New Stuff and .... Stuff

Its been a few days since my last post. It was just one of those times when not much is going on. No news worthy events in the life of me, I supose. Well this past week has brought some cool stuff to speak of. So, I fired up the blog to write about it.

First off, I bought 2 more Hermit Crabs for my new crabitat. They're nice sized purple-claws who aren't shy about exploring and mingling with my other 4 hermies already in the tank. I brought them home from the pet store, gave them a bath in their water and solution mix to make sure they were clean and mite free, then released them into the crabitat. They immediatly began exploring and climbing around. Each found an empty shell and began rotating it, trying to feel it out for correct sizing. Im sure their lives at the pet store were miserable. Packed in a small tank with many other crabs, never bathed, fed the same food all the time, nothing to climb on. Not in my crabitat! The 29 gallon fish tank with fresh, smooth sandbox sand and various climbing structures, fresh water and a variety of food is the envy of any hermit crab's home! What amused me was one of my original hermit crabs immediatly came out from hiding and approached one of the new crabs from behind. He latched onto the new hermie and began to shake him. This is called a "shell fight". If one crab see's another shell he likes, he tries to take it. They dont care if someone is already living in it! Funny thing was, the crab wanting the shell is much smaller than the new crab already living in that shell. The new hermie just pulled into his defensive position and held his ground. The smaller crab gave up and went on his way. The pecking order was established and he left the new crab alone. At first, I had the urge to break up the fight. But then I thought I should just let nature take its course and let them work it out. They did, all is well. I checked on them this morning before I left for work. Everyone was in one piece and getting along nicely.

Another recent event was the evolution of my slightly out-dated pc evolving into a powerful beast! For the techies, I upgraded from a Pentium 4, 2Ghz cpu with 768MB of DDR memory... to a Pentium 4, 3 Ghz cpu with 1.75GB of DDR memory! Gave it a fresh install of Windows XP Pro and threw on an 80GB slave drive to my current 120 GB main drive and ive got one decent gaming rig with the power to do whatever else I need to. I havent run any benchmarks yet, but I hope to soon. Im sure it will show some very nice speed improvements over my last configurations. I had a few days of hardware headaches as I configured everything. But I got those problems worked out. My only bottle neck on the system is my video card. Im running an ATI Radeon 9550 with 256mb on-board memory. While this is a decent mid-range gaming card, it wont do what the high end cards can. But I cant afford to drop $500 on a video card!

The most recent notable event took place yesterday. As payment for working on my buddy Steve's PC he gave me a tool shed for my backyard! That was really nice of him since the toolshed runs about $400 in local home improvement stores. He had recently built a new one at his place and needed to get rid of his current one. So, he broke it down, loaded it up in his truck and brought it on over. We assembled it Sunday evening and within an hour I had filled it with the clutter from my garage. Mr. Mower, Mr. BBQ and Mr. Gas-Can now have a new home... out of my garage. hehe I may mount some shelves to further utilize the new storage space. Thanks again Steve!!

New Digs

My good buddy EVP was kind enough to donate to me a nice 29 gallon fish tank he no longer had any use for. Of course, I have no plans of putting fish into it. But I know a few hermitt crabs who will just love this new large home to roam around in and dig thru! I plan on getting everything set up tonight for them. I've bought new sand, some new climbing logs and I plan on even picking up a few more hermies. I currently have 4 who will inhabbit the new tank, but I hope to grow the population to as many as 10! The tank is of course, very deep, being a 29 gallon tank. So I'm going to be creative an build up some type of double decker crawling area for them. No where to dig and scavenge on the ground level? Then start climbing little buddies! It should look really cool when i'm done. I know the crabs will enjoy it. Thanks again EVP!!

The Winner!

Here is the picture that won me 1st place in a recent local photography contest, in the Nature catagory. Funny thing was, there were 6 catatogories. I submitted one picture for each catagory. But when I got to the nature section I didn't really have picture I wanted to submit, so I entered this one as kind of a filler. Although I thought it was a decent pic, it wasn't my favorite. But the 3 judges thought so and awarded me first place! I won a $50 gift card at a local photography store and my picture will be used in a 2006 calander along with the other winners. The picture has also been published in a magazine and the local newspaper. Kinda cool I think!

A Decent Performance...Finally.

Last night was the season opener for my Thursday night soccer team. Our first game and we had picked up some new players which gave me higher hopes for a successful season. Most of all, we had a new goalie who looked like he knew what he was doing. Thats always reassuring!

From the opening kickoff, we were looking good. We controlled the ball and held posession almost the entire match. Our defense still needs a little work. Despite barely turning over the ball most the first half, we went down 3-1 by half time. But this team didn't fold and give up. We fought back and managed to even the score 3-3 with 5 minutes left in the game. We threw everyone into attack mode in the final minute and almost scored a game winner on several shots. The final buzzer sounded with the game tied 3-3. Not too bad for our first game. And, not a bad performance for myself. I scored our first goal and third goal of the match. It felt good to find the back of the net again after a short goal droute. I hope we can keep up this level of play next week!

3, 2, 1... MOW!

I gotta say, my lawn kicks butt! Now, a year ago, I would have laughed a good 10 minutes straight at anyone who took pride in how their lawn looked. But now that I have one, it really is rewarding to look out the window and see a lush, green freshly mowed lawn. And Ive done it with such little effort. A little fertilizer one weekend, a bit of water a couple times a week and bam! A green lawn. Although, a couple times while I was doing the final edging around the driveway, I had to stop and ask myself.... who am I?? Definatly not the same Thorpe. Oh well. Home owner Thorpe is enjoying working on a lawn. Who'da thunk it?

Cool Announcement!

I just found out the other day that one of my favorite games, Ghost Recon, has announced a 3rd edition to the GR series. This is great news since the original GR came out in 2001 and GR2 was passed up for the PC and only released for sucky consoles. With leaps and bounds made in video gaming technology, GR3 should be quite impressive. As of now, the are predicting a holiday 2005 release. I sure hope it doesnt get pushed back! For those that dont know anything about Ghost Recon, its a tactical first person shooter type game which takes place in hot spots around the world. The Ghosts are a group of special forces US soldiers who use the latest in technology to combat their enemies. Very intense games!

Getting Settled In

Its hard to believe i've now been in my house for almost a month and a half already! In such a short time ive accomplished a lot of my small goals I set when moving in. Ive installed a ceiling fan in the living room. Ive bought a new large computer desk for the office room, so I can now have space to work and repair PC's. Ive installed a motion detecting light on my front porch. Ive set up a wireless network inside for all my computers. So much done but the list keeps growing.

I actually had to mow my lawn for the first time last weekend. A week later, its grown back up and time to mow again. Thats good though because for quite sometime it was looking pretty dead. After spreading some fertilizer and watering regularly, it really came to life! I have a respectable lawn now. :)

Oh! Big news! Two weeks ago, I entered a local photography contest. Photo's had to be taken in my city within the past year. After the deadline passed and the photo's were judged, I won 1st place in the Nature catagory. Woo Whooo! My first accomplishment in photography. It was small but I thought it was pretty darn cool. Just another reason I bought the Canon Digital Rebel... great looking photo's!

A Night at the Ballpark

Saturday night Emily and I took in the Rangers vs. Boston Red Sox game over at the ballpark. It was a great time, even though Boston spanked the Ranges 9-2. We had great seats, as you can see in the picture. I wish I had brought my Canon Digital Rebel. But the camera phone had to suffice. Either way, another fun night out with Emily. :)

Walking the Talk

If you're going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Isnt that how that saying goes? Something like that. Well all this season, my buddy Gregg who plays on another team in the Tuesday "A" Division, has been counting down the weeks until his team, Menace FC, plays my team, U Wish. Finally, seven weeks into the season it was time for our match up. The past weeks have been filled with taunts, trash talk and score predictions from Gregg. Despite his team having a "not-so-hot" season, he saw no way they could lose to us. He had two predictions. First, his team would win the match. Secondly, I would not score a goal or be effective in the game because he would be covering me. Well, 8:15pm on April 26th arrived and it was time to walk the talk.

Immediatly from kick off, it was clear his team had their hands full. With all six Menace FC players back defending, left little for any attack. Several of our shots just missed hitting the back of the net. A bit later, they were able to get the ball down to our end of the field. In a scramble, their striker got off a quick sharp angled shot that beat our keeper, scoring the first goal of the match. That sparked us to up the pressure. Minutes later, a Menace FC defender scrambles to clear a bouncing ball away from me in their penalty box. But he mis-times his approach to the ball and his arms knock it to the ground. The ref calls the foul and awards us a free kick at the top of the penalty box. In our league, this isnt a penalty shot like in normal outdoor soccer. We get a direct free kick, but they can make a defensive wall to stop the shot. They set up their wall, but only put 2 players in it! Sahal takes the free kick and easily bends the shot around the 2-man wall and into the back of the net! 1-1!

As the game wore on, Menace FC was playing a better match than I thought they would. At one point we took a 3-1 lead, but late in the first half they fought back to tie it up. The half time whistle blew with the score 4-4. We weren't worried. We pressed the attack in the early 2nd half and scored another goal putting us up 5-4. I thought that might hold, but they later scored a goal I couldn't believe got by our keeper, 5-5. Its ok, plenty of time left!

Mid-second half I was back on the field and their keeper had collected the ball. He rolled it out to their defender so he could bring it up the field. As I ran towards him to try to steal the ball, I happen to look up at his eyes. Right then he looks over at the other defender and then sends a pass over towards him. But, exactly the moment he looked in that direction, I jumped into the open passing lane. The ball was at my feet and I was off the the races, a break away!! I left the 2 defenders in my dust and charged forwards towards the lonely goal keeper. One quick fake and I pushed the ball to my left. I can see the goalie lunging at an open space where I once was as I ran by him. I fire a left foot shot which hits the far lower corner of the net. Goal! 6-5. This was the back breaker for Menace FC. We kept the pressure up and scored 2 more goals before the final whistle. Winning the match 8-5. Gregg was humble in a post game ribbing. It was all in fun though.

Door to Door Dork

Last weekend my friend James and I are just hanging out watching TV, when I see a van stop infront of my house and a lady get out. She starts walking up to my door, so I get up to answer it as she rings the doorbell. She begins to rattle off something about a contest she's in and that she just needs to vacum 25 rooms during the weekend to be eligible for a prize. I ask her to repeat it one more time to make sure I caught everything she was trying to say. Then she says that if I let her vacum a room in my house, she'll give me a bottle of laundry detergent. I thought, what the heck... have at it. I begin to turn and walk back to the couch when I see her wave to the plain white van with black windows she got out of. Suddenly, a neatly dressed guy jumps out carrying a large box and begins walking towards my door. He follows her in and introduces himself. I can't even remember his name, so I'll call him "jim". The lady that came in first then says, "Ok im going to turn you over to jim now. I'll be back to pick him up when he's finished". I suddenly thought, "uh-oh". I close the door behind her and look back at jim. With a big goofy smile he looks at me and says "Thorpe, have you ever heard of a Kirby vacuum cleaners?" At that point I was past "uh-oh" and had moved into "ooooh crap". I had been tricked into letting a cheese-ball salesman into my living room. At this point, I should have stopped him from continueing to speak and told him to leave. But I didn't, I was too nice and let him keep talking. I had hope that he would wrap things up in about 20 minutes and be on his way. That was not to be. Before I knew it, one hour had gone by. He was still demonstrating the "features" of this vacuum cleaner. He was repeadedly showing me how it created a suction between the carpet and the cleaner head. He looks at me for agreement, wanting me to be amazed and ask him what I had to do to buy one now!! Instead, I replied half jokingly "well, this thing really does indeed suck." I laugh, he didn't. But I didnt care. I was getting pretty ticked by this point.

Finally "jim" show's me his book with the contest info, vacuum cleaner sales points...... and the price. This freaking piece O crap kirby vacuum cleaner is $2000!!! Two thousand dollars!! Im sorry, but there is now way in hell Im buying a vacuum cleaner for two grand. Yet, jim would not take no for an answer. He just couldnt believe I didnt mind having a "filthy house" and that I was willing to let my carpet become quickly deteriorated by the dirt left in the padding by my inferior vacuum cleaner. It was like he was personally offended the more I said no to his offer I couldn't refuse. His sales lines turned to almost begging. Begging turned to frustration and finally, two hours from the time he walked in my door... he was ready to leave. But first, he had the nerve to ask to use my phone to call his boss to pick him up. I say, "don't you have a cell phone?!" He just says no and stands there looking at me. I say "fine" and hand him my phone. He gets his boss on the phone and begins to what sounds like break the news that he didn't make a sale. It sounds like he's getting yelled at. It takes all of my self control not to break out laughing at him. He then puts my phone down on the couter and says "now Thorpe, Im going to write a number down on a piece of paper, tell me if this is something you can afford. Its a Saturday only price!". I look at the paper... $1300. Umm.... still no, buddy. He finishes asking for his pick up ride and hangs up. Jim, my friendly piece-O-crap salesman, turns from happy and "friendly" to quiet and angery. He packes up his $2000 work of art and finally leaves. James and I are relieved to have him gone and our day back.

Lesson learned, if a kirby or any other salesman comes to my door without me inviting them, shoot first. I recommend you do the same.

Grande "Lack Of" Communications

For almost 2 years while living at my apartment, I used Grande Communications for my phone and internet. Oh how they have fallen out of favor with me now. About two weeks before moving from my apartment, to my new house, I call them up to notify them of my upcoming change. Their customer support guy takes my information and tells me everything is in and the service should go live on the day I need it to. Great! Im all set. I then tell him I will also need my DSL internet to be moved on the same day. He begins looking for my account information, but cannot find it anywhere in his records. He asks me, "are you sure you have DSL internet?" I tell him, yes... I am sure of it. Turns out, somehow my internet account got listed as a business account handled by a different department. I'll have to call back to get that changed. So a couple days later I finally get through to that department and get that transfered on the same day as my phone stuff. Now... I am all set.

I move into my house and thank goodness, there is a dial tone. I have a phone. The next day, the DSL technician is there to hook up my internet. Im online again and life is good. But things were only good for about 3 days. I quickly find out my phone features like call waiting and caller ID are not turned on! So, back on the phone with Grande customer support. He says that he can see the order was entered but somehow didnt get all the features transfered to the new address. Um.. ok. Strike one. He turns them on for me and phone-wise, im back in business.

Then the real fun starts. And with it, the start of the downward spiral of my faith in Grande Communications. I come home from work the next day to find out I have no internet connectivity. My first thought is maybe there is a problem with the Grande network and their DSL service has been interupted in my area. My system worked just fine the night before when I shut everything down. I quickly double check all my settings, modem and equipment to make sure its still set up as it should be. Everything is the same as always and should be working. So I call up Grande tech support. I ask him if there is something going on in my area and he tells me there are no known problems. I tell him whats going on and of course he tells me to "reboot my computer and that should do it". To humor him, I do it. He then walks me thru the level 1 tech routine of resetting the modem and removing any routers that are connected. Oddly enough, I can connect at a slower speed when hooked up directly to the wall thru my modem, without the router in the mix. I tell him this and he say's he'll have to get a field tech to have a look. Finally they get someone out there on the next saturday afternoon. Actually 2 techs show up. They go over everything Ive already done and then run a few more tests. He gets on the phone with some special people from Grande and they try to figure it out. None of them can figure out why I suddenly cannot connect to my DSL service through a router. Finally he tells me the problem isnt on my side, its on the Grande equipment side of things. They recently took over internet service in my area from another smaller company and now the equipment and information transfer between the 2 companies has made things messy. He then goes on to tell me, the network bridge in my section of the city is flakey and it could be 8 to 10 weeks before its replaced!! Then, he says something to me that was Grande's nail in its coffin as far as im concerened. He turns to me and says "well, do you really need to use a router?" I clench my jaw and fists trying to remain calm... I look around my at the 3 other computers that share my internet connection and then back at him and reply "yes, I really do need to use my router". He then says "well, I'll have to talk to some people and I'll call you back on Monday with more information". Monday has come and gone, no call from Grande, still no connection through my router. I am now shopping for a new ISP. Goodbye Grande. You failed.

Gulf Gettaway

This past weekend Emily and I hoped on a Southwest Airlines plane and visited our good friends Mike and Cheryl in Galveston Texas. I always like going down there. The ocean, palm tree's and warm weather are an easy tropical gettaway from the rather dry, scenic-less area I live in. Not only was this just a normal visit, we were also there for a mission. Two missions to be exact. We were up early saturday morning and in the car, headed back up to Houston where Cheryl and Emily were going skydiving!

We arrived at our scheduled time of 9:30am so they could check in and go watch the instructional video and meet their sky-diving instructor. Turns out, the place was so far behind with other reservations, they didn't even get on a plane until 3:30pm. That left us with hours of watching the same plane take off over and over and watching wave after wave of jumpers land in the designated landing field. Lucky for us, the weather was great all weekend. With temps in the upper 70's and cloudless skies, it was kind of nice to just hang out in the shade and watch the action. I took the opportunity to bring along my Digital Rebel and take some action shots of all the sky-divers as the landed. Finally it was Cheryl and Emily's turn. They suited up, boarded the plane with their instructors and took off! The plane climbed for about 15-20 minutes until it was no longer visible from the ground, which is about 14,000 ft. I just laid on the ground scanning the sky for any signs of falling people. Suddenly, parachutes begin to open far in the distance. Slowly, people from their flight begin to reach the ground. I notice thought its all solo jumpers. The tandum jumpers went last. Finally I can see Cheryl and Emily, attached to their instructors, drifting back down to earth. First Cheryl lands, then Emily. Both skidding gently across the grass for fairly soft landings. They did it! Mission one, complete! See this link for pictures from the day! ---> SKYDIVE HOUSTON

The second mission of the weekend was planned out long ago by Emily. Her entry form had been picked to allow her to try out for the game show Jeopardy! For weeks leading up to this trip, I had helped her study questionaire books, state capitals, presidents and information on foreign countries. Now it was time to take their test. The first level she had to get through was a quick fire round of questions. Ten questions with 10 seconds to answer each question. No multiple choice, you had to write it out. So either you know it or you don't! From what she told me, she was immediatly asked a couple questions over topics we had studied, so she easily got them correct. When that phase was done, and scores were graded, she didn't make the cut unfortunatly. The few that did, were taken to another room where they would compete in a mock Jeopardy show. This was to see how they did under pressure and on camera. That would have been interesting to see.

Later that afternoon Mike and Cheryl took us back to the airport for our flight home. The flight to and from Dallas and Houston has to be one of the shortest ive EVER been on. The plane takes off, reaches altitude and then begins the decent to the next airport. The flight is barely an hour. It was a great trip and I really needed the get away. Thanks to Mike and Cheryl for having us down. It was a lot of fun! I look forward to a summer trip so we can hit the beaches and swim in the hot south Texas weather!

Its Official!!

As of Friday, March 25th I am a new homeowner! After months of watching the construction and then signing a sky high stack of papers, the house is mine. Good bye apartment. Good bye paying overpriced rent. Good bye noisy neighbors and their dogs. Good bye having to park a mile from my door when I come home late. Hello tons of space and front door parking! Ah yes, these are good times.

FireIE

About 2 months ago I conducted a computer experiment. I was wanting to switch from Internet Explorer (IE) to the new Firefox web browser. But I wanted to find out if all the rumors were true about it being able to avoid spyware and adware so much better than IE. So I first ran a cleaning scan with Adaware and Spybot - Search and destroy. Each one found about 15 suspicious or malicous items living on my system, which was currently runing IE as its web browser. Once the system was clean I loaded up the latest version of Firefox. I continued over the next month and a half to surf the web as I usually would. I just finished running my first Adaware and Spybot scan since that last one a month and a half ago. Adaware found one (1) suspicious item. Spybot found ZERO! It seems the punks that design the spyware just arent targeting Firefox, yet. So, the verdict seems to say that if you want a solid browser that wont clog your system with adware and spyware... grab Firefox over at www.mozilla.org. And, Fire IE.

Almost...

The countdown is nearing an end. T minus 3 days. Then and only then will the official announcement be made. Stay tuned.

Sunday Action

Today was another paintball Sunday and the weather was a perfect 65 degrees and sunny. We had a decent turnout of 8 players which made for even teams. We got things started off at around 10am. The action was slow to start but heated up fast.

A couple games into the day a funny thing happened. Well I'm sure Tod didnt find it funny, but the rest of us did. Tod was on the defending team and had been almost surrounded by my team, as the rest of his team was getting eliminated. Derrick, on my team, laid down surpressive fire which allowed me to move wide left to Tod's right flank. With Tod clear in my sites, I fired off about 8 to 10 quick shots from my Tippmann. He quickly put up his gun to signal he was hit and stop the 3 way barrage he was getting from me and the others. But as he puts his gun into the air, one of other teammates rounds, clips the lid on his paintball hopper (the container on top of the gun which holds all the paintballs). When this lid is clipped, it's spring loaded design flips it wide open into reload mode. This causes all of his remaining painballs to flood out and over his head. To make matters worse, my shot that tagged him out, hit him just below the protective area on his mask, on his neck. It looked like a giant red hickie! LOL He went on to tell us later that he has an important meeting at work on tuesday and now he has to explain the giant neck welt. Too funny!

Later in the day, we had switched to a game type we call "Rush N' Attack". Two teams start at different ends of the wooded field. When both teams are ready, the signal is given and we rush in to attack the other team. The team who covers the most ground the quickest, usually gets the upper hand and the best wooded cover. Well this time, my team got the jump and took a good position. Quickly 2 of the other team were eliminated. We knew this just left two players. Derrick and I found one of them, left without support and pinned down in a pile of logs and brush. I worked my way around to behind his position and gave the signal to Derrick to pour on the covering fire. I moved in and fired as fast as I could to prevent him from turning towards me. By the time I could see him, he was curled into a little ball trying to stay low and avoid the hundreds of rounds of paint being fired at him. Finally a couple of my rounds hit him in the back and he was out.

We knew there was just one guy left. John, the new guy was hiding out still. We knew he might be in the thick brush and small trees just behind where Brandon was just eliminated. Derrick approached from the high trail, I came in from the lower trail to prevent any escape. Suddenly, I see puffs of the white smoke and the popping sound of a paintball gun being fired directly at me. I couldnt see a person though, he was burried so deep in the tree's and brush. I hit the ground to take cover and yell to Derrick to direct him to John's location. Derrick begins advancing into the brush. I sit up and stay low as I move down the trail. Im moving while firing back at him. Figuring I can draw his fire while Derrick gets right up on him. I can hear the paintballs zinging over my head so I try to keep moving and firing fast. Derrick is so close, just a few second longer! I slide down behind a small shrub on a slope in the small trail. Im now closer than ever to Johns position and the paintballs are getting very close. I begin firing my gun in full auto mode, hoping one will get thru the brush and find him in there! All of a sudden my gun stops firing!! CRAP!! It mis-fires, leaving the bolt closed and no shot in the chamber! I give the gun a shake to get paintballs to fall into the chamber again and reach up to pull back the bolt to clear the jam and chamber another shot. Right then I look up from my gun. Its too late. I see it coming but I cant think to move fast enough. Splat!! My field of vision disapears and is replaced by bright pink paint. Im hit right between the eyes on my facemask. I yell hit and drop to my knees to catch my breath. Seconds later Derrick tags out John and my team wins the match. If only i'd held out for 4 more seconds! Oh well, such is the fun of paintball. :)

Belated Bday Announcement!

Happy birthday to the greatest girl in the world, my Emily! :)
Don't worry babe, you look great for 26.

A Surprise Vacation

I got a call last week from my buddy Roger, the one working as a contractor in Afganistan. Which in itself I found odd. But when I looked at the number, it was from a local cell phone number. Huh? He was supposed to be there for a full year before coming home. Did he get fired? Did he quit? Well, neither. He gets a one month paid vacation back here in the States. Must be nice. So last night I ventured over to his house across town to hang out. Emily came along because I wanted her to meet his sister Melissa and see where he lived. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived was Roger had dropped probably 20 to 30 pounds. He was a real Stay-Puff marshmellow man when he left 6 months ago. I guess it's a good thing the food at his base in Afganistan sucks. LOL He then showed me something pretty interesting. He took out 4 or 5 CD binders and handed them to me. I opened them up to see each of them filled completely with DVD movies. Upon closer inspection, I saw these weren't retail versions. Turns out, over in Afganistan you can buy new release movies for $2.50. Of course they are illegal burns from store bought DVD's. But for some reason, I dont see the Movie Picture Association sending agents into Kabul Afganistan to put a stop to the problem. Roger tells me he has bought 80 or 90 so far. Nice!

We left Rogers house around 11:45pm and headed home. I was stuffed from all the snacks Melissa put out. There were several other people there too. Neighbors along with Brotha James who showed up just after we did. It was a really fun time and it was nice to see Roger before he goes back to work overseas.

The Countdown

Big news is on the horizon. I can't announce it yet, so stay tuned. :)

Spare Yourself

That is, spare yourself paying $8 to see the movie "Constantine" in the theater and wait for it to come out as a rental. The special effects were decent, the plot and topic... somewhat interesting. But the movie just had WAY too many "drag on forever" scenes that really slowed things down. It turned a decent 1.5 hour movie into a 2 hour 10 minute marathon. I give it a 5 out of 10. Good rental, not worth full movie price. Ah, who am I kidding... skip the rental and download a pirated version from online. :)

The Day From Hell

Normally my work days are pleasant, busy and fulfilling. Yesterday was a day where all of a sudden the reason why people go postal at their place of work, became all too clear. For certain reasons, I must be vague about certain details. But you'll get the picture.

Its Wednesday morning and my co-worker Karl and I are in one of our buildings setting up whats called a VLAN. Basically this requres us to move all the PC's and printers in that building to a new IP range on the network. For instance, everyone connecting to 10.1.x.x will be moved to 10.7.x.x. Ok, enough techie talk.... you get the idea. When we move them, they temporarily lose connection to the network and any printers. We then quickly get them back up and running while on site.

In this building, are certain "special people" who believe they are too important to be bothered by my work. One in particular, who already despises anyone and anything to do with I.T., computers or networks. This person who I had forgotten about was a timebomb awaiting our arrival. About 30 minutes after moving a printer to the new network settings, I get a call from another co-worker. I could immediatly hear the panic in his voice as he told me I need to get to that persons office ASAP and fix their printing. He then told me this user was now irate and "freaking out". Great. Just what I needed to have happen. As I begin climbing the stair back up to the offices where this oh-so-special user resides, I could already hear screaming echoing down the hallway. The user was on the phone with someone and was screaming at them about this printer being down. And I dont mean controlled anger, venting frustration. I mean screaming at the highest level possible. Voice quivering, bordering on tears-screaming. My first thought was, "this can't be caused by a missing printer... can it?" I stop outside the users office to wait for them to hang up the phone and calm down. I hear them scream into the phone, "these IDIOTS of screwed everything up!!". This persons admin assistant looks at me and says, "I dont envy you right now". Gee.... thanks. The irate user hangs up the phone and I enter the office with a smile and say "hello, I'm here to get you up and printing again". Immediatly I'm met with more screaming. The user tells me to get out of the office and since they are on a deadline, this mess will have to wait till tomorrow. By now we've spent almost 20 minutes waiting for them to stop screaming at people, get off the phone and calm down. To fix the users problem would have taken me no longer than 1 minutes and 30 seconds. This was ridiculous. So I turn around and walk out of the office. The screaming begins again. Later I find out this user callled all the way up the chain of command screaming and crying to anyone who they could make listen. This was simply an attempt to make my department look bad. In the end, it didn't but it did put a heavy dark cloud over the rest of my day. I really feel sorry for anyone who has to work around this person on a daily basis. They only have two personality modes, quiet and working.... or enraged and screaming. What was that line for The Wizard of Oz.... something like "Careful, someday someone may drop a house on you too".

Movin on Up!

My Thursday B league soccer team scored another win last night to move us up into a solid 2nd place. I scored 2 goals in a 8-4 victory. This was our first game with our new goal keeper since our last one had the melt down and recieved 4 red cards. Needless to say, he's out for the season. The new keeper did fairly well. Except for early in the game when he tried to dribble the ball out and then lost the ball allowing the other team to put the ball into an open net. Luckily we bounced back and won the match!

So Much Potential, So Little Quality

After a huge advertising blitz on TV and in the theater, I finally get my chance to go check out the new movie "Assult on Precinct 13". Yes this is a remake of the 1970's version where a big city gang assults a police station to free some of their buddies. But in this remake, the bad guys are cops trying to kill a big time mobster who is in Precinct 13's jail. Now, I'm all for a good shoot'em up action movie. And I can even overlook most gaps in reality, plot or continuity to get through and enjoy a movie. But this one was just too much. Call me a nit-picker. One of the first plot fall-outs that bothered me was.... well the premises. So, Im supposed to believe that when the countries top mobster is finally captured and sent to jail, the police would only assign 2 officers to ride with him on a lone bus thru a snow storm? No heavily armed guards riding shotgun, no escort units following the bus, just a driver and one guard transporting the most dangerous crime boss in the country. Strike one. Then, they are forced to make an emergency stop at Precinct 13 because of the snow storm. Knowing Precinct 13 is about to be closed down and is on minimal staff, the police department sends no one else to help out. Later, when the bad cops "jam" all the radio's in the area, it seems no one from back at the police station ever tries but fails to contact Precinct 13 for any type of a status report throught the night. If they had, cops would have been all over the place.

Once the siege starts, the bad cops surround the building with snipers on all the surrounding factory buildings. Yet, throughout the movie they all sit infront of the windows looking out for an up-coming attack. Im thinking this would have been a determined snipers dream. To have your targets continuously sitting infront of all the windows with the blinds up would have made for a short movie I guess.

Then, at the end of the movie, the action moves from in the police station into what appears to be a dense forrest. Yes, a forrest near downtown Detroit. What next, the characters become un-phased by hours of exposure to the subzero temps of a Michican snow storm? Oh wait... they did that too. This movie is barely a rental.

Clownfish, Grouper and Sharks... Oh My!

This past Sundays trip to the Dallas World Aquarium yeilded some great photo's! Everywhere I turned there were cool fish to snap shots of. Be sure to visit my photo gallery and have a look!
---> Dallas World Aquarium <----

Whole Lotta Nuthin

For the first time in a loooooong time, I have a whole lotta nuthin going on this weekend. Paintball has been cancelled because lack of peeps able to make it and Emily has her sister in town visiting, so they are busy. Im just cleaning house and relaxing. Which is pretty nice. Tonight may have something brewing. A bunch of us are planning a bowling outing. Should be fun. Also, I may be going to the Dallas Aquarium tomorrow. Now that sounds like it could really be fun and give me a great photo opportunity this weekend! I'll be sure to post any good ones I take. Which reminds me, I need to take some time and update my website again. Maybe the aquarium will give me a good reason and some good material to update with.

And Then There Were Four...

Last weekend, Emily and I ventured down to the local pet store to look at fish for her new aquarium. I had no intentions of buying anything... until I got there. I happened to walk by the hermit crab section and take a look into their tank. I quickly noticed they had a large Purple Claw hermit crab, who looked healthy and active. This is rare at this pet store. Normally they only have very young and small hermies, who look sick and reclusive. So I quickly got someone who works there to pluck him out and put him in a to-go box. I got him home and placed him into my crabitat with the other two hermies I already had. I then realized, there are not enough shell's for the 3 hermit crabs to share. I need more! So Emily and I headed off to the mall, where I knew they had hermit crab supplies and shells. I found the island kiosk in the mall which sells the crabs. I began to pick out shells when I noticed a nice big Purple Claw hermie running across the sand in their pen. I quick bought him.... along with 4 shells and some hermit crab treat mix. I brought everything back home and put my new hermie into the tank. Now, with four hermit crabs scurrying around exploring, it was some fun to watch! The first thing the newest crab did was start trying on new shells. He switched three times while I was watching, finally settling into one of the new shells I had just bought. I could tell the new guys were happy to be out of their petstore pens and into a truly well designed crabitat. I sprinkled some of the hermit crab treat food into their food dish to see if it was something they would like. I came back 15 minutes later and sure enough, one of them was on it chowing down! So far, I havent had any shell fights or scuffles between any of them. This is a good sign that means they are all getting along well and adjusting to their new surroundings nicely. I will hopefully post some good pictures of them soon.

A Big Win!

Tonight my B Division soccer team, Trouble FC, scored a win over the only undefeated team in our division. We pulled it out 2-1. I didn't get any goals in this one and really I dont feel I played very well. It was one of our late games, 11:15pm. By then, I just felt so tired from a long day already. But I was proud of my team for getting the win and pulling us up to a 3-2 record! We are on track for the playoffs.

Downward Spiral

Im not sure what our problem is. My defending champion soccer team is having a lousy start to the new season. We are now 1-3 after another loss 7-5 loss tonight. Last season, we had the lowest goals against total and the 2nd highest goals for tally. This season we have the MOST goals against and have fallen to 3rd lowest scoring. We're getting beat by teams who shouldn't be beating us. As of now, we have to win the rest of our games this season to even have an outside shot at getting into the final. It will be extremely tough.

Personally, I didn't have a bad game tonight. I didnt get as many shifts as I would have liked to, but thats alright. I scored an early goal to get us back in the game in the first half, then got a very nice assist in the middle of the second half to keep it close. The other team was very quick and didnt miss many chances they had to score.

One thing I can vouch for. If you want a little extra "umph" in a sport, drink one of those Red Bull drinks about 45 minutes before game time. When researchers said they found a 20% gain in an athletes performance after drinking one, they weren't kidding. My legs rebound sooner between substitutions, my energy lasts longer on the field and I generally feel more energetic the entire game. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

Abra Kadabra!

I got to see something really cool and fun last night. Emily bought tickets to magician David Copperfield for me her and her mom. The show started at 8:30 so around 5:30 we hopped in the car and headed south to Grandprarie, about 40 minutes away. We easily found the Nokia Live concert hall and went up to get in line outside. Once the doors opened, we had to kill a bit of time until they would let us to our seats. We found where we were to be sitting and got comfortable. It was a little high up to the left of the stage. But we could still see pretty good. To make sure, Emily and her mom brought some small binoculars to help us see.

At about 8:35, Mr. Copperfield took the stage. He made a very impressive entrance. His assistants rolled out a large box made of white sheets on all sides. They opened it up to show it was empty and spun it around on its wheels to show there were no openings on the back sides. Then, they held bright lights to be the backside of the box so you could see any sillouettes inside the box. All of a sudden, before our eyes, a shape appeared inside the box. Then you heard a loud engine roar up. Then the front sheet of the white box drops down and there is David Copperfield on a large Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was pretty cool.

The rest of the night, he did various tricks that defied explanation. He would pick people out of the crowd and pretty much read their minds. You would think he had arranged the people he picked from the crowd. But the way he picked them would make that almost impossible. He toook frisbees and thru them up high, randomly around the crowd. After they finished bouncing around all the grabbing hands, he asked the person who ended up with it to come onto the stage. He later made a a lady and then a group of people disapear. It was a very fun experience. I wish I could have taken pictures but they didnt allow cameras and it was too dark for my camera phone to get a good shot.

If you ever have a chance to see David Copperfield live, i'd say dont pass it up. It was a great time. The only advice I would give would to be get seats as close as you can. That way you can really see every move he makes on stage. Perpahs you will catch him on a slip up!

Fire Fight!!

This past weekend was a paintball Sunday again. I had awaited all week to play and was excited to try out some new gear. I knew we might have a large group of players, which always makes for a very fun day of games.

I woke up at 8:30 on Sunday morning only to look out my window and see it pouring rain! No!! So I started calling all the guys and they seemed to still want to head out to the field and wait for a break in the rain. I quickly checked accuweather.com and their radar showed a small band of storms over my area but moving out quickly! I grabbed my gear and ran out thru the pounding rain to my car and I was off!

I get to the woods lot we play at and a few of the guys are already there. But the rain is still coming down hard. Shortly after, Courts arrives and we sit in my car waiting for the rain to let up. Suddenly, the hard rain turns into a drizzle... then the drizzle stops completly! Game on!

My buddy Steve had come out with his new paintball gear for his first game ever. I think he was a little taken back by what he saw. Steve arrived wearing a black long sleeve shirt, running pants and some football cleats. He was amused to watch the rest of us lace up combat boots, button up camoflage shirts, strap on remote air tanks and tune our tactical radios to different frequencies. We had a full 10 players and 5 v 5 would make for some intense fire fights! Later in the morning, Tod showed up and added another to a team. The action was back and forth with both teams taking wins. Everyone had a ton of fun as usual and now we have a larger group ready to play the next time.

Post Christmas Wrap Up

It was a good christmas at the Thorpe family household. I got some nice gifts from my family and some really cool ones from my girlfriend Emily. We even had some snow left on the ground from the few inches we got that week before. Whats this, a somewhat white Christmas in Texas??

It was nice having a few days off from work. And as a bonus, when i came back to work this past Tuesday, I realized I only have a short 3 day work week this week because we're off Friday for New Years Eve. How cool.

It hasn't been a too eventful week, but I figured I had to post something about the holidays.

Toto, We're Not in Texas Anymore!

It seems to happen at least once a year here, and yesterday it did. I woke up to a snow covered landscape! It was great, giant flakes were falling and gave us about 4 inches of snow cover by the time it was done! Around 3pm the snow died down, but I could tell the temps were falling. About an hour later, more snow began to fall! Moving around during the day made me feel like I was back in Chicago. I had my heavy coat and gloves on, scraping off my windshield and having to drive slow over the side roads. It was awesome! haha By the time I left my buddy Doug's place at night, temps were definatly in the 20's and things were really freezing solid. This must have been the cause for all the wrecks I passed as I drove home. You see, most Texans dont have a clue how to drive when snow and ice hits the ground. It seems like their theory is, "If I drive really really fast, I'll just glide over the snow". Yeah... you will, and into anyone stopped infront of you!!
Anyhow, I took a picture with my camera phone from my back porch. You can see the size of the large flakes as they started to fall yesterday morning. And as a bonus, its still below freezing out today so the snow isnt melting away! Woo Whoooo!!

Roger Wilco!

Yesterday was paintball Sunday and time to finally test out our new Foxfire Paintball Tactical Throat Mic's. These nifty little devices fit like collar around your neck, with a sensor like pad resting on the side of the adams apple on the throat. This pad picks up vibrations from the throat to transmit, without picking up any background noise. You also can talk very quietly and still be heard by the other person you're talking to.

On this day, Ken and I were the only ones to have them with us. So we figured we'd give it a test by playing me and him against the other two guys playing that day. To say the least, it was a slaughter! haha Being able to communicate with your team from anywhere on the field was a HUGE advantage over the other team without comm's. Ken and I were able to quickly out flank and ambush the the team with ease. While he laid down in some heavy brush near a creek and watched the other team patrolling for us, he would radio to me their exact position and direction of travel. I was able to work my way behind them and set up our ambush. On a verbal que, Ken and I opened fire on them. Confusion and panic took over. Mark, not knowing where all the fire was coming from, ran into a position between Ken and myself to take "cover". He was quickly hit and eliminated. His teamate, Courts, also paniced. He fired a few shots at me and took off running the other direction for cover. He dove inbetween an old matress that had been propped up for cover and a large tree. I quickly radioed Ken his position and we re-positioned ourselves to advance from both sides of him. This is where it became rather comical. Now keep in mind, Ken and I have paintball guns that fire almost fully automatic. Courts' on the other hand is a semi-auto gun and sometimes malfunctions when he tries to fire too fast. So he is sticking his gun around the corner of the tree and over the matress, firing blind shots in our general direction. All Ken and I see is an arm reaching around a tree with a gun firing up into the trees and into the ground. We are firing paintballs at him in a steady stream. If he was to even peak around the tree, he'd be hit. Suddenly, I hear his gun jam and he starts fidling with the bolt trying to get it to fire again. I quickly step wide around the tree and fire off a fast 6 shots at him. They almost all hit him, starting at his leg and running up his body to his shoulders. Instead of yelling hit, Courts just slumps against the tree and slides down it to the ground. I assume he was hit.

It was a fun day of paintball despite only being the 4 of us. The throat mics worked great and I cant wait to use them on a full field of players.

Gear Talk

I almost forgot to discuss the hiking gear I was testing out on this last camping trip. As I gather up the gear needed for use on the Appalachian Trail, I'm trying to get it all tested first before I get out there and things fail.

First item on the list was the Coleman Sleeping bag Compression bag. The idea behind this item is to take that large, warm sleeping back and compress it down to a managable size for carrying on a backpack. So, I roll up my sleeping bag and begin to cram it into what seems like a nylon bag that is a bit too small. After a few minutes of stuffing, I fit it in! Now all I had to do was wrap the 3 nylon straps around it to finalize the compression. This is where this product turns to crap. As I lace each strap thru its buckle and pull, I hear a snapping sound and a small piece of plastic goes flying into the air. The PLASTIC buckle isnt nearly strong enough to withstand the force of the straps once tightened. So I ended up using an old fashion half knot to keep things snug. It worked, but not like advertised. I give this item a 5/10. I expected better quality from Coleman camping gear.

Second item were these little white cubes that are advertised to either power heat to a one burner stove, or to help start camp fires. They are about $5 for 12 per box. They claim the cubes will burn at 1400 Degrees F. for 15 minutes. I didnt have the one burner stove so I just wanted to use them to help start our fires. When we had our firewood gathered and stacked correctly in the Tee Pee style, I inserted the small white cube into the base of our wood and lit it. Not only did it burn easily, but it quickly lit our campfire! It was just about the easiest campfire ive delt with in a while. Product rating, 10/10! I'll be carrying these on many future campouts.

Both products tested on this trip were useful. But only one really excelled. Try them out yourself when camping. The compression bag was helpful and keeping a large sleeping bag managable. But the plastic buckles were a disapointment. The fire cubes were great though!

A No Show

I say a "no show" as was my Tuesday night Division A soccer team last
night. Physically we were there. But we played like we mentally
weren't. Poor passing, lack of hustle and overall sloppyness cost us
the game 4-2. Hopefully we can rebound next week and get back on
track. This wasn't the way I wanted to start defending our league
title from last season.

Here is a picture of the restaraunt Meers, taken with my phone camera (mentioned in the post below). I highly recommend it if you are ever up in the Wichita Mountains!

Hide the Food and Zip Up the Door!

Saturday morning was the big day. For a month Craig and I had been planning a campout in the Wichita Mountains. We would be staying in a campground called Camp Doris, which sits low in a valley between two mountains, near a small lake. I spent three days planning and packing to make sure I had everything I needed. We had a group of four going... myself, Craig, his girlfriend Becci and Brotha James. We would be making the three hour drive North to South Central Oklahoma for this short adventure.

Although we were supposed to meet up at 9am sharp, Craig and Becci were almost an hour late getting to the meeting point. I knew this would make things tight since it gets dark so early and we had so much to do still. But once they got there, we were on our way. Two hours later, we were in Wichita Falls Texas to pick up Brotha James. He rode in my car and we communicated with walkie-talkies between cars.

We arrived in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge around 1:30pm. We stopped at Mt. Scott for a quick tour and some photo Op's, then it was off to Camp Doris to claim a camping spot. Four miles down the road we rolled into the front gate and found a camp site towards the back of the campgrounds near a small lake. It was perfect; no one around us, a lake infront of our tents and clear skies overhead. We quickly had our tents set up and began collecting firewood for our firepit. This was our first obstacle. The campground had almost been picked clean of anything worth burning. So Craig and I jumped into his Jeep and took a drive around to see what we could find. We quickly hit the gold mine! We came across an empty campsite where someone had left a pile of neatly stacked and cute logs. Large ones too! We loaded up all we could in his Jeep and headed back. Around 5:30pm we started the fire and began cooking our food. Diner was rather simple, we cooked hotdogs and had chips and juice on the side. Becci brought pears and they were juicy and delicious! After dinner, Brotha James broke out graham crackers, marshmellows and chocolate bars to make Smores with. That was a great dessert!

The rest of the night we spent gathering some more firewood and hanging out at the fire telling stories and talking. Occationally we would hear people yelling and talking. This was coming from another campsite about 200 yards from ours. A group of boyscouts had set camp and were getting rowdy as it got dark. A bit later we start to hear loud "ku-plunks" out in the water. We figure its the kids throwing large, bowling ball sized rocks into the lake. So we thought.

Around 10pm the fire was dying down and we all decided to call it a night and head to our tents. This is where the night began to get interesting. First off, on a funny note, I had seen the forecasts and seen that the temperature was going to drop into the upper 30's later that night. I came prepaired with warm clothes, thick sleeping bag and an extra blanket. My tent mate, Brotha James, did not. James being a person who stands 6'5", brought a sleeping bag made for a child. Once in it, it barely came up past his shoulders! HAHA! He also forgot to bring his pillow and didn't bring any other warm clothes. I instructed him on how to make a pillow by stuffing a shirt with extra clothes and tieing it off at both ends. This seemed to be working for him as he began to dose off. I sat up with the lantern on, reading a magazine until I got sleepy. About 20 minutes later I turned off the light and layed my head down to drift off. I could feel the cold air moving in off the lake and the temps begining to drop. I got in my sleeping bag and pulled the blanket over the top of it to help insulate me. I turned off the light and lay quietly listening to the wind in the trees. Thats when I hears a high pitched chattering noise. I quickly recognized this as the sound racoons make when talking to eachother. But its not a loud sound, which means they are close to our camp site! I wasnt worried because we had made a special effort to hide all trash and food from dinner. The chattering noise stops and I began to hear leaves crunching, clearly something walking thru them from the left of our campsite. So I knew the racoons were getting braver now that the fire was gone and we were out of site. Suddenly I hear those loud "ka-plunks" again in the lake. But this time its over at the shore where our camp borders! I knew this wasnt kids playing this time. And it wasnt a fish jumping, this was something heavy hitting the water hard. A few minutes later, our group is awoken by a large pack of yelping coyotes chasing something just across the lake cove we are at. It was loud and clear and they were close! I really liked that because it was exciting to hear them do their nightly routines with us out there. These noises continues all night. I woke up a couple times to the sound of brush crunching and limbs snapping just outside our tent. But surprisingly, I wasnt a bit worried. Its just the little night animals doing their thing. My only concern was a larger animal like a deer or buffalo getting spooked and accidentally running into our tents. But odds are thin that would actually happen.

By midnight it was really feeling cold. I was so glad I had brought the clothes I did. I was now sunk down into my sleeping bag, with the blanket pulled up over my head and tucked into my pillow on top. I had created a warm cocoon. Brotha James on the other hand wasnt fairing so well. I kept hearing him say things like, "I cant feel my toes!", or "Im so cold, my nose is frozen!" I would just respond with, "Man, Im sweating over here." LOL He wasnt amused. As morning came, Craig and Becci had an intersting event happen. They are just laying there when they hear a rather larger animal sniffing around the edge of their tent. Becci was a little un-nerved, but stayed cool. Most likely it was a couple curious coyotes.

Everyone got up and we had a light breakfast, then packed up the camp. After all our stuff was up, we went for a hike climbing a nearby mountain. There was no actual trail up the mountain, so we just made our own. The mountain was mostly granite rock also. The only problem was the wind was blowing at gusts of 40mph! This was the strongest wind id ever been in up there. As we got higher on the mountain, the wind became so strong merely standing up straight was almost impossible. When we got to the last ledge before the top of the mountain, the wind was so strong that Becci and James decided to find a crevase to take shelter in while Craig and I climbed the last leg to the summit. I stepped up on to the highest rock and was almost blown off my feet. I wish I knew the exact speed of the wind because Id guess it was close to 60mph.

After the hike, we came back, got cleaned up and went to the famous Meers restaraunt for burgars and onion rings. Meers has been open since 1901 and is built into the side of a hill. It defines "rustic". After lunch we headed back down to Wichita Falls to drop off James and make our way back home. Three hours later I was back home and getting cleaned up. It was an exciting, fun and exhausting trip. I cant wait till the next one! I took lots of pictures and hope to have them up on thorpeland.com soon! Hopefully next time Emily can go. She had to work that day which kept her from going. :( So now that gives me a reason to plan another trip. hehe

Worth Mentioning

A few weeks back I posted news concerning my buddy Roger and the new job he took in Kabul Afganistan. Well he's been posting to his blog and his stuff is fairly interesting. Have a look at it. Its some interesting reading!

http://rogerskabul.blogspot.com

"It Could Very Well Save Their Lives From Negative Orgone!!"

Remember how the famous boxing promoter Don King used to get up on the podium and be know for putting his filthy rich hands up in the air and yelling, "Only in America!"? Well now I am convinced to how right he was. Take for example, my good buddy Rodney. Rodney is an interesting fellow, to say the least. He's one of my work buddies and biggest conspiracy theorist I know. But thats a different story.

Rodney recently started up his own side business called "Spiritual Stew" and after extensive research into what lengths some people will go to buy good health and happiness, has come up with a product to deliver such wishes. I present to you the "Orgone Vril Radionics Prana Pyramid Generator + FreeCD". I have provided a link to his auction at the bottom of this blog post. You have to finish reading first, to truly appreciate and beleive the scope of this endeavor.

Now, Rodney himself is a bit of a spiritualist in his own off beat ways. But don't kid yourself, he in no way believes in the healing, faith-providing powers these pyramids are known to provide. He simply keeps building them at home and selling them on Ebay with a smile. And thats the kicker... they are ACTUALLY selling!! One for as high as $75. While other websites rip people off with pyramids priced as high as $125, Rodney offers believers value and quality. Yes, im also shaking my head at the people buying these.... home decorations. When asked what word he would use to describe his customer base, he quickly replied... "dumbasses". Yet the funniest of all things is his auctions don't lie about what it is. He clearly posts, "DISCLAIMER: All radionics instruments are to be used for experimental purposes only; no claims are made. It is not intended to replace a doctor's care in any way shape or form". But they are still selling! This thing is nothing more than a plastic 3 inch high pyramid, filled with steel BB's on a bed of crushed rock! Some would call Rodney a scammer. But its hard to call someone a scammer when they tell you up front what your buying. Only in America Rodney, only in America...

THE LINK ---> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5524837696&ssPageName=STRK:MESO:IT

Wearing the Crown

What has been denied to my Tuesday night soccer team, was achieved last night. We won the "A" Division championship game against our tough opponents, the dreaded 5 time champion, IMEG. It was the toughest game played all season for our team but we fought back from being down 3-2 with only 3 minutes left in the game. Now, read on for the play by play.

The game started out with IMEG scoring first and early. My first thought was, "oh no, here we go". Luckily our team woke up after that and we began to defend our net better. We also began to put together somewhat of an attack. About midway thru the first half, I made a run down the sideline for a thru-ball. Their keeper was quick to come off his line to collect the ball. I started to turn and head back downfield to defend, but suddenly he rolls the ball out to his defender just 5 feet from me! I quickly charged at the defender as they recieved the pass. A well timed tackle and I had stolen the ball! The keeper was still off his line so I hit a quick shot hoping to score. The ball was just wide and bounced off the wall. Lucky for me, the rebound came back out at center goal and had bounced around the scrambling keeper. I met the ball in stride and carefully shot it into the net with the outside of my right foot. Goal!! Tie game, 1-1.

A few minutes later, IMEG struck again. A defensive miscue left one of their forwards open. He met a perfectly placed pass on the back side of our net and despite several of my teams defenders collapsing in on him to stop the shot, he scores, making it 2-1. He pulled himself out of the pile of people on the ground and jogged back high-fiving his teammates. Time was running out in the first half, but we figured only being down by a goal to them at half time was great. Suddenly our goalie steve, who had just made a nice save, throws a long ball down the field to an on running Tyler. The ball took a high bounce and the IMEG keeper charges out of his goal to make the save. Tyler leaps up and flicks a header right past the on-rushing goal tender. Goal!! The buzzer sounds and its 2-2 at the half. This was great!

The second half starts and both teams come out playing fast and aggressive. I could tell IMEG really wanted to step up the pressure on us, hoping to open the flood gates with a few quick goals. But we held strong, stopping shot after shot. Our passing wasnt as pretty as theirs, yet we seemed to get the ball down to their end and get our share of chances. There had been a number of hard fouls already, everyone was tackling the ball and the other players hard. Then again, a series of quick passes and finding a defensive mismatch and IMEG had scored again. It was now 3-2, with time running out.

Now the clock seemed to be counting down faster than ever. We were down by a goal and they were begining to kill time off the clock. Finally we began to really press our attack. Partially because the dropped back into a defensive shell. Suddenly out of nowhere, one of our defenders (I cant remember his name at this moment) steals the ball about 15 yards from their goal. He quickly spins around a fires a low hard shot that beats their keeper in the low right side of the net. The score is tied 3-3!! Just 1 minutes left on the clock.

Quickly, IMEG came out of their defensive shell and went on the attack. We dropped everyone back to defend and blocked a series of shot as they went desperatly for the win. I was coving the right side of the field when their midfielder crossed the ball over to the forward on that side of the field. I ran at the striker to cover him but right as i get there, he hits a one time shot at our goal. My outstretched right foot catches part of the ball and redirects is straight up into the air. I shield off the forward then spin around a volley the falling ball out of the air and down the field, safely from our net. With seconds left, they quickly bring the ball back down the field for one last attack. Again they couldnt get thru to our goal and the final buzzer sounded, ending the game in a tie. This means it was on to a penalty shootout!

IMEG's 1st shot: Steve stops the shot!
U Wish 1st shot: I fake a hard shot, freezing the keeper then put an accurate shot to the far post for our first goal! 1-0.
IMEG's 2nd shot: Steve stops the shot!
U Wish 2nd shot: Rocky tries to put the ball thru the keepers legs, but he saves it.
IMEG's 3rd shot: Steve stops the shot easily!
U Wish 3 shot: Cody tries to go wide and then flick it over the keeper head. He easily stops it.
IMEG's 4th shot: Their top player quickly touches the ball to his left and blasts it into the net. 1-1, tie game.
U Wish 4th shot: Tyler does almost the exact same thing. Pushes the ball left and uses his natural left foot shot to power one home. 2-1! IMEG must score on their last shot or its over.
IMEG's 5 shot: Their player pushes the ball wide right and blasts a shot. Not a problem for Steve, he easily blocks it away.

ITS OVER, WE WIN!!! Champions!!

As mentioned in the Post below, here's a phone cam shot from a night out at Kirks place. It was fun times and good food with the guys! I dont like card games, but still had a blast and a lot of laughs!

Pass the Turkey

I haven't had the chance to post in a few days because of the recent Thanksgiving holiday. So I'll rewind a bit for review. The Monday before Turkey day, my buddy Dan flew in from L.A. for a visit with family and friends. I picked him up at the airport, like usual. From there, we drove out to the Hooters resteraunt in Lewisiville. He was craving to go since there is not a Hooters near him in L.A. He's a big fan of their greasy chicken wings. I can eat them on occation, but not very often. I took him home around midnight and I was headed home to crash, since it was still a worknight.

Wednesday came and the end of the work week was here! Gotta love a 3 day workweek. I dont know why but that 3 day week felt like a 6 day work week for some reason, I guess because of the anticipation.

Thursday morning it was off to the parents house for the big meal. We had a bit of a light turn out this turkey day. It was just me, my brother Courts and mom & dad. Macey was sick from something so didnt make it there until after the meal. Emily headed down to see her family, but lucky for me she came back the next day. :) Shortly after we finished eating at my families house, I packed up a bunch of leftovers and headed south again to my home. Not a very eventful Thanksgiving Day, but a fun one.

Saturday night my buddy Kirk held a little get to gether at his place out in Allen, TX. Dan and I headed WAY up there to Kirks house for some burgers and poker. Although I have a strong dislike for poker, or card games in general, I was the official "dealer" of the night. It at least kept my interest and kept me being social at the table with everyone. Also in attendance were my buddies Dustin and Robin. I dont get to see these goofballs very often, so its always good for a night of laughs. I dont even know who won the game of poker, but I had a lot of fun just eating and lauging with these guys I hadnt see in so long. Kirk did make the announcement that he and his girfriend Jennifer, who was there helping with things, recently got engaged. Congrats to Kirk!! I hope things go much better for you this time buddy. :)

Sunday was pretty uneventful. Emily and I went out and started our Christmas shopping. Which I actually enjoy because while im out shopping, I keep getting ideas for things I need. haha So far Ive got my dad and brother checked off my present buying list. This is actually the earliest ive ever started shopping. Perhaps I'll actualy get everyone a decent gift this year? lol

He Shoots a Perfect Game!

Yesterday (Sunday), was the seasons first paintball game out in the woods for me and some of my buddies. At first it looked like we werent going to be able to play. It rained all night and was still drizzling outside when morning arrived. But after talking to all the guys, they were gung ho and ready to play. We all arrived at that game field and suited up in our cammo's and gear. This was the first time I was getting to try out my new paintball gun, a Tippman Custom 98. As I took my gun out of my gear back to show Ken, he noticed something I was unaware of. He immediatly says, "Oh, you have a response trigger!". Upon further inspection he was correct. Whoever sold this gun on Ebay didnt know this item had been upgraded or they would of tacked on $80 to the original price! What a response trigger does is pretty much turn the gun from a semi-automatic paintball gun to FULL automatic. :) I was ready to play now.

There were six of us so we divided up into teams of three and headed off to our starting bases. We were playing "elimination", meaning the goal was easy... shoot everyone who's not on your team. It didnt take long for the action to start. We were walking down a trail spread out about 15 feet apart, looking and listening for signs of the other team. All of a sudden, I hear the pop of a paintball gun and the hiss of a paintball narrowly missing me! I hit the groud for cover while Ken and Paul return fire into an area of thick brush near a creek. I dont think they could see who was shooting, but only knew the area it was coming from. I stand back up to see one of their team running back up a creek enbankment. I fire a couple shots but he disapears into the foliage. By this point, Ken and Paul had moved down into the creek to engage our enemy. He quickly turns to me and gives me the hand signal to flank back around the trail and come up from the other side. I hustle down the trail to where to bend sharply left and down into the creek. I stop and wait, watching. Suddenly, I hear a loud snap! Then I see movement. I point my gun and fire off a quick 6 rounds. "Im hit, Im hit!!" someone yells. My first "kill" of the day!! Its Chris, Ken's brother. I got him in the butt of all places and he comes out of the brush rubbing his left butt cheek complaining about it stinging. LOL Well, this is what happens when you're shot running away from the enemy. hehe

The rest of my day continues to go this well. I end up tagging out the other two players (Mark and Todd) in the first round... then killing all 3 players on my own again in the second game of the day we played! I finished our third game with only one kill, but went the full day without being shot. Although I had a few very near misses zing by me. My new gun performed perfectly and I played really well. I look forward to the next time we get to play, which will probably be right after Thanksgiving. I will be ready!

Later that day, after paintball, Emily and I met up with my family at the local Red Lobster for my brothers Birthday dinner. The little guy turned 30! I felt bad for Emily because she doesn't eat sea food, but yet when my family wants to do a "family dinner" they will only eat at Red Lobster. Luckily, they have a chicken and rice dinner that she doesnt mind getting. And lucky for me the rice and chicken does not taste like fish from their kitchen, or she wouldnt be a happy camper! :)

Tonight my buddy Dan fly's in from L.A. I pick him up from the airport around 9pm. Im looking forward to seeing him. I havent seen him in months. It should be fun!

It's War

There is a term known to the techie world called "Wardriving". You get in your car with a laptop, equiped with some special network scanning software and you drive around neighborhoods searching for "open" home wireless networks. Once you find one you could connect to the network and surf the internet for free, hack another pc on the internet or wreak havoc on the persons pc who owns the wireless network. You see, new wireless routers such as those sold in Best Buy, Circuit City or even Wal-Mart come out of the box, wide open with security turned off! Most non-techies do not know this. They get their new shiny Linksys home wireless router, come home, hook it up and assume thats all there is too it. Wrong.

To prove my point of how common this is, listen to what I did recently. I was sitting on my couch about to watch some Monday Night Football and I decided to get out my laptop. Its handy to surf the net, check stats and stuff while the game is on. My laptop was taking its time finding my own wireless network, so I had it do a Site Search again to find my connection. I quickly found it and began to authenticate thru the WEP security I have setup. All of a sudden, my software detects 3 other wireless networks nearby. They have to be within 100 feet or so to my location or I wouldnt be picking up their signal. Most of them are fairly weak signals, ranging from 5% to 15% strength. Two of them are named "Default", which means they are still on their default settings right out of the box! And one of them has its name changed to "UcMe". So clever, yet it was still unsecured and open for any public connections! So I thought, I wonder just how many are turned on, unprotected in my apartment complex? I threw on some shoes, unplugged my laptop and decided to take a little walk. I went down the stairs and started walking along the row of apartment buildlings. All of a sudden I now have 8 wireless networks showing up and NONE of them are secured! Incredible... just amazing what these people dont know. I selected the wireless network with the strongest signal and clicked "connect". My wireless network card lights flickered and the software on my screen showed it was working on making a connection. Bingo! I connected to this unknown persons wireless network. If I was up to no-good, I could have begun a very destructive hacking lesson. But I walked on to see how long I could hold the signal. About 15 feet later, it dropped and I lost it. As my friend Craig put it, "Would this be Warwalking"? :) I began to get a bit cold from walking around in a t-shirt and shorts so I headed back to watch my game, happy to know I had proved a point to myself. A secure wireless network pays off!!

As Predicted...

The Cowgirls were routed by the Eagles 49-21 last night, just as I predicted. Ha! I was loving every second of it, while Brother James was hating every second. I was sure to remind him of the score and the highlight plays everytime something happened. I must have sent 45 text messages to his phone with taunting words. He wasnt a happy camper. Awwww... too bad cowgirls.

Showtime!

Tonight is the game ive been waiting for all Football season. The Philidelphia Eagles vs the Dallas Cowgirls (cowboys). Eagles are 7-1 and the cowgirls are 3-5. My buddy James has bet me a lunch on this game. Despite how bad dallas sucks, he insists they will win by 21 points. The Eagles however have scored easily on every team they have played. Kick off has just finished and the game is on. Its showtime. Go Eagles!! I predict a 24 point victory for Philly.

The Fat Lady... Has Sung.

Well, sorta. For the first time in my life I attended a real opera. I promised Emily long ago that I would go with her to one and the chance arose when my friend Craig and Becci asked if we'd be interested. It was an interesting experience and a lot of fun. The evening started with Emily and I meeting at Becci's place in downtown Big D. From there we drove over to Fair Park where the opera house is to get out tickets. We were about an hour early but didnt want the even to sell out. Lucky we did. We got the last group of 4 seats together. They were located way up on the balcony, on the far right. But thats ok, we were in! We go upstairs to take our seats and hang out. Ive learned one thing; the average opera fan must be a tiny person! The seats are so close, that our knees hit the back of the seats infront of us. This later lead to many a cramping legs. But we settled in and showtime neared.

At 7:30 the lights went down and the curtains came up. We were there to see "Carmen". An opera which takes place in Spain, but sung in French with English subtitles scrolling on a screen above the stage. Interesting. I soon learned that the opera Carmen lasts 3.5 hours! Luckily, there are 3 interemission breaks. Whew! Surprisingly once I began to watch the story and follow along, the breaks came quickly. I was very impressed by the singers voices and how loud they could sing... and in French to boot! Most all of the performers were american, except one of the female performers who is from Russia. The set design on stage was very well done. Between acts, they would completely redesign the stage to make it appear to be a totally differnt setting. I was impressed. I guess I had expected the set from a junior high play I was in as a kid. Thank goodness I was wrong. haha

Overall the opera was a very enjoyable evening. My girlfriend Emily looked very beautiful, as it was the first time Id ever seen her in a dress. That sight alone was worth getting dressed up in my suit to go to the opera with her. :) Craig and Becci were dressed up very nice also, but Craig always dressed up the exact same for work. So he loses snazzy points. lol I cant say I'll go again soon to the opera, but I could see myself doing one or two a year. Like my mom said, it does me good to take in some culture. Hhhmm.... I supose mom.

The night before the opera, we caught the new movie "The Incredibles". I'll have to admit, normally I hate those Disney, Pixar... whatever, animated movies. You know, the ones that try to appeal to kids but still squize in some adult humor to keep us awake. But this one was actually very entertaining and hilarious. I caught myself laughing outloud many times during the movie. I was surprised at a couple things. First, the movie was a tad over 2 hours long... with previews. That might wear a little kid out. Secondly, the bad guys in the movie actually get killed. Normally they try to protect children from seeing anything about death in a kids movie, but im glad they didnt try to spare us this time. Anyhow, good movie, 2 thumbs up from Thorpeland!

Last Saturday, before the opera I went on a really fun hike. My brother Courts and I drove up to Lake Texoma and hiked a couple miles of the Cross Timbers Trail. This is a winding trail that follows a ridge running along the lake. It goes thru a series of gorges and hills and was a lot of fun. I hope to go back one weekend and hike the trail further. In total it stretches along 28 miles of the lakes shoreline. I doubt I'll do all that. I got to take some good photos and do some cool exploring. I hope to get some of the pics up on my site or in the blog soon.

Now on to more recent events. All this week ive been driving down to Dallas each morning to attend a class for work. To be more specific, im being "officially" trained in "Novell Desktop Management with Zenworks 4". Yes I know... after merely reading the title you are bursting with excitement. Well its a fairly interesting class. Ive learned a lot and im looking forward to getting back to work next week with my new knowledge. Its kinda cool that my work will send me to these training classes. Normally I couldnt afford to go to them, as this one im in this week cost $6500!

Last Tuesday my Division A soccer team did it again, pulling off a last minute win! This time, I got the assist on the winning goal which was really cool. One of my teamates comes dribbling down the center of the field with me on his right. As the defender comes at him, he dishes it off to me, but another defender was waiting for that pass. He stretches to reach ahead of me and barely tips it away towards the wall. But he trips over my outstretched leg. The referee doesnt blow the whistle though because the ball is headed straight back to their keeper at the side of their penalty box. I charge forward to challange him and I guess he panics. He freezes and the ball bounces off the wall and back to me. I pull the ball back, spin around and knock it to the center hoping my teamate stuck around. I look up and there he is!! The hits him right in stride as he calmly traps the ball with his left foot and flicks it with his right over a diving goal keeper. GOAL!! We hold them off for the last 45 seconds to win, giving us a 5-1 record and a 5-4 win.

This coming weekend is looking like it will be fun. Emily and I are going to catch the movie "Saw" friday night and Saturday my buddy James is coming into town. That night he and I are going to my buddy Eric's ice hockey game and Im going to take some action pictures. Im looking forward to that! Then, Sunday, after having the summer off... PAINTBALL is back! Time to dawn the camo's, assult gear and have some war in the woods. Should be fun!

Incredible!

In a last second grasp, my tuesday night A Division team pulled off an incredible victory over our dreaded IMEG opponents. Normally by the end of the first half we are losing by a couple goals but we fought hard and things were all tied up 3-3 at the mid-point. The first half was an exciting one! Although I didnt get a goal, I had a big part in our 2nd and 3rd tallies. The first of the two goals came late in the first half. IMEG fouls one of our guys right outside the red line on their end of the field, about 12 yards from the goal. They set up a defensive wall to stop the shot but its only 2 of their players in it. Their goal keeper can still see the shot easily to stop it. I take off running in front of him, hoping to screen his view of the play. It worked perfectly! Right as I get infront of him, he reaches out with both arms to shove me out of the way. I look up to see the ball in mid-air on its way to an open net! Goal!!!
On the second goal, IMEG's best player had the ball in their end of the field and was looking to pass it out. Cody, on my team, pressured him so he cut the ball back to dribble away from him. He didnt realize I had snuck up on his blind side and saw him about to turn around towards me. I quickly got a foot in and stole the ball deep in the left corner of their end of the field. I look up to see Cody, now completely unmarked, calling for the ball again. I drop a pass back to him and he easily blasts it home for a goal!

In the second half, they came out attacking. Within a few minutes they got a goal making it 4-3. We began to worry. This is normally when the flood gates open and they score a flurry of goals on us. But we hung in there and fought back. Sahal broke down the right flank and found Rocky on the back post of the goal for an easy pass shot in and a goal! Tied again, 4-4! The game battled back and forth for the rest of the half, until the last minute of the game. They threw everything they had at us. Forwards attacked and so did their defenders. Even their goal keeper had come up to half field to be open for a pass back. We had everyone back defending, blocking shot after shot. Suddenly, with FIVE SECONDS left, Cody steals the ball at the top of our goalbox. He spins around and quickly lobs a deep shot downfield. The IMEG goalie can only watch as the ball sails over his head at midfield. Luckily, the ball lands just inside their red line, avoiding a 3 line fould and the end of the game. The ball bounces over the red line, 3 seconds... bounces again... 2 seconds... starts to roll to a stop.... 1 second.... and slowly crosses the goal line. BUZZZZZZ!!! END OF THE GAME!! GOAL! Our bench clears as we rushed onto the field to pile on Cody. IMEG, disgusted, could barley come out to say good game. Most didnt even leave the bench. This is our first victory over this team in almost 2 years. They have been undefeated in 5 seasons. We know now, we will meet them in the championship game at the end of the season. Im sure they will want revenge badly. We will be ready.

Boo! Happy Halloween to all the gouls, goblins and ghosts out there tonight. Its a rainy, dreary night here in Dallas Texas. Perfect for guys who look like this dude. Ha!

Preparing For Life On The Trail

As plans gear up for a 2005 hike on the Appalachian Trail, I needed a resource to help my team of hikers colaberate and organize our efforts. After searching the web for what I was looking for, I can up empty handed. So, I made my own. Introducing www.hikingmonkey.com . Originally I set up this forum site for myself and the 3 others accompanying me on this adventure. But I thought, why not open it up for all hikers who want a place to share their favorite hiking and trekking spots, stories and gear opinions? So, I extend a welcome to any thorpeland blog readers who want to create a free account on my new site and share their stories and information! Check it out! http://www.hikingmonkey.com

Getting On With It

A few months ago in this here blog, I spoke about a number of places that were on my "list to visit" in the future. One of those such places I listed was to hike, at least a portion of, the Appalachian Trail. Well to update everyone, plans are moving forward. I have officially got a comitment from 3 of my good buddies who are now just as pumped as I am to begin this adventure. We have begun assembling gear, supply lists and the information needed to tackle this adventure. As of now it's looking like we will be on the trail in late spring of 2005. We have a date, but im not ready to officially announce it here. I've just about worked out the logistics of transportation to and from the trail and how to get all our gear to Atlanta airport and to Springer Mountain (the trailhead).

After a ton of research on the A.T. I'm realizing what a challange lies before us. We plan on hiking the first section of the trail, which is Springer Mountain to Neels Gap. We'll be covering about 15 miles a day, carrying 40lb packs and climbing a series of mountain ranges with altitudes of up to 8000ft. Believe me, we've already started training for this. Although challanging, I believe this will be a very rewarding adventure and I will return with some incredible photographs and some incredible stories. Stay tuned as the trip nears for more progress reports!

This weekend we were honored with a visit from me and Emily's old friends Mike and Cheryl. It was great to see them! They drove up from Galveston Texas for the weekend to catch a Beastie Boys concert in Dallas and say hi to everyone. Cheryl is in medical school down there and Mikey works for the local Big Brothers organization.

Uhh... I Like Toast?

Its the small things that entertain me during a day at work. Dont get me wrong, I enjoy my work. But sometimes I encounter people that can be a bit frusterating or a bit slower than I would like them to be. Allow me to humor myself by retelling an event that happened to me on Wednesday. Currently we were doing an inventory count on all the PC monitors on the network. I go around with a little infra-red scanner and scan in the bar code on the back of the monitor and record who sits there and what department they're in. So I go into an office and start scanning a monitor. Suddenly, the guy who sits there comes up and asks what I'm doing. I explain thoroughly about our inventory project and how I have to recored each monitor. Sticking very specifically to describing it only concerns the monitors. He looks at me with a blank stare for about 6 seconds, then points to his desk and says, "Ive got a new printer". There's another long pause as I try to think of an answer to this totally non-related statement. He's got a new printer? So what? The only response I can muster is a forced smile and a quick "thumbs up" hand gesture. I then go back to my scanning and he walks off. For the rest of the day, I keep replaying the event in my head. What possesed this man to tell me he had a new printer? And why to tell me after I explained why im there? Im just baffeled. It was humorous when I look back on it. Perhaps the correct response to him should have been, "Yes, and I like toast!"

Gimme My Money.... NOW!

I had a rather funny thing happen to me this past weekend. Let me first set the stage. I play the weekly Texas Lottery, but I get my tickets thru a site called www.playmynumbers.com . This site purchases the tickets for you and if you win, they mail the paper ticket to you. Very convenient! So, I match 3 numbers and win $5. Ive won small cash before and each time I get a ticket, its on a strangely smooth paper. Not the normal lottery ticket paper. I walk up to the lady working the register at this rather rural gas station and hand her my ticket saying I think I have matched some numbers and i'd like to cash the ticket in. She takes my ticket and quickly notices the different paper. She looks at me with a confused look and then back at my ticket. Here's where the fun starts. She runs the ticket thru the official lottery machine. Which then prints out a legit cash-in voucher for them to pay me. She shakes her head and says, "This isnt right... it cant be". Then she looks back at me and says, "I dont think this is a real ticket, where did you get this?" I start to explain, but she quickly turns away and starts whispering to the lady working with her. Although I can hear her loud and clear, I stand patiently, waiting for my cash. I hear the other lady mumble something about, "... well if you arent sure, dont pay him". I wanted to say, "Hello, im standing right here!" Thats when i forcefully make them listen to the story of where the ticket came from. Still, she doesnt really believe me. Reluctantly, she cashes the voucher and pays me my money. I then say to her, "what did you think, i print these things off on my computer?" She doesnt answer, just starres at me. Ppphffftt...gimme my money country bumpkin!

Hello from the State Fair of Texas! Emily and I headed to Fair Park and Big Tex (in the background) this past Saturday. It was a fun day. I thought the big crowds and high prices of everything would dampen our day, but it didnt! It was my first time to the state fair and overall I'd recommend it to others. Just go prepared to spend about $50 per person!

For my annual Jack O Lantern, this season I choose a Clockwork Orange theme. Isnt he just the scaries pumpkin on the block? Ha!!

You've Been Downgraded, Thank You.

About six months ago, the managers in my office come back to my departments work area and tell us, "Good news!! We've got approval to renovate the entire department. Everyone will have new large work areas!" This was great news. Granted I had a large desk and work area, it would be nice to not be packed in so close to my coworkes.

As each month went by, I noticed people coming and going with maps, floorplans and tapemeasures. The time was nearing and I was excited to one day move into a spacious office work area. You see, my desk never has fewer than 4 pc's stacked up on it. Not to mention various cables, mice, keyboards, ect. I need more space!!

So, August comes along and the construction begins. But I notice something odd. They are only knocking down and building walls in a fraction of the area I thought they were supposed to. This cant be right? If they build the new area the size that this is looking like, we'll have a tiny work area! I must be mistaken. So I ask my boss a few days later, whats the deal? He tells me, our budget got reduced so we are getting a much smaller work area that previously planned!! NO!! Now, we are into October and the new office is almost complete. I hear they have just installed the new cubicals and I want to have a look. I walk into the new office area, round the corner....... NOOOOOO!!! SMALLER DESKS THAN WE HAD BEFORE!!! Ive gone from having a spacious 3 sided desk/work area, to a smaller 2 sided desk. I quickly see I'm not the only one shocked. My co-workers see this new office and are just as insulted and horrified as I am. My boss is so far sitting on the fence. He hasnt really said much of anything either way. The disgusting part of all this is, I just know the upper management cant wait to walk into the new office when we get moved in, throw their arms up in the air with a huge smile on their face and say, "Well, what do you guys think!?" The scary thing is, I truly do not believe they are ready for the answer they are going to hear.

Saturday night me, Emily, my friend James and her friend Shannon went to Medieval Times. It was a blast watching the knights fight it out while eating a feast. A bit expensive but worth it to do once in a while. Like my crown in the picture? Everyone wears them while there. That is a real suit of armour behind me, with a price tag of $3000 on it. I'll take 5 please! :)

Finding the Touch Again

After taking a couple seasons off from playing on multipel soccer teams I began to feel my ball control skills and my scoring touch slide a bit. So now I'm playing 3 times a week. Twice on league teams and once with a group just playing casual pick up. Its already having good results! My endurance is improving along with my touch. I scored 1 goal on tuesday nights game and then scored 2 of my teams 3 goals in a 3-0 win Thursday night. I'm back!