RICHMOND- Governor Bob McDonnell’s proposal to increase the speed limit in Virginia to 70mph in rural and less populated areas was approved today by both chambers of the General Assembly. The Governor’s measure received broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.  In the House, Delegate Bill Carrico (R-Galax) carried the bill. Senator Steve Newman (R-Lynchburg) patroned the bill in the Senate. Both bills are identical. Each bill must still be voted on by the other house prior to being sent to the Governor’s desk for his signature.

Speaking about today’s vote, Governor McDonnell remarked, “I thank Delegate Bill Carrico and Senator Steve Newman for their successful advocacy of this important proposal to speed up traffic in rural and less populated sections of Virginia. As today’s votes in both chambers demonstrate, there is broad bipartisan support for this common-sense idea. 32 states already have 70mph speed limits, and 13 allow motorists to drive 75mph. This slight increase in our speed limit will be safe for motorists and help get Virginians to their destinations a little quicker each day. This is an important early step towards our common goal of improving transportation in the Commonwealth.”

Senator Steve Newman noted, “Increasing the speed limit to 70mph on Virginia’s highways will help commuters get to their destinations more quickly and safely.  Virginia now joins 33 other states that have increased their speed limits above 65mph and I applaud Governor McDonnell’s leadership on this issue.”

Delegate Bill Carrico added, “I’m pleased that the bill to increase the speed limit on rural stretches of highway to 70mph has passed both houses of the General Assembly.  This is a common-sense reform that will make sure highway traffic moves at a more uniform speed on Virginia’s highways.”

HB 856 can be read here:

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=101&typ=bil&val=HB856

SB 537 can be read here:

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=101&typ=bil&val=SB537

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There seems to be quite a bit of sales propaganda out there deferring people from one technology or the other, stating that Plasma tvs will die faster or that LCD tvs need to have their light changed every few hundred thousand hours, but still no clear facts why I should choose one technology over the other.

The main deciding factor for me was the price and the fact that I recently found out that my wife’s TV, since before we met, is a Plasma TV and the quality and longevity is amazing.  She has had the TV for almost 5 years without any problems or loss in quality and no burn in.

Finding that Plasma tvs are almost half the price of a comparable LCD tv the decision was quite clear.  Over the holiday weekend I was able to pick up a 50 inch plasma tv for about 750 dollars, where a similar 50 inch LCD tv would have cost me well over 1500 dollars.  The quality is outstanding, combined with the price makes the TV in my opinion one of the best deals out there.  Even if the TV dies in 2.5 years I can still buy a second plasma TV and still pay less than I would have for the same LCD TV.

I’m guessing that the price difference has to do with simple economics of supply and demand.  If everyone wants LCD TVs because they think they are superior in every aspect, then suppliers are going to jack up the price and the opposite is true with plasma.  So thank you consumers for allowing me the ability to purchase a 50 inch plasma TV for under 800 dollars.

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This happens in many aspects of our lives.  We are in a job that we hate but don’t leave because either we think there are no other options or are forced to stay because of self inflicted obligations such as over extended debt load or improper planning, the first probably being the cause of the second.  Maybe we are in a relationship that everyone knows is toxic, but we stay because change is hard.

There is a simple pattern here, the simple need for change in a situation that requires some action to see improvement.  Maybe the relationship does not need a drastic change to see a drastic improvement, or maybe your job could simply be improved by changing your outlook and reducing the negative.  In the end bad situations require some sort of cause to have any sort of effect.

The question can then be simplified to, why does someone not change?  First, to change requires some sort of action and commitment to an action.  Without action there is no change, without change you will be exactly where you are today as you were yesterday.  Second if you commit to change, stay committed to that action until change has been accomplished.  The third and most important thing is to commit to actionable actions.  This means create actions that you can actually do, like wake up in the morning with a smile instead of hatred or complacency.  Instead of actions like be happy or loose weight.

Back on topic, in the case of couples, applying the topic of change, most cases (unmarried) couples stay together because they don’t like to be alone – fear of change.  Going from with something or someone, no matter how toxic, to being alone even though being alone would reduce stress and toxicity in your life is such a fearful change that it will normally take substantial energy to make it happen.

The same theories can apply to married couples however, in their case the change would have to be between both people to see if it is possible to save the marriage before it has gone to far in the wrong direction.  Because marriage is not the same as someone you are dating.  By the time you are married you have made a commitment to another person to stay with them through thick and thin no matter what.  So lets hope you found the right person before you decided to marry, which makes solving complicated relationship problems far more easy when you are both on the same track and lets hope you work out problems when they arrise instead of letting them build up for years and blow up when one of you leaves a dish in the sink and the other blows up.

I’m not sure if this topic can be answered in a single post.  Over the years I have helped out many people through their relationship issues and have realized that each situation, being as unique as each person, all have a common theme.  Change is evident so get ready, because if your life sucks right now you are going to have to start at the basics and implement changes before it can get better.

If anyone is having relationship issues and would like to have someone to talk to, please feel free to comment below and I can get in touch with you.  I don’t have all the answers but sometimes its just good to talk to someone that doesn’t know anything about you and can take things in a neutral perspective.

Cheers!

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Overall the theme was relatively easy to install.  I had a one major issue with a plugin conflict, but other than that, after deactivating the plug-in, everything was up and running Perfectly!After getting everything setup I decided that this theme was just to sweet to clutter with a bunch of different widgets.   Ive currently got my whole mess of sidebar widgets disabled so that I may enjoy this amazing Refraction RocketTheme!  The design is very clean and RocketTheme adds a few of their custom modules such as RokBox and RokTabs that have been proven in their Joomla themes many times over.

For those of you who hated the configuration and time it took to get things going with a Joomla template, you will find this whole process very refreshing.  The guys over at RocketTheme really deserve some credit for their work and well deserve the cost of subscription.

For those of you not familiar with RocketTheme, they create high quality themes for Joomla, WordPress and phpBB. Their pricing plan is very reasonable for the individual user, and great for individuals who like to change up their designs every so often.

You have the option to purchase themes on a subscription basis.  This means that if you buy one month of themes you are able to use any of their currently available themes for the duration of your month.  With a year subscription, you are able to download and use anything they have now plus any new themes that might come out during the duration of your subscription time.  There are additional license agreements based on the total number of sites you will be deploying your themes on.  If you are a developer who is trying to resell their themes they have a plan for you as well.

Overall I have a renewed respect for the RocketTheme group.  I have always admired their theme’s they put out for Joomla, but was never able to use them because I was never able to justify the headache of implementing Joomla.

Thanks RocketTheme!

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After some digging I found that when doing a “ls -l”, none of the file permissions were setup on any of the folders that were being synced.  After looking on the internet, all the articles lead me to believe I needed to set my CYGWIN variable to ntsec.

So I went ahead and set my CYGWIN variable to ntsec, but the problem was still there.  I had a little plus at the end of the file permissions list and none of them were set.  It looked something like this.

d———+

I had almost given up when I found an old program I was using before, which is a stripped down version of cygwin and rsync with a cmd file for doing the sync.  In there I discovered that they set the CYGWIN variable to nontsec!

So there it is, I set CYGWIN to nontsec and everything worked great!

For those of you who would like the steps to permanently fix this, here they are.

1. Make sure you have vim or some other editor installed.
2. Edit your .bash_profile in your home directory.  $ vim ~/.bash_profile
3. Add this line to the bottom of the file:    export CYGWIN=”nontsec”
4. Save the file and quit.  for vim type :qw
5. Restart cygwin

You should now see file permissions setup on all your directories and files!

I hope this helps out someone else who fould all the posts out there to be very confusing and not very informative!

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The coolest job ever

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on an island? How about live on an island, play all day, and Get PAID for it!

I was wondering around the internet and came across this article on yahoo that talks about just that. The winner of the job will get to stay (for free) in a 3 bedroom beach house complete with pool and golf buggy!

“They’ll also have to talk to media from time to time about what they’re doing so they can’t be too shy and they’ll have to love the sea, the sun, the outdoors,” said acting state Premier Paul Lucas.

To top it all off, the winner will be paid a 105k U.S. Salary! Where do i sign up!!!

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For instance, how many of you have thought to yourself how cool Joomla is going to be and how easy everyone makes it sound to work with. Then once you start working with it you almost immediatly want to throw your computer out of the window becaues you can’t find something as simple as how to change the main site title! I know most of you remember those nintendo days! Good thing they made them out of extremely durable plastic or I would have broken the controller the second day after opening the box!

One of the biggest improvements that could be added to joomla would be a visual module and content management system. For instance, I could log in as an administrator and immediatly start moving around the modules and adding content, without having to sort through pages of content/module lists. I could also add modules in this similar fasion.

Of course module developers would have to adhear to this ability, but I believe that a greater adoption of the platform could be accomplished with a greater focus on ease of manipulation of the content. Because after all it is a content management system. Making products for the rest of us, not just the best of us is what makes a great product that gets an even greater adoption rate.

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Its friday everyone and my friend chris just broke a quarter of a centry, which means its time to wander out to DC for some partying. This event has reminded me that DCChaos needed to get back on the ground, which is why ive been working on it lately.

This has brought me to my last post about joomla and its frustrations. I would really like to use joomla because RocketTheme.com has some sweet templates. I just hope I can get Gallery2 Integrated smoothly. Ive appropriatly got the winter theme up there since ive been trying to get out to the mountains a couple of time this winter.

So in the words of Deadmau5 “Sometimes things get complicated” so just shutup and party!

Head on over to DC Chaos to check it out and let me know what you think of my progress.

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Frustrated, originally uploaded by Fallout75.

One of the main things that i like so much about wordpress is that its so simple to use. Over at RocketTheme.com, they make some great templates and I myself am a subscriber, however, ive never been able to use one of them for myself becuase i could never justify the headache to use and maintain the joomla product! When it comes to getting content on the net, wordpress has most things beat hands down.

I would, one day, like to use joomla for something interesting, but until then wordpress is my goto publisher for all things web content.

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I guess I can just watch a YouTube video while I wait for service to become available again, “fewest dropped calls” my ass. As most of you can tell by now, I switched over from Verizon. Best damn phone service in the land IMO!

As much as I hate the service, I think im still going to have to stay with AT&T just beause the iPhone is just so damn amazing, with full Web browsing support, and the HUGE number of Free and Paid applications. Its just a clear winner for me. I just hope i dont end up throwing my phone out the window when I need to make a call and can’t.

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