Christmas Shopping

I have yet to buy one present for the family. Working in a different state puts a big damper on Christmas, no tree, no gifts under the tree, lights, decorations, etc. I don't know what to get my wife. I asked her what she wants and she doesn't know so I told her she's getting an iPhone if she doesn't pick something. We've been going through this for a couple weeks now so I'm thinking she really must want an iPhone cuz she picked a gift yet. Getting Hayley gifts here in MN sucks because we can't bring them back to CA, so we're stuck with deciding if we should wait to get her gifts until we get back to CA or get her some here and letting her play with them when we get back.

Anyway, have a Merry Christmas.

Super Mario Galaxy Saves the Wii

Going into the holiday I was thinking of selling the Wii. All the games I've rented haven't been that great and except for tennis, baseball, and golf the wii-mote hasn't really had a great use. I rented Madden and I didn't like the passing configuration at all. I'd much rather play Madden with a game pad. With the demand for the Wii I was thinking I could sell it with the extra wii-mote and games and make enough money to buy an xbox 360.

Before heading to MN I read an article that said Super Mario Galaxy was the highest rated game of all time. Intrigued, I thought about buying it but I put it off to think it over. Eventually I bought it and tried it out. If this game didn't pan out it would've been the last game I bought without renting it first. The game has about 15 minutes of dialog at the start which was disappointing cuz I thought it was going to be like that throughout the entire game. However, as the play wore on this game turned entertaining as the it galaxies start out simple and teach the controls along with achieving milestones. The farther into the game you get the harder it gets.

I'm really impressed with the creativity that went into this game. There are so many different features to this game. Both the num chuck and the wii-mote are used extensively and both can be used for totally different functions at the same time which makes quick thinking a must.

I'm happy with the game and I'm not thinking of selling the Wii now. Hopefully the Mario Cart lives up to the hype as well.

Heading Back to MN

Enjoy the holidays all. I'm heading back to MN until after the New Year, and I'll have limited access to the Internet so there will be little activity on the blog. (I know at least one reader that will miss it)

911 Challenge!!

For the last three weeks we've been hitting up University Chicken. It's a college sports bar so we're pretty much the oldest bunch in the bar. They have an assortment of food, but they are best known for their wings which are friggen awesome, as long as the sauce is at the lower half of the scale. (shown above) Last night we saw two attempts at the 911 Challenge. The rules of the challenge are:

1. Sign Waiver and admit you are an IDIOT for attempting the 911 Challenge.
2. Eat 12 911 Global Thermo Nuclear Wings the to the bone in 10 minutes or less.
3. Nothing else to eat or drink while taking the challenge.
4. No napkins allowed during the challenge.
5. Lick fingers clean after eating the last wing.
6. After licking fingers clean, wait 5 minutes before eating or drinking anything.
7. The Most Important Rule: Participants — wash hands very, very, very well before going to the bathroom or rubbing your eyes (think about it)!

Winners get a T-Shirt and their picture put on the wall. After watching the two attempts there's no way I'd even think about attempting it. The wings are in so much sauce that the wings have to be fished out. The sauce is basically a deep dark brown thick mud. It doesn't look edible at all.

Two guys tried it first, both of them downed the first wing in about 20 seconds. contestant one continued at the same pace on the second wing, contestant two had to take a second before starting on the next wing. Contestant two finished the second wing and chocked a bit. The crowd around him started call for a garbage. He got about half way through the 3rd wing and started dry heaving. Now if that were me I'd quit right there, but he kept eating cheered on by the entire bar. After finishing the 3rd wing he took about 20 seconds off, he kept looking at the 4th wing and bolted for the door and threw up outside, disqualifying him so he was out. Contestant one was now on his 4th wing and I think he just quit after seeing his buddy bolt for the door, he seemed to see his fate if he continued forcing them down.

About 30 minutes later we saw another attempt. The guy brought out 4 tubs of wings for what I thought was 4 guys, but the guy put them in front of the 4 girls sitting at the table. One girl ate one wing and she was done. The other three were working on their 4th wing when we left. Over 5 minutes had past so there was no way there were going to finish the challenge. But I was impressed that they were able to eat 3 of them and who knows how many more.

Wild vs San Jose

We hit the Wild vs Sharks game tonight in San Jose and it was the boring game ever. The Wild skated like they had lead sleds in the arses, it was so pathetic. They turned it on a bit in the final 10 minutes of the third period but by that time they were down 4-0 so it was pretty much over by then. There were a couple fights but none of them involved Boogaard so that was a bit disappointing. I see in the box score that he didn't have any minutes and checking the injury list he's listed as day to day.

It was my first pro hockey game so that was cool and it was affordable ($26). I don't think you can get anything under $50 at the Excel Center. The HP Pavilion is a great arena as well. We sat in the nose bleeds but we could still see the game.

Big Screen Repair Success!!!

I finally broke down and decided to fix my big screen. A guy from work was nice enough to drive down from San Fransisco to help out. Mike had experience soldering but not much experience replacing chips. I opened the TV up and wrote a diagram of the circuit boards and all the connections free hand and labeled where each connecting wire should go, and any wire not labeled, I labeled myself with tape and a sharpie. Mike laughed at me a bit for being so cautious but I figured it would make a good check list when we were reconnecting everything to make sure we didn't miss any of them. We spent an hour on the first chip trying to remove the solder on the chip. Finally Mike figured out that he could melt the solder and push the pin through with the soldering iron. After figuring this out the second chip took 5 minutes to remove. Then we use the wick to clean up the solder from the empty holes.

Inserting the new chips wasn't that easy as the pins (20 of them) were really flexible and they didn't match up perfect so it was another 15-20 minutes to get the chips in. After being super careful reconnecting everything I plugged the TV and turned it on. There was no smoke so that was awesome, the 10 seconds or so waiting for the TV to warm up was intense. Did the fix work or not. The TV came up in setup mode and the picture looked terrible... but I made some big adjustments to the conversion when it went out in the first place so I reset the conversion and whoohoo!! the picture was perfect. A couple high fives and some fist pumps followed. I was so happy I saved a $500 repair bill. In all I spent $10 on the new chips, including another $5 for shipping, and another $50 or so for the soldering iron and solder. I bought a battery operated soldering iron which didn't have enough wattage so I ended making another trip to Fry's for a plug in soldering iron. So I could've saved $15 had I bought the right soldering iron.

The entire repair took about 2.5 hours. I probably wouldn't have figured out soldering myself had Mike not been there, so I owe him a big thanks and a lunch or two. He soldering the first chip in less then 2 minutes. He let me attempt the second chip and then cleaned it up after I was done. I'm pretty confident if I had to do it again, I could get it done in under an hour. I'm happy I got the experience of fixing it, not only did I get to try soldering, I got to see what the inside of a projection TV looks like.

TV Parts Are In

The parts for my Big Screen arrived today. Now I'm kind of getting nervous about cracking it open. I need a soldering iron and crap before I can proceed. Maybe I'll have myself talked out of it by then.... If I actually go through with it I'll video it and post it online for others to follow.

Comcast Crap

So not only is my only TV on the fritz, my Internet isn't working. I called Comcast last night and they said I have a bad modem and I should bring it in to get it replaced. They close at 6 and it was 5:50 so I had a night without TV and Internet. I've never been happy with Comcast since we got to CA. Their PVR box sucks, the picture isn't that great, and the Internet is hit or miss. But this was all fine for the most part cuz I was only paying $70 for it, not bad since we have a few premium channels with it. Our last cable bill was doubled since our initial year is up. So now we're supposed to pay $140 for crappy service, I don't thinks so.. and I top of it, Chad and Paul, who got the same Comcast package as us, at the same time last year, didn't have their rates raised. So I guess we won the Comcast "Raise the Rates" sweepstakes. What a friggen joke.

Weather

It's raining today and the forecast for the rest of the week has rain just about everyday. It could be worse though, we could have a blanket of 5-10" of snow with high temps reaching only 20 degrees like back in MN. I'll take this 50-60 with rain any day. Although I hope the snow is still around when I go back so I can build a snow fort with Hayley or go sledding somewhere.

!#@#!@#!@# TV is on the frits

After an afternoon of watching football I decided to hit Fry's. That place is crazy messy, all the displays were out of order and nothing matched to the prices listed next to it. I was surprised cuz Fry's is normally good about keeping the store organized and clean. I walked through the game section and an alarm went off in the Apple section. I looked around and nobody was responding. I also went to check out a video camera that I could attach to my helmet when I'm mountain biking and another alarm when off in the isle next to me. Again I looked around and nobody responded. Either this place is way understaffed or they're that busy.

When I got back home I turned on the TV to catch the NFL highlights and the picture is totally messed up. I spent about an hour trying to align the guns with the built in adjuster, switching inputs around and what not. This wasn't working so I went online to find the problem and it's sounding like a convergence problem that requires a couple resisters and two STK packs. Whatever the heck that is. The forum also said that it will cost around $350-$500 to have a repair guy fix it. For FAACK sakes, I can buy a new 32-36" LCD for a few hundred more. I also read a quip that said "this is common after owning the TV for 5 years", which is about the age of mine. So I'm going to have to replace this stupid part every five years at $500 a pop. Are you friggen crazy!!! arrggg. I'm so mad.

While researching this I found a blog with this guy posting about how he repaired his TV. He has a Panasonic 47" which can't be that different from a 53" so I'm tempted to give it a shot. If I mess up the TV, I'll just buy a new one. (A little anger may ensue as well) If I can fix it myself it should cost around $50. I guess I could ask around work to see if there's an engineer with some soldering skills. I'll smolder on it for a while.

ABC's

Turkey Day recap

The Thanksgiving break was awesome. Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite dinner of the year. A couple days before Thanksgiving Jen told me that she got an email that said we weren't having turkey this year from my sister. Man was I bummed for a few days. Later on Jen reread her email and it said "not to bring buns cuz my sister was making popovers" not that we're having popovers instead of turkey. Whew, crises avoided. One perk of being married is getting two Thanksgiving dinners. Thanksgiving has been dedicated to my family since it's the only day my family gets together. Since Jens family is more flexible we normally have dinner there on Sunday. This year we had it on Friday so I was a little stuff from the day before but it didn't stop me. What can I say, I love turkey.

So after having a great Thanksgiving I left my wife and Hayley back in MN so she could hang out with the family. I'll be heading back on the 14th. We probably won't make it back to MN until my rotation is done here with her being prego and all. Now what to do with all this free time. What else.. Game!!! and a little mountain biking this weekend. I was looking at getting a helmet cam. It would be cool to take some video of the trails here.

Audible Books

Walking through the book section of Target last weekend I spotted a book that sparked my interest. "Where Have All the Leaders Gone" by Lee Iacocca. I was tempted to buy it but I figured I'd never have time to read it. Back in college we studied what Lee Iacooca did with Chrysler so I've always been intrigued by him and I think he's a great leader. Later on after we got home I started thinking about the book again and I went on Amazon to see what the price was, but I talked myself out of it again. Then I remembered the Audible Book option, since I listen to my iPod all day at work this is a great option for me, so I searched iTunes and found it. So instead of listening to podcasts for a few days I've been listening to this book. So far it's been a pretty good book, (or narration). When it's finished maybe I'll review it just to get some notes from it.

Weekend Recap - C&C Tiberium Wars

Every other Friday Jen attends Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) meeting, that includes daycare, which gives me about 3 hours of free time. Normally I get up and get Hayley ready and then go back to bed. This time I stayed up and played Tiberium Wars, the next installment of Command and Conquer. I installed it and had it ready to go Thursday night so I wouldn't run into any issues come Friday. The three hours that Jen was at MOPS flew by and it felt like I just started playing when Jen got home. The game is great and I can't wait to try some online play.

Friday night we went to a good by grill out at Michelle's. Michelle's apartment is our connection to downtown San Fran so it's going to suck not having her around. The rest of the weekend we didn't do much. We pretty much sat around the apartment and took Hayley to some parks. I did get to watch the Vikes since they were playing Oakland. Man both those teams suck, 4 turnovers and the Vikes still win.

Softball

Softball wrapped up last week as we got blown out of the playoffs. The game started out pretty rough with a 5-4-3 double play. That pretty much set the tone as we couldn't hit or play defense. We gave up 8 runs in the bottom of the first and we never made it a game the rest of the way. We took third in the regular season and this team is the only team we got 10 run'd. We actually almost beat the first place team so going into the game I though we'd be more competitive since most of our team was gone the first time. But it was a fun season and we did pretty good considering we threw a team together that's never played together.

Macworld

Last year I wanted to go to Macworld but I didn't really have a clue where it was or the process of getting tickets and what not. It would be awesome to see Steve Jobs in person giving his keynote. Since I'm extending out here I'll be here for another Macworld so I started checking into. Pricing starts from $25 for a exhibits only pass, on up to $1695 for a Platinum pass. In order to see the keynote you need at least a User Conference Pass at $229. However, with the User Conference pass the keynote is first come first serve. I've seen video of the mad dash to get seats and I'm not sure it's worth the $200+ to gamble on attending the keynote. Maybe I can win some tickets on the radio or something or with all the hype pretty much gone from the iPhone buildup, maybe nobody is interested in going this year.

Hopes Dashed

Sunday started out great, I got up, had breakfast, had a few cups vanilla cappuccino creamer with a dab of coffee and we headed to local sports bar to watch the Vikings/Packers match up. All week I was excited cuz Bolinger was starting and every time he plays we seemed to move the ball. I figured the Vikings had a great shot to win this game behind Peterson. We got to the bar and just before the game started we found out that the game wasn't on since it was being televised locally. (ahh so a sports bar doesn't have local channels??? Way to go) So then we scrambled to a co-workers house to watch it on his 60" inch projector. I should have seen this as an omen and not watched the game.

Just when I thought the Vikings might be turning corner they go and get shutout. Worse yet, they get shutout by the Packers. This team is hopeless. I was so mad yesterday that I was going to create a new web site entitled www.FireChildress.com, but unfortunately someone has the address reserved. Who knows if a web site will actually show up or if someone reserved the domain name in order to make money. It sucks being a Vikings fan when they have a one of the worst front offices in sports history. From their owner to the GM to the coaches, this team is full of hapless morons.

Jennie-O Funnies

Twins Update

Jen had an ultrasound yesterday and everything is looking great. We also found out we're having boys so it looks like the in-laws will have a couple extra farm hands.

Jericho

Jen and I finished watching season one of Jericho last night. I heard that it was a good show on the radio but I never got into it last year when it was on TV. When the show was cancelled and the online community got together and successfully petitioned CBS to keep the show going, it sparked my interest. A few weeks ago, season one was released on DVD so we rented the it

The show is about the survival of the town of Jericho after a nuclear terrorist attack on 20 or so large cities in the US. This is one of the better shows I've seen and I can't wait for season two. Had the show been cancelled, it would've sucked not knowing what happened after the big cliffhanger. I was reading some of the fan posts and it was in the same time slot as American Idol so that's likely the reason for the bad ratings. Many viewers watched Idol live and TiVo'd Jericho, which brings up the point of how to handle ratings in the era of DVR and the Internet. Season two is going to be an abbreviated season of around 7 episodes, hopefully the show gains a large following so the network makes a season three.

Earthquake

I've experienced everything I wanted to in CA after tonight. Jen, Hayley and I were at a Halloween party when we started to feel a vibration that turned to pretty good rattling. At first we thought it was just kids jumping around but after a couple seconds everyone realized it was an earthquake and a semi panic broke out as everyone went for their kids and started heading out the door. In all it lasted about 5-10 seconds. We went outside and the water was splashing all around in the pool. It was a pretty cool experience as soon as we realized everything was all right. The Earthquake measured 5.6 but we were about 10 miles away from the Epicenter. Read When we got home and turned on TV and the news had broke into all major networks, kind of like the first big snow storm in MN.

Extend or Not

A couple days ago we got an offer to extend our rotations here in Sunnyvale. It's been a tough decision and I'm still not certain on what to do. With twins coming we really need the extra money. With the market the way it is we're probably going to end up taking a loss on our house... but we really could make it work there, albeit a little cramped. So is the extra money worth staying here and missing family and having the twins here in CA.

A little ink and some creativity

What happens when you leave a toddler alone with ink stamps for a 5 minutes?

Next Race - Silicon Valley or Golden Gate

Since finishing the San Jose Rock-n-Roll half marathon I've been itching to get out and race again. My legs feel fresh again after a few days rest and I had no trouble running for an hour tonight. In fact all week I've been thinking of racing again and how I can work to improve my time. There are two races coming up on November 4th, Run the Golden Gate, and the Metro Silicon Valley Marathon. The Golden Gate marathon would be cool since the route goes over the Golden Gate bridge and back, but it goes up to Vista Point which is a pretty steep climb. Chad said there's probably no way I'd break my 2 hour time on this race. It's also a big hassle getting to and from San Fran so I'm kind of leaning towards the Silicon Valley marathon. However, the experience of running a race over the Golden Gate Bridge would be pretty cool.

The Silicon Valley marathon includes both a full marathon and a 1/2 marathon, which is intriguing since I kind of want to run a full marathon sometime in my life. With Jen expecting twins this might be my only opportunity for a long time to run a marathon, and I'm probably not going to be in this good of shape after the kids are born. So I'm kind of mulling the idea of running the full course. This weekend will be my deciding factor. If I can run 15-20 miles without killing myself I'll run the full marathon, if not I'll settle for a 1/2.

Race Day

It was a great day to run my first 1/2 marathon this morning. Temps were in the low 60's with little wind. I stayed up a bit late last night so I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked and I had a slight headache to start the morning. Nothing 6 Advil couldn't handle. Chad and I got there around 7:00am and warmed up a bit as well as finding Joe. I started training for this with a goal of beating 10 minutes a mile. Early last week Joe mentioned that he would be happy getting a time under 2 hours. I mulled that over and decided to shoot for the same goal. My best practice time was 2hrs 15min, just over 10 minutes miles so trying for under two hours was going to be a stretch. I normally don't run with a watch but I decided to today so I could tell how I was doing mile to mile.

I had a 10 minute mile to start and I was pretty upset by that, but by the end of the race I was running at a clip of approximately 8 minute miles. I was surprised at how strong I got towards the end. I've always faded in practice but running in the crowd gave me a boost of energy. Another big boost was getting water every mile. I've never run with water before so after today I'm going to change that.

The race was pretty cool, there were garage bands about every two miles playing music of all different types. The crowd was pretty thin in areas but I wouldn't' know better since I've never run a race before. Chad said that in the Twin Cities it's wall to wall fans through out the race. After today I'll definitely run a lot of 1/2 marathons. As far as a full marathon goes, well I might give it a shot someday but for now I'll stick to the 1/2's.

I ended up getting in under 2 hours with a 1:57:44 time. I thought that was pretty good but I guess for my age group I got in just under the 50 percentile. Next time I'll shoot for the top 40th.
Chad finished with a 1:48:23 time - full details here
Joe finished with a 1:47:49 time, just barely beating Chad - full details here

My results:
Place Overall: 2415 out of 8787
Men: 1778 out of 3985
M 30-34: 261 out of 587
AgeGrade: 49.70% Place: 4111
FINISH: 1:57:44 pace: 8:59
5k: 29:13 pace: 9:25
10K: 57:00 pace: 9:11
10Mile: 1:31:00 pace: 9:06

Hayley and I after the race.


Chad, Joe and I

Baby News ... X2

Just wanted to pass along some baby news. Two weeks ago Jen went in found out she was having twins, however, the doctor didn't see a membrane separating the twins, a condition called "monoamniotic twins" which would've been really bad news. The doctor said it's common that a regular ultra sound won't pick up the membrane cuz it's so thin so she scheduled a High Resolution Ultra Sound which we had today. The tech found a membrane in about 10 seconds which had Jen and I almost jumping around the room in excitement. Both babies looked healthy and they had healthy heart beats. They are about 12-13 weeks along and their due date is April 23rd. The tech thought they were probably identical cuz she only could see one placenta but the doctor would know more. Click on the picture above for a larger image. The babies are in the bunk position, meaning one is on top and the other is on the bottom.

Heading back to MN

My flight leaves in a few hours so I'm sitting around waiting. This weekend we'll be hammering out details on our house on what we need to do to get it ready to sell. Looking back I wonder if we shouldn't have just broke down and purchased a bigger house to start with. With the housing market the way it is we'll probably be stuck for a long time. It's a great location and we haven't had to stretch to make payments so I can't complain to much.

The ducks are a flying and it's going to be hard to be in MN and not out with the brothers hunting. I haven't been out for two years now so the itch is getting worse. My brothers have new dogs so I'm curious to hear how they do. Besides hanging out with my brothers, dogs are my favourite part of hunting. I would hunt just to watch the dogs work.

Wii Weekend

Since Jen went to MN on Friday I've played about 30 hours of Wii sports, mainly bowling. The Wii is cool but the remote is deceiving because it really only needs to move 6 inches for any game. I can rest the remote on my knee while playing tennis and just flick it 2 inches to hit the ball. Bowling makes absolutely no sense. I throw the ball exactly the same every time and the ball never ends up in the same spot. After about 100 games I figured it out that if you flick the remote sideways instead of straight you'll get a mean hook and major pin action, so it's way more forgiving when missing the pocket. Golf is fun but playing the same 9 holes over and over gets pretty boring. Boxing is dumb cuz the remotes don't work worth a crap. Baseball is ok but you only pitch and bat, fielding is done by the computer. It's fun to play home run derby and that's about it. I'm can't complain though, Wii sports was free with the Wii and it's provided hours of entertainment.

I was looking for a game to buy but I don't want to pay $50 for a game that I haven't tried. I have 2 free rentals a month from Blockbuster but they are always out of any game I'd be interested in renting. I'm almost to the point of trying game fly but I'm to cheap. I stick with Wii Sports for the time being.

So True

I got this forward today about You know you are a Californian if...... and I so many of these bullets are true.

1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.

2. You make over $300,000 and still can't afford a house.
- It's amazing how many BMW's, Corvettes and what not are in our parking garage. People can afford 60-70k for a car but can't afford a house.

3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on a
conversation in English.
So true, the diversity is unbelievable here.

4. Your child's 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and
is named Flower.

5. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?

6. You've been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm
donor.

7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans
are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.

8. You can't remember . . . is pot illegal?

9. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.
I'd move this to numero uno. A free parking space will cause one to break out into pandemonium

10. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.
Dam liberals

11. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing a
baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George
Clooney.
Probably true in LA, not Silicon Valley. However, if you're into tech you'll see people like Kevin Rose from Digg or Steve Jobs hanging out

12. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.

13. You can't remember . . .is pot illegal?

14. It's barely sprinkling rain and there's a report on every news
station: "STORM WATCH."


15. You pass an elementary school playground and the children
are all busy with their cells or pagers.

16. It's barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work an
hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.
haha kind of like the first snow in MN

17. HEY!!!! Is pot illegal????

18. Both you AND your dog have therapists, psychics, personal
trainers and cosmetic surgeons.

19. The Terminator is your Governor.
This would be weird if you're from any other state then MN.

20. If you drive illegally, they take your driver's license. If
you're here illegally, they want to give you one.

Fantasy Football

I play in a fantasy football keeper league in which we keep two players a from last years roster. Since Daunte Culpepper started for the Vikings way back in 2000, I've kept Daunte and Randy Moss. For the first few years I ranked close to the top in my league but generally fizzled at the end of the year along with the Vikes. Last year I had the #1 draft pick and I drafted as though I was rebuilding, so I drafted Reggie Bush and Joseph Addia. Both these guys split the carries last year with veterans so they didn't score that much. I ended up keeping them anyway hoping they'd carry the load this year. So far it looks to be paying off, especially now that Duece is hurt for New Orleans. I knew it was going to be tough to let Moss go now that he was with the Pats but for the most part running backs score more then receivers. So far so good as I've been in the top 2 or 3 in scoring each week with the help of Steve Smith who basically replaced Moss on my roster. Fantasy Football makes football interesting when my home team sucks as bad as the Vikes do.

Back to Ubuntu

About two weeks ago we bought a new computer after the wife got frustrated with Ubuntu. We got the new computer home and fired it up and it kept rebooting after an error message "The OS didn't install correctly and will restart". After a fresh install, registration and what not the computer was up and running. I tried installing a wireless USB card but it wasn't supported by Vista and I had it working but Vista was never stable after that. It kept freezing up and we had 3-4 blue screens of death. (I thought that was fixed, I never got one with XP) The wife was not at all pleased with this and she wasn't listening to my argument that it was the wireless card and not Vista. I thought I had it stable after reinstalling an updated driver but the wife claimed to still have issues with it so we ended up returning it yesterday.

Jen emailed a friend who owns a Mac and she talked Jen into wanting one. I told the tech at Fry's that we're thinking of getting a Mac and he said he's had a bunch of people return their new Vista machine for a Mac. I'm on the fence with getting a Mac, but at least with Apple moving to Intel processors I can fall back on running a dual boot system with Windows and/or Ubuntu.

My Electric Output

276 WATTS Body Battery Calculator - Find Out How Much Electricity Your Body is Producing

I discovered this web site via digg that calculates how much electricity one generates. Here are my numbers.

Your Body is Producing 276 Watts!
This is 38% MORE wattage than the average person

* You could light up 3 light bulbs
* You could power 69 iPods
* You could power 1 Xbox 360
* 4 of you would be needed to keep a refrigerator running

I wonder if one would burn calories while acting as a battery.

5K Walk Run

Today at work we had a 5K Walk Run. I ran it in just under 23 minutes. I was shocked at my time since my goal was 27 minutes (approx 9 minute miles). I placed about 20th overall which I didn't think was to bad. I didn't know what to expect since I haven't run a race since 9th grade. On a normal run I don't push myself at all. Even though I said I wasn't going to let other runners effect my time I totally caved after the race started. I used the first half mile to warm up and then started eyeing people in front of me to catch. I didn't get passed after that. Towards the end I swapped positions with this guy, after passing him he must have thought "I can take this guy" then ran past me. I let him go for about 30 seconds and then blew past him. Before I knew it Chad was waiting about 100 yards from the finish. I had no clue the finish was that close since we ran past it a couple times already, so I sprinted the last 100 yards passing about 10 people in the process. Chad placed 10th overall and 3rd in his age group with a time of 17 minutes, Joe placed in the top 20 and 5th in the 30-39 age group with a time of 21.

This was a great experience to get before the Rock-n-Roll marathon coming up. I know that no matter how hard I try not to let it, other runners will affect my pace so I'll have to take that into account so I don't die at the end of the race.

Up with the Yo-Yo

So I haven't been paying that much attention to my weight lately. I figure it probably hasn't changed much since I've been working out pretty regularly. Yesterday I stepped on the scale and I was 210lbs. How the heck did I gain 15ish pounds in less then a month. I guess a bowl of ice cream here an there will do the trick. Now it's back to the dieting and hard-core working out to get down again. (What to do with the three left over quarts of ice cream in the freezer) I hate being old, when I was 18 I could eat a huge serving of ice cream everyday, sometimes twice a day, and not gain a pound.

I signed up for the San Jose Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon. Hopefully training for it will help with some weight loss motivation.

F/A-22

Just an interesting tid-bit I got in an email. Some co-workers have seen the assembly line of the F-22, how cool would that be. Make sure to click on the link at the end to watch the video. It's awesome


The New F/A-22

Fast (super-cruise*) and stealthy, and integrated avionics are cool, but what's really impressive is the F/A-22s low speed stability and maneuverability. In the late 40s and to early 60s aeronautical engineers were going nuts on how to shape intakes to handle both subsonic and super-sonic air flows, without stagnation or compressor stalls. Supersonic in itself was a big challenge because you had to use shock waves to slow the intake air mass to sub-sonic before it hit the compressor blades, or they would stall. The engineers figured it out, but the solution was keeping a lot of air going in the front end to make sure the all hot air kept going out the back end. As you watch this Mach 2 airplane suspend motionless in air and do tail slides, be aware of the truly amazing performance of the engines and intakes.

Some used to think the Su-27 / Su-31 "Cobra" maneuver was the epitome of 3rd to 4th generation fighter maneuverability. That snap maneuver doesn't hold a candle to what this two-dimensional vectored-thrust fighter with fat independent horizontal stabs can do at low speed. There must be far more tricks up its sleeve in the high subsonic dogfight speed range.

ACC (Air Combat Command) recently approved the Raptor's new DEMO profile. This was the first show. The F/A-22 can sustain supersonic flight without the use of fuel-gulping afterburners.

The video is about 5 minutes long but the last 30-40 seconds are priceless.

Weekend Recap - Great America and Kids Discovery

I had lab Thursday night to Friday morning 10pm-6am so that put a damper on the three day weekend. Friday I was pretty much shot for the day. We did manage to take Hayley to the mall for some play time and Jen and I got our eyes checked. I'm still have between 20/20 and 30/20 eye site. Not bad considering I had really bad eyes growing up, so bad that I had bi-focals in 6th grade.

Saturday we wore Hayley out at Great America. She rode a couple rides and then spent about two hours on the kid playground going down slides and climbing ropes. She's getting really good at climbing compared to the last time we were there.

Yesterday we hit the Discovery Museum in San Jose. Hayley played so hard that she ended up taking a 3 hour nap which pretty much wrapped up the day. We finished the day by getting some groceries at Costco. That place is almost as bad as sitting in rush hour, there are so many friggen shoppers in there. Every checkout line is 15 deep. Hey Costco, add some checkout stands!!! I can't believe people keep going back to that place.

Cloudy Days

I looked at the sky in shock that it was actually cloudy at mid-day. Although it's cloudy sometimes in the morning, it quickly burns off and there's rarely a cloud in the sky. I started to wonder if the rainy season is soon to set in until someone mentioned the clouds are from the forest fire that's about 20 miles from here. So far the fire has burned 27,000 acres of land. That's crazy to think. It's a little over whelming to think that this fire is causing the sky to look like major overcast. Fires are a side effect of living with the best weather one could ask for in a summer.

Final out ... cough cough CHOKE!!!

Last night I played softball for the first time in year. We were beating the other team by 3 runs when two of our players had to leave. So we played with 9 guys from then on. By the bottom of the 7th we were down by 2. We managed to get the first two runners on 1st and 2nd. A sac fly later and the runners are on 2nd and 3rd. The next guy flew out and advanced the runners. So we're down 1 with a guy on 3rd, two down and I'm up. I let a perfect pitch go by for a strike so I had to swing at anything close. The next pitch was high but I didn't want to chance striking out so I hit it and skied it to short. Kind of a bummer to make the final out with the tying run on 3rd. Although, I have an excuse... It's tough to hit with two hands around your throat.

B-Day pic at DQ

This is old but Dan finally sent this pic...

I miss the DQ big time out here so we drove the 20 or so miles to the closest DQ during lunch. We got there only to find out they had little seating. Two tables total and one table was occupied by a lady reading a book. So we rounded up some tables and ate outside. Good times.

Unplanned Trip to MN

I had to take an unplanned trip to MN when Jens Grandpa took a turn for the worse. Jens grandpa had 10 kids and most of them would bring there families every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now that her grandpa passed away they don't think they'll be getting together now that his big house is going to be sold. The same thing happened to my family when my grandma passed away and now I don't ever see my aunts and uncles and their families. Kind of a bummer cuz it's fun to hang out with families.

Latent Print Examiner

I have a buddy, Scott, that works for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) as a Latent Print Examiner (fancy name for an finger print specialist). I got an email from him today saying he helped crack a murder case in MN. Read it here. Kind of makes what I do feel a little less cool. But then again I couldn't have passed all the chemsitry had to take in college so it's all good. Having a buddy work for the BCA is cool, there's always soemthing new to talk about when we hang out. Instead of watching CSI we get to hear about the real deal.

One weekend Scott went out with us to the bars while he was on call. Since he was on call he was our DD. Around midnight he gets a page the reads "Murder scene Willmar", what are the friggen odds of that. The one night we go out while he's on call and there's crime scene in my home town. Crazy stuff... But to top it off while he was racing to drop us off and head down to the BCA he get's pulled over. He show's the cop the pager, with 5 drunks in the exploder the cop doesn't believe him so he heads back to his car to verify it and comes back laughing saying he's never heard that excuse before and lets him off.

Madden '08

Madden '08 comes out today. I'm not sure if I want it or not. I'm quite satisfied playing Techmo Super Bowl. The simple game play is great. Madden has become so complicated that I can't pick three solid plays that work most of the time. Instead one has to be an understudy in offensive and defensive strategy. Bring back the good ol days, when I played offense and Scott play defense.

Happy B-Day to me

Today I turn 33. Unbelievable. Time is flying by. I got a wake up call from Jen and Hayley wishing me a Happy B-Day. Hayley said "Happy Birthday" really good, it was awesome. So what to do on a Monday B-Day, what else, head on down to the DQ in Mountain View and have a Sunday Cone Blizzard for lunch. After work a few of us are getting together to grill, drink a few beers, and at least I'll have a cigar. Good times.

Happy B-Day Dad

Hope you had a great B-Day.

iPod on Ubuntu *#$@#@

The last few days I've been fighting to try and get my iPod to work on Linux. There's a bunch of different software packages that I've tried to no avail. So far Amarok seems to recognize iPod and **Syncs** the best. After I synced new versions of podcasts to the iPod I check the iPod to see if they are there and I get nothing. Then I plug the iPod back in and the podcasts are supposedly on the device. I'm not sure if I should be upset at Ubuntu or Apple. Ubuntu is kind of a pain in the arse. There are tons of forums and stuff but trying to find the information pertaining to the issues I'm having kind of suck. Before you know it 4 hours have passed, and it's midnight, trying to troubleshoot an issue. I'm thinking I'd just rather have an OS that works then dealing with this crap. Maybe if I was in college where I had no problem staying up all hours into the night tinkering with computers it wouldn't be so bad.

A new iMac or PC???

So with my computer on the fritz, we're considering purchasing a new one. I see the new iMacs came out today. So the temptation is there to make a switch. But that $1400+ price tag is tough to swallow. There's a computer at Fry's that runs just over $700 that's pretty fast and loaded with Ram. hmm. What to do...

Awesome

My B-day is coming up, I think I'm going to pass on the Wii and ask for this. If you're a hunter you'll love this.

Weekend wrap: Ubuntu

After a computer hard-drive crash I spend the weekend trying to get the computer up and running. I have two hard-drives so most of my important data is backed up on the second HD. But it's been a little while since my last backup so I wanted to get into the main HD that crashed. I left my windows CD's in MN and I didn't want to spend money on it so I got my work laptop and downloaded Ubuntu.

After downloading Ubuntu and burning it to a CD I hassled with it for a while to get it to load on a partition that didn't have anything of importance on it. Ubuntu works great on hardware that's not out of the ordinary, however, I have a wireless USB stick that I use for networking so I don't have a 25 ft long cable running across the living room. This USB stick cost me 1/2 my Sunday trying to get to work. (My computer almost ended up like the fax machine from Office Space) And now that I got it working I'm afraid to shut down my PC for fear of it freezing up after startup.

So know I get to experience Linux for a while until I get my Windows CD's. So far it's pretty cool, the only software I need that it doesn't have is iTunes which really sucks. If Linux had better driver support for hardware I'd say it's ready for the mainstream desktop market.

Volleyball

I joined a volleyball league this summer. It's the first time I've played since high school. The team that asked me to play said I had to play with the Bump, Set, Spike mentality and no just hitting the ball over. I've never played like that. I've always just tried to hit the ball back to the other side. It's a four man team so we play with the diamond format, 1 up, 2 middle, 1 back. It's taken a few weeks to get used to it but last week we played really well even though we lost both our matches. I think by the time the playoffs start we'll be rocken.

So know that I've been playing volleyball I'm thinking of getting a net and what so we can play at home. However, if I get one will it just sit in the closest and end up being another useless purchase? Maybe I should just apply that money towards the purchase of a Wii. My B-Day is coming up and a Wii sounds like a pretty good present. Now if I could only find them in stock somewhere.

Bye Bye Franchise

KG was traded yesterday to the Celtics. Although the T-Wolves were going to suck with or without him it sad to see him go. It's the end of an era in MN basketball. Jen and I used to have season tickets to the T-Wolves and it was a blast going to the games and now and then we'd see my sister there and we'd team as two of the loudest fans at the Target Center. The T-Wolves weren't the best team in the NBA but they were pretty competitive. KG was always the guy that kept the team in the game and although he has the reputation of not being to win games at the end, he always kept it close. It's sad to see KG go but he's got a much better chance to win a title in Boston.

Tecmo Super Bowl

The glory days of the early nineties were back for a night when Jen went out in San Fransisco with some friends. I stayed home to watch Hayley. After she went to bed I fired up the X-Box to play some Tecmo Super Bowl. I played a season as the Oakland Raiders with the greatest running back of any console football game... Bo Jackson. He opened the season with a 350 yard performance. He had a steller season with close to 2000 yards rushing. I get bored running the ball all the time so I tend to pass more after a few games so he could've had a lot more yards. I actually lost 3 season games and I was losing the AFC championship game by 20+ plus points when I decided to restart the game. After regrouping I crushed the Bills 51-0 and went on to win the Super Bowl 42-7 against the Vikings. Good times. I can't wait until the next girls night so I play another season and attempt a perfect season.

Formax Slicers

Yesterday I was talking to a co-worker about the glory days of working at Jennie-O. I was boasting about being a mechanic and fixing machines and how that was one of my favorite jobs I've ever had. The slicers they had there were one of the most phenomenal machines I've ever seen. Trying to explain it just doesn't do it justice so I went online and found this demo video of the slicer. It can slices over 100 stacks of meat a minute along with weighing each stack and accepting or rejecting the stack if it's over or under weight. So read about it here if you want or or just watch the video.

Wine Country

 

 

 

 

Santa Cruz - Boardwalk and Beach

Sunday we spent the day at Santa Cruz hanging out at the beach. The sand is not as good as Clearwaters, but it is a much larger beach and it is has better scenic view. Where Clearwater is more of beach to hang out on, Santa Cruz has a board walk with a theme park on the beach. It's pretty cool. After a few hours of throwing the football around and playing some volleyball we hit he them park. We were buying tickets to ride some of the rides when this lady handed us her braclets to ride all day for free. The rides were pretty cool except for Double Shot, which is similiar to the Power Tower. All I could think about is losing my feet but I survived. Traffic to and from the beach was pretty bad but other then that it was pretty cool. Check it out if you're ever in the area. http://www.beachboardwalk.com/

Happy B-Day Toni

I didn't get time to post an entry Saturday so this is a belated happy birthday to my sister Toni. Sorry I'm late. Hope it was fun.

Wine Country

This weekend we went to Napa and visited a few vinyards. I had no clue about touring wineries so I was a little surprised at the shear number of vinards and at how there are no requirements for reservations. Just drive up and start tasting. After visiting a bigger winery we found a ma pa shop where we got the run of the patio and the guy gave us an educational session on how wine is made, the types and location of grapes used, and he gave us a tour of the caves the wine is stored in. The wine was so good that I bought a few bottles. If you ever go on a tour of wine country I highly recommend visiting the ma pa shops and not the bigger wineries. You'll get a lot better service and they're not so busy so the guys can give you a run down of the wine your tasting instead of pouring as fast as they can.

Some interesting facts of wine making are:
- The flavor of wine has a lot to do with the type of wood the wine ferments in.
- A barrel of wine makes approximately 300 bottles of wine.
- Grape vines take five years to grow before making harvestable grapes for wine. The vines peak age is 10 years.
- When vines are growing grapes most of them are picked and thrown so the grapes that are left have more flavor.
- Caves are cheaper to build and maintain then a warehouses. The cave we toured costs approximatly 1 million.
- Not all wine tastes better aged. Some wines need to be drank within a month or two of bottling.
- The smaller vinards have a protable bottler come onsite to bottle the wine. (the guy offered us to watch if we wanted to come back in a few days)

In all the tour was awesome. We didn't leave ourselves enough time to visit enough of them. I'd say a full day is in order for wine tasting and a designated driver would be nice too cuz I had to cut back after a few since I'm a light weight.

Congrats Trent and Pam

I'm now a 4 time GGGGGreat Uncle, thanks to Trent and Pam and their new baby boy Preston Dion. (Dion Sanders is Trents favorite athlete)

Stats
born at 3:18am
Weight 7lb 8oz
length 20 inches

Congrats again and enjoy. They grow up fast!!!

Rain in Sunnyvale

It's raining today which is a big change in weather after 3 months of sunny blue skies with temps in the 70's. As long as it's not the start of the rainy season I can handle it. The weather in the valley is the best weather anywhere I've ever been. I can see why there are 10 million+ living here.

Happy B-Day Al

Checking my Google Calendar today I see that it's my brothers B-Day. Being the youngest of 7, and I'm over 30, I venture to guess that Al is close to 35. Who counts after 30 anyway.

Have a great B-Day Al and have a beer on me.

Lost - Season 2 Wrapped Up (DRM sucks)

Jen and I wrapped up season 2 of Lost last night. I'd call it a cliff hanger of an ending but we watched about 3 episodes of season 3 last year so we know what happens. I looked into getting season 3 but that doesn't start shipping until fall and then who knows when I'd get it from blockbuster. I started thinking about downloading it from iTunes and paying $34 for it but I'd have no way of getting to my TV because of the stupid DRM. So chalk it up as a no sale because of DRM. It sure would be nice to download it and move it to my xBox (I'm not paying $300 for an Apple TV either). I'd like to know the number of potential customers that won't buy movies/shows online because of DRM. Maybe it's just the geek community that doesn't like it.

Now I'm wondering if I should try out the video feature of my video iPod and get AV cables for it to output it to the TV. What's another $50 for the iPod, in the long run it'd probably be worth it.

Hayley Climbing

Although She's been climbing for a long time this was kind of funny.

Golfing

So I've got to use my driver for a week or so now and it's awesome. I shanked it the first time I used it but after that I've hit pretty well. I can hit the ball consistently 220-230 yards and one drive was 340 with some road help. Now if I could get the rest of my irons worked out I may be able to break 90. My 3 iron max is about 160. That's pretty bad if I play longer courses. My brother gave me something to work on out here so hopefully after some practice I can gain some distance on my irons. My scores over the week have been in the low 50's to high 40's. I feel like I should be around 45.

Firework Fiasco

What happens when one leaves used fireworks on a dock over night? The dock starts smoldering and leaves a big hole in the morning. What's worse the burning down your sisters dock? Burning down the neighbors dock.

The family chipped in a lot of money this year and we bought the fireworks after 4th so they were 1/2 price off. This year the display was going to be a huge. After almost cancelling the fireworks because the wind was blowing the fireworks back over the cabin, the neighbors said we could use their dock and watch them on their yard. It was one the best firework displays we've ever had and when we were done we started to pick up but some of the boxes were still pretty hot so we asked if we could leave them on the dock to cool down. We should have just kicked them in the water and everything would've been fine.

So we spent a good chunk of Sunday fixing the dock. The entire time we were in MN it was sunny, except for Sunday, while we were on the dock it started thunder storming. It'll be a 4th we won't forget.

Back in CA

For those of you who have missed the blog, I'm back. If you're suffering from withdrawels I'll work on a blog entry a day for a week. There's lots of stuff to cover that I know everyone is interested in, my golf game, NWA losing my clubs, skiing, the very eventful firework show, and the list goes on and on. So check back soon and you'll hear all about it. Unless I get lazy.

The Red Eye

I'm off to MN tonight on the Red Eye with lots of golf planned. I may make a tour of the Central MN area. I've been missing golf since my clubs got stolen. Now that I've got a new set I'm ready to break out the driver again.

Mouse Pointer

Ever wonder what's going on with your mouse pointer. Here's a demo zoomed way in.

http://www.1-click.jp/

Ducks

I thought I'd try the new video feature of this blog site so here goes. This is a video of Hayley and I feeding ducks.

New Driver

I've been looking for a new driver for what seems like forever now. I've been debating on buying a top of the line used one or go with a new one. Last night I saw a deal on Dick's Sports online for a R5 Taylor Made driver for $149 with a free box of balls that retail for $39. It was last years model that sold for $349. Since there is no Dick's Sports in CA I was faced with the dilemma of waiting until I got to MN to buy or order it online. I slept on it and in the morning I thought I'd check Sports Authority to see if they had the same deal. Sure enough they did. I was about to head out to the store to pick it up and I decided I better print it out so the sales person new what deal I was talking about. When I got the store I found the driver and hit it a few times in to the net. It's a great driver so I told the sales guy I'd take it and asked where the free golf balls were. I showed him the printout and he went and found the box of balls. He didn't believe it so he went to the office to check online to see if it was real. After spending about 15 minutes in the office he came back to say that the deal was only online. While he was in the office I noticed a sales sign with the deal on it and showed to him. He was in shock cuz of the price of the balls. Why would they give away a $40 box of balls for a $149 driver but he went with it. While I was checking out I had to deal with the cashier cuz the deal wasn't in the computer so she had to call back to the guy and figure what to do. After another 10 minutes of waiting I finally was on my way out of the store with my new driver.

Now it was on to the driving range. I found a range online that allowed golfers to hit off grass. (Most ranges around here are mats only) I bought the jumbo size bucket and hit mostly irons trying to figure out my swing. After about 110 balls I figured it out so I pulled out the driver and my first hit was a monster. I duffed a few after that but eventually I was hitting it long with a little slice. But I'm a duffer so I was happy with it. We'll see how it goes when I get it on the course.

So if you're in the market for a new driver check out this deal at Sports Authority or Dick's Sports. The deal is for any driver over $149 so if you want an upgrade you'll still get your free box of TaylorMade TP Black Golf Balls.

The Price is Wrong...

If Rosie O-loser is the new host of the Price is Right I'll never watch the show again. Although I probably won't anyway since Bob Barker was the show. But seriously they can't even be considering Rosie. She'd be the worst host ever!!!! The last thing anyone wants to hear one the show is how the government set up 9/11 so we could start a war with Iraq. She's such a friggen explicative. There needs to be an online petition started to make sure she doesn't get the job, let alone another job ever.

Fathers Day

Fathers day was great. I spent the morning walking around with Hayley, feeding ducks, and playing at the park. After her nap the family went to Great America to check out the kid rides. After riding a few rides we thought there weren't any more kid rides until we hit the jack pot somewhere in the middle of the park. I'm not sure why the had two scattered kid rides in the middle of no where but we were happy to see there were a lot more. Hayley seems to love these rides. We got a yearly pass during the company day there for $20. It's about 3 miles from us so we'll be back there a few more times before this year is over.

The weekend wasn't all family though as I bought a set of irons and hit Target yesterday to reload on golf equipment. When I think $$$ for golf I think clubs. Man after buying balls, towel, bag, and a travel bag there's a lot of other areas that $$$ is spent. It was a pretty hefty price tag after we checked out. Man getting my clubs stolen is getting more and more expensive.

New Computer

I've been semi eyeing a new PC for some time now. It's been five years since I bought my last computer. It starting to feel slow. I've contemplated upgrading the RAM but then I see new computers from Dell for only $500 that would smoke my current computer. If I spent a little more I can get a pretty fast one. Spent a little more then that and I can get a Mac. I don't know why I find a Mac intriguing but every time I see a Mac store I'm compelled to go play on the Macs. Jen loves the iMac cuz there's not cords and there's not a big box in the way. I've almost pulled the trigger a few times but I just can't do it because I can't play my favorite games... game Command and Conquer. With a new C&C coming out soon I definitely need a faster PC and one capable of running C&C. So that pretty much put the ca bosh on the Mac until it was announced that EA is going to release C&C on the Mac. Now I really have no excuse not to get a Mac. So maybe after Leopard comes out I'll get one, and if the prices come down about $400. For now I'll have to go back to eyeing the 5-6 hundo Dells and upgrade the graphics card.

Podcasts

Here's a list of podcasts I listen/watch. Pretty geeky crap but it keeps me entertained while coding at work.

Minnesota Radio
- 93X Sports – Updated about 3-4 times a week
- 93X Stupid News – Updated about 3-4 times a week
- KQRS Morning Show – Updated Daily ** I love the podcast, it’s a day late but there’s not comercials

Tech News
- Diggnation – Updated weekly, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht discuss some of the top stories of the week from Digg.com while drinking beers, available in video and audio (semi funny)
- This Week In Tech – Updated weekly, Leo Laporte and Friends discuss tech news.
- Buzz Out Loud – Updated Daily, Molly Wood, Tom Merritt, and Veronica Belmont (Supposed Diva of the Tech news biz) discuss daily tech news and take phone calls
- MacBreak Weekly - Updated weekly, Leo Laporte and Friends discuss tech news related to Apple.
- Windows Weekly – Updated weekly, Leo Laporte and Paul Thorrote discuss tech news related to Microsoft.
- Apple Phone Show – Updated weekly, Scott Bourne and guests discuss iPhone stuff.

Sports News
- ESPN: PTI Updated Daily
- ESPN Radio: Daily podcast
- ESPN Radio: The Big Show
- WCCO Sports

Comedy
- Tiki Bar TV (Video Podcast)
- Comedy Central: Stand-up (Video Podcast) -

Random Podcasts
- ABC News Medical Minute – updated daily
- ABC News Money Minute – updated daily
- Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing – updated weekly,
- Money Girls’ Quick and Dirty Tips for a Richer Life – updated weekly

Kids and TV

Jen and I have been watching the series Lost after Hayley goes to bed. Last night we started it after I got Hayley ready for bed. I figured letting her stay up for a few minutes while we started the show wouldn't be a big deal. After all at 20 months kids don't know what's going on while watching TV.

The show started out with a guy yelling at his wife to let him in the house. The woman consoled her son and told him to get under the bed and to stay there no matter what happens. The mom closes the door and the camera shows the kid watching the door while the background noise has the dad breaking the door down to the entrance of the house (not the kids room) and yelling at the mom. All of a sudden Hayley burst out crying reaching for Jen or I. I scrambled to turn the show off and Jen grabbed Hayley. Hayley started yelling naughty, naughty at the TV. After a minute we got her calmed down and let her stay up for about 15 minutes to make sure she was OK before putting her to bed.

Both Jen and I were in shock afterward. We could not believe that Hayley understood what was going on. I'm actually still in shock this morning. I feel terrible for putting Hayley through that. From now on we'll be a lot more observant to our surroundings and we'll make sure we read to her instead of watching TV with us before bed.

Tech Reporting

Listening to all these tech podcasts has got me thinking that being a tech reporter would be a fun job. These guys get to try out all these new products all the time for free. Imagine getting an iPhone for free just to write a review on it. I wonder if I could it part time just to get free stuff. Fatty Ryle would make a good reporter name. I'm on it. As soon as I get an iPhone I'll write a review and show off my mad skills so someone will hire me.

Weekend Recap - A's vs Twins

Watching the game in Oakland was great. I worked until about noon and then we hit Wal Mart for a portable grill and food. After the fiasco in Milwaukee last year we put the grill together right away instead of waiting until we got to the ball park. Every piece was put on and taken off two or three times because of crappy directions.

The tickets for the game were only $12 which I was pretty happy about. I figured the gang I was with would want better seats but right field was fine with them. After sitting out there for a few innings we started freezing our butts off. I thought I had learned my lesson from the San Fran Zoo but I guess not. Next time I do anything outdoors in Oakland or San Fran I'm wearing my frigeen winter coat. Spring atire doesn't cut it. We eventually moved along the first base line about 30 rows up. We were out of the wind so the game was a little more enjoyable. The game went into extra innings and all I was hoping was to get the thing over with soon. I didn't want to sit there for 14-15 innings. After the Twins scored 2 in the top of the 10th Joe Nathen made it a nail bitter by letting in a run and leaving two on before finally ending the game on a strike out.

The game was fun but I decided I had enough of Oakland so I didn't go to the game on Sunday. The stadium is worse then the dome as far as seating goes, but it's outdoors and they have plenty of room to tailgate. Throwing the football around and grilling is just about as fun as the game itself. I'm still bummed about the new Twins stadium not having a tail gating parking lot.

Google Maps Street View

Call it creepy or whatever but Google has released a "Street View" as part of it's Google Maps package. You can basically drive your route and see actual images of the streets. Some are calling it an invasion of privacy since you may be caught in these images or pictures of open apartments and what not may be shown. I think it's pretty cool, especially in large cities where directions can get harry when you don't know which turn to take on a five road intersection. Using street view you can see all the intersections ahead of time and see what the buildings look like around your destination so you know if you're getting close or not. Check it out.

Twins vs Oakland

The rematch is on this weekend. The very team that swept the Twins plays just up the road and we're going Friday and possibly Monday. I really want to see Santana but we'll see what happens. Slowely pitches Friday, I believe he's making his debut as a starter. It should be a fun weekend. We're going to tailgate Friday in the parking lot next to the stadium. Hear that!! Tailgating before baseball... something that won't be done in MN even after they build the new stadium. I wish MN would've taken after Milwaukee and built the stadium with plenty of parking so fans could tailgate. We'll have to live with visiting the visitors stadiums for tailgating purposes.

Eagan Town Center

The location of work here in Sunnyvale is not great for eating lunch out. We have two selections within a mile, Subway and Togos, both sub shops. Any drive over a mile away requires at least 10 stop light interceptions, requiring an hour or more for lunch. Kind of makes us Eaganites miss Town Center in Eagan, or just having so many food joints within a short drive.

Freezen' San Fran

Thinking it's a great day out in Sunnyvale, we'd head up to San Fran and hit the zoo with Hayley. The zoo their has been highly recommended by friends who've been there. It's been great weather around here and it's almost June so the weather in San Fran would be decent too. Jen dresses Hayley in a warm jump suit outfit, I'm thinking "that's way to hot, doesn't she have shorts or something in her bag?" But I just move on. Jen as also grabbed my coat and she's dressed very winterish. I'm in shorts and a tee-shirt expecting a sunny summer day. In about a 20 mile stretch it went from 75 and sunny to 50 and cloudy misty crap. We got to the zoo and I was very thankful we had winter clothes and I was very thankful Jen grabbed my coat. Parking there was brutal as usual for San Fran. We parked about a mile away and walked in a gail force wind to get to the entrance. Inside the zoo we were sheltered by trees and what not so it wasn't so windy, but it was fricken freezen. After about 3 hours of it I'd had enough and we headed home. But we were what seemed a mile into the zoo, about where we parked, but there was no exits on that end of the zoo so we had to walk all the way across the place and then walk a mile back to the car. Not that I mind the walking but the friggen gail force winds sucked. As we started the trek back to Sunnyvale the clouds started to clear and we watched the temperature rise about 1 degree per mile. When we got back to Sunnyvale it was 70 degrees and sunny. From now on we'll be spending our days South of San Fran. If I wanted to be cold I'd live in MN.

This is like the 10th time we've went to San Fran and it's been the same thing. Why are people so fascinated with this place. I think it's the most overrated city ever. The weather sucks there.

Timberwolves Lottery Luck.... Conspiracy ???

Although my interest in the Timberwolves these days is just about zero, I had a glimmer of a hope that they'd get a top 3 pick this year. We've been in the stupid draft lottery for years and never got anything higher then 3. This year it's the same. Read We're not moving up. I think it's funny how the public never sees the lottery selection rather just the announcement of the results. I'm pulling the conspiracy theory out on this one. I think there's a pretty good chance this thing is rigged and Mr Stern hand selects the draft order based on market size. Even if he felt it was Minnesota's turn to get a good pick he wouldn't do it because of the Joe Smith deal a few years back. It's pretty clear he doesn't like Taylor and he'd rather have Taylor sell the team. I will never watch the NBA again if the Timberwolves move up the next two years when we have to forfeit our draft picks.

Simply Google

Google is great. When I was shopping for an MP3 player I mentioned that Ben loves the Zune... the response I got was "If Google had an MP3 player you'd love it, even if it sucked." I use many Google features and I could probably be considered a Google fanboy. I dream of working for Google as well. Most software engineers dream of workign for Google. But I digress.

Most people don't have a clue just how many features and tools that Google actually has. The kind of hide stuff away on the site since most of it is Beta. I was listening to the Podcast Buz Out Loud and they mentioned this website. It rolls up all Google tools and features into one site. It's some third party dude that put this together so I'm not sure how long it'll be there but check it out.

Simply Google

Another Traffic Rant

I went to pick Jens brother Nick and his girlfriend up from the airport last Saturday at midnight. Thinking that there would be no problems with traffic I gave myself about 35 minutes to get there. Low and behold about 15 minutes into the drive the traffic was dead stopped. It's friggen midnight for crying out loud. As I'm driving in this stopped traffic, that was not caused by an accident just dumb driving, I'm witnessing the normal driving behavior where people don't let people merge and when drivers need to exit they stay in the left most lane until the last minute and then stop in their lane until someone in the lane next to them stops to let them in, and when you're crossing 4 lanes to exit the snowball effect is a traffic jam 5 miles long. It's just wonderful driving in this crap. Other drivers need a mile worth of open space to merge so even if they start merging 5 miles before their exit it never happens so they stop next to their exit, again waiting for drivers in the adjacent lanes to stop for them. And I won't even bring up the drivers that need to switch lanes over and over to try and move up 3 car lengths before their exit.

My solution to the problem is to hurry the production of flying cars. Although flying cars cause a bigger problem since people will now be flying stupid instead of just driving stupid each car would need to be outfitted with a autopilot and the car would then fly itself based on a flight planned entered before taking off. This got me thinking as to why with all the technology we have today why don't we force stupid drivers to use autopilots in their cars. When they need to exit the car will force them to start merging over many miles before the actual exit so they don't slow traffic. Merging would not force drivers to stop to let other dumb drivers in.

Happy Mother's Day from Dad and Hayley

Headache Fixed??

The last time I saw the chiropractor about a month ago he said based on my activity of running 3-5 days a week was probably causing my headaches. He said when most people run they tend to look down at where they're running which causes tension in the neck. He told me to concentrate on running with my neck straight and to do more cross training activities besides running. He also asked what else I do when I work out. I told him I pretty much just run. He said running mainly works out the muscles on the back side of the body and this could also be causing strain on the back and neck. So he also recommended working my abdominal muscles. After this discussion he worked out the knots in my back for about 40 minutes and then adjusted my neck. He said just adjusting the spine without working on the muscles would cuz the spine to go out of alignment. This was by far the best adjustment I've ever had.

Since this appointment I've started going to 15 minute abs we have here at work Monday/Wednesday/Friday mornings that ends with 15 minutes worth of stretching. I used to think that I know what exercises it takes to work out but I'm finding out that I know very little. I had no clue the number of exercises one can do to work out abs and back. We have a different instructor for every class so that keeps it interesting too. The stretching is great. I've also started cross training so I'm running maybe 2 times a week mixing in biking, roller blading, and the elliptic machine.

Since I've changed my routine my head has been feeling a lot better. I don't know if it's one thing I've changed or the combination of everything I'm doing but I'm much happier without the headaches.

Toys

So we bought Hayley a portable doodle toy the other day. She had no interest in it at the store but I bought it for her anyway since she's been getting into coloring. To date it has been the only toy that she's used for more then a few minutes. She actually sat with it for a couple hours the first day and she's used it quite a bit since.

When Mason got together with Hayley they fought over the toy so we decided to buy another one. When we got to toy section at Target we showed Hayley the full size version shown in the picture of this post. I've never seen a more excited face on her. She loudly inhaled and wanted the toy right now. Seeing her get so excited was awesome. Jen took the toy from Haley to carry to the checkout counter and Hayley had a major fit so we didn't give it to her that night. The next day I showed her the toy again and she got more excited then the day before. I broke it out for her and she loved it. I totally understand why kids can get spoiled so easy. Seeing their face light up like that is a major rush for the parents as much as it is for the kids. Well at least in our case...errr... my case, Jen is probably tough enough to resist toy binging

Alcatraz

 

Last weekend we finally made it to Alcatraz. I was a little bit surprised as to how small the cell house is. I've always pictured it being much larger. It certainly is not short on cells though with three levels of cells. It's amazing how small the cells are. There is barely enough room to fit the bed in the cells. After seeing the layout of the place it would be interesting to watch the old Alcatraz movies to see how accurate they were.

iPod Jottings

So I've owned the 30 gig iPod for about 4 months. I'm very happy with it. Like I said before, I use it mainly to listen to podcasts during the day and to work out. One feature that I never evaluated when I was deciding which mp3 player to purchase was the ability to play games on it. One day I was looking at the iTunes store and I just thought I'd peak at the available games. The original Ms Pac-Man was on there, I was hesitant at first but I decided to download it and give it a shot. It is exactly like the video game. To play it you need to just touch the scroll wheel, no actual pushing buttons. Music still plays in the back ground so you can still push buttons to navigate between songs. After playing Pac-Man for a while I figured I'd try Holdem as well. These games entertained me on during my flights to and from MN. The latest game I downloaded is Zuma. Zuma is a super addictive game, so much so my last flight to CA was like a time warp time went by so fast. So if you own a video iPod I highly recommend trying out some of the games that are available for it.

The Aftermath

So after figuring out everything we lost yesterday the most expensive items were probably the keys to our car in MN. We also lost our truck keys as well but those only cost about $50. The car keys are well over $100. Pretty crappy.

They dudes got like 3 charges in on our bank card that we'll have to protest but that wasn't so bad I guess. They started charging stuff around 9ish last night so they must have stolen the stuff right after we carried our groceries in. Although in my head I want to catch the guy and pummel his arse, the reality is, he's probably 6'5" 300lbs dude that could crush me like a grape. So I'll leave it alone.

Unlocked Car = Stolen Clubs = Early Season Exit

I got in my car this morning and noticed the glove box was open but didn't think anything of it until Jen emailed me a few hours later asking me to bring her purse and jacket in when I got home. Then it dawned on me that it was opened. So I went out to take a look and sure enough Jen's purse and coat were gone. I popped the trunk and found my clubs gone too. I realize it's my fault for leaving the car unlocked but it still sucks. We went grocery shopping yesterday and in the bustle of getting all the groceries in I must of missed locking the door.

So after kicking off the golf season last weekend it may have just come to an abrupt end. Which kind of sucks. I don't think I want to deal with buying another set down here cuz I don't golf enough and I don't want a crappy cheap set.

Cross Training

This weekends activities has me motivated to change my workout routine. For the last 8 months or so I've been running on a treadmill 3-5 times a week for an hour at a time. Running is starting to get boring a bit so I've been pondering how I can mix it up and my knees get sore after 3 days of running. It was so nice out this weekend that I decided that I'd run outside. After a 9 mile run I was feeling pretty good. Saturday we did some mountain biking. After going head over handlebars and putting a big gash in my helmet (thankfully I was wearing a helmet), we decided to go back to the usual trail. I had no trouble climbing all hills and I wasn't really tired from running the day before. On Sunday I was trying to work my way up for a workout but I didn't really want to run again so I decided to break out the Rollerblades. Today my legs are still feeling the burn from rollerblading. Which got me thinking that I should start a hard core Cross Training routine. So my new workout will consist of rotating Running, Biking, Rollerblading and maybe some swimming if the pool warms up. I think mixing up these activities will make it easier to workout everyday without getting sore knees. We'll see how it goes.

Mass Transit

So living in CA this bridge collapse is a big deal on the news around here. Close to 200-250k cars are going to have to find a different route or take mass transit. The governator declared all mass transit free for today. Which got me thinking.. what if mass transit in urban areas were free everyday during rush hour. Would it alleviate traffic? Would it be worth it instead of building 8 and 10 lane highways all over the place? Who knows but it may be worth a try.

Happy Anniverisary

Happy Anniversary to Jen and I (it was actually on the 26th but I'm slow to blog). It's been four years now. Crazy stuff. Our anniversary's have become so common place that Jen stayed in MN instead of hanging out with me. Anyway, time is flying and we only have like 8 months left in CA and it's back to MN.

Entertaining Weekend

Not so much entertaining but rather we were entertaining Jens brother Matt and our neighbor from MN Jen. Jen took them on the standard Windcheater Mystery Manson, 17 mile drive and Monerary Bay Aquarium Thursday and Friday. Saturday it started out raining which sucked but we made the trek to San Fran just for something to do and maybe scout for Sunday. But it cleared up and they got some good views from the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz. We had to scamper back to Sunnyvale to make our dinner reservation. After dinner we went to a comedy club called RoosterTFeathers. The comedians there were friggen hilarious. I was really impressed with the talent for such a small establishment. I wish I had a memory so I could steal some of the jokes cuz some of them were awesome. So we found another something to do here when times are slow.

Sunday we did the usual visiting Muir Woods and San Fran. I'm getting really itchy to get out mountain biking again.