Heroes Season 1 (loving it)

If you haven't seen through disc 5, and don't want me to spoil the Season 1 of Heroes, then don't read the rest of this post. Rebecca and I have been watching Heroes Season One recently (on DVD). I like the characters in the show (well not Sylar but I think that is the point), the plot lines are crazy. I have to admit that I was really hoping the psycho split personality woman was dead. I seriously was so glad she was taken down and thought, whew at least she's finally gone, this show just got much better. I actually shouted out at the screen when she got up from the carpet, No!!!!!! Stay down! You're dead! and that is a GOOD thing. No no no no no, why didn't she die? why WHY?! The other character who can exit stage left anytime is that Petrelli Senate Candiate, what a loser! Rebecca hates him even more than me. Anyway I think the characters, especially the ones we hate, make the show fun to watch together. Why can't the guy who can penetrate surfaces get a job? geez! what is his malfunction? when he went back to talk to his wife in jail I seriously wanted to nominate him as father of year! He is so concerned about getting back with his kid for 6 months. Then he gets his kid back and can't cut it as a man and provider, so LOGICALLY he turns to the dual-personality psycho that: shot him, tossed his son like a used tissue into a wood pile, and had herself imprisoned for multiple murder homicides FOR HELP?! If you need her to help you raise a child, you and that child have issues suffocation can fix.

I can't wait to see the end of Season 1 because I haven't had this much fun with a show since Stargate SG1 or Firefly. I would also like to get into Babylon 5 sometime. Hannah has recommended Wonderfalls, so I need to check that one out too.

Waiting on IO

I am stuck at work waiting on input/output operations to complete. I might as well explain how I created the, now infamous, graph of failure. And by explain I mean to explain the technical details of creating a graph, not explain the sordid details of how to gain 25 pounds of hideous gellatenous fat in 3 months. If you need to know how to gain fat rapidly, please see some other blog for help, southern cuisine might be a good topic to search on.

1. First get your data in a spread sheet program, title the first column date, second column weight.
2. Now enter your start date 1/1/2007 for example in the cell under date column
3. Now click the little box in the bottom right corner of the 1/1/2007 cell and drag the mouse (move the mouse while holding the button) down the screen to create the days of the calendar. Don't worry you do not need to know your weight on every day to make a graph, you could start with just two weight values months apart and the graph will create a trend line between them for the missing measurements.
4. Now go back to the top and start entering in weight measurements for the dates you have on record. So if you weighed on 1/30/2007 go to that row and put in the weight value next to that date.
5. SAVE IT NOW! You entered a bunch of data, if something goes wrong you can begin from here and not have to redo the tedious data entry American businesses outsource.
6. Once complete with entering in your weight values for the dates you have weighed yourself in the past, click the column headers to highlight the entire two columns with the dates and weights.
7. Now click to insert a chart, the command might be under Insert | Object | Chart or their might be a little pie chart icon to click on the toolbar.
8. Chose XY Plot | Lines only | data in columns | first column label. Every spreadsheet software is different, you want to plot the data as a line graph using the data in columns and the first column as x-axis data, second column y-axis data.
   
9. Usually you can label the y-axis (the vertical axis) of the graph something like weight(lbs), I don't label the x-axis (horizontal axis) since dates are pretty obvious on their own.
   
10. Give the graph a title and you can finish the chart wizard. Use shift+click to drag the chart size larger without changing the aspect ratio (legth/width proportion) of the chart.
11. Begin crying because you are a fat ass then post on blog while listening to something emo or petting a cat. Or I guess rejoice if you lost weight, and then bite me because it was probably just retained water and muscle.
    

Graph of Failure

So this is an awesome graph of me failing to even maintain my weight over the holidays. Nice. And by the "holidays" I mean the time from early November 2007 to basically right now....
I intend to post updates, hopefully by July 2008 I can turn this cliff into a big hill rather than a steady plateau or the slope of Mt Everest!

RE: Plainsong note

The note-writer has a right to free speech, and they should put it in their own book, which no one would publish, buy or read, rather than on top of someone else's speech. It reminds me of the CleanFlicks type garbage in Utah Valley, I think CleanFlicks was essentially the same thing as moving through a book and erasing or blotting out all the "bad" stuff. Those who chose to believe in God and have moral values based on the Bible are censored, attacked and ridiculed and have been for centuries in severe ways including imprisonment, torture and murder. The coliseums in Rome would feed Christians to lions for entertainment. Sometimes it is hard not to want to hit back at those who oppress or criticize Christians, but that is not the moral thing to do. Sometimes it is hard to allow your child to be exposed to something you believe is wrong and amoral. However, it was taught to Christians to turn the other cheek and trust in God.

All that being said, if you dislike a book and think it is amoral or anti-Christian, you should be allowed to criticize it verbally and in your own writing. You should be able to boycott the book, the publisher, the author, the bookstores that sell it and anything associated with the work. You should be allowed to protect your children from exposure to it. But what tends to happen when you do, is the book becomes a bestseller, just look at The DaVinci Code after the Catholic leadership spoke out against it. I think the best policy is ignore it and, if asked, simply recommend something you like rather than tell others to avoid something you dislike. "I've heard of Plainsong, have you heard of _____? I really love _____ because _____ and ______."

Here I go

While I wait for a server to restart, I thought I would blog about my upcoming trip to Atlanta, it is for three days. The flights from SLC to Atlanta all seem to have connections, except for Delta. I guess I can't complain about that since it is faster than driving even with a connection. I just hope my luggage makes it there. Their is a chance I could be living in Austin, TX for 8 weeks this year, whoa that is a lot of time away! Good news is I would be able to take my wife and daughter with me and visit some family in Texas I have neglected to visit for a long time, bad news is Rebecca, Eleanor and I would be gone from family and friends for about 2 months straight. It is crazy the things we do for a buck. I hope the trip does not start before the girl's trip to Seattle to see Heidi, if that is the case then Rebecca would have to take Eleanor with her and catch up with me in Austin, TX later because she already has the non-refundable ticket.

Hyundai Sonata V6 biting the dust

My car would not start last Monday, so I took the excuse to call in sick, since I had been sick that weekend why not just be extra sure I don't spread it? So this Monday rolls around and yet again, my car would not start, so I worked from home and charged up the battery with Rebecca's handy car battery charger, seriously it is like I married Checker Auto, she had an air compressor, this girl even had a FLOOR JACK! So Tuesday, after a full 24 hours of charging, turn the key and rapid clicking, car no start. So I set the charger to start mode and was able to get the old girl going, basically gave myself a jump. I drove to work thinking, should I just take it in to a mechanic or live with the uncertainty each time I turn the key, "Will she start?"

I guess I am cheap and just do not want to spend money on the thing, so I have not taken it in yet. I also have little faith that mechanics will actually fix anything; this is based on past experience getting spark plug wires replaced and then taking it back in for the same issue, minutes later... and the other time I took it in, they could not duplicate the problem. Sounds like computer tech support, almost. When I get the money set aside, I would like to fix the following on my car:

• rear driver-side automatic window mechanism
  
• front passenger-side window mechanism
• odometer (broke at 100,000)
• Middle storage box lid/armrest repair
• airbag light
• squeaking breaks
• cd player
  
• oh and it won't start reliably

Then wash it, sell it to someone else, ???, buy a Honda! Considering how much can go wrong on a car, I guess I have got off easy.

My pic has a beard but I don't

Who knew beards could come in so many variations. Some of these styles so need to become popular again, I really can't pick a favorite.

Much more info than you need can be found here.