Kunefke.US

I have spent countless hours wasting time on an online game.  I’m not gonna say what game, because then I might actually be guilty of hooking someone else into it’s claws.  It’s a fun game where you work with others around the world, building cities, making friends and enemies alike.  It’s free to play and interesting to see how a game like that changes with online interaction.

I started out on it innocent enough… looked interesting, met a few people.  The game requires time to build and interact to make it great.  If I were single, I could have maintained it and not let it control my time.  However, it was taking way too much of my time.  I gave it up today.  Well, I’m gonna log on to send a message to my former co-players, but after that, I wont log back on.

Time is one of our most precious commodities.  It is limited, as gold is limited.  The longer it takes to realize that, the less time there is to correct it.  So long, unnamed game.

Last night was really strange.  I went to bed thinking that Humberto was just a tropical storm.  I couldn’t sleep due to the noises the wind was causing my house to make. 

About two hours after I laid down, the power went out and came back on several times.  I heard a bang in the living room and went in there to find that my screen door was being banged around by the very strong winds.  It was banging up against the door, making an awful noise.  I would have opened the door and closed the screen door completely, but I didn’t want to risk a bodily accident by opening the door.  Then the power went out. 

I then noticed that the wind was driving rain into the living room window on the north side of the house.  It was coming in pretty quickly.  I put some towels on the window and tried to at least stop some of the water from coming in.  I didn’t seem to be making much of a difference.Christle called her mom to find out what the storm was up to, and that’s how we found out that Humberto was a hurricane.  We also found out about where the path was.

We live a few miles east of where I-10 turns N/E to go to Beaumont, and the storm was just south of us.  Basically, the only thing we could think to do was to pray, get dressed in case we had to leave the house, and wait it out. 

It took about an hour and a half before the wind started to die down, and another hour for power to be restored.  Before the power was restored, I was able to look out the kitchen window, because the screen had been blown off, and saw that water was standing over my driveway.  That’s the deepest I’ve ever seen the water level here.

I went outside and found that the screen door had been shattered, and glass was all over the porch.  Our swing set was folded over on itself.  Tree limbs were all over the place… I only specify ‘tree’ limbs, because there were no other type of limbs (separated from their host) anywhere on the property.  The water was flowing very swiftly because it appeared to really want to get off my property and away from all the limbs… maybe it was confused about what type of limbs they were.

I finally got to sleep sometime around 5:30am.  I got to work around noon.

This is where I have to explain the lesson I learned from this experience.  Ever since evacuating for Rita two years ago, I have held to the plan of staying around instead of evacuating for another hurricane.  I will not stay home, thanks to this experience.  Worrying about the safety of my wife and kids during this was too much to handle.  Given the choice, I’d much rather deal with traffic than to go through this again.

I seem to have had a lag in my writing over the past two months.  I am not really sure why that is, I just know that I want to pick it back up. 

My mid-year resolution is to post more frequently.  Maybe even do some video posts.  We’re getting a new camera this week.  I’ll post about it when it comes in and I have a little time to play with it.

I waited for inspiration to come to me all month long, and I couldn’t think of anything to write.  I think it’s that fact that has led me to lose sleep last month.  I didn’t use this outlet that I set up to get things off my chest.

Up until last night, Heroes was getting a little dull.  Last night was probably the best episode so far.  There was a little continuity error in there, but all-in-all it was great.

There have been some great strides in solid-state hard drives over the past few months.  Having a history in hard drive data recovery, it looks like that industry may be taking a turn for the worse once these solid-state drives become the standard.  At the rate that the size increases, the odds are that they will be the standard is good within the next 4-5 years.  Instead of physical defects in the platters, our primary worry will be bad currents of electricity.

I got a new phone a few weeks ago.  Christle did, too.  They are pretty cool, and if we can keep from dropping them too often, I doubt that we’ll get tired of them very soon.

A friend of mine from high school passed away on April 21.  Joey grew up down the street from me.  We moved in to that house in April of 1989.  We hadn’t really kept in touch over the years, but it is heartbreaking to see someone I grew up with pass away.  While at the funeral, I found out another classmate of mine died in a car wreck about 7 years ago.  I didn’t know him very well, but I remember that he was the kind of guy who always seemed to be happy.  I remember playing football over at his house with Joey, Chad, Bobby, and a few other guys.  I also found out that a girl I used to “date” in Junior High committed suicide a few months ago.  I don’t like thinking about this.

Christle’s been going over to her parents house a lot this month to get things done for her sister’s wedding.  The knot-tying ceremony is coming up rather quickly, so they’ve been working very hard lately.

I’m excited to finally have the opportunity to visit Schlitterbahn in Galveston in a few weeks.  I’ve almost gotten the park map memorized.

So, I guess April wasn’t so boring.  I wish I had less to write about.  I just need to remember to write when I need to so that I can get it out instead of bottling it all in.

Wow… was this week long enough?  It seemed to creep by quickly even though I worked a lot while trying to get through it.  I was trying to keep my posts up, but just didn’t seem to get to it as often as I’d have liked.

This has been a good year.  There have been a few things we’d have skipped if we could have, but the good things have far outweighed the unfortunate.  I’ll expand on that next weekend, though.

I’ve got to get back to the gym.  I haven’t been in almost 4 weeks!  I’m going Tuesday morning.  Really.

Merry Christmas!

My grandmother wasn’t breathing for over 10 minutes yesterday.  The tests have confirmed that she has barely any brain activity at all.  The breathing machine will be removed in the morning.

I spent some time at the hospital this afternoon.  It hit me harder than I thought it would.  The hardest part was seeing Dad and Grandpa saying goodbye.

Grandpa told me that for the past few years at night before bed that he’d play his harmonica for Grandma.  He said that for the past few weeks that he’d been playing “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” for her every night.  He said that when he finished, she’d just say “I love you, too, Honey”.  He’s really happy that she’s not in pain any more.

They raised a family rooted in God and His Word.  They have remained faithful to studying their Bible, and keeping active in their prayer life which amounts to keeping up their relationships with God.

Grandma will be sorely missed.  She has been a real blessing in mine and many other lives.

I started this blog as a way to get my thoughts out and share stuff that’s on my mind.  I have an overwhelming sense of “creativity” in me that seems to have to fight it’s way out.  I want to create a NetCast (aka podcast) that allows me to speak my mind rather than type it, but it’s a lot of work.

I have spent the last few weeks struggling with the amount of time I spend in front of the computer instead of with my family, yet I haven’t been able to figure out what to add to this thing.  I don’t like the amount of time I’ve spent in front of the computer over the last few weeks, but I also don’t like the fact that I haven’t posted anything in that amount of time as well.

I’m starting my second class for the semester tomorrow, and I have no idea how that’s going to affect my schedule.  I feel like Macroeconomics is a breeze, even though it’s not that interesting to me.  It may be a little different when I write my papers for it, but I don’t think I’ll have much of a problem with that.

I have to write a paper soon about an economic situation going on in the world.  Does anyone out there have any ideas about an economic situation going on right now that I can write about?  I’d appreciate any help that doesn’t require me to use any more brain power than I feel like using, which isn’t much.  Heck, I’ll even give you credit for the idea.

After this semester, I think I’m going to cut myself off from media for a few days, just to relax my brain.  I need the break, because I think I have a problem… an addiction to news.  Digg provides the fix most of the time, but I have to go elsewhere every now and then, because I get caught up with Digg stories pretty frequently.

The Texans lost today.  The road to an 8-8 season looks like a far away dream for us right now.  The Astros didn’t pull it out this season like they have for the past two years.  I wouldn’t expect Roger Clemens to come out again after this season.  I’d almost be willing to bet that this season’s final Astros game will be Clemens’ last.  It really stinks.  My only reason for thinking that is because I don’t know why he’d want to play for a losing team again.  He probably already regrets signing back up this year after helping them get to the World Series for the first time last year.  That was an accomplishment that will probably not be met this year.
I’m not a sports expert, and that’s about all the sports talk I have in me.

I had a great weekend.  Christle and I met a few new people and really enjoyed the time we spent with them.  This should be a good week.

I know that a lot of people use places like Jiffy Lube and other quick stop oil changers like it. I think it is imperative that you see this video. I don’t think it’s wrong to go to them, but you should definitely watch their every move.

Click Here to watch the video

This type of scam is not isolated to that area of the country.  I plan to keep my eyes on my vehicle when it’s being serviced, especially when they try to sell me extras.

I saw this story on Digg and had to post about it.

Apparently Emily started a blog a few weeks ago, back in June 2006, to be able to vent her frustrations.  I started reading from her first post, and knowing the last update, I could see the signs throughout the past few weeks. 

She found out through a Private Investigator between the time she started the blog and a week ago that her husband had been cheating on her with her best friend, Laura.  Just a few days before she found out, her best friend had passed out at her house from drinking so much, and had to spend the night.

The entire story is incredible.  Her last post included a picture of a billboard close to her (soon-to-be-ex) husband’s workplace that outted him for the dirtbag that he is.  I can’t say I feel bad for the guy.  I think this may cure some men from the temptation to cheat. 

If you missed the link above to her blog, I’ll post it again just to be sure you can find it.

http://thatgirlemily.blogspot.com/

Let me know what you think of her story.

Al Gore used multiple references while trying to scare everyone into thinking that global warming was civilization’s fault.  There is an opposing argument to each claim in his movie, but I don’t have the time or energy to get to every one of them at once.
One reference used was the fact that hurricanes have caused many times more damage monetarily in recent years as opposed to back in the 1940s.

The one thing he fails to mention is the fact that the population of homes and businesses increased dramatically as well as the property value of those homes and businesses.

I know I’m going to mess up on the numbers so I’ll just give you a link to this VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE.