RE: The "Dear Lord..." group on Facebook

I just have to get this off my chest. Last night I saw a couple of folks on Facebook who had "liked" the group DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, [BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.] MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN. This is one of the dumbest things I've seen in the last few days on FB and frankly it burns me up that it even exists. Anyone who clicked "Like" on it is only succeeding in making themselves look like jerks. Seriously, this is about the same level of class as junior high kids talking smack at recess. The only people who laugh at this stuff are... you guessed it, other jerks. And I know you people, you aren't really jerks. (Well, most of you anyway. *smirk*) But you look like jerks in this instance. This isn't about my support of the Pres. You could substitute any names you wanted in there and the joke would be just as bad.

Now before you go off feeling mad and hurt that I called some of you a mean name, please bear with me for a minute because I think there is another point I'm going to make that you can agree with.

Reflections at 40

So in a few days as of writing this, I'll turn 40. As a preface to this, I'd like to point out to everyone that I fully realize my life is really pretty good. No seriously. It's really not a bad life! I have a beautiful daughter who is an absolute blast to watch as she grows and learns. I have a full-time job that pays decent benefits. (A definite good thing in today's economy!) A second child on the way, which I am very excited about. My wife is employed full-time also. (See previous parenthesis) She loves me. I love her dearly. We aren't rich, but we don't quite live hand to mouth either. I spend a LOT of time smiling when I think about Steph and Gwen and the little one to be named. Overall, things are very good. I have no real right to complain about much. So please take the rest of this in the spirit in which it is intended. A guy who's whining about turning 40 and is hoping for some sympathy/commiseration from others.

It seems like 40 is the age that people start looking back on their lives and evaluating it. I look back on my life thus far and can't help noting how very different it turned out from the life I imagined at 21.

Tim! Where ya been?

It's been quite a long time since I made a post here, so I guess it's just about time for an update.

Let's see. What have I been up to since this last spring, which was my last post? Well, quite a bit actually. Over the summer, we celebrated Gwen's first birthday. She got a ton of presents and was rightly and duly fawned over by all. Then we lost our babysitter, which kind of forced me into a new schedule at work. I now work nights, which sucks because I hardly get to see my wife at all on weekdays now. But it works out in the long run, because I get to spend the days with Gwen and spend a lot more quality time with her. Plus we don't have to pay for a babysitter.

Learning to use Photoshop!

So we have Photoshop CS4 at work. I decided to start playing with it to see what can be done with our pics from the new camera. I came across a tutorial on a website called Digital Photography School about one way to make eyes pop a little more in a shot.

What is "The Merchants of Disquiet Minds?"

A few months ago, some friends and I decided to try a little online musical experiment. I have delved more deeply into the world of digital recording and mixing quite deeply in the last year. I use a program called Reaper which is the absolute bomb IMHO. It allows me to do pretty much anything I ever wanted to do back when all I had was a 4-track cassette deck, a synth, guitar and one really crappy mic. Oh if only I'd had this tool in the early 90's. Might be that rockstar I always wanted to be then. LOL

Anyway, software gushing aside, the program allows me to do many, many things to audio. There is also an excellent book written for users that gets into a lot of audio mixing theory and practice along with direct instructions for how to apply these things in Reaper. The book is called ReaMix. Look it up, it's worth it.

No seriously, I'm done pimping for Reaper now!!

A Gaythering Storm

Any strict fundamentalist religious types will want to stop reading now. Tim is about to get a touch controversial.




Still with me? Good, let's move on...

The National Organization for Marriage recently started airing this commercial on TV stations and the web.

So what's Tim been up to lately?

What a couple of weeks its been!!

Last week, my wife and I woke up at 6am. Normally, I take our dogs outside and feed them while she jumps in the shower to get ready for work. While I was feeding the dogs, she appeared at the front door and informed me that we had no hot water. Ugh!

A days worth of tinkering and we came to the conclusion that our tank was dead. So then we had to get it out and buy a new one. This involved turning off the water for our whole house since there are no cutoffs anywhere. To shut off the water I have to turn off the power to our well pump and then release the pressure on the faucets.

We then discovered that nobody makes a replacement tank that would fit in the space anymore. Apparently, the company that made our original one sold its water heater division to another company who then discontinued our model about 10 years ago. Yay.