Tired of tying your shoelaces the same old way: bunny goes under log, over the bridge, yada, yada, yada? Fret no more! Ian Fieggan has a wonderful site on fantastic new ways to secure those shoes and amaze your friends. (Disclaimer: Shoes are apparently required.)
shoesshoelacesknotsshoelace+knots

Well, our last big snow storm of the season has come and gone. It closed most schools around Cincinnati, which is no big surprise since the locals get scared of an inch or two. Xavier even closed for the day, but not night classes. Oh, no. Grad students must suffer through it all. Sorry for the long delay. I have been trying to balance grad school, work, finances, and guests and have been more or less successful at times. Anyway, I’m back and with lotsa stories to prove it. Peace.
calvin+and+hobbessnow+storm

grad+schoolgraduate+schooltheologymidtermsstudying

I just rolled back into the Cinci late this afternoon, which was shortly followed by a three-hour nap. Already, I miss the perfect weather, rolling hills, and emerald landscape of northern California. On Saturday night, Rahul and I went to visit Cathie in Napa Valley. Cathie is the link between the two of us being Rahul’s mother-in-law and one of my mom’s closest friends. That and Cathie’s daughter, Rahul’s wife, Sarah, used to baby-sit me.

Napa Valley was absolutely gorgeous. For a gift two years ago, my mom bought my dad a hot air balloon ride over the Valley at dawn. I had no clue how beautiful it was until I was able to see the untouched beauty of the vineyards for myself. Cathie, Rahul, and I drove around most of the loop inside the Valley and ended up doing a wine tasting at a local vineyard. Once it got too dark to enjoy the scenery, we ended up eating at a wonderful Mexican restaurant who’s name I cannot remember.

Yesterday, we had to drive Rahul down to the Bay Area for his flight the next morning. The journey there was absolutely breath taking. James tells me that the two hour drive is a twice daily commute for God-awful hordes of people every morning who either cannot afford to live in the Bay Area or choose not to live there. But for a newbie like me straight outta the plains of Nebraska, it was an incredible trip.

And the most geeky part: I got to drive through my first wind farm.

Well, goodbye California. Goodbye 70 degree sunny weather. Goodbye leaving the windows open and wearing summer clothes. Hello Cincinnati.
californiaelk+grovesan+francisconapa+valleywinewine+tastingcincinnatiwind+farmstravel

70 degrees and sunny. That’s the weather here in Elk Grove, California.

And it’s wonderful. When I left Cincinnati yesterday at 4am, it was snowing. James, Rahul, and I are having our DispatchThis family retreat this week, discussing the future of our company. So far it’s been good. Christie, James’ wife, made a wonderful black bean burrito dinner last night. We moved another one of our customers over to the new system today. James and Rahul got up at 3:30am to be on site when it happened and left me at home for damage control, which meant that I slept next to my phone until 9am.

Today, we are going to check out one of our largest customers and get to walk around some of their job sites in this absolutely ridiculously wicked awesome weather.

Check out my temp here.
sunnycaliforniaelk grovedispatchthisconcrete pumpingconcrete pumps

After doing a little research, I found this website that explains how to prevent other sites from hotlinking your images. Well, the good thing was that these other sites could no longer use my images. The bad news is that no one removed the now broken links to me on their sites so my stats are still getting messed up. Also, I noticed new people continue to hotlink to me even though the images are not showing up on their site. Not too bright.

So, I decided to follow in the footsteps of Switcheroo and Cockeyed.

Not only can I prevent my images from showing up on a hotlinker’s site, I can make any image I want show up on their site. With inspiration from Matt Kelley, J-Luv, and a poster inherited by Alicia, this is what I came up with:

If they’re going to link to me, I might as well get some free advertisement with a little help from Burt Reynold’s and his famous Cosmo picture. Also, I hope that it encourages them to take down the links.

Check out what it looks like to this MySpace holtinker stealing my squirrel image before:

After:

Check out these other sites. I took screen shots for a permanent memorial.

Spider-Man Official Forums: Before and After
MySpace Person 1: Before and After
MySpace Person 2: Before and After
MySpace Person 3: Before and After

hotlinkingdirect+linkingmyspacetheftburt+reynoldsspiderman

First, Rachel’s grandparents live in Cocoa, Florida. Due to Hurricane Wilma, this was their street yesterday:

Crazy. Ok, here you go.

Vice President Cheney told Libby about Plame, not journalists.

Tropical Storm Alpha makes 2005 the biggest hurricane season on record.

With indictments looming over the White House, Senator Hutchinson (R) doesn’t believe perjury to be a crime, that is, unless your name was Clinton.

Sadly, as of today, the U.S. death toll in Iraq has hit 2,000.

A senior officer in Iraq, Lt. Col. Nick Henderson, resigns over lack of armor for his men.

And now that you’ve gotten your news fill, check out this incredible site’s compilation of the top 100 toys of the 70’s and 80’s. It is ridiculously entertaining and comprehensive.

Update(2:03am): Ok. We’re all set to go. I had some funkiness with linkages and the rss feed. Again, any troubles, please let me know.

What they didn’t mention, though, was the mucus. Luckily, my lab-greyhound-some other breed mutt does not slobber. Yet, when I turned to see her shake, I saw this fly off of her towards different parts of the room:

Pretty disgusting, huh? Poor Storm.

(And, yes, I know that Scot and John probably don’t even know where to start commenting on this one.)stormsickmucus

The Top Ten Advantages Introverts Possess

10) Work Well With Others, Especially In One-to-One Relationships
9) Maintain Long-Term Friendships
Flexible
7) Independent
6) Strong Ability To Concentrate
5) Self-Reflective
4) Responsible
3) Creative, Out-of-the-Box thinking
2) Analytical Skills That Integrate Complexity
1) Studious and Smart

And to follow up, here are the misconceptions:

The Top Ten Misconceptions About Introverts

10) Party Poopers
9) Unfriendly
Nerds
7) Lacking Social Skills
6) Won’t Talk
5) Don’t Like People
4) Withdrawn
3) Loner
2) Shy
1) Hermit

As an INFP, I can appreciate these lists.introvertinfpintrovert advantagemyersbriggs