Mike's Blog

Nine Good Years... Now Get Out

2010-02-02T22:08:00.005-05:00

I'm one of the original Bloggers. I started using Blogger on January 12, 2001, long before Google bought it from Pyra Labs. I was the 129,287th blogger on Blogger.com, putting me in the top 0.3% of earliest adopters. But what started over nine years and 450 posts ago will soon be over.

I've complained about recent problems with the Blogger's FTP service and I've been thinking of switching to WordPress for a while now. The main reasons I still haven't switched over yet are because it's a complicated process to switch over and not lose all the traffic from inbound links, and because I was going to make the switch when I update the rest of my website too, and finally because there was no urgency. Well now that last reason is gone.

Today I got an email from Blogger announcing that "we will no longer support FTP publishing in Blogger". FTP is the type of blog that I have, which means that I use Blogger.com to post but then those posts are transferred to my own website where the blog is hosted on my own servers. According to Blogger, "only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP". So apparently I was both an early adopter and now I'm a final holdout too. In any case, I now have until March 26th to get my blog off of Blogger and migrate it to WordPress.

Blogger has set up a blog just for people like me, but only to help move people to Blogger hosted services, not for people to keep their blogs hosted on their own servers. Most of the comments there show that bloggers in my situation are either angry or scared about what to do with years worth of their work. There are a few how-to posts I found on the internet so I'm planning on following these instructions. I sure hope it works because there's no going back once I start the process.

Getting all my blog posts on to a new platform is just one part of the total process. I also have to create a new from-scratch WordPress template to make my new blog match the look of the rest of my website, like it does at the time I wrote this post. But I don't have time to do all that now, especially when I also plan on updating the look of the rest of my site anyway, so just a heads up that sometime soon my blog won't look anything like the rest of my site. It may remain lookig odd for weeks or even months, but eventually I'll get it looking right again.

A Weekend With Darah

2010-01-24T11:58:00.003-05:00

This video was created just as a simple test. The video is from my Flip UltraHD which creates MP4 files at 1280 x 720p. It was edited with Adobe Premiere Pro which was different then what I've been used to editing with for the past 16 years but easy enough to figure out. But I can't seem to get the dissolves to render properly and still keep it at HD resolution. (Even in this example above (rendered at 720 x 405p) you see that the first video cross dissolve at :20 seconds flashes a bunch of pixelized garbage.)

Return of the Little Green Men

2010-01-06T23:07:00.002-05:00

Several years ago I blogged about a great promo but I didn't find a version of the promo online that I could embed here on my website. Tonight, I accidentally stumbled upon this same promo on YouTube. So better late then never, here's one of my all-time favorite promos, "Little Green Men" for Animal Planet.

50 Yard Line

2010-01-02T08:53:00.006-05:00

I got to the field early for the Sunday Night Football game on December 20th, 2008 and had a moment to quickly snap some pregame photos. I finally stitched them together and here's the composite panoramic photo. Very symmetrical.

This image was created from 14 separate photos (7x2) taken with my little point-and-shoot Kodak EasyShare C613 and composited automatically using Microsoft ICE. Nothing high-tech, or time-consuming. It took less than a minute to quickly snap the shots and less than a minute (weeks later) to simply drag and drop the images into an application. Viola. Can't get any easier.

I've created many stitched panoramic photos before using ICE but this is the first time I've made one from multiple rows or had the angle go past 180-degrees before (this one covers 188-degrees). I still like a different Panthers pre-game panoramic I took in 2008 more, but click here to see all my panoramics on Flickr.

I also snapped this photo of Brett Favre being interviewed before the Panthers put a 26-7 whoopin' on the Vikes.

Last game of the season is tomorrow.

Resolutions Fail

2010-01-01T22:11:00.002-05:00

Last year I posted my New Year's Resolutions for 2009. I preferred to call it a to-do list instead of setting any lofty goals, yet sadly I still failed to accomplish most of the items on my 2009 list. Here are just some items I failed to accomplish from last year's list.

Redesign my personal website - FAILED. But it's still on my to-do list.
Blog more often - FAILED. 69 posts in 2009. 117 posts in 2008.
Camp at McDowell Park with Maegan - FAILED. I never got a chance to go camping AND have the weather work out for me too. I'll try again this year.
Find 20+ letterboxes with Maegan in McDowell Park in a single day (all day hike) - FAILED. Same story as above.
Play in more disc golf tournaments (hopefully win something this year) - TOTAL FAILURE. I didn't play even one game of disc golf all year - tournament or not. Never had the time.

Not surprisingly, I've decided NOT to make any new new year's resolutions for 2010, but I will try to get to some of these goals from the year before.

Charlie Brown Zombies

2009-12-24T00:09:00.004-05:00

Admit it. Not only do you know the infamous dancing scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas, but at some point you've imitated the moves of one of the Peanuts gang. Did you try the Zombie? The Marionette? The Flower Child (my favorite)? Not sure which dances I'm talking about? Then behold The Complete Guide to the Dances of A Charlie Brown Christmas, the authoritative study on this important subject. Be sure to read the analysis of each dance and each dancer's ability to pull it off.

From that link above, I also found it interesting that elusive names of the twins in A Charlie Brown Christmas are 3 and 4. Yes, those are their names. Read here for more details, including how the kid doing The Marionette dance is their brother, 5.

And completing today's A Charlie Brown Christmas kick, here's cool video a mashup that somebody created several years ago, combining the dancing scenes from A Charlie Brown Christmas with the hit song "Hey Ya" by Outkast.

Faux Twitter

2009-12-06T18:28:00.004-05:00

Several times today I found myself thinking that if I only had Twitter on a mobile device I would want to tweet about this. Here is what I would have tweeted today if I could.

"Watching Taylor Hicks throw a football. Yes, that Taylor Hicks. 30 yard perfect spirals."
At 10:30 a.m. I was upstairs in the booth at Bank of America Stadium and saw Taylor Hicks down on the field doing a run-through for the National Anthem he would be singing before the start of the Panthers game. A few minutes later I looked down again and he was in the end zone passing a football back and forth with somebody else (maybe a player out of uniform?). This was an unexpected sight in the first place but I was even more surprised that all his throws were perfect spirals.

"In the elavator with Tayor Hicks."
Needs no explanation but perfect twitter material. He's taller than I thought.

"Why would anybody wear sharp high heels on grass?"
Some woman was walking around the sidelines during pregame wearing sharp high heel shoes. Apparently a slave to fashion, she didn't have the common sense to realize that she would be sinking into the soft wet turf with every step, which is exactly what was happening.

"My favorite part of the game... warming up on the bench at half-time."
I'm standing the entire game so one of my favorite parts of most games is getting to rest on the Panthers bench while they're away at halftime. But I especially like warming up on the heated benches they have in cold weather games.

And now you know that you wouldn't want to follow me on twitter.

Not Leading By Example

2009-12-02T23:25:00.002-05:00

I've contributed tons of content to Wikipedia including dozens of my own photos. Whenever you upload any images to the Wikipedia Commons it is automatically released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. All image files pages clearly state this fact below the photo and even give you the idiot-proof summary of "In short, you are free to distribute and modify the file as long as you attribute its author(s) or licensor(s)." So anybody can use my photos that I've uploaded to Wikipedia but they are required to give me credit for it - or else it's stealing.

I often see my photos show up while surfing the internet. Yet nobody has ever given a proper source credit to me, and although it bugs me when people break the rules, I generally don't care much because it's usually inconsequential uses. But I recently visited the website of my old high school and noticed one of my photos that I uploaded to the Wikipedia Commons was used in the header of no less than six of pages on the Northport High School website (squished disproportionally, no less).

Unlike other times I've seen my photos on other websites, this one bothers me because they are a school and they should know better. I work for a school district and I know how schools actively promote the responsible use of information obtained on the internet. So it really bugs me that a school (my old school) is teaching students about citing sources and not violating copyright regulations, but they're not practicing what they preach. In this case they aren't even required to ask permission, but they were required to give attribution. Heck, they link to a Citation Guide right on their website! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to help out my alma mater and I'm happy to have them use my photo on their website, but ignoring the clearly posted license just ain't right.

And the kicker is that they could do a lot better by just taking this photo themselves. I was in a huge rush when I took this photo in 2008 (actually 3 photos stitched together using Microsoft ICE) so I just took the photos from where I was parked without looking for a better camera location, and I also never bothered to correct the blatantly obvious color shift in the sky. But who knew that Northport High School would actually take my photo and use it in their website's header.

Baby Doll

2009-11-29T16:52:00.003-05:00

Those mannequins at Old Navy sure are realistic.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T09:40:00.002-05:00

It's A Small World

2009-11-20T23:18:00.005-05:00

Twice in the past week I found out just how small the world really is.

A week ago Maegan came home from school and told us about a story that her teacher told in class about a boy she had gone to school with a long time ago. The tragic story sounded way too familiar so we looked for and found Maegan's teacher in our high school yearbook. Not only did Maegan's teacher go to high school with us in New York (different years, we didn't know her) but it turns out that her teacher was friends with Patty's younger sister. Small world.

Then last night was a Thursday night home game for the Carolina Panthers. Like all Panthers home games I worked on the sideline as part of the Instant Replay crew. During pregame setup I looked over and saw somebody on the sidelines looking at me with a smile and nodding. I was pretty sure who it was but I still had to take a second because this was so unexpected. Sure enough it was my friend Howie from college. I first met Howie in 1990 before we first moved in across the hall from each other at Kent Hall at SUNY Plattsburgh. We were both in PSTV and later we both worked at WPTZ-TV, which is the last time I saw Howie more than 10 years ago. I knew Howie did a ton of big time freelance but I didn't know that he traveled the country with NFL Network, which is why he was on the sidelines in Charlotte. Small world.

I found this photo from last night's game posted on the internet, taken from some random unknown fan in the upper deck.

Update 11/22:
Howie sent me this photo he took with his iPhone!

Double-Retro New York

2009-11-10T22:10:00.005-05:00

Today New York State unveiled a new license plate which generated a lot of controversy. The reason the state is replacing all the old license plates is to generate $260 million in revenue to help with their budget shortfall by charging car owners a mandatory $25 new plate charge, which many drivers see as an unfair tax. New York charged drivers for the last changeover too earlier this decade but this fee is 4½ times more. By contrast, California has never charged its citizens for a mandated license plate redesign. On top of this, drivers will also be charged an additional $20 fee if they want to keep their existing plate numbers.

The current New York license plates were introduced only 8 years ago, while the previous "Liberty" plates (introduced in 1986 for the Statue of Liberty's centennial) remained in circulation for twice as many years.

Aside from the financial controversy, a lot of people don't like the design of the new plates. I however like the new design. It's simple with solid bold colors, unlike so many plates nowadays with complicated artwork with details you can't even see while driving. Most people have noted that the colors are reminiscent of the old blue on gold plates used in the 70s and 80s, but it's doubly-retro since it is also reminiscent of the older gold on blue plates used in the 50s and 60s. The slightly curved upper blue edge gives the classic color combo a modern feel by hinting at the curved light gleams that are prevalent in so many of today's popular web 2.0 logos. And the pinstriping gives it a bit of a sporty feel too. (Hey, can you tell that I love graphic design?)

Bottom line: I hate the reason and way that New York is mandating the change, but I like the design of the new New York license plate.

Urban Coyote

2009-11-09T21:52:00.006-05:00

As I pulled into work around noon today, I saw what I first thought was a stray dog sitting on the grass under a large tree just a few yards off the parking lot asphalt. As I slowly drove by I realized that it was a coyote! Huh what? I stopped the car and rolled down my window. He was less than 40 feet away (so I was even closer when I was driving right by him). I looked at him and he stared back at me. This photo isn't mine but he looked like this one.

This is on school grounds which was an immediate concern but there were no children around. As soon as I took my eyes off him to grab my cell phone the coyote got up and started walking down the hill away from me (but definitely not in any hurry). He stopped at the bottom of the hill, so I got out of my car to get a better look, but he then continued further away on to the school's baseball field and out of view.

It was obviously surprising to see a coyote on school grounds but several other things made this just weird. We've heard coyotes howl a few times out where we live on the outskirts of the city but the school grounds where I work are not rural at all. This encounter was just a few miles from the skyscrapers in the center of uptown Charlotte. Also, it was noon, and coyotes are nocturnal. Why was he out in the middle of the day in the first place? Very odd.

After this encounter I looked up some more details about coyotes in North Carolina. In the mid-80s there were only a few counties in North Carolina with coyotes. In less than 20 years they're now in all 100 counties.

PDFs from NC Wildlife Resources:

Mickey, Pluto, and Red

2009-11-07T10:06:00.002-05:00

Halloween was a week ago yet Darah was walking around the mall with a plastic jack-o-lantern today.

Let's start at the beginning. Darah loves Mickey Mouse. She also loves Pluto, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, and Goofy too. A few months ago we got Darah small Mickey and Pluto stuffed animals at the Disney store. Ever since then, Mickey and Pluto have been inseparable from her. Mickey and Pluto eat all meals with her, go on car trips with her, watch TV with her, and of course go to bed with her. First thing in the morning, Darah calls out for Mickey... then calls out for Mom second after she realizes that he's already in bed with her.

Then Darah's posse grew. Over the summer Wendy's began giving out little U.B. Funkeys bobblehead dolls with kids meals. One of these dolls is a stylized Wendy character. Last week Darah rediscovered this toy and named it Red. So now Red also goes everywhere with Mickey and Pluto.

On Halloween last week, Darah didn't go trick-or-treating but she did find a plastic jack-o-lantern that she claimed as her own. Apparently Mickey, Pluto, and Red must live inside the it because now she won't go anywhere without all three dolls together inside the jack-o-lantern. And hence Darah walking around the mall today looking as if she were hoping it would be Halloween forever.

Getting Rich 5.1 Cents Per Day

2009-11-06T21:25:00.007-05:00

Adsense is a Google product by which you can make money by displaying text ads on websites you own. I started using Adsense on July 7th, 2004. Today I finally received my first ever check from Google! After 5 years, 3 months, and 24 days, I earned a whopping $100.59. That's 5.1 cents per day for 1,943 days.

I Love Local Commercials Too

2009-10-23T21:58:00.005-04:00

Earlier today a friend posted a funny local television commercial to Facebook. It was for a used trailer home seller and featured the hilarious tag line of "Come on down to Cullman Liquidation and get yourself a home, or don't, I don't care." That's when I followed the post-roll to a website called I Love Local Commercials.

This website immediately interested me because I wrote, produced, shot, and edited small town local television commercials for many years early in my career. I shot local commercials for WMDT in Salisbury, Maryland, featuring small businesses throughout the Delmarva region (Deleware, the eastern shore of Maryland, and that part of Virginia nobody thinks about). Later I produced local commercials for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York. I created spots throughout the Champlain Valley (The North Country of New York and the Burlington Vermont area), and even some in Montreal, Quebec. Below is the last (award-winning) local commercial I ever produced, for a miniature golf course. I did everything on this spot from writting to shooting to editing. That's even my synthesized voice as the golf ball.

So back to the I Love Commercials website, I then discovered that the people behind this site are the same people that did that hilarious Red House Furniture "black and white" commercial that went viral around the internet earlier this year. Now I recognize these two guys as the ones singing in that commercial. Apparently they're traveling around the country making "memorably different" local commercials for unheard-of small businesses. Pretty cool idea. Wish I had thought of it.

Pumpkin Pickin'

2009-10-11T23:30:00.004-04:00

Patty took Maegan and Darah pumpkin pickin' this weekend.

Darah picked out a small softball-sized pumpkin with a (poorly done) painting of Mickey Mouse. Now she won't go anywhere without that pumpkin.

Picasa 3.5 Face Recognition

2009-10-02T22:56:00.004-04:00

A few days ago I updated my Picasa photo album software to version 3.5. Among several new features is face recognition technology, which in turn allows you to tag the people in your photos. This has been available on their online Picasa Web Albums for a while but it's new for the desktop application.

At first I had to let Picasa run overnight to analyze my 8,000 photos. Then Picasa groups photos of similar faces together and asks you to name them. In time Picasa "learns" people's faces and will suggest who it thinks people are and allows you to confirm or deny the suggestion. This is pretty cool in the first place but I am absolutely amazed at how good this software is at recognizing faces.

First of all, Patty is an identical twin so you would assume Picasa would have trouble with this. Not too much. Sure it made mistakes but nine times out of ten Picasa could tell the difference between Patty and Lore. And then there are other oddball situations where Picasa keeps surprising me with it's accuracy. Maegan looking through a deeply tinted blue glass with only half her face showing, check. Maegan's friend dressed up for Halloween with drastic face makeup, check. Even photos of people on the wall far in the background, annoying but yes check.

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Update: Here is an excellent article on Picasa's new face recognition feature. Definitely read this before you get started tagging faces in Picasa. I do have to agree with their assessment that Picasa has a lot of trouble with babies, thinking that they're all the same.

Banned from Newark Airport

2009-10-01T23:49:00.003-04:00

This is from last night's Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Funny.

I'm Still Here

2009-10-01T21:41:00.003-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in like three weeks or something. Fall is usually tough with ESPNU on Saturdays and Panthers on half the Sundays, but with Patty back in college and needing study time, it's hard more than a few free moments to post anything more than quick Facebook updates anymore. I tried posting more. During the summer I started Website Wednesdays but those those are over. Well before they're over over I'll just quickly rifle through the sites I planned on mentioning but didn't get a chance to:

Aviary - a very impressive suite of free online image editing tools. It's like PhotoShop Lite, free and online.
FreeConferenceCall.com - I haven't got a clue how they provide this for free and without any ads but I've been using this service for group phone meetings every other week for years without any complaints.
Map A List - This may not be for everybody but if you've got a list of addresses in a spreadsheet and need to visualize all those locations on a Google Map, this site will help you do it.

I'll try to post more than I have lately but don't expect anything near 11 per month like in August when I was working only four days a week and Patty wasn't in school yet.

Anyway, so what else has been going on lately? Actually not much, because I'm just working all the time. But with some of the few moments of free time I can find, I've been working on a new website for a group of students at who are currently working on re-chartering my old fraternity at SUNY Plattsburgh. Best of luck to them and I'll post a link to the new website once I'm done with it. It's looking nice so far if I do say so myself.

Yesterday I got a jury summons. After 19 years of eligibility, this will be the first time that I'll potentially have to show up for jury duty. In the late 1990's I received a jury summons while living in Plattsburgh, but it was to serve in court in The Bronx. The Bronx? I don't know how they got my name but I didn't live in the Bronx (which should have been obvious since from the Plattsburgh address) nor have I ever lived there in my life so that letter went straight in the trash, and hence this will be the first time that I should really have to show up.

Alright, time to get back to bills and other not-fun stuff.

Website Wednesday: Checkvist

2009-09-09T22:15:00.004-04:00

If you're like me and find it helpful to organize your tasks with a to do list, check out checkvist.com. There are plenty of online to-do lists but I like checkvist for it's simplicity and dead-simple user interface. Just start a checklist and begin adding tasks.

enter to make a new task
tab to make it a subtask (indent right) updated by gopanthers | 22:31
shift+tab to move it back left again updated by gopanthers | 22:32
hold shift and drag any task around to reorganize updated by gopanthers | 22:33
space bar to cross out as completed
delete to delete (duh)

Make as many checklists as you want. I have have a checklist for home tasks, work, and for various different projects I'm working on. In fact, I just quickly created a demo checklist just to show you how you can also share your to-do lists with others (this one is read only but you can let others edit too). Sure beats always having to carry around hand-written lists on folded up pieces of paper.

BlogDay 2009

2009-08-31T00:01:00.004-04:00

Today is BlogDay. Happy BlogDay.

I'm sure most of you have never heard of BlogDay, and that even includes most long-time bloggers. Depending on who you ask, BlogDay was on March 29th, April 20th, May 11th, August 1st, or most commonly referenced on October 17th (but only in the United Kingdom and only in 2006). But I'm here to tell everybody that, for the fifth year now, BlogDay is today, August 31st.

Why August 31st and not any of the other dates thoughtlessly thrown around in the past. Because today is day 31 in month 08, or "3108", which is visually similar to the word "Blog". (Go ahead, at it look again.)

According to the BlogDay website, "on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs." If this were just a straight forward list of my top 5 recommend blogs I'd undoubtedly start off with Lifehacker, but since Lifehacker is already one of the top 10 most popular blogs on the planet, that would go against BlogDay's premise to promote new blogs worth discovering. So without further adieu here are my five BlogDay 2009 recommendations (in no particular order)...

1) CLT Blog - http://cltblog.com/
CLT Blog (I'm not sure if you're supposed to say "Charlotte" or "C-L-T") is a very well done local blog covering Charlotte, North Carolina, especially its music, art, nightlife, and politics. With a team of over 20 creative journalists, they produce a product that in most ways is good enough to compete with the major media players in town. I especially appreciate their on-scene coverage of events with videos and photos, which tend to be more documentary style than story-telling.

2) Addie's Charlotte Blog - http://charlotte.about.com/b/
Sticking with the local blogs theme, Addie's Charlotte Blog covers the Queen City for the well known uber-guidance website About.com. Unlike CLT Blog mentioned earlier, this local blog is maintained by just one person; Addie Rising, a former writer for Charlotte magazine and Charlotte Business Journal. She focuses on just a handful of short posts per week about light, positive, and family friendly topics. Some people may feel otherwise but I appreciate not being bombarded with the information overload of multiple posts per day on every minor subject. And while CLT Blog delivers coverage of local events, Addie tends to alert you of key upcoming events before they happen so it's not too late for you attend it yourself. Her blog seems to be fairly unknown but that's why I'm pointing it out as one worth checking out.

3) Bits - http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
Bits is the technology blog from the New York Times. You can get breaking technology news from a lot of sources but Bits does a great job of going beyond just the headlines and initial factoids, and explains indepth how the news will affect the industry and perhaps you. Being part of the New York Times, Bits also does a great job of finding interesting off-the-radar topics too.

4) In the Woods - http://blog.themeforest.net/
ThemeForest is an online marketplace where webmasters can buy and sell website design templates and themes. I subscribed to their blog, In the Woods, only to stay informed of their occasional deals and freebies, but I found that they give a lot of great tutorials on how webmasters can create cool and useful website elements. For example, their last two posts explained how to design a website with a specific font that may not already be installed on the visitor's computer (normally you have to use safe fonts that you know everybody has) and how to make your own social bookmarking tags (the kind that lets you easily share a webpage with others on Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us, Digg, etc.).

5) All Facebook - http://www.allfacebook.com/
It wasn't long ago that I thought Facebook was stupid. It wasn't long ago that I finally signed up and started finding old friends. It wasn't long ago that I reluctantly began to give in and start utilizing it more. None of that was long ago but it seems like forever, because I'm on Facebook a lot now and I really enjoy it. All Facebook is a unofficial blog about the mega social networking site. They mainly focus on content for application developers and those who use Facebook as a business venture (which I find useful since I help manage my business' Facebook presence), but they often have some good articles for any Facebook user, like "How To Configure Your Facebook Page In Under 15 Minutes".

blogday2009

P.S. Since I just recommended five websites (plus Blog Day and Lifehacker too) I won't be posting a Website Wednesday this week.

Website Wednesday: TokBox

2009-08-26T00:03:00.004-04:00

Website Wednesday: TokBox

My mom got a webcam so she can see Maegan and Dara and video chat with us. Then Amy got a webcam too. At first we used Google Video Chat because we all had Gmail accounts and I figured that would make it easy. It worked okay but even though we already had Gmail accounts we still had to install special software to make it work - and installing software could be a major hassle for some non-techies. Plus the video display started out small, with your own camera (to make sure you're in frame) as an even smaller little insert overlayed in the corner on top of the other video.

Then I heard about ToxBox. What I first liked about ToxBox is that you don't have to install any software at all, so I gave it a try. Then this past weekend Patty and Maegan went to Hilton Head and I used TokBox to let Darah see and talk with them while they were gone.

Not having to install anything was nice, but after trying it I found other features that I liked too. For one thing, the video chat displays start off much bigger. There's really no need to expand it, but you can still enlarge it if you wanted to. And I also liked how your webcam display is side-by-side with the video of the person you're chatting with, so they're both the same size and don't interfere with each other. Although I haven't used it yet, TokBox will also let you video chat with multiple people at once - up to 20, although I wouldn't recommend that many. And finally, it was much easier to initiate a video chat with ToxBox compared to Google Video Chat. After you add a friend to your list, if they're online and available all you have to do is click on their name once for a pop-up of options and then click the video icon to initiate a call.

So in conclusion, hey Mom and Amy.... sign up for TokBox because that's what we'll be switching to. Want to video chat with us too sometime (ie. Dee)? If you have a webcam, sign up and let us know.

(yes this is the same image I used last week)

Update:
I have nothing against Tokbox but I've since switched over to Skype. Still, Tokbox is great if you don't want to install any software.

Two First Days of School

2009-08-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Patty had her first day of nursing school (pre-nursing), as she became a student again for the first time in over a decade.

Today Maegan had her first day of middle school. She said everything went fine but that it was confusing. Maegan said she felt like she was a 1st grader again with all of the new introductions.

Let the homework begin!

Surf 's Up

2009-08-24T23:01:00.002-04:00

So as I mentioned yesterday, Patty and Maegan spent the weekend with Patty's mom and sister in Hilton Head. They had a good time relaxing at the beach, getting manicures and other girly stuff.

While they were gone Saturday and Sunday, I was alone with Darah. After Darah only took a 15 minute nap on Saturday I took her down to Plaza Fiesta to play on their gigantic four-story indoor playground. She loves exploring, climbing, and sliding. Well worth the two dollars and it tired her out for a long nap until dinner.

On Sunday Darah finally began asking where mama and Maegan were but she was still okay with them being gone. I took her to another playground (a regular one at a school) and we watched Mickey and Minnie Mouse over and over again, and before you knew it Patty and Maegan were home already.

Patty wanted to get me a gift from Hilton Head but had no idea what to get me. She then handed me a cylinder of Uncle Maui's Surf Wax. ??? I've never surfed in my life and we live three hours from the coast. Um, thank you. :-)