World Cup almost here!

I know most of you probably don't care about the World Cup if you even know what it is. But it is almost here.

10 days till the games start.

USA's first game is the 10th game of the games.

12-Jun-06 11:00 (CT) USA:Czech Republic
17-Jun-06 14:00 (CT) Italy:USA
22-Jun-06 09:00 (CT) Ghana:USA

There will be much soccer to be watched. And I'm looking forward to it (and not just for the USA soccer).

Oh, and in the link above, click on the time to convert the shown time to your time zone.

Here is the FIFA World Cup page for all your information!

Home improvement projects

Have I mentioned how much I hate doing home improvement projects in this house?

I do. It will be good when it's done, but they are a pain.

More later.

Baby Cardinals update

Back on May 12th, we noticed we had 4 cardinal eggs in a nest in a bush by our porch.

Well, we have a baby. Only one as of Thursday night that I could see.

Wild Ramblings: Mystery Solved

Back on March 1st I blogged about the Mystery Solved USB drive Microsoft was sending out by just filling out a simple survey.

Well, today, I got this response:

Thank you for your interest in the Mystery Solved Windows® licensing promotion. We've received your request for more information to help clarify Microsoft® Windows Desktop Licensing pre-loaded on the USB drive. Unfortunately, this Mystery Solved promotion was available in the U.S. only and while supplies last. Supply is depleted at this time, so we encourage you to please utilize the online alternative today. Simply download* the Windows Desktop Licensing reference files directly at: www.microsoft.com/mysterysolved/corp To help simplify Windows Desktop Licensing, keep these points in mind:
	There are two legal ways to acquire a full Windows Desktop license: through your hardware vendor (OEM/System Builder) or Full Packaged Product.
	Volume licensing covers Windows Desktop operating system upgrades only.
	OEM operating system licenses live and die with each PC–they are not transferable.
Again, thank you for your interest in Mystery Solved and for helping us spread the word about proper Windows licensing. Sincerely, Microsoft Corporation

My translation?

Thanks for filling out our survey sucker, but we didn't really have any drives, we just wanted all you marks to fill out our form, and it worked.

Oh well, shouldn't expect something for nothing. I would be curious if anyone knows of ANYONE that actually got a USB drive.

Rain

It rained today.

Week was suppose to be dry until I scheduled the detailing on my car.

It then rained.

Caliber

We got the car back today from getting the windows tinted and the sun roof installed.

Here you go. Actual pictures of our car.

Harry Potter / Star Trek?

Ok, you know the geek in me. This is interesting.

Long story short, I found this article at CNN about how Scientists may be able to make an invisibility cloak

Oh, that's cool.

So, basically, we may not be too far off from a cloaking device or an invisibility cloak.

Lost - Season Finale

Wow.

New Car

Saturday, my wife and I traded in our 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue and bought a 2007 Dodge Caliber.

We had been having some problems with the Olds, and a month or so ago, my wife saw an ad for this one in a paper. We both thought it was cool.

The car is Inferno Red, and by the end of the week will have tinted windows.

It's a cool looking car, if I do say so myself.

Once we get the windows tinted, I'll post some pictures. That was suppose to happen today, so I had waited to say anything till now, but since it wont happen till Friday, I wanted to go ahead and post about it.

Time for a road trip!

Garden update

With all the other posts I've made this evening, I'll keep this short.

We have my first tomato bloom!

The peas are doing well, and we have LOTS of lettuce.
(and the cilantro is blooming so we'll have Coriander soon)

If you build it they will come

I'm not talking about baseball either.

Sunday, we bought a wooden playset for our boy. We've wanted one for him for a long time, and finally got around to getting one.

That in itself was an event. Went to 1 Walmart, they called 2 others before we found one. Then had to drive to go get it, then get people to get it for us, and check out, load it, get it home. whew.

Then we opened the 2 box set. Wow, what a mess. It is a good thing my wife and I work well together. Something like this could send people to divorce court, or at least a bar.

We opened the box, and the instructions stated that depending on your experience, it would take 6 to 12 hours to put this thing together. (It took us close to the 6 hours).

Anyway, He loves it. He finally got to get on it tonight.

When we finished with it, we had him get out of the pool, and he was really impressed he could get on it while he was wet. hehe




And as I said in the title. If you build it, they will come. And all the neighborhood kids were at our house just having a ball. (ok, maybe not all, but the ones he plays with regularly)

Schools over

8/18, my youngest child started his first day of kindergarten.
Today was his kindergarten graduation, and tomorrow is the last day of kindergarten.

How the year has flown by. It seems like yesterday he just started, and it wont be long till those next 12 years fly by, and I'll be going to his High school graduation.

He's grown so much this year.

Reflection

What a week.
I've had 3 High School Graduations to go to this week. Well, not really had, but I went.

Two young ladies from my church and my niece.

Collinsville on Tuesday night.
Owasso on Thursday night.
Skiatook on tonight (Friday).

I'm exhausted. Though it was nice being able to see these young ladies achieve this accomplishment.

Sitting through 3 graduations in one week can get a person to thinking. Well, me anyway. These students are at a threshold. A door they are passing through never to return.

16 years ago, I passed through that same door.

Since then, I went to two colleges (TJC and OSU). I've receive a B.S. in CompSci.
I've had 4 jobs in my profession since graduating.
I've been engaged twice.
Married once (to a wonderful, beautiful woman!)
Adopted a beautiful daughter, and had a son.
I've lost a job and a baby.
We currently have a car and a truck,
A dog, a cat and fish.
I've started doing maintenance on my own cars.
I have and like to garden.

Is this where I planned to be when I left high school?
I don't know.

I'm not sure I really had what you would call plans after high school.
I did finally go to OSU for college.
I did marry a beautiful woman, though not the one I planed on when I was in high school.

The more I think about it, I think I am where I wanted to be.

I wanted to marry a beautiful woman and have a family with her.
I wanted to be a good husband and father.

I had no grand ambitions other than that.
Well, not really. Not serious ones anyway. There was of course astronaut, President of the US, and millionaire. (Not necessarily at the same time). Though I'm still hoping for the last one.

As I sit here now, typing, thinking of my future to come. I don't get much more ambitious.

I want to see my kids graduate high school and go on to do something they love.
I want to see my son come to know the Lord.
I want my daughter marry a Godly man and live a Godly life.
I want my son to marry a Godly woman and live a Godly life.
I want to grow old with my wife enjoying the slow, quiet evenings on a porch swing.

These are all goals I have IF the Lord doesn't come home before then.

Console Prices

One of the blogs I go to almost every day is Gizmodo.

They had this post today: Console Prices Adjusted for Inflation OR $500 Ain't 'Spensive

On it, they have two bar graphs which I've included here, but you may want to go read their article.

This first graph shows the prices of Consoles from 1976 to Present. Looking at the purchase price, the PS3 is not the most expensive console to market todate. (Click on the graphs for larger versions)


The second graph shows takes into consideration inflation. Looking at this graph tells gives me a much better idea of the consoles costs.


That being said, the PS3 is more expensive than the XBox 360, and both are way more expensive then the Nitendo Wii (expected to be releases around the $200 range). The Wii (other than its silly name) is getting good reviews.

Anyway, of these NextGen consoles, their prices are not that out of sync than the older systems.

Don't get me wrong though, they're still expensive.

Mystery Bird - Brown Thrasher

On my search to figure out my Mystery Bird, I went to www.birdsofoklahoma.net and they had a link if you needed help identifying a bird. Bill answered me telling me it was a Brown Thrasher. I found a much better picture at All About Birds.

While reading about it, I read

An aggressive defender of its nest, the Brown Thrasher is known to strike people and dogs hard enough to draw blood.

This did not surprise my wife or I since anytime we came close it went crazy. Luckily it didn't attack my family of my son's friends.

I am so happy I finally know what that bird is. I also want to thank Michael for his help too!

I can now rest easy tonight.

Mystery Bird

I'm still trying to find out what kind of bird had their babies the other day in my Forsythia.

Here she is, up close and personal. She wasn't very happy with me being this close to her (though I wasn't as close as the picture would have you believe. Gotta love zoom!)

Here is another picture of her sitting on the fence. (I hadn't figured out my digital zoom on my camera). She is in the center of the gray air conditioner. You'll get a better view if you click on the picture.


If anyone knows what kind of bird this is, please let me know. I'll continue my search!

Here she is flying towars our bush where her babies were at.

Birds - Cardinals

A few days ago, my wife noticed a new birds nest (and more eggs) in another bush.

At first, we thought it was the same type of bird that we had seen before, but she later found out it was a cardinal nest this time.

I went to the Wildlife Departments web page to find out more about Cardinals, and I found some very interesting things.

One of the most interesting thing I found out was that they are Nonmigratory (which I knew) and territorial (which I didn't). They also may spend its entire life within a half-mile of its birthplace.

So for these 4 eggs may very well spend the rest of their lives around my house. That's sorta neat to think about.

Well for me anyway.

Oh, and the other day, I was outside on the swing just relaxing, and I heard this really short chirp. I didn't recognize it, so I was searching for the bird. I finally found it. It was the mommy cardinal. While I was on the web page I also found out that

Their call is normally a very short and sharp chink, but may vary from a what-cheer, cheer, cheer to a sweet, sweet, sweet.

(I thought the words to their chirp was funny till I said them out loud and realized just how right they were. hehe)

AT&T / Cingular

About a year and a half ago, I got AT&T Wireless celphone service. I liked it.

Then last year, Cingular bought them. I am still having problems with their web page logging into my account because of them moving all the AT&T Wireless accounts over to the Cingular system. (Going on 3 months now.)

As many know, AT&T is buying BellSouth.

Guess who owns Cingular? That's right, BellSouth.

So AT&T will get Cingular. Currently, AT&T is planning on killing the Cingular brand and renaming it AT&T Wireless.

We've come full circle.

PS3 Controller

With all the new information coming out of 3E there were bound to be information on the PS3. Last nights post was on the pricing. As I've done some more reading, I've found some very interesting information on the PS3 Controller. PS3 Controller to be Tilt-Sensitive. That's right it will have "six degrees of freedom built in".

It is also no longer looks like a boomerang or a banana. It looks very similar to the DualShock2. It also is to weigh less than the DualShock2.

The 6 degree's of freedom is an interesting concept.

I'm not sure I'll like it. In theory, it's a great idea. In practice, I'm not so sure. I'll play games in all sorts of positions, so the controller isn't always level. I would think that games that take advantage of this 6 degrees would have to be played from a sitting position I would think unless you have the ability to calibrate to how you are sitting/laying.

Also, this could be a problem for littler kids I would think. My son for one moves the controller ALL OVER the place when he plays. I could just imagine what would happen if the game took advantage of that.

It also may be something that can be turned off in the games, like the vibrate functionality.

This could be nice.

Anyway, to me, this is good news. The controller looks normal and the box looks nice itself.

Now, I just need to find some money.

Playstation 3 Pricing

We finally have it! The PS3 will have Two Price Points.

20 GB HD version at $499
60 GB HD version at $599

Start saving your pennies!

KOTV webpage update

I'm not much of a news fan. I know, you are all surprised.

I do occasionally watch the news... mostly for the weather. But I do hit the new web pages at least once a day or so. (usually for the weather) When I do watch the news, I hit Channel 6 (KOTV).

I noticed today that the KOTV.com page has been updated today. I'm not always fond of web page updates, but this one seems nice.

It looks nice and clean.

New Restaurant in Town

C-ville has a new restaurant.

El Jalapeno Grill. They opened last week.

I was making Mexican tonight, and needed some chips for my cheese dip, and my wife suggested I go and get chips & Salsa from the new restaurant.

Not bad. Their normal salsa is pretty good. Their HOT is very nice. It has a good flavor as well as heat. Not just heat and no taste.

While I was there tonight, I picked up their menu. On the inside, there is something that really made me laugh.

Best Mexican Food in Town

That is easy enough since they are the ONLY Mexican food in town!

Looking through the menu, it appears that most of the menu items are under $6.00. The most expensive thing on the menu is the Shrimp Fajitas for Two at $13.99

I can't wait to go try out some of their other menu items other than chips and salsa.

Impressive

Tonight it was just my boy and I. We went to my in-laws to work on their computer, and then we went to McDonald's. I think it's funny just how much fun we have there, and how much I notice about my boy as he plays there.

This evening, he was playing in the toys with a girl about his age, and her little sister (maybe 3). Well, two young teenagers, or pre teens went in. And one of them was scaring the little girl. Her dad jumped up and was headed that way. I looked up in time to see my boy come around the corner of one of the tubes (between the old girl and the little girl) and told the older girl in no uncertain terms, "You're scaring her!"

Both her (the three year old) and her dad thanked him for helping her.

I was so impressed.

Later, there was a 2 year old or a bit younger maybe that was trying to play in the tubes. My boy helped him climb up to the second level. Then he showed him where the slide was and showed him how to slide down the slide. But the little boy wouldn't go down. So my boy walked back around, climbed back up to the boy and they both slid down together. The little boys dad thanked him for helping him.

My boy plays so well with kids older or younger than him. It's funny.

It does make me feel really good as a father to know that he watches over kids that are littler than him.

Soccer!!!!

Today's soccer game was the last schedule game of the season. (We do have one make-up game we have to play by next Saturday, so not sure if we'll get it made up or not.)

Anyway, it was a cool, wet, muddy game. But it really was a good game. We got smoked as my son would say, but not as bad as the last time we played this team. Which really had me feeling pretty good! The first game of the season, (if we kept score), it would have been 30-0 I think. Well, today was probably 12-3. It was way muddy. I almost fell several times just walking the ball to center field. Well, one of the girls on my team took down one of the other players (their best in my opinion). SPLAT, right in a mud puddle! It was funny. Happened a couple more times too.

The best part of the game though was my boy scored his first goal all season!!!

I'm a way proud father.

The game itself was good. It was nice to hear parents from both sides of the field cheering for all the kids. That is what this game at this age group is all about.

I handed out trophy's to the kids today after the game. You should have seen their faces! You would have thought they just won the World Cup!

More ABC streaming

Now that we have 2 weeks of shows (Lost) I went out to the ABC streaming page to see if I could watch past shows as well as the current show.

You can.

I'm liking this ABC streaming thing more and more.

Lost

Man what a show.

Rain

It's wet.

It's a bit strange saying that since we went sooooo long without rain, but in the past 2 weeks, we've received around 8 to 10 inches of rain.

It started raining around 1:00 this morning and it is still raining at 8:30. Most of that time it's been moderate to heavy rains. Now, as the rain seems to be moving out, it has lightened up.

There was flooding in Broken Arrow with last nights rain.

With all the rain, the burn ban has been lifted in all but 20 Oklahoma counties.

This means that people can start smoking, and charcoaling.

It also means that we can go camping. I love to camp though I've not been a lot in recent years. But when I camp, I want a camp fire.

Now, where did I put my water wings?

Episode Streaming Update

I reported yesterday about ABC.com Episode Streaming. Well, I got a chance to watch Lost today.

It wasn't bad.
I had 4, 30 second commercials through the show. That was it. Not too bad.

The picture and sound quality were good. The streaming was well done. I can't remember having to wait on content to download to continue watching the show.

Not too bad.

Monopoly Here & Now

Monopoly is coming out with a new version.
It is called Monopoly The Here & Now Edition

Help decide the future of the newest Monopoly game--on shelves everywhere this fall!

vote for your favorite landmark in 22 U.S. cities--those with the most votes will earn a place on the new Monopoly Here & Now game board!

Vote daily through May 12.

Ok, so I had to take a look at this, I wont tell you what the landmarks are, but I will tell you the cities in the line-up

Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Cleveland
Washington DC
Nashville
Atlanta
Orlando
Miami
New Orleans
Chicago
St. Louis
Dallas
Houston
Phoenix
Denver
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Seattle
Minneapolis
Honolulu

You can pick 1 of 3 choices at each of these location.

The cities vote will determine the location on the board.

Oh, and one other change airports will be replace the rail roads

And according from this CNN Money article:

airports will replace rail roads
property values will be going up
money will have larger denominations
"Community Chest" and "Chance" cards will have modern scenarios

ABC.com Episode Streaming

ABC.com has started their Streaming of their shows...

Lost
Alias
Commander in Chief
abc promo (check out the latest shows on ABC!)
Desperate Housewives

ABC.com: Full Episode Streaming

If this is successful, and I can't image it wont be, I'm sure more shows will be added.