I’ve blogged on here a number of times about some of my experiences here in the US. Some good. Some bad. Some neither here nor there. Just yesterday, I was sitting at lunch with a friend and he asked me something that I’ve never really stopped to consider before. He said something to the effect of “Do you think about how things might have been had you not met and married Jennifer?”. Continue reading
It’s been quite some time since my last post, but much has happened in that time. By far the biggest news is Lilyana is now a year old and walking around, making life a whole lot more difficult for Jennifer and I. Unfortunately, she has inherited our penchant for wanting to examine everything we come across, only to discard once its use has been filled. I swear she moves from one thing to the next so quickly, it’s hard for us to keep up with her. We’re constantly taking stuff off her, only to have her fix her gaze on something else. She certainly wears my patience thin at times, but I’m trying to learn how to be more patient, at least with her and Jennifer. Only Jennifer can tell you how well I’m faring in that pursuit. Continue reading
Over the last month or so, work has been pretty good for me. I’ve managed to get through a couple of reasonable projects, one is about to wrap up and I’m currently working on an ASP.NET based Facebook application, which is new to me. Admittedly, the application isn’t really a stretch because I’m pretty much dumping a Flash application in to a Facebook canvas and doing a few simple database updates, but it’s still a chance to get a better handle on ASP.NET and the .NET framework as a whole. Continue reading
It’s been very interesting entering the US and being exposed to the US at the organic level, ie. experiencing what US citizens experience first hand, rather than looking at it from the outside. Now, New Zealand has its fair share of racial tension. Almost 200 years after the fact, many Maori still feel robbed and deceived by the colonialists and settlers that arrived in the early 1800′s and promptly stole land from them. There are a considerable number of parallels between the the early history of New Zealand and the early history of the continental US. In both case, the aboriginal peoples were displaced by invading foreigners and land was stolen and sold to yet more foreigners. Continue reading
This last week was an absolutely miserable effort on my part. After weeks of staying in close to 600, I finished this week with a measley 504. I was having problems get any kind of reaction out of my ball. I think I need to get it resurfaced again. I need to start taking real care of my equipment to make sure I get decent mileage out of all my equipment. At the end of the game, I switched to my Twisted Fury and sure enough I was getting a better, more consistent reaction out of it. The Arch Rival was my first ball and as such has had a lot more games put on it. Having said that, I think I need to rough the surface up a little on my Twisted Fury to get a more movement out of it. Continue reading
After working in the web development industry for the last 6 years or so, dealing with older browsers that lack decent support for CSS and Javascript is something I face and deal with on a near-daily basis. Why near-daily? Well, I do a lot of Server side development which tends to be browser agnostic.
Dealing with older browsers is a problem that MUST be solved, or handled, one way or the other. Some solutions are more involved than others and some solutions will not be accessible under certain situations. One option that I think gets ignored all too often, is the possibility that older browsers simply get a different experience, visually and behaviorally. Continue reading
This week was about the same as the three that came before it for me. I am still yet to break the 600 barrier, which is REALLY frustrating, because I’m not far off of it. In fact it’s been a matter of just a single missed spare in one or two games. This week it was a matter of three missed spares in the last game. But, I digress. Continue reading
At the grand old age of 47 weeks, 2 day, 2 hours and some 17 minutes or so (ie. at about 4.29pm, May 19, 2009) Lilyana took her first unaided steps. We’ve been waiting for her to take her first steps for a few months now, because she’s been able to pull herself up on stuff and walk around leaning on stuff for about 2 or 3 months.
We were just sitting down in the lounge, eating when Cindy decided to put her on the floor about 2 feet from the coffee table and where she would usually just sit down and crawl to the table, she took the 4 steps required to reach the table instead. I’ve got to say it kinda took us by surprise, so we made her do it again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Needless to say, it wasn’t and she repeated the feat with ease. I guess it’s time to start putting everything that can be reached by a 2’7″ toddler up out of reach.
A few weeks ago, Jennifer started giving me grief about my arm swing, because at the top of the swing my hand turns completely out, meaning my palm is perpendicular to the floor. Now, I don’t know when this started, but I know it’s a result my trying to learn the more dynamic release that is utilised by the pros.
After much reading and hours of video viewing, I learned that the pros do three relatively simple things that simplifies their game, increases their accuracy and increases their power at the pins:
Now, item three is really something that the power players use and is in fact a major source of their power, but I will explain that in more detail later. Continue reading
Week three of the Summer League ’09 at Fugate’s Bowl-a-rama in Hazard, KY was a good one, if I do say so myself. My team is by far and away the best team in the league. We currently hold three of the top four averages (yes, I’m the fourth highest average), which doesn’t mean a whole lot, considering we’re only three weeks in to season, but its a great way to start. Three weeks, three wins, all clean sweeps. It’s a great feeling knowing that I’m not dead weight as well. I might not be bowling 600′s, but I’m there and there abouts. I need to make a few simple adjustments to my game and I’ll be getting the 600′s before you know it. Continue reading
