Hide & Seek - part 4

As always, start at the beginning if you are just joining us.

This episode doesn't have any big revelations, per se, but it connects some dots. $0 to the first person who guesses the movie reference in the last frame.

Honeymoon to the Happiest Place on Earth!

Hi Everyone! I wanted to show you a few pictures from our honeymoon. We think the pictures turned out really nicely from our new Casio Exilim 7.2. We have tons more pictures but I reached my limit on Flickr this month with these few. To see them, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/51618956@N00/92343906/. We're working on a video that we will hopefully be able to add sometime soon. We're both doing well - Landon's doing his Psychiatry rotation and I'm working as a nanny. The weather here is beautiful - now I understand why Poppa and Delores come to Texas for the winter! We miss you all!

Favorite Purchase

Since I'm kind of in a "review-last-year" kick, I thought it'd be fun to get some input from ya'll about this last year. Specifically, I'm wondering what your favorite purchase was?

For all of 2005 what was the one thing that you are totally glad you bought?

Now, if you say (like I wish I could), "my favorite purchase was my Ferrari F430!" you may be at the wrong website (perhaps you meant to go here? PS. Could I be your friend?) Seriously though, I'm not asking so I/we could brag about stuff. This isn't an exercise in "I'm-so-cool-because-I-have-money-or-atleast-can-make-payments", rather, I'm interested in seeing what makes you happy (not because you own it, but because it helps make your life more enjoyable).

For myself, my favorite thing I bought in 2005 is my Mac PowerBook (you may have guessed by the image selected for this blog). I've always been a Windows guy, and they were fun to work on when I was younger (because I had a lot of free time). But, now that my time is a little more precious, the idea of spending time to make things work drives me nuts! Things usually just work on my Mac - they usually break on my Windows machine. Aside from that, Mac is more intuitive and straight forward to use.

Some argue that people like Macs because it's the "trendy" thing to do. To that I ask, "Have you used a Mac for more then a week?" Usually, they haven't. Yes, I don't deny that my Mac looks cooler then any PC. Yes, I won't deny that the Operating System is a million times more "fancy" then a PC. But, the reality is that those things are just bonuses.

If I am into my Mac because it's the "trendy" thing to do, it's subconscious. The conscious part of me likes Macs because they just work better. Trust me, this is coming from a hardcore PC guy - I grew up in DOS and Windows 3.1. I know DOS better than UNIX (the core that Macs are built on) - but that doesn’t keep me from recognizing hardware/software that makes my life easier and more enjoyable. Life is too short to be wasted on a computer that doesn’t work.

That's all I got to say about that.

Amen.

Please comment on what your favorite thing was that you bought in 2005. Explain why if you have the time.

A look back...

Every great once-in-a-while, I'll look back at some of my blogs. It's fun. It's like a trip down memory lane. I get a little upset because I must have lost some pictures when I moved things around way-back-when. Also, I get saddened because I used a commenting system that erased comments older than a year (I learned later that I needed to pay to keep them longer). I think I'll eventually re-haul my website into something nicer and longer lasting (but that probably won't be for a while - since the tax season has started and I'll be pretty busy).

Here are a few of the things I noted as I looked back over the year and a half of blogs.

First blog: Friday, May 14, 2004. This was mostly a test, since it was my first blog. I used one of my more favorite pictures from my brother's wedding. It's good to have Marla as part of the family.

First (and only) audio blog: Saturday, November 06, 2004. I recorded a phone message between myself and my buddy Steve. Steve's been a good and enjoyable friend for about 5+ years. I'm glad he moved to Minnesota and that we got to be roommates. Steve's a good example of a friend that is just plan old fun to hang with and a great example of a positive thinker. Click Here to jump right into the audio.

First good reason to use a blog: Wednesday, August 17, 2005. This blog marked the first of almost 150 blogs dedicated to Rob's heart surgery. Probably over 1,000 comments from friends and family. And a jump in blog visits by about 8,000. I kinda' don't want to think about those 2-3 months cause they make me wanna' cry, a little. I'm glad that my brother cowboy’ed his way through the wild ride. I thank Heavenly Father for family (and mechanical valves)!

I could go on with cool links to other important posts, like dad having his heart surgery (though, I think I just have pictures of the waiting room - under "pictures"). Marin being born (to Bob & Melissa). Fun times with Natalie & Bito. And, a link to a heated discussion with an anonymous lady that thought I was sexist (in the end I won her over - but I still don't know who she was). Unfortunately, all these things would take up too much space on this post (and it's already bigger than I thought it'd be). You can always search for things using the search box (top right).

As of now, this website has received 12,602 visits. 83% of those visits are from visitors from the US. 2% from Sweden, 2% from the Netherlands, 2% from Mexico, 2% from the UK, 1% from Japan, 1% from Jordan, 1% from Italy, 1% from Ireland, 1% from France, 1% from Algeria, 1% from Canada, and 1% from Austria.

23% of the visits were by users of Mac machines. 76% from Windows. Stay strong 23% (not like I need to tell you that, since you already know how much more enjoyable your lives are because you don't have to deal with Windows).

And finally, I've had 238 posts on this site, and 9 posts in the Media side of this website. 247 posts combined. I wish I knew how many comments this website has received, but like I said, I lost a whole bunch. If I were to guess I'd say probably a little over 2,000.

As for the future. My biggest desire (website related) is to re-haul this site into something more powerful. Next dream would be for more family members to make posts of their own (hello Jen???). Thirdly, I hope to buy some kind of portable camera this Summer - I think the pictures are my favorite part about this website. Lastly, I wonder if I might play around with podcasting sometime (if you’re not familiar with the term, it basically means “on-demand radio shows” - of course, for me it would just be a fun thing.) If not podcasting, I would like to do more voice type stuff (like the Steve blog mentioned above), because it’s really very fun to listen to audio clips. Along the same lines, I'd like to post more video clips.

My very last big goal would be to get those crazy 1% Algerian's to something more respectable like 2%. Come on Algeria with your population of 32,531,853 I think you can do a little better than 1%. Seriously.

Hide & Seek - part 3

Read this comic from the beginning if you are just joining us.

This comic is shaping up to be about 10 episodes. I originally thought it would only be about 3-4, but I realize that 6-9 frames of dialog is just not enough to cover a complex and twisting story.

As ever, please comment. It gives me the motivation to make these. Thanks for the interest and compliments that yov've given already. I'll remember you guys when Hollywood comes and asks for the movie rights.

Next Episode

DDR Master is back!

Rob has finally gotten back to ddr. He has been showing us some crazy moves. He's been teaching us all how it's done. Bri is getting much better and perhaps soon, the student... will become the master.

Johnny 5 is alive!

When I was in Vermont, I had to use my mom's vacuum. I guess I made fun of it enough to get her to pimp out her vacuum. My oreck has a light in the front, hers didn't =) Now hers has two, so I guess she is one up. Mine is self propelled, her's isn't, so I am looking forward to her next modification.

Hide & Seek - part 2

Before you read this comic, be sure to read from the beginning.

[If you are using a browser that resizes pictures, remember that you can usually click on the image - once it's loaded - to zoom in. If you're using Internet Explorer - though you shouldn't be - you need to hold your mouse on the picture for a moment and eventually an icon will show up that looks something like a picture being expanded, click on it.]

Next Episode

Hide & Seek - part 1

Marla & Nicole's pictures using stuffed animals gave me an idea. I thought it'd be fun to make a story using my stuffed animals. So, here is part one of three (or four) of a mystery comic called "Hide & Seek". Warning: this comic is rated PG-13.

Next Episode

Poor Chicken...

Robbie needs his pills!

Well, only once a day... But you get the idea :)
Here I am 'helping' Robbie take his morning medicine... he is so cooperative!

中國話

你好嗎
我學夕中國話，或我希望。

What you can't read that? How'about I simplify it a bit.

nihaoma
wo xuexi zhongquo hua，huo wo xiwang．

Yeah, so that might not make a ton of sense, since I didn't include the tone marks. But, I find it hard to do on this keyboard. Plus, since I'm not good at tones yet you're basically seeing things like I am. I figure I'll learn the tones after I learn more basic words.

Here's what I said above (twice now):
"How are you?
I'm learning Chinese, or I hope."

I don't know much, but with only a week under my belt I'm pretty good at about 20 words. Here's a dialoge between two people (again, I'm slacking by not including the tonal marks):

a. wongxiansheng, nihaoma?
b. wohenhao, lixiaojie, xiexie, nine?
a. woyehenhao. ni jintian qu nali?
b. wo qu xuexiao.
a. nimangbumang zai xuexiao?
b. wo henmang.

Here's the translation:

a. Mr. Wong, how are you?
b. I'm very good, Ms. Li, thanks. How about you?
a. I'm very good, too. Where are you going now?
b. I'm going to school.
a. You very busy at school?
b. I'm very busy.

Well, there's a little Chinese for you. See, that's not bad with only a week of study, right? I only had to look up one word. Everything else was powered by my xiăo brain (small).

Xiăo is pronounced ssee-ow with your lips pulled back in a smile when saying the "sseee" part. The "u" mark above the letter "a" means that you have to start the word at a medium tone, dip down, and then finish at a high tone (hence the u shaped tone mark).