Category Archives: Computer and Internet

Related Posts

Posted on by
Reply

I installed a new plugin on this blog today: “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” … to be exact. (Referered to as YARPP)

I had been thinking of finding some such plugin for some time, and finally went hunting for one today and am very pleased with this one, how it’s working, the ease of use, etc.

It is fun for me to see what posts are called up as “related” for different topic-ed posts, gets me looking at past content from a different perspective and that will help me with “tagging” some of them finally, no doubt.

I worked on the Sandbox theme I’m using too. I fixed up some code and now my blog is more fluid for resizing

I also just spiffed up my laptop, on the outside a bit. Nothing fancy, just cleaned off the dust and dirt and so it’s shiny black again, and finally removed the big sticker from the left palm rest area — a very faded HP sticker. I saw no reason to remove it before now. I’m the sort of weirdo that leaves plastic stuff on new things too, the clear film stuff that protects different things, I leave that on whatever until it’s ugly as can be, then take it off and the device is new looking underneath. Sort of a “screen protector” sort of thing, though it’s never a “screen” that’s covered, and I don’t do it to it, just leave on the original manufacturer stuff.

Let’s see, like the bread machine, the stove, the washer, the dryer, radios, etc. The sticker on the computer was a different sort of thing, sure, but similar enough to me, it looks so very nice there now.

Prenatal Blood Work – Baseball – MP3′s and Sleep

Posted on by
Reply

Seems I got little done today (Friday). My allergies went bonkers earlier on Friday AM, and then rain began falling … and I just dragged myself through the morning. Hubby wanted me to go get my Prenatal blood work done that morning, since we’d forgotten it before, and had been paid the day before, so could get it done. I pled for going in the afternoon and was granted that.

Well, when we found the Lab (the sort that does blood work un-connected to a doctor) we all went inside and it was so hot in the building. I realized that my allergies were not quite as bad then, but had the misfortune to note that the heat of the room was stifling and made the whole affair just a cloggy dried out mess. Great.

The attendant finally called me back for the blood drawing, I had just about finished my water bottle and still felt parched. :sad:

I sat down and the attendant asked me which arm is best to draw blood from. I told her “whichever one you want to try first …” and she immediately seemed too mellow out and come alive personally, saying “Oh, you’re one of THOSE people!”

Yeah, I am. I knew it when I sat down, from past experiences which were flooding back to me I recalled a myriad of times dealing with blood being drawn, IV’s being inserted … trouble, trouble, trouble.

She started with my left arm and confidently tried, but failed, twice and decided to abandon the left for the right. She took more time then and did get into a vein easier on the right, after the steep learning curve of my left arm, she said something like “I can see it, but then I can’t feel it with the needle … “  speaking of my veins.

I know that many people are so icked out to watch such events occuring to their own bodies, I was, as usual, interested and facinated to see the blood start to flow and fill the vile, and then another, and so on. Yes, I watched her searching for a good spot to stick me, and watched her failed attempts and her final success.

The children wondered afterwards “if it had hurt” and I said something like, “not really, just a little prick when the needle went in, and the band around my arm above the elbow joint was worse, tight and uncomfortable.” Pain for me is not the same as pain for others. I’ve a high-threshold, and it’s more like things are “miserable” on a scale, rather than “painful” if that makes any sense. (Even migraines are often more miserable than “pain” and the pain involved in some can be great, and maybe I just don’t see/feel pain the way some others do, and that’s why I haven’t ever sought out help from any professionals about migraines, but deal with thing my own way.)

So I got my Prenatal blood work started, and the results will be ready maybe by Noon on Saturday, or by Tuesday. In any case, it’s fine, since it’s started and I was still pregnant, and most likely will be into next week, but in the event that labor starts sooner, the proof exists.

My household plans suffered today, abandoned. We went to Whole Foods after the Lab, and then went to find some food. It was later than expected, traffic was a bear around there … and we went to a Taco Mac closer to home, since it was evident that we’d miss the baseball games on TV that were about to start if we went elsewhere, and needed to eat (me especially) and not go home and have to cook something.  Usually we’ll set the DirecTivo to record such an event, baseball game in this instance, so that if we are not home in time, we’ll be able to start the stream that was recorded and then “catch up” to the live game eventually.

For me it didn’t go well, the Yanks were held back from scoring, though R.C. pitched a decent enough game, and the Y. batters were getting on base. We lingered over our food and finally left (the food was alright, it was the game that wasn’t.) When we got home the game was in the top of the 9th, so I tried to follow it, but had layed down on the couch and kept drifting off. I was able to note that the game ended with no score for the Yankees. All good things come to an end eventually. So they Lost. Winning streak ends at 9 games. I can’t really predict, but hope for a good result from the Saturday afternoon Subway game.

The last time the Yankees played the Mets (not that long ago) it was an “away game” and the games seemed strange to me, but not blow outs, per se. Friday’s game wasn’t a blow out either. It was just a low scoring, no scoring match-up … the first being an L and the next 2 having great possibilities for the pinstriped home team. It’s something that I won’t be able to watch though, since Fox controls rights to MLB games on Saturdays. I can listen over the internet, and follow MLB.com’s “Game Day” interface, which is nice, but just not the same as watching the Real Game. I find it like as being “tedious vs. intuitive” (Game Day and Audio vs. watching the whole game on TV.)

I woke up after awhile, on the couch, and hubby awakened hubby and struggled to get up and go to bed, it was after midnight, and I despise falling asleep there (or more precisely, sleeping there then waking up and feeling as I do at that point.) I can’t stay asleep all night anymore, and usually, when not pregnant, I don’t either, but have a better chance of a real night of sleep every so often. Being this pregnant on the couch is just plain miserable. So why do I lay down there in the first place? I don’t know.

Coming upstairs to the master bedroom, hubby goes right back to sleep, and I sit here realizing how allergic I’m feeling again, that it wasn’t THIS bad when we were out and about earlier. Seems it’s something locally then, which is bothering me. I’m still awake, it’s been over an hour since coming up here, and I’ve taken a long time writing this post too.

What I didn’t get done on Friday, anything much in the house, I have to get done on Saturday, and this awake session isn’t boding well for the future of those plans. I’ve a small amount of liquid Benadryl left, I did take a small bit when I first came up, and should soonly try to close this and settle down and take a bit more Benadryl and hope it does the trick to calm the itchy, drippies down and let me sleep some.

Thanks be to God for headphones and MP3 players. It’s what gives me my rest, listening to something as I lay there, sleeping or just resting, it brings about a similar effect to actual sleep for me, but I tend to not do that entirely, but sit here typing or reading other things online, instead of lying down. I inevitably do stop and lay down and when it’s later, as it is tonight, the MP3 player is my best friend.

Mine is a SanDiskSansa e260 which was purchased over a year ago already. It’s a great little device and I haven’t always put it to good use, but have been of late. I also have a little SanDisk player, a 512mb device, that will do Audio Books, Audible.com in particular, which I’ve had a subscription to for a decent while now. My e260 won’t do Audible books. A sore point for me, as well as many other e200 series device owners.

I don’t listen to books often, I get so distracted and am lulled to sleep easily with them, which is not very useful to me, so I don’t “listen to books” in bed. Music is totally different. Osmosis doesn’t work for Audible books, but does semi-work for Music.

I love Bruckner and only have one Symphony on my e260 of his, the 4th “Romantic” … it’s in 4 parts, and I often will hear at least half of the 1st movement without drifting off, and sometimes get to notice something of the 2nd or 3rd, but mainly it’s interesting that I will noticeably awaken to hear the 4th movement, and sometimes then drift off as it goes along, but near the end I snap to attention … the last 7 or less minutes, with the last 2 minutes (+ some odd seconds) being my ultimate favorite part of the piece … often coming to right about with 2:30m left to hear. It’s just that great and worth it.

Anyhow, my e260′s battery power is getting low, so I made a point to be sure and bring the (proprietary) cable up to the bedroom tonight, and I can get it charged up since my laptop is hanging out by the side of my bed lately. Inserting the USB plug into the USB port of the laptop slowly, not all the way, allows the player to charge without “connecting” so one can then still listen to music via it, and charge up at the same time. It’s a nifty tip, not exciting, just nifty and useful. Not that I can’t listen to music via my laptop, I sure can and THAT then will go up to my last.fm profile … but I love my shiny black e260 instead lately, and suffer no data aggregating on last.fm for my listening habits most of the time.

Well, Saturday is upon me, has been since I awoke on the couch, in fact. I need to get some rest, then try and motivate everyone to “get this stuff done” and really get it done. :smile:

What Poetry Form am I?

Posted on by
Reply

My #1 Answer:

I am, of course, none other than blank verse.
I don’t know where I’m going, yes, quite right;
And when I get there (if I ever do)
I might not recognise it. So? Your point?
Why should I have a destination set?
I’m relatively happy as I am,
And wouldn’t want to be forever aimed
Towards some future path or special goal.
It’s not to do with laziness, as such.
It’s just that one the whole I’d rather not
Be bothered – so I drift contentedly;
An underrated way of life, I find.

What Poetry Form Are You?

and if I am not that, this is my other Answer:

If they told you I’m mad, then they lied.
I’m odd, but it isn’t compulsive.
I’m the triolet, bursting with pride;
If they told you I’m mad, then they lied.
No, it isn’t obsessive. Now hide
All the spoons or I might get convulsive.
If they told you I’m mad then they lied.
I’m odd, but it isn’t compulsive.

What Poetry Form Are You?

Hmmm … can I be both? :)

Quiz found via Kelly (BadgerMum).

Middle of the Night Stuff

Posted on by
Reply

I woke up at 3:30am –being pregnant –this is happening a lot, I sleep a few hours and then … (of course, normal times I, often enough, awake during the night, being an NT, a Night Owl, INTP, with my mind going a mile a minute, but being pregnant for so long now, it’s a bit different.)

Sometimes I just go to the bathroom then try to actually sleep again, or read, or just think. This time my mind stirred before I was even out of bed to go to the bathroom. (I often actually awake sometime after 1am, so glad to see I got a bit more sleep this time!)

I had taken a roast out of the freezer on Saturday, to put in the crockpot that night, with some water, on LOW to have for Sunday dinner (today). I put the roast in the fridge in the AM, and promptly forgot about it.

I was recalling that at 3:30am, along with the fact of knowing that the crock pot wasn’t ready to “just throw in a roast”. I wished it was so, but knew that the dishwasher didn’t get everything out of it last time, and I needed to scrub it a tad to ready it. I had meant to do that beforehand, a few days ago when it was first discovered, actually, but I never did get to it. So here I am now, I’ve gotten that scrubbed out, and the roast is nestled in water on LOW in the crock pot. I’m on the couch roving around the ‘net and now it’s more than an hour ago that I awoke and got out of bed.

I do try to soak my pancake/waffle batter ahead of time, Nourishing Traditions methodology. I meant to do that earlier on Saturday and it totally slipped my mind as well. And so, I busied myself after the roast with getting some Spelt and Yogurt together in a bowl for Sunday morning waffles. It won’t be a 12-24 hour soak, at least it’ll be a few to a few more hours than none though. :)

I usually make my pancake/waffle batters with Kamut flour, but I had some spelt ground up, and no Kamut here in the middle of the night, so I used the spelt, which is a-ok, I just usually prefer Kamut for batters, and I wasn’t about to get out my grinder at 3-something AM.

Well it’s a new month once again. Happy April! I have no “April Fool” to use and usually don’t. I do appreciate a clever version from others, but find myself too serious to actually wish to fool anyone else (though maybe I was moreso free to do that when I was much younger.) I despise the versions of “April Fool” which are emotionally hurtful, and THOSE are the type that most people utilize, which is probably why I just do nothing for these last many years.

With the new month comes 2 more Audible.com credits for me — I don’t always use them up first thing, but sometimes I do. I’ve, a couple of times in past,  forgotten about them until it was just a day late and lost my precious credits. Lesson learned, but sometimes it feels down to the wire. So this brings to mind that I will have availability of 2 new audiobooks sometime today, and is there anything I want, or do I need to rack my brain to come up with something. The latter is what I have been like the last few months. I troll the site and look and search and wonder aloud and ask DH for suggestions, and finally just get something else ;)

Which reminds me that I have so many audiobooks that I haven’t listened to yet, and wonder at why it’s so hard, I love the idea and don’t use them for me much. I did try to listen to something when we were in FL in February, but I’m so visually oriented it’s hard to “listen” to something atimes, even if you WANT to.

Like even putting music on, headphones or through speakers. I listen, but then miss “intelligently heard” this or that from what I played. Spoken audio is easier for me to listen to through speakers than headphones. Via headphones I drift miles away and continue hearing the audio, but not really. Sometimes I sure can multi-plex my thoughts and listening all together, but not always. I find it pleasant to sit down, shut my eyes with headphones on, and that’s not too useful for audiobooks you want to actually listen to, since I’d then drift to some semblance of nap-nap-ness, that works better with well loved music instead.

I say all this because I’ve been contemplating putting my audiobook player (My little Sansa M230 is devoted to audiobooks only, and I have two others for my two eldest children, who actually DO listen to audiobooks I put on theirs, ah, to be young and technologically advanced … I dreamed of having my own taperecorder from when I was very young, and never got one,  and to listen to a “book” meant to listen to a Vinyl LP of stories. :) Not very mobile. Not something I could do in my room, it was dedicated to the record player in the family area. And we had no literature on LP, just stories from some Christian company, I can recall something about a Raindrop named April, and visually I have memory of those things, vivid images from my childhood, things conjured up in my mind while listening to Vinyl LP stories. :)

My mind is the same basically, only clogged up with adult responsibilities that make leisure listening so difficult to attain. It’s not just that, it IS precisely wired into those like me, and my family of P’s, that our audible-ness isn’t our strongest ability, and “in one ear and out the other” is a phrase that means a lot to us, we “Hear” but don’t always “HEAR” … we “See” and do usually “SEE” though. :) To “See and  Hear” at once is to “SEE and HEAR” absolutely. :LOL:

To be young and not bogged down brings about a more leisure ability to put on headphones and listen to literature read, and look at the images in your mind and not drift away as much as adult-me is prone to (with so many other things floating around my head at the same time.) So that’s my thinking on listening to audio in bed, if I bring my audiobook player up there, I’ll listen some, and who knows where I’ll leave off and stop listening, and then have to re-charge the battery, and re-listen to find the spot I have some sort of re-call to and hope that I can stay “actively listening” and gain some time with the audiobook for real. I have long been a book reader, and the idea of audiobooks is great, and I love the accessibility to great classics via audio, but it’s just so much easier to say “I’ll read it” than “I’ll listen to it.” But I don’t have all the books on paper that I have as audio, so I can’t “just read” them. Oh, I could go on and on, but maybe I should just grab that little blue and white device and give it a try. It’s nearly 5:30am now, time sure flies when you are making a blog post about too much, here and there and everywhere. Perhaps a trial of focus is worthy after such. :rolleyes: