Personal
A little personal blogging today. I start my new job today. I’m nervous; Pop Rocks jumped around in my stomach as I drove in. Took longer than I expected, so I got in 10 minutes later than I thought I would. Which increased my nervousness. But this is a new opportunity. A new adventure. As […]
Does An American Tail Still Hold Up?
It’s Friday, review day, and I’m going to talk about a very special movie for me. A formative movie. I watched An American Tail when it was first released in theaters in 1986. I was ten years old. I was enthralled, and still remember the visceral thrill of several sequences: the storm on the ship, […]
Post to Several Twitter Accounts at Once with Matt
Twitter’s great; it lets you keep in touch with lots of people. For those of you who’ve already jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon, you may have heard of folks who have several Twitter accounts. I have 4 — my main account (BrentNewhall), BrentRPG for an online game I play through Twitter, OtakuNoVideo for my podcast, and Gunwave for announcements about my online game. How do I manage them all? Through Matt, the “Multi-Account […]
Planning for a New Job
I start my new job next week, supporting a military contract with a combination of training, configuration management, and web design. Or, at least, that’s the initial charter, based on my interview. I face a number of challenges: I’ll have to spend some time figuring out my real charter. Exactly what is expected of me? […]
Benjamin Franklin’s Self-Improvement System
Just finished reading Frank Bettger’s excellent book How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling. Bettger was a friend of Andrew Carnegie, who encouraged him to write this book after hearing Bettger’s life story (a former baseball player who applied himself to self-improvement as a salesman until he became incredibly successful). Besides explaining […]
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Director’s Edition
When I first watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, my parents warned me that it was long. Now, I grew up on the original Star Trek series. I loved it. I was willing to put up with a lot. But boy was that movie long. I recently got the chance to watch the newly remastered […]
A Brilliant Design: The AWANA Game Circle
So, there’s this Christian children’s club, called AWANA. When it was founded in the 50’s, its creators wanted to include athletic games in each evening’s schedule. They wanted to design a system that let the kids have fun, without encouraging cut-throat competition. So, they designed the AWANA Circle, one of the most ingenious designs I’ve […]
Save Yourself Time With Google Maps or MapQuest
I recently looked into adopting a dog from the SPCA. It fell through, but during the transaction I was surprised by something. The SPCA requires an in-home visit to verify that the house is safe for the dog. When I gave the SPCA representative my information, including my home address, she asked me for directions […]