I am Jack's insight to life...

My top 10 Cydia apps for Jailbroken iPhones

2012-01-23T13:55:00.001-05:00

The brand new A5 Jailbreak was released last week so a bunch of people are installing Cydia for the first time ever and looking for the best apps to use. I've been using Cydia for years now on my various iPhones (going all the way back to the iPhone 3G) so I have some experience in the matter. Without further ado, here is my list of Cydia apps that I find most useful (search for the name in Cydia):

Safari UniBar (FREE) - this tweak combines the Mobile Safari URL and Google Search bar into one. Kind of how Google Chrome approaches the issue. It's amazing because now there's just one bar for everything.
Double At (FREE) - when you type "@@" on your keyboard, it's immediately replaced with your email address. You can set up a custom keyboard shortcut to do the same thing, but this tweak is much faster.
Ifinifolders (FREE*) - allows you to put as many icons as you want into a single folder. I use this tweak to combine all my stock Apple apps into a folder called Apple I.
NoNewsIsGoodNews (FREE) - removes the Newstand folder from your homescreen and places all of the icons inside on your homescreen instead. I subscribe to the NY Times and I don't like having to tap on Newstand first just to get to the NY Times app. This tweak saves me a tap.
Pull To Refresh Safari / Pull To Refresh for Mail (FREE) - pioneered by the Twitter app (originally called Tweetie), this simple tweak allows you to pull down to refresh both Safari and Mail. I use it all the time.
Zephyr (FREE*) - this slick tweak gives you the ability to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to quickly open the multi-tasking bar. The most fragile piece of the iPhone is the home button so anything that reduces the number of times I click the home button is a boon.
KillBackground (FREE) - gives you one-click access to kill all the running background apps. When you have too many apps running at once, your iPhone can start to run slower, and the default method of closing apps one-at-a-time to accomplish the same thing is painful.
Firebreak (FREE) - enables Panorama mode in the default Camera.app. It doesn't make the best looking panorama shots, but if you crop the image with another app like Camera+, it ends up looking like a champ.
Cyntact ($1.00) - the first paid app by the creator of Cydia, this tweak adds little profile images to your Contact list names. The photo shown, of course, is whatever photo you have saved for that contact. It's actually really cool and I support paying the developer a buck.
NoSpot (FREE) - prevents the Spotlight page from appearing when you swipe to the left from the homepage. I never use Spotlight so this tweak is ideal.

* just add this repository to Cydia: repo.insanelyi.com

My WICKED

2011-10-08T11:04:00.001-04:00

I decided to pick up WICKED tickets the other night with my friend Jenny P. The show is only in Atlanta for a few more nights, so I had to be quick about picking out the right seats. The problem though, is that when you try to but tickets to a big name show at the FOX Theatre two days prior, the seats are either:

- super expensive, or
- super awful

And if anyone has ever met me, you know that I just don't do awful seats.

I asked Jenny what her ticket price cap was - she told me $75. That normally wouldn't have been a big deal, except for the fact that I had already spent $222 for the tickets!

Let me rephrase: that was the cost of EACH ticket.

The good news is the tickets came with a signed copy of the WICKED poster and a tour of the backstage... actually, wait. No... that's what Jenny THOUGHT the tickets should have come with for that price. Plus dinner with the cast. Alas, they were just 15th row seats. Aisle seats, mind you.

Anyhoo... apparently, I've been banned from purchasing any future tickets - to any event - forever.

We'll see... Jenny P. We'll see.

My elf

2011-09-16T15:45:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time I met an elf. She had long curls of flowing brown hair and her eyes twinkled like constellations in the night sky. How did I know she was an elf? Well, aside from the pointy ears, she spoke to me in her native elvish tongue the night we met. I do not recollect exactly what she said, but it reminded me a sparrow singing its' song in the stillness of the morning.

J'ai été enchanté.

For several weeks we traveled the lands together. We crossed the great Fifth bridge and traveled into the valley below where swarms of yellow jackets worked together in unison and harmony. It was the most beautiful background noise imaginable, all that humming and buzzing. We cheered whenever they accomplished something grand... 63 times we cheered to be exact. But who's counting?

Nous avons tenu les mains et sourit.

Then danger arose! Reports flowed in of an ancient dragon ravaging the villages in the mid-country. We had to do something, immediately! I could not sit idly by, because if mid-country fell, my elf's life would be in peril. We met many strange characters on our quest to slay the dragon, including a group of adventurers from Castle Sunnydale, a trio of men with brass gears strapped to their head, and... oh, the list goes on and on. It took us nearly 15 hours to slay the green dragon, but in the end we were victorious.

Avec un coeur vaillant, rien d'impossible.

We celebrated our glorious accomplishment with a feast of only the finest foods: pomegranate berries, chicken curries, mangoes and papayas. The musicians played sweet music and sang haunting lullabies. There was laughter all around and our merriment was a sight to behold indeed.

On ne vit qu'une fois.

I will never forget the last evening I saw my elf. The air was cool and the leaves were just starting to turn into shades of gold. She looked me in the eyes and told me she had to go away... far away across the sea. She was being called home, to where she was needed the most. I was confused. Could I come with you, I asked? She took my hand in hers, slowly shook her head, and comforted my sorrow. It was a bittersweet farewell, but deep in my heart, I knew it had to be so.

Régulièrement. Passionnément. Continuellement. Je prierai pour tu.

Oh, my Arizona

2011-08-29T16:07:00.004-04:00

I never fail to meet the most interesting people in my dating travels. Take, for example, Ms. Arizona... she had recently moved to Atlanta and knew exactly 0 people. Being the southern gentleman I am, offered to take her out for a drink one Friday night. She accepted and we met at The Brickstore and had a sampling from the upstairs Belgium taps.

We chit-chatted for a few hours, made plans to go out again, and ended the evening with a friendly Chest Hug.

Our next few dates included going out for frozen yogurt, taking a walk around her neighborhood, cooking her an amazing dinner (courtesy of Jamie Oliver), and screening a movie together that wasn't coming out for another year. All-in-all things were going fairly well... or so I thought.

One morning I receive a text message from Arizona:

Hey. So I slept on things last night and have decided I don't want to date you any longer. I wish you the best in your pursuits.

Wait. What? I called her and asked what was going on; she told me there were 3 areas of concern...

Remember last week when you forwarded me that email from your church about joining a small group? Well, I've been doing just fine by myself and I don't need anyone telling me what I should or should not do. (I never said you "should" do anything....) Yes, you did. (I'm pretty sure I said, "I think it would be great if you joined a small group to meet some new people around town...") No. You said should.
Then you sent me a text message the next day asking who I voted for in the last election? I feel that conversation was a bit forced and I didn't like it. (It was just a topic of conversation.) You seemed pretty serious at the time. (You texted "I voted for Obama", to which I replied, "YOU VOTED FOR OBAMA?! I'm gunna start calling your Ms. Mainstream America Arizona! I, on the other hand, threw my vote away and voted Republican.") Well, maybe you should have had that conversation with me in person instead of via text. (Point taken.)
The other day we were holding hands... (Yeah?) And you told me that holding hands was a big deal for you because you don't hold a lot of girl's hands. (Yeah?) Well, I've only known you a few weeks and it's a little too much, too quickly for me. (... I ... don't ... understand...) TOO MUCH. TOO QUICKLY!

Okay. So she did have a point about the text messages, which is why I now keep all my text messages "light and fluffy" and leave the "serious political conversations" for face-to-face interactions only, but the other two reasons seemed ridiculous to me at the time. But it does make for a fun story these many months later!

My winky-face

2011-06-16T16:39:00.005-04:00

The winky-face. Some of you may know it as ;) and others may know it as ;-). It's a way to express emotion or intention via a text or email. However, what some of you may not know is that there are appropriate times to use winky-faces and there are inappropriate times. Let's go over a few examples start:

APPROPRIATE:

Well, we can either go out to the theater, or watch a movie at my place. ;)
Mind if I save your number in my phone? ;)

INAPPROPRIATE:

I just had to put my dog down. He had cancer. ;)
Someone just stepped on my new Nike sunglasses! ;)

Seems pretty black and white, right? I thought so too... until I met a girl whose nickname is now "winky-face."

Winky-face and I hit it off fairly well on our first date. Dinner was delish, conversation flowed, and plans were made to go out on a second date. We ended up meeting for breakfast and again, everything seemed to be progressing as normal.

She was going out of town the following week for work, so we made plans to reconnect when she returned. However, as fate allowed it, one evening opened up the night before she left so I asked if she would like to join me for dinner. Herein follows the rest of our conversation:

Winky-face: I can't do dinner. Just found out our final print job won't be done till 7, but if there's time I would like to see you before I go. Maybe coffee? 7:30? Starbucks? I have to get to my Mom's tonight so I'll only have 30 minutes or so... but I'd like to talk.
Me: Uh oh. "I'd like to talk" is never a good phrase to use over text message. Am I in trouble?!

I was half-joking, but after no response I followed up with...

Me: JK! 7:30 sounds great. See you there!
WF: Argh! I just got hit with a meeting I forgot about. There's no way I'm gonna make coffee and still get out of town tonight. I guess we'll have to wait.
Me: Why don't you give me a call when you're driving and we'll have our coffee date via our iPhones?
WF: Haha. To be honest, I hate phone dates. ;) I avoid them as much as possible and I'm gonna be wiped out which will make it worse. You can still enjoy Starbucks though! ;)

I decided to give her one last chance to respond to the "I'd like to talk." comment...

Me: Haha. No worries. Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about, though?
WF: Nothing that can't wait. ;) See you in a week!
Me: Fair enough. Have a great trip!

Okay. So take a look at the last message from Winky-face. "Nothing that can't wait. ;)" The ;) normally implies that whatever it is which "can't wait" is in fact something good, or so one would think.

The next day I ask if she made it down to her destination safely. Her response? "Yep."

Anyhoo, 7 days later she returns home and finally finds time to sit me down and have that talk which could wait. Turns out she didn't see a future and didn't like the fact that I tried to "push" her into talking with me on the phone in the car earlier. I apologized for attempting to offer up a solution to her perceived dilemma and tried to explain that I wasn't trying to push anything, but she wasn't hearing any of it.

My only advice to Ms. Winky-face is to seriously cut back on the ;)'s and for goodness sake, do not make a guy you've only known for 3 hours wait 7 days to hear from your mouth that you're not interested.

A simple text message will suffice. ;)

My 40 day birthday celebration

2011-02-08T10:38:00.006-05:00

Today is my birthday. But it's not just any birthday, it's my 30th birthday! I was born on February the 8th at 12:26 AM. I love my birthday because a lot of good things happen around one's birthday, such as:

Your parents finally asking if you just want cash this year. (yes, please!)
Getting email notification after email notification that your friends posted HAPPY BIRTHDAY on your Facebook wall. (fact: 80% of all Facebook wall posts occur on your birthday... and I'm okay with that!)
Receiving birthday presents in the mail from friends that live 3 or more states away. (I'm looking at you Jessica T.!)

Of course, the best thing surprise that's gone down this birthday is something I've now coined, 40 Days (and Nights) of Songs for Noah ('s Ark), courtesy of my very good friend (and occasional lover - jk), Jenny P.

Here's how it works: Every day, for 40 days, Jenny P. will gift me a song via iTunes to celebrate my birthday. How cool is that?! If you're not familiar, iTunes allows you to choose any song in their library and "gift" it to someone else. You type in his or her email address, enter a short description, and click Send! It's that simple.

I received Song #1 a day early...

So, I am starting a bit early because I am so excited to share some songs with you! I recently found this song and I love it! I hope you have an incredible birthday tomorrow! I have only been 30 myself for a bit, but it is a different birthday - it is quite a reflective age to hit and I am still adjusting to it!

You can count on me to be there for you if need someone to talk to about turning 30 or anything else!

Happy Birthday!!!!

Super fun, right? The song she sent me was called "Count On Me" by Bruno Mars, and I absolutely love it! I give everyone else I know permission to steal this idea for your own birthday celebrations!

In other news:
- I am having a big bowling party this weekend at 300 Atlanta, and everyone is invited! Send me an email for more details or RSVP directly with Melissa D. Cheers!

My running resolution

2011-01-18T17:22:00.004-05:00

New Year resolutions are always tricky to maintain. You start off strong, e.g., giving up diet coke or creating a food journal to show the personal trainer you just hired, but old habits quickly fall back into place.

I wanted my NY resolution to be something more concrete than not doing A, giving up B, being more C... I wanted to accomplish a real, tangible goal and allow it to become something that would carry me through the entire year! That way, my resolution becomes habit, and habit becomes a lifestyle.

My NY resolution for 2011 is to run a 10k race.

Of course, no NY resolution will stick without help and motivation from friends and family. My best friend, Melissa D. offered to run the race with me later this year. Her goal in 2010 was to successfully finish a half-marathon... she finished TWO! Plus, we are each other's biggest fan's, so it just seemed natural to train together.

My second form of motivation came from an iPhone app called Nike+ GPS.

Not only does it track your run's pace, distance, and elevation, if you tell your friends on FB or Twitter that you are starting a new run, they can Like or post a Comment and the app will CHEER for you while you're running! Not to brag, but I average 4-5 cheers from my friends per-run.

In fact, I decided to post this blog today on the recommendation by my friend Drew D., who is also a runner!

The first race Melissa and I will run is called the Piedmont Park 5K on March 26th. This particular 5K occurs every month, but we figure 3 months is enough time to train for a 5K properly.

In April, we're going to tackle The Great Urban Race: Atlanta! I did something similar a few years ago with CityChase (think Amazing Race), but my team didn't actually finish the race in the time alloted, so this year I'm back for revenge! Exciting, right?

Anyhoo, with any luck, my NY resolutions will stick this year so my 2012 resolution can be to run a half-marathon! Maybe...

My courtroom

2010-12-01T14:30:00.004-05:00

I love going to court. Okay, well maybe I don't love it... but I do find the stories people tell in court to be quite entertaining.

For example:

Judge: Ms. Lindsay Nichols, I see you're here on an expired tag violation, is that correct?
Lindsay: Yes, sir.
Judge: Can you pay the $75?
Lindsay: What?
Judge: Can you pay the $75 fine today in court?
Lindsay: No...
Judge: Alright, we'll give you time to p.... oh wait, I didn't read far enough. It also says here that you're charged with "Altering a License Plate", which is a felony. I recommend you speak with the solicitor.
Lindsay: Oh.

You just made my day Lindsay! Of course, you also get those kids who are under the age of 18 who come to court without a parent.

Judge: How old are you, ma'am?
Girl: 17
Judge: Is that your parent sitting next to you?
Girl: No, this is my boyfriend.
Judge: Well, that's just not going to work.
Girl: My dad is a drifter.
Judge: Come again?
Girl: My dad is in and out of town & my mom lives in Ohio.
Judge: *sigh* Talk to the solicitor.

The girl was so chirpy during the entire interchange too; it made me wonder if she took anything seriously. Anyways, it's little quips like this that make sitting in court for an hour almost bearable.

My 2010 Christmas list

2010-11-09T10:51:00.003-05:00

Every year my friends and family ask what I want for Christmas. I typically purchase the things I want throughout the year because I'm an impulsive buyer, but this year I am holding back ever-so-slightly for the benefit of those around me who enjoy giving gifts.

Listed in no particular order:

IKEA VRETA Leather Sofa in Mjuk Black: I've needed a couch in my house ever since I moved in over four-years ago. While not having a couch works wonders on dates (only one other place in the house to watch movies), it would be nice to sit back and relax during a Saturday afternoon football game. ($750)
HEX band for iPod nano in Clear: Okay, so this is more of a Kitsch fashion item, but it could be kinda cool to wear when you're on the go, right? ($25)
Telltale Games's "Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent": A fun little adventure-puzzle game (think Professor Layton) that plays on the PC or Mac. I tried out the demo and was impressed! ($10)
iSkin solo case for iPhone 4 in Carbon (translucent black): The iSkin solo was my absolute FAVORITE case for my old 3GS, so you can imagine how thrilled I was when I heard they were coming out with a similar case for the iPhone 4 earlier this month. ($30)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Hardcover) by Stieg Larsson: I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and I'm more than halfway done with The Girl Who Played with Fire. I LOVE this series; it's just a shame the author won't be writing any more books.
LEGO's "Fallingwater" Architectural Set: Not gunna lie... I love LEGO's. This set is fairly challenging and looks great on display. It's a replica of the real-world architectural landmark Fallingwater designed by Frank Lloyd Write in 1934. ($100)
SENZ Original Umbrella in Black: This thing is amazing. It can withstand up to 70 MPH winds and looks sleek to boot. It's made by a company in the Netherlands, so you have to purchase it from Amazon.com or the like if you want it delivered to the States. ($50)

So there you have it! Feel free to talk amongst yourselves and I promise I'll be surprised come Dec. 25th!

My third date birthday

2010-09-28T12:03:00.006-04:00

There's nothing more awkward than celebrating someone's birthday on your third date... except maybe celebrating it on your first date. I think I would re-schedule if it was on a first date...

There are so many variables to take into consideration:

do I buy a present?
what about the card... funny or sappy?
should I make reservations at a fancy restaurant or keep it low-key like originally planned?
does there need to be an event scheduled afterwards, like a carriage tour through downtown?

The first step was to find a present. I stopped by Things Remembered to see if anything caught my eye... but nearly every piece in that store had some sort of heart or rose tacked onto the side. Plus, you have to pick out an inscription, which always takes me forever when I order something from the Apple Store, and I only had 20 minutes to shop...

Why only 20 minutes? I was informed about the birthday a mere 24 hours before the date... and I'm a procrastinator.

I ended up buying a nice glass candle stand from Pottery Barn instead, with some miniature pumpkin candles to match. I thought it was simple, yet thoughtful. At least that's what my co-worker told me. The next step was to find a card!

I walked over to the Hallmark Store and asked the clerk where the birthday card section was... she pointed me in the right direction and said, "who is it for?" I responded with, "my third date." She laughed. I chose a Dr. Seuss card.

With present and card in hand, I set out to find an appropriate restaurant to celebrate this third date birthday via OpenTable. I found a 1,000 point reservation at a restaurant called Dogwood (score!!) and quickly reserved a table. Dogwood is a southern-style restaurant famous for its Grits Bar. I told the wait staff it was my girlfriend's birthday, because I really didn't want anyone to laugh at me if I instead told them it was a third date. That's not weird or anything, is it?

Anyhoo, she looked fabulous and dinner was outstanding. She loved the gift and laughed at the card. So after a very stressful afternoon, everything turned out to be drama-free, which was a pleasant surprise.

Moral of the Story: Ladies... seriously, in the future... can you just pretend you have plans with your friends on your actual birthday? You'll be doing single men around the world a huge favor, plus it's always better to appear popular! At least that's what High School taught me...

My missing persons report

2010-09-05T12:01:00.005-04:00

I just tweeted:

I'm looking for my friend Jessica T. Last seen at the Georgia Dome at 11:00 PM wearing a purple Polo dress and carrying a black handbag. She's 24, 5'6, 130lbs, long straight black hair, and creole skin complexion. Please contact me if you've seen her in #Atlanta.

My Louisiana friend, Jessica, has been staying with me this past weekend. I've taken her all over Atlanta to see the sites. Last night was the LSU vs. NC opening NCAA football game at the Georgia Dome, which we both attended.

She ran into some friends she knew from back home before the game, including one Daniel M., who seemed like a decent guy. We ended up sitting together in the nose-bleed section.

Around 10:30 PM, Jessica comes up to me and says she wants to go to the Cheetah with Daniel and a few of his friends after the game. I was tired and told her I didn't feel like going. She said not to worry because her friends would give her a ride and I could just pick her up from their hotel in the morning.

I told her two things...

I feel responsible for you because you're my guest in Atlanta,
But you're also 24 and old enough to make your own decisions.

I insisted that she text me the address at which she was staying ASAP. I gave her a hug and heading back to my car...

I arrived home safely, fell alseep around midnight and woke up to these text messages:

12:54 AM: (Ari G.) Dude, you're going to the Cheetah?!?
2:06 AM: (Jessica T.) Are you awake?

I immediately responsed to Jess telling her I was awake now and asking where she was... no response. I find her friend Daniel on Facebook and ask him what's going on... no response. I send her a Facebook message as well & finally I call her phone and leave a voicemail.

I wait.

Maybe her phone battery died. Maybe she'll find a computer and check her Facebook. Maybe she called Ari?

I call Ari.

"I think I lost her... yes, lost her, as in I don't know where she is. Right. I have absolutely no idea where she is and I'm starting to get worried. Well, here's what happened..."

I recount the story, and start to tell him about my next step (getting into my car and driving around the Warehouse District hoping I see a girl wearing a purple Polo dress), when he tells me to hold on...

I type out the Twitter message posted above and click send. A few more seconds pass in silence, then I hear Jessica's voice on the phone. I'm confused.

"Where are you?! Ari's house. How did you get there? He picked me up. Are you safe? Yes. Why didn't he say anything to me, I thought I lost you! We were playing a practical joke. I was in the other room the entire time. (silence) That's not funny Jess, I was really worried. It was a little funny. Not even a little bit."

I cannot even begin to describe how incredibly worried I was earlier this morning. I don't know what I would have done if something had happened to her because of my irresponsibility last night. I was literally prepared to go door-to-door in Atlanta asking if anyone had seen my friend Jessica. I did have several recent photos of her on my iPhone...

But none of that matters now... I'm just relieved and very thankful to God she is safe. I suppose the moral of this story is simply this: Treasure your friends and take nothing for granted.

My success sound

2010-08-31T17:53:00.004-04:00

There are times in my life when something amazing happens, i.e. when I find a 4 difficulty Geocache or discover a forgotten Apple sticker behind the couch... but I have nothing unique to say or do to share my accomplishment with the world.

Sure, you could yell "Woo!" or do a fist-pump in the air, but neither of those actions describe who I really am as a person. I never really had anything to call my own... until now.

May I present to you, my success sound:

Those of you who are familiar with my background will immediately recognize the sound as the Item Fanfare from Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening! I encourage everyone to choose their own unique success sound ASAP... you never know when you'll find something amazing!

My 10%

2010-08-30T11:17:00.012-04:00

Let me tell you a story about my best first date ever...

I met her at 7:30 at a small pub for drinks. We started with the standard interview topics of conversation: where are you from? do you have any siblings? do you love your job?

At 7:40 I asked what she does in her spare time: Oh, I like to read, watch movies, and play video games.Video games? I asked... What kind of video games? I like RPG's, like Zelda... on the Wii. Have you heard of the term M.M.O.? I start to smile. Massively Multiplayer Online? Yeah! I play a few MMO's. Like what? Have you heard of Guild Wars? I have a character on Guild Wars! I used to play Asheron's Call back in the day, as well as Everquest and World of Warcraft. Oh wow! I know, right?

By 8:00 we were discussing the mechanics of EVE Online. At 8:30 she was telling me about her 1000+ member guild and told me a story about a (successful) epic raid that took over 7 hours! Felicia Day entered the conversation at 9:00, and a discussion about The Guild ensued.

At 9:20 I told her about a great sushi restaurant down the street I had been meaning to try. She agreed to join me for dinner, so we drove over and grabbed a table.

9:30: Have you ever heard of something called Dragon*Con? Grinning. I'm going as Hagrid to the Yule Ball that Sunday. Really?! That's awesome! Have you seen Dr... Who? Yes! Wow! Well, I'm dressing up as Amy from the latest season. You'd make a perfect Amy.

When talking about our favorite movies at 9:45, we both mentioned The Village by M. Night Shyamalan (you know, the guy who wrote & directed The Sixth Sense?) No one I have ever met has liked The Village as much as I enjoyed the movie, until now. It was uncanny.

At 10:00 we were discussing in depth the musical qualities of a real-life Ocarina vs. the iPhone app of the same name. She owns the former. I demo'ed the latter. We were both impressed.

I made mention of Jamie Bamber attending Dragon*Con this year at 10:20 which led into a very interesting conversation about the disappointing ending of Battlestar Galactica. But really, how else could they have done it?

The strangest thing happened at 10:30 as the restaurant was closing! This woman walks up to us and says verbatim: "I just have to say that you two make such a great couple. You're so cute together! You'll make beautiful babies!" Haha. We were stunned and all we could stutter out before she walked away was Thank you...?

I got a sense that the wait staff was ready to leave at 11:00, so we walked outside and started walking back to our cars. I saw some outdoor patio seating and asked if she would like to sit down and chat for a few more minutes.

11:05: Asked if she wanted to go out with me on a second date. She did.

11:10: Watched the Double Rainbow YouTube clip. She loved it.

11:15: Discussed my fake Starbucks name. Which is Jason, BTW.

11:20: Sang a song for her with my baritone voice.

12:20: Found our first Geocache.

12:35: Found our second Geocache.

12:36: Bitten by ants.

1:00: Sat in my car for a while and chatted about a British TV show called QI.

1:20: Held her hand.

So by this point the date is going amazingly well, right? At 1:30 I kissed her. Have you ever had one of those kisses that knocks you off your feet? That one was a... completely, amazingly, indescribable kiss.

At 1:35 I told her about my 10%.

What is the 10% you're wondering? The 10% could be anything. It could be that you had an eating disorder when you were younger. It could be you're a recovering alcoholic. It could be you've been divorced. It could be your mother or father passed away last year.

The 10% is something that happened in your past which you may or may not had control over, but the bottom line is you can't change what happened no matter how hard you try. The 10% of part of you... but it doesn't define you. After all, it's only 10% of who you are.

There's a fine line in deciding what to do after someone tells you his or her 10%. You basically have 3 options:

Ignore the 10% and live in ignorant bliss. This may work for a while, but eventually the 10% will catch up with you, and it's Bad News Bears from there.
Focus only on the 10% and let it be the deciding factor in whether you pursue a relationship with that person. Also not recommended as feelings and situations can change over the years.
Take time to consider both the 10% and the 90% and decide if you are interested in dating that person based on the 100% they bring to the table. This is always the best option. Sure, the 10% is important... don't ignore it, but also don't allow it to cloud your decision. It's only 10%, remember?

I've been hit with some pretty heavy 10%'s in my life. One I remember in particular happened a few years ago: I met a girl, we went out on a few dates, got along great, she liked 24, etc. and then she told me her 10%. She was a cancer survivor and due to the chemotherapy, could no longer have children. Being in my early 20's this seemed like a big deal at first... but after talking to my family and close friends, I realized that it wasn't the end of the world. We could always adopt children. After all, I liked this girl for who she was today... why should something that happened in her past change the way I felt about her now?

It didn't.

So anyways, as I'm sure you have already figured out, the girl from the original story chose Option 2... and as much as I was disappointed with her decision at the time, it gave me hope for the future.

Because as my good friend Melissa D. always says, "Don't be down. It's only supposed to work out once! You'll find the right one eventually, maybe when you least expect it! :-)"

My defamation defense

2010-08-16T18:15:00.003-04:00

The great thing about being a blogger is that we're protected under the same laws as traditional journalists, but I'm jumping ahead of the story.

Back in September of 2009, I received an email from an old acquaintance who had taken issue with her full name appearing on my blog. The blog in question was talking about my plans for the week and simple stated this:

Monday: Go into work at 10am. After work, take MARTA down to Turner Field where I am meeting my friend [insert name here] and possibly 1-2 others for the first Braves home game.

I responded that I couldn't help her out and wished her well. Of course, that didn't go over well. She simply didn't understand why I couldn't take a few minutes out of my day and edit her name out of the post.

The answer is simple: It's a matter of principal. As long as the statement is factual in nature, I am protected if I use someone's full first and last name.

Here's where the story gets good...

There were two additional posts where this person's full name was being used. The first referenced a keg party she was throwing and/or attending at school, and the second was about her always arriving late to an event, or not showing up at all.

As it turns out, she has "been approached by potential employers about these posts which make [her] look irresponsible (not showing up when [she says she] will and as some kind of party animal). No reputable agency will want to hire [her] based on these posts, and [she] is willing to fight to get them removed."

I was then threatened with a defamation civil suit.

My response was right to the point:

I'm protected as a journalist (see top of post).
It isn't libel (defamation in a tangible medium) if it's true.
Statute of Limitations for libel is one year (OCGA §9-3-33).

The 3rd point is really the kicker... since the alleged libel occurred in 2006, and even if she did have a case, it is 3 years too late to do anything about it.

End. Of. Story.

My network pitch

2010-03-30T16:40:00.009-04:00

NBC emailed me the other day asking my opinion about a new TV Network they are launching in the fall. They gave me a list of names, and my job was to tell them how each name made me feel.

It got me thinking... what if I could create my very own network! What would it be called and what shows would I produce? I spoke to my good friend John B., and here's what we came up with:

LOT: A plane headed to LAX time-jumps and crash lands near the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah. Following a mysterious black cloud of smoke across the desert, the survivors of the crash must seek out a man known only by LOT in order to find their way back home. The questions begin this Fall!

THE REAL DOLLHOUSES: A brand-new reality competition that pits wood-cutter against designer to see who can come up with the best looking (and functional) miniature doll house complete with accessories. Watch this fast-paced competition and drama build-up this Summer!

HERES: The sun is forever hidden by a solar eclipse. The world teeters on the brink of chaos. Normal individuals discover superhuman wedding toasting abilities and work together to bring happiness and love throughout the dark world. Raise your glass this Spring.

23: Johan Bauerstein works undercover at the US Department of Agriculture for a rogue PETA cell in Italy. He has 23 hours to take down the entire American cattle infrastructure before "you-know-who" saves the day. Don't miss a single hour this Winter!

Other shows in the works...

- Charles

- Beatlestar Galactica

- The Excellent Race

I suppose the only question left remaining is what do we name the new network station? I'm partial to AWESOME, but maybe you have a better idea?

My MacHeist theft

2010-03-02T21:52:00.001-05:00

I always feel like I’m stealing software whenever a MacHeist is released. Every year there’s a new bundle of software available to purchase, with 25% of the total sales going towards various charities like Action Against Hunger.

Right now, there is a “nanoBundle” available to purchase. If you have a Macbook, it’s a must-buy for $20, if for only one reason: Tales of Monkey Island!

I played the first Chapter (of 5) on the PC and absolutely LOVED the game! Tales of Monkey Island has full voice acting with the original actors, so you’ll feel right at home if you’ve played any of the other Monkey Island games. The puzzles are fresh, funny, and challenging.

The other items available in the bundle include:

MacJournal
RipIt
Clips
CoverScout
Flow
RapidWeaver

MacJournal is actually really cool. It’s a premier writing app -- in fact, I’m using it right now to publish this blog post! RipIt puts DVD’s into iTunes/iPhone video format. Clips is a clipboard manager, CoverScout works like the iTunes “Download Album Covers” (only better), Flow is an amazing FTP client, and I hear RapidWeaver is a web-publishing tool.

Both Tales of Monkey Island and RapidWeaver have a delayed “release date”, based on how many bundles are sold... 50,000 for Tales and 80k for RapidWeaver, but the sale goals are always reached, trust me.

Now that was all about the nanoBundles... the real amazingness of MacHeist comes in April when the website turns into a giant puzzle quest and scavenger hunt! There are coded messages to solve. Videos to decrypt. Websites to discover. As you progress along the “Heist”, you earn various rewards like DaisyDisk or TinyGrab!

So bookmark MacHeist.com if you haven’t already and get ready for the Heist to start next month!

My RLGF

2010-02-19T14:34:00.003-05:00

A RLGF or Real-Life Girl-Friend has been a rare occurrence for me over the past decade. Some would say it's because of MMO's, and they would be right. There was a time in my life where my typical day went like this:

5 PM: Go answer the phones at Papa John's Pizza.
10 PM: Log into Everquest and explore the Planes of Power with my Guild.
7 AM: Go to sleep.
4 PM: Wake up and get ready for work.

This was my daily cycle for nearly 2 years. I struggled through school, only worked 20 hours a week and spend the rest of my time earning "phat lewt" with my avatar friends. I was the classic 22 year old MMO guy living with his rents in college.

I had never had a girlfriend, or for that matter gone out on more than one or two dates with anyone. But I had some Flowing Thought III Boots which took me over 32 hours to obtain in-game. And in a warped sense of self worth, it actually meant something to me.

Then my father told me I had 30 Days to move out. It turned out to be the best decision I was ever forced to make in my early 20's. I moved in with a guy named David and started a brand-new job as a server at Applebees... and that's where I met my first RLGF.

We dated for nearly a year. Then she moved away for grad-school and I was left searching again... but now I had a taste, and I knew better what I desired out of life.

I joined some on-line dating websites, because after all, I was familiar with the on-line world and felt comfortable communicating via IM and Emails. I went out on more first dates than I can even remember. I would sometimes go out with 3 different people on the same day, because in my mind it was all a numbers game. If I met enough people, eventually I would find one who stuck around, right?

And stuck around they did... for a week, for 3 months, and even one for nearly a year and a half. But something was missing. Sometime last year I figured it out... it was my approach to dating. Everything I was doing was WRONG. I had to change my core methods and it wasn't something that came easily.

Are you ready for the secret to dating?

Here it is...

Stop looking for the woman of your dreams, and instead work on becoming the man of hers.

Let that sink in for a moment. Do you get it? It took me a while to get it and it's still something I struggle with from time to time, but the more I think about it, the more sense dating makes to me.

Here's an example: Let's say you're dating a girl who lives at home and she wants to introduce you to her parents when you pick her up one Friday night for a date. She says it will only be for a moment, so don't worry. Do you...

A) Tell her no thanks, it's way too early to meet your parents!
B) Ask if you can schedule a lunch or dinner next week so you can officially meet her parents properly when you have more time?
C) Tell her you'd love to meet them, if only briefly.

A few years ago, my answer would have been a resounding (A), um... no thanks, not right now. It's too soon. I want to make a good impression. Excuse. Excuse. Yadda. Yadda.

But now think about it from her perspective. What kind of man does she want to date? Does she want to date someone who is concerned about first impressions? Someone who thinks it's too soon to be introduced to the family? Or does she want to date someone who desires to meet all the important people in her life, no matter what the timing or duration of the meeting?

I found that once I made that shift in my approach to dating, everything just seemed to work out. I met a girl named Tamalyn about a month ago, and as of last week she is officially my RLGF. She knows everything about my past, and I try on a daily basis to continue working on becoming the man of her dreams.

As John Piper says, the goal of marriage is not to stop the pursuit of other women... the goal of marriage is so you can perfect the pursuit of one woman over the course of a lifetime.

My iPad disappointment

2010-01-28T11:07:00.006-05:00

Apple announced their new tablet device called the iPad on Jan. 27th. There have been months of anticipation and hype surrounding this new device. Like many others, I had been waiting in eager anticipation for the official announcement.

I took my lunch break during the keynote event. I logged onto several live-blog websites and tried to watch commentary on Twitter before the service ground to a halt. But... about halfway through the hour-and-a-half long presentation I gave up. I couldn't handle it anymore.

iPad? Seriously? Out of all the other names, you went with one that made the word "iTampon" a trending topic on Twitter? Maybe the marketing team over at Apple needs to hire a few women? I was really hoping for an iSlate (but then people would call it "is late" or some other horrible pun).

Forget about the name, I simply wasn't impressed with the device itself. It's basically a giant iPod touch. That's it. There's nothing magical about the device. Steve Jobs said during the keynote, "It's a dream to type on." I couldn't disagree more.

If people liked to type on glass, the most popular keyboards would use glass keys that don't press down as you type. If you own an iPhone, can you honestly say you enjoy writing emails to people using the onscreen keyboard? I actually dread it...

This morning a realization struck me. It wasn't really the name that disappointed me, nor was it the on-screen keyboard... the reason I was disappointed with the iPad was because I've seen it all before.

Apple was trying so hard to sell the iPad as something new. Something innovative and magical. But nearly the entire keynote was of demos that were slightly upgraded apps we've all seen before! There was no wow factor this time around and maybe that's the point.

Maybe the reason the iPad will sell is because we have all seen it before. We know how it works and what to expect. The upcoming Microsoft Courier seems so interesting because we've never seen a UI like that before! But, it may be a hard sell to the Baby Boomer generation since it IS so new and fresh.

I still haven't decided if I want to buy an iPad since I already own an iPhone and a Macbook Air. When I asked some friends what they thought about the iPad, I got some interesting responses:

Drew: I'm not impressed so far with the iPad... Too bad, because I was kind of excited.
Sean: If it had an open application environment like OS X then I would be interested... but it will be restricted just like the iPhone, have the same apps and be as big as a Netbook.
Fritz: I'm just not impressed, AT ALL.
Mike: It doesn't have to blow people away. It's still going to sell 10 quadrillion units so people can show to other people how much cooler they are than you.
John: I think I'll stick with my Macbook Air... it runs Adobe Flash.

Oh, and on top of everything... if you want a version that has 3G capabilities, you're paying $130 extra plus an additional $30 a month for unlimited data usage. And it's only available on AT&T. I wonder if I could tether my iPhone to the iPad...

Either way, the iPad won't be released until late March, so we have plenty of time to change our minds on how to spend our IRS tax refund!

In other news: I promise I will try to blog more than once every 4 months. In fact, I may just post something new tomorrow! Or not. We'll play it by ear...

My guide to X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID

2009-10-08T11:44:00.005-04:00

I was finishing up a project for Nokia Siemens Networks the other day which dealt with Microsoft Outlook iCalendar Invitations but we were running into a wall dealing with a myriad of timezones issues.

Typically, when you are generating an .ICS file using HTML, the timezone the meeting invite comes from does not change... but with this project, the originating timezone could be any one of the 78 time zones found around the world.

Here's the issue: If you search Google on how to create an Outlook Calendar email notification/ics file, you might stumble across this page which has a generic template you could use. Or you might send yourself an invitation and look at the source code for the ICS file.

Either way you'll see the following lines within the VTIMEZONE block:

TZID:(GMT-05.00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) 
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID:10

Notice the strange X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID line... it simply has a number, "10". Well, according to Microsoft the number 10 represents the Eastern Time Zone here in America. Searching Google you might see more examples of this strange number/location mapping but you'll be hard pressed to find a complete listing of all the mappings. 11 is Central Time, 12 is Mountain Time, 13 is Pacific Time, but 38 is Mountain Time for Arizona...?

We spent 5 hours searching Google for the information to no avail. I suggested we call Microsoft and ask them personally for more information about this strange line, completely kidding of course, when my boss Shelley reaches over to her phone and says, "that's a great idea!"

She actually knows people who work at Microsoft in their Outlook Exchange Server group. We called her friend, told him what our issue was, and he went off to search internal documents for the proper X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID mapping. An hour later he found the information we were seeking deep within a MSDN website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa563018(loband).aspx

Ta-da!

I know this information will only be useful to a few people over the coming years, but the extreme LACK of information on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing was astounding.

So in conclusion, here are some keywords which I sincerely hope Google indexes ASAP so other people don't waste 5+ hours of their lives searching for something that almost doesn't exist:

Outlook iCalendar Invite

VTIMEZONE

VZID

X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID

ZOMG, WHY DOESN'T GOOGLE KNOW THE ANSWER

ARRRGH!

My iPhone photo comparison

2009-06-19T20:47:00.012-04:00

Let's see how much better the iPhone 3G S camera is vs. the year-old iPhone 3G, shall we?

All these pictures were shot immediately following one another and I don't think you'll have any trouble guessing which camera took each photograph...

The quality of the 3G S photographs are astounding in my opinion. They are sharper (due to the higher quality megapixel camera), and the colors are more bright and vibrant.

I hate to say it... but I recommend upgrading to the 3G S for the camera alone. Especially if you can score the $199 pricing from AT&T.

In other news:

- My iPhone 3G just sold on eBay for $385. What?!

My Apple Store

2009-06-18T01:21:00.004-04:00

I have never had a bad experience with the Apple Store. Until now...

No, just kidding. Today's experience was just as great as every other time I've gone in to get a brand new iPhone or Macbook courtesy of the 1 year limited warrenty.

iPhone #1: It had a gray pixel which was bothering me.
iPhone #2: It wouldn't boot (jailbreak mishap, my bad).
Macbook Air #1: It melted. Seriously. See below for pictures.
iPhone #3: It had air bubbles under the screen.

The only time things didn't go my way was right after the latest Macbook Air price drop & processor upgrade. I asked if I could exchange my 45 day old Air for a new model, but the manager said no. I haven't given up hope as I plan on calling that handy 1-800-APPLE number tomorrow.

See? It melted. I wasn't kidding...

I may or may not have left the Macbook Air in a hot room all day in direct view of the sun. Bygones. Whatever the cause for the "meltdown", the Apple Store asked no questions and simply replaced the computer at no cost.

As my friend Kristen said today... one would think they would have a tally by now of how many free iPhones they've given me in the past 11 months. No worries, my new iPhone 3G S is arriving on Friday.

I received this email from AT&T earlier today:

Good news about your iPhone 3G S early upgrade pre-order! We realize that many of our customers who bought iPhone 3G last July, would now like to have the most recent iPhone technology as soon as it’s available, at the lowest upgrade price. Since you have already placed your online pre-order, we will credit you for the difference between the standard upgrade price - $199 (16 GB) or $299 (32 GB) - and the price that you paid online.

Um... score? I guess waiting in line last year for 9 hours finally paid off! Or maybe it was all the negative press AT&T got on Twitter that did the trick. One will never know...

In Other News:

- You have one more day to buy my BRAND NEW iPhone 3G on eBay. That is all.

My Google Voice revelation

2009-06-17T02:43:00.008-04:00

I won a contest a few months back for an elusive Google Voice number. See, Google purchased a company called Grand Central (similar to Skype) a few years back and has been quite stingy about who gets an invite to beta test the service.

At first, I wasn't that excited. I already had a phone number, why did I need another? I sent a few TXT messages to a friend who was also in the beta, but then I just forgot about the whole thing... until a few weeks ago when I had a revelation and finally figured out why I was starting to LOVE Google Voice. But let's start at the beginning, here are the Top 8 reasons to use Google Voice:

You get to pick your own phone number. In Atlanta, we have 3 major area codes... 404, 770, and 678. 404 was the original... if you live in the heart of Atlanta, you get a 404 number. 770 is for everyone who lives outside of Atlanta in the suburbs. 678 is what we came up with when we ran out of 770 numbers. Point being, 404 is more trendy than either of the other two area codes. I picked a 404 GV number.
You can set up multiple voicemail messages. Then, you can direct different people to different messages:
- Crazy ex who won't stop calling you? "This number is no longer in service."
- Family members? "I'm on my way, Mom. Sheesh!"
- Close friends? "Wazzzzup?!"
Google Voice will transcribe all your voicemails. You get an email with the actual content of the message. See? Genius!:
Free TXT messages! I can sit at home surrounded by hills with no AT&T iPhone coverage and TXT to my heart's content. Which leads me to...
Every contact in your phone has a unique 406 area code number which Google provides. When John sends you a TXT it comes from a 406 number you've never seen before. But when I respond to that number, John sees my TXT as coming from my GV number! Oh yeah, and...
That 406 number also works for outgoing phone calls. I can dial the 406 number uniquely assigned to John and his phone Ring-Rings from my GV number. This provides...
A 100% mask in which I can hide my true phone number. Meet a girl in the frozen food isle of the grocery store? She's getting my GV number. Bump into Kevin Rose at SXSW? GV number. New business cards for 2010? GV number.
Call. Recording. Sure, it notifies both callers that what you are about to say MAY be used against you in the court of law... but it makes for a great (and easy) method to record a new podcast! Have a listen:

We discuss:
- The Ethics, Laws, and Utter Coolness of Recording Calls.
- How to Scam a Cheap Version of Adobe Photoshop using Photoshop. (example)
- College Crew Book Recommendations: Tolkien, Williams, Gaiman, Weis.
- The iPhone 3GS vs. the Palm Pre vs. those Amazing Nokia Phones with 5MP Cameras!

So there you have it. But seriously, all your friends will be green with envy. The only downside I've noticed is once you start using Google Voice as your primary form of communication, you lose all those "mobile to mobile" minutes provided by your carrier. But it will take more time and research to see if that really matters in the long run.

Enjoy the podcast and do leave us a voicemail if you have any comments!

My Spotify work-around

2009-06-01T12:08:00.003-04:00

Maybe you've heard of the new peer-to-peer steaming music service Spotify? Maybe not, since it originated in the UK and is not currently available in the US -- unless you use this simple work-around.

Edit your Firefox/IE settings to use a Proxy. [instructions] Use this IP: 213.175.207.199, and this Port: 80
Go to this URL: https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/ If you see an invitation code page, the proxy is not working correctly, and you'll need to find another UK proxy.
Fill out the form, selecting a username, password, etc. Select UNITED KINGDOM as your Country and use this as your Postal Code: EH15 2JJ
Once the account is created, you can download the client to stream & search for just about any music or artist you want. Oh, and it works for Mac & PC.

Here are some screenshots of the lightweight client in action:

My 30 day impression

2009-04-26T21:00:00.013-04:00

I've been a loyal soldier of PC's ever since I was 10 years old, but 30 days ago I sold my Dell Mini 9 on eBay and picked up a Macbook Air from the Apple Store.

It definitely has a wow factor: It's thin, light, and looks very slick.

The first week I wasn't too sure if I liked the new system. The Copy/Paste commands were different, it used "Command+C" instead of "CTRL+C", so I end up using my thumb instead of my pinky to Copy data. There are no "Home" or "End" buttons which I use extensively in coding, and the single USB port was troubling.

I picked up a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse (which I have to admit, I don't really use), as well as a Time Capsule to backup all my data from work. The Time Capsule is interesting, because at first I thought it was just a wireless external hard-drive... but in fact, it also duplicates as a wireless router! The fact that I, of all people, did not know that tidbit of information is concerning -- Apple needs to make that fact better known!

Lucky for me, the Mac Heist was happening at the same time I purchased the Air, so I ended up getting nearly $1000 worth of software for a mere $40. The Mac Heist is a yearly event which features a series of puzzles and clues to follow around the web. As you help solve the "Heist", you earn more software and additional discount credits for the main bundle. In addition, 25% of all the money raised goes to Charity, so it's actually for a very good cause.

One of the standouts of this year's Heist was the game World of Goo. It's essentially a physics puzzle game which is quite addicting! The gameplay and graphics are top notch, and the music -- well, let's just say I downloaded the entire soundtrack (it was that good). World of Goo is also available for Windows and Linux.

Thankfully, all the other major work related applications I used had a Mac version (Zend Studio, Navicat), so that was never an issue. Now I'm starting to get the hang of the very powerful "Command" key, I picked up a USB splitter, and the back-lit keyboard is something I've always wanted on my PC.

Then, last week I got the news: Tweetie for Mac was being released in a few days. Tweetie is a Twitter client that started on the iPhone. It made great headway's in app development -- it never crashed, had a clean interface, and was feature rich without being laggy. The Mac version lived up to my expectations. I LOVE TWEETIE!

I mean, just check out the feature list!

There's a global hotkey to tweet from any application. In fact, I think I'll use that hotkey to let everyone know about this new blog post!
You can view trending topics on twitter in any number of separate windows to keep track of what's hot.
It supports multiple accounts, which is something the main twitter website needs to get moving on...
And the ads that get placed in the twitter stream are actually quite interesting. They are mostly ads for iPhone or Mac applications which are usually quite useful! It almost makes me want to keep the free ad-supported version.

All-in-all, I'm very impressed with both the hardware and the software on this Macbook Air. The finger gestures on the trackpad are useful, being able to control iTunes via built-in FN keys (without any additional software running in the background) is wonderful, and I picked up the most amazing leather "envelope" case!

Maybe my next desktop will be a Mac too... we'll see Steve Jobs!

My Battlestar Prediction

2009-03-21T07:04:00.003-04:00

I was 100% right in my Battlestar Galactica series ending theory. Here is what I told numerous friends over a YEAR ago.

They find Earth.
Our Earth, but thousands of years ago in our past.
They realize their technology is too advance for the current Earth population, so they abandon everything and start over.
They live their lives in peace.
Happy ending... or is it?
Fast forward 100,000 years.
A scientist is working on a robot which looks very similar to a Cylon, whose eyes glow red.
Fade to black.
Roll credits.

So, holy crap... how accurate was that? Granted in the ACTUAL season finale, the eyes didn't glow red in the end, and the crew of the Battlestar Galactica landed on Earth 150,000 years ago in our past... but they abandoned their technology all the same by sending all the ships into the sun.

They then merge into the society currently present on Earth. Everyone starts afresh, and live their entire lives out in peace. Fast forward 150,000 years and we see two angels (I didn't see that part coming), and they are talking about how everything has happened before, and everything will happen again, AKA., the show's theme.

In the final 15 seconds, we see a series of robotics being created/tested, and guess what... they look like Cylons! Fade to black. Roll credits.

When I first came up with my theory last year, I thought it would be so COOL if that's how the series ended, so you can only imagine my glee (or disgust, I'm not sure yet how I'm feeling), when Ronald D. Moore basically ended the show the way I predicted he would.

Either way, today was the saddest day of my life, because I really did love BSG. As it turns out, the prequel Caprica airs in April (the pilot), and this fall we have Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (watch it from their point of view -- their being the Cylons), so there's plenty more Battlestar coming our way.

It seems as if SyFy is going to milk this series for as much as people will watch, but no worries SyFy, I'm definitely on that bandwagon.

PS. If you don't believe I predicted the series ending, ask John B., he'll tell you everything.

My grandfather's death

2009-03-11T13:35:00.003-04:00

Not too many people know about my grandfather's death, because it was quite sudden and I haven't had time to think about it these past few months.

I was Guatemala last November for a medical mission trip when I recieved a series of txt messages over 3 days from my family.

Day 1: Poppy fell and broke his hip. He's having surgery.

Day 2: Surgery went well. Poppy is recovering fine.

Day 3: Poppy just died. I'm sorry.

Excuse me? I was in shock. I didn't know what to do. Should I leave early and attend the funeral, or should I stay and continue the mission trip?

I emailed my Dad for advice. He told me that Poppy would want me to stay and finish doing God's work. I agreed, so I stayed...

It wasn't until last weekend when I actually found out HOW my grandfather died.

Turns out my Mom was in the room at the time, fixing some towels, when my grandfather's blood decided to clot near his brain. He died in seconds. Now he's with my grandmother who died Feb. 3rd, 2006.

It's tough losing people important to you, especially family members. But I'm always reminded of something David Crowder says...

"Death is not the end. It is only the beginning."

That's the hope I hold onto, in this hopeless world. That God has conquered death so that we might have a fresh beginning in His glory for all of eternity. My mind cannot grasp how long eternity really is... and how short our lives really are.

Sometimes I act like a child. I am petty, selfish, and I don't love everyone unconditionally. I want to CHANGE that. I want to love everyone as God loves us. I want to show to the world that even though everything around us is decaying... our bodies, our relationships, and our finances, that God is in control and we can fully trust in Him to lead out lives... for the REST OF ETERNITY!

Was your last random act of kindness for your glory or for God's glory? Do you volunteer to receive awards and recognition? Do you consider buying a homeless man lunch to tell your friends about it later that evening? Do you have one or two people in your phone you only call when you need something from him or her?

I've been guilty of similar things in the past which is why it is so important to realize the impact we have on others, good and bad, throughout our lives. Are we saying and doing things for MY glory or for HIS glory. All I know is that at the end of my days, I want to stand before God and hear Him say...

Welcome my child, for with you I am well pleased.

That's the beginning I want. How about you?

My high-level update

2009-03-09T04:20:00.003-04:00

Life can be complicated sometimes.

Part of the reason I haven't posted much recently is because I'm finally becoming aware of exactly how much information about me is out there on the interwebs. In a time when employees are Googling your name left-and-right, it's usually better to be safe, right?

Recently, I've been much more active on Twitter than any other social networking site. I gave up Facebook. I rarely check MySpace. And does anyone actually USE LinkedIn for anything?

These past few months have been a roller-coaster. Things happening so fast I barely have time to take a break. I finished the first project for Nokia. and I'm just starting on the second. The holidays were amazing. I took some trips down to Florida and up to North Carolina to visit some friends. I've gone to birthday parties, New Years parties, and just-because parties.

I've been much more social these past few months than I have in the past year. Even though work is slamming me hard upside the head, I've been very careful to take time out of my week to reconnect with friends, new and old. I even helped put together a Birthday BBQ for a friend this past weekend. That's important to me... staying connected with people who have been there in the past when you've needed their help.

A good test to see how well someone's "really" your friend is simple:

Get stranded downtown with no car.
Call up your "close" friends and explain your situation.
See who will drop what they are doing and come pick you up.

I was actually in that situation a few years ago. I called ~4 people and asked for their help. Their response?

Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail!
Um... You know I live in Lousiana, right?
I'm out with my GF right now... Sorry.
I'm on my way buddy. Hang tight.

Number 1? No problem... I miss calls from time to time.

Number 2? Legit. I just wanted to vent. Thanks for taking my call Drew.

Number 3? You're a conditional friend, and I can't believe I'm still talking to you.

Number 4? Despite our differences, you've always come through for me when I've needed it.

As one of my best friends told me the other day... I need to be more selective about who I let in my front-row. Who is giving me advice? Who am I influencing? Who will be there when I need him or her to be there the most?

Hate to say it, but this past weekend was the final straw. I think it's time for Number 3 to go...

My new G/F

2008-12-26T14:33:00.004-05:00

So as it turns out, I have a new G/F. She arrived on Christmas Eve and her name is Kindle. Well, technically I named her something else (my computer is Juliet, my laptop is Rosaline, and my car is Lucy), but for now, you can refer to her as Kindle.

She wirelessly brings me the morning paper at 5:00am, and I'm reading a brand-new book recommended by my father called "Term Limits" by Vince Flynn. It's of the same vein as any Robert Ludlum book, and I know it's his first book, published in '97, and I know it might be rough around the edges, but I'm giving it a shot anyways.

I've always wanted an eBook reader every since I borrowed one from the Georgia State Library many years ago to read a Robert Ludlum novel. The Kindle is light-weight, slightly hard to hold, but the screen technology is amazing. The pictures do not do it justice... it really is like you're reading words on a piece of parchment. The fact that the wireless cellphone technology is built-in and FREE is just an added bonus. You don't have to hook the Kindle up to any computer in order to download books or read Newsweek. Score!

In other news:

I am going to Medieval Times tomorrow night with John B. and Carly H. I've never been before and it's half-off for dinner and a show. It's basically a jousting contest with knights and kings while you enjoy giant turkey legs with your friends.

Next week I have tickets to see Georgia Tech play in the Peach Bowl at the Georgia Dome on NYE! Oh, yeah!! I used to get free press passes for the Peach Bowl every year, but I haven't talked to that contact in a while, so we were forced to actually PAY for tickets. Can you believe it?

The week after is Dana's birthday celebration at Sapporo. Mike has already said he can't come. I guess he plans out his schedule weeks in advance. I know my Wednesday nights are usually booked solid! Sigh. Anyhoo, these next few weeks should be fun. It's been too long since I've been an active friend to everyone. Time to make up for lost time!

My new friends

2008-11-17T17:10:00.003-05:00

So I'm sitting at a table in a house in Guatemala City. I have my computer and I'm bored. I could write a really long blog post about my trip here this past week, complete with pictures, but I'm also tired.

What to do...

I think I will take a nap. Getting up at 6:30am every morning for a week can get to someone who isn't used to it.

I updated my "friends" list of blogs I read. I took off all the blogs that did not have an update in over a year. I kept waiting and hoping that Greg would update again, but his last post was in 2006.

I also added a new link of my newest friend, Kristen. She's a school teacher here in Guatemala staying with Hermann (the guy who owns the house I'm staying at tonight). She's originally from Alpharetta, and also, alas... a Georgia Football fan. She updates on a very regular basis it seems, and posts lots of pictures, which is always a plus!

Anyhoo, long story short, the trip was a blast... and who knows, maybe I'll get bored later after my nap and decide to post in detail what the heck I've been doing this past week in Guatemala.

Stay tuned!

My bullet time

2008-10-16T01:44:00.004-04:00

I'm excited. Max Payne comes out in theaters this Friday, and I have high-hopes... especially after reading that the director made sure "bullet-time" was in the film.

One of the coolest parts of the original PC game was the the bullet-time. Sure, they copied it from the Matrix, but who wouldn't?

One thing I've always wondered though... is Max Payne slowing time to dodge the bullets, or is he simply moving really fast like Neo or Superman? It's probably the latter, but I think the first would be more plausible.

Think about it. You're engaging bullet-time by moving extremely fast. Have you ever tried to run around corners at full speed? Or keep control of a car racing at 300 MPH from the cops? I imagine it's quite difficult, especially if there are objects in the way (like other cars).

You see a bullet being fired in your general direction, and you quickly move out of the way... but what if you move too fast or aren't paying attention, and run into another bullet instead, or a low hanging lamp? Not only do you have to MOVE fast, you have to THINK fast, and be aware of your surroundings.

Wouldn't it be much easier just to slow time and move around normally? I mean, the point of bullet-time is to make sure you have enough time to make the RIGHT decision. Maybe that's why Max Payne is such a bad-ass. He has time to dodge the bullet AND heat up a hot-pocket for dinner.

That's my kind of hero.

My last week

2008-10-07T15:43:00.004-04:00

This is my last week at Rubicon... and to be frank, I'm kind of happy to be moving onward and upward.

Right now the ceiling lights are off because the developers like working in the dark; I suppose it reminds them of Mom's basement.

There is a guy around the corner who is POUNDING on his keyboard. Calm down man, you don't need to apply 2-tons of force to press the Enter key.

And there's singing. Soft singing in a language I don't speak. And VP's wonder why everyone brings in a nice set of headphones to listen to music during work.

Anyhoo... the Yahoo! interview went well. I spoke to 4 different people over 2-hours... learned all about the company, what the interviewers thought of the Microsoft deal, yadda yadda. I even wore my suit, so cross your fingers and let's hope an offer comes through!

In other news: I am throwing my annual Haunted Halloween Party this year, on the 25th of October. If you have not yet received an invite, let me know and I'll give you all the details.

My 4-in-a-row win

2008-10-02T12:18:00.004-04:00

I love messing with people when I play on TurnPlay.

me (3): Howdy.
Kattyjen (3): hows it going
me (3): Well
me (3): Haven't seen ya around these parts before.
Kattyjen (5): you mean on this site?
me (5): Headin' out to Cali for some Gold?
Kattyjen (7): what
me (7): Good game, Missy.
me (7): See ya around!

See, I distracted her w/ my wild west talk, and by turn 7 I had already defeated her!

See?

My hidden discovery

2008-09-03T12:54:00.008-04:00

So I'm typing random things in the new Google Chrome Omnibar today and stumbled across an interesting page, "about:stats". It's interesting if you're curious like I am.

Upon further review of the source code, the following "about" pages are available to view:

Important Note: You may need to copy & paste or even manually type the about: commands to see them properly in Google Chrome.

My Google Chrome first impressions

2008-09-02T17:46:00.003-04:00

Google Chrome is a new browser released today by none other than Google themselves. It takes about 30 seconds to download and install, imports all your settings over from Firefox or IE, and looks really sweet.

But here are some issues I have at first glance:

There is no "status bar" area at the bottom of the browser. Instead, when you mouse over a link, a light-blue box appears to show you where the link takes you. Which is all fine and dandy, except that it's quite annoying. It draws my attention to the bottom-left side of the screen when I don't think my attention needs to be drawn there.
No extensions. What are all these ads doing all over the interwebs?! Boo.
I can't move the "Bookmarks" drop down list. It's stuck over on the right side of the page, and I think I'd prefer it on the left. Also, there's no way (as of yet) to manage your bookmarks.

On the other hand, here are some things I really like:

It loads fast. Like really, really fast.
The graphics are clean and slick.
The default "home page" with the 9 of your most visited websites with little thumbnails is quite cool.
You can use the address bar to search Google! It works extremely well.
You can drag & expand form fields to any size you want. This feature has been quite handy in just a couple of hours of use.
You can drags tabs OFF the main browser window to create a brand new window. I've always wanted to do this!
Did I mention it's super fast?

So yeah, go download Google Chrome right now and let me know what you think!

My Qik review of Flixwagon

2008-08-18T14:58:00.004-04:00

Qik and Flixwagon are programs available on jailbroken iPhones which allow you to stream live video using the built-in camera. While they may seem to be very similar, there are some distinct differences which should be noted:

Qik
- Works best over WiFi.
- Allows for live chat while you're recording.
- Allows for larger screen resolution.
- Uploads as you record.
- Clean interface.
Cons?
- If you aren't using WiFi, good luck getting a video longer than 8 seconds to upload.
- Have to use website to "register" before you can stream.

Flixwagon
- Works just as well over an Edge network as WiFi.
- Easy to set-up and install.
- Uploads remaining video after you stop streaming.
Cons?
- Has delayed live upload and no chat function on the phone.
- Interface (phone and web) can be clunky.

Here is a video that was recorded using the iPhone 3G using both clients... decide for yourself:

View Qik Video

View Flixwagon Video

My opinion? Using 3G/Edge, the Flixwagon video, while it takes longer to upload after you're finished streaming, is 100% better than the Qik video which doesn't even upload properly.

I really want to love Qik, but the quality differences make my uninstall decision a piece of cake.

My name switcheroo

2008-08-03T11:39:00.003-04:00

Over the years, I've had a few people request that I remove their name (full or last) from this blog, because apparently, if you have a rare last name, and a company Google's you, this blog is what shows up.

So in response, I have decided from now on, I will SWITCH the first letters of everyone's first and last name throughout my future blog posts. It's very simple, watch and see if you can figure out who these people are...

Jana Dakubovic
Greg Gimpelevich (well, that one doesn't really work with this system now, eh?)
Bessica Jotvinick
Mlaine Eebel (try saying that in Russian!)
Farissa Murman
Harly Ceyward
Bohn Jeerman

And of course, if these two got together, I wonder who would wear the pants?

Dike Maniel
Men Joss

My recommendations

2008-07-16T13:18:00.005-04:00

These are my (highly) recommended applications from the new App Store for the iPhone 3G:

Loopt: Stalking to the extreme. This app updates your location on the map and shows you where all your other friends are currently hanging out at. Useful for finding things to do around town, just gotta be careful if you're the cheating type. Oh, and it hooks into your Twitter account, so as you post updates, Loopt will also send them to Twitter and Facebook!
Mobile News (AP): So far this kicks the butt out of the NYT. Contains full news articles; I don't have to visit an external website to "view more." One gripe? When you open the app, old articles are shown for a few seconds before the new ones are loaded. Then they disappear mid-sentence. Bleh!
Pandora: This is SO much better than AOL Radio! Pandora is the Music Genome Project, and it works like a charm. You type in a band or song you like, and clear, crisp music is streamed to your iPhone all centered around the initial band/song you picked. Genius!
Twitterific: Eh.. I'd prefer to use something like Twhirl, but with only two Twitter clients on the iPhone, this is the better of the two. Seriously.

Those apps are all on my front page. Page Two contains these "business-like" applications:

Remote: Made by Apple, you can control your iTunes from the comfort of your bed 3 feet away.
Eventful: Interesting concept of whats going on in your town, but not sure how often I'll use it. One neat feature is viewing a venue and seeing all the upcoming concerts.
Shazam: WOW. This application is amazing! Say you're in the car and a song on the radio is playing and you have no idea who it is or the name of it... open Shazam and it listens to the song, and within 15 seconds tells you exactly what song it was! It. Works. Every. Time. You can then purchase the song via iTunes if you like, or just keep a list of your favorite songs for the future.
BoxOffice: By far this is the best "movie finder" on the App Store... one great thing is this app shows you the Rotten Tomatoes score when you view all the currently playing movies. One downside is that the tomato score is only shown on that overall list, not when you drill down by theatre or actual movie information. You also can't easily switch from "Show me info about this movie" to "Show me all theatres in my location that are showing this movie." Weird, I know... but maybe in a future update?
Facebook: Web app is better. Have yet to get the Chat feature to work. Can't post on walls. Can't view photo galleries. What the...??
MySpace: I don't check MySpace much anyways, but the app is pretty slick and covers nearly every feature you'd want to use on the website, Inbox, Friends, Searching, Requests, Photos, etc.
Bible (YouVersion): It's a free Bible client with over 30 "versions" (NIV, KJV, etc), commentary, verses of the day, and searching/cross reference. I actually used this last Sunday!
iNetworkTest: Interesting yet simple concept. Tests your network speeds around town. It's very cool to see the actual speed difference with Edge and 3G. For me, 3G is nearly 10 times faster around town!
Sol: Visually shows you how much sunlight is left in the day, along with actual sunrise/sunset times. Very useful if you're in the "I Am Legend" timeline...
Evernote: This was recommended to me by John G. Basically it allows you to either type notes, take pictures, or record audio and "search" it all later. When you take a picture of text, the software converts text into searchable words... so if I meet someone and they only have 1 business card left, I can snap a shot of it, and search his name later to view the picture I took! I think this app could be quite useful, and for the price of $0.00, you really can't go wrong!
eBay: Stripped down version of the website. You can view your actions, search for products, and actually bid on stuff, so I can see how it could be useful for an eBayer on the go!

And finally, here are the games I have installed and what I think about them:

SuperMonkeyBall: I really, really, want to love this game... but the controls are TOO hard for me! Not too hard, more like too sensitive. If I could lower the sensitivity, then perhaps this game would be fun, and not a constant challenge. The game contains over 100 levels, so you do get your moneys worth if you can master the controls.
Crash Bandit 3D Kart: Wow! This game reminds me of Mario Kart. It looks decent, has powerups, sensitivity controls for driving, and you never have to press the gas to go. Highly recommended if you're into racing games! Loads of content too...
TapTap Revenge: This little DDR clone is FUN and FREE! It comes with 6 built in songs, and you can download new tracks as they are released. Oh, and did I mention there's two player action?
Reversi: Standard reversi with an undo button. The AI is quite good on the harder levels.
Enigmo: Interesting puzzle game that I suck at. Maybe once I learn what all the onscreen "objects" are used for, I'll become better at the getting the water from point A to point B.
HoldEm: What?! Also made by Apple, this is probably the best Texas Hold'em game I've ever played before... and I've played a lot. You can rotate the iPhone to view the game in different views, and there is some full motion video of the other players, which is QUITE cool.
Aurora Feint: Eh... kind of like Bejeweled with an RPG twist. But the game is so bogged down by the graphics it is quite laggy when moving around. Perhaps a future version will fix this? I will probably uninstall this one soon and pick up Bejeweled 2.
Aqua Forest: Some sort of Fire/Water/Earth game... you tilt, touch, draw on the iPhone to get the water from Point A to Point B. Good physics, but the graphics are a bit outdated for my likes.
Jirbo Break: Free brick-breaker game... works as expected, but there aren't enough power-ups. I want to shoot missiles and have multiple balls floating around!

All in all, there are some decent, if not really good apps currently available, and I see the quality of apps only increasing over time. I suppose my question to YOU is... what apps have you installed which are worth downloading?

My 9 hour wait

2008-07-12T18:45:00.004-04:00

Yes. It's true... I waited 9 hours in line to purchase an iPhone yesterday. It wasn't 9 hours at once mind up, but split up over the course of the day.

It started out at an AT&T store near my house. I arrived at 7:45 and hopped into line around #80. My friend Dana was in line around #50. I read that Apple said everyone who wanted an iPhone on day 1 would be able to purchase it.

AT&T said no such thing.

I waited in line for 4 hours until I was about 5 people from the front of the line. Then I heard the dreaded words...

"We're out of phones. Do you want to order one and pick it up in August, 2012?"

After I punched the guy in the nose, I decided I should probably go to work and actually make some money.

On the way to work I stopped my an Apple Store at Perimeter Mall... 200 people deep. Line wasn't moving, so I kept on moving.

I left work about 6pm and decided to stop my the Apple Store at Lenox Mall and see what was up. The line there was only about 150 people deep. Still long, but I figured things would start moving faster now that all the morning kinks were worked out.

3 hours later I had moved maybe 50 people forward?

Now it's 10:30pm, the mall is closed, and there are still 150 people in this darned line!! People were selling their spots up front for $200. Can you believe it? No one was going to pay that much just to spend another $200-300 on an iPhone. Ha! No one but me that was...

Technically, I only paid $100 (it was all poker money), and moved up to slot #15.

Suckas!

Less than an hour later I was walking out of the store with a White 16 Gigabyte iPhone in hand and smirking slightly to myself at all the people who still had 3 more hours to wait. While THEY were waiting in line, I was installing apps on my brand new phone!

It's VERY cool, and highly recommended. Oh, and if you use Loopt, let me know; we can be stalker friends. Cheers!

My month in review

2008-06-13T12:03:00.001-04:00

I always find it interesting from time to time figuring out what I REALLY spend during a month. 5 years ago, I wrote down in a little black book exactly what I spent during the course of a single month. I never totaled it up, but I guarantee it was less than my monthly expenses now.

For sake of argument, let's say I make $100 a month. Here's the breakdown on what I spend that hundred bucks on ordered from most spent to least spent:

Car & Insurance: $18.31 (insurance is only $4.67)
Rent: $17.57 (includes $1.59 on utilities)
Eating Out: $16.86 (Lunch, Dinner, Dates)
Internet/Phone: $8.03 (includes hosting for my websites)
Entertainment: $7.76 (Movies, iTunes, Braves games)
Credit Card/Loans: $6.32
Gas: $6.03 (and rising!)
Other & Gifts: $4.52 (includes numerous graduation gifts)
Eating In: $3.06 (Mainly grocery shopping)
Gaming: $3.12 (WoW, EVE: Online, Golden Tee, PSP)

I think this breakdown is kind of interesting to look at. For example, I spend $6.03 a month on gas, but that's not anywhere close to how much I spend on my internet service or even going out to the movies a few times a month. I don't think gas prices would start really affecting me unless it starts to reach $12-15 a month.

I eat out a lot. Partly because I don't cook, but also because I don't think you necessarily save any money by eating in every day. Sure, the dates can be expensive, but spending $5 on lunch at Subway, the thai restaurant, or that really great sandwich shop down the street has numerous benefits:

You get out of the office and get some fresh air and exercise.
There is a lot of variety. I'm not stuck eating turkey sandwiches all week just because that's the kind of meat I bought at Whole Foods.
It's cheap. $5 for a 6" sub, fruit, and a Dasani water.

Anyhoo, I'll see if I can't dig up that old monthly expense record, to see how it compares.

In other news: I am selling my old car Sasha! Wanna buy her?

My one-line predictions

2008-06-12T15:49:00.002-04:00

I present to you my one (or two) line predictions. Here we go!

Netflix vs. Blockbuster:

Netflix pioneered unlimited on-demand movie and tv show consumption. They were the leader in the industry, and Blockbuster has been trying to catch up ever since. Finally, with rising gas prices, it just makes no sense to drive to a Blockbuster store to pick up a new movie, even if the option is there... I'd rather wait two days to get a new DVD and use Netflix's "Watch It Now" technology instead. Winner: Netflix.

EVE: Online vs. Universe of Starcraft:

Okay, so technically UoS doesn't exist yet, but I have a gut feeling that if Blizzard beats CCP to the Ambulation patch (avatars that walk around space stations), then EVE: Online is going to be the big loser. So many times you hear about people trying out EVE, but quitting before two weeks is up, because it's so complicated. I'm STILL learning about the game 11 months into it, and that's crazy to me. Watch your backs CCP. Winner: UoS.

Facebook vs. Myspace:

Sorry Myspace, you've already lost. It doesn't matter how many "Facebook" features or new themes you add, Facebook has stolen your audience. And it's something Friendster learned the HARD way. The social networking site you visit most often is the one your friends also visit most often. Know how many friends of mine have cancelled their Myspace account? I have no idea, but I don't visit the site anymore. Winner: FB.

Blackberry vs. iPhone:

This is tough, but let's give it a few thoughts using the recently announced models (iPhone 3G & Blackberry Bold). Both phones have 3G speed, built in WiFi and GPS capabilities.
The iPhone is smaller/thinner (+1). The BBB has a physical keyboard (+1). Say what you will about the touch-screen keyboard, I own an iPod touch, and typing on that thing is horrendous, and I'm quite the txt messenger. iPhone works flawlessly with the iTunes music store (+1). RIM needs to get on board with their own store, at least for applications, if not music.
BBB: Copy/Paste, Camera Flash, Replacable Battery, Push Email (+4).
iPhone: Safari Browser, Media Playback, Slick Interface (+3). There are claims that the iPhone software update v2.0 includes push email, but unfortunately, it only works for SOME email providers: .Mac, Yahoo!, and Exchange. If you have Gmail, you're SOL unless you do some sort of forwarding trick to a Yahoo! account. Boo. (-1).
Winner: BBB (5 points) vs iPhone (4 points). Yeah, I'm biased.

A few days ago my Blackberry 8830 trackball stopped clicking properly, so I took it back to the Verizon store, and they replaced it in 10 minutes with a new unit. I was thinking about picking up a new iPhone 3G in a few weeks, but now I think I'm going to hang out until the Blackberry Thunder (full touchscreen) is released in September.

So say we all.

My Atlanta City Chase!

2008-05-19T10:22:00.005-04:00

Last Saturday was the Atlanta CityChase that I participated in with John B., Kevin E., and Bill R. It's basically a mini-Amazing Race around the city of Atlanta. They do races in 10 different cities across the US (San Diego, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, NYC, and Philadelphia), so if you're looking for info on what to expect, this is the blog for you!

We started at the World of Coca-Cola in downtown Atlanta. We checked in and were given our racing t-shirts (which had to be worn the entire race), and a gift bag filled with advertisements. We dropped the gift bag, and put on our new shirts.

The race directors went over the rules (no riding in cars, keep close to your teammate, etc), and then we were given our first challenge: Collect 6 out of 8 of these items, and bring them back to get your official Cluesheet.

The items we had to bring back were as follows:

a bruise
someone that is the exact height of you or your teammate
the temperature today in Atlanta
a peach-pit
how many electoral votes Clinton, Obama, McCain and Hucklebee earned in the GA primaries
a coin whose year added up to 19 (1990, 1981, etc)
number of teeth a normal person has
both teammates with your shirts on backwards

The only hard one to find was the coin... we googled the voting answer and the temp, knew humans have 32 teeth, turned our shirts inside out, and made a self-inflicted bruise on my arm.

They gave us the cluesheet and we were off!

The clues were VERY cryptic, but with a good googler on-call (meaning at home on a computer), it wasn't too difficult to figure out where you were supposed to go.

The beginning of the race was the most confusing, because we had 18 locations we could go to, but we only had to complete 10 of the challenges. I knew the closest major landmark in Atlanta from the starting location was Underground, and I was sure there was going to be a challenge there.

I was right. We had to put a snake down our shirts. Easy as pie. Then we walked 2 miles to the next challenge at MLK Park. We had to text questions to our partner, who was running around the streets, something like:

what type of flowers are in the garden at 635 auburn ave?
how many rocking chairs are on the porch at 505 auburn ave?
what year is printed on the silver fire hydrant on the corner of auburn and hogue?

Basically questions that couldn't be googled, to an extent. Once we answered 5 out of 8 questions correctly, we moved onto the next challenge, just a few blocks down the street.

We were told to find an art studio just east of the birth-house of MLK Jr. We asked a few people on the street for directions, and half-a-minute later we stumbled upon Studioplex. Inside we had to create an environmental themed picture complete with a slogan that would be heat-pressed onto a small tote-bag.

I drew a picture of Mickey Mouse saying "Don't Litter!" It took about 5 minutes, and then we were off!

View Larger Map

We caught a MARTA Bus over to the Georgia Tech campus, which we figured out was on route to a required challenge at Atlantic Station. I had done some research about bus routes before the race, and knew how to get from place to place. We only had to wait 10 minutes at the corner of a street before a bus picked us up.

We found out later that some teams actually hiked it across town to the GT Campus (~4 miles), because they didn't know the bus routes.

View Larger Map

We spent about 5 minutes looking for the pool with the challenge. We knew one of us was going to get wet because of the cluesheet, but we didn't know exactly what was going to happen. As it turns out, we rolled a pair of dice and had to find a matching hockey puck on the bottom of the pool. We rolled a 66, and it took us about 30 seconds after diving in to find the matching puck!

We got back on a bus and rode over to Atlantic Station. There were several challenges within walking distance of Atlantic Station, so we decided to hoof it around for a few blocks.

The first challenge was to take some pictures of very specific things:

a vanity license plate
a cartwheel
something orange on your head
carrying someones bags
sitting on a bus
standing next to someone with a uniform

It only took us a few minutes to find all these items, and it was especially easy since we found a vanity plate across the street that says "HIZGIFT" -- it was a nice Mercedes.

WHAT WE DIDN'T REALIZE, was there was a second challenge JUST around the corner at Atlantic Station. We had made mention of it before during the race, but it escaped all of our minds at the time.

View Larger Map

We walked across the 17th street bridge and up one block to the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts. I had been there once before last Fall, so I was familiar with the location. The challenge was to direct your teammate in making a puppet, but he couldn't look at the directions. You had to read them aloud to him. It didn't take us too long, and we made a really awesome duck!

When we rushed out of the building, we asked another team how many challenges they had completed so far. Their answer was 3. Wow!! If we hadn't missed the Atlantic Station challenge, or the stilt-walking challenge, we would have completed 8! But alas, we were only 60% of the way complete.

We hiked over to the Arts Center, where the famous High Museum of Art of located. In the court-yard outside, we had to place 10 pieces of artwork in order ranging from earliest to latest creation date. It took us about 3 minutes with the help of an art expert on-hand, who helped guide us in our decision-making process.

It was at this point that we realized we missed a required challenge back at Atlantic Station. We were ready to head north to complete the last couple of challenge, but instead we caught a bus back to the Station.

The challenge here was to raise $30 for the Boys and Girls Club of Atlanta by selling t-shirts to visitors of the shopping district. Several people I approached simply said: "Oh, no thank you... I've already been solicited."

We just got $30 out of the ATM and bought the shirts ourselves. It was for a good cause, right?

We rushed back to the Train station with less than an hour left to finish two challenges! One of the required challenges was on the north side of town in Buckhead. The trains were running on single tracks, so they were only coming through the station every 20-30 minutes or so (instead of the regular 10 minutes).

By the time the train finally arrived to take us north, we heard a team had already finished. Bleh! We decided to press on...

When we finally arrived north, we walked about a mile to a tree-fort of sorts... where they had a rock climbing wall! I had never rock-climbed before, but it seemed easy enough. And it was, until my last step, where the node came loose on my left foot, and I came flying off the wall.

My friends said the guide down at the bottom of the wall was thrown up into the air. Thankfully he was tethered to a wooden post that held him to the ground! I was so extremely tired at this point, I just asked to be let down.

Ah well! We hiked back to the train station, and waited with a few other teams to head back downtown Atlanta. We didn't get back to the Start/Finish line until 4:30pm (6.5 hours after the race started). It was empty... the race coordinators had already gone to the after-party a few blocks over.

We walked over to the restaurant, very slowly, and had a few free Sweetwater 420's upon arrival. Turns out only 30 people finished the race within the allotted 6 hours. That just goes to show how HORRIBLE the mass-transit system is here in Atlanta, especially considering that in other cities, the winning team usually comes in after 2.5 hours, and well over 150 teams actually finish the race.

But, never-the-less, I had a blast running around Atlanta, 7.5 miles in all, and I would definitely do it again next year!

Stats Recap:
-Event: Atlanta CityChase
-When: Sat. May 17th, 2008
-The Challenge: Complete 10 of 18 Chase Points (4 are mandatory)
-Time Allotted: 6 hours (10am-4pm)
-Total # Teams: 160
-1st Place Team Finished: 4 hours, 16 minutes
-Our Team Finished: 5 hours, 50 minutes (completed 9/10 Chase Points)
-# Teams that Finished 10 of 10 in 6 Hours: 31
-% of Teams that Finished 10 of 10 in 6 Hours: 19% (not too good)
-Proficiency of MARTA: 0%
-Recommendation for Next Year: Increase time-limit to 8 hours

My free cone day

2008-04-29T12:13:00.003-04:00

April 29th is always Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's. Last year, I went with my buddies at Exam Services. This year, I'm going to try and convince some of my new co-workers to make the drive with me.

I'm kind of disappointed that not all B&J locations are participating! For example, the two locations inside of Six Flags over Georgia do not give away free cones. I can kind of understand the reasoning, but not really.

1. It's Tuesday. Not that many people are going to Six Flags today.
2. If B&J DID support Free Cone Day inside the park, I bet it would draw more people to visit this afternoon.
3. They charge over-priced cones inside Six Flags 364 other days of the year... why not give back to the community this once?

In other news:

I placed 8th last night in poker (out of 60), and I'm playing again tonight at Lance's. I am also considering playing in the EVE Online, World Poker Tour this weekend! It costs 1.05 billion ISK, and is limited to 18 players. Top prize is 7b ISK. Not too shabby, eh?

I was given a "You Might Be a Redneck If..." calendar for Christmas last year, and one of the best I've read yet was: You wake up early and still get to work late. In the words of Dane Cook... "it's funny because it's TRUE!"

My ExtJS drama

2008-04-28T10:50:00.003-04:00

Jack Slocum, the creator of ExtJS, is whining on his latest blog post.

ExtJS was originally an extension for YUI, a javascript library that made front-end development simple and easy. It forked into its own library, and ExtJS version 1.0 was released. Jack states:

Ext JS 1.0 is released under the LGPL. Shortly thereafter 2 major publicly traded corporations (names withheld) embedded Ext JS into their development frameworks. With no mention of Ext JS except in credits files that no one ever saw. No support for all the work that had been put into the framework. Neither one of them even contacted us. How can that be possible? Can they do that? How can we compete with them taking such a large chunk of our potential customers? These are the questions I was faced with and so began my “Intro to Business 101″.

So basically, Jack got upset that another company stole his original idea and hard-work, and started turning a profit from it all.

So he changes the license by adding some stipulations to stop that from happening again, meaning the ExtJS team could take legal action if it happens again.

But let me suppose this example situation and explore the outcome.

Apple released the iPhone. The world is wowed. The following month China released the first iPhone Clone. What does Apple do?

-- Steve Jobs posts a blog on Apple.com stating that he feels betrayed by the Chinese company for allowing this infringement to occur. He talks about his family and his personal feelings and states something like "Is it fair that some people who don’t know me at all seem to pass judgement (sic) on me as if they do?" He then asks the Chinese government to hand-deliver his Cease-and-Desist order for the iPhone Mimic. The government complies, production is stopped, an apology is issued, and Steve Jobs sleeps soundly that night knowing that his bid for world domination is almost complete.

Um. No. Here's what they'll do Jack, so pay attention:

They'll let the world know that version 2.0 of the iPhone is being released soon. That's right, with all new features, bug fixes, upgrades, and enhancements... they'll add 3G speeds, video chat with a brand-new camera on the front of the device, and they'll open up the SDK to allow for 3rd party applications!!

And the world forgets about those cheap knock-off iPhone Mimics from China. Whoops. Looks like those Chinese factory owners have to do some more research to pull off the next generation of iPhone clones... and by the time those are released, Apple comes back with the version 3.0 announcement!

Do you see the pattern here? I hope so, because it's been the pattern of business for 2,000 years.

You produce something.
Competitor copies it.
You make it better. You keep the customers. You make the profit.

You asked how you compete Jack? That's how you compete. I should note that I am not necessarily against a commercial license for ExtJS. I am a recent convert, having used YUI for years. I enjoy the functionality your library offers and, if at all possible, hope to continue using it for my personal non-profit websites in the future.

But if there's one thing you learn in Intro to Business 101 it's this: Know your product monetary potential from the conception. If you're going to charge licensing fees, do so from the start like Adobe Flex/Air. Otherwise, if you go the open-source route, keep it that way for the lifetime of the product. Why? Simple: People want to know what they are getting into. Bottom line.

My media

2008-04-25T09:23:00.002-04:00

I've always been a huge proponent of sleep. I enjoy the moment when you first lay your head down on the pillow, letting all the worries of the day flow away while you drift off to another world... but at the same time, I find there is never enough time during the day to do what you want to do!

How often do you find yourself buying something online? A movie or a new game for the PS3 on eBay or Amazon? Do you ever wish you had the time to drive to Best Buy or EB Games and just take 2 hours looking around at everything?

I do.

Yesterday, I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some prescription medicine for Leigh-Anna, who just got out of a surgery earlier in the day. While I was waiting for the woman behind the counter to put 4 pills into a plastic container for me, I went back to the gaming section and did just that: looked around.

I looked to see if they had any Wii's (they didn't), and looked at the games available for the DS and the PS2 (the two consoles I currently own). Nothing looked too exciting, but then I stumbled upon a new Final Fantasy game for the PSP. Hrm. That could be interesting. I made an impulse decision I am famous for, and picked up the new console.

First impressions of the PSP Slim (the version I bought) are pretty good.

Pros:
- WiFi access w/ Flash enabled web-browser. (Apple, take note!)
- Came with a 1 GB memory stick.
- Can charge via mini USB cable.
- It can play UMD (universal media disks), but I'm not sure if I would buy movies in that format when I have my iPod touch.
- Back-lit had three levels. Neat.
- It fits easily into my hands... and I have big hands.
- I love the little thumbstick!
- The game selection is quite good. Sid Meier's Pirates! Metal Gear Solid. GTA: Liberty City. Final Fantasy Tactics. I mean, all the good non-Nintendo games are here...
- The PSP seems a little more grown-up compared to my (pink) Nintendo DS.

Neutral:
- Replaceable battery, like most cellphones, but not like the iPhone or the Nintendo DS. Not sure what I like better.
- Can transfer over custom background images and themes, but how often are you just playing around with the system settings? Usually I will turn on my PSP to play a GAME.

Cons:
- First glance, the actual machine seems to be encased in cheap plastic. I'm told it's to reduce weight, but I like a little metal in my handhelds.
- Speakers are weak. I have to use headphones to hear anything at all. At least my standard iPod earbuds work!

BUT ANYHOO... I'm straying from my original point, which is this:

I find myself wanting to engage or consume much more media than I have time for in the course of any given day.

I want to watch the new episodes of: LOST, Smallville, The Office, Scrubs, Top Chef, and The Tudors... as well as finish my new PSP games, Star Wars Battlefront and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core... as well as read Tad William's Shadowplay book... as well as fly around in EVE: Online... and... and... and...

You get the idea. On Netflix, I have rated 1,450 movies. Some of those consist of TV series, but let's say... for sake of argument, that each one of those movies are 90 minutes long. That means I have watched 2,175 hours worth of movies in my lifetime.

That's almost 3 months of my entire LIFE I have spent just consuming movies. What?!

We are slammed with an influx of new media every single day... not just movies and games, but advertisements and voice-overs. While I was waiting in Wal-Mart for the prescription to be filled, I sat there, closed my eyes, and just listened... Do you know what I heard?

The world just chugging along. And I'm completely content hanging on for the ride.

My Passion

2008-04-09T14:56:00.003-04:00

PASSION: Atlanta is finally here. If you don't know about Passion, read up on the official website, 268generation.org. Passion is Louie Giglio's ministry with the tag-line of "Do Something Now."

This year we are trying to raise money to build wells in Africa, as well as fund the Passion World Tour over in Japan. Everyone is asked to bring a pair of socks and a clean towel for various homeless shelters around town.

Last year, we raised over 3 million dollars, according to Louie on the latest Passion Podcast. This year, we're aiming for 5 million. Can we do it? Ask me after this weekend.

I'm curious if anyone I know is attending. The 10,000 seats have been sold out for a few days ago, but it would be nice to meet up with a friend or two. Let me know if you're making the trip, alright?

Anyhoo, tonight I'm enjoying dinner with my father at his church ($5.00 a plate, quite the deal!), and then I'm going over to Lance & Doug's house for a game of Texas Hold 'Em. The clan is back in town from Florida! Finally!!

Tomorrow I'll discuss more about the new job position I accepted. Alpha or Beta... only I know!

My job decision

2008-03-28T16:24:00.002-04:00

Help me decide what job to take. Here are the details!

Job ALPHA:
- Location: 1 hour, 10 minutes away from home
- Schedule: Mon, Wed, Fri with 2 days a week, working from home
- Flex Hours: Yes
- Benefits: None
- Duration: 6-8 months
- Total Weekly Mileage: 326 mi (~$49 in gas)
- Salary: 90k /yr
- Programming Language: Perl
- Quarterly Bonus: Unknown

Job BETA:
- Location: 36 minutes away from home
- Schedule: Mon-Fri.
- Flex Hours: Yes
- Benefits: Paid for by company, 100%
- Duration: Permanent
- Total Weekly Mileage: 196 mi (~$29 in gas)
- Salary: 80k /yr
- Programming Language: PHP, Javascript
- Quarterly Bonus: 25% of yearly salary if sales projections are met (~$5,000k every 3 months)

I've been using PHP and Javascript pretty solidly for the past 5 years. Before that I used Perl, so it's not as fresh in my mind. Both jobs allow me to work overtime (OT), so if I wanted to make more money a certain week, I can just put in the extra hours. The quarterly bonus is cool, but so is working from home 2 days out of the week.

Decisions, decisions... any recommendations?

My surprise experience

2008-03-27T11:24:00.007-04:00

I just had the best surprise experience a few minutes ago. Let me give you some back-story.

As I'm sure you all know, I purchased a HOT new car last month. To top it off, I went the extra mile and got an official Georgia Tech license plate! It looks something like this:

I drive up and down GA-400 a lot, so I purchased a trés chic cruise card a few years back!

Here's the secret to those cruise cards, are you ready? DON'T KEEP THEM IN YOUR CAR! Here's why... when you pass through the toll booth without a cruise card, a picture is taken of your license plate.

Someone keys in what they think your license plate says, and it's automatically checked against the cruise card database to see if there's a match. If there's a match, your account is deducted 50 cents for the toll. If there's not a match, you get a bill in the mail for $25.50.

But what if they key in the wrong license plate number.. or can't read it at all? Well, that just means that you neither get charged the 50 cents OR get a notice in the mail for $25.50.

But, that's bypassing the system, which is something I would never approve of.

Anyhoo, back to the story, I added my new plate to the system, and rolled through the toll lanes a few times last month. Not trying to bypass the system, but because the battery in my cruise card died a few years ago. I just haven't been near a battery store recently.

Yesterday I get a notice in the mail for 3 toll violations! Ack! I look at the license plate number and notice it says GTGT2838 instead of just GT2838. Apparently, that Georgia Tech logo actually counts as part of your license plate number! Who knew.

So I check out the FAQ on the main cruise card website, and they mention that if you get a notice, but have a cruise card, you don't owe the $25.00, but you DO OWE $5.00 for causing them to go the extra step to obtain a measly 50 cents. Bleh. Oh, and you have to write them a LETTER to petition!

I shoot them an email playing dumb:

Yo. I be owning a cruise card, and then I be getting this toll violation in the mail. And I do not understand, because I own the cruise card, but oh ya, my battery might be dead, so can you fix this for me, ya? Or send me a new battery? Thanks so much, buh bye!

I'm totally expecting to get a standard response, "Please send us a snail-mail to dispute the charge, and we will get back to you in 4-8 business weeks. KTHX."

But instead I get this response!!

Yo, Brother Noah. The reason you be receiving the violation notices was because you entered your license plate incorrectly. Don't fret my friend. I have cleared the notices on your behalf. Peace!

What?!

I'm still in shock. Suckas!

My God

2008-03-24T00:49:00.003-04:00

Today was an amazing day. I woke up at 7:30am and got ready to fight the crowds at Northpoint for Easter services. I usually go the Friday night before (less people), but things didn't quite work out that way this year.

I arrive to the church early with Leigh-Anna. We find a great parking spot, and great seats (right on the end of a row, for a quick and easy exit). The sermon was from Luke, talking about the resurrection (as was expected), but the really cool part was the INTRO! It should be on the YouTube site soon.

Anyhoo, when the closing music started playing, LA and I snuck out and exited the parking lot before it literally became a parking lot. Haha.

We drove to her Grandmothers house for some free lunch, then down to her Mom's house for some free dinner. It makes me miss the holidays at Carrollton with my belated Grandmother. I really do miss her cooking.

After dinner, we drove back home and had a wonderful heart to heart talking about God, and how we need to make him the center of both of our lives. LA talked the most, but I listened intently, and agreed with nearly every statement and conclusion.

So many times in our lives we compartmentalize God... we say we're followers of Christ on Sundays, but then we go out and do things on the weekend that would make a stranger wonder. We pull God out of our hat only when we need something.

Tonight, I needed something. I pleaded with God to grant me my desire, even though I deserve nothing He has blessed me with over the years. God answered my prayers, and I came to realize something I've known for a long time:

God loves us all. He cares SO much about us, he sent his only son to die for OUR sins. Jesus Christ rose from the grave when no-one expected him too... he is the Messiah, and everything he said was true: the reason he came to Earth (to offer us the free gift of salvation), and everything he said he was (the Son of God).

Think about it for a second. Here is our creator, who gave us the choice of right vs. wrong, e.g. the moral compass that is born with all of us... tells us that if we sin, we are to be separated from Him forever. And here we are, sinners, every one of us, not a single person deserving to be in the PRESENCE of our creator, but God has mercy upon us... he offers us a free gift. A gift he knows that we need. It's something we NEED. To fill the void we feel inside of us. That emptiness we try to fill with other things, like alcohol, drugs, sex, money, power. But those things never complete us. Never fill us. Never gives us what we need.

God gives us exactly what we need. The love of a SAVIOR! The love of a FATHER. The love of a FRIEND. The love of someone who will never leave us if we are faithful, and will always be there with open and loving arms even if we turn away from Him. We have a God who loves us, no matter what.

HOW AMAZING IS OUR GOD?

He's amazing to me, and I dedicate my life to serving HIS will, not my own. I hope everyone who reads this does the same thing.

Always remember: He's alive!

My new tradition

2008-02-28T14:46:00.005-05:00

I've decided to adopt a new tradition every Monday - Friday. I'm going to pull a Lucie Bean and update my FB profile with a new favorite picture from Flickr.

Here is the selection for today, the end of February...

Not only is the photograph itself very well shot, the message is inspiring as well.

"Without counsel plans go wrong."

As much as we enjoy being independent thinkers, the choices we make with the advice and help of others usually turns out better than not. How many times have you decided to do you own thing without telling anyone... your family, friends, loved ones? And how many times did the outcome NOT ended up like you desired, because you overlooked something trivial.

I always value the opinions of my friends, they shed new light onto the situations... last night for instance, I was playing poker with the guys. I had pocket Kings, with a pair on the board. I was about to go all in, when I asked Greg G. what he thought. He pointed out the flush possibility that I COMPLETELY missed. He saved me some chips in the end, and I ended up getting second place overall.

Anyhoo, look for a new picture every morning on FB!

My cloudy day

2008-02-21T11:17:00.003-05:00

Oh neat. You can tab in blogger and not have it go to the next form field.


   This.
       Could.
           Be.
               Fun!

Anyhoo, it's really cloudy outside today... and it's raining, which sucks, because I still need to get my car detailed. I wonder how long I can keep that new car leather smell going?

Which reminds me: I'm going skiing next weekend with John B. and Leigh-Anna! John invited me to go to Beech Mountain, NC with his church group in Raleigh. Get this, only $75.00 for 2 days of skiing, rentals, and lodging!

I received an email from the group leader asking who the heck I was, being as I have an Atlanta phone number and what-not. I told her I was part of the Beerman possé, and it was all good. So here's to hoping I don't break anymore bones on the slopes (or walking across an icy road).

Interesting Links of the Week:

doubleTwist- using an analog hole within iTunes, this program allows you to strip DRM off music you purchased at a rate of 200 songs an hour. Not too shabby!
1-18-08- has "prequel" pictures of the Cloverfield movie. No spoilers, so don't worry!
FETD2- wow, this flash based game is great! I can beat the easy map, but am still working on the medium level. Can you survive to the end?

My 11th mile Lucy

2008-02-12T23:11:00.004-05:00

Have you met Lucy yet? If not, you should definitely ask for an introduction soon. She's pretty much the best. Some might even whisper, she's better than Sasha, but I don't listen to rumors.

Lucy is my brand new 2008 Honda Accord Coupe EX-L (the L stands for luxury, or leather, depending on who you ask). It's a nice red tone, and came with only 11 miles on the OD.

Pause for effect...

Alright. I'm back. Sure, I've only driven it for a few miles in the rain, but I'm liking what I'm trying so far!

Okay. So most of you guys have ridden in Sasha at one point or another. I remember once where we crammed 7 people into her, including me, albeit for a short ride down the street. Another time we took her on a 5 hour journey to the beach with 5 people. That was fun!

Sasha boasted a total of 110 horses, and she did pretty well from the green light. Lucy, on the other hand, has well over 190 horses pulling her forward. If I'm doing my math right, that's 80 more horses than before! Woot!

I'm a big guy... you know, about 7 feet tall, and 500 lbs, so I thought fitting into Lucy was going to be tight... err, that came out wrong! What I'm trying to say is, I can comfortably enter and exit Lucy with ease. Erm...

ANYHOO, the ride is pretty nice. Sporty inside and classy outside. I also landed a really nice deal on the whole package, just $100 bucks over invoice. What?!

It's raining tonight, so I'll post some RL pictures tomorrow if I can. See ya around, coppers!

PS. I'd like to thank EVERYONE who came out to my birthday party last weekend and/or wished me a happy birthday on FB! I'll post pictures from the event soon(tm). Cheers!

My first Blackberry Impressions

2008-01-24T04:09:00.000-05:00

I wrote a review for my brand-new Blackberry 8830: World Edition on eBay... here are my thoughts:

THE GOOD:

Open platform: You can easily connect to the phone via USB and transfer over MP3s, Ringtones, Photos, and even Videos.

Good placement for the Micro SD card, it looks stylish on the back.

The Scroll-ball is very easy to use and navigate around the device.

You can run multiple applications at once, and switch between them whenever you'd like.

Tons of support from 3rd party developers, including: Google Maps, Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, ABC News, FOX News, Opera, and even Facebook. Now I just need that Netflix Watch It Now app...

You can install any number of different themes for your device. Personally, I use the free theme called "bPhone" (an iPhone theme).

The screen is very crisp, and I have no problem reading the text.

The number of options available (from font size to how you want your coffee) is daunting at first, but quite nice once you figure everything out.

PUSH EMAIL! Something the iPhone lacks. You don't have to wait 15 minutes to check your email. When synced up to my Gmail account, I sometimes receives messages on the device before they appear in my Gmail inbox.

Option to delete email in Gmail inbox when you delete email on device.

The keys are spaced our far enough for someone with big hands to type, it just takes a bit getting used to having to "shift-click" to enter numbers.

Tons of built-in shortcuts for nearly everything. Might take some time to learn everything, but comes in very handy down the road.

Copy. And. Paste.

Has ability to sync the Blackberry Calendar with your online Google Calendar.

Access to Verizon Navigator (for $10.00 / month), but can also use the Google Maps, My Location(tm) to guesstimate your location using cell towers.

It doesn't crash. Ever. Except that one time. Which is a dozen times fewer than the iPhone.

The amount of emails and text messages you can store on your device is limited only by the available memory. Buy a 4 gigabyte Micro SD card, and you should be good to go for a few years. I recommend eBay.com for that purchase.

THE BAD:

For some reason dollar sign ($) gets a dedicated key, but period (.) does not.

The shift-clicking to enter in a number gets tired.

The available ringtones are not as "loud" as I would like, even on the loudest possible setting. Sometimes I miss calls when the phone is sitting right next to me in the car. Could be my lack of hearing.

Only has built in 64 megs of memory. You'll need a Micro SD card to do any serious iPod-like listening.

Due to the microphone placement, and my right-handedness, I appear to sound muffled to most everyone I speak to. It's just the way I hold the phone, as the voice quality is crystal clear on speakerphone, but old habits are hard to change.
No Wi-Fi, so internet access is slow over the Verizon network.
No access to the VCAST Live TV service (which is VERY cool).
When you switch to a new theme, you have to re-order all your icons again, and moving icons around the home screen can be tedious.
Lots of games to choose from (both free and pay to download), but since they are written in Java, they tend not to be as "quick" as more native applications.
No HTML email support, however, a small application (Empower Email, $30.00 download), fixes that issue very well.

THE UGLY:

When I start typing from the desktop to find a contact, I can call, email, or SMS hem... but for some reason, I cannot edit their contact info. The device forces me to go through the "Address Book" application instead. What the...

Overall, I am satisfied, although I am very curious as to how the rumored Blackberry 9000, featuring a touch-screen, will turn out!

My Voyager or iPhone?

2008-01-20T21:05:00.000-05:00

I decided to upgrade my phone the other day with Verizon. Or perhaps buy an iPhone with AT&T. I was undecided...

I went into the store and spent about 45 minutes looking around, playing with several phones, including the new LG Voyager, to see which ones I liked the most.

Now the Voyager is the supposed competitor to the iPhone, with a full touch-screen on the front, a real web-browser, and live TV through VCAST. Here are my thoughts on what I saw, keep in mind I own an iPod touch:

1. The web-browser was slow and clunky. Scrolling up and down with the touch-screen seemed jerky. My iPod touch's Safari browser clearly spoiled me. iPhone wins.

2. The tactile feedback when you type via the touch-screen was kind of cool, but not NEARLY as fast as typing with the phone open (featuring a full QWERTY keyboard inside). Voyager wins.

3. The live TV through VCAST was VERY cool! They had about 6 channels (ABC, FOX, NBC, ESPN, MTV, etc), and things were scheduled like a real network. For example, House would come on FOX at 9pm. The only downside to the service was it cost X amount of dollars per month. Bleh! BUT, there is nothing like this on the iPhone... yet. Voyager wins.

4. The email client on the Voyager is just like the email clients on all the other Verizon phones. Almost non-existent. They have a "push" feature, but it costs additional money every month, and only pushes new email every 15 minutes. While the iPhone has a better client, the push time is still 15 minutes. Blackberry wins.

Oh, and then I started looking at the Blackberry models. Verizon offered 3 main types:

the original Blackberry. Big and clunky. No thanks.
the Blackberry Pearl. Smallest version available, but typing a single sentence took
literally 45 seconds. I could go quicker using T9 on a phone from 2002!
the Blackberry 8830 World Edition.... drool.

The main draw for the World Edition I believe was the fact that it can connect to multiple networks if you ever travel overseas. But for me, the draw was the fact that email can be pushed to your phone immediately. After playing around with the phone for a bit, I decided to bite the bullet and enter the world of Research in Motion.

Here is my initial thoughts about my brand-new Blackberry 8830: World Edition:

1. The instant email push is amazing. I love being always connected when I'm driving around town.

2. You can put any ringtones, music, videos, and photos you want on the BB, free of charge.

3. Google Talk! Google Talk! Google Talk!

4. The Google Maps application has built-in GPS-like functionality, using My Location.

5. The browser could use a little work, but since the entire platform is built off Java, there are tons of 3rd party apps available, including Opera Mini (a very cool web-browser).

6. It came with a stylish case, and yesterday, I saw a picture of Harrison Ford using one. So there! Although, I have to say, if Apple came out with an official case for the iPhone, I guarantee you, everyone would be using it.

7. It fits nicely in my hand, and it's MUCH thinner than my old LG VX9900, so less of a bulge in my pants, much to the dismay of the ladies.

8. Automatic spell-check via Google whenever I type txt messages or send emails. What?!

Overall, I think the iPhone has a better presentation, but the benefits of having instant email, an open platform, as well as not having to worry about software crashes is a huge selling point for me! I can't tell you how many times I've been listening to music on my touch, started looking at some website, and have the music cut off, and then the Safari browser crash. What's that about?

Oh yeah, did I mention the next Blackberry is going to have a touch-screen? Heck yeah! Now THAT could very well be the iPhone killer.

Other thoughts:
Cloverfield was pretty amazing. John G. thought so too. And Leigh-Anna and I really enjoyed the movie Juno. I recommend both!

My New Year thoughts

2008-01-08T20:07:00.001-05:00

Just because you're buying a box of 100 calorie Cheetos bags doesn't mean you're going to lose any weight, cause 100x10 is half your intake a day. Try buying 0 boxes next time, and lay off the protein shakes.

SHOWTIME has some really great shows! I totally want to be King Henry VIII. I mean, have you seen pictures of Anne Boleyn yet? Granted, she can be a manipulative bitch, I really can't hold it against her. She is female after all.

Note to self: Don't keep your laptop near the drink mixing station. Turns out Malibu Rum makes backspace keys stick to the keyboard after it dries. Should have listened to John G.

As a society, I think we're too darn connected with everything now. I miss the days back when I didn't have a cellphone, so I actually had a valid reason for not answering the house line. And stop checking Facebook every 5 minutes. At least wait until the game is over!

I rock at Texas Hold'em. And LSU rocks at football. That is all.

My unappreciative dinner guest

2007-12-29T06:27:00.000-05:00

So last night I took a few friends out to dinner at Wildfire. It's a nice restaurant where the servers wear ties, and your water glass is always filled (except when I had to fill mine once myself, but anyhoo). We sat down and ordered an appetizer and an overpriced bottle of wine. Conversation was light-hearted and fun. Everything was going fine.

We order our entrees: I had a horseradish filet mignon, one ordered the chicken, and the last guy had the three filet medallions crusted with blue cheese and a giant sweet potato on the side. The sweet potato was HUGE. That bad boy definitely had some chemicals injected in it, but my friend ate it anyways.

About half-way through dinner, my friend who ordered the medallions, just says to the server, "could I order another gin and tonic?", to which I said... sure that's fine, if you pay for it. The reason I said that was because the glass of wine I purchased for him was still sitting there, basically full. He had ordered a drink before I arrived, and I suppose he wanted another one.

He said, "well, I prefer the cold drink to the wine", but that didn't stop him from drinking the wine during dessert. The evening continued on, until the bill arrived. I picked it up and asked my friend for $10 ($8.50 plus tip), to cover the alcohol he ordered. He looked at me and said, "I don't have any cash." I said, no problem, we can have the server take it off and make it a separate bill so you can use your credit card. "I don't have a credit card either." Well, that sucks... looks like you're going to be doing dishes tonight. "Is that the door I see over there?"

I give him a look. He says, "are you serious? you're really going to make me pay you $10?" I look at him again and say umm... yeah. I need the money to make sure I can tip the server proper. He looks at me again, pulls out his wallet, tosses me $10 and says, "whatever man... and on that note, I'm leaving. it was nice seeing you guys... except you. you're an ass."

And he walks out. Doesn't look back. 10 minutes later I get the following text message:
- you are so gay, do not invite me to dinner and not pay. f-off.

To which I respond:
- you agreed to buy the drink when you ordered it. BTW, you're welcome for the $30 steak and the glass of wine and the key-lime pie for dessert.

He says:
- I thought you were kidding.

I say:
- well, I'm sorry you thought that. we really did have a nice dinner with you, hope you have a nice evening with your friends.

To which his final message of the night is:
- later fag. have never been that insulted.

I WANTED to say something like... yeah, well I've never been that insulted either. You don't even thank me for buying you dinner. You're slurring your speech the entire night. It's obvious you were high on something, everyone noticed. Next time, try asking the host if you can order a $10 cocktail, especially if a bottle of wine has been provided for the table. It's common courtesy, something which you severely LACK. Grow up.

But I didn't. I left well enough alone... for now.

My Christmas Registry, 2007

2007-11-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

It's that time of the year again folks, so here is my official Christmas Registry, starting at the top with most desired. A new feature this year is a brief description about each of the items which will hopefully convince you of it's importance on the registry.

IKEA Sofa (1 mjuk red/black | 2 idemo black | 3 roen brown) - $450 to 1000
-- this would be an ideal addition to my sparse living room, works well with company, offers new options for watching DVD's, however due to the price tag, I would expect an IKEA gift of this magnitude to come from my parents... unless you're feeling quite generous, in which case I can provide a shipping address for the couch.

The Apologetics Study Bible (info) - $40
-- my current bible was left in my trunk one weekend, along with several bottles of water; long story short, it got soaked, and looks really weird now... a new bible I saw at JFBC *cough* @Dr. Craig's class *cough* would be great!

New Futurama DVD (info | buy) - $18
-- reading an article in WIRED gave my the 411 on the new series of Futurama DVD's coming out over the course of the next year... the first, called Bender's Big Score was released right after Thanksgiving. You can find it in most major DVD retailers (Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon), and as long as you're there, might as well pick up a copy for yourself too. Seriously. It's gunna be that good.

7" WiFi Photo Frame (buy) - $200
-- this is something that anyone can appreciate... sure we've all heard of the digital photo frames where you plug a memory card into the back, and the photos are displayed right there, but this is something entirely new. Basically, it can do 5 things: wirelessly sync with online photo galleries via RSS feeds (e.g. flickr, iPhoto, Picasa, Facebook), sync with photos on your own computer, accept emails from friends with photos attached attached, communicate with the bacon robots, and of course, display the old fashioned photos via a memory card. Basically, it's pretty slick, and I absolutely must have it.

Atari Keychain, Paddle Version (buy) - $15
-- ah, old school Atari games... not that I remember them, but who doesn't love breakout and pong. This keychain has a small paddle built in, which is cool and all, but it also comes with actual Atari games! That's right, you can plug this bad-boy into any TV and play pong to your hearts delight. Oh, yeah.

Scrubs, Season 6 (buy) - $29
-- this amazing series continues to deliver time and time again. I have all the rest of the seasons, why not continue the tradition? Sure, I could ask my mother to pick me up a copy from somewhere in South America, but I hardly think ZB is earning residuals from those sales. ANYHOO... buy some older seasons for yourself; Hooch would be proud (who is actually crazy...).

Cube World Places: Global Getaway (buy) - $40
-- remember those cute little cubes I bought last year from Firebox? Well... I think it's time they got a vacation. So, let's all chip in and throw them a party they'll never forget, mmkay? Mmkay.

AE Boxers (1 | 2 | 3 | 4) - $10
-- ah, the classic boxers. I could always use some more... especially if they glow-in-the-dark! You know what else glows in the dark? Nightlights. But I don't want any of those (this year). I also don't want any more Bath & Body Works hand-soap. I still have 3 left from last year, sheesh! But that warm vanilla sugar is something else... mmmm.

A&F Belt (buy) - $50
-- the last time I bought a belt from Abercrombie was 1998, and I still wear it. That's right people, these belts last almost a decade, and I figure it's time I purchased another one.

If nothing on this list sparks your interest, there is always the classic Borders, Starbucks, or Best Buy gift cards. Go wild this year, it's almost 2008!

My new job

2007-11-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

You may not have known, but I quit my job over at Exam Services last week. I loved working there (had a great view of the parking lot), but I wanted to expand my base-knowledge of PHP, which I think will help me down the line, i.e. 10 years.

Anyhoo, my new job pretty much rocks, and here's why.

The Good:
- They gave me a really awesome Dell laptop. It has 2 gigs of RAM, 100 gig HD, and a great video card that is powerful enough to run Lord of the Rings: Online, (which I only play at home, btw).
- My VP is very approachable and down to earth. He's like me in the sense that he says what he thinks, even if it's not what you want to hear. *cough*
- They are really flexible about the hours. As long as you're in the office between 9:30 and 4:30... and get your work done, you are free to work any hour-combination you want.
- Due to a wonderful application called FEBE, all the settings I used at my last job ported over perfectly to my new job!
- NOT that I'm looking, but the girl who works in Marketing is really cute.
- 401k what?!

The Bad:
- I lost my view of the parking lot.
- My VP is so short, I can barely see him walking over the sides of the cubicle. (windows key + M FTW!)
- You have to drive to get ANYWHERE for lunch. No more walking across the street to Wendy's.
- Traffic is a bit worse coming home, but hey... for a 40% pay increase, I think I can handle.

The Ugly:
- I have been tasked to learn everything there is to know about Drupal. Ack!
- This laptop they gave me is SO good, and the resolution SO amazing, I can barely read ANY text on the screen! Maybe I need a LASIK update?

Anyhoo, Beerman is coming into town tomorrow, and so is Marissa... did somebody say College Crew reunion? Oh yeah, I'm taking off ALL of next week, so if anyone wants to hang out, just let me know!

My MMO Model

2007-11-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

Imagine this: Blizzard Entertainment announces a new pricing plan for World of Warcraft: Pay Whatever You Want.

Follow me here... after the success of Radiohead's experiment with their new CD, which allowed you to download their entire album for whatever price you wanted to pay (avg. price paid was $7), it leads me to believe that pricing model will work across other mediums.

Here's how: Blizzard will allow you to play WoW for any price you are willing to pay. $1, $20, or even $63 a month... whatever you choose to pay. Your first reaction might be, that would never work! But here's the catch...

If you pay less than $10 a month, you are greeted with a 30-second advertisement when you log into the game each time. Let's do some math here.

Blizzard has 8 million subscribers that are paying around $15 a month to play WoW. If you could suddenly pay $0 a month, I bet maybe one-forth of those subscribers would pay $0, and maybe one-half would pay $8-10 dollars. However, to avoid the potential ads, I would personally be willing to pay $10 a month for WoW.

So Blizzard went from making 120 million a month to 70 million a month. BUT... what about how many more people will sign-up paying $0-5 dollars who were on the verge of subscribing, but couldn't afford $15 dollars a month!

Let's say that number is 4 million... at $5 a month, our total revenue is up to 110 million a month, with a total of 12 million subscribers. Sure, that's a stretch, but it's not completely unreasonable.

Now about the ads... how much would you pay to have your 30 second ad be seen by 4-8 million people aged 13-30 potentially multiple times a day. I have no idea, but I bet there are some other companies would be more than willing to pay for that kind of exposure.

Let us pay what we want for MMOG's. I talked about how most people would pay less for the monthly fee, but what about those people who decide to pay more?

For Blizzard to cap the amount you can pay monthly to $15, they are potentially shooting themselves in the foot. They could earn a lot more... and think of this. What is better? Losing a subscriber because they can't afford to pay both their parking ticket and their WoW subscription... verses having that same person drop down to paying $5 dollars?

Think how much positive press this type of announcement would generate for Blizzard! It could bridge the gap between hardcore gamers and casual stay-at-home adults who have never played an MMO before.

I'm just saying. Learn from Radiohead.

My bubble wrap

2007-10-24T10:10:00.000-04:00

I came into work today only to discover my entire desk was covered with bubble wrap! Of course, there's only one thing to do when you find bubble wrap... put it on the floor and jump around!

Since it's behind my desk, I can hear ninjas trying to sneak up on me. Unless they drop from the ceiling, in which case I'm probably a goner.

Today's been a good day, and it isn't even lunch yet! There was no traffic on route (pronounced root) to work. I was assigned a project which I completed in under 30 minutes. I brought my lunch, because my GF cooked dinner for me last night (saving $$ and leftovers FTW!). The new WIRED magazine arrived. I won free tickets to the Punchline "clean comedy" show tonight. I have candy (thanks to Lauren K).

So yeah. Part 1 of today rocks like the new ACDC website! Speaking of music, has everyone downloaded the new Radiohead CD yet? You pay what you feel it's worth... $0.00 - $x.xx. Neat, huh?!

My new season

2007-10-18T10:04:00.000-04:00

Well, the new season of TV shows started last month, and here are my thoughts about the buzz:

1. Journeyman: I originally thought this was going to be an updated version of Quantum Leap, and it is... only not as cool. In QL, you were stuck in a specific time-period until you accomplished a specific task. In JM, you are stuck in multiple different time-periods until you accomplish multiple different tasks. QL was cool because you could be a pregnant woman, or a famous rock-star... in JM, you can only help a pregnant woman or a not-so-famous rock-star. Bleh.
-- Conclusion? The show is slow and hard to understand at first. There is no clear visual effect to when the JM jumps between time-periods. I watched 2 episodes, and probably won't watch anymore unless I'm really bored.

2. Bionic Woman: I like this show not because of the main actress, who is not very likable in my opinion, but instead because of the supporting actors. It has Starbuck and Chief from BS:G for goodness sake! Excluding the premier, it seems as if each episode has some sort of crisis that only the BW can solve. Throw in a little family drama, and there ya go.
-- Conclusion? Not too impressed with the show as a whole, although the concept is quite cool. I'll probably watch one or two more episodes, then call it quits.

3. Dexter: This Showtime show is in it's second season, so it's not exactly new, but it's new to me. I had never seen an episode, and maybe only heard about the show in passing... but then one day last week, the entirety of season 1 appears on iTunes. I thought the premise was interesting... a cop was solved crimes by day, and committed them at night (but he only killed people who deserved it). The acting is pretty good, and I like the voice-overs. Kind of gives you some insight into what the serial killer is really thinking. I suppose the question everyone's asking is... will Dexter ever get caught?
-- Conclusion? I find myself rooting for Dexter not to get caught, and I definitely plan on watching the rest of season 2 as it's released each week.

Old Favorites:
- The Office: The fourth season is as good and FUNNY as ever.
- Smallville: We're getting closer and closer to the start of the Superman series. I don't care if Lois Lane didn't go to HS with Clark Kent or not, I still like the show and the character dynamics.
- LOST/24/Scrubs: These shows have been on for years, so they are tried and true. The only thing in common is that they are all starting AFTER the new year (except Scrubs, which airs on Oct 25th). LOST has two more seasons, Scrubs is in it's last season, and 24 will go on for as long as Jack Bauer can stay out of jail. Hire a limo driver Jack, sheesh!

Random Link of the Blog: Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling - featuring popular stories such as, How the Alphabet was Made and The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo! Seriously, the artwork is pretty cool in some of the stories, plus there's a big printable version too! Check it out.

My shared links

2007-10-12T14:34:00.001-04:00

I just wanted to share a few interesting things I discovered this week with everyone.

1. You can watch the latest episodes of Heroes online at Netflix if you have an account. *cough Mike*. Speaking of, I have really enjoyed my Netflix subscription over the years! I'm currently at 1353 ratings, and the recently added Watch Now feature is really great if you want to watch a quick episode of The Office or Law & Order. NBC loves Netflix.

2. If you're into MMOG's like I am (currently I subscribe to both WoW and EVE: Online), then you'll appreciate this site I came across called VirginWorlds. Actually, John L. told me about it, but what the hey, it's my insight. They do a weekly podcast as well, but the links about MMOG news are pretty good and up-to-date.

3. This site I came across is probably the coolest I've seen in a long while. It's called Musicovery, and it's an interactive web-radio site built in flash. You decide what mood you're in by clicking around the screen and a random song just starts playing. You can limit the songs by decade, genre, or even hits vs. non-hits. It doesn't use a lot of bandwidth, and the streaming music still sounds pretty good! Check it out, seriously.

In other news: The date of our Halloween Party has been moved to the 27th (Sat.). It's still at Aaron's house, and everyone who I haven't dated in the past is invited. Yes, I'm talking to you. Costumes are required, and plan to stay up late. But don't worry, there's a reason Northpoint has a 6:00pm service on Sundays!

My Remedy

2007-09-27T10:42:00.000-04:00

David Crowder*Band has released a new album this week called Remedy. The reason I am mentioning this is because on iTunes, the album is ranked #4. Not in the Christian & Gospel category, but OVERALL. How amazing is that? I would not be surprised if DC*B overtakes Kayne West before the week is out.

Personally, I just purchased the album on my brand-new iPod touch to help Mr. Crowder rise in the rankings. I'm sure you've heard about it, unless you're over 50 and don't get out much. I've read all about the iPhone, and the things that Apple left out of the iPod touch, but despite all that here is my official non-biased review of the iPod touch:

The Good --

It looks gorgeous. From the moment I turned on the device I was impressed.
The UI really is intuitive. You flick up and down with your fingers and watch it scroll. You can view album cover art just like in iTunes, and it's quite easy to tap here or tap there to rate songs, switch to another song on the same album and turn repeat and shuffle on or off.
The album art takes up most of the screen, which is cool because I've never really looked at the artwork before on my other iPods.
There is an SLEEP/WAKE UP switch at the top, so after you choose a song to listen to, click the button and the screen turns off saving you loads of battery power.
WiFi access. You can connect to any WiFi network and browse the web in it's full glory. No more Mobile Web 2.0 from Verizon. Yuck! There are tons of iPod touch specific pages out there, like Facebook and Google Search.
The Safari browser is pretty slick too. Easy to bookmark things, re-arrange bookmarks, search for webpages, zoom into webpages, scroll around. You can even click on a link and hold it for a mini-popup telling you exactly where that link will take you. There is also a built-in RSS feeder, which makes keeping up tabs on my favorite websites a synch!
You can download songs and albums from the WiFi iTunes on the fly! It's almost like a mini laptop with everything you need. Well almost...

The Bad...

You can't use the iPod touch like a PDA. There is very limited input available. You can search for new webpages in Safari, or type in a URL... you can even add new contacts to your iPod touch if you want, but one of the big issues that everyone is up in arms about is the in-ability to add new entries to the built-in calender. Personally, it's a non-issue for me, since I don't use a calender for anything (God gave me a brain and memory for a reason, right?), but I can see the validity of their arguments.
If you purchase a song or two in the WiFi iTunes, then open up Safari to browse the web... your download is essentially paused. You have to sit in the iTunes application in order for the music to be downloaded properly. You can listen to music while items download, but nothing else. Sometimes I've even had to pause a download then un-pause in order for it to continue the download.
You can't download two files at once, even if your WiFi connection is super fast.
It is REALLY hard to change the volume or pause songs on the go. There are no physical buttons on the outside of the iPod touch, it's all touchscreen, so you actually have to click the "Home" button twice to bring up the volume/pause/play controls, then click the appropriate button. I have big fingers, and I find it hard to move the tiny volume control to the left and right. Bleh.
Because the album art takes up about 80% of the screen space when listening to music, I find it slightly distracting when trying to figure out what song is playing currently. I think it will just take some time to get used to the placement of the song title, etc.
You can't view the lyrics of a song anymore, even if you have the lyrics correctly entered in iTunes.
It comes with a calculator application. I don't use the one on my phone, either.
The YouTube application is kind of cool, but why did they take off Google Maps? I would actually use that!
It's a little heavy. Kind of feels like a small hard-drive, but maybe that's just because my old nano spoiled me.
Oh yeah, the back scratches just as easily as any other iPod you purchase.

The Ugly

Who are you kidding? It's made by Apple!

If there's one thing you can say about the iPod touch is that it's cool... just plain cool. It runs smooth and had a bunch of neat features. It's quite the chick-magnet. Haha. JK. No, but seriously.. it is.

My comment

2007-09-14T15:07:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited! My friend Claire Bear 3K has joined the blogger train once again! I would post my comment there, but she has it set up (currently) to only allow blogger authors to reply.

Claire Bear!! I'm so glad you decided to join us again in the realm of blogging. I feel that we haven't been hanging out as much in the past now that I have other obligations, and even if I can't see you every weekend, this makes me feel as if I'm still "in the know" so to speak. Hehe.

And that's the great things about these blogs, and other social networking sites like MS and FB. You can be miles away from a friend, and still feel as if you talk to him or her daily. I think that is the appeal these sites have much more so than being a virtual phone directory.

I mean, just look at how FB has evolved over the years. At first it was just that... a book of faces, with phone numbers and email addresses. Then they added a place to store all your photos, then you could write blogs, give gifts, and now you can add a myriad of applications to enhance your FB experience.

There's always a danger of adding too much content or features on sites that once started out very simple. You risk alienating the simplistic Google-lovers of the bunch, or even running away the old-schoolers who liked FB back when it was elite, i.e. colleges only.

Remember when you used be on a waiting list to be notified when your school would be added to FB? Those were the days...

Personally, I think the applications are a bit much, but I am quite fond of two in particular... Graffiti and Scrabulous. You should check them out... if you haven't already!

My first crush

2007-09-04T10:00:00.001-04:00

My first crush was named Keisha. I don't remember her last name, unfortunately... but I have tried to look her up on FB, to no avail. But just in case she ever tries to Google me, let me put in some keywords here so make the search a bit easier.

hilton head island, grace community church, awanas, noah, adam, tall, red team, 5th grade

We'll see what happens. But basically I met her at AWANA's. We were both on the red team, and she was the second tallest, so that meant we were always standing next to each other. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were holding hands in secret! Scandalize, I know!

I know she had a little sister, and that she lived with foster parents for a brief period who attended the church. She had Latin roots, and a great smile.

But the point of this blog is not to talk about MY first crush (contrary to what the title says), but instead to discuss a friend request I received on FB earlier this morning.

Someone named Jordan U. showed up in my notification window. I clicked through and saw she was from Hilton Head Island, and was friends with one of my elementary school friends, Brandi Jane Wedgeworth. I figured she went to school with me at some point, but I really couldn't place her. I sent her this message after accepting the request:

Hey Jordan... what grades did you go to Hilton Head Christian Academy? I was only there for 1st though 3rd grade, then went to Hilton Head High School for 4th and 5th. I remember Brandi Jane, but I have to be honest, I can't remember a Jordan U.... I knew a Jordan England (a guy), but... can you refresh my memory?

Her response was this:

Hi! Haha--I figured you wouldn't remember me. I was actually home-schooled until high school, so we weren't in school together. But our parents were friends, and we might have gone to the same church. My older brother, John U., might have been in school the same time as you. My family is very good friends with the Wedgeworths and Englands. I just remember thinking you were my first crush. Is that weird? I figure it's ok to confess, now that I'm very happily married. :) I hope all is well with you!

Haha, how cool is that? I always wondered if I was the first crush for anyone else, and now I know! 16 years after the fact, but it's all good. Woo! Just thought I'd share.

PS. Anyone else excited about the DMB concert this weekend at Piedmont Park?!

My weekends

2007-08-30T11:02:00.000-04:00

Goodness, my weekends have been really busy as of late! I got to see John Beerman last weekend in Myrtle Beach. He was on vacation with his parents, and while it was quite last minute, I managed to fly there and back with no major hiccups.

It was a nice vacation. I had an opportunity to play the Nintendo Wii for the first time, which is very chic, and the beach is always nice to take a walk. This month has been extremely hot, have you noticed? Something like 10-12 days where the temp has been over 100 degrees. Ouch!

Tomorrow I am taking Leigh-Anna to the Hootie and the Blowfish concert at Chastain Park. I'm not really sure what kind of music they play, but the guys from Friends liked them, so that's good enough for me! Plus, the tickets were complimentary from work.

Saturday, some married friends from Chattanooga are driving down to stay with me for the night. Finally, my second bedroom will come in handy! It's actually two couples, Kevin & Erin Eves and Dave & Jen Waltermeyer. The six of us are going out to dinner at the Melting Pot for some fondue action, which is always a fun (and expensive) night. Speaking of expensive, we saw this pitcher of margarita on a Mexican menu the other day that cost $54 bucks! What?!

Sunday I'm going to the Buckhead Church since my father is out of town in Hilton Head. It will be the first time ever that Leigh-Anna gets to join me because she actually has off the entire day! Amazing, I know. There are talks about going to Six Flags for the day, but I think I'd rather go shopping at IKEA.

Monday is just a day of relaxation since we both have off work. That means we actually get to sleep in till 9am! That's right kids, enjoy your 11am college classes while you can...

Oh!! I almost forgot. Saturday is the Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame game LIVE on ABC at 3pm. I'm going over to my bosses house to watch the game on a 52" HD screen complete with 5.1 digital surround sound. Ohhhh yeah!

In other news: Rumor has it John B. might be dating someone new. Stay tuned!

My timing

2007-08-14T10:28:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been on your way somewhere - work, school, a hot date - and right as you pull out of your neighborhood onto a single-lane road, a slow car barrels down the road at 10 mph, cutting you off, thus making the 2mi journey to the end of the road take about 12 minutes instead of the normal 45 seconds if you actually had the chance to drive the speed limit?

No? Well, maybe it's just me.

The point is, sometimes life is all about the timing. If I had left my house a mere 10 seconds sooner, I would have beat the car to the main street and potentially made it to work 10-15 minutes earlier.

But here's the thing about timing - sometimes it's off, and you have no idea why. My buddy John the Greek (as Greg likes to call him), asked out my friend Elaine Mebel last week. When I asked if he was attracted to her because of her blonde hair or her blue eyes... he said neither, it was her perfect posterior. I know, right?

Anyhoo, she said she would love to have dinner with him sometime, if it wasn't for the bad timing. He was going to Vegas for a week, and she was going back to school in Athens the day before he returned. The timing just didn't work out.

How many times have you been attracted to a girl (or guy), but they are in a relationship, so you can't really do anything. Then two months later they break up with said person, but now YOU'RE dating someone else. What's that about?

There are two solutions to this problem:

1) Date multiple people at once. It's possible, just ask my friend Joanna Carr. Just last week she had two dates right after one-another (dinner with one, drinks with another), and to top it off, she had to be at the airport the following morning at 6:30am! Now THAT'S dating dedication. The only other person I know who can pull that off, is well.. me. I've actually had 3 dates on the same day before - it's tough to pull off, timing wise, but if I can do it, anyone can.

2) If you're lacking that type of determination, or you're just tired of calling girls by the wrong name (guilty!), there's a second option for the dating impaired - trust God's timing.

Okay, now that all the Atheist's have closed the page - what I mean by that is sometimes we just need to let go, and not force anything. Sure we can leave for work an hour earlier than normal, or we can go out on two dates a day, but there's no guarantee that we won't get into an accident, get stuck in construction traffic, or meet Mr./Ms. Right (or Right-Now depending on how you view dating).

If we just let life "happen", I don't think any of us will be left disappointed. Why? Because our God is good, and he has promised us good things if we trust in Him.

Psalm 37:4 - "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

My eHarmony closer

2007-07-25T11:55:00.000-04:00

About 6 months ago I signed up for an eHarmony account as part of a social experiment. I am almost done collecting my data on how the system works internally (e.g. how to maximize your matches, etc), but until that is complete, I thought it would be fun to change the eHarmony "Close Match" reasons to something more realistic.

If you are matched up with someone and do not want to continue along the communication path, you have the option to "Close the Match" and choose one of many different pre-set reasons. But here's the thing; most of the time none of the reasons actually fits exactly why you are closing the match.

Some of the current options include:
- I have too much happening in my life at the moment.
- I think the physical distance between us is too great.
- You never responded to my request to communicate.

And of course, there is the ever-popular "Other" response, but what EXACTLY does that mean? No worries, my friends... I have discovered the answer, which I proudly present below:

But when OTHER just isn't enough...

My Déjà Vu

2007-07-18T12:32:00.001-04:00

We've all had that feeling. That something you are experiencing in life right now has already happened in the past? History repeats itself, right? If that's the case, then I expect my grandfather to die two weeks from this coming Friday.

I know that sounds morbid, but it's not going to catch me by surprise this time. When my grandmother died last Feb. 3rd, (the night of my birthday party), several days before my mother had called to tell me she was being moved from the hospital back home. Any smart person would have caught on that she was moving home because she wanted to die in her own bed, but not me...

When I finished the conversation with my mother, I was in good cheer, because I thought that the doctors had fixed whatever ailment my grandmother had, and that was in fact the reason she was checking out of the hospital.

How stupid of me. I never got a real chance to say goodbye to her, and I kind of regret that. That's not going to happen with my grandfather, who is currently in the hospital due to stomach bleeding.

I visited with him this past Sunday and he seemed fine. But then again, so did my grandmother over Christmas.

Death is a natural part of life, which is why I make it a point to say 'death' and 'die', instead of 'passed away' or 'no longer with us'. (I really need to finish that David Crowder book too)

Anyhoo, all I can ask is that you keep my family in your prayers at night. It really does mean a lot. On the brighter side of things, we're playing poker at Lance's on Thursday; Friday I'm traveling to Savannah to pick up my very own piano (being as my mother sold her house and everything), while Tiffany gets to keep me company on the drive down. So THAT should be interesting.

My longest valid URL in history

2007-07-11T11:51:00.000-04:00

From a co-worker this morning:

"AT&T notified me of an update to my phone, that they URGE me to perform since it will add AT&T to my logos instead of Cingular. This is the link they sent me... are you kidding?"

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ywsggt
*in tinyURL form so you can see the full length of this URL!

I tried submitting it to DIGG, but received this error:

"The requested URL's length exceeds the capacity limit for this server."

So here we are. Good times.

My BUSY Status

2007-07-09T15:14:00.000-04:00

I get asked from time to time if I ever change my status on GTalk/AIM/Yahoo!, etc to anything other than BUSY.

The short answer is... no, but the reasoning is slightly more interesting.

Some people think I am just always AFK. I get messages like:

7:55 AM eternal248: Hello. Are you available?

12:50 PM eternal248: Excuse me, are you available?

3:08 PM eternal248: Noah, please be available.

3:55 PM When can we talk that you won't be busy?

eternal248, my friend, I will never be available. No matter how many times you ask.

But WHY, you may ask? Am I really always busy? Am I just ignoring you?

Well, yes... sort of, but the real reason is this: If people want to say something to me, they are going to say it whether or not I'm busy. This is especially true with GTalk, since I am notified of any messages people leave me when I am really not around.

Instead of asking if I am available, why not just say what you want to say and be done with it?

So if anyone ever sees me with a BUSY status up... feel free to send me a message, but don't be alarmed if I don't respond immediately. I'm either really away from my computer or I'm ignoring you. Shame you'll never know!

PS. Back by popular demand -- 5 most recent posts on the main page!

My guilty pleasure

2007-06-27T13:12:00.001-04:00

No, it's not watching Desperate Housewives. I find it quite amusing to click through my friends TOP 8 profiles on MySpace. Originally, I would look for new music I liked, but now it's just fun, especially when you get 5-6 tiers down...

feministsrsexy	Headline: "feminists have more fun" Orientation: Bi Here For: Friends, Networking Gender: Female Age: 25

feministsrsexy

Headline: "feminists have more fun"
Orientation: Bi
Here For: Friends, Networking
Gender: Female
Age: 25

Trust me. You don't. I dated one, remember?

KwietSoul	Headline: "Kan I please get some Kwiet Time??" Orientation: Straight Here For: Friends, Networking Gender: Male Age: 28

KwietSoul

Headline: "Kan I please get some Kwiet Time??"
Orientation: Straight
Here For: Friends, Networking
Gender: Male
Age: 28

Um.. Kan I pass? Thanks.

Jules the Obscure	Headline: "Mostly Harmless" Orientation: Straight Here For: Friends Gender: Male Age: 33

Jules the Obscure

Headline: "Mostly Harmless"
Orientation: Straight
Here For: Friends
Gender: Male
Age: 33

"Seattle Stalker Apprehended. Don't Worry, Mostly Harmless."

In other news: Doug Wall & Co. are out of the state until mid-August. I'm going to a wedding on Saturday. Greg won his first round of poker on Monday, and placed on Tuesday. Beerman & Lamb will be in town next week for the 4th, and I'm kicking butt at work. Cheers!

My world

2007-06-20T09:47:00.001-04:00

I went to visit the New World of Coca-Cola this past weekend. It was much cooler than the old world for a few reasons:

1. It looks better from the outside. It has this really cool giant Coke bottle inside a see-through box sitting on the roof, and there's a large field and a small lake right out front as well.

2. The Happiness Factory: a small theatre which has a behind-the-scenes look of the magic that goes into making every bottle of Coke, (which I think is one of the better commercials out there right now). In fact, Coke has several commercials that I like. But the Happiness Factory is the one that shows you what happens after you put your money into the Coke machine... Very impressive CG!

3. The Polar Bear: When I first heard that you could have your picture taken with one of the Coca-Cola Polar Bears, I thought it would be a giant animatronic, but no, this was a real-live TRAINED Polar Bear. When I arrived, the bear had to go on a break, so I didn't get to hang out with him too much, but it was still quite cool to see. Here's a picture!

4. The 4-D Theatre Experience!! This thing was so cool. You had 3-D glasses, and you watched this movie about two people searching for the secret formula of Coke. If you were flying in the air, you felt the air in the theatre. If someone sprayed water on you, you actually got squirted in the face with water. Haha, awesome!

5. The only thing missing was the machine that would send an arc of Coca-Cola to your cup from 15 feet away. I missed that, but the "Taste of Coke" area was popular as ever. You could sample over 40 different drinks that Coke makes across the world. It was pretty chic.

I was planning on going to the Aquarium with my family, but I forgot I had turned off my phone, and they left without me. By the time I realized what had happened, it was too late -- they traded my ticket in for some sort of "Jazz Night" at the Aquarium later this month.

No worries though, I just hung out in the Coca-Cola store and played the Wii they had set up in the back. I'm pretty much awesome at Baseball!

Tonight is poker at Doug's if anyone is interested, other than that, not too much has happened. I highly recommend checking out the New World of Coke sooner rather than later. Cheers!

My recap

2007-06-11T07:42:00.001-04:00

Wow. It's been three weeks since my last blog post on here. That's crazy talk, man!

A bunch of stuff has happened in that time frame as well. My neighbor still sends me txt messages at 1am asking if I am playing "really loud bass music" -- um. Nope. Not me. I know you've lived here 10 years and what-not, but buy a house out in the country if you want peace and quiet 24 hours a day!

I went to Savannah with Mike for Memorial Day weekend. I took a few pictures (read: 7), but I haven't posted them yet. It usually takes me anywhere from 1-3 months to get pictures I take online. Just ask Dana, she hounded me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to post her birthday picture from January. Ha!

Speaking of Dana, she and Dale are still together, and they are still talking about marriage. Which works for me, because Dale is from South Africa, and the World Cup is going to be there in 2010! So if I decide to go, he said I could stay with some of his friends and family.

I may also travel somewhere in Africa this summer with Drew (from the GEA), but when I told Dale I was thinking about going to Uganda, I kid you not... he yelled at me, "ARE YOU KIDDING?! Do you HAVE a death wish?!" Huh? Uh... no? I just want to see the Invisible Children! Awww... the children!

It's all good though, he said Egypt was nice to visit, or perhaps the Congo if we felt like going on a safari for a week or two. I'll let you know.

Anyhoo, I'm sure there are some events I missed, but I have to get to work. I'm on my "arrive on time" phrase this month. Oh, and this Tuesday is the June 722 at Northpoint. I'm kind of disappointed it's not Louie speaking, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I miss Louie...

My text

2007-05-21T10:53:00.000-04:00

Since 7|22 is taking a break until summer, I've been attending a mini-7|22 thing at Mt. Paran called Konnect. I was originally invited to attend by my prison-friend Amy, and I've actually enjoyed going these past few weeks.

Last week the message was about a letter Paul wrote in prison to the city of Philippi. In the letter, one sentence in particular stands out: Paul says that he wants to "know Christ."

I won't go into everything that means right now, because that's just the background for this blog. But if you want to read the passage yourself, check out chapter 3, verse 10.

From time to time I like to share good verses I stumble across with my friends. I sent out a text message to several people stating just the chapter and verse, Phil. 3:10. One of the people I sent the message to was none other than Kristin Cooper. KC and I had a falling out of sorts about 15 months ago. As for the reason, I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that I missed having her as a friend, and she told me once she enjoyed getting random verses from me, so I figured what the heck, might as well throw one her way.

About 3 minutes later, I get the following response:

"I have a Bible I can ready on my own. Thanks. I would appreciate it if you took me out of your phone."

Stealing a phrase from another friend I don't talk to anymore... le sigh.

I still have absolutely no idea what I could have possibly done to make her "that" upset at me then, and to "still" be upset at me 15 months later. Was I asleep? How could I have missed it?

I think it's just one of those things I'll never know. Like what's really in the Sweet & Sour Chicken at Lucky China! But that's okay, because I trust God in everything I do. I replied to KC telling her I respect her enough to remove her number from my phone, and I told her I pray that God continues to bless her and her family in everything they accomplish in life.

And I meant it.

My marketplace

2007-05-14T15:16:00.000-04:00

I'm big about site design. I don't like visiting or spending time on websites that (in my humble opinion) have horrible design and/or navigation. I BARELY visit Myspace for that reason alone.

I think that's the main reason I always avoided Craigslist. I preferred eBay because of the structured environment.

And speaking of that eBay link I posted real quick: if I was a multi-millionaire, THAT is what I would spend my money on. It'd all go to charities. It's amazing what those companies are doing for the poverty stricken people of the world. I wish there was more I could do...

Anyhoo, back on point. Today, Facebook announced Marketplace -- their very own version of Craigslist. It's just a sandbox where the users make things happen. No bidding, no strict rules, just sell what you want, and figure out everything else on your own.

I put up 4 items this morning:

$5 - Displace Me Flags (Every War Has An End)

$1,921,000 - 4000 sq ft MANSION on Wilmington River (Savannah, GA)

$50 - LG VX 9800 (Verizon Phone)

$45 - Celtic Woman Live at the FOX

Within a couple of hours, 3 of the 4 items have sold. Can you guess which one is still on the market? I suppose the point is... sometimes it really is all about site design. It's just one more way FB is becoming embedded in all of our lives, whether we like it or not.

My spoiler

2007-05-09T15:14:00.000-04:00

Warning: This post may or may not contain spoilers about multiple TV shows, Books, and/or Movies. Read on at your own risk!

I didn't get a chance to watch 24 this past Monday. I avoided talking to Mike because I knew he'd spoil something by accident. I finally had a chance to watch it last night, so this morning I put the following note in my Gmail status message.

"ZOMG. I thought Jack's father was dead!?"

Within about 10 minutes, I started getting messages from my friends.

"Jack Sheppard?"
"You've seen the season finale of LOST already??"
"Ohhh! That'd be a good plot twist!"

After explaining several times that I knew nothing more about LOST than the next person, I decide to give in and play along.

Jon: Who's Jack?
me: Jack Sheppard?
me: From LOST

Jon: Oh. Well then...jerk!

I've only seen through season 1.

me: uh oh!!

Jon: Not cool dude. You shouldn't go throwing out spoilers like that where anyone can hear you. Totally inconsiderate.

me: Snape kills Dumbledore.

Jon: Whatever.

me: Hehe. Im just teasing buddy.

I'm sure Dumbledore is alive and well.

Jon: S'ok, I've read the book.

me: *grin* Well, the Jack I was talking about is Mr. Bauer himself, not the doc from LOST.

I just thought it interesting that when I say the name "Jack" people instantly think of LOST instead of 24. Are the writers slipping a bit this season? I think it's hard to keep new surprises coming after 6 full seasons of a TV show. But rumor has it, Jack Bauer is signed up to save the world at least 2 more times in the somewhat near future.

Phew!

My love/hate relationship

2007-05-08T17:02:00.000-04:00

Do you ever feel torn between the great things about life and the not-so-great things about life? I was thinking about this earlier today, and here's what I came up with:

Hate:
- I hate that this is the last season of the Gilmore Girls. (and Mike chimes in with...)
- I hate that think I can get to work in under 30 minutes when it really takes 45.
- I hate slow drivers on a two-lane road.
- I hate listening to voicemails.
- I hate that I have to go to sleep every night to function properly the next day.
- I hate that my stomach growls when I am hungry.
- I hate that it takes forever to get any decent gear at L70. (John knows what I'm talking about!)
- I hate that I can't beat any of the College Crew in Desktop Tower Defense on hard mode.
- I hate war, social injustice, and people who apply makeup in their SUV while driving in the left lane.

Love:
- I love my shades. (why again, Jess?)
- I love it when friends call just to say hello.
- I love being busy, but also taking a night off every once and a while to catch up on Scrubs.
- I love meeting new people.
- I love going out of my way to give someone a gift I know they'll appreciate.
- I love falling asleep after a long day.
- I love 2-hour dinners with friends.
- I love walking around the house with only one shoe on.
- I love people who read (and comment) on my blog. Hint Hint, Wink, Wink.

Just some random thoughts during this very productive day at work!

In other news: This Saturday, my friend Jen Ellis is celebrating her GRADUATION from Law School by having a party at a restaurant downtown (near the FOX -- she rented out the upper level). Everyone is invited, so if you want more details, just let me know. Cheers!

My displacement

2007-05-06T13:20:00.000-04:00

This blog has two parts. The first is a repost of an article my friend Emily from CA found a few months ago. It talks about living off of $5 a day for food -- please take a few minutes to read (or skim) through the account (particularly interesting is the account about the Peace Corps volunteers), then read my comments about everything else at the end. Cheers!

The food stamp diet :: Life on $5 a day
By Kat Kerlin

I've been on a diet for the past month. It's not one I expect to sweep the nation anytime soon. It's called the Food Stamp Diet. It's not to lose weight or improve my health -- in fact, I feel like crap, and I think I've gained a bit. The idea is to see what it's like to live off the equivalent of food stamps for a month.

$155 a month. $38.75 a week. About $5 a day.

That means no booze, no restaurants and some careful grocery shopping.

But let's set something straight. This experiment is not a realistic interpretation of food-stamp life. The $155 a month I'm using is the maximum given for one person on food stamps. To get that amount in real life, I'd be jobless and homeless. I'm neither. I have a well-equipped kitchen with an oven, fridge, freezer and microwave. I can store, heat and chill anything I want. I have a car, which I can use to go to the budget-friendly supermarkets rather than the nearest place within walking distance that accepts food stamps. And my food-stamp life has an end in sight--one month. That's it. By the time you read this, I hope to be eating sushi somewhere.

I've got it made. And yet, I can't wait until this is over.

Feb. 12, Monday morning

I went to WinCo off North McCarran yesterday for my first week of food stamp shopping. I had a well-planned list of things like oatmeal and raisins for breakfast, tuna or pinto beans for lunch, vegetarian dinner ingredients and some snacks.

I'm attempting to do this healthfully, without resorting to things like Ramen noodles or the diet of one D. Giolitto, who posted these ideas for "Low Budget Meals in Minutes" on the Internet: "saltines and ketchup" and "jelly in a bowl."

Shopping was a bit stressful. Every cent counted. I raided the bulk food section -- a glorious thing for anyone on a budget -- for spices and other staples. I even found a just-add-water brownie mix for 95 cents a pound, so I can at least make something for my boyfriend Grant for Valentine's Day, (we're foregoing our annual fondue dinner out for this, but he won't be doing this diet with me). The bill came out under $38.

Food is only one anxious part of the equation for someone on food stamps. They also have to worry about rent, utilities and other incidentals. But for me, this is an experiment about living on food stamps, not necessarily about living poor.

Next week's shopping should be easier. This week's was so "expensive" because I'm starting from scratch. Yes, I have a cupboard full of spices and cooking ingredients, but I'm pretending I don't.

Feb. 12, Monday, 2:30p.m.

I'm starving. Today, I've had oatmeal, an apple, tuna with tomato, and a cup of weak hot chocolate. In retrospect, that doesn't sound like a helluva lot. So I'm hungry and cranky, and I broke down. There was a yogurt I left in the office fridge from last week (not part of the budgeted diet), so I ate it to hold me over for the next 2-3 hours until I can go home and make dinner. Next week, I'll buy some peanut butter to get me through the day.

Feb. 13

I made veggie curry for dinner--brown rice, carrots, tofu and green beans. Despite an onslaught of curry, cumin and salt, it was ridiculously good for me but utterly tasteless. I'll be eating it for the next couple days.

So, Day 2, and I've yet to have a satisfactory meal. Today's morning oatmeal was overly mushy. The pinto beans and parmesan tasted strange for lunch. I have, however, managed to not be starving today.

Feb. 14

Boxed up packages of food is stored inside the chilly Sparks warehouse that is the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. There, food is sorted and distributed to local pantries. It also serves as home base for its food stamp outreach workers, who give workshops at senior centers and travel throughout the region to reach people who find it hard to get to the welfare office to sign up for food stamps.

Among those outreach workers is Rhonda Rickland. The dark-haired woman with the heart-shaped necklace is on food stamps, herself. She gets $400 a month for her family of five. They live in a motel room with a tiny microwave and a tiny refrigerator. Naively, I hadn't thought about how food preparation plays into the often abysmal diet of people on food stamps. It's not necessarily because they like mac 'n' cheese so much more than whole grains and veggies. It's that something like mac 'n' cheese stores easily. It can be cooked in the microwave, and it's filling. Veggies go bad. Meat goes bad. Ramen noodles -- wholly lacking in nutrition -- can get rid of that empty, aching-belly feeling for less than 10 cents. Some people even eat it dry.
Nikki Firpo, seated left, and Rhonda Rickland of the Food Bank of Northern Nevada help a food stamp applicant fill out forms while others line up for St. Vincent's food pantry.

Rickland often feeds her family on TV dinners from Albertson's because she knows they're sold 10 for $10. She can't buy the more economical "family pack" of hamburger --it won't fit in her fridge and will go bad unless eaten right away since she has no freezer. She reminded me that people who haven't eaten in a couple days don't much care about nutrition, or at least, it's not their top priority.

Feb. 15

I made brownies for Grant last night. I ate more than my fair share for someone giving brownies away, but I've felt on the edge of hunger pretty consistently for the past four days. The brownies, as Grant so aptly put, "were good, but they're no Ghirardelli's."

Feb. 16

I pillaged the brownies again when I came home from work yesterday. There's a weird, psychological deprivation I'm beginning to notice that comes from not being able to eat or buy food whenever, wherever I want, so when I finally get it, I inhale it, like someone might take it away from me.

The veggie dirty rice I made was really good, and a serving cost less than a dollar.

Feb. 19

Week two of grocery shopping. It was much easier this time, having bought most of my staples last week. The whole bill came in under $25.

It's Monday afternoon, and so far, so good. I'm not hungry. The hard part now is social expectation, especially when my friends aren't used to this lifestyle, and neither am I. I don't mind beans-and-rice. But it sucks not being able to sit with a friend for a beer or cup of coffee. My editor keeps forgetting I'm doing this diet. He'll come in my office and say, "What's for lunch? I'm thinkin' of going for some Indian." He's probably one of the few bosses in the world who laughs when his employee flips him off.

Feb. 20, The Food Pantry

St. Vincent's food pantry is buzzing. The small, sterile room smells vaguely of old clothes and antiseptic. Outreach workers from the Food Bank of Northern Nevada are at a table, helping a line of people fill out food stamp applications. The pantry operates every day, but the Food Bank folks come every Tuesday from 9-11 a.m.

"Most people need a lot of handholding," says Nikki Firpo, food stamp outreach coordinator for the FBNN. "It's better to get the application filled out. It's better yet to get the application to the welfare office."

"Are you the food stamp lady?" a lanky guy calls out to her. He looks young and disheveled, with a cut on his lip. He's in the pantry line, where, because he has no ID, he'll only be able to get a "snack pack" and not the daily or monthly supply.

His name is Doren. He's 37 and homeless. He hasn't gotten food stamps for four months, and he's wondering why. It seems something got lost in the mail. He says he typically gets $87 per month in food stamps in addition to his Supplemental Security Income, or SSI.

Later, outside, he lights a used cigarette and asks me, "Hey, do you have an ID?"

I do.

"Then you can go through the food line for me."

Sure, why not? Though I feel oddly nervous about it, as if all my middle-class cushiness is transparent on my face, and they'll deny me for it. A nice, gray-haired lady at the counter smiles and asks for my ID. I give it to her, saying I've never done this before. She hands me a simple form to fill out, which includes my monthly income. Thinking they'll say I make too much to be robbing the poor, I fill in what I think might be the high end of low, $1,200, and sign my name.

Moments later, I'm handed a cardboard tray-like box. Doren flashes an approving smile. I set the box down on a bench and take inventory: One bag instant mashed potato flakes, 1 can pears, 1 can asparagus, 1 can peaches, a can or two of tuna, a bag of dried northern beans, 1 can cranberry juice, peanut butter, 1 can corn, 1 can chicken noodle soup, 1 box 2-percent milk, 1 cup yogurt, 1 package elbow macaroni.

Doren picks through the box. "You have to keep half of this," he says. I refuse, saying I have plenty of food this week. "No, you have to," he says. "You have to do your experiment. If you're on food stamps, you'll need this." Again, I refuse. I tell him to take what he wants and to give the rest to someone else who needs it. He relents, hugs me and wishes me luck.

Mark Johnston, a 37-year-old man in glasses and a coat is rummaging through his monthly food box beside me. A man standing in line for an application offers to give him his "daily"--the pantry's daily portion.

Johnston doesn't know him. But among those here, there seems to be an appreciation for hunger and the logical, resourceful view that it's better to give away what you know you won't use.

"Thanks," Johnston tells him. "My daughter could really use the eggs."

His daughter is 7-years-old. Her mom is more or less out of the picture. School food programs feed her for most days, but these once-a-month pantry rations are what they'll live off for the month.

He wishes he could get food stamps. He works for a temp agency and makes just over the $1,062/month maximum for food stamp eligibility. "But then there're two or three weeks where there's no work," he says. Johnston, a soft-spoken, clean shaven man, became homeless about a year ago. He had a lengthy hospital stay that left him with a $31,000 bill he couldn't pay. He lost his car, his home. "I lost everything," he says.

Failure, Feb 22-24

Jake and Kat visited from upstate New York this weekend. They're Peace Corps friends from our time in Ecuador, and Grant and I haven't seen them since we left that country three years ago. We all "lived poor" during Peace Corps on about $200 a month, which went much further in Ecuador than it does here. Our diets were simple there, but there were also many nights of drinking foot-tall bottles of $1 pilsener. So drinking was inevitable this weekend, which is strictly not covered by food stamps. Neither is the $25-a-plate dinner at Louis' Basque Corner we treated them to. But I couldn't see serving them beans and rice during their first trip to Reno. So I failed completely. But failure isn't an option for someone on food stamps. Failure means debt, a late or unpaid bill, or maybe a dip into precious savings. I promise I'll be good for the remaining two weeks.

Feb. 26, Monday

My cheapest grocery bill yet: $18

Feb. 28

About eight people are filling out food stamp applications on folding tables in the blue-walled, white-tiled "Art Room" at the Washoe County Senior Center. There are no art supplies in view, just empty shelves and a sink that probably once washed paint-splattered hands. Firpo and Nowak from the Food Bank are here to help demystify and expedite the application process.

Firpo spent 27 years working in the welfare division before she came to the Food Bank about a year ago. Her experience shows. She's efficient, respectful, and mildly playful but businesslike. She knows the welfare division back and front, which helps her advocate for these folks.

A woman helping an older woman fill out an application tells Firpo the older woman has only $4,600 in her savings and checking accounts. She says it like it's an unbelievably small sum. Her face twitches, astonished, when Firpo tells her that's too much to be eligible for food stamps. There's a $3,000 limit for savings for seniors. For everyone else, the limit is $2,000. Firpo tells her to hold on to the application in case her savings amount drops.

"Seniors notoriously save for the next disaster," Firpo tells me. "They would rather go hungry than dip into their savings account. ... We keep trying to get Congress to raise that limit to at least $5,000."

Minutes later, Phillip Ulibarri from the county health department walks in with a clipboard and asks Firpo if there's anything she'd like him to put on the next meeting's agenda. "Yeah," she says. "Tell 'em to raise it from $3,000 to $5,000 and to raise the minimum from $10 to $25." (The least amount of food stamp money available is $10.)

Firpo and Nowak take in more than just financial information at these workshops. They take in stories of love, war, crime and pain. Behind nearly every fill-in-the-blank, there's a story, and the applicants seem eager to share it.

There's the dignified 64-year-old gentleman with his silver hair slicked like a duck's back. His aorta ruptured, his wife says. He's lucky to be alive, but the couple tells Firpo how they've been mistreated by the welfare division "all down the line," unable to get assistance despite hospital bills they can't pay. "You pay 50 years into the system, and when it happens to you, you get nothing," his wife says.

Near them, a seemingly healthy, 47-year-old man with dark, full hair, wears braces on his legs, hidden by his pants. An imminent foot operation will keep him off his feet for eight weeks. He's applying for food stamps with his roommate, a woman who's also on disability. He talks about his six kids and how he "honorably pays" their child support. He jokes flirtatiously with Firpo and says she looks much younger than her 58 years. After his application is filled out, he thanks Nowak and Firpo for their help saying, "We're not looking for a handout. We're just looking for a hand."

March 10

Twenty-six days of food-stamp living, with four days to go, and I give up. Unexpectedly, some friends came to visit this weekend, and the thought of sitting there watching at a restaurant while they drank and ate was too much. So I've had it.

A monthly $155 has been plenty to feed my belly, but not enough to keep me from missing friends, considering the central role food plays in interacting with them. I realize my priorities may change if, on the hierarchical scale of needs, my basic ones (food, shelter, health) were not being met, as is the case for many on food stamps.

But I'm taking a few lessons and resolutions with me: I'm spoiled and wasteful, and so is nearly everyone I know. Food banks need and deserve donations, and despite what some say about "enabling" bad habits, I think most panhandlers do, too. It goes back to what most lining up at the local food pantry already know -- if you can spare it, why not give it to someone who needs it?

Last weekend, I attended Displace Me in Atlanta, GA. I had been meaning to write something about the event earlier, but haven't found the time until now.

I read the article above, and get a small glimpse into what life is like for those who are forced to live off food stamps, or $5 a day. As a child from an extremely privileged family, it is hard to imagine what going on the food stamp diet would "really" be like. Would I, personally, be able to make it an entire month? I'd like to think so, but I have my doubts.

Then I imagine what life is like for those who are displaced in Uganda. People who live off of limited water and meager amounts of bread each and every day. People who are so thin and malnourished that a child dies every 5 seconds from a hunger related issue.

1...

2...

3...

4...

A life gone.

Sure, you can live off less in Uganda and Ecuador, but what is your quality of life like? We think we have it so hard in America, but in comparison to the rest of the world, we're doing just fine.

Every day I keep seeing more and more signs that I am being called to work overseas with those who are less fortunate. If I cannot change national policy, I can at least donate my time and energy to make a difference in someone else's life. Isn't that what we all secretly desire anyways? To be remembered by someone: whether it is your parents, your significant other, your children, or even a random person you met out in the middle of nowhere. We want to leave a legacy for others in our wake.

My only question for you is this... what's stopping you?

My apology

2007-05-05T23:59:00.000-04:00

This is just a formal apology to a friend of mine. He or she knows who they are.

I am sorry I let my thoughts and emotions get the best of me. It was not my intention to hurt or anger you. I never thought we'd get into a so-called-fight, but I'm almost glad we did, which is strange to say. I think it can help grow a stronger friendship, because you know that if you can get through this, you can get through anything!

I always try to put a positive spin on life, as my friend Lindy once told me. We're not here too many years, and as my buddy Greg told me the other night -- I need to pick and choose which bridges to burn. This is NOT one of those bridges.

I want us to remain good friends for a long time to come. I don't care if you live halfway across the country. I will put forth the effort if you do as well. If you are ever in need, I am just a phone call away.

With that being said, I want to give you a few promises that I intend to keep. As you probably know, keeping promises is something I try really hard to do. Never say something you can't follow through with. Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.

1. I promise to be more open with my thoughts in the future. If I have a problem or issue, I will discuss it fully with you before going anywhere else. I may need some time to formulate my thoughts, but you'll never be left in the dark as to what I am thinking.
2. I promise to take the time necessary to maintain our friendship. I will drive out of my way to have coffee or dinner with you. I will call you when something silly or stupid happens in my day-to-day life just to "share" the moment with a friend.
3. I promise to treat all aspects of your person in a loving manner. That includes, but is not limited to, being kind, generous, caring, thoughtful, respectful, supportive, and humble in my words and actions.

I do want to be that person we talked about. But with anyone in life, I may just need a little help and nudging along the way. I'll be there for you, if you will be there for me.

PS. Thank you for your prayers, it means a lot to me.

My Jimmy Buffett Experience

2007-04-23T13:07:00.000-04:00

I'm eating my lunch as my boss walks over and asks if he can speak with me in my office. I walk in, and he asks me to take a seat. He proceeds to close the door. I'm thinking, oh man, I'm about to get chewed out for something I didn't do. But instead, he pulls out two (2) tickets to the Jimmy Buffett concert this Wednesday at Phillips Arena and asks if I would like them. Says I've been doing a great job at work recently, and he wanted to reward me for my efforts.

I'm just sort of staring at him thinking; is this the same boss I met four months ago? It can't be... or can it? Is he really offering me almost $300 worth of concert tickets just for doing my job? There must be a catch.

There's no catch. I think I'm going to give the second ticket to my co-worker since he's been helping me in the background these past few weeks with all the random projects. If not, I'll be sure to let you guys know. Did I mention I love my job?

In other news: Turns out the GT vs. UGA charity baseball game is Tuesday, and not last Sunday. Apologies go out to all my friends who woke up early on Sunday to go downtown with me. At least you got a little sun on your shoulders, right?

My prayers

2007-04-16T16:37:00.000-04:00

I don't know the students who were shot and killed at VA Tech this morning, but my prayers go out to everyone affected.

A horrible shooting like that makes you think about life, and how our 70-80 years here can be cut short in a mere instant. Tomorrow is promise to no one someone once said, and how true it is...

The Lord has provided us with lifeboats in our time of need and distress. We can go to him in the afternoon, in the evening, or in the early hours of the morning. He will offer us comfort in times of tragedy and pain. In times of confusion and unrest. And in times of anger and sadness.

One of my favorite verses is Matthew 11:28-29 which says:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

My heart is beeping for the departed. I cannot imagine what the friends and families of the students are going through right now. I just feel this overwhelming sadness pulsing through my entire body.

I'm so sorry this happened. May the Lord draw near and give you peace and comfort over the coming weeks.

My active life

2007-04-11T21:33:00.000-04:00

Recently I've run into people who question the reason why I keep such an active social life. I generally answer with the classic: It was my New Year's resolution... to plan something every night of the week.

For the past 3 months, that has been exactly what has happened. I am always busy. Always on the go. Always have something to do. People usually have to book me 2-3 weeks in advance for big things (like weekend trips to Savannah). It's crazy I know, and I never really questioned "why" until now.

Part 1:
Scene: A phone call with Mike.

Mike: Are you coming to the Braves game with us on Saturday?
Me: I don't think the timing is going to work out.
Mike: The game doesn't start till 7.
Me: I know, but I have plans on Saturday until 5pm, and I need to help Claire doing something with her website afterwards, so I don't think I'm going to make it.
Mike: Dude, are you serious?
Me: Yeah, I'm sorry...
(awkward silence)
Me: Okay, well have a good night man.
Mike: Hey, what.. oh, I see how it is. Later.
(click)
Me: Mike...? Hello?

Part 2:
Scene: Reading the partial back of a Perplex City Card.

The Hand (January 11 - February 10)

You are a dedicated consumer, and though the economy is grateful, you do come off as a bit shallow most of the time. Despite this, you tend to keep a large bevy of casual friends who rely upon your expertise to choose what to wear, what to do, and where to go.

Your need for meaning in your life causes you to look in all of the wrong places. You have a deep-rooted insecurity that others will dislike you if you were to drop your forced jocularity and have a quiet few nights in; and you are not far from the mark in this.

Strangly enough that is how I feel. And it seems to be re-assured every-single-time I decide to take a night off for myself.

Why is that...?

My Speeding Tickets

2007-04-06T09:35:00.000-04:00

I was reading an Ask Yahoo! question earlier today and saw a link to an article on how to fight a speeding ticket. It offered several tips, but none of them seemed that useful. Now, being a repeat offender myself, I have decided to share my knowledge and inner workings of the court system to offer some REAL tips on how to avoid speeding tickets.

Note: For the sake of discussion, all references to an officer, solicitor, or judge will use a masculine pronoun.

PART 1: Interacting with the Officer

1. Don't speed more than 10 miles over the limit. But if you do...
2. When you are traveling at night, try to be on the lookout for cars ahead of you that suddenly brake. They probably saw something you'll be seeing very shortly.
3. Resist the urge to speed around a slow moving car in the fast lane to cut in front of them.
4. If you do get pulled over, be very polite to the officer. Do not argue with him. Take note if he is a city cop, county cop, or Highway Patrol. Try to remember what he looks like, because you won't be seeing him for several months.
5. Ask if he got you using radar, laser, or some other method like pacing.
6. Ask for a calibration check if you have a few minutes to spare.
7. If the officer still writes you a ticket, say something to the effect of, "So I can just call this number on the back and pay my fine without having to go into court?"
8. Do not do or say anything that will leave a lasting impression in the officer's mind.

PART 2: Before your court date

1. Find out who the solicitor is for your court system. This is especially useful if you were pulled over by a small city cop.
2. Call the solicitor and try to set up a meeting. When or if you can meet with the solicitor, ask if he would reduce the points from the ticket for insurance purposes. Even if you have a DMV record that is 4 pages long, the solicitor will usually knock off 1 or 2 points. In Georgia (the state I live in), anything 14 MPH or less receives 0 points, and therefore will not affect your insurance at all.
3. Offer to do some community service and pay a small fine, in lieu of going to court. The solicitor does not want to go to trial any more than you do. He'll also appreciate being able to take care of your case before the arraignment.

PART 3: The Arraignment

1. Show up early, especially if you have not talked with the solicitor.
2. If you have a prearranged deal, mention it to the solicitor, ex: "I talked with Mr. White and we reached an agreement for my guilty plea."
3. Otherwise, plead Not Guilty. Save your Nolo Contendre for when you really need it.

PART 4: The Trial

1. The great thing about the trial, is that if the officer who originally pulled you over does not show up, the charges are dismissed on warrant of prosecution.
2. Look for the officer in the crowd. If he is not there, you are home free.
3. If the officer is there, and you are forced to go to trial, simply ask the judge one last time if he can reduce the points on the ticket for you if you change your plea to Guilty.
4. Tell the judge you can pay the fine today and that you were polite to the officer when you were given the ticket.
5. If you are hard-set on sticking with the Not Guilty plea, feel free to cross examine the officer at your leisure.

PART 5: Other Tips

1. Small city cops always show up for court (e.g. Redneckville, MS).
2. County cops are about a 50/50 (e.g. Orange County).
3. I have never had a Highway Patrolman show up for court (e.g. Florida HP).
4. I have never had a large city cop show up for court (e.g. City of Atlanta).
5. Always ask for a court date for that chance the officer will not show up.
6. If you cannot pay the fine on your court date, ask the court for a 30 day extension.
7. Know the laws in your state.
8. Slow down.

Tickets I remember receiving in the pats 10 years along with the outcome...

County: dismissed (no officer)
County: nolo contendre
Small city: guilty, 13 over (original speed, 70$)
Large city: dismissed (hwy patrol, no officer)
Large city: dismissed (no officer)
County: dismissed (hwy patrol, no officer)
County: guilty (stone cold solicitor, 2 points, 150$)
Small city: guilty, plea to 14 over (120$)
Small city: dismissed (50$ fine with 8 hrs community service)
County: guilty, plea to 14 over (90$)
Small city: dismissed (hwy patrol, no officer)

So out of 10 tickets, I have a grand total of 2 points on my license with ~430$ in fines. Not too shabby for making it to work 5 minutes earlier...

My missing Braves tickets

2007-04-05T12:03:00.000-04:00

So someone (Aaron N.) forgot to buy the 24 tickets we need for Friday night's game last week. As Jen M. says, they are sold out, gone, done for!

Melanie A. thinks we should just go to Jocks & Jills downtown and watch the game there, but I'm kind of up a creek without a paddle, because at least 4 people so far have been asking me where the tickets are, where we're sitting, and all that good stuff.

Here's what we're going to do --

I'm going to try and leave work Friday afternoon around 1pm to head downtown and stand in line for tickets. I have my old GSU ID that I can use to BOGO free. Last year, they let me buy 10 tickets with my single ID.

But we need 24 tickets this year, so I'm going to need some help. If anyone is off Friday afternoon *cough* Aaron *cough*, I implore you to join me standing in line for a few hours. Make sure to bring a hat, something to read, and any old student ID's, because I have a feeling it's going to be hot outside.

With any luck we'll get the tickets... but if worse comes to worse I can just change my phone number and move to Raleigh, NC.

My NCAA bracket

2007-04-02T09:54:00.000-04:00

My bracket was officially null and void over a week ago. I picked Ga Tech and UNC to be in the final game. Everyone called me crazy, and perhaps I was, but when there was only 10$ on the line, I had to go with the ACC.

I want to watch the championship game tonight between Florida and Ohio State, so if anyone has any suggestions on where to go, I am all ears. I have a feeling Frankie's and The FOX Sports Grill will be packed out, but who knows?

Random fact: Did you know I was named after Joakim Noah's father? Yep, my parents were at a tennis match in Paris 26 years ago where Mr. Yannick was playing. They were looking for a biblical name, Yannick was playing well, and the rest is history.

A few weeks later my mother had Mr. Yannick on a flight, where he signed a Delta postcard for me... he told me where his last name came from, and wished me the best of luck in life. My mother had that framed, and gave it to me many years later. I'll show it to you sometime if you'd like.

While Joakim is pretty good (okay he's very good), I still think the best college basketball player was Pistol Pete Maravich himself. I remember seeing a movie about him when I was younger and my father always talked highly about him -- once, he told me that Pistol Pete would dribble the ball in the air with his hands instead of on the ground, and that's why he was such a good ball handler.

Hate to say it dad, but I've never heard that from anyone but you. I found a video tribute to Pistol Pete on YouTube, which is pretty amazing, but there is no "air dribbling" to be seen.

PS. I decided not to do that private blog thing. I barely have enough time to work on this one!

My new name

2007-03-30T15:52:00.000-04:00

It's not technically a new name, but more like a new blog. A blog that is unrestricted in content, and only available to a few select people. If you've been following this blog over the years, you should have noticed a drop-off on the "personal" blogs. This has been intentional.

The focus recently has been humorous stories, social experiments, and random information about the latest technology I find interesting. I will continue to post stories like that here, but everything else will be put on the new blog. That way my anon stalkers won't have any fuel for their ever-burning fire, or something like that.

Anyhoo, if you would like to be included on the list of people who can read the "new" blog, either post a comment below or send me an email.

Cheers! You guys rock.