American Thinker

I added "American Thinker" to the blog list, and here is a link to a fun story about a woman going to church for the first time -- on Christmas Eve.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/power_to_the_conservative_peop.html

2009 Year in Review

Should You Buy an iPod Touch Today?

Gizmodo says wait!

Blog Updates

Updated the blog a bit.  Added links to Picassa photos among others.  The new version also allows followers, so you can stay up to date whenever we blog.

Larry asked for a list of blogs to follow for non MSM news.  I added a lot of links to the BlogList.  Larry, start with Instapundit on a daily basis.  Glen Reynolds is a law professor at University of Tennessee and mostly links to interesting stories on the web.  Drudge Report is a popular news aggregate.  Don Surber is a West Virginia columnist that is always worth a look.

Great Customer Service

Received this e-mail from Blinds.com who we used for our front pleated shades.  The blinds are great, and so is the company who sold them to us:


A Blinds.com coupon and a question . . .

---

CEO@blinds.com	Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 4:07 PM
To: xx@xx.com
David, we SINCERELY appreciate your purchase 30 days ago.  First a question . . . if there was one thing about our products or service (or whatever) you could change, what would that be? I'd appreciate your input and WILL read your email reply. Also, did you know that you can rate your blinds on the Blinds.com website? Use the link(s) below to help someone else with their buying decision by posting photos, reviews, and tips. Large National Name Brand: Close-Out Cellular Shades - Light Filtering Also, please do me a favor and tell your friends and neighbors about us.  Forward this email now (or mention us on Facebook or Twitter) and they can use the coupon below. Thanks again! Warm Regards, Jay Jay Steinfeld, CEO CEO@Blinds.com P.S. Forward this email with the coupon now (it expires in 30 days), before you forget! :) Use this coupon code REF733862-21 to take $10 off your next order of $150 or more. One per person, one per household, and must be presented at time of purchase. Minimum purchase of $150. Cannot be combined with any other offer. No limit on the number of people you refer. Offer expires 30 days from the date of this letter. P.P.S. Visit this page anytime to see special offers and find out what's on sale each month. Click here to remove your name from my address book.

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PopSci: Best 100 Innovations of 2009

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/looking-back-100-best-innovations-2009

I like the power roller, and the home heat loss analyzer.

Christmas 2009

We had a fantastic Christmas weekend with the Lundeen and Brown families coming to Winter Park.

Christmas pictures are here



Santa brought a very nice photo printer that includes an easy to use scanner.  David is starting to look at the baskets of old photos.  The first few are posted here

And well worth looking at!

Oldy But A Goody - Merry Christmas

To all my Liberal Democrat friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

To all my Conservative Republican and Independent friends:

Merry Christmas

And, Happy New Year!

Free Remote Control of PC

http://www.showmypc.com/

Great for remote troubleshooting and it's free. End-User simply downloads " Show My PC to Remote User v3010 " and shares the created password with the person troubleshooting remotely. The trouble-shooter then can grab control of the end-users machine to help with installations, driver support, or to show how to use a program.

Very powerful tool that we are using at work.

Pictures of Florida during Depresssion

http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/photo_exhibits/migrant/dining.cfm

Microsoft Security Essentials

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Microsoft has officially released "Security Essentials" which replacing their very effective Windows Defender spyware protection and adds Anti-Virus protection.

It seems to be unobtrusive, and should be effective, with multiple updates per day. Absolutely Free.

We will be switching to this on all of our home machines, which, uhm, currently totals 5 machines running six Windows operating systems.

Is available for XP, Vista and Windows 7

Eric on the field

The Mae West President

The Mae West Presidency at Donald Sensing's blog

I think what we are witnessing is a combination of two factors:

• A Mae West personality coupled with,
• The return of the Peter Principle

We have here a Mae West presidency, which I illustrate with two quotes of the platinum blondeshell:

1. It's better to be looked over than overlooked.

2. There's no such thing as bad publicity.


...
At one's level of incompetence, the manager or leader occupies his time with tasks below the level necessary for the office and hopes that staffs can pull success's rabbit out of the hat. (This helps explains why Obama has so many czars.) Couple that with Obama's inherent inability to measure success by any standard other than getting personal attention from as broad a swath as possible, and you see that the Oval office is occupied by a weak, ineffectual leader unable to perform at the level required.

As others have exhaustively pointed out, there is nothing at all in Obama's resume that shows he ever made highly difficult decisions that depended, at the end, on his own personal reservoir of wisdom and experience. So he does not tackle the inbox because its contents are above his competence. (One is reminded of Obama telling Rick Warren that when an unborn child gets human rights is "above my pay grade.") He tends instead to lesser matters that match his lower level of competence and gratifyingly feed the ego. And so he flies to Copenhagen to deliver a speech of no significance on a matter of no consequence. Why? Because he can do that - simply standing in front of a crowd reading eloquently from a teleprompter he can handle quite well.

And it gets him front and center in the international media. It's a twofer.

Sweet Little Video

YouTube - GoD And DoG by WJ Francisco

I don't know how to post the picture -

Favorite Firefox Add-Ons

http://www.xmarks.com/

Backup and synchronize bookmarks within Firefox and Internet Explorer. I have been using for about a year to keep four different installations of Firefox synchronized. Now when I add or delete a link on any machine I run Firefox on the others are automatically synchronized.

Zappos.Com

I was listening to a Podcast at work that mentioned that Amazon had purchased Zappos.com

I hadn't been there in ages, but have been slipping and sliding on the slippery streets and sidewalks of Winter Park. My very comfortable Croc sandals have not only lost all their tread, but have been discontinued (because they easily lose their tread?)

So I wandered over to Zappos and found a pair of Teva sandals to try (they may be expensive, but they are really hard to wear out the tread!) That was yesterday afternoon around 5:00 PM. Betsy called after lunch today to say I had a box from Zappos at the front door.

Why do we need shopping malls?

Good article on why we are where we are today

Crisis of a House Inflated — The American, A Magazine of Ideas:

". . . the federal government set out to “solve” a national problem which did not exist and in the end created a national and even international financial problem whose existence is as undeniable as it is painful."

Realty Times - Dear Homeowner:

". . . lately I've been hearing about how appraisers caused this mess and how homeowners should be helped to stay in their homes even if they can't afford them. I'm hearing that my tax dollars and those of my children and grandchildren are going to be used to help people like you who lived way above their means and are now crying foul. It hurts to think that after all the fun you had with the bank's money and with no prospect of making good on the legal contract you signed to pay it back, that you can't just take your lumps and rent for awhile. It would be the honorable thing to do."

The Ruins Project

We have started a blogger diary of the purchase and update of our new home that we have dubbed "The Ruins Project."

There is a permanent link off to the right side of this blog.

Apollo XI -- Forty Years Ago Today

http://wechoosethemoon.org/#

Is live-streaming the entire event over the Internet.

Omnivoracious: The Best Books of the Year So Far

Omnivoracious: The Best Books of the Year So Far