Ahhhh.... That's Cool now

For starters, the new AC appears to be working great now. Thanks to Edith's Uncle and all of his hard work. I also learned a few things about heating and air, as I helped him out.

But the real treat was seeing all of his guitars that he's been collecting. He has an amazing collection of guitars in all shapes, sizes, and colors. He also has a large number of Amps & Stacks to go along with the collection.

So I decided to ask him if he had a piggy back amp in his collection and he showed me one better. Like the photo shown above, only in a pack of Reds, that he produced for me to look at. This is one of the smallest looking guitar amps that I've ever laid my eyes on or touched. This little guy packs a wallop and all off of one small 9 volt battery.

One of the plugs is for the guitar... now get this, the other one will power a regular speaker. That's right, the little 9 volt will give out enough power to a bigger speaker for your listening pleasure.

To top off my day, I was introduced to a friend of his and saw a very nice home recording studio. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday all in all, oh did I mention that he fixed my AC too? What a treat on so many levels.

Too Hot!

So this summer has been nice and one of the wettest summers ever. Thankfully that has helped keep things cool for the most part. It's also kept me from riding on two though. Nothing ever stays the same though.

So I'm sitting at work and I get the call from my wife, "The Air Condition is not working!" Like I said, nothing ever stays the same, no AC and the rains have slacked off and now its getting hot. Its sad when you can actually step outside and its cooler. Its sad when you actually think about setting up the tent in the backyard and camping to stay cooler.

If all goes well, we should have some AC back by mid day on Saturday, I call that phase 2 of 4 phases. Today phase 1 was launched as a Co-worker has lent me his window unit. The replacement on Saturday will be next and later will be phase 3 with the replacement inside and out of new equipment. Phase 4 will be all new duct work and new insulation blown inside. Getting to phase 2 by Saturday is going to be a strong goal.

It's funny how in the winter, I can go with out heat and will pile on as much clothing or build a fire and use all sorts of blankets. Its not the same in the Summer, you just can't beat the Texas heat at times.

Harry Potter mania hits...

This Weekend kicks off Harry Potter mania, with the release of the final book 7 in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as its released at right at midnight on July 21st to all the true fans.

My wife got me hooked on these stories and as its been with the past books, she'll pick it up right at midnight and crack right into as soon as she makes it home. We'll see her around the house this weekend, but she'll be absorbed by the subject matter and all of the magic that we've grown to love.

I can read the book after her, but I can't bring myself to read it in a day. I'm picking up my copy, on loan from the library and can start sometime on Saturday and if needed, pick up her copy and return mine to the library.

That brings me to a funny situation today. I logged in at the library to see where I stood in the waiting list and couldn't find it on my list of requested books. Panic of a sorts sits in... not sure why, I'm sure I could pick up my wife's copy on Sunday or at least by Monday. Still I need to find out what's going on here and where the title went.

I call the library and give them my ID number. That's when I hear, "Uh, Oh!, please hold on..." Now I don't like the sound of this at all. So he comes back and tells me how they some how deleted all of the listings for this title and are working on restoring the list. They think they'll have it all back by tonight.

I'm not worried, like I said, I could have our copy by Monday, but still the thought and panic. What will they do if they don't get the list restored? I'm sure they'll fix it, I asked him if he could tell me how many copies they should have and he told me they should have a total of 63. Great, if my memory is correct, I'm number 58 on the list and I should pick up a copy Saturday evening before they close. As long as they get the list figured out. Only if they had a time turner, they could fix this problem real quick and slap the silly person, that hit delete of this very important list.

Can you hear me now?

Well I've made a switch and picked up some new toys. No I didn't go ultra-uber, with an expensive PDA style phone. I just couldn't bring myself to shelling out that kind of money for a cell phone, digital assistant, and Internet access.

Fact is I have Internet access just about everywhere I go and I can handle being with out it for short spurts. I don't have to surf the web on a tiny little hand held device.

So I wanted a basic phone and a good one. Wow how much they've improved over the past 4 years. So when he tried to talk me into one with a built in Mp3 player, I said, "nope, just a basic phone please."

I did want Bluetooth as an option though and it came with a camera. I've got plenty of choices for Cameras, but I suppose its nice to have a small digital one for basic things. Back to the Bluetooth thing, I had fun getting that all hooked up and going for sure. Success at last and now I'm apart of the crazy bunch now. You know the ones you see walking around an babbling freely to thin air. I'll be one of the guys with something stuck in the side of his head and his hands free now. "Can you hear me now? No not you.... I'm on the phone... see?"

Reining & More Raining

Howdy all! If your reading this, you're seeing my number 100th post. I've really enjoyed posting stuff and I know for some of my many fans, the spell of tech dribble was a bit boring I guess. So I'm sorry if that was the case, but for those of you missing that, you can visit my gamer/tech blog to keep up on the latest in that realm. Now on with the show.

World Show comes to a close
Wow, the end is in site. That's right, I'm about to wrap up the whirl wind 15 days of 15 plus hours of streaming, web updates, and taking pictures at the 2007 APHA World Championship Paint Horse Show. This marks my 8th show and the wettest show I've ever had.

So my theme is Reining or Raining for the most part. I would think one of my best Reining shots ever has to be the one your seeing to your left. One of my favorite events at the show, where the exhibitor rides a set pattern that includes sliding stops, a real crowd favorite.

This was the last run for the night in the Junior Reining class and both the rider and horse where on their game for the night and walked away with the win for the 2007 Junior Reining Championship. If you ever make it to a horse show, you have to check out the Reining events.


What a mess to say the least for this years show. The show takes places every year in Fort Worth, Texas and its normally a blistering 100 plus degrees out here. Last year we suffered with no Air Condition for the most part. This year we've thought about building an Ark at times. We have not had a day that it has not rained at the show. Luckily on the 4th of July it was a tiny one hour shower for the most part. The rain makes it a challenge to get show horses and riders from barn to arena and some can't use the tunnel and have to sprint for it at times.


The one thing for certain, is we wrap up the show on Saturday evening with Freestyle reining a real crowd favorite, where they do patterns, only set to music and with costumes. You can check out the live broadcast from the shows web site and get a better idea.

The thing I don't know about is when this rain will stop. It's been great for my yard to say the least. At the start of the year it looked bad and I thought it would be a mess, but with all the rain, its as green as ever. I do miss riding my motorcycle and I'm looking forward to some clear dry days. I'm also looking forward to get back to a normal schedule and seeing the family again. Thanks for reading and sharing in on my 100th post.

That's a wrap on Script Frenzy

Well I made it to the end finally. What a blast this has been and I did have fun, as well as learn a lot about all the hard work that goes into writing a movie script.

I suppose it will have me looking at movies in a whole other light now and that could be a good or bad thing. The main thing was the exercise in being creative and sticking with a goal.

One of the key things I learned about this process was to write daily. In some ways its like feeding your characters and keeping them alive. The hardest thing you can do is let them sit so to speak. So writing 667 words a day for 30 days was an easy goal to keep. I just made sure to set aside my time each day and write.

Can this project be made into a film? Not at this stage at all. Its really rough and was more of a learning step on writing scenes, building characters, and creating a story line from start to end. The whole point was to be creative and just write... let it all come out from the heart so to speak.

Rewrites come next in a project like this. You should have a very rough beginning, middle, and end for the movie and now you can go back and polish and make it flow better. I plan on letting it sit and will open it back up later and see what I think. The strange part now is not writing, after sitting aside time every night to write.

I'm happy I made it to the end and stuck with it and I hope to do this again next year and think I'll be ahead of the game now. So wish me luck on my next project. I have a 50,000 word novel to write in November for the NaNoWriMo Contest.