Unprepared

This past weekend I helped a friend move from her apartment into a house. In preperation for helping with the move, I got temporarily removed all the items from the back of my truck. This included some miscellaneous items along with my shovel and my snow scraper/brush. So, I'm about to venture out to my truck for lunch and will have to use my gloves (which aren't my good winter gloves) to clear off my windows. Guess I will have to put those items back in my truck when I get home!

RSS Feed for a screensaver

Recently I read about the ability for some screensavers to pull the images in from a RSS feed. This intrigued me since I like this sort of thing. The Macintosh OS comes with a screensaver that already has the ability to use a Photo RSS Feed. For the PC, there weren't as many options. The best option that I saw was using Google's Photo Screensaver (part of Google Pack) which supports RSS Photo Feeds along with files on your local PC. Being the Google Fan that I am, I had to give it a try.

For those confused as to what on earth I am talking about, this allows you to pull images off of a website instead of off your PC for use in your screensaver. As images are added to the website, they are automatically added to the screensaver without you having to do anything.

Well, I figured since I had a website that had wallpapers on it, there isn't really a better spot to get the wallpapers than from my own website. After a small amount of coding, I have created a page that allows you to generate a Feed URL that you can put into your screensaver so that it will pull the images from the feed. Basically you specify the size of images you would like to use and specify if you want the Christian Wallpapers, Scenic Wallpapers, or a mixture of both. The URL will be updated automatically for you to use in your screensaver. If you are savy and would like to try this, let me know what you think by adding a comment.

BTW - There are photos on the site from Ella Jean, the Kane's (just added today), and myself. Widescreen and full screen formats are both supported.

Blizzard of '66

I am not one who particularly enjoys cold weather. However, I would love to experience a true Blizzard. By blizzard, I do not refer to a foot of snow. I am referring to getting a minimum of 2+ feet of snow in one falling...preferably 3 or more feet. Take the Blizzard of '66 for example, which had over 5 feet of snow in a couple days time. I know it would cause a lot of inconvenience and could be deadly to some, but I would love to be able to experience that much snow at one time (plus you would definitely get some days off of work).

Look at these photos (taken from syracuse.com) and tell me you couldn't have some fun in that much snow. Is this something you would like to experience at some point in your life or would you rather do without it?

Sleeping in the other room

So yesterday I was talking with Spring Anderson Kane about Camp Forest Springs and how I got to run a chainsaw last year for about 8 hours. I had a lot of fun sawing all the logs and getting to know Tom and Paul at the same time. I must have been dreaming about it last night though as my wife claims I was sawing a few logs in my sleep. ;)

Yes, I have been fighting off a cold. It hasn't hit me too hard yet (just a cough and runny nose) but I can't wait till this congestion goes away so I can breath properly again (and not keep Wanda awake at night).

It's Friday!

I am so glad it is Friday. I am hoping to get to sleep by 10 or 10:30 at the latest tonight. I am sleeping through my alarm in the morning (which was a very rare occurance in the past) and really don't want to get out of bed. Going to bed after 11:30 and getting up at 5:30 just doesn't seem to be working for me.

I am looking forward to a relaxing evening tonight, hopefully getting to watch some Lost with Wanda. I will be going to church around 12 tomorrow to start setting up for the Video Game time with the guys. Not sure what I will be doing tomorrow night or the rest of the weekend aside from Church on Sunday.

Meme - All about Me

Since Jen tagged me for this so I figured I would comply and do it myself.

10 Years Ago:
This isn't fair...I am feeling old now. 10 Years ago I was in my sophomore year of college. By this time I would have been dating my lovely wife via a long distance relationship from the cities to Alexandria (2 hours away). I would go home to my parents house near Alexandria almost every weekend and I would spend time with Wanda while I was there. I was probably working in as a Computer TA in the computer lab at NWC by then and was also working as a waiter for Bon Appetite. Computers are something I like so I really enjoyed that job. Being a waiter was fun as well as we got to do a lot of weddings. I got to do a lot of hours and that never bothered me much as a college student. I remember when I started working there my freshman year, I worked 3 different events in one day (I believe I worked for almost 16 hours that day).

By this time I would of had my own truck, a black Chevy Blazer. My freshman year I roomed with my brother and his best friend, Bryan. Bryan became a RA the next year and since one of the benefits of being a RA is only having one roommate, that meant I was sent packing. I didn't have a lot of real close friends so I just told them to put me in a room with someone. Much to my surprise, they put me in with 2 seniors, Eric and Andy. Now these aren't just two normal seniors. Andy was quite the rambuncious guy...who had way too much energy. Here are some items I remember about the days in our room:

• Andy is laying on the bottom bunk and Eric is on the top bunk. Andy would lay there and kick the bottom of the top bunk and went so far as to unhinge the top bunk from the frame. This was a regular occurrence.
• I was laying in my bed trying to get to sleep. Next thing you know, Andy gets up, pulls the mattress off the top bunk (with Eric on it) down to the floor and then grabs my mattress and pulls it to the floor as well!

Yeah...never a dull moment in that room...but I had a lot of fun and they were great roommates. I don't know what happened to Andy, but I still talk with Eric every few weeks (see my To Do list below as I am having lunch with him today).

Things on my To-Do List Today:

• Go to work (check)
• Get the shocks replaced and oil changed on my truck (in the shop now)
• Meet Eric A for lunch
• Prepare for the Xpedition class on Sunday (print out any papers I need such as handouts, etc)
• Participate in a MOA scavenger hunt
• Pay off one bill and re-allocate the payments from that bill to another bill.
• Pay the mortgage

Three (or 4) of my Bad Habits:

1. Biting my finger nails
2. Eating fast food
3. Not taking the dog on more walks (aka being lazy)
4. Clicking the right stick on the xbox controller when I really don't want to...thus resulting in me doing something I don't want to do and often ending up in my getting killed in the game.

If I Suddenly Became a Billionaire:
The first thing you are supposed to do is give God his share (lets just say 10%). How do you go about giving out 100 Million dollars. Seriously...how do you do that? I'm sure I would give decent amounts to many of the missionaries I know as well as a decent amount to my local church. But what do you do with the other $999,500,000?

While you are pondering that question, I would first off pay off my house and and student loans. I would definitely plan on investing a good chunk of the money after that. I would also likely get a newer truck (although not brand new) and also upgrade Wanda's car. We would likely get a newer house that is a bit bigger (so I can have more friends over at the same time) and has a yard for the dog. I would hope that I would not change too terribly much in regards to who I am as a person.

One thing that I definitely would do is take my wife all over the world (after investing in Dramamine). I would love to visit New Zealand again and wouldn't mind visiting Europe at some time in my life.

Now that I am down to $999,000,000 I am a little stumped as to what I would do with the rest of it.

5 Jobs I've Had:

1. Basketball Referee - In High School I refereed youth basketball games (the parents are the worst people there). This was in Indonesia.
2. Mail Room Staff Person - Processed incoming mail into people's mail boxes at NWC
3. Waiter - Bon Appetite at NWC
4. Computer Lab Assistant - Helped people figure out problems with the computers at NWC
5. Computer Programmer - Web Developer at 3 different companies

5 Things People Don't Know About Me:

1. I can't stand the taste of alcohol (of if so a very small dose mixed in with a flavored drink). This includes Beer, Wine, and champagne. I'm assuming I would not like the hard liquor since I can't stand the lighter stuff.
2. I shot my brother in the knee with a BB gun. FYI - It was a very weak BB gun and no harm was done.
3. I was on the Varsity Softball and Basketball teams in high school and one of the captains of the Softball team my senior year.
4. A dog came to our doorstep in Texas and after trying to find the owner we kept him. We named him Tex. He could not swim properly as his front feet would come out of the water resulting in splashes instead of a smooth dog paddle.
5. I didn't get my drivers license till I was 18 and I never took drivers ed. I failed my test the first time due to faults only with my left turns. To this day I disagree with the guys assessment as the pedestrian wasn't even at the corner so I feel that I did not do anything wrong on that turn. The fact that I turned into the middle lane of a one way road was a valid issue though (yes, I was going the right way, just not supposed to turn into the middle lane). I went back the next day and completed the test just fine.

With that being said, I will tag Matt C.

A fun weekend

So far, this weekend has been a lot of fun. Read my previous post about how the weekend started.

Today we got to go to a beautiful wedding of my good friends Jason and Spring Kane. YEAH...I can finally call them the Kane's :). On top of the great wedding, I got to spend more time with Wanda and my friends. After the wedding, Wanda and I went to the mall with our good movie going friend, Michelle. We walked around the mall and did some shopping as we had a couple hours to burn before the movie started. It was fun talking with Michelle during these couple of hours. Finally we went to the theatre and watched Fools Gold. As usual, we had fun and then finally came home about 9 hours after we left for the wedding. Keep in mind I was wore my entire suit the whole time we were out. I felt a little out of place in the mall, but I still had fun.

Tomorrow, I get to go to church and then have a potluck with our ABF class. I don't know what we have planned for tomorrow night, but we may have someone over for dinner. All in all, it is somewhat of a busy (yet not exhausting) weekend which has turned out quite well so far.

Birthday Suprise

I had a wonderful suprise tonight when my wife and 29 of my wonderful friends showed up at Tony Roma's to celebrate my birthday with me. I am so blessed to have such good friends and I thank you all for being there. A big thank you goes out to my wife and those who helped her plan it. I can't think of a much better way to spend my birthday than with all of you! I had a great time! And no...I am not 30 yet!