2011 Reading Results

Another year has gone and I really did a number on the reading list this year. I have been slowing down somewhat toward the end of the year as I have been reading more RSS feeds during the evening. I am currently in the middle of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin. They are long books, but really good reads. Fantasy with out an overload of fantasy. And what is even cooler is that HBO will have "The Game of Thrones" series starting this year! I am so looking forward to it and Laura wants to see it as well. So we'll be subscribing to HBO for several months out of the year just to watch this series.

So here is the list for 2010:

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (5 books of the Trilogy)
• Fatal System Error (Kindle)
• The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan (kindle)
• The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan (kindle)
• The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan (Kindle)
• The Dilbert Principle - Scott Adams
• The Battle of the Labrinth - Rick Riordan - (kindle)
• The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan - (kindle)
• A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin (kindle)
• A Clash of Kings - Geroge R.R. Martin (kindle)
• The Heart of Technical Excellence - Curt Taipale

Here's to another year of reading!

New Year Blog Move

Well, I have decided to move back to blogger. I've spent the last year or two blogging on wordpress, but I've become a big Google fan/user and blogger is associated with Google, so here I am back again.

I did attempt to import my wordpress blog, so that I could have all my posts back here, but everytime I try to upload the converted xml file, blogger just sits on "Writing Blogs" and never gets further than that. And there I am not sure if it is a problem with the blogger import or with the "conversion" program that I ran from a website to convert the file. So, until I am able to import all the posts, if you would like to read the past few years worth of blog posts, you can go to my old site.

Copy Cat!!! - Moving

Well, since everyone else is moving to wordpress. I did the same.

Please update your google readers, blogrolls, links, memory synapsis's to http://razorsdomain.wordpress.com

Ultimate Bass

As some of you may know, I dabble at playing the bass guitar. Mostly it is an off and on love affair, but lately it's been off due to the bass I have at the house. I used to have the Church's 5-string bass and Ampeg amp setting in my office and I loved playing it and practicing (Mostly when Laura was not around :> ). But the Church is using the bass again, so it stays at the Church, and I have been messing with an old 4-string guitar that has intonation problems, loose electronics and an uncomfortable neck.

Last week I mentioned to Laura that I wanted to get rid of it (she suggested putting it in the alley way, which is what we do with junk we don't want and can't sell). Anyway, I've been looking at basses lately and I think I found the one I want!!



Nice Eh!? :) Actually, no, I don't want that one. I will settle for a nice 5-string again, but I just wanted to post that picture :)

Plug for Neal Morse

It's Saturday evening, I am finishing up some work for a DATA-COM client, coding away, listening to Neal Morse. Over the last 44.5 years, I have had a lot of favorite bands and musicians. Some have stood the test of time (Megadeth and Maynard Ferguson), but none of really touched me they way Neal's music does. And, to top that off, since he left Spock's Beard, all of the stuff that he has put out has been all Christian music.

Every single CD he has put out is just simple amazing. And they are not all the same. Most of them are progressive rock epics. He also has a couple of worship CDs released as well. But I really enjoy the Prog stuff the most. One of them called "Sola Scriptura" is about the life of Martin Luther. Luther changed Christianity like no other (except Jesus himself of course). Neal captures the whole store of Luther in an EPIC prog CD, consisting of only 4 songs, but lasts around 70 minutes! Simply amazing.

Anyway... I recently got the "Sola Scriptura and Beyone Live!" DVD, and it is just as good as all his other stuff, but LIVE... mistakes, improv and all. I wanted to post this here so that maybe someone else would get interested or may have never heard of him and would like his stuff. So, here is the trailer for the DVD.

If you are a fan of Prog Rock, check it out. Probably the upper top of musicians.

Enjoy!

Gas back to Normal?

Well, back to normal as to what we would call normal down here. This picture is hard to see, but unleaded gas price at 23rd and Nolana, $1.49 per gallon. Not too shabby :)



I took this photo on the way home from work yesterday from my ubah cell phone. I should have had my new camera with me, but that'll have to do (click to see a large view, still rather blurry though).






After getting home and changing clothes, I finally went out and had my eyes checked. Not big change in Rx, I just needed to get new glasses really. So, after the eye exam, I awaited my darling princess (LJ) who would put up with me for over an hour as we tried to select some regular frames and then some frames for some sunglasses. Why was I waiting for LJ? Well she works there at the place, so not only did she help me pick out some great frames, that'll make me look SEXAH! but, we got the family discount on them as well! :) It also gave us a chance to chat and catch up since we don't see each other too often these days.

My new regular glasses will be ready today, I'll pick them up after work, but my sunglasses were special order, so they won't be ready until the 13th.

I am glad it is Thursday! Weekend is almost here, not that it really means much anymore! I had planned on some serious coding today, but as usual, I got side tracked early in the morning and have not been able to get back on track yet.

Wow, Christmas Already

It really struck me yesterday morning. I stroll into the office around my usual 7am time. No one else is there yet, which I think is great! I get a lot done between 7am and 8am. Anyway, as I was doing some of my morning things, I noticed Musak had Christmas music on, then it struck me! Ack! It's Christmas time! Well, at that certain time, I was not too excited about the holidays, but the holiday feeling is slowly starting to seep into my system.

So, I've got my TSO (Trans Siberian Orch) backgrounds up. Last night I searched the DirecTV listing for Christmas shows to record on the DVRs. I added my regular old christmas sugar cookies to the grocery list (The ones you just pop in the oven for 20 minutes, they have like Christmas trees on them). It's take Laura a week or two more before she gets in the spirit, she has to wait until classes are all done. But, I'll probably coax her into putting up the tree this weekend.

Health wise, I am doing better. It's been kinda rough without the caffeine, but I am surviving. I haven't had any headaches in the past day or two, so that is getting better. Wednesday after working I am going to have my eyes checked (finally), it's been probably 5 years since I had them checked.

Until Next time!

Thanksgiving at Home

We hope that all of our friends and family had a nice and happy Thanksgiving. As some of you know, we decided to stay home due to some health issues that I had a few days before the Thanksgiving holidays. I am doing fine, I just sure miss my caffeine :) We stocked up on Koolaid packets, Sprites and Caffeine free DP's. I still have our De-Caf tea, which we have always used, and now we are using De-Caf coffee as well. The De-Caf DPs are eh... ok I guess. Not like the real thing, definitely.

As for Thanksgiving, Early Thanksgiving morning Laura and I ventured to HEB and got in our shopping before the crowds. Then we decided not to have our Thanksgiving meal until later in the afternoon. Laura spent most of her day working on a paper for her History class at UTPA, and I relaxed and worked on a conversion for one of our clients (more on that in a bit). Then around 5:00 we had a great little meal, just Laura and I. Some ham, green bean casserole, mashed tatters, roles, and cranberries hmmm. It was great. We both were wishing we were in Austin for Mom's cookin', but this will work.

Must of today has been about the same as yesterday. Laura working on her History paper and I am working on the AS400 conversion. Laura made us a wonder breaklunch around 11, then she did some cleaning and misc stuff, then back to work on the paper. I did a bit of sweeping around the house and just now shut down the client AS400 I have sitting here, about to relax, figure out what we are going to do for supper and watch some TV or something.

Speaking of the AS400



There it sits on my office floor. This is for a DATA-COM Client, I am in the process of migrating their files and programs off their S/36 and onto the AS400. Which is turning into more work than I thought, but that is ok. Up to V5R2, IBM included a Migration Utility, which helped with the migration process. But it is kinda finicky and doesn't always do the right thing. But as of V5R3 (which this machine has), that utility is not included! But, actually it's better. This way I get to monitor the migration process, make a list of programs that failed the conversion, etc. I have restored all the files and libraries, compiled all the programs and screen formats. There were maybe 20-30 programs that did not compile successfully, so I will look at them tomorrow. After that, I have to work on a solution for a little dilemma associated with the move to the AS400.

One of the tricks we used on The S/36 will not work on the AS400. SUBROC, a subroutine that we used to do some printing tricks will not work on the AS400 (actually it does not exist on the AS400). So, I'll have to figure the best way to get around that. I have 2-4 ideas on how to do it, just need to figure out which one will be the best option.

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving, we hope that our Colorado family makes it home save and sound, back to the cold north. We'll eat some whataburgers and Patos for you :)

It's not that bad I guess

Well, I'll be leaving in a bit to take Laura to the airport, and then I'll be missing her for 6 days, but she'll be back. I hope! Weather is nice in Cali... :)

The root canal went pretty well I think. Thanks to everyone for the prayers. I was in the room around 9, and out by about 10. It was a pre-molar tooth, so there was only one root to contend with. Afterwards I came hope and relaxed a bit, grabbed a quick nap, mainly because I was really tense during the procedure and need to wind down. After I take Laura to the airport, I'll be headed back to work for the rest of the day.

Not going to be a great day

Well, I already know today is not going to be a good day, but I'll survive :)

9:00 I am scheduled for my first ever root canal :(. But, it's time I get my teeth fixed up and this will actually be the 2nd step. About 1-2 months ago, I had to have another 2 extractions, since the teeth were not worth keeping, and also got a "deep cleaning" or root scaling. That was not fun. Hopefully the root canal won't be as bad. I'll have it crowned probably after the first of the year.

Also today Laura is flying out for San Diego for some sort of Communications conference. She'll be back on Tuesday of next week, then on Thursday morning early, we'll be driving up to Austin to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and the Denver crew. We are definitely looking forward to that.

New Computers and Virii!!

Saturday morning, I headed over to the south side of McAllen to CompUSA to get some upgrades for my main computer system. I came back with a AMD CPU, new MB, 500gb HD, 2gig of RAM, and a new case, along with a few other items that I would use to take my old components, and make a computer for Nick.

I spent saturday afternoon setting up the new machine, transferring files from the old HD's to the new one, installing all the software I use, etc etc. I was pretty much finished with it by Saturday night... time to rest.

Sunday AM, I go back to customizing my setup, and my AVG gets hit with some virii being put on my machine! ALERT!... after a few seconds I notice that they are on the shared drives. And only shares that Laura has access to. So, I took a gander at her laptop and sure enough, it was infected. I shut it down and made note to deal with it after church. I also scanned her USB stick, and it was infected as well. I got it cleaned up and told her to stay away from the laptop until I was done. It had been unplugged from the network, and I also powered down our wireless just in case.

I made a few attempts to clean it, to no avail. We had already discussed reinstalling that particular machine, as it was getting dog slow. So yesterday afternoon, I just removed the partitions and reinstalled. I am about 90% done with reinstalling now, and will finish it up tonight. Then I can get back to messing with my new speed demon.

Man that new setup is fast. Now if only it could speed up my typing and improve my grammar as well!

Traveling Aboard (with a broad)

Saturday Afternoon, Laura and I ventured to another country. We traveled down to the Weslaco area, then headed south, parked our care on the US side of the river and got our exercise walking over the bridge to Progesso. We had started our quest to find the ancient grail of vanilla!

The contrast of north and south is just so amazing. Never mind the beggar's presenting their caps through the openings in the bridge side rail. What first caught my eye, and it wasn't until we were in the pharmacy, was the armored police vehicle, loaded up with policia, sporting shiny machine guns.

Once are shopping venture was done, and as we were headed back toward the bridge, we noticed a sandbag bunker, with 3 armed police, all sporting similar weapons. And this was not the mexican border officials, it was the police, about a block away from the bridge. Although it is amazing to see that, it was a bit re-assuring.

On other things, we went to the same store we went to last time (which we conversed about on our trip over, it was before we got married... been awhile :> ). They have all kinds of neat stuff in there. Of course you have your liquor, vanilla and mexican candies and cookies. But they have clothing, statues, swords, and all sorts of mexican made items. It's a great place to just browse around, just watch your head.

We have to go back to get some more vanilla this coming weekend, we did get enough, but the wife's Mom visited us on Sunday and aquired a few bottles before leaving. So we need to replace those ;)

The Truth

Today I will forgo my rants and ravs, my delirious babble and send you to the truth.

You cannot be a Christian and vote for Obama

Awesome memory, still etched in my mind

I don't recall the exact date, or even the year. But about 7-9 years ago, Laura, me and the kids went down to Brownsville for the air show down there. It was during the fall months, as we were not sure if they were going to actually have the show because there was a strong cold front forecast to arrive that day. We got to tour the hangers, watch a few planes fly around. But the main event was a flyby by a Stealth Bomber. As the event went on, they were not sure how much longer the event would last and if the bomber would make it. It was flying in from the Corpus base I believe. The low dark clouds started moving in, and it looked very dismal. Those of you that have lived down here know what it looks like when strong fronts come in.

Over the PA, they kept announcing that the Bomber was in route, it did leave it's base and would attempt a flyby, hopefully before the rains started and there was still some visibility. The weather started getting worse, so we all made our way to the parking lot, to our car. The PA announcements started getting faint, but I could hear they it was close, all of us looking around the sky to see if we could see it.

Then, out of the dark clouds, this HUGE BAT flew down, roaring like giant. Slowly flying over us, ground shaking, people pointing and hollaring. It was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. I was extremely impressed and extremely proud of our country. In awe at our accomplishments. It's a sight and memory that I will never forget.

This morning I happened upon a video of another flyby, not near as impressive as what we saw, but impressive none the less. Enjoy, although I wish everyone could have experienced what we experienced that afternoon.

Do Overs!!!!?

I should have known better. I had high hopes... We were on the right track... But... After watching the debate last night, I realize that we have the two terrible candidates for president that we could have. Whats with McCain proposing yet another bailout on live TV last night? sheeze! Bailout Bailout! Shut Up McCain! Quit giving my tax dollars away!

I will also admit that the debate itself was not what I expected. It was supposed to be a town hall meeting. Not your regular old typical debate questions. Questions that we have already heard answered on the campaign trail and in other debates. There were only two "original" questions asked last night, both were great, but out of all the questions, only two of them sparked new information. One was the question on Israel, the other was "What don't you know, and how will you learn it". Of course both candidates skipped over the question and continued talking about the same stuff we have heard for the last 3 weeks.

My only hope now, is that McCain can pull off a win on November. Why? Well, of course, to me he is the lesser of two evils. Secondly, if he whens, Palin will get some much needed experience which will hopefully put her in a position to run for President in 2012.

Neal Morse vs The Osmonds

Teri will probably like this blog :/

I was listening to a CD I just got in by Neal Morse, excellent christian progressive rock. It came with a bonus CD, so after listening to the 1st cd, I popped in the 2nd CD, and the first song just made me jump back hmm 25-30 years maybe? WOW!!! Below is the original version that Teri will remember as well. But Neal, George and Mike all do a great cover of it.




Interesting... I just spotted this other blog entry about the song, on an Osmond blog?

Amp Room

I heard about this "idea" awhile back, never really knew what they meant until I ran it through my brain for awhile and then it dawned on me, and it's a great idea. One thing that I am sure some churches struggle with (including ours) is guitar amps on stage being to loud, or just adding unwanted sound to the music. But, how does a guitarist hear himself if he doesn't have the amp there.

One note before I go on. We have two guitarist now. One on bass, one on acoustic guitar. Both of them use DI (Direct Injection) boxes. The DI box takes the signal from the guitar itself, splits it up, sends the sound to the main mixer board, and then also to their amp. That way I get clean, un-modified sound. With Electric guitar I would not do this, I would either mic the amp, or pull signal after the amp processing so I get the exact type of sound that is being sent out from the amp.



Ok, back to the topic. I have started to hear about "amp room(s)". Hmm interesting concept. Above is a photo of an amp room that I "borrowed" from the net. The way it works is... on stage, the guitarist just plugs in his guitar. That cord feeds into the "amp room" where the Amp is setup. These rooms can be fairly small, and since no one really sees them, you can us acoustic absorption devices to cut down on reverb and reflection. In this room is were the amp is "mic'd". The sound from this mic is then fed to the mixer(s) and is sent back to the stage via the monitors or via In-Ear monitor (IEM). Whalla! Pure amp sound, with no amps on stage! Interesting huh? Of course this idea takes pre-planning in the building, but it is something I will keep in mind if I ever have input on a church/stage design.

Hands off my Equipment!

Argh... Sunday morning I was in a great mood, till I got to the church, did some sound checks, and noticed most of our stage equipment had been tampered with. Levels on the monitors had been messed with and the monitor mixer board had been messed with. So I went about getting things reset to best guess levels as fast as possible before practice started. During practice I had a few issues with feedback on the monitors, but worked them out fairly quick and thought I had it all under control.

At this point, I was still in a fairly good mood, enjoying Sunday School and then the worship service. (well... enjoying might be too much of a word, During the worship service I am usually a wreck, nervous, fidgeting with the main board, trying to make sure everything sounds good, make sure it's not to loud, or too soft, etc.)....

Worship goes on, we are on the 4th or 5th song I think, then BAAMMM!! Huge low frequency feedback emitting from the stage. Panic city!! Gladly the worship team just kept going, no hiccups, no one stopped singing, just kept going. I will frantically dropping microphones from the mix one by one, trying to clear the problem, to no avail. I happened to look up and see Nathan (the pianist) missing with his piano, so I killed his monitor and that cleared the feedback. He kept his piano off and the 7 singers, along with a flute and bass guitar finished the song. It was actually really pretty sounding. After the song was over, I lowered levels on the piano monitor, and gave him the ok to turn things back on again, and the service went on.

I happily kept my cool, and last night during worship practice, my assistant and I completely re-set the monitor board from scratch. So we should be ok now. We figured out that possibly some kids from the spanish church that meets there on Tuesdays and Saturdays had probably been missing with the knobs and got things messed up. So, I had a little discussion with our pastor, politely stating that no kids should be allowed on stage for any service (unless of course it's planned that way) and to assert to both congregations that no-one should be touching the equipment. And I think that with the real life experience that our church just had, they now understand why I don't want anyone touching the AV equipment.

Printer Support Personal

Finally - A nice RPG Editor

For those that are not programmers, you can skip this blog :)

Today I happened upon a program called RPGAlive. Basically it's a PC program that runs in the background, and "watches" your terminal emulation program. It can sense when SEU is running and then it reads the code and makes it "pretty" and a bit more understandable. One thing I have always disliked about IBM's SEU or FSEDIT is they are very crude and not real intuitive. Since I have now moved from the S36 environment to the AS400, meaning I moved from FSEDIT (back) to SEU, I have not been very comfortable when I am coding, like I used to be with FSEDIT. Maybe this will change things.



(click on the image to see the full size and animation that shows what it does)

That is a screen shot that I "borrowed" from RPGAlive's website to demostrate what it does. It is really helpful/useful when coding, especially if you are doing alot of loops or similar. I also like that feature that "underlines" fields for each type of oper command, so you know where the fields are without having to go to single line mode. Only problem with RGVAlive is it's $800 price tag.




The above is another program I use from time to time called CodeStudio (and it's FREE!), it's a PC program that FTPs the source code from the 400, lets you modify it, then FTPs it back to the 400. Only problem is it has a few quirks that I don't like, but I am starting to get used to it.

If I could get RPGAlive, I would probably switch back to SEU for all my coding. I have 30 days to try it out. After that I might end up switching back to CodeStudio.