People say the car you drive says a lot about you. I say the video games you play does as well. For example playing angry birds says you have a mean streak. You like knocking people down, either that or you have a thing for pigs. The Starwars version says you have a   need to choke people by brain power! Grand theft auto says you have a need for a better car or you lose your keys a lot. If you are like me and play age of empires you have a Napoleon complex, all thou I would say that I only really get to play it about twice a year so my complex is under control! Other games really don’t live up to the level of life changing so they say you have an inferiority complex. Really none of this makes any sense, and I have no knowledge of what it says about you? Well maybe, if you like pretty, pretty pony I might worry. For the most part they are all the same killers of time and brain cells. I suggest reading a book instead. Well for you, I’m gonna go shoot some zombies!

I have to ask all the woman I know if they see all these chick flicks the same way I do? They seem to be the same movie over and over again. Girl and guy meet, guy is handsome but a jerk. Girl can’t stand him. Forgot to mention girl has boy friend or is engaged. Girl bumps into guy doing good thing which surprises her and makes her take second look at guy. Forgot to mention it also has to have scene of guy with shirt off. Girl realizes she is falling for guy. Girl sees something she thinks is guy being jerk again, but later realizes or is told that wasn’t what she saw, so love is back on and they kiss. Of course they are not all set in New England but more than half are, and most involve boats or a teacher. I am paraphrasing of course but it seems they all follow the same pattern. I don’t get how woman watch these without seeing it is the same story. Maybe it is like war movies to guys. We know the war ends with the good guy winning, but we like all the action leading up to the big explosion at the end!

Three months ago I was supposed to take care of something. It doesn’t really matter what is was, but I have tried to keep track of it. I have downloaded apps to track it. I have put it on the three different calendars programs, on two different computers and on at least two cloud based solutions. Yet I still keep forgetting to get it done. It’s like the trash ever Thursday. I just do my best to forget it according to some, but it is some sort of mental block. Could it be because others, who I will not mention, really don’t want me to forget so I do the opposite. I can’t be that silly can I? I don’t do on purpose I promise. Is it male selective memory? I doubt it. Lets face it, it is just that I am supposed to get it done and everything else I do to avoid it, is really just my way of saying I will get it done. Tomorrow!

When I was a kid I had a canteen. You remember them? It was a round thing that looked like it was army surplus with fur on the outside. It had a strap and you could sling it over your shoulder. Who knows what it was made of, probably tin or galvanized metal. I’m sure at some point they figured out that it was dumping something bad into us so they no longer sold those. Then they went to steel. Like our lunch box thermos without the glass inside. I had a few growing up but seemed to always break the glass inside. Then it went to aluminum, but that was bad for some reason so they switched to plastic. Then, you guessed it. That was bad for us as well. Now we have different plastics with free this or that and no that or this, and I recently see more aluminum back in the mix. The stack of water bottles I shouldn’t use is growing and probably filling up the land fills. I can’t keep it straight. I am wasting more energy figuring out what is safe than I am gaining by not using them. I figure if I wait long enough, I will probably find out that old canteen was actually better than all of them. But by then they will figure out how to make me buy a new one for three times the price.

This is always the question? You have a computer, it is working ok. Something new comes out, should you upgrade? I get asked this by customers all the time. Some people it is a tax thing, that makes sense. Why let the government have it if you can write it off? Some people it is a technology envy thing. I want to always have the latest and greatest so I will upgrade. I get that some what since I love tech as well. then there is the bulk of users who have no idea if they should or shouldn’t get something new, or even worse switch from one platform to another! I usually ask these people a few questions before I give them an answer.

1. Is your computer not doing something you need it to do? A lot of times I find out that they should have asked me to fix something a month ago, instead they have limped along with the computer not working right. If your computer is broken, just get it fixed don’t replace it!

2. Is the computer or server in some cases, not able to handle the work? sometimes it is just adding hardware or reconfiguring services, but sometimes it is time to get a newer one. Moore’s Law may be true for you.

3. Do you have the stomach to handle the change? At some point you won’t be able to still get your work done. That is when you have to change if you wait too long you will have to upgrade everything. Software, hardware, possibly printers and other devices. If you work on a every four-year cycle of change, you can manage when you replace things instead of it being dictated by outside forces. Then again if just want to rip off the band-aid no one is stopping you!

I love coffee! It is not a like. A like is my new shoes or my (new to me) 1990 Jeep Cherokee.  I like these things, I spend time keeping the running and looking good. Coffee on the other hand is how I start my day. Nothing in it, just black and strong. Not any of the name brands, just grind up some french roast and brew it up! I can drink four or five cups before lunch and a few after and feel great. I can even drink a cup before bed and not be affected at all. I every so often get a Mocha but it is very rare. I also don’t drink it in a small cup, sixteen ounces or better at a time is just about right. A good day is when I can sit down with a cup and a laptop and wander the internet or work on one of the websites I am now building. In the evening I have a cup of green tea, and I like it, but it is no coffee! at this point I figure I should probably cut back on the intake but don’t want to. I don’t like the headaches or the other side effects and I really like drinking it. So like the speech from “Lord of the Rings”maybe someday, but it is not this day!

Since I started at my new company I have had to carry two phones around with me. The company doesn’t want me to use my phone for work so I carry my iPhone and an Android phone. I have always heard the fights between the different users and always figured it was just preferences. Some like one over the other or others just hate Apple and will use anything else. After a month of using both I have to say, I don’t get the Android fans. Maybe it is just my phone or the carrier but most calls that I make get dropped and finding things on this phone is a pain. I will be looking for something or just pick it up and it reboots. Yesterday I unplugged it from the charger and it froze the screen until I rebooted it. Yes I am a fan boy! but it just works. I have not had these issues with my iPhone. I did have some issues with my 5 when I first got it but they replaced my phone. Maybe I need to do the same thing with this one but it will still not be as intuitive as my iPhone. I would love to know if others have the same issues?

I would personally thank the person in front of me in the white Ford Explorer for the drive to work today. Thank you that you ventured out despite having nowhere to be at any given time. The other ten cars behind you who needed to get to work on time and who left with enough time to do so, also thank you. I find your confidence to go twenty miles below the speed limit and never to pull over commendable. I would never have the will power to continue to help the rest of us be safe drivers and ignore the gestures of those who passed me like you did. I am sure that by the time we all got to the wider road with extra lanes  the heat on the back of your neck from the lasers beams eyes shot at you were warming. Perhaps tomorrow you could wait a bit before leaving your house say, 9:30 am. I’m sure the rest of us will be all coffee filled and safe in our chairs by then.

Spring, it is a magical thing. Winter is good, snow and cold can be a time to close everyone in and sit by the fire or read good books while you wait for better weather. Spring is the time when we start getting restless. We start to see the opportunity to be outside and enjoy the sun. In Colorado it can fool you as well. Yesterday while walking in Garden of the Gods park I got a little sun then I got a blizzard in my face. By the time we got to house it was back to sunshine. Life is kind of like spring. Every time I get comfortable warm and cozy it calls me outside, and when I am running as if I don’t have a care, it reminds me I should. I would say life is like a box of chocolates but really, these days they put what is in the box on the back so you don’t have to guess. Gods plan always amazes me and leaves me scratching my head. Just when I think I understand, something happens that I just don’t get. I heard someone put this in a term that I could comprehend. They said if life was predictable and steady there would be no need for faith. Some see the un-understandable and see it as a reason not to believe in God. I see it and it makes me fall to my knees in reverence.

I have always thought that diet sodas are a scam. They claim they have zero calories but with all the chemicals it takes to get zero out of it, I feel it has to be bad for me. The problem is what to drink other than diet soda? You have water, good for you, naturally zero calories and probably the best thing for you. The problem with water is, well, its water. After eight glasses a day for a year you want something else. Coffee is good, not zero, but when you want something cold you have to put a lot of sugar and milk in it to drink it cold. Flavored water either has very little flavor or very little water. Some of those you might as well just drink the above mentioned soda. The only thing left is ice tea. Now for my friends from the south. When I say tea, I mean taking a tea bag putting it in hot water or in a jar out on the porch and letting it steep for a while then serving on ice. I do not mean the dissolving of a five-pound bag of sugar into one gallon of water as the starter mix version. Sorry for the disruption in the force I just caused to my southern friends, but I did start out by mentioning the word diet.