Been a while

Looks like it's been a while since I updated my blog. Bad me. :P I was out on Friday with my sister helping her to pick out a digital camera. We got it all set up, took a few photos and figured out how to load the images on her computer. It was a lot of fun so I decided to go out today and buy the same camera for myself. So hopefully my blog will get more interesting now that I can add photos.

My first photo is of...my cat! He just passed his 14th birthday so it's about time I got some pics of him since that's pretty old for a cat and who knows what could happen and the last photos I have of him were when he was a kitten! In another lifetime I was actually a studio photographer, at a store that is now defunct, but along the line of a WalMart. This would have been my early 20s, over 20 years ago. I also had my own SLR camera (still do) and dabbled in my own photo developing (black and white). I set up a darkroom in my Mom's laundry room. This was years and years ago and after taking a lot of family photos I kind of burned out on picture-taking and haven't taken any photos in years. So it's been on my mind for a while to try out the digital scene and so far so good!

Now I just need a good photo-editing program, preferably free, as I can already tell my cat photo needs some work. :P

9 Years

Well I knew it would happen someday and it happened today. After 9 years of using Emmy as my online name, I sent an email to my sister and signed it "Emmy" instead of my real name. I new the split second I hit the send button that I had goofed but it was too late. I had to send her another email explaining who the heck Emmy was, and hopefully she won't think I've developed a split personality. LOL

Very tired, worked late tonight (just got home) and go back early tomorrow morning for a full 8 hours, on which should normally be my day off. Picking up extra hours due to summer vacations, but it's really hard on my back which is still not back to normal. I can function well, but I pretty much feel my back all the time and it gets worse as the day goes on.

I'm also basically out of groceries and am going to try and squeak by as long as I can on what I have. It's slim pickings I tell ya. I will have to stop in for cat food but I think I make up some homemade stuff to get me through for four or five more days. I'm thinking of...

- homemade spaghetti
- homemade mac 'n cheese
- tuna salad
- cookies or granola bars
- shepherd's pie

Like I said, they'll all be from scratch as I'm out of everything "easy".

To Do List

I'm usually very bad with To Do lists, and I usually don't even bother writing them up, but Saturday I wrote up a list and actually got most of it finished!

Here is my list in all it's unexciting glory:

• cut and colour hair DONE! I now have a shorter do with no gray roots


• fill out insurance forms for chiro and glasses NOT DONE you'd think I'd make this one a priority since I get money back, but it remains undone


• take 800x600 resolution mention off of homepage DONE the site actually looks better at a higher resolution so I removed the recommendation for the lower resolution


• pay bills (online) DONE I love paying my bills online, quick and easy and (almost) painless


• move channel videos into main forum DONE I think it's better to have them in the main forum, and I like the video banner I added at the top


• make video tutorials (only 5 days left of trial) PART DONE still have some more to do but I made ones for adding avatars, and posting youtube and photobucket videos


• upload 2 new audio stories DONE


• redo the library homepage DONE


• clean house SORTA DONE I did a bit of picking up and kept on top of the dishes


• laundry DID ONE LOAD


• take out garbage DONE


• revise library search - remove 50 limit etc. DONE

You have no idea how satisfying most of those DONES are to this habitual procrastinator.

ps. I'm thinking I would like to get an mp3 player and a digital camera. I think I've held out long enough, and I'd like to play with some new toys. :)

Friday p.m.

I've been lax in updating my blog so here goes: my niece had her baby boy last Sunday. She'd been about 2 weeks overdue so it was a relief when it was finally all over. Baby was 8+ pounds. I saw the little muchkin yesterday and took over a gift card for groceries (that's my practical nature exerting itself! lol!).

Sis and I picked up our new glasses today and then I came home and napped! There was a spell there when I was napping a lot in the daytime, but I sort of got over it, but today I had a relapse I guess!

TCM is having some sort of 60s and 70s movie festival the past few days and it's just UGHHH! I dislike movies of that era and cannot wait for them to go back to the earlier classics.

Thursday night

It's been a crazy busy couple of days. Tonight I bid on a computer on ebay for my sister. It was the first time participating in an online auction for either of us...what an education! We didn't end up winning the item as there was a flurry of bidding at the end and we were pretty good about sticking to our maximum bid, although it was fun as I had her on the phone with me as I was bidding online. I'll look some more tomorrow as she's interested in getting a used laptop just to tinker on, nothing elaborate.

Lot of uploading of audio stories in the past couple of days, plus listening to lots of tests. We're having problems with static on some of the recordings but one-by-one we seem to be figuring out ways around it, whether getting a new microphone or trying another computer. But it's a lot of time spent sending files back and forth and listening to them. Plus I've tried manipulating some of the files, trying the noise reduction feature, audio boost, bass enhancement...stuff like that.

I uploaded a new video to the BW channel tonight...Saga of the Ponderosa by littlejoy and it is amazing. She is a very talented video maker and if you haven't seen it go visit the Channel forum and watch it.

We had a HUGE storm the other night. Like the worst thunderstorm in all my years of living in this house. The kind where I wondered if I ought to go down to the basement for protection. I remember looking out the window at one point and seeing a bag of garbage being blown down the middle of the road. A neighbour's tree snapped in half, and another neighbour had his telephone wires come down. My Mom said she was out with a friend shortly after the storm and they kept having to change routes as they'd come upon cars stuck in a couple of feet of water.

btw, I have a niece who is pregnant and a week overdue. Apparently she is 4cm dilated so it will be any day now, so we're all a bit on edge. Me, I just like to know when it's all over! lol!

Coding, coding and more coding

Other than sleep I feel I've spent the last 24 hours coding and doing computer stuff. Let's see, I added two new videos to the channel and then posted them and indexed them on the forum, I redid the forum template for the upcoming cowboy day, I recorded and uploaded a new video tutorial on using the BW chatroom (had to do 3 takes), I created a new hangman puzzle for AML and today I spent several hours figuring out how to add audio stories to the story pages in the library. That one was difficult because I couldn't embed the player right on the page since it uses the object tag and if I allowed that tag it would open up the library to possible malicious code insertion using it. Anyway, I devised a way around it but it took a while to figure it all out.

I think I need to find something else to do for a while though. :P

Btw, the potluck on Friday night was lovely. I made sure I ate very lightly throughout the day so I really enjoyed the evening meal. It was a bit overcast but we were still able to sit outside, even with the occasional spitting of rain.

Glasses

Well I've ordered my new glasses and should get them next week. My vision in my left eye is so bad it's considered legally blind at 20/200...only not really because the optometrist said that with corrective lenses she could actually get it up to 20/30. She said the eye was healthy and if something ever did happen to the my good right eye that the left eye could be brought back into service with strong lenses. She's not going to give me strong lenses now because my brain wouldn't understand the new signals after so long of not really using the eye, so the glasses I'm getting now will only improve the vision in that eye about 20%, enough to help with reading and stuff. She asked me if I had kids because this condition starts in the womb and is something I could pass onto my own children. All in all, it was an education in eyesight.

Going to an outdoor potluck tonight with a bunch of friends from work. I'm looking forward to getting out and hope we have nice weather for it. I'm bringing brownies, cuz then you know I'm guaranteed to find something I like to eat! LOL! I haven't made them yet so I'm taking a chance cutting it so close but really, can you ever make a bad batch of brownies? :P

Going to try and do up some more tutorials for the site on Sunday, I've got a list a mile long and less than 3 weeks left on my trial of the software.