The title says it all. We all have them. Some of us have a few of them. What is the most wonderful moment you can remember? The moment at which you were most content and happy? The more I think of it, the more times I come up with.
For some, the most happy moment is when they get married, had their first kiss, or did something they thought was wonderful. For me, although when I got married was definitely one of the happiest moments of my life, Id say it was not my most peaceful. My wife would agree. Her nerves were on end. Unlike myself, she is very uncomfortable in front of crowds.
Anyhow, Id say there is a tie. My first was when I was 11 years old. It was a perfect day. The weather was perfect and I had spent the whole day catching frogs with my best friend Dayton. My parents weren't fighting, my sister was somewhere else (that's a good thing), and him and I had turned his driveway into a giant pinball machine. We put a bunch of obstacles all over the driveway and positioned ourselves on either side of the bottom with hockey sticks. It was actually quite creative if I do say so myself. We used a tennis ball as the pinball and our hockey sticks layed down as the flippers. We had a ton of fun. At the end of the day, I went home. My mom had made her teriyaki chicken. After we ate, the whole family sat around the TV and watched Star Trek. Yeah we were weird like that.
That was my perfect day.
Oh and my other one was the day I was married. I have only cried twice in my life. Once at the end of Monsters Inc. and the other on the day of my wedding (unless you count when I cut onions)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
How do you get along when you dont agree on anything?
Ever since my wife and I met, she was quite aware that I was a gaming addict. Despite this major time consuming flaw, she saw past it and we fell in love. Eventually we married and began our life of marital bliss.
Not long after marriage it became abundantly clear that she was not getting her fill of...me. If you have ever read the book "5 Languages of Love", you will understand what was going wrong. In short, everyone has different ways of expressing love. There are in fact 5 basic ways. Physical, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, and Gifts. At least I think those are it.
My 2 main languages are Physical Touch and Words of affirmation. This means I like hugs, kisses, sex (who doesn't), and compliments, "I love you", or "Hey good lookin." My wife on the other hand prefers Quality Time, and Words of Affirmation. While we are fortunate enough to have 1 in common, we also have 1 very uncommon one. In fact, "Quality Time" rated as one of my lowest which means that sitting on the couch with her for 4 hours was the LAST thing on my mind.
For our first year or so of marriage, it was tough. I was always on my computer, playing games, or reading. I didn't give her much attention. At least not as much as she wanted. Plenty of arguments followed over how much time I spent playing games instead of with her. In my view, I was the greatest husband ever. I constantly complimented her and told her I lvoed her. I would hug her, pinch her, and do anything on my mind to let her know how much I loved her.
The problem was that I was not speaking her love language. I was showing her affection in my way but it was hitting a wall. Over time, I have had to learn to sit on the couch with her or sometime just lay there and cuddle for hours. For me - this is very hard. My head is constantly running at mach 3 with ideas, thoughts, songs, plans, and just about anything. Sitting in one place and doing one thing for a prolonged period of time is hard for me.
To all you guys suffering from relationship issues, I STRONGLY recommend that you and your loved one read the "5 Languages of Love". It made and is still making such a huge difference in my marriage. I now spend most of my time on the computer when she is not home or at night when she is sleeping. I also learned the wonderful value of the laptop. Now I can be on the couch next to her AND on the computer with no backlash!
Not long after marriage it became abundantly clear that she was not getting her fill of...me. If you have ever read the book "5 Languages of Love", you will understand what was going wrong. In short, everyone has different ways of expressing love. There are in fact 5 basic ways. Physical, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, and Gifts. At least I think those are it.
My 2 main languages are Physical Touch and Words of affirmation. This means I like hugs, kisses, sex (who doesn't), and compliments, "I love you", or "Hey good lookin." My wife on the other hand prefers Quality Time, and Words of Affirmation. While we are fortunate enough to have 1 in common, we also have 1 very uncommon one. In fact, "Quality Time" rated as one of my lowest which means that sitting on the couch with her for 4 hours was the LAST thing on my mind.
For our first year or so of marriage, it was tough. I was always on my computer, playing games, or reading. I didn't give her much attention. At least not as much as she wanted. Plenty of arguments followed over how much time I spent playing games instead of with her. In my view, I was the greatest husband ever. I constantly complimented her and told her I lvoed her. I would hug her, pinch her, and do anything on my mind to let her know how much I loved her.
The problem was that I was not speaking her love language. I was showing her affection in my way but it was hitting a wall. Over time, I have had to learn to sit on the couch with her or sometime just lay there and cuddle for hours. For me - this is very hard. My head is constantly running at mach 3 with ideas, thoughts, songs, plans, and just about anything. Sitting in one place and doing one thing for a prolonged period of time is hard for me.
To all you guys suffering from relationship issues, I STRONGLY recommend that you and your loved one read the "5 Languages of Love". It made and is still making such a huge difference in my marriage. I now spend most of my time on the computer when she is not home or at night when she is sleeping. I also learned the wonderful value of the laptop. Now I can be on the couch next to her AND on the computer with no backlash!
The Poor Man's Car
I ask people sometimes, "at what time had you hit rock bottom financially? I mean how poor were you at your poorest?" Here is mine.
I own 2 cars. Before you start laughing at me because of my obvious financial stability (how many very poor people own 2 working cars) think of this. My first car is a Toyota Corolla 99. It is a wonderful car and has recently passed 200k miles with no end in sight. However, my Grandfather (the most wonderful grandpa in the world by the way) bought it for my wife and I at 4000 dollars as a gift to help us get on our feet after my wife's car accident.
My other car is a Geo Metro...96? It matters little because in the end it is still a Geo Metro. As all Geo owners know; THE CARS ARE GREAT ON GAS. They are amazing in fact. I have searched around the internet to find what other Metro owners have to say about their mileage and I have found some that have claimed above 60 miles per gallon. WHOA! For an American car, that is unbelievable. Personally, I get about 50mpg on my car which I have no complaints about at all.
With the economy the way it is these days and with the price of gas being so volatile, everyone is looking for a way to save money. The first place they went was to their vehicles. Last year saw a sharp drop in travel time amongst Americans due to fewer families being able to afford those long trips. Another big thing to hit the market was....THE PRIUS. BUM BUM BUMMMMMM!
Ahhh yes the Toyota Prius. The proverbial pat on one's shoulder for any car buyer. Feeling bad about the environment? Buy a Prius! Buying a Prius is to me the same as paying the church for condolences of sins back in the 1500s. You are just putting money into a pit to make yourself feel better when you are still guilty of sin. I found a good article on the environmental impact of the Prius Here. So should we get hummers? No. They are too much anyways although if anyone gives you lip on the freeway, you can jsut run them over. But I digest mmmm.
The "Ask a Mexican" car buying approach:
Keep in mind, there are 2 types of Mexicans...(actually there are more but lets keep this simple ok?). There are "homies" which are your typical gangsters/low riders/projects types and then there are the farm working types. I have ample respect for the ladder. By the way, I am not racist. Like any race, Mexicans have their bad and good. White people get white trash/rednecks, Mexicans get beaners, and asians get Hawaiians. Deal with it. Anyways, as a person who has worked around plenty of Mexican Americans and immigrants (I live in California and I am a low income worker) I have come to respect the chosen vehicles of hard working Mexican Americans.
Do this for me. Go to any field where a bunch of ....lets call them Latinos..work. Look at the cars parked next to the field. Behold a "latino car lot". Notice that there are maybe 10 vehicles and 80 latinos? This is because latinos are a industrious bunch. Instead of worrying about their pride and image like so many others, they care more for saving money. It is a commonly known joke that latinos are infamous for shoving waaay too many people in a car on the way to work. Here in CA we often see these jam packed vehicles on the drive to our own workplaces. We may joke about it but let's think. 8 latinos in a 99 Corolla (mine gets about 35mpg). Math time. A typical trip to work = 10 miles. With the price of gas today at 2.65 a gallon (in my hometown at least) at about 2/3 of a gallon to get to and from work for a day, lets multiply 2.65 by .66. That brings us to roughly 1.75. Now divide that by 8 passengers. Thats 21 cents per person per day. That comes out to 1.26 per week (based on a 6 day woorkweek for the average field worker). Who's laughing now?
I was talking about cars though wasn't I? Yes. Look at a "latino car lot" and write down the cars you see. Chances are that those are the most reliable cars on the market. In fact, they usually are older cars. Today I glanced at what I saw driving by one field. Here is what I could see.
2 Geo Metros, 2 Toyota Tacomas (reliable trucks in my opinion), 1 old Dautson Truck...I think I spelled that wrong, some old mazda pickup and others.
What does all this mean? ASK A MEXICAN. That's what it means! Swallow your pride, don't pay 300 a month on 20% car loan interest just to impress the ladies, and don't fork our 20,000+ for a car that isn't even guaranteed after 100,000 miles.
------------------------------------------------------
Oh and I should warn you. Geo Metros have about 60 horsepower so dont expect to pack 8 of your friends in one of those without using the jaws of life to get out. Hehe.
I own 2 cars. Before you start laughing at me because of my obvious financial stability (how many very poor people own 2 working cars) think of this. My first car is a Toyota Corolla 99. It is a wonderful car and has recently passed 200k miles with no end in sight. However, my Grandfather (the most wonderful grandpa in the world by the way) bought it for my wife and I at 4000 dollars as a gift to help us get on our feet after my wife's car accident.
My other car is a Geo Metro...96? It matters little because in the end it is still a Geo Metro. As all Geo owners know; THE CARS ARE GREAT ON GAS. They are amazing in fact. I have searched around the internet to find what other Metro owners have to say about their mileage and I have found some that have claimed above 60 miles per gallon. WHOA! For an American car, that is unbelievable. Personally, I get about 50mpg on my car which I have no complaints about at all.
With the economy the way it is these days and with the price of gas being so volatile, everyone is looking for a way to save money. The first place they went was to their vehicles. Last year saw a sharp drop in travel time amongst Americans due to fewer families being able to afford those long trips. Another big thing to hit the market was....THE PRIUS. BUM BUM BUMMMMMM!
Ahhh yes the Toyota Prius. The proverbial pat on one's shoulder for any car buyer. Feeling bad about the environment? Buy a Prius! Buying a Prius is to me the same as paying the church for condolences of sins back in the 1500s. You are just putting money into a pit to make yourself feel better when you are still guilty of sin. I found a good article on the environmental impact of the Prius Here. So should we get hummers? No. They are too much anyways although if anyone gives you lip on the freeway, you can jsut run them over. But I digest mmmm.
The "Ask a Mexican" car buying approach:
Keep in mind, there are 2 types of Mexicans...(actually there are more but lets keep this simple ok?). There are "homies" which are your typical gangsters/low riders/projects types and then there are the farm working types. I have ample respect for the ladder. By the way, I am not racist. Like any race, Mexicans have their bad and good. White people get white trash/rednecks, Mexicans get beaners, and asians get Hawaiians. Deal with it. Anyways, as a person who has worked around plenty of Mexican Americans and immigrants (I live in California and I am a low income worker) I have come to respect the chosen vehicles of hard working Mexican Americans.
Do this for me. Go to any field where a bunch of ....lets call them Latinos..work. Look at the cars parked next to the field. Behold a "latino car lot". Notice that there are maybe 10 vehicles and 80 latinos? This is because latinos are a industrious bunch. Instead of worrying about their pride and image like so many others, they care more for saving money. It is a commonly known joke that latinos are infamous for shoving waaay too many people in a car on the way to work. Here in CA we often see these jam packed vehicles on the drive to our own workplaces. We may joke about it but let's think. 8 latinos in a 99 Corolla (mine gets about 35mpg). Math time. A typical trip to work = 10 miles. With the price of gas today at 2.65 a gallon (in my hometown at least) at about 2/3 of a gallon to get to and from work for a day, lets multiply 2.65 by .66. That brings us to roughly 1.75. Now divide that by 8 passengers. Thats 21 cents per person per day. That comes out to 1.26 per week (based on a 6 day woorkweek for the average field worker). Who's laughing now?
I was talking about cars though wasn't I? Yes. Look at a "latino car lot" and write down the cars you see. Chances are that those are the most reliable cars on the market. In fact, they usually are older cars. Today I glanced at what I saw driving by one field. Here is what I could see.
2 Geo Metros, 2 Toyota Tacomas (reliable trucks in my opinion), 1 old Dautson Truck...I think I spelled that wrong, some old mazda pickup and others.
What does all this mean? ASK A MEXICAN. That's what it means! Swallow your pride, don't pay 300 a month on 20% car loan interest just to impress the ladies, and don't fork our 20,000+ for a car that isn't even guaranteed after 100,000 miles.
------------------------------------------------------
Oh and I should warn you. Geo Metros have about 60 horsepower so dont expect to pack 8 of your friends in one of those without using the jaws of life to get out. Hehe.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Should You Leave Your Computer On?
This is a question that has been asked over and over since computers first became a consumer commodity. As a computer repairman and maintenance person, I seem to get this question from just about every client I see. So let's get right down to it. Should we turn our computers off when not using them or is it better to keep them running? The simple answer is yes...and no.
Let me get this out of the way first. If you have an office server or use a computer in which other computers must access it at any given time, you should never turn the server off. Ok. Now that that is out of the way, here is my opinion for the other 95% of us with home computers and laptops.
Below I will list some myths and facts.
Myth: Turning the computer off will damage your hard drive over time with each power down and thus is harmful to your computer.
Answer: False. This may have been true 10+ years ago but hard drives built after the mid 90s have at least a "60,000 Power on/off Limit". Let's figure that we hop on our computer 3 times a day. 60,000/3 = 20,000 Days which divided by 365 days (1 year) = 54.79 Years. If you own your computer that long, you deserve to lose your hard drive. Get a new computer already! Even a hardcore gamer/computer user would not cut that life down below 10-20 years.
Myth: Turning the computer on costs a lot of electricity. If you keep it on, you will not have to worry about these power spikes.
Answer: FALSE! Completely and utterly false in fact. Using this logic, I suppose we should keep our cars running so as to avoid draining the battery upon turning the key? Turning a computer on may spike up to 600 watts for 1-2 seconds (depending on your power supply). The average PC uses much less when booting but as a gamer I am quoting a bit high.
Myth: Running the computer on standby or sleep mode is just the same as turning it off and saves energy.
Answer: Actually this is somewhat true but with exceptions. In sleep mode, your computer uses as little as 4 kilowatts which isn't much at all. First let's review the average power usage of your computer.
The average computer uses about 250-350 watts when running at full speed. Even when not being used, all the fans, processor, memory, LED lights, and drives (hard drive, CD/DVD drives, and others) are online. The average running PC uses over 100 watts when it is just sitting there. That's the same as running a bright 100Watt light bulb forever.
So does putting your computer on sleep mode save power? Of course it does; however it still uses some. For the more frugal or environmentally fanatical family, that 4 watts is one less bit off pollution to stop global warming (I'll comment on that myth in another blog). If you don't mind an extra few dollars a year in costs, by all means keep your computer in sleep mode when not using it. For those still reading, you may want to read a bit further before you take this path.
This leads to the final question. Why not just put the computer on standby/sleep mode? Well, the more experienced users (and by experienced I mean those who have pulled the most hair out) will tell you that there is nothing healthier for a slow system than a good ol restart. Unlike your hardware, software is much less reliable and can often bog your computer memory down over time with useless information. The longer a computer is left running, the more stray information is stored in your memory. Turning off the computer completely wifes all that temorary memory and starts you anew when your computer boots back on.
So what is the conclusion here? Should we keep our computers on or turn them off? Well, the choice is yours but my best advice is to keep your computer off if you will be going more than 30 minutes without it. Why? It saves energy which saves you money, it keeps your computer running at optimal performance every time you are on it, and it makes all the tree hugging types happy (which is fine because if every computer was turned off completely in the US at night, that would save a grip of electricity...over 100 million watts an hour).
Let me get this out of the way first. If you have an office server or use a computer in which other computers must access it at any given time, you should never turn the server off. Ok. Now that that is out of the way, here is my opinion for the other 95% of us with home computers and laptops.
Below I will list some myths and facts.
Myth: Turning the computer off will damage your hard drive over time with each power down and thus is harmful to your computer.
Answer: False. This may have been true 10+ years ago but hard drives built after the mid 90s have at least a "60,000 Power on/off Limit". Let's figure that we hop on our computer 3 times a day. 60,000/3 = 20,000 Days which divided by 365 days (1 year) = 54.79 Years. If you own your computer that long, you deserve to lose your hard drive. Get a new computer already! Even a hardcore gamer/computer user would not cut that life down below 10-20 years.
Myth: Turning the computer on costs a lot of electricity. If you keep it on, you will not have to worry about these power spikes.
Answer: FALSE! Completely and utterly false in fact. Using this logic, I suppose we should keep our cars running so as to avoid draining the battery upon turning the key? Turning a computer on may spike up to 600 watts for 1-2 seconds (depending on your power supply). The average PC uses much less when booting but as a gamer I am quoting a bit high.
Myth: Running the computer on standby or sleep mode is just the same as turning it off and saves energy.
Answer: Actually this is somewhat true but with exceptions. In sleep mode, your computer uses as little as 4 kilowatts which isn't much at all. First let's review the average power usage of your computer.
The average computer uses about 250-350 watts when running at full speed. Even when not being used, all the fans, processor, memory, LED lights, and drives (hard drive, CD/DVD drives, and others) are online. The average running PC uses over 100 watts when it is just sitting there. That's the same as running a bright 100Watt light bulb forever.
So does putting your computer on sleep mode save power? Of course it does; however it still uses some. For the more frugal or environmentally fanatical family, that 4 watts is one less bit off pollution to stop global warming (I'll comment on that myth in another blog). If you don't mind an extra few dollars a year in costs, by all means keep your computer in sleep mode when not using it. For those still reading, you may want to read a bit further before you take this path.
This leads to the final question. Why not just put the computer on standby/sleep mode? Well, the more experienced users (and by experienced I mean those who have pulled the most hair out) will tell you that there is nothing healthier for a slow system than a good ol restart. Unlike your hardware, software is much less reliable and can often bog your computer memory down over time with useless information. The longer a computer is left running, the more stray information is stored in your memory. Turning off the computer completely wifes all that temorary memory and starts you anew when your computer boots back on.
So what is the conclusion here? Should we keep our computers on or turn them off? Well, the choice is yours but my best advice is to keep your computer off if you will be going more than 30 minutes without it. Why? It saves energy which saves you money, it keeps your computer running at optimal performance every time you are on it, and it makes all the tree hugging types happy (which is fine because if every computer was turned off completely in the US at night, that would save a grip of electricity...over 100 million watts an hour).
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