Ronald Reagan died Saturday in his home. Whether you liked or loved his politics, there was an appealing universality that resonated with Americans of various ideologies.

Here’s some traits of note about Ronald Reagan:
1) Communication – he was an excellent public speaker.
2) Leadership – he led without micromanaging. He found the best people to do a job and let them do it.
3) Focus – he knew how to let go of the little details and focus on the big picture.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Ronald Reagan was that he presided over one of the more bizarre and twisted decades in the history of civilization. The 80’s were a strange, strange time. A time when KISS took off the makeup and everyone else slipped into moon boots. It was a time of Rubik’s cubes and revised tax schedules, PacMan elbow, Pablo Escobar and Family Ties. The 90’s just couldn’t touch it for weirdness and as for now, the jury is still out on the aughties. Right there at the helm of everything was the oldest man to ever serve as President. A guy who wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who was raised a Democrat but ultimately led the Republican party to the White House. He was a contradiction to some and an iconoclast to others.

Come to think of it, that’s not too shabby an epitaph at all.

The landlord finished up the ceiling fan last night just in time to present a letter stating the rent will increase next month.

No wonder he was so nice about the installation! * shakes fist *

On other fronts the sixth draft of Ridge Runner is coming along. Right now is the messy part of the process where everything starts to blur. The first 120 pages are in good shape. Past that point things get interesting coherency wise. Cut and paste too often and these things will happen.

Tech guy found an authentication scheme that I can stomach to support downloads. Basically, there will be a single page which will require registration – in other words sign up for the mailing list. As long as the registration is valid you’ll be able to read whatever is on that download page. Ideally it will remember you between visits, so there will be no need to authenticate more than once. Downside is we have to use cookies, which I wanted to avoid but the alternative is to annoy everyone every time they click the link. And that’s just not cool.

Right now the landlord is installing a ceiling fan in the kitchen. Although he’s only been in the apartment for three hours, I yearn to push him and his ladder through the window. One might consider this an unusual amount of hostility since he’s doing something to improve the place. There’s a reason.

He’s the nicest guy in the world and a good landlord in so far that if there’s a problem, he’ll fix it. But the problem is he insists on fixing whatever is broken himself. Let me repeat that, no matter how small or large the issue, he personally fixes it. Given that there are a lot of tenants in the building and the place is old, there’s always a problem to fix and thus he’s always around. And this is why I want to push his ladder through the window.

Here’s five words my landlord can not pronounce:
1) Plumber.
2) Electrician.
3) Painter.
4) Contractor.
5) I’ll finish this work today.

I’m always searching for comic yet age appropriate content on the web. It’s not easy since 70 percent of the web is porn and that’s usually not very funny. My boss sent me this one.

Now while the charter of that site sounds stupid, I found myself strangely drawn to this picture of Tori Amos. Here’s one for the Brad Pitt fans.

And really, shame on you, Hugh Grant. I don’t know what’s worse, letting the small child eat the fries or you stealing them while snuggling his mum.

Enough of that. Next up is the darker side of the Internet. Yep, disturbing auctions!. Think your second hand junk is just too freaky for a garage sale? Tired of that stuffed monkey your aunt gave you when you were five? Ready to unlock the true sentimental value of your mementos? Sell it!

Well that’s it for my alloted Internet surfing time until I bang out some pages.