Bown's Opinion

Rain and lighting at the 500 Club

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:03:00 PDT

Played the 500 club Saturday. Started raining on us on 11 which is a short par 3 that goes way up hill. Got done with 11 and it really started coming down on the tee on 12. So we kept playing teed off, got down to our balls on the fairway and as we were hitting up onto the green a night bolt of lighting cracked just above and to the east of us. Putted out and got under a bathroom until it let up a little and we could make a run for it. Crazy round. Had a good one going as well. If it weren't for the lighting and the greens turning into lakes we could have kept playing. Still had a good time.

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Cleveland Vs. Titlist Wedges

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:01:00 PDT

So I have been playing Cleveland wedges for a couple of months now. Have to say I love them. I bought brand new 56 and 60 degree wedges about 2 months ago and a 52 and 48 shortly there after. Haven't had any issue spinning them or getting them to release depending on what I am doing. I actually tend to spin my clubs 6 iron and up a lot. When hitting a 6 iron or up into a green the ball mark is usually within 3 feet of the ball, my wedges on 3/4 to full shots usually spin back a a few inches to a few feet. So I have been reading a lot of info online about the different wedges, Cleveland, Callaway and Titlist. The majority of the info I have read is that the Clevelands are the most difficult to generate spin. This peaked my curiosity, so today I picked up a Titlist Vokey Spin Milled...

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Coyote Lakes Golf Course

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:30:00 PDT

I have been playing Coyote Lakes with a group of friends off and on for the past few months. It is a pretty cool course. A little short, but playing from the tips helps to lengthen it and allow longer hitters to hit more than driver and wedge. The course has been in excellent condition all summer. It is a desert course and hitting fairways is key. There is little for rough on either side of the fairways and beyond that is some super rocky desert. If don't like beating up your clubs and hit it out of bounds you will be taking a lot of drops. One of the coolest holes is the 6th. It has a 12 foot cobblestone wall just forward of the green. It is a bit intimidating but a great hole. I have bounced the ball off the wall once and had to hit from about 5 yards from the base. Fun...

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Mesa Boogie -- Made in America

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:17:00 PDT

I have been playing guitar for a long time now, owned a lot of guitars and almost as many amps. By far my favorite amps are Boogies. Actually my favorite is the smallest one I own, a Subway Rocket, that thing sounds amazing! But anyway check out the video below, it shows the time and heart that the guys at Boogie put in.

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Golfing the 500 Club Phoenix

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:56:00 PDT

Played the 500 Club this morning. Really cool course, fairways were in amazing condition but the greens were pretty pock marked. Wish people would fix their ball marks! Over all the course was great, a few really cool holes, water green and some nice long dog legs. Hate it when every hole is straight or fairly straight. Not the best value though, for $50+ you get a round of golf and a cart that is about it. The carts didn't have coolers on them either, which in the summer is a must. Most courses around for $50 you get a small bucket of balls and a couple of bottles of water in the cooler on your cart. They did have water out on the course though. All and all I really liked playing the course. Had a lot of fun. Balls hit off line were easy to find and most were playable even...

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Micheal Jackson's Funeral

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:52:00 PDT

I can't take it anymore. Are they really renting the Staples Center for this? Come on. The guy had one monster album and a few others that were good. Yes he sold a ton of albums world wide but there are people who have sold more and didn't touch little kids. He is not Princess Dianna!!! I don't care how much his mom wants him to be or how much his dad wants to try and cash in on his son one last time, although Joe Jackson will find many more ways I am sure. So what is next? They going to put in the something and display him at neverland ranch? Actually I wouldn't put it past them. "Look son there is Micheal Jackson, did you know he touched me in very bad places when I was your age?" Ok, so all that aside the guy had issue. Most of them come from the way he grew up and his...

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XM Still sucking

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:06:00 PDT

Got another bill from XM today. This after they told me I owed them nothing more. I really can't believe this company and their complete lack of customer service. They tell you one thing over and over and then as soon as they get off the phone you start getting bills. Amazing!

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Google Adsense for Domains

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:32:00 PDT

So I have been testing out Adsense for Domains. Have a ton of domains and figured I would try to make some money with them. In the past two months I have gotten a reported 529 page impressions and 34 results page impressions but no money. Not sure how you are supposed to make money with this system. But I would recommend using something else. On to another point to do with Adsense for Domains. Isn't this spam? So Google says that a page should be useful to a user. If you have seen these pages they are terrible. As a person or user of the internet the Adsense for domains pages are extremely un-useful. They just clutter up the internet as do most parking systems. My issue is that Google says don't do this, we will remove you and then turns around and basically builds a doorway...

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June 25th 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:07:00 PDT

What a day, I can't not blog today. Today Micheal Jackson and Farrah Fawcet died. Crazy that Micheal Jackson is gone. I remember seeing him on tv as a kid and thinking he was bigger than life and he was. Farrah, well all my buddies had that poster. You couldn't grow up without that poster. The world lost a lot of talent today.

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Chiefs to retire Derrick Thomas's number!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:42:00 PDT

All I really have to say about that as an Elway fan and growing up a Bronco fan. It is about time! Can't think of a player that has played for the Chiefs since that was half the player or game changer that guy was. Nice of the Chiefs to decide to retire his number so long after his death. The guy was the franchise along with Neil Smith on the defensive side of the ball. It shouldn't have taken this long really!

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XM will suck on the iPhone starting tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:32:00 PDT

So starting tomorrow (6/18/09) you can have XM radio on your iPhone. Can't wait for them to start trying to double bill me for that as well. I think that is one iPhone app I will stay away from!

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XM Radio and extreme Suckage!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:52:00 PDT

So I got 3 bills this week. All on the same day for the same radio with 3 different amounts on them! I feel bad for you guys that bought the lifetime subscription. If they can't get their billing together better than that there is no way they are going to be in business for more than a year or so. I heard something about their finacial report and how they lost a large number of customers and blamed it on slowing auto sales. That doesn't really make sense to me, if you are losing customers it is probably because your customer service SUCKS!!! The new car sales being slow would usually mean that you aren't getting new customers. Really though 3 bills in one day with 3 different amounts "owed" all for the same radio. AMAZING!

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Why Dave Mustaine will always be cool.

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:02:00 PDT

There was a point in my life when I thought I was going to be a rock star. I was taking lessons like crazy and taking classes at one of the local community colleges (Scottsdale Community College). I was so intent I got a job at a local music store and the whole bit. Scottsdale Community College had a great music program at the time, not sure if they still do. But they had recording classes with ADATs and all, at the time that was some pretty solid stuff. So I was taking the Music Business classes and we had a project to write a paper and I was dreading it. So I decided to email Dave Mustaine to see if I could email him some questions and he send them back to me so I could write the paper. At that point Megadeth had their email addresses listed on their website and as it turned out...

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Got to love it!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:43:00 PDT

You have to love security guys that go all office space on computer gear! Check out their podcast and info @ www.pauldotcom.com and/or the YouTube below.

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Safari 4

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:54:00 PDT

All I have to say is WOW! That is a super fast browser. Readying my Google Reader, it always takes a bit for each article to load. Lots of javascript with the ads and all in the RSS. Firefox takes a bit to load each time I scroll. Safari 4 does not have this issue. Facebook is crazy fast. Google Analytics loads super quick. Not sure how secure it is right now, but it is FAST!

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AdSense for Domains

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:37:00 PDT

I set a few of my domains up on Google's AdSense for Domains. After looking at the pages that it produces I am left wondering, isn't this exactly what Google has said for years and years that it doesn't want? Low quality pages with no real content to speak of and a bunch of PAID links? I guess ad revenue is what drives the big G now days.

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Getting Organized

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:31:00 PDT

I am starting to work on a lot of new things so I decided to get organized a little better. Hooked up Google Calendar, made it private and shared it with only a few people, not public which is super important. I sync'd it with my Outlook and iPhone via Outlook. Not so big on Google Mobile Sync right now. I have heard some horror stories. So I put a couple of new items in my calendar. Also working on an outline for either an e-book or a series of blog posts. Not sure which yet, but am pretty excited about it. Lot of research to do and content to write. I am working on a couple of new programming projects as well. They are all in the design phase right now but coming together nicely. Good to build stuff for myself. Pretty excited about 3 of the projects. Think they will be...

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Great Technology Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:35:00 PDT

So I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. One of the best and absolutely most interesting one is from PaulDotCom.com. These guys are pretty damn funny which keeps it entertaining especially since the podcast is about technology security. As a programmer I have learned a lot about writing better code and tools to use to test the programs and websites that I write. Anybody that programs, is into security or basically has a home network should check out the podcast and the website. Got to love their shirts. "Hack Naked"

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XM Radio Customer Service SUCKS!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:25:00 PDT

I was supposed to get a call today from a manager from XM radio to talk about the issue I am having with them. Guess what, no call! Amazing. Earlier I got an email from them saying my account was canceled. So I called them. Talked to a guy that actually wanted to fix the issue this time. So he did what I asked. I got my service for the money that I already paid and working on getting my money back for the over charges. They do have the worst customer service ever though. Can't see how this company will be in business more than another year or two at this rate. Actually while I was on the call the guy I was talking to put me on hold because one of the guys behind him was yelling at another customer. Got to love that. Not happy, but better than yesterday.

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XM Radio Sucks!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:08:00 PDT

So I have had XM radio for almost 5 years. I pay for it a year at a time. Always on time. You would think that they would treat a customer like this well. Nope, not at XM. I sold my old Corvette to my father a couple of years ago when I got my new one. He transferred the XM service to his account, well little did I know that XM didn't take that radio off my account. So they have been double dipping. I called tonight because I know that my car is paid up. I got an email saying my service would be shut off if I didn't pay my balance. I talked to one girl saw that the '06 Corvette was on two accounts and removed that radio from my account and credited what was "due" back to my account. She then transferred me to another woman who was supposed to look stuff up and figure out the...

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Koders -- Search Engine for Open Source

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:06:00 PDT

I have been doing some open source programming lately, actually more of contributing to some open source projects. It is a real change from what I am used to and a lot of fun once that mindset got changed. Today I found this extremely cool site, koders.com, it is a search engine of a ton of open source code. Very nice tool. They have an addin for Eclipse and Visual Studio so you can search from the IDE. Great idea! I am excited to use it in the new future.

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2009 Indy 500 Month of May

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sun, 17 May 2009 09:10:00 PDT

Since I was a little kid I have always watched the Indy 500 and the month of May that leads up to the race. Over the years the month has shrunk and changes have been made that I didn't always agree with. My issue this year, they moved all the coverage to Versus. I missed pole day completely this year. You know if they had advertised that all the 500 coverage would be on Versus then maybe the guys that don't really care for Indy car racing anymore would know that they could watch 6+ hours a day of Indy 500 qualifying. I think Tony George has once again dropped the ball but what else is new?

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2008 WSOP

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:42:00 PDT

How did Phil Hellmuth make it so long in the 2008 WSOP? All they show on ESPN is him getting rolled and winning little pots. I think someone at ESPN doesn't like Phil or they just like showing him melt down, which honestly is getting really old.

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Testament, New Music, Buying Albums and That Metal Show

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:03:00 PDT

I picked up some Testament albums on iTunes this weekend. Got to say I was missing out a bit back in the day. I love finding new music that I dig. Especially albums. I was watching That Metal Show the other night and Eddie Trunk was talking about how people don't buy albums anymore and how it is all about singles. I personally disagree. I love to buy new albums. Can't tell you how many times I listen to an album and end up liking one of the tracks that wasn't released as a single better than the single tracks. I never buy one song and actually have stopped buying greatest hits albums. I want the crap that they (the AR and Music Business guys) didn't think was good enough for a single. There is a ton of good music that you don't hear if you don't buy the album. The one thing...

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What an end of the week and weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher W. Bown) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:14:00 PDT

So I got my pay cut on Friday by 15%. All contractors at American Express did. So I started looking for a new job yesterday. Actually have a couple of leads already. I am still kind of upset about the whole thing, so that is all I am going to say about it. But tough way to end the week.

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