RC Fun Fest

This past Saturday was the Royse City Fun Fest.  It was busy and fun.  This is one of those little things that a small city can do that is difficult for a larger city.  The RC Fun Fest was just a day of fun where the whole city came together and had some fun on Main Street.  This is more difficult for larger cities due to the sheer size of the city.  RC however is a 2 exit city with no grocery or 24hr convenience stores.  This allowed the entire city to gather on a single street for fun.  There was a dunking booth, a pay prison, talent show, horse rides, barrel rides, and inflatable slides.  It was just a fun day for the whole family.  Our church had our own booth where we handed out free ice water.  You would be surprised how difficult that is these days.  People are so untrusting and believe everything has a catch.  No catch, we are just a church in town giving away free water to our community on hot day.  There is nothing wrong with that is there?  Yes we would love it if they attended our church but we did not even mention we were a church unless they asked why we were giving away free water.  O well enough for more, more to come later. 

Gas

I must confess something stupid I did. My car does not have a working gas gauge. It has been like this for about 6months now. I generally just estimate it with the odometer. I generally get 380-400 miles per tank. I was driving home from the air show last Sunday at around 10pm. My gas light came on about 5miles from home so I just kept driving. There was not even a place to stop if I wanted to. Less than 2 miles from home I ran out gas. I could see the exit I just was not there. I coast for as ling as I can but It was not enough. I am now on the side of the road without a good flashlight. Aster waiting on the side of the road for a cop to come by a nice couple pulled over and gave me a ride to get gas. I was back driving within .5hr of stopping on the road. I am a bit embarrassed I was stupid enough to do this but I did and that was the story. The end, el fin.

Online auction

Ok, whatever you do not go to this webpage, it is addicting. http://auctions.samsclub.com/

I was told about it from a friend, what a friend right… Ok so I go to it for the first time and find this giant camping backpack that I totally don’t need but it is cheep and I figure I could have some use for it. So I give it a low bid, $15 and think I have no chance of winning it. 3 days later it is at my front door and my wallet is missing 30 dollars. I told you online auctions are addicting. Ok so a week later I go to the site again and find a ipod cables kit. I already have 2/3 of what is in the kit but I still want it, don’t ask me why because I don’t know. But needless to say it was at my door by the end of the week and I was again out $30. At least I will use this thing, I hope… Just know while on the computer in class I have bid on 2 camping cots and something else I don’t even remember. I don’t need any of it but I have again bid on them. Only time will tell if I will win them.

Wing dingers

Just a little bit of news. I have been chattering about a new coffee house in Royse city tx. This little place called Roots now has a neighbor owned by the same guy. It goes by the name wing dinger. They had their soft opening last night and today was their grand opening. I have not been inside yet but if it is anything like its neighbor it will be great. I was hoping to go today on the way to school but I was running late and did not have time. By default they will have wings I presume, but I wonder what else they will have. I think they will also have some sort of short order grill and probably a few fried things like chicken or something. But as of yet, I have not a clue, I will hopefully go in and find out soon, probably this sat for the rc fun fest.

Air show

Ok, so I worked at the air show this weekend. It was a lot of fun. We were again in charge of selling programs for the entire event benefiting FWAFA and thus TBC. The way this usually works out is we ask the school for volunteers to work the show. We usually like to have 10-20 volunteers at the show. This was however not the case for this yrs show. We had our numbers for the first day, Saturday. On Sunday however the general attendance was down because of competition with the Texas and OU game. Saturday we also had a problem with people showing up. It always bugs me when we are trying to help a group but the group has trouble helping itself by providing personnel. Sat we had a people of 8ppl pull a no show. This hurt a bit but was not critical because we had enough additional people to cover the gaps. Sunday however was where we had our problems. For our first shift we had 14 workers, however for the remainder of the day we had 4,4,0 per shift sign up. This was just unreasonable, we have 5 personal just working overhead much less manning the POC. Having less poc personnel than overhead personnel is a bad sign. IN an effort of a mad panic solution my bro called a bunch of his old hs and college friends and managed to get a few more hands. We also encouraged the few workers we had to work double shifts. It was still a challenge but all was well and we raised a good bit of money for our school. Thanks to all in the public who bought a program…

PC on TV

An extensive comment I posted in response to a blog entry on Sara Sharps Blog

I agree with you about the new MS Windows commercials.  The first commercial was just weird, Bill Gates buying shoes in the mall with Seinfeld.  Ya right, and what was that weird gesture at the end in the parking lot where Seinfeld asked Gates for inside information.  I am not sure what MS was trying to communicate by that? Any Idea? 

The second series where they played the PC stereotype was their best but I felt it was a copied from the Discovery Channels series commercial series.  The Discovery channel commercial is composed of about 15 quick cuts from around the world of people performing all sorts of occupations all singing a single common song with a single meaning “The World is Just Good”.  This commercial series is one of my favorites, it was so simple, clean, elegant, entrancing, and it had me singing their song in my head for weeks.  MS copied this concept for their PC stereotype series, not exact but close enough in my opinion. 

MS also had a third TV commercial series.  The Mohave Project.  Hmmmm.  Another copied Idea.  In this commercial series a focus group is showed a new OS called Mohave and they have great reviews for it.  The commercial was a bit bland in my opinion but it struck me as a bit to familiar to the Pizza Hut Commercial where they showed their product to a Focus Group who was unaware of its origin and they also had rave reviews of it.  The Pizza Hut and the MS Vista commercial were strikingly familiar…  I wonder what happened there. 

I am usually a PC lover and Mac hater but I have to call PC out on this that they copied 2/3 of their TV commercial Ideas.  On a side note, Apple has a long line of TV commercials dating all the way back to their classic 1984 commercial again bashing the stereotype of PC users.  Is it just me or has PC new to the TV commercial world?  An act of desperation?  Just a question, I still love PCs over Macs.

 

Links to referenced TV commercials:

Apple 1984: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxShzoUjiAQ

Pizza Hut Taste Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF4FtWghQAw

Discovery Channel Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0&feature=related

PC 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk57VKWbGQg

PC 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZdkHylJ3w

PC 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsStHxtVr_w

Ipod + TiVo = Great Team

Hey world,  I found the greatest thing.  I have been using TiVo since soon after it was introduced.  I was excited in 05’ when they released the TiVo to go feature.  This allowed the user to TiVo shows of their choice and transfer the recordings to their home PC.  This allowed users to take shows on the road for playback on their laptop.  The other half of the story, I recently bought a Ipod Classic as mentioned in a previous post.  What I did not know was that my TiVo will automatically record, transfer to PC, convert for Ipod, and transfer to Ipod with no human interaction.  This is so exciting because it means that when I charge my Ipod overnight, in the morning when I take it to work it will have all the latest TV shows like heroes, Lost, House all on my Ipod.  I did not spend a dime or use any effort but suddenly all the good TV shows are on my Ipod at Work.  O and BTW yes I can have and use an Ipod at work, don’t you love it… Enough for now, more later.

FW Air Show

I am looking forward to this weekend. Why? The Fort Worth Alliance Air Show.  I have been volunteering at this event for about the last four years.  Why do I love it so much, It marks the time of year when the weather gets more comfortable.   The smell of aircraft fuel, aircraft hovering mid air, up close and personal with aviation history and future, volunteering for a good cause, photographing aircraft, loud noises… I just Love it.  This year we are a bit thin on volunteers so it will be interesting but we will make do.  The weather is forecasted to be great, the show is scheduled to be great, It is looking to be a good year.  We will again attempt to sell out,  we did a few years ago but did not last year.  Look for me there, I will be running around like a mad man trying to sell programs.  Why do you want a program?  Glad you asked.  The program containg a map on the center page, an order of events, the location of water and restrooms, and a chance to winn free American Airline Tickets, not to mention supporting a good cause.  See yall there…  Enough for now, more to come later.

Just My Luck

Ok so yesterday I cleaned my car.  It finally looked nice, the way like it.  Now my objective was to keep it clean.  Ok so the trouble came this morning, I went to starbucks on the way to church.  This is nothing new, I go there almost every Sunday, to the dismay of my wallet.  But I did something different, I went inside rather than the drive through.  I got my coffee and bkfst and returned to my car.  The problem was that as I was getting into my car I managed to spill the entire contents of my drink on my passenger floor mat.  I was quick to throw the entire mat out of may car on to the concrete to keep the coffee off of my car itself, containing it entirely on my mat.  My mat however was saturated, it was now entirely brown rather than grey.  Once the mess was contained I went back into Starbucks and kindly requested a free replacement.  They gladly provided it at the cost of a few laughs.  I placed my dripping mat in my trunk, coffee in hand and proceeded to church.  I will have to figure out how to clean it later.  This was just my luck not 24 hrs after having my car detailed I spilled an entire coffee on my carpet.  I am destined not to have a clean car despite all my efforts.  Enough for now, more to come later

The Character of Man

What does life on the web do to a mans character? Well first we must define character. The USAF Academy Defines Character as” We define character as the sum of those qualities of moral excellence that stimulates a person to do the right thing, which is manifested through right and proper actions despite internal or external pressures to the contrary.” I will summaries this as the moral attributes of a man compelling him to always do the right thing even with the lack of accountability. Now for the question of what does the internet do to a mans character. I believe the character of man is developed through challenges and test experienced in real life where your decisions have a real and meaningful impact on others. I also believe character is developed and cultivated with the active participation in a religious group. I want to say that only my religion can do this but I have observed Muslims practicing far greater discipline than my own. This is because the importance of religion here is the accountability of God on you when there is no man around. Ok so now with the character of man further defined how does the internet affect this. I believe the internet is like anything else, if used correctly it can be a good thing however if used too much it can be severely detrimental. The internet has no accountability because people for the most part are anonymous on the internet. Do you know who by name has visited your webpage, no. Internet games in my opinion are depriving growing children and youth of critical character building experiences. Given the choice of playing on the internet or participating in a character building experience, the child will chose the easy option. Character building experiences are by default challenging and hard. The nature of man without a developed character is to chose the path of least resistance. The internet provides just that, an easy way out for nearly any activity. A HS student could study in the library as prescribed by his teacher or use Google. Google may be easier but it negates the purpose of his exercise, to learn how to research in a library. It is again my opinion that a man must venture out in to the world, learning real life experiences, learning how to fall and get back up again, learning manners and how to socialize with others. To have these experiences however a man or rather boy must leave his comfort zone with which he is familiar and try new things. What the internet provides is a large comfort some with nothing to risk or lose, where he can be content, and not have the desire to strive for excellence or to serve others. The internet for the most part is a selfish (benefit yourself more than others) act rather than a selfless act. Ok I will get off my soap box now, the internet is a great thing when used in moderation, if abused however can be a severely detrimental to the character of man. Ok enough for now, more later.