Due to the fact that when I originally created the account I was not as careful about where and how I posted it publicly, my original e-mail address david@mtsutro.com will discontinue working as of today. If you are using that as an e-mail address for me your messages will be delivered to the great beyond without my having viewed them.

Personal correspondence may be directed to the addresses posted on my personal contact page. Business correspondence may be directed to the addresses located on my company contact page.


Site Notice: I am in the process of setting up the new and improved Gallery now using Coppermine software. It will take me another few days to get all the pictures back online complete with captions and such. Also, pictures that were to have been added previously will now be added as well

Please excuse me for a few minutes while I take a walk down political lane, simply because I have been relatively quiet about that particular subject as of late.

Needless to say the upcoming United States Presidential election is not something I am looking forward to at all. Maybe I have caught a premature case of the pessimist bug, but I simply cannot see a Democratic Party member proving a worthy enough candidate to successfully unseat the incumbent. In all honesty, the thought of John Kerry being the most powerful man in the modern world scares me back under the blankets. However the thought of another full term with Mr. Bush scares me enough to look at real estate options in Vancouver, Canada and London, England.

I could really care less about the majority of things the general voting public seem to care about in their leader. During the Clinton administration and whilst the impeachment fiasco many in the Republican Party, religious organisations and other anti-liberal groups bashed the very nature of the man. Was he really, really stupid for doing what he did? Sure, but that is not the business of the American people. While I could debate ad nauseam with conservative types about the actual work Clinton did during his administration I am bored to tears with it. It is my opinion and that of many well-educated political scientists that during his administration a lot of good was done. People were happy, the financial situation was the best it had been in well over twenty years and the general state of affairs seemed positive.

That said, despite his character flaws and public displays of foot-in-mouth syndrome, I do not dislike Bush the man. It is fundamentally unfair to pass judgement onto traits which concern you not. But the places Bush seems to want to take this country are places we should all be very afraid of even thinking about visiting. Whether or not you agree or disagree with the war we started in Iraq, it does not take a college degree to realise that the reasons we were given on why this action was necessary were flawed. The pursuit of justice is a noble one and I personally hope that we can hold responsible those who were the architects of the 11 September 2001 attacks. Taking the Constitution, Bill of Rights and every other sacred document that makes the United States what it is out back and pissing on them is not the way to do it.

The Patriot Act was developed and enacted into law by a lot of greedy politicians who care more about how they look to their constituency then they do about actually fulfilling the oaths they took when entering office. You know all that protection of the Constitution and such. Restricting the rights of American citizens is something that should never be tolerated. Not for any reason. If you want to protect me and help ensure my safety then pass laws that do that without restricting my rights. I would rather die a free American by a terrorist action than suffer through the transition to self-righteous communism. When we start to restrict our actions in the name of "homeland security" we tell the people of the world that we are afraid and basically bow to the whims of the terrorist community. That some conservative types would stand up in defiance of the legal and political protests made by the American Civil Liberties Union, an organisation designed for the sole purpose of protecting the Constitution and Bill of Rights, is unconscionable. That is an impeachable offense.

While our people are unemployed, unable to afford transportation and living expenses and dying left and right in a foreign land, our Commander In Chief decides wage war (once again) on the freedoms so many died to create by openly speaking against homosexual marriage. Here is my opinion on this as unbiased as possible: I do not have the desire to get married and am pretty certain to be of that mindset for a long time. However, to deny that right to those who do wish to acknowledge their unconditional love and support for another human being is against the founding principles of live and let live. The religious right spew their hatred and fear by arguing this act will destroy the institution of marriage. I hate to be the one to enlighten them but the institution of marriage is a religious institution. I can pick up a woman right now, drive the local Courthouse, pay a fee and become married, receiving the benefits granted therein such as tax deductions and next-of-kin assignment. How is that "marriage" in the terms the Church would like to define? Should it matter to the State if that couple entering into a legal contract is same-sex? If the major Churches of the world would like to remain in the dark ages and deny membership to their fellow men and women because they happen to be homosexual let them. But keep the separation of Church and State separate. The fact that our legislators are spending so much time on this issue angers me even more. We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them.

Republicans as you know are all about smaller government, less taxation and such. Is that why new useless departments have been created? Is that why the United States went from a substantial budget surplus to a major deficit? Alex P. Keaton must be pretty pissed off these days. I am all about smaller, more efficient government and lowered taxes but in order to make that happen our officials need to have their money regulated to them. This careless spending is really outrageous. And I blame the Democrats just as much for being the benchwarmers that do nothing during the game but gripe the loudest when the team loses. Air America Radio, rich liberal entertainer blowhards, are not going to solve our problems. Our leaders need to get off their collective asses and do something about our problems.

On a final note and with my apologies for this being more of rant than the cohesive argument I had originally intended it is the hypocrisy of today that gets up in the top five things that make me mad. Rush Limbaugh was one of the loudest voices of the conservative view. He said that we should cut all Federal funding to programmes to help the poor, drug addicted and other similar groups. He called these people names and spat at them with great hatred. And now he enlists the help of the ACLU in his own drug addition battle? Oh how the mighty fall. If the ACLU were not as secure in their fight for equality and the protection of Americans they would have told Limbaugh to go fuck himself when he came to them.

I am really tired of this entire sort of thing. I am sick of conservative Republicans constantly name-calling when it comes to liberals. I have heard certain individuals personally berate Hillary Clinton and others. Do you know her personally? Did she harm you in some specific way? No, she put herself through school and got elected by the people who felt she would be a positive influence on their futures. Trash her politics if you wish, but unless you know her for real then shut up already. Screaming the loudest and using the profane words get you the attention, but they also reveal your fears. I am done for now and without even touching the issues of media censorship. I simply have no more time to devote to this.

If you do not have the technical expertise (or the brains to find someone who does) to configure your web server so that it is not necessary to type a "www" prefix when going to a domain name, you should not have a website. Period.

Even more amazing are the number of Fortune 500 companies that constantly neglect these few lines of code and possibly deter customers or at least make asses of themselves. For example, several years ago I notified the so-called webmaster of the Crown Royal Whiskey Company that their print advertising displayed their domain name sans the old school prefix and was, in fact, inaccessible that way. I never received a reply to my generous observation but the problem was corrected rather swiftly.

Oh and Flash-only websites suck. Forcing your end-users (read: moneymakers) to comply to your strict requirements is illogical. Flash is an interesting technology with many practical applications but at least give me the option to skip the annoying animated buttons, splash screens, introduction pages and noisy transition effects by suppling an HTML version as well. No, actually do not even bother. Your site probably contains nothing useful anyway.

I used to really like Peeps but as I got older my tolerance for sugar and sweet things diminished from an already low level. Now I can stomach one simply for the hell of it. Usually after gorging myself on ham and Polish sausages.

I have nothing to add to the following save to indicate it was written by my best friend Erica and that I was unaware of the events contained therein up until the time I read it just moments ago.

This is a two part story. The tale of yesterday and today, for there is much more than a sunset that seperates them. The shift, one that turned the tide within the rumbling oceam of my self confidence, has happened, and with the cessation of life from one body may have come the wake up call that allowed me to take an opportunity by the balls...perhaps...

Work. 11 AM. After just returning from the bathroom, I find a meter maid screaming on the sidewalk. She's on her back, thrashing about. Spasms seem to retake her tensed up form each time someone tries to talk to her or to comfort her. Understand, I only saw the woman in blue, with her white socks and the tears streaming down her face. She was black, ebon hair peeked from beneath her uniform hat. I did see her cry. Mascara streaked down her cheeks. Eyes squeezed shut. The two people near her tried to get her to calm down. I still didn't understand why she was having a panic attack on the sidewalk on Pine Street. Then the man to her left, trying to soothe her pain, moved. Then I understood.

Across the street, a woman lying on the sidewalk. Lay is wrong. She was not lying there; she was dying there. Such beautiful hair, dark, shiny waves, like my own, fell from her pale face. Her skin looked soft. Her face swollen, like someone who has cried too hard. Each labored breath she took seemed unnatural. "She's moving. She's moving" someone said behind me. But she wasn't, not really. Her chest did rise and fall, at uneven incriments. It was her body trying so hard to keep air in her lungs. The infrequency did not allow for a fully functional breathing. Just her body trying to keep itself alive. I could see her dark lashes flutter. I wondered if she was dreaming. Did she know that people gawked at her from Maui Jack's? Was she hurting? Her body was all unnatural angles. She had shattered.

The crowd did not rush to help her. They were all frozen as I was, just staring at the wounded woman, no more than 35, dying on the street. Someone finally took her pulse. A woman, in her mid 40's brushed the hair back from her face, like a mother would for a sick child. She kept her hand on the broken neck for eons it seemed, but shook her head. Too shattered to turn over, for fear of breaking or rupturing something further, the crowd left her alone, waiting helplessly until professional help arrived. The breaths, more infrequent seemed to stop.

The paramedics that rushed her into the waiting truck, stayed at that spot for too long. They did not turn on the sirens as they left. Just the lights. No horns. Just the blaring lights guided her to the hospital. I think I probably watched her take her last breath. They did not rush to take her away, doing a 3 point turn in the middle of the street. They didn't rush, because she was already gone.

I am still not sure if she jumped. What I do know is that she came down off the 6th floor of the Pine Street parking garage, hit the railing on the second floor, denting the steel pipe, hit the lightpost, coming down to rest just at the foot of the lightpost, in front of the door to the garage. The meter maid, parked next to the parking lot attendant, saw her fall, which sent her into a panic attack. The wounded woman fell so hard that her tennis shoe landed on the other side of the street, right side up. What I found strange was that she came down with her purse, it's contents littered the street. Her purse exploded open, just as her body imploded on impact. She was wearing a white shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. Her hair was dark mahogany brown. Very wavy. Very familiar. The image of her eye lashes fluttering over pale cheeks with sit with me forever. A reminder that I almost jumped once, or twice. I feel for her. For the pain that drove her (assuming she did jump) to her death on a public street. It was 11 A.M. I had just gone to work. And I am sure I watched a stranger die.

I can't tell you how this has effected me. I found myself horrified by the callous remarks from my co-workers. After some thought I realized it was how they distanced themselves from the action on the street. Death stared at them from the body of the shattered woman. A reminder of mortality, and these kids, all partiers and drinkers, did not want that kind of buzzkill on a Wednesday morning, so tact went out the window. But while they may not be effected, I am. I sent many blessings to that woman, that achingly familiar woman. I fought long and hard not to jump. So many years of wanting to, so many years of not understanding what was at stake. So I sent her blessings, hoping that if she did pass, that it was quickly. I hope she met her maker and that she gained the peace and love she obviously didn't have in this life. If she does live, I wish her a speedy recovery and hope that the fall changed things for her, for the better. I hope it refocuses her life, as it has my own. But most of all, I prayed for her pain to be gone.

After the tears and the shock had faded, I realized I have nothing to lose, so my interview with OUC had to happen and I had to rock their world. And I did. For some reason, seeing the shattered woman made me realize that I don't have the luxury of letting life lead me by the hand. It's balls are mine to take. So I went in, played up my computer skills, my orginzational skills and made them laugh as much as possible. I think I nailed it. I have never been this pleased with an interview before. It is down to me and 2 other people. A 1 in 3 chance isn't bad. But I didn't hold back this time. I wasn't meek. I wasn't shy. I told them what I thought they needed to hear, and didn't regret one word that came out of my mouth. If I get this job (which I really think will happen this time) I will find out next week. It's a lot more money. Much better benifits. Perfect hours (6-3, so I can still take classes). It's not downtown but its close. So cross your fingers and your toes everyone. I think the tide is turning...

And send a blessing to the wounded woman...I think she needs it more than I do.