When I opened up the front cover of the book, I saw something I realized I hadn’t seen in quite a long time, the due-date log.

The little flap of paper glued into the front of all library books, upon which the librarian would stamp or sometimes write in the due date when the book was loaned.  It brought back memories of being the first or second person to check out a book when I was a kid and being excited that I was able to get and read it so quickly.  Or just as memorable as being the last due-date on a page of the due dates, with sometimes 2 or 3 completely filled sheets underneath, and realizing how much joy this book has brought to dozens of people since the library started loaning it.  It could also tell you something about the previous borrowers, such as how well they cared for the book.  If I was the 3rd or 4th person to check it out and it was already damaged, I could tell at least one of those people had little respect for books, and likewise if the book was still in decent shape after a dozen or more uses, the previous readers were very respectful of the library and its books.

Technology in libraries has improved a lot.  It is wonderful being able to log into the library’s catalog with the click of the mouse at home or work if I want to find a particular book.  I can reserve it without driving in, even if it is at another library in the area rather than my own.  This is both convenient for me, and friendlier to the environment as I don’t waste gas to find out it isn’t there.  I get an e-mail from the library when any requested books are available too, and it doesn’t take more of the librarian’s valuable time to manually send a letter or call to inform me.  Inside the library it is faster to find something since the card catalogs have been replaced with computers, and you can search on far more terms than just title or author.

While overall I think the library experience has been vastly improved by the introduction of electronic recordkeeping, I’ll still hold a special place in my memory for the beloved due date reminder stamp.  This is one aspect of the library I am truly sorry my children will never know.

Max 10 hours per week of TV – Made it. Even though I was sick and watched quite a bit of extra TV, it was all non-trackable according to my goal.

• Knight Rider (0 hr) -Forgot to set this to record on the new satellite receiver.
• Battlestar Galactica (1 hr) – Caught up on a few episodes, still have a way to go.
• Biggest Loser (2 hrs) – One of the Idaho girls got sent home, I was hoping they’d stick around longer.
• Dirty Jobs (0 hr) – Didn’t air last week.
• Grey’s Anatomy (0 hr) – Didn’t air last week.
• ER (1 hr) – Watched a few episodes to try to get caught up.
• 24 (1 hr) – Watched the rest of the 2-hour episode we started last week, then one more. We’re missing an episode so I’ll have to see if I can get it on Fox’s website.
• Solitary 3.0 (1 hrs) – #7 was the winner much to my surprise, I thought #4 would take it.
• Non-tracked viewing: A bunch of educational shows, and a few movies Hi-Def is simply amazing on nature related shows…

At least 2 books per month -February’s goal met, now working on March.

• New Moon by Stephenie Meyer – Finished!
• Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer – Finished! Took less than a week!
• Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer – About 1/4 of the way in already.

Minimum 3 blog postings per week – I wrote 2 entries but haven’t published them yet. I did just finish up and publish a page I had written over the last week though.

100 lbs (2 lbs/week) – These last couple of weeks have been so busy and so stressful I haven’t been paying as close attention as I should to my diet. I also missed going to the gym most of last week, and have not been getting up early enough to go this week. I’ve been getting to bed slightly later than I intend (the dangers of reading a good book!) which has made me pretty tired in the mornings.

Budget – I’m happy with where we’re at this week.

Max 10 hours per week of TV – Made it.

• Knight Rider (1 hr) – I’m liking how they’re changing the show, I think there are many more places they can take the show now.
• Battlestar Galactica (1 hr) – Falling further behind in watching.
• Biggest Loser (2 hrs) – I can’t believe the records some of the contestents are breaking.  Only 9 weeks into the season and several of them have already hit some major milestones.
• Dirty Jobs (1 hr) – Normally I hate recap episodes, but when Dirty Jobs runs them, they show more of the behind the scenes information that makes it worthwhile.
• Grey’s Anatomy (0 hr) – Didn’t air last week.
• ER (1 hr) – Didn’t watch this.
• 24 (1 hr) – Starting to get caught up. We’ve watched  the first 2 hour episode, and half of the 2nd 2 hour episode.
• Solitary 3.0 (1 hrs) -Down to the final 3.
• Non-tracked viewing: Other than some evening news, I’ve watched a few episodes of The Dave Ramsey Show and a couple of episodes in the background of Cops-type shows while working on other things.

At least 2 books per month -February’s goal met, now working on March.

• Twilight by Stephenie Myers – Finished!
• The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman -Finished!
• New Moon by Stephenie Meyer – About 2/3 of the way through this one already.  I don’t think I’m going to have a problem with this goal.  Now I just need to decide on a non-fiction book to read this month.

Minimum 3 blog postings per week – I had 2 posts this week, and honestly it felt good just writing a couple of posts as I wanted to rather than feeling pressured into making a 3rd one.  I still don’t want to drop this goal, but I haven’t decided how to re-write it to meet the spirit of my goal in the first place.

100 lbs (2 lbs/week) – Up 2.3 direct, also up 2 on the averaged trend. These last couple of weeks have been so busy and so stressful I haven’t been paying as close attention as I should to my diet.  I also missed going to the gym most of last week, and have not been getting up early enough to go this week.  I’ve been getting to bed slightly later than I intend (the dangers of reading a good book!) which has made me pretty tired in the mornings.

Budget – I’m happy with where we’re at this week.

My personal opinion is that we have the “victim” mentality so entrenched into our society that we look for reasons to cry foul rather than

raising an alarm when something truly heinous happens.  Instead of laughing at something intended to be a joke, we let it get under our skin.  We try to hard to be “politically correct” that we’re willing to be very drab just to make sure we don’t accidentally offend someone.

The reason racist jokes are offensive is because we allow them to be offensive.  Take the classic Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles as a prime example.  I’ve heard that Cleavon Little (the black star of the movie) was questioned as to why he would star in such an “offensive” movie that constantly uses the “n-word.”  He explained that by poking fun at the blatant racism in that movie it took most of the negative connotations away.  How can anyone who sees the movie take racism seriously?  They took a very derogatory term and turned it into a joke.  Also by the end of the movie all of the people who were complaining about a colored sheriff were glad to have him there, so it showed exactly how racial prejudice accomplishes nothing.  After producing the movie, supposedly they received many complaint letters from people, but the interesting thing is all of them were from caucasians, not blacks who would be the ones to take offense.

A more recent example of a movie which treats racial stereotypes as a joke is Undercover Brother staring Eddie Griffin.  Its been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I remember the opening scene of the movie shows Eddie’s character in a stereotypical big “afro” hair style driving in a convertible, skidding tires around corners, while never spilling a drop of the orange (or was it grape) soda in his hand.  He gets to headquarters and the “password” to get in was a secret handshake with a robotic arm, where it replies “You’ve got soul!” before it lets him in.  If you get down to it, it is using several “black” stereotypes, as well as essentially saying Caucasians don’t have a soul.  Is it being “offensive” to everyone?  No, its just a joke!

Where do we draw the line over what is considered hateful or what is funny?  I’m a fat, Caucasian nerd, with glasses/contacts, semi-blond hair, a receding hairline which I normally just shave off completely, and I listen to eurodance music.  Do you know how many jokes I’ve heard that apply to something that I could take offense to? I don’t though because they’re funny! They aren’t meant to be hurtful so why should I allow them to bother me?  If we’re to say it is wrong to make a joke about a particular group’s skin color or religion, why don’t we say it is wrong to make jokes based on a group’s weight or hair color?  What about making jokes based on people from a particular region or state?  How about a profession such as being a lawyer?  Nearly every joke made is at someone’s expense, even if is at the expense of the joke teller themselves.  Show me one person who hasn’t told at least one blonde joke in their life, or a joke about a priest and a rabbi, or any number of similar joke and I’ll show you someone who has no sense of humor.

The black woman the mayor sent the joke to blew this thing completely out of proportion.  What did this accomplish?  Nothing except to draw attention to the image that would not have gone further had she simply deleted it.  Instead it was on the national news and put out on the Internet for everyone to see and pass along.  Even though the mayor appologized, she still said “it will be difficult for [us] to work together.”  I can agree with her there!  Now the mayor will be afraid to say anything to or around her just in case she decides to take offense to something and make it out to be some form of harassment.  I’m sorry, but if she felt the need to rat him out to the national press over something as trivial as this rather than deleting it and asking him not to send her things like that in the future, I wouldn’t want to be friends with her or work with her any longer either.  Talk about creating a “hostile work environment!”

The longer we allow these things to drive our emotions, the longer it will take to put an end to racism and hatred in general.  Well, I thought I would play some basketball this evening, but we all know “white men can’t jump.”  I guess I’ll just go home to my parents’ basement, order a pizza and drink Mountain Dew, while I play video games and look at adult magazines.  Sheesh.

Max 10 hours per week of TV – Made it.

• Knight Rider (1 hr) – Didn’t watch yet.
• Battlestar Galactica (1 hr) – Falling further behind in watching.
• Biggest Loser (2 hrs) -Go Green!
• Dirty Jobs (1 hr) – This week’s episode did in fact have Mike visiting Boise, ID!  I had to work late last night so I’ll be watching this one tonight.
• Grey’s Anatomy (1 hr) – Haven’t watched it yet.
• Private Practice (1 hr) – Tied in with Grey’s Anatomy episode from above, so need to see it to get the entire story.
• ER (1 hr) – Didn’t watch this either.
• 24 (1 hr) – Still lagging here.  The first 2 episoded were 2 hours each, and it has been hard to find time for us to both watch it together  If we can make it pas the initial hurdle I think we’ll be able to get caught up rather quickly.
• Solitary 3.0 (1 hrs) – The solitary confinement is starting to make a couple of them crack I think.
• Non-tracked viewing: Other than some evening news, I’ve watched a few episodes of The Dave Ramsey Show and I’ve watched some shows on the Science channel.

At least 2 books per month -January’s goal met, on track for February.

• Twilight -about 1/3 through it now.  This one is a fast read.
• The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman -Almost done.

Minimum 3 blog postings per week – Only one post this week, but there’s been a lot going on.  Its kind of a catch-22 in that when I have a lot going on, it makes things I can blog about, but it consequently takes time I could use to write the blog entries.  I could sacrifice some more TV time, but I’m already down to watching a few specific shows and outside of educational programming I never just watch something to be watching something anymore.  I have to have some form of passive entertainment.

100 lbs (2 lbs/week) – Down 6.3 pounds direct weight this week!  1.87 pounds down on the averaged trend. I’m tracking ever so slightly above my goal, literally by 66 calories per day.  I need to be a little more diligent about getting up in the morning so I can squeeze in an extra 15 minutes at the gym, and/or I need to try to cut about a hundred calories per day average from my diet.  That is such a small number but it really adds up over the long term.

Budget – Back to using cash.  It’s too easy to let it slip and overspend when using plastic, even when its just a debit card.

What we’re looking at doing is getting something in the 36″ to 47″ range.  Originally we were thinking 32″, but it isn’t really any larger than our existing TV since the widescreen format changes how they’re measured.  Since part of our desire to upgrade is to be able to read the smaller text on the screen from across the room, sticking to something that doesn’t give us any additional size is kind of a waste.  Over the last few days I’ve been looking at the local stores and it seems our best bang for the buck right now will be a 42″ LCD screen.  I’ve also looked at a size chart and it seems 42″ is the right size for our room too.  That being said, it says a 27″ standard TV is about the right size for our room, and I think a 32″ would be much better.  The price difference from 42″ to 47″ seems to be a little steep right now though.

What I’m deciding now is whether it is worth the small price difference to go from 720p up to 1080p.  While the broadcasts currently aren’t at 1080p (according to local TV salesmen for what it is worth) they could be in the future, and we would also see that if we picked up a Blueray player.  Since I don’t anticipate doing that any time soon, I don’t think that is a very big deal.  The only HD input we’ll have for now is the Xbox 360, and we may decide to upgrade satellite receivers sometime down the road but that won’t be on the table for a while anyway.  Also in some research I’ve done, Dish (which is who we use) seems to have the best HDTV quality but its still not full 1080p.  I am noticing however that there doesn’t seem to be much difference at all price wise, it just depends on what models the store currently has.

The thing that is hard to keep in mind is that we may notice a difference when looking at the TV models side by side in the store, but at the end of the day when we get it home it is going to look thousands of times better than what we currently have.  Because of that little fact right there, I’m concentrating on getting the best value in the size range we want, and I am hopeful that this purchase will last us another 9 and a half years.  I guess worst case in a few years if we want to upgrade again, this would make a heck of an improvement for a TV in our bedroom…

Max 10 hours per week of TV – Over the limit, but was home sick yesterday and consequently watched more TV than normal.  If I had not watched the extra episodes of Solitary I would be well under.

• Knight Rider (1 hr) – Didn’t watch yet.
• Battlestar Galactica (1 hr) – Watched one episode, still several behind.  I can’t imagine the feelings people would go through to strive for this perfect solution to literally all of their problems, only to find out that solution was only a dream and failed to produce.
• Biggest Loser (2 hrs) – Finally got rid of the Silver team!  Yay!  I felt bad for Carla as she worked her butt off just to have Joelle throw it all away for her, but that’s the breaks and they chose to be together as a team.  And then when they met afterward for Joelle to keep saying she tried when it was very obvious she didn’t was beyond annoying.  She has some issues with personal responsibility for sure.  It was too bad to see the black team get split up too, but I was glad to see the brown team got to stay for another week with a phenominal loss!
• Dirty Jobs (1 hr) – Was pretty gunny watching Mike separate out dirty diapers from last week’s episode.  Went to watch this week’s but the wife was too freaked out about watching anything to do with spiders right before bed.
• Grey’s Anatomy (1 hr) – Haven’t watched it yet.
• ER (1 hr) – Didn’t watch this either.
• 24 (1 hr) – Still behind on this, but I can’t wait to get started. Marathon didn’t happen yet.  I did notice the DVR was missing one episode so we’ll have to catch that one on Hulu if its there.
• Solitary 3.0 (5 hrs recorded) -  What a crazy show!  It is amazing how far these contestants will push themselves for $50K.  I have not watched all of the episodes I’ve recorded yet, but I have watched 3 of them.
• Non-tracked viewing: Other than some evening news, I’ve watched a few episodes of The Dave Ramsey Show.  Dish finally added Fox Business to their lineup, though I had to increase my programming package in order to get it.  It may seem odd to spend more money ($10 per month) to watch a show where the primary theme is saving money but I get more than that in motivation over a period of a month, plus there are several more channels (like the Science Channel and Discovery Kids) that we will enjoy too.

At least 2 books per month -January’s goal met, on track for February.

• Twilight – Finally started reading this.  I’m not too far in but so far it seems to be well written and should be a fast read once I get going.  Cristi read it in a few days, and if she can read a book that quickly I have no doubt I can too if I take the time to do it.
• The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman -Almost done.

Minimum 3 blog postings per week – Got this one done this week with plenty of time to spare!  I should be able to do the same this week too.

100 lbs (2 lbs/week) – Up 1.5 pounds direct weight this week, but if I go by yesterday’s weight I’m down 4.2 lbs.  I had quite a bit of sodium yesterday being home sick eating raman noodles, so I think today is artificially high.  Even with today’s higher weight I am still 1.65 pounds down on the averaged trend.  If I use yesterday’s weight (its easy to be artificially high, but not artificially low) I’m on-track for my long term goal.

Budget – We never did set down and do our budget for the last pay period as I mentioned before, but even so we still didn’t overspend and come up short.  We made a few smaller trips to the grocery store, rather than one big trip, but overall we did very well having considering ourselves as completely slacking off this time around.  We will be going over our specific budget before this week’s paycheck to get back on the wagon.

The last 2 years I’ve volunteered to be a speaker.  Both years I’ve given an instruction on the importance of and a crash-course on revision control.  While I feel it is a subject all programmers should be more than familiar with, I wanted to do something a little different this year.

I like to stick to beginner level subjects.  While I could get into serial port and socket programming in Delphi and Java, I feel Code Camp already has a good selection of subjects for the intermediate to advanced programmers.  Since Code Camp targets all audiences, I want to give people a chance to pick up something completely new to them without falling asleep because the material is far above their experience levels.  At the same time I like to choose something I will learn from while I prepare my demonstration.   As an example, the first time I taught revision control I did it along side Jim Munn.  I knew some of the Subversion basics but branching and merging were something I hadn’t done yet.  Jim showed the attendees (including me) that part and I focused on the integration with Trac.  The following year I explored it a little more in depth and taught the whole kit and caboodle.

Here are some of the subjects I considered  for my presentation:

• Test Driven Development in Java
• Beginner’s Home Automation using Misterhouse
• AGI programming for Asterisk
• WordPress widget/plugin development
• Dojo web programming

All of those subjects are topics I’ve dabbled in on some level.  I’ve started with some basic Dojo application development for example, but I’ve worked extensively with Asterisk.  I could even combine some of the above topics, such as using a Dojo interface to a Java based Asterisk AGI program in order to interface with a home automation system that makes a WordPress blog entry when it is complete!  The fun never ends.

In the end I decided to give a beginner level presentation on developing for the Xbox 360 console.  I’m already familiar with the language required due to some projects at work, so this will make for a fun project.  It will also be something a little different and I’m hoping will help attract some of the younger audience to Code Camp that may not have attended otherwise thinking it would be all about business programming topics.

Max 10 hours per week of TV – Back under the limit this week.

• Double Shot at Love (1 hr) – Season Finale ran.  What a train wreck.  Vikki and Rikki both chose Trevor, and he was forced to choose between them.  He chose Vikki much to my surprise.  I don’t envy his situation, or any of them for that matter.  This show had bad news written all over it from the start.  But then they all chose to put themselves into the situation so I really can’t feel too badly for them.   I recorded the aftermath show (half hour I think, maybe an hour, under goal either way) but went to bed before watching it last night.
• Knight Rider (1 hr) – The last episode seemed to get back to the roots of the original show, a group of people secretly helping law enforcement.  I think it has some good things in store if the network doesn’t blow it.
• Battlestar Galactica (1 hr) – Still Haven’t watched this yet. Been too busy with other things.
• Biggest Loser (2 hrs) – This week’s episode will be watched tonight.  Cristi and I played Halo and Wii for a while last night and didn’t want to stay up late enough to watch this.
• Dirty Jobs (1 hr) – Haven’t watched it yet.  I did hear rumors yesterday that they filmed an episode in Boise and it will be airing in a couple of weeks.  I can’t wait to see if it is the truth, but I don’t have time to go search for info to confirm it ahead of time.
• Grey’s Anatomy (0 hr) -No episode this week.
• ER (0 hr) – Don’t think this one aired this week either.
• 24 (1 hr) – Still behind on this, but I can’t wait to get started.  Marathon this weekend?
• Non-tracked viewing: Other than some evening news, I watched a couple of episodes of Predator Raw, the behind the scenes and update show on Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator series.  I don’t know if it was necessarily educational, but I disqualified it as I was in bed, waiting for Cristi to get done with some things.  I was tired enough I didn’t want to read, but I didn’t want to go to sleep before she joined me, so it didn’t stop me from doing anything else.

At least 2 books per month -January’s goal met, on track for February.

• Twilight – Have it back from our friend but haven’t started it.  I will start it this week though.
• The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman -3/4 of the way through it.

Minimum 3 blog postings per week – Dropped the ball on this one if you don’t count the smoothie recipes, met the goal if they are counted.  This wasn’t the intention of the goal, kind of as with last week’s 3 posts the day before the update.  I’m going to work harder on this goal to ensure I don’t completely blow it.

100 lbs (2 lbs/week) – Down 2.5 pounds direct weight this week, 1.07 pounds down on the averaged trend.  I’m only slightly behind my overall goal.  At 5 weeks I should be down 10 lbs, but I’m currently down 8.  Since it appears I’ve beaten the plateau I’ve been on, that should correct itself rather quickly and put me back on track..

Budget – We’ve fallen off the wagon a bit here.  We have made a few larger non-budgeted purchases, including the Wii Fit. It was a concious decision though, and with our budget being where it is we could afford to do so.  So while the purchases weren’t budgeted per se, they weren’t impulse purchases that will leave us short and scrounging for food before the next payday either.

Max 10 hours per week of TV – Back under the limit this week.

• Double Shot at Love (1 hr) – Haven’t watched it yet this week.  The DVR didn’t record it when it was supposed to so I set it to record a re-run later on.
• Knight Rider (1 hr) – The cheese I was worried about was only a short part of the last episode, so I’m now looking forward to the rest of the season.  With the change in leadership they just put in place, I think it has many more avenues it can take to keep it interesting.
• Battlestar Galactica (1 hr) – Haven’t watched this yet.  Been too busy with other things.
• Biggest Loser (2 hrs) – Wow, talk about screwing your team mate over.  I think Dan and Dave would have been able to stay if Dave hadn’t spouted off about being able to do just as well at home.  The video showed he couldn’t, and I think he gave up.  Unfortunately he also took his friend out too.
• Dirty Jobs (1 hr) – Haven’t watched it yet.  DVR skipped this one too for some reason so it’ll have to record later on.
• Grey’s Anatomy (1 hr) – Not only are they offing Izzy’s “dead husband” story arc, it appears based on previews that they may be offing the Izzy character altogether!  This is actually disappointing as I’ve always been a fan of Katherine Heigl ever since I saw her in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory when I was a teenager.
• ER (1 hr) – Falling behind on watching this one.
• 24 (1 hr) – Behind on this one too.  Its amazing that since I’ve been actively reducing my TV viewing, I’m not finding time to watch the shows that I truly DO want to watch.  I guess this is a prime example of changing a habit.
• Non-tracked viewing: Other than some evening news, I actually haven’t watched anything extra this week.

At least 2 books per month – Goal met.

• Otherland: River of Blue Fire by Tad Williams – Finished. Twilight was supposed to be next, but we loaned it to a friend since I wasn’t quite ready yet.  That’ll give me a chance to fly through a couple of shorter books in the queue.
• The Real America by Glenn Beck – Finished.
• The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman – Originally decided to read this mainly to see if she actually knows what she is talking about or if she is purely TV hype and has sold some books because of it.  I’m about half way through it, and I have to say she really does have some good ideas.  I’m starting to think she is selling herself short by being a shill for FICO on her TV show since it is blowing gaping holes in her credibility.

Minimum 3 blog postings per week – Met.  All 3 were posted yesterday, which is not the intent of the goal to rush through at the last moment to make it happen.  In defense on that point, 2 of the 3 were postings were already done in rough draft form with the intention of publishing them earlier, but didn’t get a chance to polish them up on time.

100 lbs (2 lbs/week) – I’m actually up 0.4 pounds direct weight this week, but 0.89 pounds down on the averaged trend.  I’m frustrated with this slight gain, but at the same time I also had a very low weight in the middle of the week which would have put me at 1.5 pounds down.  Plateaus happen, and since I’ve had 2 weeks straight like this, I should see a pretty sudden drop as my body gives up on trying to hold that extra weight.

Budget – No update here.  Unless we have a wild blow-out week where we go on a spending spree, this goal is really measured every other week as we review our performance on the last 2 weeks and plan the next 2.