Today's song is Gypsy Woman by Brian Hyland, released in 1970.

Many a time I feel closely connected with someone I meet for the first time. It happened again to me last week. Time will tell what this most recent encounter means.

The Summer is rolling along at a smooth pace. I continue to volunteer at the Leo Carrillo Ranch Historic Park as a Docent at the Hacienda. I get to meet so many first-time park visitors and I love to hear their first impressions of the park.

We saw the new Harry Potter film on Friday night. I love those films!

I'm getting ready for the first of my last five speeches in my Twin Oaks Toastmasters club towards my AC Silver award. I present it at the club's upcoming Speech Marathon and Club Party this month. I look forward to having a great time with all my friends when we get together socially.

We purchased a brand new Apple AirPort Extreme, providing us with higher speed connectivity here at home. My previous SMC Router is five years old and doesn't provide enough security or higher speeds. Installing the new AirPort Extreme was easy and configuring the security and access control was simple to do.

If you're a new Mac user, My First Mac page has lots of helpful information.

One of the high-school interns I mentored six years ago is in the 3 Ugly Guys band. They just released their first music CD. Adam is one smart young man now after college and I'm happy to see him having fun.

A report card for Vista. Not very impressive, in my humble opinion.

The iPhone is making it into the Enterprise. How cool!

Want to know how the iPhone works?

I added six more iPhone Desktops in portrait orientation. 101 Sunset and Ebb Tode are shown as a thumbnails below. The actual iPhone downloadable images are 320 x 480 pixels at 160 dpi.

I found a great interview on unconventional management. They could become cutting-edge by using Apple technologies and giving their employees iPhones to use. :-)

This XYLE Scope software looks interesting for working with CSS.

A Citizenr? REnU program offers a different way to use solar power nowadays.

Interested in mind mapping? The Personal Brain package has something to offer.

I feel a certain connection as I end today's message with this Digital Insight.

Summer Neighbor (Created in August 2003)

The planet Mars is creating a lot of interest. We now have the rover, Spirit on the surface of that planet ready to do scientific experiments as it roams around the terrain.

We've heard the stories about Mars since Roman times and astrology followers track its movement through the heavens and predict it will affect us in certain ways. Radio broadcasts of invasions in 1938 sent people into panic.

The stories, some fiction, some true, continue to motivate us to learn more about our neighbor in the solar system.

Using my own words, I quote a portion from that page's narration:

"Someday humans will probably reach the surface of the planet. The huge Olympic Mons volcano will be climbed sometime in the centuries after that. Humans want to explore, to travel, to return with stories of those adventures."

Don