At what point is stuff on the net (public domain) none of our business?  When should we avert our eyes and not read a little more?  What is the threshold from curious to stalking?

Recently, I met an interesting fellow at an alumni-networking event.  After an engaging conversation of shared interests, we exchanged email addresses. Later, I wanted to suggest an appropriate meeting place but could not recall where he had said that he lived, so I turned to the Internet to do a quick address search.

In about 10 minutes of searching, I did not find his address, but I learned more than I expected.  I found his age, his faith, his cousin’s family tree, and his wife’s blog.

Intrigued by my new friend’s wife’s blog, I read on.  It turns out, the stories (blog posts) were every bit as interesting and engaging as his conversation had been.  However, immediately following this confirmation, I felt unsettled.  Just how would I let on what I knew and how I knew it?  Had I usurped his privilege of introducing me to his wife’s blog?  Had I devalued the connection by barging in myself? Is this part and parcel of 21st century networking that I am not yet used to?

My experience was confirmed in Wired Magazine’s headline article this month, Vanish: “…ordinary people – really can gather an incredible dossier of facts about you.”  It is because of the combination of powerful search engines and extensive amounts of publicly available information.  It behooves us be aware of what information is defining us and to be thoughtful about what is defining others.

In old cultures where privacy was hard to come by, people learned to avert their eyes to allow for privacy and were admonished to mind their own business.  In addition, we were encouraged to live an honorable life because of public scrutiny.  Those old (long view) rules are evolving to deal with the connectivity and information richness of our lives today, yet still apply:

• Live your life impeccably.  Doing so, will mean never having to be ashamed, embarrassed, or held accountable for wrongdoing.
• Out of respect and kindness, engage the positive and disregard the negative.

Embracing the new:

• Take what you learn on the Internet with a grain of salt.
• Be judicious in how you apply Internet “knowledge.”
• Follow your instincts, yet pay attention to the evolution – norms are changing.

Bloggers expect that others will be informed, transformed, and educated through connection to our blogs.  Participating constructively is welcome and my new friend was fine with it.

Are you living life impeccably and engaging the positive?

I came across a blog that was about a topic of endless controversy: American Health Care.  The long and short of it seems to be this:

1. Folks who want socialized health care want equal health care options for everyone (struggle for a Utopian society).
2. Folks who want privatized health care want the best health system possible for as many people as possible (short wait times, freedom to see whomever you want, etc).

To me, this boils down to the classic Churchill quote – “Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.”  A Utopia (like perfection) is impossible.  People who want socialized medicine do have their heart in the right place but unfortunately their brains are not.

For me, the bottom line is this:  Only about 13% of Americans are without health care – TOPS.  Within that 13% there are people who CHOOSE not to have it, but could if they wanted to.  A friend of mine for example does not justify the $160 a month for health care, but does justify about that amount of money for their iPhone…

That means that 87% have health care.  Folks on the left think that socialized medicine is better because it will serve ‘everyone.’  They do however admit that it will be a step down from what the private sector is currently able to provide (wait times, treatments, types of medicine, etc).

In other words, the left is willing to (at least partially) destroy health care for 87% of Americans to attempt to get it for 13% of Americans – some of whom have decided not to have it in the first place (remember my old roommate).

Let’s cut it up a different way.  According to an article written by Steve Bierfeldt, after you subtract illegal aliens and people who could afford health care if they made responsible life choices, the amount of people who can’t get health care is down to 2.6%.  That means the left would want to destroy a health care system that works for 97.4% of legal Americans to try and help a 2.6% who don’t have it.

This argument boils down to responsibility.  It is irresponsible for a government to destry what works for the overwhelming majority of Americans.  The obvious answer is to find a way to help the 2.6%-13% of unisured citizens find private health care so that they can enjoy the benefits that 97.4%-87% who do have organized, working, and in fact luxurious health care.

The current proposals for reform are cloaked as big changes, but as it turns out, they are actually more of the same. They can be summed up in this way: turn more control over to the government and insurance companies while politicians and special interests jockey for credit and work behind the scenes to benefit — at the expense of individual Americans. – David McKalip, M.D.

In closing, let me put it like this.  Think of the Post Office… then FedEx Kinkos or UPS.  Now think of the DMV… then AAA.  Do you really want your health care run like the DMV or the Post office?  No thank you.

-First Response
(for more information, please read this: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=33 and this: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=45)

I’m sort of surprised the same sex marriage conversations are not evolving more quickly.  The long and short of it (to me) is this:

1. We still (sort of) live in a free country.  Government should not be denying anyone rights; we all agree on that.
2. Marriage is a sticky word – lots of religious folks want to protect it’s definition.

To me, the solution is so obvious I’m surprised we’re still talking about it.  I would love for someone to give me some real reasons with my solution explained in detail here (link) does not work for both sides.

In summary, here’s the solution: Privitise Marriage.  Get the government out of the conversation all together (State and Federal).  This would restore freedom to marriage.  This can be done a number of ways; here are two suggestions.

• Re-write the current government marriage documents and exclude the word marriage.  Write them so that they can be used in any combination.
• Remove the current marriage documents and don’t replace them with anything – get the government away from marriage.  We really should not need the government’s permission to get married.  I understand marriage is related to property but there are other, smarter ways around that.

IT WOULD WORK, RIGHT?

For the folks in favor of same sex marriage:

• Equality is achieved.
• Federal and State documents ether don’t exist, or are identical regardless if the union is same sex, or opposite sex.  The word “marriage” does not exist in government documents.
• Religious organizations have the freedom (regardless of what state they are in) to perform same sex marriages, or not perform same sex marriages thus respecting their religious freedom.
• Same sex couples can choose to get married at the places that choose to perform the ceremony.  It can be called anything in the world.  Party, marriage, celebration, union, lemon, whatever.

For the folks who do not support same sex marriage:

• Marriage is protected, and can be defined by your specific religious organization.
• Marriage is no longer a government word, and it’s name or definition will not be changed by the government.
• Religious organizations exist that do not allow same sex marriages which are an option for membership.

BUT WHAT WOULD SCHOOLS TEACH?

Because marraige would no longer be a federal or state issue, marriage would not come up in the classroom at all.  The only thing they could really teach would be the legal documents that replace the old marriage documents (if they even need to exist) but I don’t think schools would waste valuable time teaching that.  What would they teach… where to fill in the names?  As there is no lesson on W-10’s or other government forms I’m sure the new union documents would be left out of the classroom.

OK folks, so let me have it.  How does this not resolve the issue…?

-dm

Currently each programmer writing a bot for Google Wave is able to write whatever they want, sometimes providing support, but using their own, custom syntax. Having a set of commands which all (or many) bots implement would make the user experience far better, as users would then be able to easily find out how to use the bot, or where to find additional help.
e.g.
botName@appspot.com /? //see /help
botName@appspot.com /help //brings up a list of commands available
botName@appspot.com /about //displays a summary of what this robot does
botName@appspot.com /devsite //provides a link to the developer’s site
botName@appspot.com /mode private //the bot’s responses are only shown to the person who invited it
botName@appspot.com /mode public //everyone in the wave sees the bot’s responses

I’ve also made a summary of this post available on the Google Wave Bots site. Please can you post any responses to that site, as this will allow all communications to be kept in the same place.

Crown Lawn have now added their Top 3 Serviced / Leased Apartments to the homepage of the site for both Londn destinations and International.

The Top 3 list for London currently consists of:

The Top 3 list for International apartments currently consists of:

This will allow new and existing customers to find the finest Leased Apartments Crown Lawn have to offer quickly.

http://www.crownlawn.com

Now the years after graduating from high school and the years beginning college (because I took a 2 year hiatus) were kinda of a blur.  Working from job to job and just getting by until my younger sister, sister S, graduated from high school and asked me to go to school with her.

Now I had applied to two schools before taking my hiatus.  One was a fashion school in NYC and the other was in another school at the southwest tip of New York.  I got into both and was deciding to go to the fashion school but things were impeding me to arrive to the school when they needed me to show for testing and what not.  Therefore I did not go to either school.  Now the school sister S was interested in going to is a Christian school.  A christian private school that was on News Weeks 100th best schools.  It is a GREAT school, it has great morals, wonderful people… yadda, yadda, yadda…

Once I started school there when I was 20 I started to realize how truly wrong it was to lust after women, to crave women, and to watch pornography.  Yes as a women I was very interested in porn.  Honestly I am still interested in it.  If  I’m putting my stuff out in the open why not just do it and put it ALL out there!

Apparently I had not been upholding the standards that I was supposed to as a Christian girl.  Yet nonetheless I came out of my shell.  I started to become more outgoing, more relaxed with myself, funny, and well liked.  I finally felt I some what belonged.  I felt during my high school years no one understood me because I had to always wear skirts and I was ridiculed about it.  But in college I was accepted for who and what I was (well at the time).  These years I believe have been my most dissatisfying and joyous years by far.

The first few years I think I didn’t care as to what I looked like, who I befriended, what my grades were and just of who I was.  I was just a fresh person on this new campus in a new world!  So I took it in as much as I could!  But slowly, looking back now, I realize how much the school thrusts upon us to get married have children and be happy.  That’s all…

Even though I was there to get an education it felt it was more guided with who was dating who, and for how long.  There was even a running joke.  That many women only came to the school to get their M.R.S. degree.  Which is sad!  I had never heard of that term until I started going to that school.  Also why would you claim that ALL women that go to that school only come to get that degree.  It was as if that was the only reason to go if you were a woman.

Well as naive as I used to be I was so excited that it could happen but never once did I actually go out and look for someone to date.  I wasn’t interested. Nor am I interested still to get that M.R.S. degree unless the laws change and I can actually marry a woman.

But I had become that girl that the school wanted me to become.  The meek, servant of God, loved by all, while being sweet and charming.  But those weren’t the only parts of me.  I had more.  Much more lurking in the dark (as people want to think).  I had so many doors in my soul that I had kept secret.  That I had barred with anything and everything so that I would never look at or even approach.  I was scared to pretend that they were even there.  So I tried not to think of things that would make our wonderful God angry.

Yet this following year all that changed.  I evolved and I became more.  With more understanding and with acceptance I transformed.

Well lovies I will leave this post here.  I will keep you wanting and come back another day to add to sed story!

~RoMa

you made my life so beautiful.

i still love you

Tomorrow I will be going to take pictures and view Encanterra.  It is located on the south-east corner of Ironwood and Chandler Heights. I’ve been out to the property on two occasions.  Once to see the model homes and a second time last week to see the completed country club and two new models.

The first visit was impressive, although the $300,000+ price point seems unjustified for the geographic location (Phase I) that the homes are being built on.  Specifically, the model homes are located near a cafe and the country club, right on the golf course, with a beautiful winding drive that precedes the arrival.  In addition, the view are unobstructed mountain views over rolling hills of green golf courses and duck filled ponds. 

While the models are easy to get swept up in, Phase I is located on the far opposite side of the property, the first street looks out to a large brick wall that lines a four lane street, there are no mountain or golf course views. In addition, the country club is not within a reasonable walking distance and would likely take every bit of 12 minutes to drive a golf cart over.

Once you arrive, the interior design of the models is superb, each home has a water and fire element out doors, which makes the tiny backyard seems wonderfully inviting.

The second visit, I could barely get an agent to show me the units. I was taken into two unfinished spec homes (although a big showing was held with furnished models the weekend before).  The two houses we went to were occupied by trades, placing drywall and tile.  Upon arriving the second home we trudged through mud to look through the windows because the floors had just be set and were not dry.  Terrible showing.  This week, I received second email touting the two new models, this week I will take the email with me and see what mix up was with the service or lack of service.  I am a licensed real estate agent, however for blogging purposes I prefer to experience each site as a potential customer.  The email is produced here:

“Grand Opening Preview Tours of 2 New Models!
Experience a view of our two brand new floor plans, the Cadiz and Cartagena, like you’ve never seen before….beautifully furnished even during construction! We know it’s hard to visualize the results of a home under construction or to imagine the layout and functionality of a room. Now you can not only see the latest in green technology behind the walls, but also see how the homes will live and function with furnishings. To showcase these homes we’re hosting a “Designer Home Tour” scheduled for November 21st. This tour will give you the opportunity to walk through the new models plus our Designer Inventory Homes all staged with furniture to highlight the lifestyle that Encanterrans enjoy everyday. Don’t miss this event!”

For now, it is clear there is nothing luxurious about the service at Encanterra.

Well it was on the site before, but the time has come for me to make an official announcement: Twickret is officially RELEASED on Windows operating systems from XP to Windows 7 as of this morning.

Check it out on the Download page.

YOU WON’T FIND THIS ONE ON THE INTERNET..

ELENA WILL LIKE IT.

WINK

SEE YA

D-R-Y-B-A-B-Y