I am posting this from Love Field (DAL) on the treo. My only complaint with the phone so far is the keyboard, it is really cramped together…

It appears that British Airways does not want any of their customers to think of Virgin Atlantic as a better possibility. They have reportedly edited a cameo of Richard Branson (Virgin Atlantic’s founder) out of the James Bond film, Casino Royale.

British Airways has been suffering from bad press lately and this just shows that they may not be the best choice for airline when making your travel plans.

I happened to catch a glimpse of the film on my flight back from Boston and saw the scene that was edited. I guess Continental does not feel too threatened by Branson.

I am only going to make one post on the tragic events that enveloped the Virginia Tech community yesterday. My reason for this is that I feel the media is definitely covering it enough and I really do not want to give the killer any more face time than he is already getting.

For the next few weeks we will hear what could have prevented this incident, what the school could have done, what the school should not have done, and everything in between. In the end, all this is is an attempt by people to find some reason for why this happened and a proper area to place blame.

This is a tragedy with no plausible explanation, no matter how hard we try to come up with one. The 32 lives taken away yesterday will not be justified in any way by an explanation or blame. Instead, the blame and explanation will receive the majority of television time while the faces and stories of those who were killed will fade away… Sadly.

Sitting in a restaurant that we frequent entirely too much, we realized that the table next to us was filled with a few folks who had had a little too much to drink.

As we waited for our food to arrive we listened to their conversation for entertainment. I should note here, we were not eavesdropping, they were speaking loudly enough so that anyone within a ten-foot radius could clearly understand them.

Halfway through their conversation and they started discussing who does the lawn and who does not. One man (pictured here, second from the right) turned to his wife and said, in a deep southern accent, “You didn’t marry no yard man…Didjya?!”.

He kept going, mentioning that he was not going to do shrubs or bushes and refuses to weed-eat, claiming that it is the worst part of the lawn.

At this point we were fighting to keep our laughter in and though our service that night from the restaurant was terrible, it was worth it because of this exchange.

I have been using Google Reader for a few months now and I have come to realize things that I would love to have in a feedreader.

For one thing, I would like to be able to “tag” feeds and specific articles in a feed for organization and easy lookup purposes. It is cumbersome to have to go and manually find an article down the road from when you read it originally, tagging would make the process a little better. Google currently has the “Star” feature, which is great, but it leaves articles all in the same category, “Starred”.

The folder/category concept in Google Reader is great but lacking. I would love sub-categories and the ability to temporarily disable a feed being updated.

The penultimate feature would have to be notes for articles. Adding a note to an article that I read, then sharing that article (and the note) would make life a lot easier. This leads into a small feature that would also make reading and sharing of articles much simpler, sing article sharing. Sometimes I come across a single article who’s parent “publication” has a feed. I do not necessarily want to subscribe to the entire feed, but instead the single article.

All of these features would make me an instant fan, in fact, I might even be willing to pay a small price to use those features. Suggestions?

A belated Easter greeting is due from me. I have been on somewhat of a hiatus because of work and just taking a break from computers to spend valuable time with important people.

I spent a few days in Catlettsburg, KY for work and enjoyed the crisp air of the mountains.

Other than that I have been working, working, working.

Jess took me to an Astros game for my birthday (pictures coming) and surprisingly we had a convincing win (I keep telling Jess it’s because she’s good luck). The Astros will need to keep it up if they hope to keep their fairweather fans around.

I hope everyone had a good Easter holiday and maybe, just maybe I will start getting better about writing more, though we all know how that type of promise has gone in the past.

Blog browsing and reading is a small portion of my day but one that I really enjoy. My blogroll right now consists of a fair amount of different topics, ranging from politics to technology to Apple to small business to cooking.

Yesterday I came to a crossroad. There is a blog that I read by a Yahoo! employee with topics ranging from MySQL to flying. I thoroughly enjoy his writing and until yesterday I did not mind a few little jabs that he took at organized religion and his politics. However, a link that he posted yesterday to an article about Christians just kind of slapped me in the face.

The article points out a new trend in Christian America with more and more girls choosing abstinence. The writer’s only comment was “hahahahaha”. I stared at that line for a minute, unsure what to think. I read the article again. It was obvious that he was attacking Christians and their beliefs.

While I believe in free speech and freedom of the press, I think there is a fine line between being objective and being flat out disrespectful. I am not asking for political correctness, I am asking for people to think about what they are posting and what objectives they hope to accomplish by posting it. Is it informative? Does the commentary lend itself to being useful or is it just personal dribble leaking into the main content?

This leads me to the next question, at what point do you stop reading a blog because the writer’s bias, apparent disrespect and mockery cloud the main point of the blog? I am tempted to drop this blog for a while and maybe, just maybe pick it up later. It is one thing to question beliefs with intelligent conversation but it is a completely different ballgame when the beliefs are mocked without question.

I am back at work in the Houston area after a much needed vacation to Boston, Massachusetts. The sights, tastes, and sounds of the area entice me to go back again. From Fenway Park to MIT, the entire city was amazing.

Jess and I spent about three and a half days there just exploring as much as we could and saw a great deal of history surrounded by modern conveniences. A great example was the cemetery in the center of the city that held the remains of a passenger on the Mayflower. The Mayflower! Just amazing stuff.

Transportation was easy on the “T” and allowed us to really walk the city where we wanted to but not have to trek everywhere.

All-in-all it was the best vacation I have been on in a long time (made possible of course by her)

You can view all of my shots from the trip here.

Let me just get it out there, I do not agree with everything that Dennis Miller says, but for the most part, I think he is spot-on.

This is proof:

He is right on the money and Rosie is being left-wing just to be left-wing, which I have no respect for. If she actually believed and stood behind the things that come out of her mouth, I may actually listen, but quite frankly, she makes me nauseas. Her question, “Don’t you believe democracy demands dissent?” is laughable. Democracy gives the freedom of dissent but what it is supposed to do is ensure debate on issues.

We do not need dissent to power democracy, it is merely a feature of the system. There have been plenty of times when dissent was not at the center of movement, but that is moving away from the norm because the minority beliefs are being given a louder voice, therefore encouraging dissent and it’s becoming harmful.

Starting tomorrow I will consider myself “on vacation” and will be focusing on preparing/packing for my trip to Boston with Jessica.

I will be back in Houston on Thursday, March 15^th but will not be back in work mode until Sunday.

Look for a ton of photographs from the trip! 🙂

I will still be available via e-mail and cell phone if you need to reach me.