Star Wars Wedding: More Coverage in the Paper

The Idaho Press Tribune has a really nice write-up on us in the paper today. Not only did they mention our free evening workshop on communication, they also included a great photo of us, and a link to our website.

This photo was taken by our good friend Rebekah. In the foreground you can see or good friend Brian performing the ceremony. He actually performed the first one for us too. You can also see our son observing. In the background are the guests and some other theater attendees.

The Idaho Press Tribune was the first media source to really take the time to talk about us as more then just Star Wars fanatics. It is nice that they talked about who we really were, and heard the message we were trying to communicate.

Subject tags: [StarWars] [Wedding] [Marriage]

Flotations - Ping Pong Balls vs. Helium Balloons

Mythbusters is a great show and it is full of useful information.

For instance, will it take more ping pong balls under water, or 11" helium balloons in the air, to raise 1 pound of weight?

It takes 15 ping balls, submerged under water to float 1 pound. Those same ping pong ball can withstand 60 psi, which is 4 atmospheres, or the equivalent to 90 feet under water, just in case you were curious. They expected it would take 50,000 ping pong balls to raise a small sail boat. It ended up being 27,000 balls. The theory was the boat was buoyant too. I wonder if was the salty sea water.

For the much larger 11" helium balloons? Each balloon can float up 10 grams, so you will need 46 balloons to lift 1 pound. If you wanted to lift a 44 pound girl you would need 3500 balloons, although they originally estimated 2070 balloons.

Just in case you ever need to raise anything.

Star Wars Wedding: Family Photo

Our little family right before the wedding. Han, Leia, a Jedi Padawan and three Ewoks. Subject tags: [StarWars] [Wedding] [Marriage]

Star Wars: Better Article

The Idaho Press Tribune featured a much better article on Jim and I, even mentioning our new training business. Unfortunately they didn't put it on their website. A good friend of mine was so very kind to take some pictures for us at the ceremony. Jim will upload some of those for you tonight I think.

One of our local news stations even sent a camera person over to film and interview everyone and everything. She was running that camera for alomost an hour talking to everyone she could. So, we had about 5 or 10 seconds on the 10 o' clock news.

JIm had suggested that we write up a PR release ahead of time and give that out. I didn't think it was needed. I admit I might very possibly been wrong on that one. Oh well. It was fun.

Subject tags: [StarWars] [Wedding] [Marriage]

Alpha Wolves

Dawn and I just watched this great documentary on the Discovery Channel about this couple that lived with the Sawtooth wolf pack in Idaho for 6 years to create a documentary. They discovered a lot of really interesting things about wolves, but one of the things that really struck me was the selection of the Alpha Wolf.

The Alpha Wolf is the leader of the pack. There is usually an Alpha male and he selects a mate who is the Alpha female. Usually the Alpha

At the bottom of the pack is the Omega. The Omega is not an outcast, but is an important part of the tribe. The Omega always eats last, among other things that come with being the low dog.

So the really interesting thing is it was always believed that the Alpha was the largest and oldest wolf in the pack. When they were building the Sawtooth pack (since no wild wolves were currently in the area) they started with a couple adult wolves and then introduced a few pups. While they were preparing the pups to be released with the adults they observed that one of the pups had a very Alpha personality. They were concerned how that would go over with the current Alpha wolf in the pack.

When they released the pups into the pack the "Alpha pup" became the Alpha of the whole pack, even though the current Alpha was an adult and much larger. Had it come to a physical battle the adult could have killed the pup easily.

The really interesting thing was the Alpha pup's brother became the Omega. As Omega he always walked with his tail between his legs and in a lowered or crouched state. This makes judging their size difficult. When they were full grown they noticed that the Omega was actually notably larger then his Alpha brother. Again size made no difference for who was Alpha and who was Omega.

So why did the wolves take their roles of Alpha and Omega? Because of their energy. They received the roles they wanted, the roles they designed for themselves.

This is just like our life. We all are in the roles we choose for ourselves: consciously, or subconsciously. So what life and role are you going to choose for yourself?

In the paper

I get to work this morning and find that Dawn and I are in the Idaho Statesman on page 9 of the main section. There is a little blurb about us too. Most of the facts are right. It is interesting they printed the parts they did. The way they took the photos is cool, but it makes us look a little funny. Maybe that is the idea.

There is still time to make the ceremony tonight! Hope to see you there!

Cookies and a Hematoma

Gave blood today for the Red Cross. I have been a fairly regular donor since high school. Today was my 19th donation. At 24 I get a 3 gallon pin.

For some reason when they stopped the flow to the bag so they could get some in the test tubes the bevel at the end of the needle sucked up against the edge of the vein. It was rather painful as they worked the needle around to get enough blood to fill the 3 test tubes.

In the end I got a sticker (heart shaped that says "Be nice to me, I gave blood today"), a red bandage, an ice pack, some cookies, and a hematoma on my arm. Hematoma is basically medical speak for bruise.

Kuna Caves and Swan Falls Dam

We decided to spend a family day today and drove around the desert outside of town. We drove to Kuna Caves and Swan Falls Dam, as well as a number of other scenic destinations along the way.

The Kuna Caves are a lava flow cave. What you see in the picture is a hole in the ground where the roads intersect. There is a ladder you can climb down into the caves. I've explored mostly to the north, but I hear you can actually go a ways to the south as well. If you look at the full map you will see a field to the north. Legend has it the caves used to go that far, but they were destroyed in that area.

When I think of Swan Falls I think of the boulder fields to the west of the actual dam. We used to go camping a lot there for Scouts. There are all these huge boulders spread through these fields. A lot of fun to play around. You need to watch out going their during the hot seasons because of the rattle snakes. The Swan Falls Dam is on the Snake River, and is no longer used for power generation has been in full use as a electric generating power plant since it was built in 1901. Depending on inflows it has the capability of generating 12 mws. It is still owned and operated by Idaho Power Company. It is also within the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. You will see a lot of really great birds there.

The day before Jonathan and I went to the Tripoli Idaho SpudRoc-10 rocket launch. That was our first time time to launch a model rocket, and they launched some really big ones there too. The launch site is near Swan Falls as well, which is where I got the idea. We were actually going to go to the launch today as well, but it got rained out.

Update: Thanks to Steve Jung for correcting me on Swan Falls Dam's power generation. Not sure where I picked up that erroneous information! I thought it was odd and figured it must still be used for power generation, but never questioned my unknown source (probably something I picked up when I was in Scouts.)

Almost Darth Vader

As I am sure most people know, James Earl Jones did the voice for Darth Vader in the original Star Wars movies while Dave Prowse was the man in the costume. Neither will be reprising their roles in Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. Update: James Earl Jones will be the voice of Darth Vader in Episode 3, although uncredited.

Interestingly in Star Wars: A New Hope Dave Prowse did not know that his voice was going to be replaced. In fact James Earl Jones requested that he go uncredited since he didn't belive his work waranted credit. Also, Lucas gave James Earl Jones different lines to read in Empire Strikes back during the scene when he told Luke he was his father. Dave Prowse's lines reinforced that Vader killed his father.

A bit of history that most people don't know is that Bobcat Goldthwait was Lucas' first casting choice for the voice of Vader. Luckily he wasn't able to get Bobcat, but unfortunately his twisted humor did survive in the creation of the Jar-Jar Binks character. As an odd turn of events, James Earl Jones turned down the voice roll for Jar-Jar and his chance to be the only actor in all six movies.

Update: That last paragraph is just a rumor.

Assumptions on Evangelism

Joe White posted some of his Assumptions on Evangelism in his blog. I wanted to provide him some feedback, this is what I wrote.

Joe, you are assuming that anyone who evangelizes is assuming the person they evangelize too is wrong.

Evangelism is zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, as through missionary work. Previously it was specifically the proclaiming of the Christian Gospel. The word evangelist comes from the Greek word ("eu-aggelos") for 'bringing good news. But the word has a broader definition now. David I is the chief software evangelist for Borland.

Evangelism is passionately (with zeal) proclaiming (or educating) based on your beliefs. Essentially with your blog you are a Unitarian Evangelist (as well as other topics, like XP) because you are passionately sharing with others based on your beliefs.

Now the problem comes in when someone is over zealous in their evangelism. Just a like a pushy sales person, they give a bad name for the whole group. What is important to realize is we are all human, and some of use make mistakes, but to label a class of people based on the actions of a few is to label yourself since you are human too.

I have a number of beliefs that I believe to be based on truths, and these beliefs are contrary to some of the beliefs of others. It would appear that you also have beliefs that are contrary to the beliefs of others. Now I may passionately share with you my beliefs, but not because I believe you are unable to make up your mind, but because I believe you have not yet heard the truth I have to share. It is my responsibility to share my truths. It is my hope that by sharing the truth you will accept it. As true Christian (or otherwise compassionate human) then I accept you regardless of if you accept my truths and me or not.

DVR Feature Idea - Look before you Jump

So we have had our Dish Network system for a couple months now. It is really cool, especially the DVR functionality. The DVR (Digital Video Recorder, aka PVR) is Dish Network's version of TiVo or ReplayTV. Kind of like a VCR on steroids. I tell it I want to watch every episode of Stargate SG-1, and the DVR dutifully records them on every channel for me. Our system has two tuners, so it is really flexible as it can record two shows at once.

I'll probably write more on the joys of the system later, but I wanted to record an idea I had for a new feature for the DVR before it escapes me.

A feature the DVR and ReplayTV has, that TiVo doesn't (without hacking it) is a 30 second skip forward and a 5 second skip back. So when you are watching a show and the commercial break comes on your just press the skip button 6 times or so and you are back to the show again. As a I result I hardly watch any commercials.

Occasionally I skip into the last couple seconds of the last commercial. But since I don't know how close the show is I hit the skip button again jumping 30 seconds into the show. This results in needing to skip back about 6 times (6 jumps x 5 seconds being 30 seconds).

Other times I only jump 1 second into the show, but and there are none of those "just back from commercial break" cues, so I jump back 5 seconds, and end up watching 4 seconds of commercials (the horror!) Every so often I get really carried away and jump forward and backwards for a while trying to find the exact right spot.

So I propose a solution. After you jump the system displays a frame from key selected points before and after the current point at the bottom of the screen. For example, if I jump forward, it might display a frame from 5, 10 and 15 seconds before the current time, and 10, 20 and 30 seconds into the future. Then I know where I will end up if I skip without having to skip and then trying to skip back.

I've been thinking about the intervals to display frames from, and I am not convinced these are the best intervals, but I am sure with a little experimenting a good set of intervals would be found. They may be different if you skipped forward vs. backward since the size of the jump is different.

After a second (or pressing the play or cancel button) then these frames disappear. This feature could be a preference that people could turn off that don't mind find tuning their jumping experience.

Another nice addition to this would be if I could use the number keys to jump to a specific frame. Then it might display the surrounding frames at smaller intervals to really allow a fine tuned jump.

I mocked up a little example of what I have in mind. You might also add a window up at top that shows program information, which is what my DVR shows now. This one only has 4 frames, 2 before and 2 after. Maybe it would make more sense to show 3 after and 1 before. Maybe this would be user configrable. . . .

What might also be interesting is if you could come up with a way to preprogram a jump forward 3, 4 or 6 minutes (whatever the common commercial break durations are), and then have the frames like outlined above so you could zoom in on your destination. This last option might be a little complicated for most users though.

I still think it is a shame that ReplayTV removed their automatic commercial removal feature. I've never used a ReplayTV, but that sounds like the ideal system. Hopefully someone will re-implement it again in a future model.

Congratulations to Russ on Graduating

A good friend of mine, Russ Ogilvie, just graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Utah State University. I've known Russ for almost 10 years. We worked together at Micron PC (now MPC) in Technical Support. Russ was working there when I started and he was one of the guys I set with to learn the ropes.

He has always been one of those really smart guys that like thinking about complex math equations and stuff like that. Even before he was attending school he would spend his free time reading math books and figuring out things on the computer. Then he would tell me about some neat thing he learned and I would try to follow what he was explaining. It was always something cool.

When we worked at Micron PC there was a patent program where you could submit patent disclosures and the company would review them and decide which to persue. I had been involved in the program for a while after I moved into engineering, and knowing that Russ was a smart guy I told him about it too. He would submit like 10 disclosures a month, which was probably a record.

A number of his inventions ended up being pursued by other companies a few years later. They were ahead of the time. For instance he came up with a method of using the mechanical motion of typing on a laptop keyboard to help regenerate the batteries. It wasn't much, but would help. Micron PC didn't pursue it, but later Compaq did. He is always thinking.

I wish Russ and his family the best!

Star Wars Wedding: Music - Part 1

At our original Star Wars wedding my good friend James did the music. He was working Karaoke at the time, so had a nice portable sound system.

Unfortunately he doesn't have the gear any more. I will need to come up with another option. Know anyone?

The Irony of Microsoft and Cars

Microsoft is once again sticking their fingers into other industries. Now they are working make cars that can't crash. That is their eventual goal of their move into the auto industry. I would like to see Microsoft make an OS that doesn't crash first. I run Windows XP, and I still have more crashes on my PC then I do in my car, I and drive quite a few miles during my commute (often while eating, talking on the phone, etc.)

Is it just me, or is this the ultimate irony? Microsoft thinking they can make a car that doesn't crash when they cannot make an OS that doesn't. I'll buy a car that runs on Microsoft when my computer quits crashing. Although I expect that will happen when I switch to Linux.

I must admit, this reminds me of the battle between Microsoft and GM. I think this took place around 1996, but I am not sure. This has become some what of an urban legend now, and the story has changed some, but fundamentally it is the same idea, and still very funny.

At COMDEX Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.

In response to Mr. Gates' comments, General Motors issued the following press release (by Mr. Welch himself, the GM CEO).

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
13. Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
14. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

I am sure the list has grown and been modified over the years, and I am sure you could think of a lot of new things to add to the list.

Star Wars Wedding: The Reverend Brian

My good friend Brian actually got his reverendship to perform our original wedding last time. I asked him to perform it again. He is going to make sure he can schedule it in.

Interestingly if you perform a single wedding then you can claim tax exempt. Brian didn't claim that 6 years ago though. I think he was nervous of an audit. (Don't take this as tax advice. Be sure you consult a tax professional!)

They actually changed the law about becoming a reverend and performing marriages in Idaho since then. It used to be really easy. I imaging since Brian was official accepted before they changed it then he is still official, not that he needs to be for a renewal, but it is just cool.

He received his reverendship from the Universal Life Church in California. I actually called the State of Idaho and they suggested the ULC, although they didn't know you could be ordained via their web site.

Star Wars Wedding: It's Official

It is official! We got approval from the Boise Edwards 21 Theater to renew our wedding vows in their lobby on May 19th at the premier of Star Wars episode 3. We were actually remarried there 6 years ago at the premier of Episode 1. When I saw Episode 3 was to be released on May 19th again I just had to do it.

It took a while to convince Dawn to do it, and even longer to get the theater lined up. The same manager works there, but the company was purchased by Regal, so the process took longer to get approved.

Everyone is invited. Costumes are optional.

Subject tags: [StarWars][Wedding]