It can take photos too!

In addition to being a phone, the AT&T Tilt is a GPS, a PDA, a Wi-Fi device, and a camera. Heh. I really just wanted a new PDA, but you can’t get one that’s not attached to a phone and uses Winders Mobile 6 (which I need for my DVD program).

Now these photos aren’t the best, but partly because it wasn’t all that bright in the room when I was talking them. And partly cuz it was very mobile cats I was photographing.


Linus was the hardest to keep still for his photo.


Lucy decided to go sepia.

The Land of Glass Trees


Welcome to the Land of Glass Trees

Today is our 7th calamity day of the school year. OK, so we’ll have to make it up later, but for today, I’m going to stay inside and enjoy the view. (Maybe it’ll melt enough so that I can get to the post office before they close this afternoon.)

Thank Goodness for DP&L

Yesterday it got up to 70°F and was sunny in the morning. Today it was near freezing and raining all day. And then it went below freezing and was still raining. Our superintendent made a smart call and dismissed school an hour early. After all the kiddies were gone, we teachers were allowed to leave. So I did, and headed off to the polls.

I actually drove today (I usually walk) because of the threat of ice later. I don’t mind driving short distances in ice, but walking home? Gah! My rear window and passenger-side window were covered with ice, but the windshield and driver’s-side window weren’t.

Ohio has Closed Primaries, which means you have to declare your party before you vote. I’m Independent (or at least I was when I entered the church where we vote) and didn’t want to just vote for the one issue on the ballot, so I decided to vote Democrat. (Which is almost as boring as voting Independent in this county, except for the presidential candidates – any other Democrats there were unopposed, though most of the positions were Republican only. I mean, there are five guys vying for coroner and NONE of them were on the Democrat ballot.) I voted for someone I wouldn’t mind seeing as my future president. 🙂 (I know, I know, that’s most of the folks on the Democrat ticket.)

Once I was done with my civic duty (congratulating a first time voter on her way in – that would be Suzanne W, Becky’s next door neighbor, Amy. Doesn’t that make you feel old? Sure as hell makes ME feel old!) I headed back home. I spent a few hours online enjoying myself and was just thinking about working on college stuff when, at 4pm, the power flickered on & off. And on again. And off. Repeat for a few minutes. Finally it went off for good.

So I got onto my laptop and read one of the files for this week’s curriculum class (which I’d saved on the laptop, though I’d forgotten to save the questions the professor asked) and wrote up a short essay on how we do curricula here in Ohio. Was reading the second paper when my laptop warned me it was 10% to go on battery. I turned it off and thought about what to do next.

I realized that I don’t actually have any landline phones that don’t require power (I should get a cheap-o one just for such an occurrence) so I called dad with my cell phone. He was at the Flamingo Hotel getting ready for the big Westar Conference taking place this week. We chatted for a bit, then I said “bye” and decided to make supper. Yay for peanut butter & jelly sandwiches! 🙂

I listened to a David Tennant-read audiobook on my iPod (whose battery lasted long enough for the book and then some) while I ate supper. I even got out my Nintendo Gameboy Advance for a bit and was delighted to see the battery was still charged. Even without power, I was geeking. I love being a geek. (Still, I’m not as cool as elsaf, who, during the Detroit power failures a few years ago, was still able to get online. GEEK!)

Well, four hours and eleven minutes later and we have power again. Hooray for DP&L! Hooray for heat! Hooray for electricity and batteries! 🙂

Lemmings – the Next Generation

So, did any of you folks ever play Lemmings? I loved that game and, though I never finished it, I got pretty high up. I even got several of the sequels, though I never liked them as much as the original.

Well, I decided to look to see if there’s a Windows Mobile version out there, but was sad to see only Palm OS versions. However, I did discover a couple of neat-o things:

  • A Dynamic HTML version of Lemmings: I’ll definitely return here to get my Lemmings fix from time to time.
  • Pingus: an Open Source clone of Lemmings, but with Penguins! It’s still in development, but what they have so far is really cute. I love the “chalk” drawings they use to describe the story of the Pingus so far.

Anyhoo, I’ll just get back to looking for Winders Mobile games (preferably freebies, heh).

PS: Check out the new icon. From today’s Sluggy Freelance. Heh heh heh.

Meeting up with friends

My main goal for today was to get course stuff read and, maybe, clean a bit. Then, around noon, I got a phone call from audioboy. He and bex77 were in Ohio and making their way south and then west and wondered if I’d be interested in meeting up for supper when they’d be in the Dayton area. That sounded like a great idea to me, so I said yes and recommended Huber Heights, which is off of I70. They said they’d call back when they were closer so I’d know when to head out.

So I went about my day and was reading a very boring paper on curriculum writing (is there an interesting paper on curriculum writing?) with Linus on my lap when I got another call from them. They were half an hour away or so from the exit, so I headed out to meet them. We agreed to meet at Ruby Tuesday there in Huber. We had a very pleasant supper – it was nice catching up with them again. We wiled away an hour and a half or so while there, but then it was time for them to continue on their road trip. I wished ’em well and headed off to Target looking for something for work. (No luck there, but a second stop at Walmart on the way home was more successful.)

I hope their drive was a smooth one and that things go well for them on this trip. Thanks for the chance to meet up!

Chili Contest ’08

Tonight was the annual Chili Competition that the Fishers put on each year.  There were half the number of folks this year as last, which wound up giving us half the number of chilies as last year.  We had a few out due to conflicting commitments and several out due to illness.  (Mom and dad were in California, for example.)  But despite the smaller numbers, there was plenty of food and fun conversation.

There were only 4 chili soups to try and all of them were good.  I’ve only been to three of these, and in the first two I managed to vote for the chili that won.  This was not the case this year. Indeed, I couldn’t decide between two, but neither of them were the winning chili.  Each year Gary brags that he’ll be the one to win (and often recommends that people just not bring any chili, heh).  And to his surprise and delight, he won!  You go guy!  He even posed for a picture with the trophy (and mock applause in the background.)

As is usually the case when I go to one of the gatherings that they put on, I ate too much.  But I don’t mind – it was all very good food.  And there was bread and salad and brownies and cookies.  Yummy stuff!  I have a happy (though stuffed) tummy.

Today was spent switching my e-mail over from Pegasus to Thunderbird.  *sniff* I’m going to miss Pegasus, but I need Thunderbird for my upcoming PDA purchase.  If I want to avoid having to install Outlook on my PC, I’m going to need Thunderbird and Lightning along with Birdiesync.  And I like what I see in Thunderbird thus far.  (Well, Firefox is my preferred browser, so no surprise there.)