August 2004 Archives

3M Corporation (they make Post Its and all kinds of tape and paper) is building the World's Largest Pink Ribbon in Times Square for breast cancer awareness month in October.

For the first 75,000 people who click on this link and give their name, 3M will donate $1 to breast cancer research and place a Post-It in their name on the billboard.

Please sign up and pass along!

http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/research/largest_pink_ribbon.jhtml

Here's a little bit of writer humor passed on to me by my friend, LeAnn:

A phrase in "Engineeringese":

A research team proceeded towards the apex of a natural geologic protuberance, the purpose of their expedition being the procurement of a sample of fluid hydride of oxygen in a large vessel, the exact size of which was unspecified.

One member of the team precipitously descended, sustaining severe damage to the upper cranial portion of his anatomical structure; subsequently the second member of the team performed a self-rotational translation oriented in the same direction taken by the first team member.

The same phrase in simple English (likely rewritten by a trained technical writer):

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

This weekend was my niece Rowan's 3rd birthday. To celebrate my parents came into town and we had a nice little party at my brother's house. Here's a few photos from the party today:

An elderly Italian man who lived in the outskirts of Monte Carlo went to the local church for confession.

He said: "Father, during World War II, a beautiful woman knocked on my door and asked me to hide her from the enemy. So I hid her in my attic."

The priest replied: "That was a wonderful thing you did, my son and you have no need to confess that."

"It's worse than that, Father. She started to repay me with sexual favors."

To top off our trip to Santa Barbara office, my boss (Elizabeth), co-workers (James and Deanna), and I went to Hollywood for the evening. James wanted to meet up with his brother who lives there, I wanted to have dinner with my friend Pam who lives there, and Elizabeth and Deanna went sightseeing on their own.

On the way into town we passed the Capital Records building...somehow I doubt this would look the same if it was a stack of compact discs.

I met Pam at her condo and we walked down to Hollywood Boulevard to have dinner and see a few sights. Our first stop was Grauman's Chinese Theater.

One of the attractions of the theater is the hand and footprints of many stars. Here's Clark Gable:

This week I'm in Santa Barbara, CA on business. This is my first trip to California so I brought my camera to snap a few photos.

Here's State Street in downtown Santa Barbara. The city is absolutely beautiful with a unique combination of southwestern Spanish-influenced architecture and the tropical delights of the Pacific ocean breezes blowing in from the south.

I went for a drive this afternoon with a co-worker to scout out houses--he's transferring to this office in the next few months. On the drive we saw a uniquely California thing: a line of 10 or so Lamborghinis and Ferraris racing up Highway 101: