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The hanger method?

Sep 232009

As i was sitting around waiting for my wife to finish chatting with some old woman she’d just met, they got to talking about how to clean out their closets. Ya … don’t ask, right? Anyway, Luann brought up that one technique she knows of is that you turn all of your shirt hangers backwards, and then whenever you wear/wash/hang-up a shirt, put it right-way in the closet. After a year, check your closet and see what’s still backwards … and then get rid of it. (The old lady suggested maybe two or three years would be better than just one year)

Anyway, i don’t put my hangers backwards, but i always put my newly washed shirts on the RIGHT side of my closet. So over time, things that never get worn gravitate towards the left. Every now and then (i don’t really give myself a timeline), i grab the leftmost couple of shirts and toss them in the trash.

That’s one big difference between Luann and me. She tends to collect things. I tend to throw things away. I think between us we strike a good balance (although i do take the opportunity when she’s not around to fill up a few trash bags without telling her).

If i were more philosophically minded, i’m sure i could find a life-lesson in here somewhere.

2009 – one year closer to the end

The Singularity Approaches 2 Responses »

Jan 092009

Another year has come and gone. 2009 is upon us. One year closer to the end Also one more year of increasingly fast paced technological change! It’s amazing to look back and see how different our lives are now than when they were just a few years ago. And most of us don’t even notice. We just take everything for granted.

Just imagine if i were back in the mid 1980′s, doing the high-school thing and i had internet access with google? Why bother going to the library and digging through dusty old encyclopedias for information? I remember when i started college one of my classes required me to subscribe to the New York Times. Like a physical subscription – a newspaper showing up on my doorstep every morning for 4 months. (We still take the local paper, something that Luann and I don’t quite see eye to eye on, btw…)

I love my 6Mb/s DSL connection at home. I can download lightning fast. I remember my first 300 baud modem. You could actually watch as the text printed line by line across the screen. It was awesome. All that colorful ASCII art when i’d visit the BBS’s. My parents even got me my own phone line so i wouldn’t tie up the main house’s phone all day long while i downloaded those silly games to my 5.25″ disk drives.

My first disk drive was 20MB’s. I didn’t know what to do with all the space, so i partitioned the drive in 2 (just because i could). And oh man, there’s many a time i wish i’d had a cell phone when my car was broken down in the middle of the desert on I-15 on the way to visit my parents house. A GPS might have come in handy too – which way to the nearest gas station – north or south?

People from long ago would probably freak out at how strange society is today. And many people today worry about what society will be like tomorrow. But if you’re part of the change as it happens, it’s a gradual thing. We might just pass into the singularity and not even notice. It’s not going to be some fantastic event – it’s just going to be life as normal, with more and more reliance on technology – even though we won’t notice the reliance. it’ll just be part of our lives. We’ll still be human (at least we’ll think so; someone from the past might beg to differ).

And then when the end arrives, the fun really begins!

Tag: We all have quirks

General Information 2 Responses »

Nov 142008

I got one of those self-perpetuating internet era chain letters today. But since it was my mom, i’ll go ahead and do it. However, i’m NOT going to pass it on to four other people. And hey – the message didn’t come with any warning saying i would die in 3 hours if i didn’t pass it on, so i think i’m safe.

Without further ado, here are six quirky things about me that you may or may not know:

I want to write a novel. Several of them actually. I’ve got lots of (what i think are) great ideas rattling around in my head. I was even going to do NANOWRIMO this year but apathy set in. Perhaps some day™ i’ll get around to it.
I love to paint miniatures (dragons, drawves, elves, etc..) and build miniature dioramas. Life always seems to get in the way, and i’m lucky to squeeze in 3-4 hours a month. Click here to view some of my work.
Annoying Habit: I often don’t give straight answers to questions. And usually it’s not that i’m trying to be obtuse. It’s just that there are many ways i could present the answer and i’m trying to figure out which is most precise. Ask my wife about this – she hates it.
Back in my senior year of high school i took AP English. We had an assignment to read a novel by Charles Dickens. We read “Little Dorrit”. Or … we were supposed to. I never actually did. But I still have the book, it’s still sitting on my nightstand, and 18 years later, i’m STILL reading it (i actually do pick it up and read a chapter now and again … i even have two pages dedicated to it: Page 1, Page 2)
I believe in the technological singularity. A few years ago people had no idea what i was talking about. Now, only most people don’t. Oh, and i even know when the end of the world (as we know it) is going to occur, but i won’t tell you. Muah ah ah hahaha!
There’s nothing better than a cheesy vampire and/or zombie and/or martial arts movie.

browser usage stats

Knowledge is Power 1 Response »

Sep 182008

I just came across a really useful site that shows month-by-month worldwide browser usage statistics clear back to 2002 (although, really, who cares about anything older than ‘now’).

Very useful if you’re developing websites and want to make sure you work on the current set of browsers: Link Here

About me

Family 2 Responses »

Mar 262008

I just received a questionnaire at work that I thought would be fun to pass along.

Where were you born?: The Mile High City (Denver, Co).
Where did you go to school & what did you study?: I went to BYU and got my degree in Computer Science.
What is your favorite food?: My wife’s home made salsa. Heaven!
Are you married? Do you have kids? How many kids?: Married with four kids: a genius, a diva, a mermaid, and a cutie pie.
How do you like to spend your free time/favorite hobbies?: I like to read obscure articles on the internet and imagine having friends who are interested in the same things. I also enjoy painting miniatures, stargazing, and snowboarding.
What is your greatest strength?: I am tenacious. \tə-ˈnā-shəs\ – adjective – persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired.
What languages do you speak?: English and techno babble. I’d learn Klingon, but then people might think I’m a geek!
Favorite movie?: I’ll give you a hint. It has little people with furry feet, magic rings, big scary monsters, and a really cool evil eye.
Have you ever bungee-jumped, sky-dived, base-jumped or anything like that???: Are you insane? Once the singularity gets here and I can download my brain into a new body anytime I feel like it, I’ll try something like that
What is your favorite place that you’ve traveled to?: A private beach on the Baja peninsula in Mexico. There’s nothing like going out on the beach in the middle of the night with no lights and no people as far as the eye can see and look up at the stars.
In your opinion what is the worst sound?: A crying baby at 3:30 am.
What is one of your pet peeves?: People who drive slower than me in the fast lane.
Tell us something about yourself that no one in the Company knows.: I never watch sports. Ever. Unless my kid is on the field. If it appears that I know something about a current sporting event, it’s because I intentionally researched it the day before so I could talk about it at the water cooler.
Where is your dream vacation?: The presidential suite in a five star resort on the moon.
What is your favorite sport/team?: See above.
Do you have any pets?: I’m a dog person.
What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?: Chocolate, all the way baby!
What was your first job as a teen?: Does mowing the lawn count? If not, then it would be bagging groceries at the local store.
What country are your ancestors from?: England. And I am quite sure there’s royal blood in my veins … somewhere. Feel free to refer to me as “Your Majesty”.

The move to Move

Family 3 Responses »

Mar 212008

Well, it’s been a really busy week and a half. I finally have a few minutes to breathe and thought i might jot down a few notes about what’s been going on in my life.

I’ve changed jobs. I started my new job on monday. I quit my old job last friday. No gap in paychecks or insurance coverage. Very convenient I’m still doing computer programming, but it’s in a completely different arena than i was previously involved.

At my previous job (notice how i’ve never once said where that was in all my blogs, and i’m still not saying it now? lol) and at the job before that and the job before that (going back 10 years), i’ve done java development (and some html and javascript of course, but mainly java). I love java. It’s great. I can code java in my sleep. Anything one might want to do, i know how to do it.

At my new job, it’s all c++. In fact they don’t like java much. It’s too bad really, but there are places where java is appropriate and there are places where c is appropriate. This is definitely a place where c is better. I’ll be working on a video player for embedded devices (phones, dvr’s, game boxes, etc..), and yes – you want c there. So … i’ve been dusting off my c skills lately. I did a lot of c in college and _some_ at my first job, but it’s been a LONG time. And i must say – looking at c code and looking at java code is like looking at a beautiful painting in a museum (java) compared to looking at some graffiti on the bathroom stall (c).

But this is not the only adjustment. I’ve also been given a MacBook Pro laptop as my primary development machine. The only time i’ve used a mac in the past was at a lab at BYU in college. And it was a nasty experience. Some old icky machine. It’s tainted my view of mac ever since. But i must say – the UI is beautiful, it’s easy to get around, and i’m figuring out all the little ins and out. Plus, i’m running VMWare Fusion, which means i can run Mac and Windows at the same time on the machine, and it works beautifully. This means i can run all my favorite windows only programs and then use Mac for everything else. And since i can dual boot (thanks to bootcamp), i can install hardcode graphics intensive games for windows and they play nicely on here (in fact they play better on my new laptop than they do on my desktop!).

I’ve got a lot more so say but this is getting really long. I’ll check back in when i get more time.

Changing a light bulb

General Information Comments Off

Mar 032008

I’ve been rather quiet the last little bit. Things are quite busy for me at the moment, so i haven’t had a lot of time to blog, and it doesn’t look like i will get much time for the next month or so.

In the meantime, here’s a really cool video my wife sent to me. It’s about a guy who photographed the changing of the light bulb at the top of the Empire State Building. Link Here

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

General Information 2 Responses »

Jun 092006

Wow, i’m impressed … some crazy doctor with way too much time on their hands coming up with this word…

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, noun
(NOO-muh-noh-UL-truh-MY-kruh-SKOP-ik-SIL -i-koh-VOL-kay-no-koh-NEE-o-sis, nyoo-)

A lung disease caused by inhaling fine particles of silica.

[From New Latin, from Greek pneumono- (lung) + Latin ultra- (beyond,
extremely) + Greek micro- (small) + -scopic (looking) + Latin silico
(like sand) + volcano + Greek konis (dust) + -osis (condition).]

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Tammet the autistic savant

General Information Comments Off

Nov 212005

Tammet is an autistic savant (one of possibly 50 in the entire world)
who has overcome many of his autistic limitations and can actually
function normally in the world.

This makes him unique because he is able to describe what it’s like to
be autistic. Scientists and researches are interested because
they hope that by studying Tammet they can unlock the the dormant
ability in all of us.

Tammet experiences things through a mixing of the senses that the rest
of us can’t imagine. For instance, when he does math, he said, “I see
landscapes in my mind. The numbers turn to shapes.
“They knit together in a way that forms almost like hills and mountains
in my mind,” he added, “full of color and full of shape and full of
movement.”

Tammet can’t drive or do many other things that quire basic
coordination. Just walking is something he had to do through an effort
of will.

“I had to teach myself how to look and how to walk,” he said, “how to
move myself, how to coordinate myself without falling over, without
looking down, without getting absorbed in my own self, my own world.”

Full Article Here

Monster Catfish

General Information Comments Off

Jul 012005

A 646 lb. catfish caught in Thailand

Older Entries

The Hawker Squawker

The hanger method?

2009 – one year closer to the end

Tag: We all have quirks

browser usage stats

About me

The move to Move

Changing a light bulb

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Tammet the autistic savant

Monster Catfish

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