Word of the Week

Job Prowling

v- the description of looking for a job without actually job hunting. That is to say that you are "window-shopping" jobs.

e.g. I'm job prowling till I can meet with my boss and set a timetable for escape.

Chris

Rain- Day 5

So according to the best guesses San Diego (downtown area only) has around 4-5 inches of rain since Monday. Topping off the awesomeness is that we had hail, lightning and thunder, yeah right here near the beach. It's been awesome. And yes, we're currently building our ark, as per instruction, just in case.

In the mean time we've been told that it's gonna be this way all winter, due to some crazy weather pattern.

I'm no meteorologist, so please, allow the following video to help you better understand this weather.

Dumber for it...

I've decided that the absolute worst way to show off years of veritable knowledge and experience in grad school is requiring the writing of a dissertation. I stare day after day at my computer knowing I need to write more of my thesis stuff but have no motivation to do so. So what do I do instead? ANYTHING. Facebook? Sure, why not. Kotaku? Sure, why not. IGN? Sure, why not. HULU? Actually, I've been good about avoiding TV watching (as of yet)- which is super good as I would be in a world of hurt thanks to Netflix on demand. Blog? Sure, why not. I just feel dumber every time I sit down to try and explain in coherent sentences years of work. Yes, I do have journal papers to write and I am trying to finish those as they are the basis for my work, but still... It hurts my brain and my butt to try and sit at my desk and write non-stop. You would think that my being able to speak for hours on end and answer with ease any scientific questions that are fielded at me would be sufficient for granting a PhD, but NO. I've decided that the final months are the hardest, not because of the work, only because of the hoops. Oh well, back to the grind.

~Chris

The adventure continues...

I wish I could know what the next year holds for us...

But as we move forward only knowing that Chris will graduate sometime in the next few months with his Ph.D., we only have the anticipation of not knowing what's next. But hey, we'll try to keep everyone up to date as things happen. Thanks to everyone for all the love and support we've received over the last year. Oh, and if anyone was ever thinking about coming to visit in San Diego, you may not have very long...

Well 2010...bring on the adventure!

See I knew I was in the right field...

Man, science really does go hand in hand with video games:

Awesome

~Chris

Enough with the idiocy of Facebook

People are idiots!

The following is a response to a Facebook post of a friend of mine who claims that she got the H1N1 flu after getting the shot 2 days before:

I would be highly amazed that you could justify your sickness to the shot seeing as how nearly all current vaccines use recombinant partial-attenuated virus (AKA never had the full virus in it) due to costs and FDA requirements (Live and heat-inactivated are only used in the run-up period). Also keep in mind that you may not have the H1N1 and your local MD isn't equipped with the RT-PCR diagnostics required to validate H1N1 away from all the other virii out there.

So I know I may have just offended a bunch of people, but hey it goes on-

With regard to some friend of mine from high school (again on FB) talking about taking all these tests to determine the sex of the child

(Her Status update) : my voodoo pee test said girl. It was the weirdest test and I wouldn't do it over again. We will see if it is right though. Crossing fingers.

Yesterday at 11:36am · Comment · Like

Person 1- I have a funny test for you, ask me about it when you see me in person

Yesterday at 11:56am

Original Poster- You have peaked my curiosity...

Yesterday at 12:01pm

Random Girl- did you check the chinese birth calendar? it was right about caleb, and wrong about leah. so 50/50...but it's been accurate with a lot of my friends!

Yesterday at 12:06pm

Original Poster- I

did the chinese birth charts. It was correct with my first two, but wrong on the third. This time is says girl, but who knows :)

Yesterday at 12:20pm

Person 1- The Argentine's believed that your baby starts to manifest it self through you. And there are certain things girls and boys do different.

Yesterday at 12:26pm

Other Random girl- I can't wait to find out if the voodoo test is accurate. How come it was weird? Or is it too graphic to write about? :-)

Yesterday at 12:27pm

Original Poster- Interesting Darwin, I am curious.

Jamie, not too graphic so I will try to explain. First there are several things you can't have. You can't have polycystic ovarian disease, no progestrone therapy for ten days, or intercourse within two days. You wait until morning for your sample. You pee in a cup and draw up 20 cc's to put into the test cup. It looks like there was glitter in it as well as other chemicals. You swish the cup for ten seconds. It has to be on a flat surface after swishing and it has to have white under it. You then have to read the test at eye level after ten minutes. If it is green, it is boy. If it is yellow/orange, it is girl. So, if I looked at any angle other than eye level it was green, but eye level it was orange. So I called their help desk and they said it was definitely a girl. Their website also said, if you don't look at eye level it will always be green because that is what the chemicals do to your urine. Freakin weird if you ask me, but we will see. They said it is 90% accurate! Hope they are right, I would LOVE a girl!!

Yesterday at 12:38pm

Well Wisher 1-

GOOD LUCK!

Yesterday at 1:11pm

Well Wisher 2- That would be so fun for you guys!

Yesterday at 2:27pm

Random Girl 3- Wowza! I've never known anyone that has taken that test...til now! That's fun stuff! I'm still sending pink babydust your way!

Yesterday at 3:03pm

Well Wisher 3-

congrats

Yesterday at 3:24pm

Well Wisher 4- I bet it will be a girl! Are you going to find out? Or just be surprised when it's born!

Yesterday at 4:05pm

Longing Girl 1-

I have 3 boys too, I hope my next one, when that happens, will be a girl too.

Yesterday at 4:25pm

Expert Girl 1- Congratulations... The sex depends on when you ovulated. i'll email you about it..... Cindy

Yesterday at 4:29pm

Original Poster- According to ovulation Cindy, we are set for a girl as well. For the risk of TMI, I will email you about it and you can see what you think :

My response follows:

I'm sorry as a trained biomedical researcher I just have to point out the obvious fact from 10th grade health class - it's not yours to decide (your husband carries X and Y, not you), as for the others...ummm of course it's a 50/50 chance of being right - there are only 2 choices (for most of us)

Seriously!?!

I wish I could explain how infuriating the idiocy of the collective is. People are dumb sheep who believe anything that someone else "heard" somewhere!!! Think people, just stop believing blindly and THINK!!!

~Chris

Vegas and U2...a winning combination!

So as some of you may know, Chris is a moderate (cough, cough) U2 fan. So when they announced that their tour dates didn't include anywhere reasonably close to San Diego, we decided to attend the Vegas show, and meet Mike and Michelle and the kids for the show. We had GA tickets, and therefore, if we wanted to be anywhere close to the stage, had to arrive early in the day and wait. And wait and wait and wait. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day and we hung out all day with a very nice Irish family (including the dad who was about 65). We got there around 9:30 or so and got a pretty good place in line.

It wasn't until after 5 that they opened the gates, but we were able to secure a spot, and as you can see I was trying really hard to make myself take up more space than I actually do.

We were able to get inside the circle, only about 4 or 5 people away from the stage on the left hand side. Not too shabby!

Chris took about 1400 pictures (not including the ones for the Black Eyed Peas) which I had the pleasure of filtering. This one is an awesome shot of Bono and The Edge.

For one song (don't tell Chris that I don't remember which one) Larry Mullen Jr. brought out his Bongos and rocked it up with Bono on the outer circle.

But I think one of the coolest parts was when Bono pulled (quite literally) a kid out of the crowd and gave him the glasses off his face. I dare say that Napoleon will forever be a moderate (cough, cough) fan of U2. If not, I say shame on him.

When the band came back out for the encore Bono was wearing this ridiculous jacket. If anyone has suggestions for photographing a moving subject wearing red lasers, so as to not make the subject look like an explosion, please, I'm all ears.

All in all it was an awesome show, I never knew how much fun being right up against the stage with a million strangers could be. I'm definitely ready to go back and see them again!

Disneyland way back when...(okay so only like a month ago...)

So back in October we went up to Disneyland to check out all of the Halloween decorations.

First thing we saw when we pulled into the parking structure: Disneyland is full. Ummm...I guess we'll try anyway? Fortunately enough people had exited the park by the time we got to the gate that we were able to go in. We watched the cool villain firework show and fantasmic...unfortunately those pictures are still on our other computer and I haven't tried real hard to find them. Oh well.
But here are some of the pictures from Saturday, including Chris's Hipster team captain.

Also, as we were driving home we became enveloped by a thick coastal fog. Cool.

I need one of these...

Plan to buy one of these after I get a real job...

(Don't worry Lish will let me- only rule is she has to be able to drive it when she wants)

~ Chris

Hate "Photos" and "Photogs"!?!

So before I delve in to the finer points of this I was just thinking again of how much I hate the proliferation of the sub-$1000 dSLR camera- that and how ridiculous everybody who owns a Canon Rebel neckstrap is. BTW- don't flaunt it it's not a freaking d series and even then I don't know that I would tout it as all that unless it at least holds a mark moniker (mk II or MkIII). Now before everybody gets in a fit and lynches me you should know where I'm coming from.

dSLR does not equal professional photographer.

B&W is a type of picture that you specifically compose to- NOT a FILTER on photoshop.

Holga is a type of camera with a very artistic value to it- NOT a BOX you click on photoshop.

Oh yeah, and photoshop is to help fix small imperfections and minor adjustments NOT a compensation because you suck at photos.

So why the ridiculous hate? Well see I've had a lot of people that I am connected to get married in the last year or two, as such everybody posts all these photos online - via FB or blog or flckr or you-name-it. Then I see other people gushing about how awesome they are and how they're the best wedding photographer in the world, etc. ad infinitum. This is fine and all, until I start seeing how crappy this stuff is and how much of it is 20 something girls that daddy bought them a camera and they have a macbook Pro so they can charge an arm and a leg and then take these senseless photos, add B&W effects or add a Holga Vignetting and say it's art. It's NOT!!!

I'm not a great photographer, and I don't really like/do well with wedding pictures, but that being said I'm not charging thousands of dollars either. I have shot a total of 3 (?) weddings and I have never done any of it as a pro. It was always as a favor or as an honor to be able to take some pictures for a friends wedding. That being said I am insulted as an enthusiast and friend of multiple professional photographers when I see the crap that is put on FB and flckr. Really you took the dumbest photo and then not only did you make it black and white but then you included the color one so that everyone knows that it's not really a B&W, or maybe you included both the B&W and the sepia tone wash - dear stupid do you even know what a sepia wash is? or how it's done??? (besides the obvious, "Well I click here and it does it- ta da!!")

To me black and white is the best looking form of art there is (now I know I am wrong, but this is my opinion). And to see it corrupted by idiots makes me sick. Think of it this way - most professionals spend years shooting Black and White heck some of them never leave it, but I guarantee you that all of them know how to shoot it. Furthermore, every person who takes a real photo class starts in B&W. This is where you learn the fundamentals, this is where you learn how a darkroom works, keys, tones, pushing, pulling, etc. you learn how to really take a good picture and yet somehow the lack of people knowing the basics seems to make them pros and leads to crap for photos.

If I offended you well I hope you can look past it, if you're really offended lemme know (not that I will do much about it, but maybe we can talk and I can show you what I mean). Otherwise always ask to see a professional's film cameras to know how they're digital stuff is.

Trust me a $500 dSLR is not a camera that you want as the main camera for your wedding- the sensor is too small and it may be 60 megapixels but that number means next to nothing- I know 6MP cameras that outshoot nearly everything else there is.

Chris

Wonderful Day!

So I didn't have high hopes for Disneyland yesterday. Disneyland has recently introduced a monthly payment plan for SoCal residents so the park has been more slammed than usual. When we went on Chris's birthday, we didn't ride a single thing and left about mid-day because there were so many people. So when we pulled up Monday evening and had to park on the ground floor in the parking structure I was worried. Really worried, because that seemed to indicate that all the other floors were full. But much to our dismay...there was hardly anyone in the park. We were able to watch the fireworks while riding Big Thunder Mountain (really cool by the way).
But I didn't dare hope that Tuesday would be as empty as Monday night, and as we waited 25 minutes to get into the parking structure I was not very hopeful.
But as we got to space mountain and the wait said 10 minutes...my hopes started to rise. And when we were able to ride 3 times in 30 minutes life seemed pretty good (besides the fact that I had the day off and got to spend the whole day with Chris). Only bad thing? The ride broke as we were about to get on for the 4th time. I just wish it would have waited 5 more minutes. (It's a life-long goal for Chris and I to see space mountain with the lights on). Oh well.
After space mountain broke, we headed to splash mountain and got there right as it broke down. Then we walked onto pirates, got my birthday gift card and went to eat at the Blue Bayou. By the way, definitely good, but I would save it for a special occasion. After we were done eating the server brought out a chocolate mousse with whipped cream and mickey mouse sprinkles. It was amazing!
Then we decided to head out to avoid getting stuck in traffic on the way home and spent the evening relaxing and trying not to bake.
Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!

Follow me, I'm trained to survive this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8206280.stm

So the good news is my years of video game training have made me fully prepared for the inevitable future.

Beat Down

So I had my annual committee meeting yesterday. Didn't go quite as I had hoped for. The good news coming out of all of this is that I am meeting again in three months to finalize my graduation date... that is good. The bad part is i have to really crank it out to ensure that I have good enough data at that meeting that I can sell them on an end-of-the-year/early next year date. We will see. In the mean time I don't think I've ever felt so abused in my whole life as I sat there talking to my committee. I should feel honored that they think what they do about my work and what I can do while I'm still here. Really? Really? Gee I sure do feel honored that you want me to build a second presentation and give it to you in three months. I feel extra honored that you guys can't even decide how much time I need to finish. I have a 2-1-2 split as to whether I'll be done in the next 4 months. 2 say yes, 2 say no, 1 says he can't decide. WOW! Seriously? WOW!

Well no matter what I'm done in 6 months tops but I'm hoping more towards 4- time will tell.

~Chris

Lamentations

Yeah we were so busy on Saturday night that we didn't even take any pictures. The tournament was a success, the stage was rockstar-worthy, the crowd was singing along. It was AWESOME. Too bad about the pictures. My hope is to secure some from some of the "official" cameras, or at least someone else. I also plan to draw up the awesomeness that was the stage. Oh, well. Hopefully there will be other chances to do something similar.

It's time to Rockband Tourney!

So tomorrow night is tourney time. We're helping out with a huge YSA activity (think LA and south) y helping host a HUGE rockband tourney. We'll be sure to take lots of photos and try to get some posted up to the blog. In a worst case secenario we may just do another Picasa album. Anyway I have successfully found the best prizes EVER for our contenders.

How about these:

Amazon

Video in action at:

Gearlog

Yeah they're about the best thing in the whole world. Perfect for the 18-30 year old dedicated enough to win Rockband.

If you guys have any other ideas of things to include in the tourney I'd love to know.

Oh yeah before I forget I got one of THESE to help with the "effect"

Check out the video here.

Btw- for future reference Fog juice is able to be purchased Year Round at Party City (yeah I really had to find Fog Juice).

Cheers

~Chris

Wedding Pics

So if anyone is interested in scrolling through the 600+ pics that Chris took at Tim (Alicia's little bro)'s wedding. Feel free to drop us a message and we'll be happy to send you the link. Keep in mind there are no comments on the pics so you may not recognize most (all) the peeps in the shots, but it's good fun to look at some of the awesome moments frozen in time.

Must have this shirt

Need I say more than the title?

Time to Re-Rock

Yup so 2 bands that we'll be seeing later this fall have released packs of songs on Rockband this week, and it looks to be some must haves for the Larsons. blink-182 and Weezer have both released packs...which makes me wonder: Would these be good songs to have for the YSA conference we're helping with next weekend? Thoughts from the peanut gallery (BTW- YSA=Young Single Adult church group). The songs are:

Weezer- Pork and Beans

My Name is Jonas

Undone (The Sweater Song)

blink-182- Down

Feeling This

The Rock Show

My 2 cents:

My Name is Jonas is my favorite weezer song, but not exactly the rock-a-thon that I come to look for in a good RB song. Down is a kinda slow blink song too. The Rock Show is about as basic pop-punk as you can get which always lends itself to a great play... who knows!?!

Tonight We Music

So the tonight we ride post is kinda misleading as it is still 3 weeks away, that being said tonight for reals we're headed to another wonderful Summer Pops on the Bay concert. Looking forward to some VGL performances and who knows maybe some guest conductors... Anyway they don't allow cameras so no pics, but that being said they don't really check either. Well I'm off to work hard.

Tonight We Ride!

Yeah so it's that time again. What time you may ask? Well time, of course, for the annual Midnight Madness Bike Ride through San Diego. It's coming up on August 15th (that's a Saturday). We're getting stoked and of course not doing anything to be prepared (it's always better that way). So if you're interested in coming out to ride with us let one of the two of us know and we'll get the details squared away. Also if you're from out of town and want to ride with us I'm pretty sure we can put up a few people in the apt for the evening (yes I am epecially directing this to residents of North O-Town). In the mean time I'm gonna have to figure a way to mount the bike racks on to the Yakima Bars... hmm I'm sure I can make this work some how...

~Chris