Some computer tools I use are so valuable to me, I can hardly believe that they are supplied to me for free. Both free in the $0.00 sense and free in the freedom sense.

Here is a list of a few of my favorites.

• Vim – a better vi

• Mozilla – a better browser
  
• Perl – My favorite programming language
  
• Linux – my favorite OS
  
• GNU – more s/w that you can shake a stick at, including compilers, editors, window managers, gui toolkits, etc..
  
• …
  

The list could obviously go on, but still you get the sense that the depth and breadth of software that I like to use. I can’t believe people provide it for free. That I get the source code and a license that allows me to change it to suit my own needs. Pretty great stuff.

Interesting blurb on online reputation. http://www.mindjack.com/feature/spin.html

Just wanted to take a moment and point out my son, Matthew. As of February 14th, 2003 he is a three year old. I couldn’t be prouder of this guy. His mind goes a mile a minute and the rest of him is not far behind. His grasp of the english langauge is phenomenal, and he has a heart of gold. (Matthew, Jeannie, and Goldie (my mother) pictured above.)
I would also like to add that the next six months Jeannie and I will not have a two year old in the house which is kind of a relief.

I reflect on the space shuttle tragedy today.

I watched Columbia “slip the bonds of earth” early in my formative years in school. I remember the Challenger tragedy the way a different generation remembers the Kennedy assasination. The launch mishap is burned into my mind in the same way the Sept. 11 events have.

Still space flight is dangerous business. We can’t gaurantee that any plane will get from location a to b on a given day. How can we be sure that the shuttle will make it to space and back 100 times without injury. I expect the manned travel to space requires injury. It’s amazing that it ever works.

Although, no consolation to loved ones, I am sure that astronauts would rather die doing the thing they love than any other way. Maybe … maybe not.

I hope that this is not another case of contractor/NASA incompetence like the Challenger explosion. I’m really not sure that the pieces that have fallen to earth will allow for a genuine answer to why this happened.

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space...
...put out my hand, and touched the face of God.