Exoskeleton gives Super strength

Check out this cool video over at gizmodo.com about an exoskeleton that can give humans super carrying ability!

Leia Mais…

Happy Veteran's Day

I would like to wish a Happy Veteran's Day to all the men and women who serve and protect our country.

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Leia Mais…

Toons for tuesday

A funny Dilbert Video for today...

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=fc83e8ee-d393-497e-a823-6bb0521cf817

Leia Mais…

Music for my Monday

I was 9 years old when I first joined chorus in my elementary school. I had always loved singing, and it was a natural fit. I had a good voice, and could project it very well. I stayed with chorus all the way through college, and was even picked to sing in the "Select chorus" which had all the best kids in the state sing one year.

Through my chorus years, many songs that i sang found there way into my heart.

The Halleluia Chorus from Handel's messiah, one of my favorite Christmas songs, I learned in Chorus.

Carol of the bells, which is my favorite christmas song of all time.

I learned the song that I used to help my nieces go to bed "The yellow rose of texas"

But the first song I learned that truly affected my life was "Point of life" by Randy Travis. It was the first song i learned in 4th grade, and to this day it's still one of my favorites.

There is a point when you can not walk away.
When you have to stand up straight and tall and mean the words you say.
There is a point you must decide just to do it because it's right.
That's when you become a point of light.

There is a darkness which everyone must face.
It wants to take what's good and fair and turn it all to waste,
And this darkness covers everything in sight - until it meets a
single point of light.

Refrain:

All it takes is a point of light.
A ray of hope in the darkest night.
If you see what's wrong, and you try
and make it right, you will be a point of light.

There are heroes whose names we'll never hear.
A dedicated army of quiet Volunteers.

Reaching out to help the homeless.
Reaching out to save the land.
Reaching out to help their fellow man.

There are dreamers who are making
dreams come true.
Taking time to to teach the children
that there's nothing they can't do.
Reach out to help the hungry.
Reaching out to those without.
Isn't that what this land's all about?

Repeat refrain above and then sing:

If you see what's wrong and you try
and make it right, you will be a point
of light.

I was bullied as a kid, and this song helped me stand up and be a good person when it felt like the entire 4th grade was against me. I knew I wanted to be a point of light, and i guess it helped me to know that I wasn't alone in the fight.

Leia Mais…

Go west young couple

A while ago I saw the movie "Away we go". It's a very charming story about a young married couple who (ironically) through a selfish act by parents are forced to relocate to a new place. So they scour the country looking near all their friends and relatives for the best place to settle down. It was a fun little trip to the movies...little did I know I'd be living that same situation not 3 months later.

Last week, my mother-in-law's (MIL) boyfriend came for a visit, and as you know from my Friday post that she got engaged. She's also decided to sell her house, which means that early next year, we're have to move.

Surprisingly it took me about a week to realize that through a selfish (and insane) act by a parent, my wife and I were now in the same boat. So...we did the same thing. We looked at all the possible places where we had connections aka friends or family that we could move to. That broke down into the following list.

1)Long Island

2)Upstate NY

3)Florida

4)Colorado

Choice Number 1: Stay and get an apartment on Long Island

Since I have my job here this was a serious consideration. The problem is that the Teaching market for my almost graduated wife is slim pickings, especially since we heard retired teachers are now subbing instead of letting new graduates get their foot in the doors. While my Salary is the best I've had I don't see a future in this company where my pay will allow me to buy a home or have children in NY without serious financial hardship and struggle. LI has the second highest utilities in the entire country, the median home price is 6 times what I make annually right now. I can't see making a life here where we won't be struggling constantly with both of us working just to keep our heads above water. My job and to a slighter extent my parents are the only reasons to stay here...and I don't think that staying somewhere for a job that can't support you long term is just a bad idea.

Choice Number 2: Upstate NY

This had it's appeal. It was close enough to my parents and my wife's father to be accessible for holidays. Much cheaper then Long Island. Hawk and Dove are up there already doing very well in both the elementary and high school. This creates an immediate "in" for my wife as they love Long Island teachers there. However, there are no tech opportunities in the area. This leaves me with no job opportunities other then going back to waiting tables, which I'd prefer not to do.

Choice 3: Florida

If you remember back to about 10 months back, we said that we were going to be Floridians and live with my best friend and his family. We had wanted to do this very much, but my friends luck took a turn for the worst. He just found a job after a year out of work, but he moved out of his house and into his in-laws house. He's also joining the national guard in February and will be gone for 6 months. The entire economic outlook to Florida can be summed up as "Abandon State, Abandon State!" House prices may in a pitfall, but so is the employment rate. We were leaning towards Florida when we had a home base to go to until we could set up camp till we found jobs. Now that our only friends in the state are in financial troubles themselves, we can't see moving down there blind.

Choice 4: Colorado

Now, this wasn't even a choice up until August. Maybe it was the warm weather or the warm welcoming extended family that accepted me as their own. Maybe it was the affordable home and apartment prices. Maybe it was the 4-5 relatives employed and networked through half the tech companies in Denver, but whatever it was the august trip put Colorado on the map as a place where we could settle. Judging by the other choices, this one seemed really good. My wife has scads of family on both sides out there. I've become great friends with her cousin through playing WoW, and her extended family seems to think that I am the greatest thing since sliced bread ever since they saw the Montage I made for them. The clincher though was the offer of family to "put us up" while we got settled, and the fact that a 2 bedroom apt out there is 650 dollars a month, utilities included. That's almost a third of what it is on Long island.

So we ran the numbers and made a decision. Come early next year, we'll switch being forty minutes away from this:

To being 40 minutes away from this:

For better or worse.

Leia Mais…

Weekend of WoW

So, this weekend I finally achieve lvl 80 after 7 weeks of playing WoW. The above pic is the screenshot that I took at the exact moment I hit 80. It's been a long journey, and the last 20 levels were very long. I learned a lot about the game though, and I'm ready to enjoy my new post-80 endgame content for a while.

Before I do that though, I'd like to introduce all my blog readers to my WoW characters. Each one is based off of a Dungeons and Dragons character that i made at some point, and I'd like to share them with you. The first is the char that I just got to 80...Rhokk.

This was Rhokk at about lvl 10, notice his mostly pajama clad self. As you see, he didn't start life named Rhokk. At this point he was named Tankkor. I figured it would be a fun name for a Tanking (Boss distracting player position in Raids) druid. However when I joined my guild, the word Tank kept being use in chat. Stuff like "Who's Tanking, you're tanking, I'm tanking, That tank was horrible" etc etc. This became very confusing for me as you can imagine, so I renamed the char to Rhokk, cause as a tank he'd be "Like a Rock"...yeah it's corny, but I like corn. So why did I choose a druid as my main character? Well, I've always been drawn towards the shapeshifting aspect of the supernatural. Werewolves and such have always been my favorite over vampires and demons. Plus, having not known the game, a Druid is a hybrid class that is viable in all three roles that you can be in the game.

Tank: You draw the enemy to you, and can take alot of dmg

DPS or Damage per second: Whether Melee or Ranged, these types of chars assault the enemies that the tank attracts. They actually do the killing, but if the tank wasn't there they wouldn't survive.

Heals: These characters (mostly priests and restoration druids) heal the rest of the raid party, generally focusing on the tank. Also they bring people back to life should someone die.

Since I didn't know what I wanted to be, I figured picking a class that could do anything was a good idea. Eventually I decided to be a duel spec Tank/Heals. This means that with a quick change of gear, and a switching of my abilities I can go from a tanking bear form:

To a tree of life healer (looks like a weird little ent), and heal a raid. These are the two most requested specs cause there are literally dozens of different DPS combinations across all the classes. So DPS are easy to find, but every group needs a good Tank or a good healer.

This is Rhokk at lvl 80

Slightly more impressive...wouldn't you say.

My other characters are still in the works, but they will all be 80 before I'm finished with this game.

Soveiliss is my priest. While I was waiting to play Rhokk with my cousin, I started a second character. Now I didn't know it at the time, but the priest is the hardest class in the game to level solo. Mainly because the only protection they have from monsters is the shield that he's casting in the picture. It absorbs a certain amount of damage. When it falls, your enemy better be dead or the shield recast within 2 seconds or your cloth (lowest grade of armor) only wearing priest is toast (died so many times with him). Sov is a shadow priest just like he was in DnD. Somehow it tickles me to see a character that is suppose to be all holy and good using "evil" shadow spells. While Sov may be a Holy (heal specced) priest one day, shadow is really the only way to lvl a priest solo, since the Discipline and Holy trees don't provide enough damage to lvl effectively. Sov is currently lvl 44, and will be lvl 60 by the end of this month.

This is AgnosticPally or AP for short casting Consecrate on the ground around him(looks neat huh). It's a name I used in Diablo2 a while back, and it always got a reaction from people. I just love the contradiction of a paladin getting his power from an entity he's not sure of. Just funny to me I guess, :). AP is a Retribution paladin, currently the strongest DPS spec in the game. Paladin's in general are the strongest class in the game right now. They are great tanks, strongest DPS, and can heal too. Everybody is waiting for Blizzard to nerf (weaken) them a bit to bring the other classes back into balance with the pallys, but in the meantime pallys rule! i only level AP with my best friend Darque. So he's leveling slower then my other Chars. He's currently 35, and I predict 60 by feb, and 80 sometime next summer perhaps.

This is Glarion my Hunter. A hunter is a Ranged DPS class, and the only class in the game that uses a Bow or Gun. Another cool aspect of the class is that you can tame pets. In the pic is my pet bear "Smoky" (Honestly, what else would you name a bear). Since I'm a ranged class, I don't want the enemies to come close to me, and Smoky fulfills the "Tank" role to distract the enemies while I mow them down with my bow. I plan on getting a Cat or a Wolf to switch out to while I'm questing with my Pally friend from work to up my damage while the paladin tanks. I plan to level him to 60 by December, and probably 80 in Jan or Feb. He is a very fun class to play, and will be my ranged DPS lvl 80 for sure.

This is my lvl 1 Warlock SkeletorOmega. The name stems from the He-man villian skeletor which is the first thing that comes to mind when I think evil spellcaster. He will be leveling with my wife's priest when she makes her in December.

This is my Shaman AlphaPrimus. He's a lvl 1 right now, and will be healing my wife's warrior in december. I chose a Shaman, because it is the secondary hybrid class in the game and could adapt to compliment whatever class my wife picked. He'll be leveling quickly through December, and be 80 probably by the end of Feb.

Shh...be very very quiet. if you look closely you can see Scosh, my gnome Rogue. He's currently lvl 9, and is teamed up with my friend from work's Warlock. Rogue's are good dmg dealers cause they can Stealth (the transparent ability you see in the photo) behind the enemies and backstab them. Scosh got his name because when I created him in Dungeons and Dragons he grew up in the circus. he always wanted to be the strongman, but his mom always said that he was just a scosh too small. The nickname stuck. So when I made a gnome Rogue in WoW, I couldn't think of a better name then to let Scosh live again, :)

Finally we come to my next Solo project. When I'm not running with my friends, my wife, or gearing up my 80, I'll be leveling my Death Knight RhokkFallen. He's basically a what if scenario of what if Rhokk wasn't a noble druid and instead turned evil and served the Lich King. Death Knights were really overpowered when they first arrived on the scene with the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion, but have been nerfed back into balance in recent patches to the game. Their rune enchants (the glowing aura around my sword) look awesome onscreen, and so do the acrobatic moves they pull off. I thing the class if just fun to play, and he'll be my next lvl 80 project. He's lvl 57 now, and I hope to have him to 60 by the end of the week.

I'm sure the appeal of the class has nothing to do with the fact that mounted he looks like a Dark Rider from Lord of the rings, lol

So while I reached my goal of getting to lvl 80 you'd think I's want to pull one of these:

But I have a lot more work(fun) to do in WoW, and I'm sure it'll be a blast.

Till next time!

Leia Mais…

A tribute to the nice guys

This was sent to me by an old college friend years ago. It very much represents my life before my wife. I know there are other "nice guys" out there who might need a pick me up, so I am reposting it here.

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what ................ guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

I found my girl. But to all of the Nice Guys who haven't, I present this letter to let you know that it doesn't last forever...and you can have your happy ending just like me.

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