Well, not new, because I got it off of E-Bay. Normally I am not a purchaser off of E-Bay, but the action said that it was owned by a small start-up company that only used it for a few hours until they realised the application they were developing would not work with it. So they are sending the Palm device, with everything in the box, the receipt and the warranty. The T3 costs US$399. In addition, they are throwing in the 512MB expansion card and the travel cradle that they bought. Based off of the vendors they got the stuff from, that’s an additonal US$160. So for me, it met my E-Bay rules:

1. Any successful must save me at least 25%
2. The payer must accept credit cards so that I can reverse the payment if not what is promised
3. Seller feedback must be 95% positive or above
4. Negative feedback must be responded to for a fuller evaluation

When all of those conditions are met, then I feel good. But even then, I’ve only participated in 4 auction since eBay was established. And they have all been electronics purchases that have not failed me yet.

So all I need to do now is to sit back and wait for my T3. Robin is getting my Palm IIIc. It’s not the most advanced on the market, but then Robin is not an advanced computer user, so for him, a color screen and 8MB of memory is more than what he needs!

Remember when Clinton was punished by the GOP for dodging the draft? I do. It was a rallying point for the GOP faithful as another reason he shouldn’t be Commander-In-Chief of the US armed forces.

Forward to now, where we have a President who can’t prove that he served in the National Reserve as there are no real records to be found. There are some records, but they are circumstancial at best. They can’t find people (not the plural) who remember him serving. To add fuel, the Vice President was waived from participating on multiple occasions.

So it does ring hollow when the “Dubya Machine” goes into high gear attacking veteran’s records. It bothered me when Senator Max Cleland was attacked by the machine (he also tried to partner with Bush to his peril — he forgot that at the end of the day, politics is politics and that he needs to always be on his guard). And we can all remember when John McCain’s service credentials were attacked (he might be a fellow GOP member, but again, politics is politics).

Again, I hate towing the democratic line, but I have to agree here. Whether Vietnam service was 2 years or 4 months, I credit Kerry for answering the call the serve and not trying to exempt out or skirt his service. And that he was anti-war upon his return doesn’t mean that he is any less patriotic. Indeed, standing up against the status quo is sometimes the most patriotic thing a person can do. During the civil rights era, standing up against the status quo meant bracing water hoses, attack dogs, selective public establishments, church bombing, and attacks. It is unbelievable that the “Dubya Machine” went so far as to cut snippets of a Kerry speech to make it fit their means. Shame on Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.

I have the fortune of watching this election from a filtered lens. The lens of non-American news networks that present less bias than either CNN or Fox. And it seems shameful that attack ads on both sides cover up the real issues. A billion dollars will be spent on the presidential campaigns this year, and yet we haven’t evolved politics to a point yet where we can discuss issues.

A billion dollars wasted. Especially since the majority of the voting public made up their minds a long time ago.

Slept in late…feel a lot better…and uploaded tons more photos (some will be duplicates I know…sorry about that).

I now have about 1300 photos…or about 80% of all my photos up at Fokti.com.

For those of you who used to visit my O-Foto collection, I’ve stopped loading photos to them. They are crap. I say that because they only offer upload, and make you pay for them to burn your photos to a CD based on # of pictures (I would have had to pay over US$40) if you want then back en masse. Furthermore, they require you to buy something preiodically.

Now I understand the model is that they make money on the selling of pictures, but why stay with them when I can print photos on fotki for a similar pirce, and for $25 a year, I have full upload and download access to my pictures and can structure my photos anyway I want?

O-foto just lost a customer in me….although I will still use it to view other people’s stuff.

Hey Boys and Girls!

I hope that you have all had a good week. My week wasn’t so great, but it has been “OK enough”. A corporate audit was announced this week for our organisation. I was placed in charge of collecting one of the critical bits of information. This one critical bit involved coordinating a staff of about 20 people across 4 countries with deadlines every 16-24 hours. As you can imagine. It’s a big task. It will require me to work on Sunday and a bit of Saturday, and I couldn’t be less pleased. But oh well, these things happen.

I haven’t had much of a personal life this week, as most of it has been for audit preparation. I’ve gone to bed between 02.00 and 04.00 each night this week. I can’t wait for the short/intense project to complete at the end of Monday…then I can begin to worry about my normal job, which is business compliance and risk management as well as business continuity and recovery services for the Nordics.

So that is my update. Steve is here for one more day. Then he is leaving Sweden and IBM for good. That makes me sad. I think that since my weekend is ruined, I am going to have a big huge party night tonight and get it all out of my system. Robin and Tomas are coming out as well, so that should be good.

Anyway, I can’t say that I am happy or sad. Just blah!

Well, let’s take it day-by-day shall we?

Friday
The work day, if one could call it that, went pretty okay and without much fanfare. It was supposed to be a quiet night in and Robin and I just hanging around. However, that quickly changed with Markus, Marisel, and Max (“M-cubed”) called and wanted to go out. At first I was going to stay in all night, and I had convinced myself of that notion until about 01.00 when I decided that I had been good all weekend along and deserved a treat. The treat of partying. And to make it even better…Anders, whom I rarely speak to but would like to see more often, was out with his girlfriend and I wanted to meet them for drinks to. So we all met up at Göta Källere. It was a relatively ok time there, followed by some partying at Berns and then an after-party at Marisel’s place. Got home around 08.00. Not bad, but I was devastated the next day.

Saturday
The general exhaustion and malaise continued, and I was pretty much down for the count for the entire day. I woke up at about 14.30 to make a mad dash to the Systembolaget (the state-owned liquor monopoly) before it’s 15.00 closing. Made it in just before they locked the doors. Did some minor re-stocking of champagne and vodka (btw, if you have seen my 1996 reserve bottles of Bollinger or Veuve Cliquot let me know…the Dom Perignon is nice and safe… :), and Robin made ceasar salad for dinner, and the dressing — which was fantastic — was made by hand. We sat around for a little while and decided to clean the apartment to have a pre-party. We vacuumed and dusted and mopped everywhere. Only to find out that everyone is out of town or unavailable, so we cleaned but no party. Which was good because the flat needed cleaning anyway. Somewhere between lying on the couch and reading up on my CISSP studies, I fell asleep and refused to wake up for more than 5 minutes at a time. Robin decided to meet up with his friends and leave for the clubs without me. I was content to fall asleep. Robin and others called repeatedly, but I still managed to sleep from about 21.00 to 01.45, when Mattias called and I decided that I had to go at least say hi to people I know who were out. So I got ready and Mattias stopped by at 02.40. We had to get to the club by 03.00, because they close the doors as most clubs in Stockholm don’t let anyone enter within 1 hour of closing. Thanks to Speedy Mattias, we made it with 2 minutes to spare. Since I knew the door guards and the club owner, I got free entry. Was inside, saw Robin and Tim, saw some others, got a drink but could only finish ½ of it. Left at about 03.25. Back in bed by 03.59. Nice night out if you ask me 🙂

Sunday
Since I had gotten so much sleep, I decided that I would make Robin a surprise champagne brunch. But I was missing some items from the apartment, so I went to go buy them. When I got back, he was already awake. So much for the surprise, but I still made brunch nonetheless. We had waffles, bacon, sausage, eggs, and toast. Along with champagne of course! It was really nice. Then we sat around for awhile, and then we went to NK to do some shopping. Of course, we run into Steve while at Åhlens. He literally was just off the plane from Atlanta (yay Steve! I like it when Steve is around! :). So we went for some late lunch, came back to my place, and I had a bloody mary. So I am pretty nice and mellow now. Robin is sleeping, Steve is settling in for the week, and we are contemplating going out tonight. It will just be a short night, but we always say that! 🙂

So I am sure that I will have more to write later. But that’s the weekend everyone!

Take care!

//Rodney

Normally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about elections because the decision in November is usually made by now. That’s because polling is usually an amazingly accurate predictor of moods and trends.

But something about this year feels different.

This year it feels like the choices and decision made by the next president will affect us for the next generation. You get the feeling that members of the Supreme Court will retire or hang on based on who wins the White House and the composition of the chabmers of Congress (SC Justices are allowed to be political too you know). This year feels like while we will grow closer to bridging the digital divide, the economic and opportunity divide will widen exponentially between the have’s and the have-nots. I won’t be so drastic as to say tht future of American is at stake. That’s trite. And the system of governance in the US is so amazing complex that it’s hard for one branch of government to bring it down permanently — just inflect lots of damage.

So for that reason, I think it is important that everyone give to the campaign and parties of their choice. Because whatever you believe, this is the presidential election year that will determine whether your interests get served not just on the national level, but on the community and town level as well.

There, that was my non-partisan announcement.

My partisan announcement is that the “middle class” and the lower-class cannot afford another term of Dubbya. It could afford it, but only if congress went to the democrats. We’d rather have both the White House and Congress, but we’ll take the White House as the Gold and the Congress as the Silver prize. I think that this president has been dishonest about so much that it’s hard to trust him. And not about whether or not he had oral sex and lied about it under oath, but about the reasons for sending you family members or friends of family members into harm’s way in Iraq. The President who promised straight talk when he said “weapons of mass destruction” were in Iraq, now says “weapons-of-mass-destruction related activity.” And there are countless others.

You get the feeling that while president wants to move America forward, that he’s not talking about all Americans. He wants to move the Americans who are like him forward. So I ask the question – perhaps foolishly – what about the rest of the Americans?

I look at these candidates and feel that none are truly what this country needs. You get a sense that we needed Reagan in the late 80s and Clinton in the late 90s (I don’t follow party lines and rhetoric thanks, I make up my own mind). But I look at Kerry and really truly feel like he is a better choice to lead America into the future. So I will be voting Kerry. Not off of his 4 months of service in Vietnam, but based on the results of Bush’s four years in office. Time for a change.

Today has been a strange day. I went into the office for the first time in weeks. Well Headquarters anyway. I had not been there in a month, instead opting to work from home where I get more done.

Anyway, I just recently finished one audit project only to be told to get ready for another. It sucks because I have a normal day job that I need to complete as well,but I am not geting the chance to do anything to make positive movement forward.

Life outside of work is going as well as can be expected, but I am disappointed because I have to cancel my vacation to Sardinia next week. And to add insult to injury, I can’t get a time in Robin and my schedule to take a hot air balloon ride.

But in good news, I forsee myself free of credit card debt bythe end of the quarter based on how I have been managing my money. So every cloud must have a siver lining I suppose.

Did I mention how much I love pocketLJ, even if it makes me seem as if I am dyslexic because of the touch-screen keyboard? 🙂

I am writing this from Pizza Hut. It’s terrible. The pizza is sooo good, yet I find myself stuck in a eating loop. They have a really great buffet where for US$10, you get all of the pizza, salad, drinks, and soup you can possibly ear. So of course, since they kept on serving it, I kept on earing it.

Sigh…they don’t make passes at those with fat asses.

Yet…if loving Pizza Hut is wrong, do I want to be right?…

These are the questions that try people’s souls when they are at Pizza Hut with pocket LJ.