Justin's Journal

Gmail accounts go up for bid | CNET News.com

It looks like some Gmail beta testers aren't as impressed with their status as charter Gmail users.

I want my GMail account

Okay, so I haven't posted here in over a year. My real blog is over at Larry's Log and this has just been left here to keep links from being broken. However, I understand that active Blogger users. will get an invitation to try out GMail and I want to play.

Trackback in Larry's Log

I think I've enabled Trackback in Larry's Log. This is a test of that.

Moving forward

In a short time this site that you are now reading will go dormant. I'm not giving up bloggin, I'm just moving to Larry's Log. I've gone by Justin Thyme here for a little over two years. I did it because I didn't know if I really wanted to be so public with my writings. I've decided that I do.

My real name is Larry Burton. I live in Lawrenceville, Georgia with my wife of 25 years, Gerri, and youngest son, Nick. I have another son, Drew, living in Chattanooga, Tennessee trying to make it on his own. I am in the process of starting a business with my partner, Jahn, after he and I were laid off when Hampton-Tilley closed their Atlanta office. We are in the factory automation business.

I'll post here a few more times, probably, then I'll leave things just as the are here and continue my posting over at Larry's Log. I hope you see fit to follow my move. I'm really looking forward to extending Blosxom and would love to hear from other Blosxom users on ideas.

Looking at Blosxom

I've been using Blogger for the past two years and I think I've taken it about as far as I can go with it. I'm looking real hard at moving to Bosxom.

Yeah, I know, everyone else is using MovableType and I've looked at going that route but that isn't for me. I do believe that storing the entries in MySQL or another DBMS is the way to go for storing the content long term but too much of some of the things I want to play with have already been done with MT and I'm not sure I want to spend the time figuring out the perl scripts in MT to change things. Bosxom is simple and I think I can make it do everything I want it to do and adapt it to storing its data in a DBMS.

It isn't the war that bothers me.

I've had some very mixed feelings about the upcoming war with Iraq and I haven't completely understood them all. I still don't understand all of them but I'm getting a grip on more of them every day. I finally understand that it isn't really the war that's bothering me as much as the uncertainty I have over what's next.

I don't think many people will tell you that Sadam Hussein is a nice guy and a leader with the best interests of his people in mind. The man is a tyrant and a threat to the region, if not the rest of the planet. It isn't only the US that wants Hussein to disarm. He isn't going to do so unless he is forced, by force, to do so. That means war. We either go back to war with Iraq or allow Sadam Hussein to continue his arms build up. That's the only two things that can happen. We are going to war.

I've come to grips with that. It's going to happen and it's probably good that it is going to happen even though in the short term this war is going to kill and maim a lot of people. I have no doubt that in the end Iraq will be defeated.

What's bothering me is that I don't like a lot of what could happen in the aftermath. Who's going to fill the vacuum? There will be a stabilization period after the war where the US will more or less be in control of that country. The UN may have its name on the provisional government but it will be the US pulling the strings. How are those strings going to be pulled? That's what's bothering me.

Boycott proposed over Georgia flag vote

The new govenor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, ran on a platform with one of the planks being a referendum on the state flag. Roy Barnes, the old govenor, pushed through a change in the Georgia flag back in 2001. The change was made to get rid of the old Confederate battle emblem that adorned a major portion of the flag. While this made a lot of Georgians happy it also made a lot of Georgians madder than hell over the way they saw it being pushed through without any say from the general populace.

Now there is talk of a non-binding referendum to change the flag back or keep the flag as it currently is with the Legislature making the final decision. Gov. Sonny Perdue is pushing for this referendum in order to sort of fulfill his campaign pledge, a non-binding referendum not being exactly what his supporters had in mind but close enough to call it a promise kept. If there is a referendum the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is ready to call for a boycott of the referendum in order to make the results of the vote unclear and reduce pressure on the Legislature to make a change.

I'm disappointed in Rev. Lowery's lack of faith in Georgian's to do the right thing. I've talked to a few people around here and from what I can tell the referendum might be close but I believe it would result in keeping the current flag. If that is what happens then this whole mess is settled. Of course it its settled then that removes one more soapbox and some folks just don't like not having a soapbox to stand on.