Milestone
7 months & 19 days after being born, Alec busted out his first crawl.
Technically he's been crawling for a week, but only in reverse. Yesterday he figured out how to get to what he wants by making a beeline for it on his shiny new wheels.
« June 2007 | Main | August 2007 »
July 31, 2007
July 30, 2007
Curses upon the Cursor
I don't know what the name of this function is or why it even exists, but once in a blue moon I accidentally trip a mouse or key-combo that makes my cursor overwrite everything in front of it.
99.9% of the time everything works dandily: I insert the cursor somewhere in the middle of a sentence and start typing and it adds new characters as they are typed while pushing all existing text forward. As God intended.
However, right now my text editing software somehow thinks I want the cursor to behave like a bulldozer in the rain forest, where destroying everything in its path is considered progress.
The worst thing about it is that I don't know the proper name for what it's doing so I can't just quickly scan the toolbar or do a Help>Search to undo this mechanism.
Help>Search: "This is Bullshit" doesn't bring up anything helpful.
EDIT: Found it. The culprit is the "Insert" key.
July 20, 2007
Friday Treat: Machine Go Boom
This song is from the 2003 album Captain Obvious, by a most excellent Cleveland band called Machine Go Boom.
The Kazoo Star. listen
They have a new album out, too [Music for Parents]. Their web site looks a little out of date, but their myspace page looks to be active and has current album and tour info.
July 19, 2007
The Artist In His Studio
Suits, War and Rainbows
The home page clocked me with a screen full of horizontal rainbow. My first thought was that the site represented a marketing agency showcasing its unlimited creative prowess. My theory was strengthened after reading the heading that said, "Thinking Outside the Box".
Once I had mentally established that stereotype, I decided to look around. My first stop was the Our People section because any marketing agency that put phrases like "Thinking Outside the Box" on rainbow backgrounds couldn't succeed without some extremely good looking people on staff.
The expected headshots and bios were there, but they weren't the exaggerated credentials of hot chicks with pointy glasses & frat-lads that I had expected. What I saw instead were portraits of intelligent looking, well dressed people who performed very unique services for a company that was most definitely not a cliché-spouting ad agency.
One young man who didn't look a day over 19 did things like "administer the Syndicate's Marine War portfolio." Another employee is praised by the bio writer because his legal qualifications "...are invaluable to the syndicate." They also had people who specialized in 'Political Risk and Terrorism' and 'Aviation War'.
What I had stumbled upon was a company that A) had the financial muscle to underwrite oceangoing ships and their entire cargo load and B) enjoyed such a solid reputation that they could make their site out of rainbows without frightening away what must be a very conservative client base. More like a fictitious company from a Hugh Grant movie than real life. Refreshing!
One last bit. Lest is seem like I'm ridiculing the web site, I should mention that I enjoyed the colors. Also enjoyed playing with some of the interactive backgrounds. But then again, I don't own a 320.0 meter Panamax loaded with brand new BMWs.
July 13, 2007
Friday Treat: Dirty, Stinking Dutch
My chuckle reflex has gotten a lot of mileage out of this song since I first heard it last summer. Top 10 on the British music charts in 1977.
British Tourist (Hate the Dutch)
[2.3MB. 1 minute 23 seconds.]
Written and performed by John Dowie.
July 10, 2007
Documentary: Grand World Championship Shootout.
My buddies and I try to get out to the shooting range once a year for a friendly competition we like to call the Grand World Championship Shootout. Was going through some old directories and came across a short video I cobbled together to commemorate it. We weren't allowed to actually take cameras onto the range, and we couldn't un-holster our guns outside of the range to pose, so I went ahead and made a video about a subject without any actual footage of the subject matter.
The results were awe inspiring. [5MB Quicktime].
Cheap & Effective Personal Assistant: Google Calendar Text Reminders
I've been using Google Calendar for a couple of months now for both my personal and work scheduling. I started using it because it was a free and robust calendar application I could access from both home and work.
Google Calendar has one killer feature that has improved the 'Getting Things Done' aspect of my life significantly: Once you add an event to the calendar, Google allows you to specify when you want it to automatically send a text message reminder to your cell phone.
Most of my day job has me at work on the computer so I have ample opportunity to add tasks & events to Google Calendar as they occur to me. For example, I've been carrying a library book around in my bag for a week now with the intention of dropping it off at the library on my way home from work. However, due to the fact that driving to the library is not a part of my normal routine, I've driven right on past it for the past five work days.
Today, however, will be different. I added "Library" to today's date on Google Calendar and scheduled a text message to hit my cell phone at 5:05pm - approximately the time I'll be preparing to head out of the office this evening. Hopefully it will be the mental nudge I need to change my routine and take the drive home off autopilot.
If you can't afford to pay a conscientious human to follow you around with a Franklin Planner, Google Calendar and a text-enabled cell phone are the next best thing.
July 06, 2007
Friday Treat: A Good Salad is the Backbone of Every Party
I'm uploading this song right before lunch for a reason.
The Salad Song [4MB. MP3 audio. 2 minutes 42 seconds.]
Performed by students of the The Yamaha Music Foundation.