Parade of Surfdog

Below is the “Parade of Surfdog”.. a history of cars that held the SURFDOG license plates. I got the SURFDOG plates 13 years ago. It was a tribute to Surfdog Records, a small surf and rock label out of Encinitas, CA. I was a big fan (and still am) of artists such as Gary Hoey and Sprung Monkey and among others. I was lucky enough to speak to Dave Kaplan, owner of Surfdog Records, as he came across my website once. It just happened to be about using images and copyrights. My website was just about me and interests, etc etc many years back but since I used some of their logos they asked I remove them, which I did. Though he let me keep one and link it to their site. He then sent me a few cds and Surfdog Records stuff, and tickets to a Gary Hoey show in Milwaukee and as well as the House of Blues in Chicago. I met Hoey a few times too over these years. It was pretty cool of them. He asked me about music and my thoughts on the new Hoey cd as well as some random stuff. Very cool down to earth guy, and a big surfer I hear.

So back in the day, I wanted a personalized plate for my car, and was considering DRMTHTR for the band Dream Theater, but I wasn’t really sold on it (even though I am a Dream Theater freak). So I thought SURFDOG and it sounds cool too. Didn’t mean much other than the music on the label, but it eventually stuck as a nickname by my many ExecPC co-workers. Thirteen years later I decided it was time to change it up again. No one really called me Surfdog or Surfie that often, sometimes but not enough to justify it anymore. So I decided to maybe get the endangered resources/wolf plates (that I almost got instead of the SURFDOG plates) but then I saw the costs…it was like $50 more than the normal plates. So it turns out they started the new Milwaukee Brewer plates this year. Perfect timing! So here’s all the cars that had the SURFDOG plates… (the 1992 Vigor was faked as I can’t find a picture of it when it had the plates on)

Medicated America (Part VII)

Here’s a new good read for everyone… “Emperor’s New Drug”: The myth of anti-depressants by Irving Kirsch, Ph.D.

Kirsch analyzed data from numerous clinical studies on antidepressants and said he was surprised to discover that “75 percent of the response to the drugs appears to be a placebo effect.” According to Kirsch, patients improved mostly because they believed they were taking a medication that would help them with depression. He went so far as to say that the figure could be as high as 82 percent, with the remaining ‘drug difference’ accounted for by enhanced placebo effect.

And not only are antidepressants an ineffective pharmaceutical treatment for depression, Kirsch pointed out that they come with a host of negative side effects, including insomnia, sexual dysfunction, and increased risk of suicide in children and young adults. Kirsch suggested alternative treatments for depression, such as physical exercise (shown clinically to help people get better) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which boasts effectiveness comparable to antidepressants. Patients treated with CBT are less likely to relapse, he added. Kirsch also advised people currently taking depression medication to continue if it was working for them. quoted from CoastToCoastAM

Fishing

Fishing season is almost here… time to get up early, grab the coffee and bait… I had a dream the other night that my Grandfather who passed away in 1992 was getting ready to go fishing with us. You wonder if there’s every a connection when you dream and these people are communicating, and if not, well we’d like to think so.

Snowstorm from space

Last week the East Coast had a terrible snowstorm. Here’s an image from outer space of it.

Fight the glitter card!

Glitter cards are everywhere. You go to any store and everything has to have glitter these days! I mean you can’t even go and buy a card in the same row or above/below because the glitter spreads! It attaches to everything! Then the stuff that falls to the floor collects on your shoes, and then all the sudden your infection every public place with glitter! They need a quarantine section of non-glitter cards like a non-smoking section…….

I think we need to assemble a team called “Fight the Glitter” and register a website. We could have fund raisers, runs, events…. Even brochures talking about how glitter DOES kill dolphins! Little dolphins!!! Who is with me?!?!

FIGHT THE GLITTER!

Bob Dylan: Must be Santa

I have to say, this is not as bad as it appears. It’s funny, catchy, and Bob Dylan has a Santa hat on!

Up and running…

For those of you who view this site, you have seen the “upgrading” page for the past two months.. I had to re-install my wordpress files.  All is back minus a few images I lost accidentally, so some posts might not show them.  Few new things in the past couple months…

I recently got married, it was a fantastic wedding. My wife planned such a good wedding.  And I say she, because she worked so hard at it for at least a year.  I had some input but it wasn’t nearly what she put into it.  She found the perfect place for a cake, Rochester Deli.  If you have never been there, it is really good.  Chef Dan makes a fantastic ribbon torte.  I don’t think we could ask for anything else in the cake.  Jen also found our photographer, Kim B. Anderson at KB Image Photography. Kim has an amazing award winning portfolio.. She specializes in those awesome spontaneous shots, not those pose shots you usually see.  I cannot wait to see the photos when they come out any day now.  We were married at St. Marks Lutheran Church in Waukesha, and had a great private ceremony.  Pastor Jim is a great person, and really did a great ceremony.

We went to Bristlecone Pines for the reception.  This used to be a public restaurant but now its private.  Receptions are still public from what I understand… If you need someone to run your show, Deb is the person.  She is unbelievable.  She was involved in EVERYTHING and was there to serve “our” needs, not to their rules.  DJ D (aka Kevin “Darkwave”) ran our music show.  We ran a laptop to a rented PA system.  We did NOT want the usual wedding music you hear at receptions.  We don’t dance, and we ended up playing (to the crowds delight) a great mix of rock (current and classic), soul, pop, and alternative music.  I think it was exactly what we were looking for.

From there it was off to Maui! Maui is an amazing place. I’m not saying that from just a warm tropical place to visit.  The people are so relaxed and pleasant.  Sure they live in paradise, but seriously these people live life how it should be live.  If people could adapt their philosophy and put it in their own environment no matter where in the world it is, people would have such better lives.  I swam in the ocean every day I could.  It was so relaxing to lay there and see mountains in the background and see the sunset come in each night.  I was stung by a man-of-war (Physalia) though.  It is one of the dangers they warn you about.  It just so happened that tropical storms were bringing that stuff closer to shore and odds were I got hit.  My leg was not too bad.  I had a lot of lines and marks from its tentacles, but did not affect my vacation.

The airplane ride is quite the bear… 7-8hrs being cramped in a plane isn’t a joyride but it is worth it for the journey to the islands.  I’d do it all over again.  We had a fantastic resort, The Royal Lahaina.  The staff is incredibly nice.  They greet you with a “welcome home” when you return to the resort and drive past the check in booth.  And it was sincere too.  It wasn’t like “welcome back drive up” … they look at you and actually “welcome” you with kindness. I’m glad Jen chose this resort, I’d go back again if we stayed on Maui again.  Anyhow we left the 80’s and came back to the 50’s.  We had a great number of friends and family helping us out at home while we were gone, incredible people…

Here it is a month later from being back from Maui about and I’m looking out the window at rain and 40 some degrees.  It’s almost time for Thanksgiving…how the year is wrapping up so fast…

People of Walmart

I have to thank my old classmate Amy for posting this to Facebook. This is truly a great site!

http://peopleofwalmart.com

Introducing Tommy

Below are pics of the cat, Tommy. Tommy was adopted almost two weeks ago from HAWS in Waukesha. He is a 12 year old male tabby. It is kinda funny how his name is Tommy, as it completely reminds me of Chris Farley – “Fat cat in a little coat”. He’s a sweet furball, and soon will have the run of the house along with Milton. More stories to come..

Bing challenges Google (and that Yahoo thing too)

Bing is the new search engine from Microsoft (formerly LiveSearch). It has gone live in a preview format on www.bing.com. Google has been the dominant search engine for many years now, offering stripped down graphics and fast results. Yahoo on the other hand gives you a busy, congested looking page. I’ve always been turned off by Yahoo and its search page. (Does anyone even use Yahoo search anymore?) Bing offers some things Yahoo does, like travel and hotel cost results in searches where Google does not. Bing also apparently has a great health and symptom related search where Google steers you more towards their GoogleHealth service. Both Bing and Google appear to have good satellite images for maps, but I think Google still wins that one with Street View. I so far like the sidebar of Bing but I have not used it too much overall yet and need further thoughts on it. Don’t expect me to say “Bing It” though… I’m going to start using Bing for fun and see how it goes. Maybe it’ll be more efficient than Google, but we’ll see. This is Microsoft remember!

PC World did a recent Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo and gives their results here.