Happy Independence Day
The Declaration of Independence, for your reading pleasure. Interesting stuff.
The Complete (Well, almost) Tour of the Zoo
One of the good things Omaha has going is it’s zoo. My brother and his family decided to drive to Omaha with 4 of their kids on the spur of the moment (from Dallas) and asked us to go with them to the zoo.
This involved some quality time with my sister-in-law, brother and niece and nephews, my daughter and my husband, and a LOT of walking. I think we covered the whole zoo except for the cat complex and the desert dome.
It was a hot day, even though we got to the zoo at 9am and we were getting ready to leave around 12:30. My nephew asked to go into the desert dome. My brother and SIL asked, “Isn’t that just a big desert?” “Yeah,” I said, “and it’s hot”.
We decided on the gift shop instead.
By the way, there is a malayan tiger due to deliver cubs around August 1. You can see the tiger cub ultrasound here.
Dear Lord, I Apologize..
for using your name in vain so many times today, along with a few other choice words, while replacing a laptop LCD at work. Those many screws required to get that broken LCD free and screw in the new one? Too wonderful to mention! (oops!)
Also, I want to thank you for teaching me how important it is to not try to put one model’s stupid screen in another model’s laptop. It was good for me to see how that breaks the ribbon. Oh, and I was lucky to see how to replace the ribbon, if it weren’t for those dumb screws that were screwed in hydraulically, which prevented their eventual removal, thereby just PRAYING TO YOU that part of that ribbon touching the contact was going to be enough to light up that gosh darn screen. Which, for now, it was.
Thank you, Lord, most of all, (and I mean this) for keeping me calm enough to avoid flinging the laptop through the air and just going home for the day.
My mortgage lender thanks you much more!
Let us pray that, eventually, I earn the pay required to actually be an IBM tech.
Amen.
CampBowWow.com
I know a couple of people who might appreciate this. My step-daughter just told me about Camp Bow Wow, an alternative to a kennel, of sorts. The kicker is that you can watch your dogs online.
And, yes, I have started the booking process for my dog in 先让室友爽爽(h)笔趣阁, over the Thanksgiving holiday.
In order to attend camp, your dog has to go through an interview process, which involves introducing the dog to two campers (dogs) and seeing if they get along. If so, then they can stay from 3 hours to a whole day, for free, to make sure they pass the test (ie are not too agressive to get along with the other dogs).
Take a peek, if you want, at the website. Choose a California store that’s still got the dogs out running around with each other. I’m not sure what the night kennels look like.
The End of Chris Benoit
My husband is an avid WWE (“professional wrestling) fan. Mostly, I am not interested in it, but every now and then something happens that causes me to pay attention.
The show started Monday, and we were anticipating a storyline where the CEO was supposedly dead. I said it was a false report, since nothing else on the Internet said that Vince McMahon was dead.
Instead, the show opened with a report that Chris Benoit and his family were dead. I checked the Internet. Although not many had reported it yet, it was out there. I figured even the WWE would be pretty low to report a whole family dead if it wasn’t.
Sadly enough, the story was true. We speculated that some crazy fan must have killed them, but of course, the reality was that it was a murder-suicide. The theory is that “roid rage” was involved.
To make matters exponentially stupid, the WWE has released a statement saying that steroid use could not have possibly contributed to this incident. They carefully outline that steriod use cannot cause asphixiation. To me, this is the same thing as saying anger cannot cause a gun to pick itself up and shoot someone.
I think the WWE is trying to cover up the painfully obvious: Steroid use is widely accepted in this “sports arena”. It’s necessary, I’m sure they think, because it keeps everyone’s muscles bulging and keeps the attention on the show.
I wrote to the WWE because I thought their statement was so weak. The gist of it was that instead of trying to act like the police and making assumptions about what has happened, why don’t they just come out and say they don’t condone the use of steroids?
It’s because they can’t. And from the list of people who have died as a result of steriod use: Eddie Guerrero, The British Bulldog, etc., how more will there be? And isn’t it sad that these people are killing themselves to make a living?
The one thing I wonder is if Chris Benoit was alive today, listening to the speculation, would he really have wanted the speculation, or would he have preferred to leave a note so someone would have some idea why this happened?
The Visit to the Hairdresser
Ever had one of those visits to the hairdresser where the communication is a little lacking? I had long hair when I went in, really short hair (mid-neck) when I came out.
My husband says it’s cute, and it’s really more manageable, but when you’ve got long hair and all of the sudden you have unexpected short hair, it’s a little odd to look in the mirror.
The Little Kid got a haircut, too. It’s nothing like the picture she picked out, either.
Oh well. It’s just hair. 🙂
One Word Meme
one word meme
1. Where is your mobile phone? Motorcycle.
2. Relationship? Comfortable.
3. Your hair? Short.
4. Work? Yes.
5. Your sister(s)? None.
6. Your favourite thing? Laptop.
7. Your dream last night? Unknown.
8. Your favourite drink? Coffee.
9. Your dream car? Mercedes.
10. The room you’re in? Outside
11. Your shoes? BearTraps.
12. Your fears? Spiders.
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Vacationing.
14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? Family.
15. What are you not good at? Running.
16. Muffin? Raspberry.
17. Wish list item? Furniture.
18. Where you grew up? Nebraska.
19. The last thing you did? Napped.
20. What are you wearing? T-Shirt.
21. What are you not wearing? Socks.
22. Your pet? Ginger.
23. Your computer? Toshiba.
24. Your life? Normal.
25. Your mood? Flat.
26. Missing? Vacation.
27. What are you thinking about? Cooking.
28. Your car? Sonata.
29. Your kitchen? large.
30. Your summer? hot.
31. Your favourite colour? green.
32. Last time you laughed? today.
33. Last time you cried? unsure.
34. School? Done.
35. Love? Awesome.
Cell Phones Are Not Washable
Several days ago, my husband accidentally sent his brand new phone through the wash. We got it for free with our “new every 2” -year program at Verizon Wireless.
Anyway, it went through the wash. It came out intermittantly buzzing. We took out the battery, and allowed it to air dry.
After reading up on what to do next on the Internet, we put it into a baggie with a silica bag that I was lucky enough to find. We read that we should leave it alone for 3 days and see what it did.
Today, we plugged in the battery and then the power cable, and there was a reaction. We got the phone to boot up.
So far, though, it’s saying that it can’t find the network, and the camera flash on the outside of the camera is always on. I suppose this would help us to always find it quickly, but we decided to take the battery out again and stuff it back in the baggie with the silica.
We’ll try it again Sunday night to see what happens.
Lock up your Wireless Connection
I thought I’d share something I learned in class yesterday. Well, I already knew how to do all of these things, but I didn’t think they’d all be necessary.
If you’ve got Wireless, you’ve got to be sure to secure it. Why? Because if you don’t, some hacker could get into your system, use your Internet connection (which could slow you down if they’re streaming video) and even get to your files. They could even decide to reconfigure your wireless router for you.
When it comes to your computer, always consider the worse case scenario.
I’ve been protecting my Wireless by only allowing certain MAC addresses (unique numbers assigned to each network card). Turns out there’s software that will allow people to hack my MAC, and connect to my wireless as me. This would not be good.
So, here are some good ideas for locking down that wireless connection. Most people can get to their configuration by opening up Internet Explorer (or Firefox, if you wish) and going to http://192.168.1.1/. It depends on the router, really. I saw a Dell router that used a different address. Consult your vendor documentation for more information. Here’s another reference for your reading enjoyment.
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