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Moonwatcher asks:

We’re clearly still in the very early days of utility computing, but reliability is an issue that will have to be addressed sooner or later. Ultimately, it comes down to accountability. Bad things will happen. The question is how the vendor will respond.

Good question!

Yeppers, as long as we occupy human bodies, we need to eat, work, and sleep. And on the road, motels and restaurants with WiFi cluster together to serve those needs. If we’ve packed our clothes, have a car or other transportation, and know how to entertain ourselves, we’re good to go. And if we’re really hot, we can Catch Some WiFi Waves!

Last month we peaked into the Galveston Railroad Museum and saw this strange exhibit. The museum is in the old Santa Fe Union Station, built in 1913, thirteen years after The Great Storm. And the last train ran in 1967. So they built this in a declining Galveston, using technology that would be bypassed by the automobile. Yes, if you wait long enough, you turn into a statue.

Yesterday we got a comment that said:

Misty and Bill—

I will come here EVERY SINGLE DAY if you put South Park on your website more!

The Heather in the comment above is a friend of mine from way back in the elementary school days. She is now a teacher. This clip above made me think of her because I’m sure sometimes she feels like doing this to the kids in her class !

Yep, we’ve been busy since getting back, haven’t been able to post as much as we’d like. But that’s a good problem to have. We wear many Hats!

We all like to listen to music in Big Blue, and mornings taking the kids to school we listen to The XMK Animal Farm with Kenny Curtis, the Program Director at XM Kids on XM Radio. The show is described as a “blend of family-friendly music, live interaction with kids, and character sketches” and it cracks us up with Bear E. White, the Bi-Polar Bear telling us “You got to know your thing” and Lorenzo Llama saying “Don’t touch the llama.”

In a Claire S. Green interview at Parents’ Choice, Kenny talks about quantity and quality:

PC: Why is Kids Music Suddenly “In?”

KC: For the 15 years I’ve been in Children’s Programming, this industry has been mostly under the conventional radar. But now – all of that has changed. To put it country simple: There’s a lot out there folks, and more is being added to the pile everyday.

PC: And Why Is The Pile Growing Sky High?

KC: Technology has made it easier to make a quality product, the internet has made it possible to sustain a business, and new media outlets (from Noggin to PBS Kids to internet radio to — at the risk of tooting my own horn — satellite radio) have brought exposure to some truly wonderful content.

And Kenny’s obvious insight into and rapport with kids makes it a Delight!

Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, has come up with a sequel, The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution. At the redesigned Lovemarks.com they say, “New features include personal and community profiles, video capability and increased search functions.” There’s a nice video with Adam Craft from Illicit Tattoo at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006.

In an interview, Tom Peters asked Kevin Roberts:

How do you energize Saatchi & Saatchi to become the premier idea shop on the planet?

KR: We purchased them six years ago. We started off with a dream, which is to be revered as the hothouse of the world-changing idea. We changed our name from “ad agency” to “ideas company.” Our focus is to create and perpetuate lovemarks. Our spirit is, “Nothing is impossible.” We hire anthropologists, sociologists, misfits, authors, writers, creative people.

And we’ve changed our compensation structure so we don’t get paid fees or commissions; we get paid as a percent of sales. So we go to P&G because we handled $2 billion worth of Procter business. We changed our whole compensation structure. You’re not going to pay me like an accountant or a lawyer, for time. You’re not going to pay me a commission. It’s really simple, man: I want a royalty on everything you sell.

One size does not fit all, one solution is not for everyone. While we don’t have all available technologies for mobility, we have enough to function, and we look to enhance our capabilities. But it all depends on what your goal, purpose, and style is. Some are pc centered, some mobile phone centered, some are in between. Some want one device to carry around, some don’t mind carrying 3 or 4. Like Sean Connery says, “You’re the man now dog!”

We miss the ocean already. For now we can only go to it every once in a while, so mobility and connectivity are crucial. Misty has been doing a lot of remote support work recently with VNC and WebEx, and that helps. Our current contract with Cingular ends in February, so we’ll upgrade to perhaps a Samsung BlackJack or BlackBerry Pearl, and maybe a Laptop Modem Card, and that will help too. Any other ideas on going Mobile 2.0?

A few months back we started regular weekday morning walks with the Kids by Lake Norfork. Then we started taking Buster along, and he loved it. When the park closed for the season, we started letting him off the leash, and then the Joy came out. Buster seemed to have the idea of staying with the pack, but he loved his excursions to the left and right chasing squirrels and chipmunks, and down to the lake where he could get a drink and chase the ducks into flight. Today we stopped by a playground area to see if he would get the idea of sticking close to base, and it worked just fine. He did scare one old lady, but no blood was shed.