Swedegeek’s Blog

In reply to a post on my brother’s own blog on why he sucks, I decided to come up my own list on why he sucks. After living with him for over fifteen years solid, then off and on during my college years, there is plenty I could write. Fortunately for him (and the rest of us), a lot of those points of suckage don’t apply anymore. There are plenty that still do, however. After quite a bit of effort, I boiled the list down to ten. This is by no means comprehensive. Enjoy! (more…)

I vaguely remember first hearing the words of the Golden Rule when I was about four years old. For some reason, I recall a book with a bee on it in our church nursery that had a nice little story. It was the first place I heard (probably didn’t learn) one of the most important lessons in life.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

In reality, that’s probably not the easiest concept for a young child to grasp. However, you’d think more people actually capable of understanding the notion would try to follow it… most of the time… even occasionally… at all! (more…)

It’s official. 2006 was the year of user-generated content. With the likes of YouTube and MySpace in the vanguard, end-users finally became what really mattered on the Internet. With those two sites alone cashing in over $2.5 billion on acquisition deals, more than a few took notice of all the content being created by countless, nameless and often unpaid Internet users. (more…)

Everyone knows politics is a dangerous game to play. However, not many would consider being mayor in a village of 37 residents could be downright deadly. Yet, the mayor of a little town in Spain has found that to be the case. (more…)

Though it was posted over a year ago, I just read an article by Eric Kidd over at Random Hacks titled Why Ruby is an acceptable LISP. It appears to be one of several “is (not) an acceptable” entires related to Lisp on Reddit. Anyway, Eric gives a good match-up between these two languages. Lisp is the über-cool and Ruby is the über-popular. (more…)

Well, I certainly won’t be calling my good friends over at Com-crap anytime soon, but I will most assuredly getting HBO sometime in the next few years. A few days ago, Variety broke a story revealing HBO bought rights to the “Song of Fire & Ice” series. The currently 4-book series is definitely my favorite fantasy series immediately after Lord of the Rings. This is very cool news! (more…)

If you didn’t guess, I’ve been doing some reading on writing lately. Lately, I’ve been trying to post a little more frequently, so I thought I should get better at the whole writing thing. Granted, I’ve come a long way since trying to pen that fantasy novel in seventh grade on a early model IBM PC (don’t ask, I’ve forgotten the entire plot… really!), but composition still doesn’t feel natural to me. There also a few writing projects that are coming my soon, so I figured I could learn a few tricks before I tackled them. (more…)

On Saturday, we headed to Ann Arbor to see Megan’s long time friend Evan. She was in town from San Diego along with her husband Keith to visit her brother and his family, along with her parents who flew in from Billings. Megan’s dad has even been close friends with Evan’s father since grade school, so the ties go way back. Being only 50 miles away, Megan wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to spend some time with them. (more…)

Latter Half of 2006 in Review… with Photos!

Well, here I am again after a rather lengthy hiatus. (I haven’t blogged since last year!) I had a pretty decent streak of postings within about a month this summer, but I apparently fell off the blogging deep end after that. So, to get back on track, here’s a quick rundown of the rest of my 2006 with photos when available. (more…)

Posting from Billings, MT as we’re here for my wife’s high school reunion. This trip out of Lansing is very much welcome. Better yet, with my reunion next weekend, we get another vacation only 3 days after this one!

Since we flew out to MT (get to drive 650 miles to MN next week), we had the joy of going through security at the Lansing airport yesterday afternoon. Everything was fine, until my carry-on bag needed to be scanned again. Odd. Then, they needed to search my bag. Even more odd. The TSA employee went right to my side pocket and dug down to the bottom. He pulled a pocket knife out of my bag. It was the smallest swiss army model you can get… tiny blade, file, toothpick, tweezers, that’s it. I hadn’t seen that thing in over a year. Oops! Dialogue then went like so:

“Is this your pocket knife, sir?”
“Yep.”
“You know you can’t have this in carry-on luggage?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have any checked luggage, sir?”
“Nope.”
“Would you like to check this bag, sir?”
“Nope.”
“Would you like to bring the knife back out to your car, sir?”
“Nope.”
“Would you like me to confiscate the knife?”
“Yep.”

That was the end of my pocket knife, or at least my possession of it. The TSA employee walked off and deposited it in some metal bin in the wall to join its contraband cousins confiscated from countless other unwitting passengers. I know the TSA is just doing its job, and I’m thankful for the additional security, but I was still amused for some reason. The guy just seemed so full of himself for thwarting any dubious plans I may have had for the little pocket knife that I didn’t even realize I had with me. Good job pulling something out of a bag that a machine told you was there!

I guess this isn’t really much of a rant, but my point is I think the TSA could use some interpersonal skills training so they at least act like they’re a little more understanding when it’s obvious people have unintentionally violated one of their policies.