Well we all went over to the inlaws and had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat then we headed over to the dump but the dump was closed it being Thanksgiving…whoever heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving…so we headed back to our house which closely resembles the dump.
We had a calm and relaxing Thanksgiving Day with the exception of Cathy’s grandmother falling, splitting her head open, getting 7 stitches, MRIs and CAT scans. Oh, our appliance curse followed us to the inlaws as their gas heater started making a peculiar sound and vented a lot of heat to the outside. We played Aggravation , Pokeno, built card houses and had a blast!
A New Day! Let’s start the day off with a PayPa…
A New Day!
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This Morning
Woke up feeling a bit anxious but calmed.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today I am thankful for:
- all the small miracles that keep my family functioning
- for my children and child to be
- for my wonderful wife
- the strange ways the bills get paid
- the reminders about the truly important things
- my parents and the values they instilled within me
- the winning lottery ticket I’m holding but have yet to check
- the cold front coming through and not being terribly cold
- Bush’s term is one day closer to finished
What a day
Started my day off with phone calls to prepare for my 2 hour phone call then followed it up with some more phone calls then called State Farm to see if a replacement heat pump could be amortized as part of the home owner’s insurance and they said to call KUB for that service plus gave me a phone number for a great heating and air person so I called him then when the tree down the street fell across the road I made 3 more phone calls (one with a 35 minute hold time..fortunely they had a ‘leave a msg/get a call back’ service) to County Roads (fast response!), Comcast, and BellSouth and followed up with a phone call to the heating and air person to warn him the street was blocked. 
Some phone calls paid off and the road was quickly cleared and lines retensioned. Heating and air person showed up and said he couldn’t buy the part needed until next week. Took a break to take the wife, Noah and Amy grocery shopping and during our shopping I took another 20 minute business call. Went into Walmart with Noah came out without him?! (Grandfather came and took him for the evening) Came home. Had dinner. Power napped and now prepare to work some more.
A New Day! Let’s start the day off with a PayPa…
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This Morning
I missed all my goals yesterday. Unbelieveable! Today is going to be similarly crappy. Everything needs to be completed by lunch because after lunch there is going to be chaos and panic in this house. Oh. And I have a 2 hour meeting from 9am-11am. The tension level will go through the roof as panic over lack of groceries ensues.
Big Brother Attacks
Rather to Resign ‘CBS Evening News’ Post
Dan Rather, whose nearly 24-year tenure as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” was clouded by a recent questionable report on President Bush’s National Guard service, said Tuesday he will step down in March.
It’s the new world order folks. Say anything bad about your leaders (no matter how truthful) and the thought police will screw with your life. It’ll start with the IRS or your employer and get uglier from there!
Grow that baby’s mind!
MSN has a nice article titled “20 Ways to Boost Your Baby’s Brain Power”
The list:
- Give your baby a physically healthy start before he is born.
- Have meaningful conversations.
- Play games that involve the hands (patty-cake, peekaboo, this little piggy).
- Be attentive.
- Foster an early passion for books.
- Use diaper time to build your baby’s emotional feelings of having a “lovable body.”
- Choose developmentally appropriate toys that allow babies to explore and interact.
- Respond promptly when your baby cries.
- Build trust by being attentive and focused.
- Use body massage to decrease your infant’s stress and enhance her feelings of well-being and emotional security.
- Enlist help from your toddler at clean-up times — a good way to practice categorization.
- Set up a safe environment for your crawling baby or toddler.
- Sing songs such as “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Ring-Around-the-Rosy.”
- Match your tempo to your child’s temperament.
- Make meals and rest times positive.
- Provide clear responses to your baby’s actions.
- Use positive discipline.
- Model empathic feelings for others.
- Arrange supervised play with messy materials, such as water, sand, and even mud.
- Express joy and interest in your baby.
For more details read Alice Sterling Honig’s full article
Economy Upturn?
Perhaps the economy is improving or perhaps business is just saying “let’s get on with it” but I’m getting good phones. Yesterday I received a call for a ColdFusion contract in Florida. No details yet.
Product Endorsement
ARM & HAMMER® Super Puppy Pads I found them at Target. I can’t seem to find these online. These pads works so much better than newspaper! Let mess. Less smell. Scented to encourage the puppy. The only problem I have with them is that they are intended for “puppies” and our puppy doesn’t match that definition. The pads are 22.5″ x 22.5″ so we use two at each of Molly’s 4 favorite spots. The website mentions a “ARM & HAMMER® Home Alone Pads”. Perhaps that is what we need instead.
If you are trying to house break a puppy, I highly recommend this product!
New graphics for your blog?
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You can also use them for Christmas/Seasonal imagery.
A New Day! Let’s start the day off with a PayPa…
A New Day!
Let’s start the day off with a PayPal donation link:
This Morning
I laid down last night for “a couple of hours” and woke at 3:30 this morning to Amy hollering for her “lion.” I gave her a stuffed bear and took a bath. At the end of my bath I heard a little more chatter from her but then she faded back to sleep.
There is a very pleasant rain right now. It is nice to listen to while programming. Of course, the negative side to the rain is in getting to puppy to do her business outside.
Status
The day ended up being fairly stress free and productive. None the less, I am ready for a break.
RIP
Today we put to rest two technologies, one 67 years old and the other came to exist, majorly altered your life, and died all within your lifetime.
In a move that marks the beginning of the end for a hugely successful chapter in technology history, Britain’s biggest high street electronics retailer Dixons has announced that it’s taking VCRs off its shelves for good.
Kodak projector, 67, slides into history Kaachingk Clang “And this is little Doug feeding the sea gulls on the ferry…” *laughter* “Oops. Slide is upside down.” Who can forget the whir of the fan, the hot air blowing, the clunky noises and that distinct smell of a slide presentation. This looks like the one I grew up using.
The Eastman Kodak slide projector, that magical box of light and lens that turned snapshots into tools of family bonding, passed into history Thursday night in Rochester. It was 67.
Its financial health failing for several years, the projector succumbed to a variety of technological and societal factors. Families eventually got too busy for home slideshows and cultivated a preference for photographic prints, while businesses migrated to computer-driven multimedia presentations.
The end had been expected since September 2003, when Kodak announced it would stop making the money-losing projectors as part of a shift from film to digital imaging. The last projectors came off production lines to cheers and tears at Kodak Park on Oct. 22.
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Kodak presented the final five projectors to the Eastman House and the Smithsonian Institution for historical display.
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The company estimates it made 35 million projectors in seven decades…
Of Grasshoppers
Student: I am working without a plan.
Master: Then plan on doing a lot of work.
This is National Family Week
Nov 21 – 27 “honoring strong families and the role they play in making communities stronger”
Non-human NaNoWritMo’ers
For you ardent writers out there, Kurzweil points out “A computer program known as Brutus.1 is generating brief outbursts of fiction that are probably superior to what many humans could turn out.”
“Dave Striver loved the university – its ivy-covered clocktowers, its ancient and sturdy brick, and its sun-splashed verdant greens and eager youth. The university, contrary to popular opinion, is far from free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world: academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace. A prime example is the dissertation defense: to earn the Ph.D., to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one’s dissertation. This was a test Professor Edward Hart enjoyed giving.”
That pregnant opening paragraph was written by a computer program known as Brutus.1 that was developed by Selmer Bringsjord, a computer scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and David A. Ferrucci, a researcher at I.B.M.
