Okay, maybe it's not for the Lone Star den dwellers, but I have just helped a Teddy Bear Book site go live. Playing with the graphics and text was a lot more fun than some other of my business sites.  I was able to wipe the dust from a couple of stuffed kids on the shelf and put them in front of the camera.  It's always nice to show pictures of the children. I also used the pages as tests of my ability to adapt to the latest HTML and CSS standards (which, I am convinced, only nerd and nerd [...]

After my frequent entries about church, plays not to miss, and other indirect prescriptions for living your life, I hesitate to make more suggestions for how you should use your time. I hesitate, but I cannot stop myself from the small nudge that an hour a week watching Battlestar Galactica  is well spent. We find it amazing drama with captivating acting and a storyline that comments on today's issues without being obviously preachy -- this is no cheesy Star Trek with half-white-half-black aliens stupidly facing off against half-black-half-white aliens. Instead, we are immersed in murky situations of unclear morality. The good-guy major characters [...]

You scored as Alison. You're Alison! You are very sweet and pretty, but you don't mind being in the background. You are very well-liked and people want to be on your team. Which Project Runway [3] Designer Are You? created with QuizFarm.com Alison! Alison?? I feel so vanilla!  (And, besides, I said I wasn't pretty!)

redozdachs and I celebrated our 16th anniversary yesterday.  I couldn't find a 1990 picture of us, but this 1991 one is pretty good for a time machine photo: It doesn't feel like 16 years -- that sounds a lot longer than it really has been!

Sunday at 4 pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Society (1187 Franklin Street at Geary) The ceremonial start of our new minister's tenure will be celebrated Sunday at 4 pm at our church. California Assembly Member Mark Leno (D - San Francisco) will deliver the Welcome at the installation service. Democratic Candidate for California Secretary of State,  Senator Debra Bowen (D - Redondo Beach), will also publicly greet our minister. A&E and the Chron have said they'll be sending reporters. Special music, pomp and ceremony will round out the fun. A free reception featuring a jazz band, hot and cold hors  [...]

Since the article on our minister's family appeared in Sunday's Chronicle I have enjoyed a wonderful flurry of phone greetings and congratulatory emails.  The Democratic Candidate for California Secretary of State, State Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), has called to accept our invitation to the minister's installation ceremony 4 pm Sunday. Assemblyman Mark Leno (D- San Francisco) did, too! Thanks to fuzzygruf for the posting in his blog and for the other good wishes.  After a couple days of excitement I am able to concentrate somewhat on my clients' CPA seminars and email issues.  But, it is a lot more fun to read [...]

The above-the-fold front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning is about my church's new minister and his family.  The focus is on how the family came together and the commitment of two gay men to make a difference through love. The article jumps from the front page to a two-page spread in the front section under the headline "The Forever Family". The Chron cheats!  They use large pictures of the very cute kids to move the story along. It works very well. The family was the lead story on SFGate.com when I looked. Wow! The online article [...]

The latest edition of iTunes (7.0+) by default hides the "Free on iTunes" section on the Apple store for logged on users.  Instead, if the store knows who you are, that part of the screen real estate is taken up with the "Just for You" section a la Amazon.com's personalized suggestions.  In fact, the free information disappears completely from the iTunes display. You won't see this: The easiest solution is to turn off the Apple store recommendations.  The free panel comes back. This afternoon I turned off the suggestion and grabbed for the Battlestar Galactica download.  Can never have too [...]

Thanks to digg.com I surfed to the Washington Post's comprehensive information on Congress.  Great fun for political junkies! The digg.com article touted the ability to get RSS feeds of your member of Congress's votes.  There is a button for RSS feeds on the profile page for each Representative and Senator. But, wait!  There's more! The individual member pages give thumbnail biographies and profiles of the districts, tell when the Senators are up for reelection, and list recent votes.  The vote pages for recent legislation also tells each member's vote and the way the majority of Democrats/Republicans voted.  There are also intriguing pages with [...]

I have sent in money to the Democratic Congressional Campaign because I believe the American values I grew up with are being attacked by committed, well-meaning ideologues who don't let facts get in the way of their world view. These starry-eyed idealists look only at the ends and are committed to using any means to get them. Unfortunately for the country and the world, the means they use are sometimes both immoral and counterproductive.  These misguided idealists are entrenched in power.  They are either Republican officeholders or else they are supported by Congressional Republicans.  It's clear to me that electing a Democratic Congress [...]