Saturday, August 27, 2005

Big weekend!

Well out big weekend has just begun. The kids are just wrapping up some breakfast(Waffles and Donut balls) before we begin our day.

Evan askes this morning when he woke up, "Are we going on the trip today Dad?"

Tomorrow we head out to the Minnesota State Fair in the early AM. We will the start making out journey to Kansas City. We are planning on taking in a couple of Twin baseball games and take an opportunity to enjoy some baseball in an outdoor stadium. We have heard Kaufman is a very nice place to relax and watch a ballgame. This will be Teri and my 5th major league ballpark visit. Wrigley, Comiskey, Tiger Staduim(1812 version) and of course the Dome are the places we have seen.

Besides Kaufman, we will take in the Zoo and be staying at a indoor water park. We will also be ready to stop at any parks at any point on our trip to KC and back.

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Talk is cheap

I got a chance to look at the next Google adventure. I have not downloaded the beta install for all the obvious and typical reasons. I also don't know anyone else on this network. I assume this will change soon enough.

Just looking at the screen shots I like the nice easy, simple look and feel. I don't want lots of tabs, ads and other distractions that are currently in place for Microsoft's Instant Messenger product.

One thing that I hope Google takes a look at is matching Microsoft's Web Messenger. I think it is sweet, and it has comes in very handy while on the road at training or at a PC that does not have the full IM client installed.

Another interesting bit is Google Talk's integration with the other IM clients out there.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Why smart people go bad

Here is an interesting essay that covers why and how to overcome individuals who defend bad ideas.

I have always found the philosophy of human behavior very interesting. How people react, think, make decisions and interact with others all depends on a couple things, the environment in which we are surrounded and human nature. The second part of this, human nature, is what really intrigues me. How human beings tick, what makes them tick, how we tick and why we tick the way we do. Mainly we tick the way we do because of evolution and we can't do much about it, the force is sometimes just to great. Now, humans are smart and very adaptive which helps us overcome !some! of this force but there are just some main traits that we really can not do anything about.

The essay gets into the inherited traits by taking a look at short term verses long term decision making. Very interesting! Sure we have dreams and goals but for the most part humans love dealing with today. I am really a victim of this trait and rarely know what my plans are 2 - 3+ weeks from now. I am more interested in what is happening today and most of the time bank on the fact that the goals I reach today will help setup and put me in a better position to reach future goals/dreams in those next 2 - 3+ weeks.

This site by someone named Scott Berkun also has a few other very interesting essays.

The battle continues...

Friday, August 12, 2005

Terrible QB's

I saw this article list on the mighty mjd sports blog.

Dreadful, Dreadful stuff.

I didn't know Joe Kapp and Joe Namath had such horrendous seasons...Mark Malone is/was an NFL analyst on ESPN. Certainly fits the "those that can't, teach" saying. I remember Malone playing, he was B.B.(Beyond Brutal)

Thursday, August 11, 2005

CSS and Me

I am spearheading an effort at the office to familiarize and standardize our group on what CSS can do for us. Sure most of us know the basics, using it for "a" tags or font styling, but CSS can be so much more. Well, at least that is what they tell me or what I am reading.

For now I want to start with the basics. Setup a guideline for our group to use when constructing web apps. This guideline should help put us in a position to setup our HTML to be style by non-developers. This pays a big dividends since most of us OOP web developers really don't enjoy changing a font from lime green to hot pink. Maybe I should just be speaking for myself, but I certainly would rather be focusing on developing flexible, scalable and modular code.

So my research begins here. At this point I really don't know what the deliverables will come out of this. Time will tell.

Comprehensive CSS Guide