This is really the first year where I (mostly) kept up with and tracked my previous resolutions.  Here are my final thoughts about 2009’s resolutions:

• Daily Devotional – This had its ups and downs throughout the year and ended more down than up so I can only give myself a ‘C’ for this (as you can tell, I am MUCH more honest about my grading myself than Obama is).
• Weight Loss – My goal for the year was 190, and I ended up the year at 182.  This gets the ‘A’.
• Regular Blogging – I took the summer off from bowling and blogging and had a rough time getting back into it in the fall.  I’ll give myself the ‘B+’.

This year, while I will work to maintain my weight, I don’t have any specific loss goals or resolutions.  As far as blogging, I’m taking the same approach.  I’ll try to post fairly regularly, but don’t really have any targets or goals.  This year, I have one resolution; something I’ve never tried before and there isn’t any grading except for pass/fail… read the Holy Bible in a year.  I’ve found a schedule that has me read it through in book order which I felt was important for my first attempt.  Today I will start with the first 3 chapters of Genesis.  I have always tended toward the New International Version of the Bible and plan to use that for my first go through.

To keep myself held accountable, I will continue to give updates through this blog of my status and any setbacks I may encounter.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful 2010.  Our country especially has a lot of trials coming up with our government set on taking away our freedoms and liberties right in front of our eyes.  I have hesitated on turning this into a primarily political blog, but expect more political commentary and insight as it suits the times.

I had run some tests a while back of burning WMA discs to use in our mini-van and they worked well.  Now that we are about to go on a trip and I have completed ripping all of our CD’s I wanted to burn the WMA files to discs to take on the trip.  Great idea but one issue: the brand of CD-R I bought don’t match those I tested with…

I have long heard that different media can have trouble in different players, but I really thought we would be past those days.  Apparently not.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to for this trip or not, but in order to try again, I’ll have to buy a different brand (preferably those that tested well before).  I’ve gone through 5 discs burning different ways to get a playable one without success.  I’ve been using the same burner so I know that isn’t the issue.

If I do go buy another set, I’ll let you all know how that plays out.

UPDATE:  Now we’re trying plan ‘B’… using our MP3 players instead.  This had some drawbacks as over time and moves I had lost the AC charger for my MP3 player and we can’t find the USB cable to charge/transfer on Kylah’s iPod.  We also didn’t have just a straight through stereo cable to plug into the AUX jack in the van.  Luckily, Fry’s Electronics is the best store ever!  I was able to get a new charger/transfer cable for the iPod, a universal AC adapter with the proper connection for my MP3 player and the straight through cable.

I’m currently charging my MP3 player and have downloaded our entire music collection to it.  After the charge is complete, I’ll test it out in the car and hopefully we’ll be good to go.

The bowling center I bowl out has two banks of 32 lanes.  Most of the time, we’re on the left (lanes 1-32) and that side plays much differently than the right side (33-64).  The amount of oil seems to be different and the change in the lanes differs as well.  I’m used to bowling on the left side the majority of the time that bowling on the right is like going to a completely different center.  This week and next we’re on the right side.  I will try a different ball to start with next week hoping that gives me a better reaction.

First, let me apologize for my lack in posting this season.  There really isn’t any excuse other than my time was being used in other ways (more on that a bit later).  I hope to be back to regular posting for the rest of this season.

Last night was finally a consistent, solid night.  Earlier in the year, I had  a 299 and finished with a 716 series for my best overall series.  Since then, however, I had been seeing more red than green and my average had trailed from a 198 to a 194.  Still so far my best average in a league, but short of my 200 goal I have for this season.

Last night, I shot a 201, 235, 203 for a 639 series and my first night where all games were above 200.  That was a pleasant feeling.  Of course, I needed to strike out the last 5 shots on the 3rd game to keep that alive, but was able to pull it off.  If you want to take a look at my stats for this league, you can click here.

Now for one of the reasons for the lack of posting.  A couple of years ago, I wrote a program to keep track of all of my leagues and scores and those of my teammates as well.  It worked well for the most part and I was happy with it since it was my first time trying to develop an entire application.  While it did work, there were areas for improvement and I decided if I was going to work on it again, I should try to get it to a point where I can make it available to people.  So I spent my free hours on weekend evenings redesigning and coding from scratch bowlingSTATS, along with all the help files and registration information needed to make it public.  It is available freely to download, and is fully functional for entering up to 8 weeks worth of scores; after that, registration is required.  Please check it out and let me know what you think.  Any feedback is welcome.

I know this is getting to be a lengthy post, but if you’re still with me I’ll give a quick resolution update:

• Bowling Blog – D, this is only the second week of 13 where I’ve posted any notes at all.  My apologies.
• Devotional – B, I’m reading most of the passages most days, but do tend to rush through instead of taking the necessary time to reflect.  This has still been my best year for doing a devotional, but better habits are still needed.
• Weight Loss – A+, I’m currently settled in around 185 and am very happy.  I have exceeded my goal of 190 for the year.  I don’t have any immediate goals right now, but for next year may want to add some weight training to build overall strength.

Have a great day and I hope everyone had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as I did.  Take care!

Overall, not too bad coming out of the gate.  We did however, lose all 7 points and I can only suspect some serious sandbagging the first week.  If it were one team member, that’s understandable.  Even two… but when all four bowlers carry averages in the 180-190 range (for years) and have a first week average in the 130-140 range so that their handicaps are through the roof, I get suspicious.  I took the whole summer off and still kept my average.  50 pin differences from the first week to the second are not statistically normal… not when it is everyone on the team.  I try to be positive and look at the best in people because I don’t want to believe that people would really do that, but in this case the numbers don’t add up.  Teams don’t get 3000+ pins with handicap for a night; it just doesn’t happen without some manipulation.

This has been a long standing league and I believe that the first 7 weeks should use the ending average from the previous season if you bowled in that league; or your USBC book average if you didn’t.  Only if you have never bowled in league should your first 3 games establish your average.  It’s infuriating.  That would nearly eliminate the possibility of purposeful sandbagging at the beginning.

While I am fairly pleased with my performance, maybe it would have served me better to bowl 150 all three games to establish low.   Of course, under no circumstances could I even bring myself not to try my best; it’s just something that doesn’t enter my mind as a possibility.

After a summer hiatus, bowling starts for me again tonight.  The season technically started last week but I was on vacation so I missed it.  My goal for this league is a lofty 200 average.  This will be tough especially considering that I only bowled twice all summer (had planned to continue to bowl practice regularly, but it didn’t pan out that way).  We’ll see how rusty I am after tonight.

As for the rest of my resolutions for this year… I’ve hit the weight goal of 190 so I’m really excited about that.  The summer has seen a bit of a drop in the devotionals, especially during vacation so still some room to improve.

Take care and you can expect more regular posting to start up again!

A couple of weeks ago, when opening Microsoft Money; I got the pop up message stating that Microsoft will stop supporting Money over the next couple of years and will no longer produce new versions.  I have been a user of Money since I graduated college so this was quite devistating.  Now I would have to switch to Quicken or eventually lose the online services of Money (stock quotes, bank transactions, etc.) that I really enjoy.

The problem is this: there is NO GOOD way to move from Money to Quicken.  A number of years back, I ran Money and Quicken side by side to see which was better.  Money barely edged out Quicken and I hadn’t looked back since.  Now that I have to, I wanted to see if there was any better method for transitioning.  They have a new data converter; hopefully that will be better.  I tried it, and there is a lot left to be desired.  Accounts all come in as either banking or investing (no differentiation between credit cards or others you can create in Quicken, but once created can’t be changed, a short sighted error on Intuit’s part).  I’m fairly picky when it comes to the details in my finances, so that option just didn’t work for me.

I’m told that Quicken 2010 will have a better transition option from Money since they know now that Money won’t be updated; well I’m a bit bitter so I wanted to switch to Quicken quickly and get it over with instead of waiting for a transition plan that they’ve never gotten right in the 20+ years that they have competed in this market for personal finance software.

So, the bottom line is, I figured out my own method using as much automatic information from Money as possible and doing the rest by hand and I have now officially finished the switch to Quicken… would have been better to have made that decision 6 years ago.  I am sure that there are others that are interested so I will be writing an extensive guide and will post a link here to help out others who don’t want to wait and see if 2010 will have a good transition.  My guess is no matter what, there will be some manual work that needs to be done.

Overall, I still like Money and am sad that it is going away.  I’m sure Quicken will do all that I want and more and as I get used to it will forget all about Microsoft’s product.  Money, R.I.P.

Anecdote 1:

Early last week, I received my league bowling money; which was a fairly decent payout with my 300 game and good sweeper weeks.  We decided to purchase a patio set with some/all of the money depending on how it worked out.  We went to Kmart and found one that we really liked.  I went up to purchase and got rang up.  After nearly 20 minutes, they come out with the chairs but say they are out of the table.  They call around to other stores and find one that has one in stock.  This was after the Kmart associate was on hold for 15 minutes with the another store.  It was about 30 minutes away, and we decided to make the drive even though it was already passed C-man’s bed time.

I get to the store and they inform me that yes, they have the table, but that it is on lay away for another customer.  I ask for my money back and they say they can refund the chairs but not the table since I don’t physically have it.  Furthermore, they state that the other store should have refunded my money for the table before I left (which begs the question of what would have happened if they did have the table available to me, would I have had to pay again?).  So, we drive back to the original store… another 30 minutes.

When I get back, I demand to talk to a manager who agrees to refund all the money, corraborates the story of the other store stating that I should have been refunded there and offers me a whopping $5 gift card, to help cover the gas.  How nice… we won’t be going back to that Kmart ever again (and preferrably not to Kmart at all).

Anecdote 2:

On Sunday, while watching golf, I decided to take a few practice swings trying something new in my living room… yes something bad was bound to happen and I’d be up for a Darwin Award if I had in fact lost my life.  I made sure I was clear of all furniture and things were ok… until I forgot about the ceiling fan.  A few swings were fine and then all of the sudden, crash, chink, oh crap!  Two of the glass bowls that surround the lights broke.  I own up to it and expect to buy a new fan.  We really like the fan in the family room and I knew it was from Lowe’s even though it was here when we got the house.

I e-mailed Lowe’s and got a response back saying they can probably help me if I get them the model number and the store I would most likely work with.  On Wednesday, we got a call from our local Lowe’s stating that they could order two new glass bowls for $14.50 each.  I just need to come in to order the bowls and they’d call me back when they came in.

Today, I went in and asked for the associate that had called.  The manager (although I didn’t know he was the manager at the time) told me he was off but we could work with someone else in the department to get it ordered.  I was able to point out which glass it was even though they didn’t have the estimate in the system as I hadn’t come in before.  They also had two of the later model of the fan in a shopping cart next to the desk; either they had been returned, or the original associate had used it to get the part for the bowl on my behalf.  I’m not sure which.

The manager quietly told the electrical representative to just get two bowls out and give them to me and they would worry about re-ordering if they need to later on.  As he gave them to me, I stressed that I was willing to pay and they told me no and told me that if I had trouble leaving to say that Eric (the manager) gave them to me.  I had no trouble leaving.  I’ve given that Lowe’s quite a bit of business in general (but they didn’t know that) and they really impressed me.

Such a contrast… one store that truly wasted my time was willing to give me a spit in the face (really, what can you get for $5, they want you to spend more)… the other, which had done nothing wrong at all, really took care of me.

A little customer service can go a long way… Lowe’s gets an A+ in my book!

My final night was a great night, but had a bittersweetness to it.  I bowled my best 3 game series ever: 238, 220, 221 for a 679.  Going into the last game, I had a decent chance to get a 700 series.  I missed two single pin spares (had made all others the rest of the night).  If I had made those, I would have had a 245 and my 700.  So, while it was my best three games in league, it could have and should have been better.

Overall, I’m pleased with the final 9 weeks of this league.  Since I had my last lesson, I’ve averaged over 200 and raised my league average from 182 to 188 which is significant this late in the season.

I won’t bowl in any league this summer, but will commit to practicing at least once a week to maintain what I’ve learned and even try to tweak some minor adjustments.  I’m not sure if I’ll keep a regular blog, but if anything significant happens, I’m sure I’ll pass it along.