Productivity sink

(Well, I can thank Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle for this. )

We woke up late this morning. I rushed around getting the kids up. Most of the family was getting up a half hour late. Megan was getting up an hour late (Don't get me started on how my 6 year old daughter already needs more time to get ready then anyone else in the house). I took over some of their morning chores, and tried to get them moving as fast as possible.

Everyone got underway on time. Except me. And it's not because I was doing their morning chores. It was because of twitter. I pulled up the web page as everyone was leaving, and saw this.

Needless to say, I lost another 30 minutes to that this morning.

It's 8 years later, and they're back

Taking a break over lunch, I visited a few blogs that I read. One of them had a few videos posted in a poll, trying to get one to promote. I'll show my favorite next week, but I thought this was funny enough to post.

To me, and to Wikipedia, it looks like at least some of the same actors from the original ad back around 2000. I thought the original ad campaign wasn't bad, but I think I liked the parodies more. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I like this one.

Muslim McCain Fans Confront Intolerance At Rally

I have seen video of a lot of intolerant religious talk. I agree with one of the young men in this video. You can question someone's ties, and policies, without being intolerant of their religion.



Update 2008-10-21 11:34 AM CDT:
How disappointing. I would love to hear what he has to say. Maybe he'll receive permission soon.

I Gave

Last Sunday, Tammy and I drove back from Houston as quickly as we could. We were planning on attending the March of Dimes fundraiser in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. It was another event where local chef's get together and cook and everyone samples their cooking. In this case, they weren't competing against each other, but most of them did provide the items for the live auction. There were also silent auction items up for bid. These were donated by local businesses.

The live auction was great, but it was punctuated by a few personal speeches from people who had benefited form the March of Dimes, as well as a video of the chef's and some March of Dimes kids painting the centerpiece.

Those videos were moving. I was in tears after the last one. I had to go to the bathroom and dry my eyes. I was ready to bid on the artwork. And then they started outside of my price range. I was really tempted to bid anyway. I didn't. I don't know where we would have put it anyway. But it was really tempting.

I can do the next best thing, online.


Update: I altered the post time to reflect now, rather then the day I started this post. Also here are a few pictures of the auction book:

Other giving

I've also been giving a few other locations this last week:

Carter Blood Care - I try to regularly donate platelets, as you may have seen on this blog. I went and donated this week. Always remember. Keep your arm straight, and don't jerk when they insert the needle. Needless to say, I have a huge bruise covering half of my forearm. Is it going to stop me from going back. Nope. It's never been this bad, but it's as much my fault as anyone's.

Equality California - I visit a few other blogs. Some political, some more focused on sex education. A few of them have referenced proposition 8 in California. Based on the video's that I have posted, I don't think my stance is in much question. I donated. I know that some think it isn't "traditional", but then neither is divorce, mixed-race marriage, marriage for love, single family households, and many other things that we have come to expect. But it does show our respect for love, and commitment.

Here's another one

CA's Prop. 8

I don't live in California, but I do like some of the ads that I have seen against Proposition 8. Here are two in particular that I like:


Freedom is a Republican Value



Love Poem

5 Friends PSA

I saw this yesterday and posted a link on, but here it is embeded. If you want to skip the video, and go to the related web site it is at http://maps.google.com/vote.