All My Opinions Other Than Boxing! You can find my boxing opinions on boxingmadness.com.
This is probably my last post about my fantasy football team. The reason is that my team really sucks! I am 2-8-0 and its not looking up anytime soon. I will keep picking players and follow it out the rest of the year but I’m disgusted with my play this year. I basically quit without really quitting!
I’ve been reliving this Christmas memory since earlier last month. I can’t get it out of my head! I can’t say it’s my favorite memory of Christmas as a child but it definitely ranks way up there.
I couldn’t have been very old, maybe 9 or 10. Anyway, Dad took me to the local retail store (no Wal-Mart in this town back then) and it was annouced that Santa Claus would be making a stop very shortly. However; this would not be any normal stop. This particular retail store had concocted a great plan for attracting more customers for the day. Of all things the plan sold numerous fishing nets! Yes, fishing nets. Santa actually flew over this store in a helicopter, hung out the door and proceeded to let loose with a rather large bag of ping-pong balls! Dad and I were in the mix trying to catch these flying white missiles. Boy, if we would have been smart and bought one of those fishing nets…. Anyway, some of these ping-pong balls had special text printed on them. These coveted balls were the key to deeply discounted merchandise. We definitely didn’t get any of the printed ones. I really can’t remember if we got any at all. What a memory!
Does anyone have a memory that compares? What’s your favorite Christmas memory?
It’s been a long time since my last post…. Sorry! Anyway, I have had quite an adventure. I have been fishing in VA, flying around Alaska in a plane equipped with floaters and hiking the Rocky Mountains in Montana. Fishing was fun but not as fun as it has been in the past. I only caught 3 fish in two days. This is a sharp contrast to the usual 20-30 in two days (at this particular fishing spot, the New River). Within a few hours (literally) of returning from this trip I was packed and out the door to the airport (about 1:30AM) which is a 2 hour drive from my house. The airport wasn’t even open when I got there. I actually watched them open the security gates for people to make the mad rush. My plane flew to Salt Lake and then onto Anchorage, Alaska. What a trip! I got to see more glaciers than I could have ever imagined. I chartered a plane to Denali where I saw one glacier that was huge. The rumor is that if it melted it would leave a gorge 2x deeper than the Grand Canyon. The glacier is 2 miles wide! Mt. McKinley was awesome.
Last week we traveled to Montana (Kalispell). Kalispell is only about 30 minutes south west of Glacier National Park. I have never seen any place more beautiful in all my life! It was unbelievable. My wife and I hiked to Iceberg Lake (in the park). This was a 5 mile hike one way. It was awesome except that my wife developed a blister on each heel (big ones) about 2.5 miles into the 10 mile hike. She wouldn’t stop or turn around so we went for it and I think it was worth it. A few days later we hiked the Hidden Lake trail at Logan Pass (one of the locations of the Continental Divide). This was a 3 mile hike round trip. The next day, a man and his daughter were attacked by a grizzly near the Iceberg Lake trail we had hiked a few days earlier.
My next adventure is to fly powered parachutes!
I feel that I have been lax in keeping up with my blogs, but the truth of the matter is that I have been very busy with travel. I have been to Houston, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee, and New York within the past 8 weeks (in that order). The last trip was to LeRoy, NY. LeRoy is the original home of Jell-O. I really liked this town and could envision living there. It was very clean and everyone was very friendly. The biggest drawback is the location: South of Lake Ontario and East of Lake Erie (less than 60 miles in both directions). This location problem made itself known on the third day – First day temperatures: 80s, Second day temperatures: 70s, Third day temperatures: 40s. We’re talking windy and cold. Big dummy me took only a light jacket and short sleeve shirts. I think I’ll stay where I am for the time being.
Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales at a law enforcement conference in TN. I’m the one on the far left in picture (light color jacket). He didn’t stick around long, but he did make it a point to meet and great each one of us.
I am currently going through the Bible study “Experiencing God”. This is an excellent study that will bring your life back into a God-centered focus if your a Christian.
Anyway, Unit 6 Day 3 discusses how we should have God’s perspective rather than evaluating our circumstances. This is so good I felt that others might benefit from the highlights.
“Never, ever determine the truth of a situation by looking at the circumstances. Don’t evaluate your situation until you have heard from Jesus. His is the TRUTH” (emphasis mine).
The study gives the example of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (John 6:1-15).
- Here we have 5,000 hungry people with no food and no where to buy or make food.
- Put yourself in the hungry peoples shoes. What would you have been thinking and feeling? Maybe your circumstances are far worse or similar.
- Jesus took 5 small barley loaves and 2 small fish and fed 5,000 with 12 baskets full of leftovers.
The point I want to make is that we should focus on Jesus and his perspective rather than what our circumstances dictate. Put Jesus first in your life and when the circumstances seem out of hand, seek his perspective through prayer and the reading of his Holy Word. His plan my be totally different than what you where expecting.
If you like chocolate pudding then try this on for size (mom got this recipe from my cousin):
1/2 Cup Sugar
3 TBLS Cornstarch
1/4 Tsp Salt
1/3 Cup Cocoa
2 1/2 Cups Milk
1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla
Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt and cocoa.
Gradually blend in milk.
Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until mixture thickens.
Cook 2 or 3 minutes more.
Add vanilla.
This stuff is delicious. I promise you will like it!
Tomorrow I will be traveling to another town in order to receive training on video editing. I have a project at work that I’m trying to get kick-started which involves video’ing experts. The training will take me through the process of directing, producing, shooting and editing a video. The class is designed for High School students to make a music video but the principals can be applied across all forms of videos. I just hope they don’t ask me to sing – that would be a joke!
I don’t usually praise Microsoft for their software but I have to give it to them on this one. If you haven’t tried Photo Story (PS) then you are missing out. You can find the software at: www.microsoft.com/photostory
To see a quick example of what this software can do, check out the “See it in Action” section on the bottom of the website. PS allows you to import digital pictures and do lots of cool stuff: animation, annotation, slideshows, rotate and crop, add voice narration or music (imported or make your own), remove red-eye, and apply filters. I’m sure there are more features that I haven’t discovered yet.
I have used the animation feature on a few pics including adding my own scores of music. The output is a WMV file (video) that plays in Microsoft Media Player. Of course you can opt for different qualities levels for the WMV file. To play the WMV file you may have to download a new codec. If a new codec is needed, Media Player should help with this task.
Unfortunately, it appears that this software will only work with Windows XP.
Another piece of software that I really like is Picasa. This can be found on Google’s website or at this location:www.picasa.com. This is a free piece of software offered by Google that will index all photo’s and graphic files on your computer. It allows for lots of adjustments to your photos without changing the original photo. The color correction and lighting adjustments are great and very easy to use. The red eye removal tool is absolutely spectacular. The ability to create a “gift” disk in the form of a slideshow makes this software that much more complete.
Hat’s off to these two pieces of software.
Yesterday I cleaned a machine with over 400 adware/spyware entries. I used three different tools of which none actually completed the job. FYI – I used Spybot, Adaware, and Microsoft’s beta spyware tool. I don’t like doing it, but I had to manually delete entries from the Registry in order to clean up this machine. Of course the machine had many more problems than spyware and adware. Try 27 virus infected files. Everything from trojans, worms, and general run-o-the-mill viruses.
Protect yourselves – Strong passwords (8+ characters containing alpha and numeric – no words please), personal firewalls, up-to-date virus software and definitions. Watch your emails! Be careful with emails that contain attachments. Viruses masquerade as attachments (the infected machine that I worked on yesterday was probably compromised via an email).
There are more safeguards than the above but these will get you started.