A new blog caught my attention today while looking for some quality live music on the web...
The folks over at the Internet Archive have started a blog called What's New at the Internet Archive.
Check it out, subscribe to their RSS feed, and enjoy...
I think the wife and I were feeling a little cabin-feverish last weekend -- we took the plunge and booked a week-long trip to Maui at the end of February. We're excited to finally get a look at Maui as this is our first trip to the island. This isn't the first time that we've been to Hawaii, though; we were in Honolulu at the turn of the millennium, Kauai the week after that, and back to Oahu a few years later. It's really a fantastic place.
We're staying right under that green arrow shown above. Schtewps.
Live Music Blog just hit a minor milestone in the web world -- our Google PageRank just jumped up a point to a solid 6/10.
For more info on Google PageRank and why it's important to you if you're a webmaster, read more info over at Wikipedia...
I spruced up the blog a little bit this past weekend -- new colors, new banner image (get it -- I like to think) -- and I've got some more changes coming that I want to try to incorporate. If you're a feed reader, though -- stop by and let me know how it looks to you. CSS and HTML are (not) like a second language to me and I always struggle to mock something up that looks presentable across browsers, operating systems, etc.
People must get really, really excited over music festivals in the desert that have a major band reuniting for a one-time set...
Yesterday was the highest day ever for number of unique visitors to Live Music Blog; the day finished up with about three times as many visitors as a normal day. I'm fairly proud to see a little growth, it's always good to see a nice day and a traffic spike...
It's most likely due to the increase in posting frequency that we've seen since we've added WHIT and Kathryn...
Here's to seeing that continue. I've got some ideas up my sleeve that might aid in accomplishing that goal...
I had a great afternoon watching the Chicago Bears beat the New Orleans Saints to go on to the Super Bowl. This is going to be very exciting to be in Chicago for, obviously even if the actual event is down in Miami. What a game, and what a third quarter...
Fantasy and reality merged into one on a blissful and snowy Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field as the Bears advanced to the Super Bowl for the first time in 21 years with a pulsating 39-14 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship Game.
Daaaaaaa Bears!
FedEx Kinko's Commercial [YouTube]
I actually really enjoyed this commercial, I laughed out loud in fact...
I'm the guy at the end who thinks everybody's out to get him. "They are." So true, so true...
Just as Barack Obama just announced, Hillary Clinton has announced a run for the Presidential Race in 2008.
I agree with Fred and Rick on this one -- there is such a thing as putting all your eggs in one basket, or two families in this case. Can you imagine -- two families completely in control of America for 28 total years. That is quite insane if you think about it. Say it out loud, it sounds preposterous...
So...it's been about a month or so and I realized that I never responded to Eric's ping to contribute to the "Five Things About Me" internet/blogger meme that made its rounds recently...
Here goes...
1. I don't necessarily write about her all the time with respect to her personal privacy, but this certainly falls under the category of something you may not know about me -- I married my best friend. Katie and I first met through mutual friends we both went to high school with, and we instantly hit it off (for the most part). Some years later when Katie went to Illinois State, we kept in touch and became really good friends over the course of that time. I eventually went there myself, things lead to other things, and we got married four years later (which was four years ago). It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years that we've been together -- here's to another 100 more, I say!
2. I'm extremely well-traveled -- NOT!. My first trip outside of the country was only earlier this year, and I've determined that I'm not content with that. My parents had five of us youngsters to deal with when it came time to produce our own version of the Griswold family vacation, and it just really wasn't too much of a reality to get to travel the country. We took breaks and had little vacations here and there, but once I got to Hawaii and I made it across the pond to Europe, I was hooked on the fact that there's a lot to see in this world and not enough time to get it all in.
3. I used to get excited about math, like...really excited. I was a mathlete in high school and I aspired (at the time) to eventually go on and become a math teacher. I'm not sure I've thrown that possibility out the window yet, but given that time does continue to keep slipping away and I never made it past Calculus II in college -- maybe I should give up the dream...
4. I play the drums and you certainly would not know that from reading this blog. I'm going to change that, though -- the jones to play has returned.
5. I used to be decently good at skateboarding (not really by today's standards, but at the time -- I could bust a mean 360 Flip). My brother Tim is actually really, really good by today's standards and he's got a lot of potential to move towards making a professional career out of it.
I'm not really going to tag anyone else with this because I'm not sure I know five other bloggers that would be willing and able. Oh well, hope you learned sumptin'...
One of these days I'm actually going to make it to one of these things...
Brad Feld wrote up an excellent post yesterday on all the tips he could think of for newbies to 24, the hit show that just came back with its 6th Season this past weekend...
Katie and I watched all four hours of the start of the season, and we had our beliefs questioned and/or suspended for most of those four hours. It inspired me to add to his list as I've learned many things about the show over the past few months; we had rented all the seasons from Netflix and had caught up right in time for the Season Premier...
Warning -- I might spoil some of the show for you here but it really doesn't matter at this point. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're missing out on an important part of our generation's pop culture. It's that simple. Read on if you don't mind learning a little bit more about the show...
* Everyone on 24 heals like they're Wolverine from X-Men -- they have supernatural abilities in terms of how fast each character can heal. Jack got tortured bad in Season 3 (I believe) and he was back up and running at full capacity within half an episode. Same with Audrey. Definitely expect that they'll take this and run with it...
* Technologically, absolutely anything you can imagine is possible. Every camera in the world can zoom, enhance, and track real-time -- and yet sometimes they just can't move the damn satellites in time to track the bad guy. This might throw you off every once in a while but they seem to act their way out of this commonality...
* There is always a rat at CTU -- this part of the story always comes out when something happens that throws off Jack Bauer. "Wait, that bad guy knew to go out the back door. My Bauer-sense tells me that someone must have tipped him off..." This happens every season and I definitely expect to see some of this in Season 6...
* Jack Bauer's PDA takes the iPhone, gives it a wedgy, then points and laughs -- honestly, is there no building schematic that his PDA can't handle? Right, I already knew the answer there...
* There are always two groups of characters on the show -- those WITH Jack Bauer and those AGAINST Jack Bauer. Those against Jack Bauer are selfishly ambition-driven, attention-hungry, unreasonable, idiotic, you name it. Those WITH Jack Bauer believe in the good of the world, questioning authority, GOING AGAINST PROTOCOL, love, etc. Get the picture here? Anyone that does not agree with Jack Bauer is someone that we, the audience, hate...
I'm sure there's many more to think of so definitely drop down some comments if you have any to share. I'll update my list as the thoughts come to me...
And I'm newly inspired to do some online shopping in the near future thanks to the show. Rick has the best 24 t-shirt I've ever seen, so I'm going to do some diggin' and see if I can come up with something like this...
We Illinoisians got some interesting political news yesterday.
Barack Obama has officially decided to put his hat in the race for the Democratic nominee for President in 2008 , although it was certainly rumored and subsequently beaten to death in the media that this rumor had a high probability for coming true.
I think it does go without saying, but I predict that the 2008 Presidential Election will be one of the most memorable in terms of our generation. We'll just have to wait, watch, and see....
Or maybe...just maybe -- I might have to get involved...
Obama to form panel to explore presidential bid [CNN.com]
What do you think? First black President? Second black President? Sound off.
One of our favorite Chicago blogs, Gapers Block, is looking to expand their staff in a couple key areas of the site...
We are currently looking for people to contribute in three areas: Merge and Slowdown, our blog and calendar; Transmission, our local music blog; and a new food blog that will be launching very soon.
This was definitely one of the blogs that I used to read that ultimately inspired me to start my own collection of blogging. It was well-designed, well-writen, timely, and just relevant enough for me to care about most everything that gets written about on the site. It's a must-go destination for those in the know in Chicago proper, as the suburbs really don't get too much love on the site but I wouldn't really want them to anyway.
As always, I'll be looking forward to seeing what Andrew and team have up their sleeves next...
While browsing around one of my Excel reports the other day, I keyboard-stumbled across a shortcut that I find more useful than more people would like to know...
If you're somewhere in a spreadsheet and you'd like to select the entire row you're cursor is on, simply press Shift-Spacebar. The whole row is selected. Sweet.
It's been a while since I wrote to everyone about how my fitness revitalization was going.
As some background, I decided late last year that I wasn't really happy with my current state of fitness (or lack thereof). I noticed that my numbers on the scale were climbing slowly and surely and I generally started to feel quite slothy in my young age. I decided to hit the pavement and begin a running program, ultimately leading to my first ever 5K race, but after that was over I fell flat on continued training. I was forced to take a break when I had to get a biopsy done on my leg and it just killed the momentum I had gained with six weeks of running and exercising regularly...
Very recently, I decided to pony up the considerable chunk of change required and I joined a gym downtown near the FeedBurner offices. So far so good. The gym is comfortable. I can leave my clothes there (with laundry service included -- again, for a price...), and it's one of the first times I've actually felt comfortable working out with a bunch of White Goodman-like individuals.
I got an email from my gym yesterday reminding me that exercising is important. I know it's sad to admit (and yet very true) -- I actually need this kind of motivation.
Here's their advice for me...
That's some good practical advice that we can all take with us.
I'm tired folks, I'm turning in early tonight. In case you're not, though -- feel free to watch one of the greatest skateboard videos of all time -- Video Days.
If you don't feel like sitting through most of it, you can watch Jason Lee's part from the video here. Yes, My Name is Earl Jason Lee...
For all you web publishers out there looking to get a better, full-view of your audience, head over to FeedBurner.com and switch on the new Site Stats service, all part of the company's free StandardStats service...
I'm working on switching over all my blogs to run full-time FeedBurner stats -- I've been relying on Google Analytics and Sitemeter for quite a while, and I have a feeling that FeedBurner's offering will be a better middle-of-the-road option for me. Google Analytics is widely known as being way too detailed while Sitemeter can leave a little more to be desired in a stat tracker. We'll see...
There's some serious meat behind a rumor that The Police will be reuniting for a tour during 2007, both in Europe and the US.
Words can't really describe how exciting this would be to me...I'll let YouTube do the talking for me...
I like using some blog memes as great topics of discussion, and one of which is the annual "My Year in Cities" posts where everyone in the world documents where...well...where they've been in the world during 2006. Cool concept...
Here's my list:
I'm pretty sure that's all of them. Man, I've got to get out during 2007...
I'm up bright and early today, back onto the normal routine of making my way downtown to get to work and the gym, then back home to make dinner and relax and do it all again the next day. Otherwise known as "the grind."
I'd thought I'd post some interesting headlines from this morning as an idea of what I'm waking up and reading every day. One of my resolutions was to make sure this blog gets the attention it deserves -- (only as much as I feel like giving it) -- so you'll definitely expect to see some more updates here as time goes by...
It appears that there was a UFO sighting at O'hare Airport recently. "A flying saucer like object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon."
Tell me -- could this honestly be a weather phenomenon? Honestly?
Also in the news, Florida State University has released the results of a study showing that a good majority of Americans aren't returning to a "good boss" at work. "For most people, it's back to work Tuesday after a holiday weekend with family and friends. And for many, a new study shows, it will be under a bad boss. Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, the [FSU] study shows." I know not to read 100% into those stats, especially considering sample size, study location, etc. etc. But, it is telling enough in that there are genuine problems with "managers" into today's knowledge worker environment.
In my experience, a lack of proper management ability has always been due to the fact that sufficient training is not given when you're promoted to become a manager. No training is given at all. And given the nature of certain knowledge worker job functions -- the skills that make you great a workhorse, power knowledge worker do not make you a great leader by default. I truly think the latter comes from a lot of experience that most people just aren't given until it's too late...
Old news to some, but John Edwards has placed his hat in the ring for the 2008 Democratic Presidential Bid. If Barack Obama runs also, I'd have a hard time picking the better man...
Anything else going on?
Here's to a good 2007!
