First Post from my Blackberry Curve

I'm still digging down to the bottom of this piece of tech goodness, my last phone was an LG Rumor and I wore out the cable in the slide which caused the screen to turn green. I'm with Sprint right now and to upgrade my phone, it would have cost close to 500 dollars. So I looked on Amazon and found an unlocked Blackberry Curve for 350 by one of their sellers Lux Case.

There was a small problem with my order, they were out of the Red so I opted for another color which did delay my order a bit. I finally got it turned it on and it was in spanish. With the help of an online translating tool, I soon had it spouting out english text.
For some reason I wasn't able to register the phone online so I went to a Sprint store and had it turned on and my contact information transferred.

My take after the first 48 hours? I really like the free google aps, maps work great, I have both the Myspace and Facebook aps but actually like them better going through the phones web browser but both come in handy for uploading photos and status. Sprint has a TV app that I tried out but it slowed down the entire system so I pulled it. For some reason the audible.com app doesn't run smoothly, clunky in the playing of books and slower in downloading so I deleted that too and plan on continuing to use my regular MP3 player.

I'm still working on making this second nature but as with anything, it will take a little time. My Rumor was idiot proof but slow, while this is a complicated toy that James Bond's Q would have traded his left something to own. (It also has spellcheck' bonus!)

25 Random things About Me

I did this over at Facebook, funny thing is, the two girls from question 4 are both friends over there and so are both of on question 7. Quite a few of my graduating class are members of FB, it's been a renaissance of hooking up with old buddies over there. Some interesting comments on the other side of the mirror. Anyway, this was my post.

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1.I once saved a dog from the bottom of a mine shaft.
2.Another time in a mine, I set my hand on fire using a polyester sweatshirt as a torch and got third degree burns.
3.I used to wear big nerdy glasses.
4.In sixth grade I was beat up by two girls for throwing rhino beetles on them (they might just be my friends here on facebook).
5.I never ever bought porn from Dino.
6.But I do know someone who did.
7.In 6th grade, I ran over my first girlfriends big sister in a ATV.
8.The first time I went to TJ, I got drunk, blacked out and had a stranger give me embarrassing pictures the next day.
9.I never drank that much in another country.
10.Every 6 months after #2, something combustible blew up on me, the bad luck streak last for 3 years.
11.When I was young and free climbing, I use to almost die, a lot.
12.I have an addiction to technology.
13.I own over 2000 books and don't look forward to moving them.
14.I don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up.
15.I was suspended for fighting outside of school.
16.I fell for my wife the first time I laid eyes on here and knew we were going to be married before we said one word.
17.I miss taking as many pictures as I used too and have lustful thoughts about a new camera.
18.My sister and I didn't get along till we were adults, now we talk a couple times a week.
19.I'm afraid of heights but love jumping off of cliffs.
20.Social networking is as natural as breathing for me and I'm glad technology is catching up.
21.If it's mechanical, I can probably fix it.
22.I can't roll my tongue.
23.When I was 3 I ate an entire box of Ex-Lax thinking it was chocolate and have never quite trusted chocolate since then but do like it.
24.I've had people call me from out of state to make curry for them when they visit.
25.My wife knows that makes me tick and it is sometimes very spooky.

Naval Air Station Fallon Nevada

I should be getting orders sometime this upcoming week to that area of the world. Over the last few days, I’ve been mildly distracted by research in the area and over the last day have taken to reading the local paper, the Lahontan Valley News, it has an online site with a comments section on the stories. It‘s interesting reading the local stories and seeing the comments of people who were actually involved in them. 

A little about the area. Fallon is located 60 miles east of Reno NV, has a population of 7500 in the city proper and one of the major employers of the area is NAS Fallon, home of TOPGUN since the Marines took over Miramar.

I’m going to miss the ocean, beach and beauty of southern California. I really do love the area but my wife is going to grad school in northern California and my son lives in Sacramento. I’m about to hit the 15 year mark in my career and I think it’s time to make some sacrifices for the family. It’s closer to both of them, not quite as close as the NAS Lemoore I wanted but 200 miles closer then where I’m at. Inside, there are parts of me that do miss the qualities of living in a small town and if anything, it’s not where you’re at, it’s who your with. I’m looking forward to working with a new crew.

Surgery on my Acer Aspire One

When I picked up the new computer, I noticed reading online that it said you could replace the installed 512 ram chip with a 1 gig module and since that gig module was only 12 bucks on Amazon, how could I go wrong and pressed the one click button. Then I started looking around for directions and ran into this YouTube video and cringed. And started going though the message boards. It was split 50/50 between the people who did it and the ones that were too scared to open up their machines. I was torn till the card showed up in the mail and I couldn't help myself, I'm no mouse when it comes to fixing gadgets (and my percentages for fixing them grow higher each year).

You see, you need to take off 8 screws on the bottom including 2 under the rubber feet, unclip the key board, unplug that, unplug the touch pad, then take out 7 tiny screws and pull off the top faceplate. The mother board is jammed and only held in by the shape of the body and two screws and 2 cables and the wireless card plug. When I got to this part, I discovered that my model was different, I had a regular hard drive that was actually attached to the motherboard and the edge shoved under another metal panel, so had to unplug everything and pry up a corner and pull everything sideways then up leaving the hard drive attached to the motherboard then turned the motherboard over to get to the RAM located on the bottom. RAM is RAM, I popped out the old one and slipped the new one in. Being an ex mechanic, I‘m well versed at taking things apart and putting them back together again, everything went back together smoothly and it turned right on. It took about half an hour, I don’t recommend doing it unless you‘re good with your hands and people call you geek behind your back. After putting it all back together, I’m thinking that I should have videotaped the entire process, oh well, next time.

As far as use of the Aspire goes, this thing is better then sliced bread. I’ve got used to the touchpad and between XP and Vista, XP has it for speed hands down. This boots up in under a minute, with my card, it takes around 2 minutes to get my wireless modem to configure on Vista, this, it’s about 10 seconds and XP hasn't jammed up with Facebook yet. I think Microsoft needs to come out with a patch that strips Vista the crap out of Vista. The netbook runs cool on the lap, I have a 3 cell model it lasted for 2 hours and 10 minutes playing movies, probably more if I had turned off the WiFi. It’s amazing that you can get this much tech for 350 bucks.

Google maps is a peeping Tom

I was at a friends house and google maps caught me in her front yard unloading my wifes car! I've only been there 2 or 3 times, I just wanted to show her how street view worked. Sheesh! What are the chances of that? Maybe big brother is following me around.


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Being a fan of throwing myself off of high places

I thought this video was totally cool, thanks Pop.

My first Tattoo

The night my wife flew into town, after pizza and before we went over to my uncles, we went out exploring the local area and stopped into a tattoo parlor to see some of their work. One of the designs caught my eye and after talking to the artist, Alex Ramirez of EZ-Tattoo about ideas, I put down a deposit and made an appointment for Wednesday night, 3 days hence. I might be the last person at my workplace to get a tattoo and I definitely am out of my group of peers out of high school plus married to a girl with quite a few of her own, it wasn’t a rash decision.

We came back, Alex got gear ready and suddenly with a little bit of pain, I was marked for life with the end of the dragon tail. Three hours and some change later, I had a green beast of myth on my arm that I’m very happy with. I think some in my family is a bit disappointed in me, I might be the first “Dustman” of my line to get a tattoo but at 36, I think I can make my own decisions on such matters.

More geeky tech gear

I'm sitting at home typing on a new Acer Aspire One netbook on Google Doc's, my shoulder was complaining about carrying around my behemoth of a laptop, multiple hard drives and assorted computer gear so I broke down and purchased a super small and light model. So far, the only thing that I've had trouble getting used to is the little touch pad, a setting on in it keeps on changing the zoom level of the screen as I'm surfing around, I'll have to figure out how to turn it off. I've tried Skype out with video using my Sprint wireless USB drive and it works great. I haven't had any issues with getting used to the small keys and typing unlike some of the reviewers. For a system with only a gig of RAM, it's perky and quick. I'm looking forward to being able to slip it into the small pocket of my backpack and watch entire movies without having to recharge. Enough about that, post coming up about the rest of the trip, maybe written on this computer.

All around Arizona

Collin and I drove out to Arizona on New Years Eve and welcomed the New Year in with my sisters and nephews and nieces. It was sedate and quiet, had a beer and minutes after the clocked struck, we drove over to my mom’s and crashed out. 3 days before that we had drove from Sacramento to San Diego then San Diego to Prescott. I’ve had the Fusion since August and yesterday, it turned over 11 thousand miles.

(a stop over at Glamis with Collin)
Over the next few days, we visited friends in the area, Collin finally proved that he was able to kick my butt at Halo and he did, 25 to 2, ouch, I’m totally out of practice.

We went down to Phoenix Saturday night and stayed at a Motel 6 on Scottsdale road, good things about that place, they were cheap and allowed pets. Bad things were the beds squeaked and the blankets had an odd musty smell and unless you counted my son, I had no brought along a pet.

The next morning, we went out to breakfast with my dad and Collin caught a 9:25 Southwest flight to Sacramento and a little after noon, my wife flew in. We went out to pizza with my friend Swan at Patsy Grimaldi's Pizzeria‎, thanks for lunch, the pizza was great.

Afterwards we went stopped by my dad’s house then went by the hotel and dropped off Heathers bags. That night we went to a partial family reunion at my uncle Larry’s with 15 or so of my relatives, this was the first time for some of them had met my wife. I think it went over well.

(at my Uncle Larry's house)
Afterwards we stayed the night back at the M6 and the next morning, drove up to Prescott with a brief stop at the factory stores. I had reserved a room at the Prescott Resort or Bucky’s, it’s a hotel that was built by the Sheraton in 1989 on top of a hill overlooking Prescott and taken over by the Yavapai Indians a couple years later and turned into a partial casino. I’ve wanted to get a room up there since the place was built and it seemed like a prime time. It was one of the nicest rooms Heather and I have stayed in, I wouldn’t have minded having that bed in my apartment. Beers down in the casino were a dollar and we met up with my high school buddy Larry and his wife Jennifer and turned up a few and watched the snow fall down and not stick.

(my wife never caught snow before)

(my buddies Jennifer and Larry)
On the dresser in our room, there was a letter that said we could stay another day for 50 bucks (great deal), so we brought it down and they were booked up for the rest of the week due to a religious conference and it sounded like they were taking up most of the empty rooms in the town. So I called a place where this group was unlikely to have rented a room for the next night, the Hotel St. Michael. A historic hotel located on the corner of Whisky Row, built in 1901, we got a second floor room overlooking the town square, great atmosphere and the breakfast that came with the room was excellent.

(view out our window)

(and of our window)

But before we went to the Hotel St. Michael that night, we went out for another family met up hosted again by my uncle Larry (thanks again Larry!) at the Prescott Airport, he flew in from Chandler with his wife Michele and my cousin Amy, my Aunt Lynda and Uncle Phil and daughter Diana drove up from Tucson and my cousin Jenny, her husband Elijah and daughters Emily and Jessica drove up from Phoenix to see my Grandmother Heatherbelle who is staying with my half sister Crystal. Oh and my sister Sarah and her two kids were also there. A good time was had by all, grandma has happy to see everyone and remembered the names of her kids.

(cousin Diana, uncle Larry and my sister Sarah)

(Mason is the one with he crazy face, Corbin and Emily are the ones with the cheeses on)

Made it safe to San Jose

The traffic driving up here was actually went smoothly after I expected to drive through the storm of the century and lots of accidents. It did rain but not till after I was on the Grapevine and then it wasn’t too bad. Glad I missed the big one. I suffer a fear of getting snowed in while on leave or away for the weekend. It happened to me once in the 90’s but I did make it to work on time but the dread still sticks with me. Laugh all you want, just let me enjoy my fears. Have a great weekend, I’m signing off for now and going to spend some quality time with the wife.

Holidays, it’s time to drive

I got back from 29 Palms last week and within an hour of getting in my warm home, was struck down with a cold. It was freezing out there in those non-insulated, non-heated tin shacks, in fact, I almost got snowed in on the drive home (note, it’s pretty easy to snow in a Californian), I don’t remember it ever snowing in this part of the Mojave Desert.

(here's a picture of the ride home from my cell phone)
The rain has hardly let up in the last week and in 2 days, I join the hordes of holiday travelers making their way from one place to another and I’m sure the weather is going to make the entire endeavor a nightmare for some. One of the fears I’ve developed well since I joined the military is getting trapped someplace by the weather. Now in the days of cell phones, it’s not as big of an issue as it used to be, everyone I know is in my contacts, social networking of another sort that doesn’t involve the internet.

The plan is, I’m driving up to San Jose on Christmas Eve to spend it with the brides family, pick up the son on Sunday and come back to work on Monday. Tuesday afternoon start my leave and road trip it over to Arizona with the runt and sometime during these drives, introduce him to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book on Audio and see how well that settles in his head. Sunday, he flies home to be replaced by my wife who is coming in to take over as my road tripping companion.

In all of this, I’m sure there are going to be adventures, sorry readers about the blogging dead air. My writing tends to go out the window when my head is filled with snot. 29 Palms was a good experience and I think I learned my lesson on the trip and don’t see the need to repeat it for a while.

Merry Christmas all, may there be warm hugs awaiting you at the end of your journeys from missed friends and family, I know there will be on mine.

29 Palms

I’m off in another land, another desert but this time with less internet access. I have a Sprint wireless card and Sprint seems to be the only carrier that works out here at Camp Wilson (a camp located in the middle of 29 Palms) even so, the service is really spotty. A common sight to see out here are small clumps of people that at first glance look to be smoking but when get closer and see that they’re all talking on cell phones and waving them in the air to try twisting that last little electron out of the ether. These little gatherings are hotspots that Sprint receives service even so, still not strong enough service for my broadband card. Hopefully I’ll be able to drive over to the main side of the base and log on and post this.

One thing about the Marines that doesn’t change much is Camp Wilson. It’s like going back to the 50’s, living in can shaped structures (quonset huts), cots, multiple sleeping bags in the winter and a sheet in the summer. Nights are cold and his place has never seen climate control, just layer on more clothes at night and take them off in the day. It’s difficult to dress to cover all of the bases because the wide temperature fluctuations.

Changes? The exchange is a little bit bigger and has the largest selection of beef jerky I have ever seen, in all seriousness, I think beef jerky takes up a 5th of the store. And someone thought it would be funny to have an ice cream truck drive by with music playing, I'll post pictures later. The only improvements on being here instead of Iraq is that you can drink a beer at the warriors club and in general the people out the front gate don't want to shoot you. Sleeping conditions are generally a little bit better forward, they're trying to keep us happy out there, 29 Palms was built to get us ready for whatever they could throw at us. Some things never change.

At least I’ll be home by Christmas hanging out with the lovely bride and son, for now, I’ll just try keeping my guys healthy and concentrate on making it home safely.

Mini Reunion

(I wrote this a week ago but this was the first time I've been on the internet)

One of the wonders of social networking is the ability to gather people who share a common element. Before my trip to Prescott, I had told two classmates that I would meet up with them on my next trip out and left a comment about that on Facebook. Other people from my graduating class started pinging in and so we decided it was as good excuse as any to set up a meet on the day following Thanksgiving. 8 of us gathered at a local watering hole called The Outpost Saloon. My 3 beer limit went out the window and I had to call an old friend to give me a ride home, thanks Theresa, I owe you big!

In a couple of years, our 20th is going to be coming into view. I wish we had Facebook and Myspace for the 10th, with a couple of messages back and forth, it was easy to set up this little gathering. Looking forward to testing the power social networking with the 20th. Here’s a picture of the gathering, we all had a great time.

Mario Kart Love Song

When you're trying to explain the why of playing video games to your wife, this guy does the best job I've ever seen, now if only I could carry a tune.