Tony Gaston's 2004 Blog

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Apparently all those songs kicked in this year for we had a White Christmas. It started snowing on Wednesday and we ended up with 3-4" at the house. The temperature cooperated and stayed cold enough (high under 32 degrees) so that there was still a bunch of snow left for Christmas day.

As usual we did a Christmas dinner for my family at the house. As usual a great time was had by one and all.

I got Half Life 2 for Christmas and let me tell ya, this game is cool, tons of fast paced action.

Here is our fudge recipe that we always go nuts trying to find every year, I'm posting it here for your benefit and mine.
Of course this assumes that next Christmas I will remember having posted it here :)

Fantasy Fudge
(basically a version of the recipe from the back of the Kraft Marshmallow Creme jar that Kraft has been known to change)

3 cups	Sugar
3/4 Cup	Butter/margarine (1 1/2 sticks)
2/3 cup	Evaporated milk (5oz can) (DO NOT Use sweetened condensed milk)
7 oz	Kraft Marshmallow creme (1 jar)
1 teaspoon	Vanilla extract
1 package	SEMI sweet baking chocolate (8 Squares) (or 12oz bag chocolate chips)
1 cup	Chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans) OPTIONAL

We have tried some different chocolates over the years (chocolate chips, bakers squares) and found that Ghirardelli bakers chocolate (2 4oz bars) makes for a smoother chocolate taste.

Heat the sugar, milk and butter in a heavy 3 qt sauce pan to boiling,
Reduce heat, stir only occasionally, constant stirring seems to give the fudge a grainy texture.
Boil for approximately 7 minutes ( or heat to 225-234 degrees, softball stage).
Stir in the chocolate till melted, stir in marshmallow creme, now add the vanilla, stir in nuts.
(hint: microwave marshmallow creme on LOW for 5-10 seconds and remove from jar to make it faster/easier to add)
Continue stirring till thoroughly mixed
Pour into a greased 13"x9" pan, cool at room temperature.

Recipe makes 3 pounds of fudge

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

For the 3rd year in a row Heather and I went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra live. Due to popular demand the show was moved to American Airlines Center, not quite as intimate smaller halls but it is still a great venue for a concert. We also took Dad and Glenda this year, they had a great time and were amazed at how much the lights and pyrotechnics added to the music.

The evening did have one hitch though. The first half of the concert is a Christmas story followed by pretty much free form fun. During the Christmas story As the band was leading into Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12-24) there was a thunder effect in the back ground, then a siren kicked in, then strobe lights all over the arena, everyone is going cool how did they get strobes all over the arena?. Then that sound that all office workers know, "An emergency has been declared in the building...", oops somehow a fire alarm got triggered. The house lights came up people started working towards the exits (not very quickly though), after a few minutes it was announced that it was a false alarm and the band came back onstage. Al Pitrelli (guitar and director) walked up to a mic and announced, "Oops" then the band picked up right where they left off. Later in the evening when the pyro really kicked in Al commented, "we set off all this stuff and nothing happens, somebody smokes in the bathroom and the alarms go off.

We also went to my company's Christmas party Saturday night. We had a great time hanging out with everyone outside of work.

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Another very busy week, went to Argyle vs. Boyd Football game (they stomped us), got sick, bought a Christmas tree (11') went to Prestonwood's Dallas Christmas Festival, spent most of the weekend on ladders hanging a variety of Christmas decorations and lights

More Football

The Argyle HS football team made it to the DISTRICT 13-2A playoffs this year. Last night was the first round against the Palmer Bulldogs in the Gopher-Warrior Bowl located at Grand Prairie High School. The stadium is new this year and is a phenomenal place, very very nice, pretty much blows away the field the Warriors played on back when I was in school. The temperature was in the 50's with a stiff north wind, fortunately the stadium is literally a bowl, the entire seating area and field is below grade so the wind was only about 1/2 speed

Argyle came out fast and strong finished with a 34-22 victory netting them the Division 1 Bi-District championship (still not sure exactly what that is). My nephew Tarren had another great game getting several key tackles.

Bunches O' Cakes

Heather volunteered to do the cakes for 3-4 and 5-6 grade Argyle football team's post season party. This turned out to be a significant undertaking as there are also 4 cheerleader squads, a drill team, coaches, and the players families. Net total was eight (8) full sheet cakes (14"x20"), all decorated in some manner. She ended up doing each cake in a different flavor, of course chocolate went fastest. The party went great and Heather received many positive comments while we were handing out pieces of cake.

I have also added a page just for Heather's Cakes, there isn't much there currently but I am working on getting the pictures scanned,

On another note, I think I finally killed my trusty lawnmower after 11 years of faithful, start on the first pull service. I had just started mowing the back yard and I hit a stump that I have mowed around bunches of times. I bent the blade pretty badly (only 1 month old super mulching blade) and pulling the starter rope does work. The motor does turn by moving the blade manually so it may not be seized, I'll take a wrench to it soon and see if I can salvage it.

Christopher Radko Signing

Since Christmas of last year Heather has been collecting Christopher Radko Christmas Ornaments. These are old world style hand blown, hand painted glass Christmas ornaments. Christopher Radko himself came to Holiday Ideas on Lovers Lane in Dallas on Saturday to meet collectors and sign ornaments. Christopher is very personable (and tall), we were standing off to the side waiting for the signing to start and he came over introduced himself and talked to us for several minutes. Heather got several pieces signed including a piece that is only available at Christopher's personal appearances.

The Mighty Squat

I've been shopping for a Squat rack to round out my home gym and came across this setup at Sam's Wholesale. This is going to replace 2 benches, and the Marcy multi-function home gym. This takes me down to, this rack, the stationary bike, and the Gazelle. More details on the Exercise page.

Weider C650

Basically it's a squat rack/cage, weight stack (takes 3" plates) w/ upper/lower pulley / pec deck, an olympic bar, 200# weight, a bench with leg attachments and preacher bench.

The squat racks I've been shopping are around $300, I figure another $100 for the bar & weight, I basically got the weight stack and bench for $Free.

Now I have to get rid of the 2 benches, and the Marcy home gym. For sale in Fort Worth, TX, pics are on the exercise page linked above.

The squat rack resulted in the home gym being moved out of the media room upstairs. This unit (bench & stack) is probably 400+ lbs, not including barbells and weight, then you add in my 200 lbs, that's just too much to have upstairs, even sitting on 3 walls (the system was sitting above the pantry & garage door). So now the rack is in the Formal Living room. Yep, right inside the front door, oh well not like we were going to stock it with furniture anytime soon anyway. Heather thinks I'm nuts because I want to hang Christmas decorations on the rack for the holidays. I figure a tree skirt around the plate tree would add a nice touch also.

And on another note my car died again on Friday, same symptoms as prior entry, same 2 hour wait for a tow truck. Although I did find out that my car is pretty easy to push out of a parking garage so the tow-truck could get it. Of course a slight downward slope the direction I needed to go didn't hurt :)

New Truck

Heather's Expedition was nearing 100k miles and a significant drop in trade in value so we decided to trade it in for another truck.

We decided on a 2004 GMC Yukon XL (basically a GMC version of the Suburban). The truck is Summit White and basically fully loaded. We found the truck at Freeman Pontiac Buick GMC in Grapevine . Douglas Mabe was our salesman and I highly recommend him if you are shopping for a new car. Another plus for Freeman is the Dealer insignia on the back is small, it is under the Yukon insignia in the Back picture below.

Passenger side 1
Passenger side 2
Back

Also seems my car is more aware of things than I thought. I stopped at the GMC dealership on the way home from work Monday to put a deposit down on the truck we wanted. After that was done my car apparently thought it was being traded in and refused to start, turn the key and toss 4 codes, then Reduced Engine Power and refuse to do anything (roll down windows, open rear hatch). Funny part is the battery was showing normal voltage (12+).

There is a known issue with C5's where if the battery splits and leaks it leaks on wires to the computer. $200 later I'm back on the road.

High School Football and other trivialities

I went to my first high school football game in 20 years on Friday. Had a great time and watched a great game (Argyle won 28-20) and saw my nephew Tarren play a fantastic second half. The other team's quarterback is still hearing footsteps from Tarren chasing him down all night. Also saw an interesting behavior, every time Argyle scored the cheerleader squad would do as many pushups as the team had total points.

I managed to finish Doom 3 the other day, I expected the final battle to be much tougher.

Now that gaming is done it's time to start studying and learning ISA Server http://www.microsoft.com/ISAServer

Let There Be Light!!

I found the setting to turn the lights on in Doom 3.

In the game hit CTRL-ALT-~ to bring down the console, then type.
seta r_Gamma n This sets the overall brightness in the game, default is 1
bind "L" "testlight" This binds the L key to testlight, this basically turns on a light in the room.

I am setting r_gamma to 2.0 well lit rooms are a little washed (these are few and far between) but not too bad and at least now I can see the details in the rooms. Start at 1.5 and work your way up.

testlight is basically a light switch, if a room is still really dark and you want to look around hit L. Another use for testlight is when you enter a room, then the lights go out and a bunch of monsters spawn, a quick dive for the light switch balances the equation as the monsters can see in the dark and you can't.

And for the purists that say, "the darkness is part of mood of the game", then don't use these settings, I'm tired of fumbling around in the dark.

Fredericksburg

Did a day trip to Fredericksburg today to shop for Christopher Radko Christmas ornaments.

Dad and Glenda went with us and made for great company and dad made a great navigator. If you ever make the drive from DFW to Fredericksburg you should consider taking SH67 to SH281 into Johnson city then just go west on SH290 to get to Fredericksburg . The speed limits are the same as I35, there are much less traffic (you can avoid Austin completely) and the scenery is really cool. For instance, you can stop at Marble Falls (marble quarry where the pink marble for the Texas capital was quarried) or Barnet (Confederate Air Force dispatchment)

Fredericksburg has a several mile long main street with tons of shops lining both sides of the street and is apparently a pretty popular tourist destination.

Radko Christmas ornaments is Heather's new collection item (in addition to the Cherished Teddies she already collects). These ornaments are hand made blown glass Christmas ornaments and look beautiful.

DOOM 3

Having spent countless hours playing the first 2 offerings in the series I figured the third in the series should be just as much fun so I bought Doom 3 this weekend.

I only have one thing to say about the game, TOO %$*&!#$ DARK. The game play looks good, the monsters have been updated and look great, from what I can see of things the walls and other environmental objects look great too, it is just too bad you can't see anything. I have read the interviews and the guys at id state the darkness creates an overall mood to the game. They are right, the mood is that you need to turn the damn lights on. I just can't see spending all the time and money on the artwork for the game to turn around and not light any of the items.

I have played countless First Person Shooters all the way back the start the whole genre with Castle Wolfenstein so I have a experience in this arena. Some dark areas are really cool and do add to the spooky/anxious mood of these games but too much is just that, too much. I have the brightness turned up ALL the way in the game, (this creates a washed out look in most games), Doom 3 is still so dark I have to use my flashlight at all times, thank goodness the batteries never run out.

Other than the lighting the game is good but pretty standard stuff so far (level 4), go down the halls, turn left, get key item, go back and open locked door, uh oh, tons o' monsters behind door.

In case you're wondering, Yes I am still playing the game. I spent $43 on the game so I'm at least going to finish the game then wait for Half Life 2 to come out.

Tony's $.02, pass on Doom 3, wait for Half Life 2.

p.s. from 8/16

Still playing the game and it hasn't gotten any brighter, the monsters are getting meaner and cooler tho :)

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Released

Windows XP Service Pack 2 released to manufacturing on Friday August 6, 2004. Windows XP Service Pack 2 contains major security improvements designed to provide better protection against hackers, viruses, and worms. Windows XP Service Pack 2 also improves the manageability of the security features in Windows XP and provides more and better information to help users make decisions that may potentially affect their security and privacy.

On Monday, August 9, 2004, the full network installation package (280mb) for Windows XP Server Pack 2 will be posted on the Windows XP Service Pack 2 site on Microsoft TechNet (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/winxpsp2 ). This site is also the best resource for accessing the most up-to-date technical information regarding Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Here is the KB listing all the fixes in SP2, KB 811113

WOW! what a weekend

Man am I glad to be back at work so I can rest for a day :)

I took off Friday so we could take care of some last minute stuff around the house to get ready for the Open House/Birthday party. We also mulched the flower beds and planted flowers in them.

The Open House/Birthday party on Saturday was a Fantastic success. Everyone seemed to have a great time and we really enjoyed having everyone over. Thanks to everyone who made it out. For those that didn't I'm going to try and post some interior pictures now that we have everything put up and cleaned up.

Sunday was another great day, We went to Six Flags over Texas with my dad, his girlfriend, my brother and my 2 nephews. It was a little hot (mid 90's) but that didn't impact the fun at all. We rode all the big rides and had a Great time hanging out with the family.

Another fun thing about Sunday is that we had 3 generations of Six Flags employees together in the park. My Dad helped open the park in 1961, my brother worked there in the early 80's and my nephew works there currently. They are one of the few (if not only) 3rd generation employees in the history of the park.

Independence Day

We are going over to a friends in McKinney to celebrate the fourth so Heather baked a cake, count the stars, there are 50 of them.

I've been on vacation for the last week and let me tell you it has been a busy one.

Had stone edging installed around flower & tree beds, also had gutter downspouts plumbed underground into yard (green circle in picture. I also posted new pictures of the front of the house on the House Page
Got new grandfather clock delivered and setup
Bunches of unpacking/organizing/Spring Cleaning

More Exercise Equipment

I bought a nice weight bench with an 80" olympic bar and weight that has been gathering dust in a friend's garage for a few years.

Here is the current list of stuff in our Home Gym
The Dual Action Bike
The Gazelle
The Bench (with 250lbs of weight & 80" bar)
The Multi-Function Machine
Squat Rack (with 150lbs of old plastic covered weights & 72" bar)
Spare Bench

Once I get a preacher bench (mounts to bench for doing supported arm curls), and a few more weights (the old grey plastic covered ones are falling apart) this should have me taken care of for a while :)

Weigh in day

Sunday is our weigh in day to check the progress of our exercise and diet regimen. We are both basically eating the same foods, I am eating more food with tons more calories.

Notes:
Heather is trying to lose weight and has been lifting weights for 2 weeks now and has been doing cardio (15+ minutes of bike & gazelle a day)
I am taking protein supplements and creatine to help me bulk up and have been lifting weights for 5 weeks and doing 5 minutes of cardio a day. As in I am supposed to be gaining muscle weight

Heather gained 3 pounds last week, I lost a pound and a half. <SIGH> Needless to say Heather is going to drop the weight training for a bit as she doesn't need the psychological setback of gaining weight right now.

Scary Moment

One of those images that stays with you for a while type of events.

I had brought our dog Smokey in as it was storming outside, when leading him back downstairs to heed nature's call he pulled the leash out of my hands and raced down the stairs. About 1/2 down he lost his footing and started sliding down the stairs head first feet splayed out. When he hit bottom his right front paw got caught in one of the styles of the stair rail and he spun around bending his leg in a funny way.

He immediately started yelping and hobbled off into the study yelping loudly the entire way. I closed him up in the study to prevent him from running around and hurting himself further. He was obviously in pain and holding his paw up at a funny angle. I called out and told Heather to get ready to take him to the veterinarian as he likely broke his leg. Then I led him to the back door to go to the bathroom like he originally needed to, about 1/2 way there he put weight on the foot and determined that he could use it and walked normally to the back door.

We took him to an emergency vet clinic where he was given a clean bill of health. Best guess all the yelping was due to some actual pain in his leg and a bunch of fear from the fall. Either way he is doing fine and has probably forgotten the incident (something I won't soon be forgetting). And yes, that is the last time he will be going upstairs.

(note to the stray reader that doesn't know. Heather and I are unable to have kids so Smokey is basically our child and as such means more than the world to both of us)

Windows XP SP2 Release Candidate 2

Microsoft has posted RC2 of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP to the TechNet website for public download/testing.
NOTE: This is a BETA release. Apply at your own risk.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx (280mb)

Here are the discussion groups for SP2, http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.asp?icp=xpsp2&slcid=us

I have installed it several times on several machines and it seems to be working well.

Here is a link to a document with the changes in http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2chngs.mspx I strongly recommend reading this doc before applying SP2 as there are a ton of functionality and behavioral changes in SP2

Body building Lesson Learned #1

Working out really hard can cause some muscle soreness
Working out really hard causes muscles to grow
More muscles means you have more muscle to be sore thus the pain continues to grow

I bought Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. It is an excellent book chock full of goodness at 800 pages and as an added bonus I have added curling the book to my arm day routine.

I added a page for My Workouts

Problem: I love eggs (scrambled or omelet) However, eggs are typically bad your cholesterol.

Solution: Don't eat the yolks. It may sound weird but this actually works. I usually leave in 1 yolk for every 5 eggs. I Use an egg separator to just get the egg whites for scrambled eggs or omelets. The finished product is not as bright yellow but IMHO they actually taste better than the old way.

Catching up

Oh, wicked bad, naughty Tony, He has not been blogging the grail shaped blog (apologies to Monty Python, Holy Grail, Castle Anthrax scene)

Let's see, here main list o' stuff I've been doing instead of blogging,

My Buddy Jim finally married Shirley !!!GRATZ GUYS!!!
My Nephew Roger graduated from North Grand Prairie High School !!!GRATZ!!! (Sorry I'm a South Grand Prairie alum and couldn't resist)
Tons o' Little League baseball with my nephews Carston and Chadd

Bought more exercise equipment (Tony Little Gazelle Power Plus, and a weight bench). Yes, like many other things I am going way overboard on the exercise stuff. I've got a very well laid out exercise routine I'm following and my current goal is to see how big I can get.
Weight loss is going well for both Heather and myself, Heather is still ahead of her goal and I have shed 6 points of body fat (from 24% to 18%), you can't have 6-pack abs if they are covered in fat.

Slow month

Not much going on lately. Diet & Exercise going well for both Heather and myself, we are both losing weight and firming up.

Windows XP SP2 Release Candidate 1

Microsoft has posted RC1 of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP to the TechNet website for public download/testing.
NOTE: This is a BETA release. Apply at your own risk.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx (280mb)

Here are the discussion groups for SP2, http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.asp?icp=xpsp2&slcid=us

I have installed it several times on several machines and it seems to be working well.

Here is a link to a document with the changes in http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx I strongly recommend reading this doc before applying SP2 as there are a ton of functionality and behavioral changes in SP2

Starting a Diet

After dad's heart attack and other guilt factors Heather and I have started on the Atkins Diet. This isn't as bad as some people think, it is different but very livable. Granted you can't have french-fry sandwiches but you can have plenty of meat and most fresh vegetables.

We have also started exercising. We have converted the media room into a Home Gym

For Christmas we bought ourselves an MWM 900 Home Gym, image. This unit has 18 different exercises that target most major muscle groups.

Then we finally got tired of the worn out seat on our stationary bike and bought an 470 Dual Action Exercise Bike Image. This unit is very close to the Elliptical trainers I was using at the gym 2 years ago when Heather and I were going every day. If you add some resistance you are getting a great aerobic workout.

Between the 2 units above we are getting a good balance of anaerobic and aerobic workouts as recommended by most health nuts.

Bunches o' Basketball

My nephews (Chadd & Carston in Argyle) participated in a Basketball Tournament in Ponder this weekend. They went into last night's finals undefeated. The 6pm game between Liberty Christian and Ponder was to determine who would play the Argyle team for the Championship. That game went to double overtime before the Ponder team finally won. When the Ponder game began (15 minutes after 1st game ended) Argyle played a great 1st half and jumped out to a 12 point lead. Then Argyle stumbled in the second half and Ponder came back to win by 3 points (15 unanswered points in 2nd half). Since this is a double elimination tourney Ponder had to beat us again to win the tourney (at this point Ponder & Argyle had each lost one game in the tournament). So begins game 3 for Ponder and Game 2 for Argyle at about 8:30pm. Once again Argyle stumbled and Ponder jumped out to a 12-0 lead. Then late in the 3rd quarter Argyle started coming back and finally took an 8pt lead to the buzzer to win the tournament. The Ponder team deserves massive kudos for playing 3 fantastic back to back to back games.

He started having symptoms on 2/15 and actually went to his cardiologist on 2/17 (going to the doctor before something critical happens just isn't done in my family). The cardiologist ran several tests and determined that there were several arteries that need closer inspection and scheduled an angioplasty for 2/25.

Angioplasty (Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty)
Angioplasty basically involves inserting a catheter in the femoral artery (inner thigh) and feeding the catheter up to the arteries in the heart. A die is injected to show blood flow to and through the heart. The patient is sedated but alert during the procedure. If blockages are identified several procedures can be done, including.
A balloon at the end of the catheter can be inflated to open the artery. Animated gif
In cases where there plaque is too thick a stent (image, on balloon, close-up) may be used to open the artery. Animated gif

Dad's symptoms continued to worsen during the week peaking Saturday morning when they called 911 and he was rushed via ambulance to Medical Center of Plano (Coit & 15th). An emergency angioplasty was performed and a stent was installed in the right coronary artery to resolve the 100% blockage in that artery. Dad felt IMMEDIATE relief when the artery was opened. The doctor also found that there were 2 additional blockages (one 70-80% blocked another one 80-90% blocked) in the Left Anterior Descending (LAD) artery that would need to be fixed soon.

A couple cool technology notes,

After the procedure Saturday the doctor showed us the radiology films on a computer that showed what they did. Pretty cool stuff seeing the blockage and watching the blood rush in when the artery was opened.
After the procedure Tuesday one of the Cath Lab Techs (Tony) offered to burn the images from both procedures to a CD that we could have. We accepted his offer and he delivered the CD later that night.

Happy Valentines Day!

Snow in Texas?

Yep the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex woke up Saturday morning to several inches of SNOW!! We do get snow from time to time but rarely in any significant amounts and rarer still to have any accumulation. I had about 4-5 inches of snow at the house by 10am Saturday. To make it even better the snow stayed around till Sunday afternoon. We had a great time watching our ChowChow bouncing around in the snow.

Back in Town

I learned a bunch while in Redmond and am very glad I went. Boy am I glad to be back in Texas where I can see the sun!! It was actually colder in Texas that it was in Redmond for most of the time I was up there, only difference is the sun still comes out in Texas which seems to make it warmer.

I also discovered a cool tool for managing/subscribing to Blogs that offer RSS feeds.

www.sharpreader.net

Going to be quiet

I am going to be in Redmond till 1/31 doing an internship with the Networking development teams.

Happy New Year!!

Been very busy lately and haven't been blog'n as I should, shame on me. Below are quick one liners from the last couple of weeks.

Dad had hernia surgery, he came out sore but fine
I will be in Redmond for 2 weeks of training (1/19)
Stupid neighbors were shooting off fireworks on New Years eve driving the dog crazy. (This is illegal in the city limits and moreso illegal as the city is under a "burn ban" due to dry conditions.