Here are a couple videos showing sledding crashes you might find entertaining.

And no, I didn’t experience any crazy crashes sledding down Queen Anne Ave.

Photo courtesy of flash lite tutorial

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

I’m proud to say I was among the crazy people sledding, skiing, and snowboarding down Queen Anne Ave this weekend following the snowstorm. Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for thinking to sled down the hill with a COUCH. I’ll keep that idea in the back of my mind for the next time a snowstorm hits Seattle — which is supposed to be tonight….

Here are a few pictures I took this morning walking around the Quuen Anne neighborhood of Seattle where I live.

My buddy started a new blog about a month ago that I wanted to quickly highlight. The blog is BankVibe.com and it covers IRAs, CD Rates, High Yield Savings Accounts, and other information relating to banking. Here is my quick list of suggested improvements to the blog:

• Google analytics to see how many people are visiting the blog
• MyBlogLog link tracking to track what people are clicking on
• “Receive e-mail notification for comments on this post” plugin
• Related posts plugin
• Create permanent pages for all your target keywords and put links to them in your sidebar
• Write your own content for pages like this IRA page — then you don’t have to link to wikipedia for every term and bleed SEO juice.
• Get rid of the red in your navigation bar. It does not match the logo.

If you need links or further explanation to better explain these suggested additions, leave a comment. And congrats on landing a Bankaholic link so early in your blogging career — that means you’ve already made it on the radar of Johns Wu (who figured out how to get $15 million from Bankrate).

Notes from the Road — I highly recommend checking it out.

This came into my inbox a week ago:

Hello,

I recently visited http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/ page and
I want to suggest a new site in the [Other Links] section

Title: CoreIndex.com
URL: http://www.coreindex.com/
Description :CoreIndex.com is a trade portal, market place and trade point for exporters, manufacturers, importers and all others related to export import trade. It has helped thousands of buyers and sellers to transact business directly without middleman.

Thank you very much,
Diana Parker

ummm….no thank you. Seriously Diana, please figure out a legitimate way to build links.

Note: I no-followed the coreindex link above.

I still can’t believe the Huskies lost to the Cougars in this year’s Apple Cup…here’s a funny video explaining the issue:

Google just marked one more Microsoft Office feature off their list — tasks are now integrated into Gmail. Sure, I still use Outlook and like it — but will that change in the next 5 years? At this pace of innovation, probably.

I certainly hope not. Here’s a passage from The Shack (a great book by the way) worth thinking about:

Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you can try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.

Lesson: don’t live your life in a fortress of lies.

If not, I think the data in this Publishing 2.0 article a few months ago (which I just came across from this article) will show you it makes zero sense to not link out to others.

DSC03481, originally uploaded by Bichu.

[via Perspective 2.0]

Here are a few pictures from my trip to the Dominican Republic that I wanted to share:

A Bank of Hope meeting in Boca Chica

Children at a school in San Pedro

Playa Grande near Rio San Juan

The ocean crashing against the rocks near Cabarete

Beach in Bayahibe

I come back to the states on Wednesday, so only one more day in the DR. Then back to reality.