Monday, November 29, 2004

Things you don't want to see...

... when you are driving on icy roads - someone blowing off the light and pulling out in front of you.

I'm heading up Austin Bluffs, which is under major construction and is currently two lanes in each direction with no median... and the roads are icy and the middle "divider" (which is about 6 inches) can't be seen in most spots. So I'm traveling in the right lane, to avoid running into someone coming at me and we both get confused as to where the "middle" is.

I notice up the road a ways (at an intersection with a traffic light) that someone is crossing against the red light. Austin Bluffs has the green, but there is one coming in either direction, so they just slowly pull out and then cross the street. No harm, no foul. Sometimes the camera driven traffic lights seem to not work so well in the snow... Anyway, that car comes across, and now there are cars coming toward me (approaching the intersection) and I'm also approaching the intersection.

And the guy behind the car that just crossed against the light starts pulling out.

"Nah... he sees me... He MUST see me."
"Hmm... looks like he is going to pull out. Nah... he must just be slowly edgeing up to the intersection."

And then when I'm about 30 yards from the light... Nope, I guess I'm wrong and he is going to pull out. He has to see me, but I guess he's decided that pulling out into the right lane, when someone is coming down the right lane, at 40MPH, on an icy road, in the snow, yeah... thats an OK thing to do.

So I swerve, well not really swerve, but pull quickly into the left lane (whoo, not too icy, didn't slide - cool), shoot past him, and it all happens so fast I don't even get time to lay on the horn. No idea what just happened.

Yeah... defensive driving is always a good thing. Always keep an eye out. Apprently the traffic lights don't mean that much to some people. And this wasn't a "can I make the yellow" type thing. This was just someone setting at a red, getting tired of sitting there, and pulling out in front of someone else. Sheesh...

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Tif and Brian's new puppy

Tif and Brian where here for about a week. They just went home Saturday and today they got a cousin for Belle. I put a picture of the puppy with Tif and Brian on my picture site.

Also there are quite a few pictures from MI on the site.

Friday, November 26, 2004

Warthog Pilot

Brian has been waiting for his slot. (Getting the plane that he will be flying). He's been wanting an A-10. A couple of days ago someone from his base called. There were only 3 A-10 slots open in the US at this point in time, and he got one of them!

Very cool. We are very proud of him!

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Putting things in perspective

Friday my good friend Master sergeant Richard "Spanky" Chavez retired from the Air Force, having served 20 years. In addition to serving in Afghanistan and Iran (and who knows where else), he was also the top rated NCO at the Air Force Academy in 2000 and 2002. He is a great guy.

During the ceremony (which was awesome) they did a flag ceremony and presented him with a flag. He took it, saluted and turned and presented it to his father. Very cool stuff.

Later at dinner someone said to him, "Pretty cool when Spanky gave you the flag, huh?" He responded with something to the effect of:,
I live in a pretty small town. Some of our boys are over in Iran. Last week one of my friends received a flag because his boy had been killed over there. I'd much rather receive one this way.

Sometimes I just want to slap people

I'm driving down the road, going downhill. I'm in the left lane and I'm closing the gap between me and the car in front of me. In the right lane is a Semi (big rig truck) and behind it is a station wagon. The left lane is going faster than the right, because the semi isn't going all that fast. All of a sudden the station wagon (as I'm closing the gap on the car in front of me) speeds up a little and swerves over into my lane in front of me. In the back seat (the one at the very back) are two little kids, seating facing me, their faces barely visible over the tailgate, with these "O" looks on their faces. I look and there are actually 4 kids in the car. Two in the middle seat and two in the far back. Little kids, in their car seats.

OK... so where is this lady going in such a hurry that she has to swerve in front of a Jeep with a station wagon full of little kids - just so she doesn't get stuck behind a semi for a bit.

I was seriously irratated at her for the rest of the trip that she was next to me.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Computers - work vs fun

I've noticed lately that I'm rarely on the computer for fun any longer. I'm reading many blogs, not surfing much, not working on MY blog, etc.

We went to MI. I have some trip updates, some pictures to post. I'm also in a cooking home group, where a couple of us are doing an Emril kind of thing. Made three soups which were pretty good. I thought about posting the recpies to my recpie blog. But I just don't seem to be doing it.

I think computers are being where I work more and more, and less where I play. I havn't mushed for weeks... That's kind of sad. Hopefully it is just because there is SO much going on at work.

Could also be because I have Halo II and if I'm "playing", I'm usually playing that. But still... I've got to turn this trend around. I've got a few weeks off at the end of the year, so hopefully I'll get caught up on posting at least!

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Election result maps

Here are some pretty interestingelection result maps. Not just the typical ones, but by county and other results. Don't have time to look at them in entirity, but maybe later.

I'm at Herman's Eurpoean Cafe in Cadillac MI. They weren't sure what WiFi was:

Hostess: "Do we have what?"
Me: "WiFi"
H: "I'm not sure. What is it?"
M: "Where you can hook up to the internet?"
H: "Yeah... I think so"

But hey, they do. Very cool. Even if they aren't sure what it is. I'm happy! :)

Friday, November 12, 2004

Aunt Pat and Uncle Ward's

We are up north in MI. Its beautiful here. I'll probably post some pictures, but right now I'm over dial-up so don't want to take the slow bandwidth hit. We are having a GREAT time, just realaxing and hanging out with family we haven't seen for a number of years.

Tina is like a little kid around her relatives. We used to hang out with these guys quite a bit about 20 years ago. Its like we've stepped back in time. She's got her relatives cracking up. (Ed is a great one to get Tina going ;)).

Pat, Ward and I were discussing Pickled Eggs and Beets, Pickled Baloney, and Spare Ribs and Saurkraut this morning. Yup, MI food. :) Love it!

Well that's it for now, just checking in. I do have access to my gmail account, and may go into town and hook up to work via WiFi, but for now I'm just having too much fun not doing anything!

later...

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Halo II is pretty cool

Quite the event. Went and picked up Michael around 11:30 then went and stood in line for about an hour. They opened the doors at 12:00, but there was probably a hundred people in line in front of us.

A 16 year old and another "kid" (maybe 20 or so?) were talking to us. What a geek fest. :) "Yeah, I was watching the video game network the other day, 'cuz that's how cool I am" and he laughs. (That was the 16 year old).

Anyway, quite the event. There were some guys that were there since 6:00, drinking soda and eating pizza. We only had to wait an hour, so I think it was worth showing up late.

Lots of talk of playing all night till they beat the game, drinking coffee, not going to school tomorrow. "I bet there will be 200 kids out at Doherty tomorrow, just staying home and playing".

Got home around 12:45. Tina came down stairs to let the dog out. "Are you playing now??", she asked in amazement. "Of course!", I said. Heck, why go and pick it up at midnight!

I played it for 3 hours. Got quite a ways through it. Playing on normal. Its different than the first one. Its taking a little to get used to it. I'm not sure if I like the double weapons or not. I mean they are cool in terms of fire-power, but I'm not used to the display with them yet. The weapons in the other game were second nature.

The story line is pretty cool. Nice video "movies". I've made it up to where I'm now the "Arbitrator"... one of the Elite. How cool to go invisible, weilding the sword that I feard so much in Halo I. I heard the multiplayer games allows one team to be human and one Elite. That should be pretty cool.

Well, that's probably it for now. Don't think I'll have time to play again until after we get back. Was thinking about taking the X-box... but that's probably pushing it. Multiplayer should be cool.

Well... bed time. Up in 3 1/2 hours or so. Have a 9:00 meeting, then last day before vacation is always busy. (Two 2 hour meetings tomorrow). Then home, head up to Steve's to practice for concert on the 20th, come home finish packing (and whatever else I need to do), then up at around 5:30 on Wed to catch the plane. And then sleep. :)

Thanks Teresa and Greg. It was way cool to get it tonight, stand in line, etc. It was "an event". If you're going to live life, might as well do it with passion... In all things. Even playing Halo. :)

Monday, November 08, 2004

Halo II

Halo II comes out in 40 minutes. Going to go get Michael and then get in line.

Yeah, just like that.

So did you see last weeks episode of The OC? You know the scene where Marissa's mom tells her, "Tell me how you feel?" and she replies, "You want to know how I feel? Like this!" and screams for about 2 minutes, then throws the pool furniture into the pool and stomps off.

Yeah, sometimes work can be just like that. But at least I can laugh about it. MI in only 35 hours, 41 minutes and 13 seconds. Cool.

One more day and counting

I start humming
I'm leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Leaving early Wed morning for Aunt Pat and Uncle Wards. 5 days, out of town, not much work (at least at the office), no work for Tina. Just us hanging out and visiting. Can't wait. I'm getting exicited!

BTW: Given the least little bit of motivation (which I may or may not have), I might go into town and get my WiFi fix, checking email, logging into irc and seeing what is going on at work, etc. So... if you need to reach me for some reason, I should be checking my gmail address occasionally.

And given a bit more motivation, I might actually upload some pics to my photoblog! :)

OK - so may its a little messy

I had to push some of the papers on my desk closer to the wall. My mouse pad was starting to creep up on the papers, and it turns out that if you have too many papers under a mouse pad (so that its surface isn't directly on the table and therefore hard underneath), that the mouse starts to lose some traction and isn't as smooth as normal.

Tip of the day for you whose desks might be a little messy. ;)

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Picklist

Haven't been reading blogs for a bit. Went out to Ev's today and noticed that he has a picklist for his archives in his sidebar. If he can do it, so can I. Just need to figure out how. How cool. :) Probably not today, but when I get some time... maybe while on vacation!

Xbox.com :: Halo II Announce

Halo II arrives Nov 9th. Teresa and Greg got me a preordered copy for Pastor Appreciation. How cool! I'll be in line Monday at midnight to pick up my copy. :)

Friday, November 05, 2004

UF SCIENTIST: “BRAIN” IN A DISH ACTS AS AUTOPILOT, LIVING COMPUTER

OK... this just seems a little weird to me. A rat's brain flying a simulated plane?

ABC News: Elections 2004 Coverage

This site has a pretty cool map, that if you hover over a state shows you how many votes each candidate got. This is a little late (seeing as the election was several days ago), but I've been having trouble getting posts via Blogger.

Interesting that for the most part, where Kerry won, he got 50+ percent. But there are a number of states where Bush won by 60+ percent. Bush won Utah with 71%. Kerry only won one state with over 59% and that was his home state of MA with 62%.

Iconwars

Making the rounds. Kind of funny.

SOUTH OF GLORY - HEROES NEVER ASK WHY ep COMING SOON

Web site for Kirby's band. Cool.

Monday, November 01, 2004

El Paso County, Colorado. Clerk and Recorder

I usually try and get an absentee ballot..., but spaced it this year. So I have to go vote at the normal polling place tomorrow. And yeah, I'm not exactly sure where that is.

But looking aound on the web I found this El Paso County Clerk & Recorder Election site. How cool. Fill in some info and it has all my districts, sample ballot, etc. Good stuff! This is a very nice use of the web!

Castle Rock Fire Fighters Local 4116

Hey... maybe I'll win a Harley. That would be cool. :)

Colorado residents: order your free loss-history report

Click on the title to request a free loss-history report. Got mail from my insurance company saying I could request a "free loss-history report" once a year. They gave me a url to http://www.iso.com - but then I had to look around to find out how to get a report.

I still have to download a form, print it, fill it in, and then fax it back. I HATE web sites that are not fully automatted. Sigh. Anyway, might be worth looking into. I'm going to order one, if you are in CO you might want to get one as well.

End of public service announcement. ;)