May 27th. Today marks my Rebirth-day. I'm 11 years old at around 5 pm or so. By a bizarre twist of fate, today is also Shayna's Rebirth-day. She's only 4 though (I like to rob the cradle..or I guess in this case it's Flirt-to-Convert) but honestly, she's farther along than I am, I think.
It's very humbling to have someone in your life exceed you when you started them in something. Maybe that's what having kids is like. Seeing them make more money and having more success than you.
I thought I would share my baptism story since it is a little unique (they all are aern't they?). Back in 94 my friend Cris and I would go to the YMCA to go swimming. I was telling Cris that I was thinking about getting baptized and that I was going to talk to Bill (our preacher) about it on Sunday.
Cris asked "Why not just do it here? We got tons of water."
Seemed a strange concept. All the baptisms I had ever seen involved a baptistry. But it made sense, after all we were at a Young Mens Christian Association. So Cris baptized me in the YMCA pool.
Not a particularly touching story. No great miracles or anything. But it did change my life. Maybe in some silly way it changed yours as well.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
How the Redskins can win a Superbowl
The NFL is about to head into a labor dispute much like the NHL and NBA are dealing with now. The NHL currently has 1 cancelled season because owners and players can't get a long. The NBA is staring a lockout or strike down right now and it looks immenant to happen.
The NFL still has some time. The current agreement ends in 2008. This seems like pretty far off. The catch is, that in the 2007 season the salary cap ends. The salary cap is probably the most influential piece of the NFL's popularity. When teams opened up free agency and created a salary cap it has made all of the teams (for the most part) on the same level. Sure you still have 1 or 2 teams with only 1 or 2 wins, but for the most part games in Sept are just as meaningful as games in December for most teams.
The reason for the cap is because players wanted easier free agency. They wanted to be able to go to different teams and let the market determine their value. The owners were scared of this because really rich owners could buy up all the talent and create even bigger dynasties. The solution would be to have all the owners only have a certain spending limit. Thus, players can only get paid what the cap will bear.
But a season without the cap..players have to be licking their chops over this one. Well, not only players. There is one owner I can think of that would be licking his chops too. That would be ol' Danny Boy Snyder of the Redskins. He pays more for bad talent than Al Davis. The thought that he could buy a super bowl must give him goose bumps.
Only time will tell on this one..
The NFL still has some time. The current agreement ends in 2008. This seems like pretty far off. The catch is, that in the 2007 season the salary cap ends. The salary cap is probably the most influential piece of the NFL's popularity. When teams opened up free agency and created a salary cap it has made all of the teams (for the most part) on the same level. Sure you still have 1 or 2 teams with only 1 or 2 wins, but for the most part games in Sept are just as meaningful as games in December for most teams.
The reason for the cap is because players wanted easier free agency. They wanted to be able to go to different teams and let the market determine their value. The owners were scared of this because really rich owners could buy up all the talent and create even bigger dynasties. The solution would be to have all the owners only have a certain spending limit. Thus, players can only get paid what the cap will bear.
But a season without the cap..players have to be licking their chops over this one. Well, not only players. There is one owner I can think of that would be licking his chops too. That would be ol' Danny Boy Snyder of the Redskins. He pays more for bad talent than Al Davis. The thought that he could buy a super bowl must give him goose bumps.
Only time will tell on this one..
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Why are there so many, songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side.
Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends, you can't lose,This could become a habit.
Gosh I love the muppets. I can't really explain it. Maybe it's because I grew up in the 80s. The muppet show had ended it first run in the 70s so it was in syndication along with Sesame street and I watched it all the time growing up.
Maybe it's the songs. Lime in the Coconut, Mana-Mana, Movin Right Along, Rainbow Connection. The list goes on and on.
Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends, you can't lose,This could become a habit.
Gosh I love the muppets. I can't really explain it. Maybe it's because I grew up in the 80s. The muppet show had ended it first run in the 70s so it was in syndication along with Sesame street and I watched it all the time growing up.
Maybe it's the songs. Lime in the Coconut, Mana-Mana, Movin Right Along, Rainbow Connection. The list goes on and on.
Maybe it's the silly characters. My favorite by far is the Swedish Chef.
Maybe it just appeals to the kid in me and makes me feel like I'm 5 again. When getting up on Saturday ment cartoons, not taking care of stuff that I was to busy to take care of earlier in the week.
Who is your favorite?
Monday, May 23, 2005
Cutting edge of technology
I like to try new things. I don't know why. It's a very sick thing really. I know what I like, yet exploring to see what else is out there just pulls me. The most prevalent example I can think of is Chinese restaurants.
First off I love Chinese food. Mainly for this one simple fact: There is no dairy in it. God bless the Chinese and their food. It's so darn good. There are quite a couple Chinese restaurants I visit. All of them have great food. However, whenever my wife and I get a menu in the mail or when we walk past a Chinese restaurant we've never visited, I always feel compelled to try it out. It's weird..I know that..I can't help it.
I also like trying new technology. Gadgets are neat, software is neater. I just recently got into this whole blogging thing. I also recently got into the RSS/XML feeds. For those of you not in the know, you can view all of the blogs that you read, all of the news sites, etc in one small program. It's great, no longer do I have to check every 5 minutes what's going on in the football world. I just let the RMS feeder let me know when something has been updated. Same goes for blogs.
That's pretty much it. Nothing really witty or funny today. I love my wife, and I'm glad the workday is over.
First off I love Chinese food. Mainly for this one simple fact: There is no dairy in it. God bless the Chinese and their food. It's so darn good. There are quite a couple Chinese restaurants I visit. All of them have great food. However, whenever my wife and I get a menu in the mail or when we walk past a Chinese restaurant we've never visited, I always feel compelled to try it out. It's weird..I know that..I can't help it.
I also like trying new technology. Gadgets are neat, software is neater. I just recently got into this whole blogging thing. I also recently got into the RSS/XML feeds. For those of you not in the know, you can view all of the blogs that you read, all of the news sites, etc in one small program. It's great, no longer do I have to check every 5 minutes what's going on in the football world. I just let the RMS feeder let me know when something has been updated. Same goes for blogs.
That's pretty much it. Nothing really witty or funny today. I love my wife, and I'm glad the workday is over.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
A new invention
I was telling my wife this new idea of mine. A new invention that could make us millionairs. Let me run it past whoever reads this blog and let me know what you think.
Ok, here it is. I'm irritated when my wife sometimes takes a bath because the bathtub will use all of the hot water (even if she is very considerate and makes it a bath that doesn't hold all the water). So it's an invention that will have the tub have bath water specific. It will filter the water to make sure it's clean and keep it hot so that you never really have to draw the water. Just hit a button and it flows in.
Pretty good idea eh? Shayna thought so too. Yeah, that's right. It's called a hot tub. I'm glad I didn't go to the patent office for that one. They would have laughed my butt out of there.
This morning I was putting in a new shower curtain. On the front cover of the package there is a sticker proclaiming:
Ok, here it is. I'm irritated when my wife sometimes takes a bath because the bathtub will use all of the hot water (even if she is very considerate and makes it a bath that doesn't hold all the water). So it's an invention that will have the tub have bath water specific. It will filter the water to make sure it's clean and keep it hot so that you never really have to draw the water. Just hit a button and it flows in.
Pretty good idea eh? Shayna thought so too. Yeah, that's right. It's called a hot tub. I'm glad I didn't go to the patent office for that one. They would have laughed my butt out of there.
This morning I was putting in a new shower curtain. On the front cover of the package there is a sticker proclaiming:
SPECIAL FEATURE
suction cups to prevent tub leaks
patented:6,317,904.
This irratates me for two reasons. First and foremost, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS?!?!?! I mean, come on. Suction cups on a shower curtain? Thats so simple, why couldn't I do that? I'm a pretty smart guy...well at least I'm not classified as mentally retarded but still. Insanely easy.
Second, the guy that comes up with it flaunts the fact that he came up with an insanely simple idea and patented it. It's not like I was going to put the patent number on my hot tub idea.
So am I the only one out there that has this great idea for an invention and it turns out it's already done? What simple idea do you wish you had invented?
Yes that's right, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS! The only responses I get are from Dave and Shayna..there has to be more people than that reading this silly thing.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Star Wars Episode III: The Search for More Money
or the working title: The Legend of Curley's Gold
Shayna and I saw Star Wars yesterday. We were responsible young adults and decided not to see it at midnight, but rather catch a matinee after work.
I'll try not to spoil the movie for those that haven't seen it.
It's way better than Episode 1 & 2. It still pales in comparison to Empire Strikes Back though. The romance story surrounding Anakin and Padme is wooden and it's hard to believe that they tolerate each other let alone love each other.
The lightsaber battles are cool. And the story is good. It was interesting to see how Anakin became vader.
Overall, I give the movie an alright rating.
Shayna and I saw Star Wars yesterday. We were responsible young adults and decided not to see it at midnight, but rather catch a matinee after work.
I'll try not to spoil the movie for those that haven't seen it.
It's way better than Episode 1 & 2. It still pales in comparison to Empire Strikes Back though. The romance story surrounding Anakin and Padme is wooden and it's hard to believe that they tolerate each other let alone love each other.
The lightsaber battles are cool. And the story is good. It was interesting to see how Anakin became vader.
Overall, I give the movie an alright rating.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
A tribute
Quite a number of people think I'm a funny guy. Ok, well my wife thinks I'm a funny guy. And even then, I'm not that funny most of the time. While looking for the Hitchhiker's quote for "Start Spreading the News", I came across another part of the book that, when I first read it, had me in tears. Reading it again did the same thing but for a different reason.
Douglas Adams died awhile ago. But his humor was so unique and fantastic, the movie Hitchhikers didn't do him justice. The following is a quote from one of the Hitchhiker's books. If you find it nearly as funny as I do, do yourself a favor and read the books.
Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does. The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it with the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop. This was best demonstrated by the famous Herring Sandwich experiments conducted millennia ago at MISPWOSO (the MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious). A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment. Once the robot had been programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, a herring sandwich was placed in front of it. Where upon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches.It would then bend over and scoop up the herring sandwich in its herring sandwich scoop, and then straighten up again. Unfortunately for the robot, it was fashioned in such a way that the action of straightening up caused the herring sandwich to slip straight back off its herring sandwich scoop and fall on to the floor in front of the robot. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich...etc., and repeated the same action over and over again. The only thing that prevented the herring sandwich from getting bored with the whole damn business and crawling off in search of other ways of passing the time was that the herring sandwich, being just a bit of dead fish between a couple of slices of bread, was marginally less alert to what was going on than was the robot.
Feel free to start blithering now.
Douglas Adams died awhile ago. But his humor was so unique and fantastic, the movie Hitchhikers didn't do him justice. The following is a quote from one of the Hitchhiker's books. If you find it nearly as funny as I do, do yourself a favor and read the books.
Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does. The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it with the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop. This was best demonstrated by the famous Herring Sandwich experiments conducted millennia ago at MISPWOSO (the MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious). A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment. Once the robot had been programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, a herring sandwich was placed in front of it. Where upon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches.It would then bend over and scoop up the herring sandwich in its herring sandwich scoop, and then straighten up again. Unfortunately for the robot, it was fashioned in such a way that the action of straightening up caused the herring sandwich to slip straight back off its herring sandwich scoop and fall on to the floor in front of the robot. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich...etc., and repeated the same action over and over again. The only thing that prevented the herring sandwich from getting bored with the whole damn business and crawling off in search of other ways of passing the time was that the herring sandwich, being just a bit of dead fish between a couple of slices of bread, was marginally less alert to what was going on than was the robot.
Feel free to start blithering now.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
VideoGame Mayhem
It's coming. It's on the verge of happening. Next Generation consoles are gearing up at E3 this week for a battle roy-al with cheese.
I've read some of the prelim specs and thought I'd give my 2 cents:
Xbox 360 - This is going to come out in time for Christmas this year. They have completely redesigned the architecture. They no longer use an Intel/Nvidia chip but a custom processor with an Ati graphics chip. The processor runs 3 cores all at 3.2 Ghz. Will have a HD again as well as NIC and wireless (A, B, & G). Will be at worst partially backwards compatible. Because they changed the architecture, I think the system will have to emulate an xbox. That could be bad, because it means they only will work on making the most popular games compatible.
Playstation 3- Cell processor which has 9 cores. Hard to tell if all the cores run at 3.2 Ghz or if combined they do. I can't imagine they all run that fast. The heat would be a huge issue. It is supposed to do 2 teraflops of calculations though. Will be completely compatible with playstation 1 & 2. Will also use Blu-Ray DVD technology. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Do the games really need that much more space? The only console that had issues with space was the game cube and that's because they had the small discs. It will be interesting to see how next gen dvds work and the cost. This could be a huge thing with the PS3. If xbox can put out games for $50 and PS3 has to charge 60 or 70 xbox is going to go a long way in catching sony.
Nintendo Revolution - really small ( about the thickness of 3 dvd cases), plays dvds and will have tons of Mario games. They are supposedly coming out with something that will be revolutionary. Only time will tell.
The main thing I think working for MS is that they have Halo 3 coming out the same day PS3 comes out. People bought the xbox because of Halo & Halo2. They will buy it for Halo 3. By then the pricing scheme of the PS3 should be clearer. If the blu-ray is cost prohibitive, xbox could indeed become the market leader..
Only time will tell
I've read some of the prelim specs and thought I'd give my 2 cents:
Xbox 360 - This is going to come out in time for Christmas this year. They have completely redesigned the architecture. They no longer use an Intel/Nvidia chip but a custom processor with an Ati graphics chip. The processor runs 3 cores all at 3.2 Ghz. Will have a HD again as well as NIC and wireless (A, B, & G). Will be at worst partially backwards compatible. Because they changed the architecture, I think the system will have to emulate an xbox. That could be bad, because it means they only will work on making the most popular games compatible.
Playstation 3- Cell processor which has 9 cores. Hard to tell if all the cores run at 3.2 Ghz or if combined they do. I can't imagine they all run that fast. The heat would be a huge issue. It is supposed to do 2 teraflops of calculations though. Will be completely compatible with playstation 1 & 2. Will also use Blu-Ray DVD technology. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Do the games really need that much more space? The only console that had issues with space was the game cube and that's because they had the small discs. It will be interesting to see how next gen dvds work and the cost. This could be a huge thing with the PS3. If xbox can put out games for $50 and PS3 has to charge 60 or 70 xbox is going to go a long way in catching sony.
Nintendo Revolution - really small ( about the thickness of 3 dvd cases), plays dvds and will have tons of Mario games. They are supposedly coming out with something that will be revolutionary. Only time will tell.
The main thing I think working for MS is that they have Halo 3 coming out the same day PS3 comes out. People bought the xbox because of Halo & Halo2. They will buy it for Halo 3. By then the pricing scheme of the PS3 should be clearer. If the blu-ray is cost prohibitive, xbox could indeed become the market leader..
Only time will tell
Monday, May 16, 2005
Start Spreadin the News
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that were powered by bad news but they didn't work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn't really any point in being there. - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
I think Douglas Adams is on to something here. Why is it that bad news travels so much faster than pretty much anything else? When my grandmother died, the first thing I did was I emailed everyone I knew letting them know of this and to ask for prayers. Now this isn't a bad thing, prayers are good. But I bet if I won the lottery I wouldn't be emailing all my friends letting them know and asking for prayers (although I probably would need the prayers more in this instance)
No, we typically don't spread good or nice news to our friends, family, or co-workers. The only exception I can think of to this is when we get a new car. When we get a new car we tell everyone we meet and love to show it off. Guys in particular are guilty of this. We go and show the doors, lights, glove box (which never actually holds gloves) and finally the engine (which to most guys, myself included) doesn't mean anything. "Oh wow Bob, you got the 525 horse power hemi roter engine." I know what all those words mean individually, but not all together. So I guess the question in this instance is, does getting a new car really count as good news? Perhaps it's just bad news with a nice smell.
People are pretty tired of bad news I would think. They get it in the news, television cliff hangers, work, and even music. Perhaps people like the fact that they know someone is worse off than themselves. They feel that their life isn't so bad. Just look at Jim and Jolene who lost their trailer home to a tornado. Wow, sucks to be them right?
Perhaps the same sort of psycology works with good news in that people don't like receiving good news. It makes them feel bad about themselves because someone is better off than themselves. You don't tell your single friend that you're getting married because it will just make them more sad that they don't have someone special of their own to rub into the faces of their single friends.
The thing is, for the most part, people like to receive good news. You go to the mechanic and the bill is $20, you are ecstatic. You find a quarter, your half way to a free soda. Your wife/huband doesn't have cancer? Praise God! So if good news makes people generally happy, why don't we share it?
This of course leads back to the gospel. For those of you reading who aern't "churched", gospel just means "the good news". Christians all over the world have f-ing fantatic news. So why aern't we telling everyone we know (myself included) ?
Maybe we need Bibles with new car smell..
I think Douglas Adams is on to something here. Why is it that bad news travels so much faster than pretty much anything else? When my grandmother died, the first thing I did was I emailed everyone I knew letting them know of this and to ask for prayers. Now this isn't a bad thing, prayers are good. But I bet if I won the lottery I wouldn't be emailing all my friends letting them know and asking for prayers (although I probably would need the prayers more in this instance)
No, we typically don't spread good or nice news to our friends, family, or co-workers. The only exception I can think of to this is when we get a new car. When we get a new car we tell everyone we meet and love to show it off. Guys in particular are guilty of this. We go and show the doors, lights, glove box (which never actually holds gloves) and finally the engine (which to most guys, myself included) doesn't mean anything. "Oh wow Bob, you got the 525 horse power hemi roter engine." I know what all those words mean individually, but not all together. So I guess the question in this instance is, does getting a new car really count as good news? Perhaps it's just bad news with a nice smell.
People are pretty tired of bad news I would think. They get it in the news, television cliff hangers, work, and even music. Perhaps people like the fact that they know someone is worse off than themselves. They feel that their life isn't so bad. Just look at Jim and Jolene who lost their trailer home to a tornado. Wow, sucks to be them right?
Perhaps the same sort of psycology works with good news in that people don't like receiving good news. It makes them feel bad about themselves because someone is better off than themselves. You don't tell your single friend that you're getting married because it will just make them more sad that they don't have someone special of their own to rub into the faces of their single friends.
The thing is, for the most part, people like to receive good news. You go to the mechanic and the bill is $20, you are ecstatic. You find a quarter, your half way to a free soda. Your wife/huband doesn't have cancer? Praise God! So if good news makes people generally happy, why don't we share it?
This of course leads back to the gospel. For those of you reading who aern't "churched", gospel just means "the good news". Christians all over the world have f-ing fantatic news. So why aern't we telling everyone we know (myself included) ?
Maybe we need Bibles with new car smell..
Monday, May 02, 2005
What a weekend
Nothing really insiteful to say at the moment. Just wanted to give an update on my weekend. It was fantastic!
Perhaps I should rewind a little. This wekeend was a young adult retreat that my church hosted. Shayna, myself and about 25 others went to Camp WaMaVa. Not only did I get to meet some great people (shout outs to Julie, Tammy, Rich, and Craig) but I found some direction in my spiritual life.
And for those of you who where there: STOP IT!
Perhaps I should rewind a little. This wekeend was a young adult retreat that my church hosted. Shayna, myself and about 25 others went to Camp WaMaVa. Not only did I get to meet some great people (shout outs to Julie, Tammy, Rich, and Craig) but I found some direction in my spiritual life.
And for those of you who where there: STOP IT!
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