tag:www.coopsuniverse.com,2007-10-07://1 2008-09-05T08:31:26Z Movable Type Publishing Platform 4.01 tag:www.coopsuniverse.com,2008://1.6 2008-09-05T04:56:41Z 2008-09-05T08:31:26Z

So, I've been exploring the blogsphere lately and all the political mumbo-jumbo out there trying to make my decision on the next President of the United States. Everywhere I turn, there is controversy over McCain's pick as VP Sarah Palin....

Coop
So, in a service to all those who want to be informed, here are the facts I have been able to uncover...
]]> Troopergate
Yes, Gov. Palin did dismiss Walter Monegan, Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner, on July 11, 2008, after Monegan turned down the offer of executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. The dismissal is under investigation by both the Alaskan State Legislature and the Alaskan State Personnel Board. Palin herself filed the complaint with the Personnel Board to get the investigation started because according to Alaskan law, the State Legislature has no authority to order an investigation, any ethics violations are handled by the Personnel Board.

So, why was Monegan dismissed? Here's where all the facts start to fall apart. It turns into a he said-she said battle. Palin's office has said that the dismissal was because the Governor wanted to take the department in a different direction. Specifically, the dismissal had to do with Monegan inability to fill vacancies in the State Trooper Department. inability to fight alcohol abuse and issues regarding budgets. Monegan alleges that the dismissal is a direct result of him not dismissing Trooper Mike Wooten from duty. Mike Wooten is the ex-brother-in-law to Governor Palin. Wooten was found guilty of issuing a death threat to Palin's father, shooting a moose without a permit, using a Taser on his 10-year old step-son, and driving under the influence of alcohol. For these offenses, he received a 10-day suspension which was reduced to 5-days upon union appeal.

OK, where's the story? Palin dismisses a guy in 2008 after offering him a new position. Somehow, the 2008 dismissal relates back to a 2006 investigation into her ex-brother-in-law? If you look at Gov Palin's record, you will see that if you can't get the job done, you're out. If you're not a team player, you're out. I don't necessarily agree with it, but that's her record. The guy did not meet Palin's expectations, so she offered him a position elsewhere, which he turned down, and replaced him.

The Librarian
Here I find very little facts about this controversy. Here's what I do know. When Palin became mayor, she wanted to make sure everyone was going to be a team player, so she asked everyone to resign. Several sources have said the issue was over censorship, but there is no credible evidence to back this claim. No one can list titles Palin wanted censored, and no one is really talking. What I do know is that several supporters for the librarian rallied for her to keep her job. What exactly happens next is completely unclear, although, the librarian and Palin come to terms and everyone is happy, without censorship.

Trig
Here's a story that is very near and dear to my heart. My step-son is autistic. While his autism is not at a level that is debilitating, he is still a special needs child. I have a step-daughter who is severely ADHD, and myself, I am bipolar. So, when my wife and I found out she was pregnant, I began to wonder if my baby was going to be ok. My wife and I talked, and despite the doctor's recommendation, we decided against testing for down syndrome simply because, no matter what the outcome, we were having this baby, and God would provide for us when the time was necessary. So, I respect the Palin's very much for their choice to raise Trig.

People out there are claiming that Trig is really Bristol's baby. First, reporters in Alaska have stated publically that they have worked with Palin throughout her claimed pregnancy, and she was in fact pregnant. Also, Bristol is five month's along in her current pregnancy, which makes it impossible for Bristol to be the mother of Trig and pregnant right now.

Some people have said that Palin shows a lack of family values because she returned to work shortly after Trig was born. I have a problem with that arguement because most of those people are the same ones who are shouting about equal rights for woman in the workplace. When my son was born, we had to make a very difficult decision on whether or not my wife would go to work or be a stay-at-home mom. We needed her income to survive. By the grace of God, I found a second job that equaled her income so she could stay at home with my son. I worked two jobs to support my family just so my wife could stay at home, but not everyone has that opportunity. Many U.S. families have two working parents. Plus, it was a lot easier for my wife to quit her job where 2 or 3 people counted on her, and she could easily be replaced, whereas Palin had the whole State of Alaska counting on her, and resigning a public office does not look good on your resume with the American people. What would people be saying if she had resigned to raise Piper or Willow and then tried to return to office? Would they be saying that we can't have her as our next VP because if she gets pregnant again, she's just going to resign to be with her children. Having to make the decision between work and family is a very tough decision to make. Learning to balance work and family is a talent, and one that I find very impressive in Palin.

Bristol
Bristol's 17 and pregnant. She's marrying the father of the baby. Here's where the mudslinging has got to stop. Yes, Palin is for abstinence education in schools. She's against explicit sexual education programs in schools. Now, how does that relate to her lack of family values? I fail to see the connection. I have kids, and I was a kid raised on abstinence education. I was sexually active well before my wedding day. Does this mean that my parents don't have good family values? As any parent knows, you can raise your kid to be the best behaved child in the Universe, instill good morals and values, but when it comes down to it, the child will make the choice, not the parent. At some point you have to let your child go, and let them make their own decisions and live with the consequences of their actions. That's how you learn, cause and effect.

Now, some will say, "Was it Bristol's choice to keep the baby and get married?" Why is that any of our business? Bristol is 17, in my book, she's still a minor, which means, when her parents say jump, she says how high. She chose to engage in sex, and the ultimate outcome of sex is one of two things, a STD or pregnant. If you aren't willing to risk one or the other, you should not be having sex! Sex is not a recreational activity. It's not like baseball or fishing or hunting. Those are games. When you start having sex, you are talking about lives, human lives, either created or destroyed. I'll save the "Woman's Right To Choose" rant for another post. As with any action, there is a reaction...cause and effect...action and consequence.  My autistic son had a hard time grasping this topic, the action and consequence of his actions, but he understands it now. Why other kids don't understand it, I will never know. Bristol took action, and now she has to deal with the consequences of her action. Plain and simple. Kudos for the Palin's if they did force her to keep the baby. Even bigger kudos to Bristol if she made the decision to keep the baby herself. As for the marriage thing, I'm not going to touch it. Personally, I think they are too young to get married, but back when my grandparents were young, getting married right out of high school was the thing to do, and my grandparents were married for 56 years before my grandmother passed. So, only time will tell if this marriage is going to work out or not.

So, with all of that out in the open, what do I think of Palin? I like her. I think she is a no-nonsense woman who knows what she wants and goes for it. She's family-oriented, with strong morales and values. As for a choice as VP, for the McCain ticket, I think it was an excellent choice. Why? She's everything McCain is not. She balances out the Republican ticket that no other VP candidate could or would. By nominating her as VP, the Republicans have tried to toss aside the image of the "good ol' boys" club. This could bring real change to the Republican party and to Washington as a whole. Of course, she's not Hillary, and McCain knows this. The choice really couldn't be to go after the Hillary supporters, they would never stand for someone like Palin. Well, not all of them. However, she brings balance to his campaign. She brings the conservative voice that McCain lacks. Plus, she's not from Washington. I loved the opening of her speech at the RNC, "Fellow Citizens..." Now there was an honest address to the American people. Call us by name. We're not your "friends" as some would call us. Honestly, we don't know you from Adam. You're just a political figure we hear, see and read about in the news. I don't call you up for Poker night, my wife and your wife don't swap recipes, our kids don't play sports together. The only thing we share in common is that we are citizens of this great country.   "Fellow Citizens..."

And as an addendum to this article, I'm still an undecided voter, and I probably will be until November.
]]> tag:www.coopsuniverse.com,2008://1.5 2008-03-07T03:27:49Z 2008-03-07T04:00:18Z

On March 3, New York hosted the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change where Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy advisor for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s warned that the global warming alarmism could have agrave impact...

Coop
"Monckton used the banning of DDT, which was linked to the deaths of 40 million children dying from malaria, as an example. The World Health Organization lifted the ban on September 14, 2006, and that was, as Monckton said, 'The science standing in front of politics."
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It found that many publications now claiming the world is on the brink of a global warming disaster said the same thing about an impending ice age just 30 years ago. Several major ones, including The New York Times, Time magazine and Newsweek, have reported on three or even four different climate shifts since 1895.

In the 1970s several publications warned that global cooling posed a major threat to the food supply. Now, remarkably, global warming is also considered a threat to the very same food supply. Which is it? Global cooling or global warming?

The media continues to point to glaciers as a sign of climate change, yet they have used them as examples of both cooling and warming. If the glaciers in the Arctic are melting, but the glaciers in the Antarctic are growing, is that a sign of global warming or global cooling?

Decades before scientists and journalists alerted the public about the threat of a new ice age, British meteorologist argued that mankind was responsible for heating up the planet with carbon dioxide emissions--in 1938, so global warming is not a new idea as the media would make it out to be.

The New York Times has reported four different climate change scares since 1895, and none of them have become a reality.

Monckton blamed the attention garnered by global warming alarmism on a combination of factors.

"Now here we are once again with another scare," Monckton said. "It's the same people behind it. It's the international left. It's the media wanting a scare story. ...It's not so much a conspiracy I think, as a coincidence of outer interests who is set to take and advance their causes collectively by getting behind this nonsense."

Wake up, people! Global warming is just a fad, here today, gone tomorrow. Companies are trying to profit from the scare, and they are taking you to the bank. Going "green" isn't going to help the "global warming" situation because there is none. You are just feeding the already deep pockets of the leftist special interest groups. Don't you find it funny that between July 1, 2007, and December 31, 2007, only a meager 20 per cent of news stories even mention there were any alternative opinions to the so-called "consensus" on the issue of global warming?]]> tag:www.coopsuniverse.com,2008://1.4 2008-02-28T00:48:11Z 2008-02-28T02:45:05Z

Adobe announced on Monday the latest product line to their software line, Flex 3 and AIR 1.0.Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and...

Coop
Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and extensive testing tools including memory and performance profiling, plus the addition of the automated testing framework to Flex Builder.

Adobe AIR is game-changing in so many ways, delivering rich applications on the desktop, enabling access to the local file system, system tray, notifications and much more. Now you can write RIAs on the desktop using the same skills that you’ve been already using to create great web apps including both Flex and AJAX.
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RIAs created with Adobe technology have the widest reach in the world. They have consistent quality of experience, regardless of OS. Adobe has 10+ years of proven, consistent, cross-platform performance consistently reaching more desktops and devices than any other OS or runtime. As of today, Flash has a 99% reach on connected PCs and 8 million installs per day, and all Flex applications compile into SWF files that are rendered in a browser through Adobe Flash Player.

And then, there's the upcoming release of Thermo. Thermo will make it easy for designers to create expressive, interactive interfaces that can be taken directly into production. It feels like an Adobe Creative Suite product such as Photoshop, allows designers to design interactions visually by building on existing workflows and creates working applications that easily flow into development.

On a very high level (remember, this product is still in development), designers can use drawing tools to create wireframes or import artwork directly from Creative Suite tools, transform static artwork, in place, into the interactive components of a Flex application, define states & transitions visually and easily define visual effects and transitions, and deliver working data-driven prototypes to developers and maintain design control.

Flex 3 is a highly productive, free open source framework for building expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers and on the desktop with Adobe AIR. The open source SDK consists of two languages, MXML (actually a library of ActionScript) and ActionScript 3, compilers, debuggers and a rich component library. There is the Flex Builder IDE which is an Eclipse plugin or turn-key install that accelerates design with a design view. It also allows the developer the option of a code view with color-coded code.

For deployment on a browser, the Flex application is compiled into a SWF and displayed in a browser with Flash Player providing a universal display on any OS in any browser. For deployment on a desktop, the Flex application is compiled and packaged into an Adobe AIR application and run using the AIR Client Runtime providing a universal display on any OS (Linux client coming with Release 1.1)

Adobe AIR enables web developers to use existing technologies to build and deploy rich Internet applications on the desktop. Adobe AIR is Always there, anywhere, provides a Branded experience, Convenient desktop functionality, Data access, and Efficient development and delivery. Adobe AIR allows develops to create rich applications with a broad reach in any Adobe design environment developed from Acrobat, Flash or HTML. AIR universal application installer contains all application files which are cross platform web technologies (SWF, HTML, PNG, XML, etc). The same .air file installs on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux (coming in release 1.1). The installation process creates OS specific executables that allow the AIR application to behave like a native application.

AIR applications have full desktop application privileges, read/write files, background execution, full network access, etc. For security purposes, all AIR applications need to be digitally signed by the creator for a mandatory, trusted install process. AIR uses the WebKit HTML Engine because it is open source, proven, small and has existing mobile/device support. AIR has rich media and video support. Video codec support including H.264 video, AAC audio, VP6, MP3 and Sorenson. Adobe AIR has a local database, SQLite. It supports ACID transactions, zero-configuration allowing for embedded solution, SQL-92, complete database is a single file on disk and supports terabyte-sized databases. SQLite provides synchronous and asynchronous data transfer. AIR  applications can run in the background, register to run at startup or user logon and can send user notifications using the system tray, docks or new windows. The best part about AIR is that you can leverage existing tools for designers and developers such as Flex, Aptana, Dreamweaver, Flash and more.


]]> tag:www.coopsuniverse.com,2008://1.3 2008-02-27T05:23:30Z 2008-02-27T05:27:28Z

I've been wanting to blog about this for weeks now. Actually, I've just wanted to return to blogging period. I've been so busy preparing for the new baby and working that I haven't had time to blog. I'm making an...

Coop
Alright, so I'm not totally new to this fathering thing. When I met my current wife, she had two kids, 10 and 7. However, as of January 30, 2008, at 9:56 p.m. I was introduced to the world of fathering an infant. Edward William arrived two and half weeks early and only weighed 5 lbs, 8 oz. He was 19 in. long. I'm the oldest of 19 grandchildren, so I've been around infants for most of my life, but I wasn't prepared for this.
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Of course, infants don't sleep through the night. That's a given. However, given the fact that I'm bipolar, I'm on medication that helps me sleep through the night. Talk about a dilemma. Do I take the medicine that helps me sleep, or do I stay up and help wife with the new baby? For the first few nights, I tried to do both, but it just didn't work. I would wake up to his cries in a daze, and just couldn't keep my eyes open. My wife insisted that I continue to take my medication, so I didn't have the option of getting up with her. I feel horrible for that, especially since Edward has a problem feeding, which makes it difficult for those late night feedings for my wife. Those first few nights, she really could have used my support to help her, but I just couldn't do it.

I tried to help out during the day as much as possible with the baby, but my wife had other ideas. She wanted me to spend time focusing on the other kids and the house work so she could recover and take care of the baby. We had a small fight over what exactly she wanted me to do, mostly because both of us were sleep deprived, but once we got everything worked out, things went smoothly. I got to spend some time with Edward during the day while my wife slept, and she took the night shift. I also did the housework and took care of the kids, getting them to school in the morning and helping them when they got home from school. That was the first week.

The second week, wife's parents came in from MI. It was a bit rough at first because during that first week, my wife would take son out into the living room during the night so I could sleep. With her parent's staying with us, they were sleeping in the living room, which meant wife, baby and I were in our room. So, I was awoken every two hours to a screaming baby, never being able to get into my REM sleep that is so important to someone who suffers from bipolar disorder. Wife's parents helped by getting the kids off to school, cooking, cleaning (still don't know where some of our stuff is) and doing laundry (dying my favorite beige sweater pink). I was late to work every day because I couldn't get myself out of bed I was so tired from not getting any sleep. Wife's parents left Thursday before I got home (so I wouldn't get mad at them about the sweater), and we were back to just the five of us again.

Last week, I took vacation from work to spend time with my son, but that did not exactly go as planned, either. I ended up getting sick for three days, and spent the rest of the time getting caught up on the housework before having to return to work on Monday. I spent the week sleeping on the couch so I could get up in the morning to get the kids off to school. Wife and I kinda have this new system worked out where I go to bed around 11 and get some sleep, and she stays out in the living room napping and watching our son until around 3 or 4 a.m. before she comes to bed. Then, my son wakes me up around 6-6:30, my wife feeds him, and I start my "waking-up" routine.
]]> tag:www.coopsuniverse.com,2007://1.2 2007-10-17T06:25:08Z 2008-02-27T09:43:20Z

I've installed MT 4 on my web server, and I'm ready to start blogging. I know I'm using a default template, but there's a lot going on in my life right now that I just don't have time to design...

Coop
So, for those of you who don't know me, here's the scoop. I'm a 20-something web developer. I work for a non-profit trade association during the day and I work for a consulting company based in New Jersey after hours. I also manage a couple other websites for family and friends. Plus, I pick up the occasional project here and there. So, I keep busy with work all the time.
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I also run the local Adobe Users Group here in town. I was co-manager for about a year before taking over as manager.  The former manager also ran the ColdFusion Users Group, so he needed someone to help take the burden of running both groups. I volunteered to run the Adobe Group. It's troublesome at times, as I find it difficult to find speakers and learn exactly what the group wants when it comes to topics, but all in all, I do my best, and those who come to meetings find it beneficial.

I attended Bowling Green State University before I managed to flunk out after 5 years with only a sophomore standing. I went back to school in 2004 at the University of Phoenix, and I graduated in October 2006. I walked in the graduation ceremony in June 2007, two weeks before I got married. More on my experiences at UoP later.

And, the most important thing about me, and I save this for last because you are going to hear a lot about it in this blog, is that I am bipolar. I was diagnosed in 2001, and have been living with the diagnosis ever since. I am on medication to treat it, and sometimes the medication works, and sometimes it doesn't. I have regular appointments with my doctors, and find that about once a year or so, we are adjusting the medication dosage. I meet with a psychologist on a monthly basis, so I'm sure you'll be reading about those appointments, and I usually meet with my psychiatrist about once every three months for a medication check-up.  I have my ups and downs, and it does affect my professional and social life. I've almost lost my job on several occasions because I've been too depressed to get out of bed.  In my first year at my current employer, I worked an average 4 days a week and showed up an average half-hour late to work. It's gotten better over time, but it's still a problem. I'm working every day on it.
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