Tux Looks for Car Insurance

Tux found a new friend the other day at our annual Festival in the Park. He is pretty well known too.

Lizzard: Well Tux ol' buddy, me and you are quite a like you know?

Tux: (Puzzled look)

Lizzard: We are both "trusty" advertising icons.

Tux: (Nods)

Lizzard: I can 'elp people wif their car insurance, and you.. well you elp em' wif betta alternatives to Windows of course.

Tux Laughs at the Rotten Apple Called iTunes 7

Tux likes to make fun of me for running WindowsXP. But I run XP to be able to do things I can not in Linux, iTunes for example. I was pretty excited about the new iTunes 7 after watching the Apple "Showtime" event, where they showed off new iPods and a list of other new shiny Apple goodness. However, iTunes started doing some really weird stuff right after installing. Songs started playing erratically, iTunes would lock up the whole computer, bugs in other words. I would brand it a beta. In fact I have seen beta software more stable than this. Tux kind of likes the aesthetics of Mac OS X. He also understands that everyone has to have an iPod these days, so he said he would look into it. He thinks my only options are to wait it out till Apple admits the issues and gives an update, revert back to the previous version of iTunes, or perhaps move to a mp3 player that supports open source alternatives.

God Bless America

It feels like it was just yesterday. I'm sure 40 years from now I will feel the same way. The disbelief, the sadness, most notably the anger. There was also confusion on what exactly was going on. The World Trade Center had been attacked, the Pentagon had been attacked, but were there more to come? Reports of evacuations, car bombs, and other planes hijacked, was every city going to be bombed? Was ours? I had a wonderful friend who worked in uptown Charlotte, and I was scared for her. And then-in a brief moment of astonishment followed by rage-I watched as the first tower fell. I had no doubt that the second was not far behind.

Even five years after that day, it is hard to write about 9/11. Hard not to become overwhelmed by the feelings. They creep back out from the recessed memories imprinted in my mind that cool crisp morning. I sat earlier today behind my TV much like I did 5 years ago, watching the events in real-time. I think it's important to watch it. Subconsciously we like to bury the emotions because they are just too painful. Not because we want to forget, but because we are preprogrammed that way. "Time heals all wounds" they say. However, it is for that very reason that I watch again. I don't want to forget even the smallest detail of that day. We all came together as a nation that day. There were no races, nor political differences. It was one nation, aimed and determined to find resolve. Perhaps if we all can remember 9/11 as if it were today, we could all be one again.

Tux <3 Tivo

Tux is a TiVo lover. There are many different flavors of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) out there. Most of them run Linux too. However, for Tux, none of them can compare to the simplicity and function TiVo provides. He likes how TiVo will suggest programs for him, as long as he "rates" shows with a Thumbs-up or Thumbs-down. It's something the other DVRs can not reproduce. When a penguin related show is set to come on that he didn't see in the program guide, it's likely that TiVo will know to record it. Since it's basically a small computer running Linux, TiVo can connect via a home network to another PC, and transfer home videos or Internet downloaded shows. That certainly caters to Tux's geeky side; thus it is why he fell in love.

Matthews Alive!

During our Labor Day travels with Tux, we went to a small town festival in Matthews, NC. They call the festival "Matthews Alive!" now, but the locals still like to refer to it as it used to be known, "The Stumptown Festival". It was a hot day, but a nice way to cap off the Labor day weekend. We saw a few bands, smelled the funnel cakes and gyros being cooked, and visted a number of tents filled with arts and crafts. However, Tux was more interested in the shiny fire trucks parked outside the Matthews Fire Department.




They had a grand flag waving high above the festival, which draped down from an extended fire truck ladder. His visit at the station inspired him enough to write a Haiku:

Summertime heroes
Here they are not hard to find
Fire truck reflection
~Tux

Tux Geocaching - Happy Labor Day!

HAPPY LABOR DAY! For our day off we took Tux on his first cache hunt. It's called geocaching, a kind of hidden treasure game/sport using GPS. You are given a general idea of where you are going to start looking along with a set of coordinates. You then use your GPS device to find exactly where the final cache is. Sometimes the cache is a big box like this ammo box, sometimes its a tiny little keychain style cache. Either style always has a log, but the larger ones sometimes have goodies inside. Once we found the cache, Tux dove in rummaging around.



I told him there were rules and etiquette to taking things, and that we would also have to sign the log. He decided on a Curious George travel bug that was placed there by students of Mrs. Ms class.



Hot, sweaty, and tired we decided to explain travel bug rules to ole' Tux buddy when we got home. For now however, it's a mission accomplished on a hard geocache find.

Tux in The Land of the Sky

Tux made it to the city referred to as "The Land of the Sky" (Asheville, NC). He was a little motion sick from the winding mountain roads, but he loved what he saw once we arrived. A bustling city, full of eclectic people bouncing around with a carefree aura. Friendly faces, artists, buskers, and small shops that offer everything from hippyware to America's best chocolate.




We talked about how Asheville has been a majestic sleeping city which has just recently awoke. For the past few decades it has been in a form of hibernation. People still visited for the Biltmore House and other reasons. However, the uptown area was in decline and almost everywhere you looked, its slumber was evident. Then suddenly it began to wake. Revived by the artists and thousands, if not millions of loving and caring friends, the city was back. The stores were given new purpose. Department stores became art galleries. A historic shopping center turned government facility, was transformed back. Tux had never seen the original Asheville, nor its decline but he looked on in amazement as people with green hair and guitars walked by him. He was bewildered by the smell of fresh chocolate being baked, while a man outside played a tune on his flute. A bombardment of wonderful sights, sounds, and smells that is hard to find anywhere else. He thinks he found a place many penguins would love to call home. I told him..... I wouldn't mind it either.

DON'T EAT ME!

Today we stopped by uptown to check out the Panther's lair. Football season is officialy starting soon, and Tux is as ready as anyone. He got scared of the panther statues at the Bank of America stadium though. We assured him that they would not eat him... as long as he didn't make any sudden moves.