Life's a Garden...Dig It!

Wide-Profile Rims for 25mm & 28mm Tires

2011-11-19T22:12:00.001-06:00

Currently there is an innovative rim in the road-cycling world made by HED called the HED C2, or as a wheelset it's known as the HED Ardennes. The cool thing about these rims is that they are much wider (23mm) than most rims sold (19mm). This has the following advantages:

Makes the rim stiffer and stronger
Flattens the profile of the tire giving you a better surface contact patch
Increases the tire volume, meaning you can run lower pressures
Smooths the airflow between the tire and rim giving a more aerodynamic profile

Or in a single picture it does this:

So in general this is everything you could really want a rim to be and with no real disadvantages.

Except for one: I'm pretty heavy. Not fat mind you. Just heavy for a cyclist. Once you add up me, my bike and the backpack with a laptop, clothes and lunch, I can easily hit 265 lbs on my wheels. Which by the best and most scientific guide I've found means I would need to run 23mm tires at 170psi on the rear. If I rode a 23mm rim I could run 10% lower pressure, but that's still up at 153psi on the rear. And the challenge is that most tires are only rated up to 120psi, so I have a problem.

Because I'm heavier, I have to go for a wider tire.

The best option is really a 25mm tire.
These tend to not have too much of a weight penalty over a 23mm tire, but can still take higher pressures (~120psi). The downside of a 25mm is that I'm still on the cusp of needing too much pressure (140psi, or 125psi on the 23mm rim)
The other option is a 28mm tire.
These tend to have a fairly large weight penalty though. Few manufacturers make their best tires in this width. And once you get to this width the max pressure typically drops to <100psi. For a guy of my weight I need 115psi on this tire, and I've been fortunate to have found 2 or 3 tires that can handle that and it's what I ride now.

So why don't I just get a 25mm rim for a 25mm tire and similar for a 28mm tire and rim?

Brake calipers on bikes barely fit 23mm rims, so any larger isn't an option.
Just because the scaling on one tire works well doesn't mean it will work on another.

Problem 1:

To get around problem 1 you simply have to use disc brakes instead. This opens a whole realm of wider-profile XC 29er rims. If you don't want to go disc, then you're stuck with 23mm HED C2 rims being the largest you can hope for at this point in time.

Problem 2:

That's what I hope to explore.

Problem Statement:

I want to run 25mm or 28mm tires on a rim that gives the same profile and advantages of using the 23mm tire on a HED C2 rims.

Assumptions:

Surface area of a tire will remain constant once pressurized
Profile of the tire will remain as round as possible regardless of how wide or small a rim is
Bead-hooks vary in size and profile by rim. So what really creates the profile of the tire is the inside width of the rim, not the outside width.
Aerodynamics aren't really that big of a deal for my style of riding or size, so I'm going to try to optimize for increased volume and cross section profile, not on matching flushly with the rim

However, say I end up with a 24mm rim on a 25mm tire, that's still closer than a 19mm rim for smooth airflow, so I'll likely get some advantage.

A standard road-rim has a 14mm inside width

After emailing HED they informed me that the inside width of the HED C2 rim is 17.6mm

Analysis:
I explored 2 possible solutions:

That the scaling of the rim is scaled linearly from the ratio of 17.6 to 23 and then apply to the 25 & 28mm tires.
That the main goal is to keep the tire profile and surface area constant and see what rim would apply.

Solution 1:

Scale the rim linearly from the ratio of 17.6 to 23 and then apply to the 25 & 28mm tires.

For this it's rather simple:

17.6mm / 23mm = X mm / 25mm => (17.6/23) * 25mm = 19.1mm
17.6mm / 23mm = X mm / 28mm => (17.6/23) * 28mm = 21.4mm

Pros: This solution seems to very closely match existing inside widths for XC rims.

Cons: This solution seems almost too simple a solution, and after mocking up the profile it does not have the same profile as the HED C2 rim with a 23mm tire.

Additional details. After using SketchUp, I was able to find the following info:

23mm Tire on 17.6mm Rim:

(In parenthesis indicates dimensions for same size tire on a 14mm rim)

Surface: 57mm (same)
Maximum Diameter: 24.3mm (23mm)
Cross-Sectional Area: 408.4mm² (388.0 mm²)
Pressure vs. 14mm Rim: 95%

25mm Tire on 19.1mm Rim:

(In parenthesis indicates dimensions for same size tire on a 14mm rim)

Surface: 68.3mm (same)
Maximum Diameter: 28.4mm (25mm)
Cross-Sectional Area: 572.2mm² (464.5 mm²)
Pressure vs. 14mm Rim: 81%

28mm Tire on 21.4mm Rim:

(In parenthesis indicates dimensions for same size tire on a 14mm rim)

Surface: 73.3mm (same)
Maximum Diameter: 30.8mm (28mm)
Cross-Sectional Area: 668.1mm² (592.2 mm²)
Pressure vs. 14mm Rim: 89%

Solution 2:

To help myself better visualize everything I mocked up a 23mm tire on a 14mm rim and a 23mm tire on a 17.6mm rim.

Finding of Note: I found is that if you put a 23mm tire on a 17.6mm rim that from the center of the tire to the edge of the rim was a 45 degree angle. This symmetry seemed more than just coincidental.

I used that symmetry to come up with the following equation to simplify things. 45 degrees to each rim meant there was 90 degrees of of 360 degrees taken by the rim and 3/4 of the circle taken by the tire.

Max Diameter of Tire * Pi * 3/4 = Cross-Sectional Surface of Tire

Unknown in this equation is Max Diameter of Tire, so solve for this:

25mm: 68.3mm / (3.14 * 3/4) = 29.0mm
28mm: 73.3mm / (3.14 * 3/4) = 31.1mm

Make circles with those dimensions, then make a line from -45 degrees on the circle to +45 degrees on the circle and you find the following optimum rim dimensions:

25mm Tire on 20.5mm Rim:

(In parenthesis indicates dimensions for same size tire on a 14mm rim)

Surface: 68.3mm (same)
Maximum Diameter: 29.0mm (25mm)
Cross-Sectional Area: 594.9mm² (464.5 mm²)
Pressure vs. 14mm Rim: 78%

28mm Tire on 22.0mm Rim:

(In parenthesis indicates dimensions for same size tire on a 14mm rim)

Surface: 73.3mm (same)
Maximum Diameter: 31.1mm (28mm)
Cross-Sectional Area: 684.6mm² (592.2 mm²)
Pressure vs. 14mm Rim: 86%

Conclusion:

It appears that Solution 1 would produced more conservative values than Solution 2; however, I believe (at least mathematically) that Solution 2 is the more optimum of the two possibilities.

25mm tires should be on 19.1mm to 20.5mm rims
28mm tires should be on 21.4mm to 22.0mm rims

One other point of note is that 25mm tires seem to gain proportionally more cross-sectional area than either 23mm or 28mm. I would have thought that things just got linearly more and more in favor of the large-diameter tires. If I had time I'd try to create a mathematical model and see where the actual minimum is. However, seeing that I can reduce tire pressure on a 25mm tire by 19-22% is a really big deal for me. That means I can instead of run a lighter stronger and generally better 25mm tire with the same lower pressure that I can run on 28mm tires in a normal setup. This actually exceeds my expectations and makes me quite excited.

What Now?

Finding the inside widths of rims is actually surprisingly hard. Some manufacturers like Mavic say it in the name (TN719 is 19mm inside), but others don't tell you unless you ask directly or do a lot of searching. Trying to find something as specific as 20.5 will likely be very difficult, so I'll just do my best to find something in the desired range. I'll likely end up with either something that says it's 21mm, but is really a little less, or something that's 19mm, and be glad I'm at least way better off than if I was on a 14mm rim.

Real-World vs. Theoretical-World

I want to see if I can get a bike shop to loan me or let me try mounting a tire on a rim of that width. This should allow me to see if things really work. But finding a shop that A) Would let me do that and B) Wouldn't just say, "You can't do that, the specs say it doesn't work."; is going to be really hard to do. Fortunately I know a few bike shop guys that I think are willing to put rules aside for some experimentation so hopefully I'll be able to report back with some results soon.

Bosco's First Birthday

2011-08-04T22:35:00.005-05:00

A year ago today Bosco was born.

Although we didn't get to see him until the day we picked him up.

Once we got there he said his goodbyes:

And then had a great trip home with us:

And while he was cute and flopsy:

He was also a vicious beast filled with razor-sharp puppy teeth:

Fortunately after being up for a few hours he would sleep:

Wake to explore his world some more:

Run around:

And would wear everybody out:

He managed to grow, and grow, and grow, but finally leveled out:

As he grew we tried to train him:

And taught him to fetch:

And sit:

And to be lazy on Sunday mornings:

Now that he's bigger he's made friends:

And has become the high-flyer of our family:

And we're the ones who get to see this face every day:

He's leveled out at 85 lbs and is 28 tall at the haunches and the withers.

Now that he's gotten older he's starting to run with us, but his max so far is about 2 mi of continuous running. His cardio's getting better, and I'm sure once it cools down he'll be a champ.

He is a bit freaked out by water, but I think that mostly is due to the drought and that it's only rained like 4 days his whole life.

Despite his unease with water we did find a fresh watering hole and teach him to swim. He's actually pretty good at it and one day when there's more water we'll likely take him for more swimming.

He's super sweet, gives us kisses all the time (but not sloppy wet ones thank goodness), he loves to cuddle with us, he has never destroyed anything that isn't his, very even tempered in new situations, nice towards others if they're nice, but he won't take unnecessary crap from aggressive dogs, let's kids jump on him without concern, super calm in the house, but loves to have fun outside. Really he's the best of all worlds and we couldn't ask for better.

So happy birthday little dude!

It's Easy Being Green

2011-04-13T18:25:00.000-05:00

Being green takes many forms and flavors. You can reduce pollution in local creeks and lakes by using compost instead of fertilizers. You can save water by choosing a lawn that doesn't require (much) watering. You can forego having pets or children because they require food and fart CO2 and CH4. You can spend 1000s on a solar panel that might maybe if you're lucky one day pay for itself.

One of the main areas though where you can think big on being green is how to reduce the energy you use each day.

Taking a look at the big picture looks something like this:

Just like when budgeting when trying to save, you should start with the big pieces. And when talking about Energy Use in the United States the big pieces are Electric Power and Transportation.

Electric Power:

When looking at your home you can do things like change the lightbulbs, or get more efficient appliances, or upgrading from a plasma TV, and while they help some the actual benefit is not nearly what the companies that market those products would lead you to believe (those 3 are responsible for only about 25% of home energy usage).

Q: So where does the majority of power go in your home?

A: Heating and Cooling (cooling's the big one in Texas)

Step 1: Adjust the temperature.

In the summer one thing that can have a large affect by getting screens, opening windows and using fans. You might well save 30% on your bills.

This winter one thing we used was small space heaters in the rooms we were in (living and bedroom) instead of heating the whole house. The heaters paid for themselves within a month, and by the end of the winter we were not only more comfortable than any year prior, but we had also saved about 30% on our heating bill.

Q2: But even that is just an incremental adjustment. So how can I make a big change?

A2: Get a smaller house. Even the greenest of homes if it's very large will suck way more power than a smaller and less efficient home.

Step 2: Live in a smaller house

We actively made the choice to live in a smallish 1000 sqft home, and while we have a 20 year old AC, and single-pane windows, and no insulation, I'm continually baffled at hearing about how much some other coworkers who live in ginormous houses spend on electricity. Despite that they have the latest split-unit ACs, double- or tripple-paned windows, and great insulation. The simple fact is if you're trying to heat and cool a 3000 sqft house it is going to take a lot of energy. But if you have a tiny house it will only take a tiny bit of energy to heat and cool.

There are other 'green' benefits too. Such as 60 sqft of tile for your bathroom is way less expensive and greener than having to buy 600 sqft. You're not filling room upon room with new furnishings, and since most small homes are older you're not destroying land to put your house on it.

Transportation

The US is built for cars, I get that. There's not really an easy way to avoid them, but there are a few things you can do.

Step 1: Live, work, and play in the same area.

If you have an hour commute you're using a lot of fuel. For comparison person A drives a Prius and lives 40 miles away; person B drives a jacked-up monster-truck wannabe and lives nearby-ish at only 3 miles away. So who's being greener? In this case the monster truck actually produces both less smog and less smug.

Step 2: Use alternative transport when possible

While not possible for everybody I try to bike in a few times a week to improve my health and stretch my gas money. Additionally though, think about not using your car when you're at home. Can you walk to that store instead? Can you bike down to that bar you like instead of drive? (Plus you'll be less likely to worry about cops on the way home) On the weekend can you make a day-long excursion downtown on your bike instead of driving? (Think of how much time you'll save trying to find the elusive free street parking!)

Every time you choose to leave a 3000+ lbs piece of steel at home you're saving that much fuel, and often you're getting to spend more quality time with the people you're traveling with, getting some exercise, and soaking in the city and sights around you.

Conclusion:

When it comes to energy usage if you're going to go green you should aim for the big targets. And often it's the choices we make of where and how we live that really have the greatest impact.

What Dog Breed is Best

2010-02-27T10:51:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine recently asked the question, "What breed of dog should I get?"

I spent awhile drafting a response and wanted to save it, so I'm posting it here:

This is actually a really big question, and largely depends on what you want in a dog, and how you want to live your life.

First start with some dog-finder quiz to see what breeds you should look at. This quiz is actually pretty good:
http://www.selectsmart.com/DOG/

Keep in mind though, that if you get a pure breed you can run into some weird (and expensive) issues due to inbreeding. For example, I've spent about an extra $3k on my wife's dog in the last 2 years because of issues that wouldn't be present in a mutt. But she's a great dog and totally worth it.

Additionally, a lot of breeds that are really popular don't necessarily make the best pets:
Labs - Have lots of weird OCD and anxiety issues
Beagles - Might be cute while you're there, but will bay the whole time you're gone (making some peeved neighbors)
Goldens - Can make an impossible-to-clean layer of fine hair on everything
Herding dogs - Are so smart that they go crazy if you don't constantly challenge them mentally
Pits - Will eat childrens faces off
...you get the idea.

I have a German Shorthaired-Pointer, and think it's the best breed in the world. But they do require a lot of attention and exercise. So if you come home from work and don't want to go running...well, you have to anyway. But if you want a dog that can do well with kids, adults, doesn't bark much, easy to clean, and can go run alongside you while you're mountain biking all day, then there's no breed better.

Mutts are often the best way to go, they need a home, they often are past that annoying (but cute) puppy phase, and they'd be killed if you don't get them. There's also some cool DNA tests you can do now to see what breeds your mutt is made of so that you can find out how to best train them.
http://www.biopetvetlab.com/

Finally, every dog is different. You might find a sedate chihuahua, a dumb border collie, or a lazy GSP. Find the one that best works for you, love it fully, and train it well and you'll wonder how you lived your life without one.

Dear Bank,

2010-01-12T20:54:00.001-06:00

You remember how a few months ago, I asked you if there was any way to renegotiate our mortgage so that I could get a better rate and drop PMI? You remember how you made up these really dumb astronomical numbers trying to keep me from redoing the loan?

Well, turns out the joke's on you. I went elsewhere to refinance my loan, they got all the money, you got none of it, and then you know what? You bought my exact same loan back from me! You could have made a lot more money, processed a lot less paperwork, and reduced the number of pointless middle men (I'm looking at you Title Insurance company!) by simply working with me. Instead you lost out big, and you're stuck with the less-profitable loan anyway.

In fact, you're so dumb, that just on your imbecilic actions alone, I think I might just move my regular account (which was also with you) to a credit union instead.

Meanwhile, I'm happy that I'm no longer paying you that old rate, no longer paying your stupid mortgage insurance, and no longer letting you earn even more interest on my money in an escrow account.

You stood to gain so much more, but instead your short-sighted greed meant you gained nothing and passed the buck on to a bunch of other people instead.

Sincerely,
Otis

Tribute to Abi

2009-12-16T23:33:00.004-06:00

This week is Abi's last on the planet. So in memoriam I wanted to make a tribute to her and all that she's brought to our lives even though her's wasn't as long as anybody had hoped.

Ever since the start, I saw how happy you made my future wife, and knew you were something special.

Your goofy antics always kept things around here light-hearted.

You even did well in your beginning computer course, but failed once you learned how to work the mouse.

Helpful with yardwork

Focus of many a squirrel's nightmares

Rescuer of countless drowning sticks and balls

Even when you were bad, we still loved you and mostly wanted to laugh.

And while you never got over your fear of storms or beeping sounds.

You were always there to destroy our enemies

Be they squirrels

Or balls

You defended us nightly from the vicious laser

You were always up for a trip outside

To chase a ball with full tenacity.

And crash with equally as full force

Willing to make new friends.

Even though you weren't always willing to share.

But your love you did share, and gave cautiously but fully

You've been such a great dog, but unfortunately you drew the short straw when it came to genetics.

You almost died multiple times because of your various weird allergies. But we fixed those.

But the part we couldn't fix was your back. We didn't know that when you were hurting your feet, it's because you couldn't feel them anymore. That when you would make an accident in the house it wasn't cause you were lazy, but because you couldn't feel anything.

And finally, it became more noticeable that you were hurting and couldn't live your life fully anymore with your pack.

But now it's all become too much and it's time for you to go to Doghalla, where the rivers are clear, the weather is warm, the sticks are always floating, and the squirrels only have 3 legs.

We'll miss you, but never as much as you missed us

Sleep well...

Abigail

December 12, 2002 - August 26, 2010

Update (12/21/2009):
As a bit of a Christmas miracle Abi's health took a shocking turn for the better late last week. She went from being in pain and having lots of accidents and a poor quality of life for over a month straight, to being very joyful & bouncy and having only a few minor accidents. Because she's happy and not in pain, she received a stay of execution.

We don't know how long that this period of healthiness will last, but we're thankful for it, and it makes for a much happier holiday season.

Update (08/26/2010)
Things finally got bad enough to where we realized we had to let go. We took every step we possibly could to prevent her decline, but nothing could turn back the ticking clock. And she reached the point where could no longer be the dog we knew she was.

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

2009-05-27T17:10:00.001-05:00

From Remodeling 2009

The wife and I recently got gutters installed on our house. Overall, they're really awesome, but there's this one place that's not right and needs to be fixed, but the gutter company has been dragging their feet on (fortunately it means I'm also dragging my feet on paying them, so at least I have some leverage). Essentially the whole thing boils down to improperly explained for what a part was, and then not being able to take the day off to supervise the whole thing (something that's immensely important for really any work somebody else is doing to your place).

After playing phone-tag with the sales rep for this large gutter company we got in touch earlier this afternoon an I said I needed a do-over on some of the work, and asked if he could meet me out there to pull a new piece. He then said, "No problem, I'll need to call into the office, see who we can get down there and get it taken care of for you."

Later this afternoon I got a call-back from him, I was pretty stoked at the potential fast turn-around and said, "[Contractor's Name] what's up?"

He then replies with the following:
"I got this customer [Otis] out here and he's being a little bitch. Yeah, there's something he's just being nitpicky about and we already sent a guy out there*. Frankly we can do it, but I'm gonna need him to be there cause I got no clue what he wants. Trying not to be a dick, but don't need this from him. When we get somebody in the area can we just swing by and fix the problem. I mean, what do you think I should do?"

*They did send somebody, but they wouldn't allow him to do the job necessary because they wanted to see if the patch-job would work...it didn't.

My response:
"Well, first off, if I were you I'd make sure that I'm not calling my customer when laying into them."
[Begin stammering and jaw on floor]
"Secondly, I hope you realize I'm not trying to be a "little bitch" about this. It's just that I spent several thousand dollars for your product and I want to make sure I'm satisfied with it before I consider the job to be done. Most everything is great, but there's just one piece that needs to be fixed."

From there on the rest of the conversation was in the following vien,
"I'm so sorry"
"God, today's just been the worst day"
"I've had like 10 bad calls in a row"
"I shouldn't have called you that"
"Oh man, there's nothing I can do to take any of that back now"
"I shouldn't have used language like that even when calling into the office"
"Oh, don't worry I'm going to get you taken care of"
"I'm so sorry"

Me, "Not a problem, I understand, stuff like this happens, let's just get it taken care of"

I think that was the conclusion of the absolute worst phone-call of that sales guy's career. Fortunately I got a good laugh out of it, and hopefully we'll now get the work done right.

One Year in the House

2009-05-23T11:01:00.001-05:00

The other day marked the one year anniversary of when we bought our house.

This past year has marked a lot of trails, victories, setbacks, learning, joy, exhaustion, satisfaction, fear, creativity, and confidence.

Here is a pretty comprehensive list of the things we've done since getting the house (original condition):

Replaced the roof (before, during, after)
Removed fake shutters, screen doors, house numbers (that banged my head), cheap hose reel, over-sized gutter (after)
Replaced locks
Repaired the foundation (before and after)
Tore out a wall (before, during, after)
Redid majority of the sheetrock
Rerouted lighting/ducts
Installed radiant barrier
Added supports in rafters
Created new washer/dryer area
Installed new electrical service (old)
Got new (safe) wiring to kitchen/bath
Complete gut & remodel of the bathroom (before, during, after)
Entirely new plumbing for all incoming lines
Installed tankless water heater
Refinished floors (before)
Painted interior rooms
Fixed all windows so that they are now double-hung
Replaced, repaired, or added fascia boards around entire house
Created support for sophet
Removed all boards that were touching the ground (aka termite highway)
Replaced back door
Replaced door to garage
Installed Crestview door kit (before, during, after)
Painted entry doors (before, after)
Replaced dozens of rotted/rotting siding boards
Added new corners for add-on section
Installed metal lathe and supports for skirting
Created a garden
Sanded entire house to bare wood
Used 33 tubes of caulk to seal up the house
Bondo'd cracks and divets
Cut down 1 tree
Trimmed all trees in backyard, including Ash (before, round 1, round 2)
Cabled the ash tree
Installed gutters & gutter screens
Painted exterior (before, during, almost there, after)
Removed scraggly bushes from front of house (before, after)
Dug pit for grounding plate
Undid jerry-rigged setup for fan in bedroom
Added setup for fan in livingroom
Created a bar between kitchen and livingroom
Added GFCI circuits where needed
Removed old waterheater closet
Removed mercury lamp on corner
All new exterior lighting
Insulated plumbing
Put up barriers in all rat-entry points
Added piping to divert water away from the foundation (before)
And fell through ceiling

I think 50 is enough for now. What I love though is how much we were able to get done while still traveling, working full-time, finding new eateries, playing in parks with the dog, brewing beers, seeing family, running, biking, watching BSG (hey, that's a huge time commitment), having friends over and just...living!

But, I think really the best thing is to look where we were a year ago:

And then look where we are today:

Big thanks go out to all the friends, family and contractors that helped us.
Family:
Greg, Debby, Hannah, and Regina
Friends:
Brian, Amy, Jeremy & Jess, Whitney, Rachel & Andrew, David, Kelly, Stephen, Pam & Don, Val & Paweena, Kasandra, Kristy, Heidi, Britney, and Danielle & Justin
Contractors:
Bobby Platte, Bob Jahnke, ABC Handyman, Longhorn Roofing, Chango's Tree Service, Austin Gutter King, Mullen Electric, and all the illegals we unwittingly employed.

But most importantly to the Wife, for putting up with everything and being a good sport when things went wrong.

The Words Coming Out of My Fingers

2009-01-28T15:25:00.014-06:00

Per my friend Evans having this on his blog, I thought it was pretty cool, so I decided to add it to my own:

Link

I Before E, Except After C?

2008-11-12T09:16:00.000-06:00

So I asked Keith if he fancied reigniting either science or ancient policies regarding the leisurely use of caffiene and codein. This led to a feisty discussion about conterfeit foreign species of Rottweilers, their height quite surfeit, albeit less than a heifer. Perhaps this being caused by a weird protein created by scientific efficiencies funded by the seeing of the research by a financier?

Alright, I'll stop before my subconscience sends me into a sufficient seizure...like Reveille VI.

Goodbye Old Friend

2008-11-05T15:48:00.001-06:00

I just found out that my favorite author of my teenage years, Michael Crichton, died today of cancer.

I know it's cheesy to say, but I've never felt sad about a celebrity dying until now. Crichton had always been a bit of a role model for me. He was really tall. He went to Harvard Medical School (I really wanted to be a doctor). And the ideas and concepts that he penned were such an intricate stitching of current fact and future possibility, often mired in potential disaster. I spent a good many days in bed, pouring over his works old and new fascinated by the stories he created, but even moreso fascinated by the opening window of possibilities that he saw.

Crichton made the world an amazing place, where the incredible was just a little stretch further out, but warned us all that if we do not fully understand something, then we should be careful when trying to exploit it.

Goodbye old friend and hero. I hope one day we get to meet again for the first time.

Way to Stay Classy Fox

2008-11-05T10:17:00.001-06:00

Headline image on Fox News the morning after the election:

Headline read in the order that your eyes naturally take you:
Obama, A World of Trouble, He Savors Victory.

Seriously Fox News, you couldn't hide your disdain any better than behind some blatant suggestiveness of your graphics? This is plain childish.

Yes We Will!

2008-11-04T23:58:00.000-06:00

For the first time since I've been a voter I can finally say that the candidate that I voted for won, and won big. I'm so happy, this is the first time in years that I can look at the letters USA and feel pride in who we are and what we can do as a country.

Tonight was one of the few nights where I felt like we really saw the best in people*. McCain's speech was eloquent, kind and respectful. It represented everything that I was sad this election lacked from him. It was the first time he showed his heart, and in it you saw a good man and not an angry old person. If only he had been that way the whole election instead of being a pawn of the Republican party, then this might have actually been a close race.

As for Obama's speech...wow. I hope that we can become the country that he sees. I'm blown away by statements showing real appreciation for his call from McCain, understanding that the US isn't alone in this world, pointing out how we can make our country better, and setting guiding principles for how we can take this country forward into the next 100 years.

Now I am looking forward to seeing how the Obama administration is going to be pulled together, I think he will pull together some of the finest moderate minds that this country has ever seen and will actually respond rather than react to things going on in this world. The only part that scares me though is the number of pardons and crap that the Bush administration is going to run through on the way out. People that are criminals on both the governmental and business sides of the coin in all the crap that has happened this decade will simply skate away with Billions in blood money and a pardon in their pocket.

With this election finally our nation can move forward. Finally we are no longer in the stagnation of a lame duck president & congress. Finally we can take the steps that have been needed for so many years and begin moving forward to reassert ourselves not as a great power, but as a nation that is great.

God Bless the USA and I commend you on the decision you made tonight.

*Except the booing scumbags at John McCain's speech...what a bunch of loosers...must have been the Palin supporters.

Malting Gluten-free Grains - Part 2

2008-10-29T21:01:00.001-05:00

From left to right:

Light-Roasted White Quinoa
Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt*
Roasting: 6 hours in dehydrator at 155 F
Color: 3 SRM
Smell: Sour, buttery, sweet (like kettle corn)
Taste: Light, fresh, like horchata without cinnamon
Caramel Toasted White Quinoa
Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt*
Roasting: 1 hour in oven at 350 F
Color: 15 SRM
Smell: Sour, wort-like
Taste: Light/Medium toasted, sour, no caramel notes
Light-Roasted Buckwheat
Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt
Roasting: 6 hours in dehydrator at 155 F
Color: 1 SRM
Smell: Earthy, nutty
Taste: Nutty, dirt, smooth
Caramel Toasted Buckwheat
Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt
Roasting: 1.5 hours in oven at 350 F
Color: 12 SRM
Smell: Sweet (sweeter than Quinoa), nutty
Taste: Roasted Nuts, lingering nuttiness,
Caramel Toasted Amaranth
Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt
Roasting: 1 hour in oven at 350 F
Color: 10 SRM
Smell: strong nuttiness, wort-like
Taste: Smooth, light nuttiness,

Verdict:
Buckwheat doesn't really seem like that great of a grain for beer unless you're making something strong and want a nutty flavor.
Quinoa has a lot of cold break, but the flavors are somewhat resembling wort.
Amaranth is second only to millet in wort-likeness, should make a good base, but the grain is a bit expensive and rare, so likely will just be a fun addition for awhile. One problem that may arise is that since since the grain is so small the grains may slip right out of the grain bag.

*Quinoa soured slightly in the malt, likely explains a large chunk of the sour flavors. Recommend 1 day soak and then remove water and rinse 2x daily for 2-3 days.

SAT & Politics

2008-10-28T13:38:00.001-05:00

God:Country::Capitalism:Socialism

Both can work well on their own, but mixing the two bastardizes both to where they can no longer perform the function they were made to do.

Japanese T-Shirt Folding

2008-10-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

The internet is a cool place. It helped me find this:
Japanese T-Shirt Folding

I was then able to take this:

And turn it into this:

Thanks internet!

What I Love About Austin

2008-10-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I had to bring my work laptop home to do some work on a presentation. When I pulled up my wireless connection I was greeted for the first time by the names of all the networks set up by my neighbors and local businesses.

I sat down, smiled, screencapped and realized that I live in an awesome place for a number of reasons:

Notice there's not a single unsecured router names linksys. This means I don't live amongst a bunch of morons.
MaxiPad - Most likely they use a signal booster for their router (hence the highest intensity of the local networks). Some of those boosters look like, well....
One of them is somebody's name. Most likely owned by an engineer describing the setup and the fact that they use 802.11n, which tells you about their max transfer rate. This router is most likely covered by some ridiculously secure 1337 password.
TinFoilHat - Most likely somebody that is still campaigning for Ron Paul...they realize they're a conspiracy theorist and at least embrace their ideology instead of pretending to know more about the truth than you do.
makethescaryrepublicangoaway - No explanation needed.

I love where I live and am proud to have the condition known as Austism...where I think Austin is the best place in the whole state of Texas and would straight up refuse to live anywhere else.

Malting Gluten-free Grains

2008-10-05T15:04:00.004-05:00

My wife (along with about 1/150 people) has Celiac, and as such, she can't have any gluten protein which you will find in such staples as Barley, Rye, (some) oats or Wheat (BRoW). One little problem for her though is that she's a fan of good beers. Since all normal beers have at least Barley or Wheat, then you can quickly see that beer is one of the many items that she can't have.

Well...almost. Essentially there is only 1 beer that is even slightly affordable in our area that is GF (Redbridge), and it sucks at best. There is one other brand (Green's), but they are about $5.50 for a bottle and can only be found at Whole Paycheck and Central Markup. There's actually one good and affordable GF beer (New Grist), but you can't find it in our area.

The problem is that there hasn't been all that much work done on GF beers since they are much harder to make and the ingredients are more difficult to come by than normal beer ingredients. Also add to it that a lot of the beers try only 1or 2 ingredients and don't quite seem to find a balance of taste and body. Therefore, I have set out on a bit of a quest to take the time to malt and toast my own gluten-free grains and see what combination works best to create something that approximates what a beer should taste like.

Originally I created a beer for her that was a fantastic and flavorful version of a Belgian White (like Blue Moon). The results were fantastic, far beyond what I expected. Unfortunately though, I malted Quinoa, Millet & Soghum all together and wasn't really able to tell what flavors came from which grain. So, for my next batch I decided to be a bit more deliberate about the whole process and hope to do more experiments in the future which will help the gluten-free-beer-brewing public (yes, I know this is a fairly small sub-set of the world...but that sub-set has few resources).

So as the first part of this story, I will share the results of malting Red Quinoa, White Quinoa, and Millet. The results actually surprised me...

Below you will see the 4 glasses of liquid made by soaking malted and cracked grains in boiling hot water in my french press and then left to soak for about 20 minutes. This method works really well because you can easily strain out the grains and see what the resultant wort (baby beer) looks like.

From left to right:

Unmalted Red Quinoa - Soaked in water for 2 hours, then toasted
Roasting: 1.5 hours in oven at 350 F
Color: 3-4 SRM
Smell: Light, nutty
Taste: Mild, nutty, watered-down
Malted* Red Quinoa
Malting Time: 2 days
Roasting: 1.25 hours in oven at 350 F
Color: 15 SRM
Smell: Medium to full-bodied nutty smell, smells like non-GF wort with nuttiness
Taste: Slightly bitter, toasted-nutty, sour notes
Malted White Quinoa
Malting Time: 2 days
Roasting: 1.25 hours in oven at 350 F
Color: 18-19 SRM
Smell: Roasted coffee, hints of roasted pumpkin seeds
Taste: Strong flavor, nice aftertaste...like coffee
Malted Millet
Malting Time: 3 days
Roasting: 1.25 hours in oven at 350 F
Color: 10 SRM
Smell: Sweet and nutty, caramel tones
Taste: full-bodied, even tone, hints of lightly-burned popcorn (in a good way)

*Grains were malted by allowing them to soak in water for 3-4 days until sprouts were about 2x longer than the grain itself. Grains were rinsed 2x daily so as to avoid bacteria growth.

Lessons Learned:

Despite what some books say, you simply cannot soak & toast a gluten-free grain. If you want ANYTHING to come out of your grain, then you will absolutely have to malt it.
I thought red quinoa would have more color and flavor than white quinoa. Turns out, the exact opposite is true. White quinoa was darker, had more body and more flavor than either batch of red quinoa.
The line between delicious caramel malt and a charred malt is only about 15 minutes. Next time I will pull the grains out earlier to try and get a more caramel-style malt.
The white quinoa and millet taste much closer to a real wort than wort made with White Sorghum Extract by Briess. Sorghum tends to have strong sour notes, hence Redbridge tasting so bad.
I still have much to learn.

I ended up using the white quinoa and millet for my next batch of gluten-free beer. They mashed really well (104-140-160 with 30 minute cycles) and the resultant wort was quite good. Not only that, but when I discarded the grains they smelled delicious...almost like a cup of hot chocolate...or a bowl of coco krispies. One thing to note is that there was a pretty high cold-break content compared to most normal beers that I've brewed. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by the initial product, but I will have to wait another month until I see if the resultant beer is any good. This batch will take a little longer since I'm going for a gluten-free trapist ale and it will have such a high alcohol content.

I think that's it for now. I'm currently playing with some Amaranth, Buckwheat and White Quinoa. Once I know more about the results, I'll post them here for reference.

The Latest Casualty in the War on Drugs: My Nose

2008-09-10T15:29:00.003-05:00

This week I've pretty much been wiped out by some sort of cold, it started with a phlegmy congestion at the base of my nose and top of my throat. Then it started migrating up into my sinuses and is now thoroughly lodged in my nose. No retreat can be forced by using Mucinex, no respite comes from pain killers, and using Day Quill is not even productive...but why is Day/Night Quill not productive? That stuff used to totally wipe out whatever the heck it was put your world back right. The reason Day Quill now sucks turns out is because it no longer contains the essential ingredient Sudafed (Pseudoephedrine). Instead, some time a few years ago they switched ingredients to the lamest, most placebo drug I've ever taken for my sinuses Phenylephrine. So why on earth would you take a great drug that actually helps and castrate its potency by inserting some overpriced placebo? Turns out because of the ever so great War on Drugs. Or rather, because of the lobbyists that sucked up to the right people in Washington claiming that people feeling better was a drastic problem for our nation.

Or to Quote this article:

...Consider this amazing coincidence. The main company that stands to benefit from a law—passed in the name of the patriotic war on drugs—that effectively marginalizes in main competition and gives a boost to its inferior product spent millions in lobbying and campaign donations in the very year that the law was passed. There is no record of any substantial spending before the push for the law began, and spending has been declining since the law passed.

Once again, all Americans are made to suffer because of 2 groups of people: The idiots and those who enjoy being made afraid of everything. It pisses me off. Yes, I can still get the right medicine, it's not totally banned, but there's no reason I should be treated like some meth-addict when I just want to relieve my stuffy nose. There's no good reason why all the things that used to work were reformulated to suck. I just wish we could round up the idiots, make a new country called Absurdistan out of the Nevada desert and take all the panicy people in America and put them in the red states, that way they don't have to move and can keep enjoying their current policy of removing freedoms to increase security.

Remodeling

2008-08-28T10:57:00.006-05:00

In case you didn't know we bought a house. Long story short, the only way we could afford where we wanted to live was to get a dump of a place and fix it up. So the following will be a little tribute to the work that's been done. And keep in mind for every half-finished piece that means there was TONS of work to be done as we found out every step of the way. It's like the previous owners were dead set on making repairing the place be as difficult as possible for the first person that wanted to come in and do it right.

Here are some of the major projects:
The Foundation:
Before - The previous owners decided it would be a great idea to have the washing machine and dryer in the kitchen. But when they made the piping, they obviously hired the cheapest labor possible. That resulted in the water lines being wrapped around the foundation. As all water lines do, they ended up leaking. Now instead of fixing the issue, they just covered the bad parts with a sheet of plywood and left everything to rot, and the house slowly sank into the rot.

After - Jacked up the house to take the load off of the beams. Cut out all the rot. Replaced sections with cedar 2x6s and then lowered the house back into place. Everything is well and quite sturdy now.

Turning the Kitchen Wall into a Bar:
Before - Kitchen was really separated from the rest of the house. We mapped out the place where we wanted to have open with blue tape. Once we had a good idea of the opening we put in a support wall to take some of the load off of the kitchen wall (the kitchen wall was a load-bearing wall).

During - Took our all the Sheetrock and paneling. Tried to do the Kool-Aid Man impersonation, but instead got whacked on the head with a big chunk of Sheetrock. Once everything was cleared out we began cutting out the load-bearing pieces.

After - After much muscling and sledgehammering we beat the support beam into place and then secured it to the sets of 2x4s on each end with pieces of metal. Then I built up a half wall and the Sheetrock guys came and made it look like a real bar.

The Bathroom:
Before - This was disgusting. The tub was filthy and rotted out, the fixtures were all dingy and the cheapest things money could buy, and there was a nice fat roach in the tub for us.

During - We tore out everything to the studs, replaced the areas of subfloor that had rotted out, put Hardy-backer over everything, replaced most of the pipes coming up from the floor, and found out that 2008-inches are evidently bigger than 1950-inches because the old 60" tub was about 1" shorter than the new 60" tub.

After - The Wife worked her tail off and did a great job with the tiling. We got a super-efficient toilet that actually flushes well, and the whole room looks clean and fresh...just like she wanted.

There's still lots to do, but it's great to see some of the things that we've done with the place and we can't wait to finish up a few of the projects we're currently working on.

Does My Dad Have a Website?

2008-08-28T10:30:00.004-05:00

I swear, this could be my dad's post:
Cake Wrecks - The Readers Have Spoken

I think he's secretly out there running a bunch of blogs, is actually internet savvy, and only pretends to not like technology to keep us from trying to find out his sum body of works.

...or maybe there are other people out there that just love puns?

Forced at Gunpoint

2008-07-08T18:22:00.005-05:00

Alright, fine I'll do it.

A - Attached or single: Attached
B - Best Friend: Grimes
C - Cake or Pie: Cake, chocolate cake, with chocolate icing...I like chocolate.
D - Day of the Week: Can't get any better than a Saturday. Weekend is fresh and the whole day is yours.
E - Essential Item: Chapstick
F - Favorite Color: Brown, then gray, then green...I like earthtones.
G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Gummy candy hurts my teeth, don't like it. If I'm eating it, it's probably just to be nice.
H - Hometown: Temple, TX
I - Indulgences: Little Debbie cupcakes
J - January or July?: July, I love the summer.
K - Kids: Are my monthly fear.
L - Life is incomplete without: Carbon
M - Marriage Date: July 8th, 2006
N - Number of Siblings: 6. 4 in the family I grew up with (1 older step, 1 younger step, and 2 younger half). 2 in the family I visited (1 older step, 1 younger step).
O - Oranges or Apples: Apples. But both are pretty boring.
P - Phobias or Fears: None really. I don't really like the dark. Ghosts freak me out.
Q - Quotes: There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.
- Edmond Dantes in Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
R - Reason to Smile: Awkward situations
S - Season: Basil
T - Transport: Mazda3, Honda Interceptor, and a Mountain Bike
U - Unknown fact about me: I peed in the crater of Mt. Vesuvius
V - Vegetarian or Omnivore: Omnivore
W - Worst Habit: Forgetting to charge my phone.
X - Rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasound. Much safer and varying intensities can do vastly different but cool things.
Y - Your favorite food: Fajitas
Z - Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Call me Luigi

2008-06-02T22:55:00.003-05:00

Up to this point all I've done on my new house is destroy things. Rip out walls, cut out floors, sledgehammer a tub, etc. That all ended today. Today I got under my house, I took a reciprocating saw to the fresh-water pipes and entered the point of no return. I then got really worried though because the 50 year old pipes would not unscrew themselves. I pried, twisted, squeezed, pulled and did everything I could to get the old galvanized piping to budge.

Then with one last ditch effort I put everything I had into it and it moved! I couldn't believe it!

I then managed to unscrew the old pipes and see the 50 years of buildup within them. I then cleaned it all up, put on some plumbers tape, screwed on one half of the connector, went out and sweated some copper pipes for the other half, joined the two halves with a dielectric union, hooked up an entire manifold system that I built for the cold water, turned the water back on and...it worked! Everything stayed together, not a single thing leaked, it was beautiful. And I felt like such a man..

Now all I have to do is start cutting out some more of the old pipes and replacing them with good copper piping, then connect everything to my manifold and to the brand new tankless water heater and then I'll have all new, non-corroded, no more rust in the pipes, can turn everything off in the bath or kitchen independently, piping. I can't wait! Plus, all of this is currently costing less than having a real plumber come and simply raise my shower head. Go DIY!

None the Wiser

2008-04-04T23:38:00.003-05:00

On Monday I got my wisdom teeth pulled, all 4 of them. They numbed me up and tried to gas me, and then I figured out that I'm too big to gas. Or at least my lungs use up more air than they could give me. Oh well, at least I was numb and complacent to the fact that they were going to tug, pry, and twist the teeth out of my head.

All went well though and I then came home where I spent the next couple of days, laying on the couch drooling blood. Not exactly a vacation, but on the bright side, I wasn't at work!

But then things went down hill. I got a fever, and then even worse when I was rinsing I found out that Listerine had a direct path into my nose. Let me tell you, for all of you drug addicts out there. Listerine in the nose is NOT something that you want to try...doesn't feel good at all.

Turns out that for a few *lucky* people, the wisdom teeth are connected to the nasal sinus. And when the teeth come out that means there's a nice little passage way between the mouth and the nose. Plus, the extra fun of this means that the physics of the socket means that you want a good seal to plug up the hole and then things heal. However, when you stick a hole on the other side, the physics just don't work in my favor, and instead I get dry socket! Dry socket is gross...it's like bacteria are having a party in my mouth and it's fueled by my pain.

So now it's almost a week later, I still have yet to chew anything, my mouth tastes like bacteria poop and any time I fall asleep I leave a puddle of blood. Fortunately in a few weeks, this should all clear up, I'll once again be able to kiss my wife, and I'll be happy that my teeth got pulled. In the meantime though...yeah, trying to think of encouragement, but can't really muster any. This sucks, straight up and there's no way around it. Oh well, time will heal it.

Otis goes to Otis

2008-03-17T11:46:00.004-05:00

This past week I was in Upstate New York on a business trip and when searching the map for things to in the area I turned up pretty much nothing...until, I noticed the name of this tiny city in Massachusetts about 60 miles from where I was staying. And that's when the goal was set, I needed to go take one of the most important pictures of my life.

Despite my fears that Otis, Massachusetts would be a total dive, it was actually quite cute. Nestled in a semi-mountainous region, filled with lakes and flowing streams, the town was quaint but in a really good way. Kids can go skiing on a mountain just outside of town and while quiet, everything is pretty well taken care of.

But, there really wasn't much to do in town and I had to get back to New York to catch a flight. On the way out though, I saw the town cemetery, where who knows...maybe one of my ancient relatives is buried*.

Something cool happened though on the way out of town I saw some people ice fishing. I thought about just moving on, but realized I would forever regret never having walked on a frozen lake if I didn't. Therefore, I pulled over the car, and called to the guys in the middle and asked where it was best to start walking. They ended up just laughing and said that the whole thing was safe. So I went out there and joined them and got a decent education on the joys of ice fishing. It actually seems like the best way to fish. You aren't stuck in a boat. You don't ever cast a line, you get to grill and hang out with your friends and drink beer. Basically everything lazy about fishing is rewarded with ice fishing. And like they told me, "It's the only way to walk on water without going to church." If nothing else, they would have made my dad proud because they went on a rant at how they hated Ted Kennedy and wish the old drunk would just keel over.

They ended up showing me how much ice was actually on the lake and I was pretty much blown away. If you look at the picture below you can see about 1.5 ft of white ice in the whole...however, that's really just the snow pack (much like the top of a glacier). The 'real' ice is actually below that and is a deep black color. That's where the real strength of the ice is and it's about the same thickness. In fact, some of the lakes in the area are so secure people bring their houses out onto the lake for the winter. I actually had a really good time talking to them for awhile, but had to cut it short because the slush was starting to soak through my tennis shoes.

So it turned out to be a great trip, I got my picture, visited with some locals, ate some decent ribs, talked with fishermen, and walked on my first frozen body of water.

I hope to get back there one day again, it's really nice and supposedly in summer and fall it's just mind-blowingly peaceful and beautiful.

*Just in case you are interested. The Otis family is actually one of the original settlers of America. They came over from Sussex County in England just a few miles from Stonehenge and were actually a somewhat prominent family. One of the most interesting characters in the whole line was James Otis, who is known for helping a lot of pre-Revolutionary War thinking. Most notably the quote, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." And is really one of the 'grandfathers' of our nation.

Otis the Brewmeister

2008-03-09T19:57:00.008-05:00

Recently I've picked up a bit of a new hobby. Brewing beer. Actually I've wanted to brew for awhile now, but after visiting my good friend Kelly and trying some of her husband's delicious homebrew, I decided that I should try it on my own.

Now if there's one thing in this world that I love it's a delicious beer. One that is full of flavor, crisp when cold, and has that feeling of just washing stress away with every gulp. Since I was in Germany as an exchange student I've been a bit of a beer snob which is good though because it keeps me from being an alcoholic and helps me find bars/pubs that are about having a beer and not just about getting drunk.

So the last few weeks have been pretty exciting for me. The first night I ended up taking a LONG time reading up on just what I was doing and pouring over the directions and instructions from masters on the internet. Then I went ahead and started brewing some of my own. And here's the crazy thing. It's pretty much just like brewing a nice batch of sweet tea. Basically you just put some grains in a bag, steep them like tea bags, add a bunch of sugar, bring to a boil, add some flavor and boil that with everything for awhile until the flavor permeates everything then just cool it down quickly so that bacteria don't start growing in it, transfer everything to a air-proof container, pour in some yeast and then wait.

It was really cool the first week or so when the beer was just starting to ferment. You think of beer and think that it would smell bad, but NO! Our house smelled like banana nut bread for a solid week. I thought that the wife was about to kill me because it was making her crave the bread that she can't have but loves. Once everything settled down it was just a matter of time. Cause people don't really make beer, yeast does.

So tonight was the fun part. My beer had done everything that it needed to do and it was time to bottle it. I added a little sugar to the brewed mix so that the yeast will make CO2 in the bottles to carbonate everything. Before that though I was slaving to get the labels off of the old bottles so that I'd have a nice clean bottles in which to stick my brew.

After that it was all about the siphon action. So with the help of the wife, we filled all of the bottles and put their caps on. Look how beautiful they are.

Plus the fun part is that there was enough that wouldn't siphon so that I could have a full glass of beer. Albeit the beer was totally flat, but in all it wasn't too bad, and it was a lot better tasting than it was a week ago. Plus it's about 9.45% alcohol, so even if it's bad I won't really care by the end of it all. Now all I have to do is wait 1 month while the flavors mellow out and the bottles carbonate, and then viola! I'll have delicious beer at about 1/2 the cost!

But now it's the waiting game, so I'm just hoping that in the meantime my bottles don't blow up like orchestrated fireworks. And if everything works out well, then I think this is going to become a new hobby. I have to admit it's really satisfying to know that something I made is so delicious already and I can't wait to see what happens when it's all said and done.

Ideas for Fixing the Education System

2008-03-05T23:19:00.006-06:00

America's education system is broken. We spend way too much money for way too poor of a product, and I don't think patching it up is really going to help. We need an overhaul. A fundamental top to bottom change.

Based on the inspiration from my own prior thoughts and some thoughts from this article (What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart? - By Ellen Gamerman) about Finnish school children I think there are a few steps that can really help everything turn around and quickly:

Abolish the Teacher's Union. They simply hold everything back. They are more focused on keeping jobs for bad teachers than they are for teaching students.
Allow for vocational type high schools. There's simply no reason why most people should study algebra but not be taught how to decipher their bills. The main purpose of school is to train you for being an adult and our schools are not doing that.
Make all school funding come the federal government. This will raise income taxes, but will drop property taxes proportionally. This will also help to ensure that all schools receive adequate funding and help to eliminate disparities in funding between the rich and poor at least concerning educational possibilities.
Create a Teacher's Corps. This would be like a branch of the military. You get a free masters if you use their program and in turn you owe them 4 years of service in a facility of their choosing.
Require a master's to teach. And not a joke master's like most people I know that pursue education where they color for college homework (yes, they really did that at A&M). Make sure that our teachers are amongst the best and brightest instead of those most likely to perform poorly and 'not get it'.
Charge each family a set amount for each child they have in school. There is no reason why a single person or childless couple should have to pay more for raising your children than you do. People do not value what is given to them, and I truly believe that if a parent was charged for their children to be in school and fined when that child performs poorly, then it would give families a real reason to care and be involved with their child's success.

I think implementing some of these features will help point us in the right direction when it comes to education. Of course there are lots of other little details, but when you consider that our education system is broken, that we continually ignore different learning styles and that the average teacher is intellectually subpar when compared to those studying for other vocations, and the fact that there is no incentive for a teacher to perform well, it creates a perfect storm of teachers that don't care, student's who don't care and parents who are uninvolved.

The Big Caucus

2008-03-05T20:59:00.003-06:00

So somehow I went from being a republican to being a democrat delegate for my precinct in under 23 hours.

Per yesterday's post I decided to vote for Obama, here's how it went down:
Being a libertarian at heart it means I agree with democrats on personal privacy issues, and agree with republicans on fiscal issues. Unfortunately there really isn't a thing in the republican core that's fiscally conservative anymore other than the rhetoric. I also decided I couldn't vote for Paul or Huckabee because they didn't stand a chance and a vote for them was a vote for nothing, and I couldn't honestly back McCain unless he was running against Clinton*. So I voted for the candidate that I agreed the most with on the most issues. That would be Obama.

Now if there's one thing I love in life it's getting a deal. And well, the democrats had one heck of a deal going on. If you placed 1 vote on Tuesday, then you could actually get at least 50% more free for just showing up in the evening! So, because I wanted my 50% or more upgrade I headed over to our local precinct and caucused with the people in my neighborhood.

Things were absolutely crazy. There were almost 500 people all crammed onto the 1st and 2nd floors of a nursing home. Nobody knew what was going on, nobody had a PA, and it was pretty much just contained chaos. Finally after about an hour of standing around they let us outside, split us into Hillary and Obama groups and let us sign in to prove we were at the caucus. Now that sounds all simple and all, but it wasn't. It took about 2 hours for everything to get sorted out. You can read about it more over at the wife's blog, which is similar to Mrs. Juicebox's experience, which is similar to the craziness Kelly experienced, which is similar to the craziness about 10 other friends experiences.

One thing that really impressed me though about being on the Obama side of the caucus was how diverse the crowd was on his side. Never before have I seen so many people of such different background so enthusiastic about a single cause. There were old ladies, young babies, punk with mohawks, young guys in business suits, crazy liberal vegans, big bellied old white guys, hispanics, blacks, asians, whites, multi-racial babies... It really blew me away that all these people are all excited enough about something and believe in something so much that they're willing to sit outside in the cold for hours with nothing to entertain themselves simply to do what they could to show their support for this change that they believe in. Change is that word that has been thrown around by the media as if it's pointless, but they are SO wrong. Change is the fundamental harbinger of good that exists. Nothing can grow without change, nothing can move without change, no injustice can be righted without change. Now what is that change? That's harder to define because there is a different definition for almost everyone. Obama has blown me away by his ability to unite so many people and I can't wait until he gets a chance to do that one a bigger level.

Well, as far as the caucus went it ended up getting sorted out that of the 454 people caucusing, 2/3 were for Obama and 1/3 were for Clinton. Our precinct was allowed to send 63 delegates to the county convention to represent the voters in our precinct. So of the people left, the wife and I decided that we wanted to try to be one of those delegates. And what do you know, we're now official precinct delegates for the democrats!/? So now I get to do my part to not only represent Obama and help bring up his delegate count so that Hillary hopefully does not 'win' Texas, but I also get to play my hand in helping to make decisions in what the Democrat Party of Texas' decisions are at the local convention. And the cool thing is, in effect I get to help bring the democrat party towards my own libertarian leanings. If not, then at least I get to see and be part of our political process something that definitely intrigues me and will help me to grow as a person. Plus, like I said earlier. I like deals, and this turns my 1 vote into something like 1.7 votes if not more...now that's a deal you can't find anywhere else**.

*As a side note. Hillary's supporters are proven over and over to be amongst the old and the poorly educated. I can think of no better reason to advocate a stronger educational system in our country than to simply point out how amazingly obvious her placating is and the fact that only a person without a good sense of judgment due to a lack of a decent education would believe that drivel. I really think the lack of a good system of education is largely responsible for a lot of the ills of our society on a personal and political level.

**Unless you're a super-delegate.

Primary Dilemma

2008-03-04T00:06:00.003-06:00

Primary Dilemma:
Should I vote for the person I believe has the best plan, and I know will lose and be discarded with a smile? Or should I vote for the person who is not my ideal, but who I think could make a positive impact on our country and world?

So a quick run through of the candidates:

McCain - Honest man, but I don't like anything he stands for other than no torture.
Huckabee - Great on FairTax; unfortunately, he mixes God and politics too much.
Paul - Best ideas out there, but the US is too far gone to benefit...we like our lobbyists too much.
Clinton - Do I need an explanation?
Obama - Only person who seems to understand the 21st Century and has a lot of plans for little steps to move us forward.

I think it's those little steps that will be the real key.

But for this election? I have to go with Obama. The repubs don't respect Paul period, so while I could make a protest vote against McCain, it would simply fall on deaf ears.

So that leaves making an actual difference in the margin of Obama over Clinton. And if that happens, Obama will be president...period. If it ends up being Clinton vs. McCain...I'm voting libertarian or writing in my favorite superhero.

So tomorrow, voting for Obama (for those seeking substance, look here), then I'm going to Caucus and while Caucusing I'm going to do what I can to help push some local actions like eliminating toll roads on existing highways. Mostly I'm just looking forward to actually making some forward progress in this country instead of simply slipping further and further behind in the world...and maybe I'll help to make a step in that direction.

Time to Panic

2008-02-29T14:47:00.002-06:00

Saw this on CNN.com earlier. Hope you didn't have a lot of money in the S&P 500.

How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

2008-02-21T22:06:00.003-06:00

So this week in the headlines there has been a story about a spy satellite that is going to get shot down by a missile because it has gone offline.

The story they are giving as the reason why it needs to be shot down is because "the fuel could be toxic and create a small toxic cloud upon reentry."

How dumb do they think we are? Why not be honest and simply say, "Yeah, there's a bunch of really sensitive top secret stuff up in that satellite and we have no clue where it's going to land. If it lands in China or in some other hands we're hosed and will lose tons of our technological secrets. So instead of taking that risk, we're going to blow it up into little bitty pieces that will burn up in the atmosphere before anybody can get their hands on it."

Now was it that hard? Just tell the truth.

Now as far as the news organizations go: Shame on you for simply repeating the lines that you're fed. The point of the news is to get informed, and when you simply pass on the propoganda of our government you do us a huge disservice. Instead of reporting what the government tells you to report, just report what is actually happening. It's stuff like this that makes me distrust less and less of what I'm told.

Defeating the Deafening

2008-02-19T22:40:00.003-06:00

Star Trek was Right All Along

2008-02-19T09:13:00.004-06:00

Thanks to my step-mom generously giving us her copies of Star Trek (Seasons 1-4), we have slowly been working our way through the seasons as the ripples of the writer's strike continue to cause our television to suck even harder than it normally does. Now your median episode of Star Trek is probably a 3.5 out of 5; however, there are some amazing episodes of where you wonder how they were able to spend that kind of money on the script, where the characters show honor or disgrace, where the plot is strange and familiar at the same time.

Recently we watched an episode The Drumhead, which could have been written based off of the political headlines of this past week. Essentially the plot follows a situation in which a person on-board the ship is found to have committed espionage. But it is known that there is likely another traitor onboard...and that's where suspicions start to rise, rights start to shift towards conditional privileges, and individuals are presumed guilty without trial.

I love this dialog between Picard and Warf about the importance of security versus the importance of protecting an individual's rights:

Picard: The 7th Guarantee (info) is one of the most important rights granted by the Federation. We can not take a fundamental principle of the constitution and turn it against a citizen.
Warf: The Federation *does* have enemies. We must seek them out!
Picard: Ah yes. That's how it starts. But, the road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think. Something is wrong here, Mr. Warf. I do not like what we have become.

What I love about this, is that the issues looked at in that episode are such pressing issues even today. Just this week even there's been a very interesting case of the FISA bill. Essentially you have a piece of legislation that looks to protect those who were complicit and willing to assist in the denial of an individual's rights. Now granted, the rights were only violated in a mild way. And there was the looming doom of 'terrorists'. However, once you start to give in to these fears and infringing on rights for protection's sake, you lose the very essence of what makes the rules, the system of government so great. You lose a piece of your collective soul when you give into fears like these to perpetrate a crime against another. Or in the words of Picard, we are taking a fundamental principle of the constitution and turning it against our citizens.

Picard: With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. ...The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged.

What makes me even sadder is that we have elected officials that are meant to represent what we believe, who are there to make sure that our voices are heard. But they too are on the site of poorly-thought action. They are willing to give up whatever possible to make us 'safe'. As a great example, look at how hard my local congressman (who is elected only because of shady districting) fights to ensure that the rights of individuals are trumped in the name of security.

McCaul's Statement on FISA: "America [is] in its greatest time of need, in a time of peril, in a time of war."

If you read through 'Representative' McCaul's statements you'll see so much partisan pandering, illogical argumentation and complete avoidance of the real issue at hand. In this case the reason for that is because while it may feel right and you can even word the position to sound right, the truth is it's not right. You should never infringe on our rights, even if what the person does is scum...you have no right to violate their privacy unless subject to proper judgement that that is the call that needs to be made. I understand the world has changed, that progress needs to happen, that our current system goes the speed of a 19th century process when we're in the 21st century. So address those issues. Make a law stating that information needs to be retrievable for 1-7 days (in volatile, easily erasable memory). If the information is important then a warrant could be obtained in that amount of time and enacted. But don't overstep boundaries, don't allow one person to hold all the control, don't give some 'benevolent' force the power to choose right and wrong, don't throw away all our rights because somebody makes you feel scared, don't give people that knowingly did wrong a get out of jail free card, and don't pretend that nothing is in skirting our freedoms.

It's sad that these sorts of issues will continually crop up. But part of freedom is uncertainty. Part of living in a truly free world is that there are more than our friends walking amongst us. Part of living in a land of liberty means that somebody will choose poor associations, bad allies, and perhaps even harbor ill will. But to run around assuming the worst in people and seeking guilt is a dangerous proposition with dire consequences. In closing, I'll let Picard sum up my thoughts:

Picard: We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again.
Worf: I believed her. I... helped her. I did not see her for what she was.
Picard: Mr. Worf, villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged.
Worf: I think... after yesterday people will not be so ready to trust her.
Picard: Maybe. But she, or someone like her, will always be with us. Waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness. […] Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we must continually pay.

A Deposit, a Bank, a System, and a Dream

2008-01-30T13:49:00.001-06:00

I found out how we can all afford our dream houses! How? Just make the money ourselves out of thin air like banks do.

Now before you simply dismiss this as a stupid idea, you have to realize 2 things:

Our entire economic system is built on the use of Fractional Reserve Banking. The short story on this system is that when a bank creates a loan it never has to actually have that money in its reserves.
People are allowed to create their own banks. Those banks are known as Credit Unions. Therefore, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em by making our own bank. 10 steps to starting your own credit union.

So how exactly do I pull this off? And how do things actually come together.

Principle 1:
Well, first let's cover the basics. You see up there in item 1? Fractional Reserve Banking is the real key. Banks don't have to have money in their vaults to loan that money. Now the upper limit according to laws in the US mean you have to have a ratio of 9 parts magically created money on loan to 1 part money in the vault. In other words, if you deposit $1000 into my bank, I can take that $1000 in reserve and loan out up to $10,000 to the person of my choice.

Now here is the beauty and the sadness of this system. When a normal bank created that $10,000 loan, they charge ~6% interest on all $10,000. So by you giving the bank $1000 to hold as a deposit they are now using that money to make 6% interest on 10x that much. In other words, in that first year the bank is going to get $600 in interest money on the $1000 you gave them.

So now you should start getting the idea of why the biggest building in town is always the bank's building. -Try to show me any other industry where you can use somebody else's money to make a guaranteed 60% return per year AND be able to only offer the person that gave you the money a 5% money market rate and they are happy about how much they 'made' off the bank.-

So, my point on this level is that it seems somewhat wrong for me to pull out a loan for a home and be charged 60% interest per year on money that the bank magically created. It basically makes the whole I work hard for my money thing seem futile. I spend all of my life working for money and you can simply say that money exists and viola! There it is.

Principle 2:
So the real question is not so much, how do I earn $100,000s for a house. It really should be more focussed on what can I do to make this amazing system that banks have created for themselves work for me. Now I can't just run out and buy Wells Fargo because I'm simply not that rich. But, there is a bit of a legal loophole that I could try to pursue. And that would be point 2, establish my own credit union.

Unfortunately I'm sure somebody saw this establishing a bunch of individual "Federal Credit Union of Me"ses could create some serious problems because then any individual could say they are a bank and loan themselves money. However, if you can get 500-3000 people together you CAN create a credit union. As a credit union you would have all the power that a bank has. You could borrow money from the Fed for 3.5%, and then loan out 10x that much for 6% and laugh all the way to the bank...which fortunately is not far away because you are in the bank.

But, then comes that sticky situation. I've been to my local credit union. They aren't exactly loaded in dough, so what gives? And this is where my credit union would be completely unique, and why my credit union will offer an advantage unheard of in today's world.

Solution:
So the key to this whole situation is figuring out a way that you can create a loan for yourself using the banks 10x fractional reserve system. In my credit union I would keep a couple things in mind.

Banks would not make loans to people who are not members.
Members would have to buy 'shares' of the bank (likely at around $1000 per share).
Members would only be allowed to borrow up to 10x their share value, no more than that, no exceptions.
All costs would be reduced to minimum so that fees are low.

The first part is really important. Because a bank can only loan out 10x what it has on hand it's important not to give out money to people that aren't vested in our institution. Therefore, no money can be lent to people that aren't members. However, after a strict screening policy we could allow new members the opportunity to buy shares.

Shares put money into the bank's coffers. By putting that money in, you allow the bank to loan that money out. Therefore, if you want to buy a $250,000 house you need to put in $25,000 otherwise we simply can't give you the money. If you can only save $2000 for a house over the course of a few years, then frankly...you shouldn't be buying a house because you obviously don't know how to save. This bank will only be for those motivated enough to save a 10% downpayment on whatever it is that they want. Now say you wanted to use that $2000 for a $20,000 car, then by all means use it for that.

Now you won't be able to pull out any more loan money until you pay off the amount that you owe OR you deposit more money into the bank by purchasing more shares. The way banking regulations work, if you pulled out $250,000 for a house you have to pay back all of the principle before the original $25,000 is free to be multiplied out for something else.

One thing we also have to keep in mind is that all businesses have underlying costs that need to be paid. We'd have to hire a CPA, setup a website, etc. However, those costs could be greatly minimized if we had NO business front, required that all members handle their own loan authorizations (it's THEIR money after all, not the bank's), etc. But the beauty is that by not having a real front, we can easily run the thing in our spare time as an algorithm that simply sits there willing to help anybody that understands how it all works. Or at the very least somebody who understands that you can't pull out more than 10x what you put in in the first place.

So, how would we pay for those fees? I'm thinking just interest on the money that is on loan. But here's the kicker. Instead of charging 60% interest like the bank would our credit union would simply charge 6% on the principle, which means that you're only paying 0.6% on the entire loan. Now that is one SWEET deal. And totally legal because banks are not required to charge a minimum interest rate.

So let's look back at that home you might be interested in. Say the home costs $200,000. Well, if you want to buy, that means you need to start saving. In fact, if you save $10,000 per year (feasible if you're willing to work for it), you could own that home within 2 years. And the best part is you only pay 0.6% interest! So, based off of this calculator, that make your home go from costing you $1200 per month for the life of the loan and paying a total of $231,750 in interest...on top of the $200,000 for the house. And brings things down to paying $600 per month over 30 years and owing a total of under $18,750 in interest. So quick comparison. Would you rather pay $431,750 to Bank of America for your home, or would you rather just save 10% down-payment and pay $218,750? I can tell you which one I would do.

So, now all I have to do is find 500 people who like using the system to their advantage and we're set! Who's in?

Note:
This post quite possibly had a lot of concepts in it that may be unfamiliar. Just so you know, everything written is totally legit. If you have some questions about what I'm actually talking about I suggest you watch a documentary called Money as Debt. Once you've watched that once (or if you're too lazy), do a search for "Fractional Reserve Banking" and you'll come up with all sorts of sites, such as this one, that one, or this other one. Most sites will be paranoid because they are thinking 'fight the system'...I'm thinking 'work the system'.

Social Netiquette

2008-01-29T21:37:00.000-06:00

Alright, so I've had a bit of nostalgia lately and I decided to look up a few old friends on facebook (not MySpace because it's a the epitome of horrible web design by default...at least facebook has limitations on 'personalization').

Going through all of the old people though, I realized that it wasn't going to be a simple task. Somewhat because a lot of people don't appear to be connected to the web. While I personally can't understand that, I can understand that some people don't want to have an active web presence. So that I could forgive, but people make it ridiculously hard to tell who they are for 2 main reasons:

The profile image is of something random
They got married and decided that their maiden name isn't important anymore

Now, I could just list those 2 things and not explain, but what kind of post would that be?

So let's delve into the first since it's the shortest. The site is called FACEbook, not randompicturebook or noimagebook or fungroupphotowhereeverybodysheadis2pixelstallbook. No it's facebook, and the reason it's called that is so that I can see your face and tell who you are and then we can become friends. Why do I want to be your friend? Because I think you're a cool person that I'd like to see again at some point in my future.

Now, the even more aggravating problem, because at least if people don't have a good image you could potentially find them by their information. However, girls that run off and get married and then toss aside their maiden name with reckless abandon aggravate the snot out of me. I understand that you're married, I am too. Marriage is a great thing, and it is the source of so much joy. But to be on something like facebook and completely abandon any mention of your maiden name is the most 100% guaranteed way of making sure that your future will only involve people that you ever see again are people that hung out with you after you got married. While that may be cool to you, I once enjoyed your company and who you are...now I can never find out what became of you. If I'm in your same area I could drive right by your place and not even say hello. Mini disaster in my book...chances squandered and opportunities missed. The worst part is that for you married ladies out there, there is a field called "Former Name", you could just fill that out and viola all is well. Instead you lead a life that abandons a great chunk from your past...when you were just 'you' and you were great then too.

So to all of you social-site-using people out there. Social sites are like a big phone book with all of the cool people from all over the world, the best part of these sites is that you can use them to find all of the people that you want in your own personal phone book so that you can meet and relive who you were. By fixing these 2 simple things we can change ourselves from being simply strangers in this world passing by one another in the ether to once again sharing laughs, reliving memories and developing our friendships further from this moment on.

PS
Chris Johnson...if you're reading this, I tried to find you, but MAN are there a lot of you in the world.

The Ride

2007-10-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

This past October I made a most excellent adventure that was the first I've ever made of its kind. I am a bit of a forum lurker over at the VFR Forums, and I saw that they were planning on doing a group ride. Now most of the people were folks of real commitment that save vacation days and all that jazz to do things like this. Me I was lazy, so I decided to meet up with them that morning.

Unfortunately that meant that I had to wake up at about 6am and get on the road to meet them for an 8am start in Kerrville. Well, I sure got up that early and my goodness is there a huge difference in temperature between the city and the country. In the city everything felt fine (but cool) at around the mid-50s. However, out in the valleys things got into the 30s. And if you've never ridden a bike in the 30s, first I don't recommend it, and secondly, just imagine that you are stuck in a car with the windows down, no heat and it's freezing outside...that's warmer than a bike in the 30s.

Anyways, I raced as best as I legally could, but found out later that I missed them heading out by no more than 2 minutes. So I decided to go ahead and follow the route as best as I could:

View Larger Map

One thing I have to say about the Hill Country in this region is that it is breathtakingly beautiful. Fertile valleys, rolling hills, old 2-lane roads, lots of trees and vistas everywhere. I first found this area with the wife earlier in the year, and I've already been back 3 times in the last year...just gorgeous!

After playing a little rende-miss with the group, I finally met up with them and had my chance to sign The Flaf. My bike is definitely not one of those you see all the time, but when they came I couldn't help but get excited. What mods did they have? Are there any tricks to our bikes that I don't know about? What is that weird crack on my windshield? All sorts of questions. It was a really nice crowd too because most of the guys that ride my bike are a bit older so there were no crazy antics, talks about the craziest wheelies and stoppies that they mustered around minivans. Nope, just good people (okay, a couple weirdos, but for finding them on the internet I was impressed) on a good bike, riding great roads, in a gorgeous area. Oh, and did I mention that they were good riders. I've never seen people on bikes that were that confident and FAST! Not that we ever pursued supra-legal speeds, because that would be stupid (that's for you dad). They really pushed me to gain a lot of confidence in what my bike could do and to realize that the limiting factor in my relationship with my motorcycle is not the motorcycle...it's me.

Fortunately I was really happy, and practically grinning the whole time.

There's just a certain Zen that I reach on my bike when riding closer to my limits. All you can do is focus on the road, the angles, the lean, the brake balance, bike pitch, contact patches, friction limits, max lean angles, pushing of the handles, keeping enough throttle on so that the rear doesn't break loose, pulling the handle, gassing the engine, squeezing the tank, setting the line for the next turn... So much to think about that when I ride I realize that riding is the ONLY thing I can think about. And it cleanses my soul and leaves me more satisfied than practically anything else.

It was a good day, a long day, a challenging day, and a satisfying day. Although I must admit...I was really sore afterwards too because by the end of it I had been on my bike from 6am to about 8pm, ridden 500 miles, and really attacked it for about 300 miles of that. I simply got back and collapsed on my bed satisfied at having gone, and filled with dreams like this:

Lately

2007-09-19T22:59:00.000-05:00

So things have been a bit quiet around here lately, and for that I apologize. Between various trips, both work and pleasure related, and work in general I haven't had much time for anything on the internets. In fact, last week I spent an average of about 13 hours a day at work. And since I work on computers all day, the last thing I want to do is hope back on the internet and type some more.

Let's see, so what's been going on other than business.

Back in June-July the wife and I went on our first big vacation and visited the Seattle and Vancouver areas. I would love to do a big write-up, but the best I can give you at the moment is our pictures from the trip (link). While not all of the pictures are labeled, I did Geo tag them, so you can at least see where they were taken. Quick synopsis before I leave the trip. We went to Seattle, visited our first winery together, then went camping in North Cascades National Park, hiked a really isolated/gorgeous/strenuous trail, visited Vancouver, went kayaking, almost touched a seal, celebrated Canada Day in the Provincial Capital Victoria, went to Olympic National Park, spent the night in a rain forest, drove/hiked to the top of a mountain, went to Seattle, and then came home.

Once I got back, I went pretty much straight to San Diego for a business trip. While I was there one of my students helped me learn how to surf (still not good), and I got to swing up to visit my mom and sister before I left.

Then I had to go to Cali again, this time Santa Ana for a business trip. Got in some more surfing in (traded 3 days surfing for a 12 pack of Coors Light), saw my mom and sister every evening, ot to see my older sister and my new niece, played on the beach with the baby for her first time ever (super cute), and promptly raced back to Austin.

Since then it's mostly been work for me. I have a product that's going to be released soon, so the work schedule has been crazy and the main thing I'm learning is that there's always more to be done and what you thought wouldn't take long always takes too long.

On fun notes though, I managed to save up this summer and got the wife and I a really cool camera! I've been wanting a more professional camera for a long time after getting frustrated with missing great photos because the camera I'm using took too long to take the shot, or it did take the shot, but messed up the lighting or blurred the image. We ended up choosing an Olympus E-510 because it had the best lenses and features for the price point. So far we've had a ton of fun and can finally take the cool shots we missed before. Like water coming down a waterfall, musicians at a concert, action shots of the dog, intentionally out of focus shots, and just better clarity on even the most normal of shots.

Since taking pictures of things and working on finding things to take more pictures of has really been my greatest joy lately I'll leave you with a few of my favorites.

Washington and Vancouver

2007-08-23T23:29:00.000-05:00

This was supposed to be a real post, but never really came to fruition.

Feel free to click on the title of the post if you'd like to see pictures from our trip.

A little context. We went to Washington and Vancouver, spent a lot of time hiking and being active, had some great weather, and had a lot of fun. If only this area was so gorgeous year-round we would have already moved.

Here's one of my favorite pics, a composite of images taken from Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park

General Tso

2007-08-23T17:45:00.001-05:00

Today at lunch I was having a delicious bowl of General Tso's Chicken and I thought, "If I could go back in time and do one thing it would be to tell General Tso 'Thank You' because his food is awesome!"

But then I thought. Is that really the one thing I would do if I could go back in time? So I decided to make a list and see what some of your desires would be.

If you could go back in time and do, see, experience something what would it be?

Keep in mind we have to avoid making weird rifts in the space-time continuum, so no picking things like, "I'd keep Lincoln from being assassinated." or "Kill Hitler." Or "I'd use genetic engineering to make sure Henry the VII (I am) had a son." Or "I'd tell my great-grandfather to go ahead and buy those sand dunes in what's now Newport Beach...buy ALL of them." Hopefully you get the idea now...no altering anything*.

Here's my partial list of non-historically-significant-things-I-would-like-to-do-and-can't-do-in-today's-world:

Tell General Tso, "Thank you"
Meet Jesus, between ages 12 and 30
Rub the real Buddha's belly
Travel with Louis and Clark and discover North America
Actually see the Wonders of the World
...still thinking

*And don't try to Butterfly Effect me by saying you couldn't do anything without changing the future, this is hypothetical.

CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate

2007-07-23T23:37:00.000-05:00

I was just watching the CNN/YouTube Democratic Debates, and I just saw the best debate question ever posed.

As a whole the candidates cracked me up. When asked about global warming they all agreed that it was real and dangerous. Then when asked about their travel plans all but 1 of the candidates admitted to taking a private jet.

When talking about schools they tell us that we need to trust in public schools. Then when asked where they sent their children over 1/2 of them provided some sort of excuse as to why their children went to private schools. Why not just admit that private schools are better and you took advantage of the opportunities presented to you?

Here's my overview of the candidates:

Kucinich - He really believes what he says. While I may not agree with him, I respect him.
Clinton - Too polished. Will probably end up with the nomination though because of her rehearsed answers to everything.
Obama - Charismatic, but not quite as smooth on his feet as necessary.
Biden - Reminds me of old-college fraternity person from the north east...will never make it and has some bad ideas while trying to take more credit than he deserves.
Dodd - Not pretty enough. Mediocre ideas, but nothing new.
Edwards - has a fighting chance. Nothing unique, but not as detestable as Hillary.
Gravel - My favorite candidate by far. Proponent of the fair tax and school competition, didn't pander to emotions in his answer...basically no way in hell he'd get the Dem nomination because he actually tries to think.

Here's another fun question while we're at it:
Remy's Question on Taxes: YouTube/CNN Debates

Milestones

2007-07-09T20:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marks the first anniversary of my marriage to the Wife. The hardest part to believe is the cliché response of how quickly everything has gone. Last year was such fun with all of the wedding stuff going on, getting to visit with lots of friends, creating an event that truly represented who we are and what we wanted.

The past year in review has been one of the best in my life; full of joy, laughter, and fulfillment, excitement, adventure, newness, passion, frugality, and satisfaction. I really don’t know what else I could ask for.

Life with the Wife has been great. I’ve learned so much about her, about myself and about what we want for our lives and how we wish to grow. The best part is too that things are just starting. We’re finally getting settled into the role of spouse, confidant, lover and friend; and things are going along incredibly smoothly. In fact, many people warned us that the first year of marriage was by far the hardest and that things will get easier from here on out. I really don’t know how things could get easier, it’s been great.

What’s fun is now that we’re settled into our roles we’re starting to figure out what some of our goals are for the future and who/what we really want to be and be willing to take some of the steps that will get us closer. One great book that I would really recommend to any couple would be the book Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach. While the word ‘rich’ is in the title, it’s not all about money. It’s about making sure that your life is headed in the right direction to help you become what you want to be and centering your life around the values that make up who you are and not around the things you want to buy (one of the biggest problems for most Americans).

So one year in review I would say that marriage to the right person is one of the greatest choices you could ever make. I’m so happy that I’m with the person that I found. Wife, I couldn’t ask for more and I look forward to more slow Saturday mornings, trips to new places, dinners at home, uncorking bottles of wine, hikes through the park with the puppy, motorcycle rides on back country roads, mornings in the coffee shop, reading together on the couch, cuddling up for a movie together, helping you reach things on top shelves, making sure you are squeaky clean, creating stories about strangers’ lives, explaining mathematical/scientific concepts, learning about HR nuances, camping trips, reading labels in search of glutens, working out together, and feeling the closeness of you for years to come.

Peace Officers

2007-06-18T16:55:00.001-05:00

One thing that really hacks me off is that police are often more of villains and thugs than even the crooks. Take your average day, would I rather walk by an Austin Police Officer or would I rather walk by some guy on 6th Street that's high? Well, given recent events, I would MUCH rather walk buy the drug addict. At least if I walk by them I'm not likely to be assumed of committing some crime, I probably won't be harassed, and even if I am harassed I can leave at my own free will...not so with the cop.

That got me to thinking though, because it's pretty sad that I would rather be near this supposedly 'bad' person than I would near the 'good' cop. What caused this change? There was a point in my life (my dad is a life-long officer), where I would happily trust a cop, and willingly go to them for assistance. But that naiveté has been replaced with suspicion and distrust due to almost every single point of contact with a peace officer to be a VERY negative experience. I'm not just talking tickets either. I'm talking about a complete disregard by police officers as a whole towards just being good people. It really seems that instead of being interested in keeping the peace, protecting and serving people, they are MUCH more focussed on the people serving them. Serving them time, serving them money, serving them humility to bolster their egos.

What caused this change? What made this huge shift in our police force since the 50s where we see images of the local police being friendly and helping people out in town? Just think to something like the Andy Griffith Show. You had a sheriff that just let Otis come in and out of jail. Today, you have Cops, where the highlight is chasing people down and throwing them on the ground while slapping on cuffs. Which isn't too far off from the real world of cops shooting unarmed people in the back (Austin, Texas) or busting down the door of grandmothers and then shooting them to death (Georgia).

I think the real problem is not necessarily that the world has gotten worse (my personal opinion is that the world is no worse/better now than at any time in history...just think on 'kids these days' comments), it's that our perceptions of the world have gotten worse, and that in all of this panic about security, somewhere in there, we decided that police should have free reign to lord over our lives. Combine this with the really unethical practice of using tickets to fund your own department (see New Rome, Ohio), police are really just a means of taxation and don't really serve the people in any meaningful way the majority of the time, and can never be questioned because they consider themselves to BE the law instead of simply enforcers of the law.

So how can we change all of this?

The first thing to do is to follow the money trail. We need to make sure that tickets through such events as traffic fines are NEVER spent on the department that creates those tickets. The reason. What's to put those people in check? What's to prevent an officer like the one I had a great chance to meet from simply piling up the tickets...in fact, it's positive feedback. You ticket more, you get more money, so that you can ticket more, so that you can get more money, etc. This simply has to stop. There's no rational reason why cops have to sit around lurk for tickets for petty crimes when there's real problems out there that should be taken care of.

The second thing that needs to happen is there needs to be a fundamental change in attitude of our police forces. Instead of thinking of each person you meet as a criminal in the making. People should be thought of as what they are...generally good, but fallible. So how do you do this? Instead of having a system that essentially has quotas of how many tickets are issued, or who can generate the most money. Police forces around the country should really have much harder and stricter quotas...on how many people you directly helped/impacted in one day. Imagine how much that could help to change the attitudes people have towards police. Instead of simply rushing out to see what people are doing wrong, try to see where people could use some help and lend a hand. You'd be making the world a much better place, and if I did something wrong I could understand my guilt more because I would know your hobby isn't slapping people around, it's helping people.

I hate to see so many people's lives on a local level simply fall victim to an unapproachable and uncontainable foe that is our modern peace offices, but with a few changes like these I think it could really help our communities for the better and would help to make sure that instead of hiring thugs and deviants to assert their will on the people you could hire people that want to help make their community a better place for all.

Entitled

2007-06-18T15:59:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the recent upswing of my company's stock, patience, lots of saving, and the frugality of our lives lately; the wife and I reached a pretty awesome milestone in our lives. We paid off my car!

I can't tell you how freeing it is to know I no longer have to make that payment each month, to hold the title in my hands, and to know that no matter what, that's my property and it can't be taken away from me*. So now when you see me driving around in my car. Know this. That vehicle is paid for and I'm now one step closer to being free from those whom I owe money.

Another cool related thing is that for the first time since college both myself and my wife are free from any and all credit card debt. This has been a big goal of ours to get rid of credit card debt, and we finally did it!

Needless to say it's been a great month, and a freeing one from a financial perspective. I'm really looking forward to our Personal Debt-Free Day, which should happen sometime within the next 2 years...or 1 year if we really cut back on expenses.

___
*Except by the government for any reason it decides, or an individual if they happen to sue me, or theft, or by accident thereby destroying the vehicle and removing it from my possession.

The Crazy Ones

2007-06-15T20:27:00.000-05:00

I was talking with a friend of mine at work today. It was interesting because he was talking about going to a family event of his and how the relatives were driving him crazy because all of their lives were like some huge soap opera. So much stress, so much drama, and finally he was able to understand why his parents didn't always go to visit them...couldn't handle the unnecessary discord.

That got me to thinking about other friends I have that have similar people in their lives that simply seem to be always surrounded by some drama or another, but what's interesting is that there's always something going on that's 'oh so aweful.'

During the course of the conversation he said something that I want to remember because I think it will help me to easily decide who or what I do or don't want to surround myself with.

Rational people: "Don't have major life-crises that they've created themselves."

So if you want to bring drama to me, first use this as a litmus test to find out if I care:

Is this really an issue that has a bearing on your life or the lives of others?
Did this drama already exist and you're simply a bystander trying to get out?
Have you tried to deal with it on your own?
Are you even willing to change your actions?

If your answers are 'no' then I don't want to hear about it. Go deal with it yourself and get back to me when you can realize that your own actions have consequences and the world is NOT out to get you and hurt your feelings.

I'm looking forward to a nice, calm, unemotional time with you from here on out.

Architectural Faux Pas

2007-06-14T15:12:00.001-05:00

Why is the short urinal ALWAYS in the wrong spot?

The first real question is why are there short urinals in the first place. I don't work with a single midget, there aren't any 5 year-old child prodigies at most locations, and handicapped people will need to use the toilet bowl anyways. No, we're all grown ups around here, so why do these incessant short urinals exist in the first place? My only real guess is that maybe it has something to do with the Americans with Disabilities act. Well, if that's the case then where's my tall urinal?

The necessity of a short urinal aside, there is continually a major phallus-y in the placement of the short urinal.

Why of why is it that every restroom I go into looks like this?

As you can see, the first person who goes into the restroom goes to Urinal #3. The next person who goes in has to either pee on their feet by using Urinal #1, or risk having another man look at their junk by using Urinal #2. Because neither option is ideal the second person in the restroom has to either:

Wait for Urinal #3, which is awkward since you can't talk to a man if he's peeing and you're not. So you can stand there in silence simply listening to another man go.
Use one of the toilet bowls, which will lead to having to lift the toilet seat with your shoe or worse the evidence that a disaster had occurred before you got there.

As you can see, this is pathetic. In the modern setup, there are 3 urinals, but 2 are a complete waste and are never used! Why not just have a huge magazine rack in the same place so you can have something to read per a #2 incident.

Because of this waste of ~70% of urinal resources and the apparent forcing of bathroom designers to adhere to the use of placing a short urinal in all restrooms I have devised an optimized solution.

As you can see, this increases productive urinal use by 100%! The first person will use Urinal #1 because it is furthest from anybody else (unless it is directly adjacent the door, in which case Urinal #3 will be the first urinal used). The second person is then free to use Urinal #3. Now if more people come in, then it's perfectly fine. The next person can use a toilet, and if things are really crowded, then it's perfectly acceptable for Urinal #2 to be utilized (such as when a sporting event lets out or the end of a party).

So please, architectural masterminds-in-the-making. PLEASE start arranging your urinals with care, you'll reduce maintainence costs and help enforce the man-code with a simple readjustment of the porcelain receptacles of our pee.

Viewing the Mountains

2007-06-07T22:02:00.000-05:00

I just had one of the best work trips I’ve ever had. This week I came to Mountain View, CA and from start to finish it was about as great as one could hope for.

One of the best things about coming to Mountain View from Austin is that it’s a direct flight. After my last business trip where I was traveling between 8am and 2am just to get to my destination, I LOVE the fact that I simply board one plane, sit back (with my new Bose Noise Canceling headphones that the Wife got me for my birthday. Thanks!) and viola I’m there. This place is simply beautiful, from the first moment I stepped outside I was greeted by perfect weather, and beautiful trees.

Fortunately I’ve been to this region before. While last time I was here I spent a good deal of time going to San Francisco or visiting malls…this time I decided I was going to do nothing but soak up the mountains and get some good exercise. And that’s what I really love about this area, the landscape is gorgeous. Mostly it’s just because on the ‘mountains or beaches’ first-date question I circle mountains multiple times, but also these are some really nice ones in that they’re scalable and have tons of wildlife all over them. The first day was a nice little jaunt of only about 2 miles, but totally worth it, especially because I saw the clouds make a rainbow…never seen that before.

The course I was teaching went pretty well too, most of the class was really top notch and nobody fell asleep, so that’s a definite plus.

The next evening I decided to drive and see what I can find. This is point 2 why I love mountains is getting to drive these awesome twisty little roads that make your tires stink and your rotors beg for mercy. I raced up and down the twisties for about an hour before finally finding a great spot to go jogging. Then it was up again into the mountains.

Going into the mountains is always a little scary alone cause there’s big signs at the head of every trail that say, “Never hike alone. Mountain Lion Habitat”. But, I figure I’m a bit on the big side for a mountain lion, so I’ll take my chances. Doesn’t mean I didn’t take my ID though…just in case. So these mountains are so diverse. There’s shrubby plants, redwoods, grass meadows, dry areas, lush areas, etc. This trip was really cool because I found all sorts of critters.

Like baby birds in a mud embankment.

Deers.

Peacocks at the local winery.

And lots of bunnies.

The trail was a lot of fun too but was quite a few miles long. After running all this time in the mountains this week my legs and butt are starting to get pretty sore.

After tooling around on Google Maps I found something the next day that I decided I needed to go to: Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The road out there was fantastically fun (map). Just turn after tight turn after turn. If only I wasn’t driving a Chrysler Sebring (one of the worst handling rentals I’ve ever had: anemic, warped rotors, squishy tires, poor steering feedback) I could have really had a blast! Eh, I had a blast anyways, so it’s all good.

Anyways, I get into this park and it’s just fantastic. The trees soar over your head to where you can never see the tops, the trunks are massive, and the quiet of everything is surreal.

It’s weird, but where the foothills were teeming with life, the forest was eerily silent. Simply the wind in the trees, the slow creaking of the massive trunks and the gurgling of the brooks.

All this beauty really turned me into a tree hugger though.

Then I found a map and looked for the trail I wanted to hike, but I found out it was 11 miles long and it was already about one hour until dark, so that wasn’t going to happen. So then I did a bit more searching and found a trail that was supposed to take 3 hours, and was labeled as being ‘very strenuous’ and having a rigorous ascent. Sounds perfect! So I decided to book it up to the top of the 1200 ft (365 m) climb and it was totally worth it!

I did the whole 2 mile 1200ft ascent in 30 minutes! That’s like walking to the top of the Empire State Building and then running a mile…pretty proud of myself on that one.

The views from the top were breathtaking and the serenity of the moment was peerless. I just sat at the top for about 20 minutes just soaking in the harsh brutality that awaits those who visit the mountains’ peaks. The clouds soar overhead like cars on a freeway, racing with feverish pace and the roar of the wind howls at you like you’ve invaded some wild animal’s territory.

Unfortunately the sun was about to set, and the ever present threat of cougar attacks made me decide to make a quick descent to the safety of numbers. A nice drive home through the now darkened twisties and through Saratoga which was littered with Ferrari's and Porsche's and it was off to bed for me. A little sorer, but better filled with joy on the inside.

The last day of class ended a lot earlier than I thought so I got to go to this great coastal city called Santa Cruz.

While I don’t have a lot of pictures it was absolutely splendid just walking on the beach, watching kids run away from the waves, feeling the cool breeze blow over me, and seeing even more new things.

Like baby sea lions.

And kelp. And surfers. And my favorite (a mini life goal of mine), I got to see a Sea Otter floating on its back in the ocean and trying to bang open an oyster against a rock on its chest. (The next mini life goal is to have a pet fresh water otter!)

After all this running around though I was wiped out but completely satisfied. I can’t really put into words how recharged I feel inside after being directly in the presence of so much beauty, it really just fills me up. I really hope that one day I can move to a place like this and have access to this all on a more regular basis. Now I’m just counting down the days until the wife’s and my vacation to Washington and British Columbia. Can’t wait!

Quick Phlog

2007-06-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

That's a 'Photo Blog' for those of you that don't randomly take letters out of things for the heck of it.

Things have been busy but fun in the Otis household lately. The wife recently passed a certification class that she was quite busy with, and today she found out that she didn't just pass...she beat the test into the ground and made it scream uncle. I'm back out on the road teaching ever harder courses. The puppy still can't just chase deer all while we're at work. And all sorts of other stuff. To keep things simple though, I thought I'd share a few photos with you of some of the stuff that's been going on lately.

I wrapped up my first year as a Robolab teacher. These kids were really great, and smart to boot. I'm definitely going to miss their little faces next year.

Then we had a Yuppy Wine and Cheese Party

That led to there being a bunch of giggly women on our couch, while us guys played Battletoads and Punch Out.

This was one of the most beautiful Springs that we've had recently so that means the obligatory photo of us in the bluebonnets with 'the kids'.

On the balcony the Wife has been testing her green thumb and we're actually making some really good basil, and growing little tomatoes and bellpeppers.

And of course no photo collection is complete without a picture of the dog..

I swear 1/2 of my memory card is comprised of various pictures of Abi not looking at the camera. Fortunately she's getting older, so these scenes of her simply relaxing are getting more and more common.

Alright, looking at her is making me tired. I'm out.

Who is Really in Control?

2007-05-19T10:55:00.000-05:00

While watching the news lately you can see all sorts of information about the effort being made by the 2008 presidential candidates to raise funding for their campaigns. What's ridiculous is the amount of money they will need to move forward. The figures are astounding, in the 10s-100s of Millions of dollars. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2008 candidates end up spending about one billion to get elected.

But all of that money made me start thinking a bit about where it all comes from. I know that I'm not spending that much. And I know that many of the issues that are pursued in this country do not really reflect the desires and opinions of the majority of the people in this country. The groups that really stand to benefit from the policies of the government (either Republican-led or Democratic-led) are the huge corporations and organizations that exist in this country.

But why are the bills created to benefit those companies? When you look through the constitution you do not see the government as being created "Of the businesses, by the businesses, and for the businesses." No! The government is intended to be "Of the People, by the People, and for the People." Granted all people are ultimately employed by some business, but the government should remain a solemn entity that represents the needs of its citizens. It's concerning to me though that these huge campaigns that are run, and the focus of our political system (both on foreign and national policy fronts) are centered not around the needs of the people upon which the system is built, but on the desires of corporations and organizations which cannot even vote.

When looking for the reason for anything in this world, the simplest place to start is to look for where the money is flowing. If you look at the political class, it does not take a genius to realize that most of the money in our political system comes from organizations and corporations. Naturally then it follows suit that since these are the largest portions of monetary flow for our government officials that they will be most interested in making policy for whoever lines their coffers.

However, when you think about the root, just how many votes does a corporation have? How many votes does a union have? How many votes do illegal aliens have? How many votes do other governments have? Not a one. Not a single vote. So why is it that we continue to allow them to contribute to a system that is not created for them? Why do we continue to make policies that benefit corporations that contribute to campaigns? Why is the minimum wage raised everywhere except for where one business runs their operations and their headquarters just so happen to be in the same district as the speaker of the house? Why (since the 1970s) do we only fight wars where we can later extract or leverage some natural resource? Why was there a mandate put out declaring that all adolescent girls are required to take a vaccine produced by a company that contributed to a governor's campaign? Why are toll roads being created throughout Texas even when large pieces of the projects were already publicly approved and funded? These interest can at best help the electorate in some abstract and probably intangible way; however, they can directly be seen as helping Corporation X in Senator Y's district. When looking at situations like this I think it's very appropriate to use Occam's Razor, and you'll quickly see where the truth lies.

One of the greatest things that I think could happen in this country is to create a complete and total ban of any corporation or organization from donating to any political campaign or cause. But how would those organizations be able to affect national policy? Well, they could have education campaigns to individuals in their organizations/company and then the people in those organizations can make the choice as to what to do or who they want to contribute to. It's way overdue that something be done so that we the people can actually control the government that we created. I truly believe that by eliminating corporate and organizational contributions we could level the political playing field a bit and our politicians would be forced to listen to those who donate the most to their cause...which would just so happen to be the same citizens that vote for them.

While we're at it maybe introduce a policy similar to the tech industry's 'do not compete' clause stating that all government officials cannot join a lobby or head a group they've funded for 5 years after leaving their office. That way they don't start making off the books deals that roll-over at a later date.

Passive Aggressive Taxes

2007-04-10T18:36:00.000-05:00

You think they'll get it?

It's my way of saying thank you to the IRS spending more of my money than I do in ANY other category of my life.

Dear Kitty,

2007-04-04T20:37:00.000-05:00

I saw you as I rounded the corner. I didn't yet know what you were, only that some of your pals were surrounding you. I scared them away after letting out a roar, but I coul not move you. You only laid there. I looked down and you were still moving, and then I realized who you were. You were another kitty, but you had been hit by some car before me...you were long gone, but still lingering.

I wish I knew what to do. Should I finish what the first car started? Should I use the machete I had in the car and make it quick and clean? What if you belonged to somebody? What if they saw me finish it all quickly? Where would I put you? Would you get my car dirty? What would a cop do if they saw me with a bloody machete? Should I just drag you out of the road? Should I leave a note for your owners? I don't know what to do, what would be best, what would cause the least harm.

Had you kept moving I would have helped, but when you stopped I knew that you should be left where you were so that your story would be easily known. I will now leave you to your circle of mourning friends, may your death not also be the death of them.

Sincerely,
The Man Who Watched You Pass Away

Modern fArt

2007-03-26T17:14:00.000-05:00

While in New York I had a great chance to visit one of the premier museums for Modern fArt that exist, the MoMA. One of the frustrating things that I noticed was that the 'artists' never seemed to be able to relate what their masterpiece was about. Perhaps they couldn't recognize it.

Fortunately for you, I've taken a few of these masterpieces and helped you to better appreciate these items of beauty by giving them a name and helping you to understand the emotions and passion behind these brilliant works.

Gymnasium in Flood

Nothing better captures emotions than a flood. Here you can see three balls. One finds itself as an outcast from the others despite them all being the same. You can also see their tension as the rest between the water that lifts them and the air that they need to remain full. Yes, I think we all can relate.

Home Depot: Paint Department

Some of the most beautiful things in the world are those that are around us all the time. What better way to demonstrate that to bring the world of your local paint department to the halls of a museum. A perfect contrast of simple and refined.

Young Artist Wets Their Bed

As a child wakes up in the morning and wets the bed, so has this artist. But to help preserve the complexity and disorder of those moments the artist has replaced the results of micturition with paint.

Freebirds as Leftovers...Microwaved

We've all done it. Brought home a burrito and tried to reheat it. Most people realize that you should take the foil off before microwaving; however the artist chose to let us see the danger that would happen if we did not follow our normal pattern of rules.

Jacked-Up Jousting Jackalope

Yeah, um...there's no explaining this one. I'm thinking they needed some money, had a few sticks and a dead rabbit.

As you can see those that appreciate or create modern art are socially capable individuals that are solidly grounded in reality and help to express the world in a way that's intuitively relevant and comprehendible to all.

Poly-Ticks

2007-03-22T22:44:00.000-05:00

Alright, I'm on a political bent, so you'll have to bear with me.

Really excited about Ron Paul running for president. A guy like this would do AMAZING things for this country. Too bad most of America is too dumb to understand what needs to be done, and he's not your mainstream Republicrat so he's getting no coverage whatsoever in the media. But the good news is he's gaining a lot of support thru the internet, and who knows, if I can convince some people that can convince some people...could become something real.

Death and Taxes. The only sure things in life. Question is are you so sure about why you're paying them? According to this interesting documentary (America: Freedom to Fascism). While certain lawyers may disagree (ahem) with it, the fact remains if you cannot clearly point out where a law is and why it exists, then you cannot enforce such a non-existent law. Why don't we just implement the Fair Tax instead of our current overly complex system that provides too many loopholes for those with the money to evade it?

RTfB Act. I really think that one of the worst parts of our government is the ambiguity and ridiculous length of what members of congress say they approve of. When a bill is 1000 pages long there is NO way that you could have the ability to read, much less comprehend what you're voting for. Not only that, but much of the language of laws is deliberately worded so that it's so ambiguous that nobody can understand it (much like credit card contracts), that way the authorities that be can really do whatever they want and claim that the law is actually on their side. I really applaud DownsizeDC for trying to get this off the ground. Yet again, probably will never make it, but if it does...expect great bad things like abolition of Habeas Corpus to be a thing of the past.

Other ideas in the pipeworks that I like. A law that would only allow one topic to be addressed per bill proposed. And having automatic runoffs or making the house of representatives reflect the voting percentages of the electorate on a per party percentage (like in the Netherlands). Whatever happens in this country the first thing to do is to take control of our currency, shift taxes so that they do not punish production, and then create laws that force it to where Congress can only really do something if it's VERY important or relatively simple to accomplish. Not that any of this will ever happen though...unless we can somehow get Ron Paul in for president. What would be really interesting is if Hillary gets the Dem nomination, and Paul does not get the Rep nomination, then to have a Paul/Barrack ticket...now that would get America interested in the race and prove on both their parts that they are more concerned with helping America than with partisan politics. We'll see what really goes down though.

[Edit March 23, 2007]
One more great link.
A Visual Guide to Where Your Taxes Go by Death and Taxes

Are You Good Enough?

2007-03-22T22:30:00.000-05:00

Recently I purchased Neal Boortz's book Somebody's Gotta Say It and ran accross this amazing quiz in one of the chapters. The quiz can be found online here:

The Boortz Citizenship Quiz

And this is why I love this guy. You may not agree with all of the points, but man...they really make you think. And I'm ashamed to say there's a good chunk of the questions in there that I really don't know anything about or completely understand. - It would really help if there was an NIV or NAS version of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. -

Just in case you're too lazy to check out the list here are a few of the questions that really made me think.

If our Constitution provides for equal protection under the law, why, then, does the Voting Rights Act only apply to certain states who were held in political disfavor in the 70's?
Where in our Constitution does it specifically state that only U.S. citizens may vote for the office of President of the United States?
Why were the words "under God" placed into the Pledge of Allegiance?
How many times can the word "democracy" found in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution?
How many times can the word "democracy" found in the constitutions of any of the 50 states?
If two wolves and one sheep vote on what they're going to have for dinner what do you think the menu will look like?
Do you have a choice as to whether or not you pay Social Security taxes? Why then do they call Social Security taxes "contributions"?

The wife and I actually had a really great conversation trying to figure out the 'right' answers to some of these. And we ended up having a lot of fun discussing these issues. That's one of the best things about being married to her...just when I think I know her inside and out I just keep learning more.

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

2007-03-22T21:45:00.000-05:00

To all of my readers that are still left, I apologize for the long absence. Life has been very interrupting lately, but it's been good because it's let me learn much about myself and what I hold to be important.

Ultimately things have really been changing for me since November. I thought it would finally be a good idea to look at all the money that seemed to slip like sand out of my fingers and see where it's really going. Looking at your debts is an amazing way to reflect upon what your values are and for those of you that haven't I strongly recommend it. Once I got the main checking accounts worked out I sat down with the wife and made a plan for finally ridding ourselves of debt. I think this is going to be one of the hardest things that we ever do as a couple though...definitely will take a lot of work, but the freedom involved with a lack of debt will be awesome! From the checking accounts I moved on to the retirement accounts and the various other accounts that I have stuck here and there and was truly amazed at what can happen when you're not looking. IRAs in all the wrong distributions, moneys missing and the like. All very stressful, but once worked out, very satisfying.

It's weird but lately I've been on a big kick to try and figure out what money really is. I mean it seems weird that I spend so much of my life dedicated to the earning of money, but the more I acquire the faster it runs away from me. Is my spending really out of control? Is there really a need to save as much as I am for my future? All these things I'm not really sure of. I mean I know that there won't be Social Security when I get old (every person with two synapses knows my generation won't see a dime). Even if I do manage to save and earn millions with compounded interest it still won't be worth nearly as much by the time I go to get it due to inflation.

On the one hand it's been really fun to delve into money in this larger scale sense and try to gain an understanding of what really happens with it all. But on the other hand I feel little like Solomon must have felt when God gave him the gift of knowledge. While this new knowledge is awesome I can't help to feel really let down. What's amazed me most is to see that if you understand money on a large scale it puts everything else into perspective. It becomes so easy to see how people are manipulated at the top levels to help a few of their friends to build a toll road, give away the basis for power of our government, and become involved only in areas where we get a monetary and not a moral reward.

The biggest thing that has recently opened my eyes to the world that we all pay for is actually a cartoon called Money as Debt (video and website). But not just any cartoon, it's more of a documentary of the fuel that moves us forward. It appears to be well researched and if you get the time to watch it (about 45 min), I think it will open your eyes a bit more to the world around you. And if it does open your eyes I think that you will see much is wrong. I feel like the US that we live in today is very akin to Vanity Fair. All running around filled with mirth, but unaware of the danger that we are walking in and the traps we have unwittingly set for ourselves. It really saddens me because I really want to love the US, but it seems at every turn she does yet another thing that dissolves any trust. It's like having a girlfriend that you want to love but she seems more interested in whoring herself to the highest bidder.

I don't quite know where to go from here. This was actually meant to be a quite different post, but it evolved of its own accord. I guess some of the things I wanted to leave you with were some of the resources that I've found of late that really have helped me to learn more about who I am and better understand this world around me.

So in no particular order:
The Simple Dollar - One man's quest to save and not continue life as a serf
Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach
How to Lose Your Fear of Being Fired by The Chief Happiness Officer (lame name, great advice...particularly in the top 10 articles)
Google Finance - See how your stock options are worth nothing!

Various other links, comments, blurbs and other conversation that have helped to build me, but I'm tired of listing things.

New Favorite Web Comic

2007-03-06T20:28:00.000-06:00

Word of the Day

2007-01-09T10:50:00.000-06:00

Cuboidical (kyōō'-boi-dĭ-kəl)
n. Similar to a cubical, but all the sides need not be of equal length.

"Man Sanjay, I feel like my life is slowly being sucked away from me every moment I'm in my 8'x8' cubical."

"No Joe, because your cubical is only 5'6" tall your life is actually being sucked away every moment that you are in your cuboidical."

Look at Me. I'm the Weatherman!

2007-01-05T16:32:00.000-06:00

I swear, this is what it looks like every week. I'm in work it's beautiful, I get home it's dark, it's bright out and I'm off...it's raining and cold.

Pre-Christmas

2006-12-23T22:26:00.000-06:00

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport.

"General opinion is starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed. I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy but it's always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.

"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love.

"lf you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."
-Opening of 'Love Actually'

This year is going to be a really unique as it's the first year that I've been married and spent a Christmas with the lady. So far it's been really fun with the tree, decorations, first christmas ornaments, home-made wreaths, hand-dipped chocolate covered pretzels, egg nog, presents under the tree, the wifey wrapping presents for me, warm house with a dreary outside...

All of these things are starting to make up for all the decoration-less, lame Christmaces that I spent pre-Mrs. Otis. I'm really lucky where I am this year and I wish you all a Merry Christmas as you look and see the love that is all around you this season.

Oh, the Places I've Gone!

2006-11-27T17:31:00.000-06:00

A Real Daredevil

2006-11-20T17:28:00.000-06:00

Check this out. And prepare to be amazed.

Why You Need a Separation of Church and State

2006-11-15T15:37:00.000-06:00

"…the bill goes against...the constitution of Pakistan, which state respectively that "Islam will be the state religion" and "No laws will be passed which are repugnant to the Koran and sunnah."

-BBC News Report, Kirachi

Sometimes the things we do in America scare me. Up until the last year or so I saw the whole US headed towards becoming just the Christian version of all those messed up countries in the Middle East. Time after time there were outrages that America were abandoning God, forcing people to forget their religious roots, and that we needed a return to Jesus. While on a personal level I’m all for that, a lot of people failed to realize that there are distinct separations between church and state for a very good reason. Because it keeps you from deciding that I need to die.

Religions themselves tend to be rather peaceful, religious viewpoints on the other hand are usually formulated around taking abstract portions of text and applying them against those that you like the least. Take for examples gays. The Bible clearly states in many places that gay sex is an abomination of God. Because of that statement gays are hated in the US, chastised, told that they cannot live their life in the manner they choose, have lies made up about them, and even keep Ellen Degeneres from becoming a late-night replacement for Jay Leno (that’s my theory at least). However, these same people clearly ignore all of the other abominations surrounding those same verses with which they so blithely use to instantly condemn those they don’t like.

Such forgotten abominations as:

Fortunately though we have at least one "kitty-litter rathold of a country"* that gives us shining examples of why we should never, never, NEVER let a religion run a country.

Under the controversial Hudood Ordinance, brought in under Gen Zia-ul-Haq from 1979, a rape victim had every chance of being convicted of adultery unless she could produce four male eyewitnesses to the crime.
The punishment for adultery is lashings and stoning according to traditional Islamic law.

The big hoorah over there is that instead of just killing women who get raped because the women are adulterers, they now might need to (omg /oma, close your eyes, this might be a bit astonishing) investigate the allegations! Such heathens! Such infidels! Such obvious extortion by the secular conspiracists!

Sad thing is, those exactly the cries that are being heard.

*as said by Andrew

Election Results

2006-11-08T09:08:00.000-06:00

Tally the Votes

2006-11-06T16:16:00.000-06:00

First off I'd like to show you a little map of just how corrupt our districting was. I heard the Dems whining a few years ago, and now I finally see why.

It's ridiculous that parts of Austin are included in the same districts as suburbia Houston. Or the fact that all of the Dem strongholds on the border of Mexico are broken into thin slivers that end up being majority Repub. The needs of the residents from one part to the other are incredibly different; how can you effectively represent the people if they really have nothing in common because the district has no commonality? Why can't we just make simple districts by area?

The root problem is that lawmakers set up their own districts, and I think that needs to come to a halt if we're ever going to make this country a better place. Setting your own district is like me setting my own boss...of course I'm going to pick the guy that likes me, but that means I'll work all that much less because I know I can always get a good review. Or having a popularity contest, but only your best friends can vote...oh and make sure it's different groups of friends so that even if you're not the most popular in any one group you'll still get the most votes from all of the different groups.

But on to the point of this topic: Who am I going to vote for in this election?

This is actually much tougher than you might think. For the past 2 weekends I've bought the paper in hopes that there would be a nice and simple spread of all the candidates, what they support, achievements, and failures are. Then let me choose based off of the issues. Unfortunately there is nothing in the paper. And when you want to find any information you get something horrible like this which simply shows that they like candidate X, but no reasons no rationale. If you do some digging you can find why they support candidate X...however, they only pump up the positives and don't even mention what their opponents might do. That's TERRIBLE journalism. Give me the facts, show me the different viewpoints and I'll decide the best person. Your JOB your primary job as a paper is to inform the people. I am frankly appalled at the poor job that our local paper does in this category and after their recent ad campaign focused solely on sexual innuendo (Are you getting it?), I don't know if I can ever buy an Austin American Statesman again. My job as a citizen is to think and choose, don't just pretend that I can do neither...cause I sure thought about not buying your paper...and now I've chosen.

Fortunately I found one decent source where I least expected it. News8Austin. Turns out most of the information in here is really good. They simply ask a few questions of each candidate that's at least seriously in the running and then give you links to their websites. Much better. Simply a statement of the facts and that's it.

Now let's get to the real votes:

Governor:

Rick Perry: No way. The man makes a good yell leader, but I've yet to see any solid leadership from him ever. Most people that I know in the gov't organizations that work around him consider him to be a jerk, and he has a full-time makeup artist at his side all the time. There are so many things that he could have done and failed to show initiative...my vote for governor is against Perry.
Chris Bell: Pure politician. His ideas are generally bad and center on taxing more and spending more.
Carol Keeton-Strayhorn: Her platform is that she had sex and birthed children who later begat children. Um...I need a bit more than that. Digging into the issues you see the only thing she really has a clear idea on is education. Unfortunately within 2 seconds you can tell she is a pawn in the Teacher's Union's hands (simply throwing more money at teachers won't make them better). All of her ideas are just bad. Education is a business. It's time that we started treating it as it is.
Kinky Friedman: As an individual he's probably the worst candidate out there. The problem is, he's the only one trying to think outside of the box. I absolutely love some of his ideas (and he has the best website of any politician I've ever seen).

The idea of centering the State of Texas as the primary source of renewable energy is genius. It would guarantee our prominence in the world for the next generation.
Private funding of High School sports. We have plenty of money to educate kids. The problem is too many funds are diverted to sports programs.
CHIP. As much as I don't like welfare programs I don't think you should take it out on the kids, they didn't make the choice to have crappy parents. Let's keep it well funded, the payoff will be worth it by having healthier adults.
National Guard on the border. That's where they should be. If the Fed Gov't can't help us, we need to help ourselves until they get their heads out of their butts.
Same day voter registration. As a college student it was hard to know where to vote, but I knew I needed to. Most people don't think about elections really until a few days beforehand.

I would also like it to just be a system where you swipe your drivers license/state ID. It's all computerized anyways, just compare the number to one in the database...eliminates voter fraud and maximizes democracy.

Legalize Gambling. I think this is a horrible idea. But it's the only one I disagree with him on. Fortunately this would never pass, so I'm not too worried about it.

Vote goes to - Kinky. He is the only one actually trying to think of some unique ideas that I think would do well to be implemented. While not perfect I think he's the only one that can actually see Texas for what it is.

U.S. Senate

Kay Bailey Hutchison: From about 4 Republican friends working for organizations in Washington D.C. I found out that she is known for being the biggest b!tch in Washington and has an extremely high turnover as a result. More importantly if you look at her campaign platforms and reasons people support her is because she brings money to Texas. I'm sorry, but that's what is wrong with Washington. She should show how much money she saved the whole US, not just how much in funds she was able to secure for pet projects. I really don't want to vote for this candidate.
Barbara Radnofsky: I like most of her ideas and she seems fairly conservative, right up until she talks about how to pay for it all, educate people, and pulling out of Iraq quickly.
Vote goes to - neither. I don't think either of them deserve a real vote, so I'll probably pick a Libertarian candidate to up the party's recognition.

U.S. Representative

Michael McCaul: Very standard Republican fare. Seems to think that security is being helped by Iraq. No real ideas. Your trophy wife and blonde children have nothing to do with my vote. Get them off of your front page. You're too vanilla anyways. Next.
Ted Ankrum: His main platform appears to be that he's not a Republican. Well, I hate to break it to you, but the Democrats aren't the only party...man, we need more parties. He does have a few good ideas. If he was the only candidate I would vote for him...but he's not.
Michael Badnarik: Seems to be the one libertarian with a chance. Also wins points for his references to V is for Vendetta (one of the best messages in a movie this year - ad). Has a very well thought out concise website (huge plus!), and I really like his ideas. It's really nice to have someone think instead of just talk.
Vote goes to - Badnarik he thinks, understands more about our district than most, has some great positions, and we could use a fresh candidate that's not your standard vanilla or chocolate. (Also a little thanks to Allen for commenting within minutes of my blogging even though we've never met. Really impressed to see people actively using the internet instead of commercials to promote their candidates!)

State Representative

Mark Strama: Wants to redistrict (see above maps), against toll roads, restore funding to CHIP, wants to prevent 'open space' development...I like parks and natural areas...don't let Austin become like Round Rock or worse, Houston.
Jeff Fleece: Is for school choice, wants communities to be able to de-annex themselves if the city fails in their civic services, wants to stop tolls once roads are paid for (I think there should be a counter that shows the balance going down with each toll).
Vote goes to - Unsure. Neither seems all that great. May be another case of voting for the Libertarian to bolster a third party.

I think the bottom line for voting is that you should NEVER vote for the lesser of two evils. The fact is that you shouldn't vote for anybody that you think is evil. America is so obsessed with our two party system that we think voting for a third party is 'throwing your vote away'. The problem is, probably 1/2 of the people voting for a typical candidate don't like the candidate. So why not vote for somebody you actually think could make a difference. Because there are a lot of changes that need to take place, and voting the same candidates in will not create that change.

Oh, and the Propositions. I don't feel like going into it. Here's a synopsis:

Roads - They're bad, vote yes
Flood control - too expensive for what they're doing, vote no.
Parks - I love Austin's parks. Keep more of a good thing, vote yes.
Art - Funding of racism and art that couldn't make it on its own, vote hell-no.
Housing - Creates unnecessary local-level welfare, vote no.
Central Library - Central Libraries are not the future, vote no.
Police & EMS - Some areas have developed without adequate resources, vote yes.

Finally one bit of fun. Here's the best political ad of the entire election:
See Raj Run - What do Elephants, Mariachi Bands, and the Mexican Border have in common?
Fast forward to 4:14 in for the good stuff.

Woot

2006-11-01T21:53:00.000-06:00

It's Backwards I Tell You!

2006-11-01T20:19:00.000-06:00

I don't know why it's taken me so long to figure this out because it's really SO simple when you think about it. But our daylight savings time is all wrong. For my whole life I've dreaded the moment that we switch over from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time. It means that your world goes from one that is filled with joy in the evenings and nice jogs just enjoying the weather to a life of leaving work or school after dark with nothing to hope for in the evening besides darkness.

That's when I thought it would be nice if we could simply stay on daylight savings time and never switch back over to normal. Then even in the dead of winter on the 30th Parallel it still wouldn't get dark until about 6:30 pm.

See the problem is that we have it all wrong. We currently employ daylight savings when we have plenty of daylight to spare. You shouldn't be saving when you have a surplus! You should be saving when there is a scarcity of something. And in the case of the sun it's most scarce in the winter; therefore, we should try to save more of it then. So my proposal is that back in the 1940s-1950s when we were doing other stupid things like deciding to drop the speed limit down to 55mph we also made the huge mistake of implementing Daylight Savings Time backwards.

Let's take a simple look at what this would look like if you have the following considerations:

Actually though, after thinking about it and crunching the numbers and even making the graphs, I think the real problem is simply with Standard Time. While the world may have once run in farms and so forth and everybody needed to wake up early the world has changed. Over 80% of the US lives in cities and those cities would benefit greatly from having a switch to Daylight Savings Time for good. No more jumping around just adjust to the sun instead of trying to fight it at least twice a year.

I'm a Superhero!

2006-10-27T15:18:00.000-05:00

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

PS
Heroes is the best new show on TV.

Detroit: Squeezing the Jell-O

2006-10-27T14:13:00.000-05:00

As part of my new position at work, I get the chance to go travel a lot. Sometimes I get to go to cool places like Silicon Valley or New England, but most of the time I get to go where the company needs me. It actually works out really well most of the time though, because sometimes it gives me a chance to go somewhere that I probably SHOULD go at some point in my life, but that I would have avoided if it were up to my own time and money. One of the cooler parts for me is just getting to see new things. It helps to make sure that your perspective stays properly aligned. It reinforces that most of America is pretty much the same, so you’re not missing out on much by not being in Place B instead of Place A because most of America is the exact same.

This week I got sent packing to the state of Michigan to teach a class on the outskirts of Detroit. Detroit has always been on my list of places that I’ve never wanted to go. The only reason that I can think of that I’ve ever wanted to go there is because I liked Eddie Murray who played for the Detroit Tigers. (That was back in the days when I still liked baseball, before the strike in 1994. Those guys wouldn’t PLAY because they didn’t get more money and my family was getting maybe $10k per year for 7 people. Just seemed a little lame, I wish baseball had picked up a bunch of scab players from the minors and started fresh) I guess that aside kinda leads into the main reason that I’ve never really wanted to go to Detroit, Unions. I just don’t really agree with the whole mentality because I think it’s self-destructive. But I’ll get into that in a moment.

Visiting Detroit was like looking in a shop full of old wedding dresses. They are really pretty, you can tell that somebody spent a lot of time and energy making all of the intricate details. In fact, just looking at them can sweep you back to imagining what it was like for that girl/woman that got married in them. So much potential, but it was so long ago that now these dresses are forgotten and the people that once wore them with such pride are gone. While it may be nice to look at the dresses and imagine what things were like, the truth of the matter is that you’d never wear them. Because one, you’re, you’re a dude and you don’t wear wedding dresses. And two, even if you were a girl, the truth is that the dresses are too old, and too forgotten to be worn.

I guess for a more manly analogy you could pretend it was and old gun or baseball glove. Looks cool, you know at one point it was worn with pride, but you sure don’t want to shoot it or try to catch something with it because it might blow up in your face or fall to pieces. There hopefully that partially redeems the man points lost in the prior paragraph.

The truth of the matter is that Detroit is a really pretty city in some areas. The downtown has a certain amount of class and retro cool that I’ve never seen anywhere else in the US before. However, behind that façade you can quickly see that the area is struggling to stay afloat. There are people randomly walking the street like zombies aimlessly looking for prey. In fact, hardly anybody is on the streets at all that doesn’t look like a piece of human vermin except in a few key areas. The problem with this place is that their industries are collapsing beneath them. I think part of it though can really be attributed right back to the people of the city and a lot can be traced to the unions that are there to protect them.

First off let me say that most of the people that I met up there were really nice. I’ve found people across the world to be incredibly nice, caring and helpful as long as you reciprocate the same back to them (even the shady people that your mom might cringe to think you’d talk to). However, I think there is a large chunk of the people that think they are entitled to their job. But you know what happens when you think you are entitled to something? You don’t appreciate it, you don’t try to develop it, and if you are forced to take care of it the best case scenario is for you to return it in the same shape you received it in. More likely than not, you will return it barely functioning. Basically if you don’t appreciate something you abuse it and then blame it for the abuse that you rendered upon it. The reason that unions exist really are good reasons. There is a certain amount of balance that employees need to make sure that they are not being mistreated by the people that they work for; however, I think as many different things in our world it is more like a pendulum that swings from one extreme to another and in this case I really feel that the pendulum has swung so far in the ‘favor’ of the workers that it is doing them a disfavor. Those that don’t appreciate their jobs are so secure they aren’t motivated. In fact, the security of the position makes sure that they are terrified of losing the security of a job that if they really thought about they don’t want in the first place. So instead of trying to do something they love, or trying to achieve more, or trying to better what they’ve been given they are scared into complete inaction by their desire to be secure. And as with anytime that you aim only to gain security you lose it, exactly like Detroit is losing the security now. The jobs are leaving, the industries are collapsing, those stuck in a position that didn’t challenge them are finding that they have no skills because they were too terrified to do something different.

Security is one of those things that’s like a Jell-O. It’s really great to have. When you have it; however, you are quickly tempted to try to grab onto it tightly to keep is from slipping away. But as with the Jell-O if you squeeze it is simply slips thru your fingers and while you may keep your hand closed unwilling to open it because ‘the Jell-O would slip away’, if you did open it you would find there’s nothing there. In the haste to retain it, it is lost.

I don’t want to become like Detroit. What is my personal Jell-O? Job security? That doesn’t exist in this world. My toys? Eventually they will fail me and break apart. My friendships? If I become too needy they will be driven away. Money? A man obsessed with money can never become happy. So life remains this balance. Enjoy what’s sitting in your hands, be willing to look at it and enjoy it for what it is, but don’t clutch on to it. It’s in the grasping that the things we desire in life slip between our fingers.

Detroit, I hope that you one day learn to make yourself anew. There’s a lot of talent, there’s a lot of hidden beauty within you. But you’ve got to be willing to let go and move forward; otherwise you will lose everything that you are trying so hard to clutch to and there will be nothing left.

The Office

2006-10-27T13:35:00.000-05:00

Within a day of getting back from my honeymoon, I found out that while I was gone my manager (Boss Level 2 on a 1-3 scale, 3 being highest) at work did what he could to sabotage my career by taking things I had said to him in private out of context and then making it sound like I was an awful employee that only wanted to harm the company.

Meanwhile the only person that could really help me out and prove that I was doing a good job was Boss Level 1. Unfortunately for me, he is a complete and total corporate suck-up who instead of doing what was right and showing instances of where I had done exemplary work saw that Bosses Level 2-3 wanted vilifying information…so he produced it, even if it was wrong, filtered thru his workaholicism, and mildly slanderous. So in an attempt to make me want to appreciate them as a management team Boss Level 1 and 3 pulled me aside and said that if I make another mistake I’m fired, and then pulled several other things out of context to try to make a case. Hindsight, if they actually had anything on me, they would have fired me right away, but you can’t really fire somebody just because you don’t get along with them or don’t like them, and my performance figures were thru the roof…I highly recommend this route to make sure that you don’t get illegitimately canned, have lots of tangible work you are always accomplishing. The biggest insult of it all was that Boss Level 2 never had the balls to see me face-to-face about any of it, he then quit the company 2 weeks later, undeserving suck-up Boss Level 1 is now Boss Level 2, and Boss Level 3 continues to refuse to talk with me as a normal person. It is kinda funny though, because I’m bigger than any of them, I can actually see the fear in their eyes every time they have a ‘meeting’ with me. I really enjoy that. Being a rather intimidating figure really helps in negotiations.

I would like to say I’m over the whole incident and that I got my act together and all is better. But that’s not the case. A few positions came open that I was the most qualified person for, and Boss Level 2 & 3 went behind my back and told the other groups and told them that they recommended against me getting the position because I had behavioral issues! They had nothing on me other than that Boss Level 2 had some unknown issue against me (which was later confirmed by mutual friends that he mentioned me by name outside of work). I guess this was a good lesson for me in several things:

Nobody above you at work is your friend, even if they claim they are.
If you ever make a joke about something make sure it is NOT written via email or instant message. It can always be pulled out of context and used to vilify.
Passive-aggressive ‘happy’ behaviors are actually perceived by management as actual happy behaviors.
Suck up to upper level management and make sure they know about all of the ‘awesome’ things you are doing.
Remember that managers control your future pay raises.
Try to work for a company that bases their pay on Performance and not Merit. Merit is impossible to prove other than by the feelings of the management. Performance is simple math and therefore less susceptible to manipulation.
It doesn’t really matter how much you make if you’re miserable.
If you tell people a lie over and over often enough, and they have no basis for comparison then most will actually believe you when you tell them they have it really nice.

While my company professes it’s a great place to work, many, many people secretly loathe the place and all it stands for.

God, friends, and family are probably the 3 most important things on the planet when you’re low.

Things are great now though. I am a totally awesome instructor, so I got out of the support group and am now the only person in my company that is a full time course instructor. It’s been great so far to be under new management, allowed to be reviewed for what I actually do, and most importantly I feel like what I do makes a small impact on the world and leads towards what I would like to do one day, which is be a professor and a crossing guard at an elementary school. My job actually is harder now than it was, means I need to work more hours, wear fancier clothes, and get up way earlier, but I love it. It’s so much better of a way to spend my life than simply trying to duck around management that’s pretty much only self-promoting and completely subjective in their reviews.

So, How’s Married Life?

2006-10-27T13:28:00.000-05:00

In a word. Great!

Yes, that’s the definition I can honestly say to that question that will be asked by those with nothing better to say until they think we should start having kids (which in my mom’s case was within minutes of the “I do’s”).

I don’t really know where to start. I don’t want to put out a bunch of ‘gag me’ lines about how awesome it is having a wife, but it really is amazing. Getting married allows a relationship to grow easily and painfully in directions that are deeper/better/harder than you would ever know beforehand even if everybody told you everything. I highly recommend it, but I more highly recommend getting to know yourself REALLY well before you do. It’s weird, but by being married to keep the two of you together it seems like it requires more self-knowledge and understanding than anything else…oh and a willingness to find what the other person’s self is truly like. Is it all candy and puppies and happiness? No. But like anything worth doing it’s been mostly fun, and what work it has required has been MORE than worth it.

The hardest part was really the first month that we got back from the wedding. The funny thing is that us being married was the easy part. Work is what sucked for me.

Fortunately the last few months have been just cruising along for Mrs. Otis and I. We’ve learned a ton about ourselves thru one another and continued to share our passions for various things in life despite when other parts of our life try to tear us down.

Honeymoon

2006-10-27T13:10:00.001-05:00

Was absolutely gorgeous. I would try to describe it to you, but I really think that pictures say it best:

Basically we stayed at a really swank all-inclusive place. Definitely the nicest place in Puerto Vallarta. Although, if I could do the trip over again, I’m not to sure that the whole you being pampered thing is really up my alley.

The coolest thing we did was go on an adventure eco-tourism trip that let us go zip-lining and rappelling and mule riding thru the Sierra Madre mountains. Definitely a LOT of fun, and we even met a really cool couple while we were there that we still keep in touch with. The husband is a funny/cranky type and the wife is a happy/go lucky type…really funny combination and they work brilliantly together.

The Wedding

2006-10-27T11:23:00.000-05:00

Since I’m locked up in an airport because God has deemed flight delays to be something I find pleasurable, I will go ahead and do what I can to do a quick recap of everything since just before the wedding.

Mostly I would have to say that the whole wedding was a huge surprise. While there were a few crises here and there (like one of my groomsmen arriving at about 30 min till), everything seemed to go really smoothly. Most of the day was just spent hanging out with friends and family slowly working our way to the wedding which was that evening. There’s nothing better than a little Guitar Hero to get your mind off of the wedding (btw, Guitar Hero II comes out in a few days and even has the song ‘Woman’ by Wolfmother and ‘Trogdor the Burninator’ by Home*Runner). Mostly with the whole wedding prep I was really impressed by how everybody stepped it up for us. We have some amazing friends and every one of them did their own part or even more for us. So for those of you who I have yet to thank….Thanks so much!

Alright, so we’re getting closer to the actual moment. I’ve now prepped, gotten on the fancy underwear, slipped on the tie, and omg! It’s time to get out there. Am I sure I want to do this? Yeah, I do, she’s great, quit scaring yourself. So I walk my mom up the aisle, place her down inn her little seat and stand up there with the minister and simply wait. One by one all of the people start walking their way up the aisle and with each one my level of nervousness rises a bit more. Here I am standing up here the focus of attention, waiting on the woman that many of these people have never even seen before and agh! Fortunately all of the people get up, the flower girl does the cute stuff of dumping the petals in one spot and running to her mom, and the stage is prepped. Queue music, the doors open and then Bam! There she is…absolutely gorgeous and completely elegant in her dress. Her and her dad start walking up, I finally get to catch her eyes and do what I can to reassure her that everything is going to be great. Then the real moment to know whether or not this can go on. Will her dad actually hand her over? Fortunately he does (still not sure what you’re supposed to do at this instance. Is it a hug? Perhaps and kiss on each side of the cheeks? Maybe you just shake hands and say, thanks for relinquishing her to me? Still don’t know what I actually did.).

So we work our way thru the ceremony but I’m focused on 3 things

Look at Andrea – Minister – Crowd – Repeat
Hoping that people get a kick out of the funny things that we had prepared for the ceremony.
Praying that Andrea don’t notice the huge array of ginormous insects that my dad so graciously placed in the archway thing.

Everything seemed to go off without a hitch. My favorite parts were the quirky things that we added to the ceremony.

1. For our first reading we had KLove read a poem that I read to Andrea on one of our first dates. It goes something like this:
I love and oh.
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh…
.
.
ohohohohohohohohohohohoh
.
oh!

From Come Love with Me and Be My Life: The Complete Romantic Poetry of Peter Williams.

It’s absolutely awful. How this guy was able to pen those words with a straight face and think that people would actually want to buy it, I’ll never know.

I think most of our guests had no clue how to actually react to the whole thing, but after the first 10 lines of ‘oh’s’ I think they realized it was a joke and loosened up a bit.
Next up for the funny stuff was our scripture reading, brought to us by Mr. Juicebox, the man that introduced me to this gem:

Ecclesiastes 9:9 – Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.

Such an inspirational message! He pulled it off with the class that he somehow adds to almost any situation.
Finally, the one that almost nobody knew about. When the minister said, “You may kiss the bride” my 3rd groomsman Chris Mac (of EuroTrip fame) jumped out of line and said, “Whoa, hold on! Time out.” He then ran behind a tree and pulled out a little collapsible stool and placed it in front of the now Mrs. Otis so that she could come up and kiss me. This went over incredibly well, and I’m SO glad we decided to do that, it was the perfect touch…and made for non-awkward looking first-kiss photos of us being about the same height.

From there everything was just a total whirlwind. We went off to the bridal suite, signed the actual marriagelicense, tried to soak in the realness of everything, then went out and were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Otis, and sat down to eat. Or at least that’s what we thought we were going to do. Instead, person after person kept interrupting us. I wanted to be like, “Look, if you just leave me along for a sec, I can eat, I’ll be a bit less cranky and then we can talk all you want!” Unfortunately that didn’t happen. After a few minutes we gave up on the whole getting food into our bodies thing*, and went around the tables.

That was the hardest part of the whole thing. We wanted to spend so much time, but there were literally TOO many people that we loved there. I could have easily spent days just talking with all of the different people and still wouldn’t have caught up. Some of them I hadn’t seen in years either, so it was really sad to have only a minute to give to them. Within short order though, we found out that we were running out of non-dancing music and would have to do our first dance. It was great. I think most of the people thought that we were really good dancers…definitely good times.

So the evening went on, and there was cheesecake cutting (the biggest crisis of the night was actually should we cut the cheesecake first or dip strawberries in the fondue fountain first? …I can’t remember, which, but they were both delicious although the chocolate always wins in my opinion when competing against non-chocolate deserts.

More talking more chatting, more laughing, more awkward new relatives…great evening. But then we realized that it was time to go so it was off to do the bouquet and garter toss. Fortunately we switched this part up too. Having been to a lot of weddings where increasingly fewer and fewer of our friends were still single, Mrs. Otis and I realized that the bouquet and garter toss simply isolates single people, makes them feel like they have to get married, and in the case of the garter forces you to look up the skirt of your buddy’s wife and then touch something that was on ‘his territory’.

So instead we had “The Piñata of Singleness.” This new tradition (hopefully it will become a tradition, I would love to see it happen at another wedding) was spawned because I was thinking about how much the tosses sucked, and realized that one thing everybody enjoys is beating things with sticks! So what better thing to beat than a piñata? It ended up working out really well, and I think people had a lot of fun, even the kiddies. Then BAM! Eric busted the thing off of the line, and stuff came pouring out, including little Mexican candies and a few gag gifts. The gifts included, “Wash your sins away towelettes”, “Grow a Boy/Girlfriends”, and my favorite the book of “Everything Men Can Say to Women without Offending Them” which was completely blank on the inside. Funny thing happened with the Mexican candies though, some of them were small round caramel candies, but for some reason the adults with kiddos had a quick panic attack and thought, “Omg! Those are condoms!” Well they weren’t, but it definitely added to my amusement.

From there it was off to leave, but Tim had us watch a nice little video that he made for us first, and then we ran down an aisle of friends and family holding sparklers and dove into the car.

And that’s pretty much the end of the wedding. It was a ton of fun, and thank you so much to all of our friends and family for making it a day neither of us will ever forget.

Appendix:
So this little part is about the honeymoon night. No not like that! Well, kinda. You see we got this room at what we thought would be an amazing hotel, the San Jose Hotel on South Congress. Little did we know that despite the $300 price tag that all of the people there were pretty much yuppie trash (light beer people with too much money). Most of our evening was spent listening to a bunch of them RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW yelling and getting drunker as the night went on. Fortunately they finally went to bed…unfortunately; they went to bed with each other. Let’s just say, noisy people + thin walls made for a very miserable night.

For those of you planning something special and unique for your wedding night…just get a nice quiet hotel room. You’re too tired to enjoy anything fancy, and frankly, just because somebody says something is nice, doesn’t mean there is any class involved.

*Major props to the matron of honor who packed up 2 plates of food and put them in our car so that we could eat it later. If you're ever in that position, make sure to save some food for the couple, cause they likely will not get the time to eat anything.

Cool Tech

2006-10-24T21:46:00.000-05:00

The other day I ran across this really cool new product called d3o. I have no clue what the name stands for but the product is really cool. It's based off of the principle of a non-Newtonian fluid. A newtonian fluid is like water in the sense that if it flows at a slow rate or a high rate pretty much the same things will happen. However, some common elements don't behave like a normal fluid. For example, if you slow down blood it begins to thicken and eventually forms clots...that's a non-Newtonian fluid. Another example is a solution of Corn Starch, if you run your finger thru is everything is fine, but if you punch it then all of the sudden it is like punching a rock. When under high amounts of strain Corn Starch will resist any forces acting on it. Or for those of you that like Sci-Fi it's like the shields that they wear when fighting on Dune.

So that brings us to the main point. What if you could make a material that was amazing at taking hard bangs and hits, but was still flexible and comfortable to wear? Enter d3o. This stuff is really cool, and I can't wait until it's more widely available.

Check out some stuff on it here:
What is d3o?

Or a similar thing being done with balistics here:
Liquid body armour for soldiers?

Seeing stuff like this makes me really think that we may be finally reaching a new era in material technology. If you look at most things we deal with in our everyday life, they are built focussed around materials that have been around for at least a century, maybe more. However, with the coming of newer materials such as GoreTEX, UnderArmour, and maybe this d30 stuff it is sure to change the way we interact with our world for years or centuries to come.

Grossest Thing Ever!

2006-08-27T17:38:00.000-05:00

Note: This is NOT for the squeemish at heart. Literally, this is probably the grossest thing I've ever seen/heard of and what's worse is that it's real! Yuck.

Here are a few more links in case you're interested in the medical side of things:
TheFetus.net
Fetus In Fetu: A Case Report and Literature Review

An interesting thing to think about with this is how does all of this apply to the theory of people having souls from the moment they are conceived? This is more developed than a few day old fetus, so are the doctors committing murder by removing it?

"Facial and cranial structures also are uncommonly seen, yet eyes, ears, mouth and poorly organized brain and cerebellum have been observed"

My Kind of Racing

2006-08-14T22:32:00.000-05:00

One thing that's always hacked me off is how rules are put into place to taint the sport of car racing (Latest). It seems like no class is exempt. Somebody makes a technological breakthrough and then rules are created to keep them from winning...that's crap.

What I would like to see is a serious league of competitive car races where the rules are minimized to a few small points like this:

You must:

Have 4 wheels
Use only one set of tires for the whole race
Not use more than a pre-set amount of fuel*
Have a human driver

Provide adequate protection for the driver at the vehicle's full speed.

Drive like a bat out of hell

Rules that wouldn't exist:

Downforce limitations (see Formula1)
Intake restrictions
Weight limits
Engine size limits (will be somewhat self limiting)
Speed limits
Rev limiters
Vehicle dimension limits
Cylinder limitations
Fuel tank limits
NASCAR's No Right-Hand Turns rule
Tire manufacturer limitations
Other arbitrary non-written rules (see NASCAR)

That's it. Nice and simple. Let the manufacturers decide what works best for them, anybody's invited. The only other rule might be some spending limit so that you can make sure smaller companies can compete.

*There would be a Maximum Fuel-Energy Limit
For example in 1 gallon of gas there are about 150,000 BTUs. Start the league rules at requiring 25 mpg [~6000 BTUs per Mile]) for the race. That way if you have a 500 mile race you get 20 gallons (3,000,000 BTUs) of gas max.

Having an energy limit rather than a gas/diesel requirement would open the field to any alternative fuels that wanted to compete, particularly those with lower weight/energy ratios.

Together...with a 2

2006-07-06T08:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I moved the girl's stuff over to my (er...our) apartment, and so this is it. The last real thing that had to be done before the wedding is official.

It's pretty cool though, because finally I don't have to be traveling back and forth between her place and mine for this and that, everything is in the same place.

So this week if you haven't guessed has been crazy busy. We're getting married on Saturday, so in the meantime we're busy trying to get this and that and the other together before we have to put on the big show. What's crazy is all the details. Details like, I have to get the music together, make sure that catering is in order, get hair cuts, make sure that wardrobes for everybody are set, try to find the proper order of events for the rehearsal...and fight for the details that are important and let go for the ones that aren't (what type of decorative toothpick holders do we have). So far things seem to be going smoothly though, and I'm excited because today is the last day of a bit of calm before everything really hits the fan. Mostly it's just all so soon, all so scary, and all so exciting.

I can't wait, but I know that like a good beer, you have to wait for awhile if you want it to taste good when you get it.

For those of you getting married in the future. I highly recommend taking at least a few days off before the wedding. There are way too many things to do in the days before a wedding, and if I put the onus of everything on Andrea, then it would just be wrong and she'd be a little basketcase. Fortunately she's not, I'm not, and we're getting a lot done...oh, and we can't wait to get out of here!

Stupid Fungus

2006-07-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

I finally found a brand of contact lens solution that I loved! This stuff was perfect, nice and smooth, no rubbing required, very moist. My eyes actually felt better after putting in my contacts than before. Such an improvement on the harsh wetness of most lens solutions. However, like Love Monkey anything that you love is guaranteed to be quickly pulled from your life.

In comes the stupid fungus (story). Evidently because some people in Singapore don't know how to wash their hands, the product had to be pulled and now I have to live a life of optical discomfort. And there's no hope in site, just a bunch of empty shelves await me every time I go to look for some MoistureLoc solution.

Welcome to the New Apartment

2006-06-10T07:41:00.000-05:00

This is where we're gonna live.

Well, today I'm moving to a new place with the help of some friends and a Uhaul truck. I must say this is the most exciting move I can ever think of making. This is the last time that I will move somewhere as a single man. It's definitely exciting to think that my new apartment will be the place where I start my married life and get to do things with somebody else and not just by myself.

Quick update, the wedding stuff is going well. Work is remaining challenging, but some doors are starting to open. Life is busy but good. People have already started buying us presents for the wedding which is really awesome (hint: I don't own any pots/pans and have one non-butter knife). Internet time has been somewhat limited as I haven't had my main computer up and running in almost 6 weeks. Also most of my internet free time has been spent making other sites for the wedding.

Yeah, so I thought this wedding thing would be a bit easier. In its essence it's just a big party. But then there's the details, and as much as you shouldn't stress the details, they can't just be forgotten. Like, What am I going to say while up there? Who can we invite? Where do we get booze/food/music/surprises/....? How do we keep things on the down low so that not everybody thinks they're coming? How do we manage time so that all of these people that we owe our time to can feel like they're a part of the process? How do I still get some time to myself when I stopped work at 5pm on Friday, have to go to Houston, have to go to Temple, have to attend a shower, have to go to a party, and have to take care of all the normal stuff all in a weekend? How do I still keep up a decent workout schedule so that I Look Good Naked (LGN Diet)? Why am I only gaining weight? Will any of the stress actually end after marriage or is that just a fantasy that I'm entertaining? When will the eustress stop?

That's just a small list of all the questions. I guess the real factor is that marriage is scary and so is anything in the future. It's hard to balance what's important and what needs to be done. And while life will never truly be relaxed, how do I maximize my moments of zen?

Picture in a Picture

2006-05-24T15:37:00.000-05:00

This is one of the coolest things that I've seen in quite some time! I could easily spend hours on it. I find life so interesting and some of these pictures represent some normal images just brilliantly captured.

For those of you confused as to how it works, each picture is composed of pixels and each pixel has some sort of RGB (Red, Green and Blue) value. In this compilation, each picture is assigned a particular RGB value based off of the average RGB value for the image. That way an algorithm can be made to create an image, but when zoomed in it loads the image of the assigned RGB. The algorithm could probably be made in a day or so, but the real coolness is in the size of the library of photos.

I love it when art and technology combine!

If you guys get on me enough I might be able to whip up a program that makes a collage out of your own photo library. I think I have the base now, just might need a few tweaks...and the LabVIEW Runtime Engine (only language I can code in).

Places to Eat

2006-05-09T23:20:00.000-05:00

So I'm up in Chicago right now teaching a class for the man, and I decided to look for a place to eat. So I went to Google.com and looked for "restaurants schaumberg il" and got the following useful information:

I don't think anything else really needs to be said.

Booked!

2006-04-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

My part of the wedding is done!

We booked a trip for our honeymoon! I'm really excited about this.

We're heading down to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico on the West Coast. This place looks really nice, and much more quaint than all of the Carribean locations that are within a short flying distance.

The Place
Reviews

Now that this is done all I really have to worry about is getting a suit (because I have to loan my current one to one of the groomsmen) and finding food for the rehearsal. I feel like we could have the wedding in 2 weeks if we needed. Just wouldn't have her dress, and we definitely need that.

And just because I'm excited about going there, here are a few more pictures:

Conspiracy Theory: Pentagon on 9/11

2006-04-13T12:02:00.000-05:00

Go here fast before it's taken down.

I'd put this right up there with JFK's head flying back instead of forward when he was supposedly shot from the back right by a 'communist'.

Wedding Ideas

2006-04-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

Enter the auditorium to some fun songs and give everybody high-fives
Leave the reception on little razor scooters, hide the car, then go somewhere.
Have Singleness pinatas that can then be bashed open by single people/kids

Guys and Girls - have some candy and some 'mature' items.

Start wedding a tad later (7:30ish) so that people can get dinner beforehand.

The Plan

2006-04-09T19:27:00.000-05:00

So, I got engaged this weekend. But what's an engagement without a story?

Below you'll find that story. If you need more details then call...although I'd be surprised if you make it thru THIS document.

The Plan

Location: Andrea’s Apartments
Time: 17:00

Have K-Love give (or leave) Andrea a letter stating:
Wait until five,
Don’t get a head start.
To the Great Forrest Spirit,
Is where you’ll depart.

(reference of these from this movie)
Location: Otis' Apartment
Arrival Time: 17:15
Helper: Bryan

She will then head to my house and the trees outside with the small rattly seeds. In the tree will be an envelope with my initials, her name, and a blue butterfly (this will be present at each location).

Open the envelope to get the next clue:
There is now a Gate
Where once stood a Way.
Behind the Park that’s Reserved,
Or a ticket you’ll pay.

Directions to next Location (Google)
Location: Gateway Community Church (Bull Creek) – Office Parking Lot (map)
-This is where we first met - April 3, 2005-
Arrival Time: 17:30
Helper: Mr. Juicebox

There will be an envelope with my initials, her name, and a blue butterfly on the back of the Handicapped Reserved Parking Sign (it’s very faded).

Next Clue:
There once was a time,
Before you were a kiss giver.
We ate a large meal,
And sat by a small river.

Additional Clue (on back):
Go to the valley,
That’s Wooded and Spiced
Spin ‘round the turns
Like your car is all riced.

Cross 4 to 5 creeks.
Only 2.1 miles you’ll go.
On the left a Saint you will find.
And a tall tree with high boughs.

Directions to next Location (Google)
Location: St. Edward’s Park (map)
-First Picnic Date she had ever been on-
Arrival Time: 17:45
Helper: Amy

There will be an envelope with my initials, her name, and a blue butterfly hidden under a rock in the cradle of the call rounded cedar. You may need to put her on your shoulders to get to it (think of something I would hide/see).

Next Clue:
Your first time out dancing
You looked ever so sweet.
It was in this very room that
You were first swept off your feet.

Directions to next Location (Google)
Location: The Fed (map)
-This was where our first dance and kiss were exchanged-
Arrival Time: 18:05
Helper: Bryan

There will be a row of bushes along the front of The Fed. As they get close to the right side of the front you will find an envelope with my initials, her name, and a blue butterfly hidden in the bushes. Open it.

Next Clue:
Something sappy, I can't remember exactly what.

Directions to next Location (Google)
Location: The Falls Apartments (map)
-Her old apartments and a great breeding ground for fireflies!-
Time: 18:18
Helper: TimGrimes

There is no cell service here, so don’t go down until you get a call to let you know she’s on her way. Simply wait for her to show up. Then blindfold her (I’ll try to supply it) and drive her to the next location.

Directions to next Location (Google):

Take 360 to Mopac and head South
Cross Town Lake and take the Zilker Park Exit
Circle under the highway and head towards Zilker
Take the first first left (under the bridge) onto Rollingwood.
Take a right onto a small road called Zilker Park
Go 0.2 miles up the road and there is an entrance into the woods on the right.

Just before you get to the entrance there will be a house with Giraffes in the front yard.
If you’ve come to a crossroad leading to the left, then you’ve gone just a tad too far.

Location: Zilker Park Nature Area Lookout (map).
-One of the best unknown views in town-
Time: 18:30
Helper: None needed, all welcome
Present: Ring

So that's pretty much the story. Tim un-blindfolded her and placed her on the path to get to the lookout. There were little tulips in vases leading the whole way up.

I got so excited when I saw her and Tim that I ran up the trail and tripped (cutting open my hand, so it was bleeding during the whole engagement part).

But it was totally forgotten when I saw her slowly approach the top of the path. Then I walked her to where the lookout was. Told her I loved her or something (does it really matter?), then dropped to one knee and pulled out a ring.

But she told me before all of this that she finds tall, large, round diamonds in yellow gold hideous. But she still said, "Yes." Then I was like, "Cool." And pulled out the real ring

She then became a big ball of emotions and tears. She always wanted a yellow diamond and wanted something small, but classy. Unique and pretty. Low profile and sparkly. She never dreamed I would exceed her expectations, but I plan on doing that every day that I can.

So after our moment, I called out all of the aforementioned friends (plus Mrs. Juicebox) and had them come out. Turns out I got lucky and she really wanted to share the moment with others. They came out. Congratulated and stuff, took pictures, grinned a lot, and were secretly angry because the bar has been raised for their engagement expectations.

After some lessons in how to pee in the woods as a girl, they left us to be. I had a picnic of gluten-free delicacies prepared, a fresh bottle of chilled wine and a picnic blanket. We just sat around and talked, laughed and just sat in shock at how awesome and scary these new words like 'fiance' and 'marraige' and 'wedding' are.

After watching the sun set, we went off and did stuff you really don't want me to elaborate on. NOT THAT! Just talking and other stuff that couples do.

It's really fun, telling people has been exciting, and I can't wait to keep telling this story for years to come as I sit beside my future wife.

2006-04-01T00:03:00.000-06:00

This one's for Andrea.

Lessons Learned: Never Get Service Done at the Dealership

2006-03-31T23:28:00.000-06:00

Because they will do you over. Sure, the normal services are quite inexpensive. I mean they do all the normal tricks and charge you within a few dollars of any other service shop...so why not get your service work done there?

However, never get a major service done. All of us car buffs know that every 30k or so you should give your vehicle a little tune-up. Well, do what you will, just don't get the majority of it 'done' at the dealership.

Why am I so upset? Because here is a list of services done that resulted in a $250 premium beyond the cost of the basic service:

Replace Fuel Filter (if applicable) - how much money do you have on that they decided it wasn't applicable?
Inspect brake system, lines hoses and parking brake - can be done by sticking head under car
Inspect disc and drum brakes - done whilst your head is checking out the other stuff
Replace brake fluid - Okay, this is legit. But they don't give you an option for synthetic fluids. They charge $50 for this service...still not seeing the extra $200.
Check A/C hoses for leaks - Um, if there were leaks I would know it.
Inspect air conditioning system temperature - definitely not done because my car has the weakest A/C known to I4 vehicles
Replace Air Cleaner Element - I can buy a better one for $42, plus it would last longer than the paper one. So no thank yous there.
Install wiper blades - Um, my front wipers were fine, and you never changed the one in the back...that would be the one that actually needs to be changed. Cost $7, and they're not even the type I want.

So, let's see. $50 + $42 + $7 x 2 = $250? Where's my other $144? Why didn't you do what you are supposed to do during a real tune-up and replace the coolant and the spark plugs? What really bites me is that those extra services are what needed to be done for the 30k service and are required by your little service manual; yet, you refuse to include them in your 30k service package. Why? You've lost my business for good.

From now on I'm simply going to let some other place do the oil change (that is until I get my own garage), and then do the rest by myself and then take the girl out on a nice date with all of the extra money. It's a good thing that chicks dig guys that smell like cars and look all manly.

What I Wish I Did

2006-03-27T18:58:00.000-06:00

Before I gave up on my future and hit the cold reality of the real world, this is what I hoped to actually do. Maybe I shouldn't give up?

So incredibly awesome. So much potential. And you actually make people's LIVES better. So cool.

Suburbia

2006-03-20T21:18:00.000-06:00

There was a perfect man and he drove a perfect mile,

He earned his perfect money and dressed the perfect style.

He got a perfect wife, to be the perfect spouse.

And they all lived together in a little perfect house.*

Soaking it Up

2006-03-20T19:21:00.000-06:00

I've been a bit out of touch lately with a lot of you, but I keep claiming that I've been busy. Well, as proof, I would like to offer you a bit of a photo journal of the last 2 months of my life.

So let's start with January. Worked sucked, because I made one of the biggest mistakes ever...responded to somebody that said, "Matt could you please help me out by doing X. It will do a lot to help your career."

Here's my thoughts on that.
Then Andrea and I were pretty busy getting ready for our ski trip.

Meanwhile I was trying to keep healthy by doing Ninja stuff. And I also got a punching bag in my place; awesomest present to myself in quite awhile.

Then it was off to the Houston Auto Show. Where despite the awesome cars
I couldn't fit in any of them.
But at least my girl looks cute on a bike.

Unfortunately going to the Houston Auto Show meant that we had to go to Houston. Houston depresses me because of stuff like this.
Why can't developers work AROUND the trees. This is just wanton destruction, and will just be another hideous location with cheap cookie cutter houses that will be shoddily built and will be a bane on the eyes.

Fortunately I was off to New Mexico to teach a class for work. After I was done teaching I flew Andrea out to see me and we headed up to Wolf Creek to go skiing.

The drive up started out being utterly beautiful.

But that quickly turned to completely scary. Even scarrier when you realize that we were driving a Mustang...not exactly the world's best snow mobile, snow plow maybe.

But the girl was quite happy, so it was hard to stay annoyed by the weather.

Then we got to the mountain and it was amazing. 30" of snow had fallen that day and night, and the whole time it was just a fog of snow. Andrea got to try out snow boarding for the first time ever.

btw, snow boarding school is probably the boringest thing ever. If you ever want to learn, simply go to the top of a blue (yes, blue not green), and go down until you get to the base of the mountain.

Never really had a vacation alone with a girlfriend before, but it was awesome. We did what we wanted, when we wanted and didn't have to worry about a thing.

We had a ton of fun; despite the frozen facial features.

But recovery was a bit of a process. There's no soreness like snow board soreness.

All good things must come to an end though, so we headed back to Austin where much time was spent making up for lost play time with Andrea's puppy Abigail (aka Abi).

After a brief bout with having to go to court because I met an officer with a short man complex.

The girl and I went up to Dallas so that she could be a bridesmaid in one of her best friend's (Victoria's) wedding. So we did the rehearsal thing.

In this itty-bitty church that was literally tied together.

Then they did the get fancy thing.

Despite Victoria's white dress, we were still the best looking couple there (and almost the only smiling one).

Then there was the worst part of all weddings...the photos...of everybody...in every possible combination...for almost an hour...ugh. Jeremy and Jess, you two did it right.

But I did get to see an adorable girl that I wouldn't mind stealing someday.

Then it was off to the reception. Where we were 2 of the 7 single people over the age of 12.

Fortunately nothing was caught by us. Throwing crap is the lamest of all wedding traditions.

On the way back, we got stopped in like 30 miles of traffic on I-35...dead standstill. So we jumped the median in trusty Kaida (the Mazda3) and found an alternate route. That took us right over where there was a really bad accident. Turns out somebody hit the barier, crossed traffic, flipped over the other barier, then the next, went into oncoming traffic and at least one person died. Kinda sad, but I'm glad we got to see why everything was stopped.

Since then I've just been doing more domestic things, like waxing cars with my new power buffer. Mmm...shiny and smooth.

Having an innocent St. Patrick's Day.

With some awesome friends.

And last night we got to check out Nickle Creek at Gruene Hall, which was probably the most fun I've ever had at a concert. This group is fabulous, and I think they had a great time too. In fact, the manager of Gruene Hall had to kick them off of the stage. Any bluegrass band that will play 'Toxic' by Britney Spears is awesome.

There's so much more to talk about, so many details to fill in and so much that I would like to convey, but for the moment you will just have to wait. I'm really living my life right now and loving every minute of it. Too many people are convinced that they shouldn't be happy and if they are then something's wrong. Well, the only thing that's wrong is that belief and sometimes life gives you lemonade and you just gotta drink it.

And with one parting gift. Why I hate 'Texans'.

Van crashes into funeral, 2 dead

2006-03-09T15:46:00.000-06:00

<- Headline seen on CNN.com

So does that mean that only one new person died? Were there two people being burried? Did they get a group discount?

Wheelies!

2006-03-01T09:25:00.000-06:00

I've always wanted to know how to do this, and now I do. Ah, the power of the internet to increase our stupidity is endless!

Girl Lesson of the Day

2006-02-28T12:34:00.000-06:00

When girls are emotionally distressed by something, never claim you've had/been thru/seen worse. If you don't know what it is, then ask one of them in private and if you have no clue where to begin try, "How did it make you feel?" "What is the part that made you hurt for X the most?" "Can we do anything to help you feel better?"

With girls, never make a statement about what is. Simply ask them what is, even if you know it, and then wait for them to tell you how they need to continue. If they need you, be there. If they don't ask, don't offer.

Most importantly, make sure to listen. "Not a medical procedure, not anything like that, oh no, much worse." This means the scene in question is not gratuitous gore; rather, it is something emotionally traumatizing.

Women need a strong anchor, and they need to know that no matter what storm they or you go thru that everything will settle back to where it should be. Now get in the game, play smart, be there to help and good things may come…or they may not, but at least that way you won’t piss anybody off.

Ladies, Fellas or Owls; if you have any additional words of core advice about what girls need, then please comment below.

Things People Saw

2006-02-15T11:25:00.000-06:00

I can't believe that this was really advertised as a Valentine's Day movie! Last year I thought advertising The Notebook was retarded...this just exceeds those boundaries and blows them away.

...Such sickos

On a side note, I'm really hacked that Love Monkey has been put on hiatus (thanks Amy). It's the best show on TV right now, I can't believe they would cancel it. The good news though is that I heard Wayne's song on the radio yesterday...let's hope that it at least helps his career. The show kicks butt, and like Sex and the City it will take a long time for its greatness to be appreciated. Man, I hate CSI, NCIS, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and all those other moronic autopsy/lawyer/different-city-same-plot shows. Give me some content, some real content. Scrubs is the most insightful show on TV right now, followed by Gray's Anatomy. Both of those are doing really well...just give Love Monkey a chance!

PS
I think Judy Greer is Andrea's Celebrity Look-Alike; except Andrea has better curves. Let me know if you've found a better look-alike.

Hmm

2006-02-14T19:30:00.000-06:00

You know, even if you win, you'll still be a luger.

Let's Give Them Something to Talk About

2006-02-12T19:09:00.000-06:00

I know I've been absent from the blogging world a lot lately, but the truth of the matter is that my job is to sit in front of a computer and type all day, so the last thing that I really want to do when I get home is type some more. It doesn't mean that I've stopped thinking stuff, it just means that I'm now too lazy to actually record those thoughts. Plus there's been a few other distractions in my life lately that I would rather spend my time with.

Anyways, I'm out of town on business this week, so hopefully that will help to give me a bit more time to make some decent content. If not, then I hope you enjoy what you got today.

~Otis Out

Toothaches

2006-02-12T19:05:00.000-06:00

They're nothing to laugh at.

For some stupid reason I decided that this year I would make sure that I’m healthy and ready to take on the next 2/3 of my life (I don’t think I want to live much past 75, I think once I hit 70 I’ll start doing all sorts of crazy stuff that should kill me...better than spending $250k per year on a nursing home. A la Second Hand Lions).

Anyways, that’s meant plenty of trips to doctors and dentists trying to make sure that everything is alrght. Well, it was alright until I started getting stuff done. I had some cavities filled and ever since then every day has been a miniture lesson in agony. I hope it ends soon...very soon. Unfortunately it isn’t. In fact, ever since that day I’ve been popping Excedrin, Asprin, Ibuprofen, Aleve, and Vicoprofen like they are candy. Except the Vicoprofen, that stuff put me on the floor of my cubicle praying that the world would stop spinning and that I could get ‘sober’ enough to drive home and be sick the rest of the day.

What’s really weird for me is this is the first extended period in my life where all is not well with my health. Well, I guess the health is alright, but man, the pain in my face is just tiring. I haven’t even slept for more than 4 hours in almost 2 weeks because that’s the 1/2 life of most medications.

One thing that I am learning in all of this though is that nobody wants to really hear about how bad you feel. So if you have seen me in the last few days and I’ve seemed distracted it’s because I want to knock my teeth out with a sledge hammer (a.k.a. Ford Fixer). But talking about medicine and my pain is really annoying, so this will probably be my last blog on the topic.

Or to put in the wise words of Andrea’s dad (refering to a different topic), “Why don’t we just quit talking about what we don’t like talking about.”

Lesson learned: If you aren’t in pain, don’t see a health professional, because they will help you to achieve the pain that you are trying to avoid.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

2006-02-12T18:58:00.000-06:00

[Monday 2-5-2006]

So this morning I was coming back to my house from running an errand and was about to head to work when I saw the bane of urban existence, a motorcycle cop, round the corner. I then realized that my registration was expired because I got it last week and had yet to get the new inspection, so I knew I was toast. The officer pulled behind me and lit up his beady lights and drove up to my window. I rolled it down, and showed him that I had the registration and that it was going on my lunch break that day to get it inspected (maybe not today, but definitely sometime this week...and subsequently today). I asked him if I could go on because I knew what the problem was and was going to take care of it. Despite the reasonable request the officer told me I needed to pull over (which I already was), so I told him that I would just go around the corner. I pulled out onto the road, then pulled into the parking lot, opened my door and got out to hand him my registration, insurance and license. I think he got scared because I was about 1.5 ft taller than he was, and he said, get in the car, get in the car now! He and the officer with him began to conspire what they could nail me with. I think I saw an ‘exhibition of acceleration’ in there. Yeah, well I think there was also a ‘reckless endangerment’ in the way he was driving. Oh look, the insurance is expired (I accidentally handed him the older card from my car instead of the one in my wallet). I heard that and I said, “Wait no! I have a current insurance here” and handed it to him. Disheartened at the reduced amount of tickets he could give me, he shuffled his overfed body and took the newer insurance stub. After spending some time conspiring with the other officer they decided that instead of the account of events, that their version should include whatever they could legally get away with to screw me with.

So here’s what I got:
Exhibition of Acceleration (>$166)
Failure to change Address ($134)
Expired Inspection ($130)
Going 45 in a 30 ($160)

In the words of my down under friends “wtf mate?”

What sort of idiot would peel out in front of a cop? I pulled out like I normally should have and made a completely legal turn. Accelerated to 30 mph (believe me I was watching my speed). Who changes their address when they move? I moved 6 times once in a year, does that mean I should have changed my address each time...I guess the answer is yes.

I am so sick of Texas, I hate motorcycle cops, I can’t believe that guys like that are allowed to enforce the laws. Why don’t you go out and do some sort of service for the city? Oh wait, you’re just a revenue generator for the city. That’s all most officers do anymore. However, if a real crime is permitted, where are you? When I saw that guy cutting people off on the highway, where are you? When people in pickups cut off cars because they can, where are you? When bikes do wheelies down the highway, where are you? When you were behind that car that was belching smoke like a locomotive, why didn’t you pull them over? However, I come back home from getting milk and am following most of the real laws and getting the rest taken care of and you try and stick me for whatever you can.

I wish I could find out where you live and give you ‘presents’. Why is it that being a cop gives you the right to be a jerk. If you were a real person you would get your butt kicked for being a total moron and being so disrespectful of somebody’s very existence. Charging people with crimes is NOT a joke, should not be laughed about, and should never be handed out like it was candy. Now to go file an official complaint. It won’t matter though because the people in the office have to pretend that everything an officer says is truth and the rest of us are just idiots trying to disrupt the peace...the peace which would be better maintained by you not having a job. Believe me, what I feel inside right now is NOT peace...if only I could have showed you there...but that would have been a felony, so you’ll never really know.

[Addendum]
Changing your DL address is completely seperate from changing your address with the local government, the vehicle registration office, the post office, or even your voter registration. Total tally $134.

Inspection was passed without them even charging me for the obligatory “bad wipers”. Total tally $10.

Exhibition of Acceleration is not actually legally defined as any. So if any of you lawyer friends of mine (hint, hint!) know of any way I can find cases where it was defined, then could you forward me those so that I can make a decent case before the judge.

Also, if anybody wants to do some physics and calc with me in the coming weeks, then let me know so that I can prove that my car is not capable of reaching 45 mph in the distance I went.

Thanks also to my dad for his help in these matters.

J.B. Weld

2006-02-12T18:43:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Tim for the serious bonding. It’s great to have people around like you that I can call my friend.

I’d say more, but that’s the awesome thing about being a guy...nothing else needs to be said.

My Quiz

2006-01-24T19:18:00.000-06:00

Take My Quiz
- on -
QuizYourFriends.com!

Best of luck!

Nerd Scores

2006-01-20T11:35:00.000-06:00

Because I love quizes:

High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!.

This makes me Nerdier than:
Jeremy
Jess
Tim
Andrea

Not as Nerdy as:
Dave

Guns Don't Kill People...

2006-01-13T15:09:00.000-06:00

Chuck Norris Kills People.

Go to ChuckNorrisFacts.com

This is the funniest thing I've seen on the internet in quite some time.

I'll give you a sneak peak:
Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.