Aberrant Prose

Short takes 3

Book benefits

Kathy shares books from her book club with me. Right now I am reading a book she brought up in October titled The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. I have to admit it has been a tough read for me (very politically orientated) yet I can’t put it down because of who wrote it. The optimum way to enjoy Obama’s extraordinary prose is with a cup of coffee, this wakes my brain up to better absorb all he has to say and he has a lot to say! Obama is a very inspirational, impressive writer!

Skyping

Yesterday using my new laptop, with its built-in webcam, Robert and I visited the Pines using Skype. So much easier than what we used to do: pull out our camcorder, secure it to the top of our tripod, power up the Mac Mini to use iChat, pull out the remote keyboard and mouse…

We were able to watch Rylan work in an activity book while we talked with Kathy, then later watch him ride his bike on the sidewalk with his friend, Kena. Kathy just carried her laptop with her built-in webcam outside! Aubrey joined the conference after deciding she didn’t want to nap. Much to our delight she bounced around on Kathy’s lap, giggling and smiling during our videoconference.




Bill Cosby live

Last night we were treated to the comedic act of Bill Cosby only thirty minutes from our house! We purchased tickets for this event months ago thus giving us great seats, sixth row, center. Cosby told very funny stories from his younger days and made humorous references to his age and what being 71 translates to in his life. When he appeared on stage everyone stood up and applauded. When he finished his act he received a standing ovation. What an enjoyable night he gave us!




Journal for all time, all ways

With my new laptop come new discoveries. I just discovered how easy it is to save all my journal entries to Rich Text (an entire year or an entire month or an entire week, whatever I select) from Apple’s Mail program. From there I can open them in Text Edit and save as PDFs or as HTML or as Word documents!

I write daily entries, which I email to myself to go into a specially designated directory. This automatically saves each entry on our server. I like to post my journal online so I can get to it from anywhere. This also gives me another layer of backup. I like being able to look up facts and details at any given time like where we had dinner out on a certain day, the name of a flower we planted in our yard, what day Dakota fell in the pool, when I read a specific book…

Previously I saved my entire journal directory to my desktop then posted that file online. Once online all I got was a cryptic mess with no way to search all of them at once since each daily entry had to be opened separately. Since the new mail program doesn’t let me save it in this way anymore I had to figure something else out. Now I put all my entries for one year into one PDF document and can now search an entire year in one sweep!

This newly discovered option has me more willing to take on the challenge of transposing Albert Osborn’s journals, something I have been reluctant to do not knowing what format would survive the evolution of changing technology. I can now post his diaries online without fear of having to retype it all to accommodate future formats Once posted, the rest of the family can access and read them.

Wishzilla.com

Wishzilla.com is a website everyone must check out. It is Chris’ brainchild and recently has gone through an amazing transformation. It is a site that has morphed into something even more useful and intuitive than its predecessor, “the gift box,” an eloquent gift-shopping site like no other.

Unlike other gift shopping sites, which are basically just registries, Wishzilla.com allows people to shop for precisely what a person wants without them even knowing exactly what it is they will receive. People sign up as a group (or a family). Each person lists all the gifts they want (aka wishes) filling out details such as size, color, cost, and where to buy. Others check their list and lock what they want to buy them without them being able to see what is locked. Images and links to websites can easily be incorporated. There is even a cool feature wherein if a user finds a gift they want on a website, while on the website, they can click on a bookmarklet aka Magic Wish Getter to instantly add it to their wish list!

Short takes 2

A Happy Birthday to Chris!

Chris turned 38 today. As has become tradition every year, Robert and I took him out for pizza last night to celebrate. We gave him a robot made of sparkplugs, odds and ends, nuts and bolts. He bought himself an iPhone.

Foghead

I collect KFOG’s Live From the Archives CDs. Early this morning I headed to Peet’s in Napa in the rain and the fog to buy my 11th one: Live From the Archives Fifteen. My collection might actually be worth something if I had started with CD number one. I collect these CDs because I have this idea I need them for inspiration. Not for the music. Someday I am going to design a cover to enter KFOG’s annual CD cover design contest.

Things with wings

For Halloween this year Rylan decided he wanted to be a flying dragon. Kathy decided Aubrey would make a cute butterfly. Between their darling costumes and the Halloween prints I used to make a matching dress and shirt they had a boo-tiful time.

Shutdown, fire up

I now have a new laptop. Up until yesterday Robert has been busy loading software and transferring files from Oliver, the old laptop to Tortoise, the new one. Just as he was transferring the last of my files (my latest photos) Oliver’s hard disk stopped working! Thank goodness I have uploaded almost all of my photos to KodakGallery.com. For a minimum fee of $25 a year I can store as many as I want and retrieve them (at the full 3504 pixels x 2336 pixels) anytime I want. The time to retrieve may have just arrived.

The really sad thing is that if Oliver’s hard drive really has crashed for good Robert won’t be inheriting my old laptop as was the plan. He will have to continue to bumble along on Gypsy, our seven-year-old laptop.

Short takes

GSP dunking

For the first time ever since having our two German Shorthaired Pointers, Dakota fell in the pool! I am pretty sure she must have been chasing a cat, it was dark outside, she was barking her head off, she lost track of where she was… She was in and out of the pool in an instant. One moment she was barking and the next moment, totally wet head to toe, she wanted inside for refuge. With all the water near the steps she obviously had no trouble figuring out how to quickly get out.

Bug trade off

Tim, Kathy, Rylan and Aubrey are constantly catching colds, one is getting over one, another is in the middle of one or another has just caught one (you know how it is with day care and preschool). Therefore it was really no surprise when Kathy, Rylan and Aubrey came to visit last week all three of them were sick. Robert caught one of their colds the day before they left. I came down with a cold the day after they left. If we caught two different colds will we be trading colds and be sick for the next couple of weeks? No matter. Having them here is way worth the trade off.
Laptop dance

Robert has been watching and tracking and researching Apple laptops for quite a while now. Just as he was about to buy a new one (to replace mine), we were short on cash or there was the promise of new updates around the corner. With the newest update Apple made to their laptops and the 2008 tax write off opportunity coming to an end Robert decided to make a move. He came close to buying the latest 17-inch but couldn’t really warrant the extra cost of a brand new one. In the end he ordered an older model saving us 33%. We may be giving up extra hard disk storage, a rapped up trackpad, a faster drive, and higher resolution but our laptop will still come with 4 Gigs of memory, 160 Gigs of storage, a magnetic DC connector AND best of all a built-in webcam!

Boo apparel

After playing hooky from work this week to do some sewing I shipped special Halloween edition outfits off to Rylan and Aubrey today. No, not costumes—just some cute clothes made with fabric decorated in ghosts, owls, moons, pumpkins, stars and the words Happy Halloween. I had high expectations to have them completed for Kathy to take home when she was here. My clients had other ideas. At least I did have the dress far enough along to get a picture of Aubrey in it. Since Kathy and the kids left I made Aubrey a matching hat and some pantaloons to wear under the dress (sewn to a pretty yellow knit top) and I made Rylan a shirt in the same print as Aubrey's dress plus a pair of solid blue shorts. (Thank you Jean for the blue fabric from your own personal warehouse!)