My desk is a fire hazard again. Time to do some catching up.

The News and Observer mentioned a few sites, that raise questions about what exactly is hiding under Bush’s jacket. Apparently, people have noticed a bulge between his shoulderblades which some allege to be a radio earpiece. Surf over to IsBushWired.com to see a few sample photographs.

I’ve heard said that Bush is dyslexic. If that’s true, I don’t see much harm in his having an audio version of the TelePrompter to keep him from flubbing his scheduled speeches. On the other hand, if he’s using this during press conferences, or debates, then that crosses the line into downright fraud.

Before I learned of all this controversy, I thought there something peculiar about Bush’s shoulders. As I watched him in the debate, he looked to me like he was a humpback of some sort. I finally dismissed it as bad posture, but not before I spent way too much brainpower trying to figure it out. His posture just looked unnatural, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

One explaination I tried out was that Bush may have been wearing body armor. Then I studied Kerry and noticed none on him. Looking back at Bush, I saw he lacked padding in his shirt – so it wasn’t armor, either.

Is he getting answers fed to him? Who knows? But I would like to know what that thing is on his back.

I got a contract with a small but rapidly-growing start-up company this week and have been working extremely hard to get things going. It’s a lot of work – perhaps the most challenging job I’ve had – but the reward of doing the job right makes it worthwhile.

I’m wearing many hats now, mainly dealing in IT, support, and sales engineering. I love being in this position, with every day’s decisions having an enormous impact on the company’s future.

Then I’ll take some time away to focus on my growing family, when our son arrives in less than three weeks. Then this time will look like a picnic, I’m sure.

I’ve spent the day hammering, sawing, and measuring to put the finishing touches on our attic flooring. It’s been a bigger job than I expected, but I’m 95% done now. One more floor panel needs to be measured and cut and it will be a done deal.

I spent an hour this morning repairing a neighbor’s cut cable TV line so he could watch football this weekend. I hate to see a Wolfpack fan denied their ability to watch the game, so I pitched in to help. It’s fun to help neighbors. Good way to get to know them.

The neighborhood rocks. It’s now in a political sign arms race. And it’s friendly, too. Kelly was outside with Hallie and spoke to about five separate neighbors in that time. Our next-door neighbor told us that in the three months we’ve been here, they’ve already interacted with us more than the previous owners who lived here for six years.

Tomorrow, I hope to nail the final nails in the flooring project. Then I will do some computer geek stuff before heading over to a party at my former coworker’s house. Should be nice seeing all the old crew.

Other than the crushing defeat to the Tar Heels by the Wolfpack today, it was a pretty good day.

I figured out this weekend that by nature I am a student of leadership. Doesn’t matter who the leader is or what they lead. If there is something I can learn, I naturally study it.

It explains a lot about me. Stuff even I didn’t realize about myself.

Today is the day I rejoin my former employer. Well, for all practical purposes, anyway. I’m contracting there through the end of the year. I’m there with a growing crew of former employees, all working as contractors to bring the company and product back to life. My responsibilities include nearly everything under the sun, but with a focus of support and sales engineering. Should be fun.

There is lots to do, though so much still exists that it will be undoubtedly easier to get things running smoothly again. Its not like starting from scratch.

After working on other things for a while, I finally got around to figuring out how to write custom Asterisk scripts. It turns out I wasn’t reading the environment variables before launching into my perl script. As soon as I added a simple loop to pipe it to /dev/null, the script started talking as it should.

Another half hour or so and I’ll have Asterisk reading me the weather stats from my weather station. Another hour and I’ll have it telling me if an accident is blocking my commute. Now the power of computer telephony integration is mine. Bwahahahahahaha!
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Howard Stern has the much-anticipated jump to satellite radio. I don’t agree with a lot of what Howard says or does, but I do believe he has a right to do it. On the radio, no less.

This might be what it takes for me to get a satellite radio subscription. Give ’em hell, Howard!

On a related note, he and his staff earn $80 million dollars? Good god.

I’ve been reading and rereading the latest Cringley column, describing a Canadian Linux user who has hooked up his whole neighborhood using 802.11 and Linux. He has become his neighborhood’s cable TV company, phone company, and Internet company, all legally and using Linux. Fascinating stuff!

I would love to replicate it here, if possible. I’ve got the know-how in Linux, wireless, and voice-over-IP. I’ve got a neighborhood of 500+ homes. I suppose all I’m really lacking now is time. If I built things one piece at a time, I could get it up and running.

I think I’ll start with my immediate neighbors, many of whom are computer geeks such as myself. I’ll let y’all know how the project progresses.