Interview and Contest on Geek Like Me
http://www.ageeklikeme.com/
Head on over to Geek Like Me and you will find the first interview in the Picking Your Brain series where I interview local author Alex Bledsoe. You will also find the information on our first contest in that interview where we will be giving away two signed copies of Alex's first book. Contest ends July 19th, so pop over soon.

I found this article http://geekgirldiva.entertainmentearth.com/2009/06/5-tips-on-proper-geek-male-maintenance.html on Digg and I thought it was interesting. The main thing that stuck out for me was the definition of what a geek is...

"For reference, let's define what "geek" means, and for that we call upon the words of a college professor: Being a geek means possessing and being passionate about knowledge that no one cares about or considers.

No one.

So, you can see that the geek male is largely ignored throughout his natural life, even amongst his own people. There is hope because being male, geek males understand the logic of an argument even if the rest of the natural world believes the argument to be nonsense."

I found this definition to be the most accurate description of myself, as well as many of my friends, LOL!

It's me and Mandi's 13th wedding anniversary,YAY! We went out and ate sushi, now I'm a fat and happy husband.

Here is a picture of Capt. Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly. I been trying to figure out how illustrator works and decided Mal would be a fun thin to try out.

I got the awesome job!

It looks like I have 2 job prospects right now. Tom Thumb has pretty much said I can have a job working in the deli. I'll be taking a large pay cut but work is work right now and in order to reach my dreams, I need to be working. The second is a job working in manufacturing, paying what I used to make. It's a small company repackaging protective film. I actually applied for this job and didn't get it the first time. I think I didn't get it because I was currently working and the company thought they should give it to someone who unemployed. Anyway, the company called me this morning and asked if I was still available. Now all I have to do is get my car out of the shop (I got the a/c replaced, $1800 *ouch*), so I can go to my interview. Wish me luck!

Ok, as of today I'm still unemployed. I all of this week filling out applications and trying to talk to managers about getting an interview. As of this moment I've not been to successful.I'm as of right now, sitting in my bathrobe drinking coffee, thinking a lot about my future plans. I know that I will need to get a new job of some sort to advance my financial plans, as well as to cost flow my new business. I will write more later but for now I've gotta go to work (aka looking for a job).

I caught this bad boy on Saturday, at my mother in law's new house. It's the largest fish I've ever caught. Even though I love to eat fish I don't eat catfish, so I threw it back to catch another day. I know that there are at least 3 or 4 of these big boys in the pond, so hopefully next time I'll catch bigger one.

Hello, LJ friends, I know I don’t write nearly enough nowadays. Really, what do I have to write about? I’m still working in industrial sales, I’ve sold a little bit but I’m still learning (which means lots of stupid mistakes).
Family is doing great and we’ve been able to finally save some money into our emergency fund. The trade off to all this scrimping and saving is that we really haven’t done much. I missed all the comic book goodness of “Free Comic Book Day”. This is sad because Mark, my best friend, owns a comic shop. I did get with Mark later in the day with our families in tow to see “Wolverine” and eat dinner together. This is the first time we’ve gone out with friends in a few months. In hindsight I realized this is partly where all our money went before we got smart. The dinner and movie cost us around $100 by the time it was all done. I hope Mark can wait another 4 months to do something with us because that blew our budget big time, lol.
My little puppy Chewie is doing awesome! He still thinks I’m the coolest guy in the world. I wish he’d go outside to do his business more, but with all the rain we’ve been getting, I guess Chewie has decided the living room is the most comfortable place to go. Thank goodness for hardwood floors and easy clean up. Little dogs are awesome for the fact they only make a little mess. I can’t imagine having a Labrador to clean up after.
Mark gave me a disk of episodes of the Big Bang Theory TV show. Watching these shows make me realize where I went wrong with GLM. It’s made me think about a total revamp and re launch of the comic. I’d need to get a new scanner if I wanted to do this as I’d want to draw all the comics out this time. New characters would be introduced and current characters would be re imagined. It’d be like Ultimate GLM, LOL! What do y’all think about something like that?

Here are some pictures of our new Yorkie, Chewie.

Yep, I'm a crazy dog person. Mandi and I got another Yorkie puppy, his name is Chewbacca and he can't stand to be without me.



Also Beatles Rockband is causing me to geek out!

Hey everyone, I'm finally getting over this crummy cold. I have a horrible week just dealing with work and being sick. The only blower that I've repaired at the shop has failed twice. We had to buy a new blower to send to the customer, so they could get their production back up. This means we lost a lot of money on this particular job and my boss wasn't happy. Later that week my boss told me he talked to his old mentor that day. My boss's mentor told him that the amount of repairable blowers are quite low and not to let our hunger of getting work make us make bad decisions. In retrospect I shouldn't of even tried to repair this blower. The blower was walking the fine line of not being cost effective to rebuild. I let my hunger to finally rebuild a blower in the shop cloud my judgment. Next time I get a blower to inspect I won't make the same mistake.

On Friday I had to go to a company to do a service call on a vacuum pump. The first time I did this a few months ago, the maintenance man practically yelled at me and called me incompetent. So, I wasn't in very good spirits driving down. Since that time I've done some more training and did a ton of research that morning before heading out. I went in to the shop and fixed the problem easily. I was surprised it worked to tell you the truth but there really isn't a lot to vacuum pumps. Needless to say the maintenance guy was happy I was able to solve his problem and this made my boss really happy. So the week started out rough but it ended on a high note.

In other news I had an old girlfriend from high school contact me on Facebook, it was really cool. I love to see how my old friends have grown up,married, and had kids. I've had quite a lot of old friends contact me this way and I really enjoy it. The old GF told me that in retrospect I was her rock at a tough point in her life. She had recently moved to the small town that I lived in and had broken up with her long time boyfriend. I remember that I always felt like the rebound guy and was always compared with her ex. In the end I broke up with her because I just wanted to date other people (I was only 17 after all). I heard later on from another guys she dated that she really hated me. This made me sad because I felt we ended on good term. So, to find out years later that she doesn't hate me and instead thinks fondly of the time we shared makes me feel good. She is now married to a great guy with 2 children and 1 on th way. I had the pleasure of telling her I married Mandi, the girl I was dating 6 months after we broke up and we have a beautiful daughter. It's good to see people happy with life and I hope more people come out of the wood work.

Geek Out!

So I've been chatting with a guy on craigslist trying to buy a bamboo tablet for Mandi's birthday. Here are the actual emails...

Me: Do you still have this tablet and if so, how much?

Him: I am specifically looking for trades for phones... you have any?

Me: I've got $60 to trade.

Him: 60 and a bj from your wife/girlfriend and youve got a deal.

Me: Hmmm...Well, I'm not married and I don't have a GF but I do have a dog and she loves peanut butter. So what about 15 minutes with my dog and $60?

Is it wrong to prostitute my dog to save $10?

Mandi has always given me a hard time about how much time I spend with my virtual friends. I used to love visiting forums and writing in my LJ back in the day. Mandi would never give the poor interweb the time of day, even though I told her it was a lot of fun. Now, I haven't been the best virtual friend recently. I miss the comic but I don't think I'll be doing it anymore and that was the main catalyst for my internet usage. I no longer visit forums and I rarely blog. Strangely, Mandi can't say the same thing. Mandi has started a family blog

http://www.wedrankthekoolaid.blogspot.com/



and she's a regular contributor to the Dave Ramsey forum, WTF? How did my wife surpass me in the realm of the world wide web? Oh,It's also my birthday today... I'm 33.

Somebody


This is my friend Sarah doing my favorite Depeche Mode song.

This is the actual first customer review for "The Secret" By Rhonda Byrne found on Amazon

Please allow me to share with you how "The Secret" changed my life and in a very real and substantive way allowed me to overcome a severe crisis in my personal life. It is well known that the premise of "The Secret" is the science of attracting the things in life that you desire and need and in removing from your life those things that you don't want. Before finding this book, I knew nothing of these principles, the process of positive visualization, and had actually engaged in reckless behaviors to the point of endangering my own life and wellbeing.
At age 36, I found myself in a medium security prison serving 3-5 years for destruction of government property and public intoxication. This was stiff punishment for drunkenly defecating in a mailbox but as the judge pointed out, this was my third conviction for the exact same crime. I obviously had an alcohol problem and a deep and intense disrespect for the postal system, but even more importantly I was ignoring the very fabric of our metaphysical reality and inviting destructive influences into my life.
My fourth day in prison was the first day that I was allowed in general population and while in the recreation yard I was approached by a prisoner named Marcus who calmly informed me that as a new prisoner I had been purchased by him for three packs of Winston cigarettes and 8 ounces of Pruno (prison wine). Marcus elaborated further that I could expect to be [...] raped by him on a daily basis and that I had pretty eyes.
Needless to say, I was deeply shocked that my life had sunk to this level. Although I've never been homophobic I was discovering that I was very rape phobic and dismayed by my overall personal street value of roughly $15. I returned to my cell and sat very quietly, searching myself for answers on how I could improve my life and distance myself from harmful outside influences. At that point, in what I consider to be a miraculous moment, my cell mate Jim Norton informed me that he knew about the Marcus situation and that he had something that could solve my problems. He handed me a copy of "The Secret". Normally I wouldn't have turned to a self help book to resolve such a severe and immediate threat but I literally didn't have any other available alternatives. I immediately opened the book and began to read.
The first few chapters deal with the essence of something called the "Law of Attraction" in which a primal universal force is available to us and can be harnessed for the betterment of our lives. The theoretical nature of the first few chapters wasn't exactly putting me at peace. In fact, I had never meditated and had great difficulty with closing out the chaotic noises of the prison and visualizing the positive changes that I so dearly needed. It was when I reached Chapter 6 "The Secret to Relationships" that I realized how this book could help me distance myself from Marcus and his negative intentions. Starting with chapter six there was a cavity carved into the book and in that cavity was a prison shiv. This particular shiv was a toothbrush with a handle that had been repeatedly melted and ground into a razor sharp point.
The next day in the exercise yard I carried "The Secret" with me and when Marcus approached me I opened the book and stabbed him in the neck. The next eight weeks in solitary confinement provided ample time to practice positive visualization and the 16 hours per day of absolute darkness actually made visualization about the only thing that I actually could do. I'm not sure that everybody's life will be changed in such a dramatic way by this book but I'm very thankful to have found it and will continue to recommend it heartily.

The Good:
My friends from way out in Albuquerque called on New years day and asked if they could stay with us for a few days. This was great because we haven't seen them in 2 years.

The Bad:
My desktop's mother board went out.

The Ugly:
I had to spend money on a new computer, so I blew the budget.

It's not all bad. I got a really good deal on a new computer. It was just built and had XP pro, 3 gigs of memory, and a decent video card. Then just to be a nice guy the seller loaded the Adobe CS3 Master Suite. I was able to save enough money that I didn't have to go off the budget too much. We've paid off our $4500 Visa bill as a Christmas present, and should be able to pay $3500 on our car come January 15th. After that we owe about $3000 on the car. We plan to be debt free except the house by March. Woot!

I hope everyone is having a great year!