Writing Stuff

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...