Where were these instructions when I started having kids?
While digging around for news on Digg today I ran across a blog post that offers some brilliant tips on how to take care of your baby.
I wish I had seen these tips when I started having kids.
Invasion of the Cajun mosquitoes
The following piece graciously donated by my mother-in-law via my wife.
Anyone that has ever been to the south knows that you can always count on a few things when you are there. One is the hospitality. I mean you can literally have a two hour conversation with a complete stranger and actually feel at home doing it.
Another thing you can count on is the food. It will always be fattening and it will always be delicious. No matter what you are eating, it will just be good eats. Its the south, so you can count on it.
One thing that I can speak of from experience is the state bird of Louisiana. No, I am not talking about the Brown Pelican. I am talking about the mosquito.
Those little buggers are the size of the airplanes that fly you from Fort Worth to Lafayette. They are big, strong, aggressive and relentless. They don't back down and when you finally smack one of them into oblivion, five of his cousins come back for you.
So it was no wonder that this footage spoke to me as loudly as it did. I have never seen this before, but it does not surprise me. How much farther will this torment known as the mosquito go?
Using Picasa on Ubuntu
A few days ago I was working on some image stuff when I ran across a built-in Linux file system utility that allows you to sync images with Picasa. I used it to upload a few images then went about my other business.
A few days later I tried to find it again and was completely without luck. Not to be left unable to post pictures, I quickly began searching for a Linux Picasa app that would let me push my images to Picasa. At first all I found were pages that said "Google does not officially support Picasa on Linux". Then I found something cool.
I am not sure where I got this link from but I found a Picasa for Linux app provided by Google. How cool is that? Now I can manage my Picasa photos right from my Linux desktop.
Now all I need is a way to sync my iPhone to iTunes on Linux without using Wine and I am golden. Anyone got any links?
Discovering new discoveries close to home
Sandi had a therapy appointment yesterday in San Jose and I, with kids in tow, had an hour to kill. What better use of an hour than to find undicovered roads and learn a little bit at the same time?
It started out innocently enough. I took a right turn where I would normally take a left. It very quickly got exciting from there.
We were on North 1st street heading North. That takes you right into the heart of Alviso, a tiny little, almost forgotten town at the northern most end of San Jose and Milpitas. As we drove we were captivated by the style of the homes in the area. They were very turn-of-the-century, Southern Victorian style homes in the style of a hurricane infested residential area.
As we continued I noticed a few very old abandoned buildings. Then something caught my eye. It was a sign for the Alviso Yacht Club. Yacht Club? How could this be? There is not really a place to yacht around here. To prove myself correct, I drive just a little bit further.
I came to a court that had what appeared to be an entrance to a parking lot jutting out from it. Being in the mood for new discoveries I let my curiosity get the better of me and drove in. I am so glad I did that.
What we came across was the Alviso Marina County Park. Now I have known about Alviso all my life. I grew up in Newark and have lived in Fremont for quite a while. But I did not know that Alviso was this cool. And I specifically did not know that Alviso had this cool county park.
Since I had an hour I decided that the kids and I would get out and check this place out. And we were not disappointed. Though it is still a little early in Spring the poppies were out. The animals (squirrels, herons, pidgeons, lizards, etc) were out. The sun was out. It was perfect.
We hit the path and started looking, reading and snapping photos. There was a lot to look at and, even though it was a little warm, we managed to pretty much take the entire loop in about 45 minutes.
Here are some of the pictures we fetched while we were there.
As you can see we had a great big old time in this little park. I am amazed that I have never heard of this place before. The kids already want to go back. So do I. And I would love to take Sandi with us next time.
I would also like to spend a few minutes wandering around old town Alviso. I think it would be neat to see the little town and eat at some of their very cool looking, small town type restaurants.
A great wine at a great price
When my wife took me to dinner for valentine's day we each had a glass of wine. The wine we chose that night was a 2004 Roth Estates Cabernet Sauvignon. I fell in love that night.
This wine absolutely exploded with flavor. It worked brilliantly with bread, bread and butter, shrimp scampi, steak, vegetables and potatoes. There was nothing about this wine that I didn't like. Except the price of at the restaurant. It was listed at $54 a bottle or $14 a glass.
Since that night I have been on a quest to buy me a bottle (or three) of that wine. Well today, while shopping at Costco I found the same 2004 Roth Cabernet Sauvignon that was served at the restaurant. Except it is only $26 a bottle at Costco. You know what that means don't you?
Yep. I bought two bottles. And a pack of Ribeye steaks to go with it.
And I think next weekend my wife and I will be having a little romantic evening. Just her and I. And a stout little fellow named Roth.
The same wine at Wine.com for $40
The same wine at Beverages and More for $29
Ultimate timewasting game
You know you are looking for yet another time wasting distraction (YATWD). Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are generally enough, but when you get tired of searching photos of people you want to hook up with or need a break from the witty comments of Tweets that you are following, you may look to something else to flitter your time away.
Boomshine, by Danny Miller and found, of course, on Twitter, is just the little time waster you are looking for. I will not spoil the game for you by trying to explain it. It may take a little while to figure it out and you may end up playing once or twice to get the hang of it.
But it is worth the time wasted on this game to figure the game out. It is even better when you take others down with you by turning them onto the game along with you.
Beautiful photoscapes
Every now and again you see something that just makes you go 'Aaaaaahhhh!'. These images from my father-in-law did just that.
Preparing for life without me
No, I am not taking back any of the things that I wrote yesterday. I am talking about insurance.
A friend of mine recently graduated college, and after a few months of trying our for a few professional baseball teams with no success, decided to move into insurance with New York Life. He came to the house yesterday and showed us some of the things he is doing.
After getting over the initial shock of doing just his third solo presentation and after getting past the feeling that we were seeing an Amway plan, we got to the nitty gritty of seeing a few different insurance options. And I have to say that I have never seen permanent life insurance before and wish I had a lot earlier than I did.
While I am still a little confused about it, I have to see that from an investment standpoint it is one of the few "good deals" out there. I am going to be looking more at it next weekend, but if you have any insight on permanent life insurance, please let me know. It really looks too good to be true.
