The Geek's Classroom

Moving the Blog

2010-02-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the process of moving my blog to make the folks at blogger.com happy. If you cannot find this blog in the next couple of days, try visiting http://rmblog.eaglevista.net/

Wish me luck!

The Crazy People's Lost Schedule

2009-12-29T11:49:00.001-07:00

So, last night began our marathon of watching Lost. If you have nothing better to do, and want to try keeping up, please let us know, so we know who we can talk to.

A couple of notes: We wont be able to watch on Tuesdays, so our schedule does include 3 episodes of season 5 on Feb. 2nd. Also, the weekend of January 22nd, we know we won't be available to watch so you can adjust the schedule since you probably have 2 more days than us. (We are also taking New Year's Eve off.)

Finally, we won't be tying ourselves 100% to the schedule, so please know that we may watch 4 some nights so we can have more nights of just 2. But it is about a season a week....

Season 1

December 28

1 "Pilot: Part 1"

2 "Pilot: Part 2"

3 "Tabula Rasa"

December 29

4 "Walkabout"

5 "White Rabbit"

6 "House of the Rising Sun"

7 "The Moth"

December 30

8 "Confidence Man"

9 "Solitary"

10 "Raised by Another"

January 1

11 "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues"

12 "Whatever the Case May Be"

13 "Hearts and Minds"

January 2

14 "Special"

15 "Homecoming"

16 "Outlaws"

January 3

17 "…In Translation"

18 "Numbers"

19 "Deus Ex Machina"

January 4

20 "Do No Harm"

21 "The Greater Good"

22 "Born to Run"

January 5

23 "Exodus: Part 1"

24 "Exodus: Part 2"

25 "Exodus: Part 2"

Season 2

January 6

26 "Man of Science, Man of Faith"

27 "Adrift"

28 "Orientation"

January 7

29 "Everybody Hates Hugo"

30 "...And Found"

31 "Abandoned"

January 8

32 "The Other 48 Days"

33 "Collision"

34 "What Kate Did"

January 9

35 "The 23rd Psalm"

36 "The Hunting Party"

37 "Fire + Water"

January 10

38 "The Long Con"

39 "One of Them"

40 "Maternity Leave"

January 11

41 "The Whole Truth"

42 "Lockdown"

43 "Dave"

January 12

44 "S.O.S."

45 "Two for the Road"

46 "?"

January 13

47 "Three Minutes"

48 "Live Together, Die Alone"

49 "Live Together, Die Alone"

Season 3

January 14

50 "A Tale of Two Cities"

51 "The Glass Ballerina"

52 "Further Instructions"

January 15

53 "Every Man for Himself"

54 "The Cost of Living"

55 "I Do"

January 16

56 "Not in Portland"

57 "Flashes Before Your Eyes"

58 "Stranger in a Strange Land"

January 17

59 "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead"

60 "Enter 77"

61 "Par Avion"

January 18

62 "The Man from Tallahassee"

63 "Exposé"

64 "Left Behind"

January 19

65 "One of Us"

66 "Catch-22"

67 "D.O.C."

January 20

68 "The Brig"

69 "The Man Behind the Curtain"

70 "Greatest Hits"

January 21

71 "Through the Looking Glass"

72 "Through the Looking Glass"

Season 4

73 "The Beginning of the End"

January 24

74 "Confirmed Dead"

75 "The Economist"

January 25

76 "Eggtown"

77 "The Constant"

78 "The Other Woman"

January 26

79 "Ji Yeon"

80 "Meet Kevin Johnson"

81 "The Shape of Things to Come"

January 27

82 "Something Nice Back Home"

83 "Cabin Fever"

84 "There's No Place Like Home: Part 1"

January 28

85 "There's No Place Like Home: Part 2"

86 "There's No Place Like Home: Part 2"

Season 5

87 "Because You Left"

January 29

88 "The Lie"

89 "Jughead"

90 "The Little Prince"

January 30

91 "This Place Is Death"

92 "316"

93 "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

January 31

94 "LaFleur"

95 "Namaste"

96 "He's Our You"

February 1

97 "Whatever Happened, Happened"

98 "Dead Is Dead"

99 "Some Like It Hoth"

100 "The Variable"

February 2

101 "Follow the Leader"

102 "The Incident"

103 "The Incident"

Playing with Windows Live Writer

2009-10-02T18:44:00.001-06:00

I don't know if this will make my blog more fun and interesting, but I thought I'd give it a try! Don't expect that this will totally revive the blog, but it may. We shall see!

Why, why, why?

2009-03-08T22:11:00.001-06:00

Sorry for those of you that saw this on my Facebook post - I just really think that its worth mentioning....

Let's imagine that your boss told you to get to work by 6:00 just one day because he wanted to get out by 3:00 because he had a lot of things to do before sundown. Something tells me that 90% of America would tell this boss to go jump in a lake - and yet this is exactly what we do as a nation for the entire summer.

And, just curious, who exactly benefits from this that couldn't just get their own butt out of bed an hour earlier without interupting the rest of the world?

Accidents are up. Productivity is down. It doesn't save energy. And the whole farmers thing is just a crock. So, why do we really keep doing this?

Bad enough to blog

2009-01-19T21:00:00.001-07:00

I know that just about everybody has given up on my blog. I've primarily moved to Facebook. I hate Facebook more than Blogger, but that's a post for another day. Perhaps I will still use Blogger for the intellectual thoughts and Facebook for the Facebook-ish stuff. (Yes, that does imply that most everything on Facebook in non-intelligent.

Anyway....

To give a little background, I have been asked to do a training at a local high school as to how GPS/Geocaching/Waymarking/etc. can be used in the classroom. (I was specifically asked to teach on Geocaching - which really doesn't hold a lot of value for the general classroom - so I expanded it a little.) Well, the problem is that there are no Geocaches within a mile of the school. So, I went on Sunday to scout out a few locations. I had a couple of containers with me, so I placed some, but I wanted to give some options for my training sessions and so I scouted out a few additional locations where containers could be hidden as well.

When I posted the coordinates where I had hid the containers to the Geocaching web site, it was suggested to me that one of my containers was a little too close to the playground equipment - that people looking for the container might look suspiscious. They were right - the container was actually on the playground equiment and I didn't really think about how that might look.

Also, over the weekend, I was informed that one of my geocaches had been raided. Interestingly enough, all that I think was stolen was the log-book. The person that found it put it back together and actually placed it back exactly where it was supposed to go. (I guess the coordinates must be pretty spot-on.)

So, I went out today with a friend to do some caching and also finish placing some caches, do some maintanance and of course move the container from off the playground equipment. Well, adding the log book to the raided cache went well enough - just frustrating that somebody would do something so stupid.

But when we got to the park near the school, things went from bad to worse. When I went to pull the original container off of the playground equipment, it was gone. So, since it was a brand new container, my friend and I did some digging around. As the folks from the Geocaching web site suggested, this got some attention from other people who were watching their kids at the playground. After not too long, we gave up assuming that it was gone. We went to place another cache in a location that I had already scouted out while thinking about where else in the park I could place another container to replace the one from the playground.

Well, we ended up back near the playground at some picnic benchs. While we visually scanned the area for a place to hide a container. We noticed that there was a lady that was looking at us kind of funny, but we had done a few odd things since we got to the park - digging around under some playground equipment and then walking to a rock in the middle of a field and walked back, but nothing that I would consider to catch anybody's attention.

So, I finally found a place to hide the container, but we needed to get the GPS coordinates for the location and also place it without this lady really seeing what we were doing, so we sat there a while longer. Finally we were successful. We got in my car, the lady seemed to have moved on - was now talking to somebody on her cell phone, so we looked up a place to go look for a cache and headed off.

About 1/4 mile from the park we passed by a police car. He immediately turns on his lights and flips a U behind us. I roll down my window and wait and the officer asks me to please step out of the car and keep my hands where he can see them. So, after explaining the sport of Geocaching to him, giving him my information, etc. he realizes that it was innocent fun - and also seems a little interested in learning more. We finally head on our way, the officer heads to the park presumably to calm down a lady who had seemingly worked herself into a fairly tight spin.

So, then at home, I'm still sort of processing my day, and I decide to go attempt a quick fix on our bathroom drain, which of course completely busts through - not the tub, just the drain, so we aren't looking at completely replacing the bathtub, thankfully.

Well, thanks to my introvert tendancies added to a flustering day that I am trying to get my head around - my wife is getting increasingly frustrated trying to ask about my dinner preferences - which at that point, I really don't care, but she is convinced will somehow improve my outlook on the world. Of course the only restaurant that I can think of that might do anything near the magic that my sweet wife is hoping for is Benihana's.

So, after spending a lot of money on a very fun and very long dinner, I think I can get my head started working again to get through a new day.

Inching toward Netflix

2008-09-20T07:10:00.004-06:00

Well, Blockbuster and I are no longer getting along.

The first irritation was more my fault and so I was a little more accepting - I let a gift card sit too long and they decided to wipe it clean. It's their policy - a well stated policy - but a policy that states that money is more important than the client relationship and trust. I through away my membership card on that one - so I'm already pretty much done. I figured that this was a personal decision - it was mostly my fault and so no sense to blog it....

However, this week, I was receiving 60 to 100 spams a minute for several hours from an email address that I only ever gave to Blockbuster. (Sometimes it's nice to have your own email server.) I know that Blockbuster is struggling to stay alive, but to sell email addresses is a very poor business decision.

I'm really liking the Netflix/XBox partnership that has begun this month. The only struggle is value - obviously we don't rent that many movies....

Things that make you go hmmmm....

2008-07-02T09:44:00.004-06:00

Last week, I was thinking through the upcoming election and realized there is a slogan that we can ALL agree on:

Dems in '08 - The Great Obama Nation!

If somebody finds or wants to design a shirt for the convention, I would be happy to buy one. (Please note: I can't buy one from everybody, but I would like to have one.)

Of course any time to come up with something cute and quippy, you can search the internet and realize that it is not a unique idea, but oh well....

I'm now "ranked"

2008-06-26T21:13:00.003-06:00

On June 22nd (my anniversary by the way), my sweet lady went with me to a "Geocaching Event". Not the most exciting time, but they are starting to grow on me. The event happened to be my 200th cache. Which means that I am now officially "ranked" in the Geocaching world. I am currently 498th in the state, 22,888th in the nation, and 37,971st in the world.

Let's just say I have a long way to go. :) In case you want to get me a gift, here's a suggestion - unfortunately, they're not for sale.

An update

2008-06-17T18:21:00.003-06:00

So, I know it's not earth shattering, but in case you've been wondering what I've been up to....

I was really close to getting a perfect 5280, but I accidentally got 2 achievements at the same time and overshot. Luckily Viva Pinata: Party Animals, a perfect 6000 wasn't too far away. (And thanks to silly games like Yaris, 5 point achievements still exist in the world.)

Well, I think I knew that before the test...

2008-04-18T20:54:00.000-06:00

Which Lost Character Are You?

More on Lost. Created by BuddyTV

I got a rock

2008-03-28T17:41:00.003-06:00

So, today I turned 37, and I got a rock...

Well, it's what I asked for and it's a geocaching rock...

Thanks fam for a great day!

Today in History

2008-03-04T19:40:00.003-07:00

1966 John Lennon says "We (Beatles) are more popular than Jesus"

Ironically nobody has to ask, "Jesus who?"

1950: Walt Disney's feature-length animated motion picture Cinderella is released.

She doesn't look a day over 20.

"To observe and collect"

2008-02-03T14:36:00.001-07:00

I'm not normally one to bash police officers just for the sake of doing so. Being in public service myself, I know that it is impossible to do everything that the public eye thinks that we should. However, I have had two frustrating experiences in the last week that I think are noteworthy - teachable moments for the kids, that didn't quite work the direction that I would have hoped.

First of all, I am that guy that drives the speed limit. I don't do it in the fast lane because before I was convicted of wanting to obey this law, I remembered how annoying it was when I was in a hurry and some dimwitted knucklehead (that would be me - now) was driving the speed limit in the fast lane. (Please note: I have posted on speed limits before.)

So anyway, the other day when I was driving 8-over with the kids in the back (along a stretch that I don't normally drive - and, as the officer even admitted, down a hill), I had hoped to be let off with just a warning. I was staying with the pace of traffic and not really endangering anybody. So, instead of being able to teach my children about how the athorities are out to catch the bad guys who are out there trying to hurt us, I got to teach them about taking consequences for wrongful acts. (Which kinda makes it so that I can't plea bargin the ticket with a clear conscience.)

I decided to take that one in stride and not whine about it. However, last night I had another potential run-in, again with the hopes of teaching my children that authority is there to help our communities be better for all of us.

Last night I was parked by the side of the road with my family - geocaching if you must know - and ended up with a dead battery. (I had shut the car off while I went on my search and left the radio, lights and heater on for my family who stayed in the car.) So anyway, I decided to open my hood and get out jumper cables so that I nice passer-by might quickly assess the scenario and decide that it would not be a major inconvenience to stop and help. The first car to come by after the stage was set, was a police car. I made eye contact with both the driver and the passenger (in the front seat, not the back) and he drove right on by. Luckily, the truck that followed behind and saw that I was just dis'd by a police officer decided to stop and help.

So, hopefully soon, I will have a run-in with another public servant who can help my children see that they are the good guys. I just hope that it is not due to a crime with a direct, negative effect on me.

Some more movie reviews...

2008-01-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

Over the break, I did get an opportunity to see several movies. I have a few comments to make about some of them.

National Treasure 2: I really liked it. I did like Riley Poole's role in the first one a lot better. Probably because I connected with his character a little more. Possibly because he gave in a bought a Mac.... My one major comment: If you buy the 32-ounce Coke, visit the restroom around the time that you go west of the Mississippi. There's a LOT of water in the last hour of this movie....

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Enjoyable. Although it was done really well, I love these stories - I know it's cliche, but the books are better. I do like their casting for Trillian. To quote the Commentary on the DVD: "Those eyes! C'mon they were made for each other...." And a personal quote that I use a lot that I think I must have picked up from this movie the first time that I saw it: "It's the best I could do at short notice."

Life Stinks: Really, really, really good. This might be in my favorite movies of all time. (Along with The Princess Bride, L.A. Story, Better Off Dead, and Scrooged - in case you cared.) I saw this movie in the theater back in '91 - it was as good as I remembered. I had to introduce the wife to this one - she didn't believe me that a Mel Brooks movie entitled Life Stinks would be worth seeing at all. I tried to tell her that it would be a good one for new years, but she didn't go for it, now she wishes she had. (Hitchhiker's won that vote...) It's not at all a traditional Mel Brooks movie - that's why it's not in any collections - it's also why it is so hard to find - nobody saw the movie the first time and nobody knows that they want to see it now. I wanted to put in my favorite quotes, but I couldn't do it without ruining the movie. It's worth seeing and, naturally, it really resonates if you are already a pessimist.

Alan Menken Redeemed

2007-12-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

I loved Alan Menken's work in The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. In subsequent movies where he worked with Tim Rice, it became more obvious to me that I liked Howard Ashman more than I actually liked Alan Menken.

This was confirmed to me when I saw the theatrical version of Beauty and the Beast in which Alan made a few musical changes. Since I know the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack so well, the changes were painfully obvious to me. The first act I actually liked better than the movie and at the intermission, I even made a few comments to people that I think that Menken has possibly redeemed himself. The second act however confirmed to me that I really don't like Menken's musical style.

Tonight I went to Enchanted. This soundtrack has totally redeemed Alan Menken in my mind. It was so good that I did not even consider that he could have been involved until his name showed up in the end credits.

The best song on the soundtrack, That's How You Know, almost ranked him up there with with Hans Zimmer - well almost. Unfortunately, Alan has Home Alone 2 smeared across his resume - and that's going to take a lot of really good writing to cover up.

Common sense?

2007-11-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

ICYC - bubble gum and beards don't mix. Funny what you don't think of after 15 to 20 years of not chewing gum....

Scams and Viruses

2007-11-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

I received the following scam alert yesterday and knew that I needed to make sure that everyone had heard it! (As a bonus, I also attached a virus alert that you need to pay attention to in case you haven't heard about it yet!)

I hate it when people forward bogus warnings, and I have even done it myself a couple times unintentionally... but this one is real, and it's important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list.

If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! THIS IS A SCAM!! They only want to see you naked.

I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid.

If you receive an e-mail with a subject of Badtimes, delete it immediately WITHOUT READING IT. This is the most DANGEROUS e-mail virus ever.

It will rewrite your hard drive and scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your freezer's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your VCR, and use subspace field harmonics to render any CDs you try to play unreadable.

It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend/ex-husband/wife your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its socks out on the coffee table when company comes over. It will put a kitten in the back pocket of your good suit and hide your car keys when you are late for work.

Badtimes will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Visa card.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will tease your dog. It will leave strange messages on your boss's voicemail in your voice. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of methamphetamine in your bathtub and leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase high school kids with your snowblower.

These are just a few of the signs. Be very, very afraid!

Consider yourself warned. And be careful out there!

Some of you may appreciate this....

2007-11-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

I was sent to watch this in August and I'm still laughing at it, so I guess that I need to post it.

I realize that it makes very little sense to the non-classical-musically minded among us, but to somebody who once played Pachelbel's canon on tuba (the tuba part for the band is the same as the cello part for orchestra), I can very much appreciate this.

I love going to weddings and hearing the brides who are so excited about how they chose Pachelbel's Canon in D instead of something more traditional. I think I've heard Pachelbel at every wedding I've been to but my own.... (At least at the reception...)

This morning in worship, we sang Brad Kilman's "We are Hungry". I started laughing so hard, I almost had to leave the room.

Adding Insult to Injury

2007-11-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, my sweet bride shared with several people that I was injured and made up this really neat story of how I fell into a ravine. So, now as people are asking me about my huge injury, I get to explain that the "ravine" was about an inch, maybe two, high. Basically, I tripped and it laid me up for 2 days.

From bad to worse...

2007-11-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I sustained what is most likely my first ever sports injury. Since geocaching is a non-contact sport, I figured the probability was lower, but obviously not at zero.

So, I have a sprained ankle, and I’m trying to determine if there is a fracture.

In the process of trying to lessen the swelling, I got to prove my allergy to Advil.

And so I also can’t see very well since my eyes are swollen shut.

Halo Flu - a month late...

2007-10-23T16:25:00.000-06:00

So, for the last month or so, I've been working my way through Halo's 1 and 2 in preparation for the release of Halo 3. One of the things I like about the Halo series is that it's not a "kill everything that moves" game - there's actually a plot. I wanted to catch up on the story line before I got moving. I remembered most of the plot of 1, but since I had a one-year-old around the house when Halo 2 came out I wasn't able to play it at full volume and missed some of the story. I still have small kids in the house, but I figured out a way to hook headphones up to my 360. When it came to replaying the games, I knew that I wasn't in a hurry to finish because I wasn't going to be able to get Halo 3 until Christmas anyway.

Well, Wednesday of last week, I received a copy of Halo 3 mailed to me in an unmarked envelope. A gift I do appreciate (in case the random gifter reads my blog - you can consider this post to also be my thank you note), but it gave me a bit more incentive to finish Halo 2.

Well, I finished Halo 2 last night. Then I got "sick". My wife said that the smells eminating from the bathroom and passing out around midnight were convincing enough to take a day off from work.

So, I got to play a while today. My favorite part so far is a little Easter Egg that I found wandering down a random hallway. Two characters with voices STRIKINGLY similar to Simmons and Caboose on Red vs Blue arguing over knowing the password necessary to open a door. I got myself clobbered just so that I could share the moment with Melissa.

So, a geek walks into an REI...

2007-09-21T14:26:00.000-06:00

Ya know... Certain people just don't "fit" certain stores. A guy just can't walk into a Victoria's Secret. And a chubby, white-n-nerdy just can't walk into an REI. You could just see everybody looking at me placing their bets - is he going to get a gift card or is he going for the GPS area?

Anyway, I'm now the proud owner of an eTrex Legend.

Merry Christmas to me! And thanks dad....

Well, they found me....

2007-08-12T21:56:00.000-06:00

In the last 24 hours, I have received 3435 spam emails. I think I might need to make some changes. Only about 20 weren't filtered out. I must say that I do like Outlook 2007.

Not sure what to think yet...

2007-07-14T22:10:00.000-06:00

Found 3 today, but did not get to mark one, as the person enabling my new potential addiction is a premium member and so I don't have access to add one to my official count.

So, I read somewhere...

2007-07-10T16:42:00.000-06:00

So I've been reading some books recently (Mind Hacks and Mind Wide Open since it is necessary due to the nature of this post) about the nature of the mind. One of the biggest things that I have learned about is the problem of source confusion and false memories. Boiling it down, here's the real problem: I use the phrase "I read somewhere" more often than I should, and I trust people who use the phrase "I read somewhere" much more than I should.

So why is this a problem? When learning new information, your mind makes connections with previous information. If you read something or hear something from a unreliable source (or even better, you hear half of something while you are flipping channels), and then something else from some source (either reliable or unreliable), your brain begins to synthesize this ideas into new thoughts. Well, here's the core of the problem: That new thought might be total garbage because a garbage source was used in its development.

What I have learned through reading the books mentioned above, as it has processed and connected with a few other experiences recently, is that I have lots of garbage in my mind that is scaffolding for lots of other garbage - and I have no idea what the original sources are for quite a bit of this information. ("Somewhere" and second-hand "somewhere".)

So, how much of whever is in my mind reliable? Do I need to start completely over? Obviously, I can't just throw away 35 years of knowledge and memories. I also have a large amount of practical knowledge that I didn't learn from books or from classroom settings that I feel that I can rely on because I learned by doing and that "doing" works (such as computer programming and breathing).

I think that several people in the world also need some mental housekeeping. How many of our convictions are based on things that we were taught and that we have never actually convinced ourselves of?