A New Pinball Record photo 18376 487 0 right KLO with a promising 3rd place victory and 2 375 665 920 points photo I have been hoping that I would be fortunate enough to get my name into a href http www guezuraga org Dave s a Frank Thomas pinball game It has taken me about 4 months to get good at the damn thing but I have finally managed to secure my place with two different records strong Legitimacy strong Dave and I were experimenting with the machine a bit and thus decided to take the glass table top off of it It s actually amazing how much louder the pinball gets when the glass top is off not to mention how much fright it adds to the game as there are heavy ball bearings shooting all over the place I told Dave that I would play the game after putting the glass back on but he wanted me to leave it off Should have guessed it would be my best game of all time breaking into the top 5 high scores placing 3rd and also beating the home runs score Dave questions the integrity of the score even though he did come into the room when I was at about 500 million The final high score was 2 375 665 920 and my high home runs were something like 78 To anyone that can afford it I would highly suggest purchasing an arcade pinball machine They run anywhere from 1000 5000 strong 06 11 05 07 19 39 PM strong em The glass was off providing an unfair advantage enabling him to see the field better While he certainly played a good game I ve cleared his score off the board Sorry em strong 06 11 05 07 21 34 PM strong em Dave left the glass off It was his own fault I naturally played the game of my life during this The record stands em strong 06 11 05 09 23 45 PM strong em I d also like to add that dave is not happy with this simply because he WAS 3rd place but now sits beneath my pinball wizardry at 4th Surely had I only shot to 4th this record would have no problem being in the books em strong 07 24 05 06 59 14 PM strong em I m with Dave on this one em

SkiLudlow 2011 For the past 6 years my good friend Jason Kujda has put together a marvelous ski trip to Breckenridge Colorado for he and all of his friends He handles every component of it and even lets people pay in installments Since he has been busy this year building up his career namely saving money so that he can finally get married he decided that he was no longer going to do the ski trip After some discussion I finally decided that I would go ahead and take it over and last October announced to everyone that I would be handling it this year The following is the text that I sent out to everyone em The rumors that you have no doubt heard by now are true The annual SkiKujda trip has been successfully hijacked in a carefully planned and executed coup d etat 2011 promises to be bigger and better than all other years combined photo 35934 740 300 right Front of the skiludlow card everyone was given photo But let us not forget the many years of wonderful rule by Jason Kujda From overseeing the great fight of 2006 to his blessing laid upon the conception in 2007 Perhaps the introduction of Catchphrase in 2008 or the engagement that would soon follow And let us not forget the Banana Man Skier of 2009 the diplomatic relations with Tyler Canon of Missouri and of course SkiKujda the Movie which premiered in 2010 Only time will dictate this man s place in history The Basic Plan photo 35943 740 300 right Back of the skiludlow card everyone was given photo Most everything has already been explained to people individually but for anyone still on the fence here are the details and a breakdown of what is included We will fly into Denver on Wednesday March 23rd 2011 Depending on the flights available we will try to arrive between 10am and 1pm MST We will pick up our rental cars head into the mountains and get settled into our condos at Sawmill Creek Thursday morning we will pick up our ski rentals and then plan to ski all day Thursday Friday and Saturday Per our previous few years we ll likely try to organize a group trip to Vail on Friday for anyone who is interested in going our lift tickets will include this in the price Each day after skiing is usually met with some relaxation a social hour in the hot tub with plenty of beverages and a dinner on the town For the super human Keystone also offers night skiing As per our custom we will be planning a large group outing at The Dive Bar on Saturday night On Sunday morning we will check out drive back to Denver and fly back home What the trip includes For about 650 probably less you will be getting 4 nights in a condo basic ski rentals for 3 days upgraded skis and snowboards will be more a 3 day lift ticket also good for one day at A Basin Vail Beaver Creek and Keystone and a rental car with gas included to get you to and from the mountain There is a good chance of a few additional surprises too As always any excess money will be refunded appropriately There is no attempt to make any money off of this trip em And since there has always been a t shirt for the occasion this is the outlined version that I sent off to the printer of the first skiludlow shirt photo 35939 740 520 left The periodic table of elements with some slight modifications photo

Benches Built and Engine Almost Ready It s been challenging building out the interior and fixing the engine at the same time but both seem to be going rather well I managed to finish the interior bench seats the other day and started playing around with the vinyl just to see what it would look like Once I have the seat backs properly designed Caroline and I will start spraying the foam seating in then stretch the vinyl over it Unfortunately there is an order of operations to all of this so that the stapled parts are not shown in the final product I really can t thank my neighbor Danny enough for all of the time he s spent with me working on the engine He and I finally got the new radiator installed and it looks beautiful We ve also put in a new coolant reservoir changed all of the belts changed the radiator hoses and stripped out a bunch of unnecessary parts We ll likely have to change out the engine gaskets as well since they appear to be leaking a bit but not before we get it started back up photo 261423 258221 0 center The interior of the bus with both bench seats properly mounted in place photo photo 261482 258221 0 center There were two holes on the roof of the coach I filled both of them with Great Stuff insulating foam sealant courtesy of Mike Crockett and cut the excess off I put the nozzle well into the hole and likely filled a good part of our ceiling with it photo photo 261480 258221 0 center A look at the new radiator in place I still have to re install the radiator cooling fan The metal screen over the radiator is just part of a screen door We put it in place since we removed the front condenser thus exposing the radiator to more bugs photo

TD301 Capital City Comedy Theater Dance 301 Jane Barnette MWF 12 1 Capital City Comedy After visiting the Capital City Comedy Club on Sunday November the fifteenth I realized that doing stand up comedy in front of only twenty people changes the skit drastically As I sat in my seat I looked around at the many empty seats and then proceeded to see what the headlining entertainment looked like Having already sat through about 45 minutes of comedy I was starting to get into However I just could not figure out how comedian Jeff Jena was going to make it through his entire set with such a weak audience I soon learned how he would do that audience interaction Previous acts J C Shakespeare and Chad Dubril used this technique to an extent but the majority of Jeff Jena s skit was solely based on improved audience heckling I sat in the room with a friend for only a few minutes when suddenly her and I were part of the act He asked us some questions and made fun of us for awhile and then made us get up and move closer or he would not go on We joked with him as well and moved closer to the stage as he asked I think that the both of us felt somewhat embarrassed as the temporary stars of the show There could not have been more then twenty five people in the audience so he had plenty of time to talk with everyone s little group I found it to be very entertaining as did the entire audience at least it seemed that way from the roars of laughter in the crowd Jeff joked quite a bit about marriage with the audience which for many couples there obviously leaves a sense of discomfort That seemed quite funny for the rest of the audience His simple punch line jokes were excellent as well and I had never heard any of them All in all I would say that for a few mere dollars Jeff Jena gives you much more then your moneys worth for a stand up comedian

American Healthcare Part V Impractical Expectations Obviously every medical emergency is different and every patient unique However if you take that story into consideration without applying any type of political bias there is at least one point of comparison that should stand out above all else How is it that the price of one health care option is able to outweigh another by twenty fold Is it actually possible that I or any other patient could have been the recipient of twenty times the level of care It is highly unlikely Had I been comprehensively insured at the time of my accident it is a fact that that I would have received the highest level of care immediately following the accident Furthermore it is highly unlikely that I would have questioned any of the associated finances with the examination since I would not be directly responsible for them But in a healthcare system whereby finances must be accounted for in one way or another the question still remains of how the two estimates of care could have varied by so much This is why having a thorough grasp on the economics of modern health insurance is so important These huge cost differentials are common and due to the fact that there is no incentive to control costs within any step of the process Insurance companies and medical corporations massively benefit from the liberal and often unnecessary applications of their products This is exactly why the hospital bill would have been so much more expensive than the minor care facility turned out to be I would have paid twenty times the cost for a fractionally more accurate diagnosis all the while experiencing a barrage of the latest and greatest medical technologies The question that should be asked of all Americans is whether our expectation of a healthcare system is to save lives or to provide individuals with every advanced comfort available regardless of the broader scope of costs It seems that the expectation from most people who supported the healthcare bill is the latter every medical condition should be accounted for regardless of the costs involved Not only is this impossible it is unconscionably selfish There are a finite amount of monetary resources available within the United States and every medical procedure uses up some of these resources When we waste precious resources in an effort to make fractionally better diagnoses there are simply less resources available for the greater good The consequence of this will be an increase of medical spending across the entire country albeit abstracted through insurance premiums Of course with any type of spending increase those at the bottom are always going to get hit harder than those at the top In the nineteenth century it would have been considered a medical luxury for one to have access to a drug like acetylsalicylic acid Despite the comfort it could have provided to millions at the time there were still costs involved in its production and thus it was generally administered only when absolutely necessary As medical and technological advancements were made the drug became cheaper to manufacture Eventually it became readily available albeit as something called Aspirin This type of history is significant to our current predicament Not all medicines can be made instantly available to those who need them If politicians had a genuine interest in helping to solve the American healthcare debacle they would be working to reduce healthcare costs They would be ensuring that the costs of modern drugs were decreasing and becoming more accessible to Americans much like Aspirin once did They would not be instituting policies guaranteed to increase the level of medical spending under the false pretense that this will somehow result in better healthcare Any politician who would attempt to convince people that the intent of mandatory insurance is to put everyone on equal footing should have his or her motives severely scrutinized The notion is both impractical and illogical If we assume for a moment that every single American were somehow provided the exact same quality convenience and cost of healthcare then we would also have to assume that not one other American of over 300 million would attempt to find a medical product or service even slightly better more convenient or cheaper Of course human beings simply do not function in that way This is why the tenants of capitalism despite the flaws are what drive a free society Perhaps not surprisingly then the bill also addresses at least one capitalist enterprise The healthcare act of 2010 curiously contains a provision for levying additional taxes against tanning salons This is actually one of the mechanisms installed to cover the additional costs albeit a seemingly small one The idea behind the tax is that since tanning salons are unnecessary according to the state and increase the risk of skin cancer then they should be taxed accordingly The idea is actually quite logical the higher the risk of adverse health effects the higher the tax should be But this is an extremely dangerous precedent we have permitted the government to set for itself By what authority does the United States federal government have to dictate what is good for us and what is bad for us Moreover who makes that decision While I personally believe a tanning salon is a ridiculous waste of money many would say the same of a motorcycle Many might also say that a motorcycle is far more dangerous why not tax motorcycles in the same way Statistically speaking they pose a far more significant risk to riders than those of cars What about the correlation of fast foods to obesity and diabetes or perhaps the ratio of adventure activities to injuries or promiscuity to pregnancy and disease There is an almost never ending list of causality in our world It would stand to reason that within this government controlled framework any type of non essential higher risk activity could be subjected to arbitrary government taxation in the name of better healthcare If I had to guess I would imagine tanning salons simply lacked the necessary lobbying power in Washington prior to the bill s passage Allowing the government to be the judge and jury of what constitutes acceptable risk would lead to a nanny state of unfathomable dystopian proportion The United States was founded on the idea that people control their government not the other way around This basic concept is responsible for the entire western notion of democracy But given the obvious dependencies we all have on healthcare is it really so wise to promote a system that exploits this dependency in the name of better health The Bush Administration made a case that it was necessary to forgo certain civil liberties outlined in the Patriot Act in order to remain safe from terrorists These types of hollow promises in the name of security and well being run contrary to the American foundation of liberty They exploit the fears and needs of Americans to promote policies that benefit others The healthcare bill has is no exception to this rule I would completely agree that nobody in the United States citizen or otherwise should have to suffer unduly at the hand of a medical catastrophe The country is far too wealthy and technologically advanced to accept such a subpar standard of human accountability and compassion But at the same time neither should any person be legally mandated especially at the federal level to provide private industry of any kind with his or her business While about half of the country might still be convincing themselves that their party would never have led them astray the reality is that in due time the healthcare bill will prove to be far worse than having done nothing at all We cannot have a system built upon financial risk mitigation whereby nobody loses and meanwhile expect it to become more affordable it is a mathematical impossibility The basic misconception lies with people believing that smaller incremental costs are somehow better or cheaper than one lump sum This might be true if we spread those costs out ourselves but in reality we just wind up paying substantially more for goods and services that we never needed in the first place This is very similar to the idea behind gift cards that we explored earlier in the book The more you abstract the cost of something the less likely people are to consider the price and the more wasteful they ultimately become But that does not change the original cost of the good or service from existing Rest assured we do pay for those costs as well as all of the administrative costs that go into managing them They are merely abstracted into smaller monthly or quarterly payments em continued in a href blog 2125 American_Healthcare__Part_VI_Practical_Healthcare_Proposals Part VI Practical Healthcare Proposals a em

Water and Sewer Hookups One of the many issues I ve long since known we d have to deal with is with respect to water and sewage taps Unfortunately the City of Austin does not permit commercial sites to utilize septic systems so that is already ruled out We had Rick Selin from the City of Austin run the specs on the property just to get an idea of where the hookups are and how difficult they would be to access He was pretty nice and promptly wrote us back with the following blockquote There is an 8 DI water main infront of the property however there does not appear to be an existing water service to the property There is no wastewater main infront of the property The nearest service points appear to be roughly 185 north of the north property line near the intersection of Axel Jackie Robinson or roughly 252 south of the south property line near the intersection of Axel and Wilcab To get water service an engineered tap plan will need to be submitted for review and approval by AWU To get wastewater service an engineered plan to extend the wastewater main to the property will need to be submitted for review and approval by AWU You can speak with Seyed Miri 972 0202 to explore the option of an SER for the wastewater portion blockquote He also provided us with this image of the water lines for the area photo 311720 311912 0 center The water lines from the city s GIS data photo

The Symphonic House of Michigan As part of my recent visit to Grand Rapids Michigan we took a 2 day road trip to northern Michigan It was just me my dear friend Mark and a new friend Felip We explored the Sleeping Bear Dunes Traverse City countless wineries and cider shops and perhaps most interesting a piece of real estate for sale known globally as a href http www symphonichouse com The Symphonic House a The house was incredible The house was beautiful The house was unique It was constructed with countless forms of recycled wood glass and metal and was simply wonderful to experience Every room was built to serve a function Certain windows were designed to catch the sounds of the wind through the nearby pine trees Others were designed to echo the gentle sounds of the waves from Lake Michigan The back steps of the house led to the private beach a lagoon like cove of the Great Lake The house was only 6 200 square feet It may seem large but not with a price tag of roughly 4 5 million The costs were due to the house being an architectural dream Beyond all of that the most fascinating part of the house was that it was built to be playable I know it sounds a little crazy Essentially the architect had installed various sets of brass strings roughly 30 feet in length in various rooms The most prominent ones were accessible from the second story and ran over the main living room area They were attached along two structural trusses in the house with wooden sound boxes set behind them to catch resonating strings With rosin laden gloves the house could literally be played And how could I not iframe width 521 height 391 src www youtube com embed 4ukKGyrF388 frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe Even better is that we had the added benefit of getting a personal behind the scenes tour of the architecture from the architect himself David Hanawalt Mark had spoken with him a few days earlier and managed to set it up It was a truly unique experience for all of us

Workshopping Tired of Trying with The Ghost As part of my 2015 music project I ve been working on about 8 new songs writing all of the music pieces and the lyrics While I am collaborating with a dear friend of mine I m also trying to workshop the various songs with other people to get ideas on where to go with them With the Ghost of Paul Revere staying at my house for SX we gave this affectionately titled song called Tired of Trying a little acoustic spin Maybe the studio recording of it will have a banjo in the background We didn t rehearse any of it but quickly went over the changes and improvised most of the pieces to it This was also after a long day of substance abuse and was performed for two Portland girls I met along the way iframe width 521 height 391 src https www youtube com embed VPMHkKhKjDA frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe

Fixing the Spotlight with MacBook TouchBar Anyone that has the new MacBook with the TouchBar knows that it is simply THE worst piece of hardware that Apple has ever released Anytime I get a new MacBook there is always that period of time where you have to adjust to the new keyboard The first time I ever experienced this I cursed them for changing it but I ve learned over the years that the changes are always for the better and after a week or so my brain is entirely wrapped around the new layout and it increases productivity That is simply NOT the case with the new MacBook I ve waited and waited for that eureka moment to arrive and it simply does not After reading countless blog posts on the issue it seems that I am far from the only person to experience the problems that I have One of the MANY problems that I experienced was with respect to trying to launch my spotlight For as long as I can remember this was a simple combination of Command Spacebar I specifically keep my dock as empty as possible knowing that I can pull up any program on the fly through the Spotlight Unfortunately the new Apple seems to stutter for lack of a better word More times than not I press Command Spacebar and nothing happens Usually pressing it a second time will do the trick but sometimes it takes even a third Why Why would this possibly be the case Well after some research it turns out that this has to do with Siri s functionality waiting to see if she is being called upon or not Note to Apple she isn t ever being called I just want the Spotlight to open So here s the fix ul li Open your System Preferences li li Select Siri li li The first option is Keyboard Shortcut li li Change the dropdown so that it reads Press Fn Function Space li ul Once you do this and save the system preference you ll find that the problem immediately goes away I am hoping to compile a list of such changes that are necessary to get the computer somewhat back to what it used to be but unfortunately I don t think the new MacBook is ever going to work as well as its predecessors regardless of how many tweaks I make to it

Cook Straight Taken from Tisa's original journal entry: Cook Straight/Marlborough Sound-The ferry took us across the Cook Straight when we traveled from the North to the South island. The boat ride was very enjoyable, relaxing and provided us with a great opportunity to talk with some local kiwis. We were surprised that the ride wasn’t as rough as was we had heard but had fun swaying back and forth on the decks. The total trip time was about 3 hours but it all went by so fast. It was fun driving our camper van onto the lower deck of the boat where everyone parked their car in a compact yet organized manner. After the boat set sail, we were not able to return to our cars. To our surprise, the facilities were super nice with comfortable couches, a formal bar area, cafeteria, separate rooms with beds in them and free coffee and tea! The most magnificent part of the ride was the last 30 minutes. As we began to approach Marlborough Sound, the ferry slowed down as we made our way through the tall, rich green, soft looking mountains. They towered over us on every side and you could not see past them. The speed of the ferry is regulated so that the wake produced does not erode the mountainside. Unfortunately, the shores have all been washed up due to ferries going too fast or even too slow. This shows how close to the mountains you are as you drive through them. It is a breathtaking site and has been one of my favorite activities of this trip.