Heroic dog

A couple of news items for today:
The first one concerns a dog who saves his owner from a house fire and then dies trying to save the cat http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/18/hero.dog.ap/index.html

Given all the rain in Houston in the last few days, maybe we need this: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/17/amphibious.car.ap/index.html

Not much else going on. Last week I had quite a few meetings for work so it seemed like I was always going or coming back from somewhere. This week I have no scheduled meetings outside of the house (I do have scheduled conference calls). With the rain, I'm very glad of this.

My committee finished reviewing my proposal and only requested on more change. I have made that change and resubmitted it. Hopefully, it will be turned into the school now for their review so that I can start the iterative process of making them happy.

Vista

Well, Microsoft is really demo'ing Vista these days. I've seen 3 demo's of the new operating system lately and while it looks cool, I don't think it's worth the hype. It's Windows XP on steroids. Someone recorded one of these Windows Vista demo's but is using Mac OS X to show the features. It's pretty funny to see that what Windows is touting as new already exists in the Mac OS. They used to say Windows 95 was Macintosh 1984 so I guess it's still the same. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTeP_eh8XAA

Not too much else to report. Our lives are work, sleep, geocache, and eat. But, we've even slowed down dramatically on the geocaching. We've only been going out for about an hour a night. It gets me out of the house and walking for awhile, but not out all evening like we were originally doing. This Friday though we are going to see the Blue Man Group. I have never seen them before so am looking forward to it.

Back from Oklahoma

Well, we are back from Oklahoma. While it was nice to see family, it was stressful to see them given this occasion. Everyone was tired, upset, and stressed out. So, I am definitely glad to be home so that I can catch up on sleep and get back into a normal routine.

We geocached to Oklahoma and back. We didn't do all that many, but having one every hour or so along the way does break up the trip and make it seem shorter (even though it can add significantly to the overall travel time).

Not too much else to write right now. Last week was shot with my grandfather's death and all the family related things going on. This week I hope to get back to normal.

Everett Eugene

My grandfather passed away this morning, he was 90. He was born in Colorado and lived there until his father passed away when he was 8. He became the man of the house and from that point forward he would always have the personality as the provider. He was smart, independent, stubborn, dedicated, conscientious, and ornery. I loved him dearly. He will be missed.

We don't know yet when the services will be. My cousin is due back from Iraq on Friday so they may wait until he can be there. Whenever they decide the services will be, we'll be going up to Oklahoma.