Personal Updates

A neat little collection I started in the summer of 2002 is shirts with smart aleck sayings on them. My mom and mother-in-law expanded my collection by three shirts. The following is a list of the awesome sayings (in no particular order):

• Your village called. Their idiot is missing.
• Stupidity is not a crime, so you’re free to go.
• I see your problem. You’re stupid.
• You’re an inspiration to stupid people everywhere.
• If stupidity were a crime, you’d be on America’s Most Wanted.
• I’ll try to be nicer if you try to be smarter.
• I’d put something clever here, but you wouldn’t get it.

Now, I’m honestly not that arrogant, and no, I don’t think everyone is stupid. There are, however, enough idiots in the world so that these shirts provide me with a little subtle relief when there’s more stupidity than I can handle. Stupidity itself is strange in nature. Here are some of my observations about stupidity:

• Stupidity is normally distributed. I’ve been to quite a few places in the United States, and so far, I’ve encountered stupidity everywhere.
• Stupidity has nothing to do with intelligence. This is hard for a lot of people to accept, but I have met many brilliant people who were very stupid. I suppose this duality can exist because stupidity doesn’t always have to affect every aspect of a stupid person’s life. The one type of stupidity that sticks out the most is the one that involves someone not knowing when to refrain from speaking. Knowing when to clam up is the #1 most important social skill, but I’ve found that the lack of this knowledge breeds stupidity.
• To augment the preceding point, some people are Stupid All-Stars. Stupidity can affect some people so bad that they, as a whole, are truly stupid. If you don’t believe me, got to any local festival or state fair and walk around for about an hour. Stupid All-Stars somehow survive even though nothing they do makes sense.
• Stupidity can be funny. Stupidity should not always be hated. Some of the funniest things you will ever witness are a result of stupidity. America’s Funniest Home Videos was successful because it was a full-on parade of people doing stupid things.
• Everyone is stupid sometimes. If you have ever had a moment when you’ve asked yourself, "Why did I just do that?" after doing something that obviously had a much alternative, then you have been stupid. I have exhibited so much stupidity looking for a shorter way of doing something when in fact the old way I had always done it was much better.

I”ll probably expand on this list after I have reflected some more, and I’ll repost it up top if I do. Stay tuned!

The other night, I dreamed that I was sitting in a college psychology class. The setting was much like that of my Intro to Psych class: A small auditorium with stadium style seating. The professor was standing up front wearing a corduroy blazer with patches on the elbows holding a cup of coffee.  He takes a big gulp of coffee, looks at the class, and poses the question, "Did you ever consider that when a Carebear farts, it probably smells like cupcakes?"

I was perplexed…Very perplexed. When I woke up, I was still perplexed, but a bit curious. The only thing I could think was, "What flavor of cupcakes would they smell like." Who needs carpe diem when you dream like that…

One of my favorite places on the Internet is Digital Blasphemy.com. This site is by far the place to get desktop wallpaper. I’ve been a fan for about 4 years and with each update, I am more and more impressed with Ryan Bliss’ work. He is an amazing digital artist.

One of the coolest things to do is go look at the 2001 work and compare it to the current offerings. With every new version of software (Truespace 3D, Lightwave, etc), Ryan manages to push the envelope and get the most out of new features. This goes to show you that a true artist can get the most out of his tools.

Digital Blasphemy has free section, but I would recommend that anyone pay $20 and sign up for a 1 year subscription. The paid wallpapers are well worth it, especially if you spend as much time on the computer as I do.

One of the simple pleasures in life goes all the way back to my youth: Superman Ice Cream. We bought a gallon a little over a month ago at Save-a-Lot and I’ve been slowly chipping away at it. This evening, I decided I needed a bowl but I was having a horrible time trying to scoop it out. Thanks, Becca, for lending a hand. If the world was about to end, as long as I had you to scoop my Superman Ice Cream, everything will be ok. I love you babe.

Today has been awful. Program Assessment is looming around the corner and it’s always very stressful because no matter how hard I try, I can never seem to do the thing well enough to satisfy the people who call the shots.  Because of this Program Assessment stress, I have been less than cheery today. I want to thank my pretty little wife for putting up with me and being supportive as always.

I love you Becca. Always and forever my love you will be.

So far, switching hosts hasn’t been too bad. Transferring stuff around has took awhile, but it hasn’t been near as taxing as I thought. If you find a broken link shoot me an email with Broken Link as the subject.

Update: I updated the DNS stuff last night before I went to bed, and bingo, the new server is live.

For the first time ever today, I actually listed to the words of the Rascal Flatts song Bless the Broken Road. I didn’t write these words, but they say almost everything I feel about Beck.

Bless the Broken Road
Rascal Flatts

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn’t see how every sign pointed straight to you
Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I spent just passing through
I’d like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You’ve been there you understand
It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

Now I’m just rolling home
Into my lover’s arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you.

I love you Beck, for forever and a day.

Mitch Hedberg is dead. He passed away on March 29, 2005. At the time I posted this, I had no idea he was dead. I was curious why I hadn’t heard any new material from him in awhile, so I visited his website. I was honestly sad when I read the news. He was really a funny guy and I absolutely loved his sense of humor. Most of his jokes were common sense that I never looked at so commonly until he pointed it out. Thanks for the laughs, man. Your odd brand of wisdom will be surely missed.

If you’re a regular visitor, you probably noticed that the front page now has a nifty little sidebar so you can see my five most recent tech tips. The whole exercise has been an effort of futility because I still have to fight with Firefox and IE 6 to get stuff to render right! I suppose I get frustrated because I don’t actively develop pages as much as I once did and I have just forgotten about how defensive you must be as far as making a change to the code, checking the renders in all browsers, making a change to the code, checking the renders in all browsers, ad infinitum.

I somehow lack the patience for this tedium now. Oddly enough, PHP tedium is fine: I’m actually getting to the point where doing a basic CSS/HTML design is annoying. The worst part is that I have an insane need to change my page every six months or so, which means I will always have to juggle the CSS/HTML render cycle. Talk about a Catch 22: Do I drive myself mad with the boredom of a current design or do I drive myself mad by writing new code? What to do…what to do…

The one thing I do know is that I really like my sidebar and that all is well in Travis land at the moment. Good night!

Happy Halloween to everyone!!