So the previous website layout that we all know and love met its untimely doom in the midst of my wordpress updates. It’s been a few years since I changed the layout around here so I’ll be trying various layout this week and hopefully we’ll find one that can be easily navigated and feels comfortable on the eyes.

I’d love to hear your comments, so if you see a layout that you really like send me an e-mail. You’ll have to e-mail me because at least at this point… comments aren’t working.

UPDATE: Comments appear to be working.

Sigh.

We’ll get there. Thanks for your patience.

I’ve begun preparations for my fast approaching China trip. I’ll be taking a half day at work tomorrow to conclude my work priorities and then flying out of JFK on Friday.

My apologies for the lack of updates in the last day or so, my prep has taken a fair bit of time. Additionally, I’m trying to squeeze in as many extracurricular activities as I can, while I can.

Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas Everybody!!

As a blog writer, I have to take extra care whenever important websites (banking, e-mail, etc) invite me to contribute a security question to reset my password. I’ve written about all facets of my life on this site so first pets and street addresses are anything but secret from the public. If I’m not vigilant than some malefactor could reset one of my passwords without my knowledge and create mayhem galore.

For this reason when given the option to write in my own security question, I dig deeply into the obscure to find truly creative questions. Sometimes, this method fails me miserably.

I present to you exhibit 1.

I set my security question as: “What is your Secure Password?”

Seriously? Why would I do that?

So stupid.

Sorry for the lack of updates, stay tuned!! Much to come!

I mentioned last week that I wanted to try and find a way to promote MikeDiDonato.com. So I’m doing what I know how to do best: MSPaint and T-shirts.

I have designed a sweet t-shirt. Check it out:

It’s the perfect combo of Geekery and Rockery! All the while mocking corporate sponsership! I am going to be giving two of these t-shirts away. This is how it works.

There are three ways to get yourself entered in the drawing.

1. If you e-mail someone you know and tell them about my website (you must include a link to the website) and CC me in on the e-mail, then I will enter you into a drawing for a t-shirt. The person who sent the winning e-mail will receive a free t-shirt, and so too will the person who had the e-mail sent to them. For each person you send an e-mail to, you get one entry. One e-mail, one entry. If you send one e-mail to 8 people, you’ll only get one entry. If you send personalized e-mails to 8 people, then you’ll get 8 entries. E-mailing people who already openly read the blog doesn’t get you entries. Nor does e-mailing the same person multiple times. Please be respectful to the people you e-mail.

2. If you add a blog post about my website on your website and include a link to my website, you get two entries. Please e-mail me a link to your blog. Limit one blog post per person. If you are selected the winner via this method, you will receive two t-shirts in the mail.

3. If you share my blog via Google Reader you will get one entry – please make sure I’m following you first by sending me an e-mail. Limit one shared post per person. If you are selected the winner via this method, you will receive two t-shirts in the mail.

DEADLINE: The deadline is the end of Labor Day weekend (September 7th, 11:59pm EST). On September 8th, I’ll take those entries that I have received and randomly pick one lucky winner. I will mail out the winning t-shirts after I get the winners’ size and color requests.

Limit 15 entries per person.

I reserve all rights to deny entries to anyone I think might be spamming or stretching the rules in a way that’s sneaky or underhanded.

My e-mail address is: MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

The t-shirt design above might change slightly between now and September 8th, but if it does it will only get more awesome. If the winner would prefer a Breakfast Squad t-shirt, then that’s cool too.

Good luck!!

I was strolling through google reader this morning and suddenly discovered the stats page. You can look at the stats for any particular website feed by clicking on the site details button in the upper right.

Perhaps this is all old news to you veterans, but for me it was new and exciting. I know there are a fair number of readers of this site who don’t use Google Reader so I’ve decided to share the knowledge in hopes that perhaps you too can realize the awesomeness that is Google reader.

So here we go!

Average posts per week: 9.8
Commentary: Eh. kinda weak. I would feel better if we were closer to 12. I’ll try and step up my game.

Total Google Reader Mike D Subscribers: 26
Commentary: 26? eh… Perhaps we should have a contest to spread the love. Keep an eye out in the features section for an announcement.

Fun post graphs:

Commentary: No surprise on the day of the week thing, Mondays and Thursdays FTW. And the last 30 days look reasonably normal. A few more 3 post days than I was expecting, but I guess that’s the way things work around here. Time of day is also interesting, but mostly expected. Except for that 4am jammy. I have no idea what was going on then.

So there we have it! Thanks for reading.

Apparently Anthony, Ryan’s Aussy friend who left that strange telephone message, e-mailed my website link over to a friend of his who works within the Australian government. The friend responded that my website was banned. My website is banned by the Australian government.

Ha!

In other news, last night Shaun L. and I completed season one of Battlestar Gallactica. HOLY CRAP!! If you haven’t watched this series you must. INSAANE. This notice is especially for the Parents D. For Mom D, there’s plenty of character development and a strong plot. For Dad D there’s plenty of gun fights and robots! You guys will love it!

All things Mike D… some updates.

1. I received my Kung Fu sword. Pete has offered his services in taking some sweet photographs of the weapon with his fancy-shmancy camera. After photos are taken, you can rest assured that they will be posted here. I’m also thinking that if I can somehow take the coloring and match properties to the current banner, perhaps I’ll update mikedidonato.com’s look.

2. I’m working on a sizable mikedidonato.com project. It’s going to be a research paper of sorts that explores some geekery. I’m very excited about it, though it will be weeks, if not months, before I have amassed satisfactory amounts of knowledge to post the results. Still though, get pumped that fun geekery is in the making. It will appear in the feature section.

3. Did I tell y’all that I got a promotion at work a few months ago? I leveled up from Mechanical Engineer to Engineered Systems Product Manager. OSNAP! Look out!

4. Climbing is going very well. On Sunday, I led Broadway (5.8) at Ragged Mountain without fault. It was ridiculously smooth. This is exciting because, so far, I’ve only ever successfully led 5.8’s under the burden of heavy stress and nervousness. Being the leader can be rather stressful. Perhaps I will soon be able to begin working 5.9’s without getting too wigged out and failing miserably.

5. I got the new eating well magazine and will be trying a melon soup this week. If it doesn’t explode with summery tastes and flavors I will be sorely disappointed. Stay tuned for reports of success or failure.

There’s a hidden theme in today’s post (probably obvious to some). Can you find it and identify all the instances?

For the past 13 months I’ve been receiving $25 a month advertisement pay for the inclusion of four text links at the bottom of each page here at MikeDiDonato.com. It was hardly an annoyance except to those people who felt betrayed (read: Ryan Schenk and Jon Abad*) and for my google strength which pretty much dropped off the proverbial map.

The ads themselves didn’t bother me at all and the google drop simply meant fewer passers by. Despite this, today I removed the advertisements from the website. This doesn’t mean I won’t sell out again, I assure you that I will – but I’d like to do it with a little more finesse. I’m hoping to switch my advertising type to one that’s more centered on specific local businesses. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll make it work, but I’ll probably be testing a few things in the background over the coming months. We’ll see how well it comes together.

*especially hilarious about the betrayal was Jon and Schenk’s disclaimer removing all responsibility to any potential advertising frustrations.

Alicia sent me a link to The Day Zero Project. It’s a pretty snazzy idea. It goes a little something like this:

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

I think I might put some thought into this and give it a shot.

Stay tuned for a list of 101 things.

There will be a slight delay in posts today as I battle some mammoth homework assignments. Stay tuned.

I heard this job advertised on the radio and then saw Jobonga share it on her google reader. It’s fate. I must apply.

Essentially it’s a job where they pay you to do really awesome stuff in Australia. Be still my heart! I can do awesome stuff!!

It’s obviously a way way long shot, but when something like this comes up you really gotta give it a go.

So this is my game plan. I will introduce myself and give them some reason to think I’m great. Then I will say “My friends would probably describe me as…”

and then BANG – BANG – BANG – BANG – BANG – BANG
6-10 super fast maximum 3 second clips get fired off with short videos of my friends describing me. Do you have a web camera? would you be willing to help me out? If the answer is a definite ‘yes’ then take a clip of yourself describing me. you can use introductory words like “Mike D is” or “I’d describe Mike D as” if you’d like… or you can just say descriptive words like “Awesome.” “wicked sweet at cool things”, “eats too much!” whatever you’d like.

Then I’ll edit your videos into mine, add some clips from the kung fu party tricks and various old Vimeos, and hopefully I’ll have a one minute video that will do me proud.

And even if I don’t get even considered for the sweet job, at a minimum I’ll have a new and improved ‘about’ page that will help herd in tons of new readers and great contributors to the comments sections.

Rock on!

e-mail me with questions or videos!
MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

Well good friends, my trip to Ukraine was approved by my company’s management. That means that this Saturday at 5:30pm I will fly out of Logan airport on Air France on my way to an extremely remote corner of this planet. I’ll try and post more information tomorrow. The exciting news is that I’m going to be so full of fun information for posts when I return. The sad news is that I will be pretty much off the charts until January 6th so there may be a longish break of posts here at MikeDiDonato.com.

There are still a bunch of folks with posting power so don’t delete me from your Google Reader just yet. And when I return I promise a wealth of stunning stories of freezing adventure.

Best Post 2008:
Kung Fu Party Trick #4

Medal Count and
More Medal Count by Patrick

Adjective War

Unicode by J2

The Animal Chicken fights – including Rhino and Baboon

Worst Post 2008:

No Nominations! All right! But there were definitely bad posts. Every poptart post for example.

Best Comment 2008:
Aaron’s response to Dinosaurs and their Estimated Weights

I guess Aaron wins by default. Unless there’s a write in.

Best Comment String 2008:
Let’s not make any sense

Adjective war

We are now accepting nominations for the following mikedidonato.com categories:

1. Best post of 2008
2. Worst post of 2008
3. Best comment of 2008

I’ll accept nominations until Tuesday evening. You can vote on Christmas Eve and all the results will be posted on either Christmas day or the day after Christmas.

MikeDiDonato.com just got a little better.

Fun thing I didn’t know about my own website. If you let your mouse hover over a notification in the ‘new comments’ section, it’ll tell you who left the latest comment!

Awesome!

Dearest Readers,

I want to vamp up two sections of this website. The first is ‘favorite posts.’ If you look at the bar on the left and scroll down you’ll come to a list of favorite posts. Do any of you have any favorite posts that you think I should include in the list?

The second section is the About me page. Right now it’s passable, but not awesome. It definitely needs new photos. Any other suggestions?

Rock,
Mike D.

Hi everybody. Meet Jobonga.

She has an avid appreciation for sweaters and she and Whitney invented ‘Sweater Thursday’ awhile back. As you can see from the image above, Jobonga has thrown the gauntlet for yet another winter season. She encourages us to Commence Sweatering.

I still have a few photos from last year that I need to post of eager people wearing sweaters. If you’d like to participate, wear a flashy sweater tomorrow and then take a picture of yourself in said sweater. E-mail the picture over to me at:

MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

and I will add your picture to the pile in the feature section tomorrow. Get stoked. It’s going to be sweatery.

Hello readers! I need a new watch. I’ve been watchless for at least a year now and it’s time I return to my heavy wrist ways. I have a deep appreciation for awesome fashion, but a complete ineptness in choosing my own accessories. I’m looking for suggestions. I lean favorably towards the Fossil brand, though I’m not opposed to other watches. My last watch was the Fossil Arkitekt. It was a pretty great watch. I think I’d like to keep the leather band look over the metal band look.

As for variety, Analog is a must. Part of me loves the idea of the eccentric Automatic watch. These are the watches that have an unbalanced ratcheted weight inside that winds the watch as the user moves around naturally. Apparently the newer ones have dual eccentrics (SHUT UP!) so that the watch will wind itself with both clockwise and counterclockwise motion. Genius!

Using these criteria, I come up with these options. Not really all that snazzy.

And then there’s the S+arck. Whoa. Perhaps one of these would be awesome on my wrist.

Or maybe I should go funky, or old school, or my little pony.

thoughts? suggestions?

MikeDiDonato.com readers? Meet Jess (she’s on the left – I believe that’s her Ukrainian ’sister’ on the right)

Jess is in the northwest corner of Ukraine right now with the peace corps teaching and spreading good cheer.

Specifically she’s teaching children and trying to connect this little Ukraine village to the rest of the world. In her words: “I run two clubs that are English based and focus on the comparison of and contrast between Ukrainian and American cultures.”

One of the methods she hopes to use to connect her little Ukrainian village to the rest of the world is the Internet.

Right now she’s working to throw a Halloween party with candy-grams and more in order to raise money for that triumphant internet connection and she needs our help. Or specifically, our candy. Would you be able to send a small bag of candy to Ukraine? For both the good of the little kids and the good of the tiny town?

Little Ukranian kids:

Here’s Jess’s comments on how to send help:

Should you decide to send: Sending things to Ukraine is a pretty easy process. The difficulty is the five-minute customs declaration process at the post office. When sending something, if possible, sending it in a flat envelope will be best. If this is not possible, a box is fine also, but keep the size of the box relative to the items so they don’t shake around. The potential detour point is Ukrainian customs. These guys are pretty random with what they withhold at the office for pick-up, what they open up for inspection, and what they let through. The easiest way to prevent all of this is to write on the customs form indicating what you are sending. In this case, I absolutely recommend that you are sending “Donated School Supplies” or “Donations for Orphans”, or something that is going to instill guilt in the hearts of anyone who may think to take it. School Supplies is legit and the least transparent. And seriously underestimate the value of the items you are sending. Never EVER value it over $100. Something of “value” will almost guarantee it opened or stolen. So in short, you are sending donated school supplies that are valued at less than $10 to…me.

Via USPS is an ok method and here is where you send it:

Park, Jessie
Chaikivka Street, #45
C. Altinyvka
Krolevci Reón
Cumska Oblast
Ukraine 41346

This is Mike D. again. I have a lot of readers in unique places. If we could get little packages to arrive for the Ukrainian kids from all over the place, what a great worldly gesture that would be. Please help! Feel free to e-mail questions to me and I’ll pass them to Jess.
MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

If you can, try and send something small out within the next week. The party to bring internet and candy to the people (does anything sound more awesome?) is going down in early November and I guess it takes about two weeks for candy supplies to arrive. Let me know if you can help!

Paul sent me a pretty hilarious note last night:

So I read your article on Gamma Ray Bursts and it made me laugh cause over 10 years ago I was at some geeky science camp where we actually looked at old satellite data of gamma ray bursts. If you want a quick laugh I actually had to make a website about it. Unfortunately they won’t take it down and spare me the humiliation of my high school self being on the internet.

http://espg.sr.unh.edu/tof/Smart/Students/P_Novello/mainpage.html

Paul

Well done Paul. We at MikeDiDonato.com take joy in spreading your awkward high school pictures to the masses.

On Friday night, Jobonga and Darcy finally got me into Google Reader. Yes… I know… shame on D for not using an RSS feed earlier. Anyway, it’s pretty handy. Hopefully, it will give me potential for new content from shared stories.

Three cheers for RSS!