Random Snippet From My Music Library

Try this out. Take your iPod or other music player, put it on shuffle, and post the first 10 songs that come up. Here's my top ten, a very random mix:

1. Christina Aguilera - Stripped - I'm OK
2. Futuristic Sex Robotz - Hotel Coral Essex - The Positronic Pimp
3. Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie - Steaming Pile of Skit - Better Than I Am
4. Trans-Siberian Orchestra - The Lost Christmas Eve - Siberian Sleigh Ride (Instrumental)
5. Henry Rollins - A Rollins in the Wry - Journal
6. Les Miserables - Original Cast Album - A Little Fall of Rain
7. Johann Sebastian Back - Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major
8. Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long - Infatuation
9. Presidents of the United States of America - Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches
10. Jason Mraz - Waiting for My Rocket to Come - I'll Do Anything

Halloween 2008 Liveblog!

It's time for live blogging! I'll chronicle the night of Trick or Treaters all night long.

Note: For those reading this through RSS readers, it might not mark the post as new when I update it. If you want to keep up to date, swing on by and keep hitting that reload!

5:16 pm - Computer is setup, dogs are fed, can see people getting prepped outside, but no candy yet. It's in the wife's car, so have to wait till she gets home to officially open for the night!

5:40 pm - Wife is home with FOOD! (for me) and candy (For Me! OK, for trick or treaters too)

6:13 pm - In a repeat of last year, the light wasn't on! I gave it a stern talking to and it assured me it would stay on this time.

6:17 pm - First visitors of the night! A fairy, a bride, and Harry Potter! Ulric gave them a greeting of champions when they arrived.

6:26 pm - New York Yankees and Michigan fans, along with a mini vampire DOG OF DEATH!!! (From it being a well known fact any pets put into a costume automatically want to kill you out of embarrassment. That or the dog was dressed like a vampire. )

6:29 pm - Not Halloween related, but there was a commercial of a puppy running in a field with the text saying it was a "Political Ad Break" I would beg to differ, the cats are planning an attack ad in response!

6:39 pm - Vampire, skeleton, and a wagon made up like Herbie the Love Bug. Mad props for the Herbie! (Ulric bark count upon their arrival, 3)

7:00 pm - Slow night so far, but means more candy for me! Also notes for costumes for next year, Mr Clean or a Superfan.

7:05 pm - A pop tart and an elf! (Ulric's Bark Rating: 11)

7:27 pm - Yugio, a witch, a baby in a pumpkin outfit, and a queen! (Ulric "Barky Bark" Schaab's # of greetings: 19)

7:41 pm - A gaggle of uncostumed teenagers. Save one, she was in a weird baby getup.

7:45 pm - A ghost and a princess. Also Ulric has decided to go as a broken Home Security System this year!

7:47 pm-Count Chocula, a Pirate, and the Pope! I am a bit disappointed the Pope was not trying to kill or exorcise the Count. He's a vampire for heaven's sake!

8:15 pm- That's it for the night! A slower year than last, but I get more candy now! Good night and Happy Halloween!

Just Testing

Just testing how the new Zoundry raven posts.

Testing some more

• Bullet List


• Bullet List


• Bullet List

1. Numeric List


2. Numeric List


3. Numeric List

Nice to be Noticed

It's nice when people notice the work you do and give you kudos. Here's a snippet from a coworker:

(You used to maintain the [internal class sign-up] stuff, right? The class meeting requests were so much more awesome when they started with “Howdy”.)

Good Start to the Week

A minor surprise from the weekend was finding my normal monthly deposit was larger than normal. Upon getting back to work today, it was confirmed I got a raise for my year back. Good times! I am now trying to resist the urge to buy something in celebration.

With the raise comes a bittersweet note. If I would not have taken the year off from here I would also be eligible for my sabbatical this month. Since I did take the time off, I have to wait till April 2011 to take one. Kind of a bummer since really want to get out and do some international travel. I have yet to go abroad (Canada really does not count) and I might be getting a bit impatient to remedy that situation. :)

Opening Ceremonies Thoughts

Watching the Opening Ceremonies on ABC is making me annoyed. The show so far (only a little bit in so far) is good, but they are bugging me. When there is something that has 2000+ people on the field working in sync to paint a bigger picture, show that damn bigger picture on TV! I don't want to see one or two of the 2008 performers at a time, I want to see the entire group to see what they are doing as a whole. That's what it was designed for so show me that!

So far, bad form ABC.

Role Update

I met with my old college friend to chat about the department I am evaluating for a transfer. It was a very eye opening experience. From the conversation it sounds like the work/tasks are right up my alley. What gives me pause are some of the people issues on the team and a probable pay cut if I do transfer.

All food for thought. I have not brought it up with my manager yet. I am waiting till my upcoming review in a few months before making a decision and talking to them about it. I've got plenty of time to ponder and ponder I shall...

Net Censorship at its Worse

There are a few things that get me very riled up in the scheme of things. Excessive Internet censorship is one of them. The latest net censorship comes from the NY attorney general. In his mission to combat child porn, he is convincing Internet Service Providers to block access to large parts of Usenet.

For those who do not know what Usenet is, it is a group of a large number of discussion groups. They have been around before the web became popular.

The groups are unregulated and at times people do post materials of a questionable, and sometimes illegal nature. The logical thing to me would be that when one of the illegal pieces is found, take down that piece. The NY AG's approach goes way beyond monitor and enforce. His preferred method is the blanket censoring of massive chunks of the Usenet. Instead of doing their job, access is cut to thousands of news groups so they don't have to monitor the groups. Now news groups that help people with legitimate, non-controversial topics are gone at certain ISPs all in the name of "Protecting the Children" and allowing law enforcement to be lazy.

To get a feel on how wide spread the censoring is, it would be like banning all of the *.net websites because a very small amount of them contain child porn. By blanket banning parts of the Usenet, it does nothing for reducing the amount of child porn. You are not stopping the flow, you are just moving the material to a different place the producers have access to. Don't censor the Usenet, do your job and prosecute the few who are ruining it for all.

News Source:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-ny-attorney-general-gets-more-isps-to-block-alt-newsgroups.html

Best Code Comment

While toiling away this morning, I stumbled upon the best, groan inducing comment I have ever seen.

k cat ; Ha - was it curiosity?

Role Change?

Pondering what to do at work. Doing development is tolerable and something I don't mind doing for now, but it is something I do not want to do long term.

I've been doing system administration stuff as a hobby for some time running my own servers. After being able to do that as a job the year I worked at the University, I find that it is what I would do long term. So what I am doing right now is keeping my impulse to strait up switch roles in check and try to logically compare the two. I wouldn't want to just switch and then regret it later. Some things I am pondering as pros and cons are:

Cons:

• Depending on when the switch takes place, it could be viewed as job hopping
• Starting over again with training
• Probable pay cut

Pros:

• Learn skills that are in wider demand if in the longer term me and company part ways
• Have more experience in the field than development
• More interesting technologies
• Able to get up and move. Having some physical component to help fight office atrophy
  
• Much easier self education. Easier to find documentation/help on the technologies used

Still pondering pros and cons so the lists my evolve over time. Any thoughts/input out there?

Dear Mr Disgruntled Bus Rider

Dear Mr Disgruntled Bus Rider,

I see you get on the bus in the morning and also in the afternoon on the trek home. I must say, you do not look like a happy fellow. When I see you come on-board our mutual conveyance, I get the feeling that you are dreading the drive to your place of employment. I offer you a few suggestions to help you out.

First off, get an MP3 player and download some good humor podcasts. I recommend Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. I want to see a happy face on there at least once! This podcast will help you on your adventure to happiness.

OK, I see you still decrying the world around you. Let's not set our sights so high to get you all the way to happy, but lets at least go to neutral. Take a look around the bus, there are many masters of the neutral on-board. Not happy, not sad, but just there sitting on the bus waiting to get to where we are going in this confined little transport. You can even stare off into space, take a nap, or even shoot for the advanced I'm-not-looking-at-you-so-please-don't-sit-next-to-me look.

Maybe it's an issue with the ladies. I am not what a normal person would call fashionable. However, you don't need to be a fashion genius to see some pretty serious fashion police violations. First and foremost, lose the wind breaker. A bright, just about waist length wind breaker is not the best to wear over a dark suit jacket. You get bonus points for dressing up nice for work, but damn does that wind breaker dominate the realm of clash. Since you wear a suit almost every day, upgrade to a nice, dressy jacket or at least get a wind breaker longer than your suit jacket. I would recommend a different color too, bright blue is not you.

Here's to a happier, or at least neutral, bus rider!

Cheers.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

I'm back to being a bus commuter. The trip now is about 2-3 times longer than at my old job, but it is relaxing. The end result is more time traveling with the benefit now of having a fairly solid I-can't-work-any-later-than-this time.

With the extra time comes a need for something to do. I have a few podcasts I listen to, but they only run about an hour each. The podcasts only last for a single one way trip and I have only enough to last about half the week. I have 5 hours or so of time to fill up. Reading is a possibility, but reading on a moving vehicle can result in a sick feeling I would like to avoid.

So what I would like from my readers our there are some podcast or audiobook options. I am pondering getting an Audible subscription again, so anything off of Audible.com would be an option.

Crunching the Numbers: Bus vs Car

(Note: Apparently Blogger hates tables for some reason. I'll be back later to clean up the formatting. Damn that looks uuuuuuugly.)

Transportation. That's what I am thinking of. Would it be best for me to bus to work or drive to work? At my old job it was an easy decision with a free bus pass. Bus all the way. With my current job, it gets trickier. For one, there are two possible destinations: West & V.

Method

I am going to compare the two based on cost and total travel time. For the car, it will be simplified to gas cost. Even if I took the bus, I would still have to keep the car so the maintenance numbers would be roughly the same in both situations.

Assumptions

• Gas costs 3.899/Gallon


• Car mileage is 25 mpg


• West distance is 9.5 miles


• V distance is 18.1 miles


• For the 31 day period, there are 23 working days

The Numbers

West	Car Cost	Bus Cost	Cost Diff	Car Time	Bus Time	Time Diff
Day	$ 2.96	N/A	N/A	60 min	81 min	21 min
Month	$ 68.15	$ 47.00	$ 21.15	23 h	31.05 h	8.05 h
Year	$ 817.85	$ 564.00	$ 253.85	276 h	372.6 h	96.6 h

While the bus would take longer, I would save $21.15 a month at the cost of about 8 hours a month. Each hour I give up I save about $2.63.

The V location is a little different story. The 8.6 mile difference has a large impact on the car cost.

V	Car Cost	Bus Cost	Cost Diff	Car Time	Bus Time	Time Diff
Day	$ 5.65	N/A	N/A	80 min	128 min	41 min
Month	$ 129.85	$ 47.00	$ 82.85	30 2/3 h	49 h	18.4 h
Year	$ 1558.23	$ 564.00	$ 994.23	368 h	558.8 h	220.8 h

In this scenario, we see a lot more savings. I would save $82.85 a month at the cost of about 18.4 hours a month. Each hour I give up I save about $4.50.

Conclusion

The bus does cost less, but at the cost of more time. I could probably do more things to save the $2.62 per hour exchanged. The V location makes it a bit sweeter of a deal on the bus vs. car. Overall, I might start checking out the bus if gas costs get higher. This is only estimated at the current gas rates. If they go higher, the bus gets sweeter and sweeter. If the evilness of $5 per gallon comes near the end of the summer like some predict, the picture changes drastically. Under $5 a gallon gas, I save $40.40 a month (almost covering the cost of the 31 day bus pass) to West at $5.02 per extra travel hour and a whopping $119.52 a month going to V at $6.50 per extra travel hour. If I were to work at V (which I will be at some point in the distance future), it would cost me $7.24 a day just to get to work. Not a pretty picture.

So the bus will probably be coming into the picture soon. It would be good to get into the habit now when I am at West as the savings at V will be nice.

It would be even better if I could bike to West. Though that would just be a good weather thing and I would need to get my lazy ass in shape. I'll save that for another musing later.

Ulric Remakes There Will Be Blood

The dogs got a special treat today, a trip to doggy daycare! The wife was going to be gone all day and I was at work, so it's an nice treat for them to be able to play with other mutts all day long.

Ulric had a good time. Maybe a little too much of a good time. I got a call from the doggy day care that he was bleeding from his paws. Bleeding a lot. Since Ulric is still a bit scared of being touched by people, they were not able to check on what was wrong. They called me, but I couldn't do much due to work. (grumble grumble) The wife called them and got on the way and got Ulric to the vet. Turns out Ulric was playing so much, he wore his claws down to the quick and thus bled a lot. He left blood paw prints all over.

Don't fret though! He is a mighty trooper. He didn't seem to be in pain at all. In fact, he was his normal happy self around other dogs still.

The vet got him patched up with green gauze that makes him look like he has some booties on his back feet. Bleeding has stopped, but Ulric has to take it easy for a while so he couldn't partake in the fun of doggy day care. He was relegated to the world of day time boarding so he could rest up and recover.

All in all, an exciting day. On the plus side, the day care didn't charge us for the day due to the drama. They are a good bunch of people over there.

Dairy Free Day 2

A few temptations today. I normally have some breakfast with cheese on it. Today, I had to sadly peel the cheese off of em before eating.

Dairy free today, and breathing clear. Maybe there is a connection.

2 Week Trial #1: Dairy Free

In an attempt to be a bit healthier and to be able to breath better, I am starting my first 2 week trial. It will be a two week trial to see how it works. At the end of the test, I'll see if it's something I want to keep doing.

This one is going to be hard. No dairy. Here are my rules:

1. No direct dairy, cheese, milk, ice cream, etc


2. Butter is OK if it is part of the recipe, not spread on things

Not too complex. I've already got some soy milk to replace milk and it tastes pretty good. Day one has been smooth and dairy free. I don't feel majorly different, but I am able to breath a bit better today. There are some mixed reports that dairy can cause excess or thickened mucus production. Some folks say that is the case, some say it has no affect. This trial will see if it works for me.

The benefits for me if this works will be better sleep. I am having problems being able to breath clearly at night thus resulting in me not being able to sleep well. My wonderful nasal pathways did not follow the general plan to be an appropriate size for someone of my build/size. Even a little bit of nasal blockage makes it damn hard to breath, the passage is rather small. The goal is to reduce the mucus, make it easier to breath, and to hopefully be able to sleep better.

Now I could just try to use decongestants to get by to breath easier. I have tried that, and the side effects unfortunately are not worth it. Pseudoephedrine works to clear the nose, but it gives my face muscle spasms that just feel wrong. It also make me sleepless. The over-the-counter alternative phenylephrine doesn't work for me. Nasal sprays are not meant for long term use and make the blockage much much worse after it wears off. What is left is a quest to find the source and fix the issue. The dairy free test is an attempt to find the source.

More updates as they come!

Traveling In Seattle Part III

After having a damn fine meal at the icon with R yesterday, today I felt that a simple in house meal would be best. This hotel has some good pizza and hot coco. A weird, but tasty combination.

Today was a slow day lending a hand at ER reg, but the ladies there sure make it fun. Now just one more day to go and boy are my feet cheering at that!

So nothing really exciting today. Just a tired earthbane who is going to bed early. I can't wait to be able to sleep in past 4.30am on Saturday!

On that too, here's a self reminder to turn the alarm on after I set the wake up time. I forgot to do that yesterday, but luckily for me I woke up 5 mins before the time I set. Lucky break there.

Traveling In Seattle Part II

I left off my last post hoping for a good breakfast to start off the day. Then the time I marked on the door hanger breakfast order sheet came around, 5am. No Breakfast. A happy camper, I am not. Why? The kitchen does not open till 6am. A fact not noted anywhere on the order card, but buried deep in the hotel information manual. Why even bother putting an Other delivery option if the only times breakfast is available are the times slots listed? Don't get my hopes up for some eggs and bacon and dash them into the evil morning light.

So no breakfast for me. Though the hospital did have made-to-order sushi in the cafeteria for lunch. Custom, hand made as you order it, fresh sushi. Add that sushi with a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas and you have yourself a nice modified version of surf and turf. But going from 6pm the day before to 1pm today without food made me not a graceful person in the morning. But I left that at the door when I got to the hospital and was all smiles and good times.

My shift was fun, but long. The ER is an interesting place to hang out in. At the end of the day, my feet hurt, I had some good food recommendations from the staff, and my hands were sanitized many times over.

The topper of the day was dinner, the icon. Such. a. good. meal. I had the salmon main dish and chicken fried calamari as an appetizer. When the wife comes up this weekend, I am taking her there. I will save some space for the ice cream sundae in a cookie bowl and I know my wife will be excited about the sweet corn and cilantro mashed potatoes. I didn't have em, but damn they sound good. I'll have to make some reservations for Saturday.

For now, bed time. Another early day, and probably another day of ER reg fun.

Traveling In Seattle Part 1

On my trip to Seattle, nothing really happened of note. It was a good flight, and the only bad thing was I failed to check the price for a bag of gummie bears before buying them. These are some expensive gummies. Worth the price? Probably not, but still tasty.

Now the hotel is another story. In general, I am not a fan of this place. There is a disconnection between the high class nature of the staff on the ground floor from the quality of the rooms.

Since I need to connect to work to check my email and also to talk to the wife, good, reliable Internet is a must. This place fails in that regard. It's slow slow slow. It says it's "High Speed," but I am curious if they think 25 mph is also "High Speed." That's strike one.

Strike two is the shower. I am not a morning person, so the 12 hour shifts are going to be hard for me. A hot shower does loads to get me started for the day. Here's where they fail again. Like their flexibility in the definition of "High Speed," they also have flexibility in the definition of "Hot Water." When cranked all the way to as hot as you can go, the shower only a temperature achieved by leaving a bowl of water out in the sun on a hot day. Far far from the hot, relaxing goodness I was expecting.

I am hoping the breakfast makes up for it. We shall find out soon.

Here's hoping for faster Internet and hotter showers when I get back.

Work and the Art of Uncertainty

Sitting here at work pounding away on reports and code, I am questioning my decision to come back. No, that's not the right wording. In one way I am thankful to be back as the job is a stable one and with the wife being out of work for the foreseeable future, we need the extra cash. In a financial sense, it was a good move.

On the angle of being interested/motivated in my work, that is where the problem lies. Every day is a struggle to get the work done. Gone is the flare and interest I had in computers and coding that I had back in my previous incarnation of employment here. I don't feel a need/urge to excel and better myself. I don't feel that I am in control of my day-to-day tasks. I don't feel that I'm doing that bang up of a job. No surprise if I am slipping, I don't feel a need or desire to work over 40-45 hours a week. The more I work, the more time work is robbing me from my wife and my pets. They are paying me well, but not enough for me to take that time away. Historically I have felt that my pay has been lower than what I was producing, this time around I am adjusting my work to be in-line with that pay expectation. They want more work, then I should get more pay.

Though pay aside, the work is just not interesting. Maybe when we get along on the transition things will pick up, but that is a long time down the road. I don't feel I want to be doing this for a long time. I'm feeling I am not in this for the long haul. So that brings into light my current puzzle I am working out, what do I want to do for the long term. I liked the flexibility and control I had in my previous job, but the pay was not at a level that I could sustain my family. I feel locked and out of choices really. I have to provide and opportunities that provide what we need limit me in what I can do.

More random rants later, meeting time.

Sickness sucks...

It sucks being sick. It's nowhere near fun to have a migraine, fever, huge congestion, and general feelings of crappiness. But what really takes the cake for me, and makes no sense, is that what is most annoying right now is that my eyes hurt. If I move my eyes in any direction, they don't hurt. If I try to move my eyes to look far to the left, right, up, down, any direction, and it hurts like hell. It feels like I pulled my eye muscles somehow. It sucks.

Engineer's Guide to Cats

This is too funny to pass up for all cat lovers out there:

I've got an odd urge

to run down the cube halls of my office shouting the rocky theme while doing the victory pose with my arms raised up in the air.

Oddly enough, thinking of this causes me to grin like a mad man and increases the urge to do it.

Maybe it's just cause it's a slow day and nice outside and I would like to be home with the mutts.

Prices Going Up

Along with gas prices going up, looks like my health care costs are going up again by a loving 17%. Since our health programs don't have a employee/spouse plan, I have to go for the family plan at more than 6 times the cost of the personal plan. Now with the family price increase (I think the employee only price might have actually dropped nope, they did go up but by 8%), I am getting boned even more on that benefit. It's a good plan, but the folks who are just employee and spouse get the short end of the stick. If they did have a employee/spouse program at about 2.5 times the personal plan cost, it could save us almost $2k a year.

At least with rising gas prices, there are things I can do to offset that by driving conservatively or getting a more efficient vehicle if prices get out there. There's balls I can do about this price increase which just bugs me even more.

3 Years Today!

Today marks our 3 year anniversary! While our marriage has been anything from normal from how we met and married to the current health challenges we face today, it's been a fun ride. Here's to many more and good health to follow!

Need to Recharge

The high point of my week so far is that I was able to figure out a somewhat creative way to take a recursive part of a program and make it non recursive netting some nice performance gains. Kinda sad and geeky highlight of the week. I spent a few hours today working it out and am really happy I got it working. My worry is it might get shot down in later reviews of the program. Here's to hoping it gets through.

Since that rather pathetic event was the highlight of my week, you can guess it is not a banner week for me. The thing is though, nothing major has gone wrong this week. There has been a bit of stress from a deadline at work, but nothing unmanageable. I am finding myself being snappy, quick to be annoyed or angry at people, and completely physically and emotionally drained. I need a break, a really really long one. That unfortunately is not coming any time soon. Seattle is coming at the end of the month, but that's still a few weeks away. Plus it will have some long onsite time before I get to break for the weekend.

I've got to do something to get out of this funk.

Keyword Roundup

Looking at my logs, I've got some interesting search terms coming to this blog. Here's a selection some of the more frequent/interesting ones.

1. Spam Burrito


2. buzz lightyear halloween live


3. don't break it down for me (oddly going to my Pizza Tipping post)


4. pizza delivery sucks


5. adopt a husky


6. burrito windows service


7. various searches for pizza tipping amounts


8. paroxetine fucks you up


9. why loveline podcast 10 minutes

April Fool's Day 2008

For a listing of a ton of April Fool's Day jokes in the Internet, check out http://aprilfoolsdayontheweb.com/

Here's some great, geeky examples via Think Geek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/edm/20080401.shtml

Sometimes the Internet Boggles me

I am a big fan of April fools day on the Internet. There are some great gags out there. One that really puzzles me is the idea of rick-rolling someone.

For those not in the know, and I don't blame you if you are not, rick-rolling someone is posting a link that leads to a video of "Never Going to Give You Up" by Rick Astley. The link is posted as being relevant to what ever the page/forum is about. Personally I think it's kinda funny. It's the randomness amuses me. :) It's kind of like yelling "I like puppies" in the middle of a conversation about nuclear physics.

Where it came from and why it's so wide spread is beyond me.

To get rick rolled, go visit YouTube today, April 1st, and watch any of the featured videos.

Find more rick-rolling know-how via Wikipedia.

Good News for Crazy Cat People

A new study says that people who own cats enjoy health benefits over those whom do not own cats. Now we have scientific reasoning for having cats!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/pets/stories/022208dnlivcats.23b81fd.html

Friday Podcast Late... What A Week

This week has been one for the record books. Just about everything that could go bad has.

I: I am off my diet for a time. I got majorly sick. My main rule of dieting, diets are on hold when sick. It's not a good time to be depriving your body of the materials it needs to get better. I have lost 12 pounds so far before getting sick, but might have gained some of it back. Only a pound or two, but still a bummer.

2: I got a call on Monday informing me that my grandmother was ill and was not expected to last much longer. She did manage to hold on for longer than they thought, but passed away on Valentine's Day at 4am. Yet another reason for me to hate the holiday.

C: Due to my grandmother's passing, we had to truck down to Illinois for the funeral. Because of the short notice, we could not bring all the dogs. So 3 of them, our dogs and not the foster, were boarded. Before they could be boarded, they needed a vaccination first. Which meant that the Ulric, who is afraid of people, needed to go to the vet and get a vaccine pushed up his nose. Being afraid of people and especially afraid of females made the visit even more fun when both vet techs giving the vaccine were female. After muzzling Ulric just in case, they held him down for the vaccine... and he promptly peed all over one of the vet techs. Oddly, after this took place he is much more approachable around the wife and myself. Weird.

0100: Thursday, the day we were preparing to go down to Illinois, was also the day that our foster dog Nudge was to lose his manhood. Or doghood. Either way, we had to go pick him up after the fun at the vets for our dogs. After the vet visit, it was snowing. And snow in Madison means everyone forgets how the hell to drive in that new thing called "snow" and become idiots on the road. Because our vet is in McFarland and the foster vet is in Verona, we got to take the beltline in that wonderful weather. I was about to hurt multiple people by the time we got there. Then the drive home was even better since we had to drive through downtown, another bastion for oh-my-god-it's-snowing-so-i-will-bloody-freak-out drivers. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper when we got home.

e. On Friday, we get ready to drive down to Illinois. While the wife was in the shower, I go downstairs to locate some socks. When downstairs, I notice the infamous basement lake has appeared again. >.< style="font-style: italic;">$10,000 depending on the pipe damage.

2x+4=16: Also on Friday, we notice the brand new fridge, delivered on the 4th of this month, has failed. The cooling thing-a-magig does not work. All food in fridge and freezer is now spoiled. And it smells. bad... no.... BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD I am so not looking forward to cleaning that out. Anyone have a gas mask I can borrow? One saving grace, the smell is not able to get out of the fridge unless you open it. One bad point about the good point, in order to clean it out, one has to open it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Damn it.

Swans A-swimming: Nudge might have worms. :-/

Acht: Tomorrow, in the 6-12" of snow coming, I have to go pickup the dogs in a van that handles in the snow like a fat man on a diet at an all-you-can eat dessert buffet.

Lastly: When I get home, the cats have used one of the dogs pads as a litter box. Adding to the lovely smell and the general disaster area feel of the house. Seriously, hurricane ravaged homes in New Orleans could be marginally cleaner than our house right now.

I give up.

Beware...

A desire to adopt a puppy might come with viewing these pictures:

http://madtown.cc/v/Pets/Nudge/


More info on Nudge here:

http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=9934223

Friday Podcast #3: The Household Helper

Today's pick comes from the land of iTunes. As I logged in I quested to find a random podcast to review. In my explorations, I discovered The Household Helper.

Why would the Household Helper catch my eye? My house is a mess. A huge mess. I have 4 dogs, 4 cats, and me. That would cause any domicile to look like a thermonuclear exchange between two warring pet factions took place.

I fired up the podcast hoping for some good tips to use to help keep m house in shape. Unfortunately the podcast did not live up to my hopes. It does have a nugget of good information, but I feel it is a bit too short. It could stand to be about 30 minutes in length. The Podcast could also stand a bit less repetition. It does lean toward beating a dead horse on some topics, but those are some topics worth repeating a time or two. For educational material, I would like to have a few more actionable suggestions in the podcast and a little less personal anecdotes.

In addition to the content concerns, the production concerns are also a hindrance to enjoyment. The audio is soft and static at times. I have to have my volume pumped up to max to hear it at an easily understood level.

Overall, I believe it is a good start of a podcast. The Household Helper is a young podcast, so the content and production issues can be chalked up to learning the podcast process. If this were a long standing podcast with the same content and production issues, I would pass this podcast right on by. Though it is a young podcast just getting it's legs all worked out, I think I will check back in a few months to see how it is progressing. It has the potential to become a regular, but it needs to offer more at a higher quality.

Name:
The Household Helper
Length:
15-20 Mins
Frequency:
Weekly
Site:
http://thehouseholdhelper.com/podcast/
Audience:
Anyone trying to live a cleaner, more organized life
Rating:
5/10

Are Homes Really a Good Investment?

While I was outside freeing my roof from the horrors of the heavy snow earlier this week, I got to thinking that buying a house is not a good money making investment. There are those who say that a house is a solid piece of investment for making money. I'm not so sure.

With a house comes a great deal of expenses to maintain the investment. We have to purchase equipment to maintain the house. For example, snow rakes, lawn mower, tools, lawn equipment, filters, etc. We have to put a lot of money into customizing the house for ourselves by painting rooms, getting different flooring, putting up drapes, etc. Pile on that unexpected charges like having to replace your roof (which we need to do soon, ours is not up to code), replacing failed appliances, fixing broken pipes, calling the plumber to fix the backup from said broken pipes, and the intangible investment of the time spent performing the upkeep on the house. For an investment, it is a hell of a lot of work and money required to maintain it. I believe that the money we spend in upkeep almost or completely cancels out the increase on the cost of the house.

No I am not saying I don't like having a house. I like that I get more control over where I live and I can customize it to my needs and wants. That flexibility comes with a high price though. I am sure I am making some money on the house somewhere, but there has to be better and easier investment opportunities to grow our money.

Overall, I think owning a house is mainly about having control over the place where you live. It is not normally a money making opportunity. I would compare it to a low-yield savings account. The costs of upkeep and maintenance eat into my gains for appreciation on the house thus reducing my rate of return. When we sell the house we will get some money out of the sale that we put into the house. I don't expect to see a huge profit on the sale, but I do expect some of our investment back.

Friday Podcast #2: Wait wait, it's the Friday Podcast!

After opening up with a nice barrage of geekieness with TWiT, this week I aim to do a podcast with a little more general appeal.

From National Public Radio, Wait Wait... don't tell me! Wait Wait is a radio news quiz show that airs on NPR. The podcast is the quiz show minus commercials in a spicy podcast sauce.

What do they quiz you on? The News! All of it. From pop news to politics to some of the weirdest news reports I have ever heard of, this show has em all. The questions are posed to the hopeful competitors in a variety of games they can play for the ultimate in news quiz prizes, the announcer's voice on your home answering machine! If you win one of the games, the announcer will create a custom outgoing voice mail greeting just for you. Impress your friends with your fancy prize with each call you dreamily screen to voice mail.

In order to win the prize, you first have to win one of the Wait Wait games. One caller could be faced with answering two out of three questions about the news for the price. Another might have to complete limericks on news topics give by the announcer. Yet another caller might have to guess which story out of three outlandish news events is the real one. Yet another prize hopeful would have to cheer on a celebrity guest as the famous person puts it all on the line to win the prize for them. The questions make you think, laugh, and in some cases wish to that it can't be true.

Above and beyond hearing people compete for the vocal talent of announcer Carl Kasell, a highlight of the show and podcast is the celebrities that come on the show.

Each and every show has a 3 person panel of celebrities that try to help the contestant, provide some hilarious commentary, and try to win points so they can be deemed panel champ for the week. They don't win any prize; they do it for the NPR news quiz glory of being deemed champion. I personally am a huge fan of panelists Tom Bodett, Paula Poundstone, and Mo Rocca.

While the panelists can be known to a few people here and there, every episode has a celebrity come on to play a news game called Not My Job. It's a two out of three question game that they play on behalf of a randomly drawn Wait Wait listener. If they win for the contestant, the celebrity gets nothing, but the listener gets Carl on their home answering machine. The folks who come on to play this game come from all over the place on the celebrity spectrum. They've had presidential candidates (including my top pick, Mike Gravel), Ted Koppel, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Tom Hanks, James Lipton, and tons more on to play the game. It's a great chance to hear some more about big names in the news and to hear them sweat through the questions, which are tailor made to be on a topic they would know very little about to make it even better for those listening.

For my house, this is hands down our favorite podcast. I know my wife doesn't normally dig my techie podcasts much, but she loves this one. It has wide appeal and really should be a standard entry on your podcast list.

Name:
Wait Wait... don't tell me
Length:
50 mins
Frequency:
Weekly
Site:
http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/index.html
Audience:
All ages.
Rating:
10/10

With my two main favorites out of the gates, next week I am going to pick a random podcast from the Internet and review it for you, good or bad. I am pondering making this the format for the Friday Podcasts. One week will be a new podcast to me, the next week will be a pick of the week out of my normal podcast lineup. Also if you have any podcasts I should check out, leave me a note and I'll get em on a review!

The Friday Podcast #1: TWiT

This blog needs an enema!

In lieu of an enema (because I am sure my readers would be horrified at the process of giving a blog an enema), I'll be starting up a regular series of posts on my blog. Lucia does Sweater Thursday, 11frogs started up Essay Tuesday (which I am still working on this weeks one. What word would describe me. Ideas?), and now I do Podcast Fridays!

Every Friday I will strive to review a podcast I listen to or have randomly found on the Internet. The podcasts will range from tech podcasts to game podcasts to pet podcasts to current event podcasts to sex chat podcasts. If you have some suggestions for podcasts for me to checkout, leave a comment or shoot me an email.

My first podcast to review is a favorite of mine, TWiT!

Name:
TWiT (This Week in Tech)
Length:
1 hour, +/- 15 mins
Frequency:
Weekly
Site:
http://twit.tv/twit
Audience:
Geeks, Mac enthusiasts, Gadget early adopters, technology activists
Rating:
8/10

This Week in Tech is run by Leo Laporte. Leo is a formal star of The Screen Savers on Tech TV. He is well known for helping people out with technology and getting it to work for them. The podcast is run by Leo and has a wide range of folks who join in. From the cranky John Dvorak (http://www.dvorak.org/blog/) to top editors from CNET to Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.TV (a future Friday Podcast review) and more. Topics range from tech politics, new technologies, upcoming tech trends, book recommendations, and the weird of the web. It is a great tech podcast to find out what new gadgets are coming up, what technology is emerging to watch out for, and what political issues are popping up with the technology and society.

Dropping the Pounds, Week 3

I skipped the week 2 update. Why? I just forgot to do it. :-P

So far I have been able to keep somewhat on track. While I have not kept on the initial pace I set, I am still on a downward track. My current weight is around 278.1 down from 281.1. My goal was to lose 1.5 pounds a week, but i have found a weakness that dampened my progress: Special Events.

Over the last few weeks, it's been my birthday, WG's 30th, a chili cook off, and more fun. I did manage to enjoy the events and ended up overeating on those days. Eating out in general is still a challenge, but I am slowly learning. The aim of the diet is not only to lose weight, but to get more familiar with the various foods and how much I should be eating. The only main food change I made was to only drink zero calorie liquids. That is working out. It's amazing how many calories I was taking in drinking soda, juice, and sweetened tea. Other than that, my diet is the same make-nutritionists-cringe diet. I still eat out at fast food (though I am cutting back a bit due to costs) and having a snack now and then. The difference now is I am keeping a better gauge on how much I eat. I can still enjoy the good stuff, only not as much.

I am learning what to eat and how much and losing weight, so it's all on track. I did make a change to try and lose a bit more per week. I've decided to shoot for 2 pounds/week. It gives me a bit more wiggle room in case I overeat one day. Also when I was on the 1.5 pounds/week calorie intake, I didn't feel as hungry as I thought I should. As of the start of this week (weeks start on Monday in my book), I am down to eating 2,340 calories. To maintain my weight, I would need to eat almost 3,300 calories. Seeing now how much food it takes to get to that amount and how fat ass I am now, I am amazed I ate that much.

More updates as they come.

PS: I also have more motivation now. WG sent me a picture of myself at her 30th birthday party (the party was in the neighborhood of damn awesome). That picture is now serving as motivation. I didn't realize I looked that damn huge. Then again, can't really be surprised at it.

Weight Loss Week 1

First week of the diet is down, many many more to go. Overall, I think it was good.

My progress so far is either a 1 lb loss or a 3.1 lb loss.

The two options originate from the very first weight reading. On the first day, I clocked in at 286.2, but the days after were on average much lower than that. I think that the 286.2 reading was an anomaly. With the high initial start, I would be on track to losing 3.5 lb/week. That seems excessive. Without the initial high start, I would be losing about 1.2 lb/week which is much closer to the 1.5 lb/week that I intended to be losing. With the Chili party over the weekend throwing me off for one day, I feel the 1.2 lb/week reading is correct so that is what I am going with.

The Chili party threw off my Sunday intake, but it was worth it. Sooooo many great chili's to try. The rest of the days have been on track so the future loss is looking good. More updates each week!

Dropping the Pounds

The first goal of the year I am working on nailing down is losing some weight. I bought an accurate scale to start things off and found out I have ballooned to 286 pounds. Man I am a whale.

I have dropped weight before. I dropped from 250 to 210, so I will be able to do it again. To help me on my quest, I have setup a few guidelines to keep me on track.

1. All liquids will be calorie free
2. Always eat something in the morning, no matter what
3. On Fridays, diets do not exist
- Read this for an explanation of why, it has a good purpose for weight loss. Why Cheating on Your Diet is a Good Thing
4. Keep track of everything I eat on thedailyplate.com
- Helps me keep on track to only eat 2600 calories a day which should result in about 1.5 pounds of weight loss per week. To maintain my current weight I would have to eat 3400 calories. Which makes me wonder how the hell I managed to eat so much to get this heavy.
5. Track my weight on physicsdiet.com
- A nice site that will compute the weighted moving average of your weight to actually see the trend of your weight loss

Working with those guidelines, the first few days have been right on track. I don't have a goal weight of where to stop at ultimately, but I plan to keep on the diet track for most of the year. After that, I will still use the tools to see how I can safely maintain my weight.

As an added bonus, here is a link where you can see how I am progressing weight wise. Hopefully, the trend will continue on a downward trend.

http://physicsdiet.com/Public.aspx?u=uwflatlander

2008 Ahead

Watching Soul Music with puppies sleeping at my feet, it's time to look forward to 2008. New Years resolutions never hold, but they do get out into the open what one hopes to have happen given the drive and determination.

1. Wife restored to health
2. Get my resting heart rate down to around 70
3. Drop 15 pounds
4. Learn my banjo
5. Be better connected with my friends

I have been able to drop 40 pounds in 3 months before, so the health goals should be doable. Hell, all of them are doable (with the possible exception of #1 That's out of our hands :-/ ). The key factor is the self discipline to do it.

Here's to hoping. Better than hoping, here's to planning to make it happen.