Bloom came to stay over last weekend. We woke up the next morning and she counted with the baby and talked to her. So cute.

Tara Parker-Pope quit the Wall Street Journal

Every Tuesday for the past two years, I have looked forward to a column called Health Journal. It was written by Ms. Pope. Not just written, but written well, diplomatically, and interesting. Health issues can often be boring, but she made each one worth reading and highly informative on subjects ranging from How to grill your steaks to avoid caustic chemicals, How to choose your male-enhancement pills - or why there is NOT such a thing... etc.

Well, three weeks ago in her column, she quietly acknowledged that this would be her final writings for the WSJ. No mention of why or where she was going...which, is the professional thing to do. But, I had to find out why.

Given the recent purchase of Dow Jones by Rupert Murdoch, I assumed it might just have something to do with this...and I am almost certain to be correct given a recent Google search and article in Slate.

It seems that the exodus of quality editors and columnists has already started. And now, given that Ms. Parker-Pope has gone on to the New York Times, I will have to think about resubscribing to that wonderful paper.

New Foo Fighters album out today. Can't wait to snag it. I have heard one song from it and it rocks. This new album apparently has piano, strings and horns on it as well. Just another example of Dave Grohl's vast appetite for stretching their creative, YET ROCKING, songwritting skills.

It is also my Father-in-Law's birthday too. Imagine that! Two Allbee Bee days on the same day. Happy Birthday Steve.

It's Christy's birthday today. She's only 315,360 hours old. I scored!

First Spamalot, then Guster.
The exposing of culture to our unborn daughter continued two-fold this past week. First, we attended the play Spamalot at the Buell Theatre, and then last night, the Guster concert at the Fillmore. Both were excellent. And as usual, my 6+ month pregnant wife outlasted me. Go girl.

Are there any Monty Python fans out there? Did you watch the Flying Circus on Saturday evenings after SNL? I am pretty sure that is when they were on PBS when I was just a kid. Great comedy.

And how about Guster? Do you remember them? Well, I first came across them on Nantucket Island in 1996. The summer of 1996 to be exact. I remember well the long days of our Tuesday deadline for the Beacon. We would have to have the paper out the door to the airport to be flown over to the mainland to be printed by 8:00pm. We made it almost every time. Anyway, we would rush the paper out the door, and then head to one of two bars that had bands. The Muse. THAT is the name of the bar. I am not even sure it is still there - after a google search rendered a bad link. But that is the place. Remember? Of course you do! Guster played there, maybe twice. But ever since, I could not get enough of Airport Song or Barrel of a Gun. Great songs. Then I saw them about 4 years ago at the Winter Park Rockfest. I highly recommend checking them out.

There is still much debate about how much an unborn baby can hear or retain in the womb, but I do not want to miss any chance to share with here good music and culture. I am sure now that our daughter will have my taste in music, and will always look on the bright side of life.

Fav. songs ( they also have a new album out which really kicks butt)

Airport Song
Barrel of a Gun
What You Wish For
Amsterdam
Satellite
One Man Wrecking Machine

Yeah, he shreds.

PLEASE stop saying LIKE so much! When you speak, PLEASE try to form complete sentences in your mind before opening your mouth. It is LIKE driving me @#&*! crazy! Thank you.

Baggy Pants Crackdown!

We had some friends in town from LA. One had never been here so we took them up in the mountains. First stopping at Herman's Gulch for a 2 -hour hike. It was gorgeous. I think it even snowed a few flakes. Unconfirmed though. Joy and Mark are a "joy" to be around. It was a refreshing weekend.
Someone else came on the hike as well. BABY G. It was her first hike. She was doing really well but then needed to warm up and catch some sun rays. She was a trooper. I don't believe she had even one bite of a power bar. See pic below.

I usually buy the Farmer's Almanac to get weather predictions and facts for the upcoming year. This year, the Almanac, not to be confused with the Farmer's Almanac, is providing all of the information on line. AND they have predicted 2008 to be the hottest year in this century. But the Farmer's Almanac predicts lots of snow and rain for a good portion of the country, mainly the upper Northeast ( of course ). Mild for our Rocky region. Bummer dude.

From Farmers Almanac: (Est. 1818)

For the western half of the country - mainly those areas west of the Mississippi – the overall winter will be milder than normal, with near or below normal precipitation. Quite a change from last year, when cold and stormy weather came blasting.

From the Almanac: (Est. 1792)

Predication includes a warmer-than-average winter in much of the country. Believers can look for below-average snowfall, except for a narrow swath extending from northeast Texas to northern New England.

ALSO: Here is the December forecast around the due date of Baby G.

Don’t discount Colorado, however. With 54 peaks above 14,000 feet, and an annual average of about 300 inches of snow, even a mild winter in this skier’s Mecca makes for some pretty good skiing. Look for heavy snowfall during the second week of December, and over Christmas, followed by a series of lighter snow showers throughout January and February. Cold mountain temperatures mean the Rockies should stay white for most of the season.

Gibson drools.

When we feed the dogs every day ( once in the morning, once at night) we first have then "sit", and then "stay." One night last week I noticed that there was a puddle on the floor where Gibson was sitting waiting for the "OK" command to eat his food. Well, a few days ago I happened to witness the actually spewing of drool coming from his mouth. It was hilarious. SO, last night, I tried and accomplished catching the drool in action. Watch closely and about 3-5 seconds into the video you will see a stream of drool come down. Then a few seconds later, another stream. Then, a lick. Gooh boy!

There is a great article in today's Denver Post about Bringing Up a Brainy Baby. They say the more you talk to your kid and use descriptive words, 30,000 per day, is proven to increase your child's intelligence and were more successful later in life. I don't know about you, but anything I can do to ensure this, I am going to try. PLUS, talking? sheesh, come on, now THAT is the easy part.

This person contacted my on flickr. he/she has a website that shows views from people's offices. kinda cool idea.

Dashboard desktop: 9.11.07
Originally uploaded by dhgatsby

I just saw that someone posted their Dashboard widgets, so thought I would do the same. What is on YOUR dashboard?

This guy is amazing. Just look at his work. You think to yourself, 'This guy must have SO much intensity going on in his brain to achieve this type of collage work". His designs use hundreds, if not thousands of layers. He says

"A lot of printers ask me how I created my work,” he says mischievously. “Because technically, it’s not actually possible.”

I found this link through here

Dr. Ariel Shamir has developed a way to resize or remove parts of an image using algorithms that not only delete just parts, but the right parts of an image. It is amazing. I am sure this will be incorporated into Adobe's Photoshop someday...soon.
Check out his site

Update:
Introducing the best iPods ever!
Apple just introduced a slew of updated and new iPods! YES

FOUR New ipods!

New iPod Touch! - looks like iPhone. 3.5" screen, flip views, AMAZING!
New ipods (renamed iPod Classic): 80GB ($249) and 160GB ($349)
New shuffles: different colors, same storage and size
New and improved iPod Nano: Shorter, fatter, half of unit is color screen with video.

AND...

They killed off the 4GB iPhone - Just the 8GB iPhone now for $399! $200 price drop.

Jason Chen of Gizmodo says:

More info: Exclusive with iTunes, no login required, completely free access ot the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store while at Starbucks (wow, free access to a STORE? thanks!).

Their rollout starts October 2nd, starting NY and Seattle. 600 Stores, following up with San Francisco’s 350 stores in November, nothing in Christmas, and starts again in February ‘08 with LA (600 stores), and March ‘08 in Chicago. After these, that’s 25% of the Wi-Fi stores. In ‘09, they hope to have all Wi-Fi enabled stores online.

Starbucks CEO/Chairman/Whatever is up on stage, talking about coffee and how they’re expanding into entetainment and music. “Starbucks has become this third place, between home and work”. No word yet on whether the Wi-Fi downloading will be free. It will, ok they just said that it’s free, and you’ll have free access to iTunes. He says it will drive incremental traffic to his stores, and discover music inside stores.

Starbucks integration: When you get near a Starbucks location, you’ll get a Starbucks icon in iTunes Store. You can buy songs that are playing over the Starbucks music selection, and you can even look at the last 10 songs that’s been played and buy the songs there.

Apple expected to unveil new iPod lineup

From DIGITIMES [Monday 3 September 2007]

Apple is expected to unveil its next-generation iPod lineup, including an iPod video with a touch-control interface, at a press conference on September 5, according to sources at Taiwan-based contract manufacturers.

The new iPod video will also come with a wide-screen panel, high storage capacity and Wi-Fi connectivity, the sources indicated. In addition, the new iPod video is expected to be powered by NAND flash, instead of a hard disk drive (HDD).

Apple is outsourcing the production of the new iPod video to Taiwan-based Inventec Appliances, which is expected to start volume shipments by the end of this month or in early October, the sources noted.

Apple's new products will also include a new iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle, to cash in on the upcoming Christmas season, stated the sources, who also noted that sales of the new iPod series is expected to total 22-23 million units in the fourth quarter of this year.

In addition to Inventec Appliances, other Taiwan-based makers, including Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and Asustek Computer, will also benefit from the launch of the new iPod product range, the sources asserted.

This is a cool little fancy program that lets you make web tiles for your background.

Stripe Generator