kerryoneal.com

Anyone who has ever developed a website with me knows that I’m a stickler for navigation. This own site is a big step for me as I usually protest any iteration of navigation that does not begin on the left or top of the screen. My premise is that as much as people would like to talk about websites as brochures or art, they are really software for accessing information. And as software, if you leave conventional user interfaces, you loose the customer and create confusion. If you would like an example, just check out my latest entry into the best of the bad. The Corey Clarke official website.
Just please don’t ask me why I was there.

I’m rarely impressed with ideas. After enough time in the web and business world, I’ve heard a tremendous number of ideas. Ideas often have little or no value. Execution is what counts. The ability to start and to finish. Not come up with an idea.
Having said that, some ideas do have negative value. This is one I ran across recently…
2005 National Blind Hunter Program. Granted…I haven’t really looked into it very far, but at first blush it just doesn’t seem safe.

Well, we have a new Pope. Benedict XVI? Hmm. I didn’t see that name coming. Can you imagine walking out onto a balcony and greeting the world as the new Pope. Heavy.
I’m sure all the upcoming programs will now be focused on educating us regarding this German. All I’ve read is “78-year-old transitional leader who promises to enforce strictly conservative policies for the world’s Roman Catholics.” Hmm. Didn’t see that one coming either.

I lived in Oregon for a few years before it dawned on me that local bakeries do not carry kolaches. Where I come from in Texas, a kolache is a little ball of bread containing almost any filling, but the staple is some kind of sausage. They are a great morning treat brought to this country by Czech settlers. In Texas they are so popular you have chains of restaurants specializing in their production, such as The Kolache Factory and Mornings Kolaches.

Upon bringing this lack of meat filled pastries to the attention of my Oregonian friends, some countered that what I sought were “pigs in blanket”. I disagree. I contend that “pigs in a blanket” refers to sausage wrapped in pancakes, not bread. I am supported by at least two Oregon institutions in this, the Original Pancake House in Portland and Bend, and Pig ‘n’ Pancake popular on the coast.

For more information on the wonderful world of Kolaches, you can check out Caldwell, Texas, the Kolache Capital of Texas and their 20th Annual Kolache Festival.

Now I make my own. On the weekends, I combine Pilsbury Crescent Rolls with Hillshire Farms veritable Cheddar Lit’l Smokies. The result is 8 little packages of sausage filled, Czech inspired, goodness.

This is an interesting article that coordinates my losses in General Motors stock with the collapse of the housing industry (my profession). The kind of thing that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. MSN Money - GM’s woes one more blow to housing bubble

“The use-your-house-as-an-ATM-to-live-beyond-your-means stimulus is finished, thanks to the recent de-leveraging/crackup in the bond market. The refi game and the bull market in housing it created postponed the consequences of the largest stock-market bubble in history. Though the Fed and the rest of the government succeeded in postponing the fallout from the massive misallocation of capital that took place in the mania, they have also succeeded in compounding and exacerbating those consequences. Even more leverage was created in the system, as we attempted to speculate our way to prosperity. “