Boys and their toys

*sigh* Remember that iPad I bought? No, it's not broken...but it has a rival in the house now. Yup, I had to get another PC. The iPad isn't a stand-alone product, even with the improvements toward that they made in the iOS 5 update.

I did a bunch of research online, looking at new computers. While I have some parts that I could have used to try and build my own machine, I chickened out. Newegg and Tigerdirect have these upgrade kits that include all the parts I would need, but you have to assemble (the easy part) and install all the software, including the OS, yourself (the hard part.) Yeah, there are a lot of resources out there, but they all assume you know something about something. Of which I know nothing.

So after all the research, I wanted to get an Acer. Seemed like they had the speed/size that I wanted, without as much cost. Newegg had a refurbished unit for $309.99. After Googling a little more, I found my Walmart had the same machine, brand new, for $389.99. And since I'm an impatient bastard, to Walmart I went. I'm not a PC gamer, so the 4GB of RAM and the 1TB of HDD space should satisfy me for a while. A terabyte. 1000 gigabytes. Sheesh.

The girlies are already having fun with the webcam. They love watching themselves on the TV.

Gotta do something about the video & sound though. There are a couple of PCI slots available. Time to shop for a HDMI and surround sound card.

Windows 7 looks nice and clean. Still acts like Windows though. Haven't found anything groundbreakingly awesome yet. Except maybe the speed. It is very very quick. If it's anything like my past new machines, it'll slow down sooner or later, but this thing has more RAM than my last desktop had hard drive space. (There was a laptop in the mix that had a decent amount of space, but I just paid a guy $42 to tell me it was dead.)

Now that I have a new machine, I vow, with an oath written in blood, to keep my photos organized. Like this one, for example:

It's always neat to come home after a snowfall and see what the wildlife have been up to. It's difficult to see, but there are at least 3 different sets of tracks in there.

Since I can fiddle with Grooveshark again, please enjoy one of my current favorite songs:

Prayer post

We're going to try something a little different here. It's fairly personal, so I'm going to shut the comments off, but still post it on the blog. Since this is a personal journal style blog, I'm going to use it at such for this type of post, even knowing some will read it.

Anyway, it's about prayer. My prayer life has been terrible lately. I still pray, but not regularly. It's mostly a bad habit and I thought if I wrote it, it'll help put it on my mind more often and help build a better habit.

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector; Luke 18: 9-14

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Dear God,

Thank you for all the blessings you've given me. Thank you for having enough confidence in me to be able to be a father to my kids and to lead the guys at work. You certainly know I couldn't do it without you.

I ask that you be with my girls. Keep them healthy, both in body and mind. Please protect their innocence, especially as they head into their teenage years. Help them to love life and to love you. Help me to be the presence they need in order to know you.

Thank you for the group of guys who invited me to meet with them on Friday mornings. Please be with R, W's daughter, today. Her life if tough now and you know the reason, but please let it be resolved soon.

Please be with the managers of my company. Especially the owners. Help them to make good decisions. Decisions that put your will first, but also smart decisions as far as keeping them and the company viable. I've questioned whether or not I should still be here. I'm going to leave that to you and if you need me somewhere else, please let it be obvious. If not, please help me to be content.

Please be with L. Help her to be content and to look to you and Godly friends for help. Put people in her life that she can be open and trusting with, and willing to listen to.

Finally, please give me wisdom and patience. Wisdom in making decisions and patience with circumstances I cannot control.

Amen.



So there you have it. I feel kind of strange putting this out there, but I gotta do something. This helps me to organize my thoughts and get it done too. Future posts like this will not have the commentary.

If only it worked with just a pair of glasses.

This whole online dating thing has me a little freaked out. Not skeered or anything, but I find myself thinking about things I hadn't thought much about before. That and a post by ChopperPapa about his first commandment for parent bloggers.

The main thing is an online identity. While it wasn't necessarily due to a concentrated effort, my real life (RL) identity has been fairly well separated from my online identity (OL.) Since Google+ came around, that's changed a little, but not enough to concern me.

It's not that I have anything to hide from anyone, but I've always been a very private person. Maybe there's more concern for what people think than I'd like to admit. Or maybe explaining things is more work than it's worth. Or maybe I enjoy the anonymity. Who knows...

Facebook is probably the only online connection to my RL. Not that I ever actually post updates, but still. Google+ is the next closest connection. It's set up to keep things as separate as you want too. You could post any update but then pick and choose the people you share it with. Currently, I have no family in any of my G+ 'Circles'.

What I'm mostly thinking about is how I might integrate any new online acquaintances into my OL. Do I do the FB thing and suffer the potential consequences of FB drama? Would they get offended if I didn't want them as a FB friend? Do I mention that I'm a blogger? Cause if I did, I'd probably have to let them read it. And if they read it, would my attitude about the blog change?

It's all certainly not worrying about, but it's stuff I'm thinking about and that's why it's here.

Here's my real profile pic.

I am physically incapable of forcing a smile.

I think my camera gives these 'self-shots' a fish-eye look. Does anyone else see that? Maybe it's just the shape of my head.

Or maybe this is the next "What is it?" picture. Good luck with that!



ps - Just read a profile, "I'm not picky on looks..." Do we have a winner?! Ha!

pps - Why do 90% of the single women have a dog? I like dogs and all, but sheesh...

Randomobililility

- Yet another picture-less mobile blog post. At Perkins this time. Just got out of church. The ex hasn't taken the girlies to church for a while now. I asked G about and it sounds like she's using her typical sickness excuse. Nothing I can do except give it to God.

- I'm kicking myself for backing out of my hiking plans. The weather dorks said it was going to be high 40's, but it may reach 60. It's gorgeous out. On the other hand, I'm not really equipped for anything except warm weather hiking, especially if there is snow involved. That's alright. There's other stuff that money needs to go towards.

- Still haven't heard back about getting that stuff cut off. If I don't hear something on Monday, I'm going to call the family doctor I saw in the first place and talk to him about the treatment my mom used to take care of some she had on her ear. It was a biopsy to prove what it was and a cream treatment. Probably cheaper than a plastic surgeon anyway.

- I know it's noon already, but since it's my first meal of the day, I'm going to indulge in a high calorie breakfast. Yummy.

- So the parental units decided to change their holiday plans and visit my brother and his family on the East coast for Thanksgiving. Trying to beat the weather I guess. The girlies and I will have the day to ourselves. Maybe we'll get invited to my aunt and uncles house. That would be nice. But I still want to try deep frying a turkey.

- Perkins has the best breakfast in town, but the ambiance could do without the cackling old lady laughs. Yes, all the handicapped spaces are taken.

- You would be proud. The coffee I'm drinking now is the 5th cup (reasonably sized even) I've had over the last 2 weeks. Maybe just cutting back will turn out better than the cold turkey attempts I've tried in the past.

- Where's my muffin? Dang I would love some muffin right now. And not just the blueberry kind.

- So I chose to shave my head and cut back on the coffee...just in time for the cold weather. I'm a genius.

- There's a saying, "church is full of people who need to go to church." If you were sitting next to me, you'd be hearing an elderly group of people complain and talk bad about fellow church-goers. How sad.

- So a lady, probably late 40's, stopped by on her way out to say hi. She wanted to meet someone as confident as her to be eating alone at a restaurant. Ok…? I probably should have invited her to sit and talk…but…but I'm writing a blog post! I've never really thought about it being a confidence thing. I was just hungry and hate cooking for myself.

- The topic at the next table has switched to fashion. One old guy is going off on teachers who dress like their students. “How can teachers who dress like their students expect to get any respect?!” I look up and he’s staring right at me. What a jackass. He was so well dressed, I might have respected him...up until he opened his mouth.

- Some of the girls those dating sites are matching me up with are smokin’ hot. Can’t help but feel like their all way out of my league.

- My profile is like 3 sentences long. Should probably do something about that.

Thanksgiving Comes First

That's right people. Don't forget it.

I love love love Thanksgiving. Yes, it's mostly because of the food, but also because of the family gatherings. It had lost some of it's luster, what with being with an ex who could never relax on a holiday, but being near my parents and my moms family has helped a lot. They always have some sort of gathering. This year though, I think my parents are planning on having just me and the girlies at their house, instead of doing the whole clan thing.

Maybe a deep-fried turkey is in order this year? I've eaten it but never have made it myself. My parents usually put it in a bag on the grill. They've gotten it down to a science and it's good stuff.

The stuffing is the best thing on the plate though. Good stuffing, with lots of savory & sweet flavors. I've had bad stuffing. It's an abomination.

Dangit. I'm getting hungry.

My mom would put almost as much effort into decorating for Thanksgiving as we did for Christmas. That is probably the biggest reason for it being such a special and anticipated holiday. Makes me wonder what kind of Thanksgiving decorations a single guy might put up. Probably not going to happen. Especially since we will not be celebrating at my place.

Back in Cali, Thanksgiving weather was always pretty cool but nice and we could still play outside. WY is a different matter. We might have a couple feet of snow to deal with. It makes it feel more like Christmas.

This is what I had to deal with yesterday morning:

You like my awesome grill stand? It's a Black&Decker workbench.

And I left my gloves in the trunk...

Can you guess what it is?

You all thought I was joking about using that profile pic on a dating website, didn't ya? Yeah, it went up on a dating site. Along with some others, but still...

What about this one?

No, this is not how I really smile.

This whole dating website thing is highly amusing. I put my name out there on one, just to see, but that particular site was quite cumbersome to use. I haven't deleted my profile yet, but I haven't been back there either. So I went to another site. A much more popular site...or so it says. Their site is more user friendly, from a navigation standpoint anyway.

No way am I ready to start paying for stuff like that though. I actually haven't done any searches, just looked through the profiles they emailed to me. That's where it starts though, huh?

The profile picture is a very interesting concept. What makes a good profile picture? What kind of profile picture is most attractive? Is it just me or are 'self-shots' not attractive? Like there is no one else around willing to take their picture. And they all try to come across as sexier than they really are. Why do they always hold it over their head? It makes them look short.

(For the record ladies, Double D's do not make for an 'average' body type.)

The whole idea of dating is still...unattractive, for lack of a better word. It's not that I want to find an exclusive partner, but I do want friends.

Not sure what about 'making friends' has eluded me. It's been a little difficult since I became single again. My ex has a tendency to alienate her friends. When I was married to her, I was dragged along for the ride. Not to blame her entirely though. I've never had very many friends or even very close friends. Don't ask me why. I just don't know. Maybe I'm just self-absorbed.

Don't get me wrong. I do have friends and I do socialize. In fact, you're all invited to a poker night this Friday at my place. Or you could meet me and a group of friends for Wing Wednesday today. (Mmmm...wings) But I do very little in the evenings and nothing on a regular basis.

Alright...just stop it. This is turning into the same old 'I got no friends' rant that you've read before.

Did anyone else ever read that kids magazine...I think it was called 'Highlights'. One of the last pages had the "Can you guess what it is?" photos. Here's my "CYGWII" photo. Pretty easy.

If you had to look at the comments to find out, you lose!

That was taken by E, my youngest. I really enjoy looking through the pics after they've had the camera for a while.

We're off to eat some wings. You'd better hurry if you're going to make it. Mind the foot of snow we got last night. (pics to come)

I think I might just make that CYGWII thing a regular feature.

The Girlies!

As promised, here are those pictures of the girlies.

My parents got back home and were surprised at how much that pumpkin grew. It came from a seed the girls had planted near the shed. They had another plant in the other garden, but none of those got that big.

My new dating site profile picture.