Mike's Grand World

Of course, I didn’t buy a lot of new music (only 10/19 cd’s were released in 2011) in 2011, but there were some outstanding music that I did buy. These are my top 5.

The Top 5

1. Anthrax – Worship Music

2. Trivium – In Waves

3. Dream Theater- A Dramatic Turn of Events

4. Symphony X – Iconoclast

5. Megadeth – Th1rt3en

I was pleasantly surprised by the Anthrax release… it is great. I loved the return of Joey Belladonna. It is definitely my favorite release of 2011. Every song is great and listening to it never gets old. So, if you love metal and didn’t pick up this disc, give a spin and you will love it as much as I do.

The rest…

Metallica – Beyond Magnetic EP

Adrenaline Mob EP

Cavalera Conspiracy – Blunt Force Trauma

Chickenfoot – Chickenfoot III

Opeth – Heritage

Cd’s bought not released in 2011

Anthrax – Spreading the Disease

Epica – Design You Universe

Evanescence – Fallen

Fear Factory – Mechanize

Killswitch Engage – Alive or Just Breathing

Nightwish – Dark Passion Play

Trivium – Shogun

Voivod – Infini

Within Temptation – The Heart of Everything

Well, I wanted to share the new bathroom… well, it’s not new, but newly redecorated…

This is before:

This is after

Paint, new color scheme and some nice shelves. Dana did almost 100% of it. I installed the new faucets. She painted and did the rest.

Here are some more random pictures to share…. (all were taken with my HTC Evo 4G, so while they are good, they are still phone photos.)

My Alabama lamp I got for Christmas. Sweet, isn’t it?

I found this at Kaffman Tire while waiting on Dana’s jeep to get it’s oil changed and tires, etc. I hope the sign can be read.

Found this in the bathroom at Greenbrier’s restaurant last week. I’d cry too if I had to hold toilet paper…

This is behind my brother Greg’s house… Looks like a Bob Ross painting. Notice all the happy trees.

Dr. Yoda. This was at Dana’s spine surgeon’s office.

A dry fountain, also found at Dana’s spinal surgeon’s office. Nice waiting room, eh?

Well, that’s all for now. I love finding random things to take pictures of. I will take them with whatever camera I have at the time. Hope you enjoyed!

Well, at least for a short time. Where? Right back where I came from. I will be working at Bank of America (HealthLogic) but not for Bank of America (HealthLogic). I will be a contractor working at the Bank. Mostly likely, I will only be there for about 9 or 10 weeks to help them with a high-priority project. I am happy that I will be working again and will be great to see my friends that still work there. I miss them.

Meanwhile, I have been studying for my Security+ certification exam. I am hoping that by gaining some better credentials that I will be more attractive to a potential employer. I may even go a step further and study for the Network+ certification. When I obtain my Security+ certification, it will complete my MCSA for Windows 2000 certification that I started in 2002. It’s a long story, but finishing it now is better than never, eh?

That’s my latest update.

Where do I start? I will say that I am a skeptic who watches Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International and sometimes Ghost Adventures on television. So, even as a skeptic, I enjoy these shows. I am hoping that there will be something on one of these shows that either proves there are ghosts exist (or spirits) or not.

Dana and I spent the end of the night (February 11th) and into early morning with Andy and Charity of the Atlanta Ghost Hunters at a law office in Marietta. (There were 3 other couples there as well.) We were taking part in a guest investigation with AGH. Why not? It was our valentines gifts to each other. So romantic, right? Well, anyway, here is how the night went…

We arrived at 8:30PM and met Andy and Charity. They greeted us and we got a history of the location as the others were arriving. The location has a pretty long history for an area that was burned down during the civil war… after which we all went into the conference room to “talk to the ghosts.” Well, when somebody wasn’t talking, it was dead silent. You could hear a pin drop. Literally. People asked questions and seemingly got no answer. That is, until we reviewed the “evidence.”

There were noises and voices on the recording that I could not (nor did anybody else) hear as we sat in that room. There is one instance in particular that was found on the official recording that I have on my recording (done with an iPod touch) that is completely unexplained. One of our fellow guest investigators apparently belched to put it bluntly. We all has a small giggle over it, but in the recording we hear “burped.” Nobody in the room said it. But there it was on the recording.

The official recording.

My recording done with the iPod touch.

How do I debunk this? One could say that the recording is doctored (as sometimes I have thought about with the television shows) but how could my recording and the official recording have the same doctoring? Considering that AGH didn’t touch my recording, that is not possible. Could somebody in the room have said it? Of course, but with as silent as that room gets, it seems as though we would have heard it (live).

This is just one example. There were other voices on the recording. We heard “help me” and “killed me” and even “open.” But not “live.” I have to say that my skepticism is shaky now. I would love to be able to explain how these voices got on the recordings. But I can’t.

They told us that this could be done anywhere as long as you can control the environment. Dana won’t let me do our house. But you can do yours. Just use a good digital voice recorder. Maintain the silence in the room you are in and just talk to “the air” and see if something unexplained is on the recording. Could be fun or it could be scary. Enjoy.