I’ve been impressed with Google recently. I’ve started using Google Reader again. I used it for awhile when it first came out, but I think some RSS feeds were glitchy or it could have been Google Reader in general. Maybe I just got distracted by some other shiny object and stopped paying attention to it. But, it seems good now and you can share items with friends from your Gmail contact list. So, I’m starting to “share” items now that perk my interest.
This week Google added themes for Gmail. It took awhile for them to show up for my account, but they’re finally here! So far, I like the shiny and silver lining theme.
The last thing is somewhat unrelated, but awesome nonetheless. Well, technically Google owns Youtube. For your viewing pleasure, here’s Bike Hero..
Today the topic of plastic in the ocean came up. It’s really horrendous how much plastic is out there. Much of it is mistaken for plankton by fish, which we depend on for food. So yea, we’re poisoning ourselves. Below are a couple educational Youtube videos.
Last week at the Rock Gym, someone was talking about circus abs and a friend of mine said they were good to do. So I’ve been making them part of my morning routine. Basically it’s sets of ten to fifteen crunches and leg raises but in a certain way. I’m just doing sets of ten at this point and my form isn’t really that great, but it’s getting better.
I searched on Google to find out how to do them and didn’t find much except for a Youtube video (below). Maybe it’s just something rock climbers do and isn’t well documented. It goes something like this though..
Ten crunches with your arms straight.
Ten leg raises.
Ten crunches while holding your legs raised a few inches off the ground.
Ten leg raises while holding your arms up (I try to get my shoulder blades off the ground).
Crunches and leg raises at the same time (my friend said to do these until your abs just give out).
So yea, that’s it. I’ve also been working in a set of push-ups as well. I really need these exercises to be part of my morning or evening routine in order to stick to it. Below is a Youtube video of a girl demonstrating circus abs. Since the RSS feed thing to Facebook and Planet Linode don’t include the embedded videos, I’m adding a link too.
Learn something new every day. So John McCain has anger management issues. He even backhanded a woman in one of the capital buildings and is known to push or poke people in the chest. I think many people struggle with controlling their emotions. I have in the past. But physically hitting and pushing people? That crosses the line. Scary.
I just saw the following in this CNN article. I think it would be great if his polls slipped two more points.
“Bush has now tied Richard Nixon’s worst rating ever, taken in a poll just before he resigned in 1975, and is only 2 points higher than the worst presidential approval rating in history, Harry Truman’s 22 percent mark in February 1952,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
With the financial madness and $200,000,000,000 pork needed to get republicans to vote for the $700,000,000,000 bail out, I don’t have a whole lot of respect for all those people in DC. I really don’t like the idea that our government needs to go around and bail out airlines, insurance companies, and banks. I can understand it when they need to pump money into Amtrak, USPS, or even Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac as they are companies controlled by the federal government. If people and small businesses need to declare bankrupcy, why not large companies too? Why have these banks become so large? That seems problematic in of itself. However, I do think that raising the FDIC insurance limits was a good move. If all these banks really needed so much capital, why haven’t they raised interest rates?
I saw an awesome quote last week in the NY Times (unfortunately, they require an account after so many days). It pretty much sums up how I feel about all our representatives.
I’ve always believed that America’s government was a unique political system - one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots. I was wrong. No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it.
Hopefully things will change for the better. We need some change.
So a few weeks ago an old friend sent a message out to a few people about going camping and doing some rock climbing. I’ve always enjoyed camping, so I decided to go along. We went to French Creek State Park in PA over Labor Day weekend. During the day we went to Birdsboro, PA to go climbing. I have climbed once when I was little in an indoor gym. It was a lot of fun and a great workout.
Since then, I’ve been going climbing any chance I can get. During this past year, I’ve fallen out of shape. This has really motivated me and I hope to keep it up. There are a couple places in Delaware. There is the Delaware Rock Gym and University of Delaware has built a small rock gym in an old racketball court. As far as outdoor stuff, Delaware isn’t exactly known for it’s elevation changes. There are a couple places in Alapocus Woods Park. I’ve probably only gone climbing a half dozen times, but I think I definitely prefer to climb outdoors. As far as the indoor places go, the DRG (Delaware Rock Gym) is really nice. I think this will be a good activity to do over the winter as well.
So, I received a call from my Mom a few minutes ago. My sister, Amy, was due to have a baby on my other sisters wedding day (Aug 9th, 2008). Apparently she was a little late and getting huge. So from what I heard, Amy and Derek were with one of their friends late last night when the time came. They rushed to my parents house to get some stuff and pickup my Mom. Then they went to the birthing center. Apparently, they even beat the midwife there. As soon as the midwife got there, she gave birth to a baby boy. I believe he was born in the early hours of Aug 19th, but I’m not sure on the time. He’s nine pounds, four ounces. I’m very happy everything went well. I haven’t heard what the name will be yet. I hope I can see them after work. I wonder if she’ll be rested about twelve hours?
Yesterday, I headed from Wilmington to Newark to do some side work. I usually avoid I-95 on the weekends, but I took it to try and save some time. As I got down the ramp, my fears were true. The traffic was going about 15 mph. I should have known better.
As I make my way to the far left lane, I noticed there was no oncoming traffic. Odd.. A moment later, I saw flashing lights. Lots of them. Some presidential or vip convoy? Nah.. They would have cleared both sides of the road for that. As they come closer, I see three state troopers (in cars) leading side by side. Behind them were police on bikes. Must have been hundreds of them. I honestly thought they were escorting the Patriot Guard Riders (which is a really awesome thing). After the hundreds of police, there must have been at least a thousand bikers behind them. There were three or four bikes across the road and it stretched from the salt box at SR-141 to SR-1. That’s just under three miles of roadway. It was probably the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen on I-95 and words can’t even describe it.
When I got home, I did some searching and found it was America’s 9/11 Foundation Ride. A group of bikers get together each year and travel to each of the locations that were attacked in memory of everyone who lost their lives that day. Seeing so many people supporting first responders was truely an impressive event to bear witness to.
So I’ve been using Linode for awhile to host my site. Linode is a Linux based VPS provider and they do an excellent job. They are constantly enhancing their management interface and increasing resources in their plans. They’ve just added a referral program as well. So if anyone is interested in trying out Linux or want their own virtual machine, please use this link and it’ll use my referral code when signing up.
As I picked up my coffee this morning, I was shocked to see that Delmarva Power and Bluewater Wind announced a contract to install wind turbines off the Delaware coast. This has been an ongoing battle with all the typical negative ads by Delmarva. I believe Delmarva Power is owned by a huge energy company which owns the power plants under a different name, so they may have a vested interest in natural gas or coal fed plants.
Hopefully the deal will go through and cost overruns stay minimal. But this has been a political battle, so it’s still early to see how this will end up. It’s definitely a step in the right direction though.
November 20th, 2008 
Awesomeness, Youtube