In April, our Boston Terrier, Clancy, passed away.  I’d had him for about 10 years and the loss was a very trying time for us.  Much of his odd behaviors and weird personality was the center of our lives.  We decided recently to foster Boston Terriers who were up for adoption by the Boston Terrier Rescue of East Tennessee. Not long afterward, a pair of Bostons showed up at our door.  They were bonded together and so they...

This is the first in a series of articles reviewing the best GTD applications and summarizing their features, then selecting a winner to replace my current application. Years ago, a friend told me about the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology.  I had expressed frustration with trying to juggle everything going on in my life (new job, planning a wedding, training for a marathon, etc.) and had just picked up Steven Covey‘s book, The...

I headed down to Titusville, Florida this weekend for the inaugural Rocketman Half-Ironman Triathlon, which boasts one of the most unique race courses in the triathlon calendar.  The week leading up to the race had been constant rain storms and wind across most of Florida, so I had been watching the weather reports fairly actively throughout the days before it.  Fortunately, the rains stopped as I was driving down on Saturday to go to...

It’s not uncommon for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear monumental court cases… it is the Supreme Court, of course.  This week stands to be a extraordinarily divisive week for one of two groups in the country as it hears both the Proposition 8 and DOMA cases.  I’ve been surprised, and for the most part pleased, by recent decision by the court despite its several very conservative justices.  I’m hopeful that it will...

Sometimes I get so caught up working on web sites for other folks that I forget to show attention to my own.  I spent some time last month working through my personal goals for the new year.  In the grand scheme of things, New Years Resolutions tend to fall by the wayside for most people within a few weeks, and I wanted to identify some life goals that were meaningful to me, and that I could manage as the year progressed to increase the...

Several months ago, we decided to cancel our home telephone.  There were a number of factors that went into this decision.  For example, we were paying more than $50/month for a phone number that was really only used for my wife to talk with her month each weekend and the occasional work-related conference call.  Perhaps more importantly, we had started to get telemarketing calls on behalf of Comcast trying to get us to upgrade our...

With only three months until Disney Marathon Weekend, I’ve run myself right down to the wire.  If I start training tonight, which I did, I would have time to ramp up to 20 miles, then taper for two weeks before the marathon.  It’s unfortunate I didn’t start training a few weeks earlier like I had planned; I would have had time to ramp up my mileage two or three times. In essence, I’ve taken the last two years off...