Grumble Time

There are several ads that get played WAY too much that just make me sick but two raise my hackles the most:

1. LIPOZINE: It's a weight loss miracle so says the very assuring lady with the annoying hand gestures.  It's from the terribly bogus sounding "Obesity Research Institute" and proven to work via major double-blind studies.  Several statements in the ad should flag suspicion.  They claim that 70 percent of all weight lost is PURE BODY FAT.  I would hope that 100 percent of my weight loss is pure body fat.  I don't want to lose any muscle, bone or gray matter thank you.  The other tip off is that "Lipozine is not available in pharmacies or drug stores".  This is where legitimate products are found.  I don't know anyone personally who has fallen for their pitch but you can go over to lipozene.blogspot.com and read about those who have.
2. Free Credit Report Dot Com.  Yes they have a catchy tune and funny commercials but how can something "FREE" pay for all these commercials?  The math does not add up and your clue is in the very fast spoken tag at the end.  It's so fast I don't know what it requires but you can bet it equals your money.  It is probably for a credit monitoring service that is not a bad thing to have.  My beef is call it what it is and don't scam someone into thinking they are getting a free credit report and then doing the bait-and-switch.  There is a place where you can get a truly free credit report but it is at AnnualCreditReport.com   There you can get, once per year, the reports from all the major credit reporting agencies.  This does not tell you your FICO score or update you when changes to your score are made.  Oddly enough a site called myfico.com offers this service for a fee as do probably many more including the Free-credit-report singers. If a blow by blow of your credit score is important to you for whatever reason it might be well worth it.

Film Credit Found!

This kind of weird.  I did this pilot for ABC a long time ago(1995) that was for a proposed television show that was going to be a crime re-enactment type of show that I think was being filmed under the working title "Interrotron".  I could be wrong about it supposing to be a series but did find out that I have a credit under the British Film Institute web site for a film called "ERROL MORRIS INTERROTRON STORIES: DIGGING UP THE PAST".  They really don't have anything on me there but at least I have a credit.  The same movie is listed in the IMDB but they don't list any of the actors.  Even Afemo Omilami, who played the lead in this was not even listed in the IMDB.  I knew at the time that Afemo was destined to do well,  He was good.  I didn't know at the time that he was already a seasoned film veteran but it figures.  He has done a lot of movies that I saw and kept thinking, "I know that guy".  For once, I was right.  I just wish that IMDB had the credits for the actors on its site.

Testing out the Windows Live Writer

OK,  I figure one of the problems with my not posting enough is that it is somewhat of a pain to have to log into my site and write something.  Blah Blah Blah woe is me.  So I see this nice offline editor that has spell check and all and the ability to send to multiple blogs without me actually logging on to them.  I like that notion.

Offline editing and spell check	Nice
Not having to log in to an account	Nice

blackblack gum

mmm, blackblack gum. hi-technical excellent taste and flavor. It says so on the package. Actually it tastes very bitter after just a few minutes.

Closing out 2007 II

The final post of 2007 (post mortem actually) is Christmas.


My wife put together what I think is the prettiest tree we've had yet. For several years she has been making these Christmas balls. She buys these clear glass balls and puts a little of different colors inside them and swirl them around until she gets what she is looking for. She has accumulated a pretty good collection of them, enough to use ONLY them and some crystal ornaments that we have been collecting, including some I brought back from the Germany trip.

This is a cool gift from my Son Kris that he sent from Germany.

He says this guy did this pretty much while he was standing there watching. It's a little bit wood burning and a little bit air-brush and a little conventional painting. Kris said he was FAST. The guy says he tries to not think when he's painting because it slows him up and doesn't look as good. Check him out at The Magic Flame. I also received on of those wooden artists posing figures that he has on his opening page. I've always used various action figures in the past and they do great but I have just always wanted one.

Closing out 2007

Several things have gone on since I last posted. I could not get ANY of the tree companies that buy lumber to even call me back. I know who NOT to call whenever I need several acres of timber cut. I did get Allen Tree Service to come out and they guy gave me a good day rate since I had so many trees. The short story is that I was VERY satisfied and would recommend them to anyone needing trees cut. I had them cut as many trees as they could plus some trimming of the ones I didn't want completly removed in two days time. Even after that I still have more trees than any of my neighbors. I had a LOT of trees. I think the lot looks a little better and I feel a little safer when the wind whips up.

This is the cool Cherry Picker they used. It could reach about 75 feet out and get to the high limbs and top out the trees before they brought it down.

This is SOME of the logs that they took away from the house. I wish I could have had them milled and dried because I could have built a HUGE addition with that much lumber. They filled that truck completely up.

You might think that I destroyed my yard but believe me; I still have a ton of trees.

This is a recent morning shot of the back yard.

My Trees Hate Me

I've always loved trees. I like camping and hiking and climbing in trees but for some reason some of the trees in my yard hate me. To the point of actually trying to kill me. Yesterday my wife and I were cleaning out the garage so that we could park a car we had just bought a day and a half before. My truck was parked in it's usual spot in front of the garage door that I can't park it in because there is no room in the garage and the new car was in front of the space we were trying to clean out so we could park it inside. Our CRV was originally in front of the gate leading to the back yard but I moved it back about fifteen feet so I could try to snag a small limb that was dangling from a tree. That done, I went back to cleaning out the garage; throwing stuff away and piling others over on "my side" of the garage. When I went to get some things out of the back seat of the CRV I heard a large cracking noise that had me fuddled. I pulled my head out of the car and turned around just in time to see a tree fall a few short feet from me and smack onto the trunk and quarter panel of our new car that we've only had a day and a half.
As I took the scene in with a considerable amount of disbelief I noticed that the tree had also yanked the power and phone lines from the side of the house damaging my trim work. The power was still dangling from some fasteners that were a few feet down from the one that got yanked out and the phone line was completely on the ground. The cable wire was unharmed.
I was kind of in a state of shock but we started calling insurance and utility companies immediately. The power company had a guy over in about twenty minutes and it only took him about twenty to repair it. He was a real nice guy too. The phone company said they were backed up and might not have someone over until late the next day. In the mean time I started cutting up the tree and moving it to the street. Twenty minutes later a truck pulls up and gathers it up with this cool scoop that could pick up about fifteen logs in one bite. This guy was so good he even used the scoop to pick up a pile of pinestraw I had swept up beside the pile of logs. As soon as this guy leaves the phone company truck pulls up and fixes my phone line. If it were not for the big dent in the trunk and quarter panel of my car and the big holes and cracks in my trim on the house. No one would ever know that the trees had just tried to kill me. What I can't believe is that through all of this I and my wife did not think of running inside to get the camera and shooting of some pictures. I guess because I asked the insurance lady if we needed pictures and she said no. Pictures just left my mind completely.

I don't know why the trees hate me. This is the second tree in three months that tried to crush my cars. Lightening was a major player in that one.

I have decided it is time to get tough with the trees. I've called a few timber companies and see if they can come BUY some of the thirty odd tall pines that are in my yard. Or at least defray the cost of getting rid of them.

Jessica's Photos

Ok, I'm back and I had a little more time to look for some of the photos I was talking bout earlier.

I liked this one because I think she did a great job isolating the various elements of the photo that she wanted to keep in their original colors.

Of course this is just fun stuff for her right now but I want to give her all the support she needs to step it up if she wants to. For starters, I'm waiting for Leopard to hit the shelves and as soon as that is done I'm going to finally get a MAC. I've been working with PCs since the days of 8088s and have used them for all my art and music projects. I think a MAC is now in order if for nothing else so she and I can get comfortable with both environments.

This and That

I was supposed to go to work last night but I got a call yesterday about an hour before I was supposed to go to bed asking me to do an audition today so I decided to take the night off. I have a ton of vacation that I'm going to have to get in before the end of the year anyway. I slept the best that I could in my messed up sleep pattern condition but four am found me wide awake so I went down and did some yoga for about an hour. I don't usually do that sort of thing but it was about all I was up to and thought "yoga won't kill me". I found out pretty quick that yoga is a LOT tougher than it looks and I feel pretty good after doing it. I may have to figure out a way to incorporate more of it into my day. So here I am waiting on my daughter Jessica to get ready for school so I can get her there. Her school has these "zero period" classes that start before first period so riding the bus is out of the question. Speaking of Jessica, She has been doing some cool stuff with our new camera and Paint Shop Pro. Maybe some other software, I don't know, but I like the stuff she is doing. I was going to post a few here but I can't find the darn things. I'll have to figure out where she put them. We have twent gazillion photos and pieces of art on the PC so it gets a little tough to find what you're looking for if you don't know what it is called.
Any, I have to run. Time to get her to school.

Fast food Sign sore

After checking out my cuz-in-law Mark's blog Jabberous, I was reminded of the one thing that really stuck in my craw while on my recent trip to Germany; Fast food signs towering over the landscape spoiling the view. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against fast food or expanding capitalism, I'm just against forty foot tall signs screamin' it. Most of the part of Germany I was in was very quaint and "villiagy" with cobbleston streets so narrow that an SUV would have NO chance of getting through. Then BAM! big old obnoxious fast food signs. You'd think the cities would have made them make an effort to blend in with the rest of the area.

There now, I have that off my chest.

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Crazy Good Cartoon

My Trip to Germany went pretty well,  My Parents drove me from Hoover to Texas so I could catch a plane with my GrandDaughter Tarah.  They are a hoot to travel with!

Mom Gets the drop on Dad

We met Tarah's Grandmom, GrandPop, and Great GrandParents.  They are really nice folks and we enjoyed the visit.  After lunch at The Cracker Barrel, we headed off to Dallas-Fortworth to catch the Lufthstansa flight to Germany.  The eleven hour flight was about as enjoyable as a six foot four inch, two hundred and thirty pound man can expect on coach.  My Son Kris, Daughter-in-law Candice and GrandSon Jacob met us in Frankfurt.  When we got to their place we had a nice fourth birthday party for Jacob.

Happy Birthday!

We then spent the rest of the week mostly traveling to various castles in the area and some pretty old word cities like Speyer.  The only real bummer was that my camera broke on about the second day.  Fortunately Kris had his camera handy and my PDA takes a two meg photo fairly decently.

Besides just spending some quality time with my family, one mission of the trip was to bring back a eighteenth wedding anniversary gift for my wife who couldn't go on the trip.  I knew she had been wanting a cuckoo clock since she was a little girl and since I was in the Black Forrest region that is world renowned for them,  I figured it was the best place to pick one up.

The Cuckoo!

As trips usually go, It took forever to get here and was over too soon.  I really want to get back there some day soon with her.  She would have loved it.

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This is what happens when we get bored at work.

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Poor Charlie

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(This post would not send while in Disney World due to some strangeness with my go.blogger set up that I couldn't repair using the phones web browser.)

We finally made it to Disney World. This our view from the Polenesian. It's hard to see in the pic but that is the big Disney castle just under the palms.

Testing the go blogger on the new 8525.

The New Blogger

I converted to the new blogger today. Yea.

I don't see what the big deal was but maybe I'll come to appreciate it in days to come.

I just finished reading a "Pearls before Swine" book and loved it. I had been reading it on the comics.com for a long time before the "Birmingham News" started running it. It's one more example that writing is more imortant than the art when it comes to comic strips. The strip would be funny if the characters where just dots on a page. His main characters are cute and I love the Cajun dialect fo the aligators. It was intersting to read his forward. He really caught a good break that some folks struggle years to get. He seems keenly aware of that fact. I'm looking forward to more.

Wacom Madness

I FINALLY broke down and plunked down some money for a Wacom tablet. I did go with the cheap graphire 4x5 that was on sale this week for $80 after rebate. So far it feels pretty good. Here is what I did playing with the tools in the first half hour or so. It's not what I bought it to do but I like to do abstracts. I was suprised at how much the "tactile" impression of the tools are improved using a pressure sensitive stylus.

Happy Birthday Kristopher!

My son Kris turns 23 today. (May 23rd) He has been in the army since he was in 11th grade. He got one of those early-in doodads. He's stationed in Germany right with his wife and kids. We miss them but are glad to have them see the world so young. He has already seen Cuba, Iraq, Germany and all the little stay over spots that it took to get there.

He is the reason that my handle on any game I've ever played since I was 23 was "Dadman" or some variation of that.

He is a natural comic and can crack you up. He can play guitar pretty darned good. He can do a LOT of stuff really well. He chose to serve in the Army. He's my son, I love him.

Happy Birthday Son!!!

Jesus H. Christ!

I got this email from newsmax to day and it is was the straw that broke my poor camels back. Then just a few hours later I hear from a friend that, upon coming out of the theater to see "The DaVinci Code" , they have envelopes with these books on their windshield that are anti-DaVinci Code. Can't a person enjoy a work of fiction without rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth, bible thumping crowd acting like it is going to bring civilization as we know it to a halt? Sure they have the right to spend poor Aunt Edna's tithe any way they want but for crying out loud. This has roughly the same warm fuzzy as the inquisition or the Witch Hunts. But not the Crusades; that was different. Did you see the Jews getting up in arms about "The Passion"? Well, bad example maybe. The point is, ITS A MOVIE based ON A BOOK that was loosely based on a sort of fable, urban legend, religious myth smelter that is supposed to have a fun factor in a "National Treasure" way. I don't think you will see anyone digging up the streets of Philadelphia nor having any epiphany, or anti-epiphany from seeing a movie.

Quickly! Get a life before it's over!