If you folks out there could provide me with a quick mood check. the goal here is to kick them in the teath not the nuts. email me if I missed the mark.


An Open letter to the members Lockport Board of Education



I am aware that your legally mandated responsibilities include:

 Adopting policies for the operation of the school district
 Overseeing financial matters and developing an annual school budget
 Representing the views of the community in educational matters

As a member of this community for most of my life I hope that you consider your responsibilities to also include the safety and well being of our children while they are on their way to, at, or on their way home from school.


There are currently 2686 students in the district in K-5. Around 1800 of these children are bussed. The rest of the children are left to walk or find alternate means of transportation. Many of these children would have to walk alongside busy roads with no sidewalks and cross these roads at uncontrolled or poorly controlled intersections. I find this level of risk unacceptable for my children and know many other parents who agree. My and my wife’s contact with the Assistant Superintendent for Finance left us with the impression that he was prevented by law from doing anything to help these students.

There are some students living on Robinson Road who are inside the arbitrary 1-mile limit and are still bussed. Other school districts in the county bus students who live in the arbitrary 1-mile limit. In my research into why this was different from the impression given me by the Assistant Superintendent for Finance I discovered several things:

 Section 3635 of New York Consolidated Law: Education requires school districts to provide transportation to all students in K-8 that live more than two miles from school.
 The same section also states that a district may choose to provide bussing to students who live within that two-mile limit if they do so equally for all students. This requirement has an exception however. If an area qualifies under 3635-b the district can bus children in that area without having to bus all other children.
 3635-b allows for the creation of a child safety zone based on part 191 of the commissioner of transportation’s regulations. These factors include: the existence of sidewalks, width of road, volume and average speed of traffic, the existence of traffic lights, et cetera.
 3635-b allows a board of education to undertake on its own to establish child safety zones where appropriate.
 It also requires the board to investigate such a zone if any parent can provide a petition that contains the geographical zone and the signatures of twenty-five qualified voters in the district, or five percent of the total number of voters in the last election whichever is greater.

Considering the above facts I request that the board investigate the creation of a child safety zone to include all areas where children would be required to walk without sidewalks, across an intersection where there does not exist a traffic light with walking signals, or cross a railway without signals.

In just a few hours I will be going under the knife. Nothing serious at all. Just a minor deal. if all the post tests and timing work out it will be a valentine's present fo my beloved wife. The thing is I'm nervous. Not so much by the surgery itself, you take a kick there from a horse who just doesn't like the needle full of antibiotic and this kind of work doesn't seem too bad in comparison. Two quick snips under a local anesthetic. no problem.

The problem comes in the imagination. For instance:

What if every stupid person in the world were to suddenly die from their disease (stupidity can be a fatal disease). This could easily wipe out well over 90 per cent of the world's population. We simply wouldn't have enough people to maintain basic services like, say grocery stores and high speed internet connections. We would all be duty bound to continue to contribute non-stupid genes to the pool and I would be cut out of the giving process. This sort of wierd paranoia has led me to actually formulate a back up plan.

you probably don't want to know what it is.

but it's brilliant

A couple of quick things I want to talk about in much more detail than I have time.

I have decided that I will actually be happy if Ashcroft is the AG. I know that sound's funny to some of you especially coming from me. So i'll briefly explain. The full force assault that that jack booted thug(who was so hated by his own state's people that they voted in a landslide election for a dead man over him) will place on so many of our basic freedoms is going to force a great deal of the people who have previously been working to cross purposes or just lollygagging around to close ranks, get on the bus and take up the fight against him.

While nominally protecting our second ammendment( and I mean nominally as allowing non felons access to certain types of firearms does not in any way satisfy the intent of the second ammendment, which was to provide the citizens with a means to throw of the yoke of a government gon awry) , he will take as much of our first and fourth ammendments rights as we let him. And If the outright grab at them isn't enough to make all of us close ranks then maybe we don't deserve those rights.


second of great interest but no time for detail I have just returned from slightly over a week at the toronto boat show. I was working for the International marketing arm of the company who has employed me for the last several years. It is a whole different deal there. No red roof inns there. I stayed at the top of the Shreaton Center and was treated to a view of toronto's city hall(which really does have that third world financed by the UN feel to it) and open air ice rink. I ate jerk chicken roti made by actual jamaicans. I ate sausage from the worldfamous vendor outside the even more world famous horseshoe tavern. I even ate an awesome jumbo from Mr. Pong's served to me by a very pierced girl in the now outdated marine unit T-Shirt.

It is difficult to describe how much I love that town.

and the new semi private and carnivore resistant but far from Nsa proof address is :
cumorglas@hushmail.com

for the rest of you I have been ignoring for the last week and a half I am sorry and may get caught up soon

minor bit of badnews folks. the email link I have been using for you kind readers who don't know me in meatspace biggreydog@kmfms.com has apparently been killed off. The folks at linuxstart who provided the mail have seen fit to discontinue the lifetime free email as promised. Not a real surprise. it was a bad business model. trying to get hardcore linux geeks to use web based email and then living of the ad revenue. oh well. will get another semi anonymous email real soon and update said page. in the meantime if you sent me email in the last few weeks I didn't exactly blow you off but the result is the same.

Damn, damn, damn,damn!!!!!!!!!

sorry for I was gone so long. I was off Toronto viewing what appeared to be the Capitol building of Lagos, Nigeria and doing some stuff for work. catch up with email tomorrow. details later

I think what irritates me the most about the previous article is the extensive section training police types in "seizing or searching computers WITHOUT a warrant. I really don't want there to be a textbook teaching police how to circumvent the intent of the fourth ammendment. They made up that spiffy little bill of rights for a reason.



To grant us rights.



I am pretty sure it wasn't to allow public employees to peek through my email.

The previous version of this document required an foia invocation to get a copy. now it's here for you to peruse.

for those of you who were concerned what Reno did with her "jackbooted thugs" and those guidelines:

Just wait till they belong to Ashcroft. You'll long for the good old days of reno

the last for today geek note is also from the meatspace version of wired. it seems that these folks have come up with a system that can teach kids with ADD to use a playstation tricked out with biofeedback to teach them to trick their brain into processing acetylcholine properly. In weeks, not years like the rest of us. I tell you this is a big deal. If any of you out there have kids with this type of problem look into it. I firmly solidly and emphatically believe that longterm daily drug dosage is not an good way to deal with this. it is important to have the drugs available for the days where you just can't get it together enough to make a sandwich but most of the time the unpleasant side effects of ADD can easily be controlled with practice and experience. The Major Benefit of this is that all the wonderful things that come with ADD are not obliterated like they are when you are on ritalin or dexedrine.

The bummer is that very few shrinks are willing to write you the scrip for dex or ritalin as an occasional need drug. They still see it a a maintenance drug. Hopefully these types of tools will get some serious study and be accepted in medical journals and help lean doctors toward less drug intensive therapies.

you try going to your local speed dealer and ordering Dex in ten mg capsules. he'll laugh his ass off.

next geek tidbit. Many moons ago I purchased my first copy of wired. it was not my last. It came printed on newsprint wir a lightweight glossy cover. even then the graphics were well,,,, glaring at best. But it was the content that got me hooked then. Yuo see there was this article Written by a guy named Steven Levy that changed my life. It was about Cryptography and it changed my life. He has just put out a book called simply enough Crypto. I don't have it yet. but I will (sister who gave me giftcert month's ago that I have yet to use. I didn't know it at the time but this is what it is going to go towards.) Levy even got a cover story for Newsweek.

I beg of you if you don't rush out to buy the book then at least read the articles linked here. more than any technology of the last half century( with the possible exception of the Genome project and they will be intertwined) Crypto will affect your daily life. How and why and what affect is being determined right now. read this stuff and if you care even the tiniest bit get involved in those decisions. If you have questions about how to be involved email me.

I was just watching the Palm keynote on Tech TV. and what catches my ear. My FAVORITE gps manufacturer has just licensed the palm os. That's right boys and girls Garmin (who incidentally is about to ipo) the fammed maker of gps units that A) work and B) are easy to use and C) are very hard to break is going to be making a palm. for a guy like me it is hard to describe to joy that comes to my heart in this announcement. it means the soon. I will be able to buy a palm that is waterproof, able to be dropped repeatedly from a meter onto concrete, always know where i am, and be able to give me a map of wherever I am in exsquisite detail. I am shaking even now in anticipation. I may just call up Gary Burrell up tomorrow and ask for a demo early.

Ok kids there's a whole pile of geek based news and commentary. if this kind of things turns you off ignore the next several posts

I'm not going to turn this into a daily update or sportfanloser site or anything like that. so here it is and you won't hear from me about it again till somebody wrecks or dies or wins.

I'm rooting for Steve. Not just because he's an american. But because I actually like him. I think this latest mishap is a stern reminder to him of where he came from. When he was in Lakota CRUSHING all the pacific records he did it in a stripped out boat with used, recut sails. In that form he managed to shave nearly a week off the san francisco to tokyo record. Similar records fell one right after another. He did it on the proverbial shoestring. Sadly he had to put Lakota ( you all know her, at least you all know what she looks like. Kevin Costner had to save a little money on Waterworld so when he had the boats built for the movie he had Jeanneau pop them out of the same molds as Lakota and Primagaz. it saved him a couple million off a brand new design) up for sale to pay for the new boat. If you think that new boat came cheap well let me tell ya, All Sony paid for was the paint job. the way the contract reads though, he gets to bleed them a certain amount for each world record he sets. So, Steve, I wish you godspeed and lots of wind. May Stan and Bob guide you well and may each day bring new distance records (cuz i know just how in debt you are on this one. And some of it is to the people who sign my checks)

oh and a note to sony TheRace game better be ready for ps2 before summer. It's ok if it's rigged so Playstation wins most of the time

A sport is where you risk death. Everything else is just little boys playing a game.

I have to do something about my oldest boy and school.

This story actually begins with me in kindergarten. pissed and resentful. I'm not allowed to use the skinny crayons because I can't color inside the lines with the fat crayons. I can color just fine at home, where my parents never thought to give me the fucking stupid fat crayons.( note that at this point in my life I didn't actually use the words "fucking stupid" but that gives you some idea of the level of anger). I also read just fine at home where my parents let me read anything I can reach. not like the lame books here(see spot run. run spot run. get some new words spot you bore me to tears). I hate it. I hate being there, except I have a couple friends.

Skip ahead a few grades. Copying out multiplication tables. I can do this in my head why do I have to copy it out? you have to copy it out so you can learn it. but i don't need to learn it I already know it. Well all the other kids have to do it so how would it look if you didn't. then don't make them either. but they have to it's how they learn. it's not how I learn. Too bad copy out the tables. (the beginning of the first serious Fuck You's from me.) I just started not doing it. refusing to participate in their crap. I sure as hell wasn't learning anything new.

from this point until my senior year in high school it was one long waste of my time. Oh, they tried a little. tested me and put me into the gifted program. which only made me further ostracized and made me realize that to be a teacher of gifted children you don't actually have to be smart at all yourself. In jumior high I discovered a clause in the rules in the New york state Regents Exam rules. If you got over a 95 on the exam you got that grade for your year instead of the earned points from your actual schoolwork. You want to really piss off a teacher, spend a whole year ignoring their class, never turn in one piece of homework, then turn in the minimum required labs to get into the Exam on the last week of classes(many of them actually completed on time I just never bothered to turn them in.). yup do all that stuff and probably worse and then go get a 98 on the test and have that be the grade on your permanent record. Oh yeah that pisses them off.

My senior year I actually took some classes that I was interested in. Mostly English classes. I learned Shakespeare in a way that I never had reading on my own. I took an art class for the first time since my third grade art teacher sent me to the office for an entire month when the evil bitch taught the rest of the kids because I had not completed the pinata in my assigned colors of yellow and brown on time. I didn't know she was an evil hateful bitch at the time, in fact I didn't realize she was so vile till that senior art history class and I learned more about the enjoyment and process of art than I imagined possible. My senior year I actually did learn a few things that I didn't already learn on my own. I learned about calculus, and I learned about high fashion in the 1400's.

fast forward to a couple month's ago. I had a bit of a crisis in my life( I hated my job and it forced me to be away from my family) so I kinda quit (I didn't actually leave the company, I just stopped working for a while and they stopped paying me). To make the rent and such I went down to the local IBEW hall and picked up an unidentured cabler card and went to work pulling Fiber and cat5. I loved it. I had a job where I could go home at night after only eight hours and not bring any thought of the job. the job itself was working with my hands and at the end of the day you had something concrete you could point to and say you accomplished. It involved very little brainpower(the odd addition and subtraction problem, and a couple interesting spatial problems(How do I get this from here to there without exceeding 100 meters or penetrating any fire walls or running it too close to AC power or exceding 180 degrees of turn between pull) all in all slightly more difficult that the first ten levels of tetris). Unfortunately I was making just slightly less than I needed each month to cover our budget( and believe me we don't live high on the hog). Near the end of tis period My wife forced me to sit down and watch Good Will Hunting. Some thing I had successfully avoided until now. It was a bad move. I am not quite as smart as they made the character out to be. But I'm not too far off that mark either. So now I'm pissed off at where my life is. And not sure where I want to go with it.

skip to the week before Christmas vacation. My oldest boy is in kindergarten. He is not doing his classwork. His teacher sent home examples. When asked why He tells his teacher "it's boring". I look at the work. It is boring. I look at the books he refuses to read. They make the see spot crap look exciting. They average one word per page and have no polysyllabic words. My five year old can actually use polysyllabic in a sentence correctly. The teacher gets his reading tested because She thinks he is just mouthing the words. He tests at a second grade sixth month vocabulary level. He tests at a third grade third month Comprehension level. Mouthing the words my ass. The teacher presents her solution. "I asked the librarian to let him get out books more appropriate for his reading level."

This just doesn't cut it. I refuse to allow my child to have the complete lack of respect for education that I did. I have figure out some way to explain to the teacher(s) just how unacceptable this is without letting the RAGE I still have pent up from my own experience color the things I tell them. In New York State my child has a right to "an education appropriate to his needs". The law that comes from was actually meant to force local schools to provide or pay for education for mentally handicapped kids, but the language leaves room for interpretation. I don't really have the resources to home school him, and I am very concerned about him getting some social skills. lord know I didn't manage to get any.
anyway this is one part of what I'm going through lately.