Saturday, December 27, 2008

Work in Progress



With all my gadgets, I realize I rarely use them. When I do use them, I don't use them particularly well and don't do anything with them. Here's a great example, a quick little video of Noel stalking, then pouncing on an unsuspecting cricket for dinner.

Posting this serves two purposes, one to show it can be fun watching Noel eat and the second to motivate myself to take better video! This was pure laziness. All I did was set the camera on a tripod and recorded for a while to catch the action, which happens to be almost impossible to see and I must have shot this two weeks ago and finally got around to editing it (if you can call it that).

So, this blog entry is shaming me into attempting to taking better video and working on actually creatively editing it. Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll get something worthy of Nation Geographic (amateur addition) posted soon.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Third Time is the Charm

New Pet

This entry is going to be about 3's and how many I can fit in. Put your schizophrenic hat on, because this blog entry is going to be all over the place!

Since I started with a picture of Noel, he gets the first "3" reference. He ate three crickets yesterday (in what seemed like three minutes, but it wasn't official so it can't be counted as a three for this blog)! That feat probably isn't very impressive, but it leads me into another perfect example of what silly things can be done with technology. Noel can now be viewed live on the web, provided you can spot him.

Live Noel View

Not sure how long I'll keep the camera up, but it's fun to first play spot Noel (aka Where's Waldo style), second find the napping spot, and third catch him moving.

Yesterday, my replacement iPhone showed up. I'm hoping the third time is the charm! It's only my third week with the phone and I'm already finding it hard to live without, which is almost scary to me. My fingers are crossed that this one has all the bugs worked out of it, otherwise I may have to send it to Will It Blend, which could be fun too.

Tonight will be a visit to the third gym. Just when I thought the choices were narrowed down, low and behold found another trial membership to check out. I'm actually looking forward to it because I've been stuck at 163 for the past couple of days and it's bugging me!

Those are my three mini stories for today. Now, where are those lucky charms.....yum.

Monday, December 15, 2008

New Family Member

iNoel

If Mani taught us anything, she taught watching crickets getting eaten is damn entertaining! After Mani's Funeral, it felt like such a waste to put her house away and unused, plus we had extra crickets. Granted on this diet, I've been hungry at times, but the thought never crossed my mind that I could use them as a food source. Though, dipped in chocolate....okay I'm not even going to think about it. Instead it seemed only natural to visit the pet store and find something else the liked to eat crickets.

The choice was made, a green anole. Though technically not a chameleon, it changes color and by my definition that's close enough! His name, Noel Anole (because we got him around X-mas time). Let me tell you, Santa already visited him too! Not one, but two special lights to keep him nice and warm and his sun tan that extra nice shade of green!

He is a little shy at the moment and doesn't want to eat with us watching. But, it's hard to out smart us, so tonight I setup the video camera and we left the room. Noel has some speed! Crickets beware!

iLemon

iLemon

I really do like my iPhone, but I'm liking it much less right now. I've had it for almost three weeks now, but this weekend my Apple turned into a Lemon. The problem started on Saturday, every call I attempted ended with "Call Failed". (Warning Rants ahead)

The first stop was to the AT&T store to solve the problem. An hour later of the incredibly technical expertise of swapping SIM cards (extreme sarcasm) did not solve the problem, I was given the choice of calling Apple's 1-800 number or driving 40 miles to the closest Apple store. The first and almost comical solution of calling a 1-800 number with my phone that can not make calls seems a little square peg, round hole to me. It would be one thing had I been given a temp phone, but no, it's just assumed you better have another phone in your house. The second and major issue I have is clearly the phone has a problem, it's less then three weeks old, why not give me a new phone send mine in to get fixed, case closed? Apparently, that would be too simple.

Calling the 1-800 number accomplished two things. The first, they successfully restored my phone to its original state and in the process deleting all my contacts, content, and calendar events from my backup. So, now do I not only do I have a phone that does not make calls, but I get to have fun adding three weeks of things back to my phone. In Apple's defense, the 1-800 number did manage to schedule me for an appointment the next day to get my phone looked at the Apple store. The 45 minutes on the phone would have been better spend only scheduling the appointment, the other 43 minutes were not necessary and frankly had I not called, I still would have had my backup.

My Apple store experience went much the same as the rest of this story. I did only have to spend a total of 30 minutes in the store where I did walk out with a working phone. I have to admit, I was very skeptical because the swapped phone did not come from a brand new iPhone box. Instead it came from a plain white box. But Apple is known for their great PR, so I made the assumption that everything would be fine. In reality it was, I walked out of the Apple store with a phone that could make and receive calls. We all live happily ever after....or do we?

Eight hours later, my iPhone was almost back to normal. Songs, videos, programs all back and the only thing left to do was work on my contacts. While working on that, I noticed that my wifi signal was getting weaker, a few minutes later, my wifi signal was gone all together. My "new" iPhone's wifi is completely dead now! I think my "new" iPhone was really a refurbished piece of junk.

At this point, I haven't made any calls yet, but I already know it will be heading back to the Apple store 40 miles away to get another phone. Three weeks in, this will be my third iPhone. Apple has some great PR going with their products, but call me unimpressed. So far, this Apple is looking much more like a Lemon.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Spring 2008 - December 13, 2008

Glamour Shot

Kalamazoo, MI - Mani Mantis born Spring 2008, in Delton, MI, one of two hundred children, passed away at 5:37 pm December 13, 2008 of natural causes. She is survived by her two adopted parents Becca and Mark, her adopted sisters Rascal and Sweety Pie, and brother Shy. She will also be survived by potentially two hundred children, yet to be named.

Though she grew up in the small town of Delton, Mani became well traveled in her later months first moving to Kalamazoo, but also taking trips Grand Rapids and even further north in her free time.

Mani may have been the most well traveled Manits, but she will be best known for her countless hours working on controlling the cricket and boxelder bug populations. One unknown coworker issued the statement: "Hard work and Mani are one in the same, it was like she put in 168 hours a week." Statements like that make it easy to understand how Mani held records in hunting. Killing three crickets, two boxelder bugs, and a fly in a single night, those are records that will probably never be broken.

Mani's mate could not be found for comment. Some say he lost his head.

Mani Mantis will truly be missed. She was one of the good ones. An open memorial service will be held Sunday from 9-10 am. Any donations may be made to Mark.


* I'll miss you Mani! You provided hours of entertainment and I enjoyed learning about you.

Friday, December 5, 2008

4.88505747% But Who's Counting?

What Diet?

Wednesday marked officially the one month on my new exercise program (or is that attitude?). That's twenty nine more days then most people last, so that by itself is a victory! Even more impressive, Thanksgiving was in this streak of days. Okay, so this piece of Mama's Chocolate Kuau Pie wasn't within reach (good thing it's 4,300 miles away) at any point, but I did a good job of avoiding the "pleasures". Now, I said I was good...not a saint! I did have two pieces of pumpkin pie, which I think was my only cheating for the month. I'm still proud to say there is 4.88505747% less of me.

It looks like I'm keeping close track, I'm really not, I just happen to be a numbers guy. I'm still most concerned about finding all six abs, even though not one has been uncovered yet! Where are they hiding? Program 2 on the treadmill has been defeated and I'm up to 4.44 miles every other day, which considering where I started, I'm very happy. This coming month will be the real test though, with all the Holiday goodies making their way into the office to tempt me. But, then again if I'm running 4.44 miles a day, it will only take me a 2.7 years to get to that Chocolate Kuau Pie. Guess I better get started...