Dig This
Note to self: reserve time at Dig This next time you’re in Las Vegas.
The 10-employee park has five pieces of machinery, including a pair of Caterpillar D5 track-type bulldozers and three Caterpillar 315CL hydraulic excavators. Dig This sells three-hour packages that consist of a 30-minute safety and operation orientation followed by two hours of maneuvering either a bulldozer or excavator.
Hat tip to Tyler Cohen
Donate via the IRS
There are numerous deserving charities that need our support. Especially now. But make a donation and you can expect an unending stream of solicitations for more donations as your reward.
So wouldn’t it be nice if we could make anonymous donations via the IRS. That way we could get a tax receipt without revealing our identity.
Farewell Faithful Steed
After 16 years of service, it is time to say good bye to my 1995 Infiniti G20.
I had been debating between the Mazda 626, Acura Integra, and Infiniti G20 for a while. And I made my move when when the Hendrick Auto Group ran an ad for a white 5-speed G20 in the Sunday Examiner.
My G20 carried me on a painful commute from the San Ramon Valley to Silicon Valley for several years until I couldn’t endure it any more. It waited patiently in my CA garage for the year or two that I spent in Manhattan. And it rejoined me in Connecticut when I shifted stakes from CA to CT for good.
Sixteen years is a good run for a car. And it still runs great. But my wife upgraded her car and I’m upgrading to her 2005 Subaru. At least I’ll still get to see the G20 when the new owner (a colleague at work) brings it to the office.
Better Off Not Knowing
The internet is going to spoil my appreciation of reality based movies.
Chariots of Fire is a favorite of mine. Many were surprised when it won the Best Picture Oscar, but it was the best movie I saw that year (yes, better than Raiders of the Lost Ark).
I love the opening words:
Let us praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. All these men were honoured in their generations and were a glory in their days. We are here today to give thanks for the life of Harold Abrahams. To honour the legend. Now there are just two of us – young Aubrey Montague and myself – who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.
And the transition to the score of Vangelis.
I can grudgingly accept the transfer of Aubrey Montague from Oxford to Cambridge (and thus from college rival to teammate) to support the use of Montague’s historical letters to his mother to bridge between scenes.
But it gave me pause to read on Wikipedia that Abrahams converted to Catholicism (since removed). It might be true. Or it might be false. But the doubt in my mind is not going away anytime soon.
I was better off not knowing doubting.
Drawing the Lines
I just noticed that LinkedIn allows you to tie your twitter status and your LinkedIn status together. And I gave it about 15 seconds thought before concluding that I wasn’t going to take that step.
Here’s where I draw the lines for social media:
- Blog: Take the First Step
- My public face, what should be the first search result on my name. Sometimes professional, sometimes personal, always me.
- Twitter: ideoplex
- More personal than my blog, it's the private me out and about in public. As private as hiding in the crowd allows.
- Pure professional (albeit a bit neglected right now).
- Primarily personal.
- Foursquare
- As personal as is practical.
Blog Roll Updates
It doesn’t seem quite right that I have a higher page rank than Code Monkeyism. I’ve added it to the Blog Roll to send some Google Juice Stephan’s way.
I’ve also added Smalltalk with James Robertson.
So Long Radio Userland
It was a minor vanity on my part, but I retained the Radio Userland web bug as part of my Textpattern web site. My original goal was to reach 1 million page views.
That wasn’t enough and I kept going in an attempt to break into the top 20. I think that I would have made it, but the Userland Site Report has not updated since Dec 2, 2009.
It’s time to move on. I’ve removed the web bug. And with it, my last remaining link to Radio Userland.
