I've added some basic graphs to my SMS Mileage Tracker.

One of my personal projects in the last few months has been creating a new website to "scratch my own itch." I drive a relatively fuel-efficient car, a 2001 Honday Civic. I've got friends who drive cars, both greener and not so much, which tell them what their gas mileage is. But Bob, my car's name, doesn't do that. There are gadgets I could buy to do it, and of course I could just keep a notebook in my car and jot down the numbers, but I write websites and gosh darnit, this called for one.

If I had had an iPhone, I could have used a number of different web or twitter based sites. But my phone, like my car, is rather basic. I wanted to be able to send in my odometer reading, and how much gas I bought, and have it tell me what my mileage was for that tank, and what my average is for all my fill-ups. Luckily there are a few sites that make it pretty easy to receive text messages into a web application.

So after one night's work to get the basics going, and about a month of tweaking and testing with friends, I'm pretty happy with the first version of my SMS mileage tracker. All you need to do is, the next time you fill up your tank, send a text message to 41411 with the word "EMPG" at the start, followed by your odometer reading, and then the number of gallons of gas you bought. It'll reply with your mileage and store each fill-up in a database so your average can be calculated for future fill-ups.

I've been using Gmail a bit for years. I've used it for two accounts. One I use for registering with sites like *cough*MySpace*cough*, which I don't need immediate emails from, and for a few mailing lists. The other account is a dump space for all email going to me at my primary personal email address. I have every message sent to me also directed there so I have a "permenant" archive in case I ever delete a message by mistake. I also BCC every message I send with that account. But overall I haven't used that Gmail account very much over the years. Weeks can go by without me going in there. That all changed recently when Gaia moved our email over to Google Apps.

Google, bless them, provides some terrific tools for sites like Gaia.com that need email and want to do neat stuff with it. We're getting ready to offer email accounts to our Plus members and I've been tasked with integrating that so a Gaia+ member can create an email address @gaia.com from within our site. That's not really the point of this post though. Since we want to let you use Gmail for @gaia.com addresses, we're obliged to use it too. Some people access it in different ways, but most of us are now using the Gmail web interface for email.

Let me tell you, it's a whole different world when you're using Gmail all day every day than if you're using it once a week. I've learned the keyboard shortcuts so I can navigate my messages without using the mouse. I've setup filters and labels to help me access my most frequently needed messages. And I've learned to not worry about the rest and just search for what I need when I need it. Wonderful! I'm strongly tempted to switch my personal email over to Google Apps at this point. The only reason I haven't is that it's kind of annoying to me to have that many Gmail windows open at once :-)

I think our members will really like the Gaia email accounts we'll be offering via Google Apps.  Another very good reason to become a Gaia+ member!

Here's to Charles Darwin! Nearly two hundred laps around the Sun since his birth and his theory of evolution by natural selection is still fundimentally sound. His work brought modern biology to life and offered the first rational explaination of how all life and its wonderful diversity came be.

Name and Title.

Joshua Warchol, Code Poet, at your service.

What's your role at Gaia Community?

I'm part of our amazing team of geeks that have built Gaia.com. I've been working on this site full-time since February of 2006. Wow, has it been two full years already?! 

What do you most enjoy doing (or what are your greatest passions)?

Wow, hard question. My passions can follow a winding path sometimes. A common thread is creativity. I love to create things, be they digital like software and websites, or physical like doing home improvement projects. Another thread is compassion for our fellow creatures. I eat a vegan diet and share my home with rescued animals. I support farm animal sanctuaries and I try to spread the word about why what (or who) we eat matters.

What's your favorite thing about our community?

I love how alive the community feels. Every new discussion, blog post or photo is a peek into the lives of the amazing people from all over. And while most of the action happens on the web, it still manages to feel like a true community, bound together by common values and aspirations.

What do you love about working here?

My team is great. Truly exceptional people who I learn from every day. I enjoy the flexible and supportive work environment, and the opportunity to bring my own unique traits to the

Meet the rest of the Gaia Team

I've been watching the video below, as well as all the "expansion pack" videos that go along with it. I really like this guy! He reminds me of my high school physics teacher, and he keeps the right perspective on science, critical thinking and risk management.  And I like the name he gives to national-scale project needed, the "Manpollo Project." :-)

http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/2007/12/7/rails-2-0-it-s-done

Congrats to the Rails core team and all the contributors for releasing Rails 2.0! We're not going to be able to upgrade here at Zaadz any time soon, but for new applications and future development I'm sure we'll be using these new goodies.

   

What's funny is that Wallingford, Connecticut is the town that I live in! Thanks Onion, you made my day.

A new investigation into the practices of the dairy industry by Farm Sanctuary. Please watch it, and try to open your heart to the terrible wrong that's being committed when a mother's baby , and that baby's milk, is stolen so it can be sold.

First off, KÀ is incredible. I'll return to that topic in a bit, trust me.

Today started off with a bit of pampering at the salon/spa here in Circus Circus. It's not much to talk about, compared to the posh offerings at other resorts, but it's certainly located close by ;-) That was quite a treat, something I'd like to spend more time doing next time we're traveling. After that we drove over to the Hilton to check out Star Trek: The Experience. In my youth I was quite a trekkie. My mom used to buy me stuff off of QVC whenever they had a star trek special. Thanks mom, for putting up with all that! Star Trek: The Experience was fun for both of us. We didn't spend much time exploring the "meusem", but we did both of the attractions and I had a pint of Romulan Ale at Quark's Bar. Fat Penguin got in on some photos.  From the Hilton we took the Las Vegas Monorail all the way down the strip to the MGM Grand, and walked from there across the Strip to New York New York, which has the biggest coaster on the strip: Manhattan Express. The trains on this one were well themed as taxi cabs and the ride was ok overall. It wasn't very smooth for a steel coaster, and the ride operators weren't pleasant... though maybe that's part of the NYNY theming ;-)

Up next was M&M World, a multi-level retail monument to small candy covered chocolates. I had hoped to get some dark chocolate M&Ms, but alas they weren't vegan either. Tracy really enjoyed the store and picked up a bunch of little M&M figures to decorate her office with. And Fat Penguin got in some photos, of course.

After taking the monorail back to the Hilton we returned to Circus Circus for some dinner and to change before returning to the MGM Grand for our Cirque du Soleil show. We decided to try the buffet here and compare it to the one we had at the Wynn yesterday. Ugg, you really do get what you pay for, even when you're dealing with the limited vegetarian options in Vegas. The Circus Buffet is crap. It's cheap though.

Once we drove back to the MGM Grand we picked up our tickets to KÀ and headed over to the Rouge Lounge for some drinks. Expensive, but tasty. The staff was pretty attentive and it was a perfect spot to do some people watching. After that we still had more time to kill so I showed Tracy how to play video poker. We won often enough to play for well over half and hour on $5, can't complain about that, even arcade video games would have cost more.

So, KÀ. OMZ it's great. I've never seen anything so amazing with my own two eyes. The "floating" platforms that make up the performance area are emense and the action and acrobatics are so saweeeeet. Our seats were very far back but we still had a great view and I enjoyed being able to catch all the action easily in view, since the performers work from the sides as well at times. The story was simple and easy to follow, and there were lots of funny moments to break up the stuntwork. Our seats had individual speakers in them and the surround sound effect worked quite well. I can't recommend the show enough, it's wetted our appitite for more Cirque acts. Ringling can bite me, this is the kind of circus everyone should go to.