Kalbzayn's Writing World - kalbzayn

Blog Moving Day

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 12:38:47 -0700

I'm going to be moving this blog later today. I have detailed my reasons on the new site.

I am going to try and update the feed to automatically point to the new site. My next post over there will be talking about who I favor in the elections this year. If you don't see that post sometime today, then I probably did it wrong.

You can go to the new home page at http://www.kalbzayn.com. If you have any sidebar links that you can point to the new site, I would greatly appreciate it.

I don't have any plans of taking down this site, but I will be turning off comments and trackbacks in a couple days as I move forward with the new software.

Let me know if you have any questions/concerns.

My car made me angry today

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 09:33:39 -0700

Let me start by saying that I like winter. I don't mind the cold and snow and near constant darkness.

My car made me angry today. I warmed it up because I did not feel like scraping windows this morning. About 15 minutes later I returned to my car to head to work. The car was still a little chilly inside but at least the windows were clear.

I pulled out of the driveway and started my trek to the office. At the first stop sign, my car started taunting me and would not drop the issue no matter how much I cursed at it.

It just kept saying to me, "It is only 22 degrees," over and over again. Sure, by the time I got to work, it had eased up a little bit. "It is only 24 degrees."

At 6 in the morning, at the beginning of November, I do not need to be constantly reminded that it is only 24 degrees. Global warming my cold butt.

I think I might have to reprogram the little temperature display to 70 degrees no matter what the outside world thinks.

Books found at the county fair

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 12:23:27 -0700

The big county fair that we go to in Wisconsin every Labor Day has long since passed but I still haven't put away my big find. Every year, one of the local historical societies sells a bunch books that people donate. This year you could get whatever books you could fit in a plastic grocery bag for $2.

This was the first year that nothing amazed me, but there were a few that I thought I wouldn't mind having. My mother-in-law is starting her post-retirement career selling books online. There was an interesting collection of Wisconsin state historical society journals that we figured she might have some luck selling, so we committed to buying a bag. I threw in a few books that sounded interesting and ended up with a pretty decent haul.

John Grisham - The Firm and The Pelican Brief
Scott Turow - Presumed Innocent
Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride
Richard Ford - Rock Springs
Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity (Hardcover)

I just heard from my wife that her mom made something like $25 plus shipping for the magazines. Not a bad haul for $2. Now I just need to get around to reading them and the other books sitting on my bookcase unread.

A Random Thought

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 07:15:08 -0700

I had a thought when I walked into work today.

I am tired of walking on concrete all the time. Everywhere we go, it is concrete. There is a little island of grass in the middle of the road between the parking lot and the building. I always make a point to walk across it and get my 4 steps on the grass everyday. Where did all the grass go? Are we afraid of getting our shoes dirty?

Why is it that kids run wherever they want and hardly ever seem to find a sidewalk, but adults let ourselves get trapped within the little strips of allowed walking space?

Walking on the grass is better for us. It has less impact on our joints and the uneveness of the ground is good for strengthening our feet and ankles.

I go watch Iowa football games. One of the things I love about the stadium is that the players are playing on grass. But, I normally do not take one step on any grass the entire day that I spend at the stadium.

If you see me walking through your yard someday, please try to understand.

Surviving the grocery store lines

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 09:38:38 -0700

There is just no escaping it sometime. Every once in a while you have to go grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Despite the dozens of check out lines, only three of them will be open. You will have two gallons of milk and two kids that do not want to be in line any more.

And somebody in your line will be using coupons that they forgot to dig out of their purse before the last second, writing a check they did not prefill out, and need 10 price checks.

People like to make fun of the military and how poorly they manage everything, but line problems do not exist at the commissary (grocery store on the military base for all of you career civilians).

What did the commissary figure out that the rest of the world still can't get?

You only need one line.

They forced everybody into a single file, waiting for the roller coaster type of line. You wove back and forth as the line steadily advanced. When you popped up to the front, you were directed to the next empty register. Any register that was taking a long time, did not impact any individuals waiting for that register. Amazing. Simple. Efficient.

And apparently something that only the military can coordinate. It's almost enough to make me want to sign back up.

The Dead Zone

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 18:50:18 -0700

Verizon has a couple dead zones on my route home. My new cell phone which is actually an old piece of crap that my sister lent me because I lost my phone makes the dead zone even bigger. There is now about a 10 mile stretch of road where there is a huge amount of traffic that I cannot use my cell phone. It was only about 2 miles with my old cell phone.

I thought cell phones in the heavy population areas had finally gotten to the point where phones worked everywhere. At least, that's what I learned from the commercials.

Verizon, can you hear me now? No? Wait until I drive out of this giant dead zone and try again.

Celebrity Fit Club changed my life...or at least my night

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 08:49:27 -0700

I was watching Celebrity Fit Club last night while trying not to fall asleep on the couch. That show is pretty damn inspiriing.

Watching a bunch of former models, musicians, actors balloon up in the public eye is always good for the old morale. But, watching them sweating, cursing, dieting, crying and screaming to get in shape makes me want to do the same.

Now, I just need to hire a professional dietician. Well, I don't really need that. I think I could pretty easily identify the dieatary changes I should make that would make some pretty significant changes.

Then, I need to get a professional trainer. Well, not really. I grew up very active. I like to workout and I have a decent idea how to plan workouts and the motivation to actually carry them out once I get started.

They also use a crazy psychotherapist that analyzes why people have the bad habits that they have and makes everybody cry. I know a lot of my bad eating/drinking triggers and I'm pretty good at dealing with them when I'm not just being lazy.

The show is so inspiring that I always feel like getting started immediately...the next day...when I'm not resting on the couch.

Accidental deed.

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:37:43 -0700

I had a random memory the other day. When I was a little kid, around 1st-2nd grade, my family was a twice a week church type family. I was in Royal Rangers and hated rock and roll.

I converted one of my friends from a life of sin to the straight and narrow right before he moved never to be heard from again.

Later, about 5th grade, I converted another friend whose dad had been in a coma for several years. He had a cool ferret and an even cooler soul by the time I was done with him. I lost track of him somewhere along the way, too.

I am not a church type person now and probably couldn't convert Pat Robertson if I needed to. For some reason, those two kids popped up in my memory. I wondered if they were still converted.

It is kind of neat to think that in grade school I might have accidentally made a difference in a couple kids lives.

It is bizarre to think of making peole believe in something that you don't really believe in anymore. It is like convincing somebody that the tooth fairy is real.

Only in this case, if I put them on the right path, they might be going to heaven and I might heading to eternal damnation. How's that for a referal system.

Something from my person life

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 08:20:06 -0700

I normally post a lot of personal stuff over here, but I also have a parenting blog that I am working on. We just learned that J has autism. Rather than rewriting everything over here, I'll just give you a link to what I wrote.

Most Recent Sign Of Getting Old

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:54:36 -0700

By old I don't mean ancient. I mean old like middle aged. Old meaning no longer any hope of ever being "cool" again. Old meaning my favorite music is on retro channels.

I already have a few signs. The kids are starting school. My beard and temples are graying. I can't eat and drink whatever I want without putting on some weight.

The other day, I was driving on a busy 4 lane road. There was an additional middle turn lane.

There was a big gap between me and the car in front of me (because of the traffic light timing...I'm not getting that old). A car in a parking lot on my right started to turn left into the turn lane. At the same time, a car in the parking lot on the left turned left into the turn lane. They almost ran right into each other and we all had to wait for them to move around each other.

Feeling I deserved a bit of road rage, I tried to yell. I noticed the driver of the car from the right was about 70. Perfect. Old men are easy road rage targets. But wait, the driver of the car from the left was 18-20. Oh those punk kids chap my hide.

Wait a second. Did I just say "punk kids"? Did I just say "chap my hide"?

Great. Now I can't figure out if I dislike old men or young kids. Must be time for middle age. I might have to go shopping for a Corvette tonight.

I lost my head

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 07:51:37 -0700

Since giving up pop on May 28th (except for 1 on purpose vacation day and 2 bad days), I've gone from 218 to 208 pounds. Sweet...or maybe lack thereof.

My pants are getting more comfortable, but I won't need to buy new pants for a while since I bought the ones that I have when I weighed 195ish and was hoping to lose a couple pounds.

We're getting into football/holiday season where I normally indulge a little more often. But, I'm also going to the gym more often (as opposed to the never that I've been doing for a couple years). It will be interesting to see which habit wins out in my battle to get back below 200.

So what does all of this have to do with the title. A human head weighs about 10 pounds. But didn't we learn that from Jerry Maguire?

5 Things I'm Busy With - 8/10/2006

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:36:01 -0700

My schedule has dramatically shifted recently. I finished my high pressure work projects, made decent progress with some home projects, and hosted a toddler slumber party.

So what could possible be left for me to do.

1) Daddy day care. I'm taking off Monday through Wednesday next week and staying home with the kids. I have not watched the kids for that continuous of a block in as long as I can remember. I'm looking forward to lots of hours playing puppet show, driving trucks, and playing in the backyard. We're also having a garage sale on Saturday at my parents' house. Rebecca will be handling the selling while I entertain the kids at our house.

2) Painting. I finished painting the tough spot over the stairs and the hallway at the top of the stairs and then lost my momentum. Starting tonight, I'm going to work on getting the bathroom patched, primed and painted.

3) Work. Even though I have 3 days off next week, I'm still not looking forward to Thursday. We are having a mandatory fun night after work on Thursday. We're going to Medieval Times. I've been there before and it is entertaining but I just hate mandatory fun. Especially since I received the invitation earlier this week. Would it kill them to schedule this stuff in advance? Another problem I have with Medieval Times is their menu. Everybody gets the same meal which includes chicken and ribs. Sounds good except for those of us with poultry allergies. I need to remember to have the person scheduling the event ask about an alternative meal plan for me. On the plus side, they have a torture museum that is pretty neat and creepy.

4) Back to the gym. Because of the projects around the house, we've been bad about going to the gym for the last couple weeks. We went again on Tuesday and have plans for tonight which will hopefully get us back into the routine.

5) Websites. I mentioned last week that I've been working on some websites. Here is the list.

Be A Good Dad
Webby Thoughts
Talk Hawkeyes

I was expecting to develop them over the next couple months and see what happened. Then a story on the Be A Good Dad site got picked up by Reddit, somehow became popular and brought in about 3000 pageviews. Right when it was starting to slow down, it got picked up on MSNBC. The page is a list of interesting articles that they writer visits throughout the day and a brief comment on them. That brought in about 2000 more pageviews. Just to put that in perspective, I've had about 5000 pageviews on a brand new site over the last two days. This blog has received just under 10,000 pageviews since I started it back in October. Weird. It'll be rough when the pageviews go back to about 20 a day tomorrow.

All I want is an ICEE

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:17:45 -0700

The other day, we watched a show that discussed how ICEE's were made and the history of the company.

Of course we had to have one.

So, I got in the car at about 9pm and drove to Target. Their food area was closed. So, I drove to 7-Eleven and perused the inventory. Every flavor was based on a Pepsi or Coke product. Since I'm trying to stay away from the pop these days, I almost backed out. It seemed a little too close to a gateway drug to me.

Finally, I told myself that I can quit again any time I want and it wasn't a real pop anyway and poured away. One for me, one for Rebecca. Two different flavors.

I drove home and prepared to enjoy. (No, I didn't drink any on the way home because I was going to let Rebecca choose which flavor she wanted.)

She made her choice and we started sipping away. Our dreams of reliving childhood pleasantries instantly melted. Much like the ICEE had. It was pop flavored syrup in just a tiny bit of slush.

Now, to be fair to ICEE, it isn't really there fault. These were not official ICEEs. They were the abominations the soda companies are offering. The trouble is I can't remember seeing a real ICEE machine in ages now that K Mart are almost as common as a dinosaur. I want the kind of ICEE where the flavors are Red and Blue Raspberry. Even their version of the Coke flavor is pretty good.

With the power of the internet at my disposal, I did a little research today. ICEE is still around and has a website. A poor website at that. The text above the circle in the middle that looks like text is really a hyperlink. Click on them and it will open a popup.

I found several locations near my house including the Target that I had tried. I have a feeling there is a Red ICEE in my near future.

Here are some fun ICEE facts I found on their website:

ICEE is sold in over 30,000 outlets nationwide, along with outlets in Canada and Mexico - I knew there had to be one close to me.

Over 300,000,000 ICEEs are sold each year - it looks like they are still going strong.

Best Way To Master Foreign Language Vocabulary

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:35:03 -0700

I studied Arabic for the military. We had 63 weeks to learn the language and get ready to start our job. The classes met 8 hours a day 5 days a week. We were pounded with new vocabulary constantly.

Fortunately for me, I stumbled upon a vocabulary learning technique just before I signed up for the military that saved my life...or at least helped me make it through the class.

Here's how it works.

1) Find 5 envelopes and label them Day 1 through Day 5.
2) Write all of the vocabulary you are trying to learn on small index cards and put them all in the Day 1 envelope. (I prefer something about 1" X 2")
3) Read the foreign language side of each card, if you know the English definition, place it in the Day 2 envelope. If you don't know the English version, set it aside - it's going to go back in the Day 1 envelope.
4) Study all of the cards left in the Day 1 envelope throughout the day.
5) The next day, read all of the Day 2 cards. If you know the English definition, place in the Day 3 envelope. The ones that you don't know are going to go back in the Day 1 envelope. Yes, I said Day 1.
6) Everyday, any cards that you get correct move forward a day and the ones you get wrong go back to Day 1.

Once a card has made it through Day 5, put it in a box that you look at every couple of weeks to keep the words your learned a while back fresh in your mind. By the end of the class, I had around 3000 words in a couple boxes. I flipped through the entire box about once a month.

This technique has two things going for it.
1) When you study your vocabulary, you are spending your effort on the words you don't know.
2) You still spend a brief time studying the words that you know throughout a week to make sure that you really know them. Sometimes a word might be fresh in your mind for some reason, but when you look at it the next day it looks like a foreign word.

For our purposes, our focus was on foreign language to English so that was the direction I focused on. For most people, you will probably want to make sure you can go foreign to English and vice versa before advancing the card.

Also, this technique works for people other than native English speakers. Just replace English with your primary language and enjoy.

If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to explain it better. If you happen to know what book I found this in, let me know and I'll provide the proper credit. I remember it was a little quick tip in the sidebar.

Differences between city and country life

kalbzayn@gmail.com (Mike Miller) — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 20:27:02 -0700

Our 2 1/2 year old cousin is in town to visit. He lives in the country. The real country. He's constantly hanging around cows, goats, and sheeps at his grandpa's barns across the street.

We drove him here on Saturday night and he is heading back home tomorrow. So far, these are the things that amazed him the most:

1) Drinking water doesn't live in the fridge in the city. It hides in the sink. He has well water, so bottled water is an everyday occurance.

2) There are more tractors in the city than the country. Summer in the city is construction season. New roads, fixed roads, and new buildings grow here faster than the corn. All of those projects use tractors. Big tractors. Lots of tractors.

3) You can go for a walk and find a store...with desserts. A quick walk to Meijer after dinner in the wagon netted us some cookies, a college football magazine, and some garage sale stickers. You just can't get anywhere by foot out in the country.

4) There are storm drains everywhere. He spent most of the trip to the store leaning over the wagon pondering the depths trying to determine where they went and whether there were any more cookies down there. Or at least milk.

Starting tomorrow, our kids will be spending a couple nights up at their cousin's house. I wonder what kind of neat country things they will tell us about when they return.