Snowing
Its snowing here... which has everyone excited because now we'll have a white Christmas.

Not to be a Scrooge or anything... but I'm not always sure I see the thrill in it. Yeah, it is cool to have snow at Christmas... it does kind of make it feel more like Christmas. The whole "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" thing. But... you have to shovel snow, the kids are driving in so Tina is worried about them, I'm out driving around and there are accidents - cause it hasn't snowed much this year so people have forgotten how to drive in it. I've still got last minute shopping to do (both food and presents). Personally, I don't think it is Christmas if I'm not out shopping on Christmas eve, or at the very latest the day before that! So... accidents, slow driving, etc. Is this really worth getting excited about?

Well I guess the grin on Jaime's face makes it worth it. :-) She just loves the snow at Christmas time!

The kids
The kids (Tif and Brian) come in tonight! They are here for a week. It will be so great to see them!

Little Drummer Boy
Worship Sunday was a blast. Some people were out for Christmas vacations, etc. In addition to that, Teresa wanted to do something special. Some of the youth background singers joined in as part of the choir, Steve was playing accoustic, and I played percussion. We did Little Drummer Boy, the Jars of Clay version. Very cool. In addition to the band, I was playing my big drum (still have to figure out the real name for that), there were 3 teens playing other percussion instruments, and then about 4 or 5 other signers playing percussion as well. Very cool stuff. It was very fun, and as always, Church not as usual

K-logs
Another blog entry on K-logs. (Knowledge logs). It is starting to pop up quite a bit in stuff that I read. Obviously has been around for a while, but I'm just starting to see it. This is a good article because he points to other articles as well. Basically the question is, "How do we share more knowledge across and organization/company" and the answer is via blogging.

Worship w/ the imago dei 2002 band
The Imago Dei 2002 band is getting together at NCF on the 31st to do worship for an all night event. This should rock. I am so looking foward to playing with everyone again! John called me about a week ago and I've been seeing if it will work out (prior committments, etc.) and as of this morning its a go. I'm so psyched!

• 9 PM - start, food, hang out, etc.
  
• 11 PM - worship for 2 hours. YEAH!
  
• 1:00 AM - games, etc.
  
• 8:00 AM - everyone goes home

I'm thinking I'll be breaking down at 1:00, loading up and heading home... but you never know. Probably not going to do the whole "hang out all night thing", but I'll probably be taking Jaime and maybe some other teens from Fusion, so it just depends on what they want to do.

Like I said... this should ROCK.

Joel
Was reading Evhead today and decided to follow a few links. I thought Joel on Software had some interesting comments. I'll add him to my links.

As a side note, kind of interesting to see that there are a community of bloggers, all who have links to each other. So, no matter where you go, you can end up getting to Joel, b-may, etc. I guess the individual lists (like mine) just show what they find interesting.

Yeah, I drive like that
I thought this was pretty good. This is exactly why I don't drive the recommended distance behind someone, on I-25.

Freedom
Up at 2:30... laying there, thinking, can't go back to sleep.
OK... this isn't working, might as well get up
Was thinking about heading in early, stopping at church and working on the Missions deposit, but then I'd missing seeing Tina in the morning.
Hey, I could head over to church now and get it done.
Get up, throw on some close, put in the contacts, and throw on a bandana. Into the car, stop for gas, get a Bear-Claw and a Diet Mt-Dew. (Hey... can you really do books at 3:30 AM w/o Mt-Dew?)
Get to church, do 3 Mission deposits.
Only 4:30... still have some time
Reconcile the main account, generate the copier report, head out.
Listening to Delerious? Mostly History Maker and Deeper
Drop the deposit, head home. Driving down Powers with the rest of the earlier risers.

Cars flowing along in the darkness, like fish swimming down a blacktop stream. Street lights like swarms of mesquitoes along the banks.

Back home at 5:15. Read some essays from LSA.
Might as well "start work". Log on, doing some blogging and then start the day.

Will work for a bit. Get "ready for work" when Tina gets up. Roust Jaime out of bed as we head out, tell her Bye!
Stop at Sam's and check Dishwasher prices. Yeah, that burning smell was it going out. Drag.
Head in to work and "finish" the day.
Probably cut out "early" and check a few more places for dishwashers.

How can anyone work 9:00 - 5:00. 8 hours in a row. How bizzare.

She's cute
Had the Church Staff Christmas party yesterday. Last two years Brent and Leslie have had it at their house and I've helped cook. So, rather than actually being down chatting with folks, etc., I'm usually cooking. Which is cool with me. Its always very fun. Leslie has some great recipes. Anyway, been a long week at the church and Tina was really looking forward to this. She is downstairs laughing and having a good time. Jaime has been running food down to everyone, but I figured I'd take a plate down, just to say hi to folks. I'm about to head back upstairs and Tina says:

Her: What are you eating under there?
Me: What? That made no sense... but I've been having some trouble hearing, must have heard it wrong.
Her: What are you eating under there?
Me: WHAT? That makes no sense...
Her: What... are... you... eating under there?
Me: What am I eating UNDER WHERE?
Everyone cracks up, and she starts giggiling.

Flashing back to elementry school, I just shake my head and head back upstairs.

She's so cute. :-)

StarTrek
Saw the movie Friday. I like previews, but the 10 minutes of commercials was a bit of a drag! Anyway... I thought the movie was good. Pretty typical StraTrek movie. I had read that all of Wesley's scenes got cut, but he did show up in the beginning. Some pretty funny lines, then good battle scenes, etc. Don't want to give anything away, so that is all I'll say.

Nemesis
Going to see Star Trek Nemesis, A Generation's Fnial Journey Begins tonight with a group of guys from church. Should be pretty cool! And then Two Towers next week!

Does it really matter?
Got on the elevator today, it stopped on the 2nd floor, and a woman got on. I'm heading out to lunch, in my jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, and have a vest on (since it's about 40 out). She gets on, looks at me, and says:
I love Fridays! You get to wear jeans! I tried sneaking them in once during the week, but my boss IMed me... "Dress..... code.... ?"
I just replied, "Yeah".
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was wearing shorts and sandals all summer, and that we can wear jeans whenever you want.

You'd think with all that the company is going through, all the scandal, bad moral, layoffs, etc, that some managers would figure out there are more important things than making sure no one wears jeans to work (except on Friday).

That was another great thing about DEC. They understood what was important and what wasn't.

DEC
Got this link from a friend who I worked with at DEC. DEC... before it became Digital, then Compact, and now HP. I still think VMS was the best OS I ever worked on. DEC was a great company to work for... when I was working backeast on EDGE... before things got tough and Ken left.

I checked the site out a bit. A VAXstation 2000. My first mid-range desktop. It was a cool box. I remember someone telling me, "Well of course you can't have 5 windows up at once, that is too much." But they just didn't want to mess with it. Setting enough sysconfig stuff, I got it working pretty good. I also remember Paul using it for a $5000 clock. Only one app running, the clock, fully maximized. He just didn't want to mess with it and just kept using his VT320. :-)

A trip down memory lane!

A Rose by any other name
I'm a big user of Rational Rose. I've gone to three User's Conferences and spoke at two of those. Although we don't model as much as we used to (because we aren't doing as much development from scratch), we still model quite a bit... and use Rose to generate a good amount of code.

Rational and IBM announced that IBM is accquiring Rational in a "for cash" deal. Ouch... bought some stock at near high... I think about $48 per share (because of a split). The IBM deal means I'll get $10.50. I had been holding on, hoping that some day it will recover. I guess some day will never come. :-(

Maybe it will be a good deal, from a company/software point of view. Kind of hard for me to imagine though. I guess time will tell.

Made me think for a second
So I'm driving to work, not really paying that much attention to things around me, 'cause hey, its only the typical bumper-to-bumper traffic. I notice the van in front of me is going kind of slow, and I'm looking for a way to cut into all the traffice next to me, when I notice the back of the van says, "Caution Blind Man Driving". What!? I'm trying to think how that is possible, when I move around him and notice on the side of the van, "The Blind Man, blinds, shades, shutters."

Its amazing
I'm constantly amazed at the information you can find on the web. We are refinancing and a friend of mine and I were discussing apprasials. Me mentioned that I could go check a web site that has the public records for housing. You can look up any address (by name, owner's name, etc.) and it will show you the purchase histroy. You can also do a "comparable search", which will list houses that compare to yours, so you can get an idea of what your house is worth.

I'm a software engineer... and one of the people helping drive on the information out there. It just seems kind of weird to me that with a few clicks I can find out this kind of information about people... But it is useful when you are trying to refiance... and it is all public record.

Bye Cheryl
Yeah, yesterday was a hard day. We (my team) was very lucky. We didn't get hit too hard, although a lot of teams did. There were a lot of really good, bright, hard-working people that got let go. Some positions got hit really hard: admin, program managers, business analysts. My team was not hit, which was cool, but it was still hard watching everyone else go. Pretty emotional day.

Cheryl left. She's was in Fraud when I got there. First check-in for Sheriff was 05-May-1996, working Shell 2 with Tim. Kind of seems like the end of an era. The original team continues to shrink.

Good luck Cheryl. Have fun at home with the kids!

Today's the day
500 people getting laid off at WorldCom in the Springs today. Our building is supposed to get hit pretty hard, although we believe our group won't. But we still will get hit. It's just a drag.

FF13 6-7
Yeah, I lost. I was actually doing pretty good early on, but the Dawgs had Tomlinson (RB - SD) who scored 45 points! Final score was 113 to 99. I had the 4th highest score in the league for the week (thanks in part to Portis who got me 30 points), but it just wasn't enough. I'm now one game back, with only one week left in the regular season. In theory we could tie it up, if I beat the Avalance (would have beat them this week, 99 to 93) and the Arsenal beats the Dawgs, but the Arsenal is 2 and 11, so unlikely! Plus, that would just put us at a 3 way tie, and I'm currently 115 points behind the Dawgs. So, looks like my playoff hopes are over.

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was pretty cool. We went up to "the Wagner's" (my brothers). He is a firefigther and his station is right across the street. His wife and I cooked most of the dinner (which is cool, since I love to cook) and then "the guys" came over when it was ready. Since they have to be able to respond quickly, they brought an engine and... rescue truck I think. Dinner went well (started at about 2:20) and then after we were going around the table doing the traditional "name 3 things you are thankful for". We just got past my brother and were up to the first fire-fighter (besides my brother) when the pager went off. They all ran out to their trucks, hit the lights/sirens, and blasted out of his drive way. Typical fire department holiday. :-)
I was a volunteer (with my wife) for 4 years, so the scene is pretty typical.
They came back after a bit and spent some more time at home, but then had to be on standby at the station due to the possibility of mutual aid.
Ate lots of food, watched the game (Dallas' defense scored 19 points for me in fantasy football. Very cool), hung out with family and friends. A good time!
Things I was thankful for:

• My wife and kids, who are so awesome
  
• That I'm working with the youth - Fusion Worship - which is just an awesome experience for me
  
• That Steve and his family are going to our church - seeing them serve, him play drums, etc. Very cool

Homemade bacon
I'm cooking a "big" breakfast this morning, i.e., bacon, eggs, toast; because we won't be eating until 2:00 or so. Jaime comes downstairs, looks over at the bacon and says, "Is that homemade bacon? I love homemade bacon!"

Homemade bacon... homemade bacon? What is that... like I cured it myself or something? Of course not. So, how would bacon be anything else? Ah....

"You mean did I take raw bacon and cook it, versus microwaving the precooked stuff?"
"Yeah!"
"Oh, yeah. Its homemade."

Learned a new term today. A term for the 2000s.

Good-bye Sam
Tonight is Sam's last night on West Wing. :-(

Another patent!
Got word that our 2nd patent might finally get accepted, after something like 4 or 5 years. That would be cool!

Isn't it ironic?
Driving in the car. "Tiny Dancer" playing in the background. Laughing about the "Pour some Shookup Ramen" commercial.

"Pour some Sugar on Me" playing in the background.
Him, singing along to the song: Pour some Shookup Ramen!
Her: Pour some shookup ramen???
Him: Yeah... like the SOUP. Duh!
Her: just looks at him

Us, laughing
Her: Is that girl singing "tiny dancer"?
Me: That girl!?
Her: Yeah, that girl.
Me: That girl... that GIRL?
Her, nervous laugh: Yeah, isn't that a girl?
Me: just looks at her

FF12: 6-6
Everything went right on Monday night. Now our division is in a 3 way tie, 6-6. I play the Dawgs on Sunday and the Avs play the Arsnel. If I win and the Avs win, we'll both go in 7-6 for our final game against each other. Then whoever wins that game will go into the playoffs at 8-6. Should be an interesting two weeks!

CMA
Went up and did opening worship for CMA (Christian Ministries of the Arts) on Monday night with Tom, Jennifer, Steve and Arron. It was very cool.

We practiced Wed at Steve's and I had taken most of my stuff. We talked about the logistics of getting things off the stage quickly, since they'd be starting their dancing as soon as we were done. Jennifier also talked about the makeup of the audience, etc. As I was thinking about it I really started feeling like I shouldn't take all my stuff. Yeah, congas/bongos seemed to work best for "Your Love is Amazing", but I just really started feeling like it was too much. That I needed to be simpilier, not make so much of a splash, whatever. Tina said pray about it, so I did. But I usually don't hear a loud voice, but get a peace etc. I really felt just the Djembe and the big drum was the right thing, with maybe the chimes and one cymbal. Called Tom Monday mid-day, and he said yeah, simpilier is better, so I went with it. Turned out just right! Cool.

Anyway, got up there about 4:00. Took the equipment in, and they were finishing up some practice to "God of Wonders". Cool. I love that song! They finished up around 5:00 and we got set up, sound checked (only two monitors, but they were great), and everything went well. Went and ate Vietnamese. Yum! Came back and the place was packed. I'm guessing five to six hundred people. All of a sudden I got very nervous. Wow... that's weird. I never get nervous. "Let's pray". Yeah. Prayed for a bit. "Hey, they said there might be some dancing going on around us". Cool.

So we get up there. Can't see a thing 'cause the lights are so bright. Good, that way I can't see the crowd. We start and it is awesome! Djembe was the right choice. Thank you God!. We are on. The music is going well. I just close my eyes and start worshipping (since I can't see anything anyway). There are dancers all around us in white. Flowing, moving, worshipping. It is pitch black. Us, the music, the dancers on the edge of darkness, then the voices of 500 people starting to worship with us, and His presence. Yeah, this is what its all about.

We get done, grab our stuff and haul it off the stage. It is so cool to be in His presence, doing what He has called you to!

We stay and watch the rest of the evening. Little girls dancing - some pushing each other, losing their places, trying to follow what everyone else is doing. Young women, flowing together, worshipping. Young women alone, talking about what worshipping via dance means to them, how it gets them through the tough times. Crying, Its been a hard year. But God is getting me through it. He has really put this dance on my heart. Dancing, alone, for Him. It was awesome.

I was blessed. I know He was blessed, as He looked done on His children: talking about worship, about David, about things they learned this session, and just Worshipping Him.

Anniversary
It's my Anniversary today! 23 years. Wow, they go by so fast!

Tina, I love you more and more each year. Love ya babe!

FF12 - update
I'm 17 points ahead and the other team still has Duce Staley (RB-PHI) to play tonight. He scored 4 points in both week 9 and 10, but last week scored 27 points! So, I look pretty good, unless he has an oustanding week again. He is probably for tonight, with a knee injury.

If I win, it will put me at 6-6. The division lead (Avalance) is 6-5 and I'm tied for 2nd with Dilbert Dawgs who is also at 5-6. Currently the Dawgs are playing the Avalance and are behind by 14 points. The Dawgs have Hearst (RB-SF) and Lewis (TE-PHI) left to play, and Avalance have Cortez (K-SF) left. So, it is possible the Dawgs could win tonight, and that would put our division in a three way tie for lead at 6-6 with only two more games to play! Right now I have the division high score for the week, which looks good going into the two remaining games, when I'll have to play the Dawgs and the Avalance.

The Dark Side
I've sucumbbed to the Dark Side... I put up my Christmas lights before Thanksgiving!

I always think... wow, how commerical is this getting, and how can stores be putting up their Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving, etc.

But really it is a anit-procrastination thing, and something for Tina and Jaime. Jaime thinks it is Christmas as soon as the first snow flake is sighted! We are supposed to have a cold spell moving in, so I took advantage of the warm weather yesterday and put them up. Forgot all about it till I turned the corner coming home last night and saw them up. Pretty cool! It does kind of put me in the mood. And it probably gave the neighborhood a heart-attack! ;-) There are some pretty nicely decorated houses in our area, and I think last year all I did was put a green and red lightbulb in the lights by the garage door! But this year I'm the first one with them up. Yeah, I know. The Dark Side. ;-)

Drumming
Drummed last night with Fusion Worship while they were jamming after service. It was very cool. Weird how it just feels right some time. I mean, I went up there just to mess around and so Michael could play guitar, and even though we were just jamming and goofing around, it was some cool worship for me. Just playing, feeling the Holy Spirit there... Hard to explain if you've never been there... but it was good.

Revealing yourself
So... I emailed a pointer to my support letter for next year's mission trip to about 30 - 50 people. Along with that I put pointers to this blog and to the fusion worship blog.

Its one thing to write a blog and tell a few people about it, and quite another thing to tell 50 people about it! Yeah, I know, EVERYONE can read it, since it is on the internet. But its one of 750K on blogspot. What is the chance of someone stumbling across it? It is another thing to let quite a few people I KNOW about it.

The whole blogging thing is still pretty strange to me. I really like doing it... but I always wonder what to write. There are some good examples out there. I know what I like to read, and it isn't necessarily what I write. Kind of strange thinking what to write, sometimes deleting stuff, etc. Wondering if people will think you are a freak, just dumb, whatever. But I still think it is cool.

If you happen to stop by and read this, PLEASE sign the guest book. I'm just interested in knowing if anyone reads this. Thanks! :-)

Hmm...
I post a poem this morning.
6 hours later I read a post by MightyGirl discussing her and b-may laughing at a poem a guy is reciting on a city bus.
Coincidence, or is someone trying to tell me something? ;-)

Warm Blanket
Standing in the shower
Water pouring down and engulfing me
Like a warm blanket
Keeping the cold at bay

Suddenly, water rushing in the tub
Warmth turns to dread
Anticipation, grabbing the last few seconds of warmth
The blanket is thrown back and warmth turns to cold
I stop the cold, standing, waiting

Water stops in the tub,
I grab the handle and pull
Standing, waiting
The warmth returns, pouring down and engulfing me
Like a warm blanket

Jaime says I'm a freak... but hey, I was reading The LSAmagazine from the U of M this morning and got inspired.

Links for today
James was the 19th most popular baby name in the US
Reading about hash functions today.

Teri : 3-0
Tina: leaning forward and showing Teri her hand, What color is this?
Teri: Boga... Boga... Bogata Blackberry!
Tina: Wow, I didn't think you'd get that one!

Teri is now 3 & 0. She has guessed all 3 of the last colors Tina has worn. And now Tina is picking colors based on how different they seem from "mainstream." Either this is incredible... or they are playing a hugh joke on me. Which would be incredible in and of itself!

Colorado
Walking out the back entrance from the building last night, leaving work. Noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There is a doe and fawn standing on the lawn munching on the green grass. I whistled at them and the fawn bounced over to the doe... who just looked up and went back to eating.
Very cool living in Colorado.

IBM's new SuperComputers
A Reuters' article on IBM's newest supercomputers.

ASCI Purple will run at 100 teraflops, or 100 trillion calculations per second, eight times faster than its current supercomputer ASCI White and at a speed equivalent to the human brain, IBM said.

Hmm... most days my brain doesn't seem to be doing 100 trillions calculations per second, but maybe that's just me.

CMA
Tom, Jennifer, Steve and I will be leading Praise and Worship for the opening of the CMA (Christian Ministry of Arts in Denver) dance performance on the 25 (a week from today). Emily (Tom and Jennifer's daughter) has been involed for quite a few years, and Jaime has gone to a few camps and performed a few times, so I've gone up there before. It is always been pretty cool. Another way to worship God, in the form of dance!

Why?
After hearing, for the umpteenth time, "Man, blogging seems like a total waste of time. Why would you do that, and who would read it?", I figured I'd respond. And I figured I'd respond here. Which in some way probably points to why I blog. :-) It gives me a place to talk, post my random bits of wisdom, etc., without having to really say it to ANYbody, but instead to EVERYbody. Well, mostly to myself, but hey - you know what I mean.

So... why? I don't know. My best defense is, "Well Blogger says they have 750K blogs going, so 3/4 of a MILLION people can't be all wrong." But here are some other reasons:

• I thought b-may's was very cool, started reading more, and then figure out how easy it was to do it for myself
  
• I always wanted an easy to modify web page, and this is a way to do that (yeah, I hear the "Well why would you want to do that" - response)
  
• It is a way for folks to keep up with what I'm doing, without me having to send them email, etc. (which I'm very bad at). Yeah, maybe no one cares or is doing that, but it still a reason
  
• Because I'm an introvert not an extravert and it is easy to "talk" to my computer
  
• Because some of my other sites do communicate actual information (like Fusion-Worship)
  
• Because I'm a computer geek, this seems cool, and so why not.
  

The last one may be the most "real" reason - the one that counters "isn't it a waste of time." Some would probably say that when I started writting internal web pages at Digital, that it was a waste of time too. Not spreading much "knowledge", but just "personal stuff". However, it was a way of LEARNING. After doing it for a while, I got pretty good at throwing together a content based web page. Maybe not something with lots of bells and whistles, but something where you could go get info. The same is true here... maybe. I'm learning about blogging, and in doing so, MAYBE I'll learn real ways it can be used. Yeah, there may not be many (if any) people that care about my fantasy football scores, or whatever, but some of the youth in the Fustion Worship Team MAY want an easy, electronic, year 2000 kind of way to find out if we have practice, when their team plays, etc. And if I have never stumbled across b-may, thought blogging was cool, got hooked on it, and started with this page... then I probably would have never put that page together. Instead I'd still be waiting for the church (or some external - free - easy to access web site) to get set up so I could electronically spread info. Instead, I found Blogger and Blogspot, and its been a snap.

So... that's my answer. Guess I've wasted enough time during lunch, and should get back to work!

A few more Geek links
Added a few more Geek links:

• MathWorld - which is a link to all kinds of math information, and
• Wikipedia - which is a link to a free web based encylopedia. Pretty cool!

FF 10: 5-6 - I won!
I won a game! And it was close, 89 to 86! Actually the official score isn't till after tonight's game, and I've seen it change a little. So, hopefully the scores will hold.
I picked up another QB and some WRs, dropping my RBs down to 2. Now I'm stuck with a RB who is playing backup, so I'll have to shift some things around. But most of my team did well this week, including my reserves!

• Brunell,M QB 19
• Mungro, J RB 0
• Porits, C RB 18
• Driver, D WR 18
• Johnson, C WR 6 - new WR for me
• Miller, B TE 4
• Andersen, M K 5
• Saints DT 9
• Total 89 points!
• Culpepper, D QB 24
• Lucas, R QB 15
• Garnder, R WR 10
• Moss, R WR 17
• Galloway, J WR 4
• Cowboys DT 6
• Reserve Total 76

So even my reserves did really well. I could have picked up 5 more points by playing Culpepper and 11 more playing Moss... so actually I did pretty ok, seeing as how inconsistent they've both been for me. But, time to look for another RB. One division team ahead of me lost, so that puts me 1 back. The other is still unknown, with 2 WRs in tonight, but at best they'll go to 6-5, else 5-6. So, I'm still only one back. But there are only 3 more weeks left in the regular season! But its still possible I could get into the playoffs.

Shots
Jaime and I are such wimps. Good thing to know I passed something on to my daughter. ;-) We had to get tetanus shots today for the trip. We were both dreading it, psyching our selves up. Doesn't help when everyone is like, "Wow... tetanus shot, that really hurts." It was painless... but we still had a great time driving to the doctors office and talking about passing out, screaming, etc. A bonding time. I love my kid! :-)
While I was there I also got the first of my hepatis-A (or is it B?) shots.

Prayer
Went to prayer at the high school today. Hadn't been all week. Jaime wasn't going to work at chuch today, so she didn't have to get up early and go. Last night she asked if I wanted to go anyway. It is cold, early, etc., but you just start missing it if you don't go once or twice a week. Hard to explain. It was cool. I just love praying with the teens. Lots of prayer this morning for family members, and for the trip to Costa Rica.

What was that about?
overheard in the hallway, walking back from lunch
So, how much blood do you think you get from a cow when you slaughter it?
Oh, I don't know. 5 or 6 gallons?
I just kept walking

Leonid Flux Estimator
ARE YOU WONDERING...

• What is the best location for viewing the 2002 Leonid meteor shower?
  
• What night do I need to go out to see the the shower from my hometown?
  
• How active is the shower expected to be?

Now, you can calculate the answers yourself with the handy Leonid Flux Estimator. It is a Java applet that allows you to calculate the expected Leonid shower rate for a given date and a given location. It also allows you to see the difference between staying downtown or moving out into the country side to a dark and clear location. All rates were calculated by taking into account the Moon light.

Jon Orpia
Jon Orpia was the leader of a YWAM DTS that came though town this summer and did some worship at Impact. He was a great guy and had a great heart for worship. He died last week. More comments on that and my thoughts are on the Fusion Worship blog, as well as pointers to other sites.

Toddlers and phones
Sitting in my cube, listening to a co-worker try to get off the phone

Bye... bye.... ok, bye.... bye.... Can you put mommy back on the phone? Bye.... bye... BYE...

Argh
Up at 4:20 AM. Logged on. Entered some test data by request. Worked on some documentation. Got ready for work. [ Crest Whitestrips, just gotta love that feel/taste. :-}] Took Jaime to piano. Got to work, prepared for today's Configuration Brown Bag. Discussed some cool stuff. Grabbed lunch. Went to check out a few blogs. Windows locks. Reboot. Brought up Outlook.

Now staring at the screen while Mail (reindexes... whatever the heck it does for 15 minutes when it comes up after a crash) and SLOWLY moving around the rest of my system. Hey, at least I got this up so I can sit here and WHINE. :-)

FF 10 4-6
Well, since the Bronco's lost so miserably to the Raiders, Portis didn't give me the 31 points I needed. He still did respectable though with 13. The CommGuru is suggesting I drop both my QBs... not a good place to be. Oh well, we'll see what happens next week. I'm not 4-6, which puts me 2 back from the division lead.

FF 10a Maybe
Well I put in Brunell for Culpepper, which was theoretically a good thing, since they benched Culpepper. But Brunnel also only picked up 7 points (same as Culpepper) so it really didn't help much. Picking up Ricky Williams, and then dropping him and picking up his replacement James Mungro turned out to be one of my smartess moves yet. (At least in the short term). He scored 23 points. My top player! Donald Driver also did OK with 13, and Morten Anderson came in with a respectable 7, as well as the Saints with 14. The rest of the players were pretty poor. The guru keeps saying to keep Randy Moss, but he keeps being a disapointment. Total points so far are 73, which puts me 31 behind my opponent who scored 104. He is done and I've still got Clinton Portis playing tonight. He has done very well for me in the past... but 31 points would be incredible for a running back (although it has happened). So it is kind of doubtful that I'll win, although I will end up with respectable points. Unfortunately 1 of the teams in my division won, one is looking very good for the win, and one might win. So unless I win tonight, I'll be 2 games back again.

Yellow Curry Chicken
Since I've been asked for my recipies before, I figured I'd start putting them out here, whenever I get around to trying something new. I was in the mood for curry Friday night, so I went to the store to pick up some ingredients, and found some stuff from Thai Kitchen. I didn't follow their recipie exactly, and what I made turned out very good, although pretty mild. I used a small whole chicken cut-up (next time I'll use boneless chicken breast - faster and better) and 1/2 teaspoon curry paste (since it was so mild). I also like the flavor of yellow more then green or red, hence the yellow curry powder.

14 oz Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk
1/2 t Thai Kitchen Green Curry Paste
1 1/2 t Yellow Curry Power

Pour coconut milk into a large sauce pan and whisk in curry paste and powder. Cook over medium heat (stirring once in a while) for 5 minutes.

2 lbs bonless skinless chicken breasts, cut in cubes
1/4 lb green beans, snapped in about inch long pieces
Can Garbanzo beans - not sure size, about 14oz
1 medium onion chopped into 1/2 pieces
1 Cup chicken broth

Add the rest of the ingredients to the curry sauce, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the chicken is done, about 10 minutes.

Serve with white rice. Simple and fast! This would also be great with Thia Eggplant in the curry, if you can find it

Its WHAT color?
I think I mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again...

The Pastor's wife (Terry) has this knack, talent, gifting, for knowing all the OPE colors. (OPE - if I spelled it right, is a nail polish brand they use at nail salons). About a month ago she saw Tina had gotten her nails done again and said, "Oh, you're wearing 'NYPD Beet'". What? "I know all the colors." Then about a week ago Tina had her nails done again and I was there talking to her and Terry looks over and says, "Oh, you changed to 'Vampire State Building'."

It just kind of amazes me.

What a beautiful day
Last week at prayer at Dorhety, it was pretty cold, snowy, etc. Today the wind was really blowing, but it was near 50 degrees! Just a really nice day. Like I keep saying, gotta love Colorado!

What I work on
People sometimes ask me, "So, what do you do at MCI?". I work on the Infrastructure of a Fraud Detection System called Sheriff. (Statistical Heuristic Engine to Reliably and Inteligently Fight Fraud). Yeah, its a mouthful, but it is a cool name. And it was a name just looking for an acryonm. :-) [Giving credit where it is due, Jim Patterson came up with the name]. Anyway, not to go into details, but fraud detection deals with things like this. Determining when someone is using a stolen credit card. In the past there wasn't a lot of discussions about fraud outside the industry, but it is increasingly hitting the internet and popping up in news articles. Since I saw the article, figured I'd post a link to it. :-)

Martina is gone
I know, hard to believe, but we have gotten rid of yet another dog.

I'm pretty sure it is our (meaning Tina and Jaime) mission in life; to perform dog transfers. Find a dog that needs a home, keep it for about 6 months, and then find someone that really loves it. So far this has worked out well for the dogs, in that they usually go somewhere that the people really love them and spoil them rotten. This happened with Baby and it looks like it will happen with Martina as well. I'm not too sure I'm thrilled with the idea though. :-} But I've been assured that Martina was "the last one."

New Cell Phone
I got a new cell phone. If you had the old number, give me a call at home to get my new one.

I just spent the last few hours playing with it and programming in the numbers I stored. I can do this from the web (which would be very cool, and much faster), but apparently it won't be available in my area for another 30 days or so. Well actually customer support said (it could be as soon as tomorrow, or up to 30 days). Since I didn't feel like being without the numbers, I just programmed them. Still, cool functionality. Store them on the web and then download/edit them whenever. Technology, its a great thing.

Republicans win the Senate
So, looks like the Republicans won the Senate. I would hope that with them controlling 2 of the 3 branches, they'll be able to get something done now. We'll see.

Local (CO) results can be found here

Sometimes its just FREE
A group of youth that pray in the mornings at their high school decided it would be cool to give away free hot chocolate this morning. So I took Jaime and a few of her friends that are home schooled over there and we helped hand it out. It is amazing how hard it is for some people to believe something is totally free. (Kind of like God's grace and salvation, huh?).

What... its free? Really?

OK... what you'd do to it?

But some where just like, "Cool. OK".

It was a fun time and it was kind of a cool experience. They also took some into the school staff. I think they want to do it again in December. Just a bunch of kids, getting up early, and doing something nice for their fellow students... just because.

FF9 4-5
Well I lost again. This time with a pitiful 41 points! Not a single touchdown! I should probably replace Culpepper with Brunell, but last time I did that, Culpepper scored 30 points just to spite me. :-} I've picked up another running back (James Mungro). I picked up Ricky Williams (Ind) last week, and he went out with a hamstring before the game even started! So now I have Mungro, and if looks like he'll start, rather than Williams, I'll put him in.
Luckily my division is the worst in the league, so I'm still only one game back. Every other team in my division also lost this week. A few of my better players had a bye last week, so hopefully I'll do better this week. Consistency...

Pretty good!
The California Roll wasn't as good as Jun's, but then again I think Jun's is probably the best. But it was good. I really like it with Smelt Eggs, and most places that I've eaten at don't do that (besides Jun's). The Cherry Blossom was cool. It said Avacado, Salmon and Tuna. I was kind of expecting them to be mixed, but it was 6 pieces, two pieces with one of them. But the inside was like a California Roll... so it was like 6 pieces of CA Roll, but two with Tuna on the ouside, two with Salmon and two with Avacado. Nice.

Well... now that I've eaten 12 pieces of Sushi, drank some Miso and Diet Mt Dew, I guess it is time to go fix some code on a Cold, Snowy, Cloudy, Colorado Friday afternoon. Can you say nap? ;-)

Sushi
Yum, sushi for lunch today.

Howard said he was going to Ai Sushi and Grill. He pointed me to the menu on the web. Very cool. I'm getting the California Roll (favorite standby), Cherry Blossom (sounds good!) and Miso. Usually I eat sushi at Jun's, but this place is closer and Howard has eaten there before. Can't wait to try it out!

The web site was a little disappointing, in that it says "Best viewed with IE" and it pretty much turns out it doesn't work with Netscape at all. Oh well, that is why I have 3 browsers installed on my machine!

Just because
Having just returned from a reboot, where my PC froze up for no reason at all, I'm reminded of:

Tina: How come you had to reboot the server? Did I do something wrong?
Me: No
Tina: Well then why was it broken?
Me: Because it's Windows. That's just the way it is.

'Nuff said...

Leaving low earth orbit
NASA Deputy Chief announced "We're Leaving Low Earth Orbit"

cool!

It's a Beautiful Day
Yesterday was the first big "storm" of the winter. 30 car pile up near Larkspur, black ice everywhere, hour and ten minutes to get home. Pretty typical.

This morning I went to pray with the youth for 30 minutes out front of their high school. Roads are dry, traffic is flowing, sun is shinning, it's in the teens, the air is crisp, clouds massing and blowing off the top of the Peak, which is snow covered and surrounded by pines. You just have to love living in Colorado!

13 teens are there for prayer. One new kid David just walks up, joins hands and starts going for it. We're all bundled up, holding hands, talking to God. It's a beautiful day. Gotta love it.

FSI
Friendship Sports International is a GREAT missionary outreach to Houndouras, sharing the gospel via sports. Besides sharing the gospel, and doing outreaches, they provide real practical help via work camps, ministry conferences, etc. Jim King is a long time friend and the director of FSI. I just got a newsletter from him yesterday and was surprised to hear that support is down 15% since 9-11. What a drag. Yes, the economy is down and people are having hard times, but what a shame that we stop supporting ministries such as this one. Not only are the ministries financies down, but his personal support has also dropped considerably.

Jim is a great guy and a great worker for the Lord. He and his entire family scarifice much to live out the calling that God has put upon his life. It saddens me to think that they would suffer financially, when they give so much in other areas. I have increased my support of this ministry. I know not many people probably read this blog... but if you happen to run across this and are looking for a place to give financially, where your money will really make an impact, both spiritually and physically, I suggest you take a look at FSI.

Thanks...

FF8: 4-4 !
Hey, I won a game!

Week 8 and I'm now at 4-4. This puts me in 3rd place in the division, based on points, but tied for second based on win-lose. So, I'm now only one game back. Every other team in my division lost! Surprising what a difference one week makes. So, I'm still in the running! I also had 2nd highest points for the week, which moves me up some in the overall scores!

Joey Galloway scored 12 and Billy Miller scored 13, so the new players I picked up did good for me. Moss scored 17 and Culpepper 15, which are good, but not as good as some "stars", but they helped bring in the win. And Clinton Portis scored 23 points and continues to show that he was a good mid-season replacement! Portis as well as Morten Anderson are on byes next week, so I may be a little light... but maybe I'll be ok. Things are looking up once again for the Wolverines!

Powers of Ten
Pretty cool site where you can, "View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons."

Fusion Worship Home Page
Updated all the information on the Fusion Worship Home Page today and redid the Fusion Worship blog to point to it.. My first attempt at doing a "home page", with a blog, that gives static information about the blog. Kind of cool. We'll see how it works. Eventually I'll probably do one for this page as well, that talks more about who I am, etc. Kind of the static information behind the running journal, etc.

Visitor Count
Cool... I got the visitor stuff to work. (Had trouble the other day, but that was probably more on my end than anything). It will be a bit weird, because it counts me as a visitor (due to my ever changing ip address), which means most of the visitors will be me... But it is something free and fun to play with.

OK
Somone comes into my cube and says, "I can't think of a way to ask this question so you give me the answer I want."
So I just replied, "No." ;-)

Help!
Hey, I couldn't post all morning due to: "Blogger is down for repairs. Please check back soon. Sorry for the inconvenience". Kind of went into a panic when I couldn't talk to the world... ok, really to myself. :-) Kind of a weird feeling though when I couldn't post. You just start taking things for granted!

Because it's a principle
Downstairs in the cafe trying to decided what to get to drink for breakfast. Hmm... I think I'll get milk. What? No 1/2 pints of milk today. Drag. In principle I'm against getting the pint of milk because a 1/2 pint is $0.55 and a pint is $1.15. I just don't get how you charge over twice for something that is only twice as much. Yeah, only a nickle, but hey, it is a principle. So... a pint of milk, or the Diet Mt. Dew. Not really a Diet Mt Dew kind of morning... so I settle on the CHOCHOLATE milk. There... I didn't buy the plain milk for $1.15. Probably doesn't help my mostly protien low carb diet, but oh well.

Sitting at my desk, reading Mighty Girl and glance over and notice on the bottle. "An Excellent Source of Calcium". There we go! The Chocholate milk WAS the right choice. After all, I stood by my principle, AND it is healthy, because it's "an excellent source of calcium". :-)

Why write this on a blog? Well, after reading bmay, Mighty Girl and GirlWonder, while eating my sasuage, eggs, and CHOCHOLATE milk, it just seemed like the right thing to do. :-) Off to reviewing other people's code. Have a good one out there!

Fireworks
Kind of a cool site.

Well that was fun
At the Dentist yesterday for a crown. I've never had one before, and with my general dislike of having someone stick a drill in my mouth, along with my low pain tolerance, I wasn't looking forward to it. Not exactly sure what he was going to do, but still not too thrilled.

Dental Assistant: We just need to take an X-ray and then the Dr. will stop by to explain what he is going to do.
Me: OK
A few minutes later
Dr: You have an abscessed tooth. We are either going to have to pull it or remove the dead nerve.
I give him kind of a dazed look
Dr: So, we'll either have to pull it or remove the dead nerve. I'll have the assistant stop by and give you the price difference.

At this point I'm thinking... I came in for a crown. Whatever he said sounds suspiciously like a root canal. I've heard of those... they don't sound fun.
Asst: So, here's how much it costs for a root canal.
Me: Fine...

Dr: So, you've decided on having us remove the dead nerve. - or something like that
Asst: You always call it that, instead of a root canal, and then I come in and tell them how much it will be for a root canal and they always give me this look.
Me: Exactly!

Dr: giving me the 1st shot of Novocain OK, since you didn't open your mouth wide enough I'll have to give you another shot.
Me: I thought I did have it wide open.

Dr: Did you feel that? Here, let me put some more Novocain in there.

Dr: to the asst Get me the rubber clamper, something like that
Dr: to me I hate using these things, but your tongue just isn't going to stay out of the way.
He then inserts this piece of rubber that smells like a balloon, into my mouth, and a few clamps, and stuff. Kind of reminds me of something you'd see on a torture scene from a horror flick. There, that should work better.

Dr: OK, we'll that's going to taste really bad, but Novocain won't kill you, it just tastes toxic. I spilled some into your mouth while I was pouring it directly into your tooth.

Dr: Wow, this is a really hot tooth. It's bleeding pretty good.

Dr: Did you still feel that? Well, lets pour some more in there.

Dr: Boy, these roots are really curved, this is a little more complicated than normal.

Dr squirts some stuff in my mouth, packs it in with what looks like a tootsie pop stick, and then kind of jams it in there and leaves it there.
Dr: That probably looks pretty weird, having a piece of metal sticking out of your mouth like that. I'll remove it in a minute.

and finally...
Dr: Well, we're at the place you thought you were when you came in here two hours ago. Now we can do the crown prep, but we'll leave that for another day. I don't think you could take another 45 minutes of work now.

Actually it went much better than I had feared, when hearing the term "root canal". Took some Vicadan last night, and this morning it doens't hurt at all. He did a good job.

FF7 : 3-4
As I slip further in the standings. Lost this week, 47 to 58. I had 50 points as of Sunday night, but somehow lost 3 more points once they came out with the official score. The other team was 8 points behind, with the Steelers defense to play Monday night... which did really well.

At this point my only players that consistently score for me are Morten Andersen(K) and Clinton Portis(RB), and my defense (Saints or Cowboys) do OK. But I'm not going to win much with a RB, K and defense. :-} Culpepper continues to get pretty good reviews from the NFL Fantasy gurus, and Randy Moss continues to be ranked as the #1 WR... although with giving me scores like 8 points this week, I'm not sure why. In an effort to pick up another good RB, I dropped Jamel White - who hadn't been doing much for me, and picked up Mike Alscott, who scored 25 points last week. This week he score -1 and Jamel White scored 15. Sigh.... And John Davis, who had been doing OK, scored 1 point before he got injured and left the game.

I've been missing when some of my players, like Culpepper do well... so I think I'm going to stick with playing them all the time, on the off chance they do well once in a while and I win at least something.

I'm now near the bottom of the league, w/o much chance of a wildcard spot (based on my overall score). My only chance is to win the division, where I'm currently in 3rd: 5-2, 4-3, 3-4 and 1-6. So, I'm only 2 games out of the lead... but with how I've been scoring lately, and how they've been scoring, it doesn't look good.

I must just look young
Waitress: Would you like to start with something to drink? We have on special tonight.
Jaime: Sure, I'll have one of those.
Waitress: OK
Jaime: No, just kidding, I'll have water, laughing
Waitress leaves
Jaime: Dad, do you think she thought I was old enough to drink?
Me: Yeah.
.....
Waitress: How old are you?
Jaime: 15
Waitress: Really!? I thought you were 25 or so, until you called him Dad.
Waitress leaves
Jaime: I can't believe she thought I was 25. Do I really look that old? That's cool. Did she think we were on a date?
Me: Yeah, I guess I just look really young for my age, or she just thought you were out with a much older guy.
Jaime: Hey... that's sick!

Well... I thought it was cool that she though I was young enough to be out with Jaime, but I guess Jaime thought it was pretty sick that the waitress thought she was out with someone MY age. Kids... they keep you real. :-)

Tina
Tina is coming home today! I'm excited.

Pack Rat
Tina's in England, Jaime is on a D-Group trip, and I'm home alone. So, I figured this morning might be a good time to throw away some stuff I haven't looked at it a LONG time. Went through about 8 boxes in my closet, throwing away

• Books - I haven't read in quite some time, and didn't think were that good in the first place... I just hate to throw away books
  
• Old mail - from '95 - '98 - yeah, if I haven't needed it in the last 4 years, I guess I can throw it away
  
• Stuff from UofM - I did get rid of my Database Design notes, notes from some less interesting classes, and some of my tests... although I still couldn't throw out my term paper for "Philosophy of Space and Time" where I asked the age old question "Does Back to the Future's philosophy of Time Travel coincide with modern-day thought?"
  

All in all, I threw away about 5 boxes and kept 3. Pretty good for me. Probably would have thrown out more, but the garbage truck comes at 8:00. I was basically taking boxes down as I filled them up. More on another day!
Plus I found some stuff I've been looking for, for about a year now, off and on, but just couldn't remember what I did with. Jaime will be happy to know I finally found the TAPS video!

Generation Gap
Sitting in Gunter Toody's, having breakfast with Jaime, listening to a Beatles' song. Start talking about the Beatles, how it is so weird that there are only two still alive, Mike Meyers, and then I mention Beatles and Rock 'n Roll
J: The Beatles are a Rock and Roll band?
Me: YES, why, what did you think they were?
J: Oh I don't know. I really like them, but I guess I always considered them to be a boy band.
Me: A BOY BAND.
Sigh... were did I go wrong? ;-)

Fish & Chips
Tina is in England, eating fish & chips and having a good time. Tired, but having fun and there safe and sound. She's going into London today!

Medicine, more of an art than a science
From a article on Reuters:

The art and science of anesthesiology is choosing the right dose," he said. "There is very little difference between the effective dose and the toxic dose of most anesthetics..." He said scientists do not fully understand how anesthesia works...

Well that makes me feel so much better...

Tommy T's
Went to Tom & Jennifer's after dropping Tina @ DIA.
Sushi, prayer, worship, Starbucks... hey, doesn't get much better than that!
The worship was very cool. Laid down several tracks on 2 different songs. First one very powerful, strong drums, just a great battle song. Very cool stuff. Second song was very laid back, kind of bluesy I guess. Kind of made me think of someone sitting on the porch of a swamp shack, Spanish moss hanging around; just mellowly(a word?) worshipping God.
Collaborating was so fun. Just great to get together with worshippers of like mind and work on a project. Jennifier writes some great stuff.
Very cool. I need to get back soon.

Good and Bad
Taking Tina up to DIA today so she can go visit Becky in England for a week. Very cool for her, but I'll miss her. :-(
But... since I'm up in Denver anyway, Jaime and I will be going over to Tommy T's to check out their recording and maybe lay down some percussion tracks. That will be very cool!

Ouch
Riding in the car, taking Jaime to piano, singing a Third Day song.
Me: I'm trying to sing higher, since you said I shouldn't sing it so low.
J: Body shaking as she turns towards the window
Me: What? Why are you laughing
J: still laughing. I'm not laughing! in an innocent voice
Me: What, is my voice bad.
J: Turning towards me. No, your voice is fine. I'm not laughing, and she obviously is.
Me: Yes you are laughing. Why are you laughing?"
J: Still laughing. Its just.... you are... sooo off key!, and now she is really laughing.
Me: Laughing, Well I never said I could sing.
I just love my kid. We just laugh all the time... even if it is about me. :-)

Living in the '02s
I thought these were pretty good... I usually won't post "humor mail" like this, but I did think they were funny... and true.

You know you're living in the 02's when:
1. You have 5 passwords, but can only remember one.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail your buddy who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
6. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
9. Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.
10. Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
11. You can only write on 'sticky pads'.
12. Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
13. Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.
14. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.
15. Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.
16. Interviewees, despite not having relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.
17. Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
18. Your supervisor gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, while you have time to go for lunch while your computer boots up.
19. Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital.
20. There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department desperately needs, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.
21. Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".

AND THE CLINCHERS ARE..

22. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.
23. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "friends".

FF6
Update Monday morning. Yup, made a fatal error by not playing Culpepper. Current score is 49 to 60, with the other team having their QB to play tonight. So, I'm 11 points down, and I'm done. However, if I had played Culpepper instead of Brunell, I'd be at 78. And then if I had also played the Saints(31) instead of the Cowboys(7), I'd have picked up another 24 points, and be at 102. Unlikely that Garcia would score 42 points, so I would have won. The good news is that the potential was there, if I had played the right players. So *maybe* I'll do better next week...
My record is now 3-3, with my division looking like it will be 4-2, 3-3, 3-3 and 1-5, but I won't know until after tonight's game. So... I'm just one back and tied for 2nd... Ever the optimist. :-S

FF6.1
So... I know why I don't manage a football team. :-S
I struggled all week with which QB to play. Culpepper or Brunell. Culpepper had been having a little trouble, but all the NFL guru's, etc. said he would probably do pretty good. So, I figured I'd play him, since he is my starting QB. But then I also read some stuff that said that Brunell should do excellent. That the Titans had no pass defense, and he should get some really good numbers.
So, I'm at church, working, but watching the game via the internet... and I notice that Brunell isn't putting up any good numbers. Then I notice that there is another QB in. Great, the only thing that would make me feel worse is if Culpepper got good numbers. Then I check his score. 30 points! Great... I'm currently sitting at 30 points, the team I'm playing is at 60, so I'm 30 points behind. :-( If I had played Culpepper, I'd be at 59, and still have Portis and Morten Anderson left in, plus Kyle Brady (if he gets anything). The other team still has Garcia @ QB tomorrow night... but I would have probably been in good shape. Sigh... should have gone with my first instinct. In fact I put Culpepper in a few times this week, but then on Saturday went with a hunch that Brunell would do good. So much for my hunches. :-(

Integrity
I pull up to Captain D's to grab some dinner. Next to me is a working man's truck. No hood, primer everywhere, kind of beat up looking, a couple of hitches on the back.
I'm standing in line when a woman comes in and starts talking to a guy waiting for his food. They head outside.
I get my food and head out, and see them standing by his truck.
Him, laughing: Well I don't think you could hurt my truck.
Her, concern in her voice: Yeah, I probably hurt my car worse than your truck.
He looks at his truck, not even seeing a dent.
She wonders over and starts looking at her rather new looking car.
Not sure what happened... I'm guessing she pulled in and hit him somehow.
The thing that struck me the most was how decent it was of her to come in looking for the guy. Lots of people would have taken one look at the truck and just chalked it up. She didn't even scratch it, at least not that he could tell. And her car was probably messed up some. But she still went looking for him, because it was the right thing to do.

Now that's relaxing!
Driving home, coming up the on ramp, last rays of sun shinning across the valley, trees all yellow. Then I see him. Sitting in a chair (the kind that comes in a bag), feet propped up on his backpack, sunglasses on, thumb up. Just kicking back, waiting for a ride. Relaxing and catching the last few rays before winter starts setting in

Blogging, what else?
Another Friday night, not much going on, everyone is asleep. Might as well hop on the net and do some blogging. Mostly at Fusion Worship, not here.

Talking to myself
So, is anyone out there? Probably not. Maybe at some point I'll put this link on my signature. But for now, I'm probably pretty much talking to myself, although there may be a few people (like Jaime) reading this.

Comments anyone?
I was reading The Homeless Guy, and noticed he had comments. I thought that was kind of cool, so figured I'd try it out.
I actually added a comment, and then editted this entry. Turns out it was pretty easy.
I'm kind of amazed at all this free stuff that is out there to help you do this kind of stuff. Pretty cool.

Maintainable code, why bool can be bad as a parameter
Having grown used to using some form of a Boolean as a parameter, it has been nagging me how unreadable this makes the calls to the method using them as parameters. In more expressive languages, which use keywords (or named parameters) such as Bliss, LISP, our CLIPS extensions, etc. it isn't too bad... because you have something like foo(:doSomething) or foo(:doSomething True). However, in C++, it just looks like foo(True). And when you have multiple parameters, it can make remembering what (True) means rather difficult.
I usually just resolve this by grumbling about how stupid C++ is, and why doesn't it have a better way to do this; rather than doing something constructive like thinking about a solution. :-}. Today I ran across an article that had a great explanation of why you should use enums rather than bool for these type of paramters. Great stuff. Sometimes (most the time?) you just have to read someone elses words to realize how obvious something is. ;-)

How many hidden bugs?
So, how long does it take to find all the bugs in your code? We have code that was probably written in '97, been in production since '97 or '98, and we just now found a bug... and that wasn't because it didn't work. We were in fixing some stuff... cause in C++ the fact that something compiles, and even works, doesn't gurantee it will work forever. Oh yeah, you aren't supposed to do that. It can work, but it isn't guranteed to work. Sigh Anyway, I'm in code reviewing the fix, and I look at another method (yeah, I like that term instead of function - sue me) and I think... How does this work. It isn't even doing close to what it says, and upon further examination I figure out that it just happens to work. The fact that whole blocks of code are ignored works out because there is only one caller, and they just happen to set up things right so that it works out ok. And it's only been that way for 6 or 7 years.
Just makes you wonder how many bugs are out there just waiting to raise their nasty heads!

HTML as a writting format
Just a off-the-cuff, minny discussion.
I use to consider HTML something that you'd use to write web pages, for the most part. Yeah, once in a while you'd use it for something that was displayed on a web page. Something like this, or other web based news groups I've been a part of. But lately I've come to realize that it is really a simple, yet formatted, way to write other mildly complex documents.
Since writting (probably can't tell from my spelling or grammer :-S), is part of my job, I end up writting a large number of documents. I use to write everything as a .doc file. As I became less of a designer, and more of a architect, i.e., keeper of the standards, release notes writter, generator of raw API documentation, etc., I was creating a large number of very small documents. As I started putting more and more of this information on the web, I started, of course, writting it all in HTML. This gradually migrated to the point where even medium size documents that I would normally generate as a .doc file, and then mail to someone, I'm now writting as HTML.
Using Netscape Composer, you can get some pretty simple formatting (but enough to do mildly complex things) and it is much more light-weight than say some word processor. Plus it is in TEXT so you rarely have corruption problems.
Anyway, whereas I use to write a majority of documents in a word processor outputting them as .doc files, I now primarly use HTML. In fact, I'm not sure of the last time I created a doc file.
Just a thought. :-)

You're never to young to Worship
Update on the latest Children's Church worship. It was a good time, and we are getting very positive feedback. Thank you God!

Hazards of blogging
I'm reading Mighty Girl, and going back through some of her favorites and I as I'm setting my sandwich down, I crack up, knocking the top onto my desk, where I end up getting mayo all over my phone cord.
Well if not hazzardous to your health, it can at least be messy for your desk.
A bit moody today, so it was well worth the laugh.

FF5
Another losing week for the Wolverines...

I played Warrick Dunn, and benched Clinton Portis , on the advice of the gurus, even though he did well for me the week before. CP scored 17 points and WD scored 2! So, I could have picked up 15 points! Well, I lost by 17, so I would have lost anyway... but I'm definately playing him next week!

Our division is now in a 3 way tie for the lead, at 3-2. And the other team is 0-5. Within the league there is one 4-1 and eight 3-2! So... I'm still in the lead... but not feeling real great about it. Although, it looks like (based on stats) that I should win next week... so I still think I'm holding on!

Things that make me melt

• Tiffany, 15 years old, Disney World, walking up to Mickey for an autograph. The one look was worth the $5000 it cost for the week.
  
• Tina - when her eyes say "I love you"
  
• The look in Jaime's eyes, yesterday, as I move over in my go-cart and she yells as she speeds by "Thanks Daddy!"
  

I've been truely blessed. I feel for fathers that don't get along with their daughters. Besides a wife's love, there isn't much better than the expressions that make a father melt.

Girls are different than Guys
Contrary to what some enligthened people think, it is true that girls are different from guys. Last night's SHOC was a great example of that!
Pastor Rick really felt we were supposed to pray for everyone, so we all joined in a circle and prayed for the person in the middle. This was taking some time, and we were running out of time, so he split us into two groups. Guys praying for guys, girls for girls. About 10 minutes later the guys were done. Probably an hour after that the girls were done. Pretty much the same amount of people. Guys are just pretty brief for the most part. "You're cool, God thinks you're great. You're going to do great things." Girls tend to be much more emotional. "I love you. I'm going to cry now. You are the most awesome person in the world."
Nothing wrong with either approach. God just made us different. It was a very cool thing. Some great words, some great prayer... but most of it kind of personal, so I won't post it here. But it just struck me once again that, yeah, guys and girls are different. :-)

The Homeless Guy
Saw a post for a blog, from another blog. Checked it out. It was for TheHomelessGuy. I figured I'd post a link on my blog, 'cause it looked kind of interesting. I haven't read much of it yet, but I didn't want to lose the link, and as Gigs could attest, I've got way too many bookmarks.
So, I'm not saying this is the coolest thing in the world, but it looked interesting so I'm posting it here. I try and be kind of careful, 'cause I'd hate for someone to follow one of my links and read something really trashy or something, but it was cool to see he posted:

I have made this blog for ALL people to read. This includes children. Because of this, I will not tolerate any foul or abusive language in the comment boxes.

That's cool. Much stuff on the internet figures that it is their free right to post garbage, so I was happy to see the above. Anyway it looks like something interesting.

Fall Prayer
There is nothing quite like Fall Prayer. Praying with a bunch of teens outside their school. The air a cool 42 degrees. Seeing the steam as we prayer. Holding shivering hands. The mountains purple in the background. Listening to their prayers. Praying for their school, healing, doing well on their tests. Praying for strength to continue with prayer, their families, that the air conditioning will be off and their classes will be warm. That they'll be a light to their fellow students and serve them. Breaking up, hugging, laughing, and going off to their day.
Its a very cool thing, and certainly beats sleeping in! Youth are so great. I pray God that you answer all their prayers. Heal them, keep them warm, help them to be a light, and help them to recall all the answers for their tests!

Yes, I'm a Geek
Put out the fire. Found a bug in CLIPS. Fixed the bug and all is well on the system again. Pretty fun digging through the CLIPS code. Gary Riley and crew deserve a lot of credit for writting a very nice system.
And while I'm talking about Geek things, I figured I'd post a link to the patent on which I'm listed as one of the inventors!

Windy pics
Some pictures of my cousin Windy off her web site:

• with Sting
• with her brother Danny (who used to destroy my room when he was a little kid) and some other band members
  
• in a promo shot, looking like Stevie Nicks, imo.
  

Family
I was talking to Aunt Dale this weekend about Dave's web site and Steve mentioned that Windy also had a web site. So I checked it out. Wow!
Its kind of weird. You grow up with someone, their family lives at your house for a while. You hang out with them, then you grow up. Move away, lose touch, and before you know it, its been 20 years and their they've got an album out and are touring as a backup singer. And you really never knew. Cool that I know now, but kind of sad how we lose touch.

It looks like one of those weeks.
Weekend was great. Worship was great in Children's Church on Sunday. Cool thing. I'll post more on that in Fusion Worship when I get some time.
Aunt Dale was here and it was very cool to see her again. Talked about some of the cousins. I need to do some web-surfing and emailing and look them up.
Still fighting fires - in case I didn't make that clear last week, that means fighting problems at work. Not real fires, which could be easily confused here in CO this year!. Anyway, still having problems and getting further and further behind at work, and now looks like a busy week at church as well.
C'est la vie

FF:4 3-1!
Well it looks like I won this week, even with Daunte Culpepper and Randy Moss doing so un-spectacular. Lukily the other team did even worse. Unless Clinton Portis manages to lose 9 points for me tonight, which is doubtful. So, 3-1. Not too bad!

Falling out of a moving car
From Sam's Friends post:
oh well, whatever doesn't kill us makes us...well..bleed and hurt like heck!!!
LOL :-)

A GREAT Day
"Early in the morning, I will celebrate the Light", God of Wonders, Mac Powell - City on a Hill
Went and saw Third Day last night. They did God of Wonders. It was very cool. A great concert. Great music, great Worship. Mac Powell is truly a great minister of the Gospel! Its one of the reasons I really like their concerts. Not just great music, but great worship as well.
Today is a great day.
5:30 - Alarm goes off, gotta get up and head to prayer. Fall back asleep instead.
6:46 - Roll over and look at the clock. Yikes!
7:07 - In the car and on the way
7:15 - Green lights most all the way! Cool. Get to ICC
7:17 - Join in prayer @ Doherty with 17 youth and Pastor Rick
7:34 - It was a great time of prayer. Those guys/girls are sooo cool. It was just great praying and celebrating God. Great Day - crisp air, cold hands, sun shinning. God is a great God.
7:45 - Heading to work, sun shinning off the top of the "shack" on the top of the peak. Light dusting of snow. God of Wonders. What a great place we live.
8:05 - Stop @ Starbucks for a Triple Venti Carmel Machianno (however you spell it).
8:10 @ work - start of a great day.
I just lift up a prayer for all our youth. May they have a great day at school, or whatever they are doing. Be strong for God and make a great difference. You guys ROCK.

Third Day
Fire-fighting gives me many small amounts of time to post, when my brain is about to explode and I need to just stop thinking for a minute...
Anyway, Third Day's Come Together concert is tonight. That should be very cool. A chance to get away, go somewhere else, and really worship. Last time I saw them in concert, not only was it a great concert, but it was also a great time of worship. I'm really looking forward to it!

Fire Fighting
Wow... Tina's been asking me if I'm OK. Just a ton of stuff going on. Been fighting major fires @ work. That is cool, because it can be really fun to look into that kind of stuff... but man you just get really behind on your normal stuff. And then add in all the stuff going on in Fusion, etc., and it just adds up. And then Tina shooting herself with a staple gun. Just a plethora (for those that don't like the word "lots") of stuff going on right now. Really looking forward to Saturday. Mona Lisa's with Tina, Jaime and Nat should be fun.

FF - 3
So after two weeks I'm 2-0, and then this week I have the dismal score of 45 (compared to 113 and 108 the previous weeks). Something like that. Anyway, lost miserably and now am 2-1, along with about 4 other teams. Only 1 team at 3-0. I had a number of players on byes, so I'm dropping 2 RBs, 1WR and one other player I think. Anyway, hopefully the "new and improved" team will do better this week. I'm playing a 0-3 team... but with all the drop/adds allowed, it is kind of hard to tell for sure if that will matter.

Tif
Forgot to post that Tif & Brian were here this last weekend. Very cool. Was busy with work and church, but got to spend some good time with them. It was great seeing both of them again.

Which way is up?
Tina was helping Pastor Joe do some remodeling in the sanctuary yesterday and she went to staple some cloth to a wall, using an air staple gun. She had the gun backwards and shot herself with the gun, driving a 1.5 inch staple about an inch into her wrist. Lukily it didn't hit anything other than flesh, i.e., bone, blood vessels, etc. Sigh.

When was the last time it was this dry?
Since weather records only go back about a hundred years, these researchers in the university systems here have been studying tree rings to see when it's last been this dry in Colorado. Turns out this is the driest year since 1725.

Capturing the annointing
Tom asked me for any suggestions on capturing the annoiting on a recording. Its something we've talked about before. Your times of worship can be very annointed. You can feel that it is one of your greatest calls (more than the words/music sometimes). But how do you capture that? If that is the call, and all you end up with is a cd of songs, what was the point?
First of all, is it even possible? I think so. There are some great worship CDs out there where you can just feel it. I've had some great times of worship listening to Darrel Evans and most lately Third Day. The first time I heard Offerings, I could just feel it. So, it is possible, even without a live recording. And what Tom and I were talking about was a studio recording.
Not that I'm like the great experienced guy at this, as I've only done a full CD once, and helped out on a few before that... but I think the greatest thing is to just be real. I'm not sure you can engineer an annointing into a CD... most likely, lets hope not. After all, what we want is real, not manufactered. So, I think you have to have an annointed time of worship, and just happen to record it.
I guess one thing is, who is your target? If it is people who already know you, who think your music is annointed, who push into God's throne room when they come and see you... then what they want to hear is YOU. Listening to you play, as they've always heard you play, well bring back the feel and will help move them in. I believe one problem is when people try to get it too "right". They start worrying about the music and the recording, and forget about the WORSHIP! Then what you end up with is something that sounds pretty good, musically, and is engineered well, perhaps, but maybe has no soul.
So, get your stuff down, be prepared, pray it up, figure out what you want to do. Then just go in and WORSHIP God. Worship like you are doing a worship service, not like you are doing a practice, and hope that the medium captures the feeling. If your worship time doesn't feel annointed, most likely it isn't going to feel annointed when it is capture.
Maybe simple, but I'm pretty simple when it comes to worship. That's all I've got for now.

Sleep
OK... 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night is obviously not working. I've already drunk a liter of Mt Dew, and eaten all the rest of my Dark Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans, and I'm still not feeling very awake. (Note to self... never run out of Espresso Bean @ work. Always make sure there is a supply).
/me goes back to drinking more Mt Dew and continuing on with work.

Fall
Temps are dropping, and we are still getting rain every few days or so (yeah!). Driving in to work this morning I could see snow on the Peak. Finally! First time I've seen snow there in a while. Great view with all the clouds and stuff. Walking into work there was a bite in the air. Combine that with the snow and clouds, and it feels like Fall is in the air!

Argh
OK... so the second time I've messed up the link. Usually it isn't too bad, because you can always fix it. But the way the edit is set up on Blogger, if I hose the link, there is nothing I can do. I believe the problem is I forget to close the quote in the href. Anyway, trying again...

Created a blog for Fusion Worship I figured it would be good to have a separate blog for the youth worship team.

Fusion Worship
Created a blog for