What a day! I let Meg out after work and noticed that she was sniffing around the basement window barrier thingy (very technical term there). There was a small hole in the dirt and I thought “great, we have a mouse living by our house.” Well, later that night, Paul and I let her out again and went out about a half hour later and found her covered in dirt head to toe after digging two holes about 8 inches deep and 10 inches wide. We got a flashlight and checked the holes and found a little mole crouched hiding in a tiny spot at the bottom of the hole, 30 more seconds and Megabyte would have had it! So now we have a mole in our backyard. Great. *sigh*
Then, Paul and I saw a rather big black spider on our foundation about a foot from the holes. Paul thought it may be a black widow and suggested we catch it (I was doubtful thinking that they didn’t live in this area). We did catch it and low and behold, it WAS a black widow spider! Immediatly my mind swept back to my childhood days of watching “Rescue 911” and the endless shows about people getting bitten by black widows and almost dying. I freaked out. 🙂
We brought the spider inside (in a closed jar of course), read up on the internet about them, took some pictures, and then sent it to heaven in the microwave before we headed to bed.
I’m still pretty freaked knowing that those are around here. I know they aren’t usually fatal for humans, but I’m more worried about Meg getting near one and getting bitten. We’ll have to be on the lookout for them now. Talk about a wild night! Check out the pictures of Meg’s dig and the spider by clicking on the picture below.
-ec
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Kennel Cam – Megabyte
That’s right! Now Megabyte can be seen all day long on this fun thing called the Internet! She’s going to be famous! OK, maybe not. I picked up a Logitech Quickcam STX from Best Buy last night because I had $25 in reward zone coupons (love that program!). They were out of the Microsoft camera that I wanted, so I thought I would try this. The program I am using is called WebCam XP and it does a live stream, has quite a few config options and can use more than one camera! I’ve got a TV Tuner card in the PC and a camcorder @ home that I am going to try out with it as well. The software I’m using supports up to 8 cameras, and you can have all 8 feeding at the same time. Pretty nifty. Would like to get a camera angle inside her kennel and maybe one aiming outside towards the driveway or front door.
–pc
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Pictures are up for Jim’s black belt graduation and my attempt at breaking concrete.
Click on the picture below to see them all:
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Well, all my psyching up didn’t do that much good. I didn’t get through the concrete last night. Some of the black belts did massive breaks; 3 and 5 concrete slabs, and Sensei Kurt even broke a coconut with his hand. Pretty cool stuff. Neither Cathy or I could break the concrete though *sigh* Cathy and I were talking about it; part of it was that we couldn’t really get focused. There were probably 50-75 people there last night which made it really hard to concentrate. We each tried it twice.
My first miss hurt a little, but not much more than missing a board. I skinned up my palm on the first hit but it wasn’t a huge deal. I wanted to try again immediatly, since I was pissed at that point and could have easily taken out my anger and frustration on the concrete. They made me sit out for about 5 minutes before they let me try again. By then I was all calmed down again. I couldn’t seem to get as focused as I should have been…and again I didn’t break through it. Busted up my hand pretty well on that second one. I jumped up immediatly in pain and thought I had broken something. I hit the concrete much harder the second time and when it didn’t break it rebounded that much more into my hand.
My hand was all swollen up, purple and red last night, and I couldn’t make a fist until this morning. It’s getting better. Wanted to take pictures last night of my hand, but I couldn’t find the card to Paul’s camera so I had to wait until today. CLick -here- to see pictures of my hand from today. Not as swollen, and a little bruised up, but it doesn’t look too bad.
Guess I’ll get to try again in a few months at the next black belt graduation (maybe April?). Cathy’s mom got some pictures of us breaking, I’ll post them as soon as I get them from Cathy.
-ec
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My sensei told me last night in karate class that Cathy and I would be breaking concrete after the graduation ceremony this Friday. Eep! I’m a little nervous; I know I can do it, but one wrong move and my arm is shattered…
If anyone wants to come let me know and I’ll tell you where to go and when!
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I think I’ve found my next book! Thanks for the suggestions, on here and in person. I was thinking about going with one of the books suggested, but tonight I came across a book that I just have to read. It’s called “How to pray after you’ve kicked the dog” by Terry Teykl. It’s a book about prayer, and how to develop your prayer life based on your personality.
Renewal Ministries says this about the book: “Just why is it so hard to pray? You may be surprised at some of the hidden reasons. This, sometimes humorous, look at how to defeat intimidation, shame and fear of failure will give you a new freedom for your prayer life. Explore your prayer temperament and learn how to pray in a manner that is effective and personally satisfying. No matter where you are in your faith walk How to Pray After You’ve Kicked the Dog will encourage you.”
I’m looking forward to reading it; I make an effort to include prayer in my life as much as I can each day, but probably like many others, feel that it’s just not enough or that it’s just not ‘as good as it could be.’ I’m hoping that this book will give me a new spin on things and teach me to pray more effectively and personally.
My friend Phyllis gave a devotional tonight in our Emmaus team meeting about changing ourselves and our prayer lives. The point that hit me hardest was that she said that we need to change our prayer habits: that prayer is meant to change and grow us, not to give God a list of to-do’s. So…I look forward to reading it, and will let you know how it is!
-ec
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Jordan, Jim’s daughter, was promoted to purple belt tonight. The graduation ceremony was awesome. Many students were promoted; they each got a chance to show off some kicks and punches and kata for the audience. At the end, the black belts did some board breaking demonstrations.
Click here to see the videos of black belts breaking boards and Sensei Steve doing one of his flying side kicks over 4 students into a board!
Click on Jordan’s picture below to see all the pictures from her graduation.
Great Job Jordan!
Jim’s black belt graduation is next Friday night; the black belts have to do more demonstrations too. Cathy and I are supposedly breaking concrete that night…stay tuned to find out!
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I’m now halfway through the final book of the Left Behind Series. I’ve been reading these books for so long…I don’t know what I want to read next…
Has anyone read any really good books lately? I think I may want to stay on the Christian book-track for awhile…
Help?
-ec
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Emily has been sick all week and was finally feeling better. We decided to have dinner and see a movie. It was Macaroni Grill for dinner and Black Dahlia for a movie.
Our waitress at Mac Grill was not fast enough for me…I had two refills on my tea – and they were pretty much both after I was done eating. I hate that. I got their Mama’s Trio meal, or something like that, and the lasagna portion was not even luke warm – bordering on cold. Sent it back, but it arrived just in time for us to ask for the check. Oh well, we entertained ourselves with their crayons and paper table cloth. Played some Tic-Tac-Toe and that dots/squares game. Normally Emily beats me at those…Lets just blame her cold on my successes tonight.
But now on to the main reason for this post:
DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS MOVIE!!!
Seriously. If I hadn’t paid $8 a ticket we would have walked out. It was *terrible*. I honestly don’t say that about many movies and I really try to find the good in most stuff I see…but this movie? no. nothing. nada. The scenes felt like they were chopped together and out of place – and at times, it really fealt like you were watching two different movies. We went to see the movie thinking it was a thriller from the ads- only to be confused by the director’s work. Was it a thriller? no. Was it a mystery? eh..not really (it was honestly too confusing to be a mystery). Was it a love movie? kinda..wait..no..uh..maybe?
In this day and age, you really expect more out of production companies. The plot was hard to follow – were you (as an active audience member) trying to solve the mystery of the black dahlia murder? Were you trying to figure out the lives of our two cops? Were you trying to find out who the bad guys really are? Or maybe you are trying to find out why they even included the main character’s father in the movie since it was a pretty pointless scene.
I could honestly type pages on why I hated this movie, but that would be pointless. I like artsy and wierd movies, but this movie sucked. Make that Sucked – just so it has a capitol S. Don’t waste your time. I would have rather watched Beer League or Barnyard. Maybe that will be next weekend.
–pc
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****NOTE**** this post is OLD…i played this game nearly four years ago. The password changes ALL the time. – 05 aug 2010 -paul
Dragon Gamez – Free Online Games : The Car
Started playing this game today after I saw it posted on Digg.com. I’m stumped now…got 3/4 of the keys needed for the lock, got the memory card for the PC to generate a code which I think is for the pad lock. Figured out the password for some grey door/box on the wall but so far entering it didn’t get me very far. Guess I have something to do this weekend! How far can you get?
**UPDATE** got the padlock code, all four lock keys, the car key and other stuff…but now I’m stuck again. Need the code for the key generator and the door key!
–pc
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