Mini Jack

Rece put together a strange little video last night. He shot almost all the footage (I did the "puppies" part), and I provided only minimal help during editing... so he gets full credit for this one. My son, the nutcase...

This entry was brought to you buy puppies.

How one of the telco arguments against net neutrality is flawed

In the debate surrounding Net Neutrality, we're hearing point and counter-point for and against the issue from both sides. One of the arguments that Telcos are trying to use is to say that there are a lot of "freeloaders" using up the net resources far more than others and making it more expensive for them to operate. Well, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you understand how it all works. Finally somebody that actually understands the insides of operating a large-scale (Telco) network has come forward to explain how this particular argument doesn't fly.

Companies do deserve to make a profit and recover the costs of setting up and maintaining their networks. What many consumers don't understand is that some of these large Telco companies are attempting to change the way the Internet is structured so that they can make even more money. The points made in the above linked blog help illustrate the truth about how it all works.

Don't be fooled, people!

This entry hopes that the Internet stays the way it is.

But I don't like worms...

Managed to get up an hour early this morning and didn't realize it until I was ready to go to work. Since I had the time, I decided to create another video log. Fun stuff.



Okay, now I'm off to get me some breakfast!

This entry hit the snooze button one too many times.

Mac & cheese, ice cream truck music, and more!

Managed to find time during lunch today to go home, eat a PB&J sammich, and make a new vlog. Here's the result...



I'm a little irked at how the very end got chopped off so abruptly. The original I uploaded wasn't like that. Anywho... hope you enjoy it!

This entry likes chocolate milk.

Craigslist does it right

Read this article about Craigslist's founder Craig Newmark. I have to say that I respect the guy's way of doing business on the web. What's most impressive to me is that when everybody else seems to be selling their sites to big media, Craigslist doesn't seem concerned with selling out for big money - which they very likely could, considering how popular it is.

This entry wants a pony!

My first vlog

Is a vlog just a blog made by a vampire... in your pants? Yep, so yeah... okay...

This entry made a Corona flop into a vlog, never to be seen again.

Brewery Brouhaha

This article just made my day. I'm not a beer snob by any measure, but there are some forms of beer that I just won't waste my time drinking, if given the choice. It seems that the Germans feel the same way and I applaud them for it!

This entry wishes it had a full pint in his hand right now!

Seen at the office

I read the following on a Post-It note stuck to a co-worker's monitor today...

"feed letterhead side up bottom first"

I have no idea why I found that so entertaining...

This entry is about as confused as you are about it all.

Getting paid to sit in a car

A brilliant, yet simple idea. Props to this guy!

This entry's tummy doesn't feel so good today.

It's a girl!

I just received word from my brother that his second child has been born. Her name is Lily Mae and she's adorable! 7 pounds, 10 ounces, & 20 inches long... a nice healthy baby!

Lily Mae


Papa Danny & baby Lily getting some much needed rest.

This entry was made by a proud uncle!

Boy, oh boy!

I just keep reading more and more about the types of arguments that are being used in support of the global warming theory Al Gore and the likes are trying to push at us. Again, I'd like to clarify that I'm not saying that global temperatures aren't rising - I just don't think that it's because of what so many are trying to claim it to be from.

This entry skipped along its merry little way to la-la land.

To my cyberstalker...

Hi Carmen! :)

This entry needed a break from work for 30 seconds, which this provided.

I knew it!

Is it just me that gets annoyed with all the anti-germ, anti-bacterial, sterilized crap people seem so hung up on lately? Well, as I suspected, it turns out that living in such a squeaky clean environment may actually be bad for people's health. Read about it for yourself.

To me this just makes sense. Sure, basic hygiene and cleanliness makes sense to prevent common diseases and the likes. But to contantly sterilize and decontaminate your home in fear of germs, microbes, and icky stuff means that you're preventing your body (and that of your children's) from learning how to deal with them on it's own.

Anyhow, just thought I'd share!

This entry trusts the 5-second rule... sorta.

Happy Father's Day!

This Father's Day was great! Rece turned off all the ringers on the phones and let me sleep in until around 10:00 am, then woke me up with a menu he had made. It had 4 options for breakfasts he could make me (eggs, cereal, oatmeal, or cream of wheat) along with a choice of beverage (milk or soda). I opted for the eggs, which he made along with some bacon and toast. He makes excellent scrambled eggs!

After serving me breakfast in bed (served on a baking pan, "I had to improvise" he said), he grabbed himself a bowl of cereal and joined me. We watched the World Cup games while we ate as there was not much else on, really. After that I got ready for the day and I called my dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day.

Not wanting to just lounge about the house all day, Rece and I went out Geocaching (here are some photos), taking our sweet time finding them. Most of the caches turned out to be near parks with playgrounds, so about a third of the time was spent with Rece playing and me dozing on a nearby bench. Our final geocaches found count for the day was 9, in around 4 hours. We had attempted to find 12, but as we really aren't in it for the numbers, we simply gave up on the ones that required a lot of effort - at least on this day.

Today was a nice reminder of how much I enjoy being a dad.

This entry made possible by the power of bacon smacker!

Got talent?

My buddy Quinn is chock full of the stuff. Not only has he a flair for the silly and odd video, he's quite the musician too! Check out the tune he made and posted to his blog.

This entry wishes he had this much musical talent.

Some hills, an ocean, and a rattlesnake

I finally got around to posting pictures of our hike from this past weekend. I linked to the YouTube video that Quinn put up of our rattlesnake encounter. Quinn posted some photos on his blog as well.

This entry is bummed that it's starting to get too warm to go hiking now.

More on the global warming theory...

Yep, I can't seem to let this topic go. I'm still not convinced and stories like this just make the gap between the theory of global warming and my belief in it ever wider.

This entry doesn't think it's the end of the world as we know it, but still feels fine.

Yes we have no bananas today

We are all out of bananas at my place. Yep, that's all I wanted to say.

This entry can be filed under "X" for "strange".

Friends with too much time on their hands

My buddy Quinn is up to it again. He's created yet another funny video using photos of he and I. To be honest, after my last post, I could really use a laugh. Good timing, Quinn!

This entry feels a little better now.

Frustrated

I knew going in that it was something that I shouldn't have looked at. Yep, I went to yet another site where you can look up your pay as compared to others in the same field of work and in your area. Apparently I'm making $10-13K less per year than the average salary for what I do in this area. If I were to factor in the 5-10% drop to be expected for the non-profit sector, I'm still at least $6K per year under the average.

I'm not happy about this - both for the fact I feel taken advantage of and that I checked it out in the first place.

Turnover here is pretty high, even higher this year. There's something wrong when unemployment is still pretty high and yet people are managing to find jobs to walk away from here with.

Gah... why did I have to look? WHY!?

This entry apparently needs a new job.

Mom, you should divorce dad...

... if he wants most of the pansy-ass bullshit on Forbes' list of "What Dad Really Wants". I mean seriously...

This entry brought to you by a non-metrosexual dad.

A simple kind of life

This morning I found a link to this article about a woman that simplified her lifestyle. I must say that this sounds very appealing to me! Anyhow, it'll probably be a little while before I could actually do something like this, but I've considered moving up to Oregon and doing it on may occasions.

I went on a great hike this weekend with some friends. We had a good time on a beautiful Sunday morning hiking in the hills near the ocean. We saw a rattle snake (first time I've seen one in "the wild") and spent some time trying to take pictures/video of it. Rece wasn't quite thinking straight and ended up getting separated from our group on the way back. He ended up having to make the walk back (about 3 miles) all by himself. I think he learned some valuable lessons. I'll probably post some pictures within a day or two.

This entry is enjoying the mild muscle soreness in his legs today.

What's going on with Blogger lately?

Blogger (where this blog is hosted) seems to have had some technical glitches over the last few days. While you could view blogs (albeit very slowly), I couldn't get in to post. It's frustrating when you have an idea (or an epically long blog topic) in your head that you want to get out before it blows up and causes a forest fire - yeah Smokey didn't warn you about those dangers did he?

This entry jumped off of an idea and ended up floating around in a bowl of theoretical soup.

Full Disclosure - Part 2

All right, so in part 1 of this I went over most of the important things I look for in relationships. This second part is where I go over things about myself. Hopefully this will help serve as a reminder to me that I'm far from perfect - and maybe help others understand me a little bit better.

Alright, let's get this started with:

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): INTP (find your type here)

I've found a lot of interesting insight about people based on their MBTI. This doesn't tell you what type of person they are, but it does help you understand they way they tend to process things in life.

I won't even bother with my astrological sign, as I think it's complete bullshit.

Hmm... what next? How about my strengths. This isn't always easy to do for yourself, but many of my friends have been nice enough to inform me of some of my strengths (and also my flaws, coming up next). These are in no particular order...

- Smart, able to comprehend complex things
- Logical, can usually figure out a solution to a problem
- Insightful, able to see things from many different angles
- Funny, make people laugh, not afraid to look like a dork
- Easy to talk to
- Knowledgable in many different areas
- Creative
- Musically inclined
- Direct and to the point
- Honest
- Dependable, I'm there when you need me or when I say I will be
- Helpful
- Caring
- Easy-going
- Stable
- Good with computers
- Generally able to give good advice
- Trustworthy, people know that they can talk to me and I'll maintain their confidence
- More than one female has said that they feel safe when I'm around (not just girlfriends)
- Non-judgemental
- Perceptive
- Patient
- Tolerant
- Will be that one friend who will tell you the truth, even when it hurts
- Good in the kitchen
- Self-sufficient (cook, clean, iron, laundry, etc for myself)
- Good driver
- Good father
- Pretty good judge of character

Here's a list of my flaws (that I know of):

- Sometimes too direct and to the point
- Sometimes the truth isn't what somebody wants to hear and I'll say it anyway
- Don't always show how I feel
- Procrastinate a lot
- Lack initiative sometimes
- Not especially 'driven' or 'goal oriented'
- Distant and/or withdrawn at times
- Put up with some things too long
- Lack self-confidence in many areas
- Like to be in control too often
- Can be inflexible at times
- My humor can sometimes be a bit mean-spirited
- Will sometimes try avoid answering a question that I don't want to answer

General things about me:

I'm mostly an introvert, but have learned how to cope with social situations (the one thing that I can thank my evil step-mother for). If I'm lucky, I can be in a social gathering, but remain off to the side by myself and get to enjoy people-watching. I tend to do well one-on-one or in small groups. After periods of being around other people a lot, I tend to seek solitude to sort of 'recharge'. Sometimes I'll hole-up for an entire week, but at some point I come back out.

Nights are my favorite time. Having a 9-5 job has forced me to adapt to being a day person, but I do get out into the night when opportunity arrives. The beach at night is so relaxing!

The outdoors are nice and I like to go hiking and camping, especially in areas away from the city. When gas wasn't so expensive, I used to like driving down roads I've never been on before, just to see where they went.

I have a tendency to be cynical and sarcastic. Usually it comes out as a very dry sense of humor. It can also be playful ribbing and personal jibes. Some people might think I'm being rude, but I generally don't mean anything by it. If I really had a problem with something, I would just tell them directly.

My mind tends to drift (partly because I have ADD), which can sometimes make it difficult for me to stay focused on a conversation. Additionally, this tendency also means that I tend to be very random and odd to most people. My humor is often laced with innuendo and/or will come seemingly from out of nowhere. Usually this is because my brain has somehow found some round-about connection with something within my scope of view/hearing. This isn't always the case, since these odd and strange ideas can also just come out of nowhere except my imagination. Friends tell me that I'm odd/strange/weird - but not in a scary way.

Theory and abstract thinking are where my thoughts tend to dwell most of the time. Time and time again I'll find myself pondering the connections or causes of things - no matter how random, strange, mundane, or unimportant. Ideas and concepts just occur to me out of the blue sometimes. An example of this is how I learned to tie a necktie 2 different ways without ever having seen it done or tried to do - after I pictured it in my mind I borrowed one of my step dad's ties and tried it out and was amazed that my idea worked. Other things like how French onion soup became so popular or why pork is shunned/forbidden by some religions. Heck, even existential topics, with a bit of strangeness thrown in: are we just a bunch of specks of dust (or atomically small objects) floating around in a bedroom closet in some larger universe - and our lifetime is just a fraction of a second to that universe? Yeah, shit like that.

Take the last sentence of the previous paragraph into consideration for a moment. Yep, I swear. In person, I swear a lot more. There aren't very many words that I won't say, either. I do a good job around mixed company, but when I'm just relaxing with friends, I just let it flow. Some days are worse than others and it really just depends on my mood. People that eschew cussing probably won't be comfortable around me.

Okay, so there it is. I've splilled my guts, both good and bad, to the world. I might come back and add to this as stuff occurs to me

This entry just didn't know when to quit!

Full Disclosure - Part 1

[Warning: Extremely long post...]

Being single is a strange thing. We want to meet people, but we want to meet for a multitude of different reasons - a good portion of the time not for the same reasons. So what are people supposed to do?

Dating takes time and money. The end result (hell, even the starting result) may not always be what you were looking for, yet you're now out all this time and money. The process can often repeat itself over and over, with a wild variety of outcomes. This can become frustrating and discouraging for many people. This is especially true for introverts like me. But we still have to try, right?

We've all heard of these dating or matchmaking sites like eHarmony and Match.com that are supposed to help us weed out the ones that are less likely to be in sync with our wants and needs. In theory, this makes sense, but then you run into problems with people not being very honest with how they've portrayed themselves online. Misleading photos and bios that people post to make them look better or simply different than they really are - even if just slightly - might not be found out until later, after much time (and possibly money) has been spent getting to know one another online.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear some of you now... "but looks aren't everything" or "what does it matter, if you feel something for them in the end?". That's not my point. What I'm getting at is how can a future relationship expect to flourish after the intial contact and basis for those feelings is based on a lie?

I'll be honest with you: looks matter to me, to some extent. They're not all that I'm looking at, but if I'm not attracted to a woman in some physical way, chances are that I'm going to pursue it much further. To some looks really aren't that important, and that's what works for them. Lying to me about your looks or showing me only your assets is just going to reveal itself when I actually see you - and I'll be none to happy about it. Just put your best foot forward and be yourself!

The next two things that I find important are intelligence and logic. Contrary to what some may think, they do not always co-exist within the same person. Looks may get you attention, but you gotta have something behind that pretty face to hold mine for very long. I want to be able to discuss theories or unknowns with a gal... somebody that can challenge my mind, to stretch it further or in a different direction - and hopefully that I can do the same for.

Humor is something that is highly subjective and differs dramatically between individuals. A gal that "gets" my sense of humor and can laugh with/at me and that I can laugh with/at (i.e., doesn't take themselves too seriously) will likely become a friend, if nothing more is in the cards for us. Life is too short to not enjoy it!

Musical ability or interests are something that I definitely pay attention to. Music is such an influential thing. While my music interests seem to cover a very wide selection of genres and generations, there is some music that I just cannot get into. In fact, most rap/hip-hop & country make my brain hurt. There just isn't any other way I can think to put it. A gal that can sing and/or play an instrument is a turn-on, for sure.

Dependability is a rather broad term that I could probably use to apply to many traits as a whole. People that are often late, don't come through with a commitment (this applies to so many things), blow people off when something more interesting than what was originally planned comes along, don't offer to help others, gossip and back-stab, like to create drama, blah... blah... blah... generally people that consider themselves the center of the universe and don't hold true to much that they say or do. These people drive me batty - and they seem to be ever-so plentiful in Southern California these days. I don't put up with friends being like this, which means I'm definitely not going to tolerate it in a relationship.

The accumulation of things and status don't mean squat to me. If it doesn't serve a useful function, if it means having to act a specific way that's contrary to my personality in order to maintain - then it isn't for me. With rare exception, I don't tend to give frilly gifts. I don't collect "stuff". There are no "Jones' to keep up with" in my mind. If you expect flowers and jewelry all the time, you're barking up the wrong tree with me.

Know-it-alls and those who rest on their laurels don't have much of a place in my life. It doesn't matter if you didn't go to college or if you hold multiple degrees and I could care less what your title is - demonstrate to me that you know what you're talking about or doing and you'll gain my respect.

Sex. Yep, I have to throw this in here. If I find a gal attractive, and I'm interested in her, I'll get to know her. Women that invest a lot of emotional commitment into sex probably won't be a good match for me. To me sex is a fun thing, a physical way to enjoy somebody in a more personal way. I dislike it when people put an arbitrary timeframe on when it will or won't happen. When the mood strikes and the timing is right, why not? It doesn't mean that I'm in love - or ever will be - just because I had sex with a woman. I'm still very good friends with some of the women I've been with in the past. While it was all fun and such, we just made better friends and I'm totally happy that we were able to go back to just being friends. The right kinda gal for me won't put sex on a pedestal and make it out to be this overly important issue. It is what it is so either do it and enjoy it or not at all (and we'll just be friends).

So there you have it, my likes and dislikes in relationships. Most of this applies to friendships, as well. I'm sure that I've missed something, but for the most part it's there. Be sure to check out part 2 of this, where I bare all about myself.

Full Disclosure - Part 2

This entry got off to a running start.

Radioactive rubber pants!

So we're all going to Hell today (it's in Michigan, by the way).

I read about a 6' 6" grandfather who turns 66 today - so he's 6-foot-6 and 66 on 6/6/06!

A remake of The Omen is being released today because of the spooky date, I suppose. I wonder if they're going to put the gross elevator death scene in this one... no wait, that was in Damien: Omen II. I had fears about elevators for a short time when I was a kid after having watched that one.

And lastly...

The "5-Second Rule" Rules! We're not all doomed today!

This entry was written by a strange guy on a strange day.

Getting into hot water here

Looking back a few blog posts I realized that I just sorta let the saga about my hot water problems go unresolved. Here's what ulimately happened:

After my last post about my water woes (haha... I just made that up!) I did manage to reach a live person at the apartment management company and she told me that they did have a water heater blow-out and that we were only down to 2 instead of the usual 3. She said that while we might run the chance of running out of hot water at peak times, we should still have plenty of hot water during off-peak hours - and I asserted that we didn't have any hot water, just warm at best. The next day I found a notice on my door that they'd need to enter my apartment the following afternoon so a plumber could check it out and I managed to get the time off so I could actually be there when they came.

That afternoon (day 6 of the ordeal) of waiting for the plumber to show up was a total waste of time - nobody showed up or even bothered to call. I wasn't very happy about that and called the apartment management to let them know about it. The following evening I found a message from the plumbers inquiring about setting up (another) time to come out. I never got around to calling them back.

Well, after a total of 8 days of cold, then luke-warm, and then warm showers, I magically started getting near-scalding water (if I turned only the hot water on). So I'm guessing either the temperature was increased (by our plumber neighbor - who was also tired of not having hot water) or they finally fixed the problem. What a pain.

This entry now enjoys virtually unlimited hot water!