Just finished watching the movieCrank I want those 87 minutes of my life back. What a disappointment, generally I like Jason Staham's movies.

Oh well, back to my Saturday afternoon.

Anthony is going to wake up from his nap soon, so long....


J.V.

Wow

Being a parent is hard, I don't know how Martha does it.

I really appreciate your hard work.

-J.V.

Hairy news

I've decided that I am not going to get another haircut until the we the people of the United States of America decide to stop killing people in Iraq. I want us to stop this un-winnable war.

-J.V.

Question of the Day

Froyd wants to know

If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?

Thanks Froyd, that made my day.....

Graduate School

Today I got an email from the University of Florida, I just got admitted to the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Go Gators!

I'm really happy right now.

You see, seven years ago, I applied to UF for my bachelors degree and was denied. Getting in for Grad school makes me feel better. I know, it's a silly thing, but I celebrated today with a steak dinner and a couple of tall beers.

So, life is good. That's all for now.

What I've been reading these days

The weekend is finally here, and with it comes all the chores my wife has saved up for me, but, my mother in law came to the rescue and took Monkey with her, so now it's me and the girls, and of course, Mo the cat. Martha is hosting a "Candle Party" (shiver) today and I have about half a day of total freedom...wooo hooo!!

So, I am going to finish that book about the History of Ft. Lauderdale, a quick paperback that has it's own history...(pun intended). You see, my old man used to work for the the Historical Society of Ft. Lauderdale, and I got this book at one of their events at the old downtown next to Riverside FLL. So I got a signed copy, I bought it for the old pictures, not the articles, back in the day this place was nothing but a swamp. Now the only wildlife you will see in here will be lawyers, strippers and crazy college students. Anyway, it turns out that the history of FLL is actually kind of interesting.

I plan on going to the beach tomorrow, and I am a taking a library copy of James Joyce's A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, it's one of those book the keeps on getting mentioned in other people's top list. The article in wikipedia said it was among the most important works in the English language, I read the first forty pages and so far the fireworks have not gone off. But, I'm going to give it another chance tomorrow.

I the technical land I have Scott Meyer's Effective C++ and I'm reading an online book called "The Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing" I never took DSP in school and now I am dealing with it all the time at work, there's one issue we are seeing that requires some DSP knowledge to solve, I am trying to fix the issue on my own, realistically speaking, I could have just thrown my hand up and said that I am not a DSP Engineer, but, I think it's a very interesting area of study, so I plan on brushing up and maybe take a few courses on it. And as for the little problem I'll let you know if we fixed the issue. There are a lot of things on the web that cover this topic extensively.

Since we are on the subject of the web, I found a funny website, funnyordie.com it has bunch of funny stuff...for when there's absolutely nothing better to do, or when you are waiting for your code to compile at work...actually I take that back, some of these videos are definitely NSFW.

So, that's all folks. Until the next one. Be good to each other.

-JV

So Long, Yummy Brain Gravy

The Gravy is dead, long live the Gravy!

Old Fort Lauderdale

It's funny how some things never change.



The following excerpt is from "Fort Lauderdale The Venice of America" it was written by an Army officer visiting Ft. Lauderdale in 1821:

Florida is certainly the poorest country that ever two people quarreled for. The climate is in the first place objectionable; for even in winter, while persons further north were freezing, we were melting with heat. In the next place, the larger portion of Florida is a poor sandy country in the north, in the southern portions nearly all wet prairies and swamp; healthy in winter but sickly in summer; and in the south even the Indians said they could not live a month without suffering, and in the summer not at all. It is in fact a most hideous region to live in; a perfect place for Indians, alligators, serpents, frogs, and every other kind of loathsome reptile....

Two things come to mind right away, first, thank god for AC. When I was in the National Guard and had to be out all day in the summer, it was torture at it's purest form, I can relate to the Army pioneer. But...did he just imply that Indians are reptiles?

I'm Back!

I love this commercial, I can't wait either: