Blue Marble

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam." - Carl Sagan

I suppose this is kind of a weird blog but I'm sitting here at home watching Cosmic Voyage on one of the channels I have and it reminded me of that quote above and I thought it was amazing. I know, I know. It sounds like I should be high, right? Cosmic Voyage? I mean, come on. But I'm not. Anyway, then it reminded me of this video which I thought was crazy (great music and all)...



And then! In the Cosmic Voyage I think they did a remake of the "Powers of 10" video (I think Jeff may have showed me that one) but this time Morgan Freeman was narrating. So I looked for it and here it is (the new version)...



And for some reason, I just think it's freakin' amazing. I guess it's sorta geeky and you may find no interest in it at all but I think it's kind of profound, especially when you think about it as Carl Sagan put it. I started to put it in the perspective of what's going on in the world and it makes you think. Interesting stuff, in my opinion.

2006 Year in Review, Part 2

I thought this might happen... I wouldn't follow up my previous blog with what I said I would. Ah well... Here's some quick hits:

Work
It's been an interesting year for work -- pretty much my first real work since graduating. I worked for four different clients, worked in three different cities, and actually didn't mind it too much. In all, it brought me out to Cleveland (Akron), Seattle quite briefly, and Santa Clara (haha, which probably doesn't count as a different city). But it also took me out to Las Vegas for a conference, and Irvine for our headquarters. I hope there will be other nice places to visit soon. Which brings us to...

Travel
On the Boeing 737-800, you typically do not want to be in the 29th row since it sits directly across from the restrooms. A broken door that doesn't allow it to fully close when unoccupied can be brutal. Luckily I was able to move. However, on a 737-700 there's only 25 rows in economy class, and the only time you want to be in either seat B or E (which are typically middle seats) is when you're in row 12. In lucky row number 12, it's an exit row and there is no window seat. So the middle seat pretty much becomes a combination of a window and an aisle. It's pretty nice. The row after it, 14 (there are no row 13's in planes), is also sorta nice if you get the window seat because there is no seat in front of you.

These are things I learned during my various trips while away on business. Continental Airlines has a fan in me. Since February I've accumulated a little over 110,000 miles with them. Of course, not all of those are actual miles I've traveled, but I think it's a cool little statistic. It's sort of sad that the biggest thing I looked forward to when traveling to Ohio was reaching various mileage milestones. 50,000 took a while, but after that it was pretty quick.

Friends
My friends seem happy, and that's always a good thing.

Family
My cousin got married and that was pretty awesome.

Life
Life is pretty good right now. I'm "working" from home which is never really a good thing because of my ADD, but it's ok. Work hasn't gotten mad yet.

Future
Who knows what the future will bring? Alls I knows is that this blog will come to an end. Now.

I know. It was a half-assed effort but I have to get back to "working".