It has been two weeks since I posted the pictures of my pumpkin plants. They are growing quite well. I need to get up earlier in the mornings to water the plants to keep them growing well. I have read that pumpkins need a lot of water, especially once the fruit starts growing. I am disappointed that the marigolds never sprouted. I think the seeds were too old. Unfortunately my camera battery ran out while I was taking the pictures and I only got a couple so I am posting what I have even though they aren't the greatest.

Speaking of cameras, a friend of mine recently purchased a digital SLR. I can't remember exactly which model is was, but it is one of the new Canons. He has taken some really good pictures. The following link is to some pictures he took at a local golf tournament: Golf Pictures. If you look closely, you can even see the tee suspended in the air in a couple of shots. This link is some pictures taken at a rodeo camp. A fellow co-worker's son was at the camp. He is the one falling off the bull and hitting the ground: Rodeo Pictures. I am very jealous of the camera. I would like to have a digital SLR to take pictures at the dance club. We have showcases twice a year where students have an opportunity to show off a little and my little Sony DSC S85 just doesn't measure up to the low light and quick movements.

I am also very excited that I received a package the other day that had Artoo Potatu in it. I already have Darth Tater and the Spudtrooper. I have them at my desk at work and everyone who stops by has to pick them up. I also took my SpongeBob and Batman Legos to work and have them on a shelf. So far no one has noticed, but they aren't exactly in the most visible location.

Yes Brain, but if our knees bent the other way, how would we ride a bicycle?
--Pinky from Pinky and the Brain

Every year some friends and I get tickets to the Theatre in the Park and last night was when we saw the first performance of the season. The show was The King and I. It was done well, but honestly, I am not that fond of the show. But as I tell other friends, it is more about the fun of the evening and not the show itself. We get together to wait in line around 6:00 PM. With our tickets we get in around 6:20 PM and then we set up our blankets and chairs, eat the food we brought, and play games until the show starts around 8:30 PM. The shows are always good, and sometimes they are great. The main thing is that we are supporting the arts in the community. I would suggest everyone take some time to enjoy a local production of some kind.

I enjoyed the evening, but I was embarrassed when there was a scenery malfunction and some of the people I was with started laughing pretty loudly. I mean it is amateur performance, what do they expect.

When I got there, I could not find the parking space I had purchased last fall in the silent auction a the awards ceremony. It is kind of cool that they have their own awards ceremony. We have gone the last couple of years, but last year I actually participated in the silent auction and I bought a parking space. My friends gave me a hard time because parking is free and I basically bought a free parking space, but I am supporting The Theatre in the Park, so it doesn't bother me. Anyway, I couldn't find my space because the signs they had made kept blowing over. Eventually my friends found it for me. It was kind of neat having the space with my name even thought it wasn't really that great of a space.

Today was another game day. We had a good day battling beasts and such. Being a low level wizard kind of sucks, but it will be great after a few more levels. There was a lot more action today then we have had in the past several sessions. Since we aren't finished with our quest, the next several should be full of action as well.

The pumpkins are slowly growing and there is no sign of the marigolds yet, but it hasn't even been a week since they were planted. I need to get out and clean my landscape areas. I was walking around the house today and noticed grass in several of my landscape areas and bushes beginning to grow under my deck. I also need to trim up my Rosey Glow Barberry. My trees also could use to be cut back a bit. Maybe I will get to that in the next couple of weeks.

Pumpkins!?!

I forgot to mention that I am actually now a pumpkin grower. Last year I bought a pumpkin for a friend's pumpkin carving party, but I never cut it open. It was sitting in my garage and it started to rot so I stuck in a landscape area behind my house. Early in the spring I tilled the entire area under and mulched it. I have been contemplating what to plant there when I noticed something growing. At first I thought it was weeds and I even pulled a few up.

The stems were rather thick and there was an odd smell . Looking at them, they resembled watermelon seedlings, but they weren't quite right. I was wondering if my neighbors' kids had spit out some kind of melon seed in my yard, when I remembered the pumpkin. I have since thinned it out to about 10 plants, which is still quite a few. I expect I will pull up a few more as they get bigger.

This past weekend I also planted some marigold seeds around the pumpkins to help keep the bugs down. I got the seeds from a friend who had collected them from some plants she had a couple of years ago, so I am not 100% sure they will actually germinate and grow. Luckily it has been raining on and off the last several days. That should really help the seeds get started. I guess I need to take some pictures and post them.

Now I am really looking forward to the fall.

It has been way too long since I have posted anything. My computer overheated a while back while doing some computations for the BBC Weather Experiment. I have been letting my computer participate in the several BOINC experiments. It started many years ago when I participated in the SETI at Home experiment where some researchers created a screen saver that would download blocks of data from the SETI server, process the data when the screen saver was running, and return the result to SETI at Home. It is distributed computing at its best. The website has more information.

Anyhow when my computer overheated a couple of key Windows files were corrupted and now my PC acts unpredictably at times. I have tried many things to fix it, but I can't find my original XP CDs to just restore the entire Windows image. I stumble along for now and I am contemplating purchasing a new computer. I really want one with Windows Media edition so that I can use it as a DVR. Some friends of mine are trying to convince me to go Apple. In the 80's my college roommate had an Apple IIc and I was quite fond of it, but once I got my hands on an IBM clone I was hooked. I even resisted Windows at first, but eventually I succumbed.

Anyhow, I ended up buying a new Sony PS/2 and the Lego Star Wars: The Video Game. I really enjoyed the game. It took me about a month to go through it all. For a children's game I was thoroughly hooked. I went up to Nebraska for sister's 50th birthday and I played the game a while with my 6 year old nephew on his Gamecube. We had a lot of fun, but I realized what one of my friends had been complaining about with his son. They just wanted to run around and kill things. In the game you need to collect studs and canisters and sometimes they require a little patience to get. There is a sequel coming out called Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. I have only seen it on shop.starwars.com, but I have seen announcements in other locations. It is definitely something I am planning to get. It's release is scheduled to coincide with the release of the unaltered original trilogy on DVD--you know, the one where Han shot first.

Also, my current DND character is doing fine. We have successfully reached 2nd level and I am on my way to 3rd. The campaign is being documented somewhat at http://homecampaign.forumsplace.com/index.html. My character is Anthirath Rumthar and I made the mistake in following the GM's instructions to create family information which he has used against me. The party has killed by brother who was selling my people as slaves and has helped me raise the money to buy my sister back from a local noble. She was of course sold by my misguided and now dead brother.

I would complain about work, but no one wants to hear that so I will end it here.

April Fools!!!

I am really curious where the world is heading. As I look at what is happening around me, I just can't seem to put my hands around it. A friend of mine was asking the other day what his kids will do for jobs in 15-20 years. With offshoring being the "big" thing, what will be available for his kids and even what will he be doing. IBM announced a little while back that they are offshoring one of their divisions 100% to India. I just don't see this working. Sometimes I can understand the idea of corporations cutting their costs to be more effective, but I don't see why the US government would support this. It sends jobs out of the country reducing the tax basis and it could put additional strain on the unemployment system. When send money out of the country in hopes that those who receive it will spend more on US goods and services--but does it really happen. I work with people in India and in Brazil and none of those people seem to want US manaufactured goods. When some of the Indians on the team came to the US, they did buy a lot of electronics made in the far east, but only a few of the team was able to come over. It is too expensive to have Indians come to the states, it is far more cost effective to send Americans to India. This is also true with Brazil.

I am just not getting the benefit of a global economy and it kind of scares me that the corporations are creating and controlling the global economy. With the PACs and all, it even seems like the corporations are controlling the government to get what they want which is not always what is best for the American people, in my opinion.

We have seen so many things go to cheaper locations acroos the globe. At first it was manufacturing. We were told these were mindless tasks that could be performed cheaper in other locations freeing the Americans to do more creative functions. But now they are outsourcing IT. At first it was the monotonous coding parts and the coprorations created coding factories along the lines of manufacturing. Now it is the creative pieces of analysis and design that were supposed to be reserved for Americans. Now I am hearing about medical advances to allow doctors in other countries to diagnose problems. There was even a story about students in the US getting academic tutoring over the web from tutors in India.

Where does it end and where does it leave those of us in the US? What will happen to the American dream when no jobs are available in the US?

I still have the iPod and I am actually enjoying it. I am not sure how I am going to fill up the 60GB. My computer doesn't have that much available storage to have a copy of what is on the iPod. I found a kind of cool video podcast called Brickmovie. It has short films made with Legos. Some of them are better than others.

One of the things I had ordered from Lego was the Star Wars video game for the PC. Unfortunately, my computer wouldn't play it. I tried my work computer and was finally able to get it to load using some thrid party software that emulated the pixel shader functionality that is on a lot of the newer video cards made for gaming. It had some problems with slow down and since it was my work computer I ended up uninstalling it. Since then I have been thinking about buiying a used Gamecube or PS2 to play the game.

The new DND campaign is going well so far. We really haven't done that much yet, but we have are all still alive. I am playing an elf wizard which is new for me. I generally play a rogue or cleric. I also often seem to play a halfing or gnome or something kind of small. It is challenging to play a wizard. With the cleric I just picked what spells I wanted to pray for, for a wizard I have to choose wisely since I can only use those spells in my spellbook. There are some really cool spells in Races of the Dragon, namely Power Word Pain. I need to get a copy of the book, so that I can use the spell.

Work has been disappointing at best. I struggle to stay awake most of the time. I think I might really be depressed this time. I just can't seem to stay focussed. I am trying to get more involved in the project, but it is really hard to work on something you just don't believe in.

Yesterday was the ten year anniversary of my brother's death. I spent the day playing DND with some friends. It is a new campaign set in the Forgotten Realms. My character is a sun elf wizard from Evermeet. We have just started so I don't really have much more to say, but I am thinking of putting together a blog for my character. Anyhow, it is hard to believe it has been ten years, but then I look at my nephew and niece and see how they have grown. I guess it still depresses me somewhat.

It has been a rough month so far. I spent the last two weeks in Plano, TX for work. I have to say, I am not sure it was worth the money to send me down there. I think they are trying to get me to care about the project, but the program manager keeps thwarting their effort. It didn't help being stuck without a car. There were four of us sharing a car. I did get the car most of the week end, but I didn't go hardly anywhere. I mostly stayed in the hotel and watched TV. BBC America was having something of a Footballers' Wives marathon and I must have watched 6 or seven episodes. It kind of got me hooked. It comes on Sunday Night and I have watched it the last couple of Sundays. I'll have to see if I continue to watch much longer.

Also, I haven't had a dance lesson in four weeks due to a variety of reasons. In the end I had gained several pounds since dancing is really the only exercise I get. The trip to Texas didn't help either. I went to the Saturday Social on Saturday, but I didn't dance much. We actually tend to socialize more at the social than dance. I really needed the exercise, but it was easier to sit and chat.

During the trip I actually bought an iPod. I am not sure if I am going to like it or not, but I did buy an episode of Monk for the plane trip home from Texas. It was kind of cool. There aren't that many TV shows available on iTunes and I don't travel as much as I used to, so I still wonder if it is worth it. I also ordered a bunch of Legos from lego.com. One of the items I ordered is the Lego Star Wars: The Video Game. Unfortunately it requires an nVidia graphics card and I don't have one. I wanted the game after I played it with my nephew when I went up to my sister's house for her nurse pinning. Now, I feel like I should have bought a used Game Cube or something. The video game was $30.00 and the game pad I bought was $20.00, and now I want to buy a game system that will let me play the game. I should return the game and the gamepad, but I probably won't. I am so bad about returning stuff.

Until the next time.

My parents were here this weekend. They drove up Thursday and Friday and then we drove to Omaha on Saturday for a commissioning ceremony. She is in a nursing program and now that she is starting the next phase of the program. It was a nice little ceremony, but my sister wasn't all that excited. She will be more exciting when the actual pinning ceremony occurs and she is fully commissioned as a nurse. We came back to my house after the ceremony on Sunday and then my parents left for home on Monday morning.

I was quite surprised that my parents made such a long trip over such a short period. It was nice to see them and my sister and her family as well. My parents were kind of different this time. They didn't want to run around and do a bunch of stuff, they just relaxed. Mom even let me do all the cooking at breakfast both Saturday and Monday. I think the trip took more of a toll on them then they let on.

They weirdest part was that we watched the last of the SuperBowl when we got home Sunday. We never really watched any sports when I was growing up and Dad never talked about sports that I can recollect. Mom's family is from Washington state, so she was rooting for the Seahawks. It was so funny to listen to Mom armchair quarterback. She was so disappointed when they lost. She called her sister in Washington to discuss all the issues with the game. I just couldn't get over it.

On a different note, we played D&D a couple of Sundays back and the DM killed us all. It was pretty horrible. After we killed the zombie troglodytes and the minotaur, the evil cleric raised the minotaur who basically took the rest of the party out. We rolled up new characters and we will start a new party in the Forgotten Realms on Sunday. I am somewhat excited about playing a new character after I got over the death of the Gareth Oldrich. Hopefully I will have some time to post about the game.

On a work related note, I have to go to Plano for two weeks on Sunday. I will need to leave the game a little early to make my flight. I really don't want to go on the trip, but I really don't have many options. The more changes the executives make to the company, the more I wonder if my job is the right one for me. I used to enjoy my job, but the last several years it has been pure drudgery. I wish I had the energy and the drive to get a new job. I just don't know what I want to do. I don't think I want to be in IT any more. But I make good money and I am not sure I could get the same money at a new career. Maybe someday I will let go of the material things and go for a lower paying job that I enjoy. If such a thing exists...

I haven't posted in a while, because I have been having problems with the site. I would get probably 3/4 way through what I wanted to say and I would get an error from Internet Explorer. I am still not sure what the deal was or is, but I continue to try yo post something every now and again. I had updated a few things lately, so I am hopeful that this time it will work--not that anybody is really reading this.

Any how the holidays weren't too bad. I went to my parents for Christmas and 4 of my other siblings showed up with their families. Also, my older brother’s kids showed up on Christmas day. It was pretty fun. I did upset my mother, though. My parents' house is very cluttered. I asked my mother one day if she would have a problem if several of us kids showed up and helped them clean up the clutter and maybe get rid of some stuff. Just so everyone knows my mother had given my nephew and old set of dishes and a bunch of Smurf glasses that were in their cabinets--I thought she was ready to get rid some of the stuff. So, I ask her if she would have a problem with us cleaning a little, and her eyes get watery and she asks, "are you putting me in a home?" I did not know what to do at this point. She and Dad are not that old and they are doing just fine, so I have no idea where this came from. My sister who lives in town evidently has told Mom that if something were to happen to her, my sister could not quit her job to take care of Mom and so she would have to put Mom in a home. I don’t know what exactly happened, but I do know my sister can sound very mean at time even though she doesn’t mean to be. She is a high school home economics teacher and uses her teacher voice a lot. I am still not sure if Mom would want ot come help clean up her house.

The new year has been pretty boring so far. In fact yesterday and today I have felt so listless and lackluster. I would be more worried, but several of my co-workers were feeling exactly the same way. With the dry air, my sinuses have been going crazy--I am all stuffed up complete with sinus headaches.

I hope things go better as time goes on.