Hitting to all fields...

• My dog doesn't seem to understand that people rarely stop in the middle of walking down the stairs. Either that or he's trying to kill me.


• While showering at the gym yesterday I heard two guys having a VERY loud conversation in a language that could only be Sullustan.


• Was thinking of going to Shore Leave in July...of course all flights between FL and Baltimore have a stop in the middle. You'll never guess where. Chicago. Of course.


• At some point in Survivor they're just going to cut to the Ulong tribe and all you're going to see are the bodies of Ibrahim, Bobby-John, and Stephanie along with a note saying they just couldn't take the losing anymore.

Hooper was groomed today. After looking into dog grooming options (what fun) we found that it's a lot better to get a groomer that comes to your home rather than take him some place like Pet-Whatever to get groomed. I guess that at these retail stores where they do grooming it's pretty common for your dog to get sick somehow...and I don't really want to deal with that.

The woman showed up on time with a big van/bus type vehicle. She took Hooper and after like 45 mins they emerged. Hooper looks very nice all groomed. He was getting a little scraggly. She asked how we wanted him cut and stuff and I just told her I didn't want him shaved and everything and I wanted her to keep his eyebrows. He smells great, looks very nice, and he even has a bandana. Pretty funny. Cost was $58. I got the woman's card and asked her how often he should be groomed. She said 8 weeks because we like him scruffy, which doesn't seem too bad...especially since she could have said 4 weeks and I would have been like 'ok' because I have no clue.

Had a nice weekend this weekend. Watched some stuff on the Tivo and saw 'Hostage' and 'Robots', both of which were good. Saw 'Robots' on the giant screen at the Muvico at the Pointe and they had the new Episode III trailer in front of Robots so that was cool.

Went to the dentist on Friday. No cavities or anything, as always. Doc asked if I grew up in IL because they had good fluoride in the water there. My top two wisdom teeth have emerged (actually, they did a LONG time ago) and the right one is causing me daily pain in the form of constant headaches. So that's fun. I got a referral for the oral surgeon so I've got to make that appointment. I have a cleaning tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

They did a new kind of X-ray at this dentist...I stood against this thing and the X-ray thing revolved around my head. I thought this would get me out of the X-ray film in my mouth deal, but it didn't. After that, the woman took digi-pics of each segment of my teeth, which I thought was cool.

So, eventually, I'll get these damn wisdom teeth out. We talked about braces (due to my 2 teeth that jut out a bit in the front) but the dentist said the way my mouth and teeth are they might have to remove one to make enough room for the others, and that ain't gonna happen.

Trekkie Nerd Congratulations! You scored 81%!

Congratulations - your designation as a Trekkie Nerd means that you are statistically more likely to be a virgin, socially inept, live at home in your mother's basement and have no chance of scoring a chick like Seven. Still, if knowledge of temporal paradoxes, the repercussions of the Janeway effect and an intimate knowledge of Klingon history made big bucks, you'd be a millionaire. Ah, tis the sweet irony of life.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 91% on Trekkies

Link: The Trekkie Test written by MadameBoffin on Ok Cupid

That's the completed Falcon. I finished it the night before Mom came in. She remembered it from back in the day and said I did a great job. Of course, she could have said that no matter what, but that's cool. Judge for yourself.

It's not perfect, not even really close to perfect, but I tried to do my best. I wish I knew of a better way to make scrapes in the colored sections, but everything I tried didn't turn out looking right. The holes in the hull and gashes were made with a soldering iron from my comp kit. The blackened areas are just black chalk dust sealed on to the model with layers of Future floor polish and Testor's dullcote. Although it can't be seen from this angle, I did include the 'famous' big dent in the port docking port that's right above the ramp. I did that with one of those 'click and light' red and black lighter wands with a little build up behind the hole using sprue that the parts were attached to.

GAH!

Batten down the hatches again this year?

Forecasters from the National Hurricane Center are predicting that this year will be another above-average season for Florida due to the continued presence of a strong high-pressure ridge. The “Bermuda High” keeps hurricanes from turning north into the Atlantic, instead keeping them on course for Florida. If there is no change between now and the beginning of hurricane season at the beginning of June, it could again be a rough season for the southeastern United States.

While it's highly improbable that Florida will again get hit with four strong hurricanes, it is not unlikely for two major strikes to slam the state. Of course, as with all weather predictions, this is all subject to change at a moment's notice. In the meantime, let's hope that the Bermuda High dissipates in the next couple of months.

Had a nice trip back to IL last week. Basically, it was training and orientation for our new group inside Moto corporate. For me, it's a small change, though I miss our old management chain and teams. It's still working with the same people...though some have moved on to different teams for one reason or another.

Throughout the visit I was able to watch the Super Bowl with my Dad, see my Grandma at my sister's (early) birthday dinner, have my Mom's sloppy joe's, a nice dinner with our new team and a great restaurant (Wildfire), and spend a nice day with my sister at the Museum of Science and Industry. Very nice.

It's always nice to be able to have a paid vacation back home due to the way my work situation turned out in the move to FL. I'm really lucky.

After sitting in an actual work facility for a week, I'm amazed how many people don't know how to flush a toilet.

Gross, I know. That is all.

CNN.com - Actor Ossie Davis dead at 87 - Feb 4, 2005

Sad. I loved him in 'Joe versus the Volcano'. :(

Getting to know me...

1)Name the Last Four Things You Have Bought:
Testors spray enamel in Light Aircraft Grey (2)
Small bottles of paint (4)
Puppy treats
Sour Rasberry Altoids


2)Name Four Drinks You Regularly Drink:
Milk
Orange Juice
Grape Juice
Water


3)Time you Cried:
Boy, I really don't remember. I think it was during an ESPN special on the Bulls Championships and they showed the Paxon and Kerr game-winning shots.

4)What's In Your CD Player?
mp3 CD in the car. Last CD I bought was the soundtrack to the Muppet Show.


5)What's Under Your Bed?
Two bins filled with various things. We don't have a lot of storage in the house.

6)What Time Did You Wake Up Today?
8am

7)Current Hair?
Got a haircut a few days ago in anticipation of going into the office next week.

8)Current Clothes?
PJs

9)Current Desktop Picture?
pic of an old old Motorola radio I took at Epcot.

10)Current Worry?
hmm...meeting my new boss next week, though he seems like a good guy.

11)Current Hate?
people who cancelled 'Enterprise'.

12)Favorite Place To Be?
San Francisco was nice.

13)Least Favorite Place?
Disney or any Disney shopping

14)If You Could Play An Instrument?
piano (hope to learn some day)

15)Favorite Colors?
blue

16)How Tall Are You?:
5'11 1/2"

17)Favorite expression?
come on now

18)One Person From Your Past You Wish You Could Go Back And Talk To?
probably myself and tell me not to stress and it'll all work out.

19)Favorite Day(s)?
Saturday probably

20)Where Would You Like To Go?
New England, New York, Washington DC, back to CA

21)Where Do you want to live when you get married?
already married

22)Favorite food?
probably Barnaby's

23)Color of most clothes you own?
navy blue

24)Number of pillows you sleep with?
2 under hear, holding one of old pillows we had on the futon

25)What do you wear when you go to sleep?
shorts and a t-shirt

26)what were you doing 12AM last night?
painting my model

27)How old will you be in 10 yrs?
37 (had to think about how old I am now)

28)What do you think you'll be doing in 10 years?
hopefully the same stuff and living back in IL with kids and hopefully making more money.

29)Do you have braces?
No, I wish I did though. I might still get them.

30)Are you paranoid?
well, sometimes. I really don't care what people think so that helps.

31)Do you burn or tan?
Burn. I didn't think I did until I went to damn Cozumel. NEVER AGAIN.

32)What is the brand of your wallet?:
Dockers I think

33)First piercing/tattoo?
ug

34)First enemy?
Guy at NIU who wore his Yankee hat like it just came out of the box or something. Absolutely flat brim and the brim and the front of the hat made a right angle. "Hat Boy"

35)Last person you yelled at?
Court for somehow breaking the flashlight while taking the dog out. Something I've done 500 times without breaking anything.

36)Last crush?
pisht...so long ago I can't remember.

37)Last thing you ate?
slim-fast. Almost lunch time now.

38)If you could be a pirate, would you?
Hell yeah. Sid Meyer's Pirates! is an awesome game.

39) Last time you had sex?
few days ago (?)

40) If you could be with anyone right now, who would it be?
Uncle Bruce, to say Happy BD in person.

A long time ago (easily 10+ years) my Mom had given me a Millennium Falcon model kit. I started it and stopped it in a matter of days. Whether I thought it was too difficult or something else came up, I don't know. Unfortunately I did glue some parts together but nothing too drastic. Anyway.

I've just spent the last 4+ hours detailing the top and bottom of the kit to match the real model of the Millennium Falcon. Thanks to some pics I'd taken when the model was on display at the Field Museum plus some different shots I found on a website of the same model on display at a different museum I think I've gotten pretty close. Tomorrow, I'll mask off those detailed panels and spray the body of the kit. After that it's some airbrushing with diluted black paint (to weather the model) and a coat of Testors Dulcote to dull it a little.

Hopefully I have that procedure right. I'm trying to pick up hints and stuff on the net and I'm still really new at trying to model the 'right way'. Wish me luck!

(I hope to complete this model before my Mom comes down so she can see it finished)

create your own visited states map

RIP the crew of STS-107 which was destroyed upon re-entry 2 years ago today.

Brown
Clark
Chawla
Anderson
Ramon
McCool
Husband

CNN.com - NASA remembers fallen astronauts - Jan 28, 2005

19 years ago today, the brave astronauts of the shuttle Challenger lost their lives.

I wish I could say I remember where I was when it happened. The truth is, while I *do* remember the day it happened, I don't really remember much about it besides where we lived (Rita Ct. in Bartlett) and the ugly leather couches we used to have. Isn't that odd. I have this vague recollection of somebody walking in and saying something and me seeing these couches when I think about Challenger for some odd reason. Very strange.

Obviously, the Columbia loss is much fresher in my mind--not only because of the closeness of the date, but because I was in Central Florida at the time and it was HUGE news down here because the shuttle had been heading to the Cape to land.

We've lost many brave astrnauts in the pursuit of the exploration of space. May God bless them all.

Tonight Show's Tribute to Johnny Carson...

Johnny Carson died the other day. When I was a kid, I'd watch the Tonight Show. I remember a time when I would only watch when Jay Leno would guest-host, but this was a time back when Leno was actually funny. Now he's just a cartoon basically.

To say Carson was a funny guy is not enough. The man was a legend, and I'm sad that he's gone.

One good thing came from all this...instead of their regular crap, the Tonight Show did this tribute last night. Bob Newhart and Don Rickles (always hilarious) were there, as well as Drew Carey. They told stories and played classic clips...it was great. I loved it.

The thing is...do you know who was originally scheduled to be on the show last night? Paris Hilton. Talk about a total turnaround. To go from someone who's basically a drain on society and humanity as a whole to featuring great comedians paying tribute to a great man. That's gotta be the most drastic turnaround in entertainment history.

In watching the 'Angel' episodes that are on the upstairs Tivo, I bypass a lot of old election commercials from the 2004 Election.

Boy, I'm glad that's all over.

Everything is going well on the Hooper front. "Training" a puppy is a lot of work--though most of the time it seems he's training me. After a few days of getting the leash wrapped around my legs and mostly using Boots'(too short) leash instead of Hooper's (because the clasp on Hooper's is a pain to work) I finally went to PetWhatever and got him a stake and line for the back. Now, after he eats I just put him out there and either I sit in the back with Boots or I take Boots outside too and we just wait around for Hooper to do his business. By the way, I'm proud to report that he's finally doing it outside...sometimes. He still goes on the puppy pads inside (and sometimes not, unfortunately) but he's gone outside a bunch too, which is cool. We give him a special kind of treat when he does that. Hopefully he's learning. We'll see.

On the work front, all of us at work got sucked into this new organization. Motorola Information Protection Service. Actually, it's somewhat of a good thing--as long as everyone is placed somewhere. There's still something I'm worried about. Hopefully it gets taken care of some time today. Personally, I've been promoted so I'm happy about that. It also looks like I will have to go too Alaska to do a delivery with a bunch of other guys. Some of the guys from our old team and some from the new. It's Government stuff. I'll also either have to go to San Diego or Virginia for a two-day training deal in early or mid February. We'll see how that goes.

We're just back from the vet. For some unknown reason, Court scheduled Hooper's vet appointment at 8:30am on a Saturday. The lesson, as always: Don't get married.

Anyway. He did fine. He's about 900x calmer than Boots is at the vet...though Court says that at this age Boots was fine at the vet too. The last time we went he screeched louder than I thought a cat could ever be and the vet said next time they'd have to sedate him.

Saw the papers with Hooper's Birthday on them: October 30, 2004. Also found out that puppies won't really start to be potty trainined until they're 4-5 months old and have gotten into the bathroom/outside repetition. We've still got a ways to go but we're happy with how things are going.

While we were back home for Christmas I played some Madden with Chris. He had just gotten 2005 for Christmas. He took 2 out of 3 games from me but I hadn't played in a while. It made me want to reinstall whatever Madden I had already, which turned out to be like 2001 or something. I figured I could go to Best Buy (normally against my better judgement since I hate them) but when the new Madden comes out they usually kick the last year's version to the curb and price them at $10.

So we went to Best Buy and I found 2004 for $10. I was all ready to buy it when Court comes up to me with 2005 and it's only $20. Now, why the PS2 version is $50 and the PC version is $20, I don't know. But better, I don't care.

I've been playing for about a week or so. I've already taken the Bears to the Super Bowl and won it. Half the season I played at rookie mode because I was just getting back into playing, but after throwing up 100 pts against the computer in one game I set the difficulty at 'pro' and went from there. I only had one loss all season, and it was one of those where the computer decides there's no way, no way, NO WAY you're winning that game and that was that.

This game has EVERYTHING. You control prices on everything including merchandise and concessions and all that. Plus, there's a 'training camp' mode with drills and all sorts of stuff. I'm sure somebody who really wanted to get into it all could spend hours doing all that crap. I tinker a bit but I don't go crazy.

It's really been fun to play. When we were in college we used to play NBA Live '96 on the PS1 and since it gave you four teams to customize we each took a team and had a draft and everything. It was great. I probably played NBA Live and NHL Live more than football because my friends could kick my tail at Madden any day.

I got a bunch of comp games for Christmas too. Pirates! and Evil Genius are two of the other ones I've played. Pirates! is just what it sounds like. So is Evil Genius pretty much. Thinking "Stepping into Dr. Evil's shoes" and you're good to go.

oh man, I just heard on Mike & Mike that after yesterday's game Favre was talking about retiring.

Could it be...has this day finally come? Oh man...oh...man...

It's official. I just considered calling my Mom to tell her that Hooper finally went potty on the puppy pads we laid down.

Yes, it's the beginning of the end for me.