One of my favorite bands released a new album this week. Rock What You Got by Superchick has been a long time coming, but it’s finally here! If you’re not familiar with Superchick, you really should check them out. With hits like Anthem, One Girl Revolution, Me Against the World, Hero, We Live and Beauty from Pain, Superchick has made a big impact in the music world. Their songs are upbeat and very positive with a unique sound that blends techno, pop with R&B and other styles for a very unique sound.

I’ve had Rock What You Got blazing through my iTunes for a couple of days now and it is phenomenal. I love it when bands reinvent themselves and aren’t afraid to try new things. Superchick excels at creating new sounds and catchy lyrics. The best song on the album, in my opinion, is track #7 “So Beautiful”. The song is another fantastic anthem for girls. My own daughters caught onto it right away and they’ve been playing it in their rooms before bedtime. Here is a preview of “So Beautiful” (lyrics listed at the bottom of this post):

Read more

Ya know, I have the greatest job in the world. Seriously. I get to work at home with iTunes blaring through my speakers, windows open, no shoes and I get to sit and draw cartoons, write and build web sites all day long. EVERY DAY! And if that is not awesome enough, I get 2-3 deliveries a week from UPS and FedEx with the best gifts ever - books! People send me books to review non-stop and I love it. Especially when I receive real treasures like this one:

If I’d Known Then: Women in Their 20s and 30s Write Letters to Their Younger Selves (edited by Ellyn Spragins) is a fantastic collection of letters from some astonishing women who describe themselves as they were in their youth and offer advice and encouragement. I wasn’t sure at first if I would like this type of book or not. I don’t like novels and personal stuff, I much prefer self-help and psychology as my standard reading material. As fate would have it, I flipped it open to page 49 where I find fellow geek Catarina Fake (cofounder of Flickr) recounting her kindergarten troubles and I could immediately relate!

Catarina goes on to tell her rebellious child:

Read more

I received this in my email today and I think it would make a good weekly challenge:

This is written in an attempt to help a 15 year old softball player named Ashley get through a very difficult time. She has been diagnosed with AML (leukemia) and has recently begun treatment. So far many people who don’t even know Ashley have been posting messages in a guest book within a website that has been made specifically for her. I understand that she reads the messages and it has been a great source of comfort and support. I thought I’d reach out even further and see if teams, players, celebrities, and softball people generally from across the country would be interested in posting a message of support to Ashley. You should check out the guestbook. There has been an unbelievable show of support for this young player. I have attached the website below.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ashleyrunion

Thanks!

Dave
Baseliners 14U
Sterling, Virginia

Ladies - this is an excellent opportunity to encourage a fellow athlete. Drop her a line and show your support. I did.

I am still stinging from last week’s web tragedy, but I am amazed at how fast the recovery process is moving. I thought I would share the steps I took to restore my site. Let me say up front that I DID have backups of my files, but I made the mistake of storing them with my web host who somehow managed to “lose” them in the process of overwriting every file on my site. No joke. It was a complete nightmare! I hadn’t ever downloaded any of those backups because they were so huge. (I have since purchased a terabyte wireless drive from Apple and it is backing up my Macbook Pro as I type this).

So how does one go about recovering from the complete obliteration of 3 years worth of work? Read more

My webhost made the worst possible error last night, running a script and obliterating most of the files from this website as well as my subdomains.  Not only were my files trashed, but apparently the backup files went MIA as well.  I have been working for the last 14 hours straight, trying to get this fixed and at this point I believe I will have everything back and working, but it will take some time.  My media folders and sub-domains are being restored as I type.  The rest of my files and various sections of this site will be pieced together, hopefully before I leave for a family camping trip on Friday.  For now, the forums are down and you may run into some weirdness here and there.  Needless to say, it has been a very stressful day.  I am heading to bed so I can deal with the damage control in the morning.  I apologize for the inconvenience.