Jeff's Hilarious Images Thread

MOAR IMAGES

My First Brew Is Almost Done!

I really haven't posted much in a while because I've been so busy! First batch of lakeside ale is set to come out of the fermenter, and age a bit more in the carboy. Phil, at the elks, was nice enough to outfit me (albeit a few months ago...sorry it took me so long to get started!) with about 50% of the stuff I needed to start brewing. Phil was nice enough to give me some kegs, tubing, cooling tubs, kettle, and a bunch of other stuff. From there, I took about a 30 minute trip over to Belmont, and picked up the remainder of the things I needed to get started from Alternative Beverage. I picked up my CO2 tank and regulator, along with my tap. I also got all the ingredients for my first batch which I affectionately dubbed, "Lakeside Ale"! It's supposed to be very similar to New Castle if you've had that beer.

I was surprised at just how easy the entire process was (save the sanitation). Alternative Bev provides you with these ingredient kits that include all of your grains/hops/muslin bags/and other odds and ends. From there its as easy as making something from Betty Crocker, and waiting.

You start out by "mashing" your beer. Mashing is the process of soaking malted barley, other grains, etc., in order to convert starch into sugars as part of the brewing process. The concoction that is produced provides both the flavor and the sugars for the yeast to eat and live out their amazingly short life span.

Mashing the grains in my kettle:



After chilling the concoction that is produced in the mashing process, you are left with wort. Wort is basically young (unfermented) beer.

From there, I added it to my fermentation bucket. After about 10 days, it's almost done fermenting.

Just look at that color!



Next, the beer went into the carboy to age and settle for another 2 weeks. I'll be starting on my second brew (a sierra nevada!)

Aging to Pefection



From there, I force carbonate using my CO2 tank from alternative beverage, and wait about a week.

And last, but certainly not least, the final product!



Even hoser took a break from her normal scotch and enjoyed a bit of ale...



The consensus from a few friends and family is in: 8/10. Let's home my sierra that's in the fermenter right now, makes a jump up to 9 or even 10/10!!

Hawai'i July 4th-11th, 2010

We came down for a business convention on the big island in Hawaii. This year, to hopefully recruit more customers, I was allowed to bring an additional salesman. My buddy Dave...aka Super Dave...aka Supa Deezahhh...who came along.

The flight from Charlotte to Phoenix was comfortable enough on the Airbus A321. The nightmare flight from Phoenix to Kona was another story. Super dave was lucky enough to sit 2 seats in front of me. His row had extra leg room as it was the area between coach and first class. The dolts who installed the seats took leg room from my row which amount to about 4-6 inches of leg room (a BIG deal when your stuck in your seat for 6+ hours!) Did I mention that they also decided not to leave any room behind the seats so you can't recline the seat either? Result...the boeing 757 was the equivalent of being flown over in a coffin. To boot, the punk kid who sat next to me had obviously been preparing for the flight with a steady diet of beans, effectively turning our small cabin into a gas chamber. I frequently took refuge in the bathroom, both for stretch breaks and some clean air. Finally, the plane landed, I was able to inhale again. Here's super dave climbing down the stairs...we got off directly on the tarmac!



With the time change being in our favor, we took off from Charlotte at 7:45am, and we landed in Kona at 1:45pm. The funny thing is that we weren't able to buy lunch until we landed in Hawaii, so we had a steady diet of eggs! We were definately ready for something with a little more sustenance being that it was 7:45pm back home. We picked up our rental car, and headed off to grab dinner (well lunch), after checking in to our hole in the wall, the kona seaside hotel. We went down to dinner at "The Fish Hopper". Although they have "Fish" in their name, they have some of the best damn burgers I've ever tasted. Not to mention, the burgers were on special for $10 with a schooner of beer! So far, me and supa deezahh have been there for dinner 3 nights of the 5 we've been here.

Good eats!



Cheers!



The view wasn't bad either!



Once we got settled into our hotel, we decided to have a few strategy sessions for the upcoming convention. On our second day on the island, Dave found a great local dive bar called "Coconuts". It was a second story bar with the best view I've found so far on the island, and best of all, they served dollar tacos! Now you know where we've eaten dinner the other 2 nights we've been here so far. I've gone through 12 tacos. Combine that with a cold Steinlager (a new zealand beer), and you've got another great dinner. Gonna have to go on a diet when I get home!

Our view from the comfort at a bar stool at Coconuts.





With our plans set, we took a little time for R&R, and went snorkeling! All around the hotel, there were reefs with tons of fish and sea porcupines. I pricked my finger on one. It's tough to stay on the bottom so I made mistake of trying to hold onto the reef for a picture. Doh! We even saw a huge 5 foot moray eel! It was Supa Dave's first time snorkeling. He almost drowned a few times, lol! A few shots:







We also did some touring around the Island in the convertible!



I can tell you one thing so far about Kona. We have yet to meet one sane person who wasn't working. So far we've met Joey, who was bragging about hooking up with a fat 21 year old chick, even though he was married, and his wife was currently undergoing surgery for ovarian cancer. By the way, he smuggled his wife across the canadian border, is on the run from the IRS (who he owes $20k to), and was actually in the Perfect Storm...not the movie, the actual hurricane...he hasn't seen the part in the movie where they all die.

Besides that we met a newly wed couple who was nuttier than your Aunt Fae's 10lb fruit cake. He was busy hitting on a girl that was interested in Supa, while she was in the back of the bar "dj'ing" with the bartender. The guy had a freshly split lip. Apparently the same bartender had to save the guy from getting his butt kicked the night before, only to have the guy walk down to another local bar and get knocked out by a "UFC fighter".

I can say this about Hawai'i. You can't beat the food, the sunsets, or the water. The people are down right crazy, the hotels are holes in the wall, and make sure you fly only first class if you plan on flying here.

Interview With Mark Boone of WCNC News

That's how I roll...

Pops In The Park

It's almost here! My favorite outdoor event of the year, and trust me when I say that we do it in style! The Charlotte Symphony's "Pops In The Park" is just around the corner and starts June 6th at 7pm in Southpark's Symphony Park, and runs each Sunday up until Saturday, July 3rd.

My best friends, family, and I have been annual attendees for the last few years. For the life of me, I've never been able to get the best seats in house. The concert is entirely free (though they do accept donations), and the way you reserve seats is by placing a towel, tarp, or chairs out in the location you would like to sit in. The problem is that I can't drag myself out of bed to drive 25 miles down to Symphony Park to put out our 10x10 tarp at 7am. The rule of thumb is (and I personally think people cheat all the time at this), you can't place you're tarp/towel/bear skin rug/whatever out before 7am. I think the one time I did manage to get down there by like 7:15am, the spot was already taken!

We'll see if I can get out bed in a timely fashion this year...or maybe bribe the B.O.B. since he lives a mile from there. Looking forward to another great concert series in the heart of Southpark! Hope to see everyone out there :)

The warmin done gud!

The wife done good! No I'm not talking about cleaning you chauvinist pig you (Though she did a great job making almost the entire house look squeaky clean prior to the folks coming over for dinner on Sunday...don't look at me like that...I handled the outside!) The house was definitely looking spic-n-span when the folks showed up for some grilled chicken marinated in my secret tomato basil sauce (Ad...don't you dare give away my secret recipe!) with a side of asparagus and a side salad. When we get together at my house, we don't drink that code blue garbage! No sir! We had a few 'black & tans', which is actually a combination of beers (1/2 guiness + 1/2 bass). Delicious!

I get accused of bouncing around too much on my blog, so let's get down to the point...what did the warmin do that was so heart warming, fantastic, and utterly stupendous? SHE GOT A $2000 SCHOLARSHIP! Cash, money! It was definitely a welcome (albeit, somewhat expected) bonus. What? The woman's top of her class and has a brain that would make a sponge jealous. You try winning an argument with her!

So way to go baby! I'm uber proud of you, and keep up the great work!

This picture pretty much sums up our relationship. What would I do if she wasn't there to take care of me!

Quail Hollow - No Work, Overpriced Beer and Craptastic Food, & Golf

It was good times on Wednesday. I was able to break away from work for the day to hang out with fellow chums Barr and the B.O.B. We arrived at Quail Hollow on the day of the pro/am. We saw a few of the more noteable entries like Dan Marino and Michael Jordan playing with some folks. We didn't make it out to catch the early bird, Tiger Woods, who tee'd of at 7:30 that morning. We did, however, get to see Tiger on the putting green.

After watching the man putt for 5 minutes, it was obvious he was in trouble. From five feet out, he missed most of his putts. That would be his achilles heel in the tournament, as for the 6th time in his professional career, Tiger didn't even make the cut! My personal favorite golfer, Phil Mickelson, was in it going into the final round, being 2 strokes out. Some 20 year old punk kid named Rory McIllroy won the tournament, and took the top prize of the $6.5M purse (or $1.152M for himself).

Makes me wanna take up golf full time! The kid just made in 4 days what it would take most of us 20 years to make!

Here's some snapshots of the tournament. A great time was had by all that concluded with $2.50 imports at DD's!

Barr had a good time...


Great shot looking down #3...


Barr using his advantage to get us that much closer to the action...


Phil showed up because he knew I was gonna be there...


All in all, it was an awesomely goregous day with the boys hangin out at quail hollow. Hopefully next year we can go for more than just 1 day!

Buffetisms - A collection of my favorite quotes from the mind of Warren Buffet

"It's an old principle. You don't have to make it back the way that you lost it."

"Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for thoe who know what they're doing."

"Stocks are simple. All you do is buy shares in a great business for less than the business is intrinsically worth, with managers of teh highest integrity and ability. Then you own those shares forever."

"Investing Rules: #1. Never lose money. #2 Never forget rule #1."

"Imagine that you are a student, and you may choose one other student in your class, and thereafter be entitled to 10 percent of that student's earnings for life. But there's a catch. You also have to choose a student to whom you will pay 10 percent of your earnings for life....the interesting thing is, when you think about what's going on in your mind, you're not thinking about things that are impossible for you to achieve yourself. You're not thinking about who can jump 7 feet, who can throw a football 65 feet, who can recite pi to 300 digits, or whatever it might be. You're thinking about a whole lot of qualities of character. the truth is, that every one of those qualities is obtainable. they are largely a matter of habit. My old boss, Ben Graham, when he was 12 years old, wrote down all of the qualities that he admired in other people and all the qualities he found objectionable. And he looked at that list, and there wasn't anything about being able to run the 100 yard dash in 9.6 seconds or jumping 7 feet. They were all things that were simply a matter of decicding whether you were going to be that kind of person or not."

When 20 year old Buffet went to work at his father's brokerage house in Omaha, a friend asked if the company would be called Buffet 7 son. "No", replied Buffet, "Buffet & Father."

When 26 year old Buffet created his first partnership in 1956, he told investors: "What I'll do is form a partnership where I'll manage the portfolio and I'll guarantee you a 5 percent return, and I'll get 20 percent of all profits after that. And I won't tell you what we own because that's distracting. All I want to do is hand in a scorecard when I come off the golf course. I don't want you following me around and watching me shank a three-iron on this hole and leave a putt short on the next one."

In 1993, when Buffet became the richest man in America, one of the people at his annual shareholder's meeting asked, 'Now that you've acheived the status of America's richest man, do you have any other goals? Buffet replied, "Oh, that's easy. To be America's oldest man."

"Berkshire buys when the lemmings are heading the other way."

"You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ eats the guy with the 130 IQ. Rationality is essential."

"Most people get intersted in stocks when everyone elses is. The time to be interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well."

"It doesn't have to be rock bottom to buy it. It has to be selling for less than you think the value of the business is, and it has to be run by honest and able people. But if you can buy into a business for less than it's worth today, and you're confident of the management, and you buy into a group of businesses like that, you're going to make money."

Buffet states, "I like to buy stocks when the bears are giving them away."

Mr. Market

Mr. Market was a character invented by Ben Graham to illuminate his students' minds regarding market behavior. The stock market should be viewed as an emotionally disturbed business partner. This partner, Mr. Market, shows up each day offering a price at which he will buy your share of the business or sell you his share. No matter how wild his offer is or how often you reject it, Mr. Market returns with a new offer the next day and each day thereafter. Buffet says the moral of the story is this: Mr. Market is your servant, not your guide.

"I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market for 5 years and not reopen it for five years."

"When I worked for Graham-Newman, I asked Ben Graham, who then was my boss, 'How can an investor be sure that the price of a stock that is undervalued by the market evenutally will rise?', He just shrugged and replied that the market always evntually does. He was right in the short run, (the market is) a voting machine; in the long run, it's a weighing machine."

"(John Maynard) Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate."

"For some reason, people take their cues from price action rather than from values. What doesn't work is when you start doing things that you don't understand or because they worked last week for somebody else. The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up."

"The future is never clear; you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery concensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values."

"Charlies and I never have an opinion on the market because it wouldn't be any good and it might interfere with the opinions that we have that are good."


Valuing Stocks

"We like stocks that generate high returns on invested capital where there is a strong likelihood that it will continue to do so. For example, the last time we bought Coca-Cola, it was selling at about 23 times earnings. Using our purchase price and today's earnings, that makes it about 5 times earnings. It's really the interaction of capital employed, the return on that capital, and future capital gernerated versus the purchase price today."

"If the business does well, the stock eventually follows."

"Risk comes from not knowing what you are buying."

Frivolities At The Levers

There's nothing quite as relaxing as having a good little bit of bbq and having a few close friends over. As is always the case at one of our parties, the adult beverages seemed to be in over abundant supply. Last night, we ran the gauntlet - starting with yuengling and a few code blues, moving on to margi's provided by Carrie & Craig, and finishing off the night with a little scotch.

The night was not without it's bumps, as the bbq didn't spend quite enough time in the smoker or oven. I was disappointed as I had to rush through cooking it, as I got started a little bit later than I had wanted to. There's one rule to follow when it comes to great Carolina-Q - "Low & Slow". It was good, but it wasn't the 'fall off the bone, melt in your mouth' bbq I'm known for. The homemade mac n' cheese that the Barrs brought was delicious, and C&C provided some great appetizers. All was going well until boxee refused to cooperate on a few occasions. It only seemed to get worse when the warmin tried to fix the issue. Of course her wrath was directed at me (for whatever reason...I can't say!), and I was tackled for no apparent reason! So, the only movie we watched all the way through was the cult classic "Red Dawn" (one of the best movies of all time!). "The Office" wasn't streaming right, "Clash of the Titans" only made it half way through before it stopped working, and "Inglorious Bastards" was taking forever to transfer to the movie server. About that time was when the warmin tackled me (again, for NO good reason!). By the time we had "Inglorious Bastards" streaming up on the big screen, it was time for everyone to head home at around 11:30. A good time was had by all, and as always, it seems like whenever we get all our good friends together, hilarity ensues.

Perhaps one of the highlights of the night was I hear Barr lapping his whiskey and water. Hey...wait a second! That's not Barr! That's Hoser getting in on the fun. Needless to say, she enjoyed her first taste of whiskey, and pestered him for another drink for the rest of the night!













Here's a picture after Hoser learned her lesson on alcohol after waking up with quite the hangover the next morning!

Reminders

I have a horrible memory. I *should* put those yellow sticky notes all over everything. But this isn't about those types of reminders, nor the ones where you leave a message on your answering machine reminding you to do something, or tell your wife to remind you to do something.

I got the biggest reminder you can imagine over the last 2 days. The reminder that we're all mortal beings with finite amounts of time on this earth, and that in fact, no, we are not invincible. That day put the fear of God back into me. That's for sure.

It was just an ordinary day at work, and I was stressing about trying to get taxes done given that it was the 14th. I was staring at my computer screen, and all of a sudden, my vision started to get blurry. I didn't think much of it, because it's happened before and gone away on its own. Today it didn't. Instead, my right hand started to get numb. Then that hand came back, and my other hand went numb. What the heck was going on. Then it got really scary. I was having labored breathing. At that point it really started to get serious because I knew something really bad was wrong. I rushed down to Lake Norman Regional Hospital, and by the time I pulled up to the front door, I'd lost a bunch of motor skills, though luckily still able to walk. It's a miracle I made it there driving. They put me in a wheel chair and wheeled me back to their ER immediately seeing that I was having trouble breathing. I must say Lake Norman Regional Hospital did a wonderful job. I had 4 people all over me as soon as I walked through the door. They gave me a bunch of potassium which was low, and ran a full gambit of tests.

My breathing slowly returned to normal, and there was more blood drawn and more tests. I got a CT and MRI. I saw the neurologist the next thing Thursday morning, and he told me both the CT and MRI looked clean. Instead of something like a brain tumor or a stroke (thank God!), he told me I had, had a "complex migraine". See, a "classic migraine" by itself is bad enough, and typically amounts to a really, really bad headache. The "complex migraine" doesn't want the body to feel left out. So, like I did, you can lose vision, the ability to speak coherently, motor skills, and other kooky stuff.

The one good thing about the complex migraine is that you can see them coming on hours ahead of time, and typically prevent them going beyond a headache and a little blurry vision. Another good thing is this is only the 2nd time in my life I've experienced anything beyond blurry vision, so they are extremely rare (and I hope they stay that way!)

I have to admit during the worst parts of this whole experience, there was about 30 minutes there where I really thought, "This is it." While that's about the most terrified I've been in, well, I guess my whole life, I think coming out on the other side of something like that is a true eye opening experience.

I've vowed to change many of the negative aspects in my life. I used to have an occasional cigar, those are pretty much gone. I used to take adderral for A.D.D., I'm getting rid of that because it would mess with my heart and might have helped cause this whole fiasco. I'm going to focus on eating better (well, at least most of the time - I can't give up pizza after all!) I'm going to try to cut back on drinking. I plan on trying to treat people in general better, and spend more time with the friends and family I care the most about without worrying about the petty stuff. I'm going to start focusing on the juice in life, and stop wasting time. You never know when your time's up, and when mine is, I want to look back and say, "I had a great life". I encourage everyone else out there to do the same.

A big thanks to my family & definitely my wife for being a rock throughout this ordeal. Love you guys!

Hoser couldn't wait for me to come home!

Warren Buffet, JR In the House

Ok..ok...so its a *tinsy* bit early to start proclaiming myself as the Warren Buffet, Jr when it comes to investing (In fact, it sounds like I could learn a lot from the B.O.B.!) But after a year of dabbling in the market, I've finally started to put together a small winning streak.

I suppose I need to explain my investing background. The title of my last blog entry on investing was, "If you don't lose, you win!" I've started to turn that around of late, and ACTUALLY (I know, I was just as shocked as you probably were) made a little bit of money. I've been in Lowes (LOW) for a few months now to the tune of 12%, and I just recently tried my hand at a hybrid investing method of maximizing dividends on stocks with low entry levels that have been around for > 8 years, along with many of the facets I picked up from Warren Buffet.

Using the method I just described, I came across the company Mind CTI Ltd (MNDO) around a week ago. Up 11.74% since. I had to double check and make sure I didn't accidentally short the position.

It's early in the game, but the new methods appear that the can *at least* keep from losing money. I try to remember. "Focus on not losing, and the winning will take care of itself". With that in mind, I just put a stop loss in at a 5% gain.

Investments - As long as you don't lose, you win!

The concept sounds simple, right! Over the last few years, I've learned one single, all encompassing thing when it comes investing. Risk management is everything! It's a universal principle that applies to every area of investing from foreign currency to real estate to stocks and every other investment under the sun. Heck, it even applies to poker.

The single biggest mistake I've made up to this point is walking up to the plate, and trying to hit a home run with every investment I've made. The key that I've found to mastering risk aversion is to learn as much about a position before you enter it. It has to make sense from both technical & fundamental standpoints. The most important thing I've learned....don't try to reinvent the wheel.

With that being said, I found this great article on Warren Buffet - the man I consider the most successful investor of our time, and incidentally, who's triple A rating is darn near that of US treasuries!




Here are the highlights from the strategies that Buffet has implemented:

1) Has the company performed consistently well and is it currently undervalued? Undervalued positions can be found by searching out the company's ROE (Return on Equity). ROE refers to the increase that an investor sees in their share values over a period of time. The equation to determine Roe is as follows: ROE = Net Income / Shareholder's Equity A key thing to remember is that this figure you should be analyzed over a longer period of time, say from 5-10 years. Simply looking at 1 year is not enough.

2) How has the company handled its debts? The debt/equity ratio is a gauge of the strength of the company. A company with little debt means that the equity in the company is being built with shareholder equity, not by borrowing. The debt/equity ratio is determined by the following equation: D.E. = Total Liabilities / Shareholder's Equity. For a more stringent test, investors sometimes use only long-term debt instead of total liabilities in the calculation above.

3) Are the profit margins high, and are they increasing? The equation to discover the profit margin is: P.M. = Net Income / Net Sales. While a high profit margin is key, an increasing margin shows a strong management team is in place that continues to run the company well. P.M. should be analyzed going back at least 5 years.

4) How long has the company been public? Buffet only invests in companies that have been around for at least 10 years and are undervalued. He pins this on how he believes the company will perform in the future.

5) Do the company's products rely heavily on a commodity? Buffet tends to shy away from companies whose products are not differentiated from competitors. He also steers clear of companies that rely heavily on commodities such as oil or gas. Buffet only invests in companies that he understands, and he recognizes the importance of strategic differentiation. He refers to this differentiation as the company's "economic moat". The more differentiated the company is, the safer the company.

6) Is the stock selling at a 25% discount to its real value? This is the hardest part to recognize. To check this, an investor must determine the intrinsic value of a company by analyzing a number of business fundamentals, including earnings, revenues and assets. Once Buffett determines the intrinsic value of the company as a whole, he compares it to its current market capitalization - the current total worth (price). If his measurement of intrinsic value is at least 25% higher than the company's market capitalization, Buffett sees the company as one that has value.
One of the important elements of this figure is that Buffet does not merely value a company according to its liquidation value, but also by its intrinsic value. Things such as name brand value, and other things not found on the financial statement come into play.

"Conclusion
As you have probably noticed, Buffett's investing style, like the shopping style of a bargain hunter, reflects a practical, down-to-earth attitude. Buffett maintains this attitude in other areas of his life: he doesn't live in a huge house, he doesn't collect cars and he doesn't take a limousine to work. The value-investing style is not without its critics, but whether you support Buffett or not, the proof is in the pudding. As of 2004, he holds the title of the second-richest man in the world, with a net worth of more $40 billion (Forbes 2004). Do note that the most difficult thing for any value investor, including Buffett, is in accurately determining a company's intrinsic value. "

So that's all well and good, but what about Real Estate investing.

The real estate market has been in the tank lately, producing some great cap rate's for multi-family homes. I plan to do some more research on what makes a good investment property and blog about it here, but I have found one really great tool that I've been using for valuation purposes. The web site realestatecritic.com allows you to simply punch in the numbers on investment properties, and it automatically spits out any report that you are looking for. I've seen cap rates on the properties I've tested on it in the 5-35% range. Whether those numbers are good or not will be the tale for another blog entry!

B.O.B. and L.E.V. hit the links in notorious tiger woods pimp like fashion...

Last Wednesday, the boss and I decided it was time for a little R&R, so after working all day (literally) on Tuesday (until 3:30am) so I could take Wednesday off, it was time to hit the links at what was supposed to be one of the nicest courses in the area, Skybrook:



We weren't overly impressed with the condition of the course. The layout wasn't bad. The community surrounding the course was very nice. There were virtually no water holes though, and the grass was in terrible shape. The greens weren't bad, but were utterly unpredictable.

With the help of a few silver bullets and yuenglings, a good time was had by all. Here's a few shots of the B.O.B. & myself in action!

I'm ashamed to say I still managed to bogey the hole! Curse you 3 putts holes! Curse you!


The B.O.B. just misses the green..


Club speed is key to a long drive!


Bob had to skip the last 3 holes so he would be in time to pick up the wife at the airport. But then...trouble in paradise! I finish up the 18th and I'm on the way back to drop off my cart, and guess what happens...



All we needed was an excuse! But I'm sure April enjoyed the ride in the ranger!!

I'm just gonna lay it out there...something bad is gonna happen

I just know it. Life right now is the best its been in years. No money problems. Marriage has never been better, and the wifey can't wait to get home from school this Thursday. Business is booming, but mostly stress free, and me and pops are chillin like a father & son should while enjoyin the ride. Garden is taking over the hot bed. Hoser hasn't eaten any poison mushrooms. I'm getting into better shape by joining zx fitness in Statesville. Me and da boss are gonna be playin golf in sunny 73 degree weather while enjoying some frosty adult beverages and 300+ yard drives. One republic is blarin in the background. The house is warm and the couch is comfy. My evenings are spent cooking whatever I like (tonight it was kabobs!) and enjoying a glass of Cabernet Sauvingon. Yesterday, it was killin the nazis in "company of heros" while enjoying a scotch and water. The weekends consist of great times with great friends, and meeting and greeting new friendly folks at the local watering hole. In between, I get to help my mom (and gardening coach) set up her own gardening plot for the coming crops while seeing my little niece think she's faster than my dog hoser (she's 1.5 years old by the way). My week trip to Hawaii is booked, and I'm so ready to go! I'm an elk. Already on the house committee, and get to help out with some upcoming veterans appreciate events. In the meantime, I get to shoot pool while watching the NCAA tourney in HD, and hang with the pops-in-law while sharing a few thoughts and a glass of Dewar's & water for me, and a Grouse & water for the old man-in-law.

So my question is, when is it all gonna come apart?! I feel like the big guy upstairs was conversing with the fates, and sayin, "He's got some stuff comin down the pipe he ain't gonna like, so let's cut him some slack!" Ok, so yesterday, during the thunderstorm, one of the windows in the casa de lever did leak a bit, but that will be easy enough to fix. I can actually afford to have someone come in and fix it FOR me! For the first time in my life, I actually have some spending money.

So what's gonna happen big guy?! Am I gonna get appendicitis? Is the wifey's car engine gonna blow up? Is Hoser gonna go on another psychedelic mushroom trip? HUH! What is it!!

I guess the moral of this story is, if you are constantly searching for something to go wrong - you'll never be disappointed - because something always does go wrong eventually. I suppose that's life. That's not a reason to fixate on what's wrong, and let everything that's right pass you by! Thank God that life has been so good to me lately. I hope it's been good for all of you as well :) Here's to hoping the good day's never end...

So Long Directv! Hello Freetv!!

Thank you to the makers of boxee! Boxee is a free software application that allows you to turn any desktop computer (or laptop in my case) into a tv tuner. Directv crossed the final line when they decided to continue charging me for nfl ticket - AFTER THE NFL SEASON WAS OVER to the tune of a cool $59.99. Apparently, they think you have to call them to cancel their service, even though there are no NFL games. My biggest frustration was that they wanted $50 bucks to come out and move the dish. The exact same dish that they positioned directly behind a tree, which would give us crappy reception every time a storm would kick up and the tree limbs would start blowing around. So kiss my grits directv!

Yet, somehow, I'm watching TV, at a level equivalent to Directv (standard def - I can't afford HD!), and instead of it costing almost $1k a year, I'm getting all my TV for free thanks to boxee! Here's a video of what I'm watching in real time by streaming the ncaa tournament(did I mention that I can select any NCAA tournament game that I want to watch?!):



I wanted to add that the resolution is much better than what is shown in the video. I shot it with my iPhone.

This week, I found an old & broken laptop that I had collecting dust in the closet. I'd just heard about boxee and decided to give it a shot. I installed xp professional on it, and updated all the drivers. I added the computer to my home network and setup the high speed internet connection, and then downloaded boxee. I then connected my laptop to my tv via an s-video cable, which I had lying around, and connected the sound to my surround sound via a headphone out to red/white rca cables to my surround sound. Total cost: $0! I already had the two cables, though you can probably pick either of them up for around $10 at Walmart.

Setting up boxee was a piece of cake. You simply download the program, set up your monitor under "display" settings, and set your resolution settings and your good to go. Another thing I like is the fact that it takes your movie collection and puts it on steroids. Because I have a ton of storage space (3TB mirrored), I decided to backup my DVD movies and save them to home server. I burned a copy of them and put them in a single folder. Boxee is super cool because it takes each movie title and organizes them from the imbd.com database. It provides the DVD cover and on top of that, it gives you all the information you ever wanted on every movie in your collection. You can download movies, stream movies, and a heck of a lot more as well. Here's what the movie interface looks like:





Boxee also organizes your entire audio collection. So at any time, I can have my audio files playing on my surround sound. You'll want to check out the audio visualizations. I know windows has some lame visualizations, but boxee's are very interesting. I definitely recommend checking them out!

Now for the coolest part. Since all of the stuff plays on my laptop...no remote, right? Wrong! It just so happens I got an iPhone this year. iPhone has an app on it that connects via your wireless network to Boxee, and allows you to control everything from surfing on the web to video sites, to selecting movies, to controlling volume.

There are a few small things that I don't like. If your internet is slow, you might have choppy play when you stream video. I've got a pretty beefy internet connection (the fastest that at&t dsl offers for residential service), and I don't really see any choppiness unless I'm streaming a show (rather than playing a file) AND downloading a bunch of other stuff. Adriana has even watched shows on her laptop while I've watched shows on my tv without any choppiness. Just something to be aware of if you have a slow internet connection though.

Another thing I don't like is the remote. Don't get me wrong, it is by far the best feature since you don't have to get up out of your chair every time you want to do something, but if you leave the remote app on, it drains your iPhone in a matter of hours. As long as you turn off the app, and just make changes when you want to its no big deal.

Bottomline: I love it. You can't beat free TV! So if you've got a cable or dsl high speed internet, and an old computer lying around, put them to work! Then send the notorious L.E.V. a check for saving you $1k a year! :)

Spring Fever Hits! Time to break out the green thumbs....

After the winter we had, I am sooooooo ready for spring! It appears to have finally arrived. Well, at least I hope it's here to stay. Today we hit 74 on the dial. Righteous weather for biking, running, playing with the hell hound "Hoser", or getting ready for the spring/summer garden and getting outdoors to do a little yard work!

Like any real farmer, I had to have a tractor. Enter this sweet pickup I found on craigslist after my bolens exploded (don't waste your money on bolens or troy bilt - straight...up...garbage). The husqvarna 46" cutting, 20 hp, cruise control equipped, hydrostic on the fly shifting, terror of unkempt grass and weeds everywhere. The blades sound like a freight train. You take this baby out in the yard, and the grass just faints. Job done...

Just one problem. The fence on one side of my yard isn't big enough to fit this orange beasty through! Here's the freddie kruger of lawn tractors...



Just took out husky for her first spring cut. Did a nice job. You're done before you know it, but it takes a little bit longer because it bags all the grass clippings. Bagging, mulching, or just plain blowing...what's the difference right? When you don't have to hear about how pissed your wife is because hoser the hell hound just went bounding through some left over glass clippings, you'd learn to appreciate the bagging just like I did. Not to mention, the clippings are going to really help the compost heap!

A week or two ago, we took what we had in our compost heap and prepped the garden area with my troy bilt tiller. We turned the soil over and added what we could to improve the soil quality. Hopefully this year, we'll have a huge garden. Hoser the hell hound took about 15 seconds out of her busy schedule to pose in front of the plot!


Hoser has only romped through the garden a few times so far!

So I started the garden a little early this year. I believe everyone is with me when I say, "Thank God Winter Is OVER!" I got a peat moss planter this year and started the plants from seeds rather than cheating and going to the local nursery. It's also far cheaper. I think I have enough seeds to feed a family of 10, and I got them all for a mere 30 bones. We planted the seeds in my peat moss indoor green house, and the plants practically exploded. We've moved on to dixie cups, and that wasn't enough either. It's too early to plant them outside (actually April 30th is supposedly when we enter the safe zone concerning frosts), so it gave me an excuse to do another project. I made a hot bed! It's not quite done yet, because I'm having trouble finding a clear cover for the top, but so far, the marigold's and a few pumpkins and kentucky blue beans are calling it home!



So the green thumb is in full swing!