Pointless

Even though I haven't posted in a few days, this will be short. To the left (now) is a link to a website that provides promo codes and online coupons for online retailers. Very handy and you shouldn't shop at an online retailer without first checking there. Money off purchases, free or reduced shipping, etc. Nice. The name of the site will cause some concern for a few guys, but you'll get over it when you're saving money. Search by item type or specific retailer for available promo/coupon codes.

Just above that link is a link to the Craig's List for Washington, D.C. I'd heard about Craig's List before but never visited it until recently. Basically it's a huge, online classified ad page. You can find just about anything (jobs, housing, for-sale items, etc). And there is a cool section called "Gigs" where people post jobs they need done. If you want to find a specific type of gig, click on the main Gigs heading and conduct a search. Pretty cool if you're looking to pick up a couple of odd jobs here and there for cash or to fill out a resume.

Hope you like the new color scheme. It's definitely not Alabama colors.

Working...

I'm working on the layout. Actually it was fairly easy to move the navigation bar to the lefthand side, so I'm pleased about that. Hope you all like my profile picture. It was taken at some point after I won something to do with football...

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

PS - Apparently the picture isn't coming up correctly. To actually see it (if you can't) view my profile, click on the picture to see full size, click in the address bar and hit enter (or just reload the page). You should see it. I'm not sure why it isn't coming up all the time.

Links...

So, I'm still figuring out what I want to do with this blog. There are already blogs for heavy topics and blogs for random life stuff, both of which will probably enter this blog at one point or another. Maybe I'll just write about stuff I like and why. Of course, the techno babble that ensues will probably cause half my meager fan base to defect, but it'd still be fun for me.

In response to a couple of comments about the last post, I know I can customize the template, and I will in the upcoming weeks. I also plan to change the color scheme from Alabama colors ASAP. Trust Leann to point that out...

But today I'm going to talk, briefly, about the links I've added to the right of this post (see the previous post for why this is annoying). First is Google News. It's there by default and may go away later, but for now it's a good news site. If you like your top headlines quickly, try it.

Second and third are links to Sherman's Lagoon and Day by Day. Sherman's Lagoon is an amusing comic strip. It actually lands in my top 2 comics to follow on a regular basis along with Foxtrot (hilarious). Day by Day is a political strip with some interesting observations. Not always great, but interesting.

Delivr Digital Postcards is easily the best web postcard site I've found. It allows you to search Flickr.com's public photos (around 600,000 of them) and create a postcard to send. There are no lame/cheesy animations with a punch line (not that those aren't occasionally funny), but there are some interesting and amusing pictures to use. Just add your own words and send. Definitely worth checking out if you've browsed multiple sites looking for *just* the right card.

And finally, SideStep.com. SideStep is a travel search site not entirely unlike Travelocity and Orbitz. SideStep goes one step further, though, and actually searches other search sites. So SideStep will search Travelocity and Orbitz (among others) as well as search the airlines' main websites like AA.com (American Airlines), jetblue.com, united.com, etc. SideStep then ranks your options by price or time or airline. Just give it a minute or two to fully search all the sites (there's an progress bar on the lefthand side while it's searching) and you'll have your best options. Very useful and I highly suggest it. It's how Ash and I found tickets to Dallas this Christmas - and it ended up being cheaper to buy through AA.com directly than through Travelocity.

Minor annoyance

I've already found something to be annoyed at with this blogging thing. I don't really like any of the templates much. Some of you will notice that I changed templates between my first post and this one, and I'm sure I'll do it again sometime soon. I'm going to try and tweak the HTML, so we'll see how that works out.

The reason I chose the first template was that it was the only template that stuck the menu/navigation options along the left side of the screen (of course, the standard text size was huge, and that annoyed too). From a usability standpoint this makes sense and is a common feature/rule followed by most Western-based websites (Why? Western cultures read left to right - so when we're looking for navigation options we naturally tend to look left). However, the Blog templates predominately have the menu and navigation on the right side of the screen, which is a little counter intuitive. It's a little thing but as a person who deals with usability it's frustrating. Maybe it's just a Blog thing.

I believe the term "argh" is in order...

First such nonsense...

And I mean it. This isn't my first created blog, but it is the first one I've posted to (and the only one still in existence). My main reason, initially, for this blog is to:

A. Post Sammie's question thingy - just cuz I want to
B. Receive the adoration and attention from my adoring fans

Now, I'm expecting a lot more from reason A, but I've been told that I should start a blog for a long time which has done nothing for my ego and was a driving force behind reason B. My reasoning for not starting a blog before now was/is simple: I'm lazy and may not update on a regular basis. But I figure I'll give it a shot and try to update once or twice a week. Maybe. And probably more often here at the beginning. Maybe. So without further ado, I'll hit reason A.

Two Names You Go By: Babe (wife), Carl (everyone else)

Two Parts of Your Heritage: a small bit of Dutch and a larger bit of Texan (although I personally claim North Dakota as my home state)

Two Things That Scare You: I'm not a big fan of cockroaches and Virginia drivers in the winter are scary

Two of Your Everyday Essentials: e-mail, wife (probably not in that order)

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now: my "computer" glasses, the watch I misplaced for a month

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists: Great Big Sea (if you haven't heard them, you should), Acapella (the group)

Two Things You Want in a Relationship: Trust, laughter (both of which I have)

Two Truths: God makes his existence obvious for those that look, Mentos are not the freshmaker

Two Things You Hate (or rather dislike with a passion): I "strongly dislike" most Country music, and habitually stupid people irritate me (I may occasionally do stupid things, but it's come and go - not continuous)

Two Physical Things that Appeal to You: my wife, new technology

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies: reading, watching movies

Two Things You Want Really Badly: 60 inch flat panel LCD TV, to procrastinate less (but I have time to fix that :-)

Two Places You Want to go on Vacation: New Zealand, Europe/the Netherlands

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die: start my own usability company, be indepentently wealthy

Two Ways that you are stereotypically a Chick/Guy: I'm not moody, illogical arguments annoy me

Two Things You Normally Wouldn't Admit: I tend toward introversion, I actually do know that I'm right and you're wrong... :-)