The Obsessed Programmer

For those who aren’t aware, the Republicans in the House of Representatives recently made a big fuss about Speaker Pelosi dismissing the session (in accordance with House rules), refusing to allow a vote on a bill that would allow offshore drilling of oil.  Granted, she acts like a crazy person. (”I’m saving the planet!  I’m saving the planet!”?  What’s that all about?)  But offshore drilling really doesn’t make a whole of sense to me as a way to attack current oil prices.

Here’s an image I dug up recently:

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This has been a ridiculously long and deep winter.  Park City Mountain Resort claims an average 300″ of snowfall per year, with 417″ this year (not counting snowfall since they closed three weeks ago).

I’m ready for some sunshine and warmth

But apparently the weather isn’t.  We got snow on May 1st.  In fact, I’m told that Snowbird (a resort in Salt Lake that’s still open) got 14″ of fresh powder.

Gah!  Enough already!

Read this post. One of my major reservations getting Vista Home Premium was that Remote Desktop Server was not included. But I could not justify the price of the upgrade when you can install UltraVNC as a system service for free.

Well, the built-in Remote Desktop is WAY better than VNC, and now there’s a patch out to enable it. As it turns out, the Remote Desktop Server is shipped with Vista Home Premium but is disabled by registry settings (!). Now I feel even better about my purchase of Vista Home Premium.

The old photo gallery software I was using, Gallery, was horrendous.  I changed over to ZenPhoto, and I’m amazed at how much better it works!  The point it, they actually made it easy for me to upload photos.

So, for photos of the wedding, and other photos as I get around to it, go to http://gallery.bendilts.com.

That’s right, I’m a real Mormon now.  I think the picture says it all:

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By popular demand, here’s a bunch of pictures of Liliana.  I think these all come from our recent trip to Peru.

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I think this picture says it all:

News flash: Liliana got her passport and visa back from the embassy, and all the papers I sent her have arrived in Lima.  She’s be in Salt Lake City on Thursday around 1 PM.  :-)

This entry is not meant to be an update on the status of Project Puma in general.  The short story is, we raised almost $18,000 (well past our goal) and had a successful trip to Peru, in which we began the construction of the new Puma family home.  For more details, see www.ProjectPuma.org as soon as I have time to update it

Rather, this entry is intended as a sad personal narrative on how I wound up back in the United States, with the woman I love still in Peru.

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We have a final word on how to send donations to the project to rebuild the Puma family home in Chincha Alta, Peru.  Checks should be made out to “Amigos of Honduras” and sent to me at the following address:

Ben Dilts–Amigos of Honduras
PO Box 1854
Park City, UT 84060

Please consider making a contribution.  As we’ve come closer to the actual event, new estimates show the total cost, including locally-hired skilled labor, to be around $15,000.  We need to have most of the funds in hand by about October 27th to have time to send it to Peru before we arrive there on November 3rd.

You can download a PDF of a flier (which looks best in color, but OK in black and white) requesting contributions here: http://www.bendilts.com/Liliana/fundraising.pdf.  Please distribute this widely.

Thank you from myself, Liliana, and her family!