Category: General

I’ve got a bunch of stuff sitting around the house taking up space, not being used, and in need of a good home, so… I’ve decided to start selling stuff on eBay instead of donating it, or trashing it. My loss is your gain. Take a look if you see something you like:

• Apple iPod Shuffle 1GB
• Apple iPod 10GB – 2nd Generation – Model A1019
• Kodak Advantix 2000 Auto Camera
• Palm Stylus Multipack for Tungsten E/C/W + Zire 72
• Palm Ultrathin Keyboard
• Belkin Handsfree Universal Boom for your home/cell phone

I’m sure that I’ll be adding more this week and next, so you should bookmark my “search for auctions from me” page, in case I don’t update this website with a longer list.

Here’s a little theme music for you too.

updated: I added a few more items to eBay on Monday night:

• Wacom Intuos3 6×8 Graphics Tablet – Professional Graphics Tablet for artists, photograpers, and doodlers.
• Valeo 4″ Weight-lifting Belt – I honestly can’t believe I actually bought this… I don’t think I ever needed it… I wasn’t lifting that much weight… heh.
• Corel Painter IX – The latest version of Corel Painter (great software) in a sealed unopened box. Full retail software here folks, that normally sells for $400 or so.
• Belkin Laptop/Notebook Backpack – great little padded backpack for a laptop or notebook computer.
• Apple M8209LL/A AirPort Base Station – A little dated, sure, but it’s a good Airport Base Station that was a workhorse for me for the past 3+ years… I upgraded to an Airport Express recently, so this guy needs a home.

I’m sitting in my office today, with the windows open, and the air conditioner turned off… finally, it feels like fall.

After another scorcher yesterday:

It’s nice and cool today:

And while the forecast calls for rain, I haven’t seen a drop, and it’s a wonderful day to be in Austin.

I swear, I wish I were a weatherman. I want a job where I don’t ever have to be accurate. I want a job where I don’t get “held accountable” for my predictions.

Look at yesterday’s forecast. Compare that with today’s:

I want to be a weatherman.

(Yes, I realize that the major difference in the forecast is because of the hurricane that’s shifted west, and is now headed straight for New Orleans, but still… it’s not like the hurricane wasn’t there yesterday too.)

This desktop picture is from Christine’s computer… and I haven’t put that shot online yet.

I checked the temperature today¹: 100°F.

Rediculous.

¹: “checked the temperature” means that while I was laying on the couch, I fired up the Dashboard within Mac OS X, and looked at the forecast for Austin… ugh… it’s not getting cooler soon either. And the photo on my desktop is a modified version of this photo of Jack.

the website was hacked, so here’s a new theme for you all… hope it’s not too tough on the eyes … things will return to normal around here soon.

moral of the story… make sure your FTP password isn’t “password” … that was stupid.

Josh sent this to me… it’s a neat use data from Amazon to write out my name:

Engler in Books

John Engler in Books

Click on an individual book to learn more about why it’s in the books that get into the image. Click the logo at the bottom to generate your own.

Grandma sent me this email this morning from AsAManThinketh:

What Matters In Life
Author Unknown

Some people understand life better

And they call some of these people “retarded”…

At the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash.

At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win.

All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry.

They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back every one of them. One girl with Down’s Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said, “This will make it better.”

Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line.

Everyone in the stadium stood, the cheering went on for several minutes.

People who were there are still telling the story… Why? Because deep down we know this one thing: What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves.

What matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing our course.

Great story Mom, thanks for sharing.

Guess what folks. There’s a whole new world at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning that I didn’t know about, or at least didn’t remember.

Who knew the sun got up early on Saturday mornings too?

And who knew that the big three networks had news shows at 7 am? Cartoons aren’t on ABC, CBS, or NBS until 9 o’clock in the morning? Time to watch the WB I guess. Or maybe HGTV?

Jack just wants to be up with me. He doesn’t care what I watch.

I wandered out into the backyard last night while cooking the steaks we had for dinner, and took some night time photos of the tulip tree. It’s in full bloom right now and is stunningly gorgeous. Remember, if you want to see it in bloom, you probably need to come over to the house in the next week or so… the blooms will be dropping soon.

Stealing a page from Josh, I’ve put up some rotating header graphics here on englers.org.

Yep, that’s right, those header graphics rotate randomly each time you load the page. Try it. Hit refresh a few times.

So far there are 20 graphics in the rotation, and if you want to see them all, just visit this photo album of them all. I’ll add more I’m sure, as we find more fun photos to turn into headers.

I’m playing with the site design here on englers.org a little, so bear with me while I sort it out. Bottom line, I’m moving the site over to WordPress from phpNuke because well… honestly phpNuke was a pain to maintain.

WordPress will let me give Christine her own login, as well as Evan and Shadel, or my mom, so they can login and post stories if they want to. It’ll also make it much easier for people to make comments on stories, as it actually works… instead of it sort of working sometimes, like the old software worked.

Anyways, bear with me while I customize the look and feel of the site.

After 2 years or so of promising to install a decent web-based email program for Evan, Shadel, and my mom, I’ve finally done it.

So, if you want to email any of us, you can do so now:

• John [at] englers.org
• Christine [at] englers.org
• Evan [at] englers.org
• Shadel [at] englers.org
• Jessica [at] englers.org

Those email addresses aren’t real, you’ll have to replace the [at] with the “@” symbol to email us (I’ve done that to keep us from getting more spam).

Mom, Evan, Shadel, you can login to your email here:

http://webmail.englers.org/ — There’s a link over on the side of the website so it’s easy to find.

Call me for your username and password if you don’t remember them from last time I set this up and it didn’t work so well.

In an experiment with iMovie, I made this quick music video of Jack, with music by Queen backing him up. The song is “Don’t lose your head” from the A Kind of Magic album with was also the soundtrack to the movie “Highlander“.

So if you’ve got a few minutes and want to watch Jack in a music video, click the image above.