LibreOffice 5.0 beta1 is out with a bunch of new features.
Source: LibreOffice 5.0 Release Notes – The Document Foundation Wiki
LibreOffice 5.0 Release Notes – The Document Foundation Wiki Read Post »
Last April my brother got married. It was the weekend of General Conference so I did not have the opportunity to see all the Conference talks as they aired. I read them later and the talk by Brother Larry M. Gibson “Fatherhood — Our Eternal Destiny” stuck out to me; as I am a father of a young child and as I had the opportunity to speak to my brother concerning the responsibilities of a husband and father.
At the wedding, my son and I represented my brothers only family members by relation of blood. We both grew up in foster care and do not have relationships with our parents. At the wedding my brother told me he was disappointed in our parents and grateful to me for having filled some of role model roles in his life. He is not an active member of the church but I am grateful he has found someone special in his life.
Considering all we have been through, I will be happy for every step we take towards living normal lives and having loving relationships. I feel like I pray for my brother much as any parent should in our situation. I hope I have shown him a good example by having a family and endeavoring to be a good father. I feel like my lessons in fatherhood began with myself, then teaching my brother and now teaching my son.
When I was a young man, I decided I wanted to have a family and that I wanted to be a father. I wanted to give my son the love and opportunities that I was never given. My first goals to prepare for this was to serve a mission and to prepare to be married in the temple. If I didn’t serve a mission, how could I ever expect my son to do so? I also had seen the benefits this gave for preparing spiritually for the rest of my life. That decision did not come without sacrifice. I gave up a scholarship opportunity that I would have had to take advantage of before a mission. I believe this sacrifice was worth it, even as I am still struggling to get the education that I have always wanted.
The benefits of being married in the Temple are obvious, when I looked at them from an eternal perspective. When in High School, I made a list of characteristics that I wanted in my future wife. As I met and dated some young women, I moved on as they were lacking. When I met my future wife, she had a strong testimony and wonderful parents. Those were two qualities that I had found difficult to find in other young ladies. We later married after I served my mission. Knowing that I am sealed to my wife and that our family will be together for eternity is a huge gift. I deployed twice in the Army and I know that having a temple marriage was a strength to me during that time.
After she finished college, we had a son and he has been a wonderful blessing in our lives. I hope that I have prepared to be the type of father he deserves. I hope to have many teaching moments in the future with my son much like that which was shared in this talk. As he grows and has the opportunity to be ordained in the priesthood, I hope he will learn the lessons it teaches to later be a loving father. I believe being a father is truly one of the most important jobs a man could have.
Thoughts of “Fatherhood – Our Eternal Destiny” Read Post »
So I had to write a love letter to an inanimate object for my English class. I decided to go full cheese on writing one about my phone.
Dear Hammerhead,
While some may simply call you a Google Nexus 5, that name does not do you justice. I prefer to think of you with the exciting codename you were using while you were just a rumor that tech bloggers liked to write about. How alluring you have been to those in geek culture as your specifications and price were discovered and later confirmed. You truly were the belle of the ball that many other geeks wanted.
While some geeks looked to other smartphones built by companies with large marketing budgets, I have always loved the software freedom that you brought to me. Locked down popular phones built by companies named after fruit were never a temptation to me. The freedom you allow me to customize and tinker to my heart’s content is truly one of your greatest virtues. Besides you, there is no other.
When I didn’t think things couldn’t get any better, we placed a custom recovery on you and flashed a new ROM. New speed, customizations, and the latest the CyanogenMod operating system had to give us were now in our grasp. What a wonderful development that became in our time together. You can now be customized in ways that carrier branded phones couldn’t even think of. Every time we flash a new nightly ROM, it’s like opening a gift of new free things to enjoy with you.
We have been through a lot, everything from drops and bumps, to rain and dust. I do my best to protect you and I hope you are enjoying your new case. I’m hoping it will keep you protected from many of the other bumps we will encounter as we continue through life together. Hopefully we will be able to share many other geeky adventures together and have fond memories to look back on in our photo gallery.
HB 464 would impose a filing fee on for the general election for state and county officers. If passed, this bill, sponsored by Rep. Drew Springer (R-HD-68), would seriously curtail the ability of the Libertarian Party of Texas and all other convention parties to field candidates for state and county offices.
Currently, while the two major parties have their primary elections funded largely at tax payer expense (see pages 3 and 4 of the state budget report), the Libertarian Party pays for all the expenses for our convention system though private funding.
Additionally, this type of law has been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on at least two occasions.
This law would essentially be a new TAX on political participation. Convention parties that have already legitimately met the legal standard for ballot access would no longer be able to freely nominate candidates per their own rules and process as is currently the case. The candidates would be forced to pay these additional fees – up to $5000 just for the right to appear on the general election ballot – AFTER having already been lawfully nominated.
The money would be collected by the Secretary of State and used for no clear purpose related to the nomination or elections process. This is truly a “pay to play” legislation designed to protect incumbants from 3rd party challengers – especially in districts where they might otherwise have no challenger at all. In many cases the filing fees in the proposed fee schedule are equal to or even in excess of the entire campaign budget for 3rd party candidates.
It’s clear that this law has one intention – effectively shut down all third parties in Texas.
Oppose HB 464 – Fee to file as a candidate Read Post »
