Interesting concept - balloon mouse

 

Here is a cool concept for a user on the go: an inflatable mouse. A small flexible pcb board which houses all the elctro-goodies, a slim-profile USB connector/cable, and an inflatable plastic body.

 

When you want to store it, just pull the plug, deflate it, and stash it between the keyboard and monitor on your laptop. Then you never have to wonder where the hell your mouse is

 

The big question I have is: how thin can you make the PCB and USB? If it isn't thin enough there are going to be a lot of damaged LCD panels!

(via)

Anti-Masturbation device

Up for sale on Ebay.

 

I guess they had masturbation problems with boys back then (~1880s), and that was before the internet! Imagine if they tried to re-instate this technology today. There would be mass rioting.

(via)

Cat with camera around it's neck

The camera is set to take a picture every 15 seconds.

This cat seriously takes better pictures than I do, and that makes me kind of sad.

For those that speak German here is the link to the site.

 

(via)

And now, for dinner!

Now back at home and reunited with my camera. Time for a post!

 

Dinner last night was a success. I had planned on doing what is fast becoming a standby meal in our household: pasta tossed with garlic oil, Parmesan, peas, and ham. A darn good meal by any most standards. Last night though, we improvised, and were pleasantly rewarded with deliciousness.

 

It started with some turkey that we had defrosted but didn't know what to do with. Hmmm... a quick stop by the neighborhood store on my way home and home at last with some Italian sausage, snow peas, and a plan!

 

The ingredients:

1 box pasta, something chunky. not angelhair

1/2 lb turkey

1/4 lb mild Italian sausage

a few handfuls of Chinese snow peas

some fresh grated parmesan

fresh mozzarella balls

1 baguette

fresh minced garlic

salt

pepper

whatever other spices you like

 

The cooking:

1. Start a pot of water boiling, throw a little salt, olive oil (helps prevent sticking), and garlic in there if you are a fancy bastard like me. Turn on your pan to medium to start getting it hot

 

2. Take 1/2lb of ground turkey and throw it in a bowl with 1/4lb of mild italian sausage (or hot if you so prefer). I am a spice nazi, so if you like to keep it simple just throw some garlic/salt/pepper in with the meat. My take on the spice consisted of: fresh minced garlic, fresh minced basil, onion powder, salt, pepper, rosemary, oregano, celery seed, fennel seed, and cayenne pepper. Personally I crushed all the dried spices in the ol' mortar, but you could leave it chunky if you prefer.

 

Now get your hands dirty and mix it all together. Stop making icky faces, this is the fun part! Roll into small balls

 

3. Clean the snow peas (treat like green beans, pick the ends, and remove any stringy bits), and set them in a steamer.

 

4. Once you water is boiling throw in your pasta, set your peas to steam for 10 minutes, crank the heat on your pre-heated pan up to medium-high, and set the meatballs in.

 

5. Once pasta is done (about ten minutes) strain, and place in large bowl. Throw in your mozzarella balls immediately (so they can melt and get all yummy). Then throw in your snow peas and meatballs as they finish. Throw in some fresh-grated parmesan and let sit for a minute or two. The cheese should be all melty when you stir it around. If it isn't you can wait, or take the impatient route and microwave it (like it did!).

 

6. Throw on a plate with some bread, get out the camera, and try not to take blurry photos as your mouth pines to do nothing other than consume the food as quickly as possible.

 

Viola!

Aaahh the suspense!

Well last night was a much greater culinary success! Unfortunately that post will have to wait, as my camera failed to accompany me to work today (that cheeky devil!).

 

To help tide you over until that post, here are some games!! :)

Guess-the-Google: Easy concept, look at the images, and try to guess the keyword that was used to search for it. This is for those stupid geeky people that enjoy Google Image Labeler. Which means that I love it!!

 

Chain Factor (via): For those of you who liked Bejeweled, or always had a bit of a penchant for Tetris.

 

Have a great Hump day morning!

Uninspiring Menu

Lately the menu in the Check/Hacker/Larrette household has been a little un-inspiring. Some mac and cheese, fried bologna sandwiches, nachos, and sometimes nothing more than a few slices of bread with butter. Easy things. Things that I don't really feel bloggy about.

 

Sunday, I wanted something a little fancier for a snack, so out came the Prosciutto, 'fresh' Mozzaralla, Basil, and Cantaloup. Deliciousness ensued:

 

Other than that, I made some pineapple pork tenderloin last night, which tasted all-right (needed to marinate in pineapple juice to get better flavor), and was very un-picture worthy.

 

Hopefully this week will re-ignite the creativity in our kitchen! Tonight I'm thinking maybe some Pene tossed with garlic oil, snow peas, ham, and fresh Parmesan.

What are you making for dinner tonight?

A beautiful Monday

Well the weekend is over, we moved our office to their new building with only 1 major hitch. Apparently Qwest put their DSL line on the wrong phone number, so whenever somebody tries to use Line 2 - everybody's Internet goes down. What a handy feature!

 

We finished everything on by Saturday afternoon, so I was hoping to go for a hike on Sunday. Nature had something else in mind though, and brought a nice drizzle of rain down throughout the day. Turned out to be the perfect laze-around-the-house watching movies day! We watched Domino (seen it before, and I like it), Resident Evil: Extinction (I'm not the biggest fan of RE movies or games, but I am a BIG fan of Milla Jovavich), and Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events (helarious, whacky movie).

 

Catching up on all my Google Reader items, and came across some interesting items:

1. Using proton radiation to cure cancer. Very few locations across the world have the ridiculously expensive equipment, but the success rate is much higher than with standard radiation (due to the ability to target tumors better with protons).

2. Empire State building zaps your car (via). Apparently a lot of cars won't start when near the building, due to the large number of antenna that transmit from the site.

3. A man is suing Blue Man Group for shoving a camera down his throat (via). A man says that BMG shoved a camera down his throat. The show I went to had the same video (poorly videotaped here), and it is fairly obvious to those watching that it is not real, but apparently this guy was convinced. What an idiot!

4. The life of a blog post. What happens after you push the publish button?

5. Unbelievable life-like photos drawn with BIC pens (via).

 

Everybody have a great Monday!

No blogging for a few days

I will be moving an office at work for the next few days, so probably no new posts until next week. Have a great weekend everybody!

Lab Induced Out-of-body experience

This seems a little silly to me. You put on a pair of VR goggles connected to a camera that is behind you. They stroke your arm (synchronous with the video that you watch of yourself) a bit and suddenly you feel like you are having an out-of-body experience. Well duh! You're entire visual world becomes a view of your back, and after a while that quirky thing we call a brain adjusts for the change in POV.

So what happens if they stroke your arm, but delay the playback of video a small amount? Well your brain figures out that what you are seeing is in a different time, and continues to assume that you are watching a video.

via

Good quote

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing."

-William James

 

What good quotes do you have?

Great singer

Keeps his calm even when he falls off the stage. Funny Lip syncher!

 

via

Weekend Review

Well I have to say that I love 3 day weekends. Saturday started with a trip to one of my favorite coffee joints: Cuppers! Besides having the obvious (Coffee) we also had some breakfast sandwiches, lemon bar, and a muffin. MMMmmmmm good.

 

From there we (Me and DaNece) headed out to the Miller Creek trailhead for a hike.

Miller Creek was mostly frozen, and there was about 2 inches of crusty snow on the ground (and in drifts up to 8 inches!!). We spent about 3 1/2 hours trudging through the white stuff, and all told went about 4 miles. It was a great time, and everybody had fun. DaNece's camera died right at the start of the hike though, so we both took pictures with mine. :)

 

A hole in the ice shows the creek below:

 

We found a burned out old juniper tree to pose in:

 

Icicles formed underneath an outcropping:

 

It was a great hike over-all, and even though our feet were wet by the time we got done, we both had a blast!

PHOTOSET of all 23 photos

 

Sunday we headed down to Phoenix so I could fix her mom's computer, which was infected with the Vundo Virus, as well as a bunch of adware and spyware junk. 3 1/2 hours later and all appeared to be well. :) In thanks her mom and brother took us to Bucca di Beppo for dinner. Our food (Gnocchi al Telefono) was excellent, their food (Ravioli with meat sauce) sucked pretty bad. The service also sucked, which was a pretty big disappointment compared to our last experience with the restaurant over in Anaheim. Oh well.

 

Monday consisted of a noisy but delicious lunch at Pangaea's Bakery (in the Old Firehouse Plaza). Apparently they are expanding into some of the space that used to be Biff's Bagels, so there was lot's of jack hammering going on with minimal partition walls. I can't imagine having to work all day in that, but it was worth sitting through it for an hour to eat their AWESOME food, and have a good cup of coffee. Then we walked around town for about an hour, and ran some errands.

 

Weekend successful!

I'd eat my friends

if I were trapped and starving. Who wouldn't?

61%

Meet Hawaii Singles

Bionic Eyes, and really really black stuff.

Take a look at this article.
I find this type of stuff really interesting because it seems like it is coming right out of a hollywood movie studio.

Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

The design is at the very beginning stages right now, but eventually they believe that they can utilize this technology to create a HUD that overlays the world around you .  And then it's just a matter of time until some kid hacks the technology so he can look at porn all day long.

 

Also - scientists have created the Blackest Material Known To Man

..the material is close to the long-sought ideal black, which could absorb all colors of light and reflect none.

"All the light that goes in is basically absorbed," Pulickel Ajayan, who led the research team at Rice University in Houston, said in a telephone interview. "It is almost pushing the limit of how much light can be absorbed into one material."

Through the use of Nano-Tubes standing on end, they have made something that has a refraction index of 1.05 which is close to that of air. What does this mean to joe-schmoe? It could mean more efficient solar cells, which (in the long long run) would make solar cells more economical and smaller. Plus it might help scientists find out more about the world on a quantum level. And other nifty things I am sure.

More scientific info about it can be found here.

Alley walk and cars.

A short alley walk this time, but I was struck by the interesting vehicles that you can see around our little town.

 

First you have an old beat-up truck, with top-exit exhaust, and what was once a flatbed by the looks of it. A workhorse for sure:

 

Next up we have a two British cars. First a Triumph Spitfire MkIV (if i'm not mistaken), from the early 1970s. Not the sportiest of the Spitfire generations, but one that survived the decades fairly well:

 

Then we have an MG Midget MkIII, which had a sweet 65hp which was only slightly less powerful than it's Mini Cooper brother.

 

As you might see in the background in the last photo, this person also has a very oddly-painted C1 Chevy Corvette:

Also note the (I believe..) 60's era Chevy Impala in the forground. This man like his old cars:

 

Alley Walking Photoset

Weight loss - Thinking thin

*Caution: RAMBLING AHEAD. Just thinking with my fingers here.*

 

One bad thing about working a desk job (at least for me) is that you spend 8 hours a day on your butt, craving Twix and Almond Joys.  Coming from 6 years of often literally running around during my workday (5 years washing cars all day at Budget Rent-A-Car, and 1 year of running around on the sales floor of Best Buy), my body took a bit of a nose dive after a year and a half or so of sitting. I went from a healthy 165lbs (for my ~6ft frame) to a pretty pudgy 200lbs. Suddenly my 32" pants were unbearable and a move up to 34" waistlines was in order. I didn't try to blame big bones, or 'muscle weight', I called it what it was; fat. One day I decided that I was sick of that pile of goo in the mirror, and decided to do something about it.

 

So where to start?.... I know! I will diet! Unfortunately this was just about the time that I was falling in love with cooking. Try as I might, cooking healthy was not yet something within my repertoire. A simple search of my food related posts shows that my priority in food is TASTE, not health. The only thing that I conceded to eating healthier was ditching soda and drinking water in it's place. Not because I didn't like soda, but because it was giving me cramps when I would try to do something physical. That plain ain't right!

 

Well, I had to do something more than just drink water, so I decided to start hiking on weekends. I started out with little 1 mile hikes which made my legs feel like Jello. Eventually I got used to these and started branching out. I bought a book of trails in the Prescott area, and started taking the dog with me. Pretty soon we were doing 5-8 miles a trip. I found I didn't like hiking for the pain it gave me (I'm no masochist), but more for the simple fact that I got away from the press of people and stress and could just get out on a quiet trail, look for pretty pictures to take, and generally try as hard as I could to forget the burning in my lower half.

 

Another thing I started doing was walking around town on my lunch hour. I know this sounds simple, but it is a great way to get out of the office, as well as burn a few calories. Again, I started out small, going maybe 1 mile round trip to the bank, or just going down the back-alleys of downtown. Pretty soon though, I was sick of the same ol' scenery day in and day out. I started 'stretching my legs' a bit more and going a bit further every day trying to find things that I hadn't seen yet. My mind-set kind of shifted, and I started to see it not as exercise, but simply as a way to actually SEE the world around me without feeling the stresses of daily life. The only worry I had was making sure that I got back to work within the hour. Soon I was walking 3-4 miles round trip in a single hour. Even with long legs this is about as far as I can go in the timeframe without actually jogging, and it definitely gets the heart-rate up.

 

I stopped worrying about what the weather was like, and just worried about seeing more and more. Walk for an hour in the rain w/ no umbrella? Yeah, I do that, and yes it is uncomfortable to walk with an extra 10 pounds of water attached to you. But everything that you have already seen changes in rain. The roads are different, the colors brighter, the smells dimmer. It is a whole other experience. People at work think I am nuts. Who goes out walking in 20 degree weather? The weirdo IT guy does.

 

Something else changed along with all of this. I no longer really care if I see a bit of pudge in the mirror. Suddenly I don't feel the need to weigh myself every week to see if I was 'back down where I should be'. I don't know that I will ever have a six-pack or ripped pecks, and I couldn't tell you what the scale would put me at right now, but I do know that after 9 months I can suddenly fit back in my 32" jeans with no trouble, and I have had to punch some new holes in the belt. The biggest thing I noticed through all of this is that I have become a happier person.

 

Also, I found this interesting article about placebo effect in weight loss.

New Macbook - Wireless all the way?

Gadget's Airstream Chronicles posted today about the new Macbook Air, and how it is designed to do most everything through wireless (you can see the guided tour here).

 

*NOTE* Personally, I am not a Mac man. I love their design, and I like what I hear about the stability, but I do not like the price that you pay for these things. I am a cheap bastard. If they were giving them away though, I would take one in an instant to play with it, compare it with my windows laptop (Currently a Dell Latitude D830), and invariably fall in love with Macs I am sure.

 

I am, however, a somewhat techie type of person, and I have to wonder if some of the features on this new thin machine are going to be spreading through the rest of the laptop market. There are a couple of things in particular that worry me.

- The fact that they have removed the CD drive, and recommend setting up 'Remote Disc' to install any cd or dvd based software title from another machine in your wireless network, or using a USB-based external cd drive. If I am spending the $1800 dollar retail price that they list, I should not NEED another computer to install software. And if I just laid down that dough for a laptop that is 3/4" thick, why would I want to carry around a drive that is thicker than my laptop? Maybe this is the beginning of the the end for CD-ROM drives, and they will be going the way of the floppy, but I know a lot of people still rely on purchasing software in a box for any number or reasons. And as Rich states, installing big programs (think Adobe CS3) over WIFI sounds like a pain in the rear.

 

- There is only ONE USB PORT on the whole stinking machine. I can relate to wanting to get rid of the cluster-fuck of ports on a computer, but in this day-and-age only having 1 USB port seems like suicide, especially if that one port is being used for your new external CD drive! Personally, I hate touchpads and pencil-nub cursors. I need a mouse, so there is 1 USB port taken up. I am one of those quirky people that keeps handy things on my 8GB flash drive too, so there is another USB port that I need on occasion. God forbid I should still be using a hard-wired printer, as that will need USB. And what about all those digital pictures that I take? Yep, USB. I think this would be the biggest inconvenience on the new macbook if I were using one.

 

- .74 inches thick is REALLY thin, that is the idea, but it makes me wonder how durable the thing is. They do offer the cool option of having a 64GB solid-state storage device so that you don't have to worry about moving parts keeping your files safe, though this almost doubles the price of the laptop (to $3098). I know even with my comparatively thick Dell, I worry about putting any pressure on the lid that might cause the LCD to bend too much, and with the new Mac, I think I would be worried about the same for the base.

 

- No network port? Wait are you serious? So if you don't have a wireless network handy then you are screwed for Internet? Staying at a hotel with wall-jack Internet, but no wireless? Guess you will have to go wardriving till you find a hot-spot. This just completely blows my mind. I understand that wireless is becoming the thing of the future, and with wireless-N built in it is very capable in that department. As of right now though, there is not wireless everywhere you go and I don't know that I would be willing to go wireless-only with the wireless-service available in my area. This is definitely not the I (as a technician) would want to take to a client's house to get something done, but then again I don't think that is it's intended purpose.

In the end I think that this is a very pretty-looking laptop that I would be afraid to take out into the real world. But man would I be the coolest guy at work with it sitting on my desk (USB hub connected of course). For now though, I will stick with my Windows machine that needs to be re-imaged every 6 months or so, and doesn't have all the flash and style of the new Mac-book. Who cares what other people think anyway, right?

Those funny garbagemen

Need a laugh this morning? This should do the trick.

via

OpenCongress

Personally, I am not a very politically oriented person (as many may know). However since lot's of people I know are interested in politics I wanted to drop a link to a new(ish) resource called OpenCongress which allows you to get information on bills, senators, representatives, committees, etc. It also allows you to follow the bills that individual people are introducing, or how they vote, who they vote with, blah blah blah. Even I think this is kind of cool!

OpenCongress - Sen. Hillary Clinton via kwout

Weekend Recap

It was a fairly Low-key weekend. Saturday I took apart the fireplace blower to fix a rattling problem, bought a replacement headlight bulb for my 4runner, and we ran some errands in town. We had Luke's girlfriend Cynthia over for dinner and I cooked up some decent grub for dinner.

-Marinated Pork Tenderloin with mushrooms and shallots

-Sauteed Pears, which go with any pork dish you ever make.

-Garlic Mashed Potatoes (DaNece actually made these, since she does them better than me)

-Boiled rutabega (to accompany the mashed potatoes for those who like that sort of thing; like me)

-Fried garlic green beans

-Steamed snow peas

 

Sunday me and DaNece joined up with Chris and Shayla for a simple hike up thumb butte. The hike up was easy, and at the top of the trail me and Chris decided to scramble all the way to the top (not really hard, but not something the girls were comfortable trying to do). 

 

The hike down the north side of the trail on the other hand was very interesting. The sun rarely makes it over there, so it is nothing but ice the whole way down. All four of us managed to fall on our ass at some point, though I think that I managed it the most (5 falls), which is okay because I was having a good time. PHOTOS

 

After the hike it was home to replace my headlight, and veg out for the afternoon. Aaahh, another weekend successfully completed.

Cross Processing Photos

I have an admission. I like weird photos. I like photos with weird colors. I like photos that have weird angles, and photos with weird subjects. Photos with weird faces, and weird shapes. I am a weirdo.

 

Lately I have been diggin' the cross processed photos like these. Those bright colors, the blown highlights, the sense of modern vintage, these things call to me. The blues and yellows seem to impart an age to the photos which may be in contrast to their subject. This duality flat out does something for me. I am a weirdo.

And this weirdo decided to try his hand and x-processing some of his own photos. Some turned out well, and most of those got their own PHOTOSET dedicated to them. Here are some of my favorites, let me know what you think!

The Caddy looks pretty awesome:

Who is that vintage dog?:

Looks like Marciano is stuck in a bad 80s horror movie:

 

DaNece:

They are going to kill us all!

I was walking by the Mountain Oak charter school today when 2 military helicopters happened to be flying by. 70% of the kids started to scream 'THEY ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL!! RUN!!!' and proceeded to sprint around the playground.

 

Aren't kids great?

Long Shutter Photos

Playing with the Long shutter option on my camera on the way to the show last night. Most taken with 8" exposure (some with 10" or 15"), with ISO in the 100-200 range (tried some 400 shots, but the noise was too bad for my taste).

New photoset of Long Shutter Photos

 

Also check out this Flickr group for some other great long-shutter photography

A Thursday night surprise

So mid-day yesterday Ken from Sir Speedy (who does our company's printing) came up with an extra set of tickets to see the Blue Man Group, and wanted to know if I was interested.

 

SIDENOTE: Not only did I not know who the Blue Man Group was (other than some show that happened in vegas, and did some intel commercials), but I had never been to a concert event before. I was in for a surprise.

 

The show was at the Tim's Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, which is a small venue. We had floor seats 7 rows back. So basically - we had freakin awesome seats! The opening act was Mike Relm, a scratch DJ who not managed to lay down some awesome tracks along with entertaining the hell out of this audience (see video below).

 

After Mike was done it was time for BMG to hit the stage. The name of the tour is 'How to Be a MegaStar 2.1', and after the opening music they show an infomercial for Rodco's (making fun of Ron Popeil) instructional DVD on being a rockstar. The DVD teaches such moves as 'The Head Bob', 'The One-Handed Fist Pump', 'Raise the Roof', 'Head Back Yell', and the venerable 'Ode to Floppie the Banjo Clown hand gestrue' (see the video on this page for the comical description of this gesture).

 

The BMG's instruments are made primarily out of modified PVC pipe, though they do have some awesome things called 'AirPoles' which are fiberglass whips. The sounds from these instruments are peculiarly soothing and enjoyable.

 

The band was good, though they did overpower the Blue Man instruments fairly easily. The show was entertaining, and a good time was had by all. Super glad that we got a chance to see these guys play in our little venue in P-Town.

 

Video of Mike Relm:

 

Video of BMG 'drum-bone' performance which started off the show:

TED Talk - The Mystery Box

If you haven't heard of the TED Talks and you have some time to kill, and don't mind using your brain a bit, you can learn A LOT of stuff about A LOT of subjects. This is one I liked that wasn't about science or technology, but instead about mystery, and how it helps to shape the world in which we find our selves.

 

A few other talks that I liked:

Jeff Han - Multi-touch interface

Neil Gershenfeld - Fab Labs

Gever Tulley - 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do

Jennifer Lin - Piano Improv

You suck at Photoshop

For anybody that has used photoshop the things in these videos is a cake walk, but my got did I laugh my ass off watching them. 

 

Foreign Visitors

Dang, I'm up to 10 different countries that have visited this blog. And even 8 different states within the U.S.A.

 

Man, don't I suddenly feel like Mr. Freaking Popular? Actually.. yeah, I kind of do. 

Thanks for stopping in everybody!

Tuscan Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce

Mom and Nikki came over for our weekly edition of 'The Biggest Loser'. Sadly, the retard in control (me) forgot to TiVo it, so there wasn't a show to watch...  so instead we watched Chicken Little which Nikki had never seen. Of course, Fish Outta Water was the favorite.

 

And then there was dinner as well. A delicious Tuscan Meatloaf (recipe from simply recipes). I'm not sure exactly what makes it 'Tuscan', maybe the Prosciutto? What I really liked about it is that it is all done on the stove-top, no pre-heating and baking required. That also means fewer pans to dirty. Hooray!

 

I changed the recipe a bit. I used fresh mushrooms (shitake, oyster, and crimini), and as such; more of them (about 8-10 oz). I added 1/2 lb of mild Italian sausage, and upped the yolk/milk/bread mixture by a bit to help hold it together.

 

The only thing I would have changed in retrospect would have been to add minced mushroom to the meat mixture, as well as add cheese to the top as it is cooking (and getting flipped) so that the sauce would have been a bit creamier. A very tasty entree though!

 

 

In addition to the loaf, we made steamed green beans, some albertson's baguette (which is freaking awesome tasting for such an unassuming-looking loaf of bread), and mom brought over some mashed potatoes. Yummmmmmyyyyyy.

Another day, another alley walk

Some of the eye catchers today:

 

A Mercedes owner who is proud of living in Prescott:

 

The backside of one of the victorian homes on Mt. Vernon st, with block retaining wall:

 

Some dedicated table-tennis players apparently didn't have room for the table in the house, so they set it outside by the creek. It was well maintenanced, so you know that they use it.

 

A sweet van mobile. The light covers said ELVIS. Also check the spoiler on the back of this beast: you definitely need downforce in a road-racer like this:

 

Some people ought not be allowed to pick paint colors:

 

And lastly, the police parking area. Guess not too many cops out giving tickets today...:

all alley photos

Tagging Posts

So I realized that since I started blogging (144 posts ago) I only tagged a whopping 3 posts. So today I went through and got tags added to just about all of them.

Finally, I actually accomplished something while on the clock.

I'm fairly normal

According to the quiz I took:

You Are 70% Normal

Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal You're like most people most of the time But you've got those quirks that make you endearing You're unique, yes... but not frighteningly so!

How Normal Are You?

via

Healthy(ish) dinner

 

- Broiled lemon and garlic Halibut steaks

- Steamed green beans

- long grain wild rice

- sauteed zuchinni, yellow squash, onion, mushroom (on my plate)

- simple rolls from Albertsons

 

A super tasty, super EASY meal!!

Fight fire, not with fire, but with jet turbines!!

So what would happen *theoretically of course* if you were to take an old russian tank, rip off the turret, and setup 2 turbines from a Mig21 fighter jet?? What if you were then to theoretically inject a large volume of water at the exhaust end of those turbines and point it towards a fire? The fire just might go out...

via

Weekend Wedding

This weekend we headed down to Phoenix to go to my cousin John's wedding at the Mountain Preserve Reception Center.

 

My cousin Amy and Uncle Paul sang during the ceremony which was very cool:

 

It was a really elegant wedding, while not being over the top. And man, do they make a cute lookin couple!

 

Me and DaNece didn't look too shabby either:

 

After the reception we went back to the hotel and sat up singing songs with Uncle Mike, Aunt Tawmmie, Uncle Paul, Mom, and Nikki. Always a good time!

 

Then in the morning we proceeded to a family breakfast, followed by the core-family having coffee at the Lux coffeehouse, which is an establishment that always amazes me. Not only do they have some of the best coffee that has ever graced my tastebuds, but they do a huge number of orders in minimal time, with a friendly staff. It flat out rocks!

 

 

It was good to see the family, and great to see John so happy with his new wife Kaisey.
PHOTOSET