Check out this item at Lifestyle Fascination. A Casio Wristwatch Camera. It's a black and white digital camera WITH DISPLAY that fits on your wrist, with time, calendar, alarms, stopwatch, databank, and storage for 100 pics! It connects to your PC for up and downloads and it's $199!
Man, if I had the money right now, I'd....probably buy something else...but if I had LOTS of money, I'd buy this. I LOVES gadgets.

Northern Dogs Forum has a message train that talks about a bad situation in Alaska where salmon have not returned to spawn. This is causing a problem for locals who depend upon the fish as a food source for their husky population. They are shooting their own dogs rather than let them starve to death due to the shortage. The most chilling entry is this message thread is the last line of this message, "....we have messed up big-time, and the fish are gone..."
Think about that. Close your eyes, and imagine the anguish of knowing that something we have done to the environment has caused this catastrophe. Rather than waxing poetic about it, I'll just let you stew on how deep a meaning that could have, and how it could happen to any of us.

Wow, you know, the weirdest things in the world happen by coincidence, and it always seems so amazing. As I may have already mentioned, I signed my son up for Cub Scouts. Now, when you sign up for Cub Scouts, you get to be recruited into the organization as well, because they need volunteers to run things. As some of you may know, I've already fallen for this and did some Little League coaching in the past. Well, I fell for it again, and when they asked for volunteers for den leaders, my hand went up. So did someone else's hand in our pack. His name is Gautier too, just like mine. And he has a son...the aforementioned in this column, the one with whom my son's school lunch record has been scrambled with. The one whose middle name is the same as my son's first, and whose first initial matches my sons middle initial. So, is this a small world or what? Mr. Gautier and I will be leading our son's cub scout pack this year, and I think we'll have plenty of fun doing it, but I just can't wait for all the administrative head-scratching it's going to cause. You just KNOW that some well-meaning administrator somewhere will decide that the paperwork must be wrong, and try to straighten it out by deleting one of the records in a computer, or ignoring half of the paperwork...especially mixed up when I submit a change of address at the same time. Whoo-boy....will keep you posted!

The cable is out. This happens just too often. The one problem I think I'm going to have with going to a cable modem is going to be when there are outages like this. With the phone system, I have never had it go out on me (although Sprynet has had problems in the past.). Using a dialup as a backup is going to suck big time once I get used to the speed of a cable modem.
My kid has a cold (and now a fever). Kids can be so miserable when they are sick. The poor guy wants to go outside and play but now that he has a fever, he's been put on restriction. With half of the cable channels gone, I'm really in a pinch, because he's still an extremely active kid and that means I have to be too. Gotta run.

It looks like the problems between BLOGGER and TRIPOD have cleared up. I'm glad for that. It was starting to stress me out having to do manual updates to my website. I picked up a new book: The Code Book. Nope, I still haven't finished those other books I'm reading, but this book caught my eye because it explained many different encryption schemes, and the history of them. Some of the European history in the book was very interesting, such as the story about Mary Queen of Scots, and how bad encryption was her downfall. I'm about halfway through the book now, and it still has my attention. The reviews at Amazon give it 5/5 stars, and I tend to agree with that rating. If you are interested in either history or cryptography, it's a good read.

My son began playing in the Pokemon League today. I sat with him and tried to help him play. Sometimes he took my advice, and sometimes he didn't. Kids are like that. They tend to think that they know everything and ignore their parents when they want to. I tried to just bite my tongue and let him make his own mistakes, and praised him when he made good choices by himself. Being a parent can be tough. As for the Pokemon League, it looked like fun. I might join myself :-)

One reason that I still pay for Internet access has been my web space. Recently, I've established this space here on Tripod and I've been slowly weaning off my ISP's email address and using a reflector adresss instead (found here). I'm going to be giving up my account at Sprynet when I move, since I'll be getting a cable modem.
The one difference between my Sprynet webspace and Tripod is support. We have had a problem blogging to Tripod recently, and there's no one I can call for support. I've left several emails for the support team without response. So, with cheap [or free] services, you get a lack of support services. This is important to remember as you utilize services in the new economy. It's not so new a concept, you know, getting what you pay for.

For those of you who want to help others, here's a web site that will make it easier. Helping.Org will help you find just the right volunteer opportunity to meet your (and their) needs. By checking for volunteer requirements in a ZIP code near you, you'll be able to find a way to volunteer for anywhere from an hour of your time up to full time. What's really nice about this is that even those of us with a full schedule can still find a way to help others, easily! What a great use of the Internet!

ALERT!!
Here is a VERY cool article about: Coating Isolates Nuclear Waste. This article talks about a new coating called EKOR that will possibly enable us to stop nuclear radiation from contaminating the environment. For those of you who may not have learned in high school, radiation emissions from radioactive materials only diminishes with time. There is no known way to neutralize their radioactivity. Storing and transporting highly radioactive items is dangerous because the radioactive material breaks up as it diminishes. Flakes and dust that break off from the items are hazardous just as the original material is. These flakes and dust particles enter the surrounding environment (such as the water table) and pose severe bio-hazards. Shielding of radioactive materials is very difficult because the materials used to shield it are affected by the radiation itself and either become radioactive or break down completely. This new coating has stood up to a several month test where it is showing no such effects from its application to the most poisonous place on the planet - the Chernobyl nuclear reactor #4!
This has VAST importance! If this stuff works, it could allow us to possibly encapsulate nuclear waste, and maybe even eventually make it fairly safe to be handled, transported and stored with little or no effect on the surrounding biology.

Wow, you know what I just read? An Oklahoma State University student had his computer seized by the police for distributing illegal copies of music. Apparently, the student was ftping the files and lots of them from what the article said. The source is quoted as the 'Chronicle of Higher Education Online, September 18 2000'. I'm reading from an abstract service called Edupage by Educause.
The interesting thing about this is that it's touted as being 'news' that someone can be held liable for an illegal act. "Hello?!" This shouldn't be news. If you do something illegal, like copying music or programs, and you don't have at least an inkling that you COULD indeed be prosecuted for it, then your parents didn't do their job.
Ugh! I am so upset that this is such a big deal for everyone.