Category: Uncategorized

Remember your first homecoming? Good Lord, I do. Music, French Duck, Bees, and Matt Barnson.

The fall of 1991 was an interesting time for me. I had a new girlfriend who was a year older than me, and although that relationship was fine.. I was really much more interested in her best friend. Ah, to be 16 again. So I promptly dumped my girlfriend, asked the friend to homecoming, got turned down, and promptly asked my new EX to go with me again, and please to be my girlfriend.

Got it so far?

So, wrapped up in this soap opera was my good friend Matt, the senior who had adopted me, and best of all.. he had a car. Now, I was a poor boy, and really had spent all I had getting my ridiculous suit, so Matt and I came up with a brilliant idea. First, prepare a gourmet french dinner, Duck a l’orange. Second, prepare a suitable after dance activity, (getting a friend to loan us a hot tub). Third, write a song, to be performed as a duet, to our dates.

The gourmet dinner was to be served by our friend, Van Lindberg, doing his best waiter imitation. Matt was going to drive, and a romantic teenage night was to be had by all.

We really had no interest in the parties, the drinking, the limos.. we were going to wow the girls with our creativity and ability to create this romantic situation all by ourselves.

Two days before the date, Matt and I took a full afternoon to write the chorus to “Holdin’ Hearts, Holdin’ Hands” and had the whole shebang set up. “May I have This Dance, Holdin’ Hearts, Holdin Hands? May I look into your eyes the whole night through? Tell me, can your heart believe What your eyes couldn’t see? How I’ve hoped and dreamed of someday holding you.”

Sweet, eh?

Matt’s date, Ranj and my girlfriend, were to be picked up by Matt and I the next day in his station wagon. We had everything planned out.

The next day, I was going to be picked up by Matt at school, we were going to go to pick up the corsages (to be chilled at our houses) and we were going to place the finishing touches on the song, the night, and this experience that was going to be Homecoming.

I waited and waited at school, and no Matt. i called his house again and again.. and no Matt. (no Cel phones in those days).. finally, i get an out of breath Matt on the phone as evening approached and I was about to board the Ride-On bus to go back to my house in Rockville.

“Dude.. there’s a problem” “Where are you, you were supposed to be here an hour and a half ago” Matt sighs, “I was walking home” “From where?” “The ditch where I crashed my car”

I was stunned. Our plans revolved around having independant transportation. As it turns out, a lone Bee (was it honey or Bumble) had attacked Matt in the car, and in an effort to swat it away, Matt had caused the untimely demise of his lovely limo of love.

Well, this was it.. there was no way we were going to escape from this situation. In 24 hours, 2 lovely dates-to- be were awaiting their romantic evening, the Corsages were paid for, the Chicken ready to be cooked. The song, unfinished languished on paper in my notebook.. and it looked very much like all was going to be for naught..

or was it? TO BE CONTINUED…

If you have a spare 45 to 60 minutes today, read the latest essay over at ejectejecteject.com. The only problem I ever have with Bill’s work is that, well, he goes on for a really, really long time. His skills as an essayist are improving, but growing more wordy at the same time 🙂

The topic of this essay is America’s use of “The God Button”, as well as an overall look at historical use of power, and the maturity of the human race in dealing with it.

A far-ranging essay.

As the de-facto world superpower, will history consider the period of American dominance as a remarkable period of relative peace and prosperity? Historically, dominance of a large area by a single power usually prefaced remarkably violence-free societies at the core.

And, predictably, these periods of prosperity and peace were rudely interrupted by unexpected violence.

Which end of the yardstick of time are we on now? I’m not entirely certain. Is it possible to constrain power, and people, using a democratic society? Are we a self-regulating system that can prevent corruption and a seemingly inevitable failure and revolution?

Well, enough of my ramblings. Go read the essay. He has several hundred comments on his site already regarding it, and my small contributions are lost in the rabble– as well as often wildly disagreeing with what he has to say. And agreeing just as wildly.

A co-worker wondered aloud the other day, after compiling a Linux kernel, how he could add drivers without re-compiling the entire kernel. I wasn’t sure how to do it at the time.

Now I am!

So, here’s how you compile an individual driver when you’ve FUBAR’d and forgotten to do it. This only works with ones you’ll need as modules (because in order to get one “into” the kernel, such as Reiserfs, you’d need to recompile the kernel anyway). Just kind of got stumbling around with gcc tonight, and found a combination that works…

Be aware, though, that with certain drivers that strongly touch others, I understand that you may need to re-do “make clean”, “make menuconfig” (or oldconfig, xconfig, config, whatever you use to configure your kernel), and “make dep” to get these to build. Also, if they are drivers that should be in the kernel when you boot, you’ll either need to rebuild your kernel or rebuild your initrd — which is a topic for another day 🙂

Of course, change the path to your linux kernel sources. This is a gaming kernel I’m hacking drivers on tonight while I’m home.

 gcc -I/usr/src/linux-2.4.20-gaming-r3/include -include \ /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-gaming-r3/include/linux/modversions.h \ -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ -O6 -c sg.c

This was to compile the “sg.c” driver, when I was in the /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-gaming-r3/drivers/scsi/ directory. The -I (note the lack of any space in the path after) option is basically “Include this stuff”, with an additional include to modversions.h so you don’t end up with a version mismatch.

Worked a charm for me; I copied sg.o to /usr/lib/modules/2.4.20-gaming-r3/kernel/drivers/scsi/ and the did an “insmod sg.o”, and (since this is Gentoo), added “sg” and “ide-scsi” (in that order) to my /etc/modules.autoload.d, and everything was beautiful.

In large part, the reason I committed this to my blog is so that I don’t forget how to do it. I was really, really not looking forward to recompiling my entire kernel tonight because I forgot to include the “sg.o” module (generic scsi support, necessary for CD burning in Linux). What a relief; this took like 10 minutes of research, and about 30 seconds of compiling to make work!

Now, I realize there’s a bit of a language barrier, but the twisted logic of this middle eastern soldier takes the cake.

My favorite part of the rant to American reporters:

The American people want to destroy the Muslim, want to force on us their values. I cannot be a Muslim, that’s the whole problem between me and the American people. If I am a Muslim, then I am a terrorist and I am not a terrorist.

Original Article available Here.

I have two words to say. And the first one is a male bovine.

I adore people for who they are. I have no vendetta against Muslims or any other religion. And I think I represent all the American people when I say that I want peace in the Middle East, and peace on our homefront. In this case, the only apparent way to gain peace was to go to war and root out the plague infesting the communities over there.

The plague there is the same as it is here, from my point of view: Fundamentalism. People cling so tightly to completely irrational points of view, and create these enclaves of superstition and lies. When you are within the group-think of such an organization, though (and I use the term “organization” lightly — in some cases, it can just be beer-drinking buddies that convince themselves racism is a good thing or something), it’s really tough to get out.

And I don’t think Fundamentalists generally see the problem here. That’s the core of the issue: if you’re deeply involved with an irrational group, you often have no awareness of the depth of your delusion.

Note that I’m speaking of Fundamentalism in the sense of people wanting to revert to “old” values and beliefs simply because they are old. Believing the world is flat and the moon missions were faked because the sky is actually a big scroll, because that’s what’s taught in the Bible, is an example of a fundamentalist belief. It’s a belief beyond logic or reason, and it’s really tough to reach people there.

The only solution to this, from where I sit, is enlightened culture. Promotion of reading, discussion of ideals. Organized programs to introduce all of the population to discussion of philosophy and dialogue. Availability at all levels of income and education to education. Easy access to public libraries, with very reasonable costs for the area to access it.

Of course, given the level of fundamentalist, irrational belief even here in the United States, I realize this is a pipe dream. But at the very least, if we can educate leaders and critical people in these organizations, not to try to prove to them the error of their ways, but to expose them to a wider world of options, we can make a positive difference.

The initial thought that I have is that, some sort of exchange program, where adults with families from both sides are given the chance to live with one another could be a real kick in the pants. Maybe a year at a time or something, with employment provided on both sides.

Obviously, there are a ton of details that would have to be worked out to make this kind of thing work. And personality conflicts are a multi-cultural phenomenon. But, if we affected the life of just one teenager, to work for good on both sides of the pond, maybe it would be worth it.

I’ll have to stew on this a while, and figure out if it’s worth my time to pursue such a venture, or just continue to sit on the sidelines and armchair quarterback the involvement of the U.S. in the Middle East.

It’s nice to see that Bugzilla is getting multi-language support; in this case, as of October 1 2003, it can handle Korean competently. I haven’t been active in the project for several years now, other than very rarely submitting a documentation fix. However, they’ve been working on multi-lingual support now for quite some time, and now you can run Bugzilla in more languages than I can pronounce!

Not to toot my own horn here, but if you’re interested in more information, try the documentation. Yeah, that’s my name up there. I undertook the original Herculean task of writing this stuff, and from what I can tell off-the-cuff, it’s still roughly 80% my work. However, the remaining 20% is far better written and maintained 🙂

As many of you know, I’m out of a job here by October 31, 2003. That looks much, much closer on this side of September than it did before! That’s only 29 days away. My goal is to walk onto a new job Nov 3, 2003. Here’s hoping. And I’m working my butt off to get there 🙂

Anyway, one of my final projects here is to get some LDAP integration into our Postfix gateway so people won’t have to muck so much with configuration files. That’s all well and good, but it seems sometimes much tougher than it really is. So I had pointed out to me this HOWTO that runs right through it. The principal difference between the way he’s doing it, and the way I’m doing it, is that he’s checking the attributes of users directly, whereas I’m adjusting aliases & stuff in an “ou=System” category so that the system configuration is a bit more separate from the user config. The main reason for this is that our users internal email addresses don’t match their external, “address book” email addresses.

It’s a bit of a kluge, but it will work out.

I’m also working on integrating our PopTop VPN into our LDAP tree to serve VPN accounts from LDAP as well. It should be an interesting 29 days.

I’ll be experimenting with different themes for barnson.org over the next few days, as I try to incorporate Jon Brusco’s graphics, and correct a whole bunch of HTML problems with the theme I’m using, called “polder”.

“Polder” is really cool, handles stuff in a really nifty way, but unfortunately just doesn’t adhere to HTML standards well. I’m a big fan of validating my HTML, and looking at the number of changes I’d have to make to polder to make it valid transitional HTML is just exhausting, so I’ll probably be using another theme as a basis to create mine.

Wish me luck!

I’m on a “recovery group” mailing list, where we discuss many different things, including life after Mormonism. I posted news of my affliction to the group. Here’s part of the posting that didn’t go up on my weblog yesterday:

How does this relate to Recovery from Mormonism? Sometimes, when I’m deep in the throes of an attack, I find myself screaming inside my head “why me, why me?” There is no answer. Occasionally I wonder if, since this occurred after my break with Mormonism, if this is God’s punishment for an unbeliever.

Yet I view the TNA [Trigeminal Neuralgia Support –MPB] web site. Many millions of people suffer this disorder. Some are almost surely faithful LDS. The logical part of my brain knows that the failure of the myelin sheath on my trigeminal nerve is a totally natural process that is simply a failure in the way the human body has evolved. Perhaps in earlier times, it was a “neutral drift” in evolution that allowed these to happen, since although it’s incapacitating, it’s not fatally so. Or, maybe, this is a result of a car accident I was in 16 years ago, which resulted in partial and temporary loss of hearing in one ear, great pain and soreness on the right side (same side!) of my head for a few days, and reduction of my height by about one inch. Who knows?

Yet the primitive part of my brain still cries out for some kind of father or mother, and the safety and reassurance of not having to think inside the Church, which can make everything all right. A part of me wants the reassurance that “Perhaps this is a trial of your faith; endure to the end and you’ll be rewarded.”

Nobody can make it all right, though; we can only operate, or give me drugs, or try to help me manage my pain.

That sucks.

I received some really great responses to my posting; I’ve edited them slightly. It’s been a tremendous lift, though, to know there are rational people out there who think like me, and can help me see past my pain.

This from “Candle Magic”:

I am so sorry. It does sound like it sucks. I understand chronic pain. I have three herniated disks in my back. I use self-hypnosis for pain control, and when it is really bad, I resort to pain killers and pull the covers over my head. Even though I left the Mormon church, some of the old threats of eternal punishment comes to mind when things go wrong. Brainwashing can have lasting effects.

Best wishes and I hope you find a treatment option that will relieve your pain.

This next, from “Carol” (emphasis mine):

Matthew, I totally understand your pain. I have Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia, and the pain is often so excruciating and there is absolutely nothing that I can do for it…..pain pills won’t touch the pain…..it’s raw nerve pain and there is nothing worse and it isn’t something anyone will understand except those who suffer.

Fortunately my episodes come and go so my pain isn’t constant. I can always tell when it is going to happen because there are warning signs……I have been getting head massages (from someone who does rolfing work) when I feel it coming on and it seems to help alleviate the pain some. Good luck to you.

–Carol

I asked Carol for an explanation of her affliction:

Yeah, that’s the most maddening thing. I way overdosed on Midol, Tylenol, and Aspirin all in the same day, and none of them seemed to have *any* effect. I was totally unused to this, I mean, usually Midol cures my headaches or whatever, but that kind of medicine did absolutely zero for this.

That was really frustrating. I finally decided to do some reading online to find out what matched my symptoms. My teeth ached, you know, but it didn’t feel like “rotten tooth” or something that needed a root canal. The pain is way, way back in the jaw, and the fact it made my teeth hurt seemed like an afterhtought. I found out some common causes (TNA being the most common), lined up my symptoms, saw what matched, and I think I already knew what it was before walking in the doctor’s office. Once I described what it was, he almost immediately said it was TNA which was gratifying because I don’t think I told him what I thought it was. Go, go, Internet! Power to the people.

What medication are you on? My doc put me on Neurontin, and after using it for a day, so far there seem to be few effects except I feel really light-headed. The pain isn’t constant like it was on Saturday, and the severity of the episodes (that I can feel coming on, too — it’s weird, it’s like the small little tingle and you know it’s turning into a storm) has diminished somewhat, but I’m still hauling out my hot & cold packs regularly…

What exactly is “Glossopharyngeal”? Something to do with the pharynx?

It is another rough thing; people just don’t understand the severity of this pain. They can’t see it. I mean, my wife is really compassionate, but when I’m in the middle of an attack and just moaning in my chair, I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t understand this pain that nobody can see, and it bothers her.

Glad there’s someone on the list who understands.

This was her response:

Glossopharyngeal neuralgia is another form of occipital neuralgia, (occipital of course meaning from the neck up…there’s a web site dedicated to explaining all forms of occipital neuralgia).

My episodes begin with little twinges, and often a sore throat on one side. Before long, the sharp nerve pains begin, which can last anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. Swallowing soon becomes something that I dread doing……there is no rhythm nor pattern to the pain…..just that it soon takes over my whole life and there are times that I wish my life would soon end. It is so dreadful.

I have also tried Neurontin, with no success, and I don’t like the side affects. During each episode, I rant and rave and holler and cuss and say “why me?”, knowing that it happens to many others, just not many people I know. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but not this pain. And how do we describe it to others? It’s not possible. I hope this bout you are having leaves you soon!

This from “Kathleen”:

OMG! I am so sorry Matthew……………I had the same thought. “Oh of COURSE, he’s going to get this the minute he doesn’t believe anymore!”

What a joke!

There is an exmo [former Latter-Day Saint – Matthew] that I know of who got MS just weeks after leaving the church. His whole family believes it’s a punishment from gawd for denouncing the truth.

Matthew you KNOW that isn’t the case. You really know it with all your heart. It’s just the f’n luck of the draw.

It sounds like there is some kind of help for this down the road?????

Kathleen

My response to Kathleen:

Thanks so much for writing me back, Kathleen… my post was definitely a plea for sympathy and support in knowing this isn’t some God-given punishment for rejecting the Church.

I announced I was an atheist in August of 2002 (over a year ago.) The timing now is difficult, though, because I just recently made “the next step” — not wearing garments, not paying tithing, etc. I intend no further steps; I’m comfortable in the knowledge that I am not financially supporting an organization I don’t agree with.

But anyway, people are going to assume “dude, this is what happens when you stop paying your tithing”. Ugh. It’s that old rule of “counting the hits and ignoring the misses”; how many Mormons get debilitating diseases? How many who’ve left Mormonism are perfectly healthy?

This was just what I needed to hear! Thank you!

I’m on a drug called “Neurontin”. Turns out my neighbor, who is a non-garment-wearing but active Mormon (OK, go figure on that, but she’s a really cool gal with her head on straight that I think goes to church for the social aspect), has similar nerve problems, but in her leg, and takes the same medication. It’s wonderful to have someone face-to-face I can talk with about this.

For most people, the symptoms come and go. So I’ll be on this drug for 2-3 months, then we’ll try to see what happens when I stop using it. If symptoms recur, we try again, perhaps with a different drug (there are about six different ones to use with varying effectiveness and side effects — it really seems to depend on your body chemistry which one works). Surgery is an option, and at my age some would say the preferable option, but I’d prefer to exhaust drug alternatives before people start slicing me open and shifting my nerves around!

Thanks again for writing back, Kathleen.

And Kathleen’s response:

Well I’m so glad I could kick your ass for the morning!! :-))

I’m really glad to know there is help, and that you have support right next door. That’s great!

Hang in there bud!!

–Kathleen

“Amy” sends me her regards:

I am just a lurker on the list, but wanted to let you know I found your letter regarding Trigeminal Neuralgia of interest. My nevermo [Never Mormon — MPB] husband has suffered from this condition for years. Just recently has it been properly diagnosed and treated with medication. It has given him a new lease on life. I feel for your pain and suffering. I know that my husband went through hell with his condition.

Reading your description of what you are going through gives me an additional perspective on the condition. I am sad that I wasn’t more understanding and helpful over the past years as my husband suffered with the problem. He mostly suffered in silence, but even that got to be a drag.

Thanks again for sharing your story.

–Amy in Texas

Kaye has this to say (note that the acronym “TBM” or “tbm” stands for “True-Believing Mormon”, a term commonly used by those who have gotten out of the Church for those who are still active in the Church):

What a terrible illness! I’m sorry for you, truly.

Your feelings of “being punished for apostasy” are very much in line with mine from time to time. Although, I always am afraid that my “punishment is coming.” My fears always run in the direction of my kids being taken away from me or harmed in some way. It is irrational, but hard to shake those ingrained “boogey-men.” My tbm mom came right out and told me about a year and half ago that my father (now deceased and residing in the Celestial Kingdom) is angry with me because I am not raising my kids in the church and depriving them of the fullness of the Gospel. So, the kernel of fear that was already inside, got inflamed again by my mother who helped place it there in the first place.

I am putting together a book of exit stories (as I have mentioned form time to time.) Anyway, one of my favorites is about a man who suffered from chronic and terrible arthritis while he was a tbm. He was so sick that his wife had to help him in and out of hot baths that gave him a little comfort. His job was lost, his fortunes ruined, and this was all while asking for “healings from the brethren.” They came to his house countless times and you know what they did, right? They made it worse because he not only was in terrible agony, but he had the added guilt of thinking, “if I was just righteous enough, then the power of the Priesthood could work for me.” He went into a terrible depression, not from his illness, but from the guilt.

So, I just wanted to remind you of this – something you already knew – but maybe forget. It not only wouldn’t be better in the church, it could easily seem worse.

But, having said that, I want to just offer my condolence again. I hope you find answers and solutions that help you feel better. I know nothing about the condition you described, but I work in a hospital and will now keep my ear to the ground to find out everything I can.

Kaye

I know not everybody agrees, but online support groups are wonderful. About 80% of what passes there is just pure crap, debate, speculation, opinions, flaming, you name it. But that remaining 20% is sincere and precious, and this amazing ability to put up our own news sites, and communicate with people with common interests from around the world, and to give and receive support from them, is just wonderful.

Ten years ago, if I’d have this pain, not only was it not well-understood, it was considered largely untreatable except with some drugs with pretty horrific side effects on one’s blood. My only resource for information would have been my doctor. Today, I can find the research myself, figure out what’s wrong, and engage in dialogue with my doctor over effective treatment strategies, based on my own research.

Nobody on this planet cares as much about taking care of my body as I do.

What a noble, ennabling thing this communications medium is!

–Matthew

I’m sorry I haven’t posted much lately. Turns out that, in addition to everything else I get to do, I get the opportunity to be part of a community of people with an affliction known as “Trigeminal Neuralgia“.

TNA, as it’s sometimes called, is an irritation of the trigeminal nerve. From what my doctor told me today, the nerve leaves your brain and comes close to the skin just below and behind your ear. That soft little dimple just behind your jawbone, feel it? Yeah, that one. Well, anyway, through some poorly understood process, mostly involving positioning of arteries rubbing the myelin sheath of the nerve (although some people point to NICO, where infections cause part of your jawbone to die, as a possible suspect), this nerve becomes inflamed and just goes crazy.

From the perspective of someone who began suffering this type of pain Friday afternoon, it’s this excruciating, overpowering pain emanating from around the muscle back by my right-side jawbone hinge, with searing pain flashing through to my upper and lower teeth on the right-hand side and up past my temple and back of my right eyeball. The way I describe the pain is that it feels like someone is cutting my face and jawbone off. The pain is so intense, every time I have an episode, I seriously think I’m going to taste blood inside my mouth.

I’m having one right now as I write. Rhythmic breathing helps me manage the pain, but sometimes it’s just so intense I can do nothing but curl up in a ball and whimper in agony.

Well, that’s not much fun at all. I plan to write a bit more about this later, but for now, this will have to do.

Matthew has graciously allowed me to post a random thought here and there because honestly I don’t have the wherewithall to run my own blog.

This is not the first or probably the last time I will turn to Mr. Matt for tools that allow me to do that which I can’t on my own. It is the nature of our friendship, and so.. being that Barnson is so candid with his first person view of the world, I wanted to share a candid third person look at him.

My perspective on Matt is unique, in that he preceded me in many many ways. I arrived at Quince Orchard high school an annoying freshman who plunked on the piano and guitar and tried to write songs, most of which.. well.. sucked. I wanted to act, be in show choir, and above all not be an annoying freshman. Enter Barnson, a Senior who did everything I did.. but better. He was eccentric, loud, brave, and underneath a nice person. So, I bugged him and bugged him until he would be my friend. Well, that’s probably the story he would tell.

There are anectodes and details and trips to San Fran and homecoming and the fair, but the point is I found acceptance in trying to become like Matt.

When I was 18, I would have told you my life parallelled Matt’s in many ways, just with a delay, and not as perfect. By my senior year, I was the piano playing eccentric actor with freshmen who admired me. But like so many things, not as good. Somehow, there were always those who thought I was annoying… not like the great Matt.

But hero worship goes the way of Jackie Paper’s dragon, and I learned, from Matt himself, that he was far from perfect. When Matt returned from a 2 year absence, I admitted I had a “Single White Female” thing going on, and that I admired him. He was quick to tell me that he never felt as strong on Piano as a couple of his close friends, that he was unpopular with quite a few people, that he never felt like a super strong actor, and even after a time, that he admired things in me. “How weird”, I thought, “A human being”.

Well, if I ended the story here, it would just be a sweet homage or freaky stalker note. But there is an unexpected epilogue.

Truth to tell, our lives are starkly different now, and neither one of us would trade what he has. I find that we talk as much about those things we have different as those we have the same. See, heroes are important to kids. They help us find identity, acceptance, and they fill an important role, but that sort of relationship fades away along with interests in Social Studies, Transformers and Show Choirs.

And so, if I am to be honest, I must admit two things.. 1) Matt may not be perfect, but I think I like him better this way.

..and my Wife would call me out if I didn’t admit this second thing.

2) Okay, I still like Transformers.