One of those days...

I go to work pretty early... I get up before the sun rises. Today I got up and put my shoes on in the dark. When I got to work, I noticed this...


Maybe nobody will notice. It's going to be a long day.

Labels: random

Travsite by email

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Labels: technology

Family Off-Road Adventure in the Desert

Dad took the whole family out to the desert for a weekend to watch the Mojave 250 race. It was fun. Go here to view the pictures.

Labels: family, off-road

Mojave Road Photos - 2008

I just got back from a 130 mile drive through the Mojave Desert along the Mojave Road. Our group was huge, with 22 vehicles and 40 people. I don't think we lost anyone along the way. Everyone had a good time. I didn't have enough time to take as many photos as I wanted too, but here's what I got:

Labels: family, friends, off-road

Washington DC Madness

Here are some photos of us acting retarded in our Nation's Capitol. We went to Washington DC for a week after our trip to New York for Christmas.

While we were there, I got yelled at by the Secret Service at least 3 times and we went through about 30 metal detectors. Good times! View our photos of Washington D.C. Don't miss the photo of Jessica holding a live giant cockroach!.

Labels: vacation

Obama for Change: What Could Go Wrong?

It looks like Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, so I figured that it was time to look into all of the hype. Some say that Obama's "Hope for Change" is nothing but non-specific puffery, but today I learned otherwise. I went through Obama's Blueprint for Change and narrowed his hopechanging ideas down to the following categories: Create, Increase, Provide, Require and Allow.

If you thought the Federal Government was large, inefficient and overbearing before....

Create

• create an energy-focused youth jobs program
• create a fund to help people refinance their mortgages
• create a law to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers
• create a credit card rating system
• create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses
• create a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules
• create a generous savings match for low and middle-income Americans.
• create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that will make tuition at the nation's community colleges completely free and will cover up to two-thirds the cost of tuition at the nation's public colleges and universities.
• create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education
• create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
• create of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions
• create a federal investment program to help manufacturing centers modernize
• create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund to fill a critical gap in U.S. technology development.
• create a number of incentives for local communities to invest in their biofuels refineries
• create a competitive grant program to award those states and localities that take the first steps to implement new building codes
• create a Global Energy Forum
• create a new program to identify and train the next generation of farmers.
• create a 10 percent universal mortgage credit to provide tax relief to homeowners who do not itemize
• initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems , provide a $1.5 billion fund
• launch a Children's First Agenda that provides care, learning and support to families with children from birth up to five years old.

Increase

• increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies.
• increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture
• increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training
• increase the minimum wage, index it to inflation
• increase the Earned Income Tax Credit
• double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs
• expand FMLA to cover businesses with 25 or more employees
• increase funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
• expand and improve programs like Senior Corps to connect seniors with quality volunteer opportunities
• double science and research funding for clean energy projects
• double fuel economy standards
• quadruple Early Head Start

Provide

• provide capital for farmers to create value-added enterprises
• provide $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure,
• provide assistance to the domestic auto industry
• provide retooling tax credits and loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers
• provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices
• provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families
• provide potential borrowers with a simplified, standardized borrower metric (similar to APR) for home mortgages
  

Require

• require that 25 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources
• require 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel supply by 2022
• require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025

Allow

• allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs
• allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children's academic activities
• allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses

Barack's "Plan to Expand" is so large that I couldn't even get through the entire document. Sorry guys.

Labels: politics

Dorking Around in the Wrightwood Snow

Labels: family, goldendoodle, wildlife

TV Dog

Our strange dog loves to watch TV. I'm kind of concerned. This is a photo of him watching a dog show today. Is that normal? Also, why is our TV so old?

Labels: goldendoodle

Useful Stuff on the Internet - Part 1

My friends are under the impression that I know my way around the Internet, so I figure that it's time I shared some of my favorite tools and sites. This is Part 1 in a series in which I will point out some of the most useful sites that I have found.

• Manly Tools for Sale on Craigslist
  New tools are expensive, so I keep an eye out for anything useful. I suspect that some of this stuff is stolen from construction sites, so be careful out there.
• Kayak - Best site to search for cheap flights
  This site has the best searching tools that I've seen. They don't sell anything themselves - they just search all of the travel sites to find the best deal - and it works.
• Consumer Reports
  This is kind of old-school, but why would you buy anything without researching it in Consumer Reports first? CR is completely independent and unbiased. It's the best way to see past the marketing gimmicks and hype that is rampant in the present consumer marketplace. A yearly membership is worth the price. Or just email me and I'll look it up for you.
• California Earthquake Map
  Wow this list just got really random. I only look at this when the earth shakes, but it's still cool.
• Google Docs - Replacement for Microsoft Office
  I started using Google Docs a few years go for all of my personal documents. Google has equivalents of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and your docs are stored online so you can get to them from any computer. Plus it's free.
  

If you have a lot of time, I keep all 339 of my bookmarks on Del.icio.us, organized by tags. You can learn alot about a person from their bookmarks. Scary.

Labels: tools

A Weekend in Paso Robles

It was Jessica's birthday last weekend, so I took her up to Paso Robles for a weekend of hanging out with a little wine tasting. Coda got to come with us because a lot of hotels let you have dogs (They say that dogs are cleaner than kids...) We stayed in San Luis Obispo, which is a very cool town. Anyway, here are some photos of us goofing off, chasing cows and a little bit of off-roading. Warning - lots of lame dog photos.

Labels: goldendoodle, vacation