My Monthly Charity for February 2009 is Samaritan’s Feet.  Samaritan’s Feet is changing the world by giving new shoes to underprivileged children around the world that don’t have shoes.

“Samaritan’s Feet is a non-profit organization dedicated to changing lives though Shoes of Hope distributions around the world. 300 million people wake up each morning without a pair of shoes to protect their feet from injury and disease.The goal of Samaritan’s Feet is to provide shoes to 10 million of these individuals in the next 10 years by teaching them a biblical story of faith, hope, and love, demonstrating those truths in touching them by washing their feet, and treating them to a new pair of shoes and socks.“  Samaritan’s Feet’s Mission

28 years ago Emmanuel Ohonme of Africa was given a new pair of shoes by a good Samaritan that he would never forget.  That new pair of shoes would be the seed that was planted to grow into what is Samaritan’s Feet today.  The story of Emmanuel Ohonme is a great story about hard work and perseverance that made Samaritan’s Feet a reality. Now he and his organization are on a mission to give millions of pairs of shoes to those children that need them.  Read more about Emmanuel Ohonme at http://www.samaritansfeet.org/our-founder.

I first heard about Samaritan’s Feet when I was watching ESPN’s Sports Center, when a story aired about coach Ron Hunter along with other coaches that went barefoot during their games in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s sacrifices and to raise awareness for Samaritan’s Feet.  My first thought about this charity was this is a great concept and they’ve done a great job getting national attention, so I had to do it as one of My Monthly Charities.

Samaritan’s Feet is worthy cause that is out to help millions of children around the world protect their feet with a new pair of shoes.  A pair shoes is something many of us take for granted, so imagine living a normal day without shoes. I would surely struggling through that day.   A simple thing like pair of shoes can make a difference and I have a pair of new unworn shoes that I will be donating to them.  Learn how you can help out Samaritan’s Feet’s mission today.

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The count down to the new Watchmen movie from the visionary director of “300” is winding down and only  a few weeks away. As the release date nears, you’ll start to notice it everywhere as they hype up the movie.

Earlier this week I read about an unusual promotional product for the upcoming movie.  It was a matchbook that had a blue condom in it with the quote “We’re Society’s Only Protection“.  Get it, get it… that’s an awesome promotional product.  I first saw this on WatchmenComicMovie.com.

You can be just like Dr. Manhattan in color, at least in one area.

I personally think this is a great marketing ploy and I would love to get my hands on one.  Whether you like it or not, something controversial like this will usually get some buzz.  From a marketing standpoint I think it gets the job done creating a buzz from lovers and haters.

The excitement for the movie is building and I’m looking forward to seeing this graphic novel on the big screen.

The Watchmen are watching over us in bed.

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The other  day I was on the The North Face website and something went wrong and I ended up on their 404 page.  At first I didn’t think much of it, but after a closer look I found out that a goat ate their site and I was HA that’s a good one. Check it out the goat.

The North Face 404 page inspired this post so I went in search for some 404 pages and here are some of the good ones I’ve found:

Frye / Wiles

Kenneth Cole

Marvel

Comedy Central

My favorite one is still the The North Face goat causing rampage in all the the 404 pages I found.

Custom 404 pages are important to give your users a pleasant experience when something goes wrong. It doesn’t matter who’s fault it was, you want to keep users on your site and make it easy for them to search or navigate your site when this happens. Keeping it simple is probably a good thing too, but I personally don’t mind seeing a good humorous 404 page as long as I can navigate back to the site.

In my 404 quest I also found out something interesting about the Comedy Central 404 page. Not only is it a custom 404 page, it also redirects you back to the homepage after 20 some odd seconds. There usually isn’t any reason to stay on a 404 page, so redirecting your 404 page makes sense as long as it’s done in search engine friendly way.

Who would’ve thought 404 page could’ve been this fun.  Got some good 404 pages, show me what you got.

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I was on vacation last week from Wednesday night to Monday and I have returned from my journey to Mexico.  It wasn’t really a journey it was just a cruise to the island of Cozumel.  This was a new experience for me and chalk it up, now I’ve been on a cruise and Mexico.

It was a nice and relaxing vacation being on a ship for 3 days in the middle of the ocean. It was three days at sea and one day on land in Cozumel. I went on vacation with my girlfriend and our day on shore we did some shopping and went on jeep and snorkel shore excursion.

Early Saturday morning we arrived to this beautiful island surrounded by vibrant blue water, the weather was wonderful and we were on our way to our shore excursion.  I was a little disappointed with our excursion because we tried snorkeling but we didn’t get far.  You had to swim a ways out and water just wasn’t our element.  I had a hard time with using the flippers, boo I suck.  After giving up on the snorkeling we ended up getting a messages on the beach which was pretty sweet. The beach was picture perfect and I have to give shout out to our excursion guide Memo for leading an awesome fun filled tour.

Shopping in Mexico was definitely a new experience.  We took a taxi downtown and there were stores everywhere with people trying to sell you anything and everything, even screaming across the street for you just to take a look at their merchandise.  Cuban cigars and Tequila were in plenty, this was one hell of a shopping experience.

The whole time I was on the island I kept thinking to myself, this feels like I’m in a movie. The only thing I could relate Mexico to was what I’ve seen on TV and movies.  Anyways this movie that I starred in was awesome for me as I wandered the streets of downtown Cozumel.

The cruise itself was mediocre for me. Don’t get me wrong everything about the cruise was great, but personally I’d rather be out and about doing things.  Even though I think cruising isn’t my cup of tea, it was relaxing getting away from everything and I have to give praise to the fantastic service aboard the Carnival Inspiration.

That’s my vacation.  It was fun listening to me blabber on, but I’m sure it’s more fun to look at pictures, now to the visual portion.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, now it’s back to work on the big top secret project. It’s not really a secret but you’ll see it when it’s done sometime mid 2009.

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