The picture is going with “love is with your family” motif.   That’s my father with my brother and myself (I don’t think he is really asleep).   Happy birthday dad.   Happy Valentine’s day to everyone else.

Picture from here

It seems through some of my affiliation that I am attached to that people feel the need to forward me chain letters.   Even if it was something I believed in, I wouldn’t want a chain letter.  I would prefer to read your own thoughts.  It seems someone sends me mails with a religious bent to them.   Some of them rail against the separation of church and state, something that even as a christian I hold very dear (for some reason most Christians don’t want it separated since they naively believe for all eternity they will be the dominant religion).   I’m more pragmatic.  I don’t think the dogmatic moral laws of each different little christian sect should be represented.   I’ve had my immediate say.  Let’s look at the first chain letter in this new series.

Picture from here

A 15 yr. Old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA:

New Pledge of Allegiance (TOTALLY AWESOME) !

Since the Pledge of Allegiance
And
The Lord’s Prayer
Are not allowed in most
Public schools anymore
Because the word ‘God’ is mentioned….
A kid in Arizona
Wrote the attached

NEW School prayer :

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess..
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Amen

If you aren’t ashamed to do this,
Please pass this on.
Jesus said,
‘If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’

Not ashamed. Pass this on..

Let’s go through this section by section:

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

Well ironically we still have in god we trust on our money, what people don’t realize is that “God” on your money has been found legally to be an abstraction and doesn’t necessarily refer to a Christian Diety.   Religious freedom was one of hte purposes of this country.  Once you start choosing an officially sanctioned govenerment religion, or teach the tenets of said religion you undermine the purpose that we were taught in school on why the first settlers came here.  (Yes I know that story is not quite as simplistic or accurate as we were taught).

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Ironically I don’t think we have thought police anywhere – like everything else it’s a don’t ask don’t tell world anymore.  If your flaunting anything that’s against school rules however you will be punished.   There have been exteremly few federal cases over this so I’m not quite sure it would really be a federal matter.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

What’s wrong with different colored hairs at all?  Mine has been natural.  Mine has been jet black.  Mine has been purple.  Mine has been blue.  There is nothing wrong with this.  My sister however almost got expelled from school because she dyed her hair bright red (not natural red).   I almost went and fought this at the school board, but she backed down (I’m sure with my mother’s coaching of not wanting to look bad to the neighbors).   We’ve lost the freedom of personal expression in schools and it’s not just prayers.  Besides if you really need to pray out loud I find you creepy.  Your like the guy at the video game store who picks up every title and reads the description out loud since they seem to lack any inner monologue.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.

Um, yes please be silent.  I pray, but I find you audible prayers creepy.  “Dear God please make my genital warts go away” – come on that would just be extremely creepy.   That’s the kind of thing I know some people pray for.  We want to pretend that they are all praying that the sick get better or the orphanage finds a savior donor so it can stay open.  It isn’t.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

I’m fairly sure that guns were outlawed in most schools before the bible.  Granted I know some rural schools were teh kids could check in their gun when they arrive because they were hunting before school.   Do we really have to point out on how many levels that is wrong.   We’ll stick with just the hygiene issues.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.

I don’t see anything wrong with this – I have great grandparents that were probably married younger then someone who is the prom king or queen.   You can always judge someone, but when you have a holier then thou attitude it just doesn’t fly.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

Hmmmm, you complain about pregnant senior queens and unwed fathers, but rail against birth control – I won’t point out the irony.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess..
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

I’ve gone to a private school and I’ve gone to a public school – let me tell you the Christian schools still have the same issues with the ten commandments as part of the curriculum as public schools have without.

I’m not alone – someone else railed against this with their own poem – read it here.

At one point in this whole debacle where I stopped talking to my mom, Xie thought she would try to mend things. She dropped me off at burger king to eat and went over to my mothers to talk (this is all second hand mind compared to most things I’ve written). Xie sat her down and told her she was going to push her children away one by one if she continued down the path she was going. That my mother had to pick herself up, get a job and move forward being an example (I’m sure Xie will comment on this story to fill in more details).

The selfish thing my mom said to my wife? “You don’t have to have a job why should I?”

Now because this is second hand I normally wouldn’t have included this, but I wanted to point out Xie’s effort. This wasn’t the first time my mother had said this. There are a lot of answers to this.

1. Xie has a supportive husband that hadn’t left her once and possibly will again
2. Xie spends her free time learning and expanding herself – my mothers expansion comes from Oprah and Dr. Phil
3. Xie doesn’t have two children at home not even teenagers yet that need to eat and hopes daddy will give mommy child support money
4. Xie isn’t a leech that feels entitled to it, she has offered to work many times, I don’t understand why both of us need to be miserable for a few extra bucks

While my mother is grazing the home shopping network for things to buy, Xie is doing Algebra out of text books for fun. There is a world of difference. Most notably my mother needed an income she could trust to take care of her kids and not ask friends and family for money to get by.

I will now give you an example I have full memory and first hand knowledge of. It was at a family holiday dinner a few years ago at my grandparents and somehow the morbid subject of what we would like if my grandparents passed on. I stated I would only want one thing, a cedar chest crafted by my grandmother’s cousin. My grandmother chimed in that it was going to be given to her cousins family, well my grandmother has been saying that my whole life, so for thirty years it’s still been sitting there. My mother then said I couldn’t have it because she wanted it. Selfish? Well let’s continue this story.

A few minutes later my mother asked me why I wanted the chest because she thought it was ugly and tacky. I said it was something that would always remind me of my grandparents, their house, and the memories. To me the chest is kind of like a symbol of my grandparents. This prompted me though to ask why did she want it if it was ugly? Her answer? She said she wanted it because I said I wanted it. So I was shocked and called her selfish, I think that was my annual fight that year and I left. It was petty, you would think as adamant as she was when she said she wanted it, that somehow I knew there was a secret stash of money tucked away in it. Nope, she is just worried about someone else getting something she can’t. What a great mother.

Read Part 1 Here

Read Part 2 Here

Read Part 3 Here

Read Part 4 Here

Read Part 5 Here

Read Part 6 Here

Read Part 7 Here

Read Part 8 Here

Read Part 9 Here

Read Part 10 Here

Read Part 11 here

Read Part 12 Here

Read Part 13 Here

Read Part 14 Here

Image from here

You know how your browser tries to guess where you go by what your typing in?  These are the sites that come up as my suggestions (from browsing history) when I go through each letter of the alphabet:

A -Google Analytics

B – The Other Guild

C – Creeva’s World 2.0

D – Digg

E – Gmail

F – Feedburner

G – General Discussion -Vermilion News

H – Slashdot

I – The Other Guild

J – Journey To Get Paid

K – Kwippy

L – My Lifestream

M – VCMA

N – Network Solutions

O – Oh My Yod

P – Ping.fm

Q – Disqus

R – Google Analytics

S – Slashdot

T – Twitter

U – Yahoo Login

V – General Discussion -Vermilion News

W – Statcounter

X – Yahoo Login

Y – Yahoo Login

Z – Dad Hacker

Interesting?  Not really.   I found this post amusing however.

Original From parentphobia.com: Daddy, Why Did You Blog About Me?

This is a letter to my future child.

Dear Little One,

Though by the time you read this you will be old enough, hopefully, to comprehend it.  Who knows you may even have brothers and sisters by this time.  I’m writing this because I know that your mother and I will make mistakes.  Contrary to what we may teach you we are just human and not super-human.   We possess no special abilities beyond judgment that is tempered with wisdom that we have arrived at through age.   We will screw you up.   That is an unfortunate fact.  Like your grandparents we will think about ways we can do things better with you then they did with us.   It is highly likely that we, like them, will screw you up and make you less then perfect the same way they did it to us.  The only thing you get to look forward to is when you screw up your own children by teaching them in ways that you perceive were the wrong ways to handle you.

We will always love you in an unconditional way.   We may get angry at you, and I’m positive you will get angry at us.  I hope it is not lasting.   Our home will always be a home with a place for you in it and a place that you can come back to.  If you sixty and I’m ninety-three you will always be welcome to live with me.  Though expect me to drive you up the wall like I do to your mother sometimes.   Your mother and I may fight, that’s because we are very strong in our ideals.  You will learn that a lot of what your mother and I fight about is much different then other parents.   This is because we are strange, please see the section where I said that we will screw you up and our parents screwed us up.

I write this to you now to give you something to read that is just for you and your siblings.   An understanding in case I’m not perfect.  A message if I’m not vocal enough in expressing my feelings.  A hope that you can learn and grow from the things I write down and give you a moment in time to grasp across and to see if in the future you have the same feeling and problems as I do now.   Not everything is time period specific, something transcend human time to give you an emotional connection with what you feel is important.

I blog about you so you will always have a sense of who I am.  How I experienced things.  What I believed in.  It may not be the same as you feel in the future, but hopefully you will the struggles I overcame to get to the place you know me.   I’m sure there will be many stories I tell you over the years that won’t be recorded.   These hopefully you will be able to keep forever so you can have a piece of me with you always and something to pass down to your own children.

I can’t wait to meet you for the first time, to read to you, to cuddle with you.   These are going to be the experiences I will cherish even when you have far outgrown them.  I hope you gain the same in return from your own children.  I will write you more in the coming future.  See you in a few months.

Love,

Your Father

Original From parentphobia.com: Daddy, Why Did You Blog About Me?

Picture from here

I thought the teens and pre-teens were the sounding board for tomorrows technology.   Well this isn’t always the case.   I previously mentioned talking with my brother over the weekend.   Well there is more to it then just the security post that came out of it.   He complained that he wasn’t getting confirmation e-mails for some of the web services he was using and he thought they may be getting caught by his spam filter.   I asked him which e-mail provider he was using.  He’s using his ISP…………..

I may be 32, but I have two brothers that are twins that are thirteen years old.   They have the fear of sharing their name online and everything else they will get over as they get older (or become completely paranoid and withdraw from the Internet entirely by the time they are 20).   They don’t however use web based e-mail.  I understand that they should be showing me what is new and interesting, so I expected Myspace or some such service for sending e-mails to friends.  Well they don’t, but part of that is that my 26 year old brother who sets up the web filtering for my dad frowns upon Myspace for that age group because of worrying about pedophiles I suppose (though a child is 99.9 more likely to be molested by a relative or immediate friend of the family instead of being attacked by an online predator).   My father and step-mother aren’t too hot on it either – they believe in the sunshine and dirt makes strong boys.   I’m more of the give me a book and a bed to lay on, or a laptop and a Gameboy with a bed to lay on type of guy.

They don’t however use web based e-mail – I haven’t used a strictly POP3 mail solution since college – so 14 years of using web based e-mail.  With the exception of corporate mail I can’t understand using it any other way.   Spam control is easier, you can access your e-mail from anywhere, you can archive your mail online without ever losing anything.  I started a series about computing in the clouds and even did one subject on web based e-mail.  The generation that comes after us (and the age difference is pretty much a generation) should have a more refined method of handling data.   It’s seems they choose to hamstring themselves then to learn and be more interactive.   That is not the case.

I have a sister that is pretty much from the mind set of using the computer as a utility or appliance.   It’s something that’s only slightly more interactive then a game system or television set.   I understand that mentality.   I figured however it was something that would end with my generation.  It seems not, the next generation at least in my family is not grasping and making tech work for them they are working for their technology.  What I mean by that is they put more effort into the computer then they need to, the computer should be a tool to make things faster and easier.   Not using it to the fullest extent you can and streamlining what you do is almost a shame.

My 26 year old brother and myself when we had our own computers kept pushing the line and seeing what we can do next.  He was twelve/thirteen when I went to college and he was running his own BBS.   He went the design and programming route.  I went the security and architecture route.   Both of us are very good at what we do in our own fields – at least we think so.  Though we have very little overlap since both of us view the other person as focusing on the wrong things.  The thirteen year olds don’t have the same in depth interaction with their computers.   Maybe this is a problem with growing up with computers their whole lives.   It’s not viewed with the same regard as it was for me and my next youngest brother.

It does give me some slight hope that the current twenty something and young thirty somethings are the height of the internet users while the rest of them stagnate and fully pushed the line.   But the youngest brothers have a few years to catch up and may do something with it yet, so I can’t fully discount them until the future arrives.

Now if they are reading this – go get a Gmail address and learn how to use it.   My father-in-law and mother-in-law have even moved to Gmail and it only took them a few minutes to learn it.

I will first start off a couple disclaimers. I don’t do this at work, I don’t need to. I respect my corporate policies and completely recognize why they are there. This being a mental exercise that stemmed out of a misconception on how our local firewall works. I love the mental exercises on how I would do something and then drop it since I’ve essentially completed my goal and do not need to test it. If however you do feel the need to test this at your school or work I take no responsibilty for your actions. You are on your own and responsible for your own actions.

I’m also too lazy to give explicit step by step instructions on setting

Step 1.

You have two choices you need to decide on depending on your capabilities, either setting up your home computer to proxy for you while your at work or buying a cheap hosted website online. It all depends on if your ISP allows you to get to your home machine or if they block it. (Yes with a hosted it will cost you money but the link I gave you gives you your first domain for free). I would use a hosted solution personally.
Step 2.

At this point I hope you have decided on which solution you are going to go with. Essentially the steps are going to be the same either way, configuration is on your head though. You are going to setup your web server to allow you to connect to it via SSL. This allows your communication to what your network administrator to see as a random web host to be encrypted. This means they will not be able to look inside the packets. The steps depending on operating system and web server capabilities is different in each scenario, so please Google to find how to setup an HTTPS web server for your desired operating system/hosting capabilities. You may need to setup a dynamic dns solution to get back to your home PC if you choose that route.

Step 3.

At this point you should have nice web setup that you can login into via SSL. What to host on the site? You need a site that can go out and fetch pages for you acting as a proxy within the web browser. Their are multiple solutions for this, and this is really is another step I’m not going to walk you through. This is the point where you are committed and going to violate corporate or school policy. If someone wants to right directions for it in the comments I won’t censor them, I’m just not going to be the one that explicitly tells you.

Step 4.

If you can figure it out now what you have is a random SSL that you can use to browse anything your network administrator doesn’t want you to. Sure you could have just used Google’s Cache, but then filtering software still could get contextual information about what your surfing based upon the words in the HTML code. This allows you encrypted anonymity.

What if the network administrator blocks access to my SSL site?

Well this shouldn’t happen unless you share the site with people. If you want your own private surfing enjoyment I would suggest keeping it to yourself. If however you kept it to yourself and you still get blocked there are a couple options to check.

Can you still get anywhere or has your Internet Access been removed?

If your Internet access has been removed do not pass go, do not collect 200.00, within the scope of this article I can’t help you.

Is it blocked by DNS name?

If it’s blocked by DNS name meaning that it’s checking to see if your going to www.bobssecretsslsite.com then you will have to use a new domain name with your hosting provider or a new dynamic DNS name. Yes this might cost you 6.95 (look for coupons through GoDaddy or another cheap hosting registrar, but you really want the Internet your way unfiltered right? If not why are you still reading this, commitment and freedom are not free.

Is it blocked by IP Address?

Well if it is your almost screwed, you need to either get another hosting provider or hope your home computer (if you using that approach) has a random DHCP that will reset when you power cycle your modem.

What if you looks at my Internet Cache?

This is really how they will catch you. There are a few choices you can do. The first is set your browser to clear your Internet Cache every time you log out. This will leave behind file traces if they use undelete utilities on you, but these steps is for the overly paranoid. If you are worried the your network administrator is browsing your temporary Internet Files looking for porn.jpg or some such you have two solutions. The first is using a USB drive and firefox portable installed on that USB drive. This allows you to take your browser whenever you leave your desk.

If your company has a policy banned USB device and you don’t want to break a second policy on top of the one you have already broken, download truecrypt. Follow truecrypt’s step on setting up an encrypted partition. Install firefox portable into the encrypted partition. Now your whole browsing history is saved into an encrypted partition that only you have the password to decrypt.

For bonus points use a combination of truecrypt and the USB key. Encrypted data you can take with you that allows you access to your own web site that can allow you access past any web filtering software.

Warning

Your images are still theoretically stored in your computers memory so , if you computer generates a memory dump you could still get caught.  Also some companies track the flow of information across their networks, theoretically this type of software can also see what you have in memory.  These are the only real flaws I find in this scenario.

Bonus Round

For bonus points on annoying your network administrator who is overly happy about his web filtering solution. Create a new igoogle theme with a bit flesh you crop from a picture you have of someone’s arm and name it porn.job. Have this has the background in your igoogle theme. Double bonus points for making two more jpg’s, one for each corner of your igoogle them. A picture of Richard Nixon named d-ck.jpg and a picture of your cat name p-ssy.jpg. You’ll set of his filtering software everytime you go to google.

Have fun.

P.S.

If this sounds too geeky, too techinical, too complex, or pain in the butt……..then you don’t deserve this solution.

So you have your own blog but it’s something such as creeva.blogspot.com or creeva.wordpress.com, Both of these are acceptable, but if you read my previous about brand management you’ll know that building your audience to your personal brand can help get you a larger following.

Do I need a domain name?

In all honesty I can’t fully answer that question for you. What I can do is give you some pointers on how to choose a domain that can be personal or directed towards your target audience. There are a few questions you should ask yourself before you register any domain name:

• What are you trying to do with your site? Is it a personal site? Is it a tech site? Is it a business site? Now none of these really have any bearing on if you’ll ever make money – or at least that is out side of the scope of this article.
• While some people are just trying to drive massive traffic to their site, what do you want to do? There are loads of spam blogs out there that just show ads and may get thousands of hits a day. I think this people have ethically sold out, but I’m not here to judge you so pay me no attention. You could register a name based of typos and drive traffic that way or come up with something unique that helps you stand out from the crowd. The more unique the site is the more cliquish and faithful your users may become, but this is at a sacrifice of larger traffic goals. This is one of the things you need to consider if your going to be driving traffic to your site. The name is part of the brand and can make or break some sites.
• Is it worth the cost to you? There are many benefits to owning a domain name. Essentially at under ten dollars a year it really is a cheap investment, you can host your website, have personalized e-mail, and build upon your brand name in ways that aren’t really possible with blogger or wordpress hosting your site without owning your own domain to redirect them to these sites. Over time I’ll be writing more articles on what you can do with your own domain name and choosing the correct hosting service

How do you choose a name that’s right for you?

The questions here are similar to those from above so I won’t rehash them. My suggestions is make it memorable so no omgihavefreestuff.com. Choose something that something something about you or at least your site. Your brand is something you’ll build. Do not choose anything too long, this makes it harder for people to remember your address and it will effect traffic from return users. The shorter the better.

I personally know the agony of choosing a domain name for a project. A couple weeks ago for a project I was working on with some others I spent a good 10 hours running domain names by other people. We had a few that could work and others they thought were great for personal blogs, in the end it’s still an ongoing discussion – and we’re looking how we are going to proceed with that project. Not all of my domains that I have purchased have taken this long. I settled in on journeytogetpaid.com in a matter of minutes and had it all set up with the blog running within an hour of conception. Your strategy and length of time it takes to decide on a domain name is only limited by your creativity and your ideas.

Who do I buy from and how much do I pay?

Like everything else this is a personal choice, but let’s look through what I look for. First and foremost I check out price. I would not pay more then $9.99 for a domain name in this day and age and most people look at that as too high of a price. With coupons and cheap registrars there is no reason you need to pay $9.99 a year. The prices I usually go for is between $6.99 and $7.99.

Normally I register all of my domains in one spot and this is with goDaddy.com and they’ve served me well. Some people have issues with goDaddy.com, namely there are stories of yanking a users registration at a drop of a hat if there is a complaint (spammers be warned your domain will be yanked for e-mail spamming from what I’ver heard). Because of this I decided to track down another registrar that is not goDaddy but also is offering domains for $6.95 (not a bad deal, huh). The second company is Blackbeltdomains.com. This should give you two choices to choose from at around the same price range. The latest goDaddy coupon code I’ve used “OYH3″ – this will get you $6.95 .com domains.

Hopefully I have given you something to think about now go ahead and grab yourself a domain.

UPDATE: Wanted to let everyone know I received an e-mail from the original “owner” of the “OYH3″ code.  To support this user and get his other coupon’s go to his page that contains all of his godaddy coupons.

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Posted By Creeva Murkado to Journey To Get Paid at 2/07/2008 09:19:00 AM

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