Completely unrelated to the local and global economies, over the last 12 months we’ve also had some of the heaviest storms and rainfall that has happened in nearly 20 years and to top it all off we’ve even had a couple of burglaries that unfortunately targeted ours, and the surrounding, suburbs. But what was even more troublesome than the break-ins was the painful process of sorting-out the insurance claims that followed.

Fortunately we used this as a learning experience and improved the security on our home and purchased a fearless guard dog – George. Ok, perhaps he’s not entirely fearless… or more accurately he gets scared by most things that move (including his own reflection). And given the fact that he’s not much bigger than a Rugby ball with legs, he wouldn’t intimidate someone suffering from acute paranoia. But all that aside, bringing him into our family was one of the best things we’ve ever done.

So in our first year of home ownership a lot of crazy stuff has happened, but to be honest, I wouldn’t change a thing. With each financial, environmental and personal challenge (and everything in between) we’ve learnt some really valuable things and everything has always worked-out well in the end.

Now that I’ve gotten that heartfelt story off my chest, let’s move onto a bunch of meaningless links and other random internet finds…

The New Scientist has launched the first ever Scientific Twitter Experiment to determine if random users from around the world can accurately guess a location using nothing but mind power. The concept sounds a little crazy, but also quite fascinating, so it’ll be interesting seeing the results once the study is complete.

Last year a street-art project was launched where miniature hand-painted people were placed in various locations around London and then left to fend for themselves. The project, titled Little People is very cute and cool and the collection of photographs collected from the experiment have been collated into a book, you can purchase prints or go and view the photographs (and possibly even some installations) at the Andipa Gallery in London.

If you work in an office environment it’s difficult to make it through a day without being inundated with countless facts and figures, reports, spreadsheets, graphs or other (seemingly) important data. Now I don’t know about you, but I always find data a lot more appealing when it’s presented in an aesthetically pleasing way, like these 50 Great Examples of Data Visualization.

And on that note, I’m going to check my email, web-stats and have a quick skim through the latest updates on Twitter and Facebook, then I’m off to bed.

This post is about George going for a haircut and I was about to make reference to how his hair has gotten a little out of control lately.  I was thinking he’s got a doggie ‘fro, but that sounded kinda dumb, then I thought of saying he looked a little like the lovechild of a feather duster and a mop… but finally decided upon the simple, yet succinct term ‘furball’.

Until I Googled it, and found that the FurBall is an annual dance party held in Amsterdam specifically for hairy men and from a quick look at the website, I’d go as far as saying hairy, gay men… which wasn’t really the mental imagery I wanted.

Anyways… George was getting very fluffy, and needed a haircut, so I took him to get a trim.

The girl at the doggie groomers said she was pretty busy, but if we could drop him off in the next 10 minutes she could squeeze him in.  So Caleb and I jumped in the car, dropped George off and were advised he’d be ready in in about an hour.

When we went back to pick him up, Caleb almost didn’t recognise him – and to be honest, I think the groomer thought George was a girl… so without further ado, let me introduce you to Boy George:

I have to admit, it was pretty cute, but it really doesn’t help him with that whole ‘tough’ lapdog image.  Hey, who am I trying to kid, even without the bow, George is about as tough as I am which isn’t saying much for either of us.