We were surprised to hear that Swiss Army (Victorinox) was showing at CES. What, they developed a crazy small cell phone to slide into one of the slots of their famous knives? Not quite, but the SwissFlash features a removable 32GB USB drive with fingerprint authentication, laser pointer, and Bluetooth remote control for Windows-only PC or laptop presentations. You still get the key ring and plus a handy-dandy blade. Not shipping till May, it will cost you a cool $330. Call me old-fashioned, but I still find the corkscrew opener the most valuable tool on my ancient Swiss Army.

By:  Sarah                        Source

I am not trying to create a thong tree here. (For those of you new to this blog who are now snickering wildly at the words "thong tree" please visit this post . Or this one . Or this one .)

This is a tree I came upon in the woods at Roundrock on a recent visit. You can see that it has adapted well to some early trauma when it was probably held to the ground as a sapling. Note the large branch growing vertically on the left. There is another one on the right, but it gets confused with the snag that lines up perfectly behind it.

For trees in a forest, it’s all about reaching for the light and when this one was challenged some time in the past, it sent up the best branches it could to capture that light. Now I guess it will remain in this shape. We had a similar tree on the north-facing slope above the lake, but the ice storm last winter brought it down.

Usually when I look at these photos, I know exactly where they are from in my woods. That’s not the case with this one. I’m not sure I could return to it if I wanted to tie it to the ground with leather straps (thongs, y’all). When this happens, I go back to my photo library, which stores the images in the order I shot them. Sometimes I can see what other photos are on either side of it and then envision my walk through the woods using the other photos as landmarks. The photo immediately before it is of one of the new posts I have been planting along my unmarked southern property line. But that could be anywhere along a quarter mile of woods. The photo immediately after it was one I took over by our pond. Those two areas are quite far apart, so even if I had hiked in a straight line between them, that’s a lot of ground this tree could be hiding in.

Fortunately, I have not felt a strong need to find this tree again.

Happy Birthday, Nina!

Missouri calendar:

Chigger bites itch from blackberry picking.

Today in Missouri history:

Walter Williams was born in Boonville, Missouri on this date in 1864. As an advocate for crusading journalism, he helped form the journalism school at the University of Missouri and was one of the founders of the State Historical Society of Missouri.
On this date Missouri became the eleventh state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment granting suffrage to women in 1919.

By:  Roundrockjournal                        Source

Ok, I know it has been hot out and with it only being the beginning of July, it is just going to get hotter and hotter, which makes it difficult to dress for the office. Commuting on the NYC subway system offers lots of "don'ts" to critique. Just because it is hot out does not mean that you can wear a skirt up to you boo-boo. Now I know a lot of the girls that I have seen wearing clothes like that are younger and probably don't know any better, so I am going to give everyone a guide.

Breezy, cool and respectable. Full skirt in solids, $19.99 at Victorias Secret

I'm not going to add a link to this dress, but this is what you should NOT wear to the office. I actually saw a woman wearing something similar to this today.

By:  Ryan                        Source

In todays news there are some interesting articles globaly; Elliott Associates, a New York hedge fund firm, has bought a 9.9% stake in Epicor Software Corp. and is inquiring about possible strategic alternatives for the company.

Breeden Capital Management, another hedge fund firm, also disclosed a 5.25% stake in medical equipment maker Hill-Rom.

'The Path of Securities Lending - Will It Ever Change?' and 'Investment Outsourcing for the Hedge Fund World' are two articles by colleague Seth Berlin that address common questions in this volatile arena.

And finally, Reuters UK reports; "Vulture funds are finally saying debt from Spanish retailer Cortefiel is now cheap enough to buy, after waiting for months to see prices of the struggling company's debt fall further."

The funds, which have raised billions of dollars to invest on the hopes that a worsening global economy will depress debt prices, are closely monitoring the Spanish group whose debt trades at about 42 percent of its face value.

"At these levels, you have to start thinking," said a hedge fund manager, under the condition of anonymity.

By:  Alex Akesson                        Source

Concept and Animation by PES.