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7 row(s) meet your search criteria for August , 2004.
"New" PC - August 30, 2004
- Nexus AXP-3200 CPU Cooler
- Nexus NX-4090 400W Power Supply
- Verto GeForce FX - 5200 w/128MB ddr
- Soyo SY-KT600 Dragon Plus v1.0
- 1Gb DDR 400Mhz RAM from OCZ Technology
- AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 333Mhz FSB (Barton)
I Survived the Birthday - August 18, 2004
I just wanted to report that I did get through my 40th birthday with a minimum of fuss, a maximum of relaxation, a few obnoxious phone calls, and a pile of cards making fun of me. The golf was good (the score was not), the personal massage could not have been much better, dinner with Mike and Tammy House was great fun, and the babysitter worked out great. In totality, it was a wonderful day - thanks to all who I spent time with and those who called, emailed, or snail-mailed their wishes.
While dinner was great, we did adjust our plans in real-time. Originally we had planned to go to El Gaucho, a "premium" steak house downtown. However, upon review of the menu, we decided it was a bit too pricey and so we ended up at the Portland City Grill 30 floors above downtown Portland with a spectacular view and a quite impressive menu. It was a fantastic substitution - I got my juicy steak, everybody else had some Sushi appetizers, and beer and wine were consumed by all.
Waiting for me at home was a gift I purchased myself: a new flat panel monitor. I spend lots of time on the computer, and had been lusting after a bigger flat panel for months (we had a Viewsonic 15" I got many years ago). Last weekend, I was at Costco and saw a Princeton VL1916 on the rack for the unbelievable price of $499. After making sure that Marie had not purchased anything big for me, I bought the monitor.
It's awesome. It's so bright, I think I'm getting a sunburn sitting in front of it. The picture is crisp, clear without a single bad pixel. The only bad thing I can say about it is that the built in speakers that I hoped would replace the desktop speakers, are crap. The rest of it, is beautiful. Even Marie agrees.
So for those of you parents and in-laws who sent a few bucks my way for my birthday - this is what we bought. THANKS!
I also got a big box from my sister - which set off all sorts of alarms. You see, she had been teasing me for some time about my impending birthday (her's was long, long, LONG ago :o), and I was sure this was to be some sort of gag gift, or collection of gag gifts. My expectations were in the area of an entire box of "Over the Hill" gear that she had received on her 40th, and was now passing down to me.
But much to my surprise, it was a poster size recreation of my glory days as an 8 or 9 year old swimmer standing next to my life size poster of Mark Spitz from his '72 olympic 7 gold medal performance. In this picture, with the poster in the background, I assumed the exact same pose, with 7 recently acquired swimming ribbons around my neck, and the identical red, white and blue star spangled speedo.
Thanks Jeanne, that was really neat. And thanks too for the Band of Brothers DVD boxset. I'll really enjoy watching that uncensored this time (it was on the History Channel a few months ago).
So I'm 40, and now I just have to make good on my more pledge from yesterday. Maybe blogging from the office is not the best way to start......
Today I Celebrate the Big 4-0 - August 17, 2004
Today is my birthday. Not just a normal birthday, but one of those that are divisible evenly by the decade with no remainder. I'm 40 today {{{{gasp}}}} and not afraid to publicize it.
Whoop dee friggin' doo! Your only as old as you feel right? I feel fine; it's my knees, and back that don't seem to fall for the rhetoric.
Before I go too far down that road, my sincere Birthday wishes also go out to my Mom, who on this day 40 years ago decided give me all her birthdays from then on. Happy 40th anniversary of your 27th birthday Mom! I love you, and I hope you got our gifts/cards ontime.
So shall I complain about getting old? Nah. It's been done before - I don't have any new insight on it. Getting old is better than not getting old, which means getting dead. Sure, I have the normal complaints - an ache here, a pain there, too much hair in all the bad places, not enough hair in the right places. The ever-expanding waistline and the always shrinking window of time in the day reserved just for me.
In all honesty however, my life is pretty good. I've got a great family, a nice home, a job that pays well with great flexibility, and I drive a Volvo.
Ok, so I'd go for a nice sporty red convertible instead of the Volvo - who am I trying to kid?
What's on my list things to do today? I've planned a definite an out-of-the-ordinary day. First, I'm going to get up early (that's probably the biggest shocker of the day) and head out to the golf course for a nice round of 18 holes. Later, a personal full body massage is scheduled, and then a babysitter arrives as my lovely wife and I enjoy dinner with good friends at a prime cut steak and potato place downtown. Other than the getting up early part, I anticipate a nearly perfect day (If I break 80 during my morning round of golf it will be perfect).
There will be no belly dancers, no wild parties (none that I'm planning anyway), no excessive drinking, no staying up late (it's a school night fer gahd's sake!) or getting physically tossed from a bar (which only took 39 years and 11 months to happen the first time - but that's a story for some other day). Besides, I'm too old for all that.
In between the scheduled events, I'm sure I'll contemplate the next 40 years of my continuing physical deterioration, and maybe eat cake.
And then I'm going to think about more. Where can I find more time in the day. I need to give more as a husband, father, brother and son. I want to be more respected professionally, and more valuable to my clients. I want to be more to my friends. And I need to live a more healthy and hopefully longer life.
Optimistically, life is half over for me as there are some pretty poor poker hands in my genetic deck. Sometimes I think that I've spent the first half simply going with the flow and enjoying the ride, not really working towards the destination. Now I'm thinking that I need to start swimming, going where I want to go, making the ride that much better for me, and all those around me.
My First Comment Troll - I'm so honored. - August 16, 2004
This website is public. I don't restrict content as what I write here is nothing I wouldn't talk about if I were in a public place and strangers were within earshot. I also accept contributions from those strangers who want to participate in the discussion in an intelligent and polite manner.
I also don't limit what Google and Yahoo can see as their search engines span websites like this for searchable content. On occasion, somebody will put something into Google or Yahoo (or any of the other search engines) and be directed to my site. Sometimes what they are looking for is unusual, and why they get directed to my site even more unusual - but such is the mystery of the internet.
What's interesting to me, is why a complete stranger would come to my site from a search engine, be seriously offended by something I said 6 months ago, then post a comment with the 'F-bomb' and tell me I'm ignorant.
From a post on my review of the 2004 Academy Awards Show, one of my comments in the "Losers" section was:
Johnny Depp needs a hair clip. Bangs in the eyes are almost ok on a woman, not ok on a gay pirate.
Apparently, "Xena", is a Johnny Depp Fan. She comments (no editing done to exhibit her intellectual skills):
FU, johnny depp looked great at the oscars, your just mad that u can never dream of looking half as good as him. and also if u listened to the story plot of POTC, u would see why he acted the way he did, he's not a gay pirate, so pay more attention before you make ignorant comments!
This might come as a surprise to you Xena, but looking like Johnny Depp
(Official IMDB bio photo on left, 2004 Academy Award appearance on right)
is not on my list of goals in life. Even if I was still in my 20's, I don't think I could pull off the "serious, somewhat dark, idiosyncratic" look with the "I got up late and didn't have time to comb my hair" effects.
And if you think that I'm the only one who suggested that Captain Jack was gay, try a google search - and review some of the other 74,399 sites that make the connection. I'm not saying it was a bad moview, or that anything is wrong with a swishy swashbuckler, but if you didn't pick up the tendancies, then maybe the mirror is a more appropriate recipient for your "ignorant comments".
And next time you feel like being rude and obnoxious to strangers, go back to that AOL chat room and act like an imbecile there - I'm sure you'll feel more at home.
shhhhh - President Bush is Coming to Southridge High - August 12, 2004
President Bush will be in the Portland area on Friday (so will Sen. Kerry). The President's agenda has not been officially announced, only saying that "he will hold a question-and-answer session on business issues at 12:15 p.m. in Beaverton." I heard from a friend, who heard it from their next-door neighbor's 2nd cousin's brother's wife's friend that he will be having this meeting at our local high school, Southridge High, not far from our house.
Being it was a rather dubious roundabout way by which I obtained this information, I scouted the location this morning on my way to work. Sure enough, there were plain clothed, but badged officers milling about the school and some mysterious plain white vans parked around the school. To me, that confirms it.
However, what this says to me is to avoid at all costs the area of Scholls Ferry Road from Murray to Hwy 217 in the hours around noon.
NFL Football is Coming - August 10, 2004
Last night's Hall of Fame game is the first reminder that NFL Football Season is here. This also is my first reminder to get the NFL Pages of my Sports Pool Challenge website up and running. It's a "pick-em" game, and anybody can play. I charge an entry fee of $60 for the entire season played exclusively online. Last year we had about 100 players and over 30 of them got at least their money back.
Here is a description of the game:
The Pro-Pick'em Bonus Game allows the player to pick 12 NFL games each week. Each game is ranked from 12 points to 1. IF the team you pick wins the game (no point spread required), you get the number of points specified. In addition, you can specify one of those games to be a "bonus" game. If that team wins, you get double the points.
Sounds simple eh?...
Here's the catch : if the team loses or ties, you get a negative point score equal to how you assigned the points. No big deal you say? Catch #2 - you can only bonus a team that is playing against a team with a .500 or better record. No picking against the Cowboys each week !
Each weekly winner gets $75. The top 20 spots overall also get paid. For the 2003 season 1st place got about $700, 20th got $75. Everyone is welcome to play and you can tout your picking prowess in a message board we call the 'Smack Exchange'. I only ask for civility among the players - even the Raider fans.
If you played last year, you can login with the same user ID you have used before. If you forgot your password the system can help you remember. If 8 months is too long for you to remember anything, re-register - its not a problem.
Hopefully tonight I'll get the 2004 schedule posted, and open up this year's game for sign ups.I've updated the schedule and enabled the 2004 league. Signups are now open. If you are interested in a private game with just a collection of your friends, I can accomodate that too. Just send me an email and I'll set it up.
So come on and play ! It's great fun and makes the NFL season very interesting to watch!
Great Oregon Steam Up! Don't Miss It Next Year ! - August 09, 2004
We packed up the kiddies and headed down to the Antique Powerland Museum for the Great Oregon Steam Up on Saturday. This museum is dedicated to the "preservation, restoration and demonstration of steam powered equipment, antique farm machinery and implements" and is an undiscovered (at least to us) treasure in Oregon.
(photo from that site - by Jerry Gaiser) Click on the picture to see a larger version and the backstory of this little tractor manufactured in 1912!
I thought Garrett's head was going to explode with all the spinning machinery on display. Certainly the Steam Up is their premiere event of the year, but the collection of steam powered tractors, early combustion engines, and all sorts and ages of farm tractors was impressive.
Also on the site was the Willowcreek Railroad, a large scale model railroad that you can actually ride on. Below is an image shamefully swiped from their website just to show you the scale I'm talking about.
Garrett "made" me ride the train with him three times (he did another two times with either Mom or the Grandparents. But the ride was smooth, took about 10 minutes, and lots of fun. They had about 5 or 6 different trains running on the track that switched over several times, ran past a model city, and has it's own round house. Some of the engines were lawnmower engine powered, but some were actual steam powered. Very cool.
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