Professionals versus the Weekend Hobbyist

So in all things in life there are three groups of people. The Professionals, the wanna-be Professionals, and the Weekenders.

Break it down:

The Professionals are always really nice and try to help the Weekenders.

The Wanna-be Professionals take shit way to seriously and turn everything into competition.

Weekenders, like me, are out there to have a good time and enjoy the sport.

What brought me to this conclusion was one weekend out with my Dad at the local Trap and Skeet club we ran into a Wanna-Be Professional. We were shooting Trap which is were you go out to the stand and yell "PULL" and the little orange clay bird shooting out and you blow it out of the sky. On the "Field" there are five stations so  in a actual competition 5 people compete against each other. Well on a Sunday morning we had Father-Son time instead of church we went shooting.

My Dad and I on the range

Out on the range, got through a few rounds and this guy comes up to join us on the field, nothing wrong with that I mean it is a easy way to make friends. So he looks like he is pretty serious about the sport. He has a full shooting vest and shooting glasses and special boots and a gun that looks like it is worth more then my car.

On top of it all he has a American flag headband/dewrag on. Hello Captain America.

He seemed nice at first, he came up and politely asked if he could shoot with us. my dad and I look like we need help so out of 40 open ranges I don't know why he chose us but he did and we were nice people so we didn't turn him away.

The second we stepped up to the shooting boxes it was over. He was breaking our spirit and rubbing it in our face after every shot. since you have to pre pay by the round so we have 2 rounds to finish with Captain America before we can make our subtle exit. After two more embarrassing round Captain America asks if we are leaving (we already put the gun away in the case and have no ammo left). We tell him yes we are leaving and then walk to the club house to tell them we are finished. On the way back to the truck we pass Captain America for the last time. He had taken all of his stuff and found another range with a older guy on it, who was all by himself, until Captain America started harassing him.

I feel sorry for people that need competition to make themselves feel better. Maybe Next time I run into Captain America I will be able to destroy his will to ever shoot against me again.

My dad rocking the shit out of some clay pigeons!

Exotic Foods for the Poor College Student

So a friend told me about this exotic taco shop here in town that serves special meats. We talked about how they serve African Lion Meat and what not. At some point in or conversation the thought clicked in my head that I want to try African Lion Meat. Best part is that the restaurant is within walking distance from the university.

From the outside the place looks like a run down drug front kind of store. They have a very small turn in to the parking lot which is behind the restaurant so on the third go around I finally got the correct turn. Right away when I walk in it looks really nice modern place. Although the people working behind the counter were trading stories about how many car jacks they have seen in the next parking lot over (Kinda Sketchy).

It's a Tuesday night and I learn that they only have the "Special Exotic Taco" on Wednesdays. Bummer. Already parked my car and inside the building so I might as well order something.

I was going for Exotic so best thing I saw on the menu was Octopus. Haven't eaten Octopus since I lived in Hawaii (and I hated it back then). So after a certain amount of time I was presented with my Octopus taco and  the rest of the food that I ordered. Here are the pictures.

The presentation was very nice. Octopus taco on the bottom and Steak something on top.

The server brought us 5 different types of Salsa which was very good, 1 mild, 2 hot, 1 super hot, and one chunky thing in a jar but it was good.

Going in for the kill on the steak thing first.

Honestly never liked Octopus but had to down it either way. Was very chewy and weird to eat something that still has suction cups on it.

Overall it was a good experience, I will definitely be going back on a Wednesday to try the Exotic meat.

Boca Here is the Link

I suggest everyone try it out at least once!

Nighttime/Star Photography Attempt 1

So with a camera that I barely understand how to operate I have been on the mission to take some money worthy pictures that I could sell to _____ (classified).

Last couple nights I have been trying to take some star photos. Remember that these are taken from the balcony on my apartment complex, which is located in the middle of Tucson.

Click on photos for Full Size

Moon with full zoom, Need telephoto lense

Airplane flew threw picture

Pic 1 medium black background

Pic 2 lighter background

Pic 3 very black background

Please let me know what you think in the comments,

Tips and tricks are greatly appreciated as well

How Cleaning Works College Style

So I now that I am back at school I had to clean the apartment so certain people don't get pissy with me. I realized that there is a very strict order to cleaning. I believe nothing is ever truly clean, it just migrates around in certain groupings with other objects.

I start near the front door and move back deeper into the apartment all the way to my room, which is opposite of the door across the apartment.

Starting in the Kitchen, Everything is clean just need to put all the pots and pans and stuff of that nature in their respective homes. Easy. Since I don't have a dishwasher everything is done by hand, therefore everything sits out until it is washed, then resumes sitting around until it is dry and someone (me) puts it all away. Instant counter space. Wipe down counter and Kitchen is clean.

Moving to the kitchen table the problem begins. With everything from Mail from months ago to present day, Coasters, A bamboo plant, Homework, Bike Lock, Bills, Xbox controllers, and anything else that gets left there it seems hard to clean. Like most people I am going for speed so I can move on to doing something fun. Move all the bills and mail into to neat piles and throw all the other stuff onto the couch in a pile. Couch is only a few feet away but counts as the next room since it is on the carpet and the table is on the tile.

Move to living room. Note the pile has moved from the table to the couch. Things are now all over the couch and surrounding area. Remotes, backpacks, pillows, chargers for phones and laptops, game cases, plates and drink glass, soda cans empty and full. various boxes with instructions for bike locks, RC helicopter, Football and Kick stand are all object now in pile on couch. Grab the obvious and put them away, Xbox controllers and game cases. Move rest of personal crap to room. Move kitchen items into sink.

Everything in room is messy, pathways literally determine how I get to stuff I need. Everything in pile from couch is moved to already huge pile on desk. I put away shoes (just line them up). Next is clear flat spaces, Take everything put in on bed. New Pile. Keeping track we now have two piles in bedroom, one on desk one on bed. All paperwork is moved to desk, into pile. Other objects that are used daily are also moved to desk or put back were they were in a somewhat neater fashion. Pile on desk is now huge.

Forget the bathroom. The sink area is just sorted roommates stuff on one side mine on the other. Just make it look kinda neat and walk away.

Now There is neat pile in my room and one in the Kitchen with all the dirty sh*t I found around the apartment. The Pile progressed from kitchen table, to couch, to desk in my room. Once we have achieved this point in the cleaning we are done. Huge pile of shit in room therefore apartment is clean.

Daytime: Move shit to bed.
Nighttime: Move shit to desk.

The Hype about Alaska

Has anyone else noticed all these new TV shows about things in Alaska? They seem to be taking over the discovery channel.

Between Gold Rush, Ice Road Truckers, Deadliest Catch, Sarah Palin's Alaska and Flying Alaska, the state seems to be the most popular in the country. Not that they are at all bad shows, it just seems they are only based in Alaska. Is someone trying to tell us that Alaska is the shit? Or are the TV people just trying to say "Suck it you 49 other states?"

Alaska must have it all figured out. I don't see any other states where cruise ships go. Or any other states were people go on exotic adventure trips. Yes they have some amazing scenery, pretty cool wild life, and some crazy shit that goes on up there, but really Hawaii is getting offended because it used to be the shit.


Bear walking on Ice





How often do you get to see a bear walking around on frozen lakes with goregous scenery in the background? Never...unless you live in Alaska, in which case this happens everyday.

I feel that Alaskan's think that since they are so far up north and not connected with the rest of the country, they can do whatever crazy stuff they want. Because of this Alaskan mentallity people go up there and make TV shows out of them. Lets be honest, who doesn't love watching crazy people take unnessicary risks and live. Thats why there are so many TV Shows about what goes on up there.

I personally would love to visit Alaska and do all kinds of cool shit up there.

You can even see Russia from Alaska (only if your in Sarah Palin's backyard though)



(I love feedback, thoughts and opinions in the form of comments, Thank you veiwers!)

Stock Market for the College Student

Every one has heard of the Stock Market. Mainly how people either win big or loose it all. In my ever-wandering ways to make a extra buck so I canafford a pizza on those all-nighters I pull, I looked into the Stock Market as a way to make extra income.

In therory, it is not a hard concept. By stock when prices are low and sell stock when prices are high. But upon further analysis of this simple therory I have learned a few things that people should consider and make the desicion about playing the makrt very easy. I will explain how to make money on this game in 3 easy to follow steps.

1. Start-Up
In order to buy and sell stock you must have an account with a online website like TD AmeriTrade, E*Trade, USAA, or any other company. Many of these companies required a "start-up fee" or "deposite." On average this fee starts at 500 dollars and climbs. The most expensive fee I saw was anything overthe 1,000,000,000(billion) mark. This is a very large sum of money for the average college student. The fee corrisponds to a level on whatever website you are using. Basic Bronze, Silve, Gold Platinum. Right away many people turn their heads at the large number and give up on their dreams of being a stock market trader right there. But wait it gets better (and much more expensive)

2. Trading
Once you throw that lump sum of money into this game, You can start buying Stock. Every company has them so pick a few and buy away. Buying and Selling is called "Trading." The website charges you a fee for every trade you make. This is how the wesite makes money. Based on your level of buy in at start up, your Trade fee goes up or down. At the Bronze level you will be charged 9.99 everytime you buy or sell. Platinum people are much lower at around 5.25 a trade. So not only must you pay for the price of the stock, you must also tack on this trade fee.

3. Money Making
Buy Stock, Wait until Stock prices go up, Sell Stock. That is how you make the money.
In more detail: buy the stock and wait for the price to rise, you must factor in the two trade fee's that will be charged to your account, then sell the stock.

Example:
Lets take a single share of google stock. Ticker Symbol GOOG

Single share of GOOG opened the market today at a price of $610.05

-

Trade Fee to buy Stock  (Rounding) $10.00

-

Trade Fee to sell Stock  (Rounding) $10.00

+

Single share of GOOG closed the makret today at $ 618.43

=

Net Profit $-11.62

In order to make money off this stock you would have to buy more then one share. at that price no one can afford. No Matter how many shares you buy the Trade Fee is always 9.99. This is were the money comes in. Lets say you bought 100 Shares of GOOG, Here is the sample equation:

100 shares of GOOG opened the market today at a price of $61,005.00

-

Trade Fee to buy Stock  (Rounding) $10.00

-

Trade Fee to sell Stock  (Rounding) $10.00

+

100 shares of GOOG closed the makret today at $ 61,843.00

=

Net Profit $818.00

Now there is a Number we like.

Of course this example is done with a fairly high priced stock. There are stocks on the market that trade a under $1.00 dollar a share. You can use the same equation to figure out your net income on that type of stock to. Just remember a stock that trades at under a dollar a share will not have as much price change as the GOOG stock. therefore in order to make money you will need to buy in the 100's of shares. And with a stock that has a price change of .25 cents, you will not make over 800 dollars at a time, instead your profit may only be in the single digits.

FAILURE

All the aboe is of course the happy and lucky side of the market. It could very easily (and more commonly) go the exact opposite of the examples above. You buy a stock at a certain price, and instead of going up, the Stock crashes. buy the time you get to click "Sell" on the computer you could have lost your 61,000 dollar investment.

World Influence in Stock

Lets play two examples here:

1) You Buy a stock in an airplane company. The stock is trading at 10 dollars a share. That day the airline company comes out with a media release that says they made an airplane that can fly farther, use less gas, and carry more people then any other airplane in the world. The stock prices skyrocket. You sell your shares for 1,000 dollars a share. You have just made a huge profit.

2) You buy stock in an airplane company. The stock is trading at 10 dollars a share. That day an airplane from that company crashes. They company comes out to the media and says that a certain part failed and caused the crash, the company must not fly any of their airplanes until the art has been replaced in all their airplanes. The stock price plummits. You have to sell your share at .10 cents a share. You have lost it all.

If you stay on your game and can afford the initial start up cost, there is alot of money to be made in the stock market. But the second you fall behind or trip up, you will loose almost all your money in a heartbeat. I read recently that almost 90% of people who try to play the stock market will loose all the money they put into it. Of that 90% over 30% of the people will have to go into bankruptcy because of the ammount of money they lost.

it would be a great learning experience to try to buy a few stocks and see how it all works first hand, but no college student has the moey to go and try this.

Still better off working at McDonalds then playing the Stock Market.

The 3 Phases of new Technology

When a new technology is introduced to the public, three kinds of stories are written in "The Media." Here they are, in order:

1. "Hey, look at this New Thing!"
2. "You can have sex with this New Thing!"
3. "The New Thing can hurt you."

Motion Sensing additions to 3rd gen Video game consoles:
1) The Wii came out and everyone was drooled over how cool it was with its motion senor num-chucks. Not long after that everyone heard the lawsuit going around about how some lady let go of her num-chucks and they went flying across the room and hit someone else standing nearby watching her Mario Kung Fu action. Crazy lady, who is obviously mentally impaired, looses lawsuit and now all following technological inventions have to have some sort of goofy warning.

2) The Kinect comes out for the Xbox. The world is amazed with the notion that you no longer need to use your hands to play video games, it is now more realistic than ever. Within a month the game developer ThriXXX comes out with a sex game for the Kinect. Microsoft shut ThriXXX down within a matter of hours after their Media Release about their "Hands Free sex game" came out. After a few months now I still read stories of people hurting themselves, their surround furniture, and the TV itself.


3) The PS3 Move. Lacking in all departments. You stole the Num-chuck controllers from the Wii and after the Kinect came out, no one was to impressed. Sorry.


Web Cams:
At the first sign of video chatting through a computer the world was up in flames to acquire this new technology. Soon I'm sure people were video chatting naked. That is basically like watching porn online BUT the porn star can see you too. Next thing you know the person you thought you trusted took pictures of you naked and has now posted them all over the image boards. Now that your naked pictures are all over the internet, good luck explaining that to anyone who questions you about it.

Yes, that is a picture of yourself nude,
 that you just found online.

On to what every one wants. Pictures display things way better then words, so here are some of them to help put my point across:

Next time something technological comes out, watch these steps occur.

These are only two examples, If you have more put them in a comment on this post and I'll put them up to a case study!

A Gamers 2011 Resolutions

So, the new year is upon us, and throughout 2010, I saw, heard, and read a lot of things that really concerned me. Gamers have some really bad habits that hurt the hobby, maybe more than they realize. I want to see some of those habits change in 2011 — for the good of gamers, gaming, and its standing among other forms of entertainment. So, at the fresh start of a fresh year, it’s worth calling some of the bad stuff out so as not to repeat it. For instance:

1. Stop acting like everything is the end of the world.
A price goes up. A network goes down. A release date moves. A designer talks about doing something different. It no longer seems to matter what the news is –- all that matters is that everything is ruined now. No more dramatic overreactions to minor issues, let alone non-issues.

2. Cynicism for its own sake is pointless.
The self-serving sarcasm has gotten out of control. Some gamers like hating gaming more than they like the games themselves — a uniquely self-destructive attitude compared to other passion hobbies. Gaming can’t be a game of piss-and-moan-upmanship or we all lose.

3. Admit that you don’t know what you’re talking about, then stop.
“That game sucks.” You mean the one that doesn’t come out for four months, or the one that came out four months ago but you’ve never played? Either way, stop. Gaming is an experiential hobby; if you haven’t interacted with what you are condemning, you’ve got nothing. Once you’ve gotten some personal experience, we’ll listen. (This resolution goes double for anything related to business.)

4. Don’t expect perfection.
Games aren’t perfect because people make games and people aren’t perfect. It runs on a computer; it wasn’t birthed by one. They don’t make games like they used to, and in fact, they never did. Likewise, things break; things then get fixed. You cannot alter 60 million lines of code in 5 minutes. Neither can they.

Without the soapbox, it all comes down to “Be rational.” Games will come out this year that you will like, dislike, or ignore. But overreactions, unrealistic expectations, and a quick temper are not helping the hobby you hold dear. We are all ambassadors of gaming; we represent it to every non-gamer on the planet. And gaming just can’t be defined by these irrational actions and reactions if it’s going to get the respect it deserves.

I think we all need to hold each other to a higher standard — and if you are not guilty of the kinds of stuff I’ve referenced here, say “You know, I don’t think that actually helps” when you see someone who is. A community — particularly online — can be shaped by a handful of good examples. Right now, I fear too much of it is being shaped by bad ones. So that’s what I’d like to see change.

Gaming evolves every year. Let 2011 be the year that gamers evolve.

In reference to One of Swords Blog 

Bed Times

As the impending doom of Spring Semester approaches I was thinking about my upcoming class schedule and what my weeks would look like with Class, Work, Social Life, and Xbox. I thought it would be best to sit down with a spreadsheet and plan out a common week so I could have a general idea of what the semester is going to look like (very responsible!).

As I dove head first into this week planning idea, I soon realized that I was going to be a busy busy beaver. Like most college students, as the activities piled up, sleep was the first thing to go. Not that this worries me to much, I strongly stand by the "You can sleep when your dead" motto, but it still got me thinking about sleep schedules of the population of the world.

On average I got about 5 hours of sleep a night last year. going to bed at about 0030 and getting up at 0530. I was never the last one asleep in my dorm but I was ALWAYS the first one up. Figured that is natural since I went to bed semi early as opposed to my neighbors. This semester I go to bed between 0200 and 0300 and I'm up by 0800 or 0900. You do the math.

Compared to my roommate I get way less sleep, and the few other people I hang out with I also get alot less sleep. Most of my friends are older and they go to bed earlier and get up about the same time. I know for a fact babies and little kids go to bed earlier. As most of us grew up, we were allowed to stay up progressively later. We would stay up later and later because the maturity level wasn't high enough to kick in yet. As you get older and more mature your bed time starts back down from 0400 to a more reasonable time like 2200.

Here is a graph to illustrate this concept:

Given that college is the 18-25 category on this graph, you have party's and homework. Once this phase passes you have less work to do at home and less of a crazy social life so your sleep pattern will even out.

This graph is just for shits and giggles:

This is fairly self explanatory. When you need to do things, you don't want to, commonly sleep is the culprit and now you must think of an excuse because you are late to work.

You start out wanting alot of sleep in the beginning of your life, and then the same in the end. Like most life patterns, shit gets crazy in the years between 18-25 (college). Why can't everyone just agree to go to bed at 2200 every week night and 2300 on weekends? It would be so much easier for the WORLD the next morning.

Even the Desert Gets Cold!

So as I was blazing across the internet reading various articles and such, I came across a article about some animals in a Zoo in Japan. It was a very short article and contained a picture.

The article of only a few words said something about how furry animals get cold too (who knew?). This article got me thinking, "What do the other animals think about the cold?" I'm sure the first time a Lion has it's first winter in a Zoo it's probably thinking "What the hell is going on?" I'm sure it would love some blankets or space heaters, especially if it was in the cage next to these lucky little guys.

    

Lemurs in front of a electric heater.

So what about all the birds and other animals that are on the Eastern Sea Board of the US. I can imagine they don't like the cold to much. Just think of all the little pairs of eyes out there looking in windows at Humans sitting by a fire under a blanket. They must hate us and our opposable thumbs. Or our fire making ability. Maybe this is why birds always poop on our cars right after we wash them, the birds just want to get back at us for being warmer then they are.

What about the animals in the desert. The temperature was  25F last night. All my neighbors were covering their beloved trees and bushes to prevent them from freezing. I was a bird I would somehow sneak into an attic or hide under one of these covered bushes to sit out the night. Not only would it provide me with great warmth it also has super protection from any predators that would brave the cold night to come find me.

I think I personally will turn on a little electric heater for any poor animal that gets caught out in the cold. Can't hurt to help the environment any way possible. I could also then use my monthly electric bill as a tax write-off, I would call it "The preservation of endangered species." Sounds like a perfect plan to me!