Sick of "Happy Holidays"

Mikayla this week came down the hallway of our house and merrily said, "Happy holidays!" I was shocked! Where did my innocent 3 year old learn to be so politically correct? Krista and I made an extra effort to say "Merry Christmas" from then on.

First we X-ed Christ out of Christmas with "X-mas", now we are on to more subtle ways of taking the true meaning out of Christmas. "Happy Holidays" is the phrase that is heard 10 times during each commercial break and it is the phrase that is posted all over the stores. Although, I was happy to see Fry's Electronics IS having a "Day after Christmas" sale event on the 26th.

Well, I wanted to continue this train of thought and blog a really controversial post, but I'm getting a little depressed thinking about it. Christmas Eve is not the time to bog your mind down with what's wrong with the world. It's a time to reflect on the birth of our Savior, the greatest gift ever given.

Look forward to a philosophical blog entry about what's wrong with being politically correct...just not on Christmas Eve ;o)

Merry Christmas!!

The sickness before Christmas

Over the last couple weeks Krista, Mikayla, and Lily have had the flu. I thought I had escaped the 24-hour flu bug, but I was wrong. Night before last I bearly slept and made a couple offerings to the porcelain god. There was an important project that needed 30-45 minutes of my attention at work, so I went in and took care of that and then came home. I slept most of the day yesterday while I battled a fever, nausea, aches, and a headache.

This morning I woke up with little more than a stomach ache. Praise the Lord! This is a busy week at work and Christmas is just a few days away.

Well, Christmas shopping is almost over. I need to brave the Costco craziness after work tonight and then I might have one more stop. The giftcard is a wonderful invention ;o) 

Warning: Infected - Part 2

* Audio download link *

How do I start this one. My goodness. For those of you who missed it, here is the link to my first review of Infected. Read it before continuing.

First of all, I would like to say that I do not hate Martin Sargent. If that is the way my first review came across, I apologize. That is not how I meant it. And, to defend myself a little, I did not post that review on “8” websites, I posted on one. It was intended to serve as a warning to my friends and family, the ones who read my blog, that it is not the type of podcast that they would be interested in.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, Martin called me out in his second episode of his Infected podcast. He exaggerated, called me names, and had a lot of fun at my expense. I don’t care much about that, I actually find it funny that a geek warning his friends of a dumb podcast got so much attention and got under Martin’s skin so much.

He actually read my previous post on his podcast and spent a couple minutes making fun of me and calling me names. I have edited the profanity out of a segment of his podcast in case you are interested. This is probably as close to my “fifteen minutes of fame” as I’ll ever get. How sad, Martin Sargent making fun of me in his podcast that is so profane, no one I know will ever hear it. Kind of ironic.

Let me give a bit more of a reason for not liking the podcast and why I urge you to not listen to it. First of all, humor that is filled with vulgar references and profanity is not something I find funny. I know that the majority of my readers are people who share similar values as I do and don’t enjoy that kind of humor. Second, it is a waste of time. Coming from Revision3, one might think that the content is educational or at least technology related. Martin says that his show is “a waste of time about wasting time surfing the internet wastelands, wasted.” I don’t know about you, but a profane waste of time is not what I am looking for in a podcast.

In episode 2 of Infected, Martin accuses me of posting my “eight paragraph” review on “eight different websites”. Well, he was close – it was a two paragraph review on one website. Maybe this post will be eight paragraphs. Oh, and yes, you can witness audio only content (Wikipedia on “witness”). But, being someone who has studied English at a university level, you would know that, Martin.

I know not everyone will agree with me, some people like a good profane waste of time, but like I said in my first review, it makes me feel infected. It is a huge disappointment to me that Revision3 would get behind such a production. Systm, diggnation, and thebroken are such good shows that it is disappointing that Infected is using resources that could be allocated to better shows.

If you want to hear the edited 3 minute segment of Infected episode 2, click here.

The Death of Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is dying. Personally, I am glad to see it go. Yeah, I know that estimates say that IE still has like 70% market share, but a year ago it had 91%. That's a 20% drop in 12 months. Firefox however has grown significantly. My visitors are STRONGLY Firefox users. 70% of the last 400 unique users use Firefox.

Why Firefox? Security, tabs, extensions, and live bookmarks.

Security: New IE flaws come up all the time. Yes, there are Firefox security holes too, but very few people target Firefox - they target IE, because more people use it. Eventually this will change when IE goes below the 50% market share mark - I give that 2 years TOPS.

Tabs: Browsing with tabs has changed my life. I couldn't go back. I always have my Google homepage up. Keeping all the pages in my browser in one window using tabs is amazing. If you haven't ever browsed with tabs, go download Firefox and try it!!

Extensions: Unlike IE, Firefox is very open to configuration and development. There are thousands of developers writing extensions for Firefox to improve the user experience. I use the Gmail Notifier, IE Tab, All-in-One Gestures, BugMeNot, and del.icio.us. There are thousands of these extensions that do almost anything you could ask for. They check your mail, let you use mouse gestures to close tabs, go back or forward in page history, give you a weather report in your menu bar, etc..

Live Bookmarks: Any RSS feed can be a Live Bookmark. Your most recent stories Dugg, Slashdot, CNN, your del.icio.us bookmarks organized by category! I love it!

I know IE is easy because everyone has it and just about every web page is designed to be seen by it, but if you haven't tried Firefox, I encourage you to try it. Did I mention it has built in pop-up blocking?

E-mail or comment if you have anything to add or any questions.

Faces

Tonight we attempted to shoot Christmas pictures of the girls. It didn't go so well. Mikayla was great, but Lily is teething with a fever and not cooperating very well. Of the photos I shot of Mikayla, I liked one of them and a couple more were "okay". But, I had a lot of expressions that I wanted to share. I made the image above out of those expressions. My favorite in the top right. Krista posted the good shots on her blog. I hope to get better shots soon - with BOTH the girls :o)

Online Poker Revisited

I have been enjoying online poker again lately. One memorable run of cards was very fun:

I was holding poket kings and raised pre-flop. I was re-raised and followed with a re-raise. I was playing limit, so re-raising it up like that only put us each in for about 4x the big blind. The flop came giving no straight or flush possible and no ace - we both bet like crazy. The turn had an ace and he only called my bet, didn't raise with it. At that point I thought, "He's playing like he has MY hand. Or maybe QQ." The river was another blank and we raised it up. Cards flipped and we both had KK. I couldn't believe it. We split the large pot and I just laughed.

The very next hand I was dealt poket kings again! "This is perfect," I thought when I saw it. Playing online is a lot harder in many respects, but mainly in tells. You have so few things to pick up on by another player. One thing that stays the same with online play or real life play is players going on tilt (someone playing recklessly because they are frustrated for whatever reason). I raised like crazy hoping that the other people would think I was on tilt from the last split pot. With 3 of us in, the flop came K K 9 with two hearts. The other guys did most of the betting at this point - raising it up as far as allowed with limit. I just sat back and grinned. The ONLY way I could lose would be if someone had pocket aces and the turn AND river brought aces, or if someone made a straight flush. The turn was a low heart, making a flush possible. Everyone bet like mad! The river was a blank and more betting like mad. We finally turned up cards and of course, I had quad kings to win. My opponents had an ace-high flush and a full house, nines full of kings. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect setup to bring chips my way. I was just glad I was holding the quads, not the full boat or the flush.

As for my blog, I am sorry for the delay in posting, but I have been having a hard time thinking of something worth while to post. I know, alot of you are thinking, "That's never stopped you before!" And you are right.

Well, today is Lily's birthday - she is 1! Happy birthday Lily! I'm sure Krista will have a post today with pictures.

Long Time, No Blog

I guess it's been awhile since I've posted. I've been a little busy. Most of my "free" time has been spent working on a new design for my photography website, www.ouralbumonline.com. Here is what it looks like now:

I have most of the Senior Portraits pages done, including 3 sample galleries. All other sections are still desperately in need of work. The site also needs a major overhaul. It is 95% images in tables right now. I'd like to convert it to CSS and use less images. But hey, it's up and it looks alot better than the Postnuke site that was their before.


Saturday I had the opportunity to photograph my friends JD & Erica. I took them to Deepwood Estates and Willamette's campus to shoot their engagement portraits. I had a lot of fun. My dad came down to help - thanks again, dad! Here is one of the shots from the shoot:

I really enjoy shooting at Deepwood Estates. There are so many locations at one location. The only downside to shooting there is the competition. There were at least 3 other photographers there at the same time as we were there. We rotated spots and it was big enough that we didn't get in each other's way.

Well, that's the update. I won't wait so long to blog again...at least not until Thanksgiving ;o)

Blinking Dots

Okay, so here’s how it works. Click the above image so you can get the animated version. If you look at it looks like green dots appear after the purple ones dissapear.

If you look at the center all the dots disappear.

Very weird.

Whatever

 

Blogging From Lefty's

Today I posting from Lefty's in Salem while I wait to play their free no-limit Texas Hold'em tournament. They have wi-fi available for customers, so I brought my laptop with to keep me occupied while I wait. T minus 55 minutes.

A couple nights ago we watched "Catagory 7: The End of the World", a made-for-tv movie about a catagory 7 hurricane that hits Washington DC. To say it was dumb would be an outragious understatement. I knew it would be, but I guess I still had too high of expectations. I will relate one scene that I found particularly funny in a really dumb way:

At the FEMA-want-to-be's HQ all of the computers suddenly shut off, including the guy's laptop. All of the other appliances and lights stay on. He yells, "The T-1 went out!" At that point I fell on the floor laughing. He then went up to the attic of the building and had to reach around pipes to pull out two network cables that apparently were connected at one time. His huge task to bring power back to the computers by reconnecting the T-1 was plugging a male ethernet cable into a female jack at the end of another cable behind those pipes in the attic. Of course, his arm got stuck and the girl he had a crush on had to save him...the cable got plugged back in and magically the computers all turned back on and instantly had all the programs that were running before running again.

There were a lot of other terrible parts to the movie (I won't even start with the special effects), but that was the most memorable. Again, I don't expect much from made-for-tv movies, but I do expect more than that.

Well, it's now 6:20, my pizza is here at my table, and poker starts at 7. I must eat.

34os Wins By Taking Out 3 Players!

Last night I played a small (5 players) game of poker. I tried a couple of new things, one of which really worked for me. The idea is this, raise pre-flop with terrible cards, say 72os, 34os, etc. giving the impression that you have a strong hand. Then, see what kind of a flop you get and what other players are doing. If the flop comes AKJ, you can probably bluff very successfully. That is, unless someone really does have great cards. If the flop comes 723 or something low, you could hit your cards and no one would think you did because they are all low and you raised pre-flop. They wouldn't believe you and call your bets thinking you were bluffing you had an over-pair. That is, unless someone really does have an over-pair. Anyway, that's a play that I thought I'd try a few times last night and it really worked out for me:

Bill: raised just over double the big blind pre-flop with 34os.

Everyone calls the bet.

Flop comes 3-4-something with two hearts.

Eugene bets, JD raises all-in, I call, Christie goes all-in, and Eugene goes all-in. We see top pair, Ace-high flush draw, and my two-pair. My hand holds up through the turn and the river and somehow I took out 3 players and ended the game with 34os. I can't promise that play will work every time, but I used it 2 or 3 times last night and it worked well for me.

34os might be my new favorite hand ;o)

A Background & My Ideas

I was playing around with a design idea for my upcoming webpage (billenglish.net), and I ended up scratching the idea, but I came away with a cool background. I have sized it in a few different sizes and thought I'd put it up for download:

800x600 1024x768 1600x1200

If you would like a custom size, just e-mail me and I'll do it. For some reason I just liked the way this turned out.

I am trying to make billenglish.net be a portal to my blog, my business page, Krista's blog, and Mikayla's neglected podcast. I want it to be unique, but not hard to use. I want it to be eye catching, but still easy to read. I know what I want, I just can't come up with a design that I like that follows everything I want. Here is a peak into my scratchpad for my current idea I am mulling over:


Something like that with the lines as a page bg and then a floating white rounded corner text area in the middle and then some sort of navigation...yeah, it's very much in progress, but I AM working on it. I am also working on redoing ouralbumonline.com. I think it's cheesy the way it is. I want a much better gallery and overall design for starters.

I have tomorrow off work so maybe something will happen with some of these projects. Or, maybe I'll find people that want to play poker and I won't get anything done ;o)

Warning: Infected

Martin Sargent (language warning on that link) is at it again. He was the host of such shows as Unscrewed on the old techTV. I know he is a technology guy and I was not a fan of Unscrewed, but I thought I would check out his new podcast Infected. Well, I feel infected now. It was SO BAD! Probably the worst 36 minutes of audio-only content I have ever witnessed, without exaggeration. From the crude humor and very foul language to the fake (and very dumb) Olive Garden commercials to the story about a guy doing something I won't even mention.

I am a paying subscriber to Revision3, an IPTV startup company that Kevin Rose basically founded. I like theBroken, diggnation, Systm, etc., but this...this was bad. I think it was supposed to be funny, but I couldn't find an ounce of humor in the whole show. It is very dissapointing to me that this kind of content came from Rev3. As a subscriber, I was able to download the show early. It will be available to all later this week. Save yourself the time and from feeling like you need to take a shower and skip this one.

There, that's my rant/review of a podcast.

Liquid Sculptures

Major kudos to Martin Waugh over at LiquidSculpture.com for some AMAZING photographs of water (and other liquids) dropping at high speed. He has tons of images on his site. I couldn't stop looking at them until there weren't any left to look at. If you haven't seen his site, go check it out!

Well, last night I played poker at Lefty's for the first time in a couple months. The night started off with 50-something and I got 14th (I think - a few of us went out at once). Not bad. I beat about 40 players, made it to the top 25%. It was fun, but the blinds just went up SO FAST! We started with 5,000 chips and when I left (2.5 hours into it) the blinds were at 4,000 - 8,000. Yeah, that's what I thought too. I was in the big blind and got an A9os. I went all-in for 11,000 more than the 8,000 big blind I'd already put in. THREE people called me! I was taken down by a KJos that hit a K on the flop. I had a lot of fun, but the blinds were amazing. I guess that's what it takes to take almost 60 people and get one winner within 3-3.5 hours. 60 people times 5,000 chips means that there is about 300,000 chips in play. That means average when I went out would be about 21,500. I had 19,000 when I was basically forced all-in by a big blind. I don't think that's right. With average at 21,500, blinds should be at 1,000-2,000, no higher. 1/10 of your chip stack is enough to put in for the big blind.

One other thing that annoyed me last night was the shuffling of people. It seemed like every hand we were being shuffled around from table to table. People leaving, coming, me going, etc. We spend almost as much time shuffling and chipping up as we did playing the last 45 minutes I was there. I understand needing to keep tables even and such, but holy cow! There was one guy that got moved to our table, played one hand, and then was moved to another table. I thought that was kind of dumb. But hey, it's poker and it was just for fun. I greatly enjoyed myself and I plan on trying to make it back sooner than 2 months from now. Especially since it's no-limit now and they have gone away from limit poker. But that's enough blog entry by itself: Limit vs. No-Limit.

I think that's all I've got for ya today. Oh, two quick things. 1.) Eugene posted on his blog!! Go check it out! 2.) Another shameless plug for my refferal link with FreePSPs.com - Go register to get a free Sony PSP! ;o) Ok, I won't do it again, I promise! And thanks Larry, whoever you are, for signing up through me.

Sharpie Mini Game

I just played a fun little flash game, the Sharpie Mini Game. It's your basic paddle game, but if you play through level 4 you get a Sharpie Mini. Since I use sharpie's exclusively when labeling burned CDs & DVDs, I thought a mini would be nice to leave on my desk. Here is the link to a free Sharpie Mini if you don't want to play the game:

http://www.sharpieminigame.com/winners/index2.htm

Here is a link if you do want to play the game:

http://www.sharpieminigame.com

Bet that was a big surprise ;o)

I only played it because of the weirdness about it when I first looked at it. I was inputting my information and realized that the example birthday was ONE DAY away from my actual birthday! Weird huh?
I thought it was VERY weird!! It got me to play and then got me thinking about the odds of that birthday coming up. At first I was thinking of all birthdays for those living and the odds were crazy (like 3.6 million to 1). But then I was thinking that they probably wouldn't give 1905 as a probable birthday and they probably wouldn't give 2004 as a probable birthday...they must have formed a demographic of their target audience and choose a birthday in the median. And that's me. 25.5 years old. Not as fun to think about with the odds...I was about to go register for a poker tournament and buy some lottery tickets! But, since I thought it through more, I realized it wasn't against all odds after all. Not as exciting to think about, but hey, it's a free Sharpie mini and it was a fun few minutes playing the game.

Free PSP

Hello all! Some of you may remember that a little over a year ago I did the freeipod.com deal and actually got an iPod. It was so cool! Now, the same company is doing free Sony PlayStation Portables.

Here is the deal:

1.) Sign-up with freepsps.com.
2.) Complete 1 offer (like apply for a credit card, try video professor, etc).
3.) Get 5 friends to do the same thing.
4.) Get a free PSP in the mail!

It really does work! That's how I got my iPod that I use daily. If you aren't interested, don't do it. But if you'd like to give it a shot, sign up through this link:

http://psps.freepay.com/?r=24729089

There, that's my plug. I didn't want to send out e-mails to everyone because that seemed tacky. I know this is too, but I think it's less tacky.

iTunes/iPod Problems: Take 2

One of the most frustrating things in the world happened last night. On my NEWLY reinstalled XP box - iTunes is not syncing with my iPod. I just had to share my frustration visually. I took the above shot of myself last night at the peak of my frustration. I spared you the red blotches forming on my face by making it B&W. I am seriously considering an alternative to iTunes for syncing with my iPod. The problem with that is - I LIKE ITUNES! Ok, aside from all the problems I have and how deathly slow it is on the PC...anyway, enough venting about that.

Last night we watched Prison Break's 9th episode. It was amazing - just like all the other episodes. I am really enjoying this series. Prison Break, Numb3rs, Mythbusters, and WSOP are the shows I try and keep up with. I think I'm about 8 episodes behind on the WSOP (World Series of Poker) though.

We also watched Lord of the Beans last night. LOL! It was great! If you haven't heard about it, it is a Veggie Tales episode that parodies...guess what? Lord of the Rings. It stars Junior as Froddo Baggypants. He must take his magical bean through the land of Muchsnowia to the land of Whoa. I really got a kick out of it. To make things even better, the Silly Song with Larry is him singing an Elvis style song as an Elf. They call him an elven impersonator - LOL! Ok, so I like Veggie Tales. Who wouldn't?

On tap for tomorrow night may be Star Wars Episode III or maybe special features from one of the two bonus disks it came with :o) I am very excited!

And I hate to leave with that image above. I am in a much better mood this morning, aside from being sick and wanting to stay in bed sick all day but I'm forcing myself to go to work. Anyway, here is another photo from last night. I made it my Windows user icon and my chat clients' icon.

Zestfully Clean

Well, first and foremost, I must point you all to Krista's blog with photos of last night's fun with Mikayla.

Now, about my computer. All the spyware is gone! No, I didn't clean it all out. I gave up and reinstalled Windows XP. But, I used a cool little program called nLite to customize my install CD. It integrated all the patches for XP, my device drivers (even my RAID), and let me have an unattended install. That means, it knows my product key, my name, my password, user account, preferred resolution, etc. It was amazing. I choose the partition to install to, walked out in the living room and watched TV for 20 minutes, came back and was browsing the web on my newly installed OS. Check out nLite and make your own custom Windows XP CD!

Here is another photo I took of Mikayla this past weekend using my 50mm and no flash:

Teddy Love

Mikayla loves her teddy! I snapped this today in our kitchen. I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens with no flash and got a bunch of blurry pictures and a couple good ones. This was a good one :o)

Happy Birthday Zach!

Hey, Zach! Happy birthday! Remember this?

For everyone else, let me tell the story: My cousin CJ (left) learned in school that you should never talk to strangers. He passed this information on to Zach (right) and the two of them decided that this would be something fun to play. So, they dressed up, walked out, and said, "We're the strangers!"

Zach, if you think this is embarrassing, you must not have seen Dad's post on his blog yet. Everyone, you should check out this post! Krista also has a birthday post on her blog.

Spyware

I did it. I ran an app that I shouldn't have and it infected my PC. It was a nasty piece of malware too. It loaded everything under the sun on my computer. I had a browser hijack, pop-up ads, dialers, a trojan, some kind of trackware, and more - you name it. I ended up running Adaware, Spybot S&D, MS Antispyware, Trend Micro's web scanner, Norton, CW Shredder, hijackthis, and AVG. I'll probably end up reinstalling XP though, because I STILL HAVE SPYWARE! I get blue screens of death at random times, ads still keep popping up in IE, ads pop up in a new tab in Firefox and resize my window (very annoying), and more weird little glitches that I didn't have a couple days ago.

My hatred for spyware probably isn't much different than anyone else out there. But, this is the first time I've really been hit bad on this end of the spectrum. Usually, I am the one fixing other people's PCs. I am the one telling people how to avoid spyware.

There was one little program that I needed to use to format my USB thumb drive to make it bootable and the app cost money. I knew I would probably only be running the program once in my entire lifetime and at the time $19.99 sounded like too much to pay. So, I found a trial version hack that would allow me to do what I needed to do. Oh how I wish I had just paid the 20 bucks!! Let this just serve as a warning to others - hacks, cracks, warez, etc. is a bad idea to get into. I know this, I tell people this, but I got trapped. No matter what your ethical stance on the topic of piracy is, it will cost you time. It won't take long until you hit that piece of software that installs every piece of spyware known to man.

It makes me feel stupid. One little app ran and BOOM, my computer is shot. It's slowly bleeding now and won't be fixed until I reinstall. At least Zach showed me nlite - a nifty little app that allows you to create your own XP install disk. You can add in all the updates and patches, make the install unattended (pop the cd in, reboot, walk away, come back to XP installed), and more. Very cool.

Over a dozen pop-ups have popped up since I started writhing this post. I'll take any suggestions for other software I could run to try and fix my system...

If only I was running a mac...none of this would happen. Maybe someday there will be spyware problems on the mac, but there isn't right now. That is just one more reason to make me drool over a mac.

Parking in the Garage!

That's right! I have unpacked all the boxes on the side of the garage that the Explorer will park on. This is very exciting. This means no ice on the windshield this winter. This means we can pack and unpack dry when it's raining.

It might not seem like much, but it's a big deal to me. Now we just need to work on Krista's car getting in the garage...that will be a little longer.

Apple Napkins

Apple needs to make some napkins...so those of us drooling over their products can put them under our chins...my keyboard is a soppy mess!

Yes, yesterday was Apple's 3rd announcement in 5 weeks. They talked about the new quad processor macs, updates to the powerbooks, but the coolest thing was something designed just for photographers. Aperture. Aperture is their new "Picasa on steroids" as I have started calling it. It is WAY cool. Basically, it is an image organizer, raw converter, basic editor, and more - all designed for the photographer. I watched the videos on it last night and wow! Go check them out now:

http://www.apple.com/aperture/

For a photographer, this as a companion to Photoshop makes the ultimate digital photo editing package. There are two downsides to it however. First, it only runs on a mac, so I need one of those. Second, it's $500 (when it comes out in 6-8 weeks). Now, I need a mac. Maybe a quad G5? :o) I'd settle for a nice 20" imac. However, all that costs money. Maybe someday photography will really take off for me, but for now, I'll have to just drool.

Come on Apple! Provide us with napkins!

;o)

A Walk Down Memory Lane

A couple weeks ago I took a Wednesday off from work. I spent the afternoon getting my Comcast internet hooked up and setting up my desk, computers, etc. However, I spent the morning at my old college. The school formerly known as Western Baptist College, now known as Corban College.

It was a lot of fun. I met Eugene at Farrar (my old dorm) and we ate breakfast in the much improved dining hall, walked around the campus visiting a few people, and then going to chapel. The new chapel building is INCREDIBLE! If you ever went to WBC/Corban during the time when they met in the gym for chapel, you need to go see their new building. Wow.

It was amazing to me how at home I felt there. Time went by very quickly and I was reluctant to leave. Memories of hanging out with old friends, studying, doing stupid things, late night Taco Bell runs, falling asleep in World Thought & Culture, working in the Communications office, running out of breath walking up and down the steep hills, going to dorm meetings, staying up late talking about all the problems in the world...I could go on and on.

Sometimes I wish I could go back. But most of the time I am grateful I am done with it :o) It was a lot of work and I am glad to have moved on. I'll go back and reminisce any day though...so many memories of my home for 4 years...

10 Tacos!?

Saturday was a long day for Krista and I. Mikayla was acting up all day, Lily was getting into EVERYTHING, Krista and I were trying to unpack, etc.. We ended up getting a lot done, but getting very tired in the process. I decided I'd make dinner. Well, I can't make much, so it was going to be tuna noodle casserole. However, after a couple hours of unpacking and thinking about making dinner, I decided I'd go buy dinner and bring it home. Krista was in the mood for Chinese and I wanted a grilled stuft burrito and a cheesy gordita crunch. So, I stopped by Safeway, picked up a $5 plate of Chinese and then headed to Taco Bell. I should mention that I went to the Keizer, Oregon Taco Bell. I was surprised to only find one car ahead of me in the drive-thru line. I ordered my grilled stuft burrito and my cheesy gordita crunch and pulled forward. In less than a minute my order was ready and then I pulled out of the parking lot. I noticed the car in front of me had backed up and was pulling up to the drive-thru window as I left. "Bummer for him," I thought. I got home and unpacked Krista's dinner and then opened my Taco Bell bag. At least they got the fire sauce right. I was looking at 10 tacos. Regular beef/cheese/lettuce/crunchy tacos. I thought about registering www.ihatetacobell.com, but it's already taken. So, I guess it would have to be www.keizertacobellstinks.com. I have problems EVERY time I go there. So, I guess it's my fault for not looking in the bag until I got home. And, ontop of everything, I ate all 10 tacos that night for dinner...

Our New Place! (Photos)

This is our new place! Let me give you a photo tour.

This is the living room. Bernie likes to hang out in here and watch TV with Mikayla.

Another view of the living room.

One more view. You can see the entry into the kitchen and hallway on the left there.

This is our embarassingly large TV. My parents traded/gave it to us. We are very appreciative.

Welcome to Toy's 'R' Us. Oh wait...this is our playroom/family room.

And the kitchen.

The coolest thing in the kitchen. Get it? "Cool"est thing? LOL!

And the dinning room.

Had to get a shot of the toilet.

I'll pan left to right in the girls' room. Note the design on the wall.

Panning...Mikayla's bed...note the design on the wall.

Panning...Lily's crib.

Low-light close-up of the design Krista painted on the wall.

The very dark office.

And this is my desk! 2 computers for 1 Bill. I'll never be able to go back to 1 again.

Mikayla likes to type her ABCs on Mommy's computer.

This is our room.

And this is what's left to unpack...the garage. As soon as it's clear, I get to park in it. And the ice is coming. I can't wait to park inside!

That's all for now!

Alive, just busy

Yes, I'm alive. I know I haven't posted much lately, but moving is a big deal and there is so much to do. Unpacking is a lot of work. I am no where near unpacked and I've been extremely tired the last couple weeks.

Well, I did it. I got a MySpace.com account. I figured if a site gets more page views than Google, I'd better check it out. [edit @10:30PM] So, for all you MySpace.com'ers, here is a link to my page:

http://www.myspace.com/englishw

Anyway, there's a quick update. I'll post again when I actually have content to post =)

Let's go to Toys 'R' Us and get a...

...8-foot long Burmese Python!?!!?! WHOA! Check it out!

Statesman Journal Artilce

At Last! Internet Again!

Well, I survived. My server has been up for 12 hours and 34 minutes and I've downloaded 3.34GB of data. That's a good start. The only things left to do computer-wise is the wireless bridge to the Xbox (worked on that a bit) and Krista's computer. I think Krista plans to set that up today.

Our move went very well. We are working our way through unpacking boxes, but it is going to be a long road. I have a pile of boxes in the garage right where I want to park. As soon as I get through the boxes, I can park there. Hopefully I'll be able to talk myself into parting with some junk. I realized with this move that I have too much junk.

Well, I'm going to cut this short because I have over 1,000 un-read stories in my Bloglines...I've been out of touch and I need to catch up.

4 ½ Days Without Internet

I move tomorrow. The forecast is rain. That should be fun.

The Comcast guy can’t be at the house before Wednesday at noon. That means that I am going to be 4 ½ days without the internet. What am I going to do? I am not ashamed to say that I am addicted to the internet. I have been known to pull down 5GB of data in a 24 hour time period. That’s why I need more hard drives!

So, I may blog from work, I may write an entry or two at home and take it/them to work to post, or I may just take a break. I plan to blog about the success or failure of my wireless setup I am going to try and get working. I was a lot more optimistic before JD’s comment on my post about it:

JD said...
Keep the receipt for your wireless bridge. Not to be a party-pooper, but I had a bad experience with a few from fry's, and I ended up taking them all back and running cat5 afterall.

I certainly hope you have better luck than I did!

Hmm. That was not the most encouraging comment, but wiring is not an option for me. The products that I bought claim that they should do what I want. I guess only trying it will tell me for sure. Anyone out there have a success story of setting up a wireless bridge? I would think that bridging two wired networks wirelessly would be a fairly common request by users. And, now that 108 megabit speeds are available, bridging those 10/100 networks by a 108 megabit network seems like a great solution. No speed loss – in theory.

Well, I imagine I will have a need to be online before Wednesday and whenever I am online I digg, so you can watch my stories dugg to see what I’m checking out during my dry spell.

Wish me luck!

A Little Shook Up

Yesterday two men came into my credit union and presented a check to cash. One of the men also presented a California Driver’s License. I put the check into the computer and it came up as a stolen check. I calmly looked up our member’s signature card and compared the signature behind the counter where the men couldn’t see. Not even close. This was a stolen check, forged signature, and attempted fraud! I calmly took the check and the man’s license and went in the back and dialed 9-1-1. The men left before the police arrived. The police took a statement from me and I gave them the (very fake looking) driver’s license and the check. They said a detective would be in contact with me soon.

Of course this would be the one afternoon that both my boss and the lady that has worked here nearly as long as I have been alive were both out of the office. I called my boss and recounted the entire event and she told me I did everything right, good job, etc..

After it was all over and we locked the doors and started balancing, I realized I was still quite shook up. My heart was racing right up until I went to bed last night. Hopefully today will be a less eventful day.

Major Network Disappointment

We are moving on October 1^st – that’s this Saturday! Woohoo! We have greatly enjoyed being at my parents’ house, but it’s time for us to move. Our good friends Eugene and Christie are allowing us to rent from them while they are the RD of Farrar at Corban College.

When Eugene first knew he would be moving into this house, he said that a project he might want my help for would be wiring the house with cat5 to have a 10/100 network in the main rooms. Well, he found a wireless system that worked for him and the project was delayed. I knew that before I moved in I would want it wired, so this last Saturday, my dad and I headed to Fry’s to get some stuff and wire the house. We got enough cable and plugs to wire the entire house. I was very excited.

Eugene wasn’t feeling well and my dad has a lot of experience under houses, so he offered to do the “dirty” work under the house. We drilled a couple holes first, shoved some cable down, and my dad went under. He was under a LONG time and we he came out it was apparent that this project wasn’t going to happen. The house has huge ventilation tubes that completely block off a huge part of the access under the house. Without dismantling them (and possibly causing a LOT of issues with breaking things) there is no way to get past them and wire the house.

I was really disappointed. I have a 5 computer network that will be moving with me. Fortunately, I was able to find a workable wireless solution. D-link makes a 108 megabit wireless router and wireless bridge. So, I can have computers wired in two rooms and then bridge that connection wirelessly without losing any speed. In theory. I will report on the success or failure of that project as time goes on. But, at least it is a workable solution to my problem without much extra cost.

HUGE thanks to my dad for all the time spent this weekend helping me with my network endeavors. And a HUGE thanks to Eugene and Christie for allowing us to rent their house and giving us such a great deal.

Mouseovers, TV, and Laptopitus

Mouse over the image above to see the difference in filtering a B&W image in Picasa. Picasa has a feature in the "Effects" tab of an image called "Filtered B&W". I used a red filter and a green filter for the image above and then added the mouseover so you can see the difference. Very cool! Try it!

Well, all the TV seasons are starting now. That means that my hard drives are filling up with shows like The Biggest Loser, Prison Break, Bones, 7th Heaven, King of Queens, Surface, Lost, Survivor, and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. I am proud to say, the only one of those I have watched this year is Lost. And, most of that, I was browsing online on my $10 laptop (not to be confused with a REAL laptop).

Speaking of laptops, I have laptopitus really bad right now. Everywhere I look I see a Dell Inspiron 6000 (Click here to see the one saved in my Dell shopping cart)! It's really bad...that's all I have to say about that infection I have...

Well, I am out of time. I have 25 minutes until I need to leave. I should be able to leave on time...unless someone gets in the shower right as I go downstairs ;)

5:45 AM

This is Mikayla at 15 months old. It's amazing to see all the changes. I was browsing my old photos of her and this one really shows off her hair as it was then.

Well, note the time of this post. Yeah, it's right. I'm heading to work real early today. I have a project that should go out the door today that is nowhere near ready. Wish me luck!

Where to Find Cheap Obituaries

No, I didn't die. I'm still alive and well. I know, I know, you are thinking, "Bill, it's been like 126 hours since you posted? What's up with that?" Well, I have almost recovered from my all day photo shoot on Saturday. And I mean ALL DAY. I left home at 7:30AM and I got back at 1:30AM the next day. My only break was for 3 hours to attend a wedding.

First I better explain the title for this entry. I was at the Statesman Journal frontpage this morning looking for the story about MAPS getting robbed at gunpoint yesterday. I couldn't find it in the main section, so I started looking on the sidebars. I looked about half-way down and read, "Where to find cheap obituaries." I kept moving on and then stopped about 4 seconds later and thought, "WHAT?!" After closer inspection, it seems that my mouse was covering the word "gas". I should have read, "Where to find cheap gas" and then the next line read, "Obituaries." I thought it was funny though.

Saturday was a blast! I did a photo shoot for Wholesomewear, a local Christian company that sells modest clothing and swimwear. I sold the rights to the photos, so I am in the process of finding out if I can blog some of the photos. Until I get that approval, well...you can just wait =)

The wedding I attended Saturday was very interesting. The groom left the sanctuary in the middle of the cerimony! Turns out he was fairly sick - enough to make it to the emergency room during the reception. He had a fever and was dehidrated - stress is a powerful thing.

After the wedding, I returned to the job site and worked on the post-processing of the images we shot. Since I shoot in RAW, I have the option to do a lot of editing before the image is converted into a standard file format (like JPG or TIFF). Some day I will write an article on the power of RAW and why/how it should be used. Not today though, this post is long enough and I'm not done =)

Anyway, it was a long fun day. I feel recovered now and you can expect to see posts again and maybe even a photo or two ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Guest Entry - Chromasia

If you want to see some really great photographs, visit chromaia. David Nightingale is a UK photographer and family man with a real eye for composition. I love his work. If you have never browsed his archives, you are missing out.

I have added a couple new features to the sidebar of my site. Again, if you simply read this in bloglines or another RSS reader, you are missing out. First, I added my digg.com stories I have dugg. So now you can see what I am digging throughout the day. Second, I have added the cities of my most recent 5 visitors. Well, it's updated every hour, so it takes a little time to change. But, click here to see my most recent 100 visitors on a GoogleMap.

Just a Little Bite?

I came home from work last night and Mikayla wanted to play with Papa's juggling balls. I got them down and juggled a bit and then she wanted to try. We played a bit and then she put one in her mouth! She bit down on it so it stuck out. I told her "no" and counted to three and then gave a light flick on her cheek. She didn't cry, but wanted me to kiss it. She sat on my lap and put the ball right up to her mouth. I said, "Mikayla, don't bite the ball." She responded with, "Just a little bite?" and then, "Can I lick it?" I almost fell off the chair laughing.

Linux

Well, I am running Ubuntu Linux on my desktop now. I am still trying to get my RAID drivers working, so I don't really have access to my pictures at the moment. I am spending all my free time (yeah, right) trying to build up a good linux box. It is great fun. I have even gotten a few windowz apps running in linux using Wine. It has really come a long way since I'd last used it. If I can get Photoshop and my RAID working, I'm switching over for good...or at least until I can afford a mac ;o)

A Rose

I don't have much to say about this photo. I shot it in May of 2004 and for some reason it jumped out at me as I was scrolling through some old photos. I kinda like it now.

I have an install disk for Ubuntu linux sitting on my desk. I want to run linux. I am seriously thinking about making the plunge. All I need to emulate would be Photoshop, Capture One, and Picasa. Photos are the only thing holding me back. Maybe I should research wine a little more before making the plunge.

Wish me luck or send me links =) Thanks!

Age of Empires III Demo!!!!

This could not wait until morning!! The demo is out!!!!! DoWnLoAdInG NOW!!! I'll review at a later date. Right now I must play this 375MB demo! You should too!

http://www.ageofempires3.com/

The Right Tool for the Job

This is a before after using ONLY Picasa2 as an editor. I am a huge Photoshop fan, but every tool has its place. I don't know anyone that could pull off this effect in Photoshop in 45 seconds - and that's just how long it took me in Picasa2. If you don't have Picasa2, DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

Oh, one more thing before I rush off to work: You can now view my most recent stories dugg on digg.com on my right-hand sidebar. Well, those of you who read me via RSS can't do that, but all the most important stuff will be in main posts. I just thought it was cool to add my most recent 15 dugg stories on the sidebar :)

My 3 Day Weekend in 284 Words

This is my sister-in-law, Sarah. Yesterday we went to Deepwood Estates and I shot her senior portraits. I took 184 shots, but I managed to cut them down to my favorite 116. Now she needs to choose her favorite 8.

My weekend started very well. Friday night Eugene called me to see if I wanted to play poker. The answer to that question is always yes. I ended up winning (5 handed) after taking Krista out by checking a royal flush and her bluffing by going all-in. It was beautiful. My first royal flush.

Saturday I put together Mikayla's 2nd Podcast. I still don't have the RSS feed working well enough for iTunes to accept it. I'm doing something wrong and it may take some time to figure out.

Sunday afternoon Krista's family came down from Tenino. We played poker and I finished 3rd out of 9. Krista's sister Annie killed us all.

Monday I woke up, showered, dressed, modded JD's Xbox in 3 1/2 minutes, went and did Sarah's Senior Portraits, lounged for the evening...yes, I said 3 1/2 minutes. I found this guide that uses a new game save exploit that allows you to softmod your Xbox in no time. Better still, when you start up your Xbox, it goes directly to EvolutionX, not the MS Dashboard. This is HUGE!! I could have saved 100 hours or so if this had been around back when Eugene and I were going through our softmod trouble days.

This morning I came across this link on digg. It is really weird. You should go there and follow the instructions. Don't deviate - just do exactly what it says as fast as you can...I was dumbfounded.

The Best 48 Photos from the Fair

Due to popular demand, this post is something I have not done before on my blog. If you click here (right-mouse click and choose "Save Link As..." - then run from your computer. That way it will be full screen!), you can download a PDF slideshow of the best 48 photos of our Oregon State Fair trip. The file is 5MB and should auto-play when you run it. It's about 2 1/2 minutes long and has all the best photos from our trip. I'll probably put up more individual shots, but I wanted to get the whole bunch out there today. Enjoy!

UPDATE: You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view this slideshow. If you don't have version 6 or higher, you may also need to download the photo-something plug-in. The slideshow will prompt you to download or you could just go get the latest Acrobat Reader - it's free.

The Start of the Fair Photos

Well, yesterday we went to the Oregon State Fair. Mikayla had a BLAST! I am going to be posting mostly fair photos for a few days and I'm going to be doing them a few at a time since there are so many. No, I'm not going to post all 166 photos I took. Most of them are duplicates while I was trying to get that one good shot. Enjoy:

Mikayla had a blast on several of the rides. She especially liked waving at us from this ride.

Here she is inside the petting zoo. Yes, I'll post photos with animals.

And again, waving to all.

The fair was fun. Krista got her elephant ears, I got chips and lemonaid, Lily missed her nap ;o) We met up with Phil and Beth and their kids. That was alot of fun for Mikayla - she had a friend (Ben) to go on the rides with.

Stay tuned...more coming tomorrow...