Writing Stuff

My iPhone hasn’t been happy lately and I finally got around to taking it down to the Apple Store for a check-up. Symptoms included poor battery life and a wonky home button that felt like it was grinding or clicked multiple times when pressing it down. Unfortunately neither of these issues were 100% reproducible and so I was turned down a replacement on my first visit. I decided to try and document the issues as best I could so that when I experienced a problem again, I had proof and could use that in an attempt to get a new iPhone. A couple of days after my first visit, my phone started to experience the same button issue that I had complained about previously, but it seemed more pronounced and definitely lasted longer this time than it had before. Once I figured out that it was going to last for a while, I stopped playing with it at work so that I could get it on video (audio, mostly) at home. When I got home, I took out the wife’s pink Sony camera and recorded it making the strange ...

As of today, I am on vacation for a week. I'm not doing anything in particular except not working and I imagine it will be pretty fun. Okay, so it might not be the most exciting thing in the world but, prior to this, I have only taken off 3 days in a row from work. That left me with quite a few (over 150) vacation hours and I think that means I've earned some time off. So I took it. I also took New Year's Day and the day after off, meaning that I have a very short work week when I get back next week. Being off work doesn't mean that I'll be blogging more often. In fact, I'll probably be blogging less. I want to try and stay off the computer as much as possible and just use my iPhone if I need to go online for something. I don't want to completely detach from technology, but I work on computers all day and I believe that my vacation would be more enjoyable away from one. The only reason that I'm using mine right now is because I had to wait for my iPhone...

Everyone has their horror stories about phone-based technical support. It seems like the representatives are never fully aware of what's going on, either with you or the company as a whole and they're just marginally better at troubleshooting your issues than you would be. This proved to totally be the case when I called Time Warner Cable recently to find out what I would need to get a TiVo HD up and running with their service. I did quite a bit of research for this on my own prior to calling. I hate calling companies and would rather spend the extra time browsing forums or other resources online instead of waiting on hold for ages just to get frustrated with an inexperienced representative over the phone. For whatever reason I guess I didn't look online as much as I should have, probably trying to save time by just having them tell me what I needed to do instead of finding out myself. This turned out to be a huge mistake and I wound up investing significantly more time t...

I just took my first foray into the world of throwing away money. I invested in the stock market. I know that it may not seem like the greatest time to start throwing money into something that has been on a steady downward fall for the past year, but I think now is one of the best times to invest if you can. Why would you invest when times are tough? Because they're going to get better. The market always gets better. We've had a couple of recessions in recent years, but things always turn around. It makes sense to invest when the market is low, because (at least in the long term) it has nowhere to go but up. Things will definitely get worse before they get better but investing when things are bad leaves you open to making a fair amount of money when things get better. Of course, there's no guarantees and there's always the possibility of the economy collapsing and having everything that was invested be gone forever. I'm thinking that if that happens, we'll be ...

I love delivery food. It's not really the taste of it (the wife makes better home-made versions of everything we've had), but the convenience sure is nice. I like not having to make myself presentable to drive out to a place to eat or to wait in line to get some food to bring home sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I do really enjoy going out to dinner with the wife. I'm always the one that suggests eating out instead of making food at home, actually. Thankfully she stops me, otherwise we'd be eating out every night and spending hundreds of dollars a month on food that we could probably be making at home. When you're not in the mood to go out and eat, though, sometimes it'd be nice if the same food could come home. Apparently it can. I got an ad in the mail the other day for some restaurant delivery company. I can't remember the name of it and can't find the ad, but basically they would pick up food for you from a variety of local restaurants and deliver...

We're obviously not going through the best of economic times and we've officially been in a recession for a year now, so extra perks that I've been used to at work for the past couple years are not something that I expected to continue this time around. Fortunately they did, which makes me incredibly happy as an employee, but also as a shareholder in the company. Christmas bonuses seem to be one of those things that people preface with "remember when..." and others wish that they'd ever received one. I honestly don't know of anybody besides current co-workers that get a Christmas bonus anymore, and I really don't blame the companies for not giving them. Bonuses are like paid vacation... they don't make sense. You're getting paid to not work (with paid vacation) or for not doing anything extra (with bonuses) and I understand why it may be hard to justify giving employees "free" money, especially now. It's nice to work for a compan...

As cheesy as it may sound, Thanksgiving does make me think about all that I'm thankful for and I do really cherish the time I spend with my wife and my family. Getting together with people that I don't see except for during birthdays or other holidays that our family spends together is important to me and means a lot. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year. I really enjoy hanging out with my family at my Grandpa's house all day and then having a dinner that everyone has contributed to in some way. It may seem pessimistic to assume and expect that everyone's life is too short, but it is. Every moment spent with the people that I care for may be the last, and after losing my Grandmother to ovarian cancer years ago, it really makes me appreciate that time. My Grandfather is getting quite old and I have to consider that every holiday or get-together that we have may be the last of that particular holiday or event. Instead of depressing me, this just makes ...

I want to start taking more pictures. Maybe I'll snap things while I take Charlie on his daily walk or of interesting things that I can see outside of my office window, or maybe nothing terribly exciting at all. I want a camera, though. Preferably one that is not pink and owned by the wife. While browsing Black Friday ads online I noticed this ad for a Kodak EasyShare that's 8MP (not today's "standard," but good enough) and 12x optical zoom. Turns out this isn't the best deal and it can be had for $169 on Amazon with no tax and free shipping. It comes out to just under $10 more expensive than the one on sale at Wal-Mart (factoring in tax), which I think is totally worth the hassle it would be to get there early enough for a 5AM opening.

I spent a bit of time today planning a vacation for next year. June 6th is the one year anniversary of me and my wife being married and I wanted to do something nice. I had a great idea in mind and found that what I wanted to do should definitely be possible, provided we start saving money now. The best part is that it is going to be totally unexpected and hopefully well appreciated. I know this is something that she's wanted to do and it's going to make me so happy to do it for her. I think we'll have an awesome time. Saving the money shouldn't be too tough, but I think the sacrifice we have to make now will be worth it in the end. I've already set up an automatic savings plan with ING Direct so that I don't have to remember to put money in our savings account every week. I really like planning things for the two of us to do and while I normally hate surprises, I'm actually enjoying this one a whole lot. I'd love to be able to write more about it and sh...

Charlie graduated from the PetsMart beginning dog training program on Tuesday and I'm so proud of him! He's changed a lot in the 8 weeks that we've been taking him to training and I'm really happy with how he's grown. I also think that Charlie really enjoyed the whole experience and my wife and I (and hopefully Charlie, too!) look forward to taking him through the intermediate training program in January. We're going to take a little break for the holidays, since now through the first of the year is going to be insanely packed. We'll keep up with his commands and stuff while he's not going to school, though. Our trainer was great and I'm really happy with the whole PetsMart training process. They teach you to teach your dogs in a very effective way and never resort to scaring your dog into obeying or using force (other than a forcefull voice) to get them to do what you want. It all worked incredibly well and I have no problem recommending that anyone...

As much of the country probably knows by now, we had some pretty serious fires around here this past weekend. Brea and Yorba Linda were basically on fire and were the ones that affected my and my family the most. The Brea fire was less than two miles north of my apartment and wound up coming within less than a hundred feet of our office building. It turned out fine. My Mother lives in Yorba Linda and was under evactuation orders because it came fairly close to her house as well. Scary stuff. Fires are a very scary thing and I've never had one come so (relatively) close to me and my family. Even though the Brea fires were a little ways away, they were steadily pushing south and I was genuinely worried that it might come close enough to make us evacuate. I was never really worried that our apartment would be damaged as there was no brush or anything near us and the fire would have had to travel through quite a large number of other buildings to get to us. The evacuation itself was wh...

I recently had a bad experience at In-N-Out Burger . My wife and I go there fairly regularly and get two grilled cheese, animal style, fries and a drink and leave with happy stomachs. Unfortunately on our last visit, things didn't turn out so good. We waited a good 15-20 minutes in the drive-thru just to get home to sandwiches with uncooked onions (they're normally grilled) and soggy fries. Ew. Neither of us are real huge fans of onions, but for whatever reason we do enjoy the grilled ones that always come on our grilled cheese. We've never had to ask for that before, even at that location, and with the fries being all soggy I'm convinced they were just rushing through to get everyone out of line. They were super packed and I'll give them that. In-N-Out, of all places, shouldn't be one to sacrifice service and quality just to get people through the line. When we noticed the issues with the food, neither of us were excited about driving back to get it replaced so...

iPhone protection has become an ongoing issue for me. I thought I had everything settled when I got the Zagg screen protector and back protector installed on my iPhone 3G at an official Zagg company store, but it appears that that was not the case. After a couple of months of usage, the back protector started to permanently store a large amount of lint, dust, etc... and a corner started to peel up and the front screen protector got a scratch on it. I though they were "Scratch-Proof"? Apparently not. Disappointed, I tore them off at work one day while vowing to find a better solution. I started looking at Apple's online store and found some great reviews on things, but wasn't initially wowed. I started searching YouTube for case reviews and stumbled on to this one about the SwitchEasy CapsuleRebel . It looked pretty awesome, so I ordered two: one for me and one for the wife, who is getting an iPhone in just under two weeks. I ordered them on Friday and received them ...

Is it possible to light a house with just one bulb? I was jokingly brainstorming this with my office mate today and came to the half-serious conclusion that yes, it probably could be done... just not well. The idea is that you'd get an LED light bulb and, presuming that they're as directional as we imagined they are, shine it toward a series of mirrors that bounce the light to the desired locations and then into a prism to refract the light into the room. My bathroom would provide the beginning of the perfect testing location for this idea. It has a light bar that extends into the doorway and points directly into the bedroom. Theoretically I could replace one of the current CFLs with an LED bulb and bounce it to a mirror that starts a zig-zag pattern of mirrors along the walls near the ceiling into the bedroom straight across the hallway. While most LEDs that I've seen are fairly directional, it looks like this problem has been mostly solved with the LED globes that are a...

Sometime during the day on Friday (while the wife and I were gone for work) the cats were somehow able to overturn the hamster cage, spilling her out and losing her in the process. Cats getting to a hamster is not generally such a surprising thing, but we had specifically position and fortified her cage to prevent this from happening (again). The cats obsession with Violet is nothing new. From the day we got her, the cats have always kept a watchful eye. They've knocked her cage off of a bookcase twice and she's survived and been mostly easy to catch. This time, though, we tried something new and tried to fortify her cage on a bookshelf. Apparently that didn't work and they were able to pull it out and over, spilling her free. When I got home on Friday, I saw the cage knocked over on its side and my heart sunk. I knew she was out and hoped that she was just hiding somewhere in the bedroom. I searched for about 20 minutes until Cathee came home and had her join the hunt. We ...

Proposition 8 passed in California and it is indeed a sad day for such a progressive state. While I was fairly certain that it would pass, I had hoped that California would live up to its progressive ways and stay with the times. Hope was a major part of this election year and I guess there can only be so much. As strongly as I feel against proposition 8 I honestly do believe that if there could only be so much Hope in a campaign, that it went to electing our new President. If proposition 8 makes it past its new legal hurdles , the banning of gay marriage will be written into California's constitution and there will be little to nothing that can be done to ever change this. It saddens me to see that a majority of the people that reside in the same state I do are so discriminatory, unfair, and conservative and feel the need to impose their personal views upon others that do not feel the same way. This is such a step back for a state that usually takes huge strides forward. Where wil...

Americans got out to the polls in record numbers and ushered in an era of change by electing Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. In LA county, more than 82% of the people there took a stand for what they believed in and voted. That is absolutely amazing and I hope to hear that the nation as a whole shattered the previous record of 66% turnout that was set back in 1908. While I watched the results pour in live, I was absolutely amazed that the winner was announced seconds after the clock struck 8pm. After speaking with my mother by phone about the victory she brought up an interesting idea: the networks were probably holding on to projections from other eastern states until California’s polls closed. I think that’s a pretty fair assumption. Networks were likely not projecting a winner in states that they knew had already gone to Obama while they waited for California’s polls to close. Once they closed, they could then give California to Obama and seal his wi...

Tomorrow is the day that American elects a new leader and changes the way that couples can marry and lead a life. It's literally the most important election that I think I will ever see and I'm very excited to see what happens tomorrow evening. I wound up not voting early this year, even though Cathee and I had planned to. Now that I'm not, I'm actually a bit happy because I really can't wait to see what the polling lines look like tomorrow. The amount of energy, excitement, and uncertainty flowing is going to be exhilarating and I can't wait to be a part of it. Our nation is in a time of crisis and the ability to elect a new leader and set new policies right now is of the utmost importance. No matter what anyone has said before, this is the most important election of anyone that's alive right now. I'm serious. This election is actually going to shape history for both America and the world. We have the ability, right now, to change the way the world p...

I saw a sign supporting Proposition 8 the other day that said "Support religious freedom." on it and it made me really upset. It's not just that I think that people who support Prop 8 are incredibly selfish and not concerned about the rights of others, but it's that they're trying to pass religious rules as law in California. Not only does supporting Prop 8 push religious agendas and policy on those that may not be religious or recognize the rules of the religion as something that should govern their lives and life decisions, but it goes against a person's basic civil rights. Supporting Prop 8 is saying that since a gay person is different than you, they shouldn't have the same rights that you do. What's so wrong with allowing gay people to get married? I honestly don't think that this should even be something that we're allowed to vote on. I don't think that the general public should have any decision on what happens in the private l...

I cried a lot the other day. It was the first time I really cried a good cry in years. Crying takes a lot out of you, you know... bodies just aren't meant to deal with the intense emotional outpour and I think trying to fight it just makes you even more tired, kind of like trying to swim straight out of a riptide. It wasn't a fun day. Peanut was a cat that I've had for around 14 years. I grew up with her and she grew up with my mother and me. She was a great companion and was a great part of the family. Unfortunately she needed to be put to sleep last weekend. It was a very hard decision for my mother to make, but she'd been sick for quite a while and was treated successfully for thyroid issues. She underwent radiation therapy to treat and cure the disease, which it did, but she never seemed to become herself again. She ate less, had a very fickle stomach and lost a lot of weight. In the day before the decision was made to put her to sleep, she had stopped eating and ...

Someone stole the Obama car magnets that were on my and my wife's car last night. I'm not even that mad about it because it pretty much proves everything that I had previously assumed was true about McCain supporters. While there's no way for me to know whether the people that stole the magnets were actually supporters of McCain, they obviously despise Obama enough to steal someone else's property to further their political objectives. The theft of the magnets is definitely something that would support McCain's cause and if these people aren't supporters, they probably should be. If doing something like this would actually accomplish something politically or bring anything positive to them, the campaign, or bring anything negative upon me I think I could better understand why you would steal a magnet. The thing is, things like this just go against the cause that you're fighting for and make other people take you and what you stand for less seriously. ...

I hate cable internet service providers (ISPs). For a while there they were great and provided pretty awesome speeds at a fairly reasonable price (with promotions, of course), but now they’re changing and are more interested in earning a quick buck than providing the service that the customers are paying for. Most cable internet service providers are testing or in the process of implementing traffic caps that limit the amount of bandwidth a user may use per month. This is a terrible idea and does nothing but screw over the consumer by providing only half of the service that we’re all paying for. While an increase of throttled ISPs may lead to greater privacy for the customers, overall it will wind up costing most users more money or severely limit what they are able to do when online. Instead of monitoring what customers are doing and interfering with P2P transfers (like how Comcast recently caused some BitTorrent connections to disconnect and slow user downloads) the focus will...

I love playing video games, but they kind of come and go in shifts. There's times when I play games for hours a day every day of the week and then times when I won't touch any of my systems for months. Maybe it's that I get a little too into playing games and burn myself out. Some people think that playing video games is super dorky or a waste of time or believe that it means the gamer doesn't have a life outside of games. Thankfully for me, I won't let that be true. While I do enjoy playing video games (my wife even plays World of Warcraft with me), I don't let it get into personal time or prevent us from doing something else. We'll happily drop the controller or keyboard to watch a show we enjoy on TV, take the dog out for a walk, go out to a nice dinner, or just head somewhere other than home to hang out. Playing video games is fun, but they have their time and place. This time of year is when it gets even crazier. There's a ton of new games coming ...

Charlie attended the Halloween parade and costume contest at PetsMart yesterday and had a really good time! He went as a knight and everyone seemed to love his costume. We stopped by PetsHotel so the people there that know him could see him and they were all very excited and happy to see him. He's going back there Saturday night through Sunday since Cathee and I will be hiking in Joshua Tree for the day. Here's a picture of Charlie in all his knighted glory: While the costume seemed well received, he didn't place in the contest. There were three winners and unfortunately Charlie didn't make it in the top three. It was disappointing, especially because you could win a $20 (1st), $10 (2nd), or $5 (3rd) gift certificate for placing! I'm thinking that maybe it was a conflict of interest since most of the employees there know him by name and it wouldn't have seemed fair to give it to him. At least that's what I tell myself. How could a cute dog like him in such a...

I've been having terrible trouble with the internet recently. Bad connections and hardware seem to follow me wherever we go. There's slowness issues plaguing our work connection (which I am, thankfully, not responsible for) and up until recently our home connection hasn't fared any better. It all started when I purchased a PS3. For some reason, Sony designed a really poor networking interface for an otherwise awesome gaming system. With most routers, the wireless connection of the PS3 is ridiculously slow unless I modified the transmission rate on the router. This was great, except for the fact that it affected the speed of every other device connected. A transmission rate that made the PS3 go fast slowed down the connection on our computers or my iPhone or both. It was frustrating to get speeds upwards of 10Mbps on my computers and then see the PS3 barely pushing 4Mbps on speed tests. To try and fix the problem, I bought a new router think that was the cause. It turns out...

My wife and I got back from our second BlizzCon late Saturday night and had an awesome time, just as we did last year. There were about twice as many people at this year's convention (15,000) and it was definitely noticeable, especially in the merchandise lines. I actually waited in line for 4 1/2 hours to buy some Blizzard schwag. I definitely regret waiting that long, but it honestly didn't look that long and by the time I was 2 hours in it was too late to leave. BlizzCon started off kind of shaky when we went to pick up our admittance badges the day before the convention. While it looked much more organized than the year before, it turned out to be the opposite. There were a bunch of booths with sections of the alphabet listed above, showing you which line to get in by last name. We got in the appropriate line and waited over an hour to get to the front. Right before it was our turn, some poor sap realized that the line was by last (not first) name and the guy working the bo...

Just last week I boarded Charlie to the PetsHotel boarding service provided by PetsMart . He stayed there for just two days and one night. The first day was a standard boarding day while the second was a playday, where he got to play around with other dogs his size inside of a doggie gym-like area for 8 hours. Apparently he loved it and the employee watching the dogs during that time said she held him a lot. Awesome! The cost of the PetsHotel service is probably more than something like a local boarding service or a smaller chain, but I think that the service they offer is much better and they get more interaction at PetsHotel than they would somewhere else. Plus, I just like it and paying a little more for peace of mind while being away is totally worth it in my (pocket)book. In addition to standard boarding, there's a variety of addons that you can get for your pet while they're staying at PetsHotel. There's an option for a snack and play feature, which gets them out of...

My family and I just got back from our (sometimes) annual trip down to Miramar for the airshow . We used to go on a pretty yearly basis but went to our last one back in 2003. I think the extreme heat of that year's show pretty much drained everyone for the next five years, which is why nobody really brought up the option of going back again. I'm super glad that we decided to go this year, though, because I had an awesome time. Even though I had a great time, part of it was slightly emotional. It was the first time going back to the airshow since my Grandmother died of ovarian cancer in 2004. She would come with us every year and was just as excited about the whole experience as everyone else was. It definitely felt like something was missing without her and I'm sure that everyone else felt the same way. On a happier note, this was the first year that I got to bring my wife with me! We've been dating for nearly four years now (married happily since June) but we haven...