1. Don’t throw dirt.
2. If you do throw dirt expect it to be thrown back.
3. Be respectful and share.
4. Life in the sandbox is dirty, but it’s fun.
5. Building the perfect castle takes time.
6. If you borrow someone’s shovel don’t break it, and give it right back.
7. Screaming is not acceptable.
8. Use the right tool for the right job.  Shovels don’t work for everything.
9. Some people make better stuff than others.
10. When someone makes something cool – compliment them.
11. In order to build anything cool, you first have to dig.
12. If your a jerk no one will play with you.
13. Sometimes mean kids smash your stuff.
14. If you make something really cool the whole school will talk about it.
15. Don’t take credit for an-others masterpiece

Before I continue I would like to clarify that my background is in enterprise software development, in other words, business apps. I have never been in the business of making things pretty. I have been in the business of making useful tools.

I was exploring image rollovers for use in a business application that I am developing and I am not sure at this point what the operating system would be or for that matter how I intend to deploy the app. I do know that I would like to use javascript, rollover concepts.

The post that I mentioned earlier did a decent job of explaining the basic concepts of javascript image rollovers. And as I said that angry mob that slammed him in the comment section was ridiculous. As I read the comments all I could think was how limited the viewpoint was. Javascript can be used in so many different ways, including business apps and games. All the comments were totally slanted to web applications.

For someone like me that just wants to learn how to do Javascript rollovers, I didn’t care if the example was best practices or if the solution could have been handled with CSS, I just wanted an example of image rollovers, and the post explained it nicely.

So for those of you that bash other peoples examples, without realizing the world of possibilities where the example may apply – shame on you. And to celebrate your arrogance and closed mindedness, I have created a cartoon just for you.

By the way are all web developers that puffed up?

While suturing up a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand had been caught in the gate while working his cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama, and his being our president.

The  old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Obama is just a Post Turtle.”
Now not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked,

What’s a “Post Turtle?”

The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a  country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.”

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain. “You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, he sure as heck ain’t goin’ anywhere, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there in the first place.”

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, ‘I love you,’ mean it.

FIVE.. When you say, ‘I’m sorry,’ look the person in the eye..

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.

NINE…. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.

TEN.. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don’t judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, ‘Why do you want to know?’

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice

TWENTY- ONE. Spend some time alone.

I read an article in the paper today by Dave Krieger of the Denver Post entitled “Everything Starts and Finishes with McD”.  The point that Krieger makes in this article is that McDaniels has the exact same setup as Shanahan did, the same setup that Pat Bowlen, the owner of the Broncos did not want anymore.

Last year when Pat Bowlen fired Mike Shanahan, the reason given was that Pat was worried about his legacy.  He was not getting any younger and he would be judged in history by the number of Super Bowls he won.  Pat said he wanted a more hands on roll, that he no longer wanted someone else making all of the decisions for his fooball team.  Well – nothing has changed except the pawns on the board.  Except that McDaniels is not a pawn – Pat Bowlen is!

I will admit, I don’t know anything about Pat Bowlen except that he occasionally eats at the Perfect Landing restaurant, which over looks the run way at Centenial Airport.  I know this because I have had lunch there several times and I have seen Pat Bowlen and Mike Shanahan eating togeather in heavy discussion.  I also know that Pat Bowlen where’s nice coats and has a young, nice looking wife with Blond hair, and oh yeah he owns the Broncos.  I also know that he has admitted on television that he is having some issues with short term memory.

Pat Bowlen has a reputation for being a great owner and a nice guy, but lately I find myself asking where is Pat?  When Shanahan was in Denver we really never saw Bowlen, in fact, the only time I remember him being involved with things surrounding business matters was when the tax payers bought him a new stadium, and to be quite frank – he blew it!

We should have had a nicer stadium with a retractable roof, so we could host a super bowl here in Denver.  Compared to the new Dallas stadium and the new Arizona stadium our stadium just sucks.  That was all Pat Bowlen’s job.  He can’t blame that on anyone else.  I am beginning to think that maybe I have been complaining about the wrong guy.

I do believe that Josh McDaniels is out of his depth.  I believe we should have nick named him McDoom, but Bowlen hired him, Bowlen empowered him, and Bowlen dissapeared as soon as he hired him, putting the Broncos right back into a situation where one man is in charge of eveything.  It was to much for Shanahan, and way to much for McDoom.

So what is Pat Bowlen’s legacy going to be?  I will tell you…  He is going to go down in history as a “Do Nothing Owner”.  Someone that can’t design nice stadiums, can’t hire good coaches, and has a reputation for getting ran over by the people he hires.  He consistently makes bad decisions.  I don’t beleive he has always been that way.  He hired Dan Reeves and he hired Shanahan, but I don’t understand his agenda.  If your going to say your making a change to protect your legacy then stick to it man.  Don’t check out when the chips are down.  Show your a fighter, fight for your legacy.

It is fourth down, don’t punt – go for it.  Step back up and do something about this little dictator that you put in to place.  Slap him back into place and mentor this idiot.  It is obvious that he has no leadership skills whatsoever.  He may know something about x’s and o’s (not really sure yet…but willing to see), but he is a disaster when it comes to personnel, including assistant coaches.  He has taken no personal responsibility for hosing up the second best offense in the NFL two season ago, and now he is blaming his losses on the seventh best defense in the NFL (27th under Shanahan).  Pat, do you really believe things are going to be okay?  I hope not.

I would like to see more of Pat.  I would like an intervention.  I don’t really don’t care if McDoom ends up being a Super Bowl winning coach.  I don’t like the product that has been put on the shelf, and if the product is not improved, I will be looking for a new brand.  In the mean time, I hope that Pat listens to the public and decides to check back in.

Now I ask you…  Is that really the prime location for toilet paper?  I say no!  Does anyone really enjoy bending over and attempting to pull tissue off of a very tight roll?  Half of the time the tissue is so thin it breaks with every pull.  And, more often that not it is positioned in such a way, as to almost break the wrist in order to get any off of the roll.

Yes, my fellow men and women, I am calling for a complete revolt.  We should not have to put up with badly located toilet tissue rolls anymore, we must fight the power.  Furthermore, the rolls are always placed on the wrong side of the stall.  No, I am not discriminating against left handed folks, but the majority of toilet tissue pullers are right handed, yet the tissue is always on the left side of the stall.  I just don’t get it.  If I designed software the way bathroom designers design restrooms I would be penniless.

So the answer is simple:

1. Place the tissue dispensers a little higher so we can reach up in a natural movement, not so low that the back of our hands scrape the floor with each pull.
2. Place the dispenser on the right – not on the left side of the stall.
3. Not all of us are 5 foot 5.  Last I checked the average height of American Men was approaching 5-11.  Let’s get with the plan people, make the stalls larger.

Okay that is it – end of rant.  Please by all means – Chime in!

Jack be nimble
Jack be Quick
Jack jumped over a candlestick

I live in Denver, Colorado and I am a huge Denver Broncos fan.  The great thing about a Blog is that you can write about whatever you want to write about, and this morning I have had enough of Josh McDaniels (or however it is spelled – honestly I don’t care).

Josh isn’t nimble
Josh isn’t quick
But Josh sure does know how to use a stick

A wise man once said, in order to get people to follow you, you either need a carrot or a stick.  It is obvious that the only thing in Josh McDaniels arsonal is the stick, and I have not seen any good results from the way he uses it.  When this guy came to town he traded a Pro Bowl quarterback for some draft choices.  One of his draft choices was used for a Safety that we have not seen all season.  The other draft pick was used on Knowshaun Moreno, who has done a decent job, but still isn’t as good as our fourth string fullback Peyton Hillis.  Unfortunately for Hillis, he was drafted by Shanahan, which is why he will never see the playing field.

Josh Mc Daniels is supposed to be an offensive genius, but the only reason the Broncos have had any success this season is because of our defense.  You know the part of the team that Josh has nothing to do with.  Our defensive success is totally because of our new defensive coordinator.  Our 2008 offense that was second in total yards last year – is now the anemic weak spot of the entire team.

So let’s give Josh his first year grades:

Draft Choices (the reason Shanahan was let go) “D”
Two of his draft choices were relevant this year Robert Ayers and Knowshawn Moreno.  Ayers was a solid draft pick, and Knowshawn will be good, but still not as good as what we had.

Offensive Improvement – “F”
We went from second overall to a weak sputtering dink and dunk style that is boring and ugly.

Special Teams – “B”
There was a big improvement, but have still looked bad at times

Defense - “A”
Not Josh McDaniels doing – credit the defense to Mike Nolan, the defensive coordinator

Now back to the stick.  Last week Brandon Marshal sustained a ham string injury and was not practicing.  This is the same guy that was pressured to play last year with a torn hip muscle and was basically, lied too, by the Broncos medical staff.  This guy has also single handily carried the Broncos offense all seaon long.  And, now Josh McDaniels wants to go on televison and question the guys toughness.  Wow Josh! How insightful you are.  Let’s take all of your frustrations and attack our best offensive player, because your frustrated.  Very Leader like of you.

I am so tired of the Drama!  Everytime this guy wants to throw a tantrum he attacks one of his players in the media and the drama begins.  Personally, I think his media attacks have much more to do with making Brandon Marshal look bad.  Marshal will be getting a new contract at the end of this season with “some team” (not the Broncos) and I think Josh Mc Doom is trying to destroy his credibility.  Now that I have had an entire season with this guy at the helm I am even less impressed than I was after he let our pro-bowl quarterback go.

Call him what you want:
Josh Mc Kid
Josh Mc Doom
Josh Mc Whatever

One thing is for sure – each and every day he is becoming more and more Mc Small.  Bring back Shani!  I have had enough of this cartoon.

For example, I have been trying to find a nice tabbed sidebar widget.  I cannot tell you how many blogs popup on a Google Search that are recommending this tabbed widget or that tabbed widget, but clearly do not have a tabbed anything in their sidebar.  And, rarely do they say what their experience is with tabbed widgets and why they are no longer using one.  Even if they use it on a different Blog, please tell us about the experience, give us a link to where it is used, so that we can taste it, see it, and smell it.  Please don’t clutter the internet with irrevelent drivel that is not helpful.

That being said…  I found two widgets that so far give me multiple tabs in the WordPress sidebar.  I am not using either of them…

Why am I not using them?

Well, the first widget that I tested looke like so…

The plugin gave me several options to add to the tabs; options like, Recent Posts, My Favorites, Recent Comments, Categories, Tag Clouds, Blog Rolls, etc..  In my case I wanted to start using it with two tabs – “Recent Posts” & “My Favorites”.  The problem I had with the widget and the reason that I am not using it is that I could not figure out how the widget was determining which of my posts were “My Favorites”.  It was not obvious, or intuitive, so I still have the plugin installed, but it is currently not on my side bar.  If I ever resolve this issue, then I will use the widget.  And, at that time I will add a link to the plugin on this site.  By the way this plugin was entitled:  Tabbed Widget.

The other plugin I found was called Fun With Sidebars:  I am not even going to comment on this.  The reason being, if you go to the codex it says it is no longer supported. If and when I begin using a tabbed widget I will reference it here.  Thanks!