Inside the House of Baldwin

And it isn’t a Toyota Prius. I just couldn’t get myself to buy one. I think that in the end, the size bothered me. Although roomy inside, it’s too small outside. With driving children around on a daily basis, I would be too afraid of the consequences if we were hit by one of the many tanks on the road.

Plus, it would undermine the plan I have been patiently waiting to implement. Get a new family vehicle this year. Get Brad a new car next year. Retire the 8-year-old Honda next year to the first of three new teenage drivers within a span of four years (frightening, isn’t it?).

So what did I get? The vehicle that best meets our family’s needs (okay, “my green” needs): Four-wheel drive; Fit six people comfortably (including long-legged teenage boys); Smaller than a “tank”; Environmentally friendly; Reasonable fuel-efficiency; Exciting to drive; Well built.

What else is out there that meets all that criteria? Not much. And I love it! And so does my family. And in the end, that is all that matters.

BTW: Here is an article in Popular Mechanics about the future of diesel vehicles…move over hybrids, stiff competition is on it’s way. I’m just pleased that we’re on the cutting edge. Oh, I forgot one teensy bit of information…I can use biodiesel in it! And Mercedes even gave it’s blessing.

It would appear that the pollsters must have made it clear that the American people want change. This little video highlights just how committed the 2008 Presidential Candidates are to change [...sigh]. Of course I expect the change McCain would initiate is more troops in the Middle East and more military spending. Hillary…big shake ups — or is it a shake down.

Dallen celebrated his 15th Birthday at our house with friends. Everyone ate pizza (no vegetables were consumed), watched Dallen open presents, and played Rock Band, as well as a contraband Halo brought by one of the guests (hmmm…rules were broken that night!). More snacks, treats and soda were consumed throughout the night.

Mom took video throughout the night, but Dallen took all the footage and edited it into a movie that you can view here. Mom’s goal is to get all of her children to eventually make their own movies. Her goal is to have a household of computer geeks!

Tonight I was in my nightly ritual watching Conan O’Brien (you can watch Feb 19th show here). The guest musician was Jake Shimabukuro, a Japanese-America from Hawaii. Shimabukuro played one of my favorite George Harrison / White Album songs, While My Guitar Gently Weeps on his ukelele–yep, you are reading it correct.

Conan was blow away. I was blown away. Luckily we have iTunes today where I simply paid my $0.99 and added this great track to my music collection. Visit Shimabukuro’s destination on iTunes and take a listen to the sample. Better yet, just buy it.

Well, I’m (Brad) guilty to a few claims published in report from Mindset Media. TheStreet created a video based on the report. Some of the activities / attitudes associated with Mac users are listed below. Not sure that I’m all, but certainly some are spot on. Watch and see if you agree.

• to be perfectionists [well, maybe]
• to use notebooks [since 1994ish]
• to use teeth whitening products [okay]
• to pay for downloaded music [I got better after AllofMP3 shut down]
• to go to Starbucks [for meetings and hanging]
• care about “green” products and the environment [yes for me]
• to own a hybrid car [Amy's got a clean-burning diesel Mercedes GL, which gets just as good gas mileage as our Sienna van. It's economics for me and a desire to keep money in the USA vs. send it to the Middle East.]

Whether Global Warming is real or not, this video makes a very good argument. It would hurt more to not act, than it would to act. And by acting, we could make some changes in our world and in the economy that would, in the end, benefit everyone. Who can argue with that?

Below are some simple ways that you can help (source):

Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)

Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer

Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner

Install a programmable thermostat

Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases

Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket

Use less hot water

Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible Continue reading »

Bill needs to be careful with the criticisms he makes, it may come back to hit him in the face (although I don’t side with GM…I don’t have an inkling of a desire to purchase one of their vehicles). 

Bill Gates reportedly criticized the auto industry, stating that “if General Motors had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

GM extended the comparison: 

For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you’d have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would die for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart, and drive on.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver like a left turn would cause the car to shut down and refuse to restart; you’d have to reinstall the engine. 

Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought “Car XP.”

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but it would only work on five percent of the roads (my personal favorite).

New seats would force everyone to have the same size derriere.

GM would require all buyers to purchase a deluxe set of road maps even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would cause the car’s performance to diminish. 

On February 1 Jed participated in another Belt Advancement at Bushi Ban. He advanced from a red belt to a red-brown belt. His goal is to get his brown belt within six months, and eventually his black belt within the next year or so (brown-black, white-black, black). He’s a pretty serious karate student, so I wouldn’t put it past him.

Click To Play

Jed had a project to do in Utah History. The project was to do a story on your favorite place in Utah. Jed chose Snowbird Ski Resort. So yesterday when the boys went snowboarding with Dad at Snowbird, Dad and Jed worked on getting material that they could use for Jed’s project. The project calls for no more than five minutes, so Jed had to pare it down considerably. However, Jed did all of the editing by himself with “some” help from Dad and Dallen. But, as you’ll see from the movie, Jed is the newest filmmaker in the Baldwin household.

This is Jed and I’m just warning you that this is only my second totally edited project (I’ll be posting my first on a special page soon) and it probably isn’t all that good. Still I really hope you enjoy it. That doesn’t mean post a comment that says, “Great job it was awesome!” if you didn’t really like it. Part of editing things is getting the good and bad feedback, no matter how hurtful it may be. Thanks! 

I was able to meet Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic and the person behind, WordPress, the same software you are using right now on House of Baldwin.com. Matt is a great guy. He has a lot going for him. And at 24, he has a lot ahead of him. It’s always fun to share a moment with young entrepreneurs that are changing the way we interact and communicate

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“It’s been a busy few weeks,” Matt Mullenweg said with a grin in response to the question about Automattic’s recent $29M funding round. Interestingly enough, this funding trails the initial investment of $1M that wasn’t fully expended.

Mullenweg talks with Brad Baldwin while visiting Park City, Utah (shhh…remember Matt you promised not to tell anyone about how great it is here) about their development team, projects, the open source community and revenue models at Automattic. Mullenweg shares some of the features and enhancements that will appear in WordPress 2.5 to be released in March 2008.

Download This: iPod

I’ve read a lot about this current youth generation: The Millenials. You know them. They’re the children of the Boomers and the Gen X’ers. They’re special, they’re “all” winners, they’re rewarded for “everything” they do. They have shelves of trophies, certificates, scrapbooks, and photo albums. They have extravagant birthday parties. The girl’s moms buy them $500 prom dresses. 

I should know all of this…I have three of them (my fourth is considered a member of another generation due to birthdate). And I am just as much to blame for the above. 

I compare their lives to my youth life. I went through all of my family movies and took out any clip that had me in it. My family has about 120 minutes of footage spanning about a twenty year period. I found 6 1/2 minutes worth that contain footage of me.

I don’t even know how many “hours” of footage each of my children have. I won’t even mention how many photos I have of each of them, or how many scrapbooks and photo albums they already have. None of them have yet reached adulthood. 

My three older children are members of “The Millenials: The Next Great Generation.” I am a member of “The 13th Generation.” I guess that is why I  spend so much time and effort making them feel special; because I never did. I don’t say this to be a martyr. It’s simply an observation that I have made over the years concerning why we parents today coddle and sacrifice so much for our children. I think that it is because we didn’t get that from our parents. So we do it for our children. It makes me wonder what kind of parents our children will be.