The life and thoughts of a midwest geek

I love the neon

2009-12-11T21:45:00.000-06:00

Walking around Las Vegas with Lightning36. Good times.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

The story of 3 bags and a broken clock

2009-12-10T07:41:00.001-06:00

Here they are, 3 bags. My suitcase, camera bag and the bag I'll take to work with a change of clothes.

I'm updating all my blogs with this post because a trip to Las Vegas is when all 3 cross paths. I have poker, photography and fun all planned! The only thing missing will be my bride at my side. This will be my first trip to Vegas without her. Some parts won't be the same without her.

Have fun in Minnesota! While it's not warm this time of year, Vegas is also not 3 degrees. I won't be jealous. Promise!

Many updates to come! Laters!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Snowed in

2009-12-09T09:05:00.001-06:00

No doubt, I'm gonna be here at the house for the forseeable future. We got around 11 inches of snow and top that with a lovely cherry, we now have wind gusts in the 40 mph range.

My street has 3 and 4 foot drifts. Until I see a plow, it's cookie decorating time!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Location:County Road 22,Rochester,United States

Are you ready for snowmageddon?

2009-12-08T09:51:00.002-06:00

Winter is here and they say it's coming like a freight train. My area is already under a blizzard warning although there's only been a dusting of snow. These things are weird. I'm never really sure if the weather people have any idea what they are talking about. People start acting all funny like we are hunkering down for some sort of disaster. Oh well. Just read the sign above and remember Newton's First Law:

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Truer words have never been spoken.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Behold the power of reusability

2009-12-03T10:57:00.002-06:00

In computer programming, we software engineers love the idea of reusing code and solutions whenever possible. It's one of the cornerstones of our jobs. It makes things less expensive to develop and frankly, reinventing the wheel gets horribly boring after you've done in a few times.

Wally is my hero.

Inspired by Kat

2009-12-02T19:26:00.002-06:00

Kat's comment on my last post inspired me to find my favorite Gary Larson's Far Side cartoon of all time. This cartoon not only reminds me of some of my friends but makes me laugh for it's simple delivery. Gary Larson was a true genius in our time. I miss his work.

Heard at the dinner table

2009-12-01T22:14:00.003-06:00

You'd think working half days and having done all that prep work I mentioned in the last post, I'd have nothing but free time. Hm. Nice try.

Tonight, at the dinner table, OhPrincess1 said something that just got me laughing:

I just don't get it. They make seedless grapes and seedless watermelon, so why can't they make boneless chickens?

Hope you are having a great day! I'll be back soon...there's too much to write about.

Take a deep breath...ah - now, back to work

2009-11-23T21:02:00.003-06:00

Been a while since I really had the time post anything resembling a real update. Considering the price paid to read the content here, I'm hoping no one wants a refund. Har, har, I jest.

A little while ago I posted a picture of the hospital I work at, at night. Yeah, getting out of work has been an issue, it just seems like it's been one big project after the other. No biggie, that's the nature of my job.

But that's not the whole story. There's more to this story and I might just have a few minutes to explain these new adventures in our lives.

I've written before about my quest to loose a few pant sizes before. That quest is moving right along. If you check out my shrinking family blog, it tells all the details. I've been participating in a program through the fitness center at work for men. Two sessions a week plus a few workout sessions. I lost 10 pounds in 10 weeks. Kinda cool. I've got a few dozen more pounds to go, but progress is awesome! Seriously, go check it out! You might even get to be there to watch my progress as I attempt my first 5K....it could happen!

Let's add the next cool change in our lives. OhCountess and I have been on a quest of late. This quest has been to simplify our lives and home. You know, unclutter.

This all start a couple of months ago. We decided to focus ourselves into getting rid of things like, debt. That's been going great. In our desire to become more organized run a smoother household, I did some research into things like "Getting Things Done" and other systems for whipping your to do lists into shape.

That system was more about organizing just tasks and to-do's. Nice, but not exactly what we were looking for at home. We wanted to make sure we were using are space and things correctly. You see, we felt like we had too much crap and it was really stressing us out. We got sick of not finding things and wondering where they were. Well, that, and OhCountess and I had vastly different opinions about how to accomplish our organizing goals. That's until I found a new book on a blog I had been reading, Unclutter. There was some really cool ideas there for organizing things, all kinds of things.

The editor in chief of the blog even had a new book coming out, "Unclutter Your Life in One Week". I loved the blog so I bought the book. Our lives have been too busy to accomplish all of this book in the week prescribed, but we've been using our free time working very hard on this. Sorting, making piles, filling boxes, giving away stuff to friends and family, and making trips to Goodwill. All in all, we are making progress.

You've got to experience this book and blog for yourself. Good stuff.

But if that's not enough, we got the next fly swimming in our ointment. OhCountess is going in for a bit of medical work. Nothing super scary and major, she's just joining the ranks of the tonsilless. The day after Thanksgiving is the big day. No biggie, right? Well, traditionally, the weekend after Thanksgiving is our big deck the halls weekend. OhCountess is not going to be interested in decorating the house for the holidays immediately after having her tonsils removed, so we've been busy getting all of our holiday ducks in a row. That's right, by Thursday, we'll have all of Christmas ready to go. Scary, idn't it?

It hasn't always been loads of fun, but so far, it's been worth it. We've got new closet space we never knew we'd have again and we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Soon, very soon, I hope to be back on track. I've been writing down topics and keeping them in safe storage. Any questions? Thanks for hangin with me!

Ah. It's a night to relax

2009-11-21T00:30:00.001-06:00

Home game poker. Nothing better. Whiskey club is at my house this month. Thankfully the cash game after the first tournament is helping to fund the night. I learned a game called 3 Card Monty. Not the street hustle but something else. Definitely -EV.

More on the whiskey layer. Time to play some cards, listen to music, rate the cartoons of the 1980's and drink tasty beverages.

Hope your Friday rocked too!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

You now it's been a rough few weeks

2009-11-16T17:59:00.000-06:00

Here's a shot I just took of the outside of one of the older sections of the hospital I work at. Notice the lighting and the sky. Even for this time of year, I'm getting home far too late.

I miss you all. This schedule can't go on forever, can it?

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Movie review: The Men Who Stare At Goats

2009-11-09T10:49:00.004-06:00

I know, I get out almost every Tuesday for poker league and once a month on most months to go to my whiskey club, but every now and then, a guy just wants to see a guy movie with the guys and maybe tip a few cold, tasty, bubbling beverages.

I had beers with the guys in a bar on a Friday night!

The occasion was the new movie "The Men Who Stare At Goats."

I often wonder how I should write movie reviews. Several people had tweeted messages to me that I needed to write one for this movie. Have you seen the trailer??? It's HILARIOUS! But trailers are sometimes just compilations of the funniest scenes and when you get to theater, you realize...yep, the trailer was pretty much it. Just for reference, here's the trailer again:

Amongst my guy friends, this movie was a must see. That doesn't happen all that often any more. Most of the movies we see are rated G or at best PG-13. I mean, holy cow, this was an R rated movie...and the trailer basically promises that there's not one second of romance or "chick flick" anything. It's all dude.

3 of us made a plan to meet at a bar, have a couple of brews, listen to some horrifically bad female singer butcher songs we hated when they were new. I mean they did a cover of "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers. Who does this in public? why would you torture us this way? I mean, for the love of Pete...that song sucked the first time, now, you sing it different keys? Ok, the singing sucked big giant rocks, but the beers were awesome (I should review beers more often, a good excuse to drink them, don't ya think?). Nummy good independent breweries. Mmmm.

We left the sounds of sing death behind and moved to the theater. Did you know that the theater we went to serves tap beer in a 32 ounce cup? Holy shit! I got a bottle cuz it was smaller. Someone needed to be a grown up. Of course the other 2 guys got the 32 oz. cup (seems like there must be a bigger word then cup)...never drink beer at a bar, then go to the theater and order one that big. Once the seal was broken, guys our age will need to get up and run a few times...just sayin'.

So, how does one write a review of this movie without basically giving away the movie? I have no idea. Let me just start with saying I really enjoyed it. It was very funny. All of the actors were great and I think there's a good chance I might just go again. Now, if you don't want to read any further, that's fine, at least you know where I stand and can judge for yourself the movie but please stop back later and compare notes, kay?

I'm removing my spoiler filter now. Quit reading if you don't want to know anything...

The movie starts by looking at the life of Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor). He's kind of a loser. He's a journalist in a small town along with his wife. In the course of his journalistic pursuits, he interviews a local man, Gus Lacey (Stephen Root). Gus lives with his mother. He's also pretty much a loser and a crack pot. He claims to be a remote viewer and has been watching the Lock Ness monster from his home here in Michigan. Yeah. When asked about these abilities, he goes on to tell the story of his time in the army. He was in an elite group of psychic warriors trained by our government, the best of which was a soldier named Lyn Cassidy. Um...kay.

Bob's pretty sure that he wants something more from his life. His wife, figures out she wants to be a tramp and shack up with another guy. So Bob does what any loser does that wants to prove his manliness, he travels to Iraq to be an embedded journalist.

When he gets there, he quickly realizes that being in Kuwait, living in a hotel is not really all that much adventure. Of course, he's calling the Mrs back home and trying to impress (or scare her) with all the great danger he's in. Not sure, but since the call we here is interrupted by her boyfriend she really doesn't care.

The movie takes a turn when Bob is getting some English lessons from a waiter, he notices that the guy at the table next him reading the newspaper has the name Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) embroidered on his shirt. Hm...

Bob quickly springs into action and finds out that this is indeed the Lyn Cassidy he's heard about. Lyn goes on to start telling him about the First Earth Battalion. Lyn says he's been reactivated and is on a special mission into Iraq. Bob can't wait! He's gotta know more! He'll tag along with Lyn and Lyn will be his big story.

What happens from here on out explains the whole First Earth Battalion, the members, it's founding, it's philosophy, all while these two men travel in a hostile country. The hi jinx and stories are hysterical but the joy I got from this movie was it just wasn't a slapstick funny thing after funny thing ha ha. There's something more here.

This movie is really a story about men becoming disillusioned with the foundation of what they thought made them who they are and finding a new, more insightful understanding of who they are and why they are here.

*Spoiler Alert! One thing you notice about Lyn is that most of the time, he's never really demonstrating any psychic ability. Sure, he does a cloud burst (he stares at a cloud until it magically disappears...over a desert), but almost all instances of "Jedi powers" are easily explained and coincidences abound. Giving everyone around you LSD can sure make you seem special.

In the end, they accomplish their mission: they find out who. They find their own inner strengths. Lyn flies off into the sunset and Bob gets his big story...which of course is dismissed by everyone in the news biz, but who cares. He doesn't really because he's not got the inner strength of know who he really is to himself.

It was this deeper story that made the movie so entertaining for me. I love movies that show great personal journeys of discovery.

Would I see it again? Absolutely. Will I watch it at home? Absolutely. Will I drink to tall glasses of beer in a bar, head to the theater and drink a 32 oz glass of some domestic mass produced beer? Maybe. I guy gets thirsty.

Have you seen this movie yet? Are you planning on it? What did you think??? If you write a review on your blog, let me know, link it here, I'd love to read it! You think 32 oz glasses of beer are too big to serve...well, I don't know what you can do about that. Just let me know about this movie!

Google Wave Invitations: this thing is boring without friends

2009-11-03T15:41:00.002-06:00

Looking at the top of this blog, it says, "The life and thoughts of a Midwest geek." I'm a geek and pretty damn proud of it I might add.

It's very rare for me to not have heard of some new tech thingy. I like tech thingies.

A while back Google announce this great new invention that was going to revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate. It was basically a reboot of email. What they set out to accomplish was "...to reinvent email as we see and use it today," because less face it, email ain't perfect. And thus Google Wave was born.

Here's a cute video that attempts to explain it in a way most of us could understand:

Well, who wouldn't want in to that nugget of techie goodness? I promptly signed up to be apart of it and wait for my invitation to join the party. I waited, waited, waited, gave up and forgot about it for a while, thought maybe I didn't really sign up, waited, gave up and forgot and finally, I got my invitation a couple of days ago.

Yeah! I clicked the link, signed up and wham! I'm in! I'm using Google Wave!

So, now what? I'm using it. It looks cool. I created a wave but I'll be perfectly honest, no one is really there. I have 3 contacts in my contact list. 2 of them are people that don't seem to be around and the other one is a SEO I've had conversations with about advertising on my poker blog. Not really someone I'm looking to Wave with, if you know what I mean.

So, my first impression of Google Wave was, "I don't get it," and "OK, now what?" I found a website that has some really good reading material on the subject, The Complete Guide To Google Wave. I think I get it, but the problem is, I'm lonely in there. I have no contacts.

When you get signed up, they give you 20 invitations to give out to people. I've given one to a few of the people I figured would beg me if they knew I had them to give out. Cool. I'm also looking for volunteers to get some of the other ones. You want one? Let me know. Leave me a note in the comments. I think you need to have a Google account to do this, so if you still think that AOL is the Internet, don't bother.

I have a very limited number of invitations, so don't get mad if I don't have one to give you.

Are you already on Wave? Let me know! I'd like to try this thing out by adding you to my Contacts...again...comments people...put this in the comments.

I'm so far behind on writing about stuff lately. I guess I really don't need another geeky distraction but then again, what would I be without them?

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

Rocky Horror Picture Show

2009-10-30T22:42:00.001-05:00

Here's a group photo. Hopefully more to come! Can you spot your favorite character?

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Holiday Tie: Halloween Edition

2009-10-30T11:45:00.001-05:00

I know. I'm a geek but hey. Holiday ties ROCK!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Let it snow

2009-10-23T13:27:00.000-05:00

First real daytime snow event of the season here today. Enjoy!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Things that make you go hmmm

2009-10-20T13:07:00.000-05:00

This really could just be my own weird sense of humor, but in the middle of all of these deeply philosophical and heavy books was one that wasn't quite like the others. See if you can tell which one.

Not the one about why people believe weird things.

Or Carl Sagan...

WeaselMomma, you might need to read it :-) (hint: h a m p s t e r s)

-- these books were found exactly like this at our downtown Barnes & Nobel.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

I do like them, Sam-I-Am

2009-10-12T21:31:00.004-05:00

Tonight, we had a very special event at our house. Very special indeed.

I'm always very thankful that ever night, each of the OhPrincesses still require dad to tuck. I dread the day when I'm no longer needed to straighten the covers and kiss the forehead and give them that last big hug of the day. Please tell me they need it forever.

One of my nightly habits with OhPrincess2 (6yr) is reading time. I no longer read the books but instead I get read to. That transition, was very special both my girls

I let her pick a book that she thinks she will be able to read me from cover to cover. For the most part, she's been sticking to the Level 1 and 2 books, but every now and then, she throws me a curve and tries one of my favorite books: a Dr. Seuss.

As soon as I found out my wife was pregnant with our first, I set out to buy all the REAL Dr. Seuss books and by that, I mean the ones that were actually written by the good Doc himself. There are several books branded with his name and resemble the originals, but we all know...they just aren't as good.

So tonight, OhPrincess2 picked one of my favorites, Green Eggs and Ham. I've just always loved the rhythmic word play and repetition. A masterpiece. An ambitious choice for a 6 year old but she loves this book as much as I do. (We've had several years of practice with this book, we particularly like the interactive part where everyone being read to yells "ANYWHERE!" Never heard of it, give it a try the next time you read it!)

I guess I can't explain it in words other then to say, that little girl, with the gap in her smile where a tooth used to be, read that whole book from cover to cover. She even let ME yell "ANYWHERE!" at the appropriate times. Hm, this seems to be turning into a brag post, well, so be it!

Daddy's little girl did it. Yeah! I'm so excited...I just had to shout from the top of...my..um...blog. Getting read to a Dr. Seuss book still rocks. I can't wait until she tries my all time favorite: Oh, Say Can You Say?. Those tongue twisters are brutal, ya think?

:)

What a game

2009-10-07T07:44:00.001-05:00

What a game. My hat goes off to the Tigers, this is probably the most exciting baseball game I have ever seen. I took an absolute ton of pictures and have many stories to tell, but alas, 12 innings and a really long drive home makes me really sleepy and way behind. For the moment, I'll just enjoy the moment.

Pregame warm up

2009-10-06T14:16:00.001-05:00

Just having a beer at Huberts. 2 hours until first pitch. Must get the liver properly lubricated :-)

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

See you Tuesday night!

2009-10-04T18:15:00.000-05:00

Tickets purchased! We will see you Tuesday night!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

All tied up! #wintwins

2009-10-03T21:25:00.001-05:00

Whew! Tigers lose (Thank you White Sox!) Twins win! What a day! Tomorrow, both teams are really starting the season all over again. This is what baseball is all about. You are in Twins Territory now. Win Twins!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Be the win. We can do this.

2009-10-03T18:05:00.001-05:00

Be the win. See the win. Visualize the win. We can do this. Bring it home boys! Win Twins!!!! All the pressure is on Detroit. You guys still want to start a rookie?

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Why my belt is broken

2009-09-25T09:37:00.002-05:00

In case you are wondering why my pants don't seem to fit any more, well, they got really stretched out in the wash...kidding. The real story is over here. It's also one more hurdle in my blogging life. Feel free to heckle, cry, laugh or better yet, encourage me on. My goal is to be much smaller to live a longer life and have more fun being a grandpa then anyone else has ever had. In case you missed the link, it's here. and here. And yes, for those counting, I do try and maintain 4 b l o gs. I am nuts.

Backspacer

2009-09-20T08:58:00.002-05:00

I'm still such a sucker. Pearl Jam's new album came out today and I just had to race to the store to get it. I wouldn't want to go more then an hour without having every studio album they've ever released.

Any bands you still race to the store to buy?

Now, if you'll excuse me. I've got some new rock to listen too.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.