An Early gift.....

This is a warning to my younger siblings, when you hit my age apparently all goes downhill. So if you think your health is bad now. Just wait. Who knew I would be getting an MRI for Christmas!!!! The thing people think to give as gifts never ceases to amaze me. That’s all I have to say about this subject at this time.


oh and On a side note, I would like to offer my sister my sympathy of the scratching of the iPod. It's always a sad day when we hurt the ones we love.

'Tis the season

Well it’s that time of year and if you are like me you hear everyone talking about what they want or what they need for Christmas. However, you rarely here anyone talk about the meaning behind Christmas. So I have brought it upon myself to remind everyone the undiluted true of why we have Christmas.

Four score and seven years go, the founder of Christmas first hit the scene. Now you might wonder what hip-cat came up with such a joyous and festive occasion? Well that would be your very own Joseph S. Joe bought a brand new fondue pot that he was going to give as a present to his good friend Tony that just had a baby named Moses. Joe was extremely excited about the present so he left JcPenney’s and headed strait to Baby Moses’ house. Along his journey he was riding his bicycle near the Jordan River, when he just so happened to hit a bump and lost the present in the river. The present was in the middle of the stream and Joe was unable to reach it. So he looked around and he saw this lady named Mary. Joe jumped back on his Schwin 12-speed and raced over to Mary and asked of her if she knew how to swim. Mary said yes, so he loaded Mary on to the handle bars of the bike and headed back to the river. However, when then got to the river, the present had moved into very fast moving currents. Mary jumped in and tried getting the present, but as she reached for it, she missed. When Mary missed the present, she was quickly pulled under by the current never to be seen again. This truly troubled Joe. He sat and watched the present drift further and further away, until all he could see as a glistening from the rapping paper which made it look like a tiny star. As he was watching the present, he saw his friend named Chris. Chris was a polo player on Team Bethlehem. Joe new that Chris had great swimming skills and the ability to work well with his hands in the water. Joe pointed at the present and yelled, “Chris stop that present!” Chris quickly jumped into action and dove into the raging river. Chris was swimming like the champion that he is. He was swimming around sharks, bears, trout’s, and manatees’. Joe was standing on the riverbank hollering jolly old sayings at Chris in the effort to cheer him on. Chris was inches from the present, he jumped out of the water, into the air (much like a dolphin), and when he came back down to grab Joe's package, he was struck by a bolt of lighting from on high. Luckily, this bolt of lightning forced Chris’s lifeless body back down into the water with so much force, it cause a wave that threw the present out on to riverbank. Joe went and retrieved the package and continued on his long journey to baby Moses’ house. Upon arriving at his destination, Joe was so distraught over losing two of his friends for this great gift. When father Moses opened the door, and asked what is wrong? Joe stated, “Well.......Marry....Chris.....missed....and this is your present.” And that is how Christmas all began. So Merry Christmas and this is your present.
(don't worry I have a pre-paid eternal salvation card)

And then there were 5.......Almost

Well, in all my experiences, I have had the opportunity to cheat death a few times, well add another to the list. Today, I was working on my fish tank instead of doing my homework. This is normally a non-eventful time and so like always, I was just doing as I do best...trying to Fix/break stuff. Well, today’s problem is the regulator on my CO2 tank. This regulator has a solenoid that is controlled by a pH sensor and it allows the power to turn on and off the CO2 tank. This is a handy feature and helps prevent wasting CO2.
Anyways, I originally pulled the entire tank out to fix the problem. After, I thought I had fixed it I put the CO2 tank back in underneath the fish tank. It was working for a short time before I decided to go check on it. It again had stopped working, so it was back to trying to get it to work. I pulled off the regulator a few times, messed with it, then put it back in. Over and over this only fixed the problem for a short time. I decided I better pull the tank out again so I could have a better view of what needed to be done. I was talking on the phone with Scrat and what not, relaxed as always. She needed to get off the phone since she was at work, so I hung up which allowed me to continue on with my quest. As I pulled the tank out, I stopped to unplug the regulator.




At this very second, the main line on the return pump came off. This just so happened to be located right below the miry of power supplies and connections the I had a firm grasp on with both hands. Instantly, I felt the electricity rip through my body, as I tried to release the plugs but I could not. Al the time, the water was spraying up, hitting the bottom of the cabinet and covering the rest of the electrical devices. I could feel the power of the electric current getting stronger and stronger as the saltwater came into contact with more and more components. Then, I looked over and saw the water was starting to build up towards the main ballasts for my 760w lighting system. Somehow with a loud "MOTHER %$*#ER" (like old saint nick) I tore away, jumped up and pulled the main power supply out of the wall.
After this narrow escape much like the ones in the movies, I just collapsed. My hands were pulsing and I noticed the 2 electrical burns on my arms. It took me literally 15 minutes of laying there listening to the water running down my stairs and into my basement before I could catch my breath. Once able to move again, I decided to call Scrat and let her know she wouldn’t have to come find my burn corpse in two weeks.
So if there is a moral of this story, don’t talk about how long it will take someone to find your body when you die and then get electrocuted, because if you don’t get killed within the first few seconds, a slow and agonizing death awaits you.
Also, just in case all you greedy people we looking forward to dividing up my collection of Honda civic parts and army rations, I’m NOT dead yet. On that note, I have a fish tank to mess with.

Family Problems

Well, apparently my family is full of problems and now I think I am getting mine. For my last 4 days I have been getting migraines. I have no idea what is bringing these on, but they are very annoying. It starts with weird flashing lights in my eyes, that leads to the lose of sight, that leads to a MASSIVE headache. During this process, I lose my ability to think, talk correctly, or write correctly. THis is getting in the way of work and school. I tried to write an essay that is due, but I cannot write sentences that are understandable. I dont even know if this blog will make sence because what I think and what is typed are not the same. It is very strange. I dont know if this is a brain problem or what. With all the other illnesses and problems the rest of my family has, I wonder if I might have surcome to the "pears gene" If this is the case, then I would think this might be the final proof that I may not be adopted. Either way I dont know if something is really wrong with me or all my schooling/stress/job/life has caught up to me. The funny part is, this is the first time in months that I have only had 1 class to deal with, so I cant see how stress would be the cause. Oh well, I guess if my brain explodes during the night, and after the 2 weeks it would take someone to find that I am dead, you will know that it must have been the migraines. Have you ever sat there an wondered how long it would take for someone to find you after you died. Most married people probably would only take a few hours at most, single people living near family might take a day or so. Single people who do not live near family and do not have close friends that frequent the living area could take anywhere from two weeks to 2 months. Old people with no friends, no job, no family, and no contact with outsiders can take years to find. Usually they are only located when the Tax man comes looking for payment. Anyways, the point of this blog is to let everyone know I have a migrain and my head hurts. Also if you have suggestions on relieving migranes please forward them to me.

School's out for WINTER

Ok, I had finals last night, I would have to say I ACED them. If all goes well, I should get a nice pair of aces for the classes. I only have 6 more classes to go and I will be done.(atleast for a few weeks). Then I guess it will be back to school again for the next level. But for now, I dont have any finals to think about, no heading to class every week, just playing in the snow and waiting for Santa.

X-mas list

commercialized list here. First and foremost, I don’t really need anything and nobody NEEDS to buy me anything. So if you were looking for a way out of buying a gift, this is it. Now if you decide you must buy me something, here is the list of stuff I need.

Second set of jack stands (adjustable metal stands)
Remote controlled helicopter I just saw at Target
A roof nailer (coil nailer), that I just saw at Harbor Freight
12-pack diet MT. Dew
14 lbs of cinnamon bears (i will take partial quantities before and after x-mas)
Welding cart for my mig welder
Plastic shelving for my garage
Those fancy “help you park” stop lights
New tires for the Bronco
Wii
The 2 downpipes I need for my rain gutters
Some Icemelt
14 boxes of those orange stick thingys
(Holly crap there was just a loud explosion noise that shook my house, I hope my work didn’t just blow up)
A new TV since mine is almost 5 years old
And that is about it. I lost track of what I wanted do to the loud boom
I hope im not dead and I will be stuck for the rest of eternity in Magna. (shivers up my spine)

My first X-mas card of 07'

well, here it is.....





Liz beat EVERYONE ELSE.....the rest of you suck. ha ha ha J/K

??????

Finally

Well, I finally have the garage door that I have been waiting for ever since I moved in my house 5 years ago. Not only did I get a garage door, but I also put in a real door to the back of my garage. It has been a chainlink gate which was worthless. ( I will be selling this on ebay, claiming it has the image of "Mary" if anyone is interested) I wonder if this will be like when I end up buying rims for my cars. Every time I buy rims, I end up selling the car a few months later. I dont know why but it always happens. So now that I have this door, I wonder if that means I am going to sell my house soon? Well here are the highly anticipated pictures...

Puppies

While going through pictures to find my fish stuff, I decided to post pictures of the dogs I have owned, from oldest to newest.

Angus (no picture)

Devil Dog




Turtle




Jersey




Precious
(the one I bought)




(the one I recieved)

Here Fishy, Fishy. Fishy

I don’t know how I developed such a great fondness for fish. My parents have always had fish, be it freshwater fish, but I fondly remember the sound of the old bubbler that would create a slight metallic hum as it forced air into the tank. I also remember how we had the big trip to the “city.” If we were lucky, after talking Mom into buying me some $.10 popcorn from King’s we made our way to Teacher’s Pets to look and sometimes buy a fish or two and for my Mom to look at the little quarter-sized turtles that she always told us about. When at the store my Mom always bought the little guppies, which never really held the mastic as a piranha or something, but I still enjoyed the fish. I remember sitting on the couch or chair and watching the fish in the little 10 gallon tank. I could do it for hours and hours. My parents always seemed to have different animals throughout my life. One of these animals was a Red-eared slider water turtle. I think my sister bought it and it ended up at my parent’s house. It had been there for years and had obviously outgrown the small 10 gallon tank that it lived in. So I decided to take the turtle home and give it better living quarters. I bought a nice turtle tank and I also bought some feeder goldfish. I had that turtle for quite a while and from the day I had it, there were 2 goldfish that the turtle wouldn’t eat.

When I finally decided to let the turtle back into the wild, I still had these 2 goldfish. The turtle tank was a tank that you could only fill halfway and it didn’t give the fish much room to swim, so I ran out and bought myself a 30 gallon for these fish. I bought a few other fish to go along with the gold fish and setup the new tank. ( I think a few of these fish may even be a live today :p)



When I went to buy the tank, I was looking at all the fancy saltwater fish, wishing I could do a saltwater tank. At the time, I thought the cost and the maintenance would be too much so I settled on the freshwater tank. I had this tank with the fish for about a year before I met retch2k. She had absolutely no interest in my fish at all and actually told me how much she hated fish. I was still contemplating switching over to saltwater, but the cost seemed way too high. Retch2k and I did some research and came to the conclusion that it would only cost $300-400 to switch over. This seemed relatively cheap from what I thought it would cost so I had planned on starting buy the equipment needed to switch to saltwater. Well, Retch2k and I went on vacation in Mexico (picture may be removed on request)


and while we were there we did some beach combing and found some crabs, some corals, and shells. We caught the critters and decided that we would put them in the saltwater tank which we had yet to switch over to. So when we made it back from Mexico, the race was on. We ran out and found all the stuff needed to switch the tank over before the critters we brought home died. As we were doing this switch over, it was quickly realized that the cost to switch over was WAY more then what we had thought. The things we needed to buy included a skimmer, a refugium, powerheads, the salt mix, live rock, live sand, a light fixture, and of course the pricy fish.

Once I had the tank up and running, I believe this is where my obsession began. After having that tank for about a year, I decided I needed a bigger one. I found a120 gallon tank and decided to buy it, I won’t even comment on how much I have spent on this tank and equipment. (don’t know if I would choose one as big as I did if I did it again)







Maintaining this tank can be somewhat of a pain at times. The time and effort needed to keep it clean and keep everything alive is proportionate to the size. The little 30 gallon tank was really easy and I didn’t have to spend as much time and money to keep things alive. With the big tank, I can’t count how many expensive fish have been purchased only to find them dead a few days later.
Anyway, since scrat2k aka retch2k aka the thief posted a few pictures of her saltwater tank (my old 30g) I decided to write this blog and post a few of mine.

Get with the 90's

Well, I was on one of the forums I frequent, and someone posed this: <3
Surprisingly enough, there were multiple people who did not have a clue what that meant. The comments ranged from, "what's less than 3" to "Umm, I think you mistyped something" to " <3 ? I dont get it".
This was kind of a shock to me seeing as the email emoticons started around the early to mid 90's, but alas there are still people who don't know what they are and what they mean. This is my time to "teach" the computer illiterate a little techiness to impress friends and family. (assuming they also missed the 90's and have never seen You got Mail or for the advanced crowd ygm)
Smiley’s ( smilley faces, emoticons for email ) if you do not see them try turning your head sideway on most of them<3 Love or heart
:-) happy
:-( sad
:-& tongue-tied
:-< realy upset
:- angry
:-(O) yelling
:-d laughing
;-) winking
:-} grinning
8-) wide-eyed
:- apathetic
:-o shocked or amazed
:-] apply sarcasm
:-[ sad sarcasm
:-( fell like crying
:!-( crying
%-) happy confused
:-* kiss
:-\ undecided
:-# my lips are sealed
8-0 shocked
:-/ skeptical
:-> Sarcastic smile
;^) Smirking smile
X-( brain dead
>:-) devilish
0:-) Angelic
:-P sticking tongue out
<.)))-< dead fish
<*(((-< alive fish

Thank the “John” above, we now have real emoticons that make a whole lot more sense!!!

Some people call is blasphemy, I call it Brilliance.

Have you ever sat and pondered why things happen the way they do? Why some seemingly good people get murdered, get cancer or even their house burns to the ground. Some people even just disappear without a speck of evidence. Some people might say that is it just a coincidence or the way GOD wanted it to be, however what if it is more than that. What if what you call a world is all just part of some kid’s video game? I’m not talking the Matrix where a computer uses humans that are kept in suspended animation and live their “lives” connected to a computer which feeds their brain with ideas. I am talking about a situation where there are no actually physical bodies.
This might sound a little farfetched, but have you ever played the Sims, WOW, or any of the virtual realities game out there? Do the people in the game know they are not real? Do they know they are just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s placed together to create a “life”? If you have played the Sims you know that you as the “overseer” gives gentle whispers to the mind of the people to have them look for jobs, clean, eat, shower, dance, hug, and the list goes one. Does this count as a still small voice?
Furthermore, currently many companies and governments have software that can test most anything you can think of. They create virtual worlds to test airplanes, boats, how the wind blows, and millions of other things they can think of. So say for the sake of this discussion, we continue to advance our technology; we will be able to create thinking, breathing, eating, and living people inside of a computer. We will be able to burn a house and see how they react. We will be able to create a virus and see how many people dies before one of the “lives” finds the cure. This actually took place in the game of WOW if any of you remember and it was done intentionally to see how people in a virtual world would respond to the problem.
Let’s imagine (if that is allowed in this simulation) our “creator” is just a kid playing on a highly advanced virtual world game on his brand new PS-239(I'll call him John). He would create the world, he would create the plants and animals, and he would create the entire world as you would know it. In this world he has the ability to “delete” you at any time for any reason. He can create storms, fires, diseases, and can even destroy the entire world, just to start again. I know in the game Sims, you can control how fast the day goes, so I can assume you can do that in the future as well. That would mean the “creator” lives a virtually eternal life. Billions of “virtual earth” years could pass in the creator’s time spent playing the game. John may or may not consider himself a "GOD" of this world and people in this world may or may not believe there is a GOD. Some may feel there is a higher power, in which they vest their lives in. These people spend their lives praying to a GOD to ensure they go to "heaven" and rely on faith of that GOD to get them there. Some people may feel there is no higher power and live their life wondering if there is a heaven or hell. However, the creator does as he sees fit with no thoughts of this in his mind other than trying to "win" the game.
Now we all know our technology is advancing at tremendous rates, so how do we know there isn’t someone else that has already advanced further then us? Could we all be just a computer program that is running to test how a culture would react to global warming or to a deadly disease? You might say, “That’s not possible, I know who I am and I can touch things and I have my own mind.”
Well I bet Furby would have said the exact same thing. Unfortunately my Furby has pasted....

Give it away...

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to give away money? How many times have you gone to a store to buy something and NO ONE will help you? Why is this? I know every other time I go to a store or the mall and I am no planning on buying anything, I am hounded continuously by sales people trying to sell me this or that. However, If I do have the money and I am on a spending spree where the hell do these sales people go. I have seen this happen over and over. From the time I went to a dealership specifically to waste money on a new car, to yesterday when I tried finding someone to take my money in exchange for a garage door. What’s with these people? How much easier does it get? If someone called me and said, "I have $x.xx and I want to give it to you right now for a garage door." I would say ok, give me your money. This isn’t the case. I now have multiple correspondences between me and "Cory" the door guy. He has gone so far as to tell me that it will be about 2 weeks before the door can be installed. But he has yet to tell me a number to call or even ask for my address so he knows where do go. I guess in the new day and age with all the technology he probably has one of those Cretrolaminatiorizer which not only doubles as a handy guide book and pizza shelf, but you can use it as a mind reading tool as well. So I guess I will just sit with money in hand and wait for "Cory" to show up in about two weeks. I can't wait to see what door I have decided to buy since I don't even know what he has to offer. Don’t worry, I do have an estimate, so that’s all that really matters.

Oh by the way, I HATE Starlings.

Love the 80's

38 ways to tell if you grew up in the 80's:

1. You've ever ended a sentence with the word SIKE.





2. You can sing the rap to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and can do the Carlton



3. You know that "WOAH" comes from Joey on Blossom



4. If you ever watched "Fraggle Rock"



5. It was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons.



6. You wore a ponytail on the side of your head.



7. You got super-excited when it was Oregon Trail-day in computer class at school.



8. You made your mom buy one of those clips that would hold your shirt in a knot on the side.

9. You played the game "MASH"(Mansion, Apartment, Shelter, House)




10. You wore stonewashed Jordache jean jackets and were proud of it.



11. You know the profound meaning of " WAXON, WAX OFF"



12. You wanted to be a Goonie.



13. You ever wore fluorescent clothing. (some of us...head-to-toe)



14. You can remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off and his cheeks shifted.



15. You have ever pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf.



16. You took lunch boxes to school...and traded Garbage Pailkids in the schoolyard.

17. You remember the CRAZE, then the BANNING of slap bracelets.



18. You still get the urge to say "NOT" after every sentence.


19. You thought your childhood friends would never leave because you exchanged handmade friendship bracelets.



20. You ever owned a pair of Jelly-Shoes.



21. After you saw Pee-Wee's Big Adventure you kept saying "I know you are, but what am I?"



22. You remember "I've fallen and I can't get up"



23. You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates.



24. You have ever played with a Skip-It.



25. You remember boom boxes and walking around with one on your shoulder like you were all that.



26. You remember watching both Gremlins movies.



27. You thought Doogie Howser/Samantha Micelli was hot.



28. You remember Alf, the lil furry brown alien from Melmac.



29. You remember New Kids on the Block when they were cool...and don't even flinch when people refer to them as "NKOTB"



30. You knew all the characters names and their life stories on "Saved By The Bell," The ORIGINAL class.



31. You know all the words to Bon Jovi - SHOT THROUGH THE HEART.



32. You just sang those words to yourself. (I know you did).


33. You still sing "We are the World"




34. You tight rolled your jeans.



35. You owned a bannana clip.



36. You remember "Where's the Beef?"



37. You used to (and probably still do)
say "What you talkin' 'bout Willis?"



38. You're still singing Shot Through the Heart in your head, aren't you!