Benz0.com

My folks told me, before I sold my soul and bought a house with the profits, that there is always something that needs done to a home. Though it seems they are right, I’ve been less than motivated to make many of those things happen over the past 3 years that I’ve owned my home. That doesn’t mean I’ve been sitting on my ass watching the time go by, my dad and I built a deck the first summer we lived in the house, but I also haven’t done as much as I could have to improve the house. With the threat of having to move and sell the house looming, Jen and I have decided to start with some upgrades, and the first thing to get done is the electric.

My house is pretty old, it was built in 1910, and my wife is convinced that the electric wiring is the original wiring from when the place was built. I’m not as convinced as she is, but she’s probably not far off, and apparently the insurance company agrees because they consider the type of wiring I have in my house to be a fire hazard despite the fact that the house has stood for nearly 100 Years with out incident. Regardless, they’re making me pay through the nose for home owners insurance because of it, and it’s likely that some folks may not even be able to secure a mortgage for my house if they were to attempt to buy it at this point because of the electricity situation. To resolve that we brought in Francis Glenn, electrician and home improvement guru.

Francis seems like a nice enough guy, though he may or may not be a little unusual and I’m not sure how that makes me feel about him being in my house with my poor dog. Francis started the job yesterday by running some electrical conduit from my basement all the way to my attic going through my bathroom in the process. It doesn’t look too bad and I think we can probably cover it with some drywall or something. Next he tore up the carpet in my attic along with some of the floor boards, and then stopped for the day. I found out early this morning that he stopped because apparently he spent all afternoon yesterday searching a bunch of home improvement stores for an exhaust fan that would fit above my bathroom. Not having found one he decided to flag me down at 7:20AM while I was on my way out the door for work. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll do a fine job as he seems to clean up after him self and I haven’t noticed any big problems yet. Though yesterday was only day 1 so I suppose we’ll see how it goes from here. Hopefully he doesn’t leave us on Friday with no electric for the weekend. That would probably make me very angry.

~benz0

Here is a little something that everyone can relate too, right? Everyone at this point has an iPhone, or knows someone with an iPhone, or at the very least wants an iPhone. I decided that I would list my top 5 iPhone apps for shits and giggles. So here we go!

1. Airme: This app allows users to take a photo with their iPhone and have it automatically tagged and uploaded to either facebook or flickr. You can edit the tags for different events or it can automatically tag the photo with GPS coordinates, local weather, and date and time information. The only problems I have with this app are that it seems to take a while to load, and uploading pics over 3G use the battery VERY quickly.
   
2. Twitterrific is a simple, easy to use, and dare I say elegant Twitter feed reader. You can view all tweets on twitter, or only those for folks you follow. If you’re on Twitter, you should have Twitterrific for your iPhone.
3. Pandora: If you haven’t heard of Pandora Radio, you need to check it out now. This app is a simple way to use Pandora on the iPhone. I can even stream the music over the 3G network and it sounds great! If you’re a fan of Pandora, and really who isn’t, I highly recommend the Pandora app.
   
4. PhotoFrame is a small app that turns your iPhone into a digital photo frame. It also includes a digital clock with the date. You can select 20 pics from your library and PhotoFrame will display them in order. I don’t have any pictures on my desk at work, nor do I own a digital picture frame, so I like this app. It’s not really a replacement for a real picture frame, but it is nice.
   
5. Shazam: I don’t use this app very much, but it’s impressed me every time I’ve ever used it. If you ever find your self somewhere, and you hear a song playing but you just can’t figure out who the artist is, or you want to know what album it’s from, Shazam is your app. Shazam will capture a song for 30 seconds, then analyze that song and if it’s in the iTunes store somewhere it will identify the song, artist, album as well as several other bits of information. It will also give you the option to purchase the song or album from iTunes if you like.
   

So there ya have it. My top 5 favorite iPhone apps for 2008. Let me know if you have apps that you like more than these so I can try them out.

~benz0

It’s been two months since the last time I even looked at this site. I told my self when I started this little project that if I ever got to the point where I wasn’t posting at least once every few weeks, I would just stop and tare the fucker down. I haven’t done that yet, which means I’m a dirty liar. Lying to myself too, thats pretty terrible. Worst of all, I don’t even really have a great reason for my absence.

In reality, I have a half decent reason why I haven’t been writing on here lately. The reason is that until recently, anything decent that I wanted to say I couldn’t because of some binding agreements. But now, the truth comes out. A few weeks ago my company was acquired by a bigger company. Don’t worry, it’s mostly good news. I’ll still keep my job, and I even got a promotion. I’ve had the opportunity to do some traveling for the company as well. For some reason they think I’m important enough to the success of the product that they sent me all the way to Silicon Valley to bigger company headquarters to train some folks. It wasn’t a very fun trip, but it was valuable experience and I’d do it again for sure if I had the opportunity. This weekend is another work related trip, though this time Jen and Noe get to come along. We’re taking a nice leisurely 8 hour drive to Ann Arbor, to look for a place to live. Thats right, I’m probably moving for work. Odds are I’ll be picking up sticks some time next spring and taking the family to the midwest. Should be loads of fun, and a great adventure…hopefully.

Looks like thats about all I have time for right now. I’ll try to post some more details next week.

~benz0

I finally broke down and got an iPhone on Sunday. I’ve been wanting to buy one since the new 3G iPhone was released but I hadn’t because of my contract with sprint. My contract expires this month so I decided it was time to switch. I love my new phone! It’s tons of fun and really handy. I can’t see that this is a tool that I’ll be using much but i’ve installed a blogging app for my iPhone that let’s me post directly to my site. So this is the first and probably last post that I’ll make from my phone. But I had to do it at least once.

~benz0

When I first heard that one of my good friends had enlisted in the Navy, I thought to my self, “Self, what kind of crazy fuck enlists in the Navy…during a war…in his late 20’s?” Then I realized that it was Ninja and the questions just sort of stopped there.

I supposed in order to understand the answer to my question you just sorta have to know Ninja. But to be honest I think a lot of us do know him (both figuratively and literally). Ninja is the guy who is always there when you need help moving. He’s the only one of my friends who has helped me move either into or out of every place I’ve ever lived in after I left my parents. He’s also the guy who you can count on to offend your parents if thats the sort of thing you need, though typically only by request. He is also the guy that you call if you ever need to have a good time in a hurry, or need your party to liven up in a hurry.

Ninja is a self proclaimed martial arts bum. Though I had no concept of what that meant before I met him, I soon found out that it entailed living with your brothers, in a house that hasn’t been cleaned since 1972, spending every free dime on either weapons or conventions (nerdcon’s and/or martial arts seminars). Martial arts bums are also apparently continuously unemployed or under-employed and will, from time to time, brag about their work as carnies. Living on credit and through the generosity of others is a big part of the martial arts bum life style, though he will always be eager to pay back debts that he may never have even accrued. Though his body is a temple, alcohol abuse, profanity, and random sexual encounters are not out of the question for the martial arts bum, and are often celebrated with friends later over a beer (or several).

So it appears that the kind of crazy fuck who would enlist in the Navy during a war and in his late 20’s is my good friend Ninja. Who will soon be and unstoppable force with his military training and structure.

Today is the day that Ninja ships off to the Navy. Finally laying the groundwork for his legacy, and preserving our right to aspire to be martial arts bums.

Good Luck Ninja! Take care of your self, and all of us.

~benz0