When I commute to a client downtown, I have to take the Metra train. When I take the Metra train, I have to park in the Metra parking lot. Parking there used to cost $1.00 per day but was recently increased to $1.25. So instead of simply slipping a dollar bill into a payment slot, now I have to find the dollar bill and change. Who carries change in their pockets in the morning any more?

Well, it’s been quite awhile since I was regularly writing in this blog. I’ve written a lot more at my World of Warcraft blog - World of Warcraft Class Guide - than here. But here is a start: Apparently it is more expensive and damaging to the environment (over the life of the vehicle) to drive a Prius versus a Hummer! Who knew!?! A recent clinical study - done by real MDs!

Well, Apple finally released a mobile phone device. It’s called the iPhone. I followed the play-by-play yesterday on Engadget. Lucky for me, I made a “bet” on Apple stock before Jobs’ keynote speech and bought a big chunk of Apple stock ahead of time. By the end of the keynote, the stock was up almost 8%. Big mobile phone competitors like Motorola, Nokia, and RIM (makers of Blackberry) all took hits on their stock prices with RIM losing almost $2 billion in market capitalization.

I just think it’s so cool that “007” makes up this year. After seeing the awesome Casino Royale, the latest James Bond film starring Daniel Craig as Bond, I’m totally pumped about the future of Bond. But I digress from the purpose of this post. As the quote below would seem, I have an interest in cooking, one that has grown and grown (curse you Ron!) until it now almost qualifies as a hobby.

If you always wanted to live in a hotel-sized home, feel free to move to Pasadena and spend $52 million for this home. The future of tires has no room for air compressors or flats! Behold, the Tweel from Michelin. That’s about it for today…

I’ve posted two more photo galleries on Flickr: Our new Maui vacation set is here and pictures of our new house, which has now reached the framing state, are here.

Looks like Lance Armstrong is training for the 2006 NYC Marathon on November 5th. According to the article, the longest run he’s had to date is 13 miles. The MIT Guide to Lockpicking. Money Magazine has posted a list of the 50 Smartest Things to Do With Your Money. A tutorial on how to create a Firefox extension. A short article on why top employees quit. As soon as these come out in color, I’m buying one!

As mentioned in a previous post, I am putting all new photo galleries online at Flickr. Recently, I published the following galleries: 2006 Lake Geneva Triathlon http://www.flickr.com/photos/forkbender/sets/72157594291314635/ I did not do the 2006 LGT this year but Ahu did and it was a tough day for it. The air temperature was in the low 60s and the wind was blowing very strong across the lake. Ahu did well but the swim was brutal.

As predicted, the new Sony PlayStation 3 will be used in conjunction with folding@Home to put those spare near-supercomputer cycles of the Cell to work finding cures for disease. Awesome!!! Funny, but banned commercial from Ikea. Another good one here. Sucks to get caught in this. If you need some new fonts, try looking through the 10,000 or so fonts here.

Apple released a totally new version of the Shuffle today. It is now the size of a postage stamp and can clip onto almost anything. I plan to buy one of these and clip it onto the headphones, thereby eliminating the need for an armband for my MP3 player and no more long, annoying cord. Apparently they are also putting out the iTV (code name) in Q1 2007 - a cool little device that streams music, pictures, and video from any computer running iTunes.