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Dearest boys,

I know you’re too young to understand what’s going on right now. Know that I love you guys with all my heart and soul, that I miss you so much and that this isn’t anything you guys did. All I want right now is to feel your arms hug me and to wrap my arms around you and hold you both close. You two and your mommy are the most important people in all the world to me. Seeing your faces when I first wake up every morning is the best part of my workday other than coming home to you guys.

I’m sorry that I’ve ever yelled at you, I know that must be scary. I’m so sorry Zandr that I’ve been unable to fix your legs and arms and that due to my own exhaustion haven’t been able to read to you as often as I’d like. Seeing you boys in pain is the most anguishing experiencing in my life with the exception of having you taken away from me.  When you Mikey give me a hug and then scootch back onto my lap to sit down that always warms my heart in ways I never knew I could until after you guys were born.

The last week since I haven’t been able to talk to you guys I’ve listened to the saved voicemails I had of you both and looked through all the pictures I have desiring nothing more than to have you fall asleep cuddled up with me feeling safe, happy and warm.
Know that no matter what happens, that mommy and daddy love you guys so much and that we both just want to do what we feel is best for you. I love you boys so much and being away from all of you is the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. I miss you both so much and hope that I can see you soon.

I am so thankful to your mom that she felt that I would be a good husband to her and a great father to you boys, she is one of the best things that ever happened in my life as are both of you. It sucks that it took this happening to make me fully realize that. I miss you guys. I love you guys.

When your mommy asked me to give her a baby, I had no idea just how powerfully being a parent would affect me, I knew I’d love you and that you’d be amazing but mere words can’t hold a candle to how totally amazing and beautiful you boys are. Everytime you say “Daddy” or “I love you” Zandr my heart melts a little bit.

Your loving dad,

Cris

Today’s the day I finally do what’s right for my Boys, my family & my friends. The day I stop waiting to be happy. the day I stop giving up. Here are 25 resolutions that I am making for myself to work on daily, hourly, minute by minute or second by second.

1. Stop being angered. I’m going to counseling tomorrow and will go everyday if I have to until I can feel good about not yelling at people or making people feel threatened. Intimidating or hurting others is anathema to who I am and how I wish to be. I may never have struck anyone in anger or not but I will not let my temper rule me.
2. I’m going to deal with my depression, my conflict and my overall stress level when it happens instead of waiting for things to get too heavy for me to bear.
3. I’m going to go back to work and accomplish my goals if I cannot do so through my current situation I will find something better and stick with it to provide better security for my life.
4. Never spank my children at all. I know it’s harder to discipline children when you don’t use spankings but I don’t enjoy it and don’t want to do it anymore.
5. I’m going to find happiness again, first in myself and then in others. My friends and family used to be my sole source of happiness since deep inside I haven’t really been happy with myself since I was young. I will find happiness in myself.
6. I’m going to prove to myself that I can be who I want by making myself a better person. I am a good person that has let personality flaws, faults and issues cloud my judgement and actions and that is not who I am or who I will allow myself to be perceived as.
7. I’m going to stop smoking by the end of the year. Done. I need to be healthy for myself, my boys and smoking only wastes money and causes health problems.
8. I’m going to stop eating unhealthy food. I eat far too much junk food. I will only be eating real food and not processed junk anymore.
9. I’m going to stop drinking unhealthy beverages. Beer, wine, soda all of it. Done. I need to be healthier and consuming so much soda isn’t good. I don’t drink much but every little bit helps.
10. I’m going to exercise. I keep saying I need to lose weight and get in better shape but keep making excuses about it. That stops now. I’ve spent the last couple mornings doing situps and pushups soon I’ll be doing some jogging. I need to be healthier about myself in every way.
11. I’m going to stop sitting on my ass and start living life. All too often I’ve come home from work exhausted and instead of spending quality time with my family I chose to zone out watching tv. That’s done. I need to return to the days of reading, learning and spending real quality time with those I care about.
12. I’m going to stop talking so damned much. Odds are if I’ve talked with someone I’ve tried to dominate the conversation. I don’t know the reasons why but deep down maybe I just feel that I need verification of my opinions. Or it could be I just crave the attention.
13. I’m going to set myself a budget that allows me to save money every month and pay back and pay off bills in the past. Getting ahead instead of languishing behind.
14. I’m going to stop using the internet as much. I retreat into my vice of using the internet too much. I’m not a gaming addict or porn freak or anything like that. I just love the shear amount of information the internet provides but I turn to it as a distraction too much for it to be healthy.
15. I’m going to start thinking before I speak. All too often my mouth has spoken things I didn’t mean and didn’t ever want to say or have caused me to drone on and on about nothing instead of truly knowing exactly what I wanted to say. That stops now.
16. I’m going to find confidence again, since the birth of my son Mikey I have struggled with depression over affording bills for my family, the stress of a job I didn’t like and by deep feelings of letting my family down. When I lost that job I felt crippled by zero confidence in myself. I need to regain the strength I felt and to feel confident again.
17. I’m going to improve my self esteem. I am a good person and have made mistakes and been misunderstood but I am a good person and have good ethics and morals.
18. I’m going to clean my garage and get rid of things I don’t need. Material items all too easily distract from people. I’m going to be a better neighbor and colleagues. I need to be there for my neighbors & coworkers when they need me.
19. I’m going to take more time for my friends instead of time with my friends.
20. I’m going to listen far more than I speak. I run at the mouth to hide my own insecurities. It only serves to make me look foolish which reinforces my insecurities.
21. I’m going to make sure I understand something before I say I do. All to often I’ve said I understand while leaping instead to wrong conclusions. That’s not fair to other people or myself.
22. I’m going to respect myself, my friends and family more than I do now and show that respect in my interactions with them.
23. I’m going to give up politics, all it does is frustrate or annoy me or worse yet, makes me wallow in negativity. No more. I’m concerned about the future of our boys but not to the point of it overshadowing my relationship with them.
24. I’m going to stand up for myself and be heard truthfully. In the past I’ve had issues with lying but when I met my wife I stopped all that. I didn’t want to do anything like that for her. While that’s a noble intention I don’t want to lie (even white lies) for myself first and foremost and then my family.
25. I’m done giving into the fears and doubts in me. Those parts of me are not healthy and will no longer be allowed to exist. If I sense fears and doubts that only serve to cause me turmoil, they’re gone.

All of this starts now or started September 24th and will be an ongoing effort to align how I am with who I want to be. I’ll likely be updating every day now with a quick note of which ones I feel like I am improving and which I need to work harder on.

I just saw an entire party of United States elected representatives refuse to stand for the President of the United States, laugh at the plight of Americans not having health insurance and even worse, one of them yelled out “Liar!” at the President of the United States. An elected representative from the state of South Carolina, the man who represents those people felt the necessity to insult the office of the President on international television. For what you ask? For the President reiterating that there would be zero coverage for illegal immigrants. Text that’s been in the healthcare plan for months.

This is what you’ve come to Republican party: hysterical demagogues with no respect for the law, the constitution, or their fellow Americans.

Below is the text of my letter to Congressman Joe Wilson:

Rep. Wilson

You should be ashamed of yourself and apologize to the men and women of the great state of South Carolina, & the duly elected President of the United States for your abhorrent behavior during the President’s speech. During the past 8 years the democratically elected Congress was respectful throughout any appearance by the former President. It is surprisingly unshocking to see the Republican party unable to maintain, honesty, integrity, decorum or basic respect for the office of the President. It’s behavior like yours that made me leave the Republican party. The adherence to fearmongering, stalling and every underhanded tactic the party could use to amass more power. Power for what? amassing more power. What need have we of that? Does it help me ensure a better future for my sons? No. It serves only to feed more power to those who have shown over the last 10 years their inability to govern on behalf of their constituents but instead to govern on behalf of fear and profiteering.

It saddens me to see a party that once was a noble and inspiring group fall so far. Make an effort to truly do what is best for America and not the bottom line of a corporation. Your voting block is struggling financially, overwhelmed by medical bills and all you and your party can do is “stall” and say it’s fine. Last I checked you receive medical coverage from the government. What makes you more special than any other American? The elected representatives are supposed to be our brightest people, not our greediest.

Sincerely,

Chris O’Rourke
Father, Husband, American.

Yeah there’s a million articles on how to handle site migrations and dns migrations, here’s the easiest way I know how.

1. Copy your DNS rules from old host to new host (or hardware to hardware)
2. Copy your files
3. change your DNs.

See no problem whatsoever right? Well what’s the easiest way to check to see if things have resolved? Some people are big fans of adding a tiny change to their sites, an emoticon or something of that magnitude. There’s an even simpler solution (especially if you’re doing a large number of sites all at once.

Simply make a pair of readme.txt files.
The first one goes on your existing host and simply says “Current Host”
The other one goes on your new host and says “New Host”

Yeah not exactly the most groundbreaking solution in the history of ever but it’s quick, simple and most importantly, you can keep those 2 files in your main sites folder on your dev box without even thinking about them until such time that you need ‘em.

So my wife Zoe & I are buying a house, in this economy that seems like a silly idea. Actually it’s not entirely silly since property values are so low right now. However with the complexity of banking habits right now plus the fact that I started a little business called Slate Technologies I don’t have the resources or the desire to actually deal with navigating the banking waters.

So anyhow, the idea I had (yet another one of my strange social experiments) is to see if I can crowdsource buying my house. The idea is to still pay everyone back that donates but to do it without paying all of those spurious fees to banks, real estate brokers and everyone else that skims money off of the top. To be fair I love most real estate brokers, in this case however we love the property but the agent is a giant bag of suck.

I could say more and be even more flowery in my speech but in this case short, sweet and succinct seems like the best plan. Below is the donate button. All donations will be credited with name (and or twitter handle if you’d like) in list form as the experiment continues.

Easy peasy right?

I just got word that the marching program at my high school is being eliminated, the board (particularly Shar Giard) didn’t allow comment from any of the Band Parent Association that were present during the vote. The board has regularly voted to give more money to the football team (not they’re ever really contenders though) while constantly shafting the award winning (Centennial is responsible for winning hundreds of awards in the last 30 years for musical performance, including over 18 sweepstakes awards at the Grand Floral Parade).

I’m a product of that marching program. Until I joined the band I was a completely undisciplined wallflower incapable of any real interaction with anyone. Now I’m a successful small business owner, father and husband. If it wasn’t for the tutelage and experience I received being a part of something bigger than my young high school mind could perceive I’d likely have not gone on to anything notable in my life. Curtailing a long running program because a. it’s too expensive and b. the new band director doesn’t like marching activites is idiocy. Why apply for the job if you want to eliminate half of it? Moron. Too expensive? Really? Music is time and time again proven to be better for academics as well as improving future prospects for success.

Here’s the note I received about the board’s decision:

In a very sad turn of events the Centennial School district board voted to shutdown the 2009/10 fall/winter marching program. A large contingent of Band Parent Assc members were present when the board was presented with the recommendation to continue the music program but only march for the rose parade. To our amazement the board pres. Shar Giard would not allow comment from any of our group even though it was clear they were acting on mis-information about the number of students currently participating in marching band and colorguard. They did not give any consideration at all to the members of the colorguard as they are not band students. We have had several meetings with the superintendent and members of the board and have had representation at all their meetings and all along they have been telling us that they are very supportive of the marching band program, that they wanted it to continue.
In case you had not heard we were also in a transition of directors this year, spearheaded in part by the band parents assc. because we wanted to see more dicipline and control of the program. Mr. Dave Mann has served as the director since Bret Cappelluti and with great enthusiam and effort. We applaud him for his time and wish him well in the future.
The position of director was posted and a number of very qualified applications were received. In the end the position was given to Mr. Claud Garrett, the current photography teacher at CHS, who had also applied. The administration said their hands were tied because of union rules and the fact that many teachers were being laid off due to the budget crisis. It seems Mr. Garrett had the right to bump anyone the school might have hired from outside. All that said the fact is that while Mr. Garrett has the credentials to teach music he has no interest in marching band, doesn’t even pretend to like drumcorps. He came to a band parent meeting last week and stated that the decision of whether there would be fall marching was out of his control. But it was very clear that given the choice he would not want to run it.

For all of you alumni I am greatly saddened as I was a parent during years when the CHS Marching Band and Colorguard was at the top of its game. I’m sure as you have chosen to be a member of this group that you too have fond memories of your marching days. It is very sad that there could be no future competitive marching band at Centennial.

I would ask that if you feel moved to do so you either write or call the superintendent, Dr. Mckean and all the current district board members and remind them that this is a program that has a rich history and should be preserved. You can find their contact information at this link..

http://www.centennial.k12.or.us/contacts/contacts_board.php

this group will continue and I invite a discussion on this matter

thank you

Mark Huff
CHS Band Parent Assc Communications Director

To the members of the board: You obviously weren’t members of the band so don’t understand the bond we all share regardless of what years we attended. If you want to kill something to save money why not cut out some of the athletic programs? More kids went through the music program then the athletics programs so it’s obviously a better investment. Regardless of anything the liklihood that I’ll ever donate money to the school again is exactly zero. I experienced how it was spent then and it doesn’t surprise me in the least that once again the band gets the sharp pointy end of the stick.

Oh and Claud Garett, obviously you aren’t qualified for this job in the least no matter what degree you’ve got. The Centennial band deserves someone who will appreciate their history. If you apply for a job do the whole job not just the parts that appeal to you.

In honor of the abject backwards cowardice of the California Supreme Court (and every other court that believes that popular opinion supersedes that pesky constitution (the one that says we’re ALL equal)) I am hereby declaring that I am gay and standing with all of the other oppressed people.

Not opressed you say? Really? So not being able to visit your partner in a hospital without lengthy paperwork ahead of time? Not being able to have all of the same rights as any other couple in love? Seems like oppression to me.

Exactly when did the government have the right to determine who someone loves if they’re both of consenting age? Why is this still an issue in this day an age at all? Doesn’t case law from the 60s establish that discrimination is illegal? Meh it’ll take more than facts, truth and logic to sway the minds of blind stupidity, ignorance and fear.

I strongly endorse the idea of everyone on twitter, facebook, myspace wherever it is that you spend your online social time and be gay for the day, the week, the month. However long it takes for people to wake up and end the all too common standard of discrimination we live in.

Fuck oppression

Fuck discrimination

Fuck religious ideology being forced upon the masses.

The above is how I feel, apparently the courts think otherwise.

I’ll be hashtagging on twitter using #gayfortheday