Tempus Fugit

Latin (tem-pu̇s-ˈfü-git): Time Flies

Author: Garry

  • Kiwi Critter

    As you my know, I enjoy geocaching and I was just checking up on one of my travel bug, Kiwi Critter. This little guy has been transported by stranges over 17,407 miles since he hit the road in November of 2004. He’s been around the US, crossed the Atlantic (3 times!) to Germany and is currently touring England. If you have Google Earth you can check out his travels.

    He still has a ways to go as fellow geocachers are supposed to help him get to Australia or New Zealand and spend Christmas on the beach.

  • Something to do

    OK, I’m not even sure how I got to this little item. I was working away and of course after a while I’ve got a whack of browser windows open, so I’m closing down the ones I don’t need any more and this one pops to the foreground. The first time I tried it, no problem, but after that, he’s right!

    The rest of Jeff’s site is kind of interesting as well. Quite a different user interface.

    somethingtodo1.gif (GIF Image, 800×533 pixels)

    Technorati Tags: something to do, handwriting, UI

  • End of the season

    It’s been quite a while since I posted on the original theme of Tempus Fugit and that is “Time Flies”. It seems appropriate at this moment as the summer season is winding down and I’m sitting at the dining room table at the lake looking out over the bay. It’s a little overcast, a little cool and there will only be one more weekend at the lake this season. Where did the time go?

    On Thanksgiving weekend in two weeks we’ll be back to shut down the water system and put everything away for the winter. While we might make two or three visits between then an May long weekend 2007, this is just about it for the year.

    It’s been a good summer for being at the lake. We made some extra effort to spend more weekends, created a few extra long weekends, and schedule vacation time to enjoy the season which was very warm and bug free this year.

    At the start of the summer everything seems so long and there is the sense that there will be plenty of time for everthing. Then somehow, at the end of the summer, there are still things left un-done, and you wonder how the time slipped by. However, I’m not feeling too much of that this year as we really tried to get around and do some different things as well as just relax and enjoy the doing nothing times. Of course, I wish there had been more family times at the lake but distances and work schedules conspired to limit the opportunities. There were some great family times, but I could go for a few more. Well, with a long life ahead there is still time for more of everything.

    The best is yet to come.

  • Roadkill, what is it?


    Roadkill, what is it?
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

    Well, perhaps not technically road kill, but I did find it on the road dead. It doesn’t appear to have been run over so the exact cause of death is unknown. I also am not sure exactly what it is. Do you have any ideas? I’ll just add it to the wild life sightings this year at the lake.

  • YouTube as Advertising

    I’ve always thought of YouTube as an amateur video sharing service, but I think this is an interesting twist. IBM is using YouTube as a part of a marketing campaign to promote SOA. What are your thoughts on this kind of use?

    SOA is like building blocks

    Some of the other videos…
    SOA is like musical notes
    Service Oriented Architecture is like your wardrobe

    Technorati Tags: YouTube, IBM, SOA, marketing

  • Crowdsourcing

    This entry from Business Week made it to the IBM w3 internal home page in the “In the News” section. Interesting examples of “Crowdsourcing” are given, with some cautions as well.

    Crowdsourcing

    Companies have been outsourcing to India and China for years. Now they are taking it to another level by using social networks such as MySpace, Second Life, and a multitude of virtual communities to solve their most gnarly business problems. Business model innovation is happening at a lightning clip. First there was outsourcing, then open-sourcing, and now crowdsourcing.

    Technorati Tags: crowdsourcing

  • Last day on the road

    I think everyone is very ready to be home now. We’re driving from Billings to Winnipeg, a 12 hour drive, if you don’t stop for anything. Well, we’re stopping for a few things, rest stops, gas, lunch and any Starbucks we come across.

    One of the may joys of traveling in a group is making decisions. This is something that is never talked about in advance it seems, but sort of happens on the fly. Everyone want’s to be so agreeable and get along with everyone and accommodate everyone that sometimes getting the information you need to make a decision is hard to come by. In Billings, it was somehow a fore gone collusion that we’d eat at the Outback. This was great, immediate consensus and the food is good with lots of choices.

    More challenging decisions  happen on the way home when everyone is tired, tired of being in the car and not looking forward to more hours in the car until we’re home. Also, cruising by Interstate exit trying to assess the likelihood of finding an acceptable restaurant’s is fun. By the time anyone says anything the exit has flown by. Finally, an exit is taken and the choices are listed out and are greeted by silence. What is the driver to do? You don’t want to arbitrarily make a choice but nobody want’s to offend anybody, so not much gets said. Perhaps in this situation the choice comes down to the lowest common denominator. A known restaurant’s with a wide variety of stuff on the menu, and it’s Perkins or Denny’s. Yummy.

    I’ve got the laptop plugged into an inverter in the back seat and I’ve totaled up our trip cost and prepared my list for Canada Customs. Even with the van repair we’re well under the $750 limit for the week. I wonder when there will be coast to coast high speed wireless Internet access available? I read in Wired once about an organization who arranged Internet access for a very large portion of Idaho. In one case a farmer uses this access from his tractor to send real-time potato reports to McDonalds. Hook me up baby!

  • On the road again

    We’re heading out from Salt Lake City for Billings tonight and Winnipeg tomorrow. So far the transmission is working fine and if there is any leakage, it’s quite small. So far, we’ve only added 1/2 a quart as we left SLC and the level is holding.

    As we head up I-15 to Butte I’m noticing the billboards for various motels and hotels. When I was traveling with my parents in the 70’s, the big thing we looked for on the sign was a colour TV and a pool. Today I notice the draw on the billboards is free high speed Internet access. I know that’s what i look for when I’m shopping for a hotel. Things change. What will my kids look for in 30 years, assuming we’re still driving on the ground.

  • Presentation Pro

    I’m sitting in a session where they are explaining and demonstrating the new Presentation Pro tool that allows USANA Associates to create easy to use multi-media presentations to grow your USANA business. The room is packed out! People are sitting all over the place on the floor, and this room must hold 1,500 – 2,000 people!

    The software is inexpensive and a subscription service keeps all the material up-to date. So, as new videos, audios, PowerPoint presentations are created and released, your system will have the most current materials. The basic outline is based on the Health and Freedom presentation sequence and topics. This is a tried and true order of presenting the USANA visions.

    The opening slide has audio embedded for starting the presentation and it’s a drag & drop interface to pull materials from the library of resources into your customized presentation. You can augment the slides with video. So, for example, you can augment the compensation plan slides with a video of a Jeremy Stansfield doing a professionally prepared video segment explaining the plan. This allows you to go from a slide seamlessly into a video. Video can be pauses and re-started, allowing you to interact with the audience. You can have Robert Allen or Dr. Denis Waitley do a video close for your presentation. How cool and powerful is that!

    There even going to make it work on a Mac in the future! But, no firm date yet 🙁

    After you’ve created your customized presentation you can save it for further work at a later date, so you can keep all of the various custom presentations that you’ve created for different situations or focuses. You can even email the custom presentation structure to another Presentation Pro user for their use. You can even save it as a self-running CD that you can give to a prospect, complete with custom CD label generation in 4 formats with very professional graphics. You can even label it for a specific person using their name.

    Save to Web and send an email link is another option for distributing. The resulting web presentation has the Associates information such as email address, phone number etc. embedded as part of the web presentation. Plus, you get a notification every time the recipient views your custom web presentation!

    This will be a key tool for a successful USANA business associate.

    Technorati Tags: USANA, presentation

  • Transmission: Day 3

    Well it’s been quite and up and down day. The first phone call from the SLC dealer indicates that yes indeed the axle seal is leaking but the problem is deeper. A bearing in the transmission is allowing “excessive” axle movement which may have damaged the seal causing the leak and their solution is a rebuilt transmission, for about $2,450 USD.

    This was quite a shock. The SLC dealer doesn’t really offer too many options, actually none. They don’t feel that an axle seal repair will allow up to make it back to Winnipeg. At this point, I need to think about things and call Royal Dodge in Winnipeg to see if they can assist. They call SLC dealer and to make a long story short, they decide on the axle seal repair for about $180, which Winnipeg will reimburse. However, after the repair, the SLC dealer advises there is still a small leak. So, we’ll be armed with extra fluid, sticking to the Interstate routes, and monitoring the leak closely in an attempt to get the van back to the Winnipeg dealer for more servicing. Oh yeah, the other bit of news from the SLC dealer is that the seal they removed during the repair, the one that the Winnipeg dealer installed just about 1 week ago is damaged, and in their opinion, it was damaged at installation. There is a really nasty gouge out of the outer metal edge. It’s amazing how much trouble a $5 part can cause.

    Car repairs are really never very welcome and usually extremely expensive. We’ve poured an excessive amount of money into our van this year and it’s been very frustrating. But, car trouble when you’re a long way from home is even more distressing. I’ve spent many hours over the last three days of what should have been an enjoyable drive and a vacation/conference dealing with and processing through this issue. I’m sure there is much to learn from this experience, and I’ll need some time to reflect on what has taken place. I know some of it I’ve handled very poorly and let anxiety and fear get way too far out of control. Thankfully, I’ve had Shirley and some good friends along for the ride and they have been an excellent support and comfort in dealing with the issue.

    Even when things are so very far out of my control it’s been difficult for me to surrender it to God and let Him get involved. Now, as I begin to reflect on what has happened so far, I can see His provision in getting me to this point. I hope I can use this knowledge and plant it more firmly in my heart so that I can give all my concerns to Him for the rest of the trip home.

    Technorati Tags: surrender, faith, trust, fear, anxiety