Delicious

mmmm....well, this post isn't about good food, maybe I'll do one of those in the future. This post is about a sweet website/service that I love.

If you use only one computer to access the internet, then this website/service won't be that beneficial for you, or if you don't use your bookmarks. If you do use your bookmarks and use more then one computer to access the internet and you don't know about delicious, let me introduce you to one of the greatest things on the world wide web.

Why this service is so awesome? There is so much information online, millions of websites, with plenty of them that are worth visiting more then once. Remembering all those websites can be cumbersome and nearly impossible. Bookmarking a webpage to remember it is the best way to keep track of worth while websites.

Delicious is an online bookmark that allows you to bookmark web pages and access your bookmarks from any computer with internet access. This for me is a total life saver! I use way too many computers for no real apparent reason, other then I have two personal computers and two work computers. It also is helpful if you use computers at the library or school where typically you wouldn't bookmark.

Lets say for an example that while at work I come across an interesting website, or someone twitters a cool website, I take a quick look at the website and want to come back to it later when I have more time.

Without Delicious:
I bookmark it on my work computer, when I get home and want to better check out the website I have totally forgotten what the address was and spend half the night trying to find it. Eventually I give up and have to wait until I get back to work to look up the bookmark to re-find the website and write it down so I can find it at home.

With Delicious:
I bookmark the website on delicious, when I get home I log onto delicious and pull the website right up. Or if I'm out of town, using my laptop, I log into delicious and pull up any of my bookmarks.

Prior to using this service, I had different bookmarks on different computers, when doing research for a paper using different computers, this is not a good thing. Having different bookmarks on different computers is just a pain and sometime frustrating.

There is also a delicious toolbar shortcut that allows you to bookmark the website without ever leaving the website. You can share your bookmarks, or keep them private and you can view webpages that other people have bookmarked.

Now, you can sleep at night knowing that you no longer have to write down websites that you find on one computer to re-find them on another.

Wednesday Tunes

Not sure if I'm going to continue Wednesday tunes on a regular basis but at least when I have a cool video or song that I really want to share like this one.

That time of year......................

UGH!! It must be that time of year where everyone gets sick! By everyone I mean that I have been deathly sick over this last weekend. Thought I was going to die for at least a day. Everything hurt, couldn't get comfortable, couldn't sleep, couldn't stay awake, laying down hurt, standing or sitting were not options. Oh ya, and T left me with the kids and goob is sick. Goob has some junk in his lungs and his winter long ear infection. Luckily the other kids are good and I am feeling better.

We haven't been up to much of anything. So you'll be seeing a lot of post that have nothing to do with the family. T is busy doing taxes, so if any of you need a tax accountant give her a call.

I love Dilbert

It ain't easy being green

The new fad, or not so new anymore, is to be green. Whatever that means? Years ago it was the environmental movement, tree huggers and dirt lovers. Now its the green movement. I wonder what the next name will be? I have always been part of this group from since I can remember. Not always the most faithful or best practicing but have always felt the need to protect our precious planet. I do what little I can without going too much out my way or making life too difficult to do my part. We recycle, and................well, that's about all I can really think of that we do that would be considered green. What else is there? Hum......here I have gone years thinking of myself as a bit of an environmentalist and I don't even know what I've done to consider myself one. I care, that has to count for something?

Anywho...

A few months ago, sometime last Summer we bought these bags, pictured below. Thought, hey, we should move past recycling and start reducing what we use. We have always recycled our plastic bags from the grocery store but with these reusable bags, we won't even need the plastic ones. Here we are, months down the road and our reusable grocery bags work great! We use them to put food and books in when we go on trips, we use them all over the place, really great bags. And as a bonus we have used them maybe three times to put our groceries in! Smiths gives you five cents a bag.

No really, I feel bad that we don't use our bags more for groceries, they're even in our car when we get to the grocery store. Somewhere between getting out of the car and having a basket full of groceries we forget all about them. By the time I remember I'm standing in the checkout line (self checkout) and I think "CRAP!! I totally forgot my reusable grocery bags! I can't get them now because I have a basket full of food!"

Well, the bags are great! We use them all the time, just not for groceries and we love them. We will try harder to use them more when we go out shopping. Plastic bags are very bad for the environment, the making of the bags, and most of them end up stuck in a tree or in the ocean somewhere.

The Man

George Clooney is the man! Not only is he a top notch actor and the sexiest man alive for two years in a row but he uses his celebrity status for good. George spent some time in Chad, just outside the Darfur region to try and draw attention to the journalist who were there reporting on the genocide and atrocities that are occurring. Nicholas Kristof has a series on Darfur in the NY Times.

The difference between celebrities who voice their opinions and everyday you and me who voice our opinions, is that celebrities have a much larger stage and more people listen to them. People often complain when celebrities get involved with politics, usually that the celebrities don't know anything and shouldn't be talking about it. But if you or I had that stage and audience, we would be using it to promote our political views. Ok, I can't talk for you but I do know I would be using my fame as a political stage. I think that some celebs know more about a specific issue then most politicians do.

Couldn't figure out how to post this video on Kristof and Clooney in Chad, so its linked.

The 801

I guess we are getting a new area code come March 1st. I think I knew this was coming but it was so long ago when it was in the news, I completely forgot about it. It makes no sense to me the way they are doing it. If you don't know or your like me and forgot all about it, here is what they are doing;

They are adding a new area code 385 to accommodate all the new #'s due to cell phones. They are not changing the boundaries of the 801, if you have an 801 area code now you will continue to have an 801 area code. If you get a new phone number, your area code will be 385 if you are in the 801 area code boundaries. I personally think that they should have split the 801 area code. This way, if I know you live in Ogden or Provo, I automatically know what your area code is, I don't have to guess if it's 801 or 385.

Now, no matter who or were you are calling you need to dial the area code first. For those of us who only use cell phones and most of the people you call are already saved in your phone, no problem. Just make sure that if you don't already, save the numbers with the area code. If you have a rotary phone, you might have some issues, more then just having to dial the 11 numbers every time you call someone.
More info

Blog Changes

So, if you visit my blog often you might have noticed some changes. I'm hoping the changes will get me excited about blogging a little more regular, more then once a week. One of the things I added is the flickr bar. If you don't know flickr, it is a photo sharing site that is free or you can pay a yearly fee for a pro account that offers some bonuses. If I was a little more into photography I think that I would go for a pro account. The free account only allows so many pictures to be downloaded a month, so I don't have many pictures on my flickr account. Mainly because after a month, I forget, then I remember, I max my limit and by the time I remember again it's months down the road.

The flickr pics on my blog are set on random, so every time you check my blog it will be a different set of pics. Just thought I'd let you know, so if you see some picture of a building or something a little odd, your not thinking to yourself "why on earth would brad pick that picture to post on his blog".

The Fox and the Hedgehog

While driving the other night, I can't remember where I was going and I rarely drive outside of going to work or school by myself so this was a strange event. Anyway, while driving and listening to the radio, I listen to a lot of talk radio, well not a lot because I don't drive much, and T hates it but will put up with it a lot better then b. b gets very upset and complains about listening to news and just wants to listen to her music, right now it's the hot and cold song. I have a hard time listening to music stations, they all play too many crappy songs and I would rather listen to something where I might actually glean useful information. I am a bit of a news addict, but really I could quit listening/reading the news whenever I want, though that wouldn't make any sense. Where was I...listening to my talk radio, KRCL, they play a wide variety of music and have a wide variety of talk shows. This night they were talking about the concept of "The Fox and the Hedgehog".

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. This comes from a Greek poet, Archilochus, who made the statement in a poem. No one knows what he meant when he said it and I'm sure there are people who would love to philosophy about it for days. I'm good with what others think it means.

Right away I knew, that I was fox.

So here is the synopsis of the The Fox and the Hedgehog; Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay critiquing Leo Tolstoy and other authors and thinkers using “The Hedgehog and the Fox" philosophy he writes about the sentence “taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general....those on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle; - The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes"

There are other sayings that basically mean the same thing, "Jack of all trades and master of none", one for Utah, "your knowledge is like the great salt lake, big and shallow, you know very little about a lot things". Maybe this is why I moved towards planning, which is very much about knowing enough about a lot of things but never a great understanding of any one thing. This also explains my short attention span. I pay enough attention to pro-sports and sporting events like the Olympics, Xgames and Tour de France to be able to participate in conversations. The only reason I really care to watch award show's is to be able to talk to it for the next week. I also have a hard time studying one subject, something in that subject will reference another subject and that will catch my attention, so I'll have to check that out, while checking that out, I'll run across something else that looks interesting and instead of sticking to one thing and coming back to the others, I just try and fit them in all together. Maybe that's why I can never remember anything I study.

V Day

The most romantic song
BENS FOLD - The Luckiest

Skip to min 2:30

Lincoln's Birthday

I spent the past week in Washington DC for work. This is my second time visiting DC, both for work. The first time, I got deathly ill during the week and spent two days dying in my hotel bed. I then spent my last day walking around the mall in a dayquil daze, ending up missing my plane and having to spend another night there. I did get to visit most of the big sites the first time around. This time I didn't get sick or miss my plan, YEA!! I also got to see some things I wasn't able to the first time around. I think I have it now to where next time I can hit up a museum and not have to try and get a bunch of site seeing in.



Our hotel was in Pentagon City/Crystal City right across the river from DC and on the other side of the freeway from the Pentagon. My room didn't have a view worth noting but our meeting room and where we ate breakfast and lunch both had a nice view of DC. The weather was beautiful for February and we kept the balcony door upon most of time during our meetings. It was hard to keep focus on work while day dreaming at all the history the area holds while looking down on it. That and I kept wondering if I went over to the Capital if I could sit in on their stimulus debating.



The Pentagon looks a lot better from the air, from the ground it looks like a big ugly forbidding building. The Pentagon 9/11 memorial was sobering. They had one of these (in the above picture) stool type things with a pool of moving water under them for each person killed at the Pentagon. They are organized by the year the victim was born, the first year you come to is 1998, then 1994 all the way down to 1920 something, can't remember the oldest person, I just remember thinking that they were old. Standing in the middle with all of the little pools of water making noise, I felt flustered and couldn't help get but get upset about the whole thing. It was much more calming when there were just one or two of the moving water pools.



For an uplifting experience I then went to Arlington Cemetery. Not really uplifting but not as somber until the Unknown Soldier. The cemetery as a whole is really net and insanely huge. Who would have thought that there were so many people buried there? I didn't understand the layout at all, not sure there was much organization and was surprised at how many family members (not mine but of military personal) were buried there. Lots of wife's and children. Another peculiarity is Bobby Kennedy, JFK is buried with his wife and two children both of whom died with in the first year of being born. Bobby is buried all by himself in with this little marker just around the hill from his brother. Robert E. Lee owned the land before and had a nice huge house on top of the hill that overlooked DC, I thought this was odd as well. Just odd that no one else before had built their house on it? Seemed like a prime location and the house didn't start construction until about 1801 or '02.

The Unknown Soldier was a great experience and defiantly a place to reflect on the country. It was amazing to watch the soldier pace back and forth, then the changing of the guard. Truly amazing.



I then made the wise choice of forgoing the Metro ride to the mall and decided to walk there. I don't know if my choice was good or bad, all I know is that I walked FOREVER and thought I was going to get blown into the river by the wind. I did get a nice shot of the Washington memorial from the bridge.



I'm not sure if there is a short way from any Metro station to the Lincoln. I had to stop by Lincoln, it was his birthday that day, how could I pass that up? Nothing going on there, although he did have a ton of flowers and reefs around him and he had the most visitors.



I then walked from Lincoln to Jefferson. Again, I don't know if this was the wisest choice but it looked like all of the Metro stations were about the same distance away and would have walked a ton no matter what I did. I did get to walk through the FDR memorial on my way. That was pretty net, would have been better if it had been light. I really wanted to see Jefferson on my last visit but just didn't make it, it's so off the trail from all of the other memorials. Jefferson is one of my favorite presidents and I made sure I was going to see his memorial this time. I wasn't able to take many good pictures, all of the ones I took closer didn't turn out that well. The walk was well worth it! It is an amazing memorial and I really enjoyed the information under his memorial, there is a little Jefferson museum that gives his life story.

I then made another great choice and I walked to the Metro and took it to Alexandria to walk down Kings Street. Kings street was way sweet and would have been a ton cooler if it had been light and if I wasn't so sore from all of my walking. But I had to do it. I get to places like DC and I have to try and see everything I possibly can even if it nearly kills me.

I was also able to visit China Town the night before, it's like the China Town in Philly, one intersection that spreads down all four roads for about a block, maybe two. I understand that China Town in San Fran is the same way. I have always pictured the China Towns of being quit a bit bigger, like blocks and blocks or something, anything more then what they really are.

The kids were excited to have me home. They all wanted to sit with daddy, even Jet was fighting for his spot. And yes, my feet and legs are still sore but I made my flight on time!



Oh, Brett if you read this and think "Brad, you should have called" I thought about it, but didn't want to trouble you and I wasn't sure what my scheduling would be like. But thanks for the thought.

Mine's Bigger Than Yours!

Cash and his bff g-money went the bathroom together, not together together, they took turns. Both now stand up to pee and are quit proud of themselves of this feat and they both do relatively well in keeping it all in the toilet. They do better when they have something to aim at or you remind them to make lots of bubbles.

This post might be crossing the line a little but it was too good not to share with everyone. I wasn't there but T told me and there is no way that she would ever post this. She was blushing just telling me the story. The story as told by T and understood by me.

Here is their conversation as g-money goes the bathroom while cash watches;

Cash: you have a small penis, mine is big

g-money: NAAHAAA!!!

Cash: mine is bigger

g-money: I have a big penis

Cash: my penis is bigger

T wasn't sure what to do or say, so she told them it didn't matter and got them out of the bathroom. Not really sure where they learn this stuff from, unless they heard my conversation with g-money's dad last week that went pretty much a long the same lines. Really though, is this just ingrained in boys at birth to think of such things?

Cash & the Doctor

I had to take JJ to the doctors the other day. After Cash stared at the doctor for a while this is how the conversation went.

Cash: My daddy has that tie!!

Doctor: He must be a good guy.

No reply from Cash.

Doctor: Is your daddy nice?

Cash (nodding): Yes.

Then Cash looked like he was thinking really hard and said: No, he's a monster!!!

The night before Brad was playing the monster with Cody, I guess he was just
reflecting. The doctor thought that was great.