In-N-Out, originally uploaded by bdjohnson79.

Here’s one good reason. Can’t find this within 1500 miles of Chicago.

It will be nice to end a travel day without having unread mail piling up. I try to work with the “Getting Things Done” system, which advocates the virtues of an empty inbox – do it (if it can be done in <2 minutes), defer it (to a known time, and actually follow through), or dump it. Except for vacations, I’ve never had my mailbox break ~200 messages in the last year.

Half Dome, Ansel Adams style…

Vernal Falls

See the whole Yosemite set at Flickr. I’m having a few issues with my own gallery at the moment, so it’s not there yet.

The Reading Lamp – Self Portrait, originally uploaded by sumrow.

The sacrifices some people make for art:

“One Vivitar 283 ball-bungied to my head w/ a coffee filter diffuser….The ball bungie took a few hairs with it.”

Hilarity ensues.

McCain loves the hot girl-on-girl action, apparently.

Don’t hotlink images.

Class dismissed.

I’ve spent the last 18 months working on the Tassimo coffee system. Specifically, I’ve been working on the liquid milk concentrate that we use for cappuccino and latte. Late last year, we started to set up a line to make the product in the US. So, I went into full-blown road warrior mode, making 32 trips to scenic Allentown, PA in 2006 to support the project. Along the way, I accumulated a lot of frequent flyer miles, hotel points, rental car points, etc, and my butt has been forcibly shaped to pair with a coach seat on United. Fortunately, it wasn’t “all work and no play”. Had a lot of fun with my team outside the plant. Had my first flaming Sambuca shot. My liver works better now than it did in college. Still made it into the 7am team meeting every day.

Back home, Marcie and I did a lot of work on the house. The kitchen renovation we started last fall got done in early 2006. Then, we built a cedar fence in the backyard (from scratch, no less!) over Memorial Day weekend. If you need any cedar planks for smoking food on, just let me know…I’ve got about 400 1-foot pieces of cedar in the shed. Toward the end of the summer, we started on renovation of our 2nd bathroom. We tore everything down to the studs, expanded the shower (which included building a custom shower pan), redid everything in porcelain tile, new fixtures, the works. Unfortunately, my 4-5 days/week on the road made it slow going, so we wrapped that one up in November finally. I also managed to slice off part of the tip of my thumb – knife accident while scoring cement backerboard. Fortunately, the only lasting result was that the tip of my thumb is now slightly asymmetric.

Now, 2007 is a blank slate. Around the house, I don’t have any major projects on my plate. At work, my part of Tassimo is wrapping up, so I’ll probably be getting into something new. We’ll see what this year brings…