Burger for dinner

Burger pic from dinner.  Two small smashed and blackened Steak 'n Shake style personally ground Chuck patties blanketed with American cheese.  Topped with a fried egg plus 3 mini slices of bacon and a few pieces of fresh spinach.  Sandwiched between a toasted sesame seed bun.

Me, Myself, and I

I have been failing my self challenge to not mention myself in my recent blog posts.    

After reading a post by Geoff Livingston on 26 December about 'not talking about myself' I agreed and thought, how obvious, but yet I still am floundering.  I guess I need to put a sticky note on my computer screen with instructions.

Back to the drawing board.  No, or at least less, references to myself.

HERE is a link to the article.  You'll probably enjoy it too.

Honeymoon Pics

I printed out a few snapshots of my wife from our honeymoon this past weekend and have posted them next to my desk.  It's turning out that it may have not been the best idea as I continue to reminisce about the wonderful places that we traveled to.  I miss those honeymoon destinations and want to go back.  After leaving from Detroit last June where we got married we traveled to San Diego and Santa Monica in California, then flew to French Polynesia and hopped from Bora Bora, to Moorea, to Tahiti.  And then we finally ended up going home through Hawaii too - story below.


I quickly picked a few images to share.  Each has a note below to help identify them.

Bora Bora from the air

Headed to our over water bungalow hotel room via boat shuttle - the Bora Bora Airport is on an island a few miles away from where we stayed.

We rented bikes to get around in Bora Bora - go figure

The over water bungalows at our hotel in Bora Bora

The floor in our room in Moorea

My wife taking a picture of me through our glass floor in Moorea

Looking out from our lunch table in Moorea

A snapshot of the infinity pool at our hotel in Moorea - you can see Tahiti in the background

A pic from the ferry ride from Moorea to Tahiti

Downtown Tahiti - one wouldn't even know they are out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

The local beer, Hinano, which was good

A little bay adjacent to our over water bungalow room in Tahiti

A picture in meat department at a grocery store in Tahiti - note that it was mostly Tuna and Marlin

Teahupoo Mile Marker 0 - Home of the big surf competition

We also had a crazy experience towards the end.  The Tahiti Airport Union workers went on strike the day we were supposed to fly back to the U.S.  So we ended up getting stranded in Tahiti five extra days.  It sounds glamorous but French Polynesia is probably one of the most expensive places to be and each day was a new episode of trying to find more information about when the airport was going to open back up.  All in all it made a great story and we figured out how to handle ourselves really quick, by checking into a cheaper hotel, keeping our rental car, heading to the grocery store, and finding the airport ticket office downtown.

Stats

I have really been enjoying the 'Stats' feature enhancements included now with Blogger.  They serve up stats on all time, monthly, weekly, and daily views.  They also provide details on referring sites, origin country, browser and a bunch of other great data points.

My blog doesn't yet follow the best practices of gravitating my articles around a particular topic or area of expertise.  But at least I am still chugging along over two an a half years later on posting my public rants and journal type entries.  So far I have taken enough time to add 175 posts which have yielded only 71 comments - 10 or more are probably from me.

This is the real stuff though.

• I have had over 7,300 total page views. And interestingly enough, roughly 40% were from out of the country.  I guess I am not that interesting.
• Over 630 of those views have been for a single article.  It seems that there are lots of people searching for how to create a Green Email Signature everyday.  You can click HERE to see this post I made back on 8 August 2008.
• I have had over 500 viewers take a look at the huge burger I had at Genny's Diner.  HERE is a link to that post from 13 October 2009.
• The next top four posts all have around 250+ page views each.  Two of them are on burgers and the other pair are about beach cruisers. 

Watson

In case you haven't seen Watson on the news or have missed the commercials, check out IBM's Watson.

IBM has build a computer with the ability to answer all kinds of questions with an immediate response.  Watson is going to be competing on an upcoming Jeopardy! episode to see how capable it really is.  Watch some of the videos linked above to see one of IBM's current projects.  This illustrates the innovation that is going on and how fast our world is changing right before us.

Julie & Julia - 2011

I'm not much into new year's resolutions, but I did get re-motivated by watching Julie & Julia last night.  I've probably even written this same article before.

I remembered how happy I was the first time I saw this movie and how much I could relate to Julie's experience.  Of course, I never have been this involved or passionate with my own blog, but that's the whole thing.  I'm going to see what I can do to start authoring more articles, posts, and rants in an effort to carve out a deeper little tiny corner of the internet.

If you haven't Julie & Julia and you are a blogger, get on it.  If you haven't seen the movie and you like cooking, rent it.  And if you like movies, you will probably enjoy it too.

The SEC does it again

Congratulations Auburn on the 2010-11 NCAA Football BCS National Championship.  There may be a handful of flaws with the BCS system but it says something when 4 different SEC teams have won for the last 5 straight years (and 7 out of the last 13 winners have been from the SEC).

Time to start counting the days down until next football season.

tablet pen

Search words: tablet pen touch Wacom USB peripheral Bamboo

additional political thoughts

I tossed a couple of my political ideas into the hot coals of New Year's Eve spent with some great friends.  And out came some validation of my thoughts along with a few more ideas to share. 

How to Cook 101
Why is Home Economics something I remember from the past and not the highlight of a middle or high school curriculum?  Being able to cook and feed yourself should be something that every American is forced to learn as well as a graduation requirement confirming the basic skills necessary to feed themselves.  Cooking with a microwave and buying fast food just doesn't count.

And similarly, where have the financial education, basic checking account balancing, and budgeting skills gone?  Is this maybe one of the reasons why so many are in debt?

Eliminating Income Taxes
I don't know what rock that I have been under but this idea was great.  Changing the way that taxes are collected.  Eliminate all income taxes and jack up the sales taxes to bring in the same money.  This would allow people to actually keep everything that they earn and tax consumption instead.  Illegal foreign workers and those earning unreported cash would all be captured by this approach.  Families that produce what they need on their own would barely be taxed while those that continue to buy and waste would start footing the bill.



Note:  I am not trying to claim these ideas as original or to be my own.  Merely just to talk about them.

Many recent additions to my potted succulent garden

I received two dozen succulent clippings from my wife as a great Christmas present.  Here are the pictures of the clippings as I received them from TheSucculentGarden.etsy.com and my entire collection of potted succulents after I made new homes for all of them.