Christmas Time

First off, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

I have always enjoyed this special day when we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. There has always been a special spirit about the season that is very unique from any other time, and of course this is because of its true meaning.

I was happy to know that my oldest son is already realizing that it is more than just presents and decorations. When we ask him what Christmas is, he quickly replies, "It's when we celebrate Jesus' birthday!" The other day I jokingly asked him, "What if we skip Christmas this year? What if we just don't celebrate?" Again he was quick in his reply, exclaiming, "Then Jesus would be sad and very mad at you!"

Yesterday, we took the time to bake some Christmas cookies, and retold my oldest the Christmas story as he cut each shape, telling him, for example, that the star represented the new star that appeared in the heavens to tell of Jesus' birth and show the way to find Him. He thought this was great fun and had me repeat the stories with each cookie that he cut.

I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father who loved us so much that He sent His Only Begotten, and to our willing Saviour, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died that we too may overcome sin and death. May we all learn to love and follow Him, for this is the only way to have Peace on Earth, as we show Goodwill to men.

Wafer Snacks

Ok, before I start...does anyone recognize the above snack? Ok, yes, it is just a negative of a Little Debbie Nutty Bar, but I am trying to depict a snack I enjoyed in the 1980s while visiting my gr-great aunt. It was like a Nutty Bar, but it had a white chocolate coating with, I believe, toasted coconut mixed in. Instead of peanut butter, they had a vanilla or coconut oreo style creme inside. They were so good, but I am not sure they are made anymore. I don't know if they were made by Little Debbie, Dolley Madison, Hostess, etc. Any help?

So, I have always enjoyed a good wafer snack whether it be a Nutty Bar, Kit Kat, or simple Vanilla/Strawberry/Chocolate wafer cookie. Of course, the best way to enjoy them is by pulling them apart and scrapping the creme centers clean with your incisors. Of course, my wife did not allow my relationship with Little Debbie to continue after we were married....sigh.

Recentlly, we discovered Goya brand wafer cookies at the local Korean market, that just happens to sell Latino food items as well. They have the traditional flavors, but also include guava, mango, pineapple, and coconut. I like to simultaneously eat a pineapple and coconut wafer to make a pina colada medoly in my mouth. Anyway, dangerous items to have in the house as it is so easy to eat a whole package in one or two sittings. They may seem airy and light, but they'll soon make your pants too tight.

Crocus Sativus

Yes, I am talking about the producer of saffron. As I have mentioned before, I like growing things, especially things that produce something pleasing to the taste buds. A few months ago, I decided to plant some Crocus Sativus bulbs and try my hand at harvesting some saffron. Pictured above is one of the results. Yesterday morning, I harvested the saffron contained in the red stamens and dried them for future use. I don't expect to ever get a high yield, but hopefully enough to make a few dishes every once in awhile. I can practically taste the lamb kabobs with grilled veggies over top some saffron rice...of course, maybe that is because I had that for dinner on Friday, Yummm!

Childhood Games II: Fun with Paper

So I already went over the fun to be had with paper footballs, but that got me thinking about other paper fun we had when I was a kid. Now the projects that I detail below were by far the favorite origami projects of the time. Sure paper cranes that could "lay eggs" were cool and now I know "peaceful," and you can't overlook the paper balloon, but....

Poppers
Paper poppers, just called "poppers" where I lived, were a lot of fun, but could also get you in a lot of trouble at school if your timing was bad (i.e. you got caught in the act). At my school, we only made two varieties: the rectangle and the triangle popper. The triangle by far gave the best bang, but the rectangle was a good beginner's model. But don't take my word for it, get a piece of paper, and make your own; and then please leave comments about your results. (Click through the links in the text for instructions. Oh and you don't need a newspaper for the triangle popper, an 8.5x11 piece of paper works great!)


"Chinese" Throwing StarsWe all know that the "pirates" of the 80s were ninjas. As such, we all needed to have our supply of Chinese stars. You could fold in coins and tape them up for better balance, distance, and hitting power--which of course we did. My best friend growing up, Ryan J., who lived in the house behind mine would always have a group of us playing ninjas in his pitch black basement. We would have two sides and the object was to sneak out and attack each other's bases. I am surprised no one lost an eye from the many stars flying through the air. I did have my shorts (homemade "Jams" with a dinosaur print) ripped by Ryan, who thrust his wooden sword through a gap in between the stairs and water heater (boy am I lucky that he just snagged and ripped my shorts!!!). While I am on a tangent anyway, I will mention that our love of paper stars led many of us to make metal stars in metal shop in junior high school, which were of course banned even then. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to take metal shop. That said my friend Cedric R. did and I at least got to throw the star that he had made. He had no problem throwing the star into the wall at his home, making one inch gashes...I'm sure his parents were not thrilled, if they ever found out.

Fortune Tellers
Ok last, but not least, but definitely more girly...paper fortune tellers. We as kids were obsessed with who we liked and whether they liked us, how much money we would have when we grew up, etc.; and picking off flower petals for she loves me...she loves me not, just wasn't cutting it, especially for boys...as that would be crossing the line of girlishness...no offense. So here were the rules of the game, as cut/paste from the above link:

How to Play the Game:
*Hold the fortune teller and ask a friend to choose one of the colors shown.
*Spell out the chosen color by opening and closing the fortune teller, and stop.
*Have your friend choose one of the numbers that is shown. Count out that number by opening and closing the fortune teller, and stop.
*Again, have your friend choose a number, and repeat step 3.
*Have your friend choose one last number. Then open the flap beneath that number and read your friend's fortune!

You could/can make these into a simple yes/no/maybe magic 8 ball type "tool," or just put names of people you like, the possibilities were/are endless.


M.A.S.H (Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House)
Ok just one more, since we are on the topic of grade school fortune telling...besides this one requires no special paper folding skills. I know this was a girly game too, but remember I have a sister and girly things can be fun too. Anyway, you would take a piece of paper and would write out several categories and each category would have four selections. The first category: What type of house will you live in? was the only pre-selected category, which of course was: Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House. Other categories which you could make your own choices for included:

*What type of car will you drive?
*What type of job will you have?
*Where will you live (city/state/country/planet)?
*Who will you marry?
*How many children will you have?
After all the categories were filled in, a friend would start drawing a spiral away from your view, and you had to say when they should stop. Then like counting the rings of a tree, you would count how many rings were in the spiral and that would be the number used for selecting your future. Starting from the top, you would count through the selections and your future would be the one that you end on... for example if your number was eleven you would count through the house category to find out that you would be living in a shack. Fun and simple times!

Reminiscing: Childhood Games

Pickle

This was my favorite game to play with friends while waiting for the school bus. The basic rules were that you would have two points as designated bases. You would have two kids who would gaurd the bases, who were similar to tag called "it." Other kids, were base runners who would from base to base while trying to not get tagged by the tennis ball that the "its" would toss back and forth (being tagged included being hit by a thrown ball.) The person being tagged takes the "it" place of the person who threw it. Repeat the process over and over until the arrival of the dreaded bus.

Dodgeball

Oh how fun it was on the days we got to play dodgeball in PE (or gym class, whatever you want to call it.) The rules we played by, which I believe to be the classic rules, were as follows: two teams would be divided by the mid-court line of the basketball court; you could not cross the line or you were out; if you were hit by the ball you were out; if your ball is caught before bouncing you are out; team to run out of people loses. Oh how I loved hurling the rubber balls at peoples legs, heads, and backs to limit their ability to catch the ball. And how I loved to encourage the people to throw at me since I was very good at catching the ball.

Broom Hockey or Floorball
While still on PE I loved playing broom hockey, we actually didn't use brooms, but rather had styrofoam hockey sticks with a plastic puck (but wait we did use brooms at church). I was the best goalie, but found it more fun to get out ans score goals.

Kickball and Wiffle-ball

Ahh, kickball and wiffle-ball, so much fun. As I am sure you all know, kickball is baseball played by kicking a big rubber ball instead of hitting a ball with a bat. On variant we played in gym class was when we played indoor if you kicked the ball into the basketball hoop your team would get 10 points, I remember doing it at least once. We did play wiffle-ball (with a bat of course), but we mostly used tennis balls, as you could get a lot more distance.

Flag, Two-hand Touch, and Solo Football

I loved playing neighborhood two-hand touch or PE flag football. In the fall, even when my friends were gone, you could find me in my backyard playing the football. I would through an appropriately arched ball and run and catch it. I would even play two teams, keeping downs and score by myself; each dropped ball would be a down and I designated certain points like a tree for a first down or touchdown. I would imagine winning the Super Bowl or winning the Heisman Trophy. Of course playing with friends was much more fun. (I also would pretend I was in the Olympics and would do events such as the standing long-jump in my living room...heavily influenced by Carl Lewis.)

Paper Football

Paper football deserves its own category as it is a little more unique. Starting in elementry school, the boys would fold paper into triangles that would serve as footballs. We would use a desk or lunch table as the field. You would first kick off by flicking the paper, and you would then have four tries to flick or shuffle the "ball" so that it would hang over the edge of your opponents side, thus scoring a touchdown, if it fell off the edge it was no good. After scoring a touchdown your opponent would hold up his fingers for a goal post and you would try to flick the "ball" across for an extra point. I made paper footballs to represent all NFL teams, coloring them to match helmet designs.

Quarter Basketball

This I am sure developed out of the paper football game. You would first spin a quarter and try to trap it in between your two thumbs, without letting it fall. You would of course try to spin the quarter so that it would get as close to your opponent, who would have his hands rounded into a basket, as possible. If distant you would launch the quarter into the air trying to make it into your opponent's basket hand. If closer you could do a slam dunk. Later as the game developed further, you could do fancy slam dunks by grabbing the quarter with a ring finger and pinky while not letting the thumbs to separate and then slamming the quarter into your opponents basket. This was another lunch time favorite, that lasted into the early years of high school.

Pencil Break

This favorite among elementry boys did not last long as parents complained to the school about all of the broken pencils they found in school bags...the school "cracked" down. How was it played? Well one boy would hold their pencil in between their hands and the opponent would snap their pencil as hard as they could on the held pencil. Each would take turns until one of the pencil's broke. Of course you tried to land the metal eraser holder part of the pencil on your opponent's to increase your chances of victory. The best pencils were the compressed wood that had enough glue to give the pencil extra elasticity. I believe the Eberhard Faber were the best. This game of course developed from stick break (which of course was the same game using sticks), which we still played, but less often.

Being a Vegetarian

Surprised? But just wait, what I actually mean by this is that I whole-heatedly advocate eating a salad and even some broccoli or asparagus with a nice big juicy steak. Hey, God created us as omnivores, and who am I to try and disrupt that plan. So ok, I am not a vegetarian by the "strict" definition...I like to eat animals, and I am not ashamed (Please my Vegetarian and Vegan friends, I mean no disrespect, they are just so tasty and part of a well-balanced nutritious breakfast-lunch-dinner.)



So last night I had the opportunity of eating at a Shula's (as in Miami Dolphins Coach) Steakhouse. It was a nice inviting atmosphere with dimmed lights, dark wood paneling, and high backed chairs that you would expect to see a guy smoking a pipe while reading a book in front of a fire place (yes the guy with the silk robe and scarf). There were Miami Dolphin photos and paintings throughout the restaurant, which surprisingly did not take away from the high-end atmosphere. Anyway, enough atmospherics and on to the food...

The menu is quite fun as it is printed on a football and placed on a rubber tee on the table. You don't really need it though, as th waiter brings out a delicious looking cart with all the different cuts of steak that they have, and gives a wonderful explanation of what makes their meat so special. Anyway, we started with large bacon wrapped shrimp covered in tangy BBQ sauce....Awesome! Then onto the salad, which was actually not as impressive, as it was primarily the fancy,organic mixed greens we always get from Costco. But the steak, oh that juicy,tasty piece of fresh carne...I got the 16oz New York Strip, I know not the best of cuts, but this cut was as tender as most place's filet mignon. It was cooked perfectly and did not need any condiments. For sides we had mashed potatoes with lobster tail mixed in, and broccoli with the best hollondaise sauce that I have ever tasted. Since everyone else got dessert, I went along...three large scoops of mango sorbet topped with raspberries and mint, all in an almond brittle bowl...Excellent! Needless to say, I went home very pleased.

Speaking of meat, obviously I didn't eat enough growing up. Now I know why I was too small to play Division I football in college. While waiting for my party to arrive, I was sitting in a hotel lobby with several of the Arizona Cardinals football team (as pictured below). In fact, while searching for a restroom I accidentally almost walked into their practice session in one of the hotel conference rooms. It is amazing how no one questions you when you put on a blazer or suit jacket. Anyway, the point is I felt tiny next to these guys, which if you look at their stats, it should be no surprise why.

Blueberries

My wife said that she has often noticed when the blogs that she follows do not have new posts for a long time the bloggers end up posting that they are pregnant. Well let me quickly allay any fears and squash any rumors here and now...I am not pregnant. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to those of you were guessing that my absence could only mean that I was with child, but I was merely on a vacation.

Anyway, during my vacation, we had the wonderful opportunity to go pick blueberries. It was a wonderful experience, especially since we could eat as many as we wished. We also bucketed 3lbs to take home for later as the price was right at 90 cents a pound.

After the picking, my hands looked like I just triggered an anti-theft ink packet. Luckily I managed to not squish any of the blue, sweet nectar onto my shirt. The blueberries certainly had a chance to stain my shirt, as I found that the biggest, juiciest morsels were in thick patches at the top, so I would press in close and pull the branches down to reach those beauties.

I have saved the seeds of a few choice berries and hope to plant a blueberry orchard of my own. They are now in the refrigerator to trick the seeds into germinating, so hopefully I will be able to post photos of my success in a few months. I haven't met a seed that I could not get to grow yet, unfortunately keeping them alive is another thing. Case in point, a few vacations ago my poor kiwi plant that I grew from a seed dehydrated. I am now nursing a couple of tomato plants back to life after this most recent trip. Perhaps I should get one of those "pretty" glass ball self-watering systems.

Tennis

I have always enjoyed tennis. I love playing it, and I love to go see matches (which has only happened once thus far). In 1990 or so, I was lucky enough to go to the semi-finals of the ATP Master Series Tournament in Cincinnati, after my friend Ryan J.'s mother gave my mother and me their tickets that they couldn't use. The highlight was seeing my favorite tennis player Stefan Edberg, who was then ranked number 1 in the world. It was an awesome experience to see tennis in person. To me it was like the symphony of sports, in fact you were required to be quiet during play and had to know when and when not to applaud.

Anyway, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I have not had the chance to play in a long while and I wanted to join a daddy-son tennis training program. I would have to wait until spring to enroll in any such class, and so I finally decided I could wait no longer. Today after work, I got out my rackets and started to teach my oldest son to play as pictured above. He was a natural...He had a great swing...He loved it.

I can't wait to continue tomorrow.

Audiobooks

I now have the shortest commute I have ever had (25-30 minutes), but I still have plenty of time to listen to the Book of Mormon or other good audiobooks. I usually try to listen to the Book of Mormon on the way to work, and then listen to my latest audiobook checked out online from our local library.

Yes, gone are the days (mostly) where I have to go to the Library to pick up books on CDs. Nor do I have to fumble with changing the CDs while driving. Now, with companies like OverDrive Media, I can just download various audiobooks or ebooks to my desktop and then sync them to my Palm TX. Then with my FM transmitter (if you need one - look for Hong Kong models on ebay for under $10) I just tune to 106.3 (as it is a clear channel where I live) and enjoy.

On a similar note, for work related items, I love Books24x7, which has all the key work related references for viewing online. This resource assuredly helped me get various certifications that have benefited my career.

Movies

I have always loved movies, and I primarily mean at the movie theaters. Growing up without air conditioning in a hot and humid part of the country for many years, I have fond memories of cooling off in the summer while watching a movie from a green vinyl, squeaky, and often sticky Showcase Cinema seat. I even loved coming out of the dark theater into the sun, being temporarily blinded until my eyes could adjust.

Now, I dream of custom building my own basement theater complete with stadium seating and a popcorn machine, especially needed for the nostalgic smells of a theater (and I am not going for the inner city theater smells that we have experienced in Maryland mind you). Until that time I will enjoy the occasions of going to the local multiplex.

Recently I took my oldest to see Wall-E as a treat. This was the first non-science based I-Max film that he was able to sit through (he only lasted five minutes in Spiderman 3, despite his love for Spiderman 1), of course I had to stuff his ears with pieces of napkins as it was a little loud for him. In short he loved it, and cannot wait to go see the new Clone Wars movie.

IKEA

Injured Knee, Embarrassing Accident

As I may have mentioned before, my family is a big fan of IKEA, especially my oldest son. We love getting up on a Saturday and making the long drive to make the 99 cent breakfast served before 11am. Usually my oldest has already eaten breakfast, so we get him as side of bacon, his favorite meat (I know not the healthiest food, but we don't go everyday.) Of course, I prefer the lunches with Swedish meat balls and Swedish apple cake, washed down with some sweet, sweet ligonberry juice! The dining experience helps propel IKEA to the Disney World of furniture shopping, at least to us.

This past Saturday we made our way to IKEA and had a nice breakfast. After looking around for a bit we discovered a nice buffet of free samples of Swedish cookies, chocolate, cheese, and more. I really like the Rasberry cookies and decided to go by some from the small grocery area. I noticed a bottle of Flädersaft, or elderberry flower syrup for you non-Europeans, and thought that I should try this nectar someday, but at first passed it up.

I saw some Europeans buying some Flädersaft and I asked them how it tasted. They kindly opened a bottle and let me sniff. It smelled like sweet, sweet nectar (which it is; very satisfying summer drink, like a mixture of a really good white grape with a hint of lime.) I was sold, and went back to grab a bottle. The nice European couple noticed that a different bottle of theirs had a broken seal and were going to get another, so I handed them mine since they had been so kind. And that is when it happened.

I was wearing flip-flops (aka thongs, and yes I've been warned of the dangers) and I lunged back to get a new bottle of Flädersaft, and the tip of my left flip-flop caught the mat in front of a freezer. I went flying with my arm taking out a display of coffee (thank goodness it wasn't jars of ligonberry jam) and I went crashing to the floor. Most of you know that I am not a small man, so the momentum was of course very great. I quickly got to my feet and went back to my place in line.

Everyone asked if I was alright, and I responded that I was just embarrassed, not noticing the blood until the clerk pointed it out. My fall had taken a chunk from my big toe, put two canyon sized gouges on top of my foot, and the piece of napkin stuck to my knee was actually my epidermis. The clerk persuaded me to stay until the security personnel could bring me some bandages, and my good wife had Neosporin with her. (Please let me know if you ever see a recording of my crash landing on YouTube.)

So was it worth it? Yeah, I love my sweet nectar!

WSJ Hedcut

I have always enjoyed reading the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and have always been impressed by their artists' renderings of the newsmakers. I have no illusions that I would ever be featured in my favorite newspaper, but I have always wanted my own picture done in the WSJ method. known as hedcut or stimple. Knowing too well that it would be very costly to commission an artist to do it for me, I decided to look for software alternatives. Surprising to me, despite all our advances in the computer realm there is nothing that can replace the human touch, which is why WSJ still uses artists to hand draw the hedcuts.

That said, being hard to deter, I decided that I would search for a "good enough" method, and I found the blog Alleba, where an Andrew Dela Serna came up with and described how to get a similar effect using Photoshop. I was impressed and went tor work straight away to make my own hedcut, shown here.

This is my first attempt, and given that I use Gimp, and open source alternative to Photoshop, it took me a little while to figure out how to convert Andrew's instructions. While I can't say that it is perfect, I think it was a good start.

An additional use that I thought could be fun was to take a picture of myself and convert it into a currency type photo. That way if I ever decided to get one of those custom picture credit cards, I could make myself into say a $250 bill and use that. Anyway, as you can tell by now I really like graphic design and am always looking for new creative outlets.

If anyone wants to try this, first go to Alleba Blog, and if you need further instructions for using software like Gimp, I can try and help.

Online Tests

Like anyone else I like to be flattered, so I read my Chinese horoscope telling me how wonderful I am just because I was born in a certain year, and I like taking online "tests" that tell me things from how smart I am to how southern I am. Below are the results of the most recent test I took to help remind me why I am a strong confident man who does not need to smoke:

David, you exhibit an even balance between left- and right- hemisphere dominance and a slight preference for visual over auditory processing. With a score this balanced, it is likely that you would have slightly different results each time you complete this self-assessment quiz. [They know what is going on; they must double as a fortune teller. Always have a way out of what you state as fact. "Hey, if you are so bold to take our test again, don't blame us if you get different results, it's your personality's fault."]

You are a well-rounded person [enough with the fat jokes, oh wait it is ok, because I am strong confident man who does not need to smoke], distinctly individualistic and artistic, an active and multidimensional learner. At the same time, you are logical and disciplined, can operate well within an organization, and are sensitive towards others without losing objectivity. You are organized and goal-directed. Although a "thinking" individual, you "take in" entire situations readily and can act on intuition. ["You are shy yet outgoing, rich yet poor, a loser that wins, insatiable yet satisfied, ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony; you are the Yin and the Yang." They are good!]

You sometimes tend to vacillate in your learning styles. [How can I not help but vacillate. Anyway my pal Arnold Schwarzenegger says flip-flopping is great.] Learning might take you longer than someone of equal intellect, but you will tend to be more thorough and retain the material longer than those other individuals. [Oops, caught them. I was the one who would study Chinese characters 5 minutes before a test, get an A, and then forget. And they were doing so well.] You will alternate between logic and impulse [Sounds a little Star Treky to me.]. This vacillation will not normally be intentional or deliberate, so you may experience anxiety in situations where you are not certain which aspect of yourself will be called on. [Am I schizophrenic?]

With a slight preference for visual processing, you tend to be encompassing in your perceptions, process along multidimensional paths and be active in your attacking of situations or learning. [It is true, I don't care for passive attacks.]

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. [Koombaya]You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself -- and of others -- while maintaining an "openness" which tempers that tendency. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity may not be in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, obvious and the more functional. [I'm so confused I don't know if my glass is half full or half empty, but I do know it is sweet nectar so I'll be sure to empty it as soon as possible.]

Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 33%
Visual : 66%
Left : 52%
Right : 47%

http://mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

Mii

Ok, I don't have a Wii yet, but I enjoyed playing around with an online Mii editor. Given the choices, which I were much less than the actual Wii, below is the best rendition of myself I could come up with thus far. Any Wii owners out there that would like to take a stab at making Mii? I would love to see others impressions of me and of themselves. Don't own a Wii? You can do what I did, just use the online editor linked above. You can't save it, so just take a screen shot (CTRL+Print Screen, crop with favorite graphics editing program). Send me the results via email and say whether or not I can post your works of art and whether or not you want to remain anonymous. Hey, it is fun to waste a bit-o-time like this now and again.

Pools...

...that I have to inflate. Ok, I am being sarcastic. I don't like having to inflate the pool, but I do like making my son happy. Plus it gives me a chance to do some stationary cycling while I watch him splash around, and while his brother lounges on a bouncy seat. Why so anxious to cycle? Well beyond the fact that it makes me feel good, I am determined that I will not join the ranks of Wii owners until I reach my high school weight. Yes, you have it; if I cannot find a tennis buddy, the Wii will have to make do. Actually, I am looking into taking some tennis lessons to aid my search for a real life tennis partner. I also am looking into father-son golf classes, which could be a lot of fun.

Posting...

...to blogs. This is surely self-evident, but regardless I thought I needed to add that I like posting to blogs, which includes adding comments to other people's blogs. If I had to pick a top ten advancement for this decade, blogs would definitely be in the mix. Of course as you all know, not only do blogs give you a convenient soap box (or rameumptom for some people) from which to throw out your opinions for the world to see, they are also a wonderful mechanism for rediscovering and keeping up with friends and family. And since blogs are so much easier to maintain than websites and easily allow visitors to post responses, blogs are very useful for huge collaborative research projects, such as discovering a family's origins. I myself, maintain over 10 blogs (primarily genealogy related), so I have plenty of opportunities to enjoy this activity. And since I enjoy reading as much as I do posting, please feel free to add comments anytime.

Photo Editing

I have found that editing photos, particularly repairing and even coloring old photos, to be quite enjoyable. It is so wonderful to have the technology to easily do things such as erase random people out of the background, airbrush blemishes, or even fabricate meetings with famous people. Of course the later comment highlights the growing need to be skeptical about a photo's authenticity.

I primarily use simple tools such as gamma correction to lighten up an underexposed photo, thus revealing a face that had once been covered in the shadows. I notice too often people post images that are too dark to see anything. Please tell such friends to use gamma correction, which most graphics programs have, and it can be free through open source software.

This week I played around with coloring old b&w photos, and discovered that I could get decent results by copying the image to several layers, coloring each layer to the color of the specific area, and then erasing the areas to be colored differently on each respective layer. The results can be seen in two of the images in the below arrangement. (I know I should have "Photo Chopped" my double chin, but I was going for as much authenticity as possible.)

Fraternity

Perhaps it is my extroverted personality, but I've always enjoyed being around friends. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that it is hard to find friends as a guy, particularly due to my religious beliefs (i.e. it is easy to find drinking buddies). I mean women in the church have their book clubs and stuff that strengthen their sororitorial (yes, I made that word up) bonds, but if you don't like the ironic fist fights, cussing, and bench warming that bear their ugly heads during church basketball, you are really at a loss for male bonding. This is particularly true for men, like myself, who move away from their hometowns.

I have been trying to rack my brain about why it is so hard for guys to make friends, especially when as teenagers we always roamed in large packs. One thing I have come up with was that as teenagers, we always talked about girls and were thus never at a loss for discussion topics. Now happily married, I am not going to get together with guys to talk about girls, so that puts us behind from the start.

Many men seem quite content and/or are too busy for the brotherhood, but I know that there are others out there like me. Here is some advice for these three categories:

To those who are content, quit playing your video games by yourself, and realize that making friends (aka networking) is good for your career. You have more chances at boosting your income, thus making your wife happier, which in turn makes you happier.

To those who are too busy, same networking thing. You also can always have kid friendly get togethers, allowing your wife a break, thus the happy thing again.

To those who want to form friendships, plan activities that would energize the other two groups. And don't wait for someone else to initiate, or you'll still be sitting at home.

Else we are forever destined to be occasional dinner friends with the spouses of our wives' friends (I only have one wife, you know what I meant).

To get you going, here are some possible activities/places to go to get you started:

• Playing sports other than basketball (tennis, flag football, controlled rugby, broom hockey, dodge ball,volleyball, tug-o-wars, golf, cycling, boating, all the stuff you used to think was fun)
• Shooting range (ok, this can go in the sports category, but I just wanted to highlight it)
• Sports to watch (try something new like going to an Irish Pub to watch rugby, horse races, what the rest of the world calls football)
  
• Game night, to include board games and/or video games (if done in couples, invite more than just one couple)
• Of course movie nights
• Taking kids to park or restaurants (at the park play some father-kid games, perhaps something like kickball)
  
• BBQ (probably should be coed, but doesn't have to be. Some Costco's have root beer kegs)

In the comment section feel free to add more potential activities.

Frogs

Ok, maybe not back to the manly rugby posts, but more boyish at least...I like frogs. I have been fond of frogs forever. While I delve into my love of frogs, I'll interweave my general love of nature.

As a kid how wonderful it was to go on nature hikes with my mother, taking time to look at tadpoles and trying to catch frogs. Of course snakes were cool too, so I can't leave out the story my mother loves to share about the time she picked up a rock, saw a snake, screamed, quickly dropped the rock, and had me begging her to lift the rock back up so that I could see the snake. My love of nature for certain was my mother's doing.

From my earliest memories, my mom was always taking us to the parks, farms, zoos, etc. We would frequent places like Winton Woods, Farbach-Werner Nature Preserve, Fantasy Farm, the Cincinnati Zoo, Krohn Conservatory, and farms where we would drink cider, pick berries, or get a pumpkin. As my mom was actively involved in a gardening club and Girl Scouts, I had even more opportunities for hiking and camping at the various parks and nature preserves (Yes, yes, I tagged along with my mom and sister on Girl Scout activities).

My favorite magazine growing up was Ranger Rick and eventually I graduated to a World Wildlife Fund magazine. I was inspired by a book I read about Teddy Roosevelt (one of my favorite presidents), and had my personal natural history museum in my room, complete with rocks and minerals, fossils, snake skins, insects, drawings, and nature books. My mother was kind enough to build me a nice display area and was always very encouraging. But before you label me an environmental extremist, know that while I love trees, I also believe in using the resources (wisely of course) that God has given us. This means I conserve and recycle, but also support more domestic oil drilling, and would never spare an endangered salmon at the cost of the lives of brave forest fire fighters.

Anyway enough of that and back to frogs...I remember my first frog was a bull frog that grew to over12" long. He lived in the pond in our backyard. Unfortunately our concrete pond, believe it or not, was too pristine and didn't have enough dirt in the bottom for my poor frog to survive the hash winter temperatures in Cincinnati, alas he froze, and I cried...but lesson learned.

I know that at least on one occasion my mom sent away for mail order tadpoles. I don't know if they were part of the mail order, but once I had two leopard frog tadpoles that I kept in a jar in my room. I enjoyed watching them transform into frogs. Unfortunately, I didn't have a net over the large jar they were in and when the first one reached froghood it jumped out. I left a pan of water under my bed, and I begged my sister to help search for it. Several months later I found its dried corpse under my sister's bed, and I of course blamed her for the tragedy and it took a good while for me to forgive her. Of course I now rightly blame myself for letting it get out in the first place, and I don't know for sure that she didn't search. Again lesson learned.

A few years back my wife learned of this cool environmental project called Frog Watch. We went to a meeting where we learned all the different frog calls and were then assigned a local pond to watch. On a weekly basis we would go to the pond and make an account of all the different frogs we heard (mainly spring peepers), and perhaps even listed how many we heard. We always loved to hear what my wife calls the "bully bull frogs," with their deep guttural, truly cow like call. Anyway great fun, I highly recommend it.

Fragrances

Ok, I know it sounds kind of girly, but you know how I like sweet nectar by now, and taste and smells go hand-in-hand (I mean chou dofu, aka stinky tofu, smells like a dumpster on a hot summer day, and tastes like it too)...I like things that smell good. This includes of course food smells (no details needed), cologne/perfume, flowers, air dried laundry...the list is long.
As far as cologne/perfume, I first off Happy by Clinique (of course not for myself). Certainly sweet nectar for the nose. For myself I like Cool Water, Drakkar, and Tommy for Men...in that particular order. I used to like Ralph Lauren Polo, but that was in the 80s. I also like shower gells and lotions that smell like those colognes, or tasty fruits such as lemon, melon, grape, or mango. (Yes, I am expecting to take some ridicule for this posting.)



I discovered that my favorite flower smell is the subtle but flavorful fragrance from the tall red tulips. If anyone knows of a perfume that has captured that smell let me know, if not I claim it first and want a hefty portion of the predictably high volume sales.



Finally, I remember when I lived in Japan, nothing beat the fresh crisp feel and smell of a futon mattress that had been beaten and hung outside all day. Truly the best nights sleep that I have ever had, well yeah, of course that was after hours of proselytizing door-to-door.

For the record I am only 20% girly, according to the "How girly are you?" blog quiz!

Meetings

I have discovered that I like meetings...yes I know that makes me the type of person people hate, but hear me out. I do not like having a meeting just for the sake of meeting, as I think doing is most often better than just talking about doing (I say most often, as of course doing the wrong thing is not better). I am also all too familiar with meetings that drag on, or are so boring that even five minutes seems like five days in solitary confinement (not that I have such an experience).

What I like is having good meetings where I have something of substance to contribute, even though the love of meetings sort of goes against my nature. My Myers Briggs tends to be ENTP (it fluctuates a little), so I would say that the E makes meetings appealing, as I like to work and be around people. However, the P in me (ha ha...I know what you just thought) goes against meetings, as I just want to get right to a task, as I said I value doing. The MacGyver in me knows that planning is essential to success, but with the doing mentality my approach is "get it done and over with as quick as possible.) I'm a haptic learner, meaning I am a hands-on kind of guy, so I don't like reading the instruction manuals. This of course does produce some errors, but I accomplish tasks within an accepted tolerance very fast.

So why do I like meetings? It is hard to say. As I said, I like being around people and I like having my comments valued, but beyond that it could just be that I have finally started working on issues that are interesting to me.

My new office is undergoing a transformation and they are trying to apply an Agile project management framework, which has been quite interesting. My personality shys away from theories and business practices, because I feel that they slow down my doing something...I mean don't tell me about how to figure out how long it would take a monkey to fall from a tree after shooting it, just give me a gun and a stopwatch (don't worry, I love monkeys, and would never shoot one of those or any other cute furry creatures. )That said, I am starting to enjoy learning new frameworks for doing business, even though I think half of them are just plain common sense.


Perhaps my love of meetings stems from the fact that I will get to be Scrum Master for a new working group. My wife says the word "scrum" reminds her of the word "scrod," which is a baby cod fish. But since it is derived from my favorite sport of Rugby, I am quite pleased that I will be Master of Scrum!

Model Rockets

I always wanted to shoot off model reockets as a kid, so the 4th of July weekend last year seemed like a good time to finally start, especially now I can enjoy the hobby with my own children. I bought ready made rocket kits and materials from Michael's craft store. I bought a Estes Super Shot Mini pack of two roockets that would travel about 700 ft up and a Estes Wicked Streak SST, which came with launch pad and ignition switch, as shown above.

For all of our launches we have gone to a local park, when it is less crowded. Our first launch of the "Shark Attack" (red) Super Shot Mini, travelled about 394 ft to the NW, and landed on a gravel path. Eventually, however, both Super Shot Minis were lost. The last "Sting Ray" (yellow) launch took it into a near horizontal flight path a few seconds after launch, taking it into a neighborhood of townhomes. No reports of death or injury caused by said rocket, so that was good.

The "Wicked streak SST" has had several good launches. The most memorable one, however, made me glad that the park was empty at the time. The nosecone did not release, thus the rocket became a ballistic missile, narrowly missing the blacktop and embedding itself at least 3-4" into the ground a little over 100 ft behind our launch site. It took a little effort to pull it out.

MacGyvering

I love troubleshooting and coming up with solutions. If someone needs or wants something, I'll rack my brains and gather my resources to make it happen. In Japan, Greg C., one of my mission companions, was the first to call me MacGyver when I made homemade salsa. This was a great complement, as MacGyver, is my all time favorite TV hero, but I am not sure salsa rises to that level.

Now I am not running around with a swiss army knife and duct tape in my pockets (at least not everyday), I am not traveling the world on secret missions, and I definitely stay clear of having a mullet; but I do like to consider myself a MacGyver of sorts. I use the term Macgyvering loosely to refer to my love of making and fixing things. Below are just a few of my projects to give you a flavor or two.

Speakers

Some of you will recognize these as the speakers that I used back when I would help DJ dances. I saw some speakers in a magazine that I thought looked really neat, but I felt they were to expensive for my 16 year old wallet to handle. So I drew up a design based on what I saw and my Grandfather helped me cut and assemble the wood boxes. I bought six of the eight speakers to go in the boxes (starting with 15" MTX subwoofers), and realized I could have purchased the speakers in the magazine for less money. Hey, even MacGyver was not 100% successful, plus I don't know that mine didn't sound better.


Disco Ball

One year I was on the Activities Committee in a single adult ward of my church, chosen because I was DJing all the dances back then. Paula S. wanted a disco ball for a New Year's dance, and I was going to make sure she had one. No, I wasn't in love with Paula, we were just friends and colleagues. As I said, I love making things happen. Anyway, I decided to get an old globe at Goodwill to turn into our disco ball. I first put a big bolt with an eye hole straight through the center and attached a washer and nut on the bottom of the globe, so that it would be easy to suspend without too much worry of it taking out a dancer or two. I then began cutting and gluing mirrored glass to the globe. I then went up to Dayton to my favorite electronics store Parts-Express (Radio Shack is not What I Like) and bought a motor specifically made for disco balls. Since the mirrored glass was free (recycled) and the globe was only $1.50, with the motor I had our disco ball for under $25.

Christmas Door Decoration

My previous workplace has an annual Christmas door decorating contest, and one woman had the idea of doing a simple snow globe with a Chinese dragon, since the theme was China. I ran with the idea, and developed what you see in the video. We first used an overhead projector to trace the design onto our frame. I then used shredded office paper, rice and water to make a paste that would harden into a three-dimensional dragon. I then painted the dragon. I decided to go further by making it a working snow globe, so I procured a computer fan and made a battery pack to run it. I put holes in the back for airflow, used coat hangers as a frame to put shrink wrap over, and put in packing peanuts for snow, before gluing and heating the shrink wrap. I then made a base out of cardboard, used an exacto blade to cut out the Chinese characters for "Merry Christmas," painted it (filling the characters with gold paint), and then mounted it. The packing peanuts did prove problematic as the static electricity cause them to adhere to the dragon, but overall it was a success.




Painted Cardboard Toys

Again, every once in a while I'll get an urge to make something. One day I decided to make a cardboard X-wing fighter for my son. Then another day decided to make a castle for him. Since I decided to paint the castle, I thought I should paint the X-wing as well. A while later, I made the head of an AT-AT walker. These were very fun projects, especially since my son helped me paint and quite enjoyed himself, not to mention the fun he has playing with them now.

Meteorology

If you ever live in Cincinnati you have to enjoy weather in its many forms, or you'll probably be miserable at some time or another. In Cincinnati you experience it all. I guess having lived there most of my life I gained an appreciation for the different seasons and all that they had to bring. In the Spring, you had rains, wind, and comfortable temperatures; in Summer, you had heat and big thunderstorms; in Fall, you had cool crisp days; in Winter you had cold and snow. The weather enabled me to enjoy activities from flying kites to sledding down the hill next to our house. And I should add, summer movies are never as enjoyable as those enjoyed in the cool theaters when you do not have air conditioning at home!

My love of weather watching also stemmed from my grandmother, who supplied me with the essentials: "Red in the morning, sailors warning; red at night, sailors delight," "Watch out for rain when the leaves of the trees looked turned over," etc. She also had a little German "weather house" exactly like the one pictured below, where a woman in a sunny outfit would appear on nice days and a man dressed for rain would come out the door on gloomy days.


At a young age I had my plastic yellow rain gauge to tell me how much rain we had, and I always watched the weather forecast with my grandfather, my favorite weatherman was Ira Joe Fisher.

I have always loved looking at the clouds in the sky to gauge what weather they may bring, as well as to try to see pictures in their various forms. Sometimes I have envisioned them as giant mountains. While in Japan I learned many of the cloud names in Japanese as I asked my Japanese missionary colleague what they were during our daily bike rides. My favorite cloud remains the nyudogumo meaning beautiful cloud, better known as the cumulonimbus.

Perhaps crazy, but true, I get excited by the possibility of inclement weather. The possibility of a major snow storm, tornadoes, and now that I live on the east coast, hurricanes. Don't get me wrong, I take no pleasure at the loss of life or property, but I do stand in awe of the power of Nature. I even miss the big thunderstorms of Cincinnati bringing thunder and lightening so loud and so bright that a sleeping mind first misjudges as an attack.

One last snow storm story, this time in DC during the Blizzard of 2003. In our neighborhood we had at least 3 feet of snow pile up, which shut down the city for almost a week, so snow days as an adult! Boy did that excitement wear off fast as I had to cross mountains of un-shoveled snow and ice to get to the metro for weeks after. I also had to shovel multiple parking spaces as out "nice" neighbors with SUVs chose to not shovel at all and then take my shoveled spaces. It may have been a different year, but I remember shoveling 8 spaces after a storm. Anyway, the remnants of the 2003 snow storm lasted through April, before finally melting away.

I remember one big blizzard in Cincinnati, I am not sure it was the big one of 1978, but it would not have been more than a year or two after. My mom, sister, and I had gone to a Christmas party and when we left the roads were covered in snow. My mom's green CJ5 even was stuck in a ditch and a guy came on a snowmobile to come help us out.

Another snow storm was in 1998 or 1999, when I was commuting to attend Miami University. A snow storm of 12 to 18 inches left me stranded at the university in Oxford, Ohio. I went to the local Wal-mart, the only store in town, to get supplies to include a change of clothes. Luckily some students in the dorm for foreigners got me into to sleep on a couch in their study. I remember waking to a Japanese girl tucking me in, and then again in the morning when another Japanese girl brought me breakfast. As you can see, even bad weather can be good.

I hav always been fascinated by tornadoes. I have seen the eery green coloring and felt the thick atmosphere that exists during a tornado producing storm. Numerous time did I get awakened by my mother to get to the basement after the air raid sirens signaled a tornado warning, I was always grumpy when I was aroused in the middle of the night and cared not that a tornado would come. We listened to the radio announce a tornado heading our way, just to veer away in the last few seconds. I have seen the mystery of their destruction, as a tornado ripped away a convenience store, but left all the food neatly stacked on the shelves.

As far as hurricanes, we experienced the influence of Hurricane Isabel in 2003. While many of our neighbors did not, we maintained power. We seemingly were in a small bubble that was left unaffected. I did not understand why my work was shut down until I started driving and viewing the huge trees that had been felled by the storm. We shopped in the dark at a Target that had just enough power to run a register or two. Of course they kept all doors but one locked, to avoid any looting. It was sad to see all of the freezer sections of grocery stores locked with thick chains by the fire department. During hurricane season, I like to track these storms via the National Hurricane Center.

As long as I have a radio and access to the internet, I will enjoy tracking these big storms. I will continue to enjoy the variety that the Lord provides, cherishing the calm to breezy, sunny to overcast, 70 degree days along with the windy, cloudy, sub 32 degree days.

Traftracking

traf-track-ing [traf-trak-ing]
noun
-an activity where one tracks another using online traffic cameras, receiving cues from the person being tracked via cell phone.
verb
-to be engaged in the above described activity.


This is an activity that I came up with today when my sister called for me to be her personal navigation system, which is a very intermittent service I must add. Anyway, I thought that since I was giving her directions it would be kind of cool to see if I could see her on the live traffic camera feeds. She would give me cues to include the mile marker she was at and the descriptions of the vehicles near by. I then used ctrl+Print Screen to get screen shots of when she passed the camera, as shown above. Now, this is not stalking, because the one being traftracked has to be a willing participant. Anyway, if you have some time on your hands (like a Saturday when kids are napping), give it a try. Obviously, it was fun enough to make my list of what I like. Please leave any comments about your successful traftracking experiences, as well as any fun variants that you may come up with. Happy traftracking!

Traveling

Like most people, I like to travel. I have found that some of our best travels have been spontaneous, as you always beat your expectations when you don't have any. Of course most of our trips are short...under 4 hours, and the short trips lend themselves well to spontaneity. I have traveled to Asia and hope to travel back and to Europe some day too. I enjoy all sorts of destinations from amusement parks, historical landmarks (whether of popular significance or ancestral significance), natural beauty, architectural wonders, and of course gustatorial delights. But most importantly, I enjoy the time travel offers to be with family.

Technology

I still love technology, always and forever.....I have loved technology my whole life. This interest first manifested itself when I was four or five and took a part our Alphie. My first computer experience was in second grade, using an Apple IIe to navigate the Logo "turtle" through mazes and to make various shapes.

We didn't own a computer until we got one for Christmas when I was twelve...the top-of-the-line 286 with a 20 meg hard drive. I added a blazing fast 2400 baud modem to "surf" the BBS scene. Oh and I got so excited to upgrade to DOS 5.0...those were the days. I learned by experimenting...which of course leads to set backs such as reformatting hard drives, but hey it was only 20 MB. I remember asking my cousin, "Can you even imagine a 1 gig hard drive?" It didn't take long for me to take the 286 apart and to begi9n adding things like an Ultrasound sound card. I was the envy my freshman year, thanks to my Grandfather's purchase of a HP Laserjet IIP, skipping right over dot-matrix.



In high school, I elected to take an electronics class, where I was able to put together a high power strobe light and a 3 channel light organ (which I used to have a green, red, and blue light flash with the bass, treble, and mid-range of my Techno/Eurobeat/Dance music. It was like a dance party in my room every night). I remember designing and making my first circuit board, putting it in a bath of acid to eat away the uncovered copper. I should also mention that in working with electronics always look where you rest your hand...I took about 250 VDC through my body by hitting the leads to a charged capacitor with my thumb.

Anyway, as we all know technology has come along way...hey, we already have over 1 tera hard drives, and thankfully no more overnight downloads destroyed by someone picking up the phone.

Chinese

I of course love Chinese food, but this also represents my love of languages. I have studied and speak/read/understand the following languages to varying degrees in order from highest to lowest: Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Latin, Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Korean, Polish, Arabic, Thai, and Welsh. I have translated portions, nano sized portions of an ancient Egyptian text, and some day I would like to study the relationship between Hebrew and Thai, as I think that the Thai alphabet looks like a very ornate version of Hebrew...we shall see.

Ok, on to the food. I said Chinese...but I really love all Asian cuisine...Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai.... Of course I can say yum yum to Dim Sum (yes, even chicken feet, washed of course), certainly to sushi, and by all means to bulgogi. Before going to Japan, I was the pickiest of eaters, meaning that Asian cuisine was to be avoided. After Japan, everything is fair game, after all I even tried teriyaki grasshoppers. In later posts I shall go deeper into my favorite dishes.

Cheese

How can I talk about chocolate and not mention cheese? Yes, that's right cheese...after all what are the two main dips for fondue...yes, cheese and chocolate! The Swiss and French no what I am talking about. In fact if genetics have anything to do with my love of cheese and chocolate, my grandmother's heritage is none other than Swiss, in fact from the great cheese making area known as the Emmental Valley. Please, fight your urge to yodel...ok, just a little yodel.


Anyway, even more so than chocolate, there are so many varieties to choose from, so many flavors and textures. It is so fun to experiment to see what cheese tastes good with what fruit, etc. Again, I like and would recommend going to Trader Joe's (and/or Jungle Jim's for those of you in Cincinnati) and buy a new cheese once a week or month. Enjoy the creamy goodness, but leave some for me!

If you are ever in Tillamook, OR make sure you go to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. You can take a tour and watch the good stuff being made. At the end of the tour you most importantly get to sample some cheese...my favorite is the cheese curd that squeaks in your mouth, but not in your hand (at least I don't think so, never tried to squeeze it in my hand to get it to squeak. Mental note: new experiment to try). Top it all off, actually I would recommend eating it separately from the cheese, with some rich and creamy Tillamook ice cream...I am fond of the chocolate peanut butter and Marion berry (no, it is Marion Barry that is the "DC mayor-for-life, "who is "newsworthy" every so often.)