Archives for the 'General' Category
Happy ____day!
Pulled from a daily devotional:
Sometimes we come to an unhappy place in our lives. If we examine ourselves on those days, we will most likely discover that the things that make us unhappy are the fruit of the choices that we made earlier.Today can be a new start. I think God gave us twenty-four-hour days because He knew that was all we could handle. His mercies are new every morning (see Lamentations 3:22-23). You can start over this morning and live today for the Lord. Determine to follow wherever God leads you, and do whatever He tells you to do. You can expect better tomorrows when you live right today.
One thing I’ve kind of lost track of in the last two weeks is living each day to the fullest. Before this point, I would often send simple messages to people (often random friends) stating Happy Monday or Tuesday or whatever day it was. I would typically get a response back like “Thanks!”, but on occasion I would get someone asking why I sent them that. To those people I would tell them that each day we wake, we should take full advantage of the opportunities the Lord has given us. He chose to give us more time to impact others lives. We should celebrate these opportunities. As I rebuild my faith in the Lord, I think this outlook will grow exponentially. I’m thankful for what I have today.
The intersection of lives
As many of us work our way through life, we never take the time to notice those around us. We take for granted the people that are in our lives and we don’t really appreciate the impact they have. In many cases, people may step out of our lives, and we don’t even realize they’ve gone.
If we all just take a moment to look around, you may notice those who are around us. Each and everyone one of these people has impacted us in one way or another. Some people will enter our lives and remain there for a long time, while others come in quickly and leave at the same rate. Both cases have changed how we live. That impact could be small, or it could be large. Sometimes our musical tastes are broadened, or our food tastes expand to new things. Sometimes our whole perception of life is altered. Regardless how these people have affected our lives, they have. These changes are very important and should be appreciated. These people no matter how minute the impact, should be appreciated. We should take some time out of our day and tell someone around us that we appreciate them. We need to tell them before they leave this intersection of our lives.
A dear friend of a friend, once said, “Good people change the way you live.” Kyle could not have been more right. I never had the opportunity to meet Kyle Ritcheske, but he had a trememdous impact on many lives. He was good people. I hope all of you realize what good people you have around you and don’t forget to live.
Random Thought: Wal-Mart pulling inventory?
Where I live (Katy, TX), Wal-Mart has a policy of price-matching local grocery stores advertised specials in order to compete, but many times I’ve noticed that the day the new grocery ads are released, Wal-Mart doesn’t seem to have any stock of those items the other stores are placing on sale. This could be attributed to anything. Perhaps the other stores are placing them on sale because they need to get rid of the inventory and Wal-Mart sensing the same need has already done so. I find that hard to believe, but I guess it is possible. My conspiracy theory is that Wal-Mart pulls items off their shelves to avoid price matching. I’m pretty sure it is not all products because that would be too obvious, but if they pulled those items with the least amount of markup, this avoidance could save them a bundle. Has anyone else noticed this?
Before I get any remarks about the most recent hurricane causing empty shelves, I’ve been noticing this for about a year.
YMCA
As some of you may know, I’m involved with the local YMCA in several programs. In fact, most aspects of my life have some tie to the Y. I’ve got my daughters in a Parent-Child Program designed to build the relationship between parents (fathers in this case) and their children. With this solid relationship, our children should have the foundation to grow up to be great leaders in their communities. I’m also apart of the Langham Creek YMCA Board. Being on this board is an honor for me, and I really enjoy seeing the positive impact we have on the community. We are currently running the Partners Campaign, which collects donations to help those less fortunate in our community participate in programs offered by the YMCA. It is very fulfilling helping others, and I have found the YMCA to be a great outlet for this.
Things I’d like to get
Things I’d like to get. I know this list can seem infinite at times, but for some reason when my birthday or Christmas rolls around, I can’t think of anything.
- another Tivo (preferably HD)
- an AppleTV (Take 2)
- PED3 for my iPod Touch
- Any Apple notebook G4 or Intel
- Blu-ray DVD Player (with Profile 2.0)
Random Thought: Unhealthy habits
This time my random thought came from a friend of mine, Jason Brinkle. He had an interesting question about stuff we put into our bodies and their impact. He asked the question, is eating a fatty dinner (i.e. Chicken Fried Steak) equal to smoking a cigarette as far as the health impact on your body? Both share the fact that the user has been educated as to the long-term effects, and both still choose to consume. I had never given that much thought, but it is a very good point. Circulatory health or Respiratory health? What do you think of the comparison? Leave a comment.
HDTV with QAM tuner
Since starting to pay attention to the HDTV advertisements lately, I have noticed a feature that is being mentioned quite a bit. That feature is the QAM tuner, which comes integrated with most HDTVs. I had never heard of it until recently, and decided to look it up. I was surprised to find out that the QAM tuner can receive unscrambled television broadcasts sent by the cable provider through the standard cable lines. If you are wondering what this really means, it means that most cable companies are satisfying their FCC obligations by providing more broadcasts (some HD) outside of those being broadcast through your current setup. Extra Channels? Not really, most are just the same as you find on your Basic Cable package, but this varies on location, not just city. Specific areas can vary as well. For the record, I’m right between Katy and Cypress, Texas, Northwest of Houston and our cable provider is now Comcast (formerly TWC).
With my current setup, I have Basic Cable, with roughly 70 channels, and I have an OTA (Over-The-Air) HDTV Tuner pulling my local network broadcasts, which is about 10 channels. To my surprise, this Samsung HDTV Tuner I’m already using has a QAM tuner as well. I ran the cable line into my tuner and had it search out channels available. I found about 50 channels being broadcast between what we consider channel 75-100. I know that sounds like strange math, but anyone who has dealt with OTA broadcasts will confirm that many channels will feature subchannels. Our NBC affiliate has 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. None go higher than X.3 with OTA, but with QAM, many will go as high as X.11, thus cramming many channels into the 25 range mentioned above. Of the 50 I found, only 5 were being broadcast in HD, but the good news is that 4 of those 5 I didn’t have access to prior to this. The new channels I found were USA HD, ESPN HD, National Geographic (in HD), Music In HD. The other channel was PBS, which I had access to with OTA and I must say, they do a phenomenal job with providing good HD content separate from their standard broadcast. Strangely missing from the HD broadcasts were the other major networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, WB, etc. I’m not going to rule them out just yet, because they may not have been broadcasting those particular shows in HD, but it was 8:00 PM CST when I did my test. We’ll see when I try again.
To find about more about QAM Tuners visit WikiPedia.For a good list of HD Channels and their listings, check out CNET’s HDTV Listings page.
Dodge and Diesel
Anyone who knows me should know that I have truck fever right now. My first two vehicles were trucks and I always feel I’m lacking utility without a truck. I also have an interest in diesel engines, for their power, fuel efficiency, and alternative fuel options. Yesterday, I was talking to my friend, Travis, about my Dodge Grand Caravan, and I said, “I’d consider keeping it if I could replace the engine with a diesel.” With that said, I decided to research anyone adding this feature to their minivans. Apparently, not enough people are out there with the know-how to do this, and also have the drive to write about it online. What I did find was information about Chrysler’s plans to release a 2.8L turbo diesel option for their minivans starting with the 2008 models. Here’s the twisted part. Though they are manufacturing these in the U.S. and Canada, they are not offering them for sale in the U.S. or Canada. That’s right. These are being made for the sole purpose of exporting them to Europe, where diesel demand is high and emissions standards are lower. In my opinion, diesel is very viable, but lacks the marketing and education in the U.S. A good marketing campaign could have a great impact on the stigma left in the minds of U.S. consumers who only remember slow, stinky diesels of the 70s and 80s.
It looks like I’m still in the market for a 2001-2005 Dodge 2500 Cummins, or a 1999-2005 Ford F-250 Powerstroke.
Random Thought: “It all ends up in the same place anyway”
Surely, most of us have heard this statement at least once. It is typically used to provoke acceptance of mixed foods before consumption. You know, when your green beans get intermingled with your mashed potatoes, and other such events. I disagree with this premise that we should be contently solely because “it all ends up in the same place anyway.” I believe there is value to be had with proper preparation and consumption of food. For instance, imagine eating a dry bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats with a glass of milk. No joy there. Very dry. Another example could be eating a bowl of dry oatmeal with a glass of warm water on the side. Again, no joy. Each item in these scenarios will no doubt end up in the same place, but with no pleasure along the way. Though it may sound like I wouldn’t ever mix food, that is not the case. Some foods do taste good together, but this falls in line with my argument that taste should determine what we mix, not that “it all ends up in the same place anyway.”
Google’s Impressively Free Offerings
Spend a little time on Google.com and it is hard not to notice they seem to have a product for everything. Of their vast product line, I’m utilizing these on a regular basis:
- GMail - Free Email
- Google Calendar - Free Calendar
- Google Reader - RSS Reader
- Google Analytics - Web statistics
- Google Products - formerly Froogle
- Google Documents - Online Office/Productivity Tools
- Google Maps - user friendly mapping site
- [updated] YouTube - Online video sharing
- [updated] Picasa Web - Online photo sharing
I’m not even scratching the surface on the great tools this company is offering. For anyone looking to get their feet wet in the World Wide Web, this is a good place to start.
[update] I’d like to thank Imelda for reminding me of the programs I missed.
Random Thought: Red-light Cameras vs. Emergency Vehicles
I’m not certain how many cities actually have these Red-light Cameras installed, but they are designed to photograph anyone who enters the intersection after the traffic light turns red. Believe it or not, these have been around for more than 40 years. My thought is this: How many resources are involved in removing footage of emergency vehicles (Police, Fire, Volunteer Fire, EMS, etc) as they are probably captured several times a day with this system? Is there someone employed by the city to check each photo? Are these emergency vehicles emitting some signal that tells the cameras to ignore them as they blast through the intersections? What do you think?
Random Thought: Hearing Loss and Driving
Have you ever noticed that when you drive with the windows down in your car, you get a tunnel effect of wind and noise? I wonder how much this constant current of wind is damaging our hearing. This is not to mention the ‘wind buffeting’ you get when the windows are opened just right and you get that louder vibrating woofer-like noise. So up with the windows and save your hearing because common sense tells me those frequencies won’t last long against those cool breezes.