I’ve created my latest Sterling Desktop. This version (#3) is in full color and shows Sterling at about 14 weeks.

View the desktop in your browser via the link below. You can set it as your desktop by right-clicking.

(This graphic does well with both tile and stretch modes)

Well, it’s Dec 29th and I’m getting ready to head back to good ol’ Chicago.

Christmas was, of course, very nice. Santa was good to me this year (He has to be…I have some photos in my possession that he’d rather not be made public).

After Christmas I went to Indy w/ Doug, Jana, and Sterling for a few days. That’s where I am now. And despite many arguments as to why I should stay in Indy for New Years…Chicago is calling me home.

While here in Indy, Sterling graduated from her puppy obedience class this weekend. But despite the diploma, she has entered into a sort of puppy-adolescence and can be quite a pain when she wants to be. Still, she is her adorable and lovable self albeit a much larger version than the one I keep remembering.

In truth, she was a perfect little angel for the holiday at Mom and Dad’s house. She didn’t get into any packages or anything. She does have this belief however that any bow that she can see is her toy. This is, without question, Doug an Jana’s fault for letting her play with one in the first place. But - like the good little puppy she is - a good “No No Sterling” and she get’s the point.

I’d gladly stay and puppy-sit for a day or two longer but I need to get home.

Besides, the new year is upon us! Time for resolutions and the shame-filled accounting of all the time we waisted this year. I haven’t got all my resolutions in stone yet. I’ll maybe post some of them…maybe.

In the meantime, I’m working on a few more features to the davidmeade.com database system. When I get them all done and working it will be a major leap forward. But it’s slow going. So…if you find anything is broken please be forgiving…but do email me and let me know.

Until next time…

Well it’s Christmas Eve and on the (rather good) chance that I won’t update the blog tomorrow … I’ll take this opportunity to wish all of you faithful davidmeade.com visitors a Merry Christmas.

I should also take this opportunity to address yet another davidmeade.com guestbook entry which is deserving of some ridicule … er … um … I mean comment.

While I won’t bother to defend my site’s being a “pain in the ass” I will point out that for all of you users for whom a Flash^TM button is too confusing I do have the text links across the top of the page.

In honor of Lesile (I know her name is Leslie, but she signed her name as Lesile and since she is so clearly web savvy … this must have been intentional - some sort of alias or something) … anyway, in honor of her the text links atop davidmeade.com will now officially be known as “The Lesile Menu”.

Merry Christmas, Lesile, and all the other visitors - and to all a good night.

I have to admit that I’m greatly enjoying the current debate taking place in the davidmeade.com Guestbook!

I’m enjoying it so much as a matter of fact that I’m considering a new feature of davidmeade.com: Guestbook responses. Something that would allow me to supply a word or two of response/wisdom to guestbook entries.

But then I thought…no no no the guestbook is for the guests. They should feel free to post there without threat of response.

Still who can resist the urge to respond to a scholar like Mufasa or the endearing if not simple critics.

Perhaps, I thought, I should let the readers decide … hold a poll of sorts as to if the guestbook should have a “response” feature. But then I thought - I’d have to create a poll feature … uhg.

Then it came to me … I HAVE A BLOG! <slaps head>

Firstly I’ll address the most serious issue:

Mufasa shall not be put to death. I’m sure he has based his opinion on more than simply The DaveCam. But even if he hasn’t … the end conclusion is … well lets just say it’s a valid opinion. davidmeade.com will continue to provide e-Sanctuary^TM to all it’s visitors.

That being said, I must point out in response to Kevin’s post that if there are sides to be taken - I am not on one. I’m a big fan of DOUGMEADE.com.

Although its clear that davidmeade.com is a superb website, DOUGMEADE.com is also an excellent website. I’ll not compare the two - I shall leave that to visitors. (And welcome their continued signing of the guestbook.)

I will offer this olive branch however: Mufasa, Doug, and Kevin are all in agreement and correct on one topic. The DaveCam is off line far too much. And to this, all I can say is: Hey I’m unemployed. If I take a shower before 2pm…it’s a good day…I’m doing you all a favor.

And lastly, to Mr. Haynes’ entry: all I can say to that is…well, all I will say to that is “cheers”. John receives 1500 points for the obscure Star Trek reference to ‘Praxis’. He however loses 750 points for allowing Sulu to eat his brain.

DOUGMEADE.com has launched a Christmas theme for the holidays.

Doug has worked a very nice feature into his site which lets him change the look/layout of his site easily.

Be sure to visit his site and check out the new holiday design. While you’re there, let him know what you think of the new theme in his guestbook.

Well…a whole week without a blog! Sorry about that. I’d say that I’ve been busy…but I haven’t been.

Actually I have been putting alot of time in lately on other people’s website. You, as a loyal visitor of davidmeade.com, may or may not be aware of the extensive (read as “really sweet!”) 2nd website I’ve created for davidmeade.com. It’s not a public site. It’s custom built interface to davidmeade.com and the many databases that drive its content. As it turns out - lots of people are interested in having such a tool. So I’ve been helping out some friends - making their sites dynamically database driven…and setting up my content management and administration tool for them. It’s not a great reason to go a week without a blog but it’s the only one I’ve got.

There is also of course the fact that I recently installed an old (but REALLY GOOD!) computer game: “Dues Ex”. That has taken a good amount of time as well.

But in other news (which may be of more interest to you)… LOTR: The Twin Towers opens tonight! I watched the 1st movie again last night just to review. I can’t wait to see this film.

The star trek movie, STAR TREK: Nemesis was AWESOME by the way.

And lastly - if you haven’t been to DOUGMEADE.com this week you really should head over there for a look. He’s got a Christmas theme going - pretty cool.

I’ll not go quite so long with out a blog this time.

It’s my birthday today! Today I turned … OLD! It’s not so bad I guess … I mean there are worse things than getting older. Like … not getting older for example. (Although that’s only because nobody has invented a way to “get younger” yet).

Although, I’m sure I once got some SPAM email that promised a way to get younger.

I guess I should have paid more attention. You know I really haven’t been fair to my SPAM lately.

I just delete it straight away. And most of it gets caught by SpamAssassin^TM at the server so I don’t even see it!

And all this time I could have been getting younger!!

That’s it. I’m going to start paying more attention to my SPAM. Sure most of it’s crap, but there must be some little nugget of worth in there somewhere - right? Lets see … shall we?

Things I learned from SPAM on my birthday: (I will be updating this list through out the day)

• I can Learn a New Career at Home thanks to some Home Study Literature!



• There has been a Bank Error in My Favor!



• I can earn up to 21,000 per month!



• I can learn my “real age” by taking an online test which would calculate my biological age by assessing over 125 different health behaviors! (this is close, but I’m looking for actual youth - not some affirmative personality quiz)



• I can get a college degree from prestigious universities with no required tests, classes, books or interviews! (How come my high school counselor never told me about this!!??)



• The same email which can get me a college degree mentions a “special offer”: “OUR DOCTOR APPROVED TABLET WILL ENLARGE YOUR PENIS UP
  
  TO 3 INCHES.”



• I can lose weight while I sleep. (WHOA!!)



• An Electric Scooter, is the Number One Christmas Gift.



• I can get 72 hours of unlimited psychic advice! (whoa I should act now!!)



• Apparently there is a way “To Win Slot Jackpots Legally”. (I assume they mean other than … ‘drop coins - pull lever - hope for best - repeat’)
  
  
• un-repeatable porn SPAM count: 3

Ah who am I kidding. The odds of me getting anything valuable out of SPAM are … well incalculable. Eh … makes for an interesting blog.

Ok well - I gave it a shot and … nothing. Not a single piece of valuable information in there at all!

So to all SPAM-ers in the world: I will thank you to stop sending me your messages. We’ll just call it a birthday present - ok? (Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance)

In other news, I finally went to “The Webber Grill” restaurant. It was really good! I met John and Kimberly there. They had arranged for the guy to sing happy Birthday to me - as embarrassing as that is it was a lot of fun.

Thanks again to Kimberly and John for the Birthday dinner - that was very nice of you! I had a blast.

Also a special thank you to Paramount Pictures for their gracious act of giving us a brand new episode of Enterprise on my birthday and of course for releasing STAR TREK: Nemesis on my birth-week.

(and they say letter writing campaigns never work!) You should all go see this movie! It’s out on Friday. (I’m going on Friday - anyone in the Chicago area that wants to come along just let me know! )

And lastly, for all of the “slower” davidmeade.com visitors … Today is also Doug’s birthday (I was born first … so he’s really just riding my coat tails if you ask me) so be sure to visit

DOUGMEADE.com and sign his guestbook with your birthday wishes (and if you do … you’d better have signed mine!).

Well snow has finally come to stay for this winter. It’s very festive and all…but it’s…well COLD!

Personally I’m not sure why we don’t, as a species, collectively do something about this whole “winter” thing. I mean if we can send people/craft to other planets, surely we can adjust the axis of our own to normalize the seasons a bit…I mean this is our planet…ITS RIGHT HERE FOR PETE’S SAKE!! NASA, JPL - I hereby assign you to the new “winter elimination project”. The objective: Stop snow - or at least move it to some other part of the Earth (I’m sure we can force the UN to release a statement that it’s for the best).

Anyway, not much is new here. Many of you may have guessed as much given the week long period of bloglessness (I know it was just killing most of you).

Still, I’m expecting for that all to change in the near future…you see The Fates have sent me a message!

“Be prepared for a sudden, needed, and happy change in plans!”

I thought for a while that it could be something about my upcoming birthday (Dec. 11th), but the only way for that to be a change in plans is for me to die and not reach my 27th year…and that’s not too “happy” (”needed” is also at issue)…so anyway that cant be it. Then I thought perhaps it had something to do with some of the kick ass movies coming out next week that I’m dying to see…but none of that would be “sudden”. So…I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that it must mean that I’ll be employed soon.

This put me in such a good mood I put my Christmas tree up. It’s beautiful - fake - but beautiful. I’m also burning a pine scented candle to complete the illusion of a Christmas tree. (aren’t I smart!?)

Soon, I’ll be taking bets as to what date the tree will actually be taken down. It survived quite a while past Christmas last year. This was due partly to laziness and also to the fact that it is just so dang beautiful - I decorate a mean tree. (ok, it was mostly the lazy thing)

Oh, and I have one other interesting piece of information for you. My brother and I are giving serious thought to maybe “running” in a half-marathon sometime in the future. Believe me, a half-marathon is a big deal… I hate running… and I’m in horrible shape.

Hmm… I wonder if this could have anything to do with that other fortune I got.

“Be prepared for a sudden, painful, and humiliating change in plans!”