Mission: Space

When you have a limited amount of desk space (and who doesn't?) it can be aggravating to see space in front of you, perfectly good space taken up by a keyboard which is necessary on the road but certainly not when the laptop is docked on our desk.


So after a little measuring, we stopped in at our local TAP Plastic store and picked up a 12" x 18" pieces of 1/4 in thick acrylic sheet. We also got 4 1.5 inch long pieces of 5/8" diameter acrylic rod and the smallest tube of acrylic glue they carried. Total bill: $13.61.


The platform is sturdy enough to set a book on if you're transcribing something out of it or to put your stack of bills as you work through them. But it's light enough to easily lift off when you need to remove the laptop. And being made of clear plastic, it is not unattractive nor does it get in the way of side or front access outlets or controls.

Form 990

Everyone is familiar with April 15, the dreaded day when individual tax returns, also known as Form 1040, are due. Lesser known is May 15, the day when virtually every non-profit corporation and association has to submit Form 990. Allthough they are sometimes called non-profit tax returns, they are more accurately called information returns as no tax is computed nor expected as a result of the 990's.

What the 990 and it's several attachments and schedules do, is provide an open slate of uniform information. It essentially makes a non-profit corporation a public company which is appropriate since they operate free of income tax thus effectively get an operating subsidy from the taxpayers. Form 990 is available free on the Internet for any non-profit corporation . Some non-profits realizing they have to submit the information anyway, have taken this opportunity to also add community relations material in the same web site.

This year the Form 990 was drastically changed. The biggest change appeared to me to be the addition of several questions and data forms asking if money or non-cash assets have been given to governments, organizations, or persons outside the United States. It seems clear to me that the Patriot Act or a similar act has proposed that non-profit agencies are, or could be, a major "hole" in the nation's armor. And although there are few prohibitions against such grants across borders, the revised Form 990 will raise the issue in a big way.

Socialism, yech; Capitalism, yummm..

I'm not sure whether it's something in the water or something in the air or something else altogether but lately it seems there's been a lot more editorial cartoons, parodies, and "humorous essays" with the apparent message that America is becoming a socialist nation. The implication then is either (1) we're that much closer to being a communist nation; or (2) just look what horrible things have happened to all the socialistic European countries like France or Germany.

I just haven't seen anything to justify the idea that we're becoming socialistic. Sure President Obama has proposed raising taxes for the very rich and implementing social programs that we sorely lack such as universal health access, but we are so far behind the rest of the 1st & 2nd world nations that there's no danger of our even catching up during his administration, let alone pulling ahead of other nations. I recall tax brackets of 75% and 90% when I was growing up; hearing of entertainers and sports figures moving their residence to England or Europe to beat the oppressive tax rates in America. You don't hear that today.

You do hear about people "falling through the cracks" in our social system. Maybe you still have a job but probably someone in your extended family or social network is already out of work. With luck, they can get another job before their insurance runs out but maybe not. We'd like to help out but we're a bit stretched ourselves and "have you seen medical bills lately?"

And by the way, how many serious capitalists do you know? Not those who simply work for capitalists whose ideas and political impulses are to defend capitalism, but those whose capital is out on the line, at risk every day. Someone who could make it big today and be wiped out tomorrow. I think you'll find that few people can live like that. Almost everyone wants a little cushion, a little safety net. And they want it for as little expense as possible.

Well, guess what, socialism provides that safety net for many people at a reasonable price. It does so as a mandate and THAT's what people don't like. Until it isn't there when they need it. Then it's "Why isn't that program mandatory?"

My guess is that we're going to see a lot more cushions and safety nets as a result of this depressions but I"ll bet we won't see significantly more socialism than we already have.

Accepting assistance

I can tell that one of the things I am going to have trouble with as Parkinson's Disease slowly but surely takes over my body is graciously accepting assistance. Today, Carolyn & I attended Jacob's 7th birthday party. He elected to have a modest family& friends party with a bigger present than the other way around. The food was an indoor picnic with hamburgers and hotdogs. I would have needed to get up from the table several times for food, condiments, silverware, punch, etc. But before I could do any of these, someone in the group would ask what I needed and get it for me. After a while I didn't even try to get up. I just asked.

I can still get up on my own, although sometimes I appear painfully slow. So I feel bad that people assume I can't get up or that I shouldn't get up. I should let them assist me. I have this guilty feeling that someone will assist me and shortly after I will get up and do something which willl make the person who helped me think I was just trying for sympathy.

When I'm more disabled the problem should cease to exist but it sure bothers me now.

Defragmentation

Defragmentation sort of sounds like something an Army bomb squad might have to do, doesn't it? But actually it can be pretty important to computer users. After upgrading our memory and seeing a significant jump in performance, I informed Carolyn that about the only things we could do now to speed up the old machine was to clean up our desktop (I'm not sure that helps the computer any but it would make ME more productive) and see if our disk needs defragmentation. That means gathering all the bits and pieces of disk storage that a program needs and putting them next to eacfh other. As you can imagine, such a program works best when nothing else is running on the computer.

I thought you might be interested in seeing what our two disk drives looked like - before and after defragmentation. The defrag program informed us that the internal drive (top chart) didn't need defragmentation but the external drive did. I would have guessed they both needed it.

Internal Hard Drive
Red stripes are fragmented files - can slow you down

External Hard Drive
Top ribbon is before defragmenetation - Bottom is after

For Frustrating Menu - Press 2

As background, I have been the treasurer for the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library for about 5 years. We have used Quicken all this time and I am very comfortable with it. Because of some added complexities to our accounting this year we have migrated to QuickBooks, a product made by the same company as Quicken but about as different as two accounting packages can be. And finally, one of the features of Quicken I have really appreciated is the ability to download cleared checks and deposits which makes account reconciliation a snap, sometimes literally a one-button process.

While installing QuickBooks a message came up saying that the installation couldn't convert the online transaction download procedure. I'd have to do that after the fact. I looked and looked and looked for how to do that. Finally found a process for adding online services and that led to how to delete services as the conversion process had gone halfway. In any case, I needed to notify Bank of America that we'd changed from Quicken to QuickBooks. QuickBooks even helpfully provided the customer service number. This led to the following transcript:

----------------------------------

[ring][ring][ring]

Thank you for calling Bank of America. For new banking press or say 1; for online services press or say 2; for assistance with Quicken or QuickBooks press or say 3; ...

3

Good afternoon, this is Customer Service. My name is Richard. How may I assist you?

We recently converted from Quicken to QuickBooks...

I'll need to transfer you to our QuickBooks expert.

[ring][ring][ring]

Good afternoon, my name is Vonda. How may I help you?

We recently converted from Quicken to QuickBooks....

What kind of account do you have, sir?

Small business account. But...

I'll need to transfer you to our Small Business Account unit.

[ring][ring][ring]

Good afternoon. My name is Mary. Can I help you today?

I certainly hope so. We recently converted from Quicken to ...

You need to speak to our Customer Service Department, sir.

[ring][ring][ring]

Thank you for calling Bank of America. For new banking press or say 1; for online services press or say 2; for assistance with Quicken or QuickBooks press or say 3; ...

----------------------------------------------------

The fifth person I spoke to listened to my whole story then did a "warm transfer" where they stay on the line until the person at the transferred location answers and agrees that they are the appropriate person to handle the call. This person then had to ask about a dozen questions to verify that I was who I said I was and had a legitimate service request. She was obviously looking at our account and obviously knew what needed to be done. She even helped me find a shortcut to making the QuickBooks change.

Which amends the old saying, "It isn't what you know, it's who you know," to "It isn't who you know but if you know how to contact who you know."

Another grandson picture

Every once in a while I enjoy holding my grandsons although in this case I was holding Camdan at arm's length since he was nursing a runny nose that I didn't want to share. He's still a cute kid.

Memories, oh memories...

(CAUTION! The following post contains graphic pictures of computer insides.)

Oh, if we could only increase our memory capacity like we can with computers. When we bought our now "old" computer some 4 years ago, having 500 megabytes of memory was really pushing the envelope for home computers. Gamers, of course, might need more because of their high graphics needs but for regular home use 500 megabytes was more than adequate.

These are the two memory modules I replaced this evening, changing the memory capacity of our machine from 500 megabytes to 2 gigabytes. That still isn't state of the art but it is the high end limit for this machine. The two boards are identical. I just wanted to show you both sides. The memory boards that replaced them look virtually identical except for the label. Without the label you wouldn't know the difference.

Here you see the memory in place in the computer. They are the two boards parallel to the one that has all the wires hanging off of it. They each have a white clip at each end to hold the memory solidly in place.

The programs on our computer have increasingly been giving the message "xxxx not responding" because they take too long to respond. The thing that finally pushed me into getting the additional memory was the installation of the accounting program Quick Books. It took 8 minutes to load! With the new memory it is still too long (2.5 minutes) but any more improvement now means a new computer.

No Country for Old Men - book review

I listened to this book on one of those new Play Away "book on a chip" devices. I'm not sure I would have plowed through all the bloody gunfights otherwise. Cormack McCarthy has written a book No Country for Old Men that brings all the elements of the wild west, gang fights, drug wars, war veterans, and retribution morality. In fact the final quarter of the book seemed to me to be the ramblings of an aging sheriff who intends to hang up his badge and is sort of balancing the ledger in his mind as he does so. He admits that he couldn't possibly bring all the criminals in his jurisdiction to justice and the best he could hope for was to scare them enough that they'd go somewhere else.

The gunfight scenes seemed oddly unmatched with equal parts rifles, submachine guns, and sawed off shotguns. Oh, and the main baddy uses an air driven bolt that is normally used to put down cattle before they're butchered. It punches a 3/4 inch diameter hole about 2 inches into the cranium effectively killing the cow (and in this story, men) without the blood, gore, sound, and smoke of a bullet. It also works nicely in punching out door lock cylinders.

The relentless successes of Chigurh and his ability to come back from near death make the book more science fiction or fantasy than anything else. Otherwise I would have enjoyed it more.

Change of Heart - book review

I'm not sure it even makes sense to review a book that has 223 customer review on Amazon.com. After reading a few of them I began to think that I wouldn't have picked this book if I had read the reviews first. I hope my review doesn't have that affect on anyone.

Jodi Picoult, in her recent novel "Change of Heart", apparently wants to comment on the social dilemmas of the death penalty since she has the "murderer" protagonist being sentenced to death in New Hampshire which has not (according to the book) had an execution in 58 years. But then she adds into the plot the desire of the condemned man to donate his heart to the murder victim's younger sister who will die soon if she doesn't get a new heart. Thus, Picoult sets us up in a lose lose situation. We develop sympathy for both Shay Bourne, the convicted murderer, and Clair, the girl who needs a heart. We can't have both of the characters live.

Instead of a defense or condemnation of the death penalty or even a balance argurment for and against the death penalty, we end up having to deal with the ethics of organ donation. Picoult tells the story in the first person bouncing around between main characters that made me feel I was really "in their heads" and seeing the situation from their standpoint. Very effective.

Finally, there is the Christ imagery woven into the story. I could almost hear my freshman English professor saying, "What character is the Christ character and which situations parralel Christ's life and surroundings." This imagery certainly woulldn't have been necessary but it adds another dimension and doesn't take anything away.

I'm ready to read another Jodi Picoult book.

Pinewood progress report

As the Pinewood Derby approaches (I believe it is two days from now) the cars are beginning to take shape.

Here we see Ed putting the hinges on Jake's Blackberry Racer - a car that can get to the finish line and text the results home.



And here Jake is demonstrating one use of Tim's Flip Speedster with audio and video outputs so the driver can keep in touch while in the maintenance pit.


I have no idea how these cars will come in in the race but based on how much fun Jake and Tim have had BEFORE the wheels went on, I suspect there will be a lot of envious cub scouts Monday night.

Whence the name Loveridge - unfinished

The family folk tale is that on the border between Wales and England in Monmothshire there is a hill that is perfect for amorous dalliances, what we might call a Lover's Lookout. Like a hill east of Provo where young couples used to watch the submarine races. Anyway, this particular hill was called Love Ridge. The men-folk from our family visited the place so often that they began being called William of Love Ridge, for example.

Although I like this explanation, I was delighted to come across this explanation of the Loveridge surname which comes from The Internet Surname Database:

Surname: Loveridge

Recorded in many forms including Leverage, Leverich, Levick, Lefridge, Leftridge, Lefwich, Liverock, Loveredge and even Leftbridge, this is an ancient English surname. Although it may seem to be locational from some place meaning the "lower ridge" or similar, it is in fact an Olde English pre 7th century personal name! It derives from the given name "Leofric", composed of the elements "leof", meaning dear or beloved, with "ric", power. This name was very popular in England in pre Norman times. Although most Anglo-Saxon names became "politically incorrect" after the Invasion, this one retained its popularity well into the growth of the surname period in the 13th century. Early examples of the surname developments include Willemus Lefrich in the Curia Regis Rolls for the city of Leicester in the year 1196, Walter Lufrich in the Pipe Rolls of Wiltshire in 1206, and Robert Leffrich in Essex in 1240. William Loverich appears in the Hundred Rolls of Oxford in 1279, whilst Bernard Loveridge, aged 22, whose occupation was listed as "sope boyler", was one of the rebels in Monmouth's Rebellion of 1685. He was transported to the Barbadoes in December of that year, although his later fate is not known. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Leuric. This was dated 1086, in the Domesday Book for Oxford, during the reign of King William 1, known as "The Conqueror", 1066 - 1087. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

I'm not sure how believable this database is but it sure sounds official.

What do you think? Do you have a good explanation for Loveridge or your own family name (if it isn't Loveridge)?

When Do I Get More Productive ??

Well, we did it! The pictures above and below the text here are pictures of our brand new H-P laptop. As you can tell, the screen and keyboard are HUGE. Of course having the larger screen means I'll be able to enlarge the icons and charactgers and still get the same amount of info on the screen. And the keyboard us as karge as a regular keyboard and even has a keypad like normal keyboards.

But, OH what a problem getting the programs and file structures and peripheral connections up and going. We've threatened Steven with the task of doing all that but I at least wanted to get a start on it so we could be productive if we needed to use it.

Getting used to Vista and Office 2007 is going to be another hurdle that I'm not looking forward to. Another adventure for sure. I guess that is the penalty for trying to keep up with technology.

Reading to puppies

The tax assistance that I'm a part of on Tuesdays has the Library room reserved from 10:30 to 3:30. Since our appointments are scheduled from 11:00 to 3:00 that is usually sufficient. However, there are days like this week when we go over our allotted time. The group that follows us does something called "Read to your Puppy". Some children who get all shy and tongue-tied when their teacher or parent wants to hear them read, don't seem to have the same problem when reading to a pet such as a lovable dog. And a dog will actually act like he's listening, especially if you put inflection in your voice.


It was so fun to see the dogs this week as they were all trimmed with some sort of green accessory.

Still, I don't think this is something I'm going to get involved with.

It's a whole new view...

Or maybe I should say a whole new Vista.

After suffering through the last couple of years with a computer that still has Windows 95 on it, we decided it was time to replace it. Further, we decided it made sense to replace it with a state of the art laptop computer which just happens to have Vista as the operating system.

We bought the computer at Office Depot but didn't bring it home this evening. Instead we bought a service/software bundle for the machine so that when we do get it, it will have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (version 2007) already installed and it will have a lot of the advertising junk removed. At first we thought we wanted the full Office 2007 installed then realized that we never use some of the programs. We're looking forward to Steven coming for the weekend to put his spin on the computer.

The next thing we're looking at is a centralized file storage unit so that all the computers in the network can access the files independently.

Marian the Librarian

I had the occasion today to work with a library supervisor in another part of the city. And although she was young and attractive, she was dressed in what could only be described as "librarian". Do they have special catalogs for Librarians like they do for nursing or operating room personnel? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Sound of Music - a play review

The Sound of Music by Rogers and Hammerstein has been so popular that I think I should have seen it a dozen time in Southern Calilfornia and at least a couple of times since we've been here. But as I try to remember when or with whom, I can't remember. If so, it must have been at least 10 years ago, maybe longer.

In any case, the musical is being performed by the Davis Musical Theater Company who have worked their usual magic in bringing the talent out in a large group of amateurs. Kay Hight, who plays Maria Rainer for example, is like Julie Andrews, not an instantly recognizable beauty. But when she smiles, her face actually glows and her eyes glisten. She therefore makes a believable Maria. And each of the 7 von Trapp children are believable and lovable.

The choir of all the nuns steals the show. What great harmony and tone! The greatest enigma of the whole performance was Captain vonn Trapp. His character played by Giorgio Selvaggio did everything to excess - marched stiffly but stiff to the point of rigidity; spoke roughly but to the point of robotic; and appeared to make rash decisions regarding his marriage.

The person having the most fun during the play had to be Herb Schultz who played Max Detweiler and hammed it up about as much as he could have.

You can try to get tickets at dmtg.org but they were playing to a full house yesterday.

Chance Card; Bank Error in Your Favor

It came to light during a routine attempt at balancing my checkbook. There was just too much money in my bank account. Now you might be saying, "Hey, Dummy, that's not a problem!" But it is. Too much money in my account may mean that I duplicated recording a deposit or missed a major payment or some other really stupid think.

So I went online with my bank (what a wonderful way to check on things) and found that indeed there was an extra deposit - from Social Security - and the money really was in my bank account. The next task was to contact Social Security and find out why.

If I once had a password to access my Social Security account, I've long ago lost it. Didn't matter because the online access was down for maintenance. I waited until just after breakfast on Friday then called, getting a pleasant young "Service Champion". He looked at my account and said I'd get a letter explaining the extra deposit, should have had the letter already. He then read me certain paragraphs of the letter which basically said I've been underpaid so this makes it all up.

Since Carolyn and I were in the market for a new computer this extra deposit is going make us feel a little better about buying one.

Yes, it's come to this

I waited about as long as I could before applying for the disabled person's placard issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. And then the DMV seemed to do everything in their power to make me wait even longer. I had my application signed by my doctor over 5 weeks ago then like a naive person, I dropped it in the mail. What I should have done (I was told my the DMV technician answering my call to check on the application) was to take the application to AAA who could process it immediately and give me the placard right then. Alternatively, I could get a DMV appointment and submit it that way which is also immediate. But mailing in gets lasat priority now that the DMV has a limited staff.

I don't know what Kaiser's excuse is. As a backup I took another application in to the medical secretaries. The paper needs to travel approximately 600 feet round trip without leaving the builiding. But I"m told that it may take 10 -14 days. It's been 4 days so far.

It seems so strange now looking for parking spaces. The placard opens up whole new sections of parking lots. I will probably cut my walking distance at the University by half.

Wheels

Recently, we've been blessed to have Ed and his three boys over for dinner and visiting. This past weekend Tim was determined to learn to ride his bike.

If you look closely you'll see that Tim is, in fact, balancing on his own. You might also see that he is going slow enough that Ed is having no trouble keeping up with him just by walking. Tim hasn't yet got the concept of applying some real muscle power to get some real speed. He also hasn't figured out that with speed comes greater balance so that when he starts to lose his balance he needs to go faster not slower.

Meanwhile, Jake was scooting down our driveway. Even with training wheels, he doesn't yet trust his bike to hold him up. I actually thought he'd be the first to learn to ride a bike. Camdan is just enjoying the whole scene while sucking on his fist because a thumb just isn't enough.

Books to mend

Most of the books have hidden damage which is usually easier to repair.

It's been so long since I worked on rebinding or otherwise repairing some books that I almost forgot why I learned some of the basics in the first place. Yesterday just before the Friends of the Library board meeting, the President of the board brought over a box of books from the Book Den for me to consider repairing. They're actually a pretty mixed bag and should present some interesting challenges to me.

I guess I'd better get busy.

Note the book on the right is actually in four pieces.

In Allah We Trust

What would we think if, like the U. S. Mint did with the different states on our quarters, we had different issues of coins and currency where the motto was altered to accommodate the various denominations we have in our country? Let's see we could have

In Allah We Trust
In Jesus We Trust
In Jahveh We Trust
In G_d We Trust
In Jehovah We Trust
In Elohim, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost We Trust

just to name a few. Do any of these offend you or make you feel uncomfortable?

Years ago, when I attempted to start religious discussions with people in Germany, the second most often response was "We all believe in the same God." Yet seldom did my discussion partner describe the same God that I did. And mine varied depending on whether I described the God of the Old Testament or the New. So when we write "In God We Trust" which God do we mean? And if we can't answer that, why stamp it on our coins and print it on our currency?

And the Winner Is...

... Those with the best notification tree. I really try to write something in this blog every day - a decision that has certainly been a challenge to me but probably also a challenge to you the readers as I sometimes have a bit of writer's block.

I was sitting here this evening trying to decide which of two topics I should write about because I didn't feel particularly keen about either topic. Then my brother-in-law send me one of those chain emails calling for people to vote quickly on a particular issue. This time the vote will be so overwhelming that "NBC will be surprised!"

The question being polled this time was "Should 'In God We Trust' be removed from US coins and currency as it is plainly a violation of the principle of separation of church and state. I'll have another blog about that topic. Today I just want to talk about the voting mechanism. NBC noted that it was not a scientifically random poll as the voters are more of less self-selected. Those with little of no opinion will probably not vote whereas those with a strong opinion will not only vote, they will send along the URL for the poling place. It is also much easier to click on a button than to drive or walk to your polling place to vote. So the vote goes to those who have the best notification tree or largest database of email addresses.

What I found particularly interesting with this plea to "vote and pass it on" was the continuing not that "this will surprise NBC". The article in which the poll was embedded clearly showed that NBC expected people to overwhelmingly vote in favor of keeping God on our coins. If the people who were chain mailing this email REALLY wanted to surprise NBC, they would have asked us all to vote YES, to remove the wording. That would have made headlines instead of footnotes.

A Lawyer Walks into a Bar - DVD review

Someone should sue the producers of this DVD for false advertising (irony intended). From the cartoonish cover and words sprinkled on the back such as "hilarious" and "witty" I actually got the impression that I was going to get a laugh or two watching this DVD. Instead it was one of the more depressing videos I have seen in a long time.

A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar follows 6 potential lawyers who have made it through law school and now must face the California Bar Exam, one of the toughest in the nation. Their motives for becoming lawyers are examined as well. Various study methods are implied if not really compared or even examined. Physical illness, family concerns, impact on relationships - all are fair game for this video but none are taken far enough to mean much.

At the end we do find out who passed the bar and who will stand in line yet another time.

Beauty and the sweets

It was a magical night of beauty, fashion, and calories. As we walked into the Young Women's thrift shop fashion show we walked past a table loaded with cakes, cupcakes, dipped cherries, brownies. etc. These were the goodies that were later to be auctioned off at considerable profit for the Young Women program.


A table on the other side of the stage also beckoned, but this time with small treats that would be passed out to the audience.



Running down the center of the floor was a star studded modeling runway, later put to use by the young women showing off their recently recouped fashions. The girls had paid a visit to one or more thrift store and selected clothes that fit more the late fifties early forties.


I was able to catch a couple of young ladies showing off their fashion outfits.


The bishop's second couselor Dustin McFarlane was the auctioneer. He kept things serious but maintened decorum as he should. Knowing that the auction was for a good cause, the bid simply a fun way to let people how much you were going to give to the Young Women.


We ended up with this German Chocolate cake that looks beautiful. I can't remember what we paid for it but our computation of milease may invite them to

6 month 6,000 mile checkup

Today, Carolyn and I went in to see my neurologist for a routine exam regarding the progress of my Parkinson's disease. I asked him about my medication levels in the hopes that there was some dosage level that would make the disease symptoms go away. Unfortunately, he said, the current drugs approved for Parkinson's don't really help much with the gait or speech which just happen to be the two areas where I feel I'm most impacted.

He watched me walk down the hall and back. He also tested my upper body muscles and reaction time. He said I don't appear to be exhibiting tremors although they could still be sporadic. His main advice was to continue to exercise and be more faithful in following the regimens taught me by the speech and physical therapists. He even claimed that by doing so I could avoid some loss of function in those areas. I was surprised because I thought Parkinson's would eventually take control away from me even as I tried to avoid it.

The doctor did confirm that I indeed have Parkinson's. It isn't just a working diagnosis.

Thank you, Sacramento Public Library

The Sacramento Public Library, which I will abbreviate as SPL or Library has had a good online system of checking when your books are due, renewing them when necessary, searching for and reserving books you'd like to check out, and even paying your fines online.

The Library recently upgraded their website with a new look and a couple of lovely new features. The first that struck me was the introduction of a User ID which you can select yourself as long as it hasn't been used before. Prior to this one had to use his library card number a 12-digit number that took some time to memorize. A user id makes a lot of sense and makes using the system that much easier.

The second thing I noticed was a provision for developing and maintaining private lists of books and materials. You might keep track of all the Sue Grafton books you've read, for example, or all the science fiction that you've heard about but haven't gotten around to reading yet. Nice feature.

The third feature I noticed were buttons seeming to indicate that a person could write reviews on the material read, listed to, or watched. It still isn't clear to me who gets to read those reviews. Just for fun, I wrote a short review and posted it. I can get to it and read it. The notation "approval pending" seems to indicate that after approval by somebody it will be available to more potential readers. The particular book I chose had already been reviewed by 4 professional reviewers.

Finally, the home page for the SPL was redesigned to be more elegant as well as functional.

But for those who prefer the ugly old home page there is a prominent link to the "legacy home page". These guys actually do let you have it both ways.

'tis indeed our Irish custom

What we have come to believe is "traditional" Irish fare - corned beef and cabbage - turns out to be nothing of the kind. Although the Irish had cattle they were mostly for their milk products. It was too expensive to have them for beef. A more common Irish meal might be bacon or side of pork and cabbage. Someone from the Corned Beef Council probably noted the similarity of salted pork to salted beef and voila a myth was born.

In any case our family has enjoyed an easy to prepare version of Corned Beef and Cabbage we named

Corned Beef Casarole and Cabbage:

Ingredients:
6 oz or 2 cups of dry macaroni
12 oz can of corned beef
1/4 lb mild cheddar cheese
1/2 can each of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup and Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 cup milk

Preparation:
Boil 2 quarts of water with 1 tsp salt and one tsp margarine. Add macaroni and cook until tender (7-10 minutes) Drain. Mix soup and milk over medium heat. Crumble in corned beef. Add cooked macaroni. Heat to just below boiling. Cube cheese in 1/4 inch cubes and add just before serving. Serve with cabbage boiled until just barely tender. Red cabbage adds color to the meal.

There you go. Easy enough for a child to make but sophisticated enough to serve to guests.

But what about my little balloon?

It's tasteless, colorless, and odorless. It doesn't mix well with other chemicals. In fact it's lack of reactivity is one of its greatest virtues. The other is that it is so light. And that, besides being a virtue, could be its downfall.

While my brother Bernell was visit a few days ago, he and our son Steve got into an interesting discussion about how long helium (I'm sure you guessed that was the mystery chemical by now) will be among us. I had heard some speculation about that problem but hadn't heard it in terms of doomsday dates until that discussion. I think Bernell threw out the date 2015 but I could be wrong and Steve was talking in terms of a decade or so. Wow, I thought, another inconvenient truth we're not talking about.

You see, although helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (hydrogen being most abundant) helium is rather rare on the earth because it has this habit of escaping from the caves or pockets in the earth where it develops to the atmosphere and then boiling off the outside of our atmosphere and wandering around the universe. Its production by radioactive breakdown primarily of uranium and thorium is a slow process, slower unfortunately than the evaporation of helium from our atmosphere.

Now scientists like Steve are worried about the loss of helium because it is used in scuba diving. Oh, it is also used in low temperature research. Adequate replacements have not been found yet and the clock is ticking.

Me, I'm worried about buying balloons for my grandkids that will float up and away from them when they let go. I mean you don't get the same effect from a mylar balloon on a stick.

Look, Ma, no wires

Except for a time when I used the ergonomically correct Microsoft keyboard (the one which looks like it is about to erupt) I have always been satisfied with a plain vanilla keyboard so I' was not at all expecting the display at Sam's Club to catch my eye. But there was a nice looking, well acting keyboard and optical mouse for $40. And they were both WIRELESS.
I have been having problems with my mouse ever since we installed it on the current desk. The mouse cord is too short so I have to really reach . And it is too long and has to be taped down to keep the cord out of the way. But ther thing that had me giving it a second, third... and tenth look was that Sam's had it for $40.

Now the review. Setting it up was as easy as anything I've ever done. You install the batteries (which come with the keyboard and mouse. Then you plug a 3.5 inch into a spare USB port. That's it. The extra buttons for email & Internet navigation are handy but my favorite is the volume control wheel and mute button. The keys are quiet but sure.

zip to zm9; why's that?

My son Ed and I were discussing the other day who the Internet and especially Google has changed the way we feel about "knowing". We just aren't content to let things lie.

For example Bob, a friend of ours, is putting together a web site and wanted a photo gallery of boy scouts in action, doing what boy scouts do. I scanned some that I had and, to make it easy to transfer, I used the program WinZip which not only compresses files to shorten transmission time but also joins several files into one. Thus instead of sending 35 picture files to Bob, I sent him two zipped files attached to my email.

But, a funny thing happened along the way. When he received my email, he found two files with the file extension ".zm9" Neither his email program nor his version of Windows could unlock or open these two files, or even see what sort of files were zipped. Bob emailed me back explaining the situation and asking that I use a different Zip software.

I started writing back to say the attachments left my computer just fine. Then I decided I'd Google the term "zm9". I got hundreds of references with what I wanted to know explained different ways in the first 5 responses. I especially likedd the information at http://filext.com/file-extension/ZM9 Turned out to be a rogue program on Bob's system that interfered with incoming mail, changed zip files to zm9 files among other things. It also triggered a falase alarm in certain cases.

Another example: We have an old computer which still has Windows 98 on it. I'm thinking maybe I was to upgrade Windows before making the decision to replace the computer. What does Windows XP require and how much does it cost? This is late Sunday evening; it's raining; and I want to know the answers to my questions without leaving the house.

Again a quick click to Google and I've got my answers.

We are really spoiled.