Introducing the MotoMower!

Enjoy another dumb comic... Sorry again.

I just can't help but post this... sorry.

Leslie is so sweet! For my birthday she reserved us a suite at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine and invited some of our good friends to join. Some of our friends also reserved rooms. The place was incredible! I had never been there before and I must say after going: I want to go back! The place is gigantic and the scenery is overwhelming. I definately want to visit some of their other hotels.

We had dinner at the Old Hickory Steakhouse. I'd compare it to Del Frisco's. The food was delicious! I ordered the Lobster Bisque soup and the 8oz Filet topped with Crab Etouffee. The bisque was the best I had ever had. I’ll go back just for that. The steak was good, but I still like Del Frisco’s better. For desert we had the Key Lime Pie! Yum!

After dinner we all went back to our suite for drinks and my gifts. Noël and Freddie bought me a gift card to Comp-USA and a baby bottle filled with Jelly Beans. The card was made out to “Baby Mike.” This of course because I am the youngest of the group (actually not true last night, Neil and Laura are both younger than me). It was pretty funny. They made me drink a glass of red wine from it (gross by the way). Duane and Janet bought me a bottle of Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka (YUM!). Stephanie and Stephen got me a bottle of Meridian Chardonnay and a new Houdini cork screw. Thanks guys! Ya’ll are the best! I had a great time and I really appreciate you all coming! Thanks Leslie for doing this for me, you are AWESOME!

I took some really awesome pictures there too. I'll post them in the Photo Albumn soon.

I just can’t help but post this. A company called Boston Dynamics is working on what they claim to be the most advanced quadraped robot on the planet. I’d have to agree based on what I know about robotics currently in development. This thing is incredible. It acts and even sort of looks like a pack mule. If you kick it, it stumbles, but does not fall.

Click HERE for a video of this thing in action.

Watching this video has made me start researching how the human brain works. As obviously robots are not going to take over the world until you can combine agility and intelligence. We just don’t have the AI programming down yet. The reason why? It seems to be mostly that we are designing AI on today’s computer platforms which are simple not designed for AI. Think about this: If you were trying to design the first car, would you have started with a horse? Much in the same way we need to think outside of the box and develop a whole new computer design specifically for AI. The brain in the human head is made of millions of synapses. Each synapse is capable of holding just a few bits of information. Each synapse is basically a miniature computer. We should work on development of chips that mimic synapses. Your brain doesn’t have a hard disk, RAM, or floating point acceleration processors. No more than your car has a tail.

One of the biggest problems people have is honesty. Now, very few of us think of ourselves as dishonest. Very few of us would consider ourselves "a liar," yet we all know that, at one time or another, we have lied.

I think there are two traps that people find themselves in. The first is that people find themselves not having an honest heart. They simply feel that lying is not an issue. The second is where people do not believe they are lying in the first place - a little white lie.

Where are you? Do you tell little white lies and think it is OK? Or do you tell lies all the time about everything and you just don't think it is wrong? Both of these are potential destructive patterns. Lies catch up with you every single time! Do you find yourself building more lies each time to cover previous lies you've told? If so, you're headed for a world of heartache! I've come to the point in life where I have decided that all lies are wrong, even those little white lies. Let's look at an example. You are driving down the street and your son asks you “Dad can we stop at xyz store and buy abc toy?” You say “Son, I don’t have any money on me.” The truth is, you wallet is full of cash and credit cards. What have you taught your child? At best nothing. At worst he will see you open your wallet at the next destination and see that you did have money. You’ve just taught your child that lying is acceptable!

So ask yourself about little lies that you have told. Ask yourself why you have told them. Was it actually easier? I doubt it. With the toy example above why not just say “Son, you already have plenty of toys and you don’t need this one.” Or say “Son, we don’t have time to stop.” Or say “Son, if you are really good and save up your allowance we can come back one day next week.” Whatever the real truth is in you instance. When you do this you are instilling multiple core values into your children. First, you are teaching your children through example that you are an honest and good person. Second, you are teaching your children that there are good non-selfish reasons for the decisions that you make. Remember, even though when they are teenagers and won’t admit it, most of your child’s core values and morals are learned from your example. They want to be like you.

Now if you are on the other end of the spectrum and you don’t believe it is wrong to lie then I challenge you to re-evaluate your belief. Does it bother you when people lie to you? If it does then why do you do it to others? Does it cause you to lose friendships or relationships? Does it cause you to change jobs often? Does it keep your children from believing in you?

I would wager that if you are one of these people that lying is just the tip of the iceberg. I find generally that people who lie habitually do so because they are hiding much deeper moral issues. Theft, fraud, or other self serving agendas. These people feel like they can’t become honest people for fear of the rest of the world finding out about all of the other things they are dishonest with. So the spiral continues. More and larger lies must be fabricated to keep the previous lies in check. Eventually, these people reach a point where everyone knows they are dishonest, everyone sees through their lies. However, the person has gone so far down this path they have begin lying to themselves. Sometimes they are not sure if they even remember what the truth really was in the first place. These people are in serious need of help. If you are one of these people, please seek help. Your life can be so much more fulfilled with truth and honesty. I promise you will find that once you start down the path of honesty you will be happier in all areas of your life. The brokenness of friendships will be restored. You will truly be able to experience happiness.

I leave you with this: HE WAS A MURDERER FROM THE BEGINNING, AND ABODE NOT IN THE TRUTH, BECAUSE THERE IS NO TRUTH IN HIM. WHEN HE SPEAKETH A LIE, HE SPEAKETH OF HIS OWN: FOR HE IS A LIAR, AND THE FATHER OF IT. AND BECAUSE I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, YE BELIEVE ME NOT. - John 8:44-45

• Death is hereditary.
• The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.
• Smoking is a dying art.
• The trouble with being the best man at a wedding is that you never get to prove it.
• All things being equal, fat people use more soap.
• No amount of advance planning will ever replace dumb luck.
• When you hear someone uttering Uh-Oh while flushing the toilet, it is already too late.

Technology owns me. I love it. I hate it.

Technology pays my bills. You know why? Because it doesn't work. It fails. The best technolgy on the planet requires people to keep it working. If the stuff just worked I and many people in my profession would be unemployed. That guy at Geek Squad wouldn't make any money because your home PC would never break. Servers would always be up. Telecom and Internet connections would never go down. Yes, as advanced as our technology is becoming it still needs humans to fix it and maintain it.

So here is the delima. When we advance our technology to the point it fixes itself it will no longer need us. It will become self aware and it will evolve on its own. Next thing you know Mr. Terminator will be knocking on your door.

So I ask: Is it better for it to break and be unreliable, to be dependant on us? Or is it better to evolve it to where it so rock solid and reliable it doesn't need us anymore? I for one welcome our new terminator overlords. Maybe I can finally get some long needed rest and relaxation. That is if that new EMC Terminator 4000 doesn't put an implant in my head and turn me into a battery in a Matrix farm.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we … we are the cure." - Agent Smith, The Matrix

Amish life isn't sounding too bad these days.