March Madness, and more

March Madness begins! Selection Sunday was exciting as usual. Glad to see Purdue as a six seed. More glad to see Indiana as an eight (ha)! I'm trying to fix my work schedule so that I can be home to watch some games either Thursday, Friday, or both.

And just a few things of note recently:

• A nerdy, but nostalgically addictive addition to my "regular websites" in VirtualNES.com and Nintendo8.com. Thanks Faulkner. Thanks a lot.
• Obama came to Indiana. I did not get to see him. Maybe next time.
• The Ides of March came and went again.
  
• St. Patty's Day is tomorrow (unless you are Catholic, and then it was yesterday)
• And speaking of Catholic, did anyone else see that the Pope added to the list of Mortal Sins (meaning, you need absolution for them). I want to talk with a practicing Catholic on what they think.
  
• Environmental pollution
• Genetic manipulation
• Accumulating excessive wealth
• Inflicting poverty
• Drug trafficking and consumption
• Morally debatable experiments
• Violation of fundamental rights of human nature
  

Snow Dog

Daisy and I went for a romp in the fresh snowfall today. I'm ready for spring, but it was good to get a solid snowfall in before we move on to the next season. We ended up with three to four inches her in Muncie. In some of the pictures below, you'll see that she went crazy, just running in circles for the first bit. Then she entered the "I want to eat snow" phase. I tried to get her to pose for a portrait, but she just wouldn't sit still. So, here are a few of my favorites, followed by a slideshow of the good ones.






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Update: Here's a video of Daisy playing, mostly for the Smiths in Colorado.

The Google Workplace

I came across this Reuters photo-essay on the Google Workplace. This is the sort of place I want to work. This is something to aim for. What a work environment! Now that I've spent some time in a cubicle, I want it even more. And I've started by implementing with foursquare (twice a week) and lunchswaps. Now I've got some new ideas.


This is by far the best photo and the best idea. There are 17 photos and each photo comes with a quick explanation.

The Iditarod: A Dream Job?

The Iditarod dog-sled race began on Saturday. Each team of 12 to 16 dogs will cover 1,409 miles and take some 9 or ten days. This is, perhaps, the most extreme sport of them all. A true testament to the human (and canine) spirit and a test of survival. Mushing through blizzard conditions, these are brave soles. At times, the temperature can reach a wind chill of -100 Fahrenheit. The winner takes home around $70,000. And serious bragging rights.

This brings up a point: I'd like to add this to my list of "Dream Jobs."

A while back I posted my top five dream jobs, a post I can't locate at the moment. I'm sure it included freelance writer, Disney Imagineer, and three others (I'll find them eventually).

Today, I'll add a few seasonal Dream Jobs:

1 - Dog sled Racer
2 - Mountain Climber
3 - Pixar Animator (they have an opening right now)
4 - Ski -Patrol
5 - Political Speech Writer

If you want to follow the Iditarod:

www.iditarod.com
www.dogsled.com
www.iditablog.com


(there is a site linked through these that does GPS tracking for some of the 95 teams that started this year's race; it's neat)

Babymoon

This weekend, Stacey and I headed for Chicago on our "babymoon." That's what couples do who are going to have a baby - take your last trip without children that you are going to get for the next twenty five years. We took a three-day weekend and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

In an effort to make this blog less long, compared to previous posts, I'll put the highlights in bullets and include a Picasa slideshow.

• Three Days, Two Nights in Chicago, staying at the Conrad
• A stop at the Museum of Science & Industry
  
• Less than inspiring and the second best museum of the trip
• Dunkin' Donuts (my favorite) Twice
• They have an astonishing White Hot Chocolate
• If they were to come to Muncie, I'd visit daily like all too many Starbucks fiends
• The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum
• We popped-in because it's free until Election Day
• It focuses on First Amendment Rights, with notable exhibits on the Presidential Election, interactive touch screen gadgets and even Stacey thoroughly enjoyed it
• We had Giordano's deep dish pizza. That made baby's mama happy
• We took in the Tony-winning musical, Wicked. It was wicked awesome.
  
• Dinner at Weber Grill another night
• A book store was perused
• We strolled through Millennium Park
• "The Bean" is neat, the ice skating is picturesque and the green space, necessary
• All-in-all, we had a very enjoyable, low-key weekend

In attempt to even out the ratio of "us pictures" to "pictures of stuff" (at Stacey's request), we tried to take more pictures together. And we had some funny moments with time-delay photography. Here's what I mean:




And then here are a sampling of photos for the rest of our trip.