weekends are for leisure

This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This recounts our second day in St. Louis, MO.

(View these while you read.)

We were surprised to find that they basically converted the old Union Station train station into a mall, complete with Food Court, fountains, planters and stores. Luckily, the architecture is a great redeeming quality. The outside of the building is beautiful, as are the inside rafters and other support structures. If you’d like to take a leisurely stroll in the A/C in St. Louis, check it out. And while you’re at it you can eat at Houlihans like we did.

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This recounts our first day in St. Louis, MO.

The Gateway Arch is a great attraction. The sun was intense, and the heat wave still with us, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Luckily the park around the Arch had walkways shaded by trees. We broke off and walked by some of the ponds, only to retreat quickly because we must have smelled great to the mosquitos.

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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This leg is from Carrollton, GA to St. Louis, MO.

Everything is starting to feel like a blur. We made it to St. Louis, Missouri on day two of our journey. When you look at the distance on the map it’s impressive. We’ll be staying here for two nights so we can check out the Arch tomorrow, and Union Station if all goes well. Should be pretty kickass.

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Four friends went to Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee. They walked, talked and one even took some pictures. The things you’d expect. The back stretch along the railroad tracks was longer than they expected, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. For some reason one of them started running. I think it started to drizzle. Soon all four were running and screaming a bit. Four awesome 20-somethings were running and screaming through the woods. They didn’t really care about the light rain. Shortness of breathe was reached. Some walking for a bit. Weak attempts to run again. They pressed on. Full release. Blissful memories.

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Not sure why, but I’ve stumbled across some amazing essays this week. Of course, they’re written by people involved in technology and design, but I’m pretty sure you’ll find the advice sound.

I’ve read many essays about the “top ten things I’ve learned in my lifetime”, but this one is the best.

I always thought not taking compliments too strongly to heart was a side-effect of being humble, and a sure way to avoid having too large of an ego. But yeah, that hasn’t worked out so well. This one’s on optimism.

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The hacker community is impressive. You’d expect all programmer nerds to be far-removed from reality, but a good number are not. The new breed of computer scientists is much like the new breed of computers. They’re self-aware, they control themselves, they’re finally cool, they work great in all settings, and they’re running some of the best companies in the world.

Matt Maroon wrote an article last year that really struck a chord. It’s an article I find great value in, and I consider such an excellent explanation of the way things are, that I wanted to print it out and postal mail it to my dad. It’d be an attempt to get him up to speed with why I see things the way I do. Namely: I don’t value the concept of a life-long career. I don’t see the point in giving 110% to an employer that I really don’t care about, with a mission I don’t really care about, and that doesn’t care for me beyond what the law requires.

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When you camp during the week you avoid all those people that can’t help but bring their obnoxious modern life to the wilderness.

We went to Oscar Scherer State Park last Wednesday for 3 days, 2 nights, just before a different crowd flooded in for the weekend. It’s a good thing, too, because our last trip to Wekiva Springs overlapped a Friday night, where we noticed a big change in the campers. The main point of contention is the need some mid-30s people have to play their radios at their campsites. You know, the type that opens up their car doors to do so. I don’t want to hear your bad radio rock, nor your good indie post-folk alt-country. I’m here to get away from it all, especially you talking on your cell phone.

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Nothing monumental happened when I posted my previous entry, but I was amazed at how many people seem to have Google Blog Search alerts set up for “josh groban”.

On March 31, I had 20 visitors that came from their web-based email boxes (15 yahoo, 3 live.com, 2 aol). I’m assuming they were alerted by Google, but I don’t really know. 46 total visitors. 27 people apparently clicked through to the Adult Swim video clip. On April 1, I had 6 visitors from web-based email (3 yahoo, 3 live.com). 18 total views on that entry. 10 clicked through to the clip. April 2 had a similar breakdown, albeit slightly fewer views.

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Josh Groban has finally come of age as a musician. The quality folks at Cinco Musical Tapes have taken special notice of Josh and have given him the noble opportunity to apply his sweetly-maturing voice to such tunes as “Cops and Robbers”, “Time Travel”, and “Horse and Buggy Ride”. Join me in congratulating Josh Groban as he advances from singing cover songs to singing truly inspirational, kick-ass cover songs.

For a limited time you can see clips of Groban singing for the Cinco Musical Tapes collection, Groban Sings Casey. Even in the short amount of video footage available, you’re sure to be moved. Click here, and enjoy.

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I’m happy to see things like the Better Place company. Using electricity to power our cars is like using XML for a data interchange format: it’s just a damn good idea. Electricity is the easiest format for energy storage, transfer, and use. It may not be the best, but I’m pretty sure it’s the best we have right now. Battery technology seems to be advancing faster than other forms, so it just makes sense.

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