Chris

Mellow greetings! It has been exactly one year ago today that I found out I was being laid off from a good job in Birmingham. A lot has changed since then including putting the house up for sale, moving out of Alabama and into Texas (July). We moved further south as did the economy after we got here. The house is still up for sale with no prospects. The job prospects are dwindling.

WonderWife can tell you how all of this has affected me better than I can but the truth is, it hasn’t made me a very pleasant person to be around. The stress was eating away at who I am and replaced it with someone else. I didn’t like this person, so I chose to show him out the door.

I can not and will not allow circumstances beyond my control to take control of my life. I choose happiness and joy. I will learn to appreciate what I have instead of lamenting what I do not. So yes, I could choose the negative path but I’ll go down a different road.

I could use some company!

Mad scientists from the University of Texas are experimenting with fire ant-brain-eating flies to help control the fire ant infestation here. Phorid flies attack and inject their larvae inside the ant’s head. The larvae then feed on the ant’s brains, which cause their heads to fall off. The ants can still walk around for a couple of weeks but no longer pose a threat. Finally, they die.

Video is courtesy of KXAN out of Austin, Texas

One has to wonder when phorid flies will turn on their captors and eat our brains…

Every week I submit my Delicious bookmarks and links to articles of interest. I hope they are beneficial to you as well.

• 10 Websites To Help You Find The Best iPhone Apps
• 10 Social Bookmarking Websites for Non-Stop Visuals
• The Book Cover Archive
• On Location Portrait Workflow
• Welcome To The Hunger- What Drives Us
• 54 Resources For First Time Entrepreneurs
• Don’t Make These 5 Mistakes in Adobe Lightroom

* This is a blog post from Mojo Denbow For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & Disqus

Audio

iTunes store, Last.fm

Email

Gmail, Xobni

Chat

Instant Messenger: Trillian Astra

Voice: Skype

Other: Twitter

RSS

Feed Demon, Newsgator

Social Bookmarking

Delicious

Web Browser

Firefox (with Greasemonkey extension)

Storage

Carbonite, Amazon Web Services

Sync

DropBox, Box.net

Location-based

Google Earth, FireEagle

Photo

Flickr, SmugMug

Video

YouTube, Hulu

Productivity

Basecamp, Google Docs

Search/Reference

Yahoo search, Wikipedia

Social

Facebook, LinkedIn

Publishing tools

WordPress, Tumblr

My overall winner would be GMail because there are so many different ways to extend it’s use in other applications, storage capacity and continuing innovation. This deserves a blog post of it’s own. Hmmm.

So what is next? What will we see with web 3.0? Can you imagine some of the up and coming apps we’ll use in the near future? A merger of web applications in desktop functionality? Mobile web?

1. BNet- Management, Strategy, Work, Life Skills For professionals
2. Layoff Moveon
3. 11 Ways To Make Your Mom Happy This Mother’s Day
4. Adobe Photoshop Layer Tennis
5. The Story Of Beer
6. When Did You Join Twitter?
7. Best of 2008: A List of Design Lists
8. 85+ Tools & Resources for Freelancers & Web Workers
9. Freelance Web Designer’s toolbox

* This is a blog post from Mojo Denbow For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & Disqus

Wonderwife and I are celebrating our 13th year of marriage and 18th year together overall. She has made me into a better man and I will always be grateful for her love and support.

Our first date was a complete disaster. She wanted to go see “Silence of the Lambs” to which I had no desire to see but agreed out of fear of missing out on her. It was gross, and it felt like I was sitting 3 chairs away from her because of my squeamishness. Hard to believe it won the 1991 Oscar award. Dinner was absolutely tasteless. I suggested going to a dance club but she was turned away for not being 18. I could have gone in but would have felt bad leaving her by herself. Imagine my surprise when she agreed to a second date. A year after college we were married on May 4, 1996 and had our honeymoon in San Francisco.

Thirteen years later, I am still amazed that she stuck it out with me for this long. I am not deserving. No one else could have been my best friend, be the strengths to my weakness, or love me like she does. She is wise beyond her age, an excellent cook, a creative soul and has always been attractive to me. On top of everything else, she is a brilliant mother to our 2 year old daughter. How did I manage to win her heart? I am nothing without her.

I love you, Jenny. Thank you.

1996

1991

I finally had the opportunity recently to meet Marie Angell, the lead vocalist, keyboard and songwriter for the Houston, Texas blues band, The Snake Charmers. We were at a social media event and knowing that the Mojo is a huge blues fan, gifted me their latest album “Been Gone Too Long”.

Well of course I slid the CD in immediately after putting my seat belt on for the commute home and was not disappointed. The vocals are strong, feminine and applicable to our own emotions.  The music leans toward blues rock and of course Texas blues and is very rewarding. I’d suggest downloading the album from your favorite digital store when you are ready for some audio mojo.

* This is a blog post from Mojo Denbow For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & Disqus

We’re meeting again in Katy (West of Houston), Texas on Tuesday. Join us for free wifi, shop talk, socializing and shenanigans. Click below for the details.

* This is a blog post from Mojo Denbow For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & Disqus

So the Houston metroplex had a thunderstorm stall right over us last night/early morning that dumped a lot of rain in a short amount of time. We here in Katy (West Houston) got as much as 10.22” of rain. That is almost a foot of rain, people.

My mother-in-law drove to one of the airports here and as she was going down into the tunnel connecting one tollway to another, her car went right into flooded water. 3/4 of her minivan were submerged instantly. after calling 911, she was rescued by firefighters who had to pry open a door and lift her out of the chest-high water. She is not the kind of person to take risks and drive foolishly into a situation like that. It was early, dark, pouring down and that section of the tunnel curves. No way she could have seen that coming.

It took me 3 hours to get to her after navigating stalled traffic, flooded streets, frontage roads and people who were out joyriding in big ass trucks. At one point, I was in danger of having my car engine flooding when a rush of water came out of drainage ditch and caught me in the middle of it. I was able to finally drive up unto a raised median and waiting for it to recede enough to drive on. After getting her home, my father-in-law and I went to the scene where her vehicle was towed out of the water. I managed to retrieve her luggage, laptop, purse and even the shoes she was wearing.

We’re safe, she’s dry and Houston is slowly drying out but her van is a total loss. Her husband ended up giving the vehicle to a guy with a tow truck after AAA was unable to send busy towers and scrap yards refused to buy it.

Today’s theme song brought to you by Stevie Ray Vaughn: Texas Flood

Also, here is some dramatic footage from Flickr user Finna Dat

Scroll through to the sections of I-10 and the West Sam Houston Tollway merge. It is now a lake.

I’ve spanned a few generations of music media formats in my lifetime and was wondering about my firsts. My very first 8 Track tape was the Eagles’ Hotel California. First record was Dire Straits Brothers In Arms (Money For Nothing!). The first cassette tape ended up being Brothers In Arms again. The first CD I ever owned was Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. Don’t you judge me! First digital download was Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Church Red House Blues.

I’d love to hear what your firsts were!

1. 
2. Create a blog or website
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
4. Open a Twitter account (and follow me @mojodenbow)
5. Be relevant and informative
6. Grow your personal brand
7. Monitor your online reputation
8. Connect with people in the industry on LinkedIn
9. Unplug and connect in the real world
10. Ask for testimonials based on your work
11. Common courtesy (a lost art)
12. Donate your time in support of ________
13. Give praise often
14. Thank you cards (paper, not digital)

What would you suggest instead? What is more important to you in this list?

* This is a blog post from Mojo Denbow For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & Disqus