Check this one out: If Ancient Rome had the Internet
I’m in my office working on my backlog of stuff to do; actually probably won’t get a lot done because I’m really tired. Of course that is my own fault ’cause I allowed myself to fall into a cyberspace sinkhole last night, specifically a trashy chat room on IRC (and we’ll leave it at that).
Now, I better get back to my spreadsheet ’cause I want to do at least a few more pages, and then I want to goto Borders for a little while…
What was the first thing on your mind this morning?
That was one of the writing prompts on Smartiplants’ journal. She wrote some thoughts about her Mother being sick. For myself, I’m not that thoughtful when I first wake up. The first thing on my mind this morning and every morning is that “I gotta pee right now !”
…a good one from Smitty via email.
George Carlin on age….
Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions. “How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!” You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key
You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. “How old are you?” “I’m gonna be 16!” You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!! (More …)
…being the father of two young princesses I have an interest in the subject of weddings. Both of my girls are preparing for their weddings this summer. Sweetous and I told them quite some time ago that we had no intention of paying for fancy weddings because we had paid for the bulk of their education. The other thing is that neither of us are well versed or interested in etiquette, event planning, social scenes etc. We are both practical people of a somewhat stern and aloof disposition. The girls on the other hand want to have nice weddings with lots of guests; LB especially seems to be fascinated by the prospect of a glamorous wedding and of course reception. Anyway, we are holding the financial line as much as we can, but we keep getting hit on for money; and of course it is fairly easy for the princesses to talk me into parting with the green. (More …)
…taking a break from my spreadsheet, I walked over to Panera and got a soup and salad. It was a very strange soup: turkey chick pea chili. It was ok, but I prefer the good ole beef & beans myself; along with a splash of Tabasco.
This morning I walked from White Flint to my office, a nice half hour walk. I walked yesterday and will try to walk at least 3-4 times a week. The walk yesterday wore me out a little, so I know I need it…
This was a very busy day at work, and I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked because of interruptions. Oh well. I did go for a walk after work from the transit center for about a mile. Then when LB picked me up along the side of the road, we went to her place and Sweetous, LB, Steve and I all walked for about 45 minutes. So now I am tired. I figure I will mess around with this blog and perhaps some web surfing before bed…
…the weather was beautiful today, warm and breezy with clouds. I went for a walk this morning before work and enjoyed it very much. I am tremendously busy at work; I was working all day transcribing a 2,000 item list in 6 point type to an excel spreadsheet. I hope to have that finished either tomorrow or the next day. I also did a lot of work on this blog at work some, and also here at home. I am going thru my other blogs and adding most of the posts to this blog., then I will let the other blogs sit. So, now I am just taking it easy and soon will goto bed.
Over the past few years I have had several blogs; I like to try out all sorts of different software, especially on the web. I think WordPress is my favorite blogging software. I had been using WordPress. com but switched to my own domain with WP for several months; that was before they started having domain names here. I was getting dissatisfied with the site I had because I was getting tremendous amounts of comment spam. So, I decided to try this one again and have a domain name. I like WordPress.com because there is much less spam, it is easier to use than a stand alone WP and there is a community attached to it. So, I think I will stay here now.
The focus of my blog is very eclectic as I have a wide variety of interests: computers, technology, the web, religion, people, ideas etc. I use my blog as an online notebook/journal/portal which I make available to anyone who wants to look at it. Sometimes all you will see is a recap of my day, other times you may find something that really perks your interest. So, come and browse and enjoy…
Sweetous was really tired early this morning from the painting she did yesterday, so she stayed home while I went to church. So, after church I made breakfast for both of us and then she decided she wanted to goto Lowe’s and get floor tile for the kitchen. So we did. When we got back, we put it down on the floor. Now, I am tired as hell, and so is Sweetous. We will both likely be sore tomorrow morning. Tonight is a double motrin kind of night…
After I finished helping Sweetous clean the house I went lurking and prowling at Wal-Mart, the mall, and then Borders. I bought a book that I had seen before in hardcover today because it was out in softcover. I generally prefer softcover because they are cheaper and easier to hold & carry. The book is The Secret Message of Jesus. Brian McClaren is one o fmy favorite authors, I have read several of his books over the past year or so.I saw another book at Costco which I almost bought, Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning in a crazy World. I have heard of these before, but never really looked into them. I may get the book later.
Related links:
I stayed home from work today ’cause I was sick. Yesterday was hellish, I am feeling much better now although I’m not out of the woods yet. Even though I stayed home I still got a decent batch of work done because I brought some stuff home to transcribe.I worked on my blog some today also, and I was using my new Excel 2007 software all afternoon, quite different from the previous version. One of these days I will get a book about Vista and Office 2007 so I can learn some more.
I’m feeling tired and a bit run down right now, hope I’m not getting a head cold. I felt fine this morning, even went for a nice walk. I was busy at work and even brought some home. I worked on it for a while, but now I will stop. I used Excel 2007 at home today for the first time; the user interface is radically different from Excel 2003. I will have to get used to it. It will be a long time before my office springs for an upgrade though, so we will be on the 2003 model for quite some time to come.
I got a book at Borders today. I had started reading it at Borders and it was quite interesting how the author used the Starbucks business culture to talk about the church. Usually I dislike the church trying to mimic business because our corporate system is so infested with greed and corruption. But this is something different, Sweet discusses how Starbucks creates community and passion for life which is certainly appropriate for the church.
I got DVD at Blockbuster today: Manhunter
After church Sweetous and I went and got LB and we all went out for breakfast and then did some shopping. Later on in the afternoon I went to Blockbuster and got the video mentioned above. Very strange indeed; I wasn’t able to keep track of all the clues, but it was quite interesting anyway. Another interesting thing about watching videos is to try and pinpoint the time period for the story. I figured this was circa ‘75-85 based on the music and the lack of ubiquitous computers…
I drove to State College to get Sweetous, took lik4 5 hours in this mess we have right now. We decided to go back home rather than continue on to DuBoise ’cause of the weather. So, We will have to go visit my parents some other weekend. I took Sweetous 4-WD over to LB to use tomorrow ’cause Steve has to go to work and the Mustang probably wouldn’t make it in the ice and snow. So, while I was over there she fixed me a Kraut and Sausage on a roll. That was good, haven’t had kraut in years ’cause Sweetous can’t stand it. Well, to bed soon ’cause I am tired as hell…
via email from Caryn…
A Chinese dance called the ” Thousand-Hand Guanyin” – Google Video
Read the paragraph below FIRST before you watch the video website.
There is an awesome dance, called the Thousand-Hand Guanyin, which is making the rounds across the net. Considering the tight coordination required, their accomplishment is nothing short of amazing, even if they were not all deaf. Yes, you read correctly. All 21 of the dancers are complete deaf-mutes. Relying only on signals from trainers at the four corners of the stage, these extraordinary dancers deliver a visual spectacle that is at once intricate and stirring. Its first major international debut was in Athens last year at the closing ceremonies for the 2004 Paralympics. But it had long been in the repertoire of the Chinese Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe and had traveled to more
than 40 countries.
Its lead dancer is 29 year old Tai Lihua, who has a BA from the Hubei Fine Arts Institute. The video was recorded in Beijing during the Spring Festival this year.
My church has small groups for Bible study and fellowship. The group I am in is working on this book right now. It’s a good book, but I should put more effort into it I suppose. Last week we did have a really good discussion on the questions on page 20. They would make good blog post topics, perhaps I will overcome my tendency towards sloth and do that.
I also found a couple other books on the web that got my attention; perhaps for future reading:
I was really busy at work today, but also got a lot done. So, I am pleased and also very tired because I have been staying up too late. I also may be getting a cold or allergies ’cause my head was really big all day and I did a lot of sneezing. So this evening after I ate, I messed with my new computer. I installed a mouse, downloaded and installed the Google Pack and also installed MS Office 2007. I see that Office 2007 looks quite different from Office 2003, so I will have to learn more. I will especially look at Excel. One note looks really interesting too.
I set up my new computer and it is magnificent ! I shall have to get all my bookmarks and stuff set up over the next few days and I must read the manuals that came with the machine and get a book about Vista. Now, back to my exploring…
Sweetous is gone for the week; having gone to stay with Piglette to help her get her new house in order. Hell, I miss her ! It gets lonely, even with the dogs here. It must be really difficult to be single, widowed, or elderly. Wow, I can get depressed fairly easily. Well, I’ll see her on Friday…
I went to Costco this afternoon to get some cat litter and misc groceries. I had a rebate check for $170.00 so I looked around for something interesting to buy. I had been considering buying a Zune for a while now, but had always decided against it mostly because I didn’t want to spend $240.00 on it; so today I kept debating whether to buy one with the rebate check or not. I finally decided against buying one; they are interesting gadgets but I remember back in the early 80’s I had a cassette walkman. The walkman was also a cool gadget for it’s time but I never liked walking around with an apparatus attached to my body. I still don’t because I carry my phone in my pocket or backpack rather than clip it to my pants and use headphones. So, my aversion to being attached to an apparatus was the deciding factor against buying a Zune.
So, I used my coupon to buy the groceries instead and got back $70.00 in change !
My next stop was the Lube Center to have my PT Cruiser serviced. That took about two hours because I had to wait in line and then they did a lot of work on the car. I like the Lube Center because they do good work, you don’t need an appointment, and it’s relatively fast.
So, if you clicked my links in this post, you can see that I like the wikipedia; a good source for a wide variety of subject areas. Some people look down on Wikipedia, but it is one of my favorite web resources. Of course, as with anything, one should not use the Wikipedia as the sole source of information for an important project or a major decision.
I stayed up way too late wasting time on the undernet. So the consequence is that I slept too late, and am tired anyway; but now I’m up and about and will goto Frederick to do some shopping in a few minutes. We got part of our tax refund back today and I got a bonus at work, so we are doing well right now. However, with two daughters planning weddings, and coming around for frequent financial consultations, it won’t last long.
I finished the book I was reading “A Search for What is Real“. I’m more of a traditionalist than McLaren is but I like the way he thinks. He brings up some very good points; excellant book ! I recommend it to anyone. This is a link to his church.
