John Hawkins Unrated

There are so many social network sites these days that it’s almost impossible to keep active on all of them. I have, or have had accounts on just about all of them. But, the list of sites I stay active with is very very short.

Today I logged in to Facebook to find that I had a new friend request. By photo alone, I had no idea who the person was. I followed the link to their profile and it was clear that they only requested to by my friend for the sole purpose of padding their friend count and to eventually send me ads at some point down the line. I spend more time on social network sites doing this than I do actually staying in touch with long distance friends & family members. It’s for this exact reason that I deleted my account on MySpace just last week.

With Facebook, the thing that has the biggest ability to waste your time is the massive amounts of third party applications that are available. Rate movies, rate your friends, movie quotes and surveys, before you know it you’ve spent two hours telling people how much you loved the movie Weekend at Bernie’s. A while back I made a choice to remove any of the apps that are time-sucks and I will ignore all requests from friends to add new ones. If you’re a contact of mine on Facebook and I ignore your request, please don’t be upset. I’m just trying to save my sanity.

I’ve found that I no longer have much interest in keeping up with any of my social network accounts. I’ll keep my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but it’s VERY unlikely that I’ll join any new ones. I’m much happier using my blog here, my photo blog at slackerphotos.com, my twitter account to let everybody know what I’m up to. I then use netvibes.com to read close to 70 RSS feeds. I also use Twirl to follow a few dozen other people’s tweets (a post on twitter is referred to as a ‘tweet’).

If you haven’t already checked out twitter, I strongly suggest it. I realized something about twitter the other day that has really increased it’s usefulness for me. As you may know, I’ve taken up photography as a hobby recently. While checking out some photos on flickr.com, I found a link to a photographer’s blog. When I checked it out, I saw that he also was active on twitter. I started following his tweets. Then, I checked out the list of people he followed. I went through his list and found 5 or 6 other photographers to start following. Also, when checking out their twitter profiles I found links to their photo blogs. Some of them are absolutely amazing. So I add those to my RSS feed list on Netvibes. Now when these people post a tweet or a blog post with a juicy tip, I’m being spoon-fed information on how to improve as a photographer. I have to say that’s better than any class I could possibly think to enroll in. Not to mention being 100% totally free.

Be careful that your social webbing isn’t eating up all your time and not providing you with any benefits. Don’t forget that your time is valuable.

This past Friday I left work a little early with the intention of heading to St. George Utah to see Cross Canadian Ragweed in concert. The plan was to leave the house around 3PM. But, thanks to another lengthy visit from the air conditioning company from hell, we didn’t get on the road until nearly 5PM.

We arrived at the venue at about 8:15 local time. Yes, I forgot to calculate in the time change. We were able to find a spot to park about 50 feet away from the front door. I found this odd, but it would wind up to be just one of the many oddities of concerts in Utah.

We headed to the front door to pick up our tickets at Will Call. We gave the guy our name and he looked us up on a printed sheet and hands us our tickets. We walk past the security guards (a guy in his 50s and his two teen-aged kids) and head inside. This is so different than going to a show in Vegas where they basically give you a body cavity search before entering the arena.

Now that we are inside it’s time to grab a drink. We walk up to the bar and see that there are a couple teenagers working this section, too. Oh, looky there… no alcohol on the menu. Bottled waters were only $1.00 which is unheard of at any concert I have ever been to. We could have ordered a Frazzle, which is like an Icee, but we decided against it.

Now we head toward the stage. That’s a short trip. This entire place can hold no more than about 350 people. But, the opening band is already on stage and there are no more than 100 people in the place. We find a spot up front and settle in. Then, we start to notice it. Almost everybody has snuck in their own alcohol. Some had flasks, but most had something mixed in a water bottle that looked faintly like piss. With no access to alcohol, I was a bit jealous of the piss drinkers.

During the show the lead singer mentions that the management has made it VERY clear that he is not supposed to curse on stage. Uh, OK… He kept to that rule basically all night. Though, he did let slip an F-bomb at one point. Another thing that he spoke about was the fact that it’s “Mustache May.” If you don’t have any facial hair, for the month of May you are supposed to let your mustache grow. If you have a goatee you are supposed to shave the bottom and keep the top. So, in the spirit of being a team player, I’ve shaved half my facial hair and now look like a cross between a 70’s porn star and a used car salesmen. Enjoy!

Why is it when something expensive happens, something else expensive usually likes to follow right behind? Or, in the case of this past week, expensive comes in threes.

I don’t know how many of my loyal readers know that my son had eye surgery when he was really young and wore for a few years. He had a lazy eye that seemed to get better over time. After some time wearing the glasses, his eyes got better and he no longer had to wear glasses.

Fast forward to last week. Paxton’s eyes have been going back to their old ways. He had an eye appointment and it was determined that he once again needs glasses. New frames and lenses to the tune of $450. Ouch.

Next it’s time for Chris to go for an MRI on her shoulder. She has been in considerable pain recently and one of the doctors she’s seen recently thinks that she may need surgery. Another doctor thinks that she has a tear that may just need some time to heal. Hopefully the MRI will show that she doesn’t need surgery.

When it came time to pay for the MRI, the gal behind the counter said, with a straight face, $450. Ouch again! I have no idea why our insurance didn’t cover more of this. I’m going to have to resubmit the claim and see if they’ll reimburse us for some of that. Brutal.

As if that wasn’t enough, let’s talk about the enjoyment of home ownership. A couple years back we replaced our air conditioning units. Talk about sticker shock. Well, when you purchase brand new units, you would assume that you will go at least a few years without requiring repairs, right? Right? Wrong! Shortly after having them installed we ended up having to have one of them replaced. That was on their dime, so I didn’t care too much. However, when we had the company out last week to figure out why our upstairs unit was blowing nothing but warm air, he gave us two options: replace the compressor (no charge} or, replace the unit ($700). The $700 being the cost of renting the crane and what-not, but damn, that’s a lot of coin. So after some debate, we went ahead and opted for the free route. I’m fairly certain this will come back to bite me in about 4 years, but really, who knows where any of us will be in 4 years.

And finally, the garage door. Our garage door opener has been acting up lately. On Friday we made an appointment to have the opener replaced on Monday. The new opener plus installation was going to cost us $250. Thanks to being home sick, I was able to see when the installer pointed out that not only was the opener itself dead, but one of the springs had also snapped. Go ahead and add an additional $260.

So there ya go. The joys of home ownership and medical bills. There is NEVER a good time for unexpected expenses. But why does it always seem to happen at what feels like the worst possible time?

I got invited to play a round of golf with a buddy from work over this past weekend. So Sunday morning I headed out to the driving range around 11, bit a bucket of balls and then our tee time was at noon. Even though I hadn’t played a full round of golf in about 5 years, I was quite pleased with how I was playing after the first 9 holes. I hadn’t lost a single ball and hadn’t embarrassed myself once. This was shaping up to be a great day.

Around 3 PM we were through about 14 holes and that’s when it dawned on me; holy crap, I didn’t put on any sun block. I already felt the beginning of the burning on my forearms, legs and neck. At this point, there was no turning back. I had to stick it out and finish the round. By 4:15 we were done golfing and I was in the car heading home. I was in pain and I knew it was going to get worse.

After taking a cool shower, I slathered myself with aloe trying to get some relief from the heat. It works, but only for a few minutes at a time. By about 8 PM, I started feeling sick to my stomach. Yeah, I over did it this time…

I crawled in to bed and did the best I could to sleep. I woke up basically every time I moved. Around 2 AM I woke up and wasn’t able to get comfortable enough to fall back asleep until after 3. Not only was I burnt to a crisp, I was now physically sick, too.

For a guy that has already had skin cancer removed from both my cheek and my back, letting myself get burnt this badly is just flat out stupid. The fact that I didn’t even think to bring sun block just baffles me.

Last month I went to my dermatologist and she gave me my first “clean bill of health” in over 3 years. Then I go and pull this little stunt. I guess I better go ahead and make a 6 month check-up appointment rather than waiting the full year like she had scheduled me for.

I may have spoke about it before, but when I get in to something, my addictive personality tends to take over and I REALLY get in to it. One hobby that I have been interested in for a LONG time, but haven’t really dove in to. Until recently, that is.

We are planning a trip to Alaska and since I figure it’s basically a once in a lifetime trip, I want to make sure I capture it properly. With that in mind I went out and bought a Canon Digital Rebel. Once it arrived, I realized I don’t know the first thing about photography. This lead to the first purchases for my new hobby; 2 photography books. Reading the books lead to the next three purchases; Polarizer filter, remote control for the shutter and a GPS location recorder. It surprises me to say this, but so far, that’s where the purchases have stopped. And, until I learn a bit more and really figure out what type of photography I’m interested in, that’s where the purchases will stay.

I’m quite interested in becoming a decent photography. Selling my photography or having it published has nothing to do with it. But, I’ve had decent cameras in the past and I’ve taken a dozen or so photographs that I consider great. That’s a dozen great ones out of a couple thousand not so great ones. I would just like to increase the number of great shots I have in my collection.

The only way I’m going to get better is to keep shooting. But, I think it’s important to also expand on the types of shots I’m taking. To help out with the diversity, I set up a photo-a-week group on Flickr. Each week a new topic is chosen and all the members of the group have to go out and take a photo on the specific topic. I’ve also been taking part in a weekly photo assignment from digital-photography-school.com just for the extra practice. If you enjoy taking photos and want to take part in our weekly group shots, definitely sign up for our group.

Another way that I’m progressing my photography skills is by checking out other great photographers. There is no shortage of them on the internet. I’ve found several new photo blogs to check out on CoolPhotoBlogs.com. Very inspiring. You can check out my photo blog, which is still in it’s infancy, at SlackerPhotos.com. You can also check out my more of my photographs on my flicker.com account.

If things go well, by this time next year I’ll have a collection of photos worth showing off. We’ll see how that goes.

This past week was pretty busy. I started the week by flying to San Francisco for a trade show. The thing about trade shows, they are basically all the same. Maybe not the content, but everything else about them is identical. I’ll show you what I mean. Here was my trade show:

Day 1: Fly in the night before the show, eat dinner too late, go out for drinks and get to sleep way to late.
Day 2: Get up early, have a crappy breakfast, spend most of your day on your feet, go out to dinner too late, go to an industry party with an open bar, get to sleep way to late.
Day 3: Get up a little later, have a crappy breakfast, have very few meetings at the show because everybody else went out too late last night, too, eat dinner way to late, skip the industry party, go to sleep way to late.
Day 4: Get up and rush to the airport to fly home.

The show was good. I had some great meetings and made some decent deals. But still I arrived home totally bushed. On Thursday I planned on going to sleep around 10 PM so I could get a good night’s sleep. Instead I fell asleep at 8:15 and slept all night.

While I was in San Francisco, I did take a few photos that I’m pretty happy with. One of them was a 30 second exposure I took from my hotel room of the street below. I love catching the streaking lights of the cars on the road. I’m thrilled with how it came out. You can check them out over here.

Friday night we went back to Sam’s Town to play the 11 PM tourney. We started with 4 tables and it didn’t take that long to get down to the final table. We lost a couple players and when we got down to the final 5, I was the overwhelming chip leader. I then got unlucky in a couple hands and I was quickly the short stack. A few minutes later, I was out of the tournament in 5th place. That, as they say, is poker.

On Saturday I slept in. It was lovely. I woke up and watched some hockey. We then went to lunch and headed over to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Have I mentioned lately that I’m addicted to this place? My current list of favorite games are “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Star Trek”, and “Austin Powers”. I have had a few good games on Creature, but I feel like I’m about ready to break through and have a HUGE game. I currently have my name on the high score boards for 2 games (Star Trek & Funhouse) and I feel Creature is next on my list. Soon.

Saturday evening we ordered the UFC fight on pay-per-view and had a few friends over to watch. I have to say that watching UFC is way more fun with a group of people. I watch a fair bit of it on my own, but it’s just not the same.

Sunday is going to be low key. I need to rest up and get another good night’s sleep. I have a LOT of work to do this week. I would like to get out and take some more photos, but we’ll have to see how that shapes up.

This summer we are planning on taking a cruise to Alaska. For our trip, one of the things we need to do is get our passports. It seems odd to say we need passports to go to Alaska, but the ship sets sail out of Vancouver, Canada. And in the post 9-11 days, even our friends to the North require you to have a passport.

Back in December we headed on out to the post office, filled in all the paperwork, paid our money and sent off our applications. 3 short weeks later we received 3 passports and one rejection letter. Looks like Chris and the kids are going to Alaska without me. (over dramatic much?)

Why was I rejected you ask? No, I’m not a felon. No, I’m not being hunted by any government agency. The reason is because I changed my name when I turned 18 (long story behind it, don’t ask.) Apparently there are 2 ways to do that; the right way, and the way I did it, naturally.

Since I never changed my name through the courts, they required that I send a bunch of extra documents in order to prove I’ve been using my current last name for over 5 years. No problem, I can get that taken care of in no time. But, I didn’t. December gave way to January. Along came (and went) February and most of March. Then, one day my wife says, “Our trip is in 2 months. If you don’t have your passport, you can’t go.” Can you say wake-up call? Yeah, me too.

I took half a day off work last week and we gathered up a stack of documents proving I am who I say I am and we headed back to the post office. Since I had waited so long to return I had to re-apply from the beginning rather than riding in on the coattails of my previous application. That basically means I had to pay the 100 bucks again. I also paid extra to have the application expedited. Once we got it mailed off all we could do then was wait and hope it got approved quickly. 8 short days later, our answer came in the mail. Chris called me and says, “I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Your passport just arrived in the mail.” Woo hoo, I get to go to Alaska after all.

Such a huge amount of stress has been lifted from my shoulders. I would love to say that I have learned my lesson and next time I have a deadline to do something I will get it taken care of right away instead of waiting until the last minute. But, as you may have guessed, that’s just not in my nature and wouldn’t be nearly as exciting.

Living in Henderson, 10 minutes or so from Las Vegas, is pretty interesting. If you ask anybody outside of Nevada what there is to do in Las Vegas and it’s safe to say “Gambling” is going to be the #1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 answers. But, as it turns out, there’s a lot more out here than you might realize. Or, if you are anything like us, you may know that these things are here, but choose to ignore them for the first 5 years you live here.

As I mentioned recently, I picked up a new camera. My goal is to take a bunch of photos before June so I can figure out what the heck I’m doing so I can take some sweet shots while we are in Alaska. So, when we woke up this morning, we packed up the kids and headed out to Red Rock Canyon.

Red Rock Canyon is less than an hour drive from our house, but when you get out there on the scenic drive, you might think you’ve landed on a different planet. The 13 mile drive around the loop takes you past several spots where you can park your car and go for a hike. The hikes range from easy to very difficult. We chose one that was .75 miles and labeled as easy. Us first timers need to take it a little slow. But, I think we picked the right course. We ended up on a path that ended at the base of a waterfall. Even our son, who puts up a fight when it comes to doing most anything outside, had a great time.

So, Red Rock this week, perhaps Hoover Dam or Valley of Fire next week.

Here’s some photos I took out at Red Rock.

For the past few months, I have played remarkably little poker. Yes, I play in the monthly tourney at my house, but other than that, not too much. I don’t know if it’s the fact that summer is approaching which means the World Series of Poker is about to descend upon Las Vegas again, but for some reason, I have been jonesing to play poker all the time.

The past two Fridays in a row, Chris and I have gone to play the Friday night 11PM tourney at Sam’s Town. I’ve cashed in both of those events, so it’s no wonder that I’m a big fan of the tournament. Though, I’ve played in two of their 10AM tournaments and haven’t cashed yet, so I’m not as big a fan of that tourney.

When I first went in to the poker room at Sam’s Town, I was pleased to find that they spread a 1-5 Seven Card Stud game. (1-5 means that you can bet between 1-5 dollars any time it’s your turn to bet.) I have to say that after playing Texas Hold ‘em exclusively for the past couple years, playing something else was quite fun! I’m sorta hooked on Seven Stud right now, so I’ve been back to play a few times now. I wish I could tell you that I’ve had winning sessions each time, but that would be a lie. Honestly, I’m still learning the ins and outs of the game. I’m considering my first few sessions a relatively inexpensive lesson.

Speaking of hobbies, digital photography is something I’ve always been interested in. Thanks to an upcoming trip, I felt it was finally the right time to purchase something better than a PHD (push here, dummy) camera. I ordered a Canon Digital Rebel XTi and am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival this week. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Flickr.com checking out photos taken with the XTi, and have to say, I’m really really excited at the opportunity. I realize I will likely not be taking amazing shots on my first outing, but I definitely plan to take a few hundred (or thousand) photos before our trip. I’m really interested in learning what works and what doesn’t. Learning what the hell the ISO setting does, shutter speed, light sources, aperture, etc…

One of the final deciding factors for selecting the camera I chose is the fact that it has a setting for taking time lapse photos. As luck would have it, I signed up for the RSS feed from Digital Photography School just in time to see this AMAZING movie that was shot with a canon digital SLR using time lapse photography. I hope to one day be able to produce something even half as awesome.

Get ready for a flood of photo blogging. It’ll start soon, I’m sure.

Last Friday I got home from work and played a few songs on Rock Band. Right as we were finishing up the rock star ending on a song, the foot pedal on my drum kit broke in half. It was a sad, sad day.

Over the weekend I made a half-assed attempt at finding a replacement drum kit. When that didn’t work I resorted to the answer to most every problem… eBay. Within minutes I found a repair kit for the foot pedal. As it turns out, I’m not the only one who has broken their foot pedal. OK, I knew I wasn’t the only one. I saw postings about broken drum kits within the first week of Rock Band’s release. Honestly, I’m surprised mine lasted as long as it did.

So, here’s some before and after shots of the food pedal:

Broken in half.

Replacement parts to the rescue.

Take the foot pedal apart.

9 screws later, we are ready to rock.

Thanks to eBay seller rasehead for an excellent product that’s priced right! Twenty Six bucks including shipping and I’m back to rocking my face off. Woo Hoo!