Ok, this is sappy, but I thought is was pretty cute.

We have a batch of bunnies that were just born on our patio - specifically under a Hasta(sp?)

I think Tiger actually has other plans for them, if she can ever figure out how to open the patio door. If they are out, she will sit for hours at the door and ‘watch’ them.

Note the bunnie is in the upper right center

Leaving for Hawaii tomorrow morning, less than 24 hours away.

I’m sitting here with an MP3 Player(spouses), a phone/MP3 player(mine), three cameras (mine, daughter’s, son’s), one camcorder (ours), an external harddrive (music and school files), laptop (mine), 2 Nintendo DS’s (son’s and daughter’s), and assorted cables and other stuff.

I now have an official electronics and cables backpack that goes with me on trips. And a laptop case - AAARRGHHH!!

Gotta bring the laptop - My final exam is when I’m in Hawaii online and I’ll never know if I have to use my slingbox (only works on my laptop for security reasons) to record or watch Son of Football Follies while I’m gone.

Laptop is basically worthless without the Pocket drive.

8 hour flight means kids need DS’s. OK, maybe not NEED, but helps my sanity.

Have to bring the camcorder ( we talked about not bringing it, but how do you not, it is Hawaii )

Two different makes of cameras mean two different cables.

My only saving grace is my laptop has 4 USB ports and an S-video port; at least I can multi-task.

I’m spending time as we speak putting cables, headphones(movies on the plane), and batteries into zip lock bags and labeling them. It’s easier than remembering that the white cable with the 8 pin is the Canon cameras, black cable with 6 pin is Panasonic, etc.

But, I guess at the end of the day. I’M FINALLY GOING TO HAWAII!!!!

What was I complaining about again?

I don’t write many Rants on my blog, but today is an exception:

I read FJohn’s post first thing this morning and it struck a nerve (not his post, but the article). The Post was RANT: ’sassy’ - the toy industry’s euphemism for sexy

>>>My Comment:

As a parent of an 8 year old girl (and to some extent the 10 year old boy), my wife and I feel like this is an ‘ever-vigilant’ battle against the stores, the schools, the commercials, and even some of the other parents.

Our most particular of these is the “predator shorts” as we refer to them. You know the shorts that young girls where with wording on the rear end. Our high school cheerleaders have them as their warm ups, Tell me, what could be the possible use for these other than to get people to look at their rear ends. Needless to say our daughter does not wear them.

Look, I’m all for grown women or men wearing pretty much anything they want, and as such I have never questioned what any adult wears, but one of my concerns is that before we complain that their are more people out there trying to ‘assault’ our children, we need to learn to quit making them targets!!

Let the kids be Kids, Force your kids to be Kids, not miniature adults.

Sorry for the RANT

<<<End Comment

As the Article in FJohn’s post says, everyone is going to try to make the kids “Get Older Younger.” I think we need to fight this as long as we can. I want my children to have an innocent youth to look back on.

Got this on one of the networking boards I enjoy.

POST>>>>>

Hi everyone,

I’m a recent graduate as of May and I have been having a tough time
finding a job. One of the things I feel that I lack is experience,
but how can I get experience if no one is willing to take a chance.
If anyone knows of anyway on how I can get experience and/or
establish myself in the business world, please let me know!

Have a great day everyone!
<<<< End Post

My Reply >>

Hi XXXXX,

I wish you luck. If you want to drop me a note offline, we can make
some time to talk in more detail. How to get experience will greatly
depend on your major, what you want to do, and your expectations.
Unfortunately there aren’t any quick fixes, but I (and a few of my
contacts) are always more than willing to help out the next
generation of young talent. We may all be working for you someday,
and maybe sooner than you think.

Lane
<<< End Reply

Made me think, from both a positive and negative aspect what it would be like to enter the market as a youngster these days.

They are faced with challenges that my generation never had. Heck, I wasn’t even a Computer Science major and I had offers before I graduated. Companies literally littered the campuses with work opportunities if you knew how to “log on.” Something tells me those days are over, and the youth of today are going to have to be a lot more flexible and motivated than in the past.

I personally think it’s going to cause the gap between those that “succeed” and those that just “survive” become even wider.

Now, some of the positives. I am willing to state that I don’t think they will take their jobs, savings, and ‘personal’ networks nearly for granted as we did.

We may not like everything facebook, youtube, and all the other social networking sites have become, but they have taught the concepts of a broad, yet targeted network to a new generation in a fundamental way that we couldn’t have through text books.

Yesterday, I came across this interesting article from Marshal Goldsmith on Harvard Business Review’s Ask the Coach blog.

The blog made a connection between Leadership Training and Improv. It was interesting and worth the read.

While there after dropping a comment, I was directed by one of the comments to the blog of Nina Simosko, which also had a number of interesting articles.

Her most current post took me to the Leadership Development Carnival, which I must say is a great idea by Dan McCarthy.

Being out last week gave me some time to catch up on my leisure reading. So I finished a couple of books and started a third.

The first of these books was Robert B. Parker’s “Spare Change.”

I give the book a ‘disappointing’ rating.

Spare Change is the latest edition in the Sunny Randall series by Parker who created and wrote the “Spenser” series. The “Sunny” series doesn’t seem to have quite the biting humor as “Spenser” and doesn’t have nearly the creative character types such as Hawk or Spenser’s other associates from the wrong side of the tracks.

In “Spare Change”, Sunny is brought in to help her father, a retired police investigator, solve a chain of serial murders that were dormant for 20 years and have recently restarted. While the expansion of Sunny’s father’s character even further in this book helps the movement of the overall series, the book just lacks something. The book has it’s good moments and I would guess it adds more to the character development of a number of characters; but the story needs something more to make it good.

I shouldn’t complain. Parker is great for a quick read, it doesn’t pretend to get into the depth of a Baldacci novel, or the complexity that you can get out of a Deaver novel, or the mystical you can find in Iris Johansen novel.

******** Rating System **********************

Must Read = Anyone who enjoys reading should read the book (rarely used)

Must Read in Genre = If you like the Author or the Genre, you should read this book.

Good = Met expectations but not considered special in any way.

Disappointing = I expected more than I got. Overall the book lacks something fundamental to being enjoyable.

Putrid = Reserved for the rare instances that I can’t even finish a book because I just can’t invest myself in it.

I was cleared to start flying again this week. Still not sure if it was the Meniere’s or an ear infection, but the symptoms are gone so the doctor ok’d me to fly and we’ll keep an eye on it.

For those of us who grew up as LSU Tiger Baseball fans, Alex Box Stadium has many fond memories.   It closed after this year as LSU is moving to a NEW “modern” stadium.

For me, there are a number, but of course the one I will always remember is playing there once during my High School Years.  If you grew up in Louisiana and played baseball, playing in the Box was about the biggest thrill you could ever hope to get.

Thanks to my sister, who forwarded me on this great presentation from someone who was in attendence on the day they Closed the Box. (in PowerPoint Format)

last-day-at-the-box

Please note that I added my baby sister’s blog to the blogroll.

It’s a blog about home schooling and other thoughts. She is a wonderful person and is a great mom, so it is interesting to keep up with her. Thought you might enjoy, so enjoy!

Drink Deeply With Us

Finally got around to watching the Will Smith film “I am Legend”.

Overall, I was satisfied with the movie, though not to the point that it is a must watch. I really like Will Smith and as such had much higher hopes for this movie from the trailers.

The movie takes place on the Island of Manhattan in New York several years after a ‘cure’ for cancer has mutated into a viral strain that kills off 90% of the population, converts a significant portion of the rest to ‘night walkers’ which are zombie like creatures, and leaves a few unaffected.

Smith plays a military researcher/doctor who is trying to find a cure for the virus and as such goes through a lot of the typical “End of the World as We Know It” scenarios. The relationship he develops with his dog is interesting and the Smith gets pretty good mileage out of the character’s attempts to assimilate in the environment.

The problem with the movie stems from the predictability in how things happen. I felt like I was often one scene ahead.

Glad I rented it from blockbuster, but even more happy I didn’t pay theater prices for it, though a few of the scenes would have probably gained drama on the big screen.