Death of Bin Laden

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I’ve been very busy lately and haven’t had time to read much of the analysis of the Bin Laden death, but I had a awkward feeling when I heard the talking heads tell me I need to be joyous and celebrate the event. Don’t misunderstand me, I wanted him dead, but the celebration part didn’t seem right. Two of the people I follow and have great respect for both communicated some things that describe why I don’t feel like celebrating. The first one is a short commentary by Michael Badnarik. The second on is my favorite podcast show by Dan Carlin. If you have the type of mind that thinks, I’d love to hear what you think!

Posted in News, Politics | Tagged Dan Carlin, Michael Badnarik, Osama Bin Laden | Leave a comment

Damon’s Backyard – Dallas Texas

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

We covered the topic of small animals today in my PDC class. We took a field trip down to a ‘beginners’ (his words) garden a few blocks away to see his chickens. The first thing I saw was his tomato plants! I couldn’t believe how huge they were! After a few minutes of shock, I started noticing all the other things Damon has done to make his backyard more useful and enjoyable. I didn’t want to leave. He has a really cool chicken coup that allows the birds to travel freely between their fancy coup and their side yard. Then I turned a corner and noticed his bee hive. He installed a water feature to keep the bees happy, and to prevent his neighbor’s pool from being used as a bee watering hole. The bamboo are recycled window shades, used to dress up his potato stacks. His back fence is made from hog panels, and doubles as trellis for climbing plants.

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Posted in Gardening | Tagged backyard, chickens, Damon | Leave a comment

Garden at Stonewall Elementary School – Dallas Texas

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

After my PDC class a few of us stopped by to look at the gardens around the Stonewall Elementary School. It was great to see all this gardening activity at a school. There was also a butterfly garden and a greenhouse that I didn’t take pictures of. Lots of bees and pollinators all over the place.

[Show slideshow]

Posted in Gardening | Tagged garden, school, students | Leave a comment

Vehicle Fuel Economy Comparisons

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I drove a VW Jetta last weekend are really liked it. I hate little cars, but this is one of the few I’ve even been in that I liked. I seemed to ‘feel right’. So that experience and the obscene about of money I’m spending to keep quadzilla fed in 93 octane has me considering a more reasonable daily driver vehicle. The era of cheap dino-fuel is over.

Being a chart-geek, I decided to look at the situation from a few different viewpoints. A few things I found interesting:

At $4/gal fuel, driving 300 miles/wk, and upgrading to a vehicle that gets 28MPG better economy translates to a savings of $3640/yr. $5/gal fuel would increase the savings to $4550/yr.
I could ‘save’ the most money if changing vehicles to a more efficient model if I drove more miles per week than I do, and chart 2 shows that distance is the most influential variable. BUT, it also means I can save the most by simply not driving as many miles. Staying home pays off, and it pays off even more when you drive a gas guzzler!
Chasing maximum MPG efficiency doesn’t pay off very well. You get a nice savings for the first 15 MPG increase, but it starts to flatten out quickly. Driving 300 miles/wk on $4/gal fuel, an increase of 10MPG gives a yearly savings of $2364, 20MPG increase gives $3250/yr, 30MPG increase gives $3712/yr, and 40MPG gives a yearly savings of only $4000.

[Show slideshow]

Posted in Automotive | Tagged cars, comparison, fuel, gas prices, MPG | Leave a comment

Crazy Photos

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

[Show slideshow]

Posted in Humor | Tagged crazy, photos, silly | Leave a comment

The New Dog Feeder

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Sometimes Bryson likes to help out, and getting the dogs their food is one of the things he is ‘good’ at. It takes a while to get the job done, and when the bag is close to empty, he has to bend over and get on his tippy toes to reach the bottom. It is a pretty funny site to see.

Posted in Family | Tagged Bryson, dog food | 1 Comment

The Ten Principles of a Free Society

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

The Ten Principles of a Free Society

by Ron Paul

This is the Appendix to Ron Paul’s new book, Liberty Defined.

Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government.
All peaceful, voluntary economic and social associations are permitted; consent is the basis of the social and economic order.
Justly acquired property is privately owned by individuals and voluntary groups, and this ownership cannot be arbitrarily voided by governments.
Government may not redistribute private wealth or grant special privileges to any individual or group.
Individuals are responsible for their own actions; government cannot and should not protect us from ourselves.
Government may not claim the monopoly over a people’s money and governments must never engage in official counterfeiting, even in the name of macroeconomic stability.
Aggressive wars, even when called preventative, and even when they pertain only to trade relations, are forbidden.
Jury nullification, that is, the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, is a right of the people and the courtroom norm.
All forms of involuntary servitude are prohibited, not only slavery but also conscription, forced association, and forced welfare distribution.
Government must obey the law that it expects other people to obey and thereby must never use force to mold behavior, manipulate social outcomes, manage the economy, or tell other countries how to behave.

See the Ron Paul File

Posted in Politics | Tagged Liberty, Ron Paul, rules | Leave a comment

We are Pregnant

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I thought everyone knew already, but I realized I’ve never actually announced the fact that we are expecting a baby boy sometime in August. We did an ultrasound a few weeks ago and saw the boy parts, which was a surprise to many because so many people were convinced we would have a girl. What can I say, I’m good at making boys! Here is a picture of the baby and a ‘baby bump’ picture of Amber.

Posted in Family | Tagged Amber, baby, boy, Pictures, pregnant | Leave a comment

Reasons You Should Carry a Camera

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

received via email:

alternate link to photos

Posted in Humor | Tagged cats, Dogs, Pictures | Leave a comment

Consume Only?

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I recently listened to Paul Wheaton‘s ‘beyond organic’ podcast and he mentioned some interesting, thought-provoking things. One of the topics was the idea of consuming vs participating in relation to information passed around or available on the Internet. He made the argument that the teen-age crowd dominates the culture and controls the Internet because they are the active participants. (check out the popular videos on youtube) Older generations, like the gen-x-er one I’m part of, are consumers only. Even if they get value from reading or seeing something, they typically will not share it, or pass it on, or like it on facebook, or vote it up on any of the social media sites, or comment on it, or help spread the word. They treat information on the Internet like watching TV or listening to the radio, receive-only mode.

If you are the type of person who cares about your place on the earth, and you want to leave some sort of positive impression before you are worm food, now is an unprecidented time in human history to do this, with almost no effort at all! You can contact 100 people in just a few seconds via email, or if you use better tools like social media, it could be thousands of people in the same amount of time. I believe this is similar to what Dan Carlin calls ‘slacktivisim’, the great affect of doing very little actual work, through the use of awesome communications and the power of lots of people doing the same thing.

Something I’m pretty sure about is that these trends will continue. The Internet is changing our lives. I think the people who are participants will benefit in ways that the consume-only crowd will not understand, and will likely criticize. My question is, “how easy does it have to be before everyone takes on an active role of making things around them better?”

Posted in Thoughts | Tagged consume, Internet, participate, share, slakavisim | 2 Comments

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The New Dog Feeder

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