Work At Home Dad - Ty Tribble

Democratic National Convention

I have a special message for democrats everywhere:

Bill Clinton is not your 2004 nominee.

Remember that.

Clinton's speech was inspiring and uniting. John Kerry is neither.

Did anyone else feel like the embrace between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Former President Bill Clinton seemed fake? It really has nothing to do with Clinton's speech, which I thought was excellent, just an observation.

Mt St. Helens Pictures

Update: Brand New Mt. St. Helens Information Here: Mt. St. Helens News

Yesterday, we returned home from our camping trip. I'm not sure if I have ever appreciated my bed more than I did last night. We had a great time and look forward to more short trips like this in the future. The area we went to would be considered Southwest Washington and on one of our day trips we ventured east to Mt. St. Helens.

For you techie people, I took these pictures with my Nokia 3650 Camera Phone. These shots are taken from the Johnston Observatory. The first shot, above, is the standard tourist picture. Note how the kids aren't looking anywhere near the camera, this is madatory in a tourist shot.

The shot below is of a tree that was completely torn apart in the volcanic blast of 1980.

I still remember the day that Mt. St. Helens erupted and actually felt the eruption even though we lived over 200 miles away. It is interesting to now go back and see how animal and plant life are just now talking root in some areas. There are some great learning centers and observatories, funded by public/private cooperation. The Forest Learning Center has been pimped by Weyerhaeuser Corporation and is very educational and entertaining for kids and adults.

Taking the Wife and Kids Camping

Is there a prayer for taking your 7 year old girl and 4 year old boy on a 5 day camping trip?

I am looking forward to this little trip and I hope to have some interesting stories when I return, meanwhile here is:

Camping Tip #1: Do not mention to your wife that for the price of the tent, lantern, food, sleeping bags, and other equipment just purchased, we could have gone to Vegas for the weekend.

Church

My church actually issues earplugs at the information desk for people that might think the music is too loud. How cool is that?

Office Reorganization

I spent the better part of last night and today reorganizing my home office, topped off a trip to Office Depot for a new wireless keyboard and mouse. I always feel really good after one of these cleaning and organizing sessions. I still have a few things to file and follow up on, but for the most part, I feel like I am sitting in a brand new office. One thing that always surprises me is the amount of stuff I throw away at the end of one of these cleaning. It makes me think that I should be a lot more selective when considering whether or not to toss something or put it on my desk.

I highly recommend the Microsoft Wireless Mutimedia Keyboad 1.0A and this product as a reward for cleaning your room.

Why Not Barter?

I was recently looking at joining a local Golf & Country Club and before I joined, I looked at the website. Later I made a comment to my mother-in-law who is a member, telling her that the site looked like "butt". Well my mother-in-law talked to the director of the club and mentioned that they should have me re-do their site. I am not as real web site guru, but I know my a bit of HTML and can find the tools to make a site look pretty good.

I offered to re-do and regularly update the site, and they offered me a free initiation as a social member and a couple of rounds of golf a month. Basically I am getting $250 worth of trade a month for my services. Barter is cool!