The American Family Association has an online pole gauging the support of people for homosexual marriage or civil union. Since the AFA is a conservative organization I think it’s safe to assume that they were hoping for a ground swell of opposition to the idea. They claim the results will be submitted to Congress, but given that as of today (12.22) the results are nearly 2 to 1 in favor of homosexual marriage I have to wonder if they’ll honor this claim.
Cast your vote.
Michele and I were up early this morning. We’ve both been experiencing some stress as the Christmas holiday draws near. Time with family isn’t always easy or enjoyable and we find ourselves struggling to express all the little things that bug us about the whole situation. This morning was no different.
Both of our fathers are cold, remote men whose approach to emotions is tumultuous at best. We each have deep scars from our childhoods that get reopened around the major holidays. In her case her father was physically aggressive and angry, once destroying Christmas dinner by throwing it on the floor, or another time smashing the tree by tossing it out the window. My father is coldly uninvolved in the whole affair. After my sister died on Christmas Day in 1973 he has never talked about her or shown any feelings about her or the holiday what so ever. By cutting himself off from his emotions he also cut off the rest of us from him.
In my father’s case, not expressing his emotions leaves a smoldering core of unexpressed feelings that can, and do, explode to the surface inappropriately. Several years ago he harbored a misunderstanding for over a year before raging at my wife and me. He wanted to exclude us from family functions as it “caused too much tension” for him. Having my father explode with emotion like that scared both Michele and me. In her case it reminded her of the explosiveness of her father, and left her wondering when the other shoe would drop. She has never really been comfortable in his presence since. For me, seeing my father so unreasonably enraged and out of control was a new, and frightening, experience for me. However, I found that his tantrum helped to strip away the blinders I had been using when looking at him.
I see him as a man now, and not as some mythic figure. Growing up I thought he knew everything and could do anything. Even as an adult I tended to revert to this childish view of my father, sometimes to my own detriment. Having him explode in my face forced me to re-evaluate my take on him. He isn’t the be all and end all man I imagined as a child, and the hurts that I felt weren’t about me not being good enough to please him, they were really about his inability to connect with me in any real way.
My father has an idea of what I, as a son, should represent. He loves the idea of me; he doesn’t love me. He was very good at projecting this ideal son image onto me as I was growing up. Whenever I fell short of the ideal I always felt I had failed him, or that I wasn’t good enough. Throughout my adulthood I have struggled with feeling inadequate; I rarely allow myself to feel proud of my accomplishments or abilities. Finally breaking through the façade of his “ideal” son has allowed me to see that I am good, I am accomplished, and I have tremendous abilities.
It also opened up a deep place of hurt, one that I have harbored since I was a child. It is that place where I put all the feelings of inadequacy I had when he couldn’t reach past his ideal image of me to the real me. Tearing down the walls I put around this part of me in our talk this morning will allow me to start healing myself. I can be the father figure my inner child needs now. I can let go of the need for my father to change who he is and how he relates to me. And as I heal my hurts and father myself, I will be able to bridge the gap between his image of me, and the real me, thus providing a way to start a better relationship with him.
I know that my perception of this is the truth for me. It does not matter if anyone else, even my father, sees it this way. Seeing my truth and embracing it is the only way I know to grown and change for the better. It is the only way I want to live.
For sometime now I have felt depressed, weighted down, and generally uninterested in many aspects of life. I wanted to make this the return of my annual depression, but somehow I knew there was more to this than just seasonal unhappiness.
During the night last night, Michele had a nightmare about going poor and having to live on the street. We talked for a while in bed and then got up to talk at length. As she explored her fears and discovered her truth about our situation, I discovered the way out of my malaise too. Put simply: our time in Springfield needs to come to an end.
Three and a half years ago when we first started planning a return here my thinking was focused on the earning potential working for myself held. My fantasy was that we would be able to save a significant amount of money and that when we were ready we could leave Springfield and move to a more liberal, open-minded location for the remainder of our lives. This has indeed proved to be a fantasy as we not only haven’t been able to save money, we find ourselves in debt and struggling to regain our financial footing.
What has happened in place of the illusion of financial freedom, is the reality of the best relationship possible with the members of my immediate family. I no longer look to my father or mother for affirmation that I am a good man, or that I am a success. I recognize the true role the hold in the play of my life and in doing so, I have freed myself from my childhood once and for all. I now see myself as an adult with them, and not as their child. The strain I had felt with my father is gone as I now share details about my life with him not to get my needs met, but rather just to share. I meet my own “father” needs now. My relationship with my mother is also vastly improved as I no longer harbor anger at her for not showing her love and affection for me in my manner. I have learned to feel the love she has for me through the actions and comments she makes. In other words, I take her as she is and I don’t try to force her to be what she isn’t.
The relationship that is most improved is the one with my brother. I see him for the adult man he is now, and I hugely respect his accomplishments as a father and husband. I understand clearly that his growing up experiences were different than mine. No better or worse, just different. To expect him to behave or think like me was disregarding his life, and it created a barrier between us. Now that I have come to see him in his truth I feel that barrier is gone. Recently he and I have connected at a deeper level than ever before, and I take that as confirmation he feels the same openness between us.
I always knew that returning to Springfield was a chance to grow up and become the adult I am away from my family in their presence. The illusion of making lots of money was a pretense, a story for publication. Coming here has been a vital and necessary part of my development. It meant setting aside some needs for a time. Now that I have achieved my goals vis-à-vis my family, those pushed aside needs are clamoring for attention.
I want, and individually so does Michele, to live somewhere open and spiritual. Some place with natural beauty and diverse cultural currents. A place with a variety of opportunities personal and professional. I no longer feel the need to make working about money, money, money. Instead I see it as a means to a greater end; my philosophical and spiritual growth. Staying in a part of the country that feels repressive and angry is not going to help me grow. In fact I view the recent troubles with my contract and the reduction of my contract rate as a blunt hint that this place is about to become hostile to me.
It is time to move, on my own terms, to a place I feel at home. Knowing this at my core gives me a lightness of being that I haven’t felt for a long time. I don’t know where Michele and I will end up. Canada? New Zealand? Boulder? Who knows, and who cares. The point is not the destination but the journey. It feels good to set off on my journey once again.
In my quest to have total mobility with my Powerbook I have finally found a solution that allows me to access my mail regardless of any firewalls imposed by my connection location.
Using ssh, which I talked about previously here and here, I forwarded the POP (110) and SMTP (25) ports on my laptop through a tunnel inside the secure shell (ssh) connection. The ports are (hopefully) resolved at the remote server and any requests for ports 25 or 110 on my laptop pass-through the tunnel and “execute” on the remote server.
I have three perl scripts for establishing a ssh connection and forwarding ports: work, home, and remote. The first, called “work”, connects to my Windows NT workstation. This machine is logged into the network and can ssh out of the client network to the internet at large. All the forwards in my work script are replicated on the NT box. The ssh script on NT connects to a Linux server, outside the local firewall, with a HTTP proxy server, and open POP and SMTP ports. The work ssh command looks like this:
ssh -L25:localhost:25 -L110:localhost:110 -L8080:localhost:8080 -luserid host -N -f
The port forwards, indicated by the ‘-L’ parameter setup a listener on each port listed (25, 110, and 8080) and pass any requests to those ports to the proxy named ’localhost’ on the remote machine, named ‘host’.
The ‘-l’ parameter indicates the user id I wish to use for this connection, and ‘host’ is the name or IP address of the remote server I wish to access.
The ‘-N’ parameter causes no remote command to be executed. I don’t really understand this parameter, except to say that it is supposed to be good for port forwarding.
The ‘-f’ parameter cause the ssh process to goto background as it runs, freeing up the shell used to start it. More on this later.
On the NT box the ssh command looks like this:
ssh -L25:relay.hostname.com:25 -L110:mail.hostname.com -L8080:localhost:3128 -luserid remoteHost.com
Here I am forwarding the POP and SMTP ports to the hostname that is my mail server. Your name will obviously be different. HTTP (8080) is forwarded to a HTTP proxy running on the remote server itself. In effect the forwards for 25 and 110 say, don’t access these ports here on the NT machine, instead follow the ssh connection and resolve them there. This gets me outside the firewall and my mail servers are now visible. (I’m actually using putty on my NT box, so the command isn’t visible.)
My mail account settings have to be changed to take advantage of these port forwards. Specifically I removed the existing POP and SMTP server settings and replaced them both with ‘127.0.0.1’, which is the localhost address of my machine. Now when the e-mail client accesses either POP or SMTP the request is forwarded through the ssh connection to be resolved at the remote host. Viola, secure (encrypted) e-mail access from behind a firewall.
The second script, called “home” is used while I am at home, connecting though my broadband modem. I don’t need to forward ports and secure shell from home but, since my mail accounts have all been setup to point to 127.0.0.1, not using a script would require changing them each time I came home. Using the script allows those settings to remain unchanged.
Since this script only needs to create a port forward, the remote host I connect to is myself. Like so,
ssh -L25:relay.hostname.com -L110:mail.hostname.com -luserid -N -f 127.0.0.1
Same as the work script, but I don’t need to forward HTTP requests, and I am connection back to myself. My machine has an open connection to the internet that allows for POP and SMTP, this script exists just to capture requests from my mail client and pass them on to the appropriate servers.
The final script, called “remote” combines the work script, and the ssh command issued in my NT box. This script is useful when the internet connection available has a firewall, but I don’t need to be logged in as I do at work. The command looks like this:
ssh -L25:relay.hostname.com:25 -L110:mail.hostname.com:110 -L8080:localhost:3128 -N -f remoteHost
Here I am forwarding HTTP, POP, and SMTP requests through a machine outside any local firewalls.
Because I used the ‘-f’ parameter in my ssh command, the ssh process happens in the background, freeing up the shell used to start it. This is nice and tidy, but switching from home to work, or work to remote, requires that you first shut down any existing ssh processes. The actual perl script has two more lines to it that find and kill any running ssh connections. They look like this:
#!/usr/bin/perl open (PS, “ps auxw | grep 'ssh -L' | grep -v grep | awk ‘{ print $2 }’|”); while (){ chop; system (“sudo kill -9 $_”);}
I’m not a perl coder by any stretch, but I understand the first line to be collecting all the process ids of running ssh connections. The second line then kills these processes. The final line of each script is the ssh command itself, as described above.
I know this seems complex and it is, but in a good geeky way. I’m happy, and I get my e-mail (thru an encrypted link) regardless of where I connect from.
Olive oil
1 package chicken breasts, rinsed and cut into cubes
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 medium green pepper, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 can diced or finely diced tomatoes
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 bay leaves
1-2 tablespoons parsley
Salt
Pepper
5-6 squirts Tabasco
3 1/2 cups chicken stock (1 package)
1 package yellow rice (I use Vigo brand)
1 Can peas
Pimento
Heat 2-3 tablespoons oil over moderate heat in non-stick frying pan. Add chicken and cook until pale gold. Season with salt and pepper, turning frequently to evenly brown all sides. Transfer to heavy oven proof casserole or stew pot with tight fitting lid.
Sauté onion and green pepper in left over oil from chicken. Season with salt and pepper and cook until onion starts to turn gold. Toss in garlic and stir for another minute and then add can of diced tomatoes. Stir together and then pour mixture over chicken.
Add lemon juice, bay leaves, parsley, and hot sauce to chicken. Set aside enough stock to make rice according to package directions, in the case of Vigo 2 cups are needed. Pour remaining chicken stock over chicken and vegetable mixture, about 1 1/2 cups. Bring entire mixture to boil, then reduce heat and simmer with lid on for 15 minutes. (Meanwhile, preheat over to 325 degrees, removing oven rack to make room for stew pot/casserole.)
Once everything has simmered for 15 minutes, put set aside stock in saucepan and start to prepare yellow rice. Once rice is in the stock and has been brought to a boil, pour rice into stew pot. Bring entire mixture to a boil once again and then cover with lid and place in oven for 20-25 minutes.
At 20 minutes check the moisture level. Leaving it in the over a few minutes more will reduce the moisture. If desired warm peas in microwave. (If peas are placed on hot chicken they will warm by themselves.) Serve, allowing guests to add their own peas and pimento. Extra hot sauce maybe used individually as well. Serves 4-5 people.
For the past eleven months I’ve been living with a secret. Only now can I write about it here, and I can honestly say I am relieved. Keeping a secret is hard work, and it forces you to lie by omission. I discovered that I don’t like lying, even by omission, to my wife.
You see the secret was a surprise weekend visit by her best friends in honor of her birthday. Michele’s birthday falls on December 24th, which has meant that it was always overshadowed by Christmas. In the 7 years that I have been with her for her birthday I have tried to make it special in some way.
Last year we took a Hawaiian cruise, the year before we traveled to her adult hometown of Tampa to see family and friends. This year however we are staying home for the holidays. So I decided to bring her friends here.
In January I sent out an e-mail invitation, and everyone agreed to come. Planning something 11 months in advance isn’t easy on ones stress level. So much can happen in a year. For a while this summer it looked like we would be relocating, I was afraid that my plans would have to be postponed for a year. I was happy when that eventuality never came to pass. I could never have kept my mouth shut for an extra 12 months.
A few weeks ago I had another round of e-mail and cell phone conversations with her friends and they were all still eager to come. Flight times were examined and schedules confirmed. Now the pressure to keep my big mouth shut was really getting intense. Simple conversations were fraught with peril. Not saying, “Gee, when the girls are here, why don’t we…” became a tough thing.
This week has lasted forever. Knowing that I would finally be able to let my guard down made it even harder to not say something. Several times I nearly gave away the surprise just so I could relax and sleep normally again. On my way to work this morning, knowing that the next time I saw Michele the cat would be out of the bag, I was almost giddy with relief. As I sit here in the airport awaiting the plane’s arrival, I am anticipating her excitement and joy at seeing her friends.
Beginning in 2002 I decided to keep track of my income messages. In that first year I received 37,122 total messages. Since I was active in a couple of high-volume mailing lists, I received 11,553 good e-mails, leaving 25,569 spams.
25,569/11,553 equals a 2.213:1 bad:good ratio.
So far this year I have received 73,737 spams. I am no longer active in a mail list the number of good e-mails I get has dropped considerably. To date this year I have only gotten 904 good e-mails.
73,737 / 904 equals 81.567:1 bad:good ratio.
Eighty-one and a half spam for each and every message I want to read.
It’s time for something different. I’m tired of manually sifting through the increasing deluge of crap in my spam folder for the rare message I want.
SpamSieve has caught my eye before, but until now it didn’t support POP mailboxes. The latest version does support POP. However, only for Panther, Mac OS X 10.3.x.
I can’t wait to upgrade.
This Brain Persuasion Test is fun and, surprisingly accurate.
My results are as follows:
Auditory : 33% Visual : 66% Left : 50% Right : 50%
And the text explanation goes like this:
Mark, you exhibit an even balance between left- and right- hemisphere dominance and a slight preference for visual over auditory processing. With a score this balanced, it is likely that you would have slightly different results each time you complete this self-assessment quiz.
You are a well-rounded person, distinctly individualistic and artistic, an active and multidimensional learner. At the same time, you are logical and disciplined, can operate well within an organization, and are sensitive towards others without losing objectivity. You are organized and goal-directed. Although a “thinking” individual, you “take in” entire situations readily and can act on intuition.
You sometimes tend to vacillate in your learning styles. Learning might take you longer than someone of equal intellect, but you will tend to be more thorough and retain the material longer than those other individuals. You will alternate between logic and impulse. This vacillation will not normally be intentional or deliberate, so you may experience anxiety in situations where you are not certain which aspect of yourself will be called on.
With a slight preference for visual processing, you tend to be encompassing in your perceptions, process along multidimensional paths and be active in your attacking of situations or learning.
Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself – and of others – while maintaining an “openness” which tempers that tendency. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity may not be in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, obvious and the more functional.
So, how do you think?