Well, I guess you can stamp a big FAIL on the project…at least for now.  With all the work stuff that happened over the last year, the new job, and the new focus of my web stuff (i.e., mainly Facebook), I haven’t been out here since last March to post.

So, for now, if you’d like to keep up with me, head over to Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/mylesbecker

Cheers!

The main thing is this: the old blog’s database got corrupted, so I’ve been having to re-create the entire blog by hand, which isn’t easy (or fun), although it’s kind of neat to see all the old posts come back to life.

At any rate, please hang in there with me and in the meantime, I do end up updating my Facebook about 15,000 times a day (not really, but those of you on FB know the addictive nature of that site).

Cheers!
-m-

As you can see, I’m switching over to WordPress, and I’m hoping it will work out a little better than the last setup.

The look and feel will be changing over the next few days while I tweak everything to my liking.

Thanks for reading, as always, and I look forward to being back up and running.

-m-

Nate and His Cake

Well, if you can believe it, the Nater Tater is 3.

It’s been a fun year this past year. Nate went from almost zero verbal communication to full blown sentences. His speech therapy has been amazing to watch and I praise all the great folks who have worked with him so diligently.

Nate’s also turned into quite the computer guru. He can turn on the computer by himself, log in, open a browser and he knows which link will take him to “games.” And if he’s feeling in the mood for a little Disney Toontown action, he asks Mommy or Daddy to “type it” - referring to the password needed to get in (he hasn’t figured out how to do that yet).

As you’ll see by the pics (click on it to see larger versions), he’s still into Curious George, even more so lately, which is great. We love him, too, and it’s not Barney, so you know, we got that going for us…which is nice!

Nate followed in his sister’s footsteps, getting a bike for his birthday, as well as a TON of fun things from everyone. We had a fairly small gathering of mostly family and a few friends to celebrate this weekend. He also got a call from Godfather Jeaux, which he really enjoyed.

Nater, I hope we get a chance to ride that bike soon. I know sissy is ready to show you how it’s done, since she’s now pretty proficient with her wheels.

I hope you had a great day. I know I had fun hanging out with you and just chillin’.

I love ya, buddy!

-Dad-

Birthday Roses

My wife is very smart. Most of you know this by now, but I need to throw that out there because she single-handedly figured out ALMOST everything that was going to happen surrounding her birthday today.

Now, granted, she told me what she wanted:

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - We are both huge Depp fans (obviously she more than I for, again, obvious reasons), and have been looking forward to this for a while. I still wish we could have seen it in the theatres, but ah well. The big screen TV will have to do.
• “If you are going to get me flowers, I want roses: red, orange and yellow.” - Well, this blew part of my plan, as I had already placed an order last weekend for her usual favorite: purple irises. Thankfully I was able to call and cancel it since they hadn’t left yet. But, she knew, somehow…and here’s the kicker. She wanted the roses from Safeway or King Soopers. WHAT?!?! I thought she was crazy. But I forgot that one little thing: my wife is smart!
• “I’ve got dinner covered.” - Again, ruining part of my plan. I had secretly talked to Cathy to make sure she could babysit, then I was going to pick up dinner from one of the places close, so that Delphine didn’t have to cook (or Cathy, who is kind enough to watch the kiddos), and so that we could go out. But she already had the big chicken pot pie pulled out and ready to drop in the oven tomorrow afternoon.

[SIGH] She’s so smart.

I had wanted to surprise her with a lot of nice things to add some serenity to the day. You see, she’s got a State Audit this afternoon. She compared it to a big board meeting with the President and Vice President of a company, so it’s a big deal. I know she will do great (she’s really good at her job), but I know it’s also nerve wracking, so I am just trying to do anything to help.

Anyway, since I couldn’t surprise her in any way thus far, I decided to go big on the flowers. Instead of grabbing a single dozen of mixed red, orange and yellow roses, I decided that she needed 3 dozen: one of each color. I gotta say, I’m very happy I did it. They are absolutely gorgeous…and yes, they came from Safeway, if you can believe it. The pic to the right is an actual photo I took just a few minutes ago (a mere 3 minutes after midnight on April 2).

Also, the kids wanted to get her the Bee Movie, so I got that movie, as well, but truth be known, I think the kids tricked me into that one.

We are going to head over to Bonefish Grill tonight for dinner after everyone is settled here at home. We can have a nice dinner, talk about our hectic days, and enjoy the time together like best friends should on a birthday.

I hope you have a WONDERFUL day, my love, and here’s to many more birthdays where I won’t be able to surprise you at all!

-m-

Today, the European Commission gave their blessing for Google to complete it’s purchase of DoubleClick for $3.1 B.

From the press release:

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the online advertising technology company DoubleClick by Google, both of the US. The Commission’s in-depth investigation, opened in November 2007, concluded that the transaction would be unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers, either in ad serving or in intermediation in online advertising markets. The Commission has therefore concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area (EEA) or a significant part of it.

Google operates an Internet search engine that offers search capabilities for end users free of charge and provides online advertising space on its own websites. It also provides intermediation services to publishers and advertisers for the sale of online advertising space on partner websites through its network “AdSense”.

DoubleClick mainly sells ad serving, management and reporting technology worldwide to website publishers and to advertisers and agencies. Such technology allows internet publishers and advertisers to ensure that advertisements are posted on the relevant websites and to report on the performance of such advertisements.

The Commission’s in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment. Even if DoubleClick could become an effective competitor in online intermediation services, it is likely that other competitors would continue to exert sufficient competitive pressure after the merger. The Commission therefore concluded that the elimination of DoubleClick as a potential competitor would not have an adverse impact on competition in the online intermediation advertising services market.

The Commission also analysed the potential effects of non-horizontal relationships between Google and DoubleClick following concerns raised by third parties in the course of the market investigation. These relationships concern DoubleClick’s market position in ad serving, where Google, by controlling DoubleClick’s tools, could allegedly raise the cost of ad serving for rival intermediaries, and Google’s market position in search advertising and/or online ad intermediation services, where Google could allegedly have required purchasers of search ad space or intermediation to also purchase DoubleClick’s tools.

The Commission found that the merged entity would not have the ability to engage in strategies aimed at marginalising Google’s competitors, mainly because of the presence of credible ad serving alternatives to which customers (publishers/advertisers/ad networks) can switch, in particular vertically integrated companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL. The market investigation also found that the merged entity would not have the incentive to close off access for competitors in the ad serving market, mainly because such strategies would be unlikely to be profitable.

The Commission’s decision to clear the proposed merger is based exclusively on its appraisal under the EU Merger Regulation. It is without prejudice to the merged entity’s obligations under EU legislation in relation to the protection of individuals and the protection of privacy with regard to the processing of personal data and the Member States’ implementing legislation.

So, I’m now officially a Googler! Well, I guess there’s still more paperwork to be signed and meetings to be had, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a done deal.

I’m a proud geek today!
-Myles-

As more and more artists are getting fed up with the way that the RIAA is treating it’s customers, and even worse, it’s clientele, a few of the more savvy ones are doing something about it.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails released his new musical project last night. It’s called Ghosts. Check out the site at http://ghosts.nin.com/. Reznor simply calls it “…a new collection of instrumental music…Almost two hours of music recorded over an intense ten week period last fall.”

Right now, there are four “albums” (not sure if that’s the right phrase yet, so don’t hold me to it). Ghosts I - IV. Reznor made Ghosts I available for download for free via quite a few avenues. The main one, the NIN site, received so much traffic today that they had to bring it down and beef up the servers before they can bring it back online. However, the free portion of the project is still available for download via BitTorrent (on PirateBay FTW!), or if you want the digital, DRM-free version, you can purchase the entire set of four albums at Amazon for $5 just like you could via the NIN site (if it were up right now). You can also still order the Deluxe or the Uber super-duper extra deluxe edition at the Artist In Residence site, which actually gives you visuals of what you will get. I gotta say, even at $75 and $300 respectively, I think you’re getting a killer package.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention one of the more cooler aspects of this project: Ghosts I-IV is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. What does that mean for you, me, and the rest of the world? It means that while you may not use it for commercial work, you can use it in most other non-commercial work as long as you give credit where credit is due. WHAT?!?! Crazy, isn’t it? But WONDERFUL!!!

I’m so happy to see artists like NIN and Radiohead take a stand for the music, which is really the most important thing. Yes, I understand that there are a lot of people that help support an artist, but hearing some of the horror stories over the past few decades has sufficiently jaded me enough to help swing that pendulum to the other side for a while. Radiohead got my support with their downloadable album (and then the CD that followed),Barenaked Ladies got my support with their USB stick album, and NIN will get my support, as well. In fact, I may do both the $5 digital download and the $10 Double CD, just to say I did my part.

Is this the future of music? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I will be much more willing to support those artists that embrace technology and take a stand for the music.

Nice work, Trent! You have been, are, and seemingly always will continue to be one of my favorites because of things like this. You push the boundaries, you make people think (and not just about the music), and you’re helping to lead the way into what is hopefully a better musical future.

Cheers!

-m-

p.s. I had to put this in here…it’s a quote from the NIN site after they shut it down for maintenance…

“We quietly released this album last night without any warning, and without any press. Because we know how devoted our fans are, we planned for an overwhelming response, and expected heavy traffic. To our surprise, the traffic was more than three times what we anticipated, and has only been getting heavier throughout the day. The response has been absolutely phenomenal, and we couldn’t be happier…”

…and another one from the main NIN site…

“We thought we brought enough beer, but too many of you showed up to the party.”

For those of you that weren’t able to make it to the memorial service for Delphine’s dad, Dean Glandt, it was very beautiful. The folks from Wiederspahn-Radomsky Chapel of the Chimes did a great job of making sure everything was taken care of, instructions were given when needed, and everything went so smoothly.

After the memorial service and the graveside service, we all came back to the church for an early dinner. During dinner, Dean’s children and grandchildren presented a PowerPoint presentation that we had collectively put together. We had all gathered pictures and stories from the past, and put it together with music chosen by Perriann and Delphine. We got a really nice response from a lot of folks and afterwards a few people asked if I could put it on CD or DVD.

After doing some research and trying a few programs out, I finally decided on Camtasia, a screen capture software package that allows you to record audio and motion from your computer for sharing in several different formats.

Right now, I have available a web-based version. It requires Adobe Macromedia Flash Player, so if you don’t have that, you won’t be able to see the presentation. You can get it by clicking here.

Tribute Presentation: Click here to launch the video in a separate window. If you have any pop-up blockers, be sure to allow my site to launch pop-ups. Also, depending on your Internet connection, it may take a little bit to load enough to start playing, but it will show you the loading progress when you launch the presentation.

I’ll be working on getting this on DVD for those in the Glandt family that aren’t on the Internet on a consistent basis, or for those that would just simply like a copy of the tribute.

Enjoy!
-Myles-

A few weeks ago, Dean had fallen out of his bed at the Life Care facility in Cheyenne and broke his femur at the hip. The doctors gave him about a 1 in 20 chance of even surviving the surgery. However, those of you that knew Dean knows that those were very beatable odds for him.

While he made it through the surgery just fine, recovery over the next week and a half did not go as well. Dean was just too weak to fight this final battle.

A week ago last Friday they transferred him to a beautiful hospice facility in Cheyenne where they kept him very comfortable for his last days. His wife, his two daughters and one of his grandsons were by his side when he passed away.

Dean was used to fighting for his life. When he was very young, he had Rheumatic fever and was not expected to live past the age of 11. He grew up with a damaged heart, had one of the valves in his heart replaced, and had gone through several pacemakers. About 10 years ago, he fell down the stairs at his house in Cheyenne and had to have steel rods put in his legs to get everything back together. A surgery that made his leg 2 inches shorter than the other. He had a couple of nasty spills after that, as well. I tell you all that to say that through each incident, when people thought he might just give up, he fought back.

And let me tell you about his mind. Here was a man that didn’t end up going to college, but yet was one of the brightest engineers on the Wyoming Highway Department staff, as a bridge designer no less! He probably knew most of the roads in Wyoming through all his travels and work for them. He had a great mind for numbers, math, science, geometry, and engineering. One of his favorite stories to tell was how he would bet the guys at WyHy that he could calculate equations in his head faster than someone using the calculator — and of course, he could. Even up to the end, there were still flashes of that great mind peeking out in between the pain.

I think the thing I will remember most is the hundreds and hundreds of cribbage games we must have played over the years. When the family got together for Christmas in Arizona one year, he and my nephews taught me the game, and my life was never the same after that. Because he had a great mind for numbers, he was a very good strategist when he played cribbage. And because I’ve also got a good brain for math and such, our games were usually very close, with a few lucky cards here and there determining the outcome. Now, I’m not saying that I never skunked him or he me, because that inevitably happened every now and then, but for the most part, our games were extremely competitive. We never really kept track over the years, but it had to be very close on the number of games he won vs. the ones I won. All I know is that I am eternally grateful for learning the game and playing against someone who loved it as much as he obviously did.

The memorial service will be held this coming Monday, May 21, 2007 at Our Savior Lutheran Church located at 5101 Dell Range Blvd. in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Services will begin at 1:00 p.m. and a reception will be held after.

Dean, you will be missed.

Your son,

-Myles-

The answer, of course, is: none of the above. My story is much more important than any of those. My faith has been restored in Americans, because unlike the debacle of Fox’s “Cupid” where stupid people kept voting for the creepy Ahnold-like beast, my fellow Americans have voted to let Jay London back in the “Last Comic Standing” house after being ousted just a week before.

This hysterical, yet creepy-looking, guy has a love of the one-liner zingers that remind me a lot of one of my favorite commedians, Steven Wright.

Some of my favorite lines of his include:

“I work at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I work in the Beyond department.”

“You might recognize me. I’m the fourth guy from the left on the evolutionary chart.”

“My girlfriend has crabs, so I bought her fish net stockings.”

If you get a chance, definitely check him out. Since he was voted back into the competition, he will be performing on Tuesday, August 3. Then, America votes again, and they kick three people out of the competition (seems a bit much, but I’m not the producer), so let’s hope my faith is still kept fresh after that vote.

And yes, fellow Americans, I now forgive you for “Cupid.”

-Myles-