Tuesday Morning Notes Prior to a Small Adventure
Good morning, good morning! Ahh, plenty of sleep today … Think life finally caught up with me. It’s now about 9:30 am and I’ve had a couple of naps since waking up at 1:30 am. Yep, yep Gabreael this is what happens as we age. Life gets much too exciting to stay in bed at night! It’s when we old people get our work done … oh, and being on vacation for the week helps too!
I want to thank you all for your very nice complements on the video. I’ve never put one together before, and I can tell you in a heartbeat I had the most fun doing it! Cuz, you are looking at it one tiny frame at a time and getting the most out of it as pictures and sound come together. There was one rough part though were we were a little shaky. We had been using Windows Movie Maker that V says comes with most computers now days. But, I had not read all the way through the left side-bar, where you were supposed to conclude the movie by saving it as a .WMV file. Shoot that made all the difference.
For anyone that would like to try it, I encourage full-heartedly you try. There are frames you can drag and drop in to from your photos at “My Pictures,” then there are buttons for the transitions and effects. And the music is similar to the photos where you drop in a .wma or Mp3 file into a frame. The program then allows very easy editing with your right mouse, until everything comes together just right. It takes a few minutes to get the lay of the land, but most everything you need is on its front page, and you just start messing and WALLAH! Of course, it also does stuff with regular videos, but that is far beyond the stages we are at. Hehehe I can handle saved snapshots though!
The last part and maybe a very important part is we are paying for a service called Audioblog.com. We try to avoid paying, but this service is fantastic and is only $4.00 a month. We had to pay a year up front, but its been very, very nice. It is what is allowing us to add the video to our blog and it allows us to record our voice in an easy to use format. The other music videos we’ve displayed are through free copy code places on the web. Not as happy with all that yet, need to learn who’s who and what’s being offered. I won’t though give up the Audioblog service. It’s wonderful.
Ok, that’s enough technical. I’m really not a big technician. I haven’t even figured out my camera yet. Really need someone to walk it through with me. Heaven knows where the handy instruction book has gone with all this time elapsed. I thought just knowing Steven that something would brush off on me, and now we’re seeing a lot of great camera work over at Tianka’s/Tamara’s web page. I know there are people around who know the business; shoot my daughter-in-law is a photo major. I think she can’t believe how incredibly backward I am in this concern. *Sigh* Maybe we can beg for mercy again now while she’s on bed rest. *Double Sigh*
Well, all in all, it appears we’ve made it through another Christmas YAYY! We got a little online visiting done, but would like to do some more this week. Today’s big event is that we’re going to meet a couple favored co-workers over at their house (mother and daughter) for a couple of beers. Hehehe This is the friend where we pick up some corona’s and she supply’s the limes! Ahhh, and she says she’s got great left-overs too!
Ahh just got done with a cuddle fest from Chief. I think he goes outside for a few moments, chills his nose and has to regain equilibrium. Ahh, they are both being playful now. It’s hard to tell if they are just getting up or what! Funny Kitties. I am really glad I ordered the scratcher thing. There has been more activity of late keeping them away from the couch and I’m not sure if this scratching isn’t their normal pattern while I’m hard at work. Hmmm… Ok, we’re doing the best we can. Let’s not worry.
Anyway back to the get together. We’ve invited a fourth co-worker, but she is not the type to check her emails frequently. So, we’re not sure where she’s at. We’d talked about getting together over the holiday for beers, but without a phone … *sigh*. Suppose I should have gotten her number though, because Margarita has several phones. Live and learn. I guess now when I stop to think about it. Most of my talking with each of these ladies is done separately.
Our friend gave us his blessing on the day, but is having a tough one himself. Today is his older son’s birthday (mid-to-upper 20’s) and the son has invited his Dad to the Dad’s first non-straight party. Hehehe he’s having mixed feelings, but we’re figuring after the original shock wears off, he might have a very good time. His son has a lot of good friends and he’s got a surprise friend, an on-line super friend coming in from New York. So all and all it’s pretty exciting. Our friend says the son is showing signs of maturing, because the party goes only from 6-10 pm. After that he’s shooing everyone out! Hehe
There’s another problem though overlaying this one. He has to go to a wake for his great aunt. He’ll be taking his mother and her husband and I’m not sure how far they will have to travel. His mother is in her 70’s and is blind, and I don’t think the husband does much driving. It’s always kind of sad when people die at the holidays. I think it’s wonderful when they make it past the day itself. They are more at peace, I believe and its harder for the family if it happens on the day or a few before, because there will always be that memory added to the holiday and often it is sad.
*Sigh*
That’s about it for the day’s plans; we’ll know we’ll be over at Margarita’s for quite a while. Better bring our evening medications. When we are over there we just sorta fit into the families rolling plans. EXCEPT, I don’t go visiting relatives with them! Heheh, dear, dear … doesn’t say much for our comfort in strange places. Also I’ve made adjustments to language barriers, but not when the whole group of people are speaking Spanish. Yeeks! Our style here is to watch everything and nod/smile a lot. It’s best to watch the little kids that are always around, because they’re usually the focal point. But, after a while we start to drift off in our own thoughts, and then we just want to be home. It’s a pretty big deal though that someone’s gotten us to leave the keyboard.
Funny, I’m like this at my sons' place too. I max out at about 4 hours away from home. *Sigh* I’ll be one day really easy to slip into a nursing home as long as they have high access Internet. Swing by and take me for a drive for a couple of hours and we’ll good to go for another month. Just don’t know how I’ll fit my couch into the small space allowed. Hmm ...
Ok, moving right along here.
What other thoughts on the day … Been starting to think about school again. Hmm, I wonder if I shouldn’t sign up for the next semester now. Ok, good. That is all taken care of. Officially, I am registered. We’re just going to do the one multicultural course this semester and see where things go from there. Please God, let me get with the program! I want to do school. This is very important to me. Help me figure out how to do what I need to do, when I need to do it. And, let me work ahead of time this semester and not behind. There must be some reason; I should be taking this course again. Let it be the right decision.
*Sigh* AGAIN…
I might need some help learning to think as a student again. I lost that edge. And, as V says … I got to just “do it.” Any help here in this direction will be readily accepted.
Hmm, better figure out my time here. Margarita’s by 1 pm (or fashionably a little later). 12:30 leave to get the Corona’s, 11:30 shower. Ok, that’s doable … just 40 more minutes to write though.
What’s next? Hmm, we’re not going to have a work talk, though I’m sure it will come up this afternoon. At some point, we’ll begin comparing notes with Margarita. She does a lot more socializing with the other staff than me, but is the best at the center for keeping secrets. What I like is the part where I can think through stuff with her … not her giving me secrets, but by what she knows how to better process things. She’s very fun to talk to and we laugh a lot. Unfortunately, she scolds too. :(
Hmm, we’re back now, but its about an hour later. V came home so we chatted and I got my shower in and dressed. Now, just one more half hour and we’ll pick up the beer. We’re doing it, real progress!
Seems like we have a lazy mind now … nothing that we have to talk about … one note, Dr. M wasn’t seen for holiday reasons yesterday, we’ll see him again Thursday night and then Tuesday morning. Umm, that’s just a small note.
We would like to talk about one more thing. This is my appreciation for people stopping by or being in contact. I never felt so alone over the holidays that someone couldn’t reach out to me if I had needed a hand. Deb, Mal, Christina, Bon … I want to thank you for being around. And, too thanks for your patience in getting through the video. I’m not sure if it’s working for Deb yet, but we got to talk to the famed duo while they waited ever so patiently for it to unwhirl using Dial-up. That was very fun, cuz it went slow enough we could talk about some of the pictures at the same time. I’m trying to learn its ok to IM people, but we’re still thinking we’re going to bother someone. I know, we've been told otherwise. That’s one of the neat things about visiting other blogs, you get to get different tones and tempos of others comfort and clarity. It makes me feel more at home, like my eccentricities will be accepted.
Obviously, I’m not one of the most assertive of our parts. Think our hardest part was in getting the IM from Macadam. We’ve left that go in our thoughts with some of your all more reasonable thoughts of the situation, and yesterday, I IM’d for a minute with my youngest son before he had to go and get back into his game. How alike the younger two are; especially in there keen appreciation of the computer. Hmm, I wonder if we’re all like a Nerd family? Yeeks, don’t think so. I’ve never had a need to carry a pocket calculator or anything. Maybe more just like regular folk in the 21rst century. Thinking of the picture that V had in his blog yesterday of the naked man working on a geographical drawing. Maybe people have stretched their mind all through time trying to figure out the next and the next hard thing. We’re taking a slower more leisurely pass through. But, in a week as students again.
Maybe I could finish up these last few moments on those thoughts. I have an appreciation of how people think and feel and interact with one another. I am a little disappointed that I will have to take the easier course, because although it is still very much like work, it isn’t about the mind directly. It is about how cultures interact. I hope that we will find new excitement as we go down that path. So far, we had done 7 of the 10 weeks and we hadn’t done the final 30 page paper. It will be a good time to get down new study habits. We’ve done a lot of playing in the last month or so. I’m pretty sure, you can’t just hand in the same papers, so the idea will be to progress the thoughts, I was already learning toward. I know that I’d had an “A” before, so it is not that part that concerns me. I want to get to the point, where I am reading the suggested readings that go along with the text, and where we’re pulling together that last paper from square one. I do think we’ll keep the outline from before, because we hadn’t started that work.
Darn, I wanted to see if the course was up yet, but I’m going to need to sign off after clearing history, etc. There is not enough time to go through that at this point. Maybe though, we could take a note? We are being motivated enough to check in on the course, and look into the book store to assure ourselves the same book is being used. That’s a step, right?
Ok, better get going … don’t want to be TOOO late
Love you!
Us
posted by Ann Marie @ 12/27/2005 12:28:00 PM
Comments: 4
