It is not that often that a person can get it so wrong that it brings fear to them. Just 30 minutes ago I was complaining about the rain always missing us. This evening was shaping up to be another one of those evenings where there is a line of thunderstorms that goes completely across the state and then forms a hole just as it passes the metro area. As much as I love storms I find myself getting mad when this happens. Well I guess I insulted God, or angered him in some way because shortly after that, we had a downpour. I would estimate that the wind was blowing nearly 80 MPH in the above photo. You can even see a leaf blowing by in this shot.
In this picture you can see how the street was flooded near my home. This is the rain that we never get. I would say the water was about four inches deep in the center of the road here.
In the picture above you can see the tree branch laying in the road with the hail splashing in the flooded street. The storm was almost over at this point and you can see the elementary school in the background is showing signs of the sun coming out.
This is the beautiful sky as the storm is moving away. The large bird circles over head asking himself “What was that?” I really enjoyed this storm and wanted to share it with the rest of you. That wind did get a little scary at one point. I missed some great shots because I was trying to keep the camera dry. At one point the wind was blowing so hard and the rain was coming down so hard that I could barely see across the street. I do not want to be known as the one that always complains when things are going bad and never give God credit when things are going well. We really needed this rain and it was a real blessing. I am very thankful to be able to get rain especially when two hours earlier it was 97 degrees. If you want to see the rest of the pictures, just click on any one of them and it will take you to Flickr to see the whole set. Thanks for stopping by.
Tonight a storm went by here and barely brushed by us to the East. We did manage to get enough light rain while the sun shine over head. The one good thing that did come from this was this pretty rainbow to the East. I will take whatever rain we can get but we really need some more. The rainbow was a real blessing to look at it. Also it cooled the temperature from 97 degrees to about 85 in just a half hour. I just wanted to share this image.
Tags: Oklahoma City, rain, rainbow, storm
I long ago noticed a trend that happens more often than you may think. I have noticed that many times we will have a line of storms that go from Kansas to Texas, or Texas to Arkansas and the storm will somehow miss us. How does this happen? The storm will be a non stop line all the way across the state and yet just before it arrives in the Oklahoma City area and a hole will appear so that it completely misses us. Once it passes, it will rejoin and it once again goes all the way across the state. Someone like myself that loves stormy weather notices these types of things.
I think I will start saving screen shots of radar views any time I catch this happening. I know it sounds like a non issue but it is amazing how often this happens.
June 25th 2009 was meant to be an exciting day with the first ever NBA draft for the Oklahoma City Thunder. With the Thunder getting the third draft pick it was sure to be a great day. It was a Thursday that was going to be a Friday for me because I was taking off work on Friday. What a sad day yesterday with the loss of two famous people in our country yesterday and three in the last week. Those who have read this blog know that I am anything but a celebrity worshiper. In fact, I often chastise others that do engage in celebrity worship. With that said, I have to admit that Michael Jackson was a huge part of my teenage years. When his Thriller album came out, I was in 10th grade and I will never forget the impact he had on my teenage years. For the tough guys that I tried to emulate, it was not cool to listen to his music though we were all closet Michael Jackson fans. I remember no one would admit to listening to his music yet he sold more albums than anyone in history. Someone was buying them. I remember listening to his music and then when my friends would come over I would quickly switch the radio back over to the classic rock station so my friends would think I was cool. Looking back I would never choose that life style again where I could not be myself. For that reason to this day I cannot stand classic rock music. I sometimes forget with my own kids the pressure that people put on you as a teenager. The pressure they put on themselves to fit into the group.
Though he made some mistakes, I cannot deny his impact on my own life. In fact here I am at 43 years old and I have more than 20 mp3’s of his songs on this very computer I am typing on. He made some terrible choices that I would hope that he regretted afterward. I know I have made some huge mistakes in my own life that I would change if I could do them again.
Farrah Fawcett was a part of my younger years with her role in Charlie’s Angels. Later she was in several movies including the Burning Bed. That movie was a wake up call to anyone that considered being a spouse abuser for sure. I remember all my friends had that famous bathing suit poster on their walls. I never had one myself because my parents would not allow that at the time. I often wondered what makes people act so crazy with celebrities and I still do. In this case however, I lose any sense of rationale. No one can deny that Michael Jackson was unusual and in some cases lacked some common sense. Nevertheless his existence brought back my teenage years. When I say he lacked some common sense, I refer to his continued exposure to children even after being accused of child molestation. Most people would take that first accusation as a lesson to not put themselves in that situation again.
In all fairness, if this had been anyone else I would be less likely to give him a second chance in the same situation. That double standard goes back to the nostalgia that he brought back to me. This amazing news was just hours after hearing of the death of Farrah Fawcett and just two days after Ed McMahon. Farrah’s fight with cancer was such an opportunity to shine the light on this disease to get people involved in finding a cure. This opportunity was cut short with the loss of Michael Jackson, ironically by a heart attack. Both heart trouble and cancer are the two largest causes of death in the United States. I know it sounds like I am speaking in a way that Michael Jackson’s death was unfair to Farrah. It may seem that way because I do have an emotional connection to both of these diseases.
I lost my mom in 2005 to a heart attack and my mother in-law in 2002 to cancer. My mom had a serious heart attack when she was only 29 years old. This attack caused permanent damage to her heart and she suffered many heart attacks over the next 30 years. My incredibly supportive dad stood by her side stressing out for years. He was so stressed at times that he looked terrible. I really loved my mom and miss her so much. It has never been the same since she has been gone. My mother in-law had many illnesses over the years and one day we found out that she had cancer. By then it was too late to do anything. My mother in-law was a very good person and my wife is just like her. Ever since then my wife has been actively involved in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. This helps her feel like she is doing something for her mom because she never had time with her own mom.
This blog post may seem a little down but a death always brings this out in me. Michael Jackson was so big during my most influential years that it is difficult to believe that it is true. With such a big event, this will certainly go down as one of the biggest events that I will always remember…even bigger than Elvis Presley’s death. When these things happen it really makes me begin to think and put things into perspective. It makes me think about our purpose on this earth. Did we just simply land here by accident’? Was there an explosion one day and living creatures just evolved from no where? Is there purpose? It can make a person begin to think of their value in this world.
In my case it makes me thankful for what I have. I have Jesus who died for my sins so that I would have a chance to be forgiven for my mistakes, and bad choices. I for one believe we are not an accident and someone put us here for a reason. This person is God. Anyone that is honest with themselves and looks the creation of this world would have to admit that it is so well designed that it had to be done on purpose. Just look at a tree leaf and see the awesomeness of HIS creation. God is almighty and deserves a glory greater than all of man could give him. He is honest, just, powerful, forgiving, loving, and fair. I think he deserves our true worship. With all the emotional feelings that a singer can give us, it cannot compare to the glory that God deserves.
I truly wish the best for Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon and hope they were blessed enough to know that Jesus died for them and they had purpose. I have watched countless interviews over the last 24 hours about how Michael Jackson as much money and fame as he had still desired purpose. God loved him and that is the greatest purpose a person can have. If he could have ever realized this, deep down it would give him a sense of value that a trillion dollars could not compare. As bad as we all were at following the guidance that God has given us, he loved us enough to come to us in the form of a man to die in our place. If that ever gets into your spirit, it will bring tears to your eyes that anyone could really care for you that much. I feel blessed to have been able to know this revelation. I feel blessed to have such a wonderful wife for the last 20 years. God also blessed me with two incredible sons that I would never trade for anything on this earth.
It is interesting how a death can make you think about things that we actively try to avoid thinking about. I have never met any of these celebrities but their loss made me think about what is important. I hope I am not the only one that feels this way. I know I am not because I scrolled across the radio this morning and I heard many stations that spoke of the death of Michael Jackson as an event they will never forget. I heard those on the local sports station saying the same thing and they are famous for belittling celebrities all the time. I have heard them make fun of him many times though this morning I heard the same people discussing this event seriously as a moment they will never forget. In the end, this in my opinion is a good thing because death is something we all will face some day and many do not wish to think about it or their purpose. Events like this make people think of them and can make people think about what is really important in their lives.
Today I took off work so I could go to the doctor to get the results of a heart echo that I had last week. I often have these anxiety attacks where my heart starts racing and I feel short of breath. Since I lost my mom from a heart attack, I often worry about them. After talking to many of my family members I find that I am not the only one that has them. It is scary when they happen and it makes me feel like I am not able to breath. I found out later that the accelerated breathing makes it worse. My results came back this morning and my doctor said that it looked normal.
Well now that I have pretty much “bummed out” everyone with my blog post I guess I will get on with a great weekend. Remember to recognize what you have and be thankful for them. It is too easy to focus on the bad things and miss out on the great things and people you have around you.
Tags: celebrity worship, death, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, God, Jesus, Michael Jackson
This week has been very busy with having to work overtime the last two weekends in a row and working two hours overtime each day. Some point this week, my HF antenna fell from the tower and landed on my next door neighbor’s power line. Both the antenna and her power line were insulated so it was not a big deal for it to lay there a couple days because I just have not had time to work on it. As you can see below, it is the antenna on the top and to the left. It is an Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus 6 through 80 meter dipole antenna that was quite expensive.
What happened was that I had the antenna suspended on a pole off the side of the tower at 50 feet by a pulley and a nylon rope. Some time this week, the rope broke sending the antenna to the power line below. Well I hoped the neighbor would not notice it until I would have time to fix it but she did. The night before last she came to the door about 8:00 pm and told us how concerned she was. Of course I had already showered for bed because I had to be up at 4:00 am. Well the next morning I got up and I was on that tower about 40 feet up at 5:00 am trying to pull the antenna off the wire. Because the antenna has large traps on it, the antenna did not want to cooperate. I eventually got it down but not after getting every dog in the neighborhood wound up. Man I have the most stupid dogs that live next door to me on three sides. These dogs will bark non stop for hours on end. If I did not sleep with a fan next to my head, I would never get any sleep.
For the life of me I cannot see what the attraction is to a loud barking dog. They have all the appeal of a wasp in attack mode. Oh well, I did manage to get the antenna down without destroying it though it is all tangled up. I hope to be able to work on it within the next few weeks and get it back up. I really am not up to climbing the tower any time soon because my feet have been hurting a lot lately. So this means that I will not be on the radio in the near future. Do you hear that lady next door? When your television is not working right, it is not me. Just kidding. She is okay but she does think it is me sometimes when it is not. That is part of the way of life when you are a ham rado operator. People will see your antenna and just assume that it is you that is messing up their television. I have been watching TV and not even have the radio turned on and people come to the front door and accuse me of coming in on their television. It just comes with the territory as my dad can attest to. He has had similar experiences at his house with false accusations
For the most part, things have been going fine around here except for all the overtime. Some people love working overtime but not me. I believe that time is the only resource that you cannot get more of. You can work and get more money but you cannot get more time. Fortunately my overtime is limited in scope and I work with some great people. I am looking forward to not working next weekend. Well I think that just about covers my week. I thought I should post an update since I have not posted much lately. I will try to keep this up to date more so you will know how things are going.
We went on our vacation a couple weeks ago and had a great time despite being dominated by a poison ivy breakout from an unmentionable place. Among the many things we did while on vacation, we went back to one of our Air Force homes at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. What can I say? I loved that place so much but was only able to stay there for 16 months before being moved to RAF Bentwaters in England. Davis-Monthan AFB is a great base to be stationed as they are a training base for A-10 pilots. I was a weapons systems mechanic when I was there. I worked on MAU-40/MAU-50 bomb racks, triple ejector racks (TERS), and LAU-117, LAU-88 missile launchers, and AIM-9 launchers. Lets not forget the massive powerful GAU-8/A Avenger Cannon, gatling gun.
This gun system is an amazing piece of machinery that I have torn down to the smallest piece and put back together again. This gun system is an ugly monster though when it jams up and I have been involved in a number of them as well. Although I worked on the A-10 at three different bases (Davis-Monthan, RAF Bentwaters, and Eielson AFB), it was Davis-Monthan where I got my start. People affectionately refer to this great base as DM. Amazingly I still have a remote connection to this base even today as I continue to work in a system program office (SPO) for a different weapons system that occasionally requires parts to be pulled from the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan AFB.
My wife and I have some wonderful memories of this base and my oldest son was born here just prior to the start of the Gulf War. Of course we had to make a point to come out to the base and take some pictures. The above A-10 is one of the planes that was there when I was there. We did not have a lot of time to stay because we had to be somewhere that evening but it was a great time. The weather was cooler than normal and only hit 93 degrees one time during our entire vacation. This is almost unheard of for Southern Arizona this time of year. During our combined trip we took 722 pictures and during our Tucson portion I took 266 photos. Although most of the pictures are uploaded onto the Flickr site, some 60+ did not make it on their server and I am not sure which ones that did not make it. All of them did however make it onto my Windows Live site located here. It is very time consuming to go through more than 700 pictures to verify all the photos especially when many of them are very similar. I hope you enjoy the vacation photos as much as I did taking them. Again, I had a bad poison ivy break out as you can see in some of the photos. It was still a good time despite that.
Tags: A-10, AFB, Arizona, Davis-Monthan, DM, New Mexico, Tucson
I ran across this video on Youtube today advertising some motorcycle event coming to Oklahoma City this month. I have never been much of a motorcycle fan myself but I have many friends and relatives that do. This event is supposed to bring thousands of Harley Davidson riders to the Oklahoma City area. It looks like it will be very interesting to bring more visitors to the area. We already have a large motorcycle ridership here in the metro as I have seen hundreds of them Bricktown and over on Meridian Avenue near the airport. This event is supposed to be June 26th and 26th so people will need to be paying attention to the roads. I hope you get a chance to come to the area and visit. Since the city of Oklahoma City put this video together, it is clear the city will be welcoming them with open arms. This could be a huge event to see. Hopefully I will be available to take some photos. Maybe it is wishful thinking but it would be nice.
Tags: Club HOG, Harley Davidson, motorcycle, Oklahoma City
This image was taken in Tucson, Arizona at the encouragement of my 16 year old son. He saw the foolishness of how the Border Patrol labeled the spot where you put the gas in this truck. I posted this to make a point that the United States government is not the right people to be handling the affairs of ordinary people. If they control the Border Patrols to the point that they tell them where to put the gas then you can imagine their control of your healthcare. I work for the government and I can tell you that the Border Patrol is not an isolated incident. All areas of the government are the same. At work they force us to identify wall outlets in the office so that we know they are 120 volts.
It is early on a Sunday morning and my family still sleeps. Yesterday I had to work an unusual Saturday so the weekend seems short. At work there are some deadlines that must be met while they impose a new web based program on us that is not ready for operation. This is pretty typical for the way the government does things. I really do not like to harp on the government all the time but they have proven themselves incapable, bureaucratic over and over again. The system that we are being forced to use is admittedly not ready yet because many of the tools are not even available to update though we are still being held to the same standards as though they were. This web based system is replacing a stand alone computer program that is saved right on the computer that is being worked on. Anyone that has worked with a web based system knows that you have bandwidth issues with transferring data over the web slowing things down. With every transaction it requires a save, and refresh and each transaction requires this four or five times. With every refresh it can take ten to 30 seconds to refresh. Since we have several hundred tasks, the time taken increases more than four times the old method. This does not even account for the modules that are not available yet.
For this reason, I had to be at work on a Saturday at 6:15 am and will have to work overtime every day this coming week and and then do it again next Saturday. Anyone that has ever dealt with any governmental agency whether it be city, county, state, federal, they know that it can be a bureaucratic red tape to do anything. Just go to the Veterans Administration, or Social Security office and you will find they have requirements that are above and beyond other agencies. The VA for example will require you to see a doctor even if you are not sick as a condition for their covering your medical treatment. This is just the nature of government because governments are not held to meeting a bottom line. They do not have to be concerned about profit margins and so efficiency is usually not even a factor in deciding how to do a process. I am not saying that it is malicious but rather just the nature of how things work in the government. If the government runs out of money, they just force the tax payers to give more. This is done through extortion, threats and intimidation.
This is not me going on a rant but rather just pointing out some observations of my being connected to the government for more than 20 years. When you add to this bureaucracy that inevitably exists in any government agency by nature, that they are funded by politicians that may or may have no idea how to run a business, the problem is made worse. Our government is headed up by 535 Senators and Representatives that have virtually no accountability. We have an executive branch that also has no accountability. The Judicial branch is so out of control and has the least accountability of all branches. Our founding fathers created a system that was supposed to have checks and balances to keep leaders from gaining too much power. What has happened over the years is that we have lost our direction and created a two party system that has created a divisive network of issues that really help no one but are used to drive a wedge between groups of people in an effort to gain votes.
There has become this Republican versus Democrat system set up that has its core issues, none of which help any of their constituents yet they are used to emotionally enflame their constituents to vote for one side or the other. There is never a middle ground or any other issues that matter because they along with a willing accomplice in the American media have successfully galvanized the public to fall for these issues. Either you are for it or you are not. Either you support this candidate or you support the other side that is evil. There is no middle ground. These issues are so predictable and always the same. On the Republican side it is the issues of the legality of abortion, the fight against big government and taxes, illegal aliens, and a host of others. On the Democrat side it is the issues of medical care, the poor, the elderly, the unions among others. On both sides they paint the other sides as villains to their respective cause and people just fall right in line. Maybe it is laziness, maybe it is ignorance but in my opinion it is both. I think it is a willing laziness to just accept what you hear on the television as fact and not hold these people accountable.
Many people that run for political office have no qualifications to run a 7-11 store much less spend millions of dollars of our tax money in an attempt to stay in office. Many times political figures will offer some sort of social program and the entire political movement along with the media stands behind this issue as the defining issue of the day. These politicians will paint a picture of some perceived injustice that is happening to a group of people, usually a large voting block like the elderly. They will put themselves in a position as savior to fix this problem if you just support them. They will offer some social program that will give those voters some sort of benefit that is too small to make a real difference yet large enough to convince them that the politician is on their side. The Democrats are very very good at this. They do this in a way that anyone who would dare go against spending this money is portrayed as evil and against progress. This is how the galvanize their followers to vote not only for the program but against the opponent. The Republicans are not as good as the Democrats at doing this but they are just as dishonest.
Our American political system has become a system of celebrity worship where if the candidate can get the most name recognition, they are the winner. The qualifications of the candidate are not even a factor. There are many candidates in Congress that have never had a real job and yet they are making decisions that affect the rest of the country. Another troubling problem is that in our government we have a disproportionate number of lawyers that are in political office. This is not meant to be a slam on lawyers but rather to point out another observation. A lawyer is a special career choice that specializes in rhetoric. When I say rhetoric, I mean the art of words. Being a lawyer is more than just having knowledge of laws that are applicable but also having a knowledge of the power of words. If you have a large vocabulary and the ability to communicate orally and written, then you have skills that are powerful. The career choice of being a lawyer also requires the ability to make an argument for or against anything using whatever information is available. It is an art that must be learned for most people but some are born with it. In this career it is more important to win the argument than it is to be right or wrong. Success it determined on the number of arguments won rather than how many right or wrong arguments are won or lost.
Just as the nature of government is to be bureaucratic, the nature of being a lawyer is to convince people whether by facts or emotion to agree with one side. This is usually done using emotion rather than facts and most lawyers that I know will admit this fact. The problem that arises is that you have a disproportionate number of people that are in charge that are more driven by success of an argument than they are by the drive to do something that is morally right. When this happens people sometimes get emotionally drawn into the argument of the day believing they are doing the right thing when they are really just being played upon. The power brokers are pulling all the strings driven by staying in power and winning their argument while the people are emotionally tied up in issues that the politician/lawyer cares virtually nothing about.
This is made worse because two of the three branches of government, those being the executive and legislative branches have put all controversial decision making on the judicial branch. The judicial branch meaning the courts are run 100% by lawyers with the same drives that I have spoken of before. The courts have zero accountability with lifetime appointments and no chance of being removed from office. The average citizen has no power in the decisions that are made in the courts. The judicial branch of government was intended to make Constitutional determinations of laws that were made by Congress and signed into law by the President. Their job was to determine the Constitutionality of laws. The judicial branch should be used to say yes or no. Yes it is Constitutional or not. What has happened is that judges and courts in general have gone further by adding their opinions to the decisions. These opinions themselves are unconstitutional. These opinions are being referenced in other cases to determine whether other issues are constitutional or not. Judges have no place adding opinions to cases. Further, the use of case law for deciding other issues is just as wrong.
If one judge oversteps his or her power in a decision, then it opens the door for others to use this previous decision to justify their irrational decisions. Since both the executive and legislative branches have not stood up to their responsibilities by impeaching these corrupt judges, there is absolutely no accountability. The Congress turns a blind eye to to corrupt judges and refuses to use their power to remove these judges. Our system has been further corrupted by those in power.
Those in Congress have forced our children to go to schools that preach a certain political slant. They control the education system with the curriculum and money. They have indoctrinated a whole generation of children to believe that a socialist system is better than a capitalist system. When I say socialist, I mean by definition where the government controls the money and assets. Socialism means that the welfare of the nation is determined by the government because they are the handlers of money. I heard a recent poll that said that only 52% of Americans thought that Democracy was better than socialism. This is a scary proposition because many of these people are too young to understand the implications of socialism. They do not remember the former Soviet Union’s grip on Eastern Europe and the world. They do not remember the Soviet Union’s real name was the Union of Soviet SOCIALISTS Republic (USSR). Governments by their very nature will grab more power than is offered them.
Anytime the people willingly give up their freedoms in the name of security, are also giving up their rights. These rights once they are lost, will never return. Security is something we all desire but not all have the willingness to fight for it. When we become lazy and give that security fight over to a government whose nature is to grab power, we lose our rights. This post is not an attempt to scare everyone to death but rather to vent my frustrations at what I see in the world. I see the nation that had such a great reputation in the world willingly handing over the freedoms that were fought for in the name of becoming secure. How many other nations have done this to see their glory days a distant memory? The Soviet Union most likely desired security. The Nazi Germany likely went down the same path. Please do not be lazy and allow those that may not have your best interests at heart be in control of your future. Do not turn your rights over in the name of security.
Do not allow the two political parties and the media to determine your future. Do not allow those that are good with words to take your rights when they are more concerned with winning an argument. Take responsibility for yourself and be critical of those over you. It is good to be critical of those that make decisions over you. Never accept that anyone in power is thinking of you because by our very nature we are selfish. People do what makes them happy without thought. If we hold each other responsible for our own actions, then maybe we should hold those that make decisions on our behalf responsible. This is not meant to be malicious or callous in any way. This is just an attempt to wake people to understand that you have to take responsibility and not let someone else make decisions for you.
I know I paint a bleak picture of our political system in this blog post.
Tags: government, politics, responsibilities, rights
This morning I woke up to go to work and was still itching pretty bad though you could barely see it. This evening when I came home from work I noticed something was different. No itching at all! After four and a half weeks it is finally on its way out and all I can say is thank God! This has been a rough month with the never ending itching and even worse the allergic reaction to the medicine.
During this time I had two very big events my life and that was graduating OU and the other was seeing my family in New Mexico for the first time in 21 years. The enjoyment of both of these events were a bit lost because of having the most severe poison ivy outbreak known to the human race. For those of you that saw it, you know what I am talking about. For the rest of you, I will spare you the pictures but I do have some. 
While we were gone on our trip my oldest son Kevin was a hero. He did not get to go with us on our vacation because he forgot to tell his boss about it until it was too late to let him off. I was upset for a while but that was changed when some bad guys broke into our house while we were gone. My son captured two of the three and the police caught the other one. Everyone of them were over 18 years old so we are pressing charges. He walked in on them inside the house. Just yesterday he was at work and helped to capture a thief at his work. I told him that being a police officer may be his calling. The bad guys come right to him. I am so proud of him and the way he handled the situation.
Now that I am feeling better this weekend I have to work tomorrow. That is okay because it will be a short day. I am working a straight eight hours from 6:30 am to 2:20 pm. That should go fast and I will be able to squeak by with a decent weekend after all. Our WIN System repeater was blocked this week because of a stray signal that was mistaken for intermod. This happened once before in 2007 when a local ham was transmitting amateur television (ATV) on 439.25 MHz. This local ham is very close to the repeater antenna and has a very high gain antenna. I am not sure if that is what happened this time or not. Another possibility is that another new ham was trying to get into the repeater with a handy talkie (HT) and was not getting into the system very well. I am hoping that was the scenario because that is an easy one to fix. We have since been unblocked but we are reluctant to connect back up until we confirm the source of the signal.
Just the other day I posted about the new Microsoft search engine Bing.com and how cool it was. A story came out today that shows that in just three days, it has taken the number two search engine spot world wide over taking Yahoo. I have mixed feelings about this because I have always loved Yahoo and still think they are very relevant. At the same time I am really pulling for Bing to succeed. I really do like the way it operates. Well I have rambled long enough so I will get this posted.
Tags: Amateur Radio, Bing, burglary, ham radio, Microsoft, ou, poison ivy, search, son, Yahoo
Today was the official launch of Bing.com, Microsoft’s new search engine. This is the successor to MSN.com’s search and I must say that I like it. Probably what piqued my curiosity was the fact that it was from Microsoft. I am not a huge Microsoft fan by any stretch but I tend to give them a the benefit of the doubt because of all the irrational cult following of Google. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Google but I have found that Many Google worshippers also tend to be Apple Macintosh worshippers. There again, I have nothing against Apple either except that their products are way over priced for what you get. Their followers act as though they are a higher being for owning one when they should be embarrassed for paying so much for such a proprietary product. Anyway, I have drifted off topic. Talking about Google and Apple worshippers tends to do that to me. Back to Bing.com
This new search engine is pretty sharp looking. Not only does it have some pretty impressive search results but it has some cool assistance tools. When you search for something, the results have a dot on the right side. If you hover your mouse over the dot, it shows some highlights of the page so you can see what it is about before you click on the links. They have kept some of the other tools they used before such as the Windows Live maps renamed Bing Maps. It shows related links on the left side of the page. It is integrated with Windows Live tools on the top and if you are signed in, it keeps a running log of your searches just like Google. This log is clearable so you do not have to keep the record if you do not want to. The Windows Live tools includes the improved Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Toolbar, Windows Live Writer, and Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, and calendar, all of which are free.
Bing has links to videos on the top where you can watch many of your favorite network television shows. You can search for images, videos, maps, and shopping. This search engine seems to be more graphic oriented allowing the user to search and see what they are searching for before they click on the results. Many searches even include a point of contact, email, or phone number. I really like the appearance and performance and not just because it is not Google though that is an extra benefit . Just kidding . I don’t mean to gush over it but I would encourage you to give it a try and not just ‘dis’ them because they are Microsoft or not Google. Give them a real chance for a while and see if they do not grow on you. I think I will see how they are over time. I like to try things all the time and I love it when there are new choices.
Any time there are more choices, the consumer/user benefits. Competition is a great thing because it brings out the best inventions. I do use Google, but I also use Yahoo and now Bing. I do not think it is ever a great idea to just follow the crowd because I have found that many in the Tech community are just followers. The create Twitter pages, Facebook pages, Myspace pages and all tout the greatness of one company and bash other companies without any merit. I have found that many Google worshippers will bash Yahoo relentlessly for no reason. Yahoo is a pioneer on the Internet and still have some great tools even now. I think that Bing and Windows Live do as well though many people discount them because they are not Google which is sad. So give Bing a try and see if they are worth the time. From my first impressions I would have to say yes. I like the feel, the results, and the appearance and I think you will too.
Tags: Bing, Google, MSN, Windows Live, Yahoo