My quest - a Great Blog

So here I am, posting away, tracking my readers, seeing what blog is more popular than the others, getting ready to trim my responsibilities so I can actually sleep some time each day.

I like posting info for people, yet all the blogs with writing tips say write in depth material, make it catchy, make it personable.. or something to that affect. A few friends of mine say my dry sense of humor should make it interesting, and others say I have "beautiful" writing.

I think my dry humor is pretty sarcastic if you ask me, and my "beautiful" writing is for stuff that I write to my closest family, not the millions of people out there.. but hey, who knows.

So in my perusing for info, I came across an interesting, professionally produced blog that does exactly what I am being counseled to do: In depth writing. (Don't worry, I'll catch on sooner or later.) My title says My quest - a great blog. I meant making mine great, but as usual, I got sidetracked and found a great blog... I can be so confusing sometimes.

It's called http://zenhabits.net/, and it seems to be a self help, productivity type blog. Go check it out! I hope you like it.

Bruce

Bruce's August 2007 Newsletter

Generally Interesting Things
Money Problems in Japan? (And you thought free money would be an issue?)
Cell Phones and Driving
A Feel good Dog Story
Old Lady is Real Spoiled (Worlds fastest internet connection)
Funny news - Police Blow Up Weather Station
Los Alamos Security Issues
Cool Things in Google Earth - 7-11
Good News for Moderate Drinking!
CA Freeway Metering System (Is driving me crazy)
Dracula's Castle is for Sale

Consumer Info
RECALL - Sara Lee Bread
MySpace has too many Offenders signed up
Canned Meat Recall Grows
Airplane Ban(s) Lifted
RECALL-Easy Bake Ovens (Again)
Chili WARNING (And it's not about the social stigma!)
$1.63 and you lose your House????
GERBER Recall
Recall: Toy Castles by Infantino
Recall: Mag Stix Building Sets
Recall - Cooking Torches
Confessions of a Car Salesman (Beautiful article referenced)

Computer
Too Many Gadgets, not enough Outlets?
Microsoft and Advertising on your Desktop?? (Don't you dare Ms)
How to Spot a Virus Attack
SPAM Filter Nightmare
New Type of Monitors - OLED
Microsoft Patches ALERT
Microsoft has Glitches that Hamper Critical Fixes
Dissecting the iPhone (Can you believe people got in line to pay for, then dissect the thing?)

Real Estate
Consumers don't believe Mortgage Pitches (And it's about time!)
Wells Fargo stops making 2/28 ARM loans (And it's about time.. really.)
Countrywide - No Houseing Recovery until 2009 (Such cheery people, but it's true.)
A tax sale Horror Story (This is the $1.63 story.)
Billions in ARMs Coming Due (And who is prepared for it?)
What agents can and cannot Say (And they say a lot they don't need to!)
Dodging the Closing Day Glitch (Keep your agent honest!!)
Different Closing Costs for Different States
housing Slump Charges Onward
Silicon Valley Prices Squeezing Everyone (It's been said you have to win the lottery, 2x to buy a house!)

NASCAR
Earnhardt Jr Licensing
No Sleep for Jeff Gordon
NASCAR tracks in Google Earth
Dale Earnhardt Jr. & Budweiser - No More?
Earnhardt, Budweiser, Kahne
Series Title Name Change Announced to Sprint
DEI, the #8, Number Legacy
Earnhardt Jr and Adidas
NASCAR Sponsor Battles
Dan Wheldon to NASCAR - NOT

Almost as Relevant, Hollywood Noise!!
Michael Vick hits a Snag (Oh darn)
Michael Vick loses Contracts
Jim Carrey's New Movie
NBC Sued over Predator Suicide (Oh the damage they do, catching these predators)
Drew Carey to The Price is Right
Criminal Minds - Patinkin Gone
Catherine Bell, where art Thou? (A sad, freaky plastic transformation)
Michael Vick - Indictment (This man deserves what ever he gets!)
The Princess Bride, 20 years later (Eeek!)
X-Files 2
Transformer Movie setting Records
ESPN shut out of All-Star Game
Christmas Movie News, Jim Carrey
Transformers, A Review (The short of it, I had fun)
New Star Trek Movie, Matt Damon, Gary Sinise

One cat we don't need to Play with!

I like cats. I can even predict some incoming earthquakes, or be apprised when someone is outside my door by a cat, but this cat in the article, I would just assume, not play with.

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

I would just lay there and stare at the cat.. I'd never get any sleep!!! dOh!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070725/ap_on_fe_st/death_cat_4

Want to Rent a Dog?

You can have mine!! OK, no, you can't. But if you yearn for a dog, but don't want to own one..

(and you know there are some morons out there that adopt a pet then after a week or two, dump them in the street. Yes, I said morons.. I have no patience for these kinds of people),

Marlena Cervantes, founder of FlexPetz has a five-month-old business she refers to as a "shared pet ownership," which she describes is akin to a vacation time share or a gym membership than a trip to the video store.

FlexPetz is currently available in Los Angeles and San Diego, where Cervantes lives. She plans to open new locations in San Francisco next month, New York in September and London by the end of the year.

Read the rest of the details here: news.yahoo.com

Money Problems in Japan?

So here's an interesting scenario happenning over in Tokyo, Japan...

Apparently money is mysteriously showing up in mail boxes, and being dropped from upper floors of buildings by unknown benefactors, and this is confusing the Japanese to the extent that they are reporting it to the police.

What!!?? Are they kookey confused? Here, let me help - send the money to me, I'll count it, verify it, and to make sure it's real, I'll spend it for you too!!!

news.yahoo.com

PBA Bolwers on the Late Show Tonight

PBA Bowlers Barnes, Duke & Jones to appear on Late Show with David Letterman on CBS tonight! Thought you'd like to know!!

Cell Phones and Driving

by Bruce E. Simmons

I came across an interesting web site that deals with cell phone useage and driving, called http://www.drivenowchatlater.com/.

Here are the site leader bits on the front page:

New Study by The Federal Government Says that Cell Phones Are the Number One Distraction
The year long study videotaped volunteers while in their vehicles in order to determine exactly what driving behaviors cause crashes. Cell phones came out as the number one distraction.

Researchers Say Talking on Phone "Ages" Drivers 50 Years
According to new research by Dr. David Strayer, a teen driver's "reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver," when they are one the phone.

~~~
I can't tell you how many people I see on the road, using their phones, texting, and even using those new fangled, full fledged mini computer phones.. It's a scary trend that people seem to think they can drive and dial, or drive and text.

Let's think about this for a second. Let's pretend you are on the freeway. Don't we all drive around, say 70mph? Let's assume that. You get a text. You look at your phone. What's that, two seconds! No problem. If you reply, you will probably look out the window, look down to type a letter or two, look back out on the road. What's that, about three seconds? For every couple of letters. Say you just typed LOL to something you read. So I'm going to estimate you probably looked down for a total of about, 5 seconds, to be generous with your texting skills.

Did you know that at 70 mph, you cover 102.67 feet a second. 5 seconds, you've just covered 500 feet of road, not looking up, in this generous example. Think about it. And read the website info.

Vinokourov Out After Failed Doping Test

Alexandre Vinokourov, a pre-race favorite to win the Tour de France, tested positive for a blood transfusion after winning Saturday's time trial, his team announced during the rest day Tuesday. His B sample is expected by the end of the week, coinciding with the end of another tainted Tour.

Vinokourov's team, Astana, suspended him and also withdrew from the Tour, ending the chances of its best-placed rider, Andreas Kloeden, who was in fifth place through 15 stages. Vinokourov was 23rd.

courant

More cool Google Earth locations

Hopefully, I don't duplicate previous goodies:

The Pentagon: 38.87, -77.506
North Korean nuclear test site; 41.279, 129.087
North Korean air base; 39.905 125.49
Russian subs in Petropavlovsk naval base; 52 55' N 158 29' 25" E
Kiska, Alaska, World War II shipwreck; 51°56'4.44"N, 177°27'22.10"E
Kiska, Alaska battlefield, showing bomb craters preserved in the frozen landscape;
51°7'4.64"N, 177°32'53.07"E

Put these locs in your address search window

A Feel good Dog Story

Booker West was splashing his hands in a birdbath in his grandparents' northern Colorado back yard when a snake slithered up to the toddler, rattled and struck. But the family's five-pound Chihuahua, Zoey jumped in the way and took the bites.

And yet, people just toss animals out when they don't serve their self serving needs, because they're "just animals". A**h****.

news.aol.com

Old Lady is Real Spoiled

In STOCKHOLM, Sweden, 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed of 40 gigabits-per-second with a fiber-optic connection in Karlstad, which is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said.

In less than 2 seconds, she can download a full-length movie!! Jonsson and Lothberg's son, Peter, worked together to install the connection.

Man, is she ever spoiled, because I'm sure someone will find a reason to "fix" it, and she is going to think that cable or DSL is like dial up!!

There are more, interesting details about the connection at cnn.com

Funny news - Police Blow Up Weather Station

http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=6814820 A suspicious device blown up by a State Police Bomb Squad Thursday evening turned out to be a weather station. (You know how nefarious these things can be!!) It seems a hospital employee had attached it to a tree, and my guess, was to probably monitor weather.

The "device" was first checked by the police robot to check it, and apparently itsn't working since it couldn't tell it was not a bomb. and the "device" was blown up around 7:00 p.m. and the weather was safe, once again!

Funny News brought you by Bruce Simmons

Special Weather Treat

An Observation by Bruce Simmons

Today, while trapesing through the halls of work, I noticed the ground was wet outside! I normally don't get out during the work day, but thought, hey, here's a special treat!

I stepped outside, and didn't get wet. Oh, I was under a tree. I stepped a little further, and there I was, in the middle of July, getting rained on.

Now that is a neat pre-birthday treat!!!

This Day (July 16) in History

On this day in history, in 1945, at 5:29 am, in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the Manhattan Project detonates the first atom bomb.

Los Alamos Security Issues

An opinion by Bruce Simmons

I was reading that Los Alamos, the nation's premier nuclear-weapons laboratory is plagued with more security problems. Barely 10 days after revelations of a security leak of classified material over the Internet, there were two other security breaches with the facility.

In late May, a Los Alamos staffer took his lab laptop (That contained "government documents of a sensitive nature." ) with him on vacation to Ireland. Then the laptop was stolen while in Ireland.

In response, Los Alamos has started calling in laptops and replacing them with desktop models. (Once the horse is out, we start closing the barn doors.)

Then, on June 15th, a Los Alamos scientist fired off an e-mail to colleagues at the Nevada nuclear test site. The e-mail was classified information, and sent it " over the open Internet. (What the heck was he thinking?!)

And to read excuses like the following: "information contained on the computer was of sufficiently low sensitivity that, had the employee followed proper laboratory procedure, he would have been authorized to take it to Ireland." (Sometimes, it's the unclassified info that fills in the information gaps that hostile parties are looking for, so that is the most irresponsible attitude I've ever seen.)

I am incensed that the blatant piss poor security position that Los Alamos seems to have concerning the handling of this country’s most sensitive nuclear energy information.

The report says that if the employee had asked permission, permission would have been given. So be it, but obviously their staff doesn’t feel it’s worth their time to follow security procedures, and to blatantly to be found sending classified material over open internet email really riles me up as intential, and lazy and self serving attitudes.

A classified information system is completely isolated from the public system. To get material into your AOL or Gmail system would require intentional action to remove the material from the classified system,more than likely, via unapproved methods, and load it onto a public domain computer. If what they say is true, this is negligence of the utmost ignorance. There is no possible way to make any simple mistake like this.

Material is classified for a reason. The very few who have security clearances have an incredible burden on their shoulders and there is no mistaking one’s responsibilities or how it’s enacted, as a cleared contractor has to sign an awful lot of paperwork saying they understand the processes.

See the debacle here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19418769/site/newsweek/

To Jennifer

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRL!!

Cool Things in Google Earth - 7-11

I've been exploring Google Earth and if you've got it installed (It's free) and fun at times, I've been coming along things to look at that other people have discovered or found on the software.

So, I've got a list, but I'll start small and add more in future posts!!



Hey, ever see Area 51?? It's super secret.. no one knows anything about it.. shhh.
Actually, according the legend, they moved their operation to a secret place in Utah.
Put these coordinates in your search window near the upper left corner:

37°14'28.53"N 115°48'51.97"W

25k feet eye altitude is a good start.

~~~

In the realm of secret or .. weird, check this out:

37°24'04.91"N 116°52'03.86"W

Pan out and check out the other 'stuff', like to the east - looks like craters. Eh?
Go North and you'll see other stuff....

~~~

37°06'53.00"N 116°02'56.72"W - craters from Atomic tests, according to other sites.


There's more coming down the pipe.

Good News for Moderate Drinking!

I came across an article that noted that some ground-breaking research showed that brain cells continue to grow throughout our lifetime, and MODERATE drinking is not bad for us! (Oh yea!)

Moderate drinking may well help to prevent things like stroke and heart disease so there may be a positive effect of moderate drinking on brain health....

The article can be seen here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/10/1974569.htm

CA Freeway Metering System

Is it me, or does the political noise not seem to make sense to you either.

I understand they say that the meter lights at the end of freeway on-ramps in California help alleviate the impending traffic jam that always occur anyway on our wonderful freeways of speed and insanity.

From my perspective, these on-ramp lights just back up traffic on the surface streets and cause me more stops and go's, hence, more wear and tear on my cars, more gas used, and what not. I say that because where I get on the freeway, I have a nice long on-ramp where I can gently build up to highway speeds, and merge gracefully.

Instead, I have some 100 ft or more to harshly abuse my engine to get up to speed and not cause a multi-car wreck trying to merge into rediculously high speed, hair brained traffic, because you know how everyone has to get to work faster than the other guy at all times.

At 6 am, I am the only person on this ramp. This light is not alleviating traffic and not filtering cars getting on the freeway. I have to go now, I'm taking my deep breath, closing my eyes, and getting ready to stomp my gas pedal for all I am worth.

See ya.

Dracula's Castle is for Sale

A Habsburg heir is hoping someone will take a bite of his offer Monday to sell "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania.

The medieval Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula."

Habsburg, 69, offered to sell the castle last year to local authorities for $80 million, but the offer was rejected.

On Monday, he put the castle up for sale "to the right purchaser under the right circumstances," said Michael Gardner, chief executive of Baytree Capital, the company representing Habsburg. "The Habsburgs are not in the business of managing a museum."

Right now, some 450,000 people visit the castle every year
See the entire, interesting article at: news.yahoo.com

Bruce's July 2007 Newsletter

Consumer Info:
Confessions of a Car Salesman
iPhone Woes Already
US Department of State
SNACK FOOD Recall
Company Beginnings
Recall of Children's Jacket
Wheeled Sneaker Warning
The U S Opposes Fixing GreenHouse Gases


Computer Info:
An Interesting ISP Survey
InkJet Cartridge Mysteries
Accelerate with Virtual Memory
Spoofed Website
Home Networks, an Insight
Zone Alarm for Vista
Lavasoft Ad-Aware, A New Version
Computer Resources: A Readers Question
SpyWare Detectors: A Readers Question
MS Excel - Producitivity Insight


Real Estate Notes:
Hybrid Loan Concerns
Federal Reserve Looking at Bad Loans
Median Home Prices Drop Again
Issues with Refinancing
Unfair Farm Subsidies??
Buying Real Estate
Cutting Out The Middle Man??
Real Estate Web Sites
Highest Real Estate Taxes
Contract Awareness


Entertainment Noise (If you're interested)
Captain America's Funeral
Lindsay to Play Paris??
DATELine NBC Shakes up Texas Town
Battlestar Galactica Tidbits
Matt Hoover and Suzy Preston BABY
American Idol Audition Cities
Planet Earth DVD
Star Bucks (Not Coffee)
U2 New Album!
Jericho IS coming back
CBS Jericho News
Warner Bros has a Scare from the Sky
Speed Racer Movie, Car Pics
Deal or No Deal Lawsuit???


NASCAR Tidbits
Tony Eury Sr Leaves DEI
Montoya Winning at Sonoma, an Article by Bruce
Gordon and Johnson Banned from Practice at Infineo...
Junior will host a night of Elvis movies
Dale Earnhardt Jr and Sony
Congartulations to Mr & Mrs Jeff Gordon
An Ode to a Displaced Father & Son