I've been fooled by The Onion.

I regularly check my favorite news aggregation site, DIGG, for interesting articles on the stuff that matters in the world today.  Of particular interest to me are the Macintosh and Apple related articles.  My wife and I used to work for Apple Retail, and we are very fond of Apple as a company and of its products.  The company has established a brand, a reputation, and a cult following based upon its founder's ideal of "thinking different."

So imagine my surprise when I read this gem in the sidebar:

Apple Employee Fired For Thinking Different

At first glance, I thought it might actually be a story about some crazy guy who, literally, lost his mind and tried to form a jihadist movement at the Campus.  I also feared that the pending departure of Steve Jobs from the company might spurn some unexpected and very "corporate" policy changes.  I suspected that this might be the beginning of the end for Apple.

It's a good setup for a believable prank.

So I clicked the forward link and began reading the news article, which featured a picture of a young bearded fellow sitting in front of his Mac looking slightly serious.  I began to read the sad story of what led to this man's termination.

I was reading this aloud to my wife, who was half-paying attention.  It occurred to her as I was reading the last major paragraph—wherein Apple's human resources team carefully outlines the policies and parameters within which its employees might "think different"—that she suspected the whole thing might be a joke.

And that's when I scrolled up to the top and saw the green "Onion" masthead.  I had been duped by the greatest satirical newspaper of our time.  We had a great guffaw and all was right with the world again.

Grand Californian

Grand Californian
Originally uploaded by bradandmilly

Did you know there's a secret entrance to The Grand Californian in the middle of Downtown Disney? Ok, it's not so secret, but it's gorgeous. We hung around in wet shoes and pants taking a load of pictures on Christmas Day.

This excursion to The Happiest Place on Earth, was preceded by breakfast with Kern side of Brad's family. There was enough food to be had which included... awesome cinnamon buns (thanks Tawnie!), cheesy potatoes (thanks Debbie!), and spinach quiche (That was Tina, I think)!

Sadly, the rain would simply not go away and with Brad's shoes getting soaked, (his really nice work shoes, I hope the get all dried out today), we opted for just lunch at the resort and headed home to enjoy our spoils from the night before.

Be sure to click on the picture and see the rest of the set of pics we took at the resort!