Microchip Pioneer Jack Kilby Dies at 81

Microchip Pioneer Jack Kilby Dies at 81

The inventor of the integrated circuit died this week.

Meet the New Roth 401(k): Your Money - Yahoo! Finance

Meet the New Roth 401(k): Your Money - Yahoo! Finance

A new option new year in addition to the 401K. Downside, deposit after tax money. Upside, pay no taxes on the withdrawls.

The bugs are back with a biting vengeance

adn.com | alaska : The bugs are back with a biting vengeance

Sounds like a good year not to be in Alaska.

Brokers

Interesting article comparing different brokers.

Darth Vader's blog

Check this blog out. The author has written a blog of events from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi from Darth Vader's perspective. It is very well done and has many funny moments.

My favorites are:

Darth complaining about having to use contractors to finish the second Death Star on time...

A partial quote:

For instance, this morning I critiqued a tragically sub-par piece of workmanship on a tractor-beam repulsolift inversion assembly by snapping the neck of the site supervisor and throwing his limp corpse down a disused elevator shaft.

Imperial engineers would have snapped to crisp attention, of course, but all these civilian contractors did was give me was grief. "Oy, you do that again and I'll have the union on you!" barked one red-faced buffoon."

"It is vital that you enhance the inter-departmental syngergies of your operation," I said. And then I killed him.


The following blog entry details how the workers were rewarded with an Ewok bar-be-que dinner on Endor.

Trip

We are back from Portland and surrounding area. It was a nice trip. We spent 3 nights in Portland. With 1 day at a investment seminar and 2 days doing tourist stuff. We went to the Japanese Garden in Portland (the largest one outside of Japan) and drove up to the Columbia Gorge. Very nice scenery with the river and many waterfalls. (pictures coming to my website later.)

On Wednesday we drove to Mt Rainier National Park taking the scenic route by Mt St Helens. That was very interesting. It is very hard to imagine the scope of the devastation there. After 25 years it is still quite evident with fallen trees, and barren areas with nothing but ash and rock. We could not see any current activity at the top of the volcano due to clouds, but we could see the bottom of the crater.

Mt Rainier was very nice and we were extremely lucky with the weather. We had brief but good views of the mountain during late and early breaks in the clouds.

We stayed at the Paradise Inn which is literally at the foot of the mountain. There is an excellent network of trails originating near the inn and visitor center. And after the hike I took I was quite ready to collapse in front of the fire in the lobby of the inn. Yes, it's June. Yes, I said fire. The part of the trail I hiked was a little over a mile one way. But had an elevation gain of 1000 feet (from 5300 to 6300 AMSL)! I guess those trips to the gym are paying off! Once above 6000 feet about 1/3 of the trail was still covered with snow.

Real world snipers

Interesting site about a grass roots effort to support our military snipers in Iraq and Afganistan. This is claiming that they get a lot of equipment designed for standard infantry roles and not well suited to their specialized missions. I really don't understand why this would be a problem given the resources of the US Government. I'm sure my friends and I feel a special bond with the snipers since we always trying to snipe each other in Quake, Doom, MOH, etc. ;-)

http://www.americansnipers.org/

Yuk

Unemployment fears, higher oil prices, tech stocks down, oil stocks up, health stock (except drugs) up. Did somebody wind the clock back to February?

EU

Is the EU falling apart? First the French reject the EU Charter thinking the removal of protections might make then have to actually work, then the Dutch vote no. Now an Italian minister is talking about rejecting the Euro and returning to the Lira.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050603/2005-06-03T072109Z_01_N03232223_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-ECONOMY-ITALY-EURO-DC.html

Portland

Looks like Cheryl and I are still going to Portland, Oregon soon. Wasn't too sure last week. The Tuesday after we got back from the Mad Programmers gathering/Episode III premiere in Warner Robins, Cheryl was at a quilting retreat at a camp near here. She and 3 other women were riding downhill in a golf cart when the brakes failed. The driver tried to make a turn and the cart flipped over ejecting Cheryl and then the cart landed on her foot. She got very brusied, scratched and scraped up, but thankfully the ER x-rays showed nothing was broken. One of the passengers broke a rib. Actually the ER doctor thought she might have a small break and referred her to an orthopedic doctor. But nothing was broken. She is saving copies of the digital X-rays for Mark ;-)

She was on crutches for a couple of days followed by a walking cast (which I nicknamed her stormtrooper boot). She got into regular shoes today for the first time since the accident.

The woman that was driving the gold cart also recently totaled her car about a 1/2 mile from our house. So Cheryl will not ever be riding with her again!

My first post

This is the first post of my new blog. Welcome, (if anyone other than me ever sees this ;-)

I am not really sure of the content I will use on this, but I like the concept and wanted to try it out.