The BananaForce top 7 campaign merchandise items...

7. The Barack Obama Pinata

We really aren't sure if this item is for supporters of Obama or McCain, however either way I'm sure you can work a Barack Obama Pinata in your up coming convention or debate parties. Everyone loves a pinata.

6. 17" Sugarloaf John McCain and Barack Obama Plush Dolls

They're cute, they're cuddly, they're just plain fun to hug. Give the ole teddy bear a vacation, and snuggle up with a John or Barack doll. You'll sleep better for sure. There's no better way to show support during your sleeping hours than with a plush candidate at your side.

5. Dave's Gourmet Barack Obama Presidential Candidate Hot Sauce Collectors Series

Nothings says I support Barack Obama like a gourmet bottle of hot sauce.

Picture this - You are sitting around a table at your local Taco Bell with your buddies. They're about to use the Taco Bell provided house sauce when you pull out a bottle of "Dave's Gourmet Barack Obama Presidential Candidate Hot Sauce." Your friends will be thrilled and impressed. This was the "change" they had been looking for.

This product could work just as well for the McCain supporters if presented to the right people groups. For instance, there exists a people group in the Midwest where every day table pepper is considered a hot spice. These folks are often of Norwegian descent and are use to bland white foods such as cod fish and lefse. Sharing some Barack Obama hot sauce with them will give them such a shocking experience the Obama association may never be reconciled.

4. The Obama Action Figure

Hey, if it worked for Jesse Ventura it just might work for you. You can make Barack battle for change! Remember, "politicians have powers the average man can't comprehend!"

3. John McCain or Barak Obama for President in 2008 Party Lights

Are you heading out to do some end of summer camping? Show those other campers who you support by stringing up campaign party lights. The magical glow is sure to whew them into a vote for your candidate.

2. Presidential Candidate Barack Obama or John McCain Glow-in-the-Dark Bottle Stopper

Glow in the dark baby. It doesn't get any cooler than that.

1. Barack Obama - Obama-Rama Air Freshener

How can you go wrong with the fresh scent of Barack? Sorry McCain folks, but we couldn't find McCain Air Freshener. Apparently the scent of John McCain just doesn't sell as well.

Growing up we had the cool TV. A Zenith Space Command System 3 console TV with Space Phone. I have no idea how many times I pressed the channel changer on that remote. I watched a good many hours of Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch. This TV was very good to me.

One of the cool features of this TV was the Space Phone, a low-fi speaker phone that was built into the TV. While watching TV, the whole TV would ring and interrupt the audio of whatever you were watching. I'm pretty sure the speaker phone was single duplex, meaning only one end could be talking at a time; otherwise the other party would be cut off. When dialing the phone, the phone number would show up on the screen in a black box. All these features could be controlled by the "computer space command" remote. The microphone was on the TV, so you needed to make sure you talked loud. Friends were always impressed to sit around and talk to a TV, an experience that truly made you feel part of the future. (Note: if on the other end of the phone conversation your feelings were more of annoyance and frustration because the audio quality of the call was so poor.)

Well, this TV had a good run. It eventually ended up in my parent's basement in my Dad's exercise room, and after some time, the TV did go out. When this happened, my Dad impressed me and did a little console TV recycling.

My Pop decided to make a stereo cabinet out of the old console TV. I thought this was a good idea, so we took some before and after pictures to show the world.

The TV before:

After carefully removing the guts of the TV, and creating a shelf to match the console cabinet, my Dad ended up with this stereo cabinet / TV stand.

We may not have the Space Phone anymore, but at least we have the memories.

While it is true that not all cache page info can be transfered to the GPSr, a good portion of the info can be stored in the comments. Enough info to find 90% of those urban traditionals.

Even if you are paperless caching with a PDA, iPod, laptop, blackberry, or even paper, we suggest using this method to load your GPSr with the maximum amount of info. At certain caches you will not need to dig out the other device if you have the basic info already stored into your GPSr.

We have chosen to load the difficulty rating, the terrian rating, the type of cache, the size of cache, the name and hidder in the waypoint comment field. All this info can come in really handy when hunting a cache, plus it doesn't take up that many characters when dealing with a limited amount of space.

Here is how we do it:
Load your pocket query results (GPX file) from geocaching.com to GSAK (I used Version 7.2.2.23).

When you are ready to send the way points to your GPSr, go to the top menu bar and click on "GPS" then "Send Waypoints ..."
Then under "Waypoint description" put the following:

D:%Dif/T:%Ter/Typ:%typ1/Size:%con1 %Name by %By

T - Traditional
M - Multi
B - letterbox hybrid
C - CITO
E - event
L - locationless
V - virtual
W - webcam
O - Other
G - Benchmark
R - Earth
I - Wherigo
U - mystery/Unknown

R - regular
L - large
M - micro
S - Small
V - Virtual
U - unknown

%Name - the name of the cache (often the name can be a good hint to where you may need to look)

%By - who placed the cache (if looking for a cache by a cacher you are familiar with knowing who hind it can also be helpful, cause you may have learned the way they think.)

More GSAK special tags can be found here.

Happy Paperless Hunting

Web Traffic Trends

As the vast population uses the Internet on a daily basis for an increased number of daily tasks the world wide web is becoming more ingrained into our way of life. So if we could measure the web traffic each candidate is getting at their web site, it should give us a good idea how the given candidates are doing in their campaigns.

So who do you think is getting more web traffic? Barack Obama or John McCain

Alexa.com collects web usage data from millions of Alexa toolbar users, adds that to some other data sources and then cranks it all through the magical Alexa computer which then outputs groovey stats about different web sites on the Internet. Think of it as the Nielsen ratings for the Internet.

Let's look at some Alexa stats and see what they say about the current presidential election between John McCain and Barack Obama.

Reach

Reach is the percentage of all Internet users that visit a particular site.

Page Views

Pages views are the amount of pages viewed by a user when visiting a site. So if the user just went to the front page, then that would just be one page view. But if the visitor looked at 10 different pages at the site they would then have a page view count of 10. The page view statistic given by Alexa is the average number of page views by all visitors that visited the given site.

Rank

The traffic rank is a value derived from both the "reach" and "page view" statistics.

It appears that Barack Obama is our clear leader based on these web traffic reports. This probably isn't much of a surprise since he has been campaigning much harder in the primary than John McCain who was determined the front runner for his party much earlier on. However you can see the June data for John McCain is increasing a bit more while Barack Obama's data is staying about the same. So we can tell that McCain's campaign probably picked up a bit more steam in June of 2008.

We are going to keep watching the web traffic trends of this election here at BananaForce, so check back and see how the traffic trends continue as we get closer to the big election.

So when I got my iPod Touch I assumed that I could use the same method, but would have the advantage of a larger screen size. But I found it wasn't that easy. The iPhone and iPod Touch do not allow you to enable disk for the device, like you can with the other iPods. Enabling the disk allowed you to save files to the iPod, or for the purposes of contacts, allowed to update the contact files. So for awhile I was stuck. I know there are some apps that could be installed for geocaching for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but part of me wanted to figure out how to do it the old fashion way. Then it hit me. If I can sync with Yahoo! Address Book, maybe I could upload my caching listing there and then sync with my iPod Touch. And that is essentially what I did.

Here are the steps I found for getting your cache listings into the iPhone/iPod Touch as contacts.

Load your pocket query results (GPX file) from geocaching.com to GSAK (I used Version 7.2.2.23).

Now export the file to GPX:

1. File -> Export -> GPX/LOC File ...
2. Select file type -> "GPX file"
3. File name to create - "C:\Program Files\gsak\temp\iPhone.gpx"
4. Under "Include additional child waypoints" the "Yes" check box should NOT be checked.
5. "Include user notes in export" should be selected
6. "Include GSAK extra fields in export" should be selected
7. "Waypoint name" - "%code"
8. Cache description - "Name by %By (diff: %Dif/terr: %Ter/Type: %typ1/Size: %con1)"
9. "Also apply to cache name" should be selected
10. Click the Save button
11. Name the export "iphone"
12. Click the generate button

Now lets do a custom export to create the vCard (.VCF file)

1. File -> Export -> Custom Export
2. Under Generate GPX file the "Yes" check box should be selected.
3. Select "iphone" from the drop down box
4. In the Statement to Run field type: "C:\Program Files\gsak\GPSBabel.exe" -N -i gpx -f "c:\Program Files\GSAK\temp\iPhone.gpx" -o vcard -F "c:\iPhone.vcf"

1. Log-in to http://address.yahoo.com/
2. Click on "Import contacts from another application" link
3. At the Step 1. Screen Select vCard (.VCF file) from the drop down list
4. Click the continue button
5. At the Step 2. Screen just click continue again.
6. At the Import Contacts Step 3 Screen browse to file vCard (.vcf file) we created above ("c:\iPhone.vcf")
7. Click the continue button

Now the caches should be in the Yahoo! Address Book.

Now in iTunes we need to set up the iPhone/iPod Touch to sync Yahoo! Address Book.

1. Select your iPhone/iPod Touch under devices on the left hand side of the screen.
2. Now select the "Info" tab.
3. Under the Contacts section check "Sync contacts with:" and then select "Yahoo! Address Book" from drop down list.
4. Click the configure button and enter in your yahoo log-in info.
5. Select the "all contacts" radio button.

Now the next time you Sync your iPhone/iPod Touch the cache listings will be copied to your contacts.

And that's how you do it.

This album is much more than a kids lullaby album, in fact I'm not sure the last time the kids heard it. We listen to it more than they do. It is just beautiful. I don't even know how to explain it. The album has a wide range of numbers including tracks sung in Finnish, Karelian, Sami, Gaelic, Spanish and Yiddish. Not always sure what is being said, but still very relaxing.

Have you ever had a baby scream in your face, and you just couldn't figure out what they need/want? Well, you aren't alone, this is common with most parents. Many have thought that babies don't really know how to talk very well. Well, that really isn't 100% true. Turns out they can talk, just not with their mouths. Babies can learn Sign Language. And it ain't too hard.

When we attempted the whole teaching your baby sign language, we really didn't know where to start. We had intended to start sign earlier, but didn't go too gung ho. We knew a few signs - More, Milk, Eat. So we used them here and there, but wasn't sure if it was really sinking in. But then all of a sudden the little guy started using them at about 14 or 15 months. Whoa! So off to the book store to find a book on Baby Sign Language. My wife looked around, but guess who found the perfect kit on a kid reachable self. Mr. I'm only 15 months old himself. We found the SIGN with your BABY - Baby Sign Language (ASL) Kit: Includes Book, How-to DVD, Quick Reference Guide by Joseph Garcia to be excellent. My wife read the book, we both watched the video and we were off to a great start. Since then, our little dude has been picking up signs faster and faster.

We also found some kids books to help your kid learn Signs. Our little dude has read the Bedtime one. I was surprise at how well he responded to the pictures. He did the signs that the kids were doing in the pictures. It made the book great fun to read.

Baby Signs for Bedtime (Baby Signs) by Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn

Baby Signs for Mealtime (Baby Signs) by Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn

Baby Signs for Animals (Baby Signs) by Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn

Since the stainless steel Klean Kanteen is a much better conductor than a plastic bottle, the temperature of your favorite beverage will be noticed much more on the outside of the stainless steel bottle. So if you were to fill the bottle with icey water, the bottle would feel much cooler than it would with the hard plastic style water bottle. The Klean Kanteen also has more potential to be dented when dropped than a durable hard plastic water bottle. Thus, the BananaForce family created water bottle holders for their new fleet of water bottles.

The instructions below can be used to create water bottle holders for the 12 oz, 18 oz and 27 oz Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottles.

1. For the main part of the holder, cut a piece of pre-quilted fabric or fleece that measures 10 1/4" x 6 1/4” (this is for 12 oz size; cut piece 10 1/4 “ x 4 1/4" for 18 oz bottle and 10 1/4" x 9 3/4” for 27 oz bottle).*

2. For contrasting piece on the top of the holder, cut a piece of fabric (cotton, or cotton poly mix) measuring 3" x 10 ½ ”.

   Fold over ½ “ on both ends and press. Stitch with 3/8" seam allowance. Fold piece in half the long way and press.*

*If you want your contrasting fabric to show a little more, add ½" to it and subtract 1/4" from main piece. Or for even a little more, add 1" to contrasting fabric and subtract ½" from main piece.

3. Center and pin contrasting fabric onto right side of main piece with raw ends matching.

   Sew together with ½" seam allowance. Zig-zag raw edge. Fold contrasting piece up and away from main piece and press.

4. Cut four lengths of ribbon or bias tape measuring 2 ½" in length. Fold over ½" on both ends and press (all four pieces).

   Find center of main piece and mark with pin. Place ribbon pieces with their centers measuring 2 1/4" from center pin in main piece. Lower ribbons should be 1" above lower edge, and upper ribbons should be 1/4" below contrasting fabric. Sew on ribbon pieces very close to outer edges of ribbon (approximately 1/8").

5. Fold project in half with right sides facing. Pin and sew along side with ½" seam.

6. Cut two circles of fabric measuring 4" in diameter–one of the contrasting fabric, and one of something a little sturdier (I used a recycled piece of denim). Pin pieces together and sew in fun pattern to hold them together.

7. Draw a seam line around bottom of main piece ½" from the bottom. Make a small cut (about 3/8") every inch or so around base. Pin circle to main piece with right sides together. Sew together following your ½" seam guide line.

   Trim seam to 1/4" and clip out a small triangle every inch or so being careful not to cut into the seam. Turn holder right side out.

8. Insert a cord through contrasting piece and put on a spring loaded cincher. Tie a knot in the end to keep cincher from falling off. Lace strap through ribbon loops and attach to plastic strap-adjuster piece. Optional: fold over and sew adjustable end of strap so it doesn’t slide out of adjuster.

9. Insert water bottle and go!

10. Enjoy!