Monthly Archives: January 2009

Surfing and Reading Shares

There are blogs that I read on a regular basis and then there are articles I read just because the title catches my attention and I just have to click to see what it’s about.  Here are some that caught my interest tonight:

“Screw Flowers–You Need Cheesecake!”

What a great idea.  When friends are going through something rough, why not send cheesecake intead of flowers.  I love it!
Silver-lined Excrement
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look.  Turns out she has an elderly dog who is losing control of his er…bodily functions.  Her dad reflects on the silver lining (it wasn’t HIS poop).  Guess you’ll just have to read it.

10 Sure-Fire Ways to Be a Complete Failure At Everything
Ya, like I need directions for THAT???  What a surprise – I have 7 through 10 down pat!
Please Speak Clearly, Lord, I Have Children.
Self-explanatory
We Live in Public (and the end of empathy)

This one is thought provoking.  I have been thinking about it since I read it and while I think that we do tend to depersonalize on the internet, I have to wonder how much of that is caused by being online and how much is just an online reflection of our society.  I see some mean-ness but I tend to associate (online and off) with people that I have things in common with and for the most part they are NOT mean.  So which way does the mirror point?  I think personally I am more careful about what I say online than I am in face-to-face conversations instead of the other way around.

While I was wandering I ran across these two sites that I thought were cool – for kids a new search engine that utilizes Google’s safe search to “eliminate inappropriate material” : http://www.kidrex.org/

The next one is one I will use a lot – http://fatburgr.com/

When you go to a restaurant, do you know the nutritional content of what you’re ordering? We didn’t either. Fatburgr gives you nutritional information from your favorite restaurants.

I’ll have to walk a lot to undo the damage my supper did – 740 calories and 72 carbs and it was small!! Yikes!

Life And The Weather

The weather is conspiring against me!  It rained all day yesterday and into the night and we woke up to ice.  We went to work late so I missed my evening walk yesterday and my morning and evening walk today.  I will walk in the morning but I HATE missing at all.  To top it off I have thirty computers to load with operating systems and software and will be gone all next week.  The short day today put me way behind with that.  I am frustrated and there are other commitments this week that are complicating things.  I am really looking forward to heading to Austin and having nothing to worry about but soaking up technology (and I won’t have to worry about finding time to walk – I’ll walk all day) and relaxing at night.  I have a couple of books to carry with me to read, extra batteries for my mp3 player, and I will make a strong effort to leave worry up here.

Number one son found a house and room-mate so hubby is going down to help him move tomorrow – again.  It is a good thing hopefully.  The place he is living came with baggage – a Scottish landlord who likes his beer (duh) and a week ago got into an actual fist fight with someone.  The day before there was a shooting at the apartment house next door.  My checkbook will be crying again.  We can’t squeeze much more out of it.

Daughter has an interview at Texas A&M Honors College while I am gone so please keep fingers and toes crossed, say a few prayers, and think positive thoughts.  She wants it badly and I want it for her.  She is a great kid and it is time something great happened for her.

Walking At The Speed Of Sound

I have been walking at least 5 miles every day.  I get to work at 7 A.M. and walk between 2 and 3 miles and then do about the same after supper at night.  I have hit another “plateau” but I am determined to work through it.

I have been faithful about it which surprises me more than anyone I think.  There have been a few nights when I didn’t walk as far as I would have liked because it was so cold it hurt to breath in the air.  Tonight that wasn’t the case and I squeezed in about another half mile which is good because I needed to make up for the Mexican food I ate for supper.  I have been craving quesadillas!

Tonight it tasted like rain.  It looks like most of the actual rain went east of us but you could feel and smell it in the air.  It was cool enough to need a light jacket but warm enough that I was sweating by the time I got home.  There is something very relaxing about walking in the dark with music playing in my ears.  I shut everything else off for an hour or so and just concentrate on the music and moving forward.

Thank goodness for Coldplay, Iron and Wine, John Mayer, James Blount, Jacks Mannequin; not to mention CSNY, Traffic, Indigo Girls, Grand Funk Railroad, and Van Morrison.  There are more and I have to tell you guys – I couldn’t do it without you!  I think to myself “I’ll cut this a bit short tonight” and then a good song comes on and I keep walking to hear the rest of it.  I’m not walking miles – I’m walking songs.  Whatever works.

How long before I get in
Before it starts before I begin
How long before you decide
Before I know what it feels like
Where to, where do I go?
If you never try then you’ll never know
How long do I have to climb
Up on the side of this mountain of mine

All that noise, All that sound
All those places I got found
Birds come flying at the speed of sound to show you how it all began
Birds come flying from the underground
If you could see it then you’d understand

Time for a bottle of water and a shower – goodnight world!

It’s Great To Visit & Great To Come Home

We went home for a late family Christmas get-together this weekend.  The was gumbo, and desserts, and babies to rock.  I did some figuring when we got home and there were 31 of us.  That’s a lot of gumbo 🙂 The weather was not too cold so the kids were able to get outside and run a bit which was a blessing!

I met my new great-nephew for the first time and it turns out he has impeccable taste.  Every time he needed a nap I was the one who could get him to go to sleep.  It turns out that he prefers Elton John’s “Daniel” over Barney songs.  He is the most easy going, serious, snuggly baby. We got in the rocking chair and I would sing quietly and he would lay his head down and just stare up at me and in a few moments his little eyes would close and he would be out like a light.

I got the nicest gift from my sister-in-law.  It was a necklace that belonged to Dale’s mother.  She always wore it at Easter since it is shaped a little like an Easter egg but it could be worn anytime.  I always thought it looked so pretty on her, so it means a lot to me that Pam gave it to me.

I guess we are officially old and set in our ways because we woke up Sunday morning at 3:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Not wanting to wake anyone else in the house, we snuck out thinking we could find somewhere that I could get coffee.  We might have found somewhere if we wandered around town long enough but we ended up at WalMart.  WalMart is actually pleasant at the time of morning.  we saw three people who were not employed by the store the whole time we wandered around there.  By the time we got back to the house Pam was up and ready to cook piles of eggs, bacon, biscuits, and sausage gravy which was consumed almost as soon as It was cooked.

I got in a walk after breakfast and saw a couple of deer.  The house is about 3 miles from the main road so you never know what you will see.  It was quiet and peaceful.

Everyone started loading up to go home after breakfast and it looked like some kind of mass exodus.  We left around 10:30 in the morning to come home and by the time we got home we were so sleepy. Starting your day at 3:30 has repercussions later but we are glad to be home and rested and ready to get back in our routine.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars

This weekend we will get together for a late family Christmas in Louisiana.  My job is to bring a dessert and I am bringing our family traditional Christmas goody that I have been making since Number 1 son was six and informed me that I had to make them for Christmas FOREVER.

Keep in mind that the recipe is for a double batch – 2 9×13 pans.  It’s easy to halve if you like.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2 18 ounce packages of chocolate chip cookie dough

2 8 oz. pkg of cream cheese

1/4 cup butter

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cans of Eagle Brand

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

12 oz. pkg of mini chocolate chips

Put cookie dough in the pans and let it soften a bit.  Press it into the bottom of the pans.  Beat together softened cream cheese, butter, and cornstarch.  Beat in Eagle Brand.  Add eggs and vanilla.

Pour over the cookie dough and sprinkle with handfuls of choclate chips.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  Let cool and cut into bars.  Refrigerate.

I just gained a pound typing that 🙂

Plastic Babies and Random Weirdness

Yesterday I walked into the office of a friend and she was going to show me baby  dolls that had been purchased for the kids taking the classes in parenting.  The dolls are realistic and are hooked to a computer so that if the baby cries and the “mom” doesn’t feed, change, love on it – it is recorded.  It records other things too.  As we were about to open the boxes to look at some her phone rang and I proceeded to get one out while she answered the call.

As I turned, looking at the doll and reading the warning on the package another friend walked in and I had to ask – isn’t this a tiny bit ironic?  The doll was in a plastic bag that carried the usual warning – Keep away from children, choking hazard, can cause asphyxiation.

As I told hubby about it that evening, he asked “Was the doll blue?” When I replied that it wasn’t he looked up from the paper he was reading and said “It’s not very realistic then is it?”

And people think my humor is twisted…

Burn Audio CDs Using iTunes

Burning An Audio CD Using Your Mac

My last Mac post I talked about how I am not fond of iTunes.  That said, one thing that iTunes does nicely is burn your MP3 files to an audio CD that you can play in any CD player.

The first thing you need to do is create a Playlist. To do this either press the Command key and N or go to file and click New Playlist.  Give it a name so you will remember what it is.

Click on the Music icon under library in the sidebar to see all your music.  Put a check in the little boxes to the left of each song you want to include in your playlist.  Keep in mind that a CD will hold about 74 minutes of music.  You will see approximate times of each song to the right of the song name.  Average is about 18-19 songs, but you can add those minutes up to be sure you don’t have too many songs for your CD, then delete or add as needed.

When you have your Playlist created, select it and place a check next to each song if they are not already checked.  Insert blank CD in the drive. Right click (control-click) on the playlist title and select Burn Playlist to Disc. A Menu box will pop up. Make sure Audio CD and Use Sound Check are selected.  The other defaults should be fine.  Sound Check will adjust the volume so that all your songs play at the same volume level.

Click Burn and wait – iTunes will beep when it is complete.  That’s all there is to it 🙂

Also posted at PHS Computer Project Lab

Friday Notes To Self

This is just one example of how my day was yesterday. At one point I got up from my desk and walked to the printer. When I got back there was a voice mail on my cell phone. As I listened to the voice mail, the phone on my desk rang. It was the person who had left me the voice mail. As I spoke with them on the landline, my cell buzzed again. It was someone calling to tell me that the person on the landline was trying to reach me.

This was all because the Barracuda mail server had to be rebooted and some other things and when I told people they could get back in to their email, this person got an error. Told them to try restarting – the world is saved.

We panic without our email. (note to self – stop giving out cell phone number)

A student kicked a power strip and shut down the whole middle row in the lab. I got to crawl around on the floor trying to figure out which power strip. (note to self – buy some new power strips, The old ones don’t light up anymore when they are on)

I put a computer on the domain that had been forgotten. It lived in an office way in the back of everything. There was a big cup of sunflower seeds on the desk and mouse droppings all over the place. Every time I touched the keyboard I could just imagine little mighty mouse skittering across it, piddling as he goes. I washed my hands four times and used some germ-x. Eeew. (note to self – buy more germ-x)

The table around my printer is littered with a lot of unwanted pictures that were printed by students who have been in the lab for several days with a sub. The behavior was not that bad considering but they didn’t seem to have a good grasp on what they wanted and so a lot of trees died and a lot of printer ink was wasted which makes me growly.

Note to self – THANK GOODNESS IT WAS A FRIDAY!

Hearts And Rubberbands

I sent a book to the son of some friends for Christmas.  The book is called “How Far Does a Rubber Band Stretch” and it was one of my son’s favorites when he was little.  The story is about a little boy who decides to see how far a rubber band can stretch and so he hooks it around his bedpost and heads out the door.  He takes various modes of transportation including a ship across the ocean, an airplane, and ultimately a rocket.  The rocket lands on the moon and as he steps out the door there is a loud BOING as the rubber band finally snaps.

If you have ever had a child move out on their own for the first time, you know that the story lies.  A rubber band stretches from your child all the way to our heart, no matter how far they travel.

Tonight as I wait for the front door to open and close and the tv to go on in the room across the hall I feel the tug of the rubber band and while my head knows I won’t be hearing those sounds – my heart is still going to listen.

Fire At Christians In Action

Sadly, there was a fire at a local shelter this morning and 5 people were killed. There were about 30 men staying in the shelter and there was talk about 2 people that had not been found but I don’t know if that is still an issue.

I pray that those men never knew anything. My prayers also go out to the men who survived, and to the firefighters and other officials who were involved.  My brother was a volunteer fireman and had to be involved with several recovery situations and I remember how horrible it was for him to deal with.  I can’t imagine and don’t want to try.

Blog Tweets

I am just trying out Twitter Tools for WordPress after editing a line to personalize how it is introduced on Twitter.  Fun! (now to see if this works!)

Wow, cool!  It worked.  Thanks to CogDog for the howto 🙂

Progress!

I had to hunt for a belt this morning.  That may be too much information for most of you but the fact that I had to actually hunt for one should tell you that I haven’t needed one for awhile.  I am nearly to the halfway mark of my initial goal and I was tired of hitching my pants up constantly.  I finally made it past the “plateau” (at least the first one) and I am walking everyday.

The funny thing about losing weight is that once you start, every pound lost motivates you to work at losing more.  I make conscious decisions about not what I eat or don’t eat now.

I may have to shop for new jeans before too long 🙂

Controlling Your Media On Your Mac

I love using a Mac and have always found that most of the applications for it work almost intuitively.  The only application that I really can’t make myself like is iTunes.  I guess if I used an iPod I might be more motivated to work with it but as much as I have tried, it just seems too much like a lot of Microsoft apps in that it tries to take over and do things without you asking it to.

One of the things that aggravated me the most was that it would default to opening any media you double clicked on and not only does it open it – it copies it.  If you clicked on a video clip attached to an email it would end up with a copy in your downloads folder and a copy in iTunes.  That means that if you want to completely delete the file you have to delete it both places.  While not a huge deal it is still an extra irritating step, not to mention cluttering up your Mac.

I prefer to use Songbird which is an opensource media player that looks similar to iTunes but I usually just open audio files in VLC Player and video in Quicktime.

Today I learned that it needn’t be so! I am no longer a slave to iTunes! This may be obvious to more experienced Mac users but it’s one of those little things I didn’t know I needed to look for.

The first time you open a media file (you will need to do this for each kind – mp3, avi, whatever kind you want to open with another application instead of iTunes) – right click on the file and click get info. In the Open With section you can click the side arrows and see a list of the applications you can choose to set as default.  I use QuickTime Player for most things and then I sort files into folders the way I want to see them.  I can then have SongBird import what folders I want – you can do the same with iTunes if that is your preferred media player.

If you want to find your iTunes folders after reading this it is typically in Macintosh HD/Users/YouUserName/Music/iTunes
Your download folder is typically Macintosh HD/Users/YourUserName/Downloads

Now that you know where these things live and how to tell them where to live you can clean up your files and take control of your media.

This is also posted at PHS Computer Project Lab.  Hope you found it helpful!

Sharing Something Beautiful

The link to the original site is at the bottom,  What a beautiful word picture of God this is – I had to share.  The website also has audio.  Enjoy!

My Child,

You may not know me,
but I know everything about you.
Psalm 139:1

I know when you sit down and when you rise up.
Psalm 139:2

I am familiar with all your ways.
Psalm 139:3

Even the very hairs on your head are numbered.
Matthew 10:29-31

For you were made in my image.

Genesis 1:27

In me you live and move and have your being.
Acts 17:28

For you are my offspring.
Acts 17:28

I knew you even before you were conceived.
Jeremiah 1:4-5

I chose you when I planned creation.
Ephesians 1:11-12

You were not a mistake,
for all your days are written in my book.
Psalm 139:15-16

I determined the exact time of your birth
and where you would live.
Acts 17:26

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:14

I knit you together in your mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:13

And brought you forth on the day you were born.
Psalm 71:6

I have been misrepresented
by those who don’t know me.
John 8:41-44

I am not distant and angry,
but am the complete expression of love.
1 John 4:16

And it is my desire to lavish my love on you.
1 John 3:1

Simply because you are my child
and I am your Father.
1 John 3:1

I offer you more than your earthly father ever could.
Matthew 7:11

For I am the perfect father.
Matthew 5:48

Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand.
James 1:17

For I am your provider and I meet all your needs.
Matthew 6:31-33

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

Because I love you with an everlasting love.
Jeremiah 31:3

My thoughts toward you are countless
as the sand on the seashore.
Psalms 139:17-18

And I rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

I will never stop doing good to you.
Jeremiah 32:40

For you are my treasured possession.
Exodus 19:5

I desire to establish you
with all my heart and all my soul.
Jeremiah 32:41

And I want to show you great and marvelous things.
Jeremiah 33:3

If you seek me with all your heart,
you will find me.
Deuteronomy 4:29

Delight in me and I will give you
the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

For it is I who gave you those desires.
Philippians 2:13

I am able to do more for you
than you could possibly imagine.
Ephesians 3:20

For I am your greatest encourager.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

I am also the Father who comforts you
in all your troubles.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

When you are brokenhearted,
I am close to you.
Psalm 34:18

As a shepherd carries a lamb,
I have carried you close to my heart.
Isaiah 40:11

One day I will wipe away
every tear from your eyes.
Revelation 21:3-4

And I’ll take away all the pain
you have suffered on this earth.
Revelation 21:3-4

I am your Father, and I love you
even as I love my son, Jesus.
John 17:23

For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed.
John 17:26

He is the exact representation of my being.
Hebrews 1:3

He came to demonstrate that I am for you,
not against you.
Romans 8:31

And to tell you that I am not counting your sins.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19

His death was the ultimate expression
of my love for you.
1 John 4:10

I gave up everything I loved
that I might gain your love.
Romans 8:31-32

If you receive the gift of my son Jesus,
you receive me.
1 John 2:23

And nothing will ever separate you
from my love again.
Romans 8:38-39

Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party
heaven has ever seen.
Luke 15:7

I have always been Father,
and will always be Father.
Ephesians 3:14-15

My question is…
Will you be my child?
John 1:12-13

I am waiting for you.
Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Dad
Almighty God

To go to the original site Fathers Love Letter