The Secret Life of Karl

The Internet -- Creating hobbies you never would have imagined.

2008-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

So I found a new hobby online.

There's this site called http://www.swoopo.com/. It's a type of eBay bidding monster. There's a ton of these right? Why is this one a "hobby"?

The site, Swoopo, buys all of the merchandise themselves and puts it up for bid. They don't put a reserve on it, and it starts at about $1. There is a long timer on each of these, but as is the usual on eBay, no one bids until it's down to about 10 seconds. Well, every time you bid, it brings the timer back up 15 seconds. Well, that's not so bad right? You just have to keep sharpshooting someone until they finally give up.

It gets better. The price on the bid doesn't go up a certain amount that YOU put in that you want to bid up to. It goes up incrementally 15 cents each time. So when you bid, you've only increased the bid by 15 cents, keeping the bids low for a long period of time, and the bid sniping on your toes for what could end up being hours.

So, still sounds like a good idea, right? Here's the catch: they sell you the BIDS. That's right, every time you hit the bid button, you've said goodbye to $1. A DOLLAR A BID. Or a little less if you buy the bidpacks (I imagine, I didn't register to find out). So now, you REALLY feel like you have to win cause you've already bid 15 times on something that is steadily becoming NOT as much of a deal. Can you believe how much this site is making? Someone that buys an item that's worth $120 for only $31 ... If it starts at $1, then that's 200 bids. Swoopo makes $231 on the $120 item. The person that wins the item .. well, they came away with a steal (or maybe not!) and the rest of them are screwed. This is gambling in a big way.

The reason I call it a hobby is because it's awesome to watch. It's not old-school like eBay. You don't have to pound the F5 key and hope that you're going to keep getting updated. It's all put together in nice javascript so that you can watch the timers and see the price updated real time so that you can see the sniping action.

Also, there's a program that they provide called "BidButler" that you can set up to bid a certain amount of times at a certain price for a certain increment, etc etc. The thing just bids automatically for you on whatever you set with the criteria. This thing is making them TONS of money. If two people have the BidButler going, then you can sometimes see 40-50 bids made instantly, shooting the price up a couple bucks and elongating the time for about 10 minutes or so. Then no one bids for about oh, ALL of that time except 15 seconds, and then the sniping happens again.

So what makes this so interesting? Following it until the big win happens. Then it shows you all the stats, INCLUDING how many bids the winner made and what their savings are. There are different kinds of auctions too, that just keep the bidding going forever. One is the 100% off auction, where if you win, you just don't pay for it. So how are you going to quit bidding since you can win a $1000 item for NOTHING except your dollar bids? If you were that lucky guy that hit it once at the end and grabbed it, the item costs you $1! And that's what keeps it going.

I just watched one where they sold a "vacuuming robot". It was a "Fixed Price" auction where they tell you the price and that's what you pay if you win. Very much akin to the 100% auctions. The retail price was $449.99, and the fixed price was $35. The "price" on the auction went up to $990 or so before the winner was finally announced. This guy was not at the computer, and it was obvious because his BidButler was just bidding like crazy. It showed his $35 price for the item and his 3,188 bids. That's right. He just bought this $500 piece of crap for $3,223. I like how Swoopo makes no bones about making you feel stupid. It finishes off by showing "Total Savings!: 0%" I laughed and laughed and laughed. Oh man. So entertaining.

I hope he doesn't off himself or something when he finds out. I can see this kinda ruining your life so easily without even being at the computer, but I can't help watching the train wreck.

Oh, gotta go. I've been watching this Nintendo DS auction since it was $8, and it's peaking $93 right now. *grabs popcorn*

www.swoopo.com

Update: It finished. Retail price: $129.99. Winning bid: $122.85. # of bids: 26. Shipping: $12.90. Total Savings: You guessed it. 0%.

On the "To Do" list for the day after the election:

2008-11-05T06:09:00.001-08:00

- Begin crafting large decorative "I told you so" banners for a year from now.

Day two of the radio jingle compo

2008-10-30T21:00:00.001-07:00

So, today, Mark Frenkle (of Frenkle and Frenkle) joined Ben and Skin in the studio to cut the 15 entries down to 3. As well documented in the last mp3, my song DEFINITELY would not win, and it didn't. But Mark Frenkle was more than impressed by how awesome it was (and by awesome I mean, do these people not realize I spent about an hour throwing this patheticness together?). The clip says it all.

http://bladiator.vgpiano.com/music/2nd_chance_radio.mp3

My radio debut

2008-10-29T19:12:00.001-07:00

So, there's this talk radio station in Dallas (Live 105.3), and they've got a couple new guys for the mid day show. They've also had this one advertisement on for as long as I can remember for "The Dogs", a lawyer duo (Frenkle and Frenkle) that pretty much take care of you if you're in a car wreck that isn't your fault, or in a divorce, or what have you.

This midday show (Ben and Skin) put together a competition to create a new "The Dogs" jingle. I of course took about 2 hours out of my day to throw something really stupid together and sent it in. It didn't matter how bad it was, they would play part of it and then decide if it made it as a finalist (which really wasn't much of a deal seeing as how 15 of 30 entries are finalists). But mine somehow found their good graces in the 2nd half when they decided to start being a lot less lenient. Mostly this just made me laugh.

http://bladiator.vgpiano.com/music/my_radio_debut.mp3

Biten, bruised, cut...

2008-07-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

...scraped, tired, swollen, blistered, calloused, and burnt.

Fantastic weekend.

OH CANAYYYYDIA

2008-07-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying to finish some stuffins up today because I'm flying out to Toronto this evening. And as far as "finishing stuff up" goes, I don't really give a flying poop about these things once 3pm shows up. I'M COMING MARLIN!!!

Aruba bound ...

2008-06-19T08:57:00.001-07:00

Yep. End of August.

Next is Jamaica, then ooh, I wanna take ya.

From the "lowly musician"

2008-06-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

http://bladiator.vgpiano.com/music/timescar.mp3

A WIP I put together last evening. (Work-In-Progress)

This one is for Ben.

2008-06-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

http://xkcd.com/435/

I'm not TOO sure he even reads my blog.

The new list -- excess inventory with the Travel Network

2008-06-13T13:02:00.001-07:00

EXCESS INVENTORY WOO

"The Drowsy Chaperone"

2008-06-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Here's the linkie link.

Totally worth the time and money. Totally.

(And yes, I know that practically none of you live in the D/FW area, but if it comes to your area for a suitable price, then I highly recommend it.)

It totally breaks all the rules of stage theater ... but it does it beautifully.

So so so so so so so so so so so bored....

2008-06-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is the longest day ever.

I haven't taken any vacation this year yet, and all of a sudden, one day about a week or two ago I was like, "Wow, I haven't taken any vacation yet this year." And now all I can think about is how much I don't want to be at work and how much I don't want to wake up on time for work, and how I just want to jump on a plane and be somewhere else. Somewhere sooooo far away from where I am right now. And just sleep a lot.

And if it ends up being Hawaii, I'll roll out onto the beach too.

Seriously, since when did 5 come so late?

The newest thing going on.

2008-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so long story short: I bought in with a vacation network company and I can get ultra low prices on accomdations in lots of nice vacation spots for me and my family and friends. (Now who's my friend?)

Long story long: I sign up for this free car at a festival down in Addison that bored me to tears. I also should have known that this was all just a way to get my information so they could call me and try to sell me something later. Especially seeing as how one of the boxes you had to check involved "How much money do you make?" and if you checked "Under $35k" then you actually were NOT eligible to win the car. Uh, yeah.

So someone calls me to ask if I'll come see their presentation. She assures me that they are NOT a timeshare company and that their presentation is only an hour and if you don't want it, then you just leave ... they aren't going to hold you there and try to force it down your throats (as I've seen happen pretty frequently with timeshares). Oh, and they're offering me a free 3 day/2 night stay in a Marriott for showing up. Fine, I'll do it.

I get to this place and sit in a room with about 15 other people during my session (they do 3 sessions every evening), and again with the paperwork and asking me how much money I make. I'm starting to feel a little self-conscious about telling them. And then in they come and do the little speal. Seems that their whole deal is that they own a lot of real estate all over America and the Carribean area, and if you sign up with them, you can go on vacations to these spots for $500/week. Sure, there are other fees here and there, but after you pay all that, you still are getting away with a real cheap rate. But it was just ... SO much money. I remember a $150 registration fee, $500/week for 18 weeks of vacation (that never expired and was transferrable AND willable), then $99 processing fee each time you set up a vacation and $339 in tax per year and an additional $30/night for peak season etc etc etc. All in all, I wasn't planning on putting down $9000+ then and there for this stuff.

Then they have the next guy come in and show us the perks for signing up right then and there: $1000 off, or an additional 6 weeks of vacation (effectively making your vacations like .. $375/week), or even taking 14 weeks for $7000, payment plans with 0% interest. But the most intriguing thing was what they call "Excess inventory". If you want to plan a vacation to one of their spots, you have to do it 6 weeks in advance. If something that they own isn't taken from today to six weeks out, it goes on the excess inventory list. And then you can rent that for a week for only $198. $198!! But still ... I'm not paying out nearly $10k for that little perk.

So they do all this speal and see if they have any bites. I think two people went to talk more about pricing and payment plans and then they were like, "No one else? Oh heck no. So then the NEXT GUY comes walking in.

"Hi, I'm *whatever his name was* and I'm from sales. I'm here to sell you stuff." And then with that, he turns around to the wipe board where they had all those fees and prices and stuff everywhere and started erasing it like a crazy man. "Out of all the things we offer, most people are most intrigued by the excess inventory."

I was listening.

"So we can sell you a package where you get access to the excess inventory and you can even do the $500/week vacations 'pay as you go' but just for a slightly higher price than the others would have gotten." And he goes on and on about it, but at this point, he's sold me.

So, long story close to over and I'll make it shorter here: I bought the membership so I could get access to the excess inventory. So why am I telling you all this? Well, the best part about this is that I don't have to be the one going. Anyone I know can access this and get the $200 for a week accomodations from the excess inventory list. So ... let me know if you're interested in this. You can at least get the excess list from me (I get an email about it every Friday). And if you want to see what their locations are, check out www.planwithtan.com. Oh, and even without a login name, I think you can check out some of their excess inventory info from that page.

I'm not going to put my email address here cause I really hate spam. But if you don't know what it is, I'm sure you know someone who does.

People still do this?

2008-05-29T08:04:00.001-07:00

I thought you young'ens would have given up that whole bloggin thing .. it's so old-fashioned and not new-fangled whatsoever.

One year of service...

2008-03-10T08:52:00.001-07:00

Again with the raise.

My new hobby.

2008-02-28T12:57:00.001-08:00

So, I saw this thing. I've been looking at stuff on despair.com for a long time now. The demotivators have always been really funny to me. But now they give you the option of making your own! You just upload a picture, put the subject and then the caption, hit the button, and voila! It's a professional looking demotivator of your own. I like the fact that in today's technological age that something that was probably making somebody millions of dollars (the old motivator posters .. bleh) is now something everyone can do with a 3 minutes of thought and a click of the mouse.

So that being said, here are some of the ones I made:

"How're you doin?"

2008-01-30T09:20:00.001-08:00

The age old question. A lot of times, the person that asks it doesn't even care. They'd be better off saying, "Good morning," or maybe "Hi there." And if you give them an answer that isn't in the strict policy of normal answers, then they might ... MIGHT ... become interested.

In all my life, I've adopted "Pretty good," as my response to this question. I remember that back in the early Global days, Ben McCarty and I would sit out in the front room where everyone came in, and almost every person would say, "How're you doin?" We decided early on that we needed different answers. Thankfully, we both had a different go-to response. Mine: "Pretty good." Ben's: "Alright." Sometimes I'd throw "Alright" out first in an attempt to throw eveything off, and Ben usually would catch it and throw out my answer instead. He's a quick one.

Eventually as time trudged along, the somewhat upbeat response I'd give out turned into it's very close relative, yet not as upbeat cousin, "Not too bad."

And you know, "not too bad" is about as good as it got. I mean, the answer pretty much said it all. I wasn't sludging through the gutter, but I certainly wasn't soaring along in a land full of rainbows and lollipops. "Not too bad" became the person I was. Or maybe vice versa.

But now ... I say that to someone, and I think that perhaps I'm just defaulting to that answer inappropriately. So this morning when asked the age old "How's it going?" by a friend on MSN, I had to answer, "Things are really really awesome."

Because it's true.

Giving raises, firing folks.

2007-12-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

So as of Thursday of last week when I dropped my boss off at the airport for his long awaited cruise, I am the acting dude in charge for Med IT Associates. I called Charlie as soon as I left the airport to alert him that the day was now in honor of me and we getting paid time off.

As far as the job goes, things are just about like normal. Charlie calls me more now because I'm the one he asks if there are anymore assignments to be taken care of during the day. I also have gotten more (but not a LOT more) phone calls from just random client locations because a computer isn't working very fast, or a connection is down, or what have you. These are the calls I was worried about, because I just don't take a lot of these calls, and usually Alex will get them and decide who needs to go out and fix it or just do it remotely from his office. Now I have to decide these things. And a lot of these extraneous locations I don't know much about so I end up driving to them just so I can seem more on top of it than if I try to remote in, even if I don't understand the problem.

That being said, there haven't been any problems I couldn't take care of yet. I'm pretty happy about that. There haven't been any problems where some MR/CT tech calls me and starts using medical terminology I can't understand. Those are the ones I was worried about. And right now I'm just making phone calls and getting lots of phone calls. Alex left me with a short list of projects that he wanted me to finish up while he was away. I'm about halfway through the last one. Woo!

And also seeing as how I have a key to his house and he'd rather the place not get ransacked, he's given me the right to hang out over here if I want .. use the hot tub, TV, house in general while he's gone. He'd do that anyway, but he thought it'd be nice if people saw the lights on at night while he was away. You know, to scare away the boogie man.

I'm also a part time highly paid housekeeper. I'm having to feed the fish and water the plants on a semi regular basis. I figure as long as the fish appears to be alive when they get back, that's good enough for me. The plants I can fake as well. I mean, I'm watering them, but who knows why this one is looking so peek-ed. Oh, and he didn't say anything about this, but I decided to check the mailbox and see if he put a stop on that while he was gone. And the answer is no. That thing was totally stuffed. Good thing I decided to look. Oooh, bills.

I've gotten about 4 calls from numbers I didn't recognize while typing this. Gotta love it.

Can you say "skinflint"?

2007-12-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not calling anyone a skinflint, I really am seeing if people can say or do say or even KNOW this word.

It started about a week ago. I don't know what the context was, but I used the word "skinflint" in a sentence and Lacey was like, "A what?" "A skinflint. You know?" No, in fact she did not.

So I mention in an email to Annette the other day that I need to get some music for her wedding, and I'm not a skinflint, but I just need to know if I should buy it or her. What do I get back? "A skin what?"

OK, seriously, I am NOT the only person who's heard of this. So I'm at RCA (one of our clients) this morning, so I just go through all the office personel and ask them "Do you know what a skinflint is?" These ladies are all older than me and have families. If it was a generational barrier, then this should take care of it. "A skinflint? Is that something sexual?"

Lame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinflint -- Educate yourselves.

What can I say? Blogs are suckin...

2007-12-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's the news of the day. I haven't posted in over a month (I think? I didn't even look at the date on my last blog post but it was a long time ago) and I'm just going to post about how no one is posting anything. And this is the first time I've checked ANYONE'S blog in a long time.

So I guess the blogging craze in our time and in our group has finally died down. I remember the good old days (I guess they were good). Back when you checked Annette's blog multiple times a day because sometimes she would go crazy and do a 3-update day. And you'd always be waiting to see what game Kerr was now playing or how much he got beat up on the ice that day, or what he decided to cut down in the middle of the night.

Or what about that month where my roommate Charlie Nasworthy started a blog, wrote like his life depended on it, and then just about dropped it a month later? Or everytime you went to a church function and hung out with all those uber cool folks that we love, and then went back home after the weekend and refreshed the blogs all day and for the rest of the week waiting for the updates to see if they would write about what you guys all went out to do?

I'm not advocating a new insurgence of blog posting. It's past that time. We're in a world of myspace'ing and facebook'ing. A world where you can type "Hi! How are you!?" on someone's wall for the world to see. It's boring and it sucks, but it's lazy and that's how we like it. We also enjoy Superpoking each other, except now I hate it because they added the built in timer, so now when I want to try to level up and get new actions (50 POKES TO GET NEW ACTIONS!? WHAT IN THE WORLD), it tells you, "You Superpoke'd too soon ;)" Get off my screen with your stupid smiley, facebook. And take your lame pokes, too.

One day I got an email from my cousin David (the Moluffin), and he was talking about revisiting old blog posts, and he sent me a link and said, "Check out this gold." Turns out it was my blog post about the road trip to Montana. So I read through it again. And it was gold. Those were the days. The days when we cared enough and were bored enough to write our entire lives out on the computer and post it on the internet. And for some reason everyone read it (I'm sorry for all of you). But now it's all about posting 1,001 pictures of our latest road trip and just saying, "Here are pictures of my road trip!" Or joining a lame-o facebook group called "People that have caring attitudes but don't really give up the time they need to the widows and orphans and also eat with their left hands while they type on facebook with their right LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!" Did I already mention lame-o? Doing it again is ok, too.

Where am I going with this? No idea. I didn't really even have anything to talk about. Life goes along the same as always. You go to work, and when you get home you're glad you're not at work, and you really don't feel like TALKING about work, much less typing the whole crappy day up. And I think that's where we've all come to. Desiree just recently posted about what was probably the worst day she'd had in a long time ... but then she didn't describe it. You know why? Because why would you want to rehash the worst day of your life ... in type? And now I'm starting to wonder why we EVER used to do that.

What about blog posts where you cut/paste an IM conversation snippet that you thought was funny? Well, I don't do that anymore because I never chat online anymore. Seeing the trend here? I don't know when it happened, but the computer is less and less the place that I spend any of my time. I don't hate it. Then again, I work on broken computers day in and day out and the idea of spending all the rest of my life on them isn't too appealing.

And Youtube. Oh, youtube. How I hate you. Sure, there are plenty of videos out there that I've watched and been like "wow, that was pretty cool," but for the most part it is SUCH a waste of time. I can't recall the number of times you'll talk to someone who's been on the computer for a while, and you ask what they're up to and they're "Youtube'ing". Like, just following one link to another link to another link through masses of videos. I mean, how many loud baby burps do you need to see? Music videos? Videos made by random people set to music? Video blogs? AMAZING VIDEOS!!?!?!!!??! Home videos? When did we get to this point? It's like 3 minutes of television over and over and over. We can't even concentrate on a 30 minute sitcom anymore. Seriously, WHAT HAPPENED!?

And when I say that, I also wonder what happened to me. Because not too long ago, I would have been that guy that sat there for hours and hours playing games online, or surfing the web for absolutely no reason. Now I check my email and www.ocremix.org for interesting music talk (which I rarely find these days) and that's it. I wonder what's changed. I'm not really sure. But I know I'm glad. Even when I'm bored with nothing to do, I know that at least I won't be glued to the computer for hours on end.

David had a great new ideology not too long ago. He was talking about how when you sit around all evening and watch TV or play video games, it's almost because that's what you "default" to. Sure, sometimes there is a show that you really enjoy so you make the time to see it, or there's a game you just bought that you really want to play through. But the rest of the time, you usually end up thinking, "Hey, what am I going to do tonight?" And after some slow deliberation, you decide that you're lazy and that sitting on the couch watching an entire evening on Must See TV is the thing to do. Even if you don't really enjoy the shows, or the shows aren't very wholesome (which shows are?), or what have you. But what are your goals? They don't have to be longterm, end-of-life goals. Short term goals work just fine. What is it that you want in your life? Sometimes the goal is, I don't know ... finishing college. But is that all? So when you finish your homework for the evening, you've really sorta reached your "finishing college" goal for that day, and it's off to the couch?

Just as an example, say you've been thinking about your friends ... church friends maybe, in particular. And you think, "Hey, I haven't talked to them for a while, and I want to keep our friendship close and I really care about them." So then, what can you do? Sit down and write them a long email telling them what's going on and how much you care about them? Give them a call and lend them an ear? What about your spiritual life? Do you yearn for the Kingdom? It's hard to do as a young person, I feel, and sometimes it seems way off. But God's promises always are fulfilled no matter when they happen. There are plenty of examples in the Bible where someone prays for something at it happens instantly. Elijah and the fire from heaven, Jesus healing the sick right when they asked, etc. But there are plenty of things where God promises that something will happen (Abraham's heir, the rulership of kings in a dynasty for a certain number of generations, Jezebel & Ahab, etc) that doesn't happen instantly, but somewhere down the line it ALWAYS happens when it's a promise from God. But sometimes we get bogged down and forget that the Kingdom is on its way because time has been moving on and on for a long time. Days, weeks, months, years come and go without the fulfilling of His promise ... but it WILL be fulfilled. How much do we believe that? Is it enough that we want to do more to understand Him, to read the Bible and study His truth, pray and meditate? Is the Kingdom of God one of YOUR goals? Or is Must See TV your main goal?

The whole point is: there is always something that can be done to better yourself, and it's not always something you won't enjoy doing either ... but it's so much easier just to say, "well, I just feel like sitting on the couch and vegetating. And you know what, I NEED this. It's been a long day, and I just want to do nothing." I think that's a sad excuse. Take a nap if you're that screwed up. Don't fill your brain with garbage. Figure out what your goals are in life and do everything you can to achieve it. There isn't much time left to decide that you'll get around to it tomorrow!

Again, this whole post took a turn I didn't expect. But it really just kept to the core aspect that I started off with. There isn't a whole lot going on on the internet anymore with the old group of bloggers. And I call this "a good thing". Get out there and live your lives, and do it the right way.

Ever had something happen where you can't stop smiling?

2007-10-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

I'ts a pretty good feeling.

This is pretty interesting.

2007-10-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

I don't expect to make much of a river of rice, but maybe it can help someone.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Remembering a Montana road trip.

2007-10-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

~Karl says:
every time I talk to you or think about you I think about red hots in the trail mix
tristan says:
hahahaha
tristan says:
that car got wrecked really bad,
~Karl says:
really?
tristan says:
and I looked in the trunk at the salvage yard and i think there were still red hots in there
~Karl says:
ROFL
~Karl says:
this is blog worthy
tristan says:
hahaha

The feast: summed up in one picture.

2007-10-05T20:31:00.001-07:00

A little Feast glee for my faithful readers

2007-09-19T15:45:00.001-07:00

Some Feast music. Get hyped! (I did this last night in a couple hours).

http://bladiator.vgpiano.com/music/creator.mp3

My ego ... it's swelling!!

2007-09-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

There is this Final Fantasy 7 remix project that is about to be released after 20 months in production. I had written an FF7 piano medley during this time, and I contacted the project lead to see if he'd be interested in using it in the project. He really enjoyed it and asked me to finish it up. I did, gave it to him, and then forgot about it.

The project is set to be released on Friday. The entire album was sent for a sneak preview to a reviewer at music4games.net: a site that reviews and is based around original game soundtracks. This is the first time they've delved into a remix project like this. The review was AMAZING. AND! I GOT MY OWN PARAGRAPH!

"The final piece is an absolutely gorgeous medley performed exclusively on piano. It begins with a reflective arrangement of “Lifestream,” which is a piece that is sadly absent from the rest of the album (It’s one of my favorites). Jazzy, jivin’ arrangements of the main theme and Tifa’s theme follow. Numerous other pieces are included in the arrangement, all with flawless transitions, propelling this piece way beyond the official piano collection albums that have been released over the years by Square. It’s contemplative in emotion and stunning in execution, making it a perfect closing piece for the album."

<3.

For more information on the project (if you're interested) here's the official site: http://ff7.ocremix.org

A track record of the shows I've seen.

2007-09-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Since I began living in the DFW area in March, I've put together what I think is a full comprehensive list of all the shows I've seen.

Dallas Opera - Lohengrin
Dallas Symphony - Handel's Messiah
Dallas Summer Musical - Chicago
Dallas Symphony Orchestra - Video Games Live
Dallas Summer Musical - Spamalot (2x)
Meyerson - Glenn Beck (talk radio, comedy)
Starlight Theater, Kansas City - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Eisemann Center - The Pirates of Penzance
Dallas Summer Musical - Sweet Charity
Water Tower Theatre - The Sugar Bean Sisters (play)
Water Tower Theatre - A Brief History of White Music (2x)
Theatre A La Carte, Tallahassee - The Scarlet Pimpernel
Artisan Center - Beauty and the Beast (3x)

Seems like more than that. Woo, that's expensive. If you call Medieval Times a show, I did that too.

Read your bibles.

2007-09-06T11:30:00.001-07:00

Read your bibles.

C, E flat, and G walk into a bar ...

2007-09-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

The bartender sees them coming and says, "Hey! We don't serve minors!"

So E flat left and C and G had a fifth between them.

LULZ.

ATMs: Still the bane of my existence.

2007-09-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

So, I went down to Compass Bank to deposit a check. This time I came prepared with a BoA envelope in hand. I go through the normal hoops: debit card, PIN #, do I want an envelope, "yes", no envelope, that's ok, I brought one with me, deposit XX amount of money and....

"I'm sorry. This ATM is not accepting any more messages, payments, or deposits."

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

My hood is no longer in a V shape...

2007-09-04T14:06:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Charlie's man hands. But now it won't latch .. seeing as how the hood is now longer than the chasis of the car. One thing at a time. It still runs nice.

My car hood is in the shape of an upside down "V"

2007-08-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

But it's still running like a champ.

A shorter bank story

2007-08-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

I have a credit card through my bank, and I like to go in pretty regularly and pay it via my checking account. I find that I don't have to really know much besides my name and I can get everything taken care of ... so I don't go in prepared at all.

Twice now I've gone to a certain Compass Bank location and done this, and have worked with Azam both times. He's a nice guy .. if not a little hard to understand. We do the same little dance every time: I tell him I want to pay my credit card bill. He pulls up my info with my SS#. I ask him how much I owe on my credit card. He instead tells me the amount of money I have in my bank account. I have a mini-stroke.

Good times.

The adventures of Karl and his ATM

2007-08-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

I hate the ATM at my bank. A couple weeks ago I went down there to do an after hours deposit, and the machine asked, "Do you want an envelope?" Why yes I do, thanks for asking. Door opens, and ... nothing. How am I supposed to deposit my checks?

Finally we go to Charlie's bank (I'm Compass Bank, he's Bank of America) and he grabs a handful of about 50 envelopes and brings them back. I grab one, he puts the rest in my glove compartment, and I deposit m check. And it works fine.

Fast forward to yesterday. Another day to send in checks. Same song, second verse. "Do you want an envelope?" I'll bite. No envelope. Open the glove compartment ... crap. We're in Charlie's car instead today! I get a little bit angry and a lot frustrated.

Trip to Charlie's bank: he deposits his check, I get another envelope from the friendly envelope people at BoA. We drive back over to Compass while I mark out of "of America" and write "Compass" over "Bank". I mark out the BoA logo and meticulously draw the Compass Bank logo below it. And then on the rest of the envelope, I write, "For the love of all that is holy and just, please either fill your ATM machine w/ envelopes, or fix it." And in large letters filling the rest of the blank space, I write, "FOR MY SANITY!!"

Fast forward: next morning, 7:30am. Marshall knocks on my bedroom door ... "Compass Bank on the phone for you." "Hello?"

"Hi, I just wanted to let you know that we're SO sorry about the inconvenience you are having with our ATM machine and the piece that is broken for the envelope dispenser is being replaced very soon." I could NOT stop laughing at this point. "This is the best call I've gotten all year," I tell her. "Well, you said your sanity was on the line so we wanted to give you a call." She pauses for a moment and says, "All of us here at the bank this morning got a good laugh about this. Especially the part about the 'love of all that is holy and just'."

I could have been mad that she called at 7:30am for this, but it was just too priceless.

Housing at the feast

2007-08-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've found myself a nice little romantic getaway villa in the heart of New Braunfels. Looks pretty amazing. The lady is calling me back in an hour or so to talk over the nitty gritty.

I'm taking Charlie. Long walks on the back terrace, maybe some canoeing in our personal waterway. Oooh.

Totally worth it.

2007-08-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

So we arrive at the theater where the show is happening, and I start looking through the credits of the people that are in the show. And they're a bunch of FSU college students. The lead is a sophomore from there in fact. I'm getting a little worried about how much time and money I've put into this trip at this point.

Not even a factor. This was probably more energy packed than the professional tour that came out a decade ago. These actors were over the top on everything they did. Best show ever. And the theater was so small. It was like the show was being put on for you personally .. they were so close to where you were sitting. I got to walk around and shake hands and talk to all the actors afterwards. Awesome folks. Obviously just a bunch of "amateurs" that loved what they did. One of the leads was a high school teacher and he had a bunch of his students show up and they were just giggling and carrying on about what he was doing on stage. He looked a little embarassed.

Then we headed home. While on I-10 coming back (about 20 minutes down the road) we saw a car cut in front of a semi and seemingly clip the front end, because he then proceeded to fly off the road, through the ditch, through a fence, and into the trees about 30 yards away. We got off the road and ran over to help out. They told me to call 911 while the others ran down in the ditch to get the people out of the car. Ended up just being one guy in the car, and by the time I got down there he was standing on the side of the road. One of the guys that got him out was yelling, "What were you thinking? Cutting off that semi ... you could have been killed!" The kid was just standing there .. not saying a word, not even really looking all that alive. He was obviously pretty messed up ... almost a post-trauma thing. He was a little cut up and bruised but otherwise he was fine. We took off after that.

Then we changed into swimgear and took the first road south to the beach. We stopped in Panama City about 8:00 and went swimming. Then we got back in the car, drove down to Destin, got out and went swimming about 10pm. Finally we took off for good and got back to Lafayette at abot 4:30am and then back to Big Sandy about 9:00am. I got my rental car back to DFW airport about 11:30am. And then I hung out with Lacey and Kristin (who picked me up after that) for the rest of the afternoon until about 4:30. At which point I went to bed and didn't see anything til 7am this morning. I needed it.

BEST. SHOW. EVER.

A few things (state of the cell phone included)

2007-08-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

So, the new month has arrived thankfully. I can stop screening my calls and just answer them all ... enjoyable or not. I have a new plan where I get 100 less anytime minutes but I get to add 10 numbers to my plan that I can call and be called from for free anytime and all the time. If you have to ask if you're on the list, then you probably aren't.

I've bought the tickets as of about 10 minutes ago for "The Scarlet Pimpernel". There's no stopping me now, besides maybe a severe case of narcolepsy. I'm getting way excited. I can't get the music out of my head. The shower is now a full time Scarlet Pimpernel sing along.

I've always thought that I was one of the more patient people I know and that I can put up with pretty much anything with a cheesy grin on my face. Sometimes I think God is letting me know that this pseudo-pride about my patience level just isn't cutting it. I don't think I want to talk about being patient anymore.

I went out and drowned myself in a large guacamole bowl last night at On the Border with Charlie. The place was retardedly packed and all the servers had these little machines on a strap that they could take your orders on and swipe your credit card and print out a bill. Pretty amazing. If not way too bulky -- Charlie got whapped a few times by a wild swinging strap pack. We joked about it with our waitress and then the next thing we know we're getting OtB gift cards. Pretty sweet.

I'm driving back to Big Sandy for the weekend and I'm trying to figure out the most optimal way of getting there AND stuffing my gullet sufficiently for the fast. I guess I can live either way. I sort of want to make sure I don't miss out on getting well hydrated (Marshall loves being well hydrated) before it begins. I'll be fiiiiiiine.

Scarlet Pimpernel. Woo.

I propose a challenge for everyone. Find a pregnant lady and walk up and pat her belly and say "Aww, when are you due?" For extra points, do it to someone that's not pregnant. That you don't know.

Read your bibles.

State of the cell phone

2007-08-01T07:49:00.001-07:00

I'm over my limit on minutes, but I have like, 400 texts left.

I'm just about wearing out my keypad.

Word of the day: pulchritude

2007-07-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought it meant "great physical beauty and appeal"?

Hey baby, you have totally got some pulchritude going on.

OK, I give you all the chance to berate me.

2007-07-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

OK, here's the deal:

There's this musical out there that was written about a decade ago. It's easily my favorite musical ever written (I can tell already some of you are making the "limp wrist" motion at the computer screen), and I only got to see it once when it toured right off of Broadway. For some reason it went from huge super stardom to falling off the map within a year. Now you can only find it in limited local civic community theater around the US and ... Europe. They love it over there. One venue in particular in Halle, Germany is doing it's sixth season this year. SIXTH SEASON! Lucky punks.

So I found one place that is performing it in about a month. In Tallahasee. Florida. I'm planning on driving down there to see it. Overkill? You be the judge.

Oh, if you were interested (I can't believe you read this far into the blog entry and aren't already berating me in my comments), the musical is called "The Scarlet Pimpernel." Sooooo underrated. People still go watch crappy old Phantom like a religion and this musical gets no love. PERFORM A QUALITY SHOW PLZ. I'm done.

Shout out (i.e., what what?!)

2007-06-27T14:36:00.003-07:00

Kerr: Start blogging more. I need something interesting to read.

The concert and .. maybe some other stuff (I haven't decided)

2007-06-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

So the Video Games Live concert: great. Just an awesome show. Some of it could have been better, and they really lacked an air of any sophistication sometimes, but besides that it was awesome. The people playing in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra were obviously feeling a little lowbrow having to play video game music for a huge crowd of smelly underdressed nerds. Seriously, the guy next to me must have had to choose between his XBOX Live account and his water bill. STINKY.

The conductor, Jack Wall, and the host, Tommy Tallerico, are both video game music composers and really hit on something big with this show. I can't even imagine the money they are pulling in. Some of the music was obviously going to be in there: Mario medley, Zelda medley, an old-skool arcade montage, Final Fantasy 7. The video game pianist also travels with them and played a couple pieces. If you don't know who I'm talking about, just google or lookup on Youtube "video game pianist". He played the Mario theme blindfolded, the Super Mario World theme, Tetris, and then this Final Fantasy medley he arranged himself. I wasn't impressed by the medley. He can play fast and do really impressive technique, but the medley was just badly presented. I need to email him a REAL medley .. err, written by yours truly. :)

A couple other pieces were really well received. There was a Sonic medley (which when the choir stood up at the beginning and did the "SE-GA!" ... woo, that was awesome), a Warcraft medley (that one got some props), Metal Gear Solid and One-Winged Angel as an encore (from Final Fantasy 7). Then there was music no one knew. They did a Kingdom Hearts set (good game, but who remembered the music?), and Medal of Honor (another one of these where I think they just found a game they could license for cheap and then arrange the music as filler). Then you've got a Myst trilogy set (Jack Wall wrote music for the Myst 3 game) and an Advent Rising 3-movement piece (Tommy Tallerico wrote the score for that one). Sure, the music was decent, but everyone came to this show for the nostalgia. No one has ever even PLAYED Advent Rising. Filler music.

Oh, and there was Civilization 4 piece. Very nice. Sort of an African tribal feel ... the poor choir though. The rhythms were so tough and they were lagging behind. The conductor looked up at them in the choir loft and was REALLY beating out the music and pointing right at them. LOL, it was almost a train wreck. On the encore song, Tallerico broke out his wireless electric guitar (which I'm still not sure he was really playing .. he seemed too spazzed out to actually be hitting the right notes), and at the end, the orchestra was holding out the last note, and he jumped up on the conductor's stand and the two of them jumped off of it together and the orchestra ended when they hit the ground. They were just really proud of themselves. The orchestra (you could tell) was not so impressed by this stupidity.

All in all, it was worth the price of admission. I saw one more OCRemix shirt there, and I randomly saw some people I recognized that were groupies of the 1-ups remix band up in Fayetteville. They said that the rest of the group traveled down and saw it the night before. SUCK! They chided me over on their forums. Who knew they were coming? They even got to hang out backstage after the show with Tallerico and Wall. Doh!

Guess that's about it. And I guess I really don't have anything else to say. Oh, right ...

Read your bibles.

GLEE!

2007-06-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

The "Video Games Live!" concert is coming to the Dallas Symphony tonight and tomorrow night!

You can just SMELL the geek in the air. It's strangely reminiscent to B.O.

Carl: The evil cockroach wizard (pt. 2)

2007-06-19T08:19:00.001-07:00

And now it all makes sense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_Yang_Yo%21#Evil_and_netural

If you scroll down to the villians, the character is actually named Carl: the cockroach wizard.

I feel so humbled.

[Edited for the URL. Although they spelled "neutral" wrong. Who wants to bet this link goes bad some day?]

I'm positively glowing!

2007-06-18T12:24:00.001-07:00

Sometimes they like to leave the door open to the scan rooms while they're X-raying a patient.

Eek.

Re: Cell phone woes, a la Annette

2007-06-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

I had to call my cell phone company today because my minutes used never rolled over last month. Right now on my 1000 minute plan I am somewhere around 1500 minutes. I called Alltel and told the lady my situation. The whole system had gotten upgraded at the beginning of the month and I'm almost absolutely sure that's why things got screwed up on my account. She was absolutely sure that I was just talking on the phone. A BUNCH.

"Let me check your last 3 months of activity. Hmm, yes, you haven't ever gotten to the 1000 minutes on your plan." Yes, that's quite correct. Now I wonder why I would have talked not only 1500 anytime minutes, but an additional 800 night and weekend minutes ... and it's only the 15th day of this billing cycle. "I think we should put you on a new plan so you don't get a $500 phone bill."

As much as I am still sure this is not my fault, this part of the conversation made me way happy. She put me on a 2100 minute plan for this month. Like, the one I'm already in. So now if the minutes really ARE mine (they're not) then I'll just pay the $99 for the new plan this month. How cool is that? I'm pretty sure I got this kind of special deal because at the beginning of the conversation when I gave her all my info she said, "I see here you have been with Alltel for 10 years. We really appreciate your business!" Thanks, I can tell!

But seriously, let's think about this logistically. At 2300-2400 minutes used, I would have to have talked OVER 2 hours a day at this point. More like 2 1/2 or so. I KNOW how many minutes I use! I do NOT TALK THAT MUCH ON THE PHONE! And I couldn't get across to her the fact that I watch my minutes religiously. I check alltel.com once a day at least, AND I know the # and correct phone pad options to go straight to hearing the electronic voice at Alltel tell me my minutes of usage as well. Just admit that your crappy phone system didn't do it's job and don't tell me that I've talked on the phone like a teenage girl for 15 days.

I asked her to have Alltel send me an itemized paper bill this month so I could see some of these 5 hour phone conversations that I must have been having in the last 2 weeks. She for some reason couldn't look at the individual phone calls. The best thing is that if I find that they did screw up (WHEN I find that out, I mean), then they'll refund the money on the 2100 minute plan for this month.

All in all, even though I didn't get the answer I needed, I was really impressed by the service I got today. Thanks Karla (my sister) for getting an account with them so very long ago. Grandfather clause me!

Ahhh, looking forward to these days ...

2007-06-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

Jeremiah 33:3 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

My mom: the middle(wo)man

2007-06-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

My mom sent me this verse in an email yesterday.

Proverbs 22:3 A wise man foresees evil and hides himself, while the simple pass on and are punished.

Gotta keep your head down every once in a while. Even when you think that you should defeat that which is evil. Mom is awesome.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz..

2007-06-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

So, the new client (RCA) had a staff meeting this morning at 7-8am. This means that the doctors and staff won't be on any of the servers and they can be switched from battery backup over to generator powered wall outlets. The catch? Me. Being here. At 7am.

I haven't seen 5:30am since the last time I drank a lot of water right before I went to bed. On the upside, the drive down here was cut down from 1 1/2 hours driving time to 45 minutes. Yay for no traffic! The downside? I ended up getting here at 6:45am. The meeting is still going and I'm way done. I've been cleaning the server room, and I'm just OUT of things to do at this point. At least the place looks nicer now.

I keep checking my email religiously. But who in the world is going to write me at pre-0700? Maybe I can take a server down in an unusually cruel way and test myself to see if I can get it up and operational in the 21 minutes before the meeting is ovezzzzzzzzzzzz....

I don't understand my dilemma ...

2007-05-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

I seem to have become LESS of an impulse buyer now that I actually have money to do so and don't have to worry about the payment coming up on my credit card.

I wanted to lay down nearly a grand the other day for a nice shiny video projector for the Marshall pad, but I was just like, "Meh, I don't REALLY need it," even though I look at them every time I go into an electronics store. I don't know what I'm talking about ... of course I really need it. It's useless and expensive. This is the opposite of how I was in college where I would walk into a store, like something, charge it and then starve for the month while trying to make ends meet. And then I would legitimize the purchase by saying, "I need this for school." Yeah, I'm absolutely sure that brand new $250 video card is the saving grace for the papers I had to write.

I've gotten old.

Karl: The evil cockroach wizard.

2007-05-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Practice Administrator here at RCA (our new client) picked up her son from school and brought him back for the last half of the day. He's been coloring in the board room with me (no, I'm not coloring, I'm just in here doing some research), and constantly showing me his pictures. He's gotten in trouble a couple times for talking to me ("Karl has work to do and you need to stop bugging him.") but insists on being my tag along.

He left a picture of me on the floor where I would HAVE to see it (he dropped it in the hallway when he saw me coming back and then took off running), and the caption says "ahahhahhh it's Karl the evil cooktroch wiserd".

Ah, kids.

Correction to the last post.

2007-05-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

She owns a ranch.

A new experience

2007-05-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today I stepped foot into the first almost modest home of a radiologist. Pretty refreshing. They also have a parlor grand Baldwin in the living room that is way out of tune (I've been playing on it while I wait on installations .. the nanny left to get the kids from school ... it needed some love).

100th post.

Remember that game "Telephone"?

2007-04-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

I was over at the Forrestier's yesterday afternoon for a big get together that they had, and all the teenagers decided to play telephone. At first they were trying to get it right, and then after that it just became "X loves Y" or "X has a crush on Y" etc etc. Those always made it around. Gossipmongers.

So Seth starts one about me on the other side of the circle. He says, "Karl's favorite TV show is 'Howdy Doody'."

It gets around the circle ... HALFWAY, mind you ... to me, and it has become, "Karl teaches hos how to do it."

....wow. (I stopped that line right then and there, btw.)

Heck yes I did!

2007-04-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

I got a raise.

What do you get when cross duo piano music with accordions?

2007-04-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

Long story (way) short: This is a piece of music I wrote for two pianos for my senior recital arranged for accordion orchestra with percussion and performed in Germany (or close).

http://hosting.thasauce.net/bladiator/salsa.mpg

MPEG2 player, if you don't have one: http://videolan.org

It finally happened.

2007-04-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

After 3 years of being out of UT Tyler and still working up there as a freelance accompanist, I got my first parking ticket for not having a student sticker AND being in a faculty spot. The last sticker from '05 is still on the car, and the ticket has "unreadable" written on it.

I'm not a student. I'm not faculty. I'm a contracted musician under a professor in the music department, and more importantly, contracted by UT Tyler themselves.

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

...I'm not paying that.

You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together ...

2007-04-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I don't have a budget, cause if I did I'd be over it.

Ever felt like everything was working right for you, and that God is just blessing everything you touch, and you still can think of things that you want beyond what you've just been given? Maybe even trade one or two of things you've been given for something else. Sorta like a trade-up.

My car is starting to do weird things. I guess it's time for the old chuggernaut to get a work over.

Collecting money from people isn't fun. I'm not a mean person. But I'm getting angry that people won't pay when they've told me they will.

Computers suck.

They're practically family ...

2007-03-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

So I've been doing a lot of time over at PHOP for the last couple of weeks (Presbyterian Hospital of Plano), and I really enjoy all the doctors and nurses over there. Fun people to be around, and it's just great to see how they're just regular people. The other day a new designer chair that Dr. Wen had ordered came in, and he enlisted one of the nurses there (Brittney) to help him put it together. So, here's the head radiology doctor and one of his nurses on the floor with nuts and screws, wrenches and screwdrivers ... putting together his new desk chair. I'm sure it seems very normal to many of you, but I just imagine how much money this man makes, and how many scans and MRIs he needs to diagnose, but he's still not bringing some maintenance man in to put together his new chair. I peeked around the corner while he was doing that (I was working on a computer there in the office) and said, "The question is: is it comfortable?" His response was, "It's designer. It doesn't matter." Then he laughed and said, "It better be comfortable since I have to sit in it 12 hours at a time."

So today I came through just because I was close by and asked about the computer I recently set up for them, and about a toner cartridge Dr. Wen left for me. The nurses had it there at their desk, and then said, "Oh, and we have something for you and Alex since you've been working so hard." So I took the couple of envelopes and left. I opened mine and it had a thank you card inside and invitation to join their staff for happy hour at a nearby pub, and a stack of scratch off lotto tickets.

*sniff* That was sweet.

...and of His Christ!

2007-03-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

And He. shall. reign. for. ev. er and eeeeeever.

Halleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeluuuuuuuuujaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

(I saw Handel's Messiah yesterday.)

"KARL YOU BEAST!!" -- Kristin

2007-03-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

Out of context wins again.

It happened ...

2007-03-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

So I was driving home from Dallas and listening to Rascal Flatts "What hurts the most" (sorry, I like the song for some reason), and the station was from Dallas, and I was already 3/4 of the way home. So about 2/3s of the way through, the static was so bad I gave up on the song. I changed to a local station, and it was the same song at the same point in the song.

It's a spring feast miracle.

Lacey and Kristin are dorks.

2007-03-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

But David I love.

...what? Were you expecting a story? This is just the way it is.

"Everything goes on Ringo!" -- Kristin Vorel

2007-03-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

*shiver*

27

2007-03-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Woo.

I used to be that guy.

2007-03-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

So I'm remote admining into a bunch of distant computers today. Since we service TRAs offices in the majority of the N. Dallas area, we set it up so we can log into them and work here at Alex's house as if we were right there on their computer. I'm putting patches for this new daylight savings time fiasco that the government came up with. The computers I was working on are all the primary radiology viewing computers in each of the offices.

I get to one and I see someone using it. This has happened a couple times, but they were all MRI scans and such, and I get off quick so I don't bother them. But this guy... he was browsing myspace (IS GAY btw). I go back later and see he's still doing it. I tell Alex and he's pretty sure he even knows who it is doing this and is talking about blocking the site entirely. So I run into his office, and he goes to work blocking all the different IP addresses that myspace uses while we watch this guy's browsing capability get smaller and smaller.

The best moment was when he was posting a comment on one of his friend's pages who had asked him how he had so much time to spend on myspace. So I watch as he types, "How do I have so much time to post?? lol I do this from work." I was doubled over from laughing.

lol indeed, my friend. El Oh El.

How can you say "no" to this?!

2007-03-06T16:05:00.001-08:00

"Karl,

Would you be interested in going with us to San Marcos in May for the State Solo and Ensemble contest? You would be playing for ******* (Strauss Horn Concerto op. 11 mvt. 1), ********(Debussy Suite Bergamasque) and ********** (Mozart Alleluia).

We will leave on Sunday, May 27th at noon, and travel by bus to New Braunfels. The kids perform on Monday, then we take them into San Antonio for an evening on the Riverwalk and dinner at Mi Tierra.

Tuesday we take the kids (and us) to Schlitterbahn waterpark in New Braunfels for the day. We leave for home about 5:00pm and get home at midnight.

The gig will pay $300 plus meals, hotel room, waterpark ticket and transportation. If you need to take your car to leave early, we will pay you milage for the trip."

Raise your hand if any of you get as cool of jobs as I do.

...didn't think so.

Things you learn ...

2007-03-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

So I've started working over in Dallas part-time.

... you heard me.

I'm driving back and forth pretty much every other day except for the weekends where I stay over there the entire time to cut down on any more driving time. I have music obligations here at home and I'm not going to drop them. I want to, but you do that once in the middle of a contract and you don't ever expect to get a good reference from those people again. And one of my current clients is the head of the show choir over at UT Tyler, so that kind of black mark I don't need.

I'm working for Alex Celan over in Dallas. He owns his own IT company. Pretty much, he has clients that pay him on a monthly basis and he takes care of any and all things pertaining to tech stuff that they need done. Sometimes there are fires all over the place. Sometimes it's really quiet. His main client is TRA -- Texas Radiology Assocation. The majority of the radiology departments in the greater Dallas area hospitals are run by TRA. So what does that mean? That means that Karl gets to run around in the back halls of hospitals all the time now. Which brings me to the first thing I've learned: As long as you look professional, dress nice, and act like you belong there, no one will ever question you when you walk straight back through doors that say "Authorized personnel only." Seriously. I don't have a badge. I don't have any hospital ID. I just walk wherever I want (which is only to, through, and around the radiology department). Makes me a little worried about security if I ever need to go have some major work done at a hospital. Most of the sites Alex has gone with me and introduced me to the staff and showed me where the rooms were. The last place I went, I just found it based on directions from the last location I was working, and had the name of one particular woman there that was our .. liason sorta. She must have been out for lunch because I can never get a hold of her. So I walk around back where the arrows point to "diagnostic radiology". Nothing. I don't know who I'm looking for even. I eventually find the front desk (by walking out of the important areas of the hospital to the waiting room) and ask the guy there for Julie. She's not there. OK, how bout these other doctors I know the names of? Nothing. OK, I tell him who I am, who I work for, and what I need to do .. just show me the computers, please? So, he calls another doctor who shows up, I introduce myself, tell him the whole speal, and he takes out his keycard, unlocks the doors, and we go back to the computers. Yes, it took all this to get me through these double doors that I walked OUT OF just minutes earlier. The other entrance less than 20 feet away is wide open that I walked through the first time! Act of Congress just to be where I just was. Gah.

So I go back to the reading room. All the radiology departments have this room. It's where they have the sweet action computers with the high defintion double or triple monitors that the doctors read the MRI's on (or CT scans or Ultrasound, yeah yeah). This one woman next to me is working on one of the machines, talking through the scans with her little mic and recorder for the transcriptions folks to take care of later. And here's where the 2nd thing I learned came into play: doctors are no different than any of the rest of us. Here she is, this young attractive doctor doing her very amazing work, and then she finishes up her current case, closes it down, the turns to the computer right next to her, and starts checking her hotmail and reading on MSN.com. Seriously. It's like, working anywhere else in corporate America. Except she's browsing the internet for $120,000 a year. This is a common thing in all the reading rooms. There are the "viewstations" that they do the scan reading on , and then the "websurfer" computers right next to them. There's no way NOT to browse on company time ... that's what it's all set up there to do! Oh, thing I've learned #3: in all the places I've been, there is an unhealthy amount of "Grey's Anatomy" love going on. I guess it's like watching reality TV for hospital staff.

I'm sure I've learned more, but now I have to get on the road for 2 hours again. I've upped my cell phone minutes so I don't have to be lonely the whole way, but wait til March 2nd (tomorrow) to start calling. :) But don't wait too long! Passover is coming up in a hurry, so get all over me for offending you this year. I can take it!

Take care of yourselves, and keep your noses clean (that's so old skool).

Quit posting on that last post ...

2007-02-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

You think that that's going to get me to post more often? Aw crap ... ok, you win this time.

Look, there's just nothing to blog about. Gimme a break. I'll try coming up with something, but most of the good stories are better told person to person anyway, right?

As far as things go, this is just a lazy Sabbath afternoon. Ben (McCarty) is visiting this weekend because this is a nice far out location to go to while Mardi Gras is going crazy in Louisiana. David Ogwyn and his family were up for what I suspect was the same reason. It's nice that the we can appreciate the Catholic faith bringing this around.

Read your Bibles.

Woowee!

2006-12-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm tired.

And I'm at Josh and Jenny Penman's apartment.

In Charlotte.

North Carolina.

I can't think.

I endorse this blog.

2006-12-18T06:20:00.000-08:00

http://endernasworthy.blogspot.com/

Expect plenty of running, chafing, and chauvinist posts. FTW.

Alright, yeah. A couple more thoughts.

2006-12-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

After what's happened in the last couple days, I've been doing a lot of looking around online to see what I can find. And the things that I have found are just disheartening. It's amazing how many people are out there that were at one point part of WCG and/or Ambassador College, and now spend a healthy dose of their time writing up blog posts and comments just to put down and belittle anything that the church stands for. I've heard a few standard cases of people that would talk about how they were forced to give up something they loved so much like Christmas because of the church, and now they can enjoy it again. They even embrace the fact that it has pagan origins and go out of their way to prove (and by "prove" I mean, "mention without facts and then tell the reader that if they have any brains at all they can find reference material that backs up their claims") that the church also celebrates holidays of pagan origin. They also dig deep into every publication ever to come out of WCG (and sometimes up into the newer associations) so they can put down anything they can find that is scripturally unfounded. Newsflash: humans are imperfect. They make mistakes. And they had (and still have) a long road to travel on the way to spritual perfection. The Bible is a huge jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are there, but they're scattered throughout the book, and we have to put it all together. And when HWA started understanding the truth, he didn't even have a picture on the box to look at. Along the way, you can only expect someone to try to jam a piece into the puzzle where it's not supposed to go. Incidentally, I find it amusing that these same people who don't care for God's Word whatsoever are the ones that are going through these same articles with a fine-toothed comb looking for mistakes.

Then you have the other faction of naysayers: the ones that don't hate the church but put down all of the branches that exist (mostly LCG and UCG). I would say that if these people have such a problem with the way things are run that they should start their own church, but undoubtedly at this point, the majority of them already have. So how can we hold on to the faith with so much turmoil around us? I think these points are a good starting place:

I Thessalonians 5:16-22
Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Quench not the Spirit.
Despise not prophesyings.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Have a great Sabbath.

Just some thoughts.

2006-12-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

So, things are unstable again. Nothing seems to stay good for very long in the church without something coming along that creates turmoil. But without turmoil, how could we ever grow? If everything went on and on and on without anything ever being turbulant, then the Laodecian attitude would just be prevalent. So where do we go from here?

We can't hope to know where all of this is heading, except for knowing that the final product will never change. Jesus Christ will come to this earth in a glorious 2nd coming, and the Kingdom of God will be established forever. And this is going to happen no matter what happens along the way. And the Church that God and Christ have established on this earth will be in existance and will be there to rule alongside them in the millenium and be the family of God for eternity.

So, don't lose faith. No matter what happens in a human world, we have the promise of our Father in Heaven that the Church will exist until the end of this age. And we have His inspired Word -- the Holy Bible -- to teach us and lead us along with his Holy Spirit. Mr. Meredith continually tells us to follow him as he follows Christ. So let's do that.

Discouragement is futile.

Goodbye balloon ... pop

2006-12-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

Kristin says:
hahahaha when you got to the rap part, I was quite thankful I finished eating, because I would have choked lol

:( I'm a good white rapper.

Girls come and kiss me, show how you'll miss me ...

2006-12-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

Highlights from a memorable and awesome wedding, compliments of Julie and (James) Bert:

- A map and directions that took us at least 10 minutes past the building where the wedding was at, and 30 minutes to reconcile (AND I had Mr. McNair in my car!)
- Getting the "Karl! You're playing" from Julie when I arrived (which I responded to with a fist pump and a "yessssssssss")
- Getting asked "Are you a Moluf?" I guess the facial hair did it. (WHOOP! The cat is out of the bag.)
- My "T - 10 minutes" call to Annette from the front row of the audience.
- The amazing music choices for the bridal procession. Karl doesn't cry at the beginning of every wedding.
- Rachel Tlumak didn't die walking in heels in the processional (coming or going).
- The kiss. Bert is my hero.
- Marshall being a class act show-running usher before and after the wedding. Work it. Woowoo!
- No cake to face action by J&B. Totally classy, right-to-mouth action.
- Totally unclassy cake to face action by Lacey and me at our table afterwards.
- An epic birdseed bag war out in the parking lot. Not even close to time when the bride and groom were about to leave.
- Julie did the "Moluf dance" with me .. IN her wedding dress. That was awesome. OH OH! AND A HEEL CLICK! Hot.
- Running after the towncar containing the newlyweds, doing heel clicks all the way.

Good good times.

The most recent update.

2006-12-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

My car took 12.2 gallons this morning.

Seriously, this shouldn't be possible.

Winners and losers, pt. 2

2006-11-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

At least I got first place for something I deserved this week.

Winners and losers.

2006-11-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

OK, here's the follow-up to the table decoration entry. Seriously folks, don't think "that's the one Karl made" or anything. Just look at the two of them, and decide which is your favorite. If there are enough "wow, that other one is awesome" votes, I'll totally just accept it.

Here's mine again. Nice. With the finishing touches of a tablecloth, and a festive Thanksgiving runner. Yes, I know my decorative terminology.

Here's "1st place". "Natural Turkey." OK, I said I'd let you be unbiased, but LOOK AT IT! Do YOU want that on your Thanksgiving table? It's an eyesore!

And look at the extra work I went to on the keyboard. Isn't that lovely? Isn't this what you want on YOUR Thanksgiving table?

I have shown you all the evidence. May the jury come to its verdict.

Finally back to 1-week compos.

2006-11-18T09:59:00.000-08:00

I entered the PRC (People's Remix Competition) over at OCRemix for the first time in over a year. Given a source tune and a week of time, you create a remix and enter it. Here's mine:

Fast Cars, Russian Cigars.

This is just to keep you occupied while we wait for pictures of the ... "1st place" table setting.

Thanksgiving with the IT department

2006-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

We here in the SFG IT department have only once entered the table decoration contest here at work. And we won hands down with our cornucopia overflowing with computer paraphernalia in a beautiful hurricane of electronic mayhem. The gorgeous pumpkin composed of electrical tape and orange ethernet cabling was genius, as well (props to my co-worker Mark).

We vowed that we'd never do it again, because there was no way we could top that. But for some reason, I was really bored one day two weeks ago, and told my fellow IT folk (Heather my boss and Mark .. just the 3 of us) that we should win again this year. After wading through the moaning, they finally agreed. I had an idea for a laptop slideshow and some techy stuff spread around the table, but the days went by, and I never got any pictures for it, and the idea was just crap. I was about ready to give up when I got a new idea in the last few days. Real monitor, fake pictures? Or fake monitor, REAL decoration?

Ah, poor guy. He had no idea what he was getting into. Just looking all cute up there on the shelf, doing absolutely nothing and living life in the spotlight. His day had come.

Well, now his guts are all over the IT floor and table. My boss is scared to death that something is going to happen to the vacuum on this thing and explode in the room. Maybe it will. I act like that's retarded because I don't want her to worry. I'll take care of it. Eventually.

But LOOK! She's so beautiful in the end. It was totally worth it, right? I also have a keyboard that has sacrificed it's life so that "Happy Thanksgiving" is plastered across the front in the place of "qwerty". I'll get a picture or two of the actual table setting. Thanks to my mom for helping me line the inside with the beautiful black curtain.

The guy that wrote this remix is so awesome ...

2006-11-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

...that he let me play in it.

Fisherman's Revelation

Seriously hot.

Because Weird Al is awesome ...

2006-10-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

And this is free:

You're Pitiful.

Sobering.

2006-10-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

You know how there is that one guy in particular that you knew in high school ... you know the one. He was always sorta interesting, but really weird, and for some reason, you KNEW he was going to go to jail one day?

Josh Allen wasn't one of them.

http://www.ketknbc.com/news/local/4415221.html

I knew Josh for years and years through college. Studied with the guy. Worked with the guy. Ate lunch and talked philosophically with the guy. He was a very close friend of mine. Even bailed me out on piano jobs quite a number of times and saved me a lot of time and trouble. Then you lose track of him. You call him every once in a while to say hello, and is this still your cell number, oh good, talk to you later. And then one day you see him on the local news, that same close friend of yours, being escorted into a police car by a pile of law enforcement officials. You show up at the university you studied together at and see how quiet everyone is and shocked.

Then you start reading the news reports. About how he's got folders and folders of child pornography on his computer, and no one is making comments. And then another story comes out from the neighbors that lived around him, talking about how they just knew he had to be a pedophile and that they were really uncomfortable living next to him because they'd see him peeking out his blinds at their children in the front yard. That wasn't Josh. I don't know what made him choose his particular vice or why, but now his entire life is destroyed because of it. And because the news can find one person in particular who they can hone in on their distrust and paranoia, now Josh is the most disgusting person in the local area for a week.

Then you start getting the backlash. "This man was a minister, and he's telling people what to do in their lives, and he's doing this? This is giving Christianity a bad name." It's times like these where you have to remind yourself that there are no commandments that are any more important than another, and seeing as how no one is perfect, we have to accept these things. Every minister (and person in general) has their faults. No one can judge perfectly in this carnal society. Leave Josh alone. He's paying for it already.

Some of his closest friends were telling the full story today up school, and from what they said, Josh is looking at at least 2 years in federal prison if he plea bargains.

I hate this.

Quantifying and a new remix.

2006-10-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

About quantifying: don't. If someone doesn't give you one word to describe something, or can't really tell you exactly how something is, then don't ask for it. Why is it that some things just make you really angry, or somehow soften your heart, or maybe just make you cry for no reason? If I knew those things, then I probably wouldn't get near them or their friends (unless it's the heart softening one). Just know that some things can't be explained with words, and trying to find that exact description is worthless.

Like, saying this blog entry "sucks".

Oh, and a new remix. (CLICK THE WORD "REMIX".)

Who-o-oa, it's magic.

2006-09-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've been driving my car around underneath the "E" on the gas tank for about 4 days now. The price of gas has been dropping so rapidly that I keep thinking that I can hold out one more day and get a better price. Well, this morning, my car took that extra amount of "rrr-rrr-rrr!!" time to get started, so I made haste to the gas station.

I remember reading that my gas tank holds 11.7 gallons of gas. I'm PRETTY sure that's what the manual said. Someone put 11.8 gallons in there today. Yeah. By my exact calculations, it seems that I've been running on two fairies and an unemployed leprechaun for the last couple miles.

Spooooooky.

I'm not dead.

2006-09-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

I just don't blog. Sorry you all have to keep coming by to see the same old nothing on my page. Maybe I can come up with something to say eventually.

I think I get it ....

2006-08-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

"An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

"You're such an excellent fisherman," said the American. "Why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA, and could help you. If you spent more time fishing, you could buy a bigger boat. Then you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then L.A., and eventually New York City, where you would run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time was right, you would announce a public offering, sell your company stock to the public, and become very rich. You would make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you could retire. You know, move to a small coastal fishing village -- where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos." "

Silly Mexican. He didn't even have a Master's degree. What does he know?

Woo ... that one was messy.

2006-08-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

I've had a lot of low blood sugars in my life, but only a handful stand out from the crowd. The ones where something a little different happens. The ones where it's not just a matter of getting a glass of juice and then going on. Pretty much, one like this morning.

I don't really know exactly what happened. I know that in the early morning hours that I was doing a lot of tossing and turning. I even realized that because I woke myself up doing it. But I just tried to get some more sleep. Then the alarm went off. I turned it off and fell asleep again.

Then I remember thinking, "I need to get up." And I just tossed the covers off and marched out to the dining room table to take my blood sugar. This is where things get a little haywire. I just remember things like it was a slideshow almost. I can see myself getting all the equipment out to take my blood sugar. And then, I see myself trying to put TWO testing strips into the meter and finally snap out of that and put one back in the bottle. Then I remember trying to draw blood without actually having a lancet in the little mechanism. Finally I remedy that after looking at it a lot.

Somewhere in there I remember seeing the machine say "ERROR1" over and over, and I can't figure out why. It's because you have to slide the testing strip into the slot after it's already on, and for some reason I was turning the machine on and off over and over trying to get it to work. This is about all I remember. Finally, I got that all done, and took my blood sugar which is pretty much a miracle in these circumstances. Not that I really NEEDED to take it since I was obviously WAY low. (37 to be precise.) Oh, and I remember my dad saying, "Need some juice?" and me nodding or shaking or ... making some gutteral unintelligible noise. Glad he was able to decipher it.

So, there you have it. Strangely enough, I've had much lower blood sugars where I didn't have any of these kind of problems. I'm not sure what made this one so much worse. Oh, and then moments later (after a couple glasses of juice), I find myself in the shower. I don't know why my first inclination after going through the testing and the juice drinking was, "I need to shower." Cleanliness is next to ... uh, deadliness, I guess.

Counting carbs sucks.

Quick update:

2006-08-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm still alive.

And counting carbs sucks -- or I suck at it.

This is going to take some getting used to ...

2006-08-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 18 years, I didn't take a shot this morning.

I've started using a new type of insulin. The old type I was using got discontinued (makes you start to wonder why you were using it in the first place), and the rules are out the door now. Instead of taking two overlapping long-acting shots per day, I've replaced it by taking only one overlapping much longer-acting shot per day. I took the first one last night. It's always a scary thing. How do I know that the amount of insulin the doctor told me to take is going to be right and I'm not going to die in the middle of the night?

If I'm going to eat something (carbs specifically), I take a small dose of the quick-acting (hoo boy is it quick ... starts working in 15 minutes) based on my current blood sugar and the amount of food I'm eating. So, if my blood sugar is where it's supposed to be, and I'm not eating anything .... I don't take a shot. But, this still just doesn't register. I'm sitting here at work thinking that I've forgotten something very important today.

Basically, the long-acting is much more condusive to how the healthy body works. It sets down a base amount of insulin, and it acts about the same all day long. The idea is that when you find the perfect amount that you should take, if you were to not eat all day long and only take the long-acting (Lantus is its name), that your blood sugar should stay constant all day. Unfortunately, that means there are no peaks anywhere in the insulin, and I have to get the amount of short-acting insulin perfect every time. I have a shady little outline of how I'm supposed to take a unit of insulin for every 15 grams of carbs I eat. I don't know about you, but when I sit down to dinner, I don't imagine my plate of food and think, "This is going to be 120 grams of carbs." And yes, I know that some of you out there probably do that.

So if any of you are looking for a good way to start a hard crash diet, try switching to these insulins. I got to work, and the ladies out in the next office were like, "Karl, we brought donuts in." "Score!" I think to myself. Then I realize that that's probably like ... 20 grams of carbs. Every time I decide that I want to stuff a donut in my mouth, I have to take a shot ... although I would probably decide to stuff more like 4 in my mouth if I'm going to take a shot for it. I get the feeling I am probably going to snack less now and eat larger meals if anything. And drink lots of water. (Sounded better than diet drinks *slurp*.) And then let's imagine that I fill my plate and I take a shot, and then I get done and realize that I'm still hungry. What does that mean? Either a) get over it or b) take another shot. And if I take more insulin thinking that I'm way hungry, and then I'm not? Wuh oh.

I think I forgot something this morning.

Me took a picture of Iself.

2006-08-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

Me hungry. Want get lunch with I? Ugh.

A strange spam message.

2006-08-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

This one at least has a URL in it so they had some agenda. But other than that, it's totally incoherent.

"Still worn all the time? I know that I definately am, that's why i was so happy when i came upon

*URL*

girl, clad only in a touchy thin bit of I arrived, on one's way to for on several post occasions from sole guessing the wonderful,"

That's it. The whole email. It ends with a comma even. Not that it made much sense up to that point.

I love people. (FOT related)

2006-08-04T12:04:00.001-07:00

I've met a lot of people in my life so far. I've met them from every walk of life, and in lots of different places and circumstances. There are so many people to get to know out there in the world ... it's just absolutely overwhelming.

I've talked to some people and read some forums online where I frequent, and I see that a lot of the rest of the world is just not the same. I've talked to people that had never left the state they were born in, even after 20+ years of life, going to college and the like. Even in smaller states than Texas (which counts more as a country). I can't even fathom a situation like this. Even during our poorest times (which consisted of my family going to the Big Sandy feast site 10 years in a row), we still found ways to get out and do stuff. Like a family reunion up north ... or a trip to a Y.O.U. basketball tournament a state away.

And then you get online and read about some more extreme cases. On one forum, a guy was talking about his hardcore social anxiety, and the fact that he hasn't left the house in years. In fact, the only people that he has interacted with in person for the last 5 or so are his parents. Even meeting relatives is something that scared him greatly, or the idea of walking out on his front porch where people might just be able to see him. He knew it was pathetic, but there was nothing that could change his mind (so he thought) and he was content to stay in his house for the rest of his natural life.

This is a very extreme case, but it's something you see more and more of nowadays. Even if a person has no or little social anxiety, a lot of people have no reason to leave the house anymore. They get all the interaction with "people" they need on the internet. Need to bank? Internet. Want to rent a movie? NetFlix. Want to argue and Jerry Springer it out with someone without getting hit over the head with a chair? Internet.

So then I think to myself, how come I know so many people? And it almost entirely comes down to the fact that I have met and kept in contact with so many people through the church, and more specifically, the Feast of Tabernacles. I have a limited number of people that I know through the rest of my life (high school, college, local buddies), but the majority of people that I know and love are in the church. And where are they? All over the world! Multiple countries. And I don't just know them like, "Hey, I recognize your face ... you're *insert name here*". I've sat down with these people, talked to these people, joked with these people, appreciated these people. People that still keep in contact with me as often as a normal life can allow.

I feel as though God had this in mind a little when he instituted the Feast of Tabernacles. Imagine being a member of the Church, but then really knowing only 4-5 people tops that you are comfortable talking to. I'm not saying that you can't be a Godly person or a Christian without knowing multitudes of people, but it has GOT to be harder. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves ... to love the entire world's population with care and outgoing concern. Can you really grasp that concept if your entire world is only about 3 blocks wide + the local supermarket? The Feast of Tabernacles gets us out of our comfort zone, moves us around, but then groups us up with people of like mind. From all over the place, too! These people that you enjoy being with and talking to are from 3000 miles of real estate. Then you stay in contact -- talk to them over long distances, enjoy their companionship, reminisce about the good times and make plans for the next. I don't know how I could possibly imagine only having 3-4 people I could call a good friend. Or a friend at all!

Then this moves on to more aspects of your life. I recently went to a music meet-up with a group from the internet. Years ago this kind of idea would have scared me, but the chance that one of them is a serial killer is as a much a chance as the guy walking past me at the local Chik-Fil-A. So, I go down (up I guess) to the weekend hangout, have a blast, and meet a lot of really cool people. And the next thing you know, they're talking to you more online, sending you emails, remembering the good times, and planning when the next time everyone can hang out again is. And now I'm what? Up to about 0.00000000001% of the world's population? There are so many more people to get to know.

The Feast of Tabernacles has a very profound meaning in the plan of God as it symbolizes 1,000 years of Christ's reign on this earth. A truly awesome time in the history of mankind. There are so many different lessons that are taught when we attend the FOT, and I'm hard-pressed to believe that this was just a coincidence in the big plan. For some reason, I'm often reminded of this passage in the OT where Elijah was getting all depressed about being the sole person that believed and obeyed God:

I Kings 19:13-18 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
14 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
15 And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:
16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.
17 And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.
18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

No need to feel lonely out there, because there are a ton of people in this world that truly care about you. Just jump online and send one of them an IM. Maybe you'll see them in a couple months. Oh, and try to meet a couple more neighbors along the way, too. You might be surprised how much you love them.

A little harmless impersonation.

2006-08-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

In a recent e-mail to David:

"I think I'll finish this email out as a Josh Kerr blog entry.

See how it works? You just write a random line about something.

And then you double space, and then talk about something else.

I hit people in the nuts with my hockey stick.

I ate something that made my mouth taste like glue.

I did something bad. Why do I do bad things? I shouldn't do bad things.

You know, sometimes I don't understand my motivation. I can't feel things the way I want.

I looked for emotion today. I found it in a garbage can. It waved to me and offered me a cookie.

Although his recent post about not going to a wedding on the Sabbath is dead-on.

I looked for love. And I found it. In my cousin David."

Whoa, what da?! Who's blog are you reading?? Confusing, isn't it!

Today's excitement.

2006-08-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

[17:32] pimpacr0mbie: ???????????/
[17:32] Bladiator: err
[17:33] pimpacr0mbie: dood
[17:33] pimpacr0mbie: wtf
[17:33] Bladiator: dood
[17:33] Bladiator: who is this
[17:33] pimpacr0mbie: this Blade from TN/
[17:33] Bladiator: nope
[17:33] Bladiator: sorry

Seriously. pimpacr0mbie. What a horrible name.

A most unexpected ending to an e-mail from my cousin Rachel.

2006-07-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

P.S. You do realize you're the same age as me, right? Stop calling yourself old, or I'll drive down there and tickle you to an early death.

This weekend in summary.

2006-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Drove to McKinney.
Had dinner with David and Charlie.
Drove to Austin the next morning.
Got to church with 10 minutes to spare and powered down a sandwich.
Had church.
Powered down another sandwich afterwards.
Went to Charlie's sister's house in Austin.
Sister isn't home. Hung out with Charlie's sister's awesome roommate. (Which we decided was my second-cousin-once-removed's roommates' sister's roommate. I'm practically related.)
Went to Jon Bryce's home.
Went to the Riverwalk.
Slept at Jon Bryce's home.
Got up; ate awesome breakfast.
Packed up and went down to the Guadalupe.
Tubed for 5 hours.
Got burnt.
Left San Antonio; checked Charlie's sister's house again.
Still not there; hung out with Charlie's sister's awesome roommate again.
Took showers.
Ate cheap pizza.
Played a board game.
Drove to McKinney.
Slept very little.
Drove home to work.

Attention!! We are in need of a large body of water!

2006-07-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

I'm getting baptized tomorrow. Ocean's eleven? More like Ocean's 6'7".

That was lame. <3 you guys. I'll see you on the other side.

Oh, and a quick shout out to all of you that I've tossed this around with in the last couple months. You all know who you are.

Forecast for Monday, July 24th: Mostly uneventful with a slight chance of crappy.

2006-07-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

Aw man, it started crapping! I'm getting crappy all over me!

Phew. Glad that went away. It's better now.

Boy, it sure smells nice in he--GAH!!

2006-07-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

I went out to my car a couple minutes ago on my break. I was going to go across the street and get some chips to snack. I jump in and I smell this wonderful fragrance in my car. I don't know where it's coming from for a moment, and then it dawns on me. I had taken a stick of deoderant with me the other night for after Ultimate, and left it in the car. I turned around and grabbed it as fast as I could, and liquid deoderant was oozing out of the case. I opened the lid and turned it over in the parking lot and it was total liquid.

Then I dropped that and opened my back door. Crap. Liquid and crystalized deoderant all over my backseat. The whole deal with my car smelling really nice all of a sudden wasn't nearly as important to me anymore. I grabbed some spare napkins and started mopping it up.

...I know there is still quite a bit of gelled deoderant on my briefcase.

The Secret Life of Karl

The Internet -- Creating hobbies you never would have imagined.

On the "To Do" list for the day after the election:

Day two of the radio jingle compo

My radio debut

Biten, bruised, cut...

OH CANAYYYYDIA

Aruba bound ...

From the "lowly musician"

This one is for Ben.

The new list -- excess inventory with the Travel Network

"The Drowsy Chaperone"

So so so so so so so so so so so bored....

The newest thing going on.

People still do this?

One year of service...

My new hobby.

"How're you doin?"

Giving raises, firing folks.

Can you say "skinflint"?

What can I say? Blogs are suckin...

Ever had something happen where you can't stop smiling?

This is pretty interesting.

Remembering a Montana road trip.

The feast: summed up in one picture.

A little Feast glee for my faithful readers

My ego ... it's swelling!!

A track record of the shows I've seen.

Read your bibles.

C, E flat, and G walk into a bar ...

ATMs: Still the bane of my existence.

My hood is no longer in a V shape...

My car hood is in the shape of an upside down "V"

A shorter bank story

The adventures of Karl and his ATM

Housing at the feast

Totally worth it.

A few things (state of the cell phone included)

State of the cell phone

Word of the day: pulchritude

OK, I give you all the chance to berate me.

Shout out (i.e., what what?!)

The concert and .. maybe some other stuff (I haven't decided)

GLEE!

Carl: The evil cockroach wizard (pt. 2)

I'm positively glowing!

Re: Cell phone woes, a la Annette

Ahhh, looking forward to these days ...

My mom: the middle(wo)man

Zzzzzzzzzzzz..

I don't understand my dilemma ...

Karl: The evil cockroach wizard.

Correction to the last post.

A new experience

Remember that game "Telephone"?

Heck yes I did!

What do you get when cross duo piano music with accordions?

It finally happened.

You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together ...

They're practically family ...

...and of His Christ!

"KARL YOU BEAST!!" -- Kristin

It happened ...

Lacey and Kristin are dorks.

"Everything goes on Ringo!" -- Kristin Vorel

27

I used to be that guy.

How can you say "no" to this?!

Things you learn ...

Quit posting on that last post ...

Woowee!

I endorse this blog.

Alright, yeah. A couple more thoughts.

Just some thoughts.

Goodbye balloon ... *pop*

Girls come and kiss me, show how you'll miss me ...

The most recent update.

Winners and losers, pt. 2

Winners and losers.

Finally back to 1-week compos.

Goodbye balloon ... pop