Welcome to the site. Here you will find my ramblings of life, faith, kids, marriage and my zoo at home.
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 Drake Asleep These were famous last words.
Many of you who know me personally have known that for about 9 months I’ve been OCD to get a dog. I was bound and determined to buy a purebred boxer from a breeder. I had even picked out the breeder from here in CO to make sure they came from a line of boxers that is cold tolerant (er). I didn’t have a name picked out, but I had the general idea – female, brindle, medium to large.
 J and Drake Then we went to lunch with my sister-in-law, and the restaurant was right next to a PetSmart that was doing an adoption event. There were lots of dogs, but the one that stuck out to us the most was a cool looking six month old puppy named Drake. At first I didn’t think that I dug him too much because he was sitting in the lap of a gal helping out with the adoption rescue. Turns out I was just creeped out by the human, not the dog.
It seems that there were a couple of dogs from the Bahamas there, called “Potcakes”. Potcakes are indiginous street / pack dogs that roam around the Bahamian Islands of Caicos chain, Turk chain, and Bahamian chain. They are incredibly hardy dogs as they have been basically interbred super mutts for the last 200 years. The story goes that South American settlers brought dogs with them to the Islands of the Bahamas several hundred or thousand years ago. These dogs went to form the sustaining base of what became the mogrel / potcake “base” dog if you will. During the revolutionary war in America, the loyalists got expelled and took their Danes, South Carolina Dogs, Labs, Shepherds and other hardy dogs that would survive the trip and left. Most moved back to England or fled to Canada, but some went to the Bahamian Islands.
 M and Drake taking a nap in the sun.
Fast forward some 230 years and the Bahamas now have a problem: There are a TON of dogs roaming the streets and not enough people to offset the dogs’ food needs. So they are begining to spay and neuter strays and adopt out the puppies of the Potcakes that are found young enough to not be completely ferrrel. This is where Drake comes in. It turns out that someone (not sure who as of yet) brought some of Drake’s shelter and littermates back to the US after a vacation, specifically to Colorado. And about a month ago today, said dog was at a PetSmart near where we ate lunch.
We adopted drake not knowing too much about him or what a potcake was – at first we thought they were called “pupcates”. Now starting to be fully ingraned into our family we’re beginning to go through the grinding rigours of owning a puppy / “big” dog. Namely “oh, crap, I can’t do that I have to let the dog out” or “Yeah, let’s leave that route out, you might try to eat that cat again”. Least we forget “Supid rabits! Why are there SO MANY RABBITS at 5:15 AM on a walk!”
 Drake and his "Hydrant" toy
One really cool thing to see is the boys bonding with the dog. Man he can frustrate them, but they always bounce back and give him love he needs when he’s not acting like a troll (he was a couple days ago). I will say that J and Drake have made much more of a bond than I would have thought. I thought that for sure only little M would dig a “real boy’s dog” (no offense to Tarla meant – she’s just old and lazy – cuddly but not too fun for little kids). However, both of them are very enamored with the pup.
 Outsourced - Thanks to GoldenWeb's FlickrStream My grandfather on my dad’s side was a mechanical engineer for several companies, including Coors (he designed and built some of the vats here in the Colorado location AND patented a crane arm in the process). He warned me about something when I was a kid, and said that I would be “doomed to re-Americanize outsourced stuff”. At the time, I believe I was 16 or 17 and seriously considering a career in IT (which, hey life goal checked off, looks like it was a pretty good choice). I will always remember the conversation, not because I find it rings true every joking day of my current career, but because I thought he was on crack at the time.
“You know I work sometimes, right? A garden like mine isn’t cheap to grow [my grandfather loves gardening]. I got a set of plans in for [generic I'm sure I wasn't supposed to know about this building] from the cheapo’s in Manhattan. You know what my job is? Redoing the plans for these guys because they pay some guy with a PC to build my plans and then I fix them. It’s kinda like having an intern. Except he’s better at math than me, but can’t speak English worth a crap, and has no common sense. So they hire me to clean up the plans. Normally it’s calculating load – boring stuff like that – but not the other day. The other day I’m looking at some plans and nearly fall over laughing. I was going over the AC plans for the building and came across the plans labeled “Air Ducks”. Air ducks! What hilarity! I don’t know why I thought it was so funny. Actually it got not so funny because every DUCT was labeled Duck and I had to change it.
But that’s what I get paid for now. Proofreading. You’re going to end up doing stuff like that too, especially in techie gee whiz stuff. Half that junk gets made in Asia [this is in the 90's, yes, I know it's like 95% now..] and it’s so poorly documented I think about hiring someone to translate for me so I can translate for them.”
Grandpa Jim didn’t have too many “old man rants”. Come to think of it, none of my grandpa’s did. But they would have enough to put the hesitency in the back of my head about what they were saying. I was 17 at all, a year away from being 18 and knowing everything. I just thought it would be ludicrous that we would take stuff from the US and move it internationally. Now I deal with it every day “Oh, we’re waiting to hear back from Engineering in China”. Or who could forget “Thanks for calling in to HP today. My name is Simon Mandipidipal”.
Well, it has been quite a crazy few months, leading up to a precipitous dropoff on my blog posts. Sorry for that folks, hopefully it will pick up again in June once my head is somewhat out of the grinder when we’ve finished off all our conversions. We have a fairly large project at work that has prompted me to move into a mode of study and not so much pontificating. So, less blogging for a bit. Sorry…
However, the outcome will be great, as I’m striving for the CCVP, a Professional level Cisco Certification for Voice products. Learning the Cisco side of voice networking hasn’t been without it’s challenges, but so far it’s been far more simplistic that I had thought it would be. All those late nights of study for the CCNP exams are paying off big time, as most of the routing and switching stuff is heavily interwoven (obviously) with the voice products Cisco has.
The program starts off with CVOICE – the basic training if you will. I’m a third through the book, and am fairly glad I skipped the training courses for it. It’s not so noob that I felt I could skip reading the book, but the training – not so much. I’m done with the CIPT1 course, which was actually a pretty interesting integration course. Then it’s on to the Quality of Service and Troubleshooting stuff. It has honestly been years since I’ve been this pumped about a technology, so it’s been quite invigorating!
 A Monkey with Cymbals - Thanks to Scragz's flickrstream I’ll be blogging about my progress through the courses periodically here and there. And if you’re not technical and don’t care:
Hey look – A monkey with cymbals! (Props to Scragz’s flickrstream).
 Luchadore - Thanks to Privatus' Flickrstream I love having children, but occasionally we have strange issues. Strange issues to address AND not crack up about. Enter in my children yesterday:
Crying child #2 - “Daddy! He hurt my head”
Child #1 – shouting from other room - “No I didn’t he fell”
Child #2 – not crying now - “Yes he did! He MADE me fall!”
Child #1 – “No I didn’t, YOU just lost!”
Me - “Lost what??”
Child #1 - “The battle.”
Me – “What were you ‘battling’ about?”
Child #1 - “Crayons.”
Me - “Why? We have like 8,000 of them…”
Child #2 - “I wanted his blue!”
Me – “Did you use words and ASK for it or just take it?”
Child #2 – No answer, head hanging low, finally “No, but I wanted it”.
Me – directed to child #1 – “Did you hit him or something?”
Child #1 – “I didn’t mean to make him fall though, I just wanted the crayon!”
Me – “Don’t knock your brother over, use your words or go get someone if he’s not responding to you.”
Here is where I lose all semblance of respect in this conversation…
Child #1 – “But Dad! I didn’t mean to hurt him, I really didn’t! He hurt himself… I didn’t even punch him! We were just butt fighting!!!”
I lost it, I think I collapsed I was laughing so hard.
I had them recreate the “butt fight”. It was something along the lines of two angry wrestlers giving a chest bump… running backwards… and attempting to impale each other… with their butts…
And then I laughed some more and we all totally forgot about the blue crayon.
 The Rocket Summer - Of Men and Angels When I first discovered The Rocket Summer (AKA Bryce Avery) on eMusic quite a few years ago, I found poppy and irresistible piano based music built on a not-quite-in-your-face-faith-based platform. His last album, Do You Feel, changed up his M.O. a little bit (I reviewed it here), including some guitars and songs that weren’t quite so… happy? Well, he came out with an album recently and it was, IMO, a great blend of his former musical style with the newly matured viewpoints of the world he’s got.
Let me start off by saying that I’ve come to the realization that how I personally interpret an album is highly subjective, so I’ve started a new practice. First listen to an album has to be headphoned and potentially as undisturbed as possible. I managed to pull that off with this album, and I’m glad I did because it’s a pretty superb album.
The musical style of the album is definitely amplified guitars backed by piano, which is how Do You Feel was written, but the intermittent breaks of piano (Avery’s instrument of choice) are nearly perfectly balanced. As well, there is a genuine joy to the album, which I greatly appreciated. Not just happy like the first two albums. And not slightly depressed and confused like the last one struck me. The realness of this album really jars me, because I dig real and I think most other people usually do.
Track by Track lineup:
Track 1 – Roses: This is a song about how hard it can be to believe so deeply in the faithful life, but like holding onto a Rose, sometimes the holding on makes you bleed from the thorns. Metaphorically this song is amazingly rich.
Track 2 – You Gotta Believe: The track “You Gotta Believe” is about sticking to your guns in the face of opposition. It’s a very Rocket Summer sounding song.
Track 3 – Hills and Valleys: As I was two track into the album, I began to think that this album would delve into the poppy roots of Avery’s past. Not so much. What an amazing song from a man to his wife. Definitely one of my top songs from this album.
Track 4 – I Want Something to Live For: The refrain of this song is pretty terrific: “Stop fearing death, I want something to live for”. The song speaks about how fake we sometimes are to our friends and loved ones when if being real is what we want why don’t we do it?
Track 5 – Walls: I’m not sure if this is a song from Bryce to a friend or from Jesus to Bryce it is pretty much one of, if not THE best song from this album. It’s great. “I’ll help you break the walls down, believe you me, you are not alone”.
Track 6 – Pull Myself Together: I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure this song was written for Charlie.
Track 7 – Of Men and Angels: If Bryce Avery wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, this song would be in it. The realness of how fame changed his outlook on life is quite tangible in this song.
Track 8 – I Need a Break… but I’d Rather have a Breakthrough: So, this song struck me as the perfect FPU song.
Track 9 – Nothing MattersTo me this song seemed a little bit like a Jimmy Needham song, a little bit angsty but right on.
Track 10 – Japanese Exchange Student.I so don’t relate to this song at all. It’s about how it is hard to be a rockstar that people think they understand about. It’s a good song though, it’s very “Rocket-Summer” sounding.
Track 11 – Tara, I’m Terrible. This song seems a bit like a good song to help one remember the quiet desires of a marriage. Also about how his wife is awesome to deal with him.
Track 12 – Hey! This song is reminiscient of other Rocket Summer songs.
Track 13 – Let you go. I’m thinking this is a breakup song, which is strange to me. I give it a Randy Jackson “It’s just ok for me, dog”.
Track 14 -This is a Refuge. I love this song about quiet patience. Because I typically am neither quiet nor patient.
Track 15 – Light. I think this song is a great way to end this album. It’s really hopeful, but not super obnoxiously high-energy, but it’s a great song about hope. It’s about letting go of the crap we sometimes hold so closely to our chest and allowing God to help us out of a quagmire.
I definitely think it was a great purchase and I would heartily recommend it.
So I promised more updates on the MoneyHot Tub a while ago, but I’ve been so swamped with the thing plus a massive project at work that I’ve not had a lot of time to post. So, here is an update + more fun too!
 Plast-Aid Once we got things going with the tub, my ghetto sump pump + fishtank heater idea had saved major freezing damage from happening, with one exception – the drain pipe to the outside of the tub. In what seems like a completely retarded overlook, my spa manufacturer didn’t put a ball or gate valve in between the drain and the skirting. Oh well – problem solved. How you ask? By a finger-nail rebase!
What? Yes, I did say a finger-nail rebase. If you’re a dude, you probably have no idea what I just said, but that’s ok – it’s a chick joke (because, hey, I grew up in hair / nail salons…) The product I used is called Plast-aid. A local company (ish) from Estes Park, CO, which I think might be the hot tub capitol of the world, so it makes sense. Basically it creates a molecular bond on the PVC or acrylic that it is applied to if said piece is clean.
The next dilemma I had revolved around the diverters in the tub itself. After going through introduction to water chemistry 101, a good friend was using the tub with us and we decided to get the diverters un-stuck. Occasionally dirt / gunk / sand gets stuck in between the diverters and makes them get stuck in the barrel of the diverter body. So we took them out and started to clean them off, but the problem was that we had old faithful x2 once we tried to replace the diverters.
The problem? It seems that sometime in between assembly and it showing up at my house someone put franken valves in the hot tub. Unfortunately, this meant nearly two weeks of diligent harassment of parts dealers to find a compatible part, in which time the hot tub (and the crap that got washed off the bottom of the upper deck by the fountains from the hot tub pumps). Which then had to be drained out – whoops. Coincidentally the tub has a knack for needing to be drained in seriously sub-freezing temps..
Sometimes, you get awesome inside jokes at work, and mostly they are funny enough to share amongst your compatriots at work. You know the players, you know the scenes so it’s funnier. Sometimes, it’s so funny that it is meant to be shared with the outside world. It’s probably not nearly as funny to anyone else but me, but here goes:
We were experiencing some strange background noise on some conference systems, but it was really weird sounding. Everyone in our corporate office was hearing it, and had their go at explaining it to me. From morse code, to crappy cell phone service, this symptom was described to me. It was not until one particular supervisor with an unusually booming voice decided to tell me how it sounded. But he didn’t stop right away like most, he kept going for a good ten to fifteen seconds.
“Blaaah blah blah baaaaaaap blap blap blap baaaaaaaaap Duuuhhh blah blah blaaaaaaaaap” and so on.
“Is that what it sounds like to you” I was asked.
“Well, to me it actually sounded like a goat at a rave” I retorted.
In an uncanny and incredibly fast retort he said “I’m surprised you know what that sounds like. Things must be strange in Denver afterall”.
I had no comeback, because that was the most awesome retort I had heard from the gentleman. But wait! There’s more!
As if it was common terminology, I began combing our floors in the building testing various versions of the conference system testing connections, and was met with “Yeah, I hear rave goat” or “Nope, no rave goat”. As if it was common terminology such as “feedback” or “echo”. Finally we resolved the problem (silence suppression systems on a few adapters), but the terminology has stuck around, though it is mostly our figurative (and literal) scape goat for unknown network systems problems. So, just remember, if you don’t know what caused it, it was the rave goat…
There are days that I truly enjoy all my co-workers and compatriots at my company.
 Fireflight - For Those Who Wait I almost broke the cardinal rule I have for an album, which is to not tell someone what I think about it until I listen to it headphoned. And it was almost on this album that I did it, and that would have been a big shame, because this is a really good album. On a thirty thousand foot view of it, if I were to just rate the album simply, I would say it’s better than the “Healing of Harms” but not as good as “Unbreakable”. Mostly because the album isn’t (IMO) engineered very well, and sounds really washed out unless you have really good headphones or a powerful stereo system with good speakers. That, and I’m not sure why it bugs me so much, but I think the cover art is goofy looking – I’m not sure if they were going for fifties retro meets a little steampunk or what. Anyhow, on with the review…
Track 1 – Title track – ‘For Those who wait’. The album starts out with a really great song, both musically and lyrically. I really dig the bass tracks on this song, as well as the strings in the background.
Track 2 – ‘Desperate’ – This track definitely sounds like a Fireflight track, about average heaviness for them, it’s pretty good, once again the bass is really good, but you don’t hear it much unless you’re headphoned.
Track 3 – ‘Fire in My Eyes’ – This is probably my favorite ‘heavy’ song from this album, the bass and the guitar work are quite excellent, but it’s maddeningly hard to hear much of the bass in a car or from a computer, I think because of the engineering on the track. A caveat – this could be true only of the itunes version of the track, which I bought, a real CD might sound better.
Track 4 – ‘Core of My Addictions’ – This is a great song about reliance on Christ, it’s a good rally song.
Track 5 – ‘What I’ve Overcome’ – This song kinda confused me a little bit, it didn’t sound too ‘Fireflight’ – it sounded like an Avalon song with a guitarist from Fireflight in the background.
Track 6 – ‘Name’ – I love this song. I have no idea who or what prompted the writing of this song, but given what the casa-de-killur family has been through the last few years, it resonates with my soul. A lot. As well, the vocal work on the track sounds so real and raw, which is one of the things I love the best about FireFlight. Plus it’s a mellow song – I guarantee you this one will hit K-Love and be huge.
Track 7 – ‘New Perspective’ – This is the song that makes you go “Oh yeah, this is a FireFlight album!” It’s fast and quite well written and I think it’s better engineered than the other tracks.
Track 8 – ‘You Give Me That Feeling’ – If there is a “the fireflight” sound, it’s definitely this song. It’s a great track, and it’s upbeat without being cheesy, which I appreciate.
Track 9 – ‘All I Need To Be’ – I can’t tell if the vocals in this song are awesome and haunting or if that is what they were going for and just didn’t quite make it. Lyrically great content, but once again it just sounds washed out(ish).
Track 10 – ‘Recovery Begins’ – I was really struck by this song, because after an album that I halfway wanted to turn off because of what I feel is crappy mixing, there is this jewel at the end. My favorite lyrics off of the album are in this song:
“I search for stillness, But Worry Kills it… It all comes down to this – the quiet in the end.
I listen for your voice, Recovery begins… Whisper to me, oh whispter to me”
I’m not sure if any of you can relate to this, but have you ever been to a restaurant, and you have a “team” of waiters/waitresses? And one of them is OK, but the other is just freaking awesome? And you can’t help but be annoyed at the one that isn’t as good as the others, even though on their own merits, they would be OK? I think that’s the thing that annoys me with this album. There are 4 standout amazing songs, tracks 1,2,6, and 10. The other songs are good too, but they annoy me because they just dont “sound” as good, if that makes sense. I have half a mind to purchase it from Amazon and see if they sound any different.
In all, if you like Fireflight, I recommend the album, but try a different methodology than iTunes and let me know if it “sounds” better – as comparable as that may be.
Sometimes I really truly wonder about some the awesome financial “sources” trusted by the big banks. When you talk to super wealthy people, they typically always say the same thing: It takes a lot of long hard work, buy low, sell high. It’s not complicated to gain wealth, it just takes a long time…
But if you talk to today’s brokers it’s all about complicated strategies and reading market reports, blah blah blah. Enter in the kick ass reports they listen to. Fresh off the virtual presses today on realtime.finance.yahoo.com:
 Just choose one! So I have a friend who is consistently nymphing from one thing to another. Normally I don’t stick my nose into peoples business, because that’s just plain rude – AND I have learned that it’s very infrequent that one can “totally get it”. That being said, he is experiencing so much upheaval in his life that I just want him to stick with one thing and go with that one thing, whatever it is. Not wanting to risk it, I don’t say anything (he’s not a reader of ye old blogge, at least that I know of).
It’s just so freaking frustrating, because he’s really quite apt at what he does, but moves consistently from one thing to another, convinced that he will find more happiness in X-thing that he’s going to do, and finding out that, like everything else it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Why can’t you make people more optimistic and patient!!!! Arrrgh!
I catch myself trying to give the guy lame plattitudes like “When life give’s you lemon’s, Make lemonade” or “Fake it till you make it”. But the older I get, the more I see that I’m pretty driven. Certainly not psychotically driven, but I am driven nevertheless. It’s funny how when you are young, you expect that everyone is just like yourself, and that everything will be awesome as you progress through life. And that is something that I don’t think one can impart into a person, with perhaps, and just a perhaps, the exception of your kids. Even then I look at the attitudes of my boys, and sometimes I don’t know where they fall on the “let’s do this thing!” spectrum or not. Perhaps it was growing up with a family business. Perhaps it was listening to motivational stuff when EK and I first got married because she was in sales. Perhaps it was growing up for periods of my life NOT in American Abundance. I’m not sure. But I wish everyone were a little more driven, including me at times.
Getting stuck in where you are at is something that I have certainly experienced before, but through either faith or sheer personal frustration I have pressed onward. Perhaps, in some cases to my detriment, but usually to a better circumstance. I wish I could make this friend pick it up and keep going, but it just doesn’t happen. Life seems too scary and complicated to press through the issues and make the situation better. But, I’m at the point where I really can’t do too much without wading into the unhealthy seas of codependence. ARRRRGH!@!@!@!#@!@!#$!
Great thanks to JonasIllustration’s Flickrstream for the great illustration.
>>>>>>>BEGIN SPOILER< <<<<<<
OK, I must say that Modern Warfare 2 is intense and I highly recommend it to you IF you aren’t easy to get offended or easily pissed off by really bad endings. Firstly there is the highly offensive second or third level where you are russians pretending to be US spies who go around the airport and shoot people. Innocent bystander people. I started playing this level, seriously felt sick, and skipped it (you can skip this particular level for this reason). I’m not going to rail against this because if you google “modern warfare terrorists” you’re going to get thousands of results of pissed off people appalled by Activision’s inclusion (rather than exclusion) of this in the game. It could have much more easily been a cut scene rather than a playable level. It did not feel right to do something that actually happened (sorta) in the US to cause the invasion of Afghanistan.
The thing that really bothered me was the core root of the ending of the game. It felt completely empty in the last few missions. It honestly had more holes than Harry Whittington’s hunting attire…
Firstly your commanding officer comes down in a chopper to rescue you. His name is General Shepherd, he’s a holdover from Modern Warfare 1. But as you have just survived getting shot there is no “good job men, onto the chopper. He asks did you get it? You tell him yes, he then he shoots you and your partner. NONE of the other soldiers freak out or do anything. And again, what about Makarov’s soldiers that were trying to shoot you?? Did they just see Shepherd and think “Oh, ok, tea break! Vlad, how are the little commerades, ‘eh?”
 General Shepherd - Generally Evil, and sounds like Optimus Prime...
Then he douses you and he with gasoline. And lights you on fire with his cigar. It’s truly chilling, and while I know it was a game I was momentarily really concerned for my safety. Secondarily, there is the fact that I truly didn’t understand the storyline after this point. Did he kill you to get the info on the Russian guy and be a hero, or did he work for the Russian guy?? Apparently he does NOT work for him, because in a audio (during a firefight – stupid placement for audio!#!@#!) you talk to Makarov and say “An enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and get information from Makarov. Kinda sorta. I think. Maybe? Not really???
But at this point is strays into uncomfortable gray for me. Why am I chasing this guy down? Makarov makes sense – he’s attacking the US via influencing Russia to war. But I didn’t get the storyline at all from the point you get killed and lit on fire. The levels were freaking awesome, but it was seriously tarnished. Much like the graphics level jump in Matrix 2 was largely overshadowed by the rave / sex / pseudo orgy scene that was completely pointless.
To me it felt like an empty reason to create a MW 3, which I really think could have been accomplished other ways. Makarov could have escaped, much in the fashion of King Koopa or even other less ridiculous things like Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (honestly, who survives being crushed in a trash truck!!!). I see the entire Shepherd storyline as completely marring the brilliant game. It’s as if they started out with great ideas for visual effects and fit the storyline around it. Then, they couldn’t really figure out a good enough way to fit it in, but had designed admittedly amazing levels and said “Bah, it’s the storyline, no one cares!”
At the whole center of WHY it bothers me about the Shepherd storyline is the whole reason I don’t like a lot of video games. Why am I killing Shepherd again, and why did he kill my friends? Am I killing him to prevent another world disaster, or am I killing out of revenge? Because, I just played a whole mission about Washington DC almost getting carpet bombed, and I’m pretty sure there are some more Russians to kill, and unsuperfluously at that. It just seemed so freakin’ pointless to kill the guy. And it seemed pointless to have Shepherd kill Roach (the character who gets iced, or actually, fried).
Why wouldn’t you just GO with Shepherd, it didn’t make any sense for him to kill you. Once again quoting one of my favorite movie, ’10 Things I Hate about You’:
“Not even a litte, not even at all.”
 COD - MW2
First off let me state the obvious: Yes, it really is that good.
>>>>>Spoiler Alert< <<<<< And if you haven't played the campaign mode and you want to, this is a spoiler alert - don't part 2 if you've not played the campaign and want to...
I could probably leave the review just as that – it’s really as good as all the hype and worth paying forty or fifty bucks for it.
It really is.
So, for those of you who aren’t as game savvy as some of my readers who are saying “Welcome to mid November, 2009 PKillur”, let me tell you a little bit about Modern Warfare 2. It’s a First Person Shooter type game (Halo, Doom (2/3/4), Battlefield 1942, … Duckhunt??) type game. Why does this game make such a huge leap forward in technology you ask?
- The AI is sickeningly evil when you crank it up to the top level. I am being completely honest with you – I started off in Hardened mode (medium difficulty) during the campaign levels (the single player mode) and had to back all the way down to recruit just to progress through the levels.
- The levels are amazingly detailed, very immersive, and never laggy.
After playing graphically insane games like Sonic and Bioshock, one gets used to things like momentary lags and jittery transitions. None of these exist at ALL in the game. There is the momentary loading screen between mission stages, but you don’t notice it because there is audio of the characters that is part of the story, or cinema transitions going on at the time. Doesn’t sound so cool? Let me tell you how some of the levels progress:
On one level you have to use ice picks and climb up a mountain, then run and jump a cliff, then crawl into a mongolian base to steal something. You are getting fired at if you tip them off. Then you hop onto a snow mobile and have to jump a cliff with it. All in all if it were “real” lands it would be miles and miles of terrain that gets rendered. No lag. No jittery bumps – I have no idea what engine Infiity Ward (the producers / coders) use, but it’s amazing.
On another level you are fighting Russians in Maryland and you have to move certain auto turrets, then shoot a bunch of people, then use a predator drone (perhaps my favorite part of the whole game) and then you shoot down helicopters that are trying to shoot you with a SAM. Once again no lag. To quote the movie ’10 Things I hate about You’: “not even a little, not even at all”
Further on down the game you are evacuating from Russia (I think) and you get shot, so your buddy is dragging you to the evac chopper and as you are in and out of conscience – oh yeah, and during this time your vision gets blurry AND you have to shoot people or you die. The visual effects are brilliant and stunning. The destructible environment includes pretty much everything in the game (AKA if you shoot / knife / punch something it will be affected by your character). The most humorous of this is the Rio De Janeiro level where there is a market you are running through, and there are chickens for sale – you can shoot them in their cages and the one that dies turns into a puff of feathers and the other ones freak out.
Overall, this game WILL be one of the most memorable and fun that I’ve played in years. Enough to get me over my “I hate HALO and FPS genre” arguments and actually want to play them again, despite the fact that I’m constantly getting killed on Xbox Live by 14 yearolds with a fascination for foul language and overtly retarded smack-talk. It’s THAT good.
 Fire (I'm sure brimstone was involved) So I have been reading the book of Luke since my favorite “not-my-pastor-guy” Mark Driscoll has been leading his church through the book of Luke. Our church has been doing a non-expositorial series, so I generally pick a series that is expositorial and stick with it as well as going through what our church does.
That being said, I have been reading through the book of Luke, written (ironically enough) by a dude named Luke. Luke was a medical doctor who is paid by a guy named Theophilus to go and research Jesus, because he (Theophilus) really wants to follow Jesus but thinks that most of his followers must be on crack (Or it’s year 60-70 AD equivalent) because of the stories he heard, yet was intrigued nevertheless. So buried in the end of chapter 9, there is a little paragraph where Jesus wants to go to Jerusalem, but the Samaritans won’t let him stay in their town. His followers want to rain down fire and brimstone on them, but Jesus rebukes them.
That’s about all it says, and it was an awkward little paragraph that I never really noticed before. Then a few paragraphs later is the story of the good Samaritan. I’m glad Jesus loves people even when they are complete tools that I would prefer have a little carbon added to their person at times, and hope to be more like that every day…
So, we had the opportunity to get a SWEET hot tub and electrical hookups via all around santa-like in-laws. I will say that I highly underestimated the logistical nightmare that is moving a hot tub. Though, we DID finally complete the task, it required the following:
 SonriseG and I hanging electrical cable
- Renting a truck.
- Renting a Spa Dolly (which was FREAKING A-MAZING!!!).
- Taking out a section of fence at the pickup house and replacing it.
- Delivering the hot tub via a couple end-over-end-pkil-soiling-pants rolls and a hosslike 18 year old guy hoisting a gimongous cold-rolled metal dolly over his head as he scaled a fence.
- Taking out a section of decorative deck fence at my house.
- Taking out a section of deck supports with a radial saw at 8 o’clock at night.
- Placing the hot tub and filling.
 Man Eating Crawl Space!!! Then, we had to start the process of the hanging the electrical wire and my handy helper fishing it through the crawl space. My father-in-law bought me an autohammer for the job. I have absolutely no idea how the world has lived without these things. I wouldn’t build a deck with it, but I won’t ever hang a picture (or our wire) without one ever again! A tip – WEAR EAR PROTECTION! I have no idea how something so jokin’ small can make so much noise!!!
I also had no clue how difficult it would be stringing the wire through the crawlspace, that proved to be very arduous – it seems that my house has a gimongous I beam underneath it in the basement crawlspace (it’s tiered into a hill) and SonriseG generously offered himself to shimmy underneath it. I am a bit too… Well, I’ll just come out and say I’m to freakin’ fat to fit underneath it! Thankfully I have a skinnier than me friend.
And hooking up the GFI box to the main breaker. In single digit Fahrenheit weather.
It was hard core for sure, but this little light here was one of the most rewarding incandescent glows I have seen in years….
 Let there be light!!!
It is the 14th day of 2010. Of this year, there have been 11 working days. 11.
Banner on yahoo finance reads in bold:
Oil and gas prices tumble to lowest of 2010.
Seriously, it’s been two weeks. They tumbled by a whopping 1 dollar and 48 cents. Thats 148 cents. One third of a latte per barrel. The price of a king size candy bar at the gas station. The current spot price is like 78 bucks.
A 1.2% reduction is a “tumble”? Really?
So, I basically live in two worlds, and I have to admit that it’s kinda nice. The first world is that of Parker, CO. Because Parker is a haven for “Young and Rich”, and you can tell. Every single time I drive by the drive-thru Fivebucks there is a line of cars at a minimum of 4 deep. This includes odd times like 1:20 in the afternoon. You go to any store in town and with the exception of some of the eccentric boutique-y type stores, they are bustiling. However, when you look around you do see “a whole lotta stupid” as Dave Ramsey would call it. There is credit everywhere and I think it’s used with quite an affinity – I was even asked at HomeDepot if I wanted to open a credit card to save 10%. When I was buying a 2 dollar coupler for the money hot tub (more on this later… Part of why Pkil has been absent of the web lately). I have seen a slight dropoff when we go into restaurants, we don’t have to wait as long, but we still wait if it is a rush time. I know that people have been hit by layoffs around me, and sure, there are a crap-load of foreclosed homes around me.
However, when I leave “young, rich, and 92% homogeneous” Parker, and board the P-Line I see a different story when I disembark at Civic Center Station. There has been a 10-20% increase in the homeless population that I can tell, but I work in a pretty “uppity” area. As well, the stoners look less “hard” and like they are recent conversion to the runaway / homeless / drug user population. There seems to be a lot of little businesses closing down around here, and I think it is driven by some the gastly stupid energy laws that our fine state’s governor enacted this year (which added about 5 million more layers of red tape to drilling). That and the fact that Colorado is primarily Natural Gas driven and natgas is somewhere around $5.50 per MBTU as of this writing, but it bottomed out around $3.50 per MBTU. As a comparison, it was at $14 per MBTU is september 2007 before the crash. But, hey, adding more mandates to the increasingly small footprint of drilling will only make it more effective, right? (sarcasm implied….). So, I still wasn’t quite believing it until a few weeks ago on the *COLDEST* night of the year (something like -17 or -20 F) when I had to make a late night trip from my office in downtown to an office near Greely. Driving out I noticed a line of homeless people waiting to get into the shelter, and it was undoubtedly a block long. It was truly heartbreaking and I felt very blessed to be in my warm vehicle with a job to do and a warm house to go home to.
So, if you’re reading this somewhere warm, perhaps with a nice warm drink and heat like me, I wish you a happy new year and hope and pray our country strives on. That we as a nation and families curb our debt addictions and that we begin to return to a free society of generosity and work ethics. That we all have a greater appreciation for what we DO have, and strive for not more stuff but better lives and relationships.
 Owl City - Ocean Eyes I have usually heard of an artist before they blow up super-huge. I can only think of two artists that were mega huge that I’d never heard of in “medium exposure” mode (at least here in the US market): Evanescence and most recently Owl City. I had a friend say, “Man, I’m obsessed with that stupid fireflies song”, to which I replied “Huh? Fireflies? You mean Fireflight?”. He then educated me about this new guy named Owl City, who much like Falling Up’s Jesse Ribordy recorded a solo synthy type album. Surely enough, I listened to fireflies and saw the video of fireflies (below) and was hooked. I recently had the opportunity to purchase the album, and it is musically freaking awesome for it’s genre. To me it is remeniscient of a musical mash-up of Falling Up, Relient K, Imogen Heap, and with the upbeat happiness of a Rocket Summer.
I previewed the album on iTunes (which BTW is a new feature that I LOVE that they either licensed or stole from eMusic) and I was fairly impressed. On the first listening I was more than a little intrigued by the album itself, because it is quite honestly a wonderful soundscape, and I love this album. What intrigued me most about it is that a few albums here and there I look up albums because I don’t understand what a single song or two are talking about. Some albums like ‘Fangs’ from Falling Up are excellent but make absolutely no sense until you piece it together. This album makes sense on first listen, but only a bit. Delving deeper, the lyrics are quite biting and revealing.
So, as I’m listening to this album, I came across track 7, which is called “Meteor Shower”, a mellow ballad that swells in the middle with the lyrics:
“I am not my own;
For I have been made new;
Please don’t let me go;
I desperately need you.”
I was intrigued, these are not spiritually agnostic lyrics IMHO, so I started to look deeply into the lyics and I found that there are a few love songs, but nothing Raunchy. Overall, I really LOVE this album. Even my father-in-law (who usually doesn’t mind but definitely doesn’t like a ton of my music) loved it. I look forward to picking up some of this guy’s older stuff and seeing if it’s all the same quality (and I hope it is). If you want a fun and happy album GO GET THIS ONE!!!
 Departing Bus The picture to left is what I saw today.
The only exceptions were that I’m not a chick, it wasn’t double decker bus, it was dark, and it was snowy and icy. So really, it was nothing like that, it’s just the only Flickrstream photo that is public and that has a bus in motion that I could find!!! (BTW – thanks to ‘SDP’ for the Flickrstream).
Let me explain – the past week or so have been a bit taxing logistically. We’ve had to shift into single car mode as the ‘Rango was blow’d up by lack of radiator (which froze and caused an engine overheat – Irony – check the yes box.) So I have been taking the 410 feeder bus from my neighborhood to the P-line. The first couple of days it was no biggie and I caught it. The last two, I have missed the stupid thing. Why? BECAUSE IT RUNS 2 MINUTES EARLY!!! ARRRRGH! I missed it flat out yesterday, and today I calculated that I could get “extra” walking in if I hoofed it over to the next bus stop. I should have been a bump on a log, because at precisely 6:23, the bus blew past me. A sprinted for it flailing and shouting “wait, wait”, but no love. Dudeman trucks off at 6:24. I arrived at precisely 6:25 – at a bus stop PAST where it’s supposed to be at 6:25 AM. So I experienced a really nice 2 mile walk this morning…
Because it has run two minutes early, I have had the joy of walking in sub freezing temps on icy sidewalks to the P-Line P-n-R station. Uphill. Both ways. Did I mention it was snowy? And, no, I was not barefoot. My shoes aren’t cool enough for someone to beat me up over.
 Skillet - Awake - 2009 There are a few bands that I love and will perennially buy their albums. Bands like Relient K, Plumb, Third Day, etc. Skillet most definitely falls into the “ I’m going to get it because it’s band-x’s new album” category. I picked up their new album “Awake” a few days ago when I was lured into a sale on the deluxe version of the album. This (I think) completes their car-crash inspired album themes (Collide -> Comatose -> Awake). Although, maybe there might be another album named rehab, or motor therapy. All joking aside, I am quite pleased with the album, and I’ve got the track by track review below:
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‘Hero’, which if you listen to any alt/progressive radio station (PWG or other) you have heard by now.The album starts out very “Skillety” with this track. It is a good hard hitting song, complete with a good bit of chick rock lyrical backings. It was also on the bumper for Sunday Night Football, if anyone cares 
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‘Monster’, the second song is one of my favorite tracks on the album. I think the song flows really well, and I love the voice mod part of when he says “I feel like a monster” towards the end of the song – Little J and M love this part too.
‘Don’t wake me’ is a typical rock “I miss you baby” song. It’s a little bland for me.
‘Awake and Alive’ is a very “Skillety” song as well as ‘Hero’ and ‘Dead Inside’. Most groups that try and pull off synth and strings fail horribly. Red and Skillet are two standout groups that do this well, as well this song is lyrically spot on to living a life of faithful grinding against the culture we live in.
‘One Day Too Late’ is a little anthemy, and seems a little misplaced on the album. I would have put it above ‘Awake and Alive’ or ‘Don’t Wake Me’. Taken on it’s own it’s a good social justice-y type song, but it bugs me every time I get to it after ‘Awake and Alive’.
‘It’s not me it’s you’ is a song written to either Satan or bad self nature. This will be a smash crossover hit I bet, because if you were mad at someone, this would be a great song to play! I don’t think I’ve heard a song this vehemently awesome at “you suck” since Ugly Kid Joe’s ‘I hate everything about you’.
‘You should have when you could have’ is along the same lines as ‘It’s not me it’s you’, but clearly directed at being dumped and/or breaking up. It’s a great song for that. Well written Skillet.
‘Believe’ is the next song on the album list. On a scale of 1 to 10 on a “make-up” song list, this song is about a 9.73. It’s awesome, expressive, and well engineered. My only reason I don’t give it the extra .27 is that this would be the absolutely perfect make-up song ever is a sweet guitar solo. There are excellent 80’s metal band guitar interludes in it, it just lacks the melt your face guitar solo. I’m hoping there is a remake on a b-side sometime. I love this song – I think it’s dedicated to every person in a serious relationship that had a tool moment and let it all go in an instant of stupidity.
‘Forgiven’ is an overtly PWG song, it is an excellent song. If it was knocked down a bit the tempo it could easily be reworked into a worship song. Love it.
‘Sometimes’ is (for me) the most forgettable song on this album. It’s a good song, but I always forget it’s on the album when I’m listening to it (which is a lot lately). It deals with being corrupt. Perhaps it’s like a cliffhanger, the song doesn’t really address anything. It’s kinda depressing also, but the ending is awesome (musically at least).
‘Never Surrender’ quickly picks up from ‘sometimes’. Thematically I think it leads into the next song on the album for a reason. I LOVE this song. This song is perhaps the top song off of this album for me. I have listened to this song something like 30 times. And I’m usually not OCD about one song . I think I just resonate with the following lyrics from the song:
“I don’t want to feel like this tomorrow.
I don’t want live like this today.
Make me feel better. I need to feel better.
Stay with me hear now, and never surrender.
Make me feel better, you make me feel better.
Put me back together.
Make me feel better I need to feel better.
I love this song. I feel this song often. I live this song often in my faith life. I need Jesus so much. I dig this song.
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‘Lucy’ is a great song if you’re experiencing mourning. It made me cry. I think it’s about a little girl (which is why it touched me so much). Ek thinks it’s about a chick. Either way it’s sad.
Bonus Song 1 – Dead Inside – This is another great Skillet song about a faith filled life. This song made it worth buying the bonus version.
Bonus Song 2 – ‘Would It Matter’ – This song is really quite good as well. I’m really surprised it got axed from the album and relegated to “deluxe” status. This song deals with the thoughts about wondering if you’re cared about at all. I have felt this feeling before, especially in my teens. If you’re buying this album for a teen – definitely get the bonus album for this song alone.
Bonus Song 3 – ‘Monster Radio Alt’ – It’s the same song without the “scary” monster voice. Which my boys love, AKA the K-love version. Don’t buy it single!
My overall thoughts about this album are “Bravo Skillet”. I have always felt like this group has had a really good handle on what a truly ‘real’ in but not of the world life looks like. I love how some of the songs don’t always answer a problem but at least address it. If you had 10 bucks to spend on a 2009 album, Buy Red’s new album. If you had 20, buy this one too.
I love how everything since the nineties has added a “gate”. Whoever named the Watergate complex must be getting royalties.
I love the idea of reducing carbon. I like the idea of reducing electricity and fossil fuel consumption. I like recycling (I’m actually a freak about it – ask EK, she’ll tell you). What I don’t like is crazy speculation about what MIGHT happen from the same branch of science that many times has not been more accurate than weathermen or economists. What am I talking about? Hacked emails, baby, hacked emails.
Every single released email I’ve read is pretty much what everyone talks about – smack talk, our contrarian opponents are troglodites, etc. But there are a few smoking guns, like one that outlines how some algorythmic data does not equate for erratic changes into their models (AKA, let’s make it do what we WANT it to, which is NOT science, but justification).
Now, I see TONS of emails on either side saying “AHa! They are idiots” and “Aha! You’re idiots for misreading this”. I think it WILL perhaps cause some people to ask HOW the data has been collected and assimilated. Which I think is good.
So far the biggest “gonna make me barf” science community spin is HERE on BBC.
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