Josh-Kerr.com

I’m what you consider a middle man when it comes to the Linux v. Microsoft camp wars out there. I love the power and flexibility of Linux and I also love the simplicity of Windows. I love the fact that I can do just about anything with just about any Linux distribution. At the same time I love how I can install Windows and everything works. You purest on either side of the fence are probably cringing right now at the thought of someone liking another OS over yours. Let’s just say that I want my computer to work for me, not me work for my computer.

For a while I was dual booting Gentoo Linux and Windows on my laptop. After some time my hard drive crashed and I’ve been playing with it, trying out any distribution that I downloaded. Of them all I liked Gentoo the most because of its flexibility. However the flexibility comes at a cost. It’s way to easy to completely screw up your system if you’re not careful. Thankfully I never b0rked my laptop but I have done it on my server :( While at work one of the guys handed me an Ubuntu Live CD and told me that he’s heard good things about it. I honestly have never heard of Ubuntu?! Go figure, here it is on version 5.10 (as of this writing) and I’ve never heard of it. After doing some research I was blown away by its fan base and out-of-the-box support. So what’s a geek to do? I loaded up the Live CD and everything (but wireless) worked!

Since using the Live CD I went and installed it on a virtual machine on my Windows partition. The more and more I used it the more and more I loved it. It eventually got the point where I replaced my Gentoo partition (sorry Gentoo fans) and installed Ubuntu in place of it. I still love Gentoo, don’t get me wrong. But Ubuntu has great package support that I don’t have to compile!!!! Sure Gentoo has some binary packages but Ubuntu has everything and then some. Gentoo is still a great distribution, especially if you want to be “bleeding edge”, but I’m moving over to Ubuntu for now. I think the letter that my laptop wrote will explain it all.

Dear Gentoo,

You and I have had a wild ride together. I’ve had you and Windows on me for a while. When it comes to “bleeding edge” no one can top you. Your wiki is superb, your forum bountiful, and your over all documentation is something to be admired. You’re everything a laptop could want. However I have to tell you that I’ve found someone else. We’ve been spending some time together and I think we’re better for each other. You have a lot of great qualities but I need something more for myself. Ubuntu offers me everything that you offer but in a more friendly way. I don’t have to compile large packages. I’ve been complaining about how tired I was running you and emerging Open Office, Fire Fox, and X for a while now! Don’t take it personally but I have to do what’s best for me. You’re still a great distribution but I think we need to break up. It’s just been so hard since my hard drive was replaced. The more and more I was with Ubuntu the more I liked it. Please don’t be angry.

Yours truly,
Laptop

I have wireless working on my laptop. w00t!  Getting wireless to work on a Linux distro can be a cumbersome process however it wasn’t too bad.  Ubuntu surprisingly found and installed the drivers out-of-the-box.  A quick check on the forums, a few commands here, and I’m wireless!

I beat it last night.  I was honestly surprised how easy it was to beat it on normal mode.  The final boss when playing the original game on normal mode was a 4 part battle where it was easy, really easy, fricken hard, and then moderate.  Kingdom Hearts II final battle was a 5 part battle that when easy, easy, really easy, moderate, and finished with a hard battle.  Don’t get me wrong, the game was and still is a great game.  I’m giong to start a new game on the hardest difficulty which should provide more of a challenge.  That is after I beat Sephiroth.  I battled him a couple of times last night at a lower level and got my a$$ handed to me.  I’ve leveled up since then so we’ll see.

Last night we were eating dinner at our house with my family. My father was in town so we had everyone over for some bratwursts and dogs. About five minutes after we sit down to eat the doorbell rings and Stephanie gets up to see who was at the door. I didn’t pay much attentions until I heard her say, “now is not a good time, we have family over and we’re eating dinner.” Curiosity got the best of me so I got up to see who was there only to find a sales man. I quickly got the guy to leave and we sat back down to dinner. Stephanie just chuckled and said,

“Do you know what that guy said to me?”
“No, but I bet you’re going to tell us” I replied.
“He asked to speak with my mother or father!?”

Ouch. “Hi, I’m a salesman. You look old enough to own a house but I’m going to ask to speak with your mother or father instead of you. Oh crap…you are the mother in this case aren’t you?  Can I still try to sell you something?” Open mouth and insert leg! I will give him a small break though. Today at HEB I was ID by a kid 8 years my junior….

Stephanie and I went to go see the Lion King, the Broadway performance, this last Wednesday (April 19th) for her birthday. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. My first thought when Stephanie said that she wanted to go see this was, “oh great, now I have to watch men in tights dancing around re-enacting a cartoon that I saw over 13 years ago.” But I’ll admit, I thought the performance was great! There was only one scene where the “men in tights” came out and did a dance and thankfully it was only five minutes. What’s funny about that five minute dance is that, in my opinion, it had no context. It was during the “can you feel the love tonight” song that they came out and danced. What it symbolized was beyond me. You could argue that it symbolized their feelings for each other but I don’t buy it.

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I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts II a lot lately and I must say that this is a sequel that completely blows away the original. Don’t get me wrong, I love and still play the original Kingdom Hearts, it’s a great game. But Kingdom Hearts II just rocks! The camera angles that plague the original are but a thing of the past, the graphics are top notch, game play is nearly flawless, and the action is on steroids! It’s really that good of a game. If you’ve never played the original you may be a little lost with the story however it does a good job not leaving you in the dark. Play the original if you haven’t done so, you won’t be disappointed. Check out the review on 1up.

Easter and Christmas are like the Super Bowl Sunday(s) for churches. This last weekend was our Super Bowl. Every year our church does something for Easter and Christmas. Last year we had a retired news anchor tell the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. I went last year and enjoyed it however this year we totally blew it away. This year we did a re-enactment of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The drama was similar to The Passion but not nearly as bloody. If you haven’t seen The Passion, go see it. Our volunteers who took part of the re-enactment did an excellent job. Combine their outstanding performance and our sound/lighting/cameras and you felt like you were right there. I volunteer in the back (cameras/directing) and wasn’t able to see it on our IMags (very very large screens) however watching it while directing it was powerful enough.

Our church sanctuary can hold 3,500 people and we still have the old sanctuary that can hold roughly 450 people when the back end is blocked off, which it was. Every seat was full with people standing along the walls watching the service via the TV’s. Take those numbers and multiply it by the 4 services that we had and you get over 16,000 people!!! Now that’s a lot of people. To make things even better, before the Sunday service we were told that over 85 people received Christ into their lives and who knows how many will follow. Praise God!

A lot of my friends and family have asked me how the church is going to top that service and I honestly don’t know. I do know that God’s will be done and I’ll continue to help whenever and however I can.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day discussing work, technology, the usual nerd banter.  During our conversation we got on the topic of a website that he had written.  Knowing that Ian is a Java J2EE developer I asked him what he wrote his site in.  “Ever heard of rails?” he asked.  Ruby on Rails?!  Who hasn’t heard of Ruby on Rails I thought to myself.  We talked more a little more about his site and then started discussing RoR.  I’ve been debating on taking the plunge and start messing around with RoR but just never got any further than that.  Doing some research on my hosting company, DreamHost, I’ve found that they support RoR.  So now I’m at a cross road.  Dare I take the plunge or do I not….Plunge!

It’s official. Today I sent in the cancellation order for http://jokerr.com. As you may recall, I moved over to DreamHost a few months ago and have been loving it ever since. If you’re looking for a hosting company give them a try. Since Josh-Kerr.com has been up and running I haven’t used Jokerr.com at all. I was surprised at the number of hits I received though. Bots, gotta love’m…. Once the cancellation goes through I’ll be renewing my ownership of the domain name. Don’t know what I’m going to do with it but I’ll find something.

I heard about this early this morning on my way to work.  CNN did an article about Congress women McKinney hitting an officer for stopping her at the security checkpoint.   Read the  article, you might get a laugh (or chuckle) out of the way that she tries to turn this into a ratial profiling issue.  At the very least, check out the way that she refuses to actually answer a question during the interview.  (Link in article).