Thunder Hole where as many as 20 people were swept out to sea today in Acadia National Park Maine

Thunder Hole, originally uploaded by -SPK.

A 7 year old girl has died after a wave swept her off the rocks here today. (this is a photo from a few years ago.)

11 of these victims have broken bones and the Coast Guard believes there are other victims still in the water yet to be identified as missing.

Now, I get it: You want to hear the THUNDER at Thunder Hole, but come on, don't actually GO DOWN there with a 7 year old.

Backup and Search Your Friends' Tweets with Google Reader [Twitter]

Backup and Search Your Friends' Tweets with Google Reader [Twitter]: "

Thanks to a combination of RSS magic and Twitter API, it's possible to search the tweets of everyone in your Twitter network with Google Reader. Here's how to do it.

First, though, why would you want to do this? The native search tool provided by Twitter only tunnels back about a week and a half. Anything beyond that is lost in the ether. Thanks to a handy little tool created by Dave Winer, you can turn your follower list into an RSS feed and import that feed into Google Reader, which turns the data from the Twitter feeds into a search-friendly mountain of feed items. How do you do it? From ReadWriteWeb:

It couldn't be much simpler. Just put your Twitter username into this link, instead of mine, and load it up in your browser: http://tw.opml.org/get?user=marshallk&folder=1

It may take just a minute, but the end result will be an OPML file. You can either go up to your browser's File menu and select 'save as' or you can View Source and copy and paste the source of the page into a text document. Save it with a memorable name and either .xml or .opml as the file type. It's really quite easy.

Now if you want to put this puppy into Google Reader just log in, click on 'manage subscriptions' and find the import/export button. Import that file into Google Reader and you're ready to rock and roll!

In our test of the service, we were able to mine all sorts of things from the feed we created. How much did our band of followers talk about Texas? Quite a bit more than we expected. Check out the full article at the link below for additional information or use the technique quoted above to jump right in. Have a favorite Twitter-centric hack of your own? Share it in the comments.

How To: Backup And Search All Your Friends' Tweets In Google Reader [ReadWriteWeb]

"

A flurry of features for feed readers

A flurry of features for feed readers: "

Since our last big launch, we've been thinking about ways to help our users better share, discover, and consume content in Reader. Today, I'm happy to announce several new features that we hope will further improve the way you use Reader.

Send to...


We've made it easier to share posts you like to Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and more, with our new 'Send to' feature. (Incidentally, Blogger is celebrating its tenth birthday this month, and we're hoping our friends there will like this little birthday present.)

Just head over to the settings page, and enable the services you want to use. If your favorite service isn't listed (and you're feeling extra geeky), you can create your own 'Send to' link with a URL template.

To share an item on one of your sites, simply click the 'Send to' button and choose your service. If you're into keyboard shortcuts, 'shift-t' will do the same.

Feeds from people you follow


When we added following, we tried to make it easier to find and follow people who share similar interests. Now we've gone even further, and made it possible for you to subscribe directly to the blogs, photos, or Twitter updates that anyone you're following has included on their Google profile.

To quickly subscribe to these sites, click the 'From people you follow' tab on the 'Browse for stuff' page.

More control for mark all as read

We know people can be overwhelmed by too many unread items, and sometimes only want to see recent posts. The 'Mark all as read' button now has a menu that lets you choose to only mark items as read if they're older than your specified time frame. A tip of the hat to Nick Bradbury who pioneered this 'panic button' feature.

Finally, a few small tweaks in this release:

• When you expand an item in comment view, you now get the full set of actions, enabling you to share, like, and star items without leaving comment view.


• We added a 'Feeds' start-page option for the iPhone/Android/Pre mobile interface, so you can see a list of your subscriptions when you sign in.


• There is now an option to show notes when embedding your shared items on other pages as clips.

As always, if you have feedback, please head over to our help group, Twitter, or Get Satisfaction.

"

PFC Kaine

After serving our country in the first Gulf War as a Parachute Rigger in the United States Navy, Scott decided he would serve again now during the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a US Army Infantryman. This is him and I after his Pass in Review.

The entire photo set is here.

Shortly after this photo was taken, he gave me the single greatest gift I have every received. More to come on that later.

Ever seen a Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk-moth (Hemaris tityus)?

From what I can gather, this is a Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk-moth (Hemaris tityus). Apparently, it's pretty uncommon and until the other day, I'm sure hadn't ever seen it.

http://tpittaway.tripod.com/china/h_tit.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemaris_tityus
http://www.arkive.org/narrow-bordered-bee-hawk-moth/hemaris-tityus/
http://www.ukbap.org.uk/UKPlans.aspx?ID=358

Run toward the camera! (too close)

 

Please take 2 minutes and 54 seconds to watch this: A day to remember

For millions around the world, June 25th will be remembered as the day Michael Jackson died, but for Martha Gillis it will always be the day her nephew, 1st Lt. Brian Bradshaw, was killed by an IED in Afghanistan.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Look, kids: Canada

Look, kids: Canada, originally uploaded by -SPK.

If you listen closely, enough you'll hear "Eh."

Taken today at the West Quoddy Light House in Lubec, Maine.

Updated: NOT Missing Person: Donald Lynch from Easton (Palmer Twp) PA

7-7-09 update: Donald Lynch has been found alive and safe.

Missing for 7 days, and can't remember anything? Is it just me or is something fishy?

Donald has been missing since Monday June 29th. Download the missing persons poster here.

Please share. Below is a live search for topics relating to this post.

7 years ago today

I remember very clearly the first time Becky and I ever spoke. I was flipping through the SI Swimsuit issue in a friend's office and she handed me the phone - it was Becky. We talked and mostly laughed for an hour and I was hooked. I later told her that I loved her before I had ever laid eyes on her. I meant it.

Two years later, I waited on the lawn of the Bar Harbor Inn in Maine for her to walk down the isle. When she appeared from the door, my knees were literally weak.

I married my best friend that day.

Happy Anniversary, babe.



Here are some other interesting June 29th factoids:

1613: The original Globe Theatre in London burns down when a cannon discharged during a performance of William Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" accidentally sets fire to the building's thatched roof.

1916: For his role in seeking German help for the Easter Rebellion in Ireland, Irish nationalist and longtime British diplomat Sir Roger Casement is executed by Britain for treason.
Learn more about Sir Roger Casement.

1940: Painter Paul Klee dies at age 60, succumbing to the skin and muscle disease that forced him to adopt a simpler style in his final works.
Learn more about Paul Klee.

1954: The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission refuses to reinstate the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," citing his past ties to Communists.

1956: At the U.S. Olympic Trials in Los Angeles, Glenn Davis breaks the 50-second barrier in the 400-meter hurdles on the same day that Charles Dumas becomes the first man to high jump 7 feet.
Learn more about Glenn Davis.

1956: The U.S. Congress passes the Federal Highway Act, which provides for the construction of 42,500 miles of interstate highways, based on a plan announced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in June 1954.

Kaitlyn at Aunt Stais's and Uncle Boom's House

Paige & kaitlyn 009, originally uploaded by anastasia.attisano.

It's started already!

It's started already!, originally uploaded by -SPK.

Google Voice is about to launch to everyone

Image by marcopako  via Flickr

And they have 1 million (pinky to the corner of my mouth) shiny new phone numbers for you!

How I have been using Google Voice so far is as an extension to my Verizon cell voice mail. Here's how it works.

- Set your Google Voice to "do not disturb."
- On your cell, dial *71 (then your new Google Voice number). This command on Verizon means No Answer/Busy call forward.

When someone calls your cell and you don't pick up, it gets forwarded to your GV account and you get all the features of GV: transcription, visual voice mail, SMS, search, permanent archiving, and much more.

But, here's the tidbit I wanted to share with you today. When you are on the road and call to check your GV messages, they've added this awesome feature:

After you listen to a message you can press "2" to return the call. GV then uses the caller ID of the person who left you the message and calls them back without you having to write down the number, hang up then call them. IT DOESN'T STOP THERE. After you are done with this call, simply press "*" to return to your messages. Yeah. Oh, it works flawlessly too.

Do you have Google Voice? Do you want it? Share any thoughts below.

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• Use Google Voice without changing your number (marketing.fm)
• Google Voice Makes the Phone Less Loathsome (smarterware.org)
• Gina: GV Integrates Google Voice into Android (via Smarterware) (smarterware.org)

6 tools to make Twitter better

Image via CrunchBase

I have been on Twitter Since March of 2008. Only since about December, have I been consistently Tweeting and following others.

Since I am the gadget guy and "I read the entire internet so you don't have to.®", I though I'd share with you some tools I use to make using Twitter better, easier and more fun.

1. Tweetree. The site I use most when reading Twitter. What Tweetree does is make reading and posting tweets better. For reading: when there is a link in a post the site is displayed in with the tweet, allowing you to simply stay right on Tweetree and read the linked to site/video/picture inline. For posting tweets: it's URL shortner works awesome. Just paste a URL and click Shoren URLs.

2. TwitterGadget. If you use GMail, iGoogle, or Firefox TwitterGadget is a nice little add-on. For Gmail, it resides below the chat box and in Firefox, it resides in the sidebar. It has most of the functionality you'd want in a twitter gadget - and works really well.

3. Powertwitter Firefox addon. Powertwitter is similar to Tweetree in that it adds functionality to each message, except that you simply visit Twitter.com while using Firefox and it:

-search and recent searches
-search scoped to a specific user
-status history peeking on mouseover
-Facebook status updates
-inline YouTube, Flickr, TwitPic, Google Maps, song.ly, and more
-url expansion
-url translation to page titles
-open web update (news feed) mapping
-custom settings
-@mentions
-photo uploading
-link shrinking
-#hashtags

4. TwitPic. TwitPic is a way to share photos on Twitter. You can MMS a photo or email one to TwitPic and the subject line you use will be used as the text in a tweet that links back to the photo. Here is my TwitPic page. If you are a Flickr user, they recently released an update that works similar to TwitPic.

5. Picfog. Picfog is a fun little site that aggregates all the most recent shots from TwitPic. It's fun to watch the slide show and see what others are posting in real time.

6. iPhone/iPod Touch users: TwitterFon is an awesome free app to read/post on Twitter.

Got a suggestion or a tool that you use? Share it below.

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• Twitter Growth: the Last 2 Months (medicineandtechnology.com)

Google Wave

Lars Rasmussen is the engineer behind Google Maps and the lead engineer who rolled out Google Wave on Thursday at Google I/O conference.

The below 1:20:12 presentation shows how truly amazing software engineering can be. You probably won't hear about Google Wave going live for a few months, but you can sign up for a new account at http://wave.google.com/

Vietnam Veterans Memorial "The Moving Wall"

This is a half sized replica of the Vietman Veterans Memorial wall in Washington D.C. It has been touring the country for over 20 years. Seen here at Mayfair in Allentown, PA

Baby sparrows

Baby sparrows, originally uploaded by -SPK.

These little guys (5 of them in total) were hatched 2 days ago in my bluebird house. I know, they're not bluebirds, but they are fun to check out.

If you look closely at the one on the left, you'll see a little treat in his beak.. maybe a left over leg from a spider or cricket?

$1.00 to get the bugs?

Letter from a Dodge dealer

letter to the [American Thinker] editor, and totally worth the re-post.

My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.

We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability.

I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life.

On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.

Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.

HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?

THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY

This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong. This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster.

HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.

George C. Joseph
President & Owner
Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu

We're changing to Disqus [commenting system]

Disqus, pronounced "discuss", is an innovative commenting system for bloggers, newspapers, and publishers of web content, etc. It allows you, the reader, to create a free account and be able to track your "comment conversations" across the web in your personal Disqus dashboard.

Lots of folks read and comment on blogs from Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, etc and each of these sites has their own login system and when you comment there, they are held captive. Imagine all of your comments aggregated in one place. Hello: Disqus.

What pushed me abandon the default Google Blogger commenting system is this little addition: When you connect Twitter to your Disqus account, anytime you leave a comment *anywhere* it can automatically update your Twitter account with a link to the article you just commented on. Check it out here.

As a publisher, this is great news because that means each Disqus commenter's Twitter page will now have the person's comment and a link to the blog post they commented on. The more people who comment, the more exposure my site gets.

For those of you looking to get "quality" updates on your Twitter page, why not create a Disqus account and start by leaving a comment on your favorite blogs?