This past week I’ve written and deleted three drafts posts with dissatisfaction.  So whatever I write here gets published.

It is becoming harder and harder to avoid writing a political post so I’ll try to get one out soon.  Just to be upfront, I have gripes with both the Democratic and Republican sides.  I have problems with the whole political process.  I might have to add a “Political” post category by the time we get to election day.

The economy is frighteningly unstable.  I think with all the Hurricane Ike news and with a ton of people still without power, people haven’t really taken in the stark realities of this week’s events.  I think it’s interesting to see the heavy handed government interventions in the financial markets this past week from a Republican administration.  This just goes to show that there are no promises after someone gets into office.  There’s really no telling whether McCain will provide little government or whether Obama will provide all the programs he’s been talking about.

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I’m disappointed that Apple issued a recall on their ultracompact USB power adapters for the iPhone.  There’s reportedly only a small percentage of adapters that are faulty but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.  You can either exchange it in store in October or fill out the web-based form now.  Thanks to MacRumors for letting me know about this.

October is also when the MBP is supposed to come out.  I’ve been waiting for this redesign for — is it two years now?  Crazy.  But what’s even crazier is I’m considering not getting one.  Well, I’m really hoping that they make it lighter in this new redesign.  But if they don’t, I might consider getting a Mac Pro or a iMac for my photo processing and a lightweight, compact laptop for travel and mobility.  One or maybe both of those will probably have to be refurbished since my tech budget is pretty limited.  Has anyone ever bought refurbished from Apple?

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My internship this year is at Texas Children’s Hospital in Adolescent Medicine through BCM’s Leadership Education in Adolescent Health Fellowship program.  It’s been an interesting experience so far in that I feel like I’m getting a sneak peak at what medical or nursing school is like.  It’s a really robust environment where you’re surrounded by sharp people and you can learn as much as you possibly want to.  It’s also nice to be able to disassociate hospitals with terrible events.  I’m also helping to facilitate experiential groups at a local high school and will be also be working with Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) students both in Houston and in Baytown.

It’s because of these two things and my full load of classes that sockparade might suffer a bit this year.  But I definitely consider it a worthwhile trade-off — hopefully it won’t get too bad.

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I never used to like cars.  I mean, I never appreciated their beauty until after I met the husband.  My brother-in-law was over last night and they were talking cars and while I’m still drooling over the Audi A5, the brand new Audi A4 is pretty fantastic too.  The headlight redesign is amazing.

Speaking of cars, I love car commercials that use great songs.  There’s a Saab commercial that has cool female vocals but I don’t know who she is.  Let me know if you’ve got a clue.

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This is the first weekend we’ve had where we have no plans and no place we’ve committed to visiting.  It’s the first real weekend I’ve had in a long time.  I can’t wait!  See you on the other side.

This is the post I wrote last week and was planning to finish and post on Thursday– before all the hurricane craziness happened.

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Finally.  I just finished uploading the last of my Turkey photos.  Sometimes it’s hard to balance how many photos I take on a vacation.  I’m usually afraid I’ll regret bringing my D200 somewhere so I end up bringing it everywhere.  After 10 days in Turkey, I decided to leave the D200 at home for the last day of shopping in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.  It’s quite unfortunate because there were a lot of great photos to be had but it was also nice to just enjoy myself without carrying the extra weight.  Some people enjoy the solid, heavy feel of the D200 but I wouldn’t mind some lightweight technology.

I definitely think my D200 is one of the best investments I’ve made since graduating from undergraduate college.  I’m still trying to convince the husband to get an SLR camera.

I’ll be throwing up photos of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains as soon as I get a paper off of my back.

So after some observation, I realized that Twitter isn’t killing my blog.  Google Reader is killing my blog.  I usually blog about the interesting things I like but now I just share them through Google.  I think the solution is to pick out the really outstanding items I share there and blog about it.  We’re getting this (sockparade) down to a science.

Here’s a quick sampling:

I love Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys.  I don’t know anyone that doesn’t.  Here it is in blog form.  Just make sure you read it from the oldest entry to the newest entry.  Did you know they are coming out with a Facebook Movie?  If you’re bored, check out the blog Cake Wrecks for a few good laughs.  I found it through Boing Boing but apparently Ashteroid is blogrolling it too.  Disaster movie got a 00% on RottenTomatoes.  Do you like your drinks on the rocks?  Here is an ice alternative that looks like real rocks.

The geek level and randomness varies from day to day.  You can either follow my reader by bookmarking this page, checking out the blue widget I have on my sidebar, or joining Google Reader yourself and adding me as a friend.

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I think it’s interesting how everyone (myself included) is hating on the new facebook layout.  I finally took a look around this morning and while it’s pretty cluttered– I have to admit that I always prefer personal customization.  Not Myspace-customization where the font, colors and backgrounds become hideous, but drag and drop widget customization.  So I think I’m okay with it.  It’ll just take some time to get used to.  What’s interesting is that Flickr recently updated their website too but I haven’t heard as much grumbling.  Without making a comment on whether the new Flickr is better or worse than the old Flickr, they flipped the page the same way Facebook has flipped, by placing the main content on the lefthand side of the page and the column on the right.  I think this is better design (which is why sockparade is the way it is) but it’s counter intuitive when you have already been trained to expect to see the page the old way.  I haven’t heard too much grumbling about Flickr.  Is it because Flickr management has made their way into our hearts and we trust them to do what’s best for Flickr?  Even if it means that comments left on your photos are mashed up with comments you’ve left on other people’s photos?  But maybe we’re willing to give that up in order to mute some activity?  That’s customer loyalty.

Speaking of layout changes, I am still scratching my head as to why Microsoft would change MS Office menus in Vista.  I know they were trying to innovate and keep up with the times but one of their greatest advantages over Apple was that they had a huge user base that was trained on the interface of MSOffice.  I’m not sure why they would sacrifice that.

My absence is pretty hard to explain.  I’ve had more time in the past two weeks than I’ve had in a long time.  And I’m about to start a crazy year of working at the hospital and finishing my last year of classes.  I’ve been enjoying a random assortment of things so in no particular order, here goes:

I purchased these hiking shoes (Women’s Vasque Breeze, no GoreTex) last week on sale for $80 as well as a pair of REI Merino Wool Light Hiking Socks.  They are pretty comfortable and not as heavy as the leather hiking boots that are out there.  Most of the reviews I’ve read say that they don’t require a break-in period so I’m glad about that since we are headed to Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend.

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I spend most of my web surfing time reading through my Google Reader.  Especially with the convenience of Firefox’s Google Reader extension that has the option to load the website inside the reader, there’s really no reason to leave my Google Reader (except to read the Freakonomics blog which strangely doesn’t work inside the reader).  I really like the Google Reader iPhone app although I wish there was an option to “expand all” so that I don’t have to click into each feed to read it.

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I discovered this CD (Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone) on IMEEM and I’ve been enjoying it ever since.  The sound of a sorrowful cello is beautiful.

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I’ve been also trying to incorporate Evernote into my life.  I’ve been using it for school and also for brainstorming for future ideas.  I used to carry around a little yellow notepad to jot down ideas and books I wanted to remember to pick up or artists to check out.  Now that I have the iPhone Evernote app, I’ve ditched the little yellow notepad.

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This is the first time I’ve watched a political convention and I’ve really been enjoying it.  I wish CNN would show more of it instead of some of its pointless commentary but otherwise it’s been pretty good.  It still bothers me when the crowd starts booing or chanting in response to the speeches — and the speeches can get kind of hokey sometimes but most of the time I am inspired and encouraged by what I’ve been hearing.  I’m looking forward to Obama’s speech tonight although I might not be home to catch it– thank God for YouTube!

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Ever since Barcamp I have been using Twitter.  I noticed that I don’t twitter very much when I’m out of town.  We’ll see if that changes.  I wonder if there’s a correlation with being able to twitter and not feeling the need to write blogposts as frequently.

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I’ve been asked to join the Yelp Elite Squad!  I’ve been on a Yelping hiatus but now I’m back in full force! This is probably why they ask people to join the Elite Squad.  The main perks of being elite are that I get invitations to their parties, special deals and discounts, a free t-shirt, and pride!  This is kind of like when the husband and I got Gold status at Dave & Busters.  Too bad we don’t really go there anymore.

This Saturday we went to BarCamp Houston 3 at the Houston Technology Center and it was overall a pretty cool experience.  There weren’t as many presentations as I thought there would be and there wasn’t the variety of topics I was hoping for but for a FREE, self-run “unconference”, it was definitely worth my while to go.  I’ll keep my eye out for future BarCamps, especially because some of the BarCamp videos of other cities I watched on YouTube showed fairly sophisticated operations.

Unfortunately, some of the sessions that I wanted to go to overlapped with each other so I wasn’t able to see everything I wanted to.  But I wanted to share some highlights from some of the sessions we attended:

Mobile (WAP) Best Practices - David Herrold

• According to a poll on Pinstack, 59% of users surveyed check email while driving, 43% used AIM or BB messenging while driving, and 40% browse the web while driving
• According to Nielsen Mobile Report, 57% of US mobile subscribers were data users (SMS, mobile internet, email, etc.)
• 2.4 billion people use text messaging
• Shortcodes are extremely expensive.  Custom shortcode is $1,000/mo and random shortcode is $500/mo.
• Firefox is coming out with a mobile browser
• Skyfire is coming out with a mobile browser that will support Flash

Next Generation Biofuels: Global Markets & Trends - Will Thurmond

• Non-food source feedstock: Jatropha, algae, recycled waste, and sewage
• Jatropha: “The hardy Jatropha is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing up to 40% oil. When the seeds are crushed and processed, the resulting oil can be used in a standard diesel engine, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power electricity plants.” - Wikipedia
• Per Thurmond’s book, Biodiesel 2020: A Global Market Survey, “China recently set aside an area the size of England to produce jatropha and other non-food plants for biodiesel. India has up to 60 million hectares of non-arable land available to produce jatropha, and intends to replace 20% of diesel fuels with jatropha-based biodiesel. In Brazil and Africa, there are significant programs underway dedicated to producing non-food crops jatropha and castor for biodiesel.”
• Algae can be used as feedstock as well and it serves dual purpose because you can use algae to capture carbon emissions.  The idea is to colocate algae plants next to coal plants.

Financing Your Startup 101 - Josh Tabin

• You can invest your 401K or IRA money into your own startup company (Guidant Financial Group specializes in this).  I don’t mean withdraw money (and incur huge penalities and taxes) but direct the investments to your own startup.
• Need to read Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
• Only approach Angel Investors when you have a product or something concrete (more than just an idea)
• Prepare your 5-minute pitch
• Small Business Loans are the most difficult way to secure funding
• Assess how proprietary your idea is, most ideas aren’t.  Most Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists do not like NDAs and will not agree to sign them
• The market is the most important.  You can have a great product/technology/idea but if the market is not ready for it or not receptive, you’ve got nothing
• Your team is second most important.  [Aside: Reminds me of YouNoodle, they take team relationships into account when predicting future value of startup companies]
• Comment from the attendees: “Providing data on market research and market demand is one of the most persuasive things you can include in your pitch.”

It wasn’t so much the things I learned directly from BarCamp that I enjoyed the most.  It was being in an environment where I was surrounded by dreamers, entrepreneurs– people who were doers and not just talkers.  It was really encouraging when during one of the sessions someone polled the group to see how many people had started a new company in the last 3-5 years and how many of them were already generating profits.  I knew I was in good company.  There was also plenty of downtime to talk and think things over.  It jump started some new conversations between the husband and I and shaped some of my ideas for the future.

I just ordered another iPhone 3G case.  I debated between several brands and styles and finally settled on the Beyza Apple iPhone 3G SlimLINE - VSL20 Vertical Leather Case Flo Light Blue.  I originally had decided on the Sena Ultra Slim Pouch but the light blue color I wanted was backordered so I went with the Beyza.  I’m actually glad the Sena was backordered so that I would be forced to explore more options.  I think the Beyza might provide a bit more padding and protection without adding too much bulk.

I really wanted the Beyza Roadline case with the strap but it’s a little too pricey for a case.  At least it was too pricey for me.  There are people out there buying custom-made Vaja Leather cases starting at $220 a pop, so the Beyza Roadline is actually still relatively cheap at $49.50.

Just a tip, I didn’t order from the Beyza website.

I ordered from Cases.com (Aluron, Inc.) which got positive web reviews.  I also found a coupon code that took off 15% so the total came out to be $32.05 (includes $4.00 for shipping).  This was better than ordering directly from Beyza which is based in Turkey and charges $13.90 to ship to the USA which would have brought me to a total of $47.40.

So why am I getting a new case?  I like my naked case that I got off of Ebay, I really do.  Touch sensitivity is great and it feels pretty secure but I can’t stand the dust getting into the cutouts for the speaker and underneath the case.  So I’m going to try not putting a permanent case on it and just using the Beyza sleeve.  Here’s to hoping I don’t drop it!

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Speaking of Turkey, here’s the paper I wrote on the Gulen Movement for my summer course.  The writing is pretty weak and I was fighting time to get my ideas down on paper but it’s a start.  The paper will probably a sort of work in progress.  I’d like to revisit it and beef it up with more ideas sometime in the future — maybe around winter break.