Our Project on IndieGoGo.com

HELP SUPPORT MY BROTHERS GAME

Hey everyone,

I wanted to update everybody that was interested in my brothers up-and-coming board game. With some previous issues now taken care of the updated game has been officially launched on Kickstarter.com

The board game is quite unique by itself but does have some slight influence from other games. If you are a fan of the board game Risk, or the card game Magic: the Gathering, then you are sure to love his creation.

For the full story and imagery pleasure check out his blog at http://dragonmagewarfare.blogspot.com/

To view this project on Kickstarter click HERE!!!

For those of you who don't know what Kickstarter is here is a brief explanation:

You can donate money to get certain things in return. For example, on some projects you can donate only 1 dollar and earn yourself a name spot in a rulebook of a game. Or, you can donate 15 dollars and also score yourself a nice t-shirt. Some projects will give you a completed copy of a game or comic book for a donation.

Check out kickstarter.com for details and also check out my brothers game mentioned above.

Also, if you like to browse boardgamegeek.com here is the link to his game there http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102927/dragonmage-warfare

Thanks everyone for checking it out and a HUGE thanks to anyone that supports my brother in his endeavor.

My position on Texting while Driving

For those of you who have never driven in Logan, Utah during the busiest hours of the day, lets just say that its typically a nightmare. While I am sure many of the drivers of Logan are completely capable and intelligent there is a large number of drivers that have no respect or common courtesy whatsoever.

IF YOU DON"T WANT TO READ THE FIRST TWO STORIES, SKIP TO THE SECOND TO LAST PARAGRAPH FOR THE POINT OF THIS POST.

I decided to relax and let my wife drive this time and I was just sitting back and watching everyone. I watched a very large, lifted Dodge truck weave in and out of lanes behind us until he was beside us driving about our pace. As soon as he was beside us I noticed that he was in the process of texting (could have been web browsing for all i know). He did not look up at the car in front of him for a full 10 seconds (and I am being modest, it felt like much longer). The traffic at that particular time was actually pretty bad, the fact that he was weaving in and out like that took a little bit of bravery if you ask me and the whole time (as it seems) he was using his phone. A truck that size and lifted could rear end a car like mine (2010 Mazda 6) at 20 miles per hour and end up on top of my son in the back seat. Hmmmmm, wow.

Moments after the Dodge truck was long gone, my wife and I were stopped at a red light next a minivan that was full of kids (looked like 4 kids, could have been 1 or 2 more). The mom was texting while we were stopped which is no big deal since everyone uses the stop light as a great chance to quickly reply to someone. But when the light turned green, she hits the gas and I didn't see her look up for quite a distance. She finally looked up and slammed on her brakes and almost hit the car in front of her. I think she was wearing a seat belt but I couldn't see any seat belts on the kids. I wonder how much that text message would have cost if she didn't slam on her brakes when she did.

Driving home that night we were following a car on the northern end of town. We could see the glow of his phone from where we were. He had his phone up on the steering wheel and was texting in a position that he could still "quickly" look at the road between letters/words. Information I had read about eye focus time from near sight to far sight still took around .5 seconds. And, when you add a stimulation such as light your focus time can take just over a second to adjust back to far sight. I also slightly researched some statistical analysis of reaction time and found out that while driving your reaction times are much less than anyone would think. While you are thinking your reaction time is instantaneous, it is actually delayed by a ballpark average of .5 - .8 seconds. (of coarse I am not throwing in exact data but its close). Now, to add on to this we were traveling at 50 - 55 miles per hour. 50 miles per hour is 73.33 feet per second. I'll say that again, that is 73.33 FEET PER SECOND. If you have the the combined eye refocus time and the normal human delay time you are losing over 1 second on average and 2 seconds on an apparent worst case scenario. Worst case scenario you will run into anything within 146.66 feet of where you are. then you have to add in the stopping distance of the vehicle you are driving. So, I know that this particular person thought he was being safer by being able to look at the road quicker but in reality he could have caused quite the accident if circumstance would have been considerably less favorable.

Back before we all had smart phones and touch screens we could write a novel with one hand in 10 seconds without even looking at our phones. Now, there are not very many people that can do that on their current phones. I know several people that have had some severely close calls while they were texting and driving. I just don't want to see my wife or kid killed from some idiot who isn't paying attention to what they are doing. Besides, if you get in a wreck and they prove that you were texting, even if nobody is injured you can still go to jail for attempted manslaughter. Wow, it seems to me that I don't really need to drive this point any further. This is my position on Texting while Driving: It doesn't just make you unsafe, but it makes everyone unsafe. There are kids on the road, babies, grandparents, spouses, parents..... lets help them get home to their families ;)

You Never Know When An Idiot Will Strike - Episode 6

Short and sweet episode today, Talking with an apparently crazy lady that was waiting for the bus. For this episode she will be referred to as Crazy Lady.

Scenario: I am walking my boy over to 7-11 to buy him a treat. The bus stop is on the street next to 7-11.

Crazy Lady: Hey, how are you?
Me: Doing good, you?
Crazy Lady: I use to live around here and was wondering if I could plug my phone in at your house.
Me: Umm, I think there is an outlet on the outside of the 7-11
Crazy Lady: Well, I asked them if I could plug my phone in inside and the said no, I think they are prejudice.
Me: Well, I would just plug it in outside until they tell you to stop.
Crazy Lady: I use to live in this neighborhood, can I just plug it in at your house?
Me: I would rather not.
Crazy Lady: Your boy is really cute, Can I hold him?
Me: Really? No Thanks, but good luck with your phone.
Crazy Lady: Can you show me where the outlet is on the building?
Me: Its next to the red box, good luck.
Crazy Lady: My friend has heat stroke and we live in Ogden and are waiting for the bus. Can you buy her a bottle of water?
Me: ***Staring completely blankly in disbelief*** Sorry, I can't help you

Then I walked away. I may have messed it up just a little but WOW. She asked me if she could charge her phone in my house several times. I just can't help but think she was just a druggie that was looking to steal stuff.

But then again, she could have just been a complete idiot ;)

Eat Your Words - Episode 2

You know those times when you are getting so completely frustrated with your child doing something and you want to smack them? But, they are just so cute when they do it that you just want to smile and watch them break all your stuff?

This brings us to Episode 2

My son has developed an absolute love for tractors. It doesn't matter if they are red, green, or blue.... If it looks like a tractor or sounds like a tractor he is all for it. In fact, saying the word tractor puts a smile on his face. We have discovered that the best babysitter for him is YOUTUBE. Jason Aldean sings a song called Big Green Tractor. Someone was kind enough to put this song into a tractor slide show on YOUTUBE. We can sit my boy in front of the computer screen and you will have just about 4 minutes of complete uninterrupted work, sleep, or relaxation time.

My son was sitting on my lap watching this slide show on my second monitor while I was doing some graphic design work on my main monitor. He was holding a toy truck and kept trying to remove my hands so that he could drive it on the keyboard. I kept telling him that he would have to get down if he didn't stop. After about 4 million attempts to finish my work I finally decided to put him down and let him lay down on the floor in "UTTER POUT MODE". I went into the kitchen so that I could ignore his whining and after about 15 seconds I hear him giggling pretty hard. I look around the corner and he has his truck on the keyboard looking right at me. He busts out laughing ridiculously hard and starts running towards me. I had started to open my mouth to tell him "NO" but just swallowed my words and laughed. He would dart back to the computer and stand there quietly until I put my head back into the kitchen. As soon as I peaked back around the corner he had the truck back on the keyboard. After about 10 minutes of this I finally had to stop him from putting his truck on the keyboard. It's times like these that make you happy to be a parent.

Eating Your Words can sometimes bring about the best things ever.

You Never Know When An Idiot Will Strike - Episode 5

Last night my wife and I took my son to the fair. It was a typical day at the fair and the rides were only one ticket because it was family night. Like any family night it was quite busy. No big deal for us, we had a lot of fun and we won a few prizes. But, lets talk about parking. The parking at this particular set of grounds is set up so that you can park on the two outside edges or park face to face in the center of the area. The parking area on this side of the grounds spans for quite the distance and sometimes you will have to drive all the way to the end and back just to go into the next row to find a space and it sometimes takes a little time.

But, What if you don't want to drive all the way down? Just park behind someone who is already facing another car in the center parking, right? WRONG. We are chatting with some friends and notice a guy in an SUV trying to get out of a space where there is someone in front of him and behind him end-to-end. I ran over to help him get out without hitting another car and luckily he was able to barely squeeze between a couple cars. What would seriously drive someone to completely block someone in like this? Did they just not see the car on the other end? Did they just assume that they were going to be leaving before them? Who knows. On the way out of the parking lot we noticed that about 10 other people had also blocked in cars the same way. Are these people all from the same gene pool? I know we were in Tremonton but holy crap, I didn't know that many people had complete disregard for other people.

I guess idiots are everywhere, We all better watch out.

P.S. If it were me, I would have either backed into that car repeatedly or else keyed the living crap out of it. And then left a note saying: "YOU KNOW WHY".

You Never Know When An Idiot Will Strike - Episode 4

Short and quick post today. Idiots are everywhere and they like to cross the street. The like to cross the street when there is a lot of traffic I'm guessing that they don't have a car or else they would have driven to their destination. Today, I met one such moron.

I'm driving home and I am almost there. This person decides to dart in front of me to cross the street. No big deal, I am not too close to this person so I didn't have to completely slam on the breaks. I didn't come to a complete stop and I was just about to hit the gas again when this person darts back in front of me from the center of the street. At this point I'm thinking to myself: "Is this person on a suicide watch list or just an idiot?" He grabbed a grocery sack that was sitting next to one of the trees on the curb and then darted across for the third time. This time there were quite a few cars getting stopped. from both directions.

I understand that the northern end of Brigham City doesn't have any cross walks or stop lights so people just cross wherever their dear little hearts desire but seriously, get a freaking clue. Stop traffic once?....Sure, fine. Stop traffic twice?....Okay moron sure, ill wait, not a big deal. Stop traffic a third time?.... I want to punch your face off, holy crap!!! Did that just happen?

Who raises these people? This kid was most likely in the range of 13 - 16 years old unless he just looked way way old for his age. I swear I learned traffic safety before Kindergarten, I could be totally wrong though. This kid was probably the offspring of one of the complete idiots from episodes 1, 2, or 3. The best part is that I am lucky enough to encounter these people myself. I HAVE THE BEST LUCK EVER.....OF ALL TIME.