Skip to content


2012-366 Day 196 – Weekend Wrap Up XIII

This upcoming week’s updates will be at varied times, as it’s summer vacation time for us. I’m sure you’ll get much more information than you would ever want on that soon enough, but let’s take a look back at the previous week’s topics.

Sunday (7/8) – Volleyball Game 4: My team will be going into battle without me tomorrow, wishing them the best of luck. I don’t think we’ve had the full team for any single week so far, but I’d rather that be the case now at the beginning and middle rather than right before playoffs. We have a good team, and I’m looking forward to playing everyone again next week.

Monday (7/9) – Motivation: We’ve moved past this, haven’t we? Thanks again for reading.

Tuesday (7/10) – Regrouping: I think I mentioned this towards the beginning of this project, but if there are any topics that you would like me to tackle please drop me a line (comment, email, whatever). While I can generally think of something, I wouldn’t mind getting to something other people are interested in.

Wednesday (7/11) – Work IV: I realized when I went to write this one that I had two Work topics before starting Work II, so I went back and renumbered the sequence so it’s correct now. I’m certain that’s more for my benefit than yours, but I’m sure someone else appreciates it. Again, while I do like my job, I am looking forward to getting away from it for a week, as it’s been particularly busy recently.

Thursday (7/12) – Rave Reviews II: This post had seven spam responses in the first day. Touche, spammers, touche. All of them were of the random comment followed by a link variety, and this was my favorite one:
“your words are good, but somewhat confusing, if you can explain them better, it would be great. [link removed]”
Which words exactly would you like me to explain better? Isn’t that what a dictionary is for?

Friday (7/13) – San Diego Comic-Con: Jess has been watching the panels from a side event that has sprung up around Comic-Con, Nerd HQ. These panels take place outside of the Con and feature ticketed seating and no moderators, just an hour or so of question and answer on the topic or with the person in question. Honestly, this does appeal to me more than the Con experience (except for missing some of the shopping part) and the parts that Jess have shown me have been pretty funny and/or enlightening.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 207.1 miles (+6 miles)
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 23 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , , .

2012-366 Day 195 – San Diego Comic-Con

Late post today because I spent my time at work preparing for not being there next week. Some last minute things came up, so the update got pushed to the end of the day (although surely not the latest I’ve ever posted). Anyhow, on to the topic at hand: Comic-Con.

I’ve actually been to the San Diego Comic-Con a couple of times, although we’re nearing a decade since my last visit (I believe it was 2004). Honestly, as things have progressed there, I’m less and less inclined to go back. I won’t be so hipster as to say that the encroachment of the big movie studios into the nerd realms have ruined the experience, because I really enjoy some of the movies that they put out (Dark Knight Rises is almost here!). Unfortunately, with the huge influx of big movie bucks comes massive amounts of people, as more and more want to see what’s coming out and getting crammed into a convention center that hasn’t changed size since I was there last. It was crowded then, and it’s only gotten more crowded since. I have been following vicariously through several websites and twitter, and these two pictures really validated my decision to stay away.

Comic-Con line
ThinkGeek’s (@thinkgeek) Timmy shows you the tiny ant-like creatures in line on Friday (that’s the line that I would see on Saturdays at worst when I went).

View from WB Booth
From Big Bang Theory producer Bill Prady (@billprady), these people crammed the floor waiting for a panel.

Speaking of waiting for panels, there are quite a few that I would be interested in, but Comic-Con’s first come first served methodology leads to some pretty unsavory tricks and a lot of wasted time if you want to go to a popular one. Even one of the Mythbusters (Grant Imahara – @grantimahara) had to pull strings to get into the Firefly panel, a show that has been off the air for years but has a loyal following. His tweet: “Used my @Discovery and @ScienceChannel connections to get into the jam-packed ‪#Firefly‬ panel…”

So, in short, too many people and too few connections equals an experience that I am not going to go out of my way to have. As with most people who write posts like this, I certainly wouldn’t say no if the opportunity to go fell in my lap though. I highly recommend the surrounding Gaslamp Quarter when it’s not Comic-Con time, it’s a lovely area to take a walk in.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 201.1 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 23 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , .

2012-366 Day 194 – Rave Reviews II

A while back I did a post using fragments of all the spam comments I receive in the blog (should I have put a spoiler alert on that?), so I’ve kept them all in the Spam folder since then and I swear it’s starting to fell like a really bad conversation in there.

“Hello, what is the best way to subscribe to your site? I need the feed to be delivered to me on time”
Thanks, uh, Bowen, is it? I’m afraid I don’t have time to instruct you in how to use an RSS reader or creating a bookmark, I’ll just have to trust that you’ll wander back this way on your own.

“You are a very intelligent person!”
Aww, thanks buy cheap llosone! What an interesting name you have there, I bet you hate your parents. I appreciate the link to your online drugstore (with a name like that, I guess it was inevitable), but I’m good on my pharmaceuticals, thanks.

“We need more inishgts like this in this thread.”
That’s right, we do. Wait, what are inishgts? And how exactly is this a thread, there are no other comments on this post?

“Do you like the game tetris? Play Tetris online now!”
Yes, I do, but I really don’t need to play it right now and this is kind of about me. Thanks for the link though.

“This website is realy awesome! I just wanna say thnx for sharing this kind of sexdating information with us.”
Whoa now! I don’t remember writing that post! Let me see what post that was on . . . “Dodger Blog Softball Tournament Part 1” . . . uh, I think that’s as far away from sexdating as you can get. It’s like they are not even reading these posts before commenting. I guess this isn’t really like a conversation at all.

“Someone essentially lend a hand to make severely articles I might state. That is the first time I frequented your webpage and so far? I surprised with the analysis you made to create this actual post incredible. Wonderful task!”
Okay, this guy may have actually read the post. I can’t tell for sure though. What’s the name . . . “as explained here” . . . did I miss the part of the 80s where people started naming their kids really weird things?

Wait! Stop everything, some spammer has discovered the secret to time travel! I present this comment as evidence.
“Sorry for the significant analysis, but I’m absolutely loving the newest Zune, and hope this, along with the wonderful opinions many other folks have developed, may help you decide if it can be the suitable selection for you.”
Yes folks, hampton bay led lights (another weird name? C’mon parents, step up your game.) has obviously cracked the space time continuum, as this post was made March 2nd, 2012 and the last time a new Zune was released was September 15, 2009. I’m sorry that I buried this important evidence in my Spam folder and can only hope that we find the innovator and his time machine before it is too late. Perhaps this is the cause of the apocalypse the Mayans warned us about.

By far, the style of spam I get the most of is the random sentence followed by a link, with such gems as:
“hey, looking forward to your other posts that are about to come. [link removed]”
Uh, thanks? What about the one you just read? Any comments on that?

“loved the website, keep up the work guys, i will be following you. [link removed]”
Wait, there’s more than one of me? Do I get a ghost writer? That would make things sooo much easier!

“your blog is very simple but i like it because it is very well structured. [link removed]”
Hey, that’s a pretty backhanded compliment there!

“i agree with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your incoming updates. just saying thanks will not just be enough, for the phenomenal clarity in your writing. [link removed]”
Much better, although you could use some work on your grammar.

Holy cow, I could go all day with this, as the vast variety of vague one or two sentence posts followed by a link generated by these spammers is astounding. Okay, one last one:

“well i think this topic is very interesting, but it’s also complexing to discuss about it. [link removed]”
Very complexing indeed, we’ll have to talk some more about it another time.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 201.1 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 23 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , .

2012-366 Day 193 – Work IV

A busy day today leads me back to the slice of life genre, as I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple days (as I believe I’ve already mentioned) getting our new Photo ID system up and running. Thankfully it was a fairly straightforward process that just required repeating the same steps over and over. It’s actually not over yet either, as I have to get our new mobile stations talking to our servers (not easy to do over wireless with security in place) and upgrade all of the Library’s hardware and software, since they are our satellite location.

This first part was time sensitive, however, as we had to replace all of the front counter hardware and software while the counter wasn’t in operation. We made it easier by running the process over two days, setting up the software in a staging area in the OCR room yesterday on new hardware (since we were also using this as an excuse to finally upgrade our front counter computers), and then putting the new hardware in place this morning before the counter opened. Thankfully we’re on special summer hours at the moment, so the counter did not open until 10 am, and we had everything ready to go and in place by 9:30.

Wandering from the work topic a little bit (it’s still related, I promise), I started using the indoor track at our new Student Rec Center this week on my lunch breaks to coincide with my step up in training for the Disneyland Half Marathon (and yes, the 100+ degree heat). It’s a pleasant enough environment, on the top floor of the building (it has 3 floors, if you are curious) with giant windows on one side (that actually cover all three floors and that side of the building) looking East, and a nice wood paneling on the West side. The only problem, and it’s more of a complaint than an issue, is that the track is 1/8 of a mile long, which means that when I run 3.5 miles, like I did today, I have to run the same loop 28 times. Actually, it does make the laps short enough that you do do get a nice sense of accomplishment from the quickly climbing number of laps, so I won’t complain too loudly (even if it is a bit monotonous).

And now it is almost time to leave work, which, despite the fact that I am happy with my job, I am just as happy to go home.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 201.1 miles (+3.5 miles)
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 23 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , .

2012-366 Day 192 – Regrouping

Whew, what a day. After overhauling our printer system a couple weeks ago, this week it’s the Photo ID system’s turn. Everything is working well and on schedule, we got the equipment and software staged today and will install it and do training tomorrow morning. We have some mobile units now that I’ll have to get playing nice with our servers, but that can wait until after the regular system is in place.

Thanks for sticking with me after yesterday, I’m feeling a lot better and can mostly chalk my feelings yesterday up to fatigue and a case of being too open with those feelings. I appreciate the kind feedback since, and, yes, sparring yesterday did help to get some of it out (the rest of it fell out as I was running away from the other five students in the class, all black belts). As Jess said yesterday, every blogger feels like this (but I am not like every other blogger! Okay, maybe more than I care to admit), but I’m definitely going to attempt not inflicting it on you again (seeing as I made it over halfway, we’ll just call it my mid-blog crisis and move on. Wait, does that mean I get a convertible?).

That being said, I certainly learned some lessons from this experience. First, controversial religious topics are not best served by off the top daily blog posts, and my friend just wanted to let me know that there were a couple places where poor phrasing (or just plain wrong usage of words) could possibly be interpreted in a bad light by non-charitable people (but all my readers are charitable, right?). We had a great talk and it really helped clear some things up for me. Do not, however, look for anymore off the top of my head posts like that (and the people rejoiced, “Yay!”). Second, I need to put a bit more effort into the blog to make it more interesting. As it currently stands, there’s a bit of slice of life, with a bit of topical blogging, and some other nonsense, but I definitely want to make it more engaging. Why write a post everyday if no one wants to read it?

So, again, thank you for reading and taking this journey with me. It’s one I intend to see through to the end, and I look forward to trying to make it a better experience for us all.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 197.6 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 23 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , .

2012-366 Day 191 – Motivation

Well, at least I made it past the halfway point before starting to seriously wonder what I am doing with this. I’ll let you know up front that I’m still going to post tomorrow, so if you want to skip the introspection and negativity, come on back after you read the next sentence. After some of the reaction I got on the End Times post, I realize that I did not adequately describe it in the introduction, as it is most certainly an (evolving) opinion piece, and not meant to be doctrinal in any sense. With that out of the way, I definitely feel that my motivation for writing this blog has taken a pretty big hit in the last week or so.

After reaching the halfway point, I have to wonder what I am doing here. I originally stated that my goal for the blog was a writing exercise, but I feel like I have stalled in that endeavor. This daily format with life ongoing does little in the way of helping with inspiration, and, while certain longer posts have proven (somewhat) popular at least when looking at web statistics, long posts are difficult to produce on a daily basis. I just denied the 1,012th spam comment on the blog today since the end of February, and have gotten only about 60 real comments on 190 posts. I know I initially said that I didn’t care if anyone read the blog, and I can see in the traffic patterns (and in talking to people) that I have a few dedicated readers (don’t worry, I can’t individually identify you, unless of course I talk to you), but when it gets to the point where people only say something if you mess up, you start to wonder whether you want to keep going.

And that’s really where this is coming from, I suppose, in that the biggest reaction I’ve gotten in running this blog for 190 days came with the End Times piece, and it was decidedly negative (well, not so much was, it is ongoing). And I respect that reaction and definitely know there are points where I am going to be wrong, but in 190 days of posting I’ve never had that reaction in the other direction. The best received posts I think have been the Dodger Softball Tournament blog (which, unfortunately, I put up before I installed the analytics for the website), and the Cars Land review I did (which accounts for 7.5% of all the page views since I started keeping track), which I do appreciate the positive feedback on.

I think my whine train has run out of steam, more from fatigue than a dispersion of feelings. I suppose I will go get punched a few times tonight in sparring class to take my mind off of things. I’m going to continue this exercise, and hopefully resume not worrying what people think, but I really need to discover how to best move toward the goal of improving my writing, because the current mechanism isn’t working (and it’s terrible that I’ve gone over halfway to discover this). I’ll also let you know where I’ve erred in the End Times piece, as I certainly am not going to argue that I didn’t make any mistakes in logic and my smarter and much better trained friend is concerned and wants to talk about it.

Thanks for sticking around if you did read through all this. I want you to know how much everyone who reads my stuff means to me, whether you leave feedback or not. I appreciate the time you invest and hope to make it pay off for you one day if it hasn’t already. It is certainly on me to make sure that the information I put is compelling enough to encourage you to come back, and I appreciate your willingness to read even on a down day.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 197.6 miles (+3 miles)
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 22 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , .

2012-366 Day 190 – Volleyball Game 4

Sadly, today we were undermanned an outgunned, and dropped all three games to one of the teams on our heels (now passed us). Two of our top three guys were out of town today, and we were only playing with 5 players, so there was just too much space for the ball to find on the court. I’ll actually be out of town next weekend, missing my only game of the season (although I believe the rest of the team will be there), so we’ll see how they do without me (probably just fine, I’m sure).

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 194.6 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 3-1 (7-5 Game Record, -4 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 22 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , .

2012-366 Day 189 – Weekend Wrap Up XII

An eventful week, with still more to come in a baby shower/birthday party tonight and a volleyball game tomorrow. Heading into the final hours of the wedding/baby shower marathon we’ve been running for the past several months.

Sunday (7/1) – Resolution Update: Passed my 7th Gup (Blue-Green belt) test this morning, putting me right on schedule. Realizing that even with my new running schedule, I’ve probably procrastinated too long and won’t hit 600. I’ll still try though.

Monday (7/2) – Superhero Movies: Only 11 days until the Dark Knight Rises release, although I suppose I should go see Spider-Man before then. Also have to see Brave (yes, I know that’s not a superhero movie) soon.

Tuesday (7/3) – Memory: What did I write about that day? I forget. (Yes, I went for the cheap, lazy joke here.)

Wednesday (7/4) – Fourth of July: I do not like the Fourth of July on a Wednesday, it really screws up the week. Thursday and Friday at work were just plain weird, feeling like a Monday and Tuesday. Won’t have to worry about it for six years or so, I guess.

Thursday (7/5) – End Times: I have Google Analytics installed on the site, so I can see the general traffic flow for the blog. The two days with the most visits this month were when my Cars Land review was posted, and this one (although don’t get too excited, it’s 25 and 21 visits, respectively). It was good to get a little feedback, I’ll try to find some more topics that interest me enough to write about that are thought provoking (I guess you could argue I should be doing that everyday).

Friday (7/6) – Overheard and Half Marathon: Ran my Saturday run last night because I knew we’d be busy today, and was the victim of technology. Trying new headphones with the new Nike app, I found out that the controls on the headphones don’t interact with the Nike app correctly and forced me to spend 10 minutes rebooting and reinstalling things about a mile into my run. The rest of it went great, however.

Well, I have the rest of today to get to, see you tomorrow for a volleyball update.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 194.6 miles (+5 miles)
Volleyball Match Record: 3-0 (7-2 Game Record, +17 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 22 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , , , .

2012-366 Day 188 – Overheard and Half Marathon

At Chipotle today for lunch and overheard this conversation when waiting to refill my drink:

5 year old kid: (Something unintelligible, presumably a request for soda.)
Mom: You’re having water.
Kid: (Again, can’t hear him, on account that he’s five and on the other side of his mom. I’m assuming it was “Why not?”)
Mom: You can’t have soda, it’s bad for you.

If you guessed that I’m relating this story because while this conversation was taking place, the mom was filling her cup with regular Coca-Cola, you nailed it. I just quietly waited my turn while mentally going, “Jackpot! Blog post!”

With just over 8 weeks until the Disneyland half marathon, it’s time to get serious about training (I also decided it was time to get serious about weight loss too at karate last night, but that’s for another time). I always work better when I have a schedule that I have to stick to, so I went back to the training schedule I co-opted from someone when I trained for my first half marathon, cut it to fit, and am ready to go. It looks something like this: Mondays 3-5 miles, Tuesdays OFF (due to bible study), Wednesdays 3-5 miles, Thursdays 2-3 miles (may switch Wednesdays and Thursdays depending on which karate class I go to that week), Fridays OFF (generally doing something that night), Saturdays Long Runs starting at 5 miles and topping at 10 miles), Sundays OFF (church volleyball league). Assuming I complete all the runs, I’ll have 142 more miles under my belt in the next two months and be prepared for the Half.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 189.6 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 3-0 (7-2 Game Record, +17 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 22 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , , , .

2012-366 Day 187 – End Times

It’s been a while since I’ve written about anything potentially controversial, so I thought why not let one fly today? One of our friends earned the nickname of “Mr. Sunshine” yesterday (no, it was not me, and yes, it was sarcastic), but I’m not going to let him walk the path alone. So here is potentially one of the first blog posts ever telling you why Jesus is NOT coming back today. And unlike all those stories that tell you when He is coming back, I can guarantee that my prediction is correct. Of course, I can only guarantee for the current day (July 5th, 2012) and most likely tomorrow, as one of the two factors below would have to change dramatically for me to call it close. So, why isn’t Jesus coming back today?

Factor #1 – Population: There are approximately seven billion people living on the planet right now. That is an enormous number, look at it written out: 7,000,000,000. Without a specific reference, but putting things together from what the Bible says about God and His being just there’s one major roadblock to His return. If any of those seven billion people is going to accept Him before Christ will come back, He will wait for it to happen. If that person was born today and accepted Christ on their deathbed, the average world life expectancy is 67.2 years (as of 2010). And that’s just one person, leading us to Factor #2 . . .

Factor #2 – Birth Rates: Even if you wrote off the current population as static, that there would be no change of religious status among the seven billion people currently living on this planet (an extremely unlikely occurrence, but people believe in Macro-evolution, so we’ll not go into the numbers there), you still have to deal with the people being born everyday. “In 2012 the average global birth rate was 19.15 births per 1000 total population,” which leads to about 134,050,000 births a year, or about 367,260 births a day. Taking the broadest definition of Christianity, there are an estimated 2.331 billion people who identify themselves as Christians (sincerity of faith questions will have to be levied in another blog post) or pretty much exactly 33.3% of the world population. So of those births, approximately 44,638,650 a year and 122,297 a day will be born to a household containing at least one Christian (yes, I have greatly simplified the calculations, I’ll leave more precise ones to people who actually took stats). Since this isn’t a scientific paper, we’ll allow a little hearsay at this point (not heresy, at least I hope not), in that I remember hearing somewhere that Christian homes have a higher initial conversion rates than someone who grows up in a non-religious (or differently-religioned) household (and that seems to hold up to the logic test). It seems unlikely that not one of those children born today would not become a Christian at some point in the future.

Now, while I do guarantee above that Jesus isn’t coming back today (or tomorrow), I must admit that the guarantee is only 99.99999999% certain. Why is that? Well, obviously reason number one is that I am not God. Should God choose to have Christ come back at 9:17 PDT this evening, I certainly have no way to stop Him. I can only base my reasoning off of many years of Bible study and insight into the character of God, and my conclusion is that He would not allow a single person to go unsaved should there be the opportunity. And when you look at the raw numbers, that opportunity seems to still be available in abundance.

So what could change where I would consider the return of Christ probable? I have a couple theories, and for the most part they kind of scare me (one of the reasons I haven’t committed these ideas to writing until now).

Theory #1 – Divine Intervention: This theory is the reason I can’t give a 100% guarantee. Should God decide to send Christ back and use His knowledge of what WOULD have happened should he let the world continue on its regular course to judge people, He could do so. Now, of course, you have to sign off on the idea that God is fair and all-knowing to be able to judge things on how they would have been, but if you believe in the God described in the Bible, you should already be there. I have difficulties with this one because it appears to assume that there is no one who will be born that will be converted, and I’m uncertain the world is in that place yet. I find my second theory far more likely (and far more frightening) . . .

Theory #2 – Mankind Blows It: And doesn’t this sound far more likely anyway? If you believe in the Bible and the return of Christ, there should probably be a little bit of Doomsday Prepper in you, if not a whole lot. Now there’s several ways that this can occur, from a giant apostasy (basically the whole world turning from God), in which case you have an entire society which has rejected Order and Light and likely will not be functioning well, or the potential doomsday scenario where an arms race, ecological problem, or just downright negligence with forces beyond our control lead to the destruction of a large percentage of the world’s population. Many people have claimed that Christ’s return is near because Israel was reconstructed as a state in 1948 and, according to prophecy, Christ will return within a generation of that happening. However, there is doubt as to whether that specific prophecy exists. Further, if it did exist, it seems possible that Israel could rise and fall multiple times before the return of Christ.

Does this remove the urgency from finding Christ or bringing others to Him? No, because buried in all those high concept numbers and ideals is one very specific and non-imaginary variable – you. And you have a non-zero chance of being struck by lightning tomorrow, among other more dangerous and likely occurrences, in which case don’t you think it would have been wiser to resolve the whole question of God, His existence, and what He means to you today? I won’t put forth any of those arguments today as I have already gone on for far too long and there are many others who have done so better than I ever could (you can go for a good starting point here).

So the next time someone predicts the return of Christ on my birthday (like they did last year), and it doesn’t happen, you can point them to this blog post for a brief explanation as to why.

Weight: 229 Loss: 11 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 189.6 miles
Volleyball Match Record: 3-0 (7-2 Game Record, +17 Point Differential)
Fitocracy Level: 22 ID: disciplev1

Posted in Matt 2012-366, Matt General. Tagged with , , , , .