New Additions to the Gumm Family

We are so excited to have a new niece and nephew, through the miracle of adoption. You can read about them here:

The BIG day!

Life Intrudes

Although I love this virtual world, the real world calls all to often. There are many half-written posts sitting on hard drives and thumb drives (or "happy sticks," as I hear they are known in parts of Africa), and I don't know when any of them will meet my satisfaction for posting. Perhaps during the holidays, or after the first of the year.

So Merry Christmas.

And, as our office Christmas letter said this year, "Let each of us pause to remember the incredible grace of God as we celebrate the birth of His Son, Jesus; and that’s what Christmas is all about! Born of a virgin, the incarnate Christ came into the world to save His people from their sins. Jesus Christ was the perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind to satisfy a just and holy God."

Coup d'état

I thought this blog needed some Canadian content. See here for a roster sheet of the players.

It seems that the Conservative government will survive until Dec. 8, at which time it will be toppled by a coalition of Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Québecois. Those three opposition parties have formally agreed on the terms of the coup.

Only the Liberals and NDP will be in government officially. The Bloc will remain in opposition, with the proviso that they will always vote with the government on things that matter. And of course the government will make sure that no votes are called on things that the Bloc can't stomach.

Congratulations to Stéphane Dion.

You led your party to its worst showing in the 141 year history of Canada, BUT NOW you get to be Prime Minister.

You were first elected to the House of Commons in the mid-1990's as a staunch federalist, the secret weapon of the federalists in fact, BUT NOW you will head a government that is bound by formal agreement to advance the interests of the separatists.

You campaigned on integrity, BUT NOW you get to steal the government from a party that has almost twice as many seats as you.

You campaigned as a Liberal, BUT NOW you are bringing the NDP to power for the first time ever.

You are bringing down the goverment because they did not bring in an economic stimulation package on your timetable, BUT NOW you will introduce some of the largest regressive corporate tax increases in history.

As Environment Minister you named your dog Kyoto instead of implementing Kyoto, BUT NOW as Prime Minister you will have a large menu of going-nowhere files to name pets after.

As Leader of the Opposition you bewailed the lack of accountability of the government, BUT NOW as Prime Minister you will hand economic oversight to four unelected and unaccountable "wise men"

Ignatieff and Rae forced you out of the leadership of the Liberals, BUT NOW the joke's on them.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper trounced you in the general election, BUT NOW you will get to say, "Silly Stephen, the will of the people does not matter."

Just about 30 hours left now...

of NaNoWriMo. My word count stands at 42,000, give or take. I never was able to get the little icon to embed correctly, but you can follow this link to check my progress.

As an aside, I'll just say that blogging is so much easier than fiction.

Textile vs. Markdown

Anyone use either of these schemes? Anyone an advocate for one or the other?

Update: I noticed this Wikipedia article on lightweight markup languages. I'd like one that's easy to use, but the ease of use also needs to be that it can be easily converted by another means. I've experimented with lxtrf and Markdown.

NaNo Soundrack

If I succesfully finish NaNo this year, it will be in no small part to music like this. Hammock, Marconi Union, and a few others who will be familiar favorites to Hearts of Space fans.

They have been my constant companions for the last few days, and will no doubt be there until the end, win or lose.

Voting

About 2 hours and 15 minutes. The two big kids stuck it out with me the whole time. Totally worth it.

May God show us mercy in this election, and may we turn to Him for guidance and strength regardless of the outcome.

Paid $1.88 for gas yesterday

Amazing change.

This has got to be the most volatile consumer gas prices have ever been.

Followup to Syncing Program

I've been meaning to revisit this for awhile now.

I was able to find something that worked for me. It was from [cough] Microsoft [/cough]. It's called SyncToy.

PC Magazine had it listed in their Best Free Software article earlier this year. I'm using version 1, but it has been upgraded to version 2. The software is nothing fancy, you just set up two folders to sync, and pick the type of sync you want, and that's it.

One caution: deleting or moving a folder can have disastrous consequences. Make sure you're careful, or you could inadvertently wipe out a ton of stuff. I always use the preview button, just to make sure of what I'm doing before I hit the final sync.

I mostly use it to sync specific work files to my thumbdrive, and sync that thumbdrive again on the home computer. That's what I was looking for, and SyncToy has worked great for that.

SyncToy is available for free from Microsoft.

Emergency Microsoft Patch

Windows Secrets - an online tech newsletter I subscribe to, just sent an e-mail regarding an emergency Microsoft patch for a virus that could be very damaging.

You can read the contents here. The article includes links to download the patch, and advice on how to install it.