Taylor Guitar

My son bought a Taylor Guitar yesterday.
Solid top beautiful instrument - inconceivably rich sound.
He has learned to play quite well on my wife's guitar (Tanara - basically unknown brand)... but wanted to OWN his own.
He told me it was the most he had ever spent - I knew that already.
It's not the money aspent ($250) that impressed me, but the fact that he had saved diligently and learned to play while he was saving.

Good character - sure wasn't my character when I was 13.
I bought him a case, some replacement strings and some picks.
I figure I will promote any quality character my kids display.

Hang in there kids.. it's a tough world.

Bathroom Camping

Someone is currently camping in the bathroom on our floor.

It's common knowledge that in a multi-story building when you have to do 'business' you always use the floor directly above or below yours... but never your own floor.
So I stepped up to the next level only to find someone has sprayed industrial strength disinfectant into the 6x6 room.
It's an acid fog that burns your eyes as you peek periodically to make sure you are still aimed at the urinal.
Sorry for the details.
Toilet room etiquette is a time honored tradition... some learn slower than others.
The sign still says 'occupied' on our toilet room door.
Camper.
:)

Gouda Cheese

I found a block of Gouda in the Cheese/Luncheon Meat drawer in the frig.
It looked to be a a few months old based on the dark yellow crusty shell and the red waxy edge falling off.
Can Gouda ever go bad?
I mean.. it smells like a butt when you buy it and it smells like a butt when you eat it.. so how do you know?
Sniffing only works for some products.
**
I cut off the majority of the crusties and got down to what appeared to be 'virgin' gouda.
I covered my sandwich with about a 1/4" layer and then finished the Dagwood Sandwich off with the typical stuff.
Well... I ate it a lunch yesterday.
I spend an hour or so in the bathroom last night!
**

--[gory details cut for your protection]--
**
Gouda does go bad... and it lets you know with a vengeance... and it still smells like a butt.
:p

Urinal Candy Bowl

Listen.
I can't stand it any longer so I will blog it and get it off my chest.

There is a candy bowl on our secretary's desk.
Her desk is the first desk you come to once you leave the restroom.
I see guys walking past there and grabbing candy and I have decided that I don't like candy any longer!

Almost no explanation is needed.. but I rant on...

Often when I visit the restroom the sink is DRY... I don't know about you, but a dry sink means one of two things... either the person dried the sink after they washed their hands or... heaven forbid.... didn't wash their hands.

Listen... DON'T PUT A CANDY BOWL ANYWHERE NEAR A URINAL.
:p

Tick Tick Tick

I was on the phone with my dad last night and I kept hearing a 'beep'.
It was exactly every 5 seconds through the entire conversation.
It sounded like some sort of medical beep... you know, the kind you hear in the hospital.
I asked him about it and he said he could hear it also.
I asked him if it could be his phone battery running out... or anything of the like.
Then it hit me...
"DAD", I said.
"When was the last time you had the battery on your pace maker checked?"
He laughed and said that it was doing fine... The 10 year old battery was supposed to conk out after 7 years and had been checked only 2 weeks earlier.
I was skeptical and told him to go get it checked!!!
The beeping sounded like a warning alarm like it was about to cut off... just like my cell phone!
:)

Push ups

I did a hundred pushups with my sons 2 days ago and still can't lift my arms over my head without pain!
The biggest pain is that I used to be able to bang out any number of pushups and recover quickly... I guess all the miles are catching up with me.
Always remember - It's not the years... it's the MILES.

Dog Obedience School

Our dog Skipper has a dominance problem.
I have taken the time to help him see where he stands in the 'pecking order' in our home - the bottom.
Even my littlest tiniest 2 year old can take food out of his mouth and he's obedient and gentle with her.
But when NEW people come over... he has to challenge them in attempt to place them BELOW him on the order.
Akita mix - typical.
Skipper bit a good friend of ours in the face - well NIPPED rather than bit... but it was out of line all the same and he is currently attending dog obedience school.
I am in hopes of driving this natural desire to dominate out of him... but am skeptical... since it didn't work for me.
:)

Booleans Nightmare

DON'T waste your time making polygons and extruding them...
Boolean add-subtract-intersect.
I built an entire 3D model in AutoDesk ADT 3.3 using this technique and though it looks pretty nice... and is accurate.... all the parts are separate. Thousands of separate little boxes!

My boss asked me to change a few things - simple things like move a few windows - and it took me days.
Here's the rub.
If I had used ADT walls and windows... I could have made the changes in a second (fractions of a second with a fresh cup of coffee). But because I used extruded solids, I had to modify every single rectangle/box that connected to the windows (brick, precast, soldier course, recessed panels, sills, headers, etc.)
Don't do it.
Build your models with true ADT elements and then add MASS MODELING only as appropriate.
Appropriate in this case would be a fancy trellis or a custom light fixture.

Follow this link to Chris Yancher's blog (Between the Walls).
It's a great video on the ease of use of ADT 2004/5 for mass modeling.

Frozen Cameras

Note to Self:
When working in Autodesk VIZ 2005 (great 3d program for rendering architectural models), don't put cameras on a frozen layer!
Some days I am quicker to realize my mistakes... Yesterday was not one of those days.
I wasn't watching which layer I was on (my first mistake), which incidentally happened to be frozen.
I was attempting to add a camera to the scene and for some reason... It disappeared as soon as I placed it.
Weird.
And by sheer instinct, instead of looking for a reason... I quickly clicked all over the nearby vicinity and added 14 or so more cameras... All of which were disappearing as I inserted them (actually they never appeared at all).
They didn't show up in the list of pickable/editable items, yet I could switch the active view to them!
It was downright crazy... I had never seen anything like it.
Beau Turner - alias 'VIZ gooroo' .... Listened patiently to my dilemma and then casually looks over my shoulder and says, "perhaps they're on a frozen layer".
I dismissed this immediately.. No one in their right mine would try to place items into the project without first checking their active layer...
... Dang.
He was right.
:)