Conan O'Brien

Like Colt McCoy, Conan O'Brien showed some amazing class and character at a very difficult time. Here is his speech given in his final moments as the host of the Tonight Show.

Microsoft Office 2007 Update

After months of giving Microsoft Office 2007 a chance and doing my best to learn how to use their stupid new settings....it still sucks. Clearly Microsoft decided that its users are idiots and the only way they can operate software is if the software can actually guess what the user will do. They constantly force their own formatting while making it extremely difficult to find "advanced" settings to change things. For example I have spent the last 20 minutes trying to add error bars to a plot...simple error bars. After trying to find info in the help I finally gave up and just decided to click on every tab available. Finally I found a button that said "error bars". Phew, finally the saga was going to be over...oh wait, for some reason it doesn't comprehend why someone won't want to put horizontal error bars. Furthermore, they don't even give me an option of how to specify how large they should be...they simply add vertical error bars that stretch between each point. If you haven't begun to waste your life trying to figure out Microsoft Office 2007 I highly recommend you go and find a different software package to use...it is garbage. I've decided to continuously send message to Microsoft reiterating how they completely failed at their "improvements" to the program.

Ok, rant over...I'll get back to work now.

Colt McCoy

I've never been much of a fan of Texas and as a result I haven't paid any attention to Colt McCoy during is rather successful college career. However, I caught this interview of him after the National Championship game where his team lost and he was knocked out of the game in the first quarter. There are three things that impress me (1) he clearly cares that he didn't get to play but kept himself under control, (2) he's a Christian and apparently a mature one that understands that he is part of a bigger plan, and (3) he showed great respect for the champions (Alabama) never taking anything away from their victory because of his injury. Colt, you were a great example here...well done.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I recently became interested in searching for some covers of Nirvana songs, but this has proved to be a bit more challenging then I had anticipated. The problem is that today's youth have no idea why my generation liked Nirvana, but they know that they were something great. Unfortunately they were great not for any talent (poor singing and basic guitar playing), but because Cobain but such raw emotion into his songs and made songs that were for the most part nothing like anything else that was out there at the time. As a result if I go to YouTube and search for covers of Nirvana songs it's an endless supply of kids playing and singing exactly like Cobain did (or worse), which is nothing special. However, thanks to 107.1's Acoustic Brunch I have found a sweet cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit by Rhythms del Mundo featuring Shanade. If nothing else at least Rey should enjoy this.

Happy New Year

Thanks to an infection (we believe) in a cut between two of my teeth that became incredibly painful on Dec. 31 we rang in the new year at home. I don't think either of us were too disappointed, but we did want to hangout with our friends. Fortunately a few hours before midnight the medicine we got from the doctors kicked in and the pain in my mouth finally went away. Thus allowing us to celebrate the new year in style.

Style = sparkling wing, cheese & crackers, penicillin, and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.

Oh...don't forget the summer sausage.

Yeah, that makes for a fun evening.

Go ahead Dick Clark...welcome me to yet another year.

Christmas 2009 - Part 2

The second half of our Christmas vacation was spent in Pigeon with my parents. Once again the primary focus was on relaxation, but we squeezed in a few other activities. We went to church, played Sequence (congrats mom on winning the championship), went to the movies, did Jillian Michaels' workout, hung with family, went to my dad's uncle's 90th birthday party, toured my dad's future office, and opened some gifts (round 2). This time I only have pictures from when we got home from church.

Us all dressed up for our first Christmas as a married couple.

The parents looking sharp.

We decided to get some photos of me looking distinguished.

I wasn't sure what pose to use.

I think I'm getting farther away from the goal.

Christmas 2009 - Part 1

The first part of our Christmas vacation was spent up north with Dem's family. The number one thing we did was relax...which we both enjoy very much and are plenty deserving after a busy year. We played games, did stupid Jillian Michaels' 30-day workout (its actually really good), hung with her family, and obviously opened some gifts. I only have pictures of the opening of gifts.

Dem excited about opening one of her gifts...I think that is what the look is.

Cal (the dog) got a chance to open up his gift....plus attempt to open up other's gifts as well.

By the end Cal was pretty tired.