My apologies...

I need to apologize for not yet publishing Part II of "DIY Hack: A Better Marquee." It's not that I haven't wanted to finish it and get it out there. It's not even that I don't have the content for it. The problem is that I've been struggling mightily with the tools.

Blogger's online tools are adequate, in my opinion, for posts that are either all or mostly text. Or for posts with a lot of pictures where the location of the pictures within the text isn't critical. But Part II is a "How-To" post where the pictures and text go hand-in-hand, and the tools just aren't cutting it; there's not enough control over text and picture placement. Blogger kinda pretends to have a WYSIWYG interface, but it really doesn't.

I've resigned myself to buying an application to do the job right. Initially, I hated the idea of paying for it, since the free, online tools should be better, but at this point, I've wasted so much time trying to bend them to my will that I don't even care anymore. I'll pay, I'll pay, just do what I want!!!

I've tried and discarded one app already. I've started learning another, and I hope it will finally let me pull Part II together and publish it soon(ish). In the meantime, I've got a couple of other small items I could throw together in a post. I just don't want to delay Part II much longer, especially since there's going to be a Part III to follow, and I don't want folks to forget how it all started...

Heartbreak in Orlando

One again we mourn the victims of another brutal attack, this time on our own soil. Once again the innocent suffer. Once again, I really, really want to climb up on a soapbox and scream about the senselessness of it all. But once again I remind myself that the people who need to hear it won't listen, and the people who'll listen don't need to hear it.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Orlando, Florida, USA.


If you read this blog with any regularity, then you know that I'm just a geeky engineer. But you should also know that I love this particular bit of poetry, which is as appropriate now as it was when I put it up after the Brussels attacks:

The Law of the Jungle
(From The Jungle Book)
by Rudyard Kipling

Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Stay strong. Stay united. Watch each others' backs. Remember, you don't have to agree with each other on every issue - or even like each other, for that matter - to live in peace together. People from one corner of the globe to the other have forgotten this simple truth. Americans, in particular, ought to remember this tidbit from the end of the Pledge of Allegiance:

With Liberty and Justice for All