Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are amazing tools. Sites like Classmates have been around for ever, but Facebook and the rest have made it even easier to connect with people you haven’t talked to in years. I’m friends with about 1/3 of the Graduating class of 1996 from Harrison High School on facebook. Its let me reconnect with some old friends and realize that despite differences in HS, when we’re all growed up, we’re all the same…

Its also brought to life some of the struggles that friends have gone through. One of my friends is currently undergoing treatment for Breast Cancer. I don’t know about you, but when I think of breast cancer, I think of women in their 40’s and 50’s, not their 30’s. It goes to show though, that it can affect anyone. She’s doing well with the chemo, and her facebook updates and tweets are generally upbeat despite everything life has thrown at her.

One of the other cool things about FB and twitter is the ability to mobilize and increase awareness of social and other issues. A couple of weeks ago, I made the comment on twitter (and maybe facebook) that while Liberals talk more about charity, they actually give less to charity then Conservatives do. They tend to prefer the Government to handle it (I promise, it all ties together). Another friend responded with a challenge. She’s walking in the Susan G. Komen 3 Day walk for Breast Cancer and is working to raise money in the name of our friend from high school. She reposted my theory and wanted to see if it was accurate. Fortunately for me, its looking like it is…

But thats not the point.

The point is that we all need to do our part in supporting the fight against breast and other forms of cancer. All it takes is a minute or two to make a donation to someone walking in the 3day, or to the Cancer Society or to any of the other charities that support cancer research. IF you want to donate, but you’d rather save the children instead of the boobies, consider donating to Aflac Cancer Center @ Childrens Health Care of Atlanta.

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G has been riding the bus all week to school. It was perhaps, the one thing she looked most forward to going in to Kindergarten this year, riding the school bus. I don’t remember how I felt about it in Kindergarten, I was 5. That was 25 years ago now… but I don’t think I made such a big deal about it.

When I was 5, the bus would come around the neighborhood and pick us up almost directly in front of our house. In fact, in Elementary school, almost every house with a kid going to school was a bus stop. Not any more. Of course, that changed as we got older and in High School we had to walk to the front of the neighborhood (on a busy street) much like G does today. Its odd that a 6 yr old has to walk to a busy intersection to catch the school bus, not necessarily safe, but it would be weirder if there were weight limits on the bus and we were talking about where to find the best weight loss pills wouldn’t it?

Anyways, my point was, G has been riding the bus. She gets on at the entrance to the neighborhood (not a long way from home, but far enough that we have to walk her…) and I’ve been getting up at 6:50a to make sure she’s there. Life would be much simpler if we had a live in nanny.

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We’ve been working over the past month on transforming our basement from the mess of boxes that it was from when we moved to a usable “family” room. The dropped ceiling is fixed, the walls have been painted, new carpet is going in… The crap that was junking the room has been thrown away, given away, or put away in storage. We temporarily moved the projector down there, we have our old couches out and we’ve actually been spending more time down there on the wii.

Last night after playing Pirates on the wii, Amy got in to playing some old school nintendo games. By old school, I mean 8bit. Super Mario Brothers, Bubble Bobble, Excite Bike. Games that we spent hours playing as kids, but now look horrible compared to the games with 64bit graphics available today. Its funny, but when I bought the wii from a friend, Amy questioned the need. Now, she’s planning on exercising with it (yes, we have the wii balance board), we can watch our photos on it (thanks to a micro sd card) and more. Plus the girls like playing games on it (G loves snow skiing, playing princesses and HappyFeat on it). I like the fact that I can race people around the world in MarioKart as though we were sitting right next to each other.

Anyways, back to the point, when we were little, the NES I bought used from a friend around the block was the highlight of our time. We’d come home and play Super Mario for hours. We’d make courses on ExciteBike or snicker along with the dog in DuckHunt when one of us missed the mark. We had fun. Its good to know that no matter how much things improve, somethings, like Super Mario Brothers, remain the same.

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We past a hard milestone this morning in the realm of parenting… we had our first Open House at a big kid school today. G (who turns 6 in October) will be entering the world of Kindergarten on Monday (she’s 4 in the photo…). It seems like it was just the other day that Amy was preggers with her, and here she is, six years later, with two younger sisters excited to be making the walk to the front of the neighborhood on Monday morning to catch the bus (something she’s been wanting to do for the past two years).

She’s gone to school before. She was in preschool for two years, but thats only half day, with carpool (meaning we HAD to pick her up and drop her off). Homework was more for mom and dad then for her. This year will be different.

This year, she’ll ride the bus. Homework will be more involved and she has a “card” with money on it to buy lunch with if she wants. There’s a climbing wall in PE (which she’s looking forward to), kids twice her age (no, not in her class) and the influence from kids of all sorts of backgrounds (preschool was at our church). Its a big step for a kid her age, but its perhaps a bigger one for us parents.

Its the first time we actually allow outside influences to affect our children, we put our trust in the job we’ve done to this point making sure that they know how to make good decisions. Its now their turn to start learning. At some point, we’re going to have to worry more about the clothes she wants, when and if we should start shopping for cellular phones (how young is too young?), the inevitable BOYS and other factors.

But for now, I guess we’ll just have to accept the fact that she’s growing up…

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Here’s a little background… Yesterday evening, the Marietta City Council voted to ban smoking in the city square which is a public park. While I don’t particularly like ciggarett smoke, it doesn’t bother me when people do it in an open space such as A PARK. What does bother me is the fact that the city council feels the need to protect the guests to the park to this extent. Apparently, its more smokey at the square then I thought. Anyways, here’s a letter I wrote to the Council and Mayor this morning. It’s not as good as I had hoped, but I think it gets the job done…

Dear Marietta City Council,

I’m afraid you have failed the citizens of Marietta, GA, by enacting what is possibly the most inane piece of legislation possible. A smoking ban in a Public Park? Are you serious? Don’t get me wrong, smoking is a nuisance, and it should be banned in public places such as buildings, or other CONFINED areas where there isn’t an abundance of fresh air to replace the foul odor created, but in an outdoor atmosphere, such as the one at the Square, it’s just plain ridiculous to ban smoking. While you’re at it, you may want to consider banning driving around the square, mowing lawns near public parks, and walking dogs on the square as well as each of those contribute just as much harm to a person’s well being as smoking.

It’s this kind of encroachment in to the lives of individuals that causes a sour taste in the mouths of your constituents, and it’s one step closer to the socialist regimes that the United States used to stand against.

It might make sense that instead of a BLANKET ban on smoking in the park, you limit it to certain areas of the park. During expected high traffic times (such as the 4th of July, summer concerts or the taste of Marietta) traffic may in fact be lower now that you’ve banned smoking in that area. Was the “smoking ban” a rash decision or did the city council take time to think of and consider all the effects that such a ban would have on future activities?

As a frequent visitor of the square, my wife and I love to bring the kids to play on the train, to hear the music and to see Santa Claus, I was severely disappointed to hear that the city council was taking steps to further encroach on the liberties of their constituents. What’s next? Banning the selling of cigarettes inside City Limits?

Sincerely,

Mark Angeli

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Seriously, whats all the fuss about? I get that the man was one of the best selling artists of all time (though, I’m proud of the fact that I do not a single album of his, however my wife does). I also get that his videos were the coolest of their time. With out “Thriller” we wouldn’t have that awesome scene in 13 going on 30 or that sweet filipino prison video of the inmates doing the thriller dance that came out a couple of years ago. We wouldn’t have had parachute pants with zippers and red leather jackets either, but would the world be worse off? Not really.

In the time since Jackson passed, several other celebrities passed as well. Days before, Ed McMahon passed and earlier in the day when Jacko kicked, Farrah Fawcett passed from cancer as well. Yet neither of their deaths was made in to a spectacle. Why not? Farrah was probably more influential in the 70’s and 80’s then Michael ever was (and probably had more of a following in her day as well). Billy Mayes (you know, the OxiClean guy), Karl Malden and Rober McNamara (who actually had a greater impact on your life then you will ever realize) also passed in the days after MJ, yet one thing has been the top story on the news sites. MJ’s Death.

Imagine if the outpouring of support Jackson and his family have received and seen over the past week and half occurred EVERY time a US Solider lost his life protecting our country. Or if every time a Veteran of WWII, Vietnam or Korea was recognized the same way Michael Jackson is being with a Senate Resolution. It would be amazing.

If people paid as much attention to the goings on in Government as they do in pop culture or their website directories submissions, they would realize that Stewart Smalley from SNL was Sworn in yesterday as a Senator, that more taxes are being imposed on them in the name of Global Warming and that the Government is slowly encroaching in to more areas of our lives then ever before. However, we’ve simply become a culture of celebrity worship (don’t believe me, look at most of the television shows these days) where we would rather loose ourselves in their lives (or deaths) instead of standing up for our own.

If we made as much fuss about our jobs, our family, our friends, or our roles as citizens in this great nation, as we did about the passing of one, rather sad man, we’d be much better off as a country.

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One of the cool things about having an open API like Twitter’s (and somewhat facebooks) is that you get a ton of cool and useful apps (websites) that can help you do everything from manage followers to search better to Assassinate Unhinged Industrialists. One of the bad things about having an open API like Twitter’s is that you get a ton of cool and useful apps (websites) that can help you do everything from manage followers to search better to Assassinate Unhinged Industrialists. It seems everywhere you turn these days everyone and everything is about twitter. Which in itself is ok, though twitter is quickly becoming the Z Cavaricci’s of 2009. Pretty soon, the cool kids in class will be on to the next internet fad while you’re still begging your mom to let you on twitter.

To help usher that along, here are FIVE twitter tools which may or may not make your “Tweepularity” rise.

1. Twistory – Twistory is a cool little app that actually ties your tweets (or the user you want to stalk) in to your ical application so you can see what was tweeted when. The neat thing about this app is that it works with ANYTHING that can use and iCal file, so google calendar, outlook, mac, thunderbird. It just works. I was interested in trying it out so I fired it up in outlook and I had a NEW calendar with just my tweets. Its actually pretty cool. Though something affected it as of 3pm yesterday and I haven’t updated the calendar yet (I keep getting errors…
2. TweetPsych – Tweetpsych admittedly does not do too much. But its a fun and interesting one to play with just to see whats in your psyche. From the site: “TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform.” Put in your userid and see how you psych out.
3. Tweefind – Tweefind is simply a search site for twitter. Its a little pink (ok, a lot pink) but its a handy tool for searching. Some of my favorite searches so far have been for words like “Twiends”, “OMG you guys”, and “Iran”. THere’s some crazy stuff posted out there!
4. TwitterAnalyzer – TwitterANALyzer is cool simply because it has the word ANALyzer in it but beyond that its a pretty well designed tool that is a good way to see how YOUR twits are trending. It provides all kinds of goodness that those in the marketing world would kill for to know who wants the newest shade of HOT PINK lipstick. Its also got some good built in metrics for figuring out your reach. TwitterAnalyzer is the TWITTER MARKETER’s DREAM!
5. Tweepular – Tweepular is one of those tools I actually keep going back to. I’ve written about it before and I was fairly impressed. It turns out that the folks behind tweepular have more up their sleeves and are working to make it better (if possible). Some potential improvements include tweeting from the interface, a blackberry and iphone app, and more ways to improve your following. One of the coolest features of tweepular is the ability to mass follow and unfollow people as well as the ability to find out who is the most tweepular (think popular) and follow them as well. Its a handy tool thats good for building a following.

Mind you, those are just some of the tools online that I’ve come across to help with twitter… I may take a look at clients or games next who knows… got any suggestions?

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Holy KAW!! Wait. What? FOUR FREE ISSUES of Business Week?? You have to be kidding!

Guess what, not kidding. You can get 4 free issues of Business week, plus their digital playbook, Power Plays, plus access to the latest issue online for a limited time. This deal is too good to be true. The cool part is that after you get your four free issues, you can either continue your subscription for 46 or 21 issues for $30 or $20 respectively.

Those in the know, know that Biz Week is one of the leading magazines in the business world (I can remember flipping through my dad’s copies when I was in high school). It provides a deeper understanding of the trends that drive growth, how technology creates opportunities, and what best practices keep them ahead of the competition and should be in the tool box of any sales rep, manager or upper level wannabe in today’s environment.

After your four week trial you can:

• Continue to receive 46 additional issues (50 issues total) for just $30.00. (for Canadian subscribers, C$30.00) That’s only 60¢ per issue! 88% savings off the newsstand cover price!
• Continue to receive 21 additional issues (25 issues total) for just $20.00. (for Canadian subscribers, C$20.00) That’s only 80¢ per issue! 84% savings off the newsstand cover price!
• Keep just the 4 FREE trial issues and owe nothing by returning the bill marked “cancel”.

That’s a good deal when you consider that news stand price is $4.99 an issue. If you did the 50 issues at the store, you’d pay over $250. You can get it for only $30. Why wait?? Get your trial now before its gone… you can always cancel. Thats better than the 2 for 1 special on the best wrinkle cream that Bath and Body Works has to offer.

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Or maybe its the stale air smell you get in your car when you let it sit with the windows up too long. Either way, something has to be done. So, after almost two years with the same blog design, I’m changing things up.

The previous theme was a paid theme I paid some designer to throw together. Visually it was nice, but under the hood, it was a coding and layout nightmare. Tables everywhere, poor use of CSS. Its time to get back to a more userfriendly theme. So, here it is. TweetMeBlue by WebDesignLessons.com. Its a nice two column theme (which again, isn’t too different). The colors are warm and appealing and the design is nice.

There are some things I have to do to make it feel more homely and I find that using predone themes makes using wordpress a whole lot easier than buying life insurance from Wholesale Insurance.

I’d love to know what you think about the new layout, and also, don’t fret, I’ll be adding *some* of the old plugins back…

Related External Links

• Collection of Useful CSS Grid Layout Generator For Web Designers …
• Premium Wordpress Theme Giveaway – Stylish Blog | Inspired Magazine
• Trends in Web Design Involving WordPress | I'd Rather Be Writing …

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For those not in the know, my parttime gig is playing with professional grade fireworks. For the past three seasons, I’ve been doing the Friday Night Fireworks for the Atlanta Braves. The photo was taken by a Friend of mine who does some amazing work. The problem with doing fourteen outdoor pyro shows in a summer is that my hands tend to take a beating.

I’ve tried all kinds of skin care products but the one I am currently using is the gold bond medicated. It seems to work the best. The big problem I’m having though is that messing with the copper wires, the wood racks, I’m getting a larger than normal amount of cuts and punctures (think bee stings) than I usually would. I need to find something to help prevent/repair that. Anyone have any suggestions?

Last nights show was a memorial to our fallen Vets. All themed music around the armed services. Its pretty good, the video is below:

Related External Links

• Fireworks and Thunderstorm Phobias in Dogs | DOG BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

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