People like to poke fun at Feds, saying they’re lazy or overpaid, but that’s a lie. I’ve worked with Feds for over a decade now and I can tell you from my own experience that the people doing the actual work of the federal government – i.e. not people who are voted into power like Congressmen and Senators – do an amazing amount of work. The people at the agencies I’ve worked with spend more than eight hours a day trying to help people of our great country. They give more time and effort than you would imagine.

So, when you think, “Bah, a government shutdown is great – we’ll save money! Whatever!” don’t forget that the government is run by human beings who have their own bills to pay, mouth’s to feed, and lives to live. When they can’t work, we’re all diminished.

I’ll leave you with a quote from my own Senator, Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) on the floor of the Senate today making an impassioned plea to keep the government open:

“I know you’re working on that cure for cancer. I know you’re working on that cure for Alzheimer’s. Or Autism. Or Arthritis… but you know what? Washington says, ‘You’re non-essential.’”

Technorati Tags: government, non-essential, shutdown, Tea Party

It’s been an interesting last couple of days, actually. Friday night I went to a fantastic live music show at Jammin Java in Vienna, VA. My friend Rich’s band, the Chris Collat Band, was competing in the finals of JJ’s “Battle of the Bands”. There were three other bands competing with them, and while CCB didn’t win (an NC band called “Delta Rae” won – who were pretty good as well) they had a fantastic sound and great energy. I’ll be posting some videos of them playing a little later today or tomorrow on my Youtube account.

Saturday evening was my now-regular World of Warcraft raid with some of my great old friends from <Order of the Raven> (Aggramar-US). This week we hit the Bastion of Twilight again and downed the first two bosses with relative ease. We got a couple of pulls in on the Twilight Council but got locked out because of a bug after four pulls or so. Next weekend we’ll get them down, I’m sure.

Yesterday, President’s Day, was a work from home day and I actually got a lot accomplished. I had an idea back in August or September of 2010 to create an iPhone app for the federal agency that I contract with, and after a few months of planning we got approved to purchase the necessary equipment to begin active development in late January. I’m enjoying the process of designing my first iPhone app (although I’ve helped my friend Brian with a lot of the UI work for his soon-to-be-announced app, which I’ll post about here when it’s live in the App Store), and I’ll post some screen captures in a few weeks to preview what’s coming.

At the moment, my only real concern is about the congressional budget which, if not passed by March 4th (or another continuing resolution is passed…) will leave me without a paycheck for days/weeks/months. I’m hoping that congress does the right thing and approves a budget or CR quickly, but given how politics have played out in recent months, well, let’s just say my expectations are pretty low.

Technorati Tags: App, Bastion of Twilight, Chris Collat Band, Delta Rae, Order of the Raven

This reminds me of the two “arguments” (lies) of the Republicans/Tea Baggers that I truly enjoy hearing:

The rich save their money.  They save and invest it.  They buy things, yes, but not at the same percentage as the middle and lower class do.  The middle and lower class, by far, put a higher percentage of their incomes into the economy just trying to keep their heads above water.  The economic impact of the middle class having more money to spend far outweighs the economic impact of the rich saving their money and investing it overseas.

My friend Brian quoted a very relevant response from Heather McGhee (of Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization founded in 2000) to the question of “can tax cuts hurt job creation?” during her appearance on Countdown the other day which perfectly makes this point:

“In this instance they absolutely can.  It particularly because we’re talking about the Bush tax cuts, which, as we know, the vast majority went to the wealthiest 3% of the Americans.  Now if I’m a working and middle class person who is living paycheck to paycheck, I spend every dollar that I can hold on to.  I spend it on groceries.  I spend it on my kids’ books.  I spend it on gas for the car.  I immediately through-put that out into the conomy.  If I’m a millionaire or billionaire I, as you said, Keith, sock it away.  And so the problem using tax cuts as stimulus is that it’s far too expensive and it ties the government’s hands to do the more effective form of stimulus, such as infrastructure spending.”

Nice job, conservatives.  You’re ruining the United States, one failed bill at a time.

Technorati Tags: "The Party of No", Keith Olbermann, Lies, Tax Cuts, Tea Party

A Glock 17 9x19mm pistol

In April I purchased my first pistol, a Glock 17 (pictured right) – a .9mm pistol.  It’s one of the most reliable, highly-rated guns out there.  Several major police departments use it, or a similar Glock model (the 19 and the 23 specifically) as their standard issue sidearm.  It’s consists of a polymer frame and metal slide.  It’ll shoot underwater.  It’s not prone to jams.  This is your ideal handgun for those new to handguns and for personal and home defense.  I love my Glock.  I enjoy going to the range every other Saturday and shooting at paper targets.  It’s a great hobby and it’s really made me interested in other aspects of shooting like hunting for game and “plinking”, which is shooting at small metal targets (which make a “plink” sound when struck), typically with smaller caliber guns (like .22LR pistols and rifles).

A Walther P22 .22LR pistol

As I’ve enjoyed my Glock 17, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot other pistols at the range I go to.  They rent out guns that you can use on their range for a very minimal fee.  You basically are just paying for the ammo to shoot it and your time on the range itself.  I’ve really enjoyed shooting .22LR pistols – specifically the Ruger Mark II 22/45 model and the Walther P22 (pictured left).  The Ruger is a larger handgun with a 4.5” barrel and is considered to be one of the top plinking guns out there.  The Walther is one of the most popular .22LR semi-auto models out there.  It’s the next gun I want to purchase.

Maryland, like many states, has a seven day waiting period from when you apply to purchase a gun to when you’re approved to take said weapon home with you.  Maryland has some of the most stringent gun laws of any state.  For instance, in Pennsylvania and Virginia you can walk around with a pistol on your hip – “openly carry” – without a permit.  In Maryland, you can’t carry a handgun at all on your person unless you’ve got a Concealed Carry permit, which you can only get in one of three instances: You’re a current/former police officer, a current/former military serviceman, or you can prove that there’s a true, valid threat against your life in which carrying a handgun could be all that stands between you and certain death.  Maryland is also one of the few states that does NOT recognize out-of-state carry permits.  While I have no reason to carry a handgun on my person and don’t feel threatened in the least, I feel a bit put off about not even having the option.

It’s frustrating enough for me to not be able to get “instant gratification” and take home a firearm the day I want to, but it’s even more frustrating to know that the only place it could be useful to save my life is at home.  Don’t get me wrong – I get the reasoning for the seven day waiting period and the background checks.  It makes sense.  It keeps people from buying weapons in anger and using them immediately.  It prevents those with violent criminal records or major neurological issues from purchasing a firearm.  And I’m all about keeping the bans on assault & automatic weapons – no one has a good reason to need to personally own an automatic assault rifle.  It’s overkill for hunting AND personal protection.  I just find it frustrating that, if you’ve already purchased a handgun within, say, six months you still have to wait a week for a background check to come through.

Maybe one day Maryland will relax its gun laws a bit, but I doubt it.  I suppose I could write my congressman but we all know our political representatives don’t speak for us anymore – they speak for whichever organizations and PAC’s fill their coffers the most for the next election.  Oh well.  Here’s hoping.

Technorati Tags: Frustration, Glock, Gun Laws, Handgun, Maryland, Walther

I’m usually fine to sit there and let people be wrong, but both sides of the media, along with the Republicans, have done a really good job at obfuscating one very important fact: The Obama Administration isn’t talking about changing actual healthcare – they’re talking about changing health insurance and coverage so that all Americans can have access to healthcare. A lot – a whole lot in my experience – of people don’t understand this. They think that the President is trying to take us into a clinical healthcare system and that’s just not the case. This is about insurance and coverage, not directly the actual care itself.

Yes, there are parts of what the Administration is trying to push that would change some of the actual healthcare system itself, but that’s on the administrative end. At the very core of what they’re doing is to help enable those without any health insurance at all be able to have some limited coverage so that when they need basic services they don’t have to go to a local hospital and waste taxpayer money on services that are far cheaper at a regular doctors office.

I’m not going to discuss whether what the administration is doing is right or wrong or even where I stand on the whole deal. I just wish that the media would do a better job of educating people about what’s really going on instead of really polarizing the story and leaving out important details. It just makes me cringe.

Technorati Tags: Agenda, Education, Healthcare, Idiots, Insurance, Media, Obama, Obfuscation, Republicans

A few hours ago as I was on my way home from work I heard someone on my XM radio discussing peoples true political leanings, explaining that many people who call themselves “moderate democrats” or “moderate republicans” would really find themselves to be more in line with the “label” of libertarian.  While I’ve heard the term libertarian many times, I’ve never really bothered to go and look up exactly what it meant.  Until tonight, anyway.  I did a little research on Wikipedia, found The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz, and as it turns out I’m just slightly left-of-center libertarian.

So, what is a libertarian?  As I understand it, a libertarian is a person who believes that personal civil rights are imperative and should not be infringed upon by the government, that free trade with all nations should be maintained and be as unregulated as possible across the markets, that borders should be open (I’m not for that particular one…), and that people should, in general, simply be allowed to go and do what they want, when they want, so long as they aren’t doing harm to others.  So, when you think about it, most moderates really do probably fit into the libertarian category.

Anyway, keep your eyes here over the next few weeks for major changes to the site.  I’ve still got a few pages to create (like a good contact page, my portfolio, and my resume), plus I want to move from using a modified template-based design to my own design.  Seems only natural since I’m a web designer, eh?

By the way, if you know my father give him a call sometime this weekend and congratulate him on his upcoming marriage this weekend.  I’ve very proud and happy to be his best man and to be welcoming Susan into the Savage family.

Technorati Tags: Centrist, Democrat, Libertarian, Mexijew.com, Politics, Republican