It’s 5:30 AM, and I’m about to head out the door for our vacation. Today it’s just a 9.5 hour drive to Kansas City to meet up with the rest of my family. Then tomorrow we will be off to my Mom’s timeshare in Branson. I will be pretty quiet here and on Twitter. I will have internet access, but I’ll be busy, so I will mostly be offline. I might post a few pictures. They’re with 1000 words anyway right?

So when we were in the cities we went the the American Idiot musical. I thought it was amazing and a must see for any Green Day fan, but I see how it could get mixed reviews. If you’re offended by loud rock music, F bombs, or guys and girls in their underwear, it’s probably not for you. If you’re a Green Day fan you will love it. I found it amazing how they could tell the story with very few lines. It was mostly the American Idiot album start to finish, but not hard at all to follow the story. I never really took the time to closely listen to and understand the album, so now the album has a totally different meaning to me.

Well I arrived home last night, and it looks like winter finally showed up. I can no longer see grass in my yard. I can’t complain much. It’s been a great winter.

So where was I? I spend most of last weekend, and last week in hospitals. Early last week I was in Sioux Fall for my dads stem cell transplant. He has cancer, multiple myeloma to be exact. We actually got to sit in the room during the transplant. It was a pretty simple procedure. He was pretty drugged up, so he doesn’t remember any of it, but we just watched them drain six bags of cells into him, and that was it. Now it’s just a waiting game to see how successful the procedure was. He is pretty sick now, but he will gradually get better and after 100 days we will know if he is cancer free. Chances are it will come back. When they harvested his cells for the transplant, they took enough for two, so down the road he may have to go through this again.

After a few days in Sioux Falls, we drove to Minneapolis. My mother-in-law was still in the hospital after her heart transplant. She had a little bit of a bleeding problem caused by the blood thinners they gave her because they were worried about a few clots that they saw. She had to have two more surgeries because of this bleeding, and it was a little hairy for a few days, but she is doing good now.

I’m glad to be home. A week of hospitals, and hospital food was more than enough for me. The Wife is still down there, and plans on staying a couple more weeks.

We are seeing American Idiot today. I don’t really know much about the musical. All I know is it’s going to have some pretty awesome music.

I don’t remember if I ever mentioned that I started up my Tumblr again. If I didn’t mention it, well I did. If I did mention it, I guess I am going it again. It’s usually updated more than my blog, except for this week though since I am out of town.

I can’t be the only one that still sings this song when I count, right?

Talk about a catchy song. It’s probably been over thirty years since I have seen this bit on Sesame Street, and I still sing it in my head as I count.

Three weeks ago when my Mother-in-Law had her heart transplant the Wife left to be with her. She took a leave of absence from her job and plans on staying with her Mom until she is able to be on her own. She is doing really well, and out of the hospital now. She just has to stay in a nearby apartment for a few more weeks before she can go home.

So I’ve been bacheloring it!

It’s still hard to get use to how quiet the house is. I did finally turn the TV on last night for the first time since the Super Bowl. I have a lot of Netflix that I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time now. I always seem to find other things to do rather that sit on the couch. I’m actually looking forward to doing it again tonight.

As for housework, I do most of it anyway, but my underwear drawer is getting low. Laundry is the one chore that I never do. I don’t think I have done it since 1999. It’s on my list of things to do tomorrow. Wish me luck.

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.