Trying Out a New Video Adapter

One of the drawbacks to having a laptop as your primary computer is the lack expansion capabilities. Video is one of the things I have wanted to expand for some time and I had not found anything promising until now. I have my Macbook Pro connected to a 22" Dell Monitor and I love the widescreen, but there are times that I wish I had a little more space to work with. I did a little searching today and found a device made by Diamond that allows you to connect additional monitors using USB on your Laptop. It has to be USB2 to work with this device but that shouldn't be a problem on most modern laptops. When I get my adapter later this week I can plug in a 2nd 22" Widescreen to my Macbook Pro and have more space when I am working on websites now. Will post more later when I receive the adapter and give it a try.

I Hate Internet Explorer

I really do hate Internet Explorer and can't understand why Microsoft can meet Browser Standards like others do. I spent some hours this afternoon modifying CSS for my Church website and got everything how I wanted it to look for now only to find that IE6 and IE7 don't like the CSS so I have to spend more time to figure out how to fix the issues. I mean if Firefox, Safari, Camino, and Chrome all work why can't IE.

 

Yup. That's Me

I was searching for a video on a song that I really like and came across this video blog from the artist that sing the song that I was looking for. The blog is at their vimeo site Healing Begins Journal Blog. I watched the blog and it struck a little too close to home. I think the author is right on when he says that it's easy to own up to our shortcomings when we are in prayer because there really is no one to admonish us or call us on what we have done. It's much harder to sit down and talk to a friend or pastor and admit that we are not perfect and actually provide real examples of things that we really aren't proud of. It's given me something to think about.

A Song That Speaks to Me

There is a song by Tenth Avenue North called "Healing Begins" that really has made impression on me recently. The song talks about letting go of all our pretenses so that we can face our failings and get beyond them. The refrain reminds us that healing begins when the light meets the dark. We have to admit that we are broken and need help. Only through the light of Christ can we overcome our darkness. I know that too often I think I have everything under control and I really don't. I have as many issues to face as anyone else and I need strength to overcome my weakness.

 

Another 3-Day

Well I haven't even finished fundraising for this year yet and it is still 98 days until I walk this year but I have aleady registered for next year. Next year will be my 5th 3-Day and I will be walking in my 3rd City. I have walked two years in Chicago, I will have walked two years in San Diego, and next year I will be walking in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The group that I am walking with decided that it's a little expensive to do longer trips each year so we are going to stick with something closer to home next year. The Twin Cities is a comfortable 6 hour drive from Milwaukee so I won't have any airfare next year. That will be good. I have also heard good things about the Twin Cities 3-Day so I am looking forward to walking in another city.

 

Missing Chicago

This weekend was the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the cure in Chicago. I had registered to walk in Chicago with my team but changed cities earlier this summer. This year has been a bad year with heat and humidity for me and my allergies so I decided that I was better off with walking in San Diego again this year. I don't miss the heat in Chicago but i did miss seeing my teammates there this weekend. I ended up having to work this weekend so I didn't even get to go down for Dinner or to cheer the team on. It looks like they had decent weather and they raised about $4.5 Million dollars for the fight against Breast Cancer. Nice job Chicago. Can't wait to see some of the team in San Diego in November.

Promoting Drupal

Drupal is a Open Source Content Management System that I started working with a couple of years ago. I originally started looking at it because I wanted to update my Church website off of a static Dreamweaver based website to something that would be easier for multiple people to update. I have since used it to develop this simple blog website as well as a couple of smaller websites for local groups. My sites are still pretty simple and I am constantly learning better ways to accomplish things using Drupal and it keeps getting better with new revisions.

The learning curve for Drupal is quite steep because it is very powerful but once you get started there are so many things that you can do with it. Drupal.org has a large community that does a pretty good job of answering questions for those that have taken the time to do some basic research.

One of the drawbacks with Drupal is it has not had as much exposure in the past as other CMS's like Wordpress. Drupal is working on that but needs more support. Recently Drupal was setting up a booth at OSCON to get more exposure. They asked for donations from the Drupal Community to help cover the costs of the booth. They had a target of $2500 and came up a bit short so they may not have been as successful as they would have liked. I find it a bit amazing that with all the people that are using and developing Drupal that they could not raise such a small amount. If the Drupal community wants to see Drupal succeed we need to do a better job of supporting efforts like this to get Drupal more exposure.

Drupal is a great CMS but it needs more than just the developers to help it grow. For those of us that are not developers or programmers that use Drupal we need to do our part to help it grow in other ways. That means that more of us have to be willing to donate when we can to help get the word out.

AYOP - A New Experience

I spent most of this week at Notre Dame University attending AYOP. AYOP stands for America's Youth on Parade and it is the premiere event for Baton Twirlers and Flag Corps. My daughters were competing in some twirling and some flag corp events. This was a new experience since all of the competitions that I had previously attended were much smaller. There were kids here from all over the country and different parts of Canada.

There were some very talented groups in attendance. The groups ranged from very large to very small and every where in between. With different events every day, it was pretty chaotic most days but the girls had a good time and learned more about an activity that they enjoy.

My wife had to work this week so I was a solo dad at AYOP and that was a challenge. The girls have to have different outfits and hairstyles for their different events. I am very grateful to the mothers of other members of our corp that took pity on me and helped with the girls hair throughout the week. The families in our Corp do a really nice job of helping each other out and I really appreciate their help this week.

My girls are already looking forward to next year.

 

Little Training But Lots to Do

I have not been getting much training lately as I have been running my daughters to their practices and activities since school let out. The activities are fun but I will be glad in a couple weeks when the competitions are over and we can relax a bit more for the rest of the summer. I will finally be able to get back to my training also. I am not walking until November so I have plenty of time to train but I do miss my walking. I find it to be relaxing.

I also have plenty of other things to work on this summer. I am working on upgrading several websites and there are so many things I want to make better as I have learned so much since I first rolled out the sites.

No Blisters

I have had issues with blisters every year that I walk the 3-Day. Last year in San Diego was my worst and this spring with my new shoes I have been getting some in places I had not previously. I used to use Body Glide on my feet every time I walked but that was not working very well. I must not have been putting enough on because I was still getting blisters. Well I decided to change tactics this past Sunday when I went out and so far the new strategy has been successful. Two walks and no blisters. Even with the 11 Miles on Sunday I was blister free. This time I used a strategy that I had heard others use but had not tried. I spread a generous layer of Vaseline on my feet wherever I knew I got hot spots or blisters. When I felt that it was wearing off, about 6-7 miles, I stopped and re-applied and it worked great so far. It felt a little strange at first when I started out but that did not last. Going to keep doing this all year and see if I can make it through the 3-Day with no blisters this year.