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!