The best free stuff on the internet.

I have been wandering around the internet more than usual lately. I through I would share the best stuff that I have come across in no particular order.

1. Pandora Radio: www.pandora.com
This is the radio station for the music genome project. Enter a song, or artist and it creates a station for you. I know lots of different places do this for you, but here it actually works. I've taking to using it while I study. It's a great way to discover new music.

2. Farecast: www.farecast.com
These guys will tell you when the best airfare prices are there, and why. And when to book your ticket. No more guessing games.
"Farecast utilizes over a billion airfares on a daily basis to bring you airfare predictions, and now we're using that data to uncover cheap airline tickets. We can find you cheap flights between cities, and unlike other sites, we explain why these are great airfare deals based on science, not marketing."

3. Keywallet: www.keywallet.com
Everyone has logons and passwords, for sites all over the internet. Here's a great tool to keep them organized. It's free, encrypted, and you can drag and drop from the wallet to a logon screen. It's one of those tools that I didn't know if I would use, and now I can't live without.

4. OpenOffice: www.openoffice.org
Let's see, the latest office product from Microsoft is going for $399. That's an awful lot to pay for some home use. What if there was a way to get a program that could view / edit / open all office programs, but it didn't cost as much? Better yet, what if it was free! Well OpenOffice is, and it can. Plus it's smaller, cleaner, and faster for those of us who don't need to put everything into tables.

5. foxit reader: www.foxitsoftware.com
Love PDF documents. Hate the fact that Acrobat! takes 5 minutes to open. Foxit will open faster than any program you own. It's great.

6. Media Monkey: www.mediamonkey.com
The internet is awash with music players. This one is free, and it's got a great library function for all your MP3s. (legal or otherwise) Plus it can load directly to your MP3 player.

That's enough for now. I'll keep looking and tell you if I find anything else out there that very cool.

cheers

matt

Worky head!!!! And odd post about not working

When I was 14 my family went to England for 5 months, while my dad worked on his first book (buy a copy here!). That was my first introduction to the sabbatical. For those of you outside academia, it goes like this: You work 6 years, then you get a year off to improve yourself professionally. Imagine my surprise when I started working and I realized that it didn't apply to the business world. (although I think it should, but we can talk about that later)

I've been working for the bank now for 7.5 years, and while I can say that the people I work with are great, I never have had much of a love for banking. The job has always been challenging enough, and it provided me lots of freedoms. But the time had come to make a change to that.

So I'm on Sabbatical. I resigned in June. My last day was July 2nd. And to make things more interesting my laptop crashed on June 22nd, leaving me with almost nothing to pass on besides my thoughts.

Not working has been a little strange. First there's the depression. Ya, that surprised me too. I was thinking about all the things that I would catch up on, books, movies, friends, new hobbies, finish a screenplay, write a novel, learn to play the guitar (because down deep, every guy wants to learn guitar). But the reality involves daytime TV watching, and fighting with people about stock options and 401k transferring.

Second there's the fact that days just fade away. I was amazed how many times that I saw days fad away. I would look up and it's 4:30. I'd been up since 9, but I couldn't put my finger on what I had done that day.

Third are the excuses. As Dani pointed out, if she decided to stay home, it would have been perfectly normal for a woman to stay home while the man worked; but flip that around and you mess with the fabric of the universe. It runs counter to society. The looks from people are odd, and I find myself saying that aren't exactly true, to tell them why I left my job. I explain that Dani took off 4 months prior to moving to Houston, so we decided that now it's my turn. Or, that I took off the time to flip a house in Oklahoma. Or that. . . something to make it seem socially acceptable for a man to cook, and clean while his wife works in an office. It kind of surprised me how much that kind of effects me.

I'm in the rhythm of it now. I know how to pass my days. I have lists of things that need to get done, I get up and walk the dog, I still haven't gotten in the habit of working out. Think baby steps.

There's a great part of the book "About a Boy" where the narrator talks about how he fills his days. He lives on the royalties from a Christmas song his dad wrote, so he doesn't work. He fills his day with units. Getting a haircut: 2 units. Breakfast 1 unit; with Sunday paper: 3 units.

I'm loosing focus on this blog entry. I'm out of practice, and I feel like I have to many ideas bouncing around my head. I'm going to post this one as is. choppy, stream of mind, and frankly bad.

Short list:

I quite my job.
I have been sailing more.
Lori is a blog monster!
I have an amazing wife, who takes no credit for the ways she has improved my life.

So it goes.

Just a note for someone I miss.

We make some friends!

So finally, slowly as I expected, but too slow for Matt, we are making friends. Last night we went to a birthday and met a great group of people and got invited to happy hours and bike rides. AND- this is probably the biggest one- we met someone who said, simply, "I Love Houston." He said there were lots of things he couldn't wait for us to see and experience here, and I found myself getting excited. He talked about all of the ethnic communities, the food, and playing volleyball 10 months out of the year.
So I am again hopeful about our prospects here. I had been pretty worried there for a while, it was so hard to see Matt having such a tough time, and thinking that the next few years might stretch themselves out as we count the days until we can do something else. Now it looks like we are finding the good in this place, great things to do and see, as well as interesting and positive people.
Best of all, I am ever-so-slowly regaining the self-esteem and confidence that was lost/taken from me in that terrible job experience. I am working with great people and have opportunities every single day to feel smart and valuable, and valued; at work and at home. Right now, that is "as good as it gets".

Matt's first bike ride to work

I thought it was a no brain-er. I live in a town where the average yearly temp is 75 degrees. It's 7.5 miles to work, and flat. Being from Colorado this means one thing: you ride you bike to work. Seems logical. Except this is Houston. And Houston is in Texas. They said I was crazy. They said I wouldn't make it. They said that I would end up on the bumper of some buba's truck. (no really, that's a quote) But I did it. I started to ride my bike to work. So far I pulled it off once, and I'm going to do it again. Here's the story of my adventure.

If you want you can follow my along on Google maps. zoom in on Downtown Houston. And look for the long green patch that heads west. That's where it starts.

Allen Parkway
I left about 7am with my work cloths in my bag. And headed out to the street. I hopped on Allen Parkway, a fast road heading West. Not bad. Cars treated me pretty well, it wasn't to crowded, but you had to watch out for the gaps between the concrete. They can drop you in a sec.

I think I can safely say that Allen parkway is one of my favorite roads into and out of downtown. It meets all my requirements for a good road: Good traffic flow, few lights, not a highway. It runs along a park on the north, (Buffalo Bayou to be exact) and a neighborhood on the south. At 7am traffic is heading into the city so there's not that much to compete with. This went fast and clean. Off to a good start.

Kirby DR
Kirby cuts through a neighborhood call River Oaks. It's a beautiful place. Old and green, River Oaks is a neighborhood like none other I have ever seen. Usually neighborhoods like this are gated off. And when I say green: I'm not only talking about the giant oak trees, if you know what I mean. The lawns are well manicured, the houses are pristine, and everything is huge. Like 10,000 square feet huge. What's the point of having a house like that? Well so that everyone can see it of course. The people who live on Kirby want you to drive down their street. Not only are these people rich, but they want you to see exactly how rich they are. Think gawdy diamond rings. Think yellow Italian cars. Not Fiats.

As far as cycling goes, the street is narrow. The curbs are high. And it seems most cars didn't want to pass me. So I took to the sidewalk. Sadly it was nicer than the street, even though it was a little curvy for my tastes. I know that fancy sidewalks are trendy, and make for more interesting walking. But I'm trying to get to work, not pass an agility test. But it worked out pretty well, so I can't complain.Inwood DrAh, paradise. Wide residential street that stretches for the longest part of my ride. It's perfect. No lights, no cars, if all streets were like this, no one would drive a car. Not to mention this is still River Oaks. There's a mint julep joke in there somewhere but it's not really worth the time to find it. Willowick Rd.About the same. Goes right by the River Oaks country club.San Felipe St.And then, we go to war. That is how I would describe driving in the galleria. No imagine it on a bike. OMG you think the fact that I had a bike was a personal insult to cars. They went around me. Usually with a full inch or so to spare. Now first thing in the morning, it's not as bad. Collectively they will yield the right 12 inches of the street to a bike. But let's talk about that last 12 inches of road, OMG it's ugly. Cracks, holes, glass, groves, gaps, sewer drains, ripples, bumps, ouch. I wouldn't have been surprised to come across a land mine. It was to much for my road bike. And it left me a little rattled as I finally made it to my office after 30 minutes. Average heart rate 142.

The way home things got really bad. I wasn't ready for it. I got cut off, I got squeezed out, I had to cross over a grass lawn and start riding again in a parking lot because there was no sidewalk, and literally no way through. I was rattled, scared, and honestly thought I was going to have to walk my bike till I made it back to Willowick. I had to shift into bike messenger mode: Jump off curbs, pass all the cars at the light, and ride a little further away from the curb. Yes, it forces every curb-crawling SUV driver to put down their cell phone and change lanes just to get by, but it also forces them to see you, and in the grand scheme that's more important.

I survived to Willowick. But I was in a really foul mood. I was ready to pack up and move. I was ready to throw out my bike. Houston was collectively swatting me back for even thinking that I could ride on their streets. I have never been so rattled on my bike. It was a unique moment for me. I found myself afraid on my bike. I've been scared before: Tucking down the I-70 Frontage road passing Mother Cabrini shrine at 40MPH will cause your heart rate to rise even when your not pedaling. This was different; This was fear. I felt like someone had slapped my soul. I questioned all the decisions I had ever made. I felt like I had just been taken for a hundred bucks, or the brand new car turns out to be a lemon. I was mad, I was frustrated. I was ready to fold.

Then I saw something that surprised me: Another cyclist. God bless irony. Not just any, but another commuter, coming down towards me as even and calm as a lazy afternoon ride in the park. Suddenly it wasn't me against Houston. There were others out there. People who lived a way because they wanted to, not because society was telling them how to live. And self pity faded away and was replaced by a smile. Burning in my thighs was replaced with that deep pull of pushing pedals. And I picked up speed.

Is there a lesson there about society? About how miserable it can be in the big city? No. Just a lesson for me. Life happens everywhere. And how you choose to live it is entirely up to you. They only one who restricts what I can do is me.

A few days later I bought a cheap mountain bike. $150 in Houston will get you a $500 Denver bike. I cleaned the chain, bought new breaks and a big padded seat. I joined a gym by my office (for easy access to a shower). I packed my bag, bought a new lock, set my MP3 player to NPR, and I cycled out to work. Why take it on again? Well, because I'm a Texan. If Texas has taught me anything it's that it's my job to live my life the way I want to live. No one tells a Texan what to do. Ask Charles Bradley about that.

Here's the bullet points
1. Best part of the ride was zipping home past a line of cars on Kirby. I got to the light in 10 minutes. 20 cars ahead of a car that hit the street the same time I did. Sucka-heads.

2. I've been riding 1-4 times a week. Travel and other errands can get in the way.

3. In a car it's 35 minutes in the AM; at night it's anywhere from 35-50 minutes.

4. On a bike it's 35 minutes in the AM; and 35 minutes at night.

5. And it puts me in a great mood.

We have photos!!

After 4 tries and my limit of frustration, we managed to get photos developed at CVS. Here are some visuals to go with the words.





Looking down at the shrubbery and light rail tracks from our balcony.

The front of our building and the view from our balcony looking south.

This one goes with the title of my first post, "my hair did NOT look like this when we left Denver!"

New Year's Eve 2007- we still didn't have furniture, so we rented a room at the Crowne Plaza- yay mattress!!

A view from our balcony- ahhh sunny day... I hope there will be another one someday.