Yo.

This grom is chillaxin’ after a heavy day of shreddin’ the gnar. He’s loaded with steez, even IF he’s a botwoker dewd! Mighty Mo’s loggin’ the bonus life while leaving the other kiddies behind. Blastin’ a dookie or krunkin’ the half-pipe – it’s all part of livin’ in the fast lane.

[ editors note: There is currently no Google translation for snowboarding talk. However, you can hip yourself to a listing of terms and definitions over at www.abc-of-snowboarding.com ]

Peace. Out.

This article over at Wired.com, entitled How to Squelch Your Inner Jackass is perfect.  This is an article I would have written.  It’s a good rant about cell phones, iPod’s and how people are losing their sense of social respect.  Page two has the list – but read the whole thing.  I’m sure you’ll be shaking your head in agreement.  Or you’ll shake your head because you don’t get it…if you’re one of those people.

Watch this case closely.  The U.S. Gov has asked Google for information on 1 million random websites and search results for a one week period from 2005.  Google’s search data and it’s technology is closely guarded. The government needs to evaluate how many times child porn pops into search results for a case it’s preparing.
Google is the leader in the search engine market, capturing 46% – and that’s a lot of data.  You might want to clear out your Google search cache periodically (daily!) if you don’t want your entire search history manhandled by the G-Men.

As for me, I don’t have anything to hide and I imagine there’s enough of me captured out in cyberspace in the form of “0″s and “1″s to fill a thumb drive.  But privacy advocates will want to follow this closely.  Read more by following this link…
MercuryNews.com | 01/19/2006 | Feds after Google data

Our computer is just about ready to roll. I just installed a firewall last night, choosing to go with the free version of ZoneAlarm this time around. I need to introduce Mz.D to FireFox (browser) and Thunderbird for email. There are a few other software items I’ll dump on for photo editing, GPS, etc., but the hard work is behind me. I can definately feel the difference in speed of applications loading and performance is back to normal.

On another note: Mason had a ‘well-baby’ check up the other day and passed with flying colors. I can’t believe he will be 1 year old in a matter of weeks. He has four teeth in with others just starting to show. He learned how to clap last week and is practicing his walking and talking (Blah blah-blah, dah- di-dah-dah DAH!) on a daily basis. He got his last Hep B shot, a flu booster shot, and another shot I can’t remember… by the time he had his clothes back on he had stopped crying though!

That’s all for now…

If you don’t see anything here in the next day or so, it’s because I’m reformatting my hard drive. Something all of us should do once in awhile…it’s been years for me. And since I’m such a freeware junkie, I had tons of programs taking up space on my system. Make sure you do your research first, if it’s been awhile. Getting around in DOS mode can make you feel awkward (what? no mouse!? – what’s with the black screen?).
Find a good step by step tutorial and print it out ahead of time.
Go through your files and software programs and make a note of which ones you want to keep. I dumped a bunch onto my 1 gig thumb drive to claim for later.
Find all of your hardware drivers (setup disks for printers, USB hubs, scanners, cameras, monitors etc.) ahead of time as you will need these post-formatting.
Remove any crying/whining babies from the room. (this is impossible of course.)
Be ready for this process to take awhile if you are an amatuer (like me!).
Tell your family members that you love them and to ignore any mumblings, grumblings, foul language, and hermit like behaviors.

I hope to report back with good news on a faster, healthier and happier computer.

Wish me luck!

I miss Chicago news and weather. Detroit news basically sucks water balloons. I’ve ranted about Channel 4′s weather hack, Eric Wilson before and I really miss the Chicago billboards proclaiming: “If you’re thinking about grilling, better check Skilling”. That’s Tom Skilling“. Now Tom is the consumate meteorologist. This guy would break down the weather like you wouldn’t believe. He had more weather graphics than a motivational speaker’s flip chart. Plus they gave the guy like, 15 minutes of air time. He’d go on and on. But it was good stuff. Informative and *educational*.

Anyway, I digress. With the temps in the 50′s today (January 12th, HELLO!), I grilled up some vittles tonight and loved the fact that we got through another week without snowfall. It was sunny today too. I drove home after work and didn’t arrive in the dark. This is a good thing.
An added minute of daylight deposited in the Bank of Spring today. I can’t wait to make my withdrawl.

New Hubble photos utilize gigantic panoramic views with unparalleled clarity. Read all about it after the link below. Download the high resolution photo from the article and save as your desktop wallpaper. This one is of the Orion Nebula. Amazing colors.
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Link to Article and Pictures