Daily Brian

Kathryn's Retarded Teacher

2007-09-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

So, Kathryn's teacher asked the class the other day how many states there are in the the USA.
They all answered "50".

She said, "Oops, you forgot about Alaska!"

Um, what the hell? Alaska wasn't even the last state. I thought maybe she was including Washington DC. That doesn't make sense, either because you'd have to include all of the non-state territories.

So I sat down at the computer and brought up a few government sites for kids that included the territories of the US. That way she knows about Guam, Puerto Rico, The American Samoas and the Virgin Islands. (It's ok, I couldn't remember them all either.)

I told Kathryn that the next time she's right and she KNOWS she's right, to feel free to stand up to her retarded teacher. I don't know if that's the right thing to do or not, but I'd love to go to bat for her. Can you imagine the newspaper headline? "Elementary School Teacher Can't Count to Fifty".

New Page

2007-07-23T11:41:00.000-04:00

I decided to join the crowd and started a MySpace page
View it here

Happy 4th of July

2007-07-05T16:42:00.000-04:00

Here come the Scouts

Ain't it cute...

2007-06-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

...So I'm sitting in my car, and right next to me is a little robin.
I watched mama robin feed him and THEN I thought it might be cool to take a picture.
It would have been cool to get a picture of him getting dinner, but when mama finally came back, they were too far away to get a picture.

Chris at Camp Gerber

2007-06-28T11:20:00.000-04:00

We went to Family Night at Gerber with Chris last night.
They had an Order of the Arrow ceremony.

Kite Flying

2007-06-28T11:06:00.000-04:00

Rhonda and I took John and Kathryn out flying kites on Tuesday. They had a blast!
Kathryn flying her "Toucan".

Here's John flying his "falcon".

Chris' Birthday

2007-06-23T11:42:00.000-04:00

Happy birthday Chris! He's 12 now.
(Picture is about 2 years old. It's the only pic I have on my work computer.)

Kathryn's Lemonade: Open for Business

2007-06-19T11:25:00.000-04:00

Here's Kathryn at her Lemonade stand. David Earl (see "Links" section to the right) and I built the stand on Saturday for her out of mostly scraps.

Last year she made quite a bit of money at her stand which consisted of a card table and some lawn chairs. I wanted her to be able to get out of the sun a bit.

The foundation for her stand is an old upside-down pallet with a sheet of OSB screwed to it for the floor. We still need to paint it.

The reason it only has one wall is so that it has good airflow (to keep her cool) and the wall is on the west side to block out the afternoon sun. As you can see in the picture, however, she couldn't wait until afternoon to get started.

The roof will shed water (it's the glue type shingle stuff you use for flat roofs). The kids can use the stand when the school year begins to keep out of the rain.

Views...Rainforests

2007-02-20T10:31:00.000-05:00

Ok, this might get ugly.

Let's discuss rainforests. They slash and burn the trees to grow crops to feed their people. What gives anybody the right to tell another country what they can and can't do with their own trees? Also, when people give money to people who work to "save the rainforests", exactly how are they going to do that? I don't know how you could convince someone that keeping a nasty, disease infested, swampy forest is better than eating.

My friend Dave told me they burn the trees to get the ash for nutrients in the soil. This might work a little, but grinding the trees would allow for a lot more water retension. That's Dave's idea. The problem with that is it would take (1)specialized machinery and (2)work. Specialized machinery costs money to purchase and maintain, plus it takes skilled labor to operate and maintain. Rainforests ain't full of skilled labor. The work could not be done by locals, at least not at first. They would need to be trained. Specialized machinery would most certainly create some amount of erosion/pollution/noise. Hippies that want to save rainforests would never allow that.

They also sell lumber. Not everything gets burnt. The countries sell lumber to generate much needed revenue. If you own anything made of Rosewood, Mahogany, Teak, Ebony, or Sandalwood... congratulations, you have contributed to the degradation of a rainforest.

My problem with saving the rainforests is the whole endangered species thing.

My answer is always "If that critter/tree was so darn important there would be a lot more of them."

You will never convince me that the world will be worse off if Pandas go extinct. (I know, pandas don't live in the rainforest, but they are pretty well endangered.)

Also if you consider how much pesticide was dumped all over Panama during the construction of the Panama Canal, the region is still just fine. As far as rainforests go, it's also the MOST disease free on the planet.

Perhaps next time I'll post on my veiws of how Unions have destroyed our country.

Household Talent

2007-02-14T11:42:00.000-05:00

John is our new talent. His music teacher decided that John will sing a solo in the next concert.
He sings all the time at home, but it's usually stuff he makes up as he goes. I didn't even realize he could sing well. I'm a bad dad...

2007-02-07T12:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, I posted again.

I couldn't believe that people still looked at this blog, but I don't think the hit counter lies.

Anyway, I posted a new link to my
Realtor blog.

Tag

2006-04-29T00:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, I was tagged. Twice or 3 times, not sure.
I'm supposed to list 6 things about me. I'll try not to get bored before I get to 6.

1 I love all 4 of my kids.

2 I love Lauren the most. She's never talked back to me, dissapointed, or annoyed me.

3 I love my wife. I have never cheated on her or even pondered the possibilty.

4 I have forgiven every wrong ever done to me. That's supposed to be a private thing between me and God, but these 6 things are supposed to be private.

5 I get bored quickly.

6

I can finally post again!!

2006-03-10T02:57:00.000-05:00

They finally sent me a link to get my password again.
I don't know why it didn't work the last 6 or twelve times I tried, but it's working now!

So freakin unbelievably busy

2005-11-17T02:17:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted anything lately because I just don't have time.
I haven't even been online for at least a week.
When I logged on just now, I had 23 messages. Only 2 of which were spam.
Hopefully I'll post more regularly, but no promises.

In the meantime, ponder this: could God come up with a riddle so clever that he stumps himself?

Deer

2005-11-03T20:49:00.000-05:00

I missed a doe tonight.
I got nervous and didn't have my "kisser button" in the corner of my mouth.
Oh well, I'll kill her tomorrow.
What sucks is that I had just put out a smoke and was totally unprepared for a deer to show up.

Wintergreen

2005-10-24T08:24:00.000-04:00

Yes.
Ray & I practiced together yesterday. All those not present at the time can only fantasize of the melodies and harmonious resonations emanating from the acoustic instruments and my cherubic voice. Oh yeah... Ray's noise-hole made sounds, too.

We played only about 6-8 songs, but they sounded better than ever.

In order to achieve maximum profitabilty, we will be signing the first 10 CDs at $100 each. Quantities are limited, order now!

Money...

2005-10-14T09:39:00.000-04:00

I've decided that I'm going to push myself to make $10,000 by the end of the year doing stuff that isn't my normal job/business. I'm including new customers for my shop into this.
I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, so don't ask. There are a few ideas bopping around in my head.
There's 11 weeks between now and then. Figure a week to figure out how to do it, and then 10 weeks to earn some bucks. Whatever I do, I have to keep my investment costs under say, $500.
We'll see. Anybody want to place some bets?
Maybe I could do some part time telemarketing... just kidding.

Floodwaters in Thine Home

2005-10-10T22:58:00.000-04:00

I came home from work at about 7:00 AM. Walking to the kitchen, my shoes made a weird "gorsh" sound. It was my carpet...with about 1000 gallons of water.

Rhonda started a load of laundry before going to sleep and it got stuck on the rinse cycle. It just kept filling the tub, even though it was already filled.

Insurance sent out some company from Muskegon and they proceeded to rip up all my flooring. They still have to take care of the insulation under the house. They put a bunch of high speed fans and dehumidifiers in and under the house to dry it out before any real damage occured. Hopefully, they succeeded. We will be home again tomorrow.

Creation & Evolution: Theories that Conjoin Them

2005-10-05T08:17:00.000-04:00

In the Bible, it says God made man. Scientists say "prove it" and propose evolution to be the answer. They point to fossil records and say "proof". Religious folks point to the bible and say "proof".

In my self-righteous opinion, I say both. My "proof".

Only a blind fool would deny the preponderance of evidence that suggests the evolution of animals. The same can be said of the evolution of man. We have fossil records of a variety of "man-like" apes. Before I tick off too many religious zealots, I ask that you consider what separates a man from an animal: intelligence.

In my reading of Genesis, the pattern of creation mimics scientific theory of the advent of the world and life upon it. Life began in the water, according to both the Bible and scientists. From then on, science and Bible agree on the timeline for the Earth, plants and animals up to the 6th day of creation. Then the big argument begins.

God created man. I can agree with that. Science and bible have agreed until this point. Some say evolution, some say creation. Why doesn't anyone look at the world as a car with God being the driver? God became bored with the whole dinosaur thing so he slammed a meteor into the planet. Not so hard to imagine when you consider the floods, plagues and other mishaps that Bible and geology/history agree with. He (She, whatever you want) guided the apes evolution and changes so that their appearance eventually mimicked His own percieved image. God created man. Evolution created man. Same thing. Then during Homo-Habilis' time, Adam (homo-habilis) decided to pick up some rocks and smack them together. Now he is separate from his more ape-like cousins. He has tasted the fobidden fruit of intelligence. His body continues to change over eons looking more and more like the image of God and his compounded intelligence outshines the more unGod-like ancestors. God pushes the ancestors into extinction as He becomes bored with- perhaps even offended by- their presence. Either that, or their lesser intelligence just becomes too inferior to compete with the newer, sleeker, smarter man, and they fall naturally into extinction.

So, have I convinced you that both can be true? Perhaps I have convinced myself that homo-sapien will fall into oblivion in favor of homo-post-hominem.

Texas Vs. Louisiana

2005-10-03T08:22:00.000-04:00

Feel free to disagree with this comparison. It was posted in an AOL message board that I frequent. In my opinion, it hits the nail squarely on the head. The commentary at the bottom and the individual observations are copied exactly as I read them. Thanks to Willweasel for an enjoyable read.

Two States, 22 Observations
OBSERVATION #1.
Texas: Productive industrious state run by Republicans.
Louisiana: Government dependent welfare state run by Democrats.

OBSERVATION #2.
Texas: Residents take responsibility to protect and evacuate themselves.
Louisiana: Residents wait for government to protect and evacuate them.

OBSERVATION #3.
Texas: Local and state officials take responsibility for protecting their citizens and property.
Louisiana: Local and state officials blame federal government for not protecting their citizens and property.

OBSERVATION #4.
Texas: Command and control remains in place to preserve order.
Louisiana: Command and control collapses allowing lawlessness.

OBSERVATION #5.
Texas: Law enforcement officers remain on duty to protect city.
Louisiana: Law enforcement officers desert their posts to protect themselves.

OBSERVATION #6.
Texas: Local police watch for looting.
Louisiana: Local police participate in looting.

OBSERVATION #7.
Texas: Law and order remains in control, 8 looters tried it, 8 looters arrested.
Louisiana: Anarchy and lawlessness breaks out, looters take over city, no arrests, criminals with guns have to be shot by federal troops.

OBSERVATION #8.
Texas: Considerable damage caused by hurricane.
Louisiana: Considerable damage caused by looters.

OBSERVATION #9.
Texas: Flood barriers hold preventing cities from flooding.
Louisiana: Flood barriers fail due to lack of maintenance allowing city to flood.

OBSERVATION #10.
Texas: Orderly evacuation away from threatened areas, few remain.
Louisiana: 25,000 fail to evacuate, are relocated to another flooded area.

OBSERVATION #11.
Texas: Citizens evacuate with personal 3 day supply of food and water.
Louisiana: Citizens fail to evacuate with 3 day supply of food and water, do without it for the next 4 days.

OBSERVATION #12.
Texas: FEMA brings in tons of food and water for evacuees. State officials provide accessible distribution points.
Louisiana: FEMA brings in tons of food and water for evacuees. State officials prevent citizens from reaching distribution points and vice versa.

OBSERVATION #13.
Texas: Media can't find poor blacks in need of assistance, looking for something else to blame on Bush.
Louisiana: Media focuses on poor blacks in need of assistance, blames Bush.

OBSERVATION #14.
Louisiana: New Orleans is destroyed, Mayor asks residents to return home as another hurricane approaches, has to be overruled by federal officials.
Texas: Coastal cities suffer some infrastructure damage, Mayors tell residents to stay away until ready for repopulation, no interference from federal officials

OBSERVATION #15.
Louisiana: Over 400 killed by storm, flooding and crime.
Texas: 24 killed in bus accident on highway during evacuation, no storm related deaths.

OBSERVATION #16.
Louisiana: Jailed prisoners are set free to prey on city shops, residents, and homes.
Texas: Jailed prisoners are relocated to other detention facilities outside the storm area.

OBSERVATION #17.
Louisiana: Local and state officials obstruct FEMA and Red Cross from aiding in recovery operations.
Texas: Local and state officials work with FEMA and Red Cross in recovery operations.

OBSERVATION #18.
Louisiana: Local and state officials fail to demonstrate leadership, require federal government to manage disaster areas.
Texas: Local and state officials demonstrate leadership in managing disaster areas.

OBSERVATION #19.
Louisiana: Motorists wait till storm hits and electrical power fails. Cars run out of gas at gas stations that can't pump gas. Gas in underground tanks mixes with flood waters.
Texas: Fuel deliveries can't keep up with demand, some run out of gas on highway, need help from fuel tankers before storm arrives.

OBSERVATION #20.
Louisiana: Mayor moves himself and family to Dallas.
Texas: Mayors move citizens out of danger.

OBSERVATION #21.
Louisiana: Mayor cusses, governor cries, senator threatens President with violence on television; none of them have a clue what went wrong or who's responsible.
Texas: Mayors continue public service announcements and updates on television with Governor's backing and support.

OBSERVATION #22.
Louisiana: Democratic Senator says FEMA was slow in responding to 911 calls from Louisiana citizens.
Texas: Republican Senator says "when you call 911, the phone doesn't ring in Washington, it rings here at the local responders".

* * * * * *
What if state and local elected officials were forced to depend on themselves and their own resources instead of calling for help from the federal government? Texas cities would be back up and running in a few days. Louisiana cities would still be under water next month.

Bowhunting Season

2005-10-01T09:23:00.000-04:00

Well, Bowhunting Season starts today. I have a bow, but no place to hunt. I need to find a place nearby.

Anybody else have plans to whack a deer this year?

$1 to 6 People... I hate these things...

2005-09-29T22:56:00.000-04:00

If you ever peruse message boards, you have seen those "send $1 to 6 people and post this message on a bunch of boards and put your name on it and you get rich" type crap. Hopefully, you have never fallen for this nonsense. The newer ones use PayPal instead of regular mail.

Anyway, I am building a "sucker list" for future misuse. I have been compiling e-mail addresses and mailing address/names in Excel. I have 2 different files, 1 for email, and the other for snail mail. If these people are gullible enough to send their personal info out on the web, they will buy that bargain $2000 vacuum cleaner or fill out another credit card application. I know, you think I'm evil. Thinking about and creating the list isn't evil, though. What I may do with it would be. I could either use it to try to help them not fall for such obvious scams, or I could sell the list as a "guaranteed suckers list" to various companies that feed off the gullible. I could even be far more devious and attempt to con them myself with some diabolical scheme.

Those who know me know that I would be a very successful criminal if I weren't so darn nice. So, I'm open to suggestions regarding what to do with this list. I have thought of publishing a newsletter and using the list for my "subscription". However, I have nothing of value to write in the newletter other than "don't fall for these Ponzi schemes" and perhaps a link to my blog.

Right now, I have over 100 email addresses and those are only from AOL message boards. I had over 500 before, but my computer died. It took me about 20 minutes to find the 100 emails and eliminate double entries. With a few hours effort web-wide, I'm sure my list would swell to several thousand.

Why is it that only I think up this kind of stuff?

Annual Credit Report

2005-09-29T08:17:00.000-04:00

If you weren't already aware, all Americans are entitled to a free credit report from each of the big 3 credit agencies each year. You must go to the federally run central agency in order to do this for free. If you go to Experian, Equifax andTransUnion seperately, you get charged.

I paid for mine back in February and found a great number of errors. I had never looked at my credit history prior to that. I disputed the errors online and when I got my free credit report last week, those errors were all gone.

Not to condone the wrong behavior, but you can dispute everything...whether it's valid or not. They send the dispute to whoever said you owe money. They have 60 days to validate that the claim is still active. If they don't, voila. It's gone. If they do, no harm no foul. It's just you asking if you had paid it yet or not. There were so many errors on mine, I just disputed everything. When it came back, I know some of the valid ones disappeared as well as the errors.

Also, if you owe money to a hospital or doctor, you can add a note that says "medical". When someone checks your credit for lending purposes, they ignore medical debt.

Again, I'm not condoning the misuse of this information. I'll post a permanent link in the ol' links section.

Telemarketer/Junk Mail Revenge...

2005-09-28T14:20:00.000-04:00

For junk mail:
1) Always save your junk mail. Keep the addresses to send stuff.
2) Always save the "pre-paid" envelopes. I've been doing this for years.
3) Maintain a current list of addresses and phone numbers of people you don't like including junk mailers and telemarketers (see #2 below).

When you are sent a piece of junk mail, scan the "pre-paid" envelope and print about 50 more on your own envelopes. The company that recieves it has to pay for the privilege of recieving it. Put whatever you want to in the envelope when you send it out. You could put someone else's address in there and request some credit cards or whatever. DO NOT put anything they sent you that has a barcode, your name/address or letter code/serial number. They can track that. I don't put any of their stuff in the envelope.
With the ongoing list of addresses you aquire, start filling out forms for things you KNOW are going to recieve junk mail; ie. surveys and such. Use the address of the junk mailers for them. Imagine how much junk mail the junk mailers would get if just a handful of people did this.

For Telemarketers:
1) Start with the "Do Not Call" link on this page.
2) While speaking to them, try to sound interested and ask their name, the business name, who their parent company is, the address of the business, and a toll-free number to call them back. They have to give you all of this info BY LAW. Write this stuff down, particularly the toll-free number and the jerk who called you.
3) Maintain a list of addresses and phone numbers of people you don't like including the telemarketers.

When they call, keep them on the phone as long as possible. The longer they are on the phone with you, the fewer people they can harrass and therefore, smaller commissions/sales. Tell them at any point you feel like, the numbers of some of the "friends" on #3. Make sure you tell them they are not allowed to say where the reference came from. They can't if you tell them not to. Use the toll-free numbers they give you when filling out credit card applications or surveys. They get charged every time they recieve a call on their toll-free line. Remember, they can't put their number on the Do Not Call registry because they are a business. If you want to be polite or rude, it doesn't really matter. I go back and forth. Just make sure the rudeness comes AFTER you get their information.

When you fill out your junk mail stuff (above) use the name of the telemarketers that called you and the address/phone number. Just imagine when they are at work getting 10 credit card offers each day and they are recieving 10 or more personal calls (all telemarketers).

When you are sleeping, change your computer modem dialer (if you have dial modem) to the toll-free number of your choice with the settings set to infinite redial. If it doesn't hear the crackle of a modem on the other end, it hangs up and calls again. I haven't done this since I had my first computer 11 years ago (I think I set it up to call Ray one night, I don't remember). My home phone number is allowed 400 free calls a month. We only use about 100. I could let it run for 1-2 nights like this and not worry about going over my free calls. Remember, a business is charged for each call, whether it is incoming or outgoing. My sister has unlimited local and long distance. She could let her modem run for a month straight if she wanted to. However, she has cable modem, so it wouldn't work for her.

I have been thinking about getting a 900 number for here at the house. When a telemarketer calls I'll transfer them to my 900 line and let them chat at me all day for $3 a minute. I don't know if I could get away with this, but it would be fun.

I wouldn't be writing any of this crap if it weren't for some schmuck waking me up to try telemarketing to me. Now you have the bulk of what I do to torment these jerks.

Telemarketers

2005-09-28T13:36:00.000-04:00

I work 3rd shift. For those who don't know, that means I sleep during the day. Telemarketers are souless beings who prey on the weak minded. Those who disagree must be telemarketers.

Anyway, I was sleeping and got a phone call from "Buckmasters" or something and he wanted to know if I deer hunt. I asked him at least half a dozen times to get to the point or simply "what do you want". I told him I was about to hang up and he said "all right then" and I hung up. I still have no idea what he wanted.

At my office I have to pay 8 cents every time a telemarketer calls me. I get on average 3 telemarketing calls per day. Add that up and it's about 15 bucks a month that I am charged for the privilege of receiving calls that disturb me from working (actually, they disturb my dad and sister from working because I'm at home taking telemarketing calls while trying to sleep). I can't add my business to the "Do Not Call Registry" as they do not allow businesses to use it. It is strictly for residences. Click the link to sign up.

I have my fax machine turned off now. My customers have to call to tell me to turn on my fax so they can send me blueprints. If I leave it on, I have to pay 8 cents for an incoming junk mail fax plus my paper and ink. They never have a toll-free "unsubscribe" number either. Either way, it would still cost me 8 cents to tell them not to fax me again. You have no idea how many times I have answered the phone to have it scream "BEEEEEP" in my ear. AND... my fax number is unpublished.

I loathe telemarketers and hope they all smoke a turd in hell for each unsolicited call they have ever made. I take that back. Let's make that for every second call they make to the same phone number. The first cold call can be forgiven...I guess. Every business who's primary source of sales is telemarketing ought to be punished severely. Maybe bare bottom spankings for all management and owners... and the hot chick telemarketers.

Here's to My Issues...

2005-09-27T18:08:00.000-04:00

I'm incredibly ADD. Rhonda says I'm a "dabbler". I get into things briefly, get bored and move on to something new. Drives her nuts.

A brief list of some hobbies I have tried in no particular order (some of them I am still doing):
1 paintball
2 model rockets
3 cub scouts
4 girl scouts
5 video games (all systems)
6 musical instruments
a guitar
b bass guitar
c cornet
d clarinet
e dulcimer
f mountain dulcimer
g recorder
h harmonica
i flute
j tuba/sousaphone
k baritone
l piano
7 Magic: The Gathering
8 Dungeons & Dragons
9 Vampire: The Masquerade
10 Learning French
11 Tae Kwon Do (and other martial arts)
12 reading (I'm so far-sighted it hurts my eyes)
13 comics (Hawkeye, Ambush Bug, Deadpool, Captain America)
14 website design
15 college
16 hunting
17 archery
18 backpacking
19 being a member of a band (at least 10 that I remember)
20 helping to complete a D&D program called TavernMaker (see links)
21 blowgun, rifles, BB guns, soft air guns

The list would be a lot longer, but I'm too bored to continue. I'm done. Maybe I'll post some more links.

Look Better?

2005-09-27T18:04:00.000-04:00

I figured before I wasted to much effort changing stuff I would try to make this thing look decent. I also had to change the timestamp. For some reason this thing had me at Greenwich +11.

So, does it look better?

Getting the Links Up

2005-09-26T23:42:00.000-04:00

Links are a pain in my butt. Now I remember why I gave up on my old website.

First Thing

2005-09-25T06:03:00.000-04:00

I have a blog. Now I'm cool too.