Forgot your laptop charger.

Sorry I've been away for a couple of days. We have had some family things come up that I wanted to give attention to.

Now on to another idea I had while we were in California.

I made the uber mistake of leaving my charger at home for my laptop. I had an almost fully charged 9 hour battery, but even that would be eaten up pretty quick. So I checked email sparingly, facebooked a little, and looked up a couple of California maps.

I did go to Radio Shack and Staples to check on buying a Universal Charger, but I didn't want to spend $100 on a charger that would only get used on trips. So I thought to myself, how nice it would be, to take my computer somewhere to get it fully charged...like a radio shack or best buy type place.

Now I know most folks look for this type of service to be free, but I really think you could charge a minimal fee and get people through the doors of your business. Or you could group this "free" service with the purchase of some other item. Either way, I think this could entice people into your store. Look at this way. Its a $100 investment for your company that could pay 10 times over in sales at the counter.

Left wanting more.

Before leaving for San Diego, I stopped at Walmart to pick up the latest issue of Indianapolis Monthly. I've seen the magazine in either a doctor's office or a dentist office, and vaguely remembered it having some pretty descent content about folks from my home state. I started reading it on the plane ride out, but didn't get to end until the plane ride home.

The first 40 pages took about 30 minutes to read, the next 30 about an hour and a half, and finally the last 30 pages took about 2 minutes. Why only two minutes, you ask? Because it was either an ad or a directory I could've gotten off the internet.

After getting home, I was curious. How much ad space is there? I took an hour, while watching "High School Reunion", and measured the ad space that the January 2010 issue contained. I was very generous in what I considered content and they still had 33% ad space. But the overall impression I still have is that the content was lacking.

So, here's an idea for your magazine business. How about producing more content to go along with ad space. Profound, right? Don't leave your readers thinking they have been jipped out of their hard earned money. Go beyond their expectations.

I will give the Monthly the proper respect for the content it does produce. 75% of the stories peeked an interest for me.

Forgot my baby spoon, oh crap.

The morning after our Alamo fiasco we woke up in the fog of a 3 hour time change. After starting a pot of coffee and watching a little news, everyone began to wake.

One of the first things we noticed was that we forgot a baby spoon for our 7-month-old. Have you ever tried to use a normal spoon to feed a baby. Yeah, it works, but not well. Its really hard to get that small amount of baby food on the lip like you need.

But wait a second, don't put that spoon in the dishwasher just yet. I found, that if you just turn it around, you can put a descent amount of baby food on the end of the handle. The spoon is probably metal, so be careful not to ram the spoon down the baby's throat.

Have a great vacation!

Rental car insurance at 1AM

On Sunday we returned from our adventure into California's worst storm in 20 years. Despite the bad weather, the wedding I was honored to be a part of went really well. While out there, I discovered some interesting tidbits about life and business. Over the coming days, I'll talk about several things I observed.

Flying into San Diego, staying in Newport Coast and then needing to be in Pasadena on Saturday...well, that meant we needed a rental. We didn't have a preference for any particular company, but we decided on Alamo because we had a free day coupon.

As the dialogue occurred with the man behind the counter, a very annoying event occured. He asked a question that still baffles me how we were deceived so quick. We certainly believe it was purposeful and meant to try and sell a product. He asked, "would you like collision or liability?" TONE INTERJECTED HERE FOR CLARITY. It was asked in such a way that said..."here are your options and they are this option or that option". If not for Papa keeping his keen ear, we would've chose one of those two options and paid for coverage we didn't want. In reality, though, you're not required to purchase either of those options when you rent a vehicle.

I'm not getting into the debate of whether or not you need these coverages on your rental purchase. I'll leave that for you to decide. What we were perturbed with was how purposeful it seemed. And this told us, somewhere in the management chain that Alamo made an effort to steer their employees to use this type of trickery.

So, here's an idea for your business. Don't resort to trickery in your sales. Your product will diminished and your company will be tarnished.

Yeah, you could say we were naive, but I'd like to say it was because it 1 AM is past our bedtimes. What the man behind the counter should have said was, "you can choose these or choose none." If he has said it this way, we would have left with the utmost confidence in this Alamo branch, but because of the deception, we are likely not to use them again.

Got photos? This program will save you gobs of gigs.

I am always looking for ways to save time, money and effort. Productivity and efficiency are what keep people employed at this point in the game. Although I have hesitations about streamlining everything, I'm certain this next suggestion is worth everyone's time.

Now that we are well into the digital age, I know most of us have gobs and gobs of stored images just setting on our computers, cameras or flashdrives. Many of the images aren't worth printing off, but they are certainly worth keeping for reminiscing. But now you have 3000 images that are taking up much needed storage space. What are you going to do with them.

Well, the creative folks over at RealWorld Graphics have come up with a solution that will save you time and money. Vlastimil Miléř and Jan Miléř have created a batch photo resizer. What does it do? It takes takes the images you specify, does some fancy image editing like resizing or cropping or compressing, and outputs a new set of files. Their website is complete with instructions on how to download the program and how to customize the program to fit your needs.

Let me give you an example of how I used the program. After downloading it to a folder with my images I then customized the program to this...PhotoResizeP100E.exe...which preserves the dimensions of my photos, but compresses them. I then selected the files and dragged them on top of the program, which automatically executes it. I did this to over 1000 images, which probably took me about an hour. Had I done this manually through a graphics program, I wouldn't have time to do this blog. This is the remarkable part, though, the filesize went from roughly 2.5 gigabytes in size, to just over 0.4 gigabytes. This is a hard-drive savings of 2.1 gigabytes, or about $5 if you could find a 2 gig flashdrive.

I'll admit, there was a small quality shift, but for most folks they won't notice it. If you are a photographer, though, I wouldn't use it on your prints. For all those files you know you'll never use again, it would save you tons of space.

Best of luck reminiscing while you save space. Tell the guys over at RealWorld Graphics how much you appreciate their product.

What kind of church goer are you? - Part 1

Do you grumble about getting up on Sunday? Do you put on the face of happiness and get your kids ready? Do you make sure your van is shiny before you go? Do you reluctantly walk through the church doors while wearing a huge smile on your face? Do you say some hello's and then make a beeline for the backrow because you think, "surely nobody will bother me back there." Do you then daydream through the sermon, thinking about football, work or taking a nap? Once the sermon is over, do you race to get your coats and then "get the hell" out of there?

I would contend, church is a BADGE for you. You go to church so you can tell other people you went to church. Maybe you want your wife to see you in church because it makes her "feel" better about your relationship. Maybe you want the pastor to see you in church because he will then think "that you care about the sermon." Maybe you go to church because you want your co-workers to think you are "holy" somehow. Maybe you go to church because you have a man-crush or woman-crush and want them to see you there. Somehow, you gain some sort of benefit from telling others you went to church?

Maybe, you tell people you go so they will just leave you alone.

"Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven." - Matthew 6:1

Admittedly, I've been there...and I still do it on occasion.

I don't know your reasons for coming to church, but I can guarentee that what you do AT church says a lot about how you define it. And if its a big part of your faith, it says a lot about where your faith lies.

Do you vent?

Want to save a few bucks on heat?
Just want a boost to your air temperature this season?
Simply would like for your house to more humid in winter?

Why not vent your electric dryer into your home?

One clothes dryer I researched vents 150 cubic feet per minute...that's about 6000 cubic feet of warm humid air for every 40 minute load of laundry...that's about 750 square feet of floorspace that most homes simply exhaust out the sides of their homes.

How much could this save you? Well, a quick search shows that in winter a descent furnace might cost you about $1/hour to operate. If you're able to accomplish half the cycles, then that's roughly $0.50 per load of laundry. Now, let's say you do 100 loads of laundry in winter...that would equal $50 bucks. And $50 bucks is $50 bucks.

I can't find anyone recommending you vent your dryer this way...probably because of air quality and humidity issues, but if you're not allergy prone and don't mind a little lent in your house it might save you a few bucks a year.

Vanity drawers get new life.

I hate throwing things away that I know could be used for something else. I save breadties, I bag up plastic bags for the food pantry, I save all kinds of containers...I think I'm a little bit of a hoarder. I feel that, if there is another use for something, why not go ahead and reuse it. Yeah, usually the reused item isn't as polished or as manicured as its original purpose, but it does save resources and much of the time...not always, it saves us money.

This past month, my wife and I had our upstairs bathroom redone. It was a total gut, down to the lathe and the joists. I tried reusing or saving as many of the items that were ripped out as I could. The shower stall was reused, the toilet was reused, I saved the old shower doors, medicine cabinet and the vanity top and am still looking for a use for those.

One of the things I saved was the old drawers from the vanity. I didn't have anything specific in mind to do with them, but I saved them nonetheless. Well, the other day, I found my reuse for them. I decided to build a shelf for my son's room. Here are some before and after pictures of what my 4-year-old and I did with them...




Using the drawers as puzzle pieces, I manuevered them until I liked the way the shelf was going to look.




I then used the old drawer handles as my fasteners. I did have to do some extra drilling and nipping for the bolts, but really I tried to reuse even the same predrilled holes from before.




Once I had the pieces mounted and fastened the way I wanted them, I gave everything one last tighten.  I then went to the local Tops Hardware store and bought a can of spray on primer.  I also bought a can of black spray paint, but once I got the primer applied, I kind of liked the way it looked, so I just left it.  Here was my finished product.




So, now we've got a shelving unit, made from reused materials and one can of spray paint.  The total time involved was about 3 hours combined, and the total cost was about $1.98 for the spray paint. Now, my son can put his hotwheels, puzzle boxes, or whatever he wishes on it. I can take, too, comfort in knowing that the hard work put into those drawers 15 years ago can be reused for another 15.

Tutorial for prepopulating or automating a range of cells

I began developing a quick invoicing system through Excel the other day and stumbled upon a solution to the problem of prepopulating cells. Well, I say stumbled, actually it was more like toiled for 5 hours. The idea came about because I wanted to be able to print off invoices and envelops without having to create new pages for each invoice. I wanted to be able to tell excel to prepopulate several cells on a template, if I gave it which row of information I wanted. This method involves a distinct setup I think many will find interesting and simple to implement.

Here goes...

(1) Create an Excel Workbook. I'm using Windows 7 and Excel 2007. (2) One sheet I call "data" and then I delete the other sheets just for clarity. You can always add more later. (3) In the first 3 columns, begin do a your data entry for the information you wish to store. You'll notice on mine, I have "date", "invoice" and "customer" as my headings. It would be good to point out here that although I have only 3 columns, in reality you could have as many as 127. (4) Now create the "key" column and put an "x" in any row. This "x" will make sense later. (5) Copy and paste the following formulas...

...for column 5...=IF(RC[-1]="X",RC[-4], "")
...for column 6...=IF(RC[-2]="X",RC[-4], "")
...for column 7...=IF(RC[-3]="X",RC[-4], "")

So, we've just told Excel to show the data from the 3 cells, if there is an "x" in the blue cell and if there is not an "x" don't display anything. You should, at this point, be able to put and "x" in any of those blue cells and the data to the right should display for you. But, we're not finished here because the cell location of the data we want to call up will still move based on where the "x" is located. (6) So, just below those cells were going to create 3 formulas that will copy any information displayed above them. To do that, copy and paste the following formulas...

...for columns 5 and 6...=SUM(R[-12]C:R[-2]C)

..."SUM" works well here because we opted to display nothing in the other cells, so it will only pick up on any numbers displayed above it. For cells that have text, though...

...like column 6...=TRIM(R[-12]C&R[-11]C&R[-10]C&R[-9]C&R[-8]C&R[-7]C&R[-6]C&R[-5]C&R[-4]C&R[-3]C&R[-2]C)

...I used "&" in this case because I think "CONCATENATE" has some limitations on its use and its just longer to type out. Depending on how many rows of information you have entered, you will see that this will be a very painstaking task to enter in all the "&"s and cells. What "TRIM" does in this formula, is it eliminates any extra delimiters that will screw up your formatting later on. You can now play around with the "x" location and see how it affects our prepopulated cells. (7) At this point, many of you should be familiar with how to "copy", right click, "paste special" and "paste link" into your template for publishing. If not, I can do a follow-up to this post. Let me know if you need one. (8) Once you're finished, you should see a spreadsheet that looks similar to this.

Here's is that same spreadsheet, but with some of the same instructions listed on it.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet used to create these graphics.

Couple of notes to go along with this tutorial. The 3 formulas at the bottom would actually be better located at the top somewhere, because most data tables grow down and it would be a huge hassle to redo the formulas each time. I put them at the bottom in this example just for clarity of information. Next, be mindful of the number of columns Excel limits each sheet to. For every column of information you want "automated" you will need one column for formulas to the right.

I would love your comments and questions. Best of luck. Here are some other excel ideas.

With kids, the smaller things can be more rewarding.

We as parents are driven to give our kids the biggest, best, greatest of all things in this life. Usually that translates to big toys, big cars and big trips. Let me give you an example, though, why it is sometimes the smaller things that can be more rewarding when raising children.

Yesterday I took my oldest son to a small park to go sledding. We got our first descent accumulation and although the snow was not the ballmaking kind it did serve nicely for what we were about to do. I tied a rope to the end of the sled and pulled him over to the park, which was close to our house. He got to ride on his back "in style" the 2 blocks it takes to walk and thought that was pretty fun.

The hill we used as our "olympic bobsled run" was no longer than 50 feet and inclined maybe 8 feet. It just barely had enough incline to get us moving. But it didn't matter...in the eyes of my four year old, it was the Swiss Alps and our sled was the fastest in the land. He kept wanting to ride the sled backwards. He also loved eating enough snow to choke an elephant and loved hitting his "pa" with snow dust. By the time we left the park, his face was red and his clothes were soaked. We stay about an hour and he got back on the sled for the "ride" home. We laughed more yesterday than we had in long time.

The lesson I learned yesterday was to see life through his eyes and to create those experiences that he loves. I think, at the same time, I'm teaching him that spending time together is so very important. I didn't buy him a Wii and it wasn't a trip to Disney World that provided us such a great hour...it was a sled and small hill.

Quit smoking 5 cigarettes at a time.

Two nights ago, I ran across an article written for DivineCaroline.Com. This website is geared toward women, but men can lurk if they want. Let's just say, I am comfortable with my estrogen levels enough to visit a site made for women.

Anyway, the article was a lament about this person's failed New Year's Resolutions, one being to quit smoking after 22 years. She mentioned all the pills and prescriptions she had tried in the past, without success. Here's the idea I shared that involved no pills, no cold turkey, and hopefully little withrawal.

(1)To quit any habit you know is bad for you, starts by admitting its bad. If you don't believe smoking is harmful to you, you won't quit.

(2)The next step is taking an evaluation of your current smoking habits. Figure up how many cigarettes you smoke in one week? Now, make a chart with 3 columns and 52 rows. Put tomorrow's date in the first column. Date the following rows with a subsequent week. At the top of the second column, write down how many cigarettes you smoke in one week. Now, in each subsequent rows, subtract 5 cigarettes per week until you run out of cigarettes. So if you smoke 140 cigarettes per week, by week 28 you should be almost done smoking. If you smoke 280 per week, by week 52 you should be almost done smoking. Now in the third column, write down how many cigarettes you actually smoked during that previous week. This is most important column to fill up, and the most time consuming. You will have figure out how to keep track this part. One way to look at this last column is to see it as your acheivement chart. Week after week, you will begin to see that you can break this habit. If you fail one week, don't sweat it, just get back to the goals you set for yourself.

Here's basically how the chart should look when you get it set up.

Here's a blank chart if you don't want to create your own.

(3)Probably as important as any other step is to share this goal with someone you trust, someone who will hold you accountable. Find someone who will ask you once a month, "are you keeping with your goal". Having someone come alongside you and challenge you can be the final push toward quitting this nasty habit.

(4)Go acheive your goals.

This approach is designed to create an incremental decrease in your bad habit. Eliminating 5 cigarettes a week will be noticable over time, but should be doable, and hopefully the withdrawals will be manageable. Keep this chart in your pocket, or on your fridge, or on your mirror. Don't wait until the end of each week to eliminate your smokes...boy, you will grumpy if you do. Pick one cigarette a day and say to yourself..."this is the one I'm NOT going to smoke."

YOU CAN DO THIS! YOU CAN DO THIS! NOW, GO DO IT!

The English Language Sucks - Part 1

I don't know what to do with the English language anymore. I used to not care. It used to be a subject that I would just "get through". But recently, it has become rather frustrating teaching my 4-year-old the ways of this crazy dialect. My biggest problem, why can we not match spelling with phonetics? Remember, I'm trying to teach my son how to spell words and the way we have always been taught is, what...."Sound it out". That persuasion does not hold true for so many words. Let me give you a few examples...

"Jet" is pronounced "jet", right? "Grape" is pronounced "gray'p", right?

So should the word GIANT be spelled JIANTE?
What about GIRAFFE, should it be spelled JERAFF?
GERMANY should be spelled JERMANEE?
FORGE should be spelled FORJ?

I'm geerd twoward fixing problims, but this won I gust done't know what to do with it.

Arggh:(

Popcorn, an alternative to packing peanuts.

If you've ever dabbled in ebay, or have relatives across the country that you ship items to, then you are familiar with the challenges of packaging and shipping.

You want the item to arrive the same way you packaged it, but you don't want to spend a mortgage payment on stuffing and boxing the item. You may be, along with many others, concerned about the landfill effects of packaging peanuts, or you may simply just not like to use them.

Here's an alternative idea I honestly haven't considered fully, but on the surface seems like a good one. Why can't we use actual popcorn for a replacement to packing peanuts? Popcorn is light and fluffy. They have some expansion qualities that are similar to packing peanuts. You can pour them around the item just like peanuts. When you are finished using them, you can simply throw them onto the compost pile...or the yard to let the birds eat them...or eat them yourself if you really like popcorn. :)

One down side I can see is, under humid conditions, the popcorn may become a little soggy. Also, be sure to use the non-flavored, non-buttered kind as grandma might not appreciate getting a lap full drippings on her Christmas present next year.

What do you think?

Another use for an empty coffee container.

We always save our empty coffee containers and are looking for ways to use them. Here's a great idea my wife came up with. Maybe she should be doing this blog instead of me. She's busy, though, so you'll just have to put up with me.

The old containers were obviously metal, but recently many companies began packaging coffee grounds in plastic cans with a handle. It looks like your buying paint, but alas its just coffee. These sparked a little creativity in my wife as she put the fact that "kids break things" together with "kids are disorganized" and came up with a very simple solution to all those opened, half-broken crayons of all different sizes. Put them in one container.

These containers are easy to carry, easy to store, and easy to take with you in the car...although I would recommend leaving them in the car on those summer days.

Each author has their profile image on blogger.

Back in August, I was setting up a blog for the local YMCA. They really were taking a proactive approach to getting their events and information out to the general public. They decided to have each of their directors and managers post updated information on regular basis.

With mulitple authors, though, came the desire to have their profile images or avatars appear next to their individual contributions. If you're familiar with Blogger or Blogspot, you know that having multiple author's images display is not a default setting. So I went searching for the wisdom of others. I found the perfect solution over at QuiteRandom.com. This fella is brilliant and truly saved the day for me.

I'll repeat some of what he mentioned in his post, but I'll also add some of the things I had to figure out on my own. Here goes...

FOR ONE AUTHOR.

Click Layout > Click Edit HTML > Click Expand Widget Templates >
Find the following line of code...<a expr:name='data:post.id'/>

...and add the following directly after it...
<b:if cond='data:post.author == "Author1_Username"'>
<span class="author"><img src="Image1_URL"/></span>
</b:if>

You will need to change the "Author1_Username" and the "Image1_URL" in the above code for every author you have. To find them for each author, you will first need to navigate to each author's profile. Once you find a profile, the "Author1_Username" is on the right...copy it. Mine is just..."Brack".

The "Image1_URL" can be found by right clicking on the image to the left. Click Copy Shortcut. Highlight "Image1_URL" and replace it by right clicking and pasting. Here is what mine would look like..."http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8z2RRpErOAo/Sz98qxhLegI/AAAAAAAAAD8/1TeF7In4DBM/S220-h/brack.jpg". They are case-sensitive, so be careful. Most importantly don't forget to click Save Templates.

For more than one author add...
<b:if cond='data:post.author == "Author1_Username"'>
<span class="author"><img src="Image1_URL"/></span>
</b:if>
...for each author. Replace the two parts with the appropriate info.

The fella over at QuiteRandom.com also has some info about styling that might be worth a read.

Best of luck and if you have troubles, email me.

A sweetened coffee with 200 fewer calories.

Yesterday's topic was a little heavy and maybe a bit hard to swallow. So today I'm pouring over the topic of coffee.

I love coffee. NO...I LOVE COFFEE. I had my first cup of coffee in high school as a way to stay warm in winter. Throughout college I used the drug as a way to stay awake. When my first son was born, and I stayed home with him, I used it as a way to stay warm and stay awake. Now, its simply one of my vices. I've been drinking, on average, 10 cups a day for the last 6 years.

My favorite coffee is the Maxwell House Master Blend and I like it with a little bit of sugar. The problem, though, is with 1 teaspoon of sugar in every cup of coffee I drank, I was consuming an extra 250 calories a day.

So I came up with a way to cut down on my calories, while at the same time, preserving that slightly sweet coffee that I love to sip. I began putting 1 heaping "tablespoon" of sugar in the coffee grounds and let the sugar brew with the coffee. It works surprisingly well and tastes like liquid heaven. Now I consume a little less than 50 calories of sugar in my coffee every day.

Divided we fell, united we will stand again.

There's no doubt you've already taken a trip down memory lane. You've considered the last year, maybe the last decade, and found moments of joy and moments of hardache. No doubt, you've tried to concentrate on the joyous moments because they bring you hope.

I wonder, though, if you might add one more thought to your reminising? What was it that divided us in the last decade? What was it that caused us to not trust our neighbor? Not us...Greensburg, Indiana. Not us...the United States of America. What divided us...as humanity?

Some will read that question and take a self-righteous trip...as if they were the ultimate unifier. In reality, though, if they've ever gossiped, called the other party's candidate a name or wished ill will toward another, then the self-righteous train, they shouldn't be on.

Seriously, though, what divided us? I can't be the only one who has seen a shift in how we interact with one another or how we think about our neighbors across the world. I don't think it was a president, a party or a people. I think all those things were used to perpetuate this division. What has changed in our collective mindset that tells us "we are better than they are", "we can no longer trust anyone" or "I'm right because this person said so."

I'm not sure I have my finger on it, but I think its about our selfish nature or self-preservation. A person will always think they are right before they consider another's viewpoint. A party will always fight to preserve their reach at all cost. A president...well he fights a couple of battles. One is his own preservation and self-interests, the other is his party, the other is his country.

But what about us? How do we escape the division? How do we not participate in it? Is it that we must begin thinking for ourselves and stop being fed our beliefs? Is it that we take iniative to help our neighbors, rather than wait on some group to help them? Is it that we stop putting ourselves into groups and consider all humanity as one group? I don't know the answer, but I think its a collection of the above that will help us find our way back.

So, along with the reminising of the last decade, take the next few moments to consider what it is that YOU will do to ensure the next one will be one of unity.