Fixed Script Error

At Sugarmama's request I fixed a Java error that my page had. It was code put in, by Dreamweaver, so Netscape 4.x users could view my site properly. But the code wasn't working right, apparently, so I just removed it. Screw'em. Netscape 4.x hit my site for 88 pages viewed, while Internet Explorer (all versions) hit my site for a total of 2218 pages viewed. So I'm not real worried about loosing those 88 views a month.

Oh and if you include all of the other Netscape versions the total jumps up to a woppin' 109. Yeee Friggin' Ha!

Needless to say I'm not real worried about alienating any Netscrape users. ;þ

Top 10 Search Terms

Here are the top 10 search phrases used to find my website for the month of January. I'm going to clear my stats every month to get a clearer idea of my visitors. So here they are:

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reqs: search term

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20: screen destroyer

16: windvr2

15: flame artwork

14: making fire in photoshop

12: archangel

11: poser art

11: st louis arch photos

10: poser gallery

9: fire in photoshop

8: windvr 2 patch windvr

They are all art or that damn WinDVR program related. Kinda boring I know. So here are the wierd listings:

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2: webcam theory - There is a theory to webcams??

2: olsen twin sin i am internet - Apparently the Internet is self aware and it's interested in sinning with the Olsen Twins. But why?!?!

1: spongebob pinata - Poor SpongeBob, he is so abused. LOL

1: do dodge durango come with a t.v and dvd player - Dude, I don't know. Call the dealer. Sheesh.

1: nailed nuts - Makes me shudder to think!

Well those were the ones that I thought were kinda interesting. But what do I know. LOL I'll report again at the end of next month. Hopefully it'll be more interesting.

Bitter about the past

I came to a realization this morning at work that I'm still pissed off at my high school track coach. Or rather, pissed off for the first time.

I was not a confident teen. Hell I haven't been a highly confident adult, but I'm getting better. Anyway, to the point at hand, I was good at track. Specifically I was really good at the hurdles. I ran the 110 meter high hurdles and later (too late) I ran the 220 meter intermediate hurdles. I say too late because I found out late in my Senior season that I was good at them.

Anyway, during my Senior season I asked my coach, who was also the school guidance councelor, to call the University of Nebraska and find out what it would take to get a track scholarship. He did so and told me the speeds I would need to hit. I was a good 2-3 seconds slower. That was pretty discouraging. To give him credit, he did as I asked. However, as a coach and as a councelor, he should have urged me to work harder and try out for the team regardless. You don't need a scholarship to join the team after all.

However, he didn't say those things. My confidence in my ability was crushed. I knew I was a good hurdler, but not a great one. The University could have maybe made me a great hurdler. Who knows. I didn't have the confidence to even bother trying out. I "knew" I wasn't good enough.

Am I coping out and blaming my coach/councelor for my weakness? Yea a little bit. But isn't it his JOB as a coach to push me to be better than I am? Isn't it the JOB of a councelor to work with the strengths and weaknesses of the students and help them on their way to building their future?

I believe in both cases he failed. And it makes me mad. I wouldn't have been a track super star, but I would have worked hard. My future would have been very different. Better? Who's to say.

I'm pretty happy with who I am today, but I can't help but look back and wonder, "What if?" And I look back and see my coach and think, "What the hell were you thinking?"

Oh well...too late now to cry over spilt milk. Feels nice to have it off my chest though. :)

I'm POSIX!

I snagged this from Kate. I think the results were satisfactory. :)

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Which OS are You?

How can anyone truely still believe...

... that we are the only intellegent beings in the Universe after looking at an image like this.

"Some of the faintest objects in the picture are probably over 13 billion light-years away." 13 BILLION! Wow!

And if that wasn't wild enough, those are galaxies in that picuture, not stars! Each one of those specks of light could represent a galaxy much like our own Milkyway.

It just boggles my mind. I love it. The Universe is so amazing and we only know such a tiny tiny nanoscopic bit about it. Pictures like this make me glad I'm a geek and can truely appreciate the magnatude of it. I hope you can enjoy it equally.

WebCam Update

I've added an additional webcam to my bunch. It belongs to John, my old roomie and still co-worker. He's working on a website that'll link so as soon as he gets it done.

I also consolidated the webcams all to one page rather than two, one for me and one for my boss. As you can see that results in me not needing the other link window to the left. So for now its just blank until I figure out what I want to put there.

Anyway, enjoy or something.

snowing again!

Ugh! Its snowing again. Damn. I thought I got away from this stuff when I moved here.

Driving Home & Photos

Wow the commute home was interesting. It took me forever just to get 1 mile from my office (about 40 minutes!) because a school bus was having a hard time on the ice and slush that the city had not cleaned off (more on that in a moment). The bus was sliding a lot so it was almost sideways blocking traffic. Once that was out of the way traffic moved again. It ended up taking an hour to get home. Not bad really considering it usually takes 20-30 minutes.

Back to the city clearning the streets. The snow had stopped falling, hard, at about noon. There were light flurries most of the day, but nothing significant. Lots of time for the city to get out and clear the major roads by rush hour. Or not.

Because cars had been driving on the snow all day to get home early or get their kids from school. It was a slow roll from what I heard too. Some people taking 4+ hours just to get home. Well back to the packed snow. I saw THREE plows on the way home, in the city and two more on the Interstate. The three city trucks did NOT have their plows down. They were just driving and on the clear side of the road. What the hell is that? Actually one of them was behind me in traffic. It wouldn't have been too hard for it to drop its plow and scrape up some of that ice and slush that everyone was sliding and spinning on.

Perhaps I don't understand the dangers of plowing or whatever, but it made no sense. Even the trucks on the clear side could have been plowing the slush aside, since it'll turn to ice tonight. The clearer the roads the better. I won't pass judgement on the drivers, but it seemed pretty stupid to me.

Speaking of stupid. If the roads are overed with ice and traffic is dense should you be talking on the phone (without a headset) while running a yellow light turning the corner? I personally would have to say, NO!!! Oh yea he was driving an SUV.

There were a lot of people driving slower than they needed to, but I'd prefer that to people driving too fast, so I can't really complain about that. Even I didn't drive much faster than 45 mph on the Interstate.

Ok now for the pictures!

This first one is the view from up where I live, looking down the drive leading to my apartment. Look at the bunch of cars at the bottom. Someone couldn't get up the hill and slid sideway blocking the road. Luckly the other drive was clear. I got a good running start and just zipped up the hill. If I had slowed or stopped I might have had problems, but all in all it really wasn't too bad. I suspect the person who slid just let off on the gas and then lost traction. Oops.

Here is a ruler I stuck in a nice undisturbed patch of snow. Sorry for the blur, it was dark and with the flash, reflecting on the snow, the picture was washing out. As you can see we got 6 3/4 inches of snow. For other areas of the country that may not be much, but for Nashville, that's a lot, especially all in one day!

This last one is just an artsy photo. Hope ya like it. :)

Weather Report

At lunch "The Code Monkeys" and I went to lunch at Chilis just a couple blocks away. There was at least 4-5 inches of snow on the ground, seemed like more even. It was the good wet snow that makes good snow balls too! heh! We had a good snowball fight.

We we laughing and winded both to and from Chilis, but my buddy John about killed us. They brought a couple snow balls on the elevator with us on the way back up to the office and one dropped. John picked up some of the pieces and said, "Oh I have micro-balls." Knowing this crew such a phrase is not going to slip buy unpunished. LOL I haven't laughed like that in a long time. I think its safe to say we all felt about 7 years old again.

The snow is still falling but not like it was earlier. It'll be a slow drive home, but I don't think it'll be too bad. I should leave soon though. The roads will start to ice over.

Nashville gets Snow!

We've been lucky so far this year. Now we have SNOW! Cool! LOL

There is a Nashville SkyCam (two actually) on the BellSouth tower, but they seem to be down at the moment.

A not so magical magic show

Now haven't you always wondered what it would be like if some of the great dangerous magic acts weren't done right? Oh come on, you know you wondered about someone botching the saw a person in half trick.

Well here you go. Be warned though, this little Flash animation is pretty sick. It's amusing in a morbid way. Oh heck, if you don't like it blame Steve Martin, he wrote it. Yes, THE Steve Martin.

WinDVR

I've been getting slammed with hits on this product. WinDVR is supposed to provide, Tivo-like, digital VCR capabilities to a TV turner enabled PC. Well my experience has been TERRIBLE with it. However it's still a top scorer on my search engine hits. I think this is for two reasons:

1. The increased popularity of "Entertainment System" PCs. These are PCs that are your media centers. Microsoft has helped this movement with their Windows XP Media Center edition (only availible, legally, with pre-made systems). Basically you have one machine that is your DVD player, digital VCR (DVR) and audio player. I have about 9 GB of MP3s on my computer. I happen to have a nice speaker system for my computer, but if I didn't I'd love to play them through my big stereo speakers. (My computer speakers are as good and nearly as loud *big grin*).

People are building their own "Media Centers" too. Parts are readily availible and pretty cheap. Remotes, tv tuners, large hard drives (needed for quality DVR recording) and the small powerful computers and cases are availible now. A few years ago they were too, but cost much too much and the quality wasn't very good, at least not for consumer quality equipment.

2. The second reason I think I'm getting hit by these searches is that WinDVR is a piece of crap and people are searching for help and tips on how to make it work. Maybe I'm the 1 in 1000 who had problems. I may have also been the norm. The problem is that there are only a few companies producing this software so Intervideo will keep stealing peoples money with their crappy software until a better product comes around.

Bottom line. Don't waste your money! The TV tuner cards all come with basic DVR features. They work just fine and they don't cost any more.

Beware of ones self

Ever try to make someone be something they are not because you want to be that something yourself but you fail? So you see in them the chance to do what you could not, but then ignore the fact that they too cannot do it or do not want to do it. But you ignore them when they say they can't. You push them thinking that they just need a push and they can do it.

Ya know what, that is a very very dangerous thing to do. Even if you know someone with amazing insite, you cannot say with any certainty that they can or cannot do something. And what if they are already tired and worn from something else? How can you expect them to give 100% plus the extra 10% you want them to give it? How can you expect that when they don't want to do it in the first place.

Looking back at yourself after the fact you ask, "Could you have done what you asked them to do?" You know in your heart that your answer is no and the guilt streams in. But you deserve the feelings. They can only be a fraction of what you put them through.

If you really care you have to put aside your anger and disappointment in yourself and help them pick up the pieces of their life that you smashed with a big hammer.

Don't be a coach if you were not asked to be. I'm supposed to be a knight, not a coach. I really screwed up. Now to pick up the pieces.

Can your boss do this?

Melly has had to go through a hell, at work, that no one should have to go through. She found out, the hard way, how little you can do to fight back if you boss just wants to lay into you. Anyway, her write up on the subject is much clearer and to the point. Feel free to leave your comments on the subject here.

RIAA Website Hacked!

ROFLMAO!!! Serves them right. And they are scratching their heads wondering what happened. Wake up and smell the 21st century guy/gals!

Read this if you want a laugh.

You'll Never Look at Soy Sauce the Same Again

Give this time to load. It's a Flash movie. Screwed up and wierd, but worth it.

Question for ya

Why when the economy was in the dumps and fuel prices high do we still continue to buy huge busses (SUVs)? The "little dick" argument doesn't work, there are just as many if not more women driving SUVs than guys. So what is it with Americas obsession with this gas guzzling behemoths? I for one don't get it. They are more likely to roll (higher center of gravity), they get at least 1/2 the gas mileage of cars, they are not safer in the winter, though most of their owners think so.

I've thought long and hard about this issue and I feel I can state with confidence that unless you live in the country with a bunch of kids or you are heavy into the outdoors, you shouldn't be driving an SUV.

Give me one reason why there should be a massive Expedition commuting to the office every day. And I'm sorry the "kids" argument doesn't hold water. Their are mini-vans and lots of QUALITY wagons. Most auto makers have very nice wagons. These aren't the wood paneling monsters of yesteryear, these are sharp and fun cars. Some car enthusiasts a few years ago liked the Audi wagons better than the sedans for handling because they had a bit more weight in the back.

So lets see:

SUV = Large, Cumbersome, Fuel Inefficient

Wagon = Smaller but still roomy, agile and fun, better mileage than SUVs.

SUVs	Large	Fuel Inefficient (city/highway)	Cost	Approx. Yearly Fuel Costs (15,000 miles per year)
2003 Ford Expedition XLT Popular 4WD 4dr SUV (4.6L 8cyl 4A)	Maximum Seating: 9	Automatic: 14 mpg / 18 mpg	$28,617 - $37,343	$1350
2003 Ford Excursion XLT Premium 4WD 4dr SUV (6.8L 10cyl 4A)	Maximum Seating: 8	Estimated: 9 mpg / 12 mpg	$32,828 - $44,864	$2000
2003 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer 4WD 4dr SUV (4.6L 8cyl 5A)	Maximum Seating: 7	Automatic: 14 mpg / 19 mpg	$24,781 - $34,006	$1250
2003 Lincoln Navigator Premium 4WD 4dr SUV (5.4L 8cyl 4A)	Maximum Seating: 8	Automatic: 11 mpg / 16 mpg	$45,348 - $50,998	$1600
2003 Dodge Durango SXT 4WD 4dr SUV (4.7L 8cyl 5A)	Maximum Seating: 5	Automatic: 13 mpg / 18 mpg	$25,423 - $36,234	$1400
Wagons	Good Sized	More Fuel Efficient	Cost	Approx. Yearly Fuel Costs (15,000 miles per year)
2003 Subaru Forester 2.5 XS AWD 4dr Wagon w/Premium Package (2.5L 4cyl 4A)	Maximum Seating: 5	Automatic: 21 mpg / 26 mpg	$19,815 - $24,298	$900
2003 Volkswagen Passat Wagon GLS V6 4dr Wagon (2.8L 6cyl 5A)	Maximum Seating: 5	Automatic: 19 mpg / 27 mpg	$22,128 - $39,064	$1000
2003 Volvo V70 2.4T Fwd 4dr Wagon (2.4L 5cyl Turbo 5A)	Maximum Seating: 5	Automatic: 21 mpg / 28 mpg	$27,677 - $33,457	$1025
2003 Audi S6 Avant quattro AWD 4dr Wagon (4.2L 8cyl 5A)	Maximum Seating: 5	Automatic: 15 mpg / 21 mpg	$58,000	$1300
2003 Audi A6 3.0 Avant quattro AWD 4dr Wagon (3.0L 6cyl 5A)	Maximum Seating: 5	Automatic: 18 mpg / 26 mpg	$38,000	$1050
My Car	Small	Fuel Efficient	Cost	Approx Yearly Fuel Costs (15,000 miles per year)
1999 Volkswagen Jetta GL 2.0L	Maximum Seating: 5	Manual: 24 mpg / 31 mpg	Then: $16,700 Now: $10,500	$850

Compiling this list was a learning experience. Wagons don't really have a lot in the way of seating, but they have more storage space than a sedan, usually 35 to 40 cu feet. SUVs by their sheer size will have more cargo room. I didn't list mini vans, though they are between the SUVs and Wagons. They have more storage and seating but their mileage isn't as good as the wagons. Of course mini-vans aren't cool. Everyone is so image conscious in the city. A CEO or doctor with a family isn't as likely to drive a mini-van. They have to look good around their peers.

I threw the Audi A6 in the mix for the hell of it. It's out of most peoples reach and is nearly as fuel inefficient as the SUVs. It's a sports car wagon. What do you expect when you put an engine as large as in those huge SUVs, with all wheel drive into a smaller lighter frame? Bet those long family trips would be wild going through Utah, Nevada or Montana, where you have long stretches of nothingness.

My car says it seats 5, but that's misleading. It seats 2 adults comfortably up front as long as you're not much taller than 6 ft. I'm 6 ft and I fit well. My buddy John is 6'4" (I think) and his knee caps would be blasted off if the passenger airbag deployed. Well maybe not, but you get the picture. Two short adults can sit relatively comfortable in the back. But I think it's best suited towards children. Three children could fit very comfortably.

Do you see my point? Even my small car is good for a pretty decent sized family. I still have 13 cu ft. of trunk space. Sure there are those, like my boss, who has 4 kids and my car wouldn't be adequate. He has a mini-van. Those who insist on having SUVs for image purposes are only polluting the air, many times faster than I in my smaller car. They are helping drive fuel prices higher and higher because they are using twice as much as everyone else.

And people wonder why I get so pissed when I get stuck behind an SUV that I can't see around. Ugh!

Here is another good argument against huge SUVs.

Car facts from Edmunds and the US Department of Energy.

Cleared Stats

I cleared my Website Stats for the new year. I've also added it to the links on the left for ease of viewing. I get an odd variety of search hits.

Good Holidays

I know I'm terrible about writing lately. Not that I don't have any great thoughts or ideas, but I've just not really felt inclined to share them with the world. Not when i can share them with Melly, love of my life.

A lot of my friends and family were worried I'd have a bad holiday because I was going to be here in Nashville by myself. But I wasn't by myself. I had Melly. Ok so she was in Maine, but that didn't stop us from spending lots of quality time together. We chatted, laughed, were serious and silly. We played games over the 'net too. We've been playing Neverwinter Nights again. Playing with her. Spending time with her has made the game a lot of fun. We get to work together. We are a great team. I don't really enjoy playing by myself. That's ok though. We got Neverwinter specifically to play together.

I know people still don't understand the relationship Melly and I have but it is really very strong. I think it's easier for them to pretend its not real than for them to try to comprehend it. That's disappointing. I mean how do you think it feels when friends and family tell you to find someone else. Someone other than the woman I love with all my heart and soul? Someone other than my soul-mate? No I stopped listening to them. They don't want to listen to me, why should I listen to them?

Anyway, back to the point. My holidays were great because of my sweet love. While some might think what we did was little and insignificant, is time with your true love ever insignificant? I don't think so. I value every moment.

even when i hate myself

even when i feel your pain when you cry

even when my heart is cold

you assure me it's worthwhile

it's all worthwhile

Roasted Chicken Not-Really-Mexican Quesadilla

A recipe I made up:

• 1 Skinless chicken breast
  
• 1/4 cup Lawry's 30 minute Marinade - Havana Garlic & Lime
  
• 1/2 Teaspoon of Menudo spice mix
  
• 2 or 3 medium mushrooms, sliced
  
• 1/2 small onion, chopped
  
• 1/2 roasted red pepper, sliced
  
• 1/4 cup shreaded mozzarella cheese
  
• 2 large flower torillas
  
• Olive oil
  

1. Place chicken and marinade into a zip-lock bag. I allow mine to marinade over night.
   
2. Once marinated place the chicken in the oven at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. I use a toaster oven for this.
   
3. Add some olive oil to a medium skillet on medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and onion. Season with the Menudo spice. I buy my Menudo in the ethnic isle at Super Walmart. Other Mexican spices could be substituted. Cook vegitables until the mushrooms are soft and the onions are soft and lightly carmelized.
   
4. With a little olive oil (I used the excess oil from the vegitable saute), brush one side of a tortilla and place on a cookie or pizza sheet, oiled side down.
   
5. Next, lightly cover the tortilla with cheese.
   
6. Then, place the sliced roasted red pepper on the cheese layer.
   
7. Slice the chicken breast thinly, at a slight bias, and arange on top of the red pepper.
   
8. Add an additional layer of cheese.
   
9. Place the cooked onion and mushroom on top of that layer of cheese.
   
10. Spread the last of the cheese across this layer.
    
11. Brush oilve oil on the second tortilla. Again, only on one side. Place it oil side up.
    
12. Place in the oven, at 375 degrees, for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.
    
13. Slice in quarters and enjoy!
    

Feeds one hungry guy. This is a hearty meal and quite good, if I do say so myself. LOL