Avatar is Definitely a Must See

First the bad, yes, this is the evil human empire against an indigenous people. That's where the similarities end with other movies like Fern Gully, X-Terra, Dances with Wolves. When you boil the movie down to it's most basic parts, it's that kind of story. The problem with those aforementioned movies is they are pandering and preachy. They do it so much in those movies they make you want to puke. Cameron does none of those things. The way he tells the story is actually good. It doesn't pander or be preachy. When you look beyond the premise of the story, you realize it's not only the evil cowboys vs the good Indians. I can understand why people draw conclusion when the Na'vi are so Indian like. It's about corporate greed. The lengths corporations will go to make a buck. Though they go to extremes in this movie, but then the movie wouldn't be as exciting if they didn't make it so epic. I draw parallels with some of our own very real evil empires. The RIAA is a prime example. The RIAA will go to any length to squash the little man for downloading and sharing music. They also go to extremes, case in point the recent ruling against a file sharer for $1.92 million. That ruling was against someone who will never have the means to pay back that fine in his lifetime.

Taking the story at face value, and how well Cameron executed it, makes it a good story. The story could have been better with better dialog. It's not a great story, and it's evident that the story takes a back seat to the action, exploration and understanding of the world of Pandora.

The most important aspect the film, is the film itself. The visuals, for lack of a better phrase, breath taking. The film is truly groundbreaking. I'm not talking about the True 3D experience. I'm talking about the entirely cg world Cameron and countless effects studios have put into this movie. It's clear that Cameron borrowed a great deal he had learned doing documentaries on plant and animal life. He uses it such a way, along with the visuals makes the world real in the minds eye. Weta, which was the lead effects studio on the movie, really pushed the limits of what can be done with motion and facial capturing technology. Never has body and facial movement looks so real in all cg characters. I was floored with what they did with Gollum in Lord of the Rings. They set the bar with that movie, and with Avatar, they didn't just raise the bar. They flung it into space.

With most movies, especially with my artistic eye, I usually find those moments where I say "Holy shit that's some bad CG". It's usually so glaring it instantly removes me from the world the director is trying to bring me into. I found none of that in this movie. The CG is flawless, and appears to real and life like. This brings me to the True3D experience. It is indeed an experience. One you have never before seen in your life to this day. Those that have seen the movie in 3D know exactly what I'm saying. The CG world and story already does a great job bringing you into the world of Pandora. The True3D and glasses quite literally holds you there. While watching the movie, I found myself engulfed in the setting. On until the movie ended, was I even aware of the crowd of people around me. The depth, distance all seem real. You can even see the distance between windshields and the person piloting the cool looking aircraft. Liquids in tanks, show their volume in depth. The visuals on the computer consoles, look truly interactive, literally wrap around the actor/actress. So much so that you can almost feel like reaching out and touching the screen they are using.

This movie, is in my opinion the most ground breaking and innovative movie ever released. Sadly the story isn't as ground breaking, but it's still a good story that at least helps you along the visual journey. I highly recommend anyone who loves scifi and/or fantasy films.Taking the story at face value, and how well Cameron executed it, makes it a good story. The story could have been better with better dialog. It's not a great story, and it's evident that the story takes a back seat to the action, exploration and understanding of the world of Pandora. The most important aspect the film, is the film itself. The visuals, for lack of a better phrase, breath taking. The film is truely groundbreaking. I'm not talking about the True 3D experience. I'm talking about the entirely cg world Cameron and countless effects studios have put into this movie. It's clear that Cameron borrowed a great deal he had learned doing documentaries on plant and animal life. He uses it such a way, along with the visuals makes the world real in the minds eye. Weta, which was the lead effects studio on the movie, really pushed the limits of what can be done with motion and facial capturing technology. Never has body and facial movement looks so real in all cg characters. I was floored with what they did with Gollum in Lord of the Rings. They set the bar with that movie, and with Avatar, they didn't just raise the bar. They flung it into space.

With most movies, especially with my artistic eye, I usually find those moments where I say "Holy shit that's some bad CG". It's usually so glaring it instantly removes me from the world the director is trying to bring me into. I found none of that in this movie. The CG is flawless, and appears to real and life like. This brings me to the True3D experience. It is indeed an experience. One you have never before seen in your life to this day. Those that have seen the movie in 3D know exactly what I'm saying. The CG world and story already does a great job bringing you into the world of Pandora. The True3D and glasses quite literally holds you there. While watching the movie, I found myself engulfed in the setting. On until the movie ended, was I even aware of the crowd of people around me. The depth, distance all seem real. You can even see the distance between windshields and the person piloting the cool looking aircraft. Liquids in tanks, show their volume in depth. The visuals on the computer consoles, look truly interactive, literally wrap around the actor/actress. So much so that you can almost feel like reaching out and touching the screen they are using.

This movie, is in my opinion the most ground breaking and innovative movie ever released. Sadly the story isn't as ground breaking, but it's still a good story that at least helps you along the visual journey. I highly recommend anyone who loves scifi and/or fantasy films.

Finale

The concert is over and I must say I am impressed! Amazing show, the original composer was there and jammed with the rest of the symphany. The only problem is the in game footage from the other games haven't really stood the test of time. Especially on such a huge screen. Overall I am so impressed that I hope to see them again. Now if only there were a concert series for Blizzard games.

Good night all, time for me to get my drink on. :)

Sent from Android

Intermission

We just hit intermission and wow what a show its been so far. They have played a lot of music from my favorite final fantasy games. Vii, viii and x.

Oddly though I'm dressed better than most, I feel under dressed at a symphany.  anyway, after the last half we'll be heading back to the hotel to probably do some drinking and munching :)

Sent from Android

Distant World

So we're in Chicago this weekend for Distant Worlds the Music of Final Fantasy. Sadly not lot of people are dressed up as Final Fantasy Characters. With the weather being so cold its not suprising.

The hotel we're staying as is down right amazing, hd tv, free internet, hdmi/vga hooking your laptop up to a 42 inch tv, kick ass view from the windows, and amazing glass showers. I know major run on but I'm excited to to be here. ;)

I'll post more as the night goes on. The show is about to start.
Wish you all could be here.

-grex
Sent from Android

Taking Christ out of Christmas

I'll admit, I'm a pretty jaded kind of guy. Nothing bothers me the most than Christmas. I have absolutely nothing against Christmas really, it's the way everyone goes about celebrating it. What bothers me about it, is it's only a celebration of SHOPPING, and BUYING, and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. Political correctness?  Shopping and buying? I'm sure some of you are thinking I've gone mad. Honestly I've been nuts for a long time. Just hear me out. 

Christmas and it's sole purpose was to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It's not the literal birth date of Jesus, but is the designated date that we all celebrate. In history, it has also become a time of gift giving and family gatherings. Nonetheless it is a Christian based holiday. 

Sadly, Christmas has lost it's meaning to the masses. It now spending spending spending. Money, money, money. Christmas sales everywhere, Christmas in July sales, Christmas summer sales, it's all enough to make a person sick! In my town, Christmas started to be celebrated commercially the day after Halloween!! Not even Thanksgiving yet and Christmas trees, and decorations are being put up. Not to celebrate Christmas but to remind people YOU NEED TO SHOP. Subconsciously they tell you Christmas has arrived and you need to SHOP NOW! Never mind the fact that in the pre-holiday season, prices jump so when the holiday season does arrive they lower the prices back to normal so they can say CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY SALE! People fall for it every year. "look at this great deal!, I remember when this was $20 more back in August!" failing to remember that the same items was really cheaper this past May, June or July. We're all suckers, we fall for it every time and not even realize it.

On the religious side of things, we have now become so "politically correct" that the Christian faiths are discouraged from celebrating the birth of Jesus publicly. All due to fear of offending other faiths, religions or those with lack there of. I just heard on the news this morning that somewhere someone tried to read a passage out of the Christian Bible in public, in celebration of a Christian holiday, and was stopped from doing so because it was ILLEGAL and NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT. This is a Christian holiday for crying out loud! Let the man celebrate his faith with others who share the same things. I'm not a Christian, I am atheist, though I may not agree or believe like others do, they should have the right to their religious beliefs, and to celebrate it how they see fit. For me if I don't like it, I can go home , not participate or change the channel. It is CHRISTmas after all, a Christian holiday, let them celebrate it and their faith.

The last thing that bothers me most about Christmas is it's used as an excuse to spend time with family and friends. This makes me sick most of all. Why do we need an excuse to spend time with family and friends and to give gifts. Shouldn't we do this anyway all year round? Our time on this Earth is short, and we need one day a year to make sure we show appreciation and love to our friends and family? Screw political correctness, shopping sales, and what not. Love and appreciate your friends and family all year round, don't just wait until Christmas or any other holiday to do it. Put some thought in your gifts and really make it count all the time. It will mean something, it will mean more when you do. 

EPIC FAIL

I had an interesting lunch today and today another asshole got his EPIC FAIL award. I was on my way to Computer Deli to pick up some stuff, and pulled onto I-72 toward Veterans. I'm not even doing the speed limit yet, and I'm passing some cars to get in preparation to merge into the left lane. The right lane is closed ahead due to construction. The last car I pass, a really nice Jaguar, decides to gun it in and cut me off preventing me from getting into the lane ahead of him. Now, I'm in no way shape or form racing anyone in my little 4 banger Hyundai, let alone a nice Jaguar like this. Maybe if I was in my old Camero, I'd be eating the road with him as a snack but I digress. Unlike him, I actually pay attention to the road. As he is passing me, he is point at me and laughing through his passenger side window. Little did he notice that the suv/mini van in front of him was slowing down. As he is laughing at me, he plows right in to the vehicle in front of him! As they pull over to the left side median, I wave at the guy as I pass by him in my little Elantra.

Good game jackass!

The Latest Weigh In

So far I've been doing pretty good on my weight loss. After the past week, I had stepped up my training a bit, but had fallen on my diet some. So Lets see the numbers. 

When I started

5/19/2009

357.4 lbs Total Weight 

157.6 lbs of Fat weight 

199.8 lbs of FFM (Fat Free Mass)

Yesterday

7/16/2009

343.2 lbs Total Weight 

123.2 Fat Weight

220.0 FFM (Fat Free Mass)

So far I have lost 14.2 lbs over all, I have lost 34.4 lbs of Fat and have gained 20.2 lbs of Muscle.

How much time I spend on backups

If this photo is any indication I spend a lot of time on backups. Each of the tapes in the big stack is 400 gbs of data. I spent the day cataloging the tapes for reissue.

Sent from Android

Offer Remote Assistance

With the launch of XP a "short" while back, Micro$oft added a nice utility called remote assistance. You can ask for help, and a person remotely can help you. Every other year I am finding myself trying to remember how to get to the "Offer Remote Assistance" feature. Why M$ would hide a feature like this is beyond me, but after some digging, I remembered where to find it, and how to setup the shortcut to use it again. After all, I do have to do "some" end user support in my chosen field. I usually create this once a year, and forget. not this time! :)

So I will have a record of this for future reference, here is how to setup the shortcut.

1. Create new shortcut ( right click -> create shortcut)

2. Copy and paste the following path

hcp://cn=microsoft%20corporation,l=redmond,s=washington,c=us/Remote Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/unsolicitedrcui.htm

3. Give the shortcut a name and your all set.

Like a Horseshoe to the Brain!

The past few weeks have been crazy! I've begun the much needed remodeling of my house. It's been a lot of hard work and is going to continue that way for some time. Kat and my sister-in-law had some fun in Florida before bring everything up from our storage unit. My dad for the very first time came up for the past week to help oversee the remodeling. Since I'm a relative noob to remodeling, I made some mistakes. My dad was able to rescue my projects and get them back on track. I couldn't have done it with out him.

An added bonus is having my nephew here with me. He's grown up so fast and the amount of help he has provided has been priceless. He has worked his ass off since getting here and I appreciate all the help he's given me. He'll be pretty suprised at the pay day I'm about to give him.

On a final note I've been jamming to the new Alice In Chains song "A Looking In View" all morning. This song rocks so hard like a horseshoe to the brain!!!

Sent from Android

Beware the Nine Ball

A nice little gem this Nine Ball is. According to Websense there have been over 40k web sites hit by a mass-compromise attacked called, none other than, Nine Ball. This compromise hits web servers that will redirect it's victims to a site that will then attempt to download trojans, viri, keyloggers oh my. 

The kicker with this new threat is the server hosting the malware (www.nine2rack.in) will scan the victim for vulnerabilities in their web browser, Adobe or Quicktime software. It finds a whole it will download a trojan along with a keylogger that most anti-virus software won't find. These trojan's are especially nasty because they are hard to detect because they are created and compiled on the fly. 

Now on the server side, people who have been lax on security, and their secure coding practices will allow their server to be compromised. Nine Ball will use SQL-Injection attacks and brute force  intrusion with stolen user names and passwords of the administrators of the website. 

So while your out surfing the intertubes be careful what your surfing.

The Weigh-in

So today my trainer wanted to go ahead and do a weigh-in. I suddenly got nervous. I wasn't expecting it so soon, as a matter of fact I was thinking it would happen Thursday. I didn't have time to prepare myself mentally for any bad news that may crop up. We did the deed and as I said in a previous post, here is the update on my quest. 

First Weigh-in 05/22/09

Weight: 357lbs

Body Fat%: 44.1%

Lean Body Mass: 199.56 lbs

Last Weigh-in 

06/04/09

Weight: 354 lbs

Body Fat%: 42.4%

Lean Body Mass: 196.43 lbs

Todays Weigh-in

06/16/09

Weight: 350 lbs

Body Fat% 39%

Lean Body Mass: 213.5 lbs

I'm kicking ass! A loss of 7lbs altogether, even after gaining muscle! My trainer couldn't be happier with those numbers. Even while I'm still struggling with my diet and keeping my schedule, my daily calorie intake % is getting better. According to my trainer I need to get my carbs and protein up. Which I have been working on but so far only gradually. 

Due to my eating so little, which is normal for me, I have supplemented my caloric intake with Ensure. This has given me a better spread between carbs, protein and fat. This week I have started a core protein supplement to increase my protein to help boost my muscle repair after workouts and nights of sleep. I purchased two supplements at GNC. First is CytoSport Muscle Milk, which I drink when I wake up in the morning, and before I go to bed on cardio nights, and then an hour before my weight training. The second is GNC Amplified Wheybolic Extreme 60 that I drink post workout.

Yesterday was the first day I have started on the new supplements I purchased at GNC and it's already made a difference in my weight training workout I had today. I had a lot more stamina that I had the last few weeks. I felt stronger, which is probably due to the fact that I gained muscle anyway. So I'm pretty happy with the results I have seen so far. Now I just need to keep it up. That's going to be the real challenge for me.  

Going Strong

So far the big life style change is starting to sink in. I'm getting a grasp of my new daily routines and I have noticed some pretty significant changes in my moods and mental alertness

I have't been as moody or brooding, and it's taking a lot less motivation to get me moving. It used to be that when I woke up in the morning it took an act of god to bet my fat ass up to get ready for work. Without the sleep study yet I'm already feeling rested when I wake up in the morning.

I'm still having issues with my diet. Missing my snacks here or there and some times just not having any time to remember to log what I ate. I need to start focusing on that.

All in all the experience has been going much better. I feel better physically and mentally. I don't spend a lot of time on scales but rather listening to my body. Just this week I noticed my clothes feeling loose on me. The shorts I bought before the St Louis Ren Faire fit perfectly then. Yesterday they are starting to feel baggy. Pants that used to be tight around the legs when I crossed them feel loose. This is obviously working now if I can just fit my food documentation and snacks into my routine I should be doing even better.

In my last weigh in I noted that I had lost muscle mass from the weight lifting. This was very discouraging. Because I'm not getting enough protein in my diet. It caused me to lose muscle.  To combat this problem I've starting some high protein suppliments from GNC. I'm hoping this will help curb the muscle loss.

This Thursday is my weigh in. I'll be posting the results as soon as I get them.

Sent from Android

Advent Knights Is Now On Steam.

Since my Xbox was stolen and returned broken. I have been getting my gaming fix on Steam lately. Playing around with the community features I created our gaming group there if any one is interested in joining let me know. This weekend if we can get the time Goroxx and myself will be attempting a co-op run through thecampaign mode in Unreal Tournament 3.

On a side note, Dungeons and Dragons Online is going free to play. The game was pretty lacking when it first came out but since then the media (ie massively) have been reporting the game has been much improved since. Soon it will be a good time to try it out.

-Grexis out

Sent from Android

Semi-conclusions

The past couple of weeks have been a very bad roller-coaster ride to say the least. Our house bring broken into not once but twice, my wife scared and on edge, the loss of property, a new puppy. It's all enough to drive a person insane.

 Yesterday at around 3:00pm David Wagonblast was arrested. Let me tell you about this piece of shit. This is the father of my step-daughters two boys. Doesn't pay child support, and certainly isn't doing anything to be apart of his son's lives. During a time when Kat and I were separated, he impregnated my step-daughter, and they moved into our house against my objections. I knew this guys of shit, but my wife being as kind as she is, took them in and tried to help them get on their feet. After a few months of seeing how much of a lazy piece of shit he was, she kicked him out, and if my memory serves me correctly, Brittany and David ended up moving in with her dad. Where he was given another chance and STILL wouldn't do anything. Around this time he got himself addicted to drug, chance after chance to do the right thing, another son later and Brittany finally getting some brains and threw him out permanently.

 On a side note, Brittany has since found herself a nice guy, and is now happily married. He has even taken to caring for those boys as if they were his own. I really applaud the guy for that and have great respect for him doing so.

 Since being thrown out, he hasn't paid any child support, and has made no effort what so ever to be in those kids lives. He has since continued down the road of drugs, losing all of his friends and family by stealing and ripping them off. Now he has violated those who had tried to help them the most, My wife and her ex-husband both. First it started last month when David shows up to Brittany's fathers house, who is also named David. Brittany's father will be named DB for the sake of this post. Asking for help and what not, DB goes into another room in the house, David snatch and grabs some things out of the living room and takes off. Strike one

 Shortly after, based on what the police have told me, he has proceeded to rip and thieve off gas stations, stores. He even managed to get himself a girlfriend, and began ripping her family off! I'll learn more about what he has been doing when I see his ass in court. Oh yes, I will be in court taunting him the whole way. For some reason the judge released him from jail on some promise to appear in court on a felony charge. Strike two.

Two weeks ago, he walks right into my house and steals my wife's favorite camera, and my debit card. Proceeds to go to Wal-mart and with my money buys, a nice Visio HD TV. He also breaks into my house a second time a week later, this time stealing my TV, all of my video games, movies, tablet pc, etc. I'm not so much upset about the loss of property, though it sucks, it's just stuff. It's the fact that this piece of shit violated the safety my wife felt about our home. In my opinion it's no different that rape. Strike Three.

 Now that he has been arrested, and confessed to everything he has done to me and my wife. My wife feels a bit easier now. Though she doesn't have the sense of safety she once had. For me the fun begins. Now I know exactly where he is, when he gets out, and what he's doing. Just because he's been arrested, doesn't mean I have closure, just because he is going to be doing time in prison, doesn't mean his punishment is over. For the violation he set upon my wife and my house he now gets to deal with a life time of misery and pain. I will see to it his son's will grow up knowing exactly what kind of piece of shit this guy really is, and they will spit and despise this man for just being alive. If I ever get my hands physically on him, I will carve a pound of flesh from is body for what he has done. He will know every time he looks in the mirror that you don't fuck with me, my wife or my friends. Real life or virtual.

 

 

*MP* They got him!!

The piece of shit that broke into my house and robbed us has been arrested! More news to follow….

Backups with a My Book drive.

A while back I purchased a 1tb external hard drive. The My Book from Western Digital was a great buy, even at Best Buy who had it on sale for a little over $60. If I had the extra money, I would have bought more! So I had to settle on one. Anyway, I forgot one thing about these external hard drives. They are always Fat32. So if I wanted to do backups I had to use Western Digitals lousy backup software instead of my own Backup Exec software. Reason being is Fat32 only supports files sizes up to 4 gb in size. If I want to have files more than 4gb on My Book, I have to convert the drive to NTFS. Which is a fairly painless operations. The only headaches I have had with Windows drive conversion is when there is an application or two accessing the drive or if there are any bit level errors. So here is how I did it.

There are three steps to this process, steps 2 and 3 are all done from the command line.

1. Verify there are no open files or programs from the drive you want to convert.

2. Run a Check disk (chkdsk /f) to verify/fix if there are any bad sectors or any issues with the drive.

3. Run Convert (convert DRIVELETTER: /fs:NTFS). This converts the drive into the file system of choice. Since I'm a windows junky, NTFS it is.

Now, I can backup to my hearts content, with the software of my choice. :)

- Draok Out

*MP* My house is broken into again!!

Can things get any fucking worse!?

Sent from Android

A Bit of Frustration

Physically I have been feeling pretty good lately. Still tired, and will probably continue to feel that way until I get my sleep study done. Regardless, I have been feeling pretty good and have noticed how I feel after I eat certain foods that I used to eat enmass. The other day, I was in a crunch for time and had to get my calorie intake up and so I stopped by The Feed Store for soup and a sandwich. I had the Wisconsin Cheese soup and hero sandwich. Needless to say I felt like crap after I ate it. The quality of food I eat definitely has an effect on how I feel. The healthier to the food, the better I feel throughout the day. This is a good thing. :)

So with all the changes I have made in my nutrition, and the exercise I have lost 5 lbs in one week. I found this out in my first weigh in last night. I was really excited until I got the bad news. 3.5 lbs of the 5 lbs I lost was MUSCLE LOSS. My excitement turned to disappointment in the blink of an eye. How the hell did I lose muscle, and not fat!? My trainer told me not to worry about the first weigh in. We will get a better picture as we get more weigh ins and we see a trend in my weight loss. Right now at a glance, it appears its my lack of calorie intake. I'm supposed to have over 4k calories per day. I'm getting no where near that right now. I'm at least getting over 2k easy every day, but my carbs and protein intake is still low. Mostly my protein, which most likely is the culprit. Well see how things go by next week's weigh in.

Last Week

To say last week was stressful, would be an understatement. I had hoped to have gotten everything ready for Dungeons and Dragons on Sunday but things didn't pan out the way I had hoped. Everything is pretty much ready with the help of Goroxx, you rock man!, I need to get my situation at home worked out.

With all the changes in my life, the fitness and nutrition changes, greatly reduced gaming time, I have changed A LOT in my life. Little did I know that my life would be changing even more drastically. Pretty much flipping my life completely upside down. Last week after my weekly D&D sessions, I went home, had a late snack, and passed out on the couch. Next thing I know, I'm being aroused from my deep sleep by Kat (My wife). She frantically tells me someone was in her room. I looked around, and everything was clear. Let me point out that I have a long history of light sleeping, and anyone who's ever been in our house knows our floors are noisy to walk on. Old hardwood floors do that. So that sort of thing has always woke me up in the past so Kat and I wrote it off as a freakish vivid dream on her part. Kat was thoroughly freaked by the whole thing, and rightly so. It was an overly realistic dream right?

Thursday morning, I noticed my bank check card, and my FitClub membership card missing. With my change in schedule, working out, etc I have been exhausted and thoughts of Kat's dream and my missing card was just coincidence. When I'm exhausted, I tend to lose things. Later that day I decided to just cancel the card, and get a new one. I couldn't shake the thought that someone may have actually came into our house and snagged those items.

Friday rolls around and Kat is still freaked about the "dream" and so am I to be honest. That afternoon I do my usually checks of my bank accounts, and find a fairly large charge on my account. Someone actually bought a $500+ item at Walmart WITH MY CARD. What Kat and I had written off as a very vivid dream could have been real. We still wasn't officially sure.

So on Saturday, we decide it's time to get another dog. Our last dog Allie, was a huge part of our family and always woke us up when someone was near the house. I guess we got used to that luxury and didn't let go of it when we should have. It hit us hard when we had to put her down last year. Our new boxer pup has already made his way into our lives and is now entrenched quite well. I also stopped off at the bank to discuss the rogue transaction on my account and come to find out the guy charged close to $800 in total. Then back at home while Kat and I are enjoying the company of our new family member, Kat goes to look for her camera. The one I bought her for her birthday and her most valued possession is now missing. Gone. No where to be found, and then the realization that someone was actually in the house officially sets in.

I haven't had much sleep due to Kat's worrying and her wigging out every time I get up to use the restroom or grabbing a drink in the middle of the night. Which is my usual routine as I don't sleep well anyway. I don't blame her a bit. I failed in my responsibility to protect her, and our home. I reassure Kat that if someone is in the house, and especially while I'm awake, god better save them, because I'll put the bastard in the morgue.

Crazy Schedule or Lack of Routine

I have heard of people who get addicted to their routine. Some actually become borderline obsessive compulsive about it and freak out when they fall off. I’m pretty sure if I had continued a few more years on the schedule that I have had for, say the last 10 years or so. I would be that bad as well. With all the changes in my life this past two weeks, I have drastically changed my routine and I am finding it very difficult to stay focused and keep track of time because of it. My attention deficit disorder is getting unreasonable, and so I’m going to have to do something about it sooner than later. I am seeing in my daily work that I am having a very hard time focusing on the task at hand, and my mind wanders something awful. This is going to start impacting my job performance.

I will say that my change in diet has actually been helping me. I don’t feel as tired all the time, I seem to have a bit more of a hop in my step and I can actually walk up the stairs to my 4^th floor office without puking up a lung now. I did change my diet drastically and really it isn’t that bad. I’m now eating four times a day, maybe a fifth depending on how many calories I had throughout the day. The food is good, and it’s giving me plenty of carbs for energy without massively overdoing it like I have in the past. The cool thing is I’m not going through ANY hunger pains.

I may have mentioned this before, but it’s clear that my calorie intake was not where it was supposed to be before I started this quest. I was in major starvation mode, not eating enough calories throughout the day, then binging during lunch and dinner. So everything that I was eating was going straight to my stomach and ass. Worse of all, is I have burned through so much muscle that everything I had gained with I was in my early twenties, is now gone. At that time I had spent an enormous amount of time sculpting my body and I blew it. Now not only do I get to start over, I have to loose all this fat too.

I’ll be weighing myself this Friday, let’s hope the math that I have learned reflects in my actual weight loss.

Photo of the Body Bugg

I meant to send this with the blog post.

Sent from Android

I've Been Bugged!

Today I got set up with my body bugg. This thing is wicked cool! Check this out..This thing monitors heart flux, accelerometer, galvanic skin response, and skin temperature. All of this data is stored in the device until I connect it to a usb port on my computer. The data gets uploaded to a website and is annalyzed to display lots of data about my physical well being. If your interested in reading more about this item check out www.bodybugg.com.

Next week I start my training classes. Just as I thought the two nights I would get stuck with are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not that I'm complaining, I knew that it would effect my raid nights if I were still playing wow. I was right lol.

It doesn't appear that my diet is going to be too tough. I'm still getting to eat the foods I like just not as much and spread out to 6 meals a day. When I first heard that my jaw dropped to the floor. "Six meals a day!? Are they on crack!?" Actually no they aren't. I'll be eating less and small portions throughout the day. I do however have to cut out the fastfood and high sodium foods. I'm eating way too much of it as it is.

Here are my current stats
Current Weight: 357 lbs
Current Body Fat: 44.1%
Current Lean Body Mass: 199.56 lbs

I'll post my goals as I work them out with the trainer. All I know right now is that I need to get below 19% body fat which I assume is around 156 lbs. I don't want to be THAT small so if I can bulk up some decent muscle mass I should look pretty good at around 180 but we'll see how things go.

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It's 5:30 AM, Saturday, and I ain't got shit to do.

I think I woke up around 5 am this morning. Tried to go back to sleep but too many depressing thoughts running through my head. Unfortunately when I get like this, it's extremely tough to shut my brain off long enough to relax and fall asleep. Time for some brain games, Portals it is. 

Templates, Permissions, and Sharepoint

I just ran into an interesting problem with SharePoint and Word Documents. This one I am not sure there is an easy solution for. If anyone knows of a better way of doing this please share. 

I was assigned the SharePoint implementation project shortly after starting my contract with DCFS. At the time, they had a shell of SharePoint setup and had a basic document library site setup already. Sean, who is our technical writer, began working with me on the logistics and how DCFS would like to see their doc library work. Having not worked with SharePoint since my Bond days, I figured I'd test this latest version out. 

I began by playing around with the existing document library site, setting it up, breaking down, and doing it all over again until I got comfortable with the latest version. We had a few documents we were playing around with on the test doc site, and decided to go ahead and create our production site and implement what we had learned. 

After we finished the production doc library site, we started moving some documents into it. Things were going pretty smoothly until a few of my co-workers started getting prompted for a user name and password. Why all of a sudden were they getting prompted for a login when they would open a document that had been posted. They hit cancel in MS Word 5 or 6 times and then the doc opens right up.  Ok... what the hell. This is setup to use integrated windows authentication. I have verified their permissions in the site, but yet they are still getting prompted for logins. 

Come to find out, the documents we had created on the test site were moved to production and revised. Those documents still pointed to the content type templates that were still pointing to the test doc library. A library other users do not have rights to access. Here is how we managed to fix it. 

Removing document templates from Word documents stored in SharePoint. 

• Check out and open the document in SharePoint, this will launch MS Word.
• In MS Word Click Tools > Templates and Add-in's
  
• In the Templates tab, delete the text in the filed under Document Template. 
  
• Then type in Normal
  
• Click OK
  
• Save your document, check in and publish.  Your all done. :)

Now the real question, and one that I forsee coming soon when it's time to move team documents from a team site into our public doc library. Not everyone will have access to the team site's library, since the doc originated at the team site, the template will also be pointing there. Most users aren't going to know the steps above. So there has to be an easy way of being able to migrate documents from one library to another and updating the template path at the same time. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a solution to this. 

PTR Fun Last Night.

Well last night I finally got to play around on the public test realm (PTR). After some rather annoying crashes related to Dalaran, I was finally able to get out and play around with some of the new features. The single most important feature I've been looking forward too, as is probably most WOW players., is Dual-Specs. In Burning Crusade, I think I spent on average of a thousand gold per week respeccing between Retribution, and Holy. This time around in WotLK is about the same, only this time I'm Protection. 

I'm am ecstatic about the removal of some of the hoops required to switch specs. Ghostcrawler's announced of requiring Lexicon's of power, and inscriptions to switch specs was just too much. In it's current form, it's nice and painless with the exception of the 1k gold required to train it. No to mention the change from requiring level 80. Now all it takes is 1k gold and level 40. :)

For right now I'm PVE Protection/PVP Retribution. I've been playing WoW since beta, and I have always wanted to enjoy PVP with my pally but I could never stomach it. Until recently, they have pretty much sucked in PVP. The unkillable army that can't kill anything. I'm hoping to see Paladins stay viable classes in pvp. Now I can do some PVP without having to take the time of dealing with talents. Then turn around to do it all over again when it's time for me to run our raids. 

There is a couple of downsides that I am going to see with the advent of dual-specs. One, we will be holding onto multiple sets of armor in our limited bag space. I'm already hurting for bagspace, even with the number of bank toons, and bank slots I have. Two, and this is the most serious, is increased ninjas of loot for offspec gear. I forsee alot of griefing going on with people grabbing loot for specs they aren't currently playing. We'll see for sure when the feature is rolled out in Patch 3.1

Good Lunch

Had a good lunch with the folks of WTI. Lots of great people there. I feel better everyday that I had made the right decision to contract out with he's guys.

On a side note, now that I have my medical bills paid off. I can now focus more on personal things. I think me and a few friends are going to The Rave in late march to see Black Label Society and Sevendust. Love that place. If your ever in Milwaukee check it out. They have an amazing venue.

-Chuck

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Lunch Meeting with WTI Staff

Well I'm scheduled to meet with WTI staff and executives today. Pretty nervous about it and hoping I make a good impression. I really like doing business with them so far and don't want to screw it up.

-Chuck

Sent from Windows Mobile