Edwards Design Solutions

Life sucks. That truth, along with death and taxes, are inevitable and the mainstay of any pessimist. Any real optimist will tell you that bad things happen to everyone and things will get better. I don’t believe things get better for good. I believe that we all go through times of good and bad. Unfortunately, I feel my life has seen more bad than good. I’d like to believe that I will finally be going through some good times here soon.

If any of us were to list all the bad times, or bummers in life, one could easily become depressed to the point of considering suicide. But the good times don’t always happen to us specifically, they tend to happen to those around us. These occurrences can also have residual side effects to those of us who happen to be around those that the good things happen to. It’s kind of like having “good luck” rub off on you! But we can make our own luck, to enjoy some good times.

I am prepared to make my own luck, and good times, by living my dreams through my children. I have worked to try to provide the best for them and give them the things and stability I haven’t always enjoyed. One of the things I have always wanted, was to take Martial Arts. Well this last month, my oldest daughter started taking Mixed Martial Arts (mainly Japanese Karate). The really scary thing is, she’s already pretty good. She may only be a white belt, but all of her instructors are already complimenting her on her form and expertise. I can even see her ability and potential. She’s picking it up so fast.

But now my youngest is to begin gymnastics in September and she is ecstatic. Continue reading »

There are a few times in this world, that someone makes a difference.
What is hard to determine, especially during the lifetime of the influential person, is just what kind of impact will that person really have on the world around them.
One could mention the likes of Jesus Christ, Vincent Van Gogh, Elvis Presley or even Bob Hope.

But I tend to gravitate to musicians, being that I am one. I really get a kick out of exceptional showmen(and women). I enjoy hearing well-crafted prog-rock from the likes of Rush, VanHalen and Dream Theater. But I also LOVE the Dave Matthews Band. You get prog-rock/prog-folk/really awesome music. Dave is also one of those special showmen that makes me smile, just seeing him enjoy his music. He loves music as much as I love music! It’s that he puts everything into it. I can only imagine that he is absolutely wrecked by the end of one of his shows. That is what really
makes him special.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am sure all artists enjoy their own music to one degree or another. But he loves it so much, because his music is so much him. Watch and see what I mean. This is one of my absolute favorites of his.

Corn Bread

This effort, along with his quality of music, are part of what make me the musician I am today. If I can take some smidgen of the talent his drummer (Carter Anthony Beauford for you who don’t know) puts into the playing and writing of the songs, then I have grown that much more. I can’t get enough help from my musical influences. When it comes to my abilities, it’s all that I have to help me get better. That’s what happens when you are a musician with no formal training and very little music reading ability. It’s all hands-on and unfortunately is the hardest way to learn progressive-styled music. At least that’s my opinion anyway.

Most people know that I love football. That comes mostly from my father’s influence while growing up. Once I learned about what hockey was, being about 18 or 19 years old, I was pretty much hooked. That was a time, around 1990, when I was one of America’s troubled youth. I was messed up into smoking dope, I was in a bad relationship with a girl, I was in a punk-rock band and I was trying desperately to make something of myself by attending the local trade school.

Well, during this period of my life, I had spent some time living with one of the band members (Ron). He was a huge hockey fan who had even played in high school and a city league. He was also a huge Rush fan (I swear he must be part Canadian), hence my love for both of these things today! I have always been a Steelers fan and thought about watching some Penguins hockey. What a sweet time in the franchise to start watching the Penguins, I mean it was the year of their first Stanley Cup!

Unfortunately, I did enough bad crap in that time of my life to pretty much lose everything. So I decided to join the US Navy, there was nothing left to lose. I even returned to my roots, by going back to church, for the few weeks before leaving for boot camp. I met my wife at that church. Continue reading »

Rated: PG-13 for Martial Arts Action/Violence and brief Sexuality. 1hr. 25min.

I had the pleasure of watching Iron Monkey for the first time last night. I have once again been reminded why I love everything the amazing Yeun Woo-ping touches (i.e. Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Kingdom, etc). The thing I respect most of the genre, is the un-abated display of the many actors’ and actresses’ Kung-fu. A great Kung-fu movie reminds me that I want to learn at least one style before I die. That style may most probably be Krav-Maga, for its readily accessible training facility where I live and for its relevance to today’s society and usefulness.

Of the Chinese culture, besides the highly respected discipline of Martial Arts and the complexity of its heritage, one of the most amazing things is its history. One of the greatest cultures and societies in the world, China also has some of the greatest folk-lore in both imaginary legends and real heroes of the times. Iron Monkey is a Hong Kong cinematic adaption of Wong Fei-Hung, one of the most recent and greatly loved folk heroes. There have been quite a few movies on the different aspects (and ages) of Fei-Hung’s life. Some of the most notable are the Once Upon a Time in China series, the Drunken Master series, the Eight Bandits (earliest) and many others; including Iron Monkey as the early years of his life. The total count of films that include Fei-Hung number into the hundreds!

Iron Monkey is included in the particular sub-genre of Kung-fu films being designated as “wire-fu” or “CG-fu”, but the momentum of the film and storyline kept me enthralled so that it was not as noticeable to me as some movies can be. I feel that the story is very well written, the acting is perfect and the fight scenes are impeccable. The following is a brief mash-up of the movie’s story and the history of Wong Fei-Hung: Continue reading »

Ever heard of the United Socialist State(s) of America? Well now you have. If you live on the North American continent, then you are in the melting pot. If you live in another part of the world, you are probably chuckling at this article as something you and your nation has known for some time and can’t believe that the stupid and blindly ignorant Americans can’t see it let alone believe it is really happening. There has even been a song and a book (both parodies really) about such a thing being possible, but I feel we are now living the reality.

I remember 5th grade history, being about the birth of this country and its symbols of patriotism and power. It was also about this country’s founding fore-fathers and the documents they created to make us the greatest nation in history. I am talking about the U.S. Constitution (which includes the Bill of Rights) and the Declaration of Independence. They were all based on degrees of freedom; freedom of tyranny (be it a monarch or other federal governing body), freedom to have an opinion, freedom to protect one’s self, freedom to worship without government interference or favoritism, freedom for the people to have the last word over the state or federal government, freedom from oppressive taxation, freedom to retain private property and such.

Unfortunately these symbols of patriotism (the Flag for example) and our birth-right documents have been legally trampled and disgraced over the years. There have been ridiculous demonstrations of the burning of the Flag, wearing the Flag inappropriately, walking on it and even flying it incorrectly! There has been a recent and bold mocking of the Constitution, by electing a president that is proven to not be a citizen of the United States. What is worse, is that Congress and the Democratic Party don’t even care that he is an illegal alien, by definition of federal immigration laws. This slow and purposeful degradation of our country and the way of life for its occupants has become a stark contrast to what was originally intended in the 1700′s, let alone from what was in the 1920′s! Oh don’t stop reading yet, the points are coming hard and fast in the next few paragraphs and they are from other sources to fuel this long-awaited post of conspiracy, hidden agendas and contemptuous treason of the worst kind. Continue reading »

Well, I have been waiting to write this post for quite some time now. Being in Eve Online for a little over a year now, I have had the pleasure of being in a few fleet engagements. I have had the most fun, being part of fleets that are run well, by successful Fleet Commanders (FCs). These particular FCs had the benefit of a very useful tool. It was simply called the Fleet Tool. It was written in PHP and had the ability to be accessed by both the FC and all pilots to be in the fleet.

Now I never had the opportunity to see the code for it, but since I am a programmer I decided to get started on it. I don’t know whether or not it makes use of flat files or a database, but I chose to make use of MySQL.

A dedicated fleet tool page has been added to this site, here: http://www.eds-online.net/eve-fleet-tool/
* There is also a thread on the Eve Forums, here: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=982439