See anyone in there you recognize?

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A few of the highlights from this trip (in random order):

• Direct flights rule. Seems like I rarely get the luxury of not having a layover where I either have to sprint across the entire airport to catch my connecting flight, or I have to sit around waiting for hours (Sidenote: why are airport chairs so damn uncomfortable?)



• The Sundial bar/restaurant – rotating 360-degrees at almost 800 feet above the city. (The Westin is the tallest hotel in the western hemisphere, or so I was told 90 times this weekend.)
• My dinner was Deconstructed Fried Oyster Tacos and Pasta De Mer (clams, shrimp, white fish, buccatini pasta, bouillabaisse broth, rouille) – it was scrumptious!
• The Georgia Aquarium was awesome – and a nice, quick walk from the hotel through Centennial Olympic Park where the bombing was during the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. The aquarium is the largest in the world, with tons of ocean life in its 10-million gallons of fun. I instantly recognized the Whale Shark from an episode of Diego. (see photo above)
• Got a little carried away at the gift shop, as I bought each family member a gift souvenir to a place they’ve never been too. But everyone seems to like what they got – Ella is excited to have her first “real” necklace and Erin was sporting her cute jellyfish t-shirt today.
• Working at home I have little time where I can hang out discussing web geekiness like “optimizing conversion rates” and “reverse funnel analysis” – so having a bar full of web marketers to chat with was a blast.



• The number of bald/bearded men in my industry niche is impressively high. Oddly many of the others are super-skinny male models in three-piece suits with full mops of perfectly disheveled hair. Strange.
• Met the dude that coined the phrase “search engine optimization” which is a big part of my career. He coined it back in 1995 when almost no one was thinking of search engines and much less site rankings! Best part of the story is that it was his client Jefferson Starship that pushed him to learn SEO, and he must have done well, since he later wrote a rock opera with them.
• Got to see old pals Jeff and Dawn – the highlights are fuzzy since we were imbibing, but they include: Jeff scouting the layout of Atlanta, learning that The Macerana can still pack a dance floor – or at least at Metro Diner at 2am, Ann stopping her street dancing to offer a panhandler a nickle, stats’ row of bathrooms each adorned with its own decade – next time I want to get a beer tap booth and see if I can pee in each decade.
• And as always with my trips, the best part is getting home to my girls.

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So Erin went to San Fran for 5 days and I got to have the girls to myself. Unfortunately I had to work some of the time, so grandma picked up my slack. But I still got to do a lot of fun stuff with my little ladies. Highlights include a pirate-themed birthday party, the Zoo, Crazy Pinz arcade and lunch, Ella hitting a hole-in-one at mini-golf minutes after riding her first roller coaster, seeing the cousins, lots of outside play time at home and at grandmas, and lots of dessert eating by Eva.

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So, I think of things all the time to write about, but then never do. Or worse I spend time starting a post, but being a perfectionist I find my 5,000 words lacking and never finish. So for the sake of getting something out to the world, here is a round up of the many blog posts I have started in the last couple weeks and will hopefully finish someday soon:

• Recap and photos of my solo weekend with the girls while Erin was in San Fran
• My thoughts on the death of Osama bin Laden and the celebratory responses
• The return of lawn mowing and other spring activities
• Burnt pizza, why does it happen and why it’s awesome
• Funny things Ella has been saying
• The bright future of the Pacers (and the Lions)

So, I realize this list is completely worthless, but at least its published.

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The dark cloud that has been hanging over my Pacers the last 5 years is finally gone! The Pacers are back in the playoffs and with the 2nd youngest starting lineup in the league I see a bright future.

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Got this email today, good news, eh?

Firstly, I apologize for sending you this sensitive information via e-mail instead of a Certified mail/Post-mail. This is due to the urgency and importance of the information.
My name is Abdulqader Zafik aide to the Libyan leader Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi. My job is to take care and supply Gaddafi’s house hold with food and other vital issues at the palace.

However, when this crisis started, we adviced our leader to try and avert it, but as you know who Gaddafi is, he can not listen to anyone but his heart and if you try and persist you will be killed.
Furthermore, why I am writting you this letter is to ask for your help and honesty and also what I am about to disclose to you should be handled with utmost confidentiality. This is because, this can cost me my life. To cut the story short, I was carrying out my daily duty in the house of Gaddafi when i discovered a box in the inner chambers of Gaddafi, due to early days of the crisis, Gaddafi could not put his eyes on all his monies. I opened the box and discovered a large sum of money amounting to $8.500.000.000 (eight million and five hundred thousand dollars). Initially, I thought of informing his son Mohammed Gaddafi about the money, but a second thought told me that, the money will be spent in killing my own people. I have been in great sorrow and sadness since the crisis started, but what can we do nothing, if you try anything you will be killed.

As at this moment, the money in question has been posted through a security network Libya to overseas for safety in my favour. I have ben given the code and access numbers which I shall use when the war is over. But with the look of things and what our president has done to us, I do not think we are safe and also, with a large sum of money of this nature in a company abroad, i think delay is dangerous, because, as I speak to you, all my traveling documents and that of my wife and my three children has been seized by Gaddafi, even for us to communicate through the phone is not possible, I had to use this medium to contact you through a good friend who is a journalist and he was the one who gave me your e-mail address that I should contact you maybe you can help.

Do note that for your assistance, I am ready to share the funds with you 50/50.
Please if you can help get back to me as soon as possible in order for me to inform you of the modalities to collect the funds from the security company as the legal beneficiary of the funds. And please deal with this matter with total confidentiality and urgency.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Regard.
Abdulqader Zafik

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German technology firm Festo has created SmartBird, the world’s first robotic bird that simulates avian flight in all its glory. Simply amazing. Learn more at Festo.com

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