1551536

One of the members here has just completed his third decade. Several months ago, Jake asked me for the Fibonacci numbers for his birthday, so I gave them to him. At least as many has his computer can handle. The title for this post is the 30th such number. As of today, Jake is 10957 days old, which corresponds to the number
24405766982725029224574620080529938953110793609559683075724120015586439797376282
63410832575659176516430705286400831276789193401740485777373684894142096376152747
11001428756981426159241459929861020911806728146512534095337056760618262111962592
54448629692167814001818417976360566307312638004935705935835822834134303156254058
96869723340693596570983244577217820496168333549811663852448369918171191063774516
17093128977789323288738797246395635796856734640862449668788154305753994025198077
67242499025847512663982335368229640213014677230809195999480452006754123912196389
14144694116118976490453305624107026886608650474087543836861930120794908429666190
41433952461358618002337965969606442395116248863488764774646057929601246915183790
10261072866606052734121314456422912066502143135472139238976722161704852966247786
22681176410615207873716109601407147021243145792386464912248002630100199892632230
06099427498378047712101365834392505807445254303842927153271275262662620505301438
16887625375704173621323035405204295484924687899094358086527689810039712069067177
02271521977646675164218201925757675342107152841966935793216201059027755778294136
99090999935621944819805057570797854480648560952155777925907047454635464084168401
91529429385177578541804936116000923584424326755410973117179396351841380049976271
61163047533995904585353584772932981081668212155329287559561278715224106821540531
57877034263336220796849644050697049949761686232061176906640977624717578094370892
78188050110780171406795487842233520759309695483727249710368795662472546206127987
50964091451764813509178180014587474007573609149608762597081025009896445522370698
50836956183674464747688750383346314635879026141514131445803480655667944678701782
31310362860131918947859639962696847969664190605141984185100698224571017330240820
45233575711700357184456642699148234103132826262375921181046829168499053819288048
14785620980992614278225490215946612734419887359299459787980155689867770263787261
80702102027210550696905089462399710483021632135031586764174901805643673657707635
88939822742481166899008887164316799292986908481428382448956356641959989810785988
70133693690149147765139706119190762864592679523169372154092510649401683199173130
14123305466067872157348851321829070380590195355102783943487412174917192099610825
76224669506903111775998330097038190778898253429171500050592100579024289641185333
03093414212020577118893066716806120064049583392472069294544632373709785595413387
99004789479281302932413103393616489. (That's 2435 digits.)

Happy Birthday, Jake.

Management

So for the last few weeks, I've been looking at a change of profession and I applied to a certain business which isn't too far from where I live and I had an interesting experience in the process. For the sake of keeping myself out of trouble, I'll not name the business, and we'll just call the manager who I dealt with throughout the hiring process Doug. Also, for the sake of not trying to skew reality, I will first outline the facts, as nearly as I remember them and I will try to use quotes as often as possible. Please note that I am human, and as such, I may make mistakes, but I will do my best to stay true to reality as possible. Then after I report the facts, I'll share my opinions.

I've been a customer at this business for some months now, and about a month and a half ago I turned in my resume. It took some time for a spot to open up with adequate hours for me to consider taking the job, but late week before last (If I'm not mistaken it was Saturday the 26th) Doug told me he had a position opening up that had plenty of hours per week, and asked if I was interested; I said yes. So on Tuesday, I strolled in and Doug started talking seriously with me about what the job would entail and we drew up a tentative schedule and we ended our meeting with him saying that he needed to talk with the store owner before I was officially hired and that he would call me first thing the next morning. Wednesday morning came and went and my phone didn't ring, so later that day I went in and said "Hey, Doug, what happened to 'I'll call you in the morning'?"

To which he responded, "I got busy. Business is business. I still need to talk to the owner. What are you up to tonight?"

"Well, I was just gonna head home and play some video games with my brother in law"

"Okay, well don't go too far. Go home and play your games, I'll call you tonight after I talk with the owner."

With that I did exactly what I said I would, keeping my phone close expecting a call. Midnight came and with no activity from my phone, I went to bed at my usual time. Morning came and I saw that I had not missed any calls. This concerned me, so I made my way out to talk to Doug. when I got there I said to him, calmly, albeit in a tone that might be construed as accusatory (though that wasn't my intention), "Hey, this is twice you told me you'd call within a certain time frame, and twice you've failed to do so."

With that, Doug took me aside and said "Listen, I'm the boss here and you don't come in and yell at me. Business is business and sometimes we get busy and sometimes things don't get done. Anyway, my not calling you was sort of a test and you just failed. If this is the way you're gonna act, I don't want you working for me."

There is one more thing I should point out before I start ranting about how I feel, and that is that when I told him that he'd failed to call twice, there was a customer in the vicinity, and though I don't know if he was paying attention, it might have been better if I hadn't said anything in front of him, though I think the outcome would have been the same.

Now I get to express how I feel about this whole thing. I think the fact that Doug didn't want me to stand up to him is the sign of a douchebag manager. A doormat is something I certainly am not, and I would have reacted in the same manner toward anyone who treated me the way he did, I don't care if it's an authority figure, a peer or a subordinate (Something I find myself lacking at the moment ;).

It's a simple matter of courtesy to follow up when you tell someone that you'll do something. When you do follow up, you show people that that's what you expect from them. After all, why should I give you any reason to trust me if I can't trust you?

Conversations with Eric, Part 1

Me: BTW, when my birthday comes, I know what I want from you...
Eric: Okay, but I'll have to start saving up. Cruise missles are a little pricey these days.
Me: I want a complete set of Fibonaccis...all the way to the end. I've had an incomplete set for ages now. But now I want them all.
Very inexpensive.
I already have 1, 2, 3, 5, and on for 1,000 or so.
8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ...
89, 144, 233, 377, 610...
Eric: Wow, I can't even give you the hope of a full set of them. Machine precision starts to fail us pretty quickly.
Me: But now I want the rest.
Don't let me down here, Eric.

(I'm getting the sense that petulance doesn't become me.)

Joy, Its part of life.

Well it seems that I have gotten myself into real trouble this time. For those who don't know I am engaged. Her name is Jennifer. The wedding will be on Friday July 13^th. We have been engaged for almost three weeks now, and I hope you will all forgive me for being so distracted that I have not posted the news. Unfortunately we have not done any serious planning yet so I don't have pictures to post or any more details. You are welcome to ask questions and I'll answer what I can.

Last night this lovely young lady had me take her to a restaurant she had only heard about. It was very good. I enjoy food that is a little different so I am willing to try just about anything. We started out with the spring roll appetizer witch had noodles inside and a sweet and spicy sauce to dip them in. The noodles gave the rolls a great texture and the flavor was mild. When you order you meal here they have some dishes that are “spicy” and they let you chose how spicy you want them on a scale of 1-5, 1 being “mild” and 5 being cooked on the forges of hell. I had a dish called beef sukiyaki, having never had sukiyaki before I had no idea what to expect. Its thin slices of beef with cabbage mushrooms onions and other veggies all cooked in a sauce and served with glass noodles. I also have a sensitive palette so I ordered it as a 1. (Ok I’m a pansy.)The shock and surprise of an excellent dish is the reason I am so willing to try new things. My apologies to China Hill and The Little Orient, your food is good but these guys really made you look bad. You’re lucky they are so far away. Jennifer went for the green curry with chicken. It has coconut milk onion and lots of spices I can’t identify. She ordered it as a 3, the chicken was ok but the sauce almost made me lose the ability to taste the rest of the food. Oh, they give you a big bowl of white rice too. If you have stuffy sinuses from allergies or whatever this stuff will clear you out. So bring a hanky. Here is the address and maybe some pictures if I can upload them. I also found some more reviews online here, and here. No the images are not from the restaurant I linked them to the sites they are from. (I need to get a digital camera.)

Thai Village
208 W Main
American Fork, 84003 - 2228
(801) 492-7677

Ok I realize I wrote more about the food than the girl. I just want you go for the food and leave the girl to me.

Conversations with The Boy, Part 1

The Boy: Hey Daddy, do you know Frank?
Me: Uh...hm, Frank who?
The Boy: Why do you want to make a knock-knock joke?

See Me At EMB

Just a heads up, I've posted over at Entrepreneurs Mean Business about modifying my Nintendo Wii. It's pretty geeky, so it may appeal to some, and not others, and that's ok.

Once upon a time, I'd have posted it at PhischX, but for now EMB is best for me. Check it out if you're so inclined!

It comes but once a year

I don't often get the chance to do this, so Happy Vernal Equinox!

I hate to break the news, but you've already missed your chance to stand an egg on its end.

Thoughts on your new Blog.

First where can you post comments I tried to find the post link. Since I have no way of posting a comment I will put it on fish net.

I like the idea of the book review and I think you and others can get a lot out of it. But one thing bothers me. You highlighted these quotes and even retyped them for the net. But you did not tell us what they mean to you. Why are they revealing to you as an entrepreneur and how do you see them being applied. Bring your readers to your personal level so it will help us connect with you, and help us understand your thoughts. Let us know where you have seen these things happen.

EntrepreneursMeanBusiness.com Update

Here's a big THANK YOU to those of you who've been posting here. It's uncomfortable for me to think that our beloved Phischkneght would be allowed to whither and die.

Some of you have noticed that the blog I brought to your attention is dead. It was dead, for about a week, but now it's alive and well at a different URL. Please stop in if business, entrepreneurship, or Utah commerce in general are in any way your cup of herbal tea. (Me, I like a good, strong mint.)

The most recent post over there is about the new book review program I'm launching for the site. It'll be fun to read books with my readers, and get different viewpoints on them, and of course any and all here are invited.

Cheers!

AVG Free!

It has come to my attention recently that Grisoft has stopped support to AVG 7.1. I have also been told that they no longer support the free version and that you have to pay to upgrade to AVG 7.5. This is FALSE! Ok they stopped support for AVG7.1 but Grisoft still has a free version and it is AVG 7.5 here is the link. I am happy to help those who can’t afford to pay for a virus scanner and so is AVG. Making a free addition in my mind is good business. This keeps the home computers free of viruses. This in turn helps keep the corporate computers and those who pay for licenses free of viruses. So if anyone from AVG happens to read this thank you.

From a small user.

May you always be profitable.

The Commercial Spinoff Showcase

Have you noticed that sometimes a decent commercial suddenly becomes a long series of lame commercials? Let's look at a few of the ones that have really stood out:

Geico's Gecko--The lovable little critter appeared to start as a catchy ad gimmick before going on to become the symbol of the company. Now, he's doing lame interviews with an accent (Australian? I'm lousy about accents).

Geico's Nerdy Office Worker--In one of the first gecko era commercials that didn't feature the gecko directly, they interviewed several people in an office about what they thought of their computer generated spokesmodel. One interviewee was a nerdy fellow who later appeared in several commercials including some where he went around the country interviewing customers, sometimes in a hot tub.

Geico's Cavemen--I've never really got these. They're sometimes kind of funny, but they've often strayed from their origins. Lately though they've gotten back to referring more to Geico in each one. (I think it's funny that Geico has three examples that I've been able to easily think of, and Wikipedia mentions some other ones that I didn't remember at first and I won't go into here).

Dodge Showroom (Marty)--There have been a series of radio commercials in our local market where one Dodge dealer calls up another one and mocks him. It started with the one dealer asking the other how the sale was going on and the other would have some lame attempt to copy the success of the caller (kind of like a not-so-good-natured version of the recent Macintosh commercials with the PC), but now this guy is just calling up the other dealer and verbally abusing him. It's not funny anymore (not that it ever was), and now it's just painful to listen to. Not as painful as the supermarket jingles, but painful all the same.

That's all I have for now. I guess that except for the Dodge one, none are really that awful, but come on. I think we've seen enough of these for now. Speaking of Dodge, maybe I'll get around to explaining why I hate them so much (in my defense, they hated me first).

Life Irritates Art

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a business trip to scenic Scranton, PA. While the trip was an interesting series of drives through unknown and unfamiliar territory (punctuated by periods of actually doing work), one of the more memorable experiences came during my flight home.

For some reason, I was put in the middle seat of my row for both of my longer flights on the trip. On our flight from Cincinnati to Salt Lake City, I sat behind a bald man who, as soon as the wheels left the ground, plopped his seat back as far as it could go. My passive-aggressive efforts to persuade him to sit up were fruitless and I ended up spending three hours wedged behind a seat in what remained of my personal space that had been too small to begin with.

When I got home, I found two instances of creative works that captured my experience. One was a strip from my new Dilbert Desk Calendar (which is very poorly designed this year, but that’s another story) with Dilbert sitting on a plane behind some big lout who leaned his chair all the way back into his lap. The other was a brief article in the Reader’s Digest about a woman who was stuck behind someone who had invaded her space by leaning back. I was really empathizing with her through her article as she told about her efforts to entertain herself (we had both read the SkyMall magazine, for example). Then, at the end of the article, she said that she “waved her warm towel in surrender.”

What the belgium? I have absolutely no sympathy for someone who’s spacious first class living space was invaded by the slight recline of a seat back that was too far away for her to even reach. When the seat back is so close that you cannot bend down and reach your shins, then you can complain you spoiled, arrogant little columnist.

Remember All That Talk About Business?

So things are changing a little bit.

Before I get to the meat of this, I really want to say that this is a great blog with great posts and terrific contributors.

I love this place. I'm not leaving, and I hope that our other contributors will come back to life and begin posting again. Eric, Jeff, Leon, Krys, Julianne...I'm looking at you.

Now, the uncomfortable part. I've begun a new venture, and it requires that I write well on a regular basis. My official goal is to post damned near every day, and that is hard. So hard that I'll probably not be posting here much. Much, you hear? I'm not deserting, I'm still here, and I still want to keep Phischkn....uh, FishNet Tech Forum alive.

In that spirit, I'm calling again on our contributors--none of whom have yet posted this year--to step up to the plate and reactivate. Please tell us what you're up to. Tell us what you're doing for work these days. Gripe about frustrations. Give us restaurant recommendations. Review the books you've read. Plan some LAN parties.

What am I doing? I've started a new website called EntrepreneursMeanBusiness.com. It actually has several other URLs that are shorter and easier to spell, but EMB was the original concept and that's what we're flying with. The website is devoted to people who want to have their own businesses and improve the businesses that they're already running. It's still very young, and very beta.

When Phischkneght Forum was new, I practically twisted the arms of everyone I knew to get them to read the blog. I won't be doing that any more. The business I'm in requires that I be interesting to people that I don't know in order to produce revenue. If you'd like to check in, I invite you to do so at EMB (no longer at FishNetTech! The link embedded here is fixed!).

Finally and one last time, this is not a farewell post. I'm still here, and I'll be kicking the butts of those who do not find time or motivation to be here as well.

Thank you.

The Necessary Skills -or- How To Be Useful (You Pick)

Recently, a friend asked me this:

What skills, aside from typing, will I learn that will be of use to me in an office position?

The following are my tips for working, really anywhere. They apply to front-line peons and top-floor executives alike. Someone following this pattern should be able to manage to stay ethical, make friends, and advance within an organization.

1. Know how to read a P&L sheet.
2. Know what a P&L sheet is.
3. Know how to read financial statements (see #2).
4. Be able to think on your feet in a phone conversation.
5. Be able to talk about nothing at all while you do the real work in the background.
6. Learn that all internal systems are more functional than the tasks that they train you for, and make it your goal to learn the true power of each system.
7. Make friends with your co-workers and be humble (especially at first) so that when (not if) you screw up, they'll want to help you.
8. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS admit that you screwed up RIGHT AWAY. It makes fixing it and staying out of trouble SO much easier.
9. Make nice with the boss. He/She has your nuts.
10. Eat lunch with your co-workers. And don't be a pretentious prick.
11. Always listen to gossip, never create it, never pass it on. Don't be stuck-up about it, just listen when it comes up, and politely refuse to discuss it.
12. Make friends with Google. And I mean really good friends. Knowing how to craft search queries that get results is the same as being really smart.
    
13. When you hear a co-worker wonder something out loud, find it out and report. When you hear a boss do the same, repeat. The more you are willing to learn on behalf of others, the more valuable you become.
14. Always be willing, always be honest. This is what a yes-man isn't. A yes-man sugar coats the facts in order to tell the boss what she wants to hear. A real worker tells the boss why something is a bad idea, and then expresses willingness to start the idea in motion if it's what the boss orders. Honest willingness is treasured by smart bosses.
15. Train yourself to focus and give quality results under pressure. One might say that the only time your work really matters is when you're under pressure. If you can give top-notch results when it really matters, you're valuable.
16. Look for traits you admire in your co-workers and (a. Tell them about it, and (b. Emulate that trait.
17. Find ways to be friendly to everyone you meet at the office, including higher-ups. Don't go out of your way to bump into a muckety-muck, because you will anyway. If you're in the habit of helping when possible, you'll help a muckety-muck automatically, and the fact that your help was genuine, and you would have done it for anyone, will stand out in the boss's mind.
18. Know who your friends are, and proactively watch their backs. This will encourage them to do the same for you.
19. There is no invisible line between employee-type and boss-type. Bosses become bosses by playing the game well, and everyone is playing roughly the same game.
20. Understanding and remembering constantly that every action you make at work effects your future at work makes all the difference.
21. When things are slow, experiment with internal programs or systems. Try things that are not part of the normal workflow. Sure, they've taught you the most efficient ways they know to do your job, but who knows? You could find a better way.
22. Find small ways to be different in your workplace. Try not to be annoying in this. Approachability is the goal here.
23. Excellence is a great way to be different, but it can have the opposite effect. Best to be excellent and find additional ways to be different.
24. Don't gloat about excellence, and never rest on laurels. Just focus on getting better.
25. Try to understand jobs and responsibilities that are way beyond your own. Ask questions. Understand how the business works as a whole. Innovation comes through big-picture understanding.
26. You always make the best economical sense to your employer when you are as useful as you can possibly be. If you find a problem, offer to help fix it. If you aren't extremely busy, ask the boss if there's some extra way you can help. If there are other duties that you can ask to learn, ask and learn them. Find ways to make yourself more and more useful. People who know the org most completely often get promoted because they understand the company from the top down.
27. Don't forget to keep working on your fundamental skills. Learn key commands in the programs you use. Learn to type faster. Learn to 10-key faster. Become a better writer. Anything you can to augment your basic skills will help both in your professional life and in your personal life.

Thanks Jeff!

It's a Festivus Miracle!

Everyone get out the Pole and start warming up for the Feats of Strength! It's time for us all to let everyone in our lives know how thoroughly they've disappointed us in the last year.

Happy Festivus. Happy Festivus everybody.

Product Review: Onkyo TX-SR674

Recently my dearly beloved Harman Kardon receiver, an AVR-120, committed seppuku. I was at home with my kids watching a movie, and suddenly there was no sound from the front left speaker. After much testing and troubleshooting, I concluded that the left front channel simply no longer worked.

I made a daring rescue attempt, replacing a 6800uf 16V capacitor that was bulging inside, but to no avail. The unit now sits alone on my work bench, a sad victim of some mysterious circuitry malfunction. I may still attempt further repair, but life must go on.

After an appropriate grieving period, I set to work on finding my next receiver.

I've had the Harman Kardon for about five years, and in that time the TV has been upgraded, numerous DVD players have come and gone, and the PVR that I built for our home has come into existence. In this time the AVR-120 has become sadly outmoded. It has some very nice features; optical and coaxial digital audio, and S-Video--an option nearly unheard of when it was new. But it has no idea what component video is, or HDMI for that matter, and it's never been particularly powerful. I was running it at the edge of its abilities when I would turn a DVD movie up to enjoy a loud explosion, or even try to hear a garbled bit of dialog.

In short, it's been time for a long time, but short of a system failure there was no way I could justify the expense of a new receiver to my wife. And so the failure that did indeed come and force the upgrade has been very much a mixed blessing. It's not the best nor the worst of times, but conflicting feelings are definitely at play here.

I've been using the replacement unit that I bought, an Onkyo TX-SR674, for about five days now. Overall I like it quite a bit, but this would hardly be a proper review if I left it at that. And there are a couple of problems, and I'm loathe to be derelict in my duty to report them. But I also won't settle for the simple "I like this, and I don't like that," approach. And so.

The last time I was on the market for a new receiver, the game was different. It involved visiting every home theater shop in the four or five cities nearest me, carefully pricing things out, carefully checking port configurations, taking note of models and brands, and haggling, haggling, until I felt that I had a reasonable price on a good system.

And that's how I got my Harman Kardon, which after all was said and done, was remarkably well suited to my needs for a time. And it served me well until it abruptly and mysteriously half-died.

I was buying online then, but only books and knick knacks, and the odd PC part here and there. I'd probably never spent more than $75 in a single online purchase then.

Nowadays, though, I wouldn't dream of making a trip to Circuit City or Best Buy my first step. I don't want some young sales guy telling me that what I want doesn't exist (this seems to happen every single time I go in search of something). I don't want to be upsold. I don't want to look at the price on the shelf and wonder if that's even in the ballpark of the best price I can get. I also don't want a damned extended service plan pushed on me, or to deal with the alarm going off as I walk out the door because the girl at the register doesn't know how to kill the anti-theft device, and on and on.

God, I love the internet.

My first stop was to cry for help at Metafilter. This was my post there, and I wore my angst on my sleeve. After some good advice and hardcore study, I narrowed it down to the Onkyo TX-SR674 that I already mentioned, talked Crystal into letting me buy it, and placed the order. Shipping was free but slow, and it was six days before I got my new receiver in a large box.

I began setting it up right away, but realizing that it would take an hour or two at least to do it right, pushed it off for a couple of days.

COMPLAINT 1: Not enough modes

The first problem with setup was presented when I realized that I have six (well, seven) video sources, and the receiver only allows four. I have DVD, Vid 1, Vid 2, and Vid 3 to work with. In the end, I decided to route my Home Theater PC through my plasma TV's VGA input for video, and use the receiver's Tape input for sound. This is not ideal.

COMPLAINT 2: Vid 4 is front panel only

Yes, the receiver has a Vid 4 mode, but the receiver does not allow programming the Vid 4 mode at all. It's for the front panel ports on the receiver, and nothing else can be routed to that mode. In what world is this a feature, Onkyo? Why don't you allow me to decide whether I want to use back ports for the Vid 4 mode? It sure would have made setup easier.

In addition to re-routing the HTPC video feed, I had to route my video game systems through the VCR in order to get down to the four video source maximum. I really hate that I had to do this, and it is my number one gripe about this receiver. I want enough modes that I can damned near fill the back ports and assign them all to a working mode, and I expect to be able to program all the modes however I want. For this reason, I really miss my Harman Kardon AVR-120.

I'm stongly considering buying a Nintendo Wii sometime soon, and I don't know how I'll connect it.

These two complaints are a big deal to me. Fortunately, they're the only two things that I really hate about this system so far. The rest of the review will skew positive.

The owner's manual says over and over again that the first thing you should do is run the automated speaker setup. I chose to connect devices first and I even played one device for a few seconds just to make sure that I had sound from the speakers. I figured that there's no point in running the automated speaker setup if I'll have to stop it half way through and re-check a speaker connection. It sounded awful, due to the non-calibrated state of the system, but at least I could tell that things were in working order.

Device setup is managed through an on-screen menu system that the receiver conveniently fed through the HDMI port to my TV. The manual indicated that not all models in the series will output menus to HDMI. But the TX-SR674 does, and that's nice. The menu for assigning which feed is linked to which mode is simple and only slightly confusing. I quickly found my error and got it right on the second try.

I'm happy to say that converting the DVI feed from my Gaming PC to HDMI and the HDMI feed back to DVI for my plasma TV works just fine, and the picture is gorgeous.

Likewise for the analog video upconversion--HDMI/DVI is the only cable from the receiver to the TV, and my VCR, NES and DVD players all look superb through the receiver. The NES (that's right, I have an NES and I play it) in particular looks better than ever before.

The remote that came with the receiver knew how to talk to my Onkyo six-disc DVD player out of the box. This is nice, but unnecessary, as I use a Logitech Harmony remote to control the whole shebang.

When the time came to do the speaker setup, I put the kids to bed and warned my wife that I'd need silence for 15 minutes or so. We live in a neighborhood that's on the quiet side, so I positioned the setup microphone and began the setup.

Not long into the first setup attempt, the microphone fell off if its perch on the couch, so I aborted the setup, repositioned the mic, and restarted the setup.

The second try took about ten minutes, requiring my input on the remote every two minutes or so, and gave no errors. Amazingly, it knew that the right front speaker is exactly 15 feet away from where I sit on the couch, and it also knew that the subwoofer, sitting right behind the right front speaker is 17 feet away. It had distances on all other speakers and it also automatically calibrated each speaker's appropriate relative volume to the rest of the system.

Very impressive.

I'm still fooling around with the surround modes, and the system's sound reproduction is excellent. I haven't really stressed it yet, but so far I haven't heard a whisper of distortion, and it's easily gone to very high volumes without maxing.

The receiver responds quickly enough to IR commands that I never have to tell my Harmony remote that I need "Help." This is unlike my Samsung plasma TV, which takes blasted forever to recognize commands and frequently misses them.


Executive Summary:

Pros-

• Excellent video upconversion
• Excellent sound reproduction
• Automatic speaker setup (This is hard for anyone to get right, no matter what they tell you. Having it automated is a great feature.)
• Remote works with other Onkyo devices out of the box
• The HDMI and Component feeds are present and work well
• Doesn't need a long lag to respond to IR commands

Cons-

• Not nearly enough modes, or too many ports for available mode options
• Vid 4 needs to get itself into a flexible frame

The pros are great, and the cons are critical but not fatal. Mixed feelings abound. Overall, it's a great but flawed system.

What Daddy Does

I wish to speak for a moment to my two very dear friends, Stan and Eric, who are freshly-minted daddies to Alexander (July 16th) and Henry (August 9th), respectively.

I'm very happy for Stan and Eric, because until now all of my tales of adventures in daddying have been to them hearsay. Now they get to make some of their own stories.

My own son, Harrison, is now four years old. I won't bother to claim that my style of daddying is the best around, or even better than any particular person's style. But I will say that Harrison is a better boy than I was, and I believe that this is due both to his given nature at and before birth, and to the parenting he's received since.

Here I'll humbly offer some of my ideas regarding parenting. These are ideas and techniques that work for me, and nothing more. I think I'm right about a lot of this stuff, but you may not, and that's ok.

The first, and most important concept that Crystal and I have used is that we have discussed our childrens' actions and planned out what will happen when something is wrong. It's hard to be perfect with this, but if Harrison does something I don't like, I tell him it's wrong, and what the consequence will be the next time he does it. For the most part, he knows what will happen when he hits his sister, or when he speaks rudely to his mom, or when he refuses to go to time out. A lot of this won't mean much until your boys are 12-18 months old, though.

Harrison slept incredibly well for the first three months of his life. Most of the time, he let us sleep unless he was hungry. Once his tummy was full, he went back to bed and so did we. After the three months though, he would frequently wake up at night and want to play.

Crystal and I talked about this together, and decided that if we gave in to him at night and played with him or let him come to our bed, then he would get the idea that playing with mommy and daddy at night is ok.

And so for months, when Harrison would cry at night, we would go to his room and offer him a bottle. If he refused it we would leave. He would then cry until he fell back asleep because we wouldn't go in and play with him.

Sitting still and listening to her baby cry is one of the most agonizing things that a mother can bear. This is doubly true if she is still nursing, and the baby's cry makes her milk drop even though the kid isn't ready to eat.

Crystal was very courageous during this period, and by the time he was nine or ten months old, Harrison understood that bed time was bed time, and he could sleep, or babble to himself, or play with a stuffed bear in his crib, or look around, or cry...but crying wouldn't do anything for him. Sure, it would get us to look in and make sure everything was ok, but he'd still be in the crib. By the end of that first year, he only cried if he was hungry, because we'd taught him that crying means mom and dad think you need a bottle.

So I guess my dominant theme would be consistency. Ivan Pavlov and his wondrous dogs are often seen as examples of action/result behaviors and Maslow is handy when evaluating motivators and their effect on a being, but the sad truth is that your kid will not learn causality or modified behavior through skillful use of motivators as readily as a Golden Retriever will.

Kids are humans, and humans are incredibly complex, thinking animals. One of the notorious shortcomings (or glories) of the human condition is the ability to possess a stubborn will to do an action and expect the wrong consequence over and over again. And kids aren't even that simple, because they're not completed humans, they're developing humans. So whatever sensibilities they'll possess later probably won't apply just yet. Or the influence of these sensibilities may be spotty.

Your task then, new parent, is to be more patient and consistent than Pavlov ever was. Yes, classical conditioning works on kids, but at the cost of sweat and tears at a minimum, if not blood.

Volumes have been written about this stuff, but I'm not an expert, and in the end all I'm shooting for here is a congratulatory post with some few tips that might help, or could be (very justifiably) ignored.

And so, just a few small anecdotes:

I spank. I think that daddies who spank justly (and sparingly) are right, and I think that daddies who decide not to spank at all are also right. This is the serious side of spanking.

I've elevated spanking to a mythical physiological mandate, dubbing it "PRT", or Posterior Realignment Technique. I've also theorized that pockets of a certain enzyme form in the gluteus, and that this enzyme is only released into the bloodstream through spanking. When the child's brain is deprived of this enzyme, it rots. When a child behaves as if he or she is in possession of a damaged brain, PRT may be necessary in order to preserve what's left of the brain. This is the non-serious, mythological side of spanking.

When my kids come out of time out, or have been spanked, we always take a moment to talk about what went wrong, and they always get a hug from daddy. I also tell them periodically that time out and spanking are some of daddy's jobs. He doesn't like doing them, but he has to. (Of course, mommy also disciplines the kids and hugs them, but this isn't about her.)

I hug my kids and talk to them often. I keep busy with work, but I try to make sure that I've had a conversation with both of my kids every day, and I make sure to hug and kiss them every day as well.

I make a point of apologizing to my kids when I've done something wrong. We frequently talk about how daddies and mommies make mistakes, too. A couple of times, I've misunderstood the situation and wrongly spanked them. Spanking is a severe punishment to them, so I treat these mistakes and their feelings very seriously, and we talk about it until they feel better.

When I talk to them, I try to kneel or sit down so that we're eye to eye. It would be hard for me to understand or relate to someone twelve feet tall.

A while back I made a mistake in my business, and I came home feeling terrible. The kids had just been put to bed, so I went in and hugged Rachel for a while to feel better. She was mystified to see me cry, so I explained to her that "Sometimes daddies cry, too." She still likes to repeat to me that "Sometimes daddies cry."

Finally, I like to check on my kids as the last thing I do before I go to bed. I shift them so they won't fall out of bed, and I cover them up if they're cold, and sometimes I whisper into their sleeping ears, "I love you." Very rarely, they whisper back, "I love you too, daddy." Then daddy cries a little and goes to bed.

How To Speak In Church

I frequently fantasize during church about standing in sacrament meeting and giving a talk about giving talks in church. Eric touched on this subject a few months ago.

A couple of Sundays ago after some consecutive bad speakers, I stole a sheet of paper from Crystal and made a point-by-point outline of some of the concepts that I would include in such a talk. Tonight I've knocked out eight items on a to-do list in front of me, and digitizing this sheet of paper is the last item on the list.

I'm putting the list to good use. I strongly believe that the Spirit you feel in a meeting is equally dependent on presentation as it is on content. I frequently tune out talks because they're being presented poorly. My mind can't help it; if a message's medium isn't working (in this case the speaker), then my brain has better things to think about, which it promptly gets to work doing. I'm assuming that any message you present in church will be of some importance, so why would you want me to ignore it?

Please, church speakers of the world, take the following tips in the spirit in which they're given. I want to hear and understand your message, and I want you and your audience to feel good about the way you present it. I'm not being mean, I just want what's best for everyone.

1. Don't tell a "When The Bishop Called" story. I've never heard a good one, and I bet you haven't either. We know that you were called, we know that you had a feeling not to pick up the phone, we know that you didn't know what to talk about, we know that you're nervous, and we know that playfully threatening the bishop is fun. It's all been done. Write your own material.
2. Slow down, look at your audience, look at your text as needed. I don't get a thing out of a breathless, page-long talk that you delivered in thirty seconds. I'm too dizzy! PRACTICE....SLOWING....DOWN. Especially if you know you're going to be nervous, and especially if you're a fast talker anyway. And it's completely ok to read a sentence from your notes, look at the audience, deliver that sentence thoughtfully, and then look back at your notes for the next sentence. At least this way I get to process the information, and you might look thoughtful.
   
3. Don't apologize for your material. Present your message unabashedly, and if a story you want to use is told every six weeks or so in sacrament meeting, show a little respect for your audience and take a few minutes to say it another way. If you must use something that's overused, don't apologize, just present it better than usual and move on.
4. Favor stories from your own life over stories from other sources. J. Golden Kimball was really cool, but I'd rather hear a story about you. You are a real, live person who I know (or could know) personally, and J. Golden and most of his ilk are dead. Telling your own story will allow you to build a relationship with your audience, let you give more detail, and help you avoid telling the same old story again (See rule #3).
5. Use quotations in context. It's pretty tricky to misquote King Benjamin, but it's a lot easier, and a lot more common to quote him out of context.
6. Vary your volume. It's ok to be quiet, and it's ok to be loud, as long as you do both appropriately.
7. Bring or memorize a small amount of backup material. General Authorities frequently tout "Speaking by the Spirit." This is not making things up as you go. It's knowing your material and a little more so well that if you feel that a certain part of your talk needs to be dropped, you can do so and you'll have other material ready to fill the gap.
   
8. When you use a quotation, pretend you're the person it came from and speak accordingly. When I quote Brigham Young, I stand up straight, look up a little, and speak in a booming voice. Brigham Young wasn't just a bunch of words, he was a large, visionary, opinionated man who was also a prophet of God. Don't short change him and others who provide your talk with meat.
9. Quote, then explain. This is really important when you quote anyone who died before 1950 or so. Old English is hard, and your audience need help with what Paul just said in his epistle. Don't let them down.
10. Don't be afraid to stray from your text a little. Decide that you'll say what the Spirit tells you to, even if it isn't written down. Don't rob your audience of what the Spirit just told you to say.
11. If you find you're off topic, take a moment to find an appropriate place in your text to continue.
    
12. Never apologize for silence or weeping. These are powerful, and apologizing trivializes them. If you wish, you may explain the silence or weeping. An explanation can magnify the strength because it helps the audience understand you.
13. If your talk is instructional, have a few copies of your text or notes ready to give away.
    
14. If you need a moment to gather your thoughts, thank your audience for their patience and don't apologize.
15. Have a clear goal of what you want the audience to learn, think, or do from your talk. Make sure that this goal stays the same when you're writing the talk, and when you're delivering it.
    
16. It's a good idea to memorize your talk, as this allows you to be more flexible. This takes lots of practice, and if you don't have time to practice giving it from memory 10 or more times, still practice it, but plan on using notes.
17. If you're an expert on your topic, you might try standing and speaking without a written talk or notes. This is a skill that grows with practice, and atrophies quickly.
18. It's ok to address the audience, and individuals in the audience, briefly.
19. Create a summary sentence that you will deliver at the end of your talk. It should state your goal for the audience. This will let the audience set their own goals, and it will give your talk a sense of purpose.

That's my list. I'm also really fond of the rule of opening with a joke or a lie, and I usually follow it. I like to use a lie that's so outrageous that it's immediately recognized as a joke. Also, one of my mission presidents told us to always close testifying. I like to lock the testifying into the theme of my talk, but I've seen the shotgun approach work as well.

ROCI #6: Fans Who Buy Tickets Own The Show (Logan City Fireworks)

Those are powerful memories. I wrote about them more than I had planned, so this Rule Of Customer Interaction is a separate post.

This will be a special ROCI, as I’ll be emailing a copy of the post to Logan Utah’s Mayor, Randy Watts. If there’s something you’d like to tell Mayor Watts, his contact page is here. Mayor Watts, if there's something you'd like to say here, I'll be happy to post anything you send me, good or bad. My contact information is available elsewhere on this blog, and you also have my information in my email to you. I sincerely hope that you find time to talk to us.

The Logan fireworks shows written about in the previous post were formative for me, and they still hold a special place in my heart. But as sad as I am to say it, I think I’ll only attend one more year before giving up on Logan.

A lot has changed about the show in the last several years. Some of the changes are good:

• The stadium’s been remodeled, and there’s a new ticket booth.
• Security personnel now check every bag and cooler entering the stadium for alcohol, glass and weapons. The show in 2002 was a very paranoid affair, but paranoid was popular at the time, so it’s forgivable.
• Logan City cops now direct traffic out of the parking lots. They fell down a little this year, but the last few years have been a much smoother experience where getting out of Logan is concerned.

But there are also bad changes:

• The gate opening times keep getting moved back, forcing people to stand in line longer. I should be able to walk in with a purchased ticket at 5:00 PM and save seats for my family. This year the gates opened at 7:30.
• They don’t open the ticket office until 30 minutes prior to the gates opening. What’s the deal? I can’t give you money until the line I’ve been standing in for two hours is a half mile long? Why?

These are small complaints. What I really want to talk about here is the show itself. The show is killing my experience, and I want to talk about it in an open forum (such as this one), and create an opportunity for Mayor Watts and anyone else of his choosing to talk about why things are the way they are, and possibly see things get better.

So let's get right to it.

First, nobody sounds good in a stadium, guys. The only person who sounds like he should in your pre-fireworks programs is the announcer (Craig Hislop?), and even he doesn’t sound good, he just sounds like you expect a football announcer will sound.

This year you had Imagine, a Beatles cover band perform. I saw Imagine at the Dee Events Center at Weber State University a few years back, and they killed. They really looked and spoke like the Beatles, and the music sounded just like my Dad’s Beatles LPs (and my MP3s). They were great.

But in your stadium, they sounded like crap. And when the utterly forgetable band you brought in last year couldn’t carry a tune to save their lives, of course the stadium acoustics didn’t do them any favors.

Simply put, your shows for the last six years or so have been agonizing, and there’s a very simple way you can make it better. Please, please, I beg of you, turn the damned volume down. One quarter to one half of the volume you’ve been using would be acceptable, if not ideal. I would be able to hear my family. I would be able to talk to my kids. I would still be able to hear the band, and the announcer, and Miss Cache Valley loud and clear.

And most importantly, I’d have the choice of putting in my ear phones and listening to an audio book instead of the terrible band, or the good band that sounds terrible in your stadium, or the kids who’ve written fawning pieces about the beauty of democracy that brims with clichés and non-sequiturs.

Please don’t misunderstand me; democracy is great, kids are great too, and even a band that sucks needs to eat. But I paid cash to get into that stadium to see fireworks, and I don’t want to lose my hearing over it, and I do deserve to have the choice of what to listen to.

But short of wearing can-style hearing protection with earphones underneath the cans, there's no way I can listen to the medium of my choice instead of your PA system. And it just shouldn't be this way. I should be able to enjoy the show even without 85% hearing loss.

Next, let’s talk about your tradition of honoring those who have served in the military. This is a good tradition, and those who have served deserve recognition. I voluntarily served in the Air Force, and nearly died there. I have strong feelings of sacrifice, loss, and pride associated with the experience.

I appreciate being honored for this, as I’m sure many others do. So why did you wait until dark this year, to play the songs of our military branches, when we couldn’t see the people we were honoring? Did someone lose the almanac?

And you goofed again, perhaps even worse when the fireworks were finally underway. First, “Anchors Aweigh,” the Navy’s song played to fireworks. Then, “The Marine Corps’ Hymn” played to fireworks. Then, “The Army Goes Rolling Along” was played to fireworks. And then, instead of playing “The U.S. Air Force Song” (more commonly and incorrectly called “Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder”) you played “Stars And Stripes Forever!”

Who overlooked the fact that the Air Force will be far better represented in numbers at any given show in Utah than any other military branch? Who decided that no one would notice, and if they did notice, they wouldn’t care?

You honored me in the dark and then neglected to play the song of my military branch alongside the other military songs with fireworks. I'd rather you just skipped the whole military lineup, rather than doing this.

I love the Logan fireworks show. The Fourth of July and my birthday nearly coincide every year, and each year, I drive my family up from Layton and make an event of the entire day of the show. I spend money at Willow Park, at local restaurants, local gas stations, local grocery stores, at Logan Lanes, and then I pay to get into USU Stadium.

But I could just as easily spend that money in Provo, and begin a new tradition of taking my family to the Stadium of Fire.

I’d rather not. I like Logan, even if the much-touted Fireworks West shows are decidedly not what they used to be, and even if Main Street is busier every year, and even if it takes a little longer to get home every year. I don’t know of another place in the world quite like Willow Park. The LDS Tabernacle downtown is an amazing piece of art history in its own right. And I’ve never been as fond of a campus as I am of USU’s, nearly in the mouth of Logan Canyon.

I really want to keep coming back to Logan. Please fix my fireworks show so that I can do so.

Rule Of Customer Interaction #6:

• Running a public show for profit is all about selling an experience, and the old saw that one person talking represents a multitude of other silent people is never truer.
• But sports fans get their own entire section in the newspaper, so when ticket sales take a dive, Larry H. Miller has a pretty good idea where the problem is.
• If you're in a special market, such as a seasonal one, or one that doesn't get much customer feedback, it's important to listen to the feedback you get and act quickly. Damage control in this situation is inherently reactive, and will always be too late for many who gave up because they didn't know who to contact, how to contact them, or what to say.
• The legalese on the back will never say so, but a customer's ticket is a tiny piece of vested ownership in your event. Show them that you care, or they'll buy stock in someone else's endeavor.

If You're Wondering What Drives Jake...

Apologies to the blogosphere; June and July are my very busiest months. I've had a couple of surges in business, a birthday, a family vacation, my daughter's birthday, several fireworks shows, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.

I know that apologizing for lack of posts is one of the big blogging no-no's, so I'm sorry for that, too. Damn, I just did it again.

Thanks, Eric, for the birthday post. I'm sorry I didn't post in reply sooner, I really meant to, but see above.

EDIT: This is not an ROCI. This one got too long, so the ROCI will be my next post. The ROCI, like this post, will be about fireworks shows.

I attend a few a year. I've attended the Clearfield show for the last four years or so (this year it got rained out), and I see the Weber State University show about every three years. I went to the Clinton City show for about four consecutive years there, and I've been to Kaysville and Layton shows also.

But the show that I most avidly attend is the Logan City show in USU's Aggie Stadium. I've been there for the last 17 consecutive shows or so, except for the two years I was in Milwaukee. My annual schedule for Logan usually consists of:

• Lunch at an old A&W in downtown Logan (if there is such a thing).
• A tour of Willow Park and the Willow Park Zoo on the southern skirt of Logan.
• A couple of frames or a couple of racks or a combination thereof at Logan Lanes.
• A final stop at Albertson's or Smith's on the way to the stadium for drinks and snacks.
• Find a parking spot that we can get out of quickly at USU Stadium. We have a traditional lot.
• Wait in line for a couple of hours at the gate, as they keep moving back the gate's opening time.
• Enter the stadium, find our seats (which are dictated by preference and tradition), and save seats for the rest of the family.
• Eat the dinner that my parents bring in exchange for us saving them good seats.
• Wait for the show.
• Enjoy the show.
• Drive home.

This year we added a stop in nearby Smithfield during the day to hit the Pepperidge Farms outlet. Now I have Mint Milanos and Goldfishes to last another week at least.

The day that I go to Logan for the fireworks show is hands-down, one of my top two favorite days of the year. I honestly look forward to it all year, and have a hard time sleeping the night before. Yes, I know that I'm an adult now. Shut up.

What few people outside of politics know is that city fireworks shows are money-making enterprises. Sure, shows in the dark ages before ROI was a buzz-acronym were probably hosted solely for the public enrichment, a la "Music Man," but these are animals long extinct.

The Logan show in particular is a booming endeavor. I know this first-hand, as I was once a peripheral part of that machine.

You see, my family were light rope pioneers. Fifteen years ago, when light ropes were a brand-new novelty, my Dad saw a market for them at firework shows. So he bought a few hundred and tried selling them at a couple of shows. The very first light rope you saw at a fireworks show in Utah was probably ordered, activated, and sold by my Dad and I.

We did this on contract with the organizers of a couple of shows, and we did it on the fringes of some other shows, carefully staying off of the official show grounds so that we wouldn't be bothered by organizers with law-enforcement types standing behind them.

Finally, we landed at the Logan show. My Dad made some calls, spoke to the people who could cut a deal with us, and we got booths. And it's a good thing we got booths, because navigating the crowd was a risky proposition in those days. Now the light rope guys walk around with the tubes full of them, and they get takers every now and then. But we were mobbed. Our booths were surrounded, and we couldn't take money as fast as the crowd was shoving it at us. We'd sell out and desperate fathers would beg for the light ropes we'd forgotten we were wearing.

We'd usually sell out right before the show, take a few minutes to clean all the cash out of our booths, sit down just in time to see fireworks, and then go straight to the business office on the southeast corner of the stadium with our lunchboxes stuffed full of cash.

Then, with a stadium representative present, we'd sort the cash, count it, and the stadium would take their cut...I think it was 30% of our gross. This process alone would take more time than preparing and selling the light ropes, and then watching fireworks combined ever took; two to three hours.

The Domino's Pizza booths at the stadium would always have unsold pizzas, and I'd usually leave the stadium with ten to fifteen personal pizzas that would go in the downstairs fridge, about four feet from my bedroom door at home. It was summer, and in the week or two after the show, I enjoyed a pizza and a (glass!) bottle of Dr. Pepper whenever I pleased.

On the way home from the stadium, my Dad and I would always stop at a certain gas station downtown and put gas in the car while we made sure we still had our filled-to-bursting lunch boxes and laughed about the night's events. I'd usually request a soda and some jerky at these stops, and my Dad would see no reason not to be generous.

I get so emotional thinking about the years we sold light ropes. I think that it was at these shows that I came to understand the difference between the people selling hot dogs and nachos, and the people in the management offices, or the entrepreneurs in the crowd who looked and worked just like everyone else. The people in the booths would get a check in two weeks and a bad complexion from the fryer. The people with their own businesses went home with golden lunch boxes and the pizza equivalent of spoils of war.

It’s no wonder that I don’t work well for other people. I’ve seen what’s on the other side of that curtain.