Attempt at a family photo

We decided to abuse our familial privledges by having Michelle's sister, Cathy, get us a family like picture. Now to wait for Andy's commentary.

More from the Northwest

Well, Miranda is doing fine. I am starting to understand her feeding habits. Most of the time she is pretty even with times and amounts, but occasional the amounts will spike and the times will fluctuate. I can only attribute it to growth spurts, but to be honest, I don't really know.

Kinda nice that I have been able to see a few smiles from her, but lord forbid I have a camera anywhere near me during those moments. I am sure that I will get the opportunity eventually. And wow can she fill a diaper.

From an animal note, Tigger seems pretty well adjusted to her, but now demands more attnetion. Normally this cat is very standoffish, but he has even sat in my lap of late which is super weird for him. He even follows me through the house. I think he is afraid that we may leave and come home with another wailing child. As for the fish, the crappy ones to start the cycling are doing just fine. I don't think they even notice the baby. However we have a decent algae growth, so I will pick up some form of algae eater over the weekend and decided if that tank will be Rainbow fish, or african cichlids. Once I install the new faucet for the basement sink, I will drain and refill the 110 for it's future of fish holding.

Here is one of my favorite recent pics!

First and 15!

Well for the first time, I sat and watched the entire first day. For me it was a little slice of heaven, but not even close to being on the scale of my daughter. Overall, I saw a couple surprise picks but for the most part I thought everyone went towards holes this year instead of player talent which seemed to be the direction last year.

So I honestly thought with Norman Chow in Tennessee, they would have went with Leinart. He was the more polished choice that could actually play the position this year. Young still has a lot of development needed, but may have more room for growth. Still, they passed on a quality QB for a bet.

The raiders really didn't need a DB/S, so when I picked Michael Huff instead of targetting what I think is a major need that could have been filled early with some solid defensive tackles and still be able to pick one of the many good DBs in the draft. Again, it was a little odd to see.

The biggest draft news was the Texans jilting Reggie Bush. I honestly believe no one was willing to trade up to 1 to get Reggie, so the Texans did what they had to and that was start filling in some of their wholes. I probably would have went with D'Brickashaw but I think that the Texans have been able to use the later rounds to shore up the D. But passing on Reggie Bush might be the move that shows the mediocrity of the Texans organization. But not comparing Bush to Barry Sanders, when you take a great offensive weapon and put them in a broken system, you will always improve the level of the system. However that system will still be fundamentally broke. I think we can honestly say that with Reggie Bush, the Texans might have run to 6-10, which is what I think they will be able to do this year with the players they did get, but I think going into the future, you are going to be better aligned to get some long term perspective.

Just to show how bored Miranda was during my watching of the draft:

With the number one pick . . .

Mario Williams? WTF? I can see it fits under a bigger need, but Reggie Bush has a lot of potential. Of course this is easy to spot based on contract negotiations and the recent extension of Dominic Davis. So that shuffles things around a bit. I had just assumed they would trade down a bit and pick up an extra round 2 or 3 for it. Interesting and it screws up what I had set out before.

1. Texans - Mario Williams
2. 49ers - Reggie Bush
3. Titans - Matt Leinart
4. Jets - D'Brickashaw Ferguson
5. Packers - A. J. Hawk
6. Saints - Vernon Davis
7. Raiders - Brodrick Bunkley
8. Bills - Michael Huff
9. Lions - Ernie Sims
10. Cardinals - Vince Young
11. Rams - Haloti Ngata
12. Browns - Karmerion Wimbley
13. Ravens - Winston Justice
14. Eagles - Chad Greenway
15. Broncos - DeAngelo Williams

We'll see how well that one stands.

NFL draft quickie

I haven't really had time to finish what I started in terms of my draft research. I have a preliminary expected draft order but haven't had time to put in all the trades that I expect to happen and only got to pick 15.

1. Jets - Reggie Bush
2. Saints - Mario Williams
3. Titans - Matt Leinart
4. Texans - D'Brickashaw Ferguson
5. Packers - A. J. Hawk
6. Cardinals - Vince Young
7. Raiders - Vernon Davis
8. Bills - Brodrick Bunkley
9. Lions - Michael Huff
10. 49ers - Kamerion Wimbley
11. Rams - Ernie Sims
12. Broncos - DeAngelo Williams
13. Ravens - Haloti Ngata
14. Eagles - Winston Justice
15. Browns - Chad Greenway

Parts of this don't feel right yet. It feels like I have a lot more movement than I wanted, but at the same point, when you look at the top 10 players there is a definite order to their skill levels also coupled with the power of their position. I tried to capture the strength of the players and let the teams come to them. The teams may end up not trading and taking these players as well. Either way, I am starting to get excited about it.

More than spit

Well Miranda got sick on me for the first time. I guess she drank her dinner too quickly. Amazing how much 2 ounces is! Watching to make sure she is doing ok. Poor babe!

Another bath, and voila: Clean Miranda

So today was another bath for Miranda (sorry, no pics nor will there be). She is starting to tolerate them more it seems like. Same with the changing of the diaper, done now with minimal fuss. So far adventures in baby land are going well.

However I am sorry to say the picture a day thing has failed really before it even took off. I guess I didn't realize how tired one could be. However either I am getting used to being tired or somehow I am magically squeezing out quality sleep in shorter time periods. Either way, Michelle and I are maintaining the necessaries of sleep, food, and cleanliness for us and more importantly, Miranda.



This morning between work and Miranda (letting Michelle get more rest, she needs it!) I started work on my 2006 mock draft based on too much research. I have gotten through the first 15 pics, but am deciding that I am not liking some of the pics I have. I seem to be lacking some of that edginess that will either make me a genius or get me totally laughed at. Either one of those options is completely fine with me. The draft is always tricky. You know that the teams are holding these secret "love affairs" with certain players that they don't want anyone else to know about. This is some value to stealing another teams desired player or moving like you are. Hopefully the research will be done so that I can post it tomorrow night.

6 days

Well we have made it so far, and we aren't too much worse for wear. Although staying up till 2:30 AM with her and then getting up at 7:00 AM was not exactly comfortable. But when she is happy, we are happy.

No new picture today. Don't really want to disturb her as she had a busy day. Nothing bad, just a visit to a nurse and she is doing wonderful.

As I have said that football is a year round sport (well a slight break for summer training), I will be talking about the upcoming draft soon. Otherwise, my energies are focused elsewhere.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone is having fun with family and friends today!

Everything I thought I knew

As the last couple of months went by, Michelle and I spent a lot of time trying to learn more about baby care and what to expect. In the end, you just have to wing it. I guess I should have sensed that this pseudo-preparedness was in fact a warning sign of overconfidence and bravado on my part. I don't know how else to describe the sheer helplessness a parent can feel at 2:30am when the baby is crying and the diaper is dry, she has just been fed, and burped, and it just isn't stopping. The first night, we just turned on the light and everything was fine. Just wanted to look around, I guess. Last night, we started supplementing with some formula and that helped.

Other things of note for fathers: During the time of labor, you need to make sure you have food and WATER! Also lay off the aspirin as nerves are going to play some not-so-funny games with the stomach. The nurses will help your wife. You need to take care of you so that when the time comes that your wife needs help, you are ready. I know a couple of friends that are expecting soon. If you are worried about missing it, just ask one of the nurses. I mentioned that I would like to get some lunch and the nurse said that it would be fine, that we were still a bit away. Same when I mentioned I needed to buy some antacids (you may want some of those as well).

All that said, it was the most special experience in my life. Watching my baby daughter arrive was so amazing. Listening to her first cry and she awoke to this strange environment was precious (just keep remembering that a cry can be beautiful...). All in all I feel blessed and lucky with this little bundle.

I want to thank all my friends and family who have talked to us over the last couple of days or left comments. It is always a good feeling when you see all the people that care. Thanks again!

More pics

I uploaded a bunch of pics to my flickr account, but most are marked as private. If you wish to see them, you will need a flickr account and become a contact of mine and I will add you to my friends and family!

And thank you for all your congratulations!

Bob Wehadababy Itsagirl

Miranda Lynn Dykstra
born 3:52 PM PST
7 lb 1.5 oz
19 3/4 inches

Sorry for the small picture. I was sent home sick and this is all I had with me (camera phone). Everything went well, but I will let Michelle tell that story on blog. We went in for some tests and the doctors were concerned about the low amniotic fluid. So they decided to induce. They gave Michelle 3 pills over the course of 9 hours Tuesday, and then a sleeping pill since it was 12:00pm when they finished that round. The next morning at 6:00am they started giving the serious inducement medicine, and Michelle's water broke around 9:00am. The epidural showed up at around 11:00 am and things got a lot better.

But we have a little girl and I couldn't be happier.

No news yet.

Still no news.

It's started

They are inducing today. Will post more later.

To be dad, chart redux

Updated in date order...

Who?	Date	Time
Jfew	April 7	7:00 PM
Michelle's Mom	April 10	4:00 AM
Manders	April 10	7:00 AM
Agregov	April 11	7:00 AM
Lehman	April 13	2:00 AM
Jay	April 13	3:00 AM
Qhunt	April 13	9:00 AM
Michelle	April 13	3:00 PM
Brownell	April 14	6:00 AM
Cathy	April 15	7:33 AM
Amanda	April 15	5:32 PM
Janak	April 16	7:00 PM
Me	April 18	3:30 AM
Ish	April 21	6:30 AM
Andy	April 22	10:30 AM
My Mom	April 24	2:00 PM

When will I be a dad?

So I started a list of everyone's guesses. Feel free to tag on any additional guesses. Here are the only vital statistics that you get:

• Original Due Date: April 11
• Fetal Survey Due Date: April 14

So here are the guesses in so far:

Who?	Date	Time
Me	April 18	3:30 AM
Michelle	April 13	3:00 PM
My Mom	April 24	2:00 PM
Manders	April 10	7:00 AM
Lehman	April 13	2:00 AM
Jfew	April 7	7:00 PM
Qhunt	April 13	9:00 AM
Brownell	April 14	6:00 AM

So we are getting near the date.

More random stuff

There is fish in the tank!!! They are white cloud danios, which are cheap. So the purpose to adding the cheapest fish I can to my 55 gallon tank is to get the Nitrogen cycle started. Since the tank at this stage is more unstable and likely to have an ammonia spike, it is often best to let cheap fish start producing the stuff to get the bacteria going.

Although anyone with a tank probably already knew that.

For my birthday, my brother was kind enough to order a smoker off my Amazon wishlist. I finally got a nice day and good piece of meat to try it out. I have to say I was totally impressed. I was impressed that I didn't burn off my eyebrows (even though it was close). I was impressed that the simplistic heat guage's ideal, really meant ideal. I was shocked by the quality of meat to come forth. Overall it rocked. So, Michelle picked up a pork tenderloin that I did a dry rub of

• Sea salt
• lemon pepper
• cayenne pepper
• garlic powder

on to the roughly 1.25 lbs of pork. I filled the water pan with a bunch of water, 4 cloves of garlic and a dash of port. I used some mesquite chips (thoroughly soaked) as my smoking agent and let it cook for 2 hours. The piece of meat came of with the most amazing flavor that I could imagine. Awesome. If you are interested in getting one of these things yourself, just click the link below.

Brinkmann 852-7080-V Gourmet Charcoal Smoker & Grill with Outdoor Vinyl Cover

Also so that I don't forget, here are some future topics I want to touch on:

• Iterative Design
• Joel on Software
• Rift lake fish
• Baby news

Like I could ever forget baby news. No new news. Michelle's latest doctor appointment went well and we are just waiting now. I think we are ready. I hope we are ready. We probably are not ready. Had one of those moments today at work, where I realized one week from today I could be a dad. How much will life change? Definitely excited and scared.

So I read a large portion of The Baby Book as I have linked to in previous posts. I glad it was able to tell me that it is highly unlikely that I will form a deep bond with my child. I gathered from the book that this is a mother only sort of club and that I will have to just resign myself to fumbling and making mistakes. Thanks Dr. Sears and Dr. Sears! Maybe I am being self-centered or need my ego stroked... but I would like to believe that men have some opportunity to form some connection with their children. In the end, all that matters is the happiness of the child and my connection may have absolutely nothing to do with that and that is fine. I just want a happy, healthy child.

Enough of the depressing stuff. Currently reading:

• The Art of Project Management
• A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3)

Also on my Flickr Album, I added a bunch of pictures from my aquarium setups in Michigan as well as some flower pics that my wife took around our new house.

Not a book review

I finished a book that I could talk about, but I am going to postpone that for later. They require more time to thing them out that I feel like applying right now. So more on the stinky tank. I ended it off where I drained half the tank, stopped the filter, removed the pseudo-plants, and stopped the heater and the stink went down drastically. I have yet to do anything else to the tank lately. What I have determined is that I really need to clean out the filter and remove all the material from it to get rid of the smell. At least that is what I hope will happen.

Today we are going to swing out to the The Fish Store in Seattle to look at their stock, but more specifically pick up the filter supplies that I need. I hope they carry the brand I need, or else, this will likely set my tank setup behind.

Michelle is doing well. We are now down to two names, but not really sure if either will stick once the baby is born. I have heard stories of moms deciding once the baby is born that they are a "fill in the blank" and don't even use the names that they came up with during the pregnancy.

• Annika Lynn
• Miranda Lynn

So all in all, things are well. I should be working this weekend. I have somethings I need to explore for work and feel like I should get cranking on them.

Currently reading:
The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two (Revised and Updated Edition)

Happy Birthday Brandon

Just a quick happy birthday to my brother!

What the heck is that stench?

So I decided this last weekend it was finally time to put together at least one of my fish tanks. They had been sitting empty for quite some time now. So I got out the gravel (stored from Michigan) and some ornament and put it all together. The next morning when I work up, there was definitely an odor in the house and it was definitely coming from the tank. I can only guess that the rocks/ornaments/filter have some weird nasty bacteria or fungus creating what can best described and a 1000 sweaty gym socks piled on a warm heater. So now I start attacking the problem and trying to get everyback to stink free, or near enough.

On a less stinky note, I finished a couple of books to free up more time for baby books.

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2)

Where as the first book seemed to center on the political intrigue, this ones brings in more of the fantasy elements to set up the stage for magic and dragons. Mr. Martin still keeps his elements of pain and torture as in the first book where you many of the characters get disillusioned with life and to suffer through the events that unfold. It feels like he is telling the reader, life is unfair, get used to it.

If you liked the first one, then this one is sure to please. The characters are rich and multidimensional. The plot is deep and twisted. This reader is caught and just can't put it down.

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software

Domain Driven Design is the perfect compliment to any development shop that has decided to use the agile process of eXtreme Programming. It is centered around iterative coding practices and test driven development but also hints to deeper point where you drive to your user stories in a common language with your consumer. Eric Evans creates a system to drive to a "ubiquitous language", reach deep architectural insight, and create robust systems in a changing environment and he explains all these steps in simple ways.

Where I think this book tends to fall a little flat is that is trying to be everything to everybody. This book is definitely not for the "architect" as these concepts are things that you have learned by fire when fighting the battles against scope creep and communicating with Marketing teams and consumers. This also would be wasted on any fresh developer as many of the things that are discussed have not been experienced yet. I do recommend this book to software developers that have roughly 2 to 4 years of experience as it really does plainly put forth the problem sets and offers a solution that can work in many environments.

Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity

This one is something I am still working on. So far I am liking what I am reading. It does seem to be not against XP, but against many of it's concepts in all but a small set of environments. The part is the writing style is very engaging. Either way, probably will have that done in the middle of next week.

The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two (Revised and Updated Edition)

This book should really have a new title called the Encyclopedia of Attachment Parenting. Just started this, and have little time left to read it, but I am trying to hit the needed points and go back through on those upcoming sleepless nights. Maybe I will even read it out loud.
In conclusion

Things are still going well. The baby is due anytime now. Life is good. I am learning to play the piano. I have been posting pictures to flickr. Stud finder is working again. Galactic Civ 2 is better now that it is saving after I updated the video drivers. The Lions are shaking things up at the quarterback position, maybe that can bring the team to life. Ford is in trouble in the auto industry, which may mean the will let the Lions win. Will write something other than reviews shortly. Actually thinking of writing a "This I believe" after NPR and Fort Knight Dispatch, John M Knight's Blog: This I Believe... did one.

Terrible Mistake

Ug.

Although it probably isn't that bad of a mistake, I can't even look in the mirror now. I shaved off my goatee, since I nicked it when I was trimming it. This is the goatee that I have had for about 6 years now without removing it. I sadly miss it. Oh well, it will grow back.

On some reading notes: I am part way through Domain Driven Design. Not too bad, but I think this would useful to any developer about 2 years out of school. It has a lot of ways to look at how you organize and put together software. It also takes a look at the more practical aspects of XP in relationship to iterative development and the use of refactoring.

I also recently finished reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I found this book to be an exercise in what most authors eventually want to do to their characters, which is to torture them relentlessly. I have started to read the sequel, and I think I am starting to notice a pattern. Through the first 200 pages, you have trouble bringing yourself to read another page. It is so painful watching some these characters get punished for living (living?). The rest of the book leads into wondering if the character will somehow extract themselves from these predicaments, knowing most likely they won't, but curious enough to have a hard time putting the book down.

I also read Heading Home with Your Newborn : From Birth to Reality yesterday to start getting prepared for our new arrival. This book was darn good, but at this point, I don't know if will be helpful (as the baby isn't here yet). The writing was very good and lead to couple of chuckles reading which helps break some of the tensions that comes with expecting a first child and realizing you don't know the first thing about taking care of one. The book contains information covering a broad set of topics, but really doesn't get very in-depth about any of them. I actually prefer this as I was able to get a good chunk of basic information in the matter of 3 hours and feel a little bit more prepared. Highly recommended!

Also as noted on St. Patrick's day picture, I bought Galactic Civilizations II at the recommendations of Jefe le Grand. So far I like the game a little bit. My reservations may come from the fact that I have trouble with turn based strategy games (where is my bum rush?) or from the fact that this genre at some point can feel like a job as opposed to a game. But this game has the feature to end all features, the shipyard! It is like have legos and building spaceships all over again. This strategy really sparkles when you build the ships to your design and send them out. The design has little impact, but gives your race a feel of it's own. Noticed a bug so far where I can't load save games (ouch) but hopefully there will be a patch soon.

A Geek, I am

Am I the only that thinks this equals a fun evening?

Review: Component to VGA box

Device Review

So my anguish over high def video gaming is almost over. I recently bought a Progressive-Scan Component VGA Box from Lik-Sang. This device will take component input in 480p, 720p, or 1080i and transform it to VGA for use with up to two monitors. Out of the box, I plugged everything in and it worked like a charm with my archaic KDS VS-195 monitor. There are a number of dip switches on the device that allow for manual settings, but on auto it worked great. One thing that is a little annoying is that it cannot handle non-hi-def signals at all. So when the XBOX is in the OS screen, it will not be displayed. Another thing is that the colors are very washed out. Not very rich or vibrant, but the thing that was important to me, contrast, was spot on and I can now spot my enemy from a great distance away in dark areas with a crispness that is just not available on standard tv.



Other Stuff

Yesterday's reformat was a success. At least so far. I have yet to test hooking up the camcorder to the computer to see if I am able to pull the videos in. That will be on my to be tested today list. Also I need to test hooking up my new 61 key m-audio keyboard (M-Audio Keystation 61es 61-Key Keyboard). Powered and connected via USB for use with both PCs and Macs, which is also why I am not tempted to get a Mac (although I am tempted about once a year). Garageband is a piece of software that has always intrigued me and it would be nice to run it for a spin or to have something similar on the PC. But alas, I now have to figure out what will be in the budget.

Also, yesterday's reformat has identified a problem of mine. I have not organization for the files that I have on my PC and I think that I am going to need to put them in some sort of order. And definitely run a backup. Yup.

Couple quick things

Finally pushed over the edge and need to fix my PC. This is the longest I have ever had a PC without changing it and am starting to feel the pressure to upgrade. But I just continue to try and limp along. Today I am spending some time reformatting so that hopefully I can download my video's from the vidcam. Plus, my TV mode on my video card quit working months ago, and I finally am tired of waiting on that. The one problem I can't seem to fix is the one that bothers me the most. Whenever I reboot, it takes 15 minutes to POST. I unplug the one piece of equipment I installed after purchase (HDD) and it POSTs in less than 15 seconds. This only reinforces the next PC will be build by me. Just a lot more flexible and reliable for what I need it to do.

So, I have a DLP projector that I use for movies and games. It works well for movies, but I was unable to see in most games because they are dark and require a fairly high contrast ratio. So I saw online that you can buy a dongle that will convert hi-def to vga. So now I am using one of my old monitors (19") to play my games on. I will post a full review of it later along with make/model/where you can get one too if you are intrigued.

Well back to reformatting.

(BTW, I have been considering a Mac Mini so that I can do audio stuff on it. Don't tell my wife.)

Book Review: The Innovation Superhighway

Without boring about why I am doing this so much later than when I actually read the book, suffice to say, I have decided that this book requires a full review. I had written previously about this book, where I recommended this to my previous employer. I would like to explore why I felt this way and more so why I became disillusioned with the book's message.

First off, when looking for books on innovation, one must know what type of information they are looking for and what information they are going to find in the book that they are going to read. The Innovation Superhighway is a book that starts out presenting the start of a framework using the internet as a means of transmitting information. Early on in the book it is stated that internet and all it's services and facilities are really about innovation, not information. While many innovative activities are occurred because of the information that is made more readily and by the "free wheeling" of early internet companies, the internet is truly about the transfer of knowledge. When much of the book deals with sharing of innovations across some infrastructure sounds wonderful, I have seem little of it in the corporate world, where it may be true in the academic world. In fact I have seen the opposite in the corporate world, where innovation is coveted and hoarded.

In the end, this book will do a couple of good things for you. It provides an excellent look into the ideas of Intellectual Capital, which still has a certain amount of nebulousness about it (although I was looking for something a little deeper here). The book also presents some excellent views into Knowledge and what it can mean to an individual, a company, and even a country. There is a lot of good information in those chapters.

This however only gets us to page 127 out of 349. At this point, the book goes into the story of ENTOVATION which I was unable to find much that I could use in many of my roles of using technology to facilitate communication and parts within a corporation's innovation processes. It becomes the story of how individuals from many roles got together to explore knowledge exchange and sharing for the purpose of innovation. Many of the cases that are put forth rely on companies and individuals seeing the benefit of sharing information and also that all information being shared is of equal value. I have been part of such attempts at sharing only to have them break down due to information having different value to different parties and therefore demanding different returns. The whole knowledge market, although referenced earlier in the book, seems largely ignored. The primary aspects near the end of the book rely on a more idealistic world, where personal gain (thinking selfishly here) is largely ignored and the greater good of society and countries are funded to aid innovation. I have seen little evidence of any working towards that or any chance of these goals coming to fruition. Painting of Exemplar Ken Practitioners through ~40 pages had little value to me in my quest for knowledge and innovation processes.

So, there is value to the book. I felt that the first portion of the book was the most valuable and would love to see more around that, but I was disappointed that after such a strong start, the end left me wanting.

If only Tequila

I wish it wasn't NyQuil. Tequila (the other Q drink) would be preferable, but somehow I have managed to become sick. Again. Oh well, sick happens.

NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement

Look, wealthy teams, I know that it isn't fair that you should have to give up more of your income to other NFL teams, but perhaps some of your popularity comes from your rivalries to the other teams you help? Both the owners and players make a ton of money in this sport and on all fronts they seem very stingy. I think I would propose some major changes however. First off, I would reduce the pay of the players. Second I would increase the allocation of player money. Third, I would increase the monies that go into the NFL retirement program.

Many of the big name players do their own financing but many don't or don't even do it effectively. So to the first point, reducing pay, I am not talking about a major deal here, but a limitation to a percentage of the salary cap. So for instance, the most any given player can make in a year would be 8% of the salary cap, so this year that would mean that a player could only make 8% of $94.9 million. That is the sum of their prorated signing bonus, incentives and base salary so that there will be no trickery here. Today's $94 million is given all to the players and that accounts for 54% of a teams allocation. I would like to see the difference of what the players want to current placed in a NFL 401(k). Plus the players can contribute some of their money into that as well to create a cushion for them when they are finished.

To do away with the salary cap, and the money sharing in the NFL would destroy everything that I have come to love about the game. We will lose the aspect that on any given Sunday, our team could win. We would lose these battles of equals and the power of groups of heros to emerge. We would lose the aspect of good team management to create forces were all teams start on equal footing. We would lose American Football and they would lose a lot of viewership.

I may build one of these

This one falls into my friggin' awesome category. Something about it just makes me giddy, but what really gets me is that in the end it turns out to be a good looking guitar. I will have to think about what other things I could build into a guitar...

Toilet Seat Guitar

Our Cell Phones suck!

This is probably one of my longest running rants about living in the U.S. Our cell phones really suck. Part of the other things that I have seen on web sites like Engadget, Gizmodo, and Engadget Mobile only whet my appetite for a phone that will provide all the functionality I want in a tiny, sweet looking package. I would love to see better cameras, faster data networks, bigger displays, bluetooth, good processors, applications, coverage, etc. I think the only thing we have right is battery life. Even the general style does not live to the Geek that drives me. Think of the Geek as similar to the Fast, only it has a pocket protector and a more demonic voice. It desires the pinnacle of technology in ones pocket to provide connectivity where ever you are.

But on the plus side, it looks like someone is trying to do just that. I hope that it takes off, and I might even considering using my dollars to purchase into it.

Source of rant: normal life and Engadget Mobile: Wired profiles Sky Dayton and the birth of Helio

6 weeks to go

Did I just say that? Only six weeks left till our family is 50% bigger. I think I am getting nervous. It will be fine. Room is coming along. Get to put it hiatus as Michelle's family will be visiting and we will use that room for sleeping. But we have a form of baby sleeping device that is not a crib. That will do for a while, but we will be on the lookout for all sorts of stuff. I am thinking that shortly we will make a list of all the stuff we have yet to pick up. It is not part of my nature to make lists, but I have this feeling that this is bigger than my normal fly by the seat of my pants events.

Work is good. Football is sadly lacking (although I have been following the Combine in Indianapolis like a hawk). I would be nice to see more off season coverage. My gaming is limited to football on the xbox and my reading is:

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)

Ahh the good life.

Another 3 reviews

Finished 3 books in the last couple of weeks and I am pretty sure that I have not blogged about them. I will start with the business one and move on to the other ones. It may sound like I am spending a large amount of time reading, but I have to say that riding the train is definitely a plus to my reading.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

E-Myth Revisited actually takes place in the E-Myth series prior to E-Myth Mastery. This one again uses the example of Sarah and her business of all about pies. Much of my initial reaction to this book was largely negative compared to the E-Myth Mastery, but after getting through with it, there was a large amount of good information. My major gripe with it was that it seemed as if Michael Gerber was pushing the idea of the Franchise Prototype on to the reader as the only way for one to truly be successful in a business, but later on that message seems to soften. The end of the book focuses on the right things of a franchise, which involves creating a business system that makes the business run without YOU, which leads to much less stressful business. In the end though, I would not buy both books, but instead just buy E-Myth Mastery as it seems to set up a much better framework for a business and how to focus one's energies.

Prince of the Blood, 15th Anniversary Edition

I have been a big Raymond Fiest fan, but I started a little backwards with the Serpent War Saga. I have since gone back through his other books all set within the same basic universe. Mr. Fiest has a wonderful ability to create rich characters and a intriguing environment and this book is no exception. The story tells of the two sons of the Prince of Krondor and their "punishment" and coming of age. Although this book is not as good as some of his other works, it is a worth while read. There is always a sense of fun and adventure is these books and this is another of the series. However, as you read more and more of his books, you start noticing the reoccuring emergence of character traits, but in the end it is just a great fantasy "spaghetti western".

The Man Who Sold The Moon

The Man Who Sold the Moon is a series of short stories by the great sci-fi master R.A.H. The short stories in this book were written early in Heinlein's career and cover the later half of the 20th century and how he predicted the future based on the occurrences of World War 2. The primary story is based on a character who's goal in life is to first visit the moon (being the first human) and then setting up a colony on the moon. Harriman (the character) uses is past business successes and his business savvy to convince his friends, his company, and complete nations of children to help back his venture, which is of the goal to fulfill a childhood fantasy instead of make money. The rest of the stories tell of the engineers who make that path possible via their inventions and work and it sets up a beautiful backdrop. The painful part of reading this was Heinlein's attention to detail around concerning everything but the inventions and many of his shady business practices and national politics seem to be more far-fetched than the inventions themselves. But in the end, I did enjoy it, but for all I would recommend that one sticks with Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as they are much better stories.

Talent Identification

So in my last post, I discussed some of the problems that face Human Resource employees and some ideas on what they could do to impact the company that they are working for. This time I want to talk a little bit about trying to identify talent. Some employers will base everything on a resume, a phone screen, a interview, or a test. But can those properly identify top talent. Probably the best one will be an interview, but I have heard from some that a talented individual might perform poorly under the pressure of an intense grilling. They are still talented at ideation, learning, or focus, but communication or pressure situations arent their cup of tea.

It leads into the problem that many people have with standardized testing. Should someone not get a chance because their SAT was 890, resume didn't have enough experience or the right name of school, or can't tell you how to program the perfect hashing function on the phone, not get a chance at working? See the problem in all cases is that the pressure is too much for the candidate or person being tested and that isn't something you can remove. And if I am someone who is trying identify someone for a role in a job or as a student at my prestigous university, I need a means to measure the thousands of potential candidates.

My point is the current means all have the same drawback, then the best way to discover talent is the quickest, most consistent method. My recommendation to a team is to create a test that will help reduce the thousands by removing ones that you would not hire anyway. Use and abuse the standardized testing before you start using your currently employed resources.

Mismanagement of Human Resources

Rant source: Why we hate HR?

One of my favorite quote that a friend of mine uses is: "People aren't your company's most important resource, the right people are" as taken from Good to Great by Jim Collins. This puts the right focus in front of any HR person who wants to be more involved in the strategic decisions of a company. In fact, nothing will impact your knowledge centric company more than acquiring talented, driven individuals to work in your company and then keep them there.

At some point, I have noticed that Human Resources continues to add processes to measure their people from year to year on their performance. This process adds a overhead to every single employee in your organization. Now, I am not saying that we should not measure the effectiveness of people or of the HR department, as continual measurement and measurement improvement is the only way to optimize performance. However, why is it the job of a Human Resource department or representative to determine a process to measure the individual contributor? There seems to be this universal need to list your weaknesses and strengths. The strengths are there for feel good factor while the weaknesses are a thing to used as a driving whip in the backs of the employees. Another standard question concerns the accomplishment of goals that were set out at the beginning of the year. Specific task oriented items that can be accomplished by a certain time limiter with little wiggle room is a poor way to measure an employee that has the ability to take initiative and put thought into finding the things that will make the most impact and work on those.

First off Human Resources does have a part to play in the Performance Review process, just not the creation, but instead the documentation. To begin, the goals set forth should be derived from the goals of leadership. This belief was instilled in my by Jay, and has been reinforced by the operation of the team he ran. If the company goal is to creat $7 billion in free cash flow or increase diluted eps by $.20, these things can be translated down to individuals, but can only be done some one org layer (or layer to the corporate onion) at a time. The leadership team involving the C class executives are responsible for splitting that goal up among their individuals orgs as some teams are not created equally. A VP of PR can't contribute much in the way of dollars to free cash floor, but could do more with less by creating value in interviews and product demos that cost nothing to the corporation but generate media buzz. A VP of IT, can contribute to efficiency that are needed by other orgs. All parts and pieces must contribute to the end goal, but not all contributions need be equal, but all must be related to the overall all goal and those pieces of the goal must relate to the company's vision and mission statement.

Within a given org, the departments can now look at those high level goals (that are now closer to their company view) and break those down into goals that are to be worked on. Our group will contribute $50 million in buzz worthy demos. Our group will contribute $50 million to Apparel revenue. At no point do you want to limit the individual to where they are just working on set goals and afraid to go blaze new trails.

The next step is reaffirmation of the goal at each quarterly analyst call. The goals of each org and person should still reflect the goals of company at all times of the year. The process by which it should be done is subjective, but one that is engaging to the members who actually have to contibute and accomplish the goals is probably the best case as there is now more ownership of the companies performance.

The final step in performance is meeting the goals which should be again measured at the top and trickled down. If the company met goals, then great. Next is to allocated kudos (whatever those may be) to the departments based on their relationship to the goal and this flows down through the org. The amount of kudos in the pool is defined by the scale of eps or free cash flow or whatever.

So where does that leave HR? What do they do again? It is easier to look at their functions in terms of architecture. There are main functions that need to be accomplished to aid the company and then some underlying services that all functions need to use to accomplish their goals. The only function of HR is Talent Management (aquisition, retainment, removal, classification). This means that we need a way to hire individual (how does a manager set up the requisition? how is that req communicated to the job seeking public? etc.), a way to identify individuals that can contribute (standardized tests of personality, IQ, functional knowledge?), a way to create incentives for people to join (dogs at work, 401(k) matching, medical insurance, etc). This is just a drop in the bucket, but the core is creating an environment that allows for the company to accomplish its goals. When those goals are inhibited due to talent, that is a failing in HR.

I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg, as each part of HR's mission needs to be explored out, mapped, measured, and enacted but it is time for dinner. HR principles today seem to be driven out of the old America, when employees were of little skill and could be replaced easily. These were environments of system driven results as opposed to many industries rely on people driven results. Maybe product engineering and software development companies will find systems to remove the need for talent, but until then HR has a strategic place in the corporation regardless if they feel it or not.

Pushing more product!

Ok. So if you have noticed, when I create links to books, movies, etc. that I am reading and reviewing, the link goes to Amazon. The deal is that get a small fraction of a cut help fund my main site of Modilabs which hosts my pictures and my encyclopedia of me. So without further ado, I will push more product on you.



I have not completed this comic book, but if you are a fan of Penny Arcade and more specifically the blog posts that go with the comic, then you will enjoy this. Basically this pulls from the 1999-2000 of the website and puts little insights behind what was going on with our hosts, the owners and creators. Lots of fun.

As going through the recent comics, I found one that I would love to have as a poster in my office (if I knew that my child will not see it). That would be the middle frame of this comic. Without the witty words. Just the simplicity of glowing pants. What a rockin' poster.

Also more product to push and places to push you to, I signed up for a pro account of flickr. The UI is simple, the features are rich, and the price is not bank breaking. For a link to my pictures, you can look all over my site and find a few or just click here. Also a friend of mine is taking up the nasty habit of vblog, video blogging, vibe-logging. I have found his videos enjoyable and a neat look at the various technologies he tries out using green screening and using various software. For note, the hosting for his news casts is through vimeo.

New look and feel

I finally got tired of using the look and feel that I could download off of blogspot and made my own. I had done some modifications to the template that I originally started in, but grew weary of it over time. Looked like everyone blog on the planet. There are a couple of glitches in this new skin that I am going to have to fix in time, but it took me an entire Saturday creating my sparse images and aligning everything just so. At some later point, I am going to start adding in some java script to all you to minimize and hid menu items. Also, at some point take a gander down the page.

If you have suggestions or complaints, leave me a comment.

Gaming and my test.

It may be because it is battlefield, but the number of profanity is low (because you can't hear someone else when they are dead). Cause I know that I was spewing them out like crazy. Mostly at my inability to get ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

As a note:

• With Projector: 42 Points per hour
• With Low Def CRT: 98 Points per hour

Simply infuriating. All I can gather is that with the CRT the contrast ratio helps with spotting enemy troops. When I switched to my gorgeous projector doing high def, the contrast ratio is so low that it feels very washed out. The funny thing is when I checked the specs online recently of my projector it said 1800:1 contrast ratio. But that doesn't seem right since my LCD monitor is worse and sees to be easier to see things. Hmmmm. Plus the projector is further from the wall than in the old house. Sigh.

Gamers and their verbal diarrhea

Seems that gamers have quite the potty mouth. I must say that I am guilty as charged but soemtimes it is a little 12 year spouting off using terms I don't even consider using regardless of their winning or losing.

One gamer went so far as to track the use of profanity over a 30 hour period. I think this is a neat idea. But for the most part I tend to only play with those in my clan as dealing with the younger generation can be a bit of a burden. However when I was reading through the comments on the first link, I found a link to the Seasoned Gamers clan which expects a certain level of maturity in their gamers (how much I am not really sure.

So it seems there is a place where you can find friends that aren't young and stupid.

xbox gamertag: reverend0

Reviews Galore!!!

It is time for my review extravaganza!!!


Best in Show (4.5 out of 5 stars)

Watched this over the weekend and was impressed by again the talents of Christopher Guest and many of the folks that he works with in creating this mockumentary in the style of Spinal Tap and Mighty Wind. If you have seen any of these movies before, you will know that premise is to take the emotions and personalities of these vaunted professions and experiences and explode them expodentially. Best in Show follows 4 sets of dog owners through the trials and stresses that lead up to a major competition which involves nothing more than having a well trained, finely groomed dog. The actors do a wonderful job creating these over the top personas and giving them those human touches that sometimes you are moved by the lengths they go to, but many times horrified at their take on many things.

<SPOILER>
I think the part that completely sold me on the movie was in end of the movie where the handlers are walking their dogs for the grand champion and Eugene Levy's character is walking their dog never having done this before. And you noticed that his two left feet lead him perfectly around the parade ground with his dog. Superb
</SPOILER>

Doom (Unrated Widescreen Edition) (.5 out of 5 stars)

This film disappointed me on so many levels. I felt obligated to see it as I have been a fan of id games and played their games since the days of Wolf3d. I knew going into this movie that they had changed the premise of the movie to be mutants as opposed to demons as done in the games. I had heard that this was done by the studios to appease the christian groups. But WTF? You'd think bashing demons would be totally up the Christian rights alley... of course that is hearsay.

Either way this popcorn flick was trash. From the get go you are faced with scientists running down a dark hallway from something frightening and the head scientist calling to earth for help. Following this you have an l33t group of special forces that come in raining bullets and getting their butts trounced. I think special in this case refers to their lack of teamwork and gross mistakes in going into an unknown and hostile situation. Without spoiling this one, I would easily call this one Resident Evil 3: Welcome to Mars.

E-Myth Mastery : The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company (4 out of 5 stars)

First off, I must say thanks to Jay for convincing me to read this book. E Myth Mastery takes a look at what it takes to be an entrepeneur. It goes through the driving need to be creative and how often that need to create gets changed into not wanting to work for the man and suddenly the creativity is stagnated or you perhaps go out of business.

At some point you have to look at your passions and the things that drive you and make the decision to be the technician and work in your craft or find the passion in creating a successful business around your craft and teach others of your craft and passion and make that business truly world class. As it goes though by telling the tale of a woman named Sarah with her pie selling business walking through the steps with her consultant, the author of the book, you are told of the 7 essential masteries to create a world class business out of your business. These 7 skills focus on different leadership skills such as financial, lead generation, and marketing and it is often mentioned that these skills must all be practiced because if you let one aspect of your business get away from you, then it can cause your business to not be as successful as it could have been.

Also in reading this, it can be helpful to those that are not out to create their own business. These skills and funnelling of passion can help you lead an organization towards "world class" where world class is the best of it's kind. Understanding that as a team working on projects and creating customer solutions, you need to know what you are working towards with the allocated money and how you are going to create loyal customers.

I recommend this book to those that want something more out of their business or are looking for a way to channel your passions into creating great things.

Mounting Frustration

I guess my projector and xbox are just irritating me. My xbox locks up all the time and seems to have trouble frequently. My projector has always had a low contrast ratio, but it is now starting to get on my nerves. The solution: deal with it. Right now everything is in new parent mode, so the only purchases are vital purchases till we get through this, unless there is some killer deal (ala the robo-vac that we got for a song).

I think the first panic attack happened when we were watching the birthing videos and I started counting back and we have less than double digit weeks left till our baby arrives. Holy smokes! Michelle is doing a great job painting up her stencils of frogs and leaves and butterflies. To see her progress, check the link to her blog on the menu to the right.

I think I did the final thing today to signify my move to Washington state. I changed the plates on my truck and my wife's car. Although we gotten the plates a while ago, the weather has not been conducive to putting the plates on as it has been <gasp /> raining. However in putting on the plates, I came to the realization that radiators are sharp and attaching the mounting brackets has left my knuckles a bloody mess. But it is done!

--------------------- READING -------------------------

• I have nearly completed E-Myth Mastery : The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company and I will be putting up a review of it soon. I thank Jay for suggesting it.


• The Man Who Sold The Moon

He said, she said

Lions hire Martz as offensive coordinator

The Lions have a new coach in Marinelli, a defensive coordinator in Henderson of the Jets and now signed Martz of the Rams as their offensive coordinator. However it seems that the Martz hiring did not go off without a hitch. Seems someone was lying or leaked information or some form of falsification over the last nine days that led up to this. I don't feel like taking a side in who did what, but it will be nice to have one of the most brilliant offensive minds leading a team such as the Lions.

Marinelli late last week mentioned that Detroit was going to be moving to a run first offense while Martz is typically known for his pass heavy offenses, this leads me to be very curious to see how it turns out. Either way, this leads me to question the players currently in the program.

Joey Harrington has been in a west coast offense up until this point and that has not gone well and I don't see a pass heavy offense really on his skills. If he is lucky, he is dropped by the Lions and picked up as a veteran back to Chad Pennington of the Jets. I feel this would be a best option for him, with a offensive system that is geared around his strengths (which to be honest, I am not really sure what they are any more).

Kevin Jones seems to have this crazy idea that he can lower his head and run people over like he did in college. Ummm sorry, even a big guy like Jerome Bettis learned 13 years ago, that you need to be a bit shifty or you will get ground to a pulp by the linebackers. He went out at least twice last year with concussions for lowering his head and popping a linebacker and a safety. If we are doing a lot of running, you may want to combine that impressive speed with a couple juke moves or a good stiff arm.

Artose Pinner is some guy that for some odd reason, I really enjoy watching and think they could be good with a fair shake. Good speed, low center of gravity, etc. I don't think he will be a superstar, but could be one of the workhorse backs that everyone depends on.

However on to other news for football. It seems that the bargaining agreement to extend the salary cap is going very poorly. I can understand why as the teams with the money rolling in don't wish to share that money with teams that are struggling. However, those teams will only get worse if they are unable to afford the talent they need to stay competitive and then you have less money the next year. The salary cap and the shared income agreement is by far the best thing they could have done for football in terms of the fans. It creates closer, more exciting games most of the time. It creates a spread of star players on all teams that give us fan favorites. It just makes the game a true battle. If we went back to the "old" ways, we would see the dynasties of old and scores similar to college games, while exciting for one team, it is eternally depressing for the losers and their fans.

Any given Sunday! Well, in 7 months.

When non-fiction writers go bad

I guess that some people's lives are just not interesting enough to sell, so some author's have taken to manufacturing a life or embellishing. It seems to immoral to pass this off as non-fiction but it seems to be more prevalent than anticipated.

Popular male writer 'unmasked as woman'

43 things minus 40

One

Friggin' blog spammers. I just spent 15 minutes deleting 45 comments going back to the posts at the beginning of the blog. Bastards and the state cleaning home blog. I hate them. Stinkin hobbitssess.

So as a new thing, I turned on the silly type in the word thing. Will see if it works or if I will have to implement my own security by moderating. I hope not.

Two

This will be my last superbowl related post. Many things are hard to see in a game and many things are very questionable, but the bias against the Seahawks were real. Which makes it hard to believe that the NFL stands by their refs calls. Every knows that the refs are human and falliable, but to be only lean your calls one way is a little ridiculous. You would almost think they had money riding on the game.

Also, a thank you to Mike A, a commentor/tormentor, on the previous blog entry for pointing me to articles that were totally biased toward the Seahawks. I stand by some of the refs calls, but not all of them. Worst superbowl with any teams I gave a rip about.

Three

The writing of the article in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Craigslist: Destroying America's Community Watchdogs, is complete and utter CRAP. What a load of self righteous literary diarrhea. First off, Craigslist is a community minded site. There are places for posting comments and notifying of meetings and helping people in a barter and selling community. But the line that really gets me:

And he puts nothing back into the community: He doesn't, for example, hire reporters or serve as a community watchdog.

Like I trust some reporter that cares about sensationalism to be a watchdog. And if the newspaper's go out of business, who cares. Archaic art that is not relevant in the here and now society. I fully expect to see more specialized publications (electronic or otherwise) to handle things like movies and entertainment and local plays etc. But blogs are the new publication and will find their own means of acquiring and income...

Reading:

• E-Myth Mastery : The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company by Michael Gerber


• The Man Who Sold The Moon by R. A. H.

Superbowl Champions: Not my Lions

I don't think that this is a great game. I thought the officiating was attrocious. The calls went against the Seahawks the majority of the time. However, the Seahawks primary failure was with something have had trouble with in the past, receivers inability to catch the ball.

If I were to pick a Seattle MVP, it would definitely be Herndon. Since typically you pick from the winners, it would definitely be Hines Ward. He made many amazing catches that saved Pittsburgh's goose many times.

Now the real question, do I think Seattle would have won with more even handed officiating. There are some many variables in makes it so difficult. Would the Seahawks have built a tremendous momentum with the first touchdown that was taken from them? Yes it was pushing off, but that is a call that normally would not be called in a game. What about the Big Ben's touchdown? He made it in. Sorry, but when I looked at the footage, you can't see the ball, but if you watch a different angle you can clearly see the ball in his hand extending to his elbow; so when you go back to the original clip you can see his hand crosses the plain.

Biggest disappointment is Jeramy Stevens. Not an easy game, and I feel bad for him, but not getting 3 pivotal catches or getting out of bounds.

Good try Seattle. Great job Pittsburgh.

Review: I Robot

We watched I Robot starring Will Smith last night via Netflix (a rarity since I love to sit on the movies). I really enjoyed it, however I have not read any Asimov books so I can't compare it to the movie. But it was action packed and filled with many of those charismatic moments from Will Smith that adds humor and a likeable character. However the robot, Sonny, definitely adds a lot of fun to the movie. Whoever did the voice acting for Sonny did a great job.

There were a few parts to the movie that left me feeling that it was this quick flip of emotion that just didn't seem to smooth. One that I can remember that felt hurried was after the driving action sequence where after the fight on the ground, the detective shows up and Will get's angry and boom scene over. I mean as the viewer you are on such a emotional high, then suddenly there is the awkward detective scene. Not good.

Overall, I recommend checking this out.

I, Robot (Widescreen Edition)

Pretentious, but a seed for innovation

Review based on:The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture

John Battelle's history of the search has an aloof style that can put off many of the readers. However as a message for the readers, instead of focusing on the books many "look how smart I am" moments, really take a look at some of the ideas of how things could change as information becomes findable.

This is not a book that I would recommend to nuts and bolts geek involved in the computer industry. This is a book that I would recommend to someone who wants to take a non-computer industry and incorporate new ideas for knowledge management and knowledge as part of a product. I look at the place where I used to work and this book would help in two ways: Knowledge Management and consumer data driven product design. We can now provide consumers with data for them to use products more effectively and be able to communicate with them in new ways.

I would use this book as a springboard for innovation to help generate new ideas. But beyond that, don't look for some brilliant insight to an age old problem.

Frameworks

As linked through Booch, I found this article on Frameworks and how silly they have become.

If I had a hammer

Let me know if I am wrong, but sometimes it is just better to just build the software. Many frameworks are too generic for use and just inhibit actually working on the product. To go with the analysis and to go with my actual tool purchasing habits, I would rather have a large pile of tools that I have spent my resources on so that I can get stuff done quicker. Hence my distrust of tiki :)


Take a read on the article. Very enjoyable.

Lunarbowl

I figured I would use this as a big hodge podge of stuff. So first things first:

Aaron's Superbowl Pick: Pittsburgh

This has no bearing on my just wanting to shaft the Seahawks or to say Bettis' final game will have bearing on things. I like the Steelers, plain and simple. I admire the way they play ball. I have watched them longer. The Seahawks were always located in the corner of the country and I never watched them. The way they run the team has fluctuated a lot too. But most teams do. In the end this game will be a total flip of the coin. You have two quarterbacks that are on fire with a good suite of receivers and with a power run game. On defense, you have two blitzing defenses with different areas of strengths but both have a solid tough front line. These teams are evenly matched.

Seahawk advantages: Hasslebeck is a tried and true quarterback that has plenty of seasoning and skills. Shaun Alexander is deservedly the MVP.

Steeler advantage: Better receivers. More dynamic D.

Tough call.

Onto other stuff. I recently finished Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein. What a heck of a story?! But beyond that it paints the picture of the creation of a new government that is for the people through a revolution. He writes about some fairly interesting ideas about running a government that particularly strikes me as wonderful. No taxes. Fund through donations. Two houses of government where first house needs 2/3 to vote in a law and the second house needs 1/3 to vote down a law. It talks about proper security in a cell based revolutionary movement that protects the majority in the case of spies or torture. I am definitely glad that I read it. There are some out dated ideas of women and Heinlein's usual viewpoint through their eyes...

-------- Reading ----------

Football, Video Game Fridays, and website upgrades

Playoffs for Football

So it is time for me to eat crow or whatever that phrase is. Or maybe I should say eat my Seahawk poo. They won when I had predicted that they couldn't. I could run this down to the psychological aspect that was that the Seahawks were one of the few teams that had never been to the big game along with my beloved and stupid Lions. Or that the fans went completely nuts after all the playoff games so far. And I mean nuts. Course Lions fans would do the same, but we don't have to worry about that. Sometime this next week I will post my not so indepth analysis and make another half-assed guess for the superbowl.

Detroit Lions

Maintain more Lions thoughts, we seem to have acquired a new head coach in the mold of Tom Conklin of the Giants. Someone who will run this team like a military harkening it back to when Lombardi and folks were running this league of blue collar workers. Only thing is the players are now multi-million dollar specialists and seem to work at their own pace, almost leaders in their own rights. In general, I think this is a good move. I hope that this also brings about a refocus on the Lions defense which I am a big fan of. I believe there is a lot of talent there and only needs a couple of tweaks. In fact, I think the defense for the Lions are responsible for more points being scored than the offense, but then again, that really isn't that hard with the Lions. We shall see with the draft in April and also with training camp in July and August. We shall see.

VG Fridays

So I set up my projector weeks ago, but that also corresponds with when I stopped playing Friday night video games with my friends. Not because of the projector but because I was either working or I had friends over to visit. People in person should get priority over virtual people even if they are real people. Mostly cause there were a ton of other folks playing and me not there is not a big deal. So this Friday, I decided to play. Right now there are only a handful of people that haven't migrated to the 360 so we few played a little Battlefield Modern Combat. Still a great game, but I have run into a number of problems where my version won't login to XBox live. When I select play online, it goes into the loading screen, but if I see a flicker (as if a window were closing and flashes in front of a screen) I know that it failed and is now hiding the error message. Also occasionally will hang when trying to connect to a board. Uggg. And to make matters worse, I have been playing on my old, archaic TV for the last few weeks and the low def has been driving me nuts, but switching to projector has it's own issues. The contrast ratio just plain sucks. So I can't see crap. Very irritating. Going from 30 points a map to 12, I now know that when I finally take care of some of my expenses and the baby stuff, that is the first thing on my list. Before getting a XBox 360.

Website Upgrades

I really didn't upgrade the boxes, but I finally got fed up with using phpWebSite as my content management system and installed Mediawiki on my server. Mediawiki is the software that runs the popular and controversial WIKIPEDIA and I have run that in various other places I have worked. I know other people are a bigger fan of other CMS, but I tend to lean toward different solutions for different feature sets. Tiki is nice, but I am not thrilled with all of it's features and prefer to install those separately and link them in a web like fashion. So at some point I am either going to install a Picture gallery software or sign up for flickr pro to handle my gallery management. Haven't decided. But either way, I will attempt to add more to the site and this gives me a better way of being able to put up various posts that I want persistent and whatnot.

Modilabs

Greedy S.O.B.'s

This is mostly aimed at the RIAA since the MPAA is complaining alot (yet).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/mermigas.jsp

Seems that for T.V. shows such as CSI and Lost make about $1.44 per episode from iTunes whereas they normally make $.57 for the advertising revenue for the show. I do not know if this includes production costs, but I can assume that if this is an apples to apples comparison, then regardless (assume $.40 per episode per viewer production cost....) the network is making a TON more money on downloads. So making the same assumptions on CD's and radio play for the RIAA, I can only make the assumption that their margin is much higher for their physical medium or no matter how much money they make they will still sue the customers. Seems awfully retarded. I think it is time for the distruction of the RIAA and let the labels work to sell their stuff. I am not likely to buy CDs because of my hatred for the RIAA. I would rather live in a music-less world then to pain those bastards.

I am a willing spender of money, but when I buy a CD and am punished by rootkits and various encryption schemes that destroy my experience, I have the right to take my money elsewhere. When they jack the prices of a 5 minute song to exceed that of a 30 to 60 minute TV show, I can do the same. My money can go to the TV networks instead!

Football: Conference Championships

Well Andy didn't do too bad. Missed as many as I did. However these events have made me rethink who is left.

Pittsburgh versus Denver

Now I feel that both games this weekend are going to be good games and therefore close matches. So these are both tough decisions. My personal feelings align more with Pittsburgh because I like the way they play defense and the style of offense they use. And on top of it, I am not a Bronco fan, it makes it hard to see anything other than a Steeler victory. I do have to hand it to the Bronco's in running some superb games and controlling the ball. They have a superb ground game as well as a strong defense that is quick. I am going to give this to Pittsburgh because of their emotional elements to this game as I feel we have two evenly matched teams with similar strengths and weaknesses.

Carolina versus Seattle

I am going to stick with my original prediction. John Fox is going to coach his team to victory. I know Carolina is beat up, but they are playing with a vengeance on this one. Seattle wants to win but there is a missing aspect of a player that is really pulling for it other than the MVP Alexander. The man can run. Holmgren is a good coach and puts together teams with lots of talent. Hasslebeck is a good quarterback with plenty of seasoning. The defense is a solid unit, but with some gaps due to free agency losses at the beginning of the season. Carolina has injuries plaguing the running back position, but has decent backups. Their quarterback is a workhorse. Their defense is flashy and inconsistent. Based on what I saw with the Bears and how they have performed this whole season, I put my money on the Panthers because of their inconsistency. Offensively they are going to run the same game they normally do, but defensively, I think this will be the week they put their stuff together and pull out a win.

As for the superbowl, I am leaning towards a Pittsburgh win. Which I might again chalk up to defensive inconsistency from Carolina. I won't be sure until the dust settles for the battles of the weekend.

A message from the fat kids

For the first time in human evolution do we have more calories consumed in the median of the population than they are burning. So what do we have but a growing level of obesity and specifically in the younger generation? One group of individuals has decided that the best course is to introduce a higher level of state control of society. Socialism in a non-equal society? So what are they really doing? Seems that Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is in league with The Center for Science in the Pubic Interest to bring a lawsuit against Viacom and Kellogg to stop having commercials for high-sugar cereals. Forcing them by using the government to attack their wallets. Almost sounds pseudo-capitalist, except there is the government.

So if parents are so concerned that they children are eating foods that are not good for them or contain too much sugar, why not just not buy it? It must be because Kellogg and Viacomm are responsible for the fact that their kids eat this. I guess these kids are using their allowance money on cereal instead of G.I. Joe and Barbie. I find this highly doubtful. Here is an option, since cereal has so much sugar, why not use it as a sweetener in such foods like cream of wheat and oatmeal? Huh parents? Or just not buy it?

Maybe boycott's are vogue. Maybe your conviction is not strong? Either way, I can only conjecture that you, as parents, are not strong enough to stand up for what is right for your kids on your own, that you need the government to step in.

So, Aaron, how do you really feel?

Well, I think we turn to government and law and PUBLIC funds when we really don't need to. First we are a very strong centralized government, which I am not that thrilled with. And then we are taking the funds that we pay into the government to help with education, roads, foreign policies, feeding the hungry, etc and wasting it on a totally frivilous lawsuit which involves many public servants. Totally idiotic.

In closing, we only avoid Darwin so long.

Rant set off by: Viacom and Kellogg sued over television ads

Round 2 complete.

Well, another weekend at 2 and 2. For me the big surprise wasn't Pittsburgh versus Indianapolis, but more the Patriots versus Broncos. I could have sworn with the confidence of Tom, the running of Corey, and Patriots "D" close to old form, they would be unstoppable. I was so wrong.

The frustrating game for me was the Steelers/Colts game. The officiating really had it in there head that the Colts should have won. I saw 3 major miss calls. 3. Totally unexcusable. For the most part I can accept a couple mistakes a game. It happens, but these were easy to see. The one that stands out to me right now, was the calling of an incomplete pass instead of interception. IT WAS AN INTERCEPTION! There was a big 3rd down pass interference call that was never seen? I know there are mistakes but geez. Luckily the Steelers won, or I would be faced with the prospect of boycotting the rest of the Indy games even if it included the super bowl.

On a different note, I decided to try the game Starport: GE since I had heard interesting things about it. And it's free. In terms of a MMO, I don't see much, but for general feel, it is Civ plus asteroids. Try it, it's free.

Ninja Burger

Just recently bought a Steve Jackson game, Ninja Burger. Quite fun. Although this just isn't as fun as Munchkin. Premise wise, it has the potential of being super cool, but doing missions feel overly short. Maybe at some later point, I will reach a level of "role-play" that will make it super cool. Maybe.

In my reading, I am nearly complete with "The Search" by John Battelle. As much as I feel the author is pretentious and aloof, I find that this book has a high gold nugget to crap ratio. Great way to create ideas as well when it comes to internet technologies or perhaps adding internet technologies to other industries.

I think I will setup a book reviewing system for business books where I will measure their cool neat ideas against the amount of pages with bonuses for excessive amounts of what I consider bad ideas. Next business reading: E-myth masteries.

Of course, I couldn't let my fun reading go to heck, so I picked up The Moon is a Harse Mistress for evening reading to unwind with. I really love it. I am kinda surprised by that. It really goes into creating a revolution and the parts and pieces. What I have particularly enjoyed is the creation of a new us vs. them mentality where one has changed... Was a U.S. versus Russia versus France versus etc, that has now changed to Loonies versus Earthlings. Very interesting.

Playoffs!

Well as promised to ish, I am going to throw out my picks, which based on my previous scorecard, I will definitely be updating as we go through.

Washington versus Seattle

While Washington was able to beat my prediction last time with some incredible defense, they are now going against a team that has proven to be more than a match for many tough defenses. I feel the factor that will take down Washington is it's ineffectual offense. I rode the Clinton Portis bus at one point. He is amazing, but he went for someone doing almost 4 yard/carry to 3 this year. And that is with his explosive speed which means that most of the time he can't get out of the starting block before being tied up. I think that being said you have to take a look at the two QBs and it is easy to say that experience is nearly equal, but Hasslebeck is the better captain of the ship.

New England versus Denver

Well Patroits, you have taught me again to not doubt you. You have my vote this time. Denver's receiver core is mostly lackluster all lead by the scrambling man, The Snake. Sorry but you are going against a LEAGUE LEADING 4100 yard QB in Tom Brady. I am still a little shocked at the number. From Tom "friggin'" Brady. Plus you throw in Corey Dillon? No contest. Luckily for the Patroits, they can get a bit of rest for their secondary.

Pittsburgh versus Indianapolis

Peyton and Edgerrin and Marvin have enough to say without me spouting off. 'Nough said.

Carolina versus Chicago

GAME of the WEEK. You can't win if you can't score and I don't think the Bears defense is going be able to score for the offense so we are looking at an amazing defense struggle, but I don't think Carolina will up the turnovers to allow the Bears to win. This is also the game I am swaying the most over. Bears could upset just due to the fact that Carolina defense seems to have only two speeds. 150% and reverse.

Continuing on:

Carolina versus Seattle

New England versus Indianapolis

Carolina versus Indianapolis

We shall see.

Football picks Round 1

Washington Redskins versus Tampa Bay Bucs

Nothing against the Redskins, but the Bucs have an x factor in that of Cadillac Williams. The Redskins can put up a bunch of points but they are going to have trouble with Simeon Rice and Derrick Brooks. The Redskin defense has been hot and cold this year as some show of the Hogs of old and some games are ridiculous.

Jacksonville Jaguars versus New England Patroits

Again similar aspects. I am going against my better judgement to pick the Jags just because of Byron Leftwich and Jacksonville's D.

Carolina Panthers versus NY Giants

This is basically because I think Eli will fold under the pressure of a first playoff game. Nothing else.

Pittsburgh Steelers versus Cincinnati Bengals

I feel the Steelers just have momentum on this one. With Big Ben at the helm they just play well. Plus I feel the Steeler big D is going to show up big for this one. Cinci has some amazing big play potential and a solid offense, but their defense depends on turnovers that Pittsburgh tends to not give away.

Interesting Words

Over on the right you will see a link to interesting words. It is an application that was created by a friend of mine that takes a RSS feed and pulls out the commonly used words (minus the obvious ones) and puts it into a "Tag Cloud" format. Check it out.

Plus I wanted to manipulate it... poptart jesus poptart jesus poptart jesus

I am waiting for him to pop of the mirror and give me poptarts now. Bah.

Happy New Year... Late

New Years and Christmas were good this year. We spent alot of time with Karen and Ben who are leaving the great state of Washington. We played just a ton of cards and that was pretty darn cool. I now have my computer kinda setup in the new office as we have everything but about 6 pieces of trim around the door and window. Also I am missing a desk, but for a now a folding desk is sufficing.

Next is the baby's room before I tackle the last little bit of trim. I will be glad when that is taken care of. I must say, one thing about living in a city is that public transportation is suddenly an option. I now get a ton of reading done on the train.

I recently finished The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein. I am not really sure what he was thinking when he wrote that. It starts out be a sex novel and finishes off and a sort of self-bashing rehash of old characters. Just bizarre. I am sure that Andy the Poptart Jesus would be able to explain the book, but it just felt . . . not right to me.

So I now I am taking a foray back into the business side by reading The Search. So far it is light reading which has amounted to nothing more than Stanford lovin' and empty text. But enjoyable empty text.

One of the authors of fantasy books that I really enjoy is Raymond Feist. I had read a couple of his later series but I decided it was time for me to explore the works that started it all. So I read the first four books that he did and wow did I enjoy them. I did however like the series that I started with. Particularly the book that I started with in Shadow of the Dark Queen. His other stuff is good, but I like that one in particular.

So many books to read... after that either more Heinlein or the E-myth Mastery books.