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Out of town hick? No gas for you.
Posted on March 17, 2006 at 07:35 AM
This caught my eye while pumping gas at a station in Council Bluffs, IA yesterday afternoon:
Posted by joeschmidt at 07:35 AM | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Happy Pi Day
Posted on March 14, 2006 at 01:59 PM
March 14th is known mostly to math enthusiasts (read: geeks) as Pi day. Mostly because if you write out today's date, 3.14, you will see the first 3 digits of Pi. Die hard geeks honor the day by getting up at 1:59am and 26 seconds (3.1415926) to celebrate. Others may celebrate at 1:59pm, but true geeks will note that 1:59pm in military time is actually 13:59pm. The other acceptable time to celebrate Pi day would be 3:09pm or 15:09 (3.14159, I guess they ignore that zero in there).
I found this snippet on Wikipedia's listing for Pi day somewhat amusing:
The "ultimate" pi moment occurred on March 14, 1592, at 6:53 AM and 58 seconds. When written in American-style date format, this is 3/14/1592 6:53.58, which corresponds to the value of pi to twelve digits: 3.14159265358. However, considering this was well before any kind of standardized world time had been established, and the general public had no concept of pi, the occurrence likely went unnoticed.
Really? No... You think? Though, if you could remember this date and time you would know Pi to 12 digits.
How to celebrate Pi day?
To celebrate you could eat a piece of Pie, watch the movie Pi or see if you can find your telephone number within the digits of Pi.
Here's how I celebrated:
Also of note, today would have been Albert Einstein's 127th birthday.
Happy &pi day!
Posted by joeschmidt at 01:59 PM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
Jason McElwain: A Chance to Shine
Posted on March 03, 2006 at 05:53 AM
Meet Jason McElwain, a high school senior at Greece Athena High School near Rochester, NY. Jason is the team manager of the school's varsity Basketball team, who for three years has provided tremendous heart, enthusiam, and support to his team.
Oh, and I should probably mention one "detail", Jason is autisitc.
But that one "detail" which makes Jason a bit different from everyone else took the night off a few weeks ago. On one magical February night, Head Coach Jim Johnson allowed Jason to suit up for the last home game of the year. It was unclear at the start if Jason would get to play in the game, but with a double digit lead and only 4 minutes left in the game, Coach Johnson called Jason's number. #52 entered the game, and unknowingly, into the hearts of many.
Absolutely amazing.
Posted by joeschmidt at 05:53 AM | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us
"Four Things" with your host, Joe Schmidt
Posted on March 01, 2006 at 03:07 AM
This is all Kadavy's fault.
Four jobs I have had:
1. Director of Dinnerware Sanitation and Distribution (i.e. Dishwasher)
2. Senior Target Deployment Specialist (i.e. Trap/skeet puller at a Gun Club)
3. Advanced Concrete Placement Coordinator (i.e. laborer at a Pre-cast concrete company. I say "adavanced" because I spoke english and could use a tape measure)
4. HIPPA Compliant Data Mining Technician (i.e. data entry slave at some data processing company)
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Shawshank Redemption
2. The Matrix
3. Good Will Hunting
4. Fight Club
Four places I have lived:
1. Milwaukee, WI
2. Lincoln, NE
3. Omaha, NE
4. To be determined, USA
Four places I have vacationed:
1. Niagra Falls (age 10)
2. Tijuana, MX / San Diego, CA (bought a fake rolex. I was 15)
3. Playa del Carmen, MX (honeymoon, age 23)
4. Viva Las Vegas
Four of my favorite dishes:
1. royal doulton
2. Norman Rockwell
3. Fiestaware
4. Chinette
Oh wait, not dishes, "dishes":
1. A dozen hot wings from the Buffalo Company.
2. Pickled eggs from the Boathouse in Houghton, Michigan.
3. Fresh wisconsin string cheese or "squeeky" cheese curds.
4. Anything the Head of the JoeSchmidt.com Culinary Arts Department whips up.
Four sites I visit (almost) daily:
1. google (duh)
2. digg
3. del.icio.us
4. drudge
Four TV shows I love:
1. 24
2. Seinfeld
3. The Sopranos
4. Mad Money - boo-yaa skee daddy
Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:
1. In bed.
2. In bed asleep.
3. In bed asleep laying next to my wife.
4. In bed asleep laying next to my wife without the dog's outstretched legs jabbing into my back.
The Next Victims of "Four Things" meme hell (should they choose to except the challenge):
1. Lisa Park - someone I actually know.
2. Sperari - an Omaha blogger whom I've never met.
3. The Sarcastic Journalist - talked once via email. I enjoy her writing.
4. The Waiter - ditto. Enjoy his writing as well.
Who started this mess?
I've seen this list passed around various blogs on the interwebs for at least the last month. So I decided to track down the peron(s) responsible in hopes of finding the original person who started it all. Here they are in the order in which they were tagged starting with the most recent:
David Kadavy
Adrian Hanft
Dave Bias
Gord Fynes
James macnally
Dan Budiac
Kathryn Yu
Anil Dash
Jason Kottke
Caterina Fake
Heather Powazek Champ
Derek Powazek
Greg Storey
Jeffrey Zeldman
Mark Simonson
John Martz
Grant Hutchinson
Matthew Hoy
Jon Hicks
Glenda Sims
Bruce Lawson
John Oxton
tauquil
Dave Kellam
Matt Brett
Paul Stamatiou
Darice de Cuba
Michele Finotto
idledecafactivist
kntgrl
sighclub.typepad.com
This is the point where the meme jumps "The Pond". Also the point where I grow tired of tracking down people's names.
langavitleysa.blogspot.com
forlovenormoney.me.uk
www.chatiryworld.co.uk
eloquicrow.livejournal.com
rhomany.typepad.com
scrapfairy.blogspot.com
And finally, as best as I can tell, this is where it all started.
The title of her post was "I've not been tagged" which leads me to believe that she saw the "Four Things Meme" somewhere and decided to start one on her own. At least we know who to blame, the British.
Posted by joeschmidt at 03:07 AM | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
