In case you ever lose your dog, your watch, or your mind you can hop on over to The Found Bin and post a message or search for your found item.
Read the rest of this entry »

In a few months I’ll be 37. I think it’s fair to assert that I’m past the point at which I’d be considered a young man, and I’m closing in on middle age. The most interesting thing that has accompanied age for me is an increasing awareness of how little I actually know.

When I was younger I was more certain about my knowledge, even though I had less of it. But Socrates’ aphorism “Know Thyself” has become more intimate to me as I grow older.

There are still a few things that I remain certain of, and I figured that I should probably write them down now before I change my mind.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since I bought a really nice camcorder a few weeks ago I’ve been preparing to produce and upload some videos in the near future. In the processes I needed to get up to speed on the use of video editing software, and I didn’t want to pay hundreds of bucks for professional training since I’m already pretty proficient at a wide variety of software.

So, as usual I did a search of the net and came across all of the following tutorial videos that teach how to create and edit movies. If you find any other high quality tutorials please drop a comment below and let me know as I’m trying to learn as much as possible right now.
Read the rest of this entry »

I quite enjoyed the stay at the Marriott Residence Inn in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia on May 14, 2007 even though I was only there for one night, mainly because it was very much like having a home away from home.

This hotel is actually more of an apartment. In fact, if they ever wanted to they could shut it down and sell the property as condos. My room was essentially a one bedroom loft apartment with the bed upstairs and a bonus hide-away bed downstairs.
Read the rest of this entry »

I only have one thing to say about Laurel Maryland’s hotel situation. You don’t want to stay here if you have any other options. Go up the road to Columbia or over towards Baltimore, but avoid Laurel.

Why is that? Because the Days Inn & Suites is among the “nicest” places to stay in this little town, and frankly it ain’t that great.
Read the rest of this entry »

I stayed at the Springfield, Virginia Hampton Inn on May 7, 2007 and the two best things about the hotel are:

1. It is relatively inexpensive.
2. It is located right beside the mall and restaurants.

All in all, I will stay here again, though there were a few details that could use improvement.
Read the rest of this entry »

As many of you are aware, I am a Direct Metal Sculptor specializing in welded metal art. I have several older pieces on my other blog at JohnsArt.org, but it’s been over a year since I posted anything new there. So, instead of posting everything I do I figured I’ll just selectively share a few things with you guys here on OMB.

Several months ago I was asked to come up with some large freestanding star sculptures which could be used as a collaborative project for the school aged kids in my home town of Frisco, TX. The design requirements were:

• There was virtually no budget.
• The sculptures needed to be weatherproof.
• They needed to be portable.

Generally speaking these three things don’t really go together, but after quite a bit of brainstorming I designed and fabricated all of the star sculptures that follow.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of the most brilliant and courageous things I’ve ever seen. Thanks to Ruby on Rails Guy for sharing this in the comments of another post.

In 2006 Wafa Sultan was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people “whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world.” They had this to say:

“Sultan’s influence flows from her willingness to express openly critical views on Islamic extremism that are widely shared but rarely aired by other Muslims.”

Sultan believes:

“The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam (is) also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force.”

Personally, I would go so far as to say that Dr. Wafa Sultan is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever seen in my life. I would have no problem comparing her to Dr. Martin Luther King.
Read the rest of this entry »

When I booked a flight on American Airlines to travel to San Francisco for my wife and myself for vacation in a couple of weeks, I had no idea the hassle I was signing up for.

I made the booking about 3 weeks ago directly on AA.com, and at the time I was certain that I had signed up for the 9:45am flight. Well, today as I was booking travel back and forth to D.C. for the next few weeks I decided to take a look at that old reservation because I’ll be traveling back from DC the night before we are scheduled to leave the next morning.

So, I opened the reservation to take a look only to discover that there is an error. The flight was supposed to be in the morning, but instead it’s listed in the evening!
Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first in a series of several Washington D.C. area hotel reviews. I’m doing a few weeks worth of consulting in the area at the request of a friend, and finding a place to stay has been a challenge, so I’ve had to stay at a different hotel almost every night so far. The good news is that I’ll be able to give lots of feedback on a wide variety of hotels. So, here we go…

I stayed at the Marriott TownPlace Suites in Springfield, Virginia on May 9, 2007. The experience was fine, and I will stay here again, but there is no way this is a 4.5 star rating hotel as TripAdvisor reports. Sure, it’s cheap, and its OK, but it’s just a solid 3 – perhaps 3.5 in the hotel universe.

Unfortunately my photos make it look nicer than it actually seemed when I was in the room. When I was there the furnishings seemed like Wal-Mart quality and this does not translate well in the photos. There were also a number of other little annoyances.
Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, did you realize that there are now over 70,000,000 blogs on the Web according to Technorati? And interestingly enough they rank One Man’s Blog among the top 6,000 blogs on the net!

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for linking to articles on my site because that is what Technorati tracks, and I appreciate every single link you provide! So Thank You! (and keep em coming…)

While we’re measuring things, two other interesting measurements have been improving steadily over time as well.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had several people ask me how to create video screen captures like the one I did for my Roboform demonstration video. Here are a few options, with a focus on the free CamStudio screen recorder.

If you do not require video (it does audio) to be captured concurrently (like you talking on video) with the screen recording you can use the free CamStudio to make the recording. You can also still use CamStudio if you don’t mind recording the video and then splicing it into the screen capture later. It will even do picture in picture if you prefer.
Read the rest of this entry »