BilikFamily.com

Once again, it's been over a week since writing. When your life seems to be on autopilot, it's difficult to be motivated to write.

Cats - The highlight of last weekend was visiting three places with an interest in adopting a cat. Initially Claire was ready to take a cat sight unseen. We had to reassure her that there is no rush. There's never a shortage in cats needing to be adopted. Our nearest center is the Bedford Animal Rescue League, but all around the country you can easily find pets needing adoption at PetFinder.com.

After looking over several cats last weekend, Michelle and I are leaning towards the breed of Maine Coon Cat, a native of the New England area. After reading a bit about them, I wonder if George had a bit of that breed in him. Michelle likes the coats that they have. It's similar to a Persian or Himalayan but with a better looking face (at least in our opinion). I don't know if we'll actually end up with a Maine Coon cat, but that's what we're leaning toward at the moment.

Gadgets - Meanwhile, I've been doing a bit of gadget tinkering. I got the wireless networking working on our Nintendo DS. It was a bit weird and neat to be playing MarioKart DS in a four way race with three other drivers somewhere out there in the area via the internet. I also been playing a little bit with my phone's JPEG and MP3 capabilities. I'm pretty close to putting in my own custom ringtone but there are several formatting restrictions for MP3 ringtones. What a pain!

Iraq - Iraq has been a hot topic, but more so since the election. Stay, withdraw, redeployment, etc. I heard an idea that I heartily endorse. There's been all this dialog about how much damage has occurred, who's to blame, and also what will happen if we leave. How about this approach: Next month let Iraqi's vote (not a poll, but a vote) on whether they think we should leave and repeat every six months. When a majority of Iraqi's want us to leave, either because they feel they're stable or that they think we're doing more harm than good, we let Congress draw up a plan for a timely withdrawal.

Iraqis know their own situation first hand, without any of our media spin or domestic political power plays. They live it. If they want us out, let's not impose ourselves on them, but if they feel that they still want or need our help while they take off their democracy training wheels, I think we should stick it out. Whether you agree with the original decision or not, we removed Saddam from power. We should assist them while they establish a new government to fill in that vacuum.

I doubt this idea would ever be adopted but I think it would have a chance of removing a bunch of the politicization of the war. If you're there at the request of the country, it's hard to spin our troops as an evil occupying force. If they ask us to pull out, hey, it's their decision, for better or for worse. We didn't act elite and pretend to know what's best for them. While it may be our stated goal to 'spread liberty', they have to want it as well.

So... enough blathering on my behalf. I didn't think it was a terribly partisan charged idea. What say you?

Jetta - Amongst Volkswagen TDI owners, there's an unofficial 700 Club. It represents those cars that have gone 700 miles on a tank of fuel. I came pretty close last Friday. I went 682 miles on 13 1/2 gallons. I still had a half gallon or more left, but didn't feel like pushing it. Way back in my college days, I once had my Escort run out of gas. A few months later it failed Illinois annual state emissions, likely because of the scum that worked its way through the fuel system. "The bottom of the barrel" as they say.

AMD/ATI - I don't often discuss work, but a few months ago we got our first prototypes of our upcoming R600 line of boards. This is a different division within our building. I tend to work with the small, battery powered embedded applications stuff. The R600, on the other hand, is the "top of the line" no holds barred graphics processor. I've seen and heard these monsters of graphics rendering. Well, now I don't have to worry too much about what I say as the rumor mills are starting to cover the details. Read "ATI AMD's R600 board is a monster" at The Inquirer and see how I could heat our chilly bedroom this winter if only I had the newest ATI/AMD graphics card. Sometimes I think it's heat sink could cool my Jetta in a pinch. Footnote: the Inquirer likes to call us DAAMIT ever since the AMD/ATI acquisition. I, too, thought it was funny... for about a week.

Omission - I was listening to Fr. Benedict Groeschel via a podcast of EWTN's Sunday Night Live on my drive in yesterday. He was talking about temptation and he made a passing comment about a poem by the late Ogden Nash. Entitled "Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man" it discusses the topic of sins of omission and sins of commission. In doing so it uses some clever poetic techniques. In the end though it comes to an almost humorous conclusion:

The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all,
but if some kind of sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.

In other words, if you're going to Hell, at least let it be by something you did, rather than the laziness of what you didn't do that you should have.

Closing - Until next time, in the words of Garrison Keillor, "be well, do good work, and keep in touch".