Here is another free background for you to use. It’s a bright sunny day! Makes a good Twitter background too. The image above links to the full size version. Just save it to your computer, and then upload to your site!

No hot-linking! Hot-linking is bandwidth theft, and you may not like what happens to bandwidth thieves.

Free to use, but acknowledgment and a link back would be appreciated!

Note: This is free for your own personal use only. You can use it on your personal or commercial sites. You cannot sell or give it away though.

Yes, I am shamelessly stealing today’s title from Michael Kwan. But, titles can’t be copyrighted and I don’t think he’s trademarked the phrase, so I think I’m safe.

Anyway, as you well know, you can follow me on Twitter. But, for those of you still living in the “that’s so last year” era, you can also friend me on Facebook. You can also be a fan of dcrBlogs on Facebook.

Or, if you prefer, you can connect with me on LinkedIn.

Just so you know, I also do Twitter backgrounds for $50-$100 (or more), depending upon complexity. So, if you need a Twitter background, just let me know!

I also recently relaunched an old website of mine, WholeLight. I hadn’t really done anything with it since Y2K, but with 2012 coming up, I figured maybe now would be a good time to restart it.

It feels like I’m forgetting something else. If I remember it, maybe that’ll have to be another blog post.

Here are some free square pattern backgrounds I created that you can use on your websites or blogs. Just right-click them and save them to your computer, and then upload to your site!

No hot-linking! Hot-linking is bandwidth theft, and you may not like what happens to bandwidth thieves.

Don’t like the powder blue? Here are a few more choices for you:

Free to use, but acknowledgment and a link back would be appreciated!

Note: These are free for your own personal use only. You can use them on your personal or commercial sites. You cannot sell or give them away though.

Here are some free diamond pattern backgrounds I created that you can use on your websites or blogs. They are sort of a futuristic argyle pattern too.

Just right-click them and save them to your computer, and then upload to your site!

No hot-linking! Hot-linking is bandwidth theft, and you may not like what happens to bandwidth thieves.

Don’t like the blue? Here are a few more choices for you:

Free to use, but acknowledgment and a link back would be appreciated!

Note: These are free for your own personal use only. You can use them on your personal or commercial sites. You cannot sell or give them away though.

Did you know NASA has 3D models for use in animations and other projects? Pretty nifty.

Above is the Aurora spacecraft. This Aurora 3D model was created by Michael Carbajal at NASA HQ.

Their usage guidelines appear to allow commercial usage too, just so long as your use doesn’t imply any kind of endorsement by NASA. Use of the NASA logos, however, are largely off-limits.

Now maybe Speedy can build himself a better spaceship for his next space adventure.

It’s that time of year again!

Don’t forget to “spring ahead” tonight on your clocks. You’ll lose an hour of sleep, too. Unless you work the night shift, in which case, maybe you get off an extra hour early?

And, remember, change your clocks, change your batteries, change your passwords!

Was that a vintage clock image I posted above? Michelle will be so mad that I’m delving into vintage again. At least it’s blurry!

Oops…

Well, this is a new low…

I haven’t done an update on this in ages, so I figure it’s probably about time!

As many of you are no doubt aware, I didn’t meet my goal of $300,000 by the end of 2007. If I had, you’d see an eBook for sale in my sidebar, How I Made $300,000 in Under 4 Months Online.

What you don’t know why I wanted $300,000. It wasn’t a number I pulled out of the air. I had a very specific reason for wanting that amount.

Locally, there is a semi-historic building for sale. It’s a nice old building. Definitely in need of some repair and refurbishing. I thought it would make a great storefront for a rubber stamp shop.

The asking price was $300,000.

Mind you, the building probably isn’t worth that much. Maybe $100,000 at best, especially considering the amount of work that would need to go into it. But, I wanted that $300,000 to buy that building. Naturally, I’d negotiate it down as much as possible, as money would be needed to fix it up.

The building is still for sale. They’ve since repainted it and possibly made minor repairs. I don’t know if they’ve done anything beyond cosmetics though.

If I had $300,000 now, would I still want to buy the building? I’m not sure. Not for $300,000. They would have to come down on price. Another problem is the hassle of dealing with the local zoning. Right now, the building is painted in a cream color, which matches the cream and brick look of just about every other building around here. They don’t like white here. Looking up the history of the building, the earliest records I can find of the building show that it was originally white. So, if I were to buy it, I would to bring it back to its original condition. That would mean painting it white.

I wouldn’t want to buy a historic building only to be told I couldn’t restore it to its historical colors because those are no longer the “in” colors they want around here. The point is to maintain history. The building wants to be white. Being coated in boring beige paint just makes it look sad.

If I had $300,000, I don’t know. My first priority would be paying off all my debts. Next would be funding my long-neglected project. I’d finish off some other projects too.

If the seller came down to a realistic sale price, I don’t know. I’d really have to weigh the options at the time. Might be easier just to buy an old building elsewhere or build something new.

Way back in, um, like a week or so ago, AiR tagged me with the Honest Scrap Award. I’m supposed to tell you ten honest things about me and then pass it along to seven victims friends.

So, okay, let’s give this a go.

1. After high school, I took a year off school instead of going to college the following year. I was going to become a full-time writer. Publish novels, have movies made. That went well.

2. I prefer tea to coffee. I only drank coffee about once or twice a year, and now that restaurant where I used to have coffee once or twice a year is closed.

3. I was going to tell you why I stopped blogging for a time last March, but I’m not quite ready yet. Sorry.

4. I sometimes feel bad my family line ends with me.

5. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up.

6. When I was a kid, I wanted to learn Latin, because in school we learned that was the language scientists spoke. I thought they meant that literally. You shouldn’t tell kids stuff like that. Say they use Latin, not that they speak Latin!

7. I took two years of Latin in high school. I did well.

8. I try to strike a balance between science and religion. I do not believe that faith and reason are exclusive of one another.

9. I think time travel would be great, as long as you had a decent time machine. It would be great to go anywhere in time, see how things really were. Visit the past, see the future. Combine that with decent immortality, and how could you ever be bored with a whole universe of time and space to explore and experience?

10. I hope that death is not the end, that the journey continues in ways we have yet to discover or experience.

I pass this along to: Teeni, Rolando, Speedy, Michelle, Deborah, Jessica and JD, because I wonder if there are ten things we don’t already know about her!

You know the drill by now. When I cannot think of something to write, I drag out a photo.

In this case, I’ve pretty much exhausted the photos I’ve taken in January and February. You’ve seen snow and ice and more snow and ice. You’ve seen boxes and snow-covered bird feeders, and so on.

So, tonight I decided I’d try something random. I went with 777. I picked my seventh photo folder and opened it. From there, I opened the seventh folder inside that folder. Then, I selected the seventh photo. That was the photo I was going to use.

The photo itself was of a beetle, but the beetle was obscured by greenery. I don’t remember for sure, but either I got a bad angle or the beetle was moving when I snapped the photo. In any case, I didn’t have a full shot of the beetle. And, that’s why I never used the photo for anything.

But, you know me. I don’t toss old photos. Who knows when they might come in handy?

Today’s picture is an excellent example of that. I was going to show you what I had captured of the beetle, and tried to find the best way to crop the image. In doing so, I noticed this spectacular sight in the photo. And, that is what you see above.

I think that’s a pretty interesting image. A nice texture and color. But, I didn’t have any other shots of it. You see, in trying to get a good shot of the beetle, I didn’t see this particular sight, and didn’t take any additional photos of it. And, the end result is that I didn’t get a good shot of the beetle nor did I take any more pictures of this other view.

How many times does that happen to us in life, that we miss out on opportunities staring us right in the face because we’re focusing on something else–something which is more obvious, yet still eludes us?

And, like the photo, we often miss those other opportunities as well as that which we were chasing after. It happens in work. It happens in love. It happens in life.

It’s good to have focus, but be careful of becoming so focused that you miss out on the other great things happening around you!

As always,
Believe. Act. Achieve!