End of week Random thoughts

End of week Random thoughts

• Happy 4th of July everyone, we will be celebrating with the annual Spam O Rama, a celebration of all things SPAM. Then probably not going to any big fireworks shows, because the kids are still not real comfortable with loud noises.
• I will be hosting a belated barbecue on Saturday. This is a chance for people who would normally come to our house on a the 4th but can't because of prior obligations (like my own with Spam O Rama). It should be an interesting dynamic because it will be the first such event without a huge amount of family members in quite a while.
• Excellent article on Patriotism and electoral politics An interesting little study. While I have been known to get pretty jingoistic in my time I certainly don't subscribe to an "America Love it or Leave it" attitude. And the comments about how Obama's campaign is handling the issue are right up my alley. I think that the true measure of a patriot is the ability to see the flaws in your country, still love it, and do what you can do heal those flaws. And Obama's campaign really reflects that view: ours is a great country, only in America could you have a story like Obama, and the best thing we can do for our country is find a way to serve it. Being a patriot does not require wearing a flag pin, reciting the Pledge, and hating all of those who say bad things about our country. It's kind of like being a parent. If you never said anything bad about your child, never criticized them, never pointed out that they were doing something wrong, and then carried around a picture of them everywhere you went, would that be considered being a good parent? Or would being supportive, but teaching, helping your child overcome mistakes and showing them what they did wrong so they can learn?
• Useful tools: I use the free tools from Google pretty regularly. I keep an online calendar on Google Calendar. I post pictures on Picasa. I write my documents on Google Docs. My Blog is hosted by Google Blogspot. And I bring it all together with iGoogle. This is the best tool of all. In 1 page I have my Gmail Inbox, My calendar, A link to my pictures and a link to my documents, and best of all Google Reader. Google Reader is a great tool that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds and then have recent articles pop up when they are created. So when my favorite blogs get a new post, or news from selected web sites they appear there. So if you are on line and want an easier way to manage things like e-mail, online calendars etc. and a 1 stop location to speed up the process of knowing when important news and/or updates on your favorite blogs (like mine!), iGoogle combined with free resources like Google Reader is the way to go.
• Since I will not be chained to a computer the next couple of days I probably won't post anything until Sunday when I have pictures from Spam-O-Rama and the barbecue.