dakota

Here’s my dog, Dakota, when she was a puppy:

This picture was taken a couple of weeks after I got her. She was about 4 months old. She's 2½ now but she's still just a puppy. Her most recent vice is that she loves to get my socks from the bedroom and bring them out to her bed in the living room. She doesn't chew them up or tear them apart or anything, she just brings them out and lays them on her bed. I'm guessing she knows she'd get in trouble if she ruined them in any way, but she still wants to protest the fact that we leave her everyday. A single sock...laid nicely on her bed...almost daily. Oh well, it's better than when she chews on the blinds!

Here is a more recent picture of her:

I'll post some pictures of her counterpart, Delana, another day.

Later...

P.M.E...

I've recently been wondering whether I'm named after Philip Michael Thomas

or the good catholic Bishop Philip Michael Ellis, O.S.B., son of John Ellis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Michael_Ellis

Mom? Dad? Anyone?

global warming

While listening to Rush the other day, I heard about 86 year old Reid Bryson who is an Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. Back in the 60s, he was laughed to scorn as he was one of the first to pioneer the idea that humans can affect global climate change. Since then, he has reversed his views, and once again he challenges mainstream thoughts on the causes of global warming.

Here is an article the Wisconsin Energy Cooperative wrote about his recent views:

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson says. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

To put it simply, the earth’s climate changes are independent of anything humans have done, are doing, or ever will do.

Did you know that the Vikings used to farm on Greenland for about 300 years? That’s how Greenland got its name. Then, sometime after the 13th century, it froze over and began to look like this:

Now, as glaciers are melting all over the world, can you guess what archaeologists are finding underneath? Mature forests, agricultural water-management systems, and in the Alps, silver mines complete with tools stacked up outside waiting for the following mining season after the winter snows melted. The only problem was that one year, the snows didn’t melt. They didn’t melt the next year either…or the next…or the next. Enter the Little Ice Age. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes’ mastery of deduction to figure out that the earth used to be a lot warmer than it has been for the last several hundred years. Things are just now going back to normal after the earth’s “cool season.”

Al, you really need to wake up and smell the silver mines.

siesta anyone?

One potentially good thing about illegal immigration - a majority vote for daily siestas! I don't know about you, but I'm having a pretty heavy afternoon crash today! I could go for a nice siesta right about now!

ahh, the memories...

I was reminiscing today with some of my coworkers about the fond memories we have of our childhood. We talked about the games we would play, like Stuck-in-the-Mud and TV Tag. We also talked about how we determined who would be “it” at the beginning of each game. Here are just a few examples that I remember:

Eenie meenie miney moe
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers make him pay
Fifty dollars every day
My mother said to pick the very best one
And you are not it.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more

Skunk in the graveyard
Pee-yoo!
Somebody ate it
That’s you!

Inky binky bottle of ink
The cap fell off and you stink

Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?

First, second, third,
Military turd!

So anyway, we’re sitting around, reminiscing about all the good times we had, when suddenly I remembered how my sister used to torture me with scary stories of the china doll, the whistle man, and dead man’s curve, just to name a few. For years I could not bring myself to close my eyes in the shower for fear that the china doll would jump on me and scratch me to death. I remember shuddering whenever I would hear the long, shrill call of the whistle man who lived outside near the fire hydrant. Kathy would spin these tales, scare me half to death, and then relish in the fact that I believed her every word, no matter how ridiculous it seemed. I lived half my life in fear of her stories, and the other half was lived in fear of her. Pretty nice system she had going.

Maybe I deserved it, though. I’m not sure if Kathy or any of my other friends ever knew this, but I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how not to be it according to the games I mentioned above. I would simply figure out who I needed to start counting with in order for me not to be it by the end of the game. It took a long time to figure it all out ahead of time, because it all depended on how many people were in on the game.

For example, if there were only two of us and we were doing eenie meenie miney moe, I would start counting with the other person, that way the “and you are not it” would land on me, and I would, therefore, not be it. If there were three of us in the game, however, I would start counting with the person on my right, thereby ensuring that I, again, would not be it. It was simple arithmetic that I’m sure all of us were capable of figuring out, but because the system has the potential to continue ad nauseam, I doubt that any of my friends would ever devote the amount of time necessary to decipher such simple schoolyard games. It did, however, provide me with a certain childish satisfaction.

So anyway, Kathy, thank you for all of the childhood nightmares you so lovingly provided for me through the years…but at least I never had to be it!

FBI Update

Well, I’ve made it to Phase II of the FBI’s application process! I am really excited, but pretty nervous about it! It consists of a 90 minute written test and a 60 minute interview with a panel of three agents. During the written portion, you basically have to write a report based on information they provide. The interview consists of 14 standard questions that are asked of every applicant, and is designed to test 8 particular critical skills and abilities that the Bureau is looking for in its new agent trainees. (The entire interview is tape recorded as well.)
I’m heading to Tampa on June 6th for a little prep session with my applicant coordinator. The actual Phase II is in Ft. Lauderdale on the 15th. Needless to say, I’m getting more nervous as the day approaches, but Beth and I have been praying a lot, and I’m getting close to feeling prepared for it. If I do pass, then a few weeks later I’ll have to do the physical fitness test, which is going to be tough! I’ve been running and working out a lot, so hopefully I’ll be ready, if and when the time comes.
Only about 10-15% of applicants make it this far, and of those people, 50% fail Phase II. Not great odds, but I’m trying to be confident, and regardless of the outcome, I’m thankful to have even made it this far!

perspective

Here’s a little perspective for you:
The big one is called a Buffalo EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Vehicle made by Force Protection. It’s parked next to a standard, military grade hummer for comparison. The Buffalo can withstand most IED blasts under either its hull or its tires. Approximately 1,074 troops have been killed by insurgent bombs since the beginning of the conflict; however, not a single person has been killed in a buffalo despite encountering thousands of IED blasts. There are currently about 300 of them being used by our military in the war on terror; compare that to about 35,000 hummers still in use. So why haven’t all of our hummers been replaced by now? Simple numbers: hummers cost around $150,000 (fully outfitted), while a Buffalo costs around $750,000. They are simply too expensive to buy in large numbers. (Especially considering the ridiculous battles going on in the House and Senate concerning the new war funding bill.)
Now, let this marinate your brain for awhile: Bill Gates could buy a Buffalo to replace every single hummer currently in use by the armed forces and he wouldn’t even have to have a garage sale. He’d still be one of the richest billionaires in the world! (And I’m not even taking into consideration the fact that he could sell each of the hummers he replaced to help defray some of the cost of his investment.)
Sad that Americans will spend more on a new version of Windows than they'll spend on the safety of our troops.

mmm...

My wife found the newest, greatest product ever released from Hershey’s. It’s called Reese’s Snacksters. They’ve got Reese’s cereal puffs, peanut butter chips, Reese’s cereal squares, and Reese’s pieces. You can buy them in individual packs that have only 100 calories, and they are SO good! They make a great afternoon snack when I need a little sugar fix to keep me going till the end of the day. I just had one and figured I’d write about them.
Speaking of calories, I’ve been cutting down on my food intake recently because I’m trying to lose about 10 pounds in the next few weeks. I’ve been running pretty much every day, and doing numerous push-ups and sit-ups. As I type this, my abs feel like someone sliced through them with a scalpel from hip to hip. Hopefully they’ll feel better by Saturday because I’ve got some heavy training planned.

Till next time,

Counting Calories in Melbourne

wedding pictures

Well, we finally got our wedding pictures (9 months later). Here's the deali-o:
We paid several hundred dollars for a midrange package including about 4 hours of picture taking, a small photo album with a bunch of proofs in it, and a pretty nice wedding album. After the wedding, Beth decided she wanted to go all out on the wedding album, so we needed to pay an extra $600 for the wedding album upgrade. Don't get me wrong, the album was very nice, and I wanted to provide for my new wife's every whim, but $600 is alot of cash, and being newly wedded, we didn't have that just lying around.
We'd been saving for awhile for the album for her, and a glock for me. The glock was cheaper, so once we had the money, we went ahead and bought it. I wasn't being selfish, though, because we had some money coming in for my tax return, and I had every intention of getting the album within a few weeks. Well, a few unexpected bills came up and drained the rest of the money we'd saved, so no album yet. We were going to just keep saving for it, but we got a call a couple of weeks ago saying that the price of the album was going up, so we'd have to pay the $600 now, or even more later. Well, it's been nearly 9 months since our wedding, and the desire for that expensive album has been waning for awhile in my bride's mind. Beth called Dan last week and they decided that in lieu of getting either album, or a refund of some of the money, we'd just get all of our pictures on a cd for us to do with them what we will. I think this is a much better deal, because we can always take our pictures and convert them to an album later, but you cannot do the reverse. Plus, now I have all the pictures in digital format, so I can post and email them to my heart's content.
So, that's the short version of the story...
And here's one of my favorite pictures (mostly because my eyes are actually open in it):

Range Report

Well, I took the wife to the range last Friday with my new Glock 23. I probably should have started her out shooting a 9mm, but seeing as how I don't have one, we didn't have much choice. She was excited to go, but a little hesitant once we got there. Nevertheless, she did some shooting and did pretty well too. Here's one of the targets she shot at about 3 yards.
She was proud of this one because she got one in the red. She'll be dry-firing before she goes the next time, because, as you can see, she was shooting a tad low due to some flinching just before she fired. If she's ever forced to actually shoot someone though, a few shots in the abdomen are just as good as in the chest. Well done, Beth!
I don't usually save my targets, but I think I'll start so I can post a few up here and track my progress.
Until next time...

Sticks of Death

I’ve been an amateur practitioner of the art of nunchaku since I was 9. My first pair of nunchucks were made of black plastic and foam with golden dragons printed on the grips. Eventually, I got tired of the wussy foam covers, so I unsheathed the hollow, plastic handles from their wimpy, foam prisons. In doing so, I had transformed my unthreatening marshmallow grips into terrifying sticks of death. I destroyed everything in sight. No tree or pole was safe from the maniacal swinging of my death sticks. Until, of course, I broke them on the corner of the shed in the backyard. Defeated and depressed, I was forced to grow up a nunchuckless boy, whose dreams of battlefield valor had been dashed on the hard, plywood corners of reality. I swore then and there that I would never again be suckered into buying a cheap, kiddie-version of Bruce Lee’s baddest weapon!
Fast forward to 1998: Marc Tolentino, one of my roommates my freshman year of college at PCC. He had no qualms about bringing contraband on campus and into our dorm room. Illegal CDs, DVDs, hotpots, and…oh yes…nunchucks! No visitor to our room was safe from the occasional wayward swing of those trusty nunchucks. Kevin Kelley spent many an evening crouched in the corner due to a low swing of the chucks by his own hand. Scott and Michael would occasionally come over and Michael would grace us with a demonstration which we would all immediately attempt to imitate. Amazingly, by the end of the year, most of us could use them decently without dropping them on our bare feet or whacking the inside of our elbows. We were grand masters!
Recently, I’ve procured a pair of hardwood nunchucks which I occasionally swing around for old times’ sake. I’m pretty rusty so I’m usually not swinging them nearly as fast as I used to. Last night, however, I got a little cocky and was going a little faster than I ought to. It wasn’t long before I cracked my elbow and dropped them on the floor, barely missing my bare toes. Clutching my elbow, it was all I could do to keep myself from throwing those nunchucks out the window! As I sat there in my pain and self-loathing, I’m ashamed to say that a nice new pair of golden dragon marshmallow sticks started to sound pretty good.
No offense, Bruce, but I’m only half-asian, so cut me some slack.

Prayer

My wife and I, along with about a dozen other church members, have recently started praying together on a weekly basis. We meet on Saturday nights at 9 at a different home each week. We started meeting about 5 weeks ago in response to a great need of one of my friends. I think we all regret, to some degree, the fact that it took such dire circumstances to commit ourselves to group prayer outside of church; however, I am sure that we are all glad that we are now bound in this manner, and we are thankful, albeit solemnly, for those circumstances which have joined us together.
In the short time that we’ve been attending our humble prayer group, Beth and I have learned much about prayer, and our faith increases as we see the Lord move as a direct result of our prayers. On a weekly basis we claim the promises of Matthew 18:19-20:

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Slowly, but surely, we’ve seen the Lord working in my friend’s life. Yesterday in particular we received a huge answer to prayer on his behalf. We’ve also seen the Lord moving in our church in other situations that we’ve been praying for. Thank God for the privilege we have in going to the Lord in prayer!

The sacrifice of the wicked [is] an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright [is] his delight.