Please don’t break the coffee coasters…
Welcome newcomers! Please introduce yourselves…
Come on in!
Coffee and Tea under the window, platters of treats on every table
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Newspapers in the racks in the corner (please don’t hog the sports sections) |
Please recommend (and unrecommend yesterday’s Cafe/Lounge) |
May the 4’s be with you!
Please enjoy the Christmas cookies…
George Carlin:
There’s no blue food!
Or are they not food? (That’s one of his routines I’m not familiar with. Sounds like a sequel to, or continuation of, The Ice Box Man.)
They are purple. Throughout the plant world, there is a longstanding conspiracy to refer to purple things as blue.
This is especially annoying with flowers. There are not nearly enough flowers that are really blue, and no one is doing anything about it, except some people in Japan, with roses. And there are rumors that Thailand has produced a blue curcuma. I have not seen one, though, and they are perpetually sold out.
I was thinking about blackberries too, which are certifiably purple, and boy do they taste good (they’ll make hash out of your garden, though).
Blue, purple, it’s all the same to me, I love the taste of ’em.
Admittedly they aren’t flowers but they are very, very blue. The plant is a clintonia.
I will have to see about getting some in the spring.
Thanks!
Oh those are too pretty to eat. So are those christmas, holiday cookies but I think I see frosting. ok never mind Give Me Cookie. Do I sound like Cookie Monster?
I think the Hanukkah cookies must have icing too and I don’t like icing so I’d never eat them anyway. These are my favorite cookies (except for the cinnamon curlups my m-i-l makes from leftover pie dough and I guess those aren’t really cookies).
Oh I love those cookies also. My GF in VA make me a batch every year. She spoils me so
If you’ve got someone who makes something like montana monster cookies from scratch, I am beyond jealous. Since my m-i-l makes the best pie dough curlups (because her pie dough is so good) in the world, I won’t have to be jealous about those but just happy that you have someone who spoils you in such a nice way.
Good morning to all! Gotta have my coffee and run!
Oh, My! Coffee and Cookies for breakfast! Well, I keep saying that eating anything’s OK as long as I don’t eat between meals and don’t take seconds.
(biting into one) ummm!
Thanks!
I’ll be hanging around this morning for a while. My mom has a medical procedure that she needs help with, so I’m taking the day off. But, it isn’t until 1pm.
Good morning Cali!
You are up bright and early this am…pre-6am left coast time…the cookies look yummy!
Was down your way Saturday – at Logitech Arena watching 8 9yo’s ice skate for the grandkidlet’s b-day party! Brrrr…must dress warm for ice skating rinks!
Now I’m off to get more coffee before work!
Katie — hope it’s nothing too serious with your mom…
Thanks Cali —
The procedure isn’t serious (the problem is though). They were just about to trade out that temporary knee and put in the permanent knee, when the infection came back. And they discovered that she had kidney stones again. Today they are going to do that thing where they break them up with ultra-sound — I think it’s a pretty simple process.
But, last I heard, they don’t want to switch the knees until they figure out why the kidney stones keep developing. So, that’s a more serious issue. She can hardly walk on the temporary knee — you can’t put more than half your weight on those things.
What a painful combination of problems. I hurt for her just thinking about it.
I can’t imagine what life is like for her. I’ve never had any surgery — never spent a night in a hospital since the week I was born. I’ve been very lucky.
But, she has surgery all the time (ok, not really — but most years she has something done). And she never complains about pain, recovery, rehabilitation, anything — she just plugs along. Looking frailer and frailer.
Also, Dad has had something come up. He had total kidney failure do to a swollen something a few years and he says he think that trouble has come back. So he’s going somewhere today to have that looked at. Which is why I’ve been brought in at the last minute for mom.
The dad thing is also very worrying (I just can’t remember what swelled up that time or why).
to hear about both your parents’ health problems. I hope everything goes okay. I know how crazy I went during my mom’s heart attack, quintuple bypass surgery, and recovery but eventually what stuck me was how much they can really accomplish these days — hard to imagine saying that a 82-year old bounced back but I don’t how else to describe her improved life the last two years.
That’s so good to hear, Andi — I’m very glad that your Mom’s life has improved as a result of those procedures.
The reciprocal benefits are been really good to watch. She’s been much better from age 82-84 than she was in her late 70’s to 81 and I can see that feeling better meant that she got out more which meant that she exercised more both physically and mentally and the results of that made her feel even better so that she does stuff now like volunteer at a senior center gift shop and go to a gym three times a week.
that my dad-in-law is going to need back surgery in February. The spouse and I are seeing them on Saturday for cake (it’s my bro-in-law’s 47th birthday), and I’m considering asking them if they’d like me to come stay over after he’s out of the hospital to help out with things like cooking and such. It would be a sacrifice — I’d miss the spouse a lot, and it would cut into my Internet time — but I have to make the gesture. And it’s giving me an idea for a Christmas gift…if his new laptop has wireless capabilities, maybe I can talk to his computer guru and we can do some sort of wireless network since I’m not sure if he’ll be able to sit at the computer for extended periods of time…
Defective knees are no fun at all. I had torn up cartilage, which is nowhere near as serious of course, but it sucked plenty. I hope her eventual replacement is successful as my matched pair of partial minesectomies were.
Nice place you’re running here, Cali- and boy, are you up early! 🙂
Does anyone know anything about photo printers? I want one of the dye-sub ones, but don’t know anyone who has one…any advice would be great!
ps-I run Mac OSX…
I’ve just decided to have mpix.com develop mine — it gives me more flexibility on the sizes, the price isn’t bad and they are fast (you get the photos in two days).
I’m also looking into a place called White House Custom Colour (which gets raves) — but I haven’t actually done anything with them yet.
I know this isn’t what you’re asking, I just thought it was a good place to mention the nonPrinter alternatives.
I’ve thought about those, but my son loves to mess around with photoshop, and being able to print good-looking prints of his work means a lot to him, plus, I’d like to start getting some of our pictures into a scrapbook and my mom would like fresh picture on a regular basis. So I thought I could make everybody happy by getting one here at home (I’ve never gotten over the time the photo place “lost” 3 rolls of my film, and only found it after I kept going back every 2 weeks and asking for it again.)
We actually have photo-printers here (Epson 785 EPX). And we use them all the time for quickie prints.
But that mpix place is where I had the photo I gave my brother printed.
And I think I’m going to give my step-son an album of photos of his kids & I’ll have all those printed at mpix also (otherwise, it won’t happen).
we went with a color laser printer for its overall versatility and with good paper it can produce a nice print but nothing that would compare with what you would get from a shop. You can of course, take any image your son does to a shop and get it printed.
Anyway, here’s a couple of sites with good info.
Imaging Resources
Steve’s Digicams
The problem is that in a year and a half of digital camera ownership, I have only once gone over to the shop to have anything printed…
I checked out the steve’s site yeaterday; I’ll look at the IR one today. And just for good masure, I’ll check out Katiebir’s mpix too.
Decisions, decisions…
The photo shop we use has software that let’s us upload pictures to be printed. We can either pick up the prints or have them mailed. We like working with a local shop because they know (and care) about our “taste” in output and will print the photos accordingly — and reprint any that aren’t quite right for free. When we take in our huge load of vacation pictures, they’ll even have us look at a select group of images on their monitor to decide if we think any color correction or color profile might be needed.
OTOH, using a print shop requires deferred gratification which is something I’m not good at so I can definitely see the great appeal of a good photo printer.
I’ve been using an HP 7550, works fine for most things, but after 6 months on a bulletin board, (not in the sun, mind you,) the photos faded to white. So I’ve been going to the local print shop for more permanent photos.
Question would be; can I can buy better photo paper, or is it a limitation of the 7550.
dunno since I only really use the laser printer for fooling around printouts and use a print shop for the “real” stuff.
A quick search on the usenet turned up this discussion which seemed to be very helpful.
I have pictures I’ve printed with HP printers since the late 90’s. I’ve never really left any pictures out without any type of covering, so I guess that’s one of the reasons mine haven’t faded. I’ve always used the HP premium photo paper and the HP inks.
Concerning photo albums. I know you didn’t ask, but I’ve always liked this idea :). I usually buy acid free document protectors. Instead of putting 3 X 5’s or 4 X 6’s in a photo album, I fill up a whole 8 X 10 with whatever sizes I want. Either one or ten pictures usually. Then I buy a white 2″ binder that lets you slide a picture in the front. You get 8 X 10 sheets for each document protector and that can turn into a lot of pictures. I now have four binders filled up and starting of the fifth.
This didn’t answer you question, but I hope it gave you some ideas :).
Cool photo album idea. See, I want the instant gratification of being able to do print the pictures out myself, right here, and stick them right in as I’m working on it… I think I’m not good on the lag time between getting prints and putting them in a book.
hmmm…
I would have never started doing photo’s if I had to keep relying on film. I’m like you. I want the instant gratification of seeing the pictures I took and adding them into my folders. The good ones that is :).
Just as another little tid bit of info. My relatives always want me to print them pictures but don’t like the 8 X 10 pages. I’m no good with cutting straight lines with sissors, so I went out and bought a cheap little papper cutter. Straight lines and looks fairly professional.
Have fun printing
Thanks, I’m always looking for new ideas with regards to storing the prints.
I find my 35mm(s) don’t seem to get much action anymore. And I hardly ever leave home without the little Coolpix 3200 digital.
Now the only problem is to get from the $100s category of digitals up to the $1,000s category…
Good morning all,
A friend of mine has come down with a health problem and by all conclusions it appears to be something called Morgellon’s. Does anyone here have any diaries or any experience with it? I’ve found some interesting information that might help them and get this thing traced back closer to a source.
Thanks.
Caffeine… must have caffeine. Chai by preference, but a good black tea would do just fine. Loose leaf of course. Urgh. It’s morning again, isn’t it? I can tell because I feel like I’m carrying a bag of sand around on my head. Editing day for me, got a novella from one my proteges, a novel from my writers group, and a five inch stack of comments on one of my books to sort through. I don’t expect to get even half of it done today, but I’ve got to dig and try, because it all needs to be done by Friday.
Good morning, again. Went back to bed.
Happy hosting, Caliscribe!
I went back to bed too…
The last vestiges of ancient Computer Support Gooserock checking in.
Puget4 reminds me that since Florida Mom is here we’ve missed a weekly backup. We have a DVD burner; for those of you with creaky older systems, these are much bigger and faster than CD-ROMs. Takes only half a minute to format.
We have our folders set up so that all the personal and business data is easily drag-and-dropped onto the disc. At this point since we don’t have large audio or video content, we don’t even need to bother with compression, so everything fits onto one disc.
We make two at a time. One goes into the bedroom for ready access in case we need to restore anything accidentally deleted. The other goes to the bank safe deposit box where 5-6 of the most recent reside. Since all the email, plans, development and tooling information for my business are digital, it’s crucial that we have the information safe and available even if something happened to the house. And in an earthquake zone, with soldering going on in the basement, there is always that chance….
We now return you to life in the slow lane!
I do three layer backup. Layer one is a semi-quarterly set of cds with all personal data, one kept at home, one off site. I don’t bother to do applications or anything like that, just settings, files, email, and things like custom dictionaries. Layer two is a thumb drive where I back up whatever I’m working on at the end of the day. This stays in my pocket at all times. Layer three is a variation of layer two. About once a week I email a copy of all active documents to an online email account where I’ve got a gig or so of storage. Whenever it starts to get too full I go through and weed older duplicates. For smaller files, this one is a great failsafe.
that I use for backing up my two most important folders; Documents (where my writing is) and iTunes Music. With the iBook, all I have to do is drag and drop; it takes about 15-20 minutes (it’s USB, not Firewire). Our new desktop computer will have a DVD burner, so I may go with the DVD backup for that one, and stick to the external HD for the laptop — many of the programs I have on the laptop will be moving over to the desktop system, dedicating the laptop to writing, travel and occasional Internet use.
I’m going to get me a couple of 200 GB hard drives and put them in a USB enclosure, and just back everything up onto them.
I’m not sure exactly how much data storage I really need, but hey, the family motto is “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” and besides, hard drives are cheap enough these days that you can get away with getting a big ol’ honkin’ hard drive even if you don’t think you’re going to fill it up. (You’ll be wrong, by the way. Files breed like rabbits on hard drives.)
has definitely fueled the desire for the monster HD…those files are huge! The desktop system we’re looking at is the new iMac; it has a 250GB HD but we’re wondering if we should upgrade it to 400GB. I’m toying with the idea of getting into video in 2006; the idea with an audio/video Podcast on public transportation issues is stuck in the back of my mind. [If I could justify the cost, would love one of the dual processor G5s…)
We’re holding off on the desktop system till January — we’re really not going to have a chance to get it in till then anyway, and I’m hoping there might be some hot deals at MacWorld SF. 🙂 Not to mention getting an update on the MacTels (Macs with Intel processors); I think that’s going to influence a lot of attendees’ purchase plans…
So far I’ve had minimal involvement with digital video — just ripping a few streams off of my TiVo so I can watch them later when I have the time — and even so I’ve managed to fill up the 40 GB partition I set aside for video.
I’m easing the pressure some by deleting the Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes I’ve been saving now that they’re coming out with a DVD of the series so far next month (already pre-ordered).
I’ve filled about 30 GB with various audio files, but much of that is redundant as for a while I was ripping my CD collection to both MP3s and OGG files. I’m thinking about ditching the redundant MP3s and converting the rest to OGG, since all of my digital players support OGG.
It’s amazing how little space your OS itself really needs. I just installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop and haven’t passed 3 GB yet, and that’s with a bunch of games installed. Data files are the real killers.
I took three cats to get their shot this afternoon. Then came home and misanswered some professional email because I went to the wrong website to check out the info sent my way. Then, when I tried to send a corrective email I accidentally hit send before I actually typed anything. Finally, on the third try I got a coherent response to the right person about the right thing. I’m clearly not up to doing anything more than sitting in a corner and quietly drinking a beer, so I’m declaring my day over.
I vote yes. Pour yourself a beer and relax. It’s after 5:00 somewhere in the world. And give the cats something too.
to blanket 4 this place. But, you know, the weirdest thing has happened… I was only off-line for what? Three days? And it seems to have broken my blog addiction. I find that I just don’t care much anymore what’s going on in politics. I’ve skimmed TPM, skipped Eschaton and Kevin Drum, barely read Wolcott and find that I now have to slide the bar to the right to read the diaries on dKos. Hmmm…
I scrolled down the front page at BooTrib and just don’t care enough to “read more” or check the comments. What’s wrong with me? Could it be that I have a REAL LIFE now? I dunno… I feel strange after catching up on a couple looooong threads here…