Kiva

You may have heard of this site: Kiva. It has been getting a lot of publicity lately, but it is a very interesting site. Basically you can lend out as little as $25 to entrepreneurs in developing countries. There are oppurtunities all over asia, south america, and africa. There currently is no earned interest on the loans, but I still think it is a very cool idea. Hopefully it can eventually expand to where you can make a little bit of money providing this small microloans.

4 Things

Following the strict internet rules regarding "tagging" I am posting my 4 Things post:

Four places I've lived:
1. SLC, Utah
2. Naperville, IL
3. Sacramento, CA
4. Denver, Co

Four jobs I've had:
1. Store Clerk at Osco Drug
2. Lawn Mower/Baby Sitter
3. Product Engineer for Flash
4. Graphics Driver Programmer

Four things I'd like to do before I die:
1. Go to a World Cup Game
2. Travel to Africa/Australia/Asia
3. Live in another country
4. Have kids

Four favorite desserts:
1. Sugar Cookies from Home
2. Special K Balls
3. Sherbert, Rasberries, 7-UP
4. Cinnamon Apple Crisp

4 interesting facts about me:
1. I have never broken a bone
2. I tore my ACL
3. I had cancer
4. I had Bell's Palsy

Four favorite t.v shows:
1. The Office
2. Avatar
3. Daily Show
4. ..I watch those online, I don't really have TV.

Half Dome

I hiked Half Dome this weekend with Robbie, Romo, and Judy. It kicked my butt. I will post another picture with the four of us in it :).

Birthdays & Paintings

I finally got Mike's painting shipped from Utah (Thanks MOM, Star, and Mike!). It was very nicely packaged by UPS. I will post another photo when I have it up on my wall. I love the colors of the desert and the sky, it will look great over my desk.


My Birthday is coming right up (Oct 2nd). If anyone is looking for an easy gift, you could buy me something from my brand new Amazon Wishlist!

Lexicography - Erin McKean - Google

Here is a very interested video, YouTube - Erin McKean: Redefining the dictionary it is actually about lexicography and it is very interesting. Erin comes to some interesting suggestions in the end about building a better database of words from the web.



In response to this I made a little quick and dirty search that shows the search's # of hits on the various google search databases (google, video, images, scholar, etc). And it makes a little bar graph, I might add more later.

Try it out!

Word Search

-Justin

Dinner with the Big Six

Here is a picture of my brother and grandfather when the little boys got to crash the dinner for the big six (Mom,Dad,Grams,Pops,Claudia,David). We enjoyed the fine dining of the Outback Steakhouse. My brother with the sleek glasses is just back from Iraq and quickly readjusting to the easy life :)

Andrew Bird Concert

www.myspace.com/andrewbird

I finally saw Andrew Bird at Harlows in Sacramento.  His live concert is a lot more exciting than the CD sounds.  The recorded tracks sound really mellow, but its much more vibrant and interesting live.

May is Bike to work month, but I haven't yet biked to work in May.  My allergies are killing me, but I might give it a go tomorrow anyway.  I need to start getting some regular excersize in, hopefully to lose weight.  I played volleyball on Tuesday which was the first sport I have played since my knee surgery, almost exactly 6mo after surgery.

Matrix Themed Halo, Metroid Mashup.

This is a pretty awesome mashup video Halo vs Metroid.

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=57998

Also, if you have a lot of free time, checkout the TED talks videos on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TEDtalksDirector

I am headed off to Naperville tomorrow for Garrett's wedding! It should be a lot of fun, especially since I haven't been back to Naperville in like 4 years.

How To Meet New People

1) Your Brother's roomate goes to Kenya on a Safari Tour
2) Roomate meets a fine Brittish Lass in the tundra
3) Brittish Lass visits Sacramento meets your brother
4) You move to Philadelphia where Brittish Lass's Friends are and voila!

Running Map - Sacramento to Folsom - Bike Trail (Sacramento, California)

Running Map - Sacramento to Folsom - Bike Trail (Sacramento, California)

I biked to work today, all the way from Sacramento. I wasn't exactly "fast" but at least I made it :)

Saturday Bike Ride

I took the American River Bike Trail to Sunrise today. I took the light rail most of the way back, but it still ended up being about 25 miles of biking.

Jason's Iraq Pictures

Jason has newIraq Pictures up on his photobucket site. I am pretty sure that having too many snacks from christmas shipments is the way things are supposed to be over there :)

I am doing well, knee is a lot better, work is good. I got to ride the Napa Valley Wine Train today as a work team event :) It is a fun 4 hour ride where they serve you an appetizer and lunch and you ride around looking at wineries.

Let the bowling begin...

So I went bowling last weekend, and I think I am finally starting to get the hang of bowling with my new ball.  I got two spares and a turkey in the first five frames (unfortunately the second five weren't so good).  I ended up with a 180, but I know how I like to throw it now, hooray!

I am going to be starting a bowling team in Folsom.  We aren't going to be the best bowlers, but we will have shirts!

Freezing Weather!

It is cold in California, like really really cold, below freezing!  There was actually ice on the sidewalk the other morning.  Now I know what you are thinking, but before you send money, warm blankets, video games, and Tang mix rest assured that we Californians are a hearty bunch.  We are survivors.

Sorry for the delay in updates, but I am not going to promise to post more regularly.

Did you see that Beckham is going to play Soccer in the US!  That is pretty exciting.  I hope that it will increase American interest in soccer, but the US and Soccer are like oil and water. 
TLTnews.net

I saw the knee surgeon yesterday.  Things are going well, I just need to keep excersizing it, start going into the gym, and lose 20 lbs :)

I bought a road bike.  It is a 2006 Specialized.  It was a decent road bike, but not too expensive.  It is last years model and it was on sale.

"When one looks into the abyss, the abyss looks into you."

-Justin