C-SPAN: House Armed Services Committee Passes Defense Budget

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Don Larson

Last night I watched Part 4 of the C-SPAN: House Armed Services Committee Markup of the 2013 Defense Budget session on TV. The program description is shown next:

Early Thursday morning, by a vote of 56-5, the House Armed Services Committee passed the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization bill. The act proposes $554 billion for Defense and national security programs and $88 billion for overseas contingency operations.

Included in the 500-plus page bill are amendments that civil liberties advocates believe could affect detainee provisions and reproductive rights. Other measures would remodel the Defense Department’s service contracting and personnel reporting methods.

The markup, which began at 10am ET Wednesday ended around 2:20am ET Thursday morning.

The act would provide $554 billion of the defense’s base budget. The budget’s final figures are $29 million more than President Obama’s budget proposed.

The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorizes spending and sets policy for the Department of Defense for the next fiscal year. This Part 4 session lasted 2 hours and 13 minutes.

It’s a full committee meeting participated by both sides.

Although I’ve watched over 100 C-SPAN sessions on various topics since October 2010, the way our political parties interact is still not entirely clear.

What is clear to me is the wonderful intentional fundamental design the Founding Fathers built into the U.S. Constitution. They wanted to make legislation difficult to pass and inhibited an easy way to govern by the Executive branch.

If you think this process is bad, think how bad it would be if laws could be passed willy-nilly and no deference by the Executive branch.

It’s a sense of satisfaction in me that our government reflects the motives of our diverse population. Our Founding Fathers understood the frailties of societies and did their best to model our nation accordingly.

Certainly there is frustration in our government because it is intended to be that way by design.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in C-SPAN, Federal Budgets, Politics | Comments Off

C-SPAN: American Jewish Committee: 2012 Presidential Election, between Rep. Barney Frank and William Kristol

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Don Larson

Last night I watched the Last night I watched the C-SPAN: American Jewish Committee: 2012 Presidential Election, between Rep. Barney Frank and William Kristol session on TV. The program description is shown next:

Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) and William Kristol debated 2012 presidential election issues. Topics included Obama administration policies toward Israel, the economy, Iran’s nuclear program, the state of the Republican Party, and immigration reform. Mr. Kristol said the upcoming election is a very important one and urged the Jewish community to have an open mind and seriously look at all the issues and the policy options. Representative Frank responded that “If you have decided views about elements of public policy, and you don’t know now whether you’re going to vote for Obama or Romney, something’s the matter with you.” This session lasted 1 hour and 17 minutes.

This was a very strong and good debate, the type candidates should always have instead of the usual dog-and-pony shows we Americans receive and seemingly accept.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in C-SPAN, Elections, Politics | Comments Off

New Desktops as of May 6, 2012

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Don Larson

Part of the NewAdventures iMac Desktop Category.

The copyrighted full size (1920 x 1200 at 72 dpi) Desktop image of each is available from the associated link above the thumbnail image. Right-click on that link and save  to your Desktop Folder.

I took these pictures on Coronado Island and the Hotel Del Coronado located there.

Enjoy! :-)

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in iMac Desktops, Personal, Photography | Comments Off

Celebrating Cino de Mayo 2012 on Coronado Island

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Don Larson

Part of the NewAdventures Photography Category.

Sherry and I decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo by going to visit Coronado Island and especially the luxurious Hotel Del Coronado located there.

Below are some of the many pictures taken that beautiful warm sunny San Diego day. Three of the images are also available included in the Desktop Category.

The photo above is available as an iMac Desktop

The photo above is available as an iMac Desktop

The photo above is available as an iMac Desktop

If you made it this far, you may wish to click this link to a panoramic view (1266 x 444 at 72ppi) from the rear of Hotel Del Coronado. :-)

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in iMac Desktops, Personal, Photography | Comments Off

Sherry and Don’s 39th Anniversary Celebrated at a Petco Park Padres Game

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Don Larson

Part of the NewAdventures Photography Category.

We decided to attend the Padres – Philly’s baseball game as part of our celebration.

We started our special day by eating lunch at Milton’s Deli and Restaurant in Del Mar, CA. We both enjoyed the fantastic corn beef sandwiches served there.

We then went to Old Town San Diego where we parked our car so we could take the San Diego Trolley to Petco Park. On the trolley we met two young men from Tucson, AZ who were in town for a convention. They asked us for some tourist tips and we provided some they appreciated. We’ve been to many places in Arizona including Tucson, so we also mentioned we enjoyed their home state too.

We arrived at the baseball park a little early so we started chatting with other arriving fans. Baseball fans are almost always eager to engage in conversations and this tim it was the same.

When the gates opened we went to our wonderful VIP seats with prime views of the field from above behind home plate. These were the best seats we ever had and probably set the standard for future ball games. We met a young couple seating net to us and we had a great time talking with them and other fans around us as the night wore onward.

Sherry and I had a great 39th!

These are some of the 66 photos I took on that day.

The first picture is of the Old Town Trolley Station.

At the Gas Lamp entrance.

Waiting for the gates to open and mixing with the other fans.

The view from our seats as batting practice starts.

Preparation activities for the game.

Four thousand little software league players marched around the field for 10 or 15 minutes, exchanging waves with the crowd.

The Friar takes the field to spur the crowd for a victory.

Miss Poway sings the National Anthem beautifully.

Ceremonial pitch.

Two young girls sing next.

The Padres dugout watch the team take the field.

First Padres pitch of the game.

First out on the Philly’s.

Padres get the bases loaded for the first run that later scored.

Another run and the score is Padres 2, Philly’s 0.

Night arrives as another Padre prepares to get another hit.

And the Padre shows up as the bases got loaded once again.

Padres win 5 – 0!

As fans leave the park starts to shutdown for the night.

I’ve added three panographic images at these links: [ 1, 2, 3 ].

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Personal, Photography | Comments Off

C-SPAN: Supreme Court and the 2010 Health Care Law

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Don Larson

Last night I watched the C-SPAN: Supreme Court and the 2010 Health Care Law session on TV. The program description is shown next:

The Supreme Court and Obamacare:
Mr. Carvin argued the lions share of Obamacare case in front of the Supreme Court. This is the first time he has spoken in depth to the press on the case.
Introduction:

Elliot Berke, RNLA Vice President for Programming; Partner, McGuireWoods LLP

Speaker:
Michael Carvin, Partner, Jones Day

I previously posted that I listened to the Obamacare Oral Arguments during the recent Supreme Court session. During those discussions the key word “unique” kept being bandied about by the lawyers and the Justices.

I think my inalienable rights are the most unique above everything else. The Founders rightly stated the priority order of uniqueness via our Constitution: Individual; States; then, Federal.

I was surprised no lawyer drove that perspective home as part of the Oral Arguments due to its simple reality of our freedoms described in The Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in C-SPAN, Elections, Politics | Comments Off

New Desktops as of April 16, 2016

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Don Larson

Part of the NewAdventures iMac Desktop Category.

The copyrighted full size (1920 x 1200 at 72 dpi) Desktop image of each is available from the associated link above the thumbnail image. Right-click on that link and save  to your Desktop Folder.

I took these pictures at Double Tree Park in San Marcos, CA.  I previously took pictures there including full-size panoramas shortly after the park opened in June 2009.

The collection of my previously published copyrighted Desktops may be found in the two archived sections at these enumerated links [ 1, 2 ] of Time Out Of Mind.

Enjoy!

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in iMac Desktops, Personal, Photography | Comments Off

Xcode 4.3 and iOS 5 Dynamic UILabels And UITextFields Example

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Don Larson

Part of the iOS Category.

Besides the built-in capability to design UIView Elements using iOS 5 StoryBoard, it is possible to create UI Elements on-the-fly and position them according to your needs.

This is a project I created to help me learn about dynamic views. The important code to review is in ViewController.m and ViewController.h. It has comments to better help you understand the flow. :-)

When the project is run in the Simulator, this is how it appears. The section with the yellow background is where the dynamic creating and placement of the UILabels and UITextFields takes place.

The project code, ‘property_array_example.zip‘ may be downloaded here.

Enjoy!

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Education, iOS, iOS Tutorials, Native Apps, Technology | Comments Off

Time Out Of Mind’s Tenth Anniversary

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Don Larson

My website Time Out Of Mind is officially ten years old today. It started out as a place for my various types of content and was refined over the subsequent years.

Nowadays there are three parts to the timeoutofmind.com domain: the archived section; the new section, and, this blog.

In it’s heyday, this website accumulated about 130,000 page views in one particular month some years ago. In one of those days that month, over 30,000 page views occurred. That was the record. In 8 1/3 years from April 2002 through July 2010 the archived section accumulated 5 million page views. Then I stopped the formal counting. I still check my daily stats and see that about 2,500 to 3,000 page views a week are happening.

I received many kind comments over the years. Some were shared on my archived testimonials page and the new testimonials page.

People asked me how did the site become so popular on a global basis? I can only tell them it was never conceived to become that widespread.

I think the secret of becoming widespread is not to aim for that goal. Just be yourself and express what you can in a mostly positive light. People like that. People can find life’s drama in many other places. When people surf the web in their free time, they’re mostly looking for something other than drama. Offer people something other than drama and they will probably repeatedly seek you out.

Thank you for stopping by today. :-)

Don

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Personal | Comments Off

Cabrillo National Monument Photos

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Don Larson

Part of the NewAdventures Photography Category.

I took these photos on April 2, 2012 at the Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma, San Diego, California.

 

The photo above is available as an iMac Desktop.

The photo above is available as an iMac Desktop.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Personal, Photography | Comments Off