When we found Puska at the Pet Rescue Center in PetSmart she was by far the cutest and tamest kitty in the place.  When I picked her up the lady behind the counter said "That's a Russian Blue kitty.  They are adorable."  So we took her home and immediately named her Puska because it sounded Russian.

Fast forward about three years.  I'm searching around on the Internet for Russian Blue information I quickly discovered that she was NOT a Russian Blue after all.  In fact, other than color she doesn't even look similar.  After a little looking around at blue cat pictures it was immediately obvious that she is a Chartreux.  A cat breed from France.  In fact, when I first saw the picture on Wikipedia (see pic on left) I would have swore they took pictures of Puska for the site!

Check out this page for more information on Chartruex kittys.  From the site "They prefer to be nearby, preferably getting their jowls scratched and giving loving head-bumps to their owners! They will follow you everywhere, comfort you when you are sad or ill, and prefer to sleep with you or on top of you. Their supportive, cheerful presence can be wonderful for elderly people and people living alone."  That's Puska!  And "Chartreux may need to be switched to a "light" cat food so that they do not become overweight. "  That's Puska too!

Anyway, the most amazing thing on the whole site: "Chartreux sold as pets usually cost $400-550."  Holy Cow!  My kitty is expensive.  She's going to want some of that gourmet cat food.  Shhhh!  Don't tell her.  I buy the cheap target brand stuff.

So we all know how drug dealers work right?  No, not that I've ever been to one, but I've seen plenty of them in movies.  They offer you some free samples to get you hooked.  That way when you need more, they know you'll come back to them.

Welcome to the 10-Day FREE Trial of Blizzard's World of Warcraft (WoW).  I am a moron.  I know it.  I've spent the last year telling people "No.  I am not going to install that game.  The second I do I will be addicted."  It's the same thing that happens when you use someone's iPhone for 10 minutes.  You're down at AT&T buying one.

World of Warcraft is so addicting in fact that I installed it on Thursday night and then spent hours on end over the weekend playing it.  The game is absoultely amazing and there is no way you can truly grasp the depth of it without trying it.  See these screenshots below to get an idea of how the game looks.

With World of Warcrack you are playing on a server that at anyone time most likely has 30,000 other people on with you.  There are over 9.3 million WoW players all over the world.  There are two planets in WoW.  I've only been on one and it contains 2 continents.  Each continent is broken up into smaller areas and cities similar to how North America is broken up into countries, states, and cities. I'm going to say it would be pretty much impossible to ever see the whole game map. It's just way to big.  Plus, when you consider that Blizzard is continually adding stuff and changing things you most likely couldn't catch up with them anyway.

As I've been playing the game I realized, its the Matrix.  Seriously, its a prison of lovely crack for your mind.   You can get a profession and then sell things you make.  You can learn how to skin wolves and make their coats in clothing.  You can then sell said clothing to other players or to vendors within the game.  You can ride horses, fly winged creatures, enter dungeons and cities.

But lets talk about what really sets this game apart from Doom or Halo or any of those other First Person games.  It's the fact that 30,000 people are on the game with you at all times of the day and night. (Did I mention the game has a world clock, sunrise, sunset, rain, snow, etc?)  You can interact with these players, sell them items, trade stuff, etc.  You can go on quests with them and adventure together.  When you need help defeating a monster?  Find another player to help you.  Or of course, you can go to the enemy players and fight them (outside of the safe zones of your city).

Let's talk for a minute about quests!  Quests are given to you by computer controlled characters all over the world.  You can choose to accept or decline any quest.  Quests range from exploration, to killing a group of monsters, to delivering an item to another city.  Quests are what really make WoW fun for me.  For each quest you go on you get a reward of money/items/experience/etc.  You get a new more powerful spell, or weapon.  Or you might get a new article of clothing.  Speaking of clothing, you can dress your character anyway you want by purchasing clothes or winning them in quests or battles.  There is even a dressing room where your character can strip down to his/her undies and change clothes.  Funny!

I'm telling you.  No matter how much anyone asks you to try this game, DO NOT DO IT.  You'll get addicted and your wife will become a WoW widow.  It's not worth it.  Just delete those install files now.  Oh.  And I have even scratched the surface of how complex and interactive this game is... yet.

I've started a whole new section on Saving Electricity.  It's become a new hobby of mine.  Check it out!

Check out this video of a Watauga DPS running down a fleeing suspect on a motorcycle.  This is about 2 miles from where we live.

Since I was a teenager I've always known I have some form of mild color blindness.  I've never really taken the time to do much research on it.  I've known several people who were completely color blind and they were unable to tell the difference between a red light and a green light.  I on the other hand can see every color in the spectrum.  You put a red, green or blue marker in front of me and I can easily tell you which is which.  So it has always baffled me that I failed color blindness tests like the Ishihara test. 

Take for example the dot filled circle to the right.  This is an Ishihara test that I fail.  You most likely see a "2" in the middle of it.  I see nothing but random dots.  The odd thing for me is that I see all of the colors.  The only time its ever been an issue is with the "mixing of colors."  For example, I might see a bright purple as blue, until you put it next to a blue object and then I realize my mistake.

Yesterday, I decided to figure out exactly what was wrong with my eyes.  There is an amazing abundance of tests and information on the web about color blindness.  The problem is that every test I took gave me different results.  Some would say I was one type of colorblind and another would say I was something else.  I determined quickly that they just plain weren't accurate, or I had a more rare type of color blindness that wasn't documented well.  I tend to think the tests just aren't accurate.  I finally found a piece of software on the Web called Visolve.  Visolve allows you to correct the colors on your monitor if you are colorblind.  So what I did was keep adjusting the settings until I could read all of the numbers in the Ishihara tests!  Presto!  I am diagnosed.  And it didn't require a visit to a Doctor!

My diagnosis: I have a type of color blindness called Protanomaly.  Protanomaly is a form of color blindness that results from having weak (malfunctioning) red cones in your eyes.  The average person has three types cones in their eyes.  These cones sense light on different wavelengths: Red, Green and Blue.  This explains why I can see all colors, but sometimes mistake a bright purple for a blue.  Through my testing it looks like my eyes sense red light about 30% weaker than green and blue.  My world is a little bit less red looking than everyone else in the world!  To give you an understanding of what this means, look at the three pictures posted below.  The first picture is a normal picture with normal coloring.  The second picture is the way the world looks to me.  The third picture is color corrected so that I can see how the normal person views the world.

How a Normal person sees it.	How I see it.	Corrected so I can see what you see.

I'm sure as you look at the middle picture you say "wow...  it is not red enough!" and when you look at the right picture you say "Wow... it is way too red."  Of course, I say the same thing about these pictures, because I've seen the world since birth without the normal amount of red that everyone else sees.  It is interesting to see how the world looks to a normal person.  Everyone always says how they love the fall colors.  They've always seemed dull and drab to me.  But when I take a picture of a fall tree and add +30 red to it (Highlights, shadows and midtones) I can immediately see why people think it's beautiful!  Look at all of the red in the leaves that I've never seen!

Lastly, I have my mother to thank for this.  Protanomaly is passed on to you from one of your mother's X chromosomes.  Women are carriers of the genetic defect, but since women have two X chromosomes (one defective and one not) they do not experience the problem because the good X chromosome will cancel the bad one out.  Since I am a man, I have one X and one Y.  It just so happens I got her bad X.  It is a 50/50 chance.  Thanks Mom!

Joe Horn, a 61 year old Pasadena, Texas man was sitting at home working on his computer when heard the glass breaking at a neighbor's home.  Joe looked outside to see two men with a crowbar breaking in.  He picks up the phone and calls 911.  Here is quick (shortened) transcript of what happened next:

Dispatcher: "I want you to listen to me carefully, OK?"

Horn: "Yes?"

Dispatcher: "I got ultras coming out there. I don't want you to go outside that house. And I don't want you to have that gun in your hand when those officers are poking around out there."

Horn: "I understand that, OK, but I have a right to protect myself too, sir, and you understand that. And the laws have been changed in this country since September the First and you know it and I know it."

Dispatcher: "I understand."

Horn: "I have a right to protect myself ..."

Dispatcher: "I'm ..."

Horn: "And a shotgun is a legal weapon, it's not an illegal weapon."

Dispatcher: "No, it's not, I'm not saying that, I'm just not wanting you to ..."

Horn: "OK, he's coming out the window right now, I gotta go, buddy. I'm sorry, but he's coming out the window. "

Dispatcher: "No, don't, don't go out the door, Mister Horn. Mister Horn..."

Horn: "They just stole something, I'm going out to look for 'em, I'm sorry, I ain't letting them get away with this ----. They stole something, they got a bag of stuff. I'm doing it!"

Dispatcher: "Mister, do not go outside the house."

Horn: "I'm sorry, this ain't right, buddy."

Dispatcher: "You gonna get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun, I don't care what you think."

Horn: "You wanna make a bet?"

Dispatcher: "Stay in the house."

Horn: "There, one of them's getting away!

Dispatcher: "That's alright, property's not something worth killing someone over. OK? Don't go out the house, don't be shooting nobody. I know you're pissed and you're frustrated but don't do it."

Horn: "They got a bag of loot."

Dispatcher: "OK. How big is the bag?" He then talks off, relaying the information.

Dispatcher: "Which way are they going?"

Horn: "I can't ... I'm going outside. I'll find out."

Dispatcher: "I don't want you going outside, Mister..."

Horn: "Well, here it goes buddy, you hear the shotgun clicking and I'm going."

Dispatcher: "Don't go outside."

On the tape of the 911 call, the shotgun can be heard being cocked and Horn can be heard going outside and confronting someone.

"Move and you're dead!" he shouts. A loud bang is heard, then a shotgun being cocked and fired again, and then again.

Then Horn is back on the phone:

"Get the law over here quick. I've now, get, one of them's in the front yard over there, he's down, he almost run down the street. I had no choice. They came in the front yard with me, man, I had no choice! ... Get somebody over here quick, man."

Dispatcher: "Mister Horn, are you out there right now?"

Horn: "No, I am inside the house, I went back in the house. Man, they come right in my yard, I didn't know what the --- they was gonna do, I shot 'em, OK?"

Dispatcher: "Did you shoot somebody?

Horn: "Yes, I did, the cops are here right now."

Dispatcher: "Where are you right now?"

Horn: "I'm inside the house. ..."

Dispatcher: "Mister Horn, put that gun down before you shoot an officer of mine. I've got several officers out there without uniforms on."

Horn: "I am in the front yard right now. I am ..."

Dispatcher: "Put that gun down! There's officers out there without uniforms on. Do not shoot anybody else, do you understand me? I've got police out there..."

Horn: "I understand, I understand. I am out in the front yard waving my hand right now."

Dispatcher: "You don't have a gun with you, do you?

Horn: "No, no, no."

Dispatcher: "You see a uniformed officer? Now lay down on the ground and don't do nothing else."

Yelling is heard.

Dispatcher: "Lay down on the ground, Mister Horn. Do what the officers tell you to do right now." 

Is Joe Horn right or wrong in what he did?  Well, let me tell you.  In my mind, Joe Horn is a HERO.  Plain and simple.  God bless this man for being an upstanding citizen and protecting himself, his home, and his neighborhood from criminals.  He warned these criminals. "You move and your dead."  They moved.  Joe shot them.  Good job.

Now many of the ultra-liberal factions out there are already attempting to get Joe behind bars and make him out to be the criminal and criminals out to be the victims.  On CNN the reporter even went so far as to call them "Joe's Victims"!!!  That is ridiculous.  I'll never forget the California story of a man shooting a nighttime burglar in his home in the leg.  The burglar sued the victim and won a $43 million dollar judgement.  And people wonder why my motto is "shoot to kill."  How could it ever be considered my fault for protecting my home and family from a criminal!?!  It makes me very angry when I hear these ultra-liberals talk about criminal rights.  CRIMINALS SHOULD HAVE NO RIGHTS.  If your are in the process of breaking the law, you deserve whatever you get, even if it is death.

The castle doctrine, a new law passed in September 2007 in Texas was recently expanded precisely because the citizens of Texas were tired of rampant crime. This new law allows citizens to use deadly force in protecting their home or neighbor's home from criminals.  It is no longer required that you attempt to flee first.  Thank God for that, because I would never flee from criminals invading my neighborhood, regardless of the law.  I believe in my right to protect myself, family and friends from crime, even if my government does not.  Thankfully, Texans finally got the laws amended to give us that right legally.

And for those of you who say he should have let the cops handle it: I think you need help.  We (non-criminals) are all responsible for the wellfare of our country and people.  If you were to witness the rape of a 10 year old would you just sit back and watch while you were waiting for the cops.  I sure hope not.  I would hope you would intervene.

I'll say it one last time.  Joe Horn, you are my hero.

Oh, and if these ultra-liberals do somehow get charges filed against Joe, I will be there for him.  He doesn't know me, but his defense fund will get a nice padding from my donations.

Yes. It's true.  I've been infected with the Ebola virus.  According to Wikipedia, the symptoms of Ebola are: fever, headache, aching muscles and weakness.  Yep.  I have all of those.

Seriously, I've spent the last four days being beat up, drop kicked and unmercifully lashed by a virus, which I assume is just a variant of the common cold.  Friday at work, I started getting a sore throat and the chills.  By Friday night I was sick.  I spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday filling up trash bags with Kleenex (I'll spare you the details).  I made it to work today, and although I feel 80% better than yesterday, I am still not well. It's a good think I took Monday off.  I would have been useless at work. I just took a DayQuil which I hope will remove the lingering symptoms.

I guess the good news is that I should be back to normal by Turkey day.  It would totally suck to miss all that yummy food!

Speaking of Thanksgiving... I am just beside myself with the idiocity of retail companies.  We are not even to Thanksgiving yet, and many retailers are already playing Christmas music and have out their holiday selection.  Can I please, please, please celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving without hearing Christmas music and hearing Ho-Ho-Hoing Santas walk around???  Bow down and worship the almighty buck.  Pretty soon Christmas will end on December 26th and start on Jan 2nd.  Grrrrrr.

I thought these cat hater quotes were funny.

1. "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function." - Garrison Keillor
2. "More people in the world are allergic to cats than to any other domesticated animal." - George Pinster
3. "Black cats are one of the only domesticated animals that can actually bestow bad luck upon you simply by crossing your path." - Eric Jameson
4. "Cats don't act as barometers. No matter what the weather is like, cats just sit there." - Jim Watton
5. "Cats don't supply oxygen to the environment, like a potted plant. (Even plants are better!)" - Stacey King
6." If Lassie were a cat, little Timmy would be dead." - Rod Lawring
7. Men's Health Magazine has never ran a positive article on cats.
8. "Why expose soldiers in the battlefield to the dangers of land mines when we have cats?" - Sgt. Jason Middler
9. "Richard Evans, a member of the Australian Parliament, proposed that the country eliminate all cats within 25 years." - R. Evans

I do like SOME cats by the way.  I like mine.  I do NOT like David's NOID though.

Today at Keystone Church in Keller, TX we celebrated our 3 year anniversary as a church.  The picture to the right (taken from my iPhone) is a perspective from my angle in the Video Booth.  I run Video, Lighting, and screens every other Sunday.  Today was a mess.  Normally we have two people running the lights and video.  However, one of our volunteers didn't show up and I wound up running both until someone else showed up to help me. 

To make it worse, about halfway through service I got paged with system problems at work.  I always knew the day would come where work and church would conflict.  Its a hairy situation because I can't just get up and walk away or service would come to a standstill.  Luckily Michael Bruce was there to take over for me after a few minutes so I could go outside and take the call.  Thankfully, the call didn't last too long and I was able to get back in and fulfill my commitment without too much issue.  Now I get the "joy" of trying to sort out the system outage at work this week and make sure it doesn't happen again.  Especially during our holiday season! 

Keystone's anniversary is a special time for Leslie and I as well.  The real anniversary of Keystone is actually October 23rd, but we had it a little early this year.  October 23rd also happens to be Leslie and my wedding anniversary.  This year marks two years! We were married on October 23rd, 2005 by Brandon Thomas, the pastor of Keystone Church. I think we are going to drive down to San Antonio and spend a couple of nights on the river walk.  This is significant because three years ago I proposed to her at the Tree of Love situated on the banks of the riverwalk!  Of course, she said yes and I have been the happiest person alive since.  What a lucky guy I am to have such a beautiful and loving wife.

On Saturday Leslie and I took the kids to the Texas Motor Speedway for the Goodguys 2007 Hot Rod Car Show.  It's a car show centered round any vehicle 1972 and older.  However, the fact they say 1972 and older just means the body of the car!  Many of these vehicles had interiors and powertrains from much newer cars. In fact, some of the vehicles were so modified I honestly couldn't tell what they started out life as without looking at their tags.  There was a 1950's Ford Truck that had a complete S-10 interior and powertrain.  It was quite cool. To the right is a picture I took under the hood of a 1972 Chevrolet Pickup.  As you can tel it's the motor from a late model Chevrolet Corvette!!  This was one hot truck.  Check out my photo gallery for about a hundred more pictures I took.

Speaking of pictures, one of the things that has really started to pop with me about photography is angles.  I've known this for a long time, but I've really not been able to explain to people why some of my pictures look so different from the average Joe's.  Someone asked me yesterday "How do you take such good pictures?  Is it your camera?"  Well, honestly a good camera can help, but if you just stand in front of a car and snap a picture, it is going to look just like a snapshot taken by the average Joe.  The only different being its an 8 mega-pixel picture with great color pickup.  To take really good pictures, you need to take pictures from angles and positions that the average person doesn't think about.  That means getting down lower, or up higher than the standard "standing" position.  Also, you need to be prepared to get out PhotoShop and crop the image once you get home.  Many times, due to lens limitations, or other obstacles, you can't get the frame you wanted.  So just take the picture, come home and crop out the unwanted area.