GOTV Food Drive

Well my wife Laura has won the Gathering of the Vibes "Food Drive Poster Contest" and she couldn't be happier.

Laura and I will be taking the boys this year and will be spending the weekend in the lap of luxury in an RV. We are going to spend the first part of the week camping in Vermont at a spot we found a few years back near Bromley. We are looking forward to getting back to the mountain and visitng the Sun Mountain Adventure Park and the newly minted "Sun Mountain Flyer" billed as the longest zip line in the world.

At the Vibes, we are lucky enough to have an 'RV Pass' and should be set up in style once we get into Seaside Park. It looks like we will be parking right up against the water. Really looking forward to it...

Free the Dead

Laurie & I were lucky enough to get free tickets for each stop on the recent "Free the Dead" taxi tour of New York City. We started out at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, then to the Gramercy Theatre, and ended at the Roseland Ballroom.




























I took a bunch of photos during the day and posted them along the way from my Nokia N85 to Twitter using Ping.fm. A great use of technology, and a ton of fun!

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Michael Wesch, PhD, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University put together this video back in January which succeeds in encapsulating the rise of interactive and social media and its amazing potential. Every time I watch it I am humbled by how quickly things have progressed and inspired by where it will take us.

The Dragon Illusion

Every once is a while you come across something that is truly unique and fun. I have had other illusions on this site before like the Crazy Almonds, but this one takes the cake. The Little Dragon illusion is fun and captivating and will definitely be finding a spot in my office. I can't wait to show Cole. Basically, as the directions indicate you print it out (in color) and cut and tape. Simple right? The resulting effect is mesmerizing to say the least. Still not sure you want to download it... take a look at this video

Into The Wind

I have re-kindled my kite fascination now that I have a three year old son to play with. I had a few stunt kites I picked up a while ago from Into The Wind and haven't had a chance to use them in quite some time. This past weekend we were over in Port Jefferson and I bought Cole a new kite (well, I bought it for me, really) made by Go Fly A Kite called Biplane Bernie. It will certainly keep the beach goers, and my son, enganged as it rips through the air...

I couldn't stop there, so of course I went online and bought a few more kites. This time the single line box kites seemed to call my fancy so I purchased a Lotus Box and a Nova along with assorted kite paraphernalia to quell the buying bug - shop-a-holic, I know.

We are heading to Hammonasset State Park this weekend for the maiden voyage and I personally can't wait. My kite bag runeth over at this point and it has been far too long since I took to the wind - so to speak.

Charter DVR - Digital Video Recorder Reinvented

I finally have TV on my terms. We decided to join the Tivo revolution, but without the investment. My cable provider Charter Communications recently began offering DVR service to our area for $9.99 a month. The service is fantastic and I don't know what we did before it. Dark ages stuff, really. My son seems to enjoy it the most as he can record all of his favorite shows during the day while he is at school and watch them (rationed of course) whenever he wants. My wife and I love it because we don't have to be around the TV at the time that is convienient for the networks demographic, but at a time that is convenient to us.

As far as the box goes it is top notch. Made by Scientific Atlanta is has a 60 GB hard drive and the ability for picture in picture (PIP). It has FireWire (IEEE1394) and USB ports for later connectivity and a Yahoo! support group for tweaks, hacks, and general support.

Here is a little more information from the DVR FAQ over at Charter.com:

Gmail - The Ultimate Email Service?

It seems that what was thought to be a hoax was not. Gmail is no hoax. In fact, it looks like Google has put together an incredible service that trumps competitors in storage (1 GB) and usability (search). Google extends its search capabilities to the inbox allowing users to "Google" their own email instead of filing using a folder paradigm. Ultimately, with Gmail, you may never have to delete another email again!

I know my Father will love Gmail. I have packed his Excite mailbox with pictures of my son Cole on more than one occasion. I think he has 4 MB of space which is only about 250 TIMES less space than a Gmail account. I spent four years with the same Outlook .pst and only managed to amass 1.5GB. So for a personal account, 1GB should be plenty. Now all I have to do is make sure I provide a detailed description of the images I send so they can be Googled.

Hmm, I wonder... will everyone start writing SEO emails with keyword density in mind in order to obtain a high PageRank for specific keyword phrases?

I certainly hope not.

One thing that does seem certain though is everyone is concerned about the privacy issue. As Google will not immediately charge for the Gmail service, it will seek ad revenue through its AdSense or AdWords programs.

According to Bill McCloskey at MediaPost, emails would look something like this:

Although they state users email will not be read by a human, it still has more than a few people concerned. From my perspective, if you are using a free email service already it won't be much different as every major (MSN, Yahoo!, etc.) already scan emails for keywords to pop banner ads anyway.

Mommy can I have an Ebola doll?

I wonder when I will be asked the question, "Dad, can you buy me the Black Death virus? I want to give it to my teacher as a present." Or better yet, "Here you go Dad, I got you Bad Breath for your birthday." How funny would it be if Cole came up to me and said, "I've got a tummy ache..." as he drops the Stomach Ache microbe at my feet.

Well all of these things wouldn't be possible without the help of the folks over at GIANTmicrobes.com. The microbes started out as educational tools, but quickly developed into novelty items after coverage by CNN and Fox News. The microbes are also available in drug stores, bookstores, museums such as Boston's Museum of Science and the like, children's and hospital gift shops, educational catalogs, and general gift shops worldwide.

I've always wondered what a Martian looked liked.

What a wonderful world we live in.

Been all around this world

Stumbled across this site from a post over at Matt Haughey's site A Whole Lotta Nothing and was anxious to see just how well travelled the Grateful Dead had made me over the years. After spending 13 years on the road with the boys, I figured I had been around, but 66% of the country! The center swatch of the US is, however, conspicuously empty from North Dakota to Texas. I guess I didn't want to stop the car when we were driving through, kinda hazy at this point though.

In his post, Matt recalls someone he worked with whose goal was to have his children see all 50 states by the time they were 18. Laurie and I are planning on taking Cole on some road trips once he gets to be around 5 or so to see the Western US. We are hoping to do this via camper and take a good portion of the summer to do it in. I figure we could take a week out and two or three weeks travelling from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon. If all goes well we can drop the camper in Phoenix and fly back. Can't wait for this trip and to get back out on the open road.

If you are interested in making your own map, head on over to World66.

Tantek takes on the top 100

Tantek Çelik has begun to take on the Top 100 Technorati sites in a match of CSS wits. According to Tantek, he will makeover his site in the style of a different Top 100 blog (using CSS for presentation) every few days. His first "redo" is the well known Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things.

This is very cool stuff. It is amazing to me the freedom and flexibility CSS affords the modern web site. It is also strange to me as a web designer that more mainstream (read Corporate) sites do not subscribe to this philosophy. Although very notable mentions go to the likes of Wired, Cingular, ESPN, Sprint, and most recently AOL for attempting true standards based, sematic, CSS compliant sites (although none have actually delivered on all points) much more work is needed in this respect.

In the coming months, I will be redesigning one of my Company's web sites to be W3C standards compliant and Section 508 accessible. This comes not from a need to have a forward compatible web site, but instead from a partner mandate. Maybe more mandates such as this will continue to drive more mainstream sites to a standards based, accessible end.