I so got to start reblogging here...I miss MSN Spaces.

Gesh it has been ages since I have last posted on Spaces but I have been busy. Facebook has taken over and I have swtiched to it primarily since more of my real life friends use it. I have been uploading some pictures but not a whole lot when compared to my Spaces album. But I have actually started getting involved in another site called Timu.com.

 

Timu.com is a social connectivity website for sports teams and individual who love to play and share sports. I myself have joined the skiing hub and a few others. It is pretty cool and probably the coolest of all the various sports hubs is the Unicyclists. There are tons of videos and pictures of extreme unicycling and who would have thought. I wouldn't have.

 

If you are interested in joining please accept my invitation and create a profile, create and/or join a team and start sharing. My friend Matt has been hard at work on the website and would be really please to see a lot of people join. As for me, I am going to posting videos and pictures of skiing stuff and with luck I will be in Whistler/Blackcomb and Mt. Hood for some serious spring skiing. My profile has a few pictures, videos and some other hoopla. Well I am off to get back to work at my desk, been at since 7am :(

This weekend was busy and it felt great to get a lot of things accomplished. Friday night, Kin members and I ran through the Rift of Nurz Ghashzu. It is a spectacle in my opinion because it takes 12 people of a variety of skills to accomplish killing the bosses. Unfortunately we didn't run it fast enough and only got to Barz before we all had to go to bed. My Champion is pretty tough and is going to get a major upgrade with the release of Mines of Moria.

 

Saturday morning came to quick and it was time to set into another project; moving fish and cleaning Double D's fish tanks. Since the previous fish tank post much has happened; fish have be relocated to other homes because they were getting to big for the tank, two additional tanks have been and one more awaits completion in the garage. So I moved baby Jags from the 30 gallon to the 10 gallon, baby Jags from the 150 gallon to the 10 gallon and move the Jag parents into the 30 gallon. Quite the operation but it is all done but the Jag parents are all stressed on in their new home.

 

Then it was off to Dad's house to get the covers for the Zodiac and hung out with and talked about stuff. He says is nice to be done with the house and have some done town; well if he gets any down time. After that it was off to a friends house to watch the free fights on Spike. The fights where OK but nothing to spectucular. I gotta give Leben. He fought excellent, and I think he won, and has a great attitude even in the face of a loss. Stand up guy! Also heard he has been sober...it does shows. Well that raps up the Saturday.

 

Now Sunday was here and it was time for more chores. I got up and started cleaning around the house, getting laundry going...etc and then watch 8 Mile on TV. Never seen it before, even being a Eminem fan, and really liked it. The clown offs where hilarious, had cool beats and were just awesome to watch. It was cool how Eminem shut the dude up at the end! Brilliant. Makes me wonder if that is how he did find his style, dunno.

 

After the movie it was time to clean the boat and get it ready for winter, badda bing badda boom, done. The clean the truck inside and out, its raining today, and get back to doing laundry, the kitchen, go to town for groceries and dinner. So I ate some Pho and watched the Seahawks game (it was another dismal performance with more injuries) and then worked on a website well into the evening.

 

Busy busy and the weekend just flew by and it is nearing the end of my Monday. Well gotta run...have a few things left to do at work besides blogging ;)

The season is getting to the point where it may not be recoverable. With a record of 1-4 the season is looking bleak. Injuries continue to occur and there is no rythym at all on both sides of the ball. Yesterday's game ws painful to watch and the video below is on of the best things that happened all day, well can't forget about Kerney's super hit on Rodgers and Peterson's hit to fumble on Rodgers.

 

Finally the bye week is gone and the team is back home for a game. It has been a rough start to the season with the injuries, losses and the lack of rythym in the team. Hopefully playing at home with trusty #12 in affect they will find their grove. It seems that that many of our key players did not practice; Hasselbeck, Wallace and Branch. So does that mean that Frye will be playing in Sunday's game? A third string guy...good thing he does of experience to draw off.

 

GO HAWKS!

Well I am finally about to do it; receive my real estate license. Monday, after finishing the course work, I sat down and took the course exam and passed with no problem. But now it off to take the State exam on Friday with the hopes that I pass the first time around and then these last three years of real estate experienced will be put to good use.

 

It really helped getting through the course working in the administrative role and learning the terminology. Now it applying the business degree and slang houses like crack...hehehe...that would be nice but unlikely in the real estate upheaval we are experiencing. That is all for me.

Yesterday the gang and I all went down to Seattle for the Seahawks week 3's game against the St. Louis Rams. The 2 prior weeks didn't go at all as planned so all of us were crossing fingers and toes with the hopes of seeing a win. This morning on KISW 99.9 Chad Eaton was talking about how much the Rams suck and that even though the Seahawks got a win it wasn't that impressive due. I disagree with his observation because no matter how it is looked a win is still a win, either by a mile or an inch, a win is a win if it is over a great team or a bad team. This win could definelty set the tempo to the rest of the season

 

The Seahawks showed poise and confidence right from the opening kick off all the way to the touchdown on the opening drive. Getting a solid start on the opening drive allows a team to find its rhythm early and can set the tone for the rest of the game. This is exactly what happened with the Seahawks on Sunday. The opening drive cascaded through out the game a was prevalent in the Julian Peterson forced fumble to recovery to touchdown that came a few minutes later. By the end of the first half the score was 17-0 Seahawks which has to be one of the highest first quarter point totals I have seen in a long time.

 

The running game was impressive and I ask Matt Hasselbeck not to do anymore blocking even though it can lead to a touchdown. In a subsequent drive, Matt made an impressive block on two Rams defensive players allowing Julius Jones to get into the end zone to extend the lead. The blocking wasn't necessary as there was still time on the clock, it wasn't a critical touchdown (game deciding) and could have cost the Seahawks their star quarter back.

 

Totally 240 plus yards on the ground is something that has not been seen in Seattle for some time now and it was awesome to see some old fashioned ground and pound mixed with fancy footwork. At times when we though Jones was going down he would spin move out of it and pick up extra yards. Those extra yards make all the difference when it comes to progressing down field efficiently.

 

It was a blast to see the Seahawks win and for one of the very first times there where NO opposing team fans sitting around us. It doesn't seem like a big deal but it actually made a dramatic difference in the amount of enthusiasm of lower Section 316. So lets get this year in full affect and get loud and get some wins. GO HAWKS!

A lot of things happened this weekend. Family has been in town since Thursday for my Dad's wedding that happened on Saturday. Spent tons of quality time with them and it was cool since they live in San Diego and I don't get to go down there that often. Everything couldn't have gone better until Sunday when Seattle faced Buffalo in a down pore.

 

The team looked totally out of sync. I am sure having injured starting receivers contributed to this but gesh. It makes wish the starters played more in the preseason to get into their grove so they could hit the opening day with rhythm. Now we are 0-1 when it should have been an easy win. Buffalo didn't have good stats so it wasn't that they were playing stellar and smoked us by skill.

 

 - 252 total yards (bah...can't win a game like that)

 - 5 penalties for 30 yards (bah...aren't we one of the least penalized teams in the NFL?)

 - 3 for 16 on 3rd down conversions (bah...we couldn't move the football at critical times)

 - and time of possession was almost equal

 

It was just our lack of continuity and being able to get the ball down the field (definitely shows with total yards).

 

Oh well; this weekend it is a home game and having the home crowd in fully force should help out. San Francisco doesn't have a chance and maybe I will get some new pictures up. Hard to take new pictures when we are in the same seats every year :)

Work has been a challenge and a half lately and all I can do is put one foot in front of the other. I started a new project for our Lord of the Rings Online Kinship; Knights of the Third Age. The site is in the beginning stages but will get going fairly soon. Got some kinks to work out especially in the forum.

 

On another front. The Seahawks start the regular season this weekend but not sure if I will get to watch it. My dad is getting married on Saturday and the family will all still be in town. Its cool though since I do not get to see them on a regular basis (they do not live in WA).

 

Hmmm, what else. Oh yea, the other day I rolled out Goingbigger.org. Not sure what to do with the site but maybe make it an extreme sports things center around skiing. But that would be mean no more skiing stuff on this blog; or just a major reduction. Who knows, only time will tell.

 

I guess that it is about it. Not to exciting these days. Did take the Zodiac out on the Puget Sound for some hot laps with family, that was fun :)

Football season is underway; well it is preseason still. I went to last weeks game against the Bears and was surprised to see Grossman playing most of the game but not surprised to see him play as bad as last year. Honestly, can't the Bears get a better QB? I should probably be glad they don't. The game was fun and it felt really good to be back in the stadium after the long hiatus.

I am really looking forward to this season and it looks like there are some definite new stars on the team. My favorite player sill remains #8 Matt Hasselbeck but I pretty like every player on the team. Hopefully our starters play 1 quarter this time as watching touchdowns are always a favorite past time of mine :)

 

Tonight the Hawks play the Chargers in their 3rd preseason game. It is getting close to crunch time and players are going to fighting for play time as good impressions make the coaches desk, as well as bad ones. Who will make the team for the 2008 Seattle Seahawks? I'm not sure yet and definitely not as good as the pros pickers so I will wait this one out and just enjoy the game tonight and talk football with the guys!

 

Go Hawks!

Well I am still looking for a new job. The real estate industry seems to go from bad, to worse, to completed messed up. It makes it hard to stay motivated when there is really nothing going on, hence blogging from my office. I've been applying at Microsoft and looking at their career website almost daily to see the new jobs, submit resume and so on but haven't had to much good news.

 

To help with the finances I have joined a networking group in Mill Creek/Bothell for my small business marketing company. I have gotten one job out of it, a website for a furniture management company and hoping to have a few more in the coming months. Tuesday I meet with the Lake Stevens chapter to review a proposal and hopefully get them to commit and sign the document. Their site will be awesome if I get the job but for now its just a waiting game.

 

A part of me resents some of my friends. They are all doing really well with their jobs, making money, climbing the management chain while I sit back with a BA and struggle. What is it? Am I not good enough, savvy enough, or out going enough? Not sure but it is frustrating to say the least. I feel bad for resenting my friends and not wanting to hear their exciting stories of promotions, traveling and pay raises. Maybe things will change in the near future and I can stop feeling this way.

 

Well, instead of pouting I better get back to work try to do something productive.

I got this in an email today; nothing like some humor on a Monday.

 

The only thing that the IRS has not taxed yet is the male penis. This is due to the fact that 69% of the time it is hanging around unemployed, 10% of the time it is hard up, 20% of the time it is pissed off and 1% of the time it is in the hole. On top of that, it has two dependents and they are both nuts! HOWEVER, effective January 1st, 2008, the penis will now be taxed according to size.

 

The brackets are as follows:

Last weekend my girlfriend, Jyll, and I were joined by friends out on Lake Washington for Seafair. It was one of the most relaxing days as no one talked about work and laughed a lot. The day started off by launching the boat at Magnusson Park directly west of Kirkland. There were some yahoos trying to launch their boats and all it took me was to pull out, back, brake launch the boat and with Rudy on a tagline. Boat launched!

 

We drove across Lake Washington into Kirkland and picked up Jyll off the docks (I got all confused and drove around looking for Kirkland for like 10 minutes). Then the day was rolling. Girls, food, drinks, gas and a boat. All the perfect ingredients for fun. We watched the Blue Angles from lake tied up to Chris's buddies and partied on!! The Blue Angles kicked ass once again and is definetly worth seeing if you've never been to Washington.

 

   

 

The rest of the day was spent cruising around the lake and chillin. I did another post on my real estate website about it and has a little different perspective. Check it out...Pictures should be up soon too in the photo album. So pease out and as Grinchy says "taker sleazy".

This 4th of July I spent with friends at a wedding. I know what you are thinking, weddings are gay, but this one was cool. It lasted a whole 10 minutes (tops) and I was boozing during the ceremony. Easy money if you ask me. After the "I do's", everyone started in on the food, got back to talking and started to booze even harder. Then the meat wagon showed up.

 

A 1948 Ford truck pulling a bbq that would not fit in some garages. It was packed full with good smelling wood and tons of meat. Ribs, ribs and more ribs baby! There were pretty good and hosted by Armadillo Barbeque. What a cool name and they said they even have a 1953 GMC as their other truck. Should have brought that instead of the Ford, lol, needed at lease one Ford jab in there.

 

Then the big moment had arrived. All year I have been waiting for the 4th because my room mate bought like 2k dallors worth of fireworks (wholesale from the internet) and made a 4x8 display board to compliment the boxes off other stuff he had :) The dispay was the best have ever seen and the pictures turned out amazing. I bought a Fujifilm camera for my 30th and it has a fireworks setting on it. Bingo! The show lasted for about 30 - 40 minutes and there was a rock cover band playing right behind us. So rock music, drinks and fireworks (Toby got a burn on left hand...thank god it was the left!) was the best combination. And here is my favorite of all the pictures, all the rest can be found in the photo album.

 

  

  

Well I have unfortanetly gotten old. Last week I turned 30 years old and had a big party at the house with tons of food, friends and fun. Ah well...I was told I look 19 yesterday and still getting carded...nice :)

Why does work think it can just butt in and take up all my free time? I do not know but lately there has been little time to do fun things. Well that is not totally true but pretty darn close. I have been working on projects, joining networking groups, hitting seminars and trying to work at my day job to. So far I am doing nothing really good and stress is really high. Today it took me forever to get going between dropping of a lawn mower, forgetting my documents on home computer and driving all over town. I finally got settled, oh yea the power cable for my tablet went out which costs $160 after tax, and powered through an articlem proposal and emails. Not bad and een did an artlcle when I got home. Well its hella late and I am going to bed.

Since my time online has grown into more than just a hobby I thought I would share a website with you all that it quite fun, interactive as well as a great place to meet like minded people. The site is cre8buzz. cr8buzz was just recently released from beta any is now open to the public. The beta test used an invite system to build the initial user base. My invite came by the way of a friend, Jade456, and I created a profile in the Real Estate group.

 

Like other social networking sites, cre8buzz allows users to setup free accounts, comment on questions, engage other users in forums and comment on other profiles, uploaded podcasts, pictures and videos, write blog posting, add a friends list and even add a website list (like ones your author). But that is not what really sets the network off. For me its the way the community talks to each other that makes it so attractive.

 

Other social networks people go off the handle and say some stupid stuff and the worst stuff I see is on YouTube. F-bomb this and f-bomb that and so on...it makes it unenjoyable to share while these culprits hide behind the anonymity mask the web has. That is important for me; the way people communicate really turns me on or off and cre8buzz has really done it for me. When conversations, comments and the like reduce themselves to name calling feud fests, like a bunch of kids, it drives me crazy and to drastic measures of leaving the network completely. But some people just do not get it that social networking and bad behavior and lead to serious consequences, blog post worth reading: Bob Sutton's Asshole Management, so they can get away with abusive behavior is horrible, enough about that through.

 

I was buzzing around the network and though I would share some of my favorites out there. To bad none of my stuff made into my favorites...what is up with that?

 

My Favorite Picture: Born to be & father and son

 

My Favorite Blog Post: Common mistakes smart buyers make when buying a home (cannot help it being real estate related)

 

My Favorite Podcast/Video: Terry Tate - Office Linebacker

 

My Favorite Profile: Evancalous

 

So if you have some time you take a breeze through the network and see if you like it and sign up. But you do not have to take my word for it; check out a Digg submission and see what everyone else has to say. That is not all; look for more action on the cre8buzz circuit in the coming months. It is my guess that the network is going to exploded and membership will increase exponentially.

 

Other items to note about the cre8buzz network is how easy the system is to use and maintain. Setting up a profile took just a few minutes and customizing profile was just as easy. Many members have made "pimp your profile" tutorials and other widgets to further customize a profile; which is more customizable that what Spaces has to offer. For my profile, I chose to move the modules around the three columns to get the right look and keep it pretty basic.

 

It is a fun network so what are you waiting for...get out there and cre8buzz for yourself, company or whatever! Hope to see you there.

Even though I have been looking at new jobs I still have a love for the real estate industry and the comings and going in it, especially when it comes the SEO side. There is a contest, and to us Spacers this is no new thing, to rank #1 on Google for the keyword Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World.

 

A little history about this contest. It was the brain child of Eric Blackwell (EricOnSearch) and REW (Real Estate Webmasters). The first post I seen was on RealEstate.Propeller.com, a site similar to Digg.com, and then I started back tracing it to the original posts. Now the contest has some worth to it in my opinion but has to be taken with a grain of salt. It is highly unlikely that the term would be used by a potential client to search for a real estate agent but it is proving to be a great challenge for people in the real estate industry to test their sites authority, SEO skills and resource availability against a larger community.

 

So what does the winner of the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest get? I believe a featured listing on a website as well as the personal recognition that they are skilled at what they do. So if you wondering who is the current leader just go to Google and type in the keyword, minus the quotes, Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World. Let us see who is the best, contest ends May 1, 2008. Check it out if you got a few spare moments while working, that is what I am doing.