It's interesting that ultimately, everyone's primary mission in life (or lives, for those that belief in afterlife) is happiness. People who are happy are healthier, more successful, harder-working, caring and more socially engaged. Misery makes people self-obsessed and inactive.

Yet very few people spend much time on defining what actually makes them happy. Instead they thoughtlessly focus on a variety of things that may or may not lead towards happiness such as money, security, fun, ...

The times has an interesting article on scientific studies of happiness. It's a good chance to step back and ask yourself if your priorities are properly ordered.   Read More...

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush's shortsighted actions have come back to haunt him. It'd be nice if this were an aberation but to me, this is just one small piece of a larger pattern...   Read More...

Yup, that's right, the little 4.5 cm blob in this pic is a lovely combo of me and the misses genetic material. We're so excited! Just got the ultrasound done yesterday. We're about 10 weeks in at this point. Everything seems to be progressing perfectly so far... babies' heartbeat is 169/minute. Size is right on target. And Jen is finally not feeling nauseous all of the time. I'm so ready to be a dad!

In the pic, the head is the left oval... the babies hands are on its cheeks... can't see the legs in that pic.   

Jen and I are in the midst of a week long trip to Colorado... neither of us has been to Colorado in the summer since we were kids and we both had fond memories of our trip back then... The pic you see here is taken from the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park... Jen and I hiked around 11 miles and 3500 vertical feet to bring you this pic so you better appreciate it... it was truly one of the coolest things I've ever done and seen. Pictures.   

My band, Sister Loveshovel, just completed our CD and we're having our CD Release Party on Feb. 18th, at Dressel's (in the Central West End).

Check out our website to learn more, download tracks, and see other upcoming shows.   Read More...

So, Edge.org asked 120 scientist to state one thing they believe in but can't prove. To me, there are some truly fascinating concepts.

One of my favorites:
I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Space-time, matter and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been, from their beginning, among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being.   Read More...

I've posted a bunch of new wedding photos to my photo gallery.   

So I do this thing called Philosophical Cafe whenever I get a chance. It's led by a Webster University professor and is run as a simple discussion. If you're interested, let me know and I'll keep you up to date on when it's happening... anywho, here's some thoughts from tonights discussion...   Read More...

It's official, I'm a married man now! The wedding and honeymoon were amazing, truly awesome. So many good friends came to celebrate our wedding with us and truly made the day the best of my life... Wedding Pics

Here's a small subset of our Honeymoon Pics. Overall we took around 1500 pics/movies, 3.2 Gigs worth... it takes 2.5 hours to get through the whole show.

Fiji is Paradise. Rainforests, amazing beaches, some of the best snorkeling in the world, extremely friendly people, 378 islands, and its still quite untouched by the western world... go soon before it gets commercialized

New Zealand is truly a different world... the landscapes there are so different than anywhere else I've been... you're never far from the Ocean or mountains and they are almost always part of your view... everywhere you go there's some adventure to take part in and some amazing thing to see. 12 days wasn't nearly enough to truly take it all in. Hopefully we'll get back there soon.   

Where do I go when I want in-depth, insightful, unbiased information in politics? The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In fact, it's gotten to the point where I don't feel like I can trust anyone else. Everyone else seems biased, they follow the wrong things, they don't really analyze, and I never learn anything new... What's really shocking is it seems I'm not alone on this, the daily show is getting a lot of respect...   Read More...