Lyrics | Dropkick Murphys – I’m Shipping Up To Boston lyrics

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’? -Friedrich Nietzsche

Published in Morning Call on February 6, 2010:

Susan R. Kernechel, 49, of Coopersburg died Wednesday, February 3, in her home. She was the wife of Calvin Kernechel to whom she was married for more than 24 years. Born in Philadelphia, she was the daughter of the late William and Willetta Dolly (Schmitt) Pashley. She was a member of Bethel Baptist Church, Sellersville, where she taught Sunday School, was a youth advisor and ministered to shut-ins. Survivors: Surviving with her husband are son, Nicholas Nick Kernechel at home; daughters, Jacqueline Jacquie Kernechel Brennan, Philadelphia, Chrystal Kernechel Blanton, Spartanburg, SC.

Services: 7 p.m. Monday, February 8, in Bethel Baptist Church, Sellersville. Call 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday in the church. The Jeffrey A. Naugle Funeral Home, 20 N. Ambler St., Quakertown is in charge of arrangements. Interment in Chestnut Hill Union Cemetery, Coopersburg. Contributions: Bethel Christian Education Trust Fund, Bethel Baptist Church, 754 E. Rockhill Road, Sellersville, PA 18960

Note: I am looking for a more recent photo, will post if I can find one

I hadn’t heard much about this company, and was surprised at the outlandish Superbowl ad’s. Big names, big greed.

Didn’t we used to have a Consumer Protection Agency?

Cash4Gold Complaints – Former employee exposing the scams of Cash4Gold.

I’m glad I ran across this story about a student questioning Justice Scalia while on his book tour. Her question was simple; Why aren’t cameras allowed in the Supreme Court even though the court hearings are open, transcripts are available and the court’s justices are open enough to go “out on book tours.”?

“Read the next question,” Scalia replied. “That’s a nasty, impolite question.”

I’m left wondering what inner-fear Sarah tread so close to that would elicit such a response from a man that is bigger, older and supposedly more mature…

U.S. Supreme Court justice shows confidence, combativeness at West Palm Beach forum — Law.com.

Florida Student Asks Scalia a Question — and Gets Scolded

On honesty:

For whatever reason you refuse to feel this space we’re in, to know its insanity, really know it; whatever your particular anesthetic is, that you hold onto so desperately (the thing, I mean, that makes you think you know who you are); whatever that thing is you allow to keeps you sane, your ace in the hole, the psyche that keeps you trying to guess what your pimp has in store for you; whatever keeps you from screaming out at this very moment in absolute and sheer horror; whatever you fuck your brain with; whatever that is— whatever that is— it’s a lie, it’s a lie.
-Alabama 3

Whenever I’m making a decision that I feel I am ‘emotionally’ involved in, such as answering a question from my (almost 19 y.o.) daughter: “Do you like my new tattoo?” I’ve learned to try and ask myself a question before answering… This question has helped me enormously in my relations with others, and uncovered some startling facts about myself (startling to me, perhaps you would find them obvious).

Now, if I need to decide which screw-driver to use for a job, I consider that a relatively ‘emotion-less’ decision, a decision not based on self, but based on more practical things such as a #2 Phillips for a #2 screw-head, a short one for tight spaces, etc., etc.

I try to ask myself: “Am I making this decision coming from a place of fear? Or love?”

If I ask myself whether I am making a decision based on fear, or love, I find myself regretting decisions much less. I experience less second-thoughts where I am arm-chair quarter-backing my past/recent decisions.

When answering my daughter’s question from above, my first thought is: “WTF? You got ANOTHER one? Why the hell do you keep doing this?” And yes, that would generally be exactly what rolled off my tongue, and I would often find myself apologizing for it later (I mean: C’mon, what benefit, for either of us, was gained by my saying that?).

When I ask myself that question before answering, in the example above concerning my daughter, I realize that first response is probably not coming from a place of love, And if it’s not coming from a place of love, there’s a good chance it’s fear-based. This might not make much difference to some, but I really don’t like the idea of fear having that much ‘control’ in my life. I like to think of myself as being able to go through life without acting as if each moment was a fight-or-flight survival issue. I am exaggerating, but it’s for a point.

The message that I think is more important, for my daughter and myself, is that I love her, and that there is a fundamental bond that does not deserve to be corrupted by my fear that somehow she is displaying the ‘wrong’ image (wrong being the image that my solitary experience dictates is not good, bad, cheap, etc., etc.), and that will reflect badly on me, her, and life as I live it in general.

So, regardless of what I am thinking, I reply: “Wow” And then ask about another design or placement. I’ll try to find something a shade less judgmental then “WTF?”

And I will sleep better. I will have more peace in my heart. In my younger years I had little value for either of those things; I lived a cheap life.

A friend of mine approached me and asked about cleaning up a WWII era photo of his Father (Holtmeier) and other B-24 crew members taken in England in 1944. Unfortunately the photo was missing emulsion (the part of the print paper that actually contains the ‘image’) but I think the historical significance and character of the men (and the note on the back) more then make up for this.

As you can see from the finished photo (low-res here, for web display) I took the notes from the back of the photo and placed them to the right ((Willie Bardwell (Ala.), Joe Kinney (NY), Holtmeier (PA), Dick Kennedy (My radio oper., NY), Dave Fulton (VHF Relay oper., PA))).

Though I am happy with the results, that’s not the reason for this post. I did a quick search for the 489th (just curious) and found, amongst other things, the following information:

• Constituted as 489th Bombardment Group (Heavy) on 14 September 1943.
• Activated on 1 October 1943. Trained with B-24′s.
• Moved to England, April~May 1944, and assigned to Eighth AF.
• Entered combat on 30 May 1944, and during the next few days concentrated on targets in France in preparation for the Normandy invasion.
• In an attack against coastal defenses near Wimereaux on 5 June 1944, the group’s lead plane was seriously crippled by enemy fire, its pilot was killed, and the deputy group commander, Lt Col Leon R Vance Jr, who was commanding the formation, was severely wounded; although his right foot was practically severed, Vance took control of the plane, led the group to a successful bombing of the target, and managed to fly the damaged aircraft to the coast of England, where he ordered the crew to bail out; believing a wounded man had been unable to jump, he ditched the plane in the Channel and was rescued. For his action during this mission, Vance was awarded the Medal of Honor.
• The group supported the landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, and afterward bombed coastal defenses, airfields, bridges, railroads, and V-weapon sites in the campaign for France. The 489th began flying missions into Germany in July, and engaged primarily in bombing strategic targets such as factories, oil refineries and storage plants, marshaling yards, and airfields in Ludwigshafen, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Saarbrucken, and other cities until November 1944.
• Other operations included participating in the saturation bombing of German lines just before the breakthrough at St. Lo in July, dropping food to the liberated French and to Allied forces in France during August and September, and carrying food and ammunition to Holland later in September.
• Returned to the US, November~December 1944, to prepare for redeployment to the Pacific theater. Re-designated 489th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) in March 1945. Equipped with B-29′s. Alerted for movement overseas in the summer of 1945, but war with Japan ended before the group left the US. Inactivated on 17 October 1945.

It occurred to me that this was more then just an old photo needing re-touching, that there was a historical significance, if for no one else then the families and friends of these men.

If you are related to any of these men, or have any interest in access to the original hi-res digital photo, feel free to contact me.

More info (wikipedia) can be found here.

This began as a casual note, a reminder, if you will, to techsupport (at) text-link-ads.com. It escalated to where I wondered just how Text-Link-Ads (a MediaWhiz Holdings, Inc. Company) developed it’s hiring practices…

Having signed up I was directed to download a plugin for WordPress. I noticed it was a raw PHP file (rarely done because of character filtering/translating going between file systems), but I figured they must know what they’re doing (isn’t there a Murphy’s Law about that?). But once activated, their plugin spewed an error and deactivated (thank you WordPress, several months ago it would have killed my blog as their wasn’t any such ‘safety’ feature then). I took a look and realized they were making the common mistake of calling upgrade-functions.php (which has been on it’s way out since the 2.0 branch started and has only been included for backward compatibility).

I’m running 2.3b3 but I thought I should drop a note to Text-Link-Ads support and remind them. Shortly after I emailed them, I received this one-line response from Jonathan Dingman (Product Manager):

InLinks only works on WordPress 2.0 or higher.

Obviously I mis-communicated. So I wrote back that 2.3 > 2.0 and “If you’re not even going to check this, please pass it on to someone who will?” I got another quick response with two lines this time:

2.3 is not officially out and we do not support it yet.

It’s still in beta until the 24th of September.

Now, that last email from Jonathan Dingman was dated Sep 13, 2007, at 2:04 PM, 11 days before the ETA for 2.3. So I gather Text-Link-Ads has no concern over people already using their plugin who will upgrade to 2.3, but only those who may download the plugin after Sep 13, 2007.

Like Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg said in The Fifth Element: “I know this music…”

PS: Received this from Jonathan Dingman about a half hour later:”After speaking to the lead developer, we are going to work on a fix for this and we will have it available before 2.3 is released.” Glad to hear somebody over there is on the ball. Or willing to play the ball. Or accept the ball.

I received an email from site5.com’s tech support this morning, titled: Scheduled Maintenance Notification.

Fighting back tears of joy and relief, I opened it and noted it warned of IMAP irregularities to be expected due to server upgrades. It contained a list of specific servers and their dates of upgrade with a detailed description of exactly what might be effected from a customer’s point of view.

I felt as if a long lost friend has finally awakened from a coma (see other posts re: Network Solutions here and here). My friend, buddy and co-conspirator, tech support, had finally awakened! How I missed the days of openly communicating problems, solutions and ideas…

Ok, big group hug now…  *sniff*