Off to Newport

I'm headed to Newport this weekend to visit a few friends and I am absolutely psyched to be in some marginally better weather (high 70s). More importantly, I'm bringing my golf clubs since I'll be playing my first round of golf in ~15 months! From TaylorMade:

I am a golfer.
I love this game. Its history is my history.
Its rules are my laws.
The course is my home.
Golfers are my family.

I get up at hours I'd never consider for any other reason.
I've raced the sun to get in 18. I have putted for hours in near darkness.
I am a golfer.

I ride.
I pull.
I carry.
Sometimes the game is medal.
Sometimes match.
I grind for 2 bucks like it was a thousand.
I am a golfer.

I still remember my Dad teaching me how to hold a club.
And I will never forget the day I beat him. [Soon...]
I have been coached by everyone from club pros to guys at the range.
And each time I believe they might hold the answer.
but I know where the answer lies.
It's found in the dirt.
I am a golfer.

I keep my clubs in my trunk.
I've looked away when opponents are struggling, to give them some space.
My favorite sound is the chatter of my clubs on my back. Some say I care too much. They don't understand.
Golf doesn't begin on the first tee and it doesn't end on the 18th green.
It's a lifelong journey.
I am a golfer.

Bring it!

I heart Apple

I love Apple. I think their products are great, their management rocks, and their marketing is top of the line. Recently, a few things from Apple have crossed my plate:

I'm an Apple Shareholder
Shortly after I pulled myself out of a few mutual funds and stocks I wasn't too fond of, I bought a position in Apple (and expanded my position in a few other stocks I liked). This is the first tech stock I have owned and also the first stock I've owned that didn't issue dividends. Eeek! While I sometimes go back and forth as to whether or not this is a good investment, I think the excitement of owning the company that makes my beloved phone is worth it. And I should also make it clear, without Steve Jobs, I would not have made this investment.

My New Operating System (kinda)
For a few years now I have been tempted to buy a Mac. I think they are way easier to use, provide the best functionality in the slickest presentation, and are way more reliable than their Windows counterpart. However, as a life long Windows user, I could never muster up the courage to make the switch.

Luckily, last week I discovered FlyakiteOSX - a Mac skin that overlays onto Windows allowing my Windows based PC to look and feel like a Mac. Yay! Even though this totally slows down my boot time by a couple of minutes, that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.... for now. Here's a nice screenshot:

[And just to be clear, this is still a Windows PC. Everything is Windows; the software, the OS, everything. It just looks like a Mac]

The iPhone SDK
And to round it up, Apple released the software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone yesterday. While the applications won't be released to us consumers until June, it's about damn time I started to seem some progress in this arena. My phone would be 10x better if I could easily have native applications on it. (I never had the guts to unlock my phone.... it's too precious to me)

Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration. I guess once Google Gears is released for the iPhone and things like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Remember the Milk all support it on the mobile platform, that is all I really need. Games are really the only true 'native' app I really want, but they are all distractions anyway.

Jack and Hill

I'm not sure if this is better for politics.... or worse.

The Mother of all Cherry Bombs

I was reading wired.com the other day and they had a post talking about explosively-formed-projectiles (EFPs) and how they were one of two growing threats in modern warfare:

JIEDDO is particularly interested in dealing with two threats which have mushroomed in the last 18 months: explosively-formed projectiles, or EFPs, are the "superbombs" which shoot out armor-piercing molten metal as fast as two kilometers per second; deep-buried IEDs are giant explosives, placed up to 2 meters below the surface of road.

Holy crap.