If you take the first letter from Chris’ name, ‘C’, and add that to his last name, ‘Ritter’, you get ‘Critter’. And that’s what he is to us–the Critter.

I haven’t seen Critter since Dave’s wedding back in August 2001. I haven’t talked to him since the summer of 2002. It was really good to see the guy again. Critter is much happier, healthier, and wiser than the last time I saw him. And I’m really happy for him, he looks great.

On Friday Critter was in town for a baseball game–he’s an atheletic trainer for UCSB, and they were playing Cal. So after the game we drove out to meet him.

Dave, Ange, and I all crammed into my dad’s little Ford Escort to pick up Critter and head out for a bite to eat. North Beach Pizza in Berkeley is a cozy little pizza shack featuring home-made pizza dough and a shitty selection of draft beers. But we had a good time anyway.

Click here for pictures of the guys.

Mobility is a wonderful thing. It’s one of the best things about living in a free country, I think. If you really wanted to, you could drop everything and move to Alaska tomorrow. Now that’s freedom, baby!

The new Internet, what some people are calling “Web 2.0” is kind of a collection of web-based services that cater to people on the go. Here are my picks for most useful websites.

Gmail
Gmail is an awesome service. You get a free e-mail address that is accessable through any modern web browser anywhere in the world. The best part about Gmail is the storage–you get so much that you never have to delete another e-mail. Everything anyone sends you from now will be saved and can easily be searched for–and quickly found. Do you move around a lot? Do you often change Internet providers? Are you sick of new e-mail addresses that you must inform your friends, family, and co-workers of? Maybe it’s time you tried a web-based e-mail service like Gmail. No client to download, no IMAP SMTP POP settings to fiddle with. It just works. Windows, Mac, Linux… all you need is a web browser and an Internet connection. [Currently still in beta. If you want in, let me know.]

Writely
Writely is another web-based service. This happens to be a collection of Microsoft Office type applications like Word, Excel, etc.–all online. Your web browser is now your word processor! All your documents are available for you to work on from any computer in the world with a web browser and an Internet connection. Oh yeah, and it’s free.

30 Boxes
My buddy Phil introduced me to this web site. It’s an online calendar and it rocks. Add your appointments, birthdays, reminders and so on in an easy to use interface. Who needs a PDA? With 30 Boxes you can access your calendar at work, school, home, a cafe… all with a good ol’ browser and Internet.

Blogger
Many people have expressed an interest in starting their own blog to me over the past couple years. There are many free services, but I think Blogger is the best. It’s fast, it’s easy to set up, and of course it’s free. I think it has the best selection of templates. No software to run on your computer, everything is accessable over the ‘net.

So there you have it, my current favorites. I’m sure as time goes on more and more stuff will be available. Eventually we might even go back to the ol’ UNIX days with servers and dumb terminals. Wouldn’t that be something?