In lieu of original thought, here are a few links.

My Heritage, you can upload a photo of yourself and it will attempt to match you up to the celebrity you resemble. I purportedly resemble Ernest Borgnine & Willie Nelson. Seriously, my self esteem may never recover from this. [Link courtesy of Amy & DailyCandy]

Immigration has been in the news lately. While reading an article about a congressman from my home state in the NY Times, I came across this great quote.

I love that quote. I wish I could naturally talk like this. It reminds me of when Dan Rather saying “He beat him like a rented mule.” on election night a few years ago.

Check out this field of 180,000 clay figurines. This is the kind of art that moves me.

If you like flickr, and I know you do, you might be interested in Preloadr, which has a helpful image processing and uploading toolkit for flickr. It’s not going to replace Gimp anytime soon, but if you’re on the road it might come in handy.

If you want to sample some free music you might want to check out CC Hits, a neat little mash-up app from ning.com. BTW, Tim O’Reilly did a really nice write up about ning.com recently. Mix the idea of ning.com with this nugget from Microsoft, “Being a developer “on someone’s platform” may ultimately mean running your app in their data center, not just using their APIs.” (Operations: The New Secret Sauce) and you may be able to understand the new web.

Sometimes I have so many things I want to blog about, but I just can’t. Some blogs I read feature authors who are willing to just lay it all out on the line — name names & tell the truth. Me, if someone invites me to a dinner party, leaves the air conditioning off to save a nickel when it’s stifling hot, I can’t say anything about it on my blog because it makes me feel uncomfortable — no one invited me to make their private lives part of the public arena. I just can’t do it, no matter how sweaty I was.

Next weeks blogging topic, ex-girlfriends.

Envy, originally uploaded by timbu.

I wish it was my job to drive this thing.

In case you missed it, the guy who started trading for a house with a red paper clip has now reached his goal. Yup that’s right he started with a paper clip and now he has a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

red paperclip, originally uploaded by aka Kath.

Hobo Dinner, originally uploaded by timbu.

An annual rite of passage for my in-laws is the traditional Hobo dinner, where we cook in a trash can. The can is lined with heavy aluminium foil and beer and water are added to create steam which cooks the potatoes, corn, carrots, cabbage and sausages. This year the hobo dinner was one of the best yet, all the food was perfectly cooked and nothing burned — ahem, not that this was a problem in the past.

CIMG2137, originally uploaded by amykjensen.

Here is me in an action shot, playing volleyball at an office picnic. My feet are almost used to the hot sand now, but I’m still plenty rusty.

Another View, originally uploaded by timbu.

I took a few photos of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed gas station in Cloquet, MN. It’s the coolest gas stations ever.

I’m sitting at the “Front Porch” in Ely, MN. It’s a really nice coffee shop w/free wi-fi. I like the Raven’s Brew coffee at the Ely Surf Shop a little better, but the Front Porch has better scones, better furniture, a really nice selection of teas, really good food in addition to a really cool vibe. (Reenie, if you are reading this the third punch on your card is from me.)

The sign on the wall says, “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.” Funny I am actually curious about how my kids would react to being hopped up on caffeince. Therein lies the differences between moms and dads I suspect.