Angela's been doing some great craft stuff -- stationery, notepads, pens, cards, etc. She's really been making some neat things. I don't know how she comes up with so many different ways to make stuff beautiful.

My mom has also been making stuff -- silver jewelry, mostly. So, in an attempt to make money off their talents, this past weekend we had a booth at a craft show.

What a waste of a weekend. :-( We hardly sold anything. There were various reasons for it, and ours wasn't the only booth that didn't do well. But that doesn't make you feel much better when you're taking home almost all of the stuff you brought. It was pretty disappointing for everybody. Oh well -- win some, lose some. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Life is like a box of chocolates... :-)

In better news, I passed the Mensa test. They didn't tell me my scores, of course, but I wish they would have at least told me which tests I passed. So, will I join? Yeah... I have no real desire to be a Mensan, but I've been told if I join, I get to be webmaster, so that seems worth it. And, if there's anybody else out there who would like me to pay them a yearly fee for me to be their webmaster, call me... :-)

Speaking of... we got the site setup with Mensa. When we asked about a database, we were told they don't have that and that text files are good enough. Apparently they don't realize websites are more than brochures. So, we're going to dump them and pay to have the site hosted elsewhere. We found a place -- they're cheap, give us everything we want, and I found nothing but good reviews of them on the Internet. It sounds like a really small company, but I'm hoping it will work out. If hosting the Mensa site works out, we'll probably move Smart Goat there.

So, I did it. I took the Mensa test. It didn't seem that hard, actually. It was a lot like those standardized tests they give in high school -- No. 2 pencils and everything. :-)

It actually consisted of two tests -- a fast 12 minute, 50 question test and a more drawn out 120 question test. All I have to do is pass one to qualify. I think I did well, but who knows? We'll find out in 2-3 weeks.

Unfortunately, I won't find out my actual score. They used to give scores, but they got sued by psychologists who realized they were losing money. Seems a lot of people would take the Mensa test just to find out their I.Q., rather than pay a lot more to a psychologist to give the test. Oh well -- if I don't pass, at least I don't have to know just how dumb I really am... :-)

Why did I take the test? Curiosity, mostly. I've always wondered if I'd qualify. Plus, if I join, then I can help Angela with the Mensa stuff in a more official capacity. Like being webmaster, for example.

Speaking of which, we finally got our user name & password for the Mensa site. One of the things we're doing, as the new webmasters for our local group, is taking advantage of the free hosting available through the national office. It looks like we're going to have everything we need to setup a Slash site with non-Slash software. I'm really excited about that. People are going to be totally amazed by this. As far as we can tell, no other group is doing anything remotely like this. And what's great is, it's so easy. When other Mensa webmasters come asking, "How'd you do that?" we can show them how easy it is for them to do it, too. For a small fee, of course... :-)

Well, we've been fired, again. :-) Ok, not exactly fired. Our clients have decided to put things on hold while they decide if they really want to continue with the site. *sigh* Oh, well... It's kind of frustrating for us, but it's understandable. With the economy the way it is, this probably isn't a good time to be taking risks. I hope it works out for them, whatever they decide. I won't be too heartbroken if I never have to use Miva again... :-)

With the world currently being a pretty depressing place, I thought I'd share something that boosts my spirits. Go to Amazon and click on the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. It's been less than a week since the tragedies in NY, DC, and PA, and they've already raised over $6 million. They didn't hold a telethon or anything, they just put the link on their front page, and word-of-mouth has done the rest.

Now, here's something else that I find interesting about this page: Since it started, the average donation per person has been going up. That is the opposite of what I would expect. I would think that, as people see how much is raised already, they would tend to give less. It's just amazing to me.

So, if you're feeling down because of all the evil in the world, go to Amazon and see how much good there is...

Yesterday, I went to Wal-Mart to return a shirt. While standing in line, I watched a guy ahead of me returning some items you don't normally think of as returnable: hamburger buns, 3 bottles of BBQ sauce, and 2 large containers of cole slaw. OK, so he bought too much for his cook-out. Strange that he's taking them back, but understandable.

As he gets to the counter, a young boy (I'm assuming his son) wheels over another basket with more things to return -- 3 bags of ice. That's right, he was returning 3 bags of half melted ice. And, of course since he had a receipt, Wal-Mart took them back.

I'm not sure which is weirder -- that someone would return ice, or that a place would accept returned ice. I stared in absolute amazement at the entire transaction. When it was my turn, I couldn't resist asking the question, "How long does a person have to return ice?" The cashier, who had been working the customer service desk alone this whole time, clearly was too tired to get the joke. She responded, "We have a 90 day return policy on most items..."

So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave a bag of ice in my car for 90 days, then return it to Wal-Mart. I'm going to carry my bag of water to the customer service desk, with receipt in hand, and complain about how no where on the bag does it mention that the ice could melt... :-)

Well, the Labor Day weekend officially ends in about 40 minutes. Pretty good weekend for us -- Angela & I went to the Dusk 'til Dawn Blues Festival for the third year in a row. This festival is what music should be: People who play because they love to. Every night for 3 nights, there is non-stop music from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. We went for 2 nights, & although we didn't stay up all night, we definitly got our money's worth.

It's weird... it wasn't that long ago that I couldn't stand blues music. Back in high school, when I first started listening to music, I always hated it when a blues song would come on my favorite radio station. Now I can rarely bring myself to listen to that station. I won't go so far as to say I've grown up, but I've definitely changed...

After that, we came home & worked on our clients' website. Ugh. Every time I work on that thing, I regret choosing Miva Merchant. What a time waster. Oh well -- lesson learned...

Well, now there's only 32 minutes left of the holiday... I believe I'll go spend it with my wife...

I gave InventorBot tank treads. Nothing fancy, but I'm pleased. It's the first thing I've created instead of just following instructions. It still needs some work, though. The body is basically just sitting on the treads -- I haven't come up with a good way to attach it, yet.

I haven't had a chance to work with NQC yet. There's not much I can program InventorTank to do -- with only one motor controlling the treads, it can't turn. And I refuse to give up the throwing arm. :-)

So, I finshed the InventorBot the other night. I am very unimpressed by the "Squeeze Arm." I imagined it capturing things in its vice-like grip. It has no grip -- you squeeze it. The throwing arm is cool, though.

I think the next step will be replacing its stand with tank treads, then playing with some programming. I made a program for it with the official LEGO software. Lame. I'm going to try NQC next. I think I'll like it better.

OK, I got my MindStorms set out again the other night. I'm determined to do something cool with this thing. I've decided to work on it whenever my wife is working on her crafts. We're each doing our own thing, but we're doing it together -- seems like a good thing.

My struggles will be documented here. My first project is the InventorBot that's in the included book. Not very impressive, I know -- I'm just following the steps. But I've got to start somewhere. Hopefully, at some point, I'll receive some divine inspiration of what to create next. One project on my list is a card shuffler -- after seeing how one works, it seems like it would be pretty easy to make with the parts I have.

Eventually, I plan to build an army of intelligent killing machines that will help me TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD -- assuming I get a lot more sets for Christmas...

So, /. now has journaling. Cool. I like the new features. Congratulations to the /. and the /Code teams for a job well done.

And what will I do with my journal? I suppose I'll keep a log of my work on various projects and occasionally vent about various topics. I have a few things in the works right now. Angela and I have our business that we are trying to get off the ground. We also do some work for the local Mensa chapter, so I may have some interesting things to tell about that, as we attempt to take over their website. Another thing, I'm planning to play with the Mozilla source code, see if I can add a button to disable any future attempts by a site to open a pop-up ad. I know it can be done, I'm just not sure if it can be done by me. :-) Finally, I'm playing with LEGOs. I've got a couple of entries about my LEGO work from another online journal that I will be posting here, just to keep everything together.

Well, I guess that's all the introduction necessary. Let the hilarity ensue!