I try to refrain from watching or reading any of the brainwashing fear tossing media that is forced down our throats via news casts and newspapers. There is however one local newspaper that I do read, keeps me upto date on things happening in my community and sometimes there are some really thought provoking articles that are printed, articles like the one I am posting here today. This came from a copy of the SaanichNews in Victoria and is so true to what is happening in society today that I felt the need to spread its message a little more.

“Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was or exactly when he died since his records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing: ‘When to come in out of the rain;’ ‘why the early bird gets the worm,’ ‘why life isn’t always fair’ and ‘maybe it was my fault.’

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies such as don’t spend more than you earn, and reliable strategies such as adults, not children, are in charge.

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do at home, disciplining their unruly children.

He declined further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin, sun lotion or a Band-Aid to a student, but could not inform parents when that same student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses; and it seemed that criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home. The burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after someone failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, spilled a little in their lap, and were promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by his three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim. Not many attended the funeral for Common Sense because so few realized he was gone.”

• • •

The forgoing quote, albeit tongue in cheek, reminds us that perhaps it is time to return to using a bit of common sense.

In any given week, we find reports of actions that seem to fail the simple test of common sense.

Where is “common sense” in publicly assassinating the character of an airport security person when they made a simple and perhaps dumb decision?

There are too many groups that revert to the victim role when anything doesn’t fit their little politically-correct world. Accepting and encouraging that kind of silliness fails the test of common sense.

Where “common sense” in the federal government policy that funding can not be advanced to help replace the Cameron Street Bridge until an environmental impact review is done? The bridge is being built on the same piers as the old bridge. There will be no messing with the river unless one of the workers falls in. It is a dumb policy and not “common sense.”

Failure to apply common sense has created all sorts of silly rules and processes that cause delay and totally unnecessary costs.

Perhaps it is time for all of us to take a little time and apply just a bit of common sense to what is happening in our lives and how much it is costing, in time, money and frustration.

Victor Bowman writes for the Prince George Free Press.

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This is the start of a 3 part post detailing my opinion on some major topics of discussion in the world today.

Every day I see more and more of the fear tactics used to control the population attempting to force us to do whatever the power hungry elements in our society want us to do. Fear of loss, fear of prosecution, fear of destroying the planet(OMG wait till I post on that one). Fear tailored to control the masses by offering protection from some unseen, unknown or manufactured enemy. Is this not similar to what the mafia but outside of the control of government. Government is hypocritical to say the least.

Fear of Global warming, Religion and Politics can all be grouped into one category, Fear and Control. The only thing accomplished through Religion, Politics and Fear is the control of populations using fear. Hence expressions such as “God Fearing”. When 87% of the population is controlled by 13% we have a problem. I call it sheep syndrome. Sheep are herded in masses by dogs, the fear of being bitten by the dog so they herd to where the dog is told to herd them. The general population is controlled by fear. Fear of Persecution/Prosecution (politics), fear of the Wrath of God, fear of destroying the planet. I am going to touch on each of these fears over my next few posts. Post one(this post) is going to detail my opinions on politics. Post 2 tomorrow will detail my opinion on religion. Post 3 on Monday will detail my opinion on the Global Warming topic and the conclusion to this post.

Fear of persecution and prosecution (Politics).
Let me start by saying I am not a advocate for anarchy but seriously we are human beings with minds of our own we don’t need to have every aspect of our lives controlled by some governing force. We cannot do anything without paying some government for the right do do so. Every aspect of our days are predetermined by some government ideal that is forced down upon us. Where did government come from? It came from a bunch of rich human beings that had nothing left to accomplish in finance so they turned their focus and efforts to creating power. The fasted way to feel the sensation of power is to control something else. The ultimate power is to control a population. Government was formed when a group of men decided that they wanted to control the surrounding population by promising protection and for said protection they will pay a tax. As other governments formed power struggles began to arise, alternative power cells battle to increase their control over the populations that follow. Over the hundreds of years that we have been controlled by government fear has been so ingrained in us that every step we take another control is placed on us and we just accept it.

I was watching A Bug’s Life with my daughter the other day and somthing dawned on me. When hopper and his gang where in New Mexico living off the spoils they stole from the ants. Hopper explained to the gang that they were out numbered 100 to 1. If the ants ever figured that out, the fear and control over them the grasshoppers had would cease to exist. Sounds kind of familiar to me, we are all controlled in some way by fear. In the next few posts I will detail links to religion using the same fear to control the populations that “Believe”.

Continued tomorrow with Religion…

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You know, sometimes there are times things need to be validated by members of the industry and this is one statement that I need to validate. Being the President, Founder and Lead Designer for a successful Multimedia company I have to get a few things off my chest.

“Web designers” are everywhere, anyone with a copy of front page and the internet are calling them selves web designers, seeking out clients to make a living from selling their services. Everyday while surfing the web I come across FrontPage built sites with stick on animated gifs and bloated Microsoft html code. There was obviously no thought to the end user or design principle while these sites where in development. Open new word document >slap in some stolen gifs from the web > save as html and WHAMMO you are a web designer. NO YOU ARE NOT.

Too many times I meet with a prospective client and they show me a horrible site that they paid obscene amounts of money for and I mean obscene, some of these sites are 3 times what my company charges and they look like they were done by a no talent hack in the basement of grandma’s house. Seriously how do you sleep at night ripping people off like that. My rates are not cheap but my portfolio is large and I have a steady flow of referral business coming in. I even have repeat customers that have multiple sites. No wonder there are so many clients that I meet that get visibly sullen when I show them my company portfolio and quote them on a new site. How can I blame them? They paid more than double what I am quoting for the mess they have now. Many of these poor people convince themselves that they have a great site because their “Web Guy” told them that it was a great site and they got a good deal on it.

I spent years in school and training in art to do what I do. My credentials include a Multimedia Diploma with Honors, Certificate of Business Admin. Marketing and Sales Major, Sales management experience, 15 years of art training and practice. During my training I spent time learning about Humane Interface design, optimization, scalability, graphic design, color palettes and more. These are some of the many tools that a true web designer has in his or her arsenal. I am a registered Adobe client using the latest in graphic design software, my companies programming principles are strict and clean and we write our own code. (Some times we write out code in notepad just to make sure we don’t get reliant on WYSIWYG editing.) We know where the code editor is in Dreamweaver and understand the differences between different versions of IE, Firefox, Opera. We understand color wheels, beta testing, bandwidth, image optimization. This list could go on forever I think you get the point.

I am going to explain what a true web designer/developer does when dealing with a new client. Before I start on any project for a client I have a FREE (YES I said FREE) consultation meeting with the prospect. Instead of spitting out some arbitrary number to them and telling them what their site will do. I have a full interview with the client and educate them to the benefits of a website. Take the time to introduce them to new technologies available for websites such as blogs, news, CMS, flash etc. After this meeting which usually take 1hr or more, I thank the client for their time and let them know I will work out a quote for them and email it later that day. If the client insists that I ballpark a quote. I will ask a few more questions and ballpark a range based on other sites that I have developed that are similar. Once the quote is approved I layout a project guideline for the client with milestones and payment schedules at each milestone reached. This helps keep things scheduled and gives the client piece of mind throughout the process.

To those guilty parties out there, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You are preying on people that want to grow their business or are just starting out. All you are accomplishing is helping these poor clients fail. Before you start demanding exorbitant amounts of money for your services try going to school and taking a few art classes, at least now you will do your clients and your reputation justice. To anyone that is out there looking for web sites PLEASE do some research and make sure that your choice in designer is based off their experience and previous work. If they have no work to show you then you are well within your right to ask for a mock-up before signing on to have them launch your web site project.

Us multimedia people are not all rip off artists and if you find the right one for your business you could be developing a long standing relationship for the better of both parties involved. As mentioned earlier I have many repeat clients and referrals making it unnecessary to advertise. No newspaper ads, no billboards, no mass emailing. My advertising consists of a small link on clients sites that allow it, linking to my main company site. My phone rings from new clients and 9 out of 10 times it is because they got my info from someone who I did work for.

Here are some other posts that give prospective clients some insight into the minds of web developers.

choosing-a-web-designer
artist-vs-programmer

My company site is located at www.mk2solutions.com if you click clients there are links to work that I have done. For other samples you can always contact me through the contact form as I have lots of sample layouts etc that are archived. As busy as we are I am always open to meeting a new prospective client to discuss their project. Worst case I will put a team together to develop it while I oversee each phase to insure the level of quality is at a level that I accept.

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Well yesterday I decided it was time to treat myself to a new Driver (1 Wood). Of to GolfTown I went with the intention of getting myself one of 3 drivers I had picked out. My short list as I went into the store was the Nike Sumo from 2007, The Callaway X460 from 2007 and the Ping G5 from 2007. I get to the store and ask my favorite dealer ( yes I said dealer, golfing is my drug and GolfTown in my dealer ) to help me select the right driver for my swing.

We head through the isles of 2007 model drivers grabbing all kinds of them. I am choosing 2007 models as they retail for around $200 instead of paying over $400 for this years model. Well after a few minutes of feeling like a kid in a candy store we head over to the launch monitor with 6 drivers in hand:

Callaway Big Bertha
Callaway X460
Cleveland HiBore S Flex
Cleveland HiBore R Flex
Cobra Speed 460
Used Titleist 905R

There was no Nike Sumo or Ping G5 in stock so I didn’t bother looking at them.

At the launch monitor.
I begin to swing away with the drivers getting into my groove and getting my average swing speed etc. With an average swing speed of 85MPH topping at 95MPH I decided that the R flex shaft was more consistent and matched to my average swing speed. Most of the drivers were giving me a ball speed of approx 128-130MPH with 3500RPM of spin on the ball. I was now ready to put these drivers through their paces.

Callaway: Both the X460 and the Big Bertha felt much like my current Adams RPM Redline driver with a big 460cc head in the traditional round Volkswagen on the end of a stick feel. Swing speed stayed the same but the consistency of my drives and distances was weak at best. I felt like I was watering the lawn when I look at all the launch paths. These clubs really did not do anything for my striking, when I did feel a miss hit the ball flight was way off center. I was also finding that the launch angle on these clubs was inconsistent for my swing and level of skill ranging from 9″ to 16″ and not really having many consistent drives.

Down to 4

Cleveland: Ok so all my irons are Cleveland TA7, My Wedges are Cleveland reg.588, My fairway wood is Cleveland Launcher steel head 17″ so why not try the Cleveland Driver and my sales guy recommended it so lets try them out. The head on this club is very different and felt smaller than the big head drivers. The design is very aerodynamic and pleasing to the eye. My launch angle was consistently hitting 14″ with 3500-3800 spin and more often than not the ball was in the fairway. I tested both the R flex and S flex shafts but quickly put the S flex away it was not as consistent for my swing as the R. Well this is a shocker I never thought about the HiBore as being in my dwindling list of possible drivers, guess I am a little brain washed by the media for golf.

Cobra Speed: Great reviews, wonderful ad campaign  and promises of longer straighter drives, I figured this was going to be a winner. I pick up the driver and OMG this is the weirdest feeling thing I have ever held. The head on the club is massive and somewhat flattened in comparison to the Callaway’s. Resembling something like a B2 Bomber I take a few swings. Ugh I feel like I can’t control the club head its massive, the sound is a dull thud and I feel totally uncomfortable swinging this mammoth. When I look at the launch monitor it says it all. Terrible across the board, in the NO WAY list you go. Sorry Cobra this is just not the driver for me.

Down to 2

Titelist 905r: This is another of the fat headed drivers that I am a little uncomfortable with but I swing it away anyway to compare with the HiBore R Flex. What a nice club to swing the 905r is, under normal swinging speeds the club is very similar to the HiBore in feel but at impact it still feels much like the Callaway’s and for my swing it does impede the follow through a little. With that said though I could be happy with this club.

Still at 2

Conclusion:
As most purchases do it came down to price, I know the 905r is a “better” driver with a “better” name but a used 905r was over $200 and the Cleveland HiBore Brand new was $188.00 and honestly felt better in my hands. I Grabbed the HiBore and heading to the till. After getting home and unwrapping my new driver I was itching to try it out on the course. I had also just bought my daughter a new set of clubs  so she itching to play as well. Of to the little nine hole course up the road we go  it has  2  par 4’s that  use driver on so why not.  Each of these par 4’s are 265 one is straight and one is uphill. It was a windy day so once the players ahead where on the green I figured I could hit as I have never driven onto the green there before (hit the fringe a few times) I swing a nice smooth average swing, I feel a slight bump as the club head touches the ground slightly but a solid contact and the ball is off. Well half way through the ball flight I am contemplating yelling FORE its climbing and heading right for the green. It was windy and colder and the ground was wet so the ball ended up landing 10 yards short of the green. Chip and Putt for Birdy. Similar experience on the next hole. I love this new Cleveland HiBore thanks Golf Town.

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