I just finished watching The Pacific and it was fantastic. It basically follows a bunch of marines over the Pacific campaign against Japan. Highly recommended and I learned two things for certain:

1. I am so glad I didn’t have to fight in the Pacific campaign.

2. I hope I never have to fight against the Japanese or anyone in a Pacific campaign or anything in southest Asia.

Great mini series, please go watch it if you love history. Sad/interesting ending as it goes over all the guys who served and where they ended up.

The last few months have been crazy busy but I managed to find time to go camping the last two weekends.

I’m not sure where we camped last weekend but it was next to a stream and pretty, I spent most of the day building a dam to try to show up the beavers next door. And the next day we climbed Grays and Torres (two 14,000 foot mountains). Which only reinforced my belief that air at sea level deserves an award. And I also got to setup my new tent for the first time, super comfortable even for a tall person.

And this weekend Joel, Laura, and I drove up to Crested Butte for a one day hat tournament. Crested Butte and surrounding area is the most beautiful I’ve seen in Colorado and so much nicer then Frisco/Breck/Etc. I couldn’t play the tournament as my ankle is still swollen but I did go for a nice 14 mile run/hike. And the next day we did another short hike, relaxed, and hung out with Chappe and Liz in Aspen at their new place (which is awesome). Great weekend and had a great time!

And I spent tonight setting up my new desk, it moves up and down so I can work standing up and sitting down. Pretty excited as it is a lot easier for me to get things done when I’m standing up.

Be sure to read this great article! Here is an excerpt:

Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.

It’s a great article and the rest gets even better!

Here is my page on the 100 Personal Item’s Challenge and my progress. I’ll be curious to even see how much stuff I have!

Still super busy so can’t post much but I highly recommend this article on how to grow rich using a charter city idea. Very cool idea built on it’s success in history.

Well today is the World Cup final and hopefully tomorrow I’m going on a hike/drive out to Cape Point and then flying to Ireland on Tuesday and then Denver a few days later. The games have been amazing and Cape Town very friendly. South Africa has a lot of possibilities and an amazing population, but also a lot of challenges, hopefully they are able to overcome them! I’ll be rooting for them!

I went surfing for the first time last week which was awesome, it was way easier then snow boarding and caught my first wave in the first 2.5 hours (good instructor too). I fell on the other 50 waves but falling is almost as fun when the bottom is sandy. The waves picked up the second half of the day and after getting hammered a few times and after my feet went numb I switched to a boogie board. Fun day and going to try to spend an entire week learning to surf at some point soon (some place with warmer water). They had a very nice shark warning flag system too, really makes you feel safe… Also, wet suits are awesome and make you feel like a ninja.

Yesterday we went to the Cape Town aquarium which was awesome, I love aquariums. Then ate all you can eat sushi with some friends and watched the third place game. Good night!

And, I’m so glad Uruguay lost again, Suarez tried his best to drive and cheat and ruin the spirit of the game further against the German, I hope Karma’s cold grip haunts him the rest of his life.

I’m not really sure what independent art means? Isn’t all art independent or has it been taken over? But I do love this site and their work, check out Resist Today, it features the work of a small group of visual artist who sell prints, wallets, bags, shirts, pillows, etc. Just awesome awesome designs, here are a few:

Check out their products at Resist Today, I wish them luck!

I did not make a wise choice when I decided to dance barefoot in the disco as all I had were flip flops. Apparently what I thought were plastic cups under my drunken feet were shards of glass, luckily I couldn’t feel any of this. I left a trail of blood everywhere.

And this is around 5am when the pain feels a little more real.

And my fav pic from the trip:

Great news! The health care bill passes! Although trying to get a copy or real summary to see the changes.

Hopefully this brings some real change to the industry! One of our companies just got hit with 20% to 30% raises on rates this year, and they also had the audacity to tell us the insurance company says they are working hard to sell us on what they call “educating” consumers to buy plans with higher deductibles and so on (ie make more money). I don’t blame them as they are businesses, which is why the government needs to run their own health care, health care needs to be a right or it will continue to hurt our nation and our economic growth. My personal health care rates increased about 20% this year and I have a pretty low end plan meant for emergencies.

Man I want to hang out with these guys, they crack my shit up. Getting drunk and then teaching people some American history = awesome.

Watch them here, and I love this trailer.

This is the best music track I’ve heard this year! Just amazing! Read more about Nneka here.

Artist: Nneka
Track: Heartbeat (Chase & Status Remix)

I feel this is going to be an interesting year. Vegas.

I’ve decided to stay in Denver for another year, so I’ll be here through June 2011 it sounds like. We are going to find a new place to live in April/May, hopefully closer to a neighborhood we like a little better. Next week I’m heading to Vegas for a big ultimate frisbee tournament plus it is going to be Dmarsh, BBustin, and my brother’s birthday. Should be fun. And then when I get back from that Rose and Steve will be here and going to spend a lot of that week skiing with them! And hopefully I’ll be going skiing during the week a few times after that, and working on cross country skiing as I would like to be good at that.

Work is going well, and just got really busy as we took on some additional business which is quite fun!

Travel wise the year is looking awesome. In a few months I’m taking a few weeks vacation to explore Japan! Then in April I’m going to Italy for a short weekend trip as Iris got a bid to Paganello (massive ultimate beach tournament), and I’m going to play with her mixed team. Extra fun as it should be a lot of Arkansas people and hopefully Daniel and Joel go. And then me and a friend scored tickets to the World Cup in South Africa which I will be going too in early July. South Africa is being nuts on airfare pricing but its a once in a life time opportunity, so worth it.

Oh, and I’m trying to complete the 100 Book Challenge for 2010, which means I’m trying to read 100 books in 2010. So roughly 9 books a month, so far I’m almost done with my 4th and almost on track. I’m posting mini reviews as I go too.

Also, here is an interview we did a few months ago for Work, I’m pretty proud of it as we don’t sound like idiots. Although I did repeat a lot of words over and over and over, oh well, she was really nice and it was fun!

Watch it, it is amazing mini series on HBO. Probably the best show out there if you want to understand the frustration and pride of our modern military.

Here are some awesome mixes I’ve been listening too lately: Pogo – Expialidocious and Pogo – Alice. All of Pogos stuff is great too!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is ready for the new year! I certainly am!

I strongly recommend if you are in Denver to check out the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was really well done and their expedition health was really cool too. You got to take your heart rate, exercise heart rate, width and height, and a lot of other tests on this little card and print it out at the end. Really good for kids to understand how everything works. It was also sponsored by Kaiser Health (who is probably collecting all this info). They also let you take a snap shot of your face and they would age it and you could flip between different ages and see how UV exposure would affect you. I think it scared the shit out of some kids and they will be wearing heaps of sun block this summer.

My Predictions For 2010

1. I will switch to 100% Apple… Very likely, I do 90% of my work in FireFox and Firefox drags in Windows (even a fresh install of Windows 7) when you have tons of tabs open (10+). I don’t have this problem on my MacBook. Funny enough this is the reason I dumped Apple about 3 years ago.

2. I will buy an Apple Tablet. If the Apple Table actually exists.

3. Apple will make LCD playing cards and I will buy those as well.

Night.