January 31, 2010 Category - family
Latest Pictures of Rachel's New House and Jackson
Posted by marksusan1 at 9:08 AM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2010 Category - just_a_day
Global Warming is a Fact of Life
2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade is now documented since the decade has ended and the data has been compiled.
Posted by marksusan1 at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2010 Category - family
OK - Tentatively on the Calendar for Maine
I have added to my Google Calendar and entry for a July trip to Maine for Kay's wedding. She has a point, if I don't go for her wedding when would I ever go? She's been asking for like 20 years...
Note the tentative. I can't look at tickets or firm dates until we have a better idea of job status, so I'm committing to doing my best to get there. Which is a pretty big statement for me since it involves an airplane and means I'll have to fly east twice this year <shudder>.
Posted by marksusan1 at 8:50 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2010 Category - web_stuff
In Response to "What Does Accessibility Mean to You? "
Glenda Watson Hyatt has challenged people to post on their blog what accessibility means to them in exactly 25 words, and link back to her. Here's the link to the post on her "Do it Myself Blog" and here's my answer:
Accessibility is just another facet of human rights, nothing distinctive. Just having all avenues open to everyone no matter their race,religion,status or disability.
Posted by marksusan1 at 7:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 18, 2010 Category - family
Congratulations Kay & Harold
They'll be getting married in July of this year in Maine. Apparently Julia and Ronnies engagement spurred them on, and now they'll beat them to the altar. No long engagement here!
Possibilities are under discussion...
Posted by marksusan1 at 4:20 PM | Comments (0)
Category - just_a_day
Don't have to be a Programmer to Use the Rubber Duck
This is an old post that I was reminded of the other day. You can apply it to any project or decision you make in your life. Here's the original as posted in 2002 on the University of Canterbury Linux Users Group board:
> There is an entire development methodology (whose name escapes me at the moment) that makes use of that very phenomenon.
We called it the Rubber Duck method of debugging. It goes like this:
1) Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck (bathtub variety)
2) Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over some code with it, if that's all right.
3) Explain to the duck what your code is supposed to do, and then go into detail and explain things line by line
4) At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you on your way.
Works every time. Actually, if you don't have a rubber duck you could at a pinch ask a fellow programmer or engineer to sit in.
Andy
Posted by marksusan1 at 5:08 AM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2010 Category - web_stuff
Latest Things on the Web That Made Me Chuckle
Our Cat is a Snatcher. Please take these if yours
Keeping to the cat theme, done in "infomercial" style, its Cats for Gold, where you can turn your gold into cats, delivered right to your door. I haven't heard Glenn Beck promoting it yet...
According to the post, this is a 30th anniversary tasty treat doing the rounds in Japan. It doesn't look that appetizing to me, but after reading about Top Ten Weird and Bizarre Japanese Soft Drinks, the 18 Kit-Kat Flavors You’ve (Probably) Never Tried and Japan is King of weird ice cream flavors?!, it's probably not that bad
Every once in a while, a post on The Onion.com just hits the spot. This one on Gay Teen Worried He Might Be Christian is a great farce. I love the Dad's final line. Some of the silliest writings you'll find are ones done out of ignorance, fear, racism, etc. You have to laugh at them simply because they deserve no serious thought. For instance, the entry in conservapedia.com on Homosexual bait and switch. It's like the statement in the gay marriage trial ongoing in California that if gay's are allowed to marry, next they will make child pornography legal. See the reasoning here is that if men like men, they obviously like little boys. I guess men that like women, and feel this way, do because they like little girls. I can't find any other logic to this....
I got a Wii with Wii Fit Plus for the holidays, so I can understand that it's not a big leap technology wise to get to fully interactive hand gesture technologies. It's just as I thought about different cultural uses of hand gestures and what some of them stand for, it became clear that there are issues to work out...
I tend to keep up with the legalize marijuana news, and recently there's been some interesting posts on things like Where is America's cannabis capital? (can you believe it's Denver?). But the big news is the new Cheech and Chong Light Up America On Reunion Tour. Yep, the motto is " Get it Legal" and I imagine it being spoken like "get'er done".
I keep asking myself who would wear this to their own wedding? A porn star maybe? Unfortunately I know nothing about this picture. (click for full size on the image site)
Posted by marksusan1 at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2010 Category - just_a_day
What's Up Around Here?
I'm working as an Analyst for the California Volunteers testing and documenting their accessibility issues. It's another work from home job, which I love, the work isn't difficult, but interesting enough, and it lasts almost to the end of March.
Mark's job went away today. His 3 month date, and they decided not to keep him. I also think that means they don't have to pay the fee to the agency??? Contributing factors were: not really having enough work for him, no requirements, and a client who's date went way forward, and so forth. You know the way it sometime works in IT. Positions disappear rather easily or contracts end abruptly.
Jenelle told me she'd decided to finish her finance degree and enrolled at the University of Phoenix. Smart thing to do.
Mom is pretty involved in the Cloverdale Arts Alliance and is always busy their activities including managing the content on their web site and leading the new site planning. They're managing to hang in there in this economy with some creative events/shows and hard working volunteers.
Dad and Barbara will be coming to California for Joels wedding in July and probably staying a couple weeks after the big event. I'm going to plan something at my house during the visit, so start thinking about whether you'll come and let me know when it would work for you.
Rachel is all settled into her new home and really enjoying it. I'm still waiting for pictures, but she wants to wait until all the pictures are hung, and so forth. Hopefully soon.
Posted by marksusan1 at 4:56 PM | Comments (0)
January 8, 2010 Category - just_a_day
If you know me...
If you know me you've heard my Dell support story. The fun site Farck.com takes each days headlines and re-writies them, and just came out with Top 20 headlines of 2009 as voted by users. My favorite is: "India loses contact with an unmanned spacecraft conducting its first moon mission. Support techs ask Mission Control to confirm that the spacecraft is turned on and that it is currently plugged in ".
If you know me at all, you understand why I'm drawn to sites like AirSafe.com. In their Airline Safety Review for 2009 they state that "2009 tied with second fewest fatal airline crashes in any year " since they started reviewing in 1996. Then they go on to state that the "14th annual review discusses eight fatal airline events, and 10 other significant events" that are quite scary. Then go to planeCrashInfo.com and look at their cause stats. Did you know that Sacramento airport (a pretty small airport) was built in the midst of a migratory path and has the most bird hits of any airport in Western US? <sigh>
If you know me at all, you know that I just love little techie tricks and shortcuts like 10 cool things you can do with a USB flash drive, 12 Extremely Helpful Photo Editing App Cheat Sheets, 21 best Excel shortcuts — all in one place, 10 Useful Firefox Extensions to Supercharge Firebug, or 12 Top Notch Online Presentation Tools.
If you know me then you know that any suggestion of race/religion profiling or human rights violating sets me off. When an acquaintance (through job hunting) told me she agreed with searching anyone who looked like or had a name suggesting they might possibly be a Muslim before they can get on a plane (for the good of all, she added), I suggested that all Born Again Conservatives should be searched before they were allowed near any federal buildings or areas that have clinics. Of course the response was about me being anti-Christian, which I'm not. I was just turning it around to show her how crazy the notion was. Religious profiling won't work anyway, it's a religion, not a race and comes in all colors, sizes and sexes. We'd need to enforce something like the yellow star armband.
Posted by marksusan1 at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)
Category - just_a_day
Nutsy Political Quote of the Day
"We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we've had one under Obama."
-- Rudy Giuliani, in an interview on ABC News
So what about these?
9/11 (come on Giuliani..)
Biological Anthrax attacks
Shoe Bomber
Millennium Bomber tried to blow up LAX
The DC Sniper
Are there others I can't remember?? (probably)
And why don't the news anchors/show hosts challenge such silly statements?
Posted by marksusan1 at 8:34 AM | Comments (0)
January 7, 2010 Category - web_stuff
Favorite Videos and Podcasts
There's a lot of great things on YouTube, NASA, RadioLab, and lots of others out there that are quite exceptional to watch/listen to. You'll have to use your back button to return to this post.
The 2 guys (and sometimes guests) from Yale that do cover tunes, Sam Tsui and Kurt Hugo, are a sensation. The Michael Jackson Medley for a cappella group, but with Sam singing all the parts is amazing. They even offer the arrangement if you ask. Their latest is a Lady Gaga Medley that includes Poker Face. I specifically mention Poker Face because of the hilarious reading of it by Christopher Walken, a different kind of video.
Speaking of Michael Jackson, if you never saw the "Banned Prison Version of They Don't Really Care About Us", it's time to watch.
Music mash-ups have become uber popular in the last year. Some of my favorites are: phoenix - lisztomania *brat pack mashup*, DJ Earworm - United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It on the Pop) - Mashup of Top 25 Billboard Hits, Soft Cell VS Rihanna - A Tainted Rescue, and The Black Eyed Peas V. Boston - I Got More Than A Feeling.
In a class by itself is Nyle "Let The Beat Build". NYU senior Nyle Emerson rewrote the lyrics to a Lil Wayne song, got his talented ladyfriends to harmonize and convinced the rest of his class to play their instruments.
Feel the need to add a comedy video, and though it was hard to select, finally picked a recent one, Stephen Colbert on Stephen King, and the bits from his books.
NASA has been doing a series of podcasts that are fascinating. I really like the NASA EDGE ones with historic interest and narration. The discussion and viewing of the recreation of the Mercury Mission Control Room is great to see the old technology knowing it's accomplishments.
Of the non-video podcasts, the one I like to listen to the most, and it won the 2009 Best award is Best of the Left Podcast.com/. It does a wrap-up through today's political voices with a mix of music that is a must for your morning.
I also surf over to RadioLab and check out their latest casts in Science and Technology. You can leave it running in a separate tab while you check your email or balance your accounts.
Posted by marksusan1 at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
January 6, 2010 Category - tes
Walking the Acerage Next Door
Larger views show more land. We only go next door (12 acres vacant 12+ years) in winter-early spring. It took the heavy snow couple weeks ago to knock down plant life that was chest high.
Posted by marksusan1 at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 3, 2010 Category - family
A Great New Year Skype
Jackson showed me the new toy box we sent him. He babbles away, has words that mean things and is an active handful which Rachel good-naturedly handled. I'm sure proud of them both.
Posted by marksusan1 at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 1, 2010 Category - web_stuff
Photos on the Web V
Just because I feel the need to share them with someone.
Posted by marksusan1 at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
