The second most dangerous thing in the entire world is a person under the influence of alcohol.

The most dangerous thing in the entire world is two people under the influence of alcohol.

Perhaps I exaggerate a bit. Still, it is impossible to carry on a rational conversation. No good decisions are made. Only regrets remain in the aftermath of lives damaged, if not destroyed.

As for myself, I hope to live my life free of alcohol starting now. It will be difficult in subtle ways; alcohol is a part of the social fabric of society. It is the one drug that is accepted, although its effects are well documented. Deaths due to accidents caused by drug drivers are but one statistic. How many marriages end due to the substance? How many lives--adult and child alike--are scarred?

I am pleased to see more and more restaurants voluntarily adopting a no smoking policy. That is the way it should be; government should not force the issue. If a restaurant wishes to cater to smokers, non-smokers are free to patronize other restaurants if they wish.

I'll go to restaurants that serve alcohol in the future. I'll be the one drinking water or at most, a diet soda.

All is right in Marinerville. Edgar returns to the lineup, strokes a homer and a two-run single. Edgar adds much needed pop to the team who’ve not scared many teams this season, especially in close games. Hopefully Edgar and other key members of the team who have been dinged up--Bret Boone, Mark McLemore and Jeff Nelson notable among them--will remain healthy. If Jeff Cirillo can continue hitting during the rest of the season as well as he did during inter-league play, we can look forward to the post season again and another shot at the D*&n Yankees.

Did you know that the judge who wrote the opinion on the Pledge of Allegiance ruling was appointed by President Nixon? That explains a great deal. He’s been on that particular bench since at least 1972. He is a "senior judge"--a sort of semi retired status that judges assume while their replacements are confirmed by the Senate. That is, if the Senate would vote on President Bush’s nominees for the many vacancies in Federal courts around the country.

If that’s not reason enough to vote Republican this Fall, I don’t know what is. Get Senator Patrick Leahy of the People’s Republic of Vermont out of the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and let sanity return to the process of confirming judicial appointees. Also, I hope that the people "represented" by those who voted against the House of Representative's resolution in support of the Pledge of Allegiance throw the bums out when they next come up for re-election.

And let's prevent this senior judge from inflicting any more "senior moments" on the people of the United States of America.

In case you need it, here is the Pledge of Allegiance in its entirety:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

It boggles the mind that a US Federal Court ruled the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States unconstitutional today. This would have to go down as the penultimate moment, the "high tide" of Political Correctness in America.

For some years now, the majority of Americans have been assailed by "incrementalism". That is, small assaults on traditions and practices of the mainstream that are couched by the PC crowd as harmful to the sensitivities of minorities, whether those minorities be racial, political, disabled, or even "people of size". I certainly do not advocate racism, or prejudicial behavior against individuals because of the group that they ostensibly belong to. However, it makes no sense for the sensitivities of a few to be used against the practices of the majority in cases where it is perfectly acceptable for the minority to "opt out".

No one forces school children to repeat the Pledge in whole or in part. That alone should have been enough for the court to dismiss the case.

What next? Will the Chaplains in Congress, the military and other governmental offices be dismissed? Will the word God be struck from public buildings and our currency? Will the Supreme Court no longer invoke God’s name before its sessions begin? Will the President no longer swear an oath on a Bible repeated by the Chief Justice?

I believe that the public outcry over this travesty will compel the Justice Department to appeal the ruling, where it will be overturned without delay. The judges should be ashamed of themselves, and the person who filed the suit originally should find productive work peeling vegetables or filling potholes so that he does not have time to file such silly actions and waste the public’s time and money.

Wa-hoo! We accomplished quite a bit today. My wife and I hung pictures and cleared out 12 boxes of DVDs, CDs, and equipment from an area upstairs we--I--had let go too long. We are close to finishing up our move-in--only 6 months after the fact.

Thank you, Mark Cuban. I watched the Mariners beat Houston today on HDNet. What a picture! If you are thinking of getting HDTV, HBO HD and HDNet are awesome on DirecTV.

Unfortunately, our home is blocked from direct line of sight of Seattle's TV antennas by several land formations. I had an expert out to test for HDTV signal strength to determine whether an antenna would work; unfortunately, the answer was no.

Therefore, I hope that the merger between Dish Network and DirecTV goes through. I hope that the FCC will mandate that they carry all available HDTV channels as part of their effort to move HDTV forward. I do not believe that consumers will suffer; cable has the lion's share of the TV transmission market.

If you do not have HDTV, get it. And write your representative to tell them to support the merger and support the roll-out of HDTV nationwide.

Within the next week, we will finally clear up most if not all of the remaining move-in items in our new home. We have been too busy to hang our pictures, and too entertained to worry much about putting away CDs, photos and the like. We have a hard deadline next Saturday night; we expect to be ready well before then.

I am typing this on Kathy’s rebuilt laptop. Finally, I think that it’s done. Now, on to the desktop upstairs!

The dogs definitely prefer air conditioning, even though the thermometer barely touches the high seventies. They wouldn’t last long in Georgia, where I grew up. Our high here is equivalent to the "cool of the morning" there. They are pretty good dogs, even if they are wimps. The tile floor should be as cool as the underside of the pillow for them.

Hurray! After a 2 1/2 hour drive trying to avoid delays due to accidents, I finally arrived home where my beautiful wife had burgers ready for grilling and beers ready for drinking. Refreshed after my long drive, I tackled her laptop with a vengeance. After a brief battle, it yielded--it is ours! It is with this machine that I write this.

The only hitch in the giddy up, as my Dad would say, was Microsoft's product activation process for Microsoft Office. I have 5 copies of Office for 4 computers. There should be no issue as to my having a proper license for the copy I installed on her laptop. I was not able to activate the copy of Office Professional on this machine until I called Microsoft. A very nice young woman helped me finish the procedure, whereupon Office's activation wizard has hopefully been laid to its final resting place.

My wife asks all too often, "What do people do if they don’t have you to help them" when speaking of computer problems. I am sure that it is frustrating. I understand Microsoft's position in this case, however. A few years ago during a meeting at Microsoft, a speaker said that Microsoft's revenues would have been one billion dollars greater if not for software piracy. I am sure that crime and the losses it generates have only increased over time.

Do not steal. Pay for the things you use. But for goodness sake, companies who make products should make them work so that you don’t feel like a crook just for using them.

I have been working on my wife’s laptop. I spent much of last night--until England lost to Brazil somewhere close to 2 AM--and part of the morning essentially rebuilding the laptop. I am close to having it back where it was. The hoped-for improvement is the addition of access to my wife's company's VPN network. The VPN client is installed; my wife will have to attempt to log on this weekend to verify my success or failure.

All of this due to the Cisco VPN client’s peculiar insistence that it live on a disk partition labeled C. Virtually all of the other software on the machine worked fine on the D partition. Now that my wife's company has given warning that her present company-owned laptop must be returned soon, I sacrificed sleep so that she could work from home using our wireless LAN from anywhere in our home, including the couch.

Now I ask you, is that love or what? ;-)

I don't know if I am sad or not about the end of the US run in soccer. I managed to miss the soccer craze that has afflicted so many American parents and their children. Still, I think that some overseas pundits were worried by the prospect of US domination of the world in their cherished sport--fun stuff for an unabashed American like me. So many countries--large and small--seem to see the success or failure of their soccer teams as an expression of national prowess. What would they think if the US began kicking their butts in their beloved sport during every World Cup? Would they retreat to Cricket? Take up Caber Tossing?

Imagine all the anti-American screeds that would be written and protests that would occur if we took the World Cup home someday? I say to all the Soccer Moms and Dads out there, "Press on! Damn the traffic! Ask not what your country can do about the roads, ask how many kids can you get into your local Soccer program for your country's future. Our nation cries out for its Manifest Destiny! All other fields have been conquered; it is the Soccer pitch or nothing!"

Traffic! Transit?

The Puget Sound regional transit authority--"Sound Transit"--suffered a setback when the city of Tukwila voted against a proposed rail system issue. The city's decision was based upon the fact that the trains would not stop near Tukwila’s South Center Mall, the city’s main source of taxable income.

That should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Why would the city take a decision that could have had an adverse impact upon its source of revenue? Why would the city take a chance on the mall becoming a ghost town?

In hindsight, this all seems obvious. Sound Transit has a history of flubbed decisions, delays, and waste of public money. This setback threatens to add even more costs for “negotiations” with Tukwila, redesign, and delays.

All for a system that may never achieve levels of use that alleviate our transit problems, and keep businesses in the region—and taxpayers employed.

The answer continues to be obvious. Those who have jobs drive cars or take buses--today. Their commutes are long because roads are not wide enough, drivers are not trained to drive on freeways well enough, and companies do not offer flextime or telecommuting for a few days a week to alleviate congestion, parking issues, and the like. Why not lead the region to a "sound" decision by proposing work on these issues instead of building a white elephant that will not help Boeing ship a single fuselage from Renton to Everett?

The clock is ticking.

I love to drive--most of the time. I have the standard complaints--too much traffic, drivers that do not pay attention, endless delays due to construction. However, I do not see an alternative to the car.

If you live and work in a major city, public transit, including subway and rail, make sense. However, many, many real families moved to the suburbs over the past decades in search of larger homes, better schools, and a better quality of life. Those people, who pay large amounts of taxes, are not well served by public transit. The distances that have to be covered from suburb to city make the requisite number of stops--AKA delays--equal to bad traffic days every day.

More on this later.

I have a temper. I do not show it often, but it is there. I generally control it, but things happen on occasion that set if off. Then I need a little time to cool off and calm down. Like any good Irishman, I want to be slow to anger and quick to forgive.

Weather is like that in the summer. Sun one day, rain the next, followed by sun. We appreciate the sun all the more because of the rain. We enjoy the sun more, of course.

We talked about the influence my Dad had on my life today. No one influenced me more; I have tried to emulate him as much as I can. Here are a few of his words to live by.

You have to do without to keep from having to do without. Translation: save now for a rainy day later. He grew up in the South during the Great Depression, when money was tight and new possessions were rare indeed.

Bring me a high number. Translation: you are capable of making A's. Bring home A's on your report card. My Mom had a slight variant on this one. You're as good as the best and better than the rest. Basically, both of my parents did not have a very good education; neither graduated from high school. As an only child, they were determined to see that I got one.

Do your work first. Translation: there is plenty of time for fun after the job is done. Make sure that you do a good job so that you can keep it.

There’s always another one. Translation: don’t be rushed into buying a car, a house, or settling down with a woman. His advice was to take your time to make sure that it’s right.

Do not blow the hat off that trooper. Translation: do not speed by a policeman, or he’ll stop what he’s doing and write a ticket for you.

Turn down that tuneless music. Translation: Beethoven or the Beatles fall into that category. The only music that he enjoyed was country music. He loved to visit with family and have a good time swapping stories, fishing, playing cards, and above all, laughing. One song that he would do a kind of stomp dance to went something like this,

“Stay all night, stay a little longer
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat and throw it in the corner
Don't see why you don't stay a little longer”

Thanks to the Internet, I now know that song was by Bob Wills, and was recorded by Willie Nelson, among many others. I think that my Dad’s approach to having fun was something like the words to that song.

Today was a good day. That is, until my wife and I looked at new homes in Kitsap County--west of Tacoma. The model that we toured was a much better value for the money than our home--the home we moved into last December. From a commute standpoint, the home in the McCormick Woods area would be much worse than where we are. However, the land would be at least three times larger, making life better for the dogs. Add to that the hiking trails, the golf course, the wooded areas that would never be built upon. And did I mention the house? Bigger, features that I had to pay extra for are standard, and apparently a higher standard of quality in construction--all for less than we paid.

Drat!

Yes, I have buyer's remorse. However, there is not much we can do at this point. And, as my Dad would say, "There's always another one."

We spent some time driving--very fast--in the M5. We had drinks in Gig Harbor while watching the Mariners lose and Tiger Woods win. Later, my wonderful wife kick started some decorating chores--placing pictures, laying down a rug--that made the house look nice.

All in all, a very good day.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. Unfortunately, my father is not here to celebrate it. He passed away in 1992, succumbing to the effects of a stroke and a lifetime of smoking. He left us too soon.

Fathers should revel in their day—taking nothing away from mothers. For 364 days a year, they toil away at work and at home. They are jacks of all trades; at least, my Dad was.

He grew up in small town Georgia, one of a family of more than 10 children during the Great Depression. He served in the Army during World War II; his unit landed on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion. He suffered hearing loss and other injuries, but managed to come home.

He didn’t have a formal education, but managed to establish himself as a successful car salesman. He met my Mother in Mobile, Alabama. Shortly thereafter, they returned to Georgia and set up their home in Macon.

He taught me a great many things, from hunting and fishing, to taking care of a car—basically, taking care of everything you have, to love of country. I followed his lead after college and joined the Air Force. I was fortunate to become a computer programmer, not a sergeant in a rifle company.

He always asked me to “bring him a high number”—his way of asking me to do my best in school. If I brought home all A’s, I was rewarded with a dollar.

I owe everything I have achieved to him. His example, his encouragement, his steadfast beliefs are guideposts I have tried to follow all my life. When I made a mistake, I can trace it back to a failure to follow his teachings. I miss him every day.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

I am beginning to loathe most financial news. Magazines are too slow. Usually they are full of platitudes and “BGO-class” (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious) advice. Television shows are too timely—the perspective cannot change every day. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times business section, and Investors Business Daily are dense reads if you try to plow through them every day—they take too much time.

I am beginning to think that the weeklies—Bob Brinker’s Moneytalk at http://www.bobbrinker.com/summaries/summary.asp and Barron’s —are among the best sources for information. I also like the Wall Street Journal’s Weekly Journal section that appears in local newspapers. I like good old Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street on CNBC. Call it misplaced loyalty, but I now refuse to watch the replacement show on PBS. I did not like the way Maryland Public Television managed the “transition”.

I really wish I had paid more attention to two or three books that I read a few years ago when allocating my investments. Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor and John Bogle’s Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor are about the only books you need to read. Bob Brinker’s web site has a large catalog of additional books, but I do not think that they add all that much to the basic advice. Here is a quote from Ben Graham’s that I wish I followed more every day—not just in investing, “Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts, and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it—even though others may hesitate or differ.”

Now if I could only stop second guessing myself…

This is the first post I’ve actually written at sunset. I chose the name for this blog because sunset is a natural time for reflection on the day that’s ending, and to think about the day ahead. No matter what happens each day, I’m thankful for the chance to live it.

We have three Labs that share our home with my wife and I. They’re universally upbeat; not much fazes them. They’re always happy to see us, and always willing to play or just lean against us for a petting session.

I think that three dogs are a bit much. They can be destructive (without guile or intent), and they are needful of attention when awake. However, I recommend at least one pet in your life. They remind you of what it was like to be a child. They enjoy each moment for itself. Of course, they aren’t burdened by the responsibilities of modern life. They depend on us for food and shelter. What they give back is priceless.

A lot has changed in my life since my wife and I married, and her three dogs took over part of our lives together. I was a bachelor for nearly a decade, and lived a neat, orderly, tightly scheduled life. Gaining the love of the three dogs is one of the best changes that has come about, despite the sometimes painful adjustments that I’ve had to make. I don’t think I would go back—at least, not entirely ;-).

With love to Kathy, Yogi, Abby and Emma.

I’m a sports fan. I love baseball, football, college basketball and football, NASCAR, F1, and a few others. Baseball is often criticized as being too slow for modern audiences. I disagree.

Baseball requires every player to be aware on every play. The managers, the base coaches, the umpires; every participant must be on their toes. However, the person who is really in control is the pitcher.

Nothing really happens until the pitcher starts his motion. Signals may be exchanged, the runners may bluff to distract the pitcher. However, the pitcher is truly in control of every play. This attribute is unique in sports.

I like to watch the dynamic between the pitcher and catcher. A great catcher may truly “call the game”. He may control the action in ways that only a true fan can appreciate.

Understanding the nuances of sports, like life, enriches the experience. Try to appreciate something that happens in your life, just for itself, every day. Taste those experiences; appreciate all the opportunities that you’re given.

We are inundated with "news". Terrorists are trying to build a "dirty bomb", but are so inept that they can't find the radioactive materials (thank God). Nations with nuclear power plants cannot account for all of the materials in their possession. Or, much worse, cannot be guaranteed to provide adequate safeguards for the nuclear weapons in their stockpiles. The agencies that guard our borders cannot detect any of this material over distances greater than a few yards.

This is but one category to worry about. Threats are made against water supplies, power grids, bridges, and large buildings.

I am very relieved that the FBI and CIA are working together, and were able to capture two terrorists who are alleged to be part of the “dirty bomb” plot. I hope that the disparate agencies that will in all likelihood be merged into the Department of Homeland Security will work together amongst themselves and with the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. to separate the true threats from the hoaxes and rumors.

It’s in our nature as Americans to have a generally positive outlook on life. We generally want to believe that our government will protect us, and will leave us largely alone to live happy, productive lives. I haven’t had much contact with the government other than working with the men and women I served with during my four years in the Air Force (’75-’79). That was a tough time; Vietnam had just ended. Morale should have been low. I found the experience to be extremely gratifying. I pulled many “all nighters” working on software for the Air Force Manpower and Personnel Center. Senior officers were right there, too. I wish those people, and their successors who work just as hard, got the credit they deserve.

I for one prefer to live my life vigilant for things I can do something about, but generally trusting those who’ve decided to sacrifice a part of their lives for the good of us all. We’re lucky enough to have the chance to vote to change things if we disagree with the overall direction from the top every four years. Are you registered?

Good morning, for the first time!

I've been lurking long enough. I enjoy reading blogs, and I hope to offer something back that will add to the richness of the blog world, as those of you with blogs do every day.

I agree with those who say that blogs are essentially journals. It's also increasingly apparent that they are an exciting new direction--alternative?--to traditional journalism. This blog will be topical as well as personal; my sincere hope is that it will be interesting most of the time.

A little about me. My name is Jim Floyd. I worked in the computer and communications industry for over 25 years. I was a programmer in the Air Force, EDS, and Raychem. I was a systems engineer and salesperson for Doelz Networks. I was the Networking and Communications Evangelist for Apple Computer in the late 80s--what a rush! I was a product manager at GO Corporation and most recently, for Microsoft.

I took some time off after my mother became ill, and I tried to help her as best I could. I urge you to cherish your loved ones every day, and to hold them close to your heart.

I'm looking to return to work soon. I've kept busy by building a home network for my house to sharpen my skills a bit, and helping my friends work through problems with Windows, Office and Exchange. My next project involves stacks of old pictures and negatives that I going to scan and organize, then burn to DVD along with commentary. I wish that I could still hear the voices of my parents, aunts and uncles as they told me stories about their lives. I hope to give my family the chance to see, read and hear about my life directly, not through memories that fade with time.

That's enough for now. I hope you'll return for more tomorrow.