It looks ridiculous, but I must admit that I have a certain admiration for guys that can pull off wearing socks and flip flops.

Is it OK to assume that when my dog's sleeping and his tail's wagging, that he's dreaming about me?

This is how you keep your grass from growing over the top of your solar panels, incase you were wondering.  (Taken with my cell phone camera in Person County, NC)

Admittedly, I take a casual approach to church dress. Often I'm "barefoot in my Birkenstocks".  A few weeks ago, dressed that way I met a father of one of our members, who was probably in his upper 60's.  I sat a few rows ahead of him.  During the service I, being a geek, took notes on my ipad.  
After the service I passed by him and he said to me with a slight grin:  "Nice tablet.  It seems if you could afford one of those, you could afford socks and a haircut."
I smiled, and left speechless, which doesn't happen often.

This is how idiots shop when their wife isn't with them.  Email her pictures.

All this clamoring for Bin Laden's picture.  Like Jon Stewart, I don't quite get either side of this debate.  Say for example, if 35% of people don't believe he is dead because they don't trust the government, what percentage of those people are going to believe he is dead when the same government releases a picture.
They say we know it's him because of DNA evidence.  Evidently they saved his dead sister's brain so they could compare?  How did they know that was his sister?  I thought that maybe they got him to agree to a cotton swab dab of the inside of his cheek early on in the war on terror.
If he were still alive wouldn't he be holding up a newspaper headline proclaiming his death and sending the video to Al jazeera?
I just trust that they got him.  I gave the government my social security number after all.  Oh, wait.

When I was listening to a tech-related podcast the other day, (yes, “they” have those, think of it as a pre-recorded radio talk show that one downloads from the internet, the hosts were trying to describe people who don’t listen to tech-related podcasts.  The description they used is “normal people.”
I think that is an accurate description, so my intentions are to occasionally blog about tech for the normal people.
My first topic is the need to back up your data.  What do I mean by that?  It means having at least one extra copy of the items on your computer’s hard drive.  The data (pictures, documents, videos, etc.) stored on your computer is on a hard drive.  This is a mechanical piece of equipment with small discs and other moving parts that work together to store, and access your data.  (There are SSD’s, or solid-state drives with non moving parts, but if you’re still reading this you probably don’t have one of those and you should still be backing up your data if you do.)
Guess what happens to these hard drives?  At some point every single one of them, including yours, will fail.  Now, often this might be after you have changed computers or I suppose it could sit unused in a corner for eternity and not technically fail, but someday it will.  
When it fails, i.e. breaks, it’s not going to let you get your data off of it.  Sometimes it might happen that you’ll hear it click first and you might get a new drive in time, but in most cases there is no warning.
So, unless you don’t care if you lose all those pictures of little Bobby and Sally since they were newborns, you better have a backup.  
The simplest way to do this is with an external hard drive.  The good news is these are widely available and affordable.  This one on Amazon is $73, and will hold 1TB of data.  (That’s 1,000 Gigabytes, or also known as "plenty")
You plug this into your USB port and run a back up.  On the Mac side, just open Time Machine, select the drive and let it run.
For Windows 7 users, here are the instructions.  If you’re running a different version, there are other options.  I would stay away from the programs that put all of your data into one big “blob.”  You should have the option to be able to go in and choose individual files.
An additional option for backing up is “cloud storage.”  This is using a service on the internet and uploading your data to the “cloud”, which in reality is someone else’s computer, actually called a server.  It is good to back up to the cloud to prevent loss from fire or theft of your computer. Amazon recently rolled out a service for 5 GB of free data.  If you buy one MP3 album from them, they’ll increase that to 20 GB, which is quite a good deal.  

Thankfully I don’t have to travel by plane for work very often, but I found myself having to take three trips in two weeks.  Some observations:

Despite all the bad press TSA agents get, the ones I encountered were quite pleasant.  I did endure one full body scan with the controversial imaging machines.  Here were my results, but they still let me through:

(Yes, I usually wear my toupee when I travel.)

Once you get through security at the Milwaukee airport they have what is known as a "Recombobulation Area".  I was all set to make fun of this, but I discoverd the TSA intended it as a joke.  They evidently have a better sense of humor than I thought. 

Delta Airlines, bless their hearts, still give you your choice of peanuts or some type of cookie-biscuit-cracker-wafer-cardboard thing.  When I received my 4 ounces of Diet Coke from the flight attendant on Continental, I waited expectantly for my morsels of food.  I was denied as the attendant and her polyester uniform  made their way down the aisle with nary a crumb for me.  Next time, charge me .50 more for my ticket and give me my nuts.

On my way to Milwaukee I had to connect through Chicago.  Time to walk from my arrival gate to departure gate: 16 minutes.  Wheels up to wheels down flight time to Milwaukee: 11 minutes.

I need to relax I guess.  I hadn't looked at an "in-flight magazine" in quite a while.  I found this and hope it does the trick:

It "massages" your head.  I try to shave and not pose when I use mine.

Through a friend who is a social worker, my wife Cathy and I had the opportunity to help a woman and her children with some household goods. A series of bad decisions and a life hampered by psychological issues had left the mother and her children homeless.

She made the decision to let her children be put in foster care while she got back on her feet. Four months later she was in an three bedroom apartment with a couch, beds for her and her children and not much else.

Through the generosity of friends, neighbors, and a few good deals at the Goodwill store we were able to furnish her apartment with lamps (the family room was not lit), a family room chair, small entertainment center, dressers, and a few other items.
The son John, (not his real name), received one of the dressers. With the help of a friend we took it into his bare room that had a bed, a few toys, and piles of clothes on the floor. He directed us where to put it and was happy to have something for his clothes. 

My friend David (his real name) and I returned to the family room only to be called back to the room by John a few minutes later. He was curious about the keyhole in the drawers of the dressers, wondering if we had the key for it. "No", I replied, "there is no key for it." 

John also noticed there was no knob on one side of the middle drawer. "Do you have a knob for this?"
Again, my answer was "No, sorry." David and I showed him how to pull out the right side, put his fingers under the left, and then pull the drawer out all the way. 

"I will try and find you a knob," I said as we left that evening.
We retuned the next week with a few more items and I had a knob. It didn't match, not even close. I went to screw it on only to be frustrated by the fact that the hole was too big for the screw head-I would tighten the knob, but it would pull the screw through and fall out. I needed a washer for the screw, but did not have one.

We returned once more and I had a washer.  I asked him if he had the knob and he quickly found it. "Do you have the screw I asked?"
As he looked on his floor that had matchbox cars and more toys scattered all around, I was afraid there was no way he would find it. I looked under his bed and noticed that his bed frame, instead of being held in place by wood planks, was supported by a pair of aluminum crutches.
But after a few minutes, amazingly enough the screw was found and I was finally able to put the misfit knob into place. "Thanks", said John, grateful that the middle drawer would now pull out with relative ease.
As I thought about John and his drawer during the past two weeks I struggled with what I should do.  Does John deserve more than a used dresser with a mismatched knob?
Dear reader, if you’re still with me, I am a Christian, I have been given eternal life and infinite blessings through Christ’s death on the the cross for me.  I was far poorer spiritually than John and his family are physically.  I have been redeemed and renewed.

This is the section where I should provide some answers I suppose, but I don't have any. Only questions.  Have I truly served the poor?  Have I treated John and his family as I would want to be treated?  Have I truly sacrificed for them?  
I leave them, and drive home to my nice house with relatively new furniture and all the comforts.  My knobs match.  My drawers pull out with ease.  My bed is properly supported.    
In his book Generous Justice, Tim Keller, commenting on Deuteronomy 15:4-5 writes:
The poor man was not to be given merely a token "handout".  Rather, credit and help were to be extended until he was completely out of poverty.  The generosity extended to the poor could not be cut off until the poor person's need was gone and until he reached a level of self-sufficiency.
I write this not to boast, or to instill guilt.  I realize I can never match the gift I have been given.  But, it's worth the struggle to ponder these things.  I need to reflect on my life, my time, and my wallet.  I do know the gift and the blessings I have received need to be shared more.   
Dear Lord, I am a broken dresser with a missing knob, be merciful to me.  

Latest headline from my local paper involving a cow: "[Chairman] Alston declares a truce over Yow's cow adoption."

Men, if you're going to wear a scarf, I would suggest it be for warmth only and not as an accessory. This especially applies when it is 40+ degrees out. 

I think one of the funniest facial expressions a dog makes is when he's defecating. "Hey, stop looking at me, I need some privacy." 

I notice some realtors put their picture on your yard signs, while others don't. Do the ones that do think to themselves, "This handsome mug could help sell a house.". Conversely, do others think "If I were just a little better looking I could put my picture on my signs."  This guy seems to agree.  This picture looks like a mug shot:

From Rick Reilly's post on dumbest things said at the Superbowl:

As I mentioned in my first post, I am an ingrained amateur photographer. When I post about photography any tips I give will be fairly basic.  They'll be based on what I have read and experienced.  

It's somewhat odd that my first post would be about the family portrait.  Whenever we are on vacation or having a family gathering, I groan to myself just thinking about trying to get the kids to look at the camera and smile.  The picture below sums up what a lot of us experience-not just the person taking the picture.  I was getting the camera and tripod set up this past summer at the beach and snapped this picture of my family.  They look real excited about the process don't they?

I eventually took a better portrait, even though it had me in it.  Here are some things I have learned while trying to take the dreaded, I mean blessed, family portrait over the years.

-The magic "say______" trick doesn't really work.   Fill in your favorite: "cheese", "pizza", "Canada", "Canadian-cheese pizza", "root canal", "tax-deductible IRA contribution", whatever we fill in the blank with just makes our kids shout a word while raising their eyebrows.  Skip it and let them be at ease, while hopefully giving you a nice smile.

-Take the silly picture first. It's normal to want to get the hard part over first, and then let them goof around-stick their tongues out, strangle their siblings, etc. after you have tried to get the "serious" picture. But if you let your kids (and adults) goof off first, then they tend to relax. Once they calm down, start firing away, (with your camera, that is), they will most likely have a more natural smile and hopefully be in a better mood.

I took this shot of my three after they had goofed around some and it's one of my family favorites:

-The point of the picture is to remember.  This is a hard one to recall in the heat of the picture-taking moment.  We're always wanting a perfect smile, perfect hair placement (well, for some of us), open eyes looking at the camera, and good posture.  But, often these pictures are simply marking that you were at a certain place, at a certain time, with a group of people.  So, relax!  And when you look back on your old pictures, don't you normally have a chuckle looking at a funny expression or closed eyes anyway?

Are your vacations or family gatherings "perfect"? Why should your pictures be?

Squirrels, why do you have to bury your nuts in my yard, killing precious blades of grass?  I'm not climbing your tree and sticking ham sandwiches in your nest.

My local newspaper's headline for today: "Chairman challenges Yow over stray cows."  I thought I lived in a bigger town than that would indicate.

I wish we could treat Canadian geese like house flies. Swat, and no more of your poop on my sidewalk.  Pardon the animal hostility.

Oyster.com books hotel rooms.  One thing they do different is show you realistic pictures of where you will be staying.  The picture to the left is a seemingly nice size room with a king bed at the Holiday Inn NYC-Wall Street.  The picture is on the hotel's web site.

This is the picture on oyster.com's website.  Notice they didn't crop out the wall on the right.  Tight fit, isn't it?  It looks like the door is going to hit the bed when it opens.

Man, I hope this gets better.