Can you hear me now... Uh, No!

Well my audio issues continue, but I seem to have found a small glimmer of hope or should I say I hear a slight peep of relief instead. I like Engadget and they have reported other Uverse users are having the same issues. They also report that Cisco set-top-boxes appear to be the answer to this problem.

The only thing is this article was back in June and I'm having the problem now. I spoke with a level 2 support and it sounds like testing in various areas is underway with the new boxes. Claims are it fixes the issue, but as to when they will be available in my area, its unknown.

Looks like I'll have to deal with what I got and I'm expecting the Support to call back after they speak with Sales on a possible credit for the current problems. I'm fine with that for now and hope that they'll get the new boxes in this area soon. I told them I would gladly test out the new boxes for them and new services in this area even. Rather nice of me to offer that, right?

A tech is expected to look at another little issue with the bedroom box locking up on us. Hopefully he'll have an easy fix for that. They did a few things outside and it seems to have crept up after that work took place.

I don't want to complain to much, a buddy of mine can't get the service at all and what really sucks is his house is the only house in his neighborhood with that problem, talk about a crazy situation.

U-ready for Fantasy Football

That's Uverse ready that is. This year I'll get to try out my Fantasy Football mangement via the TV and Uverse service. I came across this feature when I hit the Interactive Button on the remote and found stuff on Weather, Stocks, Traffic, and Sports. It was under the Sports area I noticed Fantasy Football 08.

It ties into my Yahoo Fantasy Football and all I had to do was sign up with my Uverse account. Small issue is I've used the same Yahoo ID for so long and they keep track of stats year after year, I didn't want to loose that. So I found another feature under Yahoo Fantasy for co-manager of a team.

A few clicks and I set up my other login as a co-manager now. I guess I can spend the time and blame any losses this year on my co-manager, right? Hopefully this will make things a little more enjoyable and I'll have to see how well it works or what all I can do via Uverse.

On another note, we are expecting them to swap out the HD box tomorrow. It appears that an issue with digital audio for 5.1 surround and it causes you to loose connection and drops audio when ever it wants. Not enjoyable at all, they have a newer box and think that this might fix the issue. I'll loose a few shows, but at least its just over a week and mainly kid shows.

U-verse installed today at last

Well we have the new service finally and for the most part its pretty cool. The Internet speed is not to bad and we went with the low end for now. As near as I can tell its working like it should and I didn't seem to have any issues with the Xbox 360 on Xbox Live.

Different for sure is the menu options and choices, will take a little bit of time to get use to all the new options and where things are located. I have to say it seems a high dose of Adult programming is available with the new service and in the area of VOD for sure.

Speaking of Video On Demand, its cool to see all the options and even the free stuff. I always like to get some free stuff when I can. One area is Network TV and so far it looks like CBS was the only option, to bad I'm not a CSI fan, looks like the past 10 or so episodes are available to watch. I did watch an episode of Big Brother 10, not a high quality HD picture, but cool for a stream that just started and never buffered really at all.

Audio is going to be the bad boy in this mess it seems. For what ever reason, it seems a small issue with signal unlock for 5.1 occurs from time to time. I searched around the fourms and this seems to be an on going issue. The only work around seems to be a pause an start of the show from time to time perhaps. I plan to test this more and see what I can get from Customer Service as well.

Other than the audio, its seems to be a pretty cool service so far and I'll know more as I learn all the ins and outs.

Just you and the horse, its bareback riding

Freya had her 6th lesson yesterday and while we waited for the class to get started, I heard the instructor tell them to Untack some of the horses, that they would be working on balance and riding bareback.

Freya was just checking out all the horses and I made it a point to explain to her what it meant to ride bareback. She wasn't very cool with this whole idea and really didn't want to do it.

The instructors explained that it would be fun and she would be fine. Riding this way allows you to feel how the horse is moving and allows you to work on your riding position and keeping your balance. Last weekend Freya had a habit of leaning back in the saddle and had a much harder time in class.

I wasn't sure what to expect and only hoped she would stay up on the horse. She did better than that, she rode really well the whole time. She was straight up on the horse and kept her hands where they were suppose to be. She was smiling and having a blast. She was riding bareback and doing great.

They started leading them around at first and even had them hold their arms straight out to work on their balance. Then they turned the reins over to them and had them ride around. She reminded me more and more of someone showing horses and I was really proud of her yesterday.

Looks like she's having a blast doing this and wants to continue. Looks like we are going to find a way to give her more lessons. If we keep this up, we'll need to find some second jobs to help support her new hobby and her growing love of horses.

Support continues for my wifes Journey

My wife is drawing closer and closer to the start of her journey in November. The big challenge has been working at raising money for her to walk. It looks like she'll make that easy and more an likely blow her personal goal out of the water.

Edith's sister and brother have both worked very hard to help her reach her goal as well. This past Friday was a hard day for this effort in raising money. See I brought cup cakes for sale to my work. Meredith makes really great treats and has raised a lot of money for Edith from sales at her work.

What was hard was the walk in to work for me this past Friday. The box said Cup Cakes for a Cure and as I was heading into work, a co-worker was heading out an crying. All I could say was hello to her as we passed. She had already been stopped by another co-worker and I knew something was wrong. I didn't feel I should stop her as well.

Her husband was fighting Cancer himself and not doing well. I later found out she was rushing home to try and be with him, he had taken a turn for the worse. I would later find out he had passed away from his battle with this disease. All I could think about as people stopped to buy a cupcake was me walking past her with the box of Cup Cakes.

I really wish I could have done more in that instance. I could see the pain in her eyes and I hope she could tell I wanted to say more and that I meant more. It just shows me all to well that this can strike anyone at anytime and its a very worthy cause to take on an try and fight.

My wife has always given of herself to others and she is truly a hero on this journey. I wish I could actually take this journey with her, but perhaps this is something best ventured and experienced on your own. I can't wait to here how things went and give her such a huge hug when she reaches her goal.

She's doing something great and a lot of people are behind her, but what she does is for so many many more and hopefully the support of a few will be a tremendous amount of help for all of those fighting to survive.

It takes two to HD

I've been discussing HD lately with my folks and decided I should perhaps write it down. Maybe that would help explain things a little better. The short is it takes two parts to have HD, that is pretty simple and the fact is you need parts A & B to have HD.

For examples sake, we will make the TV part A and that is an HD TV (LCD or Plasma). This is the first part you'll need for sure. Now just because you have one of these, doesn't mean you will have an HD experience now. Remember that you have to have two parts... a part B to complete the process.

Part B is the HD receiver, Blu-ray player, or Antenna pretty much, the device that takes care of the media going to your TV. Just like before, you can't have an HD experience with one of these and not have an HD TV to view it on. Once again from an earlier article; next year when analog goes away, it doesn't mean you have to go an buy an HD TV, boxes will take care of all that for your old TV.

I really can't think of a better way to explain it. Pretty much I have a HD TV right now and I use an old pair of Rabbit Ears to see local HD (over the air). Next month I'm switching my service and getting an HD receiver to send me many, many more shows that are in HD. Having the box is part B and with out an HD TV its pointless. With both parts A & B or parts H & D, I'll be set so to speak. I really can't wait to see all of the shows in HD, my antenna is working really hard.

Uverse goes all in for the win

The deed is done, DirecTV will lose us as a loyal customer as of August 16th. The new kid in town is Uverse from AT&T and they will have our eyes, ears, and minds for the time being when we start using their services.

As a last ditch effort DirecTV tried to offer us a price freeze, a free HD/Tivo box for a promise of staying another 24 months with them. To late though and they could not match the $200 cash back offer from AT&T.

The bad thing is the costs went up with DirecTV and we'll still pay the same with Uverse, but the plus side is we get the HD DVR services, the ability to record 4 shows at the same time. No cost to setup and the first month is free.

So the cycle of leaving someone and becoming a new customer starts over again. Maybe some day a company will figure out a way to give us a little cheaper price after staying with them for 3 years. Sure would be nice if they had done something like that instead of raising prices and causing us to look for something else.

I hope the service and features will be great and I think having HD will make it that much better in the long run. I'd rather not have to shop around again and I'll have to look at ways to cut costs in other areas and save money. I'll report back in August on how things are going with the new Entertainment & High Speed services U-verse has to offer.

Vote for me and I'll set you free

A few months ago I was hanging out in this chat room and talking Politics and about how I really felt that change was needed. It was some pretty good discussions and I guess one thing led to another. Now it turns out that people really liked what I thought, my ideas, and what I had to say. Then I started getting e-mails and private messages about supporting me.

I told them it would take a lot more than a few people in a chat room to make this kind of change. My name would need to get out there for people to see and that takes a lot of money. Then I got a replies back from people saying they had already printed signs and started telling people about me. I'm really not sure how this all took off so fast and now a News Station has caught wind of all this and it looks like I'll be running for President in 2008.

I'm really shocked... the month of November is going to be so very busy with me supporting my wife in her 60 mile 3-day walk, a Fall Show for APHA, and the writing of my second novel too. How can I also run an election campaign at the same time.

Turning 40 and setting a new record

So this is 40... well its not much different than any of the other birthdays really, but it did bring out the jokes from co-workers. You would have expected this at hitting 50, but I'm only 40 now. I have to say I do see the signs of getting older and will not dwell on any of that though.

Now setting a new record has nothing to do with me turning 40 and I'm not about to keep track of each birthday and claim its a new record. No, the record I'm thinking about now is in my blog posts. Today's post is actually 1 more post than all of last years posts. Its a new record for my writing.

This does not get me into some special club, but its still cool to look back and see that I'm writing a bit more. I know I have quite a bit more to post for 2008. When it comes to writing, I don't set out with an agenda or plan really, I just write what I feel at the time. I never know what the topic will be, but I try make sure to many days don't pass between blogs.

My past few posts were an insight into the APHA World Championship Paint Horse Show and what it takes to put on the show and some of the things I do for and at the show. I don't plan to repeat that next year, but I'm not going to rule out a post or two just the same from next years show.

More blogging, posting, writing or what ever you want to call it is sure to come. I have my game/techie blog to keep up with and I plan to write my 2nd novel this year in November for NaNoWriMo, which will be crazy with all the things going on during that month. So it looks like I have plenty to do and turning 40 is not going to slow me down.

We're out of here...

That's right, the show is now over and we've packed up and moved back to the Offices. It never fails to feel the same for me. I like the horse show very much, but after so many straight days in a row, the last 3 days I'm reaching a point where I'm ready for it to end.

I've missed my family so very much and I'm ready to spend lots of time with them. I did have some small windows of time with them during the show, but I'm ready to be home at a normal 5pm daily and have my weekends off too.

We still have things to do at the office, lots of things to fix and get online for everyone. So it will be next Saturday before I get a full day/weekend off. Today was only a partial work day with out move out. Monday morning I'll be in bright and early to set my PC back up and start at the list of things that need attention.

Speaking of lists, I need to make me a list of things to do around here. Its been 15 days and I'm sure I can come up with a few things that need my attention and quick. For now, I just want to sit and be with my family and do absolutely nothing. I just want to be right now.

The Final Cut

Well its the final day here at the show and its been a long process, now it all comes down to the Final Awards Night & Free Style Reining this evening. I've submitted a total of 222 photos from the Open Show for consideration in this years Final Night Video. Tracy puts this together from the images he and I have shot and a few others who submitted images as well. I'll have to wait and see which images make the final cut out of mine now.

During our Youth Show I shot around 2,200 and submitted a total of 123 images from the first weeks batch. So far in the second week, I've shot over 2,800 photos and I think I'll get a few more Cutting shots in today. Now not all of the images are great and useable, but I think you have to shoot a lot to get the good photos. I'm always looking for what I feel is that perfect shot and it’s a great feeling when you see something and feel you have something meaningful.

After the show is over, I'll go through all of my images and weed out those I think are really bad and then I'll provide what is left to Marketing for consideration in other areas of promotion. The past two years I've seen these used in our Promotional World Show Poster and I just found out that the Fort Worth Key Area Visitors Guide Book has used portions of those Posters for the June issues over the past two years. That means a lot of people traveling here have learned about our Show from these guide magazines and seen some of my work. I think that is pretty cool.

Hope you all have enjoyed reading about what I do at the APHA World Championship Paint Horse Show and what happens during the show. The Show is about to be over, but we still have a lot of work afterwards, when we get back to the Office. But for now I'm looking forward to next Saturday and just spending time with my Family, it will be nice to have a well deserved day off at last.

Happy 4th from the Show

Number 8 for me now here at the World Show, that is 8 Fourth of July's in a row that I've spent here working for APHA and away from my family. I guess in some ways APHA can be like a family though, we spend so many, many hours working together through out the year, you can't help but get a little close to your co-workers.

Just the same, the show must go on and most of the time the classes don't end in time to run out and see Fire Works. We normally have an entertainment act at least, like the Freedom Riders I photographed in 2006. If I'm lucky I can run out as soon as I hear the fireworks go off and see a little of that from the John Justin Arena.

I at least can look up if I'm lucky and think that my family is some place safe and watching Fire Works and I'll be home soon to at least to kiss them good night and catch a little rest before I go back to do it all over again. This year I'll be thinking about my family and my APHA family, those that are here with us and those that are away from us. Be safe now and everyone have a happy Fourth of July.

My favorite shot for today came while the Amateur Working Hunter Class was waiting for the results and awards to come in. I was down at the in gate and seeing what I could capture. I found this pair passing the time together.

Its really been a long show for everyone and for exhibitors you reach a point where you've done all you can and its no longer in your hands. That is when the waiting begins for most people and in some cases you'll find friends and family or trainers waiting with you. No waiting party with this group though, but I think they looked happy on their own.

Down to the final two days starting tomorrow, Will Rogers is ready for the Cutters and we are done with Watt and the Halter classes. Saturday will be busy and crazy for the final awards night. We close out the show with Freestyle Reining and a packed house.

Working Cow Horse and Cutting Up Next

Things are progressing well for us here at the show today. We are down to only one Arena once again with all of the Halter classes ending early. Some of those classes only had a single horse, congrats... your a winner! Hopefully some of the smaller classes will start to grow. If you have 10 horses, that gives you a 1 in 10 shot at winning and you'll be a Top 10 Winner too.

Tomorrow we'll pick back up with the Open Working Cow Horse classes and then Friday the Cutters will arrive and start their portion of the show. That means we will bring Will Rogers back online with the Wireless feed to my location. Both of these events are among my favorites to watch. I still have a little more Reining to watch as well over the next few days and its looking like the rest of this week will be fairly easy hours to work.

Slide right into home

This has got to be one for the record books. I made it home by 6:30pm with plenty of day light. The show wrapped up for the day at a little after 4:00pm a record time for the past 7 shows that I've experienced.

Its really nice, but so very strange to me. World Show has always been these crazy 15 hour plus days. What is only a 10 hour Show day? A breeze if you ask me.

The show actually ended before dinner arrived on the grounds. We had to wait and eat to make sure the food was not wasted. Great dinner by the way and I was fine with waiting.

Well even though my day was short, I still got in some photo ops and had a good time. I tested out the changes on the PDA app for the show. Really nice to click and see who is in the pen and what is going on in the other arena.

Well that is all for today's show events, we are looking at the final turn and home stretch now. Only 4 more days of show left, I have one more warm-up announcers gig to go. Still need to try an grab a few more pics for the final night video, but all in all the final curtain call is about to be made.

Good Night... I mean Good Evening

What a crazy week for my 8th Paint Horse Show. Year after year the show has always gone to at least 10pm or later, but not this year. Now we are looking at early nights and the sun is still up even in most cases.

Tonight we finally had some Reigning classes take place and they were suppose to be Prelims with finals taking place tomorrow. Two of those classes took went ahead and had finals tonight. So we are already short two classes for tomorrow, as best as I know that is. Now I've seen this happen once in awhile, but not as much as with this show.

Tomorrow was already projected to be an early night and it looks like its getting even earlier as the show progresses. I'm not complaining, its just something so out of place and strange for this time of the year for me. My family is awake when I come home now. Well its only 5 days left in the 2008 show and at least its been a little bit easy for the Open portion.

Photographers Digital Assistant

So today I had this idea about a PDA app (Photographers Digital Assistant) that would allow me to see what was going on in the various arenas. The easy way to do this would be a small web based app that would work on a cell phone that has web access.

Over the past few years, I've run around the horse show snapping photos for the final night videos we put together. But in addition to this, I've been asked from time to time to take some photos here or there. The only problem is knowing what class is going on and what the order of go they are on for a particular arena. That is where I thought a cool little app could help me out.

Tracy already had some stuff like this going for the video stream and I asked if he could make a scaled down version for a mobile phone. He played with it today and its almost exactly what I was expecting, but I think its more of an issue with my phone and web pages, but it is still a lot closer to what I envisioned. I wasn't able to switch between arenas just yet... phone issue I think again.

But so far a little idea I had looks like it could really work and with the right tools (phone) to access, I can see where this and a few other things could be really handy to the mobile staff photographer out on the show grounds.

Riding tall in the Saddle

I'm still at the horse show, but today I came in late to work having decided to take Freya for her second session out of six lessons. She had a blast and her eyes lit up when she heard they were going to go ride in the park for today.

The instructors are really pleased with her and think she's a great listener. I couldn't help but notice how well she looked while riding. Year after year I watch exhibitors compete and see how they ride and I can see tiny bits of them in what Freya is learning to do and is such a short time.

I had a rather busy morning... having the digital camera with me, I figured I would snap a few shots. I had no idea I would get a small morning walk in the Park to snap a few more pics.

Well next Saturday marks the third lesson and will be the final day of the APHA World Championship Paint Horse Show. I'll miss taking her to her lesson, but I'll look forward to the following weeks and the rest of her riding lessons.

I'll also look forward to regular hours and being back with the whole family again. It's a lot of work and hard being away for so long. I know the family will be glad I'm back and Edith will enjoy a real break once again.

Early night for once, really

Wow I'm home and its nice to get here at a decent hour for a change. Tonight it was rumored that we would go until 1am. Thankfully that all changed and we ended early. Not to mention the last class of the evening was Solid-bred Paint Horse Trail and with only two exhibitors.

Could you imagine waiting until 1am for a class of only two. Here's the thing, APHA is working to help grow this area of competition for Solid-bred Paint Horses. In most cases a class has to have at least 6 to make, but all of the Solid-bred Paint Horse classes will take place no matter what it seems.

Kudos to the exhibitors for showing off the talents of their Solid-bred Paint Horses. They might not be loud and proud like most Paints, but they are still Paint horses just the same. I say they have color on the inside.

Well going to relax a bit and drift off to sleep. I'm going in late to the show and taking my daughter to her horseback riding lessons in the morning. Looking forward to seeing her for sure and the rest of the family.

Germany for the Win!

The Paint World Games were played today at the APHA World Championship Paint Horse Show and as much as I would love to see Team USA take the Gold, I'm really happy with Team Germany winning Gold this year.

I think its a great event for the Youth to take part in and to have seven countries all gathering together, to compete with Paint Horses is just plain awesome. The games were a nice way to bring an end to this years Youth show.

The awards nights took place as well and with a huge hiccup. For what ever reason the final video project was not played and an earlier version, a partial demo played on the big screen. A number of people said they thought it looked cool, if only they had seen the final video Tracy had worked hard on. Well hopefully they'll take a look on the web and see what was missed.

That's all for tonight, going to sleep in some for a change and go in late. Tomorrow is Trail Classes from John Justin and its expected to be a super long night tomorrow.