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!!!