Pugs Rule!

 

Pasco County Trick or Treating Hours

I called the Pasco County Sheriff's Office today to find out what the hours are for trick-or-treating this year. After getting laughed at by the operator, I talked to someone else that informed me there are no set hours for trick-or-treating here in Pasco County, Florida.

I'm just writing this post to help anyone else out that may be looking for the same information, as it's not really readily available anywhere else. So if you're waiting for a certain time to take your kids out...just go! :)

Happy Halloween!

Better Bet?

What's the better bet this weekend?

 

1)    Bears at Falcons over/under is 45.5 and I'm thinking of the over - I think it will be a shootout and Matt Ryan is the second coming of Peyton Manning.  I've watched him every game this year and he seems just like Peyton in the way he commands the field and almost always finds someone open down field.  Not to mention his new toy Tony Gonzalez.  The Bears offense is getting better every week, and they have Desmond Clark coming back this week, who seems to always find a seam 15-20 yds down field, not to mention the emergence of Johnny Knox, and the sure handedness of Earl Bennett...and there's always Devin Hester speeding down the field.  This team will have no problem stretching the field on a questionable Atlanta secondary -- as long as Cutler gets his protection.  Did I mention Matt Forte is finally starting to break out? 

 

2)    This was a better bet yesterday so I'm off of it, but Packers are -13.5 (yesterday they were -14) at home vs. the Lions.  The Lions have showed their offense isn't exactly horrible and the Packers are coming off a very emotional loss against the Vikings.  The downside is the Packers have had 2 weeks to prepare for the Lions and they absolutely must win this game to stay part of the NFC North race.  Ok I just talked myself out of it...

 

2b)    Cardinals at Seahawks -3 -- Matt Hasselbeck is back and ready to take some names in Seattle.  They're getting healthier every week with a good defense and arguably the best home field advantage in the NFL.  The Cardinals are so up and down that you can never count on them, and I think they'll have a horribly tough time once they get down early in Seattle.

 

I haven't placed a bet on a sporting event in a couple years, but I think about it every weekend during the NFL season.  We'll see if I pull the trigger this weekend, TGIF!

 

 

Easiest Way To Make a Free Org Chart

I searched around the Internet for a few minutes trying to find the cheapest/easiest way to make an organizational chart / structure chart / hierarchy chart in order to visually show my company's hierarchy structure.  I found a lot of downloadable programs, but I'd hate to download a program from a company I don't trust, so I kept looking.

 

Turns out it's pretty easy to make an Org Chart in Microsoft Word, and I found it at this website.  Here's the gist, written by Ugur Akinci, PhD (great guy I'm sure):

 

You can create an amazing variety of fantastic-looking Organization Diagrams in Microsoft Word 2003 without using any external graphic programs.

 

1) Display your DRAW toolbar by selecting View > Toolbars > Drawing.

2) Place your cursor where you want to insert your chart or diagram.

3) Click the 3-spinning-balls icon on your DRAW toolbar. The tooltip message should read "Insert Diagram or Organization Chart."

4) From the Diagram Gallery window, select the Organization Chart button on the Upper Left. The ORGANIZATION CHART Mini-Bar display automatically.

5) Click Insert Shape drop-down menu on the Mini-Bar to insert "subordinate," "coworker" or "assistant" boxes.

6) Click the Autoformat button on the Mini-Bar to select one of the chart templates.

7) To delete a box, click the Select drop-down menu on the Mini-Bar, then press the Delete button.

8) Click on individual boxes on the chart to add text.

9) Click Layout drop-down menu on the Mini-Bar to change the layout of the whole chart and select one of the following options: Standard, Both Hanging, Right Hanging, Left Hanging.

10) Select a text wrapping option (if need be) by clicking the Text Wrapping button on the Mini-Bar and selecting one of the available options.

11) Experiment with other buttons on the DRAW toolbar for an infinite variety of different effects. For example, select an organizational box and change its color by clicking the Paint Bucket button, or add drop shadows by clicking 3D button and selecting an option.

 

There are several expensive graphic-creation software out there as well. But why spend the extra money when you have great tools at your disposal, already built into the MS Word?

 

 

Song Interpretation - Green Day "21 Guns"

My wife asked me to look over the lyrics of 21 Guns by Green Day and here's my interpretation of what they may have meant when writing the song:

Do you know what's worth fighting for,
When it's not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?
Does the pain weigh out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?
Did someone break your heart inside?
You're in ruins

This was straight-up anti-war, pretty easy to comprehend right? Like a soldier that wanted to go fight for his country because of the pride he feels, but then he gets there and realizes he's fighting for some guy sitting in his office eating ice cream. The soldier panics because he hears gunfire and whatever, and just wants to be back home, so that's the pain...does it outweigh the pride?

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I

EDIT: My interpretation of this one was HORRIBLE, so here's a good interpretation from a commenter...

With war there is death and when you have one gun (participation in war), you get 21 guns (you die), either physically or emotionally.

My interpretation is one = one person. 21 guns MAY stand for the soldier just being young and 21 years old with his whole life ahead of him. Why 21? I don't know, maybe he has a cousin or something that he wrote this for that was 21 when he went into the service. "You and I" = "join me, I'm not fighting in this stupid war for oil, neither should you."

When you're at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn't pass
Nothing's ever built to last
You're in ruins

Again pretty straight-forward...back to the soldier that just keeps thinking and freaking out and finally starts to lose it "end of the road, lost all sense of control, thoughts have taken their toll" and then he talks about how this soldier is questioning his faith in God because of the things he's seeing, dead children, shooting other people in the head that he doesn't even know, etc. "The hangover doesn't pass..." like the next day he wakes up, he's still out in Iraq or whatever when normally a hangover goes away the next day, but not this one. "Nothing's ever built to last" is his faith in God and humanity.

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I

Did you try to live on your own
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire?
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone

This one's tough, but here's my first thought: Maybe the soldier FINALLY makes it back to the United States after a few years of being at war....and maybe he has nobody to come home to that cares about him, maybe his parents shipped him off because they couldn't pay for college or whatever, hence his reason for going off to fight...and he's living on his own for really the first time in his life after seeing some truly horrific things in combat. "burned down your house and home" Could be literal or figurative. Literally = he came home to live with his parents and concocted some scheme to burn the house down because he hated it. He hated that his parents for putting him in the situation to go to war and just snapped one night and burned the house that represented some of his anger. Figuratively = "house and home" could be his old ideals (faith in God, love for America and wanting to fight for his country) and childish thoughts. When soldiers come back from war they instantly mature like 20 years because of the stuff they witness every day. "Did you stand too close to the fire" Again literal or figurative 1) he stood there watching the house go down in flames because he was happy to see it go or 2) "the fire" is another meaning for "the war" and he got way too entrenched in the war, which ruined him inside for the rest of his life.

When it's time to live and let die
And you can't get another try
Something inside this heart has died
You're in ruins

Definitely a "shout-out" to the Beatles messages of peace, and this soldier wishes he could just live and let the memories of war die and that he could just get a re-do of his life and get the option of not going to war, but he can't. "something inside this heart has died", more like everything in him has died.

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I

Same as I said earlier. Just don't go to war, kids! It screws you up!

Chicago Bears Players on Twitter

I did a Google search for Chicago Bears players on Twitter and it seemed a little hard to find a list of Bears players on Twitter, so I thought I'd start one. Here are the ones I know of, please comment if you know of any others (even ex-Bears are cool).

Jay Cutler: @jcutler6 (thanks ScottSandSkokie)

Greg Olsen: @gregolsen82

Matt Forte: @chitownforte22

Devin Hester: @d_hest23

Tommie Harris: @RealDeal91

Jason Davis: @JasonDavis43

Desmond Clark: @tightwork88

Ex-Bears:

Fontel Mines: @FMines89
Jason McKie: @Jmack37
Bernard Berrian: @B_Twice

Kyle Orton (maybe): @kyleorton08

Feel free to follow me @Perno

Pie Man? Angry Black Man?

So I just did a quick search on Google Image Search for "Pie Man" (don't ask, long story), and this is like the 4th image that popped up.  The description is "Angry Black Man Clip Art".  So my question is, do a lot of people looking for a guy carrying pies happen to see this image and think, "you know, a pie man would work really well, but this angry black man will REALLY make my point!  Thank goodness for Google!"

 

On a side note, Happy "Beer Bottling" Thursday...I'm going to bottle my first ever homebrew with my sister who's in town from Chicago. Wish me luck!

 

 

 

 

Black Pug Brewery Logo

My dad said not to send any gifts to him for Father's Day since he has everything he wants/needs so Allison and I are sending him a gift certificate for admission to the Black Pug Brewery in Land O Lakes, FL (my house) along with unlimited beers to be used before the end of the year.  So Allison and I took some pictures last night and came up with this logo for the brewery.

 

Obviously this won't be a final logo of any sort, but it will be the one I put on my dad's gift certificate :)  

 

Happy Father's Day!

 

 

Phish in Asheville, NC

My (future) brother in law Gregg and his (future) wife Lauren (along with Dave) went to see Phish play in Asheville, NC and Knoxville, TN. Gregg just showed me this awesome picture that Lauren took at the Asheville show with his camera, and I thought I would share it:


Click on picture to make biggy

I'm not a fan of Phish, but I don't hate them. Now I can see why the hippies like to go see them so much. Glad you guys had fun!

T-Mobile G1 Android Cupcake Battery Charging Issue

UPDATE (7/9/09): I've tried everything, a hard reset of my phone, letting the phone fully discharge then recharge, and it improved a little bit, but not much. I called T-Mobile and they admitted it's a known issue. I expect the next software update to take care of this.

I'm a T-Mobile customer and own the G1 phone. Recently, an over-the-air update was released for the Android operating system, version 1.5 or "Cupcake". Everything's been running smoothly for me thus far besides a couple complaints, but the main thing I found was my battery would only charge up to about 64% and then charge VERY slowly. I'm talking it went from a couple hours to perform a full charge to around 8-10 hours!

After a few days of this happening I thought I would just restart the phone (since that seems to be the answer to almost any techy device) and the battery said it was fully charged, 100%, which led me to believe it was a software issue. The battery was fully charged, but the software didn't know it. So I did some digging and it seems a lot of people had this same problem.

Turns out downloading the updated operating system on a less than fully charged battery led the new OS to believe the battery is fully charged at whatever percentage you had when you updated your phone. Sounds like someone at Google would have thought of this and prevented this from happening, but I guess they were eager to push this out so they missed it. Anyway, one solution someone suggested is to just let your battery fully drain to the point your phone shuts off from lack of battery, then just fully recharge it. I'm told this will solve the problem and allow the OS to re-calibrate itself, I guess it makes sense logically. So far I've drained mine and it's charging right now, I'll report back on how it goes.