If I Get Old

New Television Post and New Page for the site

2008-10-10T22:35:00.005-04:00

New site design

2008-10-10T20:45:00.004-04:00

After almost 3 years, I have decided to redesign my site. I am working on setting up a schedule or something so that I can update with some regularity.

As far as the One Hundred Pushup Challenge is concerned, I think that I am going to throw in the towel on that one. It's not that I'm giving up on regaining strength. I have just spent a lot of time in the gym these past couple of months and recently I re-introduced strength training into my routine and it feels great to be lifting weights again. I'm not going to blog about that because I'm sure that all 5 you couldn't care less about what I eat and how much weight I put up.

On a completely different topic, I would like to introduce you all to one of my favorite podcasts. I have laughed more at the Geek Survival Guide than anything other than The Office. He hasn't updated his feed in quite some time but the old episodes are all worth a listen. I have gone through them all at least twice now and still find them funny.

Let me know what you think of the new site design and of the podcast.

New Music Post

2008-10-03T21:32:00.001-04:00

Biz Markie

Week 3 Day 1 Take 2

2008-10-02T23:51:00.003-04:00

Yes, it has been almost 4 weeks since I last did any push ups. I have not given up. I'm starting over on week 3 now and with the new effort I'm changing the Post Title format. They seemed pretty easy today considering I've been really slacking.

14
60 second rest

18
60 second rest

14
60 second rest

14
60 second rest

22

Total 82

Day Eight

2008-09-07T20:24:00.003-04:00

It's been four days since the last time I did my push ups and I could tell. I meant to get to them each of the last two days and just never made it. I was able to complete the whole set, just barely making the minimum of 25 for the last round. The last 5 were sloppy but I'm counting them anyway, because they hurt!

25
90 second rest

19
90 second rest

19
90 second rest

15
90 second rest

25

Total 103

Did this make the news?

2008-09-04T17:49:00.005-04:00

I don't have cable, so I'm not sure what kind of attention this received.

I can't find the whole video anymore. I know that there was a portion where Diddy suggested that McCain should have picked Michelle Obama as his running mate instead.

This is precisely why we should be demanding that our entertainers entertain us and nothing more. There has got to be a way to let celebrities know that we don't care about their opinions or feelings on political issues. We just want to hear them sing or watch them act and then we want to forget about them altogether.

At least that's what I want

Day Seven

2008-09-03T21:43:00.002-04:00

25
60 second rest

17
60 second rest

17
60 second rest

15
60 second rest

20

Total 94

Wow...94, that's almost the goal, only with rests. I was supposed to do 25 on the last set, but before I got down to start I told my wife that I didn't think I was going to be able to get out 5 more, much less 25. So, I'm pretty happy with 20.

Second Exhaustion Test

2008-09-02T21:35:00.002-04:00

I completed the second exhaustion test and did 43 consecutive push ups. This is only 5 more than when I tried 2 weeks ago. I guess it is still an improvement, but I was hoping to see a bigger gain already. It still puts me in the highest category for the challenge so if I believe that the system works then I should have no problem reaching the goal of 100 push ups without stopping.

Day Six

2008-08-30T19:32:00.003-04:00

I did my push ups early today with the promise of an ice cold Guinness or two as a reward. I can feel a difference in my arms now while doing the push ups. I don't know if they feel easier, but they feel better. If that makes any sense.

15
120 second rest

15
120 second rest

12
120 second rest

12
120 second rest

30

Total 84

Day Five

2008-08-28T23:19:00.002-04:00

My totals went up considerably since Monday and I'm pretty happy about that. The push ups felt easier today, but I still punked out at 20 on the final set.

16
90 second rest

13
90 second rest

11
90 second rest

11
90 second rest

20

Total 71

Confessions of a Sci-Fi Junkie

2008-08-27T22:26:00.003-04:00

We are watching the 1983 mini-series V right now. The execution is very cheesy, but it has strong storyline. While we have been watching we are pulling up imdb to see where else we have seen these actors.

This got us talking about other movies in the genre and I brought up one of my childhood favorites, The Last Starfighter. My wife wasn't certain that she's seen it so I pulled up the imdb page for it. I thought to myself, why not check out the other things the writer has worked on. It turns out, not much, but he does have what looks to be a sequel in production.

I'm sure it won't be great but I'll most likely see that one in theaters if it ever comes out.

Edit: I love how they make "scientist" a dirty word and an evil profession.

Day Four

2008-08-26T22:15:00.003-04:00

Today was much harder than I expected. I did the next to lowest total number out of the 4 days today. I think that it should be getting easier.

12
60 second rest

12
60 second rest

9
60 second rest

7
60 second rest

15

Total 55

This is how I know...

2008-08-25T22:34:00.002-04:00

...that I am married to the right woman.

We had a guest pastor at church yesterday and he was teaching on the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. He was trying to illustrate this idea by making a computer analogy. He said that the gift of the Holy Spirit is like an upgrade to your operating system, similar to going from xp to Vista or from Tiger to Leopard. This gift is better, faster, more efficient and best of all free! At this point my wife leans over and says "Shouldn't he be talking about linux? That sounds like Ubuntu."

I am a lucky man!

Day Three

2008-08-24T22:48:00.003-04:00

Friday should have been Day Three, but I felt awful when I got home from work and had to take a nap. It was also my wife's birthday and I needed to spend time with her on her special day so the push ups got postponed. Naturally, Saturday would have been the next best time to do my exercise, but I spent about 8 hours moving furniture into our new building at church so I didn't feel up to the challenge. Today was a very long day but I needed to push through and get Day Three out of the way so at 10:30 pm I got down on the floor.

15
120 second rest

13
120 second rest

10
120 second rest

10
120 second rest

25

Total 73

Day Two

2008-08-20T22:29:00.002-04:00

Today was easier than I expected and I haven't had any soreness or fatigue yet. So, by my reckoning this is pretty successful already

12
60 second rest

12
60 second rest

10
60 second rest

10
60 second rest

25

Total 69

Day One

2008-08-18T23:28:00.003-04:00

This is the first real day of the 100 Pushup Challenge. It went a easier than I thought it would.

10
60 second rest

10
60 second rest

8
60 second rest

6
60 second rest

20

Total 54

We'll see how it goes from here. Looking ahead at the program I should be doing 99 with intermittent breaks just 2 short weeks from now.

100 Pushup Challenge: Initial Test

2008-08-16T13:08:00.004-04:00

So I have decided to start the one hundred push up challenge. I used to be able to set down my beer, crank out 100 and pick my beer right back up again, but apparently something I was doing there was acting against the goal of being healthy or fit.

I took the initial test and I did 38 push ups. This puts me at level 4 out of 7 and I'm ok with starting out that way. Hopefully, soon it won't be hard to hit 100 again. I'm going to track my progress here and hope that the four of you don't mind.

Grossest thing EVER!

2008-08-13T22:26:00.002-04:00

This is totally safe for work, but the absolute grossest thing that I have ever seen.

I have never, ever been that drunk!

News?

2008-08-11T20:41:00.007-04:00

US swimming rep. talks about how to curb drownings
John Cruzat heads the US swimming diversity program. He came at the request
of members of the Brookland Baptist Church, where they met to talk about
how to curb the recent drownings in the Midlands.
Full Story

We have a US Swimming Diversity Program?

How will we know when US Swimming has reached maximum diversity?

Do we have an exit strategy for when maximum diversity has been obtained?

Is this department large enough to need a head?

Is it safe to assume that the department is funded by tax payers?

"Silver Alert" could be a reality in SC soon
Thursday on Nightcast, we told you about the "Silver Alert." It's just like
the Amber Alert, except the focus is on finding senior citizens like
Barbara Brunson, missing for five days so far.
Full Story"

Maybe I'm too callous, but I think that this is totally funny.

One of these days I would love to see news get back to reporting actual news items. It's been a sad reality for quite some time now that, due to the 24 hour "News" networks, all of our input is pure fluff.

Is it fall yet?

2008-08-09T07:57:00.002-04:00

I am now officially excited for the start of the new season of The Office.

If you're not familiar you can get caught up at hulu.

New Music Post

2008-08-08T21:27:00.002-04:00

Flight Of The Conchords

New Music Post

2008-08-05T20:27:00.007-04:00

I have finally updated my music page. Please check it out here and let me know what you think

Is this the future we want?

2008-08-04T10:30:00.001-04:00

Somehow I always pictured thing being a lot cooler and faster in the future but, it seems that we have settled for hyper color beer.

Old News

2008-08-03T10:00:00.002-04:00

This came out a couple of weeks ago so if you knew about it / wanted to see it you probably already have. This is for those of you who may have missed it.

Poll

2008-08-02T13:33:00.002-04:00

There is a poll up on the site. Please click through and answer whether anyone actually reads this blog on the upper right side.

Actual Personal Update

2008-08-02T12:19:00.006-04:00

So it's been an extremely long time since I have updated here and even when there were posts they haven't let anyone know what's going on in my life. With that in mind I'm going try to fill everyone in as much as possible.

My wife and I celebrated our third anniversary one month ago today. It seems like we have been together for much longer than that and at the same time like we were just married yesterday.

We have found a church and have been attending there for at least the past year and it has been a great blessing for both my wife and me. We have met several couples around our age who share similar interests and are likable. These are all things that we had been praying for for quite a long time.

We are still living on the family compound with My wife's Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle, Mother, Father, 2 Sisters and Brother as our neighbors. This is both a blessing and a curse. While we love them all and greatly appreciate the closeness that we share with them; at times it feels like we can't get started making our own lives together.

On the topic of making our own way we are about 20 weeks into our first pregnancy. We found out a week and a half ago that we are going to have a little girl, due sometime in the middle of December. This has proved to be more exciting, scary and overall emotional than either one of us expected, however, we are both very happy and can't wait to meet our daughter.

On the work front, I did not get into the program that I was trying for back in April of 2006. I also didn't get in when I applied in September that same year. I did, however, get a new position that satisfied all of the prerequisites so that when I applied in September 2007 I was accepted, albeit begrudgingly. The classes started in January this year so I had 3.5 months in a job that I knew I would be leaving very soon. I do not recommend that if you can avoid it. Once the classes started, work seemed to take over a lot of my time. There was a lot of overtime for reading and programming required. I finished the 3 month course at the top of the class and have now been in my new job for about 3 months.

It's been slow going but, it's a huge blessing as well. The raise was enough that I have been able to tell my wife that she does not have to work. If she chooses, she can go back but, she's not getting any pressure for me and I know that it's a weight off of her shoulders. With that in mind she has gone into full nesting mode and is, daily, making plans on how to best arrange the house for when the baby comes. I love seeing her light up and get excited about these things.

That's all that I can think of for right now.

Best Video Ever

2008-07-31T21:33:00.003-04:00

This is the funniest thing that I have seen in a really long time.

You don't know me but I'm famous

2007-07-12T18:10:00.000-04:00

This was forwarded to me by a long lost friend and it immediately rekindled my love for this band that I spent so much time following. I lost track but I know that I was present at more than 100 shows around the South East from 1997 through their ~~breakup~~ sabbatical in 2005.

Dim and the Dark

Feel Free To Use

2007-07-08T09:15:00.000-04:00

This is quite possibly the most useful thing on the entire internet.

ThanksNo.com

Happy Fourth Of July

2007-07-04T09:19:00.000-04:00

I thought that I might share with you the funniest use of fireworks in a television show ever.

Enjoy....

Overheard

2007-07-01T09:23:00.000-04:00

"Do you think I'll like orange juice when I grow up?"

Billary

2007-06-30T09:54:00.000-04:00

I know that this is old news but I have to wonder if the initial pitch went something like this....

"Hillary, we all know that The Sopranos has been a cultural phenomenon these past 6 years and the finale has sparked some controversy. With this in mind I think it would be a great idea if you and your (semi-estranged, but not really) husband produced a parody video that puts your family in place of the foul mouthed ultra-violent mob boss' family. Whadya think?"

Sopranos Ending

Hillary Promo

Wish I Was There

2007-02-10T23:13:00.000-05:00

2 Tickets to the big game: $3000

1 20 ounce beer at the big game: $18

Seeing Prince's delusions of grandeur in person: Priceless!

Say It Ain't So

2007-02-08T20:05:00.000-05:00

So I had a dental appointment today and the dental assistant (who has previously told me that I was hot), let me know that she thought I looked like this guy.

I don't know what's scarier, that a college educated person was watching this movie or that I was letting her help perform medical procedures on me.

Hobbiton, Here we come

2007-02-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

I found a very interesting article recently about "low impact" living. While I'm no ecology nut, there is something here that appeals to me on a very basic level. I'm not sure that I'd want to retire, or raise children like this, but, if it were to be just the two of us I think that this could be the ideal situation for a while.

Surprisingly enough, my wife was very keen on the idea of building a home like this someday. Minus the cold and snow and bugs.

News??

2007-01-29T18:16:00.000-05:00

Thank Goodness!

I don't want to sound harsh but, there is no reason why this should be national news. Let's put it into a little bit of perspective. If the World's Heavyweight Champion Cock fighter broke a talon no one would ever know. The only way this gets worse is if people start putting up memorials a la Dale Earnhardt on street corners.

Nostalgia

2006-10-21T10:59:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Gizmodo for pointing us to this little bit of screen saver history.

Suddenly memories of early Nirvana, Reebok pumps and agonizing hours of class time when we should have been paying attention but instead lost ourselves in a black sky with flying toasters are running through our heads.

United States of Mexanada

2006-10-17T20:04:00.000-04:00

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.
Full Story

How, with all of the recent talk of border security, has this issue not been brought to light. This super highway has been in the works as a part of NAFTA for several years now, yet it seems that we have not tried to address the potential dangers it could pose in post 9/11 America. This plan will allow shipments to enter the country without a security checkpoint until they are 1/3 of the way to Canada and then it is a Mexican Customs Office.

I didn't believe that our new "Fence us in" legislation had any teeth and after a simple google search I am less sure (if that's possible) that ANY of our elected representatives will attempt to really secure our borders. This, more than anything else, is why the Republicans will lose seats in Congress next month. As a party they have completely ignored what conservative America has been asking for.

Even if you take our "representatives" out of the pictures, the news media has not, as far as I can tell, brought this to light. No one seems to have posed the question "What good will a fence be if we are going to offer an express lane to bypass the whole thing?"

Pimp my stick

2006-10-16T19:45:00.000-04:00

So Saturday, I washed laundry and for the first time that I can remember, I did not empty my pockets beforehand. When I went to pull the clothes out of the dryer I noticed my money clip and my heart sunk because I knew that meant that I had also washed and dried my thumb drive.

I found it and went straight to the computer to check it out. Surprisingly enough it is still functional, however, the heat from the dryer did warp the casing considerably and now the cap will no longer stay on.

This has pushed me to look into re-casing it.

This idea is currently the front-runner, but, I am open to any suggestions that you may have.

Hindered by technology

2006-10-07T14:56:00.001-04:00

It has been many years since I last saw the original The Dark Crystal, and I still remember if fondly. Now, this movie may not have been any good whatsoever as evidenced by the fact that I also held in high regard these (Labyrinth, The Never Ending Story and Legend) others from my childhood and I am unable to sit through any of them now.

It has been reported recently that there is now a sequel in the works. The article points out, of course, that the new director would like to honor Jim Henson and try to approach this movie the way that he feels Jim would if he were alive to make this one. I suppose my main concern is the last time I remember seeing a movie series come back to life saying 'We no longer feel hindered by technology' we got Jar Jar Binks.

Either way, we have added the original Dark Crystal to the top of our Netflix queue and we will most likely see this new one, hoping for the best.

Get your wood to go

2006-10-03T20:09:00.000-04:00

** Update to yesterday's post **

I found this on Engadget. I would love to try to do similar work.

Hot or Not ???

2006-10-02T20:33:00.000-04:00

I think that the real question here is do you put this in your pocket or wear it on a lanyard around your neck? At least if you drop it in the lake it should float on the top right?

Of course after this it's only a short trip to get to this.

How do you waste time at work?

2006-09-16T09:22:00.000-04:00

Thank you to Lifehacker for this little nugget of joy. DailyLit.com is a free service that has split books into small segments and will email you one section at a time. They also give you the option to receive the next section immediately in case you have an extra 5 minutes to spend. The selection is still mostly classical literature and all are in the public domain so there are no copyright issues.

I am always looking for fun ways to waste those 5 minutes every hour or so. Any ideas are greatly appreciated

0 - 18

2006-09-10T20:47:00.000-04:00

We missed the entire first half of this game. I'm not sure if that was unfortunate or not. There was another, non-football related party, we had to attend beforehand. By the time we got into the car to head to the football party, the score was already 0 - 12. Another 3 points were scored on the way. The party was fun. We got to see some old friends that we haven't hung out with in a while (jmb367, LordUltraMagnus & Ms. UltraMagnus). There was good food and drinks and a rather nice plasma television. The only other thing we could have asked for would have been a decent game to watch.

I will say this. I was glad to see that Spurrier didn't attempt a field goal when he had the opportunities late in the game so that he could save face by not being shut out. Instead he opted to do everything he could to try to win, which meant going for the touchdown. I don't feel that many of the other recent coaches would have made that decision and whether we scored or not he still tried.

In transition

2006-09-06T21:28:00.000-04:00

Old look, links and new content will all be up soon.

15 - 0

2006-08-31T23:17:00.000-04:00

A win is always welcome. A road win is better and of course a road shut out is usually very exciting. We won, but, this one sounded really ugly and we can not spend the rest of this season this unorganized.

Lighting Crashes

2006-08-31T22:11:00.000-04:00

First things first, we live in the country. Woods, deer, dirt roads, pick up trucks, everything.

About a week and a half ago, there was a very strong storm that passed through the area. While watching television upstairs we saw the flash and heard what sounded like a bomb exploding at almost the exact same time. The power went out and my wife swears she saw a bright blue light coming from the area around the computer. Within a minute the power came back on. I unplugged the computer and all other electronics and we looked out of our back door to see if any of the nearby trees had been struck. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Everything seemed to blow over quickly so we turned the television back on until we were ready to head to bed. As we walked downstairs my wife noticed that there were flashlights at the pump house in her grandmother’s back yard. Being the dutiful husband and grandson in law, I slipped on my tennis shoes and headed over to check it out. Upon arrival I saw my mother and father in law looking over the ruins of the fuse box in the pump house. We found what had been struck. The whole box exploded, sending shards everywhere and completely melting the fuses. Needless to say the pump was no longer functioning properly.

We made sure that everyone had supplies of water for drinking and flushing and all headed to our separate homes. The next day I get a call at work from my wife saying that our phones didn’t appear to be working properly. I finished my day and headed back home to check things out. The only immediate damage that we noticed was our answering machine was shot and the upstairs phone (attached to the computer) was not functioning properly. I spent a little time trouble shooting these problems and determined that it was the phones all around. We replaced the phones and went about our business.

The next day I went to check my email and play online for a while and was furious when my ISP informed me that it could not find a dial tone (I warned you that we live in the country). There was the root of the upstairs problems. Not the phone, but the modem. This modem was less than a year old and I was not quite ready to part with it as I feel that Wal-Mart really ripped me off by charging a whole $25 dollars for it.

With this information I was determined to find a better price and headed out to Best Buy with the notion that maybe a store that knows what a computer is will price their components reasonably. I walked around for some time, not to my surprise, as I am looking for basically a dead technology. Finally, I found a salesman trying to convince a couple who did not speak English very well that they should allow the store to install their modem for a mere $39.95. As soon as he left, I perused the shelves in that general area. They were all empty and some had tags saying they were slot where dial up modems should be. I looked at the prices and the cheapest was $40. Obviously, this was not the correct area in which to look.

I went to a different area and continued to look. Finding the broadband modems and other networking hardware, I figured this would be the what I was wanting. More time was spent looking and listening to other customers as they exclaim the prices are ridiculously high. Finally, a salesman approached me and asked if he could help.

Here is a transcript of our conversation.

“Can I help you?” Blue Shirt Dude

“I’m looking for a dial up Modem.” Me

“They are over here.” BSD

We walk to the area with the empty shelves

“We must have sold out again.” BSD

“Are these the correct prices?” Me

“Yeah, the cheapest one is $40.” BSD

“That’s insane. You ought to get a free modem every time you buy a pizza!!!” Me

“I know, but ever since demand has gone down the prices have gone up.” BSD

This was the end of our conversation, but, I could not believe that he had just said “We must have sold out AGAIN” and followed very shortly after that by saying that demand has gone down. So, it was back to Wal-Mart for me where I shelled out another $25 for what should cost at most $10. Oh, well. One day we’ll leave the farm life behind and head into the big city. Until then, I will just have to deal with the fact that it takes at least 30 seconds to load a web page and at least 8 hours to download a 22-minute video.

In lieu of anything insightful or intelligent I’m going to post this…...

2006-07-27T20:32:00.000-04:00

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its face, and just stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant? Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Word of Warning

2006-05-31T18:11:00.000-04:00

Pack up all of your belongings. Make sure that you turn the oven off in your house. Get you, your family and everything you own to Nebraska. In case you haven’t heard hurricane season starts tomorrow. YOU WILL DIE!

New Movie Reviews

2006-05-29T22:12:00.001-04:00

X-Men 3: The Last Stand

The Office

2006-05-25T20:24:00.000-04:00

I promise I’m coming back in full force soon, however, I’m going to give you all a few good Office links to indulge yourselfs.

First The Official Site

My favorite part is the Fake PSAs I know that at least two of these have aired on primetime television.

There are two official blogs

Rainn Wilson Dwight Schrute

Jenna Fischer Pam Beesly

The really fun part (I think) is that when the cast is on the set some of them keep myspace pages.

Jenna Fischer Pam Beesly

BJ Novak Ryan Howard

Angela Kinsey

Paul Lieberstein Toby

Kevin Malone

Kate Flannery Meredith Palmer

Roy

Darryl

I know there are other myspace pages out there, but these are supposed to be the only real cast member ones.

Enjoy

If you have anymore please let me know.

We are supposed to have two reruns tonight.
Halloween
and Sexual Harassment

Next week four reruns.
The Fire
The Client
Performance Reviews
and E-Mail Surveillance

I know that this is disjointed and doesn’t exactly flow well…

2006-04-17T21:46:00.000-04:00

We got to spend some time this weekend with some friends and see some people that we haven’t seen in quite some time. It was the second ex-girlfriend that my wife has had the pleasure of meeting in the past month. Thankfully, both instances went off very well. The real reason for this information was that my ex stated this weekend that there is some sort of statute of limitations on relationships. Apparently, if it’s been 10 years or more since you dated, it is no longer recognizable as anything more than a friendship. I was unaware of this particular loophole, but I do find it to be extremely reasonable.

On another note, we have been in-between churches for quite some time now. My wife and I met at church and were both very involved there. As our relationship developed and we got to talk and know each other more, we realized that this was not the place for us. That was about a year and a half ago. We have visited several churches since then, some several times, yet we have not found the place that we feel God has for us to serve and worship. With that said, we did not attend anywhere on Easter Sunday. It feels quite foreign to me not to be in church regularly and absolutely alien not to be there on Easter.

Lastly, I have applied for a programming job within my company. I have applied for this same position twice before, but now have some more experience under my belt. With the work that I have done in my current position I should be able to show that I have at least the requisite aptitude. I had a separate conversation with the aforementioned ex about a companies responsibility to it’s employees and it customers to make every attempt to place employees where they can best serve and then use all available resources to grow that employee into their greatest potential. This is my hope and prayer.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…

2006-04-11T23:31:00.000-04:00

Let’s look at a couple of different scenarios.

Suppose you work in a high-stress office environment. You don’t really want to leave because it pays well; yet, the dealing with the stress gets to you. Maybe, in order to deal with the situation, you decide to smoke marijuana. You might consider the mellowness a performance enhancer. If, sometimes it happens, your employer were to find out about your extra-curricular activities; would you expect to be allowed to keep your job?

If you are a professional baseball player and take ILLEAGAL drugs to make you a “better” ball player; the current regulations in MLB state that you face a ten day suspension from work.

Suppose you work in an office building with thousands of employees and the nature of the business deems this building a secure facility. If you decide one day that you do not need to scan your badge on the way into work and even worse yet; you decide that you should ASSAULT the security officer whose job is to guard the front door from people who do not belong in the building (partly for your own safety); do you expect to not be detained and or arrested?

If you are a Georgia CongressWoman, somehow attacking an officer of the LAW is no big deal and in fact you may be not even be at fault in the situation.

Suppose you are not an American citizen but you would like to be. You have moved from your home country to the United States and worked for years to follow all of the thousands of procedures set forth by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in order to obtain LEGAL citizenship.

If hundreds of thousands of people have entered your new country and obtained employment ILLEAGLY, would you consider your situation and theirs to be “Equal?”

Why do our representatives even bother to recommend, write, argue about, amend and finally pass any sort of law when we always seem to find some sort of situation where it doesn’t apply? When can we agree that the law is the law and it applies to everyone equally?

New Movie Reviews

2006-04-09T12:52:00.001-04:00

The Benchwarmers

New Movie Reviews

2006-04-06T22:24:00.002-04:00

Inside Man

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Nothing to worry about here.

2006-04-04T22:40:00.000-04:00

You can all sleep soundly now that you know this.

And for those of us who suffer daily we now have hope. * note to fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, this maybe to much to handle, have a friend or trusted coworker read this article an relay it to you gently

Late Birthday Present Ideas

2006-04-02T17:52:00.000-04:00

Another birthday has come and gone. I won't say which birthday this is but I will let you know that I have only 27 more years until I would like to retire. That sounds like an awful long time. I have received wonderful gifts from everyone this year and I thank you all. For those of you who have yet to purchase my gift(s) for this year this will more than make up for your tardiness.

I promise that I won't even mention that this isn't even close to my storage capacity needs.

Insert Creative Title Here

2006-03-15T21:23:00.000-05:00

In order to explain why I haven't been writing lately I'll try sum up what has been going on in the past month. I know that the right column list only two books on my current reading list but it would be more accurately counted as six.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Tricky Business

In addition to reading all of these books I have been listening to these audio books while at work.

1984

Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Hopefully, with all of this going on I will have some new reviews up soon.

You may notice that my new links are no longer using Amazon. I'm a little disappointed with them. I spent quite some time last week looking around and was about to check out with about $35 worth of used books. When it came time to pay they wanted to charge me $200 dollars just for shipping and handling. The worst part about it was all of the hoops I had to go through on their site in order to find out what the total charge would be. Needless to say I will be looking for another way to procure my desired reading materials.

In other news we have joined Netflix and are loving it. I have been able to introduce my wife to Danger Mouse and we are catching up on all of The X-Files. There have been a couple of others but it's been mostly 3 weeks worth of Mulder and Scully so far. This new service for us has made me aware of a great travesty. No one has made The Wonder Years available in DVD format yet. You can get bootleg versions from Europe but I'm leery of that what with different region codes and all.

New book review

2006-02-16T21:59:00.001-05:00

I just keep getting bigger.

What to do

2006-02-16T20:05:00.001-05:00

I struggle with what to do here. I am at a loss most days as to what to post. I don’t want to drone on endlessly about work. I know that aside from my immediate family, most people don’t care. I enjoy talking about the entertainment industry, but most people seem to find me overly critical at best. So today I will leave you with a question that was asked of me the other day by a friend.

Have you ever been angry at God?

I have, I won’t go into all of the details save to say that it’s past and not likely to return. The puzzling thing about it was the question was raised in the conversation as if my friend wanted to be asked, yet he never gave his answer. So I ask all of you.

New movie review

2006-02-08T19:10:00.001-05:00

I have officially expanded. Check out my first review.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Just complaining about work

2006-02-08T18:23:00.000-05:00

I am, once again, just regular old me at work. I was informed on Monday that the IS department has not filed the requisite paperwork to move forward on our project because they were waiting for approval from the VP. This is extraordinarily annoying because in the initial demo meeting he told everyone there that he wanted to push this through as quickly as possible and at the same time he gave his approval. That was 3 weeks ago. In the meantime, I have been researching and learning while at work. I have found that, while the current program would suffice, we can make it a lot more intuitive and easier to maintain. I love this sort of work. It requires thought, which in my work environment is extremely rare.

With all of this in mind my management has determined that I have no work to perform at this current time on development of the existing program. So I am supposed to resume my normal duties. I have, for the past two days done my job, and have done enough work, using my program, to meet my quotas for a week and a half. I was told that as soon as the ball gets rolling that I would be freed from my duties again. I have this fear now that when IS becomes involved, that the whole project will be taken away from me. I’m not concerned about departmental recognition or anything like that. My main goal with this, is to be able to get out of my department and find a new home doing something more technical and interesting.

On a small side note, a friend of mine was just awarded employee of the month for January, because she makes the coffee for the department. It’s only moderately insulting that this is the sort of thing that is applauded in my area. To make it worse, the only real recognition that anyone receives is a small plastic “Traveling Trophy” that you get to sit on your desk for the month.

It's Been A Busy Week

2006-01-30T20:53:00.000-05:00

I really am going to make an effort to post more often. I had a lot of things that I wanted to write about, but, since it took so long I will just have to sum up what I've been doing for the past week.

I read about 90% of this book on Saturday

I saw this movie sometime last week and can not recommend unless you happen to be a great distance from sobriety.

I saw these two movies over the weekend and I'm not too sure what to say about either. Neither was as good or bad as could be expected.

I'm just starting this book for a little light reading at work while I wait for the people in IS to get their ducks in a row so that we can start going over my code and making this project into something that everyone will be satisfied with.

Still coming will be my review pages, when I get time to do work on them. Following that, I'm thinking of posting my music library for reference purposes. I'm not entirely sure about doing that though.

It’s Like A Black Fly In Your Chardonnay

2006-01-30T20:28:00.000-05:00

Apparently this man fabricated a couple of stories in his book and it's a national scandal.

This man, given his track record, has probably fabricated an entire book and no one cares.

Can work be fun and fulfilling?

2006-01-19T19:57:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't been keeping track of what's going on with me I suggest you read my my next to last post on my old blog.

Now that we have that out of the way.

I had my presentation with the Vice President of my area (whom I later found out invited himself to the meeting) and the three people from IS.

Here are just a few quotes from the VP.

"This is the best thing that I've seen in a long time."

"I wish that we could start using this tomorrow."

"As soon as this is done, I'm going to bring him upstairs to revamp my other areas."

"When this is all implemented, I'm going to find out how much this saves the company, and ensure that you are compensated."

"Not to put you on the spot (to my director and manager), but I want him to be freed up from his regular responsibilities in order to focus on this full time."

I heard this second hand from the director.

"I want him to show it to the president when it's through."

On top of all of that my director (step below VP) made sure that everyone in the room knew that I have taught myself how to do this in the past 5 months. It seems that everyone was very impressed.

The people in IS want to sit with me and go over the code and see what they may be able help with. There are a few things that the director wants added in that I don't know how to do. My hope is that at least my input is heard and at most that I will get to help, observe or otherwise learn something new to do. Either way, steps are already being made to hire a temp to do my job while I am finishing my project. When I am done with my part and the IS people have done their thing, the plan is for me to spend all of my time training the rest of the area how to use this new system. I could just about explode with excitement. I don't think that anyone in management expects me to return to my old duties when this project is completed and that gives me a great deal of hope and sense of accomplishment.

Are We Free At Last?

2006-01-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

So, I spent a good deal of time yesterday contemplating what I felt about the holiday and how best to put my feelings into my blog. I struggled, not sure of how to say what I was thinking. I feel a sense of regret that I was not alive to see the direct impact of a man like Dr. King. But, I'm also grateful that the times in which I grew up were not so tumultuous that they needed this type of figure.

My greatest sense of remorse, however, was for the utter lack of respectable leadership for the black community or for the ACLU currently. With this on my mind, I decided it best not to post anything on the topic at all.

I went to bed with said intentions.

It has been our practice for a while for my wife and I to read before we go to sleep. Sometimes it will be separate books, but most of the time I will read to her until she falls asleep. We have been reading (and finished last night) 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg. It was this book that changed my mind.

I don't know enough about Anthony Romero (current director of the ACLU) to comment on his particular actions in these events, but here is what the book had to say about the organization as a whole.

[In the past few years]...

The ACLU sued the Boy Scouts of America and got them kicked out of a city park in San Diego, where they had camped out for decades, on the grounds that it was a religious organization.

The ACLU has argued that even a moment of silence in public schools can amount to the 'establishment of religion' and is therefore unconstitutional.

The ACLU forced the county of Los Angeles to take a tiny cross off its seal, on the grounds that it violated the separation-of-church-and-state doctrine, even though it represented the historical founding of Los Angeles by Catholic missionaries and wasn't advocating religion in any way.

The ACLU has argued that a doctor should not be allowed to tell a wife that her husband has the AIDS virus, because 'the benefits of confidentiality outweigh the possibility that someone may be injured' as an ACLU spokesman explained it.

And the ACLU has even defended the loathsome North American Man Boy Love Association--an organization that 'celebrates the joys of men and boys in love'--arguing that just because one of its members read material on the NAMBLA Web site and then, with a friend, went out and kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and killed a ten-year-old boy, NAMBLA cannot be held responsible for helping incite the murder.

That got me going a bit, not that I hadn't heard or read about each of these incidents before. I was still resolved not to post anything about Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Until, I read this amazing quote by a truly great man. One who really educated and helped people much the same way as Dr. King.

'There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their trouble, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs--partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

Booker T. Washington

I don't feel that this is a fitting way to celebrate the holiday and for that reason I'm glad that I didn't post anything about it yesterday. My greatest hope is to see a leader white or black; man or woman, rise up and unite the masses. Rather than do their best to divide and secretly segregate us.

Am I a right-wing nut job? or just an old-fashioned fear monger?

2006-01-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

I read this quite some time ago in The Real America by Glenn Beck. The Following list was (supposedly) entered into the congressional record in 1963 by then Florida senator Hon Herlong. I have tried for some time to verify it's validity online, but congressional records online do not go back this far. I have, however, found that there are hundreds of sites devoted to or documenting this same information if you google "Communist Goals 1963". It seems to have originated from a book called The Naked Communist by W. Cleon Skousen. Supposing the list was legitimate, I would say they have made significant progress.

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS (1963)

U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

Do away with all loyalty oaths.

Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

Gain control of all student newspapers.

Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

Internationalize the Panama Canal.

Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Links

2006-01-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

I seem to have figured out adding links, so use them. I definitely recomend checking out Ozma and The Office.

2006-01-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

This will more than likely be my feeble attempt to teach myself HTML. We'll see.