• Redesign the infrastructure of the www.notationmachine.com site completely in a hopefully-non-futile-attempt to restore life to an otherwise dead site. What used to be the main additional source of income has dropped off the face of the earth.
• Redesign the script distribution system on Intelliscript.net so people get the scripts they buy instantly! It’s great when people finally decide to purchase a script from me, and they don’t like having to wait a day to have their download enabled. This means I need to either learn how to program in PHP, or how to connect the MySQL database which the existing PHP program uses to a new Perl script and write an interface for it. (The existing script sucks, and is mostly why I’ve come to despise PHP).
• Design a QuickIP site using the new domain name I just purchased, www.remotecomputer.net
• Repackage QuickIP so that it’s distributed in North America as Remote Compuiter, not QuickIP; market it, sell it.
• Release the latest version of ServiceBuilder to the public— but this time as a stand-alone executable so that Microsoft Access is no longer a requirement.
• Re-record the interactive demo of ServiceBuilder and upload it to the site—perhaps done in Flash
• Re-write the help file for ServiceBuilder— preferably in the new Windows style of HTML help, and include it with the new release.
• Re-evaluate and redesign the www.ServiceBuilder.net site so that Tucows rates it higher than they did last time.
• Resubmit ServiceBuilder to TuCows with the hope that they’ll accept it as a download to add to their resource.
• Finish developing and programming the churches database of pastors and congregations who might benefit from ServiceBuilder and contact them with information on the download
• Start playing the piano again, for fun
• Start writing songs again
• Start recording the songs I have been writing.
• Get my butt in gear and release a decent CD of songs I’ve written
  • A CD with the dozen or so celtic jigs and reels I’ve written
  • A CD with the dozen or so Christian worship songs I’ve written
  • A CD with the dozen or so rockin’ songs I’ve written
• Fix my busted electric guitar
• Sell that Compact Flash Modem that is sitting on my desk, still in the packaging.
• Actually start using my pocket pc again.
• Hook up all the network cable that threads throughout the house to real outlets in the walls instead of laying them on the floor of the hallways.
• Get a wireless network
• Clean my garage, try to get the tools neatened up so I can find something when I’m looking for it.
• Re-organized my office so that the things that are me are actually available to me when I’m needing them and not in some box hidden in the attic or packed in a crate somewhere.
• Set up a network/Internet game with some friends and get into a clan again, and start having a bit of fun for a change.

That might be about it. As you can see, this is an insane list. There is no reasonable way that I am ever going to get this stuff done in the next couple of weeks— this is a list to accomplish over the next several years. Especially since I’m sick, have three kids, a very fulltime job, and want to have something resembling a life.

I feel depressed.

~Jason

This has been quite the month though! First Jo’s mom came down for a week when the baby came, then my mom and dad came for the weekend. This weekend my sister and her family are coming (she has 3 boys!) and the weekend after Joanne’s sister is coming with her 10 year old daughter.

Family is great. Without family, we’re pretty much alone in this world. We’re thankful that we’ve had this opportunity to be with so many of our loved ones.

~Jason

We’ve been concentrating on paying our house off, sending every spare cent we can possibly afford to the mortgage, and investments. Part of the process involved saving for a new (to us— it’s a 1999) van. With Joanne’s baby imminent, we needed one more seat to get all six of us in the car at the same time. The way they make these child car seats, that’s no small task!

So we went out and picked it up tonight. It’s a Pontiac Montanna, loaded up. It’s got leather seats, power side doors, power everything! What a treat! Power seats, power mirrors, power locks, of course power steering… CD player, and cassette, EQ, remote entry, fold-away seats… actually all of them (it seats 8!) are bucket seats! It even has a trailer hitch for when we get our camper! It’s got an automatic tire inflation system, an onboard computer which displays your gas mileage, your compass direction, and a bunch of other coolio things. That’s actually what sold me on it. If it’s got a computer, it’s a gadget, and Lord knows I love gadgets!

Oh, we North Americans are such greedy consumers.

There was some stuff wrong with it, but the way this dealership ‘deals’ with it is to have a no-haggle price. For the $10,500 price on the window they’ll do whatever’s needed to bring it up to snuff. Turns out they replaced all the brakes, brand new tires, new wipers, new power locks, new face plate for the stereo, re-sealed the windshield (a poet…!) fixed some broken vinyl, and a bunch more stuff. We have 30 days to find anything else wrong with it, and they’ll fix it free. So I pray that if the tranny is going to go, it goes this month.

We were careful to check out the best vehicles on the Lemon-aid site. Apparenty the Montanna has the best gas mileage in it’s class, and comes recommended.

Thanks God, may we use it to serve you faithfully.

~Jason

My wife had our baby yesterday at 12:15! She weighed in at 8 pounds 13 ounces! We named her Grace Alma Jane. Alma is Joanne’s mom’s name.

Here’s a picture of Seth holding her. What cuties!!

~Jason

The only reason I was using .mov was because our senior pastor insists on using a Mac computer. I still haven’t figured out why a few people are so religious about Macs, but hey— I’m religious about weird stuff too I guess. And Macs look good, so I guess it you’re into how things look that might make them appealing. I still don’t get it.

Anyway, this was all particularly frustrating because I was trying to rip a clip of the Shawshenk Remption and Lord of the Rings to use in our service on Sunday. You might think I have all the time in the world, but last night Joanne was scheduled to have her baby at seven this morning. So the stress was building as I got closer to midnight.

But this morning we get a call that there’s no room for Joanne in the hospital. Another example of Great Canadian Health Care. So we’re waiting to be induced hopefully sometime later this weekend. At least I’ve got some time to finish these projects.

~Jason

And apparently the special epoxy they use costs $200 a bottle, so it’s not like I can go out and get some to fix it meeself. So I’m left to either praying for a new guitar, or dealing with not having an electric. Or maybe fixing it myself with $5.00 epoxy from Canadian Tire.

Hmm.

~Jason

So instead of getting www.quickip.com which will mean NOTHING to NOBODY, I got www.remotecomputer.net. This describes much more accurately what QuickIP does, and I can focus on those two keywords in my page content.

So the next step is to design a better site than I have there already, and maybe get a new server for it. That’s a bit more expensive, but makes a big difference. Then maybe I can convince the creator of QuickIP to package me a special version with an ‘American’ name of RemoteComputer. Then we’re off to the races with 100% commission. Basically, I get to keep all the money I make from selling this. Why have I been so slow getting this going??!?

~Jason

So I finally decided to hook up the amplifier, radio, tape deck into the recording system, mostly to get it out of the way in the office. It’s been sitting on a bureau down here for two and a half years!

It seemed a losing battle. I had two amps, and both of them weren’t working. I troubleshooted like a madman, and decided that both amplifiers had blown fuses! How aggravating. I guess it’s just one of those days.

Then I finally got around the problem temporarily by using the amp’s effects loop to feed the signal from the amp into the computers awesome sound system. So I can listen to everything now, but a new problem!

There’s ONE radio station I really wanted to have, 900 CHML Talk Radio! But something’s up down here and I can’t seem to get any AM radio stations. I know AM is finicky when going through tunnels on the highway, so I guess it must be the same in basements! (I can listen on the Internet, but I wanted a slightly higher quality signal). 

I’ve tried a ground wire on the cold water pipes, and a long antenna, but so far I can only get one radio station in, on all the channels!

There’s something called a loop antenna which I’m going to have to build if I want to get this station.

~Jason

John Bruinooge gave me this electric guitar and Russ Crapella rebuilt it for me. New pickups, new wiring, intonation. How depressing.

I guess I’ll take it in to the music store tomorrow and see if it’ll live. I expect to hear the familiar words from Star Trek, “He’s dead, Jim.”

I’ve been wanting to build a strum stick-like instrument from an old guitar for a few years now. Maybe this is a good time to revive that old project.

~Jason

~Jason

I started massaging my anxious legs as a picture flashed through my mind. I felt the bones, the muscles, the ligaments under the skin. “I’m just a fragile assembly of flesh,” I thought, as visions of the soldier looking for his severed arm in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” flashed through my mind.

Just alive. Just a collection of flesh.

Have you ever seen people fly through the air, completely out of control? It’s so funny, yet it isn’t when “America’s Funniest Home Videos” shows humanity in all it’s glorious abandon— smashing into a wall. Our idea of self control is so illusary. We’re in control only as long as we have complete management of every law of physics; when we can manage every outside circumstance.

And that never occurs, so we are never in control.

Yet inside me I feel so secure— almost invincible. Some part of me flies with the eagles when I’m soaring down the highway. I sense that I’m greater than the assemblage of my parts. I’m not my skin, but I’m my mind. I’m not my bones, I’m my thoughts. I’m my memories. I’m intangible.

I guess we should just say it: I’m a soul.

How demeaning it is to teach that we originate from primordial mud-puddles— that we are only what can be seen— that there is no soul. I’m suprised educated people really entertain this idea. Can’t they sense the destiny within them? If I’m an accidental cause then why concern myself with any kind of morality? Why does any of it matter if there’s no purpose to it all?

As our spiritual nature is ridiculed into non-existence, nothing of value is left. Murder should increase. When anyone gets in the way of my basic instinct to satisfy self what would stop me from stopping them? Where does the boundary lie? How can we insist on a moral law like “Thou Shall Not Kill,” yet also insist morals are relative sociological solutions? Who says it’s wrong to kill? Who says it’s wrong to abuse a child? Why is it wrong to commit suicide? We’re gradually removing absolutes. Apparently it’s okay to be gay now— to even marry homosexually. It’s okay to commit adultry. It’s okay to own pornography. These things were once considered wrong by society… what is to prevent all of our laws from being disasembled?

The assumption underlying this deconstruction is that society has created morals and can uncreate them as needed. But what if it’s the other way around?! What if morals created society!? What if we’re removing the very foundation on which our security rests?

It’s a scary thought. I best get myself another cup of caffeine.

~Jason Silver

For those of you who don’t care about Star Trek, let me give you a background. In 1967 the first Star Trek series failed miserably in the ratings, and after two years was about to be cancelled. Crazy fans blitzed NBC with mail like never-before-seen, and so the show squeaked through one final year. But ratings were still bad. CANCELLED.

It wasn’t until Star Trek was sydnicated that it became really popular. Millions of people tuned in to watch Star Trek reruns, and a phenomenon was born. I think I read somewhere that Star Trek was the first sydnicated show. Not sure about that.

Since then we’ve seen a number of movies; (the first movie was supposed to be a new television series called, Star Trek 2 with the original cast— changed to a movie at the last minute because of the popularity of Star Wars). There’s been Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and now, Star Trek: Enterprise. I’ve faithfully watched all of these shows— in fact I have almost all of them on VHS. about 80 tapes containing 6 episodes each— even the commercials are edited out!

So we sat down to watch the third season finale the other night. So excited, we could taste it. We scanned through all the channels, checked the guide, scanned again, but we COULDN’T FIND IT!! Where was our beloved Star Trek: Enterprise?

We concluded that the show was moved to next week, and gave up. Then the next morning on CH news, Matt Hayes is going on and on about the amazing Star Trek Enterprise episode he watched last night. He said the Finale was a cliff-hanger. We stared blankly at the screen… incredulous. How could this be? We had checked and rechecked, and no Enterprise. Yet he watched it!?!

So I got on Kazaa, and downloaded the Season Finale. This set about a chain of events so that now I’m downloading the whole season! The quality is much better than the days of video taping, plus I can burn it to a DVD if I want, or edit it as I see fit!

We just about missed it— that would have been awful. Thank GOODNESS for Kazaa.

~Jason