Out and about in the wilderness of Life

I saw this Luna Moth outside my window at work and at first thought it was a large leaf. But upon closer examination I found the beautiful creature looking for some respite from the sun.

So for the past few months i have had my friend Brady living with me. He is moving back to the area after living in Ohio for awhile. Its good to have him here, he helps out when he can around the house and otherwise is a good friend.
Soon he will be in a better position and his fiance with her kids are moving here also. Tough part now is finding an affordable place. Even with the housing market tanking, things are pricey in Virginia.
All i know is, soon enough my cat Saki will be loosing her favorite napping partner, and that means there will be hell to pay for me.

So…for awhile now I have been feeling a tad fatigued. My doc was convinced that I might have sleep apnea. And while I don’t sense that I wake up a lot at night or snore (though I do have accurate reports that on occasion I shake the walls, but mainly I just grind my teeth) I decided to take her up on the sleep study to find out.

It was an interesting experience. I was prescribed a Split Sleep session, meaning that the first part of the night they would monitor me and if I hit a certain threshold of apnea sessions they would wake me and I would sleep the rest of the night with a CPAP breathing device on.

Well frankly I didn’t sleep at all well. It wasn’t the strange surroundings or the bed (though it was a tad soft for my taste), its just that I am not used to having all these wires strapped to me and stuff up my nose. I tossed and turned…as best I could with my leashes on…and slept some but to me not that much. So when the attendant came in I was fully ready to put the CPAP on to see if it would help.

But low and behold it was morning and time to leave. Turns out that I had slept well enough in the night for them to monitor me and whatever apnea I may have shown was not enough to wake me in the middle of the night. Now I wait for the doctor to review the data they collected and see if they want me to go back again. Next time I would start off with the breathing mask.

Oh well…wait and see time…here’s a pic of me all wired up, can you tell me how I was supposed to sleep?!

Sigh, I hate government inefficiency! And this is the second time they have done this, you would think they would get a clue the first time.

So this week I get a letter from the IRS in the mail. It tells me that soon I will be receiving my “Economic Stimulus” check from them . Now what I don’t understand is, why didn’t they just send me the check rather than a note telling me they were sending a check. While this may seem like not a big deal to plenty of people, here is the problem. This note they sent out to everyone Cost the US public $40.8 million. Now do you get the idea? Crikey, I can think of a lot of places that money could have went instead. Perhaps we can collect the letters from people now that they know and fill a few pot holes around the neighborhood.

It is a sad day, I truly feel like shedding a tear right now.

One of my all time favorite artists, Dave Stevens passed away today after battling with Leukemia. While many non-comic book fans would recognize the name, you all would probably know him as the creator of the Disney movie “The Rocketeer”.

Every time I met Dave at conventions in the past, he was always a gracious gentleman. I hope he rests in peace and flys on in the afterlife!

Source: The Beat

I do love movies. Not only the fantasy and release you get from a good film, but the actual technical side of creating it. Here is a good little Youtube video I found of 3 graphic designers who spent a day filming themselves on Omaha Beach and from that created the massive D-Day landing with some movie magic. Watch and learn!

D-Day on a budget

86% Barack Obama
86% Chris Dodd
83% Bill Richardson
82% Hillary Clinton
81% John Edwards
75% Joe Biden
69% Dennis Kucinich
67% Mike Gravel
60% Rudy Giuliani
51% John McCain
44% Mitt Romney
42% Mike Huckabee
38% Ron Paul
38% Tom Tancredo
31% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Well I hope that all my friends out in cyberland are having a great New Years Eve. Me, I am at home in bed all sickly. Not a fun time, let me tell ya!

I still have a lot of NYE’s ahead of me, so I don’t worry about missing one. So I hope that everyone takes a minute to remember all the good things from 2007, and all the bad things. While it is never much fun to remember the bad, it is healthy to know what happened so you don’t repeat it in the future.

Love you all!

Well its been a couple of weeks since the Godson went back home and things are finally starting to calm down.

Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the visit that caused an uproar, but rather the big shakeup at work. I tend not to blog about work to much, so I will just say that the last two weeks I have seen a lot of really good people layed off from my company, my entire department reorganized, my team moved under a different division, and a rather shaky look into my own future with the company.

But on an up note, our NIO team put on their annual pig roast at work today. And even with the lovely rain (which was cold and nasty, but we have been in a severe drought) it still went on in style. For those that do not like to see where your food comes from, you might want to skip this picture!

I love maps. Its a well known fact to pretty much everyone around me. As a kid my family would drive around the country in the motorhome and typically you would find my nose stuck in the road atlas trying to figure out where we were. Due to this I have always had a profound sense of direction and a certain confidence in my travels.

So when I found Google Maps a few years back I fell instantly in love. Not only could I find virtually anyplace in the world in map form, but I could also see it via satellite photos. Some areas you can zoom in really close and some you can only get a general view of the area, but regardless it is very neat!

There are quite a few people who look for unusual things around the world, via Google Maps, and report on them. Today I read about Vulcan Point. It is located on Crater Lake on Vulcan Island in Lake Taal on the island of Luzon, just north west of Australia. Yes, an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island. Makes the head spin.

You can see it by clicking on this link, otherwise look around the world via Google Maps and enjoy your free armchair vacation!