Things I’ve stumbled upon

A few weeks back, somebody I know told me about this cool tool called Stumble Upon. It’s a toolbar for your browser that chooses random sites for you to visit based on some general categories that you select. I have found a dozen or so REALLY cool sites that have things like remakes of video games I played growing up, or cool inventions people make. But, tonight I found something completely different. This site takes post cards sent in by people who have a secret to tell, but nobody to tell it to and they post them for people to read. It’s all done anonymously.

Reading these postcards was very powerful. While I don’t think I was near tears, it certainly stirred emotions that made me feel happy for some of the authors and sad for others.

It’s sorta funny how some things hit you when you aren’t really expecting it. I can’t think of a single topic that I would have selected in my “stumble upon” preferences that would have brought up this site. I’m sure glad it did, though.

Tradeshow in San Fran.

I can’t even recall the last time I was in San Francisco. I know I haven’t been there since meeting my wife so that’s at least 18 years. Well, on Monday morning I flew out to attend AdTech. It’s a tradeshow for the online marketing industry. It turned out to be a great show for our company. We met with dozens of companies that we either work with already, or, who we want to work with. Also, it was cool to meet some people in person that I have been working with for a long time.

While in San Fran, I tried Sake for the first time. It was mango flavored. It was damn good! There was a little bar called Anabelle’s. It’s right across from the Marriot in downtown San Fran. If you get a chance to try their sake, do it!

Also while there, I saw the movie Sin City. Awesome! The way it’s shot, the look of it and the great cast make this a movie you should really check out.

Hope I get a chance to get back up to San fran at some point soon. Had a great time and it was a pretty cool city to hang out in.

Late on my taxes again! Damn it!

Man, how does April 15th come and go so darn fast every year?? Wake up one morning and it’s January 1st. All of a sudden, it’s April 16th and I’m wondering where the first third of the year has gone… Sheesh! Must be my age.

Part of the problem was, I was expecting to get a tax RETURN this year… Fat chance. I owe. Not just a little, either. Ever feel like you’ve been kicked in the gut? That’s how I felt. But, a small bit good news out of it, by waiting the extra 5 days or so to file, I did find a nice tax deduction that I didn’t realize I had coming to me. The tax from the car purchase last year came in nice and handy… Hopefully the money I saved from that will cover the late filing fees I’m going to get nailed with… We shall see.

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I’ve gotten back in to entering dollars in to the Where’s George web site. If you’ve never done it, give it a shot. Take a dollar bill, go to the site and enter it in. Then, write the domain name on the bill. The next person to receive that bill and then enter it will generate a hit for you. You can then see where in the world your bills travel. It’s geeky, I know. You saw the domain name I post under, right?

Anyway, happy Georgeing.

New appreciaton for Nascar

Ready to Race!My company put together an awesome team building experience this past week. They took several of us out to Las Vegas Motor Speedway to take part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience. The program is about 5 hours long and includes about 90 minutes of instruction plus you get to drive the car two separate times. We did the “Kings Experience” which let us drive 8 laps the first round and 10 the second. You are to follow your lead car at a distance of 4 car lengths. I tell you what, at 130MPH+, 4 car lengths feels more like you are in the guys back seat.

Drive it like ya stole it!After the driving is all done, they give everybody a sheet that tells you your lap time, average MPH and your top speed. Since we are all a bunch of competitive guys, of course there was bragging rights due to the guy with the best scores. Several of us had the same top speed of 137 but I took top prize with the best lap speed. 1.5 miles in 44.24 seconds. I won’t be challenging Jeff Gordon to a race any time soon, but, it was good enough to take top honors in our group!

I can’t thank the powers that be enough for the great day out! This was an experience I will NEVER forget!

Getting tired of waiting for the NHL to figure it out…

Well, the title isn’t exactly true. What I should say is, I’m getting tired of hearing that the NHL is offering up suggestions and the player keep shooting them down. If that’s not bad enough, the players haven’t been offering up any sort of counter offer… it’s really freakin’ annoying at this point!

Come this october, when the season is supposed to start, there better be guys in uniforms suiting up and playing their hearts out! NHL players from a year ago, fine. Replacement players trying to make a name, fine. I don’t care at this point. Televised competitive hockey is what I want. Hell, I’ve already found myself watching pro bowling… That’s just sad.