timwheatley.org

Alaska knows Sarah Palin best and just recently in the very small town of Anchorage, an anti-Palin rally just took place, the largest ever in the history of the state!

Isn’t it a little bit scary that stories of her not performing well have been surfacing on a regular basis from the town (where she was mayor) and state of Alaska, saying how bad she was at those jobs, yet people elsewhere really do seem prepared to potentially make this woman the president of the United States, should something happen to McCain.

Honestly, it’s scary. I recently saw an amateur movie (made with Palin’s approval - before she was announced as VP) which showed Palin has an Israeli flag in her house, when asked she said she “likes Israel”. Ya - good one… I’m sure that will really help with the security of the United States. Israel is not full of angels and unfortunately the U.S. media are so pathetic that most of the population have no idea just how badly the United States is thought of, even in parts of the world they consider friends.

I really think that if the U.S. population are stupid enough to vote a particular way (the same way) this time, they are going to find a world population giving them very little respect. For me, it’s a mark of poor media, bad education and general ignorance. I hope things don’t turn out badly or the rest of the world will be thinking of the U.S. in an even worse light than that!

An interesting statistic on today’s morning news:
328 people have been murdered in the Chicago area this year.
247 U.S. Troops have been killed in Iraq this year.

The thing is, the south-side of Chicago suffers a lot of gang violence and honestly, I’m perfectly happy to let them kill each other. If you took out all those news reports you hear about the South-side, the picture would be very, very different.

This is what you get for having this type of open availability to guns.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing an awful lot of reaction based upon the people up for election rather then policy, party or even politics. How stupid are those people? Very stupid.

During the John McCain VP announcement they showed a person in the crowd that said: “VETS for a Veteran”. So, let me get this straight, you think he would make a good President, because he spent time in a cage? By that logic, we should all employ Ex-Cons to look after our children rather than that nice girl down the street.

I should point out, perhaps, that if you vote for McCain, you are voting for the Republican Party. If you vote for Obama, you’re voting for the Democrats. You’re not voting for McCain or Obama - they are puppets who will do whatever the party line tells them to (or, to put it in a more explanatory manner - whatever makes them the most friends in the Senate who will then side with them on future votes).

Please, please, please. Vote based on policy and politics, not the people. McCain’s VP candidate might be pretty, she might have had a down syndrome kid, but that does NOT mean she would make a good VP, does it? Considering just how much time McCain has spent lashing out at Obama about Foreign Policy and his lack of experience, I would have thought her a pretty poor choice compared to Obama’s choice of VP…

Anyway… NOTHING you have heard about Barack Obama or John McCain tells you they would be a good President - you will find this out over the next four years and then make a change, I hope. Vote based on the values you have and which party fits those best… PLEASE!

Thermaltake 80mm case fan. (12v 0.4a).
PCI USB Card. (gives you an extra 2 external and 1 internal USB ports).

Soundcard:
External USB Creative SoundBlaster Live!. (With remote control).

RAM:
256MB PC3200 400Mhz. (Two available).
512MB PC3200 400Mhz.
256MB PC2100 266MHz.
256MB SDRAM 133MHz.

Please bid and buy if you’re interested in any of them.

I still have some work to do on the new CSS-based layout, but I’ve had enough for today. I hope you like it so far. It’s hard to understand sometimes what something is going to do after spending so long using HTML tables and cells for layouts. I’m glad to have done this though because the site should load a lot faster now it’s a much smaller file. It’s also a lot less complicated for editing too… You wouldn’t believe how many times I screwed up table designs and then had to trace which tag I had forgotten to close… Yikes!

Anyway… That’s it for today.

Normally if I buy from Amazon, I’ll buy from Amazon themselves. But, the other day, I bought myself a new steering wheel for my computer and as I was going for the cheapest one I could find (I don’t have the money for anything else at the moment), I went for a private seller who had a pretty good feedback rating…

Here’s what I ordered:

Here’s what I got today:

Can you spot the difference? Rather than sending me a piece of electronic equipment that plugs into a computer and allows me to control racing games or simulations in a more realistic manner, they sent me a Denim bag that’s labeled “only for girls” and is supposed to serve as a case for a Nintendo DS.

It annoys me a lot because we have NO money right now and I am buying a steering wheel at the expense of other things - because it relates to my job. I’m really hoping to be full-time soon, but in the meantime, even after being accepted by Immigration I still feel like the USCIS are screwing me, every day.

There’s a definite piece of me that doesn’t even feel worthy of a title like a second-rate citizen (because I’m not even qualified to call myself a citizen yet!)… ARGH! I just hate this stuff… I’m buying a $21 (twenty-one dollar) steering wheel that is a similar design to one I had almost ten years ago and I feel just totally held back. Like I’m back where I was ten years ago in my life… I feel very poor right now and them sending the wrong thing, although laughable, is kind of crushing. $21, and after waiting for it to arrive… Feeling happy that I’d be able to control the cars in the simulation properly at last - some ‘bag’ arrives instead.

I guess I’m too sensitive about spending any money right now and I feel like the $30.41 that company has of our money is something I know could be used for something better.

I have to tell myself and my wife “no” and say “we can’t” so much, you wouldn’t believe it. I hate doing it, but we can’t afford to do anything… After the highs of going to the (free) airshow on Friday and Saturday, it’s back to the grind now, where life is a constant struggle and my only real release is walking to the (free) Zoo in Lincoln Park. Just lately I haven’t even felt able to do that though because it’s so damn hot that if I go outside, I can’t afford to pay ‘tourist rate’ for a drink and I’ll probably keel over and die in the heat.

They’re right when they say that money doesn’t bring happiness, they are. But having none of it? That is soul destroying… Sheila has given up so much to be with me.

Here’s a quick list of the things that have been caused by having no money:
I live on soup and packet-rice. We occasionally make a stew but it has to last us a few days. We got married on April 11th, 2007 - in a courthouse (not every girls dream, exactly) - the ‘ceremony’ lasted just over 60 seconds. We planned to have a wedding ceremony on April 11th, 2008 - we couldn’t afford it. We will probably never have a wedding ceremony… Every time Sheila thinks about this, she gets upset. We buy clothes per-item when the old one falls apart (Sheila has one pair of comfortable gym shoes right now - find me another woman with one pair!) We wear (proudly) $40 plain gold bands as wedding rings, my ring - apparently - is a woman’s style but: It’s all we could afford. I sold my laptop when I came over here, it was fairly new and cost me $2000… I sold it for $650 and bought computer parts off eBay to build a desktop PC for $500. Why? We needed that $150 I didn’t use. We don’t buy anything we don’t feel we need. We don’t do anything we want to that costs money. The list goes on, and on, frankly I’m tired of writing them.

Being poor… Sucks. $30.41 - It’s nothing really, is it? It feels like so much money right now…

Over the past couple of weeks I have been looking at other people’s layouts, other people’s Web sites simply trying to find out how they made their site… It’s how I learned HTML in the first place and it’s actually worked very well in learning CSS.

The other day I modified the grey boxes around the menu headers as a first step and found I still had more to learn (they’re still broken, hehe) - well - now I think I am a lot closer and pretty soon I’m going to modify this existing layout from tables, cells and HTML to CSS… There’s likely to be some changes, but I actually think the design will be better… A much nicer, sleeker, minimalist look.

Wish me luck!

I saw this clip mentioned on CBS this morning, so I went looking for it on YouTube. I have started to watch his show, but with Sheila working and getting up at 4am, I seldom have the opportunity. He is a Scottish immigrant who hosts a late night show and I love his humor. It is a great show though and if you can get it, watch it.

This video though is a little unusual as rather than starting off with a humorous monologue, he talks about his battle with alcoholism. He has decided that picking on the vulnerable (like he was) for the sake of laughter is something he can no longer do. It’s an absolutely wonderful piece of television.

I’m 29 years old. I have never felt such a lack of interest in the Olympic Games.

I’m guessing there was an opening ceremony today, because I saw still pictures of it on Yahoo.com. I didn’t even think of watching it… Yet I think I’ve probably watched at least part of every single ceremony since I have been old enough to want to, so what’s different now?

Well, I live in the United States. I haven’t seen any of the build-up I am used to because they simply don’t provide the extensive coverage of Athletics that the BBC do back home. But, the thing is, as much as I’d love to say the problem is bad coverage, it isn’t. The other difference? China.

In Chicago today there was a march on the Chinese Consulate asking for the Chinese to end their occupation of Tibet. China has also refused an Athlete’s visa to travel and compete recently also, the reason being that he wants the Darfur regime (that the Chinese support), to end and has been a campaigner. Then, of course, there’s the little issue of human rights.

Come to think of it, what on earth were the Olympic Committee thinking?!

When I moved from the UK to the United States, I obviously had to go through immigration and when it was all over, I had a Social Security number just like my wife (a U.S. Citizen by birth) given to me and unlike most people, I’m a 29-year old adult with income, yet I have no Credit Rating or record whatsoever.

Being given this opportunity to start from scratch, it was a bit daunting. I don’t want to do anything wrong and delay buying a house in a few years and I don’t want to accept credit I don’t need, or risk just screwing things up.

As soon as I knew I’d be getting a Social Security number (SSN), I started trying to find out how to build credit from scratch, as an adult, but found no advice on how to do this at all!

So, let me tell you what I have found out, because who knows, it might help somebody!

First, open a bank account. This is the first step for Credit Building and really needs to always be the first piece of information shown. It shows you have some kind of income (otherwise, you wouldn’t need a bank account).

Second, consider opening a Secure Credit Card account. Normally, a secure credit card is done by giving a bank a minimum deposit of around $300, they hold this money in a Savings Account and give you a Credit Card with a Credit Limit matching whatever you have in the Savings Account. The Secure Credit card shows on your Credit Record as a normal credit card. You should ALWAYS pay at least the minimum monthly payment, but should try at all times to pay the whole balance. NEVER pay late on anything.

If you need additional help with your Credit Rating, consider opening a second secure credit card.

The best way to use your Secure Credit Card (or any Credit Card) is for something like bills or groceries. Make sure you have the cash for the bills of groceries anyway and put the money aside so you can pay full balance. The nice thing is, your $300 is in a savings account, gaining interest!