Loved this. Thanks Joe and his Stranded Starfish blog, and thanks to the authors of the book “The Art Of Possibility”

As the old man walked down a Spanish beach at dawn, he saw ahead of him what he thought to be a dancer. The young man was running across the sand, rhythmically bending down to pick up a stranded starfish and throw it far into the sea.

The old man gazed in wonder as the young soul again and again threw the small starfish from the sand into the water. The old man approached him and asked why he spent so much energy doing what seemed a waste of time. The young man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.

“But there are thousands of miles of beach, and miles and miles of starfish. How can your effort make any difference?”

The young man looked down at the small starfish in his hand, and as he threw it to safety in the sea, said, “It makes a difference to this one!”

Anonymous

Recent projects include:
hangitwright.com – a building contractor in Wildwood, Florida, specializing in drywall, acoustical insulation, and framing for commercial and residential construction.
frankjdeluca.com – a site for Frank J. DeLuca, owner of DeLuca Toyota in Ocala, Florida, and great supporter of the community.
debbieklugger.com – a life coach, Debbie Klugger coaches individuals and groups and conducts workshops globally based on the Inner Bonding and Heal Your Life philosophies.
fabiandinkins.com – a site for Fabian Dinkins Construction, a highly successful and respected residential and commercial construction firm based in Ocala, Florida.

The description is as follows:

How many times have you been embarrassed by giving the wrong gifts? Or the wrong size? Or the wrong color? The new QuickGifter iPhone app takes all the worry out of gift giving by keeping a well-organized gift database of any and all important wish list information that you may need while shopping . Best of all, if you have a spouse, partner, relative, or friend that is shopping and needs the same info, you can easily email them QuickGifter wish list details for any person in your QuickGifter library.

Check it out at quickgifter.com or watch the video:

Watch the video:

zachfightsback.com

Facebook

Thank you.

A few months ago I figured I’d upgrade the display driver, and got a new install from the ATI (now AMD) web site. After the install, the ‘Catalyst Control Center’ (known as the evil ‘CCC’ to many) would NOT start automatically or run when launched – displaying some obscure error.

After so much wasted time researching the problem, finding hundreds of people with similar problems but no answers, or none that worked at least, I gave up, but wait, I couldn’t uninstall the new software either. So I had to use the system restore to go back to an earlier ‘time’, which worked, restoring the old driver and control center that shipped with the system.

Fast forward to recently, and my system has been crashing overnight a few times lately. Not good. Couldn’t find out why, nothing in Event Viewer, or anywhere else. I leave my machine on all the time because it backs up at night, plus it’s actually less wear and tear on the hardware to leave it on.

Recently after being frustrated further with the occasional out of the blue crashes, I upgraded to the latest driver, but did NOT bother trying to install the catalyst control center (ccc) as I don’t need it anyway. All good so far!!!

Guantanamo, the U.S. military detention camp, has been loudly criticized for ‘water-boarding’ (simulated drowning) of 3 terrorists.  No doubt this technique is psychnologically terrible, but whether any permanent damage is inflicted is unclear.  Top level U.S. military personnel themselves are subjected to water-boarding so they’re aware of what they might be subjected to by enemies, so if one believes water-boarding is torture, then the U.S. tortures its own military.  A soldier told me of a fast 25 mile walk he had to endure with 50lbs of gear on, and his bleeding feet.  Is that torture?  Heck, I’ve been in business meetings I’d describe as torture.  Sorry, must not make light of this!

But somehow lost in the argument is what other countries do.  60 Minutes did a piece on an Iranian student’s story.  He had been part of a student protest in Iran and was eventually arrested and then held and tortured for years before being released.

I think everyone should see this. It’s just 12 minutes.

• He’s fighting to restructure healthcare in the country while the economy collapses.
• He’s had a string of tax cheating nominees and appointments to his cabinet.
• He’s reneged on his commitment to get out of Iraq, taking longer to end ‘combat’ than he promised, and he’ll leave 50,000 troops there after.
• He campaigned to veto all earmarks and yet is ok with a budget containing thousands.
• His trillion dollar ‘stimulus’ program does not seem to have impressed anyone, except politicians bringing useless pork-barrel projects to their districts.
• After just 5 weeks, he plans to balloon the deficit to exceed the total of all deficits during the 8 years of the Bush (II) administration.
• He is planning to end tax breaks for sizable charitable donations by the wealthy which will really hurt charities AND small businesses.
• His vice-president has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe.
• His vice-president met, just today, in a SECRET meeting with AFL-CIO at their swanky conference in Miami. The Obama administration plans to end privacy for union votes.
• Instead of trying to inspire a nation, his speeches have been consistently negative, talking of crisis and catastrophe. He pathetically said this week maybe it’s time for people to put money in the stock market. The market plunged right after.
• He keeps the White House heated like an oven, is doing massive and expensive renovations, yet wants everyone else to conserve.
• He’s talking about ‘green jobs’, but there’s no energy policy.
• He still hasn’t filled his cabinet.
• He has waged a PR war with a radio blow hard (Rush Limbaugh) which is completely irrelevant, and just a distraction.
• His treasury secretary (Geithner) has no lieutenants and so the senate banking committee got no treasury representative to attend their inquiry into AIG bailout because Geithner was being grilled in the House on another matter.
• One day the President declared Geithner would speak with details the next day on the banking and other plans, and the next day Geithner gave no details, and weeks later, still has no details or plan.
• Perhaps this is Obama’s actual plan – to drive the economy into the dirt, so he can then establish some ‘emergency powers’ or something, and turn the U.S. into the socialist economy he wants.
• I do believe he LOATHES small business because everything so far has been aimed AGAINST that. Why? Because small businesses are hard to control. Europe began a war on small business decades ago and killed most of them. European governments prefer big companies with back room ‘deals’ because they can keep an eye on them and control them better.
• I think it’s fair to say he’s off to a horrible start. Wall St. has ZERO confidence in what they’ve done and what they haven’t done.
• I believe we are witnessing the END of America and any American dream as we have understood it. Thanks a lot Obama.

If you voted for him, shame on you. Fooled you good.

Get involved!

http://passionateaboutpizzabook.com/

Like many who love NASA and all it has accomplished, I was horrified to learn the Challenger space shuttle blew up a couple of minutes after launch as it rocketed into space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

Later that day, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to the nation, that was brilliantly written by Peggy Noonan, and brilliantly delivered. He talked to the astronauts loved ones, to all adults, to children, about loss, taking chances and bravery, why life isn’t for the ‘faint hearted’ and added a poetic line at the end that still gives me goosebumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JKIZ7j20EA

Anyway, it can capture video, which is pretty cool.  So I grabbed a few tiny videos and wanted to see if I could transfer, edit, and publish on youtube.

Took two tiny videos, transferred them, imported to Windows Movie Maker (free), trimmed the videos, added titles, credits, transitions, and music, in, oh, 15 minutes?!

Here it is.  Not Oscar-worthy, but hey, it’s my first.