Oh if only...

Oh if only... 

  

Oh if only I had been as good 

as I once thought myself... 

I'd be in heaven by now. 

If I were half as good as I imagined 

Deluded as I was... 

  

Not so now. 

The sins of ages past remain imprinted 

as a wrinkle on a brow. 

Like nicotine stained fingers, 

the faint smell lingers. 

  

I feel the pain 

and the sorrow that such folly wrought. 

Sins forgiven, not so easily forgot. 

  

I hold  this bitter treasure in my trove. 

Lest sometime I should grow over-bold 

And pride raise my head too far aloft. 

I'll crack the lid and snatch a glance inside the box, 

then slam it shut! 

Tis enough.  Tis enough tonight, 

To bring me back to where I am but little 

in my own sight. 

  

Paul McFate February 2007 

Are Wikileaks rocking our world? Not yet.

George Friedman writes in Stratfor that for those who follow international politics, there is nothing really new that has been revealed by Wikileaks.  Although there are some embarrassing comments by diplomats, there is not much substantive "dirt" that would rock the geopolitical landscape.  Here is the full article.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/friedman_on_geopolitics

Nothing like a root canal to make the season bright!

Jen Morrison brought me breakfast.  Smiley Face jello is something I can chew on while I wait for root canal surgery.

I love having friends to cheer me up.  And there's nothing like a root canal to make the season bright.

Review of Free Video Converter by Freemake.com

If you take a video with a smart phone, and accidentally turn it on its side, it is tricky to flip it back upright.  You can do it in Windows and Mac if you have a compatible file and are willing to look up the procedures, but some so-called "smart" phones use 3gp formats which are a dumbed down flash format and won’t play on PC (very annoying .

I downloaded this free app called Free Video Converter by Freemake.com.  Very easy to convert and flip at the same time.  With an additional free download, you can also download YouTube videos and convert them to Quicktime or WMV in one easy step. 

User interface is dirt simple and it even has simple editing tools for cutting. And it is true freeware as opposed to a free trial or free download.  No ad-ware evident. 

I downloaded a 3gp video from my HTC TouchPro cellphone, opened it in Free Video Converter, clicked "edit" where I was able to flip it to the proper orientation, and then converted it to WMV.  I could have converted it for YouTube, Quicktime, or any number of other formats. Note that I couldn't accomplish this in Adobe Suite.

 I give it five stars.  *****

This is an independent, unsolicited and, unfortunately, unpaid review.  Add your comments below. 

LDS October Conference turned my life around

Twice a year, Mormons gather for a worldwide conference.  My wife Linda was reading some words from the October Semi-annual Conference Report of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I remembered hearing the words at the conference and how they impacted me at the time.  I suddenly realized how that conference has turned my life around.  Here is a quote:

Some suppose that humility is about beating ourselves up. Humility does not mean convincing ourselves that we are worthless, meaningless, or of little value. Nor does it mean denying or withholding the talents God has given us. We don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves.

 President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Second Counselor in the First Presidency


Here is the full article.

Rand Paul must have read my blog...?

Here's a quote from Rand Paul on NBC's Today Show as reported by Deseret News in Salt Lake City (Associated Press story):  

Republican Rand Paul, who won a Kentucky Senate seat in a race powered by tea party support, said Americans need not fear gridlock in the next Congress because "debate is healthy."

"It seems like the most fiscally conservative government is always divided government," Paul said on NBC's "Today" show.

Clearly he is reading my blog (see Here's to partisan bickering).  

A plea for help from Sgt. Alihu

I got this plea for help from Sgt. Alihu by email today. He's in a real predicament. How should I respond?


Hello my good friend,
I pray this message reaches you in the best of health and imaan., I am Sgt Douglas Alihu a security officer, I am seeking for a reliable foreign business partner who I will trust in terms of joint venture and investment, actually this is a confidential transaction which all directives has been arranged, here in my company I discovered a consignment which had been in a security vault for 8 years now and the depositor is deceased so I want to get the funds out of the security company and invest it and if I try to invest the funds here our Government will probe me and confiscate my investment so I took time to think and decide to invest the funds in your country base on the fact that your country speaks and understand English.Can you kindly brief me what kind of investments that will be lucrative as a foreign investor?And the amount involved is $18M USD which is in the consignment.I will tell you all that you need to know about this transaction once I hear from you and confirm your interest. Thanks and I look forward to hear from you ASAP Insh'a Allah.
Sincerely,
Sgt. Alihu
Chief Security Officer

Here's to partisan bickering

Tired of partisan bickering?  Not me.  So long as Democrats and Republicans are not making back room deals, my wallet is safe.  The minute they start saying "Can't we all just get along?" then you know they are going to start getting things done.  And that's going to cost you money. Taxes always hurt the little guys the most. So raise a toast to partisan bickering.  The best we can all hope for is a deadlocked house and senate.

Lemon Pepper and Tomato

No one ever accused me of having any culinary skills - though I do make a mean piece of toast - but tonight I discovered a treat.  I sliced a tomato and dusted the slices with lemon pepper.  Mmmm.  Zella asked for more.  Just luck you say?  Ummm.  Yes.

There are two kinds of toilets

There are two kinds of toilets.  Those that flush and environmentally friendly toilets.  Mine is a Mansfield brand of the latter quality, and I'm very disappointed with it.  Can someone tell me a brand that really works? 

DriveFinder didn't find the drive

I tried using DriverFinder (driverfinderpro.com) to update my audio driver on my old Dell Optiplex 260 as my audio card is showing as not being installed (it clearly is installed).  It said I could have a 30-day evaluation.  So I tried it.  No dice.  It did find some other drivers that were out of date, but when I tried to download them, it refused me, saying I had to register it first for $30.   So much for an "evaluation".  I have no clue whether it works or not.  So my 30-day evaluation is about to become a 30-minute evaluation as soon as I uninstall it. 

Bzzzt!  Thanks for playing...

Remember when $3 trillion was a lot of money?

Obama constantly amazes me.  He borrowed as much money since January of 2009 as the country borrowed in the previous 200 years.  How does he do it?

Here's the full story from CNSnews.com

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/it-s-official-obama-has-now-borrowed-3-t

That's the way the fortune cookie crumbles

I always get the worst fortune cookie messages. This one says, "Stop over-analyzing situations. You're not bright enough to understand anyway."

Why are you not happy?

Video: Why are you not happy?

This will help you learn how to use your happiness synthesizer.  Did you know you had one?  Leave a comment below.

The four virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity and...Barbie?

Just heard a funny story.  My sister-in-law, Carrie, bought three bottle-fed goats and named them, Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Later she acquired a fourth, which was named "Barbie" by one of her children.  So the four goats are now Faith, Hope, Charity, and Barbie. 

Has a nice ring to it don't you think?  Have you heard any interesting stories of animal naming?  Please share in the comments below.

CEO of Spoke.com Replies

Philippe Cases, CEO of Spoke.com commented on your post "Wow! Serious Invasion of Privacy":

Hi Paul, my name is Philippe Cases and I am the CEO of Spoke. Spoke is a contact management on steroids so what we do is the following:

1) Upload all your contacts safely in our cloud services including contacts that you have in your email system and not in your address book. By doing this, you will end up with a “Spokebook” of anywhere between 500 to thousands of people of which typically 20% are in your address book and altogether 30% are current;

2) Because you may not remember the person, in the cloud, we are providing you a profile of the person and the context of which you exchanged information (hence the subject line and first 256 characters of your email message) in order to remind of how you connected with the person;

3) One last thing we do is keeping track with the person so that if the person changes job, you are alerted.

Our privacy policy is built to enable to do what I am describing above in term of product and nothing else.

We are serious about our privacy policy to the point that we have written one and that we are being overseen by Truste. Changing our privacy policy would require us alerting our user base and let them that this is happening. The users would then have to decide what to do, either leave the site altogether with their data or stay if they feel comfortable with the privacy changes.

I hope this helps

Wow! Serious Invasion of Privacy

Spoke.com seemed like a good idea to me...until I read the fine print!  I won't say it is a scam, but it sure smells like one.  The fine print says that Spoke:

"may collect Your Submitted Information from your e-mail client (in conformance with privacy preferences you select) and transmit that data to Spoke’s database server for use in the Service, including the Spoke network and your personal “SpokeBook”. Depending on the privacy preferences you select, Your Submitted Information may include, among other things: (a) your address book or contact entries, (b) the header (including “To” and “From” information) and signature information from your e-mail messages, and (c) if you authorize, the subject lines and first 256 characters of your e-mail messages. Your Submitted Information will be indexed and analyzed in order to identify your contacts and to estimate the strength of your relationships with them. The strength of your relationships is determined by, among other things, how often you e-mail, and receive e-mails from, your contacts. Spoke also collects and accesses information concerning your selected privacy preferences to establish and deliver the Service to you."

In other words, "We only want your entire contact list.  Oh' and the subject line and content of your emails!" Wow! 

 I quoted it verbatim so as not to mislead.  Note that they do offer certain user controls. But they would be more trustworthy than Facebook.  I mean, they would try to sneak in a little change here and there when you were offline.  Would they?

What's your take on this?  

Oh, I almost forgot my FCC disclaimer:  Spoke.com did not send me a bicycle, or any money, or even a free 10 day trial, during which they could upload my entire address book and monitor my email content.