I think he should get Billy Mayes to be his spokesperson!
What do you guys think of the Pickens Plan?  I like that someone has pulled a Perot and decided to take it to America to get things done instead of expecting the government to do something.  Throw in the fact that he is an oil tycoon (and yes I know he is now heavily invested in wind power) and it is promising.  This is a great opportunity for America but I am not sure that it can happen as the midwest would have to become the power center for the US while the rest of the US did what?

Looks like Google will be making a SIMS-esque attempt at the interactive world of chatrooms.  Pretty crazy stuff even if it is only about 20% done.

In other way down the road news…..for those of you who were Diablo fans back in college, Blizzard has announced that the 3rd installment is in development.  It looks freakin AWESOME and I have recently installed Diablo 2 to get the gameplay back into the groove.

Happy Belated 4th of July.  I spent it at home with my family and grilled out with some neighbors while watching the local fireworks show which was no more than a quarter mile away from my back yard.  During the holiday I saw a lot of patriotism and our nations colors flying which made me think of posting some random stuff on my odd infatuation with our nations flag.

You can ask Andy 1 about my infatuation with our flag.  I often look at flying flags and comment on their state or position.  Random blurts of “wow a new flag” to “Someone needs to fix that flags grommets” can be heard in my observations.  I appreciate what the flag means both to us as Americans and internationally, even if in disgust (we were probably doing something right to get on their bad side!).

Last week, while driving through Andy 1’s neigborhood, I noticed that one of his neighbors was flying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag to which I dropped my jaw and exclaimed that it was awesome.  Andy mentioned that he had some educated people in his neighborhood and we moved on.

Now, I personally don’t have an American flag hanging outside my house but that is due to 2 reasons:

1.  I am still trying to figure out how to properly light it at night without blinding a bedroom

2.  The wife wants a flag staff that doesn’t look tacky.

In the mean time, read up on our awesome flag and its history HERE

Oh yeah, I still wish i had knocked on the door of Poot’s neighbor that had a flag flying upside down on their porch one day to see if they needed help.  That or call the police on an international sign of distress.

Dell has begun to sell systems with UBUNTU, a Linux distribution, installed.  First Microsoft had to deal with the Mac onslaught and now they have Dell venturing into installing open source operating systems on their computers.  They still try to peg you with “service contracts” with the OS but the systems run pretty cheap when you don’t pay the hefty Microsoft software charges!

I have a copy of Ubuntu at home that I am waiting to try out so we will see how it goes sometime soon.

Just CLICK HERE and try not to laugh midway through.

Anyone seen the EVISTA commercials.  Has anyone paid attention, as you know I do, to the side affects and warnings?  Well here’s a doozy that I don’t understand.

The commercial starts off stating that “you’re past menopause”…. ok.  But later in the commercial it says that you should not take the pill if you are pregnant or nursing.
OK I understand that it is a osteoporosis pill and women can have issues prior to menopause but look at the page!  Come on!  It specifically says that

“EVISTA is the only medicine proven to reduce both the risk of spinal fractures due to osteoporosis and the risk of invasive breast cancer in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis”

How are you pregnant if you are post menopausal!  And if you are having children near that point in life, it is statistically shown that children born to mothers and fathers that late in life have higher risks of health issues, including autism.

End of rant

Mozilla has just released the newest version of FireFox.  So go stick it to Microsoft and get you some.

LawtonFunk wrote me an email checking in on how Kate is doing.  I realized that I hadn’t posted in a while and from the response of the email, figured that it would be a good post.  So here it is, even a recap of my first fathers day.

Tiring, I will in no way promote this to anyone unless they like torturing themselves.  There is no book that will ever prepare you for this but in the end……it is worth it.  When she is quiet and just watching the world you sit in awe and stare at her as she discovers everything.  True story, she kept me up all weekend with her gas (which just exponentiates the problems) and come fathers day “she” gave me a “First Fathers Day” card and an engraved frame that says “daddy’s little girl” on it with a picture of me and her in it.  I was so exhausted from the sleepless night and felt so bad for how I treated her (you have to pump her legs to get the gas moving through the system as she screams from it becoming even more uncomfortable), that I looked at her in Lauren’s arms and asked her why she makes me so mad.  Then I started tearing up.  It sucks being so helpless as you are just trying to make them feel better and get to sleep or just comfortable.

In response to the gas issue that has been coming up more and more, we are looking into Laurens diet to see if something in there is triggering it as my Niece, Catherine, had bad gas due to bovine dairy.  We know that her system is still developing so that is part of the issue.  We are also trying to use infant gas-x (Mylicon) to reduce the pain.  And in the end it might just be that she is fussy and gassy at night, who knows.

Truthfully though, every day I sit at work and look at her picture waiting to get home and hold her and hang out.  Even if she is crying and fussy, it is amazing to be with her as she does something new every day.  She just recently has begun to stare you in the eyes and  mimicking smiles so that is very cute and makes everything worthwhile everytime it happens.

And once again, even in a new home, it seems that my HVAC system can’t keep up.  The lower zone has been on most of the day and can’t get below 80 degrees.  Guess I will have to call in a service person Monday to charge the system and perform the maintenance.

JOY!!

There has been a mass campaign to get Clemson tags in Virginia since February.  It got close this past month and emails were pushed around asking everyone to tell a friend to clear the last required number hurdle.  Come yesterday that hurdle was passed and Virginia based Clemson Tigers are on their way to getting state issued license plates.

Now they just have to get everything cleared through the DMV and we should be seeing our license plates just in time for Football Season!!!