The Hadron Collider -- the most powerful atom smasher ever built -- is due to go on-line soon. It could herald a whole new era for physics. Read the full story here.

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. The hope is that they'll be able to discover or learn about phenomenon such as extra dimensions, dark matter, and higgs-boson particles.

Other things it might do:

• Open a portal to another world and spill extra dimensional horrors into ours. H.P. Lovecraft was right! Argh!
• Create a black hole that devours the earth, or sucks it up and spits it into Hell, or something like that. 
• Blow up the earth in a catastrophic nuclear-magnetic explosion-storm, and begin a new apocalyptic era of mutants and zombies.
• Make everyone sterile.

The possibilities are endless!  

Today was good. The heat didn't completely incinerate my house, thanks to a nice breeze and lots of windows in the top level of the house (where we tend to spend the most time).

Other miscellaneous tidbits:

• My Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class was packed and we all had a great workout.
• My oldest son did very well in his gym class. I think this class will be better for him. It's much smaller (summer time attrition) and earlier in the day so he'll be more focused and less tired.
• Got some stuff done around the house: put away some laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, made dinner/dessert for everyone, and got the kids all showered and to bed at a reasonable hour.

And after I finish getting the kids to bed, I'll maybe watch some TV, relax, play a game, read a book, or otherwise just relax for a bit tonight. :)

The Supreme court upheld the legality of the death penalty today because it's totally badass.

Watch the full Video Report.

I've been continuing to plug away at making home movies. I keep finding minor problems in the discs I've made, correcting them, and then re-burning the discs.

Hopefully I'm on the "gold" versions of the discs now, because just encoding the damn disc takes upwards of 1/2 hour -- and I've got to make like 15 copies (roughly 4-5 per disc for various family members).

It's a beautiful Friday. I got the house all vacuumed yesterday, cleaned the kitchen to the point where it's probably the cleanest it has been in a month, and I cleaned up the boys room a good bit. On top of getting my little 'home movie' project done, I'm feeling pretty good about this week.

I just knocked back my first cup of coffee and read The Amazing Randi's Blog and some movie reviews (two things I always enjoy on Fridays). Looks like Wall-E is a winner (no surprises there) so we'll probably be taking the kids to see it soon.

Virtual tumbleweeds are rolling through my work inbox. Looks to be a beautiful, slow Friday work-wise.

And I get to wrap it all up with an hour of getting my ass beat down in my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class tonight. Woohoo!

In the 4+ years that we've had kids, we've amassed a huge number of short, digital videos, and a ginormous number of still pictures as well.

When you have kids, you take a lot of pictures. A lot. 

Those video and picture archives have been piling up in the digital equivalent of the proverbial Closet of Accumulation -- that closet that continually you continually stuff crap into, but never clean out.

Well, I finally started weeding through about four years worth of videos and managed to burn them into DVD compilations. It took 3 DVD's (and about 8-10 hours of work on my part) to organize all our videos, but we finally have DVDs we can give out to our family members --  and keep for ourselves to embarrass the kids with later in life.

In all honesty, it feels really good to have accomplished this, and it was actually kind of fun using the Windows Movie Maker software -- my first foray into making my own videos.

And of course, it's also fun to watch the videos of the kids when they were much younger. It's amazing to see how much kids change in so short a time.

Work has been slow so I've been getting some stuff done around the house today:

• Scrubbed and cleaned out the hot tub and replaced the filter. Now I can fill it and treat the water for some hot-tubbery goodness...
• Did some laundry (now I have to put it away... ugh)
• Leveled off some bricks in our landscaping. Lots more to do.
• Picked up a few groceries at Costco.
• Tried to take my car in for its emissions test, but they couldn't do the test. Apparently the engine diagnostics get cleared when you have repairs, and you need to put some more miles on the car before doing the emissions test (I just had maintenance and repairs done less than a week ago). Guess I have to try again next week.

OK, I'm now on Facebook. I've been avoiding social sites for the most part, but my wife named off dozens of folks getting in touch with her -- mostly ex- Sierra alumni from the 'Golden Days' at Sierra On-Line.

Anyway, I created a facebook profile now, where I've placed contact info and a link to this blog (I didn't really want to upload all my family/kid photos to yet another site).

Daddy Spoils His Kids Some More...

Last night, on a lark, I went to Toys R' Us. What can I say? I just felt like picking up some toys for the kids.

• I bought Katsuya (my 2-year old) an Abomination figure so he could battle his Hulk figure (a favorite of his as of late). This morning, Katsuya came downstairs after he woke up, Abomination and Hulk already in his hands.

He can even say "Abomination" -- it comes out like 'Abom-ayshun.'

• I bought Kazu (my 4-year old) an anatomoy model of the human body.

OK, before you go "Lame!", you have to understand Kazu a bit. :) He's a mechanic/engineer at heart, and extremely curious about things. Lately, he's been fascinated by bones, muscles, and anatomy in general. He wants to know how everything works, and he loves to take stuff apart. He has virtually ZERO interest in action figures, unfortunately, which makes him much harder to buy for sometimes.

Katsuya is stomping around the house making hulk noises and "monster walking" as we call it. He often starts the day like that. :)

Just read the George Carlin died of heart failure at the age of 71.

I'm bummed. I always liked his work. He was very funny and very smart.

I plan to vote for Obama. I like him. But I'm not a hard line democrat or anything else.

Admittedly, my financial sensibilities tend to lean more Republican -- but because Republicans tend to side heavily with uneducated, idiot, gun-toting bible-thumpers, I'd be unlikely to ever vote for one).

That said, here is a funny/tragic video of John McCain and his own inability to be consistent on his message.

I had to drop my car off at the local Precision Tune for maintenance. Afterwards, as I was walking home (it's about a 30 minute walk or so back to my house), I  passed an elderly couple.

They were standing in their driveway by a U-Haul pickup. They  had a dolly loaded with an old water heater that they must have just moved. They seemed to be pondering how to get the water heater into the truck.  

I walked back and asked if they needed some help, which they did and gratefully accepted. I quickly and easily helped them lift the water heater into the truck.

No sense in having a strong body if I can't occasionally put it to good use. =)

Watching my kids play is truly entertaining. Last night my two-year-old waged an epic battle with a diverse array of action figures and toys.

First, the Hulk battled my Warcraft Orc, punching and kicking each other across the the landscape (our bed) with mighty battle cries.

Then about four large dinosaurs--an Allosaurus, two Styracosaurs, and a Dimetredon -- engaged in a battle royale. The Allosaurus leapt on top of the Styracosaurus and then the Dimetredon.

No to be out done, the Styracosaurus jumped on top of the Allosaurus. I don't remember if the Dimetredon displayed any jumping skills.

Oh, and a large purple dragon with four wing entered the fray. I asked my son what the dragon was doing.

"He's goin' ta bite everyone."

Then a giant snake slithered into the scene and started slithering around the bed, hissing.

I don't remember how it all ended, but it was a massive, epic battle to be sure.

I find it interesting that my anti-Chung Moo Doe/Oom Yung Doe blog list generates more hits (if only a small handful) than anything else. My site's list is even linked to in the Wikipedia entry for Chung Moo Doe. (Woohoo! I'm fay-moose!)

I write this blog mainly for myself and for any interested friends and family members. I never intended to use it as a devoted Anti-Moo platform.

But I do hate to see prospective martial arts students get steered into bad schools -- particularly schools that teach and sell garbage for as much money as possible.

Any school that is constantly up-selling you on more expensive programs, special "equipment" that only they sell, seminars, camps, etc. is a school to be avoided -- and Chung Moo schools are famous for these tactics (though they aren't the only schools that use them).

See this news story from 2005 -- proof that Chung Moo / Oom Yung Doe schools may have changed their cult-like ways, but they haven't changed their business tactics. One of my favorite excerpts from the story in the link above:

Vincent says he regrets paying the school $50 for two punching pouches said to contain "rare and unique Asian herbs."

"We were told that these are secret recipes," he said. "As you would sweat, these herbs were supposed to rid you of toxins."

At the natural health University, Bastyr, we asked the dean of the School of Oriental Medicine, Steve Given, and the manager of the Chinese Herb Dispensary, Allen Sayigh, what's in the mysterious bags?

"These look like soybeans, these look like black soy beans," Sayigh said after looking at the contents.

Their conclusion: Students were paying $50 for ordinary bags of beans.

Not only is this a disservice to the student, but it's an affront to those of us who have spent decades studying quality traditional and modern martial arts at good schools.

Hence I devoted some space to help spread the word to potential martial arts students: avoid Chung Moo Doe / Oom Yung Doe at all costs!

They aren't the only schools I would deter students from, but they are probably among the worst, if not THE worst.

Others I'd recommend avoiding: Temple Kung-Fu (generally Fake-Fu founded by a proven liar and a fraud), and United Studios of Self Defense (expensive 'corporate' McFranchises).

Just got my 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons books delivered. Very cool! I look forward to spending some time by the fire place reading them.

Somehow, it seems a bit weird double-posting on the heel of my last post.

• First, I reported the glee of getting my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
• Then I reported the glee of getting my new D&D books delivered.  

Is this some sort of weird oxymoron of a sort? :)

I was surprised to receive my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu today.

It was very, um, out of the blue -- but yay!

I suspect it won't do much to stave off the weekly beatings I get courtesy of my more highly skilled classmates. But it still feels good (the belt -- not the beatings.)

My long time friend Paul and his wife Kendra had their baby girl just a couple days ago. Another nerdling has come into the world. Congratz Paul!

My own 2-year old (Katsuya) woke up this morning and started stomping around the house doing what I call "monster walking". He was monster walking and growling/roaring. Guess he just felt like being a monster (or possibly The Hulk; it's not always clear) this morning.

I'm always truly amazed at how imaginative Katsuya is. He pretends to be monsters, and just this morning pretended to take my nose off and put it in my pocket (which he explained to me as he did it). He pretends to be superheroes and monsters, and he also pretends to cook sometimes.

He also talks in full sentences, and has for a long time, which makes it doubly cute when he does these things and explains to you what he's doing. (He's much more verbally advanced than Kazu was at the same age -- possibly because he has an older brother to mimic.)

Kazu and Katsuya sometimes seem like divergent strains of nerdling DNA:

• Katsuya loves monsters, robots, dinosaurs, and is very imaginative.
• Kazu loves mechanical things, machines, doing things with his hands (music), and seems to have a general orientation to science/engineering.

Of course, both of my boys are utterly brilliant. Well, I think so anyway. =)

• After last week's harrowing ordeal with Kazu's intussusception (see previous blog entry), I can happily report that he is now home, happy, and healthy. He seems 100% better now. Whew!
  

• My wife's birthday was yesterday. We celebrated with sushi, cake, and shiny, sparkly gifts. My initial "primary" (read: most expensive) gift sucked, so she returned it and we picked out something else that she liked.