Did you ever accomplish something amazing...

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...that nobody you know can appreciate? It's a little frustrating. Because I'm the "speech rec expert," and because Nuance makes the speech rec software, and Nuance also makes text to speech software, I must also be a text to speech expert. To those that hand out assignments, because I am good at one product, I must be good at another. And I'm no slouch at it. But it is, by no means, "easy." And by that thinking, because I can do Nuance Speech Rec and Nuance Text To Speech, I should also be able to do, for example, Nuance document scanning and such.

Anyway, I've been working on this off and on for a while now, and I finally got a proof of concept completed. I was able to get text read using an English Text-To-Speech Voice and then in a Japanese Text-To-Speech voice on a single call.

See - you aren't impressed. And you might even be a little bored.

So let's just change the topic and move on.

Last weekend had its ups and downs. Saturday was kind of a bummer - in fact, most of last week was a bummer. It started with Jake's Remicaid treatment last Monday. It didn't go well. For some reason, it caused him a lot of pain and drained him. And they ended up stopping half way through. And then, the rest of the week was brutal because of wrestling (they were doing some wicked conditioning, which is hard enough even when you are feeling well, and can be hellish if you are feeling poorly to begin with). Jake didn't do well in his tournament on Saturday. And he wanted to quit. And we explained to him that we can discuss whether or not he wrestles next year, but he is finishing out this year. So that was the down part.

Then Saturday Night, we watched 3:10 to Yuma for family movie night. And that was fun. Good flick - easily make my top ten Western list. Maybe even Top 5. I had a great debate with Chris where I was reminded that I need to watch Silverado and The Outlaw Josey Wales again.

Anyway - Sunday was remarkable. Our house was a disaster! Really bad - stuff everywhere. It was understandable given the holidays and the company we had and then the whole wrestling tournament disaster weekend and the storms and me getting sick and work and all, it was frustrating. The end result was we had stuff everywhere - 540 plastic spoons, 350 paper plates, 375 plastic forks, Christmas presents, caulk gun, rain gear, duct tape, coats and jackets, medicine, Kleenex boxes, two folding tables, air mattresses, and so on. And even if I had before pictures, I wouldn't post them because they would have been too depressing. Oh, and on top of all that, the Christmas lights and everything will still up.

Anyway, we, the three of us, Rachel, Jake, and I, did a fantastic job of whipping our house back in to shape. There's still more to do, but we got a ton of stuff done. Together we spent about four hours and I am amazed at how much we got accomplished. Check out the pantry...

Totally organized. And we got rid of stuff we don't use and found places for things we do and for things we got for Christmas. And we all worked together as a team to get it all done. It was like an 80's movie montage with Rachel's iPod providing the music.


And the Christmas lights are all down and put away under the house. And things are all back to groovy again.

And then Jake and I...
made chicken quesadillas for dinner on the Foreman Grill...

And Kimra made that shirt I'm wearing.

I was supposed to be flying to Baltimore tomorrow, but it's been put off.

That's it from The Yorb for now.