Google

I must say that google is the most amazing thing I have ever used. I noticed a guy the other day using "searchbot" and I about laughed out loud. I remember a day when you would go to spyder, or yahoo, or altavista and you would have to drill for days to find what you needed. For all your searching needs please have the intelligence to use google. It will find whatever you need quickly and easily! However, for those of you who think google is merely a search engine - you are short changing yourself. You may have noticed the other small links below the large icon such as...Images, Groups, News, Froogle, Local, Desktop and more... I feel I owe it to google to share the wealth of knowledge it has shared with me and summarize a few of the amazing things google can do for you...

Images
If you need to find some random images to maybe put on your blog, don't just type it into google, click on the images link and it will search out just pictures on the web that fit your criteria...looking for the logo of your favorite teams...just click on images and type it in and it will come up w/ many different pictures of what you want! I always find it fun to sometimes try to find really random things. For example: raisins.






Froogle
Froogle is a search engine for items that you would like to purchase. For example, if you were in the mood for something random like: raisins...you could click on froogle, type in raisins and bingo you're currently in the market to find the best prices on raisins. Right on, I just found a pound of Jumbo golden seedless raisins from Economy Candy for $1.99: SOLD! This is great if you are searching for electronics or any other type of product that you can buy at so many different places, for so many different prices.


Google Earth
This is one of the most amazing free downloads on the web. Go to google and type in Google Earth and it will send you to a page where you can download it for free. This program will definitely help you kill time! It is basically an interactive map that allows you to fly all around the globe and visit various locations using satellite imaging. It is 10 times better than any other free mapping program you have used. Type in fun places like "compton" or "Bakersfield" and enjoy God's beauty. Here is a description of some of the things it can do:

Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in.

Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.

Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.

Save and share your searches and favorites. Even add your own annotations.

Desktop
This last little gem can save your life. Ever have an email or a file disappear? Download Google Desktop and it will help you search your entire computer for them in a fraction of the time it takes your computer to do a file search. Here are all the other benefits it has to offer:

Email: You can read new email, including your Gmail, as soon as you get it. Click on an email subject to read the full email in the details pane. In Options, you can add filters to prevent certain email from showing up in Sidebar. You can filter based on the "from:", "to:", "subject:", words found in the email, and words not found in the email.

News: See the latest news headlines, personalized based on the news articles that you read in Sidebar and in the web browser. You can click on a news headline to read the beginning of the article in the details pane, and if you mark items as uninteresting by clicking the "Don't show me items like this" button in the details pane, the News panel will show fewer articles that are related to the article you weren't interested in.

Weather: Keep track of weather forecasts for multiple locations. Click on a weather location to see more details about current conditions as well as the 4-day forecast in the details pane. In Options, you can add new locations, delete existing locations, view temperatures in Fahrenheit or Celsius, and change the order in which locations are displayed. When this panel is minimized, all weather locations are shown one after the other on a single line.

Photos: Watch a slideshow of photos from the web and from your computer. You can click on an image to see a larger view. In Options, you can add photos to the slideshow by selecting folders on your computer and RSS/Atom feeds from the web. Photos from RSS/Atom feeds on frequently visited web pages are also automatically added to the Photos panel by default. You can uncheck "Auto Add Photos from the Web" under the "Photos Online" tab to disable this feature. You can also manually add recent RSS/Atom feeds from sites you’ve visited. Finally, you can set how long each photo is displayed under the "Slideshow Speed" tab.

Stocks: Keep track of up-to-the-minute prices for your favorite stocks. The prices shown are the real-time prices (not 15 minutes delayed), if available. Click the stock's ticker symbol to see the current price, point change, percent change, daily graph, recent news, and other information in the details pane. In Options, you can add, remove, and change the order in which individual stocks and indices are displayed. Stock prices that you frequently look up on the web will be automatically added to the Stocks panel, unless you choose to uncheck the "Automatically add stocks" checkbox. When minimized, all stock prices are shown one after the other on a single line.

And much, much more...

I just want to say thank you google for everything you do for us! I mean who else could find Results 1 - 10 of about 1,690,000 for nimrod in less than .2 seconds???

Check out the history of google and how it was created here

Sullivan - Birth Control

My wife and I recently added a little one to our family! His name is Sullivan and he weighs 5 pounds and barks like a 30lbs. chimp. His barking can often be mistaken for a baby crying (ie the people giving me odd looks at the airport as I transported him home in a travel crate). I must say he is the cutest thing I have ever seen. It's a good thing he is so cute...I just have to remember how cute he is when he starts yelping at 3:00am because he has taken a dump in his crate. I have learned to look before I put my hand in the crate because you never know what you are gonna get (and those aren't chocolates in there). I must say he has gotten remarkably better than his first couple nights when he would wake us every hour. He has settled into about 2 little whining sessions a night. I was definitely tired the first couple days we had him, but I have learned to get up out of bed...pick him up...walk him down the stairs out to the front yard...and sit there in the cold for about 15 minutes while he decides whether to go or not. It is amazing what you can find yourself participating in at times. It utterly amazes me that I can be so wrapped up in whether he poops or pees. I haven't rooted as hard for super bowl games. There are times on those cold, dark mornings I just want to give up and then as if to say, "oh you just wanted me to go"...he'll release and I immediately give him his praise and run back upstairs to get a couple more hours of sleep. Despite helping us realize we are not ready for kids...I must say he is a stud. He oozes a humble confidence about him (as seen to the left). He has been a lot of fun to play with and has made Hilary and I laugh many times out loud. He is definitely worth the late nights and the strange smells....

My thoughts on last nights Laker Game

A couple observations about last night's Laker/Jazz game....

1. Neither of these teams will be in the Western Conference finals
2. The most exciting part of the game was the post-game comments of Charles Barkley (at one point I was actually wishing the game would hurry up and be over so I could hear Barkley rip apart how bad both teams are)
3. I don't think there was one time the camera panned over to Jerry Sloan and he wasn't saying the "F" word (and I don't mean fudge).
4. Kobe Bryant shoots way too many shots and most of them were very poor shots. I finally have seen the light that he is a ball hog.
5. The Utah Jazz have to be nominated as the NBA's ugliest team (not in regards to play, but appearance of their players) ie. see Andrei Kirilenko, Gordan Giricek, Keith McLeod, Greg "two teeth" Ostertag, and by far the worst Mehmet Okur (his parents must have known how he would look when they named him Mehmet - sounds like a star wars alien).
6. The refereeing was horrible in this game. I believe a foul was called on every single shot, including on Kobe Bryant at the end of the game, and maybe half of them were actually fouls. That is why the game wasn't over until about 11pm.
7. I would normally feel like a team got robbed on a call like that (the fould on Kobe at the end of regulation), but Utah played so bad I don't feel like they should have received a win even if they didn't call that foul.

Anyways those are my thoughts....sorry Mike.

Oh 2 be a kid.....

I just recently purchased a home. This might possibly be a worse experience than going to the doctor for a colonic (so I've heard)... of course w/ both experiences you will feel cleaned out in the end! Just when you think you have figured out all the costs associated you get another piece of mail telling you that you owe another $50 because of an "email processing fee". I don't know which email service you have, but there are free one's available. This is on top of all the other ridiculous fees associated w/ the loans. And paperwork.....Oh my....I have signed my name 830 times in the past 2 weeks (I have yet to decide which signature style I like best).

But alas, the time is drawing near for the close date and I am getting excited. I think back through all the stressful decisions involved in purchasing our first home, and it makes me think back to a simpler time...oh to be a kid again...

Remember when your biggest decision was whether you should take the chance and wear your favorite shirt two days in a row, and hopefully not get seen by anyone you saw the day before. Or maybe it was the decision as whether or not to eat all your vegetables so you could have dessert (I guess it depended on what type of dessert - if it was a chocolate dessert - yes, if it was a fruity dessert - no - because fruit is good for you and not a dessert).

Remember when your biggest stress was whether or not to ask out the sort of cute girl w/ the braces (who you figured if I ask her out now you have a much better chance then when she gets her braces off and her potential is reached) in the front row of your math class? This was a time when summer came you basically had no responsibility except to comb your hair and make sure your socks matched.

Just some simple thoughts about "the good ole" days. Don't get me wrong...I love some of the things I have gotten to enjoy as I have gotten older (ie marriage, etc), but I just don't enjoy all the things I get to do now that I am older (pay bills, sign papers, pay bills, etc). Every once in awhile I have looked around for that big red "easy button" you see in the staples commercials...let me know if you find it.

Oh yeah, I saw Mark Paul Gosselar (Zach Morris) and his wife at staples last night......