Back from Dallas

I came back yesterday from a week long business trip from Dallas, TX. My friend, Jeff from work, also went along. We were there for some training for some .NET controls created by a company called Infragistics.

I have to say that I enjoyed myself there. It was nice to be in a different city and kinda get away from the day to day normal life. It is also nice to eat at different restruants and just do different things. Jeff and I attended a comedy show at Improvisation Comedy Club. There was a guy named Sebastian who was headlining. God that guy was hilarious!!

Anyways, it is very nice to be back home with my family and just get back to being normal again.

How does this stuff find me?

There I was looking on line at Digg.com, then on to some shopping sites where I was on cdnow.com and while doing a search I find this band. They said they sounded like Lords of Acid which I remember from high school, so I had to check them out. I like the music, but the "singing" needs work I think. But I did like, "The Girl Next Door". Anyways, thought I'd just include it on my blog to see what others thought.

NASA’s inspector general probed

Ok, I like to read the articles on msnbc.com, but this one is the best. Not for the article though... I didn't even read it. But the title!!! You can't get it better than that. Not just an NASA dude probed... but an inspector!!!! The title conjures up images of all the little green men getting him back for all the years they've been inspected. I'm sure they used the standard anal probe nevertheless. Good times! Hats off to the editors at msnbc.com, your guys are fabulous.

Ironic Don't You Think?

Yeah I was buying a few things at H.E.B. (Texas grocery store) and while I was going to my car that night I heard all this metal banging over to my left. I quickly turned around and saw this guy with a "jimmy" trying to pop the lock on this van. My first instinct was, "cool, I get to call the cops on a car thief". Although, then I kinda put two and two together. This guy's wearing some sort of uniform. You know... like the standard blue shirt mechanics wear... and then he's trying to break into this work van. I look at the van and it says "Chubb Security Services". I wanted to bust out laughing at the irony, but I contained myself. So instead I take a picture of him to show the world. No I didn't offer to help him. What kind of guy do you think I am? I don't break into cars. ;-P

We could learn a thing or two from these little guys.

Appearently, these two are best buds. Read more.

Theory Thursday - Childhood Impact on Generalization

I know a few people that like to always blame their personality and their actions on their parents. In fact, I would have to say, yes, your childhood and what happened during it does impact you, but you always have a choice. Also, it shouldn't be used as a crutch.

Anways, I started thinking about how people think about others and how they can throw a person they know into a category. This can be generalizing people based on race, religion, political affiliation, or even just how they look.

What's with all the babble you say!? Well, here's my theory...
When a child is growing up and they see a certain individual in their life, mother/father/family friend/neighbor, etc., they make those mental connections in their brain. Unfortunelty, those are hard to break and you unconsciensly apply them to everyone. Let's say your mom was a very giving person, then more than likely you'll immediately see any woman as very giving, unless there is drastic evidence to show otherwise. Let's also say that your father was very distant, and didn't seem to care about the family. I think that you would see any man in that manner, unless there was drastic evidence to show otherwise.

The bad part is that good people get stuck with being labeled falsely. Have you ever met someone in a public place that seemed hostile toward you no matter how polite you were to them? My theory suggests that you are somehow associated to a mental representation of a past individual in that hostile person's childhood.

Ok, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but I'm not sure I accurately stated what I'm thinking. Either way, that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

Music Monday

I know it is Tuesday but, I finally got it!!! I'm reserving Mondays for music topics. A song, video, anything music related of note. I don't feel like waiting until next Monday, so I'm posting this now. So you gotta watch this video. It is a kick ass dance song, and I love the chicks with power tools concept. It's kinda short for a dance song, but I'm guessing they made the video shorter than what you'd hear in a club. Actually, they used this song for a Wendy's commercial.

Don't click this video at work or around your girlfriend/wife.
Benny Benassi - Satisfaction (sign on with yahoo id)

Theory Thursday - Tastes Like Chicken

I've been thinking of doing some themed blog days to get the creative juices going and stuff. I got the idea from my blogger peep Binsk who does HNT, and she got that idea from some other folks etc.

I've been reading a lot about this theory that modern birds are actually the result of years of evolution of the dinosaurs and that actually some dinosaurs didn't disappear. That is pretty cool, but it made me think. That could explain why a lot of things tastes like chicken. I mean, alligator tastes like chicken (I've tried it), frog legs (I hear) tastes like chicken. I bet if you could go back in time, and eat a dinosaur that it would taste like chicken. Except, maybe a little "gamey".

Chuck Norris Facts

This web page is so funny! You've got to check it out. The extra facts (not in the top 10) seem to be even funnier. The best one is this one:

If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, "Two seconds 'til." After you ask, "Two seconds 'til what?" he roundhouse kicks you in the face.

I'm so Evil

This can't be right. I answered this honestly, but sure enough this is what I got. I knew I was messed up, but come on.


How evil are you?

Political Quiz

I'm not sure how much this reveals, but it was a little insightful nevertheless. Check out this political quiz. According to this I'm a "Centrist", even though I'm on the border of Centrist and Libertarian.

The Centrist definition is as follows: CENTRISTS espouse a "middle ground" regarding government control of the economy and personal behavior. Depending on the issue, they sometimes favor government intervention and sometimes support individual freedom of choice. Centrists pride themselves on keeping an open mind, tend to oppose "political extremes," and emphasize what they describe as "practical" solutions to problems.

And here's my chart (the red dot on the chart shows where I fit on the political map):

Christmas 2005

Well, I'm back home and back to work after a good 10 day vacation. It was great seeing family and friends. Usually when I get time off to go back to the sunny Rio Grande Valley, I only have time to see family. Although, this time I got to see some old friends, Johnny P. and fam., Nino, and The Kellers.

I learned a lot of things about myself and people in general over those days. One is that no matter how old you get, you'll always be just a kid in the eyes of the elders in your family. I lost count of how many times I got talked over, ignored, or disregarded. Although, I should note that not all of my family is like that. There are those few that genuinly asked about me and seemed to realy be interested in me as a person.

I also have to say how appreciative I am that my Mom, Dad, and brother Jacob let us spend so much time in their house. I know it is a big deal, because my wife, son, daughter, and I got to sleep in my parent's room while everyone else shuffled the sleeping arrangments around between my brother's twin size bed and the couches in the living room.

My son loves to go see the chickens that my Mom has in their chicken pen. He also loves to jump on their trampoline (for hours!!!!). I have to say that my brother is the best 4-wheeler rider I know. He amazed me with all the extremely high jumps, spins, and driving around non-stop on the 2 side tires. I wish I had video or pics of him, but I do not. I need to get some next time.

Bless everyone out there in blogger land. And I stay on top of my blog for now on. It seemed like everyone I met asked why I didn't update this thing.... I didn't know so many people were reading, but I do now. Peace.

An interesting Christmas list

My brother is into video games, tv, 4 wheelers, etc. Well, I ran across his Christmas list this year and I'm a little worried about some of the things on his list. Let's see if you can spot the items of interest:

• Half-Life 2 Stategy Guide
• Short-haired Dachshund puppy
• Fox racing gloves
• Money
• My choice of clothes
• World Domination
• 4 wheeler tires
• What I want as it comes to mind
• Chess/checkers board
• Cleaver - The biggest one you can find with a wood handle
• New leather wallet - bifold
• Black razor cell phone
• Digital camera

Go Wikipedia!!!

I use Wikipedia a lot to get information. I know that it just allows normal peer reviews to get it's information on there, but from what I see it works. That's why I was very pissed that the news media (I heard there was some sort of bad review on Fox News) was trying to make it sound like Wikipedia was just chalk full of incorrect information.

Well, I'm glad that the journal, Nature, came out with their research findings that says that Wikipedia is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as the Encyclopedia Britannica. And you know what else... Wikipedia is a whole lot easier to spell than that other source of information. Read On.

This guy is huge!!!

I don't really follow boxing but looking at this image, it just looks amazing. I would be pretty intimidated to fight this giant guy. According to the story it was pretty close. The normal sized guy is John Ruiz. The 7-foot tall guy is Nikolay Valuev. If you want to read the article I read, then here you go.

Thank God it's Over

After months and months of my project at work, it finally went live today without any huge issues. I can finally relax and start doing stuff I love... music, and being lazy! Haha! I can't say too much about what it is I did, but I can say that it basically is a system that uses some artificial intelligence to do work automatically that a real person would normally do. I think it's pretty cool. I wish I could share more, but alas, I need to keep my job so I can eat.

Let's see if I have hell to pay.

Well, back to work today. It's kinda relaxing actually. I'm just double checking everything to make sure that my project that goes into production tomorrow morning is good to go. I've been working for months on this thing and it hasn't been easy.

I'd have to say it was one of the hardest projects I've worked on so far. Not so much because of the technology involved, but because there was a lot of turnover on the project and one of the people that left was the business analyst. So I didn't have someone to just go and gather requirements. To make it worse, the scope of the project kept getting larger and larger with almost no control.

Tomorrow morning we're flipping the switch and we'll see if I'll have hell to pay. So far everything looks good, but I've worked on so many projects, there is always something you miss.

Saturday cartoons went where?

Today is Saturday, and I'm being a lazy punk! Well, maybe not. I woke up cooked breakfast and watched cartoons with my son. Why aren't there any good cartoons on on Saturday's anymore. In fact, the they are kind of scattered.

I was watching on channel and then all of a sudden at about 9am, the cartoons stopped. Then it was the news. NEWS!!! What the hell!?! If I am a kid, why am I insterested in the shooting that occured on the other side of town. Show me cartoons damn it!!

I thought maybe it was like one of those 5 minute break things, but I switched to another channel and came back 10 minutes later and it was still news. I started finding out that other channels seemed to stop showing cartoons are irregular intervals too.

About 9:30am I came back to the channel that had news and it started showing cartoons again. I was like ok...thank you for that little break. What ever happened to just showing toons until noon? I think it was like that when I was growing up. Maybe not... I have a blurred sense of what happened growing up.

Keep it real ya'll.

Working today

Well, I really, really, really need to get back into blogging again. I guess I'm a little discouraged because when I stopped not many people complained. But I really miss putting my thoughts down here.

Anyways, I'm actually working from home today. My work place is upgrading some major software and I have to test a few of my team's applications. It has been a pain, because I have to test several apps and then while I was testing them I had another department call me about another application that wasn't working and wasn't in my list of apps needed to be tested. It didn't needed to be tested but geez, I am only one man. Anways, it isn't fun having to work on the weekend, but that's what pays the bills.

Who spammed my blog???

First off, I just want to say that today sucks!!! I have been in a state of depression for a while, but today was bad. I came into work to find out there were more orginizational changes. These were bad, but they ticked me off because they came just after there being a change just like 3 months ago. I'm pretty sure in another 3 months I'll have yet another boss and then 3 months after that another.

To top it off, I'm still working on this project that started in February. I'm getting pretty sick of it. My coworkers are sick of it, my family is sick of it, management is sick of it. And all the weight slams down on me because it feels like it's pretty much been abandoned, as with all the org changes, everyone's moved on to bigger and better things.

So to boil it down, I've felt like I was on the verge of crying all day today. Not sure why though. Even when I'm just working, I can feel like the tears are about to flow. I just want to crawl into a bed, and slept for 100 years. This weight of impending doom is too much. Everything from work, finances, thoughts, dreams, are in a state of flux. I'm loosing grip here, yet the world keeps going. In the end, when it's all over life will go on. Hopefully, there will be some change.

Oh and one more thing... when they hell did people start using blogs as spam? My last blog entry had a comment from someone, but when I looked it was just spam. What gives you punks!?! Do you just want to destroy any sense of accomplishment that society and technology makes. Give me a break. I could delete it, but I'm leaving it here for people to see. If nobody has done it already, there needs to be a new term for spam in blogs, spammed blogs, etc. Maybe, blam, splog, spog, spag. I don't know... something... it is a little different