Watching CNN Headline News. They showed several people who appear to be black. When asked why they voted for Obama more than one said because "he is black and he represents me." They didn't state and issue. They stated the color of his skin. November 5, 2008 is the day I will bring up when I say "I told you so." The day will come. No...the days will come. Would you get on an airplane to fly across the country if you were told the pilot has only flown around the city and never ventured far out? No. Obama has very little experience. Yes he had done many things, but at what LEVEL. Hell I have been flying for 2 years. I have 1200 hours of time spent in the cockpit...but I know I am no where NEAR qualified to be a Captain of a plane. Yet the country has been fooled into believing Obama is qualified to lead the country?
If the country really wanted "change" from Bush and the Republican party they would have elected Kerry in the last election. Times were crap then. The years after 9/11 were horrible....yet the country re-elected Bush. If Obama was white (which he is just as much as he is black) there would not have been as many people voting period. Additionally if Obama had kept to his WORD and taken public financing I think the results would have not turned out the same.
Obama before the election said he was going to CHANGE so much. Today during his post election speech he stated well the CHANGE might not happen in one year....two years...maybe not even in four years. Nice. I have no faith in Barack Hussein Obama. I am more worried about the future of this country now than I was on 9/12/01. I honestly hope I will never use these words....but I fear I will have to. Let it be known...I TOLD YOU SO!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The President
Millions of people voted for Obama not because of the issues, but because of the color of his skin. This election will be studied and the results will show that millions of people voted in this election who have not previously voted and that those people will list the color of his skin as the reason why he voted. Voting for Obama was the "in"thing. Something different...regardless of what different really is. The United States is a racist country. The "1 Drop" rule from the past is obviously still in force. Obama is 1/2 Black....but he is also 1/2 White. The "1 Drop" rule means every there is one drop of black blood in you then you are black.
Additionally I don't think another candidate will ever take public financing again. Obama said he would take it....McCain did...Obama backed out. If I could spend $3 for every $1 you had I could convice the world of anything.
I will go on later....but I have to go to work.
Additionally I don't think another candidate will ever take public financing again. Obama said he would take it....McCain did...Obama backed out. If I could spend $3 for every $1 you had I could convice the world of anything.
I will go on later....but I have to go to work.
Wii Fit
I am enjoying my Wii Fit. The exercises really help with the monotony of the treadmill. Being able to track my progress helps as well. On the Wii each user designs a Mi. A Mi is a cartoon of one self. Mine is a cool black guy with dreadlocks. Before I got the Wii Fit my Mi was slim....well with the Wii Fit the Mi became chubby! Each day I weigh in and it charts my weight on a graph. Thankfully I have been watching what I eat and the graph has continuously gone down. One part of the Wii Fit I don't like is the ideal weight it has for me. The Wii Fit thinks I should be 158 lbs! I was that slim in High School for a while and it was FAR from healthy looking. I will be happy in the 175-185 range. I got a lot of "junk in my trunk" which will not go down no matter how much weight I loose. I do enjoy the sit ups and pushups of the Wii Fit. Scary that I would say I like sit ups and push ups.
Gas is going down. As low as $2.08 at QuickTrip.
During my recurrent training for my job today an interesting topic came up. We were discussing CRM (Crew Resource Management). First let me say the instructor is not a pilot but a professional teacher who has taught at many airlines. Through his many years of studying CRM, stress management and workplace interactions he has found no other group of workers is more studied than pilots. Pilots have a very unique workplace. Everyday they are put under stress. The workplace of pilots is volitale...literally. Pilots fly around in a metal structure full of people, cargo and fuel. They fly through weather and traffic dealing with very tight schedules. Pilots can't often find time to slow down. If a office building catches fire...you evacuate. A pilot can do no such thing. They are flying the office building. If an accountant makes a mistake with a spreadsheet...they fix it. If a pilot makes a mistake in math..or just bad judgement while landing the result can be the end of a career. There are many, many ways for a pilot to get violated. Pilots have one of the only professions I can think of that losing a job means starting back over at 1st year pay. A pilot can literally work for 20 years with a clean slate. They have one bad day (of course a bad day for a pilot is a really bad day) and not stop in time and go off the runway. The FAA's investigation could result in the pilot losing his license. That's it...no more flying. The company can also do it's own investigation and decide to let the pilot go. Thankfully here are unions to protect a pilot in some cases...but still...can you think of another profession where one mistake could end everything?
Gas is going down. As low as $2.08 at QuickTrip.
During my recurrent training for my job today an interesting topic came up. We were discussing CRM (Crew Resource Management). First let me say the instructor is not a pilot but a professional teacher who has taught at many airlines. Through his many years of studying CRM, stress management and workplace interactions he has found no other group of workers is more studied than pilots. Pilots have a very unique workplace. Everyday they are put under stress. The workplace of pilots is volitale...literally. Pilots fly around in a metal structure full of people, cargo and fuel. They fly through weather and traffic dealing with very tight schedules. Pilots can't often find time to slow down. If a office building catches fire...you evacuate. A pilot can do no such thing. They are flying the office building. If an accountant makes a mistake with a spreadsheet...they fix it. If a pilot makes a mistake in math..or just bad judgement while landing the result can be the end of a career. There are many, many ways for a pilot to get violated. Pilots have one of the only professions I can think of that losing a job means starting back over at 1st year pay. A pilot can literally work for 20 years with a clean slate. They have one bad day (of course a bad day for a pilot is a really bad day) and not stop in time and go off the runway. The FAA's investigation could result in the pilot losing his license. That's it...no more flying. The company can also do it's own investigation and decide to let the pilot go. Thankfully here are unions to protect a pilot in some cases...but still...can you think of another profession where one mistake could end everything?
As good as it gets?? Well it got better.
When we bought our beautiful Sony 57 inch HDTV 4 1/2 years ago we were on cloud 9. The TV had an amazing picture, capable of 72oP and 1080i. The only bad thing was a somewhat limited viewing angle. Over the years the TV has been flawless. The high definition picture looked great and there were enough high definition ports for our Wii, XBOX 360, DVD player and Cablebox. How could we improve? Well we did.
This new TV literally makes the Sony look like a 20 year old basic color TV. The color quality on the new Samsung LCD is eye popping. The reds are deep, the blacks are inky deep, the white is crisp and clean and the green is money. I spent time yesterday walking back and forth between the Sony and the Samsung showing the same HD tv show. The Sony didn't look like HD anymore....even though it was.
Everything isn't cherry though. The Sony switched between inputs faster. Going from the Xbox to the Cable box took 1 second at the most. The new Samsung takes 3 to 5 seconds once the Cable box is selected in order to begin showing a picture. Also with the Sony I disabled the internal speaker and used m surround sound for....sound. Even then I was still able to have the TV control the volume. The Samsung can't do that. Once the internal speaker is disabled sending any volume commands to the TV does nothing. Not a big deal, I just set up the Cable box remote to send a signal to the home theater receiver for volume.
Beyond those two little things...everything else is better. I can now select 1080P on the Xbox...wow. Just looking at the dashboard on the Xbox 360 is amazing. I'm now itching for blueray. Samsung has a line of devices designed to talk to one another. You simply plug an Anynet Samsung blueray player into the TV and the TV will configure the blueray player and allows the original TV remote to control the blueray player automatically. The user does nothing. The same goes for the following Anynet Samsung Devices ; Home theatre system, Camcorder, Digital Camera or DVD/VCR player. Pretty cool.
The TV mount should arrive on Friday and I will mount the TV to the wall Sunday. Once done we will decide on where to put the components. Right now they are on a very nice glass/metal vertical rack. We might buy a simple shelf and mount it to the wall. For now...Robin Meade in all her beautiful glory. If you don't know who Robin Meade is....it's prolly because you are a woman.
This new TV literally makes the Sony look like a 20 year old basic color TV. The color quality on the new Samsung LCD is eye popping. The reds are deep, the blacks are inky deep, the white is crisp and clean and the green is money. I spent time yesterday walking back and forth between the Sony and the Samsung showing the same HD tv show. The Sony didn't look like HD anymore....even though it was.
Everything isn't cherry though. The Sony switched between inputs faster. Going from the Xbox to the Cable box took 1 second at the most. The new Samsung takes 3 to 5 seconds once the Cable box is selected in order to begin showing a picture. Also with the Sony I disabled the internal speaker and used m surround sound for....sound. Even then I was still able to have the TV control the volume. The Samsung can't do that. Once the internal speaker is disabled sending any volume commands to the TV does nothing. Not a big deal, I just set up the Cable box remote to send a signal to the home theater receiver for volume.
Beyond those two little things...everything else is better. I can now select 1080P on the Xbox...wow. Just looking at the dashboard on the Xbox 360 is amazing. I'm now itching for blueray. Samsung has a line of devices designed to talk to one another. You simply plug an Anynet Samsung blueray player into the TV and the TV will configure the blueray player and allows the original TV remote to control the blueray player automatically. The user does nothing. The same goes for the following Anynet Samsung Devices ; Home theatre system, Camcorder, Digital Camera or DVD/VCR player. Pretty cool.
The TV mount should arrive on Friday and I will mount the TV to the wall Sunday. Once done we will decide on where to put the components. Right now they are on a very nice glass/metal vertical rack. We might buy a simple shelf and mount it to the wall. For now...Robin Meade in all her beautiful glory. If you don't know who Robin Meade is....it's prolly because you are a woman.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Early Christmas
Television. Kelli and I watch a lot of it. We have a big on as well. When we moved into our house 4 1/2 years ago we bought the best TV we could afford. We bought a 57-inch Sony HDTV Projection TV. The price was $1799 from Best Buy. We got 3 years no interest as well as a $250 gift card. We used the gift card to buy an X-Box. The TV has served well. We have had zero issues with it until recently. With our new UVerse TV service (which we love!) the box is a native HDMI output. I bought a HDMI to DVI cable. This worked fine until a recent software upgrade. Now if the TV is turned on before the box (a matter of a second or two as the same remote blast out signals to turn them both on at the same time) the box won't send out video. This causes us to turn the TV off and back on. Not a big deal. But annoying.
The TV is also pretty massive. The depth of the TV is a good 3 feet. The makes the TV sit nearly 3 1/2 feet off the wall. Massive use of space. At the time we bought it a 42 inch Plasma TV was over $2500. We couldn't swing it.
This morning I looked through the Fry's Ad (like I do everyday that doesn't begin with the letter T) and noticed a Philips 50 inch Plasma 1080P TV for $1377. True it's 7 inches smaller than our current TV....but the price is good and the 1080P is something I wanted (our current TV is 1080i). We went to Fry's to "check it out". The TV looked only okay....no where near as sharp as our current Sony. Contrary to popular belief the sharpest pictures produced today are still made by old-fashioned CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors. Why? Well they have been in production for over 50 years.... damn good research and production. We then wandered around looking at other TVs. I used my new phone to quickly look up prices to compare to other nearby stores and online stores.
This is the Fry's ad I saw this morning.
There was a nice Samsung Plasma 50 inch Plasma 1080P for $1150. I liked the picture...but it was the floor model only...open box. No thanks. a salesman...very nice and knowledgeable man....greeted us and showed us several models. Kelli and I look at TV's often. I drag her through the TV section of Fry's or Best Buy at least once a month. We noticed a new technology called 120 Hz for LCDs. The new LCD's produce a much sharper picture than LCD's from last year, which used 60 Hz, by having double the resolution. To be fair Plasma TVs use 480Hz so they have never had an issue with images smearing or ghosting. The salesman showed as a really nice Sony TV that was in our price range...but not 120 Hz. We liked it. We then noticed the TV next to it showing the same programming...but looked 100X better. That TV was a Samsung 52inch LCD with the 120Hz feature. We were standing 10 feet back and were amazed at how different they were. The price was a little more than we were comfortable with. The salesman showed us the same Samsung TV in a lower ($100 cheaper) model next to the higher model showing the same programming. Still the picture was just that much better. The TV's were tuned to the same colors, contrast and picture quality...the details were just amazing.
Thinking I could find a better price we left and visited Circuit City, Starpower and Best Buy. Circuit City and Best Buy had the same Samsung TV...but $800 higher than Fry's. Circuit City would price match plus 10%...Best Buy would only price match. We are Best Buy people. I attempted to buy the TV from Best Buy but after waiting more than 20 minutes for the associate to verify the TV was in stock at Fry's (part of the price match system) we left. The customer service was lacking. When I said I would go to the Circuit City around the corner they told me they were closed (an outright lie). We went back to Circuit City and had more bad service...but we got the TV for $880 less than they were advertising it for. For the record we bought a Samsung LN52A750 (click here for more info on the TV). The 52-inch LCD TV has 4 HDMI ports, an Ethernet port (to pull video from a computer and RSS feeds from the net), and more. I bought the mounting bracket for $40 from www.monoprice.com . The prices for mounting brackets from Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry's were crazy! Using my phone I scanned the barcodes and found the exact same mounting brackets online for a MINIUMUM of $100 less than in the store. I did a lot of research and picked a basic tilting bracket. I was going to get one with an articulating arm.... but was leery as most models have issues with really big TVs (ours weighs 67 lbs). I also bought three 15-foot HDMI cables and some speaker brackets (in case I get a hair up my rear to mount my speakers on the wall).
There is a funny thing about HDMI cables. The prices vary between $13 and literally $200 for the EXACT same cable. The "Monster Power" 24K gold plated HDMI cable performed exactly the same as a $13 generic cable...why? Well HDMI is digital....1's and 0's. The signal either gets there or it doesn't. In the past with analog cables outside interference could alter the signal. Buying shielded, high quality cables, brought a better picture. The cheapest HDMI cable at Best Buy was a 4-foot cable for over $79!!!! Again...it's digital....buy cheap. I read several articles and reviews and every one of them ended the same way....the price of the cable doesn't change the picture or sound produced.
This week I have recurrent ground training and a check ride for my job...so I likely won't mount the TV until next Sunday....maybe. Kelli and I will also likely buy/acquire some type of table to place under the TV for all of the components.
Take a look...every paragraph started with T! And the TV fit in my MULTI-ACTIVITY VEHICLE just fine. If we had bought a 56 inch TV.....we would have had to take it out of the box or pay for delivery. The TV we bought slid in perfectly with a few inches to spare. Our friends Lacy and Raymond bought a smaller Plasma TV that wouldn't fit in their much larger and gas hungrier Mazda CX-7.
The TV is also pretty massive. The depth of the TV is a good 3 feet. The makes the TV sit nearly 3 1/2 feet off the wall. Massive use of space. At the time we bought it a 42 inch Plasma TV was over $2500. We couldn't swing it.
This morning I looked through the Fry's Ad (like I do everyday that doesn't begin with the letter T) and noticed a Philips 50 inch Plasma 1080P TV for $1377. True it's 7 inches smaller than our current TV....but the price is good and the 1080P is something I wanted (our current TV is 1080i). We went to Fry's to "check it out". The TV looked only okay....no where near as sharp as our current Sony. Contrary to popular belief the sharpest pictures produced today are still made by old-fashioned CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors. Why? Well they have been in production for over 50 years.... damn good research and production. We then wandered around looking at other TVs. I used my new phone to quickly look up prices to compare to other nearby stores and online stores.
This is the Fry's ad I saw this morning.
There was a nice Samsung Plasma 50 inch Plasma 1080P for $1150. I liked the picture...but it was the floor model only...open box. No thanks. a salesman...very nice and knowledgeable man....greeted us and showed us several models. Kelli and I look at TV's often. I drag her through the TV section of Fry's or Best Buy at least once a month. We noticed a new technology called 120 Hz for LCDs. The new LCD's produce a much sharper picture than LCD's from last year, which used 60 Hz, by having double the resolution. To be fair Plasma TVs use 480Hz so they have never had an issue with images smearing or ghosting. The salesman showed as a really nice Sony TV that was in our price range...but not 120 Hz. We liked it. We then noticed the TV next to it showing the same programming...but looked 100X better. That TV was a Samsung 52inch LCD with the 120Hz feature. We were standing 10 feet back and were amazed at how different they were. The price was a little more than we were comfortable with. The salesman showed us the same Samsung TV in a lower ($100 cheaper) model next to the higher model showing the same programming. Still the picture was just that much better. The TV's were tuned to the same colors, contrast and picture quality...the details were just amazing.
Thinking I could find a better price we left and visited Circuit City, Starpower and Best Buy. Circuit City and Best Buy had the same Samsung TV...but $800 higher than Fry's. Circuit City would price match plus 10%...Best Buy would only price match. We are Best Buy people. I attempted to buy the TV from Best Buy but after waiting more than 20 minutes for the associate to verify the TV was in stock at Fry's (part of the price match system) we left. The customer service was lacking. When I said I would go to the Circuit City around the corner they told me they were closed (an outright lie). We went back to Circuit City and had more bad service...but we got the TV for $880 less than they were advertising it for. For the record we bought a Samsung LN52A750 (click here for more info on the TV). The 52-inch LCD TV has 4 HDMI ports, an Ethernet port (to pull video from a computer and RSS feeds from the net), and more. I bought the mounting bracket for $40 from www.monoprice.com . The prices for mounting brackets from Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry's were crazy! Using my phone I scanned the barcodes and found the exact same mounting brackets online for a MINIUMUM of $100 less than in the store. I did a lot of research and picked a basic tilting bracket. I was going to get one with an articulating arm.... but was leery as most models have issues with really big TVs (ours weighs 67 lbs). I also bought three 15-foot HDMI cables and some speaker brackets (in case I get a hair up my rear to mount my speakers on the wall).
There is a funny thing about HDMI cables. The prices vary between $13 and literally $200 for the EXACT same cable. The "Monster Power" 24K gold plated HDMI cable performed exactly the same as a $13 generic cable...why? Well HDMI is digital....1's and 0's. The signal either gets there or it doesn't. In the past with analog cables outside interference could alter the signal. Buying shielded, high quality cables, brought a better picture. The cheapest HDMI cable at Best Buy was a 4-foot cable for over $79!!!! Again...it's digital....buy cheap. I read several articles and reviews and every one of them ended the same way....the price of the cable doesn't change the picture or sound produced.
This week I have recurrent ground training and a check ride for my job...so I likely won't mount the TV until next Sunday....maybe. Kelli and I will also likely buy/acquire some type of table to place under the TV for all of the components.
Take a look...every paragraph started with T! And the TV fit in my MULTI-ACTIVITY VEHICLE just fine. If we had bought a 56 inch TV.....we would have had to take it out of the box or pay for delivery. The TV we bought slid in perfectly with a few inches to spare. Our friends Lacy and Raymond bought a smaller Plasma TV that wouldn't fit in their much larger and gas hungrier Mazda CX-7.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Vegas
Vegas was nice. We flew in Tuesday night. The flight was very empty. We enjoyed our first class seats and meal. With the softening economy planes, are getting more and more spacious (people aren't flying). To save money we rented from Dollar rent a car. The rate of $9 a day was way lower than our normal rent a car company, Alamo/National, at $25 a day. The price though showed during the check in. There were no computer terminals for customers to use. Instead we waited in line for 15 minutes. I could see the Alamo/National area....ghost town. The Alamo/National kiosk were waiting for any customer. We finally got to the rental car area and after inspecting a few cars (Dollar is kinda ghetto and the condition of the cars showed) for damage we picked a nearly new Chrysler Town & Country minivan. Kelli drove for the first time ever as the rental was in her name. I normally rent the car and end up not being able to drive as I drink. Kelli rarely drinks so her driving makes sense...except I hate the way she drives. Oh the drama that ensues.
The first night we stayed at the Stratosphere. The hotel was okay. We gambled only a little bit before heading to bed. Wednesday morning we ate our free buffet breakfast and checked out. We picked up Eric and Angela (www.EricandAngela.com) at the airport and headed to Harrah's. Too early to check in we walked around, gambled and began drinking until we could check in. Over Wednesday and Thursday we all gambled, ate, drank and had a good time. We all enjoyed playing roulette on both the normal tables and the new rapid roulette video game. The rapid roulette uses a traditional roulette wheel but allows the players to pick numbers on a touch screen monitor. I found a machine I liked at O'Sheas called $100 or nothing. It's a dollar machine...either you win $100....or nothing. That easy. I won $100 twice and only gave up $25 in the process. As of Thursday afternoon I was down $240. By Friday morning I was only down $80. Not bad for 3 days of gambling. Kelli left without a penny to her name...but she had fun.
The flight back was just as nice as the flight there. The plane was a 767 which is the second biggest plane in American Airlines fleet. There were 30 first class seats and we scored two of them. The seats were the new lay flat type. We didn't lay all the way down, but we both reclined and enjoyed the flight. The meal was not as tasty as the meal on the way to Vegas.
I am not sure when we will go to Vegas again...probably not until March at the earliest. As I got ready for bed last night I realized I had not slept in my own bed in 6 days...just hotel beds. Nutty.
The first night we stayed at the Stratosphere. The hotel was okay. We gambled only a little bit before heading to bed. Wednesday morning we ate our free buffet breakfast and checked out. We picked up Eric and Angela (www.EricandAngela.com) at the airport and headed to Harrah's. Too early to check in we walked around, gambled and began drinking until we could check in. Over Wednesday and Thursday we all gambled, ate, drank and had a good time. We all enjoyed playing roulette on both the normal tables and the new rapid roulette video game. The rapid roulette uses a traditional roulette wheel but allows the players to pick numbers on a touch screen monitor. I found a machine I liked at O'Sheas called $100 or nothing. It's a dollar machine...either you win $100....or nothing. That easy. I won $100 twice and only gave up $25 in the process. As of Thursday afternoon I was down $240. By Friday morning I was only down $80. Not bad for 3 days of gambling. Kelli left without a penny to her name...but she had fun.
The flight back was just as nice as the flight there. The plane was a 767 which is the second biggest plane in American Airlines fleet. There were 30 first class seats and we scored two of them. The seats were the new lay flat type. We didn't lay all the way down, but we both reclined and enjoyed the flight. The meal was not as tasty as the meal on the way to Vegas.
I am not sure when we will go to Vegas again...probably not until March at the earliest. As I got ready for bed last night I realized I had not slept in my own bed in 6 days...just hotel beds. Nutty.
It's Official
Absolutely cutest and best niece WEST of the Mississippi river. There is an equally special niece EAST of the Mississippi....but I don't have photos of her.
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