oooOOOOooh. nice. this adobe AIR app called Tour de Flex is probably now the clearing house of all things Adobe Flex as far as its capabilities, components and data integration. If you are a Flex developer and/ or are interested in Flex. you gotta git it!

I saw this post on a website that was sent to me that automated the note-carding process. Now i am a big fan of note carding during the planning phase of development projects. Its a great exercise to get
thoughts down an it encourages participation by even the most resistant team members. The Beauty of the process is that it gets you to think differently about the solution that you are trying to provide that solves the problem. Although this product seems worthy of praising as it saves time in digitizing the process later. I feel that in doing so, it short-circuits what the process is meant to do in the first place.

Note-carding is supposed to be a bit laborious. Its supposed to be messy and its supposed to encourage manually writing things down and pasting them up on a wall. Dis-engaging from our CPU’s to work together creatively to come up with elements to solve a problem is what the process is supposed to do. I would go as far as to make sure NO digital devices be allowed in the meeting room during this process save a figital camera to take a picture of the wall you may be stick-i-fying.

Maybe this product has applications beyond software development. But for my team, we will use the hand-spun 3M stickies so that our creative right brains get more involved in the process of what our left-brains like to dominate.

Wow, I’ve been a member of Facebook for some time and to be honest, haven’t updated my profile or cared too much about the technology. However, in the last few months i have been inundated with friend requests from EVERYWHERE. Most of my friend requests are coming from past High School alumni. Its a pretty amazing thing actually. I’ve had to break out the ol’ Year Book to find out who some of these folks are but it has been a pretty cool ride getting in touch with people that frankly, i forgot about.

I’ve been on facebook for quite a while and its been the last few months that there has been a massive amount of activity where people are coming out of the woodwork! People from my past, people from High School. Lost friendships. Its actually very cool. At first, facebook.com is a little weird to navigation. I think it could use some User Interface updates to make things run more smoothly. Anyway its a great service and much more ‘mature’ than mySpace or something similar.

I guess if there is any authority on Christian philosophy or even someone to call the ‘Father of modern Christian philosophy’, its got to be Francis Schaeffer. I admit that this is the first of his books I am reading but already its got me thinking differently about how current human thought has shifted in recent times. I will post more here as i learn more. A note of caution thought, have dictionary handy when reading this book - There are many terms he uses that i have to look up. I guess my vocab is not as wide as i thought.

I think everyone should read this book. I am currently only in Chapter 10 and yet i am enthralled with the accuracy and diligence of Mr. Rosenberg. If you are a Christian, this is a must read. Not to get hyped up on last days thinking or panic but to realize what is going on in the world and that prophecies are being fulfilled. If you are not a believer in Christ, then this book is still for you as it makes us keenly aware of what is going on in the world under our noses. With everything going on in the current Presidential races, the war in Iran and the ‘noise’ of the world, it is sobering to read what is going on between the powers that want to see Israel wiped off of the map.

Enough of the Sleepless in Seattle reference. Chrysyn has started something in these parts called ‘Westernaires’. I guess you could call it a horse school. Not necessarily just horse riding, this organization teaches the kids how to take care of them including feeding, grooming, and just about anything equine related you could think of. This program goes all year ’round and she’s really excited about it and seems to be having a lot of fun atop of these huge animals.

In watching these four-legged beasts being pranced around being controlled by a 10 year-old I can’t help but wonder how meek these animals really are.

My dad sent me an email and he immigrated to this country with his parents during WWII. I think Teddy Roosevelt says it best:

“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equalitywith everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against anysuch man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of anation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

So yeah, seems retailers all over from Wal-Mart, to Target, to Walgreens are all running with their hair on fire from the work ‘Christ’. All of these guys are resorting to the safety of ‘Happy Holidays’ or something more bland for their Christmas season advertisements. How brave of them. I think i heard a stat  where Wal-Mart said that ‘we figure that 18% of our customers could be offended by the word Christmas. 18 percent??!! are you nuts what about the over 82% of your customers that think its O.K.? What about the people in rural areas that made you Wal-Mart? Most of the conservative Christians! a bunch of monkeys… all of em!

I have also heard that Walgreens MAY change their advertising next year as the out-cry against their anti ‘Christ’ message during the holidays has been huge. BTW, don’t they know that the word ‘Holiday’ comes from the words ‘Holy Day’? Watch out guys, that word will be next!!

That’s right, an old Kulvinskas tradition… Basically involves shouting:

“Pinch and a Punch for the first of the month!”

[pinching the person]
[punching the person]
[running away]

The pinched/punched person cannot retaliate.

Seems with technology and distance we have revised the rules. We can call each other and when you can identify the person’s voice on the line with a “hello” you can then virtually pinch and punch the person by saying the fabled line above. Seems i fall for it every time and am caught on my laurels. Anyway, if you are reading this on the First of December…. “Pinch and a Punch for the first of the month!”… consider your self pinched and punched.

-e to the k