Time for a Reboot

June 1, 2011 By

If you are still read­ing this web­site, you will notice that I have been notice­ably absent from the blog­ging scene for a while. Due to a new job and other things (like play­ing too much World of War­craft) I just haven’t had the drive to blog lately. That is about to change. In the near future, there will be some heavy changes made to this site, both to the layout/design and to the content.

Con­sider it a late “spring clean­ing”. Just like a home, every once in a while a web­site needs a good visual “facelift.” It keeps the site edgy, cur­rent, and it keeps the audi­ence inter­ested. My goal is to find a design that fits me and my per­son­al­ity, but one that is also subject-oriented…

Speak­ing of sub­ject, I don’t plan on chang­ing the top­ics of dis­cus­sion — just how I approach the top­ics. I will still be talk­ing cur­rent events, pol­i­tics, sports, and any­thing else that grabs my atten­tion. I also plan on dis­cussing them from my point of view, but in the past I didn’t really engage the audi­ence. That is what I hope to change — to give you, the reader, a bet­ter plat­form to voice your thoughts and ideas. I desire for this site to grow and gain an even larger audi­ence, and give peo­ple a place to speak openly.

So as they say in the com­puter world, “It’s time for a reboot.”

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , ,

I venture forth yet again

January 3, 2011 By

It has been sev­eral months since I have blogged about any­thing. I don’t know if it was dis­in­ter­est in blog­ging in gen­eral or just indif­fer­ence, but since last July I have wanted noth­ing to do with it. Now I find myself want­ing, need­ing, to blog again.  So here I am.

Let me catch you up on what has been hap­pen­ing lately.  Last August, I expe­ri­enced a reduction-in-force by my pre­vi­ous employer.  I have been out of work since then due to the econ­omy.  But today, I believe things are begin­ning to turn around.  I am in talks with a com­pany in the nearby city of Mobile, Alabama, and I truly believe this job oppor­tu­nity will come to fruition.  I will soon be re-employed, and life will once again be back to some sem­blance of “normal”.

I have also picked back up my read­ing hobby, and I’m cur­rently work­ing on the Alex Cross series by James Pat­ter­son.  Pop Goes the Weasel is my cur­rent project.  It’s quite an intrigu­ing crime series, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The future is look­ing brighter, and tomor­row is another day.  Until then!

Filed Under: Blogging

WordPress vs. Thesis: It’s called stealing, Chris.

July 19, 2010 By

I have been fol­low­ing an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion online for the past sev­eral days between the founder of Word­Press, Matt Mul­len­weg, and the cre­ator of a pre­mium theme for Word­Press, Chris Pear­son.  The whole gist of the argu­ment is this:  Pear­son cre­ated a theme, called The­sis, and began sell­ing it.  In the devel­op­ment, he appar­ently copied sev­eral lines of code from the blogging/content man­age­ment plat­form Word­Press (which I use on this site). 

In doing so, Pear­son allegedly vio­lated the terms of the GNU Gen­eral Pub­lic License of Word­Press.  Now, I’m not a lawyer.  I’m rel­a­tively new to the whole GPL thing, and quite hon­estly don’t under­stand it all yet.  But what I do under­stand is this:

The GPL License gives a devel­oper the right to take a piece of soft­ware under the GPL, like Word­Press, and tin­ker with it to suit their needs.  It also gives that indi­vid­ual the right to dis­trib­ute that tin­kered soft­ware as he/she sees fit, as long as that soft­ware remains under the GPL.  It also gives that indi­vid­ual the abil­ity to charge for dis­trib­ut­ing that software.

How­ever, the GPL does not allow an indi­vid­ual to take or copy from soft­ware under the GPL and then place it under a pro­pri­etary license.  This is appar­ently what Chris Pear­son has done with his pre­mium theme The­sis.

Here’s some links for you to peruse regard­ing this topic:

  • The debate between Matt Mul­len­weg and Chris Pear­son on Mix­ergy is here.
  • Mark Jaquith, one of the core devel­op­ers of Word­Press, gives an intel­li­gent and very suc­cinct descrip­tion of why themes are con­sid­ered deriv­a­tive works of Word­Press and why they fall under the GPL.
  • Andy Skel­ton, another Word­Press con­trib­u­tor, talks about the pos­si­bil­ity of a new theme named after the whole brouhaha.
  • And then you have the other side, which claims that Matt Mul­len­weg is Marx­ist.  (Oy vey!!)

On a per­sonal note, I have had the plea­sure of meet­ing Mark, Andy, and Matt in Dal­las back in 2008 at Word­Camp.  These guys are all bril­liant, hard-working indi­vid­u­als who have devel­oped a won­der­ful tool for all of us aspir­ing blog­gers.  I see what they have done at Automat­tic and Word­Press as com­pletely within the realm of cap­i­tal­ism; after all, pre­mium theme devel­op­ers like WooThemes are mak­ing money hand over fist and are GPLed.

My advice to Chris?  Quit hold­ing out for the sake of hold­ing out and abide by the Gen­eral Pub­lic License, or take the Word­Press code out of The­sis.   Oth­er­wise you’re just steal­ing, and that is com­pletely uneth­i­cal and not good business.

Filed Under: Blogging, Wordpress Tagged With: , , ,

WP for Blackberry — Who knew?

July 8, 2010 By
pizza.jpg

I’m writ­ing this post from my black­berry. I stum­bled across this app just a few min­utes ago, and so far I’m lov­ing it! Now I can pretty much blog from anywhere.

If you are a Crack­berry addict and you have a blog, this app will be right up your alley. Here’s a phone photo to test out the full func­tion­al­ity of the app:

Co-workers at Tom's Extreme Pizza

Co-workers at Tom’s Extreme Pizza

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With:

In which I change blogging topics.

July 8, 2010 By

I’m sick of blog­ging about pol­i­tics.  There is just too much vit­riol out there.  I will say this right now:  I have not nor will I ever talk bad about any­one per­son­ally — espe­cially the lead­ers of our land.   Sure, I have talked about how much I dis­agree with their poli­cies and the direc­tion they’re tak­ing this coun­try.  I still dis­agree with the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion — and that’s to be expected.  I’m a con­ser­v­a­tive that believes in lim­ited gov­ern­ment and the free-market sys­tem.  I love cap­i­tal­ism; I love see­ing small busi­ness own­ers - and even big busi­ness own­ers — suc­ceed and become rich.  More often than not, they have worked their butts off for that accom­plish­ment.  And they take that money they make and turn right around and put it back into the economy.

But I think it’s time that take a break from pub­licly talk­ing about the polit­i­cal scene.  I will still talk about the oil spill and how it’s affect­ing my local area.  It’s dras­tic and dev­as­tat­ing, and it sad­dens and upsets me.  We have endured so much as a region in the past five years, and it seems the hits just come right on com­ing.  I’m won­der­ing how much more we can take.

But on a lighter note, I want to start blog­ging about my hobby — my only hobby — gam­ing.  I feel that I can con­tribute more to that topic than I can to pol­i­tics.  So, let it begin.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , ,

KSP: Kentucky Census Worker Committed Suicide

November 25, 2009 By

I haven’t blogged about this story at all in the past.  It has been widely cov­ered by other con­ser­v­a­tive blog­gers, namely Michelle Malkin, Robert Stacy McCain, and Dan Riehl.  It has also cre­ated a firestorm of lib­eral vs. con­ser­v­a­tive com­ments and posts:  Sites like the Daily Kos, Huff­in­g­ton Post, and The Daily Dish took every oppor­tu­nity to blame this on extreme right-wingers, anti-government folks, and even some talk show hosts and blog­gers (i.e., Glenn Beck and MM).  Now, whether they will ever admit it or not, these blog­gers are com­ing out with egg on their faces.

With that said, the Ken­tucky State Police inves­ti­ga­tion — aided by the FBI — has con­cluded the cen­sus worker, Bill Spark­man, staged his own death to appear like a homi­cide — one that would lead inves­ti­ga­tors and reporters to believe it was a mur­derer with strong anti-federal-government lean­ings.  Turns out it was the “vic­tim” who was the per­pe­tra­tor of the crime.  Full details are here.

Michelle Malkin in par­tic­u­lar took some pretty nasty hits dur­ing all of this, espe­cially from Andrew Sul­li­van.  Her cov­er­age is here and here.  Michelle truly is the shin­ing exam­ple of a pro­fes­sional in her field.  Mr. Stacy McCain, from what I’ve read, actu­ally did some report­ing from Ken­tucky and was able to get more of the story.  He’s even com­piled a list of those who blamed the con­ser­v­a­tives for Sparkman’s death.

Because of this firestorm, I have truly learned which sites are best avoided.  Of course, the Daily Kos and HuffPo are to be avoided with­out ques­tion.  But Lit­tle Green Foot­balls and the Daily Dish are also on the black­list.  These are sites which once touted they were con­ser­v­a­tive, but have for a while now been wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing.  So if you go to those sites, tread very care­fully and do your research.

Filed Under: Blogging, Crime, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Lesson in Liberalism

August 4, 2009 By

This morn­ing, I was drawn into quite an inter­est­ing debate with two lib­eral Twits…ones that appar­ently can’t think for them­selves.  Read the exchange below (copied directly from Twit­ter) and see who’s drink­ing their kool-aid, one glass right after another.  The first post, which started the whole thing, was by a LibTwit named @clairecelsi (@‘s omit­ted for clarity):

@clairecelsi:  Get­ting sick of read­ing about all the peo­ple who don’t believe Obama is an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen. It’s proven, get over it, move on.

Me (@ericleeus):  How has it been proven? Have you seen his Birth Cer­tifi­cate? Do you have a copy? If not, then it hasn’t.

@clairecelsi:   The doc­u­ment is in stor­age in Hawaii. The guy in charge of it says its authen­tic. That’s good enough for me. YOU go see it.

@ericleeus:  So I sup­pose if Obama told you the sky was pink, you would just believe it right? Sorry, not good enough.

@clairecelsi:  Chang­ing the sub­ject? Typ­i­cal stu­pid­ity. I’m on to your tactics.

@ericleeus:  No, it’s not chang­ing the sub­ject. It’s called illus­tra­tive comparison.

@ericleeus:  And you’re call­ing me “stu­pid”? That’s a typ­i­cal Demo­c­rat for you — call names if you can’t debate..I’m on to YOUR tactics.

And here’s where the sec­ond LibTwit chimes in…

@glynnwilcox:  actu­ally call­ing names is a tired [sic] and true GOP tac­tic. Mostly call­ing some­one unamer­i­can and the like ( :: ) send a bandaid 4 #hc

@ericleeus:  You have your par­ties con­fused — It’s the Democ­rats that have been call­ing peo­ple “Un-American.” I can give examples.

@ericleeus:  Tom Hanks, Nancy Pelosi, “Chucky” Shumer, Patrick Leahy, etc. — want me to go on?

@glynnwilcox:  so let me get this straight. After 8 years of any­time there was opo­si­tion any­one was called unamer­i­can. Ohhh okay so now it’s dif[ferent]

@ericleeus:  I don’t think so, bub…It was the DEMOCRATS call­ing the Repub­li­cans Anti-American & and war crim­i­nals for 8 years.

@glynnwilcox:  so water­board­ing = good Amer­i­can value? Really?

@ericleeus (I re-tweeted his asi­nine state­ment):  RT @glyn­nwilcox @eri­cleeus so water­board­ing = good Amer­i­can value? Really? ME: If it saves Amer­i­can lives, then YES! (It’s NOT torture.)

@ericleeus:  Way to change the sub­ject there, bub.

And that’s where the exchange ended…As you can see, when their argu­ment fell apart, one LibTwit resorted to name-calling and the other resorted to re-hashing a com­pletely off-topic debate — one that doesn’t “hold water”…he really did change the subject.

So class, the les­son here is — stick to facts when debat­ing lib­er­als.  They can’t stand it, and they can’t stand toe-to-toe with you.  You’ll win the debate every time.

Filed Under: Blogging, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Theme Changes

July 29, 2009 By

As you may have noticed, I switched back to an old theme yes­ter­day.  The rea­son for this is I am in the process of tweak­ing the “other” theme to bet­ter reflect the per­son­al­ity of this blog.  I sus­pect it may take a while, since I have “fallen off the bike” of web themes.  I’m also look­ing for a cus­tom theme for this site, so if any of you graphic design­ers would like to design my theme, please drop me a line.

I have decided to fur­ther mar­ket this blog as a conservative/political blog, mostly based on our cur­rent Government’s actions.  Let’s just say that I’m tired of sit­ting back and not really speak­ing out.  Things are about to get serious.

A co-worker (Hey L!) pointed me in the direc­tion of In The Fight, which I have joined today.  I urge you to please do the same if you’re sick and tired of Con­gress and Obama leg­is­lat­ing away your rights.  It’s soon going to hit us all that the coun­try our fathers and fore­fa­thers fought for is dis­ap­pear­ing right before our eyes.

I promise you — I will not go qui­etly into the night.  Thank you all, and God Bless!

Filed Under: Blogging, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Don’t Worry About Being Original

May 19, 2009 By

I’ve been wrestling lately with what to write about.  I guess I’ve had “blogger’s block” as well as fatigue from all the pol­i­tics and cur­rent events that have been hap­pen­ing.  So, as a pause from nor­mal blog­ging, here’s a lit­tle quote from one of my favorite authors:

Even in lit­er­a­ture and art, no man who both­ers about orig­i­nal­ity will ever be orig­i­nal: whereas if you sim­ply try to tell the truth (with­out car­ing twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become orig­i­nal with­out ever hav­ing noticed it.

– C. S. Lewis

So when you’re blog­ging, don’t worry about whether or not you’re being orig­i­nal.  Just blog what you think.  Just sit down with your favorite blog­ging pro­gram and write.  It’ll even­tu­ally come to you.  Happy blogging!

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , ,

No Twitter for You!

May 7, 2009 By

Appar­ently that’s what Biz Stone, co-founder of the most pop­u­lar microblog­ging site (which I use, by the way), said.  He told Bar­bara Wal­ters this dur­ing an inter­view on “The View”.

When host Bar­bara Wal­ters — men­tion­ing rumors that Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc might be inter­ested in acquir­ing the com­pany — asked whether Twit­ter is for sale, Stone answered, “no.”

I truly hope that they never cave to pres­sure to “sell out” to the “big” guys.  That’s what makes Twit­ter so unique and so pop­u­lar in my opin­ion.  It is its own island in a large ocean of social media.  Big­ger is not always bet­ter.  I feel that if Twit­ter were to sell out to Microsoft, Google, or Apple, we might start to see large adver­tise­ments pop­ping up in the header, side­bars, and footer of the page, slow­ing down the per­for­mance of the site.  I don’t know about you, but that would prob­a­bly cause me to stop using the service.

Appar­ently Twit­ter does plan to mon­e­tize its ser­vice this year.   I’m not sure what that will entail, but hope­fully it won’t involve huge ban­ner ads.  Sure, I know that com­pa­nies need to make money, and I hope the founders of Twit­ter are mak­ing lots of money.  But I digress…

Good answer, Biz Stone.  I’m glad you’re not sell­ing.  I’m anx­ious to see what changes will be com­ing and ser­vices you’re plan­ning to offer, and I look for­ward to see­ing what the future holds for Twitter.

Source:  Reuters

Filed Under: Blogging, Internet Tagged With: , ,
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