Category: misc

Green Tip

This came from a co-worker on our office’s Green Team:

The website changethemargins.com is calling for printer owners everywhere to take the simple step of, well, changing their margins from the current luxurious standard 1.25 inches to a the more modest .75 inches. It may sound like a small change, but if everyone in the nation did it, we’d save a little less than a Rhode Island’s worth of trees every year. Does tinkering with Word’s cumbersome preferences scare the fonts right out of you? Another goal of the site is to petition Microsoft to change the default margins on all its Office products.

Changing your margins in Microsoft Word:
Go to “File,” then “Page Setup.”
Once on “Page Setup,” click the “Default” key, and you’ll be offered “Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template.”

Set each margin to .75 and save an immense amount of paper.

Moby’s new CD drops today

Moby’s new CD Last Night dropped today. Great stuff.

You can do like I did and download the entire album in Mp3 format (aka no digital file management malarkey like iTunes or Zune) for $9.49 from Amazon.com. Awesome! Who would have thought we’d reach a point where I could listen to a podcast from NPR on my computer at work, and within a few clicks have a brand new album delivered to my computer and my Zune? Awesome.

Or if you’d prefer, you can purchase a CD copy of the album for $9.99 from Amazon (plus shipping & handling):

Google and Virgin join in plans to colonize Mars

Imagine if you will – the universe’s first (known) Open Source Planet. Google and Virgin Group have teamed together and with plans to colonize Mars. Very cool!

(it\'s an April Fool\'s Joke)

From Google:

For thousands of years, the human race has spread out across the Earth, scaling mountains and plying the oceans, planting crops and building highways, raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels, and observing, with tremendous and unflagging enthusiasm, the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply across our world’s every last nook, cranny and subdivision.

An invitation.
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars…

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Virgin Group today announced the launch of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars.

“Some people are calling Virgle an ‘interplanetary Noah’s Ark,'” said Virgin Group President and Founder Sir Richard Branson, who conceived the new venture. “I’m one of them. It’s a potentially remarkable business, but more than that, it’s a glorious adventure. For me, Virgle evokes the spirit of explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, who set sail looking for the New World. I do hope we’ll be a bit more efficient about actually finding it, though.”

The Virgle 100 Year Plan’s milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).

“Virgle is the ultimate application of a principle we’ve always believed at Google: that you can do well by doing good,” said Google co-founder Larry Page, who plans to share leadership of the new Martian civilization with Branson and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

“We feel that ensuring the survival of the human race by helping it colonize a new planet is both a moral good in and of itself and also the most likely method of ensuring the survival of our best – okay, fine, only — base of web search volume and advertising inventory,” Page added. “So, you know, it’s, like, win-win.”

The original contingent of Virgle Pioneers will be selected by numerous criteria, including an online questionnaire, video submission, personal accomplishments, expertise in scientific, artistic, sociological and/or political fields of endeavor, and inadequate Google and Virgin personal performance reviews.

You can apply to help plan this “open source community” online at: www.google.com/virgle or find out just how real Virgle is.

The Alphabet Game

I don’t know how many other folks play this, but I always remember growing up and going on trips with my family and as soon as we (the kids) started getting bored, mom or dad would start the Alphabet Game.

Basically your goal is to find each letter of the alphabet on signs, cars, or other objects you can see outside your car window. You go from A to Z.

Apparently Laurie’s family played this too, but with slightly different rules from what I remember. In their family, they had to call out the word and letter they were using so no one else could use it. For example, “Apple – A, Cannibal – B, Cannibal – C, Drive – D.”

We played the game together several times on our trip to Memphis and I also played the game by myself several times while she was reading or napping.

All this to say – Q has got to be the hardest letter to find. I made it all the way to P this morning on the way to work and waited a good 20 miles before I finally saw a Q. And it was on a Quiznos right next to my bus stop.

On my block-and-a-half walk to my office I made it all the way to Z and then back again through the alphabet to X before I walked in the front door of my office. But boy – that Q can drive a guy nuts!

Today in review

Don’t do this too often, but thought I’d give you all a wrap up of today’s events…

a. woke up around 5:00
b. got up around 5:30
c. made some coffee and got a txt message from Smiley around 5:50 announcing the birth of their new baby boy, Aiden Sean (jump over to their blog and wish the new parents a big congrats).
d. took my time getting ready for work
e. rode the bus to work and sat next to my new bus-mate Judd
f. slow day at work – especially after lunch
g. walked the 4 or 5 blocks to DART headquarters at lunch to get a bus pass for April
h. watched the afternoon pass by in my cubicle
i. made plans with my wonderful life, Laurie, to visit Shari and Smiley and baby Aidan after work
j. Laurie calls on her way to pick me up to inform me that there’s a tornado warning for a huge area surrounding our house
k. realize everyone else in Dallas is apparently trying to get information from WFAA.com – because it no workie
l. Laurie picked me up and we made the short drive to the hospital and visited with our friends
m. came home and saw no sign of rain or thunderstorms in our neighborhood
n. made chicken sandwiches (not chicken salad but chicken breast – like Chick-Fil-A) for dinner
o. worked out at the gym
p. went grocery shopping
q. read some more in “Jesus for President”
r. thought about working on my “lesson” for our community group tomorrow night – didn’t want to turn the alarm off and then go outside in my PJs to get my book out of my truck
s. remembered i needed to take a pic for my 365days project
t. took the pic while listening to the Homebrewed Christianity podcast
u. decided to write a summary of the days events on podcast
v. now im jealous that Laurie is already sound asleep and i’m not
w. staring to feel some soreness in my back
x. xylophone
y. y? because i can
z. time to get some Zs