Today as I was going through my mental startup routine at work I realized that I have stopped checking Grant's blog. I don't even know when I stopped checking it. But somehow, some time, I stopped. And I thought to myself, "maybe I should write a post about people keeping their blogs updated."

"Nah, I've already written a couple like that. What if I write a post about how we should get this mess of an Internet cleaned up and remove old outdated sites." Sites that haven't been touched for 3 years, profiles on linkedin with your email address from that place where you no longer work and now you can't remember your password or get a password reminder so you just started a new profile. You all know at least one person that has done that. I know a couple. But how would it be if we searched for something and we didn't see forum threads that haven't been touched or even viewed for years? Ok, I realize that sometimes those are important posts, but the majority could go. The problem is that it can't be done by a googlebot, it needs to be done by people.

So as I'm thinking this, I accidentally click the link to Grant's blog. "WHOA! What's that?!?! He wrote something! Grant actually posted something!"

I'm speachless. I don't know what to say. And there's not enough posted for me to comment on but wow, Grant posted something.

So there's been a lot of talk about gas milage and such lately. I have even done my own experiments to see what really makes a difference in my gas milage.

Then I read about these Hyper-milers a few weeks ago. Turning off the car and coasting on the freeway, drafting behind big-rig trucks, altering your driving routes to avoid "low milage zones" mostly just common sense things. Except for the drafting behind a hugh hunk of metal with the car turned off, that one kinda screams out "Kill me now!"

So I decided that if some schmuck in Phoenix can get over 100MPG in his little car, I could probably get to 50 or 60 in my wonder-mobile. So I tried all of it except for turning off the car on the freeway. I drafted everywhere, I avoided every red light I could, I coasted every possible chance I had, I turned off the car at almost every stoplight. It seemed like it was going well too. Out of my 10 gallon tank I managed to squeeze about 360 miles. Official Milage upon refill: 37.8 MPG

Hmmm I really expected it to be over 40 or 45. "Hmmm, maybe there's something wrong with my car that's really hurting the milage."

So I ran another test. Fuel concious but normal driving, decent speed on the freeway without drafting, turn the car off in the drive-throughs and predictable lights, getting into high gear as soon as possible without overdoing it. But then I threw in a high speed drive up the canyon becuase I was going to be late for a round of golf. Still with the bad fuel economy there, I managed to end up with an MPG of 35.7.

So yeah, I don't see the big deal with these hyper-milers.

I remember when I was a kid that I wasn't allowed to watch Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Supposedly it was "too scary". That was fine with me, I never really liked scary movies anyway. So when I finally watched it a few years ago, I remember thinking "Hmmmm, what's the big deal? That wasn't scary"

So yesterday I went to practice my golf swing. And a little putting as well. So there I am on this huge practice putting green and I can hear the birds around. Didn't exactly remind me of "The Birds". It kinda reminded me of the picture perfect summer day. Nice almost cool breeze, birds chirping, nothing but me and the golf ball. Concentrate on form. Nice and easy. Good putt. I was getting into a pretty good rhythm and was sinking a few 14 footers. (that's really good for me)

So there I am putting away. Just about to swing and I hear a bird chirp that seems unusually loud. And close. So I turn thinking "wow that bird needs to tone it down a little." And there it was, flapping away about 2 feet from my head. "whoa," I thought to myself "that bird didn't even see me. Stupid bird!" So back to my putting. Concentrate, relax, don't concentrate too hard, don't relax THAT much. Good putt. Move on to the next hole. Good form... "WHAT THE CRAP?!?" The bird buzzed me again! I was pretty sure at this point that the bird was attracted to my bright new yellow golf shirt and just wanted to check it out.

"Alright, just ignore the bird. We're here to practice golf. Concentrate, watch out for the bird, concentrate... Was that a shadow of a flying menace?! Just shake it off. Concentrate, swing." K, at this point I realized that if you are worried about something hitting you in the head, it's really hard to truly concentrate. So I decide to call it a day and go find that last ball that was only supposed to go a few feet and ended up WAY off the green. So I go put away the balls and start to put away the club when I notice the birds (Yes there is a whole team of them at this point) keeping an eye on this other guy practicing his chipping. And every few minutes, when he was facing exactly away from a bird, it would do this little dive bomb thing and chirp and fly away just inches from his head.

Now I was pissed. I wasn't about to let Alfred's birds ruin my day practicing. So I bend down to get the balls back out of my golf bag and "Squawk!!!" One snuck in from behind me. So I start thinking about the movie, Holy crap, there were only like 3 or 4 birds in this sortie. Imagine thousands like in the movie. Holy crap that's scary!

I hate birds now.

The only time I have ever killed a deer was several years ago. I strongly believe in not making animals suffer but that they are here for us and it's our right and sometimes our responsibility to harvest them. (Take that PETA!) So when I shot my first deer I was carefull to shoot for a sure kill and not maim him.

I was also hunting with another guy who was a little younger than I was. We had both taken quite a few shots at this deer and it kept dodging the bullets (NEO?) Finally it ran over the hill. So off we went, and there it was, just standing with it's butt pointing straight at us. Neither of wanted to hit in in the hind quarters and ruin all the meat so we both drew a bead and waited for him to turn his head.

I was aiming at the juglar. He was aiming at the brain. Both good places to get a sure kill. And then he turned. Two shots rang out (even though I only heard one) and the deer spun around and fell right there. I knew one of us had a good hit. And no doubt about it, it hadn't suffered. (except at being annoyed at having to dodge our first volley).

It was only about 20 paces off and by the time we got there, it had bled out completely. We had both hit our targets And the image of the hot pool of blood on the ground has stayed with me.

I don't regret killing the deer. We split a lot of good meat. But I haven't killed one since. Mostly because of how busy I am but partly becuase I don't like the "taking a life" part of hunting. Right now, I'm doing ok with the supermarket.

This morning I was inconvenienced on the way to work by some slow traffic. Lots of cops, a fire truck or two, but no ambulance. I knew the accident had just happened and it looked serious. Then when I got close, I saw the motorcycle. And the semi truck. And a pool of blood. I knew that pool of blood. Humans don't have much more blood than my deer did. It could only mean one thing. I knew why there was no ambulance. My heart sank. It's been about 6 hours and I've just had my suspicions confirmed by KSL news. I know what instantly means. I've seen it before. I'm not sure exactly what this will change in my life yet but I have certainly spent a good deal of time thinking about it today.

To the family of the motocyclist, my sincerest regrets. If it can be of any comfort, know that he didn't suffer. That doesn't change the "taking a life part". That's hard enough to bare. I can't imagine including the suffering along with the loss of life.

How many times have I complained (or just commented) about being soooo busy? I don't even know. Ever since I left SCO and went back to school, I recall thinking quite often "I can't possibly be any busier than this" but it's not true. I think there's some mathematical equation we could come up with that will tell you how much busier you could be without exploding at any given moment.

But that's not what I'm really worried about. What I'm really concerned with is keeping the bills paid and keeping Main10 growing. A little while ago I came to the conclusion that I couldn't do both. I'm not willing to just throw in the towel and give up on it just because it needs more money to keep growing.

So I did the next best thing, I removed myself from the payroll so that the company could use that money better. Course that doesn't exactly help me with the "paying the bills" part of my goals does it?

So, the solution: I started a day job. I get to work early and work through lunch so I can leave and get to Main10 before the close of business. Everyone has done a really good job at picking up some of the slack so that the company can still function correctly.

Bottom line? Yes once again, I am busier than I think I have ever been. And am I sooo busy that I couldn't fit anything else? Sure seems like it. But I am determined not to let golf suffer (too much anyway) this summer. If I have to get up at 6:00 AM on Saturday so I can go hit a bucket or something then I guess that's just what I'll have to do. So what else can I add? I'm almost afraid to ask.

So I actually watched the Mac keynote yesterday. After I watched the play-by-play on mac rumors live. and I caught my self several times being excited like the people who were actually present. All I can say is "wow". I don't know how they can pull it off time after time after time. They let all the rumors build and build and then somehow, they don't disappoint. and the whole thing has the feeling of a rock concert. Something like what the Monkeyboy could only dream of.

And I was actually thinking of doing a blog post on how the iPhone saved me $20 to $50 the other day and saved the day completely.

Ok, fine. so I'll tell it.

So my wife has a bunch of plants that she started from seed and grew in the window starting in February. And she has weeded them out (no pun intended) so that we only have the best ones to plant in the garden when it's finally ready. Well all we have this really REALLY bad clay. All the advice I have received is to blend in LOTS of mulch. Like a trailer full. Problem is, I don't have a trailer and I don't want to buy one just to pull mulch. So my good neighbor comes over and says, "Hey I have my brothers trailer for a couple days, you wanna borrow it?" So we say yes. We'll have it through Saturday. Perfect.

So Saturday we had this big expedition planned to go to the landfill and buy some mulch. So we get there, it closes in 30 minutes. So Yanilza runs up to the front of the line of trucks and trailers to make sure we're in the right place for mulch. Yes we are, except they are out of mulch. They say that the one in Provo has some. "Great, where's that?"

So as we take off to find the Provo landfill, I think to my self, "Self, what if they are out too?" So I pull over and whip out the trusty iPhone. - map search landfill. No results for Provo. Hmmm There's a place in South Jordan. - called them (by tapping the phone number in the listing. How easy is that?) They're out too. Not finding any luck with maps. - jump to Safari. - Google "provo landfill". Bingo! There's the website. Who would have thought that a landfill would have a website?

Ok, so turns out, that the Provo landfill is no longer really a landfill. It's a giant pile of dirt with a road up to the top were they accept green refuse and sell mulch. Lots of mulch. They even had this cool mulch plus - the upgraded mulch. It comes with fertilizer.

And as I'm sitting there, driving down the road with my load of crap (with old wood and dirt mixed in) I realize that I never would have found this place, I would have had to find a different trailer, I would have wasted half a tank of gas $$$$$ driving around looking for a dump or driving up to another dump without any mulch.

How much money did my little technological wonder just save me? I haven't really added it up but I suppose I could. I'd just whip out my trusty iPhone with it's ever useful calculator and figure it out.

So I have an interesting situation here. We met with a potential client yesterday. Everything sounds Promising. They have employed a friend of mine who is in charge of the marketing. He has recommended using Main10 to do the writing for the Internet marketing efforts. I am assuming that they'll say yes. And it'll be a good contract for us.

At the end of our meeting yesterday one of their guys mentioned that they wanted to be able to push some negative comments out of the top 10. I figured "Hey, everyone gets some negative comments" but I decided today to go take a look at the "negative comments". All I can say is "WOW" either someone is really out to get them or they have really screwed up big time in the past.

Judging by the dates in the posts it looks like they might have had some bad business ideas or bad customer service reps in the past and are now over it. Maybe it was an elaborate revenge scheme concocted by a really really disgruntled employee. I can't really tell at this point. If they are indeed a scam, I don't want to be affiliated with them in any way. But I feel that I need to give them the benefit of the doubt until I have something more than a handful of raging comments.

I'll see if I can actually post an update on this one when I know more.

All my friends will tell you that I hate MLM. Having got my start in the web industry working at an ISP that was MLM I have been exposed to all the reasons to hate MLMs. So I thought. I have since become familiar with the likes of other MLMs: make up, heath products, crazy foreign country juice, crazy foreign country juice II (which tastes much better by the way), "we sell everything" websites, legal services, business services and now telecommunications.

I've heard it all. I've consulted with corporate, dealt with over zealous distributors (you know the type), mingled with creative directors for some, helped my wife market her own make up sales, and sat in meetings with principles. I have dealt with just about every possible angle of MLM and though I appreciate what some of them are doing, I still hate MLM. So when Perry called me and wanted me to listen to his new opportunity, I agreed to listen but I had already made my decision. There's nothing anyone could have said that would make me want to sign up for an MLM.

But then they (he brought a friend) showed me that I could get the same services that I am already using without paying some weird inventive premium for the privilege of helping a friend build his downline. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Qwest local and long distance, Direct TV. I could also get a VoIP phone for home for less than Vonage and it has better quality. I got to demo the video phone. OK, no kidding, that was cool. Then they told me about their strategy for building their network. "Wait, so you don't want me to just go sign up everyone in my family? This is different. This actually... dare I say it... makes sense. Did I just hear me correctly there? Did I just say it makes sense?!?! Hmmmmm I'll have to think about this."

So I did it, I signed up. If you are out of contract on your cell plan, go to my version of the ACN wireless site and sign up for a new plan.

So we're getting ready to go to our first trade show. I only have a million things to do to get ready for it so what am I doing? I'm sitting here writing on my blog listening to Pandora. Among the things I have to do is: write 3 brochures, design 3 brochures, reserve things for our booth, buy some swag to give away at the show, design and order the display stuff. The good thing is that there are a bunch of things already done: Get the website re-designed, write new content for the website (mostly done) get the booth reserved, create a plan to make our booth cool and memorable without having guitar hero or rock band on the big screen, design a special table for our contest, get the table ordered, plan our swag and materials.

We finally got a new design up on the Main10 website. I am also working on re-writing all the content. You know, so it focuses a little more on Internet Marketing and not so much on the Web Management, Web Design and Web Development. We also decided we wanted to create a page with Bio information on everyone here. So yesterday I gave out the assignments to have everyone write up a short bio on themselves and give it to Andy so he can make them sound good. That is turning out to the hardest part. I have about 9 starts to mine so far. And I still don't really like any of them.

So this is supposed to be the part where the creative juices start flowing and I get some inspiration and just write this really cool, slightly offbeat, slightly humorous blurb about my self. Hmmmm, it's not working.

Maybe I should just post some incomplete thought. Hmmmmm, that's probably a bad idea.

So Jonathan's big birthday bash went off without a hitch. Except that getting nine 8-year-olds to listen to you when you send them after pirate treasure with a treasure map can be a little... how you say?... Impossible?

So the kids started showing up before the pizza, which was supposed to kick off the party. Jonathan even had his old friends from Orem show up. That was cool. And to keep the kids entertained until the pizza and pirate hats showed up, we played the Rock Game. Especially when you get some kids that are moderately competitive it can be quite a useful tool to keep the kids still/quite. We only played 3 rounds and that managed to fill the 20 minutes until lunch arrived.

And I am ever impressed with the ability of kids to inhale pizza when they have friends to impress. Yes, I used to do it too, I just forgot exactly how it works since I've learned to slow down and enjoy what I'm eating.

Then it was off to chase the pirate treasure. I gave them two clues: "You don't have to go past that street there, and this street here. And you don't have to go in the mud, SO DON"T GO IN THE MUD." What I should have said, is "If you go in the mud, you have to walk the plank." and had a real plank there to show them that it's not a good thing. So they managed to stay out of the mud for about 2 minutes. And then only 4 kids went in the mud. And only 2 of those lost their shoes.

Finally we matched up all the clues and landmarks and one of the kids found the treasure. Then you see the greedy/piratey side come out. HOLY cow! One of the kids managed to get about half the loot into his bag three times before I could get his attention again and again to tell him that pirates divide things up equally.

Then the best part; a Jolly Roger cake with lots and lots of black frosting. If you have never eaten black frosting, don't. It doesn't taste any better than any other color and it makes your face look like you just died. Not to mention what it does to your teeth.

And then it was over, the parents showed up to get their kids and a big storm showed up to make sure no more treasure hunting could be done outside. And they were all gone. Just like that. So we spent the rest of the day playing with new Transformer, Lego and robot toys, until we got tired of that. Then we played a couple rounds of Pirates of Fangor. I would say that Pirates of Fangor is about half way done. It's turning out to be quite fun.

So I really don't want my site to be a "100 Reasons I Hate Winter" blog but it seems that it's turning out that way isn't it?

So do i need to say it? Yes I think I do. "I HATE SNOW AND WINTER!!!"

Some things I didn't cover in the video. Yes the basement was flooding. Yes the ground around the foundation is sinking. (Please never buy a house from Alpine Homes; the kings of corner cutting.) Yes it took me three hours of digging and shoveling. And yes, my hands are now sore and blistering. I guess that's what I get for having a job where I just sit at a desk all day.

On a happier note, I finished the invitations for Jonathan's big 8th birthday bash. Here is a nice picture of one of them. (I figured that Jonathan should get an invitation too.)

I just hope I can make the rest of the party look as piratey (if that's even a word).

I don't mean to keep pounding this one into the ground but have I mentioned how much I hate snow? I have? Oh well then, I'll make this short.

I think I drive pretty well. I think I even drive pretty well in the snow. I could be wrong, but I have a decent record to present as exhibit A. So yesterday when Joel got back from an errand and said, "Hey if you don't have to be here for anything specific, you should probably leave early today." I kinda shrugged it off. Then my wife called sounding quite concerned. I had a little prompting that maybe I should listen.

So I headed home. I made the freeway drive in regular time. I was thinking, "Well, I'll just play Pirates of Fangor with Jonathan all afternoon or something" I was getting close to empty but I knew I had enough to wait til tomorrow. And besides, that wind looks miserable. I don't want to stand there at a gas pump and get my face blown off by the 69 MPH gusts." But then I felt a little prompted to just suck it up and fill the car with gas. So I pulled into the Costco gas and got my face blown off by the wind but had a full tank of gas none-the-less. So off I went.

Then I got another call. "The kids bus isn't here yet". What the crap? its almost 4:00. They should have been home long ago. So then I timed the drive through Lehi as part of my Beat the Traffic System research. Made it through downtown Lehi in normal time. And then I saw it. Or should I say, didn't see it?

The truck that was less than 3 car lengths in front of me just disappeared. Gone. Nothing to see. "Oh there it is again. Wow this snow is really bad."

Then another call, "K there is a bus here but it's the wrong bus and there are no kids on it. They said that the Porcupine bus is sitting at the Chevron."

"Great I'll just stop and pick them up on the way. It's only another half mile to the gas station." An hour later, after watching the hood of my car disappear this time, I pull into the gas station. I walk up to the bus. Hmmm, it's the wrong bus. Looks like my kids bus went back to the school.

So I head up to the school. It's 5:00 by now. Saw the kids get off the bus and got them all rounded up and loaded into the car. Man that's a cold wind.

Then it took 3 hours to make the 3 mile trip home. That's what happens when there are 2 roads into large growing city and they are both closed due to accidents.

So, yes. I hate snow.

Oh and happy Valentine's Day.