January's Letter 2010

December began with giving Mom early birthday gifts. A BluRay player and all the Star Trek movies on BluRay. We watched the new Star Trek movie and Reuben commented that the sound was more clear. I wasn't even paying attention to the sound. I was all focused on the picture quality. When we watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it was like I had never even seen the movie at all. You can see the stitching in the fabric! I am just amazed by BluRay. I decided to finally get BluRay because they were finally selling BluRay Discs at DVD prices and the players were at a reasonable price too. But BluRay has a short amount of time to catch on because On-Demand Streaming is becoming popular. Luckily, Mom's BluRay player has streaming Netfix. Which means she could watch almost any movie any time for 8.99 a month (not a plug).

Mom, Aunt Pam, Uncle Jim, Reuben and I went to P.F. Chang's for Mom's birthday. P.F. Chang's is an Americanized version of Chinese food; but it's still good. The waitress was fantastic and suggested our meal for us. We made a few modifications, but for the most part we didn't really have to read the menu. Dessert time came and we seemed to not want anything but eventually we gave in and a few of us got dessert.

I also gave Mom a birthday card that I bought her a few years ago but it got lost from moving stuff around. I found it and put it some where I would not lose it: my car's glovebox. The card is about the size of a LP Record sleeve (yes, I know what an LP record is). On the front it says "A long time ago...", in the Star Wars style font. Open the card and BAM, it plays the opening theme to Star Wars. Mom kinda jumped when she opened it. The inside reads "...you were born."

I attended Tech's winter graduation (the college of which I am an alumnus). I went to see four of my friends walk that long walk, but it turns out that there were ten people I knew that graduated. It was quite cold that day and there was some snow on the ground but not a lot. There were about 700 graduates total. I caught up with a good friend of mine, Robby, who's step-sister was graduating. And I got to sport my new suit.

Christmas was nice. It was the first time we attended the Aunt Pam's and Uncle Jim's Christmas party. There were a lot of people there, but they said they usually had more. They give presents to the kids, read the Christmas story, and even have a small music recital. I am not really the gregarious type but I enjoyed watching everyone. When I attend a party I usually hang around for an hour and then sneak out.

For Christmas I gave Mom a customized 2010 Calendar. It contained pictures of our family over the years. I went through six boxes of pictures, scanned about 200 pictures, and made it all in Photoshop. If you are reading this on my blog site, then you will see a sample from it. If not, go check it out. Like now.



I finally got to see a good friend of mine that I have not seen in 5 years. Leah has been in England going to school for the past few years. She developed a British accent. I asked if she could fake an American accent and she could not do it. I also got to meet her British boyfriend. If you want more details, check out the following post: http://tangentdave.blogspot.com/2010/01/from-across-pond.html

Oh yeah, Happy New Year! I hope you didn't miss Palindrome Day: 01-02-2010 and 01-11-10. Although, February 2nd would work to if you prefer the: DD/MM/YYYY format.

Until next time.

Wedding Etiquette

Rant

A friend of mine got married and I attended the wedding (and briefly the reception, which was fancy by the way). The bride and groom and the wedding officiant at the podium was well microhponed. No matter how good someone is microphoned, the shrill cry of a baby resonating throughout the stone floor and brick walls will always overpower the sound system.

I believe that small children and babies should not be brought to a wedding. Either do not bring them or they should have a nursery at the wedding.

I cannot remember, but I think a cell phone went off too. But cell phone etiquette is another blog.

As far as cameras with flash, it is up to the bride and groom. Usually the photographer gets dibs on taking pictures but it is always up to the wedding couple. I have been to weddings where it was like a red carpet event. Flashes everywhere.

As for my wedding, I do not want any flash photography from anyone except for the paid photographer and no young children or babies. I will have bouncers to enforce the request. But I am in jest. I will cross that bridge when I reach that destination. I will probably end up embarrassing myself by pausing the wedding to tell someone to take their baby outside, turn off their cell phones, or to turn off their flash. HA.

From Across the Pond

Back in 2005, a good friend of mine, Leah, went to England for school. It has been quite a long time since I last saw her. She came back to the States for a short visit but for some reason, I did not have a chance to catch up with her.

She must have been assimilated into the British culture because she has a British accent now; I wasn't surprised though. However, I still have no accent even though I have lived in the south for 13 years. I guess I don't blend in well.

I finally got to meet her British boyfriend, Ollie, and he finally got to meet me. He said that I was an enigma because I was always mentioned in Leah's stories; especially when it came to computers: "Oh, David would know how to fix that." In the above picture, Ollie is pointing at me because "I do exist".

While she was here in the States for her short visit, we looked at old photographs and yearbooks from high school. We looked at all our senior pictures and pointed out who was doing what these days. ie. if they were married, had kids, where they lived, where they work, etc. It was quite entertaining.

We caught up with some friends and spent New Years 2010 at some club playing billiards and darts.

It was fantastic to see her again and meet Ollie. Someday, I hope to visit them in England.

December's Letter

Well, November began with taking Benny to the vet to have his abscessed tooth removed.  Mom took him to the vet a few months before and was just given antibiotics.  The abscessed tooth cleared up for a while but returned.  I dropped Benny off at 0830 and they told me they would call me in the afternoon to tell me how he was doing and when I could pick him up.  I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't a little bit worried about him.  But I knew he would be just fine.  Before I went to pick him up, I bought him some soft dog food.  It was somewhat humorous when they brought Benny to me.  His eyes were kinda half open as he was still woozy from the anesthesia.  He was probably thinking "What have you done to me?"  For the rest of the night he was confined to his crate.  The next day he was still a little bit listless, but by day three he was back to his usual hyper self.  But I could still tell he was still hurting b/c he would still grumble every now and then.

I was trying to reseal the back porch in the 2nd week of November.  It was still somewhat warm at 75 degrees F.  However, the bugs like to explore during the warm hours before winter sets in.  There were plenty of wasps and Japanese lady bugs flying around.  I was concerned about the wasps, so I read about natural ways to repel them.  If you fill a zip loc bag with water and a penny, it will resemble a spider web and a spider.  Bugs won't voluntarily fly into a spider web.  It has to do something with the wasps compound eyes that make the bag of water look like a spider web.  Well, that didn't work.  I even saw a wasp land on the bag of water.  Another way is to blow up a brown paper bag and hang it up.  It resembles a nest; wasps are territorial and will think this area is already occupied.  But I did not have a brown paper bag to try that one out.  The best way to repel them was to wait until the sun was about to set.  They like to sleep too.

I was supposed to go to a friends wedding, but I slept in and missed the time at which I was supposed to depart.  It was in Alabama. Does it mean that I am old when I have gone to 6 weddings in the past 6 months.  I have another friend who is getting married in January.  Maybe I won't miss that one at least.

So, since I donated all my late Dad's suits, it is time for me to start a collection of my own...slowly of course.  I have 2 sport coats and I kept one of my Dad's sport coats because it fits me well.  But doing research on suits brings me into a whole new world.  I will tell you this, I don't like cheap stuff.  Cheap as in "it's good for one use, then it falls apart".  I won't go into all the details of what makes a quality suit but I found a store in Chattanooga that has quality suits.  I decided to go all out and buy a whole new ensemble except for new shoes.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Ours was spent at Aunt Pam's where we ate twelve pies.  Okay, twelve pies were made, but I thought about eating twelve pies.  But if I did eat twelve pies that would be gluttony.

I've been playing with post-process Tilt-shift photography effects.  It's where a large scale image looks like a miniature.  A photo is attached of what I think is the best I have done.

I now know how to tie a tie four different ways.  Only eighty-one more to go. There's an app for that.


Until next time, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This May Be Who You Are...

"This may be who you are, but it is not who you will become." - Sha'ira

If I want to push a heavy box across the floor, it requires more force to get the box into motion than the force required to keep the box in motion. In other words, it requires less force to keep the box in motion than it does to get the box moving. It is simple physics: static friction is always greater than kinetic friction. It takes a lot more force to get something to move, but once you have it moving, it is much easier.

What am I trying to get at here. Well, I think this applies to more than just physics.

If I look back at my life (thus far), it seemed easy. I do not recall working hard in middle school, but I know I did; I don't remember stressing out over some report in high school, but I know I did. But I do remember breaking down in college and wanting to change majors. Engineering was tough, but I was 4 semesters away from graduation and I thought it would be a waste to change now...er then. I remember pulling all-nighters and finishing papers 5 minutes before they were due. Looking back on it, it just seemed easy. But I know it took a lot of work.

Still, what am I trying to get at.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with my life (and I will probably spend my entire life trying to figure it out). But I am trying to at least figure out what I would like to do for the next three to five years. I have been exploring my options on what to do and where to go. It is just like pushing that box across the floor. It is always tough starting out. But once I get to where I am going, it will be a little easier.

But I know that no matter where I go, I might be somewhere that I never intended to be, but might love where it is.