Sometimes I Feel Like a Superhero

In case you didn't know, I'm a comic book fan.  More specifically, a superhero fan.  Most superhero origin stories start with the hero discovering their powers.

If you've seen Spiderman, you might remember him trying to figure out how to shoot his web and swing from the rooftops.  Or maybe Iron Man learning to fly in his new suit.

I know this sounds like a crazy, over the top exaggeration, but sometimes that's how I feel.  I admit that I didn't get bitten by a radioactive spider and wake up the next morning with the ability to climb walls, and I'm not learning to fly a new mechanical suit.  But what I am doing is exploring all the things my "new" body can do.  Here are some examples:

1)  Walk up stairs without gasping for breath
2)  Bend over and tie my shoes
3)  Scratch my own back
4)  Run

It's funny, because I'm still discovering what I can do all the time.  On the flip side, there are still things I can't do that I have as goals.  Because I like lists, here are some things I'd like to be able to do, but can't yet:

1)  Scale a climbing wall
2)  Do a real, good form, pushup
3)  Chin-ups
4)  Run a 5K without any walking

I guess I'm still just a superhero-in-training.

Post Gobble Jog Update

Well, my friends...Thanksgiving has come and gone, and with it, the Gobble Jog.  My first 5k was a blast and I really enjoyed.  What a great group of supportive people I have around me.  There were lots of my friends waiting to cheer me on at the end.

One friend really went the extra mile.  About 200 yards from the end, Becky was standing on the side cheering me on, but it didn't stop there.  As I passed her, she jumped back in the race with me and encouraged me all the way to the finish.  It was awesome.  Thanks to her, I made my goal time of < 40 minutes.

Tonight, as a reminder to myself, I framed my number, d-chip, and a picture of me and Cheryl just before the race.

My 42nd birthday is February 10th (please, no gifts).  As a present to myself, I am signing up for the Marietta 5k Mardi Gras Run, benefiting the Junior League, on February 12th.  I've changed my countdown clock from the Gobble Jog to this race, and today it is sitting at 78 days and counting!

Thanks to everyone that has encouraged me, exercised with me, and listened to me babble on about getting in shape and the Gobble Jog.   One race down, a lifetime to go!

Major Victory?

Major Victory is the alter-ego of a Marvel Superhero named Vance Astrovik.  Vance Astrovik was born in Saugerties, New York, the only son of a small-town butcher Arnold Astrovik and his wife Norma. Going into the U.S. Air Force at the age of 18, Astrovik (who changed his name to Astro when he was 21) became the youngest man to be accepted into the astronaut training program several years later. In 1988, Astro volunteered for the first manned interstellar mission ever conducted by the United States, Project: Starjump.

His ship, Odysseus I, was not equipped for faster-than-light speed; hence the journey to Earth's nearest interstellar neighbor, a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, would take about 10 centuries. To protect him from aging, Astro was covered with a skin-preserving copper alloy (which was upgraded with adamantium in the Guardians of the Galaxy series) body-suit, and his blood was transfused with a kind of preservative fluid. Astro was launched into space from the Houston Airport in the fall of 1988.

While on his way to Alpha Centauri, the ship automatically awoke him from his suspended animation in order for him to perform routine course adjustments. During the periods he was awake, sometimes for a year in duration, Astro eventually went insane from loneliness on several occasions, returning to a semblance of normality only after the ship automatically put him back in suspended animation again. During his long periods of sustained dream-state activities, Astro's latent psionic powers emerged. By the time he arrived on Centauri IV almost a thousand years later, he had full control over his psychokinetic abilities.


Major Victory is also what I experienced today when I had my blood pressure taken at work!!  Over the last few years, my blood pressure hovered just below "high".  At my last employee physical, it was 143/93.  That's actually pretty high, especially the second number.

Then there's today!  Today, my blood pressure was 111/71!!  Your eyes did not deceive you!  My blood pressure is totally normal!!!  Normal!

Switching Things Up a Bit

Those of you that have been keeping up with my journey know that I have my "own personal walking track" next to my house.  It's kind of a modified figure eight, with a 110+ yard straight-away in the middle.  We've been running the straight-away both directions, which constitutes about 1/3 of a lap.

Tonight, we took it up a notch!  We're now doing what I call "running 6ths."  I've mentally divided our track into 6 (fairly) even pieces and we're alternating running and walking each segment.  Simply put, we're now running 1/2 of each lap!

From 1/3 to 1/2 doesn't seem like much of a difference, but it sure felt like a big difference!

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Have you been exercising regularly but doing the same old thing?  Tony Horton (from P90X) is always talking about muscle confusion.  I think that applies not only to your muscles, but to your mind.  Switch something up.  Make a little change.  Take a different route on your run.  Maybe go for a bike ride instead of the treadmill.  Keep it fresh however you can!

I'm Something of an Expert

There's few things in life that I claim to be an expert about.  One of those few things is hamburgers.   I know hamburgers.  Home grilled, fast food, and everything in between.  It's absolutely my favorite food.

I have definite ideas on what constitutes a good home grilled burger, and there are a couple of restaurants that make great burgers (Hello, Jucy's!) that should not be classified as "fast food".

I've never tried to do this, but I guarantee you that I could demolish a blind taste test of the most popular fast food burgers.  If you blindfolded me and gave me a bite of a McDonald's burger, a Wendy's burger, a Burger King burger, a Krystal Burger burger (too easy), a Whataburger burger, a Jack-in-the-Box burger, a Sonic hamburger, a Braum's burger, and a Steak n' Shake burger, a couple of things would happen.  First of all, I would be full. Second, I think I could identify each one.

In my opinion, with few exceptions, the best way to eat a hamburger is with double-meat, cheese (which, of course, technically makes it a cheeseburger), mustard, and pickles.  That's all.   If you start adding lettuce, tomato, onions, and other things, it begins to mask the real taste of the MEAT, which, after all  is what a burger is really all about. Do NOT be tempted to put bacon on your burger.  Bacon is perfect by itself, and should not be mixed with any other flavor unnecessarily. 

Then take that burger, and dip it into ketchup.  One bite at a time. Do not put the ketchup ON the burger.  Dip the burger IN the ketchup.  Don't knock it till you try it.  I'm an expert.

Of all the fast food burgers I listed above, my favorite is Sonic's Super Sonic Cheeseburger, which is their double-meat quarter-pounder.  Before I said that double-meat, cheese, pickles and mustard, dipped in ketchup is the perfect way to eat a burger.  This is the one exception:  jalapeños.  Sonic's Super Sonic JALAPEÑO Cheeseburger is a work of art.  Sonic's jalapeños have the best flavor, and just the right amount of heat.

For the past day and a half, I've had a nagging craving for something.  I tried a bunch of different things: strawberries, Cheetos, cheese.  Nothing did it.  It has been six weeks or so since I had a "real burger", so this evening I decided to "jump off the wagon" and get a Super Sonic Jalapeño Cheeseburger.

Maybe that's what I need! Maybe that's what I'm craving!  Right?

I will admit.  The burger tasted great.  Really, REALLY, great.  The problem?  After about 4 bites, I was over it.  I finished it.  I couldn't waste a Super Sonic Jalapeño Cheeseburger.  I just couldn't do it.

Afterwards, I wished I hadn't eaten it. I didn't feel guilty.  I felt cheated.

The burger was good.  But the problem was that it wasn't good enough for me to justify the calories and fat.  The promise of how good the burger would taste didn't justify the calories.  And the fat.  And the sugar.

I enjoyed the burger, but now I actually enjoy eating healthy even more.  It's not even about taste.  It's that it makes me feel better.  Physically as well as how I feel ABOUT myself.

So when your favorite (not-so-good-for-you) food whispers "eat me" in your ear, ask yourself the following question.  "How will I really feel after I've eaten this?"

I wish I would have asked myself that question.

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One last note...  I know there many other burgers out there I didn't mention:  White Castle, In-and-Out, etc.  I was just focusing on the ones that have been local to where I've lived.  Sorry.

A Chuck Woolery Moment

In case you don't know who Chuck Woolery is, he was the original host of Wheel of Fortune, but is probably best known for hosting Love Connection.  During his Love Connection stint, when he was segueing to commercial, he used to say, "We'll be back in two and two."  His explanation was that each commercial break was about one second to fade to commercial, two minutes of commercials, then one second to roll back to the show.

Today I had a "Chuck Woolery Moment".

Last month, I had my yearly employee physical, but I wasn't able to get my TB test.  I'd been on steroids because of a upper respiratory infection, and if you're on steroids, you can't have the test.  So today and I had my test.  While I was there I asked the nice nurse-lady to check my body fat and BMI again.

The results?

In one month I've lost 2% of my body fat and 2 points on my BMI.  My own personal "two and two".  Thanks Chuck!

Top 10 Things I'm Looking Forward To

For those of you that have never been extremely overweight, you may have a hard time relating to this list.  For those of you that either are (or have been) overweight, then I imagine you'll know from whence I am coming.

When I near my weight-loss goal, the top 10 things I am looking forward to are:

1. Going to a concert/sporting event, and being able to buy a t-shirt.
2. People not assuming I want their extra food.
3. Not having to evaluate all the chairs in a room to determine which chair is most likely NOT to fail when I sit on it.
4. Not feeling sorry for people that sit next to me on an airplane.
5. Clothes shopping at a store with neither Big nor Tall in the name.
6. Not even noticing if my current route involves stairs.
7. Eating ice cream in public without feeling like people are judging me.  (Please, no crunchies in my smoothies.)
8. Never searching for the "maximum load" sticker on a ladder before climbing up it.
9. Making the statement "one size fits all" true for me personally.
10. Riding any ride I want at Six Flags.  (Sometimes I think they need to add a "You must be this narrow to ride" sign in addition to the "You must be this tall to ride" sign.  Ask me about the Batman ride at Astroworld sometime.)

What did or would make your list?

Top 10 Favorite Movies

Okay...now I'm copying Nick copying Matt... A while back I did my top 10 Superhero Movies of all time. This is just my 10 favorite movies of all time, in general. My basic criteria is this: how many times have I seen? Do I still want to see it again? If it comes on TV, will I sit and watch, even though I might only get to see the last few minutes? Is there a particular character or scene that really impacted me? I thought this might be a good way to get back into writing...so here goes!

Some movies you won't find on my list: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Indiana Jones. All great movies, but not in my top 10 for lots of different reasons.

10) Sneakers - check out this cast: Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, River Phoenix, David Straitharn, Mary McDonell, James Earl Jones, Ben Kingsley. Need I say more? I do? Okay. It's a very clever movie that I love watching even though I know all the twists already. Fast banter-y dialogue. It's a fun movie.

9) To Kill A Mockingbird - Gregory Peck plays a single father standing up for what's right when it's not popular at all. It has one of my all time favorite movie lines. "Miss Jean Louise. Miss Jean Louise. Stand up. Your father's passing." Oh yeah...it's also Robert Duvall first movie role I believe.

8) The Outsiders - another cast that makes you take a double take: Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane and Leif Garrett. This is a book about teenagers written by a teenager. It's taken almost verbatim from the book of the same name by S. E. Hinton. I recommend everyone read it. It's about family and belonging. And the theme song to the movie is written and sung by Stevie Wonder. Directed by some guy named Francis Ford Coppola or something like that.

7) Matrix - see Nick Waltz's list.

6) Rope - Alfred Hitchcock at his best. It's got Jimmy Stewart and a guy that reminds of the Brain from Pinky and the Brain. Really, he does. This movie is somewhat famous for not only being a Stewart/Hitchcock movie, but because the entire movie it shot with long takes. The Hitchcock tried to disguise the transitions so that it gives the feeling of one continuous shot. It's an interesting effect.

5) That Thing You Do - My favorite Tom Hanks movie. I love movies about bands, and I think this is one of the best. Watch it once, if you haven't already. Then watch it again and pay special attention to all of Lenny's lines. Every line but 1 or 2 in the entire movie is a joke. Great music, too.

4) Mystery Men - please see my aforementioned Top 10 Superhero Movies to see why this one is so great!

3) This Is Spinal Tap - The language is a little rough, but the humor is spot on. The original Mockumentary. The most quoted movie in my life behind #1 on this list.

2) Dead Poet's Society - This is one of the few movies that I've watched that has really made me think again and again.

1) Princess Bride - The. Best. Movie. Ever.

I'm in love with a robot...I mean...an Android.

Android phone, that is. I have an Android phone, and I love it. It's not the Motorola Droid that you've probably seen all the commercials for. It's the HTC Eris...Verizon's OTHER Android phone.

Is it the perfect phone? No. Is it better than the iPhone? Probably not. (However, Verizon's network service is better than AT&T's.) But it is a really cool phone. I won't bore you with all the geeky details of the techy stuff you can do with it (like analyze wireless networks) but I will share just one evening of life with my phone.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the youth service for my church. In the course of just a couple of hours one evening, I did the following (listed in order of occurrence, in case you were curious):

1) looked up something on the internet

2) used my phone as a guitar tuner

3) created an mp3 playlist for before the service

4) took some nice 5 megapixel pictures

5) emailed those pictures to someone

6) created a playlist for music after the service

Oh yeah...and I called someone, too. Pretty cool, huh?

Tonight my phone was laying on the table next to my recliner, and I saw that I had a notification that I had a new Facebook message. I could have logged onto my laptop, which was on a table on the other side of my recliner, but instead I just checked it on my phone.

It was from some friends who are babysitting for us tomorrow night. The message contained their address. My phone also has a trackball on it. Just to see what happened, I rolled the trackball and watched the cursor move down the screen. When it got the body of the message, what do you know? It highlighted the address. Just the address. It put a nice little selection border around the address. I clicked the trackball, and presto! It launched Google Maps and went straight to that address.

I have to admit I was impressed. I've had the phone for a few months, and I am still finding cool things it can do.

What will smart phones be like in 5 years?!?

Top 10 Superhero Movies

Okay, below are my picks for my Top 10 Superhero Movies. There's only one restriction: to make the list, the superheroes in the movies had to have been in a comic book first. Which means, unfortunately, that The Incredibles cannot be on the list. Sorry.

Also, a reminder: these are just my favorites. Not the "best", or "highest earning". Just the ones I like the most. Without much more ado, here we go:

10) Watchmen (2009/R)

If you're not a comic fan, I don't recommend this movie. In fact, if you've never read the comic, I don't recommend this movie. It's a great adaptation of the comic, and it's got some incredible visuals. It really does. That being said, it's the only (R) movie on my list. It has some pretty gratuitous violence and sex, as well as some pretty adult themes.

To be honest with you, I actually enjoyed one of the early trailers as much as the actual movie. You can watch it here if you want. I think it's the haunting Smashing Pumpkins song that makes the trailer cool.

9) The Dark Knight (2008/PG-13)

I know this movie probably tops a lot of people's lists. It's a really good movie. I also appreciate Heath Ledger's incredible performance. But my list is a list of favorite superHERO movies. To me, The Dark Knight almost felt like a superVILLAIN movie. The focus was so much on the Joker that I didn't enjoy it as much as some other people did.

Another complaint of mine was that it really felt like a couple of movie stuck together. (SPOILER) To me, once Gordon is revealed to not really be dead and they capture the Joker, it feels like the end of the movie. But wait! We still have another 40 minutes with a lot more dark and demented stuff for you to see.

I don't know. I wouldn't want to give the impression that I didn't like it, because I did, but it's definitely not in my top 5. Actually, I guess technically it's my #9.

8) X-Men - (2000/PG-13)

I've been an X-Men fan for years. I thought this movie did a great job of really bringing the characters to life. And how about that cast? Patrick Stewart? Ian McKellen? Really? How did they manage that? It just really made the movie, having some heavy-weight talent. And the rest of the cast weren't slouches either. (Except for Sabretooth.)

Also, this movie was (in my mind), the first of the latest generation of superhero movies. Before this movie, you had the original runs of Superman and Batman movies, and that was pretty much it. When this movie exploded, Hollywood woke up and realized that superheroes were still bankable, and were the new action stars. Geek was the new sheik.

7) Spider-man (2002/PG-13)

Great superhero movie. Nice origin story. Good villain. A little romance. What's not to like?

6) X2 (2003/PG-13)

Like the original X-Men, but better. Had some absolutely cool scenes. Magneto escaping from the plastic prison. Wolverine defending the kids at the school. And for the geeks, our first glimpse of Colossus and a hint at Phoenix.

5) Superman (1978/PG)

The original iconic superhero movie. The special effects are 1978 special effects. It's a little corny at spots. But...it's Christopher Reeves. IT'S SUPERMAN! C'mon! Thirty-two years later, it's still an awesome movie.

4) Batman Begins (2005/PG-13)

The first Batman (1989) didn't make my list, even though it was very close. I almost included it in place of The Dark Knight, but decided against it. The Batman franchise really floundered, in my opinion, after the first one. Thanks to Batman Begins (in spite of Katie Holmes) Batman was revived with Batman Begins.

I loved how this movie really fleshed out the Batman origin story past "his parents got shot". You learn where all his skills come from, his psychological and moral motivations. Great movie, start to finish (except for Katie Holmes). With a cast like Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman, I could have directed this movie and got it right!

3) Spider-man 2 (2004/PG-13)

Unless you just can't stand Spider-man, then you have to like this movie. Alfred Molina does an incredible job as Dr. Otto Octavius (Dr. Octopus). I'm not a big fan of the "I don't want to be a hero anymore" part of the movie, but there are several other scenes that easily make up for it.

The entire scene from the clock tower battle all the way through the fight on the train and Spider-man stopping the train is golden. I love the part where the evil doctor throws the car through the diner window and Spider-man grabs M.J. and dives out of the way to save her just in time.

The scene at the end where Dr. Octopus redeems himself is especially well done.

2) Iron Man (2008/PG-13)

Robert Downey, Jr. is Tony Stark. I'm a Jon Favreau fan, and I think he did a great job on this movie. I love the look of it, the story, the effects, everything. To me this is the quintessential superhero movie. Serious, but not too dark. Humorous at times, but not campy. The final fight scene was a little weak in my opinion, and that's the only thing that kept it out of the #1 slot. I think people that haven't ever even heard of Iron Man would really like this movie.

1) Mystery Men (1999/PG-13)

Right now, unless I've loaned (forced you to watch) this movie, then you are probably saying to yourself, "Mystery Men? What's that?"

How do I describe it? Let's see...how's about we start with the cast.

This movie is about a bunch of "wannabe" superheroes.

Ben Stiller as "Furious" - he gets mad...that's his power

William H. Macy as "The Shovelor" - he fights with a shovel

Janeane Garofolo as "The Bowler" - she uses a bowling ball containing the skull of her father

Kel Mitchell as "Invisible Boy" - he can turn invisible...as long as no one looks at him

Hank Azaria as "The Blue Raja" - he throws silverware...but not knives

Paul Reubens as "The Spleen"...you don't want to know his power

Round out this cast with Greg Kinnear as "Captain Amazing", the city's one true superhero, and Geoffrey Rush as "Casanova Frankenstein", the villain of the movie.

I will admit, this movie is an acquired taste for some. My wife loves it now that she's seen it a few times. Not so much on her first viewing. But there are so many hilarious scenes in the movie, I can't even begin to do them justice. Just watch it for yourself. If you can get past the first fifteen minutes of the movie, and buy into the world that they've created, I think you'll enjoy it.

This movie stands alone. It's in a class all by itself, and that's why it tops my list.

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I would have loved to put Unbreakable on the list, but again...didn't start in comics, even though it does have comics in it. The Matrix is another (pseudo-)superhero movie that is great, but unfortunately didn't qualify for this list.

What do you think? What movie did I miss? Agree with me? Disagree? Still with me at the end of the list long posting? Thanks!

Thankfully 2009

Last year, I wrote a little post called "Thankfully...". This year, back by popular demand (not really, I just decided to do it), is this year's "Thankfully" post. Come to think of it, only one section changed. Interesting.

My thankful lists, by category:

Biggees:
My wife
My son
My family
My friends
My church
My job
My home
My health

Random:
Laptops

Pimento Cheese

Gas Grills

MS-SQL

Rebooting

Droid

Good books

Prolific authors

Pickles

Recliners

Elastic

Comic books

Netflix

(last, but not least)
Spiritual:
The Cross
Grace
Mercy
A God Who Loves Me

Would You Believe $1?

So we had a huge, gi-normous church-wide garage sale on Saturday. When I say there was a LOT of stuff, it is only because I am at loss of how to really describe it adequately. You know the old saying, "Everything but the kitchen sink?"...we had TWO sinks. It was awesome.

One of my goals was that at 2:00ish, when it was officially over, was to be down to a small enough amount of stuff that it could be taken in one trip to Goodwill. And, I am happy to say, we did it! If you were there all day (which some were), you would have heard the "language" of the event change as the day progressed. I've created a timeline below for your reading enjoyment.

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7:30 AM - "We officially start at 8:00, so we'll still be bringing some great stuff out for the next little bit, ma'm."

9:00 AM - "Anything in particular you are looking for?"

11:00 AM - "Are you interested in that? We'll make you a great deal..."

1:00 PM - "Just make us an offer, we'd love for you to have it..."

1:30 PM - "Everything must go! Everything must go!"

2:00 PM - "Take a box, fill it up. Anything you can fit in that box is yours for $1."

2:15 PM - "Take a box, fill it up. It's yours. Make a donation if you would like."

2:25 PM - "Ma'm, I'll move the orange cones so you can pull you car over here by this table and I will put everything on it in your trunk."

2:40 PM - "How much, you ask? Tell you what...how about $2...unless you load it yourself, then its free."

2:55 PM - "You can take any item you'd like, as long as you also take a couple that you don't."

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We had a great time, raised some money, and made some new friends. It was a lot of work..and fun!

Incredible Imagination

Some people's creativity just blows me away. I stumbled across an article the other day on Popular Mechanics website titled "The World's 18 Strangest Bridges". It was fantastic. Some bridges were included because of their beauty, while others were included because of their innovation. Here's a couple of pictures.

If this kind of thing interests you at all take a minute and read the article. Even if you don't read every word, just check out the pictures. Incredible!

The Big City

So, for 13+ years, we lived in Tyler, Texas. Tyler is what I call a big town/small city. Last I heard, the population was slightly over 100,000. It's a great place to live, and we still have lots of friends there.

For the past 2.83 years, we've lived in the Marietta area, just northwest of Atlanta. It's actually a lot like Tyler. Similar weather, similar mixture of commercial/residential real estate, both near a large metro area. Like I've already said, Marietta is just northwest of Atlanta, and Tyler is near the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex.

In fact, one of the things that I always told people when extolling the virtues of Tyler was that it was just 90 minutes from Dallas. Culture, music, fine dining, all close enough to take in during a day trip. The only problem? We never did.

Okay, not never. We took a mini-vacation one time and hit the Dallas Aquarium and the West End. We went to two Ranger games and I took Cheryl to see some figure skating. But for the 13 years, we probably averaged 1 "cultural experience" every 3 years.

Now, after less than 3 years in Marietta/Atlanta, we've been to a Thrasher's games (pro hockey), to the Georgia Aquarium (twice for me, 3 times for Cheryl), the World of Coke, Underground Atlanta, seen two musicals at the Fox Theater, and a half dozen Braves games.

(We've also made a half dozen trips to Stone Mountain and a trip up to the mountains to go apple picking, but those places aren't in Atlanta, per se.)

So what's the difference? Do we have more disposable income? I don't think so. More time on our hands? That's funny. Maybe it's just a matter of accessibility.

So, to sum up:

Living near the big city is awesome, because there's a lot of cool things to do.

Thanks for reading. I think my next post will be called "Atlanta Traffic or a Root Canal...Which Would You Rather Have?"

And...Scene!

Well, after a year at the Hut, I'm done. I spoke with my manager this afternoon and turned in my 2-week notice, which turned out to actually be 2-minute notice. She's got plenty of drivers, so I'm just done.

Of course I'm a little sad, because I became friends with many of the people at the Hut. On the other hand, I skipped down the hallway when I got home!

I've got a couple of ideas (actually, just one right now) of ways to generate some extra income that don't require me giving up my weekends. I'm looking forward to giving them a go.

I think my year at the Hut was good for me. It got us through a financial pinch, caused me to "get out of the house", introduced me to some cool new people, and taught me all the back streets. Cool.

Next time you order a stuffed crust, remember me!

Concert Anyone?

I heard on the radio today that Journey was going to be in concert in Atlanta next weekend. To top it off, Night Ranger is opening for them. Two bands I would like to see, but never have.

That got me thinking. How many concerts have I seen over the years? So, without further ado, here is a list (in no specific order, other than how I remembered them) of all the big-name (and some not-so-big-name) groups I've seen.

The Thompson Twins - at the Astroworld amphitheather

T'Pau - opened for the Thompson Twins

The Cars - great concert

Sting - Dream of the Blue Turtles tour...Branford Marsalis on sax = awesome

R.E.M. - front row seats with my friend Kip...I was deaf after this concert

Randy Stonehill & Phil Keaggy - Phil reached over and tuned Randy's guitar during a song

Twila Paris

Petra - saw them a couple of times

Carmen - couple of times, first time actually changed my life, believe it or not

Monsters of Rock 1987:

Tesla

Whitesnake

Poison

Aerosmith
Boston

Monsters of Rock 1988:

Kingdom Come - yes, they sounded just like Zepplin

Dokken - sound quit during the show, singer threw down the mic and stormed off stage

Metallica - had hardly heard of them at this point

Scorpions

Van Halen

Boston - again, on the same album tour as the '87 Monsters of Rock

Newsboys

dc Talk

Bleach

Third Day - couple of times, got to stage manage for them once

7 Day Jesus

Ghoti Fish

Stavesacre

PAX 317

FFH

Grits

O.C. Supertones

Philmore

David Crowder

Pocket Full of Rocks

100 Portraits

Delirou5?

Grammatrain

There are probably more, but that's all I can think of tonight. But, I saved the best for last: Audio Adrenaline

I saw AudioA twice. Both times were fantastic! The first time I saw them, they were opening for the Newsboys at the Oil Palace in Tyler, Texas. The drummer was playing on a stripped down kit: just kick, snare, 1 tom, hi-hats, crash, and ride. They rocked!

I only knew one of their songs before that night, but I was on my feet for their entire set. Sadly, their lead singer had "ongoing vocal problems", and the band officially disbanded in '06.

Of course, some of you have seen more concerts than me, some less. But let me ask you a question. Who put on your favorite show?

Ingenuity Rocks

I have a great job. I work with great people and for a great company. I'm a Sr. Systems Analyst for a large ambulatory health care organization. I know...sounds exciting, right?

One of the funnest (most fun?) things about my job is getting to come up with creative solutions for problems. Usually my co-worker Bob and I tag-team on a lot of these problems. We've been working on one lately where we are migrating the documents for a couple of physicians from their old electronic medical record system to ours. A little over 30,000 of these documents are Microsoft Excel files. The system we are importing them into only accepts PDFs or other graphic file types (JPG, TIFF, etc.).

So, we needed a way to transform those 30,000 files from XLS to PDF. Bob worked out a system using PDF Creator, which can "print" pretty much any file type to a PDF, that could batch convert the files. There was only one problem. On every file the computer asked, "Do you want to save your changes?", to which Bob answered by pressing the "N" key. Now, of course Bob didn't want to sit at his desk for 34 hours hitting the "N" key. So he devised a plan. An ingenious plan.

To answer the question you must be asking: Yes, that is in fact a stapler, balanced on a stack of blank DVDs, pressing the "N" key.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Google vs. Bing

Bing

Maybe you've heard of it. If you're like me, you've seen all the commercials about Microsoft's new search engine. Oh wait, my bad, it's Microsoft's new DECISION engine. Big difference, right?

Well, for someone like me that uses Google multiple times a day, if there's something better out there, I want to know. So I thought I would put Bing to a little test. Better yet, how about a head to head competition with Google? Sound fun? Okay, maybe not fun, but maybe interesting enough for you to keep reading.

I've taken a few random items, plugged them into both search engines, and evaluated the results. Here we go!

1) 23rd president of the united states

Google returned the Wiki article first and a Wiki list of presidents second. Third was some website called "presidentsusa.net". Fourth was a link to the official site for the president.

Bing returned the "presidentusa.net" website first, then followed up with the Wiki article. It's third link was to a biography page about President Harrison on the website for Harrison Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (This site was 5th on Google.) Fourth site for Bing? Amazon.com.

I'm going to give this one to Google, but just by a margin.

Score: Google - 1 / Bing - 0



2) Aquada (a really cool amphibious car)

This one was pretty much a wash, so I'm giving them both a point.

Score: Google - 2 / Bing - 1



3) Serenity (a pretty good sci-fi movie)

Okay, this was weird. Almost the exact same results.

Score: Google - 3 / Bing - 2



4) Eisley calendar (a great band, who I happen to know personally)

Well, Google's first link was "Eisley fan's journal - calendar", I didn't see that link at all on Bing. I thought Google had won a clean win. However, when I clicked on the link I found that the website hadn't been updated since 2004. Oops.

Score: Google - 3 / Bing - 3

5) Aaroneous Findings (you've got to do the vanity search)

Google, without a doubt, won this one. The actual address of my blog didn't even appear on the results on Bing. Google? Top of the list.

Final score: Google - 4 / Bing - 3

Google wins!


That being said, Bing does have a couple of cool features. The travel feature that they tout on the commercials is actually pretty cool. Is that enough for me to change search engines? Nope.

Plus, saying that you are "googling" something when you are searching the net sounds so much better than "binging".

A Little Test

A few months ago, I mentioned comic books in one of my posts, and how I've always been a fan. These days, it's okay to like superheros. In fact, a huge portion of the movie industry is now geared around that. It's no secret that the Spiderman, X-Men (Wolverine), Iron Man, and the most recent two Batman movies have been big hits.

So, with superheroes taking on a even bigger role in popular culture, I thought I would do a little quiz. In the first list, tell me the real name of the superhero. The second list, do just the opposite. Which superhero is it? I'll try take make each list start easy and get harder. That way you can gauge your level of geek-ness. I've also made sure that they've all appeared in movies. So, it's possible to know them all and to have never read a single comic. Here we go!


1. Superman
2. Spiderman
3. Daredevil
4. Ghost Rider
5. Beast

Bonus 1: Magneto

-----

A. Bruce Wayne
B. Bruce Banner
C. Tony Stark
D. Johnny Storm
E. Scott Summers

Bonus 2: Wade Wilson


Have fun. I expect only a small percentage of people to get them all (without the help of Google, of course).

Back to School Bash

Today my church hosted a "Back to School Bash". We had free hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, snowcones, and drinks. There were not 1, not 2, but 3 bouncy-house-thingys for the kids. There was face painting (that was incredible, I might add) and carnival games for the kids. And let's not forget the live music from the Easy Pieces, Sheri Carr and Diane Thiel (and friends). To top it off we had a prayer booth and a dunking booth. I'll let you guess which one got the most traffic.

Zaxby's donated sweet tea and free kid's meal coupons, as well promoted the event with a special coupon good during the event. The Zaxby's chicken, "LZ", was out shaking hands with the kids and hanging out. They even put the event on their Facebook page!

Our next-door neighbors, All Star Pizza Co. also chipped in, letting us store our ice in their coolers , as well supplying some wonderful baked ziti and rolls.

But the main thrust of the afternoon was to give away backpacks with school supplies for local children. That's where Cheryl and I worked, and it was great fun. I don't know how many backpacks we had to start, but we gave them ALL away. Everyone was very excited and appreciative to receive them.

We didn't solve world hunger today, or end war, but we blessed our community, offered hope to some people that might not have had it, and possibly eased the financial burden on some families going through some tough times.

Over all, I'd say that's a good day.

A special "shout out" and "mad props" to Ali, Skye, and Elizabeth for helping take care of Nathanael (and to anybody else that chased him down). It gave me and Cheryl a chance to do something we both love: serving together. Thanks!