Last night my wife and I watched a new show called, “The buried life.” It is about this group of guys that go around trying to do the 100 things they want to do before they die. With each thing they check off the list they help someone else do one of the things they want to do. You would think that this would be something you see on the life time channel. But you would be mistaken. It was on MTV. So what does this have to with photography?

It got me thinking about what I wanted to do before I died. I think that a line from Save Farris contains one of the greatest truths in the man psyche, “Deep in the heart of every man lies a hidden dream or plan to be a millionaire. Life with out a care.” I too suffer from this natural man belief. It is one of the largest thing I want to do before I die. But how to accomplish that. Well it would be amazing to do it writing. But I’m sure if it ever happens it will be through programming something. Who knows what that will be. But what about photography? this is a photography post right? It is the other 99 things I want to do in life. Almost all would be places I want to take pictures of or at. A few of them are places I want to get photo’s printed. Tonight’s post is about one of those. One of the things i want to do before I die is get one of my photo’s printed on a Jones Soda bottle. Tonight I start that dream. I will post my attempts over time and let you go vote on them to see if you can help me get printed. Now those of you that might know something about Jones Soda are thinking, “Cptn.J you know you can just pay to get them to send you a few bottles with what ever picture you want.” Yes I know this, but I want it to be on every store shelf across the US, Canada and anywhere else they might ship those lovely natural sugary goodness to.

So here it is. Attempt number one. Hope you enjoy it. Vote Here – Speedy doing the Robot.

There are nights that you do things that seem so simple they couldn’t possible have negative repercussions. Well at least you figure it is that way. A few nights ago we decided that our kitchens small radio just didn’t have any music that we were interested in. So I cracked out the nearest laptop and launched Pandora. We quickly realized that my selection of music isn’t completely kid friendly. As in they hate the things I listen to at work. I love techno and trance. I think it is the best thing to write crazy hard code to. Your mind just flows and with headphones on you can tune the world out and get amazing things done. So my lovely wife decides that a little Jonas Brothers will do the trick. 30 minutes later and you have a great channel that the kids can listen to at any time.

Moments later dinner is ready. You just close the laptop lid and forget about it. Well that is at least what I thought. Fast forward 12 hours… There is Cptn.J showing up to work. Grabbing his laptop, setting it on his desk. Plugging it in and what is that crazy loud music blaring on his laptop. It takes an amazingly long time for a windows computer to wake up. But it doesn’t take anytime what so ever for your music to start right up. You think they could get that figured out. If only it was playing something manly or geeky. But no it has to be Jonas Brothers. All that time spent convincing your fellow coworkers your this super uber geek pirate captain, wasted. Now I have to start again. Will they ever forget? Only time will tell.

In the mean time if you want to check out some of my best Pandora just take a look below.

• DJ Tiesto
• No Doubt Radio
• Jonas Brothers Radio
• Cherry Poppin’ Daddies

One of my hero’s in life has always been and will always be Martin Luther King, Jr. From the first time I heard his stories and read his “I have a dream” speech he has been a man to be measured by in my mind. As I grew older I have learned that he was much more then one speech. It may have changed the world, but his work before and after were of the same caliber. To say he was the youngest person to ever receive a noble peace prize can only take away from  what he did to receive it.

Following it the foot step of the great Gandhi his ever pressing passion for non-violent civil disobedience and his words changed how mankind looked at one another. His example will forever change my views and I hope the views generations to come. I believe his example was a great reflection of the love of our savior. May all men be more like the great martin Luther King, Jr who reflects the light of Christ.

I hope that as I raise my children I will teach them the things that he stood for, and teach them to be the same kind of man that he was. He stood for the things he believed in and never backed down. He felt that if something was worth standing for, it was worth dieing for. He believed all men were created equal and that the government was required to put laws in place to protect those rights. I hope his dream continues.

Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr

If you just started reading this blog, I welcome you. If you know me then you should know of my growing fixation with genealogy. If you don’t know me then you might be asking yourself, “Self, why does this Cptn.J guy write about Technology, Design and photography. With a dash of crazy. Then put in something that seems so unrelated as genealogy??” The answer that question is, because. There is a good reason but this is not the forum for you to know. If you ever meet me in life feel free to ask. If I am in a good mood, I might answer. But don’t count on it.

Now back to the show…

I shall call you Ishmael! Ya you. The reader. That is what I am going to call you. Ismael. Grab your hat, compass and harpoon. Because we are going looking for the white whale. You can call me Captain J and we are about to embark on an adventure. One of excitement, depression and joy. There will be ups and downs. In the end I hope to find a family member or two. If that is all I accomplish it will be a success. If I truly get  my Moby Dick the world will be a better place for it. Only time will tell.

A few months ago I was asked to attend a genealogy class. Before that I knew that it was an important part to my faith. That people around me found happiness and joy out of it. But I only gave it a passing glance. I knew I was from tough pioneer stock. I have a book that contains the writings of my ancestors. I have read that many times and have used it to inspire and teach. I am thankful for the stories found in it. But me do research? The task seemed so daunting. Where would I start. That book contains a hand written line back to Adam. There had to be hundreds and thousands of my family doing work or so I believed. If they hadn’t found anything how could I? So I said sure.

Over the next few weeks and years I hope to teach you the things I learned and will learn. I hope to share with you things that I know now to be myths about genealogy and how large of a task all of us have in front of us. In the end I hope to start a movement that changes the industry.

So grab your ores, man the long boat and spend every Thursday here on the Pequod. Where we all shall learn together to be sailors on the sea called Genealogy!

Your captain for this adventure, Cptn.J

When I decided that I wanted to write a new blog I had an idea of the design and functionality. I wanted it to be segregated into four distinct areas or sections. Those being, Life Style, Photography & Design, Genealogy, and Technology. So that I could have four really different groups of people reading here. But they really are my interests.

So I started poking around at other sites to find colors and a feel that I wanted to follow. In time I found a few blogs out there that I loved how they did things and a few designs that I liked. Next I started working on my design. But it just hasn’t come to me yet. I got the background and that is about it. Check it out. It isn’t much but there it is.

In my work I came across the worst sites of 2009 list. I have to say wow, I didn’t think people still did sites like these. Awesome… I want to get on this list some day, it would be fun

American Beauty Border Collie

So what is wrong with this? Nothing if you don’t mind that all your text is in images and you think floating penguins will help you sell border collies.

All Star Farm

LOL, you have to  be joking me. I hope that they didn’t pay a cent for this one. So funny

I have a confession. It might come as a suprise!

You ready for it..

I love techology. You might be thinking, well I like technology too. You might. But I love it. I can’t go 6 hours in my sleep with out thinking what emails I have gotten and what new thing I can build. I dream of things I can do with technology, what cool new thing I can build, what api is out there to pull info from here or from there. What great graphs I am going to be able to build. Do you dream in binary? I’m sure I do.

I joke with one of my very close friends that he is attempting to build a throne out of laptops. You know plated with gold and more memory in them then at a small ISP. What he doesn’t know… Is that I tease him about it because its one of my dreams. Lets call it envy.

You might ask what technology I use. It would take all night for me to list it. But here are a few things that I use every day. I mean EVERY DAY.

1. Perl – It is one of my greatest loves
2. Personal laptop – Windows Vista, HP Pavillion, virtual box running two versions of linux, Lighroom for all my photography
3. Work Laptop – Windows 7, Dell, Virtual box (running Linux,Android, and Chromium) and every other tool you would need to be a web programmer
4. Black Berry Storm
5. Canon XSI – Stock lens, 50 mm
6. Light Room – Amazing. If your not using it get the 3.0 beta and give it a try.
7. Photo Shop CS4 – Got to have photo shop.

Well there you go. Now you know my weekness. Try not to use it against me. Never forget I am a pirate.

This isn’t the first time. I have tried to do this many times. I bet you have too. But why didn’t it work before and why is it going to work this time? In the past I blogged because I wanted to prove something. To show an idea or experiment. This is I think my fifth real blog attempt. In the past I have had a lot of success. I had a blog that some posts where reprinted dozens and dozens of time. But I hated doing it. Every day it was hard. Because it wasn’t anything I loved.

But this, this will succeed. The reason being, that I don’t care what you think. I don’t care who reads this. This is for me, not for you. Is that selfish? I bet it is.

So grab a seat, hit the rss feed, and hold on. Your about to get a glimpse into the life of Cptn.J.