January 2008 archives

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

self-aggrandization defined

I like the Super Bowl as much as anyone, but isn't it funny that it's like the only event that uses Roman numerals to state which in the series it is? How would this work in other areas of life?

"My wife turns XXVI this year."
"Happy III'd anniversary, honey!"
"Wow, is it really the LXXI'th National Peanut Festival this year?"

Actually, it does provide a little fun watching people who normally have nothing to do with Roman numerals do mental gyrations to figure out exactly which number it is this year.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

she couldn't have named it anything else? anything?

So I read somewhere that a certain tabloid superstar (I won't type the name, but it rhymes with "Whitney Fears") has a dog named London. Great. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

a normal day for me, if my life were an RPG

6:45 am: Wake up. My life points (LP) and code points (CP) are full.

6:50 am: Boss battle! Taking out the trash. Timed battle. I have to get the trash out before the trash truck comes. Succeed with time to spare.

7:30 am: Level up character (breakfast, shower, shave).

7:55 am: Board my trusty steed (my Honda). Travel to next destination: work.

8:05 am: Random battle: code error found last night. Start diagnosis of problem quickly. Enemy is a "logic bomb". Use special move "Defusion" to win battle.

8:30 am: Code points are low as a result of last battle. Use a Cherry Coke Zero from item bag. Code points replenish.

9:15 am: Random battle: two enemies - "Deployment" and "Windows Decompression". Enemies have technique "multi-step process" that casts "Slow". Employ moves "batch file" and "RAR command line" to dispatch the foes. Level up - I learn new batch processing techniques.

10:55 am: Boss battle! Release deployment. Timed battle. Boss can spawn extra code error enemies, and does so in great numbers. Halfway through the battle, see that life and code points are drastically low. Eat salad and drink a Diet Dr Pepper to restore points. Win battle just before time runs out.

1:30 pm: boss battle won, but in a FMV, I and the other member of my party (my boss) are ambushed by a Feature Creep. Finished demo is obliterated, with nothing the party can do about it.

2:10 pm: recuperating with party members, figuring out a way to handle Feature Creep. But just after we get our plan together, it's time for another...

2:45 pm: Boss Battle! "Client Demo". I lose one party member, but pick up two different ones, a fellow coder and a tester. Boss spawns code errors and mini-feature creeps. Battle drags out longer than I would have expected.

6:00 pm: Think I've defeated enemy, only to realize that this is one of those battles where the boss doesn't die. He just goes away for a little while, only to come back in a stronger form later. But for now, he's gone, and the party strikes a victory pose.

6:05 pm: Mount steed to go home. Life points will be replenished with chicken and vegetables. Hot female mage waiting at home. Feature Creep and Client Demo are still out there, but for now, life is good.

Monday, January 28, 2008

benefits of Bible study

So I went 2-for-3 this weekend on updating the site. Hm.

I've been playing one of my games a lot recently. I'll get too far into it and then stop only when I'm tired and realize that I have to work tomorrow. Not really good on a number of fronts. See, I didn't read the chapter I was supposed to yesterday, either. I did read my Bible - the passages we read in church - but not the one that I was supposed to read for the study. So tonight I did it and the one for today.

The difference that it makes to me when I have read my Bible that day is really astounding. I'd forgotten about it. Sure, it just makes me feel good, and there's a sense of accomplishment, but there's also a deeper understanding of why I believe what I do. Some days I'll read a commentary about the chapter that I'm on in addition to the chapter itself; that's been useful as well.

So even though I "missed a day" yesterday, I've been happy with how this particular resolution has gone so far.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

that's a good Saturday

I started today by getting up early. Normally, this wouldn't be that great a thing, but I went to bed early too so it evened out. This morning, I went to Wal-Mart and bought an electric blanket for Kelly. Last night, we bought a radiator from Home Depot. Between those two things, hopefully, our gas bill should go down and Kelly's comfort level should go up.

Once Kelly got home from work, we watched the Alabama-Auburn basketball game. I don't follow college basketball nearly as much as I used to (I know, one of my two favorite teams is two-time defending national champs...), but when the two teams play just about anything against each other and it's televised, I'll watch it. It was even better that Bama probably played their best game of the year and whupped some tiger tail.

After that, we went over to Ricky and Tammy's for an early 30th birthday party for Ricky. (Already this month, he's become an "old man"...now he'll be an old man.) Katelyn, of course, is as cute as ever. It was a nice laid-back evening...pizza and some old Animaniacs episodes.

Add all that up, and that's a good Saturday for me.

Friday, January 25, 2008

oops

It was bound to happen, wasn't it?

Okay, so I missed a day. But I've posted twice on other days, and I'll probably post again this evening too, so it works out, right? Right?

(crickets chirp)

Okay, it doesn't. I got wrapped up playing a game and before I knew it, it was midnight, which means that not only did I not write a post yesterday, I didn't get as much sleep as I should. TGIF, indeed.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

prepping for a pup

I don't think that I've made an official announcement on the site yet, but we're getting a dog. True to my desire from long ago, it will be a chocolate lab, and we're naming it London, after Jack London.

Yes, I know some of you are asking, "Why not a husky?" Well, I love huskies, too. In fact, I'd probably put it second on my list of favorite dogs. The problem is, we live in Alabama, not Alaska. And it's just so warm in summer. But there's also another issue - huskies aren't as easily trainable. I want to make sure that we can get a well-trained dog the first time around. And what better dog than a Lab for easily-trained?

There is a downside to the Lab, and it relates to size. Kelly hasn't had a large dog before, and trying to deal with one, especially as boisterous as a Lab, can be intimidating at first. So we asked the breeder for one that's a little more laid-back.

So we've got most of the basics now - a crate, toys, barriers...about the only thing that I can think of right now that we haven't gotten are food and water bowls. We'll be getting him in about 2 1/2 weeks, and we can't wait!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Manah "Nah, Nah"

So I tried Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr Pepper tonight. And all I can think is, "There are 11 more in there that I have to drink."

Seriously, next time I think about trying some weird flavor combination of a soft drink, pop me in the head.

But it's still better than the cherry vanilla version.

Bonus points for anyone who gets where I was going with the entry title.

Monday, January 21, 2008

good flannel day

I had the day off today, and so did Kelly. What did we do? Well, for the most part, not much at all. We did put together our golf organizer, and we were going to take our recycling to the community bin, but it was already full.

Other than that, I wore my flannel, played around on the computer, watched some TV, etc. Not really anything spectacular. For the most part, just how I like days off.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

snow day pictures

	The backyard, just as it started to snow. You probably can't see snowflakes in this small version of the picture (you can in the big one).
	Kelly trying her hand - er, tongue - at catching snowflakes.
	I try to reel in a big one.
	Backyard looks a little different, doesn't it?
	Obviously, our roof isn't normally white.
	This snowball ended up on my sweatshirt about a minute after this picture was taken.
	Now the snowmen look more at home, don't they?
	Our little addition to the snowman family. He lasted about an hour before toppling over the railing.
	Later that day, we made our first fire in the fireplace.
	Looks cozy, doesn't it?

Saturday, January 19, 2008

snow day

Oh yes, it happened. Although it didn't start until after the morning light. I stayed up until about 2:30 and it didn't snow. I woke up around 8:30 this morning; I think it started about 15 minutes after I got up.

We got out in the snow a little bit. We took a few pictures; those are forthcoming (we got a new digital camera, and are still learning the ins-and-outs of it). I hope that they come out nice. It was fun to see the people walking up and down the street, just enjoying the snow and the resulting scenery.

For a little bit, the flurries were pretty thick. It wasn't Green Bay playoff weather thick, but it was a good bit of snow. I'd say that we probably got a little over an inch in total.

And only a few hours later, it was gone. Practically all evidence that it had ever snowed had melted away. But it was nice while it lasted.

This evening, Kelly and I made our first fire in our fireplace. The dying embers are glowing as I type this. We've enjoyed the day. I hope you've enjoyed yours too, gentle reader, even if you weren't blessed with snow today.

Friday, January 18, 2008

I am from Alabama, after all

I admit it...I'm staying up late tonight to see if it snows.

Snow doesn't happen often enough here to not be a big deal. I've lived in Birmingham over five winters, and I've seen snow that accumulated one time. And even that wasn't all that much.

I guess it's also the inner child in me. I like seeing it snow; I love seeing the ground covered in white. It'll be interesting if it does happen, seeing it on my own yard for the first time. I think about Ricky and Tammy's new baby, about the fact that she might see snow for the first time before she's two weeks old. Part of me wishes we already had our new dog so we could see it playing in the snow. I hope that there's enough to make snowballs, so I can have a snowball fight with my wife for the first time (entirely good-natured fighting, of course).

Snow's more magical for us here in the south. Up north, it's just another seasonal event. (For what it's worth, we probably take warm beaches for granted.) And I'm glad that I'm not so grown up that the part of me that wants to see the magic happen as soon as I can can still convince the tired man who worked hard all week to stay up, just in case crystalline ice flakes fall from the sky.

And given that, even if it doesn't snow, I think it's time well spent.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

under the gun

Nothing special happened today.

See, this is why I stopped doing this for awhile. Sometimes nothing really important happens. You just do your thing during the day. Of course, in my case, you miss blogging about the really big things that have happened too, like the new place, etc.

I need to come up with ideas for useful filler when nothing about my day strikes me as interesting. Hm...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

thank you, Hershey's

Your idea to make dark chocolate mini versions of your Krackel and Mr. Goodbar?

Best. Idea. Ever.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

1/2 month - resolutions?

Okay, so now the real entry for today. We were watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay earlier, so I couldn't get my thoughts in order, but Kelly's gone to bed now so I can write some.

I don't remember the statistic, but I remember reading somewhere that most New Year's resolutions are broken before January ends. So every once in a while, I will try to check in with my overall progress on mine that I mentioned previously. Since we're now halfway through January, why not now?

1. Post at least once every day. Yep. You're reading the proof.
2. Lose weight. I haven't weighed myself during the course of this month (for that matter, I didn't weigh myself on December 31, either, so I don't really know what my starting weight was). I haven't done a great job here - haven't really changed anything about my eating habits or my exercise. My clothes don't feel looser or anything. I'd guess I'm about where I was at the start of the year.
3. Read my Bible every day. Yes! I've read at least a chapter every day. I'm ashamed to admit this, but it's the longest consecutive stretch of days that I've read my Bible in quite a while. We're currently doing a church-wide Bible reading on Jesus where we read through three of the Gospels one chapter a day until Easter. I've used that as my guide.
4. Better neatness around the house and yard. I've been better, but not what I really want to get to. For example, I'm still not the best at cleaning up dishes every night, so they'll still pile up. (Ricky, I'm sure that you're nodding your head in remembrance right now.) But I am getting better at it (in fact, I cleaned the kitchen tonight while Kelly made dinner). It's a little cold for doing much in the yard right now, though.

I mentioned financial goals, but I think for the most part that I'm going to keep those to Kelly and myself. I like the topic of personal finance, and for the most part I'll talk about it with anyone who will listen, but I don't think that I'm quite ready to have an open wallet.

So there you go. I'm 2 1/2 for 4. But the year is still young - still room for improvement!

strangest injury ever

Today I lacerated the top of my mouth putting a potato chip into it. I can't say that that's ever happened to me before in my life.

Monday, January 14, 2008

I know the line of conversation here...

First, read the story. Then come back here.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Yeah, I've got a sister."

"Older or younger?"

"She's about five minutes younger than I am."

"Oh, are you twins?"

"Eh, no."

(Befuddled stare; awkward silence ensues)

Sunday, January 13, 2008

dear HGTV...

I normally love your channel. I like seeing all of the ideas that I could do in the house and yard for fairly little money. I like seeing the really awesome designs that some people can come up with. For the most part, you and I are tight.

However, your commercial for your new show "Sleep on It" makes me gag. The faux-musical number just leaves me diving for the remote whenever I see it. The show looks like an interesting idea - prospective buyers stay a night in the house to see if they really like it - but I'll never watch it because of the horrible commercial.

I hope that you can find it within you to realize that this was not a wise choice, and come up with something that doesn't make me scream inside whenever I see it.

Love, Brandon

Saturday, January 12, 2008

mmm...

The best pizza in the world is from a little place in Ozark, Alabama, named DiFlippo's. And tonight, that's what we had for dinner.

My mom has told me that they might go out of business soon. The current owner is advancing in age, and his children don't really want to continue the business. So I like to have it whenever I come home if I can.

If I find that they really are going out of business one day, I think I'm going to ask them for the recipe for their sauce.

Friday, January 11, 2008

we're off to see the Wizard...

In the land of Oz this weekend...we're returning the car that we borrowed from my parents while looking for our new wheels.

Not really much else to report today...hm. Well, I did say that I would post something every day. I didn't say it would necessarily be interesting every day.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

maybe some time...

The really random thing I eventually want for our living room once we ramp up the process of redoing it (it's currently like number four on our list) is to eventually get my great-grandmother's mantle clock fixed. I like clocks in general, and it's a nice piece of history, so I'd like to get it working again.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

learning about new cars - the hard way

When we bought our car, it came with two keys. One was a key with a keyless entry system. The other was just a valet key. Being that Kelly will be driving the vehicle on an everyday basis, she got the former. After driving it home last, night, she decided to lock the door with the keyless entry system.

Today I was supposed to take the new car to get its license and registration taken care of (and also to show it to my co-workers, since they'll most likely never get a chance otherwise to see it). So using my valet key, I unlocked the driver-side door...and was treated to an ear-piercing wail of an alarm.

I'm becoming a bit of an alarm connoisseur. I have had our alarm in the house go off a couple of times (some even intentionally, during testing), I've had fire alarms go off in the apartment while we were trying to cook...I've gotten used to having my eardrums rattled. This one was a bit of a change of pace alarm - fairly loud, but pulsating for just that extra touch of annoyance.

Naturally, I did not expect this to have happened. So I backed away from the car, and sure enough after about 20 seconds or so it died down. Now, my key had actually unlocked the car door; I knew that much. But could I drive it now? I placed my hand on the door to open it...

The ringing of the alarm told me, no, I guess not.

Well, I got the license taken care of anyway, so now it's out of my hands. It's officially Kelly's car now, which makes my ears happy.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

day of news

A lot of my day was spent waiting. A lot of it was also spent writing checks.

The waiting mainly came due to my garage door opener repairman being late. I ended up at home for the vast majority of the afternoon. He got there and set up our new opener, complete with sensor (it should give you an idea of how old our old ones are/were that they didn't include sensors on them). Seems to work pretty well. It's just not the sexiest thing to buy.

That's reserved for things like cars. Yep, we finally got our new vehicle tonight as well. Kelly drove it home, and it will become her primary vehicle. I'll drive her old Civic until we save up enough to get my truck. (Did "Somewhere Out There" start playing softly in the background?) I'll throw a picture up when I get the chance. I'm going to go register it and get the license tomorrow.

After finishing all the paperwork on the car, we went and saw Katelyn, Ricky and Tammy's daughter. They're all doing well (if a bit tired, I'm sure)...they will be able to come home either tomorrow or Thursday; they weren't sure when we talked to them.

(I realize that by writing the previous paragraph, I've gotten two different women rarin' again for their own grandchild. All in due time...)

Monday, January 7, 2008

kte

If you read this site, you certainly know about the other half of 1122 Productions, Ricky and Tammy Eanes. Their baby girl was born today!

You can go to his site for more information on the big day and their new bundle of joy.

Congratulations, Ricky and Tammy!

a shock coming from me

With everything else that's going on in my life right now, I just can't find the desire to watch tonight's championship game.

Or maybe that's because a team that I support isn't in it this time. It's been so long since that was the case... ;)

Sunday, January 6, 2008

I'm still a college student in some ways

My last five meals:

• Pizza
• Leftover pizza
• Leftover pizza
• Taco Bell
• Leftover pizza

Did I mention Kelly's not feeling well?

Saturday, January 5, 2008

takin' it easy

We haven't left the house today. Kelly is recovering from a virus, so it's been a lazy Saturday. We had originally planned on going grocery shopping, but she hasn't felt up to it. Yes, I know that I could go by myself, but I don't wanna. :)

So she's been reading, and I've been on the computer, and we've both had turns at the TV. Our lives are exciting!

Friday, January 4, 2008

it's so dark

It's so sad after all the houses in the neighborhood have taken down their Christmas lights. Just another reminder that the holidays are over...

Not to mention that our house is the only one on the block that doesn't have much outdoor lighting. In a way, it's kind of nice...you can actually look up and see stars. It's one of many ways in which the place where we live feels like we're out in the country when we're really not.

Not that I'm going out and looking at stars tonight. It's so cold, too.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Christmas came late

I got a new computer at work today. It's got a quad-core processor and 4GB of RAM...me likee.

I know that it's a bit geeky (okay, it's a lot geeky), but I really like breaking in a new computer. I was able to get a lot of it done today, so if the need comes tomorrow morning I can work on it. But I still have some other things that I have to load and install on it before it's really prepped and ready to go.

Of course, it really makes me want a new machine at home too. But that will happen in due time...

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

tired of comment spam

It took me over an hour to clear the site of all its comment spam. There were over 4,000 messages to delete, and unfortunately I had to click on a check box beside every single one of them in order to get rid of them all. So it was an undertaking to say the least.

Given that I'm trying to put something out on the site daily now, I've got to come up with a means of limiting spam. Unfortunately, the software that powers this blog is pretty old, and I don't want to pay the fees to update it right now. That means that I'm basically stuck with what I have, for now. Because the software is old, spammers have figured out the ways that they can spam on the site pretty well unless I close entries to comments.

So here's the plan. I'm adding at least one entry a day. Each entry will be open for comments for three days. On the fourth day, I close that entry off for comments. If I get a spam on the entry before the fourth day, I close that entry immediately.

We'll see how it goes. I know that right now there probably aren't many of you actually checking up on the site, so there might be quite a few entries that go without comment, but that's okay. Hopefully soon I'll hear from some of you again...

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

2008 Resolution

Happy New Year!

For those of you who still like to check this page from time to time, and are used to seeing nothing here, here's a surprise for ya...not nothing!

However, I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know that pressing on... is making a comeback this year. Far too long I have been more of a consumer of the web than a producer. I have many fond memories of working on this website and adding the content that now sits gathering cobwebs in the archives. Hey, even I still go back every now and then and read what my former self wrote. Some of it still cracks me up.

Kelly and I talked about resolutions once before the new year, and I said that I hadn't really planned on doing any. Well, Sunday at church that changed. The pastor preached an excellent sermon on change, and I was convicted of needing to make a few in my own life. Did God tell me to start up pressing on... again? No, but he did reveal to me that I've been pretty lazy about keeping up with people in the past, and this site is a great way that I have had to do so. He also showed me that I don't take advantage of free time very well. This gets back to being a consumer of the web. It's really easy in today's Internet to get lost in countless blogs, Youtube clips, and news aggregators and just keeping taking it all in. It's really easy to convince myself that my life isn't really all that special, and who would care to read about it? Both are wrong. The former leads to a glazed-over mind and also invites temptation. The latter both tells God that essentially I'm pointless and denies my friends and family the opportunity to commune with me (in the modern way). I'm just enough of a curmudgeon to not want to join MySpace or Facebook...this is my interface to the Internet world. So I need to take care of it better.

So I'm making a resolution (it's one of five that I'm making) for this year to include at least one post every day. All 366 days. For days that I know that I will not be able to access the blog, I will inform the general public about it beforehand (so no cheating) and then write my entry down during the day, so that when I can get back online I can add it and back-date it appropriately.

What are the other four resolutions, you might ask? Oh, the usual. Lose weight, read my Bible every day, better organization and tidiness in the house/yard, and some financial goals that I won't get into here.

All right. One day of 366 done. Now to go erase all the spam that's appeared on some of my other entries.

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