This is a cool new service from Google. It lets you search for things near a location. Very useful.

http://labs.google.com/location

Congratulations!

Dylan and Ben have a healthy sister named Ensley now! She entered this world at 12:34 PM EDT. She weighs 8 lbs 6 ounces, and is 20.5 inches long. Sunny is doing good. No complications with the surgery.

We were worried something was wrong because no one called, and no one was answering their phone.

I got this ruler at the NIU bookstore yesterday for only $2. It is the "Gaebel Series 631 Ad Agency Ruler". It goes for about $10 on the web. If you have to ask why, then you don't know me.

Never ascribe to maliciousness that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

This is a picture of a stuffed dog! This is the web site of the company that does it.

The fish food I bought for the oscar today is from the same company, Omega Sea, that makes the flakes that I use for my regular fish. The company is based in Sitka, Alaska [map]. The food is also produced there. This is the ingredient list:

whole salmon
whole herring
halibut
krill
shrimp
octopus
wheat flour
wheat gluten
spirulina (algae)
fresh kelp
rosemary extract
a bunch of vitamins and minerals

The cool thing is that the price isn't too bad either. A 3.5 ounce can of pellets cost $5.19. That should last us about three or four months. They had a larger can that was less per ounce, but I wanted to make sure that he liked them first.

I called the Northern Illinois University immunization office to make sure that they received my updated records and that everything is OK. It is. Don't have to hassle with that any more.

I got a hair cut today. Picked up some fish food for our oscar. Got four yard waste stickers (at $1.35 per sticker) so I can get rid of some clippings. Stopped at Radio Shack for an ear phone for my night-time radio listening. Had a peanut butter and fat free mayo sandwich on light bread for a late lunch (6 or 7 points).

I am going to now cut the grass and use the string trimmer, take a shower, and then work on my two labs that are due tomorrow.

This 2-foot-long giant snakehead fish was caught in Wisconsin yesterday. They are afraid if this species establishes itself, it will eat all of the other native fish. [full story]

Today Congress voted 412 - 8 to approve the national do-not-call list, and overturn yesterday's ruling by a US District court, after less than 1 hour of deliberation. [full story]

I found the Weight Watcher's point range on the United States Patent and Trademark Office's website. [link to Weight Watcher's point patent] Here are the point ranges:

Less than 150 pounds
18-25
150 to 174 pounds
20-27
175 to 199 pounds
22-29
200 to 224 pounds
24-31
225 to 250 pounds
26-33
Over 250 pounds
28-35

This is a link to a site that has the Weight Watcher points for food items in 392 restaurants. I am going to use the Weight Watcher frame work to try and get from 260 to 240. We got a Weight Watcher calculator from our freind Beth that keeps track of your points for each day, as well as calculates points when you input calories, fat, and fiber. Beth is going to look up how many points I should be consuming and let me know tonight.

Up until now about the only time I had any major highway driving was the occasional trip to see family in other cities a few times a year. Commuting to DeKalb three times a week is giving me about 270 miles of highway time weekly now, and I am becoming more aware of how clueless too many drivers are.

The absolute worst ones are the drivers that just cruise along in the far left passing lane but are not passing anyone, blissfully unaware that a convey of a dozen vehicles behind them all just had to bleed off 20 MPH of speed because of them. Then, one by one, this moron forces all the cars behind him to pass them on the right. It's like no one ever told them about passing lanes and cruising lanes.

The second worst are the overly aggressive white knuckle drivers. They are constantly switching lanes, tailgating anyone that they can't immediately get around, and when they have a clear shot are the one's cannonballing over 80 and 90 MPH. These guys are not as bad to deal with most of the time because if you just stay out of the passing lane when you are not passing they won't bother you. There is also a benefit to these guys because they are the ones that clear the speed traps for the rest of us. I gladly let them pass me because they are the ones that will get targeted for a speeding ticket first.

My typical highway cruising speed is about 75 MPH.

The professor that I first had contact with at Northern, and who has been guiding me a little bit, left a voice mail for me today saying that he was in a car accident on Saturday and he is not having class this week or next. He also said he had to have knee surgery.

Illinois' most dangerous intersections. (No surprise that they are all in the Chicagoland area.)

   City                 Location 

1. Elmhurst             State Route 83 & North Avenue

2. Glendale Heights     Army Trail Road & Bloomingdale Road

3. Bridgeview-Burbank   79th Street & Harlem Avenue

4. Bolingbrook          State Route 53 & Boughton Road

                        (we cross this one at least twice a day)

5. Hanover              Park Barrington Road & Irving Park Road

Michigan's most dangerous intersections:

   City              Location

1. Sterling Heights  Van Dyke Avenue & 18 Mile Road

2. Clinton Township  Groesbeck Highway & 16 Mile Road

3. Clinton Township  Gratiot Avenue & 16 Mile Road

4. Sterling Heights  Hall Road & Hayes Road

5. Southfield        Telegraph Road & 12 Mile Road

6. Farmington Hills  Orchard Lake Road & 14 Mile Road

7. Chesterfield      Gratiot Avenue & 23 Mile Road

8. Farmington Hills  Orchard Lake Road & 12 Mile Road

9. Sterling Heights  Hall Road & Schoenherr Road

10. Troy             Big Beaver Road & Crooks Road

The five most dangerous intersections in Ohio, per State Farm Insurance, are all in Columbus and Toledo. They are:

   City      Location 

1. Columbus  Karl Road & Morse Road 

2. Toledo    Alexis Road & Lewis Avenue 

3. Columbus  Refugee Road & Winchester Pike 

4. Columbus  Hamilton Road & Livingston Avenue 

5. Toledo    Central Avenue & Secor Road

Drats! The federal do-not-call list is on hold because a U.S. court ruled the FTC overstepped its authority when it set up the list to block telemarketing calls. [full story]

I just received confirmation that I can use one of my geography classes I am taking now (which fortunately happens to be a graduate level class) to complete my MBA from Ashland! Yeah! I need about .75 of a credit hour to finish. The quarters I was taking at DePaul didn't transfer equally to semester hours at Ashland.

Everyone on campus was buzzing about whipping Alabama over the weekend. The entire front of the student newspaper was a full color picture of an NIU player holding up his helmet with the headline "Roll Fried". (Alabama's motto is Roll Tide.) The win actually put Northern into the top 25 (20th in the AP poll, and 22nd in the USA Today/ESPN Poll) and kicked the previously 21st ranked Alabama out. How cool is that?