Back from visitings...

 Had a nice trip down to see Dad and Madelon... their new dog Chance and Jake had a really good time together. Madelon and Dad did some sitting with the boys, which was great. You can never really get to know the kids until you spend some time alone with them. They were both really surprised by Galen - it was nice to hear them talk about him glowingly. Amelia did really well at Aimee's wedding - she had a miserable time with the "imposed" baby-sitter during the reception - the other kids were really mean to her. Just breaks my heart when she gets treated poorly - affects me on a level I've never been aware of before.... trip back to Oregon went well. God I do hate California traffic - never been more happy to have moved as I was this weekend.

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Startings....

This is my first effort at blogging... I really don't know if I have the time to make this worthwhile, but I figured I would give it a try anyway.

My name is Matt and I live near Eugene, Oregon. I work for a well known "information availability" software company, managing a team of folks that help provide our software users with troubleshooting tools and information.

I'm 40 years old and a father of three fantastic kids. My wife is more beautiful then when I met her more than 20 years ago, and I consider myself among the luckiest folks on the planet. I love history and baseball and work hard to keep my body in shape. I have a weakness for movies and chocolate.

Like most of my friends, I worry about things that I have little control over. My country has been usurped by fundamentalists cloaked in the robes of rabid nationalism and who serve only those that can pay for their services and policies. I suspect a bloody revolution is in the offing, and this thought is both frightening and exciting. I favor classical liberalism (as enunciated by Thomas Paine).

This weeks recommended reading...

Molly Ivins on WTF... http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/28154/
Thomas Olivant on debt reduction... http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/08/digging_in_on_debt_reduction/
The Village Voice on the "untouchable Cheney"... http://villagevoice.com/news/0546,hentoff,69992,6.html

And the myriad of conflicting elements of the bible...
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/abs/long.htm


And recommended tools...

RSSReader... http://www.rssreader.com
Spybot S&D... http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2471.html
Picasa 2 pic organizer.... http://picasa.google.com/index.html