Mike's Blog

Double-Retro New York

2009-11-10T22:10:00.005-05:00

Today New York State unveiled a new license plate which generated a lot of controversy. The reason the state is replacing all the old license plates is to generate $260 million in revenue to help with their budget shortfall by charging car owners a mandatory $25 new plate charge, which many drivers see as an unfair tax. New York charged drivers for the last changeover too earlier this decade but this fee is 4½ times more. By contrast, California has never charged its citizens for a mandated license plate redesign. On top of this, drivers will also be charged an additional $20 fee if they want to keep their existing plate numbers.

The current New York license plates were introduced only 8 years ago, while the previous "Liberty" plates (introduced in 1986 for the Statue of Liberty's centennial) remained in circulation for twice as many years.

Aside from the financial controversy, a lot of people don't like the design of the new plates. I however like the new design. It's simple with solid bold colors, unlike so many plates nowadays with complicated artwork with details you can't even see while driving. Most people have noted that the colors are reminiscent of the old blue on gold plates used in the 70s and 80s, but it's doubly-retro since it is also reminiscent of the older gold on blue plates used in the 50s and 60s. The slightly curved upper blue edge gives the classic color combo a modern feel by hinting at the curved light gleams that are prevalent in so many of today's popular web 2.0 logos. And the pinstriping gives it a bit of a sporty feel too. (Hey, can you tell that I love graphic design?)

Bottom line: I hate the reason and way that New York is mandating the change, but I like the design of the new New York license plate.

Urban Coyote

2009-11-09T21:52:00.006-05:00

As I pulled into work around noon today, I saw what I first thought was a stray dog sitting on the grass under a large tree just a few yards off the parking lot asphalt. As I slowly drove by I realized that it was a coyote! Huh what? I stopped the car and rolled down my window. He was less than 40 feet away (so I was even closer when I was driving right by him). I looked at him and he stared back at me. This photo isn't mine but he looked like this one.

This is on school grounds which was an immediate concern but there were no children around. As soon as I took my eyes off him to grab my cell phone the coyote got up and started walking down the hill away from me (but definitely not in any hurry). He stopped at the bottom of the hill, so I got out of my car to get a better look, but he then continued further away on to the school's baseball field and out of view.

It was obviously surprising to see a coyote on school grounds but several other things made this just weird. We've heard coyotes howl a few times out where we live on the outskirts of the city but the school grounds where I work are not rural at all. This encounter was just a few miles from the skyscrapers in the center of uptown Charlotte. Also, it was noon, and coyotes are nocturnal. Why was he out in the middle of the day in the first place? Very odd.

After this encounter I looked up some more details about coyotes in North Carolina. In the mid-80s there were only a few counties in North Carolina with coyotes. In less than 20 years they're now in all 100 counties.

PDFs from NC Wildlife Resources:

Mickey, Pluto, and Red

2009-11-07T10:06:00.002-05:00

Halloween was a week ago yet Darah was walking around the mall with a plastic jack-o-lantern today.

Let's start at the beginning. Darah loves Mickey Mouse. She also loves Pluto, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, and Goofy too. A few months ago we got Darah small Mickey and Pluto stuffed animals at the Disney store. Ever since then, Mickey and Pluto have been inseparable from her. Mickey and Pluto eat all meals with her, go on car trips with her, watch TV with her, and of course go to bed with her. First thing in the morning, Darah calls out for Mickey... then calls out for Mom second after she realizes that he's already in bed with her.

Then Darah's posse grew. Over the summer Wendy's began giving out little U.B. Funkeys bobblehead dolls with kids meals. One of these dolls is a stylized Wendy character. Last week Darah rediscovered this toy and named it Red. So now Red also goes everywhere with Mickey and Pluto.

On Halloween last week, Darah didn't go trick-or-treating but she did find a plastic jack-o-lantern that she claimed as her own. Apparently Mickey, Pluto, and Red must live inside the it because now she won't go anywhere without all three dolls together inside the jack-o-lantern. And hence Darah walking around the mall today looking as if she were hoping it would be Halloween forever.

Getting Rich 5.1 Cents Per Day

2009-11-06T21:25:00.007-05:00

Adsense is a Google product by which you can make money by displaying text ads on websites you own. I started using Adsense on July 7th, 2004. Today I finally received my first ever check from Google! After 5 years, 3 months, and 24 days, I earned a whopping $100.59. That's 5.1 cents per day for 1,943 days.

I Love Local Commercials Too

2009-10-23T21:58:00.005-04:00

Earlier today a friend posted a funny local television commercial to Facebook. It was for a used trailer home seller and featured the hilarious tag line of "Come on down to Cullman Liquidation and get yourself a home, or don't, I don't care." That's when I followed the post-roll to a website called I Love Local Commercials.

This website immediately interested me because I wrote, produced, shot, and edited small town local television commercials for many years early in my career. I shot local commercials for WMDT in Salisbury, Maryland, featuring small businesses throughout the Delmarva region (Deleware, the eastern shore of Maryland, and that part of Virginia nobody thinks about). Later I produced local commercials for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York. I created spots throughout the Champlain Valley (The North Country of New York and the Burlington Vermont area), and even some in Montreal, Quebec. Below is the last (award-winning) local commercial I ever produced, for a miniature golf course. I did everything on this spot from writting to shooting to editing. That's even my synthesized voice as the golf ball.

So back to the I Love Commercials website, I then discovered that the people behind this site are the same people that did that hilarious Red House Furniture "black and white" commercial that went viral around the internet earlier this year. Now I recognize these two guys as the ones singing in that commercial. Apparently they're traveling around the country making "memorably different" local commercials for unheard-of small businesses. Pretty cool idea. Wish I had thought of it.

Pumpkin Pickin'

2009-10-11T23:30:00.004-04:00

Patty took Maegan and Darah pumpkin pickin' this weekend.

Darah picked out a small softball-sized pumpkin with a (poorly done) painting of Mickey Mouse. Now she won't go anywhere without that pumpkin.

Picasa 3.5 Face Recognition

2009-10-02T22:56:00.004-04:00

A few days ago I updated my Picasa photo album software to version 3.5. Among several new features is face recognition technology, which in turn allows you to tag the people in your photos. This has been available on their online Picasa Web Albums for a while but it's new for the desktop application.

At first I had to let Picasa run overnight to analyze my 8,000 photos. Then Picasa groups photos of similar faces together and asks you to name them. In time Picasa "learns" people's faces and will suggest who it thinks people are and allows you to confirm or deny the suggestion. This is pretty cool in the first place but I am absolutely amazed at how good this software is at recognizing faces.

First of all, Patty is an identical twin so you would assume Picasa would have trouble with this. Not too much. Sure it made mistakes but nine times out of ten Picasa could tell the difference between Patty and Lore. And then there are other oddball situations where Picasa keeps surprising me with it's accuracy. Maegan looking through a deeply tinted blue glass with only half her face showing, check. Maegan's friend dressed up for Halloween with drastic face makeup, check. Even photos of people on the wall far in the background, annoying but yes check.

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Update: Here is an excellent article on Picasa's new face recognition feature. Definitely read this before you get started tagging faces in Picasa. I do have to agree with their assessment that Picasa has a lot of trouble with babies, thinking that they're all the same.

Banned from Newark Airport

2009-10-01T23:49:00.003-04:00

This is from last night's Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Funny.

I'm Still Here

2009-10-01T21:41:00.003-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in like three weeks or something. Fall is usually tough with ESPNU on Saturdays and Panthers on half the Sundays, but with Patty back in college and needing study time, it's hard more than a few free moments to post anything more than quick Facebook updates anymore. I tried posting more. During the summer I started Website Wednesdays but those those are over. Well before they're over over I'll just quickly rifle through the sites I planned on mentioning but didn't get a chance to:

Aviary - a very impressive suite of free online image editing tools. It's like PhotoShop Lite, free and online.
FreeConferenceCall.com - I haven't got a clue how they provide this for free and without any ads but I've been using this service for group phone meetings every other week for years without any complaints.
Map A List - This may not be for everybody but if you've got a list of addresses in a spreadsheet and need to visualize all those locations on a Google Map, this site will help you do it.

I'll try to post more than I have lately but don't expect anything near 11 per month like in August when I was working only four days a week and Patty wasn't in school yet.

Anyway, so what else has been going on lately? Actually not much, because I'm just working all the time. But with some of the few moments of free time I can find, I've been working on a new website for a group of students at who are currently working on re-chartering my old fraternity at SUNY Plattsburgh. Best of luck to them and I'll post a link to the new website once I'm done with it. It's looking nice so far if I do say so myself.

Yesterday I got a jury summons. After 19 years of eligibility, this will be the first time that I'll potentially have to show up for jury duty. In the late 1990's I received a jury summons while living in Plattsburgh, but it was to serve in court in The Bronx. The Bronx? I don't know how they got my name but I didn't live in the Bronx (which should have been obvious since from the Plattsburgh address) nor have I ever lived there in my life so that letter went straight in the trash, and hence this will be the first time that I should really have to show up.

Alright, time to get back to bills and other not-fun stuff.

Website Wednesday: Checkvist

2009-09-09T22:15:00.004-04:00

If you're like me and find it helpful to organize your tasks with a to do list, check out checkvist.com. There are plenty of online to-do lists but I like checkvist for it's simplicity and dead-simple user interface. Just start a checklist and begin adding tasks.

enter to make a new task
tab to make it a subtask (indent right) updated by gopanthers | 22:31
shift+tab to move it back left again updated by gopanthers | 22:32
hold shift and drag any task around to reorganize updated by gopanthers | 22:33
space bar to cross out as completed
delete to delete (duh)

Make as many checklists as you want. I have have a checklist for home tasks, work, and for various different projects I'm working on. In fact, I just quickly created a demo checklist just to show you how you can also share your to-do lists with others (this one is read only but you can let others edit too). Sure beats always having to carry around hand-written lists on folded up pieces of paper.

BlogDay 2009

2009-08-31T00:01:00.004-04:00

Today is BlogDay. Happy BlogDay.

I'm sure most of you have never heard of BlogDay, and that even includes most long-time bloggers. Depending on who you ask, BlogDay was on March 29th, April 20th, May 11th, August 1st, or most commonly referenced on October 17th (but only in the United Kingdom and only in 2006). But I'm here to tell everybody that, for the fifth year now, BlogDay is today, August 31st.

Why August 31st and not any of the other dates thoughtlessly thrown around in the past. Because today is day 31 in month 08, or "3108", which is visually similar to the word "Blog". (Go ahead, at it look again.)

According to the BlogDay website, "on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs." If this were just a straight forward list of my top 5 recommend blogs I'd undoubtedly start off with Lifehacker, but since Lifehacker is already one of the top 10 most popular blogs on the planet, that would go against BlogDay's premise to promote new blogs worth discovering. So without further adieu here are my five BlogDay 2009 recommendations (in no particular order)...

1) CLT Blog - http://cltblog.com/
CLT Blog (I'm not sure if you're supposed to say "Charlotte" or "C-L-T") is a very well done local blog covering Charlotte, North Carolina, especially its music, art, nightlife, and politics. With a team of over 20 creative journalists, they produce a product that in most ways is good enough to compete with the major media players in town. I especially appreciate their on-scene coverage of events with videos and photos, which tend to be more documentary style than story-telling.

2) Addie's Charlotte Blog - http://charlotte.about.com/b/
Sticking with the local blogs theme, Addie's Charlotte Blog covers the Queen City for the well known uber-guidance website About.com. Unlike CLT Blog mentioned earlier, this local blog is maintained by just one person; Addie Rising, a former writer for Charlotte magazine and Charlotte Business Journal. She focuses on just a handful of short posts per week about light, positive, and family friendly topics. Some people may feel otherwise but I appreciate not being bombarded with the information overload of multiple posts per day on every minor subject. And while CLT Blog delivers coverage of local events, Addie tends to alert you of key upcoming events before they happen so it's not too late for you attend it yourself. Her blog seems to be fairly unknown but that's why I'm pointing it out as one worth checking out.

3) Bits - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
Bits is the technology blog from the New York Times. You can get breaking technology news from a lot of sources but Bits does a great job of going beyond just the headlines and initial factoids, and explains indepth how the news will affect the industry and perhaps you. Being part of the New York Times, Bits also does a great job of finding interesting off-the-radar topics too.

4) In the Woods - http://blog.themeforest.net/
ThemeForest is an online marketplace where webmasters can buy and sell website design templates and themes. I subscribed to their blog, In the Woods, only to stay informed of their occasional deals and freebies, but I found that they give a lot of great tutorials on how webmasters can create cool and useful website elements. For example, their last two posts explained how to design a website with a specific font that may not already be installed on the visitor's computer (normally you have to use safe fonts that you know everybody has) and how to make your own social bookmarking tags (the kind that lets you easily share a webpage with others on Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us, Digg, etc.).

5) All Facebook - http://www.allfacebook.com/
It wasn't long ago that I thought Facebook was stupid. It wasn't long ago that I finally signed up and started finding old friends. It wasn't long ago that I reluctantly began to give in and start utilizing it more. None of that was long ago but it seems like forever, because I'm on Facebook a lot now and I really enjoy it. All Facebook is a unofficial blog about the mega social networking site. They mainly focus on content for application developers and those who use Facebook as a business venture (which I find useful since I help manage my business' Facebook presence), but they often have some good articles for any Facebook user, like "How To Configure Your Facebook Page In Under 15 Minutes".

blogday2009

P.S. Since I just recommended five websites (plus Blog Day and Lifehacker too) I won't be posting a Website Wednesday this week.

Website Wednesday: TokBox

2009-08-26T00:03:00.003-04:00

Website Wednesday: TokBox

My mom got a webcam so she can see Maegan and Dara and video chat with us. Then Amy got a webcam too. At first we used Google Video Chat because we all had Gmail accounts and I figured that would make it easy. It worked okay but even though we already had Gmail accounts we still had to install special software to make it work - and installing software could be a major hassle for some non-techies. Plus the video display started out small, with your own camera (to make sure you're in frame) as an even smaller little insert overlayed in the corner on top of the other video.

Then I heard about ToxBox. What I first liked about ToxBox is that you don't have to install any software at all, so I gave it a try. Then this past weekend Patty and Maegan went to Hilton Head and I used TokBox to let Darah see and talk with them while they were gone.

Not having to install anything was nice, but after trying it I found other features that I liked too. For one thing, the video chat displays start off much bigger. There's really no need to expand it, but you can still enlarge it if you wanted to. And I also liked how your webcam display is side-by-side with the video of the person you're chatting with, so they're both the same size and don't interfere with each other. Although I haven't used it yet, TokBox will also let you video chat with multiple people at once - up to 20, although I wouldn't recommend that many. And finally, it was much easier to initiate a video chat with ToxBox compared to Google Video Chat. After you add a friend to your list, if they're online and available all you have to do is click on their name once for a pop-up of options and then click the video icon to initiate a call.

So in conclusion, hey Mom and Amy.... sign up for TokBox because that's what we'll be switching to. Want to video chat with us too sometime (ie. Dee)? If you have a webcam, sign up and let us know.

(yes this is the same image I used last week)

Two First Days of School

2009-08-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Patty had her first day of nursing school (pre-nursing), as she became a student again for the first time in over a decade.

Today Maegan had her first day of middle school. She said everything went fine but that it was confusing. Maegan said she felt like she was a 1st grader again with all of the new introductions.

Let the homework begin!

Surf 's Up

2009-08-24T23:01:00.002-04:00

So as I mentioned yesterday, Patty and Maegan spent the weekend with Patty's mom and sister in Hilton Head. They had a good time relaxing at the beach, getting manicures and other girly stuff.

While they were gone Saturday and Sunday, I was alone with Darah. After Darah only took a 15 minute nap on Saturday I took her down to Plaza Fiesta to play on their gigantic four-story indoor playground. She loves exploring, climbing, and sliding. Well worth the two dollars and it tired her out for a long nap until dinner.

On Sunday Darah finally began asking where mama and Maegan were but she was still okay with them being gone. I took her to another playground (a regular one at a school) and we watched Mickey and Minnie Mouse over and over again, and before you knew it Patty and Maegan were home already.

Patty wanted to get me a gift from Hilton Head but had no idea what to get me. She then handed me a cylinder of Uncle Maui's Surf Wax. ??? I've never surfed in my life and we live three hours from the coast. Um, thank you. :-)

Live From Hilton Head

2009-08-22T11:04:00.004-04:00

Last night Patty and Maegan left with her mom and sister for a girl's weekend in Hilton Head. I'm now taking care of Darah alone all weekend (so I may have more stories to post soon). Before Patty left I set her up with video chat on her new laptop. This morning we connected so that Darah could say hello to Patty and Maegan - or more importantly, so Patty and Maegan could say hello to Darah. Patty and Maegan sang to Darah and they all did itsy bitsy spider together, hand motions and all. Darah loved it.

Hmm... I think I have my subject for next week's Website Wednesday.

Website Wednesday: Fizy

2009-08-19T23:03:00.005-04:00

Website Wednesday: Fizy

Fizy is a simple but cool online music search engine. Search for almost any song and Fizy will find it from somewhere on the internet and play it for you within the same page as your search results. Fizy has indexed over 75 billion mp3s from around the world and you don't even need to register to use it! Plus unlike most other online music search, you can actually listen to the entire song and not just a short preview snippet. Very convenient for checking which version of an obscure old song you were looking for, or you wanted a friend to hear a song you were telling them about, or you just felt like listening to a particular song that you didn't already own. It's like a free on-demand iTunes player with an unlimited playlist.

Speaking of telling friends about a particular song; If for example I wanted to recommend to a friend that they should check out Bob Dylan's Shelter From The Storm, I could send them a link to existing search results, but the first result isn't the version I was thinking of so I can send my friend a link directly to the exact version I want them to hear. Pretty cool.

Fizy.com

Camera Hog-Squirrel

2009-08-13T22:50:00.003-04:00

Check out this photo of a squirrel popping up in front of tourists taking a self-timer photo in Banff National Park in Canada

h/t Bruce McDonald

Website Wednesday: Google Voice

2009-08-12T14:48:00.009-04:00

Website Wednesday: Google Voice

Google Voice is the newest among dozens of free web-based services that Google offers. It's so exclusive at this time that very few people have it yet - except me.

At it's core Google Voice gives you a free phone number that will automatically ring and transfer to any one of several different phones you have. For instance, if you have a home phone number, a mobile phone number, and a work phone number, you can give people your Google Voice phone number instead and it will automatically ring all three of your phones. Then Google will instantly transfer the call to which ever of your phones you pick up first. Here's a brief video overview:

That's pretty convenient if you want to make yourself easily available no matter where you are, but what if you're like me and have only one phone number anyway? Why am I recommending Google Voice and why should you care about and it?

1) Get a cool vanity phone number:
Google Voice lets you choose your own phone number. No matter where you live you can choose which area code you want to use. Then choose from what seems like hundreds of available numbers within that area code. But it gets better. Remember 1-800-MATTRES (leave off the last S for Savings) in the late 1980s or 1-800-COLLECT from the early 1990s? Of course you do. They were just one thousands of business that knew how much easier it is to remember a word rather than a long series of random digits. So just like them, you can have your own customized vanity phone number (still free). With Google Voice you can search for available numbers - even by letters. I searched for the word "MIKE" within the 704 area code and one was available so I took it. Now I can tell people that my phone number is 704-###-MIKE and they'll easily be able to remember it! Or instead, maybe you can get a vanity phone number related to your business or your personality or almost anything else you can think of.

2) Stop (some) unwanted calls:
Have you ever had to give your phone number to a business for some reason and ended up getting unwanted marketing calls from them? With Google Voice you can actually block numbers from ever ringing your phone(s). It's just like a spam filter for your phone. Next time I drop my car off for maintenance I'll give them my Google Voice number. If by chance they later end up calling me about buying a new car I'll just block them.

3) Lots of other cool features including free outgoing text messages, voice mails transcribed to text, optionally recording your conversations, and conference calling.

4) What do you have to lose? It's free!

The only caveat at this time is that you can't actually sign up for the service yet, but I'm telling you about it so you can get on the waiting list now. Request an invitation now and as soon as you can join they'll send you an email. Click here to request an invitation to use Google Voice!

So how did I get access to Google Voice before almost anybody else? I signed up to be a beta tester of Grand Central long before Google bought the company and changed the name to Google Voice. Within minutes of Google announcing that they were slowly opening up Google Voice to the public, I received my invitation email. It was thought that anybody who wanted to join would be able to do so by the end of the week but Google is rolling this service out extremely slowly. It's now more than a month after their "public launch" and they're still not sending out invitations to people who weren't already on their waiting list to be a beta tester. The early adopters get the cool toys.

Website Wednesdays

2009-08-11T20:22:00.001-04:00

Here's a new idea that may motivate me to blog on more of a consistent basis. I'm constantly coming across useful or cool new websites. I also often I find myself telling a friend about a useful or cool website that either solves a problem they've been having or that they would otherwise find helpful. It happens often enough that I've been asked by friends to just tell them about every new website I learn about. Well since that's ridiculously impractical, I've decided to just recommend one useful or cool website every week. So tomorrow will be the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing series of Website Wednesday blog posts.

Storms, Zoos, and Panthers

2009-08-08T16:36:00.008-04:00

My mom is visiting us this week. Soon after she arrived we had bad storms roll through and several trees throughout the neighborhood snapped in the heavy winds, including one of the few trees on our property. We also lost power for most of the night and so we all just sat around and talked by candle light.

On Friday we traveled to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina. We saw all your common zoo animals like lions, elephants, girraffes, monkeys, gorillas, alligators, and bears. We also saw less common zoo animals like penguins and a tree kangaroo. Some people have commented that Riverbank Zoo is small but we thought that the zoo was great - one of the best we've been to. The animals were close and most were pretty active, most of the zoo had plenty of shade, and the prices were descent too. Definitely well worth the 90 minute drive from Charlotte.

Today I had to work at Bank of America Stadium for pre-season equipment testing. Since it was Fan Fest, Patty, my mom, and the kids came to the stadium too. While I was working Patty struck up a conversation with Fox Charlotte's Sports Anchor, Bruce Snyder. They mostly talked about young kids (Darah was there and Bruce has a baby of his own), but he took the time to talk with Maegan too. Here's a photo of Bruce letting Maegan hold the Fox Charlotte microphone. Nice guy.

Washington DC

2009-08-04T00:00:00.005-04:00

Two weeks ago the family took a trip to visit my sister in Washington, DC. A bit late, I'm finally blogging about it now.

We left early in the morning on Maegan's birthday, which means that Maegan spent most of her birthday cooped up in the back seat of a car traveling through the Virginia mountains for 8 hours. After unpacking we took the Metro to meet up with my sister at Nationals Park to see the Mets take on the Nationals in a basement battle. But before meeting up with Amy, Maegan was surprised to see that my mom and aunt had traveled down to Washington that day on the train for her birthday. She was surprised. Then we met up with Amy and we all watched the game. It was a decent game but the Mets lost. I did get to take a lot of good panoramic shots.

The next morning we met my mom and aunt for brunch in downtown DC before they left for New York. Amy was at work so we all went to visit Patty's old college roommate Janet and her family. We last saw them five years ago at their wedding in New York in 2004 when Maegan was their flower girl. It was nice to see them again and get all the kids together.

On Friday Amy took off from work and we drove out to Annapolis, Maryland. It reminded us of Main Street in Northport with old shop-lined streets leading up to harbor.

On Saturday we walked around the Washington Mall. First we stopped in the National Museum of Native Indians. The food in there is phenomenal. Seriously, if you're walking around the Mall area looking for food, head to the cafeteria at the Native Indians museum. Then we took photos in front of the Capitol, including a few just for fun. Before leaving we dipped our feet in the fountain at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. That's about the time Darah had a melt down and serenaded tourists with wild screaming. In the evening we grilled out on the patio of Amy's apartment building, before unexpected storms forced us inside.

Lots O' Fun.

It's A Wonderful Life

2009-07-16T23:31:00.001-04:00

Last week I was wasting time with a popular Facebook app called "Cities I've Visited" where I stuck virtual pins in an online map showing places I've been before. It was kind of fun to add all the places I either once lived or have traveled to. At one point I had to break out an old photo album to remember the names of many of the specific towns and national parks I visited during a two-month cross-country camping "teen tour" in the summer of 1988. (See the photo on the right. I'm way on the right.) When I was done and looked at the map I had pins covering the entire east coast of the United States, from Maine (and Canada) down to Florida and every state in between. But other than that there was just this single thin loop to California and back... and nothing else. Other than that one trip in 1988, I've never even been in another time zone. How sad. Seriously. :-(

Today, completely by accident, I stumbled upon a website called BarefootList.com. The website helps you come up with and track your own list of things that you want to accomplish in your life - a "before I die list". Sort of a neat idea but I have no interest in creating a list like that. Sure I would like to travel out of my time zone again, hopefully overseas one day, but that's about the only thing I could even think of putting on a list. Anyhow, the website has several lists of some of the most common "before I die" goals written by other people, so I thought it would be interesting to read what others wanted to accomplish in their lifetime. What I found interesting was how many "simple" and "ordinary" things I have done in my life that other people haven't but wanted to do before they die. I guess I should still be glad for all the things I have done in my limited travels.

Here are just some of the common "before I die" goals that other have posted that I have been fortunate enough to accomplish:

Common (but apparently not for everybody):

Climb a Mountain
Climb to the top of a lighthouse
Ride a Horse - didn't like it
Throw a Surprise Party
Whale Watching
Attend a Broadway Play - Les Mis - I fell asleep
Create a Personal Website - well duh!
Go geocatching
Win a Photography contest
Plant a Tree
Find someone with the same name

Travel Related:

Go to the top of the Empire State Building
Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge - Technically I walked halfway and then walked back
The Liberty Bell
The Lincoln Memorial
Tour the Washington Monument - many times, but I've never been inside
Tour the White House- I got a private behind the scene tour in 1987 where public tours aren't allowed to go. My relative was a Congressman.
Tour Hearst Castle - part of that 1988 teen tour
Visit Alcatraz - same as above
Visit the Hollywood Walk of Fame - same as above
Visit Universal Studios - same as above
Disneyworld - many times
Boston - Fenway was cool

Sports:

Rock climb
See a NASCAR race
Visit the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown - visited many times but I also interviewed to work there and got to go behind the scenes and downstairs to see their rare non-public collection. Awesome!
Watch a game from a suite/skybox
Kayak

Family:

Marry my Sweetheart and raise a family together
Research my Geneaology - I have hundreds of family members in my family tree program
Research the origins of my Surname - Suss is german for "sweet" (as in candy)

Relatively Rare:

Attend a Movie Premiere - Cars
Be a Film Extra - Even I'm tired of mentioning this
Be on Television - many times in promos and commercials
Appear on the front page of a newspaper - no photo and definitely not the front page, but I have been the subject of a newspaper article

Not yet but I will:

Attend my High School Reunion
Be Debt Free

Crowder's Mountain

2009-07-04T16:49:00.006-04:00

Happy Independence Day.

Yesterday was a beautiful clear day with temperatures in the mid 80s. Since the weather was perfect and I don't work Fridays during the summer, Maegan and I went out to hike Crowder's Mountain.

A few weeks ago I took Maegan and a friend of hers to hike nearby Nanny's Mountain in South Carolina. I knew going in that it wasn't a real mountain but just of a large hill, but several different websites claimed that it "offers unique views of Lake Wylie's shoreline, Charlotte's skyscrapers and neighboring peaks", which is the only reason we decided to hike it. I am here to say that those claims are 100% false. There's a clearing at the summit but it's surrounded by tall thick forest on all sides so there are absolutely no views of anything at all. It was a descent short nature hike but we were completely disappointed by the B.S. claims. Don't bother visiting Nanny's Mountain for anything more than a leisurely walk.

So with Nanny's Mountain being a complete disappointment last month, we decided to hike Crowder's Mountain where we knew there were spectacular views from the summit. Crowder's Mountain is the nearest real mountain to Charlotte, a 40 mile drive from our house.

This was by far our longest hike ever - over five miles. But five miles of just walking would be easy. Regardless of the length, this was also by far the most difficult hike we'd ever done (at leat the Rocktop Trail part). Steep, constant inclines on rough, rocky terrain. Often climbing over large, and often jagged, rocks. There were also tons of yellow jackets the whole way and Maegan got stung.

For those familiar with Crowder's Mountain, we started out at the main visitor's center and took Crowder's Trail to the road crossing. After the road, we switched over to Rocktop Trail which was the difficult trail I was describing earlier. Rocktop Trail took us all the way up to the summit overlook where the views were incredible. No disappointments this time. We could see Charlotte 40 miles away.

Check out this panoramic photo I created, covering 170 degrees view (The mountain isn't curved - the left side is looking left and the right side is looking right.)

We took a different way back, taking the Backside Trail down 334 steps (you can only see about 50 of those steps in this photo). When we met back up with the far end of the Crowder's Trail (the trail we began on) it was already three hours after we started hiking, we were exhausted, and we were now only half way through our journey and about to finally turn back. From this point we took the full 2.8 mile Crowder's Trail all the way back (about 1/4 of which we were already on before before crossing the road). This trail was more typical of what we were used to with ups and downs but no steep dangerous climbing, but after so much hiking already we were just wiped out.

Wheelbarrow Fail

2009-06-30T23:25:00.012-04:00

This is a two part "Fail" story; Once on me, the other (and better) Fail was by True Temper.

After work today I ran out to The Home Depot to buy a wheelbarrow. Only I didn't know that until I got there because I went to the store looking for a "wheel barrel". For the past 36 years I've been calling this familiar everyday object a wheel barrel, which is apparently incorrect according to every label at The Home Depot. How in the world did I not know this before? I'm more worried about this late discovery than embarrassed (otherwise I wouldn't have blogged about it) because now I'm paranoid about how many other stupidly-easy things I assume I know but may really not.

Anyway, now that I got my new wheelbarrow home I had to assemble the parts myself. This was generally pretty easy until I got to the last step when I had to attach the wheel to the rest of the assembly with four bolts and four nuts. Below is a photo of the parts that came in my factory sealed True Temper Wheelbarrow kit. Notice something wrong here?

True Temper gave me four nuts to fasten three bolts... and one thin nail-like screw. WTF? Wheelbarrow Fail! And back to The Home Depot I went.

Photos from Sunset Beach

2009-06-28T23:08:00.005-04:00

Here are just some of the many photos we took with our camera from our trip to Sunset Beach, North Carolina. Here's the direct link to the album and below is an embedded slide show.

P.S. I'll post about our adventures soon. (But I'm going to post-date the stories to the correct dates for when we were there)