laneys.info Beware of Yankees, drunks, and loose women.

Last Saturday, our gaming group wrapped up an epic campaign that had been some three years in the making.  This represents the longest campaign and the oldest character I've ever played, and it has been a tremendous amount of fun.  So, hats off to Dan for an awesome job as Game Master, and thanks for all the memories!

For anyone who is interested, the collected stories that go along with this campaign are in the books section under the title, Chosen by the Gods.  The stories are still in progress, so check back often if you enjoy what you read.

I was inspired recently to list the books I haven't read but really want to read.  So, I thought I'd share the list.  This list will get updated periodically as I think of the things I've forgotten.  The list is in alphabetical order.

One thing that I'd like to point out: the books Conservative Mind and Up From Liberalism are there because they were recommended to me as good for illustrating the difference between being conservative and being a Republican, as the person recommending the books to me felt that the Republican party has abandoned "true" conservatism.  I don't necessarily disagree with him, but I admit my ignorance of the difference between the two.  Anyone having similar recommendations, whether on conservatism, liberalism, or whatever, feel free to pass them along.

I ran across a speech that former President Bill Clinton gave last week at Georgetown University.  Mr. Clinton does not hide his politics by any means.  In fact, his speech was a pretty direct effort to support the Democratic party in the November elections.  However, the excerpt I watched contained the first quote, which I think is an excellent assessment of how people operate, whether on the Left or the Right or somewhere in between.  The question I ask of you is, "which method do you, personally, use?"

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) would like you to meet the new "health food," containing two days' worth of saturated fat in a single serving.  New chain restaurants, including the new "Fresh Mex" chains such as Chipotle (owned by McDonald's), Baja Fresh (owned by Wendy's), Rubio's, and La Salsa, sometimes have healthy food alternatives, but they frequently are peddling themselves as being healthier than they really are.

From the original article:

"Baja's Nachos are even worse. With a day's worth of calories (2,000) and sodium (2,890), and with two days' worth (39 grams) of saturated fat, the average order of nachos (made with steak, chicken, or just cheese) is worse than four Quarter Pounders."

If you're interested in this sort of thing, here is a dietary site that lists the nutritional value of fast food: http://www.dietfacts.com/fastfood.asp

Today marks the beginning of the end for my career with ColdFusion.  In 1998, I started doing web development with ColdFusion 3.11 for Workgroups on a single server.  Today, I manage eight web servers running ColdFusion MX 6.1 and 7, but I do very little coding myself.  For many reasons, none of them technical, my department decided that we needed to plan a migration away from ColdFusion.  Today, our development standards meeting adjourned after making the decision that we would move to Microsoft Visual Studio and the ASP.NET platform for all new development.  Legacy applications will be rewritten as time permits, which means that ColdFusion will continue to exist in our environment for a while yet, but the die is cast.