Slurry of posts and a new blog banner?

So months of inactivity, and then three posts in short rapid fire succession and then on top of that, a new blog banner? Oh wait, there isn't a new blog banner? Hmmm, okay, that's because I can't decide on what to take a panoramic picture of to show the essence of this blog. Any ideas? Has to be something to do with a minority, technology, and atheism.

Where are my vertical farms?

So I came across this article on Discovery news talking about whether organic farming was better or worse than regular farming. Organic farming produces about half the yield, but increases the biodiversity of nature by %12 (including weeds if that's good?). If you are interested, go ahead and follow the link over and read about it, but for me, I was just disapointed. I saw the discussion as pointless because there is another alternative to both organic and normal farming, that has numerous benefits over both and shouldn't be difficult to do. Apparently I grossly underestimated how hard it was to grow plants inside, or how many of the benefits there would be when I blogged about vertical farms and then right afterwards about circular farming almost two years ago! I expected it to take awhile for vertical farms to really take off and be the main staple of our food source, but I didn't think nothing would happen at all. Yeah there are some better drawings available, and maybe a restaurant in Dubai to have an indoor garden/vertical farm, but that's it. I really expected a city like Austin or Seattle to pioneer the first organic vertical farm with lush delicious fruits and vegetables available year round, locally grown, with no pesticides and maybe even growing sustainable fish. So which multi-millionaire (or billionaire) out there is going to grab this idea and make a change that will forever affect humanity? You will make money and save little starving kids, or cut down pollution, or whatever you want to make it about. Anyone? Come on Oprah, I know you follow this blog and want to change the world. You've got the money right? Ah, oh well. Guess I'll start a garden in my garage.

Diaspora

This is something I'm keeping my eyes on. It seems like it could be a much better alternative for social networking. Check it out.
http://www.joindiaspora.com/

P90X week um, I'm not sure

So it's been three weeks since I started P90X. I have only kind of been following it, missing more days than I do. Excuses? Yeah, I have them, but mostly it just comes down to time. It's hard to add an hour of working out to an already busy schedule. I'm working on it, and hopefully it will become habit. More when there is more.

P90X Week one Day one!

Wow am I tired. I am going to be hurting tomorrow (and for the next 90+ days presumably), and I couldn't even keep up with them at all! I'd post my before pictures, but those are only motivational if you look better than they do. I'll report back in once a week at minimum, and maybe more for some of the really brutal ones. Right now I'm 5' 10' and 240.8 lbs. Do your best and forget the rest.

St. Patty's Day parade and storm troopers!

I'm on a business trip to Linthicum, MD. Last Sunday a co worker and I decided to go to Baltimore and check out the inner harbor. By luck we just happened to pick a great day. Baltimore was celebrating St. Patty's day with a 5K marathon and a parade. We showed up just in time to catch a bite to eat. We asked a local where to eat and he said that J. Paul's Dining Saloon was his summer hang out and we should try that. So we did, and it was good. I had the JP's 89 Burger which was worth the impending heart attack that it will probably cause. It was a huge burger piled with BBQ pulled pork, cole slaw and onion rings. While it was hard to handle and ended up falling apart, it was delicious. We finished eating and walked over to watch the runners finish up the 5K. I've never seen so much spandex, red faces, and green shirts. Shortly thereafter the parade started. I've seen better parades on tv, but never in person. I was pretty impressed and we stayed for the whole thing.



My favorite part was an irish dance group that stopped right in front of us and did a little jig. Unfortunately the video on my phone sucks and I forgot my camera. You can get the gist, but you can't tell how really cute it is. The girls in the video look a lot older than they really were because the video quality sucks, and the crowd that they are in front of is actually little kids sitting down, not adults. The girls in the front are probably 5/6 years old and then they got older as they went back to probably no older than 15. It was one of the cutest things I've seen in awhile.

Last, but far from least, after the parade there was a green storm trooper walking around. He had a very high quality costume, and the green made it even better. When he talked it even sounded like it was a "real" storm trooper. A chick walked by and asked him what he was supposed to be. Really? I thought it was pretty obvious, but I suppose there are still people out there that haven't seen Star Wars. Anyways, thought I would share. We had a great time.

Where have you been?

I don't think that I have to many followers, but if you are still out there and wondering where I have been then this post is for you. I got back from Afghanistan safely, I'm out of the army now (mostly), I'm back in my old military contracting job, and I'm taking a little bit of college. I should finish up my associates degree this semester, although I had to switch out of computer electronics and into a general studies because I couldn't make my schedule work with the last two classes I needed and it's been over two years since I was in school (holy run on sentence Batman!) Time to finish that up and move on to not completing my bachelor's degree for a couple of years.

Biggest thing going on in my life right now? I'm always tired. So tired in fact, that I'm going to get a sleep study tonight to hopefully figure out what's wrong with me. After all the blood work they've narrowed it down to either sleep apnea, narcolepsy or idiopathic hypersomnia (big words for being tired, but they don't know why). They can only figure out which one of those it is by a sleep study, hence the, uh, sleep study tonight. I'm a little nervous about what they'll find, and don't really know what to think about it. Hopefully they find something small and easy to fix so I can put this behind me and not be so tired. More to follow when I actually know what's up.

What to expect from me in the future? More blog posts! Yay! I love blog posts! I've been watching my blog hits and where they come from. Seems that by far my tech reviews get the most hits, especially my green vs black hard drive comparison, which is about five minutes away from an update. I would expect more tech reviews, since that's what the masses apparently want from a godless geek, but not to worry, I'll still rant about religion, politics, and of course the upcoming Jelly Belly jelly bean scandal.