I have been a huge podcast listener since first discovering podcasting in October of 2004.  Those were some exciting times.  While I was never a creator, I enjoyed watching all the shows grow and become very popular.  People were making shows for the fun of it — to be part of a community.  I was tempted to create some kind of show, but I was spending too much time enjoying everybody else to have time to create anything myself.

Times have really changed.  A lot of podcasts are making money now, and people are doing it full time.  That’s great for the people involved, but sad when business comes before the shows.

This week three of the podcasts I listen to are no more.  CNET’s Gadgetts, TWiT’s Maxwell’s House, and Geek Brief are all no more.

I will miss Gadgetts, but I am sure I will still hear from everybody on other CNET podcasts that I listen to.  Cali Lews has had some personal and what sounds like business issues with Mevio, but it looks like she is moving over to Revision3 with a new show called Geek Beat, which looks to be very similar to Geek Brief, so I won’t be missing much there.

The one guy I am really going to miss is Ray Maxwell.  He is like the grandfather I never had.  He has so many great stories from his life.  I was a little disappointed when TWiT wanted him to focus his show to aviation only.  I enjoyed his many other topics better, but now that I look back, I think they were hoping that having a specific topic would draw advertisers.

He said he is going to appear on other TWiT shows from time to time, but you know how that goes.  Who really knows how often he will be on.  I am hoping Dr. Kiki has him on Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour from time to time.

While it’s sad to see good shows go, I am sure they will be replaced by equally good shows.  It has been quite amazing watching TWiT grow.  I have listened to damn near every show the network has produced, and almost always have one of my three monitors on the live stream.

Podcasting has brought me so much education, and entertainment these past six years.  It’s almost total replaced my TV viewing.  I bet I only watch 5 hours of TV a week nowadays, and 2.5 hrs of that is Jeopardy.  Thank you internet, and thank you podcast producers.

Our Hawaii vacation is getting closer and closer.  Flights, hotels, car, and excursions are all paid for.  I could add it all up, but I am kind of scared to know how much we spent.  We have a pretty booked schedule.  We wanted to see and do as much as possible while we are there.

I think we are going to have a pretty memorable 10 year anniversary.  That day we are taking a helicopter tour over Kilauea volcano, and that evening we are heading to the top of Mauna Kea to do some star gazing.  It should be a fun time.  On our honeymoon we went to the top of Pikes Peak, and Mauna Kea is at a similar elevation.  I’m not sure if there will be any snow up there this time of year, but I am kinda hoping I can throw a snowball in Hawaii.

Right now I am debating if I should just use the hotel’s wifi or rent a mifi for my internet access.  The hotels charge $12 a day, but I can rent a mifi for $8 a day.  I just wish I knew which one was faster.  I am leaning towards the mifi since it’s cheaper, and it will give me internet access on the go too, including the airports that don’t have free wifi.

It should be a great vacation.  I am really looking forward to learning a lot about Hawaii.  Neither the Wife or I really like to relax on vacations.  We like to get out and see and learn as much as possible.  That’s what we consider fun.  We can relax all we want on our couch when we get back.

There is a new study that shows having caffeine in the morning doesn’t give a pick-me-up to people that regularly drink it. Your morning coffee just calms your caffeine addiction.

I totally believe it.

I like to have my coffee in the morning, but it never makes me feel more awake, and I can easily go without it. Sometime during the day I need to get my caffeine in or I will have a headache the next day though. Some days when I am too busy for coffee in the morning, I just make a latte before bed. I can sleep no problem, and when I wake up… no headache. I have my caffeine addiction down to a science. I rarely ever get headaches. I probably should cut back on my caffeine intake, but I don’t think it’s as bad for you as sugar and alcohol which I try to limit when possible.

Here in Fargo we are no strangers to floods. It’s pretty much a yearly thing for us, but we always know it’s coming so we have time to build our dikes. Down in Nashville it was a different story.

Ben Folds lives in the Nashville area and has taken a few pictures and had them featured on nationalgeographic.com. From my experience these pictures come no where near showing how disastrous the flood really was. I’m sure the people of Nashville our coming together to rebuild the damage, just as we do in Fargo.

So the Wife and I have been talking about spending our 10 year wedding anniversary in Hawaii for over a year now. This week we finally starting booking it. We have been fortunate enough to have been able to take a vacation every year that we have been married so far. Most of them have been pretty affordable. We always try to get the most out of our money on vacations.

Hawaii will be a different story. There will be nothing cheap about this vacation, but I guess you only have one 10 year anniversary. We did have enough miles built up on our credit card to get one of our hotel stays for free. That’s not too bad since it’s $120 a night for four nights. We want to see as much as possible for the week we are spending there, so we are spending four days on Oahu, and four days on the Big Island.

On Oahu we will be staying in Honolulu right on Waikiki beach. Our only plan so far is to visit Pearl Harbor, and get our beach time in. Neither of us are big fans of beaches, so we won’t be spending much time on the beaches.

On the Big Island we are staying in Hilo, which I hear doesn’t have great beaches, but that’s fine with us. It’s closer to the volcanoes, which we plan on spending a day at. I talked the wife out of spending extra money on ocean side rooms, and use that money on something funner like a helicopter ride, so we are planning that. I also would like to spend an evening star gazing on Mauna Kea.

There is so much to do, and so much we want to do. It’s going to be tough to narrow it down. It will be a usual non-relaxing vacation for us. Neither of us like to sit around and do nothing. We always want to see and do as much as possible. We can relax when we get home.

So our Dog Kingslie has been having a hard time sleeping though the night, and every time she gets up she has to pee. Most of the time I hear her and get up with her, but many time I haven’t and she goes on the floor. It has be getting worse and worse, so we took a urine sample to the vet on her yearly visit the other day.

They did a urinalysis and discovered crystals in her urine, so we needed to have an x-ray taken to make sure she doesn’t have any bladder stones. If stones were found she would need to have surgery. Luckily she didn’t have any stones.

After a $350 vet bill we learned that she has a problem controlling the pH of her urine causing crystals to settle out. It sounds like it’s not that big of deal since it’s controllable by diet, but requires a specific kind of food that is only available from the vet. It’s a little spendy, a 5 lb back was $18, and will be a pain having to drive to the vet to get it. We will know a little more in two weeks after her next visit, but it sounds like she will have to be on this food permanently. At least she is a little dog, and doesn’t eat all that much I guess.

I have been blogging off and on, but mostly on, for almost 10 years now. I started shortly after we got broadband in July of 2000. I however was not good at preserving my archives. I switched from so many services and really didn’t care to bring along my old posts. Sometimes I wish I could read them, but part of me is kinda glad I can’t.

In 2000 I started with Blogger. It was simple and easy, but bugged me because it didn’t have commenting at that time. From there I went to a free host (they were plentiful before the dot-com bubble burst), and used desktop software to manage my blog. That worked for a while, but wasn’t ideal, so then I finally broke down and paid for hosting.

The first blogging software that I used was Greymatter. I used it for a while, but then everybody seemed to be using Movable Type, so I switched. I was probably on Movable Type longer than other the other services before combined. Then in 2004 TypePad started placing greater restrictions on its use without paying for it, so I switched to WordPress, and have been on WordPress ever since. A couple different domains, and hosts, and here I am, still tinkering around on the net, hence the name tinkr.net.

When I first started blogging it seemed like you could read almost every blog out there. I felt like I knew the people behind the blogs I read. I was never good at leaving comments though, so a lot of them never knew much about me. Back then I would also blog about a lot more personal stuff. Nowadays, I feel my life is pretty boring. I blog when I have something to say, like this monster post, but for the most part I just post stuff that I find cool on the interwebs.

Many of my favorite blogger have dropped off the face of the internet. Some of them I have found on Twitter, but it seems like Twitter is keeping a lot of people away from their blog. I think I will always have a blog, but probably won’t always be blogging. I don’t ever want to drop on the face on the internet. I want a little place to call my own where someone can always find me at.

This past weekend was our annual family birthday get together since my Brother and I both have February birthdays. I love my family, but spending too much time with them drives me crazy. I get along fine with them as long as topics stay away from politics, religion, or anything medical related. Both my Mom and Brother think they are far smarter than me because they completed more college that I did. You can’t argue with them because they think they are always right, and they believe in some really wacky things.

My Brother is a chiropractor nutjob. He is pretty much against all medicines. He thinks adjustments, and supplements cure everything. Who knows how much money they spend on all the herbal crap that doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t bother me as much what they do to themselves since they are adults and can think for themselves. I worry more about their kid. They have a four month old and he has some sort of rash on his face that looks like eczema. They have been trying to cure it with crazy stuff like green tea and fish oils, and of course they aren’t doing anything for it. Hopefully my Sister-in-law can talk some sense into my Brother and bring him to a doctor, but she also believe in a lot of that crazy stuff.

I have done all I can to try and talk some sense into them. Maybe someday they will wake up and not think that “big pharma” is evil and all about making money, but until then I will just keep my mouth shut and shake my head.