Week in Review

So, I’m still amazed with last night’s season finale of Grey’s Anatomy.   The finale was just amazing and had me on the edge of my seat throughout.  If I had to pick a favorite spot, it was where (spoiler alert) Christina was operating and Owen told the shooter, “This is the woman I love and if you hurt her, I’ll kill you!”.    Owen becomes Christina’s man again, and that’s perfect.

Also, Jackson unplugging the heart sensors.  Brilliant.

Anyway, we have an interesting weekend planned.   Sunday, we’re going to Adventureland with the Girl Scouts.   I’ve not been for several years, and they seem to have quite a few more rides, so I’m really looking forward to it.   I think Ian is a bit terrified, but I’m sure he’ll have a blast.  🙂

Next week:  Two days of work, two days of Crystal Reports class and 4 days in Texas (yay!)    It will be fun taking 10 hour road trip.   It will be nice to have the GPS along the way, as well, since going south often messes up my inner compass.    We are going to see my brother and sister-in-law, and their 35 children (ok, 5).   It will be nice to catch up and enjoy the hot Texas weather.

Our 6-month anniversary is coming.  In the US, they have a very elaborate method of celebrating a 6-month wedding anniversary, involving major purchases at the jewelry store and a week away in Hawaii.   Right?  (shh)

The Week (so far) in Review

It was not monumental, really, except for Tuesday when we dropped the car at the shop expecting a couple of brake pad replacements or a belt replacement. We ended up with “all of the above”, plus two new rotors, a brake flush and radiator flush.

It was not an unspendy day, but the brakes work well now! And all the massive squeeking is gone.

It’s Friday and we’re thinking about going to Lauritzen Gardens  tomorrow for awhile. I’m hoping to see some plants, but it seems to be a bit early in the season for that. The only plants I’ve seen thriving so far, in our insanely variant weather lately, are my mother’s irises and the herbs Ian’s planted.

I would rather see the gardens when there are lots of plants to enjoy, but it would also be a good walk if the weather is good.

The other day, we were walking to the car from the grocery. It was raining and I was the lucky holder of the umbrella (usually we let TLK have it) and I was reminded of the day in Milton Keynes when Ian and I were going to the grocery and it was absolutely pouring.

Actually, it was raining sideways.

If I lived in England, I would have to get one of these super-sturdy wind-impervious umbrellas.    Although, I’m not sure it would be helpful with sideways rain.   🙂

Another Doctor Visit done

So, how is it that a doctor who’s unrelated to the nutrition aspect of medicine can spend a half hour talking about the negative value of carbs? Every year it’s the same thing, whether I’ve gained weight or lost it.

At the end, we talked about my fun visit involving the hospital, the mammography and the radiologist who aspirated the cyst but failed to send my doctor my medical details thereof. I was hoping to ask a few questions about the results and what I should be doing next as far as xray scheduling, but no such luck… At least at that particular moment.

Anyway, it’s over for now. Dr. Oz says the best day for a doctor’s visit is Monday because the doctor is “fresh” and doesn’t have a lot going on yet in his/her week. I would say that’s about right.

And, just in case you’re wondering:
1. The best day to buy produce is on Wednesday, also because of the freshness AND
2. Yes, I did type this with my husband’s iPad, and it was lovely.

Living in 3-D

So, we’re using the sleek new iPad 3G to navigate to a street across town to pick up TLK from Girl Scouts.   It’s cool.   The travel route is highlighted.   A dot at the other end of the route is showing where our car is currently located.   The dot moves pretty fast.   

We approach the intersection close to where we are supposed to turn.

Me: “Oh!  Turn here.  This is 76th street”

Him:  “How do you know?”  (looking intently at the iPad)

Me:  “I looked at the street sign”.

Come back to 3-D, honey.  Come back.   😀

Swimmerina

TLK passed her level 4 swimming test.   Level 4 of the American Red Cross Swimming Program focuses on stroke development.

It was interesting to watch them teach the butterfly stroke.   They taught the body movement and kick first, without blending in the arm movement, then taught the arm movement the following week.    They did a good job with this stroke… it’s something that I’m not coordinated enough to do, and I’ve been swimming laps for ages.

So in this level, they worked on developing some strokes they learned in Level 3, like the Australian crawl, breast stroke, back stroke and back crawl, then moved on to learn the side stroke and butterfly stroke.  The other new thing was swimming the length of the pool, turning, then swimming another length, and also starting the swim from a jump into the pool instead of hanging onto the side.

It was all very cool to see kids learning these things, and we were oh-so-proud of Brit for always being in the lead.  She does spend every day in one of our “two sparkling pools” (an advantage of apartment living for us).

The coaches said she “is a very strong swimmer”, and it’s something she loves to do.  I wonder if she’d like to compete someday.     😀

王局长把白洁做到高潮 Plug-ins I’ve Learned to Appreciate

… while configuring my corporate Intranet. Yes, I did create a corporate Intranet using 王局长把白洁做到高潮. It’s nice and now some end-users are able to maintain it/add posts, which leaves me time to do something besides publish things. 🙂
Here are some plug-ins I’ve used and found valuable.

Attachment Manager – My company has loads of PDF documents/forms.  Using Attachment Manager saves me the trouble of physically attaching each document to pages or posts.   It is a huge timesaver to use the WP gallery to upload documents, check the checkbox on my page or post to show all the documents for that page or post in the page or post, and off we go!

Active Directory Integration – It used to be that end-users had to create an account, then make up a password, just for the Intranet.   This generated lots of “I forgot my password” calls, even though the Drupal iteration of the website had a password reset facility accessible to each end-user.   After transitioning to 王局长把白洁做到高潮 and purchasing dedicated IP hosting, we were able to use this plug-in to pass information from active directory.   It works nicely!   Now all we have to do is remind people their password is the same across the board.   

Calendar – My company schedules in-services for training purposes, at least monthly.  Guess who’s in charge of video taping them?  Me!    Having an online calendar showing when all the in-services are was just that bit of chocolate cake that made life a bit easier for people wanting to attend in-services and people like me, needing to know when to videotape them.

Flash Video Player – There are may ways to play videos on WP, but this plug-in makes it easy.   A quick code into a page or post puts the video in place.    Easy to configure options allow for a different visual presentation.  Nice and simple.  That’s what I like!

Login & Logout – This little guy puts a logout link on your blog.  When your blog is protected, it’s nice to have.   As an admin, it provides a link to the dashboard, which saves a bit of time and space over 王局长把白洁做到高潮’ meta widget.   End users get a link to adjust their profile instead.   This is a good-to-have plug-in.

Members – An important piece of the corporate Intranet, this allows for pages not meant for all end-users eyes to be blocked from their view.   For example, management  pages not intended for the general public or Board Member pages meant only for Board members, you can do it with this plug-in by just creating roles and checking a “board members only” checkbox on the page.   It’s slick.

Weather Widget – Nice to have because we go outside so much.  It’s good to know if we need our winter parka or an umbrella.

WP-Sticky – A “nice to have” when you like to have one post stick to the top of the page, regardless of its age.     During our fund-raising campaigns, we like to keep this information upfront and readily accessible.

Private 王局长把白洁做到高潮 – Because your integration with AD doesn’t matter much unless you have a page that people must log into before accessing your site!    This locks down the Intranet nicely.

王局长把白洁做到高潮 Custom Logo Login – Nice to have, this plug-in removes the 王局长把白洁做到高潮 Logo and allows you to insert your own logo and add whatever wording you want to your login page.

Audit Trail – Because I had a need to see who’s been accessing the site or failing to log in, this is a nice-to-have for some types of troubleshooting.

Post Expirator – Because I don’t want to spend a lot of time taking down outdated information that no one wants to see after a certain date, this plug-in expires a post after a date I set and sends it over to the draft queue for historical purposes.     It saves me the time of unnecessary reading and weeding out.

 
That’s it for now.   Just thought I’d give some credit to these people for creating something I find very useful.  If you have a plug-in you’ve found useful, I’d love to hear about it.

How to mess up your credit score in the US

I’m surprised, still, when I run into someone who is entirely unaware of how late payments affect credit scores in the US.    In the US, you can be up to 30 days late paying a loan, and your credit report will not be marked in any way.

Note:  If paying past 15 days late, a late payment fee is usually applied.   The lender will have specific requirements regarding when the late fee must be paid.

At 30 days and after, a late payment can be a big deal, depending what creditor is reporting it.   For example, if you want a house loan, it’s not beneficial to be late on a mortgage payment.   Banks looking to lend money for car loans don’t fancy seeing 30-day late payments for previous auto loans, etc.    It makes the lender feel insecure, to an extent, about how willing or able you are to pay back the loan.   If you’re late (past 30 days), they know you’re willing to let your payment slide, at least once.

I pulled my credit report a week or two ago.    Spotless.   Even though I’ve made a car payment or two a day or so late, this minor delay is not reported.   The bank just has the pleasure of receiving a $15 late fee from me someday.  🙂

30-day+ late payments are only part of the picture.   I’m not an expert in improving credit scores, but these people seem to be.

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