Last night, at eight o’clock, my Mother-in-Law got the call. Five hours later doctors were cutting her open and giving her a new heart. We’ve been full of mixed feelings. On one hand it’s scary. She has been doing really well with her LVAD in. She is stronger than ever. The transplant will put her through a lot again, and may add some complications. I guess it’s a good thing though. The LVAD isn’t a permanent solution. It’s probably good that she got her heart now when she is strong. She should be able to recover from the transplant baring any complications. I had a coworker that had a lung transplant last year, and she was too weak, and didn’t survive.

My Wife and most of her family headed down to the hospital this morning. I stayed back to take care of the dog. I haven’t heard how she is doing yet, so I’m assuming she is doing fine. She has been out of surgery for eight hours now. It’s going to be a long few weeks of recovery, but it will probably be nice for her to not have to carry around her LVAD battery packs anymore.

I’m amazed by our scientific knowledge. It’s pretty amazing that we can cut someone open, remove their heart, and put in someone else’s heart, and they survive. I’m not going to be thanking a miracle, or some imaginary god, for her recovery. The reason this is possible is because of science, and the amazing doctors.

Then there is the sad reality that someone had to die for her to get her heart. We’ve been looking at the recent deaths in the area, and are curious as to which one was the one. I’m sure we will never know, but to that person’s family, thank you. And to any of your who aren’t donors, why the hell aren’t you?

It’s killing me that I haven’t been able to try out my telescope yet. We’ve had a beautiful winter so far this year, but the few nights that I have had off work it’s been too cloudy, and now I think winter is probably here to stay. It’s below zero now, and our high for today was only 7 ºF, not really good outside weather.

One thing that has got me really excited to try out my telescope has been Fraser Cain, from Universe Today, and his Virtual Star Parties. They are something that he is just starting to do using Google Plus, and they are totally awesome. He gets amateur astronomers to hook up their telescopes to Google Plus, and we all can see the various objects. Last night I watched his first two Star Parties, and learned a ton. Someday I’ll have to catch one live. I’m so excited to keep on learning, and maybe be able to actually call myself an amateur astronomer one day.

It’s been a long time since I started a new hobby, and it exciting to learn something new. There have been a few hobbies that I have wanted to start, but never wanted to spend the time or money to get started. Maybe it’s time to start a few of them. Three hobbies that I can think of now that I wanted to start are home brewing beer, learn to play guitar, and amateur astronomy.

I haven’t even used my telescope yet, and I have already found a few I want to upgrade to. I think I will hold off on them for a while, and get a good pair of binoculars first. That’s what most people say to start with. They say you can see more than you would think, and it’s a great way to get started and find out if the hobby is for you before spending a ton of money.

I don’t know how much national coverage it has gotten, but last week a Minnesota high school hockey player suffered a horrific neck injury, and was paralyzed. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be sixteen years old, and know you will never walk again. Being paralyzed is probably one of my worst fears along with being burned. When I played football in high school I always made sure I made tackles with my head up, and hit with my shoulder. I feared hitting with my head like so many players do nowadays. One awkward hit with your head could change your life forever. The coaches I had taught that, and I listened.

I’ve never played hockey, so I can’t really relate to the injury and how it happened and if it’s something that can be prevented in the future. I just feel horrible for the kid. I hope someday these kind of injuries will able to be repaired by surgery. How great would it be to repair all neck and spinal cord injuries? That and a cure for cancer are two thing I hope to see happen in my lifetime.

So Christmas is over for another year. Things are starting to slow down and get back to normal around here. It feels weird that winter really hasn’t gotten here yet. I hoping it hold of for a few more weeks so I get a chance to play with my favorite Christmas present.

I got a telescope for Christmas! I’ve always wanted a telescope, but never thought I would use one enough to justify buying one. As a kid I loved my microscope, and chemistry set, but I never had a telescope. It’s just an entry level telescope, but that’s all I really need for now.

Monday night would have been a perfect night with Venus and the Moon to the west and Jupiter still in the east as I left for work. Tuesday it was cloudy, and last night it was raining. Rain in December? WTF? Today when I got the mail it really felt like spring out. It’s really going to suck when winter finally gets here. I hoping to be able to try out my telescope tonight, since my next night off wont be until January 2nd, and winter might be here by then. 

I originally had a long post about the stupid argument between “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas”, but you know what? It’s Christmas, who the hell cares? Maybe ignoring that stupid argument will make it go away.

Instead here is my favorite Christmas song, “White Wine in the Sun”. Enjoy.

Here are the lyrics to “White Wine in the Sun”, and if you don’t understand the title, Tim Minchin is from Australia, and Christmas is a summer time holiday down there.

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious
I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu, to be honest

And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialization of an ancient religion
To the westernization of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer
But I still really like it

I’m looking forward to Christmas
Though I’m not expecting a visit from Jesus

I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun

I don’t go in for ancient wisdom
I don’t believe just ’cause ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are spooky

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalize blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs
I’m not expecting big presents
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolate is just fine by me

‘Cause I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I’ll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun

And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You’ll be handed ’round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won’t understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who’ll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl

And if, my baby girl
When you’re twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home
You’ll know what ever comes
Your brother and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun
Whenever you come
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Darling, when Christmas comes
We’ll be waiting for you in the sun
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you…
Waiting…

I really like Christmas
It’s sentimental, I know…

I think I’m pretty burnt out over social networks. I have Twitter for my online friends, and Facebook for my family and real friends, and that’s about all I need. I barely post to them the way it is. I love Google+, but I’m just not into it. I read it from time to time, but that’s about it.

While I’m sitting at my computer I usually have one monitor with Tweetdeck open. I try to keep up on Twitter then, but I gave up trying to keep up when I am away from my computer. I hate missing stuff, but that’s just the way Twitter works. It took me awhile to just let go and allow myself to miss tweets. With DVRs and RSS I never miss TV shows, podcasts, or blogs, so Tweets are about the only thing I miss. It drove me crazy at first, but I have learned to accept it. When I’m out and about with family and friends, I’m there to spend time with them, and not to have my head buried in my phone.

I just recently signed up to Instagram. When Instargram first game out I couldn’t get an iPhone, so it wasn’t an option. A few weeks ago I realized I don’t take nearly enough pictures with my iPhone, so maybe Instragram will get me taking more pictures. Who knows how often I will be posting to Instragram, but my goal is once a day.

I have never seen the point of Foursquare, or any of the location based networks, so I have never even signed up for any of them. They just annoyed me so bad on Twitter, that I set up my apps to block them.

I don’t need any more social networks. I’m sure a bunch more will come out, and I’m sure I’ll sign up, but I won’t like it. I don’t need anymore.

I never blog about sports. Mostly because sports talk and interviews bore me. It’s mostly just stating the obvious.  I’m not a huge fan of any sport that isn’t football anyway. I haven’t seen a baseball game since ‘91 when the Twins won the World Series. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a basketball or hockey game. I guess I did watch a college basketball game a couple years ago when NDSU made the NCAA tournament.

Football is a different story. If there is an NFL game on, and I am anywhere near a TV, I am watching it. I don’t care who is playing, I am watching.

I may have mentioned my favorite team is the Denver Broncos. I’ve been a Broncos fan since ‘84, when I first started paying attention to football. This year there has been a lot of talk about their QB, Tim Tebow. He seems to be either loved or hated. I’m mixed on him. I cringe when ever he talks religion, but honestly, 99% of football players do it. It doesn’t bother me that much. They are football players. They obviously haven’t spent much time in science class, so I don’t hold it against them.

Tim Tebow is a good, hard working kid. The only question I have is his quarterbacking abilities. His style is unorthodox. His throwing accuracy isn’t that great. If anybody can improve themself it would be him though. I’m rooting for him. The one thing he has is the ability to win games. He is an amazing 5-1 as a starter, and has turned around the team. It probably has more to do with John Fox’s change in offense, and their improved defense, but like always, the QB gets more credit and blame than he should.

This weekend I get to see him in person. It will be the fourth Broncos games I have attended. My third in the Metrodome, and I saw them once at Mile High Stadium. It should be a good time. When I first bought tickets I didn’t think the Broncos would stand a chance, but the way both teams are playing now, I like the Broncos chance.

I was going to be lazy and not put up the Christmas lights this year, but it was so nice out, this is what I did yesterday.

I hope everybody in the US is having a happy Thanksgiving. My In-laws are in town, so not much computer time for me. I wish we were having our Thanksgiving dinner today, but we’re not having it until Saturday when more family can be here. Sadly I will be at work that day, so my only Thanksgiving dinner this year will be leftovers. At least I will get out of hanging with my family that day. I love my family, but I can only handle them for so long.

It’s an exciting time for music online. They’re more ways to buy and consume music than ever. I’ve tried many of them, but I’m still on the fence with which one I’m going to use. For some people subscription services are perfect, but they’re not really for me. I paid for Spotify for a month, and it’s really cool, but sometimes I don’t know what I want to listen to, and I like to just browse my collection. It’s not as easy to do with Spotify, and many times when I knew what I wanted to listen to, it wasn’t on Spotify. If you’re more of a casual music fan, and listened to mostly popular stuff, Spotify might be for you. It’s not really for me.

The two services I’m really excited about are iTunes Match, and Google Music. I’ve been on Google Music since the first day the beta launched. It took me four months to get all my music up there with my slow ass Internet, but now that it’s up there it’s pretty cool. Like most Google products when they launch, It’s ugly looking and could use some improvement. I love the new music section in the Android Market. It will make it so easy for bands to put out their music themselves. Screw the record labels. On the Android Market they will make 70% profit. The one downside about Google Music is it’s not as good on iOS. There is a third party app that I have been using for a while to listen to my music, but it’s buggy and not perfect.

Monday when iTunes Match launched I started getting my music up into the iCloud. It’s still grinding away. I’m not sure what it’s really doing. After the first match it only matched 3000 songs, leaving me 13,000 to upload. Since then it’s timed out, and reset a bunch of time. Maybe it matched more, I don’t really know. It’s just grinding away, and will be done someday. I don’t blame iTunes though, I only get 500 Kbps up from my cable company. So far with what’s been uploaded, I really like the Apple solution. It’s nice to be able to delete all my music from my phone, yet I still have access to all of it. Their “streaming” isn’t really streaming; songs download as they play. That can be good and bad. It’s nice because you have instant, and offline access to the songs you listen to the most. The bad part is that it could start to fill your phone up, but you can easily delete songs on the iPhone now too.

For the different music services it will probably come down to whatever phone you have. Google Music will probably work best on Androids, and iCloud on iPhones. That’s not too surprising, but I’m going to keep my music in both camps. Once Google products become more mature, they are usually my products of choice. I use Google for my calendar, mail, and contact syncing. I don’t really care for any of the other iCloud products. It’s really exciting times. I’m glad I can finally have access to all my music in my pocket. It’s like we are living in the future. Where’s my flying car?

Back in the day I was a huge video game player. The other day I just realized I haven’t turned on the Xbox since January 1st of this year. My wife is the gamer in the house. She is always buying the latest games. Yesterday she bought the new Saints Row game. I saw Skyrim in the store, and wished I had the time to attempt to play it, but I know I don’t.

I guess it’s not that I don’t have the time, I just have other things that I would rather be doing, mostly wasting time on the internet and watching podcasts. I am so out-of-touch with current video games, I would probably be lost it I tried playing them. They are so much more complex then they were back in the day on my NES. I hardly ever play games on my iPhone or iPad either. I just would rather spend my time nowadays reading. Sometimes I miss the all-nighters I put in with my Nintendo. Now my all-nighters are spent reading news online. I feel I’m much more informed with what’s going on in the world, almost too much, but my video game playing has suffered. I guess I’m getting old, now get off my lawn.

I got my autographed Jonathan Coulton cd today. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I already have the digital downloads, so I don’t even have to rip it. I guess it’s just proof that I buy things I don’t need just to support artists I like.

The days are quickly getting shorter and shorter. Many people hate this time of year, but I kind of like it. I love star gazing, and this time of the years give me more time to do it before it becomes too cold to be outside. I use to be able to find many constellations, but now that I live in a bigger city, I can’t really see much and have forgot most of them. Thankfully there are many iPhone apps to help me out now. Last night at work I had to head south of town for a bit, and it was great. I almost wish I lived more out of town, so I could see more stars.

One thing I’m really enjoying it watching Jupiter every night. It is currently in opposition to the Sun. Which means it rises when the Sun sets, and it visible all night as it rises in the east and sets in the west. It is real easy to spot. Because Venus isn’t currently visible, It’s the 2nd brightest thing in the sky at night after the Moon. Every night at work I see it in the east and I watch it move across the sky, and I see it in the west when I get home from work. I wish I had some binoculars or a telescope. It would be cool to try and see some of Jupiter’s Moons.

Many people never look into the sky at night. That’s the first thing I do when I walk out at night. I can’t name a ton of stars, but I can find Betelgeuse and Rigel in my buddy Orion, and Polaris is another no brainer to find. If you’re out and about at night this month, look up and try and find Jupiter. Then just think that that little speck of light is 369.8 million miles away, and it would take 1321.3 earths to fill up the volume of Jupiter. Our Solar System, and the Universe is filled with amazing and beautiful stuff that most people take for granted.

Now that the days are getting shorter, it’s always dark when I’m going to work in the morning. Our house faces south, so all winter long I will be greeted by Orion every morning when I walk out the door.

About a week or so ago I noticed a really bright star just a bit to the west of Orion. It looked like it was close to the ecliptic, so there was a good chance that it was a planet. I just wasn’t sure which one. So like anything, when I’m curious about it I look it up. I have many star map apps on my phone, so when I got to work I looked it up, and it was Jupiter. So for the past week, every morning when I have been greeted by Orion, I have also said hello to Jupiter.

Today on Universe Today, they have an article about that very bright star in the sky that is Jupiter. So if you’re up early every day like I am, look up and try to find Jupiter.

In January I made a New Year’s resolution to get my computers backed up online. I’ve always been good about backups, but they were always kept local except for my pictures, which I burn to DVD and take a copy to work. There are many different online backup options these days, from Carbonite, Mozy, DropBox, and CrashPlan.

I chose CrashPlan for four reasons. They have unlimited storage, I can backup multiple computers, they are affordable, and I can use their software to backup to multiple locations. That last reason is probably my favorite. All I need is the CrashPlan software running, and it will keep my systems backed up to both my NAS, and the CrashPlan servers. No need to run other backup software for my multiple backups.

I started my backups in January and they were finally finished this week. It took nine months of continuously backing up to get everything up there, but now they are there, so it’s only incremental backups from here on. They also just recently released an iPhone app too. So now I have access to all my files from my phone too. It’s pretty sweet. I’m sure I will find many uses for it.

I’m pretty anal about my backups, and for that reason I have never lost a file. I’ve had a few hard drives die, and it’s never been much of a problem because of my backups. I hate it when I hear my family and friends losing stuff because they don’t have proper backups. Storage is so cheap these days. There is no reason you shouldn’t have multiple backups of all your important files.

Yesterday at lunch somehow we ended up talking about cadavers. Our new chemist was talking about all the body parts they had in the freezer at his old job. They had big sheets of skin, foreheads, even penises in the freezer.

That got me thinking about what I want done with my body after I don’t need it any longer. It’s actually something I think about quite often after reading Stiff, by Mary Roach. A great book I might add. I Honestly I don’t really care what is done with my body. My family will do whatever they want with it. It’s not like I would ever know. Personally, as creepy as it sounds, I would prefer to have my body donated to science, after of course all the usably organs are donated. I doubt that will happen because I’m sure my family wouldn’t want to do that, and my first choice would be whatever my family want.

I find it kind of wasteful to just burn the body, and even more wasteful to burry it and use up the limited land space we have here on earth. Maybe by the time I die they will be able to shoot my body into outer space. How fitting would it be for the molecules that make up my body to be put back where they came from? Call me weird, but my ultimate wish would be to have scientists and students learn all they can, and then have my leftover parts launched into the Sun. Who knows, maybe someday that will be my penis in the freezer that will someday have it’s final resting place on the Sun.

So I was just thinking back to what I was doing ten years ago today. So much has changed, but many things have stayed the same. I’m driving the same truck, working the same job with pretty much the same people.

Today is one of those days where I wish I saved my blog archives from back then. Back then blogging was new and exciting. I don’t even remember if I blogged about the tragedies of September 11th, or if I just went silent. In September of 2001 I had been blogging for only a year. I started blogging sometime around August of 2000, shortly after getting broadband internet in July. I’m pretty sure I was still on blogger back in those days.

News moved so much slower back in those days. There was no Twitter or Facebook. There was no Google Reader as RSS was just in it’s infancy. There was no podcasting, no YouTube, and very little videos online. TV and radio were the best and fastest ways to get your news. I often wonder what it would be like if such a tragedy were to happen today.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was bummed out that day because one of my favorite Bronco players, Ed McCaffrey broke his leg the night before on Monday Night Football. Suddenly that seemed so insignificant. When the first plane hit the reports were sketchy. At first it sounded like it was just a freak accident buy a small plane. Once the second plane hit, the world was changed forever. It was such an eerie time. After the four planes went down we were just waiting to hear if there were going to be more. We couldn’t be sure it was over until all planes were grounded. For months after that, I couldn’t look at a flying plane the same.

The only positive thing that came out of that was how united our country became. Most of the political bickering came to an end. Too bad that didn’t last long, and may even became worse. The way politics has become is sickening. They are all about protecting the big corporations, and trying to sabotaging the other party to help with their own re-election. If only both of the parties could look at the facts and work together to decided what’s right for the people. Yeah, I guess I’m a dreamer.

I’m finally recovering from the weekend in the Cities. Saturday we went to the Minnesota State Fair. We ate way to much junk food on a stick. Like $60 worth of junk food on a stick. It was only my second time ever going, and I will totally be going back if they bring some more good bands. Saturday night we saw probably my two favorite bands, Motion City Soundtrack, and Weezer. Both of them were amazing. Motion City even played one of our favorite songs, “Capital H”. They didn’t play that song the last three time we have seen them, so it was nice to hear it again. Weezer is always great, but this was the first time I was able to see them from the front row. Rivers came into the crowd a bit, and my Wife was able to touch him. It was pretty cool being that close. I can’t wait to catch both these bands again.

After Motion City was done their drummer, Tony Thaxton came out and took a panoramic picture of the crowd. Do you see me there in the front row? No, you can’t really see me because it’s too dark, but I was there.

On Sunday we went to Valley Fair. I’m not a big fan of amusement parks and ride, but I still had fun. I don’t find rides very much fun, but I still manage to ride them all.

On Monday we were back at the State Fair for some more junk food on a stick and to see Maroon 5 and Train. Originally I wasn’t going to go, but my Sister-in-law backed out, so I got stuck going. I had no idea who Maroon 5 even was. They just aren’t my type of music. I thought they were pretty bad, and probably responsible for half the crappy music that is on the radio these days. I’ve see Train many times, and they are usually pretty good, but I was disappointed this time. They just seemed to waste a lot of time, and didn’t play a lot of the songs I like.

We drove straight home from the concert, and got home around 4:00 AM, so today has been sleep and catch up day.

Does anybody ever like their cable company? You can tell how many people around hear love our cable company by the number of dishes that popped up once local channels became available. I was one of those that dropped cable as soon at I could get my local channels on DirecTV. I just got sick of them dropping channels and raising prices, plus there were a handful of channels I wanted that our cable company didn’t have.

I still had to keep them for my internet though. I think the $55 for 5Mb down and 500Kb up is a pretty ridiculous price. In other parts of the country those speeds would probably be a $30 package.

Our cable company is now advertising a 50Mb plan, which would be sweet, but it has too many restrictions. It’s pretty much unusable for me. In fact I don’t know who it’s aimed for. It has a ridiculously low 50GB cap. Any power user would blow through that cap, and any non-power user would probably be fine with their slower 5Mb plan. Here is what my router says my bandwidth usage has been the past few months:

So I would reach the cap in about six days. That reminds me of the olden days back when I was on AOL and had a 20 hour a month limit that I went over easily in the first week and then paid an arm and a leg for internet the rest of the month.

But that’s not the only thing. Not only would I have to cut back on my podcast downloads, and Netflix watching, I would also have to get, or at least pay for cable TV, or phone service in order to get the faster speed internet. And of course they hide what the actual price even is. All they show is the introductory price, which looks good, but would still cost me $75 because I would have to pay for a service I wouldn’t use.

So it looks like I will be stuck with slowish internet for some time. It’s not like it’s terribly slow, it’s more of the slow upload speeds that are killing me. I would be happy to pay $75 for uncapped, or maybe even capped if it was reasonable, 50Mb speeds if they would ever offer such a thing. Maybe I’m just dreaming though.

I’ve been on many vacations, but usually I don’t miss the places I have been once I get home. Hawaii was different. For some reason I really miss Hawaii. If money was no object I would totally move there. I could easily get use to perfect weather 365 days a year. The main problem is it’s just too far away from everything else in the US, oh and that money thing.

Yesterday at work I was craving this:

It’s a loco moco! It was probably the best meal I had in Hawaii. It was at just a hole in the wall place on the Big Island that served local dishes. A loco moco is usually rice with a hamburger patty covered in gravy and topped with an egg. I had a Kilauea loco moco which had chili instead of a hamburger patty. And of course it came with two Hawaii staples, macaroni salad and Spam. It sounds weird, but it was delish.

I pretty sure I won’t be able to find loco mocos anywhere in Fargo. I may have to try and make them at home sometime.

So the other day I watched MTV for the first time in probably over five years. Why? Well, 120 Minutes is back! The downside is that it’s only on once a month. The last Saturday of each month. That kind of sucks. It should be on every Saturday night, but I guess once a month is better than never.

Monday happened to be the 30 year anniversary of the launch of MTV. You can watch the first hour of MTV over on the mental_floss blog. MTV launched in 1981, but I don’t remember our cable company getting it until 1985. I loved MTV in the early days. I use to watch it all day long waiting for my favorite videos. I don’t know if it was because I was getting older, but it seemed to get worse as the years went by. By the time the 90s rolled around, the only time I watched MTV was when 120 Minutes was on. I couldn’t even tell you what MTV is like nowadays, because I haven’t watched it, but watching old MTV clips sure brings back the memories.

This video is depressing and the amount of ignorance, discrimination, and hatred toward Atheists is amazing. It boggles my mind how we can be the most hated and mistrusted minority group despite being the “least violent, most tolerant, most intelligent, most progressive” minority group out there.

To me science and religion don’t mix. If science showed even a sliver of evidence of a God I would feel different, but the more we learn, the more obvious it is that there isn’t a God. I don’t understand how I’m part of a minority because I believe in science, but maybe someday the majority of the populace will wake up to science.

Thankfully I don’t live in the bible belt, so I haven’t been discriminated against too bad. I still believe the reason we were denied the ability to adopt a child was because we left the religious questions blank since they didn’t apply to us, but I don’t really have proof of this. That is just my speculation. My family is pretty battshit crazy about religion though. When I’m hanging around with my family, and reading their ignorance on Facebook, is about the only time I have to deal with religion. I just keep my mouth shut when I’m around my family, and chuckle when I read their Facebook comments.

Like most people, I feel like I never win anything. Well, this morning I was surprised when I checked my email to discover that I won a Roku 2 from Todd over at GeekNewsCentral.com. I’ve been listening to his podcast almost since day one. I have entered many of his contests, and many I didn’t enter because I never seem to win anything anyways. On a whim I enter this one. I thought what the hell, I would give it a shot. I could use a Roku for our upstairs TV.

I have the original Roku and love it. I have been thinking about getting one for the upstairs TV for quite some time now. I now will have one for each TV just in time for me to cancel my DVDs from Netflix since I never seem to watch them anyway.

So Casey Anthony was found not guilty. Who the hell cares? Apparently everybody. I honestly first heard of her just this past weekend. Frankly I avoid all exploitive news like this.

Personally I feel happy for Casey Anthony. Now I know nothing about her, or the trial, but obviously there must have been some doubt. I would rather see our judicial system fail this way, rather than filling prisons with innocent people that couldn’t prove they were innocent. She was found guilty of four counts of lying to the police, which was probably much easier to prove, and will do time for that.

Maybe Casey Anthony is guilty and got off, but realistically she isn’t a threat to society. She will have to live with whatever she did for the rest of her life. It may haunt her, it may not, but chances are she isn’t going to end up killing anybody else. My personal belief is that prisons should be used more to protect society from crazy people and less of a punishment. Obviously most people don’t have this opinion and our prisons are overflowing with inmates costing out country millions of dollars, but that’s another issue.

What really makes me sick is everybody making money off of this. Because of the coverage this case has gotten, chances are that Casey Anthony herself is going to be able to cash in also. With out the coverage she wouldn’t be able to. Now I don’t really blame the media companies because they are just broadcasting what people want to see and watch. We just live in a sick society that just wants to see revenge. People want to see people punished and put to death. I don’t get it. Maybe that’s why I don’t pay attention to this kind of news. I find it sad when people are found guilty. I was even sad when Timothy McVeigh was put to death, even though he deserved it. I would never celebrate somebody being incarcerated or put to death. I’m just not that kind of person.

I just finished reading Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. It’s such a great book. I think it would go a long way in science education to require reading such book, or maybe Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy, in high school. Maybe it’s just me and my interests, but those two book really get me interested in science, and wanting to learn more. I know science classes are probably too busy teaching their curriculum to require students to read books, but science is more about a way of thinking then actual facts. It’s about the process, and both of these books stress that.

When I was in high school I had no interest in most of the required reading books, and they made me hate reading. I enjoyed reading To Kill a Mockingbird and really loved In Cold Blood, but couldn’t even tell you what else I had to read in high school. Once I was done with school it was probably ten years before I picked up another book. School taught me to hate reading. Nowadays I’m not a hugely prolific reader, but I manage to read 20 or so books a year.

Having students read a variety of books in high school may encourage more reading and better overall education, but then again a lot of kids are just lazy. It’s tough to teach the lazy.

I just saw the new Rise Against video for “Make it Stop (September’s Children)”, and it really hit home. It is a very powerful anti-bullying video. I was never bullied in high school, but I had many of the same feelings. My family moved after my freshman year of high school to a new city. I had to start over and try to make friends my sophomore year of high school. While I got along with almost everybody, I never met anybody that I considered a real friends. I didn’t really fit into a single cliché. I was a jock on the football team, a band geek playing in concert, pep, and marching bands, and I was also a nerd who took physics and calculus as electives. I was friends with everybody, but not real close to any of them. To this day my best friends are the ones that I have been friends with since the first grade.

I had a real good childhood growing up, but in the back of my head I always wanted to kill myself. This is the first time I have ever came clean about it, mostly because I think that phase of life is in my past. I never new my Grandpa because he killed himself with a gun that he bought my Dad. I have no idea if that sort of thing is hereditary, but in my head I always thought it was. I used that idea to rationalize what was wrong with me in my head. I never mentioned my suicidal thought it anyone because one, I didn’t want anybody interfering with my plans, and two, I didn’t want to be forced to go to therapy. Nothing against therapy, it works great for many people, but I didn’t want anything to do with it. I wanted to be able to rationalize my problems in my own head, and it seemed to work for me. My darkest days were when I started college. I seemed to have even less things in common with the college students, and had no desire to study. What was getting me through those tough times was the great 90s music that I loved. Then that spring, my rock hero, Kurt Cobain killed himself. It was shortly after I read Michael Azerrad’s biography of Nirvana, Come as You Are. That book was amazing and I felt like I had so much in common with Kurt Cobain. Most of my friends didn’t understand Nirvana’s music, but their songs were my anthems. I took Kurt’s suicide hard. So hard that I wanted to join him in Club 27. I actually had mixed feelings when I turned 28. I was disappointed that wouldn’t be a member of club 27, but also relieved that I lived past 27.

I don’t know exactly when the suicidal thoughts ended, but I haven’t had them for years. I don’t know if I out grew them, was able to find more people I could relate to online, or just quit giving a fuck what other people think anymore. I will be seeing Rise Against open up for the Foo Fighters this fall and this song will have a special meaning for me.

It hasn’t been a good last six months for my family. First my Mother-in-law had a heart atack and needed surgery. Then my wife’s aunt was flooded out of her house for a couple months. Then my Grandma died, and now my Dad has cancer.

I don’t think it’s really set in yet. He is still going through tests, but they think he has Multiple Myeloma, which is bone caner. They first thought he was having kidney problems because they were only running at 20% and the protein in his blood was off the charts. They now think the cause of the high protein is the cancer, and they are filtering his blood hoping his kidneys start functioning properly. Originally there was talk about a kidney transplant, and I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t know if I would be a proper match, but if I was that would be a really hard decision to make. Now that they think it’s cancer, the tough reality is he probably wont live long enough for a kidney transplant to be worthwhile.

It’s still early in his diagnosis, and we don’t know much yet, but of course we are hoping for the best. I kind of feel guilty for not feeling too sad. Death doesn’t scare me though. It’s going to happen to all of us. Hopefully later rather than sooner. I’m constantly thinking about my Dad, but it does no good for me to get worked up and worried about him. What happens will happen. I’m sure I will feel much different after I visit him next weekend, and everything becomes more real, but for now it is what it is and I’m hoping for the best.

So my father-in-law lost his job back in April. I kind of lost a little respect for him because he found out in February that he was going to be losing his job, but wasn’t going to bother to start looking until it happens. He wanted to just collect unemployment like everybody else that has lost their job recently. That’s not really cool in my book. Jobs are pretty scarce in central Minnesota where he lives, especially for someone with no education, and not many skills.

Over the last couple months we have given him $1700 and another $600 for some home repairs. I have no problem helping someone out when they come upon hard times, but it’s hard for me to give money to someone that should have been looking for a job in February, and waited until May to start looking. I can’t stand laziness.
It feels like we are getting taken advantage of because we were smart and went to school to get good jobs. Both of my wife’s brothers are losers too, and don’t have a pot to piss in, so when anyone ask for money they come to use. Thankfully she refuses to give money to her brothers.

We always seem to get stuck with the bill on all the combined gifts also. When her cousin graduated high school we bought her a Roku since she liked ours so much. It was from my wife’s parents, two brothers, and us, but we paid for it. For Christmas we bought her Grandpa a new TV and split it among the families. Of course we got stuck with paying her parents, and two brothers share along with ours. I hate to complain about money, but it drives me crazy when people are too irresponsible to take care of their own finances.

Tonight my wife is sending her Dad another $500 and she wrote a resume out for him. Hopefully he gets a job soon. I’m getting sick of sending him money.

My Grandma died yesterday. She had Alzheimer’s and has been going down hill for years. On Tuesday she had a stroke and was basically brain dead. We visited her on Wednesday to say our goodbyes. While we were there, a priest stopped buy. He read some mumbo jumbo out of the Bible, said a prayer, and starting singing while touching my Grandma’s head. I found it creepy and cultlike, but it seemed to make everybody else feel better, so I guess it was good.

People live and die. It’s very sad when we lose friends and loved ones, but that’s part of life — it ends eventually for us all. Maybe some people need to believe in a fairytale to make them feel better, but I don’t. There is no heaven or hell just like there is no Santa Claus, sorry to spoil it for you. When you die you are dead, gone, only a memory, and that memory won’t be around all that long either. That is the reason I try and enjoy every day, and live them to the fullest. Our days are numbered and I don’t want to take any of them for granted.

Goodbye Grandma. You will be missed by all, but I know where you are really at. You are in my memories, and will be there until I am just a memory like you.

So this weekend I thought we were going to be able to finally get rid of our houseguests and three extra dogs. Now, they will probably be here until July. When my Wife’s Aunt was finally able to get to her house, her loser, homeless, drug addicted ex was squatting there. See tried to get him out, but since he is on the mortgage, she can’t really do anything. He insists he wants the house now. She has been wanting out of the house for a while now. Her credit is already shot, so she is going to let him have the house and all the bills that he won’t be able to pay. It’s only a matter of time before the bank comes after the house.

So this weekend we are helping moving all her stuff to storage until she can get into her apartment on July 1st. It’s going to be a long month and a half, but at least she will finally be out of an area that floods every year.