Those who know me, know that I’m not rich.

And I have no interest in being rich.

That’s one reason why I’m very happily spending my life doing things that help other people, instead of doing things that would earn me a lot of money.

If you’re like me, and could use a little extra cash, [more...]

When I was a kid, I bought over 50 used, hardcover Tom Swift, Jr. and Hardy Boys books at my church’s annual rummage sale. If I remember correctly, they only cost me five or ten cents apiece.

I spent many hours nestled up in the branches of a crabapple tree — and many more hours sitting under a pyramid of covers in bed, with a flashlight, late at night — reading those enthralling adventures. [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal and Web site know that I’ve survived more than my share of personal tragedy, heartache and trauma.

But I agree with the old saying: “You can’t control what happens to you in life — you can only control how you react to it.”

So I’ve always tried to find meaning and purpose in my [more...]

Regular visitors to this Web site know that I’ve survived several bad things in my life, including domestic violence. That’s why I considered it an honor to be able to help victims become survivors, by working more than full-time as a volunteer at a domestic violence center and shelter for an entire year.

Along with serving as a legal advocate, both in and out of the courts, I was happy to help out many other ways, including caring for [more...]

Anyone who’s spent more than a little time on this Web site knows that my wife and I absolutely love our pets.

Of course our pets really love us, too, but most people are surprised to see that they also love each other. We set our expectations for each of them early on, so our cats and dogs have always [more...]

Two days ago, I installed Debian Squeeze onto my new 64-bit PC, using ext4 partitions, KDE4 and grub2.

Two nights ago, I was up until 3:00 AM, thanks to Debian Squeeze’s version of KDE4.

My experience may surprise you. It certainly surprised me. [more...]

This short announcement is to let you know that I plan to replace this announcement with today’s Journal post some time this evening, after I’ve taken a little nap.

Yesterday, I installed Debian Squeeze onto my new PC, using ext4 partitions, KDE4 and grub2.

Last night, I was up until 3:00 AM, thanks to [more...]

Several weeks ago, I told you why you’ve never seen 14,456 of the comments that have been posted to my Journal in the past year or so.

Currently, the number of unseen comments is at 16,072.

Newly published research reveals, among other things, that [more...]

I’ve told you about several of my Craigslist deals, but it’s been almost 4 months since I found my last one — a network laser printer that I’m still really happy about.

Since then, I’ve looked for a third computer to add to my network, to serve as an NFS file server for my wife’s and my computers.

Judging by the normal prices I’ve seen on Craigslist for the past several weeks, I figured that it was going to cost me around [more...]

Regular readers know that I began writing this Journal in October, 2003 — and that I’ve written a Journal post nearly every single day since then.

In this Journal, I’ve covered a wide variety of both technical and non-technical topics, as you can see in the Journal Tags section in the right column [more...]