Breaking status quo

I'm here, and definitely have my head on straight. Where to begin!? With all the R&D for various projects, P2 (personal progress), and reworking of life, I've got a ton I'd like to share on here soon.

For now, check this out. It's the Technology Review's TR35: 2008 Young Innovators Under 35
Some of those people there have some very widely recognized products and technologies that they either invented or contributed to, like the innovative battery technology found in GM's Chevy Volt, or Drupal, which I'm finding to be one of the more impressive and fiercely expanding/adopted platforms. More on that later.

I'm going to make a bold statement. I'll be on that list in the coming years; watch. God's too great to not have some young Christian innovators causing seismic activity in the relevant markets of today, and personally, I'm tired of us just getting by and being at (more typically, below) status quo.

Back to work :-)

Foreseeable future

"And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.
Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Do not make me the scorn of the fool!
I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is you who have done it.
Remove your stroke from me;
I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
When you discipline a man
with rebukes for sin,
you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
surely all mankind is a mere breath!
Selah

"Hear my prayer, O LORD,
and give ear to my cry;
hold not your peace at my tears!
For I am a sojourner with you,
a guest, like all my fathers.
Look away from me, that I may smile again,
before I depart and am no more!"

-Psalm 39:7-13

Amending time

A good explanation. Yeah.

Artist: Kenna | Album: Make Sure They See Me | Track: Static

Complexity for simplicity's sake

This will be a quick one. So as I mentioned a while ago, I'm working on some top-secret butter-sauce magic internal projects here at Exit 31. This is far and away the most R&D I've had to pour over, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. But you know, the further I get along, the more I encounter the same issue:

This thing is complicated.

Not just that, but there is A LOT of great tech out there that I'm really split on. I'm looking to use a few frameworks for the different languages on the back-end, and I've progressively migrated from none to simple to complicated. I had started thinking CakePHP was the way, but after some more research decided to look more into Zend because of their recent work with Adobe and great (though super expensive) IDE, Zend Studio, built on the Eclipse platform. I also have always been a big Mootools fan, but now I'm torn between it and Prototype/Scriptaculous because of Zend's native support for those frameworks in it's AJAX libraries.

Well, the goal was to make it extensible and modular so I can add/change/remove easier. Here's hoping all this will make it easier and not face-mangling in the end. Face-mangling. Ouch.

I just want to get back to the days when the words Web and 2.0 (is that a word?) were never married. Maybe I'll start the Web 3.0 revolution, which will be a mass-reverting to non-standard jumbled mark-up. Yes...

XPERIA X1. Beastly

Hard to believe it's been around 2 years since I got my good ol' Samsung Blackjack (still branded Cingular from back in the day!). Time has not overlooked it; it is a battle-scarred beast. So I've been on the hunt for a good few months on a replacement phone and have had my eye on three beasts: HTC Touch Pro, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 {X1a in the US, and also manufactured by HTC}, and Samsung Omnia. All of these are finally either on market or trickling in, and I've done plenty of research on them - perhaps too much...eyes burning...

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that after the latest firmware update on the X1a, all my complaints have been answered. It's just a sexy beast. All aluminum, classic HTC genius mixed with that Sony Ericsson style. Plus the feature-set in hardware {YES, Sony finally made me happy by not using their garbo proprietary Memory Stick Duo, opting for MicroSD instead} is really beastly as well. As an added bonus, their new 'Panels' interface even allows for use of the TouchFlo 3D interface found on the Touch Diamond/Pro/HD series, and virtually any other WinMo UI. My only complaint is the lack of an (g) accelerometer {what!? why!?} - so no fun tilt-based, iPhone-esque games. But oh-well. I do believe I've found/decided on my next phone! Now, all that's left is to wait til it releases with a carrier (AT&T only, mane!) so I can get it on upgrade/contract instead of the $800 Best Buy is selling it for unbranded. Peep videos below. Or a review by the unwired, here.

The phone {enjoy the hilarious music!}

TouchFlo3D as a panel - YES!

Quantum of What?

It feels good to finally be back here in Indianapolis. I got in around 3pm yesterday afternoon, and even with the imminent task list, managed to slip in an hour or two nap.

With everyone being in town at the same time, we decided to go check out the new 007 movie, Quantum of Solace. Here's a quick review:

Good. Not great, nor epic as a whole, but good.

The action, as always in any Bond movie, is on point. The cinematography was pretty crazy, and some of the stunts were, while definitely not really possible, super fun to watch.

The plot was also decent, but they relied on you to have seen and remembered a ton of stuff from the most recent Bond movies to fully understand the plot and subtleties that this new one put out there.

I will say that the acting was better than I remember from Casino Royale, and the concept of revenge was executed in epic fashion. My main disappointment was with the opening Bond theme! I thought that with Alicia Keys doing it they couldn't go wrong - but I was wrong. Just wasn't catchy at all. The rest of the soundtrack was, as usual, epic as an untamed beast running through a moonlit desert toward a battle for the freedom of a nation from the gripping hands of evil. Yeah.

{A work-in-progress render of the never-finished 3D project of mine, Trusty Beast, from 2 years ago. It is, in fact, a beast riding through a desert toward an epic city. One day I'll redo/finish it if I have time}

Anyway, I'm off to a wedding. Paul and Sarah, congrats in advance!!!

Anonymous apology

Well, I've been delaying this one long enough. As a preface, this really is really directed at only one person {if that person is reading this, they know who they are}, so everyone else can feel free to skip over this one. I guess since I am making this public and universally available on the internet for everyone and their mom to read, I probably can't filter anyone out. Oh well, for whatever reason I kind of want it to be open. Warning: this will probably take an odd (won't be often, I promise) turn for the serious and generally un-epic/ un-manly. Sorry in advance, but if the world knew how much of an idiot I was to merit me writing this, you would understand. Anyway, on with the show...

Dear anonymous:

I'm sure I've already done enough damage {even as early as February - probably earlier} to ruin our friendship 8+ times over, and my hope is that this doesn't add to that grocery list of my faults I keep racking up and exposing. I know I might have said the words before, but I honestly can't shake the need to deliberately and almost embarrassingly, continually apologize and hope for amends. Maybe {likely} you're way past it and have made room for other concerns, but I'll continue either way. Apology first, explanation second.

So I've had more than a few weeks months to process, and I've come to the conclusion that I've seen two of the greatest extremes I can imagine. On the one hand, there was all the craziness I did and the incredible rudeness and inconsideration. On the other, I witnessed a display of patience, faithfulness, and friendship that I know could have only been from God. You may have been right when you said no one else would be willing to do that. Seriously, beyond anything else, my worst regret for the outcome of things is that I made the friend that I met out of nowhere disappear seemingly just as fast. Since your circumstances are different now than a couple months ago, that's where I'll leave the mentioning of my regrets. I'm sorry for each of those days I acted like friendship was invincible and something to be recovered at my own convenience.

As far as explanations go, I'll say what I can here, and if you do ever read this and for whatever reason want the whole of the story, I don't think I have any more reservations about filling you in. I will say that from the beginning, every problem I created came from a central character issue or two that I was/am still working on and praying about. Anything else I ever said or implied was probably a cover-up or circumvention of the real deal.

I have to say, though, that while I have changed since then {not perfect by any means, but perspective is better}, so have you and your circumstances; both, I'm sure, for the better. That said, I won't make the same mistake twice, and hopefully you know what I'm talking about. So this is in no way any initiative to create confusion or anything remotely close. In fact, if it did, I'm sorry, and you can ignore everything said. I'd rather you be silent and clear than talking in confusion or anxiety. I guess my only hope from this is that you understand my position of sincerity {maybe that's my reason for making this public as well}, and to let the world know how fortunate they would be to have you, or a clone of you, as their friend, even though you're anonymous :-) Well, another reason could be that in doing this I may be able to go a day or two without feeling the urgent need to repent for my foolishness. A little selfish, I know, but true.

If you made it this far, thanks. If you want, you can hit me up by email or whatever and say anything you want, good or bad. But like I mentioned a little while ago, either way, I'll try to keep you in prayer. Take care.

It's not over yet...why?

Just when you thought you heard the last of the adventure - mother of pearl, when will it end!?

I'm writing this post on the road {stealing tethering from phone} - on the way back from Washington D.C. Yes. D.C. You may be wondering how or why we went from Indianapolis to Tarpon Springs, to Clearwater, to Tampa, to Miami, back to Tarpon, to Tampa again, to Tarpon again, then to D.C, and now back to Naptown. Right?

Well, my good friend John Posey, who recently went to the Navy back in April {graduated top of his class of 600, and finished top of his class at Ceremonial Guard - had to throw that one in} is coming back for my other good friends', Paul and Sarah, wedding on this Saturday. Anyway, our party of 2 is now 3, just like old times - and it's definitely great having John back. Funniest dude on earth. Seriously. Plus he has giant hands and is built like an ultimate warrior from 170 years in the future. His other name is Yanni. This will make 3700 miles and 59 hours on the road since last Wednesday night.

So, since this is yet another personal post {not that I've set any precedents, but the goal was to try and actually post other useful stuff for people} I'll go ahead and finish my vent for the night...uh...early 5am morning. Actually, I'll make that a seperate post. Right now. Be back in 20-30 minutes.

A good way to come back

So, I realize that I haven't really posted any pictures or media in general in a while. There's way too many pictures and stuff in general to post em all, but I think I can get away with a few pictures and a song. Eventually I'll make a custom gallery app so I can post random stuff like an album.

Go ahead and listen to this great song while you check the pics. We've been blasting this whole album on the way here to FL, and everywhere in between. Artist is Kenna, album is Make Sure They See My Face. This song is called "Wide Awake". How appropriate for the long road-trip..."Don't sleep, don't sleep, don't sleep!" LOL

{This was the view we had during the, oh, 27 hours we've spent on the road. Picture taken in good ol' Alligator Ally}

{This was part of the scene at Clearwater Beach the weekend of the Ironman Triathalon. Wouldn't it be horrible if someone through something at it!?}{Ah, good ol' Miami. This is Coco Walk, or something like that. We saw Role Models at the AMC there. HILARIOUS}{And since this is an epic blog, here's an epic picture. Well, semi-epic. Or...maybe? Ah, I thought it was coo!}

Approaching conclusion

It was bound to happen. The end of Joshua and Tyler's Excellent Adventure is near, with just another day or so to go. But this is an adventure, right? So where is all the adventurous stuff?

Glad you asked!

So we were walking along Southbeach in Miami at some random time in the afternoon on Sunday, when out of nowhere, I see something shiny tucked in the sand. When I dug it out, I found out it was a USB memory stick - exciting huh? Well, it would be if you knew what I found on the last lost memory stick I stumbled across... No, it wasn't photos from sightseeing at the zoo or random music from some talentless indie band. That one was a high school professors gradebook and personal info for all of about 150 students at Arlington High School, plus cirriculum files some personal files as well. {Yes, I contacted that guy and tried to give it back, but that one didn't work out}

So what are the odds of me finding anything worth anything twice in a row? I mean, everyone and their mom has a memory stick filled with worthless stuff, and they probably lose it all the time....

So, after a quick load up on the laptop yesterday, lo and behold, I had a "HACHA!" moment. Apparently, I have just shy of 1 gigabyte of Cisco Systems critical partner data, including 110,000 email addresses, phone numbers, membership levels, and loads of other info of executives and contacts from their 50,000 or so WORLDWIDE partners {Asia, Europe, Africa, USA, China, Japan, the list goes on}.

And it doesn't stop there - it also had HUGE raw database queries for their client backend, so given enough time, it would be possible to figure out their entire schema {though, without access to the system it won't do too much good}. All in all, I bet I could get a nice 10 stacks for it! hahahaha, just kidding... kind of :-D

Well, time to go to Bullsh Gardens. LOL. Pictures from this and other stuff later.

Of boujiness and taxation

Back from a brief hiatus, and there are two-sides to my coin of experience. On the one, the last few days have been a great break from the labor-world. Clearwater and Tarpon Springs were definitely good (I'll be heading back there before the trip is done). But outside of those two locations, I have experienced what I think may be the pinnacle of boujie concentration in my whole life. Let me explain.

We decided it would be a good idea to get out of town during the Ironman triathalon, so we headed down to Tampa, in hopes of having another enjoyable experience such as that of a few years back when we roamed around the University of Tampa with no agenda, but {scarily} free access to everywhere - without ID. Unfortunately, where we ended up was to be the beginning of my epiphany of an, until now, undiscovered lifestyle that just kind of urkes me. We went to a social spot where there was a cover charge, and since it looked like a fun place, we paid our dues and got in. Now, don't get me wrong, this place was on point. No roof, palm trees, great lighting, killer DJ's, and skittles. But that's about where the fun stopped. Everyone in there was super clique-ish, or trashed, or fronting like they had money when it was really big-daddy-warbucks' cheese {LOL}. Short of the long is that it ended up being a standing-fest for a good majority of the time.

Then came Miami.

Ah, Miami {Southbeach to be exact}. The place I have wanted to go for so long and always joked about coming to, but never arrived - until now. The drive was great. The scenery was beautiful. The amount of beautiful people is staggering. There are Bentleys, Maybach's, Lexus after Lexus, Lamborghinis, BMW after BMW, and so many high-end things it's hard to take in.

But you know that's not the whole of the story, don't you? First, there were no hotel rooms available ANYWHERE, and the one that was (I'm writing this from here now) was taxation without representation. The number will remain undisclosed. But this is a rare vactation, so it seems worth it. We are pool-side and right next to everything, including the beach. But my complaint is really with a good part of the population here. It seems like everyone is uppity - struggling to muster up enough kindness to even move out of the way on the sidewalk or give you the time. In fact, we went to The Mansion, some super popular place, to check it out - turns out it was some celebrity's birthday from "The Good Life". Apart from the picky-choosey wait outside to get in, the $20 cover, the $7 bottle water (ANGER!), and the restricted access, being limited to the poor 'groundlings' area - it was really the people that set me off to the whole upscale lifestyle. It was clear after about 20 minutes that we (Tyler and I) would be having more fun scraping barnacles off the bottom of 80-year old sea-ridden boats. Again, the cliques, fake flossin like they have money (or if they did, the used it on some girls that could be bought - yeah, I said it!), or the traditional gold-diggers. BOUJIE. BUT, I will admit that the sound system was SICK!

Oh well. I count it an invaluable experience - that when the time comes {and it will}, I won't waste my time with places like that. I'm not saying Miami's a bad place. Not by any means - definitely a nice vactation spot - just watch out for all the facades around. I guess that's anywhere, but you know what they say about Miami... right? Neither do I.

Near da' beach, mon!

We made it! I'm writing this post from Tarpon Springs, FL (outskirts of Clearwater), at the house of some familiar and generous friends from a while back. The drive was great, arrived around 11 or noon yesterday, and even though we got here tired, we were ready to start having chillin and having fun immediately. After sunset (we are 30 seconds from the far-west edge of FL, which means the Gulf of Mexico is literally a few backyards from us), we decided to hit Clearwater beach.

And, since life always turns out to be an adventure for us, it just so happens to be the weekend of the Ironman Triathlon which happens to have dominated the entire beach with tents, bikes, stands, sporting equipment, and diseased whales...not really. Anyway, after a couple hours wandering around, we decided to switch locations.

That's where the wildness happened.

We crossed over the bridge back toward the Florida mainland and parked in a business/shopping district to browse around. All of a sudden, we saw hundreds of people dressed in black and white suites and dresses RUNNING from a building on one side of the street, to a different building on the other side. After stopping several people and asking them, I got strange responses saying things like:

"This is for staff only." *keeps running*
"We are just going over production and material for our studies" *keeps running*

What??? Then we had the epiphany that this was the scientology area of town. If anyone reading this knows me or Tyler, you know where this is going...LOL

So I get tired of weak answers and go inside the building myself, escorted by security. At this point, we realize this isn't just any old scientology building, but the SCIENTOLOGY HEADQUARTERS OF THE WORLD. There were giant LCD/plasma screens playing explanatory videos, scary symbols on the ceiling and tables, people buzzing around with books and more books, people listing to things at built-in headphone audio stations, people RUNNING in and out of the building, and even a guy cooking waffles...and this is all at 10:30pm...no lie.

Anyway, without making this post the longest blog entry in history...What we intended to be the first night of our relaxing vacation, ended up being spent debating the real Christian faith against some the world's leading scientologists and sharing the Gospel message. Wow. Oh well, God does everything well, and that was obviously a set-up since they were having a rare meeting, and two random guys from Indianapolis, IN happened to get to Tarpon Springs, find their way over to Clearwater, head back over the bridge, and located a mass migration of scientologists...at night. Good times!

Well, it's time for day number 2! What's next!?

Updated E31 Audio

Quick update - Tyler just threw me a more 'Web 2.0' set of assets for the flash-based E31 Audio Player, so I did a few revisions and figured I'd let you check it. Didn't realize I never had a counter on the other one!

Make a joyful noise!

Quality road trip music

What was I thinking? I couldn't leave you guys without at least letting you have a sample track from what is sure to be an abused playlist on our trip of adventures.

Bill & Ted's Josh and Tyler's Excellent Adventure

Looks like it's time for a (humbly, well-deserved) vacation!  Well, kind of.  We are taking a road trip out to Florida and possibly/hopefully D.C.

One of our new client's we are working with is based in Orlando, and since we've been wanting to take a vacation to the home of the world's best orange juice {with pulp, please}, we figured it would be a good excuse to have a few meetings, then chill out! I think it's past time to have a few days where I don't think about anything, especially given some of the circumstances of the last year or so {remind me to fill everyone in on that soon}.

The plan is to be in Miami, Tampa, and Clearwater as much as possible, then visit our good friend YANNI {John Posey} who's in the Navy Ceremonial Guard (top of his class!). I'll be posting updates on the frequent if I can.

Everything is super last-minute and unplanned though.  Any suggestions? Leave a comment!

{apologies for the hack photoshop job, but it was too classic to pass up!}

SkyFire sets the {mobile} web ablaze!

You know, there are certain times in a man's life that are earth-shaking.  I had one such time about 10 hours ago.

Being a business owner, gadget enthusiast, programmer, and overall media fan, I've long since been on the bleeding edge of rich-media usage.  More recently, I've found myself spending more and more time scaffolding the proverbial digital web on my phone.  Unfortunately, as everyone knows, the general lack of AJAX support, Flash, and streaming formats (Quicktime in particular), even in the best mobile browsers like the iPhone's Safari or Opera Mini, make it less than ideal.

Enter Skyfire.  Let me tell you something. YES. This is what technology and innovation is all about! If you aren't already familiar, it's a small piece of software that runs on Windows Mobile 5/6 phones and some Symbian (Nokia N or E S60 series) phones [unfortunately, WinMo phones with VGA screens like the incredible new HTC Touch Diamond or Touch Pro aren't supported yet, but they are working on it].

It enables you to, quite miraculously, browse the web in its full web 2.0, Flash filled, Quicktime streaming, AJAX calling, Javascript framework loving, Youtube/Hulu/anything viewing goodness.

I know.  I too had my doubts when I heard the claims - after all, Adobe has been failing at bringing Flash to the iPhone and the closest representation to date is FlashLite or diluted Flash 7 for Pocket PC.  So I decided to try out a media-rich site we recently built, Drivebyprayer.com, to get my assumed dissappointments out of the way.  The site uses the beastly Mootools 1.2 javascript framework, Flash 9 (AS3), dynamic content, processor intensive animations, and even has some .h264 (not encoded as FLV) video streaming through Flash.  I installed Skyfire on my Samsung Blackjack (original) running the updated WinMo 6 firmware, and braced for disaster.

Then I heard the gunshot.  POW!

The short review: Flawless victory.  It handled everything, even the streaming .h264 video and audio. Not just that, but this thing is FAST! It embarrassed mobile IE and Opera Mini, while still showing more content and playing animations and audio.  I watched an interview with their CTO that mentioned something about performance enhancements by leveraging both server and client for various functionality.  Guess that's why they've got over $17 million in funding...

Other sites that I tested and confirmed are:

• Youtube
• Hulu
• Vimeo
  
• Engadget
• ESPN
• Niglatin.com
• Gmail (chat nearly worked - but for some reason I wasn't able to focus the chat window to type)

Best of all, this means that for the most part, I don't have to worry about lugging my laptop around, bootlegging leveraging my phone's tethering service at Starbucks or other places where wi-fi isn't available or free.  It's got it's faults like multi-line text entry, occasional rendering anomalies, and the whole server-based browsing privacy issue [which is supposedly not an issue], but I definitely recommend. IT'S TIME!


Go cop this software.  It's in beta, it's free, and it's the business.

{if I had some significant amounts of money, I would, without doubt, find a way to invest in this company}

Congratulations, intercession, and holograms (?)

Ah, I guess given the circumstances, this would be as good a time as any for a change of pace in my writings. Apologies in advance for any that may be looking for a laugh or tech-scoop - don't worry, there will be plenty in the future! On with the show...

By now the world knows that Barack Obama is now the president-elect of the United States. It was a well-run campaign, and for many of the same reasons made known by public media and proud American's alike, I offer my congratulations.

I've never been one to discuss politics publicly, at least never with the expectation of consistently approval or acceptance. I suppose this is primarily because in the times and culture of our day, the established faith of our forefathers in the Christian faith to which I strive to obtain, that viewed moral issues through the uncompromising lens of the Word of God has been downcast and deemed culturally irrelevant. Without writing a dissertation, I think a proper justification for my clarifying this is that I had/have many reasons, some personal, some moral, that were the cause of indecision and reservations for supporting Obama (the same can be said for McCain in some respects, though not nearly as many). I'm sure I'm not the only one, though I am obviously the minority.

Ultimately, however, I believe that wisdom dictates that regardless of political stance or moral agendas, that the best thing to do is offer our continual prayers, intercession, and support for Obama - that God would give him wisdom, true wisdom, to help lead our country. Congrats to both parties/candidates/running-mates! Well-done! I've got to admit, it is undeniably a moment that I am proud to see as a minority (I myself am 50/50 Black and Puerto Rican).

NOW, enough with the serious talk! Did anyone else think CNN's holograms were strangely entertaining and even more strangely hilarious!? Maybe because of the crazy epic introduction by CNN as

"RIGHT NOW, I WANT YOU TO WATCH WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO DO, BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS ON TELEVISION."

HILARIOUS! Good times. Gooooood times.

{Waves} of Thoughts

So, I'll occasionally get in a zone where the best way to communicate my thoughts or climate is with a song. I think this is one of those times. Plus, I finally get to premiere a little mini-app I made way back in May [ouch...] (props to Tyler for the silly skin!).

I've dubbed it the E31 Audio Player - it's pretty simple at it's core, but aesthetically it's exactly what I want, right down to the real-time wave-form. Praise God that ActionScript 3 is a significantly faster than AS2 and that it's widely adopted now - otherwise, I'd have to use some type of UGLY Youtube-esque player...

If I get enough requests, I'll clean up the source code and release the FLA for others to use as well.

"CHANGE!" I'm as tired as a badger in heat. Goodnight!

Fleeting beauty

Maybe this is the tell-tell sign of a programmer that needs a break, but it's not even been 3 hours since I got this blog up and I already have plans to make a new version from scratch. 'Tis the constantly fleeting beauty of technology.

No worries though, this was a premeditated attack. See, I may be using Blogger for the moment, but I've been secretly (well, not so much anymore - the Internet is serious business) working on an internal project here at Exit 31 that will have it's own blogging system...so I figured I'd better at least use a blog first before building one!

Oh, before I forget. I've got a broad range of self-made or local colloquial (aka slang, lingo, or as my good friend Tyler so hilariously put it, Nig Latin {interjection: no offense is intended with that term - if you still find yourself offended, please be sure see my profile picture for credentials}). Please take some time to familiarize yourself with the more common phrases as I use them profusely and without shame.

"HACHA IN THE MORNING!"	"Aha!" or "Yes!". Generally said in response to positive stimulus (...um?)
"MOTHER OF PEARL!"	An alternative to explicatives. also: the realization of an err on one's own behalf
"Lightweight"	"Almost" or "Nearly". Example: "I lightweight tripped on my way upstairs!"
"Boy" (also "Boybox")	A universal replacement for all nouns. Example: "I gotta run to the boy and get the boy for the boy." Example 2: "Man, it's hot than a boy in here!"

Anyway, what's a blog post without something actually useful? So for the coding type out there, here is an awesome Adobe AIR app that tests and helps create Regular Expressions (RegExps) I recently stumbled across that should be a true time saver.

L.I.F.E. is good!

"Mic-check, 1-2, 1-2!- - - Go ahead and turn my left headphone up.....yeeaaahh... that's the sauce!"

Finally got my long desired blog, not to be trendy or involved in the web 2.0 phenom, but just because sometimes I have some stuff I want to say - 'nah mean?

I'll get you the details soon enough, but for now, I'll at least let the world in on the story behind my blog name...which was, to be honest, a happy accident :-)

"LIFE Is Fully Epic", or L.I.F.E is a recursive acronym, kinda like PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) or GNU (GNU's Not Unix). I'll tell more about the 'Epic' stuff later.

...Yeah. I know, bad joke and a few notches against my cyber-blogger reputation. Yikes!

(yes, that's me in the black t-shirt. A grown man on a swing set)