Google Trends: May 28, 2007

Google trends is neat. it shows what ever the most searched for things are through out the day.

Being that it is memorial day and we are not busy at all, we decided to see if we could get something up on the charts. Well we did. we choose cai (the company we work for). We just did a search and kept clicking search. I would say we clicked less than 200 times. Anyway a couple hours later cai shows up at #97, :o)

So now we picked google sucks, just to pick something. We should have picked like "lets be number one". So the two of us clicked search for about 3 minutes straight. lets see what happens.

Google Trends: May 28, 2007

TheForce.Net - Latest News - "'Family Guy' meets 'Star Wars'"

TheForce.Net - Latest News - "'Family Guy' meets 'Star Wars'"

Lucas hints at new Star Wars film - Oh Please, oh please, OH PLEASE!!!

Lucas hints at new Star Wars film - New Zealand's source for entertainment news, gossip & music, movie & book reviews on Stuff.co.nz

Angelina Jolie's Geocache Tattoo « Google Sightseeing

This is pretty geeky cool. She tattooed the coordinates of her adopted and natural children's birth places on her arm!

Huh, I didn't realize that Angelina was so nerdy. I wonder how she came up with this idea...Angelina Jolie's Geocache Tattoo « Google Sightseeing

Google Talk Not displaying the Current Music Track as Status message: « My Collection

Found an easy fix for a small issue I had with WMP not telling Gtalk what I was listening to...Google Talk Not displaying the Current Music Track as Status message: « My Collection

Bump in the right direction...

I had a classed get canceled out from under me again at Delval. The Continueing Ed person said i might be able to take on of the classes online. Hmmm... well I looked at the available courses online and WOW, there are allot that I can take. So this term and any term i can swing it i will be taking all of my classes online.

I have English Lit. which, I am going to be able to scoot by with out a book as the stories we will be reading are all public domain and the questions we have to answer are in the online class room. I did have to buy access to the Elementary Functions class. it was only $52 compared to the $100 or so if I had to buy the book.

The math site is a bit complicated and takes extra plug ins for Internet Explorer (it doesn't work with Firefox) but the English Lit site has a setting for PDAs so I can sit outside of my house and work on my iPAQ :o)

Three column success...

Ah ha! With help from flysheep's show I was able to get the three columns to work...

The Cure RENNES (France) 5 OCT. 1981 LIVE !!!

>
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1vwzQQ-QBAQ

Messing with the layout...

You might be able to see that I am starting to tweak the layout here. So stuff might be broken at times.

I think i found my Social Networking site of choice... del.icio.us

del.icio.us, is more my kind of social networking 'thing'. MySpace, Orkut, and countless others are more for people who like to chat and such. They take up a ton of time. myspace was kind of neat because you can add 'famous' people to your friends and have their cool little icon show up on your list. But, I am not chatty. The site, like I said, takes to much time with little return of anything of use, for me. Kinda cool to look up old friends but then it stops. MySpace will be vacant very soon.

Kyle introduced me to del.icio.us.com. Now this i can use. It is basicly a site to keep your favorites at. When you add a page to your favorites you get to tag it with key words and you can see what others have tagged it with. Back at your home page for del.icio.us you can see how many other people have tagged sites that you have tagged and add people to your network and such. You can then add a button to your browser to access your favorites and sort and search them. Cool for me. It is something useful, get a bit of the 'Friends' thing and it tweaks the little bit of geek in me. I like my blog, I can add stuff here and there and have fun with it. Look at the bottom of this page for my 'cloud' of tags.
Bye

Amazon Stuff...

I put some code in that is supposed to pick up on key words and link to their site. Like if you want Harry Potter, you should be able to click the name and have a little ad pop-up. If you buy the book from my site I would get a little bit of credit. So lets see if it works.

Ahh.. now its working. Just look for links in light green with dotted lines... cool. Not that I think i am going to make money, I just wanted to see it work.

Star Wars

The Cure

This happened at work...

... not to me obviously.

Why MySpace...

... Why (now) am I drawn to this hard-on-the-visual-senses social networking mess? I tried to avoid it. I have ad an account for awhile now just to check out a person's space here and there. I never looked there to much. Most sites are very hard to look at and hard to listen to and well hard to take in altogether.

Wendy (damn you!) showed Sarah how to search for people from school... That's what started me looking just to see who I could find... and then it started. I'll just add that person and this person to my friends list to see if they would respond or remeber me. Then I had to look at the horrible default profile and I think that is when it clicked that if I was going to have a space in MySpace I would have to dress it up a bit and figure out what the deal is.

So I borrowed some layout code and will look at it to see what needs to be done to make it mine. The crazy thing is how many people are doing MySpace and how horrible the UI is. My god! Man, the editing pages and "home" page is choked full of adds and very hard to work with. They don't give you a blank page that you can wipe clean. From what I can tell so far you have to use a hacked up CSS code to hide all of the pre-filled sections and even that code you have to put into the "About field" or one of the others. Weird stuff man...

It looks to be a decent place for bands and other pop culture type things to promote themselves though. In my smattering of real people I have also befriended Mike Vallely and They Might Be Giants. I am still waiting on the Cure and Robert Smith... hmm lets see... Grr... cant get to MySpace from work... ahh, yea. I don't really care... I'll have to have Sarah check my site and see if I get new friends and give me an update on it :/

Anyway, I guess, check out Never A Dull Moment on MySpace .You will have to search for me since the firewall at work will not let Social networking sites filter through. (and make me your friend)

I'll add a link when I am at home.

I still want to check out Google's Orkut.

Disintigration...

Doing my none-on the phone duties here at work today and listening to The CURE. In the book I am reading, the Cure are in between Pornography and The Top. At this time they put out a bunch of singles; Love Cats, The Walk, Lets Go to Bed and some others as they transition to a more pop-ish band. Anyway I just wanted to say that when ever I hear a song from Disintegration it really hits me how great that album was... Give 'Last Dance' a listen if you have it...

3hive - sharing the sharing

I've wanted to look for sites that have new free music available. This is one that I just came across. I haven't had time to look at it in length but I will... 3hive - sharing the sharing

The car story continues...

So i think when we left off in this post'Car fun, car fun, yhea, yhea, yhea...' with "Up next, pick up the Taurus, get the Jetta and hope the Stanza is as good as it feels."

So... Yhea the Stanza is holding up fine the clutch is good and it seems like a nice reliable car again.

The Taurus, yea... well I went to pick it up that night and it still felt like the power steering was out and such. Stupidly i drove it off all the time thinking "nobody is going to buy this car..." i was just getting angry as I went along that I even agreed to take it back. As we got to Main Street in Lansdale the engine light came on and the power started to decrease in the car. I was stopped at a light and again had to make a quick decision about how to handle a dying car while driving it... I started moving forward and the power drained out. I had enough momentum to get around the corner and then I had to open the door and push with one foot... I managed to get it into a side street and parked safely by the curb... Very angry at this point I open the hood and see the serpentine belt sitting in the engine instead of around the pulley things... Sarah is right behind me in the Stanza so we race back to the AAMCO to take care of things. I am done with the Taurus so i get the guy to call a tow truck for it. i also complain a bit and he agrees to do some future work for free. So, we truck back to the Taurus to unload all of our stuff. I try to get the serpentine cable off but the car just wants to keep it. So long taurus. That car was 600 bucks and wasn't not expected to last long but until this day it was pretty much rock solid for the 5 years or so that we had it...

So moving on we get the Jetta. Sarah and get used to the aging clutch and the car is a fun car to drive. Its got the sun roof and the cd player and once you get used to the clutch, it can still get going pretty quickly. Then the engine light started coming on and now a week ago the OIL light started blinking and Buzzing at 2200 RPM. In our fleet of cars we did have a 80 something or 90 jetta that had the same issue. It turned out to be a bad sensor that I was able to replace... I wonder if that is blogged somewhere... I tested out these sensors and could tell if they were bad plus I had put to much oil in and hadn't a chance to drain some of it. Anyway we will be taking that in for the freebie promised by AAMCO. hopefully its not in need of something since our money again is nil.

But what will we do if we have to ground the Jetta? Go back to one car? NO! We have added another car to our fleet. We got a call last week from one of Sarah's friends that her husband was going to give there car away since they were getting another from her Mom... they thought of us first for some reason. So Monday we added a 1996 Plymouth Breeze. Excellent condition with the possibility of a slight oil leak. Its a no frills car but probably the nicest one we have had yet. For now it will sit until we figure out what the Jetta is going to do. Then we may get the Breeze ready to go or see what we can do to just have it with out insurance and registration or something... we will see.

So we end this leg of the story. Jetta going to the shop, Stanza holding steady, and a Breeze in the wings ( Breeze in the wings.... ugh)

Robert Smith lives here... bognor regis - Google Maps

Robert Smith lives somewhere in Bognor Regis - Google Maps

blah, no walk today...

No walk today, Sarah called and we were looking at this math and reading stuff.

When I don't walk I start to get hungry. I scrouged up some change and resisted the call of the Chocolate Jr., and poptarts and got some trail mix. Maybe my Force of Will, is returning. I was also able to keep away from the Duncan Donuts earlier in the week. I have kicked the sugar from my coffee as well.

Dont forget to check out some of the Reader links on the left...

And Mental has overhauled his bloc as well...

Of Bugs and Grass Cutters...

I wanted to log this kind of stuff last year as I was doing my walks but... i didn't.

I found the variety of bugs and birds that I saw at various times of the summer to be amazing.

Bugs: This was the first warm week and i started seeing the little speedy brown spiders on the side walk. As soon as you step in their block they take off for the grass. Of course there are ants. Today it was small black ants and bigger red ants.

Birds: I was reading for most of my walk and forgot to check out the birds today. I know there are robins and doves though.

Some thing I have found with the crew that cuts the grass here. They must have some sort of procedure for what to do when they are cutting near a sidewalk and people are walking on the sidewalk. They all stop at just about the same distance and then when you get a good distance away they start going again... i guess it could just be good judgment but it seems like something more than that.

So they were doing construction on some of the side walk so I had to double back instead of making a loop. I got 2.42 miles at about 3.35 mph.

Ahh... some tidbits from the Cure book. Robert Smith joined the banshees after the banshees had a argument over album signing at a record store. At the bands show later that night the Cure finished there set and a couple Banshee members hadn't shown up. they got the cure to play a couple extra songs (seventeen seconds, which didn't have lyrics yet) and then had the two bands play a couple songs together. later after the banshees couldn't find another bassist, Smith agreed to play with them as long as the Cure stayed as there support band for the tour...

And the GPS says...

... That my 2 lap walk at work turns out to be 2.21 miles! I know last year I was getting 4 laps most days and I remember timing them to be about 10 minutes each. 3 laps should be easy and I'll work back up to the 4 laps by the end of the week. 4 laps 4 miles... lets see there has to be a calorie thing on the net here... Hmm.. about 350.

Looks like my healthy weight is ack! 148lb! I dont think i was ever 148. i think 2 years ago i got down to the high 160s. i think I am in the 180s right now if not 190.

Lets see what i can do..

What do the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the Banshees have in common?

The Banshees first drummer went on to rename himself Sid Vicious... yhea the guy in the Sex Pistols.

All kinds of cool tidbits coming from the Cure book I am reading...

My legs hurt...

i noticed after walking to day that my legs are all tight now...

Yhea, I almost couldn't walk up to the free pizza... thats why i call this trying to lose weight not a diet... I'll decide what an when and how much. It's a conscious thing plus a force of will thing...

Mmmm... cheery coke too...

Back to posting...

This will be short but I have to get back into the daily posting and not just posting things I find on the web.

Over to the left you will see a section of articles that show up in my Feed Reader that I want to point out for one reason or another... click'em they are safe and fun!

I have some back posting to catch up on, what happened to the car situation and some other stuff too.

Today though, I start my diet, well not a diet but an attempt to lose weight. I jumped out to two laps of the huge walk way here at work. I am going to pull the GPS out tomorrow so I can measure the walk. It was nice and I was able to work up a good sweat.

I reinstalled windows last night. Formated the drive and got all the basics loaded back in. I didn't have to back up the music this time though because it is on a separate drive. I loaded WinXP, SP2, all the updates from Microsoft, ZoneAlarm, Avast Anitvirus, the Google Pack, FireFox, and Quicken.

Ray Underhill :: in need of the skateboarding community’s help

I never knew Ray. He always came off as pretty a cool person in videos. I did have a shirt signed by him when we saw the Bones Brigrade in Philly way back when. If you have something to donate go here. Ray Underhill

Ray Underhill, was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, for which he has been
receiving successful treatment. However, as part of his ongoing treatment, Ray and his family will be traveling to California for continued radiation therapy. The travel and medical expenses will be more than what a normal family can afford.

One of skateboarding’s former professionals and great dudes is in need of the skateboarding community’s help

Family Guy - Wikiquote

Family Guy - Wikiquote

R2-D2 Mail Boxes

The Post Office released 400 R2-D2 Mail Boxes into the US. Let me know if you see one so I can get a Picture!
R2-D2 Mail Boxes
USPS website with more info....

'Potter' stalker confronts Hermione at school

I was surprised to see that Emma Watson is only 16. There is hope then that this group will be able to finish of the last two movies with out being in thier 30's. 'Potter' stalker confronts Hermione at school

My oldest post on the internet...

So far this is the oldest post from me I can find on the net...

From February 02, 1996:

--------------------------------------------------
chris faulkner & sarah washington

From: chris faulkner & sarah washington
Date: 1996/02/03
Subject: Re: JOIN MAGIC: THE E-MAIL CLUB!! MEET PEOPLE AND PLAY M:TG BY E-MAIL!!! - netma993.zip [9/11]

i dont understand . help me please what did i just download??
----------------------------------------------------

Google Groups

Look at this awsome sign...

...you can't have any fun at this place. Ok, ok. So its a botanical garden so you are not supposed to treat it like a public park, but still it seems like overkill.

If I had a cell phone...

...this (or something similar) is what I would have...

Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

UFO Crawler...

"UFO Crawler, a new search engine specifically tuned to search for information about the paranormal and unexplained..."

IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition

Car fun, car fun, yhea, yhea, yhea...

So, we put some money aside from our refund to enable us to get two running cars again. We were originally looking at getting the clutch for the 1991 Stanza fixed and putting some money toward the 92 Taurus to keep it going another year. We also had the possibility of 97 Jetta that we were looking at. The Stanza we though would be $500 to $1000 at the most. The Taurus had some work that I though would be $500ish as well. The Jetta was looking good at $800.

IT should happen like this:
1. Stanza gets fixed
2. we check out the Jetta
3. We get the Jetta or fix the Taurus
4. Everybody is happy and unstressed.

Now the fun starts!

Of course nothing happens in an order that would leave time for proper thinking to take place...

We take the Stanza to the place up the street from us. It will drive in third, fourth and 5th and will go in reverse. So we wait while the garage takes its good old time. We take it in Thursday... On Monday I give them a call. they quote $1500!!! We thought they said $500 when the problem originally occurred last year. They grumbled about it not being worth fixing...

We decide to take it to an AAMCO to have it checked out. Still hoping that it can be fixed enough to let us get the Jetta if we like it for $800.

I though we could save some money on towing the Stanza to the AAMCO and would try to drive it to the shop (5 miles). As I started out I though to myself, wow I could have been driving this to work the whole time... That though changed as starting at lights go harder and harder... I then though that it was a bad idea to try to drive the car as I started to slow down people behind me... Then i knew I was in trouble and it would come down to how many times I had to stop/ start. I tried to slow down way before red lights and keep rolling to lessen the stress on the clutch. I had to zip through a yellow at 309 leaving Sarah to stop and we were separated. That inter section has a little hill that I would never have gotten started again from... I hit a couple lights and started to back up traffic. I knew I only had one or two more starts left in the clutch. After one of the lights I got started and then somebody in front of me stopped to turn left. I had to come to a dead stop. I knew this would be the last start... I was on a down slope so at least I got some help there... i made two more green lights and my GPS called out "In 2000 feet, destination on the left." What I could see was one light and then a hill. I was still on a bit of a downslope before the light. I decided to give it gas and cruz through the light up the hill and hope to roll into the AAMCO. I went to accelerate and was meet with nothing... no gears connected... the light was closing and it was green. I decided I wouldn't make it up the hill and made a left at the light and turned into a car wash and it died in the lot... not quite a safe place yet. OK, now quick... i have to flag down Sarah. I Run out to the light to watch for a car with one headlight out (yep). Hmm... maybe she passed by me and my line of traffic. I look up the road toward the AAMCO (2000 freaking feet away) I see a one head lighted car turning left and then going back toward the AAMCO. I took off so that I could try to get there before she decided to leave... Awesome huh... The perfect way to spend a Thursday night!!!

So I made it there. We go back to the Stanza and push it into a parking spot and leave some notes on it. I call and have the AAMCO guy tow it down the next day. We leave it that they will check it out and let me know if it is going to go over a Grand.

We find out that the Jetta owners have fixed the muffler and inspected the car bringing the new price up to $1400... we still go and look at it hoping the stanza might come in under or at $1000. We still had some extra monies if we wanted to go over our budget.

We look at the Jetta and decide that it has gone over our budget and we even toy with getting a used car from the dealer ship that my dad works at.. nothing going there and we resign to putting some money into the Taurus and getting the Stanza fixed.

Ok things seem to have leveled out again...

I call AAMCO on Monday and the guys says the car is almost done and he is just waiting for one part... almost done? But but, I had to go over our conversation and realized that he must have thought I meant start fixing it but we dont want to go much over a thousand and to let us know... Now we were going to get it fixed any but...ugh. So it's $1200 and $1300 something with taxes... fine will pick it up Tuesday.

Part 2 - Taurus

OK, so we will throw the rest of the Money at the Taurus. The next day I call and can drop the Taurus off when we pick up the Stanza. On the way out of my work parking lot I hear a little noise and tell the car that if it can just hold out until tonight we could get it to the shop. The car had come with a bit of a front end problem but nothing to bad. It had developed a mean front wobble though from getting stuck in the ice and hitting some nasty pot holes the last couple years. Anyway I go to accelerate and i hear "POP!" the car starts to run smooth. I thought that I have lost power steering and my battery light is now on. Fearing that I had blown up the battery or something else horrible. I see that the Oil cap is gone, ok well not gone but I had put oil in the other day and left it setting in the engine area and it was still there...I put that back on. I look under the car and don't see anything wrong. maybe I blew a fuse? everything else expect the heater seemed to working normal. I decide to push it and make the ride home and to the shop. When I get home I made the decision to turn the car off. Asecound after I think that was a bad Idea and try to start it up. Blah, nothing. Well it sounds like the battery is dead...what... how... I pop the lid again to check stuff. As I am looking around I seem to remember a big belt is missing. The serpentine belt it turns out to be. The car is going no where now. Ugh. We get a ride to the Stanza and (yea) it works and feels good driving.

The next day I call the shop to have them tow the Taurus. They say it will be $250 to pop the belt on.. wow. and the front end work would at least be $500 (bearings and struts or something or other) ugh now what.... I tell them to hold on for a day as we are getting down low on our car budget. I get the idea to beg. I ask the Jetta owners to consider lettings us give them 800 and pay the rest off. They agree (whew) and I call back AAMCO to pay for the towing and figure out how to scrap the car. The guy says that he put the belt on so he could drive it out and if I could cover that cost I could take the car ($150) you did what... Why do people have to do things to put me confrontations? He wouldn't back down from that weird. just when I though I was liking the guy. Phone calls are made, much stress is built and we decide we will take it and try to sell it for $200 or park it for an 'emergency car'.

So now we sit with getting the Jetta Tomorrow and scraping buy until we get paid on the 15th... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Up next, pick up the Taurus, get the Jetta and hope the Stanza is as good as it feels.
To be continued...

Our monthly ER visit...

So I was removing Ruby from the Kitchen so that Sarah could talk on the phone with out Ruby hanging on her and screaming and Ruby started to hit me. I grabbed her arm and held it at her side and she made a motion to pull it free. I didn't let go... A couple hours later at Abington Hospital we left with a split and a sling for Ruby. No, nothing was broken, actually the x-rays didn't show any problems and the Dr. couldn't seem to pop anything back into relieve the pain or Ruby was just scarred and though it still hurt. Anyway 3 days later and the split came off and all is well...

side note: a women in the Broken Bone waiting room (a room we have never been to until now) offered Ruby some Orange Tic-Tacs. Ruby, of course didn't hesitate in gobbling them up.

Never A Dull Moment's Search Engine : devshots.com : Personal Google Search Engine

Here it is my own Search engine...

It may or may not be there if you look...

Never A Dull Moment's Search Engine : devshots.com : Personal Google Search Engine

Date night...

So Sarah I went out on a late valentines date night. The plan was to go to Rock Bottom at the King of Prussia mall and then head back to the Valley Forge Beef & Ale for comedy night from Chuckles Comedy Club. Well When we got to Rock Bottom it was an hour wait. So we changed gears and went back to Bertucci's which was near the Valley Forge Beef & Ale. The acts were funny, each one a bit more comfortable than others with being on stage.

Anyway.. once it was done we jumped on the iPAQ and the chat application that I have. We found our friend Kyle and chatted with him abit. We found a place that had Karaoke but it was getting to late and we had to head home for the kids...

Chatting with Kyle via the iPAQ from our night out...

Ear Scope turns wax removal into primetime entertainment

If there's one thing more satisfying than picking one's nose, it's shoving a finger or Q-tip deep into your ear canal and emerging with that big hunk of wax which has been muffling your hearing for the last few weeks. Now ear cleaning is usually part of a multi-tasked routine -- you dig around in there while watching TV, taking a bath, or sitting in a meeting -- but if you'd like to take your aural hygiene to the next level of fun and excitement, Japan's Coden has just the tools to kick it up a notch. Imagine if you can the wild and crazy times you could have with the company's line of Ear Scopes, which combine a pick with a small video camera and allow you to actually watch what's going on while you scrape ...

Click the link at the top left of my blog to see the picture....

"Cancelled" or "Canceled?"

I was sending an e-mail to a client today in which I had to Cancel a service request. I ran a spell check on my template in word and then in GroupWise(e-mail). GroupWise wanted to correct 'cancelled' to 'canceled' and Word didn't care which way you spelled it.

A quick web search found that both are correct...

"Cancelled" or "Canceled?"

YouTube - Play Atari 2600 Games on Your Pocket PC or Smartphone

YouTube - Play Atari 2600 Games on Your Pocket PC or Smartphone

What would you do... ?

**********Spoiler Alert **********
If you ever hope to read or listen to the last four books in my Listening to section do not read this. This involves one of the main plot points of those books.

********** You have been warned **********

In the last four books I have been listening to the following basic situation has been developing:

- Petra and "Bean" decide to have a baby by Invetro fertilization.
- They have 6 embryos, one they use and 5 they have stored.
- 5 are stolen and implanted into other 'hosts'
- There baby is born, 2 weeks early.
- They are able to track down at least one of the other babies that are born(so far)
? What would you do. Do you feel like you have the right to now take back your babies if you can find them?

Here are the rest of the details:
- "Bean" was a test tube baby. His DNA was altered in a way that makes him ultra intelligent but he is also going to die before he is 20 of giantism.
- The DNA will pass on to most of his offspring. They were having Invetro so they could try to test the embryos and make sure they did not pass on the DNA.
- The person they were have test the embryos was the person that changed the DNA and created Bean.
- He did not have a real test(but said he did), Petra figured this out but she was desperate to have Beans baby and did not let him know that she suspected this.
- The Dr. was working for a crazy guy that was trying to take over the world.
- After Petra was impregnated the other embryos were "stolen" and deals were made with either a mother or father to carry the carry and deliver the babies. They were given a code that when received they were supposed to move. They would have to move when it was discovered that they had one of the embryos.

So basically the embryos, which Petra hoped to use after bean was dead to have more babies,were kidnapped. One of the characters says this and adds that now you are getting back what is yours...

It's still odd. I really thought that Petra would not be able to take the baby away from the first mother that she went to see. The deal there was that the father was sterile and they were going to use invetro themselves. The wife did not know of that she was carrying one of Bean and Petra's babies.

Oh, when they get all of the babies and they are found to have the changed DNA the plan is to send them in a ship at near light speed and then bring them back. Traveling at that speed away from the earth would feel like a couple months for them as hundreds of years passed on the earth. Back on earth they would continue to try and cure the disease...

So would you be able to take the babies... do they have a right to take the babies... What if they did not have the altered DNA...

[From Google Reader] Extreme Parking

This item was sent to you by cfaulkner@gmail.com from Google Reader. Extreme Parking Parking in the Hague has got so difficult that some people are having to take extreme measures - parking on the side of buildings! This is actually the work of artist Theo van Laar, who has continued the car park markings up the wall and attached a gravity-defying Mini. At night time the car's headlights even light up! You can see the work from the ground during the day or at night. Thanks: caelestis & Google Earth Blog Categories: Weirdness, Other Vehicles and Netherlands View in Google Earth ... Source: http://googlesightseeing.com/2007/02/12/extreme-parking/ If you no longer wish to receive message like this, please contact the sender. Try Google Reader today: http://www.google.com/reader/

--
-=Chris Faulkner=-
cfaulkner@gmail.com
ossus.blogspot.com
"Peace, it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

So, I hit a deer last night...

Driving home from my parent's house last night I caught a flash of a deer coming across the road to my left. I hit the breaks and as the car screeched along I felt like I had perfectly lead the deer into the line of fire. Bump, bump. I think I hit him pretty solid. Didn't clip is front or back legs, just a solid square hit. It looked like, to me and Sarah, that guts and blood went flying as we hit and he fell on the hood. At that point I didn't see what happened I pulled over to the side looking in the rear view to make sure nobody was behind me and to locate the dear. I was sure he was going to be laying on the ground. A car drove up and asked if we were ok. The deer was not there... Sarah says it flipped and landed upside down, got up and then took off into the woods. I imagined the deer running along with its guts hanging out... bleh. I got out to take a look at the front of the car... no blood or guts. Just some deer hair and a dented hood and broken left turn signal cover (tiny grrr).

Sarah took some of the hair and lit a candle for the deer. I would think he was hurt but maybe it looked worse than it was.

TheForce.Net - Latest News - Simpsons Star Wars End Credits

TheForce.Net - Latest News - Simpsons Star Wars End Credits

Last weeks episode of the Simpson's ended with credits dedicating the episode to all who had died in the Star Wars films. The lit of names includes Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Greedo, and so much more. Click here to check it out on Youtube.com.

Groundhog .org - the Official Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club

Groundhog .org - the Official Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club

	2007 INFO | FAQ | INNER CIRCLE | CELEBRATE | JOIN THE CLUB | MEDIA | HOME PAGE GROUNDHOG STUFF | PUNXSUTAWNEY.COM | PHIL'S PREDICTION | VIDEO Questions? Contact us! Site Design by Freed Multimedia

[From Google Reader] Buzzing, copter-inspired Blowfly alarm clock goes on sale

Buzzing, copter-inspired Blowfly alarm clock goes on sale Filed under: HouseholdWe see far too many fabulous ideas that simply never make it to market for one reason or another, but after a lengthy stint in proverbial purgatory, the Blowfly alarm clock has hit production. The design looks a bit more mainstreamed that previous conceptions, but the functionality remains in tact and looks to be the perfect annoyance to force you to rise in the early AM. Sporting a shiny black base, blue backlit LCD, large-format numbers, and the obligatory mini-copter launcher, this alarm clocks purportedly blasts the chopper into the air whenever you're supposed to awake, and unless you get up, catch the flying object, and place it back into the clock, that awful screeching nose simply will not cease. So if you're the world's worse snooze abuser, and you don'... Source:

Mill Ends Park - The smallest park in the world was built to be a colony for leprechauns

Mill Ends Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Mill Ends Park

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Mill Ends Park, the smallest park in the world

Mill Ends Park in Portland, Oregon is a small park that was created on St. Patrick's Day, 1948, to be a colony for leprechauns and a location for snail races. It is the smallest park in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records, which first granted it this recognition in 1971. The "park" is a circle two feet (610 mm) across (with a total area of 452 in ² (0.2916 m²) in a traffic median which in 1948 was intended to be the site for a light pole. When this failed to appear and weeds sprouted in the opening, Dick Fagan, a columnist for the Oregon Journal, planted flowers in the hole and named it after his column in the paper, "Mill Ends". (Fagan's office in the Journal building overlooked the median in the middle of the busy thoroughfare that ran in front of the building and was then known as SW Front Avenue.)

Fagan told the story of the park's origin as follows: He looked out the window and spotted a leprechaun digging in the hole. He ran down and grabbed the leprechaun, which meant that he had earned a wish. Fagan said he wished for a park of his own; but since he had not specified the size of the park in his wish, the leprechaun gave him the hole. Over the next two decades, Fagan often featured the park and its head leprechaun, named Patrick O'Toole, in his whimsical column.

Fagan died of cancer in 1969, but the park lived on, cared for by others. It was named an official city park in 1976. Mill Ends Park is located at SW Naito Parkway and SW Taylor in downtown Portland. As of February 2006, the park was temporarily relocated to Two World Trade Center Plaza in downtown Portland (about 80 feet from its old location) due to a major construction project on SW Naito Parkway. Portland Parks officials said it would be returned to a site about seven and half feet east of its original location following completion of the project, expected in July 2006.

The small circle has featured many unusual items through the decades, including a swimming pool for butterflies (complete with diving board), a horseshoe, a fragment of the Journal building and a miniature Ferris wheel (which was delivered by a regular-sized crane).

The park was moved to the Two World Trade Center in early 2006 until construction on the Big Pipe project is complete.^[1]

Go here for more info: Mill Ends Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Somebody wondered if Girl Scout cookies were tax deductable... Yes and No read on...

Frequently Asked Questions: Girl Scout Cookies®

Q: Is the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies tax-deductible?

A: No and Yes.

• No, if the customer keeps the cookies. Individuals who buy Girl Scout Cookies and take the cookies home, or consume them, have purchased a product at a fair market value. For this reason, no part of the price of a box of Girl Scout Cookies used in this way is tax-deductible.



• Yes, if the customer leaves the cookies with Girl Scouts. Many Girl Scouts ask customers to pay for one or more boxes of cookies for use in their community service project, for example, collecting for a food pantry. The customers not receiving any Girl Scout Cookies do not benefit directly from paying for them. Those individuals may treat the purchase price of the donated cookies as a charitable contribution.

TouchScreen, iPhone!, and xmas gifts...

It's been a while since the last posting. Christams week my touch screen on the iPAQ wnet out again and today it came back... I thought I would just order a new screen at some point but now I am worried that it is something else.

Now that the screen is working by touch again the GPS I just got should be more enjoyable. Speaking of thouch screens, did you see the Apple iPhone? Wow. Nice. If I had the money for the cell plan and the phone I think I would hop on that puppy. I think that Windows mobile will get a nice slick look in the next year or so but for now the iPhone and its all touch (well almost all) screen is by it self. The only small down side is that you can not add applications to it. It has tones of stuff you can do though... Very slick, very nice.

Here is some shots of some gifts I got from my parents. As you can see they cover all of my favorite things in one form or another...

Gifts from 2006 xmas

The Ender saga strikes again...

Every time I crack open Ender's Game, I have to then read the whole thing plus Speaker for the Dead and finish with Xenocide. This time around I am listening to the Audio books and am taking every opportunity to listen. I am working my way through Xenocide and the people doing the read do an incredible job.

Happy Yule...

Pics from our 2006 Yule Day...

Solstice Day Activities 2006

I think I would go here...

Tunisia shares 'Star Wars' set

http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/travel/stories/MYSA121006.1Q.starwars.245729f.html

My touchscreen's back and you're gonna be in trouble

I don't know why or how. But I was listening to Ender's Game on my iPaq this morning and I brushed the screen... and the audio stopped!!! That sounds bad but, its supposed to stop when you touch the screen!!!

It's back, it's back

Halleulah, halleulah, halleullllaaaaahhh...

It went away and you hung around
And bothered me, every night
And with I wouldn't go out with you
You said things that weren't very nice

My touchscreen's back and you're gonna be in trouble
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
You see it comin' better cut out on tit double
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
You been spreading lies that I was untrue
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
So look out now cause it's comin' after you

(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
(hey, it knows that you been tryin')
(And it knows that you been lyin')

it's been gone for such a long time
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
Now it's back and things'll be fine
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
You're gonna be sorry you were ever born
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
Cause it's kinda big and it's awful strong
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)

(it knows I wasn't citatin'!)
(Now you're gonna get a beatin'!)

(What made you think it'd believe all your lies?)
(Wah-ooo, wah-ooo)
(You're a big man now but it'll cut you down to size
(Wah-ooo, wait and see)

My touchscreen's back it's gonna save my reputation
(hey-la-day-la my touchscreen's back)
If I were you I'd take a permanent vacation
(hey-la, hey-la, my touchscreen's back)

Yeah, my touchscreen's back
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Look out now, yeah, my touchscreen's back
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
I could see it comin'
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
So you better get a runnin'
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Alright now
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
(La-day-la, my boyfriends's back)
My touchscreen's back now
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)

[Fades]

Know it's comin' after you
(La-day-la, my touchscreen's back)
Because it knows I've been true now...

Smell memories brought on by songs...

I am listening to music via my Orb server today at work.

Witch in the Ditch by Erasure just came on and my nose seemed to fill with the smells of Domino's Pizza and the way my car smelled from making pizza deliveries. I can almost even see Norristown as I would drive around and listen to Erasure almost non-stop...

Weird...

AllofMP3.com to Be Shut Down...

Sorry to see this place go. I had bought some music from hear about two years ago. It was like 1.50 for a whole album.

AllofMP3.com to Be Shut Down
Under new political deal between U.S. & Russia
Posted 2006-11-29 08:38:56 by Karl · tags: [Fileswapping] [legal] [Politics] [world]

For some time the United States has been applying political pressure in order to get Russia to shut down allofMP3.com, the country's hugely popular on-line DRM-free discount music store. Slashdot points to an official document (pdf) that outlines an agreement where Russia will shut down allofMP3.com (and any sites like it) in exchange for being let into the WTO.

"nah"

I was like "so I guess I'll blog...". I get already and then I'm like "nah"

C.R. Stecyk III - DogTown godfather - rough cut deleted scene

This clip is a very rough cut of a deleted segment from the DogTown and Z-Boys documentary that talks about the original DogTown articles that C.R. Stecyk III wrote for the original SkateBoarder magazine. It begins with some material that will be familiar to those who have seen the film, in it's rough cut form, but then goes on to show various quotes from the stories and an entire scene that is an homage to the DogTown godfather Craig Stecyk that was cut from the film. Craig Stecyk is the reason the DogTown Z-Boys became famous. Stecyk is the one who wrote the stories and took some of the very first photos of the Z-Boys that were seen across the globe. His words inspired legions and helped shape skateboarding into the sport/art it is known as to this day. Those interviewed in this clip include Craig Stecyk, Henry Rollins, Jeff Ament, Ian MacKaye, Glen E. Friedman, Marc Reiter, Stacy Peralta, Nathan Pratt, Jake Phelps (Thrasher magazine), Fran Richards (Transworld magazine).

Fall 2006 photos to look at

Picasa Web albums is pretty neat. Here are some pics from this Falls festivals.

Halloween/ Fall 2006

Nooooooooo.... iPAQ touchscreen loses touch...

So... Friday I turn off my RadioTiki Podcast on the iPaq and slip it into my coat pocket and head into the house. Later that night everybody is out and I go to get the iPaq to update my music. I turn it on and tap the screen to turn the wireless on and nothing happens... I tap it again, nothing. I quickly use the control pad and make my way to the align screen application. Still nothing it wont register a screen touch :o(

I soft reset it and still no touch. I go and back up the iPaq and hit the hard Reset. Now its worse I am stuck at the welcome screen that says "tap the screen to set up your pocketPC". I tap, it does nothing. I press the selectino button and it takes me to the align screen set up screen. Now I am dead in the water.

I get online with HP and the guy has me soft and hard reset, download the latest ROM update and install that... of course nothing works. We get around to ok you need to send it in for repair. Cool, is it covered be warranty. We check the serial number... Your warranty ran out August 6th... Dread... bummer. Can I close the call... Pshsh, sure I click the close call button.

I look around for do it your self fixes. the cheapest will be 85$ for a touch screen since its not cracked. That does not include instructions(why?) and they say that this is the hardest repair to do. Or $104 to send it to them and have them do it. So I do some more searching on how to get around the align screen to at least have a little usability untill I can get it repaired and I can't find a thing. It will be Christmas if I am lucky to get it repaired so much for the GPS I was hoping to get for it.

So over the weekend I keep trying hard resets to see if it would pop back to life. I also read that sometimes the cable can come loose for the screen. So I hold my breath and remove the screws and pop open the case. Everything is so small. Then the camera cable comes unplugged, that was easy enough to plug back in though. I find the screen cable and unplug and replug but it is still not working. I see something else that says that there can be wear on the cable also. So by sunday I have taken almost the whole thing apart and put it back together and it stil "works".

Sunday night again everybody falls out and I am looking for screen repair tips. I come accross away around the align screen.
1. Do a hard reset
2. Sync with the PC, making a generic partnership
3. On the PC browse to the iPAQ. Windows/welcome.exe(or whatever the file extension is) and delete it.
4. Soft reset the iPAQ and wahoo we are the iPAQs desktop.

Now you can use a remote connection application to control your pocketPC from your PC and another application called FakeCursor to use the "d-pad' like a mouse pad on a laptop.

So now I can use the iPaq again untill I get the repair done. I can't play my Worms game as it requires taps to set up games but I can do everything else. Text entry is the other slow part...

All though this puppy is pretty sweet HP iPAQ rx5915 Travel Companion

Jedi costume...

So the Luke costume ended up being a tuff one to pull off in a pinch. What Sarah was able to assist in putting together for me was a Jedi costume. My first ever. I think it turned out well. It makes me want to dig in and get more detailed with it...


Check out the pics... I still want to get them in photo shop and jazz them up a bit.

Jedi Outfit

So I am going to try to pull off a cheezy Luke costume

So am going to try to pull off a quick Luke Skywalker costume for a party over the weekend. Ill post what ever it is I end looking like.

Finished Microserfs today...

So I went to the cafeterria to finish up Microserfs. It's kind of neat to read Microserfs and jPod right after one another. They both have the same feel but one is from the begging of the internet boom and jPod is more current. Both about very smart "geeky" people looking for a "real" life other then just codeing.

The thing is I had 20 pages togo and was ready to be done and move on to something different and then wham... the last 10 pages of the book have me almost in tears in the middle of the caffeteria. I really didnt see it coming. It's not a tottally said ending but not what I expected.

Anyway check em out if you would like to look into the coders world.

DJing would be fun...

We went to my sisters wedding this weekend. At the reception the DJ was set up with a laptop and a small selection of Cd's. Now if that was me I would get a wireless any ware card for the laptop so that if I could not have a regular wireless connection I could at least get on with the other type(Verizon, T-Mobile and what ever else is out there). I would then also have an iTunes or some music service or multiple services. I would ditch the box of Cd's and if somebody requested a song I would just go online and buy it and add it to my collection.

I requested 'Move your Feet' by Junior Senior (YouTube it and you''ll get to see the video) for Ruby. The song is on one of our DRR (dance, dance revolution) games. We used to DDR Ruby to sleep and Sarah even DDRd while pregnant. Anyway, he didn't have it (and could not get it I guess). I said I have it can I give it to you. Sure. I have it on my iPAQ. 'Does your laptop have bluetooth?' I got a blank stare back from him. It probably did and I either shocked him with the question or he never used it before. OK, how about an SD slot. Yep it had that. So he got the song of the SD card and played the song a bit later.

The second the song started Ruby recognized it and ran up to the dance floor. It's always nice to interject some music that nobody has ever heard before.

So that was my 'gadget moment' of the weekend...

Neat optical illusions page

Duck/Bunny

Cool illusions, warning there are some nudes

Just something neat someone(not me) did...

Something neat with books. The person used the same application as google maps

http://www.microtyp.org/

What a name...

A pro-Skater from my time, Christian Hosoi had a son recently. They named him Christian Classic Hosoi

Interesting but this guy always seemed snooty to me...

Blog Juice Calculator ?

Im not quite sure what this is but it looks interesting. Actually it is some sort of blog rating.



I am going to put it in my side bar of stuff

Reason for the infrequent posts... like anyone cares

Whew.. I have been working on these MS Office courses at work in the morning when I ussually BLOG so that why I have not updated for a while... I squeeze some stuff in here and there...

Google Docs beta...

Google just added a wordprocesser to there list of online apps. I have been using the online spread sheet and now can do text docs as well. It doesnt seem like much but MS Office does way more than I'll ever need. If I could ever uninstall it and just use web apps I would...

http://docs.google.com/

Wahoo... it works. I can now sync the iPaq to Google Calendar

OK, well it's cool for me.

I can now enter a date in google calender and then sync it to my iPaq calander.

I can even give access to my calendar to Sarah and she can enter an appointment and then I will have a reminder once I sync up...

Here is how it works.

Google Calendar syncs with ScheduleWorld.com which i use sync4j on the iPaq to sync with. No more middle man of using Outlook on the PC.

mmm...free pizza at work...

I think I'll gorge out and then go home and regurgitate for the family...

Possible sync solution from Google Calendar to outlook to iPaq

http://engtech.wordpress.com/2006/08/11/the-holy-grail-of-synchronization-how-to-synchronize-microsoft-outlook-multiple-locations-google-calendar-gmail-ipod-and-mobile-phone-with-funambol-scheduleworld/

Wooo... crazey late updates...

Here is the skinny...

Got to skate last week or so at the Radnor Park. Very nice day didn't get hurt and hit all of my basics on the mini-ramp.

Ahhh... skimmed through another super tight payperiod and started on another.

Had a great yearly review at work. Got promoted to a HDA2 which I think is a 4% pay increase and then got a 2 for my overall review and that can be another 3 to 4%. Anything will help!

Gryphon turned 7... (I had seen StarWars by his age. Not saying that he should see it yet, just thinking about the age releationship.) We ROCKED Giggleberry Fair(google it) and then slid home for family B-Day party.

Sarah and I are looking for our Project Runway fix. No new show for two weeks. And, AND there were no new American Dad, Family Guy and the new show to our line up the Simpsons.

Uhh.. I started reading Another Douglas Coupland book, Microserfs. It's just a filler untill the library gets the next Star Wars book. They are developing the first new Sith Lord since Darth Vader. Almost 30 years since A new Hope and about 45+ years in the Star Wars timeline...

Thats it for now... lets see next up is Wendy's wedding, Holloween, moms bday, Ruby's b-day, Sarahs b-day, thanksgiving... then and then all of the December stuff

One big frigg'n SkatePark in the Caymens

Take a look at this monster of a park.

3 Fun Days... Movie, CAI Picnic, and Ren Fair

The pictures for this post got a bit wonky...I may fix them at some point.
Well we made up for our not-so-fun-summer this weekend.

First Sarah and I had a night out with out the kids. We hit Rock Bottom. We got our traditional big plate-o-nachos, I had two of the seasonal beers, Rocktoberfest. Since it was my tenth visit I also got a Rock Bottom pint glass. We had a good time and then cruzed around the mall to kill some time.

I got to play with the new 80gig iPod. That this is sweet...

Then we went and saw Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I though it was a decent Will Ferral movie (he's one of our favorites)

Saturday was the CAI Celebration of Excellance picnic. CAI allways has decent events and picnics and such. This one was in Bellview State park in DE. They presented awards and had food and it was just a nice day. They always keep the kids in mind as well.

Sunday we got up and went to the Ren Fair near New Hope and Doylestown. We went last year as well. It's a great little event. Kids under 8 are free, adults are only $5. They have a ton of stuff for k ids todo as well as the normal ren fair type things.

electronic mail, Email, email, eMail...

I like consistancy in things I do/ type. I have been trying different style of the word email. I saw a VP's email one time and he had electronic mail, which, is very smooth but way to long to type in short notes.

I've decided on e-mail from now on.

Yea for me!

e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,
e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,
e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail,e-mail.

Chris Faulkners in the NEWS #1

What are the other Chris Faulkners of the world doing...

Quizdom to increase class interaction
-ACU Optimist Online

Murder scene for sale
-Toronto Star

from CNN :: Revenge theory in stingray attacks

People are strange...

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- At least 10 stingrays have been found dead and mutilated on Australia's eastern coast since "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was killed by one of the animals last week, an official said Tuesday, prompting concerns of revenge attacks on the normally docile fish.

Read more here...

Refreshed the iPAQ...

Well my iPAQ was acting really bogged down, movies had a hard time playing and the wireless headphones had a really bad connection. I did a back up of the main things (contacts and calandar) , deleted everything off of the iPAQ file store (this stuff will not delete with a hard reset) and did the hard reset (a hard reset sets the iPaq to how it was new so nothing is hogging up the memory).

Now that it was back to its zippy self I reinstalled my essential applications:

- SPB Pocket Diary <- Pulls all the SPB stuff together nicely on the main screen.
- SPB Pocket Weather <- Just the weather
- SPB Pocket Plus <- Allows you to view your contacts, calandar, etc in a nicer format.
- SPB Pocket Finance <- syncs with Quicken, its a electronic checkbook
- SPB Pocket Backup <- backs up all the info
- SPB Pocket Time <- Just some clocks
- SPB Imageer <- Photo veiwer and editor, like a tiny photoshop

- Illum Software eWallet <- organizes my passwords and other accounts and such

- Skype <- I can call out to land lines with this

- Microsoft .NET CF 2.0 <- other apps require this

- Jamdat Worms <- best game I have played on the PPC so far

- TranCreative Magic Button <- When you click the X on PPC programs it leaves them running but just minimizes them, the MAgic Button actually closes them instead

- And my drivers for the bluetooth wireless headset <- I hate wires

HP's next iPAQ Mobile Media Companion- rx4000

As mentioned before I have the iPAQ rx3715 Mobile Media Companion.

Check out the next generation it is very nice...

'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin Killed by Stingray

Sept. 4, 2006 — Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

Go here for the rest of the story

Blogger Beta opened up the HTML editing page...

... I just dont feel like getting into that right now...

New stuff from Picasa Web

Everybody knows Flikr. It was bought by Yahoo! and is there online photoalbum thing. Well google is bringing there along, PicasaWeb. It is still in beta and does not have many features yet. I decided since i have most other things google I might as well keep it in the family...

They had a new option on my album site to embed an album in your Blog/mySpace site. So over to the left is my first test of that.

PicasaWeb

Google Image Labeler :: Good addictive fun

Now this is fun. I ugess google wanted people to start tagging all the images that Google has links to. So they created a game out of it. You go got the site, sign in and then when you start they match you with another person for like a minute and a half. Both of you start typing words that match what is in the picture. When you both type the same words it moves to the next image. You gets point for each match... you dont really get anything but its addicting as anything.

Google Image Labeler

2gb SD card for under $20 after rebate... wohooo

Wow...under $40 for a 2gb SD card!!! Sweet.

Cough..xmas present idea cough....

After the rebate its under $20...

Outpost.com��|��Secure Digital

Mental :: Man-Who-Ran-With-Tornado

I don't know what you call him friend, acquaintance, person I know. Whatever i would call him I can now also call him Man-Who-Ran-With-Tornado.

Check out Mental's Tornado experience and his new Jeep accessory, a Tree.

After you look at that page of pics go to his main blog to read about it.

PocketPCFreeware : QMAIL 2.9.25

PocketPCFreeware : QMAIL 2.9.25

Sock Monkey Fingerboard

I got a new fingerboard last night, yhea I said fingerboard. Ya got something to say about that?

Anyway, it's a smooth sock monkey graphic.

Go here for techdeck's site.

Jumped to the beta version of Blogger...

So, its a new look untill they unlock the HTML editing feature. You have to pick a normal template to use all of the new features and they save your old template if you want to switch back...

So cool.

Haduri - Pen Tricks - Google Video

Pen tricks. Wahoo!! There are people like me in the world!!!

Haduri - Pen Tricks - Google Video

Mostly Skateboarding

Mostly Skateboarding

Cicada Killer Wasp attacks our home...

Sarah and I gallantly defended our home from a monster Cicada Killer at Midnight last night. While the helpless children slept we risked our lives to bring this KILLER to rest. After it shrugged off a pounding from a pillow that would have stunned or killed a normal pesky insect the KILLER landed on the wall close to a innocently sleepy Ruby. This provoked Sarah into a fit of rage and with red eyes glowing she advanced on the C Killer with a book-on-tape case. The bug had no time to flinch as she crunched the monster against the wall. She turned growling that it was still buzzing. She turned back to her prey and viciously pounded the box against the insect. As she drew the box away from the wall the Killer was stuck to the box and the things juices dripped down the wall. Happy with her kill she flung it out the window... I wiped the evidence from the wall and we slept in piece...


Hmm...Seems as though the female rarely stings and the male can not sting...

Ohio State University Extension Factsheet
Entomology
1991 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1000
Cicada Killer Wasp
HYG-2078A-97

William F. Lyon
Common Name Scientific Name
Cicada Killer Wasp, Giant Cicada Killer or Sand Hornet Sphecius speciosus (Drury)

Although female Cicada Killer Wasps rarely sting unless disturbed, homeowners may become alarmed or frightened because of their very large size (nearly two inches) and foraging habits in unwanted areas. These solitary wasps may become a nuisance when they dig holes in lawns, sand base volleyball courts, flower beds, gardens, and golf course sand traps, kicking out a six to eight inch diameter horseshoe-shaped pile of dirt (mound) around the nest entrance. Males have especially aggressive territorial behavior, but have no sting. Females are difficult to provoke, can sting, but rarely do. The female wasps are not aggressive and control is rarely needed except in unwanted places. Adults appear in mid to late summer (July and August) causing special concern to individuals with young children.
Identification

The adult cicada killer is a very large (1-1/8 to 1-5/8 inches long), robust wasp with a black body marked with yellow across the thorax (middle part) and on the first three abdominal (rear part) segments. The head and thorax are rusty red and the wings russet yellow (brownish). Legs are yellowish. Coloration may resemble yellowjacket wasps.
Life Cycle and Habits

Solitary wasps (such as a cicada killer) are very different than the social wasps (hornets, yellowjackets and paper wasps). Cicada killer females use their sting to paralyze their prey (cicadas) rather than to defend their nests. The female wasps are non-aggressive and rarely sting unless touched, caught in clothing, disturbed by lawn equipment, etc. Though males aggressively defend nesting sites, they have no sting. Adults feed on flower nectar and sap exudates.

These wasps are commonly seen in late summer skimming around the lawn, shrubs and trees searching for cicadas. Cicadas are captured, paralyzed by a sting and used for food to rear their young. After stinging a large cicada, the female wasp drags it up a tree, straddles it and takes off toward the burrow, partly gliding. When trees are not available, the cicada (prey) is dragged to the burrow on the ground. Cicadas are very large insects, sometimes called "locusts." They sing loudly (noisily) in trees during late summer. Overwintering occurs as a mature larva within a leathery, brown cocoon in an earthen cell. Pupation occurs in the spring lasting 25 to 30 days. Adult wasps emerge about the first week in July in Ohio. Emergence continues throughout the summer months. Adults live about 60 to 75 days (mid-July to mid-September) while they dig new nesting holes (burrows) in full sun where vegetation is sparse in light, well-drained soils. Eggs are deposited in late July through August. Eggs hatch in one to two days and larvae complete their development in 4 to 14 days. There is only one generation per year.
Burrows & Nests

There may be many individuals flying over a lawn, but each female digs her own burrow six to ten inches deep and one-half inch wide. (They do not nest together.) The soil is dislodged by her mouth and loose particles are kicked back as a dog would dig. The excess soil thrown out of the burrow forms a U-shaped mound at the entrance, causing unsightly mounds of earth on the turf. This ground-burrowing wasp may be found in sandy soils to loose clay in bare or grass covered banks, berms, hills as well as raised sidewalks, driveways and patio slabs. Some may nest in planters, window boxes, flower beds, under shrubs, ground cover, etc. Nests usually are made in the full sun where vegetation is sparse, especially in well-drained soils. Occasionally they establish in golf course sand traps. (A very gravelly or bare area is preferred.)

Cicada Killer Wasps may tunnel as much as six inches deep and another six inches horizontally. At the end of the burrow are usually three to four cells where one to two cicadas are placed in each cell with one egg. If all the cells are filled, secondary tunnels are constructed and provisioned. A single burrow may eventually have 10 to 20 cells.
Control Measures

Occasionally, homeowners, especially in southern and southwestern Ohio become flustered in attempting to eliminate nuisance, massive populations from lawns. Cicada Killer Wasps normally arrive the last week in July and are gone by the second week of August. Wasps may become unbearable causing homeowners not to use their backyard during the day due to these wasps flying (skimming) around the lawn, shrubs and trees searching for cicadas.

One woman mentioned that she and her husband had killed over 50 wasps with tennis rackets, used five pounds of carbaryl (Sevin) dust in the nest entrances, and employed a pest control operator several times with little noticeable decrease in outdoor populations. They mow their grass in the evening (after 8:00 PM), and keep their children indoors much of the time until the Cicada Killer Wasp season is over.

Usually it is not necessary to control cicada killer wasps unless their presence is a nuisance. Sometimes these wasps can be troublesome in high traffic home and commercial areas such as berms around swimming pools, near planters at door entrances, flower beds, golf course greens and tees, and other unwanted areas. Sometimes they may fly erratically near people, causing fear. Males may actually defend their territory by dive bombing people's heads and shoulders!
Insecticides

Many insecticides are labeled for wasp control. If control is necessary, locate the nests during the daylight hours. Treat after dark or before dawn when female wasps are in their nests and it is cool, ideally less than 60 deg F. During darkness, use a flashlight covered with red cellophane for lighting. Wear protective clothing. Males roost on plants near burrow sites, and are best controlled by capturing in an insect net during the day.

One can apply bendiocarb (Ficam), carbaryl (Sevin), or diazinon dust onto each nest entrance if the infestation is not too widespread. Do not disturb the burrow as the female must walk through the dust in order to get a challenging dose of the insecticide. If the entire lawn is involved (10 to 20 or more burrows), a spray with the same insecticides may be more practical. Repeat treatments may be needed for two to three weeks if new wasps move into the area. At close range, adults can be killed with a wasp aerosol of synergized pyrethrins or resmethrin as they light on foliage or enter the nest burrow. The professional, licensed pest control operator should be used especially if one is sensitive to possible stings. Other materials labeled for wasp control include acephate (Orthene), allethrin, amorphous silica gel (Drione), chlorpyrifos (Dursban), cyfluthrin (Tempo), cypermethrin (Demon, Cynoff), fenvalerate, permethrin, propoxur and resmethrin. Before using any insecticide, always read the label directions to confirm current listing of pests, and follow safety precautions.

All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Keith L. Smith, Director, Ohio State University Extension.

TDD # 1 (800) 589-8292 (Ohio only) or (614) 292-1868

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Just in case ** Heather dont look at this link **

Like something out of a horror movie these catapillers took over this yard with there web nest...

This link thanks to Mental from the other blogs I list here.

Site with good PPC links and info

What Can I Do With My Axim? or iPaq in my case.

I'm also addicted to bobbies...

I got this picture from CNN. These are some officers in England checking the home of the terrorists (good job guys). But the odd thing, well not odd, is that they really do still wear those helmet/ hats. I never really thought of it and then I looked at this picture and it was like the only thing I could focus on. That and that the forensic officers looked like old inmates...

Anyway... those hats...hmmm... bloody odd.

A , FREE,Podcast Client For Windows Mobile

Free podcasting software for the PPC to try out

http://pocketpodcasts.sourceforge.net/index.php

Working on a Saturday...

It's been a long time that I have had a job that I worked on a Saturday or Sunday for that matter... I don't remember if my short stint at Marshalls included saturdays...

Anyway, I am working 12noon till 5. I should have brought a book. My phone hasnt rung yet... I have read skatedaily.net, Engadget, jeremykline.com, played fl0w, tried the cheats for fl0w, DL'd minimo and opera for the ipaq, played one game of what ever its called on the ipaq, transfered 30$ from savings to checking, looked for tarus parts, gone to the restroom twice, DL'd Google Earth, looked for Love park, the embarcadaro the pyramids, lebenon, los osos, our new apartment, followed the schukyll river from philly to where it splits in reading...ahh, checked my gmail, wyeth mail, filled out my time card, closed an old ticket, looked at my ORB, watched highlights from the xGames, blogged and its only 3pm... lets see what else I can do it's getting a tad boring...

I dont know what I would say to this guy...

Check out this guy. CAn you imagine your buddy coming up to you... "Dude look what I just did!"

Revenge on Wi-Fi Freeloaders

Hey I like this... but how do I do it? Hmmm

Revenge on Wi-Fi Freeloaders

Upside-Down-Ternet, this is the guys site with what the pages can look like to freeloaders.

Not that I don't take a ride on others open access points. Ya know but if I ran into this I would love to find somebody out there doing this!

p,o,wer

I have noticed how fun it is to type the word 'power'. It's like 'p' then a quick 'o' and then bang out the 'wer' with a sort of a finger wave. It can be done with some force to put some power in it :o)

Tropical Storm Chris !!!

Tropical Storm Chris

This gives me the creeps for some reason...

This just gives you a very odd feeling... especially that picture...

Boy George gets hot, stinky karma