My good friend from work Jason just recently donated his kidney to a friend of his.  Didn’t ask for anything, just heard his friend needed one, got tested and gave it up.  The more I get to know him the more I like Jason.  He really is a good guy.  I’m probably going to try and jet down to see him and play (lose) a few games of magic with him.  Until then, check out his sites.  If even half of my visitors go there, well, his traffic will be bumped up one visitor.  Maybe I should ask him for a link instead…

Anyways, the sites are:

• Grinding Tapes Recording Company
• Mobile Man Boston

Get well soon Jason.

I was kind of saddened today to learn that Jericho had been cancelled.  It was one of the better shows on TV - sort of a better version of Lost.  The basic premise is that the citizens of Jericho, Kansas wake up one day and view a mushroom cloud in Denver.  Then basic services shut off and they gradually find out that Denver wasn’t the only city hit.

Little details were revealed throughout the first season about what might really be going on but much of it deals with the people of Jericho and trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.

It really was a great show and makes you wonder why they would cancel it when so many other crap shows stay on the air forever.  Likely no one watched it - which is a disappointment.  It’s followers were rather loyal and I recommended it to several of my friends.  The season finale was awesome and I was disappointed I was going to have to wait till next season to see the conclusion.  Now I may never.

Random Tidbit: Check out the Jericho wiki for more information and spoilers.  If you have on demand, you might still be able to catch some episodes.

So I wasn’t really able to talk about it before now, but the site I worked for has officially launched our new version - of which I’ve been a major part in since I started in January.  It’s also what’s kept me preoccupied these past few weeks as we fixed minor things in it to get it live yesterday.  We’ve already heard good feedback from our users and I’ve gotten lots of compliments on the UI (which is what I do) - though to be honest 90+% of the design work was done by other people, I just did the XHTML and CSS.

Anyways, check it out if you want to see another big example of my work.  There are still large portions I want to change - some of our dynamic boxes should be switched to the sliding doors method for example - but overall I’m quite proud.

Random Tidbit:  Apparently terrorism has spread to the virtual world.  Luckily this kind only affects 1s and 0s (hopefully, although some money may have been lost).  I don’t know much about Second Life and I’m kind of curious how they managed to pull this off - I thought it was more of a social site rather than one in which you could wage war.

I’m way overdue for adding some content, however with all the flooding recently, I took what nice time there was this weekend between putting out fires to get some time on my motorcycle.

And it looks like I might be able to sneak in another ride after dinner, potentially for the last time this week.

My apologies.  For interesting content, check out my del.icio.us.  I’ve bookmarked some cool stuff in the past week.  I have a couple of good ideas for this week - don’t give up hope yet.

Today will be six months to the day when I lost my last ferret Mugsy. Sometimes, I find it hard to even realize that she is gone. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized being sad will not honor the memory of my furry friend. Ferrets are a misunderstood pet and many people are misinformed about them. So I decided to post the top 5 reasons why you should welcome ferrets into your life.

5. No other pet will be more loyal or make you laugh more. I’ve had dogs. I had a very good dog. But my ferrets were the best. They knew me by name and face. They were always happy to see me. I was the best thing in their eyes. Their antics and the stories I have still bring a smile to my face.

4. They are always happy. When I let them out of their cage it was like I was giving them the greatest gift in the world. When I chased them, they only liked it more. My only regret is that I thought I would have more time and didn’t do more of either.

3. The only thing more fun that one ferret is two. Or three. Or four. I had only planned on getting 3 ferrets and ended up taking a fourth one in. He proved more work than the other 3 combined. But he was awesome.

2. You can’t help but smile when ferrets get going. I have so many stories of them tackling each other, of the smallest dragging the largest by the scruff after he tackled her, of them getting so agitated by my sister putting their toys away that they’d actually come over and dook (scold) me, and of them teaming up on my cat that I can’t even go into detail on them. I still smile whenever I think about it.

1. You can’t say you’ve lived a complete life until you’ve seen a “weasel war dance.” When a ferret gets extremely happy and/or excited they hop around, tossing their head and expending energy frenetically. It’s extremely hard to explain the weasel war dance. But I dare anyone but the most cold hearted among us to see this in action and not want a ferret in their life.

I cannot get more ferrets at this time. But after much thought I’ve decided that when I do get my own place, I think I will get more “carpet sharks.” I’ll never be able to replace my original foursome, but that’s not really the point. I hope after reading this you give ferrets a chance. They’re not stinky rodents - it’s more like having a kitten that never grows up, but many times more energetic.

Random Tidbit: A collection of weasel war dances found on YouTube: one two three

My ferrets in a happier time: