So what topic did I finally come up with for post 100?  Today marks 6 months until the wedding.  If you didn’t know, Cece and I are getting married on October 13th, 2012.  Or as Sandy likes to puts it… “We’re becoming a family!”  We are pretty deep in the planning process but Cece has almost all the details set and we are mostly just finalizing things at this point.  As if planning a wedding wasn’t enough work, we are also planning to put the house on the market next week in an effort to upgrade to a bigger house.  We are going to try and build this time around so if the house sells, we will probably all be packed in to a small apartment for the summer while we are preparing for the wedding and the new house.  This is going to be an interesting summer!

Cece's Engagement Ring

Last spring, Cece and I made a couple window shopping trips to look to for engagement rings.  Being the kind of person that knows what he wants… I wanted to make sure Cece was getting what she wanted.  Luckily, she fell in love with the setting pretty much as soon as she saw it.  Step one, complete!  After that, we went back and looked at the diamond options.  Picking out a diamond is a very difficult task since the price range is so broad and well, most of the flaws are not even noticeable to the human eye.  Luckily, Cece fell in love with a specific cut that actually is pretty rare.  This gave me enough time to go back and compare some of the options on my own.  When it was all said and done, I was pretty sure she wanted the rare cut.  Step two, complete!  Then all I had to do was come up with a way to propose and we all know I don’t like drawing attention to myself so the typical “propose in front of people” idea was definitely out.  Kent and Laurie had just had their wedding at the Sunken Gardens in mid-October and everything was still pretty at the time.  John and Chelsea offered to have Sandy come over to practice soccer for the evening on a Friday (October 28th, 2011).  Luckily, I had a new camera lens arrive that week from Amazon… which wrapped my whole story up in to a neat little package.  The plan was drop Sandy off and then head to Sunken Gardens to test out my new lens and then go out for dinner.  Step three, complete!  We had to be quick and stay on schedule since the sun was setting so early.  I didn’t plan for Boo at the Zoo, so there was a major delay to get to the Sunken Gardens by kids running around in Halloween costumes.  We sat on the three block stretch in front of the Zoo for about 10 minutes watching the sun fall lower and lower in the sky.  We finally made it to the Sunken Gardens with just enough light to get a few shots and that was about it.  As we walked up, I was a bit in awe because all the beautiful flowers had been ripped out for the winter.  At this point I figured the ring had fallen out of my pocket or something because nothing was going as planned.  We walked around a bit and then I had Cece sit down on the bench to take some pictures.  Once she was all posed, I walked up with the ring in hand… and completely fumbled through what I was planning to say.  Honestly, I do not remember everything I actually said… but it must have been good because she said yes and she was actually completely surprised.  I assumed when I was the one to find a sitter for Sandy that I was giving away a giant clue, but it all worked out in the end.

This brings post 100 to a close.  Obviously the rest of the year is going to give me a lot of content to write about… hopefully I can find time to post it.

Looking past traditions, the move to the Big Ten will likely be beneficial to the University. Hopefully we have better recruiting options and based on the 10 million dollar figure form last year in the Big XII, 20 million sounds pretty good. Well, it did sound good. After Beebe’s attempt to save the Big XII conference included a 17 million dollar figure and more TV time, our move to the Big Ten doesn’t seem so sweet. So… Nebraska was upset because we weren’t getting enough TV time, enough money and deep down we despise Texas. Well, not to be rude, but did everyone just decide to forget what has happened during the last 12 years, because it has not been pretty. Don’t get me wrong, our stats still show we have been one of the strongest football teams throughout the years but the money goes where the action is and there just has not been much action since Osborne retired as head coach. We are not the powerhouse we once were and we need to accept that. That is the reason contracts do not last for ever. Who wants to give all your money and TV slots to an average team? It kind of seems we are expecting a lot more than we deserve right now. It takes time to recover. Everything was finally turning around but we will never get to find out how well things have turned around. Starting in 2011, we’re going to have a new hurdle. We will have a new conference schedule and we will be the new kid on the block.

I am not a sports analyst by any means. I watch for the enjoyment of the game. I do not have time to devote my life to sports and would never want to. My opinion is simply an opinion. When it sounded like the Big XII was breaking up and everyone was going their separate ways, I thought us moving to the Big Ten was alright. Now that the Big XII is moving forward with 10 teams, I feel like our move was made in haste. It is going to be tough to just pretend those Big XII teams do not exist and follow all the Big Ten teams throughout the season. Really, it is unfortunate the politics and money that is involved. It seems we traded away our traditions in favor for our greed… and that is never what Nebraska Football should be about.

Paul Gray (Author: Gene Smirnov - http://www.genesmirnov.com)

After a seven month hiatus from my website, I am not sure how to pick-up where I left off. The reason for this post is because last Monday brought sad news to the music world, the Midwest and myself. Paul Gray has passed away, for reasons unknown at this time. Paul was one of the original founders of Slipknot. He had been Slipknot’s only bass player since their inception in 1995. On Monday morning, Paul was found dead in his hotel room in Urbandale, IA.  He is survived by his wife Brenna who was expecting their first child at the time of his death. I realize their music is not for everyone, but that doesn’t take away from their talent. Many consider Slipknot the pioneers for new age heavy metal (or nu metal). Really, there is not many other bands that have a 9 person member list, which makes their sound pretty unique.

Paul Gray's Guitar Pick from Council Bluffs, Iowa 01.25.2009

On top of that, their lyrics are powerful, full of emotion and touch on the darker side of some topics that can effect us all. Slipknot’s stage presence is amazing and extremely energetic. Although they have received negative press as using their masks and image to sell records, their intention is actually to draw attention away from themselves so listeners can focus on the music. Everyone deals with life’s difficult times in different ways and Slipknot’s music has been like medication for some of those tough times in my life. Paul will be greatly missed.

]]> http://coreymatejka.com/2010/05/26/2-paul-gray/feed 0 http://coreymatejka.com/2009/10/23/iracing-rookie-perspective http://coreymatejka.com/2009/10/23/iracing-rookie-perspective#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:22:19 +0000 Corey Matejka http://coreymatejka.com/?p=370 I have been racing online in leagues for over 5 years. I have racked up countless hours and laps on every type of track and in many racing discipline. By far, NASCAR Racing 2003 is where I have spent the majority of my time while behind my virtual steering wheel. Sim racing, to me, seems to be a somewhat underground community that the average person is not that aware of. Once you dive in though, you’ll find plenty of content and resources available from enthusiasts all over the globe. NASCAR Racing 2003 has kept the largest number of active drivers to race with over the years but the game is 6 years old and its age is showing. In comparison to what is available now, NASCAR Racing 2003 just doesn’t have the feel of a simulation to me anymore. I won’t disagree that there has not been a decent oval racing game since NASCAR Racing 2003. We can thank EA Sports for convincing NASCAR to sell them sole rights to the brand name. If you watch stock car racing and see a driver start to lose it, then pull off a save and drive away, you will be sadly disappointed when you try to simulate that in NASCAR Racing 2003. Now that the EA Sports / NASCAR friendship is broken, the opportunity exists for an upgrade to the oval racing sim world. Enter iRacing:

Online gaming is ever evolving. Online interaction is ever evolving. Social networks are ever evolving. Blizzard proved to the world that gamers are willing to pay subscriptions to play if the interaction and content is worth it. So how improve the sim racing world? Step one is to make a really good game. Dave Kaemmer was the co-founder of Papyrus Design Group, the company responsible for both Grand Prix Legends and NASCAR Racing 2003. Papyrus shut its doors, ending the “new year | new game” title NASCAR Racing. Without a doubt, those two titles were good enough to live long past the normal life span of any video game. In 2004, Kaemmer joined forces with John Henry to create iRacing. Henrey is the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Sports Group and co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing. In August of 2008, iRacing opened its doors to the public and has had 16,000 members join since then. They have the experience and passion to create the next big thing in the sim racing world. If you have any interest in sim racing, I recommend you take the time to read about the technology for car and track modeling iRacing uses. It is very interesting.

I have been backing iRacing’s concept and vision for a long time and I have been very interested in getting involved. There is no “game” to buy in the case of iRacing. You pay for a monthly subscription that includes the software and updates. The subscription includes 3 cars and 7 tracks, with a total of 14 track variations. This is everything needed for racing in the rookie series available to newcomers. They have much more to offer, but you have to pay a onetime fee for additional cars and tracks to make them permanently available on your account. In my opinion, this is a great concept for pricing but can produce a lot of expenses if you are interested in trying out all the racing options available. If you think about it, titles like Madden (EA Sports) sell a new game every year for $60. All you are getting is a new roster, slightly improved game play and a few new features. Essentially, what you are paying for is an entire game, year after year. Both the Xbox and Playstation 3 support downloadable content, why not offer content updates instead of full price for a few changes. I like iRacing’s concept but there was no way I was going to pay the original price structure iRacing was using. On October 15th, iRacing announced a drastic price drop to all of their current prices for subscriptions and add-on content. It still is not a cheap adventure but I decided it was worth a three month trial to see how it all worked. The subscription fee is not bad but since I enjoy all types of racing, the add-on content is the part I think is still too expensive.

I felt pretty clueless as to what I was getting myself in to. I understood their concept of obtaining licenses and having to have specific ratings to race in a specific series. You are expected to work your way up by proving you are a competent driver. I really wasn’t sure what the user interface was going to be like or how the events would be structured. I am currently in the rookie series for oval racing. I am racing a 5/8th scale 1930′s style NASCAR modified truck with a Yahama 1250cc motorcycle engine. A schedule runs on a weekly basis. So this week, my series has one track assigned for the week. At any time you have the option to practice, qualify, race or do time trials. There are typically multiple practice sessions going on all the time available for you to join and it is just that, practice. Qualifying occurs at a quarter till the hour. You can qualify as often as you like and the fastest time you post during the week will be your qualifying time for every race you join during the week. You don’t have to qualify before each race so if you can post a good time at the start of the week, you can spend the rest of the week racing. Each race occurs on the hour. The important thing with races, there must be enough drivers in the race for it to be an “official” race and count towards your ratings. As long as you are playing during normal hours, I do not see that being an issue. During races is when you need to worry about your driving because your driver ratings will be adjusted based on the cleanliness and skill of your driving. Every series can have different set of rules but this is how my rookie series works. I wasn’t sure about this structure when I first saw how it worked, but after my first evening of racing, I really enjoyed it. I am not sure how everything works yet. There are clubs, divisions and overall point totals that I have not looked in depth at. Right now I am focusing on racing. If you enjoy racing for the race, this is fun. You don’t have to commit to race on a specific night or at a specific time. You can practice as much or as little as you like. If you miss one race, you can jump in to the next scheduled race. I am looking forward to moving up the ranks for the next three months and see how things change once pit strategy and setups come in to play.

There are some things about iRacing that I hope they improve. Previously, you had no way to host a league in iRacing and you are not able to run your own iRacing server. I am not sure if you even have a way to race with a friend during a public race. My races have had way more drivers join the race session than were available spots on the grid. The iRacing system automatically splits that pool up in to the correct size of races and places drivers together with similar ratings in an effort to keep the racing exciting for everyone involved. If you add someone as a friend, it mentions your likelihood to race with them is better but I would assume you’d need to be at about the same level. Private race sessions were just announced at a cost of $3 per race. If you really wanted to run a private league in iRacing it is at least possible now. If a friend is racing in the same session, I want to race with my friend regardless of the ratings. I am also not impressed with their idea of customization. In sim racing, your car and your number becomes your identity. When you enter a session, you are randomly assigned a different number each time. I would appreciate the ability to select up to 3 numbers and have the system attempt to assign me one of those numbers. If none of them are available for that session, then assign me a random number. Drivers would have to understand if they pick 24, 48 and 88 there is a slim chance of getting your number but most drivers should be able to find one number that is not overly popular in professional racing. The car customization consists of picking a predesigned base scheme, modify the three colors that make up the scheme, picking your random number’s font, and adding optional logos. Your logo options are either iRacing, Dale Earnhardt Jr. related, or the logo for the region you live in. I would love to see this drastically improved but for now, it is not likely to see two of the same cars on the track. These items do not take away from the racing but they would significantly add to the experience.

If you are interested in sim racing I highly recommend you give iRacing a try for three months. So far, I am greatly pleased with almost every aspect of the service and its execution. If you opt to sign up and don’t have a referral, I will gladly supply you with my email address and would be very appreciative of anyone using me as a referral. I have completed four races so far and was very excited to grab a 2nd place finish in my forth race. I have had some close calls and a roll down the front stretch; those are the things that keep online racing exciting. If you have a bad race, you can always hop in to the next session and try again. Enjoy the clips from my first three races. I am driving the red truck with the black fenders. In case you were wondering, I still got 7th after the tumble down the front stretch.

Wandering through the pumpkin patch at Roca Berry Farm, these pumpkins looked like they needed a little attention to hold them over until Halloween.

I opted to wander around the pumpkin patch and take some pictures. I tend to take the best pictures when I am not under pressure of other people. I really wish I could photograph people better but it seems the do not ever meet my standards. After the girls were done with their train ride, we wondered over to catch the last pig races of the day. The pig races were pretty humorous actually. How can you not be amused by a bunch of kids yelling “Soo-Ee” until they are red in the face? Then we went through some of the Haunted Barns. Sandy braved the Haunted Castle so she decided she wanted to go through the big Haunted Manor… that did not go quite as well. Even though Sandy decided to make use of an emergency exit at the Haunted Manor, she wanted to go through the kid’s themed Haunted Barn still. Afterward, we hopped on the hayrack ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. Carrying around pumpkins for a long time gets tiring but I think we all found some good pumpkins for carving. Although… one of my pumpkins may actually be a squash according to the lady at the cash register. If it is a squash, apparently it is one of the biggest ones she has seen.

Image courtesy of www.omahaperformingarts.org

Now that summer is officially over, I appreciate not having every weekend on my calendar full for the entire weekend. Even when I do have plans, it is usually only part of the weekend. Next weekend, Cece and I are off to the symphony. That is not 100% accurate actually. Imagine the original Phantom of the Opera (1925) silent film with the Omaha Symphony playing a spooky soundtrack in sync with the movie (event information). Back during my younger days, I took a trip to Minnesota for some band function and I remember we ate at a dinner theater and they performed Phantom of the Opera. I really enjoyed it and have always wanted to have the chance to see something similar again. I realize this will not be exactly the same but I thinking it will be equally entertaining. Additionally, the Holland Center looks to be a pretty amazing venue with a modern touch. There is also a nearby restaurant I have wanted to take Cece to for awhile so I thought I would throw in a little surprise for the evening. Great food, a classic film and wonderful music should make for a perfect evening.

Everything else in life is pretty normal. Work is always busy and there is always something to do at the house. I am still trying to get everything outside prepared for winter. It sounds like we may be having a little Halloween get together so I need to work on a costume. I am really looking forward to making and freezing some big batches of Chili for the winter. Remember that blog post about my horrible racing season? Since then, I have missed one race and finished three laps of the next race. I am really enjoying my racing games on the 360 lately and the wheel stand project has only made it more enjoyable. I also am considering a different venue for my online racing leagues because I just have lost interest and patience for my current league. I really feel iRacing is going to be the next big thing in the online sim racing world and now that they dropped their prices I think it is time for me to give it a try. I still think some of the pricing for the add-on content is too high, but maybe it will be worth it.

Everyone enjoy the decent weather… before it is gone.

One of the biggest complaints about the new arena is paying the additional taxes. They proposed a 4% tax on hotels and rental cars and a 2% tax on restaurants and bars. I enjoy going out a few times a week, so paying an additional 2% at restaurants and bars is not something I am happy about, but I realize the city needs to pay for the arena somehow. Omaha and Grand Island already have similar taxes to pay for projects to boost entertainment in their cities. These kinds of taxes are not unheard of by any means. The amusing part, some people seem to think they should not have to pay for an arena they never plan to use. Sports, concerts, kid’s events, and “giant liquidation” sales… I am sorry your life is so boring you will never attend anything hosted at an arena. If you never plan to attend anything at the new proposed arena, you should at least look outside of the tiny box you live in. Most people in Lincoln probably do not have to worry much about the additional taxes on hotels and rental cars; unless your spouse kicks you out of the house and takes your car. The tax at restaurants and bars is likely going to hurt the staff more than anything. I assume people will likely cut back on their gratuity to make up the 2% difference. The bigger picture, events draw people to the city and those people spend money. This creates additional revenue from shopping, dining, drinking, and paying our city’s taxes. It is not required to attend an event at the arena to benefit from the addition to the city. Plus, when the city decides to build the “Museum of Boring and Whiney People”, the rest of us will be too busy enjoying the arena to complain about it.

Another compliant revolved around the idea that the people of Lincoln will travel to Omaha but the people of Omaha will not travel to Lincoln. There is probably a lot of truth to that statement, but last I checked Lincoln and Omaha were not the only place where people reside in the state of Nebraska. People will travel to see the events they want to see. I personally have traveled to Kansas City and Denver just to see a specific concert. I think I need to explain something at this point to those that do not keep up with concerts. Bands do multiple tours. Bands are interested in making money. The average person is not going to pay to see the same band, at the same venue, on the same tour, more than one time. In the last three years I can think at least four bands I have seen four times in this area. None of these bands played the same venue more than twice. If they did play a venue twice, it was because one instance was festival they were involved in. It is common for a band to cross the US multiple times and they will hit our area multiple times if we provide them a place to play and an audience to attend. The Qwest Center is a nice venue but it is expensive. I have only been to the Qwest Center twice and I have seen well over 50 shows. Personally, I do not even consider it a viable option for most concerts I am willing to attend. The Qwest Center hosts very big names with fairly expensive ticket prices. If I was a country music fan, the Qwest Center would be about my only option for seeing a show. I realize country music is big in Nebraska, but country music is not the only music people enjoy in Nebraska. So, the proposed arena is going to be competing with the Mid-America Center for the most part, which is not even in Nebraska. Why would we want to keep pushing events across the river?

Lincoln seems to want to keep its “big city with small town charm”, but does that mean we need to prevent all growth? Taxes are required and they are not going away. I would be interested in seeing the projected taxes if we opted to find a different location for the arena. I understand the appeal of the Hay Market but spending $350 million to move the railroad tracks seems like an unneeded expense when so many areas of Lincoln are growing. I assume that area seems like a good place for the city so they can opt to charge for parking versus free parking. I also assume the University wants the arena as close to home as possible. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I am sure many people disagree with my opinion. I am just hopefully for a positive outcome and a new arena, especially if it draws better events to Lincoln.

I did give myself one goal last weekend. I have no problem admitting I enjoy playing games. Even my Dad and Uncle spend one night a week racing online in the same racing league that I race in. Video games have changed over time and the audience is always getting broader. You may enjoy reality TV or sitting and watching movies all night… my form of entertainment is video games. Many games are designed to tell a story; just like a movie but the key difference is you get to take part in the story. Many games are designed to simulate reality; you get to be in the middle of the action. Maybe I enjoy games because watching television usually puts me to sleep unless I am doing something else at the same time. Maybe I enjoy games because I like the interaction. I play about everything; music games, shooters, and the racing games (of course). I’ll be honest; I can’t drive with my thumb and will never pretend to enjoy trying to play driving games with a hand-held controller. Using the Microsoft Xbox 360 steering wheel on the couch was always a challenge and not too enjoyable though. After many, many hours of racing online on the computer, I learned that if you tilt your pedals about 45 degrees and give yourself a base to rest your feet on, it provided a lot more realistic experience. In addition, my legs and ankles didn’t get tired during 2 hour endurance races because this was a more natural setup. This prompted me to build a pedal stand for my Logitech Momo steering wheel and pedals for my PC setup. After using it a few times I started recommending it to everyone that enjoys racing games. Last weekend it was time to build an entire wheel stand for the Microsoft Xbox 360 steering wheel that I could use while sitting on the couch. I had an idea in my head because I had been thinking of designs for almost a year. Lee found a design online that seemed more promising and would require less MDF and less cutting, so I decided to use that as my starting point instead and incorporate my ideas. I worked up my plans and I started by building a similar pedal stand I had been using for the computer. Then I just had to add the side arms and a top to attach the wheel. A couple braces for support and my creation was completed. Coming up with all the correct angles to keep everything comfortable and realistic was not easy and making sure everything was very sturdy was important. I have to say, I am pretty proud of my work. All that is left is filling the screw holes, sanding everything again and painting. I will probably have to add a beverage holder too. Before the wheel stand, I was using Cece’s TV tray and the pedals were on the floor. The pedals would slide around, there was no horizontal leg room, the TV tray was way too high, and the wheel made the tray top heavy. Now I have plenty of room, a better angle for the pedals and the stand is solid. It is amazing what a difference a wheel stand makes to your overall driving experience!

If you hadn’t noticed, everything looks different here. I spent a long time working on my old layout and I really liked it. The problem, somewhere along the way I edited something that posed a display problem with Internet Explorer. I probably spent two days attempting to fix the old layout and finally decided it was time for a change. Over the years I have put together and worked on a quite a few websites but I have to say Wordpess has been my favorite interface so far. I would appreciate a little better integration with Gallery, but Gallery is awesome as a stand-alone web application so I can’t really complain. Switching over to this new layout went pretty seamlessly. My biggest issue was finding a good image for the top that I think represents me well and fits well above a blog without using up too much real estate. Finding something that isn’t too tall and very wide is very difficult. For now, I guess the Xterra will have to do. I really wanted to use another sunset but it I didn’t have anything that worked well so I decided to change my site logo while I was at. That let me bring the symbolism of the sun back in to my website. I also added a rating system for posts to allow people to interact without registering. One major issue with websites is human interaction is key but allowing anonymous interaction is a scary idea. People will spam any website, even an insignificant personal blog like this. So the ratings can be used by visitors but comments still require an account (which is free, simple and easy to use). Since I was getting random spam accounts registering there has been captcha added to the registration process. The only other major issue I had was the width of the posts is now smaller, so I had to go back and edit my videos to a little smaller footprint. Why spend my time mentioning all of this you ask… human interaction. If you happen to notice some issue I missed, please let me know. There are a few things I still need to work on but for the most part I consider the update complete and really like the new look.

A new online racing season started not too long ago and I was pretty excited to get started. Last season I missed a race but for the most part I had a really good season but missing that race killed my standings. I was excited to get back in and try to compete for a good place at the end of the season. The number of new drivers joining the league is pretty high which means there are a lot of new guys that you have no clue how they will race against you. I knew the most important factor to have a good season was not missing a race… so far, so good. The next important factor is good finishes. Unfortunately that is not going well at all! After four races my average finish is 18th and I don’t even have a top 10 finish in any of the four races. I sit 16th in points overall and I haven’t even seen the checkered flag in a race yet. I have only finished 55% of the laps and one race I only completed 3 laps. For the record, I have not once wrecked myself or another driver. I have been a victim for four weeks in a row and it is frustrating! This week was Daytona, which is one big pack racing fender-to-fender at 200 MPH. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the race because if you want to be a fair driver it is not possible to hold 1st place and someone always causes a big accident because of poor driving. I decided to post the video of the accident. The accident would have never happened if one driver would have opted to drive in a straight line. You have to pick a lane and commit to it and change lanes only when the time is right. I avoided this guy all night and knew driving beside him was dangerous, but I still got bitten. In case you were wondering, the 24 car is my Dad and I drive the 96.

2009 Matejka Family Cook Off

Last weekend was the Matejka Family Cook Off. The rules are simple; make the featured item and make it better than everyone else. Two years ago we did ribs and my ribs brought home the trophy. I may be the only one in the family that still uses a normal grill to slow smoke ribs. This year’s feature item was hamburgers. Making the best hamburgers isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds. Anyone can cook a hamburger but the creativeness played an important role. We had six cooks and six judges and two people working in between to get the prepared food to the judges so they didn’t know whose food they were eating when they voted. Then the judges rate all of the hamburgers and the score cards are tallied. The biggest obstacle was creating a hamburger with ingredients that all the judges will like (especially when you don’t particularly like tomatoes, onions or peppers yourself). I decided to break out a lot of homemade items to make a unique hamburger that represented my favorite tastes. My goal was to combine sweet, smoky and a little spicy. My hamburger could best be described as a sweet and smoky bacon chipotle burger. The meat was a mix of maple and jalapeno rubs with fresh garlic and a few miscellaneous ingredients to keep things moist and juicy. Then I wrapped the patties with hickory bacon like ribbon wrapped around a birthday present. Cooking two meats at the same time that cook completely differently was not an easy task. To get a realistic smoky taste I decided on smoked blocks of cheddar made in my homemade cold smoker, sliced and melted on top of the hamburger. The whole burger was then wrapped in romaine lettuce with a slice of tomato. To finish things off I added a homemade sauce to put on the toasted bun. This was a combination of normal ranch mixed with my own homemade BBQ sauce. I then mixed in the powder from homemade chipotles and my homemade BBQ rub (used for ribs and pulled pork). The sauce ended up being a little hotter than I had originally created during testing, but I didn’t decide that until it was in the bottle so I wasn’t planning to change it. Cece and Jared helped with the taste testing process before the cook off and all things seemed good. The problem, I am my worst critic so I just wasn’t too thrilled with my creation because it didn’t seem that “special”. There was a lot of different hamburgers made; pesto hamburger, butter hamburger, all-American hamburger, pizza burger. The interesting thing was everyone had different buns, cheese, hamburger patty sizes and even sauces. Actually, the hardest part was finding the perfect bun for your hamburger. The best part, everyone made a good hamburger for the contest and everyone did a good job cooking on the charcoal grill (which I don’t ever use a charcoal grill so that was a little different). After the hamburgers we watched the game and the judges results were reveled at halftime. My hamburger creation was announced the winner and it put the trophy on my shelf for the 2009 Cook Off, which I was pretty excited about. My Dad was runner-up again this year, but since most of my techniques I learned from my parents, I guess that should be like a win for Dad too.

Everyone had a great time again and I really appreciate when anyone puts on these types of events. It is a lot of work getting everything planned and the cooking part actually gets pretty stressful so there can be some tension early on. Once everything is done and we can watch the game, have a few beers and talk about all the cooking, all of the stress is forgotten. The following day was the golf outing with another trophy up for grabs. Everyone has to set a realistic handicap and then the best score wins. I only golf a few times a year and I probably set my standards to high with my score, but I was more interested in the challenge to improve than winning a trophy for something I really am not that good at. Trust me; this is something I really am not good at and I am not my worst critic. I was 5 over on the front nine and 1 under on the back nine so I thought that was a victory for me. My uncle Rick was 3 under overall and the golf trophy is on his shelf. Maybe next year I should focus on the golfing more and the cooking less… We’ll see but it depends on the featured item for the cook off. Pizza would be fun, or Chili, or pizzas, or pulled pork, or brisket… Oh! Sushi would be awesome!

I have little use for Microsoft Word even though it is a great application. I would guess 95% of what I type is either email, code, or blog posts. So I use a fancy text editor for about everything. You know how handy it would be to have a text editor that doubles as a word processor? A program with all the features for typing code and with the click of a button all the pretty colors are gone you get spell-check on-the-fly. I program that doesn’t bury the option four steps in to the menu (although in this case, spell-check on-the-fly isn’t even an option so…). I want to install the least number of applications as possible so Notepad ++ is an awesome alternative for me, if they would just add that one feature it would seem so much better. Maybe it is already possible and I can’t find a way to get it to work, but I have searched the help and forums and had no luck. I already had to install a separate spell checker for the program to even support spell check, and I certainly do not want to install one of those “spell check in every window” programs. Sure, I can post a request to their forum but honestly, I have never had this approach ever really work in the past. So I sit here, hoping and dreaming that someday there will be a little button to click that makes me happy. Disclaimer: Notepad ++ is free software and I have not found a better editor so in reality, I shouldn’t complain. Plus, the only people that really suffer from me not having spell-check on-the-fly is you, the reader.

Maybe I am just hard to please, which many people would probably agree with. I have an awesome Motorola Smartphone, and overall I think I really dislike it. It does the job but it sluggish and needs to be reset (reformatted) frequently. I also don’t understand how so many people can complain on forums about dust getting under the screen because I have the same problem. That seems to be something Motorola’s quality assurance department should have easily caught. Then there is everyone’s favorite company to hate, Microsoft. Thank you for providing me with two wonderful products in my life; the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista (I happen to be one of those people that have had zero issues with Vista on 4 different machines for over 2 years now and would never chose XP over Vista). Microsoft was also so nice to have these two products interact so nicely with each other, except I have spent countless hours to try getting it to work and only fail. Vista finds the 360 every time it is turned on, but when you put in the 8 digit code and proceed with the setup, Vista claims it can not find the device. What!?! I have read countless guides and still no resolution. I am half tempted to use my laptop with Windows 7 and see if that will even work. Finally, there is Apple and their new iPods. My 30 gig iPod served me well and my iTunes library is patiently waiting for a nice new iPod to sync with. The classic has sort of become the red-headed step child of the iPods, which is understandable since they really did nothing but give it a bigger hard drive (again). I thought they would actually do away with it entirely. Personally, I rather switch to solid state over a microdrive, so that leaves the option for a Touch or Nano. The 32 gig Touch has a pretty steep price tag but a 16 gig Nano just isn’t going to cut it for someone with decent music collection. The novelty of the Touch doesn’t really do anything for me even a touch screen would be nice. If I want to play games though, I will use something designed to play games, not music. The new features on the Nano are actually pretty cool, so why not make it more practical? I wouldn’t even be able to record video because I already slimmed down my music to 20 gigs just for the iPod I had, which was really, really difficult. My full collection wouldn’t even fit on the 160 gig Classic. I understand marketing the Nano to the younger generation but does that mean you can’t put the same features on the Classic or Touch? I had decided that for the money the storage space on the Nano wasn’t going to work and I was fine with the Classic. Thank you for introducing the new models, with cool bells and whistles, because now I just feel like I am getting the shaft no matter which model I pick!

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of things I love about technology but lately I just seem to be frustrated with technology. Who knows, maybe the lovely people at Apple will see this and send me a 32 gig Nano to delete my post, or maybe not.