Wall e

It seemed a sin to not have made mention of the recent release of Wall-e on DVD/Blu-Ray. My daughter watched it at her grandma's house yesterday, and apparently started jumping up and down and shaking when the little pod dropped out of the big drop-ship and started screaming "Steve-a, Steve-a." She had only seen this movie once, and that was a long time ago (the day it came out in the theater, of course).

I tried to tell her that the robot's name was Eve, not Steve, but since she's now seen the move more times than I have, I didn't really have any authority on the subject.

-BacH

Feedback Loops

I have been thinking today how nice it would be to have an impartial and consistent feedback loop. A way that as soon as you had an idea you could bounce it off someone and have instant impartial feedback. I experience that type of feeling occasionally with Bach when I can catch him, but then we have to go our seperate ways and do other things, that is why it would be nice to have a constant link. Some might point to prayer and revelation, and that is true and wonderful, but I don't forsee in the near future the ability to have a constant stream of that feedback, and sometimes "noise" has a great tendency to drown that out easier. There is also something to be said for the "down to earth" feedback you can get from peers.

Just some thoughts I had when coming up with some ideas for the first edition of what will become a Herd anthology.

Super Guy

(I want you "all" to know I kept myself in check overiding the desire to include the four letter n word...Ked... :D)

Love ya guys

Herd History

Talking with Bach earlier I realized that we are getting up towards our 10 year anniversary as a Herd and I thought I could start a special project related to that. For the project I will need everyone to be working on sending me information/stories that you have or want to write and I will compile it. For example it would be nice if everyone recounted their version of the establishment of the club independently and I could sort through the indescrepancies and get a clear view of things. Also, really helpful would be period information of journals, emails, photos or the like. I have some things, but I think unforunately for emails I won't have the pre mission stuff. I have catalogued the original yahoo group and other web collaborations we have done so that is nice and most anything contemporary I have pretty good records. Please let me know your thoughts and get me info so I can start with this, it is going to take the time I have before the actual anniversary. (Oh and if anyone knows when that is let me know)

Super Guy
(Self Styled Herd Historian)

Preview of Cartographer

Here are the tracks of the CARTOGRAPHER "Remix" 2nd disc. (You cannot save these songs, it's just for your listening pleasure.) Enjoy!

Finally!

"Finally what, Nate? What could you possibly be referring to?" you may be asking yourselves. Well, allow me to introduce you all to what could safely be considered the most anticipated music for our group over the last 3 or 4 years! (I know a couple of us will be excited anyway.) Gents, without further adue, here it is: CARTOGRAPHER .

Young Halloween Results

Just a quick tip I learned while typing this post: don't click on any of your pictures while in the "Preview" screen. You lose everything you've worked on, and you have to start over. (Sigh) Anyway, Here are a few pictures from the Young Family's Happy Halloween Extravaganza! (2008) This is my Jack-O-Lantern. (My second favorite part of Halloween!)


So this year Melanie wanted to dress up as a family and do something cute. I was okay with that as long as I didn't feel like a Halloweenie doing it. When she suggested Peter Pan and Wendy, I almost said no. But the thought of Erin being Tinkerbell had me sold on it. So even though I was gone two weeks out of the month (one week in Miami and another week in Washington State) I was still able to make our costumes in time for all the Halloween parties.

Erin looked so cute, ... I don't think it's fair that Daddies melt into puddles over their daughters. I'm just warm putty in her hands, and I can't help it. THAT's what got me into those green tights, which actually turned out to be thin green panty-hose! I had to put on THREE other pairs of normal panty-hose to blend out my hairy legs. Even then I felt totally exposed.


... at least until I finished the shoes. Then - because of some unexplicable reason - I felt much better. There must be something in the commitment of a complete costume that erases all the doubt and shame you should normally feel when you are dressed up like a complete fool. I felt great, it was fun. Now that it's over, I don't have to worry about being a faerie-boy next year. I can move on in my life, and do something ... else.

on Change and Growth Part 1

The status quo seems to be a very powerful thing. It's part of human nature to want to grow and improve and to seek after more. I've been noticing, however, that when people try to grow and change, many times they end up falling back to where they were.

I'd bet this has happened to just about everybody on the planet. You have a habit you'd like to break or create, you start practicing your modified behavior, and in a short amount of time, you realize you're back to old habits and your attempt at behavioral modification has completely failed. I know it's happened to me many many times. It frustrates me to think about how many times it's happened. I tried to keep a budget once or twice (or more...), and it works great for a month or two, then the weekly budget meetings get bumped once or twice, then I'm behind and it's harder to catch up, then... *sigh* my good intentions evaporate once again. Back to the status quo.

I know of a family which was living in New Mexico and decided it was time to make a change and come up to Cedar City, closer to family. They prayed, considered, and sold their house, packed up the truck and rented an apartment in Cedar. He ended up working the exact same job here as in New Mexico, moved from one store to another, they moved to Hurricane for the same kind of job, and a couple of days ago I heard that they were back in New Mexico. Same town, same job. The only thing different is that they are now living with his parents because they don't have a house. Status quo.

I know of another person (and these are people I know and admire, I'm not trying to point out any kind of uncommon weakness) who with grand intentions left his job to spend more time at home with family and earn the family living through investments. That lasted about 6 months, and now he's back at the same job he left. Status quo.

Why does this happen? I don't say that these families made the wrong decision to revert to the way things were, or that the decision to change in the first place was wrong, and surely there were individual factors in all of the cases I mentioned, and the economic climate had a big part in the decisions of both the families I mentioned, but when we see trends, we look for common factors and try to identify ways of getting around these common problems.

Why is it so hard to make a change?