I'm hiring an assistant. I am going to reclaim some form of a life outside of the massive amount of work and travel I've been neck-deep in lately. We have news and stories! I don't even know if anyone out there even cares anymore, but perhaps a there a still a few with an ear to the Kaper's. I guess we'll see.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Happy New Year! Obviously, we have been neglecting this blog a bit....My excuse is the same as everyone else’s excuse of being busy. In all honesty, Kidder has been crazy busy, to the extent that for most of November and December I feel like I barely laid eyes on him. Because he didn’t have much time for articles and writing, I didn’t feel the pressure to take my turn. Pathetic excuse, I know, but now that he has made a few posts, I feel like it is my turn to contribute.
On that note, it is now January 5th, 2012. I feel like 2011 was a really crappy year. As many of you know, my actions caused us to go through a really rough patch this year. As New Years Eve approached, I found myself avoiding making any plans. Most years, we have a party to host or at the very least attend. This year, however, I kept thinking, I want New Years Eve to be COMPLETELY different because then maybe this year will be completely different. It is funny how we try to change little things in the hopes of causing big changes as a result. With that goal in mind, we had a relatively low key New Years Eve celebration. I invited only Lorax and FKS to join us for the evening. I was hoping to recreate our regular Saturday nights from years past. It had seemed like forever to me since we just hung out playing board games. That is exactly what we did. We had a nice dinner with the kids and played some board games.
In the spirit of the new year, I did make everyone join me around the fireplace as, in my goal to start 2012 in a different way, I thought it would be nice to start a new tradition that would stick with us for the year. I am not a fan of New Years Resolutions (because I always break them) but I asked everyone to share something they hoped to learn or do in 2012. I was met with mixed levels of enthusiasm... some of the group acted like I wanted them to pull off their fingernails with a pliers and others were full of ideas! I thought for my blog post I would share with you a bit of what we came up with.
Jade: I want to expand my knowledge of photography and how to take great pictures with my camera. I look forward to the opportunity to try, fail, and learn.
Rex: I want to make a Zombie movie with my cousins this summer and I want to plan spy missions on my iPod Touch and carry them out in my yard this summer.
LadyBug: I want to go to Disney World and the Mall of America. I want to learn how to read chapter books.
Kidder: I want to learn the beginning stages of philanthropy and the non-profit industry. I would also like to build a three person app development team to develop new software.
Kidder: I would like to read a book and do research about how to be a board member of a small or large private companies.
FKS: I want to go on more vacations. Top two choices: Seattle, WA and Germany (The Alps).
Lorax: I want to build a wall in my condo to separate off a mud room.
Jade: I want to make my craft room beautiful so I feel creative when I am in it. Most specifically I want to get rid of the disgusting stained, painted on, spilled on white carpet and beige tile.
Kidder: I want to finish my hobbit hole (aka beach front guest house).
Rex: I want to invite all my friends over this summer and spend the whole day wake boarding.
Jade: In light of Rex’ goals, I want to learn how to dock the boat in the boat lift so Kidder is not required for all boat related activities.
As I gathered everyones goals and ideas, I wrote them down and told them of my plans to make them look pretty so I could display them for us all to remember throughout the year. With this new tradition completed, it was time to watch the ball drop. We counted down and tucked the kids in. Then it was off to the hot tub for the grown-ups. As usual pleasant inappropriate conversation was enjoyed by all. By now, it was VERY late so our next event was movie time/sleep with the projector on. We worked our way into the theater, and as we did, we heard a Prince song playing on the iPod. Despite my best intentions of having a New Years Eve celebration that was nothing like last years’, you can’t help but dance to a Prince song. So dance is exactly what we did. Although the crowd was a little smaller than last year and the collective experiences of the group were different than the collective experiences of the group from last year, all four of us danced. Naked. With the door locked, of course.
Even though our night ended with a naked dance party just like New Years Eve 2011, (albeit with fewer people than last years), I didn’t feel like I jinxed myself to have another year like 2011. I ended the night telling Kidder that my primary goal of 2012 was to have a good year, specifically, with him. I am hopeful that will happen and can’t help but smile at the fact that at the Kaper Kompound, you can always count on naked dancing.
Wishing you all the best in 2012!
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Kidder's Got His Eye on a New Summer Toy!!!
If you live in Minnesota, you become conditioned to life with two seasons, the hot one, and the cold one. Sure we average a couple of weeks of that perfect 70˚ish temp in the fall and spring but we also have to accept that we may wake up to 4 feet of snow on Halloween morning. The summers are awesome if you like hot humid days (and I do) blended with cool (sometimes crisp) nights that are perfect for a polar fleece and a bonfire. If you live here, you also either live on one of our many beautiful naturally spring-fed lakes, or know someone who lives on one of those lakes and, therefore, visit often.
In the early spring Minnesota lakeshore enthusiasts attend boat shows, seeking the ultimate boat lift accessory or dock-mounted, solar powered brat grill. With sweaty palms we ceaselessly page through the Overton's catalog seeking absolutely unnecessary materialism with a fervor that should be considered excessive by the standards of any midwesterner. Wetsuits designed to squeeze the last bit of waterskiing fun into late September, Jetskis capable of traveling at thrice the speed of sound, and the newest wakeboard towers that guarantee that your kids will win medals at the next X-Gravity Game Extreme-Sport something, are available to everyone with a passion for watersports ;) and enough coins in their purse to make the purchase.
While I do dedicate a fair amount of time each season to research the newest advancements in electric wakeboard boats, this year I've got my eyes fixated on something completely different. I want to fly and now I can actually buy a jetpack that will allow me to skim above the water with enough grace and agility to make Buck Rodgers look up from sodimizing Twiki long enough to become green with envy. It is called JetLev-Flyer and now that I've seen it, I'm going to need to make extra room in the boathouse.
In the early spring Minnesota lakeshore enthusiasts attend boat shows, seeking the ultimate boat lift accessory or dock-mounted, solar powered brat grill. With sweaty palms we ceaselessly page through the Overton's catalog seeking absolutely unnecessary materialism with a fervor that should be considered excessive by the standards of any midwesterner. Wetsuits designed to squeeze the last bit of waterskiing fun into late September, Jetskis capable of traveling at thrice the speed of sound, and the newest wakeboard towers that guarantee that your kids will win medals at the next X-Gravity Game Extreme-Sport something, are available to everyone with a passion for watersports ;) and enough coins in their purse to make the purchase.
While I do dedicate a fair amount of time each season to research the newest advancements in electric wakeboard boats, this year I've got my eyes fixated on something completely different. I want to fly and now I can actually buy a jetpack that will allow me to skim above the water with enough grace and agility to make Buck Rodgers look up from sodimizing Twiki long enough to become green with envy. It is called JetLev-Flyer and now that I've seen it, I'm going to need to make extra room in the boathouse.
Unlike traditional jetpacks that only allow for VERY limited flight times, this one tows it's power plant behind in the water, allowing pilots flights of fancy that exceed 30 minutes of sustained hovering. The tech is essentially a jet ski that directs the water through a hose to steerable nozzles affixed to the pilot's back. For less than $100k, anyone can fly. This price is steep especially when considering that the most expensive wakeboard boat with every bell and whistle I could imagine only tops out at about $89k. Even the Quicksilver GT-500 Ultralight that I tooled around in back in the '90s topped out at $55k after floats, ballistic parachute, and upgrading the Rotax engine. But there is a lot more to aircraft ownership than simply the cost of the lamest and least air-worthy aircraft that I've ever flown. Storage and airport fees aside, maintenance on aircraft is much like tending live animals. It is a constantly annoying and expensive undertaking that leads to traumatic and heartbreaking disaster should it be handled with half-assed efforts. The JetLev on the other hand is more like an ATV than an aircraft. I took a look at their patents and I think it is only a matter of time before another company comes in and offers the same gear for a significantly reduced rate. Hardware alone, this tech could easily be reproduced and sold for between $10k and $14k and when that happens, I'll be the first in line with money in hand.Get ready folks! Soon you'll see Kidder flying around like a cosmonaut with a vodka enema.
SIF on BOING BOING
Kudos to my old podcasting gang on SexisFun.net who recorded a show all about animal sex with
MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER
who taught us all a lot more about duck penises and vaginas than the Discovery Channel would ever risk. Fascinating stuff really.Ever wanted to watch Isabella Rossellini
have sex with a duck? Who hasn't?!?
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Is is Lube or is it Semen? - STR8CAM Lube Review
 |
| Slippery when wet! Str8Cam lube is the like semen in a bottle And yes, this is the first publicly released photo of Kidder's cock! |
Str8cam is condom safe and feels wonderful for everything from vaginal intercourse, to anal play and even hand-jobs. Squirt some on your vulva and you’ll you’ll look and feel like you’ve been the target of an over excited lover’s premature carpet-bombing. Squirt some inside and both you and your parter will both swear that you are partaking in a sloppy-seconds session. Use it with a toy be amazed by the realism this lube can bring to a masturbation session.
STR8cam Lube comes in a convenient 2 oz travel size for $5, an 8 oz bedside pump bottle for $14.50, and even a $70 half gallon and $100 full gallon bottle for all of you who’ve got to pull off the ultimate bukkake fantasy. Don’t let the cheesy packaging fool you, this lube is amazing!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Living the Busy Lifestyle
Hello Folks,
I've gotten gosh-darn busy lately. So many things are happening in my life right now and everything has something to do with Steve Jobs. Right! It is as strange to me as it sounds to you. I didn't even realize it myself until Jade pointed it out to me. So imagine this and follow along if possible.
In the same year Steve Jobs got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, so did my father. They both got the same surgery and in both cases it spread to their respective livers. Steve got a new liver, my father did not and died shortly there after. I didn't emote much when he died but I spent a lot of time getting to know him before he left. I was really busy with my life at the time so I'm quite surprised (and thankful) that I could make the time to spend with him as he was dying. Jade was pregnant with our daughter and I had just joined the board of the company that would eventually become the parent of everything that SexisFun.net would ever produce.
Both of these men changed the world in their respective fields. Steve's products were a lot sexier and well known, but I assure you, if you needed one of by dad's inventions, you'd appreciate it a lot more than your iPhone, iPad, and even your Macbook Pro. They were also notorious for being absolute assholes. This seems a personality trait that is nearly impossible to avoid by anyone who obsessively pursues excellence in all that they create. I was well on my way to earning that title myself in nearly half-a-dosen industries myself. Nobody calls us into a project because they need someone who's easy to work with or because we're joyful beams of sunshine in the office. We're only called in when something needs to be created and only excellence will do. We get things done even when what needs to get done is something that is impossible to do.
When Steve had finally succumb to his own DNA writing bad copies of the source code, it upset me a lot more than I would have ever expected it to bother me. Surrounded by my wife and closest friends, it was Jade who first said, "This isn't about Steve. This is about your Dad." I think it was me who first said, "What's the difference?"The similarities between my father and Steve, both in life and death weren't the end of the "everything has something to do with Steve Jobs," statement that began this post.
Shortly thereafter I began reading Steve's biography. It is one of the most inspiring roller coaster rides I've ever consumed and plan on posting my review of it soon. At the very same time I was getting to the part of the book where Steve returned to save Apple like the parodical son, I was also returning to save a company that I started back in '94, led to overwhelming success, and subsequently left to the to pursue other interests. They did well without me for a while, but just like Apple, the company lost its way, its edge, and all that had made it provide excellence in all that it did. It is attrition, and it is natural for all things that don't get influence from driving forces to keep attrition from happening.
Just last week I presented the company with the most epic Keynote presentation of my career, 111 slides that explained my promise to bring greatness, prosperity, and excellence back to the company. While my presentation was met with a thunder of applause, I wonder if that clapping will continue when they realize just what it will take to achieve what they've asked me to do. Nothing great is ever easy, and even though many of my slides made that point perfectly clear, saying it is one thing, and doing it is clearly another. They may appreciate what my return means to the bottom-line, they won't like the means that are necessary to get us there.
I miss this blog and I want to contribute more, but I'm so busy that the only way I'm ever going to get time to contribute is to hammer out something, as I am now at 1:19 AM on Monday morning. I hope it isn't complete shite as I'm too exhausted to even proof-read it.
I've gotten gosh-darn busy lately. So many things are happening in my life right now and everything has something to do with Steve Jobs. Right! It is as strange to me as it sounds to you. I didn't even realize it myself until Jade pointed it out to me. So imagine this and follow along if possible.
In the same year Steve Jobs got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, so did my father. They both got the same surgery and in both cases it spread to their respective livers. Steve got a new liver, my father did not and died shortly there after. I didn't emote much when he died but I spent a lot of time getting to know him before he left. I was really busy with my life at the time so I'm quite surprised (and thankful) that I could make the time to spend with him as he was dying. Jade was pregnant with our daughter and I had just joined the board of the company that would eventually become the parent of everything that SexisFun.net would ever produce.
Both of these men changed the world in their respective fields. Steve's products were a lot sexier and well known, but I assure you, if you needed one of by dad's inventions, you'd appreciate it a lot more than your iPhone, iPad, and even your Macbook Pro. They were also notorious for being absolute assholes. This seems a personality trait that is nearly impossible to avoid by anyone who obsessively pursues excellence in all that they create. I was well on my way to earning that title myself in nearly half-a-dosen industries myself. Nobody calls us into a project because they need someone who's easy to work with or because we're joyful beams of sunshine in the office. We're only called in when something needs to be created and only excellence will do. We get things done even when what needs to get done is something that is impossible to do.
When Steve had finally succumb to his own DNA writing bad copies of the source code, it upset me a lot more than I would have ever expected it to bother me. Surrounded by my wife and closest friends, it was Jade who first said, "This isn't about Steve. This is about your Dad." I think it was me who first said, "What's the difference?"The similarities between my father and Steve, both in life and death weren't the end of the "everything has something to do with Steve Jobs," statement that began this post.
Shortly thereafter I began reading Steve's biography. It is one of the most inspiring roller coaster rides I've ever consumed and plan on posting my review of it soon. At the very same time I was getting to the part of the book where Steve returned to save Apple like the parodical son, I was also returning to save a company that I started back in '94, led to overwhelming success, and subsequently left to the to pursue other interests. They did well without me for a while, but just like Apple, the company lost its way, its edge, and all that had made it provide excellence in all that it did. It is attrition, and it is natural for all things that don't get influence from driving forces to keep attrition from happening.
Just last week I presented the company with the most epic Keynote presentation of my career, 111 slides that explained my promise to bring greatness, prosperity, and excellence back to the company. While my presentation was met with a thunder of applause, I wonder if that clapping will continue when they realize just what it will take to achieve what they've asked me to do. Nothing great is ever easy, and even though many of my slides made that point perfectly clear, saying it is one thing, and doing it is clearly another. They may appreciate what my return means to the bottom-line, they won't like the means that are necessary to get us there.
I miss this blog and I want to contribute more, but I'm so busy that the only way I'm ever going to get time to contribute is to hammer out something, as I am now at 1:19 AM on Monday morning. I hope it isn't complete shite as I'm too exhausted to even proof-read it.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Getting more done with Dictation: a Review of Dragon Dictate for Macintosh
I became extremely busy lately. Even though I have reclaimed time spent recording the “Sex is Fun Show,” life as an interesting way of re-tasking idle moments. Jade and I have to run our children to various clubs and sporting events 6 days per week and work, it seems, has become a relentlessly demanding beast. But because we have created a relationship with those that have read my book, my articles, and listened to our podcasts, this blog has become very important to me and Jade and I want to continue contributing to it.
I am an exceptionally fast typist and have been since I was very young. It was in about the 3rd grade where I realized I was a touch typing and no longer needed to use my eyes to search for keys. By the time I took a typing class in the 5th grade, my speed and accuracy exceeded every other student in the classroom. Now I type at nearly the speed of thought, and though that may have something to do with the vast degree of typos in my average article submission, my speed has kept me from using dictation software or dictating for a human transcriber. But, I have an hour each day where I'm alone with my thoughts and as long as I keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road, I can use this time to contribute to the blog without stealing time from my family, my career, my friends, or making sweet-sweet love to Jade.
So I got myself a copy of Dragon Dictate software and I installed it on my MacBook Pro. The installation process was relatively straightforward. Of course don’t believe in reading manuals and l most things I install on my computer I expect to be performed using nothing but intuition. Therefore, my only setback was that I did not realize there were 2 DVDs in the box and instead of beginning with the installation disk,I was attempting to install off the libraries disk which it asks for later in the installation process. The headset is relatively comfortable and plugs in via 2 mini connectors through a USB dongle. I believe that you can use any microphone and headphone as long as it is plugged through this dongle, though I have not felt the need to attempt trying a different headset.
Once fully installed, the program guides you through a training mode where it learns to understand your dialect, accent, and nuances of your voice. This is done by reading text that appears on the screen and highlights as you read each word. I did like that the text was essentially a user guide to Dragon software as it taught me quite a bit about voice recognition technology. I certainly preferred that to being forced to read some unrelated story as though I was going to be taking a reading comprehension test afterward. Just as I was getting into the guts of the manual, the program stopped and told me that it listened enough and could accurately turn my words into text. So I popped open my mail application and sent out a few instructions to my underlings and minions.
I had very low expectations as my current experience with voice recognition is often telling my phone to, “find the nearest gas station.” and instead it would map the closest store that sold, “Playstations.” Why would anyone need that kind of information in the first place? But the program works quite flawlessly with a surprising degree of accuracy. It does allow you to speak quite naturally except for punctuation and various proper nouns. It works in every application that I've attempted to use it in and this includes nearly every application I own that accepts text entry. The only thing I found tricky is that I have to consciously think about where I would like pauses and commas to be placed, whereas ending sentences with the appropriate punctuation is something I already got used to from medical dictation.
How well does it work? You tell me...
This is the ultimate test. I am now halfway to work and I'm using the microphone in the car for the 1st time. My laptop is sitting in the passenger seat and I have dimmed the screen to full darkness so that I'm not tempted to allow my eyes to stray off the road. When I get into the office I will post whatever the software has decided to write, with the only editorial exception of capitalizing Jade’s name which it never seems to realize is a name.
Reich Kidder and tell him your thoughts on anything he writes at cape-her life.com
Company: Nuance
Product: Dragon Dictate 2.0 Mac.
Price: $199
Best Price on Amazon: $142.76
Product Score: [4.5]-:-[5]
What could they have done to get [5]-:-[5]?
Make the software understand punctuation based on sentences structure, natural pauses, emphasis and pitch so that I feel more like I’m having a conversation than dictating. Be better at realize the difference between proper nouns and nouns.
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