Monthly Archives: January 2008

  • MBA, Obama, and Water

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal, School, Work

    MBA

    Today, I finally was able to register for LSUS‘ Masters of Business Administration program.  I had to go to a stupid orientation that wasted 30 minutes of my life and then had to go across campus to a computer lab to waste another 30 minutes of my life where they showed people how to register.  I just needed them to unlock my Compass so I could register.  I’m not a retard so I knew which classes I wanted.

    Jenny is also starting the MBA program, though she is doing pre-requisites, so she was able to already register for her classes, and they made her go to it too.  We then went to get our new Pilot Cards made which took forever, and then to the bookstore to find out how ridiculously expensive books are.

    All in all, I paid a little over $1500 for school and $400 for books.  I hate school.

    Obama

    Conservatives will believe almost anything that another one of their kind makes up about a non-conservative candidate, so it shouldn’t surprise me that people would believe absolutely fabricated lies about Obama‘s background as a "radical islamist" and things like that.

    Today at work, someone forwarded around that lie, so I did reply to all, and I set the record straight:

    That story about Obama is not true, even though it claims “We checked this out on "snopescom".”

    See the snopes article:

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

    Chris Benard

    Not surprising, I suppose.  I just get irritated by people spreading lies, especially when the lie even says it was verified by Snopes, which it obviously wasn’t.  People will actually believe these things without looking them up like I do.

    Shreveport Water

    Well, you know what they say about Shreveport: it’s a nice place to visit, but don’t drink the water.  We’re the new Mexico.  They don’t really say that, but they might now.  Today, we had a serious water situation.  It’s still not back to normal, and a boil advisory is still in effect.  I won’t be drinking city water for a long time.  Luckily, we have bottled water at work, and I have bottled water at home.

    Fatburger was closed when I went by today, and Moe’s was only serving bottled drinks.  Circle K wouldn’t sell ICEEs or fountain drinks.  All the children were sent home from school and won’t be returning tomorrow.  Lots of people are being affected by this, and it shows how serious of a problem it is to have a single water treatment facility.

  • Zero Gravity!

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal

    After ice skating last week, Chris, Jen, and I were going to go to Dallas to The Galleria to go ice skating there on a better rink.  Jen sent me a link to a nearby place, where you can do all kinds of fun things that involve jumping from high altitudes, called Zero Gravity Thrill Amusement Park.

    Chris isn’t able to go, but Jenny is going to go with me this Saturday.  She doesn’t want to ice skate, but we’re hopefully going to be doing the 4 things that Zero Gravity offers.  I’ve been wanting to bungee jump since my skydiving trip, but there’s nowhere to do it locally.  Zero Gravity offers that and so much more.

    animated_bungee_small Bungee Jumping

    Bungee jumping is done from an Air Boingo tower. It is not a crane, but a seven-story permanent platform especially for bungee jumping. We have a triple safety system:

    • Super-elastic bungee cords – our bungee cords are so elastic they give you a ride that is much smoother than an ordinary rollercoaster ride.
    • Nylon safety backup straps – the safety straps are strong enough that they would catch you even with no bungee cord attached
    • A professional stuntman airbag underneath you – the air bag is rated for a fall even greater than the height of the tower

    Of course I’m going to do that, but in addition, they have something that looks even cooler!

    animated_net_big Nothin’ But Net

    Zero Gravity is proud to offer the ultimate thrill ride: Nothin’ But Net. This ride is the the tallest in the park at 16 stories high. We lift you to just below the top of the tower and then release you 100′ into a net below. That’s right – no bungee, no parachute, just you and the air. And the landing is smooth as silk.

    The patented release system insures that you land on your back – even if you try to twist or turn. The landing is so smooth you will hardly notice it. When you land there are actually two Nets, one under the other, and each corner has a safety backup.

    The Nothin’ But Net is the first ride of it’s kind in the DFW area!

    Additionally, these look fun: Skycoaster and Texas Blastoff.

  • Wedding and Ice Skating!

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal

    Today, at 3 PM at the Randle T. Moore Center, Joey and Natalie got married!  I got to witness it all, and it’s pretty weird to think about "Natalie Wall", but I’m extremely happy for them both.  I’m sure I’ll add pictures to this post later when I have some.  I didn’t bring my camera, but there were plenty there.  I wore fancy clothes that I never wear, so that’s always fun, but those fancy shoes hurt my back a lot.

    I helped mess up Joey’s car and that was a lot of fun and then we didn’t get to throw anything at them!  They only had bubbles!  I wanted to hit Joey with rice really hard!  Oh well.  I think they’re going to Rexburg, Idaho now for a gathering with Natalie’s family or something.

    Shreveport Ice Rink After the wedding, for which the reception ended around 7:15 PM, Chris, Jen, and I went ice skating downtown.  That was fun?  I’m not sure, really.  I thinkIce Skating Fake Action Shot I had fun, but I also got cold and wet.  Overall, I guess it was fun.  Chris did really well, because he has rollerbladed a lot.  Jen and I sucked hard at it.  It’s a lot easier when you go faster though.  I fell a couple of times because I tried to go too fast and the first time I fell on my butt and my wallet pressed into my ass and my ass still hurts from it.  Ouch.

    The second time I fell was because a little kid was going the wrong way and we had an unavoidable (due to my lack of control over direction) collision and I fell on my knee that time and did a nice little twirl around my knee that looked like a trick one might do on purpose, if not for getting wet at the same time.  That little kid tried to make me run into him again, but the second time as we were about to collide, I just picked him up.  That cracks me up.  So instead of us colliding, it was just me taking him in the direction I was going until he could get his footing again and then I put him back down and he almost fell again!  He pretty much just fell from place to place on the ice.  It was cute.

    Update: Jen blogged about our adventure too.

    I’d also like to point out that Seth blogged again, thanks in no small part to Windows Live Writer.  It’s an amazing tool, and I’d really recommend it to everyone that blogs.

  • Emergency Command Hologram

    Chris BenardPersonal, Television

    Q Update: As pointed out by Jen, Q is actually much cooler than Wesley.  I apologize.

    Emergency Command Hologram (ECH) I love the Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager.  Played by Robert Picardo, he is probably my favorite Star Trek character from any Star Trek, save possibly Wesley Crusher, played by Wil Wheaton.  I’m big into Star Trek, and most people won’t care about this post, but I went to the trouble of editing and cutting out the ECH part of Voyager episode 6×04 – Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy and posting it on YouTube for everyone to see.  It’s below.

    I was reminded of how awesome he is from a very inaccurate and completely incorrect article Courtney sent me via del.icio.us.  In case anyone has forgotten how awesome the ECH is, especially during his transformation from EMH to ECH, watch the video.  You can also subscribe to my delicious or Courtney’s delicious to keep track of links we find interesting.  In case you’re wondering what I find so awesome, it’s his transition from medical teal to command red and then the appearance of his captain pips after he activates the ECH.

    The source for most of the things I linked for Star Trek, Memory Alpha, is the best source for all things Star Trek and is an amazing community-powered resource.  For your viewing pleasure, an EMH music video remix is after the break.

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