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21 Jul |
In Memory of Inara Michelle Not Twilight Related, Thanks
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On July 16, 2009 at 5:27 PM our family was graced with the birth of our daughter, Inara Michelle Schade. She was a beatiful little girl, and brought joy to her parents and older siblings. She touched our hearts immediately. Her older sisters were overjoyed to have a baby sister to fawn over and love and help raise in this world. We all looked forward to our lives being blessed by this little miracle.
Unfortunately, Inara was not born with a perfectly functional heart. We found, shortly after her birth, that she had congenital heart disease. More specifically, she was born with a birth defect that affected both her Aortic and Pulmonic Valves (see diagram).
The Pulmonic Valve allows blood to exit to the Pulonary Arteries and into the lungs. The Aortic Valve allows blood to flow into the Aortic Arteries and from there to the rest of the body. Inara’s valves were malformed, too thick, and too small. Because both valves were affected, there were no surgical options available to us to repair the damage. I’ll not go into the details of why a transplant was not an option, but suffice it to say Inara was too fragile for that. Simply put, there was nothing that we could do. The only thing keeping her alive at this point was the ventilator and the large doses of medication used to keep her heart pumping. But that would only last so long, and eventually Inara would begin to suffer a lot of pain.
Thus, we made the decision not to prolong Inara’s life any longer than was necessary. Being LDS, it was important for us to give her a name and a blessing, which is normally given to infants shortly after their birth. We also wanted to ensure that her oldest brothers, who were on a camping trip at the time of her birth and not immediately available, had the opportunity to meet her. We made arrangements for the boys to leave their camping trip early, and within a few hours, we had the entire family together. We were able to be with her as she slipped from this life. Inara Michelle returned to her Heavenly Father at 9:32 PM on July 18, 2009.
Our family will be forever touched by her short life. We will never forget her, nor the impact she had made on us. Her spirit is strong, and we know for certain that she now lives with God in the Celestial Kingdom of Heaven. We are saddened by her untimely departure, but know that she is safe and happy in her new home. We look forward to seeing her again in God’s due time.
Inara Michelle – we love you with all of our strength, spirits, and hearts.
-Brian, Sharon, Steven, Braden, Leah, Rebecca, and Adam Schade
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14 Dec |
Random Twilight Teez Musical Guest Not Twilight Related, Random
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I just wanted to take a moment and give a shout-out to one of my new favorite bands; Naturally 7. These guys are AWESOME! I am using the word "awesome" in the sense of "these guys literally ARE their own instruments"! Seriously, they don’t know how to PLAY the instruments, so they simulate them with their own voices. They are an a’capele group, but you wouldn’t guess that just by listening to them. You "hear" a bass, drums, guitars and even keyboards. But you would never see those during a concert. That’s because they don’t play them, they sing them. And they sound exactly like the instruments they simulate!
These guys are amazingly talented, and I highly recommend giving them a listen. You can learn more about them on their web site.
I’m listening to their Christmas album now, which is available on iTunes (among other places).
-Brian
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6 Nov |
Remembering Michael Crichton Not Twilight Related
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I am sad to report that on November 4, 2008, one of my favorite authors passed away. Michael Crichton is responsible for such bestsellers as Jurassic Park, Sphere, Congo, and more recently the mesmerizing novels Prey, State of Fear and Next. I understand he has a new book that is slated for release soon, but I’m not sure about the title.
I credit Mr. Crichton for helping me to revitalizing my interest in reading as an adult. I would say probably his most famous and well known title is Jurassic Park, thanks in large part to the blockbuster movie of the same name. My interest in his works came from this movie as after watching the film i wanted to read the novel that inspired it. About this same time (1993), I was working for a medical imaging firm which had me flying all over the country. Long flights (before the days of portable media players and high-end notebook computers) meant I had to wile away the hours by sleeping, watching the in-flight movie (if available), listening to my portable CD player (no MP3s or iPods back then) or read a good book. I figured since I enjoyed Jurassic Park (the novel) so much, I’d see what other books Mr. Crichton authored. I blazed through nearly his entire collected works during those flights. I’d pick up one book at the Tucson airport for my outbound flight and have it read by the time of my return flight, at which time I’d get another one of his books and read it on the way home.
Michael Crichton was a viscious story teller. I am using the word "viscious" as I would use the term "amazing". His yarns of well-researched facts combined with just the right amount of fiction would enthral me, and often times I would finish his books wondering if the story I just read could actually happen in real life. Indeed, his stories are often so realistic that you worry that maybe they actually give people inspiration to TRY what he just wrote about. Genetics, nanotechnology, bio-engineering, time travel, industrial espionage and even global warming were often topics of discussion in his books. He introduced me to the Techno-thriller genre, and has inspired me to incorporate a level of realism in my own stories that I had never aspired to before.
Mr. Crichton died on November 4, 2008 after a courageous battle with cancer. He was an advocate of knowledge and research. Many of his novels, even his works of fiction, are often accompanied by pages and pages of cited works showing the research that he did on the topic in the book. He was also an advocate of Global Warming, although not necessarily in the way you might expect. As his book State of Fear suggests, and as I myself tend to agree with, Global Warming is happening. However it is not the sole responsibility of mankind but a natural part of the Earth’s cycle (indeed, there is evidence that suggests that the Earth is entering a state of "Global Cooling"). Michael Crichton was a doctor of medicine as well as an engaging story teller. He was the one of the creators of the hit television series ER, and many of his books have been made into movies. A complete list of his works can be found on his web site at www.michaelcrichton.com.
I encourage anyone who enjoyed Stephenie Meyer’s work to take a look at Mr. Crichton’s work as well. I’ll admit that some of his novels are not good reading for anyone under the age of…oh…80 (Rising Sun and Disclosure), but most of his works are pretty tame. He does have a tendancy to use profanity, but I don’t feel that it is over the top or out of place considering that it’s only in dialog. Nothing that one would not hear in your day-to-day activities.
And so I bid one of my favorite authors a fond farewell. Thank you for your contributions to our world, Michael Crichton. You will be missed.
-Brian
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23 Oct |
No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Science Dave Barry, Not Twilight Related, The Blog
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It’s funny how meeting one of your heroes can cause you to have the mental capacity of a turnip.
No, really, I am nearly 40 years old and I still feel like a fanboy teenager when I meet famous people I admire. This held true when my wife and I recently went to meet Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson at a book signing. In case you’re not aware, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson are both authors, and I had about 6 bazillion books for them to sign (some of the books were even theirs). They were both at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ promoting their new book, Science Fair
The presentation was a lot of fun to watch, and they gave us (the audience) a brief history of how the story came about. I was particularly interested in the discussion of the important scientific experiments that happened in real life that were pertinent to the book, including the experiment that levitated a real, live frog. They then proceeded to demonstrate, in real life, one of the experiments that happens in the book; the famous Mentos/Diet Coke Theorem of Showering Things With Sticky Soda.
This was particularly amusing, especially when Ridley became the unwitting subject of a soda shower. Earlier that day, Dave and Ridley were demonstrating this exact theorem at a middle school gymnasium, which had a very tall ceiling. They dropped 5 Mentos into the Diet Coke, and produced a fountain high enough to touch the ceiling. Because of this, and the fact that the ceiling in the Poisoned Pen was only about 7.5 to 8 feet high, they decided to scale back the number of Mentos to just 2.
The fountain they produced was impressive…and managed to spray the ceiling anyway. The containment field that they set up (a Glad garbage bag) was breeched, and the table, floor, and the first row of attendees were splattered with Diet Coke. This would probably have been very troubling to the owner of the store, had she been there. I do hope that these two guys are invited back again next year when they release their next Peter and the Starcatchers book.
The photo below is my wife and I with Dave Barry.
Key Scientific Quote Of The Evening: "I’m still dripping!" -Ridley Pearson
The evening was a lot of fun, and I’m very glad that my wife and I made the journey to meet these two very funny guys. It was a great date for my wife and I, and we got a ton of new books to read to boot. I highly recommend checking out their work. Dave is famous for his humor and Ridley is famous for his particularly inventive ways of killing characters in his adult books. How ironic it is that both of these guys happen to write really good fiction for young adults. I highly recommend their Peter and the Starcatchers
Incidentally, and yes I have to plug this, the shirt I’m wearing will be available soon on our web site in the coming week or so. It is part of our new line of officially licensed Dave Barry t-shirts. I’m very excited to be able to work with Dave on this endeavor. And I’m pretty certain it will not result in anyone being splashed with Diet Coke.
-Brian
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1 Oct |
The Story Of Our Lives Not Twilight Related, The Store
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I have worked in the Information Technology business for over 15 years. I started as a computer technician working for a medical imaging company, installing computers in hospitals around the nation. I worked my way up from there to computer support for an architecture and engineering firm, then moved into computer network support for a public education school district. I’ve worked as a network administrator, software developer and even worked for several major government contractors before I finally formed Twilight Teez with my wife. And in all of those years, it has been my experience that computers behave perfectly and precisely as programmed…in SchadeWorld. Which is an entirely fictitious world existing only in my imagination and has nothing in common with reality. For example, in SchadeWorld, I’m the lead singer and guitar player for a rock band, as well as the band’s sax player, drummer, and bass player. I do not know how I play all of those instruments at the same time. I’m also buff, have a rapier wit, and own several flying vehicles built upon technology that does not yet exist. I like SchadeWorld.
In Real Life (RL for you gamers), computers rarely ever do what they are supposed to do when you really need them to. They work perfectly in all sorts of test environments and give you precisely the results you’re looking for. They will continue to perform with exacting precision the way they are supposed to all the way up until the moment you need them to actually perform the thing they are designed to do in real life.
Thus is the situation we now face here at Twilight Teez. Today was supposed to be the day to launch our new store software (aka Shopping Cart). But thanks to the wonderful world of Real LIfe, that of course couldn’t happen. I’ll spare you the details. At the moment, it’s pretty late and we intend to go home and get some sleep. We will be delaying our shopping cart release for at least 24 hours until we can get this sorted out and fixed. Until then, you can continue to enjoy our wonderful old software for at least another day.
Well, that’s about it for now. If anyone’s interested in knowing technical details, I’d be happy to give them. Until then, I need to fly off in my CTX130 Hercules starcruiser and play a gig in Las Vegas.
-Brian
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18 Sep |
Meet Howard Not Twilight Related
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This is Howard.
Howard is a computer, but not in the same typical way that most computers are computers. Howard doesn’t really do a lot of the things you’d expect computers to do. Oh, he can browse the Internet and check e-mail and catch viruses just as well as any other machine out there. But he can also play the trumpet, drums, sax, jam out on the guitar and can do a 50-50 grind on his skateboard as well as any of those so-called "pro skaters". You’ll be seeing more of him around here in the coming months. So get used to him.
-Brian
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31 Aug |
Not To Be Outdone – The RNC Dave Barry, Not Twilight Related
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And now we turn to Dave Barry, reporting Live from the newly revamped Republican National Convention.
-Brian
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28 Aug |
Important Daily DNC Update Dave Barry, Not Twilight Related
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This has been your Important Daily DNC Update.
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26 Aug |
Important Democratic National Convention Update Dave Barry, Not Twilight Related
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The DNC is off to a roaring start.
This has been your Important Democratic National Convention Update.
-Brian
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20 Aug |
Twilight Teez is on Google Earth! Not Twilight Related, Random, The Store
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If you have Google Earth, you can see our new warehouse. The link is below. It should either automatically open in Google Earth or prompt you to open the link with Google Earth. Either way, I’d sure appreciate it if you could let me know if you are able to see the actual photo of our warehouse and not just the birds-eye view.
Click here to see us on Google Earth!
-Brian
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About
Twilight Teezers is the official blog for Twilight Teez. This is where news and information relating to our web store will be posted. Twilight Teezers, while not necessarily a fan site for the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, will likely include commentary or other articles relating to those books. We will also include content relating to other book series and authors. If you want to discuss more about Twilight, you may visit our forums or the many Twilight fan sites around the Internet (see our links section below).
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NieNie
Links
- More Twilight Fan Sites - So many fan sites, so little space to list them all…
- SchadeBlog - Brian’s personal blog
- Stephenie Meyer - Stephenie Meyer’s official web site
- Twilight Lexicon - The Twilight Lexicon
- Twilight Teez Forums - The Discussion Forums for Twilight Teez
- Twilight Teez, LLC - Order Stephenie Meyer Twilight Shirts Here!
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Books -N- Things
