Dan's New Website -- thisbeautifulearth.org

I just put finished a new website. It shows how the earth changes throughout the seasons, using NASA images. I was hoping that it would be interesting for educators or anyone in meterology. Let me know what you think about it. (and tell your friends)

thisbeautifulearth.org

Geocaching!

OK, so we just got our FREE GPS unit in the mail last week, and as I was researching how to use it, I stumbled upon the concept of "geocahing". This is where someone hides a little container somewhere in the world, and then records the coordinates of where it is located online. Then, it is your job to input the coordinates into your GPS unit, find the container, open it, sign your name in the logbook, and maybe swap out some of the trinkets that you might find inside.

For the Brooks family, this obviously meant that we had an ADVENTURE IN THE MAKING!

Our 1st find--located in our favorite park! As Davis would say, the container (which I'm holding) was "tiny". The logbook was actually a small scroll that we had to unroll to sign.

Our 2nd find--Isaac wasn't too interested, but Davis and I found it quickly. A little bigger this time, and there was a calling card left by a penguin inside, which Davis liked.

Our 3rd find...Daddy proves that you CAN get lost while holding onto a GPS. When we pulled into the parking lot, the GPS unit said that we were "2 feet away from destination". After searching a bit, we were actually .1 miles away. Mommy the photographer thought it would be best to take care of her other adventurers while I found this one.

Blogging:Busyness (The Inverse Ratio)

I'm sure that someone else in the blogosphere has already waxed eloquently on this phenomenon, but there seems to be a principle emerging based on this theory:

"The number of posts one puts to his/her blog is inversely proportional to said person's amount of spare time."

In other words, if you don't see a post on someone's blog for a long time, then this means that it is because he is too busy with life to post anything!

Unfortunately, many blog readers feel just the opposite is actually true. That is, if they don't see anything posted for a long time, then that means that the person's life is so incredibly boring that there is absolutely nothing worthwhile for him to post.

This assumption could not be more wrong. For instance, the last post that I put up was on January 1. Almost three months ago! Fortunately, Ellen has taken up the mantle in putting up some posts about Davis and motherhood, which has greatly contributed to our site ranking! Go Davis! I've since then come to the conclusion that if you REALLY want to generate a lot of hits on your website, then you need to start putting up more pictures of babies. Trust me. This is the way to go.

I'm hoping that my Blogging:Busyness ratio will start to balance out a little bit and will allow me to put up some posts of some other neat things that have been happening here in the Philippines over the last few months. Of course, I'm sure that the number of hits will drop off dramatically once I do this...

Perhaps there is a ratio between the number of baby pictures and the number of hits on a website?

QED

Wiki-based Bible Translation

Well, here's a cool idea: One of our translators is currently asking for the web community to help him with his translations. How? By having them to go over the "back translation" of the scripture that he and his team have already worked on. The "back translation" is when the text has been translated back into English and then proofread for accuracy.

Want to help? Go over to http://www.abellen.org/wiki to get started.

Be sure to click on the "How can I help with translation if I don't speak the language?" link before digging too far into it!