Gotta Love the Government

Republicans in Congress shut down a proposed increase in the federal minimum wage which was proposed by Democrats. Just 2 days later, they approve a $3,600 pay increase for themselves. Nice...
Since 1997 when the current minimum wage was established, minimum wage pay has been frozen. Numerous times Democrats have tried to raise it. Numberous times Republicans have shut it down. Since 1997 the minimum wage has remained $5.15. Since 1997, congressional pay has been raised due to votes by republicans $31,600. That's just how much the pay has RAISED in the last 9 years, mind you. They make a total of $165,200 a year right now. At the same time, people who make $5.15 an hour and work full time make a grand total of $10,712. That's why the United States Congress wins this week's segment of "Gotta Love the Government". Congratulations Congress!!

WebCam!

Here's my webcam image. May or may not be up at any given time. It's just a cam so I can watch the baby while I'm at work. Enjoy! :D You'll have to hit F5 to refresh the page because Blogspot doesn't allow javascripts to automatically refresh the image. Poop!

Qwest Bidding for Cable TV in Colorado Springs

Looks like Qwest isn't happy with dooming people with their shitty telephone service. Now they're trying to break in to the shitty cable TV service. Doesn't affect me any. I won't be getting it. Unless it's like 10 bux a month. That might be worth the shitty service just for the weekly visits by technicians to keep things interesting around the house...

BabyCam!!

I have set up a webcam that you can see the living room where the baby may or may not be at the time. Link to it is Baby Cam!!.

My Struggles as a New Father

I'm going through the same things everyone goes through when they become a father. I always wanted to be a special kind of father. In a world where there are so many fathers that have no interest and/or nothing to do with their kids, I think it's very important that I teach my daughter everything I know and encourage her to express herself in the ways she finds most appropriate. Through art, music, sports or whatever it may be.
I love holding my baby. I love having her lay on me where I watch her drift off to sleep when she's most happy and secure. She knows that when daddy is holding her, nothing in the world can hurt her. Sometimes when I'm holding her, I can't help but cry a little just because she's so beautiful and knowing that she is my own daughter. I wouldn't give that feeling up for anything in the world. It's a feeling that someone without kids doesn't realize.
I don't mind when she cries. Of course I try to keep her fed and in a clean diaper just like everyone else does. But I also try to make her happy with other things like making sure she doesn't spend too much time in her crib if she's awake. I have an automatic swing for her that plays music and she likes sitting in there watching the lights and toys that are on it. Most of all, I love holding her more than anything. I know I won't be able to hold her forever.
I stay awake with the baby so that Juanita can get plenty of rest for taking care of the baby while I'm at work. It's better to have a fussy baby than to have a fussy Juanita. The baby can't talk yet.. ;)
I enjoy all the emotions that come with being a father. How much joy I get every time she looks at me. Every time she smiles. She seems like she's a very happy baby. She loves being in this world. She watches everything going on around her. She loves looking out the window at the world. I wonder if she's thinking "I wonder what's out there."
One of the biggest emotional struggles that I have been dealing with continuously is about my son, John Ethan who died when my wife was 36 weeks pregnant with him. In all my dark hours of grief, there was an instant where I actually felt relief that I wouldn't have to change my life and wouldn't have to worry so much about making sure I was doing everything right with a new baby. Even though it was only an instant of thought that quickly passed and was quickly replaced by my feelings of loss and emptiness, I can't help but have feelings of guilt for thinking about it.
Knowing now the way that I feel about my new lovely daughter, I want to punch myself in the head for even thinking that life might be better without having kids. After my son died I thought I would never have kids. The only reason for that was that I knew of the emotional struggles I would have surrounding my son should I have more kids. What if I had a boy? Would I see him emotionally as a replacement for the son that died? I don't know. I would hope not. Having a daughter is definitely easier on me emotionally knowing that she is simply a girl and is much different than my son would have been. I've never told anyone that I felt like that before. I guess anyone who knows me will read it here first. Naturally, it's very difficult to talk about.
All I know is that I love my new baby daughter very much and I'll do everything I can to be the best daddy for her that I can.

MugShots

I was looking through some mug shots at the Colorado Springs Crimestoppers Website and it makes me chuckle when I see some of the guys still giving dirty looks at the camera in their pictures trying to be hard even after they've been caught. Yeah you're real hard now. You're gonna be soft in prison. Soft enough for your cell mate to enjoy you anyway. Have fun!

People Are Stupid 1 : MySpace

I'm starting a new section on my blog called "People are Stupid". Basically, just my comments on something idiotic that is really being taken seriously by the powers that be.
Some teenage girls are chatting on MySpace with guys who are older and then they go meet and end up having sex with these older guys and getting molested and so forth. It's not the problem or fault of the young girl's parents not knowing what their kids are doing. No, it's MySpace's fault and MySpace's fault alone...at least the lawyers would have you believe that. Just today, I read a story on CNN about a young girl whose parents got her a visa to go to the Middle East to meet a man she wanted to be with that she met on MySpace. It should be noted that the man was openly too old for the girl and the girl didn't care. She wanted to go be with him. It was her choice. What happens? The girl sues MySpace. WTF? You can't be serious. That's like someone getting strangled with a shoelace and then someone sueing shoelace manufacturers claiming they are the ones responsible for the death. A few years back, someone wanted to get rid of all guns. They wanted to sue gun manfacturers because they claimed that guns caused the death of so many people. Knives have caused the death of alot of people too. But nobody wants to ban all knives. If there weren't any guns, people would still get killed if someone really wants to kill them.

Kid Accused of Being a Killer Kills

A 15 year old boy in Illinois was caught on tape shooting and killing some folks in a car. Now the parents and friends and relatives are saying that the reason the boy became a killer was because when the boy was 8, he was falsely accused of killing an 11 year old girl. It was a month before the boy was released and they found the real killer. The boy's family sued and won 2 million dollars in damages. Now 15 years old, the boy is in jail for shooting folks. They continue to blame the city. Yeah...so what did his parents spend that 2 million bux on? Education? Moving to a nicer part of town or possibly a different city? Nope and nope. They spent it on junk and the boy resorted to crime to make a buck. Parents these days assume absolutely NO NO NO resonsibility for raising hellion children. Wise up folks.

Some Chick Sueing Michael Jackson...please...

Some chick is sueing Michael Jackson basically claiming that any time something negative happens to her, it's his fault. She claims she sent letters to him back in 1985 and that he stalked her and sent people to stalk her for him. She claims he had people slash her tires and vandalize her vehicles. Couldn't have been anyone else right? Had to be Michael Jackson. This chick is sueing for 100 million dollars in damages.
If she wins, I'm going to go ahead with my idea to sue Jessica Alba for using telepathy to invade my mind with dirty thoughts of what I'd like to do to her. That's gotta be worth at least 25 mil.

Happy Father's Day!!

On this, my first father's day, I got a cake with a picture of the baby on it. You know how they do? They take whatever photo you give them and they use inkjets, just like a regular printer, but filled with food coloring to do the coloring. I took a photo I'll put on the website tomorrow. The photo on the cake was great. The cake sucked. Real thick butter frosting that was too sweet and the cake was pretty dry. I also got some lottery scratch tickets from the baby and I won 12 bucks. I'm going to put it in the baby's college fund or maybe an account toward her first car.
I've been getting used to feeding the baby and changing diapers. Her favorite place to lay and sleep is on her daddy's belly. She'll fuss and wiggle until I take her and put her on me and she'll lie there happily and will usually fall asleep listening to my heartbeat and stomach gurgle. When we put her to bed, we put on the radio for her for stimulating brain growing audio interaction. Her favorite station is the 80's station on Sirius satellite radio.

To my dad: I don't know how you did it. I can't imagine you when you first became a father. I'm sure it was an exciting time and there were definitely some bumps along the road. All in all I think you did a pretty good job. It's definitely a full time job and a life changing event. A change for the better. Before having Lindrielle, I was worried and didn't know what I was going to do once she was here. Now I can't imagine what I would do if I didn't have her. I love you!

Best Contact Lenses

I've made a few reviews here about contact lenses. I've tried many brands from different major manufacturers. Focus Monthly lenses for example were ok. I'd give them an 8 out of 10. Notibly, different brands and products may be better for different people. People have different shaped eyes and such and different products may be more comfortable and more may be more comforming to the shape of people's eyes resulting in better visual accuity. In my personal experience and in my own opinion, I state the following.

Focus Night & Day = 3 out of 10. Good vision. Hurt my eyes. These lenses are supposed to last for 30 days and you aren't supposed to have to take them out for the entire 30 days. Turned out to be a crock in my case. Very expensive at 55 dollars per box on some websites. Some offer them for a bit cheaper. I wouldn't spend the money. Some review for this product have been excellent. Not mine, though.

Purevision = 6 out of 10. Excellent Vision. A little uncomfortable after 3 days of wear. Seems the edges of the lenses are a bit sharp or rough or whatever. After I took them out after 3 days and cleaned them overnight, they just weren't as comfortable as they were when I first put them in. Not worth the money of 50 dollars per box on some websites, IMO.

Acuvue 2 = 8 out of 10. Very comfortable lenses. Could keep these in my eye for a week if I wanted to. The lenses are a 1 - 2 week lens. Acuvue states that you can keep these in your eye for a week and toss them out or wear them daily and toss them after 2 weeks. I had problems with halos on lights at night and sometimes downright fuzzy vision at night even if I had just put them in and went out. They also moved around a bit on my eye causing momentary blurred vision from time to time. Can be annoying.

Acuvue Advance = 10 out of 10. Best lenses I've tried. Just as comfortable as the Acuvue lenses if not more. Vision is excellent all day and night long. You can wear these lenses up to a week at a time, take them out and clean them overnight and wear them for an additional week if you want. Acuvue says you should toss these after 2 weeks but I've been able to wear them daily for a month before tossing and could have gone longer. Well worth the price at 17.95 per box on some websites.

I've tried a few other no name brand lenses that were crap lenses that hurt and didn't help me see much better. I've tried some Halloween style lenses that looked cool but were very uncomfortable.

Other than this review, it's really up to the consumer. I highly recommend trying the Acuvue Advance if you've tried other contacts in the past and found them to be uncomfortable. I'm very picky when it comes to my eyes so for me to give any contact this high of a praise is really saying something.

Oh Adaptec...you Silly People.

So I bought a "Gambridge 1400" from Adaptec. Cost me about 60 bux and the deal is that you can take any console or DVD player or whatever and you can play games and movies through your computer and on your computer monitor using this device. Sounded good to me. I can hook up my XBOX, my Playstation 2, and my XBOX 360 to it and play them all on the computer and make recordings and stuff. W3rd...only not so w3rd because the package I got the device in did not include the CD with the installation program and drivers for the device which are required for operation. I looked all over the internet and they are nowhere to be found online. And you cannot download them from Adaptec's website. Their online customer service and product support is confusing and after attempting to use it, it's quite evident that it simply sucks. My product isn't even listed on their support page. And on the product page there is only a user manual for how to install it. It says I need to use the CD that I don't have. Then there was a phone number to call for technical support issues. At $199 per call. I'm like hell. Then there was a customer support number to call that's a long distance number. I call it and after I'm on hold for 20 minutes (at least), I decide to give up and send them an email. Only, there's no email listings for contacting support. So I fill out a little form on their website about my product and...oh wait..but their form requires a Serial Number or a TSID (whatever that is) from the product. My product has "not a valid serial number" nor a TSID on it. So I can't do that. So I find another form for filling out complaints or something and I fill it in and send it off. I'm contacted 2 days later via email and told that I need to call the long distance number again. I do...after being on hold another 10 minutes or so, someone finally comes on the phone and they want to know the SN and the TSID and I explain that there isn't one but I ask why in the hell they can't just go by the product name. They do and the woman puts me on hold for another 5 minutes then comes back on and takes my name and address and kindly says they'll be sending me a CD out with the installation program and drivers within 6 weeks. 6 weeks?! Frankly, I'm surprised they are sending me a CD at all. I figured they were going to tell me that I was screwed and I was going to have to go blow up their building with a bomb made out of 37 two liter cokes tied together with 37 rolls of mentos above them wired together with an ingenius deployment device that would surely cause total destruction of the building. But 6 weeks? I didn't take 6 weeks to pay for the shit. Why don't you send it right now, peppy.......

I'll Give you Somethin' to Finger and Lick, Bitch.

From CNN.com - LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- A doctor and a consumer group have sued KFC in an effort to stop the chicken chain from cooking with high-fat partially hydrogenated oil.

People are bitching that KFC uses high fat oil to cook their chicken in and people are worried that eating at KFC jeopardizes their kid's health.
Here's what you do:
DON'T FUCKING EAT THERE YOU FUCKING MORON PIECES OF SHIT!!
And who controls what your kids eat? You or Colonel Sanders?!
You're worried about your kid's health? Here's what you do:
Stop using video games to babysit them, get their fat asses off the sofa and away from the computer and while you're at it, why don't you go with them and get some exercise for yourself, you lazy fuck. Start raising your kids right and teach them how to make healthy choices. Your kids are going to eat what you eat and what you give them to eat. At least until they get older at which point, if you have done your job, they will know what is good and what is bad for them. What are you still going reading this? I said get away from the fucking computer! Go get your kids and do some situps together or some shit.
Stop your bitching and stop adding to this whole social mentality that if you don't like something or the way someone does something, then the only answer is to sue them. Let's sue everyone for everything and then they can sue you for sueing them and back and forth until the end of time. Sound like fun? Ok then stop eating at KFC if you don't like it. Let me go and enjoy my KFC chicken and BBQ beans and corn on the cobb and mashed potatoes and whatever else I want. I'm so sick of shit like this. Fucking morons I swear.
If they were to see a piece of shit on the ground, they would literally pick it up and take a bite out of it. Then they would say "hey this tastes like shit". Then they would sue the city for not having a sign next to the shit stating that people shouldn't eat the piece of shit because it might be unhealthy for them.

House Clears Another 50 Billion for Wars

Another 50 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The thing about voting for more money for wars to "fight terrorism" is that of course nobody is going to vote against it because if they do people will say they are "pro-terrorism" and that they don't care about terrorists attacking the United States again. I'm 100 percent certain, although I cannot prove it, that there are billions of dollars being lost and/or misspent in Iraq and Afghanistan. There needs to be severely in depth auditing for this money to track where very last penny is being spent. They just say "oh there are increased costs" so everyone says "ok here's another 50 billion". Please...

Possibly the Best Game....Ever

Yeah when Half Life 2 came out I said that was the best game ever. I still think it was...for single player. Counterstrike Source followed for multiplayer. Great games. However, there is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that is out there and has been for a few years. It's called Shot-Online Golf. You can find it at Shot Online Golf. It's a FREE game. Free download, free to play online.
You start by choosing a character. There are men and women you can choose from with a variety of statistics. You have power, skill, impact and stamina stats to deal with. You start the game as a level one. As you play the game, you gain experience points (EXP). As you can experience points, you level up. Each time you level up, you have the option to add 2 points to your stats, the power, stamina, impact or skill. With increased power, you hit the ball further which each of your clubs, but it becomes less controllable. With the impact stat, as you increase, the ball is easier to control. With the skill stat increased, you're able to put backspin, draw and fade on your shots. You have a driver, 3w, 5w, 3-9 irons, PW, SW and AW in your bag to use.
When you first start the game you go into the "Square" which is a community setting where you see all the other players who are connected to the server and are also in the square. In the square, you can buy clothes, enhancement items, better clubs, energizing drinks (to decrease your fatigue in the game), and other things. When playing, you also earn money in the form of what is called "NG". You can use this NG in the square to buy from the shops or to buy items from other players. You can also trade items and clubs back and forth. This makes the game itself quite versatile. Also, on the website you can choose to use real money via credit card or paypal to buy items there. You can buy clubs that greatly increase your playing ability. You can buy items that double how much EXP points you get for each hole which makes leveling up faster which in turns means you can increase your stats quicker. Of course, the amount of EXP you get depends on how well you do on the hole. Naturally, if you get a birdie or an eagle, you are going to get alot more points than for a bogey or double bogey or worse. You can also join or form a guild in which you and members of your guild can play in tournaments and gain EXP quicker and get more money for your holes.
As you can see, it's much more sophisticated of a game than your typical golf game like Tiger Woods or something. Tiger Woods is riddled with glitches and exploits of which Shot Online has none. Also, Shot Online is updated regularly with new items, graphics, new clubs and even new courses. It's a great game. If you enjoy golf at all, I highly recommend this game.
Again, you don't HAVE to spend any money at all. If you do, you get some advantages early on in the game, but later on when you are a level 30 or higher, you'll find those advantages have evened out as your playing ability increases as does those of other players.
There are literally thousands of players who play this game and who are online at all times of night and day.

Smoking Ban in Colorado Starting July 1st

Personally, I've been looking forward to July 1st ever since I first heard that the new legislation was passed. I bowl and shoot pool and bowling is normally ok because they have decent ventilation in most places with fans going and nobody on my team smokes and most people who do keep it away from where we sit. Shooting pool however it seems that NO place where you can go and shoot pool has any ventilation of any kind. Especially in winter, when they don't open a window or a door, the whole place fills up in a fog and if you are on a pool team, you're in there for a few hours and when you come out you are smelling like smoke and your clothes are horrible. I have to go straight home and wash my clothes so you can't smell them sitting in the dirty clothes bin. I like to wear my leather jacket but forget about it when heading to the pool hall. I'd rather wear a t-shirt on a cold winter day instead of choosing to ruin my expensive jacket.
Another issue is that I have a 3 week old daughter. When she gets to be a bit older, and we start taking her more places with us, it's going to be nice to not have to worry about health effects from people's smoke when we go out. Alot of older people who have been hopelessly addicted to nicotine for decades are whining about the ban a ton. So what. I don't like them anyway. Besides, they can start dipping or chewing tobacco instead if they need. I know I personally will get more into doing things out of the house once there are places I can go and not have to worry about smelling like smoke. Thanks for the ban, fellas.
Oh and for all those business owners that are worried about losing their "regulars", you are going to find that you have new regulars once this ban goes into effect. I was a regular at a pool hall called Corner Pocket west until I just couldn't take my eyes being bloodshot from the irritating smoke every night. I haven't been there in about a year but I'll gladly make my return in July.