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I am sipping on a mocha right now which I paid $3.65. It’s so expensive I won’t be doing it often but it’s a nice treat. I used to get hot chocolates because I hate the taste of coffee but recently I hate some of that Kirkland Signature stuff at Nate’s and it’s bearable. A mocha is like a hot chocolate with the benefits of coffee with half the nasty taste of regular coffee. I am not sure why I hate the taste of coffee so much but here’s to getting over that.

*sip*

I have been playing a couple games recently. The first is Hearts of Iron III. This game, now that patch 1.2 is out, is quite simply awesome. I have been playing as the Italians on my commute home from work and have really enjoyed because able to replay history during World War II as a nation which I traditionally do not play. I admit I have it set to easy right now but we’ll see how it goes. My conquest of Yugoslavia has just begun!

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Okay, so maybe I am a day or two late… but the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time has been released. I am probably going to pick it up on Steam although I’d prefer disc copies. I downloaded the demo and have found an amazing installment of the series.

The learning curve is steeper then ever. The demo seems a little off base, though; it starts in 1939 and you can play one of the 4 major European powers. What’s odd is the placement of troops makes for some interesting game play. As Germany, for example, you start with the bulk of your forces on the Polish frontier and the Northern half of Alsace-Lorraine. You should, as the German player, move forces West from the Polish frontier, rearrange your forces on the Western frontier, and execute a successful campaign in Poland. All quite daunting while you are trying to to learn a brand new game. The tech tree is rich and interesting. The optional AI control, though a little retarded at times, does a good job getting you what you need.

I was up late Saturday night starting the demo several times and then a few hours Sunday until I was able to finish the demo which abruptly end, I believe, on December 31st, 1939. I bet most of my gripes will be solved if I had started in 1936. Since this is a game and developr I really enjoy, I will gladly pay the asking price of $39.99.

Helen loves to make a mess of her food. It can be fun to watch until you realize that all that spaghetti on the floor is going to require a steam cleaner and some powerful solvents. Her personality is filling in. She’ll sit there and growl in the car and laugh and smile as we growl back at her. She isn’t talking yet but she definitely understands what we’re saying to her. “Helen, go get your shoes” and she’ll come back with a shoe. “Go get your other shoe” and she’ll go get the matching shoe. Things like that.

She’s teething and another tooth has finally made its way into her jaw. Poor baby I can’t imagine (and luckily remember) the pain! Her personality is so cute and I am going to struggle not doing everything and anything my little girl wants!

Henry is funny, curious, excitable, and wonderful. He loves trains. I know, I know… where does he get that? He eats at the table and gets upset when he makes a mess. He loves to do things on his own but will ask for help if a few attempts fail. He constantly asks if eating something will make him bigger. What an opportunity to encourage healthy eating!

Henry is a good boy who is sometimes a little defiant. It’s normal at this age. Most of the time he obeys but if ever there is trouble just kneel to his level and explain the situation. He’ll understand.

I wanted to mention that the Element has been a great car when you have one kid. Two has its inconvenient moment because it only seats four. Yep, it’s a fairly large vehicle to only seat four. Anytime we want to give someone a ride or take nanna with us; we can’t (or shouldn’t). So what are we going to do now that we need five seats for our family? I am probably going to have to fix up the ol’ Mercedes. It will seat five comfortably. With gas mileage being horrible it’ll be our weekend excursion car. Now where did I set that repair manual?

Yes, you read that right. I didn’t believe it at first but it is true. Yep, we’ve done it again. Them little swimmers are potent! We’re super excited, a little scared, and looking forward to having our third child. Henry is already talking about wanting all the babies and how he wants a baby brother. It’s so awesome to have a growing family.

So, yeah. A crazy month.

I’ve finally gotten around (money wise) to replace the headlight shrouds on my car. The plastic had gotten so dinged, scratched, faded, and sun hazed that the lenses were diffusing the light rather than projecting them onto the road in front of me. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I ordered the OEM parts from AmericanMuscle.com which is an excellent site… if you own a Mustang.

I’ve done a preliminary adjustment of the beams but I need actually take the time to do it properly.

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Probably the only German auto maker whose products I’d ever consider owning by enslaving myself to a monthly payment:

I like Zzounds more with every purchase I make. They’ve got free shipping on most orders over a certain amount and they price match. I found AKG 271 MkII headphones used for recording and mixing by the pros for a much better price on Amazon from some unknown retailer. Also, I found the headphone amp for about $10 less. Anyway, Zzounds matched the prices so I didn’t have to gripe about buying it from some potentially shady seller or paying more to have piece of mind.

I’d like to be able to start recording with Crystal so this is the first part of that goal. Soon will be a new microphone (I think I’ll do the RØDE NT2-A), pop filter, and shock mount.

The music in the following video is fairly formulaic for trance but it’s a fantastic find since it, well, combines trance music and a rubber clad performer calling herself Rubberdoll. The song is Markus Schulz – Do You Dream.

Anyway, I might want to slow down with my posting! I have 2 hours a day of commuting on a train with wi-fi, whaddaya expect?!

I will hold back on the new mic until we get some tracks down. In the mean time I can use my Behringer B2-Pro. I’d rather fill out some more hard ware to get inspired by.

A quick note that if you instantiate a static class and call a member static method which writes to a member property, PHP will fail without telling you about it. It makes sense why that isn’t legal, but it sucks that it happens without any clue… so it’s a head banger of a problem to find.

class testClass
{
    private $memberProperty;

    public static function doSchtuff($stuff)
    {
        $this->memberProperty = $stuff;
        return true;
    }

    public function doSomthing($youzaCrazy) {
        return sha1($this->memberProperty.$youzaCrazy);
    }
}

In this particular problem the solution is to try and keep static and non-static functionality from inter mingling inside the same class. I know that isn’t always a possibility, but I would point to interfaces or inheritance to keep things pleasantly organized.

unfortunately, keeping these sorts of things aren’t always possible… especially when working with massive legacy piles.

Now that my head doesn’t hurt anymore…

Our lease is going to be expiring in September and we are trying to decide what to do about where we’re living. We’ve looked all around the Sound and prices are best at the ends of a manageable commute. More than an hour and fifteen and I start getting grumpier than usual. On Sunday we took a drive down Ruston Way past the old copper smelter and checked out some nice houses. Holy crap are things expensive. Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of housing bubble burst?

So the idea of staying here has set in. The rent is reasonable (for the area) and if we stick it through we can put a good sized down payment on a nice house somewhere where we want to live soon. My mom and dad offered me their house but I wasn’t sure what that meant and I felt awkward asking. Anyway, I figure in four years time we will be in a place where we can buy a house. That is a long time. I’ll be in my mid thirties. If we do the usual and do a 30-year mortgage, I’ll be 65 when it gets paid off. If houses appreciate over that sort of time span at what, 8%, will it be worth owning a home just to eventually die? I am saving up to die comfortably?

This last week was a tad stressful but fun, interesting, and challenging so I really enjoyed myself taking on a couple caps at work. I was somewhat of a “release manager” and played a minor lead role working with my team to finish and deploy a major rework of large sections of our website. I take no credit in terms of what was accomplished but it was an honor to be able to help steer and help maintain sanity. In the end we did not get to push out our work until today (fingers crossed) but that’s ok. We’d rather push something that’s solid.

I’m considering getting a small laptop at Costco. Something like an Acer with a 10 or 11″ monitor. I’m lugging around my 17″ and although it’s nice for screen size it’s very heavy. I’m very reluctant to spend the money. Once I get to a place where money has been tight for as long as it’s been anything I’ve saved up is extremely hard to spend.

Oh, and we’re looking at fixing the old Mercedes. We want something that seats more but don’t want to get stuck in another car loan. I figure the big car will be our Sunday or weekend car and during the week Crystal can keep driving the Element. Now I just need to figure out how to increase gas mileage from 9 MPG.

Dear President Obama,

Please deposit $1,000,000 into every tax paying citizen’s account. That’s about 140 million folks. That’s $140,000,000,000,000 dollars. Why not? I mean, at the rate we’re spending money and bailing everyone out, what possible harm could come of that? At this point it’s all just play money anyway. Like anyone is going/able to make Uncle Sam pay anyone back.

Sincerely,

Citizen 986-45-2984