I happened upon this interesting article on ABCNews.com when I got home this morning from working an overnight shift. It seems that a resident of Pagosa Springs, CO. is being fined $25 a day for continuing to display a Christmas that doubles as a peace sign.

Apparently a few residents of the area, in which there are more than two hundred residents, filed their complaints with the homeowner’s association for that area. The resident in question, Lisa Jensen, refused to take it down when asked to do so. The association’s president sent a 5-person architectural control committee to take it down and/or levee the fines. They refused, concluding that it’s a seasonal symbol that really doesn’t say anything. They honestly didn’t see anything about it that was in violation of their codes or restrictions. Bob Kearns, the association president, asked for all five of their resignations!

I understand that some people have concerns that the “peace symbol”, as it is called, can be construed as anti-Semetic. I also understand that some people may think it’s inappropriate for someone to call for peace or display the peace sign while our country is at war. For those who have a problem with this display, that evidently didn’t come from someone with divisive ambitions, I have only this to say…

WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE JUST LIGHTEN UP??!

I find it rather sad that some people had to lose their position and place because a few others are too stuck on themselves and their beliefs to put themselves in their neighbor’s shoes.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the people that have a problem with “Merry Christmas”! Those people make me want to go up to them and yell out “Merry Christmas” to them with a biiiiig smile on my face.

Further reading:
• ABC News: Woman Faces Fines for Wreath Peace Sign
• Durango Herald Online: Peace Sign Creates Stir

UPDATE: It seems that, because of the bad press that the homeowner’s association was getting over this, the mentioned president retracted the ban on the wreath peace sign. Bob Kearns and the rest of the board of directors called the whole thing “a misunderstanding”. It sounds more like they just want to save their butts from the wrath of the majority, but whatever. I’m glad to see things like this rectified!

Technorati Tags: Offbeat News, Christmas Decorations

I noticed something rather weird today as I went outside. Normally, I don’t tend to notice these things, as I usually look upon my path instead of beside it. I normally can be very descriptive of events and objects but, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…

Did some druid ceremony happen while we were asleep? Did a curse befall our humble apartment abode? Hmmm… Or maybe it was the product of kids playing around. Still, I couldn’t help but hear the opening theme of “The Twilight Zone” playing in my head when I saw this construction.

Maybe I’m just being my silly old self.

Technorati Tags: Esoterik, Rocks, Photos, Druids

If you have five birds in your house, as do we, then you would naturally consider having a regular place to shop for their needs. Not only that, but that store should show a great level of care for the avian world. Our main place to shop, JD birds in Phoenix, embodies these qualities.

Christine and I have gotten to know the owners well, hence the shameless plug for their business here.

Anyways, whenever we go there, I always find some excuse to snap a picture or two of their well-cared-for birds. Now I found that I’ve been amassing quite a collection of pics taken at JD Birds. The next logical step in anyone’s photo collection: make an album!

So, check out the Photo Gallery (see random photo in blog sidebar) and look at some of the JD Birds photos. Most of them were taken with my cellphone’s camera, but I’ll have a couple of hi-res (megapixels) photos in there soon. Also, check out the other albums as well, and feel free to make some comments!

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Esoterik, Bird Photos, JD Birds

Look at the blog sidebar. Do you notice something there today that wasn’t there yesterday? There’s now an additional link to a page that lets you “Watch Some Videos“! So far, I only have three videos to share. Hopefully, in the future, I’ll have some more vids edited and posted. I’ll make new entries to the blog as needed to update everyone on the changes.

Also, there’s a new blog category I have just added today that I should have included a long time ago. Any blog entries where I review sites or products will be under “Reviews“. I love giving my 2¢ on lots of things; it must be a blogger trait!

Catcha later!

Technorati Tags: Esoterik, Videos, Reviews

Ever since the beginning of the new millenium, I’m sure we’ve all been hearing about how video chatting and video conferencing is going to make the current telephone technology obsolete. Ever since the feasible affordability of the video technology was assured, many third party developers raced to provide computer users with the tools necessary to meet people face-to-face via computer screen. Many developers didn’t have the right touch/combination of framerate, ease of use and price while some did. Unfortunately, the price and implementation was still out of the reach of most users.

Enter Apple with their killer combo of iChat/iSight. Widely hailed as the best in the market, even from the affordability standpoint, there was still one more hurdle: marketshare. Not enough users to really make getting the $150 iSight a worthwhile investment. Well, now all that is changing. Last spring we got an iSight for this computer, an iMac G5, I’m currently writing this on. The reason was simple: we were meeting new people with Macs. Not only that, but other family members were considering or getting Apple Macs, too! The cool thing about Mac computers now (especially their laptops!) is the integrated iSight camera, which is much less obtrusive than the four inch long behemoth sitting next to my G5.

Our friend in Germany, Christian, is a recent purchaser of an Apple MacBook. Being the modest showoff that he is, when I went on iChat to instant message him, he instead invited me to a vidchat! Here’s how it looked:

(click the picture to enlarge!)

In case anyone is wondering, the frame rate was a bit choppy at times, but otherwise it was as smooth as any videocamera could produce! We had no problem with sound and understanding one another. I’ll have to say that this is a great advertisment as to what Apple’s machines are capable of. Also earlier this year, I was involved in a four way vidchat with several guys I met online. I kid you not, the experience was almost every bit like Apple advertises on its iChat adpage. Of course, I had to be the one hosting it, since I had the biggest bandwidth for iChat’s only drawback as a bandwidth (and memory) hog!

This alone, I feel, should be enough to convince anyone to switch from Windows! Good luck trying this on any other PC without having to wrestle with software issues, driver goofups and firewall headaches.

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Apple, iChat, iSight, Videoconferencing, Communication