worthless stats

Tuesday was family game night at our house.  The kids and I were setting up the game when Cari said, "You know a person with blue eyes has won four of the last six games we've played."

I laughed a bit while the kids started comparing eye color. Cari was making a joke that started while we watched Nascar last week.  The announcers were spouting off worthless stats like:

Nobody has ever won this race when starting any farther back then twenty second.

The last seven races we have had a caution by lap ten.

The list goes on.  The commentators don't seem to consider that over time we have different drivers, different cars, etc... Now when they quote these stats we just laugh.

When the kids and I finished the setup of our game, and we all sat down.  Cari said, "The person that sits to my left has never won family game night."  Then she smirked at Randy sitting to her left.

"I'm going to my room!", Randy said.
I stopped him from storming off with no hope of winning, but only after I agreed to switch seats with him.

Sitting to Cari's left on Tuesday night, would you believe that I lost?

Balloons Over Anderson 2009

Five people and a lot of volunteers really wanted to bring back a ballooning festival to Anderson, SC this year.  They worked hard to produce the first Balloons Over Anderson festival this past weekend.  I went on Saturday morning, Saturday night, and at sunrise on Sunday morning.  From my perspective, the festival turned out great.

In addition to a good turnout of balloons, we saw skydivers, and large scale model airplanes.

Saturday morning we noticed tethered rides in a balloon being offered and the line only had five people.

Randy and I paid and got in line.  As our turn was approaching, I started getting nervous.  I looked back at Cari to see if she would switch with me.  I had never been up in a wicker basket attached to a flame thrower attached to a large fabric envelope.  I was unable to get her attention before one of the workers was giving me instruction.  He told me as soon as the basket hit the ground, I needed to jump on because he would need my weight to help hold it down.  With no time for fear, I was in the basket.

Once we ascended, I realized how incredible it was.  It was such a gentle ride and my fear left me very quickly.  That's when we hit the full length of the tether at around 130 ft in the air. The basket jolted to the side a bit but nobody got kicked overboard. We continued floating in place for a few minutes before the balloon slowly drifted back down.

It was really awesome.  As soon as we got down, I begged Cari to go try.  She wasn't excited about it, but she went and Randy got his second ride.  Cari can be seen in this photo wearing the blue sweater:

Saturday night, Cari and I went back to see the balloons glow in the dark.  If you have never seen what I'm talking about, here's a video I made with my new Motorola Droid:

The final launch of the event was going to come on Sunday morning at sunrise, otherwise known as seven in the morning.  It's a thirty minute ride out there from the house and I wanted to have plenty of time to see the setup so I left my house at six.

I found myself in the middle of the launch field taking what would turn out to be 260 photos.  I was surrounded by balloons and it was really amazing.  Here's another video, again made with the Droid.

As I go through some more of my photos this week, I'll get some more ready to post toward the end of the week.

It's amazing what five people and their volunteers can put together.  I hope their efforts were well rewarded this weekend so they can start planning for next years event.

It is MINE!

On Friday during lunch I headed over to the Verizon store with my lovely wife to pick up the new Motorola Droid.  I already blogged about this earlier in the week, so I'll just tell you . . .

I HAVE ONE!

IT IS AWESOME!

Over the next week I'll try to type up some of my thoughts on this phone.  Maybe not a full, true review, but as close as I'll get to that.  For now, we're heading out to a balloon festival. . .

QR Code

What is this funny looking square?  It's a QR Code!  I've been reading about smart phones over the past two weeks and I started to notice these codes on some websites.  A QR Code is like a barcode found on any product you purchase.  But the QR Code can hold MUCH more data than that silly old bar code on your box of tissues.  You can print a QR Code onto a business card that contains all of your contact info.  When someone needs your contact info, they can scan the code with their phones camera and instantly they have everything without typing a single key.

A company could put a QR Code into a magazine and when you scan the code, it would take you directly to their website.

There are some really interesting ways these codes can be utilized.  I've even seen photos of codes being used on giant screens like at Times Square.  When I get my first smart phone, this will be the first QR Code I will scan!

DROID

Over the past year I have become more and more interested in having a BlackBerry.  No, I don't need one.  It's just a really cool gadget that I want to have.  Really, I probably would have wanted an iPhone but I have zero interest in switching over to AT&T, so I have pretty well ignored the iPhone.

A few months ago my sister-in-law, Amanda, got herself a BlackBerry.  Initially, Cari and Amanda tried to keep it a secret from me.  Cari was afraid that my BlackBerry jealousy would cause me to run out and get one.  While it did ramp up my want of the device, I stayed fairly calm.

Then I heard that the BlackBerry Storm 2 was coming out at the end of October.  I started getting very excited and had the feeling that I just HAD to have one.

When Amanda visited in October, we got to see her with her BlackBerry.  Even the baby was excited about it!

 In the weeks leading up to the Storm 2 release, I started seeing more information about the Motorola Droid.

I quickly switched alliances and started scouring the internets for anything about the Droid.

At this point I have pretty much read every review and seen every YouTube video demonstrating the Droid.  I must have one.

Do I need one?  Nope.  Do I want one?  Yep.  Can I afford one?  Maybe.

The Droid comes out on Friday.  IF I get one, I'll be sure to post about it that day!

Jack-O-Lantern

Here's a shot of our carved pumpkins for 2009.

It was pretty cloudy and rainy through the evening last night.  We still managed to get out and get some candy from our neighbors, but only for about an hour.  Combine that with the candy we got on Friday night and we have more than enough to keep ourselves sick the rest of the week.

A few notes on the pumpkins.  Cari had a white pumpkin this year, though you wouldn't know it in that photo, she used a drill to poke her pattern of flames into it for a very cool result.  I traced my hand, cut it out, shaved the edges of the shell off and put the hand back in place with tooth pics.  Meredith used a similar style to do the ghost and Randy did a traditional face.  He worked in an 'R' as the left eye.

Happy Halloween

Here's the costumes around the house this year.

On Friday night we carved our pumpkins and went downtown for some trick or treating.  We came home with TONS of candy and it wasn't even Halloween yet!  I think actual trick or treating might be a bit shortened this year.  We simply don't need this much candy.

I'll try and get some shots of our pumpkins lit up later tonight.

9

I just got done working nine straight days.  If I wasn't so tired and worn out I would draw you a graph of my productivity over that time frame.

Good thing I don't go back for a week!

Pumpkin Patch!

It's time to get our pumpkins and start carving!  We tend to wait until closer to Halloween before carving so that they will still look pretty good that evening.

This year we heard about a church that has filled their yard with pumpkins and is putting the money they make toward missions, so we headed over there to support their cause.  As we got out of the car, Cari said she just wanted to pick up two pumpkins at the church and we would get a few more over at Walmart for cheap.

I followed my kids around with the camera as they tried to pick the perfect pumpkins.
I had some other great shots of the baby, but decided to post this one because it shows that she NEVER stops moving.

After a while, I looked up from my camera and saw Cari paying at the counter.  She had SIX pumpkins.  That's just a few more than the two she claimed to limit herself to.  At least the money goes to a good cause.

Before we left, we walked the kids over to the display they had setup for taking photos.  We sat the kids down and took the standard photo of our kids:

Carving photos should be posted by Halloween!

Naked!

Baby in the bath photos are always fun.  But now the baby seems to be more aware of the camera.   Well, I know she is more aware of the camera.  After taking a shot of her, I can't get a second one because she comes running up to me.  She wants to see the shot in the LCD every time.  Maybe she is making sure I got her good side.

In the bath, I won't allow her to jump up and get to me, but she was still curious, pointing at the camera after a few shots.  Maybe she was saying, "STOP!  I'M NAKED!"

I am RUDE

Apparently I am rude.  That is the impression someone tried to give me Thursday at work.

I am a busy person at work.  Ya know, it's not that I'm unfriendly, it is just that I am WORKING.  Most of the time, as I make my way from one end of the building to the other, I get stopped countless times.  Sometimes the person stopping my journey actually needed my help.  Other times they just needed someone to give them attention.

So on Thursday I was stopped with one of those people that just wanted someone to talk to.  I was being friendly and stopped for a minute to chat.  He asked me, "How are you doing?"   I told him that I was doing pretty good and then I said something about work.  He looked at me obviously waiting for something.  When I didn't say anything else, he said, "Yeah, I'm doing fine."   OH! He was waiting for me to ask how he was doing.   So, I laughed a bit and asked how he was doing.  That's when he started in to a whole story about what happened last night.  

That's exactly why I didn't ask him how he was doing!  He was either going to lie and say he was fine or he was going to go into this long story that I didn't have time to listen to at the moment.  I didn't want to hear either, so I didn't ask.

My question is why do people that want to talk about themselves ask how I am doing?  They want to appear that the are interested in me, but really they are only waiting for my automatic response of, "I'm good.  How are you?"

For the rest of the afternoon, I paid attention to the conversations I was having and how many people used that as an introduction to themselves.  One other person tried to bait me into a story about themselves by asking about me and one person was obviously dying to tell a story but didn't tell it when I didn't ask it.   A few people didn't bother asking about me or waiting for me to ask about them.  They just went straight into their story.

I think I would prefer my coworkers just to ask me, "Do you have a few minutes?  I'd like to tell you about what I had for dinner last night."  That at least gives me a fair shot at letting them know I do or don't have time at the moment.

I'm really not trying to be rude to my coworkers when I don't ask how they are doing.  It's not always the case that I just don't care.  It's just that I am busy.  And now I'm irritated.  Stop assuming that I am going to invite your story into my day just because you asked how I am doing.  Chances are I won't ask you, no mater how long you stare at me with that look that says, "You are RUDE."

4x

Jimmie Johnson won last weeks race at Lowe's Motor Speedway and has taken a decent size lead over second place.

With only five races to go, it is looking more and more like Team Lowe's Racing can win the championship.

If he does it, this will make the FOURTH championship in a row for this team!  In all the history of Nascar, NO driver has ever won four championships back to back to back to back.

Team owner,  Rick Hendrick can't go wrong this year as he owns the top three cars at the moment.  As each race is completed, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin, and Jeff Gordon remind the other drivers who the team to beat is.

Some fans of Nascar may be tired of watching Jimmie win, but as a fan of Team 48, I'd like to see him win this championship.  Sometimes it is fun to pull for the underdog, but this year I'm pulling for the guy that is making Nascar history.  Forever after, all champions will be compared to the four year run that Jimmie Johnson has had.

If he pulls this off this year, the question to ask may be, "Will this ever end?"

Stop Drop and Roll

Ricky Bobby!  You are NOT on fire!

I'm not sure what she doing.  If she was trying to start a new cheer, none of her friends joined her.

Redneck

One of the football players' dad came from the top section of the bleachers.  He saw a friend of his on his way to the fence line and acknowledged him without stopping.  "I'm fixin' to get redneck", the man on a mission said.

He looked like a nice guy.  Seemed pretty civil as he walked past, but with a comment like that, I was watching him.

Sure enough, he leaned on the fence and got the coaches attention.  He made a fuss that the coaches "superstar" son has been in every offensive play while several boys had not played at all in the first three quarters.

The Redneck's son seemed to be a defensive player, so the complaint was not a selfish one.

After a few shouts back and forth from coach to Redneck, the man walked back over to his friend and changed his tone back to a friendly one instantly.  

Not really the "fixin' to get redneck" type of show I was expecting.  But it left me with a great phrase to use through the coming week.

When I head into work this week you can be sure I'll be fixin' to get redneck on someone!

New Words

Randy, Amanda, and I were driving home from the Atlanta airport last weekend and we passed the exit for Townville, SC.

Amanda thought that it was kind of a funny name for a town.  Is it a town or is it a village?  We thought maybe they couldn't decide what it was and combined the words.   As we were laughing about it, Randy spoke up from the back seat.  What if they couldn't decide if it was a town or a city, then I guess it would be a Tittie.

Amanda and I just looked at eachother.  Did Randy realize what he said?  Then the three of us started laughing and I am certain the ten year old knew exactly what he had said.

Fast forward a few days later to the rec center football game for ten and under.  At the end of the game, Cari was telling the cheerleaders where the next game is going to be.  She told one of the girls to meet in Walhalla and the girl asked, "What is Walhalla?"

"It's a city", Cari replied.  Then she realized that this small community is hardly a "city" and she corrected herself, "It's a town".

Instantly, Amanda and I looked at each other and said, "It's a Tittie!"