tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35785908075834502072024-02-20T17:06:26.258-06:00BruzertonSimple thoughts and day to day stuff that I find interesting.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-24738748744977820102009-03-01T13:52:00.005-07:002009-03-08T15:09:11.368-07:00Healthy Living - Mmmm FoodI'm going to start off with, I'm no expert. I only know what's working for me. I'm just trying to use some common sense. Stuff I've cobbled together through years of failed diets. My thinking now is, a good diet is about making good choices, and practicing moderation in those choices. Look, there are no hard and fast rules. Luckily (and unfortunately), I like most food. So switching up my diet isn't too difficult. The problem is, I need the changes to stick. I need to change how I think about food. I could say, I need to change my relationship with food. What I've found so far that works for me, is gradual change, small steps.<br /><br />The first part is about making good choices. Only eat real food. By that I mean, I try not to eat anything that's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">pre</span>-made with something I don't know what it is. The toughest part in doing this is, it's more time consuming. Not just in the preparation of the food itself, but I also have to go shopping more often. Healthy food also costs more. Prepared foods are cheaper, in my opinion, because they are made with cheaper ingredients, and stuff that isn't really even food. That's why they aren't healthy to eat. If I need to buy something prepackaged, I read the ingredients. If there is anything artificial, or chemical in name, I move on. Soda is the worst offender to me. It's why I removed it, or as much as I can, from my diet. There is nothing in soda that I need. The reason I'm thirsty is I need water, so I'll drink water. Another offender is fast food. I have no control over what fast food is made of and therefore I prefer not to eat it. Of course, like the quitting of soda, this didn't happen all at once. For me, it's all about small changes, and choices. <br /><br />I'll start, as I do every day, with breakfast. This was actually the easiest change. For years before I even started all this, I used to go to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Jamba</span> Juice and get a smoothie. Then when I decided to start my new life. I began to evaluate everything I eat. So, I started to notice that all their smoothies had either frozen <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">yogurt</span> or sorbet. That meant it all had a bunch of sugar in it. So I decided to make my own. It turns out, It's cheaper too. I buy a bag for frozen fruit, bananas, and OJ. This allows me to "eat" my breakfast on my way to work. People ask me all the time, does that fill you up? It doesn't have to. That's not the point. The question is, does it keep me from getting hungry, which it does. I'll get into this "getting full" verses "no longer hungry" later. <br /><br />Let's move on to lunch. Lunch is a little tougher. This is the only thing that I switched out quickly. I stopped getting fast food and started making lunch and bringing it in. For me sandwiches are it. Turkey mostly, but PB&J too. One of the things that makes it tough, is most bread is full of crap, as is most peanut butter, and jelly too. For me, I just want the stuff I eat to be as basic as possible. That means bread with no high fructose corn syrup, or other stuff that isn't necessary to make bread. Eventually, I'll get a bread maker and then I have more control over what really goes into it. For now though I read the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">label</span> and try to make sure that I get the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">healthiest</span> I can. A great example of the "basic ingredients only" idea is peanut butter. What is needed to make peanut butter? Peanuts and a little salt. That's all. Most peanut butter though has sugar, as well as a bunch of other junk. All that crud isn't needed to actually make peanut butter. Why then use it? I think it's because people don't like to see the peanut oil floating on the top, as is seen in basic "peanuts only" peanut butter.<br /><br />It's dinner time. The really good thing is, I love vegetables, fish, and chicken. I used to have steak or hamburger just about every night for dinner with boxed mashed potatoes. I mean what's easier then Hamburger Helper. That needed to change, and yeah, I could have switched it out to something more healthy quickly, but I want this to really stick. Bad habits are the hardest things to change. It may sound stupid but I started with pork. Pork loin and chicken actually, with rice instead of potatoes and vegetables. Pork was my way to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">transition</span> from steak. I'll still have a steak, but just occasionally. I slowly moved from pork to fish, and away from white rice to brown, to not having any rice. It's not that rice is bad, I just don't think there's anything in rice that I need. Now most nights I have a piece of fish with vegetables. That's it.<br /><br />Choosing good food helps, but I needed to learn some moderation too. The basic concept is easy, I eat when I'm hungry. Food is not the enemy. I'm not hungry because there's something wrong with me. I'm hungry, because my body wants food. I'm not talking cravings here. I'm talking about actually being hungry, and I needed to learn the difference. When I eat too, I eat until I'm full or at the very least satisfied. Like with my smoothie breakfast. I just don't eat until I'm stuffed. I don't want the opposite either. I don't want to sit down to a meal and still be hungry after, that doesn't work either. I'm not talking about food portioning either. I'm not going to measure things out, because that's just too <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">cumbersome</span>. I'm still working on this, as it's taken years to program myself to eat until I'm full. My old thinking was, I'm only going to have 3 meals for the day. It's going to be hours until I'm able to eat again. So I had to make sure that I wasn't going to be hungry until then. Then over the years the line has moved from just full to stuffed. Now I have to move that line back, and get rid of the idea that their should only be 3 meals in a day. I can't be afraid of leftovers. Just because it's on my plate, doesn't mean I have to eat it. I'm working on something new to help me do this. Eat half of whatever I've made. Stop and sit for 10 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">min</span>. to let that part of the meal process. Ask myself if I'm still hungry. If no, stop. If I get hungry again in an hour or two I can always come back to it. If the answer is yes, eat half of what's left. Sit again for 10 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">min</span>., and ask the same question. This is very tough. Sometimes I think food is too good, it's like a drug and hard to stop. I'm not programed to stop, and it's has become a habit. It doesn't help that I love food. I mean, I really love food. I get lost in the meal sometimes. It tastes too good to stop eating it. You could say, I'm a food addict. The problem is, unlike other addicts, I can't quit food. I have to eat. That was a real <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">revelation</span>. I just have learn to eat less, and make better choices in what I decide to eat.<br /><br />This is all a work in progress. I still have work to do. I know that I'll have friends or family read this and say, "Hey, I saw you eating this or that". All I have to say to that is, there are no absolutes. I've found that if I don't treat myself from time to time, that I'll quit altogether, or at minimum I'll gorge on something that I really shouldn't have. Like sit down and eat a quart of ice cream or a bag of candy. If though, when I have a craving for something, I allow myself to indulge just a little, it will keep me from going overboard later. So instead of eating an entire box of cookies, if I just allow myself to have two, and I'll be satisfied. The best part though is, this is a life style change. If for a day, or for a meal, I decide that it's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">OK</span> for me to eat something very indulgent. It's not the end. I don't beat myself up and think all is lost. Like I said, food isn't the enemy. It's over <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">indulgence</span>, and poor choices that are the true enemy.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-41277116753596935732009-02-22T08:39:00.004-07:002009-02-22T16:50:43.139-07:00Healthy Living - It's Gotta Start SomewhereWorking on getting healthy has become the main focus of my life. I didn't realized it until the other day when talking to a friend of mine. We went to lunch, and I haven't talked to her in a while. My focus on getting healthy comes with advantages and downfalls. One of the downfalls is this is all I had to talk about. When thinking about creating this post, and staring to actually get it down, I've realized that it's going to take me more then just one post to get all my thoughts down. So I'm going to start from the beginning and then go through it the best I can. I need to go through my motivations. Just typing this opening paragraph, my head is swimming with different ideas on where I should start. I guess, I have to start with how personal this issue is to me. Saying that, it being a personal thing, you have to understand one other thing first. I am a rather introverted person. I didn't realize this term described me so well, until I talked to another old friend last week. She picked up on it and threw the term at me and it sparked the light in my head. I sort of already knew this, but this is really the first time someone really slapped me with it, and I was open to hearing it. So writing this, and actually put this out to the public, makes it a little cathartic too. Ok, let's get out of this pool of ideas that I'm swimming in, and start this post.<br /><br />I've been overweight most of my life. There was a period, albeit short lived, back at the end of high school where this changed. I was by no way thin, but I was in pretty good shape. This was the only time in my life when this was true. I had a good group of friends, but always felt like the odd man out. I don't know what that is. I felt good about myself (not great, but good). I still had underlining issues, where I felt not good enough. This is an issue that still haunts me today. Part of my problem is, I seem to make causal friends fairly easy. Now I have to explain, my idea of a good friend I think is a bit different then other people's idea. I'm the kind of person that will drop just about anything for a friend, personal comfort be damned. This is how I've lived most of my life, and has affected the way I relate to my friends. This may be why also I may get the "odd man out" feelings. There have been times throughout my life where I've needed a friend and have felt left out. Now, I know (or at least feel I should know) that I'm setting them up for failure. Just because these friends don't react the way I think they should doesn't reflect on me. There's part of me that just can't get over the feeling that it's because they really don't think of me more then just a casual friend. I know I'm just being a needy person and that can be part of the problem too. That's an issue for another time. Something that I am tackling, just not something that I'm focusing on now. My focus now is this issue with my weight. My personal view of myself is part of my self-esteem issues, and something that I believe I must tackle first, before I can go after these other issues.<br /><br />In the summer of 2007, I was just waiting for life to come to me. I've been single for many years, and not really doing much about it. As I look back at it, I was really spiraling down. My weight was getting really out of control. This was crushing my self-esteem more and more. Though I really didn't show it much to people around me, I was really getting rather depressed because of it. Until something just snapped. I have to do something to change. This just isn't working for me. I'm pretending to be happy and really I'm not. I had to look at my life and figure out what it is that's bringing me down, and keeping my self-esteem low. There are quite a few, but what is something that I could really do right now. Something that I feel would be the best first step for me. Yes, it's only one part of my overall self-esteem issue, but something I could really work on now, and it was a place I could start. I am way overweight. I am a fat guy. The sad part was, I was starting to just accept it, and that needed to change.<br /><br />I've tried many different approaches to fix it in the past. All were just loose it fast kind of things. They were just diets, and diets don't work for me. I did make a good go at it about 8 years ago, but quit because I let work get in the way. This just made things worse. For those whom may be reading this, that don't know what it really is to deal with an issue like this, I'll explain. Yeah, it's easy to get started, but if you don't do what's right for you, you quit, and it just makes things worse. You end up gaining more, and quicker then you were gaining before. This also makes the issue seem seem futile. So this was going to take a different approach. I decided that I'm not going to try to do everything at once. I'm going to make a small change here and there. I've heard people using this approach for other problems. The theory is this; when you look at the enormity of an issue, it can overwhelm you, and make the problem seem really too big to take on and get done. Believe me, my issue with my weight was a big issue. I started out to attack this issue at 340lbs. I was doing a lot of things wrong to keep me here and make it worse. It was time to at the very least stop the bleeding.<br /><br />I knew I had to start giving some things up. The first thing for me was soda. Now, I just didn't go cold turkey. It may sound dumb, but this is what worked for me. I first gave up caffeine. I used to drink at least 6 - 8 cans of Mt. Dew a day. If I wasn't drinking Mt. Dew, I was drinking Coke. I didn't have an issue with the caffeine itself. I could drink a pot of coffee and go to bed and sleep no problem. So, to start off with I stopped drinking sodas that had caffeine. Once I got used to this, it was time to go after soda itself. So for lunch I'd drink lemonade instead of getting a soda here and there. It was my way to wean myself off soda. Then, I stopped soda altogether. I would only drink lemonade with lunch, and a glass of milk with dinner. Then it was time to kill lemonade. I keep a bottle of water with me in my truck and I only drink water now. Don't get me wrong, nothing is absolute. I can't deprive myself of something completely. It just makes me want it more. It's a delicate balance. I still will have an occasional soda. Like when I'm at the movies, I have to have popcorn and a soda. It's just part of the experience. To deny myself of just this one simple pleasure, would make me want more of the other stuff. Today the soda battle is won for me. I couldn't have done it all at once. I couldn't just say, "I'm only going to drink water from here on out". It just wouldn't work. It's too much of a big step. People still give me a little look when I go to lunch with them, as I'll just get water. It's kind of like going to the bar with someone and just order a soda. They look at me like, "What are you doing? Why are you here? You have to at least have a beer." That's part of the battle for me too.<br /><br />I'm a strange person. I'm a fat guy, and I don't like people seeing me as such. On the same note, the same things I have to do to correct this issue, bother me because I still have the underlining need to fit in. I want to order that soda/beer when at lunch or dinner with friends, because I don't want to be different. I don't want others to feel uncomfortable. I don't want people to think I'm judging them. It's so prevalent in our society now. Something, I've never done, and am really happy I have never started, was smoke (you can see an earlier <a href="http://bruzerton.blogspot.com/2007/05/clearing-air.html">post</a> on that). As soon as those same smokers stop, they start judging those that still do. I don't want people to think I'm trying to push my beliefs on them, as I don't want others to do the same to me. As this isn't my goal. It's something I'm doing for me, not something I'm trying to tell them to do.<br /><br />Well this is just the beginning. I still have a long way to go. It took me a while to drop the first 60lbs, and just not drinking soda isn't the only way I've gotten here. I'm just trying to work on it 5lbs at a time. I have an ultimate goal, but that's not my focus. I think that's the point I was making earlier. I've been doing other things too. I still want to go through what I did to get myself working out, and other eating habits and changes I've made. I still also want to get to future issues I need to work on. That's what this entire series of posts are going to be about. What I've been doing to try to get to a healthy life for myself. I figured I had to give a little history to my motivations, so I can get to where I am now and where I want to be. The pitfalls I've tried to work on avoiding and some of the successes.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-59514404930997404322008-08-29T09:42:00.005-06:002008-08-29T09:56:29.880-06:00Lightening CrashesLast night was one of the craziest storms I've ever seen. The lightening and thunder were constant for a full 2 hours as the storm past over the house. It sounded like a 747 was flying circles over my house. I captured some video of it on my cell, which wasn't good video (or audio for that matter) but will give you an idea of what it was like. If you listen past the hiss, you'll hear a constant rumble, that's not wind blowing over the mic that is thunder. The camera picked up a lot of the lightening but not all. I'm not exaggerating when I say there wasn't a moment when there wasn't lightening in the sky. It was very much like the videos you see when movie stars are walking into some event and all the cameras are flashing on them. I've seen thunderstorms with a good deal of lightening before but in those cases at most you have at least a second or so inbetween flashes. This was constant. It was almost all cloud to cloud too, so most of it was obscured as it was baried deap in the thunderhead, but some peaked out and you'll see it in the video. Here's the first video I shot:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwcAud6AtAvWq02wY4V6nTb6YPaRgAeKsW1PAtgcGHFmbhnHXAl0aDr2wus_qCGsM1Ic_iOCGzIzkzCBD1aSA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br />I put in a little comentary but not much. You'll at least be able to calibrate the sound level on your speakers with it. You'll also hear two cars drive by. Here's the second video:<br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyFwQ4ST5j2U54ERL5ZFV2bQN1ML_eTt9oFBPzuu52LmGYr1p4PbSv1tlOhfPBXxlXCQRZCZW-OUEqAcLbw9g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br />This was about 30 mins after the first one. No commentary on this one, and no car driving by, but you can still hear the thunder constantly rolling. If only I had a good camera, and sound equipment I could really show this off, but this is the best I could have done at the time.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-10759235664258600202008-03-03T10:44:00.004-07:002008-03-03T11:55:36.132-07:00Putting on the BrakesRight before Christmas, I had taken my truck in for routine maintenance. They had told me that my brakes were down to 20% and that it was about time to get them done. Well, it was Christmas time and I'd already spent quite a bit that month, so I decided to wait a month or two to gather up the cash and get it done then. They had quoted me $300 to get them done. I had them done before at another place but wasn't really too happy with the work. My brakes would squeak and every once in a while I'd get a squeaking noise from the front passenger wheel when not braking at all. Well, end of February hits and I start to hear the tell tale sign squeaking noise that tells you "it's time to do your brakes before we start doing some damage." It just so happens around the same time I'm looking at an article on <a href="http://www.instructables.com/">Instructables.com</a> about making a super <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-water-mortar/">water gun</a> from PVC pipe, and I see a link to doing your own <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Brake-job/">brakes</a>. This inspires me.<br /><br />I remember doing my own brakes when I was 17 with a friend, and as I was doing it with him and he'd done it a couple times before, I was fine doing it. 17 was a long time ago and these are brakes after all. If I do something wrong, that could mean crashing. So I'm a little hesitant. I do a little searching and find a site that podcasts weekend <a href="http://toolmonger.com/2007/05/16/one-beer-projects-doing-your-own-brakes/">One Beer Projects</a> and one happened to be about doing your own brakes. They admittedly state that doing your brakes will take longer then one beer as it's a most of the afternoon kind of thing. It still looks quite straight forward, but a little time consuming. After hearing this and reading the instructables site walk through, I was inspired more.<br /><br />This weekend was perfect (well as stated before, most weekends during the winter in AZ are perfect) it was 75 out and I had nothing to do. I went to the local auto parts store and picked up some brake pads and other accessories, the day before. I hadn't driven the truck all day so I knew everything was nice and cool. I pull out the jack for my truck and this was the first time I've had to use it, and found out it was a pain in the ass to use. It's a scissor type, which isn't all bad but the way they have this one set up to hook up the arm and winder was very poorly designed. I've used a scissor type jack before, and on that one you had a hook that went into an eye on the jack and then the winder piece plugged into the other end of the hooked shaft. Easy and worked quite well. On the one that came with my truck the shaft had a "T" on the end that attached to the jack. You were suppose to feed one end of the "T" into an eye, while resting the other into a "U". You can kind of see it in this picture:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLOCgQi5ZXwId6lEX4vkBAvI0mRIJnN1j4KTMjkK1Rl0ubDS_rFabw3qX7Do1Q3SZ2auFCGL4SIj8LTY4DuorQuJHtVEol1AslrKm3CGR8gZdLoycfGlDBQ9bvk6sEavZKq8EQCt5QI2k/s1600-h/sj01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLOCgQi5ZXwId6lEX4vkBAvI0mRIJnN1j4KTMjkK1Rl0ubDS_rFabw3qX7Do1Q3SZ2auFCGL4SIj8LTY4DuorQuJHtVEol1AslrKm3CGR8gZdLoycfGlDBQ9bvk6sEavZKq8EQCt5QI2k/s400/sj01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173583563465419746" border="0" /></a>Basically what happens is the "T" keeps falling out. So using this type of jack is impossible. As it falls out, I notice that on the "U" side of the inlet, one of the legs of the "U" is bending. After about an hour of fighting with the jack to lift my truck, I finally call a buddy who has a quick hydraulic trolley jock. I bribe him to come over with the jack by offering pizza and beer for his efforts. While I'm waiting, I take off the front tire and find getting the pads out a breeze. I check out the rotors and they are in great shape. There are no gouges and there is plenty of metal left. I decide that I don't need to get them turned. I grab the box of new pads only to find out that they aren't he right pads. So my buddy coming over now serves two purposes, bringing the much easier to use jack and drive me back to the auto parts store to get new correct pads. We go back and the computer shows it's the right pads, and we look at other years and it's all the same issue. So I go to another auto parts store and find that I can get ceramic pads for the same price I paid for the wrong semi-metallic. This makes me happy and I get back home, now with the right pads and a very easy to use jack. I pop on the new pads, and put everything back together. Pop off the other wheel and put on the new pads and and the wheel, and have everything done and cleaned up in the time it took me messing with the original jack. <br /><br />All said and done, doing my own brakes cost me $65, and about 3 hours of my time, including traveling back and forth from the auto parts store, and messing with that horrible jack. I'd say that 3 hours of my time is worth $225. Plus I have the satisfaction that I did it myself. Oh and the new brakes work great.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-28261097343069193482008-02-07T11:04:00.000-07:002008-02-07T11:37:31.284-07:00Here comes the sun<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59vgQUcVXs6FCckLPP1QlPvgNZjkwzsR_Umm5YUpcs6-EgdUwmKwKpQC68VGLnKLq84UHOvABucbiSiXnMaT6QZjoZmlHt_NgD4GaYc4Ukk9HQrtK6cQdfKJddnR78om5Os2-n-jwPmY/s1600-h/snowcap2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59vgQUcVXs6FCckLPP1QlPvgNZjkwzsR_Umm5YUpcs6-EgdUwmKwKpQC68VGLnKLq84UHOvABucbiSiXnMaT6QZjoZmlHt_NgD4GaYc4Ukk9HQrtK6cQdfKJddnR78om5Os2-n-jwPmY/s320/snowcap2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164308101907961186" border="0" /></a><br />Yeah, yeah, I haven't posted in a while, and reading this post my make you hate me. I have to say though, I love this time of year here in AZ. Usually it's fairly warm, staying in the upper 60s low 70s. This winter however, has been a little cooler. I was listening the the local weather guy here the other day and he stated we haven't hit 75 since Thanksgiving. That's very rare here. Speaking of rare, it's been rainy. Here. In a desert. This weekend however it's going to be very nice. Finally we're getting back in to the 70s and may top out at 76 on Sunday. I can't wait. I love having all the windows open and feeling a warm breeze blowing through the house. It's not just me that likes the windows open, the cats love to have the windows open too. They like being able to smell the outside air and hear all the birds better. It's this type of weather inspires me to work on the yard and generally gets me going. With family back home in Wisconsin just getting snow dumped on them. I was just checking the Wisconsin local weather channels, looks like they got a little over a foot of snow last night with more coming this weekend with some extra cold air following that. What a contrast. Hate me if you must, but I'll be loving the weather here this weekend.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-82437285550620917312007-09-12T10:01:00.000-06:002007-09-12T11:33:00.095-06:00Dude Seriously.There are tons of terms that seem to come and go. In the 60s you had "Man" and "Groovy". In the 70s we were given "Dude", "Foxy", and "You know". Ahhh the 80s, it was then we were given the Valley girl, with terms like "Bitchn", "gag me with a spoon", and "Totally". Now some of these terms and lasted, and some have not. Recently we had the term "Bling". Which was popularized to the point where it became uncool to use it. MTV even had a small commercial where they officially retired it. I guess that's how most of these slang terms go. Why though? Why do some terms seem to endure and some fad away. "Dude", "Man", and "You Know" sticks around to this day. I'm wondering if it's because of who was expected to be using these terms. I remember in 6th grade my teacher hated the term "You know". He stated you could always tell when someone was being interviewed, if they were well educated or not, as they'd use this term frequently. He'd say, "No, I don't know, that's why your telling me". That may have contributed to some of these terms sticking around. They wouldn't be used that often in amongst the middle to upper class and therefore stay "cool". That and they were what I'd call soft slang. They weren't too overboard with breaking from normal speech, and now have been adopted into our everyday language. One in particular I can't wait to go away that is now becoming popular is "on Steroids". I'm soooo very tired of this term. You hear it all the time to describe things that have tons of features added or are overgrown, "it's like your TV on steroids". It's just getting used too much for me and now annoys me when it's used.<br /><br />"Dude" though is different, and I'll tell you why. It's soo versatile. Which may be due to it's age. When writing this post, I was originally going for something completely different. When looking for good slang terms from different decades, I've found some things out about it. It seems to originate back in the late 1800's. Yes that's right, I put it in 70s, and that was because it became popular and used more mainstream about that time, but that's for later. It seems, and this comes from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude">Wikipedia</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">"Originally "dude" meant a city person in the country, with strong connotations of ignorance of rural ways. It is believed the word has its origins in the Irish word "</span><b style="font-style: italic;">Dúd</b><span style="font-style: italic;">" (pronounced Dood, like mood), which means someone who looks or acts foolish or out of place."</span> A term we refer to now a days as "City Slickers". It was actually a pretty derogatory term until the late 60s early 70s when surfers started using the term for more familiar purposes. Throughout the 80s the term became even more versatile. It crossed gender lines (although more in a joking manner as "dudette" and such) and began morphing, and now, depending on tone, it can be used in any part of a sentence and can replace very many words. <br /><br />Personally, I love the term due to its versatility. Even more now that I know some of the history behind it. Then again who knows. In 50 years no one may be using it anymore and there'll be someone writing on how weird we were to use such a crazy slang term.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-17744733366525635752007-06-04T16:08:00.000-06:002007-06-04T17:03:04.471-06:00What a pain in the Foot!!!So yesterday morning, I woke up to my Achilles Tendon being sore. What a strange and weird thing. I can put weight on it fine, it only hurts when I walk (i.e. when I move my foot up or down). I've had the issue twice before, and can't seem to pin down exactly what's causing it. The good thing is it only lasts 3 or 4 days then goes away altogether. At least until next time. It's not like the whole back of my calf hurts. It's just the very bottom where the tendon attaches to the heal. Besides hurting when I walk, it also hurts to touch it, more of a soreness then real pain.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.aafp.org/afp/20020501/1805_f1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.aafp.org/afp/20020501/1805_f1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Doing a little searching on the net revealed that it's either Achilles Tendonitis or Peritendonitis. It's the strangest thing because everything I've read so far states it's from excess activity (that's not me), the other is from poorly padded or very flat shoe soles. The funny thing is, I've had the same shoes for a while. Now that I'm writing this down though, I'm thinking it may be my sandals. I never had the issue before I bout them, and only ocationally get it after a weekend. The only issue I have with this is that I actually walked around less with them this weekend then any other this year. Heck I walked a ton in them while on my Vegas Vacation a couple months ago without issue. This sucks too, because I really like them, as they're very comfortable. I guess I'll have to shell out some cash and get some new ones and see if I get this issue again.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-60985479317310993182007-05-10T09:55:00.000-06:002007-05-10T11:28:14.362-06:00It's Electrifying.....This morning on my way into work I heard a commercial for professionally installed Solar panels. They stated, "...it is actually possible watch the power company's meter run backwards". Little background, I've been interested in solar power stuff for a while now. It's continuous energy, all you have to do is collect it. Now living in AZ, the sun shines what seems like 360 days a year. You'd think this would be a easy fit down here. Well, solar is just not there yet. Back to the commercial. So I went to their website. The cheapest system they have they claim produces something like 295 Kilowat hours per month. Sounds like a lot. Well checked my Electric bill and the smallest amount of electricity demand I used in one month was 1100 Kilowat hours. Yeah I could cut some corners here and there, and bring that down, but that's besides the point. The numbers speak for themselves... <br /><br />Now the amount of electricity coming from the panels would be generated during peak usage times, so my house would be eating up all that juice while it's being generated. I could get bigger systems but again lets stay with these numbers for now. Let's say the electric company would give me full value for this electricity generated. I look at my bill and I pay (because of the plan I'm one) $0.04765/kWh, that means with this system I'd make $14/mo. using this system. Let's say I drop the plan I'm on and start using the most expensive on peak kWh plan. The plan that has the highest cost/kWh is $0.18200/kWh that's the summer rates so this is the most I'd ever be able to make using a solar system. That equates to $53.69/mo. Now we're talking. That can do some damage to my bill. Then we look at the cost of installing the system. To install it costs a little over $12,ooo. This system has a "10 year SMA inverter warranty and 25 year solar panel warranty". OK lets say that everything lasts for 25 years, and by some miracle the electric company gives me that high rate/kWh year round. Also that this system will consistently produce the stated 295kWh/mo. for the entire 25 years. That means every month this system pays me $53.69/mo. How long would it take for me to make back that $12,000? Now the site does state that the state government would give me a rebate of $3,000 and that the Fed would give me a 30% rebate. So if I get all that it would bring the cost of install down to $5,400 for the install. At $53.69/mo that makes $644.25/yr. That all means that it would take a little over 8 years for the system to pay for itself, and for me to actually start making money while using it. In reality though, I wouldn't be getting that high rate year round. It actually drops to $0.10918/kWh during the winter, so that's only $32.21/mo during the winter (Summer=May-October, Winter=November-April). After all the calculations, that means $515.40/year or it would take a little less then 10.5 years for the system to pay off. By then I'm sure there will be much more efficient panels, this also assumes that I'll be living in this house for that long. It also assumes best case scenario for everything. It just doesn't add up yet. One of these days, this will all work. <br /><br />By the way, a system that would meet my lowest month electrical use would cost $46,400 before rebates. It would take 52 panels with each panel measuring 5x 2.5 ft that's 130 square feet. I think that may be a hard sell to my HOA. I really wish that solar was a little more efficient and not so costly to implement. It seems like such a great way to get electricity. I think that the cost still has to drop in half for it to really start taking off. These are much better numbers then it was when I first started looking into it. About 5 years ago, it think I calculated that it would take between 15 - 20 years for it to start paying off. So maybe in 5 more it will finally get there. I've heard some good rumblings about newer panel types that have much higher efficiencies, being made cheaper productions methods using a die. So maybe just maybe...Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-75093584871553300582007-05-04T13:47:00.000-06:002007-05-04T14:31:36.655-06:00Clearing the air<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfcoey4IWPqZzxS4irBHK7f4MmxzeyiT8SXcwnlV6X7unlbmco0KDFW5xYzD69QBsiMVDkuqQU-MQDMyPVsxFW_9cRjvYZ6ixR0o9wZoBDVL1KRGHxFV3UUaUYHAm_ic_qT_HobaZII0/s1600-h/No+Smoking.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfcoey4IWPqZzxS4irBHK7f4MmxzeyiT8SXcwnlV6X7unlbmco0KDFW5xYzD69QBsiMVDkuqQU-MQDMyPVsxFW_9cRjvYZ6ixR0o9wZoBDVL1KRGHxFV3UUaUYHAm_ic_qT_HobaZII0/s320/No+Smoking.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5060805863549693442" border="0" /></a><br />On May 1st the Arizona smoking ban went into effect. Smoking is now banned in all indoor public places. Most of the bars were making a big stink (kind of ironic) stating that they are going to loose a lot of business because of this and may end up going out of business.<br /><br />On Wednesday the home town Pro. Basketball team the Phoenix Suns were playing game 5 of a possible 7 game series in the first round of the playoffs. They were up 3-1 in the series and if they win they would move to the next round. This game was shown on TNT. With most people having cable the game would be viewable by most people. I having a TiVo and Wednesday being a particularly busy night for TV shows. I would either miss some of the shows I watch or miss the game. A third option however would be to go to one of the local sports bars and watch the game, allowing the shows to be recorded for viewing later.<br /><br />The first place we went to (Buffalo Wild Wings), was packed, with standing room only available. Many people chose to do just that, stand. BWW had always been non-smoking as local city ordinance had already passed a no smoking ban.<br /><br />We decided to try another bar that we liked a lot but stopped going to as the smoke was just too much, Uncle Bears. I must be getting old, as it was so bad most nights that I had to shower when I got home because I just couldn't sleep from the smell still hanging on me. This place was also packed, although not as much as BWW. BWW was always a more popular place, as most chain places are. So this wasn't a surprise that there were less people here, that's why we liked it and why we thought we had a chance for a seat tonight. They've updated things big time at Uncle Bears (by the way it's named after the owners dog, which is also their logo, a yellow lab with a handkerchief around it's neck) They've always had a lot of TVs but now instead of the old big screen big box sets, they now have a bunch of plasma and LCD screens. It was so much nicer in there now.<br /><br />I think we'll be going back much more. Then I'll be able to gage how much the ban is effecting them. To be honest, I don't expect it to mean that much. With the old city by city ban I can see how they may be effected, as people would just go to the next city and smoke. With the whole state having the ban there's no where to go but outside. There's a couple other places too that we had the same issue with, and now may be revisiting. It's nice to have choice again. Oh, and the Suns won...heheBrucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-4599103167142063502007-04-18T11:53:00.000-06:002007-04-18T12:07:05.828-06:00I'm Learning... I'm LearningSo for the past couple months I've been taking some Cisco classes at the local community college. I figured since I'm managing this network, I might as well know some stuff about it. That way I don't have to call in a contractor every time there is a network issue. Today I was doing some checking on some of the circuits. Making sure that I some of the updates I requested are actually showing on the lines. Now a year ago at this time, I would have no idea how to do this nor have any idea that some of this stuff needed to be done. The best part was I noticed an issue. Nothing really major, you see each branch has two routes to reach us here at the main office. One of those routes wasn't letting anything come through. From the people at the branch perspective they wouldn't see a difference. The issue is though they were using the backup route and not the main one. So now if there was an issue with that path they wouldn't be able to work. So after about 2 hours of checking and troubleshooting (again a year ago I wouldn't be able to see this issue, much less be able to troubleshoot it), I concluded it had to be an issue with our network provider who we lease these lines from. I called them and explained them what I saw and they checked stuff on there end and they saw the issue was a configuration problem on their end. They updated their end and blamo (yes that's a technical term) the primary path showed working on my end and I had a great big smile on my face. Not so much that the issue was resolved but that all the stuff from those classes was actually sinking in and that I could intelligently speak with the provider and get this issue resolved, all with the people at the branch not noticing a thing.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-80663743893389589192007-04-12T15:36:00.000-06:002007-04-12T16:03:51.660-06:00The ReturnSo the one thing that I hate most about taking a vacation is having to come back. It's not so much the work thing, I really like my job, as it is getting back into the routine. Everything is just a little askew. I'm a fairly organized person, so this little bit bugs me a lot. Things just take a little longer, as you try to find the pace you were at before. It's also hard to buckle down again and get things done. You have the energy now to do it, but the want you need to get started isn't there yet.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjEm0KgeysJ1TXydehx3qoGhJ-YWksOymOW9Dyh0JLlntDGljCtCnupkiy5eSZk_0eOmsTKulQKzEWruXvwQw1QDPJdVB1UDZgoLFKb9CLGV1-60aqaVT5FNCIhfLdk0An4wSTPNv6cY/s1600-h/Firefly.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjEm0KgeysJ1TXydehx3qoGhJ-YWksOymOW9Dyh0JLlntDGljCtCnupkiy5eSZk_0eOmsTKulQKzEWruXvwQw1QDPJdVB1UDZgoLFKb9CLGV1-60aqaVT5FNCIhfLdk0An4wSTPNv6cY/s320/Firefly.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5052664739033585618" border="0" /></a>While on the Vegas Vacation, the hotel was great and we had a fantastic time. I had the worst luck though. I started to think that the decks were stacked, as the dealers continuously got 21 after 21. Now I don't mean they had Black Jack, that would have been a little too cruel. I mean they were showing a 5 or a 4 and 3 cards later they'd have 21. I counted it on one table and out of 10 hands the dealer was able to pull out 21 7 times. At another table I got Black Jack myself 4 times, of which I had 3 push because the dealer had it too. The race was fun though. My roommate placed a bet on the winner at 7-1 odds. Well done on his part. He was mister lucky for the weekend, so at least I know where some of my luck went. It wasn't very crowded, which was really nice, as the sun was pretty hot. They said the temp was in the low 80s but the sun made it feel much hotter. If you've never been down in the desert the sun burns a little hotter down here. I've lived in the North and the sun feels warm up there, but down here it down right burns. I think it's because it much more direct sunlight, so the sun doesn't have to go through so much atmosphere to hit you. Well that's it for today.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-44236865301439181642007-03-29T09:11:00.000-07:002007-03-29T09:47:35.572-07:00New ComputerI've decided it was time to wipe the old computer and move to a new one here at work. They both are actually pretty similar (i.e. the CPU, RAM, and drives are almost identical) but at times my current computer gets a little slow. I've installed and uninstalled so much software over the years on it, it's just best to move to a new one. Yesterday I started late in the afternoon. This morning I'm still going on it. The thing that sucks is it's taking forever to move my data from on to the other. 30Gb takes a while to move. So while I'm waiting for it to do this, I figured I'd write a post. It's been a pretty boring week otherwise, and I really wanted to write something here at least once a week.<br /><br />I'm starting to get a little excited about my trip next week. I'm going to Vegas, and it's been a while since I've been there. This will be the first time I'm flying in. I've only drove there before. It's only a 4 hr drive and it's pretty scenic most of the way. I figured this time I'd try flying. It's pretty cheap to fly. It's only $50 each way, in all though I think I'll only save 1 hr of travel time. When you count in the time it takes to get through security at the airport, and since you can't take any liquids as carry ons now, I have to check my luggage so I'll have to wait for it in Vegas. The actual flight time in only 45 mins. After all that though, I'm expecting it to be 3 hrs of travel. The bonus is, you get to drink on the plane. Also while you're there, you don't feel obligated to take your car when you go place to place, it's all taxis and walking. It will be a good time of year to go to with the weather still being nice. I may go back to driving though once they finish the bypass of the Hover Dam. I don't know, we'll see how this trip goes. The main reason we're going is, my roommate is into F1 Racing, and its American counterpart Champ Car. Well they're having the first Champ Car race there in Vegas and we're going. It should be fun. Plus there's always the gambling.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-26520571844714916102007-03-23T09:00:00.000-07:002007-03-23T09:32:00.671-07:00FRIDAY!!!!It's still early in the day, but I love Fridays. I don't know why I like them so much (other then the obvious). I mean I go out. Nothing really special though. I usually hit the local bar with my roommate and have a couple beers and Jack & Cokes, watch whatever sporting event is on and that's about it. Pretty routine. It helps that the bartender is very cool and hot, and knows me as a regular. <br /><br />As I started writing the boring thought above, I have a nice little scene happening outside my window right now. Apparently two people got into a minor fender bender. I initially noticed the chick involved as she parked her truck and kept going from the front seat getting out and then going to the back seat, then back to the front, then back to the back. So this action intrigued me (not to mention she's kinda hot). Then I saw a guy park his car. He came over and talked to her and then she continued her moving back and forth. Maybe she knew the guy and they had planned to meet. They both went back to their vehicles, but stayed parked. I ignored it then looked back out about 30 mins later and saw a cop talking to them. "They must have hit each other", I thought. Then about 10 mins after that, I notice a guy and is boy getting out of there car, looks to me to be the dad of the chick that was in the accident. They are just hanging out off the to side as mom (the chick) is talking to the cop. Then another car arrives and the lady that gets out appears to be the mom of the guy that was in the accident. She hands him a camera and he starts to take pictures of both vehicles. It looks as if the chick hit the guy, as the front of her truck is dented and the driver's side headlight it busted. Because of the angle to the guys car I can't see any damage to his car. I assume though that it must be the back passenger side of his car but not the very back. The guy is done taking his pictures and comes over to the dad and kid and starts talking to them. Friendly discussion, the accident guy hands the dad what appears to be a business card and they shake hands. Mom is still talking to cop. Accident guy talks to his mom, and she drives off, then gets into his car and he drives off. Dad and boy hang out for a bit and mom finally comes over they hug and go look at the damage. Cop drives off on her motor cycle. <br /><br />Nothing like a little drama to help pass the morning.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-4119377952992959402007-03-21T10:49:00.000-07:002007-03-21T11:10:27.009-07:00Phishing scamsSo I gave the guy I'm training access to our spam filter here at work. Just a little background on the filter. We use a third party which we route all our mail through to scan it for spam and viruses. Suspicious emails are then put into quarantine. There is an option to allow users to release or delete the emails that are in their own quarantine folder. Knowing my users though, I know that most will release all emails, as they "may be important". So being the extra good admin I am, I set it up so that they don't get the email, I go through the quarantine folder my self. It's not like I have to open each person's folder, I have it set so all go into one folder. Even still it's not a lot, about 150 a day for everyone (the spam filter has many levels, and most I have it auto delete, these are just the ones that might be spam but it can't rule out). So I go through them, which is pretty easy to notice which are spam and which aren't. It takes maybe 10 mins. out of my day so I'm ok with it. We'll I need to train the new guy (there's only me and him for the company in the IT department). So today was his first day with handling the filter himself. I figure spam is a petty straight forward thing, you can tell just by looking at the from address and the subject line fairly quickly if it's spam or might be legit. You delete all the ones that you know are and then scrutinized further the ones they look like they might be good, or false positives as they're termed. We'll he saw a Phishing email (you know the ones, your "bank" is sending you an email stating your account is expired or your password is expired and you need to click on the link below to re-activate it) and thought this is legit and released it. Well it must have had a bunch of people in the "to" field because I get emails from about 5 people in about 5 mins asking "what's this email about". These are my good users. If something doesn't look right, they email me or call me on it before proceeding. I am confused by the email. Surely our spam filter should have caught this email. So I investigate, and low an behold it did catch it. I ask the new guy, "do you know what a phishing scam is?", nope. He's a new guy, so I explain. I then have to explain to my manager, that no we don't need to put a specific block on for this email, that our filter did catch it, it just was released by accident by us, and it won't happen again. Then I have to write a big email to send to everyone, "If you see this email, just ignore it and delete it". It's a good time again to send a little reminder to everyone too, that this is what a phishing scam looks like and that this is what it's intended for. Made for an interesting morning with one of our Terminal servers going down (kind of) again. But that's for another post.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3578590807583450207.post-76932897754866197642007-03-17T10:27:00.000-07:002007-03-17T10:31:09.152-07:00I've finally created somethingSo I've finally started a site that actually has a little something on it besides pictures of my truck. Hopefully I'll actually keep this stuff updated and post things here from time to time that may be interesting. <br /><br />EnjoyBrucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01757710756336779053noreply@blogger.com0