This blog is no longer being updated.

Please go to http://craiglaughlin.me - this blogger blog is severely deprecated.

Great Lakes Science Center

Yesterday my Wife, Mackenzie and I went to the Great Lakes Science Center. We arrived in Cleveland a little after 1:00pm and ate at Flannery's Pub. Their food was excellent, and their service great too. Afterwards, finally made our way to the science center.

I was a little upset that a lot of the demonstration pieces were non functional to visitor abuse, but that didnt discourage me from having a good time. I even got a glmpse of katie getting her "geek" on. My daughter even seemed to have a great time experiencing different noises and colors. I hope to go back soon, and maybe when mackenzie is a little older.

Birth Status

Hello everyone. I would like to thank everybody for their kind words over this last week. For those of you who my not know, My wife gave birth to a little girl on Tuesday, June 22. Her name is Mackenzie Julia Laughlin. There we some complications though. It appears that Mackenzie was born with a bowel obstruction (where is connects from the large and small intestine. On friday, she went in for surgery and had the obstruction removed. She is doing fine now. She is not allowed to feed yet, but they do have her hooked to an IV. She is completely off of pain medication, and antibiotics, and we hope she can start feeding soon. Currently we are also waiting to remove a tube that is being ran down into her stomach that siphons off clear bile (which use to be pesto green.) We are hoping to get her home soon so badly, but health is the number on factor here. Once again everybody, Thank you. I was both scared and devastated when i found out there was something not quite right, but it was my family and friends that helped Katie and I get through this. From the bottom of our hearts (and Mackenzie's little one :) we thank you so much!

So I am going to be a dad.

More importantly, I am going to be a dad for a healthy baby girl.

Katie and I went to her doctor for our "mid-way" update and checkup. We had another sonogram done, and the pictures were much clearer and active since we last had our first sonogram.

My wife did very well with the check up. Of course, I am sure no one wants a gooey sonar probe shoved into their belly, but I guess its worth it.

I am totally excited for the next few months. I have plenty of stuff to do including painting the baby's room, building baby furniture, and etc.

I will have pics posted soon of the sonogram through my photo album through google, but I already have photos thrown up on the my facebook if you are eager to look.

Happy times everybody!

So I am active on facebook once again..

Over the past year, I have decided to remove myself from just about every social networking site.  Call it a “social cleansing”, if you will.  Pretty much, the only reason why I left myspace and facebook for so long was because, life got busier, and I didn’t have the time to manage them. 

Security issues were also a main result of me leaving.  Spam, Pop-ups, were leaving me annoyed and frustrated.  The other thing I didn’t like so much is, there was little privacy.  Now, I like to show my friends and family the fun things I do, or post pictures up for viewing.  Sometimes I felt like people knew too much about me, and perhaps that was my fault. 

The times have changed, at least, for me anyways.  I can barely meet a new person anymore who doesn’t have a Facebook account.  So… with that said, I am using Facebook to keep in contact with family and friends, and hopefully have just keep it that way.  I am not really into Zombie attacks, or being bitten by a Vampire.  I just want to keep things simple.  I will keep my blog posts syndicated on my Facebook account as well.  Which, (in due time) will give my viewers some access to not only boring reading content, but possibly some of my personal video content, and podcasts as well.

For now, I am back to Facebook, and will try to keep it updated as best as possible. 

 

Thanks for reading!

Why my blog is black

Is my blog black because I am depressed and I always think of deep and dark thoughts? Is my blog black because I was concerned about my readers’ eyes and wanted to give comfort? Is it black because I really have no imagination and just thought it looked cool, or I really didn't care what other people thought? The answer could be the last one, but you may be surprised to know why making your web page, blog, or anything on your computer (screen wise) black would actually help make an impact on your power consumption.

Thankfully a lot of us (including myself) today are concerned about our environment and roles of using sustainable/eco-friendly goods and conserving power in the attempt to make as little of an impact on our earth as much as possible. My wife and I recently (and I am sorry not doing this sooner) became rather concerned with our environmental footprint. We would clean our living spaces with (what I thought were safe) cleaning products that get rid of pesky germs and other microbial life forms. I got to thinking, bacteria, viruses, germs, and other microscopic items are built up of cells/living tissue.
What are we made out of?

I started reading some interesting articles pertaining to the safety of regular household cleaners, and I really never imagined that what we were using to clean could actually be making things worse. Basically, what we were doing was creating breeding grounds for super germs. Super germs are germs that (over time), can build up a tolerance to anti-bacterial cleansers. I also read that these cleansers could actually make you sick just being around them, because some products’ “off gas” hazardous fumes that could be potentially lethal. No wonder so many people these days are coming up with instances of cancer. Our immune systems can't cope with so many enemies.

Not to mention the fact that we are flushing these products down the drains. These products are going into our rivers and streams which is altering wildlife and creating psycho squirrels! Okay, maybe not psycho squirrels, but where do you think these animals get their drinking water. There are warning labels on the containers of these products saying they are harmful for the consumption by humans... what about the animals?

Energy is another issue that has been bothering me as of late. Our “oh-so-precious” gasoline that we buy for our vehicles is costing us (at the time of this writing) nearly $4.00/gallon. This may seem strange to some of you when I say this, but, I hope the prices keep climbing...

Why do I say that? It is simple. We need to make people realize that there is a need to switch from petroleum based fuels all together to something else. Now would be an excellent time for investors to start looking at renewable energy, or at least some type of energy that wouldn't have people depending on foreign fuels. Not only is petroleum bad for the environment when burned, but it’s also making an environmental impact just to ship it.

I am not saying we should all switch to “Biodiesol” or “Ethanol” because there is another economical and environmental impact that those fuel sources created. Ethanol and other vegetable-based fuels don't really burn as clean as some experts suggest. It is even known to cause deterioration of our cars internal parts. It actually requires more energy to create these bio-fuels than the fuels themselves actually produce. Also, with creating these bio-fuels, we are actually putting a strain on the worlds hunger problem, and that’s not cool.

We need to look at electric cars, solar powered cars, or even hybrids of both. With most electric cars, they are limited to a short driving time. Solar powered cars can power a car quite well... only if the sun is bright and shining. If they could make a car that would not only be rechargeable from the home, but also have the availability to use solar power this would enable us to go farther distances and still have a clean running car.

I really don't care if electric cars can't go fast. We really don't need high speed limits to begin with anyways. We don't need high speed limits even now… It's killing our gas mileage. I drive a truck that consumes gasoline, but after thinking about things as of late, and I don't drive very fast. I try to take routes that involve very little stopping, so I am not constantly slowing down and speeding up. If I have to run errands, I make sure that I also do my grocery shopping and other stuff all on that same trip. I try not to go out on special runs. Anything I can do to maximizing my gas mileage, I’m all for it. Maybe the gas price going up is a sign for change. I know what that sign is...

STOP DRIVING SUV'S, BUY SOMETHING SMALLER AND ECONOMICAL, OR RIDE A BIKE!

I know this website is about a year old but I want you to draw your eyes to it:

http://www.blackle.com – The black version of the popular Google Search Engine.

This little website brings me to question of why my blog is black. Basically, you can thank me. Maybe even send me money in payment for trying to help you save money (I had to try). Apparently, it takes quite a bit more power to display a white page rather than a black page on your computer. If you think about a web site in terms of light, this would highly make sense: White web page – Super bright bulb to show that color. Black web page - very little light used to display that color. Do I get my message across? I hope so.

I want this to be a very open discussion piece. I ask that any of my readers to please comment on this blog. Share your ideas and concerns with the world today. If you have a great suggestion, POST IT! If you have a question, post a comment as well. If you want to complain, send it to my complaint department at http://www.whitehouse.gov.

Thank you for reading.

A relaxing tune I created

I have recently started using Mixcraft, A garageband-software for windows. Its pretty sweet, and I have only used it for a few minutes.