The Following is Based on a True Story

I came across this today and immediately placed my order. I'll let you know what happens.

I'm also considering getting this for my mom for her birthday.

As you know from past posts, Diana broke her arm the other week. The costs are a bit high, which is unfortunate since I opted for the high deductible insurance, but they won't be overwhelming (read: economic stimulus money to the rescue!). Still, our insurance company is fighting for us. Here's what they've done (in a standard form-letter way to show that they care equally about all their customers):

1. They sent us a list of the expenses that have come up so far (there's still more to come, of course!). But made it very clear that it was NOT a bill.
2. They requested information on how the injury occurred.
3. When they found out that it took place at Diana's Tae Kwon Do class, they quickly asked for her instructor's liability insurance information.

Yes, that's right. They apparently plan to sue on our behalf so that we don't have to pay a cent! (and neither do they!)

It's this kind of go-get-'em spirit that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

With stamp prices going up today, I have to comment on some awesome polls.

Surprisingly accurate, at least up to the semi-finals. I believe this is in it's fourth year or something like that.

This one is pretty great. It's so hard to pick from among them.

In other news, I saw Speed Racer this weekend. I don't remember ever seeing the TV show (I assume it was like MASK, but less awesome). Despite that setback, I was surprised that I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think a lot of that had to do with low expectations, but it could also have to do with it being well done. Actually, now that I think about it, I bet I liked it better because I was unfamiliar with the TV show. When they do the close-up on Pops's ring, it is awesome (though not anymore for you, since I mentioned it). I also thought they did a good job with the whole Racer X thing. Apparently it was a departure from the cartoon (according to what I read later, anyway). I will say this though, if you don't enjoy suspending all disbelief (and I do mean all), then this movie is not for you. Actually, now that I think about it some more, I think I liked it so much because it had a central theme about family (in a good way). For some reason, I always like movies better if they have such themes (think: Spy Kids - or even Spanglish).

Lately I've been trying to come up with something to say on here and then throwing it all out because it's not very interesting. I hope to have some exciting things to talk about over the next couple months.

In the meantime, I'm just waiting to get slammed with all these broken arm-related bills. Should be a fun time.

I did head out to Chicago. It was cool seeing Matt, Kim Burly, and Mister T. I learned about internet grocery shopping and saw the worst flea market ever. I also stayed in an overly fancy hotel. Good times.

So if anyone's going to be in Champaign-Urbana on May 31, I'll be looking for some Papa Del's for lunch. I haven't done a lot of planning for this trip. I haven't even spent time looking for a place to stay or someone to pick me up/drop me off at the airport. I feel like my cousin, who once came out to visit and called me when he got close to ask me what my address and cross-streets were so he could bug someone at a gas station about how to find me. It worked out surprisingly well.

And that's about it for now.

Diana had arm surgery on Thursday and has barely left the couch since then. I expect her to be up and about soon though. The weather's nice, so she even has exercise options other than pacing around the living room.

I haven't gotten a bill for all of this yet, but I'm sure we'll be extra glad we decided not to go on a cruise this summer...

I anticipate her being fully healed by the end of May.

Other than that, I'll get the chance to hang out with Matt B. & Co. in Chicago next Saturday. I haven't even met the kid yet.

And that's about it for now.

Diana broke her arm last week. She's going in to get a cast this afternoon. To me, there are a couple interesting parts of this story. First, she was extremely calm during the whole ordeal. When the doctor asked, she sat there very calmly and stated that it was the most pain she had ever been in (she later said it was "one of" the most painful things). Later, I knew she was feeling much better when she started exclaiming "ow!" a lot. The second interesting thing is that from time to time, I think of something that she normally does, that I should do for her - because she's only got one arm available. By the time I get around to doing it, I find out that she's already done it. That fiend!

We've watched most of the first season of Bones. I was a bit skeptical of the show, but at this point, I find myself liking it. The "technology" that they have it clearly fake, but I can philosophically see how it would be difficult to convey a lot of the non-visual aspects of the work without it. Although completely unbelievable, I think the best part of the show is when characters get all excited about something. We'll see how the show changes after the first season and see whether I still like it or not.

Other than that, not much going on.

Well, I've been in my new desk for a bit now and I thought I'd share a few things. This new desk is in a more central location and in a more traditional cubicle configuration (i.e. short walls). Here are a few of the unexpected things that have happened:

• I was able to configure my cubicle. It has desk-ish surfaces that attach to the walls and I thought I'd be stuck with them in a certain configuration. Instead, I was able to have the surfaces rearranged. I had them remove half the surface area and reorient what was left. I was pleasantly surprised to be accommodated in that way.


• I'm pretty close to the kitchen area and I now get to smell lots of different foods throughout the day. Obviously there is more around lunchtime. I think this was surprising because I didn't realize how many people brought in food that you heat up (as opposed to a sandwich).


• I found that even though this new desk is a downgrade in every way, I was still somewhat excited to move. I think that's the part of me that loves variety and doing new things coming out.

For those of you that love animals

I finished reading the Golden Compass trilogy (technically "His Dark Materials"). I was excited to read an atheist allegory only to discover that it wasn't as allegorical as I had hoped. Entertainment-wise, the series was good in parts and not good in other parts. I didn't like they way they ended it, and really, I thought the premise that is eventually revealed was kind of dumb. The best thing about the series was the way that he revealed everything so that you were intrigued to find out more as you continued to read. I will now spoil all of that, so if you think you'll ever read it, please skip the next paragraph.

--spoilers--
The author creates a universe with spiritual beings, one of whom is "God". In this universe, the church does universally bad things and the spiritual beings that the church represents want to enslave people (I'll refer to these collectively as "the church"). In this universe, the following things are true: (1) A child stops being a child when they first experience (romantic?) love, (2) The church thinks love is evil and wants to destroy it, (3) Spiritual beings, angels if you will, are very weak compared to people with physical bodies, (4) In an unexplained way, one of these angels was able to take control of people as 'God', (5) There is no heaven, and the best possible thing to happen after death is oblivion, and (6) People have different parts - like a body and a soul and a spirit. Obviously that's not all the details, but I think if you were to apply the general concepts of the books to the real world, you would take away the message that religion is a baseless attempt to control people and take away their ability to love and function as a whole person. Anyway, that's probably a poor description (I'm not bothering to proofread or revise), but perhaps it gives you an idea. Anyone else read them and have anything to add?
--end spoilers--

In other news, it's looking like some excitement is coming up. I will be in Chicago in a couple weeks (if anyone's around, I should have some free time on Saturday the 26th). Then in May, it looks like Wild Chris will be coming out to visit (right on!). I'm also working with Kyle to try and get a Bill Mallonee house show for Kyle's birthday. If possible, I'll head out to Illinois for that (we'll see how the dates turn out). Then in June I'll be in Baltimore for work and get to hang out with my brother a bit. Should be some good times in my future.

I finally got around to doing my taxes (thanks, Sue!). It looks like the total of the returns will be about $250. Not quite enough to cover Diana working on her dissertation instead of making money this summer, but maybe the exciting economic stimulus package will cover it instead! I was referred to this website:
http://www.irs.gov/app/espc/
and told that extra money should show up in my bank account sometime in May.

On a different note: Wal-Mart. People hate Wal-Mart. The reasons tend to be along these lines: Wal-Mart kills local businesses, they don't pay their employees enough, and they're mean to the people that make the products they sell. I actually don't feel that way. I truly feel like Wal-Mart is possibly the only place left that actually cares about me. Their policies are amazing: no-questions-asked returns with or without a receipt, sell things as low as possible, force employees to be helpful, make sure that everything the store sells is acceptable to everyone, you name it. Here's an example situation where, as always, Wal-Mart is fighting on my behalf to enable me to buy things at a low price. Wal-Mart may have some moral failings, but working hard to screw over their customers is not one of them.

Are you paranoid about how competent you really are? Every once in a while, I get that way. Like maybe I think I'm doing great, but really I suck - and people aren't saying anything because they're polite. Sadly, the research indicates that maybe I should be paranoid.

Here's an interesting article. To me, the interesting thing isn't the specific politics that are described, but the process by which the writer realized that what he thought were his opinions were really just biases and needed to be reexamined in a more open way. (I think it also relates to the paragraph just before this one.) In reality, we've all got lots of biases that we haven't evaluated appropriately: religious biases, political biases, biases against certain types of work, etc. And yet, even after saying this, I still have trouble identifying what my biases are. Perhaps I'm less competent at knowing my own opinions than I think I am.

And, finally, today is the start of the moving process. I think I'd be happy and excited about it except that I'm getting such a big downgrade. Alas.

I wish you all a happy easter and a happy first day of spring, both of which have already passed.

Yesterday, we spent Easter at a friend's house. We had a nice meal and then played Alhambra (thanks, RamoNat!). Alhambra is one of those games that has pretty simple rules, but still requires some strategy and some luck. Kind of along the lines of Ticket to Ride.

So one thing that came up during dinner was Easter traditions. In my family, Easter wasn't as emphasized as Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I do remember getting Easter baskets. But what I really thought about when they asked this question, was the huge variety of ways I've spent the past several Easters. I believe I've spent the last 5 Easters in 5 different states, for one thing (Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, Arkansas). Perhaps the most memorable was when I visited Wild Chris. I got to participate in his family's traditions (which was a lot of fun) and also experience the mysterious world of upstate New York. So after five completely different Easter experiences, perhaps my tradition has inadvertently become a tradition of doing something different and in a different place every year. Maybe next year I'll crash my sister's place in Oklahoma or invite myself out to visit friends in North Carolina or take an Easter cruise to Alaska or something.

And with that thought, I leave you.

I was very excited to find this website. I tried out 4 addresses that I was familiar with and felt like they did a good job of classifying them. It did have some bugs, like identifying the Outback regional office as a restaurant, but overall I definitely give it a big thumbs up. Also, my old Illinois address got a 98/100 rating, so perhaps that's why I loved the location so much.

I also read an interesting article about the "security mindset". I don't quite have the security mindset myself (though I'm always trying to figure out ways to investigate things that they may not want me to), but I do have a "human factors mindset"*. I'd describe that as seeing how someone is going to screw up using something. The difference is that I look for how people will try to use it correctly and fail, where a security mindset looks for how someone will try to misuse something. Pretty interesting to think about.

Easter is right around the corner, and it is a traditional time to reflect on Christianity and for Christians to reflect on their own spiritual lives. At the moment, I don't have anything up my sleeve to really reflect on. Anyone have any suggestions?


*I'm not making any claims about the quality of my human factors mindset, just saying that I think about things in that regard.

I am sad to report that they are rearranging seats at work in the next week or two. For me, this is a bad thing because I like my current space a lot and I understand that my happiness with where I sit does not factor into how they are assigning the new spots. I eagerly(?) await word of where exactly I will end up.

In other (brighter) news, my brother's recital was very excellent and we had a great time visiting everyone. We played the bean game (thanks, RamoNat) and Diana won, so I think she likes the game much more now. All the other highlights pretty much involve just hanging out and/or eating.

I read the book "The Golden Compass" after hearing all the hype (I haven't seen the movie). The book was boring in parts and interesting in other parts. I didn't like how it ended, so I'm not overly motivated to read the rest of the trilogy, but I assume I'll get around to it eventually. I kept trying to figure out where the atheist message was in the story, but so far the best I've been able to discover is a message of not trusting authority in general, rather than religious authority/teaching specifically. Disappointing.

I made a big mistake. Yes, that's right, I forgot about Frozen Dead Guy Days this weekend until it was too late to try to get people to come out for it. Sonuva! I guess I'm going to have to work harder to catch Boom Days instead.

In other news, my brother has his big senior performance next week. We're heading down to see the magic. Should be a fun and relaxing time - until the dog starts barking in the morning, of course.

Honestly, other than that, there really hasn't been a lot going on. I haven't even had any work travel to do. Maybe I need to start doing charity work just so I have something to talk about...

My brother got us Wonderfalls for Christmas. I had heard good things about it, but no real details. I'll leave you with the same. It took us a couple episodes to really get into it, but we ended up liking it a lot. Also, unlike some canceled TV serieses, this one didn't have a bunch of unresolved plotlines at the end, so that was good.

I was reading about how people that buy things online read an average of 4 reviews before they purchase it. I think marketers have known this for a while. I remember when there first started to be well-written, glowing reviews of everything you might want to buy. I've always assumed that the company in some way caused those reviews to be there. Now don't get me wrong, I think they're actually very valuable (more valuable than the initial marketing blurb, for example), but I'm always sure to go and read the negative reviews before I make any decisions. I'm not sure what my point is here. Maybe "be wary of well-written and glowingly positive reviews".

I was thinking about how some companies out there try really hard to hire the best people in any related area to their business. I was trying to imagine how that would play out in real life. Surely a product would never make it through to completion if it had to satisfy a large number of experts in diverse fields. At my company, we can't even satisfy the interests of both the usability and marketing teams (naturally, appropriate compromises are made and so forth). The point is that if you keep adding in more experts, you will either end up with compromises (that are likely no better than with fewer experts) or you will just ignore the input from some of the experts. That seems like a huge waste of talent to me. Again, not much of a point to this, just thinking aloud about whether it's such a great idea. Probably a single vision is more powerful.

Seems like getting sick is going around. Diana achieved the rank of "brown belt"* on Saturday, and immediately decided to celebrate by getting sick. We'll see how long I can last before she infects me too. Maybe there's a day off in my future.

Okay, I think that's it for now.



*In this case, brown belt is followed by red belt (which I believe has something like 3 levels of red belt) and then black belt.

Someone said that line today in a very pensive and thoughtful manner and I just busted up. This conversation came up as we were discussing the strange mind of those known as "woman". It started when one guy told about how his wife just didn't "get" stock options. It went something like this:

As you know, stock options means that at some point in the future, you'll have the option of buying company stock at a pre-specified price. So if the stock value goes way up, you can buy it at a huge discount and immediately resell it for a profit. Or, if it doesn't go up, you can choose not to buy it and no harm done. She felt confident that the stock price would not go up and therefore did not want to sign up. His response was to point out that there is no cost to signing up (in any way), and it COULD be useful later, so not signing up was illogical. She was not swayed.

This way of thinking is not limited to this situation or to this woman. And I'm mystified by it.

In other news, you'll be excited to hear about the new TSA Blog. I think they realized that everyone hates them and are trying to win some public support through a more personal connection. I think they're doomed to failure (at least with me) because they will just keep justifying actions that I believe are fundamentally flawed. They do have a very good writer (or writers) working on it though, so you might get more out of it than I do.

It's also tax season. Last year we went to an accountant, who proceeded to enter information into a computer program exactly like I could have done at home for a lower cost. I think this year we'll do our own taxes - but I'd like to get a program. Does anyone have one that they're willing to share? Or, is anyone interested in splitting the cost?

...and that's about it for today.

I haven't had a real update in a while, and I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the former Dr. Flood. He called my bluff about doing a 2007 retrospective and after 2 weeks, I have come to the realization that I'm not going to be able to do a good job with that. I will say that the last year has seen me coming to grips with the corporate life, and both the good and bad that that entails. I also think Diana and I did a good job of planning before we got married, and that has saved us a lot of grief.

So now I am putting the idea of a 2007 retrospective away. I will, however, be happy to answer any poignant questions that you might pose (note that poignant is not the same as vague or undirected). I suspect you would have as much trouble coming up with the things to discuss as I did.

In more interesting news, I can now say that I have placed a surgical screw in the spine of a cadaver. I fully expect to win one-up conversations for the next few years. We examined the placement of the screws after we did them and mine was positioned very nicely. I blame that on all the video games that I've played that have overdeveloped my spatial reasoning skills.

I ran across this comic today that really makes an interesting point. What if I live to be 150 years old? I don't think my retirement fund will be able to make it quite that far.

I'll leave it at that for today. Until next time.

Although I learned lots of really great things in graduate school, one thing that I learned (and have come to regret) is to be a super harsh reviewer. When you're writing papers for publication at a 15% acceptance rate, there's not a lot of room for sympathy or compassion. In fact, as a friend and peer, you have to be MORE harsh than whoever will be reviewing to decide if you get published. Now, after that training, if I'm asked to review something, I rip the crap out of it. Whatever it is will be significantly better once you fix whatever I point out, but it's going to make you cry. What a terrible way to be. As a human being, I believe that I should encourage people and support them, but when I start reviewing anything, I turn into an uncaring monster. Obviously, it's important to know what can be improved (that's one big point of reviewing things), but how you go about it is also important. My dream is to one day learn how to review something such that the creator knows what to do to fix it, but also feels really good about doing those fixes - rather than really bad about the current state of things.

I've got a number of friends that all had their first babies in 2007 and are keeping blogs where they talk about the joys and travails of this new experience. It's surprisingly fun to read and I'm definitely glad they're doing it. If any of them have enough free time to read this, know that I salute you (metaphorically).

Anyway, they've been talking about different milestones (first solid food, first time turning over, first time in surgery, you get the idea). It's made me think about a baby's milestones toward something that I, as a true American, value: independence. Please help me expand this list so that we can help these parents be even more proud of their children. So far it's short:

• The first time the baby escapes from the crib


• The first time the child says "no"


• The first time the child refuses to eat something that they never had a problem eating before

Please help me fill in some more of the list.

In other news, I've come to realize that Google has lost a lot of its utility. Not that it's really Google's fault. It's more a fault of the internet at large. Let me explain. In the past, if I had a computer problem, I simply went to Google and typed in a few keywords. To make up an example, maybe I would type in "windows me slow" or "speed up windows me" to find out tricks for making Windows Millennium Edition run faster. I'd probably get good responses about 8 times out of the first 10 results. Recently I did "windows vista slow video" (or something like that). I tried a number of variations. The only things I got were "news" articles telling me about how people have problems with windows vista and slow graphics. Eventually I got tricky and plugged in an answer I already knew "turn off aero" to find lists of tricks that included that answer. This kind of worked. I guess this just goes to show that even though the supposed goal of the media is to disseminate information, they actually do a great job of obscuring any real information. I hope that the good people at Google realize this and provide a way to search everything that isn't also indexed by Google News (or whatever).

In other other news, I've been largely disappointed by the work of Dave Barry in the last couple years. Luckily, he showed that he's still able to deliver when he made a reference to the last Harry Potter book: Harry Potter Spends Half the Book Camping.

Well, the former Dr. Flood called my bluff on a 2007 in review post, so now I've got to try and search back into the depths of memory to remember what actually happened last year. So far I've vaguely recalled waiting at an ice cream stand along the Pennsylvania Turnpike for someone to show up and SELL ME SOME FREAKING ICE CREAM!!! I'm sure there were more things that are worth noting though, so I'll do what I can. Hmm...I think I got a filling replaced too...unrelated though.

Until then.

Biggest Disappointment of 2007: Bender's Big Score

Happiest Surprise of 2007: Josh Ritter's live show (or maybe This American Life)

I tried to come up with some end-of-the-year lists and that's the best I could do. I doubt those were actually the top in their respective categories, but I guess I just don't dwell on the past enough. Alas.

We had a good vacation in Albuquerque, and came back with a ton of DVDs (some of which we picked up at Best Buy at the last minute of their sale). If you're looking for that last-minute late Christmas gift for us, as of yet Diana is still missing Veronica Mars season 3.

I thought it might be interesting to see the list of podcasts to which I'm currently subscribed. I think these are the right links (though I didn't actually check closely). Obviously, I don't have time to REALLY keep up with all these, but most are short and infrequent so it works out alright.

• Ask a Ninja


• Best of YouTube (not as good anymore)


• The Champaign, IL Community Evangelical Free Church sermon podcast (they do a poor job keeping this up to date)


• A Christian and an Atheist (this show was good for a while and I hold out hope that it will improve again in the future)


• Comedy Central: Stand-Up (sporadically updated)


• Dual Exhaust: No Muffler (yes, this is my old radio show that will never be updated again)


• Half Full Video Blogs (this is that one about raising kids)


• Jennifer Daniels podcast


• The Man Show


• Mr Deity (the "first season" was really good, though I'm not as big a fan of the "second season")


• Onion News Network


• This American Life

So what do you think, should I do a real 2007 retrospective? Would anyone actually care to see a big recap of my life over the last year?

If you remember back a couple months, you'll find this astounding:

http://www.cafepress.com/girotto

(note: I didn't put this together)

A while back we went and looked at a condo near our apartment. We didn't end up buying it, but Diana did get on the realtor's mailing list. She gets periodic updates on houses for sale in our area and she says it motivates her to finish school so we can buy a house (personally, I don't look forward to the extra money and effort that goes with buying a house, but do expect to own one some day - so, in effect, we're on the same page). As "clients" of this realtor, we were invited to a party-ish type of thing last night at an Indian restaurant in town. There was a cocktail hour and then a meal (all free). Something astounding happened.

When I was in graduate school in Illinois, I found it easy to talk to people. I'd go to events with the Christian group I hung around or do things with people in my department or whatever. I felt like people were relatively easy to talk to - and even to become friends with (whatever that means). In Colorado, it's been the antithesis of that. I'll go to things for Diana's department or with a Christian group in the area or with people from work and it will be all but impossible to talk to anyone. It's been like pulling teeth to connect with anyone out here. Until last night. Suddenly, in a room full of strangers, it was so easy to talk to everyone. They were interested in conversation, they didn't have any agendas that excluded me, they really were just happy to chat. It was mind-blowing. It was normal. What is going on?

That was a very sad story up there, but let me put it in perspective.

At work, we had a food drive to benefit 4 local charities. At the conclusion, they invited representatives from the charities to come in to receive the donations (which primarily ended up being cash, so "food drive" may not be entirely accurate). One guy was from one of the two (or so) homeless shelters in Boulder, CO. He said that they can house 160 people every night. He said that this month, they've been turning away at least 40 people every night. He said he doesn't know why there are so many this year. He said he doesn't know what they do when they get turned away.

I don't want to leave this as a purely melancholy post, so I'll mention some other things. Personally, I'm not interested in having children, but for some reason I've really enjoyed the videos on parenting that I found here. Pretty weird, huh?

On Friday, we're heading down to Albuquerque for a week or so. I doubt any non-family people in Albuquerque read this, but if so, let me know if you want to get together. For the rest of you, have a good time.

I had the start of some really great post and have now lost it. I wonder what amazing insight you would now be reading...

Tonight is our holiday party. I'm on the committee, so I will spend at least some of the time "working". I may find that I have to leave early. On the plus side, we're doing a casino night and we managed to get, in addition to other things, three vacation days to give out as prizes. Fingers crossed for that one. I'm hoping Diana wins it.

I partook in some training about behavioral styles and communication. I found that I fit the category of people that is very direct, wants to get things done immediately, and is often seen as brusque*. I'm sure this is a shock to all of you.

I've been toying with the idea of making a newsletter-ish type of thing as a website on www.team-d.info (currently only used to host our wedding site). Years ago, I used to send an electronic yearly newsletter (usually in the summer). I stopped when I switched to gmail because it does a poor job of supporting structured contact lists (too much automation). I could link it from here and send an email to some people. Any thoughts?

I used to think that Blogger was the best software out there for blogs/web journals/whatever. Sadly, they've done away with the best feature they had: the create-your-own-identity commenter feature. It let you list whatever name you wanted and a web address. They've now done away with the web address part of it. No doubt this avoids some attempts at spam. And no doubt forcing you to throw away your Christmas pie avoids some attempts at blowing up planes. Now the best software? Probably Wordpress hosted at your own domain.

Anyway, there was going to be a lot more cool stuff in here, probably about all the snow, but you'll just have to imagine it.


*Is it condescending to link to the definition of a word I think some of my readers may be unfamiliar with? What if I then have a note about it that is filled with poor grammar?

For the record, until today I had never imagined a Boulder-style old time diner. My mind has now been blown.

Ok, surely someone out there knows the answer to this one:

I was browsing desktop computers and I noticed that these days you can get integrated graphics cards from nvidia (example: geforce 6100). My question is whether you can actually play modern computer games with this type of video card. In the past, you've had to buy a separate video card. My followup question is how much RAM you need in order to get them to work well.

I've got my fingers crossed that someone can answer this one.

Can anyone explain this one? I was signing up for next year's health benefits and I discovered that getting medical insurance for me and my wife (the so-called employee+one plan) is more expensive than getting medical insurance for myself plus medical insurance for a domestic partner. Knowing that insurance companies never do anything without a statistical reason, I wonder if anyone can explain that one to me.

Should I expect my wife to have higher medical costs than she would have if we'd just decided to live together?

Diana has been espousing to me the virtues of Ron Paul. I have not known her to be overly political in the past, so this likely bears some investigation. She will likely disagree with this sentiment.

Tomorrow, we're off to visit the family for Thanksgiving. We'll see if my sister's kids have outgrown their cute stage. We'll start thinking about Christmas shopping*. We'll play on the Nintendo Wii**. We'll discuss possible future travel plans to exotic locations***. We'll eat far too much food. And we'll celebrate the greatest of all holidays.

I think I forgot to mention how Diana's birthday went. It was a big success. On Friday night, I told her we had to go "pick up her present because they couldn't deliver it on time". Eventually she realized we were going to the airport. She spent some time speculating on who we were picking up (her best guess: Derek - who definitely should have come down for the weekend, by the way). It turned out to be Kate, who she had thought of, but eliminated from her list of possibilities. Later that night Alan showed up. On her actual birthday, we did a lot of eating out with various friends and family, played lots of games, and went to see Diana's Tae Kown Do demonstration (she broke three boards - beware). It was a great time and I appreciated all the people that wished her well.

A week later (a couple days ago), RamoNat showed up in town. We went and spent an afternoon with them and a few members of Nat's extended family. Sadly, Diana refused to Tae Kwon Do Ramona at the appropriate time. We also learned that Star Wars Battlefront II (or whatever it's called) refuses to work with non-dual shock 2 controllers (Escape from Monkey Island worked fine!). And I was forced to hold a baby****. Despite these setbacks, we had a good time.

And finally, the baby spree continues with Diana's brother having a baby. This is the brother that lives an hour away, so we want to be supportive for them, but the timing with Thanksgiving kind of hampers that. Still, I think all is going well in general.

And that's it for now. Tune in next time.


*My mom told me something she wanted for Christmas and I cleverly did not write it down, so much of the time may be spent scratching my head.

**Any recommended Wii games that we should pick up for large-group fun? Obviously they have the one that comes with the system.

***Third time's a charm on a cruise?

****Yes, I'm joking.

I just want to throw out a Happy Birthday to Wild Chris. I hope somebody takes that dude out to lunch or something. If he shows up in Colorado, I've got him covered.

I'm sure there's lots to talk about in this life, but instead I'm just going to share a few links. I probably could have tied these all together somehow, but I'll leave that to you.

North Korea Day (11/24/07) - I'm imagining the possibilities for all the new parents that I know...

Voting

Here is an interesting post that examines a situation where saying the exact same thing about two slightly different things can result in radically different interpretations.

Who do you hate the most in this picture (more)

To me, the interesting part of this post was the comments. There are a lot of people that seem to think that voting is the best/only way to influence the political world. Personally, I think that of all the possible things you could do to influence the political world, voting has the least impact. I'm also saddened by the slavering, wild-eyed hate that I observe when many people talk about politics (on any side of any divisive issue).

Here's that picture I mentioned. Click on it for the super large version.



We'll see if I can reduce it to a 100x100 image that I can use for a livejournal "userpic".

I have a great picture that I'll upload next time I remember. Stay tuned.

Actually, I have nothing interesting to say about Halloween. We had a costume and cubicle/office decoration contest at work and the Austin Powers themed area won big. I left early when the kids started to show up for the work-sponsored trick-or-treating. Otherwise, we had a lot of sitting around to do.

In other news, Diana's birthday is just over a week away. Now's the time to prepare and send off your well-wishes, gift cards, and large packages. I believe she has an Amazon wishlist somewhere if you're wondering. I can't remember if it's under her maiden name or not... As far as I know, the top of the list includes Season 3 of Veronica Mars (unless you've seen it and it sucks) and Season 2 of Babylon 5*. If you have either of those already, we'd love to borrow them. Now if I can figure out something not-lame to get her myself, we'll be set. If you want to come out and join in for the birthday festivities, let me know.

That's about it for this short update.


*Well, they're at the top of the list of things she wants that I would be able to enjoy with her. At the actual top of the list are some overly fancy items that you can pester her about yourself.

I'm not sure why, but I keep stumbling across moon rocks. I should find a complete list of moon rock exhibits and see how many more I would otherwise unwittingly find. Here's an incomplete list: a random space observatory outside Canberra, a smithsonian in D.C., the United Nations in Vienna, and now the LBJ presidential library in Austin. Please note that I have never gone looking for a moon rock.

Let me try to recount what all I did other than work:

-Ate at Stubbs (BBQ): mediocre
-Stayed at the Sheraton in downtown: mediocre
-Met up with my ex-girlfriend and her husband for lunch: I had trouble figuring out what things from the past were cool to bring up so I didn't really make any references. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but the name Beulah was involved in the history somehow.
-Toured the state capitol (thanks, Leigh Ann): interesting tour (and free)
-Toured the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum: they had an actor playing ol' LBJ in the senate and giving speeches. I yawned. They also had a humor exhibit where they played audio clips of funny stories that LBJ told through the use of an animatronic LBJ that was just real enough looking to frighten small children*. This was the only free presidential library. Also, the lady that greeted us when we walked in was awesome.
-Determined that the original Schlotzky's no longer exists (sorry, Jay)
-Went walking around by a river and saw a natural springs swimming pool. This was right next to what I believe was Zilker Park (thanks, anonymous suggester): the park was awesome because they had these big xylophone-like instruments set up so that kids could play with them.
-Ate some burgers at a bar: mediocre
-Watched some local improv groups: mediocre
-Worked on a house for Habitat for Humanity: James is a regular volunteer and goes every week so I tagged along. We ended up helping out with the "gay pride build" or something like that. Sadly, there was nothing overtly gay going on. I wondered where the pride was.
-Took a nap
-Watched a video of a standup comedian: pretty much the only good line was "I don't have a girlfriend. However, I do know a girl that would be really pissed off if I said that."
-Watched The Simpsons movie in the cheap theater: mediocre
-Ate some "pie": mediocre
-Went to a party: they had cats and it jacked up my allergies quick - luckily we couldn't stay long
-Flew home

The description doesn't really portray it, but it was actually a great trip. Lots of cool people to spend time with. I didn't get a chance to do everything that people suggested, but I definitely appreciated all the suggestions.

Another funny thing that I noticed was a couple of TV ads for medicines. During the listing of side effects, one made a big point about how if you feel intense desires for sex or gambling (after taking the medication) that you should contact your doctor. Another promised to cure your allergies, but at the potential cost of cataracts or glaucoma. That last one also had a big note across the bottom of the screen that said that nobody knows how the drug works (which was my favorite part).


*Note: Title taken from an email I just sent. In the email I said "I'm glad we got to see a
freaky looking animatronic LBJ. It will haunt my nightmares for years to come."
**I may have to ask Matt to try some Australian beef before he decides that Texas beef is the best there is.