Because I can. Or something.

I love geek jokes

2012-01-17T17:24:00.001-07:00

2011-12-14T20:58:00.001-07:00

Oblig. Zelda

2011-11-16T11:27:00.001-07:00

I saw this a few months ago, but need to save it here for posterity.Feel free to post this in your neighborhood bulletin board next to the free pet signs.

Not sure who did this first, but I slightly modified the wording to be the same as the original game. "Take one of these" just wasn't doing it for me, even if it's more gramatically correct.

The end of the world

2011-09-26T16:12:00.006-06:00

I had a friend pass this on to me today and got a good laugh, thought I'd share. =)

Curious about software development?

2011-08-24T10:25:00.002-06:00

Here are a few tips from some of the major interactions between people in software development.

edit: fixed image, should be un-broken now.

Been too long...

2011-08-10T10:44:00.000-06:00

... since I've posted. I'll have to fix that. Soon.

For now this is all you get!

Wisdom.

2011-04-18T09:20:00.000-06:00

I am a builder. A Maker.

And I agree with Wil Shipley. I guess that means I am a farmer as well.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

2011-04-13T17:27:00.000-06:00

I feel this way sometimes...

2011-03-31T12:06:00.000-06:00

... about movies.

Been a while...

2011-03-25T13:48:00.000-06:00

Thought this was cool.

So true....

2011-02-11T13:03:00.002-07:00

Why I don't play MMO's anymore...

Read the text.

Terrain

2011-01-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

This post was supposed to come after part 2 of my game design post. However I apparently can't be bothered with that now, I've got code to write! I'm doing no less than 3 active projects. Well, those plus some brainstorming and ideas floating around, and all that outside of work, family and church responsibilities. (I'm now teaching the 6 year olds sunday school. So far it's pretty fun!)

First, I'm working with a friend on some iPhone software to control hardware that he built. He's gotten an older iPhone 3G to control a comcast cable box and his TV. So we're probably going to go into business together to sell attachable hardware that acts as a TV remote. We'll see how that goes, we both expect to make little money off of it. I think it's hobby money for him and mostly a favor from me, but if it makes enough to cover our initial costs I'm ok with that. I mean how many people can say they have helped build hardware and software that attaches to an iPhone? =) That's project one.

Project two is a bit more public so far. You may not know that Garmin opened up their own geocaching website, opencaching.com last month. I'm looking to do with it's capabilities what I intended to do years ago. When the iPhone first allowed 3rd party apps on the app store and I thought I could work with geocaching.com to make an app. What was the point you ask? I had a plan to make geocaching software that is easy and seamless to use. That doesn't require a computer. Something you can simply use when you think about it. You can prepare offline if you'd like, but no real preparation needed. Open up the app and use it. It's been pretty fun so far to do and with this project I'm feeling like I'm (finally) hitting my stride with iOS programming. Maybe I'll even port it to android. Well, probably not, but it would be fun. You know, with all of my extra time. Doh.

Lastly is the project I'm most excited about. Mostly for my geeky self, but still something new and exciting that I've never done before. Well, not anything other than plain text. That's making games.

The end goal is to take the initial design of what I and a friend came up with in high school. Slycrel. (I really need to post about that too don't I? I need a blogging secretary) For starters though we wanted to make a simple dungeon crawl. Since after some discussion we realized that to make the entire game at first... well, it likely wouldn't get finished.

So I pulled out my favorite 2d graphics engine for iOS cocos2d. There are lots of games made with this free engine already and I've used it before in some small side projects. I then found some great tutorials on how to build a world out of tiles. It turns out that there's a really cool free application that you can download to make 2d tile-based maps and cocos2d uses it. There are 3 parts to this tutorial and I followed all 3, doing some heavy modifying to the third. That was new year's day, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I now had a ninja game where a ninja went around collecting cactus roses and bird enemies flying at him. My kids have a good time with it. What's cooler than ninjas in the desert throwing ninja stars!

I then set out to do something harder. I am not content to simply make maps and levels to go through. I want the computer to do the hard work. So I set out to learn about how I would go about making a tile map entirely within the program that uses it. The initial answer was to generate some XML files that looked the same as what was output from the tiled app. I wasn't happy with that. So I did the next best thing -- I made a template for my maps in tiled, that I could use to generate in my program. I also made my own tiles with simple graphics that I swiped from some earlier slycrel projects as well as solid colored tiles to have something definitive.

After a bunch of debugging and general grumpiness, I was able to not only throw together a map, but add crude roads and trees on top of it! nice!

Uh... great! Clown barf!

I should back up and explain what the tiles are above. Blue is water/ocean, brown is dirt/earth, green is grasslands/plains, the odd half-circles are hills and the grey represent mountains. On top of these are two different kinds of roads (straight and a bend) and trees. Not particularly map-like. It's... well, random.

Really it looks like nothing, but I had my foundation. My friend and I discussed ways to do this and he found an excellent article online about something called height maps. Shortly thereafter he made a height map implementation in java and sent it my way. After much pain with 2 dimensional arrays (sorry, TMI I'm sure, but that was the lion's share of the time embarassingly enough) I finally got it working. I modified his code a bit by porting it to objective-c for use on the iPhone and made it return percentage values for the height map. I then took the above templates and used the height map we generated (as percentages) to populate the tiles based on height, or in this case, elevation.

Here, i'll give you one of the better screenshots of my efforts. It looks almost intentional!

I'll try to get around to my part 2 post here in a few weeks.

I better run, lots to do. More later! =)

THought I previously posted this...

2010-12-23T12:30:00.004-07:00

... but I can't find it here. So I'd like you all to go to this link and read a few of these.

Your day will go better, I promise. =)

Merry Christmas!

Minecraft

2010-12-22T01:40:00.001-07:00

If you build it they will come.

Or something.

Check it out if you're into legos and building stuff. It's pretty cool from a tech point as well.

Part 2 of the last post is coming, but probably after Christmas.

Which reminds me, Merry Christmas!

Game Design Part 1

2010-11-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was little I've loved playing games. When I was small we used to play games like candyland, checkers, aggravation and (probably a little later) rack-o, war and other card games.

I was introduced to video games at age 5. It was in the fall and we were in Sears. My dad pulled me aside and showed me the atari 2600. I was glued to it and we got one for Christmas that year.

Since mid-elementary school, I've been programming with the intent of making games. I started with basic on the commodore 64. We figured out that pressing ctrl and break at once would sometimes take you back to the basic interpreter where you could view the basic source code and make modifications to variables. You could then continue the game with your (usually fatally flawed) modifications. Later at the library, there were computer magazines you could check out for a week at a time. I still remember trying to type in the game "canfield" in GW-Basic. I never got it to completely work, but I did figure out some errors in the printed magazine and got it to kind of run. I remember having no idea what the asterisk, slash or parenthesis did, though I eventually figured out it was math related. I found the issue, this is apparently January 1988 that I was working out of. I think the cover helped as well, I was also interested in astronomy at this time.

In this era I was also enamored of the Grail Quest series of books and began shamelessly plagarizing by using the contents of the first Grailquest book I owned and making it into a GW-Basic game. I never got very far but I sure did have a good time with this series and learned a ton about programming. I did ghastly things like changing the screen background color randomly as well as randomly changing the text color.

In that era I played around some with my good friend's Apple IIgs and was introduced to all sorts of good games (and good times!), playing hardball 2 while waiting for the bus, zany golf, space quest, monte carlo and others.

Later on in high school I did some BBS programming which I briefly mentioned at one point. Did I ever actually do a post about slycrel? Maybe another day. I enjoyed playing Doom and Doom 2 with the guys at school along with master of magic, civilization and others.

One of the guys I played with from school was the principle's son. There was a policy of no gaming on the school networked computers, but my friends went so far as to create a key logger that got us admin access. We played both sides of the fence, keeping other kids out (sanctioned) and playing games ourselves (unsanctioned). I got a preliminary knowledge of novell netware 4 doing that, which was very interesting to me. I've never used it since, but conceptually it was a big deal, my first real networked IT experience.

After high school I had just about given up on gaming when I found half-life. Half-life gave me faith that the rest of the world wasn't stupid and that good games were still out there. I decided to not give up on gaming at this point and still have some hope. College was just around the corner, and who knows where I would end up.

(To be continued...)

Best costume ever

2010-10-28T23:38:00.002-06:00

Check this out

2010-10-20T20:26:00.000-06:00

This story is kind of like a lottery winner story. Makes you want to go out and buy a ticket.

I should really get back to my project. Because I'm as much of a gambler as anyone out there. =)

A Family of bridge builders

2010-09-28T21:45:00.000-06:00

Over this past summer we have done a number of projects at our new land, dubbed stonehaven by the missus. After the Stonehaven dental radio commercials I expect that are on the radio all the time. Or something.

There are plenty of stories here to be told about the land. I should probably do so more often. Today we'll do a pictoral walkthrough of our own little bridge to nowhere.

As mentioned previously, there is a trail that walks around the 3 acres or so of property. It starts near the firepit, running north. As it gets to the north edge of the property it doubles back and runs fairly close to the back of the shed/cabin. This is so convenient to cut through, both kids and adults alike move

First, let's start with the river that needed the bridge. You can see the trail just beyond it here, curving to the right.

The tree off to the left is my favorite baby pine tree. Because it's my favorite, I expect it to get eaten by a deer this winter.

The stream is a bit hard to see, so let's look from another angle.

The rocks there in the middle are where the kids told me we would build the waterfall.

I should mention, that we inherited a busted metal gate and some scrap wood with the land. It sits right behind our handy toolshed. Pretty sure we're going to plant some trees in front of that, possibly as early as next year. You know, to improve the image some.

Anyhow. The plan was simple in my head. It didn't quite work out the way I had planned, but I think in the end it looked better than I was expecting. First we took a couple of pine logs from the woodpile for our foundation on one side. This was to help hold it against the sloping sides of the stream bed. The other side was a small length of 4x4 post that was the remains of a previous gate on the front of the property. We then hacked a bunch of 2x4's to roughly the same length and nailed it all together. We only had a few nails the first go around so we had to finish another day. The results of the first trip:

You'll notice the board on the left is a bit apart from the rest. This is attached to a separate log as apparently I am pathetic at measuring, even when all I have to do is get two pieces of wood the same length by laying them side by side. My carpentry skills are not well known. For good reason.

A more clear picture of the foundation:

Yes, that's a rock there on the left. The middle 2x4 is a bit short. The plan is to make the dirt leveled out to cover some of the flaws. At this point we didn't want anyone stepping in the slight hole that the rock is filling. At this point I'm thinking that it's not quite what I'd prefer, but I suppose it will do for the kids. I'm glad it's not front and center to show off how really pathetic mu woodworking skills are. Thankfully the appearance improves.

At this point the kids insisted on the side project of making the waterfall. We took a few minutes to make that happen here on the downhill side of the stream bed. This was one of the important milestones for them. Go figure.

On our next trip two weeks later, we collected more boards like the ones above the bridge in the last picture. They look to be about a half inch thick and 4 inches wide. The original plan was to have these boards run length-wise. Primarily because it would be easier and I'm using a hand-saw to cut everything with. However after this stage we wisely decided the bridge would be much less stable if we carried through with this plan, deciding to do more cutting but have a better overall bridge. After having the kids haul in a few more from the woodpile, doing some cutting, removing a couple of splinters, we were good to go. This time we brought screws instead of nails, with the hopes that they would hold things together longer. Guess we'll see if that's true or not over time.

Here is our progress so far.

Apparently I didn't get a cross-section after this point. You may also notice that I continued to eye-ball the lengths of most of the cuts on this wood. Partly this is on purpose, because I didn't want it to look too "clean" cut. I like the look of an obvious home-made bridge. I think that comes from growing up. There was a bridge over the 10 foot stream that exists in my grandfather's sheep pasture that I have fond memories of, made of telephone poles for the two main structures and leftover 2x6's for the planks, which are also varying lengths. Anyway. It's looking better, but nothing genius level at this point.

My wife, ever the artist, suggests we use the stain that we purchased at the beginning of summer to coat it with. Previously we had to replace the broken window in the shed, this was one of the first projects we did. Maybe later I'll post pictures of that. The point here is that we had 3/4 of a gallon of stain left over from that project. I was a bit nervous as kids with stain and paintbrushes is kind of a dangerous mix, but we ended up doing it anyway. I have to say, the end result looks really good!

The lighter picture here shows the structure better, the darker is closer to the actual color. It will never look this nice again, it already has a huge amount of dust on it from kids jumping up and down and such. The thing is a beast and should hold up quite well to it's environment. It's quite solid with all of those 2x4's under it.

All in all it was about a 4 hour project. The kids had a good time helping, we all learned something and best of all we now don't have to worry about stumbling or jumping across this area to get to the trail. Yay!

Until next time!

I feel this way often.

2010-09-06T19:23:00.000-06:00

Does that make me abnormal?

Too True

2010-08-25T12:28:00.000-06:00

maybe this is why I can't get enough sleep.

Summer

2010-08-22T00:39:00.001-06:00

I've not done much family posting lately. One of the things we do traditionally is go to Bear Lake each summer. Since I was a kid almost every year I've gone and have many good memories there. One of them is miniature golfing at a course in the condos we stay at.

In that grand tradition I hope that these summers continue for a long time to come.

It's easy to get caught up in the details and miss the little things. My kids sure do know how to put things in perspective for me.

I hope everyone had a great summer! (And enjoys what they have left of it!)

do you really have any money?

2010-08-16T15:57:00.000-06:00

Here is an interesting article about how our current money system is based in debt. I think it's correct, if you look at things in the right way. It doesn't get the full 3D picture, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless. And it does argue about getting rid of the federal reserve, which I think would be a good thing.

So, the more money you put in the bank, the more is technically available to anyone out there. Kind of scary.

Interesting spin on education

2010-08-10T17:17:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure if I totally agree with this guy, but he does make some interesting points on education, the way that it is currently run, and

Especially interesting to me was the Kahn Academy, which teaches 100% free online courses on the internet. (i.e. you can go from 1 + 1 = 2 all the way to calculus as an example, among many other topics)

I just might use the Kahn academy to brush up on some of the math I wish I knew better.

He talks a lot about the great expense paying for schooling can be and how it doesn't have to be that way anymore.

Check out the article, it's pretty interesting.

What do you think, are pricey schools going to go away largely or not and why?

For old times' sake...

2010-07-07T11:40:00.000-06:00

Did you say something?

2010-06-25T11:06:00.000-06:00

iPhone 4.

2010-06-15T13:46:00.000-06:00

...ordered.

Yeah, I'm a glutton. But, it's fun, keeps me educated in the underlying tech, and ultimately is a break-even hobby with my app making. Which I am working on additional things right now. A few are a ways out, but this should help keep my excitement level high. If anyone wants a promo code or to be a beta tester for one of my apps let me know. =)

Song of the day

2010-05-20T15:41:00.000-06:00

The quiet things that no one ever knows
from
Deja Entendu

Good stuff.

The joys of crashing.

2010-05-18T16:26:00.000-06:00

This dude has almost too much fun filling out the info in crash logs for adobe products.

You should read some of it. They're pretty good details on what's happening.

Fun with cursors

2010-05-14T13:23:00.000-06:00

Check out this guy's other interesting work here.

Land Ho! (Kind of a long one)

2010-05-08T00:55:00.002-06:00

So, I'm not sure that I mentioned this before, but last June we refinanced our house to take advantage of the low rates. At the time we had been wishing we had a cabin out in the mountains somewhere. We decided to pull out some money as we refinanced the house. Surely land isn't that expensive when it's not next to civilization, right? Without doing any real research, I chose a sum (which ended up being a little under 19k when all was said and done) and pulled it out along with the refinance.

Uh yeah.... I was so wrong. If it's got a road to it, people want just about as much money for recreational land that they want for a regular building lot. Usually you get more land, but the prices are about the same. In this price range in my area you're looking at 0-2 acres for 25k. You know, if you don't want to drive hours and hours to get to it. You really can get dirt cheap property that has only sagebrush on it out here, but it has to be WAY out of the way -- like at least an hour from anything major. Since I live in the city, that's generally 3-4 hours one way. Anyhow.

Here we are a year later. Prices on recreational land are starting to fall (finally) here, after the recession has been around for some time. I've been trying to keep my eye on things and this picture caught my eye, along with this [slightly modified] blurb, since the price was within range.

I have 3 acres one hour south of [town] in [the area we're looking for land]. It has trees, a view of mt's, 04 12x12 tack style shed with heat and a rv pad & fire pad. It is 1/2 hour to [popular mountain destination] by four wheeler, fishing in [some] creek nearby. Great family camping,there are no liens on property, I'm not interested in financing it. Please call [someone] at [a local number].

Only a single picture.

Now, I've had a few of these "too good to be true" pieces within my price range. Just about all of them were just that, too good to be true. One that claimed to have a water hookup actually did not have a water hookup and was so steep as to not be usable. One that claimed to be right next to a pond had about 100 feet next to a chain link fence (that was half torn down) to some neighborhood's water supply pond. Oh, and the lot was also a 4 wheeler thoroughfare and had a cliff in the middle. And so on.

So, not to let a good deal pass us by, my wife and I decided to have a look. The owner scheduled a visit 5 days out and we got to wait.

Of course me being me, I had a good look at the picture and a general idea of the area. So myself and a couple of coworkers took 15 minutes and more or less pinned down within a mile of where this property was. And, me being me, decided to take the family and go have a look at the land. I won't bore you with that unsuccessful story, I'll just relate that we found a very nice steel shipping container and a pile of gravel that was one lot over from the actual property. Close, but not close enough. Had to wait.

The day arrived. The plan was to get a sitter and make the outing a date with my wife, but things fell through and we ended up taking the entire family. Which ended up being a good thing. The kids enjoyed the scenery and liked the property. Though my 2 oldest have had the attitude for about 6 months of "What's the problem? If you want land why don't you just pick some and buy it already?" Heh. Little do they know I had WANTED to do that, but I can't afford anything I get to pick like that. Try explaining that to a 6 and 8 year old though. Anyhow.

The property was very reasonable, and though not perfect, definitely great for us and our price range. We committed to buy first thing in the morning the day after we looked at it. Not 30 minutes after we did the guy who saw it previously called to make an offer. Just in the nick of time. All we're waiting on is the title company clearing the deed (which should be clear), and the ETA on that is tuesday by the latest. Still, if all goes well then we will be purchasing this land.

WAHOO!

Edit: It is a done deal, papers are signed and I'm out a big chunk of money.

I better start posting some pictures, that's what this internet thing is all about right? I took them with my iPhone, but I'm pretty impressed at the quality. I don't usually use my phone for anything other than impromptu snapshots. So, first thing's first, right out of the car we see the fire pit and the shed.

It's nice that the shed is back in the trees some and has been stained/painted relatively recently. A little green poking up through the gravel, but since we're in a desert I'm not terribly worried about that. So far so good.

Off to the right a bit is the "RV pad". The guy explains that he pulled his RV up to it and pulled his awning over the pad. The fence there is a wind block, he put his BBQer on the far side of it. The RV pad also has two metal rings embedded that he used to keep his dogs tied up to. The one near the fence will probably be the BBQ shackle if we end up putting one up there. I wouldn't exactly call that an RV pad since I coudln't park one on it, but I don't have an RV so I don't really care. I'm not sure I'm in love with the rocks along the gravel either but it's tidy and looks pretty ok. And very changeable if we'd like.

I do like the big trees even if Juniper isn't my first choice. Mature trees are a plus. He mentioned that he cut down 3 and a half trees to the west of the fire pit for the distant view. (The half tree was so he could "sit next to the firepit and have a good view of Mt. Loafer") I think he was up here a lot.

Moving on to the least happy view of the property, we have a retired outhouse. The gate and wood pile behind it may come in useful, but it's a little distracting. It's currently being used for a toolshed and getting shovels, rakes, a gas can and a wheelbarrow with the property are a plus here. Oh and it doesn't actually stink. I hope it's been back-filled, I'm guessing so, but unknown at this time. On the other hand, it's the first thing you see as you pull up, which isn't ideal. The door (behind it in the picture) has fallen off and is missing. It currently has an old screen door with glass leaned up against it. There are also at least 20 cinder blocks and other misc potentially useful supplies back there, though probably 75% garbage to be hauled away. I guess we will see. I'd prefer to tear this thing down and have a real toolshed, but that's probably a ways down the list on making things usable. This arguably is where the most work will be done. Oh yeah, thinking of hanging the gate, dunno how that will work yet. Moving on...

Here is my own view of the fire pit, my apologies I didn't get a great picture. One obvious thing is the cracks in the cement. The guy's buddy who poured the cement didn't account for the metal ring expanding with the fire, so apparently it cracked the pad. Not the end of the world and the cracks are minimal. It's very usable and the view is quite good, even if we didn't have an ideal day to see it. The half tree is not shown, but is off to the right a bit. I didn't notice it until he pointed it out, but after that I kept noticing it, it looks like a juniper tree that should be as high as it's neighbors, but is only about 5 feet tall. Kind of like a bottom only of a Christmas tree. My OCD may get the best of me on that one, we'll see. A nice view even if the actual fire ring is a little smaller than I first expected.

One cool thing he did was build a trail to walk back up through the property. It's winding and goes through the trees pretty well without actually doubling back on itself too much. The person previous to us looking at it apparently brought a motor bike and rode the trail, you can see the tracks in this picture if you look closely. There are a few nice sized rocks with lichen on it and numerous other things to be seen on this trail. Very nice, and will give the kids something to walk and stick to the property.

Finally we come to the "shed". On this one I'm impressed, from the description I would have expected to see some half-caved in metal shed since there was no picture showing it off. He unlocked it and we went inside for a moment, but I didn't get a great look. The walls are bare beams and the outside wood which isn't really surprising. The kids thought this was the best thing ever. It's on a cement pad. There's also gravel right up to it and all the way around it. He had previously had a curtained off corner with a portable toilet inside. There are two old short bristle carpets/rugs inside which is also a good thing. And the heated part is a nice propane heater hooked up in the back. The big square there on the front is a board covering a window that has blinds on the inside. I'm unsure if we will leave that on there or do something else like shutters or something. There is also a thermometer and a hook to hang a bird feeder or somesuch on the left side of the door here. You can't see the hook very well, it's behind the branch.

On the right is a makeshift woodpile under the tree. Probably smart to keep it away from the actual walls as that might attract pests to the shed. I also really like the "porch" aspect, so if it rains we could put some chairs out there and enjoy things still. Of course more gravel and such.

In the back we see a private property sign as well as the propane tank supplying the heater. Apparently the propane tank will last a full season up there if not abused. It's sitting more or less level on a brick and it looks like another has been occasionally used (or removed as it's not for sale maybe). I also noticed the rain gutter for the first time back here, there is one on both the front and back which is nice.

Looking directly behind the shed is another view of the trail that winds through the property. Again, it's nice to see this well thought out and functional.

Last view of the shed, you can see the small piece of fencing there in the background by the RV pad.

Coming back around I noticed that while the kids really like the idea of cactuses on the property, right next to the shed is probably not a great place for them. These will likely be moved or outright go as one of the first things we do.

This is the road that leads into the drive. To the right of us is the fire pit, shed and RV pad. Behind us is the abandoned outhouse. To the left is a short gravel drive, big enough to park a truck on. This road makes a sharp left and goes a few hundred feet out to the main dirt road. That road to the main road also has similar gravel on it put down by the (shortly previous) owner. Apparently the road was reasonably muddy without it after it rains.

I better stop here as this has been a really long post. I'm sure I'll give you a few updates as we go along, there's certainly more to say.

I'm a city boy, so any advice would be great as well. I've been camping some, but this will be new and exciting territory for me. As always, thanks for stopping by!

Will it blend?

2010-04-05T15:07:00.003-06:00

This one is for Nobody.

TV

2010-03-17T00:12:00.002-06:00

If you haven't ever seen this TV series I would recommend it. it's a bit cheesy (it's a mid-budget tv series) but it explores some interesting concepts and is more or less well acted.

No idea what brought this one to mind Leiandra. Deal with it. =)

Memories...

2010-02-11T22:15:00.001-07:00

...waiting for the bus in Jr. High and playing Zany Golf at a friend's house. Good times.

iPad

2010-02-02T14:15:00.002-07:00

Despite the really bad name, Apple's iPad will be big. Real big.

You know how people always talk about computers for their mom and dad? For their grandma? This could fill that niche quite nicely. It's much more of an appliance than a traditional computer. And that's a good thing for most of us.

Personally I'm a bit disappointed that it's not a "real" tablet based computer. But I think apple will get there eventually, they just plan on financing it this way.

Here's one of the best articles I've read about the topic.

Also on that note, I'm madly dumping my free time into a game that will play something like this. Not exactly, but this is the general idea.

I'll hopefully post something more interesting later. =)

Global warm.. uh.. Climate Change.

2009-12-15T20:11:00.004-07:00

So, since there are a bunch of politicians out there in europe trying to decide our collective global warming fate, I looked around a bit. I came across this link and thought I would share.

It's a pretty interesting take on things if true. Yeah, I know, you can't trust everything you read on the internet. But it's pretty compelling and after poking around it's likely not a hoax.

To listen to the news you'd think that the world is ending in the next coupe of decades. I'll have to say I'm a non-believer in the "damage" we as humans using CO2 does to the atmosphere.

Health Care.

2009-11-09T12:31:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Nobody for pointing this one out yesterday.

Here's hoping the senate doesn't let this bill through. Scary stuff in this one.

Swine flu

2009-10-29T01:43:00.004-06:00

Read this. Then go cry that fearmongering is alive and well. If even a quarter of what this guy is saying is true we're all very much misinformed.

Update: Now with pictures.

Quote

2009-10-16T12:40:00.000-06:00

An interesting quote I ran across today by J Reuben Clark.

Eminent men and able men of great experience and wisdom are blaming the people for looking more and more to the Federal Government to meet their wants and to exercise governmental control over them, and this to the destruction of local self government, the rights of the States, and the rights of the people, all which are the basic factors of our social, economic, and constitutional life.

Might I humbly question whether the people are primarily to blame for this?

Nearly two thousand years ago, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the Master miraculously fed 5,000 people. They immediately wished to make Him king. One who could feed them without their working for it, ought to be made their sovereign. This would solve for them the all important problem of earthly existence. Perceiving their thoughts and to avoid being dragged forth as the seeming head of a rebellion, the Master dismissed them and Himself fled their presence, going “up into a mountain apart to pray.” That night He crossed over to the other side of the sea , and the multitude learning of it, took ship and also crossed over, and came to Him again. They gathered about Him, deceitfully worshipping, declaring: “Of a truth thou art the Son of God.” But He discerning their thought and purpose, reproved them saying: “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled.”

He then preached the great sermon on the bread of life, and the sacred record declares: “From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.”

He was useless to them, except as the gratuitous provider of their bread and meat.

So do multitudes.

If our Congressmen would stop the march of the people to Washington for their government and their substance, they should cease distributing the loaves and fishes from the steps of the Treasury Building across the road from the White House. You Congressmen have the absolute power to stop it; have you the courage? If it is not done, you, not the people, must take on the censure.

There is one principle as old as human government, indeed as old as human relations: He who holds the purse strings, rules the house, the nation, the world.

If Congressmen wish to restore local self-government, and the rights of the States and of the people, let them send back to the States, to the local communities, to the Churches, and to the children of indigent parents, where it belongs, the duty of caring for their own sick and decrepit and aged, their own unfortunate and underprivileged. Then the march on Washington will cease and the countermarch back home will be a Marathon.

Err... wha?

2009-09-11T21:44:00.001-06:00

So, I've heard enough unsubstantiate-able rumors about ACORN and their bad ethics and practices... but this takes the cake.

sellout

2009-07-08T00:20:00.001-06:00

So I'm in the process of creating a new iPhone app. If you're curious you can check out the development blog for it. I'm planning on keeping it up to date.

Just in case anyone decides I'm not dead... you can at least get a few updates there.

Thanks for dropping by.

Pretty accurate

2009-04-22T21:02:00.000-06:00

Your tax dollars at work

2009-04-15T14:00:00.003-06:00

Concerned about the new budget the government has for us all? Curious where all that money is going to go for the next year's budget?

Have a look at this.

Very interesting breakdown. Doesn't matter your political leanings, this should be informative to anyone.

Happy tax day! Go visit a tea party for me if you can. =)

Thanks for dropping by.

AIG

2009-03-25T12:08:00.002-06:00

So a lot has been happening with the "bonuses" over at AIG.

I think anyone who wants to know the reality of the situation needs to have a look at this.

It is chilling to me that the powers that be in the current government are using this event as a political machination to say things like "We need more control of corporations that might effect the economy, to step in and take control". Eminent domain is a good example of this. It started with highways and now it's pretty much anything the gov't wants they can take if they want property-wise. Now it's moving to corporations. What is next?

I don't usually post politics on here, but I've been thinking of the direction we as a country are headed a lot lately and it scares me. More people being slightly more informed would do a ton of good in the country today. Let's hope people start waking up a bit to make sure we don't get too far off of the track that has made america so great.

Quote

2009-03-13T01:06:00.001-06:00

I came across this quote the other day and thought I'd share.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T11:11:00.003-07:00

Here's hoping that you and yours have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Life update. After a couple of months of world of warcraft addiction I think I'm starting to become more reasonable in my time spent there. To my horror, I checked how much time I've spent in-game as my death knight since Nov 11th. Approximately 6 days 15 hours. That's 144 hours + 15... so 159 hours. Hours that I'm sure my wife feels have been unfairly and unjustly stolen from her life. Fortunately I'm not a complete moron and will be much more casual about it. I'll play a night or two a week rather than 3.697 hours a day (that's an average over the last 43 days... heh). For those interested you're welcome to have a look at my waste of time here.

But enough about that.

I'm starting to get the iPhone programming bug again. I've done a few touch-ups to my application, Geopher Lite, and will be hitting the full version hard in the next few months. I have to say, I do like programming in C and C++, but objective-c is simpler and more elegant all the way around. Some people have put some serious htought into how to make getting your job done as a programmer much easier with objective-C and apple's cocoa framework. If you're one of the crazies like me and into that stuff, I'd recommend checking out Jeff's blog, he's doing some interesting graphics exploration with openGL on the iPhone right now and documenting his progress on his blog. Interesting stuff!

The new arrival, discussed here, has kept both of us adults sleep deprived. We're starting to get to a place called normal (well, everyone but mom probably), but we have a ways to go before it's routine. I had my first real stint with the baby being awake for a few hours last night with me solely in charge (usually he is sleeping, needing minimal interaction, and I'm playing on the computer). I feel bad for my wife. I don't know how women survive their babies with so little sleep. Still, he's generally a bundle of joy and everyone is excited for the new addition.

I was going to post tomorrow with our family's loot, but I know I won't. Maybe my wife will. I'm getting a waffle iron and a wii game. (Lego star wars collection, don't tell my kids I know!) My wife is getting a hip new pair of boots and a... well, a $5 surprise that she's not getting out of me on this blog. =) My dad pitched in and helped out with the purchase of a snowblower, so that will be really nice. Too bad it's been storming the past 10 days, and the model I'm planning on is from sears and is sold out right now. Actually, the guy said yesterday that they have 0 snowblowers on the floor at sears right now, so that may be a belated gift. The kids are getting the usual glut of littlest pet sho, my little pony polly pocket toys that are the rage for them, and something called a neopet, which I think is code for expensive stuffed animal. My parents came through with PJs for the kids and a toy they really wanted each, so we're overflowing with gifts again this year. It's an abundant life, here's hoping for that kind of life for my kids.

Plenty more, but I'll save it for another time. I suppose it's been a while, I should post something more interesting than... well, me. Enjoy. Merry Christmas!

Off the wagon

2008-11-24T10:55:00.002-07:00

So, I let myself get pressured into returning to world of warcraft two weeks ago. Gulp, there goes all my free time again. We'll see how long it lasts this time.

I saw this article earlier today and I'm in a state of shock and disbelief.

Here are a couple of quotes:

"The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages."

“It’s unprecedented,” said Bob Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. and an economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years until January. “The backlash has begun already. Congress is taking a lot of hits from their constituents because they got snookered on the TARP big time. There’s a lot of supposedly smart people who look to be totally incompetent, and it’s all going to fall on the taxpayer.”

“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” [Ben] Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”

and the thing that makes me the most nervous:

"Most of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, Timothy Geithner, is said to be President- elect Barack Obama’s choice for Treasury Secretary."

Get your house in order, bad things are coming. I'm getting nervous.

Still Alive.

2008-10-09T20:35:00.003-06:00

Yes.

I am still alive.

(If you've not played portal, regardless of if you play video games or not, you are missing out!)

I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged. Very good book, I would recommend it. I don't agree with all of the conclusions, but the problems seem to be spot on, if a bit black and white. The book was summed up by Ayn Rand in this way later: "The theme of Atlas Shrugged is the role of the mind in man's life and, consequently, presentation of a new morality- the morality of rational self-interest"

I scare myself lately with what I am interested in. Next up is reading a book on the economy. Good thing it was written 10+ years ago.

I'm probably going to disappear again, what with the holidays coming up, a baby here in about 2 months, and a ton of work (both my own as well as at my "real" job) going on. Still, thanks for dropping by. =)

So uhm...

2008-08-06T19:52:00.002-06:00

I got this interesting email today regarding my new app from the app store. I think that whoever this is, the least of their worries is $1.99 on apple's store. I'd best just let them speak for themselves.

i purchased your gopher lite and it does nothing. i have been use nav instruments before loran and gps for 15 year and this was nothing but a rip off. you are something. either you send me my money back or i will tell all about your junk. you have till tomorrow early. i gues thats why they call you gopher.

Heh. In some ways I feel bad about it. I mean, who wants to get this kind of email? In other ways... well, I can't help but think of this.

Geopher

2008-07-26T09:37:00.002-06:00

So, Geopher Lite has been taking up virtually all of my free time lately. However, if you ever wanted to get to know me a bit better or simply wanted to follow the development process of a piece of software, you're welcome to go have a look.

I've posted almost every day. Which as some of my long time readers know, is quite an accomplishment for me.

I haven't abandoned this blog, but it may get less attention for the next few weeks. (What else is new?)

Geopher Demo

2008-07-09T18:16:00.003-06:00

After many hours of work and a wife that's ready to break my laptop, here's the fruit of my labors for the past couple of weeks.

Geopher Demo Page

I know a few of you who read this blog do geocaching, so I thought I;d post about it.

Wish me luck!

iPhone

2008-07-01T12:11:00.003-06:00

So, I think I'm going to do it.

For a mere $40 a month (plus taxes) for 2 years and $299 for the phone*, I think I'm going to get one.

Now I just have to figure out how to pay for it.

GPS, Camera, iPod, Phone and more. It's almost a PDA (that I've never been able to use). I have to say, if I wasn't technically interested it likely wouldn't happen.

I'm working on an application for it, I'll mention more here once I actually release it. It's a geocaching app, so you geocachers out there feel free to drop a request if you're so inclined. =)

I keep wanting to be more consistent with this blog, maybe someday. In the meantime, thanks for hanging around. Until later.

* On top of the $39.99 + taxes of the cell phone we already have, and purchasing the 16GB model.

Inconsistent

2008-06-06T15:48:00.003-06:00

You'd think I was busy lately or something. I seem to spend most of my evenings lately tied up in the yard, the basement or spending time with the kids. I had a date with my 4 year old last night, we went and bought me a pair of pants and a belt, and got her a coloring book, beach towel and everyone else some starburst jellybeans. We had a lot of fun looking at toys and such either. (What can I say, I'm a cheap date...)

Tonight I'm going out with my wife to choose tile for the bathroom floor in the basement. After over a month of trying to get someone to do the finish carpentry we finally found someone who we know a bit but had no idea that he did such a thing. And he does tile as well, so we're scrapping the linoleum we were going to get and having him tile the bathroom floor for us instead. Anyhow, rather than go to the movies or something we're going to choose some tile, trim and doors for the basement. That and going out to eat should be fun. We don't get out without the kids much anymore.

I'm itching to get the basement done... We're almost hitting that $10k mark on what's spent and there's a lot more to do. I had no idea all of this cost so much. If I wasn't so lazy it'd be cheaper, but I guess that comes with the territory.

On a less gloomy note, after a couple of poisonings, ironite treatment, and some weed & feed, our yard is starting to really look like it has a lawn again. My wife has kept the flowerbeds up to date, so it's looking quite good. The sprinklers still short out occasionally and blow the fuse, I'll have to figure out a way to make the wiring waterproof in the backyard. The weeds are pretty much gone from the front, but you definitely need your shoes in the backyard still. BUT! Progress is good.

I broke down and bought the pinball game for the Wii. Good stuff. I like how it's set up, it has goals to work towards, so I've found myself playing it a bit more than I would normally to unlock all of it's features. I have all but 3 tables unlocked for free play now. I've really enjoyed playing a few games that I've never had the chance to play before but heard good things about. If you like pinball I'd recommend picking it up.

One last thing. I got accepted the other day into Apple's beta developer program for the iPhone. Monday morning is Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, and they should be announcing the 2.0 version of the iPhone. It's supposed to have a built in GPS which I'm excited about. I'm thinking about getting myself one, but we'll see. It's a lot of money, but again, if I'm going to develop for it I need one right? =) I'm actually a bit bummed about this as it's the first year that WWDC has ever sold out and I was going to try and go this year. The $2k travel/hotel costs prevented that from happening though. Maybe I can talk work into sending me next year. Wish me luck with that.

Until later.

Work

2008-05-13T11:44:00.002-06:00

Work has been interesting lately. Here's hoping that myself and our new department manager can turn our department around into a fun place to work again. We've made ever so small of a dent, but our new manager has the ear of the owner of the company. There are big plans. We'll see what happens.

I mention this because I read an article today that's probably more applicable to other jobs than the author wants to admit. It's an interesting read, though I think money and time are downplayed for the older, family oriented kinds of people.

Check it out.

On an unrelated note, we have an electrician coming in today to fix our basement wiring. Seems the sheetrock guys put a nail or screw through a wire somewhere. Of course they're not paying for it, but they may actually come in and patch up the hole for us.

Losers.

More later.

Hullo!

2008-05-08T10:46:00.002-06:00

I've had a number of people bothering me to post. I suppose I had better do so to dispel the rumors that I'm dead or that I've quit blogging.

I keep almost getting to that elusive next post, but I have communication issues. So I can't seem to get the idea across in a blog message. I might cheat and put some audio up, we'll see what happens.

In the meantime.

I'm still a pinball nut. I'm going to have to buy this I think. The reviews look good and it's something I think both myself and our kids would like.

a list of tables include:

Black Knight
Firepower
Funhouse
Gorgar
Pin*Bot
Space Shuttle
Taxi
Whirlwind
Jive Time
Sorcerer

Should be a good time. I'll let you know how it goes. And regardless of that "next post" that is ever elusive, I should be back around here and there.

More later.

Busy...

2008-02-04T19:33:00.001-07:00

Aside from work and doing stuff for my church, I've not done a lot in the last month. I caught up on some of my TV watching with a stint of "The Office" and "Chuck" over the past few weeks. I introduced my kids to Manamanah and other such things. I played through Metroid Prime 3 over the past few weeks. And my daughter's birthday was yesterday, Cousins, presents, candy and a pinata. Lots of fun. (Congrats to the giants if you're into that kind of thing as well)

I'm still mulling over a post or three in my head, but they're not simple sit down and write kinds of posts. I'm still trying to get my head around being aware of my reality around me to some degree, so I've been kind of jumpy and gruff the past few months. I'm getting better, I think. Slowly but surely.

My next post will likely be philosophical in nature and focus on principles of living. Yeah, kind of vague, but I've never really learned about modern philosophers until recently, just the historical ones. It's been an interesting last few months.

Meizu?

2008-01-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

My new mp3 player. Or rather, my first mp3 player that's not a phone. Good stuff.

This isn't me by the way, mine is black. I'm way to lazy to do a video this cool. =)

More coming soon. Until then.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Free Rice?

2007-12-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

If you ever wanted to send some money to charity, here's an easy way to do so at the banner ad people's expense.

you can Get Smarter by doing this as well!

Post your highest score below. I've only played for 10 minutes, but I never broke 40. A coworker is at 45.

I hope everyone is having a merry Christmas, and that my willpower stays strong so I don't cave and purchase something like this. I keep wanting to offer $600 for it, but I'm afraid they'd take the offer. Anyway.

Merry Christmas!

Choice

2007-12-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Wow, look at that. Mile marker twenty two.

I've got a long road ahead of me. Too bad I can't see further than a mile or so in any direction. Often not even that, depending on the scenery. I've not come far.

In the past month or two decisions have been made. Suddenly I'm confused on why those decisions were so difficult in the past. It's not like I don't take a step back now and then. And so I stop and ponder. I've had a number of these moments over the past year or so, but I've not shared them here.

Regardless.

I have a good life. Great even. I'm afforded opportunities that many do not have. Will never have. I lead a life of blessing and comfort.

As I think it is with many, it's easy to think "I want that" and believe that by obtaining a goal, even a heartfelt goal, that your troubles will be over. That if you can reach that end, life will be good. It's too bad that is sold so often ("sold" being the key word here...) because I don't believe that is true. Because there will always be something out there. Something to stretch towards. Something to work for. Regardless of where you're standing. There's always another ridge to cross. There's always someone ahead of you. Better, smarter, more capable people than you succeeding without thinking where you stumble and struggle.

It's not about what you've done. It's not about where you live. It's not about who you're surrounded by. It's not even about where you're going.

Now that's not to say you shouldn't continue forward. That's not to say you shouldn't set goals. That's not to say you shouldn't work.

It's about you.

Nobody can tell you where you are in your journey but you. Be honest with yourself. Figure out where you're going. Where you are. Where you've been. Take a step back. What's really important to you? Why do you spend your leisure time the way you do? What do you spend your "you" time on?

It matters. And I realize today, again, as I write this, that it doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been. It doesn't particularly matter where you're going. It matters that you are. That you are doing (or not doing as the case may be) right now. In the moment.

It matters that you choose.

You are what you make yourself. Yes, everyone has limits. I can't sprout wings and fly away outside. But within my limits, I have choice. I have will. I am. I exist. It doesn't matter where I have been before. It matters where I am now. It matters what I choose to be. The future hasn't happened yet, and the past has simply set my circumstances. Now is what I am. It is when I exist. It is who I am.

The only thing I really, truly am, is an agent of my own will.

And I am making choices. Choices in which I try to be intelligent about.

Are you?

Cultural Correctness

2007-11-19T12:22:00.001-07:00

I read this speech, though there's an audio transcript of it. This was years ago, but rings true today more than ever.

I'm not usually pro-hippie pro-protest and all that. However, the guy has a point. There's a time and place for this kind of thing. I'll leave the protesting to other people, but that doesn't mean I can't live my personal life under this philosophy. Or at least try. (Once I get over my fear of people, though slowly but surely that's going away... but that's for another post)

I'd love to hear thoughts on if you agree or disagree with what he is saying and why.

Why

2007-11-12T08:20:00.001-07:00

I think that this guy's quote from the WWII veteran pretty much nails video game nostalgia.

Yeah, I know, I'm such a loser. Oh well. =)

Until later.

Sleep

2007-11-10T10:25:00.001-07:00

So, I stumbled across this link a few days ago.

Or this page sums it up better.

Sleep paralysis, or more properly, sleep paralysis with hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations have been singled out as a particularly likely source of beliefs concerning not only alien abductions, but all manner of beliefs in alternative realities and otherworldly creatures. Sleep paralysis is a condition in which someone, most often lying in a supine position, about to drop off to sleep, or just upon waking from sleep realizes that s/he is unable to move, or speak, or cry out. This may last a few seconds or several moments, occasionally longer. People frequently report feeling a "presence" that is often described as malevolent, threatening, or evil. An intense sense of dread and terror is very common. The presence is likely to be vaguely felt or sensed just out of sight but thought to be watching or monitoring, often with intense interest, sometimes standing by, or sitting on, the bed. On some occasions the presence may attack, strangling and exerting crushing pressure on the chest. People also report auditory, visual, proprioceptive, and tactile hallucinations, as well as floating sensations and out-of-body experiences (Hufford, 1982). These various sensory experiences have been referred to collectively as hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs). People frequently try, unsuccessfully, to cry out. After seconds or minutes one feels suddenly released from the paralysis, but may be left with a lingering anxiety. Extreme effort to move may even produce phantom movements in which there is proprioceptive feedback of movement that conflicts with visual disconfirmation of any movement of the limb. People may also report severe pain in the limbs when trying to move them. Several recent surveys including our own suggest that between 25-30% of the population reports that they have experienced at least a mild form of sleep paralysis at least once and about 20-30% of these have had the experience on several occasions. A few people may have very elaborate experiences almost nightly (or many times in a night) for years. Aside from many of the very disturbing features of the experience itself (described in succeeding sections) the phenomenon is quite benign.

I've had this happen to me a couple of times, once in the last year. It's quite scary in that you cannot move. Add the "waking dream" portion of this and it can be positively nightmarish.

Has this ever happened to you?

Atari

2007-11-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

So I'm a big atari fan. It's a big part of my early childhood. I've been thinking about starting an atari-based project, but I've not decided if it's worth the effort or not. It depends on a lot of things. I might talk more about that later.

I came across this article two days ago and it's taken me that long to get through it. But it was totally worth it.

For instance... did you know that Williams pinball came out of atari? That steve jobs and steve wozniak (founders of apple computer) worked at atari and even offered atari the opportunity to get into the original apple computer? There are so many early technology ties to this company that it's amazing.

Check it out if you've got any interest.

Until later.

You know you're a geek when....

2007-11-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

You think something like this is cool.

Also, I want one of these.

Things are happening, I just don't have the time to blog them right now. Suffice it to say that things are going quite well around here and even though life always has problems, I'm happier now than I have been in some time. Thanks for stopping by. It'll get more interesting around here eventually. =)

Until then.

Food

2007-10-26T19:42:00.000-06:00

So, a few months ago (okay 4...) I mentioned I was going to post about food and that I have a video clip about that.

Well.

I should start this out by saying that I feel like this sometimes when I'm around people with either very bad table manners or people who just plain eat loudly.

It drives me crazy.

So I thought I'd share. This movie only has 3 scenes in the "corporate world", so I've included all 3 to help give it more context. It's an interesting sub-plot. Pay attention to clip #3, that's how I feel sometimes. =)

The clips come from this movie. It's pretty good, I'm not usually into the romance/drama genre, but I liked this one.

Until next time.

Nostalgia

2007-10-23T20:11:00.000-06:00

Magellan

2007-09-26T20:04:00.000-06:00

So I got a GPS for my birthday back in August. Now that september's almost over I figure I should get off my can and post about it.

I've used it as a travel mate once and found about 25 geocaches with it so far. (There are a bunch close to work, so that works out well for a break)

I think one of the most valuable things I could have done with it is take a trip with my grandfather up into the mountains where we used to go when I was a child. We stopped at a number of old campsites and I marked their locations so that I could find them again. Maybe in a few years when my children are older we will go up and camp there.

I've also done a lot of geocaching for the short 2 months I've had this GPS. Some of the caches are fantastically hidden. Some are... well, kind of surprisingly still there in regards to their location. However, I've always been a sucker for a treasure hunt.

I'm not going to review the GPS unit I got, though I'm happy I went with the model I did. It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but I think it's about perfect for me. It's got all the features I'd want and a few more that I'll probably never use. At the right price it was hard to pass up.

Incidentally, I did a little research on batteries and found cell phone batteries that appeared to be exactly compatible with the unit. So I spent $25 for 3 batteries when one "official" battery would have been $40. It pays to do your homework I guess.

One of these days I'll start my own cache. but until then, I'll be happy just toting the GPS around and finding geocaches of my own.

Until next time.

Boy...

2007-09-23T23:00:00.000-06:00

... I wish I remembered how to post.

I wasn't in love with the questions on this one, but I thought the result was interesting so I thought I'd share.

The Movie Of Your Life Is An Indie Flick

You do things your own way - and it's made for colorful times.
Your life hasn't turned out how anyone expected, thank goodness!

Your best movie matches: Clerks, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Not dead

2007-09-20T14:22:00.000-06:00

No, I'm not dead. Yes, I still remember I have a blog. No, I have no meaningful post today. Yes, there are posts I'd like to post about. No, for some strange reason I have a block where I just can't do it right now.

It'll get better. Eventually.

More games...

2007-08-21T17:27:00.001-06:00

Yeah, I'll get off the game thing here shortly.

I am really looking forward to team fortress 2. It's pretty amazing that they can to this video from within the game engine. I saw this today and thought I'd share.

Can you all tell that I'm avoiding reality at the moment? =)

More later.

The World of Warcraft Addiction Test

2007-08-16T15:09:00.001-06:00

Your Score: Well on your way!

You are 63% Addicted!

You play a lot, and you're starting to get hooked. Keep it up and soon you too will be part of the ever-growing group that is totally addicted. Or, see the warning signs now and get out while you still can!

Link: The World of Warcraft Addiction Test written by survivedestiny on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Gone but not forgotten.

2007-08-14T14:04:00.001-06:00

I have lots of updates to post, but they will have to wait.

For some reason I've been anti-blogging lately. I've been playing escapist every second I can. That's probably going to change here soon.

But until then. I'm still here, and I've not abandoned you.

Oh... and by popular request. This is me simpsonized.

Until later.

Empty promises...

2007-07-20T10:04:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I know.

I have a post attached to the video clips I have been talking about I just haven't taken the hour or so to write it all up for you all. So I will ask, do you want the videos now or the post when I get around to it?

---

Our annual trip to bear lake comes the beginning of next week. Should be a blast! I'll let you know how the arcade is at the complex we end up staying at. =)

---

39%

2007-07-18T08:57:00.000-06:00

Blogarita had a personality test on her blog, and per usual I have to share. I am generally an INFP, so it's interesting how this one worked out. However I hear that INFP's alter egos are ENTJ's, so maybe I come by the J honestly. I've been pretty angry lately. =) Besides, at the moment the description fits me well.

More is coming, I'm just way too lazy to update you all.

Oh, and Sushi... I've been ignoring your tag for a while. No offense. =)

Your Score: Freak- INFJ

6% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 33% Thinking, 53% Judging

Well, well, well. How did someone like you end up with the least common personality type of them all? In a group of 100 Americans, only 0.5 others would be just like you. You really are one of a kind... In fact, I do believe that that's one of the definitions for the word "FREAK."

Freak's not such a bad word to describe you actually.

You are deep, complex, secretive and extremely difficult to understand. If that doesn't scream "Freak!" I don't know what does. No-one actually knows the REAL you, do they?

You probably have deep interests in creative expression as well as issues of spirituality and human development.

You've probably even been called a "psychic" before, because of your uncanny knack to understand and "read" people without quite knowing how you do it. Don't fret. You're not actually psychic. That would make you special and you'll never accomplish that.

You're also quite possible the most emotional of them all, so don't take this all too hard. Nevertheless you most definitely have the strangest personality type and that's not necessarily a good thing.

*****************

If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

*****************

The other personality types are as follows...

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Stereotypes

2007-06-30T14:19:00.000-06:00

Work has been a bit nuts lately.

Thursday night, 12:30 AM I realized something. I was sitting at my desk (yes, at work) with cool ranch doritos on my right, a mountain dew on my left. I looked down at my growing gut, and wondered when I was going to have the time between everything else I do to exercise more and eat a bit better.

Did you know that you can keep a legion of programmers locked in a dark basement with only cheetos and mountain dew for sustenance, as long as they have internet access?

Yes, some stereotypes are based loosely on the truth.

Well, I thought it was pretty funny, in a self-deprecating sort of way.

I've not forgotten you all, but time has been tight lately. I have too much I want to do and not enough time to do it all. We are slowly recovering mentally from our hospital stay. Our youngest is pretty well back to normal at this point, so it's a matter of finding our groove again.

But tonight my wife and I are actoually going out. Together. Without kids. It's going to be wonderful! The last time this happened our youngest was un a drug induced speel fest in the ICU. We need to get out together more. Here's hoping this begins a new trend.

How often do you get out with just your spouse? Or if you're not married, how often do you get out on a date?

Whew

2007-06-19T23:21:00.001-06:00

Hang in there. I've gotten the video, ripped the appropriate segments... I just need to string things together. Sometime in the next few days.

While I'm thinking of videos, there are a few that I'm really looking forward to this summer. I already saw spider-man, I thought it was very good, better than some said, though I think spidey 2 was the best one.

Anyhow. On with the show!

The Bourne Ultimatum.

Ocean's 13.

And lastly, Harry Potter. Though I felt the last movie was a bit lacking, I'm willing to give it another chance.

Thanks for stopping in, more later.

New Day

2007-06-08T13:39:00.001-06:00

So, despite that I really -DID- feel that crappy yesterday, today is shaping up to be much better.

Quick life update... Basement is still on hold pending finances, though I will probably finish off the wiring since that's for the most part paid for. By this fall I hope to have enough cash to get at least the insulation in for the cold season. But the window wells need to be dealt with. We had a nasty rainstorm and both window wells leaked. Again. I've done a number of things to get this taken care of but it looks like I'll ahve to just bite the bullet and crawl down there with a half-size shovel and dig them out a coupl efeet in order for them to actually drain water. Not looking forward to that.

I've had a sore throat/cough since Sunday. I keep thinking it's almost done but then it keeps moving on me. Throat, nose, lungs, cough, etc... new place every day. Bleh.

This weekend I am hoping to do some video ripping and get a video clip up on here for you all. I think it'll be worth the $5.50 I paid for the DVD plus the effort. We'll have to wait and see though.

I ordered Super Paper Mario from a seller on amazon.com yesterday. I happened to look and got it for $23 shipped -- about half price, which isn't bad considering I've been considering paying more for it. On that note, I'm about 16 hours into the new zelda game. It was a bit slow the first little bit, but it is definitely picking up. I think I am about 1/3 of the way through it.

I'm also working on.... work stuff for some extra cash on the side. Hopefully doing some side jobs will allow for a successful adventure to Disneyland later this year. I've been torn on this issue. These "moonlighting" projects that are offered through work are roughly $30 an hour minus (bonus typed) taxes. This on the surface seems pretty good until you understand they are flat rate off of hour estimates. Some are easy and well worth the money... some are not. The owner also has pushed a lot of the work I enjoy off into this category, so it cuts both ways. But hey, it makes our vacation still a possibility this year. That's a plus. =)

My new exercise bike has gathered dust these last 6 weeks or so due to the hospital taking over, a week of pseudo-recovery and now being sick for a week. I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine with that. I think in the few weeks I had good workouts that my weight was affected. We shall see though. I also hear that you feel "good" in general when you are exercising which I could use some of right now.

I am trying to figure out a good time when I'll have to work on the pinball machine. I need to fix one of the pop bumpers and I am thinking of diving into fixing the playfield overlays which would be some unknown work. But it should be fun to do so. The machine doesn't get daily play anymore so I'm probably safe to rip it apart for a few weeks.

There are arcade projects that can come into play as well, though I'm not as certain of what will happen there. Likely the next thing to do is re-solder the mess I've made before and remove the hacked switch that never quite worked right. That and get player #2 working properly with the xbox, it never has worked right. I'm still keepign an eye out for a strider jamma board, but I hear they have a "suicide" battery, so I might have a hard time coming across one. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Thanks for dropping by.

Until later.

Today

2007-06-07T11:30:00.000-06:00

This is how I feel today.

Is this really me?

2007-06-06T23:35:00.000-06:00

I tend to think this is about 75% accurate. Those of you who know me well can leave comments about if I'm correct or not. =)

Thanks to Nobody for pointing this one out, I am a big fan of personality tests.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|	26%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Hedonism	\|\|	10%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|	16%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Indie	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	45%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stability results were medium which suggests you are moderately relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun.

Extraversion results were low which suggests you are very reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

trait snapshot:
does not make friends easily, secretive, introverted, reclusive, observer, dislikes leadership, somewhat socially awkward, does not like to stand out, dislikes large parties, values solitude, solitary, avoidant, ambivalent about fitting in, not dominant, unassertive, suspicious, prudent, unadventurous, worrying, weird, intellectual, frequently second guesses self

Links

2007-06-02T21:01:00.000-06:00

Hey all.

I finally took the plunge to update my blog template to the "new" blogger templates. It seem spretty slick so far. I'll be playing around with things a bit for a while I think. I'm annoyed by my stock blog. =)

Also I've been meaning to update my links lately and I'm just not doing it.

If you have links you'd like to see on my sidebar (i.e. your blog) please drop me a note here.

Lastly... I've got a post in the works which should be interesting. You know, assuming anyone cares about what I think. But you're here, reading my blog so I suppose you all at least care a little.

Or something.

Anyhow.

Leave me a link. It doesn't have to be your blog, but it does need to be worth visiting, that's all I ask. This could be fun.

Yeah, so...

2007-05-28T22:55:00.000-06:00

...I was curious okay? Sushi had this up on his blog.

Your Love Life is Like Pretty Woman

"I want the fairy tale"

You believe that love is truly blind, unpredictable, and surprising. Two very different people can easily find true love.
At least, that is how it will happen when you marry a gorgeous billionaire someday ;-)

Your love style: Sensual and flirty

Your Hollywood Ending Will Be: Surprisingly happy

What Movie Is Your Love Life Like?

And also...

You Are 64% Gentleman

You are definitely a gentleman. You're very considerate and you have excellent manners.
Occasionally, you slip and do something foolish... but usually no one notices!

Are You A Gentleman?

I'll leave it up to my wife to comment on if this is accurate or not.

Out of the frying pan...

2007-05-26T13:37:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update on the family medical situation.

Our youngest is still in the hospital. Some of you may remember the allergic reaction that our middle child has had in the past to drugs. Well, our youngest is having a worse reaction. It's not red spots on pale skin, it's the occasional piece of pale skin in the red. Ouch.

So the good news is that her throat is fine. The bad news is that she is almost completely covered in hives. Here's hoping the doctors actually let us go home soon. I'm headed to the hospital soon, wish me luck.

Wierd Wednesday

2007-05-23T09:53:00.001-06:00

Since Nobody™ didn't get to a wierd wednesday this week, I thought I'd post this. Not quite the same kind of thing, but pretty crazy nonetheless.

A Brawl In The Safari - Watch more free videos

Gotta lvoe mother nature!

2007-05-16T11:39:00.000-06:00

Things should be interesting for a while around our place. I may be missing a bit more from my blog. And I was just starting to ramp up as well.

I'd like to thank everyone who has helped, prayed and otherwise wished us well in this time of hospitalization for our youngest daughter's welfare.

I've read 3 and a half books since last thursday, put a few hundred miles on my car, and didn't get a ton of sleep. Not much interesting to report.

Oh, they announced that Halo 3 will be out september 25th of this year. That's sooner than I expected. I'll have to start saving my nickels and dimes for... well, for insulation for the basement before winter comes. But after that... Hm. Well, I'd better start saving if I want to play it in the next 5 years. =)

Not being one to just post a little blurb I felt like I had to throw a link in here... This link... I've got to say... I'm surprised it took someone this long to do this.

just for fun

2007-05-16T11:38:00.000-06:00

Vaguely entertaining if you're into that sort of thing. Gets wierd at the end, but definitely some cool action in this one.

Hm?

2007-05-06T22:37:00.000-06:00

I'm not really sure this is very accurate as far as personality tests go, but it was fun to check out.

Which SNES Game Character Are You?

Megaman - The boy in blue. You're a true hero, strong, determined, and adaptable. But you really were never designed to be a hero. You'd be much happier living a simple life. But programing is programing.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

I also wanted to mention this, as it's pretty out there. But kind of cool if you're into that kind of thing.

Wii Mini-review and miscellany

2007-05-05T20:19:00.000-06:00

So, I've decided rather than procrastinate my wii review, I'd break it up into a couple of pieces. That way people get to actually hear about it. Oh, and it'll keep me posting.

This morning we ate some buttermilk waffles and hit the basement for 30 minutes before our youngest took a nap. (She had been up for a couple hours last night, from 1-3ish...) Not exactly my plan, but at least I got the boxes up and a small portion of wire run for the smoke alarms, my last wire I need to run. Unless we decide to run speaker wires, but I'm leaning away from that at the moment. Anyway. So we all went outside to work in the yard before it rained. It looked like it could start any minute.

Well, it never rained today and our youngest slept for about 4 hours. I got the lawn mowed and edged and my wife and I got a ton of the weeds removed from the flowerbeds among other things. The place actually is starting to look cared for again. If it wasn't so dark outside I'd post a picture. Maybe tomorrow.

My lovely wife decided that we needed to eat out as it was mid afternoon, and went and purchased some food for us. We at some of the best grease around and then all sat down to play the wii.

My oldest is really starting to get the hang of some of the mini-games. Her favorite is the one where you turn the remote sideways and steer a cow back to the barn. (Get it? Steer? Cow?) You tip the controller to the left or right to turn and twist it forward or back to go faster or slower, similar to using a motorbike. You have to knock down scarecrows in the road for points.

Why am I trying to tell you this by typing? Geez, you'd think I were cooler than that. Bah.

Here, check it out.

I should metion that our 18 month old insists on "playing" the cow riding game. She knows she needs a controller and clutches it tightly in her fist while pushing buttons to play (even though the buttons do nothing on this one). She knows when it starts and ends and pretty much gets that she gets to move the cow around.

Well, I was impressed. Guess I'm a dad, what can I say. =)

This is one of 9 mini-games that comes with a wii remote, called "wii play". It has a short tutorial of how to use the controller the first time you use it as well, which would have been really nice to start out with.

It also comes with a duck-hunt-esque game with is kind of fun if a little basic. Air hockey, pool, table tennis, and some wierd bubble puzzle game are all pretty okay. My favorite is basically a remake of the atari 2600 combat with tanks. You use the wii remote kind of like you would a mouse, to aim your tank and then you can lay mines and shoot. Good stuff, I bet multi-player would be really fun with that.

The other smash hit is the fishing game. Fairly simple, but decently fun. These are all pretty mediocre to lame games by yourself, but make for fantastic social games as anyone can pick them up in a few seconds.

You can earn medals for scoring high points and you get to use the "mii" or avatar that you create for yourself.

The wii play has so far been the biggest hit with the kids, and especially after today, we are all happy we own it. Finally, a console that truly is for the whole family. It'll change your mind about gaming.

My wife, after just 1 hour of playing the wii said "This is hands down better than the pinball machine."

Ouch.

That's okay, I'll still get an addam's family. Someday. That'll show her!

Guess I have to finish the basement first though. Doh.

More later, happy weekend.

Public Service Announcement

2007-05-02T15:02:00.000-06:00

So we were talking at work today about the Do Not Call List. If you don't know about that check out the site. It'll save you from the hassle of a ton of telemarketing calls. It won't stop charities from calling though.

Anyhow, I had a friend mention another site that is similar a few years back. Did you know that the major credit bureaus sell lists to insurance and credit card agencies tor marketing purposes? Did you know you can opt out of this list?

You can.

Go. Do it.

I've been opted out for about 2 years now and I have a noticeable decrease in credit card junk mail. I feel much more safe about my mailbox now -- identity theft is harder, I won't have to worry (as much) about some stupid company sending me a pre-approved loan application for 50k that someone else cashes then I'm liable for.

Why are you still here? Go. Do. Stick it to The Man™!

More later

2007-04-27T14:31:00.000-06:00

Things are busy around our place, I won't be able to give a proper review for the wii until next week sometime.

Once I get the smoke alarms and the 2 lights + 1 outlet in the bathroom wired up I'll post some pictures of my basement. Assuming anyone cares anymore. =)

Next will be insulation and sheetrock, I'm afraid of the dollar amounts on that one, but at least we're getting closer to something that looks like real progress.

I'm planning on ripping some parts out of my pinball machine here soon as well. I'll keep y'all updated on that front.

And I'll be working in the yard sooner than later I'm sure.

This evening the kids and I are going to go out to eat and have a good time while mom celebrates her brother's graduation at a no kids eat out party. Should be fun on both sides.

Life is busy. At least I get Sunday off from the majority of church duties, so that should be good.

More later.

So what's the big deal with a Wii?

2007-04-21T23:17:00.000-06:00

I've had a few comments along these lines, I thought I'd share.

At first when I heard the news from Nintendo about their new system I was thinking... that's it? Just new controllers? Hmm. Sounds kind of lame.

That thing looks like a TV remote! How will I ever use that to play games?

(Wii remote and xbox controller shown below)

Well. The controller is motion activated, so maybe that helps. Hmm.

Hmm.

Maybe the motion sensor will work out, but most things like that in the past have been gimmicky. I'm still skeptical.

And then I saw this.

This is the first video that nintendo released about the wii.

I've been super excited to see how it really works out ever since.

Aren't you? =)

(Note: there are other more up to date commercials and trailers floating around, but this is the one that I saw first.)

Until later.

Pictures...

2007-04-20T22:26:00.000-06:00

I saw this on a couple other blogs and thought I'd try it out.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Pretty interesting, though I wish they had a better variety of pictures.

Wii

2007-04-18T10:28:00.000-06:00

So, about 3 weeks ago I installed a program from a site that would check for the availability of a nintendo wii at various places on the internet.

Doue to the magic of the internet, And me sitting at my desk at the time of the alert, I was able to order a Wii.

Amazon.com was sold out within 13 minutes of posting wii's available.

I'm still floored by this. Apparently nintendo has shipped over 5.5 million wiis. And you still have a very difficult time getting one.

I hear it's worse here where I am than other places, but still... It's been incredibly difficult to get my hands on one of these.

I'll let you all know how it works out once it arrives. =)

DDR

2007-04-14T16:19:00.000-06:00

If you've ever wanted a dance dance revolution pad here's an easy way to get one.

From Kraft.

Hard to beat for only $6.

So... yeah.

2007-04-09T19:14:00.000-06:00

So, you know how I made this big speech a while back about where I'm going and what I'm doing?

I think I lied. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And you're welcome to quote me on that.

Anyhow.

This is what I came home to today.

Apparently the city turned on the water (or at least turned up the pressure) for the pressurized irrigation. We have a faucet out in the back, it was split in a couple of places and spraying water like a geyser.

I think I'm going to hire a neighbor kid to dig out the window well so that this doesn't happen, at least not immediately if water gets into it.

Work on the basement progresses. The roughed in plumbing is done for the bathroom. The air ducts are in. The wiring is all actually run (except for the bathroom which is waiting until later anyway). Some of it's even hooked up!

Yard work season has already begun, and I'm sure my wife will post more than I do about that. But rest assured I'll be plenty involved there.

The family is relatively healthy, though we continue to go to see doctors for our youngest's breathing problem.

And dare I post it...? World of Warcraft is fast coming to an end. It's probably a matter of weeks until I get completely fed up with the time it's taking away from everything else. You can have a look at my warlock if you're into that kind of thing.

Of course there's always Team Fortress 2... Another time I'll explain how and why that means anything to me. Probably means nothing to the rest of you with the exception of my wife. =)

Until then.

Wal... wha?

2007-03-21T20:40:00.000-06:00

I am sick.

I've been sick for a couple of days.

Pretty much my entire family is sick.

Not a lot of positive stuff going on at our house right now. We'll get through it, but man, it's a pain to wade through.

Nobody was "nice" enough to tag me.... And though I just barely posted something like this, I thought I'd go through a few songs that I listen to off and on.

the first and top song is "Waldorf Worldwide". For some reason the lyrics have really caught my attention lately. (Don't let the first few lines throw you, heh) Which is wierd, I don't really like rap, but this is pretty rappish in a punk kind of a way. Reading through the lyrics never gets me with songs, I always want to hear them. So here you go.

Here are a few other songs that have been kicking around here and there. Most are not new to me, it's been a while since I listened to the radio. Unless you count talk radio in the car. But that's a whole 'nuther post.

"The Anthem" also by Good Charlotte.
"My own worst enemy" by Lit, with honorable mentions "Lipstick and bruises" and "Miserable". I need to mention here, that I really like Lit's style. Or... At least how they don't take themselves too seriously. =)
"Face Down" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
"I'm OK, you're OK" by MxPx
"Meant to live" by switchfoot.
"Silver & Cold" by AFI. (I like the sound, the video made the song a bit worse for me, beware...)

Until later.

Huh?

2007-03-09T13:51:00.001-07:00

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1) If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.

2) If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Old school

2007-02-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

Got Link?

You can make your own on that site as well.

More later. =)

Muzak

2007-02-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy with my gaming lately, so I've had little time/effort for this poor blog. I almost feel guilty. Almost.

Anyhow, the silence is a bit too long and uncomfortable, I thought I'd post my top 25 most played songs list from iTunes. This is kind of a skewed list as I rebuilt my iTunes library a few months back... but shouldn't be too off as far as style. Enjoy!

(From 1-25, I'm too lazy to reverse things and make it a countdown list)

Hit Or Miss - New Found Glory
Lights and Sounds - Yellowcard
Fat Lip - Sum 41
Be My Escape - Relient K
Forward Motion - Relient K
All She's Got - Sum 41
In Too Deep - Sum 41
Nothing On My Back - Sum 41
The Anthem - Good Charlotte
Meant to Live - Switchfoot
Swing, Swing - The All-American Rejects
Everywhere - Yellowcard
Times Like These - Foo Fighters
Little Things - Good Charlotte
Still Waiting - Sum 41
A Praise Chorus - Jimmy Eat World
Linkin Park - Breaking the Habit
Seein' Red - Elva
My Friends Over You - New Found Glory
Bush - Little Things
Glycerine - Bush
Send the Pain Below - Chevelle
Responsibility - MxPx
The Rock Show - Blink-182
In The Blood - Better Than Ezra

There's another song that hasn't made this list yet that has caught my attention recently as well, been thinking about posting about it. Maybe later.

Until then.

The burning crusade

2007-01-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the end of the holiday season and the era of new year's resolutions. Best of luck with all that.

I should be hitting the basement again here in a week or two. I have all of the lights done (and have for a while), next is plumbing for the bathroom, air ducts and finishing the miscellany wiring, things like cable, ethernet, smoke alarms. Maybe sometime soon I'll get off my rear and get some more pictures going.

You may not see me much for a couple of weeks though.

I have the world of warcraft expansion to get out of my system.

Untill later.

IRC

2007-01-13T23:25:00.000-07:00

Have any of you ever visited an internet chatroom? Also known as IRC or internet relay chat.

I used to frequent an IRC channel when I was in college. Some crazy people hang out in those. People tend to socialize like it were a bar or resturaunt or soemthing. Maybe a more apt example is Denny's at 2 AM. Who knows.

Anyway.

I sumbled across a link to a site I had forgotten about for some time, bash.org. They have funny snippets of chatrooms and a few stories like this one sprinkled in.

I thought I'd post a couple for you. You know, in case you get bored or something.

Enjoy.