Since I didn’t realize this comment was in moderation, I’m going to reply to it directly through a new entry. In my Spiritual Growth entry, Brian Westley wrote:

As an atheist and a member of Scouting For All (an organization that is trying to convince the BSA to stop excluding gay and atheist/agnostic Scouts), I’d be interested to know if you agree or disagree with the BSA’s policy of excluding atheists/agnostics. It sounds like you were an atheist in Scouting for several years, and could have been kicked out if your atheism became known.

Honestly, I do agree with it. The BSA was founded many years ago on a specific set of principles that have barely been changed since the beginning. And because of the way the organization exists, it is not required by law to allow gay or atheist/agnostic scouts to participate, nor should it have to. I don’t agree with changing the principles of an organization that’s as old as the BSA, because of the repercussions it could cause. As a proud Scout, I’m aware of the values that Scouting instills in young people, and those values will stick with me until the day I die.

The Scout Oath and Law is as it has been and will not (should not) change.

Edit: Actually, I made a bit of a mistake here. I misinterpreted Scouting for All’s Goal when first looking at the Website. After reading up more on a few things and doing a bit of personal research, I can say that I actually do back the movement they propose. I’m going to contact my Scoutmaster tomorrow and get his opinion on things and see what he thinks about the movement.

So, Ruzena went to bed just a little while ago … And I have to say that today has probably been the best Valentine’s Day I’ve had in my life, thusfar. Everything went about as perfect as we could’ve expected it to. A lot of times more perfect. Her Valentine’s Day stuff arrived just as she was getting home from school, and mine showed up here later this evening. She’s such a wonderful girl … Very creative and even more thoughtful. She hand-made a Valentine’s Day card with a beautiful poem in it that was very meaningful. I also got a nifty little “message in a bottle” which was also very sweet and very meaningful.

But, what really made my day was the recording she sent me of her school’s talent show. We live so far apart, so being able to actually see my beautiful girl perform, even if it is a recording, is by far the best gift she could’ve ever given me. I love you, sweetie.

I won’t say what I got her. I’ll let her tell all of you, if she so pleases. But, it wasn’t near as creative as all of this.

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day, and hoping some particularly grouchy people will realize that this is supposed to be a special day and a day of happiness. If you’re not having an especially good one, don’t ruin it for others. That’s just not fair, people.

… so does anyone know if FedEx will battle a snow storm to deliver something on the date it was specifically paid for to be delivered?

I’ve come back and re-hashed this entry over and over again several times now. I’m just re-writing it from scratch. This entry pretty much details my spiritual growth from when I claimed Atheism to my change to Agnosticism and finally my arriving where I am now, in Christianity. Religious subject matter contained within, so if you can’t handle that, please don’t bother. Inflammatory comments will be promptly removed.

(more…)

I’ve been wanting to start using PHP6 snapshots as part of my development process to ensure that my work (especially the Engine) is forward-compatible with the changes being made across the PHP Core. So, I set out on a little endeavor to make the PHP6 snapshots work in WAMP.

First, you’re going to need the latest version of WAMP. So, go to the site using the link above and grab the download. Now, my change is based on the PHP 4.4.4 Add-On (also, don’t install this Add-On if you want the switch to work properly), so it’s pretty simple to do.

Go grab the latest Win32 6.0-dev Snapshot from snaps.php.net. You’re going to need to extract this into your wamp directory as “php6″ so that you’ve got <path_to_wamp>\php6\php6apache2.dll … Now, copy the php.ini-dist file into <path_to_wamp>\Apache2\bin\ and rename it to php6.ini. You’re also going to want to open this file and change your extension_dir to <path_to_wamp>/php6/ext/ …

Now, save this file into your <path_to_wamp>\scripts\ directory as switch.php … You may have to modify this file to change the line:

$mphp6 = “php5_module”;

to

$mphp6 = “php6_module”;

This tripped me up last night, because php6apache2.dll was still registering as php5_module as of last night’s snapshot. I poked the internals mailing list and found this out from Antony Dovgal, who also said that this should be fixed in the next snapshot. I haven’t tested this to see if it has been fixed yet, though.

Anyway, after you’re done with all of the above, fire up WAMP and then open the command line. cd to <path_to_wamp>\scripts\ and then php switch.php (assuming you’ve got a path to a PHP binary in your system path — if not, you’ll need to use <path_to_wamp>\php\php.exe switch.php). This should shutdown Apache and swap out the PHP5 data for your PHP6 data. After it’s complete, and Apache restarts, check your phpinfo() and you should see PHP 6.0.0-dev.

And that’s all there is to it.

For those of you who are unaware, today is Ruzena’s birthday. So, since she can’t be here to announce it herself, I’ll do it for her.

Happy 18th, sweetie.

I’m feeling super productive, today … I think it’s because I’m really happy already, this morning.

Thank you, sweetie.