I have two possible primary routes to and from work. I can ride I-20, I-820, and I-35W around the far west side of Fort Worth, or I can ride I-20 to I-35W through the Fort Worth “mixmaster” passing downtown on the east, but still fairly close to the heart of the city.

In both cases the length of time for the ride is approximately the same.

For the last couple of years that I have been working in Fort Worth, I’ve largely chosen the more direct I-35W route. However, over the past several days I have been paying more and more attention to the drivers on both routes, and I believe the I-820 route is the better option by far. Not least of all because of the lack of traffic, but also because of the sheer number of drivers on I-35W who seem to believe that they are perfectly safe reading a book, the newspaper, or texting while driving.

There is no logic to the sheer stupidity of the people I’m seeing on the road. I just hope that I’m not killed by one of these people who insist that they do not need to pay attention to the road.

This weekend I spent some genuine quality time with my vehicles.

I’m not home all that often to perform maintenance on them, I took the time this weekend to do the following work:

2002 Honda Shadow Sabre VT1100C2:

• Oil Change
• Replaced fuel tank petcock and in-tank filter
• Replaced headlamp bulb
• Battery maintenance (tending and charging)

2006 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic FLHTC-UI:

• Tested electrical system and identified failed voltage regulator.
• Replaced faulty voltage regulator
• Battery maintenance (tending and charging)

1977 Jeep CJ5:

• Replaced fuel pump
• Battery maintenance (tending and charging)

Some of these actions were first time actions for me, so I’m rather proud of myself for venturing below the hood, where so few people bother to go anymore.

I’m still having a problem with the fuel system on the Jeep, but at least the leak has moved and I have a new problem to work on….

This was yesterday:

This is today:

Yesterday evening I picked up a few feet of paracord to practice knot tying. I think I found a better use for it. I made this hatband.

Now I’m going to have to pick up some more paracord. I still want to practice knot tying, but I really like the hatband.

That’s sitting on on my Tilley T4 Cotton Duck hat. I’m hoping that the extra weight from the paracord will keep the hat from falling off my head at night.

Army PFC Bradley Manning will be facing a Court-Martial.

I believe that looking back at the documents alleged to have been released by Bradley Manning in the Wikileaks scandal, we can for the most part judge the negative impact of the document release as having been rather light. However, the impact to the life of Manning is likely to be negatively impacted for a long time to come.

If convicted of all charges, Manning would face a maximum punishment of life in prison. He also could be reduced to E-1, the lowest enlisted grade, and could face forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge, officials said.

Manning isn’t alone in the problem of the leaking of secrets and classified information. Every day members of the press are able to find people in the military, the federal government,  local governments, and even corporations who are willing to violate the trust of their public offices and employers to share information they have no business sharing. They are called anonymous sources, and like Manning, they want their 5 minutes of fame. Of course, most of them are not caught.

I’m not suggesting that there be any limitations on the freedom of the press, and I completely affirm that there is a need for whistle-blowing and protection of whistle-blowers in a free and just society, but increasingly there are leaks of information which have no value except to compromise organizational trust. I don’t have a solution to this problem without in some way landing at the top of a slippery slope, but this problem is becoming more and more common, and I believe, more and more dangerous.

The court-martial of Manning is a good and welcome step for the military. If he is found guilty, I hope he is put away for a very long time for his alleged violations of the public trust.

For a few months now, I have been using Evernote to organize my personal and professional notes. Between my iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro for personal use, and my Windows Computer and iPad for business use, it’s been an amazing and refreshing experience using Evernote to keep myself organized.

As an old-school FranklinCovey Planning System user who wanted to get away from the daily page-turning and constant tracking of hand-written notes in years of planning inserts, I was looking for a system that would allow me to be more efficient about tracking what I’ve done, am doing, and need to do. At $14.95/month the cost of PlanPlus Online was simply too high for what I thought would be reasonable when weighed against the $50/year I was paying for planner inserts. I had to look somewhere else first.

While I was a fairly good hand-written note-taker, I’m still learning to be an effective computer-based note taker. I’ve embraced a few tools to help in this task. I’m still looking for the perfect “ink” note taking tool and I’m presently playing with NoteTaker HD to fill that role, but managing all of my notes in one place wouldn’t be possible with that, so I needed something more centralized. Since I wanted to be sure whichever application I chose to organize myself with was as mobile as I am, I began my search in the iTunes Store.

I went through a large number of apps. Some of them paid, some of them free, and just about the time I was about to give up the search and settle for what in my view would have been the worst option (organizing out of Outlook), I stumbled across Evernote. It was way down in the list of apps returned in any searching I performed in the iTunes, and it had some very positive reviews.

Installing the app resulted in tremendous improvements in my ability to manage notes and keep track of the things I have been recording, and my note-taking is improving as well. I just need to keep at it and keep the habit growing.

I was perusing the Drudge Report a few moments ago and I came across this gem of media bias and favoritism toward the President from Jonathan Alter.

Before we canonize the President for the miracle of not having had sex with, or performed unusual acts involving a cigar with an intern, lets consider the areas where Obama definiitely has had some scandalous attention brought to his Presidency:

Relatively minor: Obama Bows to Saudi King
Relatively minor: Obama Bows to Japanese Emperor

One of several definitions of scandal, from Merriam-Webster.com is “loss of or damage to reputation caused by actual or apparent violation of morality or propriety.” To say that Obama’s bows to foreign leaders, unprecedented in the history of foreign Presidential junkets, didn’t damage his reputation, particularly among Christians and independents is to be blind to political reality at best, and politically ignorant at worst.

While not truly scandalous, but certainly damaging to his reputation, what about the damage from not ending the Iraq War, as he promised his base? I seem to remember him saying that he would immediately end the war in Iraq, and that we could “take that to the bank.” Well, it must be a long way to the bank that the Left uses, because they haven’t gotten to make that deposit yet.

What about ending the War in Afghanistan? I seem to remember that also being an Obama presidential promise. That’s still going strong. In fact, in a bow (there is he bowing again) to the administration of his predecessor, it seems Obama rather liked the use of a surge to deal with settling the problems in Afghanistan.

And as far as real scandals go, how about the damage to his reputation from Solyndra? While the folks of the base, living in an Alter-ed Reality, might not think much of Solyndra, the independents certainly do. Fast and Furious?

What about Blagojevich? While never directly linked to the President, there is no doubt that this part of the Illinois, and Chicago political machine had damaging effects on the Obama administration.

There are more items to add to the list. Response to the shooting of Rep. Giffords, D-AZ. Stance on and pushing of Obama-care, while not strictly scandalous certainly damaging to the reputation.

While there are no scandals of the scale committed by Bill Clinton (those are big shoes to fill), and most of them are not directly attributable to the President, all of them are close enough to the man that they are severely damaging. To say that the White House and this administration is scandal-free is just naive and ignorant.

1955-2011

The End of an Era of incredible innovation.