Kris and I have a friend who has no opinion. He is unable to commit to anything, hedging his opinion to offend no one, never quite saying anything concrete. Often, when we find ourselves waffling, I see Kris visibly shake off the wishy-washy and commit to an opinion, not wanting to be as non-committal as our friend can be.

I don't particularly like waffling, so I try fairly hard not to waffle. I think all friends know I lack tact when it comes to voicing my opinions, but many don't see how much waffling I do before I do voice my opinion.

I'm not so opinionated when it comes to writing here. When things go out onto the Intarweb, and people find them, it's really, really, really hard (nigh, impossible) to take back. So, I've refrained. Heaven forbid I should say something that will offend someone. Or that I say something that I'm ashamed of ten years from now. Or that I regret later.

Doesn't really help me document what I'm thinking at this point in my life. What if I find religion? Was it a gradual discovery or abrupt? Without some baseline of beliefs, I'm not sure I'd know: self-insight is another one of those lacking things.

So, here's what I believe:

• There's something more than all of this. I'm not convinced it needs to wants to be prayed to or worshipped, though. Nor am I convinced it even cares about anything/anyone.
• Organized religion exists to keep in power those in power.
• If people have souls, then animals have souls, too. Not sure how far down the scale the souls go, though. If it's a distinct soul, and not just a "life force," then perhaps plants and algae have one too. Not sure of the consciousness, either.
• Abortion is a horrible, horrible thing. But no one has the right to deny one to another woman. No one.
• That white light people report seeing in death and near death experiences is the last ditch effort of a dying brain to restart itself: neurons firing madly to keep the brain going, and not some other-worldly experience.

I meant to write an explanation for each of those, but that might take a little more time than I have before practice today. The organized religion one is the one that really agitates me.

I ordered curtains for the livingroom this past February. I had narrowed down the fabric choices and asked Kris to make the final choice. He chose a fantastic green and beige striped pattern with highlights. I ordered the curtains and stuck the swatch up on the backdoor, receiving the curtains two weeks later.

This weekend is the last weekend for a long while that we'll have to work on house things. As a result, putting up the curtains bumped to the top of the list. I pulled the curtains out of the bag this morning, only to discover they were missing the inner lining I had ordered with them.

Argh.

So, I tracked down my order confirmation email, sent it to customer service, and started to put up the curtain rods with Kris. We used the curtains as a height gauge, and started with the middle brace.

Kris had just finished putting up the bracket when I read the curtain dimensions on one of the curtain paper bands: 45.5" x 82". I had ordered 40" x 84". We had just mounted the bracket 2" too low.

I called the curtain manufacturer, and talked about the issue. They need to confirm with the "factory order specialist" before confirming the curtain replacement (apparently the system didn't list the liner I had ordered, including the inner liner). So, another three weeks before we can hang the curtains.

Sigh.

Running my own web and mail servers means not only do I get to keep up with current technologies, but I have to keep up with current technologies and requirements, or the server fails to work properly. AOL won't accept email from systems without reverse DNS. Yahoo! won't accept email from systems lacking a Sender Permitted From value in the DNS. We'll ignore the fact that the DNS servers can be hacked and spoofed for the moment.

I have various logging mechanisms on my servers. One is logwatch, recommended by Mike. It sends me a daily summary of what happened on my systems. Granted, the report is a reactionary mechanism: if something went wrong, I'd find out only after the fact; but it's better than nothing (and I suspect, given how hard I use my machines, I'd probably notice fairly quickly anyway).

One of the interesting reports in my daily summary is the number of CONNECT tries to my box. Most legitimate web service calls are GETs (all the parameters on the URL) or POSTs (a form submission or file upload). CONNECTS are rare, as are HEAD requests.

All the CONNECT requests are to Yahoo! servers in Taiwan, or two other server in Taiwan. All of the requests come from China.

So, I now drop all the requests. I haven't automated this yet, but will shortly. A sample line looks like:

 /sbin/iptables -A INPUT  -p tcp -s 59.61.161.21/16 -j DROP

The beginnings of my Great fireWall of China. Use some other servers to try to get to Taiwan.

The odd thing about the requests is that I don't have mod_proxy turned on for that server. So, none of the requests succeeded, they just kept coming.

Last week, I went to the doctor to have the annoying growth along my right eye checked, and, because of my overwhelming vanity, removed. The doctor did a great job removing it, very clean. She sent the "skin tag" in for biopsy, out of routine.

Well, for the last few days, there were missed calls on my cell phone from "No ID." I finally was able to pick up on one today.

It was a call from my doctor. The skin tag is cancerous. It's not the agressive type, but rather basal cell carcinoma.

From skincancer.org:

The Most Common Skin Cancer

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer, affecting 800,000 Americans each year. In fact, it is the most common of all cancers. One out of every three new cancers is a skin cancer, and the vast majority are basal cell carcinomas, often referred to by the abbreviation, BCC. These cancers arise in the basal cells, which are at the bottom of the epidermis (outer skin layer). Until recently, those most often affected were older people, particularly men who had worked outdoors. Although the number of new cases has increased sharply each year in the last few decades, the average age of onset of the disease has steadily decreased. More women are getting BCCs than in the past; nonetheless, men still outnumber them greatly.

Because the location is right next to something so vital (my eye!), the doctor recommended Mohs Micrographic Surgery to remove all the growth:

The physician removes the visible tumor with a curette or scalpel and then removes very thin layers of the remaining surrounding skin one layer at a time. Each layer is checked under a microscope, and the procedure is repeated until the last layer viewed is cancer-free. This technique has the highest cure rate and can save the greatest amount of healthy tissue. It is often used for tumors that have recurred or are in hard-to-treat places such as the head, neck, hands, and feet.

It's the most time intensive removal, but the best for me because of the location. I'll be heading in next week. The surgery should take all day because of the iterative process.

I'm already really good about sunscreen, but I now need to be even more diligent. I'm a bit surprised at my reaction, which was about 2 minutes of crying, then acceptance. It is what it is. I have work to do, and gardens to plant.

I had my car fixed a while ago (which I was at etech, actually), but hadn't taken a picture of it yet.