Is he a Capricorn?

So uh, lets have a look at him.....he's a catch right? Check out Bobby's moves here. I jacked up and cut the music ten seconds short but its not bad for my first effort with adding my own background music.

Arrgh, so it's me buried treasure yer after matey

Take 41,000 tiny "buried treasures" in 161 countries; add tens of thousands of computer geeks worldwide putting down their mice and keyboards in favor of their GPS to find them, and what do you get? Geocaching!! Me, Marcy and the kids will be heading out to explore our community in search of these caches this weekend, what will you be doing? This is our first exploration so we are keeping it local, but with caches in just about every area of this, and many other, countries our adventures could take us around the globe. Not since Lewis and Clark has a family braved the elements in the spirit of exploration. OK, so that may be an exaggeration, but it will a great way to find places and things we never knew were there.

Filed in: Family Recreation

My name is Nicotine, come take my hand

I'm tired of it. When I do have one I get tired, and when I don't have one I get sketchy. I'm friggin sick of it. What's a guy to do??? I finally came to work today without any cigarettes on me, and the only other guy that smokes here at work is off today, Thank God. I just want to break this friggin cycle once and for all and be done with it. I have some Nicorette with me, but I only want to use it if I am in dire need, e.g. ready to go into my boss' office and strangle him. Hopefully that will not happen, I honestly like the guy and I wouldn't want to do that to him.

Battling a virus on my network here wasn't helping matters either, but it looks like I'm in the clear. With the help of InnoculateIT running on our Novell Network and AVG 6.0 to scan local drives, I may just have beaten the beast. One beast down, one to go.

Filed in: QuitJournal Tech

Thanks Sis

Alright, my sister just sent along the new 2003 Hooters Calendar. Check it out.

Filed in: Humor

Hmm....

Finally someone begs the question....Work or Spoon... Which will you choose?

Filed in: Humor

Bringing out the Geek

I absolutely love getting a chance to play with something new, whether it's a new computer which costs more than a few car payments to say the least, or it's a free piece of software. Find me something to tinker with and configure and I'll stay busy for hours on end. That's what happened this morning when I finally checked Avant Browser out. Can you say ooooohhhhhh. I did. It's as fast as Internet Explorer and it kills pop-up ads. Yes, I know about Mozilla too, but I didn't like Mozilla (even switched back to IE and put up with Pop-Up Ads) for two main reasons:

1. I did not like having to keep Mozilla open via the system tray to speed up the opening of the browser itself (which otherwise is sluggish) - AND
2. Getting to the preferences to turn off the Pop-up Killer, which has to be done on certain occasions (using bookmarklets primarily) is too intensive

Avant Browser runs on IE's engine so it is just as fast starting up without the need to reside in your system tray hogging resources; and you can turn the Pop-up killer on and off via a button on the tool bar when needed. Plus the multi-tabbed experience in Avant Browser is quicker on both my computer at work and at home than Mozilla's. I was sold on Mozilla for awhile, but headed back to IE to due a few annoyances, but I think Avant Browser has addressed where Mozilla went wrong and then some. Check it out for yourself, and if you have already, let me know what you think.

Filed in: Tech

I Don't know Jack

A couple weeks ago, theWife, theInLaws and I went up to Jackson for a little gambling fun. We took theDaughter with us but do you think not being able to gamble stopped her from having any fun? Hell no, I've got the evidence here. I swear she's gonna end up being a model or actress or both. That girl loves the camera. At least she had more luck staying outside than I did inside, that's for sure. Woops. I let it ride, one too many times.

Filed in: Family Recreation

Shutup Already

I don't get mad about many things, in fact most times I'm down right annoyingly passive. But if there is one thing that gets me seeing red, it's constant talking during a class. I pay damn good money to attend classes so that I can learn something, I want to be able to learn something without having to hear about someone else's life through the whole friggin class. The funniest part is the people who are doing the talking are the same ones complaining that they can't understand the material or keep up with the teacher. Then they find a way to blame the teacher for going too fast. Shut the F up and pay attention. It works wonders.

Filed in: UncommonlySenseless

Woof

I told myself that I was not going to drink too much at yesterday's Super Bowl Party me and Marcy attended. As it turns out....I lied. Don't worry though, I am paying the price for it today. "Are your Monday's not hard enough? Do you actually enjoy Monday's? Well do we have a solution for you....Beer, lot's of it. Order today and your order will be shipped and at your door by Sunday, guaranteed. If your not completely satisfied with your hangover, we'll send you, at no cost, a beer bong. Drink one, two, even three beers in the time it takes your neighbor to just take a sip." Things wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have school after work tonight. Oh well, I'll manage to get through it. I have before, that's for sure.

A quick Saturday recap of events at Michael's Pinewood Derby for those interested....Michael's car came in third place and gives him the right to compete in the District Championships. Yes, these events can even go to national races. I wonder what type of competition are at these events....Do ya think parents sabotage other kid's cars? I bet it happens. It would be easy enough. Superglue could be made to look suspiciously like lubricant that's used on the wheels of these cars. I think I'll make a movie about that......"Coming to a theater near you, Tom Cruise is Little Timmy in....Pinewood Days of Thunder."

Filed in: Recreation UncommonlySenseless Family

Distracted

I thought I would be able to get some homework done before I have to pick Marcy up from getting her massage, but distractions are a bitch aren't they? Maybe someone can help me, I'm taking Math 70 which is an Algebra I course. Here's my problem:

St. Louis and Portland are 2060 miles apart. A small plane leaves Portland, traveling toward St. Louis at an average speed of 90 miles per hour. Another plane leaves St. Louis at the same time, traveling toward Portland, averaging 116 miles per hour. How long will it take them to meet?

Meet?? Will they really be meeting in midair? How long will it take Mike to realize this and jump from the airplane using the plane's only parachute? That's a better question.

Filed in: UncommonlySenseless

Time to make the donuts

Between Tyler's baseball tryouts this morning and Michael Pinewood Derby this afternoon, I may not have much time to post anything today. I will try though. I'm looking at revamping my photo gallery and still working on my digital vids.

Filed in: Family Tech Recreation

They Call Me The Karaoke Okie

Ok, not really, it's just the only word I could think of to rhyme with karaoke. Friday mornings go way too fast. It doesn't help that Thursday night is kaoroke night at the ole Main Street Inn, but I digress. I did manage to encode the video as I said I would yesterday and damned if it (Windows Media Encoder that is) didn't work like a charm. What I ended up with is good quality vids with resolutions of 320x240 and 30 fps at the same sizes of the other format's much lesser quality attempts. Next task will be to edit two or more clips into one movie (with transitions and effects and all). That might take a few of my hours up, for sure.

P.S. In the future I will try to keep all my vids under 2 minutes. I guess I got a tad bit carried away with this one. Sorry.

Filed in: Family Tech Recreation

Rise Hour

For me, Rise Hour is that first hour of my day, from 5 AM til 6 AM, that is vitally necessary for me to wake up. I usually spend it cramming as much geekdom as I can into one hour. On most days, with family, work and school (homework included), it's the only chance I have all day to truly geek out. This morning's Rise Hour task, start learning how to edit video from my DV Camera. Yes, this sort of task normally will take more than just one hour, but I condense learning to fit my schedule. I have to break it up into many one hour sessions. Usually what happens though is I only learn just enough to make whatever it is I am doing semi-publishable. Take this Blog for instance...it's ok as far as design and content go. It could be far better though. Remember, I learn one hour at a time, so stick around, it will only get better everyday.

Back to the task at hand...There are two parts to this morning's challenge. One, transfer a single clip, non-edited, and make a movie file that will be decent quality, without having a file size too large to comfortably view from the site. Sounds simple enough, but which format do I choose? OK, let's try a few. My first attempt is a .wmv file with a res of 320 x 240 at 30 fps. This being a 4 minute clip that file came out way too big to be of any use to my blog. Moving on (for now), I created a quicktime file with a res of 160 x 120 at 15 fps and the results are not too shabby, but it is an 8 MB file. Next I made the same clip (same res and fps) into a real media file. This movie came out with almost the same quality but at 4 MB is only half the price. I still want better quality with less size so I may take that huge Windows Media file and encode it with Windows Media Encoder to see how that turns out, but that will have to wait til tomorrow.

Next I wanted to do a basic test drive of the editing software that came with my computer, MovieShaker. The video could be a better quality (reference earlier concerns) but so far I like what I see (please disregard the cheesy safety-short music). Click here to view this edited file. Enough already, I'll try again tomorrow.

Filed in: Family Tech Recreation

Common Sense Rules

It's about damn time. As if to reply to my remarks regarding the law suit against McDonald's and Weight Watchers, a U.S. Federal Judge dismissed the obesity case brought against McDonald's. The judge ruled that McDonald's was not responsible for an individual's obesity. Well, if not McDonald's then who? We can't be held personally accountable for anything now a days. I know, Burger King....it must be their fault.

Although it would not surprise me to see such a complaint brought against BK next, hopefully this one decision will set a precedence in these frivolous and wasteful lawsuits. With any luck at all, more cases such as these will be tossed out of court before too many of our tax dollars are wasted on them.

Filed in: UncommonlySenseless

Please, I'm begging you....make me feel special

Last October Marcy took me to Reno for a weekend to celebrate my birthday. While we were there we caught a stand-up show at Catch A Rising Star in the Silver Legacy. The guy who opened the show absolutely blew us away. His name is Tommy Savitt and if you haven't heard of him yet, don't worry...you will. Since then I have been quoting his show to family and friends, but they just didn't seem to get it...until now that is. Do yourself a favor and check out heytommy.net. The site doesn't have that much info on it, but the video is definately worth the watch. Trust me, it's good stuff.

Filed in: Humor Travel

Mama always told me nobody likes a quitter

I got to tell ya, having quite smoking a few times before, I thought quitting again would be easy. This is the toughest time yet. Me and Marcy (my wife) both quit in 98 for the year, 2000, 2001, and 2002 for 6 months each time. Every year we have slipped and gave up trying. It's different this year. Maybe that's why it's so gut-wrenching this time around. I swear, on the days that I don't have a cigarette, and choose not to injest any nicotine via the gum, I feel like peeling the flesh off of my face. Yes, It is that bad!!! Trying not to snack on everything I find only makes it worse. I lost 60 pounds though last year with following along with my wife's Weight Watcher's program, and I do not plan on putting it back on.

Filed in: QuitJournal

Every time that I think

Every time that I think I have heard it all, a story comes along and reminds me that it is impossible for me to hear it all. Continuing the American tradition of not taking personal responsibility for anything, some idiot of an english woman is suing weight watchers for making people gain the weight they lose back so that they will come back to weight watchers. First McDonalds gets sued for making us eat food and gain weight, because we all know McDonalds makes us eat there, now Weight Watchers makes people start eating like crap after they lose weight so that they will re-gain all their weight, if not more.

Let's get real here for a second shall we? How many burgers have you been forced at gunpoint to eat? How many french fries have been shoved in your mouth by Vinnie and Guido? I can't count how many times I've have been forced to eat. Wait, no....I haven't. In fact I think I remember learning something about having free will, and I'm pretty sure everybody else does too. When will the court system stand up for itself make someone, anyone, responsible. That's all I ask for, is that we as a nation and world simply take responsibily and accountability over our own actions. Nobody else, just our own. Maybe that's too difficult though.

Filed in: UncommonlySenseless

First post of a new

Blog, and a new beginning. I'm only trying this out right now....but if I like it, it may become a permanent fixture on this site. If it does, BloggerPro will have to be purchased and more and more features will start popping up. It all depends on how easy this software is to use.

Filed in: Blog