trying to believe

Today, I am 29 years old. I don’t feel any older, but the ever-appearing gray hairs I’m getting say otherwise. If you had asked me ten years ago where I thought I’d be at Age 29, I doubt I would have been able to say that I’d be where I am.

This photo was taken outside the offices of PowerServe in Augusta, GA on November 27, 2007. This beautiful scene stayed in place and gradually shifted through shades of orange and pink for nearly a half hour. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life. (View more photos in this set.)

BTW, if you dig the photo, consider digging it. Thanks!

Received this via email from my friend Erik, and thought it was worth sharing here because I love the idea:

When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please include
the following:

A Recovering American Soldier
C/O Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20307-5001

God bless our soldiers for doing what they do.

What the Web Standards Project did for the web, the Email Standards Project hopes to do for email. This new initiative, which launched today (11.28.07 @ 10am, Sydney Australia time) is one I fully support. HTML Email can serve a legitimate purpose, and it’s about time this sort of advocacy took place. I hope you’ll join me in congratulating the ESP team on their launch and in supporting the ESP any way you can in the future.

Wondering why we need standards support in HTML email? Learn More…

On this day, we are reminded to be thankful. I am thankful for my wife and son, my family, my friends, my job and awesome coworkers, and for God - without Him, we have nothing.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Some minor site-related news:

• Decreasing Load Time - I’ve been trying to get the site to run faster. I’ve installed several caching solutions (including WP Super Cache) and enabled articles to be gzipped, and so far the site seems more responsive to me. I’m hoping to have some time to play this weekend and remove some of the queries. If you’ve been to my site before, did you notice whether the site has been quicker to load?
• Comment Timeouts - I am now using James McKay’s Comment Timeout Plugin for Wordpress on the site. What this means to you, is that all posts will now have an expiration date for comments. If a post is popular and receives more comments than usual, it’ll stay open for comments for up to 6 months after the last comment made. For all other posts, commenting will time out after 60 days. I felt like this addition was necessary because older posts tend to be breeding grounds for comment spam, and some topics simply need to be closed…
• Stylesheet Updates - The site will most likely appear broken in areas over the next couple of weeks. I’m going to be working on simplifying the underlying CSS of my site in preparation for a Version XVI launch towards the beginning of the year.

It’s hard to believe that the Nintendo Wii came out a year ago today. I initially wrote off the console as a child’s toy, but I’ve grown to love it more than any other gaming console I’ve owned. What I love most about the Wii is its ability to engage non-traditional players. Whether you’re six years old or ninety-six, the Wii isn’t intimidating.

Nintendo: Bravo for making a console that has succeeded in bringing gaming to a new level. Happy Birthday.

Update: The OLPC’s “Give One, Get One” Campaign has been extended until December 31st! If thought you were going to miss out in supporting this worthy cause, you now have more time to participate…

I’ve been hearing about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative for some time. It came to my attention that between November 12 and November 26th, OLPC would be offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada.

At PowerServe, I have the pleasure of working with a lot of folks that love technology as much as I do AND love giving to worthy causes. When I saw the OLPC Give One Get One program was going on, I immediately sent an IM to Mike and Jeff. They loved the idea, and said that PowerServe would match what employees could raise.

The initial goal was to try and purchase one OLPC. But I’m happy to report that between the bunch of us, we were able to raise over $400 and PowerServe is going to match that to purchase two pairs of the OLPC xo laptops. Two of the systems are destined for developing countries where they’ll provided to children who would otherwise not have access to the internet or technology in general. The other two systems will be making their way to our offices, where, once they arrive we’ll be giving them to two local children who could use them.

I’m glad to support this initiative, and I can’t thank my coworkers enough for supporting this worthy cause. If you’re interested in participating on your own, xo laptops are available for $399 via laptopgiving.org. One system goes abroad, the other comes to you. Don’t wait too long though. The Give One Get One program only lasts until November 26th.

(One bonus to this is that buying the xo laptop will net you 12 months of free T-Mobile Hot Spot use. The recipients of the laptops we’ve purchased will be getting this access to use with their new computers. I’ll be following up with this post once we decide on who will get the laptops!)

New “Cloverfield” trailer posted online. Still has fans scratching their heads asking, “WTF?”

Pushin’ Pixels is a new tumblr-powered blog I’ve setup, to help eliminate some of the extra “fluff” I’ve been introducing to this site. From now on asides, quotes, links, etc. will be featured on Pushin’ Pixels. This will help me to refocus on adding more in-depth articles in the future. Speaking of which, my schedule at work has been really hectic this month, which is why posting’s been nearly non-existent. I expect that to change soon. Things tend to slow down over the holidays, and I’m more than ready for a bit of a slowdown after the pace I’ve been working this year.