Weekend Recap and The Ugliest Cars on the Road

So after a nice long 4 1/2 day weekend up north, I must say, it sucks to be back at work. We had a great time though. Ate a ton of great food...had a couple of bonfires...hit the much transformed but still great Ox Tavern...fished a little...golfed 9 holes...drank beer/cocktails....went for a bike ride...Pawned Ava off on family members...etc. Nothing beats a weekend up north. And luckily my neighbors only had the guts to talk about but not implement their plan on mowing a falic symbol into my 'well past needing to be mowed' lawn.

In having 6 hours of total drive time, I saw plenty of cars. So in spirit of having a topic, today's is easy and I'm sure will be extra controversial (or not). But here is my pick for the top 3 ugliest new cars:

1. Dodge Caliber - Their slogan of "Anything but cute" is right on. It's not cute. It's not hot. It's not cool. It's not mean looking. It's just plain ugly. It's like they took the AMC Eagle, made it boxy, and put a Dodge logo on it. I'm not sure if the people who have bought these (mostly guys i've seen driving them) think they look 'aggressive' or 'tough' or what. But guess what. They don't! I could totally see Justin driving one.

2. Chevy HHR - Basically a clone of the Chrysler PT Cruiser. The PT Cruiser, when it first came out, I admit I thought was kind of snazzy. Had that cool zooty look that fit in with the (at that point) overused Swing Dance craze that went through. Would look real tight to drive it around in a zoot suit. But...The HHR and the PT Cruiser both just look rediculous now. Not sure who they are trying to sell to with this one, and they are trying to sell it as a power packed man car. But really, it's just a minivan. Deal with it. Ugly. Jim would drive one of these.

3. Dodge Magnum - You can usually count on Dodge for ugly cars. So for 2 of my 3, Dodge gets the nod. What IS the magnum? First of all, explain the concept of a station wagon? Why not just get a minivan? Both concepts I wouldn't be caught driving, but I'd pick a minivan over a wagon. More cargo room. So they take the station wagon, make it look sleeker and low profile-ish. Make the grill look like the new charger. Result = still a station wagon. Buyers = clueless men or mom's that think they are cool. I could see Jim driving one though.

Ok, I'm going back to staring at my screen. And constantly hitting refresh until comments show up.

Cool, Free Stuff!

Ok, so this entry is going to be totally boring to some of you, and in a different direction than most of my mindless rambling. But here goes. Over the past few months, I've run accross a number of cool, free things online. Although I've used them for business reasons, there are plenty of ways you could utilize them for personal uses. I've used most of them...and who knows...maybe you'll find one of them useful.

Google Checkout - We (Seritus) just started utilizing Googles 'currently free' checkout service. Essentially, we use it to bill our clients, and it allows instant payment from them via credit card or whatever means they want to pay, and it directly deposits their money into our checking account. No Fees! Eat that PayPal! (Credit Card fee's are currently waived by Google (until sometime in 2008), but even once that couple percent kicks in next year, that's not a bad deal considering the convenience. But until then, set up an account! If someone owes you money, just send them a Google invoice and they can pay you instantly with their credit card. Jim, this one is particularly useful for you for collecting FF fee's or even your fee's for the brackets. No more me holding onto peoples cash for 3 months, then having you hound me for it. They can pay you instantly and leave me out of it. Many other uses too! (insert the one you are thinking about here!).

Vyew - We ran across this site when our free WebEx trial expired for Seritus. WebEx is great and all, but we don't use it enough to justify paying for the service at this point. Vyew is an online collaboration tool which has both free and for fee services. However, at least for now, desktop sharing, document sharing, etc. is all free. There is also free phone conferences! It's a long distance call, so if you are still on the old fashioned paying by the minute for long distance junk out there...you will incur some long distance charges. But that alone should be incentive enough to get with the times and get Vonage or just use your cell phone! Anyway, there are plenty of times sharing your desktop is helpful, so keep this in mind and set up your free account! If nothing else, check out the free conference calling. Might come in useful for your next Fantasy Football draft.

DriveHQ - I haven't actually used this one yet since I have 2 ftp sites anyway, but I just know it's going to be cool. Ever had a big file(s) you wanted to get to someone, too big to email...you don't have your own ftp site....neither do they (losers), etc. Well, DriveHQ gives you your very own ftp site for free! Up to 1 GIG of space I believe. Again, there is a limit of what you can do with the account for 'free', You have to set up people in your group that have access to your site, and for free I think you only get one person. So either change it for each scenario, or just give people the userid/password for the shared account you set up. I'm not here to tell you how to manage your stuff...i'm just here to point you in the right direction :)

Gmail - Ok, if you haven't heard of Gmail yet, what are you doing reading my blog? Gmail is the best (IMO) free email out there. Plenty of storage space (I have almost 3 gig of space now), and the interface is plenty easy to use. If you are using some old hotmail or yahoo account or some garbage like that, drop it and move on to Gmail. There is even an integrated messenger client. Sheesh.

Anyway, exciting stuff, huh? Next time you owe me money, expect to pay me via Google checkout. And if I owe you money, I'm only paying if I can use Google checkout. So you better set it up.

So have a great Memorial Day weekend! We're heading to the cabin(s) and hopefully the forecast improves and we can actually get out on the lake for a bit. Otherwise I guess I'll be doing a lot of drinking and playing Wii! Ava says 'Bbbbaaaaaaah' (she makes that noise when she gives kisses, duh). And if my last entry got over 20 comments, this one should get more with things like "man, I can't believe I never used (insert one of the 4 things above) before! It has totally changed my life! And best of all it's free!

2 in 1 day! OK!

So apparently my first entry wasn't 'opinionated' enough for JBetz, so here's something I've been wondering for a while, and I know Justin will have an opinion. What the heck happened to North Face? Back in the day (high school), North Face was worn/purchased by skiers who wanted or could afford high quality, fashionable ski wear. Kind of a fashion statement I suppose. Non-skiers really didn't even know what North Face was.

Nowadays, I get on the bus to head downtown...(now that summer is approaching, not so much anymore with warmer weather), and close to 50% of all women on the bus are wearing something with the North Face logo on their right rear shoulder. Generally a lightweight fleece jacket. First of all, who pays 120 bucks for a fleece jacket? 2nd'ly, most of these people clearly aren't athletic enough to even WATCH the olympics.

My question is, did North Face start marketing to the mall crowd? Or did the mall crowd just realize that North Face is considered a top shelf brand and rape it's image into the new Girbaud? I used to have respect for the brand. Now, why wear it? To say "hey, look at me! I follow the crowd!"

Justin, this in now way reflects my opinion of you and Cristin (who are so cute wearing their matching NF fleece coats together). It's the dozens of people I saw every day downtown wearing the same fleece coat as everyone else. You'd think they sold NF at the Gap or something.

Wow, this entry was my lamest yet.

A suprise appearance?

What? A blog entry? By me? Are you kidding me? Wow. It's been a while. Justin has been crying that he has nothing to do at work, so I figured i'd do my part in making his job productive. So I was in Seattle last week for the first ever Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference! So I figure I'll spend most of this entry talking about everything BI. Ok, so it's not interesting stuff at all to most people, and nobody who reads this would give a rip, and I'm not one to talk much shop outside of work, let alone AT work. However, let's go over the fun things I got to do while in Seattle.

Pike Place Farmers Market: Yes, this is the location that includes the 'world famous' Pike Place Fish Market. I'm sure most have seen the 'Fish' video's on having fun in the workplace...well, that's the place. Guess what! It looks the same in person! Same people, same fish tossing. But pretty cool to see none-the-less. I did pick up some Salmon Jerky, which I really like, but others haven't been as fond as I am about it.

The Experience Music Project: Wow, this place is UGLY on the outside. It's basically a Music and Science Fiction museum. And no, I don't see why a museum would include both music and science fiction. Who gives a rip about science fiction? Anyway, the attendee evening event was held here, so we toured some of the music museum. The coolest part about it is being able to play instruments and record music. Otherwise, the best part of the night was the ton's of free food, free booze (open bar, dude!) (insanely huge, strong drinks...crazy), and a live band.

Safeco Field: So friday morning we got up and hopped on ebay. Found 4 tickets for the Mariners/Yankee game that night...good seats in left field. What a great place. I can't wait for outdoor baseball here. It got a little chilly by the end of the night, which should be expected, since I was wearing only a t-shirt...at night....in May....in Seattle. Long story short, Mariners shut out the Yanks 3-0.

Kell's: A small little irish pub a few blocks from our hotel, and a block or two off of the water. We drank at Kells on Wednesday night, thursday night and then again on friday before and after the game. So needless to say, we liked the place. Impossible to find if you didn't know it was there. Entrance is from an alley, no signs anywhere else but once you get there. Live music every night (same guy all 3 nights we were there). Good drinks..not too spendy. The food was good too...the little that we ate there. If in Seattle, check it out.

Sparging the Mash @ Red Hook Brewery: We headed out friday after the conference and before Kells out to some suburban area outside of seattle about 30 minutes to visit the Red Hook Brewery. One of Nick's buddy's played hooky from work and joined us. Had a pitcher before the tour, then for $1, you can take the brewery tour, get your own tasting glass to keep, and drink a few beers along the way. I can't think of a better way to spend the daytime that day...The bottling line wasn't running that day, so that was the only bummer.

We got to hang out with Nick quite a bit.....And met Anna! (for about 10 minutes). Great girl. Nick must have money or something, cause not sure what else she's hanging around a guy like Nick for ;)

Jim spent most mornings...no...all mornings...Hungover. To be expected, he's not very good at drinking, so he get's hungover just thinking about beer.

Brad bought a sweet new Twins hat...if you like really tall cornered baseball hats. You got hosed!

Was hard to be away from my two ladies for that long, so I'm happy to be home. Happy Mothers Day to you Mom's out there! If you complain like justin, I might write more tomorrow. Oh, and be sure to wish Justin good luck in getting Cristin pregnant. (If she's not already)