(Re) Building a PC

My Athlon XP computer recently quit working, and in lieu of buying a replacement computer, I decided to fix it. Why? Because it was the only computer that connected to my printer. Vista and beyond will not recognize it. Why don't I buy a new printer? Because the one I have works just fine, and it has a scanner and copier feature built in. So,

1. Diagnose the broken computer - computer periodically shuts off, and temperature monitor shows very hot CPU.

2. Open up computer, and use half a can of compressed air to blow out several years of dust. Take off CPU heat sink and fan. Discover half inch cake of dust between fan and heat sink. Well, there's my CPU temperature problem.

3. Put everything back together, and turn on. Works great, temperature nice and steady! Then randomly starts shutting off (which was why I stopped using the computer for a while a year or so ago).

4. Computer turns on and shuts off after 30 seconds or so, before even leaving BIOS, so suspect motherboard.

5. Look at capacitors on board. Sure enough, several are *popped* and rusty, so they need to be replaced. Are you kidding? I have a degree in electrical engineering, not electronic repair, I haven't soldered anything in years, just looked at a computer screen for a decade. Plus, finding the "right" capacitor looks to be impossible, as there are at least 20 options on digi-key for capacitor parameters. I was hoping to just boost some of a random piece of broken electronics in the garage. Plus, by the time I order new ones, de-solder the old ones (without a solder pump, or braid because that damages the board), and solder them back in without burning a hole in the board, I'll probably have spent as much time and effort as buying a new cheap board from the internet.

6. Go to find a cheap board, search for Socket A board on PriceWatch. Oh, cool, $25 for the first item listed! Buy it, and sit back and wait for the magic to happen.

7. The magic is, a trick, as it turns out. Board arrives, but it's *not* a Socket A board. I have no idea why it showed up in the Socket A search. Okay, fine, processors are cheap too. What socket is it? Hmmm, 754. Let's see, .... Hey, wait a minute, there don't seem to be *any* vendors except one sketchy looking website dealing in probably second hand chips for socket 754. Arghh!!

8. About this time, as I'm searching for all this on my Vista-non-printer-compliant-but-other-wise-decent-machine, it shuts off inexplicably.

9. Diagnose, take cover off. Blow out several years of dust with the second half of compressed air can.

10. ....

11. (sigh)

12. Heatsink falls right the heck off my board, just missing my video card, and lands out side the computer. The plastic nub that holds the 'sink onto the CPU has just snapped right off. I don't even know what to call the part, let alone find a new one. Oh, and I can't search for it, since my computer is now sans heat sink.

13. Set up *good* computer on its side and set heat sink on top of CPU, and declare no one is to touch the case. Get online, and finally find a "Heat sink retention bracket" for my socket type (AM2+ for those keeping track).

14. While going through this process, I finally answer another nagging question I had about the replacement motherboard I bought. There didn't seem to be any place to hook a heat sink on... Ah. Well, now I know I need a "heat sink retention bracket" for a 754 socket board. This turns out to be very difficult to find as well, but I locate one on e-bay, in England.

15. I also settle on a *new* Sempron 3100 chip for the re-build computer, which comes with fan, since I was also ch0king on finding, buying, and shipping a fan for the *new* CPU.

16. Get both retention brackets, and new socket 754 CPU w/ fan. Fix up *good* computer with new retention bracket so I can actually set it back up and use the DVD drive again, and not worry about the heat sink falling off.

17. Install retention bracket in old re-build computer (which by the way is a pain, since you have to take everything off and remove the mother board to screw in a back plate for it).

18. Install *new* CPU. Plug everything back in, and turn on.

19. Okay, what is that Horrible noise? I think this *new* CPU has been in its box for about a decade, and the fan sounds like its bearings (I didn't think CPU fans *had* bearings) are about to fail.

20. BIOS comes up. Gateway. Gateway? Did I just see *Gateway* on my Bios? I have a good feeling some one ripped this board out of some office computer being tossed in the junk.

21. Nothing else happening. Oh, okay, forgot to plug the hard drive back in. Restart.

22. Yay! Windows XP boot screen. And it says: "You need to activate this copy of Windows." Darn it , I forgot Windows freaks out when you change the hardware, it thinks I've pirated the OS. And the wireless USB mouse doesn't work until I install all the right drivers. And the Fan is STILL really loud!

I'm SO glad I decided to repair my computer.

To Luke Lucier, A letter I’ll never get to send,

So many memories, so many experiences. I’ll remember them always.

Luke and his brother Joe were a big part of growing up, in my homes at Billerica, Massachusetts and then Newport, New Hampshire, and at their home in Brockton, Massachusetts. We got into loads of trouble together, they and I and my brother Jesse. But we explored, and we had adventures, those absolutely pure adventures that only children can have. Our imaginations on full, and feeding off each other, we found places and things that would never exist to anyone but ourselves. And those shared experiences would stick with us forever.

At the beach, we explored the tidal marshes. We trekked through the mud on our makeshift rafts, through unknown, impenetrable water, daring each other to push farther upstream, while fighting the fears from ourselves and the others. We pushed out to sea, and imagined voracious lovecraftian monsters in the deep, waiting to grab us from below.

At their house in Brockton, we stayed up insanely late, playing Nintendo games. Super Mario Brothers was burned in our eyes, till their parents made us go to bed. We played thirty-one at the kitchen table, us kids with matchsticks and the adults with quarters. Cable TV was just in vogue, and we watched the penultimate action movies of our age, Predator and Aliens, over and over again till we could recite them line for line.

Luke and Joe had turned their backyard into a gigantic jungle gymnasium. They were experts at the make-shift obstacle course, and I get tired even now thinking about them swinging through the equipment.

We explored the back alleys by their house, and got caught once scrambling over a random chain-link fence. Luke showed his characteristic street sense and bolted, but I as usual followed the guy’s order to stop and come back to him, despite not knowing who or what he was. Turned out to be the janitor of the school next door, so I got an escort through to the front door of the school, no harm no foul!

At night we became Ninja, and dressed the part as we could. We explored the roof tops in the city, and walked the roof line at our house in New Hampshire. Our house had a barn and a third story attic, and a connecting room in between. Our parents were entertaining people downstairs, and had left us to our own devices. On came the black clothes and swords (my brother had picked up a katana from a trip to Germany), and our band of stealthy assassins set off across the roof line from the house to the barn. Of course, real ninjas wouldn’t have let themselves be lit up against the sky line behind, and a call to the police by the neighbors ended our escapade (after we had made our journey!).

Our imagination fueled, super powered alter egos really took off in the lakes of New Hampshire. We stayed at a house on Lake Sunapee for two weeks one summer, and the lake became ours. Luke’s dad took us out on the Motor boat, and we cruised the lake in style, unstoppable. Luke was ever the ladies man, and hatched a plan to travel back across the lake at night, to find a girl we saw but briefly on boat passed by that day. Somehow we thought better of the idea, but with Luke and Joe around, things like that actually felt possible.

They brought the most amazing fireworks with them to the house, as we were there over the Independence Day weekend. We lit off a string of Chinese firecrackers so long and so loud that we were never invited back again, and we’d never want to go back, because you’d never be able to recreate or top those two weeks again.

We camped at millers pond, and paddled a canoe out to the middle of the small lake, singing our lungs out as loud as we liked, no one around for miles to hear us. We sang silly songs that you’d only sing around good friends, and that only were funny because we were already laughing at each other so hard. We dreamed of how funny it would be one day to all be old and gray, and paddle back out to the middle of that lake, and laugh with each other again about all the good times past.

We’ll never get that chance to all be together again, on this earth. God willing we’ll all meet again in heaven, and maybe there will be a lake somewhere where we’ll all be able to gather as friends once more.

I’ll miss you Luke, I can still see your eyes and your smile, I’ll never forget your laugh, and you and your brother having your classic epic brother fights! I’ll never forget going to see DC Talk with you, and listening to bootlegged rap music cassettes. I’ll never forget that day we went to an amusement park with that youth group one year. We went off by ourselves for almost the entire day, and rode so many rides we both finally threw up, which had never happened to me before, and I've been motion sick at amusement parks ever since! I remember we were so hungry that afternoon, we got food from one of the booths, I remember it was Ribs, and they were the best, best Ribs we’d ever had, and the best I’d ever had since. We conquered that place, the most fun I’d ever had at an amusement park.

I’ll never forget taking turns mowing the lawn at our house in Newport, to work up a sweat, so when we got to Pollard’s Mills swimming hole it wouldn’t feel so cold. We rode our bikes all across town, to Pollard’s Mills, and down the side streets and through the woods at night. The town was our playground, like any place we were all together at. I’ll never forget playing war games with squirt guns through the local cemetery (hey, most of the people buried there were my ancestors!), and then when the cops stopped us with no less than three squad cars.

I’ll never forget you man. Rest in peace Luke Lucier. God be with you Joe, and Ruth, and Sky, and Eddie, my belated and sincerest condolences.

Your friend, Benjamin Claggett

Building Bridges?

So, someone I consider to be a good friend just deleted me on Face Book. Not hid me, deleted me. I can't even reply to her now, because that was my only connection. Why did she delete me? Because she's a bridge builder, or so she says. Funny, I didn't think you built bridges with a torch in hand.

She didn't like my article about Natural Born Citizens, and how I came to the conclusion that the founders intended the Constitution to only allow people born of two American citizens to become President. Thought I was Xenophobic or something, because I thought it made sense that the possibility of being a dual citizen in charge of the nation's armed forces could be a reasonable conflict of interest. But no, she's an enlightened intellectual, and couldn't be bothered to actually deal with me on my well reasoned position. So instead of being honest with me, she just deleted me. As I say, funny way to build a bridge.

You see, I've been thinking a lot about building bridges lately. So here are some observations: first, you don't need to build bridges to people you agree with, you're already on the same side! So, when you're building a bridge you are only ever doing so with people you disagree with. Secondly, bridges must be built from both sides. You can build your bridge to the middle, but if one is not built in return, you'll never connect. Third, and most importantly, you have to be able to see your bridge "from the other side." Otherwise, you won't be able to build your bridge in the right direction.

That's all well and good fanciful fluff, but how about some more practical knowledge. Try this: the other person is always right. How's that you say? You're finally embracing post-modern nihilism? Hardly. What I mean is, the other person thinks they are right, just as you think you are right, and so you must treat them as such. That is, you must respect that they believe they are right, and act accordingly. No one will build a bridge back to you if they do not feel respected.

So, assuming she ever reads this, let me try applying these pearls of wisdom to the situation at hand. Case 1, I write a heartfelt and carefully considered piece detailing a nugget of knowledge I have recently gained, and I share it honestly and excitedly with my friends, and ask for and receive honest feedback (mostly negative, but honest) on my opinion and idea. I felt respected that other people considered my idea as something I was interested in, even though they disagreed. I felt respected that they were willing to share their disagreement with me. It was hard work, pushing past those disagreements to share honestly with them, and for them to respond in kind. We didn't change each other's minds. But we built a bridge!!! I now trust them a little more, and they trust me.

Except for my friend. She was offended by my piece, but she wouldn't tell me so. But I believe she was offended. That is, whether or not I think the offense was legitimate, she believed it so, and therefore it most certainly was, to her at the least. And when you're building bridges, that's all that matters! And so if you ever read this, know that I did not intend to offend, if you can accept that. Know that I accept you were offended, and I only wish you had trusted me enough to tell me so. I also wish that you had given me the trust to recognize that I honestly believed in my work. You cannot build bridges any other way, and it takes the sting out of the offense to be molded in this way. To know someone is honestly committed to an idea that you find offensive can give you the strength to hold that connection, but it still takes work and you must continually try at it.

Case 2. A current event initiated by a group of people has our family in a stir. This group has caused offense, yet they and their supporters refuse to recognize the offense. They do not wish to build a bridge, or give the offended the respect of holding honest feelings of offense. A writer pens an article detailing exactly where the offense comes from, in an effort to enlighten those who do not understand the source of the grief. My wife posts said article on *her own* wall. Our friend reads and takes her own offense at the article. But instead of respecting that my wife indeed holds these things honestly and openly, and reacting as such, she blatantly insinuates she is a bigot. After my wife, who has had it with being slandered as a racist, bigot, etc., without so much as a single shred of evidence, lets our friend know that she's had it with being slandered as a racist, bigot, etc., without so much as a shred of evidence, our friend the bridge builder deletes us from her friends list.

Was she honestly offended by the article in question? I believe so. Was she justified in insinuating my wife is a bigot? Maybe she honestly believes it to be so, but she did not respect her enough to say so honestly to her face. "But you know so much about building bridges, why couldn't you build one with her?" you say. Ah, but remember it takes two to build a bridge.

Natural Born Citizen

The waters on this issue have become so muddied with “Birthers” and myriad claims of dubious (and not so dubious) natures that even discussing this rationally has become difficult. It is so emotionally charged that considering the issues involved and not the implications has become impossible, rather like a tainted jury pool. However, I will attempt to lay out the facts as I see them one more time, with the addition of a new wrinkle from current events.

From all available information, our President, Barack Obama, is a Citizen of the United States of America. However, he is not a Natural Born Citizen, but rather a Naturalized Citizen of the United States. A Natural Born Citizen must be born of two Citizens of the United States (who, themselves, do not have to be Natural Born). A Naturalized Citizen may be granted citizenship under a variety of circumstances, and in the case of our President, he was Naturalized by fact of one of his parents being a Natural Born Citizen (his mother).

However, since his other parent was a Natural Born Citizen of Kenya, he (Barack) could not therefore be a Natural Born Citizen of the United States. Only just today, August 5, 2010, the nation of Kenya ratified a new Constitution. This new Constitution grants citizenship to anyone who is or has been born of at least one parent who is a Citizen of Kenya. Therefore, our President is automatically a dual citizen with citizenship in Kenya as well as the United States.

Finally, the United States Constitution retains a clause that requires Natural Born Citizenship for Presidential eligibility. The intent was to prevent individuals with divided allegiances from taking power of the executive branch of the country. Surely someone with dual citizenship is precisely the case these gentlemen were considering when they wrote this clause. That is, any Naturalized Citizen would have at least the possibility of claiming citizenship in another country, and thus divide his or her loyalty accordingly, whereas a Natural Born Citizen would have (at the least) none of the entanglements of dual citizenship and the burden of the inherent loyalties therein.

If I had to conjecture, I would say that they (the Founders) had in mind the bewildering array of entanglements existing within the European Continent at the time. The intermarriage among the ruling classes of the different nations caused a nightmarish maze of loyalties and duties and alliances that I believe the American Colonists wished to avoid in their new country.

Given the above, what are the implications to us now? Well, they range from the inane, to the bizarre, to the quite serious. In the matter of trivia, Barack Obama is the first openly publicized Naturalized Citizen to become President (the actual first would have been Chester Arthur, whose father was Irish and who may have been born in Canada). In a bizarre twist, the People of Kenya could now levy requirements on our President, to fulfill the duties of a Citizen of Kenya, unless he actually revoked his Citizenship (which would then prove he was indeed a dual citizen!). Aside from strange legal entanglements, it is quite apparent that Mr. Obama indeed has two home countries to contend with. We may never know the extent to which he is ultimately loyal to one or the other, as it is a matter of the unseen heart (he may not know himself!), which I think is why our Founders wished to spare us the trouble.

Finally, there is the most obvious and glaring point, which is that his election as President was not in fact Constitutional. Rather, his candidacy was deemed to be Constitutional by one federally appointed authority (the Chief Justice), his main opponent in the contest (John McCain), and a majority of the country (53% of the voting public). However, he was not deemed so in the correct fashion under the Constitution that he has sworn to uphold, namely the consent of three fourths of the states by Constitutional amendment. What does all that mean? Not much, just add it to the list of the many items our Government has deemed by its own standard to be legal when they are clearly not. But when will the camel’s back break? When will the list become so onerous that the Constitutional authority of our Government ceases, and only the authority of Force remains? This is the thing that we ought to be concerned about most of all in this strange affair.

No We Couldn't

Couldn't what? Keep it. Keep what? A Republic. We couldn't keep the Republic. Maybe we can restore it, maybe we can re-found it, but we couldn't keep it. Two Hundred and twenty three years ago a lady asked Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention: “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”, and Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The lady got her answer that day, and now we have Franklin's answer for him.

Our founders always knew this day would come. They prayed it would not, and there were many miracles along the way, and many days of blood and pain to preserve it. But battered and bruised it kept on. Until today. Today we have lost the Republic, if only temporarily. Today the Republic gave in to the pull of Socialism, and betrayed all its principles to do so. Today, the agreement between the sovereign States of America has been broken.

Always before, the agreement, the Constitution that bound the country and created a voluntary union of the separate states, had held, even if bent beyond recognition at times. Now the agreement has been flagrantly violated, and the "political bands which have connected them with another" have been dissolved, in spirit if not yet by law.

And so by law the Republic will continue to appear to function, to push forward. But the heart has been shattered, and the blood will eventually stop flowing through its veins. The heart was the American Spirit of people willing to do Good in a country that asked it of itself, but never forced that Good upon itself or others; of people willingly binding themselves to laws that punished only the commitment of Evil upon one another.

But no more. Now the willing spirit has been shackled like a slave. To representatives charged with protecting our way of life, it is no longer enough to merely punish Evil acts. Now the version of Good as seen by some must be forced to become the Good done by all in the country. Now, if your Good acts are not as some see Good, you have become Evil, and must be punished. Now, you cannot do Good willingly. Now you are compelled to do what some call Good; and in the subjugation to the Good will of some, we are all made slaves. Now, our reward for our willingness to do Good has been lost. We are forced to do what we do not believe is Good, and the Good we do has been forced from us, making all our gifts and generosity into mere obligation.

^{1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.}

²"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ³But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6:1-4

Now, we can no longer do Good in the name we choose. Now our Good is done for us in the name of our representatives, chosen by some but not all, and we have again lost our reward.

This Republic has struggled over what was Evil, and what was to be punished as Evil by the Republic. Never have we struggled so hard over what was Good, and never has Good been punished as Evil by the Republic like today. Our Republic should and can deal with two groups of people who wish to do Good in their own way. And when those groups disagree, it has provided us with a way to establish a new agreement, if agreeable to most all, and if not, to allow us to continue doing Good in our own ways.

But now one group's Good has become the other group's Evil. Now instead of two groups doing Good in their own way, one group's Good of Socialism and Social Justice has been forced on the other, and the other group's Good of Economic Liberty and Personal Responsibility is a punishable Evil. And now we have proven that the two Goods will not mix, not even in our Republic that fought so hard, and bled so much so that they might.

"And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay." ^{Daniel 2:43}

And now we go about the business of disuniting, in spirit if not in law. As long as the one side compels the other, we may never disunite by law. But as long as we are compelled, we will never be the Republic of the United States of America again.

Sincerely, in peaceful melancholy and yet in hope of the return of my Lord Jesus,

Benjamin Passler Claggett

A Citizen and a Christian

Written this day, the Twenty Second of March, in the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ Two Thousand and Ten

The One-Fourth Rule Amendment

A proposed amendment to the United States Constitution:

"Whereas a three-fourths majority of States (Legislatures or Conventions) are required to amend the United States Constitution, and by inference a more than one-fourth minority of States may block such an amendment,

So shall a greater than one-fourth minority of States (Legislatures or Conventions), who support an amendment preventing a change to the United States Constitution, have such an amendment be passed as binding upon the United States Constitution."

Such an amendment, a "one-fourth +1 amendment," will clarify the limits of government power beyond what is set forth in the United States Constitution, and demarcate which "three-fourths amendment" would be required to allow government the use of said powers.

In truth, the Bill of Rights ought to have been of this "one-fourth + 1" nature. That is, it should have only required a slightly greater than one-fourth minority of population to maintain the access to the rights therein. As it is now, when those rights are infringed on, it has now been established that we in fact need a three-fourths majority of the population to defend those infringements.

Addendum:

Another way to word or structure this amendment would be that 1/4th + 1 states could vote to overturn any congressional law as being unconstitutional. This would be a more "re-active" approach, whereas the former would be more "pro-active."