Happy Easter to all my readers.
Be safe.
Apr 082012
Braden
Mar 292012
Took a quick walk with my daughter this afternoon. Shot a few photographs along the way.
These are my favorites of the bunch:
I’ve missed taking photos. Hopefully, I’ll get to it a lot more when Summer comes, too.
Just saying.
Mar 272012
Mar 242012
After having a disappointing experience at the Outback Steakhouse location in Washington, PA, my wife and I thought we’d give it another shot. This time, we went to a place we both have gone to and enjoyed before, this being the Bethel Park location.
We called the establishment in the late afternoon to make seating arrangements for 7:15 PM. We arrived at 6:45 PM and we were seated promptly at 7:00 PM. Cool!
My wife ended up getting the Outback Special w/ scallops as a side. I ended up getting the 16 ounce prime rib requested medium rare. We both had the blue cheese wedge salad as our starters.
My wife’s steak was like something of a piece of shoe leather. In fact, it was so difficult to chew it reminded me of what old, stale chewing gum must be like. Seriously, this steak was gross. The scallops were good, though. Upon calling our waiter over to complain about the steak, he informed us that he would have another steak put on the grill for my wife.
Some nice shoe leather for my wife’s enjoyment.
About 10-15 minutes later, my wife’s replacement steak arrived. Upon cutting into her steak, it was absolutely COLD in the center. Seriously? A RAW steak? That’s enough for me.
Raw meat! The second time around.
My prime rib although cooked to my specifications, was absolutely tough and fibrous as it was filled with lots of gristle.
Like tough, chewy prime rib? Outback is your place!
Outback used to have good steaks and prime rib. What happened?I requested the manager over again, and this time told him that I would be willing to go back into the kitchen to show his incompetent staff how to cook a steak properly. I also indicated to him this was our second negative in a row at an Outback Steakhouse location and that we are NEVER coming back again.
The only plus to the entire thing? The manager did comp the entire meal. Big deal. I wouldn’t pay for the garbage anyway, not at what Outback charges. Yep, I can honestly say I am never, ever going to Outback Steakhouse again for any reason whatsoever, and I will be telling all of my friends about our past experiences, too.
Seriously, folks. Don’t waste your money. Go elsewhere.
Mar 072012
I’ve noticed an increased fanfare around Apple’s products lately. While there has always been a large following surrounding Apple’s products; it seems as if it’s getting more prevalent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means dead set against Apple products. I own both a 32 Gb iPhone 4 and a 64 Gb iPad 1.
Since I’ve owned both an iPhone and iPad, I’ve noticed one thing very, very discouraging; and that is the iPad product life-cycle. While the iPhone life cycle seems to be perfectly acceptable, the iPad’s is definitely not. I spent $700.00 on my iPad and for what? Under two years of usefulness? Two whole years? Wow, that makes me want to buy another iPad … Not.
Here’s what I think is going on with the iPad:
When Apple released the iPad 1, they touted it as the tablet game changer, and they were right; the iPad is a game changer. Unfortunately, there’s more to it than what Apple will let on.
See, Apple fails to tell everyone their planned obsolescence model of the device itself. When the iPad 1 was released, it was loaded with iOS 3.2. iOS 3.2 ran beautifully on it, I never experienced any application crashing or system slowdowns to speak of. In fact, it pretty much just worked as intended. Swell, right? Well, that all started to change in less than a year. iOS 4.0 was then released for the iPad a few months after the iPhone’s iOS 4.0 counterpart. To this day, I don’t know what took so long for the iPad version; it’s not as if they streamlined iOS 4 to run efficiently on the iPad because once iOS 4.0 was loaded, my iPad became more of a “CrashPad.” By the way, let’s not even talk about iOS 5, it’s rendered my $700.00 iPad into a fancy semi-functional paperweight. Yes, my iPad still works for the most part, but not a day goes by when an app doesn’t crash or even load. Not a day goes by when I’m tapping my fingers on the screen waiting for it to load an app, either. Is this what I paid $700.00 for less than two years ago? Yes, I’ve tried the customary “backup and restore” option, but that doesn’t do anything but waste my time.
Why is it that I still have a PC that I constructed back in 2006 and it still runs Windows 7 quite swiftly? No planned obsolescence there from what I can see.
As I stated, my iPad is just under two years old. What’s the sense is spending big bucks on a device only to have it rendered slow and crash prone in less than two years because of forced updates? That hardly seems fair. Why aren’t the Apple fanboys and girls all up in arms about it? To Microsoft’s credit, none of their operating system environments ever prove(d) this sort of behavior on any piece of PC hardware I ever used.
It’s not as if I can hold off on iOS updates, either. If I do, then many of the applications I depend on will no longer function because they are “upgraded” to take advantage of the new features offered in the latest iOS updates. See how Apple does it? You’re forced to “upgrade” to a newer version of iOS no matter what. And, with each “upgrade” your device is slowed down more and more until Apple hopes you throw in the towel and buy a newer model capable of running the latest iOS platform; that is, until the next iOS comes out and the cycle starts all over again.
As I sit here, I am downloading and installing iOS 5.1 for my iPad. Hopefully, the slowdown and crashing problems will be fixed but I won’t hold my breath. The iPhone 4 update went smoothly and to Apple’s credit, my iPhone is working well. The iOS 5.1 update is supposed to address some bad battery draining bugs, so time will tell if those bugs have been squashed. Well, I’m still typing and I looked over at my iPad and the “update” screen where iOS 5.1 was downloading crashed to the home screen. Big surprise. Even the update won’t work. Here I go rebooting my iPad to get the update to download and install. *sigh*
Is this what I can expect in less than two years if I buy another iPad?
Mar 052012
For those of you who live within the Southwestern Fracksylvania Pennsylvania area, the term “fracking” isn’t exactly new to you, is it?
Here’s a rundown from Jesse White himself concerning why he voted against PA House Bill 1950.
I for one, am happy he had the brass to vote “no.”
Check it out …
(click image below to enlarge):
I especially love the part of the bill referring to the state paying for out-of-state workers no longer staying in hotels. Isn’t that nice? Housing for out-of-state workers? Hey, wait a second here. I thought one of the big “selling points” of the fracking industry in PA was to spark an explosion of local jobs? If the local jobs are so abundant, why then the out-of-state worker housing subsidies? I remember Range Resources boasting about all of the local jobs they will create. What a laugh.
The bill also states that all local ordinances are meaningless and without any merit whatsoever. That’s right, no local control. It all goes to the fracking industry in the area. You know that local noise ordinance, or that local light pollution ordinance? It no longer applies because the state can supersede it. That’s our PA Governor, the puppet of the fracking industry.
If you think this is bad, take a tour and see for yourself what a local county-owned park has turned into. Cross Creek Park was once a beautiful area for fishing, but now it’s been turned into an alien-like wasteland, all thanks to Washington County commissioners and the fracking industry. That’s right, a county owned park! How does that exactly work, by the way? The citizens who pay taxes in Washington County have absolutely no say so over what goes on in our public lands.
The final atrocity in of all of this? The same wretched simpletons in this county (and state) will continue to re-elect the same greedy, corrupt cretins who helped bring this on in the first place.
Feb 292012
The Fracksylvania Pennsylvania Department Of Environmental Protection is the most useless entity of the state’s government. I don’t know how much more evidence is needed when it comes to the DEP being paid off to keep their mouths shut by the fracking industry completely incompetent.
Time and time again, I’ll hear from pro-frack drilling that it’s completely safe.
Oh really?
Then I suppose this is a complete work of fiction
(click on images to enlarge):
And what exactly will the DEP do? Nothing. Why? Payoffs to the PA legislatures.
What an atrocity this is being allowed to happen.
But, for those of you residing in Fracksylvania Pennsylvania, don’t forget that State Inspection emissions sticker!