For two years and a half now I have had what I have always wanted and have blogged about it several times and sent numerous referrals over to Truman Pratt. Truman's my car guy. It makes me think of the guy in Crocodile Dundee II that ways, "Oh, I don't need one, I've got a Donk".

Dave was explaining a while ago how easy it was to replace a certain part on my car with this new wondertool or something like that and I asked why I would be remotely interested. And he said something like, "You have to have one of these if you are going to be able to work on your car…" and it just jumped out. "Oh, I don't need one, I've got a Truman."

But it appears my joy is shorter lived than I had expected. I knew he had to retire someday. No he's not retiring. It's worse than that. He's sold his shop and is moving off to Missouri. I'm happy for him. I saw some photos of his property that they are building their dream house on. It has two big ponds that are full to the brim with largemouth bass and catfish. They boil when you throw cat food in the water.

But as happy as I am for him, (He's definitely earned it) I am indeed sorrowful when I think of how I'll have to find me a new car guy. It only took me 19 years to find the first one. I wonder how long it'll take to find a new one.

From the beginning of November until Christmas, I love to see the snow coming down and feel the cold air outside. I love that feeling of coming in the house from shoveling snow and feeling the warmth on my toes and drinking a big mug of hot apple cider or hot cocoa. I even don't mind driving in the snow. Until Christmas that is. Once Christmas is over, I wish the cold went with it.

I had a tropical New Years once. I don't understand why the whole world doesn't just up and move to the tropics for the rest of the winter. Now that I think about it, I can't understand why I don't up and move to the tropics for the rest of the winter.

I took Jonathan sledding yesterday on his new Christmas present. He had a blast. And I got an ear ache. Oddly enough, it's on the side that had the wind blowing on it. Sure the sledding is fun, but I caught myself wishing for a nice summer day and a big block of ice to ride on. That's every bit as fun as sledding right? He also got a new bike for Christmas but the basement is a little too small to learn how to ride it well. He can ride ok, but not make the small turns he needs to in order to have a good time with it. Too bad that big long sidewalk outside is covered in snow and ice. That would make a perfect place to ride the bike.

Cari also lost/left her coat at school. And after losing the last 5 coats we have bought her, we're just going to make her play inside until she finds it at school after the Christmas break. So she can't very well go outside and play in the snow now, can she? See, if this were the tropics, she would be outside playing right now. I can just picture her and Jonathan riding their bikes down to the colmado to bring back some fresh oranges and mangos. And some bananas. And a pineapple. And some passion fruit. And maybe a couple papayas…

What do I want for Christmas? My two older kids have made their own Christmas lists about 4 times now. Funny how they change from day to day. For some reason, they both feel like they have to start out with a numbered list. I have been trying to put together my own list for about 2 weeks now. Part of me wants to put those crazy things on the list like a new car, a new camera, a boat, etc. The other part of me wants to see money piling up in the bank and not getting wasted on silly temporary things that only push me back further from my financial goals. So here I sit, I figured that when I got to this part of writing this post it would be clear as to which list I should add to the blog. Well it isn't clear. So maybe I'll just skip the list. Ooo, how bout this? How bout I put up a list for people other than my wife who want to buy me presents. (Sorry Babe if you're reading this, all I really want is stuff that doesn't cost money) On with the list!

A new car. (Something like an Infinity M45x AWD or a Porsche 911 Carrera 4)
A darkroom. (really only costs about $1000 for what I would need)
A digital camera (I know, not too useful with the darkroom but the Canon 1D Mark III would do just fine)
A really nice mountain bike for everyone in the family. (and a bike trailer for James)
A home theater. (I'm not too picky here, just something nice)
A new bar-b-que (one of the nice stainless steel ones with side burners, a grilling torch, and stadium seating)
A hot tub. (why not?)
A 2 week Caribbean snorkeling vacation. (I'll even bring my own flippers)
Some office space in one of those nice office buildings near Thanksgiving Point
10 New high-end SEO clients.
40 Acres in some mountainous area with a good place to camp or build someday

So there's the list. Please feel free to get me anything on the list. And if you really have your heart set on something that isn't on the list, I'll probably be happy getting just about anything.

News Flash. I don't like P Breaks (or paragraph breaks in some circles)

K, it's not really like I don't like them.

I do like them infact.

I think I have figured it out though. I tend to type rather long "run-on sentences". For some reason I just like seeing how much I can type without ending the snetence.

I used to think it was bad grammar because grade school teachers seemed to hate them. Then I found out that they are in fact not incorrect. My teachers didn't like them just because they were born in an era before blogging I guess.

And yes, I recognize that blog posts without breaks are harder to read. Maybe I should get some larger type too. Hmmmm I'll have to think about that one.

Sometimes I think and talk about something so much that I just start to expect everyone to have thought about it at least somewhat when in fact most people haven't thought about it at all. I have to stop and remind myself that "Hey, people have a lot on their plates. They don't have time to spend thinking about the same things as you". And then I sit down and start blogging. Sometimes things don't come out as clearly as I think they do. So let's do a little clarification. I sold my condo. I am not buying a new residence until I feel that the housing market has settled down. If we had bought the house we wanted 6 months ago, we would have already lost more equity than I'll be paying in rent over the next 2 years. Yes, I am renting a house. I actually am quite glad. Even if the housing market were stable and steadily climbing, I have found things that I didn't really pay any attention to before that I have now developed strong feelings about. Things about how the house is laid out; the laundry closer to the bedrooms yet in a space of its own, even more closets, a door between the master bedroom and the master bath, stairs down to the middle of the basement as opposed to coming down on one far side, a sports closet near the garage for things like golf clubs etc., a dining room that is a little more separated from the living spaces, a walk-out basement. I could go on but those are the major ones. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about the current house. In fact I am quite happy with it. I like it so much in fact that I consider the long drive a small price to pay for it. And I don't mind knowing that I'll never get any of that rent money back, I'll be able to find/build something of my own sooner than if I had to sell the current house. Also, the rent is less than the interest on a mortgage would have cost me had I locked one in a couple months ago. So just in case anyone is keeping track, since Aug 31 that's five blogs posts for me and one for Grant.

When I got married, I started out with about $800 in credit card debt. Not exactly a lot by today's standards. And we paid it down a bit and used some a bit and picked up a few department store cards. It slowly grew just like it does with most newly wed couples. Then we added a car payment. Then another. Then we decided to "save up" for a house. The plan was to pay off the credit card debt before we moved into a house but the right house presented it self earlier than we expected. So we added a mortgage. Then when I got laid off and went back to school, all the little things that would have normally been covered by discretionary income had to get covered by the credit cards. Little by little it grew. Sometimes by a lot. Pretty soon, we found that we had been imprisoned, enslaved if you will. New jobs, raises, pay off one car, changes in spending, pay off the other car, start a new business, it never was quite enough to get us out. Just barely enough to pay the prison guards. Well, goals have been made, habits have been changed, lessons have been learned (knock on wood). The condo was finally worth enough to cover a move to the outskirts of civilization and pay off the debts. So we did it. We found a price the market would bare, we found a buyer that needed just what we had to offer, we even found an appraiser that would give us an honest appraisal. Then we actually got a check. Then I put it in the bank and I realized just how easy it could be to forget the habits, the goals and the lessons. Well I am determined that we have learned our lessons. I scheduled all the payments. We got moved in and covered the costs that we had agreed to. And now it's all gone. I sent off the last of it this morning. I put my paycheck in the bank last night and I discovered something that I hadn't felt for over 10 years. All that money wasn't already spoken for. At least not spoken for by someone else. I don't have to pay the credit card people, I don't have to pay the car loan, I don't have to pay the bank or mortgage company. I'm free. I can cancel my utilities any time I want and have nothing left to pay. (Not that I would but I COULD! That's what counts here) I am a free man. Poor, but free. And I am happy. They say money can't buy happiness. I believe that. I think money can buy sorrow. I know it can in fact. And I know that money can buy freedom from that specific sorrow. So in a way, I think I did buy some happiness. I am a poor, free, happy man.

First on my list today: Motorola. A little over 2 years ago, my wife and I were shopping for a new mobile phone package where we could share minutes and not spend more than $70/month. We found one from Cingular. We found that we could even get 2 brand new RAZr's for free* (* should be read as "ok, not really, but the lawyers tell us we can kinda lie about it.") so we signed up. Loved the phone. Loved the service. Loved the rollover minutes. I had quite the stockpile growing until I started my own business. So everything is just wonderful. Then on the morning of Sept 25, my battery was dying. I went to charge it up and it wouldn't charge. "Crap, the charger died", it's the only logical assumption. So I brought it to work and tried my charger here. Still nothing. Tried it on Joel's charger. Nothing. Tried another battery. Nothing. Tried my batteries in Joel's phone and on his charger. SUCCESS! "Wait, so it's the phone? Crap" Well I have been looking for an excuse to get an iPhone. So I went and got one. "Woohoo. now I'm happy!" Better call the wife to let hew know the good news. Hmmm, no answer. All day no answer. Get home and find out that here RAZr is doing the exact same thing. How odd. Two exactly identical phones; two identical mysterious, undocumented by AT&T support, Crippling situations. Coincidence? Come on, really. What are the odds? "Well I defy you Motorola! You're not going to trick me into upgrading to another booby trapped RAZr!" Second on my List: Apple. I am more than pleased with the new iPhone. It's almost what all the hype has cracked it up to be. No seriously, it's freaking cool. I got a ton of things customized. So I have my old ring tones (which you CAN'T buy on iTunes) and I want to put them on my phone. Especially the one I want for my early morning wake up alarm. Well it turns out that I can't. Apple has made it impossible to put your own ring tones that you have edited or created onto your iPhone without voiding the warranty. Sure I can go get any of 500,000 songs in iTunes and pay AGAIN to make it into a ring tone. But I don't want those songs. I want "Busted" by the Social Comas. I want a bunch of other indi titles but NOOOOO! Lame Apple. Lame Lame LAME LAME LAME! Apple has historically been pretty good about listening to their users and giving them what they want.

Message to APPLE: Please figure out that people want their own ring tones before a halfway decent iPhone knockoff comes out. Because even if it was Motorola, I'd probably get it just so I could have MY ring tones.

So I have this theory. I think there have been way WAY to many investors entering the real estate market. With all the wonderful loans that have been abused over the last few years, more and more investors have been able to get into the market who shouldn't have been able to. Not because I'm mean, just because they can't afford what they think they should because a loan officer or a banker of some sort stretched the truth so that they could get a bigger commission. Actually it goes a lot deeper than that. There are quite a few people to blame, not just the lenders. But they are one that I particularly like to pick on so for the sake of short blog entries, we'll blame them for now. So now all these investors are stuck holding on to properties that are not making them anything. In fact, they are losing money on them. So now they need to sell them. But there are so many sitting on the market, that only one in five is selling. I had a condo. I had it listed with an agent a few months ago. And because of a couple certain real estate agents (whom I will not name in this post [cough cough the Tornows cough]) we were not able to get the appraisal for what 4 (count them! FOUR) buyers were willing to pay. So we had to take it off the market. Our agent (Bless his heart. No really, he is awesome!) let us out of our contract because we couldn't the appraisal that would cover our needs and his commission. So then we listed it for sale by owner. We had lots of people come look at it. We had several offers early on that we very close to what we needed. But not quite there. Then there was a short dry spell and then we got the offer we needed. So then we had to get serious about finding a place to live. We had been watching the housing market for half a year very closely. Prices had come down some 10%. They're still coming down. So back to the theory. I don't think they're done coming down. I think they're just getting started. So we're not buying. We're renting. It's interesting to see the reactions of people when we tell them. Some get it. Some view this renting thing like some lower class station where only lowly $8/hr workers reside. They don't consider that it could possibly be saving someone thousands of dollars. The ones that get it, they kinda light up. Then they realize that thy are going to be losing a lot of their equity until the market bottoms out. I have a friend who I have been working with on this very cool project who oozes real estate and finance knowledge and experience. He supports the theory but is unsure of the timing. But he's in a place where even though he might lose a lot of his equity, he'll also have a lot socked away to pick up a few of the foreclosures and make a killing as the market comes back in a couple years. So yeah, back to story 2, we sold our condo. He have moved to a house. It has a garage. I am sore. I can't believe how much heavy crap you can fit in a 3 bedroom condo. I'll tell you one thing, it's more than you can fit in a 25ft truck from Timp Rental.

What exactly is it about blogs anyway? What keeps people coming back to read them? Why do I read the blogs that I do. It's not because they're my friends blogs. Sure I check my friends blogs on a regular basis. Tho I don't know why I check Grant's blog, I know there won't be anything new on there. And if I'm lucky Jon will have something on his. When he does, it's a good read. But then there are a few blogs that I have stumbled upon that seem to strike a chord with me and even though I have no idea who these people are (at first anyway) I feel like I need to come back and see what else they are writing about. There's a girl in the Bay area that has some views that are actually quite a bit more liberal than mine but I can really understand her perspective on things and agree with her more than I expect to. There's that SEO/entrepreneur guy that named his blog after one of my ties. OK, he really named it after one of his ties but then I noticed the tag on my tie one Sunday while sitting in elders quorum and almost started laughing out loud. It's nice to see that I am not the only entrepreneur that personally struggles while his company thrives. There's that one mom/writer that writes about her suburban life and all the same things that I go through with my kids. Blogs are just weird. How do these people all find the time to write more than I do? I see things almost every day and say to myself "Oooo, I need to write a blog post about that one." But then I just don't have the time. Or I don't take the time. Or something. I go back and read through my blog posts and half (if not more) of the posts are about nothing. So many of the ideas I have are at least about something marginally interesting. When I was a kid I wrote in my journal. I only wrote stuff that I couldn't tell anyone. As I got older, I started thinking about what I would have to edit before I let anyone read it. I have two physical books that I have written in. They are both buried away somewhere and I'll wager that no one will ever really get to read them. It's a lot more fun to write a blog. I'm writing it for me but knowing that people are going to come read it. So it's all still personal. But knowing beforehand that it's not exactly private makes you write better I think. I actually spell check these and proofread them before posting them. I have even written a couple posts about intense situations before the mandatory 24 hours cooling off period and come back and not posted them. If it were my journal, they would be locked up in there forever. That's not to say that I don't leave errors. I've had a few people email me over the years to correct gross misspellings and inaccuracies and the like. It's just nice to be able to sit here at 9:00 AM at my desk and babble about whatever I want and know that people will still read it through to the end. It's odd. It kinda makes me feel some pressure to end each post with a slightly unexpected, slightly humorous, slightly logical statement. I wonder what would happen if I started ending each post like they end the episodes of The Office. It would almost be like stopping in the middle of a thought.

I had a dream I died last night. I was hurrying to visit a client and for some reason, even though they were a local company, I had to leave at like 3:00 AM to get there in time for the big meeting. So as I'm hurrying along taking note of the huge church buildings (and I mean huge. Think the local Mall. Then think bigger.) I notice that I am driving at freeway speeds on local city streets. But it's ok, cause who drives around at 3:00 AM? So I'm going over things in my head and come up to my corner, (In my mind I can see where the corner should be but in real life there is no such street or corner in this place. Not sure what that means.) and I am thinking to my self, I should probably slow down a bit, after taking a pit stop at this men's locker room that is just conveniently sitting on the side of the road and is oddly full of college kids getting ready for exams. Course it made sense then. So after taking a pit stop, I continue on without having to get back in the car and accelerate of course and I'm getting ready to take this 30 degree turn. So I slow to 80 MPH, then 75 MPH and then it's too late. I miss my turn and fly right through the intersection which apparently is sitting at the top of a big hill. I fly off the edge of the hill and think to myself "I hope I land on the grass softly so I'm not late to my appointment" but then I feel the car disconnect with the earth and I brace for impact. Then I realize after a few seconds, I am going to hit and hit hard. I say to myself "I am going to die". Not the kind of "I'm going to die" that you hear in movies. It's the kind that no one ever hears becuase everyone who has ever said it like this did in fact die, and not in a soft way. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the end, there is absolutely no way someone could live through this. And then it all starts. In a flash I am thinking of my kids growing old standing upright before the Lord, I think of my wife raising them alone, I think of all the things I wish I had taken the time to do. I think of how I am glad that I have managed to put my life in order and get things on the right track even though I have such a long way to go. And then when I know I should be testing my theory on spiritual mass and momentum, I realize that I am not hitting the ground, I double check to see if I am still falling and indeed I am. "What's going on here?" I ask aloud. "Is this some kind of joke? And who would have the ability to pull off such a prank?" And it just doesn't come to resolution. I don't hit, I don't get an answer, I don't start flying around looking at things from a Wonka-vator, I don't think I even made it to my appointment. The non-sensicalness (if that's even a word, spell checker thinks it's not.) of the whole thing jars me from my sleep and I sit on the edge of my bed scratching my head. "What the crap? What does that mean?" But then I look at the clock, hmmmm, 3:00 AM. "I have that big client meeting today. I better just get up and get things ready so things are polished up and buttoned down nicely." But then I made sure to follow the speed limit on the way to the office.

I have an older car. In fact, in two more years, my car will officially be a classic. Maybe then I'll get to stop have emissions inspections done. Hmmmm, not likely. Any way, I don't get the best gas mileage. I average about 22 to 23 miles per gallon. The last little while I have done worse and even seen some tanks of gas come in under 20 MPG. So I decided that I need to do some scientific (in a loose sense) experiments to figure out what exactly it is that makes me get better or worse mileage. There are a few logical things to point your finger at; driving in stop-and-go traffic, driving with under inflated tires, taking off quickly from stops, driving like I am historically known for on the freeway (need I say more on that one?) and wind resistance. So I decided to target each of these things each on their own tank of gas and try not to adjust any of the other variables. The results are in. Taking the freeway to and from work, is as fast but uses much less gas than taking State Street. Driving with low air in the tires doesn't seem to make much of a noticeable difference on gas mileage, it does however make a big difference in handling so I don't recommend that you go let the air out of your tires to test this one. Taking off quickly, OK really. We already knew this one was bad right? Still to be "scientific" I had to test it. So yes, it will use up your gas more quickly. Cutting down of wind resistance, I didn't have much to test with this since I don't have a bike rack or anything like that on my car, so I did the best I could, I kept the windows down and the sunroof open ALWAYS while driving. On the freeway, I also made a solid effort to have my arm sticking out the window catching as much air as possible. Result: no difference. I imagine that if I had been driving with my tent on top of the car, it would have made a difference. I'll have to test that one later. And the last thing, perhaps the biggest factor, is the freeway speeds. 9 This one is particularly sad to me since I like to drive faster than 95% of the traffic on the freeway. It's a great way to know there is no one in your blind spot. So yeah. It makes the biggest difference. Then once I'm done. If I do all the things that made a difference, I can actually gain like 8 MPG out of my car. So what does it mean? Will I actually start driving nice all the time? Hmmm, I don't know what to say. Maybe I'll just have to buy a motorcycle. They get good mileage.

So I think my wife and I are professional house shoppers by now. I don't know how many times we have walked through a house or driven past and picked up flyers. Seriously, most people go to movies, or biking, or some other normal hobby, we look at houses. We've watched the market slowly climb, stall and then skyrocket. All the while, we have watched the selling price of condos in our complex just sit and do nothing. Last year we joked about putting up a big banner on the balcony that everyone could see from the main road that said $139900. And when the condo association calls to say "Hey your sign is too big" we were going to say "oh, we are not selling, we just had this old banner around and it makes perfect shade for the plants. The thing that was so funny is that 139K sounded so unrealistic that we knew it would never really effect the prices. With people like the Tornows around who are willing to dump condos for below value so they can get out of it in 3 days, it's a miracle that they ever got up above 110K. But you can only screw the market for so long I guess. This last year while houses and lots in the area have doubled and in some cases tripled, our value has finally reached critical mass. It's good timing too because we are just out of room. Even with me moving my office to a real office, the kids just need more room and a yard to play in. And some storage room would be nice. And a garage. Ooooo, and how bout a formal living room? I could really go for one of those. And cupboard space, can't wait to have a place to keep all the dishes and still have room to put some food storage. So we have had our signs up for 7 days now and received 3 offers already. I suspect that we will have closed and moved before I realize that I have to find a new place to live. Anyway, I just wanted to get a link up here so everyone could see my awesome photo editing skilz and there I go, just rambling and half ranting. Buy a house.

I pulled up to a stoplight on the way to work this morning and looked over to see how bad the gas companies are screwing us. "$2.99!?!?! Wooooo Hoooo!" I actually caught myself cheering out loud in the car there. Then I stopped. "$2.99? That's not a good deal. I recall filling up my entire tank of gas for $8.00." And that wasn't that long ago. So the gas companies have this predictable pattern they follow pretty closely. Gas prices will move along for half a year or so fluctuating up and down by a few percentages. Then some event will happen that will trigger a jump in prices. And they'll jump like 20% or more. Then there will be public outrage, email campaigns to convince the nation to skip one day of gas purchases, news stories on which state has the best and the worst prices, some well known actors or politicians will use it to push their agenda or make a bigger name for themselves. And then the gas companies will "listen" and gas prices will come down by 5% and the nation lapses into oblivious and joyful acceptance. Little do the masses realize that they have just been snowed into being happy about a 15% increase. Not since the founding of DeBeers has the world had the wool pulled over their collective eyes like this. Diamonds are forever. Bull Crap. Oil production is becoming more expensive. Bull Crap. Greedy Bastards. It's all just carbon! I think I'm going to find a way to harvest nitrogen from the air or hydrogen from the oceans and convince the world it's worth 300 time more than what it costs to harvest. It's brilliant!

There have been a few times that I have posted things to this blog that I think I have thought through very thoroughly and worded very carefully. Then I post the blog entry and realize that there were some things I failed to think through when people start calling me and IMing me to complain. For example, shortly before a good friend got divorced, I posted an entry about a strange phone call I received from his soon-to-be X. I was super careful I thought not to phrase anything that might offend my friend. I focused so hard on that, that I forgot to take into consideration what might happen if his X were to read it. 'Course she didn't read it but her friends did. And there were hard feelings, and phone calls, and it was all just a silly waste of time. This time, I was pretty sure there was no way that the person with the HM wife was going to come read this that I forgot to think about my friends. It didn't occur to me that I had written it so obscurely that people might read it and ask "Is he talking about me?" So let me clear some things up before I get any more phone calls or emails. The High Maintenance post is written about someone who I don't think has ever or will ever find or read this blog. So I know there are still a couple of you sitting there, saying "He might just be saying that. It could still be about me." Well stop that! It's not. Ok?.. Ok, then that's settled.

So I was talking with an acquaintance the other day and he accused (in a round-a-bout way) my wife of being high maintenance. I had to stop and rethink the conversation to make sure I had heard him correctly. It reminded me of the part where Harry explains to Sally that she is the worst kind. "High maintenance but you think you're low maintenance". So this man is telling me that because my wife likes to take care of herself physically and makes sure she looks good when she goes out, (not to say that she doesn't go grocery shopping in here gym clothes, because she does that quite often) that she is high maintenance. He was saying that his life was so nice because he never had to wait for his wife to get ready for anything because she would just throw things on and not worry about what anyone thinks. (To me this sounds like a nice way of saying, "yeah, my wife's ugly and she knows it") I felt bad for him because his wife is really the worst kind. High maintenance but she thinks she is low maintenance. Just to prove my point it would seem, she called him on his phone while we were standing there talking to ask him to make a decision that she was totally capable of making. I had to stop and laugh to myself. He couldn't see it. Towards the end of our conversation, she called him again, this time to ask some other stupid question. Is it because she is really that incapable of doing anything on her own? I dare say not. I submit that it is because she is high maintenance. High maintenance doesn't mean taking care of yourself and making sure you are dressed nice. High maintenance means that it requires A LOT to maintain something. This could be a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of exactness like in Sally's case, or a lot of time from the husband. Then when talking about our different work schedules, he explained how he thought it would be cool to have his own business but that his wife would never be able to give him the time it would require. So he'll spend the rest of his career working for the man, 9 to 5, at some dead-end job and retire at 65 to live off his 401K for the rest of his life. I had to stop and count my blessings. I was telling my wife how thankful I am that she can handle the house without me. How she can get by when I have some weeks that I'll work 80 or 90 hours and only see the kids 3 times that week. How she can make decisions without having to call me for every little thing. I put in long hours at work. And I know it'll pay off and we'll get to the point where we have employees to handle everything I do and still afford to pay me what I need. Until then, it's got to be done by someone. And I could never do it without my wife.

So my kids have this thing where they have to give me a hug and kiss me on the cheek before I leave for work in the morning. It's cute. And even when I'm late, I take the 30 seconds for them to put down their breakfast or playstation controller and come stand on the couch to get their hug. The way I see it, they won't want to get a hug and a kiss when they are 15 or 16 so I better enjoy it while it lasts right? Well this week they have started running out onto the balcony as well to wave goodbye and blow a kiss. I have to open the sunroof and catch their kisses or they will have a heart attack. I was thinking to myself this morning "OK, isn't this getting a little out of hand? They have both got their hug and kiss, what else do they really need?" So I thought I would just test it. I backed the car up to where I could comfortably sit and wave. And wave and wave. Because when someone waves at you, you have to wave back right? So there I sat, waving. I started to think that I would have to give in after about an extra 15 seconds of waving when Cari stops waving and yells out in a quite irritated voice "Alright, that's enough! Go to work!" There wasn't even an unhappy transition from happily waving to annoyed. Just bam! That's all! You're done!

GDFMSSB10217550 Here's a shoutout to all my peeps at Shareasale.

Well folks, it's officially golf season again. I finally got the nerve to go play the back nine at Cascade. Turns out that I did 10 strokes better on the back nine than I did on the front nine. And I only lost 2 balls. And for the first time in my life, I got a birdie. Long straight par 4. "Skip the driver, skip the 3 and 5 woods as well. Think I'll try the 3 hybrid. It's been doing pretty well for me lately. Hit it hard but don't smash it like you did on hole 11." A pretty good drive, about 10 yards form the green. Just a nice easy pitch up close to the hole here, oops. Crap, I topped it. Ooo, it's got a good role, come one… slow down. Sweet! 4 feet from the hole. Ok no pressure now, if you screw up on a 4 foot putt after spending all that time practicing on the Astroturf in the office you'll look like the worlds biggest fool. Ok, second biggest. Nice and easy… WOOOO HOOOO!" So I guess I have learned a few things from my first birdie experience. 1. Confidence is key, it's also all in your head. There's a reason Tiger almost never takes a drop. 2. Don't be afraid of hitting along a long narrow cliff ledge, just try it. If you go out of bounds you'll probably find more balls than you lose anyway. 3. Don't be afraid to dance a little jig on the green now and then. It keeps you young. 4. My inner monolog has terrible grammar. It's a good thing people can't hear me thinking.

When I started this blog I added things pretty regularly. And it went through a couple down times where I skipped a month or so at a time. Then the last year or so, I have just been happy if I have been able to get one entry per month. Even when Grant IMs me and tells me to write stuff, I still can't seem to write very often. For a long time though, I felt fine with it, all my friends were only writing on their blogs once in a blue moon so I was way ahead of the game. Then Jon decided to give this blog thing a real go. He even moved to some real blog software. So even though I have nothing meaningful to say, here I am, typing away on my blog. Maybe it's my competitive nature, maybe it's my need to fit in, maybe it's something I haven't thought of. Whatever it is, I dare say it qualifies as inspiration. And maybe it's short. That's OK.

I'm sick of it! I remember commenting to my business partner after President Ford passed away "I can't remember the last time I saw a flag flying at full staff." Not that I have anything against mourning a past presidents death. We just have too many causes to mourn that don't have to be there. A gunman wonders into a Salt Lake City shopping mall (Where I have personally walked on occasion) and kills as many as he can until an off duty officer pins him down and he is eventually shot and killed. A disturbed father who lost a daughter systematically plans the abuse and slaughter of innocent Amish school girls. A couple clueless kids take several guns to school to take out their revenge on schoolmates that have not seen reason to allow them into the "popular kids" group. And then this week, a truly messed up moron decided that because life isn't fair, that the only real solution is snuff out the life of all the rich snobs that can only afford to attend the same college as him. Then the real tragedy starts. When most of us are mourning and healing, several soulless individuals take tragic events and use the power of the emotion that the nation is feeling to push their own agenda. The first report I saw about the Virginia Tech shootings actually included comments on who was to blame. They hadn't even got a clear number of dead and wounded and they were already pushing their agendas. Blame it on the guns. Blame it on the video games. Blame it on the media. Blame it every little thing I don't agree with. Everyone needs to know who to blame, I understand that. But no one is really understanding who really is to blame here. It's not the guns. It's not the video games. It's not the TV. It's not the movies. It's not the media. It's no single thing. Everyone wants to fix the problem. The problem is that the problem is more than just one problem. I do think there is a solution. But I have no hope for this nation. The solution lies in the home. Until this nation can return to a point where parents can make sure that children know and love their mother, that children know and respect their father, that children live their entire life only having one father and one mother, when children are taught the sanctity of marriage and to respect virtue and chastity, that children have respect and courtesy for everyone else, that children are taught the commandments of God, that children are given a sense of worth and individuality; until then, I have no hope. I don't see that it can happen because too many are past the point of feeling. Too many are lifted up in their own eyes and see themselves as greater than God. So what can we do? The only thing we can do. Teach our children a little better. Know our children a little more each day. Love our children a little more.

I played football during my junior year in high school. K, let me rephrase that. I was on the football team my junior year of high school. I was the only "skater" that tried out for the team. Most of the team mates hated me because I had "long hair". Course, many of them had long hair the next year. It just hadn't come into fashion for non-skaters yet. I did actually get to play a few times on the special teams a couple times. Once early in the season, I didn't stay in my zone and the other team scored a touchdown because of me. I didn't play much after that. Once in a JV game a little later in the season, the coach felt sorry for me or something and sent me in for a kick return special teams. I set up in the middle of the field. They almost always never kick it there. Course this time I saw the kick come off the ground and come straight towards me. Then it stopped going straight. If you have ever watched a kick, the usually have somewhat of a spiral and go more or less straight. This one didn't. I could actually see the threads hold their position on the front of the ball with zero rotation. It began to wander (in slow motion of course). First to the left, then down to the right. Then back up to the left, no right! Then back down at the last minute. I stooped low to catch it and it plunged even lower hitting me directly in the shin. Suddenly the slow motion went in to fast forward. The ball bounced to a teammate that was polite to me but I knew didn't particularly care for me. Off he went to gain some respectable yardage and there I stood looking like a moron. What happened? I kept my eye on the ball. Could it be that sometimes it isn't enough just to keep your eye on the ball? Elder Worthlin just gave a very good discourse on the subject and we would all do well to follow his council. But I would go a little further to say that the ball doesn't always hold still. We must remain vigilant and always prepared to catch the ball if by chance it is to dodge at the last moment.

I have started something kinda interesting. I'm not sure if this was a conscious decision or if it just happened but I have started noticing peoples' faces more than I used to while I am driving to work. I've been driving to work for years and years now and I never seemed to notice before how most people have a desperately hopeless blank stare on their face in the morning. The people who I see dropping their kids off at school don't have it for the most part. Some people who are obviously driving to work don't have it. I wish I could tag every car with a hopeless looking person and track where they go and what they do. Then I could run the data through some cool graphing system and see what levels of hopelessness are associated with what types of jobs or even what companies. I suspect the data would prove to be quite revealing. Though I'm not sure how I could really get the data for less than $50000 but it's a cool idea. I do see some people in the morning that appear to be in a relatively good mood. I find myself sitting there in my car imagining what kind of job this person must be driving to. Are they a business owner? Are they what they wanted to be when they were in kindergarten? Somehow, I have a hard time imagining that most of the jobs out there would make someone happy. I think it has to be their reason for working. I used to work so I could eat and pay the bills. I guess I still do, but somehow I enjoy coming to work in the morning. What I actually do day to day hasn't changed too much. So what is so different?

First thing:
I won the ultimate weight loss challenge. Finally! Even though I had to pair up with my wife to be able to win, we still won. And that is what counts right? OK seriously, I actually did lose some weight. I haven't weighed this little since I worked for PDC in 2000. So since we had the weigh-in last night, I thougt it would be good to remind myself what a full stomach feels like. Yeah, it wasn't that great. I used to really like eating just a little more than my stomach wanted me to. But I actually felt slugish and grumpy afterward. Didn't sleep well last night either, not til it was time to get up and go to the gym at least. So I got up late and decided that I might as well go so I could weigh myself. Didn't gain as much as I expected though. That was nice. And it felt really good to get the ol' heart rate up there for a while. Makes me want to get serious about this fitness stuff. Hmmm, yeah, I think I will.

Second thing:
I've about had it with all this CSS web 2.0 crap. Sure I can buy into the idea that it's good to seperate the design from the content. And I can agree that CSS is the best thing to happen to the web since sliced bread. But I've heard way tooooo often that the <table> tag is not meant for layout and that it should only be used to display tabular data. And that using <div>'s and CSS to do it all for you is going to make your footprint smaller. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!! Ok, just so everyone know I'm not just ranting for the sake of ranting, let's take a look at an example. Let's say you want to put nice rounded corners on a display box. And, not just rounded corners, but bordered rounded corners. It's looks nice in Photoshop and the client likes it. Looks a bit more polished than all the rounded corner tutorials too. So how do you code it? In order to avoid <table>'s you need a <div> tag with a background image in it for each corner. You need a CSS declaration to define the sizes of the div and the image placement etc. So that's 4 <div>'s so far. Wait, how bout the border? border: 2px solid #444444; doesnt' work? K, I'll create 4 more <div>'s with background image aligned to the top, right, left, and bottom. Let's give all our <div>'s a class so we only have to set the sizes once. Now, I need a div inside all 8 of those to define styles of the content of the box. So lets say that we don't need any <div>'s outside of these 9 divs for the sake of simplicity (can we really call it simplicity?). K we actualy need another <div> to be able to place this whole thing whereever we want. (yes, I realize that we could actually just add more styles to the first <div> that sets the top border but I prefer to keep things organized. That is supposed to be the whole point of this right?) Here's the code for what we have done so far. Now I wonder how much code we'll end up with if we were to use the old school method with <table>'s. Perhaps CSS and <div> tags are not the best way to seperate the content from the design. Perhaps the buzz around all this 2.0 crap will go away soon. You know, I don't think I've actually seen a definition of web 2.0. Is it social bookmarking and blogs? Is it that lame design style with bright colors, inner bevels, cheesey reflections, and starbursts? (80's meets MLM) Or is it CSS and the <div> tag vs. the <table> tag? Whatever the case, there is a better way to seperate the design from the content. It's called content management. And you can use a free web based CMS like Joomla or a highend, not free server based CMS like Vignette or Interwoven Teamsite or, there's always the pretty good inexpensive and simple Macromedia (Adobe) Contribute. Come on world. Figure it out. Keep the goal in sight.

Session Start (frauhauf:javamonkeyhead): Tue Feb 06 12:56:56 2007
[12:56] javamonkeyhead: no blog?
[13:36] frauhauf: sorry, busy working on a clients site today
[13:36] javamonkeyhead: lame
[13:37] frauhauf: sorry, workin for the man you know. gotta keep the man happy
[13:37] javamonkeyhead: how are things going?
[13:37] frauhauf: not bad
[13:38] frauhauf: we are focusing on building up our SEO clientele while maintaining some development. I think we have a meeting the friday with a possibly large dev client
[13:38] frauhauf: how you been?
[13:38] javamonkeyhead: good... wondering when you are going to give me more $$$ :)
[13:38] frauhauf: :)
[13:39] javamonkeyhead: so, you are doing okay?
[13:39] javamonkeyhead: making the bills
[14:44] *** "javamonkeyhead" signed off at Tue Feb 06 14:44:00 2007.
Session Close (javamonkeyhead): Tue Feb 06 15:08:43 2007

Session Start (frauhauf:javamonkeyhead): Fri Feb 09 08:53:14 2007
[08:53] javamonkeyhead: According to the 2005 Utah Foundation Report, UVSC bachelor degree graduates earn more money than graduates from any other Utah college or university.
[08:53] frauhauf: yes, it's true
[08:53] javamonkeyhead: :)
[08:53] javamonkeyhead: weird stat
[08:53] frauhauf: because they have a higher percentage of students that are already working professionals
Session Close (javamonkeyhead): Fri Feb 09 10:30:06 2007

Session Start (frauhauf:javamonkeyhead): Fri Feb 09 14:05:57 2007
[14:05] javamonkeyhead: another week with no blog post
[14:06] javamonkeyhead: very disappointed in you.
[14:06] frauhauf: hmmm, I think I can handle disappointment
[14:07] javamonkeyhead: that makes me weep
[14:07] frauhauf: hmmmm, I'm not so good with theweeping
[14:07] frauhauf: er weeping

I have never worked solely for myself before. Then again, I guess I am not just working for myself now either. It is my company though. At least half mine. Reading back through this blog, I seem to find that I often think "I am busier than I have ever been before". Once again, I think I am busier than I have ever been before. I come to the office right after dropping Jonathan off at school. If I have been able to plan ahead just a little and bring my lunch and dinner, I am here all day. Most days till about 9:00 PM. And the crazy part is that I am able to spend the whole time working and not hate it. In fact, I find myself sitting with a grin on my face several times a week just because I am having so much fun. I even had a good time taking a tax coupon to the bank to pay taxes. I'm sure that one won't be fun for too much longer but there are so many things that are fun and I think they will stay fun for quite some time. I like opening the office in the morning. I almost have a routine down as to which doors are unlocked first and which lights are turned on first. I like checking the mail. I especially like taking checks to the bank. I like the fact that I can sign my own paychecks and the bank teller can see that I own my own business. (I know, "How childish!") I like the fact that we are a real company and are able to handle taking care of a variety of clients needs. I like that my friends and acquaintances think of me and are actually sending me referrals. I like that my wife can come see me whenever she wants and that my kids know that I don't have a boss. I like that even though my paycheck is still small I know I will be rewarded for helping the company out. Makes me think of all the times that I saved my employer money or helped land them a huge contract or something like that and all I got was a nice "Thanks" or even less. I even remember getting laid off because I had streamlined the website and posting process too much. I hate greedy CEO's. Sure their job is important but I hate seeing when they don't understand that they have a responsibility to take care of their people. Just like what Curt said. "The sole purpose of a business is to make life better for people. The only real question deals with whether it makes life better for the few, at the expense of the masses or for the masses (sometimes at the expense of the few)."