15 Favorite Books: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Here’s my list:

• The Shack – William P. Young
• The Gunslinger (and the rest of the Dark Tower series) – Stephen King
• Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
• Time and Again – Jack Finney
• Love Is The Killer App – Tim Sanders
• The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga – Edward Rutherfurd
• The Noticer: Sometimes, all a person needs is a little perspective. – Andy Andrews
• The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity – David Allen
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
• First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living – Richard Bode
• The Junk-Drawers Corner-Store Front-Porch Blues – John Powers
• Without Remorse – Tom Clancy
• The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century – Thomas L. Friedman
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig

Other books I’ve read over the last few years are listed here.

There are probably URLs that you type often and, for whatever reason, you don’t bother to make into bookmarks or favorites. Maybe you’re just a keyboard person, and Control-L type-type-type is easier for you. Maybe you’ve got them memorized and there are too many to fit nicely in your tool bar. Whatever.

So you alt-Tab to your Firefox window, click in the address bar (or use the Control-L keyboard shortcut) and start typing a URL. If the letters you type are part of an address you’ve used before, it shows you a list.

This is all well and good, and Internet Explorer does something similar. It’s fine. You type, you mouse or cursor down, you go on with your day.

Until you use Chrome.

Control-L, type type type, and…

(There really was also a menu, Chrome just didn’t leave it down for my my screen-capture software to grab in the image.)

Hey, check that out – the URL that matches my typing and that I use the most is already in my address bar. I don’t have to cursor- or mouse-down to it, I can just drop my right pinkie on the Enter key and zoom, away we go. Imagine that. Control-L, face[enter] and I’m on my way to Facebook. Control-L, netf[enter] and I’m looking at my Netflix queue. No more hunting through a drop-down list unless I’m looking for something different than usual.

It’s not a big deal but as with most conveniences, once you’ve gotten used to it everything else is just a little more frustrating.

So – what’s frustrating your users/customers, what’s your competitor is making easier for them?

Here’s the good news today:

The younger of our two sons is now also off to college, and my wife & I had an opportunity to visit with him on campus of Auburn University this past weekend. We also used TicketCity to get a couple of seats for the football game, and boy are we glad we did! We’ve been to many High School football games over the past years, and we’ve both attended games at other, smaller, colleges. This was, though, our first SEC Football game, and it was quite an experience.

When I first moved to the south back in 1992 I mentioned to my manager that I had seen cars with flags on them, something I’d never seen before. They’re available all across the country now, but back then this was something brand new for me. “You’ve got to understand,” she replied, “in the south everything revolves around Jesus and college football – and on Saturday, Jesus is number two.” She was joking — or at least I thought she was — but for many it really does seem to be the case.

The entire campus was filled with tailgating fans — cooking on portable grills, partying under brightly-colored tents, playing touch football in any open area they could find. I expected to see college students, but was surprised by the number of families; every age range was represented, from the youngest toddlers through oldest alumni.

Our seats were excellent, down near the field, and we enjoyed watching the mascot as he entertained the crowd and took time to greet every youngster he could. We also got to meet “Mr. Penny,” an Auburn super-fan who’s energy was unstoppable. Though rain fell throughout the evening, the fans were energetic and the game was great.

If you have an opportunity to get some tickets to a big-University football game, especially an SEC game, jump at it. I’m told that gameday is similar at the University of Georgia (and other schools), we’re looking forward to a game there in a couple of weeks.

Seventy years. 70 Years!

Wow, the movie we all know and love and reference in many ways – The Wizard of Oz was released seventy years ago.

There is of course an 70th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition of the DVD available for purchase – this is almost a “must have” for any video library.

If you don’t want to go that route, you can also rent it from Netflix of course, and Netflix is offering this special… Even if you’re not a Netflix customer, you can instantly watch The Wizard of Oz streaming from Netflix for free at www.netflix.com/wizardofoz on Saturday, October 3rd, starting at 9:00 a.m. ET for 24 hours.

Time to get back on that yellow brick road.

iPhone users should give it a read; I hadn’t even payed enough attention to notice that sending photos via the obvious method does not send the full 2048×1536 image.

That’s right — If, to send a photo from your iPhone, you go to the photo in the Photos app, tap the Share button, followed by the Email Photo button, you’re only sending a 600×800 image.

Don’t feel bad, I’ve been doing the same thing.

If you’re sending the photo to another person, that may be enough, but if you’re sending your image to flickr or other photo-sharing services it’s worth sending the highest resolution possible.

There are times to just say “the heck with it” and work with what little light exists. My older son played in a benefit concert this weekend, and I have several photos for which I used flash. I’m not as happy with any of them, though, as I am with this shot (for which the strobe did not fire).

Technically, it’s not a good photo – it’s “noisy,” details are lost in the shadows, and I had to push the exposure and contrast way to far. But in the end, this image best captured his smile and the enjoyment he was having on stage. For me, this is the best picture from the day.

Today is Ride to Work Day, and it’s a beautiful early-summer day too — sunshine, no threat of rain and the temp’s still under 90f — so I was really hoping to see more motorcycles in the lot (and bicycles in the racks). Such was not the case, unfortunately:

I took a quick walk around the lot and this was all I could find… the Ninja rider and I were apparently the only ones braving the sunshine today.

I’ve ridden every workday so far this month; my goal is simple — no four-wheel vehicle commuting this summer, barring any hurricanes later in the season.

and plenty of roads like this

which lead to a destination like this, with plenty of good conversation and cold iced tea

Click on that last picture, btw, for a much better view of Two Wheels Only. It (the photo, not the motorcycle resort) was built with Hugin. I’ve mentioned it before, and friend Allen discovered it this past week. Highly recommended (both the photo-stitching software and the resort).

A little excitement today: I was riding the motorcycle southward along Maxwell St, doing about the speed limig safely on my side of the double-yellow, when I was passed by a black Ford F-150 doing what appeared to be double the speed limit. I barely had time to realize he was there and then he was gone… followed by an unmarked car with blue lights flashing. When I got to Westside Parkway, I could see that the truck had blown through the red light down toward Fanfare Way, and the LEO followed.

I chose not to follow them, though I would have liked to see what went on and how it ended. I have friends who are officers and know that they really don’t like having extra citizens around that they have to watch out for should the person they’re chasing decide to pull a weapon.

It was a bit un-nerving though, how quickly they appeared; I heard the truck before I saw it, and it really was already pulling into the oncoming lane to go around me at that point. I’m not sure if I should be displeased with myself for not checking the mirrors more often or not — thinking back to that section of road and the incident, I’m estimating that the truck wouldn’t have been visible behind me for more than about 3 seconds by the time it caught up with and passed me.

Allen suggested a rider on a Triumph Sprint ST who had his map taped to his tank, but I chose otherwise. We’d talked to a Honda rider who was pulling out as we were ready; he seemed to me to be the sort of guy we might enjoy riding with, so we dropped in behind him. In some regards, I was right — he rode at a good pace, not too fast nor too slow, and was choosing good roads. He seemed to be taking a diffrent route than I remembered seeing on the map, but I figured that was ok; maybe he knew a better set of roads to the first checkpoint. After several miles, we realized that wasn’t the case and we pulled over and to figure out just where we were headed. It turned out that he wasn’t riding to the checkpoint at all. He had just stopped by the ride’s start to talk with some people, and was riding with a completely different destination in mind.

We got ourselves turned around and were able to re-join our group at one of the checkpoints, and had a good day’s ride. It’s an important lesson though, for riding and for life: If you’re going to follow someone — even should the journey be going well — it’s important to know that they’ve got the same destination in mind. Also, if you’re unsure, stop and check. On our motorcycle ride, that meant consulting the map. In other cases that might mean a good talk with your mentor or a return to reading The Good Book. It’s never too late to get back on the right path.

So last week, about the same time I’m buying my new motorcycle, in an Atlanta Metro Area Tag-O-Rama, this one gets posted:

- A lookout of a different kind. “Just in case of fire” was probably written somewhere on it.
- It and the surrounding area was built around 1895.
- It and the surrounding area shares the same name as the family that constructed it way back then.
This “tower” is off a road named after a very colorful bird.

With a little help from Google, I pondered the clues last night and thought I had the rough area figured out, and so I set the alarm a little earlier than I normally would for a Sunday morning. I poked around the Vinings area, staying along the river, and sure enough there it was.

Btw, if you’re a rider in the Atlanta area, here’s what I posted as the next tag.

- Annually, this city and this organization host a parade to honor those who have served in years past.
- On the grounds owned by this organization are both relics to remind and boys of summer.

If you’d like to participate, come join in the forum and have fun.

Today I rectified that situation.

Thanks to Jim for the photo.

Thanks to the good folks at Moto 400, I’m now the happy owner of a 2008 Yamaha FZ6. It’s still practically brand-new, though nicely broken-in with 4k on the odometer and a few months left on the factory warranty. The previous owner had given it a few upgrades, then at his 4,000 mile service let himself be talked into a larger bike. I hope he’s happy with his ride, I’m happy that he chose to leave the FZ6 for me.