A Warrior and His Pup

My friend, Jenn, sent me this photo today. It's of Doda the puppy and his friend in Iraq.

This was too adorable not to share. 

Sending out a big THANK YOU to the men and women fighting for our country, keeping us safe and free. This includes the puppies that love them.

Earth Hour 2009

Random Fact: Tomorrow, Saturday, March 28, 2009 is my sister's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKELETOR!)

Another big event: Earth Hour. Tomorrow night, turn off your lights at 8:30 p.m. Why? I think Google's Blog does a better job explaining it, so I've included it below. Last year, TFMP coverd it- here's the link.

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An hour for the Earth

3/27/2009 09:37:00 AM

Cities around the world will participate in Earth Hour on Saturday, turning off their lights to raise awareness for energy conservation.

You might remember that last year we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage during Earth Hour to symbolize our own commitment to sustainability. We won’t be turning out the lights on our homepage again this year. Our users come first, and while we received lots of enthusiastic feedback last year, some found an all-black Google.com to be a little confusing. (Also, darkened screens don’t actually save energy — modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display.) We are actively supporting this year's Vote Earth, an Earth Hour 2009 initiative to gather one billion words to present at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December of this year. Participants can share their opinions about climate change through the Earth Connect social platform which incorporates Google tools includingGoogle Maps, App Engine, Friend Connect, Google Translate, Blogger and Feedburner.

After all, Earth Hour is about more than dimming lights; it’s about making a commitment to reduce energy consumption throughout the year. At Google, we take this commitment seriously and over the past twelve months we’ve worked hard to reduce Google’s own power use and to help others reduce theirs:

• We remodeled our San Francisco office to achieve a Gold rating by the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Green Building Rating System
• Our engineers are working on a tool called Google PowerMeter that will show consumers home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer
• We’ve designed the most efficient data centers possible and are sharing some of our best practices with industry peers
• In the fall we compiled tips and tricks to help our users save energy (and money)
• Our summit on plug-in vehicles in Washington was standing room only, with policy, technology, and energy experts all discussing an electric vehicle future
  

Google will continue to work hard this year to be as green as possible as a company, and we encourage others to take an hour on Saturday and commit to the Earth too. For some great ideas on ways you can save energy every hour of every day through computing efficiency, check out Climate Savers Computing Initiative and their recent video challenge: “Power Down for the Planet.”

Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar

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The blog post above was originally posted here. All content is properrty of Google and the authors.

Facebook is great- and they're not gonna change it back.

Facebook began as an online Yearbook. It rocketed into something much bigger and much more successful than the founders imagined. Now they have fierce competition in niche microblogging, bookmarking and tagging Web sites. What Facebook is doing is trying to incorporate the best part of those sites into its interface so that it becomes the place to go on the Web for social media. In my opinion, it's doing it well.

Judging by the outpour of "Change Facebook Back to Its Old Page" groups, messages, tweets and e-mails, people are continuing to be brand loyal even after the brand changed. Facebook's audience loves the product so much they're willing to lobby for it to stay the same. They don't realize that by staying the same, it's not gaining any market share or taking part in the old business practice of 'putting competitors out of business'.

Facebook is still giving us our Yearbook features. We can see photos, links, relationships, etc on profiles. The interface has just changed a bit. It's interesting to me that every time Facebook changes something, the public outcries on message boards. I think people need to realize that this way of communicating is still so new people are actually brainstorming what to do to continue to make it work. We're getting a great free product- at least they're not making us pay.

I'm not saying to stop the complaining about Facebook--- keep it going. It's showing Zuckerberg and the other staff there just how much people care about their product. That's why they're changing it- to keep us around so they can continue to keep us happy. So thanks, Facebook. You da bomb. Never Change. Keep in Touch! Have a great summer! Call me! :P

P.S. How's this "back when" quote for you... "I remember when Facebook was called THE Facebook!"

Is the Twinkle of Twitter Teetering?

Now that it's mainstream, are the early adapters of Twitter becoming tired of it? I know that I find myself less enamored with it, but I think that it's because I'm so comfortable with it... and I wasn't even that early of an adapter. I think I signed up last Summer. Anyway, just a question. What do you think? Now that Good Morning America, The Today Show and almost all news outlets are trying to tweet and get their audiences on Twitter, will the early adapters fall out?

The "R" Word

I heard of this great campaign through a twitter buddy's buddy's blog or something like that. Sign up to ban the "r" word from our daily use. Not only is it offensive to those it's referring to, it's hurtful. My sister works with people with mental and physical disabilities. They are passionate about being treated equally because they work just as hard as everyone else in society. When the move Tropic Thunder came out, one lady was so upset about how the film used the "r-word" she wrote a letter and my sister typed it up and submitted it to the local paper--- and it was published.

http://r-word.org/

Please consider learning more and signing up. I remember I was in college the first time I really realized that saying "retarded" in the context I meant it was mean and hurtful. It was tough to learn not to say it, as most bad habits tend to linger, but I am proud to say I don't use the word anymore. When others say it I cringe.

For all the things we fight for in this word; for all the things that are wrong and disgraceful; we can do one little thing and abolish one nasty little word (used in a specific context) from our daily vocabulary.

Thanks for reading this...

Love,
Meghan

Don't Trust the Squiggly Lines on Microsoft Word

While writing a client report, Microsoft Word told me that my grammar was incorrect. Confused, I right clicked to find out more and this is what I saw (sorry if the image is small):

They is?!? Really Microsoft Word? Really?!? When, in the English language, can the phrase "they is" be used? The answer is NEVER!

Subway saved my Lent

Ok I did not give up blogging for Lent. I'm just busy :) I have three posts in "edit" mode to finish sometime soon, hopefully!

So today I made myself a DELICIOUS ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. I put some mayo on there as well. The bread is from a bakery in Mt. Jackson, VA (my Dad's hometown) where I visited this weekend. It's fluffy and amazing.

However, I forgot that today was Lent's No Meat Friday. I'm Catholic, what's a girl to do?

I went down the street and got a five dollar footlong (que the song) from Subway. Tuna all the way. It was $5.22. Not bad!

Times New Roman to Calibri Switch

Anyone know why Microsoft switched it's default Font from Times New Roman to Calibri? Today on the Metro I went through an intricate scenario in my head regarding the lobbyists for the Calibri font storming the Microsoft headquarters and having it out with the Times New Roman department.

I haven't done the research on this, would be interested in reading it. Here's a cute post about how to change your font back to TNR if you so wish.

I really have a weird obsession with fonts and typefaces. Maybe I should have been an artist?