titansphere.com

Nothing ruins my day quicker than stepping in a puddle at the foot of my bed on my way to the bathroom 5 hours after I went to sleep. At first, I thought George had peed on the floor, but no 40 lb. dog’s bladder can soak a 3 foot patch of carpet.

For the fourth time in 6 months, our waterbed sprung a leak. Upon the dawn of this realization, I preferred the dog piss. This leak, however, was a biggie; water was dripping out of the bed about every second. The floor was squishy wet. I’m glad I wasn’t wearing socks.

This was the last straw. While draining the rest of the water from the leaky bladder, we went out in search of a new, waterless bed. $950 later we are now the proud owners of a king size Spring Air mattress, box spring, and frame as well as king size sheets/comforter and 2 comfy pillows as a consolation prize (and because they were BOGO 50% off). Oh yeah, we also used some of our Home Depot gift cards to buy a wet/dry vac for the puddle in our bedroom, which is still damp but remarkable drier due to our purchase.

Until Tuesday, however, we have no bed, so we’re reliving the ‘early days’ when we slept on our only furniture, the black leather couch & loveseat. Although ultimately I’m glad to have a new (and hopefully much more comfortable) bed, I’m not glad to be paying for it just yet.

In partial exchange for updating their website, HydroSports, a local dive shop in Keizer (Salem’s sister city to the north) is allowing me to gain my Rescue Diver certification through their company.

The course is comprised of five meaty chapters; we’re through two. Some of the concepts I’m learning are response to panicked and tired divers; response to aquatic injuries; and the inner workings of BCDs, regulators, and tank valves. Of course, much more classroom material is to come followed by a final test, pool work, and finally our open water dives (I’m looking forward to these as I’ve never been diving in the Pacific Northwest).

I most enjoy the philosophy employed by the program – there is no “correct” rescue for any situation, but there is a correct method for determining a plan for each rescue. The course focuses on teaching rescue divers to act rationally and think plans through and recognizes that people will come up with different solutions for similar situations.

To get routed at home is one thing, but to get routed at home in the playoffs after going undefeated at home throughout the regular season is another. *sigh*

The Steelers just played all-around better than the Broncos today. Even the luck seemed to side with Pittsburgh, as several potential turnovers were overturned, bounced into Steeler hands, or bounced out of bounds. Ben Roethlisberger was nearly perfect, and while Denver crushed the usually potent running offense, the air attack was too much.

Pittsburgh scored on their first four possessions of the game (3 TDs and a FG) and converted a ridiculous amount of 3rd downs, many of which were longer than 5 yards. Dominic Foxworth was dominated by the complex offense, lagging yards behind the receivers on many occasions.

There’s always next year.

With only 2 games (Amped 3 and Project Gotham Racing), its difficult to fully evaluate the latest and greatest in video games, the XBox 360. Although the initial release included some bugs, the media over-played them; about 10,000 systems were returned out of about 6 million.

Some nifty new stuff:

• Wireless controllers ROCK
• Each person gets an account, thus preventing accidental erasing of games
• Even more kick-ass graphics
• Wireless controllers ROCK
• Acts as a DVR with the hard drive
• The very anticipated release of the new Elder Scrolls: Morrowind game

Not so cool costs:

• New games = $60
• Wireless controller + recharge attachment = $80

We’re getting a new roommate! Lee, a high school friend of Eric’s and Jeff’s, is getting out of the Army and will be joining our household sometime in late February/early March. In preparation, we’ve been converting our living room to our game/entertainment room since our existing game room will become Lee’s bedroom.

As of yet we have the TV and electronic accessories (Xbox 360, Xbox, GameCube, Nintendo, CD player, receiver, DVR recorder, speakers) fully functional in the living room. This move, however, required the relocation of our 10 gallon fishtank, a rather time-consuming feat in itself. Full, the tank weighs nearly 135 lbs. Therefore, most of the water and most of the fish were removed from the tank to facilitate this move. Steve (the plecostamus), was none too happy. The tetras didn’t put up much of a fight. Kremit the frog tried (unsuccessfully) to jump out of the pot he was temporarily stored in. Neither dragonfish were interested in getting out of the tank, so I just left them and about 3″ of water in the tank.

The best part is, George has re-discovered the fish. We believe his renewed interest lies in the lack of realization that although the fish themselves have moved, they are still contained inside the box of water. Therefore, we have entertained ourselves by watching him watch them. Hilarity, pure hilarity.

The Broncos win! The Broncos win! The Broncos beat the Patriots 27-13 for the right to play in the AFC Championship game, thus effectively destroying the Patriots hopes of becoming perhaps the greatest dynasty ever in NFL history! Their opponent will be either the Colts or the Steelers; the game will be fantastic if both teams play well.

A far cry from week 1, when all the analysts claimed head coach Mike Shanahan should have been fired for their loss to Miami. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Let’s see…somewheres around New Year’s I accidentally spilled milk all over the top of my laptop, causing spontaneous shutdown or no response to the power button for a little over a week. Devastated, I gathered the pieces of my broken heart in order to find a suitable, yet cheap, repair shop. In a last ditch effort, I attempted a startup and voila! – fully functional again!

In celebration, I used Christmas gift cards towards a new video game, CSI: Dark Motives ($20, Best Buy), and have proceeded to thoroughly immerse myself. Although the visual character reproduction isn’t the best, the gameplay more than compensates. Each case (I’ve solved 2 of 5 thus far) is very involved and costs 2-3 hours of time, but the game is well worth it. With a variety of CSI tools and colleagues with which to gather, process, and interpret evidence, it is not lacking in the complexity department. Also, the game simple, efficient game menu allows focus on the game rather than menu navigation and the load times are trivial, an ever-decreasing trend in these days of high-quality graphics and video. The ability to change the difficulty via the amount of help the game provides in solving the crime scene can create a challenging (and sometimes frustrating) case. Overall, the game’s worth the $20 price tag; hell, its probably worth $35, but I’m not complaining.

Ahhh, the luxury of gaming all night with my trusty laptop. More than once tonight I’ve expressed my love for it and perpetual heartache while it was in a coma. Milk, it does a body (not a system) good.

(Sit down, Mom)

Yep, that’s me. I’m the new stripper at Highland. Its a nice, mindless task for the crawl towards consciousness at 8am every morning.

Before my family renounces me, allow me to explain. Due to the influx of work in the print shop, I’ve been assisting the guys with pre- and post-printing procedures to free them for running the [printing] presses, which seems to require a fair amount of training/knowledge. Stripping is a pre-printing procedure.

Our labels are created via the “offset printing (lithography)” process. Like a newspaper, we utilize 4-color printing (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and BlacK), meaning that every color on the color wheel is created via a combination of these 4 colors. In the 4-color process, each color (CMYK) is printed separately, meaning all of the paper is run through the press 4 times if all four colors is necessary. We also do spot color printing.

Basically, from the computer where we in the graphics department create the label, it is captured on film not unlike a 35mm camera (but a lot bigger – about 13″ across instead of an inch or so) and then developed in our developing machine. Then the film is “stripped” of unnecessary information and burned onto metal plates via a high-powered UV light similar to a tanning bed light. Once the metal plate is created, the plate is put into the press with the appropriate color and the ink transfers from the metal plate to the paper only on the part that has the image. Its a bit more complex, but that’s the gist. Then it needs to be cut to label size once they’re done. I do that too. With a giant computerized guillotine-like blade. *big grin*

For a more detailed and illustrated description, see How Offset Printing Works. The presses are different as the paper is not one continuous sheet, rather a stack of sheets, but the idea is the same.

Often times newspapers and magazines review happenings over the course of the year. In a much less detailed and researched effort, I present a list of the best of 2005 as I remember it here and now.

• Returned to “normal” after concussion previous October (January)
• Got one of two team hits and the only hit to the outfield versus the University of Washington (February)
• Competing for highest grade in 8am Discrete Math class (March)
• My winning hit in extra innings versus Linfield on Senior Weekend (April)
• Finished my senior thesis and graduated college (May)
• Drove through the Redwood Forest down the coast of California with Eric & Lee (June)
• Drove through Yellowstone Park on our way to a great 4th of July in Laurel (July)
• Attended SIGGRAPH 2005 in Los Angeles (August)
• NFL regular season begins – Sundays reserved for watching football (September)
• 6 years with Eric – got my pony…errr…ring! (October)
• Hired at Highland Laboratories (November)
• Went to see our first NFL football game – Packers vs. the Lions at night in Lambeau…and they won! (December)