Zac Browser

My wife found this story in Yahoo news (see link below).

I think this is a wonderful and loving story. Please, read on.

Its a story about a grandfather, John LeSieur, and his grandson, Zac, who has Autism.

PC browsers offer a lot of options and choices, which are not good for children with autism. The options overwhelm the kids and they become so frustrated that they cannot use the Internet. Mr. LeSieur looked for web-browser tools tat catered to Children with Autism but found none.

So he built one himself.

The Zac Browser simplifies the web for kids with autism. It screens out most of the web's content and limits the choices they need to make, thus allowing them to use and explore the Internet.

The site is easy to use, beautiful and specifically focused at children and their imterests. They can chose from some basic options, "Games", "TV", and "Reading" being the main ones.; although my personal favorite is the "Aquarium." I strongly recommend you go to the link below and try it out, especially if you have children.

The link to the entire article is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/business_of_life.

The link to download and explore Zac's Browser is at: http://www.zacbrowser.com/

Krav Maga Part 2

Well

The good news is I Passed!

The bad news is I pushed myself so hard, I went into severe dehydration, heat stroke and smashed the back of my head into a wall and got a really good concussion. The entire technical term is Rhabdomolysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhabdomyolysis).

Needless to say, it was an ambulance ride to the hospital (INOVA Fairfax to be exact) and a three day stay and a weeks rest.

I told myself I was going to pass this test or die, and I kept my word. In fact, I almost did both.

The doctors kept telling me they were amazed I did not die and how quickly my body recovered as one usually winds up staying in the hospital for a week. I was there a little over 48 hours before my chemical levels were back to normal and they released me.

Thoughts of the whole situation:

First, the Krav Maga instructors were great. They gave me first aid and got the medics there fast. They and the EMT ambulance folks (never got their names and barely saw they ladies faces - I know it was two women) literally saved my life.

Second - waking up in an ambulance and not knowing how you got there is not fun. To this day, I still do not remember what happened.

Third - being strapped and immobilized on a stretcher and only being able to see ceiling tiles in a hospital is scary.

Finally, I am grateful to my wife who was very supportive and helpful throughout the whole thing.

Sorry for scaring you Pam. I love you.

Google Earth’s 3D Goodness Comes to the Browser

Here is an article I got from my RSS reader, posted on TechCrunch on 28 May 2008, author Mark Hendrickson at http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/28/google-earths-3d-goodness-comes-to-the-browser/. The artilce reads......

"The Google Earth team announced it has ported the Google Earth desktop client’s 3D mapping technology into the browser. Website developers are now able to embed 3D maps, which can be modified using Google’s JavaScript API to add KML data, draw 3D buildings, attach callbacks, and more. The entire embed is powered by a special Google Earth Browser Plugin that end users must install. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Internet Explorer and Firefox users on Windows. Google is not offering the equivalent of a default installation of Google Earth in the browser. If you want to search the globe from square one, you still need to visit the 2D Google Maps website. Therefore, this release is mainly a developer one - not really a new product launch."

Many readers of the original posting/article have commented that this is not a major deal since Microsoft has been doing this for over a year.

Vince's Blogger reader

Just added the RSS reader to my site.

Not even sure what this thing does.....................

Get this widget!

Israel Update

Here is a panoramic picture of Jerusalem

Israel (Jerusalem)

Being in the military has its ups and downs. One of the "ups" is the opportunity to travel all over the world (of course this sometimes takes you to places no sane person would ever want to go....but that will be a series of different posts).



On this trip, I went to Israel (sorry can't say why); however, during some time off, we got to visit Jerusalem. I was really impressed with the city. The mix of religions and political ideologies makes this city a mass of confusion unlike anything I have ever witnessed in my 18+ years of military travels.


This is a picture of a wall being built to segregate Palestinians and Israelis. It reminded my of Berlin (I was stationed there in 1990). You can see a checkpoint here in the foreground and part of the wall being built. There are check posts all over the country; a necessity given the violence there.





I was particularly impressed with the Wailing Wall. All these people swaying and praying in one spot is interesting to watch.






While in Jerusalem, you can travel the the path Christ walked towards the site of his Crucifixion, called the "Via Dolorosa". It was a long walk and virtually all uphill. Note that this is a huge tourist attraction, hence the "Hard Rock" like cafe located at the four "stage" of Christs' walk (nothing is sacred anymore).





All in all Israel is a very modern and truly pretty country. I highly recommend a trip there to anyone who has not visited tat part of the world.

Shark Diving

This is my wife, Pam.

After you've been together with a person for 21 years, as anyone can tell you, its gets hard to buy them a birthday gift.

Jewelery, art or a dinner at a four star restaurant are nice but they've been done before.


So this year, I decided to get her an "experience". So I went on-line and found a good company that designs "experience holidays". If you are interested, the EXCITATIONS website is at the following link: http://www.excitations.com/



I opted to let her swim with sharks (as a former marine biologist living in Florida, she's already swam with dolphins).



So we spent a nice weekend in Philadelphia, where Pam got to swim inside a 550,000 gallon shark tank at the Camden Aquarium.

Here are a few pictures.