Day 183

So, I got a good night's sleep last night. I went to Llywelyn's for our private Christmas party (there's a whole company party in January at the Tin Can downtown, that'll be fun) where we exchanged secret santa gifts and such. Good times, I got a coffee mug and a bunch of good coffee. It was great.

So, this morning I wake up, shave, shower and head over to Sean's. When I call him, he says we should take the day off, it is New Year's Eve, after all. I say ok, then borrow elephantmanjr (his Mac) so I can work on continuing to learn the awesomosity of Adobe Creative Suite 3.

I'm hungry. So what do I do? Head on over to one of my favorite places in South City to get breakfast anytime, South City Diner. If you have never been, it is extremely awesome. They have high quality food (I had biscuits n' gravy and hash browns) including real, hand-made milkshakes. It's great.

The decor is fantastic. It is covered with old school pictures of Marilyn, Dylan, Dean, Frank, and the like. There are old toys and models, plus the place is comfortable. Great stuff. I highly recommend it if you get a chance.

Now I'm off to finish laundry, maybe clean a bit, learn CS3, hopefully nap and then bartending tonight at Llywelyn's. Have a great and SAFE New Year's Eve!

Day 182

I am assuming you all know what today is. Yes it is December 30th. This is also the 6 month anniversary of the Awesome blog. So, I'm gonna give you a few quick awesome stats (thank you Google Analytics!) before I get to today's awesomosity.

Since June 30th, 2008 there have been:
2,602 visits, including today
924 absolutely unique visitors
3,640 pageviews
1.40 average pageviews per visit
1:52 average time on site
35.47% new visits

All these stats come from people:
in 45 countries/territoties (Spain 2nd behind U.S. with 22)
1,309 Internet Exploere users (50.31%)
1,092 Firefox users (41.97%)
868 are direct traffic
608 are Blogger referrals
335 are Google referrals

Of the Google referrals:
33 searched for "www.todaysawesomeness.blogspot.com" (why they didn't just go straight there, I don't know)
6 searched for "ben muehleisen blog awesome"
and 4 came from people who searched for "www.tshirt.woot.com

As far as the ads go, I have been at $18.03 for quite a while, so click on those ads, I don't get a dime until I hit $100.

My best day in number of hits was November 14th, with 43 visits. Second was December 8, with 40 visits. Third best day was early on, July 11th (one of my personal favorite posts) with 39 visits.

I hope you have been intrigued by some cold hard facts. I find it amusing (and a little shocking, really).

Now, of course, the awesomosity. Vaccinations.

I had to get some shots this morning for my upcoming Haiti missions trip. Having already had some (most kids get a bunch of them, though apparently now, people think the Measles vac. causes autism, so parents aren't getting it.) I had to get 3: flu (my first time ever), Typhoid (no one wants that) and Tetanus (rust is everywhere). All of them in my left arm right next to each other. It is sore. I can hardly lift my left arm, luckily I don't have to.

So why are vaccines awesome? They keep us healthy, and hopefully prevent things like the Black Death from happening again. Here is what the CDC (Center for Disease Control) says about vaccines. Traveling abroad soon? Check out this site for recommended vaccines for your trip. There are a lot of dangerous diseases in other countries, and we don't want you infecting us back here in the states.

Well, here I am in the waiting room, anxiously awaiting many needles. Hooray! Have a blessed day!

Day 181

Great afternoon everyone! I blog to you today just before a late lunch at the office. Mmmmmm, Imo's.

Now, you may or may not notice a few newer things about the ol' blog today. One of them is the awesomosity. First, the just cool thing, not the official awesomosity. A new poll. I'm glad to hear you all want me to keep the address the same, though I may eventually buy a domain and point it here, we'll see.

The other, you may notice, is at the bottom of all my posts. A way to rate my blog. Hooray! Now, you can finally easily give me feedback about my posts. I really want to know what ya'll think, so, just use those handy stars at the bottom of the posts, we'll see how it goes.

This is a technology brought to me (and therefore, you) by outbrain. It's pretty cool. Not only does it allow you to rate it, but it will tell me statistics about it, organize a "most popular posts" widget over there on the right, and it gives you some suggestions about other blogs you might like. According to their website, they say it is kind of like Netflix or Amazon offering suggestions based upon what you have bought from them. Pretty cool, huh?

So, now, ya'll need to vote on what you think about this here post. It's easy. Just click on a star rating below. Thanks in advance. Oh, and go vote on the poll, it only takes a second.

Have a great day!!

Day 180

So today was Celebration Sunday at our church. We took a look at what God has done in our church and the lives of some of our members over the past year. It was fantastic. I did help a little and made some slides, this one has the definition of "Celebrate"

We had confetti playing on the screens and balloons all over the stage. It was a party! One of the things we looked at was Psalm 145, which is awesome, but not my favorite Psalm. That distinction belongs to Psalm 103. I won't put the whole thing here (just a link to it), but I will put the first five verses:

1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-

3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

And trust me, the rest of it just gets better.

Task o' The Day: What do you have to celebrate over the past year? What major events have happened good, or bad? What can you learn, what have you learned? Are you getting closer to that person you have always dreamed you would be? Are you at least making steps? Tell me if you want, but this is a task that everyone should do regularly, and the end of the year is a logical (if nothing else) time for it.

Have a fantastic day, enjoy it.

Day 179

Today is a great day to be awesome. I mean everyday is, but I'm wearing that shirt again. I would still make them for distribution, but I need more than two people to sign up. But I digress.

Road trips are always awesome. What is not good about getting in a car with a couple buddies and driving for a few hours to hang out with some other friends for a few hours? Nothing, that's what's not awesome (did you follow that whole double and triple negative chain?).

So were getting close to Champaign, Illinois where my buddy Jim lives. He's got a little event/party thing going on, so Aaron, Ian and I decided to make the three hour drive. I spent most of the drive up finishing up the video for church tomorrow, which I would still like to polish some, but its totally passable now. We've also been listening to some gangsta-ish rap and stuff, which is not awesome, but not too bad.

So, next time you have a chance, or just a free Saturday, get in a car aand drive a while with friends, its awesome.

Have a fabulous evening!

Day 178

Happy Boxing Canadians, eh!

Quick joke, since I'm talking about Canada. Know how they came up with the name Canada? They drew letters out of a hat: C, eh? N, eh? D, eh? Get it!! I crack myself up!

Back to what's awesome. Conserving energy. I do that by keeping my place frigid. All the time, basically. So, it gets really cold at night. And, despite my two comforters, I have trouble staying cold in bed. So I asked my mother for some warmer sheets, or an electric blanket or something. Therefore, I got me some flannel sheets for Christmas and they are freaking awesome! Here is a photograph:

Doesn't that just look crazy inviting?? Well, it is. It is very comfortable and warm. I love them.

In case you were wondering, I also got a lot of other cool stuff for Christmas, including, but not limited to, a whole mess of clothes, a sweet stocking cap (handmade by my sister-in-law, thanks Adriane!), a Christmas ornament (to adorn my Christmas tree that stays up all year), more clothes, and an awesome calendar (that included a great surprise, but that may not be for me to divulge just yet) and probably some other cool stuff. Great Christmas.

So, what cool stuff did ya'll get this year?

Ok, enough, have a great day!!

Day 177

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas! Today's awesomosity is, shockingly enough, Christmas. What a great day! The second day in less than a month you get to spend with family, gorge yourself (at least I did), and for the double bonus, there are presents involved.

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet today, but I would love to hear all about how awesome your Christmas!

Remember a few weeks ago, when I talked about Google Docs and there was a form to fill out? Well, had you filled out a form, you would have received an email with a link to a video that was awesome. Here is a frame of that video.

See you tomorrow!!

Day 176

As I take a break from wrapping my presents (yes, I am wrapping presents at midnight on Christmas Eve, I mean, I just bought them all yesterday! Merry Christmas!) I came across a service that I could have use had I been a little better prepared. I give you "Crap Wrap"

That's right, none of my loved ones would have been the wiser, had I used this service. If you are too lazy to watch the video but want to know the story, here is a link. Basically, this website, www.firebox.com, has started offrering a service where they specifically wrap presents to make it look like a man did it. Uneven cuts, packing tape instead of clear tape, and just generally mashed together. They even use tacky paper. Awesome.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!

Day 175

For today's awesomosity, I turn to a story that came up on my iGoogle homepage this morning. Today is a busy day, so its nice to see a great story every once in a while. Today, I am working animating some text for some slides for next Sunday's service at church. Then we're gonna try to shoot a man on the street video, assuming people will be willing to talk to us in the bitter cold. Then its off to do my Christmas shopping. Yes, I have not even started my shopping. Oh well.

So, back to the news story I saw. Here it is in it's entirety:

Merger of Christmas ans Hannakuh announced.

Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Hanukkah will merge. An industry source said that the deal had been in the works for about 1300 years.

While details were not available at press time, it is believed that the overhead cost of having twelve days of Christmas and eight days of Hanukkah was becoming prohibitive for both sides. By combining forces, we''re told, the world will be able to enjoy consistently high-quality service during the Fifteen Days of Chrismukah, as the new holiday is being called.

Massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being the hardest hit. As part of the conditions of the agreement, the letters on the dreydl, currently in Hebrew, will be replaced by Latin, thus becoming unintelligible to a wider audience.

Also, instead of translating to "A great miracle happened there," the message on the dreydl will be the more generic "Miraculous stuff happens." In exchange, it is believed that Jews will be allowed to use Santa Claus and his vast merchandising resources for buying and delivering their gifts.

One of the sticking points holding up the agreement for at least three hundred years was the question of whether Jewish children could leave milk and cookies for Santa even after having eaten meat for dinner. A breakthrough came last year, when Oreos were finally declared to be Kosher. All sides appeared happy about this.

A spokesman for Christmas, Inc., declined to say whether a takeover of Kwanzaa might not be in the works as well. He merely pointed out that, were it not for the independent existence of Kwanzaa, the merger between Christmas and Chanukah might indeed be seen as an unfair cornering of the holiday market. Fortunately for all concerned, he said, Kwanzaa will help to maintain the competitive balance. He then closed the press conference by leading all present in a rousing rendition of "Oy Vey, All Ye Faithful."

Well, I hope you enjoyed this story of a Christmas miracle. Have a very Merry Christmas. And for those of you that filled out my Google form a few weeks ago, your Christmas present will be in the email very shortly, and its gonna be extremely awesome.

Have a great day!!

Day 174

What a great day to be awesome. And still cold. Also, a great day for donuts. Not just any donuts, but possibly the best donuts in Saint Louis, at World's Fair Donuts.

You can find WFD at the corner of Vandeventer and Shaw, and I highly recommend you do. They have some of the best buttermilk donuts ever made. And they are just $.47. Bargain. The best part about it is that the place is run by this old couple, Terry and Peggy Clanton. He makes the donuts in the background, she is the counter person and has the most awesome beehive and a few pounds of makeup. It's quite the trip. Peggy also has some crazy math skills, you can order a dozen, tell her what you want, and before she even closes the box, she has a total for you, iuncluding tax, to the penny, without even touching a calculator or the really old school cash register they got. It's amazing.

Here is an article the NY Times wrote about Saint Louis a few years back, and of course, WFD got a nod. Decent article.

Here is the view inside the shop waiting for some donuts.

That is another counter girl they have apparently hired recently. Terry is just out of view in the back, and Peggy is just in view over the guy's left shoulder. Go and see for yourself how awesome it is.

Here I am eagerly awaiting my breakfast. Have a splendid day!!

Day 173

Good afternoon everyone! What a great day to be awesome!! And cold.

So, I'm sitting in church this morning, wondering how I'm going to hear the Christmas story this year, when my church showed a pretty cool animated video. So cool, in fact, that it's today's awesomosity. I was sitting at my folks house with my momma, showing her a really cool video that was on d'anarthria a few weeks ago. Then I decided to try and find this cartoon we saw this morning. It took apporxiamately 3 seconds. Here it is, enjoy:



So, I think that video is awesome. It helps me remember the real reason of Christmas. To know that stories are just that, stories. Songs are just songs. traditions are just traditions. But that star, and what it means, give my life meaning. Awesome.

Have a wonderfully warm day!

Day 172

Man, taking a day off for sleep and relaxation really will throw you off your game. Sorry about getting this out kinda late, not like you read it before Monday anyway, right?

So, what is awesome today? All kinds of stuff. But the awesomosity comes from my friend Michael W. Sharp. Last night he sent me an email with the subject, "Guess what I got for Christmas". I was very curious, but the only thing in the email was this picture.

So, what is my friend Michael wearing? A sweatshirt I made last year for an ugly Christmas sweater party. You see, I didn't have one, so I made one, with the help of Big Grandma. It was quite awesome. It also turns out that this party was a "white elephant" party, so I made two, one to wear and one to give away. My friend Brian Katerberg was the lucky recipient of the sweater, and it looks like he regifted it, which is awesome. I hope this sweater gets passed down for generations. That would be awesome.

So, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and wear ugly Christmas sweaters, they are awesome!

Have a great day!!

Day 171

HOORAY!!!!

For any of you that have checked this blog today (and so far, there has been 9 of you, roughly), you may have notice some weird goings on randomly throughout the day. Well, now you know why, because today's awesomosity is what is now at the top of this here web page.

For the not so observant, direct your eyes to the bluish / blackish thing at the top of the page that says in yellow letters "A little Awesomosity for your day." That is the flash header I made for the site! I have been working on it for the past day and a half or so, mixed in with more "actual" work (and this will help, teaching myself Adobe After Effects). I actually got started looking into this trying to create a loopable (a favorite new word, say it with me . . . LOOPABLE) background for my church, which I will create soon enough.

In this process, all sorts of really awesome ideas are coming into my head about creating titles and such for videos we create. So, picture with me, if you will, say a news guy, standing on the street telling you just how cold it is on that street. The first time you see him, you may also see a title come up in the lower third of the screen with his name and title on it. Now, imagine the background of that title looking really cool, maybe even with some motion to it. Awesome, no?

But, there is still a lot of work to do on that idea, as well as this header. I am not sure what you are seeing at the moment, but there is supposed to be some motion involved in this header. I shall continue to fix this issue, but I can't give it much more effort. Still, it looks pretty cool, huh?

See ya'll tomorrow, have a great weekend!!!

Day 170

Today's awesomosity comes straight from my friend Molly (yes, the one in the poll this week, and now I'll show you why you should vote for her). We bought some awesome office furniture from her and her incredibly cold warehouse. As a reward for that, she sent me a link to this.

If you can't read that (it should blow up if you click on it), then go to this website, which has possibly the most awesome website name ever. www.dapperstache.com. While there, make sure to check out the pic o' the day, it is also quite awesome.

But back to the table of awesome. Seriously. What else could be on there. Obviously Bacon is number one, with Ninja as number 2. It's got Chuck Norris (who doesn't have a symbol, he used to, but then he roundhouse kicked it off the chart). It's got Christopher Walken. It's got weaponry. There's pirates. It is totally fantastic, and if it came in a poster, it would already be on the wall.

So, enjoy the table of awesome, and go be awesome, because its a great day for it. Enjoy the day!

Day 169

While there are always many awesome things to talk about on here, I have to pick just one. In the running today are two main things. One is going to your first ever hockey game, as my friend Gina did last night. Definitely awesome, and I think she thought so too. The other option is a new t-shirt I just got. Oh, wait, it's not a tshirt at all, but in fact, pants for my torso. Yes, I got it off of www.torsopants.com, which I have written about before. Sorry Gina, but I think the pants are going to win today. Let me tell you why.

First, here is the pair of torso pants I bought that arrived yesterday:

Yes, it is a picture of Jesus reenacting a classic scene from Say Anything. Here is that scene (like you've never seen it. Ok, I just saw it for the first time last week, but seriously)

So, the pants themselves are quite awesome, but also awesome is what else TorsoPants included with my order. A "Quality, Customizable, Genuine Fake ID Kit". Here is the picture of that:

Yes, it is very awesome.

I have also made an executive decision without a poll (hey, this is my blog, I can do what I want, right?). I am no longer going to put a Task o' The Day everyday. It will be a more special event than a regular feature. Of course, if my public cries out in disgust, I may reevaluate, but until then, the ToTD will be truly special and awesome, and not everyday.

Here I am wearing my beautiful new pants for my torso. Have a fantastic day!

Day 168

Highway 40/64 is open from 270 to 170, and it is awesome!!

I got a chance to drive it this morning, and I was very impressed. I am not sure it is worth the price tag and inconvenience, but it is seriously awesome. Here are some pictures I took driving it this morning.

I know these pictures don't really do a great job of showing off our expensive new highway, but I can tell you that you need to drive it. Some of the highlights include: 4 super-wide lanes everywhere, improved and extended on and off ramps, very classy signs identifying the roads of the overpasses, clear and not cluttered highway signs, and much, much more for you and your family to enjoy this holiday season.

But seriously, it is quite awesome. And I really can't wait for the rest of it to be finished by December 31, 2009. Not because I want to drive the new 40, but because I really want my old 44 back.

Check out the status of the whole project at www.thenewi64.org

Task o' The Day: What is your favorite road to drive, and why? It could be scenic, fun to drive fast, most efficient, best way around traffic, or any other number of reasons. Just let me know.

Vote on the new poll. Molly is awesome. I will probably try one more new layout since I have yet to have a clear winner in the layout contest, but really, you should all just sign up for the email blast thingy. It's awesome.

Here I am "chilling out" (get it?!?! It's cold!!) on the new 40 this morning. Have a great day, I'm going to the Blues game with my good friend Gina (it's her first game!!).

Day 167

Today has been quite an awesome day for me. It is after all, a great day to be awesome!

So, I had a meeting with some folks from my church about making a video. I don't (possibly cant) go into too much detail, but it is going to be very awesome indeed. Then I came down to the office. As it turns out, we actually have an office now!! Here ya go:

Isn't that great! I helped Sean and Emily build the bookcases and such, Emily (I am assuming) did the decorations, and now Sean and I can use it. We actually have some space to move around and work with, plus, there are no cats allowed in the office, which is a huge advantage.

It also helps that we now feel "more professional" since we have actual desks in a room specifically set aside to be an office. And the chair is much more comfortable. However, I did use the word "chair" in a singular sense. Yes, there is only one. Which leads me to:

Task o' The Day: Where can I get a nice office chair on the cheap? Send your ideas or suggestions or an extra chair my way. That will help make you awesome (at least to me) today. Besides, it always feels good to help somebody else out, right?

Here I am getting ready to roll up the sleeves (figuratively, of course, it's cold!) and get to work! Have a great day! See you in the morning!

Day 166

So, today is a great day to be awesome. Why? Because today ends in Y. Yes, that means that EVERY day is a great day to be awesome. Whether or not it is is entirely up to you.

Today's awesomeness started a few weeks ago, when several people told me that our Jr. High at church was selling t-shirts to raise some money for Christmas presents for a missionary family in Morocco (I think Morocco, at least). When I heard what the t-shirt said, I immediately replied, "I'll take two!!". Well, the shirts came in today. So, I immediately (yes, at church, though I did duck behind a screen) changed shirts into officially the awesomest shirt I now own (and when it wears out, I have a backup!)

Well, you're asking, what does it say? Simple. On the front it says "Great Day to be Awesome." On the back it just says "AWESOME".

This got me to thinking. This would be a perfect shirt for the ol' blog. So, here is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Task o' The Day: Let me know if you want a t-shirt. It will say "Great Day to be Awesome" on the front, and have this here website on the back. I'll make it on any color you want, though I think the green looks pretty good. I'll even ship it to you, if you happen to live outside of St. Louis. Now, I can't afford to pay for these, but I will charge the same that our Jr. High charged, $15. Anything extra besides the cost will go to a local charity (let me know if you have a favorite). Now, go make today Awesome!

Fine, fine, here I am wearing said Awesome shirt.

Day 165

Sorry once again for getting this out so late, but it has been a very busy (and of course, awesome) day. Mostly filled with sleep.

However, when I did finally wake up, it was to go caroling. Yes caroling. You know singing Christmas carols to people? Yeah. And it was awesome. We ( a group from my church) went to an assisted living facility called Brooking Park. It really was awesome. You could tell by the looks on people's faces that they truly appreciated us coming.

That's all the time I have, I gotta get back to work.

TASK o' THE DAY: Bring some holiday joy to someone. You could put some money in the Salvation Army kettle, sing carols, or just be nice to the clerk while doing your Christmas shopping.

Have a great day!

Day 164 - Part 2, First ever "guest blogger"

So, I wrote about the awesomes of uneployment yesterday, claiming that a friend would write in. Well, he did. With no further ado, I give you the first ever guest blog on the awesome blog. Mr. Joe Elder:

Hello folks it gives me great pleasure to be a "guest blogger" on one of my favorite blogs. Now Ben may of mentioned that being unemployed is not very awesome but I completely disagree. Now I realize that I'm only into my first 48 hours of unemployment, but I must tell you that I experience many things that you "normal hard working folks" just wouldn't understand. Below I give you a list of ten items that make unemployment awesome!!!

1. Free Lunches from caring friends! yes that's right they came out of the woodwork saying "man that sucks can I buy you lunch" to which I replied "I'm broke and it's two weeks before Christmas yes you can!!!

2. Lunches with friends!! Now that I'm not plagued with the daily grind of being a commercial lender I have all sorts of free time to hang out with friends and get lunch. Which could be a daily awesomeness in itself, go get lunch with a friend! It beats the hell out of working!!

3. The ability to relate to the amazing 80's song Mr. Wendal by Arrested Development
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EefdFSrfhu8
Mr. Wendal has freedom, a free that you and I think is dumb

Free to be without the worries of a quick to diss society
for Mr.Wendal's a bum
His only worries are sickness

4. Updating your resume. You may say how is this awesome?!?! Often you sit at your job going man I should update my resume. well being jobless gives me the freedom to do that at anytime of the day!!!! Which I've been doing right now at home from the comfort of my couch while my colleagues are poring over financial statements and tax returns!

5. Who cares about alarm clocks!! Yes that's right I don't hit snooze because I don't set the alarm clock. Let me tell you seeing 9:30 on the clock and not having a suit and tie on! PURE AWESOME

6. Not knowing what day it is! Now this could be from shell shock of being let go on ummmmmm Wednesday? but as I was riding out to get a cup of coffee at burger king with my friends who are retired (also a form of unemployment which I aspire to reach one day) I couldn't remember if today was Thursday or Friday, but hell it didn't really matter to quote Ice Cube or T I can't remember, " it's friday (i think) I aint got no job, aint got sh*t to do....." that is another daily awesomeness watch the movie "Friday" which I might do this afternoon while all of you are at work

7. This list! yes it's just plain awesome really tell me the last time you got a list listing how awesome unemployment is??

8. Free MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT!!! Yes that's right unemployment baby!!! I can file for it and not feel like a leach because well, I was laid off so I can rightfully claim my unemployment that I have been so diligently paying for the last 13 years of my employed life!!

9. Having the time to be a guest blogger on the greatest blog in the world!!

10. Severance Packages. yes that's right for the next six weeks and 56 hours of vacation time I will be paid to search for a job! How great is that.

Now that the list is done go get fired!! Just joking but if you find yourself unemployed keep looking up it will get better and hell you might be able to write a list on why your keeping your head held high!!

Sincerely Yours,

Joseph Elder

A fully capable banker in search of a new job!!! Let Ben know if you need my resume ;)

Day 164

Do any of you remember a few months ago when I asked for some suggestions of awesomes? Well, I got a few replies and I have been saving them. Until today.

My sister-in-law, Adriane, is the very proud mother of my nephew and two nieces. And Ahren, the oldest isn't even 4 years old yet. I can't even imagine how challenging it must be to do anything. I mean, a grocery store trip must be a trip. Seriously. Think of the simplest errand you might run, say run out to Walgreens to pick up a prescription or something. For you (if you are single, or at least childless for the time being), it takes maybe 10 minutes, total. And that includes waiting in line.

Now, for Adriane to leave the house and go to Walgreens, I bet it takes longer than 10 minutes just to get all 3 kids ready to get in the car, much less go there and do the thing. I would estimate a simple errand is a minimum of half an hour. And then, if you are in a store, how hard would some simple tasks be? Like say, using the restroom? Well, for that, life has gotten a little easier. I give you the Babykeeper.

Doesn't that just look incredibly comfortable? I am not entirely sure if this was what Adriane was talking about, I don't think so. She had mentioned that there are stores that have places to put an entire baby carrier attached to the door. Either way, its a little creepy to have a child staring you down, hanging from a door while you "take care of business".

A side awesomosity to the creepy babyhanger thing is the website I first found it on. It's a blog. And it's called "The Poop". Jim, I think I have found your favorite site ever.

Task o' The Day: Send me something else awesome. If it includes babies hanging from a bathroom door, thats cool, if its about unemployment (are you ever gonna send that Joe?), thats cool, I suppose. Just send me some more awesomes.

Here I am chilling at the Coffee Cartel waiting for Sean to get out of a meeting. Have a splendid day!

Day 163

So, I'm not really sure about today's awesomosity. I know that in a previous poll, you all voted to not let others "guest post". I totally agreed with that, at least, until today. However, the person who said they were going to send me an email with their post has not yet emailed me. So, here is what I will do. I will write a little about the topic, which is slightly controversially awesome, and then add their post to it, if they ever send me that email. I'll let you decide if its awesome or not.

Unemployment.

That's right, someone called me today stating that I should make uneployment the awesomosity of the day. My obvious response was, "That's not awesome!" But, alas, he insisted that it was. That was when I offered to let him write the post.

I did some looking into unemployment, and as I have no personal experience with it, I looked to the people that know most about unemployment, the writers of WikiPedia. Here is what they had to say about it.

Wikipedia - Unemployment

The other obvious experts on unemployment inlude the government. So, here is Missouri's page about it. Surprisingly enough, they have had a serious spike in applications recently.

Now, for the obvious expert of all time on unemployment, I give you George Costanza, hoping to become a latex salesman for Vandalay Industries.

Task o' The Day: Get Fired. Just kidding! Share any experience you may have with unemployment, or losing a job, or a coworker being fired for a funny reason, or something like that.

Have a great day! Oh, and I'll update this as soon as I get the e-mail from my recently unemployed friend.

Day 162

So, Sean and I are hard at work today, working on things like getting business cards, putting up a website, trying to buy some gear and a whole bunch of other awesome things. One of the things Sean and I like to do is listen to music while we work (because whistling gets old after a while). Sean has a Rhapsody account, which allows you to listen (via streaming audio) to their 60,000+ song library. Now they have an offer for 2 weeks free, then its just $12.99 per month.

Well, I wanted to listen to some music on my own, so I Googled "free music online" or something like that. I came across this incredibly awesome site. Awesome enough that it is officially the awesomosity of the day. Check it out, its called GrooveShark.

It is very easy to navigate and it has every artist I've searched for so far (including DC Talk!!!) Right now, I am listening to "Hail to the Thief" by Radiohead and enjoying it immensely.

I highly recommend the website.

Task o' The Day: Create an account on GrooveShark. If you are going to do this, please let me know, I will send you an e-mail invite. They are giving away a Wii and some iPods for people that sign up a bunch of people, and that would be uber-awesome.

I hope you have a fantastic day, I know I am (so far, and I don't see it going any other way for the time being!) See ya tomorrow! And Go Blues!

Oh, and vote in the poll (LouAnn is my mother and is very definitely awesome, you should vote for her) and sign up to get these things by email!

Day 161

Some of you may know, and now all of you will, that I am going on a missions trip to Haiti in January. This will be quite awesome. And yes, I've already been thinking about how I am going to blog down there. I know I will have a computer with me to be working on videos (my main responsibility on the trip), so at the least, I will write everyday, and then post it all when I get back, assuming I will not have internet access, which is probably true.

Anyway, as it relates to being awesome today, I had a meeting of the team last night, and one of the things we did was start learning some basic Haitian Creole. As our team leader, Jay Knight said, we need to learn enough that shows we actually care and to get laughed at. We will only be there for 4 days, and most people there will know more english than we know Creole, so I don't need to learn much. Some of you may know that Creole is based on French, so those grade school French lessons may come in handy after all.

So, I was looking around on the interwebs for some help in learning Creole and I came across this awesome site:

New Missions

They've got a bunch of downloadable MP3s and a PDF to go with it, so that should all help me to learn some of a new language.

Task o' The Day: So, the awesomosity today is learning a new language. Therefore, the Task today is for you, yourself, to learn something of a new language. Go to the website linked above and get started on some basic greetings in Creole if you like. Or find yourself another language and learn some basic phrases. It doesn't count if you already know another language, it has to be one you have not learned before. As an alternative, if you would like some more information about my trip, fill out this form and I will gladly send you some info.

That's it for today! Have a great day!!

Day 160

As I drive back the rental car to the airport, jamming out to some Zeppelin, stuck in traffic at 170, I think about the awesomosity for today. Then it hits me! I've written about HD radio, but never satellite radio. And yes, XM/Sirius is very awesome.

They recently joined forces to make it uber awesome. When I used to travel with Mr. Video, we had a Sirius radio, which was very awesome, and I always thought XM sucked, but I am apparently wrong.

We have XM at Llywelyns, and now I got to drive a car with it for a weekend, so here are a few of my favorite stations (all on XM, numbers might be different if you have a Siruis): 49 - Led Zeppelin, 9 - 90s music, 54 - Lithium - alt. Music, 26 - the pulse - 90s and alt. Music, 47 - Alt Nation, which combined with Ethel (A.N. Was Sirius and Ethel was XM) - more, typically newer alternative music. They also have a great variety of sports, talk, comedy, and a bunch of other types of music. Its quite awesome.

TASK o' THE DAY: Tell me your favorite new song, I need some more variety on the ol' iPod.

Havea great Monday!!

Day 159

Well today sure is an awesom filled day! If you are a 15 year old girl that is. Yes, I'm at another cheerleading event. WooHoo!

This one's not so bad, there are only 53 teams. a typical cheer event may have as many as 200+ teams, and usually lasts 2 or more days. I'm a little short on sleep, but who isn't?

So, what's awesome today? Firestore. I know that means nothing to most, if not all, of you, but trust me, its awesome. Its this device that let's you record video in an editable format straight to hard drive. We use 300 Gig hard drives, which give us approxiamately 19 hours of video. And it makes the editors job way easier.

In the picture, the hard drive is on the left and the Firestore is on the right. They are incredibly sweet for the purpose we use it for, but most people could find a way better way to spend a grand.

TASK o' THE DAY: Given a budget of no more than (and preferrably less than) $5000, what video camera would you buy and why? Do a little research while you're watching football today.

Have a grrrrreat day!!

Day 159

So, today has been a busy day, and doesn't look like its gonna slow down anytime soon. I got off work early last night, which was good because I need sleep, but bad because I also need money. So, in bed by midnight. Then, out to Chesterfield Valley to shop for a family in our church (check out the story at http://www.ahomeforselah.com) which was a bunch of fun. Then I went out to the Family Arena in St. Charles to set up for a Mr. Video gig I'm doing tomorrow. That actually went very well. Now I have a few minutes before a meeting at 4, then off to work at Llywelyns at 6. Woot! So, here is what is awesome today. Since I drive (an uber-awesome) pick-up truck, Mr. Video did not want me to keep the gear in back, therefore, they rented me a car.

It was quite a hassle to get it yesterday, since the Priceline everything. The car was at the airport Budget, which won't let me park my car there, so I had to park in long-term parking, shuttle to the airport, register for the car, then shuttle to the car. It wasn't all that bad, and I've got to say, driving a rental car is awesome. Don't get me wrong, I love my truck. It's just nice to have heat that works real well and drive an automatic every once in a while. It's got some get up and go to it. It's also got the cool auto or manual thing. So, I can put it in drive and go, or, once in drive, I can shift it to the right, then bump up to go up a gear and down for down a gear. Pretty sweet, but it takes some getting used to.

The car I am driving is a Hyundai Sonata. I can actually recommend it. Though maybe not for smaller people, I feel tiny in it and have trouble looking over the sterring wheel. It just makes me use good posture, I suppose, so that's cool.

Anyway, off to the next, hope your day is awesome!

Task o' The Day: Rent a car next time you need a bigger car, or if you're going out of town, or if you just wanna drive it like you stole it. Call my buddy Jim, he may know someone that can help you if you decide to rent a car.

Here I am driving the ol' Sonata, and yes, I am wearing a Santa hat. See you tomorrow!!

Day 158

So, last night, I helped to serve at my church. Every year they have a dinner for the staff and elders of the church. Since they serve us all year, we can serve them for one night. It's a good deal. And, as an added bonus, they gave all of us that helped out the leftovers, so I food for several days now. It's pretty great. I did this last year with a bunch of my friends. This year they asked the Young Marrieds to help out. They didn't get enough people, so I was one of the other people that they called. It became a little awkward when they were thanking the people who were serving and called us all young marrieds. Everyone else there was married excedpt me, so I just casually ducked behind everyone else. It was some good times. And, it turns out, I'm not so bad at carving a ham. Huh! Who knew?

So, why am I telling you all this? Because while all of us that were serving were chatting, my friend Brent mentioned that he met someone that used to work in Antarctica. How awesome is that? Pretty awesome. So, the awesomosity for the day today is jobs in Antartica. You don't have to be a scientist (though that helps) to get a job, but they can be a little challenging to find.

First, I think you have to realize that Antarctica is a vacation destination. Some like beaches, some people like snow. This is the extreme of snow, but still. I would go. So, here are a few sites that talk about vacationing there.

Cool Antarctica

Natural Habitat Adventures

Now, if you happen to be Austrailian, you can go to this website to look for jobs. As it turns out, Antarctica (that is a tough word to type) is not really "owned" by anyone. They have no government. It is quite an interesting setup. Several countries lay claim to several portions, but there is a treaty in place that says essentially that Antarctica will niether recognize or reject any claims. Wierd.

So, you're not Austrailian, but you still want a job? Check out this blog (I think it would probably be a pretty interesting blog anyhow), he did a bunch of research about working there.

Here is the USAP (U.S. Antarctic Program) site, where it tells you about working there, in whatever specialty you may have.

And, the U.S. contracts all its "support" positions to Raytheon, so visit their site to find out about a job that an average person can do (NOT that you are average, you are in fact, quite awesome! I just mean you are not a scientist specializing in the structure of penguin DNA or soemthing).

Task o' The Day: Get a job in Antarctica. If you do this, you are officially in charge of writing this blog, because that would be the awesomist thing ever. If you can't (or won't) do that, then tell us all about your oddest job. Mine was selling satelite dishes door-to-door. That sucked. What's yours?

Here I am, looking like I'm ready for Antarctica (it is currently 15-24 degrees Farenheit there).

Day 157

Today's awesomosity is a new little box that I have in the upper left corner of the page. You can now get this post e-mailed directly to your inbox!! How awesome is that!!

The idea came from Joe Elder, who was immediately added to the subscription list. There are a lot of things I am unsure of, and the beginnings of the newsletter (thats the format it will hit your inbox in) will be a trial and error process. But, assuming all works out, you can take me off you favorites, or RSS, or maybe you still Google "awesomosity" everyday or something. Either way, all you will have to do is check the ol' inbox!

The site I used to create this is call FeedBlitz. There are actually quite a fwe awesome things you can do on this site. Besides sign up for and customize how you get my email, you can then subscribe to any blog or RSS feed via email. That is just plain convenient. And really, all you have to do to get started is put you email address right up there to the left. Then you will get an email that will explain more.

One of the things I'm really not sure about is how well it integrates with Google AdSense. They told me that unless I paid them (FeedBlitz) money, they will put ads into my emails. Boo. But, they also asked me if I had an adsense account, which I do (I have $18.01 in there so far, and I need to get to $100.00 to get anything, so click on the ads on my blog or RSS feed. Please.). So, I have no idea how spammed with ads this stuff will be, but, like I said before, we'll just have to do some figuring out with all this.

Ok, time to get back to work. Here I am in my parents slightly snow-covered back yard. Have an Awesomes day!!!

Day 156

Gooooood Morning awesomes!!!

Today's awesomosity is pretty awesome, and I'll get right to it. Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox.

Obviously, part of that is that Firefox itself is pretty awesome, which it is. However (and this is becoming more fashionable for all web browsers) you can fully customize your browser with all kinds of gadgets to enhance your web experience.

I guess I should start at the beginning, for some of you that aren't all that aware. Firefox is a web browser. A web browser is the program you are using right now to read this here blog. Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Netscape, and I am sure many others are examples of browsers. I prefer Firefox.

Now, about add-ons. They are awesome because you can add things to make it pretty, or functional, or funny, or whatever you want. Beware, it is really easy to get carried away with add-ons and just clog up your browser so you cant even concentrate on what you are doing. I currently have a few added to the Fu Mac Chu's version of Firefox. The most useful, and my favorite is called "Morning Coffee". What this add-on does, is allow me to tell it what websites I want to open when I turn on the computer in the morning. So, I currently have it set so that when I open my browser and push the button, it opens: Gmail, Woot.com, iGoogle, Google Accounts (allows me to access all kinds o' sweetness), and my Google Calendar (Is it apparent that I love Google?).

There are all sorts of really awesome and sweet and fun ways to customize your interwebs experience, and I encourage you to check them out.

Task o' The Day: Start using Firefox and add some stuff to it. You'll be glad you did, but don't spend too much time with it, it can suck you in.

Special thanks to the 6 people that have filled out my auto-updating form from a few days back. I am working on your special surprise and I'll get it to you sometime soon.

Have a great day, GO BLUES!

Day 155

You know what is awesome today? Today. Yes, I am making todays awesomosity Tuesday December 2, 2008. It's pretty awesome already and is only gonna get more awesome.

I'll start at the beginning. I bartended last night at Llywelyns, which was cool, because I made some money and hung out with some (old and new) friends. But I got home at 2am, so it technically still counts as awesome for today.

Then, I woke up on time for my 9:15 meeting. I was the first one there, and the meeting went well. Then I stayed to talk with one of the other attendees, and we figured out how under the line Productions is going to make a lot of money, with just a few simple things we can do for him and other real estate agents. It's gonna be awesome.

Oh, I'll backtrack just a little. Sometime after waking up, but before the meeting, I left my house. That was awesome. Ok, so it was awesome because I found an envelope just inside my door. In the envelope was rent money, and a note to say that he switched the utilities into his name. Very awesome.

Ok, so after I made money, got paid, and figured out how to make lots of money (this post really wasn't supposed to be all about money, but I guess that's how its shaping up), I went to Companion bakery in Clayton to meet with a lawyer, just to chat. It was pretty good. They have totally remodeled that location since I was there last, and it looks great.

Then I went to the office to work with Sean on creating some samples to sell real estate agents, but Sean was still in a meeting, so I went to the Llywelyns down the street and had some fish n' chips, but with fries, not chips. It was great. They also have free wifi, so I was able to get some other work done. Then Sean and Emily got done with their meeting, so they came and ate lunch as well. Good stuff.

Then I walked outside and realized that it is a beautiful day. Now, I'm getting ready to create those samples for Doug, then off to more meetings. It's a great day, Tuesday December 2, 2008.

Task o' The Day: Tell everyone (via comment on the post) what was awesome for you about Tuesday December 2, 2008. Oh, and fill out the form from yesterday. My spreadsheet has been updated with the 3 people who already did fill it out. It's awesome.

Here I am with some cool shadows all over my face. Enjoy the day!

Day 154

Good Monday everyone! I hope and trust you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend and got some much needed rest. I did not get quite as much as I intended to get, but I'm doing all right, don't you worry about me. Now I am back at the full-time job that is getting ever closer to fruition. Many, in fact, most, of the things we do are awesome, and I will be telling you many of these awesome things, but I'll start with this one. Google Docs.

What's so awesome about Google Docs, you say? What's not would be the shorter answer. So far, the only thing I wish Google Docs could do that it can't (yet) is create a drop-down menu in a spreadsheet. So, then, what can it do? Everything else. Yes, it will change your babies diaper. It's that awesome.

But seriously, you can upload or create most any type of document including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and a lot more. Here is where it gets very cool. Say I'm on a Mac (which I am) and you are on a PC, and we want to both work on an Excel document. We simply upload it to Google Docs, share it with each other, and we can both edit that document. At the same time. From different computers. For real.

I'm starting to wonder just what can't Google Docs do? This weekend, I was talking with my Aunts (Cheryl and Bert). Aunt Cheryl runs a piano tuning business (and she is quite awesome at it). She needs to create a spreadsheet with her contacts on it. She is trying to figure out a way to automate it so that she doesn't have to spend all that time entering data when she could be tuning pianos. I said, "I bet Google Docs can do it!" Both Aunts looked at me funny and said, "What's that?" My brother chimed in to confirm its awesomeness. I explained that you could just create a spreadsheet, then make a form with all the data you wanted, which you can e-mail or embed in a website, and it will all automatically update in your Google Docs. I gave it a test, it worked, so I'm gonna give it a slightly larger test. Here is a form I created just for you.

Task O' The Day: Fill out my little form, there will be a reward in it for you. Fill out as much or little as you want. Then get to using Google Docs, you won't be disappointed.

Here I am at the "office".

Have a spectiffisome day!

Day 153

Well, this morning didn't start quite as planned. You see, I help run the sound system for my church, and since practice was canceled for some silly reason last Thursday, they did practice this morning at 7:30. My alarm went off at 6:30, I got up around 8:30. Oops. Everything turned out all right in the end, don't fret.

So, when I finally did get to church, I had a few minutes before the next practice, so I helped the hospitality crew. We do the donuts, bagels, toher assorted goodies, plus flavored coffees, hot chocolate, juices, etc. to help welcome people to our church (It's not really a bribe, but call it what you will). Either way, I think it's pretty awesome. In fact, I got to help make the hot chocolate this morning. Here is a picture:


Yes, that is a giant vat of hot chocolate. You know those big canisters of hot chocolate? The ones that will last me generally an entire winter? There are two of those in there. And we usually run out.

We also have a LOT of donuts. Here they are in the boxes still:


Yes, that is a ton of donuts (not a metric ton, I am using "ton" in the figurative sense in this instance). It's pretty awesome. You should all come check it out sometime.

Task o' The Day: Buy a giant canister of hot chocolate, because when I come over to visit with you, I'm gonna want some, as I'm sure other guests of yours will.

Quick shout out to my dad, who is very awesome himself. Today is his birthday. Wish him a happy birthday next time you see him, he really enjoys being reminded how old he is.

Here I am with my dad:


Have a great day! See you at trivia tonight!

Enjoy the snow! Hopefully there's lots more!!!

Day 152

Some of you already knew, and now you can all tell by the pictures that today was always planned to be an awesome day. Yes, its anothe Blues game, my 4th of the year, 3rd regular season. I am 2-1 so far, and 2-0 wearing my home jersey, which I am wearing today. So far so good. Its 2-0 us at the first break.

The plan was to go with my buddy Aaron "the man himself" Thorne, who has a 10 game pack. I bought him lunch at Houlihans before the game, it was the least I could do, right.

So, we finish lunch and walk on down to the game, passing about 28 guys very excited about selling us tickets, but we didn't need them, we have seats in 110, which are pretty good.

So as Aaron and I are walking up to the gate when one of the regulars from Llywelyn's says hey. I say, "hey Steve, what's going on?" and keep moving to the door. Steve waves me over. I say, "whats going on?" He asks me who I'm with. I say its just me and a buddy. Hey says he has two extra tickets to his box and asks if we want them. Aaron and I figure why not? Even if we don't like them for some stupid reason, we can always go back to sitting among the meager peasants.

So I am writing this from the 5th level. That's the one that you have to take an elevator to, they don't even have escalators that go up here. It is very awesome. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get some free food, grab another free soda, and then use our personal bathroom.

TASK o' THE DAY: same as always on game days, got to a hockey game, I'm always down.

Have a great day!