• Wow, after a week of mostly great weather in Newport, I come home to a pre-Halloween snowstorm in New Jersey. #

• @frostwoman Glad to see you regained control of your Twitter account. I hate to see that you’re sad, but I don’t miss the spam! in reply to frostwoman #
• I like the snow, but I really could have done without the layer of sleet & frozen rain in the middle of it. #

• Just finished making a big pot of rice pudding for our command’s Christmas party. #
• It just took me 3.5 hours to get home from work. How is it that a dusting of snow makes people forget how to operate a vehicle? #peoplesuck #
• This video is the definition of “WTF?” It’s the most bizarre collection of celebrities in history. http://bit.ly/dPWa0w #
• I went to 2 Christmas parties this week where they ran out of forks. Next year, I guess I should bring my own. BYOF? #

• Just started listening to Christmas music. Trying to jumpstart my Christmas spirit. Some late night shopping later tonight will help too. #
• I never understood why kids were mallrats when I was a kid. I still don’t. #
• Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone has a great turkey day! #
• It’s snowing on Thanksgiving! What a cool way to start the holiday season! (no pun intended) #
• Black Friday is the only morning of the year I’m happy to be out of the house WAY before the sun comes up. #
• The 15 hour long Black Friday shopping marathon has come to an end. It was a very productive year! #

• It’s often more interesting watching people look at art than looking at the actual art. #
• It doesn’t seem possible that more junk could come out of the basement yet it does and it still looks full! #
• This precipitation would be much more pleasant if it were snow. #
• Carried all my Christmas decorations up from the basement today. Not getting an early start, just cleaning & purging. Gotta love a snow day. #
• My sister Tami e-mailed me to say happy birthday. I don’t have a sister named Tami nor is it my birthday, but it’s the thought that counts. #

• I can’t believe @Discovery cancelled American Chopper! The show was just starting to get good again. It could’ve made a comeback. #
• No snow day tomorrow. Oh well, can’t have it all. At least we got a snowy weekend. #
• @Pogue What’s worse is CapitalOne Bank says they’ll only support Quicken 2010 soon. Dropped 07 users in Dec but rolled back change for now. in reply to Pogue #
• While I couldn’t care less about football, it’s nice to see the people of NOLA celebrating something positive after a crappy few years. #
• Best response to sleazy pseudo-religious freaks ever! “I have a sign” & “I was promised donuts” are my favorites.LOL! http://bit.ly/dxCGIi #
• Chances are looking good for a snow day tomorrow. #
• Nothing ruins 2 snows days off from work like a slip & fall injury. Oh well, could be worse, I could’ve run myself over with the snowblower. #
• How odd, my credit card company called. They flagged a $20 charitable donation as suspicious. Better too safe than not safe enough, I guess. #
• If this injury has taught me anything it’s that I’ll now have a point of reference anytime I call something a pain in the ass. #

• Best wishes to Captain Phil Harris (@CaptPhilHarris) for a speedy recovery! http://bit.ly/cEXGaa #
• Happy Groundhog Day! Way to go Phil, 6 more weeks of Winter! Yay! http://www.groundhog.org #
• I guess @Comcast will be passing on to its customers the cost of changing its name to something so dumb I won’t mention it here. Thanks alot #
• For those wondering, I have a filter that deletes Facebook invites. But feel free to e-mail, text or call me instead. #idontusefacebook #
• Snowblower fueled, firewood stocked up, staying in for the weekend… Bring on the blizzard! #
• @PhillyInquirer Why would a respected newspaper pass along one of the oldest hoaxes around? (about cell numbers) Seems irresponsible to me. in reply to PhillyInquirer #

• Finally watched Conan’s last show. Very impressed. He was really classy. I wish we could go back to seeing Leno at 11:35 and Conan at 12:35. #
• This is totally a First World problem, but planning a vacation is hard work! #
• RT @MythBusters: “”If It’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing” #mbquotes” – that’s my motto too #
• 14 degrees & snowing. This is what winter is supposed to be like! #

• It stinks that all 2 feet of the snow is gone already but probably will make BBQing easier tomorrow. #
• RT @NASA: “For the first time since 1990, there’s going to be a Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve http://bit.ly/7xg9o3" #
• RT @cnnbrk: “Knighthood for Patrick Stewart? Queen says make it so. http://bit.ly/5Y9RME" – Way to go Captain Picard! #
• Spending my 32nd consecutive New Year’s Eve with my grandfather. When you find a good tradition, you stick with it. #
• Happy New Year, tweeps! Hope 2010 is the start of a good decade! #
• RT @NASA: “Happy New Year! Congratulations on making it another 584 million miles around the sun!” #
• RT @embly917: “It feels like a Saturday. But I’m happy it’s only Friday and I still have a weekend of no work. ” – my thoughts exactly! #
• Mummers parade on TV and eating a ton of New Year’s Eve leftovers. 2010 doesn’t suck yet. #

• @frostwoman But it’s only a 3.5 day week. That’s gotta soften the blow a little. (2.5 for me with snow day & RDO! yay!) in reply to frostwoman #
• RT @NASA: “NASA’s Aqua satellite caught the East Coast after the weekend storm. http://tinyurl.com/yagpdxh" – wow! #
• Happy Festivus to all! http://bit.ly/5wHcvN #
• Merry Christmas to all! Hope Santa brings you exactly what you want tonight. Christmas Eve is by far my favorite day of the year. #christmas #
• Watch as NORAD tracks Santa’s journey today. http://bit.ly/5RalWp (@noradsanta) – a great Christmas tradition from the Defense Department #
• Last Christmas visit to this church. It’s going out of business 12/31. Will have to shop for new one for next year. http://twitpic.com/v05ut #
• RT @noradsanta: “Breaking news!! #Santa was just spotted in North America!!! ” – geez, better head to bed! LOL #
• I just saw Santa sitting in Luigi’s pizza. Silly us, leaving cookies & milk all those years. We should’ve left him a slice! #
• Happy Boxing Day! Glad I have nothing to return today! #

• Spent the day making corned beef and cabbage and the evening eating it. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day a few days early! #
• Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Listening to Irish music all over today. Comcast ch. 401 at home, XM ch. 15 in the car, iPod at work. #
• Nobody beats Buca di Beppo’s tiramisu. Even a diabetic can’t resist its rummy goodness.http://bit.ly/B4bZH #
• 35 degrees and snowing. This is my kind of Spring! #

• 53 degrees? This is supposed to be January. Where’s my cold weather?! #
• I cleared my sidewalk and half the block before work this morning. Is it too obvious that I love snow? #

• You have to check out this 1,474 megapixel image of the inauguration - http://tinyurl.com/c8jabs#
• Yay Snow! OK, few inches + ton of ice + a delayed base opening = working from home. Though I always wind up doing more work at home anyway! #
• Almost made it through January without getting the flu. Oh well, at least it’s the weekend. #

It’s amazing how far and wide-reaching the coverage of James Kim’s tragic death has been. Usually a tech journalist such as James has a small following who will pay attention to something like this (I’m among that group.) but his tragic demise has been covered by every news outlet imaginable. I can’t stand People magazine, but even they put him on their cover. CNN had a special about it tonight as well. Even competing tech media outlets are doing memorial pieces about him.

The latest news is that he actually walked 16 miles in his attempt to save his family, not the 10 that was first thought.

You probably already know that I was a huge fan of the long gone cable channel ZDTV/TechTV. One of the people who contributed to that channel’s success was James Kim. Last weekend he and his family disappeared while on their way home from Thanksgiving at a friend’s house in Oregon. After being lost in the snow for over a week his wife and children were found. James, however, had left them to find help 2 days earlier.

After an extensive search by land and air James’ body was found earlier today. It appears he was leaving a trail of clothing to help searchers track him, but they got there too late.

Besides losing a great technology journalist what strikes me is that this could happen to anyone. They missed a turnoff and looked at map and found another route to take. It was a National Forest Service road that, unkown to them, is not plowed in the winter. They became stuck and wound up staying in their car for a week with little or no food.

I’ve seen a lot of people who were critical of James’ decision to leave the family and car. But I can’t imagine how desparate he must’ve been at that point. They ran the car heater until it ran out of gas. They then burned the tires for warmth. Seriously, how bad does a situation have to be to push you to the point where burning your tires is the best option. After a week of being stranded, he had to think that they’d never be rescued unless he went for help.

Like I said, what is so scary is that this could happen to anyone. I mean I don’t expect that you could get quite that lost in the this part of the country, but there are is still plenty of wilderness in places like Oregon. It’s definately making be reconsider what I carry in my trunk.

You can donate to the family at the site set up by a friend while the family was missing at www.jamesandkati.com.

You can also view a tribute from his coworkers at C|NET.