The Adventures of a Digital Sensei
I recently participated in a sleep study to correct my nocturnal habits and longtime insomnia. Most of my friends, especially those on Facebook and other social media sites, have noticed that I am active online very late in the night. I have been like this for many years. I rarely sleep more than a few hours at a stretch. This has never been a problem for me, until about a year ago when I started feeling tired and rundown. My docs, after ruling out Continue reading “No sleep ’til Brooklyn”
As someone that was born and raised in Harlem, the recent Internet trend of wildly gyrating on video and attaching this moronic “dancing” to Harlem was offensive. I am glad Melissa Harris-Perry set them straight!
And yes, Continue reading “I’m from Harlem, but I hate this Harlem Shake nonsense!”
I finally got the tree set up and decorated. My ornaments are slightly non traditional and were influenced by my obsession with Star Trek. I have had many of these hanging off of my tree since I was much younger. My favorite is the Galileo Shuttlecraft ornament from the Hallmark collection. Norwegians like my wife Continue reading “2012 Christmas Festivities”
In light of the “Avengers”, the “Hunger Games”, and the new Green Arrow TV series, both of my kids have been interested in trying the sport of archery. So when I came across a Groupon deal for the Queens Archery Range I decided to take the whole family. We had an amazing time. My wife even enjoyed it, and I didn’t figure her for the archery type. We shot recurve bows that first night and I was shocked at how much fun I had getting my inner Hawkeye on! While the girls enjoyed themselves, they didn’t think that archery was going to be something that they would want to do on a regular basis. My boy on the other hand was hooked.
A few weeks later I took my boy back Continue reading “Archery Night: Zombie Apocalypse training”
It is a damn shame that we are having this discussion yet again today. The murder of 27 people in Connecticut, 20 of them small children between the ages of 5 and 10, once again highlights a unique problem with American society. I have been watching the television coverage for most of the day with a mixture of sadness and calm acceptance of the reality of the world we live in today. I wasn’t sure of whether or not to add my two cents since I have recently become NRA certified with a pistol and have taken up range shooting as a hobby. As a child of the 70’s and a a resident of NYC, where we have some of the most strict gun laws in the country, I would be a Continue reading “Here we go again”
Most people I know are aware of my fixation on a certain comic book character. So just as a goof I took an online personality quiz which asked the question “which Superhero are you”. To be honest, I should have guessed the outcome.
Results: You are the Batman
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You are dark, love gadgets and have vowed to help the innocent not suffer the pain you have endured.  |
Since it has been at least 7 years since I have upgraded my Apple desktop system I finally decided it was time to pull the trigger on the new Mac Mini that Apple announced last week. I ordered my new setup from MacMall and it should arrive in the next few days. The miniature form factor of the mini is perfect for my desk, and the third generation Intel quad core processor will provide enough power for most basic multimedia tasks. After years of favoring Apple, I have been primarily working on PCs since this summer because certain software could not be run on my old Powermac Quad G5. However, while the transition was not as dreadful as I had expected because Windows 7 was better than Vista, I still I missed my mac environment and have been anxious to Continue reading “My New Mac Mini is on the way”
It appears that my Groupon and Livingsocial addiction continues onward. My wife and I spent the day at the New Jersey Firearms Academy taking the NRA sponsored Basic Pistol certification course. We had the opportunity to work with some great instructors. I hadn’t been to a gun range in nearly 20 years but the instructors at NJ Firearms made me feel very safe and comfortable. They introduced us to 9mms, 357s, 45s, 40 Calibires, 38s, and 22s (revolvers and semi automatics).
So overall it was a good day and I confirmed a couple of things that I always suspected. One, Chow Yun Fat and John Woo are absolutely full of crap. Two, shooting ranges are radically different than the paintball competitions that the family and I use from time to time. And three, my wife is a much better shot than me and definitely not the person I want to piss off. However, while my wife once again showed me up, I did much better at the range than I did on the motorcycle training course from a few weeks back. Plus I had a really great time and met a bunch of really cool people.
Midlife crisis – 1, James – 1.
I came across this picture of President Obama recently and it made me think. The worst thing about having a shaved head is……. I miss going to the barbershop. The last time I went to a barbershop was probably close to 20 years ago. I started shaving my head right around the time that my wife and I started dating.
The barbershop I used to go to was the old Jerry’s Den on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. It was always packed because everyone was waiting for the one or two barbers that were guaranteed to give you a good cut. Most people would rather wait and hour or two to make sure you got a barber that didn’t give you a jacked up cut.
The main thing I miss about the barbershop is the Continue reading “We cut heads!”
Despite the middle age cliche, I have been thinking about getting a bike for some time now. So a few weeks back I purchased a set of introductory lessons offered by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) for my wife and I. The course was purchased via one of those Groupon type sites to which I have become addicted. I could tell that wife was a bit nervous about me climbing on one of those, as my mother calls them, “two wheeled death machines”. And while my girl would never outwardly say anything to try to prevent me from doing something I really wanted to pursue, I thought that reducing her anxiety as much as possible would be a nice thing to do . So I signed her up to take the class with me so that she could see that motorcycles can be relatively safe when operated properly.
Surprisingly enough, the wife had a blast. Me on the other hand, I struggled all day with the tiny little bike they had us riding. I stand 6’2″ and a half of all legs and weigh around 220lbs. The miniature Suzuki 250cc cruisers had my knees up by my head. I could barely move my legs enough to switch gears. The instructor then got slightly pissed at me for sitting way back on the passenger seat in order to fit more comfortably on the bike.
My first time on a motorcycle in 25 years and I kinda sucked at it.
Midlife crisis – 1. James – 0.