Family Favorites for 2006

Our family creates an annual recap. It's a collection of events, stories, reflections and favorites from the year. I sent our 2006 version in a PDF format adding several links throughout the letter for friends to see some of the story behind the story. However, those links did not work after I sent it out. Here are some links to some of our family favorites. In some cases I've listed who in the family provided the favorite.

Lisa is my wife, Michelle our 15 year old, Nathan our 14 year old and Tyler our 8 year old.

• Mentos Experiment – take a 2-Liter bottle of Diet Coke, take several Mentos (candies), create a small tube to quickly drop the Mentos into the coke and move away quickly. Nathan showed us this and it’s impressive.
• Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity - by John Stossel. It’s a surprising and promising look at our crazy world..
• iPod – the one gizmo (maybe a few others) that I cannot live without. I listened to Podcasts more than music. Favorites: Rollingstone Magazine seven hour interview with Bono, Businessweeks’ Podcast on Innovation, the Bible, Deciphering the Da Vinci Code, several shows from National Public Radio, Irving Bible Church and Radio Lab from WNYC.
• Walking Daisy and Iris with one of the kids.
  Art of the Long Tail – a business book about the new economy. Must read.
  Lost & 24 - Lisa & Rex.
• Advicenators – Michelle – a website where people can give free advice.
• David Blaine – uber magician - Nathan and Michelle.
• MiniMac – Lisa – it is close to converting me over to Apple.
• Mindmap – Rex – best software for planning, brainstorming, organizing, outlining…
• The Management of Savagery – hard to label as a favorite. It was the most eye-opening thing I read. This is a translation of the terrorist blueprint for global war.
• Ecco boots & shoes – the best feeling shoes and boots I’ve found. I hunted for almost a year and settled in on trying out a pair. The only place I could find them was at Nordstrom’s. While heading there I thought I’d check with Bass Proshop to see if they had them at a lower price. The guy I talked to said, “Well, them-r mall boots, we don’t carry anything like that.” I’m wearing mall boots – and I like them.
• Netflix – the best tool to find movies you’ll never see at Blockbuster

Websites

• Searchmash – is a beta search engine by Google. In addition to the normal search it also allows you to link to blogs, images, video’s etc. without a separate search.
• Zillow – type in your address – or the address of any home and you’ll get a map, a satellite image and the comps for the house.
• Marumushi News – the best tool to wade through the news.
  Digg – news compiled and ranked by – you.
• Flickr – where I find most of the images I use for presentations. I used a photo of a girl going down an amusement park slide with a look of terror on her face. I was making a presentation in Chicago and a colleague came up to me afterwards and in a concerned voice asked where I found the photo. I told him on Flickr. He then said that it was a picture of his neighbor’s daughter. He was planning to use it for the cover of his next book and wanted to how in the world I knew about it. Just Internet coincidence.
• Youtube – best place to find comedy clips and news that you may have missed.
• Woot – offers one gadget per day and when it’s sold out that’s it.
• InsertMonkey - cool clock.