About Gretchen and her friend
I can't remember exactly when the events I'm about to describe happened, but I believe it was late Spring in 2001. I was living in Cache Valley then, going to school part time at Utah State University, running my own consulting business on the side, and working doing IT for a company that sold exercise equipment.
My best friend Chadd, who was one of my business partners, and I had an ...
A confluence of farewells
In 2007, I walked to a convenience store close to where I worked to get a soda. I'd been in this store a few times and had developed a friendly familiarity with the sales clerk there. We exchanged our usual small talk and then, as I was leaving and about to issue a casual farewell statement as I walked out the door, my brain experienced a malfunction and went blank. I tried furiously to recover ...
Embedding suggestive backmasking into mix tapes
In the mid to late 1980s, lots of kids made "mix tapes." These were audio cassette tapes that contained various songs, often adhering to a theme or a message. Sometimes you'd make one for yourself to listen to. Other times, you'd make one for your friends. Maybe you'd make one for someone you liked, that you wanted to be better friends with. In any case, it was a lot more work than putting a ...
Andrea
On Saturday, April 5, 1986, my friend Shawn and I rode our bikes to the local mall to catch an afternoon showing of Back To The Future at the discount movie theater. We got our snacks and settled into our seats well before the movie start time.
The movie theaters at the mall each had a single aisle going down the middle of the theater with rows of seats on either side. We had selected the ...
Videography Lessons learned from the Clarity 10th Anniversary show
On Saturday, 19 November, I recorded video of the band Sons Of Nothing performing a concert at Broadview Entertainment Arts University (BEAU) in Salt Lake City. This was a special show for the 10th anniversary of the release of the band's "Clarity" album. In addition to recording video of the performance, I also produced video to be projected behind the band at ...
Subaru has settled class action lawsuit over oil consumption
In a recent post, I indicated that my 2014 Subaru Forester has a minor problem with oil consumption and in my Googling, I've discovered this isn't exclusive to my car. In fact, many Subaru owners have had this problems in recent years.
Well, a class-action lawsuit was filed and Subaru has ...
2014 Subaru Forester has high oil consumption
I bought my 2014 Subaru Forester Limited brand new and have already put over 60,000 miles on it. The 2.5 liter engine takes 0W20 synthetic oil and I've changed the oil every 6-7,000 miles myself.
However, the low-oil indicator on the dash frequently illuminates about 4,000 miles after an oil change requiring me to add half of a quart of oil. The car has required one half to one full quart of ...
Making sex normal
I recently watched a YouTube video of a TED talk given by Debby Herbenick who is described on Wikipedia as being "one of the leading experts in the study of sexual behavior in the United States."
The first seven minutes of Ms. Herbenick's TED talk was quite good. She talks about how repressed ...
The status of my documentary project
Since the beginning of 2015, I've been working on a documentary about a man named Ernie Jiminez who, on Memorial Day, set a new world record for furthest successful shot at a target with a rifle using open-sights.
This will be my first documentary and as such, I've been beset with a lot of questions, lack of confidence, and uncertainty. Having never done this before, I don't know what to ...
Oticon Chile SP9
So, I've been wearing Oticon Chili SP9 hearing aids in both ears for the last couple of months as a trial (I've actually tried two different sets.) I've been mostly satisfied with them. I'd give them an 8 out of 10.
I'm returning them, however, because rumor has it Oticon has something coming in a couple of months. ...
It's all downhill from here
Yesterday, I paid a visit to my father-in-law, who is also my audiologist, to make some adjustments to the programming of my hearing aids. I asked him if he could perform a new hearing test for me and generate a new audiogram since it's been a couple of years since I've had one done. We did that and I guess I was pretty dismayed, but not necessarily surprised, to see the results.
My ...
Thoughts on treating hearing loss
Most who know me know I've lived with moderate to severe hearing loss. I've worn hearing aids for 36 years and have gotten by quite well, functioning sufficiently in the world of school, career, and family.
My hearing loss has gotten gradually worse over the years, however. What started as a 45-50 dB loss in both ears when I was a child has become a 65-75 dB loss, possibly worse. A 100 ...
Book Review: "Dreamers and Deceivers" by Glenn Beck
Does Glenn Beck write his own books? I doubt it's possible. I believe his role is more like that of a film director or even a producer. With Miracles and Massacres and his latest offering Dreamers and Deceivers, I believe he picked which stories were to be told, what details were to be emphasized, and what the overall effect on the reader was to be.
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Fozzolog update and Livefyre comments
The Fozzolog was offline for a couple of months after I had Bluehost reinstall by VPS as a generic CentOS 7 host instead of a cpanel "enhanced" CentOS 6 host.
The delay was perpetuated by the fact I had to build and install dozens of Perl modules needed to run the Fozzolog which are not available through standard CentOS 7 repositories.
Now that the blog is back ...
How I met my wife
In November 1993, I was a student at Utah State University studying Computer Science. I had attended USU since Spring 1990 with the exception of a couple of quarters I spent working full-time.