General

WIN Susan!!

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:21:16 GMT

I am not religious. At all. When I read the following story I knew I had to "pray" or at least send good vibes to Susan through whatever force or being, real or imagined is possibly out there:

Like Dandelion Seeds

I don't personally know Elden or Susan. I read Elden's blog daily and it (crazy as it sounds) bring a ton of entertainment and inspiration into my life.

Please also read:
Has It Been Only One Day?

(Hey Dad does that radiation mask bring back some horrid memories? I still have yours and use it as a Halloween decoration every year!)

TightCuts: Best. Haircut. Ever.

Steve Bargelt — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:48:56 GMT

Inspired by this article in Tacoma's Weekly Volcano I've been looking forward to making an appointment at TightCuts. Today I finally took the plunge. I made an appointment for a lunch-time cut. Setup couldn't have been easier - there were many time slots available.

The entire place is geared towards men with dark wood, dark leather and large LCD TV's tuned to ESPN throughout. I was greeted by the owner, Don and offered a complementary beverage. Free Rockstar energy drinks - heaven. Okay the also offer Coke products... but with Rockstar on hand who cares? The magazine selection consists of GQ, Men's Health and sever other male oriented selections. No Cosmo or Vogue here. Very nice.

Marian came to get me from the waiting area and I have to say... hopefully without being too much of a pig... wow. Incredible. Amazing. Simply beautiful. It does not hurt that the standard uniform at Tight Cuts is a leather skirt, leather boots and tight white tops. Nothing trashy or tacky. Very sexy and in good taste. Marian's personality was great, she came across as intelligent and very well spoken and immediately put me at ease. I have to admit I was pretty nervous when I first walked in the door and Marian banished any fears that I may have had.

The chairs are also wonderful. They are leather and built for men, wide and comfortable with great foot rests. You guys know what I'm talking about, too the foot rests at most places is a skinny bar that feels like you will snap if you put any weight on it. Not at Tight Cuts - here you get a good, solid, metal foot rest. Excellent touch.

The main attraction... the haircut. Again I was wow'd. Marian gave me one of the best haircuts of my life. Period. Those of you who know me know that I wouldn't say that unless I mean it, I'm one picky bitch when it comes to my hair. Sure I've digressed in the last few years to a HairMasters patron... but I've hated it and always felt slimy (and sort of sick to my stomach) about it. At least 75% of the time when I leave the cheap shop I hate my haircut and go home to complete the job in the mirror with my personal clippers and then "fix" the haircut with copious amounts of gel. Marian spent the time today to get my hair right.

On the surface my preferred style seems easy (#1 guard (metal preferable) up pretty high, top finger length, blended between the two, bangs slightly longer, almost a flat-top but not quite) but I have a weird part on the left side that makes the hair stick out if the stylist doesn't take their time and tame the offending hairs. Marian, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, tamed the beast. I love it. I had almost forgotten what a good haircut can do for my mood and self-confidence. Of course it could just be the Sugar Free Rockstar talking!

Once my hair was groomed to Marian's satisfaction she prepared to wash. Each station at Tight Cuts has its own wash basin. Nice touch, no walking across the salon to the shampoo bowls. What ensued can only be described as near euphoria. I never knew that a shampoo, condition and scalp massage could feel so incredible. I had goose bumps (and in a moment of weakness actually blurted that fact out... I can bee such a dolt!) I was relaxed yet invigorated. Tight Cuts only uses American Crew products - which suits me just fine as I've been an avid user of Crew for a solid five years now. Great product. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, out came the hot towel - straight to my face where it stayed until Marian was done rinsing the conditioner out of my hair. Then she used the hot towel to wipe my face off... a very nice touch.

When you thought it couldn't get any better it is time for the neck and shoulder massage. What a treat. Marian used Hempz Lotion (New Zeland site. I couldn't find their US web presence) to give my a very nice neck and shoulder massage. She worked a bit on desk-worker/typing knots I have in my shoulders. It felt very nice. At this point I was so relaxed that I did not want to go back to work. Lesson learned, no more lunch appointments. Next time 4:30 on a Friday.

I think it is worth mentioning that Don says he wants to try to maintain the ability for men to just walk-in which is an awesome idea. I know personally I do not think far enough in advance to make appointments for haircuts and if I do I usually blow them off. I'm more of a "shit, it's Friday and I need a haircut before the weekend." type of a guy. I hope the flexibility stays when they get popular. One more small detail the haircut runs $28. I think it is an incredible deal. I was paying $15 for just a cut (no wash) at the cheap places.

I will never go anywhere else to get my haircut. It was simply that good. So do not hesitate, do not think twice about it, make an appointment and do it NOW. Do not deny yourself this small pleasure. I don't care if you simply shave your head... go to Tight Cuts. You will not be disappointed.

Books

Steve Bargelt — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:15:07 GMT

Like my friend John, I love books. I stopped by Barnes & Noble yesterday to pick up the The 4-Hour work Week and couldn't resist a few others:

Not a bad day at the bookstore - three new books for me and two for Derek. I'll try to get reviews posted as I finish this batch up.

Great Real Estate focused blog for Western Washington

Steve Bargelt — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:00:54 GMT

I wouldn't be able to say it any better than the blogger himself so:

Welcome to the Hurlbuthomes.com blog! Here you'll find information that's relevant to you, the Real Estate consumer. Information on Pierce, King and Thurston county real estate as well as national real estate news.

I suggest you give it a read. Very good information about Real Estate in Western Washington and it seems especially Pierce County. I've subscribed! Subscribe now --> RSS

Mississippi Braves Manager Goes on a Tear

Steve Bargelt — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:07:24 GMT

This tirade has been pretty well publicized and the video has gone viral. When I watched it I thought to myself... do you think baseball managers now choreograph their ejection performances the way football players do their touchdown dances. If not you have to give this guy credit for the rosin-bag grenade move. That move is AWESOME!

YouTube - Manager ejected from baseball game

Win16 Error: A Blast From The Past

Steve Bargelt — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:48:14 GMT

I took a screen shot of this error last week. Prior to this event I don't think I'd seen this dialog since 1996!

Cool Web 2.0 Video by Michael Wesch

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:45:00 GMT

I saw this on Scott Hanselman's blog Computer Zen in the post titled Web 2.0 Explained in Video by Michael Wesch I've watched the video three times now. Very cool. It really started me thinking about the future of technology, the future of the web, the future of information and the future that our kids will enjoy (or despise).

Convergence of meat space and the virtual world. I already connect many real-word activities to the Internet - like bicycling. I love to upload my GPS tracks to MotionBased and analyze them online. I upload digital pictures to Flickr or my Picasa Web Albums. I have not yet - but plan to upload family videos to YouTube. I track my food intake on TheDailyPlate. I rent movies through NetFlix. I chronicle my life (sort of haphazardly) and spew my opinions in this here blog.

Wikipedia is one of my main sources for information. IMDB is indispensable in my life. I would suffer a stroke if someone took away my google (especially GMail and Google Reader)!

It boggles my mind to think how much content we will have at our fingertips now. What about in in 5 years? 10 years? 50 years?

Seems like all of this linked, searchable, accessible information will spark a unprecedented age of invention and innovation.

Or SkyNet (created using Numenta technology) will take over and destroy all humankind.

Yeah. Could go either way.

Feedburner-ized

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:55:00 GMT

I have finally decided to use Feedburner.

Here are a few reasons. Mostly self-serving.

Subscription statistics - FeedBurner provides a ton of of free statistics, including number of subscribers, number of requests.
If I ever want to leave GeeksWithBlogs and host my own blog FeedBurner will make it easier - I will be able to change the feed link with FeedBurner and boom - we are done.
If #2 becomes reality than much of the bandwidth (yeah - from all 5 of you that read my blog!) will be offloaded to FeedBurner.
FeedBurner has a few neat tools like adding "Digg This" links to the bottom of my posts automatically.

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a way to automatically redirect this feed to the new FeedBurner link... So I guess I just have to ask nicely.

Please subscribe to my new feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SteveBargelt

Unfortunately I don't plan on upgrading my brain so you'll still get the same crappy content as before.

I hate Macs

Steve Bargelt — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:54:00 GMT

I know people use "LOL" when they didn't really laugh out loud (admit it. You know who you are!). Well I just laughed out loud (really) while reading the following:

Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands.

via: I hate Macs by Charlie Brooker

Another Winter Ride

Steve Bargelt — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:42:00 GMT

Rob and I brought Derek and Oliver along for this one...