Yahoo! Widgets

More on the widget craze, I found the new Yahoo! Widget Page

Loves me some Daylight Savings!

So recently there has actually been a political issue I care about. There was talks of extending Daylight Savings, as to start a month earlier and end a month later. I guess people argued that this may have bigger concerns then the proposed amount of oil it would save.

"According to some senators, farmers complained that a two-month extension could adversely affect livestock, and airline officials said it would have complicated scheduling of international flights."
- [CNN]

I guess I never thought about any other issues, and since I am not a morning person, I don't care about the sun being up earlier. I would prefer more daylight as this gives me time to do activities after work that are still in the sun. Speaking of which I really need to take more advantage of this, for gosh-sake its almost August already :(

Take that Jealously

I have to admit that long ago I was a Mac user, but the draw of more software and windows made me a convert when I went off to college. Anyways the Mac interface has always held a spot in my heart, and with the newest OS X operating system things are looking pretty cool on the Mac side. One of the new features is called the dashboard, which is a bunch of widgets. They are small tools that live on your desktop, and can really be anything from the daily weather to news feeds or even a webcam. Seems that whenever something new would pop on the internet there would be a cool new Mac Widget to go with it.

So until now I was like "Oh, no widget for me" :( .... But then I found that I can download widgets too! Yep windows can do it to. Check it out!

Now I just have to clean up my desktop to find room for all the widgets I want. I found one that will grab the newest comic strip of your choice, Get Fuzzy here I come! There are also instructions on how to write your own widgets, which seems pretty cool. I think they are a mix of JavaScript and Xml. I could have a widget that pulls from my photo gallery or even from a crazy quote site if it ever gets it done *cough* sygyzy *cough*.

Update: So I downloaded konfabulator and it is pretty cool. Some on the widgets seem to take up to much space on my tiny laptop screen, but I also have to many files on my desktop as well. Anyways the downside is the program is only a 2 week trial, and they you have to pay $20 for it. But I also found this free toolbar which looks pretty promising, called Desktop Sidebar

Update 2: Wow, such crazy timing that I find this cool tool, and viola, Yahoo! buys them up, and it will soon be free! Sweetness!
Read: Yahoo Buys Maker of 'Widget' Applications

Did failure fail?

The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.
-[Reuters.com]

Wow! Things like this just amaze me. It's like we should go through our entire dictionary and just get rid of all the negative words. Maybe there will be no more Good and Bad, only the Good and the deferred good. Right now they are doing bad, but maybe some day they will do some good.

I can see that it might be harsh to keep telling a young learner that they are doing something wrong, but isn't that how you learn to do something right?

Entertain Me

So after about 2 weeks, we have finally finished the new entertainment center! I think it looks freaking sweet! I love the way my center channel fits into it, and we put it on casters, so the whole thing looks sexy, and rolls nice. Big thanks to Shane and C for their hard work and helping with my indecision. And a shout out to the HD couldn't have done it with out you, only 6 trips and 2 returns!

Oh yeah the speakers sound sweet too!

The Big Race, CARLSBAD TRIATHLON

Sunday was the big day, Team RAD ( Rob, Aaron, and David ) made their Triathlon dayview. We had entered ourselves as a team family relay. Rob swam, David road the bike, and I ran . I think we all did a great job. I had run the course a little slower then I had hoped but there were some hills, and apparently the course was 3.5 miles, and not 3.2. So my watch said my running time was 33min. But here is the break down they posted online.

CATEGORY	PLACE	O'ALL	BIB	NAME	WAVE
RELAYFAMILY	12	746	1318	TEAMTEAMRAD	10
SWIM	BIKE	RUN	FINISH
0:20:52	1:05:11	0:40:47	2:05:50

I even made a nice logo for Team Rad, and turned out some snazzy shirts for the team and the cheering squad( Elaine, Colleen, Missy, Alli, Aunt Robbie, Uncle Bob ). Thanks everyone!

Pictures

Happy 4th of July!

I thought I would give my drawing tablet a workout and make a quick flag to help celebrate Independence day.

Working Hard on My Weekend

Who knew that building stuff was such hard work. So after I got all my speakers for my 5.1 system. I had the dilemma of where to put my center channel. I did not want to put it on the floor in front of my TV, and my TV was too skinny to place it on top. So after watching 1 to many do-it-yourself shows, I decided hey I could just build one myself. This entertainment center would be to my specs, so there would be room for my receiver, DVD player, center channel, cable box, playstation, and even some DVD's.

I took the existing design on my entertainment center, and made it wider and gave it bigger shelves to fit my stuff. Lucky I was able to convince Shane to help me out, and his work has a bunch of power tools to help. One important note to all you prepping for you next project, remember to account for the thickness of the wood! I did not but was able to make things work out, I hope. So after about $100 and 16 hours and 4 trips to home depot ( ok 2 of those where because each time we went there I managed to leave my drawings there. The first time it was lost but lucky I had entered them into my laptop on a layout program call cutlist. The Second time, We were at the self-checkout and I placed my notebook on the table, but apparently its a scale and was messing it up, so I placed it on top of the machine, and left it here on my way out. ARG!! ) I am almost done.




Next I have some more sanding to do, get some drawer handles, feet, and decide on what to paint it.