Miscellaneous Junk

Student: Mr. McDowell, I think I saw you Saturday. Were you riding your bike by Memorial Park?
Me: No, but I did go for a walk over by Memorial Park.
Student: No, this guy was definitely on a bike.


This made me laugh. I don't know what people will support next...I also like how you can see a distorted reflection of me in the window.

Big Numbers

Most people don't know a lot of large numbers. I myself do not know a lot of large numbers, but I know more than most people, and I am going to share some with anyone who wants to read about them. Most people know thousands, then millions, and billions. A large number of people probably even know that after billions comes trillions. But what comes next? Is it Gazillions? Bazillions? Nope, quadrillions. Here is the breakdown...not all of them, but enough to sound smart.

1,000,000,000 (1 x 10^9) One Trillion

1,000,000,000,000 (1 x 10^12) One Quadrillion

1,000,000,000,000,000 (1 x 10^15) One Quintillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 x 10^18) One Sextillion

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 x 10^21) One Septillion

1 x 10^24 One Octillion

1 x 10^27 One Nonillion

1 x 10^30 One Decillion

skip ahead

1 x 10^99 One duotrigintillion

1 x 10^100 (a 1 followed by 100 zeroes) Commonly called a googol (not google) it could also be called ten duotrigintillion.

1 x 10^(10^100) would be a googolplex. That would be a 1 followed by a googol of zeroes.

I Am Gonna Win!!

There was a contest in this throwaway magazine that came from my cable company. It basically says that if you write a letter and say what show/actor/website you like and they publish it that you get a free ipod. So, I will let you know when I get published and win my free ipod.

My picks: How I Met Your Mother, Demetri Martin, and zenhabits.net

I guess I will have to get used to using itunes...

Teenage Mutant Pirate Turtles

Last week, or maybe the week before I randomly got the idea for this. Tonight I sat down and drew it out in pencil, inked it in with my pen, scanned it, and then did all the colors in Photoshop. I just thought it was a funny idea.

Funny Baseball Cards

When I was in junior high the price guides for baseball cards always had some cards that were modified to be funny. When I was about 12 I modified some of my own to try to be funny. Here are the cards that I modified 17 years ago when I was in 7th grade.

2008 Reading Goal

For 2008 one of my goals was to finish an average of a book a month. By saying average, it allowed me to have some lazy, less literary months, and then pick up my slack other months. I didn't complete the goal.

Here's how I did.

1. The Bourne Identity finished in January.
This was an excellent book, and although I started it in December, I still count it because the goal was to "finish" an average of a book a month. I had recieved the whole set of Bourne books for Christmas a couple years ago and have been intending to read them all because I enjoyed the movies so much. The book and movie are very dissimilar, but that is understandable because the book took place in the seventies and needed to be updated to not be behind the times. However, in updating the novel for the screen, they added a whole different plot line, changed some characters, and altered the way that Jason and Marie meet and how their relationship develops as the story goes on. The book was great and I am glad that I took the time to complete it. It was a difficult read though, and took quite a while to complete. It has a lot of pages, heavy language, and small writing.

2. The Four Hour Work Week finished in February.
I had seen this book at stores, and it had sparked my interest, but not enough to actually purchase it. After coming across a few interesting articles on the blog of author Tim Ferriss I got kind of hooked and read almost all, or maybe even all, articles on his blog about lifestyle design. All that reading in which he makes common references to his book may have brain-washed me enough to decide to read the book. All the articles I had read about frugality led me to hunt it down at the library where I waited about 2 weeks before I was able to check it out. The book itself was a super fast read. Mostly filled with anecdotes about how to automate so many things in your life to create time to basically live like you are retired, but while you are still young enough to enjoy it. It constantly makes fun of "too weak" vacations, which as a teacher doesn't apply to me. Many of the time saving techniques do not apply to my career, but it was definitely an interesting read, and has motivated me to consider a future as an entrepreneur. Now all I need is a million dollar idea.

3.It's All Too Much finished in June.
Cleaning and organizing shows are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. I like Clean House, Clean Sweep, Neat, Mission Organization, and any makeover show where they take a mess and clean it up. This is a book written by Peter Walsh, the organizer from the TLC show Clean Sweep. I actually also borrowed this one from the library when I was trying to see if I could check out a book with just my driver's liscense. I was able to and no longer carry my library card in my wallet. The book is all about letting go of clutter, and keeping only those things that you use and love. It delves into the psychology of why we hold on to things, place value where there really is none, and how our culture of consumerism promotes the continuous aquisition of stuff. While I do not have a clutter problem, this book has motivated me to get rid of some things that I know I don't use and either planned to le go but had not yet, or that I had not yet planned to let go and realize that I should or can get them out of my life. The book is filled with strategies for cutting down on the amount of stuff, anectodes about people he has encountered since becoming a professional organizer, and his ideas that most of the time all the stuff is not about stuff but is physical manifestations of other things. Some of it sounds reasonable, but some sounds a little like hocus-pocus to me.

4. Choke finished in June.
A book by Chuck Palahniuk that I couldn't put down. I finished it in 2 days. I had only ever read one other book by him, Diary, which I hated. However, Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. I got this one from my wife for my birthday. I had added it to my wish list after my friend Wade said how much he loved it, and the description sounded interesting. It didn't dissapoint. The novel was about a sexually compulsive main character and definately reminded me of the movie Fight Club, with all the time that was spent going to sexaholics anonamous, and the way the characters thougth processes worked. I really enjoyed this book.

5. Bluebeard finished in July.
A good and quick Vonnegut novel that I had not yet read. It centers around an artist named Rabo Karabakian and is written from his perspective as a memior. In Vonnegut's usual scattered sort of writing, it is written as a mix of Rabo telling about his past, and present in alternating chunks. Rabo is such a great artist that he abandons painting from life because it is not at all challenging for him. He can paint and draw so realistically that it looks perfect. So he becomes an abstract expressionist and becomes rich later in life because he is friends with a lot of other artists and would always help them out with their money problems in exchange for their art. They all become famous and his art collection is worth a ton of money. In his old age, when he no longer paints, he meets an old woman who is a writer, and she becomes his writing muse. She encourages him to write his memiors and he does. It is a fun story, that seems to have less dullness, but all the cookiness of Vonneguts other novels. I would compare it most closely to Deadeye Dick in that it follows one person's life very closely.

6. On Writing finished in July.
I had never read any Steven King before this book. I also do not read much nonfiction. This book however was a fun read because although I haven't read any Steven King before, I am aware of most of the books/movies that he has written. (I know that most of the adaptations for film are not written by him but you know what I mean) I liked this book because I enjoy writing and hope to write something worth reading some day. The thing that stuck with me most is that he says to try to cut out most of the adverbs, and that his opinion on writing is that you should come up with a concept then develop it through writing instead of outlining the hell out of it and making it very contrived. Quick and interesting read.

7. True Evil finished in August.
Got this book for Father's Day from my mom and dad. It was another page turner by Greg Iles. I enjoy the pace and setting of most of the Iles books that I have read, and this one fit right into his collection in those respects. Basically there is a doctor/serial killer who is using blood pathogens to kill people slowly and inconspicuously with different cancers. It was very interesting and seemed well researched, but came down to most of the characters ending up dead by the end. Kind of like an unrealistic shoot em' up movie.

8. Third Degree finished in August.
Continuing my Greg Iles kick I got this book used from the library for a dollar. It is about a character who is actually dying of inoperable cancer (cancer fixation Mr Iles?) and discovers that his wife is having an affair. He takes his whole family hostage until he can find out who the affair is with. Things get tense and the wife ends up with her husband dying and her getting together with her lover. It was kind of a love story/love triangle/suspense novel. Of course a number of characters were shot or blown up, but that is normal for an Iles novel.

9. Turning Angel finished in September

Another Greg Iles book in which a doctor is having an affair with a 17 year old who ends up dead. His lawyer/friend is working hard to get him off for the crime that he is the primary suspect for. It turns out that the whole town is tied together through infidelity and drugs and that the doctor was not guilty of the crime. 

10. London Bridges finished in October

A James Patterson book featuring detective Cross. It was an okay read but made a lot of allusions to older books that he had written, and that I had not read.

Maybe I will actually complete 12 books this year. Maybe my goal should ba a baker's dozen just to step it up. I haven't decided yet though. Maybe I will not set a reading goal, and just track it to see how I do anyway...yeah, that sounds better.

10 7 Reasons "How I Met Your Mother" Is My Favorite Sitcom

(in no particular order)

1. It is the only sitcom I watch. Just not that into sitcoms generally.

2. Nothing is just good, it is AWESOME! The characters use the word awesome all the time. It is an underutilized word and just seems to add a degree of excitement to anything it is used to describe.

3. High fives. Lots and lots of high fives and high fives are awesome!

4. Doogie Howser. Out of the closet, no longer on Broadway, and on this show. Click here for the Doogie Howser theme song.

5. Lame puns. So close to my own heart.

6. Barney the womanizer. I love this character. He is so innapropriate it is hilarious.

7. Have you met Ted? A game that Barney plays on the fly in which he embarrassingly and unexpectedly introduces women to his friend Ted by turning to them and saying, "Have you met Ted?"

So I don't have ten. I could only come up with seven, but that is quite a few reasons to watch a sitcom. Better reasons than, "It was on", or, "It is the highest rated sitcom on television and I didn't want to be out of the loop."

Renovations

I was talking to the guy that is "renovating" this house. I put renovating in quotes because the guy basically tore the whole house down and is building a new house. The portion of the house that is still standing is just the original bathroom. It was a house from 1915 that was under 600 square feet, and it will be about 2400 square feet when it is completed. The guy who owns it said that it would cost about $20,000 less for the permits for a renovation instead of officially building a whole new house. I had been wondering for months what the deal was with this little tiny building piece that was left standing when the house and garage were torn down. Now I know, and you do to.

It seems from my recent blog posts that I just wander around my neighborhood...I suppose I do.

Stupid Sign

I saw this sign when I was taking Diesel for a walk and the nerdiness took over. The result was this short film. Audio commentary done by me.

PETA is dumb

PETA had a good campaign going a few years ago with the "I'd rather go naked" ads with naked celebrities in them, but their latest flash-based atrocity is lame. Basically, it has you dress up Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in a bunch of clothes made up of bloodied animal parts. The clothes are ridiculous, like "Maimed Muskrat Mules"(shoes), "Strangled Skunk Sweater" and "Baby Bear Skin Bloomers." It is like a paper doll for each of them.





Addendum: I realize that if PETA was just trying to get peoples' attention they were successful and even got me to write about it here.

Montana: The Video

This year our annual "boys trip" was just Faizal, Adam, Paul and I in Montana.
What did we do?
We got groceries, ate Taco Bell, did push-ups, had some Herkey's Sammiches, went tubing, went wakeboarding, ate at Los Caporales, water skied, saw The Dark Knight, mountain biked, ate Mongolian food at HuHot, used Paul's pogo-stick, watched Jumper, set off fireworks, rode Kash's 50cc dirtbike, went to Glacier National Park, hit up Costco, went to Famous Dave's for BBQ, and watched Inside Man.
All in all, we had a great time!

Closing a Bank of America Savings Account

Simply go to the bank, show your photo ID, and tell them that you would like the account closed. They punch some buttons on the computer, give you the balance of your account in cash or a cashier's check, sign on the line and it is closed...unless you are me.

Trip one to the bank was at the end of January. After deciding to close the savings account I had opened for Isabella because it was earning virtually no interest. I believe the interest rate was .3% or something rediculous like that. I decided it would be better to just add a sub-account to my ING account to put her money in, which was making over 3% at the time. I had some other business to take care of at the bank so I had gone in and waited my turn to talk to a teller. I told her that I wanted to close the account and just have the balance transferred to my checking account. She asked why I was closing it, as she is probably directed to do, and I told her that B of A's rates were horrible. She agreed, gave me a slip that showed my balance of zero on the savings account, and my balance in my checking account which reflected the transfer of funds from the now closed account.

Through February and March the account still showed up when I logged into my online banking and ATM, so I looked at the account activity online. It showed that there was 1 cent paid into the account in February as interest, then it was removed, and that the account had a balance of zero dollars.

Trip two to the bank was in March. I calmly came into the bank and again waited my turn to talk to a teller. I told her that I had closed the account but that it was still open. After looking it up she discovered that there was "no closure code" put in when it was closed, which caused it to stay open, and then accrue a $2.99 maintanance fee for having too low of a balance. She called the manager over and he appologized for the error, informed me that the fee would be reversed, and assured me that the account would now be closed but would take a statement cycle before it was removed from the system. This seemed reasonable so I thanked them both and left.

The next statement cycle ended at the end of March and the account was still showing up. I thought that maybe since it was mid-cycle when I went in in March that I would give them April too for fixing the problem. April and May snuck by me. I was busy, cut me some slack! Come June, the account was still not gone. What did I have to do to get this dang account closed?

Trip three to the bank I was very frustrated and asked immediately to speak with the manager. I was informed that the manager was not in, but the assistant manager was, and that if I took a seat in one of the comfy chairs, she would be right with me.

I explained to this woman that I had tried to close this account twice and that it was still open. She said that there was no "close code" on it and got one of her lackies to call the help desk to figure out what the issue was. After about twenty minutes she told me that they would take care of it and that the account would probably be closed in 120 days. I told her that 120 days was not reasonable and that I wanted it closed as soon as possible. She sent an e-mail to whatever department might be able to close it sooner, but said that she was guaranteed a response back within 48 hours and that she would call me two days later to let me know what they said. I was irritated, but with her guarantee that she would call I left.

Trip four to the bank was on the third day after I had not recieved a call from the assistant manager when she said that she would call me. She saw me come in and I could tell that I instantly stressed her out. I told her that I wanted to talk to the real manager and not her. Of course, he wasn't there again. (Does that guy ever work?) She said that she didn't call because she passed the buck on to the manager and he should have called me but didn't. I said that this whole process has been rediculous and that I wanted her to get on the phone with whoever it takes to tell me exactly why the account was still open, what needed to be done to close it, and what date it would be closed by. 120 days was not an option. It had already been five months. She called someone at the tech department, and they couldn't tell her what the problem was. They suggested that she just close the account the old fashioned way by submitting the closure paperwork instead of finagling the computer system to "try" and close the account.

I was so irritated that I didn't even know what to do. She said that she would submit the paperwork and that in 3 days I could come in and see if it worked. How rediculous is it that she couldn't/wouldn't guarantee that the account would be closed? I made a plan to come in 3 days later, when she and the manager would both be working so that I could at least chew the ass of a slightly higher-up if this attempt failed.

Trip five to the bank and I ran into the assistant manager leaving as I got to the bank. She threw her hands up in the air as if I was mugging her and said, "It is closed! I have to go to a dentist appointment, but you can have the manager show you if you want. Bye."

I went to the ATM and finally the account didn't show up. I went home and it didn't show up in my online banking either. I am finally free...ahhh!

The Bearded Man

As is the tendency any time that I have more than 7 consecutive days off work, I have grown a beard. It is only at the 1 week mark, but I finally shaved my neck today to give it a little shape. I don't know how long I will keep it for, but it could be hair today, gone tomorrow.

Horrible joke....

June Wrap-Up

How did I do on my goals?

Run 60 miles FAILED

Finish Towel Rack Project FAILED

I ran only 52.9 miles so I failed that goal. Maybe my goal was too lofty, or maybe it was that I got lazy and only ran one day between the fourth and the eleventh. Normally this month I would try to achieve what I didn't last month, but I seem to have bruised(or otherwise injured) the side of my left leg and running or even walking hurts. It is swollen and I have been limping for a few days. It has hurt some for a couple weeks, and I did two five mile runs this month already on the first and third, but before I finished that second run, my leg/shin/foot was hurting really bad. It feels like it is getting better, but still is not good. I did ride my bike about 85 miles though last month, as well as go for that 9 mile hike with John and Carlos. So I wasn't just lazy, but still did not reach the set goal.

I did nothing on the Towel Rack Project this month. I talked about it a lot, but with the heat, and kids, and work, I just didn't make time to complete it. Hopefully I will finish it soon, and post some pictures of it on here.

I did keep up with my hundred pushups training and am now two weeks in. I don't know if I can do more pushups than I could before, but they definately feel easier.

This month I opted to not set any real goals. I have quite a todo list that I hope to do some damage on. Some things I have been meaning to do, and other projects that are part way, or barely started. I also want to make sure that I take time to enjoy my month off of work. After all, my summer vacation (even as short as it is this year) is what I work all year long for.

Get Your Swurl On

I stumbled upon a new website that is very cool. It is called Swurl. The concept is that many people have multiple accounts throughout the web that generate rss(real simple sindication) feeds, and that they can be gathered in one spot sort of like a feed reader. This would allow someone to see all the various things that I have been up to at one place. The coolest thing about it is the timeline feature in which it shows when things were updated on a calendar type of thing. It is probably pretty useless, but if you want to check mine out you can.

Check out my swurl!

Hitting the Trails

Saturday morning and I went for a 9 mile hike with my friends John and Carlos from work. We got an early start to beat the heat, and got to the trailhead at about 7am. We had driven up to Mt. Baldy village to hike the Icehouse Canyon trail, and with plenty of water packed, we started on the trail.

It was an easy couple miles to start, then got steeper and consisted of many switchbacks. It was 3.6 miles from the trailhead to "the saddle" which was kind of a groove in the ridge between two peaks. We could see down the north(I think it was north) slope from the saddle, and took a break to rest on a log and take a couple pictures. We decided that we were all still doing okay, and continued the upward trek a slightly steeper 9/10 of a mile to Timber Mountain.

At the top I signed the log book with our names and the date, just in case there was any question later as to whether we had made it or not. We took a couple more pictures and rested another few minutes while we enjoyed the 360 degree views of wilderness, and the 15 freeway off in the distance. We could see Silverwood lake, and on clearer days it is possible to see Catalina from where we were.

Heading back down was a pretty easy trip, as downhill usually is, and we even sped up our pace for fear that some of us might pee our pants if we didn't. I was using my new running watch to time our trip by using the lap timer to break up our times, but I still haven't figured out how to review the times yet. I do know that we covered a total of 9 miles, and that it took us 4hours 38 minutes total including our rests. We had a change in elevation from lowest point to highest of about 3500 feet.

Overall it was a good hike, and I look forward to spending a few more days during this summer break enjoying the mountains, which are so damn accessible from where I live, as time with friends, and excercise.

New Computer

For my birthday I got a fancy new computer. My parents were generous enough to buy my sister and I each one. I have already had a lot of fun setting it up. I am actually writing this on it right now.

I actually went and bought it on Sunday, but there was a problem with where the power cord plugs into it. There is a blue light that comes on when it is getting power from the outlet. Occasionally that light would turn off and I would have to wiggle the cord to get it to come back on. This created some anxiety for a couple of days because I was worried that I broke it, or that I may not be able to exchange it for a new one, or that I may have to send my 2 day old laptop to the manufacturer. Yesterday, I went to Best Buy and they exchanged it without issue. The only bad thing was that I had to start fresh with setting it up. I had already done all the initial setup and installed some software, but it definitely went faster the second time.

Now I am excited to set up a wireless network to get it mobile, and to figure out how to hook it up to the TV using an S-video cord to be able to watch my media on something other than a little monitor.

Story of Stuff

This is an interesting 20 minute video. If you have time, check it out. Warning! it will make you think.

The Story of Stuff

It discusses where all of our stuff comes from, and its environmental and social impacts as it moves through the cycle of consumption and disposal.

I am not a hippie!

100 Pushups

I found this website called hundredpushups.com in which it spells out a plan of workouts to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups in only 6 weeks. I have started doing pushups since I got back from China, partly inspired by Faizal's daily pushup routine, but haven't been consistent, and have not seen a lot of growth when it comes to the number that I can accomplish consecutively. The program consists of 3 workouts per week, in which you do five sets of pushups per workout with a 60 second pause between each set. For example, my first workout will be sets of 10, 10, 8, 6, and as many more as I can do for the fifth set. This first workout should be easy because I have been doing 50-60 each time do pushups, in two sets. Usually I would do about 30 followed by about 25 more. By the last workout of week six, I should do sets of 27, 23, 23, 20, and as many more as I can do for the fifth set. After this workout I should be able to do 100 consecutive pushups after a couple days of rest. I plan to start this plan on Monday and continue it with workouts on M, W, F for 6 weeks which would put my last workout on August 1st. I will attempt my 100 pushups on August 4th. If I feel confident that I will complete all 100 I may videotape it and put it on YouTube.

May Recap

May was a good month. With Julie off I was able to ride my bike to work most of the month. We also added little Olivia to our family, and I took a week off to help transition her into our life. It was a nice little preview of what my 6 WHOLE WEEKS (sarcasm)of summer vacation will be like....relaxing.

My goals seemed to be a little ambitious this month.

• I again blew my running goal out of the water by running 54.45 miles instead of my goal of only 40 miles. I even rode my bike over 80 miles just going to work and back.
  
• I successfully cut my coffee habit down to 1 cup per week. This month I have already digressed on that goal. I have had multiple cups some days, and none others, but probably an average over 1 cup per day.
• No desserts, candy, fries, soda, or booze. I consider myself as passing this one despite having frozen yogurt once, and a couple of breakfast pastries.
• Completing my China pictures and journal I did half way. I got my China pictures done, but didn't finish the journal.
• I made no progress on my family tree.
• I wanted to finish the Bourne Supremecy, but read only a few pages of it and am at about half way done.
  

As you can see from the sidebar I set a lofty running goal, but took it easy otherwise. It can be hard to get to stuff with a newborn and a 1 year old. You can also see that I am Twittering. You can check that out here. Twitter is kind of a micro blog where you can post to it via text message or on the web to answer the question, "What are you doing?" There are also a lot of social aspects to it that I am not using, but it is kind of fun to just send out quick updates on it.