I'm not an Arkansas Razorback fan ... never have and never will. But there is at least one Hogs fan that has certainly taken his "fan-ship" to a new level:
To be perfectly honest, while I wouldn't want to drive it around, the owner did a really good job transforming the VW Bug into great representation of his school's mascot.
The Arkansas Razorback logo (if you didn't already know):
A few more images of the RazorBack-Bug can be found here
It is rumored that iTunes is in discussions with music companies to offer a deal that would provide buyers of iPods and iPhones, free access to iTunes music library. The way it would work is that Apple would pay the music industry a set fee, $20, for each iPod and iPhone that is purchased, and those new customers would then have unlimited access to download songs. Nokia did a deal like this with Universal Music last year, offering buyers of their MP3 players to download 80 free songs. Rumors have it that at this time it is the price that Apple is offering that is being negotiated.
For more information, visit
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-23882310.htm
Last month I posted a video of Steven Curtis Chapman's "Cinderella" (see post). That song was from the father's perspective of his little girl growing up. Sarah pointed me to another song, but from the view of 'Prince Charming' (groom-to-be). The song is titled "Stealing Cinderella" by Chuck Wicks.
You can view the video here.
(for some reason I can't get a YouTube embed to work tonight)
LYRICS:
I came to see her daddy for sit down man to man
It wasn't any secret I'd be asking for her hand
I guess that's why he left me waiting in the living room by myself
with at least a dozen pictures of her sitting on a shelf
[Chorus;]
She was playing Cinderella
She was riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
In her eyes I'm Prince Charming
But to him I'm just some fella
riding in and stealing Cinderella
I leaned in towards those pictures to get a better look at one
When I heard a voice behind me say "Now, ain't she something, son?"
I said "Yes, she quite a woman" and he just stared at me
Then I realized that in his eyes she would always be
Playing Cinderella
Riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
In her eyes i'm Prince Charming
But to him i'm just some fella riding in and stealing Cinderella
He slapped me on the shoulder
Then he called her in the room
When she threw her arms around him
That's when I could see it too
She was Playing Cinderella
Riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
If he gives me a hard time
I can't blame the fella
I'm the one who's stealing Cinderella
Seems like yesterday was a jackpot day for new widgets being found via my RSS feeds!
#1 TimeBridge: A free web-based service that allows a person to send meeting invitation options to anyone with an email address. No need for everyone to be on the same system (Outlook, Google calendar, etc). The service allows you to provide up to five meeting times and each recipient rates the options as No, Good or Best. Once all the responses have been received, the meeting is automatically scheduled and a confirmation message is sent to all attendees. I have lowered the level of automation by having the system send me the answers and then I pick the ultimate date/time. But, once I pick it, the system then notifies everyone.
Timebridge also has an Outlook Connector, so that when I have a meeting request out, all of the times provided as an option are blocked out on my calendar as tentatives. When the meeting is confirmed, the extra tentatives disappear and the meeting is marked as confirmed. This should come in handy with trying to coordinate meetings with various departments on campus, while trying to get vendors invited as well.
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#2 PocketMod: Not for me, but a great item I plan on sharing with non-techy friends and family. It is a paper-based "PDA" that is highly configurable for each person's needs. Using a single sheet of paper, you decide up to eight components for the page. Once you decide, print, fold and cut ... you have an eight page booklet. There are about 45-50 components to choose from, some with the ability to pre-print standard info on the pages. (I just wish there was a way to link an Outlook calendar to it)
I just re-read the above paragraph. You really need to visit PocketMod and experience it for yourself. I didn't do it justice with the above review.
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#3 EverNote: A single place for all your notes! Another way to try and keep track of information you find on a day-to-day basis. I have played with the web version and windows install piece, and actually prefer the presentation method of the web best.
In short, when you find something you want to refer to later, select the text (and/or image) on the webpage and click on the toolbar "Clip to Evernote" button. It is automatically saved to your default notebook within Evernote. The notebooks are searchable, and the system claims to even have the ability to search for text within images (image of an advertisement, for example). If I really start using this a lot, I see myself making my default notebook as a catch-all, and then move clips to an appropriate notebook at a later time (gift ideas, DocImage stuff, fun things, etc)
You can request a beta demo account here:
http://www.evernote.com/prereg/?c=downloadsquad
(they have 2000 invites available, no telling how many are left)
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#4 Give Away of the Day: The newest addition to my sidebar (scroll down to find it)
This is how I actually found out about #3 EverNote! This site offers free copies (or registration codes) for different types of software on a daily basis. The offers are only good for 24 hours, so you have to take advantage of it while it lasts.
In reviewing their archives I didn't find that I would want a majority of the software they have offered. But even just one item every couple of weeks is worth keeping an eye on the site (RSS feeds - gotta love them!)
This isn't the exact design on the shirt Renee bought me last year for St. Paddy's Day, but the idea is the same.
Renee and the girls are on a 'Spring Break' road trip right now. They are visiting a very close friend of Renee who used to live here, but has since moved. Them not being here today is really harder than I thought it was going to be, because we always enjoy this day together.
To be completely honest, we enjoy being together pretty much all the days of the year, but some more than average.
I have posted previously how I used to follow several blogs and web sites, both personal and work related, via Maxthon (review). I have also shared how a person can open several sites at the same time via IE or Firefox (how-to). Both of these methods involve visiting each site and then realizing that only a few of them have new posts to read.
Besides the fact that I don't waste time visiting sites that don't have new information, I also enjoy the fact I am not bombarded with auto-loading music playlists on various blogs. I still try to visit the actual websites I follow every couple of weeks to look for new blogroll entries in their sidebars. Here lately it seems that a good number of blogs owners have decided to add music to automatically start after their site loads. If I were to be opening only one or two sites, that might not be too much of an issue. However, when opening about 25-30 sites, having four or five different songs play tends to get annoying.
In case you are wondering, the RSS reader I use on my PDA is Newsbreak by Ilium Software. It is set to automatically check for new posts every five hours. This way, when I have time to read new posts, I have the new posts available for me.
<soapbox>
Note to members of the blogging community: If you find a cool widget to add music to your blog, check and see if it can be configured not to auto-start. Allow your readers the option to start it themselves if they want. Or, at least have the widget at the top of the page as opposed to at the bottom
</soapbox>
March 14th is always "National Pi Day" Why today? Because today is 3.14, the value of Pi.
National Pi Day celebrates Pi, a mathematical concept and a number that never ends .... at least no one has found the end yet. Often, we round it off to 3.14. If you are a mathematician, this is your day. For National Pi Day is a celebration of mathematics. And, more specifically ... it celebrates "Pi".
Today is the birthday of physicist Albert Einstein. Einstein was born on March 14, 1879. The date is also represented as 3.14. That strongly suggests some combination of these two facts is why someone created the day on March 14th. Of course, "Pi" was around long before Albert Einstein was born.
---
Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin pi.
Q: What do you get when you take a bovine and divide its circumference by its diameter?
A: Cow pi.
Q: What do you get when you take green cheese and divide its circumference by its diameter?
A: Moon pi.
Q: What do you get when you take a native Alaskan and divide its circumference by its diameter?
A: Eskimo pi.
Q: What do you get when you take the sun and divide its circumference by its diameter?
A: Pi in the sky.
Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a bowl of ice cream by its diameter?
A: Pi a'la mode.
Bob McNichol has been fighting to get his sight back, tooth and … eye?
The 57-year-old Irishman was blinded two years ago after an aluminum explosion at a recycling plant, AFP reported Thursday. His sight has been miraculously restored after doctors inserted his son’s tooth in his eye.
"I thought that I was going to be blind for the rest of my life," McNichol told RTE state radio, AFP reported.
After doctors told McNichol there was nothing more they could do for him, he heard about an offbeat operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed in England.
OOKP, first performed in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating an artificial cornea by using the patient’s tooth and surrounding bone as a support, AFP reported.
McNichol’s son Robert, 23, donated a tooth, its root and part of his jaw for his father’s surgery. McNichol’s right eye socket was rebuilt, and a lens was inserted into a hole drilled in Robert’s tooth. The procedure required two surgeries lasting a total of 15 hours.
"It is pretty heavy going," McNichol told RTE state radio. "I have enough sight to get around and I can watch television. I have come out from complete darkness to be able to do simple things.”
read it here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,333555,00.html
Have I mentioned that I found a free service to backup my blog on a daily basis?
Oh yeah, I did back on Dec 30, 2007. As mentioned previously, I use
which, as of yesterday, is no longer in Beta status. While I am not one to normally repeat my posts, or give double coverage to various online services, I do strongly believe in backing up any data that is deemed the least bit important. That is why when I found BBO in May 2007, I immediately signed up and started using their free service. While I haven't made the switch from Blogger to something else, I have tested the ability of BBO to 'republish' my entire blog on other providers (Live, Typepad, etc) and don't remember having any problems with the test. Considering how I feel about data-loss, maybe that is why I use MS SyncToy to synchronize my desktop & laptop computers to each other, and to create a backup to an external HDD. This way I have a minimum of three good copies of My Documents, My Photos, and several other data-sets that are critical to my various needs.
In regards to a service being in Beta or full-production: It doesn't seem that being in Beta Version has the same meaning as numerous years ago. If you were to set the way-back machine to seven or eight years ago, using something in Beta was risky at best, as it was most likely buggy and had the potential for failure. Most software/service providers have enough 'private beta testing' done so that when the 'public beta' is released it will be a stable product. Some companies just need to remove the beta classification from their service(s), but I won't mention who....
(I have mail going back to June 2004 in my account)
Note: In my previous post, I mentioned that I wasn't affiliated with BBO. That is still true, but as one of the previous beta users who had posted about the service, I was offered a doubling of free-storage. If you sign-up for BBO and post a blog entry about it, let me know. I'll see if the President/Founder might extend that offer to you as well.
To celebrate the pending graduation and start of college by Sarah, Renee and I have scheduled a family trip to our nation's capital. While I won't share the exact dates here, the trip will be sometime after the school year is over.
We still have plenty of time to schedule our itinerary for the days we are there, but I am more than willing to take suggestions for "must see" and "should avoid" options that are there. We will be staying at the Hotel Harrington ("... convenient to everything in D.C."). Please feel free to leave a comment with suggestions for our trip. We will be there five full days and two half-days (arrive at 1:00pm on a Wednesday and fly out at 6:00pm on the following Tuesday).
We found a website titled DC Flyby, that provides a 'downtown birds-eye tour of DC.
I just found out that the house I lived in at Holdenville, OK was recently cut into four pieces, moved to a ranch in Texas and reassembled. The individual responsible for this action was T. Boone Pickens, and with the reason being that this was the house his family was living in when he was born!
During the 'research' for this posting (finding a couple of Wikipedia links, see above), I found out that due to complications during his birth, T. Boone was the first baby born at the Holdenville Hospital via Caesarean section.
How cool is that?
