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Man… I really wish I could just put some of these people in a box and send them home for a day. I’d put holes in it.

After learning that I had secured a place in the 2008 LOTOJA, I instantly felt justified in making a purchase with a hefty price tag: a Garmin Edge 305.

Now if I can only figure out how to make it work for me, instead of vice versa.

Nearly a month ago, I applied for a spot in the 2008 LOTOJA, a bicycle race from Logan, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Ever since submitting the application, I've been on proverbial pins and/or needles waiting to see whether I would be given a spot to ride in the race this coming September.

Today, I received an email congratulating me on receiving a spot in the race. I couldn't be more excited. Not only did I get in, but everyone else who applied in our teams received a spot to ride, as follows:

* TEAM VCBO "CUTTERS" (FULL RACE) *

1. Tim Valentiner
2. Justin Brown
3. Tyler Smith
4. Zack Hackett
5. Jer Valentiner
6. Steve Baxter
7. and myself, Mike Drechsel

* TEAM VCBO "MIGHTY CUTTERS"" (4-PERSON RELAY) *

1. Christianne Valentiner
2. Niels Valentiner
3. Mallory Lake
4. Katie Drechsel

* TEAM VCBO "IT CUTTS BOTH WAYS" (2-PERSON RELAY) *

1. Daniel Dansie
2. J. Ray Milliner

It looks like things couldn't have gone better for our teams! Excitement Level: HIGH to QUITE HIGH.

"In my opinion, country music is particularly willing to embrace people who do not stand out."

Radiohead has long been one of my favorite bands. I think it was my brother James who first got me hooked on this stuff.

I was checking iTunes earlier for some music and stumbled upon this gem of an idea. Radiohead is allowing fans the opportunity to play around with one of the tracks, Nude, from their most recent album, "In Rainbows." I don't fancy myself able to do anything spectacular with the raw materials of this song, but I LOVE the idea of letting the common folk have a shot at remixing the track into something hopefully unique and unexpected. The full details are available on the iTunes Radiohead Remix page or you check out the Radiohead Remix website for more info and for a chance to listen to some of the work that's being done with this music.

Initially, I emailed a link about this out to my family members, but then I realized that it deserved to be posted here as well. I watched this TED Talk presentation by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor earlier tonight and it really left quite an impression on me. I thought I'd recommend to everyone that you take 20 minutes when you get a chance and watch it. This is really impressive stuff and I think you'll find that it ends very differently than it begins.

And if you don't know about TED already, you really should learn more about TED.

There are some really amazing talks available on the TED website, and I recommend exploring the content there. I have spent (not wasted, but invested) hours watching different presentations on the TED site. The one I recommend above is one of the very best I've seen to date.

Think about it.
Or don’t because nobody can make a monkey think about anything.
In a monkey suit, you are as good as, maybe better than, most monkeys.
Be free. Be who you’re supposed to be.
Swing from tree to tree.
Jump onto a table and pounce on strangers.
Sit on the floor when eating dinner.
Knives, forks and spoons are out of the question…
unless you really want to use them,
because with a monkey suit on, you can do anything you want.
You certainly have the dexterity.
Monkeys don’t have to get up early.
Monkeys don’t have to watch TV or brush their teeth.
Monkeys only have one bill to pay,
and we all know what that is.
Monkeys are curious
and people laugh at the crazy capering they indulge in.
Monkeys don’t have to conform to proper grammatical conventions.
Do what you want. Get the suit. Do what you want.
But definitely get the suit and wear it.

If I were running for political office, and especially if the office I were running for were as consequential as President of the United States of America, I would not be seeking handouts from visitors to my online home before even letting my guests get a foot in the door. Clearly political candidates need to raise funds to support their campaigns, but can't the solicitation wait until after I get comfortable with who they are?

The reason I'm mentioning this is that tonight, for the first time, I visited the respective websites of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the two candidates seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party in the upcoming November 2008 Election. Quite frankly, I was shocked by the wide degree of difference between the reception I received at each site. Without requiring you to click through and visit the sites for yourselves (unless you're so inclined, that is), I'll let you see the message with which each candidate greeted me upon my arrival at their online "Front Door." Gentlemen first:

Compare that message from Barack Obama with the following from Mrs. Clinton:

A song lyric is now in order:

And if all I have is a heart that fears
if all that's left are the stains of tears
and if your soft voice is all I hear
I'm never fighting back

I'm playing with Blueprint: A CSS Framework this time around, so bear with me and we'll see if we can't make this work beautifully.

Did anyone know that you can use TextMate to post directly to a blog? This just gets better and better.

Here’s the scoop. Everyone should be backing up their computer data regularly. It’s simply foolish not to. I was foolish for a very long time, but no more! My personal backup strategy is as follows: weekly backup to an external firewire drive; monthly backups of digital photos and movies to DVD (this in addition to the weekly external firewire backups); and daily backups to a GMail account. What, you say? Backup to GMail? Correct, I backup to a GMail account with a little application called “gDisk.” This excellent little application allows me to upload specific files to the GMail account of my choosing. Once the files are uploaded, I can access them anywhere I can access GMail.

Ayden is growing up. He is so smart that at times I can’t really believe it. Tonight we played hide and seek. He’s better at the seeking than the hiding (so far). When it’s his turn to hide, he leaves the room, or goes to the closet in the same room, but then returns before we finish counting to ten. I suppose we’ll have to shorten the countdown. Once the seeking begins, he usually just shows up out of his hiding place without really understanding the whole concept of staying hidden until found. I think he likes the searching portion of the game. He excels at seeking. I hid all over the place tonight, but he found me every time without too much delay. I even relocated my hiding spot a few times during the same seek-session, but he is thorough. If he couldn’t find me, he’d check the places he’d already searched again to see if I was there on the second check. Then when he finds the person he is looking for, he runs away screaming and laughing. it is pretty funny.

After significant practice and familial moral support, I’ve bettered my previous score from this to a new high of 107667 and a world rank of 147. Beat that if you dare!

Recently, I encountered a grammar issue that I have meant to figure out for some time. Now is that time.

The English language is largely a messy tangle of inconsistent rules and exceptions to those rules. The subject of this post will highlight a portion of that messiness. When ending any written sentence, the convention is to use a one of three punctuation marks: exclamation, question, or period. That is straight-forward enough. But things get a little stickier when the end of the sentence (or, in the case of the comma, a dependent clause) also involves a quotation mark. The question is, does the punctuation mark go inside of or outside of the closing quotation mark?

I’ve updated Journler today from 1.1.6 to 2.0 and I’m loving the changed appearance and functionality. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the application, “Journler” is a fine program for recording thoughts digitally - either words, or images, or sound, or any combination thereof. Actually, this app does so much more than that. Bottom line, this is a great application and I’m going to donate money for it as soon as I get a chance. I wonder how much I should send to the developer. I’m not sure why I mention this at all, but I can’t help myself.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to kick a ball around your office trying to get the ball to land in a trash can that you place in increasingly inaccessible locations? Then have I got a treat for you. Check out Binball Wizard!!! [DISCLAIMER: Michael Drechsel will not be held responsible for any diminished productivity that may accompany engaging in a game of Binball…you’ve been warned.]

NB - My best is 90752 and my global rank is 13781…for the time being.