media Player)

For those of you on the MP4 standard:
Slideshow (MP4) Movie

OK, I’m tired of the cold

Spring needs to come soon.

Grammy’s What is the difference between record of the year and song of the year?

Sometimes it is amazing how you can find what you want on the web. I was wondering this - and found it. Greenday won record of the year, U2 song of the year.

GuideLive.com
Two of the top awards – song and record of the year – are harder to decipher than the average VCR owner’s manual.

iPod Shuffle as a USB Drive! Why buy a USB Drive that doesn’t play music?

You know, Ive been thinking, why would I buy a shuffle, I’ve had MP3 players in the past without a “screen” and it was annoying.  I am to fussy, to relax and just let it play a shuffle. But then again, if I did use it at the gym or running, I probably would pick a playlist and just go.  So it would make sense.

But I could never justfy buying one just for that, I would strap on my full size iPod (or get a Nano now).  But think about this. 

 The iPod Shuffle is no bigger then any of those USB Drives out there and with the new Shuffle pricing it is really silly not to.  You can get a 512MB USB Drive for $40 these days - you can get a $512MB Shuffle for $69 now.  Or a 1GB USB Drive for ~ $60 or an iPod Shuffle for $99 and use it for iTunes Songs and music + Data! 

 Check It Out