Check it out at Wordle.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Wordle
Amar sent this link to me today, and I think it's pretty nifty. It generates "word clouds" based on text that you point it to. In this case, I pointed it at my blog. Guess what's been on my mind lately? ;)
Check it out at Wordle.
Check it out at Wordle.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Updates
If you're keeping track:
That is all.
- We have working reverse lights on the Pathfinder, complete with a light-up toggle switch and everything. Who could ask for more?
- We have working AC in the BMW, just in time for the temperature gauge to read 105 on the way home from work yesterday - Yippee!
- We recently found out that our dogs are overweight, so that's a bummer...they're gonna have to cut back on the peanut butter. More for me!
- We'll be leaving for the doctor's office in just a few minutes, as most of the morning has thus far consisted of Amar's thumb bleeding profusely after he attempted to cut an apple for breakfast. Seriously, the fun never stops around here.
- I got to hang out with high school girls for 2 hours last night and we had a blast. I started losing my voice about an hour into it...but, we came in 2nd in the scavenger hunt!
- I'm 2/3 of the way through Harry Potter, book 6. Trying to refresh my memory before the movie comes out in July...get excited.
- Our small group is going kayaking on Town Lake this Saturday, and I'm looking forward to that. Too bad we can't take the dogs, though...there's probably a weight limit on those things... ;)
That is all.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Order of events
Background Info:
About a year ago, we lost the key fob for the Pathfinder. At this point, we have 1 key for the car. No unlock/alarm thingy. Just a key.
Also, we have a 1 car driveway, as in, we have to pull one car in behind the other car. In this instance, the Pathfinder was behind the other car.
Monday Night:
8:30 PM
Kim leaves Bible study and heads to the grocery store in the 12 year old Nissan Pathfinder (which she loves dearly, but has been a bit iffy lately).
8:45 PM
Kim loads groceries into the back of the Pathfinder, including a 40lb. bag of dog food.
9:00 PM
Kim pulls into the driveway, gets out of the car and doesn't realize that she's locked the driver side door. She goes into the house to ask Amar for help unloading the groceries.
9:01 PM
Amar and Kim go out to the car, and open the back door of the Pathfinder.
9:01:01 PM
Pathfinder alarm goes off (horn honks, lights flash, annoyingness commences).
9:01:10 PM
Kim debates about how to turn off the alarm since there is no key fob thingy. Should they crawl through the car and try to hit the 'unlock' button? That usually does it.
9:01:15 PM
Amar crawls through the car to hit the unlock button. No dice. Horn still honking. Loudly. At night.
9:02 PM
Kim runs into the house to get the keys.
Summary of the next 10 minutes:
We try to unlock the door with the key. No luck.
We try popping the hood. No luck.
We try starting the car. Not only does the alarm keep going, but the car won't start.
After 4 minutes, the alarm stops.
We frantically unload the groceries while we have a window of opportunity.
Then it starts again.
We try all of the above items again, except of course, the grocery unloading.
After 4 more minutes, the alarm stops again.
We stand quietly beside the car praying that the worst is behind us.
Silence.
So, it stopped. No idea why, but it finally stopped. We decided to just leave it be for the night, not sure what the morning would hold. Would we be able to start the car? Would we be able to even open the door? No idea.
I started dreaming about different ways to get the car out of the driveway. If the Pathfinder wouldn't start, how could we get the other car out? Could we push the Pathfinder out of the driveway and then drive the other car through the yard? Oh, yeah, that would be really inconspicuous...
Tuesday Morning:
7:30 AM
Amar goes out to the car and gently unlocks the door. No alarm.
He hits the "unlock" button to open the other doors. No alarm.
He opens the other doors. No alarm.
And finally, he tries to start the car: SUCCESS!
Happy Tuesday!
About a year ago, we lost the key fob for the Pathfinder. At this point, we have 1 key for the car. No unlock/alarm thingy. Just a key.
Also, we have a 1 car driveway, as in, we have to pull one car in behind the other car. In this instance, the Pathfinder was behind the other car.
Monday Night:
8:30 PM
Kim leaves Bible study and heads to the grocery store in the 12 year old Nissan Pathfinder (which she loves dearly, but has been a bit iffy lately).
8:45 PM
Kim loads groceries into the back of the Pathfinder, including a 40lb. bag of dog food.
9:00 PM
Kim pulls into the driveway, gets out of the car and doesn't realize that she's locked the driver side door. She goes into the house to ask Amar for help unloading the groceries.
9:01 PM
Amar and Kim go out to the car, and open the back door of the Pathfinder.
9:01:01 PM
Pathfinder alarm goes off (horn honks, lights flash, annoyingness commences).
9:01:10 PM
Kim debates about how to turn off the alarm since there is no key fob thingy. Should they crawl through the car and try to hit the 'unlock' button? That usually does it.
9:01:15 PM
Amar crawls through the car to hit the unlock button. No dice. Horn still honking. Loudly. At night.
9:02 PM
Kim runs into the house to get the keys.
Summary of the next 10 minutes:
We try to unlock the door with the key. No luck.
We try popping the hood. No luck.
We try starting the car. Not only does the alarm keep going, but the car won't start.
After 4 minutes, the alarm stops.
We frantically unload the groceries while we have a window of opportunity.
Then it starts again.
We try all of the above items again, except of course, the grocery unloading.
After 4 more minutes, the alarm stops again.
We stand quietly beside the car praying that the worst is behind us.
Silence.
So, it stopped. No idea why, but it finally stopped. We decided to just leave it be for the night, not sure what the morning would hold. Would we be able to start the car? Would we be able to even open the door? No idea.
I started dreaming about different ways to get the car out of the driveway. If the Pathfinder wouldn't start, how could we get the other car out? Could we push the Pathfinder out of the driveway and then drive the other car through the yard? Oh, yeah, that would be really inconspicuous...
Tuesday Morning:
7:30 AM
Amar goes out to the car and gently unlocks the door. No alarm.
He hits the "unlock" button to open the other doors. No alarm.
He opens the other doors. No alarm.
And finally, he tries to start the car: SUCCESS!
Happy Tuesday!
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Alert: Free Food Tomorrow
It's no secret that I'm a fan of the doughnut.
Love 'em.
So, I felt compelled to let you all know that apparently tomorrow is National Doughnut Day. Both Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Doughnuts are participating.
Unfortunately, I don't live or work near a location for either of these chains, but if you do, you should totally take advantage of the holiday.
Enjoy!!
More info @ The Consumerist.
Love 'em.
So, I felt compelled to let you all know that apparently tomorrow is National Doughnut Day. Both Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Doughnuts are participating.
Unfortunately, I don't live or work near a location for either of these chains, but if you do, you should totally take advantage of the holiday.
Enjoy!!
More info @ The Consumerist.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
TV Addict
I grew up watching a lot of tv.
And I have a bit of an addictive personality.
Thus, there are several shows that I watch quite frequently.
I'm trying not to add any shows to the schedule. After all, there are occasionally other things that I like to do with my time. Like watch movies.
Anyhow, there's a show that I stumbled upon last summer, and I just now noticed that it's back, and yes, it's better than ever.
It's called Wipeout and it's on ABC.
I mean seriously, this is good television.
It's a ridiculously-constructed obstacle course, complete with commentators (who yes, occasionally make some questionable jokes). But it is hilarious. The stuff that they make these people do is just insane.
Side note: while Amar and I were in India, there wasn't much on tv that we could both watch and enjoy (the Indian ones were hard for me to follow, and the English ones were not incredibly compelling). The two shows that we could agree on were 1) BBC World News and 2) Takeshi's Castle. Hopefully you can figure out the former. The latter? Potentially the most awesome Japanese gameshow of all time. Needless to say, hours of entertainment.
Anyhow, you should check out Wipeout. Just give it a shot for 5 minutes and you will be sucked in.
Or, maybe it's just me. Is it just me?
And I have a bit of an addictive personality.
Thus, there are several shows that I watch quite frequently.
I'm trying not to add any shows to the schedule. After all, there are occasionally other things that I like to do with my time. Like watch movies.
Anyhow, there's a show that I stumbled upon last summer, and I just now noticed that it's back, and yes, it's better than ever.
It's called Wipeout and it's on ABC.
I mean seriously, this is good television.
It's a ridiculously-constructed obstacle course, complete with commentators (who yes, occasionally make some questionable jokes). But it is hilarious. The stuff that they make these people do is just insane.
Side note: while Amar and I were in India, there wasn't much on tv that we could both watch and enjoy (the Indian ones were hard for me to follow, and the English ones were not incredibly compelling). The two shows that we could agree on were 1) BBC World News and 2) Takeshi's Castle. Hopefully you can figure out the former. The latter? Potentially the most awesome Japanese gameshow of all time. Needless to say, hours of entertainment.
Anyhow, you should check out Wipeout. Just give it a shot for 5 minutes and you will be sucked in.
Or, maybe it's just me. Is it just me?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Inbox insanity
Several of my co-workers have recently started using Xobni, which is a MS Outlook plug in that claims to keep you from drowning in your inbox.
I don't normally have a problem with drowning, as I try to stay fairly organized most of the time. However, today I found myself digging through a folder that had about 2000 emails in it, trying to locate one specific email from a person whose name I couldn't remember.
And then I thought of Xobni, and thought, "What the heck, why not give it a try?"
I downloaded it, and after about 15 minutes of having it index my emails, I was able to locate that missing email in about 30 seconds.
Definitely worth it.
But the goodness didn't stop there. They have this feature called Xobni Analytics, which basically shows you a bunch of cool stuff about your email habits and trends. You can find out who you send the most email to, who sends you the most email, what your high volume hours are over the day, etc.
One thing I found curious was the "Time to Respond" metric, as I try to respond in a timely manner to most things. Here's my analysis:
If you click on the picture, you'll see that back in November, I had an average email response time of ~4 hours. Compare that with my average response time in May of ~30 minutes. That's what I call progress ;)
If you look at the data another way, you can tell the times that I'm more likely to respond quickly to your email:
You'll see that if you send me a email at 3AM, it might take me 3 days to respond to it. But if you send me an email between 6AM and noon, you're looking at an average response time of less than 15 minutes.
Is it just me, or is this cool?
It's ok, I already know I'm a nerd...this is just official confirmation.
More nerdy goodness...
Average email volume by day:
Average email volume by hour:
I don't normally have a problem with drowning, as I try to stay fairly organized most of the time. However, today I found myself digging through a folder that had about 2000 emails in it, trying to locate one specific email from a person whose name I couldn't remember.
And then I thought of Xobni, and thought, "What the heck, why not give it a try?"
I downloaded it, and after about 15 minutes of having it index my emails, I was able to locate that missing email in about 30 seconds.
Definitely worth it.
But the goodness didn't stop there. They have this feature called Xobni Analytics, which basically shows you a bunch of cool stuff about your email habits and trends. You can find out who you send the most email to, who sends you the most email, what your high volume hours are over the day, etc.
One thing I found curious was the "Time to Respond" metric, as I try to respond in a timely manner to most things. Here's my analysis:
If you click on the picture, you'll see that back in November, I had an average email response time of ~4 hours. Compare that with my average response time in May of ~30 minutes. That's what I call progress ;)
If you look at the data another way, you can tell the times that I'm more likely to respond quickly to your email:
You'll see that if you send me a email at 3AM, it might take me 3 days to respond to it. But if you send me an email between 6AM and noon, you're looking at an average response time of less than 15 minutes.
Is it just me, or is this cool?
It's ok, I already know I'm a nerd...this is just official confirmation.
More nerdy goodness...
Average email volume by day:
Average email volume by hour:
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Twisters
Is it just me, or does anyone else have recurring dreams?
It's not that I have the exact same dream on a recurring basis. It's more like, I have recurring themes in my dreams (and no, I didn't intend to rhyme there...).
The theme: tornadoes
I think the earliest I remember having a tornado dream was in college. Since then, I can recall about 10 or so variations on that theme.
Usually when they're in my dream, they are far away. I'll be looking out over the city, or over a field and they will be there. Sometimes just one, sometimes it's a whole gaggle.
A tornado made a guest appearance earlier this week in one of my dreams, and it was pretty vivid. Rather than it being far off, I was in it. I was in the wall of the tornado and I could feel the air almost getting sucked out of me.
I'm trying to figure out if the dreams correlate to anything going on in my life, but I'm drawing a blank.
So I'm curious to know if y'all have any thoughts on this. Do you have recurring themes?
On a side note, based on a very informal survey of the couples in our small group, it turned out that most of the guys in the group didn't dream very often. This was in stark contrast to the girls in the group, most of whom had vivid and memorable dreams.
Interesting.
It's not that I have the exact same dream on a recurring basis. It's more like, I have recurring themes in my dreams (and no, I didn't intend to rhyme there...).
The theme: tornadoes
I think the earliest I remember having a tornado dream was in college. Since then, I can recall about 10 or so variations on that theme.
Usually when they're in my dream, they are far away. I'll be looking out over the city, or over a field and they will be there. Sometimes just one, sometimes it's a whole gaggle.
A tornado made a guest appearance earlier this week in one of my dreams, and it was pretty vivid. Rather than it being far off, I was in it. I was in the wall of the tornado and I could feel the air almost getting sucked out of me.
I'm trying to figure out if the dreams correlate to anything going on in my life, but I'm drawing a blank.
So I'm curious to know if y'all have any thoughts on this. Do you have recurring themes?
On a side note, based on a very informal survey of the couples in our small group, it turned out that most of the guys in the group didn't dream very often. This was in stark contrast to the girls in the group, most of whom had vivid and memorable dreams.
Interesting.
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