Where were you on 9/11 ten years ago? As we approach the ten year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of  September 11, this question pops up more and more.

The New York Times has a website called The Reckoning that commemorates the attacks of 9/11, and includes a crowd sourced interactive map that allows you to share your experience, location, and feelings from that fateful day.

You can browse through submitted entries on the map,  people from around the world who said they felt either fearful, hopeful, secure, angry, or unmoved by the incident and see their recollections.

This website from the NYT also includes a slideshow documenting the rise and fall of the towers, as well as many other moving features that you can look through.

September 11th was a terrible day in history, and as the tenth anniversary approaches it’s good to reflect on what happened.

Everyone have a good weekend!

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week is the U.S. Department of Labor website which features information about the history of Labor Day and the first, nearly disastrous celebration of the holiday.

Although it was not declared a national holiday until 1894, Labor Day was first celebrated in New York City on September 5, 1882. Preceding the first official demonstration in 1882, there was a tradition of celebrations in support of labor issues.

September 5, 1882 was in the midst of the labor movement, with many unions in New York entering into on Central Labor Union. The parade marched through lower Manhattan while being watched by columns of police and club-wielding officers on horseback who were prepared to squash any attempts to create a riot. The parade which began with a couple hundred marchers ended at Resovoir Park with somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 marchers.

After the parade, nearly 25,000 union members celebrated at Wendel’s Elm Park to listen to speeches, eat, smoke cigars, and take part in drinking the “Lager beer kegs… mounted in every conceivable place.”

Now the holiday is celebrated by all laborers, not just those who are union members. Although, Labor Day has become more commercialized and family oriented, it’s good to see that 129 years later the general spirit of Labor Day is still alive in the millions of people who celebrate it.

Everyone have a great holiday weekend!

Join the multitudes of people today who are taking part in the 4th Annual Power IT Down Day. Just shut down your computer at the end of the work day today, and over the course of the weekend, the energy saved by the these thousands of computers will save thousands of costly kilowatt hours.

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week is supporting the cause of Power IT Down. It is a time of increasing frugality, where everyone is looking at cutting costs and saving money. To show that huge benefits  can be received by this minimal effort, Power IT Down’s sponsors (Citrix, HP, Intel, and GTSI) will donate the sum of money saved–which last year amounted to $60,000–to Wounded Warrior Project. It would be one of the easiest contributions you ever made!

As I’m writing this blog post, 10,000 people have already signed up to Power IT Down and 43,000 kilowatt hours have already been saved.

While turning off one computer doesn’t seem like much, by joining together, much can be accomplished.

To learn more about Power IT Down, you can like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and read this article from GovLoop.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Most innovative ideas that have changed the world as we know it had just as many doubters as supporters. With hindsight it is easy to say the opposition of such innovations such as the telephone and computer must have been short-sighted and unimaginative. While this could be true, there may have been good reasons for their doubt, but without knowing what their reasons were, it is very entertaining to look at the doubtlessly inaccurate predictions people have made in the past.

Today’s Highlighted Site Of The Week is a Timeline of Failed Predictions that is posted on FastCompany.com. The author compiled a chronological list of over 80 predictions that contradict what actually happened beginning in the 1700s all the way up to the 21st century.

These predictions include failed predictions for nearly every topic including politics, technology, “fads” such as the car and radio, and music.

Some of my favorites were:

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union, 1878.”

“Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force.” – British Prime Minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies, 1774.”

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” -Associates of Edwin L. Drake on his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.”

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.”

“The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works” – Clifford Stoll, 1995.”

It’s amazing to think of what would have happened if some of these predictions would have been right.

Have a great weekend!

Have you ever found yourself sifting through the intricate world of finances and economics hoping to find a simple solution to your problem, but more often than not only getting lost in the confusing and seemingly infinite information, guidelines, and tips?

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week is Visual Economics, which provides a wide selection of infographics on a variety of topics related to finance and economics.

Even if you consider yourself a finance guru, there are representations on VisualEconomics that contain information ranging from How Low Budget Films Get Financed to How Busy Americans Are that you may not have been aware.

To get started, here’s VisualEconomic’s best infographics of 2010.

Have a great weekend!

The U.S. Population has been increasing since the establishment of our nation. Regional populations across the United States have grown and have shrunk for a variety of different reasons ranging from the 1849 gold rush to urbanization that began in the U.S. in the 1900’s.

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week is Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census from The New York Times. This site contains 12 interactive maps which use demographic information collected by the 2010 Census.

These maps are divided up by county and show demographics of population, ethnic distribution, and vacant housing units. For their respective topic, each map shows the percent change in 2010 from statistics gathered from the 2000 census.

It’s very interesting and informative to browse through the United States and see the different population and ethnic distributions  compared to what existed in 2000.

Everyone have a great weekend!

When Americans feel that politicians aren’t doing an adequate job, what’s the popular response? To create political cartoons of course!

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week is The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

AAEC provides cartoons for you no matter what your party affiliation with a balance of cartoons poking fun at Democrats and Republicans alike.

With the current stand off between Republicans and Democrats about the budget and debt ceiling crisis, the political cartoonists of AAEC have taken advantage of the material provided to them. At least something entertaining can be created from the gridlock in the Capitol.

Browse through the numerous political cartoons submitted by day, filtering them by National & International or State & Local.

One of my favorite cartoons was this one.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

As August 2nd approaches and the federal government gets closer and closer to the possibility of defaulting on its debt, I’m sure there are many people out there who believe they could contribute a few of their own ideas to Congress and President Obama to aid in creating an improved national budget.

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week allows you to create your own national budget, giving you complete control over taxes and government spending. BudgetHero gives all the power to the player to decide if spending will be increased or cut on controversial programs such as defense, Social Security, and health care as well as to increase or decrease taxes on a number of different sources.

Each issue is represented by a card that includes a brief description of the policy change, the pros and cons of making the change, the impact on the nation it would have, and the 10 year impact it would have on the budget. Whether you are serious about creating a balanced budget or just experimenting with different possibilities, this game is a fantastic way of breaking the partisan barriers and seeing the difficulties that exist in deciding how the nation’s money should be spent.

I went through the game and created my own custom budget thinking I made enough cuts while keeping what I consider the important programs only to see that the government would still go broke by 2032. I suppose it’s a good thing the fate of the nation doesn’t rest in my hands.

This article from the Washington Post tells more about the game as well as about an upgrade to BudgetHero 2.0. Enjoy!

Everyone have a great weekend!

After governor’s move out of their governor’s mansions, how is all this valuable and beautiful real estate utilized? 

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week, Homes of Governors, is an article posted on CNBC. It provides pictures and descriptions of the amazing  homes of 10 former heads of state, ranging from the New Jersey mansion that once housed Charles Edison (son of Thomas Edison) to the former home of Arnold Schwarzenegger currently valued at $23.5 million.

When governors move on from their often multi-million dollar residences, these historical buildings are used for a variety of things. Of course some are bought and go on to become homes for other families, but sometimes they are turned into bed and breakfast guest houses, events venues, and historical landmarks.

The houses shown by this slideshow have housed anywhere from 1 up to 17 governors. Homes of Governors provides a great much needed break to the work-day.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Did you know that 13 Presidents of the United States experienced debt problems? It is very easy to believe that once someone ascends to the post of President of the United States that they will never have to worry about their finances ever again, but this is not always the case. Some presidents-such as John F. Kennedy who was worth the equivalent of a billion dollars today-were born into money, but others like Bill Clinton were born poor and earned a modest income before becoming the leader of America.

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week, All The Presidents’ Money, shows both the amount of wealth each U.S. President possessed as well as the public debt that existed at the beginning and end of their presidency, each adjusted for inflation.

On this site you can see how the public debt has fluctuated, beginning at the equivalent of $939.8 million at the birth of America under George Washington, hitting its lowest point of the equivalent of $6.3 million under Andrew Jackson, and consistently creeping upward until it surpassed the equivalent of $1 trillion during WWII, and hitting its current mark of a record $14.1 trillion.

It might come as a surprise to some to see the actual worth of each president as opposed to grouping all U.S. Presidents into the category of wealthy elitists (although many would most certainly fit into that category). Nine presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, were worth less than the equivalent of $1 million. This chart also provides some facts relating to the personal finances of the Presidents such that Herbert Hoover donated his presidential salary to charity and that John Tyler inherited a 1,000 acre tobacco plantation, but eventually died in debt because of the Civil War.

With the current budget and national debt debates going on today, its fun to see how the debt has developed throughout American history.

Everyone have a great weekend!

This week’s Highlighted Site Of The Week, American History Fun Facts, provides information on subjects like the American Flag, American Recipes, and Our Founding Fathers.

Did you know:

Grover Cleveland excluded the promise “to obey” from the traditional wedding vows when he married Frances Folsom at the White House on June 2, 1886?

Or:

It wasn’t until 1804 that the first formal Independence Day celebration took place at the White House.

You can learn even more facts if you visit the Fun Fact Back Issues provided by this website which provides a variety of topics that you can learn about.

If you want to know which presidents were nicknamed “His Roundity” or “His Accidency”, you can visit the  Presidential Nicknames page of this website and learn who the holders of those less than flattering nicknames were as well as the nicknames attached to other past presidents and the nicknames that have already been attributed to President Obama.

This site is a fun way to kill a little bit of time while still learning something about the United States of America.

Have a great weekend everyone!

For this week’s Highlighted Site of the Week, we visit the online exhibit for “The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden” at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

The museum’s website describes the actual “in-real-life” exhibit with these words: “This exhibition explores the personal, public, ceremonial and executive actions of the 43 men who have had a huge impact on the course of history in the past 200 years. More than 900 objects, including national treasures from the Smithsonian’s vast presidential collections, bring to life the role of the presidency in American culture.”

Fascinating Facts – Trivia abounds on The American Presidency site. Did you know Rutherford B. Hayes’ (1877-1881)wife Lucy was the first president’s wife to be called “first lady?” Did you know John Tyler (1841-1845) was the first president to use “Hail to the Chief” at official and diplomatic occasions to mark the chief executive’s arrival?

Life and Death in the White House – With the online exhibit, you can have fun exploring pictures of many of the historic items, like the hat President Lincoln was wearing the night he was shot. You’ll also find lighthearted items like President Warren G. Harding’s silk pajamas and the red “Flapper” evening dress worn by First Lady Grace Coolidge.

Communicating the Presidency – The American Presidency shows us the ways the office of the presidency communicated with the people before Facebook and Twitter – from horseback to telegraph, newspaper, radio, and television.

This site will even help you plan a visit to the actual museum.

Treasures in The American Presidency include campaign memorabilia; a list of the military service of the presidents, a long list of presidential biographies, and a little game called “All the President’s Children,” where you must match the picture of a president’s child with the correct description.

They have done a nice job with this exhibit.

Have a terrific weekend everyone!

If you want to locate information quickly on just about anything related to United States government, go to this week’s Highlighted Site of the Week, GovSpot.com.

GovSpot.com is a clearing house of information in the old tradition of web directories such as Yahoo. It has a clean interface and is easy to navigate. You will find pages devoted to government contracting online resources and federal election sites. The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of federal government have clearly laid-out links.

Need to find information in a hurry about state legislation? There is an interactive map of the states with all kinds of links to state government pages.  You can find local government resources as well!

There are many government news links, government reports, and podcasts, too. Take a look – GovSpot.com may be worth bookmarking.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Marketing Assistant Leah Hadgis gave me today’s Highlighted Site of the Week. It is Sporcle.com, an online collection of quizzes and brain exercises.

Leah is a fan of quizzes and brain teasers. She gave me a challenge – to try out Sporcle’s “U.S. Presidents quiz” and “the U.S. States geography” quizzes. I will be honest with you. I failed to finish the presidents quiz. All I had to do was fill in all of the names of presidents that I could remember and Sporcle popped them into their proper time slot. Oh yes, and I needed to do it in 10 minutes.

I was able to remember all of the presidents in the 20th century and all of the ones in the 1700s. But I I got lost in the 1800s and found just over half of the presidents from that century. Then all went blank, oh well. But I love geography and I was able to name all of the states in the 10 minutes given to me.

If you like quizzes, then Sporcle is the website for you. You can even download an app for your iPhone or Android. Let me know how you do!

Have a terrific weekend.