Mar
31

Friday Feast Eighty-Seven

Time for another Friday Feast!

Appetizer
Name 3 things that you think are strange.

Platypus: Is it a beaver in a duck costume?

The Lizard Man: Individualism taken to the next level.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows: Did you ever notice? I guess it was the fashion during the time.

Soup
What was the last ceremony you attended?

Fish’s funeral.

Salad
What is one lesson you have learned in the past year?

I have learned that I am not as good of a listener as I thought it was. I am working on correcting that about me.

Main Course
Tell us about one of your childhood memories.

Sadly enough I don’t have a lot of childhood memories, the good part is that most of the ones I do remember are pretty vivid. My Dad let me hold the handle bars to the motorcycle since I was really young, probably 5. The first time I rode a motorcycle on my own I was around 8. That year my Dad brought a little Moped home from work during his lunch break, it was one of his coworkers. My dad let me ride the moped around our street I almost crashed it, but I ended up just getting scared. That is my first time ever riding a motor vehicle on my own.

Dessert
If you could extend any of the four seasons to be twice as long as normal, which season would you want to lengthen?

Spring for sure. I can do without winter! love pretty much all the other seasons but Spring is my favorite. It is the first season I really experienced when I moved to the US. I had never really experienced seasons before.

Mar
30

The Praying Mantis

I had always been amazed by the Praying Mantis.  For an insect it seemed to be very graceful and had human like movements at times.  I am a discovery Channel fan and used to watch Nova as a kid.  I always loved nature shows.

I had also seen the Mantis as a pet, and always wondered how cool it would be to have one some day.  I had not see one up close until I moved to the US.  Since moving here I have seen 3 or 4 up close.  They are beautiful insects.

There are plenty of Kung Fu styles to choose from, and even though I did not seek the Mantis style, I was lucky enough to find it.  The Mantis style is both graceful and powerful.  It controls the energy in a way that you are not wasting any of it.  I am not even close to beginning to think that I am learning the style.  I am barely scratching the surface.  Every class I attend I am more and more in love with the Mantis.

Going back to being amazed at the insect, do you think that a Mantis can actually take down a bird?  We are used to seeing birds eat insects and not the other way around.  I just wanted to share this link, mind you the pictures can be graphic, but it is amazing what this insect can do.

Mar
29

Road Rage

I just had to share this story. I was driving into work this morning, the sun is shinning, the weather is breaking and with plenty of time to make it into work I am just cruising along. I get to a light where I need to turn left, but there is a line of cars coming from the opposite direction. Most people, and even me at times, start to inch forward into the intersection but since the line of cars was kind of long I kind of just waited. I checked my rear view mirror and I see a guy, red faced and yelling obscenities. (I could read his lips pretty clearly, come to think of it I think he might have wanted me to).

In retrospective, a couple of times in the line of cars I had an chance to maybe turn, but I would had to have pretty much burned rubber to get through the intersection. My car is capable of the take-off for sure, but I saw no need. I would not think that someone would get so enraged just because I did not inch forward, but it is possible.

The guy begins to get closer and closer to my bumper, not sure if he wanted to actually make me hear him. At this point I am a little concerned because the veins in his forehead look like they are going to burst. Finally, the line of cars clears the intersection and I turn. The car proceeds to tailgate me. At this point I am a little amused. While this guy might think that he can do bodily harm to me, I know better thank to engage in such a display of immaturity. I rode along at the speed limit and did not even tap on my breaks.

The next light was green so I rode through, and the road at that point becomes two lanes. The driveway to the parking lot for work is just about a block from that intersection. I figured this guy, who must be in a hurry, would just pass me while flipping me the bird. To my surprise this does not happen and the guy seems to be calming down. I slow down and take the turn into the parking lot. Then I realize what is happening. This guy works at my company, we are pulling into the same parking lot, and while I park I see him just stare straight ahead and drive further into the parking lot. I just had to smile.

Mar
28

So your Mom has e-mail now

I guess I should start with the disclaimer that my Mom actually does have e-mail but she is an anomaly on my theory. She actually user her e-mail in a very conservative fashion and everything that she has sent me is actually worth reading. That said; this post is about the jungle that it is the Internet.

We all have experienced a new person in our social group getting e-mail. The first thing that happens is that you start getting every single old joke that circulated the internet for the past couple of years. The next thing is funny pictures, surprisingly enough, the more conservative you thought the person was, the more crude the pictures you will get from them. Then you get the, lets get rich by forwarding this e-mail, which has the added bonus for us computer folks of, could you write a program that send tons of e-mails so we can rich faster. Last but not least is the tearjerker, where they only ask you for a prayer for that sick little boy or girl.

I truly wish that the e-mail could be used as a method to find children, but I think that the amber alert system is the best way to go. I am not trying to say that word of mouth is not powerful, but that the Internet is not the best place to get information. What did Logtar just say? (I love speaking in third person, but I don’t do it often because several people in my close circle will make fun of me for doing what I just did). You heard that right; I don’t think the Internet is the best place to get information. Why? You might as, well because along with valuable information, there is tons of misinformation. The Internet only becomes a good resource when you have learned to sort through all the information. That is a huge task on itself.

I do however have a solution for that new member of your family that just got e-mail or Internet access. Snopes is a place that will thankfully shut the case on a lot of the Internet hoaxes out there. This however is only a first line of defense, and we need to learn a lot more about what the Internet offers before we take the information as true. The Internet is about 90% opinion, and like 23% of statistics this one made up. I can say pretty much anything and claim it is a fact, and if I put fancy figures around it people can believe it is actual data. Someone might say that corporate websites have actual information, but think about it, they have a marketing department.

Believe it or not, one of the best places for information is the wikipedia. Not because it claims to be all knowing and factual, but quite the opposite. It is a site that is kept by contributors and the validity or neutrality of any topic can be put up to debate. I am not saying do not use the Internet as a source for your information, I am just saying be careful as to what you believe. At least the Internet has some level of truth; the news media is in my eyes the worst place to get your information from.

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Mar
27

DMV SS DOT WTF

Work has been crazy lately. Today I figured that with the extra time I could run a little errand at the Secretary of State to get my new plate and title.

I always expect it to be a bad experience when I go into a DMV. People just seem to have an overall bad attitude in that place. I don’t understand it really, while they do have tons of people to tend to, it should not be that hard to smile and be helpful. My first problem is that you are always going to have to pay them for something, why is it a sin to ask them questions about the fees?

After waiting for my number to come up I slowly walked up to the counter. I had been sitting close to someone that smoked a little too much, I don’t mind the smell all that much but this guy must have smoked in his car with the window up or something. So half nauseated and numb from the torture device like chair I still manage to smile. I say hello, I need to get a new plate and title, also here is my insurance. After comparing VINS the lady just asks for my Drivers License. I was already on the process of pulling it out. So far so good, but then I made the huge mistake of asking a question.

How much will it be for a vanity plate? She acted annoyed and said it will be like 30 dollars. Mind you I was looking for an exact figure, she said it on a tone of you couldn’t afford it. I was shocked, since I had already looked online and knew it was only 8 bucks more. At this point I decided to just go ahead and get the next plate available since I wanted to just get it done and over with. So I just let the whole vanity plate thing go. I asked if there was a chance to look at a couple of the plates and see if I might like one of the numbers. While I realize that this is somewhat of an extra request, they have done it for me before. She gets a little upset and said, “we cannot do that, it will be out of order.”

At this point I could have just started to argue with her, but I just let it go and said, Ok that’s fine. Now I was getting annoyed because she was not being very helpful, but I figured oh well. While all of her attitude up to this point was understandable in some level, what happened next really started to change my attitude. Thank God for my patience. I she did not explain any of the fees to me, just handed me a piece of paper and told me to check the info for accuracy and sign. So I asked, is the plate fee prorated? And she proceeded to tell me that what my total was. Again I asked the same question and she ignored me and told me again, your fee Mr. Guzman is whatever. I just went ahead and paid because I had no time to go into further detail with the lady and I just wanted to get back to work, but believe me, if I had the time I would have had a long discussion with her.

I am not sure why so many people that work with the public have such negative attitudes. If you really do not like working with people, then go do something else. Why is it that I need to be made to feel like I am annoyance instead of a paying customer? Why can people just eagerly answer my questions until I am satisfied? Am I just too hard to please? Am I way out of line here?

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