So I have two yard mysteries for you today.
The first mystery is what kind of Mushroom is this? Its not like any of the other ones I have seen in my yard:
Picture 1:
Picture 2:
The second mystery is what kind of animal is making these holes in my yard? I fill them in after mowing the yard and the next day they are back. My best guess is frogs due to the numbers I am seeing in my yard these days:
Picture 1:
Picture 2:
We had a late game tonight it was a lot of fun, even though we still didnt win (O-4). I did man up tonight and hit the ball out of the infield, but I had two errors on routine fly balls that I over played. I guess thats why we play in the D League.
You should try this high speed chase game. The graphics on it are really pretty cool.
This game gets a lot harder when you get high up my record is 96 blocks, see if you can beat it!!!
You have to check out this online etch a sketch. Its pretty cool.
Missy and I spent all day today helping our friends Jason and Crystal clean up their new house so they can paint it. I spent most of the day working in their new yard. After mowing the front yard 3 times it started to look a lot better.
We will try to get some pictures later.
I think I found a new ring tone.
Today is Missy and mines Anniversary. I cant believe we have been married for two years already! It really seems like the time has just flown by. I cant wait to see what the next year holds in our future.
Missy and I spent today at Big Surf Water Park in Osage Beach. We had a blast and spent quit a bit of time in the lazy river and the rapids ride. We really had a great time but we are going to be sure to wear water proof sunscreen next time.
So Amazon made a mistake and sent me two copies of "Quit Your Job And Move To Key West" and they do not want it back. So if you would like the book let me know and we can work something out.
While Missy is helping to make snacks for all the kids at VBS this week I have been tasked with helping at recreation. It’s really fun except I have learned some times 20 kindergarteners would rather have a rolling relay then play any games that you have come up with for them to play.
I guess tonight we will see if they like ultimate frisbee.
Can you get to Level 40? I cant!
So after about two years of waiting I got to see The Simpson's movie tonight with Missy, Eric, Andy and Matt. I'll have to say as a huge fan of The Simpson's I was beyond disappointed in plot. It felt like all the gags were old and reused. It was alot like "Lisa The Tree Hugger" with some new jokes thrown in. I wish the plot would have been something we hadn't seen before. Also what was the deal with Bart getting drunk? Naked skateboarding by a 12 year old funny, drinking to the point of passing out... not so much.
So maybe not the Worst.Movie.Ever but it really felt like a half-hearted attempt from a show that I grew up watching. I think Homer said it best when at the beginning of the Movie he says "What Kind of Jerk Pays For Something They Can See on TV For Free?"
Because they are closed for remodeling. So instead you could just go to the Arbys thats right by it.
P.S. Someone really needs to build an Arbys in Jefferson City.
Running a bounce house with your wife for a bunch of 6 year olds can be really fun!
Well we finally decided on what patio furniture to get:
So to Lowes we went and $400 later we have new patio furniture that cost more then our dinning room furniture.
To promote the launch of the first full-length Simpsons feature film, Burger King and Fox have created The Simpsonizer. Woo-hoo
Go to simpsonizeme.com, upload a photo of yourself and the application analyzes your face, turning you into an honorary Springfield resident.
Update:
I started with this really bad picture of me:
After messing with the program for a little bit I got this:
and this:
Can you be the champion of Micro-Olympics? Shoot your plane as far as you can. Buy and carefully use power-ups on your way to the top. Try to beat all 7 glorious pilots in this fast paced game…
When you and your wife have a summer cold. Missy has been on the couch and then in bed since she got home from work. I don't feel much better and might go to bed pretty soon also.
The good news is if you own stock in Kleenex we have used 3 boxes in the last 2 days.
I really like old time radio dramas and I recently found Twilight Zone Dramas. They have a couple of free episodes on their website you should check out.
Last night Missy and I took advantage of half price golf at Railwood with the coupon from the capital ad sheet. Then today Eric and I went out there and he kicked my butt with his new and improved 250 yard drives. So I have had plenty of golf for this weekend.
After I got home I saw this Tom and Jerry cartoon on Boomerang and thought that it had to go on our blog.
I bet Tom taught Nick how to keep score.
14 Days!
Try This Game from the upcoming Simpsons Movie. I cant get past level 10.
Eric ordered his awesome new Toyota Tundra in April and it finally came in today (Hey Nick, good thing its not a Chevy or it would be broke down in your driveway). It has all the cool toys GPS/XM/Backup Camera and a ton of other features. Overall its one of the coolest trucks on the road today.
¡punoɹɐ pǝddılɟ sı ʇxǝʇ ʎɯ llɐ
This website will flip all your text. Really handy for sending emails to people you work with to freak them out.
Well my HTC 8125 got smashed today in a Home Run Derby related accident. Knowing that I have insurance on my phone I didn't think it was that big of a deal so Missy and I went down to the AT&T(Cingular) Store in Jefferson City.
Well apparently you are not suppose to be able to get insurance from AT&T on any PDA phones. Except I did have insurance on my 8125 and I paid my $5.95 a month. I got my 8125 from Mid-America Wireless who added it to my account along with insurance for Missy's Razor.
So with a couple of cuss words under there breath and telling me how I was getting a $600
phone for $53 they handed it over. They were so mad they wouldn't even give me the new box, documentation or chagrining cables. Oh well WM6 here I come!
I got a gift certificate for $15 for Amazon.com at the start of June. $15 will not get you much at Amazon.com these days so I ordered a little 100 page book that I thought might be a fun read. Of course it was back ordered and wasn't going to ship for a few days and I had really forgotten all about it.
Until today, the last day of my two week vacation, does this book show up in my mail box:
The USPS sure knows how to hurt a guy.
Here is a little video clip from the fireworks from Holts Summit last night:
Can you pass this test? I ended up getting 19/20.
Yesterday Missy was a bridesmaid in her cousins wedding we spent all day in Westphalia and most of the day today recovering. I am so glad I don't have to go to work tomorrow!
Congratulations Brian and Trisha!
Today I decided I would see what my digital camera would do in the video department so I took it along with me to Turkey Creek Driving Range to hit some balls before it started to rain. This is what I came up with...
Today Nick, Eric and I went to play 9 holes at Tanglewood and of course it started to rain on us. We are going to try to finish up Friday afternoon.
So Missy and I are trying to grow tomatoes from a plant that her boss at work gave her. The good news is that it keeps getting bigger...
... the bad news is that we dont have any tomatoes yet.
Are we doing this right? Anyone have any secret tomato gowing hints?
Missy and I normally don't eat out after church but today we went with another couple from our Sunday school class to McAlister's deli that has been opened in Jefferson City for a few months. I had a potato the size of my head (if you know me you know that is huge!) that was really good.
Its really worth checking out if you haven't ate there yet.
Yesterday was the Summer Solstice and thus the longest day of the year. So I celebrated it like any guy would, I played golf until 9:00 at Oak Hills with Eric.
Happy Summer Everyone!
I didn't have anything big planed for today so I decided last night I was going to cook some ribs on my propane grill today. I followed the general instructions in this YouTube Video with a few modifications* and the ribs turned out great. I think this smoker box really made a big difference.
*If you are down to your last 15 minutes of cooking ribs and you run out of propane, your buddy who is on vacations propane tank is fair game. This will be known as the Hank Hill Rule.
Last night Missy and I went out and played a 9 hole scramble at Oak Hills. We had a great time and it was the first time Missy had played there.
Here is a neat video to help celebrate internet safety month:
Since I cant think of anything witty to blog about...
Fingerjig is a fun little typing game that tests your accuracy and speed for randomly selected words (each level tests a different typing skill).
So whats your score?
I just finished my post-golf nap and I am proud to report that we finished fourth this morning in the Union Hill Baptist Church golf tournament. We did really well for having a bunch of guys who don't play as much as I do.
I finally got around to getting a new set of irons. I picked up the Nike Ignite Irons (3H-P) at ProAm Golf Center.
Now we will see how they do this Saturday at the UHBC Tourney.
Use your mouse to aim and shoot the red balls and knock the yellow balls off the board. Remove all the yellow balls from the board before the red balls are eliminated, and you'll advance to the next level.
Today is my beautiful wifes birthday. We are not going to do much since she is helping her best friend get ready for her wedding tomorrow, but if you see her wish her Happy Birthday!
I found this amazingly addictive game called Desktop Tower Defense. It's sort of the reverse of Lemmings - instead of saving all the lemmings, you need to squash them all. There's an insane number of levels, and it gets really challenging really fast.
Highly recommended.
I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Memorial Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. ~Benjamin Harrison
Today is Memorial Day and Missy and I want to thank everyone who has served our country and helped make it what it is today.
This afternoon Missy and I went to the Salute to Veterans 2007 Air Show in Columbia. It was really cool to look at some of the planes but the coolest part was playing America's Army Virtual Army Experience.
The game even had its own Anti-War Protesters:
Dang Hippies!
Here is a cool new game where you have to make the parajumper land in the target. Can you do it?
With tonight being the season finale on King of The Hill and 400th episode and season finale of The Simpson's I was really looking forward to the last Sunday of TV until this fall.
That was until I turned to KQFX and saw this on my TV:
So now instead of getting to watch my favorite shows I get to see some crummy power point slide. Someone at KQFX owes me an apology and a replay of those two shows!
Last weekend when I was cutting the grass the self propelled belt on my John Deere 14SB broke. So today Nick and I replaced the belt and the blade. The strange thing with the 14SB is that you have to remove the whole engine from the mower to replace the belt. I wasn't exactly excited about taking the mower apart but Nick was gung-ho about doing it.
After breaking a couple of blots we finally got it back together and it seems to work OK, but if I my lawnmower blows up I know who I am blaming.
Char-Broil sent me replacement knobs for our grill. I would normally have pictures but my camera is still with Eric!
Only 3 days left of work until this legislative session is over! I am really looking forward to taking a vacation and having some time off. I think I have enough time save up to take off 3 or 4 weeks this summer.
Missy and I would like to go to Key West for a vacation this summer but we don't know how things are going to shake out yet because we would also like to buy some new living room furniture.
I got back home around 3:30 last night and have been sleeping ever since then. The trip was pretty neat except the part where Nick almost hit a deer on I44.
If you ever get to Austin Texas you have to eat at the Salt Lick. It was some of the best BBQ I had ever had.
Since 3AM this morning we have been on the road to Austin Texas to pick up Kenny and get him home for mothers day. So it looks like we are going to go 1,700 miles in 48 hours with golf thrown in tomorrow morning.
So If my math is right:
1700/48= A sustained 35 MPH for the two days we will be gone.
Ok, so the flood hasn't been called off but it dose not look like it is going to come up as high or fast as they first thought. With the lack of rain it looks like it is only going to get up around 31 feet.
I just got this floodmap in my email and thought I'd post it.
It looks like it is going to get up to around 34.5
If you haven't heard by yet according to NOAA Jefferson City is in for the biggest flood since the flood of 1993. I was only in 8th grade during the flood of 1993 so I don't have a lot of memories of it except for staying in a motel in South County with my grandparents after the water got within a block of their house in South St.Louis City.
Hopefully this one is not as bad and will not stay around as long, but as long as it does I am going to try to snap some pictures and post them here since the Capitol Building is the highest point in Jefferson City I should be able to get some good angles.
Here is the first picture I got to day at the top of the House's parking garage.
This afternoon I turned on the grill to warm it up in order to cook some steaks for lunch after church. After about 10 minutes of preheating I came back outside to put the steaks onto the grill and the middle two knobs started to melt. When I tried to turn off the grill this is what happened:
Hopefully Char-Broil will come through with some excellent customer service and replace the two melted knobs.
After mowing the grass this afternoon I finally broke down and turned on the AC. It was just so hot and muggy today that it had to be done. Hopefully it will cool down and be cooler later this week.
I usually don't post work related stuff but this "12 Ways To Be A Security Idiot" PowerPoint presentation is great.
It was about 90 degrees today so we dug out the BBQ pit, cleaned it up and I cooked up the first steaks of the summer.
I hope the weather stays like this. I love coming home from work and throwing something on the grill.
Last night Melissa had a candle party with her friend Jennifer. She said she had a blast and bought some candles.
Nick, Eric and I went to Boonville where Nick spent most of the time inspecting the moat. All in all we had a pretty good Friday Night.
Tonight I played in the Capitol's annual softball tournament. I didn't play very well but I did score on run and have one hit. Maybe next year I will practice a little bit and play better.
See if that physics class did you any good with these games. If you didn't take physics its still fun to play the roller coaster games.
Today was really nice so after I mowed the grass this morning I headed to Linn to give Eric a hand on his farm. I helped him put up an electric fence, feed some calvs, delivered some seed and eat some pizza. I also didnt break anything so hopefully he will let me come back and help him some more this year. Maybe next time he will let me drive a tractor.
One of my favorite shows HU$TLE is back on AMC on Wednesday Night. I just watched it off my DVR this afternoon and the gang sold the Hollywood Sign to some slick talking Texan.
The old layout was kind of lame, so I have changed it up some. What do you think?
Last night Missy and I went to the first annual Capitol City Cookoff for the buck a rib dinner. We really enjoyed it and cant wait until next year when hopefully the weather is a little better.
I play Golf. I like to go to bed early. I think teenagers are stupid. I get cranky if I don't have my caffeine. When my knee pops in the morning it sounds like a small cannon going off.
I GET IT I AM OLD!
I might as well be 72 but instead today is my 27th birthday. So if you arnt doing anything tonight I think Missy, Nick, Eric, Andy and I might be going to Columbia to Shakespeares and to look at some golf clubs and if you want to tag along send me an email.
How far can you make the Monkey Kick The Ball?
I made my monkey kick the ball 4164 meters, lets see what your Monkey has!
I hope everyone has a Happy Easter! Even if you are not able to participate in an underwater easter egg hunt I hope you have a great day!
So at work we discussed where the tradition of the Easter Bunny came from. So I looked it up and it looks like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols from antiquity; since rabbits and hares give birth (to large litters) in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the Vernal Equinox (Spring).
I always thought the Easter Bunny was just a dude who liked Hip-Hop and Candy!
We are not selling our house and sailing around the ocean for a year. We are staying put, so deal with it (unless we go on vacation).
Don't forget to vote today!
Missy and I have always talked about quiting our jobs for a year, buying a boat and sailing around the Caribbean for a year. When we woke up this morning we decided to do it before we start our family, so after looking around the internet a little today I have called and put in a hold on this 2001 Hunter 380 Sailboat. We are going to go down and inspect it next weekend and if we like it we will put a bid in on it.
We are hoping we will be able to sell our house, put all our stuff in storage and be on the high seas by Missy's birthday (June 1st).
Yes we know people are going to think we are crazy but its something we want to do. Who wants to be our first boat guest?
Well its 5:30am and I am getting ready to head to the Lake for Morenet's HELIX 2007 conference at Tan-Tar-A.
I should be back in time for the Special Olympics Trivia Night fundraiser on Friday night.
See if you can beat all the levels on this game.
I cant, I can only get to level 27. What can you do?
I had to go my optometrist last week for my yearly eye check up (that I do every two years) and we got to talking about how I like to play golf. After we got through the exam he recommended that I try Nikes MAXSight Contact Lenses for a few rounds to see how I like them.
Well I played today for the first time since I have gotten them and noticed a few things.
1) I can really see the ball a ton better.
2) Its much easier to read the green. My play around the green picked up today.
3) You really freak people out when they look at you:
I'll give them 3 or 4 more rounds and then make a decision on if I want to keep playing in them of not.
For the last three weeks I have been playing hoops at Union Hills Gym. I didn't realize how out of shape I was until I started playing. I also didn't realize how bad my knees hurt when I play. If I keep playing I am going to have to go to the doctor or find a knee brace.
Today is the first day of spring! To celebrate I am going with Eric to pick up his new golf clubs in Columbia tonight.
Go Spring!
So sticking with the new theme, Missy and I bought a new TV for the living room last night. We settled on this JVC 56incher* from BestBuy and with help from Eric was able to get it home and setup last night.
*My monitors at work was the same size as our old living room TV.
**It is also snowing outside which is strange since last weekend it was 75.
We switched around cubical's today to make room for a new programmer and I ended up with this awesome cube*:
*Don't be jealous!
**Yes that is a picture with me and Miss America.
Today is March 14 (3.14), also known as Pi-Day. Interestingly, it is also Albert Einstein's Birthday.
If you run an NCAA Tournament Pool you know that finding software to run the pool can be hard and expensive. For the last two years I have used FreeTrak because it is both Free and Easy to use.
*This post is mostly a reminder so I can remember the name of the software next year*
Well it looks like DST went off without a hitch last night and the world didn't blow up. All of my home electronics updated correctly, now if stuff works this smoothly at work on Monday I will be happy.
It will be interesting to see if Congress changes DST time again in 2009.
I had planned on working on my yard today but the weather had a different story and rained most of Friday making that impossible. So Eric, Nick and I went to Columbia and dodged a Neo-Nazi riot to buy Eric some new golf clubs. He ended up getting the Mizuno's MX-19's custom ordered since he is 6'6". They should be in next week and I think Eric will become a much better player then he is now with the Ram clubs he got for $50.
We also snuck in a quick 9 at Railwood for the first time this spring. Eric and I beat Nick and Andy 3-2 in a best ball scramble.
Potatoes Make Your Butt BIG!
I got this bumper sticker from the Missouri Rice Growers who were giving away a free lunch at the Capitol. This is going to look good on Nicks Honda!
One of my favorite online video games is back online:
I remember playing this game almost everyday in high school.
I love this Tot Rejection Game that sonic has out. I cant get past level 10 though... can you? I also won some free tots because I am pretty awesome.
Today is the first day of March and it came in with a bang with a huge thunderstorm and a tornado watch.
Now how long until the NCAA Tournament?
Yesterday Eric and I went along with his parents to the 2007 Western Farm Show in Kansas City. We had a pretty good time and I learned a ton about farming in just one afternoon asking Eric about 1,000 times, "What does this do?".
Some of the highlights:
1) Eric looked at a Toyota Tundra and liked it.
2) I rode the crash simulator.
3) They had a cool backhoe simulator.
4) Three Words: Indoor Firing Range
5) We had one of the best steaks I had in a long time in Independence.
There are a bunch of other pictures here.
Here is all the information you need about Ash Wednesday.
I am back from Austin and have quickly uploaded the few pictures I took here. I should be going back to bed but I need to get to work now.
I am writing this post on I-44 on the way to Austin Texas for the weekend to see Kenny. I'll post pictures on Monday or more about the trip after my turn at driving.
Here is some reading information about Valentines Day. I bet you didn't know that it is really a celebration of the marriage of Zeus and Hera!
We got 3-6 inches of snow today. Getting home tonight is going to be a blast!
This is a very simple game. You move the blue circle to the blue square dodging the small red circles.
My top score is 150. That was on the a laptop with a touchpad so I am going to guess I can double that with a real mouse.
Here are some pictures of the World Series Trophy that was at the state Capitol Today.
Test your reaction speed with this game. Click the tranquilizer button whenever you see a sheep leaving the flock and running for freedom.
My average is 0.2264 seconds. What is your speed?
Last night Missy and I watched the Super Bowl at Nicks house (It would have been a ton better if Rex Grossman would have got hit by a bus on the way to the stadium).
There was a ton of food and drinks. We didn't even get around to cooking the hot wings that Eric brought to the party after all the ribs we had.
Eric is the Wii-per Bowl Champ beating me by 1 point in Madden 07 when I could figure out how to call a time-out with my team on the 1 yard line. I need a rematch!
The only way the night could have been better is if Nick would have bought an HDTV!
... but they should! Did you download those plays I sent you?
Last night we went bowling in Fulton to see if our Wii bowling skills would translate into real bowling. Sadly, they do not and we were lucky if anyone broke 100 points. We had a blast though and I guess thats what really counts.
I work with a lot of mice in my job but its not every often you see one stuck in the Capitol bathroom.
I guess I wont be using that bathroom anymore.
Randy Raw was nice enough to buy Nick and I Chinese buffet today for helping him out at the TechKnowldge Day today in the Capitol. Its always nice to get a free lunch!
Here is a new game for Eric. Its called Worms and it is a pretty addicting game. I am trying to beat level 3 but I am having a hard time.
HINT: You have to fake out the worm to get started.
This morning I took my car to Riley Toyota get inspected and it passed the first time around. Which is a first for me because usually I have to get something changed every time I get my car inspected. So $90 (With an Oil Change) later my car is now roadworthy until February 2009 in the state of Missouri.
Now if it would just get above freezing so I could was it.
Last night Missy, Eric, Nick and I went to watch Linn (where Eric works) play New Bloomfield (where Nick works) at New Bloomfield's Homecoming. Linn beat New Bloomfield in both the JV and Varsity game.
We then went and ate at El Jimmy's which was probably the best part of the night.
Eric took this picture at his farm today after the ice storm of this weekend. Here is a big picture with more detail. This is one of the coolest pictures I have seen.
We have had a lot of freezing rain and ice over the last 48 hours. I decided to go outside and take a couple of pictures of a few of the trees.
Hopefully it all clears up by the end of this long weekend.
I am spending this beautiful Saturday at work with our exchange administrator helping her install a new server. Its not that bad, I am going to miss a chance to watch MU play Bob Huggins and KState for the first time but I should be able to pick it up on the TV in the office (Which by the way is awesome).
With all the ice on the ground I am almost glad I am at work. It is well worth switching this Saturday for a nice Friday this summer when I can be outside playing golf, scubaing or mowing the yard.
Last night Missy and I went to watch her little brother Thomas play basketball in Jefferson City. We haven't seen him play since last year and he has gotten remarkably better this year. It just to bad they couldn't pull out the win.
I found a new game that is pretty cool called Reaction Effect.
After playing for a couple of minutes my best score is 1035, what can you get?
Nick and I spent some time yesterday with Eric at Morfeld Farms. I had never used a welder or a blow torch but Eric gave us the opportunity to help rig up some fencing. Its always fun to go out and give Eric a hand on his farm.
Then after that we had an opportunity to watch Mizzou blow their first Big12 Conference game to ISU in the last 15 seconds.
You want to know one of the best things about having a friend who works at a high school is the ability to use the gym for a couple of games of HORSE at 9 at night. Its even better when he cant shoot left handed to save his life.
I have started my own network-security focused website at notahacker.com using Microsoft's free Office Live service. So check it out!
Being the network security guy at my job has a ton of perks and very few negatives. One of the negatives (if you can call it that) is that I have to wear a coat and tie from January-May. Its not a bad thing is just that you just get used to throwing on a polo and some khakis and coming to work the other 7 months out of the year.
In the spirit of self humiliation this is what I looked like before leaving the house this morning:
If anyone knows of a network security job in the Caribbean where I can come to work in shorts and flipflops could you let me know so I can apply?
I don't have a ton of traditions I follow but one I do have is that I always try to eat black-eyed peas on New Years Day. To be honest black-eyed peas are not one of my favorite foods (this is the only time we eat them) and I really do not think that it will bring me any extra luck (but what can it hurt), I always remember having them on New Years Day while I was growing up along with watching college football.
I asked Nick and Eric if they were going to have them today last night and they didn't have any idea what I was talking about. Does anyone else have any New Years Day traditions?
Happy 2007 everyone! I am going to bed!
I figured the last post of the year should be something educational so here is a very cool article:
100 Things We Didn't Know Las Year.
Some of my favorites are:
The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
One cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 liter bottles.
Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.
In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying.
I have been spending some of my time off listing to the audio book The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Its a great book that tries to prove that a group of "normal people" are smarter on average than a group of experts.
Here is a wikipedia article about the book.
Here is the authors presentation at SXSW Conference 2006 (MP3)
I hope everyone is having a great Christmas day like we are! We just got done opening are presents from each other and now we are going to eat breakfast and then head out to Missy's family Christmas.
Watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Eve has become one of my favorite holiday traditions. If you have never seen A Christmas Story it starts tonight at 6 and plays for 24 straight hours.
If you don't have TBS try watching this:
A Christmas Story in 30 Seconds (and Re-enacted by Bunnies).
Actually I don't want a hippopotamus for Christmas but someone did send me this very old, very funny, Christmas song that I have never heard that I thought I would pass along.
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas mp3.
Well, I have to go do some last minute Christmas shopping so pray for me!
I just spent the last five hours shopping for Christmas presents and now I am really in the holiday mood and cant wait until Monday. Now if we could only get some snow and magical reindeer it would be awesome.
According to the news today is the First Day of Winter and the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Along with that I think today is my last day of work until the 2nd of January.
To celebrate these three magical events here is a game where you get to Kick Santa to see how far he will go (Update: my high score is 958).
I found this off Digg.com this morning and thought it was really cool:
How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? This map gives a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious wars are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!
OK, I didn't make this dreidel game the Jewish Outreach Institute did but I have enjoyed playing it.
Most people don't know that Dreidel is actually a gambling game played during Hanukkah. I really would like to find a real dreidel to play the game though.
Last night Kenny flew in for the holidays and a break from his internship at AMD. So we picked him up at the Airport and headed to Dave and Busters to celebrate Geek Christmas.
We all exchanged gifts and I got a few things to make my co-workers jealous:
USB Missile Launcher
USB Beverage Chiller
USB Bluetooth Adapter
The coolest gift of all though had to be the Air Soft Gun that Nick got Eric for Christmas. Erics cows better watch out!
Microsoft has a new interesting product offering. The basic product offering starts with FREE domain name, web site, email, web site stats, etc all built on SharePoint services 3. I saw a demo of the product and they have made it so easy to setup the site, it's almost like working with word documents, no PROGRAMMING or SCRIPTING skills are needed.
So this is your chance to get your own .com (for free)!
Who doesn't love brownies? Nobody, that's who!
So last night Missy and I worked on one of our Christmas projects and put together 24 brownies-in-a–jar Christmas gifts. It looks cool, it's easy and inexpensive to make, and it turns into brownies!
Basically, you layer all the dry ingredients in a quart jar, and then add a tag explaining what wet ingredients (like 4 eggs and melted butter) to add and how to finish the recipe. The one we used comes from Allrecipes.com and includes pecans, which don’t belong in a brownie so we replaced them with chocolate chips.
As normal we have some brownie project pictures here.
Tower Defense Flash Game.
This game is based on the popular Warcraft 3 “Element Tower Defense” and the Starcraft “Turret Defense” game play. The object of the game is to prevent the hordes (waves) of monsters from getting to the castle by building element towers near the path. You can choose from a number of different elements to build towers from. When you click on a tower that has been built, the build menu becomes an upgrade menu, allowing you to make your tower stronger. The monsters will spawn (appear) every 20 seconds. Their health will be multiplied by 1.25 with every wave. If your towers fail to kill the monsters, and they do get the castle, a civilian of your castle will die. When all your civilians die, the game will be over.
If you see Nick you might want to ask him if he is ok since he has a bad case of the Milk Cow Blues!
If you haven't had enough fun shoveling your driveway here is a neat little shockwave game you can play to shovel parking lots.
Missy and I have spent the last 8 hours shoveling off the drive way. I did take one break to go with Nick to get a new Mailbox and look at the cars in the ditches.
Here are a few more pictures that we took.
So I woke up this morning with nearly 18 inches of snow in our yard and the radio saying every major road in Mid Missouri is closed to all but emergency vehicles, so Missy and I are staying home today and I am going to try to shovel the driveway without giving myself a heart attack.
I have my pictures of the blizzard here.
Has anyone seen Nicks Mailbox?
On a totally unrelated note, no one in Key West is looking for a Network Security Specialist are they?
So according to this we are looking at about an inch of ice and 12 inches of snow! Pictures tomorrow if it happens since I wont be going to work.
Splash: Drip liquid to cause a chain reaction to clear the board.
I was able to get to level 15, what is your best?
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I hope everyone is having a great day. I just woke up from my turkey induced coma and am getting ready for the Denver vs. Kansas City football game.
If you are looking for some reading wikipedia does have a great article on the history of Thanksgiving.
Now its on to Black Friday and then Christmas.
Today is the first day of my week long vacation. I will be catching up on my DVR, Playing with Vista and reading Hardening Network Security for MoreNets Security Symposium until Wednesday. Than its all turkey and tryptophan until Monday!
If you have anything to do that would help me procrastinate please let me know, I'd be glad to give you a hand.
Eric and I went to the MU game and sat next to Mike Alden and his wife Rockie. It was a great competitive game and it was nice to see MU pull out the win. They are now 6-0 for the first time in about 4 years. MU's next game is the 25th vs Stephen F. Austin, is anyone interested in going?
After the game Eric and I went to BestBuy to try to pickup a WII but they were all sold out. Then I made the mistake about asking which EMachine is going on sale on Friday because I read about it on the internet.At this point we must have triggered some kind of alarm because we had walked over to another section of the store and the manager came over and asked our names and that he heard we "asked about the Emachine". So Eric bought his sister a birthday present and we left looking over our shoulder as we pulled out of the parking lot.
Tonight Missy, Eric and I went to Mizzou arena to watch the mens basketball team take on Lipscomb. It was a pretty interesting game that turned into a blow out in the end. The one highlight of the night was that we ended up sitting directly behind Mike Alden and his wife Rockie who is going to try to get me some tickets for the Davidson game.
Here is a picture (of poor quality) that shows the game from nine rows back.
A guy I work with took this video out of his window last week.
Ever felt like flying a remote control missile down a huge tunnel?
Use your mouse to pilot the missile through the tubes. Fly through the holes in the obstacles to survive and reach the end of each level. The position of the mouse is the position of the missile within the tube. Get through as many levels as possible.
I don't personally deer hunt but my friend Eric does and apparently he is pretty good at it. Yesterday was the first day of deer season and he already got his two deer. I have a picture of his dead deer here. I still don't think that is a manufacture approved use of that skid loader, but those farmers are pretty inventive.
Here is the latest Landscape Video:
What is the fewest amount of coins and their value that you can carry around to always have exact change for anything that cost under $0.99.
Send me an email with the answer and I'll post it once I get the correct one.
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan
So get out there and vote for or against someone or something.
Here is a new Brain Game.
The in game instructions are not very good but the object is to place the blue dot in one square and then move it horizontally or vertically in the grid trying to cover all the open spaces.
The landscapers worked really hard on Friday and got all of the sod and tress put in. Now our yard looks really awesome. We have some pictures here.
They only have 3 or 4 more little things to do on Monday and then the yard will be completely done.
The sprinkler system was installed today and it looks pretty awesome.
Thanks to Eric here is the latest landscape envy video.
Today they poured the pad and stamped the "other patio". It looks really good and it looks like they are going to be able to get all of the rest of the work done this week.
We have some pictures here. Now I have to get ready for our Halloween Party.
There is nothing like the Halloween classics to make you remember when you were a kid again and all people would give you for trick-or-treats was a rock.
In this game you have to place the States where they belong on the map. How close can you get it? My best has been around 22 miles, mostly because I really don’t know New England that well.
What is your best?
Tonight Eric and I watched the Cards win the first World Series since I was two and Eric was 3 weeks away from being born. I need to to publicly take back all the bad things I said about Jeff Weaver, he pitched an awesome game tonight. On the other I hand, I still hope the Cards trade Chris Duncan for a SMALL bag of sunflower seeds because it will commit less errors and be more coordinated.
In this game it is your job to smash as many pumpkins as you can. I smashed around 300, how many can you get?
They brought in a bunch of dirt this afternoon and leveled off our yard. Here are some pictures.
I’ll keep everyone updated if they do anything else.
Yesterday they finished building the retaining walls and putting the caps on our free standing wall. I was told that if the weather holds they should have the rest of the yard work done by next Friday. The weather doesn't look that good though.
We are also trying to get our Microwave fixed which decided to break earlier this week while I was warming up some tasty pork chops.
The US Air force uses this tool to test the Eye-Hand coordination of Pilots. Fighter Pilots often average around 60 Seconds per attempt. How coordinated are you?
Microsoft released the final build of IE7 about 15 minutes ago.
Microsoft is expected to push these builds by automatic updates on
11/14/06.
Links @ Microsoft:
Windows XP SP2 Edition
Windows Server 2003 32-bit Edition
Windows XP & Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition
Windows Server 2003 ia64 Edition
*Note: This post is mostly so I can find these links again.
I got home hoping they had done something out side since it was so nice but I guess it was a little wet because no yard work has been done. I guess I’ll just have to watch the cardinals game tonight.
Guns aren't toys! They're for family protection, hunting dangerous or delicious animals, and keeping the King of England out of your face! - Krusty The Clown
I have my first head cold of the fall and it is cold and nasty outside. I am pretty sure they wont be pouring any concrete until the middle of the week because a bunch of rain is moving in. I guess I'll just lay on the couch tonight and watch the Cards take care of the Mets.
Here is the TV news report that was on about our yard today.
Today they got the retaining wall up and some back fill put in. pictures are here.
Thanks to Eric and his magical video capture card and DishDVR I am able to share the commercial from the Landscape Envy contest with you.
Yes, we know its goofy but for a new yard I am willing to be embarrassed a little bit.
Do you ever get the urge to save the princess or deliver some papers like you did back in the day on your old NES system? Now you can do that and more! This Website offers over 250 NES games to play right in your web browser.
As was pointed out I never posted the plans for the yard. I guess it just slipped my mind but here is a link to the plans.
I had a hard time getting my home computer to connect to the VPN at work using my NetGear WRG614 V6. After messing with it for a while I had my "disable SPI firewall" CHECKED, and once I unchecked it (so that the firewall was on) it actually started working. I know it sounds the exact opposite should happen (but believe me I checked it about 5 times).
Hope this will help someone else out who is having this problem.
I came home today after work to discover that the excavation in our backyard had started and we had a good size trench and a nice place for the expansion of our patio.
We have pictures here.
I was put in charge of running the MLB Office Pool this year so I quickly made this Excel Spreadsheet of the Playoff Bracket. I am posting it here so I can find this next year and maybe it will be of some help to someone else.
Missy and I rode in to St.Louis with the Schmitz’s family and went to the Cardinal’s Game tonight and boy did we see a good game. The Cardinals finally lowered their magic number to two and hopefully 0 tomorrow afternoon.
We have our standard pictures here.
The picture I am most proud of is of Albert Pujols* from tonight’s game that shows him blasting a three run home run in the 5th inning. You can even see the ball in this picture.
*This picture is over 2MB’s so it will take a while to load.
I have been spending the last couple of day wiping data off of a ton of hard drives to DoD specifications. Here is a picture of how I spent my last couple of days.
What boring stuff have you been doing at work?
Matt (the landscaper) called me at work this morning to inform me that they are having to push back the start date on the yard work because the brick company doesn’t have enough retaining wall stones to start the job.
He said they should be in by late next week and they hope to start the job by then.
Don't you know me; I'm your native son.
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
(From Steve Goodman’s City of New Orleans. This MP3 from Goldenfiddle)
This song was on the radio on my way home today I just can’t get it out of my mind and I thought I would pass on some more of my eclectic music taste.
I found this fun little game this morning.
Can you defuse this bomb in less than 15 minutes and save yourself?
I didn’t have a clue that Weird Al released a video about me:
KRCG showed up this afternoon with the landscape contractor to film a commercial and to show us the layout of the yard.
Here are the next couple of steps:
1) The contractor will send us a CAD drawing of the yard.
2) They will start the yard work next week and should have it done within a couple of weeks.
We will take pictures as soon as any work starts.
Ahoy! Today be ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day‘! You can get help talkin' like a pirate har.
Gar, Where can I find a bottle o'rum?
Missy and I have won the Landscape Envy contest! I just got off the phone with KRCG and the guy who is going to put in the yard is going to call me today and see what he can do with the back yard.
We still haven’t heard about the yard yet, it kind of annoying that they haven’t announced a winner yet. Other than that we are just spending the day and the weekend hanging around the house.
I get asked atleast a couple of times a day if we won landscape envy. I would love to jump up and down and tell everyone that we did but KRCG hasn’t announced a winner yet.
So I am not getting my hopes up, but I will let you know as soon as we hear anything.
This weekend Missy and I spent Saturday night at her parent’s house with her family and older brother Matt who is getting ready to fulfill a contract for a year overseas. We had a really great time and will both miss Matt while he is gone. Please keep him in your prayers.
The contest is over and the winner is… not going to be announced until the week of September 11th. So now I have to wait between 11-17 days to find out if we won ( as you may know waiting isn’t one of my strong points).
Missy and I used our viral marketing skills and sent out tons of emails to our family, friends and people we work with to ask them to vote for us. Thanks to everyone for taking time out of their schedule to vote for us. I especially want to think everyone from MLUG, AMAA and Slanty.net for helping us get out the vote.
We will let you know if we won as soon as we hear anything.
The local TV Station in Jefferson City is running a contest where they are letting people vote on whose backyard should be redone. The winner gets a custom installed yard worth close to $5,000! I am just your run of the mill computer security geek with no landscaping skills at all so I could use the help!
Please Vote for: 10.Jerry Gamblin, Holts Summit
If you want to see some more pictures of our crappy yard you can look here and here.
Google Talk introduced a new feature that allows you to send people voicemail as MP3s.
Here is an example of the type of the messages you can leave someone as spoken by Nick.
I think it would make a great ringtone.
This weekend I will be taking a trip with Nick and Eric to help move Kenny to his new apartment in Austin, Texas where he will be working for AMD designing processors or whatever they will be having his little genius mind doing.
The only question now is can Nick, Eric and I do 1700 miles is 3 days and help Kenny move?
Check back Monday for the answer and some pictures.
Our home computer has really been giving me problems lately so I decided to spend this afternoon reinstalling. Well I am about halfway done but it is really time for Microsoft to come out with Windows XP Service Pack 3. After doing a clean install of XPSP2 it took me another hour and a half to get all the updates installed (Yes my DSL is only 512/256).
So now I get to install Office 2003, IE7 Beta 3, Firefox and copy back over our documents and music and I should be done.
On another note I lost my DVD playing software so I was looking around on the internet and found this software from VideoLAN and it seems to be awesome.
We currently have no plans for this upcoming weekend so I am in search of something fun (and cheap) to do. So if you have anything fun (and cheap) to do let me know.
Just for fun here is a funny Stewie Griffin video:
I don’t know if you are actually going to die if you don’t vote but today is the August 8th Primary so you should get out and take part in our Constitutional Democracy and vote for somebody for something.
Today is our one year wedding anniversary. We have experienced a ton during our first year of marriage from living in my tiny apartment to buying our first house in a new town.
So Nick and I decided to go test out the fishing in the lake that is in our subdivision and caught a few fish.
So (Eric) what kind of fish do you think this is?:
I have a few more pictures here.
Missy, Nick, and I went out to the Cole County Fair tonight to hang out with Eric and see his cows. We ended up walking around and watching a lawnmower pull and ATV Rodeo. To top off the night Eric’s dad made me shovel some cow poop.
Today is Systems Administrators Appreciation Day . So it is your chance to give your system administrator a gift.
This is my gift to my friends who are system administrators :
The MP3 of the Real Men of Genius Mr. Company Computer Guy
If you don’t know what I do for a living I am a Network Security Specialist and I deal with things like lost\stolen laptops with important data on them from time to time. On one of the security list I am on somebody posted this MP3 of a Berkeley professor who had his laptop stolen and tried to scare the thief in his class.
I don’t want to call the guy a liar, but some of his story seems far fetched and other parts of it are just flat out crazy (the part about him being the only one who can verify the data hasn’t been accessed). The kicker is the part where he said Microsoft called him and asked him why he had registered two copies of XP.
Learn to say, "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be often- Bill Swanson
Like most people I am afraid to admit when I don’t know an answer to a question. I am afraid it would make me look unprepared or undedicated to my job. So this where I will end up “fluffing” an answer to a question. I might not know the exact answer but I probably know enough information about the subject to give an intelligent response.
My goal this week is when I don’t know exactly what the person wants to know to say “I don’t know the exact answer to that question but I would be more than willing to get that information for you but I do know (insert my knowledge on the ground birds of the North African plain).’
Do you remember playing Pac-Man as a kid and running through a whole weeks worth of allowance in 45 minutes? Well now you can bring back all of those memories right here*!
*Please send your allowance to me here to make this as realistic as possible.
Tonight Missy and I went to Jefferson City Martial Arts to watch some of the students get their new belts and perform some stunts and to see the best part:
After Darren got his hair cut we went out and ate at El Jimador. It was a great night and at the end I didnt even have to pay because Nick took care of it:
You can see the rest of the pictures here*
* My camera was doing something strange with the fast motion due to the speed/light. It has a cool effect but you cant see exactly who is breaking the boards.
This afternoon I saw something strange in the basement of the Capitol (not John Grisham strange, just normal strange) .
It was this “smartcar”:
More information about this car can be found at smartcarusa.com. I didn’t get to see who was driving it but would love to take it for a spin. I have a couple more pictures here.
Would you buy one of these?
Sunt facta verbis difficiliora
My motivational quote this week comes from the dead language that we all love, Latin. In English it is roughly translated to mean "Works are harder than words”. Once again the main point of being successful is doing rather then talking about doing.
Honestly 105 degrees is just a little ridiculous, even for you! I wanted to work in the yard today and spread some weed killer but I don’t feel like getting heat stroke. So if you could lower the temperatures back into the low 90s I’d be happy.
Love,
Jerry
I have wanted to change out the standard thermostat that is in our house with a programmable one to try to save some money on our electric bill (ENERGY STAR says it can save $100 a year).
Missy’s dad was going to help me but he got caught up at work so I figured it can’t be that hard and tackled it myself.It didn’t turn out that well and I ended up blowing up our house. Surprisingly it turned out great and I had it installed in about 15 minutes and it seems to be working.
Here is a picture of me in all my “I can install a programmable thermostat” glory:
Thanks to the awesome support from AQHOST we are now running the latest version of Moveable Type that was just released yesterday. If you are ever in the need of web hosting I don’t have anything but great admiration for AQHOST and they carry my highest approval rating of 6 thumbs up.
Now, I am off to play with all the new toys in 3.31
"You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do." -Henry Ford
You can impress very few people with what you are going to do and can impress everyone with what you have done.
Missy and I went over to our friends Stephanie and Brian’s yesterday afternoon to go swimming and have some dinner. We surprised Stephanie by brining over some Cake and Ice Cream for her birthday which is today.
As always we had a great time and here are some pictures from the event.
Yesterday at work was the day every geek dreams of… new computer day!
Here is a picture of my new baby!
Specs:
Dell Optiplex GX260
P4 3.0GHZ
2GB Ram
DVD+R/CDRW
80 Gig SATA Drive
And the best part:
Dual 19inch LCD Monitors
Missy took this picture on the Fourth of July and it is one of the coolest pictures I have seen in a long time.
We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contests, and you must win. - Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon is one of the most well known and respected English historians in history. From his study of history he came to a very logical understanding of what someone has to do to be great. Other people can’t improve you no matter how hard they try, you have to improve yourself.
Hopefully I can remember this quote as I go back to work tomorrow after a week long vacation.
I hope you had a wonderful day celebrating America's Independence. Missy and I spent the day in downtown Jefferson City at the Salute to America Festival helping out my little brother with a quick stop off at her aunt and uncles BBQ.
I am about to die of a combination of heat stroke and a killer sunburn so I am going to go spend the next couple of hours in a nice cold shower.
I have never taken pictures of fireworks before with my digital camera but I had the opportunity to do so tonight. Holts Summit is trying to start an annual firework display and it just so happens that the fireworks were being shot at the end of our block.
So I grabbed my digital camera and this is what I got (I am either an artistic genius or I need to learn how to take pictures of fireworks).
We haven’t been to a pool party in a long time but that all changed today. Missy and I have some new friends who live in Holts Summit that we meet at American Martial Arts Academy. They invited us over to play in their pool and have an incredible dinner of T-Bone Steaks.
The night was great except I kept getting attacked by this little ninja.
On the first day of my vacation I was taking a nap on the couch when Missy calls to make sure I wasn’t taking a nap. I am of course not smooth enough to get my phone out of its case in the first three rings to save any chance of her not knowing I was napping.
So I call her back. So she asks me what I am doing and checking to see if I have a good day and tells me that my voicemail box is full. I find this incredible hard to believe due to the minute amount of calls I receive (read: no one loves me).
So after I call my voicemail box and it wont let me in I decide to call Cingular instead of going back to sleep (I should have went back to sleep). So I am on hold with a Ms. Roberts for about 45 minutes who tells me she can fix this and puts me on hold. Every 5 minutes she comes back and informs me that she doesn’t have it fixed yet and she needs to escalate the call and someone will contact me soon.
So my voicemail is now on vacation along with me, if you need me you’ll have to do what people did the 1990's and just wait until I answer my phone.
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.Thomas Paine
The American Crisis (19 December 1776)
Thomas Paine is one my favorite American Revolutionist and being so close to the fourth of July I figured it would be a great time to bring out his most famous quote. He is often called the black sheep patriot, he was good to rally the troops and stir the pot when things would get desperate but after the war his ideas were too crazy and he was basically kicked out of the country and left out of the history books.
If you will gaze above at my awesome web programming skills you can see my first vacation of the summer is coming up in less than a day. I will be off work for seven full days and have absolutely nothing planned at all (Missy has to work so I am on my own on the weekdays sans the Fourth of July).
As always I have nothing planned so shoot me an email if you want to get together and do something or if you want to pay for me to fly to Key West to go scuba diving!
Dear Jerry @ 3:00 PM,
Before you spend this lovely afternoon raking the straw up in the yard you should spend a buck and buy a pair of work gloves so you dont get a huge blister on your hand! If you decide not to take my advice because you are a stud and only girls wear gloves you are going to find out that Liquid Band-Aid’s sting so bad that it almost makes you cry!
Thanks,
Jerry @ 7:00PM
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. – Colin Powell
Success is something I strive for in every aspect in my life. I truly forget sometimes that you are successful by the amount of time and hard work you put into a project and not because you are talented in your chosen field. It is easy for me to not work hard and to let my talents carry me. This is because I know my minimal output on talent alone will keep people satisfied.
It takes a big project or a security incident at work to put my mind into that ‘hypefocus’ mode that makes me strive for success. My goal this upcoming week it going to be to try to try to ‘hyperfocus’ on everything in my life to see if I cant turn back on my drive to be truly successful and not just adequate.
I haven’t given you guys a good Jonathan Coulton song in awhile so I thought I would give you an MP3 and a Video this time of a song I like called IKEA.
How can you go wrong with lyrics like:
I’m sorry I said Ikea sucks
I just bought a table for 60 bucks
American Martial Arts Academy in Jefferson City where I am working out a couple of nights a week is having a free practical protection skills workshop on Saturday, June 24th 2006. This is a great class to attend to learn basic self protection skills.
Here is a PDF of the flyer if you are interested in attending.
I went to bed last night with my IE Clipboard story on the front page of Digg and woke up this morning with over 15,000 unique visitors to my webpage compared to the couple hundred I normally get (and I am still getting hits like crazy):
I was having some trouble with my Moveable Type install and sent a support call to AQHost, my web hosting company, and they fixed all my problems in about 30 minutes. I really love the support I get from them and would recommend them to anyone who wants to run a website.
They were able to help me get a plug-in working that will allow me to easily update the look of our blog without a problem and fix some stuff on the backend that was giving me some problems.
So what do you guys think of the new look and my Mark Twain Quote?
I don’t know how I forgot to mention my favorite Bob Dylan song ever in my last post. The Hurricane is an 8 minute song about Rubin Carter I just love to listen to while driving around. It is also the only song I have ever heard a white singer use a racial slur in and not find it offensive.
Anyone who has rode in my car can tell you I have an “eclectic” taste of music. One minute I might be listening to Jimmy Buffet and then throw in a Jay-Z CD just to brush some dirt off my shoulder.
Recently I have been doing kind of a throw back to some old school music and have really started to get into Bob Dylan. One of my favorite songs of his is Subterranean Homesick Blues not only is it one of the first music videos ever it really has a rap song feel long before everyone was screaming GGGGUNIIIITTT or whatever the kids are doing these day. Some people even say the song talks about the FBI, Drug Dealing and Women.
It really has some interesting lyrics and one of my favorite is:
“You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Here is the video if you want to watch it:
Missy and I finally got a new lawn mower and a weed eater. Today it was pretty nice outside after work I gave it a spin and it seems to work pretty good.
Nick spent some time today planting some trees in his yard only to have one of the biggest storms of the spring blow up and bent over his new dogwood tree. He didn’t want it to break so we found some posts but we didn’t have any string but being the huge geeks we had an abundant amount of Cat5 Cabling. So of course we used it!
I’ve decided that it was time for me to get back into shape because I am really starting to put on some weight. While most people would do something sensible like start jogging, doing some crunches or lifting weights that just seemed too easy so like everything else in my life I took it one step further and decided to try out a mixed martial arts FULL CONTACT mixed martial arts class with my little brother on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
Not only did my little brother throw me around the mat like I used to do him about 4 years ago it was sparing night where you had to fight everyone in the class until one person gives up. So my first couple of matches I am doing good and actually get two smaller guys to tap out and I am pretty proud of myself. Then I get to go up against a black belt from my brother’s academy and I think I am doing pretty good until trying to put him in a leg lock and he reverses it and my knee makes the loudest pop I have ever heard and I scream out like a 3 year old who just lost his favorite blanket. So for the rest on the night I am hoping around like and idiot and then this morning my knee is about two times the normal size and I have a huge bruise on it.
You can see a picture of it here*
*I have very hairy legs and that my knee really hurts (stop laughing) .
The high-pitched sound emitted by this mp3, was designed by Merthyr Tydfil-based inventor Howard Stapleton. Inventor Howard Stapleton, creator of the Mosquito teen repellent, says only a few people over the age of 25 can hear the Mosquito's sound.
We have tested it in our office and the young guys in our office can hear it and it freaks them out. So I figured everyone could use this mp3 in their playlist.
My “little” 16 year old brother Darren had a Karate Tournament today in Jefferson City that Missy and I were able to attend. I don’t get to hangout with my little brother that much but he is a very accomplished martial artist. He got his black belt when he was 15 and has won a few amateur kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts matches over the last year. He also teaches younger kids a few days a week at American Martial Arts Academy.
I haven’t practiced any martial arts in the last 4 years and Missy never had but we got drafted into helping judge today and it was pretty cool. We even got an awesome sword out of the deal.
I was also able to get some great pictures:
Here is Darren slamming a guy during his MMA Fight.
Here is Darren nailing the crap out of his opponent.
Here is Darren rolling up a guy in a leg lock.
Here is Darren doing Kali Silat.
Here is Darren doing his Black Belt Kata.
Here is a picture from yesterday that was missed. Darren picks up this guy with one arm and drops him on his back. The sad thing is I remember when I used to do stuff like that to him now he is doing it to guys who out weigh him by 30 pounds.
Sometimes at work I have a few minutes to surf the internet and I stumbled across this awesome blog about a couple who was moving from Vegas to Key West to manage Sky Dive Key West.
If you know me you know over the last two years some of favorite things to do is talk about going to Key West and going to Key West to hang out. So I shot of an email to Abibell and she sent me back the most awesome skydiving video I have ever seen.
You can watch it here*, while I try to figure out how to go skydiving the next time I make it to Key West.
*Its Quicktime and its 10 Megs, so if you have a slow internet connection or are afraid of anything made by apple like Nick you might not be able to watch it.
Today is my beautiful wife’s birthday. Happy Birthday Missy!
"Every man is, or wants to be, an idler," wrote the great Samuel Johnson in 1758. From Johnson to Ferris Bueller and the great age of Slackers, the appeal of lounging, loafing, goofing off, and vegging out has been huge -- always there, snoozing right behind the work ethic.
This week the NPR show On Point! has an excellent episode exploring slacking and the American work ethic. (note that it's audio)
It might have been almost 100 degrees outside yesterday but Missy’s family came over for a little BBQ, board games, 3 hours of Civ4 by Thomas and some football. It was the first time we had a large amount of people over at our new house.
We really enjoyed it and have a few pictures here.
*This is a purely technical geeky post, so you might want to skip it*
Thanks to the MSDN Subscription at work I was able to get my hands on Windows Vista Beta 2 and Office 2007 Beta 2. As soon as I downloaded them I threw them on a fairly beefy laptop ( 1.5 GHZ and 512 megs of ram and a Radeon 9000 Graphics Card) and have been playing with them for most of the day since we were fairly slow at work.
I really like the new interfaces and have no real complaints as of yet. I have a few snips (that’s a new built-in Vista tool, aka as screenshots) here. If you have any questions or want to see it live let me know by shooting me an email.
Here is what America would be like if Al Gore was president!*
* This file is 10 Megs and will take a few minutes to download on most computers. You may want to right click the link and do a "save as..." in order to view it.
Last night I had the opportunity to go to a Trivia night hosted by the Jefferson City Chamber of Commerce and play on a team full of people from Linn State. We took second place in the game, only losing to a team full of Tax Lawyers by 3 points.
Here are a few easy questions from last night, see if you can get them without the help of Google:
1) Name the famous “Scott” who played the lead role in Quantum Leap.
2) What was the name of the whale in Pinocchio?
3) How many lines cross the filed on a regulation NFL field?
4) What famous rock group got its name from a run down Pizza Stop?
5) Within 2 years how long did the 100 year war last?
6) Name the only state with two federal reserve banks.
!UPDATE! Rick has sent me a picture of the trophy!
Ok, not really but Berkeley is offering podcasts of some of their most popular classes, from History to Computer Sciences.
I have been listening to the following classes and am really enjoying them:
Missy and I are watching her brother and sister today as a mother’s day gift for her Mom. It was pretty nice outside today so we decided to take them to the Runge Conservation Nature Center here in Jefferson City to look around and go on a little nature walk. We had a pretty good time except that if you have allergies tromping through the woods in the second week of May isn’t the smartest move you can make.
We have some pretty good pictures here.
We have had some birds in our backyard for the last couple nights and I was actually able to get some pictures of them tonight. I am not an Animalologist but I believe they are geese. Does anyone know?
Last night I made my first pilgrimage to the new Busch Stadium only to watch the Cardinals lose to the Rockies. It wasn’t an all bad experience though; we sat in the Coca-Cola Score Board Patio where you got all the Food and Beer you wanted. I also had an opportunity to heckle Brad Hawpe to such an extent that more than once he turned around to stare at us.
There is nothing more fun then waking up in your new house to a large bang. It is especially fun when you find out it was the bathroom mirror in the guest bathroom falling off the wall. It was just attached to the wall with construction adhesives, and I guess that didn’t work as well as planned.
Here are some pictures of the carnage.
Here is another great Jonathan Coulton song that has one small fact about every US president. It is pretty well done.
I guess today is El Gran Paro Americano and it looks like there are going to be a couple of protest at work today. I truly respect the hard work that Mexican-Americans do for this country but I think I enjoy Cinco de Mayo more.
During a break in all the rain we have been having this weekend Missy and I saw a double rainbow outside of our house. Luckily, I was able to take some pictures of it.
Here is another great Geek Song called Code Monkey that I got off of MLUG this morning.
So yesterday I put down 25 more pounds of grass seed and watered my lawn really well because the local weatherman said we were not going to get any rain until Monday afternoon.
So I get up this morning to find that not only did it rain last night but I now have a couple of lakes in my backyard and a pond in my front. I am going to give it a couple of days but I am going to guess that most of my seed has been washed away.
Last night Melissa and I along with Eric and Nick went out to Lowes and picked out a BBQ grill. Its is a Char-Broil propane grill (Hank Hill would be very happy.). As always I have a picture here.
Now Missy and I can start planning our open house.
This morning I got up early and spent a couple hours in my mud pit trying to get something that resembles a lawn to grow. I guess this is just ONE of the joys of homeownership you hear so much about.
I have a few pictures here.
If I don’t have something starting to grow in the next month or so I am going to call a guy in to Hydroseed my yard.
It has been almost two weeks but we have finally got our DSL back. So here are some of our happenings.
I am trying to grow grass in our yard…. but it isn’t going very well. It hasn’t rained in over a week so I have been watering the lawn everyday after work. I am really hoping we get some “April Showers” tonight.
We celebrated Easter with Missy’s parents. It was a really laid back Easter but I do have a few pictures here.
Other then that we are just settling into our new house and I am trying to recover from being ran over by a golf cart (Thanks Nick!)
Today in 1980 in a small town in northwest Indiana I was born. Today in the Capitol of Missouri I turn 26.
For probably the first time in 26 instances, I am really not that excited about it. Unfortunately, that doesn't make them go away. So here I am, on the “wrong” side of the twenties. I am now too old to be considered young and I am 8760 days away from being eligible to join AARP.
So tonight I am going to go home and eat a wonderful dinner with my beautiful wife and play Xbox read the Washington Post.
We got moved into our new house this weekend and Missy is heading back to work in the morning. I am staying at home to do a few things that need to be done but will be back at work Tuesday. I am worn out and after putting in four 18 hours days. Things are getting a little tense around our house (Thanks lady at home depot for selling Missy blinds that were ½” to big!).
I wasn’t able to get all our moving pictures online since my modem is so slow but here are a few.
PS. I am still DSL-Less but I am using my Cingular 8125 phones wireless modem to get online.
Missy and I are in the process of moving as I type this. We have the trailer loaded about half way up and Missy is packing up the bathroom. Nick and Eric also stopped by and helped.
Here are some other pictures from the event.
P.S. I will be DSL-Less for the next 6-10 days so all updates will have to be done while I am working or from stolen wireless from Nick’s.
As if this week isn’t going to be stressful enough we just had a huge hail storm with some minor damage to our cars. Some the hail was bigger then a quarter.
Update: We have way more then minor damages on our cars. So I guess I am going to be calling our insurance company.
It was a nice day and we were fairly slow at work so Billy, Julie and I went to the top of the capitol. Here are some of the pictures I took.
We are getting ready to move and figured I would put out a call for a couple of things we are looking for.
A Kitchen Table and Chairs
Entertainment Center
Couch
If you live in Mid-Missouri and have this stuff and would like to part with it for free or nearly free please send me an email at jerry.gamblin@gmail.com.
Sorry for the lack of updates but not much has been going on and I have been on “spring break” this week.
Here is our new news:
• Nick wants my Novell Penguins.
• Nick, Eric and I went and played indoor golf last night at TK Brothers. (Have you seen Eric’s lost pager?)
• Missy and Kristen went and looked for Kristen’s wedding dress.
• Everything is going fine on the new house and we should move in by Early April.
Here is everything you ever wanted to know about Saint Patrick’s day.
Its not everyday Miss America stops by to see you, but that happened at work today. You can see a picture of Miss America and I right here (I am the one on the left.)
Thursday we finished up all the paper work this past week and had a meeting with Jane at the bank.
On Saturday we took Missy’s mom and brother up to look at the house and made a short list of things that needed to be fixed.
Now we are trying to get our apartment organized and a list of appliances and stuff we will need for our new house.
The seller has agreed to the offer on the house and we have signed the contract. So our closing date is now April 7th as long as our financing goes through (Jane at the bank said it would, but this is the last hurdle). Missy is really excited and so am I.
This is a big step and we have a lot of stuff we need to get done in the next 30 days.
Here are the pictures again.
Well hopefully! Today Missy and I took a big step and put a contract down in on a house in Holts Summit. We are waiting to hear back if the builder will accept our offer.
Missy took some pictures of the house and they are here.
Tonight Missy, Eric, Nick and I along with Nick’s little brother Matt played a high stakes game of poker with a $2 buyin. After 2 and a half long hours of poker battling these are the final results.
5th Place: Matt
4th Place: Nick
3rd Place: Missy
2nd Place: Jerry
Grand Poker Champion and Winner of $11: Eric (Pictured Here With All His Winnings)
Yeah, I didn’t know all the details about it either until I read this article at Wikipedia.
Missy and I had a pretty fun weekend.
On Friday Night and Saturday we watched her brothers last two basketball games of the year. Then on Saturday afternoon we took her brother and sister out to lunch and then to the arcade to play some video games.
On Sunday we did laundry and I washed my car. We sure do have some wild weekends!
Our site is now a year old yesterday. I know this because our DNS registration ran out last night and no one could get to the website. I got that fixed this morning with the help of the great people from AQHost and Name Alerts. Hopefully next year we will be on top of things.
Also at work today, Miss Missouri Outdoor came and was handing out a free pancake breakfast to all the house employees and I was able to get a picture with them.
I finally dropped my old cellphone one too many times and it came to the end of its life. So yesterday Missy and I took a trip to Mid-America Wireless and switched from ATT Wireless to Cingular.
Missy ended up getting a Motorola Razr which she really seems to like.
I ended up getting a Cingular 8125 Smart Phone running Windows Mobile 5.0 which is pretty cool and with the upgrade price it was really affordable.
I usually don’t get sick but on this Saint Valentines day I have came down with the worst flu I have had in a long time. After a trip to the doctors they have me a cocktail of Panmist DM, Augmentin and NyQuil.
So on our first Valentines day together I’ve been sleeping all day, hopefully I can make up for it later in the week.
Last night Missy and I went bowling with her brother Matt and his girlfriend Judy.
Well I found out three things:
1) Bowling Alleys are busy on Saturday Nights.
2) I suck at bowling.
3) Judy is an awesome bowler.
It was pretty darn fun, and even though I lost : )
I'll have to get a rematch against Matt and Judy at some point and maybe Judy can continue to teach Missy how to bowl.
Today is our 6th month anniversary.
I was fairly busy at work today but I was able to take Missy some flowers this afternoon during my lunch break. Half of our first year married is over and it hasn’t felt like it has been 3 weeks. : )
Nick and I helped Eric with some farming this afternoon. Mostly Nick and I took turns driving the tractor and four wheeler around while Eric fed his cows. It was pretty fun and I took some pictures.
Happy Friday Everyone. Anyone have any huge plans?
The end of January is almost here and Missy and I have had a slow month and have not done much.
So to keep you entertained, here is an MP3 of things I like.
I hope February is a little more interesting.
Here is an MP3 on why you should never trust a monkey!
Last night Missy and I went and watched Glory Road. It was a lot better then a lot of other sports movies I have seen in the last few years.
Nick and I went to the MU vs. CU basketball game today and got to watch the game from 6 rows off the court. It was a really good game with CU pulling out the win with 3 seconds on the clock. If you catch sportscenter tonight you might see me.
Missy spent the day with her best friend Kristen at the Jefferson City Bridal Spectacular and since it was 70 degrees outside Nick, Eric, Kenny and I got in some golf at Tanglewood in Fulton.
Tonight after work Missy and I went to her brothers Thomas’s basketball game. Thomas played pretty decent and had a few points, rebounds and fouls. The final score was 25-62.
I have a few pictures from the game here.
Thomas has another game next Wednesday that we will most likely go to.
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Wow, this has been a big year for me. When I look back in twenty years I think this will be the year I went from a “Kid” to an “Adult”.
I got married! It has been one of the most amazing things to ever happen to me. It has really changed my outlook on life and I am really looking forward to spending the rest of my life with my beautiful wife.
I also accepted a job at the Missouri House of Representatives doing network security. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done at the time but it has turned out to be a great move. I am really learning a lot and I believe I have a lot of room for growth there.
I hope everyone else has had as good of a year as I have had!
Today was Missy and mines first Christmas together as a married couple. It started this morning at 6:00AM when we woke up to exchange gifts. I got Missy a gift certificate, some perfume and a nice necklace. She got me a nice Citizen Eco Drive watch that I have been wanting and some other really nice things.
From there we have been running and just got home about an hour ago. Missy is taking a quick nap on the couch and I am watching Green Bay fall apart versus the Chicago.
As always we have some pictures here.
I hope everyone had an as enjoyable Christmas as we did!
Here are a few Christmas Eve pictures I had time to upload before running to mass.
Hot:
Christmas is 5 days away
I only have to work 4 days out of the next 13
I have 95% of my Christmas shopping done.
Not:
I have a cold and a runny nose.
Hot or Not:
Do you think Nick is Hot or Not?
Last night Eric and Nick came over to my house and we exchanged gifts.
Here is the break down of the gifts everyone got:
Eric:
Golf Ball Retriever
45 Golf Balls
Teed Up Auto Ball Tee’r
Nick:
Margarita Mix
Tequila
Golf Putters Pool
Jerry:
Civilization’s IV
Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 6000
After we opened gifts we went to the local Mexican restaurant and then went and watched the Linn Wildcats man handle the New Bloomfield MildCats. I normally don’t go to high school basketball games but watching the school Nick works at get beat the team Nick played on was well worth the trip.
Missy and I went to see her brother and sisters Christmas program tonight. It was pretty funny if you like rapping angels and cheerleaders in heaven. I have some pictures of the event here.
We also bought $15 of raffle tickets and won two rows of reserved pews at the Christmas Eve service at Holy Family Catholic Church. Missy says we should go and that having reserved seats is a good thing because the church is always packed. I think we should put the reserved seats on eBay and see if we get any bidders.
I normally don’t post stuff I get in email on this site but I figured it was worth it. If you have ever been to a Cardinals’ Game in Busch Stadium this will be a sad video.
Busch Stadium Destruction Time Lapse
Remember to right-click and select “Save As …” to download to your hard drive it doesn’t seem to like to be embedded into a webpage.
Missy, Nick, Eric and I went to the Linn Christmas Parade today. I took some pictures from the Parade.
Since I had my camera at work today I took a few pictures of my office.
Here are the snow picturesI promised you, as an add bonus they are taken at my job.
Yippee! I might get a snow...oh crap I dint work at a college anymore so I'll have to get up and go to work even if it does snow tonight.
Anyway here is a Radar Map, Pictures tomorrow of the snow.
Not knowing a lot about cars can really lead to some cool findings. Today after Missy and I got done Christmas shopping my car wouldn’t start and come to find out my Battery Post “fell off”. It looked more like it corroded off. I had to buy a new battery and a guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot helped me install it.
Anyone else ever have a battery post fall off?
Q: How do you win at a casino?
A: Pick 4 Roulette numbers in a roll correctly.
Q: Do you get anything for picking 4 Roulette number correctly in a roll?
A: NO, but you can make a nice little pyramid of chips in front of you and make your friends jealous.
Nick, Eric and I went to the Casino last night and I was losing my hat at the craps table so we switched over to the Roulette table and my luck changed around quickly with me picking 6 Roulette numbers correctly and an Amazing 4 in a row. The bad news is that I was only betting a dollar per number.
Nick and Eric on the other hand didn’t have any luck so we went and ate at Hot-Shots in St.Louis. The food was a little over-peppered but the darts were pretty fun.
Shopping Days Till Christmas: 23
Number of Christmas Presents Bought: 0
Number of Christmas Presents Needed: 35
Christmas Presents Per Day I Need To Purchase: 1.5217
So I have done the math and I got the list now I just need to go shopping. I don’t know when I’ll go shopping but chances are on the 20th I’ll be making this post:
Shopping Days Till Christmas: 4
Number of Christmas Presents Bought: 0
Number of Christmas Presents Needed: 35
Christmas Presents Per Day I Need To Purchase: 8.75
Just for some educational content here is a link to everything you need to know about December.
Nibblin' on sponge cake
Watchin' the sun bake.
Actually it snowed last night for the first time and it is was about 30 degrees on the way to work today. I’d love to be somewhere warm right now, anyone have a network security job on a warm tropical island?
Here is a picture of our first Christmas tree in all of its glory!
Note: The Homer Simpson Doll, SpongeBob and Patrick ornaments are mine. The other girly stuff is Melissa's.
Everyone has probably seen that Verizon commercial with the guy singing the theme song from Dukes of Hazard. If you are anything like me that song gets stuck in your head and you walk around humming it for the next 6 hours. So I went out on the internet and found an MP3 of the theme song at thedukesofhazards.nl.
Here are the words in case you want to sing along:
Just the good ol' boys,
Never meanin' no harm,
Beats all you've ever saw,
Been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.
Straight'nin' the curve,
Flat'nin' the hills.
Someday the moutain might get 'em, but the law never will.
Makin' their way,
The only way they know how,
That's just a little bit more than the law will allow.
Just the good ol' boys,
Wouldn't change if they could,
Fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood...
Hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving. I had a pretty good day, except I lost quite a few turkeys at the poker table tonight!
Thanksgiving pictures can be found here.
I guess the Christmas season started this afternoon. Missy and I came home and my favorite christmas movie of all time was already on tv. Are you ready?
Last night Nick, Eric and I went and played virtual golf at a new place called TK Brothers in Columbia. It had the Full Swing Golf simulator and some kick-butt ribs. I think we found a new cool place to hang out and play some golf during the winter.
We also stopped by Best Buy to scope out a Refrigerator and Washer/Dryer for Nick’s new house and I wanted to look at some LCD TVs.
Other then that I learned that Penguins have feathers. (Thanks Eric!)
Yeah, I know it’s early but I had some time tonight while Missy was out proctoring a test at Linn State so I wrote out my Christmas wish list tonight incase Santa reads my website.
ZYXEL AG-225H 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi USB Adapter & Finder
The Trivial Simpsons 2006 365-Day Box Calendar
The Simpsons One Step Beyond Forever
Ties Suck Tie
Norelco 7735X Cool Skin Additive In/Out of Shower Shaver
Watch
Other Stuff:
Shower Mirror/Radio/CD Player Thingy
More Ties (For Work)
I think this is my first "grown up" Christmas list (except for the Simpson's stuff). I am having a hard time thinking of what I really want this year for Christmas, It would be nice to have an Xbox 360 but it doesn’t seem like it is worth $400.
Now I need Missy to make a list like this so I know what to get her : )
The red cross was at the capitol today having a blood drive and since I haven’t gave in a while I figured today would be a good day to do so. They had the blood drive setup in the capitol rotunda, which has to be the most beautiful place I have ever given blood (Beats the heck out of old gyms and community centers).
I try to give blood every time I have an opportunity, unlike Nick who is scared of needles.
Missy went out to her uncle’s cabin this afternoon while Nick, Eric and I were goofing off in Jefferson City. Most people were still out in the woods so she didn’t get to see if anyone got a deer but she did take a couple of pictures.
The high yesterday was 84 degrees and the low tonight will be around 34. I guess summer has decided to jump to winter around here. It is just in time as Deer season starts on Saturday and for the first time ever Missouri MDC will be using an online Deer Check In system. I am glad I don’t work for their tech department this weekend, but it will be interesting to see how this goes over.
Hope you guys are having a great halloween with all the rain! I miss trick or treating!
I had not been to St.Louis in a while to see my family and since Melissa was proctoring the ACT this morning I got up and drove in. I took my two older cousins to Chuck E. Cheese's and had some lunch and goofed around.
Hope everyone else is having a great weekend.
Missy and I went to six flags today for their Fright Fest. It was pretty cool but not very frightful.
Kenny is home for the weekend from college so we spent this beautiful Friday afternoon out playing golf. I'll be the first to admit that we aren’t very good at golf but we sure do have fun playing anyways.
I have some pictures of us on the golf course here.
HINT: If you put a golf cart into neutral going down a hill the speed regulator doesn’t work and you can really get going fast.
HINT 2: Don’t try to put a golf cart you just took down a steep hill in neutral back into drive until you have came to a complete stop and you are sure the transmission is no longer spinning.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! (Better Known as Columbus day or as I like to call it “sit around and watch TV all day” - day.)
Missy is working today so I am trying to clean up some stuff and just catching up on some of my PVR.
What’s everyone else up to today?
Today is our two month anniversary! This has been the best two months of my life : )
Nick, Eric and I are planning on going to the casino this weekend for a little fun and we were talking about what games we were going to play. I told him he should learn how to play poker so we could play in the casinos.
Then Nick dropped one of his famous Nick-ismis:
I can play poker, I don't know if I am any good at it, but I can play.
Nick, the casino called and wanted to remind you to bring your credit card saturday : )
Do you ever find yourself wanting to know more about a subject but don't have the time to search around the Internet to pinpoint good information on what you are looking for?
Since I have started to watch “Globalize Yourself” month on the history channel it has got my mind into overload trying to keep up with all the stuff they are talking about so I have begun to use a free online encyclopedia called wikipedia. It is free and updated everyday with the latest news and new articles so it beats the heck of the 20 year old ones I used growing up.
So the next time you want to know more about anything from Golf to Columbus day you should bookmark this site.
Here are some quick October facts for you...
October is the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 day.
The name is from the Greek Word “octo" for “eight". October was the eighth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period was divided between January and February.
More information about October is on line here.
Google is giving everyone a chance to watch Chris Rock’s new show on UPN via the internet for free before it gets canceled:
It is a pretty funny show, but you will need fast internet to watch it.
31 Shows. 31 Days. 31 Countries. Begins October 1.
My DVR will be getting the work out of its life during October, Missy on the other hand will be getting the bore of her life :). If history documentary watcher guy is a full time job and paid better then security specialist I think I may be looking at a career change.
What is on You DVR?
We had some Ribs that we needed to cook and we don't have much room to BBQ so I found a good recipe on the Internet for Oven Baked Ribs.
The recipe is quite simple:
Mix 2 bottles of barbecue sauce with 1 cup orange juice.
Pour mixture into a 9x13 pan.
Place ribs in pan and flip using tongs so ribs are coated.
Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake in a 300°F oven.
Total cooking time can be as short as 2 hours or as long as 4 hours.
Flip ribs over halfway through cooking.
Thomas (Missy's little brother) threw a pumpkin in their backyard earlier this spring and it has sprung into a mini-pumpkin patch. I told him I would take some pictures and put them on our website.
Here is a link to the picture gallery.
On another note I asked him if he was going to stay all hallowen night in his pumpkin patch and wait for the Great Pumpkin and he looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently kids are not watching nearly enough cartoons these days. I think I remember actually watching this cartoon in school.
I have updated the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) on our webpage and made some more layout changes. If you would like us to link to you leave me a message or send me an email.
Kenny came home from school in Illinois to pick up his car that had been in an accident and in the body shop. So we thought it would be a great Saturday to get out and play some golf.
Eric, Nick, Kenny and I headed out to Tanglewood Golf Course for a two on two scramble tournament with the losers buying the winners ice cream. I am proud to report that Kenny and I whipped Eric and Nick by 7 strokes before they forfeited on the 17th hole.
Missy headed out to Wal-Mart and the grocery store for some more shopping and bough $150 worth of “stuff’ for the next couple of weeks. So today I am going to cook some Chili and we are going to watch some of our favorite Sunday Shows (King of the Hill, Thee Simpsons and the new show The War at Home).
but Christmas is 99 days away.
I think I want an Xbox360 for Christmas... whats on your wish list?
I am having to start to wear ties to work now and have a few quick questions that if someone knows the answer to they should let me know:
1) How do you wash a tie?
2) How often is acceptable to wear the same tie (once a week or once a month)?
3) Best place to buy ties?
4) How much should you spend per tie?
Here are some more pictures from the trip:
I have returned home after being in the south since Thursday! We got all of the Red Crosses V-Sats setup and ran out of stuff to do. It was a really interesting experience. I don’t have many pictures due to Red Cross regulations but I do have this one picture:
How to hang an $800 access point the Red Cross way.
I may be returning back in the next week or so if they come up with more networking stuff they need done.
I now know where I am going and what I am going to be doing. Tomorrow
morning I will be heading to Montgomery, Alabama and will be traveling
through the south setting up mobile command units using VSATS, Cisco
Pix/Routers and Windows XP.
I will be playing the "Connection" game with my flights tomorrow.
Here is the list:
LV COLUMBIA JEFF 600A
AR ST LOUIS INTL 644A
LV ST LOUIS INTL 725A
AR MEMPHIS 838A
LV MEMPHIS 930A
AR MONTGOMERY 1050A
There is also a little hang up with the Red Cross funding structure.
The Red Cross normally gives each volunteer a MasterCard with $900 for
equipment, travel supplies and living expenses. Melissa at Red Cross
said they will try their hardest to have cards available in Montgomery
but they couldn't promise anything. Who thought they would ever run
out of credit cards?
That's all my update for now. I should have email contact all 21 days
I am gone, email me and I'll try to WOW you with stories from the
front.
Today Missy starts working full time at Classic Travel Tours and Tanning. So if your looking for some Classic Travel Tours or Tanning you should stop by and see what she is up to.
Missy made me two loafs of Banana Bread today…. I didn’t even ask, I just mentioned that I really like it when she bought some bananas last week. When I came home today she had it baked and had cleaned up the kitchen.
I think I could get used to this marriage thing : ) Missy has been amazing and I am the luckiest guy on the world.
Now I just need to figure out something super nice to do for her. Maybe I’ll take out the trash!
Since I don’t have a photo scanner if you want to see them you are going to have to wait!
I'll try to get some scanned in by the end of the week. Now that we have DSL @ Home I should be able to update our blog more often.
I really meant to put a ton more stuff on our website but we got really busy lately and I didn’t get around to it.
I hope to have some pictures shortly.
One month from now we will be at our rehearsal dinner! : )
Its getting really close!
This past weekend Kenny, Nick and I went to Key West and did some diving.
Here are some pictures.
Sorry about the lack of updates but I have been super busy over the last couple of weeks with my new job. Missy and I both had our bachelor and bachelorette party this past weekend and are heading into less then 30 days until the big day.
Missy and I have finally got all of the invitations in the mail, so that is one of the last big things we had to get done this month.
Now we are waiting to get back all the response cards
Happy 21st Birthday Missy!
Tomorrow is Missy’s 21st Birthday. If you have time give her a call and wish her a happy birthday. We don’t know what we are going to do yet since it falls right in the middle of the week, but if you have any ideas let me know!
It has been over a week since I have posted anything. This week has been super busy though.
On Tuesday Melissa had a bridal shower out at the college and we received a bunch of nice presents and some gift cards to Target.
On Thursday the IT department through me a going away party where they gave me a bunch of nice golf stuff.
On Friday in the afternoon we took sometime off and went and played a round of golf at Oak Hills in Jefferson City. I didn’t play bad, ended up only shooting 10 over.
Missy and her mother went and FINALLY got the wedding invitations ordered. They should be here by the end of next week so we can send them out. They also got the caterer and photographer straightened out.
Thats all for now.
Missy and I have made one of our first big decisions. I have accepted a job at the Missouri House of Representatives doing computer security starting May 23rd.
I have worked at Linn State Technical College since November of 1999 so this was a hard choice for me to make. This place has been more like a home then a job but this move is going to open many doors and opportunities that are not available at Linn State Technical College.
I had to post the ad on the college’s website this morning for my own job and found that very strange and odd.
Wish me luck!
Here are some pictures from Missy's Graduation
Hope you enjoy!
Well it’s the first day of May and the weather is slowly warming up. That can only mean golf, more golf, some more golf, and planning the wedding. I want to teach Missy how to play golf and we put a ladies golf set on our Golf registry.
Missy’s graduation is this Friday night and that will be the biggest obstacle out of the way that’s holding us up from finishing up the wedding plans.
I am really proud of her and will have graduation updates through out the week!
We finally went and registered at Target last night.
Here is a link to our Wedding Registry.
Here are some pictures from yesterdays award ceremony.
I just got back from Missy’s award ceremony and I am so proud of her. She won over 10 awards. I hope I will have pictures and a list of the awards she won up soon.
Here is their wedding website
I always thought I was just a huge dork, but atleast I am not now the only one with a wedding site :)
Hope everyone had a good week. Missy and I did. Missy picked up her Dress yesterday from David’s Bridal in St.Peters. So that’s one of the big things that we can take off of our list.
I didn’t get any wedding related stuff done this week. I have been working on helping the local free health clinic set up their website and email server. I have also been playing a lot of Xbox this weekend (NFL Street 2 happens to be very addictive).
We have a few things coming up this week that will be pretty neat:
Missy has an awards ceremony for school on Wednesday. She has been told by one of her teachers that she will be getting a ton of awards.
Missy and I have our second meeting with Father Bill this upcoming Saturday. I hope this one goes as smoothly as the last one.
Missy graduates next weekend which she is looking forward to. ( She hasn’t found a job yet and she is working on it. So if anyone wants to hire an entry level programmer in Mid-Missouri let me know. I have the perfect person for you ! )
Well that’s my weekly update until something funny happens.
It’s been a pretty long weekend and I am ready to start this upcoming week. The wedding seems to be starting to come together nicely with 110 days left. I am really looking forward to getting married and really wish it was already here.
We had the first meeting with the priest at Holly Family this weekend (1 down; 3 to go). He only handed down one decree from on high. I really don’t know if I am going to like these meetings but I am going to try to get as much out of them as possible.
Missy is going to get her wedding dress on Saturday. She is pretty excited about it and I think they are going to go and look at invitations. Anyone know any good stationary stores in St.Louis?
I am just going to have a pretty normal week at work and hopefully get in a round of golf on Saturday.
I hope we atleast plan our honeymoon better then this.
I no longer WANT ice cream for breakfast. Even though I am allowed to eat whatever I want.
I annoyed by all those "punks" that hang out at the mall on Friday nights.
Three things - loss of memory...the other two I forget.
I catch my self saying things like "When I was in High School..."
I’ve changed my dream of being a Pro-Golfer to owning a house in the next 5 years.
I have two towels that match.
I have 6 kinds of insurance.
I am glad we have finally gotten done with SkillsUSA. Missy and I both worked an extra 20 hours over the last 4 days.
Now this week has some big things going on:
Tuesday is my birthday (don’t forget to send cards and lots of money! : ) ).
Saturday is the biggie. Missy and I are having the first meeting with Father Bill at the church in order to see if we are “Compatible". Wish me Luck!
Missy’s Wedding Dress has also finally came in. She now needs to go up and get the dress fitted.
We also have to get the Caterer for the Reception and Wedding Invitations ordered sometime soon.
Until the big day. We have allot of stuff that needs to still be done and with Missy's Graduation in only one month we are going to be going pretty nonstop.
You can’t handle updates!
Actually Missy and I are extremely busy this week and will have more updates for you next week.
On a Simpson’s related note this is my new favorite quote:
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals ... except the weasel.
The purpose of this blog is to give our family and friends a more intimate window into our wedding planning, well I found a comic today that sums up how the wedding planning is really working.
Happy Easter Everyone! Hope everyone has a good holiday.
Congrats to Mike and Heather got engaged this morning. Mike is Missy's older brother who works in St.Louis.
I am a goal-orientated problem solver. Identify the problem, develop several courses of action and choose a course of action. Problem solved. This has always worked well for me.
A recent problem Missy and I faced was one of many trivial ones.
Problem identified:
Her Mom had bought a couple hundred bottles of miniature bubbles to give out for people to blow instead of throwing rice (which by the way doesn’t make birds explode) at the wedding. The bows on the bottles were the wrong color and wouldn’t match the color of the wedding.
Plan Number 1:
Cut off all the wrong color bows and spend an ungodly amount of time putting the right color bows on to the bottles.
Plan Number 2:
Buy all new bubbles with the right color bows.
Plan Number 3:
No Bubbles.
For four days until Good Friday (um I mean “Free Day”).
I didn’t get much of anything done this week.
I worked a couple of days on some projects at work that needed to be at least started.
Missy and I went to Columbi
