PuzzleFloor Hardwood Flooring

I first read about this new product a couple of weeks ago in a magazine while getting my oil changed. Since then it is getting talked about all over the web. I really like hardwood flooring but this is really unique. It is pieces of flooring cut into puzzle pieces and then joined to a random pattern on your floor. They offer lots of different styles. The only downside I see is the cost, about $15 per sq. foot. Their HOMEPAGE is here.

Michelin's Airless Tires

Michelin has been working for some time on airless tires, which from the short video below looks pretty cool. Too bad it says it will be a while before we get a chance to put these on our car.

Cool Things To Do With Your Birthday

The other day I found this link to a site called The Birthday Calculator. What you do is go there, enter your birthday, and it will tell you TONS of things about your birthday.
For instance, it tells me I was born on a Tuesday under the astrological sign Aquarius.
But that is just for starters. It goes on with a ton of other facts, such as:
As of 6/4/2006 6:49:25 PM EDT, you are 29 years old, and you are 925,238,965 seconds old.
Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 4.19099804305284 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)
It also says the following, some of which may or may not be true..........(I will never tell ;-P)
Looks very decorative, no self-confident behaviour, only courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, artistic nature, good organiser, tends to philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership serious.
Give it a try, only takes a few sec., and you may find out something new!!

Dancing To A New Beat?

Just found a link to this video on Boingboing.com and love it. These guys are amazing. My wife would love to go out dancing, but I don't dance (can't might be more appropriate). I really love dancing from yesteryear though, and have watch this video over and over. These guys are amazing. It's like they are floating on air.


Original UpRock

Lions Vs. Hyenas

This video is one of my fav off the internet. I have watched it at least 30 times! It shows just one more reason I love big cats. Story goes like this: Lady lions kill a meal, but while trying to settle down for a nice meal, a pack of hyena come in and steal dindin. So big daddy male lion come in and reminds the hyena who's boss of the savana. Hyena may be highly social animals, but they are just nasty dogs in my book. Don't watch if you don't like the facts of life (animals eat other animals!) Just click the play button on the video below to watch..... (You may need to hit stop on the blue radio player on the right side of the screen just below my Flickr.com box)

A Very Bright Idea

This is one of the coolest ideas I have seen. From a story on Treehugger, a teacher realized it would make a huge impact on the planet and kids consciousness if he gave every child 1 CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light, check out the picture)for their home. I have been interested in the bulbs since they 1st came out, but they have recently dropped in price enough for me to buy some. A local grocery store even had them on sale for $2.88 recently. They use a small fraction of the energy of a normal bulb, are a brighter white, and last 5-7 years! The bulbs I am using now only consume 16 watts, while the old ones wasted 60 watts. They also don't put out a ton of heat like normal bulbs, feeling cool to the touch. I had a professor in college that swore every week that if everyone, including businesses, made the switch, we would use a fraction of the power produced at electric plants today.

Anyway, back to the story, Mr. Luna's Bright Idea, the teacher, is trying to talk Opera into helping the cause and has a Virtual March on his site that takes about 10 sec. to fill out, and who knows, with Opera on board it could happen. He already got Home Depot to donate a bulb for every kid in his town, that was 5500 bulbs, and will save the people of the town over $500,000 in electric costs! Please take a moment to check out his site and sign up!!!!! Then pass it on to your friends, and check out the bulbs next time you are at the store. I am planning to buy 2-3 bulbs a month till all my bulbs are replaced.

Gas: On Everyone's Mind

As some of you know, I drive quite a commute back and forth to a job and spend a good portion of my paycheck to fill my tank. I can only make it about 4 round trips to work on a tank. My last fillup cost $3.09/gal and was over $40 total, but while in Georgia last weekend, I saw it for $2.62/gal! Edmunds.com has an excellent article about how to save fuel and even kills a few gas myths along the way. They were able to get 37% better mileage using their tips, and found that tire pressure didn't affect mileage that much, nor did using the air conditioner! Check out the Driving Tips Here

Are You Missing Some Money?

So I was checking out Lifehacker.com today and came across this article about unclaimed money and property that you can easily look up by state. It is legit and the links take you to the website for your state's treasury. It ranges from things like insurance checks to tax refunds. I decided to check it out because I had a few minutes of free time, and in less than 30 minutes I had found claims to money for my wife, father-in-law, best bud Mike(who is starting his own business, more on that soon), my dad, and the estate of my Grandmother. This all happened in the last hour, and the claims still have to be filed, but it is looking good. Some states show you the amount or property, while others require you to fill out a claim form before telling you. For instance, the Texas site I found my dad's claim on says it is for something like $125.83 and the company the check was written from. It was from 1987, so I wonder if it gained interest? Like I said, this is really easy to check out, but be sure to check out all the states you have lived in!

Shoes With A 50,000 Mile Warranty

This has been making the rounds on the web for a few months now, and thought I would share it here. It is an article about how to make sandals from an old tire. They look pretty cool and would probably last for years. Looks pretty easy to do, and how often do you see a tire thrown out on the side of the road in the ditch. I think it would be cool to go a little farther with the idea and put in some kind of canvas upper to make even more durable footwear. They would be quite the conversation starter/piece.

A New Turn On The Crankshaft!

I saw a link to an article about this over at Autoblog a couple of weeks ago, and have been meaning to share it. It is really interesting and if it works out may be one of the biggest advances in internal combustion engines in a long time. The quick rundown is that most engines made today are either 2 stroke (mostly small engines like weedeaters, lawnmowers, dirt bikes, and personal watercraft) or 4 stroke (automobile engines and some newer personal watercraft and dirt bikes).
See, the thing is 2 stroke engines are VERY bad on the environment, burning a lot of oil while running. The 4 stroke engine is better, but still very inefficient. If this new 6 stroke works out, it would mean much more efficient (better gas mileage, less pollution) engines. One of the most interesting thing about it is the new engines don't need a cooling system!! Interesting stuff, so if you get a chance check out the story in the links above. Be sure to read all the comments in the Autoblog article for some other folks perspectives.

Where you been, Dude?

Noticed this post on Lifehacker today, and think it is a pretty cool idea. It is a review of 3 different websites that let you map everywhere you have been, as well as share what you did there. Most of the people I know have been around the block a bit, so why not share some of your better stories. Check out the REVIEW here. If you get a life travels map going, leave a comment so other people can check it out.

Obsidian Edge Movie

Some friends and I made a mod for the video game FarCry, called Obsidian Edge, and last summer I was board and decided to make a movie with some of the gameplay footage. I ran out of harddrive space and free time, so I decided to post what I had done so far so I can clean up my harddrive. This footage is from very early in development while the mod was still beta. We have finished that mod and are now working on Obsidian Edge 2. Anyway, to check it out, just push the play button on the little window below. (Might not play well on a slow connection.)

Windows Live Local Virtual Earth

I found this post on a link from Lifehacker.com .
Microsoft just put this beta up, and it is pretty cool.
It is like google maps, but you get a street level real picture view, just like you were walking down the street.
Right now the only cities it offers are Seattle and SanFrancisco, with more coming.
I found it helps to up your monitor resolution and change browser to fullscreen view (usually the f11 or f12 button), that will make more room for the map.
For some reason you can move around with the view of a race car, sports car, or as a person walking, which I guess is them trying to be funny. Walking view gets rid of the extra stuff so you can see more of the pictures.
Also, using the keyboard arrow keys is better than the mouse.
Check it out at:
http://preview.local.live.com/