Worst Hunter vs. Dumbest Deer

Somebody send this to our good hunter friend... :)

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Earthships

I'm not an environmentalist (I've been caught declaring that Yosemite should be entirely paved over) but I think these "Earthships" are pretty sweet. They are far from low-tech, have no service costs (power, water, etc), and look really wild. A cross between Hobbit homes and moisturizer vaporator farms on Tatooine are the best way to describe the way these homes look.

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Earthship Biotecture creates buildings that...

• Heat and cool themselves naturally via solar/thermal dynamics
• Collect their own power from the sun and wind
• Harvest their own water from rain and snow melt
• Sewage containment and treatment on site
• Produce food in significant quantities
• Utilize materials that are byproducts of modern society like cans, bottles and tires

Anyways... cool stuff, if you can get past the nature oneness and global warming emphasis that is so prevalent.

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Down below

It's about time for me to get some sleep. But before I went, I wanted to record a small report to blog.

In part, because my laptop has never been able to use my little USB directional mic properly... usually corrupting the sound. So before I left, I tried it, seeing as I recently switched the entire system from Windows to Linux.

And it worked great!

I was quite proud of my good judgment in ridding Windows from my machine. Maybe God sensed that, or something, because now it doesn't work.

---->

Anywho, I've eaten plenty of turkey, ice-cream, eggnog, ham, potatoes, and home-baked cookies. And now I feel terrible. I think I'll eat salad and fish for a week when I get home... :)

Speaking of fish, my Mother and sister discovered some Sushi rolling sheets at a garage sale. I'm not really experienced eating Sushi, let alone making it, but I'll give it a go when I have some time. Seems pretty fun. Now that I can make hamburgers that I am happy with, it's time to move forward!

I better get to sleep though... sorry you could not hear my raspy, over-tired, voice!

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Proof that I sleep on both sides

I'm an ambidextrous sleeper :)

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Ghost Posts and Flock Rocks

Ghost Posts: My humblest apologies. Might as well call this the "Promise Blog" because I've been trying to get my music and new designs out forever! I really wanted to do it this week... believe me. But my schedule wouldn't allow it!

True love waits, right?

Flock Rocks: I've posted about Flock in the past, so I'm not going to go on about it today. But right now they are on "1.0" which means the browser is basically ready for prime time.

Flock fills a unique but needed role for me, because my Firefox is waaaaay tricked out with plugins and functions related to the web work that I do. It's also been pretty sluggish these days. But now, thanks to Fock, I can manage all my communication, for-fun browsing, and blogging a nicer environment while Firefox remains my primary work horse.

The main benefit of Flock is that it IS basically a tricked out Firefox, but without the add-on overhead. It's nice and fast. The notable things it supports out-of-the-box are:

• Blogging - pretty much every blog service (blogger included, obviously). Much faster than logging into the control center... though video uploading has not been added to the tool yet :(.
• Flickr & Photobucket - Managing photos and using them on the web (blogs, forums, emails, etc) is almost TOO easy in Flock. It's all drag n' drop.
• Facebook - This was a pleasant surprise. I don't have to log into Facebook anymore to know what's going on. I can see friend updates, pokes, messages, and more right from Flock.
  
• Twitter - If you're a big Twitterer like me, this is really nice. Alerts you too direct messages too.
  
• de.licio.us - always nice to have your bookmarks.
• Firefox add-on support - IF you really miss a Firefox add-on, you can just go grab it at mozilla.com like usual. Right now I'm happily using Flock with no extras... but I may need my trusty Greasmonkey before long.
  

I realize that many people aren't well acquainted with Twitter or Facebook yet, I'll blog about them next. Their significance is... well, SIGNIFICANT! But it can be hard to see the point initially when you first sign up for either service. Both services sub-consciously became a permanent part of my daily activities. Kinda like getting a cell phone... you can do without one until you have one :).

Anywho, we're headin' out on vacation starting Wednesday and won't be back until the 3rd. So, guess the music will just have to wait :'(.

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Falling in Love with Sandy

Oh Sandy, mother warned me never to take on a girl as my secretary, but now it's too late!

*ahem!

Sandy is a "personal assistant" that functions via email. You just send her an email with something you want to be reminded about, and when (if you want), and she'll shoot you an email at the appropriate time, fifteen minutes early.

It may sound simple, but it seems incredibly useful to me. Not only will she remind you, but if you CC a friend in the email, she'll introduce herself to them and send the reminder to them as well, so it also makes for a killer collaboration tool.

She can actually do a LOT more than reminders, but I'm still getting used to having a girl around my inbox, so I'll report back on the other functions another time. This makes for an extremely simple planning system that I am quite excited about, because anything bigger just starts to feel clumsy.

Oh, and I also set her up for Twitter and I can access her from my phone. Very nice!

Where have you been all my life, Sandy?!

www.iwantsandy.com

Marketing Monday

Looks like a really busy week. I've got a truck-load of updates for this blog that I can't wait to unload, but I don't know when I can get to it!

Especially for Monday and Tuesday, my mentor assures me that we're about to get into the best thing since Italian bread sticks for Internet Marketing. I'd tell you what it's about, but they'd probably kill me and, worse, steal my computer!

On top of that, I have another special project I've been working on for over a week now that should be seeing a release at some point this week or early next week. I'll definitely be blogging that once it's available. It will be my first public product.

On another note, my strings have been holding up pretty good! I do have a back up set, just in case, but these d'Addario XPs are lasting a long time. My Mom and Sister are going to be away, for the most part this week, so hopefully I'll be able to carve out a little time to start rolling out all the blog updates.

In the mean time, here's an odd picture of me you may enjoy from our recent goodbye BBQ for the Kennedy's.

gOS: Is the 'new' OS sneaking up on us?

gOS would like to convince you that Google is already your Operating System, most people just don't know it yet.

While all the geeks in the world are preaching Ubuntu (and Dell has listened), which is the OS I'm writing this post from, Walmart (!) seems to have pulled the carpet from beneath our feet, choosing the small gOS in their new $200 computer instead. A new linux OS from LA that hasn't even gotten an ounce of attention from the linux community... until now.

gOS looks to be the OS that I, as my friends can attest, was wanting to create myself for a while now. And seeing as it's still in its "Alpha" state right now, I forecast only great things for the OS that managed to get the attention of WalMart.

Here's part of their "about" page:

Out of the box, just works!

We're creating an OS ecosystem that is complete. We come with all the software you need to browse the web, email, instant message... play movies, music, and connect to iPods... create and edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, images... out of the box. Plug and play!

Bring on Google and other wonderful applications

We recommend Google for just about everything... Gmail, Gtalk, Calendar, Maps, Docs and Spreadsheets, and more. Out of the box, just works!

Open source and other values

We thank the Ubuntu 7.10 community and Enlightenment community for their contribution to gOS and the world. Our dedicated team and passionate community of volunteers are committed to bringing our alternative OS to the masses... so people everywhere can enjoy a third, more affordable and attractive choice when shopping for a computer. To get ahead of ourselves, we're saying goodbye to closed software and the digital divide.

Another interesting thing about this OS is that it uses the beautiful, but small, Enlightenment Desktop Environment, which could see a MAJOR upgrade later this year. Besides being beautiful though, it is also one of the fastest DEs in the world, so you can safely expect to blow Windows Vista, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu (defacto) out of the water when it comes to speed with this OS.

Suffice to say that this little OS has my attention right now.

Proof that Halloween is Evil

We don't think people who "Trick or Treat" are bad, or that it's a sin to participate in Halloween in any way. We just choose not to be involved because it doesn't sit quite right with our beliefs and feelings about the "holiday" (holy-day?).

But strange things can happen on Halloween and last night was confirmation in my mind that Halloween is, indeed, EVIL.

So, what happened?

Well, for a few years now, we've made a small family tradition out of watching a long movie (usually Pride & Prejudice), eating our favorite sweets, and shutting all the blinds and turning off all the lights around the house to avoid being "trick or treated".

This year though, we did things a little deffrinit.

We went out to dinner at Pete's Place around 4pm to fill up for the rest of the evening. Most of their food is tasty, a good value, and extremely greasy. Both satisfied and bloated, we went back home to get ready for the night.

The next variable was that we were to break our yearly P&P tradition by watching a different movie called North & South, recommended by some friends of ours. Although we were certain that no long, drawn-out, BBC romance/drama production could ever dethrone P&P, we tried to clear our minds to give the new kid a chance.

That guy is perfect for Halloween... And she is Clueless

Not only that, but instead of candy this year, we each got our very own container of Ben n' Jerry's Ice Cream! Yum! (Ok, there was little candy going around too)


So we settled in and popped the first disc into our DVD player. It was a two-disc movie.

It was horrible! A terrible movie. Within the first hour, at least six characters had died (of which we felt no emotion for because we didn't know who they were! We had a body count of 8, by the end), the two main characters hated each other for some unknown reason, and everything was gloomy and despairing. It made no sense whatsoever! Such a far departure from our beloved P&P!

By the end of the first disc the two main characters met in a seemingly unrealistic and unimportant way. They both got off trains headed separate directions at the same exact time. The guy pulls out a flower from her old home in the South (of somewhere, we think they were near London) and after briefly discussing a business matter they started kissing! And the disc ended!

What is up with this movie!? So we furiously popped in the "2nd" disc, unsure of where the movie could possibly go now that the lead characters were already in love (suddenly). And the first thing we see is her, alone, in the same train they were in at the end of the last disc holding that silly flower, followed by a caption: "Two Months Earlier".

What?! Now we have to go back in time? They're going to explain everything AFTER we've seen the climax? How lame is that?

Anyone who has seen this movie before knows what happened :).

We watched the second disc first.

My Dad was the first to figure it out, after which point we burst into hysterics for about 15 minutes, marveling at our own stupidity. My Mom was actually slapping her thigh... I didn't even know people really did that (it seems like a compulsory reflex when you are unable to breathe). Of course, with a 4+ hour movie, it's not likely we'll try it again soon... it was the worst movie experience and best family experience we'd had in years ;).

Confused, tired, and with sore tummies (from laughter and ice-cream) we sought relief in our beds. Then I realized my next mistake:

Pete's Place, Dark Chocolate, and Ben n' Jerry's are not compatible substances.

After a restful slumber of about 30 minutes, I was up the rest of the night belching, pacing, and with a fast heartbeat.
So I listened to a 3 hour marketing conference, prayed, and made mind maps in an attempt to figure out my crazy life before finally going to sleep at 5:30am. Then I woke up at 8am because we needed to do a window job.

I persuaded my benevolent father to leave me alone for a while so he rescheduled the job for 11am.

A good father he is.

About 20 minutes later, I realized I can't sleep at 8:30 in the morning.

I hate Halloween.

Note to Parishes: Thanks for putting the discs in backwards.

If you'd like to read about our Halloween night from a slightly saner person, check out my sister's version at the family blog.