October 2007
Monthly Archive
Family October 30th, 2007 by HMTKSteve
It’s my Anniversary
Ten years ago today I married my wife. We had not known each other very long when it happened.
We were on a trip to Las Vegas together when we got the insane idea to get married. Neither one of us wanted a huge wedding so we eloped in Las Vegas on the day before Halloween. We would have done it on Halloween but we had heard a rumor that the state offices would be closed on Halloween.
Aside from ourselves the only family member present was my wife's Aunt Doe. She was present for the ceremony and cried. Afterwards we went out to eat.
When we got back there were a lot of stunned family members and friends. I don't think anyone expected us to do it and some believed that our marriage would not last. It has been ten years now and I am looking forward to the next ten, and the ten after that and so on.
A few weeks ago my wife and I had an argument and I remarked (off the cuff) that I did not know why I married my wife. It was meant as a joke or a tension breaker but I could see that it had a different effect, an undesired effect.
I am taking this opportunity to fix the mess I made that night and to reaffirm my love and devotion for my wife. Sometimes she jokes that I spend more time online than off so I might as well do it here.
Reasons I married my wife (no particular order)
- She can cook - Not just in the kitchen but when she is in the kitchen she is a great cook. I enjoyed this a lot more in the early part of our marriage, before all the food allergies kicked in. These days I am stuck with a very limited diet and eating out always results in some type of intestinal distress. I don't know how she stands me and my severely limited diet.
- She is patient - She is able to juggle a lot of things and not show stress. I could not juggle half the things she does yet she does it all, hardly ever complaining.
- She gives great back massages - Well, she does!
- She is a good grounding influence - I admit it, I get a lot of hair-brained ideas into my head and if not for her I'd have likely strapped myself to a rocket powered sled at some point in the last ten years and killed myself. Maybe that's why she keeps our life insurance policy up to date?
- She's good looking - Not just then either, she gets better and better looking each day. Yes, my prescription for glasses is current!
- She's smart - She has enough sense to figure out things on her own and she's not afraid to share her two cents with me, on occasion.
- She's good with people - Part of being full of hair-brained ideas also means I tend to forget things (and people). I count on her to keep relationships going smooth because I tend to forget those simple parts of life. I can sometimes be abrasive with people too and she knows how to fix my mistakes.
- She's everything I want in a partner for life - I don't know what else to say, she fulfills me. She doesn't take my crap and keeps me on my toes. I need that, I just don't normally admit it!
There you have it. Happy Anniversary honey, you're the greatest!
image is from my wife's flickr page
Military and Politics October 29th, 2007 by HMTKSteve
About the support The troops by bringing them home slogan
1. This is not a debate for the anti-war vs pro-war discussion
2. Please try to stay on topic.
One thing that has been bugging me for a while is the anti-war slogan, "support the troops by bringing them home." Let me start off by saying, as a former soldier, no one wants to be in a war zone. No one wants bullets whizzing over their head (better than through your head though) or artillery dropping left and right. However, a soldier's job is to kill people and break things.
When I hear people say, "support the troops by bringing them home," I can't help but think how misguided that statement is. Would you apply the same statement to police officers or fire fighters?
"Hey California fire fighter, those wild fires are real dangerous! I'll support you by telling you to go home and let that fire burn out."
"Hey New York City police officer, it's dangerous on those streets why don't you just hang out in the police station where you will be safe?"
Doesn't have quite the same feel to it does it? It sounds almost parental in the way it gives the impression you lack faith in the person and want to protect them rather than let them do their job.
I don't see how supporting the troops can be anything but arming and feeding them. This whole "support the troops by bringing them home" feels like a backhanded slap in the face to me. When I hear it I can't help but think that the speaker lacks any and all faith in the troops and considers them to be a bunch of kids that need protecting.
Well, am I right or wrong? Please add to the discussion and feel free to bring up other slogans used on both sides of the argument. Slogans only please.
Family October 26th, 2007 by HMTKSteve
Everyone wants to be Hannah Montana
According to Hitwise the top ten Halloween costume searches for the 4 weeks ending 10/20/07 are as follows:
- hannah montana costume
- master chief costume
- pirate costume
- wonder woman costume
- little red riding hood costume
- hannah montana halloween costume
- tinkerbell costume
- pippi longstocking costume
- flapper costume
- raggedy ann costume
What costume are you planning to use for this year? Do you make or buy?
My good friend Force Drainer went out as a scary demon last year (yeah, that's him in the picture) and won a few contests, not sure what he plans on doing this year.
One thing he did tell me is that he is putting together some sort of contest for kids in CT where they can win a chance to have a Star Wars character join them on their trick-or-treating excursion.
What about me? I am always the guy who stays home and hands out the candy. One year I hid in the yard with my lightsaber replica and jumped out at kids to scare them when they approached the front door! Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
TV Shows October 23rd, 2007 by HMTKSteve
Heroes continues to impress
Last night's episode of Heroes was very interesting. Not only did we meet a few new characters but we also learned just how small the Heroes world is.
Mohinder was sent out on a mission to talk to a new hero and we find that it is a character we already know whose powers have only recently manifested. We found out who the nightmare man is. We know that somebody intended to retrieve Peter from the shipping container. Those points are important but they also open up new questions.
Let's look at Mohinder first. He was given an assignment to talk to a new hero. Wait a minute? How does the agency know when a new hero gains their powers? If they already have this ability why did they need Molly to find people? Why do they need to tag heroes at all?
What about Matt's dad? He is the nightmare man and able to kill with that power. I now believe that no one was on the roof with Hiro's father but that he was instead caught in a nightmare and jumped off the roof. Same thing with Mrs. Petrelli, when Mark broke into the holding cell there was no one else there; she was causing her own wounds! This leads me to believe that the nightmare man can reach across vast distances to implant thoughts, suggestions and nightmares.
What about Peter? Who is this new girl that is looking for him? Why was Peter shipped off to Ireland in the first place? Peter is practically Superman!!! No shipping container will hold him!
I can't help but feel that the second season of Heroes is a show in search of a plot. While in Season one we met the heroes and saved the world I do not know what the point of season two is, do you?
Family and General and Parenting Advice October 21st, 2007 by HMTKSteve
The Sleepover
A few weeks ago my daughter received an invitation to a sleepover birthday party. I was looking forward to it with great gusto while my wife was apprehensive and nervous. My mind was saying, "awesome! kid gone for the night!" My wife was thinking, "oh no, I'm so nervous, she'll be gone all night!"
Well, the day of the party came and my wife brought her over and dropped her off. My daughter asked her to stay for the party part but my wife told her she couldn't and to have fun.
My wife did take some pictures before she left and let me tell you, there were a lot of girls at this party. I think it was about 19 little eight year old girls running around that house when she left. I don't know what the girl's parents were thinking inviting so many kids to a sleepover party unless they had a stockpile of pain killers in the house! I use to run card game tournaments for kids and I always gobbled down a few pain killers before each event to deaden the eventually pain my head would experience as all those kids would sugar up, open their mouths, and just babble. Being a birthday party you just know there will be a high quantity of sugar flowing through those kids veins.
A little while later my wife and I were relaxing at home (I was relaxing) when the phone rang. My daughter was calling just to say hello and tell us she was having a good time. They had just finished watching the Last Mimzy and were getting ready to watch High School Musical. My wife asked her is she wanted to come home and my little girl said no, she was having too much fun.
The hours went by and we settled down to catch up on the last few episodes of My Name is Earl. Man I love that show! After that I had to do some website maintenance on some of my sites while my wife checked on her eBay auctions. It was nearly midnight when we went to bed.
Within five minutes of going to bed the phone rang, it was my daughter. She sounded far too awake for midnight and she wanted to say good night to us. I handed the phone to my wife and the dialogue changed from "good night" to "I miss you please come and get me!"
So my wife got dressed and brought her home. I guess my little girl is still my little girl for a little while longer!
General October 17th, 2007 by HMTKSteve
Pull it or fill it
Ouch... My tooth hurts.
About a week ago I lost a filling in one of my teeth. I do not know exactly when I lost it but I did notice that the inside of my mouth did not feel right. There was something sharp and a hole where things used to be smooth.
For the first few days everything was OK. I knew I needed to call my dentist but since nothing hurt I waited.
Why did I wait? That tooth hurts like hell right now!
I have an appointment to see my dentist tommorow but now I am wondering if I should have the tooth filled or extracted. It is a molar and dits way in the back on the upper right part of my jaw. Because it is in the back if it was pulled no one would notice. If it was between two teeth there would be no question.
So I'm sitting here, downing pain killers and wondering, "should I have him fill it in or yank it out?"
Tooth-Brush from flickr user get directly down used under Creative Commons License
Ramblings October 15th, 2007 by HMTKSteve
Stylin’ by the Courthouse
In Tulsa Oklahoma a man was seen wearing a pair of handcuffs on one wrist. Curious police officers investigated.
Wearing one cuff on his wrist with the other cuff dangling made it appear as if he had recently escaped custody. This was not the case. The many was wearing "goth" clothing and felt that the handcuffs added a certain bit of ambiance to his ensemble.
The man was released after deputies performed a background check to insure there were no warrants for his arrest.
Internet and Social Bookmarking October 11th, 2007 by HMTKSteve
The forgotten side effect of moving to Propeller
A lot of things have already been said about Netscape's dumping of their social news site to a new domain. What has not been pointed out (and is now coming up due to Google's late Page Rank update) is the loss of PR juice involved with being on the new Propeller.
Propeller, as a new site, has a very low Page Rank, as in zero. Their Alexa is hovering around 16K but they have a ton of incoming Yahoo links.
Current Rankings:
PageRank: Not Ranked
Alexa Rank: 16,049
Incoming Google Links: 0
Incoming Yahoo Links: 670,500
Incoming MSN Links: 0
Incoming Alexa Links: 3
Overall Incoming Links: 670,503 (Overlap is possible - Estimated 670,500 unique links)
Outgoing Links: 206 (Ratio: 0.000% - Each Link Receives Approx. 0.000 PR)
The former Netscape site has much better stats:
PageRank: Not Ranked
Alexa Rank: 533
Incoming Google Links: 129,000
Incoming Yahoo Links: 5,264,263
Incoming MSN Links: 946
Incoming Alexa Links: 24,502
Overall Incoming Links: 5,418,711 (Overlap is possible - Estimated 5,264,263 unique links)
Outgoing Links: 201 (Ratio: 641.791% - Each Link Receives Approx. 0.000 PR)
Netscape dot com still has a Page Rank of 9, you just can not see it above.
A lot (as in thousands) of bloggers tok over the old Netscape and covered the front page with blog stories. Part of the reason for doing this was the PR9 link you would get from Netscape. The other part has to do with the click-happy nature of Netscape traffic.
Many bloggers who made the front page on Netscape saw a huge jump in their Page Rank numbers. Now that those PR9 links are gone they are seeing their Page Rank drop. I have seen some go from a PR of 6 down to a PR of 3... OUCH!
So, as the new Page Rank numbers roll out don't be surprised if your numbers drop. It's not just about selling paid links anymore, it's also about the PR drop the sites that link to you are experiencing.
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