Periodic Ramblings

My parents always travel with their Boston Terrier.  One of the problems they run into is finding hotels that are pet friendly.  I decided to take a look if someone had addressed this and sure enough, someone did.

The site GoPetFriendly.com does exactly this. 

It allows you to search a city/area for hotels or campgrounds that are pet friendly.  It shows you the average rate for the location along with allowing you to select which amenities you would like to have at a location.

While my wife and I do not travel with our pet, there are a lot of people like my parents who feel more comfortable taking Fido with them.  This site allows them to search from one location for hotels that are pet friendly.

BBS is reporting that the Italian version of Wired magazine has nominated “the Internet” for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.  While I agree that the Internet has done a lot for communication among the people of the World, can it really win a prize like this?  I mean, who would be awarded the prize?  And remember the Internet was originally created as a US defense tool for increasing communication among institutions and military locations working on DARPA research projects.

I guess we will have to see what happens.

Here in the United States it is that time of the year when we fill out our 1040s and either send the IRS a check for what we owe or wait around the mailbox for the refund check.

To help with this preparation, the IRS has a wonderful online site filled with Tax Calculators, forms and other information useful in the preparation of the Income Tax form.  So, grab that pencil and calculator and head over to Starbucks for some coffee to get you through the process.

The Iditarod Trail Sled Race is currently taking place in Alaska.  This is a 1,150 mile long course through a myriad of different elements, and like every other major sporting event, it has a website complete with current leader boards and live updates.

So head on over to the Iditarod website and root on your favorite dog team.  Woof!  Woof!

Google announced Wednesday on the Official Google Blog that Bicycle directions are now present within Google Maps.  This adds to the walking, driving and public transit directions that can be selected.  Currently these bicycling directions are present for 150 areas.

If I choose my daily commute from Racine, Wisconsin to Brookfield, Wisconsin, I see that riding my bike would only add about 2 hours and 20 minutes onto the commute.  Maybe driving still is the better options for now.

It was smart enough to choose bike trails that are present in the Milwaukee area and looking at the map, it highlighted other trails that are bike friendly.  So grab your helmet and water bottle and tape your Google Maps directions onto your arm for easy reference.

One of my hobbies is studying weather.  The other day I was watching the local weather here in the Milwaukee area and a snow coverage map was shown of the United States.  I, of course, decided that I needed to spend more time on this and went to the web to see where this information was.  Upon a quick Google search, I came across the National Snow Analyses program at NOAA.

This site contains maps showing the current and historical snow coverage along with other maps of snow/water equivalency and snow melt.  Here is a current snow coverage map for the United States.