strange mistake

The other night, as I sat waiting (patiently, mind you) for my family to return from a movie-renting jaunt, I played with my camera.

It's not much, my Nikon Coolpix P5100, but it's quite portable and most importantly it's fun! Some of the pix on this site were taken with it.

At any rate... I sat waiting and fiddled.

Not realizing what I was doing, I ended up with this strange mistake. heheee

fashionista

A person of fashion, I am not.

So when it's time to attend functions, I struggle to find a decent thing to wear.

I hate shopping!

Strange, I know, for a woman. I guess. Yet I simply can not stand the strangling stench of department store perfume. Nor can I stand browsing through racks and racks of clothing that just looks odd to me. And most of it does look odd, to me.

It seems these days, if one is not emo or ancient, there are few stylishly cool choices out there.

Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong direction!

Were it up to my daughter, this is where I'd be shopping! --->MoonCostumes
I think I'll go for Yuna's style! haha! :o)

"kairi"

When this one smiles, my heart sings~~

She has helped me through so many things.

Little does she know, or possibly understand, how much she is appreciated.

Thank you, my "kairi".

You are an awesome possum to be sure!

note from a napkin to a loved one

There is such a struggle to find happiness.

Everything in its place.

Need more of this. More of that.

Why is this peace so elusive?

That the children smile and laugh at the little things has taught me not to try so hard.

Perhaps, happiness is like water.

If you try to hold on to it tight, it will slip through your fingers.
Maybe, to get a refreshing drink, it's better to scoop it up with gently cupped hands.

Relax.

Dis-Information Highway

Out of boredom, curiosity and a bit of idiocy, I Googled myself (yes, it was painful). Doesn't everyone do this to themselves at some point?

Somehow I ended up on Veromi.net, a people search and background check site.

There my name was, in all its forms, as it has changed over the years. And there with it, a list of my "associates"?

Odd, most of the people listed, I've no clue who they are. Yet, this particular (ahem) trusted site sells this type of information to the snoops.

It got me thinking, what if someone were really looking for me about something, I dunno, important. Private even. Then all these strangers would get phone calls and late night visitors at their door. Visitors inquiring about me, and demanding answers! heheee

I say this, because we had someone pounding at our door very late one night. Someone with a big scary voice asking to speak to me. Of course, we did not open the door and even considered calling the police! This rather large man was quite persistent, pounding on the door at intervals before finally giving up and leaving.

He left a calling card on the door. Nice of him.

After calling the number on the rather official-looking (stamped with a seal) card, we discovered the scary man was not looking for me at all, but rather an "associate" of mine. Someone they believed to be my father, who, in reality, was not my relation at all! All of this over a vehicle due to be repossessed. Apparently, I was thought to be hiding the car in the parking lot of our apartment. ha!

Interesting.

I wonder what sort of legal action might be taken one day when sites like Veromi.net get someone shot!

Geek 101

To further enhance my proud geek-ness, I immersed myself in the study of wireless routers!

It had to be done. My router ran afoul and needed attention. All I know is, it now works! As for what I did to get it working, I've no idea at all!!

Ah, I've got so much to learn... :o)

iPod Shuffle Scuffle

I've often wondered what to do when my iPod Shuffle runs out of juice for good. I mean, I use the thing every day. Gotta have that music! I just love my Shuffle. It's durable, the perfect size and clips onto whatever I'm wearing. It's a lovely little gadget.

So, after some research, the discovery was it would cost nearly $60+shipping to have Apple replace the battery. This leads me to think the little guy is disposable, since it cost me 78 bucks to buy it about a year ago.
I mentioned this in the Apple forum. The response to me was~~the Shuffle is not disposable, is built to last and I should purchase an extension on some maintenance package, so battery replacement would be cheaper.

Huh?

Egad...

And now...
Apple dropped the price of the iPod Shuffle to just 49 bucks!!

What does this mean? And does it still cost nearly 60 smackers (plus shipping) to replace the battery??

Hmmm....
I think my next Shuffle will be purple :o)

Fractal Fascination

What is it about fractals?

photoshop fun

I've been working with Photoshop 5.0 (a very old program), to practice masking. This is one project I came up with. The background layer is the rose in color, tweaked. The top layer had been desaturated. Erasing parts of the top layer revealed the color in selected areas.
That was fun! :o)

Miss Sara Rose

...could not help herself...
The second she saw the roses, she knew there must be contact.
Despite my warnings not to touch, Sara quietly crawled on top of the table and secretly helped herself.
I could not resist snapping a quick pic of this activity.

Ahhh...adorable Miss Sara Rose. :o)

high priority

Today, I must unstick my fingers from this keyboard and take a break from computing.

It seems there are many other things needing attention. Particularly, since we are to have a guest in our home this weekend and the place is wrecked! Nevermind that the kiddos are running around like crazy monkeys!! Cute, crazy monkeys :o)

And so, I've lots of work to do. ((sigh))

~~Happy Valentine's Day~~

sleepless

Last night, or really early this morning depending on how you look at it, my Lil Man awoke. I'd been looking for royalty free music on ccMixter.org at the time, thus I was alert, and heard the little guy first. I went to check on him, and found him smiling pleasantly at me.

Once I picked him up, I knew it was over. He was not letting go. He's a cuddly little fellow and could not be resisted.

With my fully loaded iPod Shuffle clipped to my shirt, ears stuffed with music, and a bear cub clinging to me tightly, I snuggied down in the blankets and a sweet song began to play. The song... a remix found on ccMixter called Rain Lament (Pretty Mix) by vo1k1.

My sweet boy stared sleepily at my face, periodically reaching out to touch my lips, his face edged by the ambient glow filtering through the window.

To hear the sounds I heard, while watching my little boy last night, please see the video below...

happy geek

Lately, I've combined my love of photography with some movie editing software I recently, and quite reluctantly, acquired.

It had to be done. The Windows Movie Maker I had so loved, was driving me crazy! It wouldn't handle mpegs, nor would it treat the wmv files with much respect.

Having heard the Cyberlink PowerDirector6 was highly rated, I decided to give it a go.
And since I'm not one to read or watch tutorials, I just threw myself in there. I'm sure there is lots to learn about the program's capabilities, but I had little trouble churning out a couple of short vids. You'll likely see some of these "masterpieces" pop up here on this blog, from time to time, as I break-in the new application.

What is it about new software that gets me so excited?
I'm not sure, but I know my father would be proud... :o)

rain

Tonight we are to get a storm. I'm all giddy, anticipating the rumble of thunder~~a sound I've always loved.
And so, in honor of what's to come, I'm posting this, a short video about last year's big rain. :o)
...I can already feel the edge of the storm...

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Bravo!

My daughter and her friend worked diligently on a project together.
This is the end result.


Wow! That's about all I can say right now. :o)