raising heller

well, not that weird really. more than anything, it’s just weird for me to have a beard. this is the first time i’ve ever grown one and i don’t really even know what prompted it. i think i just didn’t shave one weekend and come monday (a great jimmy buffet song) i still didn’t feel like shaving, so, here i am. it’s a little itchy, but overall i’m getting used to it. the problem is, since i’ve never had one before, i don’t know when to quit. also, i’ve attached a fu manchu song that kind of speaks to my current situation. if you’ve never listened to fu manchu, you really should start.

[audio:Fu_Manchu-Weird_Beard.mp3]

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some of you may have noticed, others maybe not. but let this serve as official notice that the heller family.org is no more. our new domain is www.raisingheller.com. we still have thehellerfamily.org domain so our email addresses haven’t changed.

“why the change?”, some of you may ask. well, i was on the phone with a friend the other day and he asked why we didn’t call our blog “raising heller”. i had never thought of it. it seemed like a pretty cool play on words to me. you know, raising heller (3 of them) and also raising a little hell. or something like that.

the new theme is probably only temporary until i can find one that i really like. if you have any suggestions, feel free to share.

p.s. – www.thehellerfamily.org will just redirect to www.raisingheller.com, so if you forget the new name, that’s okay, just go to the old favorite.

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so, for halloween we had a bunch of friends over, one of which is a photographer. he has a really nice camera and a bunch of gear. well, i was snapping some pics with our canon rebel XT, and he let me use his flash. i couldn’t believe how much difference a real flash made. he aimed the flash at the ceiling. the idea is for the light to bounce of the ceiling and illuminate the subject from above. it really made my pictures stand out. so, i was shooting some more stuff the next day and was a little disappointed to be back to my built-in flash. so i had an idea. what if i positioned a small mirror in front of my flash at about a 45 degree angle to bounce the light of the ceiling? believe it or not, it actually worked very well. i had to hold the mirror in fron of the flash the whole time, so it made it a little harder to shoot, and sometimes i didn’t have it angled quite right so the light was pretty poor. but when it worked, it worked really well. it just made the light a lot less harsh evening it out and making the shot more 3-dimensional. so, if you want to try improving the quality of your photos, give this a try.

picture 1 – this was taken with my camera and the nice flash
picture 2 – this was taken with my stock flash
picture 3 – this was using the small mirror

photos, words

so, i told my reps at work that if they turn in 15 deals in one week, i would let them shave my head. well, they delivered and true to my word, we cut the locks. here you go.

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i find this whole election very interesting. i don’t really like either of the candidates. i’ll admit i probably lean towards obama, even though i don’t believe that we’ll be seeing the change he talks about anytime soon. i think i like him more for joe biden than anything else. it would also be nice to have an articulate candidate in the white house. then again palin is pretty cute. but i can’t, in good conscience, vote for either of the two candidates. i was talking politics with a friend recently and mentioned that i really liked ron paul and will probably vote for him. she didn’t know anything about ron paul so i told her that i’d put together some youtube clips about ron paul. i’ve decided to post them here, as i think most people don’t know much about ron paul. the media did a great job at marginalizing him and both parties made him out to be crazy.

this further illustrates to me how the two parties have done a great job at meeting in the middle and though they maintain that they have real differences, i believe that they’re both self serving and want nothing more than to take our money and grow the government. the republican party, which has always claimed to be the party of limited taxes and government has done nothing but increase the scope and size of the government and increase taxes. the democrats have done pretty much the same thing, though at least it seems to be part of their outward agenda. not quite as hypocritical.

please watch these clips. i’ve made sure to pick out some short ones so as not to take too much of your time and tried to pick the ones that will give you a good idea as to what he’s all about. if you watch these and decide that he’s not the man for you, then i totally understand. vote your conscience. but at least listen and educate yourself. and i’ve heard all the comments of, “but don’t you think you’re throwing away your vote?” maybe. but at least i’m not throwing away my integrity by not voting my beliefs. i’m not trying to imply that voting for mccain or obama is “throwing away your integrity” if you truly believe that they’re the best person for the job. but if you think that there’s someone else out there better suited to run our country, then i believe that it’s our duty as citizens to put that person in office. if every american did that, then we wouldn’t be stuck with “the lesser of two evils”. for me that person is ron paul. i hope i haven’t offended anyone. i’m just really passionate about this. and if you’re passionate about obama or maccain, then good for you. vote your conscience. anyway, check these out:

ron paul on nbc evening news (this one’s good)

ron paul, on drugs, prostitution, and states rights (from 20/20)

ron paul, actual republican. this one is a great example of the media trying to marginalize ron paul.

ron paul on the war

please sound off in the comments. i would LOVE to hear how you feel, good or bad. keep it cool, but feel free to speak your peace. i won’t get offended as i hope you haven’t.

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so, i just finished watching barack obama speak at the democratic national convention. all i’m going to say is, (making no comments as to my vote) does john mccain actually have a chance at this election? barack obama made more sense in 30 minutes than dubya has in 8 years. i can’t wait to watch the republican convention. i just don’t see how mccain can compete. this is going to be interesting. i open the comment forum for your thoughts. let it roll. but please, keep it respectful.

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so, i was inspired by a friend of mine that wrote a blog post about a bunch of things that her friends might not know about her. i started thinking, ‘what might people not know about me?’ i realize that the notion to make public these things might seem a little narcissistic, but i think i’m doing this as much for the purpose of self-discovery than anything else. some of you may be all too aware of some of these things as i’ve been told that i’m a bit of an open-book, then again some of it might be news to you. if you find this a bit much, feel free to skip this one and wait for some more pictures of our kids. so, here we go.

• i desperately wanted to be a rock star for the longest time.
• i gave up on the dream when i moved to california and played in a few bands. reality is a tough pill to swallow.
• i still want to record an album with my wife.
• we own 2 dogs. a chihuahua and a chihuahua/jack russell terrier mix.
• i bought them for my wife because i was afraid to have kids and thought this might buy me some time. thankfully, it didn’t buy me much.
• as a young boy, i once ran face first into a cactus. since my mom wasn’t home at the time, i sat in tears on the porch for several hours with a face full of cactus quills waiting for her. when she got home it took the rest of the evening for her and my sister lani to remove them all. i’m sure it’s odd to see a child crying long after he’s run out of actual tears. most people would assume that he’s faking. until they saw the quills. Read more…

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this was the 2nd post. credit for this one goes to dave barry. i thought it was pretty funny.

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and will never achieve its full potential, that one word would be “meetings.”

3. There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. You should not confuse your career with your life.

6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

7. Never lick a steak knife!

8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

14. Your friends love you anyway.

15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

16. Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it’s up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

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my mother, sister and niece were in town this week and we all went out to eat at a sub shop in bellevue called, jimmy john’s. i’m a big fan of the jimmy johns as the sandwiches are wicked awesome. well they had these posters on the wall and we read them and found them pretty entertaining. this was the first one:

The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, only a little while.

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish.

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then?”

The American laughed and said that’s the best part, “When time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions?” asked the fisherman, “Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evening, sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos!”

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…or is it just me? no, i’m pretty sure hell just froze over. i have no idea when the last time was that I was able fill up for under $60.

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