Email “News”

Ok people, I just want to take a minute to get on my high horse and let you in on a secret or two. All the "news" you get in an email or from a myspace bulletin is not always true. It is usually not. Check out this website:

www.snopes.com

Search for your email information and it will tell you if it is true or not.

A lot of the stuff about Obama is not true. He is not a Muslim, he did not diss the troops in Afghanistan and all that stuff.

You will NOT get a gift certificate for forwarding an email to your friends.

Bill Gates is not tracking your email and will not give you money for participating in anything

Kurt Cobain WAS murdered.

You should watch "Loose Change" on youtube. (Not related exactly, but still really interesting and eyebrow raising)

Ok, that was a little off track.

Anyway, people send these for various reasons, in the case of Obama and McCain, it is for political slander. In the case of most of it, it is sent by spammers. What they do is send these all over the place and have them forwarded to everyone and there mom. As they are forwarded they collect email addresses. These can then be harvested and used for spam. Without going in to all of the details, think of this, they also know who your friends are. They now have the ability to make an email look like it came from your buddy. or from you to someone that you know. Just leave that junk alone. Besides, perpetuating that kind of stuff makes you look stupid and gullible (Did you know that gullible is not a word any more? They took it out of the dictionary!)

There is one email that I got years ago that is pretty awesome....

My name is Billy Evans. I AM A very sick little boy.

My mother is typing this for me, because I can't. She Is crying. The reason she is so sad is because I'm so Sick. I was Born without A body. It doesn't hurt, Except when I try to breathe.

The doctors gave me an artificial body. It is A burlap Bag filled with leaves. The doctors said that was the Best they could do ON account of us having No money OR Insurance.

I would like to have A body transplant, but we need More money. Mommy doesn't work because she said nobody Hires crying people. I said, "Don't cry, Mommy" and and She hugged my burlap bag. Mommy always gives me hugs, Even though she's allergic to burlap and it makes her Sneeze and chafes her real bad.

I hope you will help me. You can help me if you Forward this email to everyone you know. Forward it to People you don't know, the too. Dr. Johansen said that for Every person you forward this email to, Bill Gates Will team up with AOL and send A nickel to NASA. With That funding, NASA will collect prayers from school Children all over America and have the astronauts take Them up into space so that the angels can hear them Better.

Then they will come back to earth and go to the Pope, And he will take up A collection IN church and send All the money to the doctors. The doctors could help Me get better then. Maybe one day I will be able to Play baseball. Right now I can only be third base.

Every time you forward this letter, the astronauts can Take more prayers to the angels and my dream will be Closer to coming true. Please help me. Mommy is so Sad and and I want A body. I don't want my leaves to rot Before I turn 10

If you don't forward this email, that's okay. Mommy Says you're A mean and heartless jerk who doesn't Care about A poor little boy with only A head. She Says that if you don't stew IN the raw pit of your own Guilt-ridden stomach, she hopes you die A long slow, Horrible death and then burn forever IN hell.

What kind of cruel person are you that you can't take Five freakin' minutes to forward this to all your Friends so that they can feel guilt and shame about Ignoring A poor, bodiless nine-year-old boy? Please Help me.

I try to be happy, but it's hard. I wish I had A Kitty. I wish I could hold A kitty. I wish I could Hold A kitty that wouldn't chew ON me and try to bury Its turds IN the leaves of my burlap body. I wish that Very much.

Thank You,

Billy "Smiles" Evans

Oreo Truffles

Ok, so I had this posted on my blog on myspace, but I wanted to share it with someone else, so I am going to post it again here.

My wife makes these all of the time and they are awesome. Every time I bring them to work people ask me for the recipe, so I figured I would post it here for everyone to enjoy.

To make one batch this is what you will need:

• One package of Oreo's
  
• One block of cream cheese
  
• One package of baker's chocolate
  
• (Optionally) one package of baker's white chocolate
  

What to do:

1. Crush up all of the Oreo's, cream and all. We use a food processor, but you may be able to use a blender or just crush them up (finely) by hand.

2. Next, mix all of the Oreo crumbs with the cream cheese really well. It should look just like black paste when you are done.

3. Take the glop in the bowl and make balls with it. Take the balls and put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes to a half hour.

4. Melt the bakers chocolate. We do this in the microwave, but it is easy to burn and tastes gross if you mess it up, so do it however you want, but be careful. Many people will just use a double boiler.

5. Take the frozen balls and dip them in the melted chocolate then place them on some wax paper. We usually just stick them with a toothpick, dip them and set them on the paper. After the chocolate hardens (like 5-10 minutes), we pull the toothpicks and doctor up any holes.

6. (optional) finally, melt a small bit of the white chocolate and drizzle it over the top of the balls.

Done!

Yum!!!!

WARNING: These will make you fat.

Treasure!

This past weekend, I was super busy, but I finally got my storage unit cleaned out and all of my stuff moved down to San Antonio. It was a lot of work, but I am now $55 richer each month! Woo Hoo!

All of my stuff from the storage unit is now in my garage and Kasey has been going through it and organizing it into groups. One group is the stuff that we are keeping and it is put in the house in the place that it goes. The next group is stuff to be sold on craigslist or eBay (anyone need a fridge?). Another is comprised of items to be given to Goodwill or whatever charity will give us the best write off. The final group is made up of my stuff and is the only pile that causes any conflict.

I have some things that I would like to keep from my childhood for different reasons. Some of it is "collectible", like my baseball and hockey cards. Some of it is sentimental, like my teddy bear, Fred. Some of it is just cool, like my Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe's and Transformers. Kasey does not like these things and thinks that I should only keep Fred and get rid of the rest. I am not sure what it is, but if it is cool, old, plastic, in a box and mine, she does not like it. I honestly think that she has never played with G.I. Joe's. Anyway, she wants it to all go away, but I am not sure that I am ready to do that just yet.

When I was a kid, one of the coolest things that I found to do was to go through the boxes in my grandmother's basement. She had some shelves that had box after box of old stuff from when my dad and uncles were kids and I was welcome to play with it and in some cases, I got to keep the toys. I just thought that this was the coolest thing in the world. In those days, they sold things to kids that would never fly when I was a kid, let alone now. One of the coolest things that I got was a monster masher (I have no idea what it is really called). It had these little plastic monsters, about the size of a green army man that you could put on the included hot plate (yes, you could burn yourself with it) and then once he softened, it had a little chamber that you could put him in. When the monster was in the chamber, you could crank a wheel and it would smash the guy into a cube that had some sort of emblem on it (Mattel, I think?). You could then take that cube and stick it on the hot plate again and the monster would unfold back to the regular scary shape! I mean, how cool is that? When you are 9 or 10, it is pretty cool, trust me.

Anyway, I have great memories of playing with these "old" toys. I would like to have kids some day and have boxes of "treasure" for them to go through when they get to the right age. There would be toys there that they did not make any more. Not only that, but I have original Transformers, and they just made another movie. If I had kids, they would already have the toys. (By the way, I have played with the new Transformers toys and they are STUPID compared to the old ones.)

The coolest thing is that when I would play with the old toys, I would think of my dad as a kid and imagine him playing with the same toys. It made him more real to me. It made me think of him more as a person who had a full life and not just the guy who made me clean my room.

Anyway, the cool stuff is not going anywhere. Kasey already looked through it to see if any of it was worth a lot of money and it is all just a bunch of… toys. J Besides, it is mine.

I have thought about it, and I could get rid of it, but I don't have to. There is no reason for me to. I want it and it's already mine, so I am going to keep it. It is not like I am living on a boat or anything. ;) I mean, if I was on a boat, there would be limited space, so I would have to do something with it.

Maybe this is her way of telling me that she wants me to buy a boat, and that she wants to live on it and travel the world! THAT would be sweet.

(BTW, that is a "Lavezzi 40" by Fontaine Pajot. Super Sweet.)

Thinking and Typing

So, I think that I have a problem. I think faster than I type. There are thoughts that go through my head faster than I can make them into a full coherent sentence. I will start and then by the time I get to the end of the sentence, my mind is on something else and I have no idea what I am saying. (I had to retype that 3 times to have it make sense).

 

L

Self Ownership

I alone am responsible for my life.

In many cases, people would automatically think that this means that they are responsible for their actions, and while that is true, it does not end there.

We live in a litigious society in the U.S. where people make millions by pushing the blame, or the responsibility for their actions onto another individual or corporation. It is a joke, but a serious and expensive one. Everyone knows the story of the lady that made millions by spilling coffee on herself, but that is just a small part of it. Kids who get in trouble are not at fault, it is society's fault. Parents are not at fault for having misbehaved kids, it's the schools that failed them. A young girl is mad that people treat her like a piece of meat, yet she dresses like a Brat doll. My butt is huge, I should sue McDonalds! People fail to accept responsibility for their actions at every level.

In truth though, it goes beyond these simple things. Reasonable people can easily see the above things and know that these are perfect examples of common denial of responsibility. Of course these are also things that other people do, not "us". However, many people do not understand the full sense of self ownership.

Self ownership is simply true and natural freedom of your self, not yourself, but your own personal "self". Freedom of religion, ecomomic freedom, political freedom, freedom to assemble, freedom of movement (as in to and from places, not as in I can wave my arms around), freedom of speech, freedom of thought and such.

I believe that the founding fathers of the U.S. believed in self ownership, but with self ownership comes the right to give up any of these things in exchange for something else. As an example, we as a country have give up tons of freedoms and liberties in the form of The Patriot Act in exchange for "safety". We have given up economic freedom in exchange for taxes to fund… things. (People generally have no idea what their taxes actually pay for, just generally and only the things that we are told about. Also, I would say that if people did not have income tax taken from each check and had to write a check to the government every month for their tax bill, people would be a LOT more interested in what is going on.)

Throughout history, people have always had to fight for any type of freedom that they desired. There has always been "The Man", or someone in charge making the rules that everyone else will live by. The Man has typically been strong, either by individual physical strength in the distant past or in small groups, or military strength in larger groups. The Man is typically greedy also and usually has a smaller group or their own interests at heart when making decisions. People generally accept The Man as he usually provides such things as protection, food, and shelter. (Sometimes that protection is mafia style though… hehehe) Many wars result as a struggle between some group of people and The Man.

I am not interested in freeing a people though. I am interested in freeing myself from The Man.

I was at lunch the other day with a friend of mine. This guy works for a major corporation and recently faced a potential lay off. He elected to move 250 miles away instead and will need to look for a house. He was telling me that he was going to look for a cheaper house because he did not want to end up like another friend of ours that did get caught up in this lay off. This struck me and I realized that he had put his faith in The Man (in this case the corporation) to take care of him. Without The Man, he could not pay for his house, he could not afford health care, he could not pay his bills and he had no way to retire. He was faced with a situation where The Man could choose to leave him exposed to the elements and hung out to dry. This however was his fear and belief, not necessarily the truth of the matter.

I have learned a lot over the past ten years. One of the most important things I have learned is that I have to treat ANY job I have as a temporary contract position. There are too many things out of my control that could happen that may make that paycheck just simply not be there next week. I have also learned that healthcare is not as expensive as we are led to believe. Major things are, but simple doctor visits are not. Consider, $700 a month for COBRA, or insurance continuation after losing your job covering everything, to $120 a month for major medical covering only a major accident or surgery. What is funny is that with my current insurance, if I go to the doctor for a cold or whatever, it will cost me only a $30 co-pay. If I go to the doctor and pay cash, it will cost me $45 for the exact same treatment. I hardly ever go to the doctor. Anyway, that is beside the point.

The point is, you need to be able to count on yourself. Most people feel that they cannot count on themselves, but this is usually just due to ignorance. The simply do not know how. People tend to just take life as it comes and to generally believe in denial that everything will be ok in the end. If they do not know about it, they are not responsible for it.

If you want freedom in your life, you have to take it. No one is just going to give it to you. The Man has set it up so that it is just comfortable enough to make you not ask too many questions (why do we pay so much for text messaging?). Will The Man let you just not pay taxes? Will The Man (in China) just let you practice any religion you want? Will The Man let you come and go as you please? (You think so? Why do you have a passport?) The Man may "protect" you from Al Qaida, but will he protect you from a burglar?

If you want economic freedom you have to take it. Tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is not. If you don't want to have credit card bills, don't use credit cards. If you want a lower house note, buy a cheaper house. Duh.

If you want good health, take care of yourself. Exercise, eat right. Duh.

Generally, however, we are completely free, as long as we are willing to accept the consequences for our actions.

Anyway, I could say more, but I am done.

Another Meeting

So, here I sit in another meeting. It is the same meeting that I blogged about last week that was uber exciting. It is what they call a CAB meeting (Change Advisory Board). The point of it is to let everyone in the IT department know what changes are happening in the entire IT infrastructure of the company. There are like 12 people in this room and about 30 other people on the phone.
My job here is to wait for an hour to let everyone know that our release that takes ploace tomorow is on schedule and good to go. I am also supposed to let anyone know if any change someone else is going to do will affect the stuff I work on.
It seems like a great idea, but I am pretty new here and I honestly have no idea what is going on. I just know that when it comes to my stuff, I am supposed to say "Everything is in place and ready to go on schedule".
Fun huh?

There is a dude here that looks a lot like Sky, but with longer hair. I have been to lunch with him like 4 times, but I do not know his name.

Thanks,
Scott McArthur

www.antbytes.com

You have to know, not think, know…

I have a lot of dreams. Big dreams, small dreams, lots of dreams.

• I want to build a house with my own hands.
  
• I want to live on a sail boat and travel the world.
  
• I want to be a dad.
  
• I want to be totally buff, or at least in shape.
  
• I want to go camping.
  
• I want to go on a leisurely road trip around the country hitting all three coasts (before gas is more expensive).
  
• I want to live in a foreign country.
  
• I want to be self employed again.
  
• I want to go back to school and learn about architecture.
  
• I want to learn a new language (maybe Russian, it has a cool alphabet).
  
• I want to grow a beard
  

There are more, I promise. These are just the ones that I thought of the first couple of minutes. If you have known me for any length of time, you have surely heard some of my "crazy" ideas. I am not sure that they are crazy, but they are many times out of the ordinary.

I will not be able to do all of these things and I am not ok with that.

First off, several of the things that I want to do conflict with one another, maybe not the ones in the list, but keep in mind that I am living some of my dreams right now. For example, lately, I have been living my dream of being a vegetable and that has conflicted with my being in shape dream. I am also living a dream of living in Texas, and since it is summer; I would be a little foolish to go camping. J In addition, I cannot be living in a foreign country because I live in Texas.

Every day, each one of us makes decisions that affect our lives and how they end up. Few of us have a long term goal in life except to pay the bills, watch TV and not die and that is what most Americans do. Another thing is that most Americans have a list like the one above that include a lot of "haves" but not many "dos" or "bes", unless the be is "rich" so that they can get their "haves". Eh, that is a rant for another day.

Anyway, I have realized that I will likely not see all of my dreams come to life. I have also come to realize something very important, and that is that I NEED to be ok with it. If I do not become ok with it, I will likely miss my life as it is today. I am not saying that I need to stop planning or striving towards things, but what I am saying is that I should not get upset or obsess about these types of things because that distraction will make me not enjoy today.

I suppose that it is similar to someone that lives in the past. You know, the kind of people that always say: "what if this" or "what if that". Other people that complain about how things are today and how they were so great back in the day. These people miss the present or at least do not fully enjoy it.

I have realized one thing that is for sure. Some day, I will die.

While I am alive, I want to live my life. I do not want to dream about living it. I do not want to regret decisions that I have made. I especially do not want to wake up later in life winder what in the world I have done with my life. I cannot imagine a life with a string of accomplishments such as "watched all 6 seasons of the series 24" or "correctly chose the American Idol after just three episodes". Even worse, I do not want them to be similar to "avoided diabetes despite being obese" or "survived 2 heart attacks and still eating bacon". (I love bacon!)

American life has many milestones in it by default: becoming a teenager, turning 16, graduating high school, turning 21, graduating college, getting married, buy a house, have kids, retire, move to Florida, die. It seems to me that it would make sense to live life in seasons. For example, if I understand that how and where I am living, what I am doing and all of that is just for a set period of time, then it will be different. Maybe then I can live life differently. For example, I have spent the last 10 years working for The Man and only 1 of those has been self employed. Maybe the next 4 years could be spent being self employed in Mexico. After four years, I could start another season in life. Maybe work for The Man again, but in Ireland, or the UK for 5 years. Why not?

Who knows though, I am sure that I will not see these things happen, but I am ok with that. I have a happy life. I just have to enjoy it for what it is and not get caught up in what it is not.

Meeting Blogging

So, I am sitting in a meeting right now and blogging from my blackberry. There are 17 people in the meeting and 6 of them are using their Blackberry. Everyone thinks that I am doing something important, but I am just tapping this out to you.

Hehehe... :)

I have no idea what these people are talking about.

Maybe I should play Brick Breaker.

I think that they would catch that though.

I wish I had a camera on my BB so that I could video it.

WWE Pics

I just realized that I never put any pics from the WWE RAW on here, just on my myspace. Anyway, here are some pics:

Isaac in the suite (it was sweet) :p



Me and Isaac



Our view from the suit.




I have to say, that is totally the way to do it. :) If you have access to a suite, you should totally use it.

Bland as all get out

Man, I have really had nothing going on lately. I have been in and out of sick with a sore throat and all of that, but over all I cannot think of anything really interesting going on.

Ok, that's not true. There is always a lot going on in my life. If there is not, then I have to just make something up.

Ok, so, it has been raining lately and I have been a bit lazy, so I have not been looking for in-between places, but the search for in-between places led me to something else: Geocaching. I have know about geocaching for a long time now, but I did not have a GPS. While I was out walking around, I remembered that I have one on my new work Blackberry (sweet). Anyway, I checked geocaching.com and found that there was a cache near my work, so I went to check it out. After a good walk and a bit of searching, I found the cache of coins and some other trinkets in an abandoned trailer park. There were no trailers, just a street (that you cannot get to from anywhere) and the pads that the trailers used to go on. All around it is valuable business real estate, so… Whatever. It was out of place and an AWESOME in-between place.

I have found a couple of other caches too and have gotten this guy Rajiv at work interested in it.

Anywho, I have been wondering how far I could walk before I got bored of it and I think that I could walk from my house to The Forum in a couple of hours, avoiding highways of course. I would then have to find a way back though. I could walk back home, or I could call Kasey to come get me and enjoy a Starbucks while I wait. Walking back would not be that fun though, because if I can walk back, why not just walk further and see something different?

I wonder how far I could go…

We will have to see.

Check out this dude: Vagabond Wade and his site http://www.vagabondjourney.com/

Some of you have probably heard me talk about HoboTraveller.com and my fascination with vagabonding, if not, oh well. HoboTraveller is interesting, but I have found Vagabond Wade to be much more interesting, a better writer and more adventurous. He is much younger than Andy (HoboTraveller) though, so that probably has something to do with it…

Anyway, I have responsibilitiesL, so I will have to settle for a long walk and maybe some camping.