Here’s an interesting little thing that caught my attention. Apparently Hawaiian legislature has just introduced a bill that would ban all pit bulls from the state of Hawaii. If passed, anyone owning or in possession of a pit bull would be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Now personally, I don’t like pit bulls at all. It has nothing to do with their supposed disposition, I just think they’re ugly. But all that aside, I have some real problems with this kind of law. “Breed-specific” laws are completely unfounded in my opinion. You can’t single out one breed for it’s temperament (I can understand “wild” breeds, but not domesticated). But this bill isn’t necessarily breed-specific. Apparently the great representatives of the people of Hawaii have failed to realize there are more than 20 breeds of dog that are classified as “Pit Bull”. Not only that, but what about pit mixes? At what percentage of “Pit Bull” is a dog considered to be illegal to own? It’s a very broad and poorly-written bill.
My other issue is this: what makes a pit bull more dangerous than any other breed of dog? People have this misconception that Pit Bulls are mean, aggressive dogs. The truth is that these breeds are more reliable and friendly than most breeds out there today. In fact, in temperament tests conducted by the ATTS, pit bulls pass at a rate of about 86%. For comparison, a standard collie tests in at just over 79% out of over 800 dogs tested and only 81% of all dogs ever tested pass the temperament test. A pit bull that is well socialized and taken proper care of is just as safe and reliable as a golden retriever, and this is based on statistical data.
Anyway, I just wanted to cast my opinion that this kind of legislature is stupid. What do you think? For some more information:
As a lot of you know, or maybe read here ;), I’ve been working on this whole “fish business” thing. That fish business started out in the planning phases as an aquarium service-only business but has now shifted focus into aquarium sales and service with an emphasis on fish sales. You see, I’ve gotten into breeding clownfish just recently, and not only is it fascinating to me, but very profitable if done correctly. These little guys fetch around $10 each from the local fish stores, and I have about 120 full-size clowns in my possession right now.
So why the shift in focus? Well mainly because I want to still be flexible enough to move around if need be. Fish breeding has a unique advantage over a service company in that I can still sell fish to anyone in the country no matter where I live, although the shipping costs can be a bit outrageous. To my knowledge, no one in this area is actively breeding fish for stores. We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll keep everyone updated.
The other day I finally gave into the nagging of my WP Automatic Upgrade plugin and upgraded to version 2.7. I thought this would be just another minor fix, but to my dismay…the whole thing is different! After loggin in again I really didn’t know where anything was. No worries though, I have it all figured out now and the new dashboard is actually pretty smooth. I’ll reserve final judgement though, because I still miss my old dashboard :(. Oh well, here’s to embracing progress!
Just a few short months ago I jumped on the smartphone bandwagon and got my Motorola Q9c with Sprint. It’s an awesome phone that does more than I can even imagine, but it has one major drawback that bugs me constantly….it doesn’t multitask whatsoever.
Well last week at CES, the guys who first brought us the mobile organizer and smartphone bring us a new “innovation” in mobile computing…..I’m talking of course about the Palm Pre. This is an amazing phone, in my opinion far superior on paper than even the mighty iPhone (and I’m somewhat of an Apple fanboy). Pre is based on a new system called webOS, which has UNIX/Linux at its core. It’s a touchscreen phone with a portrait-style QWERTY keyboard. I can’t even begin to give you all the features here, but I’ll suggest to you checking out the Palm website and giving it a thorough look-over at www.palm.com/pre.
I can tell you this though, if it comes in under the $349 mark I’ll be sure to have me one of my own the second it comes out ;).
Update: According to reports flying around the web (like this one HERE), the Pre price point will likely be $399-499 without a contract and $149-199 with a Sprint 2-year commitment. If that’s the case, I’ll Pre-order the minute I can (pun intended)!
It also looks as if the target release date is being speculated at around May or June for the U.S.
Well I just got home on Saturday from yet another Vegas vacation this year, only this time it was more business-related. I was attending SuperZoo, which is a convention help every year for pet retailers, put on mainly by the Pet Industry Distributors Association (the good PIDA haha) Worldwide Pet Industra Association (WWPIA). It was an awesome time and I met a whole bunch of people that I hope to be doing business with in the near future. Later on I will post a whole bunch of pictures from my trip and write a little more in depth on my stay. For now, though, I need to get my site working properly again (at the time of writing, the CSS is displaying incorrectly). So until then, anticipate the next awesome post!
I’ve been working on organizing a new business venture for a few months now. Last month I had all of the necessary paperwork filed and approved and now have an official LLC for this project. It’s called Freki Aquatics and is basically an aquarium service and maintenance company. This is a fairly unfilled gap in my area and I have done some estimates and figure it’ll do pretty good once I get a good word out. This week I’ll be in Las Vegas attending SuperZoo 2008 at Mandalay Bay. Hopefully I’ll get some good networking done and learn a thing or two about this industry I’m about to dive into. Wish me luck! I’ll put up some good pics and stories ASAP
Okay maybe I don’t exactly fit the description of the prodigal son, but I was gone for a very long time…and have now returned to the blogosphere. Where did I go? Well, I got caught up with everything I was doing (as I easily do). I just got so busy with finals and all of my goals that the blog just kind of slipped away. Not to worry, I’m back again and here today I’ll try and get you up to speed.
First of all let’s go over some of the goals I had set for myself before I stopped blogging:
I didn’t do the greatest at keeping up on the guitar. In fact I quit practicing all together. It’s sad, because I still really want to learn to play, but right now I just have so much going on (lame excuse I know).
I stuck to my dieting goals, eating smaller portions mainly, but also eating healthier in general. Well this one is a big whopping success! I went from 215 pounds when I first posted I would try a healthier diet, down to a much more appropriate 185 pounds today. Yay me!
I’ve stuck to the excercise….mostly. I’ve been trying to hit the gym about 3+ days per week. I’ve also been trying to run as much as possible. This comes and goes. Some weeks I do great, others not so great. I know I can run a 5k in about 22-25 minutes though.
I’m still working on building my financial strength. This proves harder for me than I realized, but is still chugging along at a positive pace. I’m working on improving my credit/savings enough to buy a house next summer. More on that next.
School. It sucks. I’ve been at a loss about what I really want to do with my life other than making money. I work in healthcare and love it. So naturally I decided maybe nursing would be a good fix for now. I thought that to be an RN (LPNs never get the respect or pay they deserve) you needed 4 years of college (BSN). I was wrong! I discovered this week that I qualify for a 3-semester RN program at a local college. I’ll be spending my next year retaking one or two classes to improve my odds of being accepted, but I’m excited about my new direction!
So to recap, I’ve been busy! But I HAVE been making improvements in my life, so it’s not for waste
Sorry world, I’ve been gone FOREVER. More on that later, but I figured to help apologize for my absentness, what better way than with a hilarious YouTube video. I laughed my ass off! These losers are trying to score some chicks on a video dating service (from the ’80s). Love it!
It’s no secret that having a hobby can be an important instrument in relieving stress…and what better instrument to use than a musical one. One of my goals for this coming year has been to learn to play the guitar. Growing up I learned to play the piano, clarinet, and saxophone….all mediocre. They were (are) all great stress-relievers…and can be used to impress a person or two as well…but I eventually lost interest in them all for one simple reason, they’re not that popular. What I mean is, when was the last time you heard a Billboard Top 100 song on the radio that was written for the clarinet? The piano is a little better, but it’s kind of hard lugging around a 600 pound piano. That’s why I chose the guitar, it’s portable and can play a HUGE variety of music. So the question is, how will I accomplish this? Here’s a breakdown:
1. Get a good-quality guitar. I was lucky and got one from my mother for Christmas :). It’s an Ibanez Sage acoustic guitar. It’s not a top of the line professional model, but a VERY good beginner/intermediate guitar. This is what my guitar looks like:
Ibanez Sage Series Spruce Top Acoustic Guitar 2. Have the tools. The next thing I did was to go out and buy some good picks, a quality tuner, and a guitar bag. I know from experience with other instruments that if you don’t have the tools you need, you lose interest really fast. Playing becomes frustrating and eventually you just put your instrument into storage. Make sure you get these items in the beginning. 3. Get some lessons. While you can certainly learn to play the guitar without lessons, it sure does make it a whole lot easier. I started looking around for lessons and they come out to be about $25 per lesson…roughly $100 per month. So, being the cheap-skate I am, I tried finding free stuff on the internet. There’s a ton of it out there, but nothing of really good quality for free, not that I could find anyway. I researched this out for about a week and decided to give JamPlay a try. You pay $20 a month to get unlimited access to their video lessons, chord charts, supplemental content, and forums. I’ve had it about 3 months now and am REALLY happy with it. This was actually an essential piece to me actually making progress on my guitar because it fits my weird schedule. I suggest taking the lessons from Jim Deeming if you’re a beginner. 4. Set aside some practice time. I started out with a small goal…just three hours per week. Eventually, as I started to get the hang of things, guitar got more fun to practice. Now I can practice for a couple of hours in a single sitting if I have the time. It just sucks you in! However, in the first month or two, practicing was painful. I felt like I was never going to get it, my fingers and wrist hurt, and the sound coming out was less-than-awesome. The simple key here is to practice regularly! It will get better, I promise.
That’s it…so far I can play a few basic songs (very basic), but I’m well on the way to my year-end goal. I encourage everyone to pick up a productive hobby to fulfill your spare time, and if you’re interested in learning the guitar, visit the links above….they’re some great resources!
Last week I made a goal to myself of making more posts, and then I flopped. I shouldn’t make excuses, but I know this is because of my work/school schedule this last week, which has afforded me ZERO time for the internet. I worked almost 60 hours and had school for about 12…which left not much time for anything else. Sorry about that.
Because of my increasingly hectic life and my goal to maintain great grades this semester in school, I decided to drop one of my courses for this semester. This still leaves me at a full-time status in school, but I feel like having this one less class will help me manage stress, get better grades, and focus on all my goals. I also signed up for a condensed summer course. I plan on taking some paid time off from work during the summer classes so I can get them out of the way.
My eating also slipped up this week. I found myself eating out several times through out the week because I was too busy to stop at home and prepare a healthy meal. Along with that, I didn’t work out at all this week (maybe once or twice). Yup…I feel like crap already. It’s amazing how fast you can go from feeling like you’re in great health to feeling cruddy.
In other news, I bought a few new websites and am working on restoring some old ones, since I let all my internet hobbies drop a while back. Who knows if anything will come of them, but it’s a skill that can only benefit.
This next week is a lot less hectic for me. I work my three 12-hour shifts, but they’re spaced out better this week. My class that has been dropped will allow me to have a little more normal schedule as well. So plans/goals for this next week:
1. Write some good, quality articles for this blog
2. Practice the guitar
3. Sell my car (Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. I’m selling my Nissan 240SX)
4. Work on my other websites, especially the forum on a particular site.
Here’s an interesting little thing that caught my attention. Apparently Hawaiian legislature has just introduced a bill that would ban all pit bulls from the state of Hawaii. If passed, anyone owning or in possession of a pit bull would be guilty of a misdemeanor.
So why the shift in focus? Well mainly because I want to still be flexible enough to move around if need be. Fish breeding has a unique advantage over a service company in that I can still sell fish to anyone in the country no matter where I live, although the shipping costs can be a bit outrageous. To my knowledge, no one in this area is actively breeding fish for stores. We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll keep everyone updated.
The other day I finally gave into the nagging of my WP Automatic Upgrade plugin and upgraded to version 2.7. I thought this would be just another minor fix, but to my dismay…the whole thing is different! After loggin in again I really didn’t know where anything was. No worries though, I have it all figured out now and the new dashboard is actually pretty smooth. I’ll reserve final judgement though, because I still miss my old dashboard :(. Oh well, here’s to embracing progress!
It’s no secret that having a hobby can be an important instrument in relieving stress…and what better instrument to use than a musical one. One of my goals for this coming year has been to learn to play the guitar. Growing up I learned to play the piano, clarinet, and saxophone….all mediocre. They were (are) all great stress-relievers…and can be used to impress a person or two as well…but I eventually lost interest in them all for one simple reason, they’re not that popular. What I mean is, when was the last time you heard a Billboard Top 100 song on the radio that was written for the clarinet? The piano is a little better, but it’s kind of hard lugging around a 600 pound piano. That’s why I chose the guitar, it’s portable and can play a HUGE variety of music. So the question is, how will I accomplish this? Here’s a breakdown:
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