Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it....D'oh!

Weather forecasters seem to be correct when their predictions involve weather I do not like (for example, 100 degrees and high humidity) and incorrect when they are predicting weather conditions I would very much enjoy (e.g., large accumulations of snow). As it so often happens (in my mind, the weather forecasters are all dead-set against me), the snow forcast was for the southern metro to get a small amount and for the northern metro to miss out altogether. Of course, their prediction was 100 percent correct! We didn't get any snow at home, while down here in E.P. there is about an inch of snow on the ground. Well, at least I get to look out the window at work and see a nice blanket of snow.

Winter Soon

For some reason I've had an aversion to posting anything on here lately. I went through the entire month of October with no posts at all, although I did manage to post on the holiday blog (http://bardenholidays.blogspot.com). Last week was a typical Minnesota fall week. It started with temps in the 70's and finished with about an inch of snow. Now that I've seen snow, I'm switching into my winter mode, which means I want more snow so I can get Zach out to the hill to try skiing. I talked to him about it and he said he didn't want to try. But I think I'll try to talk him into going at least once to make sure he doesn't have an interest. (I sure hope he does!) I'm pretty disappointed that Alec can't go. He seems to like sledding somewhat more than Zach and I'm sure he would like skiing if he could try it. Alec had an appointment with his hematologist, Dr. Messinger, last week. I had Angie ask him if it would be alright for Alec to try skiing. He said it was too dangerous. (I think it's no more dangerous than riding a bike, but whatever...) If I get Zach into it, I'll probably get helmets for both of us.

On Saturday morning, I took the two older boys to Lowe's to the kids craft time. They give the kids a craft kit (this week it was a wooden semi truck w/ a race car) that they assemble using a hammer and tacks. The kids also get an apron and goggles to wear while they are building their "project." The best part about it is it doesn't cost a dime! I think we'll probably do it on a fairly regular basis, especially now that the cold weather is setting in and it's a good way to get out of the house. Overall, they had a good first time experience. I gets somewhat loud because of all of the little hammers pounding on the tacks. Alec started getting bugged out at one point because of the noise. I think I might bring some earplugs for him next time.

Unofficial End of Summer

It's amazing how fast this summer went by. The pool is down and packed away for the year and the yard has a scattering of dead leaves. Before long, the leaves will start to turn.

Today was the first day of school. Unfortunately, I didn't plan well so I didn't get a chance to film anything for another first-day-of-school video. However, I'm looking forward to getting home this afternoon to see how the first day of school went. I talked to Angie and she said it feels strange not having the older two boys there. I'm sure she'll adjust to it after a few outings with only Sam. And of course, the alone time she'll have when he's down for his afternoon nap.

With the rain we're getting today, I'm sure I'll be mowing the lawn this week. Also in my I.P.I.T. for the next couple of weeks are replacing my passenger-side axle, checking the noise in my driver-side front wheel, and checking the brakes on the van. And as always, I've got a mile-long list of things to do around the house.

Wide Eyed Wonder

While I was heading out the door for work this morning, I had an old Choir song in my head so I grabbed my old Wide Eyed Wonder CD by The Choir and listened to it on my way to work. Like so much of the Choir's music, it is moody and haunting at times, but also very thought-provoking.

Wide Eyed Wonder is the first Choir album I ever owned. I first bought the tape, but I now have the CD (although I don't remember where I got it). It was released almost 20 years ago now (1989), which makes me feel pretty old! In terms of the music, it's some of the best alternative ("Christian" or not) you can get from that era. I am definitely biased since it's what I grew up on. Still, I would reccommend it to anyone. There is a copy available on eBay right now.

Busy Week

This week has been not a little bit out of the ordinary. Angie was out of town from Friday, August 1st until last Friday. She went up to Sup. for her cousin Kelly's baby shower, and then ended up staying because her Mom had major surgery. The van also broke down so she would have had a hard time coming back w/o a car.

I was here with Alec and Zach until Wednesday, when they went up with their Grandma to visit with Phil and Eva and baby Avery. Thursday I managed to get the lawn mowed and tried vacuuming out the scum from the pool because of my previous neglect of it.

Unfortunately, it looks like we might have to drain it out for the year. I'm going to have one more shot at cleaning it out tonight.

Angie's Mom is in ICU from her colon surgery. We're hoping and praying she will be though the worst by later this week.

The van is working now that the head gasket has been replaced (to the tune of $1500!!! - that would have been a nice flat screen TV...)

Alec is off his Seraquel and doing great!!! This is a huge relief for both Angie and I. We were really not keen on having him on anti-psychotic meds since he's just a kid. We're thanking God and continuing to pray for him in this regard.

Angie's Grandma Shoe and Aunt Wendy are down for a buying show. They stayed over last night and might stay again tonight.

First Day of School 2007 - Video

I made this video last year and I figured I should post it since it would otherwise not see the light of day. This was Zach's first day of kindergarten and Alec's first day of second grade.

Amp

I was out at American Guitar and Band a few weeks ago with my friend Tom and got a chance to play an Orange Tiny Terror. When these came out, I was very interested in getting one because of their size (very small) and because they are all tube and made by Orange. Up until playing the Tiny Terror at AGB, I had never played an Orange (tube or otherwise) and like any guitar player would tell you, you should never buy an amp (or guitar for that matter) without playing it first.

Well, I'm hooked! The thing sounds great! I plugged in a standard American Telecaster, which is what I have, and tried the clean and gain on it and they both sounded amazing. The TT was hooked up to a Mesa Boogie cabinet. I think it was probably a 1x12", so the entire set up was very compact. But it really rocks - even on the 7 watt setting it can get really loud - so I'm sure it would do fine in a church setting.

Now I just need to sell my Classic 30 and raise some funds to make the purchase. The TT sells for around $500. The Mesa cab they had it set up with was another $400, I believe. So...yeah...that's getting up into the difficult-to-explain-to-Angie-why-I-need-to-buy-it price range :0)

What can I say? If you want tone, you have to pay for it.


Orange Amps

Short Grass, Tall Pool

Between Angie and I, we managed to get the entire lawn mowed and weed-trimmed on Saturday. Friday after I got home from work, we ate and then took the boys over to Sam's Club to pick up the new pool. This one is HUGE compared to our other one. It's 16 feet by 48 inches deep. According to the front of the box, it should have been "ready for water in 45 minutes!"...yeah, right! How about 2 hours or so! It's got metal poles that connect together to form the perimeter and legs that attach. After finally getting that all assembled, we had to put the ladder together so I could get in and flatten the bottom out. Finally got the water going at about 8. It took about 12 hours to fill the thing up (it holds about 5000 gallons of water). We've been running the filter non-stop to try to get the iron out of the water. After running the filter for two days and cleaning it out twice a day or so, you can still only see about 4 inches down into the water. (our water has a LOT of iron in it).

It is definitely going to be fun once the water gets cleaned up and warmed up. Then we'll just need some warmer weather.

The Weekend is Starting

I've been fairly tired over the past few days. Angie took the boys to the doctor yesterday, because they have been seeming tired, too. The dr. suggested that they could have allergies. So we're getting prescriptions for nasal spray (the same stuff I normally take in the fall). I hope this makes a difference for them. Alec has been having minor nosebleeds at night, too, which could be related.

I've been waking up early the last couple of days. It's interesting...I really like getting up early - not that it's easy, I usually hit snooze at least once on my alarm. But the last couple of days, I've actually waken up before my alarm. I'm trying to get on more of a schedule, and I've been reading through the N.T. and am following a reading track to get me through the entire Bible by next June. I'm looking forward to being able to say I've actually read through the entire Bible. In the past I've listened through the entire N.T. probably three times using the tapes I have. But the challenge for me has been getting through some of the O.T. books. I have a while before I get there because the reading track I'm doing is N.T first, then O.T. So I think maybe I will have more success because I'll have been sticking to the reading for quite some time before I get to some of the more laborious volumes :0)

I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend (as always). The lawn needs to be mowed, very badly, and I think we're going to go out and buy a new pool, since our old one is full of mouse holes from being left out in the shed...

Sunset Point

Skipping along the water,
Skimming the surface,
The woosh of air streaming past my ears,
The faint sound of music
In my head.
The hum of the motor,
The thump of aluminum,
The chill of late summer morning,
Mist on the lake.
This is the glad memory
Of days gone by
Being with loved ones
Passing the time
Forgetting worries.

HTML Form Post

HTML Forms

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I've never used HTML forms in a website before. Actually, I just learned about them a few weeks ago when I was reading an HTML tutorial on w3schools.com. I've always wondered how much work it was to create pages with controls like buttons and text fields. I guess it really is quite simple using HTML forms.

Here are some examples:

Some radio buttons on a form:

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Honda
Acura

Some checkboxes on a form:

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Bike
Car
Airplane

There is much more you can do with forms, but I need to get back to work and earn more money!

- Later

CSS Post

CSS

I tried writing a post using a style tag to define some CSS selectors, but that didn't work. I can use inline styles to get the same results, which I did for the title above.

This is a table with some inline styles	This cell has a cool border
Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah

Post for Posts Sake!

Me blogger, me post. That is a what a caveman would write on his blog (if such a person ever existed). I don't doubt that people have lived in caves. Remember Tom Hanks on Cast Away? Or King David? I just am not persuaded that homo habilis proves that cavemen existed. I don't think anyone without a vested interest in a purely naturalistic theory of origins would settle for part of a skull.

I don't follow the logic that says if you observe changes in the wings of fruit flies in a few generations, then give it a few million generations and you'll get people! More probably you'll either get fruit flies with different wings, or fruit flies with longer legs, or maybe even fruit flies that look just like the fruit flies you started with.

With that waste of a couple of paragraphs of thought, I will turn to more interesting things. Back to the web!

I've been reading over some tutorials on CSS and a bit of HTML and JavaScript. I did manage to learn some CSS, which I'm finding is pretty cool. For example:

Check this out!

THIS IS SPACEY

Normal text, right justified

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Some great tutorials can be found on w3schools. It's good stuff for beginners or people like me who haven't written any HTML since the college days.

Thats it for now.

WWW TLA

Acronyms abound when you're talking about the web and it's host of technologies. So I determined to keep a list of acronyms I come across that seem to be on the horizon (at least in my world) as I delve into the dim and misty world of web development. This post will be evolving as I go and I hope to use it to help keep me sane.

In no particular order (other than how I come across them):
SOA - Service oriented architecture (http://blogs.zdnet.com/service-oriented/?p=483&tag=btxcsim)
AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (http://blogs.zdnet.com/service-oriented/?p=483&tag=btxcsim)
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets (http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp)
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language (Just Google it)
XML - Extensible Markup Language (Just Google it)

Do Your Homework

The title of this post is especially fitting since it's something I didn't do when I first made my new years resolution. The thing is, while it's not a bad idea to have a Minnesota Residential Remodeler's license, I don't need one. In fact, I can't get one without incorporating.

First of all, even if I was incorporated, I wouldn't need a license until my receipts totaled in the tens of thousands. My receipts are currently $0 since I haven't done work for anyone else and received payment.

Secondly, a license is granted to a corporation, not an individual. Since I don't have any intention of incorporating right now, I'm not in a position to apply for a license.

If I would have checked into this before my first blog posts, I would have come up with a completely different resolution. But...live and learn. The next step is to go back and figure out a new resolution. But before I do that, I need to refine my original steps. What I need to do is make a step zero. Step zero is "Do your homework."

Really, you could roll that into step one. Part of coming up with a goal is to determine the legitimacy of what you're trying to attain. While the idea of getting a residential remodeler's license is not necessarily illegitimate; rather, for certain reasons it is simply not doable for me.

A Goal and a Plan

In the last post, I wrote about what seems to be a good way to break down the elements of a successful new years resolution. It's not enough to just make a vague resolution. You need to start with a well-defined goal, and then set up a plan to get to that goal.

The Goal
My goal for this year is to get my Minnsota residential remodeler's license. Since I've been living here in Corcoran for the last five years, I've done quite a bit of remodeling. I've finished (mostly) the basement, redone two bathrooms and (almost) built an addition. (Should be done soon...) Also, I've helped my Dad finish his basement in his townhome. So over the past five years, I've learned quite a bit about framing, electrical, plumbing, drywall, etc.

The goal has been stated. I think it's clear enough that it doesn't need any additional description. To follow the advice of my first blog post, the next step is to formulate a plan.

Planning to Plan
At this stage, I'll begin to identify incremental steps to get me to the goal. Right now, it seems kind of lame to write all of this down. But since I want to have something I can look back on in retrospect, whether or not I actually accomplish the goal, I'll continue.

Just like you need a well-defined goal, you also need a well-defined plan to get to that goal. Ok, so if your goal is to get out of bed and have a bowl of cereal, you can probably handle that without writing down all of the individual steps (1. set the alarm, 2. don't hit snooze, 3. get out of bed, 4. go into the kitchen, 5. get a bowl out of the cupboard, 6. get a spoon out of the drawer, etc.) It's something you do every day, so it comes naturally. One of the first steps in planning is to understand what the prerequisites for the goal are. If I'm going to have a bowl of cereal, I'm going to need milk, cereal, bowl and spoon, and I'm going to need to get out of bed and gather all of these things together.

I think a good way of understanding the prerequisites is to start at the end result and work backwards. I'm not going to put my plan together tonight, but I'll just review the goal and identify the most notable immediate prerequisite to my goal.

Goal: Obtain MN residential remodelers license
Website: http://www.doli.state.mn.us/rbc_remlic.html

Happy 2008

The new year has been here now for seven days. As with most new year occurrences, I have made an "unofficial" resolution. Last year, I wrote in my MySpace blog that new years resolutions are meant to be broken; they don't really last and therefore are not of much value. So last year my resolution (yes, even after the diatribe I had against them) was to make a daily resolution to forget the past and continue looking forward. (I think that was the gist of it) Of course, looking back over the last 365 days, I can't say I kept that resolution either.

So this year, I'm changing my mind. I don't think new years resolutions are useless. It's just that one shouldn't make some half-hearted determination once a year and then forget about it. Or worse, when it fails give it up until next year.

Define a Goal
I decided that the best way to keep a resolution is to actually have it be something you latch on to by making it a part of your daily life. That would mean to take the abstract idea and make it into something concrete that exists in the real world. An example would be if my resolution was to lose weight. That idea is abstract. How much weight do you want to lose? Twenty pounds? That's at least more defined. The first step into taking the abstract idea and making it a reality is to define it in exact terms; to make it into a goal you can actually determine whether or not you met. "I want to lose 25 pounds by December 31st" is a fully described goal. When you get to December 31st, you will know whether or not you met the goal.

Create a Plan
Once you have your goal, you can start to determine how to make it happen by creating a plan to meet it. For something like weight loss, we all know that the best way to lose weight is diet an exercise. So for this example, a plan would involve changing your diet and starting an exercise routine. Once you have the exact details of the plan in place, you can actually begin implementing the plan in your daily routine.

Stick to the Plan
The thing that matters at that point is sticking to the plan. That is, having the discipline to stick to the routine for the next 365 days. If you got through the first two steps, this is where things get difficult. The problem is that it's not easy to develop a new habit. And in this step, your plan might involve developing several new habits. I'm not going to delve into the details of how to successfully develop new habits, but if you can do it, then you will be on a path to meeting your goal.

Make Adjustments
If you've made it to this point, then the next step is to make adjustments as necessary to meet the goal. It could be that the goal is to easy. Maybe you'll lose the 25 pounds in six months. Then what? Or the goal could be too difficult. Maybe you'll get to June and only have lost five pounds. In either case, you will need to make adjustments. In the first case, you have met your goal early. So you could make a new goal to lose another 25 pounds if you need to. Or your goal could be just to keep the weight off. In the second case, you could modify the plan to include more exercise, or more changes in your diet. You may also need to review the goal to see if it is really reasonable or not. In both cases, the adjustment could simply be to modify the goal. I think this is reasonable because if you were able to define a goal, implement a plan to get there and actually stick to the plan for six months, then I believe you have been successful. Whether or not you are able to lose the full 25 pounds is not as important as the fact that you have stuck to your plan.

My Resolution
So in the end, my resolution to start out with is to carry out the above steps for just one thing. That thing is to get my remodeler's license. This blog is where I will track my progress.

Here's to 2008.