Just one more reason to love the northern United States. This is a Rainbow Fire. Apparently it is very rare and only happens under precise circumstances. This picture was taken in northern Idaho about two weeks ago -- pretty close to where we live.

Anya and I made a mini rail gun today with aluminum foil, two neo magnets, and a 9-volt battery. Here's a video of it in action. Anya filmed and I ran the rail gun.

Our Rail Gun

How can I prove that it's just not rolling downhill? Well I can't, except that it was sloping uphill AND you can notice how it speeds up at the end after slowing down.

It has been and will continue to be a very busy week indeed. I took on the Craftsman account for my company and I am neck deep. This weekend I hope to do some special recordings of the house and post it here. You'll see what I mean on Sunday.

At the risk of offending a few of you who are celebrities (or at least in the public eye) and read this blog (and some of my former students desperately trying to be counted amongst you), I need to get this off of my chest.

I saw an article about Angeline Jolie and Brad Pitt asking the press to stop hounding them while they have their baby. This is a constant issue with celebrities that want their privacy.

Leave them alone, are you kidding me? That's the last thing that they want. The moment we begin to ignore them they begin to whither away and die.

Besides that, they forfeited the right to privacy from the moment that they decided to pursue their line of work. They are our trained monkeys! And as long as we're footing the bill, they better dance when we say dance!

"Yeah, but you wouldn't want them bothering your family."

Yup, that's right. I chose my family over my desire to live in a public capacity and you did the opposite. So no paparazzi are going to be following me and therefore I know the peace of not being a figure in the public eye and the joy of telling my monkey's to DANCE WHEN I SAY DANCE!

So Brad, Angelina, Paris, and whomever else is popular this week, thanks for being our monkeys.

Suckers.

Ha ha

There's still plenty of space for visitors this summer, but some particular weeks are completely full. If you are coming up this summer (and you haven't already told us dates) let us know so that we can get it on the calendar.

Granted, there's still space on the couch, but if you want your own room or rooms then you should probably let us know.

I will also be putting together a guide on getting here from California: which ways to go, info on the area, places to stop whether you do it in 1, 2, or three days, and other information of that type. Email me if you would like that.

Here's a good site to help you look at our small part in the flathead reservation.

Flathead Valley Area Map

We spent the larger part of Saturday having some good fun with the excavator that we rented. We pulled a few tree stumps, moved some garbage, and removed a lot of trash that had been left by the previous tenants -- most of which was hidden in piles out in the back forest.

At about 8PM I went inside, laid down and passed out. At about 11 or so I woke up hating life. By 11 the next day I only knew I was alive because I was exploring some of life's less pleasurable functions.

3 days later and I'm still in pain, but I came to work because I don't want to get behind. My only concern at this point is that Judy doesn't get it. So far she hasn't exhibited any symptoms, and my case of 'what's going around' is the worst that I've heard of, but I still worry about it since she is pregnant.

Hey, on the bright side I lost 8 pounds. Yes, 8, between Saturday morning and this morning. Ouch! Not a diet I would recommend.

I've been working with this magazine quite a bit. If you're doing any type of home imporvement and want to figure out how to do something go here:

Extreme HowTo

They have a ton of articles and you don't have to sign up for some silly membership to get access to them. Pretty cool

Count with me...
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Yup, that's how many years Judy has been putting up with me. Very very cool. Okay, so who didn't think we would make it this long?

Thank God for my wife. She has made my life 20 times better than it would have been without her.

Unfortunately the trip to Nevada and California tapped us, so we'll have to wait until next week to celebrate.

Actually I already had Skype, but I took my headset to work so that I could use it there to talk with overseas customers. These are my skypes:

Home: brandonssmith
Work: montanabrandon

The work one is good for work since I am the Product Manager on the Montana Brand Tool line. I thought of going Brand-N, but I wasn't sure anyone would get it. Anyway, I will soon have an IP phone so that I can take my headset back home and use my Skype there too.

So if you've got it, call me. If not, get it...



http://www.skype.com

Skype, it rhymes with type.
______________________________________

I forgot to mention that we are back home. I got a couple of days in Southern California (barely) and spent almost a week in Las Vegas at the National Hardware Show for work. It was tiring because whenever we go on those trips we never stop long enough to visit anyone. This time I was able to breifly see my friends at ECCU and also Jeremy Moser, but that was about it.

I also stocked up on electronic goods for the year at Fry's which, despite their stellar customer service (well, they are getting better anyway), they still have some amazing deals.