The Duck Pond

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The Face of Intolerance in America

I have lived with gay family members all of my life, and I love them for being who they are, not what they do. I simply disagree with some of their choices in life and I hope and pray that they find the kind of peace their hearts truly need. People can have have compassionate disagreements on difficult subjects like this, but that isn’t enough for some people who must punish everyone around them for daring to have a different point of view. This is the exact kind of intolerant hatred that was waged against them so many years ago, and now they too have emerged to become the very same kind of people they feared and despised so long ago.

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Republican Party: On the Brink

Straddling the precipice seems to be where the Republican Party feels most comfortable this year. Between the elementary school playground slap-fights played out on the national debate stage to massive policy shifts by the party front-runner in a given day, there seems to be ample evidence that the Republican Party lacks both stability and integrity […]

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The aftermath of Windows 8

They (Microsoft) had no clue how attached people had become to their beloved start button and the comfortingly familiar desktop.

“Hey, look! Here’s a cool new touch feature to play with!” Would have gone over so very much better than the “Hey look! We took away everything you like and replaced it with a cool new (mandatory) feature most of you can’t use!” we all received.

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Microsoft Windows: You took away my what?!?

Most of us have a very personal (-ish) relationship with our computers, we connect to people through them, we pay bills and explore through them too. So, when Microsoft turned our familiar Windows on its head, the public let loose.

The tile interface idea for Windows 8 by itself wasn’t all that bad; for users with touch laptops and tablets it works just fine, but then Microsoft went a step beyond. They took a nice innovation for touch devices and inexplicably shoved it into the desktop realm.

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Free Appliance Pickup: Convenience, or Raw Deal?

If you’ve ever heard those commercials from your local power company urging you to use less electricity, then you’ve heard the plea to use wisely, conserve energy, and they even offer to pick up your old appliances for free if you buy new energy efficiency ones. Sometimes they even offer to pay you a small amount of money to pick them up for you.

It seems like a decent gesture on the surface of it, why else would they want to haul away your broken appliances?

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Memorial Day: Promises Broken

The list of broken promises to our nations heroes is growing longer every day, the resignations within the VA will not raise those veterans who died at the hands of the own caregivers.

…And but for a proud few; as a nation we have yet to do anything but stand aside and watch it unfold… Unmoved, unstirred and apparently uncaring: United we stand, our integrity stolen, our honor besmirched, our heroes forgotten…

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Speaker Boehner: Deja vu all over again

I mean, how many times have we, the people been suckered by this very same bait-and-switch routine? Are we so willing to believe in the integrity of our public servants that we so blithely ignore the fact that this bill is nothing more than a con-man’s shell game? …Cave-man Boehner has once again lead the charge to certain defeat and our collective ruin by taking this budget compromise and attempting to shove it down our collective throats through intimidation and issuing threats against any republican politicians who stand up to him. Interestingly enough; in the process he has presented us with a very familiar and distasteful choice to make.

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The day after Thanksgiving

We have given thanks appropriately for all that God’s gracious bounty has afforded us the opportunity to enjoy. The meals are over; friends & family have gone home and the turkey, ribeye, fruit salad & other leftovers reappear as sandwiches, lunches and snacks while that leftover pie beckons for one last shot at becoming that […]

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Obamacare: Faceplant on entry

You were warned of the impending failures inherent in the deployment of Obamacare:  Warnings came from all directions, detailing missed deadlines and the lack of transparency preventing anyone from finding out just what progress was being made in all of the myriad of working pieces that make up the enormous undertaking of creating this (2x […]

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Cave-Man: The demise of principled leadership in the House

Initially, conservative thought that we would finally see some real action on our behalf, some truly principled leadership such as we hadn’t seen since Speaker Newt Gingrich. Alas, that was not to be; we traded the daily vitriol of Speaker Pelosi for the boot-licking antics of John Boehner, and we still have Nancy Pelosi singing background to John Boehner’s never-ending surrender ballad.

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Remembrance day: 9-11

This day is yet another reminder for us to give thanks to those around us who serve or have served, and to remember their families who serve and sacrifice in support of them as well. A day that should drive us to continue to remember them beyond this day and carry it throughout our daily lives.

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Obamacare circling the drain

A while back (Mid 2012) I made several observations about the impending Obamacare and how it would negatively affect businesses as a whole and people individually.  Let’s take a look today at where things are and how much of those predictions have come true:   Businesses are declaring they will cut healthcare completely from their […]

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Guild Wars 2: A gamers review

I do have a few hobbies and one of them is playing an online game. Yes, I know, the stereotypes abound regarding the antisocial single man living with his mother playing video games in the basement until 40, but most of those stereotypes really aren’t exclusive to gaming anymore than they are to any other […]

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Boehner retreats on taxes

Today, House Speaker Boehner sounded the clarion call for a full retreat on the conservative’s no tax pledge. According to Fox News and Politico, House Speaker Boehner has declared that if you make $1 million or more, you need to pay higher taxes. If you happen to work for one of those people, get ready […]

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Dear Republicans: Get a clue!

Dear Republicans:   Stop milling about as if your head has just been lopped off and find your backbone! OK, that may be considered a bit severe by some folks, but the message is nonetheless quite poignant for our current circumstances.  Ever since the election, House & Senate Republicans have been falling over themselves in […]

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Poem: I love my life…

[important]  Audio version available!         I love my life [/important] I love my wife, I love my life My heart shines through my children’s eyes   Troubles come and then they go Through it all she won’t let go Cloudy skies don’t trouble me No silver lining do I need When in […]

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President Obama’s double-eagle salute.

President Obama just flipped you the bird, now what? Today the Supreme Court ruled on the Arizona immigration bill.  (found here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf)  No surprises there:  Some portions of the bill were struck down and one key provision was allowed to remain.  What is surprising though, (Shame on me, I should know better by now right?) […]

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Yogurt: A weighty subject

I recently visited a new Yogurt shop here in Eagle that sells frozen yogurt self-serve by the ounce.  Now let that sink in a moment and consider the pro’s and cons of this arrangement:  While you ponder, let me walk you through my own recent visit. The selection of flavors and toppings is quite generous, […]

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Net Neutrility: Why go there?

Why get the government involved?   Why legislate the Internet with Net Neutrality? The impetus here was provided by a bit of tampering with the market by the ISP’s in order to undercut those like Vonage and Netflix (among others), who have been in that market all along because more people are consuming their services, causing […]

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The case against tape

Tapes have major disadvantages that disks no longer do. With current disk systems, you have capabilities that tape just can’t match. Still hanging on to that 30% (Verified by 5 or 6 different failure rate studies) failure rate out-of-the box for your tapes? Disks have only a 3-5% failure rate for the first 3 years […]

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One Nation under God

One  Nation Under God Each morning I wake up and go through the morning routines of feeding the horses, getting the girls ready for the day and heading off to work.  It’s the mundane everyday tasks like these that nearly everyone goes through each morning, but how many of us stop to really think about […]

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