A Network for Teachers

Yahoo! has a new free service exclusively for teachers. I signed up to be notified when I read about it a few months ago. I got an email today that the beta version is active. It will let teachers create and share standards-based materials and connect to other teachers. It looks like it could become a very effective tool for teachers. If you are interested, check it out here.

Bits and Pieces

• It is drizzly on this Sunday morning. The radar map shows mixed precipitation. It is probably snowing up on the mountain tops. We are supposed to get a better rain tomorrow. The forecast is now for a 90% chance. I'm hoping for an all day soaker, even if I will get wet loading and unloading my workstuff several times. The drought continues and we need all we can get.


• The big game between instate rivals, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, was held in Charlottesville yesterday. The game was extra important this year because the winning team (Tech) goes on to the ACC Championship game. Between the game and the holiday sales, traffic must have been bumper to bumper. The traffic in Charlottesville is bad enough on a regular day. Glad I stayed home.


• I am currently reading Rhett Butler's People, the new book by Donald McCaig. It fleshes out the character of Rhett Butler, a main character in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. It will be interesting to see how he ends it. So far it is a much better book, IMO, than Scarlet by Alexandra Ripley, the other book with approval from Mitchell's family. I think it is time to have a reread of GWTW to see how well Mr. McCaig stuck to the original story. From what I remember, he has done an excellent job, but it has been years since I last read GWTW, one of my all time favorite books. Of course, I see Clark Gable in my head when I read about Rhett. I guess that is inevitable for anyone who has seen the movie.


• I've read several predictions that Vista is going the way of Windows ME, including this one by John Dvorak. Early on I decided that I would not get Vista until they came out with a service pack. There were just too many problems cropping up. Vista SP1 is out now in beta, but some of the reviews are not encouraging. Based on observations of my website and blog statistics, many people are reverting to XP or switching to Macs. The percentage of visitors using Vista has started to shrink. I think I will just wait to see what MS comes out with next or until this computer fails. So far it continues to do the job.
  
  Update: I came across this interesting blog post on the new service packs in beta for XP and Vista after I posted earlier today.


• My desk chair needs replacing. I have had it four or five years, maybe longer. It has been leaking oil for the last year and has started to make groaning sounds when I move around. But most of all, it is no longer comfortable. Since I spend a great deal of time sitting here working or playing, I need a good chair. So I guess that is my next major purchase. And the sooner, the better, since I have a lot of work to do between now and Christmas. Ugh, I hate to shop!

Quality of Life

I started this post with a different title and something entirely different in mind, but it seemed to take on a life of its own. I think there is a point here somewhere, maybe several.

I read this article recently about onions being good for the brain. If true, mine should be in good shape because onions have always been one of my favorite foods. I put it in or on most anything. One of my favorite meals is to slice an onion and a green pepper and cook them in olive oil with a little bit of low fat kielbasa and Italian seasoning. When my mom fixed pot roast, she always had a whole onion for me. Hopefully, the onions will balance out some of my bad eating habits.

While I want my mental faculties to keep functioning as long as the body keeps going, I do not want to live to be 100+. I want to live as long as the quality of my life is good, not just to live to be older. Did that make sense? I don't agree with the current medical trend to keep people alive regardless of their quality of life. Lying in a bed in a vegetable state is not my definition of life.

It seems that scientists are looking for ways to make humans live longer, but not necessarily healthier for that extra time. And where are the food and other resources coming from to sustain all the extra people? We are pushing at the limits now. Where are the jobs coming from for all these people? If people live longer, they will need to work longer? Again that is already becoming a problem. Are more problems being created than are being solved?

And when it comes to the quality of life, the happenings in this country concern me. Things are happening that I would never have imagined could happen in this country. The United States has never been perfect, but until recently, I have always been proud to be an American. I cannot say that now. I am ashamed of many of the things our government has done here and in other parts of the world in the name of national security.

We, as a culture, have become obsessed with being entertained...think the Roman circuses. Too many see our leaders' actions as something that does not concern us. We'd rather watch some reality show or football game instead of learning about what our leaders and potential leaders are saying and doing. When the masses wake up to what is happening, will it be too late?

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
    --George Santayana

Most Americans today have little or no knowledge of the history of our country and other parts of the world. I have always been a student of history. I know how unusual the freedoms we have taken for granted in our lives are in the world at large. I know how hard our ancestors fought and sacrificed for the freedoms we are letting our leaders take away. I know why the world ended up fighting two major wars in the twentieth century.

Here is an interesting article on human rights vs. national security I came across this week. Can we be secure if we give up all our human rights? I don't think so. There certainly won't be any personal security if we do.

Great Product: the Pantone huey

I have lots of things I should be doing tonight, but I am not in the mood to do any of them. Some involve work stuff, others some Christmas projects. I have homework to do for my PSP class. And there are plenty of household chores waiting. I am currently reading nonfiction which never has the same pull for me as fiction. So I decided to blog instead.

One of the things I have wanted to blog about is how much I like my huey. This is a device for calibrating your monitor. The color of my monitor looked good, but when I printed, things were just a little off from what I saw on the screen. This is not good if you are designing scrapbooking materials to share with others. Of course, there are going to be some differences with the downloaders' monitors and printers, but I needed to know it was leaving my computer with the colors I chose.

I kept seeing recommendations for the huey in different forums and placed it on my wishlist months ago. I'm glad I finally bought it. I got the cheaper huey, not the pro version. I also found it much cheaper than it is listed in the Pantone link, so shop around if you are interested.

The huey is about 4 inches long with suction cups on the back side. You plug it into your computer, put it on your monitor, and run the software. In just a few minutes, it resets the color as needed. The first time you run it takes a bit longer. The software will prompt you to rerun the calibration after several weeks. You are also allowed to put the software on more than one computer.

The best feature for me is the adjustment it makes as the room light changes. You just leave it plugged into the computer and place it in a little stand that comes with it. Since the light in the room where I work varies from very bright sunlight to very little light turned on at night, this helps a lot.

It really has made a difference in both my photographs and in printed scrapping materials. What I print matches exactly what I see on the screen.

Fall Leaves

Sometimes a click is all you need. The photo is straight out of the camera. I only resized for the web. Click the photo for a larger view.

A Piddlin' Post

I started a post last week and never finished it. Let's see how far I can get this time.

My work schedule for the fall session has my week chopped up, instead of having several whole days off in a row. I think that is part of my problem. When I work in the mornings, I tend to piddle* at things when I get home. I get things done, but never as much as I need to do. With three day weekends, I would piddle and rest up the first day and then have two days to do major projects. With my days off not being grouped together, I get more of those piddlin' days.

* "piddle" meaning to not use time in an effective way, not the other meaning that some people use for it. LOL

This fall has been strange. The leaves are way late in turning. Many trees are still mostly green, even though it is mid-November. There was some wet snow on the tops of the higher mountains over the weekend. I saw one photo of a beautiful red-gold maple with snow on everything around it.

I have to get myself moving on several projects that need to be finished before the Christmas holidays. I do have some extra days off next week due to Thanksgiving. Hopefully, I can get a lot done on my projects then.

My brain is mush tonight. I keep thinking of things to blog about, but now that I am sitting here in front of the computer, I can't think of a thing. Part of it is due to the time change. My body is still on Daylight Savings Time. It seems like it is taking longer this fall to make the adjustment. I have always had a hard time in the spring, but usually fall has gone smoother.

I wish they would just leave us on DST all the time. I have no problem getting up in the dark, which I do on workdays most of the year. But having it get dark so early in the evening makes the day seem really short.

I see an early bedtime tonight since I am already getting sleepy. That is probably a good thing since I have early classes tomorrow. I'll be doing five classes in a row without a break, so I will be ready for a nap by the time I get home.