Category: Uncategorized

I was thinking about the unfortunate bloated, overreaching (domestically) state of the U.S. government. It has fallen so far from the goals set forth by its founding fathers in well-known historical documents like the Constitution.

And today I was having conversations with MarkT and ChrisB about the vast control business/corporations have over the United States government.

And I just realized something that may not be a big surprise. The effect of a capitalist state is: Capitalism!

The problem is we have a Republic. Did our founding fathers want corporations to run the goverment? Probably not. Did they put suitable (infallible) safeguards in place to prevent it? In my opinion, no.

What does the Constitution say about capitalism?

I bought this leather bag today.

I’ve been courting the idea of buying one for over a year now, since I read about it in some internet article.

Paulette told me, after I ordered, that it was the last one they had.

I’m looking forward to its arrival.

I inherited a T-Mobile-locked Treo 600 a few weeks ago. Very nice device. But, being used to the screen of a Palm TX, the low-resolution, low-color screen and read-only v6 of Documents to Go (instead of Professional v7 on Treo 650 and Palm TX) on the 600 bothered me.

I immediately bought a T-Mobile-to-Go Nokia 6010 for the SIM card and popped the SIM card in the Treo. It worked great. It’s a good little phone. The speaker reverberates a bit but that may be a sign of long, hard use before I inherited it.

The T-Mobile-to-Go prepaid cellular plan I got was quite nice. Much better than Cingular’s current offerings. For $100 (plus price of phone, purchased separately but on the same receipt) I have 12 months to use 1,000 minutes. For me, that’s ample. I’d rather see someone in person than talk to them on the cell phone. And I don’t like talking to people in public places — I think that belongs somewhere more private. So this phone is mostly an emergency and convenience phone.

I considered getting a second 600 for my wife. For a while, I planned on us using a pair of 600s. After a lot of consideration and searching on eBay, I decided the limitations listed above were going to bother me until I upgraded. So I picked up a Treo 650 used on eBay for a good price ($266 shipped). Cingular-branded so add $19.99 to the price to get it unlocked.

The phone arrived in pristine condition.

Talking to T-Mobile about the possibility of getting internet access on my prepaid plan, I discovered the T-Mobile-to-Go plan includes “T-Zones” for free, which is billed as including “email, mobile web” and more. But the settings T-Mobile gave me for setting it up didn’t work.

A major bonus: After spending hours on the phone with T-Mobile and searching the web (mostly Howard Forums) I found proxy settings that allow me to browse the web nicely. I’m very happy.