Happy Birthday Marines!

Today I checked my email a little late, but sure enough, there they were. Birthday greetings from my Brothers. Today is November 10th, and the Marine Corps is 231 Years old. I have been out of the Marine Corps for almost 9 years now, but I still think about the Corps every day.

Year after year, when I see the birthday greetings from my friends, I am still glad to know that I am not the only former Marine who still remembers the Marine Corps Birthday, it seems like every year I meet another former Marine who doesn't celebrate Nov 10th. I don't know about the rest of you Jarheads out there, but every year I get all the Marines I know locally, and hoist a few in honor of the Corps. Usually we only number 2 or 3, but all of you that I served with, and all of my other brothers and sisters out there who I have not met are there with me, if only in thought.

So Happy Birthday to all of you Hard Chargers!

Semper Fi!

And remember, if you want to help out some terrific Marine Corps related charities, and get a great book about steak, read this post about "Command of the Grill" , or visit the Command of the Grill web site .

Weber's Command of the Grill - A Salute to Steak

So as you probably know, my Birthday is coming up, I'll be 231. OK, I've been around for awhile, but not quite that long. What I'm talking about is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. You see, Marines care about the day their beloved Corps was founded, November 10th, 1775, and celebrate it every year, and even though I haven't been on active duty for quite awhile, I'm still a Marine, and I still celebrate the Marine Corps birthday.

As a matter of fact, I believe that I am legally obligated to have at least a few beers on that day with any Jarhead I can find, and trust me, there are at least a few everywhere. They may not be wearing a sharply pressed uniform , or sporting a motivated high and tight, but they are there, just yell out "Semper Fi!" and I bet you'll at least get an "Ooh-Rah! " back.

What brings this up, is I have been long awaiting the release of Weber's Command of the Grill - A Salute to Steak , so long in fact, that I forgot all about it until I was on Weber's web site. This book is the result of grilling competitions held for Marines, go ahead, find out more, I dare you.

Now, I love to grill, I love steak, and I love the Corps. What could be better than a book that combines all of those. I'll tell you what could be better, every single penny of this $10 book goes to supporting Marines wounded in action, or the families and children of Marines who were killed in action. The Charities supported are:

- The Injured Marines Semper Fi Fund - Provides financial assistance to injured Marines, and other service members injured while assigned to Marine Units.

- The Wounded Warrior Project - Provides programs and assistance to severely wounded service members.

- The Fisher House - Provides a home away from home for the families of patients receiving medical treatment at Military and VA medical centers.

- The Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation - Assists the Children of Marines and Law Enforcement who were killed while serving their country.

If you know a Marine, buy this book for them, if you know someone who likes to grill, buy this book for them. Hell, buy one for yourself. Give something for those who sacrificed everything. Just don't buy one for me, I bought 2 of them today.

Semper Fi!

10/23/2006 Update: Big thanks to the Grill Junkie for helping to promote Command of the Grill. If you like to grill, make sure you put Grill Junkie on your "to check often" list, or subscribe via RSS.

The 7 Deadly sins of Email

I was listening to the MCPMAG’s MCP Radio podcast a little while ago, and Michael Domingo mentioned a list called the “7 deadly sins of email”. Many of the sins I have seen other people commit, so I decided I would go out on the vast wealth of information we call “the internet”, and start looking at web pages at random, until I found this web page.

Several days later, I decided to just use google. My only other idea was to send out a chain email to all my friends, stating that if they knew of this list, and would send it to me, then they would win dinner with Salma Hayek or Matthew McConaughey (the winner’s choice of course), and that if they forwarded the email on to 10 friends, than Microsoft and AOL would send them 1 hot dog with onions, and a half eaten Twinkie.

Anyway, I found Lifehacker’s 7 Deadly Sins of email, which is pretty practical, and I also found one on an IT Management web site that seems to be aimed at avoiding legal problems when composing email. Although both of these lists were full or some really good suggestions, neither of these are what I was looking for.

Then the BBC had this list which was also pretty practical. All of a sudden, I found the list I was looking for on GeekLikeMe.net. I have to bookmark this one, because I see every one of these sins frequently.

So please, go ahead and read the 7 Deadly Sins of Email.

09/22/2006 - Update
I just ran across "The E-mail To-Don't List" in Men's Health. It is another one of those good advice lists.

The US Plans to build a Moonbase?

I saw this little blurb about how the US Plans to build a Moonbase, and it struck me a couple of ways. First off, let me admit that I don’t get a whole lot of news; I just don’t have the time. So maybe I missed it, but shouldn’t this have been a bigger story? One of the obstacles listed in the 5th paragraph is how to reacquire our “culture of exploration”. How little press this topic received helps to illustrate how big of a problem that is.

I know that when I was a kid, we actually watched shuttle lift offs in class. It was something that was supposed to help kids get motivated, and make them want to study math and science. These days, I don’t think that I can tell you when the last shuttle lift-off was. I don’t know if it hits the news unless there is some disaster.

Slapdown on Forsake our troops.

I am sure that all of you have heard of the worthless waste of disk space called forsake our troops (don't bother visiting it), and I hope that everyone agrees the people who run the site are idiots who would have some very bad things happen to them if they tried this in other countrys who may not have such a high regard for free speech. But.....

Someone posted this on a discussion board for one of my online classes, and it sure is worth the download. It is a video link to the founder of forsake our troops getting torn a new one! You have to put up with a commercial before the main event, but it sure was nice to see that idiot get a good "talking to".

Since I am on this subject, I would hate to think that even one of the members of our armed forces thinks, even for a split second, that the forsake our troops web site represents how the sane people in this country feel. It doesn't.

You are all doing a great job, keep up the good work, and come home safe.

Semper Fi!

Blogger is just too cool!

I have been playing around with the settings, and just want to say that blogger is just too cool.

The thing that prompted this is when I noticed that I can create an email address for my blog, and then send emails to that address, and the email gets posted. I then poked around a little more and realized that Picasa, which is also free, allows you to download helo, and publish pictures to the blog.

Awesome!

It takes something really neat for me to be impressed, and I am impressed.

The death of Blogging.

I just realized that I have made several posts all in one day, so I wonder if blogging will soon die. Usually, by the time I pick up on something, it isn't cool anymore. I guess we will see.

Good blog names

I know that I can title my blog whatever I wanted, but I can't get the cool URL. I wanted thenetworker, but This guy has already taken it.

The next choice was thebitbucket, but This guy took it. Oh well. The bit Bucket wasn't posted to since 2001, and thenetworker has not been posted to since August 04.

I guess I can't say anything, since I just started and all. For all I know in a year someone will be complaining about my blog not being updated, and how I have the name he wanted.