Watch the full episode. See more The Buddha.

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
–Albert Einstein

I had a lot of fun doing this little project. You can check out the step by step instructions here.

The ultimate gift for a geek in training!

P.S. I secretly installed Python on it when no one was looking; just in case she gets bored with Webkinz.

{Christmas Tree Cluster}

Donovan’s gonna be pissed!!

P.S. I’m using the neighbors Wi-Fi. Shh, don’t tell.

Here is a clip from one of the most obnoxious parades in America. It’s absolutely fantastic.

This goes on for about half an hour and includes fire trucks from dozens of towns. The video really doesn’t do it any justice at all. It could be the loudest single event I’ve ever been a part of — and I go back year after year for more.

Hope every one has a great and safe 4th of July.

Needless to say, I did what every other true American would do. I sped up to see how long he could hang on! It wasn’t that long. — Alright, relax! I pulled over and let him off. I almost killed us both while taking that picture though. They say not to talk on a cell phone while driving, but I’ve never heard anyone say “don’t turn around and take a picture of a frog on your rear window while traveling 70 miles per hour” (that’s 112.65 Km/h for you metric lovers).

Personally, I just think she spikes his oatmeal.

This was taken last night.

/sigh

Oh well, back to reality. Gotta love New England.

The dream began with me coming out of a big ol’ church and making my way to the church parking lot to get into my Jeep. When I got there, I found that my Jeep had been stripped of all valuable parts (rims, running boards, lights, etc…) I was furious. I was so mad in fact, that it woke me out of a dead sleep. I was sitting in bed, wide awake for a good minute just fuming. It felt so real.

Here’s the funny thing, I don’t even own a jeep. I have no desire to own a jeep. Still, the dream was so realistic that when I woke up, I had to convince myself that I didn’t own a Jeep. I remember saying to myself, “I just bought that damn thing!” After my head cleared and I realized it was just a dream I had to chuckle. I felt so stupid.

I’ve had strange and realistic dreams before, but none that have evoked such emotions. I’m sitting at my desk now and I’d still like to get my hands on those sleazy Jeep wrecking bastards.

I had never heard of this musical before. Most likely because I generally don’t like musicals, never mind musicals that are performed by high school students. I really didn’t know what to expect. We arrived at the high school around one o’clock, went in, bought our tickets, and sat down. I want to mention that this was one of the nicest high school auditoriums I had ever been in. It had true stadium seating with tons of leg room. Lots of leg room is nice for someone who is 6′ 2″. And of course, the stadium seating is nice for the person who has to sit behind someone who is 6′ 2″. The acoustics and lighting were decent as well.

The actors, consisting of freshmans, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, were fantastic. They were confident, funny,… just fantastic. The music was so much fun too. You couldn’t help but tap your feet. And the voices that came out of these kids — American Idol quality. True, I may be a little more forgiving than Simon Cowell, but they were amazing just the same.

The musical itself is a mash-up of classic Dr. Seuss stories and characters, woven together to create a heartwarming and genuinely enjoyable experience. Okay, stop laughing at me, I know this is a bit out of character for me to be praising a musical starring characters like the Cat in the Hat and Horton the Elephant, but that just goes to show what a positive impact this play and its cast membershad on me. I stress cast members, because I honestly don’t know what my take would be on this musical if it were in the hands of another cast. Like I said, they were fantastic.

Great job guys!

Including my daughter who has had a sudden interest in babies over the last year or so. She’s already asking when she can babysit.

In unrelated Christmas news, Cameron got the Lego Star Wars ships she asked for. The first one she got was Slave 1 (Boba Fett’s ship – duh, obviously) and the second one was the ever impressive Star Destroyer. She must have been good this year because Santa thought it was appropriate to spoil her rotten. — She really is a good kid though.

The first set (Slave 1) has 537 pieces in it and took me over 5 hours to put together. The Star Destroyer has almost 1400 pieces in it. I haven’t even opened the box yet because, quite frankly, I’m scared. I predict it will take me the entire month of January to put that sucker together. Maybe even half of February too. But it should be fun, right? Lol, of course it will be.

In case I don’t post in the next couple of days, have a great New Year everybody. I have a good feeling about 2007… (famous last words?)

I wore a tee-shirt to work yesterday.

I love New England.

The cruise was a blast and Bermuda is absolutely gorgeous. There’s more than just beauty there though, it’s an extremely fascinating country. Did you know that Bermuda has the highest per capita income in the world? Over 50% higher than that of the U.S.A. It shows too. Middle school kids were walking around with laptops and PDA’s. But enough about that.

The food on the cruise was incredible. I seriously gained 5 pounds last week. Gourmet breakfast, gourmet lunches, and gourmet dinners everyday. If you wanted to skip the restaurant scene, they also offered buffets on the top deck three times a day. On the back of the boat they had a 24 hour grill that served hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, pizza, and fries. The fries were fabulous; and they were even better at 3 in the morning. I’m not sure why. They had a chocolate buffet Friday night from 11:00 to midnight. I’m not a chocoholic by any means, but this set up would have impressed anyone. And of course there was 24 hour room service which we took full advantage of. So, in short, the food was great! The drinks were even better. We were drinking Bloody Marys, Dirty Bananas, Coco Locos, all kinds of foo foo drinks and more buckets of beer than could fit in our state room. Koji and I drank cognac and smoked Cubans on the back deck. That was great.

The first day in Bermuda we all hit the beach at Tobacco Bay. Tobacco Bay has this cool little cove, complete with its very own tiki bar. While we were in Bermuda the weather was close to perfect. On the way back to Boston we ended up hitting the tail end of a storm which kind of kicked the crap out of us. But let’s get back to the good weather. Tobacco Bay was really nice. As I’m sure you’d expect, the water was crystal clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Tropical fish were swimming all around us. That was pretty cool and yet sort of freaky.

Meg and I broke off from the group every now and then and explored the Island. We had lunch in St. George on Tuesday and lunch in Hamilton on Thursday. Both cities are really unique. St. George, where our ship was docked, is a very quaint little city, whereas Hamilton, the capitol of Bermuda, was more of a conventional city. That didn’t take away from its charm, though.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was horseback riding. Meg and I went on an hour and a half guided tour of southern Bermuda all on horseback. My horse kicked ass. He was 1/3 Clydesdale, 1/3 Black Stallion, and 1/3 dragon. They say he was untameable. They say he killed men for fun. He was so fierce that they had to blind fold him so he wouldn’t kill me on site. Behold, the fiercest horse ever to set foot in Bermuda:

His name is Buddy. I think that’s somehow short for The Almighty Horse of Destruction. We bonded. He was much better than Meg’s stupid horse TJ. Who the hell names a horse TJ? But that’s neither here nor there. I enjoyed it so much that I think I’m going to look into horseback riding around here. I might even buy cowboy hat.

TJ,…please!

Wednesday was the wedding. The whole reason for going on the cruise. For me, it was by far the best day of the trip. The actual wedding was beautiful. The wedding dinner was fantastic. And the wedding reception was…. a bit fuzzy.

Koji and Michelle got married at the Grotto Resort which overlooks the ocean. It really was picture perfect. After the ceremony, we went back to the ship for dinner. I’m not exaggerating when I say I had the best piece of steak I’ve ever tasted in my life. I eat a lot of steak mind you. There was an open bar in the disco from 8:00 to 10:00. You’ll have to read about the rest of the night on another blog because I don’t really remember the details. I heard it was fun though.

Koji just emailed me and said that they’re already planning another cruise for next year, this time to the Caribbean. Sign me up! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, cruises are worth every penny. If you ever have a chance to go on one, I would highly recommend it. I plan on taking an Alaskan cruise sometime before I die and I’ll definitely be doing a geek cruise in the foreseeable future. But for now, it’s back to reality. I already miss everyone I went on the cruise with. There’s something about being isolated in the middle of the Atlantic that really brings people together. Or maybe it was the booze. But seriously, we couldn’t have gone with a better group of people. I uploaded over 350 pictures of the cruise, Bermuda, and the wedding to my flickr account. You can check them out here. Enjoy.

TOO THE DISCO!!!

Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pics as the week goes on. I even brought my laptop to do a little writing. That is, of course, assuming that internet access isn’t something ridiculous like $100.00 an hour. In that case….. see you when I get back.