Pyote Air Force Base

Saturday afternoon, my friend Steven and I drove out to the old, abandoned, Pyote Air Force base. We spent almost 3 hours walking and taking pictures. Here are all my pictures from the day:

You can view Steven’s pictures on Flickr as well.

Dream of Murder

So last night I had an extremely vivid dream.

The beginning of it involved being at my alma mater, Emmaus Bible College. I don’t remember much of that. The part that I do remember is being outside in the parking lot–except that the parking lot was at my old church (Berean Baptist in Glencoe, MN). My mom and I were getting into a car when all of a sudden I heard gunshots. I looked out and there was a guy shooting somebody in a car. He saw me and fired a couple shots at me. I yelled at my mom to get down in the car. The assailant then began to shoot at other people in the parking lot. I pulled out my Ranger (it’s from the game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) and looked out the side of the car from the backseat. The assailant saw me and fired two shots at me before he ran out of ammo. I remember the “clicking” sound his gun made as he pulled the trigger to no avail. I stepped out of the car with the gun pointed at him. I remember his face became really fearful and then I pulled the trigger. Twice. Both shots hit him in the chest and he fell back and died. I don’t know if I actually woke up or not, but I remember my heart pounding in my chest and beating at an extremely high rate of speed. I’ve never experienced so much adrenaline running through my system.

A couple minutes later, I was back in some building with a hockey rink. No idea where I was. The shooting was a thing of the past.

It honestly kinda creeped me out because of how real it felt.

The End.

My Apple iPad Theories

After reading a couple brief statements on the web, I started thinking. What if Apple didn’t tell us everything about the iPad? In my opinion, the majority of the Internet was disappointed by Apple’s keynote about a seemingly lackluster product. It doesn’t make sense, that Apple would release a product with no multitasking, no camera, etc. I now present to you my two theories.

Theory #1

Apple had already reserved their usual building for their announcement. The date had been set, and things were in motion that could not be reversed. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get all the bugs worked out of the software, or necessary patents, or whatever, with all the features they were planning on putting in it. And since they couldn’t demo a product that didn’t function properly (or might lock up or something), they had to “pull” those features out of it and not say anything about it. Instead, they will release iPad v2 this fall right before Christmas with these missing functions.

Theory #2

Apple intentionally left stuff out of the keynote. They knew that by the time it was actually out and people could buy it, the buzz would’ve died way down. Also, they have lost all the impulse buyers by not releasing it for 2-3 months after announcing it at the keynote. So, in order to regain excitement and pull those impulse buyers back in when the iPad is officially available for sale, they are reserving the announcement of its full capabilities. This means that in March when you can officially purchase the iPad, Apple will be announcing that it does include things such as a camera and multitasking–just to name a few. All of a sudden, the iPad is back in the spotlight. The media is going bezerks and everybody and their mother wants to get one.

Just a theory. Only time will tell.

Vehicle Burglaries

After seeing the reports of 6 vehicle burglaries within a 1/2 mile of my house (Fairgate Drive), in less than 10 days, I started doing some research.

[Update 1/27/10] There was another one yesterday. That brings the total to 7 in less than 10 days.

[Update 2/1/10] Five more occured on 1/30/10. January now shows the total amount of vehicle burglaries for the entire month.

Midland PD Reports of Vehicle Burglaries

October 2009
0 within .5 mile
1 with 1 mile

November 2009
9 within .5 mile
13 with 1 mile

December 2009
7 within .5 mile
13 with 1 mile

January 2010
18 within .5 mile
31 with 1 mile

In my mind, this seems like a huge increase and something that the people in the area should be aware of. If everyone would make sure to lock their cars and keep valuables out of sight, these statistics would not be nearly as high.

Oh the Pain

Sometime today I strained my lower back. I don’t know when exactly, and I don’t know how. I only remember being in my car this afternoon and realizing that it hurt. It hasn’t gotten better all day. It didn’t help that this evening while I was working on changing my brakes on Bruno, I was doing some strenuous labor which furthered the strain. It also spasm-ed pretty good one time while I was under the car. Before heading home tonight, I stopped by Walmart and picked up a heat pad. I’m laying in bed with it on “high” and it feels sooooooo good.

This past Wednesday, I discovered my right rear brake pads were shot. My method for finding this out was the grinding noise it started to make when I would stop. I recognized from the noise what the problem was. I was going to try and make it till Saturday before changing the pads and rotors, but I decided to just try and get it done Friday evening. My friend, Charles, and I got it knocked out pretty quick (and it would’ve been a lot faster if we had realized the parking brake was on when trying to remove the rotors).

Tomorrow (actually I guess it will be today), I have to change the oil on Bruno in the morning. Then, I have a flag football game at 1:30pm. If we win that game, we play in the semi-finals at 4pm. If we win the semi-finals, we play in the championship at 8pm. If we end up playing all three games, I will be exhausted–but it will be so much fun.

Now I’m off to finish enjoying my heat pad, and watch an episode or two of 24 (season before falling asleep.