Blogging? What's that?

If I could figure out how to blog on this thing, I would.
MJ

Fantasy Football

Hey guys... What are we doing about Fantasy Football this year? Someone want to take charge and set us up a league? or should we find a league to all join together?

NFL.com has been my favorite so far, but I've heard Yahoo! is good as well....

Discuss!

Jon Curling

You said you would believe it when you see it... So here you go...
This is my first attempt.

Unlike bowling (which is the closest comparable "sport"), you have to be very careful of the speed at which you release the stone. You actually have to try to get it to stop about 6 feet in front of your target because the sweepers can add ~10 feet if they sweep the whole way. That gives them the control over when the stone will stop. Unfortunately you have to throw it very soft to get that to happen. This first one was a bit long... Of the 9 rocks I threw in our match, I scored 3 points, and clear 2 of our opponents rocks. And the other 5 stones.. well.. we won't talk about those...

Here's a pick of my last stone, tie match.. then this happened:

Clearly I am the Michael Jordan of Curling. 1993-1994 Michael Jordan where he stopped doing what he was good at, attempted a new sport, hit like one homerun, struck our a bunch of times then went back to doing what he was good at.

Here's another good site for if you're bored:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/
(if I try to use insert link it doesn't show up for some reason)

You can tell it things that you are interested in and when you hit the stumble button it takes you to a site it thinks you'll enjoy.

-Bryce

We have to see to believe

Jon Goes Curling today, I think I speak for everyone when I say we expect a post telling how exciting it was, and pictures.

Web Services

Just thought I would take a minute here and post out a list of my favorite free services on the web. Many of them I use or recommend at work, but most have great value for personal use as well. There are obvious ones like gmail, Pandora and various social media sites.. Here are a few you might not know about... But don't take my word for it....

• 

  There are many great free options for editing images on the web (and even a couple above average installed software packages). My personal favorite is Aviary. Aviary's suite of services ranges from image and color manipulation to audio editing. Their image editor component (called Phoenix) is quite powerful, and exports very high quality images. Very easy to use and quite intuitive. A few other options include Picnik and for an installed software packages, there is the GNU Image Manipulation Program




• 

  Mozy online backup. Seriously, do this now. An automatic process runs and backs up your selected files to Mozy at the scheduled time... You can access the backed up info from anywhere at any time. Two gigs for backup is free. Great for backing up Documents, Pictures, Save Games, etc.

  
  



• 

  Webs.com is a freemium model web hosting company. Want to have a free website? Toss it on Webs. Good amount of integrated applications.. Free sites are ad-supported. They're good guys. I'm working on an integration for iContact now.

  
  



• 

  Allrecipies.com is a recipe sharing community. Pretty good amount of unique things to cook up. Always read the comments before making something, as people will tell you what they did differently to have more success with the recipe, or make it easier. They aren't as unique as an Epicurious, but they give a lot better direction on how to actually prepare the food.

  
  

Let me know if there are any good ones that I might be missing out on!

-- Johnny Cakes

Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice!

Here's some potty humor for ya...

I stepped into the ladies room here at the office, just a typical Tuesday afternoon. Each stall has a can of air freshner so we don't leave any bad odors behind... no pun intended...

I heard the door open and someone else walk into the ladies room, so while I was still "reading the paper" I grabbed the can of air freshner held it up above my head and sprayed twice. And as mists of air freshner fell all over me I realized that this particular can shoots straight up, not from the side... bummer.

And that is why, for the remainder of my work day, I will smell like cinnamon.

From now on I'm sticking with the courtesy flush.

-Bailey (who else!)

Rusty's new Hobby

Rusty's new hobby,
Brandon took me geocaching yesterday, it was great. I definitely have a new hobby.
Thanks Brandon

I know what you're thinking.... huh?

So, some of you know about this and some of you don't. And that's precisely the problem. There are way too many of us! Communicating events, news, freaky happenings, etc. becomes a problem when you have to make over 10 phone calls. Especially if you are like Jan and put your phone in the shredder (if you don't know about that, just consider it another example of the necessity of this blog).

So, the parentals had an amazing idea- create a family website. I know there are a few men in this family that would consider that an easy task... they would probably build it from scratch faster than I was able to use a Google template... but for the rest of us, this seemed like the way to go.

This is a blog. If you don't know what that is, then I'm impressed you made it to this page. Basically, this is going to be our family blog. You can use it to post funny stories about your day, information about an upcoming event (family or personal) or even to simply communicate with the rest of the family. Please don't tell us when and where you are going to the grocery store- if you do, I'll figure out some way to revoke your internet privileges (I'm serious Ray, Bryce, Brandon L. and Jon).

This is simply a way to streamline our communication. If you don't use it... oh well, but don't be upset when everyone laughs at a "Every Kiss Begins With Zales" joke and you have no idea what's going on. Of course, that story managed to make the rounds of this family without this blog. *sigh*

You will notice that I also sent you a link to a Google Calendar. USE IT! Seriously.... I still can't remember the date of Ray and Claudia's wedding (it's exam week, cut my brain some slack). I also sent out another email explaining how to access this blog to make edits/posts.

Please use this! At one time or another, every single one of us has complained or made a comment about poor communication (except maybe Brandon Moore.... you are just too patient dude). So use this tool!

Plus, it will be exciting to hear stories.... such as the one where two bugs tried to make babies on Bailey's hand.

I am working on getting a photo sharing site up for us as well... it will probably be Picasa, but I will post info on that when the time comes.

-Britt