Funny that my first skating at a cement park could be in Oregon...

Concrete Disciples Skateboarding - Skatepark Directory & Listings for: Bear Creek Skatepark - Medford, Oregon, United States

A possible destination for me when we visit Oregon this Summer.

Artwork by Tracey Lane

Coda Gallery - New York, Palm Desert and Park City

There is art up on the walls here at work of these cool looking trees. I finally got around to looking up the artist, Tracey Lane.

I like these enough to actually want one..

Build my city, NVR A Dull Mmnt...

So first click here http://nvr.myminicity.com.

OK, now that you have come back from becoming a part of my city. I'm still not sure what the deal is. They don't give much info on the site. Basiclly you start a city, kind of like Sim City and when people visit certain links they add new people/money/other resources... So I'll add some links here and just visit my city once in a while.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoniex...

I was really exited to see this. The book was really good and exciting with lots of action...

I feel bad for those of you who did not read the book. As I watched the movie with Sarah, I almost had no idea what was going on. I did read the book a while ago now but I still remember the basic things. At first I though they were skipping, well lots of stuff so that they could spend more time at the end , nope. It was odd. They didn't really explain to much of anything. I think they did a great job on all of the other movies so far. Hopefully they can reign it back in for the last two movies. Granted the book was huge, 700+ pages. I wish that more people would go the Lord of the Rings way and break the normal time for a movie and really tell the story as it needs to be told.

I'll have to read the reviews for this one but I can't imagine Im the only one that feels this way about the movie... Read the book, it s worth it.

Half...

So... I still weigh the same. Not that expected to drop the weight like crazy. The good thing is that I am keeping up with the exercise. I have skated twice and have been trying to Play Dance Dance Revolution at least an hour a night. It has a exercise selection to it. When you are done each level it will tell you how many calories you worked off. Most of the levels are about 9calories. I have started hitting 300 calories for the whole session. Thats 30 songs. It also keeps a record so you can look back and weigh your self before each session (the game does not weight you but you can record your data.)

The part that hasn't kicked in full force is my force of will not to eat bread things. i think that was major part the last time around. Well its only been a week and a half so its early yet.

First Weight In... 180

Just a quick weighin... I may just put this in the side bar somewhere...

HaPpy NeW YEarS aNd stUfF...

Ahh... New Years Eve and my Birth Day, 37. You would think that having on a birthday on New Years Eve would be a big party, at least once in your life. The most exciting thing that happened on my birthday was meeting Sarah. It's odd I never partied during the typical partying years. Tonight Sarah and Ruby have crashed out and Gryphon and I have been rocking the new Eye Toy for the Playstation 2. It gives your arms a big work out and you can really work up a sweat.

I went to the Willow Grove Mall during my lunch break today and bought new skateboard trucks. The ones that I have were bought almost years ago. I got some Tensor trucks, the Rodney Mullen pro models if you want to know. I also picked up some Bones RED bearings and Element hardware. It was $65 which is better than I could find online for all three( trucks are $19 each, bearings are $15. So this year my xmas money doesnt go for some sort of electric thing. At some point I'll have a new board from my buddy whom had a 100 or so FDR benefit boards made up. That should be about $25.

And some New Years resolutions:
- for the family we want to be more on time for things. Small things like being at places at the right time and big things like being prepared for holidays, birthdays and such...
- for me I am going back on a diet. Its the Chris diet. I had gotten under 170 a couple years ago. Daily exercise and cutting out breads, butter and cheese were a major part. I do let my self eat what ever on Fridays and have to be better about eating lunch. I think I am pushing 185 right now, but Ill start weighing in tomorrow. Ill do a two day detox type of thing and probably skip the first friday of free eating. So tonight I drink all of my beer and eat lots of chips and stuff... I plan on doing some sort of exercise at work. the skatepark (if you can call it that)near work is kind of far for a lunch time session but what I did to loose the weight last time was walking and there are many good walking places near work. I also hope to add a mini-ramp to our yards soon along with skateing at joes once a week if possible. Another thing is DDR that I will try to do for a half hour everyday. Im also going to cut out coffee. I dont really like it but its something that I seem to get every morning at work. Im going to try replaing it with Green Tea that they have at work.

So i think Ill try to find some sort of count down thing on the web since we dont have the cable TV and dont get very good over the air reception...

Have a good one...

Torn...

This week the company I am with had their Holiday Party. I had planned to hit the party at 5:30, have a few drinks, dinner and then head to out to skate the mini-ramp at Joe's around 7:30.

I almost left as soon as I got to the party. It was a lot of outgoing type people and I am just not that kind of person. I saw that they had Guiness on draft so I found a corner of the bar and thought I would a drink and maybe I could get over the anxiety. Ive come to appritiate Guiness draft. Getting a Guiness from a bottle or can is just not the same. I watched the bartenders make there drinks and hopped that more people would start arriving so they would start dinner. By the time I had hit drink #2 lots of people were there including my coworker. One of the other people that I had been in the new hire training had started talking to me to. They had some killer seafood type appetizers. It was getting to be like 6:30 and they had not hinted at dinner yet. The bar was flowing though, it turned out to be open bar all night... Finnally at about 7is they seated everybody... I drank down the last of my beer and made the choice to head out just before they came out to take orders. Getting the change to skate rarley loses out to anything even a very , very nice office party.

The skate session was my first since before we moved. So that was the week before Thanksgiving. i thought i would be way off and would have to spend most of the night just getting my basics back. It was so much the opposite as I had a great night and was able to pull some stuff off that I had not done since my teenage skating days. I can't wait to get a ramp set up in my yard and to get back to Joes. Ill have to get some video one of these days...

Rember Christmas is about the first 6 letters...

... was on a sign that I saw today. Now, the first 6 letters are: a,b,c,d,e,f, and g. hmmm...that doesnt make sense... Oh wait, drr, that was 7. So we have abcdef. is this some secret code? Are they trying to be like Google and only have smart people attend the church?
Maybe it's an Acronym? Here is what I found:
1. American Boys Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn
2. Abstinence, Be Faithful, Correct and Consistent Condom Use and Circumcision, Diaphragm for HIV Prevention, Exposure Prophylaxis, Female-Controlled Microbicide's (approach to prevention of AIDS virus)

Hmm... I don't know if either one of those says Christmas to me.

Maybe it's an Anagram. let see:
Abc Fed
Cab Fed

Ehh.. nothing there.

Maybe it has something to do with the first 6 letters ever. Man, you have do a research paper to figure this stuff out. i think I'm, done.

Happy Holidays to you...

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 5 :: We've Moved

Ah yes, here is something that can take some blogging time away, moving. After being in North Wales for about 9 years...wow, we have moved to a little house with a big yard in Souderton. The move wasn't to bad and we got it done in a week. We had to clean the new place pretty good and ran into massive issues with u-haul (coming to a post soon will be a rant on uhaul). I had some good help from a couple friends and we got the big stuff over. Then we shuffled stuff over in the cars and then finnally today we jumped started our 'extra car' and drove it to the new place where the battery promptly died again. if your up to it, look up the location of a 1996 plymouth breezes battery... funny huh. So now the kids can run outside and I have my first place that does not have anybody attached to one or more of our walls... very nice.

Our verizon DSL speed here is only the 1.5 teir instead of the 3 that we were used to but i guess will make due or get Comcast at some point. Maybe there run FIOS near here at some point...

Thats all for now.

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 4 :: New Job for me

So I prettied up my resume and went full on a job hunt. I got some small hits here and there. Then I get a call from a "head hunter". She's got a job in Horsham, 9 miles from my house... Wyeth was 24 miles. I had a great interview and I really felt like I would fit in. After sweating out the next couple days I finally get the call that I got the job. It is working in the IT dept of LA Weightloss Franchise inc. I mainly support the Point of Sale software that the centers use. The salary is more than what my raise at CAI would have been plus I get to have payed vacation, Sick days and Holidays and all the good stuff that comes with working for a strong small company. I started Oct 26th. While we were living in North Wales it only took me 25 to35 minutes to get to work... Which leads to the next post.

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 3 :: Our shows are back on.

Ah yes. Line them up and BitTorrent them down. Family Guy, American Dad, Ghost Hunters, The Office, Project Runway, Curb you Enthusiasm, and My Name is Earl (Jason Lee AKA Earl is a long time ProSkater).

So the shows take me away from Blogging and PlaneShift...

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 2 :: Skateboarding

So skateboarding came back to my life in a big way as I helped a friend build a mini-ramp in his garage. It's 19ft wide about 3 or so feet high and fun as all-get-out. I started skating the ramp and skating with alot of people in there late 20s and 30s, awesome. I also learned that Pabst Blue Ribbon is this weird skater choice of beer when skating. I never had the opportunity to drink beer and skate... odd thing.

Any way I can skate the mini better than I ever could and am learning new things every time I go. I looking to add a ramp to my new yard... but thats for a latter post.

So Skating has been dragging me from posting and PlaneShift...

Blogging is for people with nothing to do, part 1::PlaneShift

So in August when my classes ended I started playing PlaneShift when I had a spare minute. It's a free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, like World of WarCraft. It's great because it is still in development and you get to see changes in the game. Plus you don't feel guilt that you are paying a monthly fee and not playing it if you dont feel like it.

Check it out, PlaneShift: Crystal Blue.

So that pulled me away from blogging...

YouTube - balloon bowl

YouTube - balloon bowl

iPAQ Filestore and how to fix it.

What is the iPAQ filestore you might ask? Well the iPAQ is a pocket pc. I am writing this from it now. It has 64 mb of RAM (like the memory in a PC) and 128 mb ROM (like a SD flash memory card). You try to keep the RAM pretty empty as the iPAQ uses that to do stuff. You install the programs you use alot on the ROM. The OS uses up some of the ROM and leaves you about 96 mb free. This is more than enough. Its best to put music and media onto SD Card. Anyway, Ive had the iPAQ for a couple years and have heard of this bug but I never ran into, till now. Aparently when you put to much on this filestore,as its called, you lock up the memory. You can use whats there but you can not delete it, or save anything else to it. Not even flashing the ROM (re-installing the OS and the very basics of what makes the device work) would clear it out. I chatted with HP, they said to send it in for repairs. Yea, no, I'll fix it my self. I did lots of surfing and reading through message boards. I tried a couple things but was coming up empty. On the fun side I am going to get mobile phone soon an considered this to be good time to get PoketPc Phone. I found one last thing to try... and it worked. I'll give you the basics and then the whole thing for anyone who might actually be looking for this fix.

It involves flashing the device with a ROM for another language then flashing it back to your own language. you also have to trick the flash program into thinking you have the correct language... For those who need it and for anyone else, enjoi.


1. Download the latest English and German ROMs.
2. Unpack both.
3. Make copies of the unpacked English and German ROMs.
4. With the original German ROMfolder, rename "d2b10111go.nbf" to "d2b10111uo.nbf ".
5. Run "ROMUpdateUtility.exe" in the original English ROM folder.
6. On the screen just before proceeding with the ROM update (After the checks) copy the renamed "d2b10111uo.nbf" from the original German ROM and overwrite the " d2b10111uo.nbf" in the original English ROM.
7. Proceed with the ROM update.
8. It will take a very long time to start and longer than normal at 90% but be patient.
9. Now you have a German pda. Check that the filestore is now fixed by deleteting the backup folder in the filestore and/or running the format filestore found under sttings (use the icons to direct you if you can't read German).
10. If it works you now need to install the English ROM back again we need to trick the ROM update again.

11. You can now delete the two original unpacked English and German ROMs just leaving the copies of them. (This is purely to make it easier and I will refer to them as just the English and German ROMs).
12. With the English ROM, rename "d2b10111uo.nbf" to "d2b10111go.nbf".
13. Run "ROMUpdateUtility.exe" under the German ROM folder.
14. After all of the checks and just before proceeding with the update copy the " d2b10111go.nbf" from the English ROM and overwrite the "d2b10111go.nbf" in the German ROM.
15. Proceed with the ROM update. Again, it will take a very long time but be patient.
16. Run the format filestore program found under settings just to make sure it is fixed.
17. Now you are back in English with a fixed filestore.
18. Enjoy!

Short Timer...

... Sniff, sniff. Do you smell that?

It smells like a new job to me...

Sniff... 10+ miles closer to home.

Sniff, sniff... More money, full benifits...

Sniff... regular hours and paid time off...

Yhea... thats what it is...

Next Thursday I start, nice.

Finished the garage mini-ramp

Here are some final construction photos. I got to joes about 2:30. We got the top layer finished at around 9:30 and pulling the garage door tracks down took another half hour or so. We skated till about 1am. That was a bit late but it was the opening night. But its just like riding a bike... great little ramp.
 
 
 
 

Scarred For Life...

Scarred For Life... Eleven Stories about Skateboarders
I just finished this book. It's a good one that really hits at the mind and motivations of a true skateboarder. They all managed to make skating be a part of their life. We (Kyle and I) had a plan to save up and buy a car. We were going to drive that car to California after we graduated. We were going to skate where ever we could and then once in CA we would find some kind of jobs and skate...

Click here to check it out at Amazon.

Cure Lyrics Fun...

I love this line...

Remember the last time I told you I love you -
It was warm and safe in our perfect world -
You yawned and I had to say it over

Now the full lyrics.


"There Is No If..."

Remember the first time I told you I love you -
It was raining hard and you never heard -
You sneezed! and I had to say it over
"I said I love you" I said... you didn't say a word
Just held your hands to my shining eyes
And I watched as the rain ran through your fingers
Held your hands to my shining eyes and smiled as you kissed me...

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said...
And it starts the day you make the sign
"tell me I'm forever yours and you're forever mine
Forever mine... "

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said...
And it starts the day you cross that line
"swear I will always be yours and you'll always be mine
You'll always be mine
Always be mine... "

Remember the last time I told you I love you -
It was warm and safe in our perfect world -
You yawned and I had to say it over
"I said I love you" I said... you didn't say a word
Just held your hands to your shining eyes
And I watched as the tears ran through your fingers
Held your hands to your shining eyes and cried...

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said...
But it ends the day you see how it is
There is no always forever... just this...
Just this...

"if you die" you said "so do i" you said
But it ends the day you understand
There is no if... just and

There is no if... just and

There is no if...