1. I must write seven interesting things about myself.
2. I must tag seven others to do the same.
3. I notify them via a tweet or blog comment.

Seven interesting facts about me:

1. I have moved over 25 times and lived in 15+ locations including most major sections of the U.S. (by choice, not military)
2. We chose our son’s name, Kellen, because we liked the sound.  It translates to swamp.  MY wife is an earth sign and I am a water sign, so I guess it works out.
3. I was once a professional body piercer.
4. We own 18+ coffee mugs but I am the only one in our household who drinks coffee.
5. I learned to drive a manual transmission car by buying one and driving it off the lot. (didn’t stall once)
6. I have a photographic memory when it comes to most trivia and general knowledge, but I often forget what I ate a few hours earlier.
7. I wear sandals (Birks) year round, regardless of the weather.

Seven people you should know:

1. Nan Palmero (@nanpalmero) – An amazing guy and BlackBerry extraordinaire with a heart of gold.
2. Bob Rockhill (@bobrocky) – An awesome guy, great pastor, and dear friend with an open heart for people.
3. Kevin Joyce (@imaginechurch) – A rockin’ pastor with an amazing church.
4. Thinky (Eric) (@ithink2ez) -  A good friend and fun guy.  Excellent gamer friend too.
5. M8trix (John) (@m8trix310) – Great guy and true sci-fi guru.
6. Christian Markley (@cjweb) – Awesome guy with a real heart for God.
7. Lakelady (@lakelady) – Wonderful woman with a heart of gold.

If you are one of the seven people above, you now have to do the same thing I did here.  Have fun and be creative!

I am not what many would consider a “gamer” so the casual nature of the Wii system is a unique fit and fun alternative to many other consoles.  I have owned a few consoles in the past (NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Playstation, Playstation 2, GameCube, Nintendo DS, PSP) and find the Wii to be the first truly different experience with gaming.  Many of the games seem to be the standard Nintendo fare of Japanese, highly colored, cartoon styles.  Most are filled with the usual cast of characters from Nintendo games of old.  One fun feature is the integration of Mii characters (customizable avatars).  I won’t go into detail as to how the system works as it’s been out for a while and you’re likely already very familiar with it.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from game play as the only experience I’ve had was the commercials showing people overly animated in their movement.  I’ve found most controls do not require quite as flagrant an approach as advertised (a flick of the wrist works most of the time).  I can easily see how this would quickly bore many hardcore gamers quickly as it makes most of the games very simple and repetitive.  I enjoy simple games so the ability to be able to enjoy a quick bout of bowling or puzzle game is actually a plus in my book.  I rarely have time to get into a serious gaming session so the quick-play approach to many of the titles works best for me.  I found my 3 year old son has had a harder time getting used to the controls (compared to the GameCube) but that may have a lot to do with both the unique game play and the fact that he is short and often goes out of the view of the remote sensor.

One thing I was a little disappointed in was the vast amount of attachments and tools often needed to fully enjoy games.  The system itself is reasonable at $250 but you are then stuck needing to buy an extra remote, nun chucks, wheels, classic controllers, etc… to get the full experience.  This quickly adds up and can become just as expensive as other consoles, if not more so.  We were lucky enough to be given most of the accessories right away so we were not hit with this large bill out of the gate.

We only have a few games so far (Wii Play, Wii Sports, Mario Kart, and Mario Party) so I can’t comment on all that is offered for the Wii yet.  I was a little disappointed in Mario Party 8 as it looks dated and has lackluster game play compared to past Mario Party titles.  Mario Kart is an excellent game and I highly recommend picking it up.  The wheel steering is responsive and fun and the new levels are definitely an upgrade with new tricks systems and interesting layouts.

One of the great features to the Wii is the free online play with some titles.  It uses built in wifi so we were able to get it online and running within minutes.  Mario kart has excellent online game play and can be a blast with multiple players from all over the world.  There is also downloadable games available online from older consoles (NES, SNES, 64, Turbo Grafix, Sega) and Wii Ware titles built for the Wii motion controller.  We have played a couple virtual console games and find them just as fun as they were years ago.

My wife wants to some day get the Wii Fit to add to our system and I think it would be fun for the additional game options as well.  There are so many options out there for varying game play it’s hard to decide which way to purchase and what truly offers its worth.  Overall I have to say we love our new Wii and I look forward to years of play with our kids and family.  I’ll post reviews of games as we acquire them as well.

We were able to raise enough through donations of money and services to be able to obtain everything we need to fully launch the project!  It has been an amazing experience and I will forever be grateful to everyone involved.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I hope we can help so many with this project and you made it possible.

Over the past five years, 200,000 civilians have died due to violence, malnutrition, and disease in Darfur and an additional 2.2 million people have been displaced. We want to do something about it.

Fed up with watching humanitarian crises on the evening news and not doing anything to help, a group of bloggers (most notably, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits) have created and founded the non-profit Train for Humanity, which is an online humanitarian awareness and fundraising organization.

Over 150,000 new blogs are added to the internet every day. Train for Humanity’s mission is to utilize the web, social media, and blogging, in tandem with athletes in training, to support organizations that help prevent suffering and alleviate the pain of children, orphans, and refugees who have been displaced due to genocide or internal strife and war within their country.

Quite simply, they believe - getting fit + social media + blogging = social good

The three pilot project athlete-bloggers, Mark Hayward, Dan Clements, and Leo Babauta are hoping to raise awareness for the current crisis in Darfur and funds for the organization Darfur Peace and Development. All three are training for endurance events of varying distances ranging from a triathlon to a marathon.

They hope to show people that with a little creativity and innovation, anyone can assist and make a difference in the world. If you would like to learn more, have a look at the Train for Humanity website and please consider sponsoring one of them or spreading the word.

For those not familiar with Brightkite (and Loopt), they provide location aware community services that let you interact with others, offer your current location and search for others within your area.  This service seems to be geared towards larger urban areas as I have yet to find more than 1 person in the entire Salem, OR area actually using the service.  The lack of participating members in my area may also be due to the fact that it is an invite only service so far and not known to many.

I for one am intrigued by these new location aware apps as a means to better connect with others in your area.  Brightkite allows members to set their privacy levels so you can choose who can see your information.  Integration with other services like Twitter make it a great choice as well to keep those around you up to date.  I plan on continuing to use Brightkite in hopes that others will start to pick up on it.  Salem is lacking a cohesive community (especially downtown) and sites like Brightkite could be a great tool in fixing that.

If you would like an invite (I have 3 I can give out) please leave a comment!  You can find me at http://brightkite.com/people/coffeedaze.  Please feel free to add me as a friend on there.  If you like in Salem, OR all the better!

As my readers know I recently switched to BlackBerry.  That transition has changed my perspective of the entire social media world.  With my BB I have a number of apps available for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and more.  I didn’t want to waste them so I decided to give these sites another try.  I still find no interest in MySpace, mainly due to younger users and god-freakin’-awful design.  I have grown quite attached to Facebook and as more of my friends and family join it has become a sort of connection hub for most of us.  The one that I have latched onto the most though is Twitter.  When I first tried Twitter I didn’t really see the point.  It seemed almost like a voluntary stalker program and the content was less than thrilling.  After looking into it more and finding some ways to connect to interesting people I now get why so many enjoy it.  It can be a casual and fun way to joke and connect with others.  It can be a great networking and scheduling tool.  It can be a local information finder.  It can also be a fast and random news aggregator.  It is easily molded into my BlackBerry addiction as well and simply one more reason to look at that marvelous little screen.

Maybe it’s my new found mobile experience and maybe it’s just the timing, but I am quickly becoming hooked on social media/sites.  It also gives me another topic to blog on, so stay tuned for that.

Feel free to connect with me on my social accounts.  You can find me at Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm and MySpace.  I am usually on Twitter and Facebook.

Why is it that so many people have such a hard time with basic apartment living etiquette?  There are a few rules I think should be regulated severely by management for every apartment complex.  Nothing ruins life in an apartment more than having a neighbor who can’t seem to grasp these basic rules.

1. If someone lives below you, STOP STOMPING AROUND YOUR APARTMENT!  It’s not a difficult thing to ask, just walk like a normal person and refrain from playing freakin’ leap frog and dropping bowling balls all day and night.
2. Your smells travel.  If you smoke outside of a person’s open window, it will make it’s way inside their apartment.  If you try and experiment with Indian food, the smell will travel!  Our apartments usually come equipped with exhaust fans, so USE THEM!
3. Not everyone thinks your kid screaming “CATCH ME” at the top of their lungs for hours is cute.  Be a parent and teach your kids some self control!
4. Your music is not everyone’s favorite sleeping soundtrack.  Communal living in the form of apartments often require a pair of freakin’ headphones!
5. It’s wonderful that our apartments come with a common trash area.  There are a few things that may not go into the trash cans though such as your old couch, that TV you no longer need, or your poor departed cat.  It’s also a nice idea to actually get your trash into the massive freakin’ dumpster.  I know that rotten pizza is very heavy but you can do it, I swear.

I guess it’s a good thing I don’t own or manage an apartment complex as there would rarely be anyone living there.  I would require an IQ test, common sense aptitude test, and DNA testing to check for inbreeding.  Around here that would likely mean an empty apartment building.

I wanted to share the top programs I have added to my phone and use the most often.  There are so many programs provided by RIM already that I didn’t need to look for many alternatives.

• BeeJiveIM ($20-$30) - Multi IM client that supports AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MS Live, and GTalk.  Best looking IM client for BlackBerry by far, though it doesn’t tie into the contacts system as completely as the default IM clients provided by RIM.  There’s a price to pay for having them all together like this.
• Opera Mini (Free) - Much nicer web browser than the default one on BlackBerries.  The only thing you can’t do with it is OTA (Over The Air) installs of software.  I have also discovered there doesn’t seem to be any way to set it as the default browser on the phone.
• Google Mobile App (Free) - Use all of Google’s applications from one place.  It supports Docs, Notes, Maps, News, Reader, Gmail, Calendar, Picassa, and Sync.  This one just came out a few days ago.
• TwitterBerry (Free) - Update your Twitter page right from your BlackBerry.  You can also see friends feeds and get updates. with user icon support.
• NFL Mobile Live (Free) - Sprint only NFL app (it works on Verizon though) that lets you watch games, get recent scores, listen to live games, and much much more.  A must have for American football fans.
• AutoLock (Free) - A simple program that adds the option to have your phone lock automatically.  You can enable or disable it and choose how long after the backlight goes out to lock it.
• Viigo (Free) – RSS, News, Weather, Entertainment, and more all on tap in a great application.

There are quite a few other programs out there I have yet to discover or try.  If you have some favorites I haven’t listed please feel free to leave a comment and tell me about them.