Date: 2008-11-30 11:29 Subject: Restaurant.com Certificate Limitations Security: Public Location: Malden, MA

I received four $25 restaurant.com gift certificates earlier this year and rediscovered that I had them today. I decided to start using them while they're still valid, as they seem to expire in two months. I found a restaurant I would like to use them at and called them to verify I could combine multiple certificates there before redeeming all four. The person on the phone said I could.

I then decided to redeem two of my four certificates for this particular restaurant (Mt. Vernon in Somerville, MA). After going through the redemption process for one, I noticed the following in the GIFT CERTIFICATES TERMS & CONDITIONS on the printed certificate:

* Limit one (1) redemption per party, per month, per restaurant.
* Limit one (1) gift certificate per redemption. Only one gift certificate can be used per party, even if the party is seated at separate tables and/or receives more than one check.

Given these two limitations, I've realized that it would be impossible to use all four of these certificates before they're scheduled to expire.

My questions for restaurant.com:

* Why am I not allowed to redeem multiple gift certificates in one month? This restriction alone will make it impossible to redeem all of my gift certificates.
* Why would restaurant.com set these limitations in place knowing that their customers would potentially throw money away with expired certificates?
* Is it possible to extend the expiration of the certificates, so I would be able to use all four?
* Why am I not allowed to combine multiple certificates on an order? Any other restaurant that offers certificates directly would let me pay for the entire bill in gift certificates. I started the redemption process expecting to be able to treat restaurant.com gift certificates just as any other restaurant gift certificate. Considering the current financial crisis, I do not have extra money to spend on dining out. I am only able to use one $25 gift certificate at a restaurant that has a minimum order of $35. That's $10 that I just don't have that I'm now stuck paying if I want to use this gift certificate.

Considering the above points, if these concerns remain unresolved, I consider the value that restaurant.com provides to be poor. In this case, it's not just "the thought that counts". I will be recommending against the purchase of restaurant.com gift certificates to anyone I know thinking of doing business with restaurant.com.

Date: 2008-11-17 16:44 Subject: MBTA Q&A Security: Public Music: Dream Theater - Take the Time

I just posted the following comment on Boston Metro's Q&A section for the MBTA's general manager Dan Grabauskas:

Date: 2008-11-13 11:41 Subject: Racial Interest Groups Security: Public Mood: aggravated Music: HammerFall - Trailblazers Tags: community, debate, equality, race

I recently had a heated debate with a coworker about a new interest group our employer announced this morning. I discovered that I get extremely worked up over situations like this, and I thought I would share my thoughts with others.

This morning, my employer announced a Latino-specific advocacy group, run by employees and supported by some of the higher-ups in the company. The purpose of the group is to teach others about Hispanic heritage and to aid the needy, with a focus on Hispanics and immigrants. While I feel the group itself is a good idea and that the cause of the group is just, as I assume it's run by people of Latino/Hispanic heritage, I feel that the company's decision to sponsor it is an implicit way of saying they value Hispanic/Latino heritage and people over others. My view is that by choosing to celebrate the heritage of only one racial group, the firm is also choosing to not celebrate the heritage of every other racial group. If the firm's intention is to sponsor groups like this for other racial groups in the future, or if the firm is open to similar groups for other ethnic groups, it should have stated so. Otherwise, I make the assumption that the firm values Latino/Hispanic heritage over, say, Germanic heritage, especially when part of the group's purpose is to provide financial assistance to Hispanic/Latino people/immigrants before those of other races/ethnic groups.

Is my reasoning really all that off-base? If this group existed on its own, I wouldn't have a problem with it (except for the preferential treatment toward Hispanics/Latinos by offering aid to them before anyone else). A Hispanic heritage group run by Hispanic people? Sure. That's cool. It's a community of people who share a common background getting together to celebrate their shared history and their culture. I don't have a problem with Irish American clubs, why would I have a problem with a Hispanic/Latino equivalent to them? However, just as I would feel an Irish special interest group would be inappropriate in a workplace setting, I also feel a Latino/Hispanic one is inappropriate, and sends messages of racial preference on behalf of the company. If the company wanted to celebrate racial/cultural diversity, it should have done so by supporting a multicultural group, instead of a group that gives one specific racial group representation.

And for the record, I am part Irish and part German, and I would be just as upset if it were an Irish or a German special interest group, instead.

I'm interested in others' opinions. What are your thoughts on the subject? If you disagree, why? I'd like to get others' opinions on the matter in order to compare my views with those of a larger group of people. I don't think my argument is extremist, but I've been wrong before.

Date: 2008-09-23 16:06 Subject: Updated Browser Name Sniffer Security: Public Music: Ensiferum - Into Hiding Tags: code, javascript, programming, web

My browser name sniffer, updated for Google Chrome.

The highlighted section accommodates for the structure of Google Chrome's userAgent string, otherwise Chrome would be detected as Safari:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.29 Safari/525.13

var browserName = navigator.appName;

if (browserName != "Microsoft Internet Explorer" || typeof document.all == "undefined")
{
	if (browserName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer")
		browserName = "your browser"; // for user agent switching capability
	else if (browserName != "Netscape" || navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Netscape") != -1)
		browserName = navigator.appName;
	else
	{
		if ((/\([^)]*\)[^(]*\([^)]*\)[ ]([\w]+?)[\/\s][\d]+?[^;()]+?$/.test(navigator.userAgent))
		 || (/[ ]([\w]+?)[\/\s][\d\.]+?$/.test(navigator.userAgent))
		 || (/[ ]([\w]+?)[\/\s][\d]+?[^;()]+?$/.test(navigator.userAgent))
		 || (/^([\w]+)[\/\s][\d]+.+/.test(navigator.userAgent)))
			browserName = RegExp.$1;
		else
			browserName = navigator.appName;
	}
}

Date: 2008-08-20 16:15 Subject: Dojo Bugfixes Security: Public Tags: code, dojo, javascript, programming, web

I've had to make the following changes in Dojo Release 1.1.1 in order to get Dojo to work in both IE and Firefox:

/dojox/data/dom.js:

Line 37:

	/* CCP: Bugfix: mimetype of "text/xml; charset=UTF-8" set by the server causes DOMParser.parseFromString to fail with the following error:
		uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED) [nsIDOMParser.parseFromString]"  nsresult: "0x80004001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED)"  location: "JS frame :: http://www.example.com/scripts/dojo111/dojo/dojo.js.uncompressed.js :: anonymous :: line 495"  data: no]
		
		Line 0
	*/
	if(!mimetype){ mimetype = "text/xml"; }
	else if (mimetype.indexOf(';') != -1) { mimetype = mimetype.substring(0, mimetype.indexOf(';')); }

		var url = this.xipClientUrl + ""; // CCP: Bugfix: url is not a string in original version, so url.split fails.

	// CCP: Bugfix: iframeProxyUrl: "../xip_server.html" does not work in original version.
	//Make xip_server a full URL.
	var colonIndex = ifpServerUrl.indexOf(":");
	var slashIndex = ifpServerUrl.indexOf("/");
	if(colonIndex == -1 || slashIndex < colonIndex){
		//No colon or we are starting with a / before a colon, so we need to make a full URL.
		var loc = window.location.href;
		if(slashIndex == 0){
			//Have a full path, just need the domain.
			ifpServerUrl = loc.substring(0, loc.indexOf("/", 9)) + ifpServerUrl; //Using 9 to get past http(s)://
		}else{
			ifpServerUrl = loc.substring(0, (loc.lastIndexOf("/") + 1)) + ifpServerUrl;
		}
	}

		if(typeof console[tn] == "undefined"){

			dfd.cancel(e);

Date: 2008-08-02 00:21 Subject: Watashi wa Kurisutofaa Paakaa desu. Security: Public Tags: nihongo, romaji

Kon'nichi wa. Watashi wa Kurisutofaa Paakaa desu. Hajimemashite. Doozo yoroshiku. Watashi wa Amerika-jin desu. Nihongo o manabu no desu.

Watashi no burogu desu.

Ja mata-ne.

Date: 2008-07-30 18:27 Subject: Browser Name Sniffer Security: Public Tags: code, javascript, programming, web

NOTE: This code has been updated.

I recently came across a need to sniff a user's browser name with JavaScript. I could just use navigator.appName, but many browsers report Netscape even when that's not really the case (e.g.: Firefox). I've seem some rather inelegant browser name scripts out there. So, I decided to write my own:

var browserName = navigator.appName;

if (browserName != "Microsoft Internet Explorer" || typeof document.all == "undefined")
{
	if (browserName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer")
		browserName = "your browser"; // for user agent switching capability
	else if (browserName != "Netscape" || navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Netscape") != -1)
		browserName = navigator.appName;
	else
	{
		if ((/[ ]([\w]+?)[\/\s][\d\.]+?$/.test(navigator.userAgent))
		 || (/[ ]([\w]+?)[\/\s][\d]+?[^;()]+?$/.test(navigator.userAgent))
		 || (/^([\w]+)[\/\s][\d]+.+/.test(navigator.userAgent)))
			browserName = RegExp.$1;
		else
			browserName = navigator.appName;
	}
}

Date: 2008-04-01 21:19 Subject: Out of the Microwave Security: Public Location: Malden, MA Mood: amused Music: Nine Inch Nails - 34 Ghosts IV Tags: geeky, humor

I saw this on a ThinkGeek Customer Fortune: (Disclaimer: I am not responsible for time lost while reading ThinkGeek Customer Fortunes.)

Out of the Microwave...

Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, payed me a visit. As we were talking I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows on my PC, I told him how happy I was with this operating system and showed him the Windows CD. Too my surprise he threw it into my microwave oven and turned on the oven. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.' After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to the touch and it seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw a inscription, an inscription finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:

4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C20 4F6E65204F5320746F
2066696E64207468656D2C0D0A4F6E65204F5320746F206272 696E67207468656D20
616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062 696E64207468656D

'I cannot understand the fiery letters,' I said.

'No but I can,' he said. 'The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:'


One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,

One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Date: 2007-12-26 11:20 Subject: Amber Abreu Security: Public Location: Boston, MA Music: DevilDriver - Impending Disaster Tags: abortion, human rights, life

I just read an article on Boston IMC about a woman named Amber Abreu. She is facing seven years for self-inducing a miscarriage. Her actions resulted in the abortion of a 24-week-old, 1^1/4 pound fetus that remained alive outside of the womb for four days at Tufts-New England Medical Center. Of course, it died after the four days. The article's summary:

On January 6, 2007 18-year-old Amber Abreu went to the hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts after trying to terminate a pregnancy by taking a drug, misoprostol, which is an ulcer medication as well as a key component of the abortion pill RU-486. Amber was between 23 and 25 weeks pregnant. The result was a miscarriage. The doctors rushed the 1-1/4 pound expelled fetus to the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, where it remained alive for four days. The police, meanwhile, went after Amber using an archaic law dating back to the 1840s to charge her with “procuring a miscarriage.” Cops dragged Abreu into court in shackles and then held her in the state’s maximum security prison at Framingham for three nights until friends and relatives could come up with $15,000 bail. The young woman, a recent immigrant from the Dominican Republic, faces up to seven years in jail on this outrageous charge.

What you protesters fail to realize is that women--by the very nature of their purpose in the “circle of life”--are not equal to men. When a woman becomes pregnant, she has an added responsibility to her growing child, as well as herself. Anything that a pregnant woman does to her body is also done to the unborn child growing inside of her. Any woman who does not like this fact simply should not become pregnant or even have sex. It's that simple.

If Amber didn't think she could've supported another child, she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place. Since she did, she should've given birth to the child and given it up for adoption. The argument that she would have been burdened by this child for 18 years is asinine in a society makes adoption services so widely accessible.

I think it's outrageous that she's only being put away for seven years. She murdered an innocent child. The underdeveloped infant survived outside of its mother for four whole days, then died, as a direct result of her actions. How can anyone say this baby was not alive? How can anyone say this baby did not deserve to live?

The article mentions South and Central America. This has nothing to do with Massachusetts. We have safe, accessible, and legal abortion services here. Within the scope of having an irresponsible abortion, what Amber did was doubly irresponsible, as she could have been within the confines of a professional setting to ensure everything had gone smoothly. Since her family was able to pool together the $15,000 to get her out of prison, I'm sure they could've come up with the money to pay for her to have an abortion performed by a professional. This would have minimized the suffering endured by the unborn child. Instead, this child had to die slowly for four whole days.

If I'm going to be protesting anything, it's going to be the protesters at Salem City Hall. This issue is not one about women's rights. It's about the murder of a defenseless human being. Put her away for life!

Date: 2007-03-16 17:29 Subject: The Super IQ Test: How Smart Are You REALLY? Security: Public Tags: memes

Wow. I usually don't take these tests seriously, but it does say it's “PhD Certified”. Besides, it's been a long time since I've posted one of these memes to my LiveJournal, so I figured, “Why not?”

Christopher, your IQ score is 133



Your overall intelligence quotient is the result of a scientifically-tested formula based on how many questions you answered correctly. But it's only part of what we learned about you from your answers on the test. We also determined the way you process information.

The way you think about things makes you a Creative Theorist. This means you are a highly intelligent, complex person. You are able to process information of nearly every kind with ease, using both creativity and analysis to make sense of the world. Compared to others you also have a very rich imagination.

How did we determine that your thinking style is that of a Creative Theorist? When we examined your test results further, we analyzed how you scored on 8 dimensions of intelligence: spatial, organizational, abstract reasoning, logical, mechanical, verbal, visual and numerical. The 3 dimensions you scored highest on combine to make you a Creative Theorist. Only 6 out of 1,000 people have this rare combination of abilities.

Date: 2007-03-15 18:17 Subject: My First Slashdot Submission Security: Public Location: Boston, MA Mood: accomplished Tags: slashdot

I just posted a submission to Slashdot in hopes that it will be accepted as an article and posted on the front page. It's my first try at writing an article, so I hope it doesn't suck too badly. ;)

http://slashdot.org/~cparker15/journal/166573/

Date: 2007-01-26 11:49 Subject: Gross Incompetence: Substitute Teacher Faces Jail Time Over Spyware Security: Public Location: Boston, MA

I recently read an article from the Washington Post about a severe case of incompetence by nearly everybody involved. A substitute teacher was using a computer when some malware on the machine started popping up pornographic advertisements. She made a genuine attempt to get some help to resolve the issue (she hadn't used the computer before that day), and she was reported for endangering children (four students walked up to the desk to see what the fuss was about and viewed some of the images). She now faces a potential 40 YEARS IN PRISON, despite her having done nothing wrong.

Here are the comments I left on the article:

BURN THE WITCH!!! People need to point the blame at someone, and this innocent woman is the perfect scapegoat. I hope this all blows over and the people who are both responsible for the problem and for tarnishing her reputation are publicly embarassed in front of the rest of the nation. We should all make examples out of them. I'll bet Ms. Amero will be awared a substantial sum of money when this is all over for her suffering and humiliation. She deserves it, at the very least.

About a year ago, I ended up having to remove spyware and adware from a local business's computers that was popping up some rather rude messages and images for the reception staff to deal with. This was on a couple of Windows XP Professional machines with the latest antivirus updates and Windows/IE security fixes installed. Luckily, the business owner wasn't an asshat and understood that these things can sometimes Just Happen.

I ended up spending several days at that business cleaning those machines. One of the machines was so badly infected, I ended up working on it from about an hour or so before close of business until a few hours past start of business the next morning.

Once the machines were all cleaned, I created a new security policy there (everyone there had Administrator privileges on the machines), locked down IE's security settings, and educated everyone there about just how malware works and how it is spread. They haven't had any issues since.

The real culprits guilty of endangering children are the people in charge of IT at the school. They're the ones who should be prosecuted and imprisoned.

Date: 2006-12-16 13:08 Subject: Happy Boston Tea Party Day! Security: Public Music: Vampire Mooose - Adamantium Elbow

On this date in 1773, the Sons of Liberty protested against the British Tea Act by dumping 342 crates of tea bricks into Boston Harbor. In total, they dumped about £10,000 ($19,692) worth of tea into the harbor. That's roughly £108,430.26 ($213,520.86) in today's economy!

More about the Boston Tea Party

Date: 2006-12-04 22:14 Subject: Conditional onLoad Queue Security: Public Music: Fred Mollin - All I Have to Do Is Dream

I was writing some JavaScript recently and I came across a situation where I needed to perform different functions with the body element's onLoad event handler depending on varying circumstances. It may sometimes be necessary to queue onLoad events from scripts embedded in a document's head element. However, at that point during the creation of a document, the body element doesn't exist yet!

Here's an example of what I mean:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
	<head>
		<title>Document Title Goes Here</title>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/script/goes/here.js">
			// empty
		</script>
	</head>
	<body onload="functionNameThatMayChangeHere();">
		<p>Document Content Goes Here</p>
	</body>
</html>

var onLoadActions = new Array();

function addOnLoadAction(action)
{
	onLoadActions[onLoadActions.length] = action;
}

function performOnLoadActions()
{
	for (i in onLoadActions)
	{
		eval(onLoadActions[i]);
	}
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
	<head>
		<title>Document Title Goes Here</title>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/onLoad.js">
			// empty
		</script>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/script/goes/here.js">
			// empty
		</script>
	</head>
	<body onload="performOnLoadActions();">
		<p>Document Content Goes Here</p>
	</body>
</html>

addOnLoadAction("alert('Hello, world!');");
addOnLoadAction("functionNameThatMayChangeHere();"); // Look familiar???
addOnLoadAction("window.location = 'http://www.fsf.org/';");

Date: 2006-11-22 20:29 Subject: Soldier Fights Jail Sentence for Refusing to Redeploy to Iraq Security: Public Music: Axis of Justice Radio Network Tags: military, politics, rants, war

This from Veterans for Peace:

War Resister Agustin Aguayo Update

On Tuesday, November 21st, the appeal of Army Specialist Agustin Aguayo in his civil Federal Court case as plaintiff against the Secretary of the Army will be heard in the District Court in Washington, DC, at 333 Constitution Avenue, NW.

Agustin Aguayo, a combat medic with the 1st Infantry Division is presently in the U.S. military prison in Mannheim, Germany. He faces up to seven years in prison for refusing to deploy for a second time to Iraq. His appeal before the civil Federal Court in DC is a habeas corpus case against the Army for wrongfully denying him conscientious objector (CO) status. This is a very important case, because it is the first such case before the Federal Court case since 1971, during the Vietnam War. The judges in DC could require the Army to release Agustin from prison and from military service with an honorable discharge. If Agustin prevails, the case could be helpful to many other soldiers who apply for CO status.

A schedule is being created for events in Washington DC to support Agustin. Check the following websites for more information. http://augustin-aguayo.blogspot.com or http://www.aguayodefense.org.
Read the article - Agustin Aguayo vs The Secretary of the Army

Date: 2006-11-19 09:15 Subject: Pray for an Amputee Security: Public Music: Jozlin Bones - Question Tags: god hates, religion

I recently stumbled upon the Web site Why Won't God Heal Amputees?. That Web site explains in plain English how it's impossible for God to exist, using the supposed words of God Himself. Specifically, God promises to answer people's prayers, and that with a little faith, anything can be accomplished. Furthermore, God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (everywhere), and perfect. So why, then, doesn't God heal amputees? The very fact that God doesn't heal amputees is proof enough that God doesn't exist--that God is a figment of a deranged imagination.

(On a side note, if God really is omniscient and omnipresent, then God already knows our thoughts, and already knows everything that's happening everywhere in the universe. And since he's perfect, he doesn't have any difficulty keeping track of any of it. If he knows our thoughts, then why is prayer even necessary? God should already know what we want/need without prayer. If God exists, then there's no need for prayer. If God doesn't exist, then, well, there's no need for prayer. Interesting. Well, carry on.)

It just so happens that my uncle, John, is an amputee. So, to prove a point (since I do not believe in God and therefore couldn't possibly pray for him), I submitted a prayer request to Benny Hinn Ministries. Surely, there are plenty of people in his "Warrior Army" ... who ... believe? What a curious name. Anyway, this is the message I sent to his prayer circle group:

My uncle, John Blum, was involved in an accident, and he had one of his legs amputated at the knee. It would mean the world to him and his family if a prayer circle as large as your own prayed for God to regrow my uncle a new leg. He's starting to use prosthetic legs now, but that certainly is no match for a real, live leg. He cannot feel a prosthesis, he can not rub lotion on a prosthesis, he cannot feel pins and needles in a prosthesis, and he cannot wiggle the toes of a prosthesis. I pray that God will give John his leg back, in the same light that God cures diseases seemingly overnight. We all, his family, would be eternally grateful for this gift of regeneration and full recovery, just as we are thankful that he survived the treacherous accident that claimed his leg. Thank you.

Date: 2006-10-11 01:19 Subject: Installing MadWifi on Debian Sarge Security: Public Music: Nile - Invocation to Seditious Heresy Tags: debian, networking

This is what I did to get MadWifi working on a freshly-installed Debian Sarge system:

Contents of /etc/apt/sources.list:

# Sarge
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sarge main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sarge main
deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main contrib non-free

# Sarge Backports
deb http://www.backports.org/debian sarge-backports main contrib non-free

$ su
# apt-get update
# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.8-3-386
# reboot

$ su
# apt-get -t sarge-backports install madwifi-source
# apt-get -t sarge-backports install madwifi-tools
# m-a prepare
# m-a a-i madwifi
# modprobe ath_pci

Date: 2006-09-24 01:13 Subject: New Ride Page @ CarDomain Security: Public Music: D.H. Lawrence - The Sea

I created a page on CarDomain for my Saturn SL2. Check it out: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2464461

If you do visit, please vote in the poll and/or sign the guestbook. Thanks! :)

Date: 2006-09-19 22:41 Subject: The First of Many Baby Pictures Security: Public Mood: peaceful Music: Eric Bernard - Mystic Voyage

Life has been busy since my last update. We've all been living life and doing things that new families do. Conor was four weeks old yesterday, and he's going to be one month old in two days, my 23^rd birthday. I've been going on job interviews, talking with businesses and recruiters, and working odd jobs to maintain an income.

We've been taking pictures of Conor every chance we get. Development of my own image gallery script came to a halt a while ago, sometime in April. I just haven't had the time to work on it and get it working exactly the way I want (I'm a perfectionist, I want to use XML to store metadata, I don't want to use any prewritten libraries, I want to read EXIF data, etc.). So, in light of this, I've started a Flickr account and posted a Web-friendly version of Conor's hospital portrait there: Conor's Hospital Portrait on Flickr.

I realize people have been bugging me on MySpace to update my account with baby info, but I don't use MySpace that often. The user interface is atrocious (including all of those busy user profiles with the sparkles, customized mouse pointers and background music... can you say 1996?), the coding is horrible and crashes my browser, and I just don't trust MySpace with my personal data all that much. Something about them just seems insidious to me. However, because just about everyone I know has a MySpace page, and because everyone wants updates on MySpace, I have posted this same picture there: Conor's Hospital Portrait on MySpace. Don't expect much from me on MySpace other than comments, though, because MySpace is evil!

Well, that's about it. Conor's doing great. He's a healthy boy, he's calm most of the time, he sleeps a lot, eats a lot, and he loves being held. He hates bath time. He's fascinated by the TV and music, and sometimes when you hold him, he just sits there and stares at you, examining the expressions on your face and the looks in your eyes. I often wonder what he's thinking when he has that contemplative look on his face. I'd do anything to be able to speak lucidly with him at this stage in his life.

If anyone wants to get in touch with us, try IM, e-mail, or give us a call sometime! If at first you don't succeed...