I guess it's about time for 2007 post.  I reckon I could start off with the cheesy "oh 2006 was such a great year" intro and then go into how it was a good year, but I'll skip all that.  If you've been reading this blog you know what a wonderful year it was.  I have to say though, I'm ready for 2007.  I already have some big stuff planned for this year and am ready to get it started.  I've got a trip to Europe, a couple motorcycle trips, some camping, and several other projects already lined up.  You'll just have to wait and hear about those though. 

I did a quick search through my postings from 2006 and it looks like I wrote 141 post last year, and had 202 comments left.  I'll be looking to improve on those numbers, though I haven't gotten off to a great start.

I have knocked out one thing already this year.  I went shopping the other day for some new clothes and was able to get 3 pants and 3 shirts all within an hour.  Not bad if I do say so myself.  So I've knocked out one of my two clothes shopping trips a year.  Now I only have to go one more time in the summer and get some new summer clothes.

Now I just have to keep working on this Project 365 I talked about.  I should have started this when I first posted about it because I was doing something neat almost every day.  Now that the new year has come, I'm back in my work routine and not much exciting is going on.  I'm hoping that changes real soon.

So Stu and I decided to catch a movie this weekend and saw "Children of Men."  It is a sci-fi flick about how in the future women have become infertile and a new child hasn't been born in over 18 years.  I think they did a great job with the story. There are a thousand ways they could have gone and they picked a good, realistic one.  I'm not normally a sci-fi movie type guy, but this was good.  There were a few things I noticed though that Stu and I found interesting.

The movie takes place in England which seems to be a growing trend.  It maybe that I am just getting into all of this, but V for Vendetta, 28 Days later, and now this movie all have very deep social issues arising and they all take place in Great Britian.  Interesting.  Two of them are also about how the world has "failed" but GB has survived.

Another interesting point was at one point you see blood/water specks on the camera.  This almost never happens in movies unless you want the viewer to KNOW that there is a camera there and someone is filming this, a la "blairwitch project".  Doing so take the viewer out of being immersed in the situation to being someone watching real life.  I'm not sure why the director did this, or if it happened in more than one place, but it seems like an interesting thing to leave in.

If you've seen it let me know what you think, but don't leave any spoilers in the comments. 

I found this video on the internet where a film group goes around and asks what appear to be college students, how much money would it take for them to kill a puppy with their bare hands. Now I know what you're thinking, What a ridiculous question, right?  They get a wide range of answers from $1000 to 1 billion, but what is interesting is what happens when they bring a big novelty check and a puppy.  While it's a very morbid thing to think about, I think the video show some interesting sociological perspectives.  There are those that say they wouldn't do it for any amount of money and then there are those that are actually able to put a price tag on killing a puppy.  But when the dog comes out you see how easy people say one thing and do or not do another. 

While this is an extreme example, think of how many times you say one thing and do or don't do that same thing when it comes down to the line.  I think about this a lot.  One particular, and very personal, example I can give is about gossip.  I love to talk gossip with, or about people.  Most of the time it's nothing big, but every now and then it is.  One rule I have personally set is that I never say anything behind someone's back that I wouldn't be willing to say to their face.  Now I've never been called out on it, but I really do think to myself, "Would I be willing to say this to their face" before talking about someone.  Most of the time it keeps me in check and keeps me from saying things that I don't really mean. 

So how much would it cost for you to kill a puppy with your bare hands? 

The following video is morbid and don't watch it if you have a soft-spot for puppies, or money.

I have to admit that at first I thought TV shows on DVD were totally lame, but I'm hooked now.  When someone tells me that I should catch this "new show" that is just a couple seasons old, I often wonder if it is good, "will I have to rent all the previous seasons on DVD to catch up?" I know too many people that are hooked on "24", my parents included.  I've watched some of it, and it is good, but everyone I know rents/borrows all the previous seasons to watch and catch up.  That's a lot of TV to watch to catch up and as we all know I already watch too much TV.  I have resisted the "24" bug, but I do like renting TV shows that sound good but got canceled before I could see them.  My latest is "Undeclared" about a bunch of college freshman experiencing college. 

So when I saw an article on CNN about DVD-itis I was intrigued.  The writer describes how someone last year recommended that she and her husband start watching "24" and how it became an obsession.  Spoiler alert: The first two paragraphs give away the ending of one of the seasons to 24. Season 4 or 5 I'm not sure. But it got me thinking there are so many people who have DVD-itis, myself included.  I can't help but think that the TV show suits are just laughing all the way to the bank.  Not only are people buying these DVDs to shows that they have already paid for in advertisements, but people are getting hooked and picking up all the new episodes too.  I wish I had thought of it. 

From the article:

All of which begs the question: Is this good for us, or for anyone? All this available entertainment content, waiting to be devoured? Every week a new series comes out on DVD, dozens and dozens of hours of it. Now we have our childhood favorites back, too -- "Bewitched," "I Dream of Jeannie," "Get Smart." These days, picking a new show is a major investment. Or as a colleague sighed, when I encouraged her to try "24": "Sorry. It's just too much of a commitment." Another friend did try, but told me she was too "intimidated." Give it a few dozen hours, I advised.

So do you have DVD-itis?  If so what are you hooked on?  You can find the article on CNN.com

As you all know I've been taking a lot of pictures lately and you can find all my Project 365 photos on the right part of the page, but I wanted to share some more photos that I took this weekend. 

The first set is from my family's annual punt, pass, and kick competition.  We have a blast each year and even though I am one of the least-athletic members of our family I was able to come in third this year!  wahoo!

The next set of pictures is from that same day at the Monster Truck Jam 07 in Phillips Arena.  I went with several friends and if you have never been you don't know what you are missing.  I have several photos but I am also including two videos.  The first one is of one of the races they have and the second one is of one of the trucks in the freestyle event.  It is such a blast each year. 

I had an incredible weekend, which I'll write about later, but tonight was Chris's Birthday and a couple of us went to Ru San's to celebrate.  While we were there we couldn't let Chris get out of having the restaurant sing Happy Birthday to him, and apparently at Ru San's this involves the guest of honor dancing on a table.  It was too funny not to post here.  I present to you Chris's Dance:

So Sunday I awoke with an amazing craving for pancakes.  Where better to fill this urge than IHOP right?  So I headed over to IHOP, hit up some pancakes and just as I was about to leave I learned that they were turning away customers because they had no water.  I thought that was pretty weird, but quickly learned how it happened.  On my ride back home I had to drive through about 2 feet of rushing water on Roswell Road.  There had been a water main break at a construction site on Roswell and it was flooding the street. 

I didn't think much more about it until last night when I saw on the news that there was a boil water advisory in our area. The real problem presented itself today at work.  While most of the buildings had water, though not drinkable, our building did not.  The real problem here is the restrooms.  With no water, there is no way to flush so we were told we had to walk across two parking lots to go to another building and use the restroom.  With this news, I quickly decided the best place to work was from home today.  

So here I sit, boiling some drinking water finishing my work day.  I can't complain too much as I like working from home, but it sure is a pain to have to boil water so I can have my afternoon cup of coffee.  I guess it could be worse; I could have no water! Oh and boiling water is a good way to heat the apartment on this coldest day of the year.

You can watch a video report using my work's video searching technology on 11alive.com 

My cousin Kyle got inspired by doing the project 365 thing and came up with a similar project for music.  His idea was to get a group of people to each buy at least 1 CD each month and share it.  This month I've bought 4 (through iTunes) that I'd like to share.

The Weepies - I found these from a TV show I watch.  They are good but not spectacular.

Royksopp - This is a technoish type band very similar to "The Postal Service."  They have a killer track "Remind Me" that I think is in some commercial.

Cowboy Mouth -  I bought this one after hearing them live. It had a few tracks that I hadn't heard before the concert but really liked.

Boys Like Girls -  This my new favorite CD.  I've been told they are "punk" but it's more emo-rock I think.  The whole CD is really killer.

Want to join Project12?  Leave a comment on what CD's you've purchased in January and continue to buy them through the year. 

How's this for luck?

Today I woke up late for work (11 AM).  Yesterday was my annual performance review. 

FON, the spanish wifi sharing system is giving away 10,000 free FON access points to Americans.  I just signed up and ordered mine and it is completely free.  The deal is, FON will give you this access point allowing you to connect wirelessly to your home network, and in return you agree to share a small amount of your internet with other FON users.  The other great thing is since you are sharing your internet connection, anywhere you go in the world you can connect to other's FON access points for free.  I'm really hoping this works out when the brothers and I go to europe this summer.  

I encourage all of you to give this a shot.  What do you have to loose?  Chances are you will never have anyone use your internet, but it would be awesome if one day there are enough of these access points around that traveling and looking for wifi is a thing of the past. 

[found via BoingBoing] 

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday celebration.  This year for my 25th birthday several of my buds and I went hiking on the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama.  We loaded up on Saturday and did a easy 4 mile hike to camp where we built a ripping fire.  I also practiced my lashings by building a mini chair/table with Stu.  Getting to camp this early allows you to have plenty of time to do such things.  We had lots of fun and were able to stay warm most of the time. 

My favorite part of the trip was that night.  After cooking dinner and getting ready for bed we all sat around the campfire staying warm. Then the guys each took turns telling their favorite "Ben stories."  Most of which were quite embarrassing but fun to laugh and talk about none-the-less.  The Ben stories quickly lead to Stu stories, Isaac stories, Vilas stories and Adam stories. It was a lot of fun.

The one heart racing moment we had we were able to capture on video for your enjoyment.  Isaac had brought with him the makings of a home made hot air balloon.  It basically consist of  two cross beams, a candle, and a trash bag.  The hot air balloon was super cool when it was hovering about 5-10 feet high.  It then just kept going and going.  We were certain that we all were about to go running up and down mountains chasing this thing to make sure it didn't start a forest fire.  Thankfully we didn't have to go running but it definitely scared us a bit, well most of us anyway.

You can see the video below, and pictures are in the gallery. 

So you all have probably heard about the peanut butter recall by now.  Well when I came into work last Thursday apparently my peanut butter at work was one of the "infected" jars.  Good thing that it was almost empty!  On their website it says that I can return the cap for a refund/exchange on my peanut butter.  Guess who's returning year old peanut butter.... This guy! 

In a follow up to my MySpace rant I found this picture on the Intraweb™ that illustrates my point exactly.

I did this!  Yesterday afternoon, I was selecting my drivers for my fantasy NASCAR league and noticed the announcement that they would be taking down the servers on the 22nd and that they wouldn't be back up until the 23rd at 4am.  The previous deadline was Friday the 23rd at 5am.  This meant, users who waited to pick their drivers until Thursday evening (Vilas, I'm looking at you), wouldn't be able to pick their drivers but for 1 hour in the wee morning. I sent yahoo a email explaining how this was ridiculous and that they needed to change the final registration time until later.  Looks like it worked! 

Update: It was apparently late when I read/wrote this. I guess I actually cost people an hour, but who really is going to be choosing racers at 4 am?

Word around the intraweb is that March is going to be the official "boycott the RIAA" month.  If you are unfamiliar, the RIAA is the Recording Industry Association of America.  In other words they represent the big four recording labels and are responsible for all the lawsuits against "music pirates", aka music sharers.  Their incredibly dirty tactics have tainted the music industry for years, and now it's time for some action.  One of the easiest ways you can help is to refuse to buy RIAA represented music.  This is in noway a movement to encourage pirating music, but rather to show the RIAA that there is a lot of good independent music out there and if the record industry insist on making it difficult their customers (the consumers) to use the music the way they want to, and support their favorite artist, we as a group will move on.

As far as I can tell this has been started by the people at Gizmodo who has written an Anti-RIAA Manifesto.  Some interesting points of interest related to this are:

• The RIAA has launched a new site (p2plawsuits.com) to allow people to volunteer to settle out of court for a convenient discount
• None of the RIAA's lawsuits against "music pirates" have been proven valid by a court of law.
• Not one cent of the money they have raised from these settlements has gone to the artist they represent for the alleged copyright violations.

For a while now I have been actively seeking out new indie music.  In fact my February project 12 by is by a indie band "The Monkery" and they are awesome.  Much like "Boys like Girls" that I wrote about in January. 

I encourage you all to think about it, and if you are up to the challenge, before you buy your next CD check out  RIAARadar.com and see if that artist is represented by the RIAA.  If so think about finding a different CD, consider going to see them live, buy some of their swag off their website, or stream their music legally instead.

With ties to yesterday's article about boycotting the RIAA, I have a perfect example of how music should be shared.  Jim has written up a great review of a new service we found called DiscRevolt.com.  The idea is that artist put up their music on the site, then get these custom cards printed that they can then sell or give away so their fans can download their music.  The way the creators are intending on it being used is that instead of selling CD's at the merchandise table after a concert, the band could sell these little cards for much cheaper and allow people to go home and download the non-DRM'ed mp3's. 

There are two problems I see though.  1) There is no way to buy more credits.  I have been searching around the site and found several bands that sound pretty awesome and would like to download their stuff.  But I can't.  I only have 15 credits from the card I have and can't find a way to buy more.  I've emailed the people at discrevolt to see if they can help me out.  2) The selection is limited.  It's definitely a new service, so there aren't too many bands, but it seems to be growing.

I would say here, go check them out and buy some indie music, but I guess you can't.   You can go check them out and email the creators and ask them to allow you to buy some music!  But I guess the real reason for this post is to show you that there are alternatives to the RIAA's monopolistic grip on the music scene you just have to know where to look.  Which raises a good question... Do you know a good place to get some good indie music?  Leave a comment and let us know!

Update: As you can see from Mike's comments below, DiscRevolt is going to be adding a way for users to purchase cards individually soon.

I found this video of the guy who survived a 12,000 ft skydiving accident.  The first part show's his point of view including hitting the ground, then it shows his friends view as he watches his buddy go spinning down to the ground.  The best part was when his friend is talking to him trying to get him set up for the paramedics and the guy who fell is like "oh yeah I think it's just like a sprained ankle.   My spine feels sweet." haha!

Check it out 

So I'm watching 24 the other night and they have this guy with his mouth duct-tapped closed so that he can't scream for help.  I'm watching and thinking to myself that it can't really be that hard to get the duct-tape off. So I decided to try it and video tape the results. I was going to try and get it off in less than ten minutes, but it was a lot easier than that!

QuickTime

I am so so sore at the moment.  We played our first softball game last night and got beat pretty bad.  I had a pretty decent game with a base hit, a fielder's choice, and a pop out.  I did get to score twice which is the reason I am so sore. 

I am playing with a team from work and we can all hit pretty decent which is always a big worry.  It's the fielding that we aren't so good at.  Hopefully we can move some people around and fix some of that.  And of course we'll get better with more practice...  It's just pretty sad to get beat 19-7 in 4 innings. 

The moment you all have been waiting for is finally here.   9 months after our trip to Europe last summer I have finally finished editing all the videos and put together an entire website to document our trip.  On the site you will see all the blog post that I did while traveling, all of the pictures that I posted in the gallery, and the all of the new videos that we recoreded as we traveled around Europe.  The videos are pretty short and are quite funny in my opinion. 

I have learned that this summer when I go, I'm going to have to do something different.  I think the plan will be to set everything up before I leave so that I can edit videos on the trip and post them whenever I can find wireless internet.

Let me know what you think of the videos in the comments! 

So this weekend I was able to do something on my "lifetime to-do list."  My father, brother and I went to the Final Four games this weekend!  Dad and Bradley had been planning it for a while, and when I heard they would be going I thought I'd tag along and see if I could score a ticket.  As luck would have it, I was able to get a ticket (well my dad got it for me) and was able to attend all 3 sessions.   It was an amazing experience and even though we were in the nosebleeds, it was such an energetic experience the place was shaking with excitement and cheers.

It also just so happens that this week is "Videoblogging week" so all week I will be trying to get short little video blog post up here each day.  To kick things off I have some video from last night's championship game! 

At my work, we have a lot of coffee aficionados.  We drink a lot of starbucks coffee (go stock go!), and have an art to making it.  This morning I had my friend Maria demonstrate how to make Nexidia coffee.  Video Below.

(QuickTime)

Psalms 145 reads:

The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The LORD is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.
...
The LORD is faithful in all his words,
and gracious in all his deeds.
The LORD upholds all who are falling,
and raises up all who are bowed down.
...
The LORD is just in all his ways,
and kind in all his doings.
The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of all who fear him;
he also hears their cry, and saves them.
The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

Yes, Christians believe that God is good, but we also believe in a whole list of things God is...  Including just in all ways.  Which means we don't believe that God is not going to let bad things happen.  There can be many reasons that "bad" things happen to people, and because God allows/makes these things happen isn't to say that God is not good.  In fact in almost every situation in the Bible where God punishes the wicked, he had given them many chances to correct their ways.  (I'm not saying every single situation as I don't have them memorized, but I would be shocked to find one where he did not give the wicked a way out)

The argument presented can be boiled down to "if it’s possible for man to do evil - a lot of evils - and man is an extension of God, then God is directly and of his own volition doing a lot of evils." The problem with this reasoning is the assumption that man is an extension of God.  According to the Bible, man was created in God's image.  He is not an extension of God. That is what Jesus was, and that is why Jesus is so special.  If you consider that man is not an extension of god, but rather his creation, and that Jesus was and is the extension of God you then must look at what God's extension did on earth.  Jesus was the only being on earth that lived a sin free life.  Using the same argument as above, we can reach the conclusion that: When Jesus was on earth, being an extension of God himself, committed no sin, and did no evil, God commits no sin and does no evil.  If we then consider that by doing no evil and committing no sin is equivalent to being "good."  We can conclude God is good.

To touch on some of the other points presented, I also disagree with the analogy that by God's omnipotence that we are all just finger puppets of God, lacking the ability to choose our own path and make our own decisions.   God is omnipotent, however, omnipotence is defined as *having* "virtually unlimited authority or influence", not *using* unlimited authority.  Should we all be simply finger puppets, why would religion be a choice?  Why wouldn't God require us all to worship him without question?  The answer is free will.  While free will is a whole topic on it's own, it is important to realize that when God created man, in his image, he was without sin.  It was the introduction of free will that allowed man to sin.  It is also the introduction of free will that allowed man to choose to believe and follow God or to choose not to.  

MARTA (Atlanta's Transit System), is okay, but I don't think I would ever love a metro system enough to get it tattooed on my body.  Apparently someone out there did.  My dad collects other city's metro memoribilia, but with his strong dislike of tattoos I'm certain he wouldn't get one either.  What do you think would drive someone to get THIS tattoo?

I forgot to say that I posted my easter pictures over the weekend.  That is all for now.

Here is a funny conversation I had with Felipe the other day...

I got a bad haircut this past week so this weekend I fixed it.  What do you think? 

Isaac sent me this, and as you all know I am a huge Seinfeld fan.  I just had to post it.

This past weekend my friend Brian got hitched.  This picture is all of Brian's groomsmen at the rehearsal dinner.

This was my first time being part of a wedding and it was a blast.  All of Brian and Sarah's family and friends were very welcoming which is a big plus when you don't really know anyone except the groom and bride.  The only other person I knew was Mark, another of Brian's groomsmen, who happened to have gone to high school with me and roomed with Brian at Auburn.  We had a big time the whole weekend, and one of the weirdest things happened to me.  I was introduced to Sarah's father and he started to go on about how he was glad my hair had started to grow back.  Apparently he keeps up with my blog. Who knew more than my family and a few friends read this thing?  After that I told many more folks there about it so hopefully some of them will check it out (Hi guys!).

So to recap, wedding was good, friends were nice and I'm an internet-semi-superstar! 

I do a lot of internet surfing and every now and then I come across something truly mind blowing.  I found this article this morning and have been thinking about it all day.  It's about what has to be the most bizarre disaster of the 20th century.  Head over and check it out.

On the morning of August 22, 1986, a man hopped onto his bicycle and began riding from Wum, a village in Cameroon, towards the village of Nyos. On the way he noticed an antelope lying dead next to the road. Why let it go to waste? The man tied the antelope onto his bicycle and continued on. A short distance later he noticed two dead rats, and further on, a dead dog and other dead animals. He wondered if they’d all been killed by a lightening strike – when lightening hits the ground it’s not unusual for animals nearby to be killed by the shock.

Soon the man came upon a group of huts. He decided to see if anyone there knew what had happened to the animals. But as he walked up to the huts he was stunned to see dead bodies strewn everywhere. He didn’t find a single person still alive—everyone in the huts was dead. The man threw down his bicycle and ran all the way back to Wum.

So the other night I had a crazy dream.  I woke up and thought to myself, "No one is going to believe how crazy this dream was" and quickly decided to type it up.  My laptop was next to the bed so half asleep I typed up every detail that I could remember.  I present it to you here in an almost unedited form.  I did a spell check on it and added a few punctuation's.  What do you think?  Do I dream like a movie or what?

At a club, Chris and Stu are there.

bouncer pops off about something and takes a swing at me.  I must have provoked him.  I pop off one punch and he starts bleeding all over the place.  Things kinda scatter and Stu and I are talking waiting for them to come kick us out (but are out side)

All of a sudden a army sergeant drives up quick and tells everyone there to follow some people. We are under attack by Germans.   We walk, all the boys trying to stay together. 
sergeants
Next thing we are in a european style building with guns.... oh wait I have my fathers 22 for some reason. When we are walking I commented how I always hoped that if we got rushed off to fighting I would have my father's "fire arm" with me so i could use it.  Some guy questions what "firearm" means.  I worry that this guy is going to be fighting next to me.

So German by planes start flying by.  We all have guns but not bullets and are just dodging them.    The sergeants have guns and bullets.  I ask the sergeant, apparently our friend, what the Germans did when they attacked and he simply reply's "I can't tell you but it wasn't creative."

Next thing I know, biplane goes by... shoots then cuts up in the air to come around for another shot.  Crashes into the ground right behind us.   Sergeant  kills pilot. Other guy is already dead.  The plane is spinning and about to start firing at all us and then the bouncer guy goes and jumps in front of the bullets and stops the plane.  

He starts crying and yelling something at us about meaning for this to happen and mad I punched him.  Then the sergeant goes to help him... oh yeah sergeant looks like Neil Patrick Harris [edit: he's the actor who played Doogie Houser].  The bouncer wants to kill himself and wraps something around his neck...   He doesn't finish and the sergeant yells he is fired, discharged, whatever.. and the guy gets all pissed off and yells something about knowing what is going through the guys mind and he was going to jump off the place we are... this is when the sergeant says no, goes and grabs  a RPG launcher and screams "I know what is going through your mind!" fires the RPG which takes off the top of the guys head.   We all cheer that the whiner is gone.

Then I awake.

As many of you all know, I've been trying to follow the Braves a bit more than usual this season.  Well tonight was a night I was glad I was watching.  Braves pitcher John Smoltz secured win number 200 (exactly 11 years after winning number 100).  For a pitcher to win 200 games is quite an accomplishment.  Only 106 pitchers have ever done so.  This will almost definitely secure him a spot in the Hall of Fame.

He joins former Braves pitchers Tom Glavine and Greg Maddox, all whom won their 200th game here in Atlanta.  

I have had the great fortune to meet John Smoltz a few times and he is one of the nicest sports figures I have ever met.  My mom does a charity event called "Spring Training" where she gets lots of professional sports figures to come and help raise some money for the Georgia Transplant Foundation.  This year at the live auction, one of the items up for bid was the chance to throw out a first pitch.  The bids weren't really coming in as much as the foundation had hoped and I will never forget Smoltz jumping up there and agreeing to sign the ball for who ever won the bid.  When it still didn't as much as they had hoped he agreed to do something else.  I think it was to take a picture with the winner or maybe even bid several thousand more than the current bid.  Whatever it was, it was the perfect example of what a nice guy he was.

I just wanted to share that story.  I'm very happy for Smoltz;  He certainly deserves it! 

I am so lazy with this blog.  Everyday I think of a story and am all "That will be a great blog post."  Then I slack off and never post it.   I'm gonna work on that.

So for a quick catch up.  I had an amazing weekend.  Friday night started off with heading down to LaGrange for my cousin's HS graduation.  The whole family was there so it was a great time seeing everyone.  That night I went back with the bros and stayed in Auburn.  I tagged along as they went to celebrate a rugby friend getting married and had a good time just catching up with them.  Then Saturday morning my friend Vilas and his buddy picked me up and we made our way to Birmingham for a Tool concert.  We got there early in hopes of finding a hotel to stay the night but everything was booked solid.  Apparently everyone else thought ahead and reserved a room.  Oh well.  We just headed early to the concert to hang out with all the other Tool fans.  The concert was amazing.  I don't know if you all have heard Tool, but their song really focus on the music rather than the lyrics.  In that fashion, it was neat to see all the spotlights on the musicians while the lead singer stood in the background in the dark.  I never saw a light on him.  Instead he was just silhouetted by the screens in the back.  Really cool.

Then Sunday I just made my way back to Atlanta and caught Shrek 3 with Stu and Candace.  Just a pretty relaxing night, resting up for Monday.

Monday was money.  Stu, Charlie, Ethan and I headed up to the Broad River and rented some kayaks to float the river.  I had never done this and Stu tells me it's an regular Athen's event.   It was such a blast and I only fell out three times (once because Stu thought it would be funny to tip me).  This is something I am definitely going to do again.  

That was my weekend.  I hope you all had a good weekend and if anyone is up for kayaking just let me know.  For only $20 you will be hard to find something better to do with a free Saturday.

The other night we had a fantastic lightning storm and I was quick enough to set up my camera to grab a few pictures.  You have to be quick though.  You can find a few more shots at my flickr account.

OK you guys can breath a sigh of relief.  My phone isn't ruined. I took it swimming with me this past weekend and thought it would be ruined but with a little luck and a lot of drying I was able to boot it up this morning.

This is the second time for me, that by simply letting my phone dry for a couple days (3+), I have been able to use the phone again.  While I waited, I read around on the internet and found some helpful tips should this ever happen to you.  

• Power the device off if it isn't already
• take the back cover off and remove the battery
• sit in the sun, under a fan, under a hairdryer, somewhere that it can dry out for at least 3 days.
• Another option I read about is to bury it in some dry rice to try and suck the moisture out
• You could also use those little dry packets that come in packaging to suck the moisture out.
• Lastly I heard that you can soak it in rubbing alcohol and that will help cause the water to evaporate quicker.  I haven't tried this one, but would be worth a shot if nothing else worked.
  

The other night we battled traffic and made it to the Turner Field to see the Braves take on the Red Sox.  The tickets were our gift to my dad for father's day and turned out to be a gift really for everyone.  We had a ton of fun and had some very enjoyable seats. The best part was, the Braves won!  I would say nearly half of the stadium was Red Sox fans, so it was quite exciting to shut up all of them. 

Two other slightly interesting things happened.  Isaac and the Fusion group were at the game and made it on the big screen. And the old ladies that Bradley and I sat next to last game were apparently long time season ticket holders and they won some contest at this past game to sit in a suite or something.  It was just odd to recognize the people who won the contest. 

I spent last night doing one of my least favorite task on the face of this earth.  Laundry.  I have so many clothes it's ridiculous and for the past 6 months or so I've just been doing laundry on an as needed basis resulting in a massive mountain of dirty clothes in my closet.  I finally decided that I was tired of wearing the same 4 t-shirts over and over and that for Europe I should pack exactly what shirts I want, not just the few I have clean. So I set out to wash all my clothes.  It's been 3 nights now and I'm almost done.  I can actually see the carpet in my closet! 

On the subject of packing, who knew that leaving for a 3 week trip would take an additional week of planning and packing.  I've spent the last week or so doing 3-4 things in preparation for our trip every day. Calling Credit Cards, washing clothes, checking camera equipment, buying new shoes, wrapping everything up at work, etc.... I just hope it isn't like this when I return!  That being said, I am giddy with excitement.  I just got a call from my mom and the boys are at the airport and getting ready to take off. 

I just got into Athens and man is it hot.  I've showered and changed and we are about to hit the sights.  My only complaint so far is that it's hard to navigate around here.  Even though I only speak and read English, in most European countries I can guess at what words mean, and even take a stab at pronouncing them.  Here since they use the Greek Alphabet I have no idea how to pronounce or read anything.  It is only by pure luck I was able to meet the Bros at the train station.  Well I guess that's all for now.  I did make a stupid quick video while waiting in the Amsterdam airport.  Here it is:

We are pretty much done with Athens and wanted to post a quick video of how things have been.  It is a little quiet so you might have to crank up your speakers.  Pictures and blog post are coming soon....

Here is my journal of our time in Athens.

I had a nice flight from Atlanta, I sat next to another computer nerd on his way to India and we had a good time chatting.  I was able to actually get some sleep but arrived in Amsterdam really early in the morning (like 1am ATL time) and had several hours to kill.  I walked around a bit but mostly sat and watched the planes come in and out.  Where I was sitting was near the end of one of those people movers and every time someone got to the end, a machine said "Please mind your step", I swear I must have heard that thing 150 times.  It enough to drive a man mad. 

The flight from Amsterdam to Athens was pretty uneventful.  There was a screaming baby that the parents did nothing to try and settle, but I was on an exit row and quickly dozed off. 

Thanks to Brandon's email, I had no trouble getting to the right train stop.  The only real problem is this Greek alphabet.  In most countries even though I don't know the language I can guess at a pronunciation or at what the word might mean.  Here it's, as the saying goes, "all greek to me." 

I met the boys at the train station and we made our way to the Hostel.  Apparently they had lost my reservation but had us a room.  The only thing was it was an extra euro more because it had air-conditioning, something I would later have agreed to pay MUCH more for.  I grabbed a quick shower, and the three of us headed out to get  a bite to eat.  We walked around looking at all the shops and resturants and settled on a little cafe and had shish kabobs.  They weren't like the american version but were incredible.  After dinner we retired to the hostel to rest up for the next day.

The next day, I think it was Saturday, we hit the major sites.  We woke up early to try and beat the heat and were waiting when the gates opened at 8 to the Acropolis.  It was exciting to see some of the oldest standing buildings in the world, but unfortunately, like most of the sights in Europe, the views were tainted with scaffolding for "reconstruction".  Nevertheless it was breathtaking, and extremely hot.  We stayed on the top as long as we could stand and made our way down to Zeus's Temple.  His temple is at the bottom of the Acropolis in a giant open area.  The ruins left about 14 columns standing and one on it's side. With no scaffolding the views and pictures turned out better than we could have hoped for though the heat left huge sweat marks on our shirts.

Leaving Zeus's temple we walked about a mile to the original modern day Olympic stadium.  It hosted the first modern day Olympic games in 1896 and was cool to imagine what it must have felt like to have come here 3 years ago and run track in the original stadium.

By this point I am sweating like a pack mule and the people of Athens are feeling sorry for me.  One guy went inside his office and brought me paper towels to dry my face off.  I thanked him and we moved on to the Agora.

The Acropolis was the center of ancient religious activities while the Agora was the political, social and economical center of Athens.  We rode a few sauna trains and got off at what we thought was the right metro stop for the Agora.  We were wrong and walked a little ways up hill in scorching heat before deciding that the Agora was just not something we were willing to suffer for.  We turned around and took a siesta for the afternoon.

We came to find out later that the temperature reached 113 degrees that day and was one of the hottest days ever for Athens.  The one euro we spent extra for a room with air conditioning turned out not only to be a great deal, but a life saver as well.  There is no way any of us would have gotten any sleep had it been that hot in our room.  Another interesting thing Bradley noticed is the fact that the entire time we were in Greece, not one of us saw a single cloud.  What kind of country doesn't have any clouds!?

The following day, having got up so early the previous day we decided to sleep in a bit and decided that we all really wanted to see the Poseidon's Temple which is located about 2 hours from Athens by bus.  Someone at the hostel had mentioned it was a great thing to see as the sun was setting so we booked a 3:30 bus ride down to the southern most tip of mainland Greece.  The bus had air conditioning and comfortable seats so the ride wasn't too bad, but we found it funny that the bus driver just pulled over at a convenience  store at one point, and he and the ticket guy went inside and got some snacks.  Who does that with a bus full of paying passengers? We arrived at Poseidon's Temple around 5:30 and spent the next few hours a small cafe sipping on coffee and chatting as we waited for the sun to set.  We knew the last bus ride was at 9 and imagined we had plenty of time for the sun to set, get lots of pictures and catch the last bus out.  We waited as long as we could but soon realized that there was no way we would get to do all three things so we elected to go up around 7 and take lots of pictures and catch the bus back home.  The bus ride home was an interesting experience.  We picked it up at the first stop and were riding it until the end.  There were many stops along the way and being close to sunset there were many people to pick up on the way home.  So many people, that we had to stop about halfway, meet another bus and unload all the standing passengers on our bus.  As we neared Athens, the traffic came to a standstill, and what should have taken about 2 hours to get back turned into more like 2:45 trip.  There is one other thing that I have yet to mention and that is the fact that Deodorant is not a prevalent thing around Greece.  Poor Bradley was on an aisle seat and could barely breath when an older man stood next too him with his arm in the air.  I caught a whiff of it every now and then and just cringed at the smell.  Despite the painful ride back it turned out that Poseidon's Temple was our favorite of all the sights in Athens.

By this point we had seen most of what we wanted to see in Athens.  We decided to take a leisurely day and spent the morning walking around the markets and visiting a church that our parents had visited when they came to Greece.  Some 22 years ago, while pregnant with Brandon our parents came to Greece. As we were looking through their pictures my mom mentioned that she had stopped at this one church and lit a candle and said a prayer for Brandon's birth to go well.  We returned to this same church and Brandon lit a candle and said a prayer of his own.  It was a little odd to think about how Brandon had technically already been to the church an touching as well.  The one problem with visiting the church is that you must wear long pants and the only long pants Brandon had were jeans.  Wearing jeans in the middle of the day in Athens is like a death wish so while Bradley and I went to check out the Agora, Brandon returned to the hostel to change. 

He didn't miss much.  The Agora is quite tattered leaving very little exciting to see.  The only interesting thing was one of the temples still had it's roof intact.  In fact it is the only ancient Athenian ruin that does. We puttered around for a while and decided to call it quits.  We spent the rest of the day packing up our stuff to leave early in the morning for our flight to Rome. 

Over all we had a blast in Athens but probably booked one too many days.  The heat was incredible, the smell was just as strong, and the food was amazing.  We all agreed that Poseidon's temple was our favorite and next came the food.  We had greek salads, tzatziki, kabobs (real ones), Gyros, olives, and I had what looked like an open faced omelet with french fries cooked into the eggs.  I had thought I was just ordered a plate of fries, but the picture I pointed too was a bit faded and apparently I ordered this.  The other interesting story I have about food was at a sandwich shop we stopped at.  The sandwich wasn't that good, but I had also tried to purchase an orange from stack of fruit they had.  The lady didn't speak much english but it became clear that the oranges were not for sale.  After purchasing my sandwich I think she felt bad, because she just handed me an orange and told me to take it.

I have posted Athens pictures here.  You will find all our pictures as we post them under the "Europe 07" album in the gallery.

We are now in Rome, Italy.  Our hostel doesn't have internet and it's kinda expensive down here at the laundromat.  Unlike Felipe last year, we are NOT pulling out the laptop every 5 minutes to check for wifi.  Unfortunately that means that we aren't getting to update as often.  Enjoying the trip is my number one priority so the updates will just have to stay infrequent. 

As far as Rome is concerned, we have seen the National Museum and all of the Ancient Roman sites today. Tomorrow is the Vatican and anything along the way. 

We are in Cinque Terre and having a blast.  We just got done hiking the whole trail between the 5 towns with some friends we made last night.  One of the coolest things so far is last night when we were walking to some beach party they were having we ran into some locals who offered to give us a boat ride over to the party.  We felt like VIP riding up on the beach as everyone watched. 

Having a good time but paying out the nose for internet.  Nice, France is next, but after one more day on the beach...

Today we went to Monaco and visited the famous Monte Carlo Casino.  Not being big gamblers we each put down 50 euros and played Roulette for a good while.  Here is a short video about our adventures today.

We are just outside Barcelona, Spain now.  We took a night train last night from Nice and arrived here this morning.  We are staying in a little campsite where we have rented a trailer.  We get a whole trailer to ourselves, with a kitchen, picnic table, wifi, and are right near the beach. 

Brandon had a little trouble with his bank card this morning as the ATM ate it and the bank said they have to send it to the states.  He spent about 2 hours talking to Wachovia (dropped calls a lot) but has finally gotten everything worked out.  

We will be here for the next 3 days then we head into Barcelona for a night where we will see what this city has to offer. 

We arrived in San Sebastian this morning after taking a night train from Barcelona.  The plan was to stay here and go early each morning to Pamplona for the running of the bulls.  We had heard that there were buses that ran each morning and all day from here, and they do, but the first one isn't until 7am.  We planned on going at about 2am.  So we've canceled our reservation here in San Sebastian and are heading to Pamplona tonight.  We are all three going to try and run tomorrow morning and spend the day at the festival.  The next day we will watch the running and then head towards Toulouse.

Wish us luck!

So I'm back in Atlanta. I landed today around 2 and spent the evening with the folks going through our 1200+ pictures.  By far the best part of our trip was the running of the bulls.  We three ran together and made it. Tonight, even though I am exhausted, I had to check and see if there were any pictures of us running.  Guess what, there are a few.  The best one is this one.  Look for us in the lower left hand corner. There are a few more that you can browse.

Now I must sleep. I've slept 1 night out of the last 6 and it's starting to get to me.  I'll be posting write ups, pictures, and movies as soon as I can.

I have finished uploading all the good pictures from our trip to Europe.  No doubt the ones you are most interested in are the Pamplona (Running of the Bulls) pictures, but be sure to check out the other albums as well.

• Getting there is a pain
• Parking is horrendous
• Employees are stupid
• Security takes forever
• Everything is overpriced

I have had to make some changes to how comments are handled here on benmcmath.com.  Unfortunately spammers have been hitting the system pretty hard and it's causing me all kinds of headaches.  So from now on whenever you leave a comment an email address will be required. I will be approving email addresses from non-spammers and those approved email addresses will be allowed to leave comments. Unapproved email addresses will not be able to leave comments. 

This shouldn't be much of a henderance, as long as you know these two things.

1) Always use the same email address when leaving comments. Otherwise your comment will have to be moderated each time before it can be seen by others. 

2) Your first comment will not be seen until I have a chance to add your email to the approved list.  It shouldn't take too long, but don't try to keep adding the same comment.

I'm sorry for the the extra step but it's something that had to be done.  You can read more about the policy here. 

It's about time someone stood up and said something.  That little Wendy has been giving us red-heads a bad name! 

Earlier this week a community run improve group, called "Improv Everywhere", set up a little joke on the city of New York.  Seeing as us red-heads make up less than 1% of the population someone asked, what would it be like to get on a subway to realize that you are the only non-red-head there?  The group did this then took it a bit farther by setting up a picketing line in front of a local Wendy's.  They were picketing that Wendy's mascot, Wendy, has been giving us a bad name.  It turned out to be quite funny.  Read the full report with pictures on their site.

One of my favorite cartoons as a kid was "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and the other day I saw that they are going to make a full-length feature film out of the show.  I guess there goes another $10!

I spent a couple hours last night going through and catching up with my Project 365 pictures.  You can check them all out on Flickr.  I have now crossed the #200 marker!

Tonight we had a bit of a scare.  There was a fire alarm in the building next to ours and the entire fire department showed up.  There were at least 6 trucks in the parking lot, and rumors of more lined up on the street right out side the complex.  While it wasn't in mine and Stuart's building it was in Candace's building, Stu's fiancee.  She was just moving in today, and when helping her with her bags, we had a bit of trouble with the elevator and just chalked it up to a power outage that we had. Apparently it was more than that. The elevator motor smoked up tonight and caused the fire alarm. Everyone seems to be okay, but I sure hope that elevator is fixed by this weekend when we are moving in all her furniture.

I was there taking pictures! 

It's a sad day.  Barry Bonds has hit home run 756 now holding the record for most home runs hit by a pro baseball player.  I am not sad because of the allegations that he used steroids, but rather that Hank Aaron has held the record for so long and it just seemed fitting that he would always hold the record. 

While we are on the subject, I found an interesting news article showing how it might not be steroids that is giving Bonds an unfair advantage, but rather his elbow guard....   

Over on the AJC they are running an interesting poll...

Took this one for 365...

My main man, Bobby Cox (Braves Manager), set a new record tonight.  He now holds the record for the coach that has been ejected from the most major league baseball games with 132 ejections.  There are many things I like about Bobby and one of them is certainly the way he believes and argues for his players.  Tonight he got ejected arguing a strike called on Chipper Jones that was way off the plate.  Way to go Bobby!

Every now and then something really revolutionary comes along on the internet to make it better.  There was google, wikipedia, and of course benmcmath.com.  Well I've found a new one.  It is Mahalo.com a.k.a. "the human powered search".  I know this will sound a lot like an advertisement for Mahalo, and it kinda is, but trust me it's worth checking out.  

What Mahlalo is trying to do is create search results for some of the internet's most common searches, but what makes them different is the fact that real people are building the search results to make it easier to find the real information.  If you've done a google search for a product or service these days you quickly realize that there are a lot of results that have no relevant info.  Performing good Google searches these days is becoming more of an art, than no-brainer activity.  Mahalo gets these Google Search Artist to sift through all the junk and deliver the best results to you.  

So now you know what Mahalo is, I want to tell you about a plug-in for firefox that will make things a lot easier.  Mahalo has released a plug-in called "Mahalo Follow" adding a Mahalo toolbar to your firefox window to allow easier searching, and the best part is the tie-in with google searching.  So even if you forget to search Mahalo and just search google.com, if Mahalo thinks it has better results for your search it opens a small window allowing you to compare Mahalo results with Google results.  I have found this much more useful than I would have ever thought.

Ok, so by now you are probably asking yourself why I am blogging about this.  I have two reasons.  The first being, I just realized what an awesome service this plug-in is.  And secondly Mahalo is having a contest.  I have registered and If I can get the most people to install the Mahalo Follow plug-in and perform searches with it I can win an iMac!  I'm counting on you all to follow my special link and install Follow for yourself.  Trust me, do some searches from the toolbar (those help my rank too!) and see how awesome it is.

Installation is pretty basic.  The two things to watch for, is when you first click the link you might see a little yellow bar at the top of the window saying you need to add www.mahalo.com to the list of sites allowed to install plug-ins.  Do that. You might also have to click the link again after allowing www.mahalo.com to install plug-ins.  If you have any other questions, leave a comment or shoot me an email! 

I finally got around to cutting the video from our visit to Pamplona, Spain.  There is some footage of us waiting to run, after running with the bulls, a bullfight, and of course the goring we caught on film the day after we ran.  There is some gory footage from the bullfight and goring, so be warned, and it's just over 10 minutes long.

(Quicktime version)

Stu asked me to post about a meeting he has coming up with a security professionals group he is a part of.  If you are interested in network security you should check it out. I went to one of his other meetings and really learned a lot (not to mention got a free book!)

Here are the details:

ISSA is a non-profit professional organization serving the needs of security professionals
globally.  This conference is for the Metro Atlanta area.

Event Name:  Metro Atlanta Information Security Conference 2007 Event
Date:  Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Location: Loudermilk Center, Atlanta, GA
URL:  http://www.gaissa.org/conf-2007.htm

If you have questions contact: conf2007 [at] gaissa [period] org 

This past weekend while my parents and my aunt and uncle were all preparing for their trip to Italy, my brothers, cousins, and I all met down at our lake house for some R&R.  It was a really relaxing weekend mostly just bumming around together sharing stories and doing nothing.  I took some pictures of us chilling and have put them online.  The one above is definitely my favorite.  It captures the weekend perfectly. Hanging out with the grandparents, relaxing by putting together a puzzle.

Last night our dinner club ate at "Gladys Knight & Ron Winan's Chicken & Waffles."  I've never had chicken and waffles together in one meal, so it sounded interesting but turned out to be far from it.  As my buddy Jim put it, "you know you are in trouble when Popeye's has your 'famous' chicken beat."  The chicken was dry, and my gravy smothered chicken had some sort of canned gravy on it.  How are you going to be a soul food restaurant and serve canned gravy?  I've had better at Hardee's!  On top of that the service was no good.  We literally had half our meals before our appetizers came out.  

The only good things I can admit, were the fried green tomatoes, iced tea, and it was only a $25 lesson learned.

I wish I could recommend you guys check it out. If the idea of chicken and waffles sounds like something you would like to try, just make a quick run to Popeye's for some chicken and waffle house for a waffle.  Not only will you have a better meal but you'll save about $18 bucks too!

So the last two weeks have been all about chili.  I'm so tired of eating chili it's ridiculous. So most of you might remember how we've talked about entering the chili cook-off at Stone Mountain for years now.  Well this year we are doing it.  We've chosen a "Heaven and Hell" theme and will be entering our "hell" chili into the competition.  We are also creating a "dessert chili" for the heaven side of our theme that won't be judged but that we are hoping will help us win the popular vote.

In preparation for the even we have been experimenting with recipes the last few weeks.  We had a "work weekend" last weekend where we all brought recipes to try and built part of our booth.  Then last week Chris helped me try another recipe which I brought to my work's Chili pot-luck.  I told everyone that we were entering the chili I brought to a chili cook-off and we got some great feedback. Most people liked it but it looks like we could add some more chili powder (possibly homemade), and salt.  The dessert chili was a bit hit as well.

We've still got some more tweaking to do, but are almost there.  Wish us luck! 

If you haven't see what happened in the Braves game check out the video below.   This is one of the strangest things I have seen in a while, and what stinks is I didn't watch this game at all.

Seeing as some of you thought my last post was too lengthy and I really couldn't spare a lot of time to type up all that happened this weekend, I chose to shoot a quick video about my weekend.  Don't worry it's only 2 minutes long.

(QuickTime Version)