I enjoyed a busy birthday Friday.

The morning had me opening cards and presents. My first present, however, was Travis sleeping for a 6 and a half-hour stretch. Hurray! I collected many smiles and hugs before heading grudgingly off to work.

At the office, my phone rang off the hook, not with birthday wishes but with customers needing help. I juggled three or four customer issues at the same time, taking 20 minutes for lunch. I did get emailed greetings from family, which was a nice break from my work. I also had a nice chat with my brother Al, who was also celebrating his birthday.

I took my last call at 5:30 and headed home, where Kelly had made us a nice dinner. Afterward, I had a nice, lively chat with my parents. Then after lots of playtime with the kids, Kelly and I went to bed around 10 PM, after which Travis slept another marathon stretch during the night.

I know. Exciting, huh? But its all I really wanted. The best presents I’ll ever get are the smiles and the shrieking of “Daddy!!!” when I walk through the door. Who could ask for anything more?

The crummy weather this weekend got Kelly and me thinking about doing the indoor jobs that need doing. A large number of jobs involve painting rooms, so we headed down to our local hardware store for some paint samples.

Whenever I walk up to that wall of paint samples, my mind goes blank. I just can’t pick out any colors for a project – they all start to look the same! Fortunately, there was a couple behind us who were staring at a newly-installed kiosk. They were painting their house in pixels using Lowe’s Virtual Painter. This tool is the answer to my painting funk. I bought the last CD in the rack for $6.

The software lets you overlay a picture of your existing room with whatever paint you’d like to experiment with. You can then see what your room will look like in the shade you’ve chosen. Nothing makes choosing paint easier than seeing that color in your room with your things in it.

In our last house we wound up painting one room twice because we changed our mind about the color. You can do this instantly using the software. You can click through the rainbow. Very cool.

Its an impressive way to test-drive colors without the work, and a truly practical use for “Photoshop”-type technology. If you’re thinking of doing any painting, get this CD and check out the finished product before you lift a brush.

Now we just need to upgrade to the Pro version, which does the actual painting. I guess that version was sold out.

Former Tonight Show host Johnny Carson passed away today after a long battle with emphysema. He was 79 years old.

Nothing was more American than the Tonight Show, when Johnny use to tuck our country in for the night. You could turn on the TV at night and know that no matter what happened earlier in the day, everything would be all right.

His comedy will live forever in American culture. He was one of my heroes. So long, Johnny.