Is Your A/C Working?

This is fun to look at when it's smoldering outside.


Amazing striped icebergs (Snopes.com says "True")

Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions. Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form. When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe. Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.



Below: The water froze the instant the wave broke through the ice. That's what it is like in Antarctica where it is the coldest weather in decades. Water freezes the instant it comes in contact with the air. The temperature of the water is already some degrees below freezing.


A wave frozen in mid-air!!!

More cool pics!

Blog List - Most Recently Updated Blogs

Kewl! I just blog lifted this from someone else (Adam). Blogspot now has a new Page Element that you can add to your blog page creating a blog roll list of all your blog links and it will organize and sort your links in order of "most recently posted". It tells the blog name, title of the new post and how recently it was posted.

Where Is This Going?

It has come to my attention (since I'm working from home today) that my 5 year old son Nathaniel likes to color himself while playing with sidewalk chalk. I suppose it seemed harmless enough to Cathleen in the past. however I became concerned when I saw his latest look.



I'm certainly hoping this fetish does not lead to this ->



If Nathaniel starts to exhibit "never nude" syndrome, I'm going to take him in for therapy before it's too late.

Father's Day!

First off, happy father's day to our (mine and Cathleen's) fathers, we love you! But equally as important, happy father's day to me! My day was wonderful and so I thought I'd share a few tidbits. Here are my youngest 6 with me heading out to church this morning.



Church was good, I got to hear about how a good dad is really supposed to be... Then I came home and Cathleen made BLTs and watermelon with grapes. I played a game of "Trouble" with Gwen, Jonathan and Nate and I won (go figure, I never win that game, I can never pop 6's). I had a good nap and then we had steaks on the grill, potatoes and angel food cake with chocolate frosting. It couldn't have been a better day!

Ummm, Hot Tip??? - MagicJack Maybe Not...

Date June 28, the jury is still out on this product. In fact, the verdict is not looking too good. We've had strange things happen, calls drop all of the sudden, music playing in the background, etc. The connection sounds pretty clear on our side but for people calling us, it constantly sounds like the connection is cutting out. I know because I call Cathleen from various phones and it is pretty annoying. I just got a new phone at work which is also Internet based and it has strange things happening as well, not quite like the MagicJack but "strange". For example, it seems that I am picking up feedback if the phone is too close to other electronic devices. I don't have the same lack of clarity or dropping that I see when calling home to the Magic Jack but I think VOIP (Voice Over IP) is not quite there yet. So, I'm not sure if we keep the Magic Jack as a secondary line and hope that things improve over time or just return it for a refund (we have about 14 days left of our free trial). And that's where we are with it... Note: at $10/year almost doesn't matter what I do. We will probably just keep it.

6/14/08: You heard it here first, MagicJack is going to save me $63+ a month. We installed it yesterday, very simple and it seems to be great so far. If you haven't crossed over to a cell phone only existence, perhaps you should consider this alternative. We prefer to have a home base number, granted this phone will not be available if you lose internet or if your computer goes down (calls will roll to voice mail). But for $20/year (or $10/year if you opt for the 5 year plan like we did), I think I can live with those conditions. Click the link and watch the video clips and check it out for yourselves. I'm a proponent at this point.

Personality Test - How Do You Score?

Gregory sent this Myers-Briggs personality test, it actually had decent questions but I still find myself struggling to answer some of the questions because I'm not always in the same mood or frame of mind. Then I'm left with trying to assess what I might be the majority of the time and that becomes difficult for me. In any case, it determined that I am an INFP (the Idealist).

Cathleen and Gregory scored the same, INTJ (the Scientist) but different percentages. Why does that not surprise me that they are so similar? I am almost certain that Tory will come out an INFP too, and Grammy too for that matter. Oh, I just found out that Tory is an ISFP (the Artist), reading it I would agree.

Here are some famous INFPs:
Princess Diana, Michel de Montaigne, J.K. Rowling, Anton Chekhov

Interesting facts: Princess Diana was born just 3 months after me (July 1, 1961), she is also a distant relative according to Cathleen's genealogy research, up the Baker/Strong side, we share the same 10th great grandfather (Elder John Strong, he had 18 children so he has many descendants).

Here are the careers that INFPs are ideal for:
Counseling, Religious Education, Education, Art/ScienceHumanities, Web Design, Musician, Literature/Writer, Archaeology, Health Care, Psychology/Psychotherapist

I think that this is a relatively accurate assessment of me. I think though that I'm not all that constant in my personality. Some days I feel very extraverted, other days I feel more introverted. Some days I feel like fixing the world, other days I feel apathetic. In fact, I retook the test and this time I feel that I answered more accurately and it said I was an ISFP (the Artist), like Tory. However, I changed one answer (I worry more about the future than day to day preoccupations = yes) and it put me back to INFP, which after reading both of the profiles, I tend to agree with more. My point is, Tory's and my personalities are pretty similar.

How do you score, and more importantly, do you agree with the assessment?

Cursed Costco Milk Containers!

I can't stand it any more, I had to go out and see who else is complaining about this. I'd rather pay $.20 more for a container that doesn't force me to wipe up a huge mess every time I pour milk. Here specifically is what I'm talking about (it's not just me folks)!

If you are as annoyed about this as I am, I urge you to contact these idiots via the following contacts (note this is a reply to a customer "Michael" who likewise couldn't stand it any more):



I have had enough, it is maddening and it is time for me to speak up.