A Curious Blog

I've Moved!

2008-04-19T22:28:00.001-05:00

I moved my blog over here:

Check it out if you aren't redirected!

Carwash

2008-04-19T10:18:00.002-05:00

Here we are at the Octopus car wash in Albuquerque. I'll put some more pictures from my trip up later.

At the theater

2008-04-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

I am waiting on a friend to see 21 and just thought "hey I never blog
from my phone". You know what I love about realizing your fly is
open? Once you zip it you feel like you have stepped into an
invincible cacoon of invincibility!

Some Combos for the road

2008-03-23T11:35:00.005-05:00

I don't know about you, but when I go on a road trip I like to get some pretzel/cheddar Combos and a Diet Dr. Pepper for the ride. In a similar fashion, I thought I would just do a combo post tonight. I had a few items in my "queue" to post about next, and I thought I better clear it out soon. I'll probably be getting a Mac in the next couple of months, and I don't want things cluttering my focus if I want to make some new video blogs on it :) Also, I have recently become hooked on Yael Naim's song "New Soul", that is on the MacBook Air commercials. Apparently, I'm not the only one either, the commercial has helped her become the first Israeli solo artist with a top 10 Billboard song. NPR has a story, and an interview with her about it (plus you can hear the song there). Anyway, I've got the song looping right now, so if my post isn't making sense, try reading it with "New Soul" playing.

First from my queue is a follow-up to my NaNoWriMo post. I finished my novel, but I kind of cheated, but not really. Here's what I did, and then why I did it. Basically about 15,000 words into the story, one of my characters decides he is going to try and set a new pogo sticking world record. He gets his friend to help him practice, they use one of those crowd counter type things to keep track of the jumps, and the novel gives a very in-depth account of a practice session.... "Click, 1, click, 2, click, 3 ... " Not the most exciting novel, but I did actually research the world record and it is legit, he doesn't even break it during the practice in fact.

So, why I did this? I mean if you're generating 2/3 of a novel in C#, why not just give up on it. Well, when I was in elementary school our bus driver one day showed us a picture of his daughter. He said if anyone could guess her name as they got off the bus, they would get a candy bar as their prize. Rob, Nathaniel, and myself discussed what we thought she looked like, and all came up with our best guesses. Then Rob (being the leader type he is) checked to make sure we were organized and all agreed which name who was saying. But to our shock Nathaniel did not want to participate! We could not understand why, and all he would say was he knew it was not right, so he did not want to take a guess. After Nathaniel got off the bus just down the street from us, Rob and I decided we needed to try his guess (Elizabeth I believe). So Rob guessed Nathaniel's name, and it was right! True story :)

I could have had that attitude with my novel, "I know it is a waste of time, why even finish?" I even researched the "rules" on the website, the only thing applicable was that you could not write ONE word 50,000 times. I guess what Nathaniel taught me that day was to participate and finish what you can, even if you feel pretty silly doing it :)

**** Following section has follow-up comment (3rd comment)

And finally, from the "post queue", I wanted to comment on a quote I heard from an author that we are "not reading because we're not training thinkers." This struck me as odd, and a good illustration to me of how I feel many over-exaggerate the power of reading. I understand reading is a great way to gain knowledge about things, but I do not think knowledge is the same as the ability to think. Reading can present you with new ideas which could expand your thinking, that makes sense I guess. At the same time people have the ability to think themselves, independently of the influence of others. I really wonder if people realize this sometimes. When it was just Adam and Eve, could they not think since they had no books?

Another point is that even when you ARE talking about the acquisition of knowledge, reading is not the best method for many people to do that. I was always an above average student in formal education, but I feel I learned a very small percentage of what I know from reading. I was much better off to be a good listener in lecture times, and to work with things (or ideas) hands on for the majority of my learning (ie - homework, etc). I also have been irritated in the past by the idea that reading the Bible is essential for salvation, as if illiterate people can not be saved. Maybe all this "reading hype" comes mainly from people who DO learn most effectively by reading, I do not know. Just some food for thought.... hmmm.... maybe this section should be a video post as well :)

A Perfect Example...

2008-01-22T21:40:00.000-06:00

I'm a huge Dave Ramsey fan. Sometimes he likes to go on a rant about a given topic, and today he had a little "mini-rant" that is probably one of the best examples I could give of why I enjoy listening to him so much. A caller said he was trying to decide whether Dave or Robert Kiyosaki should be his financial guru to follow. Dave has talked about Robert before, and like always he said he has a lot of respect for him, he loves the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad", and that Robert has different opinions about debt than Dave does. Then he got to the real "answer" about who should be the guru. I thought the response was so good I decided to transcript it and share it with everyone, enjoy :)

I don't think either one of us qualify to be your guru. I don't think you ought to look for a guru to follow. I think you need to make some decisions yourself, and you need to gather information, and you need to be a reader, and you need to intellectually feed your mind, and you need to go out and experience some of these things and do them. Don't look for a guru to follow, you need to be your own guru. Grow your brain, and do that. I don't look for a... I don't have a guru. There's not anybody walking on this planet right now that I believe everything they say about everything. I'm not cynical, I'm just cynical... 'cause they're humans. The only guru I've ever found worth following is Jesus. And I can believe everything He says, but He... you know, other than His Spirit walkin' around here, I don't get to talk to Him on a daily basis, in person. And so, in that sense, I don't... I'm not looking for a pastor to be my daddy, and I'm not looking for my group that I'm in to have all the answers and all that. I mean, you know that's the kind of stuff that sets you up for toxic disappointment. So, I don't really wanna be your guru. I don't wanna be anybody's guru. I don't mind being your teacher, and then you take the information and learn from it. And that's the direction I would go on that.

I've always wanted to write a novel...

2007-11-01T00:35:00.000-05:00

Writing a novel is kind of one of those things it seems like you might do someday, but probably won't. Or at least that's me. Like being a teacher. I still often think of things I'll do "when" I am teaching, even though I have no plans to ever teach. I have also thought about things I might someday write a book about, even though I never really "planned" on writing a book.

But today I happened across this link to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. November is the month, and they try to get as many people as possible to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Can't start before or finish after. I thought about it for a while, and decided to sign up. It's free, and if you don't finish they don't sue you. You can see my profile here, and even view an excerpt of my novel, which I started just after midnight today :) I'm up to 893 words, and I can also update the word count on my profile.

Here are a few of the things from their site that inspired me to do it:
- To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
- We love the fringe benefits accrued to novelists. For one month out of the year, we can stew and storm, and make a huge mess of our apartments and drink lots of coffee at odd hours. And we can do all of these things loudly, in front of people. As satisfying as it is to reach deep within yourself and pull out an unexpectedly passable work of art, it is equally (if not more) satisfying to be able to dramatize the process at social gatherings.
- The other reason we do NaNoWriMo is because the glow from making big, messy art, and watching others make big, messy art, lasts for a long, long time. The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self.

Selling cat food

2007-10-27T19:01:00.000-05:00

Wow, I cannot believe it has been over 3 months since I posted. That is almost a tenth of a year! I've got a few random bits I wanted to share.

First, I have been getting small bags of sample cat food in the large bags of cat food I buy. Obviously it's from the same company, but it seems like a strange way to promote this product. I have not even checked to see if the sample is a more expensive variety. How is this supposed to work as a marketing technique? Do people try it and say, "Oh, I really like the color of that cat food!" Or maybe, "Wow, the cats really ate that food also!" ???

Next, I just have to vent about what a piece of crap Windows is for doing video work! I really need to get a Mac for that someday. I can record shows and make DVDs, which is a good thing, but a lot of stuff is a pain. (I'm going to count programs here) Like I was wanting to put the video below online from the TV, so first I recorded the clip in Windows DVR format (1), which Windows movie maker can not read!?! So I converted it to an MPEG (2), so I could add it to movie maker and save it as a smaller .wmv file. The first MPEG file kept crashing movie maker (3). Then I used a different program to make an MPEG (4), but it was crashing movie maker also. So I ended up using yet another program to convert the MPEG to .wmv file (5), but it was larger than I wanted. So I used Windows movie maker to open the .wmv and save it as a new .wmv with different quality settings. So to get the file ready for the internet I ended up using 5 different programs. Luckily, I already had the programs because I had done this before, but I had to re-figure out how to do it all. When I get a Mac I may be posting all the time :)

Finally, here's the video. I was watching TV one afternoon and this was on, and I almost did not even notice. When I did notice I decided to record it, since you can record from TIVO's buffer after the fact. All this needs is a live audience and you've got a funny SNL skit :)

iPhone Launch on Dallas News

2007-07-13T17:31:00.000-05:00

NBC 5i covered the iPhone launch, and I was on the story for about 3 seconds. I kind of got myself on there because I was taking pictures of the crowd, and was going to get one with the camera man in the forefront. Well, he turned around, and we ended up photographing each other :) Then he asked me a few questions, and one of my answers made the story. Here's the picture of the camera man and then the news story.

An Apple, A Day

2007-07-07T19:20:00.000-05:00

It's been a little over a week since I got my Apple iPhone, which took the majority of my Friday (it was fun though). I finally got around to doing a little video demo. Well, it's kind of long actually, I had to split it to fit on YouTube. I wanted to post it unedited to give an "honest" feel of how easy it is to use. Of course keep in mind I was under the pressure of being on camera! :) Hope you enjoy it. Oh... the previous post goes along with this one, you'll see if you watch.

This is a post in a post

2007-07-07T18:45:00.001-05:00

This is a post in a post, originally uploaded by Jason M Green.

I am doing a demo of my new iPhone. The typing on it works really well, it is so smart that it can figure out most of your spelling mistakes and correct them even if several of the letters you type are incorrect.

Jason (on iPhone)

words - http://acuriousblog.blogspot.com

pictures - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmgreen

videos - http://www.youtube.com/jasonee

KFC Part 1

2007-05-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

Do people listen to the news?

2007-05-17T22:25:00.000-05:00

I've never been a big watcher of the news. As the Dallas NBC slogan goes, "Not Just What Happens, What Matters." Uh-huh, why do you have to point it out in your slogan then?

Anyway, tonight the news was on after I finished watching The Office so I caught a couple minutes of it. They were reporting about the increasing minority population in the US. They said that in Texas minorities were already 50% of the population, and that they had passed the number in the majority in 2006. WHAT?!? I understand there is more than one minority group, so the total percentage of minority groups combined could be over 50%. But, if minorities are at 50% of the population, then how can they have PASSED the number in the majority? 50% is an even split. Also, if they truly have breached the 50% mark, then the majority is no more! If you have 4 population groups of 25% each, you no longer have a majority! Good grief. Do they simply mean Caucasians?

So I'm curious what most people, that are actually trying to pay attention to the news, think when they hear something like this? Do they make there own assumptions about what is meant, and then accept that as factual? Sadly, I suspect many make the assumptions and accept it without even realizing the assumptions were made. I would guess in this example they were trying to say something like all the groups that were minorities before 2006 combined in 2006 to be about 52%, while the number of Caucasians (now a minority group as well) fell that year to about 48%. But regardless of what they intended, I am not going to trust a news channel to properly interpret statistical data, which can be very tricky and presented in very misleading ways, when they can not even get their English to make sense. :)

Now I've got flickr too!

2007-05-13T15:50:00.001-05:00

P1010063, originally uploaded by Jason M Green.

I went ahead and set up my flickr.com account today. So now I can blog with words, video, and pictures! Actually, I am creating this blog entry straight from the flickr website. The internet is pretty cool these days, huh?

News & Entertainment

2007-03-12T19:25:00.001-05:00

I don't need no stinking edits!

2007-03-06T18:08:00.000-06:00

New monitor

2007-02-28T22:23:00.000-06:00

Let's do it

2007-02-25T23:41:00.000-06:00

Watch this video, and tell me what your first impression is. I posted a video reply to the video. It was fun, watch my reply to hear more. I need to get in bed!

My First VLOG

2007-02-25T15:21:00.000-06:00

iPhone

2007-01-20T12:08:00.000-06:00

Here I am watching the Apple keynote speech the other night online.

Steve Jobs was explaining how with the new Apple TV you can watch content from your PC right on your widescreen TV. Ummm..... :) All seriousness aside, Apple TV does have some pretty cool features, like built in Wi-Fi. Really, I just had to poke a little fun. If you want to see more you can go to the Apple TV site.

The majority of the keynote speech was about the new iPhone, to be released in June. I was amazed by it... I don't know what else to say. I could describe all the cool things it does, but you really need to go see yourself by either watching the keynote or clicking on the various feature sections on the iPhone page. I got even more excited when I read the review at PC Magazine. The reviewer actually got to use one for like 10 minutes, and said it's even more impressive than the keynote, and described the touchscreen as taking your breath away. Steve Jobs had a quote from Allan Kay during the keynote that I thought was good, especially after seeing the iPhone... the quote was "People who are serious about software should build their own hardware."

In the end, the presentation left me with two main thoughts:
1) I really want an iPhone.
2) I would really enjoy working for Apple.

Stockholm syndrome

2007-01-15T21:19:00.000-06:00

WARNING: Partial spoilers for season 3 of Lost below! (not much really)

I was watching Hannity and Colmes tonight on Fox News channel, not a normal event for me by any means, but I really enjoyed it. They were discussing the Missouri kidnapping of two boys that were found, and one of the psychologists that was a guest brought up the Stockholm syndrome. This is where an abducted person shows loyalty to their abducter, or begins to think of them as the good guy. They basically decide to join "their side" because it's the only option they feel they have. The first thing it reminded me of was how Noel used to say he wanted to join the monsters in his room at night. It seems like he wanted Dracula to bite him, so he could be a vampire too (correct me if I'm wrong).

It also kind of reminds me of Lost. I think this is what the "others" are trying to accomplish with the survivors. They cage them up and use physical violence against them, but at the same time try to convince them to just do as they're told and everything will be hunky dory.

I think some people experience this with God. Sometimes when I hear people talk about how great and wonderful etc. God is, it seems like they are not talking about something great and wonderful, but instead something they are terrified of. I guess I perceive that partly because I have had those feelings before, and can be inclined to still if I don't pay attention. To me, it is silly to be that way with God though, because you can't fool Him about what is in your heart. So I try to avoid that mentality, escpecially spiritually. I guess the point of the psychological effect though is that it can become engrained in your psyche so that it is not something you are faking, but something you have really come to accept. Oh... so people might be worshipping a God they originally perceived as terrifying, but eventually they came to accept Him as good. :) It's an interesting effect to me, I'll probably lay awake tonight thinking about it... but at least I won't be worried about monsters.

Two Tickets to Paradise

2006-12-15T19:30:00.000-06:00

The title for this post just seemed appropriate, because Michael on The Office made a reference to that song last night. Anyway, basically I was just going to post a couple of YouTube links that I like, and they're not really related, so that came to mind.

The first one I happened across, and it was the best thing since the first time I saw Napolean Dynamite dancing! That's about all I can say about it, check it out: Here It Goes Again. I almost have the feeling everyone has seen this already... if so, people need to keep me in the loop! :)

The second video is Evanescence on David Letterman. I just happened to catch it last night, and I was captivated. It reminded me of seeing Cirque du Soleil the first time. Amy Lee's voice is awesome. I had heard their stuff before, quite a bit of it is popular, but I had never paid much attention to it. So here's the song, pretty cool. Oh, her voice reminds me of Sarah McLachlan at times.

Church potluck

2006-11-19T14:37:00.000-06:00

Working on the weekend is kind of like a church potluck when we were kids. As I came into work this afternoon, this thought finally registered. I had the thought before, it just stayed more on the subconscious level.

It's not so much the dinner portion of the potluck, but getting to run around the empty church building afterwards. All the rooms have the lights off. Everything is very quiet. Doors are locked that are usually open. In general it is just a ghost town type feeling. It's fun though. Makes me want to use the women's restroom just for the heck of it (of course I wouldn't do that here because there are a few people actually working), or be really loud and sing in the hallways. Or go fly paper airplanes off the balcony. Dang, I don't know of any balconies here.

Bust A Move

2006-11-05T01:20:00.000-06:00

I'm setting here at 1 AM listening to Bust A Move, by Young MC. It's not my fault though, I accidentally took like a 3 hour nap this afternoon, and then I saw this post on Noel's blog about Pac-Man. That was hilarious. I started clicking around and within a few minutes I found this pie chart, which is also pretty funny.

That was funny enough, or it was late enough, that I had to listen to the song. I think I'm going to hang these pie charts up in my cube at work. Luckily, I had just downloaded the song a couple of months ago, I guess that was my fault. :)

Misery loves company

2006-09-14T11:48:00.000-05:00

But apathy doesn't really have a problem with it.

I had a dream...

2006-09-13T07:24:00.000-05:00

Not to be confused with the famous I Have a Dream speech by Marin Luther King Jr., this was an actual dream I had last night. Kristy McNichol had come to work at my company, along with a bunch of other new hires. Only she didn't really look like Kristy McNichol in my dream, but she looked like someone I can't put my finger on. Funny, because in The Pirate Movie she has a dream too (which is what the whole movie is). What was kind of freaky about it, when I pulled her up on Wikipedia, I saw her birthday is September 11th, 1962. Kind of freaky, huh?

I don't claim my dream to be as important as the historical speech by MLK Jr. ... but hey, if Kristy coming to work where I do will promote racial equality, isn't that a small price to pay?

When Netflix goes online

2006-08-31T08:37:00.000-05:00

I finally signed up for Netflix, and I'm totally excited! I mean watching lots of movies and shows will be really fun, but also their website is really good. You can see pop-up movie descriptions anywhere they list a movie name, the friends feature works good, they have online previews, just overall everything is intuitive and fun to use.

A few years before it was available, I got excited about being able to burn my own DVDs of shows I like. First they came out with some of the high dollar DVD recorders, but I wanted more control than that. When my brother Leland got his Media Center PC, I was amazed because there was the technology I wanted, and I didn't realize it was available yet. I could finally record shows from TV digitally, and keep the ones I wanted on DVD.

So now I am similarly excited about a future development of Netflix (or whatever company does it). I can't wait till Netflix has a 100% online option. There are already companies offering cable TV on the internet, and obviously it's really only a matter of bandwidth. Imagine what it will be like to pay $20 a month or whatever, and have the entire Netflix library online, ready to be streamed in DVD quality right to your TV on demand! Pretty sweet. Eventually, you'll have every movie and every TV show ever made right at your fingertips. It will become as easy to watch something as it is to look up information on the internet today. For example, today if you are trying to remember the words to the Brady Bunch theme, you can hop online and find them lickity split. Demo: here they are, it took me about 1 minute, but that included looking at a couple of sources to make sure I had a pretty accurate version. So in the (hopefully near) future, if you are discussing with friends the episode where Bobby and Cindy get lost at the Grand Canyon, and someone never saw it, you could just get on Netflix and watch it and laugh. It's pretty fun to think about to me, technology is cool.

Pilot Assembly

2006-08-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

There's a lab close to where I sit at work with a sign by the door "Pilot Assembly." Every time I walk by there I envision a life-sized G.I. Joe doll having his arms and legs snapped into place. Can I get a "woot, woot"?

Fun with statistics (yes, I feel nerdy today)

2006-08-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

Walter Ray Williams Jr. is unarguably one of the best bowlers ever, and arguably THE best bowler ever. He has a degree in Physics, and likes statistics as well. I was thinking about the chances our team has of winning our bowling league on Wednesday night, and so I'm going to e-mail this blog to Walter and hope he posts a reply, or responds to my e-mail.

We are currently sitting in 3rd place in our league. Here are the standings. Wednesday is our final night, and a position round which means #1 bowls #2, #3 bowls #4, etc. We bowl 4 games a night, there are 2 points for each game, and 2 points for total pins, so a total of 10 points a night. A quick look at the standings and you'll see that if we win all 10 points, and "Shoe Up!" wins only 2 points (1 game), we'll tie for first and get to have a playoff. If "Shoe Up!" wins more, or "Aggressive Flavor" wins them all, we can't catch them. On the other hand, if we win all 10, noone else can catch us. So I wanted to try and figure out what the odds are that we tie for first, and then win the playoff. Of course keep in mind, when I took a graduate level statistics course at SMSU I got a B. That's the only B I ever got in a math course, and I had plenty of math working on my BS in Electrical Engineering at OC. I attribute it to not being very motivated, but it's still kind of embarrasing. So...

I assume each game to be a statistically independent event. I guess arguments could be made that mental momentum, etc., would change this, but I won't worry about that. I do not take into consideration any teams tying either. For each game, handicap is pretty close to the same for all the teams involved, so that is another variable I have considered insignificant. For the match between #1 and #2, there are 16 possible outcomes for 4 games. If we were to list this for the first place team as W or L for win or loss, the outcomes could be WLLL, WWLL, WWWL, etc. Out of these 16 outcomes, only 4 will work for us, the 4 with 1 win... WLLL, LWLL, LLWL, or LLLW. So the odds of this is 4/16, or 0.25. Given one of these 4 outcomes, we need the odds that second place also wins totals, which I think would also be 1/2 (think of totals like one big game). So the odds that everything goes right for us with the match between first and second is 0.25 * 0.5 = 0.125.

Now the odds that we sweep our match. Pretty simple here, 16 outcomes again, and the only one acceptable is WWWW. So the odds we sweep are 1/16 = 0.0625. Given we win each game, we automatically win totals, so we are done with the odds of winning what we need to. So the odds that both matches turn out the way we want are 0.125 * 0.0625 = 0.007813. Then of course we would have a playoff, and since we don't have any league rules governing this, USBC rule #113b states that the playoff must be the same 4 game format that the normal season used. The chances of us winning the playoff are 1 in 2. This seems intuitive, but can also be derived using the logic I did for the other matches. There is 1/16 way we can win all four games, 4/16 ways to win 3 games, and 6/16 ways to win 2 games. Anything less than 2 we will lose the playoff even if we win total pins. If we win 4 games or 3 games, we win the playoff even if we lose totals. If we win 2 games, we win the playoff only if we win totals, which we again say is a 50% chance. So we can compute the probability of winning the playoff as the sum of weighted probabilities that we win the playoff in any of these three fashions (by winning all 4, winning 3, or winning 2). This gives us the equation (1 * 1/16) + (1 * 4/16) + (0.5 * 6/16) = 0.5. So that is my "proof" that we have a 50% chance to win the playoff.

Now, the overall chance of us winning this league is equal to the chance of both matches going the right way, and us winning the playoff, or 0.007813 * 0.5 = 0.003906. Cool, we have almost half a percent chance to win! Now that I've done this, I'll be even more excited if our team is able to win.

How they get ya!

2006-08-18T07:34:00.000-05:00

It 'minds me of a story our friend Chris Nelson told. A friend of his went to eat with her dad and one of her friends. They went to a steak place. Not a buffet keep in mind, just a regular old steak restaurant. Keep in mind as well this was not a close family friend the dad knew well, but just a friend of his daughter's. Well, when they brought out rolls and the girl's friend started to eat, the dad went into a tirade. He exclamed, "Don't eat those!! They bring you all these rolls, and you get full on them, and then you can't eat your meal, and that's how they get ya!!" Of course noone was sure why he felt like the restaurant would do that, not like you can't take it with you.

So at Wal-Mart the gallon of milk is more than twice the price of the half gallon. I'm not sure how long it's been that way, but I buy a gallon of milk now in two containers. I've noticed you have to watch stores about stuff like that. One day the smaller quantity of an item will be cheaper per unit, and later it will flip and the larger quantity will be the better value. And that, my friend, is truly how they get ya!

Visitor

2006-08-08T20:46:00.000-05:00

I had a visitor today at the house, a cute little kitten. It was really friendly so I let it come in for a while. It ate a whole can of tuna, and then laid with me on the couch while I watched Boston Legal. I let Buddy come in to see how it acted, since Buddy is a lot calmer than Zaria. It hissed a little, but didn't get mean or anything. Then later when I let both the dogs in it got kind of scared and went to the room. When I went in there, and the dogs followed, it got under the bed. I went ahead and put it back outside then, besides, might have rabbies. Holly had seen it this weekend when she let the dogs out (who?, who?, who?, who?) for me, but this was the first time I had seen it, so it will probably be back. Here's a picture of it.

I'm in the mood...

2006-08-03T16:49:00.000-05:00

... to be silly. So, here's some interesting facts I am about to make up:

- The average American household uses enough plastic Wal-Mart sacks each year to go to the Moon and back 18 times. (With the help of a space shuttle)
- Cars were not really invented until 1997. All the cars you remember before that are the work of a memory implant by the government... part of their plan to confuse us on the usefulness of hemp.
- Speaking of cars, the next time yours breaks down try flying to work... on your PC monitor! Most monitors today support being used like the flying skateboards from "Back to the Future".
- "Fruit Loops" cereal is not made of 100% fruit. Check the ingredients, they add sugar!
- Air conditioners don't really work. They are just machines that make some noise, the cooling effect is purely psychological.
- You knew Barnes and Noble was a book store, but did you know this... today's Barnes and Noble carries more books in stock than Spencer's Gifts.

Ok, now I'm tired of this. Talk to you all later.

The Garage Door

2006-08-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

For some reason, my garage door seems to have a vendetta with me lately. Saturday Christina and I went IHOP. When we got home I opened the garage door from the street, checked the mail, and then after I parked I forgot I already opened the garage door and hit the button again. I saw it closing and laughed and hit the opener to stop it, so it was only slightly closed. Then as I was walking in, I guess I was paying too much attention to my leftover sausage and pancakes, because I rammed my head on the garage door. Christina of course thought I was kidding, as my sausage came flying out of the styrofoam container, and I was standing there holding my head. After laughing for a few seconds, she realized it really hurt. And of course I couldn't help but almost laugh too, don't you hate it when you hurt yourself and you almost have to laugh? Anyway, this is the cut I got on my head from that (taken tonight, you'll understand all the junk on my head in a minute):

So then tonight I was about to go to Wal-Mart for some groceries, and I get in the car and shut the garage, and it comes down about half way, stops, and goes back up. I try again, and I notice this cable on the sides of the garage apparently stopping the door somehow. I get out to look at it, and this cable connects to the bottom of the door to help raise and lower it (I didn't know much about how it worked). The cable was off the spool and all tangled up. I tried winding it up properly, but couldn't get it all the way. Then I figured out to just take the wire off the bottom of the door (it just had a loop around a bolt thing), and I was able to wind it up. Off course the door is quite heavy, and half the time I was holding it up and all kinds of craziness. At least twice I was seriously doubting whether I could get the door shut again tonight. Some of the rollers on the door came off the track a few times too, which made things worse. I was really hoping the whole door didn't fall on me. So after unhooking both cables, re-wrapping them, and connecting them I tested the door. It closed successfully, it opened successfully, I was excited. I tried it again. The cable popped off the spool again and locked up. I tried rewinding it all again, and when I tested it that time more rollers came off and things seemed to be getting worse. Here are some pics of the cable that gets tangled up, and one of the bottom rollers that also came off:

Well, after messing with it for an hour and a half, I was worn out and filthy, and it was 10:30. I decided to put off Wal-Mart till tomorrow. I got the door shut again, but it's not working now. This is me after messing with it, I think the pic conveys the mood well:

What would we do, baby?

2006-07-17T22:20:00.000-05:00

It's been a long standing point of social tension the way the "Friends" theme song contradicts itself. You know, one part says, "So no one told you life was gonna be this way (clap clap clap clap)"... and then later on goes on to say, "Your mother warned you there'd be days like these." Some think the song uses figurative language, while others insist the maternal warning spoken of is in something other than verbal communication, thus no one "told" you. I'm sure this has caused us all many sleepless nights.

However, today I started singing the "Family Ties" theme to myself, and I had a shocking realization. It too seems to have a contradiction of sorts, or at least a stupid question. The song ponders the question, "What would we do, baby, without us?" Well, isn't it obvious? Without "us" there would be no "we" to do anything. So I started thinking... maybe I was running a fever and getting confused... maybe the song really went, "What would we do, baby, without love?", or some other variation. But, a quick Googling confirmed my suspicions, as seen here (this also has some sound and video samples).

Kind of makes you wonder if this is all part of Hollywood's attempt to distort reality, and gradually take control of our minds. I mean we knew about "Friends", but how long has this really been going on? What if they are exercising mind control without words?... Yes, next I must listen to the theme from "Sanford & Son" backwards, and see if I can dig any deeper into this mystery. And the most disturbing thing about the whole night? I found out Tina Yothers is older than me!!

Busy-ness

2006-07-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me too. I say too because I just got done reading Christina's blog, and she has been very busy. Is that where the word business comes from, because it keeps you busy?

I am now a task leader at work, which is proving to be interesting and challenging too. I am getting asked to do things that I don't know how to do, or have barely heard of, but I have a supportive team and management that is very good out pointing me in the right direction. Task leader is kind of like a promotion you never get :) It's not a new labor grade, or pay raise, but it's increased responsibility over what I was doing. However, I'm not complaining, because it is also the normal progression of advancement at our company... task lead comes before moving on to other things. I am leading a tiny team too (2 of us now), so that means I should be doing plenty of coding, which is what I like best.

I don't know if it is feeling the extra responsibility or what, but the latest I've gone in to work all week is about 6:45! That's early for me, I used to get in between 8:30 and 10:00 :) I like being real busy at work though, and I definitely am right now.

Just a little more bowling...

2006-06-29T23:12:00.000-05:00

I won the little weekly tournament slash league mix that we have on Thursdays tonight. It was fun. There were only 8 bowlers this week, but my score would have made the cut last week when there were 18. I bowled pretty well. The scores are not online for this, but I averaged just a little over 200 for 5 games. Game 4 was low, and came at the right time in my first match against an even lower score. Sometimes you're just meant to win I guess. But even with the breaks I did get, it felt good to also make the other good shots to go along with them and win.

703 !

2006-06-28T23:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally bowled a 700 series again tonight for 3 games (703 to be exact). We bowl four games on Wednesday, but to get awarded for a 700 series it has to be your first 3 games. Or it could be your second 3 if you bowled 6 games, but it can't be like games 2, 3, & 4. It's kind of a weird rule, but you can see it for yourself at this link on bowl.com (rule 51b.1.a.). My fourth game tonight did not work out that hot, I left 3 splits which I missed, and chopped off one other spare I should have made, so ended with 154. You can see all my games I've bowled this year here, it's pretty cool to have standings online. I think this is only my 5th sanctioned 700, and the first since the bowling alley in Greenville opened. I really feel I should bowl them more often than that, but oh well. Like Andy Varipapa once said, if you've been bowling 20 years and still aren't very good, give it another 20 and you're bound to improve (or something like that).

Of course the funny thing about it being tonight is just last week I was commenting how I couldn't believe I still hadn't bowled 700 in this "house" (what we bowlers call a bowling alley).

Doors let you go in AND out

2006-06-27T22:49:00.000-05:00

I usually am quite cognizant of the fact that when I am about to pass through a moderate to high traffic public door, there is a non-trivial probability that another person could be about to access the door at approximately the same time. I often get a little tickled at people who do not seem aware of this. You know the type (or perhaps you are the type), that when you push open a door and they are on the other side they gasp, scream, start flailing their arms around, and fall writhing spastically to the floor (or some slightly lesser startled reaction).

Well, today I guess I was distracted by my new blog, or some such, and I myself was somewhat startled as I passed through such a public door. I don't think I "acted" that startled. In fact, I'm not sure if I would have even noticed I was startled if the other man coming through the door would not have said "excuse me" twice. I then realized that I jumped a little as I went through the door, and started wondering how much. I thought it would be fun to post photos of what I think my face usually looks like going through a door, and what it might have looked like this afternoon when I was startled. But it's late now, maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Me and CL hangin'

2006-06-26T18:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight, me and cat litter hung out and watched some CSI. Trash can was in kind of a weird mood.

It's a bloy!

2006-06-26T00:08:00.000-05:00

Well, I decided to go ahead and set up my Blog. You see, I've quit drinking caffeine and eating sugar on a regular basis. I'm not going hardcore (take grape-nuts with me if I go to Six Flags style), but I'm just not drinking coffee or soda at work, and not going to purchase any sugary bits at the market. Well, today we went and ate at Pappa's Pizza. Not only did I have a Dr. Pepper there, the first I have had in several weeks, but we also stopped at Starbucks on the way home and I got a Caramel Macchiato. So now I'm feeling quite wired up, and I thought I'd go ahead and start up my very first Blog!

So a little about my Blog's title, "A Curious Blog". (And yes I left that period outside my quotes on purpose because I like it, and it makes sense to me) . I've always been somewhat of a curious person. I remember once in college I was riding in Jason Newton's car, and he said that I was like a kid because I kept fiddling with his visor, ash trays, cup holders, etc. You know I was just checking out all the nifty gadgets. I took that as a big compliment, usually when someone compares me to a child I do feel complimented. After all, Jesus encouraged us to be like children. I hope this Blog can be curious in many ways. Helping to encourage others to be more curious about life and all the wonder that God has surrounded us with. Or sometimes curious in the sense of being odd or random, which has always been an entertaining way for me to look at the world.

Well, that's the end of my first post, it sure was fun! The first paragraph felt a little like I was doing a commercial with all the brands I put links to. I don't know how consistent I'll be about posting to this, time will tell. For now, good night and God bless!