A friend of mine made an interesting post in his blog enumerating six quirky things about himself.  You need to read it, it is entertaining and funny.

The Nelson’s: Quirkiness Abounds

Here is some quirkyness about me.  I wrote it as a comment on his blog, and then decided to post it here…maybe that is quirky.

1. I go through binge and purge seasons on my computer desktop. Once it hits critical mass…delete it all. …actual desk = sty.

2. Over for toilet paper no doubt

3. I often converse with myself, but even more often, I verbally replay what I just said to someone. I will say something, and then repeat it under my breath after the moment has passed and the person is gone to hear the words again. I have no idea why…it even weirds me out.

BTW… you didn’t backseat drive me when we went on our photo expedition with the daughters… or did you drive that day, now that I think about it, you did drive…nevermind.

Off To The Blue Man Group Show

We saw the Cirque show last night, and tonight we are going to see Blue Man Group. We have front row tickets. That is sick. We must be VIPs. I will fill you in.

I am afraid that being on the front row will cause us to be “in” the show. I don’t really have any desire to be called up on the stage to “participate”. I may have just jinxed myself. I will get back to you soon and let you know how it went.

By the way, NAB is still very cool. We sat through a couple of Macromedia Flash Video sessions to learn more about how to include video on websites. Very Helpful.

MurDog OUT

Cirque Du Soleil

Holy Cow, that was awesome. I have seen Cirque on tv and thought to myself “that looks pretty weird, I don’t know if I would like that.” But, it was really cool. The performers did some really amazing things.

Cirque does a great job of keeping things moving and having multiple things happening at once. There is always something to look at.

My favorite part was a very interesting and fresh take on a trapeze act. High above the stage there were six performers who all had their own trapeze. They were arranged in a circle which means as you looked up there was a performer swinging at the 11:00 position and 1:00…3:00…5:00…7:00… and 9:00 all swinging at the same time. 3:00 and 9:00 were men and the rest were ladies. What made the performance interesting was that each of the performers had bungee cords attached to either side of bodies at the hips. The performers would swing for a while and then fly off the trapeze and bounce on the bungee cords in unison. It looked really neat.

Debbie’s Experiences

Debbie Osborn and Josh Graber are with me on this trip. I work with them at Fellowship. We all do media stuff for the church. We are all here to see all the latest and greatest technology so that we can be current and know what the church needs to stay current.

But enough with that. It seems like any trip you take, one person has all the interesting experiences. You know, strange people talk to them, or there are weird things that happen, and it normally isn’t one thing, the strangeness usually comes in waves. On this trip, Debbie is that person.

The first night we were here, as Debbie was heading towards one of the public restrooms in Caesar’s Palace she ran into a man who must have just eaten a big meal. He was walking toward Debbie looking toward the ground with his shirt pulled half-way up his fat belly and he was rubbing his belly with both hands while groaning quietly. Before Debbie and Mr. Groaner knew it they were face to face. The man looked up and realized that he was doing this in public, and more importantly right in front of Debbie and said, “oh… sorry”. Groaner through his head back down and sheepishly and quickly walked down the hall.

It takes a special man to reveal his fat belly while rubbing it and groaning in a place as full of people as a Casino in Las Vegas.

No Pics for Monday

I did take a couple of pictures yesterday, but not nearly as many as the first night we were here. I will post them later. Along with some explanations of some cool products I saw yesterday. I will undoubtedly think they are cooler than you will but…. that is ok.

MurDog OUT

Heading Out to a Show

I don’t have a lot of time because we are heading to the Cirque du Soleil show but the first day of the NAB show was really cool. I have never been to a place with more technology in one place. The doors opened at 9:00 AM. It was a geek wonderland. Amazing.

I was able to put my hands on a number of things that I have only been able to read about in magazines. There were broadcast (high dollar) HDTV Cameras, high end editting software, and myriad other things that I don’t have time at the moment to talk about. It was cool!

Well, off to Cirque.

It is a tough life

MurDog OUT

Las Vegas, We Are There

Check it out, I am in Las Vegas. This is the farthest west I have ever been. I have never had to set my watch to Pacific time until now. I am at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention to look at technology tools for my job. But, while I am here I am going to hopefully keep you up to date with all the things that I see.

I hope to write articles about products that are cool and tell you about all the neat things I see, but I don’t promise to do any of that. It all depends on how much energy I have. I may wear myself out just walking around the place.

Walking on the Strip

I took a bunch of cool pictures while we were walking around yesterday, and just like the desire I have to blog about what I see I also want to post the pictures from my trip so that you can see them too. And just like the articles, I reserve the right to be too lazy and not do that either, but since it is near the beginning of this trip, hope runs high.

What I Am Doing Here

I spend a lot of time building websites and editing video for my job. I use Microsoft Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash for web editing. I use Sony’s (Formerly Sonic Foundery) Vegas to edit video. (You can read about Vegas from an article I wrote a while back. I love it!)

There are some other tools that I am interested in seeing and I am sure there are a ton of things out there that I know nothing about that will be cool to see. I will let you know what I find.

DOG out

The New Wireless

Well I have the new wireless network up and running at the casa. Shopping for a new wireless router was pretty eye opening. If you are waiting for the price of wireless networks to come down, you time has come. Yesterday at Best Buy, I could have bought a Netgear 802.11b wireless router for $30.00 after a $40.00 rebate. That is insanely cheap. If you have a high speed Internet connection, and a laptop, you can’t beat the convenience of being on the Internet wherever you are in the house, or my favorite, out in the back yard.

Even though the Netgear was an incredible deal, I went with the Linksys. I got it so that I could play with it and learn as much about it as I could. I am the network administrator for Ourfarm as I have mentioned in a previous blog, and they have a Linksys that is fussy. I have tried a million things to make it more bullet-proof, and thus far I have come up short. Now that I own one, maybe I can figure it out.

Today, I am taking Wyatt to get his haircut so I am going to stop the blog here.

OUT!

Wireless Network Crash-ola

OK, what the heck? I came home the other day to find that my home wireless network had caved. It was less than a year old, and now…caput! It was a Siemens 802.11b wireless router and needless to say, I don’t believe I will be buying another one from them. I think my next will be a linksys.

But, my decision isn’t cut and dried! I have put a Linksys in at Our Farm (a non-profit organization here in Arkansas), and they have had a lot of problems with it dropping clients. I have tried a number of things to make it start working and I have failed to isolate their problem. So, I think it is a good idea to get one for my home network so that I can play with it and learn.

I was hoping to save up some money and get a media router for my stereo, but with my recent purchase of a Dell DJ, I tend to hook that into the stereo to hear my music. The media router bug has gone dormant. I might get one later. The more pressing issue is whether or not to get an 802.11g network or an 802.11b. The ‘g’ network is 5 times faster than the ‘b’ network which will allow me to do some pretty neat stuff in the future such as streaming movies and making fast transfers between my home computers, but as of yet, I don’t have anything that will take advantage of the faster speed. Do I build for the future, or do I save some money now and go with the ‘b’? It is a delimma.

I will keep you posted as I know you are probably on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next. I mean, what could be more exciting than wireless networking really?

OUT!

Dodge Ball Forever

The sport of choice amongst the Junior Highers of FSM is definitely dodge ball. During the recent trip to Kansas City to do some work with the homeless, I found out the power of the dodge ball. Everyday we would wake up, eat some breakfast, and head to the City Union Mission to work. After work, the onslaught of one question would come. “Hey Murray, can we go and play dodge ball?” Wow, I must have heard it a million times.

I can’t blame them though, when I was in Elementary School and Junior High, dodge ball was always my favorite PE activity. I guess there is something very exciting about lining up on either side of a gym, waiting for the whistle to begin the match, and staring into the eyes of the opponent longing to blast them with a red playground ball.

It speaks to the man/boy in me. It is visceral. It is war. I have never fancied being in the army or going to war, but there is something deep in me that desires the simplicity of the dodge ball kill. From the long bomb kill, to the close range laser-beam kill, to the “oops…dangit!!” he caught my ball and now I’m out, it is a game that never seems to get old.

That was the problem in KC. It never got old for the students, so we played it over and over.

I made the mistake of thinking that the students might be getting a little bored of the same old basic rules of dodge ball so I came up with a couple of alternative ways to play. What gave me the idea was watching one of our students who was incredible at not getting out. He was so good that he would be the last one standing on his team facing an onslaught from 10 to 15 students on the opposing team. He could dodge 6 and 7 balls thrown simultaneously. It was incredible. It inspired me to come up with a new version of Dodge ball called “Onslaught”. The rules are simple. Everyone except for one player lines up on one side leaving the single player to face the “Onslaught”. The object of the game is to simply stay alive as long as possible. To play it you need a lot of dodge balls and a stopwatch. It sounded fun to me, but the students soon rebelled and cried out for the old standard…what do they know. Whatever.

After that, I just let the game go. Why mess with a classic? Chalk it up to a lesson learned. Dodge Ball Forever!

Back From KC

I don’t have the energy to post a full blog about everything that happened in KC with the Junior Highers right now, but be looking for it in the future… though I don’t really promise anything. I may get distracted and start writing about other things. But, it was great. I am really happy with everything that happened. I think it went smoother than last year in spite of the fact that I was the only staff member there. I had great help from my leaders. And, our students did a great job.

Overall it was pretty easy. I spent my time wandering around from team to team to see what they were doing. I also handled any emergencies as they came up. It seemed to work pretty well. I only had to get heavy on some students once. They were doing some silly stuff that they knew better than doing. Listen to me, I sound like a bona fide adult. That’s sick. But someone has to be the adult. That is what Fellowship was paying me to do while I was there.

More later maybe. When my brain gets a little rest, I will write more.

A Tool I Love

Google Toolbar

Even though I am into Mozilla Firefox and this tool doesn’t work with it, I love the Google toolbar. (Firefox has a lot of the tools from the Google Toolbar integrated into it already.) If you are an Internet Explorer person, and you want the ease and usefulness of Google right at your fingertips at all times then this tool is for you. I use it all the time. Also, if you use Blogger like me… then the Google toolbar adds a button that allows you to pop open a Blogger window whenever you feel the creative juices flowing. In fact, this is the first time I have ever used the Blogger feature. (I am using it right now to write this little article.) It’s pretty cool, and it is a built in reminder to keep your blog up to date. If you are looking for a tool that brings real value to your browsing… check out Google Toolbar.