This is going to be another low traffic week for me. Very little surfing which leads to very little blogging. I’m redoubling (quadrupling??) my efforts at work.

This week is our annual distributor conference. Most of our international distribution partners will be here in Texas and the marketing and executive folks will be all tied up talking about sales strategies and quarterly gross differential margin analysis (read as, “stuff I know nothing about”). But for me that means that this week should be fairly uninterrupted by problems with the web site. The “squeaky wheels”, so to speak, will be otherwise occupied.

And all that explains this week’s white board quip.

I can’t because I’m all busy eating a carrot stick.
– Dilbert

Last weekend Tammy and I made the drive to Amarillo. Much of the family was in town and it was good to do some catching up.

We all came to see “Willy Wonka Junior” performed by the Lamplight Youth Theatre on stage at Amarillo’s relatively new theater, the Globe News Center. (The venue is really cool; pretty classy for Amarillo.) But the real attraction was my nephew Caleb Spaw.

Caleb played Augustus Gloop. True, he was the first kid to be consumed by his bad behavior in Wonka’s homicidal factory, but it was still a big honor. He got the part primarily because he was able to pick up the German accent in a snap. Seems he shares some genes with his nutty uncle who also has a knack for accents. (I’m so proud!!)

Caleb sang several songs did a bit of dancing and, most importantly, never dropped his accent! (The girl playing Veruca Salt was only British for two or three of her lines. The rest was decidedly Texan.)

The show was very entertaining and the production was impressive for an all volunteer children’s theater.

In case you’re interested, the rest of the pictures I took can be downloaded in a zip file.

So far this year, I’ve failed miserably at one of my resolutions: to memorize 52 Bible verses in 2008. So far I’m at zero. The good news is our church is testing out a new curriculum that includes scripture memory. Now I can finally start wrestling that particular demon. Which brings us to this weeks white board quip.

I tried to wrestle my demons once, but they used too many illegal holds.
Steven Wright

So the economic stimulus package is a done deal. Let’s take a look at what this really means for you and me.

The government is going to send you some money. The knee-jerk reaction is, “Woohoo! Free money!!” But, like your grandpa used to tell you, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The $150 billion dollars that Uncle George is dolling out is not coming from some store house of cash on the White House’s back lawn. It’s a tax rebate. Again, knee-jerk, “Wooho! Lower taxes!” Well, not really. Think of it more like an advance.

When you go to one of those check-cashing scams er… businesses, they advance you some money (that’s what intelligent people call a loan) and then when you get your actual paycheck, they take a slice out of it to cover what they loaned you, plus interest (sometimes a lot of interest). That’s what we’re about to experience.

Now, as for me, I stay away from loan sharks and thus avoid the mess all together. But Big Brother has made that decision for us. We don’t get the option of staying away. Imagine if Guido’s Cash Hut sent you a check with a little note. “Here’s $1000 for you. We’ll come by in twelve months to extract $1500 from you at gun point. No need to thank us. We live to serve.”

Surely our government is no Guido. Surely they have some good intention. Yes. They do. They want you to spend that money in order to buoy the economy. (I talked about this before.) But, when you think about it, what should you do with that check? What’s going to benefit your economy more? Should you go out and buy a big screen TV? Or should you wisely pay down your debt, even if this ends up just being a drop in the bucket? Or if your debt is under control or even nonexistent, you could put the money into a high-yield savings account or other investment.

“But Trint, it’s my responsibility as a patriotic American to help the economy by spending money I don’t have!” Of course it is. And when you get kicked out of your house for defaulting on your mortgage, I’m sure one call to the White House will solve everything. Good luck with that.

As for me, I’m probably going to open a high-yield account with mine. Then I’ll sit back and live the high life with that $50 a year in interest. Well… $42 actually. Can’t forget about those taxes.

[Edit: Thanks to RandyPants for the digg.]

I think a little self-congratulatory back patting is in order. If this was a horse race, I’d have just one the trifecta twice in a row! Well… almost. Stupid Virginia.

Here are my predictions for the race as of February 2nd:

Washington was close; much closer than I expected. In fact, if Huck presses his (completely valid) legal objections, Washington my be overturned. But for now, all I’ve missed is Virginia.

I won’t lie, losing those 60 VA delegates hurt Huck. But make no mistake, I’m still on the Huck-wagon. There is no way I can, in good conscience, support John McCain. In my mind, he has repeatedly betrayed the conservative republican base and there is nothing he can do to repair my opinion of him. He is and ever will be a RINO in my book.

This week’s white board quip reminds me of… umm…

Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

Although it sure is cool. I’ve been holding on to one of these links for almost a year. The other link my dad just sent me. For all you Discovery Channel geeks out there, let’s start with the AA-12 fully automatic shot gun. “Future Weapons” covered it and talked about some of the really wild rounds they’ve developed for it, including a finned mini-grenade. Watch the video, then come back here for more.

AA-12 on Future Weapons – Clicky clicky

OK. So that’s pretty crazy. A low recoil, fully auto shot gun with a 32 round magazine. Add to that some really amazing, high-tech ammunition and you’ve got a nasty little weapon. What could possibly make it any scarier for the bad guys? How about if you could shoot it from an unmanned vehicle. Or even better, an unmanned flying vehicle.

The “Autocopter” is a remote controlled helicopter. If you know anything about RC choppers (or even real ones) you know that they are insanely hard to fly. It’s been compared to balancing a baseball bat vertically on your pinkie finger in a wind storm while someone is shooting at you. (OK, I’ve never actually heard it said that way before, but now you can say that you have.)

What makes the Autocopter different is that it’s controlled not by juggling a 2D stick, foot peddles and a throttle like a normal chopper. It’s controlled by the arrow keys on a laptop. You click take off, it takes off. You steer it where you want it just like you’re playing a cheap video game. Then you click land and it lands. Amazing.

So, now you take this fly-by-click helicopter and mount the afore mentioned fully automatic shotgun on it and you’ve got one amazing weapon of the future.

(You should probably pause the video to read the captions so you can see when it’s being flown manually and when it’s running autonomously.)

Autocopter maintains level flight while firing AA-12 – Clicky clicky

[Edit: When I emailed the autocopter link to Uncle Robert, who did three tours in Viet Nam, he replied with the following:

“An attack and recon robo-helicopter…I want one, please, pretty please”

The voice of experience.]

So, on my way to lunch at the deli, I heard Rush mention Romney’s speech, which was going on at that very moment. Then Rush say’s Romney is dropping out of the race. I nearly ran off the road. (No, not really. I’m just trying to illustrate my surprise. I’m actually a very good driver. Honest.)

Romney’s out. All the talking heads have been saying for weeks that Romney was the closest thing to a “true conservative” that we had (to which I scoffed). So now that he’s dropped out, what will his 293 current delegates do? They can’t cast their votes for him, so will they go with whoever is most popular or whoever is most like Romney politically? Hmmmm.

Let’s just say, in my little pipe-dream world that all of Romney’s delegates switch to Huck. That would put the current count roughly at 700 for McCain, 500 for Huck. If the trend continues, Huck will likely carry the rest of the deep South for 200 delegates. McCain eeked out victories in Missouri and South Carolina where Romney and Huck split the conservative vote, so I’m going to say Huck can carry Kansas and North Carolina for another 110. I think he can also count on the “old south” states of Kentucky and Virginia, so there’s 110 more for somewhere around 950 comfortably in hand.

I have to cede the Yankee states (VT, RI, PA, and the District) to McCain for around 170 delegates. I also think he’ll take the bluer states in the Northwest, Ohio, and New Mexico gaining another 190. That gives McCain 1050-ish unquestionable delegates.

So now it becomes a battle for the Mid-West where just over 200 delegates are still up for grabs. I think those states will lean towards Huckabee, but realistically, it’s going to be an uphill fight. David versus Goliath if you will. Although, a 70 year-old, five foot tall Goliath doesn’t really fit the analogy very well.

[Edit: When I listed the “Yankee states” I intended to include MD.]

I just want to say that Superbowl XLII was what superbowls are supposed to be like. Down to the last play, nail-biting excitement. And to top it all off, the team I was rooting for won.

We watched the game, as usual, with a dozen or so middle school kids from our church. And there was plenty of the usual teen-angst fueled, “Oh yeah?” and “Nuh-huh!” going back and forth about who would win. The vocal minority was supporting the Pats, while all the adults and a quieter majority of the kids were pulling for the Giants. There were some pretty interesting, non-monetary bets being offered, which I managed to avoid.

I was pulling for the Giants, first and foremost because my good friend and former co-worker Dave O’Hara had family pride involved. Dave’s younger brother Shaun is the Giant’s starting center (#60). I’ve met Shaun and he’s a great guy. I had other reasons, but none worth sharing.

None of us could believe how low-scoring the game was. Both defenses were really amazing. There were remarkably few penalties, no time wasted with calls being reviewed, and just enough “big” plays. (I *loved* the Manning to Tyree magic that would have impressed Houdini himself.)

I also had high hopes for the commercials this year. It seemed like the lull of the last few years might be over and some real stand-outs would show up.

It was nice that there didn’t seem to be lot of “skintillation” this year. One Vicky’s Secret ad, and even that wasn’t bad. Although, there was the guy starting a car with his man-boobs.

The Planters unibrow girl was great. Coke’s parade balloon battle was clever. eTrade took a risk with the talking baby but overcame the talking-baby-creepiness factor by making a creepiness reference. Still, the spit-up one was a little over the edge for me. Doritos gets the “Wha??” Award for their giant mouse attack. And I would normally change channels for a Pepsi ad featuring Justin Timberlake, but when Timberlake takes a good beating, I’ll allow it.

I have to say I had a difficult tie for first place. Bridgestone’s screaming squirrel had me in stitches. (My favorite was the scream from the grasshopper. “eeeeeeehh!”) And Tide’s talking stain was awesome. (“Blemalablulalahilola!”) It’s just too close to call a clear winner.

Honorable mentions also include Tiny Head, Richard Simmons Run-Down, Godfather Car, Carrier Pigeons, and Thriller lizards (only because of the pop culture reference).

And I’ll go out of my way to say I didn’t like CareerBuilder’s Heart. It was… I don’t know… too gross I guess.

An important lesson learned from WeightWatchers has been that little things add up. You can shave a good amount of calories from your normal diet by making small changes. Croutons, for example. Croutons add a couple of points to your salad. Are they really that important to the enjoyment level of your meal? If you can forgo the croutons, you’ve got two more points you can spend on something more enjoyable, like fresh fruit or a hot fudge sundae. (What?!)

Speaking of croutons, here’s this week’s white board quip.

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It’s just stale bread to begin with.
– George Carlin