July 7, 2007
Try Not To Destroy A Girl Scout...
...the next time one comes to your door or you see them outside the supermarket and you don't want to order any Thin Mints. Why you won't want to is probably not their fault Let me explain.
Cool Mint Creme Double Stuff Oreos.
I know! They are really, really good.
I'm not sure how they showed up in the pantry at my house, but I saw them and instantly downed three. Mmmmm.... Cool Mint Creme Oreos. Wow. And Double Stuff on top of it! I could have eaten the bag.
Now, I've always liked the classic Thin Mints from the Girl Scouts. I've got to tell you, Oreo is going to eat into those Girl Scout profits with these genius cookies. Mmmm....
As far as I'm concerned the research and development folks at Nabisco hit this one out of the park.
Oddly enough, I can't seem to find anything about them online.
Oreos.com is a squatted search site domain that Nabisco must be refusing to pay some obnoxious fee for.
Nabisco's Oreo World seems to be touting some new Oreo "Cakesters" - not sure I'm down with that. The outer, hard chocolate part of the Oreo is just fine. Replacing it with some puffy, cakey thing - hmm... not sure. Now, offering up a bright green, mint flavored filling - now that is a brilliant move.
Google search for mint oreos turns up a lot of mentions of dunking, dipping, and Dairy Queen Blizzards.
This post from Kevin Meltzerr implies that Cool Mint Creme Oreos have been around for over a year and I'm just now getting clued in!
Man I need to pay more attention at the grocery store from now on.
So go get some and try them. And whether you really, really like them, like I do, or not, make sure you still buy your Thin Mints this year from your Girl Scouts.
Their going to need the sales lift.
Posted by gcrgcr at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)
July 4, 2007
Wise Sayings
Someone said in an email to me today, "you're a good egg, as my Grandma used to say...".
While it is always nice to hear a compliment, the "good egg" phrase reminded me about my Grandpa. He used to say "don't sweat the small stuff". I've always liked this saying - short, to the point, and easy to understand.
I even find that I've said this to my own kids on more than one occasion.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who appreciates this catch phrase - lots of hits at Amazon - 17 at the time of this posting. Richard Carlson has an entire series, including "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work" as well as DSTSS for Women, for Men, and for Couples.
The obligatory Google search culled up a decent haul as well - including a dontsweat.com site.
Wow. I guess I won't sweat the fact that there is so much research I can do on not sweating things. :)
Oh yeah, and if you are wondering What About The Big Stuff? Well, Mr. Carlson has that covered too.
Posted by gcrgcr at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2007
Content IS King
Pete Blackshaw and his post yesterday on Ten Reasons Why I Should Stop Blogging hits the nail on the head with regard to blogging. Speaks right to my heart as someone who runs this part-time, personal blog effort (I actually started long before a crowded blogosphere existed).
Knowing that I have a hard enough time getting my gabillion thoughts out of my head for my personal posting - I have crazily enough considered doing a blog with more topical focus (where I would then presumably schedule the effort needed as tasks into my daily live).
My hinderences to this are are:
- Everything Pete lists in his post
- Figuring out the specific subject matter I would focus on (I do the lazy version, now, and laziness, apparently, suits me).
At the end of the day (cliche alert) - "Content is King". Don't know who said that, but, yep - I think they got it right.
UPDATES (yes, already)
1) Demonstrative of my above discussed laziness lives within this post itslef (genius at work?) - I failed to mention that I found Pete's entry by way of Matt Blumberg and Only Once. Matt's blog, by the way, in my opinion, stands strong against each of Pete's points and is quite a stellar example of a focused, well-maintained, compelling content-based blog. A great example of what a blogger should strive for.
2) Just out of curiosity, I checked to see if www.contentisking.com was available. Sadly, it is in use, and sadder still, look at it...
Ah, the irony of it all. Content IS king, and contentisking.com needs content!
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:39 PM | Comments (0)
October 31, 2006
Re: Your Brains
Several weeks ago this YouTube video passed by desk via email:
I don't even recall who sent it, but I of course clicked the link and watched the video. Two of my kids heard this coming from my office and came in to check it out. Well, they ended up staying and watching this over and over and over...
This past weekend, Max, my nearly seven-year old, asked about the "eat your brains song".
So, we went to track it down and buy it. Just so you know, you can't get this on iTunes. So, aside from this video version (which is kinda fun), you can puchase the song directly from the artist - Jonathan Coulton.
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/re-your-brains
Here is his site - you can view the lyrics here, listen to the song, and purchase it direct from him for $1.
We've gotten much more than $1 worth out of it. Enjoy!
Posted by gcrgcr at 7:50 AM | Comments (0)
July 6, 2006
Katrina Video
I can't believe it has been over 65 days since we went down to New Orleans on our Hurricane Katrina volunteer effort.
I received an email from someone yesterday who had read my blog entries and had additional questions on what to expect. Aside from a few things I thought of, I figured what better time to pull my photos together.
So, done rather quickly, here is a video slideshow. I could probably trim a bunch of photos and cut the time in half - you will see that the majority of these photos are piles of possesions and muck from homes and buildings. Still, I hope these somewhat redundant photos give you an idea of what we saw and did.
Also, no pot-shots on the music selections - I did this quickly!
I will edit this down as well - to improve viewing time and save bandwidth, but for now, enjoy cut number one!
If you haven't read the series of entries on this trip, you may want to do so, it will make some of the pictures more meaningful.
Posted by gcrgcr at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2006
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day Seven
Final day - Saturday.
No work today. Just packing up, getting processed out of camp, and heading to the airport for home.
I'm not sure how my posting this week has come off. I've tried to chronical things in a fairly straight forward way. In retrospect, as I read it back, I worry that it lacks a bit of dimension. There is just so much going on, it is hard to pull it together at the end of the day.
Still, I hope you've enjoyed my notes and more so, hope that you are inspired to volunteer here at some time.
Dan Deneweth noted some statistics from the camp bulletin board. Habitat for Humanity, for this camp, has a set goal of gutting 5,000 homes. To date they've done about 1,100. Dan indicated that this week our camp had done 80 homes! So, that completed number is closer to 1,200 now - and we didn't work Wednesday!
This was done with about 500 volunteers in camp this week, as I understand it. The camp can accomodate 2,500.
So, clearly there is more that needs to be done, and more help can always be used. I'm not going to implore anyone to do it, but by all means, if you can do this, I can't recommend it enough.
Would I do it again? Absolutely.
Thanks again to Return Path for sponsoring our team here. Honestly, I would have had no idea that this was going on, and no real chance of creating this opportunity for myself. I think the entire team from Return Path is grateful for the chance to do this.
I know we all appreciate our co-workers covering for us in our absence and we all miss our families and friends.
Information on how to help here is somewhat obscure if you just go to the main Habitat for Humanity site. I'm sure this is my naivity as well, and that there are many other organizations helping down here. Just google it.
If you are interested for yourself, or better, for some organized group you are a part of, start with a Google search on Habitat and Louisianna.
Once I am home for a day or two, I'll post my photos.
See you back in Colorado!
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:29 AM | Comments (1)
April 28, 2006
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day Six
Friday. Our last day of work.
This was my favorite day of work so far.
We awoke and did the now typical morning routine: mess hall, team meeting, gear prep and check, get lunch, prep cooler, etc.
The bus let us off in our neighborhood and we started with the home which we left at about 90% completion yesterday. I think we spent about an hour, maybe 90 minutes here, finishing up. We had some drywall and insulation that still needed to come down, as well as a plywood ceiling in one room that hadn't collapsed on its own.
I'm not sure that I mentioned some of the extraction methodology for gutting houses. When you bring stuff out, you classify them into four piles:
- White Pile: this is anything with a cord. Things like computers, TVs, small kitchen appliances, radios, clocks, etc...
- Appliances Pile: these are the larger, and often filled with water or otherwise stink bomb appliances. Refrigerators, washers, dryers, etc...
- Valuables Pile: this is, sadly, the smallest pile. It is where we put anything that looks to have any sentimental or intrinsic value that a home owner may like to see recovered. Partial or complete photographs, coins, money, guns (the fire department comes for those), family heirlooms. This pile tends to be mostly sentimental than intrinsic.
- Trash Pile: this is the largest pile, where "everything else" goes. Debris, muck, clothes, drywall, wood, glass, insulation, trash - literally "everything else"
So, as we finished up at 2404 Paul street, we moved the Valuables pile back into the home. This is particularly sad, as I said, because there is so little left compared to everything else. In this pile there was a photo album of some sort, hand crafted, that had the word "Niece" on the cover, in some sort of puffy, crafts type glue. I'm not sure how much of what is in it is recoverable, but the neighbor had told me that the niece had bought the house to keep it in the family, so I was glad we found this for them.
So, we closed out house number two, grabbed up all our tools and hoofed it down the street to 2209, a large home, where we joined with another team that had already started there today.
In fact, as other teams wrapped up their houses this morning, they joined as well to assist with this larger home. We ended up with four teams of ten working here.
I enjoyed watching how the smaller teams interacted and behaved in a larger group setting. As someone from our team said, in I think a "Survivor" reference, it was like the "merging of the tribes".
For the most part, there was little discomfort or trouble with merging. A few squabbles here and there over gutting technique variance and some territorial issues (I'm gutting this room), but mostly things worked themselves out fine. This was a much larger home by square footage but still not a lot of space for 40 people to be gutting and removing debris.
All in all, I was impressed and it worked out fairly well.
This home was more like our first home. LOTS of river muck covering floors, extremely pungent and heavy. It takes a lot of scooping to clear a room. It takes some level of intestinal fortitude to do the scooping for any sustained amount of time and not toss your cookies.
I can't really describe the odor, but, I will always remember it. I'm sure I can speak for the entire team when I say that they will remember it too.
Refrigerators. I hadn't mentioned this yet either. Refrigerators are one of the first things that must be secured and removed. Think about it. A box full of food that has been partially or entirely submerged in water for an extended amount of time. Now, nearly eight months later we need to remove it. So, the trick is DO NOT OPEN THE FRIDGE. We've been told that teams that have had a fridge open on them while extracting have gotten "the big stink". The stench is so bad, the teams must abandon the home and no one goes back for two to three days!
The key is to secure the doors with duct tape, rope, extension cords, whatever you can find. Often the refrigerators have floated around the house, and landed in strange places and on different sides. This creates additional challenges for removal in may cases.
At our last house, the refrigerator was doors up in the hallway, blocking access to the back bedrooms. Dan Deneweth and I removed a freezer as well, that was loaded with now rotten food and river juice, from a laundry room where it was stacked oddly on top of the overturned dryer.
One of the three refrigerators that needed removed today was already partially open, on its face. We had to secure it, and as we pushed it upright, keep the doors from opening further. That stench is another that is overpowering and which I won't forget.
Blech! So, after that I needed a break.
I headed down the street to the "pot o gold" facilities. On my way back I stopped and spoke to the folks at the end of the street. Their house has the city water tower in its back yard. The city is Mereaux, LA, and no, this is not a hurricane induced situation, the tower is large, sturdy, and didn't float there. It has always been there.
The owners had signed up with Habitat for Humanity to have their home gutted, and had just arrived to check on their house.
Needless to say, they were beside themselves. The man, whose father was there with him, told me his story.
Fortunately he had sent his wife and two girls ahead of the storm to relatives in Indiana. He stayed behind, I guess thinking that the storm wouldn't be "that bad". He ended up trapped in his attic and on his roof for nine days.
He said his house was full of snakes (including the deadly water moccasins we have heard a lot about here). He gashed his leg and treated it himself with a first aid kit in his attic. He sat in his boat, moored to his home, for several hours as cars, trees, debris, and even bodies, floated into and past him.
Apparently he was interviewed on the Today show at some point as one of the "last men out" of the area.
Looking at his gutted home, you think he'd be sad and distraught, with the rebuild effort and financial hurdles ahead. Nope. He was amazed what the Habitat team had done, and so very thankful for the effort. He couldn't express what this meant to him and how difficult a task it would have been on his own. He gave me a hug and I wasn't even on the team who gutted his house!
He seemed concerned that the 2006 hurricane season is only four weeks away. It sounds as though he and other folks are waiting to see how that goes, along with continued levee repairs now and following this hurricane season, before making complete rebuild decisions.
I told him we'd be back in two or three years to see the finished rebuild, and he said we are all welcome anytime.
I imagine that many of us whenever we visit New Orleans in the future, will certainly think of and hopefully visit Paul St. I will.
Posted by gcrgcr at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2006
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day Five
After getting yesterday off, our entire team was eager to get started on a new house.
The weather was much nicer following the storms that rolled through here yesterday. Bright sunshine, 78 degree high, and humidity low enough that I don't think we noticed it at all.
Looking back and evaluating our process and performance for gutting our first house, we had decided that getting just over half-way complete today would be a reasonable goal.
The ultimate goal would be to finish our house by tomorrow, so we could leave two families with completed efforts.
That plan got off to a good start with the house we were assigned. This was definitely in better shape than the first one. Don't get the wrong idea here, it was still in need of complete gutting.
There was water in the home at high level for a long time. But the ceiling hadn't fallen completely and throughout, there was not much carpet, the square footage was less, and there was less muck and pungent odor.
We did get our pungent odors though - the storage room, piled high with "stuff" and there were something like five or six aquariums in this home. Some for fish, others we think for turtles or snakes. Either way, they were filled with river water and sludge and have been percolating just for us...
We hadn't yet had an owner show up while we were working on their home. Today, I noticed a neighbor and spoke to him. He was living with his sister and brother-in-law now. He is from Hopedale, which he described as a fishing community. The houses are all up on large columns. His four bedroom house was completely swept away. His account was that Hopedale is basically gone - compared to the neighborhood we are working in now, that says a lot.
As for the house gutting, as I said, things definitely set up better for us, however, I have to say, our team just did a phenomenal job. We were definitely well rested and more experienced, and we tore right into it. We are quite efficient together and everyone just did so great.
To sum things up in terms of performance - at the end of each shift, the work site leaders come by and evaluate progress in terms of percent completion. Our first house on Monday, we got to 45% - and that was probably being pretty generous.
Today, we doubled that - 90% complete at the end of our shift. Booya! We almost closed this thing out!
So, needless to say we were all very proud of our collective and individual efforts. Tomorrow we should be able to wrap this up quickly and hopefully start another. Rumor was we may be put with another team or two on a much larger house. We will see.
Still having a great time, working hard and definitely making a difference. I think we'd all be willing to stay much longer to do this work, there is so much that needs to be done. I can't say enough about the volunteer efforts here, there is much more to do, and I'm sure the help will be needed for a long, long time.
Still, I think we are all looking forward to coming home.
Posted by gcrgcr at 4:41 PM | Comments (0)
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day Four
I didn't get to post yesterday, so doing a quick update on Day Four. It can be summed up rather easily.
Rain.
We bedded down the night before, and awoke to the sound of rain and thunder. The rain intensified several time and was mostly unrelenting. Torrential, maybe at times.
Since I have my trusty ol' computer here, I scoped out the weather.com satellite view. I should have saved that to show you.
The entire US was pretty much clear. This very large orange-red blob was covering the entire lower portion of Louisianna.
So - by 9:30 am we got official word from the camp officials that work was off. It was actually clearing in the western sky at that time - still, the sites would have been too dangerous with all the water on the ground.
So, we rounded up and headed into New Orleans for some sight seeing. Had some good food - muffalettas and po'boys and such. Also coffee and doughnuts (beignets). Maybe a beer or two, I don't recall...
Anyway, we were back on camp ground well before curfew, and tucked in for Thursday's effort.
Posted by gcrgcr at 4:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2006
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day Three
It is day three for us here in Camp Premier, though it is only day two of actual work. After starting our first house yesterday, we were eager to finish it off if we could.
We began in what is becoming routine of sorts, slightly different for each of us, but probably largely similar: wake, go to mess tent to eat, get dressed, team meet-up, prep gear and cooler, load onto bus, go to work site.
Three days in and we are indoctrinated fairly well.
The word for today is "humid". Wow. Temperatures were not bad, and much of the time clouds would slide in front of the sun, but boy were we wet. Only 20 minutes into it, my shirt was soaked, and my jeans fell like they were being pulled to the ground by gravity. Still, I appreciated the slightly cooler temperature in general - but humidity can just make you uncomfortable.
Working on our house today, I realized that there are really two phases of work. Yesterday we moved things and scooped muck. A massive undertaking in itself. We did get some light stripping in - our house had wood paneling covering every wall in the house, including closets.
So, today, with most of the things moved and scooped, we began the second phase, the actual gutting.
This is the phase that can be fun at times, particularly when you have a need to use the sledgehammer.
We still had the master bedroom and bathroom to clear. Ugh. The bedroom included a queen size mattress and box spring, a bureau, lots of clothes and about 4 inches of much on every square foot of the room.
Half of the room was carpeted. Oh, carpet. I forgot to mention that yesterday. It is a lot harder to scoop muck off of carpet. Also, the carpet itself must be then be removed, after you've scooped muck off of it and cleared the entire room. It, like everything else, is wet and heavy.
Innovative as we are, and doubtless the crews around and before us do this as well, we use large strips of carpet to drag/haul out drywall and other debris. As some of the volunteer trainers had told us on Sunday, "try to touch things once" - get it in a wheelbarrow or onto a sheet or whatever you can find to drag it out.
The master bathroom had the worst muck. I simply can't describe the pungent odors released with each scoop. The bathtub was filled with water, but was probably more like raw sewage at this point. We were allowed to leave that as is.
While a few of us finished off the bedroom, everyone else proceeded with the actual gutting of the house. Ripping down the paneling, drywall and insulation. Lighting fixtures, ceiling and baseboard molds, everything you can think of comes out. The only things you leave are the water heater and toilets.
This family had a large aquarium in the home. It was smashed up and we imagine the fish may have been happy to be free for a short while. We found what we think as a "pet fish" embedded in the drywall about eye level in the master bedroom.
There is lots of activity in the neighborhood as you work. The other three teams that come out with us on our bus are each at various houses up and down the street. Construction trucks and other large sanitation or cleanup vehicles trawl the streets. Not sure if they are going to jobs or looking for them.
There are home owners at some of the houses. Many have trailers or RVs parked on the lawns, hooked into electricity and septic, for living while they figure out what they are doing with their house.
As we ate lunch in the car port of an abandoned home next to ours, the neighbor on the other side came over and chatted to us. As we've heard from others, he expressed just how much the community appreciates the volunteers. He said people here talk about "us" everyday.
We talked to an estimator/contractor hired to demolish the house on the other side of ours. He said most "gutting" efforts produce 75 to 150 cubic yards of debris. He figured we had over 75, which for a single level dwelling I think is a lot. Our pile was massive (I'll post pictures later).
I think about the amount of work we did in two days. 10 of us, say 6 hour shifts for two days - 120 man hours. It is really quite remarkable what we did, and I can't imagine these families doing it on their own. The cost to have your house professionally gutted, we here, is 5 to 10 thousand dollars. That has to make a big difference to these folks, and I am glad we were here to do it.
Tonight we head into New Orleans, the French quarter, for some well deserved time "off base". The mess tent has good eats, but I am looking forward to some local grub.
We should start a new house tomorrow, so more to come on our adventures here through the week.
Posted by gcrgcr at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2006
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day Two
Wow. Day two turned out to be a lot of work, but very exhilarating and remarkable.
As I mentioned yesterday, we are in a FEMA run facility operated by the Federal Government. As an Ops person, I have to say, I quite enjoy the process and procedure that abounds here. Straight forward and simple rules. Clear structure and reason for all parts of the camp. Things run pretty darn well.
Anyway, the teams here go out in two waves. The first teams go out to the work sites at 7:30, so need to be up by no later than 6 probably. The second teams go out to the sites at 8:30. We are a second wave team. So, we were up around 6:45 today.
No one showers (why bother) so it is over to the mess tent for breakfast. In addition to a Team Captain each team has a Tool Captain. Ours is fellow co-worker Harry Pallick. Harry, as Tool captain, gets up earlier than we do, gets all of our teams tools inventoried and prepped, and leaves for the work site earlier than us. He also stays behind at the site after we leave as well, securing the tools until the tool truck comes by.
By the way, Harry is napping over on his cot in our tent as I type this. The life of a Tool Captain!
Following breakfast our team meets at 8:00 for a team meeting. Together we review that everyone is there, has appropriate Personal Protection Equipment, and their FEMA sack lunch.
Our "cooler team" - Jeremy McGuire and Paul from Boston - head over to pack our water cooler for the team. They recommend each team member drink 1 or 2 bottles per hour during the work shift. We take as much as we can, about 90 or so. As is the procedure prescribed, we mix frozen water bottles with regular ones. This cools the regular ones. Later at the site we open the cooler and let the frozen ones thaw.
Once an assigned bus arrives, each to transport four teams to the job, we load the coolers and hop on. We finally make it to our first home site about 9 am. We are at 2500 Paul Drive.
The good news is, our house has a large doorway in the front, probably was a sliding glass door or french doors. The bad news is, we can't really even take a step in.
The debris and furniture are pretty much completely blocking our way. As we force in a bit, we step into dark green muck and start to get a sense of whatmay have happened here.
The ceiling is on the floor. Drywall, insulation, ceiling tiles - everything. Differs slightly depending on the room. In this home, the living room has a nice 12 foot or so vaulted ceiling. All of that ceiling is on the floor.
Lookint high on the wall, we can see the water line from the storm at about 10 ft. This is a single story house and is maybe 15 feet tall in total to the top of the roof. Even on the roof during the storm there would have been little room for safety. Freaky, scary, and sad.
We worked hard to clear the rooms and make our way in. Removing large items first, couches, chairs, the ceiling, whatever is in your way.
The floor has anywhere from 3 to 6 inches of river mud on it. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE. We scoop, and scoop, and scoop. This is heavy, wet, silt, mud. It is on everything, soaked into everything, making everything very heavy.
I wish I could post my photos, but I don't have my transfer cable. I'll post them later, but they still may not do it justice.
Gutting the house is definitely a mix of emotion.
First, there is the sheer work of it. It is hot. 85 degrees and maybe 45 percent humidity, outside. Inside is hotter until you can get some windows opened or smashed out.
We are wearing a hard hat, long pants, short or long sleeves, an air respirator over our mouths, protective eye goggles and work boots.
Along with the work there is a definite feeling of challenge and motivation. "We can do this" and "Let's go!" are on the mind.
As you get into it, and slow down due to the conditions and work, that fades a bit, but not completely. For the most part, we stay upbeat and moving. Continual progress.
Amazement sets in, definitely as you get into personal belongings, hoping to find valuables and memorabilia that can be salvaged. Furniture, like desks just fall apart as you pull out drawers. Still you look hopefully for something of value or sentiment that can be returned to the owners. It is sad to peel through stacks of photos, glommed together by the moisture, and find none with anything left but smears of ink that are not recognizable.
Essentilly you are awestruck at what has happened here. Total loss. Photo albums, clothes, letters, furniture, literally everything a family had, is in here and is ruined.
It is a good thing we are here. All of these volunteers. I can't imagine how much more work needs done. I'm glad we came.
I know this, we will work just as hard, if not harder through the week. And, we will sleep better and better each night!
Posted by gcrgcr at 6:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 23, 2006
New Orleans Katrina Clean Up Day One
The quick background, for those who may not know where I am currently.
My gracious employer, Return Path, has sponsored six of us on a volunteer effort in New Orleans for the post-Katrina clean up efforts.
Before I go into arrival details, quickly I want to mention what a great opportunity Return Path has provided us. Specifically Matt Blumberg our CEO who has made community service an important part of our corporate tapestry.
Return Path sourced the opportunity, provided most of the organizational horsepower, and ultimately has paid for our travel and rental vehicles.
Thank you Return Path!
Now, to the effort. We are specifically working in St. Bernard Parish, one of the more devasated areas. As I understand it, there are 27,000 homes in need of "gutting" or razing here. If our total camp assigned team of 10 does 4 or so in our 6 days here I think that would be amazing. There is a lot that needs done.
Today was spent traveling from Denver to New Orleans. Then, after meeting up with two of my co-workers, we made our way out to our FEMA operated volunteer camp.
We arrived in 45 minutes or so, driving through what I think was largely "the ninth ward". I heard someone mention that, but am not sure what that means.
Along the way, we saw many things. The majority of homes and businesses are still closed, boarded up, in need of cleaning or look unsalvageable. Many have piles of debris out front or all around. Symbols and markings are spray painted on each building, dated and clearly from the very immediate post-Katrina search and rescue efforts.
I saw a tree, oak maybe, that had to be 12 feet in diameter, maybe 50 feet tall or more, ripped out of the ground and sidewalk it had previously been growing near. Whoa.
Our camp is Camp Premier. It is large and well run. There are many tents for bunking. We are staying 12 to a tent, gender separated. We enjoy a large mess hall, with good food, games and activities, all the water and soda you could want.
There is laundry service, about a 24 hour turn around we hear, and hot showers.
Now, following our initial intake registration, receiving IDs, camp tour, team and tool leader meeting (I'm a team leader), team meeting, and orientation, we are finally bedding down for the first day's work.
I'll cover more of what that is like tomorrow. From all of our initial training, I "think" I know what to expect, but again, I'll save that for next time.
Also, much thanks to our co-workers, covering for us back home. We'll do you proud. Also, to my family. Thanks for letting me go, I miss you guys already, but am proud to have come to contribute to this wonderful effort that is so needed.
Until next time...
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 29, 2005
Got It Done!
How did an excellent time-management tool help me climb a 14,255 foot mountain? I'll tell you...
First, the background. One of the personal development issues I've been working on professionally at Return Path is my time and task management. I've made fantastic progress, most this quarter, using the "Getting Things Done" system.
For those not in the now, Getting Things Done is a method and support system for time and task management.
The basic premise is that everything you have to do, from business related tasks, to personal items - needs to be captured somewhere. That somewhere is referred to as your "Operating System".
Capture your tasks: get them off of sticky notes, get them out of piles of paper on your desk, and most importantly GET THEM OUT OF YOUR HEAD and get them INTO your operating system. For me, this along with the basic triage concept are probably the most important fundamentals of the system.
Once you have captured everything, it can be dealt with. Everything can typically be dealt with in three ways:
1) Do it.
2) Delegate it.
3) Delete it.
There are few exceptions.
GTD has not only provided me with an effect triage method for dealing with your day-to-day tasks, but it also has enabled me with tools. I purchased the GTD Outlook Plugin and it is worth its weight in gold. (Thanks to colleague Jack Sinclair for this tip!) Specifically it allows you to manage email easily - with some custom buttons I can convert an email into a task, archive the message, set an alarm, categorize the item, set a due date, etc... with basically 2 clicks. I highly recommend it if you adopt this system - and obviously I endorse the Getting Things Done system overall.
Now, one of the things I like about GTD, is it allows me to capture everything I need to get done. Of course the broad focus are day-to-day business items, but the system intentionally captures all personal items. This includes things like, "wash the dog", or "pick up the dry cleaning", or "get flowers for wife" (that one is still open... I'll do it next honey - promise!).
Along these lines you are encouraged to have a category for long term goals. Things like "learn how to fly a plane" or "take rhumba lessons".
While I get great satisfaction from working through several or even dozens of tasks per day, as well as managing dozens and probably hundreds of emails - there is something about knocking down one of the bigger "life goals". When I first setup GTD and inventoried all my tasks, one of the items in my "Someday" category was "Climb Longs Peak". This has been "on my mental list" since 2002.
So, what can a great time management tool do for you? Not only can it get your email inbox average count down from 800 or so to under 100 (on my way to the pinnacle "empty inbox"!) - but for me, it pushed me up a 14,255 foot mountain. 15 miles of round trip hiking and climbing. 4,875 feet of elevation gain. Six hours to the summit and three and a half back.
I'll post a full gallery soon, but for now here is the proof! Special thanks to the climbing party that adopted me - friends and neighbors Jim and Stephanie Busby and their clan the "Bice Descendants"! And thanks to Joie for letting me go!
So tomorrow I may be back to the daily grind, but today I had the pleasure of marking the task"Climb Longs Peak" complete. Cool! Good thing it was on my list!
Posted by gcrgcr at 8:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
Bloglet to Feedblitz
Call me a lemming... I just read this post by Matt Blumberg and have enough faith in his "geekiness" to make the switch to Feedblitz. To quote from his concise explanation:
Many of you rely on emails from an outfit called Bloglet to receive notifications that I've posted something to my blog. However, as you no doubt know, Bloglet's service is incredibly flakey, so many times, the notices don't go out.
That same sentiment is now mine and applies to you. Matt is going to run the services in parallel, but not me. I'm just rolling the dice. Bloglet has been flakey for me. So, FYI on the new posting alerts. If anyone has problems with the new alerts, please let me kow.
Thanks!
Posted by gcrgcr at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2005
Be grateful...
In a slight departure from the normal post, I received the following letter via email from my sister yesterday. She's currently travelling in China on a mission, and well, her report is colorful and interesting. It sure is nice to live in America!
Hello to all!
Here it is on Sunday at 1:00 in the afternoon, and I am at an internet cafe writing to all of my supporters in the U.S. For 2 quai or 20 cents, I can use the internet for one hour! It is totally amazing! The cafe itself is a building the size of a garage, and has about 30 computers in it. It is very quiet, and all around me are people interacting through IM's and listening to music with their headsets. This experience is very unique!
Well, our trip has been very eventful so far! We started out with our flight being delayed 6 hours at LAX. When we arrived in Shanghi, we had missed our flight into Beijing, so they carted us off to another plane which delivered us to Beijing at 3:00 in the morning Beijing time. Our flight was to leave Beijing at 8 in the morning, so we chose to hang in the airport and be spectacles for the Chinese people. Most of us on the trip have light colored hair and blue or green eyes, thus began our journey of stares, and gawking. It has been a learning experience for me, for in Western culture, we are taught that staring is wrong, but here in China, it is very common, and not impolite. It is very hard to get used to though.
From Beijing we were to fly to Kunming and spend the night in Kunming. Since our flight was delayed at LAX, we no longer had a flight out of Beijing, and spent more time waiting in the airport until the airlines could locate another flight for the 10 of us! To say the least we were exhausted after spending 27 hours in airports across the world! Upon arriving in Kunming, we met the Missionaries we would be working with, and they guided us to our hotel. The hotel itself was located in the Government district, and was very attractive--18 floors total, and very western looking (marble floors, real restroom facilities, and air conditioning). We all opted to go to our rooms to take showers, and rest. My roommate, Amie and I, wanted to go to the Bird and Flower market in downtown Kunming with the missionaries, so we all met in the lobby to begin our adventure.
The Bird and Flower market was a very unique area. The market itself is in an alleyway--with little huts/shacks lined along the roadway (walkway)--whenever a car passes through everyone that is on foot has to move into the shacks so the car can pass. There were many items for sale, and bartering is the market of choice. We were very lucky to have native speakers with us--foreigners ALWAYS are charged a higher price, and if we were to go alone, we could have been way overcharged (2-3 times the regular price). In the market there were vendors selling fresh fruit (lychees, plantains, grapes, grilled corn on the cob, sticky rice cooked in bamboo sticks, dogmeat on skewers, and plums). There were also plenty of goods being sold: pipes, Hmong clothing, Jade, Green tea, handmade pictures and jewelry. The flowers being sold aty the market were spectular. The lilies grown here are twice the size of any I have seen grown in the US, and have the most beautiful fragrance! The orchids here are a bright pink and stand at about three feet tall! The cost for this type of orchid? 100 quai--or $10 US dollars. Incredible! Anyways, the market was truly a humbling experience, for most of these shop owners only make 100 quai a week (10 US dollars). It is a very poor region.
The next morning we began our journey south to Wenchan--it was an eight hour bus ride on a steep winding dirt road. Wenchan is located 30 miles north of the Vietnam border. There are two roads into the city --one from Kunming and one from Vietnam. If you have the opportunity to search online, we drove through a very beautiful area called Stone Mountain in order to get to our destination in Wenchan. We had lots of new experiences--I will share later, but the most memorable was our new version of the restroom facilities! We have my roommate Amie losing her cookies as she approached the restrooms because we could smell them all the way from the bus which was about 300 feet away! God is really opening my eyes to see that we are so very blessed in the States. We take so much for granted.
Once in Wenchan, we checked into the hotel, and headed back out to the village where we would be serving. It took an hour to get there, and then there was a two mile hike to arrive at the school. The school children were there to greet us, and were singing "We want to welcome you, we are glad you are here" in their Hmong language.I could not contain myself from bursting out in tears. It was so amazing to see these children--about 250 of them singing at the top of their lungs and clapping. It was a beautiful and amazing sight. Most of these children walk 1 hour or longer to school each way, and work in the fields when they get home in the evening.
OK--enough for now. God had been very present here with us, and has been speaking an awesome message to each of us on our team. For me, I have been blessed with the message of "Be still, and know that I am near". The Lord's presence is here with us, and we will share his message through our actions (words are a bit tough right now) :-)
God bless you all, and thanks for keeping me in your prayers.
Love,
Kim
Posted by gcrgcr at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2005
Be Prepared...
I had a great weekend in Phoenix, Arizona for my father's graduation.
Dad had been working on his Masters of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary for around four years. He has put tremendous effort into this achievement and like many collegiate of traditional age did so while working full-time and managing other life activities.
Understandably we couldn't be more proud of him.
Graduation service was a mix of a typical morning church service and a typical college graduation. Attending a graduation is one of those times, like funerals and weddings, where listening to those speaking, you tend to really pause and reflect on your life. I found some words of the keynote speaker (apologies to him for already forgetting his identity) to be most meaningful to me.
In a nutshell - "be prepared". Without getting specific, or even getting close to paraphrasing (I took no notes) the speaker talked to the new graduates about being effective with their new knowledge.
Doing so, he said, requires being aware of that which flows into you as well as out of you. He related this point as something akin to having a 5-inch pipe inbound into you and a 10-inch pipe outbound.
We tend to give alot of ourselves to others but rarely take enough time to "fill back up". Day to day we focus strictly on the outbound. While helping others, solving problems, completing our tasks - we are either to busy or have simply forgotten to pay attention to what comes in.
The danger in not replenishing is that there will come a natural drop in quality of our output. To illustrate his point our speaker quoted Martin Luther, who said:
I have so much business, I can not get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.
Talk about being prepared! Basically he says - I have so much to do, I can't effectively get anything done unless I spend three hours ahead of time to replenish, rejuvenate, plan and strategize.
So, I soaked this message up as it was delivered to the new Masters in Theology and Masters in Divinity graduates in the room. It was only later that the religious context fell away and I realized the basic principle applies to pretty much anything you do in life. Work, business relationships, personal relationships, parenting, etc.
Ultimately it fits in nicely with all sorts of discussions about work/life balance, meden agan (everything in moderation - thanks Matt), et al.
It also scales well. Whether it be long-term business goals, short-term planning for a daily meeting, or personal interactions throughout the day - take time to quietly think things through. Focus on the outcomes and plan well - this is critical ahead of execution for quality sake. I personally will be putting this into practice to improve my execution.
In closing, Louis Pasteur summed it up well a long time ago:
Fortune favors the prepared mind
Be prepared! And may the good fortune follow...
Posted by gcrgcr at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2005
Blurnalism - Is Blogging Journalism?
So Joe C. sent over an interesting story last night about bloggers versus journalists.
Are Bloggers Journalists?
A California judge issued a preliminary ruling on Mar. 3 that three bloggers who published leaked information about an unreleased Apple (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) product must divulge their confidential sources.
If the ruling holds, it will set a precedent certain to reverberate through the blogosphere because this means under the law *bloggers aren't considered journalists.*
For more on the story...
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/050308/tc20050377877_tc024_1.html
This story boils down to some interesting pieces. Apple, or any company, has a right to protect trade secrets. They hold their employees contractually to such. Purportedly, an employee or insider, released this information. Apple will force the "journalist" protection issue so they can find out where their leak is.
It makes me wonder - would a "real" journalist have run this information? Part of being a journalist seems to be having a pretty core understanding of the fuzzy protection surrounding the professions - especially the protection around not revealing source. Even still, it seems to me that a "real" journalist would probably stay away from releasing corporate trade secret in the news.
So, to the question, "Are bloggers journalists?", I don't think so. Clearly ALL bloggers are not journalists. Additionaly it is probably true that MOST bloggers are not journalists. Certainly however, it can be true that SOME bloggers ARE journalists.
I blog therefore I'm a journalist just doesn't hold up for me. E.g. just because someone decides to practice any particular skill, whether it be writing, medicine, art, law, doesn't mean they qualify for our automatically are bestowed with all the benefits and/or protections that come with the corresponding profession.
If a guy cuts his leg open at home to get a splinter out, that doesn't make him a doctor. He can't go write a presecription.
"Journalists" do have industry and self regulating "oaths" etc... that make up the fabric of "the profession". Don't they?
Still, the article raises many interesting questions. Apple asserts the people who run these sites aren't "legitimate members of the press." and therefore it has the right to subpoena information that will reveal which Apple employees are violating their confidentiality agreements. In most cases, journalists are protected under the First Amendment and don't have to reveal their sources.
So what makes a journalist? Publishing something that is public? Read by any other natural person? Has a publication frequency? Carries advertising? Is done for pay?
What about independent recognition? The story mentions how in "2004, bloggers for the first time received press passes to cover the conventions during the Presidential elections. They have broken major news stories. Several prominent bloggers have become media pundits. And mainstream media outfits, including BusinessWeek Online, are developing blogs to complement their traditional outlets."
Personally, as a blogger I've never felt like a journalist. I posted last year on a similar story, Bloggers don't do it for the Money.
Maybe Blogging becomes Blournalism a bit when someone starts to attempt to make money on it. Probably not journalism however, until they obtain or achieve the legitimate credentials that come with the profession.
Posted by gcrgcr at 8:26 AM | Comments (1)
January 10, 2005
Sometimes, you just gotta laugh...
UPDATED - sorry I had the wrong link to the Squirrel Launcher post
I have no words - but I'm rolling on the floor laughing...
Found on Peter Hoskin's blog:
Good find - I needed some juvenile humor. That was juvenile, wasn't it?
Posted by gcrgcr at 8:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 5, 2005
Tsunami Relief
There has been remarkable response and outpouring worldwide in donations and monetary relief for those affected in the Tsunami disaster.
Being technical, and working in privacy and email, I took note early on (as did others) that it took only hours following the disaster for Tsunami spam to appear. Like other scam spam, and phishing types of emails, the spammers preyed on the generosity of those around the world, and attracted them to donation sites and methods that were most likely not legitimate.
Google has listed some legitimate relief links - and in general I'd be leary about responding to any email about the tsunami, and use the link above to better ensure legitimacy.
At worst, do something to ensure that the message you've recieved or the donation channel your considering is legitimate.
Amazon has made a channel available through their affiliates, of which I am one (it doesn't take much to be one) - but I thought it was a good effort on their part to offer a reliable channel for those who'd like to donate. At the time of this posting Amazon has collected an amazing total of US $14,338,316.00 from 177321 dontations. The default is a $10 donation. The current average is $80.86. Here is the form
I imagine by now most people have donated something, but in case you hadn't, and specifically because of convenience, or fear of legitimate organizations to relay your donation, I thought I'd post this.
Posted by gcrgcr at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 17, 2004
Does it Gobble in the box?
I really enjoyed this blog entry "Talking Turkey" by friend Lisa Donovan regarding their endeavor to do more than purchase a supermarket turkey for Thanksgiving. An excerpt:
...Once we committed to not buying a supermarket bird, the options began to open up for even more exploration. "Organic", we found, was only the tip of the iceberg. It is possible to have an organic Broad-breasted White industrial turkey. Which, because of breeding, would probably not be the best choice from a gastronomical perspective, when you consider how they are primarily prepared for cooking (see above). This is about the time we discovered “Heritage” breeds. Heritage breeds of turkey are natural, old-fashioned varieties whose ancestors roamed the American Farm Belt centuries before anyone heard of Butterball or Jennie-O. These breeds include names like Narragansett, Jersey Buff, Standard Bronze, Royal Palm, Bourbon Red, White Midget, and the Beltsville Small White. The Narragansett is apparently the oldest turkey breed in North America. If you want to eat as the Pilgrims did, this is the closest you’ll get...
Read the rest of the post for the hilarity of it all...
We've experimented in recent years with cooking methodologies of the celebratory fowl - that is to say we now enjoy dunking it in 400 degree oil and frying it to a crisp. Hey, if you're going to celebrate and take on some additional calories, you might as well go all the way right?
I hadn't thought much about the "type" of bird beyond the basic splurge at the grocery store for the "Butterball".
I wonder if a heritage turkey is somewhat "gamey" in taste, or "tough". I don't imagine the deep fryer results would vary at all.
Regardless of how you cook it, you'll have leftovers for a bit, so here are some endless recipes for the meals to come:
- Barbecue Turkey Burgers
- Grilled Turkey Filets with Mixed Mushroom Sauce
- Turkey Pizza Quesadilla
- Couscous Salad With Turkey, Apricots and Almonds
- Curried Turkey Couscous Salad
- Grilled Turkey Cobb Salad with Blue Cheese Buttermilk Dressing
- Mozzarella Basil Stuffed Turkey Tenderloins with Smoky Tomato
- Vinaigrette
- Grilled Turkey with Cilantro Salsa
- Caribbean Turkey
- Artichoke Turkey Pizza
- Barbecue Turkey Pita Sandwich
- Chopped Turkey Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
- Pumpkin Black Bean Turkey Chili
- NEW! Roasted Turkey with Mushroom Herb Sauce
- Turkey and Artichoke Antipasto Salad
And MUCH MUCH More... have a good turkey day - regardless of whether you put down your own turkey with a cross bow or not. Read the post - it's funny!
Posted by gcrgcr at 2:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 2, 2004
Are they made from hemp?
A friend of mine, Ryan Osborne, shared this site with me this weekend - a new business venture of a friend of his that we both know from previous employment together.
The venture is responsiblepotsmoker.com.
It is an interesting concept.
The first thing I thought of the URL is that it might be a joke / farce type site, for a political statement on legalizing marijuana.
Once you visit the site though, you see it is a legitimate attempt by RPS Clothier, LLC.
It is like Abercrombie & Fitch meets edgey pop-culture societal debate.
Good thing most of the items are underwear. Like religion and politics, the use of marijuana, responsible or not, is not necessarily something that will benefit you by advertising on your clothing. At least not in the work place.
What do you think?
Me? I'm a fan of ingenuity and new ideas. I like the simplistic designs, and I think the product has an appeal and appears to be quality made. Will if fly? Who knows... check it out though.
Posted by gcrgcr at 10:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 22, 2004
A doozy!
Words are cool. Occasionally I'll use a word like "doozy" - like I did earlier today, and wonder where the heck a word like that originated from.
My colleague George Bilbrey whom I sit by during the day at the office was fortunate/unfortunate enough to have taken (was forced to take) Latin. He's a good resource for etymology. No luck on doozy though.
A few years back when I was in Client Engineering at MessageMedia - we had opened up MessageMedia Europe. The Europeans sent over some French guys so we could ramp them up on Client Engineering. I recall speaking with "Jerome" and using the term "doozy". He said, "What is this - doozy?" and I simply could not find a way to convey it, so picked another word.
Thanks to Google, mystery solved. What I like about Google is that they seem to think of everything. I entered "doozy" into my Firefox Google toolbar and got these results.
I've always been bummed that Google didn't have a direct "dictionary" search, but today I noticed on every result page, off to the top right there was the following:
Results 1 - 10 of about 64,000 for doozy [definition]. (0.20 seconds)
Aha! Definition links to any keyword searched in Google! Sweet!
So mystery solved. This is "doozy":
Something extraordinary or bizarre: "Among the delicious names taken by, or given to, minor political parties in the United States... are these doozies: Quids, Locofocos, Barnburners, Coodies, Hunkies, Bucktails" (Saturday Review).
and I like the possible origin:
[Possibly blend of daisy, and Duesenberg, a luxury car of the late 1920s and 1930s.]
So there you go, word of the day (as if there are not enough of those on the web anymore).
Posted by gcrgcr at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 17, 2004
What will we be doing at 101?
What will we be doing if we're that old?
I read the following on Yahoo! News today. Normally a story like this
wouldn't elicit much from me. Read the story next and see what I'm
talking about.
101 year-old Frank Moody, right, is congratulated by an
unidentified parachutist, after a tandem skydive in Cairns Australia,
Wednesday, June 16, 2004. Moody, after accepting a drunken dare from
friends, jumped from more than 9,900 feet and is expected to enter the
record books as the oldest skydiver ever, beating the previous record
held by a 94-year-old Norwegian man set in 1999.
Now, one of the first thoughts I have is that the guy is just a drunken idiot. The risk of life and limb for someone that age to skydive, well it must be somewhat higher than younger folk. Of course I may be mostly sterotyping here.
To his credit, he did tandem dive, which is I'm certain required for any first time jumper. There is at least some confidence in the fact that if you are going to be killed in a recreational activity, that there is a seemingly knowledgeable and experienced expert willing to do it with you.
I've never sky dived, though would like too - I have bungie jumped from a hot air balloon, though that was years ago.
Anyway, the part of this story I like is just that a 101 year-old man would even consider, let alone succeed in such a task. God bless anyone who can live that long, we all have a limited set of years here, and if any one of us gets 100 of them, that alone is special.
More than the bragging rights generated by this man, for telling his friends to put that in their pipe, it has got to be an intrinsic pleasure to still be extracting every ounce of what life has to offer. Just being around at 100 is a great thing, but living
while you are here is even better.
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:20 AM | Comments (0)
November 6, 2003
View from El Cajon, California
View from El Cajon, California of the Wild Fires This
just in... got an email from Dad - probably from someone he knows in
California who snapped this photo and sent it out. I assume it is
pretty recent, but can't say for sure. Maybe last night? The email was
from this AM. Anyway, click the photo for a slightly larger version -
and if you don't have a fire burning down your backyard, be thankful!
Later,
Tom
Posted by gcrgcr at 4:17 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2003
Fall Back!
it's already time next week or so, fall back - which means in exchange
for entering the dark, dismal, trying winter season, you get a lousy
hour of extra sleep.
For some folks this is a good trade off. Me? Even though I live in
wonderful, colorful, recreational, ski-tourist-heaven, Colorado...
well, I prefer summer here. Spring, Summer, Fall, fine... Winter? I
like it for about 30 days. That's plenty. It seem so darn long...
though, the winters here the past 10 years have been mild to say the least. I'm not sure that I have much to complain about. I just like being outdoors, running, etc. I guess since I've taken up ice hockey a few months ago, I should appreciate winter more. Though, I don't go to my local pond to skate. I go to Boulder Valley Ice at Superior which I can do even when it is 90 degress outside (which I like).
So there you go. Take your hour of sleep next week and huddle up for a cold winter.
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:06 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2003
Ouch... that's gonna leave a mark
Ouch... that's gonna leave a mark...
Yikes. Seriously. That had to hurt.
While using a drill above his head on Aug. 15, the six-foot
ladder he was standing on started to wobble, Hunt's nephew Ben Hunt
said. "The ladder started to 'walk' on him," Ben said. "He lost his
balance and threw the drill down - which is normal for us (construction workers)."
Then, he fell off the ladder face-first and onto the drill, which went
through his right eye and out his skull, just above his right ear.
According to Ben, doctors told him the drill pushed his brain aside,
rather than impaling it, which could have caused further - and most
likely vastly more extensive - damage.
Sometimes I feel bad that I sit at a computer all day and don't
do something more "active" like construction, working outdoors, using
my (non-existant) muscles... but then I read this and I think - eh -
this probably wouldn't happen to me in the office at my desk. Even with two computers on my desk -- living on the edge! Sheesh.
Amazing sometimes what humans survive. Hope the fellow gets away with
lost eyesight in the eye and some facial nerve damage. NO INSURANCE.
That's gonna leave a mark for sure... in his wallet.
Posted by gcrgcr at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2002
Toronto Canada Well, I'm off
Well, I'm
off to Toronto, Canada again on Monday. I'll be gone 3 days and 2
nights on a business trip for DoubleClick. Brad is coming along and
will stay for the week. Little by little I'm learning to be a Canadian.
Eh?
--------
Posted by gcrgcr at 2:25 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2001
Fighting back: Ten things you
Fighting back: Ten things you can do right nowIn
light of what has occurred on September 11, 2001 and since, here are
some rational suggestions for how to "act" and "behave" in the
aftermath... why? Well, for many generations after the "baby-boomers"
this is the most serious threat to freedom ever experienced. Even for
those "pre-babyboomers" the attack on the WTC has been described as
equivalent, to slightly or substantially worse than Pearl Harbor --
even by those who've now lived through both events... so, for
Generations, X, Y, and Z... a lot of issues need to be dealt with.
One feeling is simply, what now? How do I act? What do we do? Are we at
War? Should I get my money out of the bank? I heard gas prices are
going to triple... etc... So, this MSNBC article
is a good list of ten suggestions. It's not an amazing patriotic piece
of prose, just a simple, measured, clear list of suggestions for what
to do next. It's not going to heal psychological wounds, from just
witnessing and watching the events of this week, or certainly from
knowing folks related to or taken by this tragedy, but it will help a
bit on how to still participate in society moving forward. -- Tom
--------
Posted by gcrgcr at 2:20 PM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2001
City of Longmont, Colorado
City of Longmont, CO; Twin Peaks Golf Course
Played golf this morning with some guys from work... Jim Fraser, Bob 'rabrams' Abrams, and Scott Billiter. Played at Twin Peaks which is literally down the street from me on Cornell Drive. Hadn't played there since I was in High School. The trees are much bigger now, and come into play more. It's pretty.
Jim and Scott played well, Bob claimed to be a poor player, but shot 50 on the back nine, 16 strokes better than the 66 on the front! I shot 62 and 52 - ouch I know, but it actually felt better than the numbers added up. 10 strokes off the front nine was pretty good!
The rest of the day I did household maintenance, played with the boys, cooked out and ran treadmill... trying to gear up to do a RamSpam
and finish Pottery Caffe site. -- later.
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:43 PM | Comments (0)
City of Longmont, Colorado
City of Longmont, CO; Twin Peaks Golf Course
Played golf this morning with some guys from work... Jim Fraser, Bob 'rabrams' Abrams, and Scott Billiter. Played at Twin Peaks which is literally down the street from me on Cornell Drive. Hadn't played there since I was in High School. The trees are much bigger now, and come into play more. It's pretty.
Jim and Scott played well, Bob claimed to be a poor player, but shot 50 on the back nine, 16 strokes better than the 66 on the front! I shot 62 and 52 - ouch I know, but it actually felt better than the numbers added up. 10 strokes off the front nine was pretty good!
The rest of the day I did household maintenance, played with the boys, cooked out and ran treadmill... trying to gear up to do a RamSpam
and finish Pottery Caffe site. -- later.
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:43 PM | Comments (0)
August 4, 2001
Boulder County Fair & Rodeo
Well, we went to the county fair today... we go every year, and will go back next week for the "tractor parade" (AJ'll love it), but today we went to see Lisa in the Sheep dog trials... Lots of folks from MM went, all the FG's (Scott Green, Cindy, Emily and Rachel), Jenny Lynn, D to the MC Keen, Tim and his posse... etc...
Here is proof... in case you were interested... Also, Tim took that picture with his new Pen cam, I'm sure his blogger will tell you all about it.
Here is a classic shot of some 
Sheep Poop.
Anyhow, Lisa and Plaide did well -- Ken apparently gave her some issues that she'll deal with "offline" (there's probably some sheep herder equivalent to that geek term).
Walked around after that with the Green's and JL for a while. AJ met a
girl, about 6 years old or so, and helped clean her calf. It's name was Beauty. He had fun. We all did. -- later.
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:52 PM | Comments (0)
August 3, 2001
Greg, Bernard, and me
Scott was over tonight with the girls and we got to talking about Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France victory - Armstrong's third straight... basically there is only one other American who has won the tour at all, I believe, and that is Greg Lemond, who won two in a row and three total.
There is Jacques Anquetil, Eddie Mercykx, Miguel Indurain, and Bernard Hinault, very different eras but they won 5 each. I remembered an old cycling hat I had, from when I was about 15 and we rode touring cycles alot... there was a popular race called the Coors Classic and we ran into a bunch of famous riders at a bike store in Boulder.
I checked my hat tonight and among the doze or more signatures is that of Greg Lemond and Bernard Hinault. Cool! This was in 1985, so Greg had not yet won any Tour's and Bernard actually won his 5th and final one that year. It looks like I actually got Bernard's sig twice... I'm sure I didn't have a clue who he was and asked him twice... duh... anyway, I guess I'll just hold onto that hat! If I get my scanner running I'll scan it and post it. -- later.
Posted by gcrgcr at 9:16 PM | Comments (0)
