Posted 21:27 by Grote 0 comments

Think you know someone crazy?

Ask them if they'll ride a motorcycle through a nuclear wasteland just for kicks. Elena lives in, or near Kiev and loves to ride her motorcycle. One of her favorite trips is through the wasteland that houses the Chernobyl nuclear facility. She has a website calledKidd of Speed, where she has posted a long, yet very interesting photolog of where she's been and what she's seen.

Being only 8 at the time, I vaguely remember these events, I remember knowing that this was very bad, and news reports, prophesizing death and disaster on a global scale (although we may still not realize these effects until decades from now). But to actually just drive through relatively unprotected and to stop and take pictures, you have to be borderline insane. It's worth checking out and its an interesting read.

Posted 16:25 by Grote 0 comments

The world is a little darker today...

Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinal Safety that gave up $3.6 million to join the U.S. Army after 9/11 died today in Afghanistan. We all said 9/11 changed us, a and I believe it did to some extent, but here is someone who gave up a life of comfort, playing a game, to serve his country as an Army Ranger. I'm sure he's pretty upset at all the media attention that is being paid to him right now, as there are other soldiers who have died today. This is a guy who told Wolf Blitzer no, when Blitzer wanted to do a interview with him. Tillman told Blitzer he'd do the interview after Blitzer interviewed every other soldier. Blitzer went home without the interview. Eli Manning can eat his heart out.

Posted 13:21 by Grote 0 comments

The light at the end of the tunnel?

By now you've all heard, Osama's truce offering to the countries of Europe and their response. Here's my take on it, I think we're at the beginning of the end, or at the very least the end of the beginning. A lot of people have surmised that this was an attempt to drive a wedge between Europe and America, and to an extent I think it's true but I think that we've killed/captured a lot of Al Queda operatives that recruiting is getting harder and this is a late (not a last) ditch effort to take the heat off. Let's face it, going into Iraq, wasn't such a hot idea. Most of the world agreed with that. However, despite Iraq, most of the world agrees that Bin Laden needs to be excuted, preferably on live TV (ok that last part is just my feelings about it). If anything, those train bombs is going to strengthen Spain's resolve to kill the bastard. Don't think for a minute that they influenced the election, they didn't. Spain's Popular (I guess now would it be unpopular? but I digress) party, was probably going to lose the rule due to the Iraq issue and the Socialist party, now in control, had said that if they won they would pull Spanish troops out of Iraq anyway. It was an awfully close race with the polling difference being in the margin error. So, the cynic in me believes that we'll catch him a week before the election, but at this point, as long we catch him, dead or alive, I'll be happy and probably throw a kegger at my place ;)

Posted 17:18 by Grote 0 comments

So that's what my stomach looks like? Neat.

I've been fighting some nasty Acid Reflux/Heartburn and so I saw my doctor. He scheduled an Upper GI. Basically, for those who don't know what it is, they make you drink some alka-seltzer and then stand you on a table, which has been rotated vertically, and then take a "scout" film which is a normal X-Ray. Then they make you drink about half a glass of Barium/Milk to make your insides glow and then rotate the table back to horizontal(while you're still on it, natch). Then they have you rotate on your back and belly while they take snap shots from the video they're shooting of your stomach and esophagus. It's kinda of neat that you can see the images of your stomach and whatnot on live full motion video as you breathe. The good news (since I work in medcal Imaging) I was able to get my results right away, which were negative. So, nothing major wrong just some normal heartburn or acid reflux. :P

Posted 17:41 by Grote 0 comments

The Dangers of Photoshop 101

Ok, class when you run a picture through photoshop and crop it, photoshop saves the original thumbnail. So when the very hot Cat Schwartz of Tech TV decided to post some cropped, nude, photos of herself on her website, some enterprising geeks got a hold of them, reverse engineered them, and posted them across the interweb. This is why when you decide to do something naughty, use the command "Save As...". Thus endeth the lesson.

Posted 10:48 by Grote 0 comments

World Tour Part I

As some of you may, or may not know, Jason Googash and I are starting on our "World Tour" of miniature golf (Ok, we're staying in West Central, Central and Southwest Ohio, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it). Anyway, we began our Spring/Summer-long matches yesterday and he is offically Tiger Woodsing me already. We had visited Adventure Golf North Dayton and another miniature golf course all in Dayton called The Greens.

Adventure Golf, known long for it's evilness, is what has buried me in a 15 stroke hole. I collapsed over the last three holes of the Blue course (and losing by 9) and Jason shot 4 under par for the Red course (beating me by 8). As for The Greens, I began making my comeback beating Jason by two strokes. So after 54 holes the scores look like this:

------------------Adv. Golf Blue---------Adv. Golf Red--------The Greens-------Total-----Difference
Mike.....................70..............................47.........................53..................170.............-15 (29 over par)
Holes-in-one.........0................................2...........................0.....................2
PAR.....................56..............................43........................42..................141
Jason....................61..............................39........................55..................155.............+15 (14 over par)
Holes-in one..........0...............................3...........................0.....................3

Keep checking back as we continue our journey, and if we're going to be in your area, we'll give ya aheads up so you can join us. Of course, by joining us you allow me to post your score for the world to see. :D