And one day it stops growing. It has expended all the time it has, and you’re gone. You left the world. I’m left here alone, with all our love, all our built hope and treasure, yet no way to maintain the memory. Soon I’ll start to misplace the memories that shaped our ball, and it will grow mishapen and faded. It is a cruel thing to leave me with only your teasing memory that I cannot grasp. I know you didn’t mean to. We both thought we had so many more revolutions around this ball, this messed up knitting of life. But we did not. We ended suddenly and hard. You were there, then you were not. And the string fell limp onto the floor. And there I lie for the rest of my earthly days, staring up in futility at the thing we made in our shortsighted brightness. The colors are wonderfully harsh. Each beauty is a stabbing needle, filling me up with the most glorious pain man ever conceived. You were soft, strong, shapely, colorful. You were so much more real to me than life, but now I can’t remember. The colors are fading, the pain becoming dull prods of former glory. I spend much of my time to myself considering you and how we were. But moment by moment things fade ever so slightly. One day before I die I will remember little else but that we had a love once, and it was good. Maybe that’s enough.

I’m sure there’s something after the black wall of death. I can’t see you, but you are somewhere. I know not whether I will be there with you one day, or if we’ll know each other. Will se remember our love and the loveliness of it? Will we get to grow it more, or start over with perfection? Who knows but God? One thing only do I know. Our love, our little ball of yarn, we grew it and it was beautiful. That was something.

Lesson #1 – Crying is a Good Thing

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how manipulative babies are even in the first few months after birth. How they learn quickly to cry in order to get stuff they want but don’t need. How they’ll demand your attention and learn to pull your strings to achieve their diabolical ends.

But seriously… he’s a baby. He doesn’t even know the difference between needs and wants. He doesn’t know what or who he is, what’s going on, or anything. Why start out treating him like the enemy when he’s just really confused? Instead, Holly and I treated every cry as an indication that something was wrong. Whether he was hungry, tired, lonely, or whatever, we did what we could to help. And you know what? He’s happy, independent, and we don’t regret a second.

Lesson #2 – Sacrifice Isn’t Easy. Duh.

The first six weeks of Grayson’s life were some of the best and hardest for me. Holly and I were constantly up with him, and I pretty much lived off of three hours of sleep a night. At first I really resisted, getting angry. Then I realized that I had grown so comfortable that I had actually forgotten that sacrifice is hard. You have to give something up for the comfort of someone else. When I had come to terms with that, I found it incredibly rewarding.

Lesson #3 – No Laundry is Safe

Babies are like camels. They spit. I can’t tell you how many times I got to work and realized that my shirt had a spit-up stain on it. How this happens is inexplicable to me, but I learned that each and every morning, regardless of how recent that shirt came out of the laundry, you must thoroughly examine it.

Lesson #4 – Flatulence Is No Big Deal.

And if you are thinking I’m talking about the baby, I’m not. One day I had a shocking revelation. People are accustomed to babies smelling. If a baby smells, it’s not cool, but it’s understandable. Therefore I realized that as long as I was holding Grayson, I could fart with impunity. Everyone around would just assume that Gray needed a diaper change. I came to realize this at the mall. In an elevator. Yes, I’m a horrible person.

Lesson #5 – Fear

I’ve never had so many bad dreams or horrible thoughts of carnage as I have this past year. When I became a parent, it was as if my brain felt like it had to prepare for every possible scenario. I’ve always been pretty casual when it comes to my personal safety, so it was really odd for me to care so much about stairs and falling down.

Lesson #6 – Baby Superpowers, Part One: Wolverine

Speaking of injury, it turns out that babies are actually quite resilient. As scared as I get when I think about him falling down or gouging his eye out, he actually does pretty well when he gets hurt. Sure, he cries. For like, three seconds. Then it’s off to whatever else he’s not supposed to have. Which, incidentally, is my next point.

Lesson #7 – Baby Superpowers, Part Two: Professor X

Apparently babies can read minds. No really. It’s as if Grayson knew exactly what I didn’t want him to play with, where I didn’t want him to go. And of course, he went there/played with it. I even began experimenting with convincing myself that I really didn’t want him to play with one of his toys in hopes that he would read my mind and immediately go play with that. But his telepathy is so well honed that he sees past my flimsy conscious barrier. He is a force to be reckoned with.

Lesson #8 – Ignorance is Bliss. And Bad for the Baby.

Turns out I’m not all that good with sacrifice. In fact, I’ll default to ignoring problems and turn to self-entertainment if I’m given the chance. I’d much rather put the boy in front of some kiddo cartoons for a couple hours until bedtime so I can go play Warcraft with the wife, but turns out he doesn’t like that so much. Babies are good at demanding your attention because you know what? They need it. And you need to give it to them.

Lesson #9 – My Life is Over

In a good way. This is also somewhat true when you get married, but even more so when you have a child. I realized one day soon after he was born, that my life was no longer about me. I mean, it never really was, but now it was tangible. In a sense, the rest of my life would be defined by what kind of father I was.

Lesson #10 – Klingons are the Enemy (and scary)

I’ll often pop something on TV to watch while Grayson plays. Usually it’s anime, because that way I can still justify him watching it because it’s a cartoon. But occasionally, I’ll get the urge to watch some Star Trek. What I found was that Grayson cannot stand Worf, or any other Klingon. I think it’s when they yell. He invariably screams and cries until I’ve turned it off an held him for a while. I guess babies are like Tribbles that way.

Lesson #11 – Non Allergenic Pets

If you’re like me and have relatives who are allergic to some pets, you might want to consider having a baby. They normally don’t cause allergies to act up, and you can still teach them tricks. And once they grow up… you can put them to work!

Lesson #12 – Bottom Line

I love him. More than I could ever say. I hope to God he doesn’t turn out like me.

And now for something completely different. I am a complete dork. People who know me are aware of this, but they are rarely cognizant of just how weird I really am. Here’s an example. People who know me know that I like Star Wars. They also know that I like video games and games in general. However, most of them don’t know that I…

*shhh, whisper voice*

enjoy playing tabletop role playing games. Notably, Star Wars D6 system from West End Games. Once every so often, Holly and I have a bunch of people over and we create fictional characters and complete missions for the Rebel Alliance. I even created a forum online for it. Here, I’ll give you an official link:

Star Wars Role Playing West End

Cool, huh? I know, I know, not cool. However, it’s really very fun. It’s somewhere in between playing a video game and writing a story. You get these really cool characters and tons of creative freedom, but you have to think fast and come up with innovative solutions.

Seriously, if you’ve never played any RPG, this one might be a pretty good intro. It’s a very simple combat system, and creating a character takes 15 to 20 minutes. Think you might be a bounty hunter, in it for the cash? Or maybe an Outlaw out for revenge? Or perhaps you’re a socially awkward engineer. Quiet scout? Washed-up Jedi? The possibilities are pretty much endless.

We’re playing this Saturday. Let me know if you want in. :)

Ingredients

• Non stick cooking spray
• 1 can crushed pinapple
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1 box of chocolate cake mix
• 1/2 cup of almond slivers
• 1 stick of butter
• Milano cookies
• Red Icing

Directions

1. Coat the inside of a crock pot with the nonstick cooking spray
2. Dump pineapple, cherry filling, and almond slivers in the crock pot
3. Pour cake mix evenly over the top.
4. Slice the stick of butter into very thin slices and evenly cover the cake mix
5. Cover and cook on high for about 3 hours
6. Take icing and write RIP (or other gravestone phrases) on Milano cookies
7. Place cookies into the layer of cake

Here’s how mine turned out:

First, here’s my outfit. It takes a little of, shall we say, calculation….

+

= ?

I’m sure it won’t take much to figure it out. And now on to the rest. You’ll see a coworker on the left, and the real thing (using that term pretty loosely here) on the right.

Kicking things off was Beth taking full advantage of her pregnancy. I thought she did pretty well as a troll doll (even including the belly button jewel).

Veneta when with a classic witch costume, though she looks nicer than any witch has a right to be.

Agata felt like putting a sterner face on the occasion.

Ann went all out with the hippy (hippie? hippeee? hypie?) theme, but I had trouble finding good pics to compare it to. Everything I found was either a current day costume, or inappropriate. :S

This is probably my favorite one. Tiffany is complete with torn sweater and snack packs as she portrays Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison. Well played.

That pretty much wraps it up for Marketing. The only other male in the department is on his honeymoon, so I’m left to hold down the testosterone fort as King Arthur. Happy Halls, peeps.

As soon as I got my Sony W300i cell phone as an upgrade with my plan, I found out you could use your own custom ringtones with it as long as they were 20 seconds or less and in mp3 format. After much research, I couldn’t find a solution that was free that I liked. So I decided I could use some pretty basic software to accomplish the same thing. It’s a little complicated, but pretty easy once you get it. I’ll be using two programs, and one of them is exclusively Windows, unfortunately. If anyone knows about a Mac app that’s as simple and basic as Windows Sound Recorder, be sure to put it in the comments. I’m also not sure if this handy little program is standard on Vista, so if you know one way or the other, mention that as well.

Here’s a list of software components and their versions I’ll be using for this tutorial:

• Windows XP Professional (any XP version will do) Service Pack 3
• iTunes 8 (version 7 does this as well)
• Windows Sound Recorder 5.1

Selecting a Song

There are a couple of tips I generally keep in mind as I look for a song that will be a great ringtone. First off, you don’t want something that starts off slow. You’ll have to get through all the build and do some more intensive editing. I’d recommend finding a song that starts off strong. It doesn’t have to be fast or loud, just one without much buildup.

Secondly, I usually pick a song with no vocals during the first twenty seconds. You might like vocals in your ringtones, but I usually just like a catchy tune.

Lastly, keep in mind that you’re probably not going to want more than 20 seconds max for the length of the ringtone, and you’ll really only listen to the first 10 seconds most of the time, so the part you really like in that intro should be closer to the beginning.

Step 1 – Change iTunes Import Setting to WAV

Windows Sound Recorder is a nice little tiny tool, but it only works with .WAV files. Since most of my music library is in mp3, I’ll need to convert my tune first. Fortunately, you don’t need to bother with the myriad of mp3 to wav (and vice versa) converters out there, you can just use iTunes.

Go to the iTunes preferences, and under the General tab, click on “Import Settings”. In the window that appears, select “WAV Encoder” in the drop down box. Click OK and OK again so your preference is saved.

Step 2 – Convert to WAV

Next, right click on the song you want to use, and click “Create WAV Version”. This will duplicate your song and put it in the same folder that the original is in.

Step 3 – Open the File in Windows Sound Recorder

Open up Windows Sound Recorder (Start Menu >> Accessories >> Entertainment) and navigate to the WAV file you just made. Be sure to select the WAV file and not the original mp3.

Step 4 – Edit the File

Play the WAV until you reach a good stopping point. You shouldn’t need more than 20 seconds for a ringtone. Once you’ve stopped at the exact moment you want the ringtone to end, click on Edit >> Delete After Current Position. Once your file is the right length, save the file.

Step 5 – Convert the File Back to mp3

Go ahead and change the import setting in iTunes back to mp3. Then click on File >> Add File to Library. Find your edited WAV file and add it to iTunes. Once you find the new 20 second version, you can right click on it and select “Create mp3 Version” and you’ll get the finished product.

Step 6 – Clean Up and Send to Your Phone

You’ll want to delete any extra files you created during this process. I like to keep copies of everything for every step so that if I mess up at any point, I don’t have to start over. Unfortunately, this means that by the time I’m done creating a ringtone I’ve got at least one extra WAV file laying around. I like to clean these out of iTunes and delete them from my hard drive so they don’t clutter things up.

Now you can bluetooth the 20 second mp3 to your phone. You can also get a data cable for your phone and send it that way. Either way, once it’s on the phone, you should only have to navigate to it on your phone and select it as your new ringtone! Enjoy!

Obviously a developer should have an eye for SEO so he knows how to code. I’ve also lumped content writing into development because that’s where it belongs historically. This person should also be aware of how search engines work so he can write accordingly.

The social media side is really just the kind of marketing that draws traffic to your sites and generates quality links. Essentially, the SEO part of social media is link bait.

I’m pretty sure that these positions, coder, writer, and social marketer, combine to form the heart of SEO. Sort of like Captain Planet. Thoughts?

Does this mean sponsored image ads are going to be infiltrating image search in the future? Or maybe just a beta test?

Update: Looks like this is fairly old news. Here’s the story at CNet.