Im back!!

Well, Sortof. I am back in Durango now, I got home Friday night after almost 21 hours of constant travel and 28 hours without much sleep. It has taken untill now for me to have a chance to even sit down and writh this short post.

All in all my trip to Hawaii was awesome, I promise I will have a detailed post of the rest of the trip , and of course more pictures.

Untill then! Ive got to go eat my dinner now. mmmm Spicy Chicken Pasta w/Cheese... *drool*

Hawaii Halftime Report

Well I’m halfway through my vacation in Hawaii... HALF!! I just got here!! Oh well, It has been a great trip so far. I didn’t think that I would have any internet access while I was here so I had not planned on posting anything, but I have so may pictures I want to share I couldn’t wait!!

It is awesome down here, It has been warm and sunny the whole time. Well, except for today, but that is good because my skin needs a break! Im not used to this much sun!

Basically we have spent much of our time here on the beach, or beaches really, there are so many beaches that there is no way we could hit them all. There are a couple that are within walking distance from our condo and we have spent at least an hour there every day so far.

This is the view from the condo.


Here is a video of my brother doing a bit of body surfing.

Here is my favorite beach picture so far. This is Tunnels Beach on the north shore of Kauai.


An awesome tree at Tunnels Beach.


At most of the beaches there is an offshore reef to snorkel in and we have been picking the beaches to visit based on which ones would provide the best snorkeling. Oh man, I must have been a fish in a former life, I could spend all day in the water swimming around the reef. There are so many different fish swimming around and they are all beautiful. I would have ten times the amount of pictures I do if I had a camera that I could take underwater. I’ve seen turtles, eels, and so many different reef fish that it would take me forever to list them here (I used to have a salt water fish tank that I collected reef fish in, and work in an aquarium store, so I know quite a few species).

Today, for fathers day we took my dad deep sea fishing. We had such a great time! Well, everyone except my brother who had a bit of sea sickness to contend with. Anyway, we left at 5:30 in the morning and headed out in a bit of rough seas which I thought was incredibly fun, but my brother didn’t think so. About half an hour out we hooked our first fish, and it was a big one! It took my dad a good 10 min of fighting to pull it in. Turns out is was a 165 lb yellowfin tuna. HUGE fish, it took three of us to pull it onto the boat. Apparently that is a very rare catch such that the captain did not want to let us hold it up on the dock to take any pictures so that none of the other fishermen would know we caught one. I did get a few pictures of it on the boat before it was put in the cooler.



Also, here is a video of him reeling it in.

The next few hours was filled with a couple of other little (13-14") tuna catches but at the end the captain decided that we had had enough little guys and put the last small tuna on a big hook while it was still alive and threw him back in. About 10 minutes later I was reeling in a 150 lb Marlin!! OH MY GOD, that baby could pull! Without the harness I would have been overboard, it took all of my strength just to hold the rod up!! After about 15 minutes of fighting I finally had him at the boat and we got him in. I was worked! I could not believe how strong it was, I don’t think I would have been able to pull it in on my own, my dad had to help me hold the rod up and the captain helped pull the line in while I reeled.





Next week we are taking a catamaran cruise to Ni'ihau (the forbidden Island) to do some more snorkeling. Last time we were on a boat out there we had a bunch of dolphins jumping along the boat, I hope to see them again and this time I will get some pictures!!

That’s it for now, at a minimum I will write another post with some more pictures when I get home. I am still working on (by working on I mean I've thought about it a lot) a gallery to put up all of my pictures, you only get a select few on the blog.

I guess Ill leave you with one more picture... This was the sunset from outside the condo tonight.


Aloha from Kauai

Im going to Hawaii! Nanner nanner nanner!!

Yea I hope you are jealous!! Ha ha!

No this is just to let you know that I may not have any Internet access for the next two weeks so hopefully you will be able to handle the lack of posts. Rest assured though, I will be back at it with some fantastic photos of the trip as soon as I get back!!!

Aloha!

The Real Sarti Party

Make and Sadie are now married. What can I say, except that it is probably the best think I can think of for them. I really do believe that they are perfect for each other and will be together for a VERY long time. I did take some pictures of their beautiful wedding so I am go to share them with all of you!

I am in the process of making a Photo Gallery that I will put all my pictures in but that won't be done until after I get back from Hawaii.

Here we go with Mike looking a little worried while he waits for his bride to arrive.


Here she comes!!


This one is a bit Self explanatory...


They did a Sand ceremony.


Here is the reception.

Video Game Voice actors to get more money.

OK, I’ve been following this a little bit.

Voice Actors Win Bigger Check

Wil Wheaton writes about it as an actor on his site, but as a developer I see things slightly differently.

So basically the actors are asking for more money from a few days work on a project. I do respect Wil and most actors for what they do but you I disagree with Wils statement - "Before some readers freak out that I don't think $695 for four hours is very good, let me put this into perspective: in those four hours, we usually do several hundred takes, often screaming and yelling. It's hard work, and we deserve to be compensated for it."

I agree that they should be compensated and I dont thing 695 is unfair, but being a developer and staring at code for 10 hours a day 7 days a week for months on end trying to make a deadline set by some marketing dude is MUCH harder than a few hours of yelling and screaming.

He also states the actors get roughly 2% of a game total profit. Wait a minute… that seems very disproportionate to me... A voice actor in a game I guarantee does less than a .1% of the work involved in creating the game. Why is it that they deserve 2% of the profit? Halo 2 made $100 Million in the first day of release, the developers that wrote it probably make on average about 60K a year * 2 years = 120K. 25 Developers - That’s 3 Million! 3% of the profit of ONE day and your half a days work is worth 2%? I call bullshit!!

Again I don’t disagree with the fact that, ok you are providing a key point to the game by adding a voice to the digital characters so you deserve a share, but without the developers, the geeky guys in the cubicles who did 99% of the work, this game would not exist at all! I FIRMLY believe the money needs to go to the developers long before it goes to the actors.

I Know I know... Another Link Post...

Ill get some writing done soon... I just dont really have any time to spare right now.

Check out the "Public Harm Announcment" contest on Worth1000, there are some very funny entries!

Someday I will have the time to enter one of these... (Ladys love my Photochop skills)

New Ski Resort opens in Hell!

Now that Steve Jobs has succesfully made Mac users buy a 4th version of OSX since its release, now thay all have to buy new Macs!

Heres the link

CNN

I probably could talk about this for hours, but I have a lot of work to do so maybe later...

Its 2:40 AM, and I am getting into the back of a Police car

Oh man, What a night...

Last night I went too my friend Kevins bachelor party. I figured since I cant make it to his wedding (his wedding is the same day as Mike and Sadies) I would help him have a good time at the party. The evening started out well enough, me met for cocktails and dinner at Cafe Sarie an awesome restaurant downtown. The meal was great, I had a Veal Osso Bucco (I know, not very PC but... *drool* it was good.) The best part of that meal was it was FREE!! Its good to have some rich friends! That helped quite a bit because I probably had $40 worth of meal and drinks and I only had $40 on me, and I needed that to last the rest of the night.

After dinner, we went to the El Ranco Tavern (AKA the Ranch). That bar is always shoulder to shoulder packed, but because one of Kevins good friends happened to own the bar they closed it just for us! On a Saturday night no less! Drinks were not necessarily on the house but I certainly did not pay for the amount I drank, neither did anyone else for that matter. We all continued to drink, and drink, and play pool, and drink, and play foosball, and drink for the next few hours. The invite stated the transportation would be provided afterward so getting home was not a big worry to me.

The bars in Durango close down @ 2:00 AM, which because of bar time is 1:45 on everyone else’s clocks. So when 2:15 rolls around on my phone and the party is still raging I was pretty impressed! That only lasted about 10 more minutes though...

Its 2:30 AM the party is raging, the bar is VERY clearly marked on every door and window the it is closed for a private party. Next thing I know our trusty Durango PD is at the door telling everyone they have to leave. Now we’ve got nowhere to go, nobody is in any shape to drive, the limo service has not arrived yet. What are we supposed to do Mr Police officer? Why did they shut us down anyway? I don’t know, but by the look on the owners face as he is telling everyone to get out there seemed to be a bit of trouble... he was not happy at all.

So my roommate and I are standing out on the sidewalk contemplating the hike home, because they guy with the transportation is all tied up talking to the police. I was all psyched to hike, I was wasted, its almost 3AM, A hike up the mesa sounds like a great idea to me! It wasn’t so for my roommate so we just stood there for a bit. Luckily for us the Durango PD is a bit over zealous when it comes to breaking up parties so there were multiple cops and squad cars around. Mr Officer walks up to use and asks how we plan on getting home. "Well, there was supposed to be transportation for all of us but because you busted up the party and the guy that arranged the ride is dealing with you guys, I don’t really know." OK, I didn’t say that but that is what I was thinking. He offered to take us home so we took him up on that.

Remind me to never get arrested... that plastic bench in the back is not comfortable at all. It was nicely molded so that your hands could fit behind your back in cuffs, and sitting like that actually made it a whole lot more comfortable! So I got that going for me, which is nice.

30 Second Transaction + 45 Minute wait = Great Customer Service

I HATE banks, especially one named Wells Fargo!!

OK, I'm on a rant right now because I was in a great mood when I left work and now I'm in a shitty mood, all because I wanted to put MY money into MY account.

I didn't even chose to be a Wells Fargo customer, they just up and bought the bank I was using. When I moved to Durango I opened a checking account at Norwest bank. They were great, three locations in town, never a long wait, and they actually cared about the customer. Then Wells Fargo buys them out, closes ALL of the convenient locations, builds ONE brand new big bank in one of the lest accessible areas of downtown Durango. Then at 5:00 SHARP they lock the doors and send all of the tellers home except for two to handle the drive-thru (there are 6 drive through bays.) Every day between 5 and 6 (they promptly close the drive-thru at 6) there are at least 35 cars jammed in the tiny parking lot, bumper to bumper. You couldn't walk through them if you wanted to. There is only 1 entrance to the bay area and it is one lane so once you are in you are stuck until you are done. Because of the fact that only 2 tellers are handling the 6 bays of cars it takes FOREVER to get through. I don’t even want to get started on some of the people in the line!! We have a good 30 min to prepare the deposit slips, fill out what you need, double check that you have everything, and so on. These people wait through the whole line (probably worried that they are going to miss some show that fills only a tiny gap between commercials) and once they are at the bay, only then do they begin getting ready!!

AAAAHHHHH!!!

Ok I’m done, I’m going for a run. I need to work off some of this steam!

Play 20 Questions with Darth Vader

This is pretty entertaining...

This is another Burger King ad like Subservient chicken

20 Questions with Darth

He was able to come close twice but with more than 20 questions... I dont have time to really play with it though

Are we really the most intelligent creature on earth?

Um, I have to revert to the Men in Black Quote "A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it"

Landslide Destroys Homes

OK, so I have a billion dollars, I want to build a massive home for myself and my 5 cars. I need 18 Bedrooms, 14 Bathrooms, and a 10 car garage (just in case I want more cars.) Oh yea that's the spot! See, right there on the side of the hill that looks like it has been falling into the ocean for the last few centuries. Build my home right there!!

I just read another article about the dangerous locations people are building houses. There is a quote in there (that I will butcher) that says "In Salt Lake City people are building their homes right up next to the cliffs in some areas." See all those home sized boulders right next to your house, yea those fell of the cliff at some point in the last few hundred years. What makes you think one won't fall on your house?

My favorite part about that article... Landslide picture

Notice the brand new homes right next to the slide, I've got 10 bucks that says they finish those homes and someone is living there within a year. That person will of course sue the builder when it falls into the sea, because I'm too dumb to look around and you didn't tell me that my house was built on unstable ground.