I am current reading Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. Pulitzer Prizing Winning Biography on Lyndon Johnson. Caro also wrote two other books on Johnson and one book, The Power Broker, also winner of the Pulitzer. 4 books in thirty years and two of them won the Pulitzer. Not bad, eh? Lesson, slow and steady wins the race?

Anyway, the first hundred pages of Master of the Senate are actually a good (but brief) history of the Senate as an institution. Why it was created, how it grew and changed, how the other branches of government have dealt with it.

My brother has been lobbying me to join him in his crusade to abolish the Senate from our legislative process. I am torn. On the one hand, I think historically the Senate was good in the 19th century up the Civil War. Terrible from that moment until now. So abolishion sounds good based on recent (130 year track record). On the other hand, the House has not always been a bastion of intelligence and thoughtfulness either. Our current House of Representatives would not lead the country forward as a replacement. However, as a nod to the ‘Crusader of Impossible Dreams’, Daniel, I am slightly more in favor of abolishion than I was two weeks ago.

Additionally, I whole-heartedly support your dream of splitting the electoral vote of all states. You are not always wrong. No matter what Lindy says.

The House of Representatives by a wide margin approved a mammoth energy plan for the nation Thursday that sends billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to energy companies, but is expected to do little to reduce U.S. oil consumption or dampen high energy prices. - MSNBC

This bill will give huge tax breaks to already profitable companies. They will get a free ride, while our rides, our cars will pay the bill.

I read alot of History books and if there is one thing I am certain, it is that the powerful forces in this world will always protect their own interests over every other issue, moral, economic and political. The powerful want to stay that way. It has been true from the moment the world had powerful men and women.

This law stinks. It ruins the environment. It gives tons of cash to giant corporations that do not need the money. It does nothing to reduce our dependence on oil. And I, the taxpayer, has to foot the bill. And I, the driver, has to foot the bill at the pump. It blows. Plain and simple. It blows.

I wonder if we could harness the wind from the blowing of this Bill. And we could use that wind to create energy!

In a SpongeBob Squarepants Episode, where SpongeBob meets Sandy, there is a scene where Sandy invites SpongeBob into her Air Dome. She mentions something about air. So SpongeBob asks his friend Patrick Star what it means. Patrick says, “It means she is stuck up. She puts on Airs. You can fit in, just lift your pinky finger in the air when you drink something.”

Anyway, SpongeBob goes in and, all the sudden, starts to dry out. He starts to get stressed, which turns into full panic. He screams, “Air is Not Good Patrick! Air is Not Good!”

This scene sticks in my mind very clearly, it strikes a chord. The stress he feels penetrates to me and makes me sick. Sometimes when I am stressed, I feel like SpongeBob. “Stress is not good Patrick! Stress is not good!”

Whether it is money concerns or child-rearing concerns or marital concerns or anything else, Stress hits us in a very sensitive place. Hands can shake uncontrollably. Attitudes change. The simplest of tasks becomes impossible. It is difficult to be the master of these feelings. Stress effects us all.

So Sandy noticed the problem and gave SpongeBob a helmet full of water. She is a good friend. If only a bowl full of water were the panacea for all of life’s tribulations. Wow, 50 cent sentence.

Since moving to San Mateo, I have adopted a new regiment of exercise. First off, I bike to work. 2.5 miles each way. This saves us the cost of a second car/gas/insurance, plus I am helping the environment. And the exercise is good for me too.

Second, we have decided to try to do our own gardening. This weekend, I mowed my first lawn. We do not have a big lawn, but it took a long time. The growth was exactly 3 weeks and the blades of grass seemed to be upwards of 18 inches. I purchased this electric lawn mower. The gas powered one was cheaper, but Katie thought that gasoline in the house was a bad idea. I agreed. The lawn mower choked every 3 feet because the grass was too much. So I started with the lawn mower in the setting which raised it high above the grass. Then I raked up the grass and put it in the yard waste container. Then I mowed it again in the low-to-the-ground setting. Then I raked up that load of grass and put it in the container. Then I bought a weed whacker and trimmed all the areas (edges) that the mower couldn’t reach. Finally I raked up that batch and put it in the container. I used sunscreen, but still managed to burn my foot. Speaking of my foot. I stained the whole thing green. I was barefoot. Is that a bad idea? What shoes do you wear for gardening? I took a bath and stained the bath green too. This was the single most intense work out I have had. I think.

A gardener costs $50 a month. It will take me about 7 months to make the investment worth while financially. The robotcut payed for itself in 2 cuts. I think I need to mow the lawn every week to stay on top of it. If I do it that way, I could “mulch” the grass and not rake it up. I think.

We also bought a TV this weekend, which ends out 3 week hiatus. Additionally, I needed a modern directv box to get the full HD benefits. The price was highway robbery, but you do what you have to do to watch the Jets in HD. I am going to receiving every game in HD, so maybe this is a good year to resurrect the pool.

Just a word to my wife: I will not be mowing the lawn on Sunday during football season, so do not make plans for me on Saturday. I will be mowing the lawn that day.

Some days there is so much stuff in your head that you can not effectively blog. Blogging requires picking out some detail and focusing on it. Right now my head is filled with stuff I need to do, open source software pros and cons and topped off with a difficult day of interactive programming.

Sometimes I feel like a perfectionist. I want things to be flawless. Something Katie said struck a chord with me and is making me paranoid.

Portion of a poem by Robert Burns, To a Louse.

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
And ev’n Devotion!

Robert Burns has written some good stuff.

Here is an English translation of the quote:

O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

• Buy a TV. Costco had some good deals. I think we want a 40-50 inch thin profile (but not hang on the wall thin) LCD HDTV. Then of course we need a stand to put it on which will have our components. I need to decide whether or not to scrap the surround sound. It’s nice, but all the wires and stuff are annoying to manage. I could just stick the TV speakers.
• Buy a computer. I need to have a computer for me to play with. I want to install the 64-bit of Windows XP. And then Longhorn when it reaches the next beta. I am skipping the laptop idea and focusing on a desktop. The choice is AMD-64 or Intel Pentium D to start. A friend just got a SWEET deal from Dell six days ago. 4 gigs of ram, Pentium D for $1200. I called Dell and showed them the invoice. They told me No. I can’t believe it. I missed out on the perfect deal by 6 days. Yuck.
• Buy a lawn mower. We are trying to do our own gardening. I need to decide on the old school manual hand mower or an electric mower. The lawn isnt that big, but I am worried the hand mower will be too much of a work out for me. The price difference isn’t that much. $80 for the manual, $130 for the electric.
• Buy a bathroom cabinet that hangs on the wall. I also need to put up our hooks and bars and things in the bathroom.
• Keep putting things away. We are getting close, but still more to go. We also need to get boxes that are at Penny’s to put away. More books!
• Buy Bagels. I have good cold cuts from Mollie Stone’s. I need to eat them. I don’t like going out for lunch. I like eating at my desk. My fort. My cube.

That’s it. Piece of cake.

Finally Finally Finally! I have internet access again!
Commadot and Kokopop are back live. Woo Hoo!

So much has happened in the last couple of weeks.
We moved. Matthew is walking. Jared is potty trained. Nana visited. Google mapped the moon. (Easter Egg: zoom ALL the way in.)

The most exciting thing is that Jared is finally potty trained. Now, I only have to change one diaper. I still have to wipe Jared’s butt when he is done on the potty, but it is a step in the right direction. Maybe one day, my hands will be feces free!

We still have not bought a TV (we currently have ZERO TV’s). And we also have not yet purchased me a new computer. I am working on it though. One step at a time. Ethan broke (somehow) his LCD monitor. I need to replace it or get it fixed. Really annoying though, I have no idea what happened.

I need to update pictures.kokopop.com tonight. Katie is up and running wireless. Our phone works. We need to change the number though to a 650 instead of a 510 I think. We need to set up MS Money.

Finally! Internet Access. The world is once again, my oyster.

Moving has been pretty stressful. We are still half in boxes and we can’t find a bunch of our stuff. The DSL (as of this writing) is not working yet. If the house was a software product we would say it has many bugs. Bath doesn’t drain properly. Kids tub doesn’t get hot water. Water pressure is worse than at Jim and Pennys. (Ok not quite that bad). Shelvs are missing. Broken glass in a few spots. Overall, buggy software.

HOWEVER! It is really a nice house. Lots of sunshine and yet also lots of shade. The grass will be fun to play on. The playroom is darling. All kinds of lovely details. The park nearby is good. We have already played tennis once. The mall is pretty convenient. We are walking much more because of the layout. The drive to work took about 5 minutes. (I will start biking soon)

Katie is a trooper. She has packed or unpacked our belongings 12 times in 10 years and each time we have more and more stuff. She likes to hit me in the head with her shoe sometimes, but that is just foreplay. Wink wink, right katie? No? Oh well.

Check out Teraserver. Microsoft has had this for a while. Incredible Detail. I love this technology. Could you image the resolution that the government has access to? Probably can read the newspaper over some terrorists shoulder. I wonder how much storage the government needs to store that volume and detail of imagery. Staggering really.

Its 6:30am on moving day. The quiet before the storm. I am excited, but the funny thing on my mind is Keyboards, Laptops and Televisions.

Keyboards. My co-workers say that I type too loud. I “attack” the keyboard. I think it is just the Microsoft Natural Pro keyboard I am using. I need to find a quieter keyboard. I will let you know what I end up with. Suggestions are useful but it MUST be ergonomic. No flat keyboards.

Laptops. We are scaling back the office and giving Ethan the main computer. So I need to have a primary computer for home stuff. I use this to test out all kinds of software and also to do random administrative tasks as well as edit some video, albeit rarely. I want it to be fast enough to run longhorn. The real question on my mind is whether to get a 64-bit chip or a Pentium M. The Pentium M has a large (2meg) cache. The 64-bit chip is obviously going to run the OS in 64-bit mode. The thing I fear is 32-bit emulation being too slow. Has anyone run Windows 64-bit? Please chime in.

Televisions. As of right now, we have no television. We need one for the bedroom where we have TiVo and one for the living room. We are debating a “hang it on the wall” flat panel LCD or a stand up in the corner, 12 inches deep, LCD. Both look great. We are going to wait until we move and then decide. So maybe tomorrow we will see if there are any fourth of July sales.

I am excited for the future.