2005-09-01: I intended to mention these issues a while back, but they kept slipping through the cracks in my memory:

            Indicted music producer Phil Spector lives close to here, near my office.  During my commute to my office on 2005-06-30, I saw

            five helicopters circling the sky above his home.  I'm wondering what the reason was for this incident...

            While the family and I were shopping for a piano in Arcadia, a guy named Sean noticed the humongous dent on the front left

            fender on my minivan and offered to fix it.  He let me name my price because he's desperate for work.  I forget exactly how

            much I payed him for his service, but I remember that I payed him less than $50.00, and he did a great job.  I would have

            payed him more if I could have afforded it at the time.  I promised Sean that I would mention his service and his phone number

            here.  You can reach him at (626) 975-7932.

            2005-07-30: I think that I have officially broken into the music business, but I don't want to think such for sure just yet.  The

            Lost Boys of Penzance recorded a surf instrumental rendition of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" for Cordelia Records'

            "Beyond the Sea" surf instrumental compilation album, and I served as associate producer for this track.  You can hear the track

            for yourself here.  Watch out, John Boylan!

            2005-06-19: The traffic signals at the intersection of Huntington Drive and Crestfield Drive in Duarte (see 2005-04-29 below)

            are now operational.  (According to my wife, they became operational during the week, but I think that she was mistaken.)

            2005-06-19: I got an HP Photosmart M407 digital camera for Father's Day.  The first image to grace its internal memory is now

            available for viewing in my image gallery.

            2005-06-19: Air-Tro is installing central heating and air conditioning in our home.  The installation is not yet complete but it

            is fully functional.  Ahhh...

            2005-05-19: In my 2004-01-13 entry, I mentioned St. Joseph's Chapel on the grounds of Santa Teresita Hospital.  According

            to this page, some orthodox Jesuit priests are sent there as punishment...for being orthodox!  I'm sad for their punishment, 

            but at least St. Joseph's Chapel benefits from their presence...

            By the way, Penraker seems to run a good Catholic blog.

            2005-05-19: A Duarte resident with the probable name of Roy Watson had a fit of road rage last night while driving in

            Pasadena and pointed a handgun at a couple that may have been the focus of his rage.  The couple managed to avoid him,

            record the license plate number and description of his vehicle, and report the incident to the California Highway Patrol. 

            Watson was arrested at his residence later last night for brandishing a handgun.  (If you find a web page that mentions this

            incident, please notify me of the link.)

            2005-05-18: I don't know about you, but I don't want myself or any other person to be unwillfully subjugated to Islam, and

            I definitely don't want to see Jews slaughtered.  Muslim cleric Ibrahim Mudayris has a different take on these issues.  I hope

            that you're not offended by American soldiers flushing a copy of the Qur'an (or Koran) down a toilet -- I'm not offended by

            anyone flushing a copy of the Bible down a toilet.

            2005-05-18: At this page you can read my response to Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for American president.

            2005-05-07: Does anyone remember IBM's (now Hitachi's) Deskstar series of hard drives, more affectionately known to us

            information technology professionals as the "DeathStar" series?  Certain Deskstar models had a high failure rate within warranty

            period -- about seven out of every ten units, from what I had read in the IT trade magazines.  Yesterday, I received an

            official notice from the District Court of Burleson County, Texas, 21st Judicial District.  Someone had filed a class action suit

            against IBM regarding the failures of many Deskstar 75GXP hard drives, and IBM has finally agreed to a settlement without

            admitting wrongdoing.  Details of the settlement can be found here.  If you want to discover if a computer's hard drive is a

            Deskstar 75GXP, I think that you can use this utility to do so.  If you want support with an IBM/Hitachi hard drive, go here.

            2005-05-02: I was recently a fourth-generation recipient of the following email:

            Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to STARBUCKS because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and

            to request that they send some of it to the troops there.

            STARBUCKS replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support in their business, but that STARBUCKS does not support the

            war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.

            So as not to offend STARBUCKS, we should not support them by buying any of their products.  As a war vet writing to fellow

            patriots, I feel we should get this out in the open.  I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't

            mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street-to-street and house-to-house for what they and I believe is

            right.

            If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and no one will never know.  Thanks very much for your

            support of me, and I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.

            Semper Fidelis

            Sgt Howard C. Wright
            1st Force Recon Co 1st Plt

            It seems to me that Starbucks Coffee is on the wrong side of the American-Iraqi conflict, and has made a very bad public

            relations blunder in not supporting American troops.  I give it credit for standing by its political philosophy, though.

            2005-04-29: The City of Duarte is erecting traffic signals at the intersection of Huntington Drive and Crestfield Drive.  (You

            can see a map of the intersection here.)  I have personally considered this notion in the past and concluded that it might be

            a good idea, given that a few of the students at Andres Duarte Elementary School live on or north of Huntington Drive

            between Mount Olive Drive and Las Lomas Avenue.  (Andres Duarte Elementary school is located here.  It actually occupies

            most of the land bounded by Crestfield Drive, Bloomdale Street, Mount Olive Drive and Central Avenue.)

            2005-04-27: One of Larry Elder's former interns is now a student at University of California, Berkeley.  Today Larry had him

            as a call-in guest on his radio show to report on the high percentage of liberal professors at UCB and the skewed rants of

            the former intern's economics professor.  When Larry solicited calls from other economics students to testify for or against

            similar situations in their own universities, I called the show to inform Larry and his former intern about the reality of this

            situation: not only is this a prevalent problem nowadays, but it's been a significant problem for at least twenty years.  (Mine

            was the first call that Larry took.)  I'll wager that the problem has been significant for at least thirty years, maybe forty.

            When I took an economics class at Citrus College in 1986, the professor constantly took potshots at then-President Reagan

            and any prominent conservative economics pundits that he could remember.  (I think that we all should agree that a classroom

            should be a place for teaching and learning truth, not teaching and learning biased opinions promulgated as truth.)  There was

            a small faction of decidedly conservative students in that class, of which I was a member.  The professor browbeat us on a

            regular basis for daring to differ with him.  Also, despite our relatively good performances in that class, each of us received a

            "D" or an "F" as a final grade.  Grade protests at Citrus College are only pursued if the grading professors teach in the quarter

            following that in which the protested grades were given.  When I tried to protest my grade, I was denied -- my economics

            professor had (conveniently) gone on sabbatical.

            Is it just me, or is there a problem with liberal college professors bashing their opponents and pushing an agenda?

            2005-04-26: One of the hot issues of the day is the Civil Homeland Defense Corps' Minuteman Project, a group of citizens

            that are disgruntled about the relative lack of protection of America's borders (particularly the southern border).  I sympathize

            with this group -- President Bush has made much ado about defending America against terrorism, but is now doing very little

            (if anything) to plug up this gaping hole in America's defense system.  Some have alleged that the conservative power brokers

            in Washington are turning their backs on this issue because they actual condone the admission of illegal immigrants to fill

            America's need for cheap labor, and furthermore this is an opportunity for them to grab more of America's Hispanic vote.  Some

            have alleged that the liberal power brokers in Washington are keeping their backs to this issue to protect the rights of illegal

            immigrants (as if America actually grants such rights) and thus retain what share of America's Hispanic vote that they have. 

            This is wrong.  Don't get me wrong; I feel for all immigrants.  Their descendants comprise the bulk of America's populace.  But

            America also needs to be defended properly.  If I were an immigrant to America, *I* would want it to be secure as well...how

            foolish is it to migrate to an unsafe country?  So I've signed NumbersUSA's petition to secure America's borders immediately. 

            If you agree with me on this issue, please sign it yourself as soon as possible.

            2005-03-31: The Catholic Church has officially denounced Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.  Some might say that

            the Church overstepped its bounds in criticizing a mere fictional story, but it has a larger purpose in mind.  As I pointed out in

            2004-07-04 blog entry below, Brown believes that the Priory of Sion is a true institution.  He wrote The Da Vinci Code to

            disseminate this "truth" to the public.  The Church issued the denouncement to combat this purpose.  I'm still worried,

            though.  The movie version, starring Tom Hanks as the story's protagonist, is in production as I type this.  Many more people

            will watch the movie than read the book, and the Church's denouncement will probably be forgotten by the time of the

            movie's release...

            2005-03-26: Today a neighboring family visited us.  The father is an IT guy like me, so we were holed up in the house

            talking shop.  The mothers and daughters were playing badminton outside when they noticed the peak of the migration of

            painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui), and called for us fathers to witness the spectacle -- and a spectacle it was!  It

            was such a notable migration that this page makes mention of it.

            2005-01-24: The City of Duarte will commemorate the 200th birthday of Andrés Avelino Duarte, the founder of what is now

            the cities of Duarte and Azusa, late this year.  The Duarte Historical Society is raising funds to commission a sculptor to

            sculpt a statue of Duarte mounted on a horse.  More information about this project can be found here.  Donations for the

            project can be submitted at the following locations:

            J & A's Café

            1418 East Huntington Drive

            Duarte

            The Green Onion Restaurant

            1355 East Huntington Drive (in the Big Lots! shopping center)

            Duarte

            The UPS Store - Duarte

            1191 East Huntington Drive (in the Ralph's shopping center)

            Duarte

            La Paloma Restaurant

            1312 East Duarte Road (in the strip mall)

            Duarte

            Los 3 Amigos Restaurant

            217 East Foothill Boulevard

            Monrovia

            2005-01-24: Sara has kicked me off of the breakfast and lunch portions of the South Beach Diet.  This is a more pleasant

            thing, but I'm not sure if it's a good thing...

            2005-01-23: Sara and I spent the weekend packing out the cabin.  I think that the last time that I worked so hard was when

            I worked for 2½ days non-stop at Computer Rental Center.  Whew!

            2005-01-17: Sara and I started on the South Beach Diet today.  Ugh!

            2005-01-16: I sat next to Duarte City Councilmember John Fasana at mass today.  This was the first time that I'd seen him

            at Immaculate Conception Parish, although it is the designated parish for Duarteans.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance

            to speak with him about his support of California Senator Carol Liu (see 2004-11-03 entry).  I could always email him, but I

            would much rather confront him in person...

            2005-01-13: I found out that Arrowhead Property Rental has listed our Twin Peaks cabin.  If you want to see proof, go here

            and look for "26574 Lake Forest Drive".

            2005-01-02: I chalked up another first today: I drove through a snowfall.  It was only a light flurry, but it was a first for me

            nonetheless, so I'm claiming it.

            2005-01-01: My boss graciously gave me yesterday as a paid vacation day, so Sara and I took the kids up to our cabin.  We

            were joined by Sara's ex-husband's family and their daughter's family.  Today I experienced two firsts: I saw snow fall in my

            presence, and I rode a snowboard.  Snowboarding is basically the same as skateboarding, but one's feet are affixed to the

            snowboard, the shifting of one's body weight in order to turn and preserve one's balance requires much greater precision, and

            the terrain is much less predictable.  I picked up the basics on my first downhill run, but it took me another five runs to figure

            out how to travel almost the entire run without falling and how to stop myself with some grace.  The snowboarding action

            happened at Snow Valley Ski Area.

            2004-12-04: Sara submitted our Twin Peaks cabin to Arrowhead Property Rental for evaluation.  If all goes well, APR will be

            the property management firm that will manage the rental of the cabin.

            2004-12-01: I came across some funny computer-themed haiku while researching IT-related log analysis.  You can find it at

            the bottom of this page.  That page has a link to another page with more haiku, and that page has a link to yet another page

            with the same haiku.

            2004-11-20: My stepgrandson's soccer team, the Red Bulls, played its final game for the end of the regular American Youth

            Soccer Association (AYSO) season today.  They won 4-0 over the opposing team, the Sharks.  The Red Bulls and their

            families (including us) celebrated with an ice cream party at the Scoops ice cream parlor in Monrovia.

            2004-11-18: NEWSMEAT is a political news site with a liberal slant, but it has a very enlightening tool: a campaign

            contribution search tool.  It appears immediately beneath the site banner near the top of the home page.

            On NEWSMEAT's home page I recently found a link to this article about Barbara L'Italien, a pro-choice legislator for the state

            of Massachusetts who is also an active Catholic practitioner in her local parish.  The new pastor of her parish is repeatedly

            asking her to step down from her positions as leader of the parish's youth choir and cantor, which I applaud.  However, the

            pastor is making a bigger mistake -- he's still allowing her to receive Communion!  Tsk, tsk!  Representative L'Italien should

            read my 2004-11-03 blog entry below.

            2004-11-18: The PCs that gave me the the dreaded Windows XP "Access is denied" login error message on 2004-09-29

            (see blog entry below) began doing so again.  I used NTRights once more to save the day.  I hope that this doesn't become

            a regular event...

            2004-11-14: Finances have become quite tight, so Sara and I have decided to rent out our Twin Peaks cabin, at least for

            a year.  We're going to miss it.

            2004-11-03: My parents bumped into Duarte City Councilmember John Fasana shortly before the election.  He mentioned to

            them that he was voting for California Senator Carol Liu.  Senator Liu's stands on God's five non-negotiable issues mirrors that

            of U.S. Senators Kerry and Edwards (see table below).  If I remember correctly, Councilmember Fasana is a practicing Catholic,

            which makes his sinful vote for Senator Liu even more dire.  I support Mayor Fasana on most of the issues facing Duarte

            nowadays, but in light of his support of Senator Liu, I may have to withdraw my support of him and hope for a candidate that

            shares his ambitions for Duarte but not his association with anti-Christian politicians.

            While I'm mentioning Senator Liu, let me point out that her husband is the president of the California Public Utilities Commission! 

            Can you say "conflict of interest"?

            2004-11-03: Lord, Thy will be done!  I offer my heartfelt thanks to all of you who chose to uphold God's will by voting for

            President Bush instead of Senator Kerry.  For those of you who favor Senator Kerry for the presidency, read the Voter's

            Guide for Serious Catholics or the Voter's Guide for Serious Christians, then look at this table:

            The "moral vote" that has been touted much as the reason for the victory of the Republican ticket refers to those voters

            that vote, probably knowingly, in accordance with God's will.  As you can see in the aforementioned table, President Bush

            and Vice President Cheney far more uphold God's will in regard to the five non-negotiable issues than Senators Kerry and

            Edwards do.  Can God depend on you to oppose the five non-negotiable issues in all future elections in which you will

            participate?

            Today I encountered my first problem.  After installing Windows XP Service Pack 2 on two PCs, the domain users that had

            been granted access on them could no longer log on interactively.  I used this solution to fix one of them, but when I tried

            the solution on the other PC, I got the dreaded "Access is denied" error message.  Then I turned to Georg Zanzen's NTRights

            utility (which is bundled with the tool distributions of the Windows 2000 Resource Kits and the Windows Server 2003

            Resource Kit), and can be downloaded freely in Zipped form from here).  Here is where the troubleshooting got tricky.  All of

            the examples for usage of NTRights that I found on the Internet are examples of remote management.  I tried to fix the

            rights of the affected domain users on this problematic PC using NTRights on a remote PC, and my only result was the

            following error message:

                        ***error*** openpolicy -1073610729

            Now what?  I searched the Internet for the meaning of this error.  I only found a handful of other complaints about this

            error, but no explanations or solutions.  Then the idea came to me: something on the PC is stopping remote modification of

            2004-06-27: DSL installation has begun.  Part of the installation process is the deployment of Microsoft's MSN online service, and

            the installation process seems to be hung at this point.  *sigh*  It's a good thing that perseverance is part of my character.

            2004-06-26: Sara and I attended the retirement party of her supervisor.  She masterminded all of most of the party, so I had to

            go.  It turned out to be rather fun.  The party started at Hollywood Park.  I just wish that I had done two things while I was there:

                        1. Bet some money on a box Trifecta for the sixth race.  I would have won at least several hundred dollars!

                        2. Shot the #7 horse in the ninth race!  This horse had 35-1 odds when it left the gate, and it placed!  I would have won

                        at least several hundred dollars if it would have finished in fourth place or later!  Oh, well...it's only money...

            The party moved to the retiring supervisor's home, not far from the home of my father's youngest brother and his family.  Some of

            the family were gathered there to celebrate my grandmother's 88th birthday and the 21st birthday of one of my cousins.  Alas, the

            retirement party endured too long for us to get to the birthday party.  *sob*

            2004-06-25: Sara gave me my final Father's Day gift for the year: Verizon Online DSL!  I'd been waiting for it to fit into our budget,

            and now it finally does.  However, this might be one gift horse to look in the mouth.  Our house is more than 19000 feet from the CO

            (central office) that provides our DSL service -- significantly greater than DSL's inherent limitation of 18000 feet, and drastically

            greater than Verizon's own west-coast internal limitation of approximately 14500 feet.  The connection should either not work at all

            or be slower than dialup.  However, I want high-speed Internet at home so badly that I can taste it, so I will install it during the

            weekend and find out.