Life: A Field Guide

Sometimes she just amazes me...

2010-06-19T20:40:00.003-05:00

I do it all the time... we all have. You start something, like a diet or learning a language, and then you quit. Someday, I'm going to learn the guitar! Yep... I sure am (don't hold your breath). Well,

Joy doesn't do that. She is the first and only person I know that says she's going to do something and then just does it. She doesn't need support from friends, she doesn't care if it's 'cool' or is in the latest fashion (like one of her more retarded friends does). She just buckles down and knocks it out. She wanted to learn to play the harp and she's awesome at it. She's never, ever applied for a job and not gotten it. She's never had a job where she wasn't promoted above her peers faster than anyone else. A few months ago she wanted to learn how to knit and sew. This is her first project, she just finished it.

It's wild because, she really follows through on what she sets out on. It's awesome, and it forces me to be motivated at the same time, which I love. So, I thought I'd share this pillow with you and some insight into my life with Joy. She's the reason why I push myself forward. If it wasn't for her I'd probably be working for Ian.

They killed Apature Science!

2010-06-02T00:14:00.002-05:00

Where did my ASP go?

I made this pretty cool (or atleast I thought) ASP page for my CS degree... about 2 years ago. I would check on it ever so often just shocked that it was still being hosted. Well, it's dead. We had to do a buisness page, so I made one of Apature Science... the company from Portal. It turned out really awesome. I even embedded the games ending and had a page for cake. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted.

Guns and Bees

2010-06-01T23:45:00.006-05:00

Joy's uncle Tim invited us out to his lease to shoot some jugs of water on Memorial day. It was awesome! I never really got to shoot to many guns as a kid, which is probably a good thing. It's funny because I've always been an really good shot. Whenever I have gotten the chance to shoot I usually start out by proving my incompetence through leaving the safety on or dropping the clip in the dirt (I did both this time) and then I'll not miss the whole time I'm out there. I guess all those years of Duck Hunt paid off. (I still hate that dog!)

Hayden got to shoot a .22 for awhile. He was really good at hitting this tree behind the targets. If we were smart, we would have put a bottle in the tree... he would have knocked it right out! I love getting him out to do redneck stuff. I was really hoping to get him to shoot the 20 gauge, but after watching us shoot the 12 gauge... he was a little gun shy. I honestly think that is the first time I've used that saying literally.

Now, I didn't do all of my shooting with the rifle resting on a feed bag, so give me some credit. Joy decided that this picture of my ugly butt needed some prettying up, so she added her beautiful thumb to it!

Joy even got into it and took out this menacing gallon jug at about 25 yards. Once she figured out how to get the rifle in and rest her cheek against the stock, she was an regular Annie Oakley, well a Vietnamese Annie Oakley (which I think is way cooler).

We were shooting somewhat near a beehive and I decided that it was a good idea to go and piss them off... because I'm retarded. I had one come over and buzz by me and I swatted it away. I guess it released it's "kick this guys ass" pheromone because I was almost instantly swarmed. I quickly remembered my extensive Air Force training and ran around screaming like a little girl. I took off out of the camp and away from everyone as fast as I could. I got stung 11 times in about 1 minute. It was pretty intense. Oddly enough, the bees didn't bother anyone else. I guess the go after the overweight and feeble first. Luckily Tim's daughter, Becky, had a bunch of Benadryl on hand... which made the ride home so enjoyable.

All in all it was an awesome trip. When we got home it took all of our effort to stay awake long enough to wash off the bug spray before we all passed out! Hayden had a ton of stories to tell at school the next day and I had a wicked cool farmers tan and some big bee stings to show off. Good times!

Hayden's play and our stupid camera

2010-05-31T00:54:00.002-05:00

Hayden is almost done with the first grade! Since his disastrous run at Kindergarten, he's made a complete 180 and is doing way better in school. We were really worried about him, but it turned out that we just got stuck with a really, really crappy school for kindergarten. So, here's a pro-tip... if greatschools.com tells you that the school your kid is in is a 4... get your kid out of that school!

Hawthorne Academy has been a godsend for Hayden. He's had to really bust his butt there, but the hard works really paid off. His teacher is the best and she's responsible for how far he's come from when he started the year.

They had an end of year play called 'The History of America'. Since we're in Texas I figured it'd be named 'The History of America: How all the founding fathers were totally Christians and all loved Glenn Beck and how there was never any slavery either... it was a trade triangle'. I guess they opted for the shorter title.

Hayden was a pilgrim for the play. It went really well until I decided to use our crappy camera. I've had a love/hate relationship with this thing for a while. Sometimes it pulls off these awesome shots and works great for a whole event. Other times, like during the play, it sucks. Since it was semi low-light, the camera went full retard and would not work. Every picture was crap and it would randomly lock-up trying to do it's pre-processing on the photos. So, when Hayden and the other pilgrims sang their song about how they were about to screw the Indians out of their land... my camera died. Good times.

The play went really well and Hayden had a blast. We got some really good hot dogs from our favorite place after that so it was all good. The big problem now is that I'm quickly loosing the argument against Joy over getting and D-SLR camera. I think I'll get her one before summer is out... I'm pretty much agreee with her that we need it after this mess.

To play a video game

2010-05-31T00:21:00.004-05:00

For some reason, I decided that I needed to be able to play old arcade games on my LCD upstairs. It actually started at work with a conversation with a guy about this Xbox I hacked for him. When I gave it to him, it had a MAME emulator and the Simpsons arcade game on it. He had messed with it and it stopped working. I was explaining how to fix this when I got this idea to set up an arcade game in the game room... it seemed fitting.

We had a media PC hooked up to the game room TV back when it was a 32'' CRT. I kind of forgot about it since we got the big TV downstairs. When we got the 46" in the game room, I replaced the media PC with a netbook. I decided to take today and get MAME running on it.

Getting the emulator to work was pretty easy. The hard part was getting my controller to work with MAME. I started out with this really nice software called Pinnacle. It was reccomended by a few sites I checked. I downloaded the trial and it worked like a champ but they wanted $20 for it! That's way too much money for a gamepad mapper. So, I looked for an opensource alternative. I found JoytoKey. It did the same thing for free so that rocks!

I played through Golden Axe and started up on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. I think I'll finally beat The Simpsons after that. The cool thing is that since it's running on the netbook, I can take it with me when I travel. Maybe next time I'm at NSA, I'll throw some Shinobi up on the projector during one of my briefs.

I'm still going to use IE

2010-05-06T21:34:00.003-05:00

Check out this really cool advert for Google Chrome.

I'm going to stick with IE for now though. I was a big Firefox supporter because of how it handled tabbed browsing and, at the time it performed better than IE 7 and way better than IE 6! I have to say though, IE 8 works really well with Windows 7. For now, that's where I'm staying.

The problem is that Joy would use IE and I'd stay on Fire Fox. This would keep all our cookies happy. Now, we both fight by logging each other off our respective sites. It's not like we don't have enough PC's. I have my desktop, Joy has hers... there's Hayden's netbook, my netbook... we have the server under the stairs. Hell, we even have browsers on the 2 media centers. Not to mention the PSP and DS browsers... and my phone... and her phone... well you get the idea.

I guess I have to start a campaign about how awesome Firefox is so she'll stay off IE. Man, that's going to feel weird.

Playing golf

2010-04-29T20:01:00.003-05:00

Instead of working, I got a chance to play golf. I really hate golf. It's boring and Texas is really hot. Some idiot decided that we should have a 1300 tee time, so it was extra hot. The two things that made it fun were that I got to drive the golf cart and that we had beer. I'm proud to say that I waited a full 3 and a half holes before trying to pull a donut. Whenever I tried to hit well, I just hit a miserabley short drive and when I decided just to whack the hell out of it, it went flying... hard right.

It was a good day over all... a lot better than going to work! Tonight turned out really nice with a strong wind at about 76 degrees. I've got all the windows open and I'm going to vacuum a little. Yeah, I'm a wild man!

Hacking the Wii

2010-04-22T02:23:00.002-05:00

So, I got the Wii to play games right off a USB hard drive. It was actually pretty easy to do... and it took me till 1:30 am to finish it.

Windows 7

2010-04-19T23:17:00.002-05:00

Man it's been busy lately. I've taken up a second job of sorts. I've started a small side buisness called Network Engineering Solutions where I take small business networks and make them not stupid. It's funny, I actually feel sorry for some of these people. They hire "professionals" that have no idea how to run a network or set up a back-up plan or anything. This one account I have was just a mess. The guy had them buy a network printer, which he added localy to each PC, there were share files everywhere... just a huge mess. So, like I said... it's 99% common sense.

Anyway, I've decided to go all out Windows 7. I've got a copy on the mini 10 and on the main Windows PC. So far my only problem has been Logitech mouse drivers. Turns out it's the crappy drivers. My old drivers (that I got with the mouse) worked awesome!

So, things have been crazy busy. We finally got a new TV for the upstairs and finished up the seiling fan installs. Hopefully, this will drive down the electic bill this year. I have to get back to college and get a Masters... so that will be fun. I also have to get my CISSP. Joy is plugging away at work. I think she's getting sick of her job. I hope not... she's good at it and seems to like the schedule. We're just pushing forward. Hayden's doing really well in school now. The big question is whether or not to hold him back. His reading isn't awesome... I guess we can press forward and just really work with him over the weekend. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Grandma Sno is having a birthday, so we'll see some more of Joy's family. That's always a blast. Donna was down a few weeks ago and out of all the awesome stuff she made the only thing that stuck is this stew she made the first day. It's actually really awesome so it's all good.

Work is good, I'm doing well and got a good raise this year... but I've been getting good raises every year... one way or another! I like being a Sr Systems Engineer... it sounds important. I know Joy hates the travel but it's helping pave the way for our future. Honestly, if I have to travel a little to give my family a better life... then so be it.

Men with purses... the new hotness

2010-03-30T21:52:00.006-05:00

Ipad man-bags are about to become a reality.

I was thinking this last week. IPads are going to have to be carried in something right? That means that there's about to be Starbucks full of hipsters with man-bags... and armed rednecks. I think that this apocalyptic combination will be soon be the source of tremendous lulz... and gunshot wounds.

I don't like Macs. I'm not a stranger to the tech. I've used Apple products in recreation as well as at the office. They are great machines. They're just not $3,000 great machines. For 3k, I expect sentience... or at the very least games. The Mac fails to deliver on both these fronts. Now, they do some cool things. The audio and imagery tools are really outstanding. If you're a graphics artist or a musician this is the platform you want. If you're going to surf the web at your favorite trendy coffee shop.... you're a douche.

From where I stand, the IPad is a failure waiting to happen. It's that perfect awkward size, too big to be portable and too small to be functional. Unfortunately, that won't stop the hipsters from surfing the web on their shiny new IPad... that they brought in their man-purse. I weep for my generation.

Real men take security seriously

2010-03-23T19:05:00.002-05:00

I don't know if life could be considered a competition but, if it's your job to drive this thing around... you lost.

Fun with the kids

2010-03-21T19:06:00.003-05:00

It's 65 degrees or so outside. Time for the kids favorite after dinner game. Spin And Puke!

Awesome Inc. is back in buisness!

2010-03-13T13:03:00.002-06:00

Hey Ben, how did you spend your weekend? Why, building a network for a dentist office of course. I was recommended to this dentist by one of my old co-workers... which is always nice. She has this awesome system that is just configured and managed really poorly. They have a PC at every dentist chair. Hello Pandora!

She has a really cool direction that she wants to take her business and I think this is going to be a lot of fun to do! It also helps that I'm actually getting paid to help someone for a change. Yeah, I'm talking to you Jake... and Dad... and Kelly... and Jeramiah... and most of the guys at work...

The trouble I get myself into

2010-03-01T21:39:00.005-06:00

For awhile now I've been thinking about devising a way to hide my spare key for my truck on the truck body itself. The idea being that if I ever locked my keys in my car, I could simply retrieve the spare from it's inconspicuous location and gain access back into the truck without bothering anyone else. Although it seemed like a simple exercise, I found myself baffled to find an appropriate hiding spot on the truck that would not only conceal the key but protect it from being jarred loose in transit.

Well, tonight was my eureka moment. While walking to the truck to recover a lost binkie for Serenity, I found my answer. The stake-hole wells on the bed of the truck. "Who would ever look into one of these holes for a truck key?" I chuckled to myself as I quickly plunked the key into one of the wells. It fit perfectly.

It was only after hearing the key hit the bottom of the well did I realize that I did not consider the second half of my plan... how to retrieve the key. It took about 10 seconds of trying to realize that my key was now completely inaccessible to me. I'm an idiot.

Walking back inside, I deduced that the best way to retrieve my key was to use a rare-earth magnet tied to a stick. I have no idea why this was my first choice but it was the one I went with. After tying the magnet to a small stick with some of my wife's knitting yarn (which was no small feat in itself) I was ready to retrieve my key.

This was when I made my second startling discovery of the night. Car keys are not magnetic. So, using the magnet was, for the most part, useless. Unfortunately, the truck is very magnetic and attracted the powerful magnet right away, which slipped right out of the yarn and lodged itself directly over the key.

So, I essentially solved my problem. The key is in a very inconspicuous place, being covered with a rare-earth magnet and all, and is also relatively secure... also due to said magnet. So, with the exception of me having no way of retrieving the key itself... my efforts were mostly a success. And on that note, I'm going to bed!

Tales fromt the slow cooker...

2010-02-22T21:40:00.003-06:00

I made an Italian meatloaf today. The instructions were to garnish the meatloaf with onions... I decided that meant to make it look like bones in a fossil or something. I think it looked pretty cool.

The verdict was that it came out very tasty. It was pretty awesome because the pan is removable from the Crock Pot, so I made it the night before and put it in the fridge. In the morning I just put it in the cooker and left for work. It worked out pretty awesome. Up next is mushroom chicken and then Chinese pot roast. I'm worried about the chicken because I opted for fresh mushrooms over canned like the recipe called for... so we'll see how that goes. Just whenever I think of canned mushrooms... I think of Botox. Gross right?

I'm going to try and run the Warrior Dash this year. It's my new plan to get back into shape. I've cut out soda and my very bad for you but oh so awesome Mexican food lunches, so we'll see how it turns out. I'm pretty stoked!

Lastly, I'm going to try some writing. I've been thinking about it for a while. It's mainly for Joy, she really wants me to try. It'll end up pretty sucky but, hey... it might be fun! Only time will tell.

Man-burgers on a rainy day

2010-02-11T18:52:00.001-06:00

Fry up some burgers and get them brown on both sides but still pink in the middle. Wrap them in foil with a healthy dose of onions and bake them at 425 for 15 minutes. They turned out awesome! Of course, the kids needed tons of ketchup and I needed some hot sauce, but other than that they were perfect!

I'll admit that I'm a horrible cook, but sometimes I actually make something edible.

Crock Potting!

2010-02-06T15:06:00.004-06:00

In a continuing effort to starve our kids, we've decided to try slow cooker recipes for a while.

The benefit of the slow cooker is that you put all your ingredients into the pot early into the day and then simply have to check back later to find the disgusting mess you are left to eat.

My first attempt was orange chicken. It was shit.

We're going to try something else later... for now, I'm ordering pizza.

Nashville

2010-02-03T10:21:00.007-06:00

I think my boss lied to me about the job I took. It was suppose to be Information Assurance, which is a big field that is really emerging right now. I think what I really do is IA. I Argue. For the most part I argue with people over the phone... but on rare occasions, I get to travel somewhere and argue with people face to face. That's way more fun!

We're staying at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, which is this huge Hotel/Atrium/Conference Center. It's massive! It's a hotel with a huge atrium/shopping area attached, and then another equally large Convention Center connected to that. The place was just wild. The vendors that were there threw receptions each night so we were invited to eat pretty crappy food and have free drinks... so that was nice.

We got to see the Country Music Hall of Fame...

which was unfortunately as boring as it sounds. From what I can tell... Hank Williams Sr is God... and Hank Williams Jr is Jesus. Oh, and Hank Jr killed this bear.

I happen to know it was an actual bear and not a tree stump or a Volkswagen, because it had this shiny little tag on it.

In any other museum... that would be stupid, but in the Country Redneck Mecca Hall of Cousin Dating... it fit right in. I can almost imagine a guy, most likely a Jeb or a Skeeter, walking up to the display and saying "Hey, Lerleen! Stop breastfeeding Walker and Texas Ranger and come over here. Man look at this big ole.... um... wait there's a sign here... B- B-e Beaver!"

We saw Elvis's car. It has a TV, phone and a speaker system with an amp and microphone in it.

All in all it was a good trip. It was way to long for me and after being in Baltimore just two weeks prior was way too long to be away from Joy and the kids. I did get to re-watch every episode of Firefly again! But that always leads to day dreams of storming Fox studio's with a BB gun ala Chevy Chase and Wally World.

Maybe if I shoot a security guard in the ass enough times, I can get them to revive the series.

Baltimore

2010-01-21T20:21:00.002-06:00

We've got crabs!

Well, I'm back from the trip to Baltimore. The good news is that we met with the NSA folks and actually made some good progress. The bad news is I had to sit through a joint meeting on COMSEC. Anytime you get to watch the military machine in action it's like... the Red Bull Flugtag. For those of you that don't know, the Flugtag is an event where amateur adventurers create gliders out of cardboard. Some are very elaborate and are simply horrible, others are very simply designed and also pretty horrible. Then there are the very few that actually get a few feet before crashing into the lake below. That is pretty much how a joint military discussion works.

Like I said, the good news is that we actually made some progress and we have a good way forward. Also, thanks to my buddy Dave, I think I can get a decent job up in Maryland. So, add that to the possible escape routes from Suck Antonio. Oh and it was cold up there... really, really cold.

We went to a place called the Rusty Scupper. It's a restaurant right off the Baltimore harbor and it is awesome. If you can, get the crab cakes and the cream of crab soup. I also had the swordfish steak, which was also unbelievable. My next task is to find a way to get Joy up there. The view itself is amazing. Just a great place to eat.

So all in all, it was a good trip. I did forget my belt for my suit and spent my first brief constantly pulling up my pants. That wasn't too cool, but we snuck out and grabbed a new belt soon enough... and hey, it's reversible!

I'm just so glad to be home!

Almost had to wear a long sleave shirt today

2010-01-17T18:17:00.001-06:00

Just another Texas winter day. Grilling steaks after wacthing the Cowboys get embarrassed. Ye-haw!

The new suit

2010-01-16T13:41:00.001-06:00

I'm going for the "please keep me employed!" look.

Hide and seek with Seri

2010-01-15T17:33:00.000-06:00

i just spent 15 minutes cramped in the back of my closet to find Serenity playing with her doll house. I guess we're done playing hide and seek.

Iron Chef!

2010-01-12T19:57:00.000-06:00

Did I just forget to pick up cheese for dinner and used string cheese instead? You bet your dupa I did!

International Computer Repairman of Mystery!

2010-01-08T21:40:00.002-06:00

I helped my brother Jake with his computer problems yesterday. He has a 2003 server and 8 clients. I used a site called Log me in to access his PC's from here. So, while sitting at my desk in San Antonio, I configured his domain in Buffalo. Considering the weather there... I deem this the only sane way to work in Buffalo at present.

I set up his server as a DC and DNS with root hints out, I created some log on scripts for mapping his drives, I got shadow copy running and protected his shares as well as his roaming profiles and made some user templates for Active Directory. It was really fun!

While working I had three consecutive thoughts. First - This is totally bad ass. Second - Although I can tell a bunch of people about this... I will be one of the few who thinks this is totally bad ass. Third - I don't care... this is still really bad ass!

So yeah, I can set up Windows networks from a geographically isolated location. Booya!

At least there's a nice view.

2010-01-05T09:27:00.001-06:00

Another all day meeting... hey there's free hot chocolate!

Just another winter day in Texas.

2010-01-02T13:51:00.000-06:00

It's a little over 60 degrees out. Perfect playing weather!

Phone upload

2009-12-31T21:00:00.003-06:00

Here's Serenity sitting at Texas Med Clinic with an ear infection... watching Cinderella. I had some free time so I figured out how to upload blog posts from my phone. Oh, and thank you Texas Med Clinic for your horribly protected WiFi. It took me an entire minute to guess your password.

Excuse me... there's a shovel in you door.

2009-12-28T00:00:00.003-06:00

The mother-in-law's car window broke right on Christmas day. There's a cable that pulls the window up and down a track, which had broken. I obviously couldn't fix it with everything being closed for the holiday. So, I decided that if I could just make it stay up then it'd be good till it could get fixed.

Sometimes when I do things like this I wonder if it's ingenious or really dumb. In any event, the window stayed put and it was all good. They got the car fixed on Monday and I got my shovel back... case closed!

Christmas

2009-12-27T23:33:00.003-06:00

Christmas was a real blast this year! I had a smudge on my camera lens so most of my pictures looked crappier than usual... which sucks! Here's some of the better ones.

Over all the kids got what they wanted and more. Hayden's favorite has to hover between his Nintendo DSi and all the Lego's he got. Serenity really made out this year. She got this killer doll house that Joy found and a little kitchen as well. Both are in her room and she's crazy about them. We left the house on Christmas day for a bit and as soon as she got back home she raced upstairs to play with her doll house. It was really cute. Joy did all the shopping this year and did a great job! She even got me a PS3, which rocks by the way!!

We got a fried turkey from Acadiana's. It's a Cajun place so the turkey had this awesome spice to it. All in all it was a great meal... even though they forgot to give us our cornbread stuffing. I got to eat a ton of turkey and then settle in for some video games and blu-ray. After getting the PS3 hooked up I ran out to find a blu-ray. Hollywood video was the only store open and they just happen to have a 2 for $20 used blu-ray sale going! I got Iron Man and Dark Knight for $20! I can't explain how awesome Iron Man looks on the big TV!

It was a great time and I instituted a new rule that worked out great. I got a huge plastic bin and put it in the room. No one was allowed to open a present until the wrappings from the previous present was in the bin. When we were done the room actually looked pretty clean. We also have the only 2 presents at a time rule, so Seri and Hayden's closets are full of un-opened toys (although they did get to un-wrap them all of course). I think Hayden opened the last of his toys from last year around September or October. Well, it's almost Monday... that means back to work! Yeahhhhh... awwww... work sucks!

Sun Jars

2009-12-21T16:56:00.007-06:00

I found a site that had a tutorial on how to fit solar lights into mason jars to make... solar mason jars. I figured it'd be a great little project to do with Hayden. Here's the link to the original site at Life Hacker. I bought similar lights to the ones that they used (since my Lowes didn't have the exact ones.) I got the frosting spray there as well. The mason jars came from Wal-Mart. Also, I used superglue instead of tape... it seemed like a better idea.

So, to start we have snips, a 7 level (little screwdriver), a regular screw driver, some glue and some free time. The free time was the hardest to come by.

The first step is to get the hardware off the mason jars and frost them. This is really straight forward and by doing it first they can dry well you're doing everything else. (please disregard my brown Texas grass. It's winter here. When it's summer... it's slightly less brown.)

Step two is to take apart the solar lights. On mine there are three screws that hold on the top.

The guts look like this. Basically there's the panel, the light sensor and the controller for the battery and such. Pay close attention to that red dot. It covers the light sensor and we're going to need to save it for later.

If you push on the solar panel it'll pop right off. Just give it some slow steady pressure.

After that you can use the snips to cut the glue that holds the light sensor in place. Just snip the dried glue and it will pop right off.

You can now cut away all the excess plastic. You should end up with this.

Then you glue the solar panel to the top of one of the jars.

After that you glue the light sensor in place as well. Make sure it's facing the same direction as the solar panel!

Lastly, glue on the battery case to the back. It should all fit right on the solar panel.

Here's a completed one... except I picked it up before the glue set and it fell apart. On that note... wait till the glue sets.

The completed project looks like this.

Hayden and Seri are stoked with them. They're running around with their sunlight in a jar right now. We're going to use them on the back deck as a table light. All in all it was a cool project that cost about $10 a jar. We made 4 all together. It was a great time to spend with two sick kids while missing work!

Server down!

2009-12-19T11:56:00.002-06:00

Guys,

The server is going to be down for awhile today. I'm moving some of my drives around to provide more space for the web and file server. It should be back up tomorrow... not like anyone's paying me for this anyway...

It's almost Christmas...

2009-12-17T20:41:00.002-06:00

So in the spirit of things... my outdoor electrical plug died somehow and the lights won't come on. Good times. I'm going to take it apart tomorrow and try to fix it. In unrelated news... here is a video from Stargate Studios that shows their use of green screens in a surprising about of TV shows. I thought it was used mainly for movies with dinosaurs and robots... you know, the ones that Michael Bay keeps screwing up. Apparently it's a lot more prevalent that I thought.

I got the Christmas lights done!!!! (video unrelated)

2009-12-13T21:41:00.001-06:00

Turkey, turkey.... TURKEY!

2009-12-06T11:17:00.006-06:00

Sorry, but I didn't get a whole lot of pictures for Turkey day. I made the turk this year and it came out pretty good. It was a really laid back dinner with just Joy and the kids, which was really nice. Making the turkey was so easy, that I went and got another one for tonight! So, to honor my dual turkey turkey day... here is a flash game that PETA came out with to apparently teach kids how horrible it is to eat turkey.

As usual they have only succeeded in making fools out of themselves and a mockery of their beliefs... but the game is really fun! See how well you can do. Also, click the Peta link below the game... which they added to their embedded code. I fixed it for them!

Get some great turkey recipes at PETA.org.

Epic.

2009-11-24T18:08:00.002-06:00

Briefings

2009-11-19T22:02:00.003-06:00

My dad always said "If you can't be smart, at least try to look smart." Ok, maybe he didn't say that... but it sounds like something he would say.

I had my first TDY with the new job. We were doing a bunch of briefings to the type of people who don't go anywhere without their team of lackys. I've been told that when a person makes the rank of Major in the Air Force, they take away his tongue. When he makes LtCol they take away his brain... and when he makes Col they give him back his tongue. In all honesty, although I've had my fair share of upper management buffoonery, I've found that once you get high enough you tend to run into some really talented people. The guys I talked to were on the ball and pretty tough. I couldn't rely on my usual method of abrasive sarcasm but in the end I think I held my own. The big news is that my bosses were happy and have decided to continue to pay me... which is always good.

I'm not much of a beer guy but we did throw a couple back (I had two). One of them was a Brazilian beer called Xingu which I ordered on accident. It's actually pretty good and sweet for a dark beer. I decided it was like a Guinness... but not shitty.

This picture is not of that beer. It's the picture I sent my boss when he asked where I was after the first round of briefings. I then promptly sent him directions to the pub.

So that's about it. I didn't really take any pictures because I didn't have time for any. It was a really fast paced, really stressful event and I'm so glad to be back home. It was a horrible flight back with two mechanical failures causing me to stay in Atlanta longer than I wanted to... which happens to be not at all. Atlanta sucks.

On a side note, I think I got a good in for Rome NY. There's this little place there called the Air Force Research Laboratory, and I think I made a good impression on one of the big wigs from there. Hopefully in a year or two Joy and I can escape from Suck-antonio and get to somewhere more normal. Also, I can live out where I can build out my wind turbines in peace!

Twilight

2009-11-15T23:43:00.004-06:00

I'm taking Joy to the next one when it comes out. I've read all the books and I cannot put into words how much I hate this series. Wow... I guess I have the same literary prowess as Stephine Meyer. If only I used my powers to create vacuous charactors in a book about glittery vampires. DAMN YOU BARELY LITERATE TEENAGE POPULATION!

Marathon and soccer

2009-11-15T23:08:00.003-06:00

I took the kids to see the SA marathon today. I had a couple of friends running it and thought it'd be fun. Now, personally... I don't run unless somethings chasing me. In fact, if something was chasing me, I'd probably just give up then to. The kids really had a good time. We ate banana's that were for the runners, drank Gatorade that was for the runners and got some nice swag... that was for the runners. Apparently all you have to do is say you are grabbing one "for your wife".

After that, we went to Britney's soccer game. They were playing the North San Antonio white kids and it was a heated battle. The game took place right around the corner from the middle of nowhere so we had lots of room to play. Seri and I spent this time running around like maniacs till she found a net to hang in and rest for a while.

It was a really good time all together. When we got home Joy's mom decided to watch the wiener kids for us and Joy and I went out to PF Changs for some lettuce tacos. We stopped by Barnes and Nobles to check out the nook. They didn't have a display and the Barnes and Nobles guy was an idiot... so we left. I would think that if you take a job at a book store... and are over the age of 20, that maybe you'd read stuff from time to time. Well, there's B&N guy and he's at the nook kiosk, he's got the nook pamphlets that talk about the nook... and he can't answer shit about it. "How does the 3G interface work for buying books?" "I don't think it has that." "Really, because it's in the pamphlet that you just handed me... and you work in a book store... where people read shit all day. Why don't you grab a Starbucks, go over to that comfy chair next to the loser with the Macbook and learn a little about your job!"

See, there a go again. Expecting an average level of intelligence while living in San Antonio. My mistake. Oh well, we're totally getting a nook. I feel like such a pleb getting excited over a e-reader. It's like an artist getting excited over the latest doodle pad pro... it's just not right.

Fixing the truck

2009-11-09T09:24:00.002-06:00

Joy's dad had a problem with his truck. He had a large pipe in the back and backed into a telephone pole. The pipe then wedged against the wall of the bed and bent it into the cab. We were really surprised that the cab window didn't break. He took it to a repair shop and they wanted $500 to take of the bed and knock it back into place. Instead I came up with this idea.

I Used a pole to go in between the bed and the cab and then used my tie downs to pull on the pole, which straightened the bed. It worked awesome!

I got the bed back straight for free. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Also, I realized that now, when I do stuff like this, I can say that I engineered a solution. I guess before when I had crazy ideas, all I could say is that I did some stupid shit!

Then moving on to my car. Using my history of used cars that I drove into the ground as a base line. I figured that when it comes to breaks, you just wait till they start making noise and then change the pads. After 90,000 miles, my brakes started to make noises. So, I picked up some pads and got to work after the kids went to bed. The first thing that went wrong was my jack broke. I bought this really cheap hydraulic years ago and that decided it didn't want to lift anymore. So off to Walmart I go. I get the better of the two jacks available and get back home just to find out that there is a TORX bolt holding in the brake pad. So it's back to Walmart. It's about 3 am now... and there is only two people in the store. Me and this lady.

Oh fun! Of course she got ahead of me in line and of course she took a full 20 minutes to check out! I was pretty much at the end of my little happy rope when I got out of there. O get back to find out that I need a new roter, so I just quit there and go to the shop. In the end it took about $400 to get everything fixed. That was the pads, a roter and another roter turned. It was just too much fun.

As a consolation prize for reading about my Walmart misadventures... here's a picture of Hayden right before school.

Star Trek

2009-11-08T20:44:00.008-06:00

I found this somewhere else but I can't remember where. It's pretty funny.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-06T19:38:00.003-06:00

We had a really fun, but laid back Halloween this year. We didn't have any friends over so I didn't have to cook a whole bunch of food. I ended up grilling shish kabob's and making some corn on the cob. We started out the day by carving pumpkins.

Hayden was actually down with cleaning out all the gook, which was nice since that has historically been a dad duty.

Seri drew her own face on her pumpkin... which looked nothing like the finished product but, she was happy none the less.

After that I took Hayden to his Halloween party at school. Right away I find this kid dressed as the black knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Sure enough there is his sister in a killer rabbit costume complete with really sharp teeth!

It was hilarious and their parents were cool enough to let me get a picture. Hayden was in his costume as well. When I got it, I found these really cool red goggles, which ended up being lost by the time they were needed. Luckily, I had some red hair dye so I spiked his hair up and he was good. He was a mercenary... but he insisted on calling himself a mercy.

When it was time to trick-or-treat, I ended up using the hair dye as well as some black make-up to make red and black tiger stripes across Hayden's face. It ended up looking really cool. He was a bloody mercenary now... or a bloody mercy if you asked him.

Seri was Snow White. She would not sit still long enough for a good picture! She was really pumped!

She would truck up to any house, very much wanting to go all by herself and yell out 'Trick or Treat!!' and then plop her bag down in front of the candy giver. If the amount she recieved didn't meet her internal quota... she'd repeatedly say 'Trick or Treat!!' till she got another candy. It took me a while to realize that she was extorting all our neighbors this way.

Pretty soon her bag was pretty stuffed, but she wanted to just keep on trucking. I ended up giving her a piggyback ride back to the house where she promptly fell asleep on top of her candy bag!

It was a good night, we did have the usual idiots playing Tejano music till I called the cops on them... again. I also got to use a liberal amount of dry ice around the yard so we had spooky smoke all night. It was fun.

The super hotdog and the stickbug (not at the same time)

2009-10-21T22:18:00.004-05:00

I know that I've posted this before but... they are just too good! I give you the super hot dog.

Here is the recipe.

You need:
Hotdogs
coleslaw mix (just the vegetable mix, like the salad bags they sell)
yellow mustard
Mayo (the real stuff, not Miracle Whip)
Sugar
1 lb of ground beef
chili powder
salt
8 oz can of tomato sauce
buns
American cheese

Chili:

Fill a soup pan half way up with water and put in the ground beef. Use a fork to break up the beef... it'll look like soup. We want the beef to be really broken up.

Put it on the stove and boil it till the meat is brown. Strain out the meat and put it back in the pot.

Add the tomato sauce and the chili powder. How much chili powder is up to you but I'd start at a whole lot and work my way up. Seriously... get stupid with it.

Just cook and stir and you get hot dog chili. Note, this isn't real chili, it's for hot dogs so don't get all creative. It's meat, sauce and powder (and some salt if you want)

Coleslaw:

Get a food processor like the Tupperware one. This one is on sale from Stinkiepoo... not really a good name for someone selling food preparation products but... who am I to judge.

Add half a bag of coleslaw mix, yellow mustard and the mayo. I think I do two rings around the bowl of yellow mustard and a bunch of squirts of mayo... well I stop the mayo when it gets annoying to try and get it out of the squirt bottle... so do that much.

Add sugar too, I do like three good dumps of sugar. Not like an ice tea dump... more like a kool aide dump. Whatever, you know sugar... just stick it in there.

Mix that up with the stinkiepoo processor.

Hot dogs:

Either put them in a pan with water and liquid smoke or smoke them on your grill... either way.

Ok, then you just open the bun, put in a half of a piece of cheese, then the dog. Then do chili on one side and coleslaw on the other. It's awesome!

Also, we've been inundated with stick bugs at the house. Here's a picture of one. Since it is Texas, everything has to be bigger... and stupid. The stick bugs hang on my back porch ceiling and fall on me every so often. It's their survival strategy where they freak me out and I don't mush them. Like I said... stupid.

The stupid scanner

2009-10-20T17:30:00.002-05:00

About a year ago, Joy bought a Kodak 5300 all-in-one that can print on photo paper as well. She found this awesome deal and the photo's it printed out were amazing! It came with a pretty sweet 8.2 megapixel camera that pretty much became our default travel camera (after I upped the memory to hold 5,200 pictures!) Anyway, we printed out some sweet 3x5's with it and I was actually really impressed. It can also do 4x6, 8x11 and 8.5x14 photos as well. It worked great for about 2 weeks and then shit the bed. I stuck in on a shelf and promised myself to check it out when I get a second. That second... was over a year later.

Long story short, I got it working again. Here is a scan of a 5 dollar bill... well Lincolns left eye on a 5 dollar bill to be exact. Pretty sweet, huh?

So, now I just have to get new toner and some photo paper and I'm good to go. I want to stick family pictures all over the house, so this is pretty fortuitous.

Oh, I pre-ordered borderlands for the PC and I'll tell you what I think when I get a chance. I also DL'd all the previous seasons of Hero's. I figure that I'd give it a chance. I cut out all the commercials and ripped them to .avi's... and to my phone. They're on the website if you want them. Enjoy!

Lego design kit

2009-10-19T20:49:00.004-05:00

Guys, drop whatever it is you're doing (unless it's feeding one of your kids or sending me a Hexbug Crab for my birthday). There is a program that allows you to design your own legos and then ship it to you.

Maybe I didn't get your attention...

DESIGN AND BUILD YOUR OWN LEGO SET!

I can not express enough how I wish I was 8 years old right now. Luckily, I'm very immature!

To prove it I made a house that is on fire... PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!

I also put in an axe wielding maniac... you know, for Halloween!

Here's a better look at my creation.

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-18T21:49:00.003-05:00

We got to take Seri to the pumpkin patch today... well, it was more like a pumpkin park. Regardless, she had a good time.

She picked out a few good ones.

I think this year we are going to go with just painting them. Usually, it gets so hot before Halloween that the pumpkins are mush way before the trick or treating begins. Not like at home where they freeze and stay preserved!

Afterward, we went to Chapperel, which is a really good Mexican place in Boerne right near the pumpkin patch. We found out that we like the one in Helotes better. Seri had a blast though. She ate her weight in beans and rice!

Halloween is just around the corner! We're stoked! I'll get the camera out and show off my wicked cool decorations... which are three pumpkins.

Portraits

2009-10-17T23:25:00.004-05:00

While Joy's mom was here we got some portraits done. It was kind of an after thought and we wound up in Wal-mart. I have to admit that the picture taking part was way better than JC Penny, but when we went to pay it was pretty hilarious. First of all the lady would not do any touch up work at all, no lighting changes... nothing. Also, she would only sell the electronic copies for $100! We started looking through the packages and she kept pushing us to this $350 one that included the CD for just $20... still with no touch ups. Instead, we bought only the CD, I went home and fed the pictures to photoshop and we went back to Kodak and printed out what we wanted right there. We got all the pictures in the $350 package for $40! The only problem we had was we needed this release document that came with the CD in order to print... but that wasn't a really big deal. I posted the pictures and the release document on the webpage so if anyone wants to print them out they can. Here are my favorites from the group.

It's just funny because I can now print out 3 8 by 5's of any picture I want for $3.oo a print and that lady wanted about $50 a print. What a rip off!

Joy's mom visits... I have an alergic reaction

2009-10-12T20:50:00.004-05:00

Joy's mom came down for a visit this week. We decided to go down to Corpus for the weekend. Because of Joy's awesome benefits we got a great room at the Marriott for almost nothing. Hayden had a blast with the two beds!

We started out the day by going to the Texas State Aquarium which was really fun. Here's Hayden with some alligators.

They had a dolphin show there as well. It was crazy how high these dolphins could jump! Serenity really got a kick out of them.

After that we chartered a boat to take us out on the Gulf to see some more dolphins. We had a ton of fun and I got a nose rub out of it!

We found a great seafood place to eat and I found out that while I'm a little allergic to frozen shrimp... I am crazy allergic to fresh shrimp! We got to make this mad dash to the drug store for benadryl.

So, Joy's mom wasn't the root cause of my allergies... but I'm still holding her suspect! All in all it was an awesome trip. We made great memories! I'll get the Facebook thing started again and post all the pictures as soon as I get a second.

The stupid truck

2009-10-04T17:47:00.003-05:00

So my stupid truck is paid off... that means it's time for it to break down. The central... cpu thing is broken. So, the speedometer doesn't work and the windshield wipers won't turn off. I bypassed the fuse on the wipers and hung some wires from the fusebox. Now I just twist the wires and I get my wipers back. I'll put in a switch next weekend when I have time. For now though, it works.

Sometimes, I really hate that truck!

I got to grill some shrimp kebabs on Friday. Joy got them from the Shwans guy. They were friggin awesome and I recommend them to anyone.

Just put them on direct heat to sear and then off center to till the shrimp looks done. They have all sorts of different kinds so we'll try them out next month.

I played poker with the guys this Saturday. I actually won! So, that was a nice $100 bonus. I have to admit that it was a little weird to win. I always thought that it was more skill than luck in hold-em poker but, I honestly think that if anyone was getting my cards then they couldn't have helped but win either. In 5 hands I had 2 straights and 3 full houses. The straight were on the flop and the full houses were 2 pair on the flop each time. How could I lose?

All in all, it was a good weekend. I have a ton of homework and finals are next week. Joy's mom is coming here on Tuesday and staying for a week. That means some good food for Ben!

Hayden is doing awesome in school. He's one of the best students, which is a 180 degree turnaround from last year. I guess his old school really was that crappy. Well, he's doing great now and that's what's important.

Enigma Machine

2009-10-01T23:15:00.002-05:00

Have you ever played Resident Evil? Well, in that game... and all it's sequels... there's puzzles. The best ones are in RE2, well the weirdest ones at least.

In RE2 there was this police station where it was explained to the player that the police chief was this eccentric art collector. Because of this, for some reason, he had all these puzzles and traps all around the precinct. If you wanted to go to the roof, you didn't just go to the roof. You would turn the bust of Athena clockwise to open a drawer with a lighter in it, then light a fire in the fireplace which burned a hole in this painting above it, which held a jewel that you placed in another bust which opened a door to an office with a cipher key which opened the roof. I think you get the picture. Well, as stupid as the premise was, it made for a really fun game. It also got me into puzzles and mind games.

It was in that interest that I found this site. It's a flash version of the WWII Enigma Machine.

Check it out here.

You can create a code and decipher one as well. This gives you the easy ability to send a coded message to a friend who's in on the game.

So if you used rotors I,II and III and set the start position to B,E,N... you could decipher this message.

SGARLERLFPSOSMWIHBRDXOASYQQWEVMUQBVAYPBIISGTLSYLLYXXCMUCQYIQLEOCFKDDSHNJKHVX

Good stuff!

Who I want to be when I grow up

2009-09-30T22:59:00.001-05:00

I've decided that my retirement plan is going to be 'go crazy'. I don't mean just mumbling to myself crazy, I mean dress wearing, banana slinging, bat-shit crazy. It'll be fun. I told Joy that when that glorious day comes, when the kids are all out of the house and I actually retire that I'm going to concoct at air powered gun that fires frozen Twinkies and then go terrorize downtown. After that... I might vote in a presidential election... you know, just do some really useless idiotic stuff.

Of course, if that doesn't work... or if I get too lazy (which happens to some of my best plans) I'll just resort to being this guy.

Things my dad says.

Now, I think Twitter is lame. But, if there was every a reason for Twitter... this site is it. It's just a 29 year old guy who writes down memorable quotes from his 79 year old dad. It's pretty crass so put on your adult pants when reading... but it's really funny.

I'll leave you with two of my favorites:

"The dog don't like you planting stuff there. It's his backyard. If you're the only one who shits in something, you own it. Remember that."

"Don't touch the bacon, it's not done yet. You let me handle the bacon, and I'll let you handle..what ever it is you do. I guess nothing."

Marshmallows

2009-09-20T13:51:00.002-05:00

These kids were told that if they don't eat this marshmallow that they would get a reward. It's hilarious watching these kids try and fight the temptation.

The kid in the dark gray shirt that looks like the Atari symbol on it.... I just bought Hayden that shirt.

Another phone

2009-09-19T15:06:00.002-05:00

Well, my phone died again. I had just gotten a 16 GB card for it, so I can put more episodes of It's always Sunny on there, and it decided to stop working. Luckily, the Verizon guys replaced it for me. I remember in the bad old days with Sprint, when I had to argue and fight to get customer service. Man, I hate Sprint. So, the new phone works great and I have 16 GB of storage on it now! My buddy was quick to remind me that his Iphone has 32 GB... but I don't care because he has a stupid haircut.

According to the Interwebs, there is a good chance that Apple is going to release the Iphone from AT&T's clutches next year. Hopefully, Verizon will pick up the phone. Really hopefully, Verizon will pick up the next iteration of the phone. I'm thinking it might be a pipe dream but, maybe they'll make an new version when they release it to other wireless vendors. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Green Man

2009-09-10T18:50:00.002-05:00

You should really be watching 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'

Maybe I'll be the Green Man for Halloween...

DD-214

2009-09-10T16:43:00.004-05:00

When you leave the Air Force, they give you a DD-214 that pretty much sums up your military career. They give you 4 copies and tell you to never loose this document, because you'll need it if you ever want a federal job. So... I lost it.

My new job needed this document in order to hire me. I signed a contingency letter that stated that I had to produce this document in 30 days or I forfeited my position. Needless to say, I really needed to get this paper! I went to Randolph AFB, which is home to the Air Force Personnel Center. They told me to contact the National Archives in Maryland to get my records and that it'd take 15 buisness days. I contacted them and sent in a written request only to wait 15 buisness days to be told that they don't have it and to contact... the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph AFB! I called up AFPC and talked to the same guy who sent me to the National Archives. He tells me "Hey, you want to just drive down here and get it?" Yeah, I wanted to punch babies. The good news is that I got to drive a half hour to Randolph on the company's dime! Randolph is a beautiful base. Here's the AFPC HQ.

Then I got to see where they work on some of the jets. I took this picture and then went inside to check it out. They had an F-16 totally dismantled and they let me check it out. They also had a trainer all taken apart. I asked if I could get a picture but the guy said no. So I guess I was lucky to get the picture I did take.

Then, after work, I found this big mud puddle near this warehouse on base. I figured I could pull some donuts really quick before I went home. So, I got in the mud and tooled around a little and left just in time to pull up next to a cop. Good times.

He let me go after giving me some weird looks. I think that's the last time I go muddin on base!

Well, that's about it for this week. We finally got some rain and I think it'll rain the rest of the week. It actually got down to 75 during the day today, which means my favorite holiday is just around the bend... Halloween! Now if only I can get a good Big Daddy costume and convince Joy to let Seri be a Little Sister.

Labor Day

2009-09-08T20:09:00.004-05:00

In celebration of Labor Day we attempted to not do anything. It kind of worked. We ended up cleaning the house all weekend and then having our friends over on Monday for hamburgers and paintball.

Hayden got to play some Mario Kart with Dillon, which gave him the opportunity to school someone besides his dad. I swear he cheats!

Seri got this little Tupperware tea set. She hasn't put it down since. We did tea time with Kool-Aide once... then switched to water, which is way less messy.

We then spent some time shooting up a bucket with the paintball gun. In our defense, that bucket was a real jerk and got what it deserved.

I had a couple pictures of shooting the paintball guns but the camera was mistakenly set to fat and retarded looking... so the pictures didn't come out right.

Pair of Ducks

2009-09-07T02:19:00.002-05:00

Real quick... I love a clean house. When my house is clean, I am happy. I can have a horrible day at work and if the house is clean... it all washes away.

Now, the problem is that my love for a clean house is directly proportionate to my hatred of cleaning. Joy and I spent today cleaning everything, I rounded out the night by finishing up my Data Structure homework and then painting the door that Seri wrote on. Tomorrow, I am going to duct tape the kids to a wall and enjoy the clean house.

The new job

2009-09-07T00:49:00.002-05:00

Well, I finally quit my dream job. Just to recap, after the Air Force I got a job as a gov't contractor doing Sysadmin work for a detachment of the 46th Test Squadron here in San Antonio. It was really cool because I ran my own network and due to the type of work we did, I really didn't have to follow any gov't rules. Well, running one network turned into running 3 networks, which turned into designing and building test networks and doing all the security paperwork for them as well. I worked with some great guys and I really loved the work. I could have stayed there for the rest of my career and been happy.

Like all good things, this had to come to an end. We had a real jerk of a contractor coupled with a real jerk of a GS and together they managed to run that place right into the ground! So, that contract is about to go under and I was about to be unemployed. Luckily, I found a good job with a good raise and started last Monday. I'm now a Senior IA Systems Engineer. What that means is that I do a ton of paperwork and technical writing. I do get to play on some networks though and the stuff I'm working on is pretty cool too. I'll get to be around planes for the first time in my Air Force career... which is kind of funny.

So, here's to a different path... I'll just have to see where it takes me. Anytime you can move to a new job with a 13% raise is usually a good thing!

Check this out

2009-09-06T10:03:00.002-05:00

It's things like this that make me regret becoming a Network Engineer instead of a Graphics Design guy.

Portal Tree

Every so often, I download a copy of Blender and start messing around... only to realize once again that I have no artistic talent whatsoever!

So... where were we?

2009-09-01T20:58:00.004-05:00

Well, a ton of stuff has happened since my last post. The biggest thing is that Joy's grandma passed away. She was a nice lady and it's really sad, but she was in pain so it's kind of a happy thing too. I always have mixed emotions about this sort of thing because when you've lived a good long life, death isn't as much as a horrible thing. In any event it was pretty sad.

Other than that, I quit my job. There were two really stupid guys working there that really ruined that contract. Now I'm on a new one with a hefty raise and a good promotion... but I'm way out of my comfort zone and I'm more than a little nervous. I think I can do the job, that's not the problem. It's just not what I really enjoy, and it's not where my real talent lies. I'll give it a whack and we'll see what happens. I know it's lame but the thing that keeps going though my head is that old lady in Madagascar 2. After the New Yorkers are ambushed by the penguins and she leads them into the jungle some guy asks "Hey old lady, do you know where you're going?" She says "No, but I have a smile on my face and a skip in my step!" Earlier the guy says to the group "I don't know about you guys, but I'm following the old lady!" So that's me... following the old lady. I swear that makes more sense in my head.

I did get to finally install the radio into my truck that Joy bought me... 3 years ago! Now, if you know me, and especially if you know my brother, you know that the spawn of Pat are not too good in the car audio department. My favorite example is when Jake swapped out a radio in a Dodge Aries and actually got the headlights to dim with the domelight dimmer. It wasn't on purpose and it was really kind of cool. This time I bought the install kit for my truck ($100!!) and i can't believe how smooth it went. I only cut myself twice and once was from stepping on a nail in the garage so that doesn't even count! The system sounds really good, I replaced the factory speakers while I was at it. It can hook up to my phone, iPod and laptop so it's pretty versatile. Now I can hook up the phone and play Scooby-Doo (for free) when I drive Hayden to school or gymnastics. I also get a bunch of Daily Show clips and I put every season of 'It's always Sunny in Philadelphia' on the phone too... good stuff! If you haven't watched It's always Sunny yet then you are really missing out!

We have so much stuff going on it's crazy. We got Hayden into a much better school this year, by San Antonio standards. So picture the worst school in your area, now set it on fire and replace all the books with pregnant teenagers and poo... that's the best school in SA. This school is high on the list but not the best... we're hoping to get him into a good private school. Yeah, I know... it means I have to wear my Jesus pants again. I've been practicing though... I talked to my gay friend yesterday and told him that he's the reason God doesn't talk to us anymore. I felt very holy. I think next I'm send a chain letter about how Obama is a muslim who wasn't really born in Hawaii... but that might be laying on a little too thick. Oh well, I'm hoping that the churchies are as adept at sarcasm as the rest of San Antonio is at driving. Then it'll be fun.

I didn't mean to offend anyone with what I wrote. If you could see the people I have to deal with to get Hayden into this school... you'd know what I mean. I just wish I could be myself and get my son into a good school. 'Our school is our ministry'... yeah right.

I really should have some pictures but... all I have are these.

Hayden took a picture of Seri on my desk, so I would know that it was her who messed it up and not him.

And, this is my Reddit shirt. I bought it after spending some time at my old job figuring out how much I get paid to poo a year. It used to be about $12.00 a poo for an anual total of $3125.00 a year in poo profits. Now at my new job it's $13.46 a poo for a total of $3500.00 in poo money! That's a $375.00 increase in annual poo profits. Now I ask you... can you afford not to take dumps at work?

Holy Hell!! Google is down!

2009-07-21T16:51:00.002-05:00

I got a 502 error on every request!

I'd be happy to tell you what a 502 error means... but I can't look it up because GOOGLE IS DOWN! I guess I'm going to have to spend time with my damn wiener kids instead of looking up how to fix a slowly draining toilet. Without Google... the only thing I can think of is sending ferrets with diving equipment down the toilet to clean the drain... now I just have to Google where the closest ferret depot is and .... AW DAMMIT!

The Triangle of Power

2009-07-20T01:35:00.003-05:00

I was going through some pictures and found this one...

I think I've talked about this before, but it's just too good to let go. This is the Triangle of Power. When we first moved into our house, it was right before Christmas of 2006. Some of Joy's reletives went out of their way to get us some house warming gifts. It was really nice of them and some of the gifts were really awesome. Then we got this one. It was in a cardboard box wrapped in newspaper. I still have it. I've decided that this will be passed down from generation to generation, in that same manner. On some random date, I'll just give Hayden the triangle, wrapped in newspaper. He can then pass it on to his son and so on. Thus begins the tradition of the Triangle of Power!

Little Wheel

2009-07-16T19:45:00.002-05:00

Shut up! Stop whatever you are doing! Wait... what are you doing? Shut up! It's not important! Play this instead!

Little Wheel

It is full of awesome and robots win the internet every day!

And then facebook went to poo...

2009-07-16T18:29:00.005-05:00

Yeah, the Internets ate our facebook. One second it was like 'you have 300 friends of which you really only know 15 of.' then the next second it was password or gtfo. I sent an e-mail to the facebook help desk.

Oh wait... I think they outsource. Ok, so I sent an e-mail to the facebook help desk...

I told them that I couldn't find my account and gave them my e-mail address. They told me that they couldn't help me because they couldn't find an account with my e-mail address. True story. I tried to explain it again, this time I used my hands to express what was going on... while I wrote the e-mail. Anyway, the put their top men on it, so hopefully I'll get an e-mail soon that tells me that I have to start over. Who wants to bet that it'll tell me that there is already an account with my old user name on it!

The goings ons of the family

2009-07-12T20:49:00.005-05:00

Is goings ons a word... or two words? Ah, screw it. So, we've been busy as usual around here. I'm about to close another chapter on the great race to higher education... and I have the mental scars to prove it.

We did get to go out and see some fireworks after all. In the past we've used our Sea World passes to get in and see their show. It was ok, but retarded crowded. Then we used our Fiesta Texas passes to see that show. It's lame because they shoot off of a cliff that you're at the bottom of. We realized right away that if we parked on the road near the cliff (like everyone else does) we'd actually get a better view. Here's a shot of where we were, for once it wasn't too hot and we had fun.

Of course, everyone got stupid as we tried to leave. I actually had a conversation with another New Yorker about San Antonio last week. We agreed that the difference between New York and San Antonio is that you can run down the streets of New York on fire and the people there have the common decency to leave you alone! Here in San Antonio, they'd stop you to ask questions. Everyone says that people are nice here... and they are, they're just to inbred stupid to know that the things they are doing are bothering everyone else.

See that truck that was right in front of us. The guy pulls up, opens all his doors, starts blaring Rage Against the Machine and then sits in the back with his two small children. I asked him to turn it down and he did... but he gave me this look like he was shocked that I didn't want to listen to Rage with my two year old while watching fireworks. See... nice but stupid.

We also ran out the Olive Garden, which is the only restaurant to date that we've had consistent good service at. I'm not saying that it is the pinnacle of our dining choices or anything, it just has good service. When Joy and I first got together I foolishly thought that I was getting bad service because I was picking run-of-the-mill places to eat, so I'd up the ante every so often. Pretty soon I was taking Joy to some pretty high end places and still getting horrible service. That's just the way it is around here, the people are too dumb to think that you might need more than one drink during a meal. At least back home you know that they want to ignore you but they want a good tip, so they'll give you contemptuously good service. I'll take that over the butt-picking slobs we get here any day. Well, like I said, Olive Garden is all good, I can eat there without damming all human life before our entrees show up. In the effort to make this a more light hearted post... here's Seri enjoying a lime.

Ok, one more thing. I had to call my company's customer support for my time site this week. This is a $32 billion dollar company that is consistently on the Fortune 500 top 100 companies. The tech lady I talked to was resetting my account and I guess it took awhile for her system to refresh or something... but she starts talking to me about immigrants ruining our country. Now, I know I have a more Anglo name than some but... we went to password reset to damn Mexicans in about 10 seconds! It just shocked me that she'd throw out something like that to a complete stranger. The only reply I could give was to agree that all immigrants should be kicked out on their asses. She was on my side till I mentioned that only American Indians would be left. She started to disagree and then I remembered that that I live in Texas... that wasn't part of the US till 1836... so I guess we could give it back to Mexico, or Spain... or France even! I'd be all for that... it's too damn hot here anyway. I guess we parted ways agreeing to disagree, besides she had to go cut eye holes in her white sheet.

Weird huh? Personally I think that if you can say that one race, gender or creed can upset you more than any other... then you're not trying hard enough. I can't stand people... it's pretty simple. I mean, when you go out and point at some race for being evil, or whatever... don't you feel all the fingers pointing back? Oh well, gotta love progress. BTW, the tech center is based out of Austin!

The new phone

2009-07-09T23:41:00.005-05:00

So, I got the new LG env Touch from Verizon. It's a funny story really.

After we got back to Canada, my phone wouldn't hold a charge. I went down the the Verizon store and they told me that it was still under warranty with the insurance company (from when Seri took a bath with my first phone) and I had to call them. The girl said that if it was just the battery I might have to buy a new one. I called the insurance place and they told me that I needed a proof of purchase, which they e-mailed to me, and to return to the store for a new phone. They also said that they had to test it and if it was just the battery that I'd have to buy a new one.

At the store the girl said 'Well, if it was something more than just the battery, like it was locking up or something, we could get you an new phone.' I said that it was funny she mentioned it because the phone totally does lock up and whatever else I need to say to get a new phone. She completely believed me... because it was true. She asked if they had already tested it and I said 'I was in here yesterday'. That one was actually a true statement!

Well, they didn't have my phone. So she was so sorry to inconvenience me but would I please except this brand new model that just came out instead. After much deliberation, I relented.

The new phone does tons of stuff and it way cool. The music player is very much improved, which is good since I'm going to use it to power my car stereo (as soon as I install it). So, there you go... it just shows that if you are more or less honest... sometimes... you get a phone for it!

The trip to Canada!

2009-07-09T23:04:00.004-05:00

We just got back from our big trip to Canada! It was a real blast. If you've been keeping score at home, you know that any chance I get to not be in San Antonio is a win for me. So, to not be in Texas, get to see my family and be back in and around New York is always an awesome time!

We started out our trip with a stay at my mom and dad's house. This meant it was time for some grand kids and grandma bonding. Seri started out by helping make waffles. Mom made us homemade banana waffles with banana foster on them! It was really great!

We then moved right into making sauce for lasagna. Mom was letting Seri taste everything before it went in, which was great till she let Seri add the salt... which she tasted. It was a minor speed bump.

Then it was off to the garden to pick fresh cilantro. Seri opted for the pants-less outfit for this endevor. She let Seri pick the cilantro and then smell it, which ment the Seri 'I should now pick every plant and smell them as well'. So, mom's flowers are a little worse for wear.

When we finally got to the cabin in Canada, Joe quicly set up a huge tarp that took up one side of the cabin. We used this, along with his projector to play life-sized Wii games! It was awesome. Joe also figured out that you can use candles in place of the Wii sensor bar in order to make the controllers work. It was pretty sweet! Hayden still kicked my butt in bowling!

We spent most of the time just playing till we were tired and then hanging out. It was really relaxing. I got to play with Hadyen on grass that didn't hurt your feet. There were no poisonous snakes, fire ants or scorpions to worry about. It was about 85 degrees all the time. It was awesome.

So, we decided we needed to spend a bunch of money. We packed up and drove to Rochester (my favorite town) and checked out the Strong Museum of Play again. It was really fun. Hayden had Josh to play with and the two were inseperatable.

Hayden revised his role as the butcher of Wegmans. I don't think he remembers yelling at kids to buy bacon like the last time he was there.

They had a station set up where you can report the news and be on TV. Hayden gave the 5 o'clock news... which had something to do with Transformers... currently, everything in his life has something to do with Transformers!

My favorite part was this huge section that they had devoted to video games. They had all these old classic games to play. They gave us a ton of tokens and we just went nuts. It was great!

Serenity wasn't left out either. She found this sandbox filled with little plastic beads. She was in heaven! she spent most of her time making 'snow angles', she even got on the local news station that was doing a story about the museum!

We got to see the falls as well. I couldn't get Seri to stop making her monster face in all the pictures. They really liked seeing the falls.

Here's my two girls overlooking the Canadian side. It was kind of packed there since it was Canada Day. FYI, Canada Day is when Canadians celebrate their heritage by going over the border to the US and driving poorly. Interestingly enough, India celebrates Canada Day by coming to the falls, getting wet and smelling bad. Weird huh?

Oh, lets not forget the beach. The kids loved the beach and we all got sunburned for it! It was a great time. We buried Hayden and Seri waged a personal war against every seagull that came near us.

I posted all the pictures from the trip onto Facebook. There's almost 300 of them so enjoy!

The best laid plans of mice and men...

2009-06-16T19:49:00.002-05:00

My guitar instructor canceled on me and I suddenly realized that I had a chance to jump into Resident Evil 5. I think that when I came to this realization I actually giggled... like a school girl. Anyway, RE5 is a great game. I've played every game in the series since it's inception and I have always loved them. I'm one of those wienies that get lost in the story. I don't know why but there is a deep rooted part of me that gets so engrossed that time outside of the game has no meaning. Reality fades as I slowly slide into the game, into a different world... and for just a brief amount of time I actually forget that I am a Systems Administrator for a group of mutants that may just represent the highest concentration of social awkwardness ever herded into one building.

So I get home and race to the TV, filled with a mix of pure excitement and a little guilt about duping an kid free hour for myself. Luckily, the excitement part of the brain is really loud so I was good to go... and then I remembered that Xbox Live would be down all day today. I cried.

Well, the kids are home and I have a ton of laundry to do. Maybe if I'm lucky I can get them to sleep before Joy gets off work... I call it 'magic hour'!

Swimming

2009-06-13T09:33:00.002-05:00

We got to get some swimming in yesterday with my buddy Jeremiah and his son Dylan. Both kids love getting in the water and we had a great time. I guess I've turned into the over-protected parent since Hayden is wearing a full life jacket.

Speaking of over-protective parents, I was playing with Hayden and throwing him around the pool and this kid wanted to join. The thing was, this kid insisted on climbing onto me or Jeremiah. It was actually pretty creepy. We asked him where his mom was and of course she was the big white trash lady in the swim suit that was 3 sizes to small. I just can't see letting your kid go in a pool and not even looking up long enough to see him hanging all over a stranger. Just weird really.

Seri loved her swim suit. She had a full life vest too, but it was little mermaid. I took some pictures of her in the pool with my phone but they didn't turn out.

Here she is doing one of her favorite things... eating 'floor food'. It's something that we struggle with. Seri is a true believer in the 5 second rule.

Anyway, I think that both kids are now sufficiently geared up for the lake in 2 weeks. I think I might end up taking them to a water park while we're there. I mean, my biggest memory from Lake Erie is ear aches and funky smelling water!

Holy Hell!!!

2009-06-09T18:50:00.003-05:00

There was a Mighty Taco ad on Yahoo. Let me repeat this for you...

THERE WAS AN AD FOR MIGHTY ON YAHOO!

I would beat an old lady with a rubber hose for Mighty right now. Seriously, with a friggin rubber hose! I can't believe that my favorite Polish/Mexican place has an ad that's not in the Buffalo News! I'm pretty much going to crave Mighty for the next 2 weeks. I went on-line to find out if they had some kind of on-line/free shipping deal to Texas and I actually found a review that compared Mighty to actual Mexican food. How stupid can you be? Mighty has nothing to do with Mexican. I was sitting there thinking how dumb the person who wrote that was and then I saw it.

"We moved from San Anotnio to Buffalo about a year ago..."

Go figure, a stupid review written by someone from San Antonio. They should build a wall around this place so we don't affect the rest of the population! Hoenstly, the wall wouldn't have to go around the city... they'd never figure it out.

The Suit

2009-06-06T17:47:00.003-05:00

I have a job interview on Monday and that means that I needed a new suit. For some reason my last suit shrunk right around the waist. I think it has something to do with the humidity in Texas. Anyway, I really wanted to go for that 'Please overpay me' look. What do you think?

This is my 'Oh my god, I hope stupid isn't contagious' look. I get to use this one a lot! Now, I am happy at my job. I get along with almost everyone. There is this one guy who I disagree with quite often though. See... he doesn't think that he's a complete idiot. We just don't see eye to eye on that. So, we'll see how things go on Monday.

The kids are sick... really sick. It turns out that Serenity's diaper rash was a staff infection that went to a little red on her bottom to bat shit crazy in three days! Hayden started to show signs by the time we got an appointment with the pediatrician. They're all good now, Just one day after getting antibiotics and topical cream and they look 100%. I'm just glad that this happened early enough that we can treat them and still get to go to the beach. I bought Hayden some beach clothes yesterday and he is really excited. All he talks about is the kind of sand castle we are going to build together. I'm just glad that the kids are getting better.

I'm taking C++ and Database Management this semester. The database class looks easy enough but the C++ class is going to kill me... I just know it. The funny thing is that I actually enjoy programming. I like having a problem and working through it. I've done this with scripting on Linux in the past and it's fun. These classes are not. They give you a problem and want a solution that is so cookie cutter that it sucks the fun right out of it. Oh well... this is my last programming course so, that's good.

Well, that's about all that's going on now. We're just gearing up for the trip and can't wait for a break from our usual craziness!

More family!!

2009-06-04T18:18:00.003-05:00

We got to meet some more of Joy's huge family last week. It was really fun and I got to eat good Korean food so I was happy. The funny thing was that I was surrounded by Joy's family and I actually ordered something off of the menu that was new to some of them! Now, granted it was Korean and not Vietnamese. Still, not bad for a Polish kid from Lockport!

Joy's aunt Debbie was there. She is the first person that has been in our house besides myself who knows what OSPF is! She teaches Java and is the Network Admin at a college in her home town... which I think is in California. We also met Lisa who is Joy's cousin but who we both thought was Joy's youngest aunt Debbie... yeah, they have a family forest! We got to have Joy's cousin Julia over with her two girls and husband Eddie. Hayden was thrilled to show off he stash of toys and Serenity was thrilled to terrorize some new people!

We met back at Grandma Sno's house which is always a blast since everytime we go we get another glimse into the family closet, which always ends up hilarious! At the house was Joy's cousins Stephenie, Natilie, Anothny and at least three others who I've totally forgotten thier names. I was at a point where I was trying to write them down but... I left the paper at Grandma's.

Now, you're probably wondering why I don't have some awesome pictures of the whole event... well I did, then we had some techincal problems with me mistaking the SD slot for my flash drive and formatting it to put the pictures on. Yeppers, I do this stuff for a living!

THe food was great and I even got to eat this dessert where they take seeds from something that is green and put them in sweet milk. It's pretty wild. There was this other one that looked really good and everyone commented on how that was thier favorite... but I got the green one instead. It was a really fun time.

We are still trying to get everyone at our house sometime soon. We had Julia and her family over as well as Debbie and Natilie. I picked up some BBQ from Auggies and we had a good time. Natilie even shot the paintball gun! I think that Debbie might be coming back with her daughter who plays paintball, so I might get a kitchen pass to take her and Natilie out to a game when our squadron rents out the field again. All in all it was a great weekend.

Paint Ball

2009-05-18T18:40:00.003-05:00

I got to get out and play some paintball this week. We had a grudge match against the 950th. This time they did two things that really made it tough for us. First, they took three of our good players and gave us three crappy players in their place, second... they focused on getting my friend John and I out first.

Well, we ended up getting beat pretty bad... but it was still better than going to work!

Honestly, the whole time I'm playing I'm thinking about how cool it is going to be when I can play with Hayden and Seri! Honestly, that's my motivation to stay in shape... and by stay in shape I mean... not eating as much BBQ when I go out. Baby steps man... I can't rush a thing like fitness!

And then the stove broke...

2009-05-17T12:19:00.002-05:00

Ok, hard drive replaced. Dogwood is back up. I got rid of the vundo virus that found it's way onto the laptop... and then I decided to 'fix' the stove.

There was this part on the door that I couldn't get clean, so I tried to take off the handle. Note to self, the designers of appliances must have some type of competition as to how few screws they can use to hold something together. If you take out just two little screws from the stove... the whole door comes apart! Yeah, good times.

I'm actually used to military equipment where there's 18 screws to each 1 ft by 2 ft panel. Oh well, I got it fixed... it only took me an hour or so. That's about all for now. Both Hayden and Seri are sick so I was up till 4 am and then got up at 0730 to start the ribs. Yes, they are that important. Anyway, it's cleaing day so it's back to laundry mountain, or the dreaded kitchen of incredible stench! I might even find out what's in that to-go box in the fridge... it keeps making eye contact whenever I go to get the ketchup. It's freaking me out man!

So... my hard drives dead

2009-05-12T20:39:00.003-05:00

Yep, it happens to all of us. The cool thing about this one is that it's just a bad sector, so it's a slow death. In times of my youth, I would try to keep this drive alive by "not writing on that sector." Now, thanks to countless hours scraping a B out of my Computer Architecture course (and what I should have picked up in my A+ cert back in '01) is that doing that is pretty much impossible. I was thinking of trying to partition the drive and 'catching' the bad sector in one of the partitions, thus isolating it. I might just do that for fun and see how long it lasts but... I don't want the safety of all my witty de-motivational pictures and unpopular music to rest in the clutches of a damaged drive. Oh well, as much as I loathe pouring money into their coffers, Best Buy has a great sale on a 320 GB Western Digital for $75.00. It's got 16 Mb of cache and it's 7200 rpm so it's all good.

Oh, did I tell you about the Acer? We wanted to get the kids a DVD player for the car and Hayden a protable video game system for trips. Instead of that we bought an Acer Aspire. It's this little laptop with a 10 ince screen. It has a 160 HDD and a 1.8 GHz processor with a GB of RAM... so it's definalty not a powerhouse by any means. What I did was crunch some movies down and put them on there as well as all the NES, SNES and SEGA games I had on there. Now it's a little media player with 2,000+ games and 100 movies. I think that beats a DS-lite any day. Hayden's stoked and I actually like having the thing around the house since it's got a built in wireless NIC.

The best part about it is having it in the car. We went to gymnastics last Saturday and since I had both the kids I took the laptop. Seri and Hayden got to watch Bolt on the way to the gym and Seri watched Cinderella (one of her favorites) while there. After we went to Sonic for grilled cheese sandwiches and I war-dialed into one of the 5 wide open networks I found and surfed around. I can't believe that it's 2009 and that still is so easy to do. Good stuff. I hopped onto their printer and printed off every page of the Onion as fast as I could... and then we went home. Yeah, I love this little laptop.

We'll be in NY in late June. Mom got a cottege off of Lake glow-in-the-dark so that will be fun. I don't have classes till June 1st so I'm going to try to convince Joy into letting me tear out our tree and replace it will a nice garden. I might even get all crazy and finish off the cubby under the stairs!!

Last but not least, congrats to Heather for becoming a M.D. That hat is completely ridiculous. I'm glad you got sorted into Hufflepuff. I totally expect some blank perscrition forms when I get up there!

Hayden vs. the haircut

2009-05-03T20:36:00.006-05:00

When I was a child, my father would make weird and inappropriate jokes all the time. I used to tell myself how I would never subject my child to such behavior. Apparently, my Arnold genes are just too hard to ignore.

Walking into Sports Clips I had two weird thoughts enter my mind at the same time. First I was telling Hayden to stay still or he might loose an ear. When we entered, he didn't see any ears and called me out on it. I pointed out the broom and dustpan. Not thinking that I significantly terrorized my son, I decided to tell him that the girls at Sports Clips will smooch you if they think you're cute. As he was getting into his barber chair I wispered to him "Watch out Haydish, she's gonna smooch you!" The result was Hayden with this tight-lipped look on his face for the whole haircut.

I don't know what had him more worried, loosing an ear or getting a smooch but, it was obviously not a great experience for him. He did stay still though... so that's a plus. Also, following my Sister-in-laws advice, I let Serenity play with shaving cream. It was really easy to clean up and made the kitchen smell like a bathroom, but in a good way.

About 10 minutes in, shaving cream fun on the counter changed to shaving cream fun on the tummy... which apparently a much more fun exercise!

Going to see Mom

2009-04-29T01:04:00.004-05:00

So, things have been really crazy lately. Work has been hectic, Joy and I are always running around, my guitar teacher has this crazy idea that I should start learning to play after 5 months of classes... oh and, my college professors are trying to make me a programmer for some reason (and I'm starting to like it!)

The big news was that my mom got really, really sick. I say that it 'was' big news because she's all better now. See, she works at this hospital in a shady part of Lockport... right near my brothers house! Anyway, there was this big gang fight and my mom went down from the lab to break it up, you know. Well, long story short, mom ended up with this big knife wound in her leg. To top that off, the guy who stabbed her had a sore throat and gave her leg strep! I know, weird! Her physician, Dr Octopus, decided that it was really serious and said that I should come down. He then decided that we couldn't possibly need any more information about our mother and disappered off the face of the Earth. Good times!

I literally flew out that same day on HolyCrap airlines and was back in Lockport before you can say "I'm freezing my Dupa off over here!" I went from 80 degrees and sunny to 32 and hungry in about 8 hours. There was still snow on the ground!! This is maddness... no, this is Western New York!

I got to see all the nieces and nephews, some of whom actually liked me! First off was Ella, who was pretty indifferent to me untill she decided that my nose tasted awesome and devoted a good amount of engery covering me in baby drool. She is such a cutie, and handled being held by me pretty well.

I have pictures of the rest of the kids, but since I am a great photographer I decided to screw them all up. Here is pretty much the only other one that came out. This is Nathen, or Tater, and he wasn't too cool with me. If he wasn't paying attention, I could hold him for a while though.

I also got to meet Sydny again, who had to tell me about how tough she is now and then prove it by falling off the couch and not even crying (although it was a pretty big fall and mommy would want to know - her words!) I also got to hang out with Josh, Emily and Ally. Ally actually decided that I was ok and we had our bonding moment. Josh found out that I am the only Arnold that can beat Super Mario and was instantly vaulted into Uncle heroism. Emily... well, she did give me a hug but was pretty much happy with me not bugging her. I think her and Nathen talked.

Since it is my family I went to see, we started out by eating. We went to Chet's, which is a little place in Lockport that has these really good breakfast sandwiches.

After that, jake took me to see the Aud get wrecked. The Aud is where the Sabers used to play when they sucked... well, how about, when they wore different uniforms! Little Sabers joke there.

We went to Perl St after that. This is where Jake has his outreach thing. We got these great sandwiches called Bootleggers. I recomend them to anyone. We also got chocolate beer. I'm not a drinker and this pretty much made me look like a little girl. I didn't even finish the little sample they gave me. Oh well, the sandwich was great!

We got to meet Crazy Willy, the brewmaster. He's a fourth generation brewmaster from Russia and doesn't speak any Engish... ok, actually he's this really nice guy but I totally forgot his name. I think it was Pete or Mike or Smithy... anyway, he makes beer.

After that, we went fishing in Andrews pond. It was going to be 'We went and shot the hell out of these woodchucks' but somebody thought that somebody shouldn't be out with thier gun and... well it was a big misunderstanding. Apparently, I can stand on a flightline in Korea with a full-auto rifle but I can't shoot 22's at some random animals. Oh well...

We went to the self-serve baitshop (not a lie) and bought bait. It was very Mayberry, but it is cool that it works for that guy.

I even caught a fish... it was really big... yep.

So, I went down to see my mom and so far I haven't written anything about that. That's because we could only see mom at certian times, for certian times and when we did she was very tired. It was really frustrating because we were getting no info from Dr Scratch-n-Sniff and it really pissed everyone off. Honestly, I spent most of my time sitting around waiting to see mom and hoping for good news. She got out of the ICU about 5 days after I came back and is finally home now. I'm really glad I got to see everyone but the conditions of the trip sucked.

Hoenstly, I really wish Joy and the kids were there. We'll be back down in July for the beach house and it'll be awesome! I can't wait!!

My college website

2009-04-21T21:05:00.003-05:00

I had to make this website for college. It's pretty lame, but it gets the job done. Feel free to go onto it and make a trouble ticket. It uses a SQL database to take your info and then parse it on the next page. Don't put anything retarded on it... I do have to hand it in for a grade!

Oh, it's based off of the fictitious company from the Portal game. If you haven't played this yet then you suck... or you are one of my siblings. They don't jive with the pixelated entertainment.

Apature

Your getting a Dell... box.

2009-04-16T07:44:00.004-05:00

There is a definite advantage to being able to order your own servers at work, you get to keep the boxes! Now, I'm not going to get into how much money the Dell server costs that came in this box but let's just say it was about equal to 25 of the TV's behind it.

The kids loved it and I was able to sneak in some Oblivion time as well.

So, for next Christmas... send boxes!

I hope you have some free time...

2009-04-15T07:39:00.003-05:00

And I was going to do homework tonight!

Tone Matrix

Busy busy...

2009-04-05T21:09:00.005-05:00

Joy and I have been crazy busy lately. Between school, the kids, work and the house... we've hardly have had time to breathe! Right near the zoo there is a BBQ place that Joy and I have driven by about 100 times. We get zoo season passes almost every year and every time we pass this place we think about stopping and then move on.

Well, we had a team meeting here for work and the BBQ is pretty awesome. It's not as good as house of da smoke but it's close. I'd have to say that it's my second favorite BBQ in Texas. So, the next time you're down here make sure we go to Auggies.

I got the Wii hacked! Thanks to Joe for that (and Wal-Marts lax return policy!) Hayden and I have been playing Mario 64 whenever we can! I got all the NES and SNES games on there, and some cool Wiibrew things as well. I finally have a reason to turn that thing on!

College is a pain in the butt lately. Just this semester I've had book problems, server problems, money problems... I'm really getting burned out! The funny thing is, it's not from the classes, it's from all the paperwork and hassle that comes with them. I'm on a pretty good schedule to get my work done. Instead of waiting till the last minute, I do a little each night. I know, that responsability thing really works! Anyway, I get the kids in bed at 8:30 and then sleep till 3. Homework till 6 and then I get the kids moving for school. Good stuff! It's actually freed up my weekends.

Speaking of weekends, I fixed my in-laws toilet on the house they're selling. Luckily, I saw my Dad install the same toilet 3 times when I was younger! So, I just did what Dad did the 3rd time and I was good to go. Well, that's about it. We were going to go to the strawberry festival but we got too busy. Hopefully we'll get out for fiesta, or something. We need a break! If not... there's our trip to NY in 2 months!!

Is this normal?

2009-03-22T14:40:00.002-05:00

This is Serenity's latest stunt. She falls off the couch on purpose. I guess as long as she's not hurting herself it's ok.

Passive Agressive

2009-03-16T19:37:00.003-05:00

I wish I had a shirt that said that. Ok, so this is how it went down. I was working around the house and I come into the kitchen to see my loving daughter dunking my new cell phone into her cup of apple juice. You know that phone that does all sorts of stuff... well it doesn't do that stuff anymore. So, being the super genius that I am... I try to clean it with rubbing alcohol, thinking that it would easily evaporate... it kind of worked, sort of kind of.

Well, I have the insurance and I decided it was time to get a replacement. It's $50 for a new one and they overnight it to you. I call up and tell phone guy what happened and he's all cool. Then he gives me this line about how I HAVE to return the crap phone or they charge me an additional $200.00!! I ask what if it was stolen? He reply's that if that were the case then it'd be a mulligan and I just get the phone. So I say 'Jeshum H Christmas... it just got stolen!' Phone guys not buying it. Great... I get homework out of all of this, the question is why.

Well, the good people at dowee, chetem and howe want to refurbish my phone and make some cash on the side. That ain't cool... I pay an extra whatever a year to get this new phone and they want to Frankenstein my old one to boot. Not happening, it's just the principle of the thing. So I get to thinking... the phones broke right? I mean, it can't get no broker... or can it? This started the great phone mess-up of 09. I wish I would have thought to get pictures but after consecutive trips through the dishwasher and the dryer it was pretty crapped up. For good measure I sent some current through it first with this old motorcycle battery I had. Anyway, that's when I decided I needed a passive aggressor shirt. I mean, don't think that you're going to get one over on me... if there is a way I can retaliate that doesn't hold a major consequence and cannot be traced back to me! Oh yeah!

B-day party!

2009-03-12T16:56:00.002-05:00

We're going to Pump It Up for a party today. If it's cool, Serenity will have her party there. Here's the text message I just sent my friend.

"Dude, I'll be there on-time for your kids party. I totally forgot his card at home but it's all good. Our's will be the one that looks like a Christmas present!"

Yeah, I rock.

The West Wing

2009-03-12T16:21:00.002-05:00

Maybe I should start watching this show.

An Ipod... because I wasn't pissed off at the world enough already!

2009-03-08T19:00:00.005-05:00

I picked up an Ipod today. I've been avoiding it for a while and I thought I could just use my phone while at the gym but, I finally caved. These little 1 GB shuffles are nice because you can clip them on and rock out while you're doing just about anything. I got the green one because... that's the one I picked up.

Honestly, the reason I've been avoiding it is because of iTunes. I hate Itunes. It's crap, and you have to put a credit card into it just to use it!! Well, after jerking with it for a couple hours I got by the credit card thing, and then I found this nice little hack that allows me to drag and drop music into it like I would with any other MP3 player.

Even though I tweaked iTunes to do what I want... I swear my explorer processes is slower!! I'll have to mess with it some more. Oh, and I get some wicked cool apple stickers to throw out! Wow, I'm trendy! All in all it's pretty much the best player of this size for your money. I mean, it's loud, it has a great battery life and you get to dance like an idiot with it... like the commercials!

So, now I have no excuse not to go to the gym. I'm going to start going to the base gym again. Last time I went from 230 to 200 before I quit. I'm hoping to get back to that before we go to New York to swim in the crystal brown waters of Lake Erie! (for some reason I thought we were doing Lake Ontario this time) We should be up there in June... it'll be a blast!

The Excuse

2009-03-06T07:07:00.003-06:00

Hayden was sick from school for two days. It's funny because, although I spent years forging absentee notes from my parents when I skipped school, now that I have to make an 'official' note... I don't know what to write!

This is what I have so far. For some reason I always want to make jokes on these kind of things... I guess it's the Arnold in me. Unfortunately Hayden's teacher, like most of San Antonio, does not understand sarcasm. This is the reason I get all those funny looks when I pick up Hayden. I can hear them when the whisper to each other "That guy thinks we're all really, really smart! He called me a genius yesterday!" Yeah... feel my pain.

Milbergers nursery

2009-03-03T08:12:00.003-06:00

In a continuing effort to get rid of areas of the yard that I have to mow, we went to Milbergers nursery this weekend. We wanted to get a mountain laurel, which is pretty much a lilac that grows in Texas.

The place was pretty cool. You get a red rider wagon to put all your stuff in. Hayden and Seri had fun there. Of course Serenity was in white so she had to find a way to roll down a dirt hill in the first 10 minutes of being there!

They found this wooden dog that Serenity wanted to pet every time we passed it.

She was also a lot of help 'testing' out every wind chime she passed.

She even took some time to help me pick out some flowers. All in all it was a good trip. Once I get the plants um... planted I'll get some pictures up.

Hayden's 6th

2009-02-15T15:52:00.004-06:00

Hayden got to celebrate his 6th birthday again! He got some great toys and spent the day pretty much keyed up. On of the more crazy gifts was this remote control motorcycle that Joy and I got him. It's really fast, really hard to control and really, really fun!

Serenity got in on the action as well. She'll have her party soon but she had to get some spoiling in from Grandma D and Grandpa T. Honestly, she was so intent on ripping the wrapping paper into the tiniest pieces possible that I don't think we really had to get her anything.

We got these sweet sparkle candles that WILL NOT BLOW OUT! Hayden almost had an attack trying.

Then there came one of Hayden's coolest toys. It's the new GI Joe toy and it's really cool. He comes with interchangeable gun parts that make different noises dependent on what is attached. I did have to try and explain to Hayden why GI Joe would need a buzz saw when fighting bad guys though. We decided it was to get through trees that might be in the way.

I tried to convince Hayden that GI Joe is a Air Force guy but he wasn't having it. Oh well, maybe someday he'll think that computer geeks are cool. I know they'll never get their own action figure though!

Robot Chicken

2009-02-12T21:22:00.001-06:00

German Coastguard

2009-02-12T18:42:00.001-06:00

My book idea

2009-02-08T21:04:00.002-06:00

I think that I am going to collect all the notes I get from Haydens teacher and put them together in a book entitled 'Parenting - A practical approach'

This next note that I get is going to be epic... I can just feel it!

Yeah, that's a werewolf tattoo. Hayden picked the location himself. Well, at least it'll make Monday interesting for him.

Just paid off the truck so...

2009-02-04T17:03:00.005-06:00

I just paid off the truck so, of course, it had to start making a funny noise. I'm not a car-ologist, but I figure the problem has something to do with the... um... front of the truck. You know, somewhere near the engine-holding bay. I took a video so that my BIL (brother-in-law) can help figure it out for me.

The concept of making a quick video of the sound seemed great in theory. That was before I realized that I apparently get all epileptic whenever I carry a camera. For some reason the video cracks me up. So, if you want to try and help determine what is wrong with the blue bomber or you just want to laugh at all the sounds I have to make while climbing under the truck... enjoy!

Google into Google

2009-01-31T15:56:00.001-06:00

Unleash the fury...

Power Thirst!!!

2009-01-26T23:09:00.000-06:00

I am so sick of Sprint!

2009-01-26T16:18:00.005-06:00

I finally got out of the clutches of Sprint and their retarded customer support! As a pat on the butt on the way out, they tried to stick me with a $400.00 disconnect fee! Way to loose a customer for life. Anyway, we went with Verizon and I got a great phone. It's the LG Voyager Titanium.

It's a great phone. The only real problem with it is that I spent all of Saturday tweaking it out instead of doing homework like I should of. On the flip side I did get to put Quantum of Solace, The Dark Knight and Taken onto my phone. If you want them, I put the phone versions on my web page. They're about 300 mb each so you might need an SD card.

Joy got a LG env2, which is actually a really cool phone to. If I'm lucky, she'll let me mess with it as well... there's this great hack to play flash games on it and... well, nevermind.

All in all, we have a cheaper plan with more options on it and two phones that we actually like. I get a 21% discount for working as a computer repairman and a 25% discount off of all merch so we got the phones at just over $100.00 after rebates. It's all good!

The best part of all of it was the tech guy at Verizon who was telling me that he can change out the flying read-write heads out of a busted hard drive and retain the data... right from the comfort of his own home! Yeah, the drives that spin at 72,000 rpm and are assembled in dust-free clean rooms to meet insanely accurate specifications... can be fixed with a screwdriver and a good light source. Man, some people. I let him go, why not... maybe he'll actually try it!

When I get home, I'm going to swap the ALU from my processor. It's all good, I have wood glue!

Stupid free DNS service

2009-01-22T19:45:00.002-06:00

Yeah, dogwood took a dump again. I swear, one of these days I'm going to fork over that dollar a month fee and register a domain name for real... naw, nothing tastes better than free DNS!

Anyway, it's back up for the three people who actually use it. (one of them is me... and the other one is make-believe. You know who you are!)

The inside of my TV

2009-01-20T16:07:00.002-06:00

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a 65 inch DLP looks like? Yeah, me neither. Regardless of that fact I had the pleasure of watching a repair man take mine apart from the comfort of my own living room!

We were doing some spring cleaning and Serenity got a hold of a spray bottle and decided to clean the TV. By the time I caught her, she had soaked the corner of it and ended up getting water in the screen itself. I though that we were screwed but the repair guy I called said that he could fix it for only $120.00. Awesome, I was looking for a way to help stimulate the economy... you know, do my part and all.

Fortunately, he was true to his word and fixed it after about 2 hours of disassembling the whole thing and cleaning it out. When it was all said and done the TV was as good as new. So, we found a new TV repair place to use for... ever. If you want to check it out it's called Master Electronics.

Home of da Smoke

2009-01-18T00:16:00.002-06:00

Our favorite place to eat is this little BBQ place called the Home of da Smoke. I actually found it years ago when I was riding my old motorcycle down through China Grove and literally broke down in front of it.

They have the best BBQ ever. Wait... that doesn't describe it well enough. When something so amazing happens in your life that everything about it changes it's called transendic. This is transendic BBQ. After you eat it, everything you know about BBQ changes.

Hayden is usually a brisket guy like his dad but he's been on a chicken wing kick for some reason. Smoked chicken wings... yeah, they're better than you can even imagine.

Serenity turns into this marathon eater there. People literally stop and watch my almost 2 year old pack down smoked chicken like we've never fed her before this day. Oh yeah, the put pumpkin spice and rhubarb in their sweet potatoes. Bam!

After that we went to the park and attempted to burn off some of our feast. I spent most of it chasing Seri around and giving Hayden airplane rides. Then we all went home and had a huge nap. If this was a groundhogs day... I wouldn't object in the least!

The cruise...

2009-01-17T23:47:00.001-06:00

was awesome! We had a great room with a balcony. It was up on the top of the ship so we were pretty secluded from the other passengers.

We each got a life jacket and training on how to use it. We took it very seriously!

I brought my GPS on the ship which was fun. We checked out location every once in a while and how fast we were going. We also used it when we were putzing around Progresso and Cozumel.

Here we are at the first show. It was ultimate country or something. It's funny because the whole crew was from foreign countries and they were all singing God bless America. I thought it was really funny.

We went to Cozumel and there were a ton of jewelers out there. They even had a place where you can watch these guys cut and polish diamonds. Mom went to one of the more swanky ones and they sold her what she thought was a 3k necklace for about 1k. It turned out to be fake!! It's all good though, because she's getting her money back but, that's a lesson for us all... don't buy anything over $20.00 while in Cozumel... unless you can eat it or drink it!

The best part of the trip (in my opinion) was this ATV course that we went on. It was crazy! I mean, it was booked as a aggressive tour of the jungle on ATVs. Let me tell you... it was a crazy aggresive tour of the friggin jungle. I mean, we were IN the jungle! I broke two ATV's but it was totally not my fault and Joy took out a tree... that had termite damage anyway so... it was all good!

We had to go back to the ship covered in dirt, which was hilarious. When the head of security for the ship saw us... he just stared and then asked "What happened to you two?" We got our pictures taken a couple of times before we got to our cabin.

I think I spent a good hour in the steam room after that!

All in all it was an awesome experience. I could write for hours on what we did and experienced and I'd still miss stuff. Oh... the food was out of this world! At any time, free of charge, I could order a BLT sandwich and a chocolate milk shake to my room. When I discovered this, I wept. The next time you're sitting around with a couple grand burning a hole in your pocket I suggest taking a cruise. It's way better than paying bills!

Grandpa Wii

2009-01-02T20:01:00.004-06:00

So Dad discovered the Wii.

He was really enjoying it all, that is until Mom came down and whooped the poop out of him!

I think the final score was Dad 89 to Mom 187. Shortly there after Dad decided that the Wii is stupid and a waste of time.

We did talk him into playing Hayden one last time. I mean... surely he could be a 5 yr old.

Well, not this 5 yr old! Hayden walked away with a 133 to 104 victory!!