1 Year in 40 Seconds

Happy New Year



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Newbies

This week on my vacation I was running on as I often do about how blogging and twitter has become a passion for me in my spare time. I am often asked how do I find time to post, or to learn how to do this stuff, and it surprises me because of how little time I actually devote to my blog, or my tweets. More often the post arises from a brief moment of boredom, or sparked by a link that I can't wait to share. With the ease of publishing on blogger I recommended it to my parents, as well as my brother's in-laws, as a way to avoid the complexity of hosted sites, and web page design effort. The Lakeview Vocalists and St. Cloud Hog are two new blogs I have added in my links section. Totally unrelated to my topics, except for the way that Google technology has allowed even the most novice users to become instant publishers and web masters. Start yours today!

Economic Insantiy

I rarely watch CNN however visiting family there was a segment I was viewing where they were reading viewer email. I can't quote this word for word but what I remember was well worth repeating because of it's raw truth.

We got into this financial crisis by encouraging people to spend money they didn't have, and by lending money to people who could not afford to pay it back.

We are trying to solve it by allowing our government to spend money it doesn't have by lending it to companies who will never be able to pay it back.

I like to remind people of the definition of insanity:
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Season of Giving

The media and liberal pundits like to suggest the United states is out of favor with the rest of the world. Even the republican party began to fall into the media trap using buzz words like corporate corruption, and wall street greed to fault our long proven system of capitalism. The facts support that capitalism and freedom of religion (not freedom from religion) has made America the most generous nation in the world, more than twice as giving by percentage of GDP as the number 2 spot the UK.


The following numbers from MSNBC

World's most charitable nations

A country's social and political cultures influence how much money citizens give to charity, according to a November 2006 study by England's Charities Aid Foundation that ranks philanthropic donation as a percentage of gross domestic product. Among nations surveyed, these 10 are the most generous.

• 1. United States, 1.67 percent of GDP • 2. United Kingdom, 0.73 • 3. Canada, 0.72 • 4. Australia, 0.69 • 5. South Africa, 0.64 • 6. Ireland, 0.47 • 7. Netherlands, 0.45 • 8. Singapore, 0.29 • 9. New Zealand, 0.29 • 10. Turkey, 0.23

Federal tax laws -- notably low income tax, plus breaks for donations -- are often cited for American's generosity. As is religion, which drives one-third of U.S. charitable giving.

With this type of generosity why do we get such bad press from the media complex? This is the season of giving, all I want for Christmas is for the media to give me a break! Quit trying to be entertainment and report the facts. If I want drama and intrigue I will watch the Lifetime Channel.

And here is another interesting trivia question about US generosity, guess who gives the most? Read and learn.

Left Oregon Snow Behind

My sister sent this photo of her car in the Wilsonville, OR. I had been joking about my vacation travel to Minnesota for Christmas, well as it appears, I have left more snow behind that I am heading to. I am currently on I-90 near Sioux Falls, SD and there is less snow here that what looks to be in Portland Oregon.

Eagle's View Point

While visiting family in Ogalalla Nebraska we went out on a Geocaching search nearby where the eagles nest and hunt the open water by the spillway. They are amazing creatures to see in the wild and dont let you get very close. I have seen them in Oregon, never so many in one area, and never so close up.

The Odd Old West

This weekend I am in Nebraska visiting family. We visited the local western museum where a display (pictured right) was one of the west's first daycare. As it appears, the child would be caged while being supervised by a local Indian. To insure the safekeeping the sheriff would check in. In this simulated scene, a mother picks up her infant after a long night working the local brothel.

Front Street,Olgallala , NE

80% Chance of Snow Sunday in Portland

Bad things happen when Portland gets snow. Re-posting this as a reminder of the dangerous combination of ice, hills, and bad Portland drivers.

Pat McGee & Ernie Halter

Last night I went to a concert in Portland with my friend McKay. It was a random chance that I noticed Pat McGee was playing so I purchased tickets online, and was lucky to be in town the night of the show. I hadn't seen him play live in years, the first time I was more impressed by his music than the headline performance of Sister Hazel and started collecting his music, listening to it regularly. Saturday I decided to get the details on the show, when it started, and how to get there. I did not recognize the guest opening act, so I found his MySpace page, and immediately became a fan of Ernie Halter. The acoustic set was so intimate and personal it will go on my list of best ever entertainment experiences in my life. Sadly the show was barely booked up, and we sat 2nd row but this was in our benefit because we could converse with these artists, discuss our requests, and it was like listening to a good friend play guitar in your living room. Pat McGee finished his set, and then graciously came out for an encore where he unplugged and sat at the edge of the stage and just 'hung out' with us. It was more than words can describe how down to earth and personable both of these performers were. I shook Pat's hand after his encore and sincerely thanked him for what was the most memorable musical performance I had ever witnessed.

Find Jesus, with a GPS?

Mike Elgan's RawFeed blog, that I have neglected to read for the last week posted, GPS For Jesus where "Village officials in Wellington, Florida, last year inserted a GPS tracking device in the baby Jesus doll to combat theft. And wouldn't you know it? Jesus went missing, and authorities used the GPS to catch the 18-year-old girl who stole it. This year, Wellington officials plan to insert GPS trackers into the Christmas Tree, the Menorah and everything else in the holiday display that isn't nailed down."

If they are using GPS to find Jesus, would it be a sacrilege if I placed a geocache called find Jesus? I often find evangelical swag in geocaches, what a better way to get saved than by searching for him literally instead of figuratively. I am a Christian, just not a very respectable one apparently.

Hackers Ahead - Beware of Flash Update

A friend sent me a link to a video, and I love watching funny YouTube videos so I was eager to click even without reading any of the message that was included with the link. I was directed to a site with a typical video player as you would find on YouTube but it loaded for a few seconds and then popped up a notice that my flash player was outdated and I needed to upgrade, and provided a handy link to the update installation file.

Well most people would just run the new flash player right? While the notice may look ligitimate, I just know from experience that if my computer needs any updating, I will do so from a trusted source so I closed the notice, and instead went to official Adobe website to download the latest Flash Player from them. My player was not the latest version so I performed the update and returned to try and watch the video. Still no video, the site was a trick to get unsuspecting viewers to run a spyware program and collect personal information.

After some research this has been going on since August, and it was the first I have heard of it. Chances are you may have fallen for this, if you think you may have, you might want to be sure your virus and spyware software are up to date and scan your system.