Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

As I tend to do from time to time, I was recently browsing posts in my weblog from this time last year. It’s always interesting to recall what was going on in your life at a certain point in time in such vivid detail as a weblog(or journal for that matter) can provide. A lot of the posts where about our return from Chile, and feelings about Springtime, many of which are bubbling up currently as the trees begin budding. One interesting post that caught my eye was the post on May 13th that announced I was leaving the evolt.org project I’d founded nearly four years earlier.

While I was reading the post, some of the baggage during that time in my life came back to the surface, and I wondered what the people running that site were up to… A number of people from those days I’m still in touch with on a daily basis, and many others, on a less frequent schedule, but always friendly. There were a few personal sites of people I’d known during my time with evolt that I checked out over the past few days as well.. Some were still active in the .org, others had moved on as I did, albeit in less dramatic fashions :)

Sent off a few emails just to say hi, and to let a few people that might not have known that Jenny and I had in fact gotten married, and I hoped they were doing well, the usual kind of stuff you send when you haven’t really corresponded with someone for a long period of time. It was nice to hear back from all of them, and I’m happy to report that almost everyone is doing well, all things considered :)

One response I got from someone who was still slightly involved with the .org was pretty interesting. They said that although the public sides of evolt like the website and mailing list were doing well, many of the administrative things ‘behind the scenes’ weren’t in really good shape, and in a number of cases were totally dead of all community involvement except when a flame war or server move popped up. It was pretty much one or two people (who weren’t hard for me to guess) that were doing most of the legwork like dealing with article submissions and answering email inquires.

Of course, I knew something was up last month when I got an email saying the members.evolt.org service was shutting down (I offered f2o.org accounts for stranded members.evolt.org members, about 30 people took us up on the offer) within a fortnight of the message, and it turned out the person who took over hosting evolt.org after me wasn’t seeing any money after seven months, and had to shut it down. The end result of all that was a scattering of the services(sans m.e.o) to anyone that could take them on.

Skipping over the gory details, I guess the one thing that caught me as I relived what was happening a year ago and what I was seeing now is the absolute justification for me leaving. One of the primary reasons for my departure was a lot of people weren’t happy with the choices I made as hosting provider for who got access to servers and whatnot. When we left for our Chilean vacation, I left the ‘keys’ with a person who was involved with evolt and worked where the boxes resided, much to the distress and howling of a number of people.

The timing made the irony extra thick I guess, as I saw that pretty much the same thing I got ostracized for last year is still happening, just with a different person, and no one seems to have a problem with it this round.

So I say justification above because I always had a suspicion it was me personally some people were going after, and not the handing out of ‘keys’ for example, or any other process I had. And not that I’m doubting the choice I made in leaving, quite the opposite in fact; I’m glad I didn’t stick it out and try to make things work a year ago, because apparently, nothing I could have done at the time would have made things ‘better’. I see now that I was right in believing the only way to fix the process in some peoples eyes was to take me out of it.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but it’s nice to look back a year and read on a signpost, ‘I was right’ with perfect clarity.

Naturally, I think a few people continue to do a great service behind the scenes for the community that is evolt.org, and they should get a fucking medal for it at the very least. If it weren’t for their hard work, the community could simply fade into irrelevance, and a great idea would simply cease to exist.

Of course, as things have a way of doing, it all worked out in the end for me. A year later, a lot of the stress I felt while dealing with a certain number of shrills on a constant basis is gone. The project I started immediately after I left evolt, f2o.org, is going on it’s own one year birthday, and is doing better than I could have ever dreamed. Jenny and I got married, and are living together more happily than ever.

In all, it was like taking off a heavy winter coat on a fine Spring day (such as this!) and coming to the realization that while the coat had a use in one season of your life, it’s no longer needed, and, in fact, you can walk faster without it anyways.

Jenny and I finally picked our caterer last week, which was probably the biggest stress of our wedding, so we’re pretty happy. We also picked the spot for our wedding ceremony last night, it’s pretty sweet and Jenny is really happy about it.. It’s in a park on the East side of Milwaukee overlooking Lake Michigan. Pretty much a perfect spot, and it’s available! Now all we need is to find someone to actually marry us here in the US. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but we’re having a hard time finding someone to perform the ceremony. Hopefully we can get that last big stressful event over with this week :)

Yesterday was a really nice warm day too, and while we were checking out our ceremony spot, we decided to see how far it was between the ceremony spot and the reception hall.

Of course it was the first really nice weekend day of the year here, so all the kids were cruising Lincoln Memorial Drive (the road that runs along the lake here, popular cruising spot) showing off their subwoofers and tricked out Acura’s (with wings!). About half way down, we noticed it was really backed up, and it turns out the power was out on the East side yesterday so none of the stoplights were working. Mix together about 500 kids cruising, nice weather, and lack of traffic lights, and well.. It was pretty crazy. The road was backed up for miles on, which the kids liked as it let them go even slower than they normally would, and actually have more than a two word conversation with the girl walking down the sidewalk they were cat calling.

Of course, us having the top down and music blaring in our car made it look like we were cruising too, even though we were about 10 years over the average age, and in the boring process (to the kids at least) of figuring out the mileage between our wedding and reception spots. So we pretty much fit in, which was interesting..

Last Thursday, we met a few friends from out of town at a bar on Water Street, which is frequented by college 20 year olds and for the most part considered a ‘meat market’. It’s probably about the first time in three or four years that I’ve been to the bar like that, and the experience instantly transported me back to my own college days when a bar like that was the norm. The overcrowding. The drunken frat boys doing Jagermeister shots. The drunken women throwing themselves over equally drunk strangers. Ahh, those where the days! ;)

So we had a pretty youthful weekend between hanging out at a college bar and cruising with the teenagers. Kind of a reminder of what it was like to be young, and belonging in those situations - realizing now that growing up isn’t always a bad thing ;)

It was one year ago today that Jenny and I returned from our trip to Chile, wow does time fly! Javier and Pilar are planning on moving up to the US this fall, hopefully we have a chance to show them as good a time as they did for us.Also, a big happy birthday to Pilar! :)

A public information and town hall meeting will be held Thursday, April 24 to discuss the possibility of extending Chicago’s Metra commuter rail line to downtown Milwaukee. The Metra line currently runs as far as Kenosh WI(about 40 miles S of Milwaukee).

SEWRPC is conducting a detailed planning study on the topic starting at 4pm be in the Harbor Lights Room of the Downtown Transit Center, 909 E. Michigan St, followed by a presentation at 6pm and open town hall forum meeting at 6:30pm. the South Eastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Committee website has more information.

If you’re a Milwaukee county resident who’s interested in the future of mass transportation in our area, try to attend! With recent news of the Trolley service in Milwaukee being shut down this fall, our city’s public transportation situation is in dire straights. Hooking us up with the Chicago Metra line would only help to increase the amount of travel between the two metro areas, while decreasing pollution and traffic.

Well, the Wings got swept by the Mighty Ducks. Jenny and I are both pretty bummed. This blurb from an article in the Detroit Free Press pretty much sums it up:

That riddle will now consume our spring and summer hours, previously set aside for hockey. Instead of going indoors in early May, you can mow the lawn and say, “I can’t believe the Wings lost like that.” Instead of finding a sports bar in early June, you can hit the beach and say, “I still can’t believe the Wings lost that way.

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What happened to the administrations promise that once Iraq’s dictator was no longer a threat, the people would speak their minds and say how happy they are about the US invasion?

As far as I can see, Saddam is gone, the US is in control, but the Iraqi people aren’t exactly welcoming us with open arms. And why would they welcome one forcefully installed government after they just got rid of one? In fact, now that the dust — caused by thousands of looters — has settled, many Iraqi’s don’t seem very happy at all with a US occupation of their country.

Case in point, today in Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, between 7-15 Iraq civilians were shot dead and 100 were injured when US military forces returned fire against a group who were throwing rocks and firing small arms, demanding that Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Americans leave the city.

Now I’m not saying that either side is right or wrong here, but obviously the Liberation Honeymoon is over, and it seems that things like this are only going to intensify as the days pass. I’ve been saying it for almost a year now, but there is no way that ‘Democracy’, especially one that will be forced down the throats of the Iraqi society under the guise of ‘Liberation’, is going to work. This sort of unrest/rebellion is a direct result of that force-fed policy.

For the past six months, the US administration has been trying to calm the fears of many Middle Eastern countries who were afraid that a US led invasion of Iraq was only the beginning of an attack on the entire region, it’s society, and yes, even its most popular religion, Islam. During that six months, the US administration did everything it could to try to propel the notion that occupying the region wasn’t our plan.

Weapons of mass destruction, terrorist threats against America, regime change, and liberation were a few of the reasons we’d put forth when questions rose about what our purpose was, and for the most part, Middle Eastern governments accepted that albeit with some propensity. And just when they start to take our word for the reasons of this War, Our Prez., Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State go and shoot their mouths off about Syria having Weapons of mass destruction or harboring terrorists, and while we’re not going to invade them just yet, we’d really really appreciate it if they ‘cooperate’ with us. Or else. And that goes for you too Iran.

Think back to last August, and you’ll realize - much as many Middle Eastern governments do - that this is exactly how the language against Iraq started. Those governments and indeed many Iraqi people are getting wise to this fact, and are starting to ask questions and getting angry. This situation with civilians dying in Mosul today is a direct result of some people who are a bit on the extremist side of things challenging US authority which during the last week has lost much of it’s credibility.

So we have a small situation and hopefully an isolated one. However, if the US administration continues on the path it’s been taking for the last 6 months, I can bet you there will be more of this kind of rebellion; not only from Iraqi’s, but people of other nations who see the actions the US continues to take as a direct threat to their society, and most importantly to their religion.

Hopefully, we can just finish the task at hand in a quick appropriate manner and start focusing on making friends in the World again, not enemies that see us as an aggressor.

Man, things must be going good in the Middle East! Bush had a few hours today to hype his huge Tax Cut deal again. According to him, “The tax cuts I have proposed would create 1.4 million new jobs by the end of 2004″.

Does this guy need a kick in the head or what? Maybe one of his handlers should do some quick math and realize that before their boss took office, we had 5.7 million people unemployed in the US(2000), while in 2002 there were 8.4 million people without jobs. When this guy took office back in January 2001 we had an unemployment rate of 4.1%, it’s now at 5.8% and creeping towards 6.0%. And his big fix is to add 1.4 million jobs? By the end of 2004?! Even if it works out, and there are 1.4 million more jobs in the U.S. at the end of 2004, we’re still 1.3 million jobs lower than where we were when he took over!!

Wow, thats a fuckin’ bang-up job! Nice work Sir!

And all this is going to come from deficit budget that’s biggest perk is the end of double taxation on stock dividends. Ya, it doesn’t add up to me…

Not too worry, by the end of the week, he’ll be ‘committed’ back to protecting the Iraq Ministry of Oil, and threatening to invade even more Middle Eastern Countries, and this whole economy thing will be just a memory!

The Red Wings start their defense of the Stanley Cup tonite against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks! Yes, that’s right, it’s NHL playoff time!

The Wings really kicked some ass in the last two months of the season, and look to be hitting their stride just in time for the playoffs. Last year the toughest games came before the Stanley Cup Finals against rivals in the Western Conference.

Once again, the Western Confernece is stacked and expected to win the Cup, and there are gonna be some great matchups in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Expect frequent and most likely very annoying postings now that the playoffs have started :)

GO WINGS!

Education Secretary Roderick Paige “prefers” US school children to be in Private Christian Schools:

“In a religious environment the value system is set. That’s not the case in a public school where there are so many different kids with different kinds of values”

He seems to think that diversity in public schools is somehow a bad idea where the values are ‘different’ than those that a supposedly upstanding, God fearing Christain school enforces. He’s trying to project an impression that public schools are somehow bad here, and I guess I just don’t get why the man charged with the welfare of the nations school children is suggesting that diversity compromises the value of the school system.

Can anyone give me a hint of an area in American society during the last 3 years that the Christian Right doesn’t have it’s holier than thou paws?

Holy Spanish Inquisition!

“In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there’s an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water.

”It’s simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,” he said.

Nothing like extortion in the name of God! I have to wonder if these kind of people will force needy Muslims in Iraq to ‘accept God’ before dispensing basic humanitarian aid as well. Jews in the Spanish Inquisition were killed unless they accepted God, will Muslims in Iraq die if they don’t accept him as well?

A few weeks after dissing prez. Bush — which led to their albums being run over by tractors, burned, and generally destroyed by Hyper-Patriotic Yocals across the South — The Dixie Chix are #1 on the Billboard Country chart.