Life, unscripted

Why not use TLC's slogan for today's update? I feel like I'm living in a reality TV show anyways...

Since I wrote last, I did work for a couple more clients, and Jane's new store opened to boffo numbers. Unfortunately, that means we've hardly seen each other for the last few days as well. Which kinda sucks.

As for other events, we went to a charity auction in Beverly last night - I'd donated a TV for it which wound up fetching $600. A nice sum. We met up with friends there and enjoyed the munchies available. We headed home (after stopping to pick David up from the friends' house he was at) around 9:30. Then Jane worked all day today, as well.

But meanwhile, David and I had a fun "guys' day" today. We both wore our Pats jerseys all day until suppertime, and went for a fun walk this morning to get the paper and a donut for him. He tried twice to use the potty, which I was very proud of him for. He's starting to see some older kids who know how now, and that's a good influence for him.

And on Friday I horsed up my home e-mail server during a SpamAssassin upgrade. My bad - inbound e-mail ceased for a while as I dealt with it. I've been a big fan of the SME Server (formerly known as e-Smith, then known as Mitel SME, then community-supported at contribs.org, and now just bought by Lycorix) product line and have used it both personally and professionally for a long time. But it's starting to show it's age and though the template-based system it uses for configuration makes SME a very easy product to set up for the "typical" small customer who doesn't need frills - they just need a working box, it's just not easy to extend safely. I'm going to start looking a little harder at "standard" products like the SuSE Professional and Enterprise line among others. I am a Novell partner, so I have good eval materials to work with.

In other news, I hope Ralph Nader dies of a stroke or similar event in the next couple of weeks. I really, truly hope so. The man has become so blind to what he's helping enable that it scares me - he's either really clueless enough to believe that he's being productive or he's so Machiavellian that he hopes leading us to another four years of the smirking idiot will create a huge backlash against the Republicans in 2008. Either way, the world would be a better place without Nader, and if we're luck he'll choke to death on a carrot or something in the next couple of weeks.

And I haven't even felt this way about actual world leaders in my lifetime. I used to really think of myself as a centrist, and my core beliefs are strongly Libertarian in nature (see my FAQ), but until/unless the Christian right is no longer a factor voting Republican is not an option for me. Period. I may not like the Democrats that much, but any party whose mainstream includes people who think they hear God talking to them is not a party I can support. If that all-but-vanished species known as the Eastern Republican ever makes a comeback, count me in. Until then, I stick to voting straight Democrat across the board, even for the ones I can't stand otherwise.