Similar to the constable in charge of the Watch of Messina, I try to be sincere and try take writing seriously but fear I will use the wrong words to convey my thoughts and that my desire to speak eloquently will become an occasion for parody.
We took the kids to the Country Mercantile’s Harvest Fest on Saturday so they could pick their own pumpkins and do the large corn maze (or is it a maize maze?).
They have quite a racket going. $3 for the corn maze, $4 for the hay ride, petting zoo (animals in pens), hay bale pyramid, and hay bale maze, or $5 for both ‘packages’. Cheap as I am, we paid the $3 for the kids and figured we could walk out to the pumpkin patch.
The kids had fun wandering through the maze. They went through multiple times; attempting to get lost. While they were in the maze I went to get a wagon that we could use in the patch. Well, the only way they will let you go to the pumpkin patch is to ride the hay wagon! Argh!
I tried to convince the kids they could just pick a pumpkin out of the bins next to the store, but they really wanted to pick one from the pumpkin patch, so I ended up having to buy myself a $4 pass to take the kids. We did have a good time. I told the kids they could pick any pumpkin as long as they could carry it, and they did find the largest ones.
Our church, Grace URC, had its annual Reformation Day evening service this past Sunday. We were joined by the congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for a wonderful service marking the birth of the Reformation. There were nearly 100 people in attendance, a great turnout for a Sunday evening.
After the service we went downstairs for a soup dinner, but before we ate our choir director had us sing a song, shown below. We all had a good laugh!
The Reformation Polka by Richard Gebel
sung to the tune of “Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious”
When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law;
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian! Oh, -
Chorus
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation -
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!
When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter’s profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints’ Bull’tin board:
“You cannot purchase merits, for we’re justified by grace!
Here’s 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!” Oh-
Chorus
They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
“Are these your books? Do you recant?” King Charles did demand,
“I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!” Oh-
Chorus
Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting “George” as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin’s model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek! Oh-
Chorus
Let’s raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that ‘catholic’ is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance! Oh-
When navigating secure web sites you may come across an Internet Explorer box labeled “Security Information.” With the text: “This page contains both secure and nonsecure items. Do you want to display the nonsecure items?”
Here are the steps to get rid of this annoying popup.
In Internet Explorer:
Select Tool then click Internet Options
Select the Security Tab and make sure the Internet Globe icon is selected then click the Custom Level button
Scroll down to the Miscellaneous section and find the option: Display mixed content.
Select the option Enable
Click OK, Then you will get a “Security Warning” pop-up. Click Yes
Click OK also on the “Internet Options” window to finish.
I just ran across MsDewey.com and am trying to figure out if it is anything more than a cute idea. After running a handful of search terms you realize a couple of things:
Cute
May not be work safe
Google is good because search is supposed to be fast, and this ain’t
Terms you might try (and try a second time for possibly a different response):
Just attended a workshop on wireless mobility sponsored by Verizon. Speakers from Blackberry, Verizon, and Microsoft, gave 30 minute presentations on how mobile devices can enhance productivity.
Todd Eckman from Lockheed Martin gave the keynote speech during the box lunch that was provided. Part of his presentation included a video “commercial” showing what Lockheed Martin is doing with wireless technology. It was especially interesting since many of the examples were from Hanford, the local DOE instalation.
The Tri-Cities does not yet have high-speed ‘EvDO’ access but the Verizon rep said plans are to have it available by the first of the year. Even with just ‘regular’ mobile wireless internet access, anyone whose job requires them to spend alot of time out of the office can remain productive. The Verizon rep was quick to point out that with a verizon data card, “you are the hotspot.”
I sync my Tungsten|T3 manualy using a docking cable. It would be great to be able to keep my PDA sync’d wirelessly no matter where I happen to be during the day.
I picked up some of the swag the vendors were passing out, including a Microsoft baseball cap. Each of the vendors also had prizes that they gave away after lunch by drawing business cards that were collected at their booths. The prizes included a Blackberry, two Motorola Qs, a Verizon Data Access Card, a Treo of your choice, and a copy of Microsoft Office. With only about 35 people at the seminar I knew my chances were good. Sure enough, my card was drawn for the Motorola Q! Now I have to figure out what to do with it. My current cell phone is a Motorola V710 through U.S. Cellular. I doubt I will be able to use it with U.S. Cellular and am not ready to move the 4 phones the office pays for over to Verizon.
I think I will have to attend more of these seminars.
Ever worry about the the hundreds of PayPal phishing e-mails you get saying that your account has been or will be suspended, all you need to do is login using this link and it will be taken care of? If it worries you that you need to give out account to certain online companies like PayPal then maybe you need to build a firewall!
MyMoneyBlog gives complete directions on how to set up a “firewall” checking account that you can use to protect your regular checking account from getting drained if it somehow gets compromised.
The idea is to set up a separate bank account that is only funded when you are buying something and any funds are removed after you have sold something. The worse then that can happen is an NSF fee if someone gets into your account. Better to pay $20 than loose $1000+.
First thing you need is a bank account that does not require a minimum balance. I suggest ING Direct. You can even get $25 for opening the account if you use one of my kid’s ING referral codes (and one of my kids gets $10) if you leave $250 in the account for 30 days.
You have seen Tux-TShirts, now you can strap this on.
I just saw this report on TV and cannot figure out if I really hate the idea or if it is funny in a twisted kind of way.
The shirts sell for $20 at TerrorTshirt.com and it is amazing that they look so real. The dynamite, especially on someone with a little extra weight, appears like real sticks of TNT with a timer ready to go off.
Scrybe is a very interesting organizer that is grounded in giving the user the context for their data. I have been using AirSet happily for quite a while but like what I see in the video, especially the ‘paper sync’ that puts your information in your pocket for those times when you don’t have your computer with you.
According to the website:
Seamless offline access – without any installations
Rich and fast like a desktop
Intuitive zoomable calendar views
Organize your thoughts with bookmarks, web snippets, images and files
To-do lists integrated with your calendar
Share and collaborate with friends and co-workers
Elegant, compact and handy print formats
Easily work across multiple timezones
Import and export from other apps easily. Your data is yours!
What I will look for:
A ToDo list that really works – not just a check list. Right now I use a combination of ShadowPlan on my palm and a Hipster PDA in my pocket.
Sync with Palm. I don’t need another source of data floating around. They need to be sync’d
Calendar Sharing. I have enjoyed AirSets ability to have joint calendars with family members and the office.
Scrybe says they will be launching the beta in October. October is 2/3 gone – so hopefully we will see it soon. Check out the video.
Just got back from a road tour of the Hanford site this afternoon. It was quite interesting — and from the sounds of it quite popular. The local paper reported that when reservations were opened at noon last month, not only were the 350 seats filled in 2 minutes, but the software accidentally booked an extra 100 people. I hope that the popularity of this tour convinces the ‘powers that be’ into offering tours more frequently.
After 9/11 tours of Hanford were stopped for 2 years but in 2004 they were started back up and about 160 people got to visit the site. Last year it was expanded to 600 people and this year it was bumped up to over 900. But, if it only takes 2 minutes to sell out a 4 hour bus ride, it is obvious that there is a pent up demand to visit the site.
We boarded the tour bus at the HAMMER facility where we were shown the various ways Hanford workers learn how to handle radioactive materials safely as well as how emergency response personnel receive training in a controlled environment.
The many production reactors along the Columbia River were pointed out to us as we drove along. I learned that they were called ‘production’ reactors because they ‘produced’ (duh!) nuclear material used for weapons. Most of the reactors are being ‘cocooned’ as part of the on-going Hanford cleanup.
The best part of the tour was the stop at the B Reactor and the tour of the interior by volunteers from the B Reactor Museum Association. The B Reactor was the first large-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. I have read about the Manhattan Project but this was the real thing. We were not allowed to bring cameras so I have no photos – but I did find these photos at the B Reactor Museum Associations site. The photo on the left shows the face of the reactor core and its 2004 process tubes that would hold the uranium ‘slugs’ used to produce plutonium.
We then drove through the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant that is being built stabilize 200 million liters of radioactive and chemical waste so it can be stored safely. Using a process called vitrification, the wastes will immobilized by being mixed with
molten glass and placed in stainless-steel canisters for storage.
The final ‘stop’ on our drive-by tour were the processing plants or “canyons” in the 200 East and West Areas where plutonium was chemically removed from the irradiated fuel rods produced by the reactors.
I wish we had been able to bring cameras. Post 9/11 security has every one’s undies in a knot but luckily others have been able to to photos so I will just collect some of those I have found online for ‘my’ album.
Until you are able to take a tour yourself you can take a virtual tour of the Hanford Site which provides a series of 1 minute videos about the various areas on the site.
If you are ever looking for something to do, you might consider following the footsteps of a 60 year old Japanese mental health counselor who recited pi to 100,000 decimal places from memory. He took more than 16 hours to recite the number to 100,000 decimal places.
Haraguchi, who began reciting pi at 9 a.m. Tuesday, reached his previous record of 83,431 digits Tuesday night, finishing exactly at 100,000 digits at 1:28 a.m. Wednesday.
Richland joins Pasco and Kennewick in enacting a dangerous animal ordinance.
The regulations require that pit bull owners pay a $250 registration and carry $250,000 dog liability insurance policy, keep their dogs locked in a secure area, and post a dangerous-animal sign.
I am not a pit bull fan, but how does a police officer determine if the dog is a pit bull? Can he just eye-ball it and determine that the person is breaking the law? What if the owner claims it is not a pit bull? Is there a DNA test?
When the rain stopped and the clouds lifted this afternoon I looked out the window and saw the surreal colors on the trees. I thought about going out and getting some photos but that is all I did.
Nicora was not as lazy. She captured some great shots. My eye does not know where to rest in this photo! The detail in the fence posts draws you in, the vivid green in the background taunts, and the halo effect in the sky pulls you up.
Teachers and freshman students at Burleson High School near Fort Worth, Texas are being taught how to fight back if a gunman invades their classroom and how to stop a gunshot wound from bleeding.
“Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success,” said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson School District
The students are being taught not to just cower if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush the invader and hit him with everything they’ve got — books, pencils, legs and arms.
“We show them they can win,” he said. “The fact that someone walks into a classroom with a gun does not make them a god. Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun.”
It sounds well and good, but what is going to happen if 2 or 3 kids get killed rushing the invader? Sure, they might have saved 20 – but we will never know and someone will be held responsible for telling the unarmed teenagers to rush the man with a gun.
The news tonight reported that a Kennewick man, who was separated from his wife, kidnapped his son at gun point. Police were able to locate the man by determining which cell phone tower his cell phone was near. The story did not say whether he was talking on the phone or if they were able to locate him just because his phone was turned on.
I just opened ING DIRECT Custodial Accounts for my 4 minor children When you open an account with ING they give you the opportunity to refer 25 people to them. If the qualifications are met then the person that is referred (that be you) gets $25 and the person who referred you (that be my kids) gets $10. So, if you are interested in opening an ING account and can deposit a minimum of $250 for 30 days, then ING will give you $25 – not a bad return on your investment. And – one of my kids will receive $10!
Thank-You and Thank-ING DIRECT.
To get the $25 bonus just remember:
You have to use an active link to be eligible for the bonus.
You have to fund the account with an initial deposit of at least $250 and leave it in the account for at least 30 days.
When completing the application, you will not need any kind of Reference or Promotion Code. The active link you clicked has the promotional information built into it.
Full disclosure: One of my kids will get $10 from ING DIRECT for referring you.
Please:Open the ING account with this link if you cannot deposit the $250 and leave it in the account for at least 30 days. By using this link, you will not waste the link. Of course you also will not get the $25 account opening bonus nor will my kids earn the $10 referral bonus, but you still get a great account!
Still Interested? Just follow the directions below:
Click on one of the one-time-use ‘ING $25 Bonus’ links listed below.
Read the terms, and then click on the ‘Open now!’ button.
Verify that the link has not already been used. The new page should say:
“Start savings with a great rate. To receive your $25 bonus, open and fund your Orange Savings Account with at least a $250 initial deposit.”
If, the top paragraph says anything else then the link has been used and you just need to come back here and choose another one.
Each of the links below is good for only one use. I will update the list as they get used until I run out:
Update: Sorry! They have all been used. I am hoping to set my grandkids up with accounts and then will have some more.
169 used links deleted
170 ING $25 Account Opening Bonus – Melanie – used
171 ING $25 Account Opening Bonus – Melanie – used
172 ING $25 Account Opening Bonus – Melanie – used
173 ING $25 Account Opening Bonus – Melanie – used
174 ING $25 Account Opening Bonus – Melanie – used
175 ING $25 Account Opening Bonus – Melanie – used
According to the New York Times the Chicago White Sox having sold the name of their stadium to U.S. Cellular Field, have also sold their start time. No longer will games start at 7:05 p.m. or 7:35 p.m. Instead, the White Sox will receive a half-million dollars for each of the next three seasons to start the games at 7:11 p.m. courtesy of, you guessed it, 7-Eleven.
“It’s a fun way to insert our name into fans’ hearts and minds,” said Margaret Chabris, a 7-Eleven spokeswoman. “We think it’s worth way more than $500,000.” She said that 7-Eleven is talking to other baseball teams about sponsorship deals that would include starting their games at 7:11.
There are a couple hundred 7-Eleven stores in the Chicago area. If this is successful, we might see more games starting at 7:11 across the country.
I don’t think this is quite as obtrusive as every stadium having a corporate name but I wonder where the trend will lead.
Have you ever had a phone number that is real similar to a popular business? I had a friend who started getting a lot of phone calls from folks wanting to order pizza. Turns out a new pizza place opened up and their number just reversed 2 of the digits of my friends home phone. He finally ‘solved’ his problem by taking orders every time someone called.
But what can UTube.com do? UTube sells machinery that is used to make pipes and tubes. Thousands of idiots type in utube.com instead of youtube.com, crashing the UTube site as it received more hits than it could handle and causing his regular customers not to be able to reach his site. You think I am being mean calling them idiots? These folks end up clicking the ‘contact us’ link to send an email asking where the ‘videos’ are on the site!
According to the news source, the owner of UTube.com is either holding out for a few million dollars or is not interested in selling the domain name. Me? I would take $3 million and go buy a new site – something like UsedTubes.com
Kimbo also has a good page that documents and links to some of the early geocaching milestones beginning May 1, 2000 with President Clinton’s announcement that Selective Availability would be turned off (removing the ‘randomizing’ feature that kept GPSs from being ‘too accurate’) to the birth of the Geocaching.com web site later in the same year.
Notifyr lets you get email notifications whenever a new image is added to a Flickr.com photo page. This is ideal for family members who have not yet learned how to use RSS feeds.
You can ‘subscribe’ yourself or a family member to a Flickr page in 2 different ways. You enter your/their email and the page address on the Notifyr page, or you can create a Notifyr link that contains the Flickr page address and their email that looks like this:
I just finished listening to Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card. This is the conclusion (so far) of the Ender Saga. The local library finally got the book in on CD so I was able to ‘read’ it.
In the series, Ender's Game is a fast paced, action-packed novel that keeps your attention to the very end. The second book, Speaker for the Dead, is a slower read, moving from the action of Ender’s Game to dealing with moral and philosophical questions. The third book, Xenocide, explores metaphysics and religion. This last book, Children of the Mind, is actually the second half of the third book. I think the story got too long so he broke it into parts 1 and 2.
Children of the Mind wraps up the loose ends Card left dangling in Xenocide but has little action to keep the reader engaged. It felt much like finishing a board game where you had ‘won’ the game (the outcome was certain) but you still had to go through the motions or wait for the other player to forfeit (put down the book and call it done).
Overall though, I did enjoy the whole story. If the library gets the ‘Shadow’ series of the Ender books in, I am sure I will ‘read’ them too.
Ever wonder how a GPS works? This 4 minute Google Video is an excerpt from the NASA SCI Files “The Case of the Technical Knockout” video.
This segment explains how GPS receivers work with GPS satellites to determine an exact location. The concept of trilateration in two and three dimensions at a 3rd-5th Grade level, which is great since that means I can understand most of it!
Armed with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, compasses, maps, and travel bugs, the tree house detectives set off to do some “geocaching” in the national parks of Virginia. Unexpectedly, while trying to find their first cache, their GPS receivers begin to give multiple coordinates, and the detectives believe they might be lost. When they try to radio home base, they find that their two-way radios are also on the blink. Then, as quickly as the strange phenomenon began, it ends, and the detectives are back on track. They are concerned, however, that if the GPS and radio malfunctions occur again, they might not be so lucky. The detectives decide that they must solve this mystery and discover what caused the radio and GPS malfunctions. Their first stop is NASA Langley Research Center to speak with Charles Cope, a pilot for NASA, to learn more about how a GPS is used for navigation. Next stop is a videoconference with Dr. D, who just happens to be in Oslo, Norway at the Viking Ship Museum. Dr. D tells the detectives how explorers have navigated around the world for thousands of years by using the stars, lodestones, and Iceland spar. Finally, they decide to prepare for their next expedition and head to the store to find a container for their cache.
Second Segment
Still concerned that their Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and radios might go on the blink again, Tony and Catherine go to NASA Langley Research Center to talk to Mr. George Ganoe to learn more about the GPS and how it works. After speaking with Mr. Ganoe, the detectives decide that it probably wasn’t the GPS satellite system that caused the communications problem, but they begin to think that it might have something to do with radio waves. They decide to email two of the NASA SCI Files’ Kids’ Club members in Norway, Ole and Nina, to talk with Dr. D. He meets Ole and Nina at the ALOMAR Observatory in Andenes, Norway where he explains the electromagnetic spectrum. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., Tony heads to Colorado and takes time to stop by the University of Colorado to visit Dr. Fran Bagenal to learn about electricity.
Third Segment
Still undecided about what might have caused the GPS and radio glitches, the detectives contact Ole and Nina to meet Dr. D to learn about magnetism. Dr. D meets them at the Northern Lights Museum in Andenes, Norway, where he performs several demonstrations and discusses how the Earth’s magnetic field interacts with light particles coming from the Sun. To learn more about electromagnets, the tree house detectives dial up Mr. Jacobsen’s class at Andenes Ungdomskole (middle school). Last stop for the detectives is NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where RJ and Catherine talk with Dr. Nicky Fox to learn more about our star, the Sun.
Fourth Segment
Trying to put the final pieces of the puzzle together, the tree house detectives dial up
Dr. Sten Odenwald to learn about solar flares and coronal mass ejections and their effect on Earth. To confirm their hypothesis, the detectives send Tony to visit Joe Kunches at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado, to learn more about space weather. At last the detectives think they know why their GPS receivers and radios went on the blink and had a few glitches. To wrap up the problem, they head to the airport to meet Dr. D as he returns from Norway.
Educators Guide
There is even an comprehensive, 70 page, Educator’s Guide that provides overviews, lesson plans, student worksheets, glossaries, materials lists, objectives, standards, and resources.
What is amazing is that he says the colors are strictly due to zooming in on this flower directly in front of the sunset and not any kind of photoshop effect.
The Miami Herald has an article about who developed a tracking system that is used to monitor vehicles and objects via GPS satellite.
The owners of a now-defunct Fort Lauderdale firm, SPS Technologies, claim they spent six years developing the technology. Motorola gave the company $5 million and paid for SPS’s offices and employee salaries when they formed a joint venture with SPS in early 2000.
The suit alleges Motorola ended the joint venture a few months later when it realized how valuable the tracking technology could become, bringing the development in-house, essentially stealing SPS’s work and forcing the company to shut down.
The potential $1 Billion dollar lawsuit is expected to last about a month.
This article and other articles about this law suit makes it sound like it is about who developed “GPS technology”. But it is not. This “tracking system” simply uses GPS technology to radio back to a base station where the vehicle is at any time. Sort of like hooking up a cell phone to a GPS.
We had mentioned a while back that Covenant Theological Seminary was making some of their classes available online. BiblicalTraining.org is a new website that is also offering classes online. They have a class for new believers called Now That I Believe, classes designed for the layperson or lay-leader in the church under the heading Foundations , as well as seminary level classes filed under Leadership Education.
The web site state that once all the classes are completed, they hope to be able to send a CD player, batteries, and the classes on CD to pastors-in-training in developing countries.
The classes and the teachers look pretty impressive and I plan to listen to them. The classes might also be great material for small groups to listen to and discuss.
The classes listed below are from the ‘Foundation’ series. The classes without links are waiting for funding.
