Thoughts by Brian Alden Bass

Moving into the Cloud

2010-10-14T12:23:00.002-05:00

So this blog will be moving locations soon. The address will stay the same but it will no longer be hosted on my dedicated server. I am moving all ofmy websites into the cloud. It is much cheaper. This $280 a month for my webserver is just way too much. Given that it will take a month to get my first paycheck I am in cost cutting bill avoidance mode.

Moving RideSearch is going to be the hardest. I would just quit it completely but I do make $100 every couple of months from it. I actually surpassed a milestone this week with more than 15,000 members. These past couple of weeks has seen a doubling of traffic with 50 people signing up a day. I even kicked out the spammers. Are gas prices rising again?

So as far as this site goes I may keep my old posts on blogger and add new posts on Ning. I will add forums and news discussions and an event calendar and my videos. It will have integration with facebook and twitter too. The great thing about being in the cloud is that I won't have to manage it to get new services. The changeover should take place in a week. More tests...

Cough Hack

2010-10-13T12:21:00.001-05:00

So I went to the doctor yesterday. It was initially a followup on my carpal tunnel. It has alleviated and I am about at 90% functionality. He said I don't need surgery. I am glad for that. I think the biggest thing I did was to make my work area completely ergonomic. I got a sideways mouse which lowers wrist movement, a Microsoft ergo keyboard which puts less pressure on the hands, a baby railing on the desk edge which was hitting the nerve, and armrest pads which prevented my elbow from pinching the nerve.

I do like to go all out when a problem raises it's head. In this case the doctor said my ergonomic workplace is what made it all better. While I was there the doctor noticed I have the beginning of bronchitis. I thought it was an ear infection I picked up from Brennon. He had a fever over the weekend and I watched him on Monday on my day off.

So the doctor likes to go all out when he encounters a problem. He gave mr a steroid shot in bum, a prescription for antibiotics and anti-cough medicine and mucinex. This is really going to attack the problem. I am glad cause I can't afford to get sick since I have no days left. Once I jump to the IRS I will start accruing days again. That will be nice. I am feeling better on these meds. Brennon is doing better as well. I wish all medicines were cures. More tests...

Good News

2010-10-12T13:09:00.002-05:00

So in the midst of bad news comes good news. Today I gave my two weeks notice to Lockheed Martin. I have accepted an offer to work at the Department of the Treasury. It is official. It took me five years of hard work building systems to get me in. Congratulations can be heard from my fellow coworkers. I will be a GS-13 - equivalent to a major with 10 years in the military.

I got a little raise too. I will now have better benefits and a better outlook on my career. I go from 15 days off to 26 days off and after 3 years I will have 33 days off. This is great for my family. So to all of you recruiters take me out of your database. I am starting a 30 year retirement calendar. Time to serve my nation. I think I have to take an oath of office when I start. I am proud to do it. Thanks to God for keeping me vigilant in my career. All glory goes to Him.

Mom :-(

2010-10-11T15:28:00.003-05:00

So how is my mother? Well, not too good. She has endometrial cancer. The doctor got some results today and said that it was malignant and was high up which is not like normal endometrial cancer. He said he couldn't tell whether it had spread to the cervix because it was too close to it. He also said it could be in the lymph nodes. So I think we are looking at a stage II or stage III cancer. The doctor couldn't make that determination. That determination would have to be made by a specialist.

In my undoctored opinion right now there is a high probability of a hysterectomy and lymph node sampling with radiation and hormone therapy involved. However, if it has spread to other parts then doing surgery might be futile and radiation/hormone therapy would probably take place more aggressively. That is just what I have picked up on the internet.

When you go to Wikipedia there is a five year survival rate of around 70% for stage 2 and 50% for stage 3. I am glad they make it five years so you think it is going to be ok. The one thing I know is that my mom is tough. I mean she has had diabetes and lupus for a while and she has had many different surgeries over her life. She is a tough lady. Heck, once the cancer is gone she may last another 20 years. Next week is her specialist appointment. Pray that goes well.

Mom

2010-10-07T13:09:00.001-05:00

So here I am at the hospital waiting room. As you may know my mom has had some bleeding. So this morning I took her to the doctor. He diagnosed it as uterine cancer. That sucks. I am always the optimist. My sister said standard procedure is to do a hysterectomy if it is localized. Right now we are doing a sonogram and a cat scan. Pray that it is localized.

ePhone

2010-10-05T15:15:00.001-05:00

So I have started on learning Actionscript 3 and Flash CS5. This will enable me to make iPhone and Android apps using the same code. That should be nice. I am thinking about evolving the RideSearch web app into an actual iphone/android app but I am not sure if it is worth it. Also, my one click maintence diet app is also in the works. I wonder what I should do first. I probably won't gain any money from it, but I will have experience.

Speaking of Apps, Jotnot Pro still tops my list of most useful iPhone Apps. It is just like having a scanner around when I need it. It turns any picture into an Adobe PDF that looks like it was scanned in. Then instead of faxing it to someone I just email it. I get a record of it and don't have to use a fax machine. The hard thing is you have to hold it steady and get the camera aligned. What if I invented a metal phone holder that was a foot high that allows the user to put their phone on it and take flat square pictures. That is a good idea, although it would have to go hand in hand with the app. I think the developer of that app should create it. I'd buy it.

Netflix is the next useful app I use. At lunch I will watch a show or something. Now they have added the ability to plug your phone into a TV and stream movies to a TV from your phone. That is pretty cool. Netflix has added more movies and TV shows. I think the era of DVD collections is coming to a close. It is nice to have DVDs but they can be scratched and then you lose all that information. Anyways, I hear the Windows phone is coming out next week. It is really built for people who check facebook and twitter alot. It is like a social network phone. Let's see if it lasts.

Weekend in Espanol

2010-10-04T12:09:00.001-05:00

This weekend we hung around the house. Holly had Friday off and took Brennon to the doctor for his yearly appointment. His height and weight are at around 50% so he is down to normal. He is 24 pounds and 30 inches long. His head size is at 84% though. I told Holly he must get his big head from her side, as I have a small head. I've always had to put baseball caps on its tightest settings. The doctor was a little concerned that Brennon has a limited vocabulary. He said Brennon shouldn't be watching any TV and also that it might be normal since he is basically in a double language family with his babysitter speaking spanish during the day. You never know, he may know alot of words, we just wouldn't understand them.

Saturday watched the Texas Tech game. It was sad that we have a coach that makes bad decisions. It makes you think what is better - a coach that makes bad decisions off the field or a coach that makes bad decisions on the feild. I think the best would be a coach that doesn't make any bad decisions.

Sunday we went to Sunday School and I stopped by mom's place. Apparently her bleeding has started up again. The nurse told me to setup an appointment with an obgyn. The place doesn't wash blood stained clothes either so we have to do it. Ack. Oh well. I have been father of year changing Brennon. I think I can handle most gross things in life except for one, that will be nameless. Now Holly. She rocks. She can handle everything. I think if she wasn't a teacher she would be a nurse. Anyways, life continues on.

Panic

2010-09-30T16:05:00.001-05:00

So this story starts like any other story but ends with intrigue, terror and police. Yesterday after work I went to Bible study at my church. I was filming it so I had to be there early. So I get there and proceed to eat in the cafeteria. During which time I see some teenagers running around. I think to myself,"who in their right mind runs in a church." Little did I know later on it would be me. During class I put my phone on vibrate and proceeded to ignore it. Afterwords around 8:10 I get a call from Holly," Brian, where are you? Come home quick. There are people at the front door banging and there was someone in the backyard." I told her to call the police. I look at the cameras on my phone and can see these tall lanky white boys with hoodies and baseball caps banging on the front door and pacing back and forth like they are really mad.

It was at that point when I became one of the runners. I ran out the door and into my car. I could not believe that people were harassing my wife. I had to get home, and quick. I discovered on the tollway that mom's van can go when it needs to. When I arrived at the house the three guys were getting in their car and the police were already there. So I get out my car yelling - "how dare you harass my wife." They proceed to get in their car and drive away. I am, and always will be, willing to die for my wife. The cop then acts like I am the bad guy. "Calm down sir. Everything was fine till you show up and act all crazy. You wouldn't be yelling if we weren't here. Your praked in the middle of the street. Park your car near the curb and calm down or I'll take you in." So I act like, "yes sir." and all, knowing full well that my purpose was to scare the guys and I did not care if the police were there or not.

The police then said "I gave them a warning. I told them if they come back again they will be arrested. I told them that Texas is a concealed handgun state and they should never trespass on someone's property. Apparently these guys said that their cell phone was stolen and the police in wise county wouldn't do anything so they figured they would take the law into their own hands." I then told the police I was mad because there I am watching these guys on camera, which is recording everything, and cannot do anything to protect my wife. They said, "Ok. Well, they probably won't come back" and then left.

Here is what happened. Holly had put Brennon to sleep around 7PM and had taken a nap only to be awoken by banging on the door at 7:45. Now she does not answer the door when I am not home, and rightly so. So she let them bang. Then around 7:50 two guys open the back fence and proceed to go into the patio. I have this on film. If you've ever seen the move "Panic Room" it was just like that. There was a guy at the front pacing and two guys in the back. The first one entered to check things out then the second one actually opened the storm door. The door is locked, but they could see in because the light was on. He spoke through the window - come to the front door we need to talk.

Now Holly is freaked out but she actually goes to the front door and cracks it open and tells them to go away. They then give this story - "So we are out in Wise County at a bar and my wife's purse is stolen. It has a cellphone with GPS in it. The GPS tracked it to this house. We know because the GPS says it is here. We are from Seattle and are in town for a Metlife conference. All we want is our stuff back so we can get back to Seattle" Holly says "It is not here go away." "We have it on GPS. Do you have any kids that could have taken it?" Holly then shuts the door and says "wait for my husband." So they actually wait.

Now I don't know if I believe their story. Apparently the police did because they let them go. They didn't even asked me if I wanted to press charges. I clearly had evidence of them trespassing. I think that was a mess up on the police's part. In the end I calmed down but I was ready to open up a can on these guys. My adrenaline was pumping and thinking about it still makes me mad. I am not a violent man. I am not even a man with any inclinations towards bad things. But I tell you. No one better mess with my family. Time to put up a security system that has some teeth. Anyways, in the end all is right with the world, for us anyways. Somewhere out there is a cellphone that is hacked. I hope others don't point to our house. Otherwise we may have problems. All of this makes me stop and think how important my wife is to me. Evil may be out there. But love is in here. Peace to all.

To Serve or Not To Serve

2010-09-29T12:58:00.001-05:00

Well, things are looking good. I really don't have that many worries in life. I suppose because events are moving along as I have forseen them. I will update in the next couple of weeks as to what I am talking about. My last purchase that Motivium will make will be for an Apple development license. I am learning Adobe Products in my spare time. Like Adobe Premiere for video editing and Adobe Flash for iPhone and Android development. There is just not enough time to learn it all, but it is fun having these skills.

I am thinking about going to see that Facebook movie. I hope I don't get bitter. Of course my social network is still taking off. In the last 24 hours I have had 60 members sign up. I have just 250 people to go to where I would have 15,000 members. Wow, imagine if I would have kept my original $5 a month subscription idea going. That is $75,000 a month. Oh well. I do it for free because it is like a charity. I do make some money on ads but the server fees always offset that.

I think though about running the web server from home again. I remember when I tried it years ago how the site would go down whenever there was a windows update or a power outage. This time I would probably get an actual webserver and run windows server 2008 and get a better UPS to keep the site going even when the power goes out. That is an idea. But I do know that when you run a webserver from home sure you save money, but you definitely don't save time. More tests...

New Photo Album Posted

2010-09-28T12:52:00.001-05:00

FYI: I have posted pictures of Brennon's first birthday party and a little video in the media section of this site and the pictures I have put on facebook. Phanfare is a good service in that you can upload 40 pics to them and with one click of a button it can publish them to this site and to facebook. Although paying a yearly subscription is a hard thing to do for a service that in other areas you can get for free. However, there is no chance of it being discontinued.

I do recommend backing up pics to at least picasa or flickr. Then you have google docs for your documents. Hard drives do crash every now and then. The only thing that you might lose, which is a big one, is your installed programs. Then if you really wanted to keep that you could take an image of your entire system using a backup utility like norton ghost.

I watched Superman II last night. It is by far the best of the Superman movies. I did notice that the lady who got bit by the snake at the beginning said "ow" and then killed it with laser beams from the eyes. If she had skin of steel a snake biting her would not have hurt her at all. Maybe she was surprised? Eh, I think it is just a plot mistake. I was talking with Holly about how kids nowadays need heroes like Superman. Someone who actually does good for the world. Instead it is basketball and baseball players who can barely type in English on their twitter accounts. They should make collectable trading cards for CEOs and Software Engineers. Hmmm, new idea, CEO Trading Cards. I suppose when the bailout happened their values probably went down. How about a MMORPG called CEO where everyone runs a multi-national company. Eh, everyone would take golden parachutes and win the game. More tests...

Football

2010-09-27T13:39:00.001-05:00

So this weekend we chilled on Friday. We went over to a friends house who just had a baby and brought them chicken from Cowboy Chicken - our favorite rotissire chicken restaurant. Brennon was behaving well. He is in this super cute stage where he is learning how to speak. Gaa Gaaawk. Go Gawk, Da Daaaa, Dadadada can be heard. It is fun to pretend to have a conversation with him. It is also fun to turn him upside down. He likes to play.

On Saturday we hung around the house in the daytime. We do the usual. I watch Brennon and play with him while Holly goes and gets the weeks groceries. Brennon can walk from chair to chair now. However he is still a faster crawler than walker. If I was him I probably would prefer which ever locamotive mean would get me going fastest. But when he walks he can reach higher places. Saturday night we went out to Cantina Laredo with our Sunday School Class. Holly's mom came over and watched Brennon while we went out on date night. It was good to get to know our class. I showed them how I can monitor my home on my iPhone. People were like,"how is this possible?" and I was like, all you need is a webcam and you can broadcast it to your iPhone. Get the app iCam to set it up.

On Sunday we actually got to church early. I can't remember the last time that happened. Maybe more than a year ago. Holly had to teach the 3 year olds. I went into the service and saw the whole thing. It had a very good message. We then went to class and then came home. I had set the tv to record the Cowboy game and watched it intently. It might be early but I do believe the boys are back. The weather was finally nice. A temp of 72 is perfect. It is like my sweat glands can finally relax. For about 4 months now they have been working and now they can rest. It feels good. I love this time of year. Football, lower temps, candy, turkey, football. Did I meantion football?

The Search for Spin

2010-09-23T13:19:00.001-05:00

Today I will talk about politics considering it is on my mind. As a person who thinks things through I am growing incredibly frustrated with the way our current political system works and the way all media and politicians twist everything around. Why? Because I want to know the truth. I seek the truth. I want to know what the real effect our elected representatives really have. What is in these 2000 page bills? What have they done? Why do they do it? If you were to ask a republican senator if they are for life, liberty and the good things of the world they would say yes. Then if you were to ask a democratic senator the same thing they would say yes as well. It is only when you ask them to define life, liberty and happiness that you get a glimpse. However, the truth is in the details. That is where I am at. I want the details. I don't care if they contradict my worldview. First and formost give me the truth and make all agendas known. Then let me decide using intellect and not stirred up emotion like fear, bias and hatred. Don't make me hate an opposing worldview by giving me half-truths that I might already agree with.

The fact is, everyone is lying to us. People talk about spin. Spin is taking one fact and extrapolating it out to cover other areas where that the fact does not cover. It is using a truth to tell a lie. It is real easy to prove it as long as you know where to look. Here is what I am getting at. There are stories on msnbc.com that talk about the republican contract with america and how it is contradictory - ie smaller government but bigger spending on military. There is some truth to that and some lies to that. Then in the contract itself it talks about how they are for all of the bill of rights amendments, yet they want to deny rights to immigrants. Some truth. Some lies. Then there is the way the tea partiers are painted as being racist by cnn. This is proven by their support of hate groups that boycott the wtc. However, if you talk to one you will see that their motivations are because they believe that there is a hidden leftist agenda behind it all. They think the people who are for such things as the wtc mosque really want America to no longer have Christians and want to show that "they win". There are no checks and balances in political commentaries and in the news. There is no one to dispute the facts. Talk radio is filled with so many straight out proven liars that the sad thing is that people actually believe them. It is so sad because they are my friends, classmates and family members who are innocent. Yet they are fooled into believing spin. Really though, should we take the time to investigate? I think in todays culture if we do not investigate facts we will always be lied to.

But whose fault is it? I can only point to the intellectuals of the day. I do consider myself one of them. We sit idly by and let radicals speak out and lead the news and parties to destruction. Some 18% of america is conservative and some 11% is liberal. We have let them take center stage. Intellectuals and moderates can see and investigate spin more easily than the regular joe. It should be our responsibility to root out the lies. But, I think the futility of it all is a deterrance to truth. In the end we see not much amounting to the radicals but alot of hot air and they won't listen to us anyways. So we let them think what they want and do not correct them. But what if social responsibility was raised up? What if we took the reigns and became a change agent for critical thinking? I think it is time. We have to implment our own checks and balances. No one else is going to do it for us.

See my concern is also for the attack and minimization of Christianity in the average American population. As long as Christians are painted by the media as political conservatives then when political conservatism is proven hypocritical the number of converts to Christianity will be lowered even more. It is kind of hard to fight for Christian ideals in the American landscape when our own people bring forth hatred, bias and espousing of untruths. I pray our eyes can be opened. I was talking about environmentalists the other day and my wife wondered why they are painted as evil by conservatives. My only answer was that there was one fact in 1988 when the spotted owl debate was going on that showed them as being anti-people. Then limbaugh wrote about it and from then on all environmentalists were thought of as wackos. We are all in this spin. I know that the second I tell people who I voted for I am painted as a liberal even though that is not true. One fact spun to become a big lie. Right now someone out there read one thing I said in this post and has just painted me as a moderate I am sure. I don't like labels because I am always more that I seem to be. You have to know me to get the details. Don't stop at the surface. We are all for good. We are all for America. The only way we in America will ever get to the truth is if we all stop and search for it and make voting decisions besed on thinking and not fear, hatred and bias. It is time to start thinking and start doing.

I am the King, All hail the King

2010-09-22T13:38:00.001-05:00

So I have been thinking about the death of computers in society. It is only a matter of time. Why do I say this? Well, their common purpose is becoming obsolete. What are they used for? Surfing the web. Then there is word processing. With an iPad you can do that. What about games? The PS3 overtakes the PC on that one. What about storage? The cloud takes over the storage part. Why store my important documents on a hard drive that can crash when I can put it in Google Docs and access it anywhere. The same is true for pictures. Why not just use phanfare or flickr? What about audio like songs? Well, iPhone and Android phones have taken over that area and service like mog and napster mean we don't a PC to get the latest songs.

Last night I did something that most people don't do. I updated my motherboard drivers. I was having an issue with slowness on a PC and realized that microsoft update does not always update your hardware. I then found that my display drivers had new Windows 7 drivers. Sometimes the reason a PC is slow is because it needs new drivers. I got driver detective from the net and it found drivers that had updates. A big push towards no PCs will be the slowness of the current systems. Why not just have a virtual PC that is already configured running at another location that you can access anywhere? Just like LogMeIn.

But the PC will be alive and well for developers for a long time. As long as we require a fast processor and a keyboard and mouse we will need PCs. The PC will evolve and morph. Eventually it will become invisible. You will have a device on a keychain or a necklace that will project a keyboard and monitor and will wirelessly be hooked into a powerful supercomputer at Google HQ. 3D screens will come up eventually and be put on all walls. Home control software will control every aspect of the house, much like mine does now. As I awoke this morning to my house saying "You are the king, all hail the king, have a good day and godspeed on your journey" I thought ,"the future does look bright." Gotta wear shades.

T-Shirt to the Rescue

2010-09-21T12:49:00.001-05:00

So people now think I am setting up a cockpit in my cube. Due to my recent carpal tunnel in my left hand and ulnar neuropathy in my right hand I have now been allowed to bring in a keyboard and mouse. So I go online and get an Evoluent verticle mouse and a Microsoft 4000 ergonomic keyboard. I have to admit this is making a world of difference. You never notice how much your hands, wrists and elbows move when you have a regular keyboard and mouse. I think the damage to my nerves happened alot this past year as I went through over 360,000 lines of code. Remember, the average developer is supposed to write only 10 lines of code a day.

So I am now wearing my heelbo elbow pads and typing on my keyboard with wristgaurd and mousing sideways. I have very little movement in my arms. I hope this does the trick. The doc gave me anti-inflamitories. I have four weeks to go to where he decides if I need to specialist and probably get surgery for it. All I know I want it fixed. I don't care about my job as much as I care about my career. My hands are my livelihood. I did find a foot pedal mouse online though, so if worse came to worse I would mouse with my feet.

It is kind of weird wearing these heelbos on my elbows. It looks like I am playing football or hockey. I told a group of people that it also looks like I am a preppy who wears t-shirts underneath my regular shirt. Then I noticed the people I was talking to all had t-shirts underneath. For me that would just be too hot. I mean it is a shirt that should not be seen anyways. What does the undershirt bring to the table? It's not like guys need to hold anything in or prevent things from moving around. I wonder. Is it a status symbol? Hey look at me, I have two shirts on. OR is it like Superman. By day, a humble programmer, by night a redneck. If I hear the startup of a lawnmower I take the outer shirt off and I am ready for action. Eh, maybe not.

Weekend Football Losers

2010-09-20T13:08:00.001-05:00

Let's Friday I came home during a freak thunderstorm and picked up a pizza along the way. Brennon was in bed when I got home cause he was tired. That is always disheartening when he is put to sleep without some playtime from daddy. Anyways, we ate pizza and watched the rest of the episodes of "The IT Crowd" on Netflix. It was hilarious as usual. On Saturday I played with Brennon and took him swimming. He loves the pool. I can tell it is his favorite place to be. He is good at kicking. I also practiced walking with him on the patio. Unfortunately he fell into the table and I wasn't quick enough to catch him. He falls extremely fast. I was like ,Oh no, he's hurt. He cut his lip and was bleeding and crying. Talk about trauma. Of course after 10 minutes he calmed down and his mom put ice on his lip. I thought to myself, this won't be the first time he is hurt. I have always been watching him like a hawk, it was just too quick. I am glad we got a fence for the pool area. The best defense is to try to prevent everything. Now that he is walking I need to be extra careful.

Saturday night Holly's mom came over to babysit and we went to a local bar and grill called 2 Brothers for the Texas Tech game. The alumni association was there. I could have sworn that I went to school with some of those people. Most of them wore their black and red colors. The food was really good there. I think I found another restaurant for guys night. They serve everything and the burgers tasted in the top five of Dallas. It was fun to cheer with the whole crowd. Anyways, at halftime we went home and watched us lose because of simple mistakes. I know we could have won.

Sunday we did the church/sunday school thing. Brennon got promoted to a new class. When he went in there one of the girls pinched his cheek. Then he started crying. I made the mistake of waving bye bye when we dropped him off. Then all of the kids started crying. Apparently with kids you need to make your entrances big and your exits small. Anyways, we went home and watched the Cowboys pretend to play football. If only for a couple of mistakes they would have won as well. We then went outside and started to stain our fence. It was hot. So I got in the pool again. Soon pool season will be over with. Then I have to decide to turn the heater on or let it be cold. More tests...

Trumpet Life

2010-09-17T13:57:00.001-05:00

So my high school band is having a 50th year celebration and they want us all to go on the field for the Rider/Old High game and spell out Rider. I can bring an instrument if I want to. Of course I laugh at it all because it will be a cold day and they will have to kidnap me to get me up to Wichita Falls. It does bring memories of my trumpet playing career. I was pretty good in junior high until that inevitable day when I got braces. I was a first chair, meaning the best. Then the next day I got challenged and went down to third chair, never to regain my title again. As I look back now I can see the braces and retainer did absolutely nothing. It's not like my teeth were crooked. I'd only get Brennon braces if he had buck teeth or something.

Anyways, so I continued playing trumpet into high school. The best thing about being in band was the road trips to Dallas. Going to the malls and enjoying the games without having to pay to get in. The worst thing was the marching and the early start. As I look back I can't believe I was on the field at 7AM most days. I think I had alot more energy back then. Some people would say the band girls were fun to hang out with. But me, being a nerd, could never hang out with most of them because I was shy. I wonder what could have been. Eh, there was a purpose for it all. I probably would have made more mistakes had I had better self esteem.

I liked playing trumpet though and I knew that if I continued on I could have been good. My obsessions though turned to computers. I remember the best moment playing trumpet I ever had and it was spiritual. I had been talking with my brother about God before I went to the football game. I told him I thought that I didn't like it when people turned to God when they were in trouble and that if I was God I would like it better when people turned to me when their life was good. I remember telling him that I thought his way of religion was too social with God and He needed more sacred reverence. That was my presbytrian/episcopalian upbringing. So I decided on the field that I would play the trumpet giving God my sacred reverence in the theme song for 2001. As the notes came out I realized that I wasn't playing anymore and it was the Spirit in me that was playing trumpet. The trumpet was blaring louder than anyone on the feild. People started looking at me. Apparently the Spirit went into the stands. The band teacher could hear the difference at the top of the stands. Later I could tell he analyzed the tape to find out who was playing that. I suppose when he saw me swing the trumpet around at the end and scream "yeah" he knew it was me. It was a special moment. It was then when I knew that a spiritual life gives a person tremendous passion and power. How's your spiritual life?

What am I doing

2010-09-16T12:27:00.001-05:00

Um. Busy at work. Life is good. The world is changing yet I am staying the same. I like ice cream. I have been drinking diet coke and monster drinks. I am a true nerd. My sleep is now off again as I went to bed at 1AM last night. It is like I have so many things I am doing at once. Like fixing the home network, fixing the lighting programs, fixing the home camera network, doing finances, walking the dog, getting mom her glucerma, doing her weird tasks like copying a letter she wrote when she was a kid, playing with Brennon, spending qt with the wife, checking email, checking twitter, checking rss feeds, checking the news, watching a movie if I can fit it in, learning how to program in the new version of flash, learning how to program for the android phone, fixing my windows 7 installation issues on my laptop, learning ubuntu and eventually getting up to speed on Java, checking how ridesearch is doing, how much money did I earn today on it, how many visitors, how many signups, checking motiviums finances - which chase was down recently due to a third party database corruption, turning down recruiters, getting my camcorder ready for filming a new bible study I am starting, getting the hot tub turned on and hot two hours in advance so I can relax at the end of the day. So I'd say I am busy outside of work as much or more than I am busy at work. I've got a full life. Oh yeah, forgot one, coming up with a blogging post.

Back to Normal

2010-09-15T13:21:00.001-05:00

I am back at work. Even though I was sick as ever I at least got my sleep deficit taken care of. I am glad that is over. As near as I can tell Brennon got it from daycare, gave it to Holly and then Holly gave it to me. I guess I don't need a flu shot this years since I now have built up immunities.

Let's see. During my sleeping sicking haitus I watched some movies. We are real big on The I.T. Crowd - a british television show we watch on netflix. It is a top funny show. I think the creator of that is also the creator of The Modern Family tv show. I also watched some old classics like E.T. and Jurrasic Park. Movies you can doze off in the middle and not have to care what you missed. I couldn't really do much, even surfing, as I would get too weak to think.

Now I am feeling much better. I would say I am 90% right now. I still feel weak but that is probably because I have not eaten much. I think I lost 2 pounds during this thing. That is a good start to a diet. By not eating for a day it makes your stomach shrink. I wonder about fasting. That seems to be what dieting ends up as. What if I fasted a couple of days a week and ate normal the rest of the time? Or is that anorexia? I suppose then I'd feel weak during those time periods. Eh, that's a bad idea. I am back to normal, and that is a good thing.

Horror at the Bass House

2010-09-14T14:53:00.004-05:00

Wow, so I finally feel well enough to post. To start with this weekend was fun. Brennon had his first birthday and he loved it. We went swimming and I made burgers and hot dogs. I will post pictures in the media section eventually. Sunday we went to Holly's family reunion in Azle Texas. That is about an hour and a half away. They had some cookies I liked.

Monday morning at around 4:30AM Holly wakes me up telling me she is really sick. So sick she can't go to work. I thought, ok, what does this have to do with me. Unfortunately alot. So I took the day off as well to take care of Brennon and Holly. I suppose if we had a babysitter close to the house I could of gone to work. Anyways, I had to take a vacation day on Monday to take care of the fam.

And then Monday night it hit me. Whatever she had, I now had. I think this is a superbug. Let's just say that it was coming out of both ends. I yakked twice last night. Talk about horror. It will come down as one of the worst nights in my life. I am glad we have two bathrooms downstairs. When I messed up one I went to the other. Eww. Thank God for Holly who is used to such events and knows how to take care of it. Not me. I took today off to get some sleep because my body aches. I am glad the horror is over as my tummy no longer aches. Too bad I no longer have any vacation days... I think one day in the future I might actually take a vacation with a vacation day... maybe....

Live Develop Love

2010-09-10T14:10:00.001-05:00

Let's see. What have I been thinking about? In the news I wonder why that idiotic pastor in Florida is getting international attention. Can one man with a congregation of 50 people really have that much of an effect? The effect is not himself per say, it is the press that makes the effect. I can only guess as to why they have persued this so much. If a man burns a book and no one is around to film it, does it make a noise? The world trade center fiasco with this piece of news all combines into one big mess. I think most normal people don't really care, but yet it is news. Now the old republican in me sees this as the presses way of showing the world that republicans are racist, even though they are not. Given there is an election coming up it appears that it is a smear campaign against the conservatives. Paint them all as racists and people will leave the party. I left for other reasons, but still I have some conservative values that are similiar. Live and let live is a good motto.

In other news I am glad Apple released the restriction on development tools. What that means I can finally make a real iPhone app from scratch without buying a mac. RideSearch has experienced a resurgence this week for some reason. I had a record 44 people sign up yesterday. That is the most in one day in over a year. I am nearing 15,000 members. That is pretty good for a site that hasn't been updated in over a year. I kind of like this waiting part because I don't have to do anything. Eventually it is going to be too big for me to ignore. Then what?

Brennon's Birthday party is tomorrow. We have an under the sea motto going. Holly got all of these decorations. I can see tonight I will be cleaning the house. I am going to pick up mom from her home tomorrow and bring her to the party. It should be fun. We are currently planning on swimming unless it is raining then we might watch a movie or something. I will cook my famous burgers and it will be fun. Of course Brennon won't know what is going on, but I am sure he will have fun. The first birthday party is usually for the parents. Yesterday as I was searching for my keys I found them in his room. I think he wants to drive a little too soon. Anyways I will take pictures of the party and post them online. Have a good weekend.

Wow a Tornado and a Rainbow.

2010-09-09T12:11:00.001-05:00

So yesterday, on Brennon's birthday, a tornado followed me home from work. It was a bad traffic day all the way around. I blame the ocean and weather. In the morning I found a dollar bill in a gym bag. It was God's gift to Brennon for his 1 year old birthday. I left for work at 8:30AM hoping to get to work at 9AM. The fact that it was pouring out verified my idea that it would not happen. In the morning I have two routes to work - the tollway, which usually takes 30-40 minutes or the side roads, which usually takes 40-45 minutes. Since it was raining I figured the tollway would be jammed so I took the side roads. Unbeknownst to me there was a traffic light out on my route. Traffic was backed up for like 6 miles. I did not end up at work until 10:30. Wow, that 2 hours is now my official longest commute. I was glad I filled up yesterday. Then when I got to work they had a VP come down from Washington to pep us up. The good thing was they brought spring creek bbq with them. The bad thing was it took more of my time away from my job.

Anyways, later in the day I proceeded to get my iSpot back and deactivate it, as I now have the AT&T unlimited data plan again. I can't believe it. On Friday I called to complain that 50 meg of data was leaking from my iPhone at night and I had used 6 gig of data over the month so they re-activated my old plan. Talk about lucky and saving me $25 a month. Anyone want an iSpot? For $25 a month your iPhone or iPad can get unlimited data.

So all is right with the world and then before I leave Holly calls me. There are tornados all around she says. So I look up weatherbug on the iPhone and sure enough there is one in south dallas and one in Plano where we live. So I call her again and tell her to get in the closet. I am not sure where the safest place is in the house. In Texas you have to be prepared. So I then proceeded to go home. As I drive home the storm in south dallas starts heading north. It apparently is following me. As I sat in yet another traffic jam I hear the tornado sirens going off. Then I see a rainbow. I do a quick video of it while saying "oh, a rainbow, and a tornado, what does it mean?" Then I drive north with the thunderstorm behind me and sunshine in front of me. Fortunately by the time I got to my house it had shifted directions. The moral of the story is this. Tornados can sometimes come with rainbows. But what does it mean?

Happy Birthday Brennon!

2010-09-08T14:04:00.001-05:00

I would like to wish my son, Brennon Graham Bass, a very happy birthday today. He is 1 year old. I can't believe he has gotten so big. That is my boy though. Over the year we have gotten to know Brennon a little more. He likes sleep like his father. He likes the iPhone. He likes laptops. He is very much his father's son. Since I have never really dealt with babies I have no idea how he compares developmentally. I suppose that is good because I never liked comparison's anyways. I know he is tall and a little skinny for his age. He is very aware of his surroundings and doesn't care to be held much, unless you flip him upside down.

Here are some character traits that I have seen come alive over the year. He loves to laugh and daddy and mommy make him laugh the most. He loves to play and can be intense in his playing. When I play with him and I have one of his toys, he wants that toy. He also is a little stubborn. Like I have seen him walk and we push him to walk. However, he prefers crawling. He also will yell at the dinner table if you don't feed him fast enough and he will cry when the food stops coming. He is also a little timid, just a little. He will grab hold of the furniture when he is standing and I can see it is like he is walking a tightrope and is afraid of falling.

He also can be very determined. The second you have your remote control in your hand he will crawl all over you to get it. The same is true for the iPhone. His favorite youtube video of all time is "I love you baby, go to sleep". I played that for him when he was in the NICU and it would calm him. Now, a year later, it still works. He loves his pacifier and bottle, however as of today we are doing away with formula. Let's see how he takes to that. The best thing about him though is the way he smiles. It melts your heart and makes you want to make him smile. I think he is a very happy baby because we all love it when he is happy. Happy Birthday Brennon!

Have I got the Nerve?

2010-09-07T12:22:00.001-05:00

So this weekend we chillaxed. On Friday we watched "Date Night". It was actually pretty funny. On Saturday I played with Brennon and saw him take about 30 steps, not in a row of course. The key is to put the laptop on the chair and put him about three steps away from it. He will stay standing and will walk to it. It is like he like computers or something... I wonder where he gets that? On Sunday we took Brennon and had dinner with mom at her place. Of course all of the ladies love Brennon. They make comments on how big he is getting. Brennon is a pretty happy child. I hear him whine but almost never cry, except at maybe 4 in the morning. He will be one years old tomorrow. Wow, I can't believe it has been a year.

On Monday Holly's mom, Doug and Ethan came over and we swam and I cooked burgers. I am known for making thick burgers. People are usually like, "the center will never be cooked" with how thick I get them. The key to getting the center cooked is to lower the temperature on the grill and keep it on a little longer. That way it gets cooked all the way. However, I do like a burger a little red. It is very tasty. It was fun swimming and eating and the weather was nice. Now we have a hurricane raining on us for a while. I think summer is over...Yea! Football is my favorite season. Go Tech and Go Cowboys!

Today I go to the doctors office and will have him look at my ulnar nerve. I think it is cubital tunnel syndrome. My sister diagnosed it over the phone as ulnar neuropathy. Basically my pinky gets numb and now it is getting weaker. I can no longer cross my pinky and ring finger. I can hear a clicking sound whenever I move my right hand. I think that is the nerve moving. I have since switched to my left hand for mousing. You might think it is ok because I am left handed anyways, but as a left handed guitar player that means my fingers on my right hand are used to make the chords. It is not a good time for me to get this, but I think it has been developing over the years and is now where I can't ignore it. Let's hope all he needs to do is move the nerve and give me some medicine.

Dentists

2010-09-03T13:23:00.001-05:00

So I am here at the dentists office after having cracked a crown eating sunflower seeds. resorted to baby oragel last night. It has been about 3 years since I have been. Let's hope they don't discover any cavities. I have been flossing pretty regularly so hopefully nothing is there. My gums are just so sore. I hate the dentists. I guess if Brennon becomes a dentist I should start liking it.

Brian Bass
Creator of RideSearch.com
"Carpool for a better tomorrow"

Heelbo Dosie Dough

2010-09-02T14:01:00.001-05:00

Guys night is on. Since I don't have my phone on me I can't text that information. It is amazing the stuff I can't do. I hear the hum of the air conditioner. Apparently that is supposed to be better than music in my ears. Time is going slow... Need input.. input... Going into iPhone Withdrawal... How is my house doing? Have I got any new email? What is the latest on Twit ter and Face book? Any new music to listen to? How about a little netflix episode? Auuugh. I can't see why they call it fasting. They should call it slowing, because that is what happens to time.

Anyways I am trying to get used to my new Heelbo. It is comfortable, yet a little tight. What is a Heelbo and why are you wearing it you say? Well, since I have been programming computers for some 25 years now I guess it was inevitable that I would come up with a repetitive stress injury. My right elbow up to my pinky has been tingling and numb for weeks. I talked to my neurologist sister who diagnosed it as Ulnar Neuropathy. If I don't rest my elbow and wrist I could end up needing surgery. She recommended this Heelbo thing. It is comfortable on my elbow, but the pain and tingling is just not going away. We shall see. More tests.. Definitely more tests...

Heelbo Dosie Dough

2010-09-02T13:58:00.001-05:00

Guys night is on. Since I don't have my phone on me I can't text that information. It is amazing the stuff I can't do. I hear the hum of the air conditioner. Apparently that is supposed to be better than music in my ears. Time is going slow... Need input.. input... Going into iPhone Withdrawal... How is my house doing? Have I got any new email? What is the latest on Twitter and Facebook? Any new music to listen to? How about a little netflix episode? Auuugh. I can't see why they call it fasting. They should call it slowing, because that is what happens to time.

Anyways I am trying to get used to my new Heelbo. It is comfortable, yet a little tight. What is a Heelbo and why are you wearing it you say? Well, since I have been programming computers for some 25 years now I guess it was inevitable that I would come up with a repetitive stress injury. My right elbow up to my pinky has been tingling and numb for weeks. I talked to my neurologist sister who diagnosed it as Ulnar Neuropathy. If I don't rest my elbow and wrist I could end up needing surgery. She recommended this Heelbo thing. It is comfortable on my elbow, but the pain and tingling is just not going away. We shall see. More tests.. Definitely more tests...

iPhone Fasting Time

2010-09-01T12:43:00.001-05:00

So life is sometimes a rollercoaster. It goes up and then down. Then I get worried about things and can't sleep. Then things stop. Then there is hope for the future. Then sometimes that hope gets dashed. Then maybe other stuff besides your car gets stolen, like your iSpot. Then maybe you get worried about your job. Then maybe you may or may not have another job. Then you get good reviews at your current job. Then people like you. Then recruiters call you. Then coworkers become ambiguious. Then you are happy with your work but maybe not happy with other things. Then things stop again and get reset and the cycle goes on and on with you just finding happiness in the little things, the day to day victories and not the prospects of the future. I have been around long enough to know that anything can happen at any time. I thank God I know 35 computer languages and can go if I need to.

How was that for vaguery? Here is some non vague stuff. I have uploaded some pics of Brennon to the media section of this site. He is so cute. People remark how he looks like me. At times I think he even looks like my dad. He's got our cheeks. Every day he gets heavier. He has taken steps on his own now, but prefers to crawl. This weekend though I let him crawl around on our patio. The hard surface made him want to walk. I could tell. He is fast at crawling though. I guess that is why some kids take longer to walk. They can see the effeciency in crawling.

Anyways, life is always good. Sometimes you just need a different perspective on things to make it good. I have decided that I am addicted to my cell phone. I mean really addicted. If left alone I check it every 2 to 3 minutes. My over 5 gig of data usage this month has shown me that I use it too much. So I am actually going to do something about it. I am not going to take it to work. It is a test. A test of fortitude and resiliance. Can I live without micro-communication? If you want to get a hold of me during the work day use my work email. Let's see what happens. Tomorrow I start. Time to listen to some music before I shut it off. I wonder how long this fast will last?

Eat whatever you want! Not.

2010-08-31T12:50:00.001-05:00

So what are my thoughts? Well, I seriously need to do something about my waking up. Since Holly is now going to school early I am left to fend for myself and my bed is way too comfortable. Although I have to admit getting extra sleep is nice for me but bad for my employer. I think part of it is I need to go to bed earlier. The other part is probably my sedentary lifestyle. Now I know I have gained 4 pounds in the past couple of weeks, so according to my moderation diet I need to really fast to get back to where I was. If I nip it in the bud I can prevent a "fat bloom" as I call it. The question is, how to get back to stasis. I have weighed the same plus or minus a pound for almost a year now. That in my mind is success.

Exercise, though, can be detrimental to your health. When you have a system that is in stasis you are fine because it is not changing or is changing very slowly. When you cause it to be off, like through exercise, where your body goes through tons of chemical and cardio vascular changes you introduce a variable of change into the system. In the past I have proved that whenever there is a big change such as diet and exercise, primarily exercise, there is a defense mechanism that the body goes through. Sure you can lose weight and feel healthy when you are exercising, but the second you slow down the snapback occurs and you gain it all back. That is why people who slow down end up gaining it back plus some. The goal is to only do things that you will do forever and I have yet to figure out what it is.

Then you have your base eating tendencies. The reason why I was able to maintain it for so long was because I recognized that the weight I was at was the perfect weight for my eating habits. If I want to have a pizza and burgers every week I have to be able to use that amount of calories during the week. I have to diet at lunch to eat whatever I want at dinner. Being fat enables me to do so, as long as I don't overindulge. The bigger you are the more calories you require to maintain your figure. So the bigger you are the more you can eat and stay the same weight. At some point you get to be happy with your diet and happy with your weight, if you do not think in an esoteric sense but a calorie consumption sense. Honestly I could say that I can eat pizza and burgers every week and not gain weight. That is awesome. I was at the perfect weight. But now something has happened. I think maybe it is age but I now need to adjust things more. I guess I have discovered that there is no perfect stasis. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Time to join the Y.

Goodbye Old Wooden Road

2010-08-30T11:35:00.001-05:00

So on Thursday I said goodbye to Wichita Falls. I went there to sign the papers to sell mom's house. Before I left I had a snafu with the documents. I had lost important one required for me to sign the mortgage away. Luckily the internet came to the rescue. I went to a lawyer site, downloaded the document for $10, filled it out and had mom sign it in front of a notary. To think lawyers charge like $120 for that service. If you ever need legal documents like wills and stuff, get them online at a trusted source and fill them out yourself. It will save you lots of money and is perfectly legal.

The person who bought the house got a good deal because we didn't want to fix it up. I think it was the pool that sold that house. Mom should not have to worry about money for a couple of years, which is a relief to her kids. Most of the trip was spent driving. Along the way I thought about the memories of Wichita Falls. I had some good ones, but for some reason the bad ones kept overriding it. Growing up in a broken home with an evil stepdad can do that to you. So I stopped and visited the house I lived in before that time in the rundown section of Wichita Falls. Although nowadays I'd say 85% of Wichita is run down. It was actually fixed up with a new coat of paint, a new car in the driveway and a bird bath in the front yard. That was a good sign. It was kind of cathartic.

So after I signed the papers I went to Sikes Center Mall. It changed a little. I liked the changes but it was still a glimpse into the past. For some reason at all of these places I felt taller. Maybe because I was shorter when I was there. I thought about seeing a movie but I knew I had a 2 1/2 hour drive home. So I got an energy drink and went home. On Friday I took the day off and watched contractors give us a new kitchen island. It is oak with a granite top, very nice. I am now watching them finish on my phone cams. Anyways, I said goodbye to my hometown. I am glad to see it go. I have always looked forward in my life and rarely look back. Life is good. Peace to all.

Hmmm

2010-08-25T13:23:00.001-05:00

No post for today. Going to Wichita Falls for the last time ever tomorrow.... Will speak of things next week...

Bitter Pills

2010-08-24T12:44:00.001-05:00

Time to release some bitterness. So Facebook has stolen my idea by introducing "Places". The people at Netflix who also own Placebook have stolen my name. I came up with those concepts and even the name many years ago. I remember when I was out of work for a while I was going to go at it on my own. I started developing PlaceBook. I even have part of it already developed. It integrates into the RideSearch model very well. I even had some clients who wanted to get in on it. Ah, the promise of a deal with Southwest Airlines and the deal with a Comedy Club circuit. Those deals just fell into my lap. Then I had some universities who were interested. The problem was I had not developed it fully yet. I had ran out of time and I had ran out of money and had to go back to work. I guess I am destined to be the guy who says "I invented that, but can't prove it."

I suppose it is a lesson to jump on things, but I am always not sure if I want to make a commitment like that. Should I develop and patent my "Shock Socks" to wake me up? I need it now that Holly is at work when I am getting up. Should I jump in on my Breakfast Courier idea - where people order breakfast from me and I go to restaurants and pick it up and drop it off? Or how about my Social Kiosk service for malls where I set up peoples blogs, social network profiles and family website photo albums? Or how about my home networking software that sets up on demand video chat with all devices? Mark my words, in the next year video chat will become commonplace. Right now AT&T and other services are trying to stall it as much as possible because it represents a slowdown in the entire internet when it takes off. The problem is, with Skype, Facetime and Fring the genie is already out of the bottle.

I can keep coming up with these ideas because it is easy. They are all the next logical step in a progression of business ideas. For me it is easy to see and I think others see it as well. I was ahead of the curve with placebook though. That was going to be the service that launched RideSearch into the world. The funny thing is it is picking up more and more people on its own without me lifting a finger. Every day I am getting over 25 people signing up. I wonder if I can ride the tail of location based services anyways? Eh, I should just forget about it all. I need to sell this site before it hangs on me like a reminder of what could have been. I don't like bitterness.

Test

2010-08-24T12:39:00.001-05:00

does this work...

Messages

2010-08-23T12:09:00.001-05:00

This weekend we hung around the house. I took care of Brennon on Saturday and Holly went and visited her mom who is recoupering quite nicely. Saturday night I watched the Cowboys play. It looks like they still have problems tackling. Romo also looks like he is having a hard time being on target. I hope the Cowboys are just pretending to be bad this preseason. Hopefully they will show up when the real season begins.

Brennon has officially taken some steps. I saw him take one step on Saturday. When you try to walk with him and let go he knows what you are trying to do and he goes limp. I think he has some of the Bass stubbornness in him. He chooses to crawl even though he knows how to walk. I think though I can trick him into crawling. More tests. He turns one next month.

Sunday I slept in. I think it takes alot of effort to get the baby ready to go to church and then it is a long day for him as well. Even though I didn't go to church I have always had it inside of me. I did go by mom's to her church service in the afternoon. Church at 2pm is pretty good. Although, this time something happened. The Prestonwood minister did not show up. As they were all looking I felt compelled to get up and give a message. I have all of the ones I did for the homeless on my iPhone. It was one of those times that you just let God take over. I think it was good cause I got alot of claps at the end. Anyways, you never know when you will be called to do something. So I felt good about it at the end. Life is good.

Superman Ethics

2010-08-19T11:23:00.002-05:00

When I was a kid I wanted to be superman. I pinned a towel around my neck, wore my superman underoos and ran around the house pretending to jump over tall buildings. I loved the thought of flying through the air. It was more than that though. I wanted to never lie. I wanted to save people. I wanted to be a hero. I would even dream of being a hero in real life by becoming the President and helping those who are in trouble. In return I would get lots of praise for my heroic acts and everyone would love me. To me that was the ultimate fantasy. But now let us go back to reality.

Now that I am older and we all are older reality hits us a little harder. Ethics are not as black and white as not lying. Ethics are not even gray like they were up to 1980s. Now with computers and decisions that are offhand meaningless, ethics are now in color and are harder to see. Take my iPhone. Now that jailbreaking has been declared legal I can say that I have jailbroken all of my iPhones since I got them. All it does is make it to where you can have complete control over every aspect of the phone and you are able to install apps that are not approved by Apple. Back in the day I wanted to stream my TV over 3G with a slingplayer and the only way was with a jailbroken phone. Nowadays the only reason I wanted it was to run Netflix on it, which it does quite well. I am just adding functionality to my iPhone. I am not stealing or copying anything.

But there is an evil side to this open source world. There is an app that can download appstore apps and itunes music without paying for them. "Download me" says the Tom Tom app that normally costs $50. This is a matter of personal ethics, of which we all have a certain degree of. No one will know. All it is is copying a pattern of 1s and 0s over to another device. But then you think about the concept of a store. Say Best Buy opened its doors and has no one in the store. There are no cameras recording anything. You can walk in and take anything you want and no one will ever know because the item you take magically reappears in their stock. Do you do it? Most people say no, that is not right. But in the digital world things are even more obscure. You can download movies illegally, you can download music illegally, you can look at unsundry things that you never even thought of, and no one will ever know. We all have freedom, but it is what we do with it that matters. Can you go to bed at night with a clear conscience? Can you wake up and not worry about Gods or others judgment, legal or otherwise? Has hypocrisy ran so rampant that the switch in the brain that figures out right and wrong is malfunctioning?

Not only in this colorful world is there a blurred question of illegal or legal, but there is a question of right and wrong morals. The lines are blurred again. Is it right to have gay marriage? Is it right to hate mosques? Is it right to have abortion? What if it is 1 day after or 7 days after or 7 months after? Is it right to have pre-marital relations? If everyone does it, does that make it right? Is it ok to be wrong? Bottom line is there is no one out there who has a right to tell you what you should do, but there is your conscience and if you are saved there is the Holy Spirit. I deleted that app that downloads apps. I did it because in my mind that is the right thing to do. I can sleep at night without worrying about repercussions about anything I have done. Granted I am no superman, but I still try to be. As I have gotten older I have realized ethics should not be about selfish ambition or getting what you can get away with. Ethics should be about looking to the whole picture of the effects of our decisions. If we all really wanted to stop and think, made a wise and responsible decision, and tought others about it our world would be a much better place. We would not go down dangerous roads and paths that lead to destruction if we just stopped and thought about the long term effects.

If everyone downloaded apps illegally there would be no more apps because there is no incentive to make them. If everyone could get married then there would be no such thing as the definition of marriage which is commonly known as being restrictive. If everyone hated mosques like the tea partiers then we would eventually have another holocaust. If everyone could have an abortion then there would be more potential murder than the holocaust even had, all because the science can not tell you if it is right or wrong. God can, but science can't. If everyone had premarital relations then why get married? If you read the Bible you can see that when the two becomes one flesh is when marriage really takes place. Our manmade definitions are obsolete compared to the truth. But, we are not the judges. We are not the jury. We are not the executioner. I cannot tell anyone what to do as I am a sinner myself with a large board in my eye. We are all hypocrites. But what if we all tried to not be one? Let us all admit we cannot achieve that perfectness, but let us all strive for it and make this world a better place. It all starts with making the right decisions. Then everything else will follow. That is the path to a better world. Peace to all.

Helicopter Down

2010-08-18T13:13:00.001-05:00

Lets see. Holly is back at school and I am waking alone. It is ok, but I won't get to see Brennon as much cause he was the one who would wake me up. Even Holly won't get to see Brennon as much as he is now going to his baby sitter during the day. I hope it doesn't adversely affect him. I know in some ways it is good that he has more interaction with others and he will have exposure to Spanish. But in other ways he will probably have a little separation anxiety. I suppose that it is better now than when he is 5 and is kicking and screaming when we drop him off at school. But I wonder if it will make him have a harder personality than a kid who is helicoptered?

You never know what affects a kid. I think there is no general rule. I think it is all specific to that individual child. For instance I don't think spanking needs to be done on any sensitive children as that could scar them, however if they are not sensitive than that might be a good learning medium. Kids who show higher aptitude for learning should be given more to learn. Kids with lower aptitude should be given less. I think that is a problem with schools nowadays, they don't take into account each child's differences.

I think it is a matter of time before the complicated becomes simple. What I mean is that a computer could analyze a person's potential and tailer a learning plan in accordance with their aptitude. Artificial intelligence has been around a while and keeps getting better. Although at what age is a kid's aptitude determined? You never know. It kind of reminds me of the move Gattaga. I still feel like I am learning at age 35 and think I will continue to learn till I die. It is in my nature. I am much smarter now than I ever was in high school and college, even though my memory of redundant facts is gone. Or am I smarter? More tests... or less tests...

Ubuntu Class

2010-08-17T12:02:00.001-05:00

So I just started watching Netflix on my iPhone. I knew it was just a matter of time before someone figured it out. Basically you have to jailbreak your phone and run the ipad version. It is a bit more complicated but if you follow the instructions on the net it can be done. I have to say the video quality on an iPhone 4 is top notch. Now you say, what about the data plan? Well, I found a fix for that as well. Considering I am halfway through my month and have already used almost 4 Gig of data or $45 I need an alternative. So I found a service called Clear iSpot. It is a little wireless hotspot for iPhones and iPads that you pay only $25 a month for unlimited data. I ordered it yesterday. It should save me hundreds in the long run. Sorry AT&T, data should be unlimited. Your limited plan hearkens back to AOL in 1995. I remember having to limit what I did back then on a 14K modem. Wow, I am old.

I have also jumped ship a little on Windows 7. The other day I installed Ubuntu on my laptop. It is so much faster than Windows ever was. It is a little harder to understand and you have to learn how to set it up, but once you do it is very powerful. I also think I can start developing non-app store iPhone apps on it. That should be fun. It is like there is all of this technology to play with, yet I don't have much time to learn and play. I am still setting the house up with programs. Sometimes I wish I could stop time and develop all of the ideas I have because I know eventually I will be finished with them. It is like it will take at least a couple of years to get up to speed with new technology and by then there will be something new. Oh well, it is fun when I have the time.

I do feel sorry for people who don't know or understand the power of computers, the internet or programming. I think not just smart people need to learn this stuff but everyday people. Take for instance Brennon's netbook. I got it on eBay for dirt cheap and it was sent with stuff on the hard drive. Apparently it was a girls laptop with "I love the jonas brothers" stuff on it and her name, email addresses, picture and friends email addresses. Imagine if I were a hacker? It was not completely wiped so I had to go in and delete it all and reset it all. If a malicous person would have had it they could have even extracted all the deleted files from it. So knowledge is power, but not having the knowledge can be dangerous. Maybe I should teach a class...

Gettin Old

2010-08-16T12:33:00.001-05:00

So this weekend was eventful. On Friday I had the maids come over and clean the house. One of the great things about having cameras in the house is I can watch them on my iPhone. I can always see how they are doing. The place looked great. Then on Saturday we had our Sunday School swim party. This time it was a pot luck so Holly and I didn't have to do much. The house was clean and the food was brought. We had around 30 people in the house, half of them kids. They all loved the pool. We had pizza and then they got in the pool again.

Sunday we had a long day. Holly had to teach the 4 year olds at Sunday School so I was put in charge of Brennon. Of course I got there late. I find with a baby you have to prepare farther in advance. You need to pack up the diaper bag and make sure he has food. Then you have to get the stroller and put it in the car. All the while you have to watch Brennon and put him somewhere safe while you do these tasks. I can see what alot of people just stay home. Anyways, we went to Sunday School. Then I went to mom's to drop off some stuff for her.

Then it was off to the country to my brother's place. It takes about an hour to get to his house. It was a surprise birthday party for him. He is doing well. I went swimming in his pool as the heat is just too much. I feel old too because his kids have all grown a foot since I have seen them. Even Khai, the youngest, has started walking. Brennon played with him a little, but was mostly cranky. Later that night we drove home and I had to stop by my mom's to turn her tv on. Then Holly went to spend the night at her moms. Her mom is having Roux-en-Y surgery today. I think that is where they bypass the stomach completely. Holly is there at the hospital with her and will take her home when it is done. I think it is a one day safe laproscopic thing, but it is the recovery time that is most important.

So a lot is happening. Tomorrow Holly starts school and then it is back to me waking up solo. I have found during the summer that the best alarm clock is having Brennon put on top of you. My fatherly instincts wake me up as I watch him and make sure he is safe. I guess I am going to have to program the house to scream at me and flash all of the lights on and off. Time to dust off my idea of the Shock Socks and get it working. More tests...

Memories

2010-08-12T12:54:00.001-05:00

Since yesterday was our anniversary I surprised Holly with flowers when I came home. I made sure to get some pink ones cause that is her favorite color. In it I had a card that said "on Friday, prepare for a team of maids to come and clean the whole house up." That is a nice practical gift. We had Nikki come over to babysit so last night we went out to a Brazilian Churascura called Texas De Brazil. It is very similiar to Rafain's. The flavor is good too. Their filet wrapped in bacon is tops. I always liked the house special - which is garlic picanyha. I had an anniversary coupon for a free meal so it was a no brainer. I still felt full this morning. It was good.

As part of our current couples study we had homework to go through the alphabet and compliment each other. Like she would say you are very altruistic. Then I would say you are very beautiful and so on. It is good to compliment each other. I know for some reason we never got many compliments growing up, so we are learning how to do it now. I think the art of the compliment is a lost art. We should bring it back.

Afterwards we watched our wedding video and honeymoon video. It is weird to think that we got married only 3 years ago. So much has happened since then. RideSearch was released and we went to LA to promote it while I got on TV. Then we both got new cars when ours died. Holly got her masters degree. Then we had Brennon. Then we got a new house. I think our lives have went from kind of wishy washy to being really defined in these past three years. There will still be some changes in the future, but hopefully we will be through with the big ones soon.

Our wedding was huge. In the video it was good to see my cousins and family that I haven't seen in a while. It is amazing how many people we had at the wedding and even in the wedding. Funny parts of the wedding include Emma swinging around during the ceremony and Tommy having a plastic snake with him. At the reception the band was top notch. The food was great. The cake was awesome. Everyone had a good time. Our honeymoon was terrific as well. At a five star hotel in Maui it was paradise. We chilled alot and just enjoyed the scenery. I told Holly if we went back with Brennon things would be different. Brennon would be wanting to move around and keep us busy. It would still be fun though. Times have changed. But we are still the same.

To Holly My Love

2010-08-11T11:53:00.001-05:00

It was a normal Sunday.
I brought the bologna and cheese,
You brought the chips.
Together we spread the good news
And gave the homeless food
And life saving tips.

Years later as I look back,
I can see that God put us together.
No one can see that as much as I do.
How someone so similiar,
And so familiar to me,
Was made before I knew you.

The ties of teaching were bread into me.
The ties of temperance were part of my style,
And you had these same ties from when you were born
And I know you made God smile.

And now as we have gotten older and wiser,
I can surely see.
That God's plans for us include more
Than we can ever be.

To have a family that is strong.
To spread our love to the masses.
To be kind to one another all the day long.
To be a member of the Basses.

I have a child who is strong to me
I have a family that I am surely proud
With you in my home and Brennon in my heart
All of these days will make me bowed.

I can surely see and I can surely tell,
That your love for me is real.
That your love for our family is forever,
And that you can always feel.

So to Holly, my love, I want you to know
That I will always love your way.
I will always love your heart
on this Happy Anniversary Day!

Love is More Powerful than Hate

2010-08-10T12:12:00.001-05:00

I guess I have been thinking about good vs evil alot lately, so I am going to give a lesson in todays post. I have been thinking about it probably cause of the movies and also because of the news about nine eleven protests and tea parties. I have been reading realcourage.org. - http://www.realcourage.org - It is a good site that exposes the hatred everywhere in the world. It shows that we in America have some growing to do. First, as a Christian I have to say that those hate groups do not represent my religion at all. Westboro Baptist Church is not Baptist and is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. There are other supposed Christian hate groups around Dallas. They are the ones who protest at mosques and hand out pamphlets calling others sinners first and foremost. It is sad that their pamphlets do have some biblical truth in it, but there is no temperance in its delivery. Salvation is glossed over just to point out sinners. It seems to me that extremists are getting louder. I think it is time for non-extremists to get louder. I think it is time for a revival of morals, ethics, decency, humility and respect for others.

As a Christian who follows the Bible we have to understand that we are not supposed to inflict our own will upon others. We are supposed to be humble, respectful, loving and pray for our enemies, not attack them. I know as an evangelical we would be jerks if we didn't warn others about the burning afterlife to those who don't believe, however we need to do it with love not hate. Instead those rabble rousers are giving normal Christians a bad name and putting others off of coming to Christ. I doubt anyone is being saved by being harassed. I leave with 1 Peter 3:13-17. This passage is clear that we are not to prostelyze in anger or an in your face attitude. Peace to all.

13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

Dream within a Movie

2010-08-09T12:42:00.001-05:00

So this weekend was a movie weekend. On Friday Holly's mom came and watched Brennon while we went to go see Inception. It was a pretty good movie. I like sci-fi so I could get into it. However, understanding what was happening was a little hard to follow. It was all about people jumping into other people's dreams. It reminded me of the early 80's movie Dreamscape. It also reminded me of the Edgar Allen Poe poem Dream Within A Dream. I wrote a song about that poem in my first band, Red Krovvy. It was one of my better songs. Had it been famous it could have been on the soundtrack. Anyways the movie was good even though I always get Matt Damon and Leo Dicaprio mixed up.

On Saturday I continued the movie watching by watching a show called "The Box". It was another sci-fi about an alien that gives people a box. If they push the button on the box they get a million dollars and someone they don't know would die. It made me think about how some people think more for money than for others. The next movie was a drama about a holocaust boy who is friends with a german boy. It was better than shnyders list, although I never liked that movie. That made me think about hatred. Hatred is the worst thing that happens to mankind. We in America need to be thankful we don't have as much hatred as other parts of the world. Are we really doing enough to stop hatred? I have a feeling that whole mosque two blocks away from the rubble indicates we do have alot of hatred in America, it is just pent up. To make the day seem not depressing we watched Annie. The sun will come out tomorrow. That is the story of a rags to riches girl. I remember when I was a kid my sister got us to see that movie and I got us to see Return of the Jedi. That was when we were leaving Alaska. Ah, memories.

Sunday Holly slept in after taking care of Brennon and I went to Sunday School. I announced a pool party for next Saturday. It should be fun. I ate there and then went to mom's church. I told her the good news that we are now under contract for selling the house. Hopefully there won't be any snags. After this I may never go back to Wichita Falls again. Woo hoo. Maybe I might go one day years from now to show Brennon where I grew up. Who knows. Mom is doing better. She is not as sick and I can see her as very cognitive. She just has some memory difficulties, but has all her wits about her. I think that is just getting old. She helps out people there read their church programs. Anyways, I ended up watching the Dallas Cowboys win. I am glad football has started. I am a fan.

No Ordinary Guys Night

2010-08-06T13:10:00.001-05:00

So last night was guys night. It started off like any other guys night. Doug came over early cause he got off work early. I got home at my usual 6:30. I started playing with Brennon and he got very close to walking again. Doug said, "let's go to Chili's" I was like, I guess. Jason said,"I have a gift card for the one in Frisco." So we proceeded to the restaurant. Our guys nights conversations usually involve talking about our other halfs and various subtopics of Star Wars and trivia.

When we get to the restaurant Doug is on the phone and we get seated at the front of the restaurant near the door. He comes in and sits next to me in a booth with Jason sitting in front of me. Then I see this girl walk in dressed as a heart and carrying balloons. I say to Jason, look over there, uh oh, you know what they say about balloon people. We watched a show about "looners" the other night. So as I go into this diatribe the balloon lady starts walking up to the table. Apparantly Doug was pointing behind me for her to come over there. The balloon heart lady comes to the table and says "Is Brian here?" I say "yes" and in the back of my mind I am thinking - this is funny because I am probably the wrong Brian.

Then she bursts into song "L is for the love for you. O is for the only thing for you." and other such lyrics. While she is singing she is dancing and making a scene. Let me tell you the whole restaurant was watching. I could see the people waiting at the door watching. They even turned off the background music for her little act. Meanwhile I am conscious of one very important thing. Doug is sitting next to me. There are no girls at our table. People thought we were a gay couple. My face was bright red. Near the end of the singing telegram she sings like "I am happy to be your WIFE" and I think then people are like, ok. Then she sings "Happy Anniversary to You!" and says "one more time! let's all sing" and the people at the restaurant all sing "Happy Anniversary to You!"

So I am laughing and red in the face at the same time. It was sweet and embarassing at the same time. Holly had gotten me a singing telegram for our anniversary next week. I never knew they still existed. Apparently it was all setup last week and Doug and Jason were in on it. I will never forget this. Oh yes.....

Yeah, Hawaiian Shirt Day

2010-08-05T13:53:00.001-05:00

So today is Hawaiian shirt day. I decided to wear my coolest shirt ever - the Jimi Hendrix picture shirt. For those who have seen it you know how cool it is. Of course everyone else was wearing Hawaiian shirts. Seeing as how I don't own one this will have to suffice. Also it is pot luck day. Now most pot lucks around here are really bad. People bring in healthy stuff and stuff with seasonings on it. There is not much selection. So I said, why not bring something I can eat? So before the pot luck I went to McDonalds and got 40 nuggets. Let me just say they are all gone now, although I probably at 6 of them. At least people bring cookies to those things.

So how is my weight and health? I would say they are the same. Of course I did get tired in the afternoons and on the drive home till I discovered the joys of Red Bull, although last night at 4AM I awoke with a caffiene headache. My diet has been working for a whole year now. That is a big acheivement. I have not gained any weight in a whole year. That was my goal. It was easy to obtain and has served me well. I could probably stay like this for the rest of my life. I don't need to go worrying about my weight and go trying all these weird diets. I just need to be happy with it all. I realize there are some health implications, but being able to maintain more important than losing in my opinion.

Anyways, life is good. Got a great wife and great kid on my hands. In a week will be our 3 year anniversery. What is that one? Tin foil?

Apocolypso

2010-08-04T12:06:00.001-05:00

So I am looking at the induction magnometer of the latest sun storm:
http://137.229.36.30/haarp/scmag/latest-12h.html

It is rather interesting how it rises when the solar flare hit us. I am first to say I have no idea what is going on, yet there are people much smarter than me who know alot about solar flares and its effects. I do like seeing pictures of the Northern Lights generated from it. I remember seeing them in Alaska when I was a kid. There was a weird neon green glow in the sky. From what I read in the 1800s there was a big one that caused all the telegraph lines to spark. It does make you think about how impossible it is for us to be here by chance and about how possible it is for us to not be here in the blink of an eye.

I think we are now on the fifth trumpet of the book of Revelations. It is rather interesting how I can tie everything together. Of course I don't believe it, but I wonder what would happen if you convinced someone to believe it? That is the problem with us as followers, not researching what is told to us. Take the trumpets of Revelations. Now if you make one assumption that the numbers are off, like a third of the Earth, then all of this can fit. Back then their Earth was rather small. So a third of that Earth might be equal to a third of Europe, which would fit.

1 Land - there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
- This references the Icelandic volcano
2 Sea - something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
- This references the BP oil spill
3 Rivers - a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water-- the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
- This references the giant meteor that spanned across the whole USA in May.
4 Sun a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. 8:12
- This references the Solar Eclipse that took place in the beginning of July.

At this point the Rapture took place. Last Friday all traffic in Dallas was easy going as there were no one on the roads. Apparently I was left behind.

5 Abyss - I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
- The first part of this is the solar storm we are experiencing now. I have also noticed there a way more bugs around here.

Next on the list is something that happens at the Euphrates river. We shall see. I would love to tie this all together. Then I could start a religion of post apocolyptic people with football shoulder pads, leather clothes and motorcyles.

Chirp Chirp

2010-08-03T12:30:00.001-05:00

Today I shall talk about social networks. People often wonder what is the deal with Twitter. There are alot of people who just don't get it. Yet, companies have jumped on the bandwagon and now they put their Facebook address along with their Twitter account. Twitter gives the world instant access to anything you have to say and it gives you instant access to what the world has to say. Think of of it like Facebook without the apps. But it is even more. I know I post to Facebook maybe once a month. I kind of have stopped using it just because no one is saying anything interesting anymore. It is like when you first meet an old friend you catch up with them and then after that you are like ,soo, ummm, what's new? Facebook has that awkwardness about it.

Now I have just been getting into Twitter. Not for what I can say, but for what others say. You can follow anyone on Twitter, like politicians, news sources, famous people or people who share the same hobbies and desires as you do. You don't have to say a word. You can just read what they have to say. It can happen in real time as well. If there is instant news you can see it as it posts. Twitter is a way of having status updates on everything. In order to get real time updates you have to "Follow" a person. For instance my Twitter ID is FreeVerge. If someone follows me then they will get the messages I tweet on their page.

I like following tech news sources because that is what I am into. Like I follow techcrunch, forbestech and cnn. I follow star wars and mst3k. I follow Brent Spiner and Leo Laporte. The more people you follow the more status updates you see. It is fun to see what other people say. It is like Brent Spiner(played Data in Star Trek) is my friend. I think that is what the appeal of Twitter is. Most people who don't "get it" have never tried playing with it. Both of them, Twitter and Facebook, have their uses as a comminication medium. To learn to use them is very empowering. And that's all I've got to say about that. For now.

The Flare is Coming

2010-08-02T12:42:00.001-05:00

This weekend went too quick. I wish I had more time off. Now that the temp is above 105 even walking the dog is hard. Friday night we went bowling while Holly's mom watched Brennon. I remember when prices were $3 a lane. Nowadays they are $30 a lane for an hour. I guess that makes you bring people to offset the costs. I think my top score was a 120. That is a far cry from the 227 I got on the Tech Bowling Team. I think that skill I lost. Actually I never had it. I just got lucky 6 times out of the 100s of games I bowled at college.

On Saturday I did take Brennon swimming. He enjoys it. I just have to lather the sunscreen on him. Of course I hold on to him at all times, although the occaisonal toss up in the air makes him laugh. Saturday night we watched "Extract" made by the guy who did office space. It was ok, not great but not bad. Sunday was a busy day. Holly watched the 4 year olds in Sunday School while I stayed at home and took Brennon to the 11am service. I went to sunday school and brought the donuts. Sunday evening Holly, Brennon and I went to mom's place and ate at her cafeteria. Brennon is a star of the home with all of the old ladies gawking at him. He loves the attention, although he was a bit crabby.

Last night the power decided to fluctuate in our house. The power turned off at 4AM. I couldn't breathe because my sleep apnea machine stopped working. When the power turns off everything in the house starts beeping. The smoke alarms, the old alarm systems, even the refrigerator. Of course I don't know how to stop it from beeping. So I was up for a while. Eventually the power turned on again and I was able to sleep. I hope my computers are ok. I think it is a result of the recent solar flare that is going to hit us directly tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more electrical disturbances. So be on alert. That is all.

IAA

2010-07-30T12:46:00.001-05:00

So apparently AT&T has decided that I am close to getting charged $10 for another gig of bandwidth, having used 2.9 gig so far this month. I've already been charged $10 for going over 2 gig so that would make my monthly usage $45. I talked to a rep and he said that even though my billing cycle ends on the 3rd they won't roll over the next gig to be purchased to the next month. So I have turned off the data network on my phone to avoid going over 100MB usage and their price gouging. I have to keep it off until the 3rd to save $10. Let's see if I don't go into some kind of cold turkey convulsions. I will miss all of the data features. There is something about watching streaming movies on your phone, listening to streaming radio stations and watching all of the cameras gaurding my house.

So I was thinking about the whole hotspot thing to make up for it. Sprint and Verizon offer them but there are data limits on that and it is $60 a month. Then I found Clear 4G, which Best Buy sells. They give you a personal wifi hotspot for $43 a month for unlimited data. But because you have to have a data plan with the iPhone you have to get the minimum iPhone plan at $15 for 200MB. That would mean that you end up paying $58 for truly unlimited data. Now we have unlimited text messages and that doesn't count towards the data plan. I wonder if I could create an app that routes all internet traffic on the text message spectrum. Eh, sounds complicated.

But I was thinking, say you pay for home internet access at like $30-60 a month plus your phone data plan. If you had a wifi hotspot only you could get rid of your home internet service and it would be cost effective with more versatility. However, since I have servers at home that wouldn't work, but for the everyday user it would work. The real issue is why don't they have wifi at work? That would solve so many problems. Oh well, time to check in to Internet Addicts Anonymous. I wonder if they have a website?

Bright as Day

2010-07-29T12:21:00.001-05:00

Today's post is about Christian behavior. For those non evangelical Christians just skip it cause you won't understand. Lately Holly and I have been doing a couples Bible study on Tuesday night. It feels good to get back into the Word and to keep on learning. It has sparked a remembrance and I have learned of a spiritual gift that I have. The gift of knowledge. Not of wisdom but of knowledge. I used that gift back in the day when I would deliver a message to the homeless. God would show me passages in the Bible and tie them all together for me. I could always see the scarlet thread that is throughout the Bible. This scarlet thread is where Jesus is mentioned by analogy or prophecy hundreds of times. When I gave messages to the homeless God brought them hope through the words I spoke. I could see that bright as day.

So I have been thinking about ways to use this gift in my current state. The gift of knowledge is just the knowing of the Word in deep and it is given supernaturally. When someone has a spiritual question to me I can get at the answer without thinking. I just know. There is alot of stuff I know about current society and knowledge. The thing is, it is abundantly clear there is so much deception in the churches of today it stands out as bright as day to me and is kind of sad. I started writing a book on it a year ago. It is slow going but I think it will help all of us understand God's will more. However, I do not know what will become of it, but I just feel like this knowledge needs to be known by others. You never know. I have faith that what comes of it will be by design.

Anyways, so I am not sure about how to use my gift. I am sure I have been using it for myself. I can tell you that change is in the air, good change. For a while I had some resentment towards God about my business. I questioned why I went through all of it and the only answer I came up with was humility because pride was my weakness I learned that pride could destroy a man and lead him astray. So in due course of time I grew in knowledge of what was happening and why. Now I am ready to come back and do a ministry. But I now want to use my gift to further God's kingdom. If that is in teaching a Bible study I do not know. If it is in some seminary classes that may be possible. We shall see. Anyways it is exciting to have Christian renewal. It is always fun to get back to it all. Peace to all.

Hooked on Jeeves

2010-07-27T12:21:00.001-05:00

Let's see. I talked to my sister last night, we are going to accept an offer on the house. They are taking the week off to remodel both of the kitchens in their houses. They are remodeling the old one to get it to sell and the new one they are redoing the entire kitchen, even removing walls. Of course they have contractors helping. I'd like to see the place when it is finished. Considering she is a doctor and he is a cofounder of a company they are pretty well off. I often think it is weird that success has followed the Bass family through hundreds of years. I think maybe someone back in time must have done alot of good deeds or something. Is it odds? Is it luck? Is it genetics? Is it a blessing on our family? It is probably a combination of things. I consider it all a blessing.

The biggest blessing of course is family. Brennon is continuing his development of a personality. That is so cool. When he was born he didn't do much - eat sleep and poop. Now he is communicating and responding to us. When I walk in the room he lights up and smiles. I can get him to laugh. I like to play with him and show him my iPhone, which he loves to touch. I will get on the floor and he will crawl all over me and pull himself up. I think I might be having as much fun as he is. He is still waking up at night. Sometimes I will be awake, most of the time Holly will get up since I sleep through everything. Luckily Holly is off for the summer so she is spending alot of time with him. I can see it will be hard to go back to work.

Holly has developed a routine to wake me up. In the morning she will hand Brennon off to me and go walk Princess. This forces me to be conscious. The other day Brennon started saying "go.go.go.go". That is what I have the house speak to me when it runs my morning routine. I think he is also learning speach from the house, which we have named Jeeves. It compliments us every half and hour - like "you look good today" and "you are pleasant to be around." Of course it is all in an English accent. It makes me wonder if Brennon is going to grow up with an English accent. Having one is cool. Although explaining where he got it will be interesting. More tests.

Another Game

2010-07-26T13:43:00.001-05:00

Quick update. I am always busy. Relaxed a little this weekend. Stayed upstairs mostly as our master bedroom is hot because the first floor air conditioner broke. They should be coming today to fix it. In other news we may have an offer on the house. However, I doubt it. It is someone trying to lowball us and I have seen it before on our old house. I think it is an actual technique where someone puts 3 low offers on houses and hopes one person takes it. It is pretty unethical, but I think that is what is happening here. We shall see. I'll be glad to get rif of it when it happens though.For now we must play the game.

Islands in the Kitchen, That is what we are

2010-07-22T13:30:00.001-05:00

So what is going on with the Bass household? I would like to thank Obama for buying me an island - a kitchen island. So we got our movemonup credit and thought what better way to spend it than to upgrade the house's kitchen. Thanks to everyone. Really, I don't know why we did it, probably because I was accosted at home depot, but the contract is signed. I would actually like to stop payment on it and cancel after having some buyers remorse, but I don't think that is possible. At least it will increase the value of our house. So we now have a home depot contractor coming in to build us a kitchen island and put a fence around our patio to prevent Brennon from getting into the pool area. As a result our tax credit is going to a contractor and going to Home Depot. In turn the Home Depot workers will get paid and the granite and wood industry will have less supply. We are helping the economy.

I think Reagan had it wrong. It shouldn't be trickle down economics, it should be trickle all around. We are helping our country by spreading its wealth. The corporations and rich are not to be trusted to spread the wealth. I think this latest recession has proved that. Or maybe no wealth should be spread and everyone should keep what is theirs and let those suffering do so. Nah, that's not that Christian, but it is republican. It is weird but sometimes I think democrats are more Christian than republicans. They want the government to feed the poor, accept foreigners into the land, provide social services to those in need and heal the masses for free. Didn't Jesus do that? It is hard to find fault in that, but yet it is done everyday because of the love of money. I think the cause of this so called socialism that is being talked about is really the lack of social responsibility from everyone. If we cared for the poor would the government have to? If we healed those who needed it who couldn't afford it would the government have to? If we helped out New Orleans and the beaches near the oil spill ourselves would the government have to? The government is doing this stuff because we are failing to do what is our responsibility. I am all for us keeping our money. But, if we are all selfish what will become of our society? A true republican is one that does a civic duty for the betterment of man and one who needs no government intervention. Unfortunately, most don't have any civic duty anymore. And that is why we are where we are.

Anyways, on to lighter things. Brennon is growing strong. He is a squirmer and can pull himself up and hold on to one hand and move. Any day now he will be walking. He is infatuted with a large purple dinosaur called Barney. I think it is a rouse to get us all to love him, simply because he loves us. Yes, he loves us. Brennon's words are four now. The first was Da Da. The second was Ma Ma. The third was Dog. And now the fourth is Teeth. He says this as he touches my teeth. He has made the association. He is also on the fast track to becoming a dentist.

I don't know what to think about Brennon's future dental career. I suppose I am ok with it as long as he is happy. I do know that being a dentist is a pretty hard life. Everyone hates you and I think the suicide rate is high among dentists. I know, I am being an anti-dentite. I should take a politically correct class or something. Dentists are people too. If we prick them do they not bleed? I know I do when they cut my teeth, even though it has been a couple of years since I have been to one. Back in the day I had too many root canals to like dentists. But if Brennon becomes a dentist I will change my opinion of them. I do know I am going to stress to him to brush his teeth and floss. From that his desire to become a dentist will be stronger. Maybe he will join Rudolph and go on a misfit adventure together. Or maybe not.

Thoughts

2010-07-21T13:10:00.001-05:00

So what are my thoughts? I am not sure. RideSearch is actually picking up - I am getting close to 20 people a day signing up now. I have over 13,100 members. The problem is I have pretty much washed my hands of RideSearch. So it is like I have a site that is growing but I don't want to do any work for it. What do I mean? I haven't posted a blog post or sent out a monthly newsletter in over a year. Take my recent conversations with a marketing guy from NewEgg.com. He wanted to provide car decals to carpooling members so that they would get paid to promote the site. I entertained it for a couple of weeks, but I never followed up because that would mean I would have to do work for it. I even found a site that would get RideSearch an iPhone app for like $200. There are always opportunities for business with this site. It is a good idea, I just got tired of it though. So now I am thinking, what if I gave someone 5% commission to sell my site? Its future value could be worth millions. But I think the hard part is the valuation of it. What if it is the next Facebook? Who knows? I will give whomever sells the site 5% commission as long as I approve of the sale.

Anyways, I think the reason why more people are coming to the site is because of the oil spills. People are seeing the environment being affected negatively and are willing to carpool to save money. Or because of the bad economy people are needing a ride to work to save money. That is one of the many reasons why I am interested in a Nissan Leaf. I think we all can see that electric cars are the future. They have to be. While the 20th century was the heyday of the gas powered car, the 21st century will be the heyday of the electric powered car. Just wait till they start driving themselves. In 20 years gasoline powered cars will be hard to find. I think the Leaf will be the Model T of our time.

So am I an environmentalist? Yes. I like the environment. We recycle and today we just put in some LED bulbs in the house. That saves money as well. A normal 65W bulb is equal to a 4W LED bulb and those bulbs last 30 years. That is the best part about being a conservationist. Saving money. Even Biblically I think mankind was put in charge of the earth and it is our responsibility to take care of it. The recent global warming trend and environmental disasters relate directly to mankind's sin of not caring for the planet. That is easy to see. I think global warming is all but proven - there is no scientific body that disputes it. The only people who believe that there is no global warming are people who don't research things and only get their news from talk radio, where they are not held accountable for lying. Anyways, those are my thoughts.

New App List

2010-07-20T13:12:00.001-05:00

Today I shall give a list of some of my favorite iPhone apps aside from already known favorites: Pandora, Evernote, LogMeIn, Tv.com, Joost and Orb Live.

Mog - I am on the three day trial of this service and am really thinking about getting it. Basically you can download as much music you want to your iPhone directly for a monthly fee of $10. If you find yourself downloading more than an album a month from iTunes it is worth it. Plus you can view other peoples playlists, listen to a song by streaming it, listen to their radio stations and have access to over 8 million songs. That is pretty cool.

TuneIn Radio - Out of all of the radio apps out there this one is probably the best. Simply because it has a wide selection of radio stations and you can actually record from the radio station you are listening to.

Atomic Web - I have replaced Safari on my phone with this web browser. It has tabbed browsing, fullscreen mode, the ability to turn off mobile page viewing and has way more settings than Safari.

JotNot Pro - The ultimate in scanning tools. If you ever needed to copy a piece of paper all you need is your iPhone camera. This app will format the image, perform OCR and upload the image to Google Docs, Evernote, Box.Net and even your desktop.

Documents To Go - The ultimate in document creation. This app creates Word, Excel and Powerpoint docs. It enables sharing on Google Docs, Box.Net, Dropbox, iDisk, and SugarSync. I like that I can create a Word doc and put it into Google Docs for later use. It almost replaces having to use Evernote for notes access.

Visible VM - If you have Google Voice then you need Visible VM. It arranges your Google Voice Mail to look like the iPhones voice mail. It will also notify you when you have a new message. It is a little hard to get set up but once you do it is worth it. Google Voice recently called me and let me listen to the person leaving the voicemail and if I wanted to I could interrupt the voice mail and talk directly. That was pretty cool.

Angry Birds - This app is fun. It is a top game where you use a slingshot that holds a bird and have it destroy other birds. It is well written, has good graphics and is easy to play.

Talking Carl - This app is really for kids, but it is humorous. Basically it repeats everything you say in an annoying voice. You get to prod Carl and he yelps when you do. For some reason this makes me laugh. Maybe I am a kid at heart?

WU

2010-07-19T12:04:00.001-05:00

This Friday I came home and there was Princess Leia, hair cut with a purple bow and purple bandana. For some reason it looked weird. I had to laugh. Holly and I went to Spring Creek while her mother watched Brennon. Brennon is sleeping through the night again. That is nice. Saturday we had our belated fourth of July party. We had about 12 people there. We went swimming and I grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. Sunday Holly went to teach the 4 year olds at church and I stayed at home and watched Brennon. Then I went to mom's church at 2pm. I ended the day fixing some programming at the house. There is no earthly way a person could do this home automation without programming experience. Maybe if I made some user friendly software I could market it and add it as an operating system to a home panel device. More tests.

Convergence

2010-07-16T13:52:00.001-05:00

So the big tech news is that the folks who got an iPhone will get a free case. I wonder if Best Buy will give me a refund on the case I bought with the phone? That would be nice. Now I have never experienced this whole call drop issue because I got a case when I got the phone. I am still saying this is the best phone I have ever had. The fact that I can control the house, watch movies and do so many things with it makes me know that it is the apps that make this the best.

So the other day as I was installing an English sounding voice for my house I was wondering where all this technology is headed. I figure there is going to be super device come out that's even better than the iPhone. We all can see it, it is just going to take probably 10 years for the super device to come out, but it will. It will have 2 way voice, 2 way camera, 2 way video, 2 way audio, Text to Speech and Speech to Text. It will be able to wirelessly connect to everything - macs, pcs, refrigerators, people via wifi/phone plans and will be able to broadcast facetime to anywhere on the planet. It will have access to all tv stations, movies and photos not only by the cloud but by terrabytes of space that come with it. It will have a GPS locator and will be able to connect to home appliances and a home brain. It will be cheap enough to mount and unmount in every single room and will act as an intercom system connected to all of the super devices in the home. It will act as a home control system, audio and video player, and internet surfing device. It will be able to run apps from all OSs - Android, Appstore, and Windows. This will be the ultimate device.

See, all of this is possible right now. It will just cost alot and there is no company out there that makes it completely. It is all about convergence. That is where it is headed. Maybe I should patent such a device and build it. Eh, I bet it is already in the works by someone. Technology is progressing at a rapid rate. Too bad it is my generation that is doing most of it. I say this because it appears the older generations are not keeping up and the newer generations do not want to learn the basics of how things work. There is a gap. But I bet it will be filled eventually. Maybe... More tests...

Owen Him Money

2010-07-15T11:34:00.001-05:00

So at lunch I am watching Star Wars IV on my phone. I wonder if Obi-Wan really dies? I mean you don't see his body cut in two you just see him disappear as the lightsaber touches him. When he disappears it would only be a flesh wound Vader even steps on the robe as if he wonders where Obi Wan went. Also, I wonder if Han Solo is really a good guy. I mean he just got Leia for the reward money. And when he got his reward money how come he didn't pay back Jabba? He was paid by Jabba to deliver cargo and dropped his shipment in space when he got boarded. He really did owe Jabba some money. He was going to pay off Jabba, but then at the end he helps Luke and then I guess decides to keep the money. What happens to the money? Shame on you Han.

Also, I wonder why Obi Wan calls him Darth when he is fighting him? He should be calling him Anakin or Vader. Darth is just a title, like Darth Sidous or Darth Maul. It's like saying "Doctor, you should not have come back." "I am going to get you doctor." Shouldn't they be on a first or last name basis? Also, I think it is funny how Han calls Leia sister when she is really Lukes sister and Luke is the one kissing her. I think when Episode 4 was made George Lucas had no idea about the plot twists in the other movies.

I wonder if the actor who played Biggs got paid some money when they released the special edition and put his scene back in the movie? He should have cause he did have some speaking roles. He probably felt vindicated when they added his scene 20 years later. Before then no one would believe he was in Star Wars. Also, I wonder about Luke's relationship with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. I mean Obi Wan dies and Luke is heartbroken, his parents who raised him dies and he is like, "oh good, now I can join the rebellion". I think Luke really didn't like Uncle Owen. He was always afraid of him. Like getting the droids back or there will be hell to pay. Yup. He is the most evil person in the Star Wars Franchise - Uncle Owen. And that is the answer to that trivia question.

Checkup

2010-07-14T13:38:00.001-05:00

Well the economy was completely dead for a while. Now it is picking up as recruiters keep calling. I have no plans to leave as I have a good stable job and I am getting kudos for my work. I think the tech sector is always the first to recover. Probably because of the latest gadgets like the iPhone and iPad. I find it oftly weird how the iPhone 4 is getting a bad rap. In my opinion it is the best phone I have ever had. I guess because I have a case on it I don't experience that connection drop. Who doesn't have a case on their smart phone anyways? I am hoping others will get an iPhone 4. I want to try out this facetime stuff. I can imagine my sister getting it and being able to show mom her grandkids over the phone. That is pretty cool.

My house is now starting to get antsy. Whenever I leave it sends me an email and a text message and calls me to let me know it is thinking about me. I have set it up for Holly too. It is weird hearing the house profess its love for Holly. I set it to compliment us every 30 minutes. I am going to set it up for my friends too. In order to do that I need to give them a code to enter. So ask me what it is and when you come over you can activate it.

Brennon had his 10 month checkup yesterday. His weight is down to 84% from 95%. I think that is good. He doesn't look like a chubby baby. He is more of a muscular one. His development is going well. He says Dada, Mama and dog. I guess he knows who is in his family. He is now able to walk with me holding one hand. I think it is getting close. The doctor said he still has a little water in his ear. He also said he can still hear a murmur. I think that is because of his bicuspid valve. He goes back to the heart doc in September. He recommended childrens claritin for his allergies. Besides that Brennon is still the cutest baby I have ever seen. I just think though that a career in showbusiness would ruin him, so I am going to avoid that. I think I will just let him have fun being a baby. Sounds like a plan.

Mowing Kharma

2010-07-13T11:49:00.001-05:00

Hmm, what to talk about today? My knee is doing better thanks to the magic of the hot tub. Last night as I was maxing and relaxing I thought, wow I am glad I have this thing, otherwise I would be hobbling around. For some reason our flowers have bloomed out back. Now we have pink petals floating in the pool. I wonder what it would cost to go fake with the flowers? That would be easier to manage. Of course, I don't deal with the outside plummage. My allergies would get to me. So instead I have a service that cuts my yard and trims the bushes. I am glad of this cause I would not do it.

I always hated mowing the yard anyways. As a teenager it was my job to mow our yard. I now remember sneezing and itching as I did it. Why could I not put 2 and 2 together back then? Now my evil stepdad was a stickler about every week having me mow the yard. Of course he was off his rocker and would go to bed sometimes a 8PM and wake up at midnight and start drinking. During which time if I was still up he would come out in the living room and say "work day". So naturally to appease him I started to mow the lawn at midnight.

I can just imagine the neighbors waking up from their slumber, looking at the clock and hearing a lawn mower in the background. They would be like "whaa?" My mom of course would wake up and come screaming out the door. What are you doing? Robbie said mow, so I am mowing. Stop that this instance. And so that was the end of that. I often let them fight it out as I learned very early to not fight him and just humour him. What a weird youth I did have. Now the only thing that happens at midnight is you can see me relaxing in the hot tub. I think there is a kind of karma in life, where those who go through bad things will eventually go through good things to even things out. I am glad I am now on the good side of things. Life is good.

Needs Brian Proofing

2010-07-12T13:13:00.001-05:00

This weekend we hungout around the house. It was another rainy weekend. I worked on getting the combos set up on the house. I also went to home depot and got some baby gates. Now I just have to install them. Brennon is crawling twice as fast now. You just turn your head and he is 10 feet away. I am baby proofing. Saturday night we took him to Chilis. He did pretty good there.

I also need to Brian proof the house. I think my legs were sore from the treadmill. All my numbers are good except for my stamina, apparently I should be doing 16 minutes instead of 8 minutes. Anyways, on Saturday as I was walking down the stairs my foot came out from under me as I thought I was at the bottom. Instead my knee twisted and I heard it grind as I fell to the ground. As time went on it started getting hot and is very sore. I looked it up and apparently I have sprained my knee. I am now walking like I need a cane. It is sore but not as painful as Sunday. I think I just need to rest it.

Sunday after Sunday School we went to Gazebo burger eith a couple from class, during which Brennon cried alot. Sunday afternoon I visited mom. She is doing good. She talked about her saliditorium speech she gave when she graduated from high school. Apparently it was so good in the newspaper it said "Linda Ripper had a good speech, her mother probably wrote it." I am surprised she remembers that. Now I am on to putting more plugs in the house. I wonder if I can get some foam to put over all of the corners in the house. Is that overkill?

My House Loves Me

2010-07-09T12:20:00.001-05:00

This morning I did not want to get up. I had set my house to wake me up early for my appointment today so it started its routine at 6:30AM. Last night I turned on the emotion chip for my home. I awoke to my home saying this: "I think, I love you". Five minutes later,"You look beautiful today." Five minutes later,"You are so clever." It is rather amusing. I wonder if Holly heard my house profess her love for me? Maybe my house just loves me in a brotherly way. Yeah, thats it. I do know it has an insult mode as well. Should I turn that on too? Although waking up to "You look ugly today" would be weird as well.

Last night I set it for a random compliment every 5 minutes after 7AM, when I am home. The computer uses a bluetooth connection in my iPhone to detect if I am on the premises. If it detects me it will then know I am home. I can also set it up to tie into the door lock for all my friends. For instance I will give all my friends a personalized house code. When you come to the door to unlock it you use this code. Then the house knows you are there, at which point you will get compliments or insults from it, whichever you prefer. I could even have it turn on lights for you when you enter.

I wonder how far I am going to take this smart home stuff? As time goes on touch screen computers and web cams will get cheaper and cheaper. I can envision a panel pc in every room, with an embedded nightvision camera, microphone and speaker intercom system using a gps so it knows what room of the house you are in. Back in the day that was sci-fi. Now it is reality. I don't think about turning on lights in the morning because that is done for me. My computer does the following: lets me sleep to realistic waves, when I wake up it turns on the bedroom light and bathroom light, speaks a voice alarm for 30 minutes encouraging me to get up, speaks the weather forecast, speaks a daily joke, speaks a daily bible verse, speaks the traffic report for my route to work and turns off all of the lights when I am gone. During the day I can get on my phone and check the cameras in the house and turn on and off lights. Then I can activate the lock to let people in if they need it. I can control which music plays in which room - the bedroom, bathroom, living room and pool area. All that is left is for me to call it HAL and have it say "what are you doing Brian, this is highly irregular" when I try to unplug it. As long as I don't remove the humans from the system we should be fine. Maybe I should call it the WOPR. 2 points for the movie references.

Hearty Apps

2010-07-08T12:52:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow I get to go in for my heart stress test. Every year they have me run on a treadmill and sometimes they take a sonogram of my heart. I find it rather interesting and technical, but hard work. Basically I go in and they have me run as fast as I can for as long as I can. Considering I have not been exercising the results should be pretty bad. However, since last year I have lost about 20 pounds so it may not be that bad. My blood pressure has also been normal for years since I am on medicine for it. I am well controlled. I think my heart is just fine. I did quit taking those cholesterol drugs because of the side effects, yet my cholesterol is still normal even after I quit. I think that whole cholesterol thing might not be as understood as we think.

So the question people ask is - why not exericising? Why not dieting? Well, I actually have been dieting, but it is a different way of dieting. It requires a long post as to my methodology but let me put it this way. Since I started on my patent pending "Stasis Diet" I have not gained any weight. I am going to create an iPhone app for it and will release it to the world. It is going to change the way people think about weight loss and I think will make people happy as well. On the surface it is probably the world's easiest diet, but underneath it all there are psychological games being played. The net result is that you are happy with your weight, conscoius of your food decisions and gradually train yourself to stop overeating. All without surgery and rules.

But first on the iPhone app market is a RideSearch app. This time I am actually building it and will release it because I found a simple way to do it. Go to SeattleClouds.com to see how easy it is. Finally I can complete what I started. Of course, my level of caring about the site has decreased, but this week I jumped over 13,000 members. For some reason I had a couple of days where 20 people joined up. I wonder also about adding facebook and twitter integration. That could increase the members rather rapidly. However working on the site could bite into my schedule. I will only do it if it is fun.

Endless Loop, pooL sseldnE

2010-07-07T13:34:00.001-05:00

Brennon is really starting to slobber now. I think he has more teeth coming in. Sometimes he gets so squirmy it is hard to contain him. He is able to pull himself up and stand. The other day when I was playing guitar in his room he grabbed my legs, proceeded to stand up and grab my guitar. I think he wants to play. That is kind of our routine. I put him to bed when I come home. I take him upstairs, change him, put him in his pjs and play with him. I play with him on the floor then I grab the guitar and entertain him. He of course thinks he's got it figured out. He will grab the fretboard with one hand and grabe the other strings with another. However, strumming eludes him. I think to most kids the idea of strumming is hard to grasp. They are all used to push buttons, even in playing guitar hero. Brennon loves remote controls and iPhones. He likes to push the buttons. That must be in his genes.

Speaking of iPhones I am frustrated with AT&T a little. While my phone is the best ever, my data plan leaves something to be desired. When I came back they gave me 2 Gig a month for $25. Then $10 after that for each gig. My wife however has the unlimited plan for $20. If she were to upgrade her phone she would get to keep her data plan. She does not use it like I do. In just 3 days I racked up 200MB. I am on my way to surpassing the 2 Gig limit. So I call up AT&T and ask them if I can get back on the unlimited plan and they say no. So I try to figure out a way. What if Holly and I switched phone numbers. Then I would get the unlimited data plan on the iPhone 4 but I would have her number. Then I said, "well, what if I set up call forwarding so that it sends calls to my number on her phone to her number on my phone. Then I did the reverse. That way calls would go to the correct place." According to the AT&T rep there would be an endless loop of call forwards. Plus text messages won't be forwarded.

I am sure I can figure this all out. For now I am going to see how much data I use a month. Maybe getting a third phone would work. I take Holly's number and data plan and forward calls to her number to the her phone. Then the new phone takes my number and forwards the calls to my phone. So we would have a phone whose sole purpose is to forward calls. Of course I would still receive her text messages and the new phone would receive my messages. Ack. I wonder if there is such a thing as text forwarding. More tests...

July 4th Update

2010-07-06T11:49:00.001-05:00

Let's see. I had a good relaxing weekend. On Friday it was date night so Holly and I went to Rafain's. They had a special going on for the 4th. That place is the best Brazilian meat buffet ever. I had a lot of the house special. They call it Picanya. It is really rump roast cooked tenderly with garlic and salt on it. I tried to make it one time and it was pretty good, but it takes like 3 hours to cook. Saturday I hung around the house with Brennon. It was raining all day so we cancelled our 4th of July gathering at our house. I am thinking we will have it in a couple of weeks. I was like, why have a swimming/cookout when it is raining? Saturday night we watched Return of the King with the rifftrax. That is a very long movie. The rifftrax was funny. We didn't finish it and had to watch the rest on Sunday.

On Sunday Holly started teaching the 4 year olds at Sunday School so I actually made it to church and sunday school. Then I went to mom's church with her. So there are all these grey haired ladies and then there is me. Kind of weird, but I sure mom enjoys my prescence. She is going to see an obgyn soon about her bleeding problems. We are hoping it is not endometriosis. It is like a cancer. I am surprised that the doctor has not quickly done stuff. Mom has been like this since December. IMO that is ridiculus, but the fact that he is waiting makes me think there is a low probability.

So on this fourth of July I saw one firecracker. Just one. I heard loud popping in the backyard so I went back there and someone had shot off a roman candle. That was it. Then I could hear black cats. So I got in the hot tub and proceeded to watch for some more. Unfortunately none were up in the air. Of course the baby woke up as well after hearing the popping. Monday I relaxed at home and didn't wake up till 11AM. It is nice to finally have some sleep. I put up our new door lock as well. It is a Schlage Link lock. I have the ability to control it from my phone. That is so cool. I can also issue combinations to friends and have them active at certain times of the day. Holly is starting to decorate the house as well. I think we are here to stay.

Happy 8 Year Old Warrior Day!

2010-07-02T12:56:00.001-05:00

Happy Independance Day to one and all! I always liked the 4th of July. To see fireworks and listen to patriotic music. To do the old "oooh" and "aaah" when you see them. I wonder if I will see some this year? Now I am grateful just to have Monday off. So I was wondering, what was my great-great-great grandpa doing during the American Revolution? Most people have no idea. Fortunately I did the family tree back in the day and know.

He was the son of the first Bass in America and his name was Samuel Bass Jr. Samual Bass Jr was born December 29th, 1724 and died Aprl of 1807. That makes him 52 when July 4th happened. He had a son, named Josiah Bass who was born in 1768 when Samuel was 44 years old. Wow, that is a late arrival. Josiah would have been 8 years old when the Revolution happened. He was in it. At 8 years old he was listed as a soldier. He must have been the kid with the drums who marches with the soldiers. They lived in Braintree Massachusets. It was later renamed to Quincy Massachusetts. Apparently that is the place where the Basses and Adams hung out. I imagine Samuel Bass Jr had a role in the war. He was a surveyer of roads and probably helped in the planning of events. He also ran an Inn and had a license to sell liquor. He probably served many a soldier.

Now his son, Josiah, was too young to be involved, but I can imagine he really wanted to be involved. As a result in his later youth that led to what I now call "The Incident". An incedent so nerve wracking that the President of the US was called on to help. On December 9th, 1781 when Josiah was 13, Josiah's mom pleaded with Abigail Adams to write her husband to get her son back from England. Apparently young Josiah had joined an American Privateer ship, called the Essex, and it was captured by England. From the letter written by Abigail Adams:

"Capt. Cathcart, Commander of the Privateer Essex, from Salem, went out on a cruise last April, and was on the 10th of June so unfortunate as to be taken while cruising in the English Channel, and carried to England. The officers were all confined there, but the sailors were sent prisoners to Plymouth jail, twelve of whom were from this town (Quincy), a list of whom I enclose. The friends of these people have received intelligence, by way of an officer who belonged to the Protector, and who escaped from the jail, that in August last they were all alive, but several of them were very destitute of clothing, having taken out few with them, and those for summer — particularly Ned Saville and Job Field, Josiah Bass and Bryant Newcomb."

He was only 13 years old and had lived through the Revolution. Apparently he was a "cabin boy" whatever that is and got caught when he was 12 and was in jail for at least a year. I wonder if Ned, Job and Bryant were all friends. I can just imagine them going to their parents "Dad, Ned and Job are going on the cruise ship this summer. I want to go to. Come on, we want some fun. I am already a war veteran, what's the worst that can happen?" Then all of a sudden they get captured and put in jail. Meanwhile the moms are worried and get together and get John Adams to work out a deal. Apparently they do and young Josiah Bass is sent back to the US. But by now he knows what he wants to do in life. He becomes Captain Josiah Bass. By age 14 he was a Revolutionary War Veteran, a pirate and a prisoner. Wow.

A Post on Evidence

2010-07-01T13:38:00.001-05:00

So today I shall think about philosophical differences in the world. The other day Holly and I were watching a show on PBS about an athiest vs creationism and fundamentalism. The whole thing was rather sad. As I watched it I had an answer for why everyone was wrong in their belief systems. Of course the TV can't listen or answer back. It comes down to one fact that cannot be disproved - humanity knows very little about the Bible, God and the universe. From the athiest perspective they claimed that as science found out why things were happening like cell regeneration, the water cycle, the orbits of the planets and sun then the old fallback "because God made it" was becoming minimalized and eventually proved there is no god.

Their idea is that God only fills in the gap of the unknown and once we know how things happen God has nothing to do with it. That scientific equation seeks to turn God into an unknown variable, say X. When you solve the equation for X then X ends up being 0. For instance having a baby in science terms would be: Man + Woman = Baby. In God terms it would be Man + Woman + God = Baby. So to disprove god, science turns the equation into Man + Woman + X = Baby. X = 0. If X is God then God = 0. It is a logical equation but flawed because the premise of the entire system of nature is not taken into account. God is said to be an agent of change and not a maker of the equation, which He is. Why? Because you cannot logically prove a creators non-existence or existence based upon a creation no matter how hard you try. Creation is only circumstantial evidence of God. Therefore disproving creation does not disprove God. If God is above all and we cannot see how He works then we can only see evidence of His works.

Just because we know how the planets revolve around the sun does not mean that God did not make and does not control gravity. The athiests could not disprove God so they sought to disprove that God is a creator of the world. In doing so they come up with a flawed assumption that their knowledge of the universe is greater than the universes creator. So an athiest has to have faith in their own reasoning, something that even Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin would call foolish. So then the question always comes down to faith. But it is not over. There is evidence for God. I have direct evidence. However when I give it that means that someone has to put their faith in me, something I would not want. Instead you must let God reveal himself to you.

On the flipside I also was talking about the flaws in creationism and fundamentalism. Mostly it is because of a lack of understanding of the Bible. The same thing scientists do in proving evolution is the same way a creationist proves creation - by studying the evidence and in some cases twisting and ignoring evidence. However, there is not much evidence for their current interpetation of the Genesis account. That is what makes it so sad. It is like if this were the 15th century they would be people talking about how the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe. Christians need to accept what little we currently know about the universe and accept that no one on Earth knows the answers. Even the word "day" in Hebrew can mean "a long period of time". I would think that a Hebrew bible is more correct than an interpeted Bible. Matter of fact, most words in Hebrew have multiple meanings. That is why there are so many interpetations. As a Christian I chose not to lean on my own understanding, but on the Spirit of God in my heart. That is where the real Word is. And that's all I've got to say about that... for now.

Barnyfied

2010-06-30T12:10:00.001-05:00

So I am watching how Brennon is growing. He is doing more stuff like pulling himself up, sitting up and playing with toys. It is like his personality is developing. He is generally a happy baby. I hear him laugh and babble as much as I hear him cry. He says dada alot. This morning as I kissed him goodbye I heard dada. We are working on mama. Having a baby is a big blessing. I feel like I can influence him and he looks up to me. I just want to have fun with him right now though. Holly gets to see him alot in the summer now. I can tell going back to work is going to be hard.

I was thinking about perspective. I wonder how he will see the world. I am hoping to teach him about comparing himself to others. Our neighborhood has a Lamborghini and a high school kid recently got a $50,000 BMW. I wonder if Brennon is going to think he has to do without even though he has so much. When he goes to school he will be surrounded by an upper class. Will he want a BMW when he turns 16? Hopefully not. I think though as parents Holly and I consider character a very high priority. Who knows, he may be able to teach his friends humility. He has so much living to do. It is all unwritten. That is so cool.

Of course the fun is in playing with him. He has books and some toys. Holly has him watching Sesame Street. It hasn't changed much since I was a kid. I think Elmo though has become the star. I remember actually learning stuff on Sesame Street. Then the Electric Company was cool cause it had music and Spider Man. Oh, then 3-2-1 Contact came on. That was more of a science show. Science is fun to do. Of course once you throw math into it people tend to not like it anymore. I suppose that is why those shows were replaced by Barney and Dora. Of course I wonder how Barney sings he loves me and makes me love him though he has never seen me. Ack. We are a happy family. Yes. We. Are. A. Happy. Family.

Manly PC

2010-06-29T11:55:00.001-05:00

Well, I've still got it. I built a computer last night in 2 hours, turned it on and it worked. Some guys know alot about cars and can talk engine sizes like a 400 block engine and replacing a cam shaft, whatever that is. Other guys know alot about yard work and can talk on and on about how they are landscaping their backyard and the best time to mow and plant trees. Other guys talk about sports going on and on about what the latest espn news says as if it is the end of the world when someone gets traded. Then there are the guys that talk politics all of the time, about how so and so said this and the world is ending. There are also the guys who are into church activities and ministry work, talking about those interests and also talking about it as if the world is ending. Me, I know alot about computers and technology. That is my manly passion. I could talk on and on about it, but I have a feeling no one cares.

I have built many computers in my life. When I first started building them I would get frustrated as I would not do it exactly right and the thing wouldn't boot up. Then I learned about motherboards and jumpers. I learned about watts and volts and how to place memory in a computer. That became easy as I just snapped it into place. I started to learn about PCI cards and how to place them and hook them up. Back in the day we had IDE cables and they were harder to deal with. Now these SATA cables are so simple it takes a minute to install a new hard drive. The makers of computer parts are making computers easier to build. I hear USB 3.0 will still be compatible with USB 2.0.

In this latest computer I chose a solid state drive, only 40 gigs. I am hoping this living room media center PC will last 10 years. It practically has no moving parts to it. When I turned it on I had to look because I could not hear anything going. No hard drive, no fans because it is a low voltage Atom 510 motherboard. I am impressed. The best computers you can ever get are ones you build yourself, as you can make sure that you have the high quality parts instead of skimping on something. This hard drive is tested for 1.5 million hours before it fails. Thats 171 years. It may last longer I will. A far jump from the old 5 year lifespan of a hard drive. Ain't technology wonderful?

This is a test blog...

2010-06-28T18:18:00.001-05:00

This is a test blog and I am driving in my car and I have a new job on icon on my face and I am seeing how well voice recognition software. Hopefully it's pretty good right now. My experience the job or not. Good listen

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Sleep Bank Deficit Spending

2010-06-28T13:10:00.001-05:00

On Friday I came home and slept alot. Even though I did that I still feel tired on Saturday. I guess it is that sleep bank deficit thing they always talk about. Saturday I watched Brennon and cleaned a little. We all went to our Sunday School Class cookout. It was good to get to know our class. Brennon has some friends in there too. I sat him down in a playroom and an older kid started playing with a truck and Brennon was too. It was cool to see that kind of interaction. It is like he is able to something without the help of his parents. Kind of weird.

On Sunday we awoke and Brennon's nose was running like a racehorse. He has been stuffed up for two weeks but now it seemed worse. I think when the snot turns from clear to yellow is when you have to worry about some kind of infection. Fortunately he didn't have a fever. But I figured I would take him to Care Now. So I skipped Sunday School in the morning and took him. At the office they asked for Brennon's social. Now I didn't have it and I could see Holly was at home on the couch without her phone by looking at the cameras on my phone. So I went to my home control app and started flashing all the lights in house hoping she would figure out I was communicating. Eventually she did pick up her phone. After all was said and done we determined I was at the wrong place so I left and went home. Holly took him in today instead.

Sunday afternoon Holly had a baby shower at our house. This time it was just for girls. So I went to visit mom and got her things from the store. I then went to her church at 2PM and listened to the old peoples sermon. Then I still had some time to kill so I went to Fry's. There I determined the cheapest fastest computer I could build that would last for a long time for the living room(to replace the broken laptop). It was a Atom 510 motherboard/processor(low power) with an Intel 40 gig SSD drive - no moving parts and 4 gig of ram. That computer should last for 10 years. In my experience hard drives are the first to go. This thing is fanless and should be able to play netflix and run the speakers in the house just fine. So I came home and we had some friends stick around and went swimming. It was fun. Now I am at work, still drinking diet cokes. I don't think parents ever get much sleep. I guess I will adjust.

ITunes is a Red Herring

2010-06-25T11:50:00.001-05:00

So today I am really, really tired. I suppose I could say that when Brennon awoke at 5AM that is what did it, but the reality is that I was already up at 5AM. Matter of fact I did not get to sleep until 5:45AM. I woke up at 8:00AM to go to work. With only 2 hours and 15 minutes sleep I am drinking diet cokes like water. That seems to be working.

So what led me to this condition? It twas, my new iPhone and Apple's bad iTunes software. I enjoyed playing with my new phone during the day and last night at 11 I plugged it in to my computer to sync the apps, music and videos. I think Apple makes iTunes crash on purpose so we will go buy a Mac. During the sync iTunes kept on popping up errors. So I figured maybe reinstall itunes and restore the phone back to its original state would do it. When I did that the iPhone froze at the restore point and iTunes popped up all these errors saying it could not restore it. My phone was now a brick.

Of course, me being a software engineer would not let that happen. I know most people would have gone to bed and taken it back to the store to get it fixed. Well, I spent 5 hours getting it imaged and putting it in a secret mode that allows me to upgrade the OS directly through USB. People do that to jailbreak their phones. I didn't do it with this phone cause it doesn't need it. I just used that knowledge to get it back to start. After a couple of hours of mess ups I went to another computer and it worked. I don't think 64 Bit Itunes is that stable. By 4AM I started the sync and got some errors that I had to correct like deleting the photo cache. Finally I was able to put my music, apps and videos on it, a total of 23 gigs of stuff. It is finally all together, looking good, up and running. However, I am not. More sleep...

Restoration

2010-06-24T12:45:00.001-05:00

Today's post is entitled restoration. As I stood in line this morning for my preordered iPhone I was thinking not just about phones but about life. This past year I have had to sacrifice for many things. I have not minded because there was always a greater goal, but it has been a growing experience. The one thing that goes through my mind whenever I do make sacrifices is restoration. I suppose because I have taken many financial risks with a new child, selling our old house, buying a new house and finally getting a new phone. Every time there seems to be some level of restoration. For instance, we knew having a baby could cost alot with medical bills, but somehow having two insurances meant we were spared from suffering the brunt of it, even when he went in the NICU. A bill of $28,000 was taken care of by the insurance companies. That is restoration.

Because we were spared that debt we were able to get a new house. First we had to sacrifice financially to repair our old house: like new paint, new carpet and a new fence. The restoration in that was that we didn't have to go that much lower on our asking price and we actually were able to sell the house in the nick of time. We took the risk of buying a new house while we hadn't sold our old one. Talk about risk. Yet during that time I had faith that because we made a sacrifice in fixing it up we would sell it, and we did. Now getting into the new house did cost a lot, but I had faith that the tax credit would restore us and it will.

Up next is the phone restoration. When my iPhone was washed and my contract was not up I didn't know what to do. So I got a Go phone and waited out the end of my contract. When that ended I thought the HD2 from T-Mobile would be even better. That thing they call a phone ended up a catastrophe. Now as I browse the 3G internet while listening to pandora and checking my email on my new phone I finally feel restored. The screen is so clear I don't have to squint when looking at small text. The front camera is cool and can act like a mirror. The size is smaller. Yet it has better battery life. I am really happy about this purchase. Its funny how life is. Yesterday my living room computer died. I wonder how that restoration is going to go? Better wait on that one. For now I am going to sell my HD2 on EBay. More restoration is on the way.

Back in the Day

2010-06-22T12:57:00.001-05:00

As the big day approaches I am getting excited. This Thursday I will be getting my new iPhone. Yes I know most people are like,"its just a phone." but this means that the nightmare called the t-mobile hd2 will be over. When I first got that phone I was excited because it had a bigger screen and it was a hotspot. But as time went on the phone got worse and worse. It would overheat, freeze, and have to have its memory cleared and be reset at least once a day. Then calls would come in and it would be Cory calling but the phone would say it was Laura. Their facebook contact syncing app scrambled my contacts. Then of course calls would drop more often. The data plan and web browser was slow. The battery needs to be recharged every 12 hours. The app marketplace is more expensive and there are less apps in it. It is just a bad phone. I am glad I will be replacing it.

The whole "its just a phone" mentality is kind of weird. It is like the people who say that would be the jocks in high school who made fun of smart people. Kind of like being proud that you don't know how to operate a smart phone or need a smart phone or even a computer. Yes, we do know we don't need the phone, but we also know that with it we become more powerful with knowledge flowing from our fingertips. The sad part is in high school being cool might have been the pinnacle of popularity, but in the real world being cool is so far down the list no one cares anymore. Being technical can be powerful, being powerful helps one become rich, being rich helps one get the pleasurable things of this world. There is alot of prosperity in being a geek, I think my life is a testimony to that.

Of course there is a dark flipside. It is all fleeting. Eventually when I stop learning I will stop being technical. Then I will stop being powerful. Then I could not be as prosperous. So the thinking is that I really need to take advantage of my skills while they are hot. That is why I create websites. See I was reading an article about how at Google there are 20,000 employees and only 200 over age 40. Since I am 35 that means I have 5 years to go. Time to program my new phone into an empire before it is too late and I have to be brought out to pasture saying things like "In my day we had something called a desktop." and "Does anyone know what COBOL is?" to all the young whipper snappers out there.

I get a new Holiday!

2010-06-21T12:18:00.001-05:00

Friday we stayed home and chilled. Saturday I took Holly's mom to see Toy Story 3 at Studio Movie Grill while Holly took Brennon to a baby shower. The movie was good. It was a kiddie movie through the baginning of it. There were some funny moments. I started getting into it in the middle and end parts as the plot started to take some twists. It was a really good movie. It was the plot that made it. The 3D was kind of ok, it wasn't like in your face or anything. I think that is the way 3D movies are going nowadays. Now it is just a medium. Kind of like the way at the begginning of the color TV revolution they all wore bright colors. Nowadays color is not as important as content.

Saturday Holly made me cool Star Wars pancakes for fathers day. They were hard to flip as yodas ears kept on falling off and Vaders mask would break. Eventually she got it right and it was good. Brennon was given his card and walked it over to me on his walker. It was cute. At VBS this last week they made these cards and put his footprint in it. Brennon liked the card too as he started to eat it before he gave it to me.

Sunday I went to Sunday School and Brennon and Holly stayed home cause Brennon still has a cold. It was weird for people to say to me "happy Fathers Day" It was like, happy? Fathers? Day? Wow, I guess I now have something to celebrate and be celebrated for. That is cool. Holly's grandparents and cousin came over and I made choice steaks. I watched a movie called Crazy Heart about a country musician. It was ok, but a little slow and dramatic and mostly pointless. I ended up the evening chasing princess around the neighborhood again after going swimming. I swear, that dog needs a leash and our backyard. Later I watched some old band videos of me playing guitar. I remember really having fun being onstage. Ah, memories.

Happy Fathers Day!

2010-06-18T12:46:00.001-05:00

So father's day is now upon us. Gosh, it is like time just keeps on moving forward. I now qualify as a father under the father's day rules. That is weird. It is hard to think of me as a dad. I read an article about how dads enable their kids to take more risks. I believe that. There is a difference between dads and moms. A dad will let their kid explore farther and let their kid fall and see if they can pick themselves up. I am just like that. I will let Brennon go farther, but always watching, and will see if he can learn not to bump his head on something.

What to say about my dad? I do respect what he has done. As a doctor and then a psychiatrist he has treated many patients for many different diseases, mental and physical. That puts him in a class of a servant. Just like a teacher people depended on him to help them. I think in our family there is this perfectionistic streak. I know my sister has it and I have it and I would not be surprised if my dad has it. It is like we seek knowledge and love to learn. I don't know how many degrees my dad has, but he is still learning to this day. Going to Harvard and Tulane and getting an MD must have been hard as well. There are great learning accomplishments on his side. I think growing up I tried to mimic that and my sister did the same. She did it much better than I.

As a kid, when my parents got divorced my mom got to keep the Apple IIe. I think looking back that was a big tie to my father because I knew he liked to program computers. As I programmed it was like spending time with him. I continued to learn and I think felt a connection of the power of computers. Over the years we have shared a common bond of computers and gadgetry. When all the Basses got together last year we all pulled out our iPhones and talked about apps and the like. It was obvious that even though we never spent much time together that our family bond is strong. I believe that family blood ties a family member to each other. I am reminded of the dad who's son did a crime vs the stepdad whose stepson commited a crime. As oppossed to the stepdad the real dad said, "he is still my son no matter what, because he is blood". The same is true for my dad. He will always be my father, no matter what. Happy Fathers Day Dad!

Nine Months

2010-06-17T13:05:00.001-05:00

Hmm, what to talk about? I can't think of anything. Brennon is cute. He went to the doctor yesterday. He still has a little fluid in one ear from his cold but is doing fine. He is now tall enough to be longer than my arms. This makes it harder for me to carry him. The best times we have are when he is playing on the ground and I am too. I think I now realize why parents do that. It is better than having them jump up and down on your lap and hitting you in the head. Right now he likes to touch my teeth. It is like I can hear him thinking,"so that is what is happening to me." He is putting 2 and 2 together. Pretty smart for 9 months. I wonder what I was like at 9 months?

Feed Me Apple

2010-06-16T12:56:00.001-05:00

So yesterday at 9AM I stopped in at Best Buy and pre-ordered a new 32 Gig Black IPhone 4. I should get one on the day they are released since I was like 3rd in line. It really wasn't crowded. I think people didn't know that you could pre-order it at Best Buy. I did and knew I could get reward points for buying it there. I am addicted to reward points. I am glad Best Buy was not down like the AT&T and Apple sites. However, they had a different system and were taking pre-orders on paper so I don't know if I will still get it on time. We shall see.

I am excited about this new iPhone. It is an amazing feat of technology. It introduces to the world "facetime" which is two way video calling. Because there is a camera on the front and back of the phone I can look at the phone and it will broadcast my face and I will be able to see whomever I am talking toos face. Of course there is one big caveat to the facetime, it only works with other iPhone 4s and it only works over WiFi. However, as time goes on it will expand. For now it will be a gimmick, cool, but not practical. The other great things about this iPhone are the extended battery life, by 40%, 4 times the screen resolution, and the ability to arrange apps in a folder. They say it is smaller and faster and the glass is 4 times as hard as it was before. As a techno junkie I can't wait. The hype is big.

Then there are the apps. My home and future car will be connected to this phone. I will be able to control all of lights in the house, turn up and down all of the air conditioners, listen to all of the music, stream all of my videos including netflix, view all of the cameras and even control the house door locks with the phone. Then the Nissan Leaf has an iPhone app that will allow me to turn on the air conditioner before I get to the car. There is also a GPS tracker app and a viper car start app which will actually turn on the car and unlock the doors. Top that off with voice guided navigation and voice recognition and you have a device that makes me powerful. I think technology has made me hungry for power. The more you use it the easier life becomes. The iPhone will feed me for a little while. I wonder if I can get full? More tests.

The Logical Method

2010-06-15T12:54:00.001-05:00

What are my thoughts? I have been thinking about deception in general and how many people still trust their sources, like news radio, politicians, mainstream media and the like. I have determined I am a critical thinker. I require evidence and proof of any allegations. I don't believe people at face value and believe there are motivations behind all allegations. If you hear someone say something about someone else, there has to be motive for it. From people talking about the President to talking about the oil spill. I think I have become cynical. As a result I have developed a new paradigm. It is kind of an enhancement to the scientific method. I think everyone can use it to determine if they are being lied to. I think we all should assume people we listen to are lying until we can prove they are telling the truth. I call it the Logical Method. Where you live your life by always asking questions and always researching sources. Google is great for that.

Steps in the Logical Method

1. Formulate a hypothesis(testable statement) based upon a theory, someone's presumptions or someone's allegations
2. Prove the inverse of the hypothesis wrong by testing it from various perspectives.
4. Test the hypothesis in various conditions and use a control group.
5. Look at the worst case and best case scenerio and who or what benifits from it.
6. Determine based on the source of evidence if what is said is true.
7. When you can defend the hypothesis against all scrutiny using the source of evidence then you have a successful hypothesis.
8. If you refuse to listen to the opposite view and can't defend against its attacks using evidence then you are wrong.

So what am I talking about? Not only science but daily living. I have been reading up on this oil spill business and wanted to know how I should react. Is it the end of the world or a little spill? News sources are so vague about everything their lack of research shows they can't understand its impact. It has been like 60 days so I wondered what is the scope of it. As I researched it I came up with a number of 60 million of gallons in the ocean. That is alot. But I have no perspective. So I researched oil tankers. The biggest one can hold over 200 million gallons. That is even more. I now have a perspective. Then to learn that 20 million has already been cleaned up made things even better.

That gives me clues to why people are trying to use this spill for political means - like stopping drilling, more regulations, saving the environment and such. Because people are not educated fear can be a driving force behind things. Even if they are good things we should not be motivated by untruths. But I had to test the inverse to be sure. So I researched the end of the world scenerios. I knew something about peak oil from my past. There is a faction of people who have untested theories about oil coming from deep in the earth and not fossilized carbon. They think oil is neverending. Then they go on CNN and tell the world how we are all going to die from it how once a hurricane comes all of the coast is going to be oily. They are doing another disservice by lying to the public as they cannot defend against the scientific evidence.

So in conclusion I went through my new logical method to determine that all of it is of no reason for concern. We are already cleaning it up and it will be stopped. We can fit it all in a tanker. Both the left and the right are wrong. Here is a question for you all to answer. Which side showed more hatred? The democrats in talking about Bush or the republicans in talking about Obama. I wonder what the truth is. There would have to be alot of research about this. Since I don't know the answer I will give no opinion. And that's all I've got to say about that.

Bad Dog!

2010-06-14T13:57:00.001-05:00

So this weekend we hung out around the house. I think I went swimming on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is so hot outside the pool is actually very cooling. I am starting to realize that I have been a completely indoors person for the past 3 years. I think that is probably why I developed allergies. I would never go outside. Only when I would go from my car to work would I get any outdoors time. Now that I have a pool I am noticing things, like trees and clouds. I think a good dose of nature can improve everyone's mood.

On Saturday Holly and I took Brennon for a stroll in the mall. I was pretty close to getting an iPad at the Apple store but I relented from my gadget addiction. Simply because I am going to get the next iPhone. I know how I talked about how my current phone is the best, but I have known that it has some problems. Over time those problems have become magnified. Nowadays it doesn't hang up, drops almost every call, switches contact names, and dials people at random. It is like this phone is possessed. So I shall jump to AT&T and get the iPhone at a discount. Of course I wonder how to break the current contract. We shall see. The new iPhone is said to rock. I will be glad to get it.

Sunday night I got my exercise for the week. Princess decided to escape again - 2 times. The first time was around 7pm when I was barbecuing. She keeps on digging holes in the backyard and slips under the fence. It took me quite a while to get her. Finally after running around the neighborhood about 10 times I subdued her. The second time was around 9pm when Holly put some boxes on the front porch. Princess ran out the front door. By now I am like, well, if she wants to come back she will. So I work on printing off some "lost dog" fliers.

Ah but around 10:30 I decide I can't let her win and try to get her. First I hear the jingling of her collar. That is the only way to track her. Then I run after the noise. Of course she chases rabbits all over the place. I was hot and sweaty, but determined. Finally I hear her in someone elses backyard. Somehow she slipped in a hole under their fence, but apparently couldn't get back. So I get a shovel to make the hole bigger and grab her. When I go to return the shovel back to our garage she goes out through the hole and is off again. I am using a bright flashlight and am running in between houses. I am amazed I didn't get the cops called on me. Finally at 12:45 I decided to give up and let her be. On my way back in the house I decided to shut the back door slowly and let it creak. It was then when Princess appeared in the backyard. I kept on letting it squeek and then she comes strolling in the house. I just had one thing to say to her. "Bad dog!"

Freedback in the House

2010-06-11T12:50:00.001-05:00

Let's see. What is going on with me? Not much. I am enjoying life. Brennon is getting bigger every day. I will have to post some new pictures when I have time. He is crawling awfully fast. I have a feeling he is going to give me alot of exercise in the coming years. Princess already gives me exercise. She escaped 3 times this week by digging out of the backyard. Luckily when she escapes she always stays within a three block radius. Of course that means I have to run, even sprint to catch up with her. I think I have done alot of sweating this week.

Yesterday we had our yearly Whirly Ball corporate team building event. It was fun. I didn't score any goals but I was good at passing the ball and catching the ball. What is Whirley Ball? It is a sport that combines bumper cars with basketball with Hai Lai. Basically you get on a team and you get a bumper car. Then they put a wiffle ball on the court. You can't touch the ball, you have to use a scoop. Then to score a goal you have to fling the ball at a little target and hit it hard enough for it to register. It is arranged like a basketball court with a one pointer being a close shot and a two pointer being a farther shot. Anyways, I played that for 2 hours. I wonder if it is played anywhere else?

I got the Beatles Rock band last night at Best Buy for the Wii. It is a good game. I like being able to play the old songs. Even getting the microphone out and singing along might be fun. Of course any real guitarist knows that the rock band guitar is a toy. I do have some skill playing on medium because I have already made my pinky strong by playing real guitar for years. I tried to think of a username to play online but they were all taken. So instead of my name being Feedback I am now called Freedback. In an alternate universe that is cool sounding name. Maybe.

Creating Creativity

2010-06-10T11:51:00.001-05:00

Let's see. I have determined that I am lacking in creativity. I always try to think of the next obsession to have. I have the ability to pick my obsession and then become consumed by it. That is how RideSearch was born. I have skills but now that I am older I am trying to figure out how to use them to its full capacity. I think my next project is going to have one thing my other projects haven't had - profits. I thought, well, why not try the stock market? I suppose since it is going down it is a good time to buy and I don't have to actually do anything, but the problem is you really have no way of meeting any kind of projected output and I have no skills in the market. I could easily lose money and that would go against my goal.

I think my biggest thing is I want to be rewarded for my efforts. I was never rewarded for past projects and that has increased my desire to have a business or investment pay off. I was actually perusing my business model for RideSearch the other day. I haven't worked on it since Feb of 2009. I would have been profitable had I finished developing the product. I was going to charge $450 a year to companies to have their own carpooling management site internally and externally. That was a good idea. But I learned that the effort to build it required passion and I had lost that. Say I had built it, how was I going to sell it to other companies? Without passion for it I could not even attempt to sell it. Without passion for it I cannot even put the site up for sale. However, I did have 21 users sign up the other day. That is pretty good for doing nothing.

Anyways, so, new projects. I thought about making a game. Then I realized how long it would take and decided against it. Then I thought about a snow cone stand in Plano, then who would operate it? I thought about trying to make some music again and selling an album, but I have lost my creativity. The same is true for writing a novel. A burger stand is also a good idea cause I think I make good burgers, but everyone thinks their burger is the best. Maybe making a product and selling it solely on the internet. That always works, but what product could it be? What would the initial investment cost? As I have ran out ideas I realize the first step in all of this is one thing - get my creativity back. So sayeth the yellow labrador retriever floating above my head with a spatula in his paw.

Nightmare Adventure

2010-06-08T12:24:00.001-05:00

Today's nightmare adventure is brought to you by Brian's subconscoius reminding you to always have an escape route. So there I was, in Wichita Falls at my old house. I was talking to mom and Robbie who were sitting on the couch and I had something to tell them. "What is it?" my mom said. Well you see I went to jail the other day for supposedly killing a man. I was given a choice of whether or not to take a life sentence or the death penalty. I decided to take the death penalty, because logically it is better to die than live a life in prison. "oh dear". So then I go outside and talk to my friends. I say "since I have logically decided to take the death sentence, it would behoove me to try to escape because I have nothing to lose. I can change my name and can go live with my sister in Arizona at her new house. I can make around $2000 a month doing freelance work on the internet from anywhere in the nation. I may end up in Alaska or in California. We shall see."

So now I am running from the cops. I go into a library where they are feeding the homeless. I realize that I am one of them and have blended in. They are all getting in line for food and are given a number to wait in line. I get a number and a reserved seat. I see someone who I used to know. I stopped her and said ,"haven't seen you in a while." and she walks away. Then I go running around the library looking for my seat to eat my dinner. Suddenly one of the cops sees me. She starts to run after me and we end up in an elevator. I have an opportunity to push her down the elevator shaft, but I say "I am not a killer, just give me a head start." So as the door opens I run out into the foyer with cops shooting at me. I duck as they hit someone else.

Suddenly I am in a shack with Holly. I tell her that I have to go because I am wanted. She is like, no, I want to go with you. I say no, you can't and the the cops bust in the door. It is snowing outside. I quickly jump out the window onto the roof. I then attempt to jump over the chimney. Right as I jump I turn into a fluffy bunny rabbit. Holly is behind me and turns into a bunny rabbit as well. The cop shoots me in mid air as I tumble into the snow, a bunny rabbit with blood on it. Finally the cop is standing near my carcass in the snow. With a "he's dead" I wake up. I am glad I am not a bunny rabbit. I am glad I have no one after me. I just have one question. What did I eat to cause such a weird nightmare? Probably raw cookie dough...

Luck of the Draw

2010-06-07T12:07:00.001-05:00

This weekend we hung around the pool. Brennon is still teething so he was up and down all night. We watched some movies on TV. On Sunday we went to our new Sunday School class. Holly's mom came over to watch Brennon as he is still coughy and they would send us home if we brought him. So afterwords we went and saw Shrek 3 in 3D at the studio movie grill. It was good. I thought it was better than number 2 but not as good as number 1.

In other news Benz has the job of selling my magic cards. Remember the card game that I played in college and was addicted to? The card game that consumed my life when I should have been out partying and meeting girls? I had saved all these cards over the years thinking I would eventually play them. I decided to sell them cause I don't expect me to remember how to play when I retire. Well the first lot of 14 cards came up and the total for it was $700. My Mox Pearl got over $200. That is pretty good for an investment of $65 back in the day. Especially since everyone told me I was crazy for getting it. Of course Benz is basically taking 45% of the cut since he is doing it all. I guess if I wasn't so lazy I could have gotten it all. There are still more cards to go.

Anyway I figure I will get either a new iPad or a new iPhone 4 for this money. Yeah, my existing phone the HD2 has lost alot of luster. When Cory calls me his name is Laura from facebook. It had scrambled all of my contacts when I did a facebook sync. It has to be rebooted constantly. The memory management is still bad. The T-Mobile connection drops calls. The T-Mobile data connection is also dropping alot. I guess the marketing hype got me. I am kind of like that. I go with the flow. Over the years though I think I have become more discerning... maybe.

Packing Tracking

2010-06-04T12:25:00.001-05:00

Brennon is getting teeth. I suppose that is why he has been fussy recently. He is also crawling really fast now. I think though because he is crawling his desire to stand up has diminished a little. It is like, why walk? This weekend I am going to lower his crib. He is now pulling himself up enough to where he could probably get out of the crib. We don't want him to fall. He is getting very squirmy and wants to be moving all of the time. This summer will be baby gate time where we put gates on the stairs and around our patio. I think the goal is just to contain him.

I was at Best Buy the other day and noticed they have a GPS tracking device called the kid tracker. When Brennon is older we will stick one on him somewhere. That way we will all know where he is in case he gets lost. I wonder about all that. Say for instance we also give him a two way communicator, where we can always hear and see what he is doing, even when he is not there. Then if we catch him doing something bad we can talk to him as well. I wonder if that is too intrusive? Technology is definitely going to change the way parents do their parenting. Kids will have freedom again, but they will be watched by big father.

It is kind of cool to be able to check up on the goings on when you are not there. For instance our cameras record all of the activity going on in our front porch and backyard. The other day I was watching the last week in review and the UPS guy walks to the door with a package for us. As he approached the door he took the package and threw it like a frisbee at the front door and quickly pressed the doorbell and ran. I couldn't believe it how it got so much air. I guess cause it was a pretty light package, but still he should have placed it on the ground. I suppose I should have saved that video and notified UPS, but there was no damage to the contents. If there was our cameras would have been the evidence. I wonder what would happen if you put a kid tracker on a package? Could you tell how fast it is flying? Hmm.. more tests...

To SAHM or not to SAHM

2010-06-03T12:54:00.001-05:00

Holly's last day of school is tomorrow. That should be fun. Her plans for the summer are to take care of Brennon and teach vacation bible school for a couple of weeks. She needs a vacation after the kid beat her up. Of course they don't know any better since they are MR and don't know what they are doing. She didn't get bruised, just her pride got hurt. Some people are like, "why is Holly working anyways?" So I shall now attempt to answer that question. It is really a multi-part question. I can tell that some people have this kind of attitude that we are doing an injustice by letting Holly work. It is a weird feeling. For some reason I hear their unspoken words.

The first question is "why can't she be a stay at home mom". Now I don't have anything against stay-at-home moms(stahm). Matter of fact I know alot of them and I admire them as they sacrifice a career for their families. Holly is not like them. I have known her for wow, 6 years now, and can tell you being a stahm would not do her or Brennon any good. She would be happy at first and then it would become depressing. She would end up analyzing everything because she would be bored and that would lead to a depression. Boredom does not suit her. Maybe being a stahm with a 4 year old is exciting, but a baby, not really. I'd be more comfortable if she was a stahm when Brennon is 3 than now.

Of course the number one reason she is working is obvious, we want the money. Sure we could get by with one income but both of us have a quality of life that we like and we have the ability to pay off debts faster. Also, it is not like she is working a 12 month job with 2 weeks vacation. She gets roughly a 3 month vacation a year. That is alot. Being a teacher with a baby is a good deal. Brennon also gets more socializing being around other kids at his babysitter. He likes to listen to children laughing on the iPhone. It mesmorizes him. He watches other kids play. He gets Spanish fed to him as well. He will probably start speaking it soon as well. He would go stir crazy living at home alone during the day. He needs other kids and more stimulation. I think it is actually better that he have more than one outlet for caregiving than just parents.

The second question is "why is she teaching in Oak Cliff?" Well, we all know she would get to school quicker if she was in Plano or Frisco. However, she leaves so early in the morning she avoids rush hour. It takes her 45 minutes to get to downtown Dallas. I leave in rush hour and it takes me 45 minutes just to get to north Dallas. The number one answer is she likes her job. She likes her principle and been places she didn't like. I know from my experience job hopping that if you find a place you like you should stick to it. It really is up to her where she teaches and I am sure she has even more reasons. So anyways. Those are the reasons. I am sure for some families they need a sahm. We don't. Holly is happy. I am happy. Brennon is happy. Life is good.

Life of Riley

2010-06-02T12:55:00.001-05:00

So today I am feeling blessed. I guess that happens alot when you have a good wife and child, a good job and a nice house. I like where I am at in life. I've got a great life and great wife. I think my ambition to increase my station in life has waned. I am happy where I am. I don't care if I sell my company, especially since I haven't done anything to sell it. I'll just let it sit and continue to gain 10 members a day. Eventually it will hit critical mass in about 10 years from now. That is when it should have around 50,000 members. Although at some point it could exponentially change and it could happen alot sooner. Either way, it doesn't matter.

So right now I am enjoying getting into habits. I think this last year with the birth of Brennon, the selling and buying of a house, the moving out and in of my mom and the stealing of my car that we have had a lot to deal with. I am enjoying relaxing with very few worries, if any. Things are stablizing. Sure we still have to sell moms house, but that is what the realtor is for. Of course I do like to think about the future. I don't like to dwell on the past because we still have some good times ahead. I am thinking about when we can have friends come over and go swimming. Maybe not a "party" but a gathering. I think people liked swimming in it on Sunday. Maybe have a movie night and people can come over and watch Star Wars or something.

Yesterday we got in the pool and Brennon started kicking. Every time I would say "kick kick kick" he would kick. Then when I stopped saying kick he would stop kicking. It is like he is listening to me. He has his pool floatie keeping him up. I think we will give him lessons next year when he is older. Holly is like,"this is good, it will tire him out." I started kicking as well, maybe it will tire me out. I also find that when I am happy I don't eat as much. That is probably the number one key to weight loss. Enjoying life. Good times, good times.

Chillaxing Weekend

2010-06-01T13:25:00.001-05:00

So this three day weekend was fun. We spent Friday and Saturday cleaning and watching movies. I played with Brennon alot. He seemed to develop allergies and started coughing again. On Sunday he was touching his ear so we took him in to one of those doc shops on the corner and they gave him so anti-biotics for his ear. Luckily there is no fever so it was pretty mild. The biggest thing was that he was down and up every other hour this weekend. So at night we both were exhausted. We would nap during the day.

Saturday I got stuff for our annual Brian and Holly Barbeque Birthday Bash. I went and got some pool toys. I got some rings and floating things, a volleyball net and a basketball net. That should be fun and give us something to do while we play in the pool. Also, that afternoon I spent 3 hours getting mom's memorial day poem printed at kinko's. The guy running it had a hard time printing 2 4x6 cards on one 8.5x11 paper. He seemed to think it can't be done and it took alot of explaining on how to cut the paper to get it right. By the time it was all over my knees we sore from standing so much. I guess that's what happens when you are 35. Saturday night I cleaned up some rooms. Sunday morning Holly stayed with the sick baby while I went to church and Sunday School. We finally found a class that we like so we joined it.

Sunday afternooon Holly decorated the house in a flag motiff. Holly's mom came over and brought food for the party. On the party we had alot of friends come over. I think we ended up with around 20 people there. It was fun. I made burgers and we had lots of desserts and chips. I turned on the music in the pool area and in the end the kids all got in the pool and went swimming. I got in the hot tub and chilled. It was good talking to some friends who I hadn't talk to in a while. That's what really matters - spending time with friends and family. Monday I got out of bed at 2:30pm. I think we finally got some rest. Monday we took the leftovers from our party over to another memorial day party and talked with some people some more. Brennon got a little fussy so we went home early. I ended the evening in the hot tub again relaxing. I think I found the cure for sore knees. How was your weekend?

Memorial Memories

2010-05-28T13:06:00.001-05:00

Happy Holidays to you and yours. Be safe to all. Everyone drive safe. Enjoy the vacation. Live life to the fullest. Enjoy your friends and family. Relax and kick back. Take a load off. Enjoy the outside. Eat good food. No worries. Remember the memory of all of the fallen soldiers who died for our freedom we so take for granted. Remember they did die for something. Remember those who serve the country in various fashions. Remember the IRS person who got hit in his office this last year. Remember all of the soldiers in Iraq and Afganastan who died for us. Remember our government leaders and show them respect, even if you disagree with them. Remember the Civil war, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I, Iraq II and other skirmishes we have had over the years. That is what memorial day is about.

I have always had respect for the military. I grew up a military brat and even got in trouble one time for saluting a person on our AFB when I was 7 in Alaska. Apparently you are only supposed to salute officers and he was not an officer. Also as I was not in the military I think civilians are not supposed to salute. As I look back now and think about all of the military people I have known and there is a sacrifice made even in peacetime. I some cases they even sacrifice their sanity aka stepdad. They leave their families and have duties and jobs that some of us couldn't even stand. Like I know I could not do anything before the sun is up and they do it all before I wake up. I thought about joining at one time and even looked through the requirements. Too bad my ankle and blood pressure prohibited me from joining.

So anyways, I am going to be cleaning and partying this weekend. Our party starts at 6:15PM at our house on Sunday night. I get Monday off. I love 3 day weekends. The start of the summer is always fun. I wish I had a 3 month vacation like teachers do. That is the one thing I envy about teachers. I remember fondly all of the summers I had off. I remember having swimming parties at our house, ordering pizza, renting movies, playing card games and staying up till 6 in the morning. I think it didn't count as a party unless you stay'd up all night. Nowadays after 1AM I get too tired. But I still have fun and I still know how to have fun. I am not old yet, even though 35 is the age where I have officially quit caring about birthdays. Now it is all about the gathering that makes it fun. Have a good one everyone.

Too Many Candles

2010-05-27T13:22:00.001-05:00

Let's see. My birthday is coming up and so is Holly's. I will be 35. That is too old. From now on please think of me as a 29 year old. Today at lunch I went and got a buzz cut. It looks pretty good. Although I always wondered what haircut a big person should have. Then I realized it is about the face and not the body. I think longish hair is good on me when I have a goattee. Since it is summer and I am clean shaven I think a short hairdoo will due rather nicely, especially given the heat. Also, I love getting up and not having to brush it.

As I perused my past posts of my birthday I realize I have always liked to have parties on it. I think it is because not only is it my birthday but it is the beginning of summer break for teachers and students, and now it is Holly's birthday as well. It is time to bring back the summer pool party. That is a cool thing about having a pool. I think I am going to get a volleyball net or a basketball net for the pool. That way I will get some exercise while having fun. Of course our salt cell has gone out so now our pool is on a chlorine diet. I rather enjoyed the salt as it was so much smoother and easy on the eyes than chlorine.

Holly also has a tradition of having parties so our thinking goes together rather well. I have noticed that about Holly from the beginning. We are so similiar in our personalities. Easy going and fun loving our are motto. Now that "Summer Holly" is arriving it is going to get even more fun. When she doesn't have school to worry about she can relax even better than me. Well, almost better. I wonder how many candles we should put on our cake?

Boring TV

2010-05-26T12:36:00.001-05:00

Let's see. Last night we watched the finale of American Idol. This season was bad and I put in a vote for no one. The girl whines when she sings and the guy sounds like he is straining. I think the judges are stale too. I will stop watching that show. I heard the Biggest Loser was 500 pounds and is now 260. That is pretty good. I wonder if he is going to gain it all back? I stopped watching that show this season because whenever I watch it I like to snack. For some reason we watched the finale of Glee even though I have never seen a full episode. That show is still horrible. I just don't get the fascination. I think maybe you have to be a girl or a tween to like it, kind of like High School Musical. I am glad the TV season is ending. Even I watched very few shows. Modern Family, The Office, The Big Bang Theory and Community were the shows I stuck with. All others I quit watching. I think there is more to do in life than to watch TV and movies and have started doing it.

So I try to keep up with the news online. So far even the news is pretty boring. I guess an oil spill in the ocean is the biggest thing. For some reason whenever I think about it I think about Revelations and how a third of the seas are supposed to die. I think if it gets big enough that may happen. I also think about how years ago I heard about a man made virus that was supposed to eat oil. Scientists were worried about releasing it for oil spills because they couldn't contain it once in the wild. I wonder what ever happened with that? I also wonder about the stuff we don't really know. I bet there are so many things going on and we are unaware of them. Maybe we need new news stations.

Also I think about the border situation. I think I lean in both directions. I can see value in having people who do the jobs we don't want to do who get paid under the table. If they were all legal that economy would fail. However, I also think they should pay taxes if they are going to use our stuff. So I think there really is no answer and will leave it at that. I don't want to strain my brain. I also think about that Korea situation. It is like, apparently this stuff happens all of the time. I think we are all numb to the rhetoric by now. I also think because we let things go like a sinking ship every time then we have to continue to do so, otherwise we look like hypocrites. The only reason we should respond is if other countries do it first. I also think about the economy. The tech sector is hot right now. I get a call every day from a recruiter. I think it is because people have upgraded their OSes and have gotten new phones and now they need software for it. The rest of the economy seems lacking though. As long as I have a job then I am happy. So I am bored with the world. Time to change it.

Batteries Not Included

2010-05-25T13:15:00.001-05:00

As a precursor to today's story let me tell you about something that happened when I was 16. I had just got my drivers license. I was thrilled that I could finally drive myself and go anywhere I wanted. I think most 16 year olds are. Of course I never owned a car in my teen years. Instead I used my sisters car when she wasn't using it. She had a white Pontiac Lemans that was pretty comfortable. Well, one time I noticed it was low on oil. So I went and got some oil from the store and proceeded to figure out how to put it in the car. Naturally, being a logical person I knew that I checked the oil at the dipstick place, so if I poured oil into it then the oil would get to where it needs to go. Of course I had to find a way to get oil down that little hole. Even a funnel wouldn't fit. So I went into the garage and got some thick paper. I then proceeded to twist it and turn it into a funnel. It actually worked. However, oil somehow did not end up in the car. Later on when I told people I heard laughter. Apparently you are not supposed to put oil in the dipstick hole. I felt like an idiot.

That brings us to last night. So I get off work at 6. I go out to the parking lot to see mom's van still sitting there. I then get it in and turn the key. Nothing, not even lights. I looked at the battery and just knew it had to be the battery. I thought a jump might work. So I call Holly, then Pepper who was driving home. I then go into the building and a the security gaurd does not have jumper cables, or do jumps. Wonderful, they are sooo useful. So I call Holly. So she arrives about 6:30 with Brennon crying in the car. We hook up the jumper cables and nothing. Not even the headlights. I figure the jumper cables don't work. I also figure that the battery is dead. Now I have changed a battery before so I thought this is doable. So I find an autozone nearby. Keep in mind this is a ghetto autozone. I buy a battery and proceed to go back to parking lot.

So there was this expandable wrench in the van and I used that to remove the bolts keeping it in place. Except there was this one bolt that was on super tight. I could not get it off. It was holding a metal plate that was keeping the battery in place. I try and try. Then Holly tries. Later on when I removed it I realized we were turning it the wrong way. Apparently the whole righty-tighty, lefty-loosey thing confused me because the wrench was at the bottom of the circle. If it is on the top of the circle it is true, if it is on the bottom you need to go right to get it loose. Whoops. Anyways there was corrosion. So I try to pry the metal thing off the battery using a flathead screwdriver. I start to hammer it into the bottom of the battery to get leverage. Suffice it to say, battery fluid started leaking over everything. It even started leaking on the bolt. It still didn't work (of course since I was tightening it). So around 8:30 we go back to AutoZone and I get a torque wrench and some bolt loosener.

Holly wants me to hurry because her and the baby is in the car and people hanging outside are watching us. So I get the stuff and get back to the car. I spray the bolt loosener on it and wait a couple of minutes, during which time I try to figure out how to get the torque wrench extensions out of its hard packaging. Finally I got it. I go and unscrew the bolt and find out I was going in the wrong direction. I then place the new battery in its spot. I try to put the cables on it and am forced to hammer the negative one on because it is very tight. Finally I shout in victory. I did it. I replaced a battery. Then I get in the car and turn it on. Nothing. Not even lights. Frustrated I give up and we go home, thinking about how it had to be the battery. Holly took me to work this morning and I called a service place to tow it away.

This morning as I was fading in and out of consciousness on the drive to work I was thinking, are negative poles supposed to be black plastic? I remembered one time when I replaced a battery I had to take it off. So when the tow truck driver got there he opened it up and said,"Ah I see your problem, you still have the plastic on the negative." So I took it off and put the contact back on and I saw lights. Apparently my front lights were on. I bet that is what drained the battery. So I get in and try to start the car. Nothing. Then he tightens all of the wires. I start the car. It worked. The guy said that happens about twice a year. I am sure they are laughing at me now. Lesson learned. I guess I am one of those guys who can fix a massive computer problem yet can't change the oil or change a battery. At least I can change a lightbulb.

Family Man

2010-05-24T12:48:00.001-05:00

So I had a good weekend. Holly was off on Friday. It was a bit of a different weekend. We spent most of it just relaxing, getting in the hot tub and swimming. We really didn't make movies a big part of it, which is unusual. I got a USB sound card at Best Buy and am now able to have a Pool Zone for music. So I was able to play music outside and not have it playing on the speakers inside. It was kind of like a party except there was only 3 of us. I played with Brennon alot. Now that he is crawling and talking it is pretty cool. I feel like he is communicating with me. If I hold his hands and stand up and move he will act like he is walking. That is fun. I think I am becoming addicted to my family and my house. I am now a consumate family man.

On Saturday I visited mom and brought her some stuff she wanted. She wants me to print out her peom for memorial day, so I shall. I am sure she will mail it off to people as well. I think that is what she will spend the rest of her time doing - writing letters. She even sends stuff to me in the mail, even though I see her twice a week. Saturday night we got a pizza, hung around the house and got in the hot tub again. Sunday we went to Sunday School and went to lunch with them. I think we finally found a Sunday School that we can join. We have alot in common. They all have families with kids and most of the guys are around my age. There is something about that, most classes we visited were married without kids or married with kids and in their twenties. Despite what some think, a common age brings a common way to talk about the past. I am not likely to join a softball team but I am likely to take Brennon fishing with the class and he can be friends with all their kids.

I find I am truly grown up. When I start talking about my kid, talking about the markets and talking about what work is like for me, I can see I am in the family zone. It is true, there is bigger difference between having kids and not having kids than between being single and being married. I suppose it is because your responsibility is higher. It is ok to be irresponsible with yourself when you are single because you only suffer the consequences. However, when you have a wife and kid you realize things that you do affect them so you try to be a better person. I think that is what can make a man more than just a man. He can be a family man.

80s Fever

2010-05-21T12:39:00.001-05:00

So I wonder if I still have a fever, PAC MAN fever. People are celebrating its 30 year anniversary this weekend. That was my first foray into the power of computers and how you have fun with them. I remember asking my mom for many quarters so I could play pac man. The thing is, I never got past the 4th level. Try as I might. I might get to the second level most of the time but I always felt that the joystick was hard to control and those ghosts were just too quick. The same was true for Ms. Pac Man. I just could not get past it. I think I even got tired of it anyways after the second level. Cause really it just is the same thing just a little faster. I was even bad at Galaga. I remember there was a person in Wichita who got on That's Incredible for his Pac Man score. My claim to fame was beating Star Wars on the Nintendo.

I loved Pac Man cereal because it had marshmallow ghosts. I loved the cartoon as well, although I think it only ran one season. I even have it on DVD, although I haven't watched it all. One of my favorite games was the Pac Man board game. I could play that. It had all of these marbles that was power pellets and your job is to get them all and avoid the ghosts. Ah the 80s. I think society is kind of tailoring to us 30 somethings who were kids in the 80s. There are Star Wars references all over the place. Movies from the 80s are being remade - like Nightmare on Elm street. I think people can become 80s crazy. I think it is because the 80s were a time of relative peace and prosperity and we all want to go back to that.

We want to go back to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Goonies, Freddy, Apple IIe, Moonboots, Tang, The Space Shuttle, MTV with Videos, jean jackets, sweat bands, Fraggle Rock, Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Break Dancing, neon green, hot pink, surfing clothes, Van Halen, fast guitar, creative music, synthesizer pop, Maddona, Micheal Jackson, Peter Gabriel, He Man, GI Joe, Ghostbusters, Def Leapard, Growing Pains, Family Ties, Hands Across America, Farm Aid, Rambo, Rocky, Mr. Mom, Apple Print Shop, designer jeans, acid washed jeans, tank tops, mullets, poofy hair, punk rock, beginning of rap, the Fresh Prince, Young MC, handi-snaks, and the staple that is still eaten today - Kraft Cheese and Oscar Mayer Bologna Sandwiches. The great thing is all of the stuff we can still watch, listen to, and eat to jog our memories. I suppose I have more than Pac Man fever, I have 80s fever.

Me. Old? Nah.

2010-05-20T12:24:00.001-05:00

What to talk about? Brennon? He has crawled on one knee so far and then he collapsed. If he does two knees I think it will be official. I am starting to think about babyproofing our house. That is going to be a chore. I think you are supposed to cover all sharp edges with foam, put plugs in the outlets, secure all cabinets, put doorknob squeezers on, and remove anything that can be picked up and eaten by a small child. The big thing is the pool area. I will have to put up a baby fence around the patio. I even thought about just not allowing him out there, but still we need a stopper just in case he gets out there. There is a baby proofing service in Dallas that will come and do it all, but realisticaly I should do it because it shouldn't be that hard, except for the fence.

Let's see, what other stuff? Well our Birthday Bash happens May 30th, my actual birthday. That is cool. Of course all friends and family are invited. The one thing you wonder about inviting is, past friends. The kind that you like but just can't seem to keep in contact with because you are so busy. I think those should be invited to a party because it allows you to reconnect with people who you don't talk with that much.

I just can't believe I am turning 35. I am at that age where my life is mostly defined and set out before me. Where I do the best work and look forward to a vacation and a retirement. For some reason the years are going by faster. But to put it in perspective I have 30 more years of work before I retire and that is alot. At the age of 35 I have gained wisdom on God, business, relationships, life, money, bands, technology and am now gaining it on being a father. I still have alot to learn, but I have so many skills to use that it won't be that hard. Of course I still feel like an old fogey with aches and pains, but recently I have been feeling rather good. I think I am going to need it. I have lived a good life but I have alot of living yet to do. Time to keep on moving.

Visual Stud IO

2010-05-19T13:46:00.001-05:00

So the Microsoft conference was informative. Basically they are releasing a new version of Visual Studio. Visual Studio is the main tool developers use to develop Windows programs and Web Sites, and now Windows Phone 7 apps. It should be fun to use. Of course, like most tools this one costs $10,000 for the enterprise version and $800 for a simple developer version. They love to make things hard to get. That might be the one thing that causes them to fail, unless they are too big to fail.

It is rather interesting being in the company of my fellow geeky developers. I met a guy I had worked with at Realpage years ago. It is a true geek fest. 95% male, 25% socially awkward. So during a presentation someone may blurt out something stupid to the presenter like "only give out a shirt to people who have windows phones". Then another will say,"Or Android, if I am allowed to say that word." Of course we as developers really wanted to see what it could do better than the current version. It seems all the new tools are just the same as the old with additional features. I feel sorry for newbies. They have so much more to learn starting off than I ever did. What I know I learned over 20 years of coding. The one thing Microsoft really kicks but on is their development environment. It is faster and easier to use than any other one out there, like Eclipse for Java and iPhone tools. However, it is their price point that makes it hard to get into. Of course they have learning versions but you can just get your feet wet with it. I wonder what computers would be like if they gave everyone a free version of Visual Studio.

Microsoft is betting heavily on Windows 7 and the new Windows 7 phone. It is their best operating system, but most people do not care about the operating system anymore. Their new phone system looked buggy and clunky. It will fail. All of our apps are now online in the cloud and on our phones. As I was in Walmart the other day I noticed their PC Software is down to only two sections. It is sad that Windows software is becoming a thing of the past, especially given these new interfaces will be smooth and fast. I think it would be great if there was an App Store for Windows 7. A centralized place where you can download huge games and apps for your windows machine. That will bring us all back to the computer. Anyways, it was fun and they gave me a 90 day trial of Visual Studio. I am going to use it to create a Star Trek theme for Homeseer that will control my home. I will put it on all of the touch screens. That is the great thing about coding, if you can dream it, you can do it.

Microsoft

2010-05-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

Here I am at a Microsoft Release conference. I got a hat, a tshirt and some pens. Woot.

I am a Da Da

2010-05-17T13:44:00.001-05:00

On Friday we stayed at home and played with Brennon. He is starting to stay up a little later which is good, that means he gets more sleep in the morning and more time with daddy at night. We watched some Rifftrax shorts as well. I think it is official now. Brennon has said his first words. Guess what they were? Dada! I know you are thinking, well that's just him babbling. But, Holly would hold up a picture of me and then Brennon would say "Da Da". Then I took Brennon to look at us in the mirror. Then he said "Da Da" again. He knows who I am! His bottle is "Ba Ba" and I think when he says that he wants his bottle. I even heard him say "Ma ma" when he was looking at Holly in the other room. I then knew Brennon wanted his mother. It is cool that he is able to communicate.

Saturday Holly went to a baby shower with her mom and took Brennon. It was then when I did something I hadn't done in a long time... Play electric guitar. I plugged in the system and at first it wouldn't work. I think some of the tubes had burned out. So I put it on electric diode mode and was able to get some sound out. The problem of course is that my fingers are really out of shape. I used to be twice as fast as I am now. Even my blues licks sounded stale. I guess if you don't keep your chops up you can lose them. I think even my rythyms were old too. Maybe I needed drums to keep me aligned with the rythym. Saturday night we saw Iron Man 2 at the Studio Movie Grill while Holly's mom watched Brennon. I thought it was good, but not as good as the first one.

Sunday I slept in. Holly had to go to a Vacation Bible School meeting in the afternoon so I took Brennon to see mom. We went to her church at 2pm. Brennon enjoyed the singing. However, when the message was being said he started to babble, so I took him back to mom's room. During that time I had to go to the store to get mom some stuff. I can't believe we pay so much for her room and they want us to supply a toilet brush, cleaner and toilet paper. To me that is ridiculous. It is hard running errands with a baby. I can see why Holly prefers to keep Brennon at home. Anyways, I ended the day programming the house better. I am now able to access the home on my phone. I can even view the cameras on my iTouch. I am also working on integrating the media center and getting a custom music selection for the morning wakeup ritual. For those interest the JRiver Media Center does alot more than Windows Media Player. You can connect multiple computers together and play music from one computer to another and even schedule a time for when a playlist is played. That is cool. How was your weekend?

Fun with Math

2010-05-14T14:06:00.001-05:00

Hmm, what to talk about. You know I have written over 10,000 posts on this blog. That is unbelievable. I often thought if I ever wanted to branch out I could write a column for a newspaper or write science fiction short stories. I think I would like that genre as I am too impatient to write a full fledged novel. However, writing 337,000 lines of code is equivalent to a 8,500 page book, so maybe I do have the patience? I think I have typed roughly 240,000 lines into this blog over the 6 years I have been writing it. That is equivalent to a 6,000 page book.

I like to think about the usefulness of numbers. Money can be saved and grown if you know how to play the numbers. I thought about making a website for investors and credit card owners. Basically it is a site that allows investors to invest in debtors. Like say I have a credit card bill that is $5,000 and I am paying 20 APR interest on it to the bank each month, or $83. Now say you are an investor and want to make 10% APR a month. Well, you go to this site and buy a debtor. You pay off their $5,000 balance at once. Then the debtor owes you instead of the bank. You charge 5-10% APR interest which is $20 to $41 a month. You can even negotiate a monthly payment and length of time to pay it off. That way the debtor pays less money to pay off the debt and you make 5-10% interest, which is way better than a savings account. Of course, the whole reason why this wouldn't work is there is too much risk and no liquidity for the investor, but it is a thought for an investor who would not care about liquidity and a debtor who is low risk. Why should the credit card companies get all the money?

Also, I was thinking about APR rates and balances and how mathematically it is not as simple as paying off the high balance first, or low balance first or highest payment first or lowest payment first. There are some equations you can run. The idea is to maximize the usefulness of your payments to lower the interest payments as quick as possible. For instance is it better to pay off a $1000 card at 20% interest or a $2000 card at 10% interest? Both have $200 a year in interest payments. Now if you had $1000 to spend you should pay off the 20% interest one. It gives you the most bang for your buck. You also could pay off half of the $2000 card and then you would still have a $100 interest payment. Then you could do a balance transfer of the 20% interest to the 10% interest card. What in effect happened is that you paid off the $1000 card. These equations are fine, but there are so many rules I could write a book about it. Hmm, maybe that will be my new book, "Do the Math: Beat the Card Companies at their own Game". Nah, that sounds pretty boring.

ET Can't Phone Home

2010-05-13T13:19:00.001-05:00

So the big question on everyone's mind is - how is Brian's phone doing? Now that I am used to the HD2 things are a bit different. I have to say, the iPhone is still better. Once the iPhone gets an HD screen this size this phone will be a thing of the past. However, together the iTouch and HD2 beat the iPhone by a mile. Simply because I can use the apps on the iTouch and I can use the HD2 wifi hotspot to connect to the internet thus avoiding AT&Ts service. However, T-Mobile's service is still spotty. Even with this phone when I am in my building I am only getting E speeds, way lower than 3G. Also, when people call me sometimes it hangs up on them and is static filled. But you never know if it is your phone or theirs that is the problem.

Windows Mobile 6.5 also has alot to be desired. It still crashes on occasion and I have to reset the phone. That is mostly a problem with multi-tasking. One of the biggest complaints with the iPhone is it lacks multi-tasking. That is actually a strength because you don't have to manage the memory. Also, the apps for the HD2 and the Windows Marketplace app store are greatly overpriced. It is common to see apps over $10 whereas in the App Store most that you pay for are just $1. Now because I have both I have found good use of the HD2. If it was my only handheld device I would be mad. However, as an addition it is good for what it does.

Not forgetting Android though. I suppose I need an Android device to run the gambit in OSes. I wonder though would it be possible to run Android in a dual boot mode on my HD2. There is enough storage for it. I hear the Android operating system is now a majority and beats the iPhone. What's great about the Android is it is developed for open source. It's basic language is Java, but you can develop for it in C#, my forte. Speaking of development, yesterday I had a personal celebration. I finished porting 337,000 lines of code from VB6 to C#. I took myself out for ice cream at the galleria to celebrate. This is one of my top 5 development feats of all time. Time to sit back and relax...

R U Liberated?

2010-05-12T13:39:00.001-05:00

Do you ever get that weird feeling like people talk about you? Like you walk into a room and the conversation stops or you spot your boss looking at your cube to see if you are there. That is all oogy. I think though the proper course of action is to not care. Really what can you do? When I was a teen I used to care what everyone thought of me. As I got older I learned to accept that I cannot control what other people think of me. That was very liberating. Then I realized if whatever they thought was important enough to me they would tell me. That is even more liberating. Then I realized that since they didn't tell me their thoughts about me that it is not important at all. Now I am liberated.

Of course being free to not care is a good thing but can be misused. For instance, sure you have freedom to not care about your appearance, but is it not better to put a good foot forward to squelch any prejudices people may have? I always think about the race that is mentioned in the Bible. Basically there is analogy that we are all running a race. At the end of our race is heaven. At the end of some peoples race is not heaven. A good Christian's job is to run the race side by side with everyone on Earth and as we run we point them towards our finish line. It gets even deeper. Some laws separate us from non-Christians. We are given permission to not follow them so that we may win others to Christ. That is how we are suppose to become just like non-Christians, except our finish line is different. Some people point that Christians who act "conservative" are good and the ones that act "liberal" are bad. Why? Because the outside world expects us to follow our own laws, which are basically designed for us to be good healthy moral people.

The problem is, as Paul found out, that good healthy moral people don't associate with the bad unhealthy immoral people. Most actually judge them and condemn them. It is grace that saves us so it is grace that we need for others. I remember back in the day when I gave messages to the homeless I would stress one of my favorite verses: "Mercy triumphs over judgement." So really what we need to be doing is try to be like those who need Jesus. To go to the environments where people need salvation. So what does this have to do with people who talk about you behind your back? Well, nothing. I am free to write whatever I want. I am liberated. Are you?

Thoughts by Brian Alden Bass

Moving into the Cloud

Cough Hack

Good News

Mom :-(

Mom

ePhone

Weekend in Espanol

Panic

To Serve or Not To Serve

New Photo Album Posted

Football

The Search for Spin

I am the King, All hail the King

T-Shirt to the Rescue

Weekend Football Losers

Trumpet Life

What am I doing

Back to Normal

Horror at the Bass House

Live Develop Love

Wow a Tornado and a Rainbow.

Happy Birthday Brennon!

Have I got the Nerve?

Dentists

Heelbo Dosie Dough

Heelbo Dosie Dough

iPhone Fasting Time

Eat whatever you want! Not.

Goodbye Old Wooden Road

Hmmm

Bitter Pills

Test

Messages

Superman Ethics

Helicopter Down

Ubuntu Class

Gettin Old

Memories

To Holly My Love

Love is More Powerful than Hate

Dream within a Movie

No Ordinary Guys Night

Yeah, Hawaiian Shirt Day

Apocolypso

Chirp Chirp

The Flare is Coming

IAA

Bright as Day

Hooked on Jeeves

Another Game

Islands in the Kitchen, That is what we are

Thoughts

New App List

WU

Convergence

Owen Him Money

Checkup

Mowing Kharma

Needs Brian Proofing

My House Loves Me

Hearty Apps

Endless Loop, pooL sseldnE

July 4th Update

Happy 8 Year Old Warrior Day!

A Post on Evidence

Barnyfied

Manly PC

This is a test blog...

Sleep Bank Deficit Spending

ITunes is a Red Herring

Restoration

More Pictures and Videos Added!

Back in the Day

I get a new Holiday!

Happy Fathers Day!

Nine Months

Feed Me Apple

The Logical Method

Bad Dog!