Mark's Space

College Bound Still…Again.

2009-06-29T22:47:00.001-04:00

We went up to Gainesville today to drop off my application for admission to their Technology Management program for a Bachelor of Applied Science. After getting there, I found out that I was extremely confused about the whole technical-college-to-regular-college transition process. The degree that I thought I wanted may limit my options in case I want to continue on to grad school later on. The degree that will make that option more viable will require more time up-front in undergrad since my Associates degrees won't transfer in with that option.

So now the dilemma is that I'm not sure whether to go for the B.S., B.A., or B.B.A. and have an easier time getting into a Master's degree program, or to go for the B.A.S. and spend less time in undergrad school but gamble on not wanting the M.B.A.

What do you think?

Zoom-factor? Think again.

2009-03-05T23:55:00.004-05:00

I learned something interesting the other day, that I guess I already knew. As a photography equipment salesman, it makes life a bit tougher, but as a photographer it makes perfect sense.

When shopping for a digital camera back in 2003, the salesmen I talked to were touting the APS-C sensor on my Canon EOS 10D, saying that it has a "1.6x magnification factor" and that it will make my 100mm lens into a 160mm lens. I said "Wow, that sounds great!" I was interested in shooting sports at that time, and with that, the longer the lens the better.

With this "zoom factor," the new portrait lens would be a 50mm rather than the 80mm needed for film portraits (because 50 x 1.6 = 80). Since the APS-C cameras hit the market, the lens manufacturers have had no problem selling their cheap 50 mm lenses.

I went to some training last week hosted by a Nikon training rep. He made a very good point regarding this issue. The APS-C is not a "zoomed" sensor. It is a CROPPED sensor. Let's say you have two cameras: one full-frame sensor and one with APS-C sensor. The sensor in itself does not magnify the image. It simply crops the image to a smaller size (about 37.5% smaller). When you take that image that is cropped and print it on the same size print, it appears that the lens was zoomed in. This is why people are under the impression that a lens will act like a longer lens on the cropped sensor cameras.

The fact is that a 50 mm lens is a 50 mm lens, no matter what camera or sensor in front of which you attach it. A 50mm lens is not a portrait lens. It does not "act like" an 80 mm lens. The compression and distortion will be identical when using that lens on a full frame sensor as on an APS sensor.

Now I am rubbed the wrong way every time I hear the term "35mm" equivalent. All the "digital lens" manufacturers have started printing the lens' "35mm equivalent" on the packaging. The truth is that the lens is what it is. There is no equivalent. No zoom. Just cropping.

Let me hear your thoughts.

I Pledge

2009-01-24T00:10:00.000-05:00

I don’t know if you’ve seen all the hype about “pledging” support for the new president. I’ve seen the online stories about various celebrities pledging their support to President Obama, and now there is a commercial on USA network with various people, mostly minorities, pledging to basically “get along.”

W-W-What??? Does this sound absurd to anyone else?

So you are saying, “Now that we have a president who I agree with, I’ll pledge my support to ‘our president,’ and anyone who does not pledge their support is just so obviously bigoted and un-American.”

I pledged my support to the Constitution when I enlisted in the military. Along with that pledge came a promise to support the president. That meant whomever the president happened to be. Not just who I happened to agree with.

Where was all this support eight years ago? Oh yeah, a Republican took office eight years ago. What these lemmings are really saying is that “we will support the Democrats, no matter what happens.” Really. That is what they are saying. Think about that. Barack Obama took office just a few days ago. He’s done absolutely nothing to prove that he deserves (or does not deserve) your support or criticism. Pledging to support him no matter what tells us that even if he goes back on his word, you will support that. Even if he pushes executive orders against your specific group, you will support that. Even if he directly impacts your wallet in a negative way, you will support that.

If you are not a government employee, do not pledge support to a person who holds an elected office. Please. As an American, I believe that you should pledge support to the Constitution and any actions to support it. People will let you down. The Constitution will not, as long as you choose leaders who believe in its power. Pledging support to a person will just make you feel like a hypocrite when that person goes back on their word and changes their mind.

Support policies, laws, and ideas. Do not pledge support to a person. You will be disappointed every time.

Should I shave it?

2008-12-16T01:53:00.003-05:00

I have been working on a respectable goatee and I like it a lot so far. The problem is this: I have a job interview at a marketing firm on Wednesday morning and I don't know if I should just trim it so it looks like it has a purpose or if I should shave it off and admit that it has no purpose.

The attire required for the interview is business professional, so I am thinking that shaving it off would make the most sense.

Tell me what you think...

Now I really want to know...

2008-11-09T02:57:00.003-05:00

What, precisely, was it that made you vote for Barack Obama. Precisely. Not anything like, "I think he'll just be better," or "He's not a Republican." or anything stupid like that.

I want to know what past experience or accomplisments of his actually inspired you to vote for him. Or perhaps promises he has made? Are you the type of person who votes for someone based on their promises to help you, and then complain that the government is not helping you?

Please feel free to comment and let me know what it is that made you decide to vote for Obama.

Oh, and no offense, but if you did not vote for Obama, your comment will not be published. I know why you didn't vote for him.

:-)

I just don't understand...

2008-11-04T23:14:00.003-05:00

What is wrong with some of you people? Apparently, the majority of you out there. Barack Obama is at this point the "projected" president-elect of our once-great country.

Listen, this guy has vowed to raise taxes on the majority of Americans and has vowed to give YOUR money to people who you know do not deserve it.

You may say, "Well, he's going to end 'the war.'" No, he's not. Wars do not end overnight. Especially the elusive ones like the several that we are fighting now.

You may say, "He's going to tax the bejesus out of the 'rich' and he's going to lower my taxes." To that I say, "you are a gullible moron who has no grip on reality or economics." He has promised to raise taxes on "big corporations." That part is true. He will. And what will those corporations do? They will raise the prices of the products and services that they sell...to you.

I'm a small business owner. I have a set profit margin that I must maintain in order to pay my business' bills and my family's bills. If my costs go up, I have two options: raise my prices, or don't pay my bills. Which do you think I'll choose?

2008-07-10T23:29:00.002-04:00

My new position as a retail sales associate has introduced me to a new array of the spectrum of personalities. You always learn something new just after thinking, “I’ve seen it all.”

Ms. B, as we’ll call her for now, came into the store the other day. In her hand she held five prints, all being 4” by 6”. She came up to the counter, where I could not help but to notice that she (or someone close to her) had most likely paid handsomely for her bust size. Nice to look at, but I was soon disappointed by an extreme vacuum of intelligence.

As our Ms. B laid the photographs on the counter, she pointed to the first three (two of which were from the same frame of negative). “First of all, I need these fixed. I got them done here, and they turned out like this.”

The photographs had turned out exactly as Ms. B had shot them – underexposed. As it turned out, she had used a one-time-use disposable camera. Looking at the photographs, I saw that they were of a group of children. Like a Sunday school class or something of the sort. She had done at least one of the following while shooting the photos with her $5 camera:

• Stood too far away for the flash to be effective, or
• Not ensured that the flash fired at all, or
• Turned the flash off and did not have adequate ambient lighting.

“I come here a lot. They know me here,” she said to me. She then looked back into the photo lab and beckoned for my co-worker in the lab to come out to the front counter. Seeing the look on my co-worker’s face at the beckoning, I couldn’t help but thinking, I’ll bet they do know you.

My lab tech co-worker said, “Do you have the negatives for these pictures?” to which the beloved customer replied, “I have so many boxes of negatives at home…I am not going to search through them all just for these negatives. I just want you to fix these pictures.”

Of course, without the negatives, the best we can do is to make an exact copy of the photographs. After I told her so, she claimed, “Well, it has to be better than they are now.”

I said, “Probably not. You see, this print is actually a copy of the negative. If we scan it and try to fix it, we’ll actually be making a copy of that copy. When you make a copy of a copy, it cannot possibly be better than said copy. But we’ll sure give it a try for you.”

“Then why even bother if it won’t work? Why even waste your time on them?” She was almost yelling at me now. Ah, the joys of being the guy with the nametag on. I resisted the temptation to tell her that no, her crappy attempt at photography was in fact not worth my time.

“I said we’d give it a try and see what we can do.”

She walked out of the store shaking her head. And we’re still talking about her.

A tax conversation

2008-02-24T03:08:00.004-05:00

Let’s go on a mental journey. Join me won’t you?

Imagine two men in the United States. The men are not too different from each other. Let us discuss the taxes that these two men pay.

First, let us take a look at why we, and our two heroes, pay taxes. Taxes are to pay for the services that “we all use” such as the three branches of government, military protection, FBI and many other “services” (whether or not we asked for or needed them). There are countless organizations, corporations, and miscellaneous money pits that suck the Treasury dry each year.

Our two heroes live in the same country, state, county, and city. Their kids would be in the same school district, except for one of them sends his kids to a private school. They use the same gas station, although one may purchase more gas than the other. They both refrain from calling on public services unless in an emergency. These men, in any natural sense, are equal.

When it comes to federal services, their usage is absolutely identical. Neither of them uses any more or less military protection than the other, neither uses more or less congressmen, senators, supreme court justices, or FBI agents than the other, and neither makes more or less use of the president than the other. Neither of them has ever, nor will ever, draw from the Welfare program. For all intents and purposes, these two Americans use an identical amount of federal government.

So my question to you is this: Why do these government services cost one of the men more money than they cost the other man?

The answer, as you may have guessed, is that we have a very poorly thought-out and poorly executed tax structure in this country. It is called a “progressive” tax structure, but don’t be fooled. It does not symbolize progress.

Picture the spectrum of tax rates. As your income (the erroneous measure of a man or woman in this country) goes up, your tax rate “progresses” up the scale, and you are charged more for being an American. That’s what “progressive” means: as your income goes up, so does your tax rate.

Now let us think about this logically. Does someone with a higher income use more of the government? No, they do not, in general. Do they get to use the fact that they pay a higher tax rate to their advantage in any legal way? No, they do not.

They pay a higher tax rate because legislators have convinced the general public that “the rich can afford to pay more.” This is assuming that one person can rightly decide what another can and cannot afford.

Let’s look at it this way: When you get your carpets cleaned professionally, do you pay less per square foot than someone with twice the square footage? When the carpet cleaner goes to a “rich” person’s house, do they tell the “rich” person, “I’m charging you more than I charge other people because I know that you make more money and you can afford to pay more for the same service.”? Of course they do not. It makes no business sense to charge one person or household more for the exact same type and exact same amount of service.

Some people who have to try hard each month to make ends meet feel that the “rich” have some kind of obligation to pick up the slack. This, of course, depends on one’s definition of “rich.” For most people, “rich” just means any income which is significantly higher than their own. For some, “rich” means someone who does not have to work anymore and can still live comfortably (this group may not be the income tax payers, since their income is from investments which many times have already been taxed).
Yet for some other people, “rich” just means somebody who does not have to clip coupons in order to afford groceries for the week, or somebody who gets a paycheck twice per month. This latter group also falls into the first group, thinking that anyone with a higher income than their own is “rich.”

Now that you’ve defined “rich” in your own mind, ask yourself a question. Does someone out there consider you rich? Do you deserve to pay more than they do for the exact same services that they use? Or should two equal human beings and Americans pay the same as each other, if anything, for the same services used (or not used)?

Being “progressive” is just one of many aspects that make the current taxing structure unfair and beyond reason. Why tax income? All it does it punish Americans for trying to be more productive. The more productive you are, the more income you reap, and the more taxes you pay. It rewards those who have chosen not to have an income, or to have a very low income.

So, what shall we do about this completely illogical and unfair taxing system? The reason it is in place as it is, is because it started out simple and over the years grew more and more complicated and unfair, bit by bit. What we need is a new tax system. Not a tax reform plan, but throw out the old system and bring in a new one.

Unfortunately, people cannot agree on a new system that will please everyone and seem logical to everyone. The flat tax doesn’t work for me because it is still an income tax, and as I’ve said, it punishes productivity.

The FairTax plan involves removing the productivity punishment and instead punishing people for spending their money on services and new items. This new punishment is theoretically taken away again by the prebate system which provides a check to government-approve households, presumably to make up for the tax that they will pay on essential items and services during the month. It looks great on the surface, but with the prebate, it revives the progressiveness of the current system. The math would work out the same if the plan did away with the prebate in lieu of a lower tax rate. Or it could completely do away with the tax on “essential items.” Not to mention that the FairTax bill, as written, does not guarantee that the income tax will not rear its ugly head again, possibly within days of passing the bill. Then we would have not just a new tax system, but an additional tax system.

What I am looking for is somewhere between all these unfair and too-fair ideas, something that will encourage productivity, but not at the expense of favoring a class over another class.

What are your thoughts?

The Civil War that wasn't

2007-12-29T11:29:00.002-05:00

It is exciting at 30 years old to have the opportunity to learn new things about subjects we were "taught" in grade school. Up north, we thought that we were being taught the right things about subjects like the "Civil" War. We were not.

We were taught that those evil Southerners wanted to have slaves, and they were all slave owners, and they would fight to the death to keep their slaves. Then we were taught that Abe Lincoln was such a wonderful guy that he was able to "convince" the Southerners that Blacks are people too, and they deserved to be free. Right? Uh...no.

When this country was formed, it was formed as a republic, where each state was governed by its people. That's what made us great. If you didn't like how your state was doing things, you could take it up with the state. The federal government had very little role in lawmaking, save for the Constitution, which is all the federal government needs as far as law goes.

Then the Feds decided to start making more "federal laws" by which each state had no choice but to abide. Certain states realized that this presented a grand departure from what the framers had intended. They saw their hard-earned money going to D.C. by way of federal taxes, and not returning. They saw their state power going to D.C. without any benefit.

So they decided to secede. They united as a Confederacy and formed their own government, run by their states, using the principles that they held dear.

The Federal Government did not like that one bit! Those southern states had stopped paying taxes to Washington since they had formed their own government.

Deciding that they could not survive without the South's tax money, the Feds decided to go punish the South. Abe Lincoln waged a war with the newly independent Confederacy (for nothing more than money and power), and eventually won. In the process of "uniting" our country, Lincoln turned families against each other, made brothers kill each other, and eventually killed 600,000 Americans.

Don't be fooled by your textbook. The War between the States was not about slavery. It was about power. The Feds wanted more power and so they took it.

And another thing. The term "Civil War" applies only when two opposing forces are in competition for control of the SAME government. This was not the case with our War of Secession. It is not literally accurate to call it a Civil War.

Patents and original thoughts

2007-11-20T01:27:00.000-05:00

I thought of a new product that I have never seen before. I thought of it quite a while ago, but didn't know how I should go about making a working prototype.

Today, I finally made one. I took a clipboard that I bought at an office supply store, cut two horizontal half-inch slits in it, and threaded a hose clamp through one slit and back through the other.

What this created is a shopping cart clipboard. Imagine walking through the grocery store with a handful of coupons and a shopping list, trying to figure out where to put it all when you are picking out your merchandise. Wouldn't a shopping cart clipboard help in this regard???

Well, apparently I didn't think of it FIRST.

I did think it up, and it was absolutely not based on anything I've ever seen or heard of, so I consider it to be an original idea. However, there is already a patent registered in the U.S. under the title of "shopping cart clipboard" and the abstract almost exactly matches the description of my product.

That sucks.

Learning Disabilities and homework

2007-10-08T01:37:00.000-04:00

My wife and I have been going to the same college for a few years now. We are taking one class, Humanities 191, together this quarter. It is kind of an introduction to the arts, and what makes us human. In fact, our first assignment was a discussion board entry answering the question of “What makes us human?”

The second assignment was extremely interesting, not for the content of the assignment, but because of the vast differences between our learning and working styles.

The assignment was to look through the first chapter in the text book, find a painting that appealed to us, and describe it. Basically, we just needed to open the book and describe one of the paintings in our own words.

Over the past week, Adriana has been slaving and toiling over her computer, trying to describe what she thought was going on in the painting that she chose. She knew what to write about, but could not figure out how to put her thoughts into coherent writing.

I, on the other hand, could not figure out why she was sweating the assignment. The problem that I have when writing assignments is that I cannot think of what to write about, so this assignment seemed extremely easy. That being the case, I started working on it twenty minutes before it was due.

While my wife slaved for 6 days and barely got her required ¾ page, I worked for about thirty minutes and came up with twice the writing. If you’ve been keeping up with the math though, you’ll notice that I turned in my assignment about ten minutes late!

Something about a tortoise and a hare?

AT&T and world domination

2007-07-15T10:35:00.000-04:00

Ma Bell has been put back together again. And of course, we the customers lose on the deal. It's sad for any Atlanta-area resident to drive through Midtown to see that the huge "BellSouth" building now has the familiar stylized globe and the letters "AT & T" at the top, rather than the comforting "BellSouth" brand name. The Cingular Wireless building in Sandy Springs no longer has the kooky little orange guy made out of an X. At least they didn't put an AT&T Wireless sign there. Yet.

When we moved to the area 4 years ago, we tried cable for our TV and internet. BellSouth had not made DSL available for our particular suburb yet, so we had very little choice when it came to high-speed internet. The cable was supposedly "digital" which means a relatively high quality picture. Not HD, but pretty high quality anyway. Well, the local channels were pretty clear, but as you flipped through the channels, it got worse and worse. By the time you got up to the premium channels, the picture quality was as bad as if I had been using a rabbit-ears antenna. While watching TV, the picture would go away completely for about two seconds. This would happen rather consistently, about every three minutes. Imagine watching a movie while that's going on.
As for the cable "high-speed" internet, since we lived in a populous area, and DSL was not an option yet, everybody who had high-speed, had cable. And, with cable, if you are in a "Charter Cable" area, you have to have Charter. If you are in a Comcast Cable area, you have to have Comcast, etc. So, we're in a populous area where everyone with high-speed internet was using Charter Communications cable internet.

I don't know if you know this or not, but the way cable works is that you and your neighbors all pull your signal off the same line. Now, with internet, that means that the more people you have pulling off the signal, the slower it goes. When the cable company says you have the "3Mps" speed, that means that is the highest possible speed of the signal when it leaves the origination point. It's not anywhere near that when it gets to your house, especially if more people are pulling off the signal. So our cable internet was slower than dial-up internet most of the time.

Why all the boring backstory?

Our DSL has been slowing down intermittently lately. We have the 6Mbps speed, but ever since AT&T took over BellSouth, we have seen crappier service than ever before. Sometimes we'll pick up the phone and there is no dialtone. Sometimes we just lose the internet altogether, then it's back a few minutes later. When your DSL is as slow and unreliable as cable, that's when you have a big problem.

This has only been since AT&T took control of our beloved BellSouth, though. we had very few problems prior to that. Ugh. Can't we get good customer service anywhere?

Three Decades

2007-07-05T23:35:00.000-04:00

Thirty Years,

Where'd they go?

Thirty Years,

I don't know.

(with apologies to Bob Seger)

My first Short Story

2007-07-03T00:43:00.000-04:00

I finished my story "Allie and the Dress" yesterday!

I edited it today, so it should be ready to read.

You can find it here.

Taxes!!

2007-03-19T00:35:00.000-04:00

I just watched a documentary by Aaron Russo on the taxation of income, and a few other topics. It was really eye-opening (assuming the facts in it were true) regarding the actual legality regarding the Government confiscating your money. According to several experts in the film, the Constitution’s definition of “income” does not include money earned by citizens by laboring and earning wages. By this account, any taxation on the wages earned by Americans would need specific legislation authorizing the taxation.

Such legislation does not exist.

When asked to point out the on-the-books law authorizing an income tax or even a law requiring filing of tax forms, the IRS officials had nothing to say. All that anyone from the IRS will say is to the effect of, “The 16th Amendment authorizes the Internal Revenue Code and the Income Tax.”
The Supreme Court has ruled and held many times that the 16th Amendment does NOT, in fact, authorize the Government to take your money that you earn by working.

It’s interesting that the American People are so fearful of the Government, that they allow this to take place. It seems that the boat rockers are punished so severely that most people are terrified to stand up for their rights. This, in turn, costs Americans hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Money that you and I give to the government, just because we “heard somewhere” that we are required to.

The Income Taxes that the Government collects from the American workers barely pay the interest on the national debt. Of course, the Government doesn’t actually use this money to pay the interest on the national debt, and the debt grows (even when there is a budget surplus).

I Love BestBuy!

2007-02-26T00:14:00.000-05:00

I got an invitation in the mail a couple weeks ago from Best Buy. It was sent out to local Reward Zone members. That is the name of BB's purchase rewards program.
They were staying open for two hours past normal closing time Sunday Feb 25, but just for Reward Zone members. With the invitation, there was a coupon that said if I spend more than $100 during those two hours, I'll receive a bonus of 250 reward points on my account. I didn't spend any money, so I didn't get the bonus points.

But, also during those two hours they would draw names and give away prizes and gift cards that you had to be present to win. And, the first 100 members through the door get an $8 set of earbuds for free. I think I was number 102.

So I go there and give my invitation to the guy in the blue polo shirt who looked like a club bouncer, and he ushers me in to the store where a table is set up with a drawing box. Into the box went my invitation.

And to the home theater section we went. You see, our home stereo doesn't play CDs anymore, even though it has a 5 disc changer. We bought it about 7 years ago for a hundred bucks. So we're ready for another one. On the way back there, we lollygag for a few minutes, then we hear the store's PA system come to life: "The next winner of a $50 gift cards is..." Then they actually called out my name!

So back to the front of the store we went, after arriving 5 minutes earlier, I had made $50 of Best Buy money. Cha-ching.

We ended up spending no actual or plastic money, since we didn't find anything we really wanted. The stereo we liked the most did not have an "aux" input for the TV, the multi-function printer I liked can be a business expense, so I'm not going to give my gift card for it, and my next laptop computer will most likely come directly from sonystyle.com. And the new telephones we liked for the house are $55 cheaper at Sam's Club.

So we quit while we were ahead.

On the way out, they had us fill out a one-minute survey regarding our experience there, and then gave us each a $2 gift card. So we were out of the house a total of an hour, and came home with essentially $54 more than we left the house with.

I love Best Buy.

Pay the Right Bill

2007-02-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

When using a bank's bill paying service, where all your payees are listed in alphabetical order, make sure you pay the right bill. I have two Citi credit cards. I have a Platinum Select Dividend card, with a high credit limit, and I have a Diamond Select card with a low limit, but zero interest (for now). When making a $250 payment to the high-balance platinum card, I accidentally selected the wrong card, on which I barely even owed that much. So when I checked my account the other day, My Platinum card was over the limit, payment was late, and interest had accrued again. My minimum payment due was stated as $1006.00!

I called (Citi has USA-based customer service, and they were very helpful) and I explained the situation, and I'm pretty certain that it is getting fixed so that the payment will be credited to the proper account effective on the date that I paid, the late payment will go away, the account will be under the credit limit so the over-limit fee will go away, and they will hopefully bring my APR down to where it was.

Ugh.

memoirs

2006-11-27T00:27:00.000-05:00

I have about 3 paragraphs written on my Navy Memoirs. There's so much to remember, so much to write. and I can't think of what comes next. It'll come to me. It's just frustrating when I can't remember things even though they were like yesterday just a couple years ago.

Anyway, I'll try, and I'll keep you updated.

It'll be interesting when I get done with it. You'll see.

Election Day

2006-11-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

I voted for some Libertarians today. I’ve never voted for Libertarians. I felt pretty good about it when I left though, since I have realized in the past couple years that they are who I’ve agreed with most often lately.
The Republicans haven’t really done anything to secure our borders, and obviously the Democrats don’t want to keep anyone out, including our enemies.
Of course, I didn’t vote a straight ticket one way or the other. There were even some Democrats that I voted for. Well, those were the ones that were running unopposed. I just didn’t feel like leaving a box unchecked, and I didn’t feel like writing in my name as the opposition.
One big issue for me is the Fair Tax. This is House Resolution 25, written by my Congressman, Representative John Linder. If you'd like to know more about the Fair Tax, you can go to www.fairtax.org to learn more. Also, Rep. Linder wrote a book (with Neal Boortz) about the idea. It is very informative.

Laid Off

2006-07-06T22:43:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm dealing with being laid off rather well, I believe. Instead of laying around and waiting for the unemployment checks to roll in, I've decided to be proactive. Of course, the unemployment checks ARE rolling in, but that's not the point. I am installing some security systems and taking some pictures. I'm also going to throw myself into my schoolwork again. I have been slacking on it recently, and am on academic warning. If I don't do well for the next week or so, I could be put on academic probation for next quarter. That's alright though, it's only for a quarter, and then I'll have put myself back on track. It's pretty easy to do when I don't have to go to work for a full eight hours per day. Next quarter I've decided to take an intro to Criminal Justice course. I've always been interested in Criminal Justice, even when I didn't know what Criminal Justice was, and I always wanted to be the good guy as a little kid. Anyway, the point is, I'm thinking of getting a Criminal Justice degree after I get my Business Management Degree. I figure, if nothing else, I've got to keep going to school at least until the G.I. Bill is exhausted.

Good movie quote

2006-02-25T22:42:00.000-05:00

This is from "In Good Company"

Topher Grace: "Wow, you really believe in this stuff, don't you?"

Dennis Quaid: "Of course. Why else would I do it?"

Discussion or Argument

2006-02-24T19:17:00.000-05:00

My better half and I just had a discussion (I believe). The subject is not important for this post, but she thought we had an argument. I thought it was a discussion. So we proceded into an argument over whether our previous conversation was an argument or a discussion.

Ironic, huh?