Favorite Quote of the Day

The day is still young, but I think I found my favorite quote of the day from a NYTimes article here. It talks about a lawsuit against myspace, then goes on to talk about a suit against KFC:

I recognize that there's a certain part of the population who don't know a steady fried chicken diet is bad for them. I feel bad for these people," Mr. Chan wrote. "However, these are probably the same people who don't put on their seatbelts and who suck down endless coffee during the day and Coors at night. So let's be honest with ourselves here. You're not going to save these people. You're just screwing up the chicken for the rest of us.[empahsis added]

I guess that can be my new comeback: Yeah, you're just screwing up the chicken for the rest of us.

Restaurant Review: Carrabbas

Name: Carrabbas
Address:683 E. University Parkway, Orem, UT 84097
Phone: (801) 765-1222
Type: Expensive Italian
Cost: $12-15 a plate, kids meal for $5, meals are large enough to split
What we had: Chicken Parmesan, chicken fingers, Chicken Rosa Maria
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5) Would probably be 5 stars if it wasn't so dang expensive
Kid friendly: moderate, provided crayons and could color on menu

Review: After discovering the wait was an hour at PF Changs, we went to this restaurant with my sisters. It has a gluten free, vegetarian menu, a rarity in Orem. Anyway my husband and I split the Chicken Parmesan. I thought it was OK, although the garlic potato sides were very good. The Chicken Rosa Maria was amazing. (My sister was kind of enough to share.) If you go, order that. My sister also shared the fried zuccini which was excellent in the dipping sauce they provided.

The waitress was polite. The restaurant was clean and the restrooms passable.

Initial Review: Durabrand 7" Portable DVD Player (DUR-7)

Background: I bought the 7" Durabrand Portable DVD Player from Wal-mart at the end of May 2006 since I was planning on going on a trip with my children and wanted to have a little peace and quiet occasionally. I bought this unit from the store since I wanted to have time to return it for another one if I needed to. (Note: I don't know what the reliability of these units is, I just know many cheap portable dvd players have quality issues.) I will add more to this review after I've used it more.

Link: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4938631

First Impressions: It looks like a dvd player. It seems cheaply made. It is wide screen. The speaker volume at max is LOUD (at least to me), I turned it down to about half way. The screen seems bright and clear to me. My husband said the screen quality is passable, but I don't really notice things like that. To put a DVD in, you lift the cover and snap the DVD in place.

Features:

• Plays DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CDs (both regular and mp3), and picture disks (jpg). (It might do more, this is what I tested)
• It has component video out (no video in). It also has a switch to switch between widescreen and normal format.
• The buttons on the player are: volume (up/down), play, pause, stop, skip (forward/back). There is also a brightness knob.
• I can do everything with this portable player that I can with my full-sized dvd player, skip, repeat, memory.
• Hacks (haven't tried them personally): Region free and also one to let you play VCDs
• Car adaptor
  

Quirks:

• You can't control the volume or brightness from the remote.
• This is more related to the case I bought to hook it up in my car, but the remote sensor is hidden under the edge of case so I can't use the remote. Putting a cd case under the player so that it sat higher seemed to fix the problem
• You can't select from a DVD's menu with the buttons on the player, so don't loose the remote. You can hit play and most DVDs will play.
  
• Battery won't charge unless player is turned off.
  
• Max of 254 pictures/songs in a folder on a cd.
  

Still to Test

• Battery life
• Playing a full length movie
• Screen brightness in a car
• Longevity
  

Rating so Far
This player is exactly what I expected. It's a good price and seems to do everything I want it to. Assuming it holds up, I would recommend it.

Transparent screen attempt

Transparent screen attempt
Originally uploaded by jpstanley.

My husband took this picture. I love transparent screen shots.

Re: Why are Some Mormons Afraid of an LDS Presidential Candidate?

I occasionally read the blog Reach Upward , since I enjoy the political commentary. Today he asked "Why are some Mormons Afraid of an LDS President?" (Note: below I'm speaking hypothetically, I'm not implying anything about Mitt Romney.)

I'm not worried about what the news outlets might say about the LDS church during the campaign. The church is in the spotlight a lot and I don't think this will do any lasting harm. I'm just a little worried that after a campaign where religion ends up playing a big part, the candidate will be accused of something illegal (bribery, improper use of funds....) or obviously against the teaching of the church (has an affair with an aide...) and that this will reflect poorly on the church. Or that people might confuse the candidate's political stances with the stances of the church.

I'm all for good, honest people running for office and hope that if a member of the church runs, he or she falls into that category.

Review: Alpine Roofing Specialists

Company: Alpine Roofing Specialists
Phone: (801) 361-2301
Job: Reroof my house
Rating: Good (provisionally since I haven't had my roof very long)

We recently got our roof replaced. At first we considered doing it ourselves, but since we have a second story, being near the edge of the roof there held no appeal for either of us.


After the events described here, we finally found a roofer. We just wanted to go over the existing layer of shingles since they were still in good condition. I got estimates from a few companies I found in the phone book and also Home Depot. (Home Depot, by the way, was $2000 more than any other bid.) Then I called a roofing supply company that advertised that they did referrals and they referred Alpine Roofing Specialists. Jared gave me a bid that included redoing the flashing on the roof, installing flashing around the swamp cooler, installing vents, and moving the swamp cooler to roof around it (and installing the shingles of course). I also got a release of lien and saw the proof of insurance.

I found out they had done my neighbor's roof, so I called and she said she hadn't had any leaks.

Now I can't give a full review since I've only had my roof for a week, but I can say they did a good job. They arrived when they said they would. They worked quickly and cleaned up after themselves. The roof looks really good. The city inspector found no problems with what they were doing. They also worked longer than I expected since rain was expected the next day and they wanted the roof covered. My swamp cooler was hard to move, but they worked on it until it was done.

Nielsens grove park

Yesterday we took our kids to Nielsen's grove park. It is on Sandhill Road out past the Wal-mart in Orem. It is one really cool park. There is a huge field area perfect for flying kites or launching rockets (that's what the boy scouts were doing.) They have a pond and a fountain. Plus a really nice garden of tulips.

The coolest thing is a merry-go-round-style set of swings. The swings go around in a big circle (I've seen similar things at amusement parks), but it is human powered. I wanted to swing on it so bad, but there were too many children wanting a turn. But sometime soon I'm going there in the morning so I can have fun.

There is also a playground, but it is small and for ages 5-12. I hope they are planning on adding a play area for smaller children because the smaller children play on that playset and get pushed over by older children.

Raising the Roof

We are looking to redo our roof. It is driving me up the wall. Do we do it ourselves or hire someone? (I'm leaning towards hiring someone since I don't want to be up on the second story nailing shingles.) But who to hire? At first I called some people in the yellow pages. I got quotes.

(In case you're interested our roof will take 18 squares of shingles and the estimates are in the $3500 range for a full tear off.)

Then I called Home Depot since they will install a roof for you (for $2,000 more than any other contractor.) They had a very nice salesman. I love listening to salesmen spin the truth. The problem with the salesman is that he isn't the installer, so really I know no more about how Home Depot will do than I did before. I was leaning towards them even with the higher price tag since it'd have the Home Depot name and a 10 year warranty and inspection, but then I read on line some bad experiences people have had with them (not here in Utah though). Basically, although Home Depot can't disappear with my money like a smaller contractor can, they can give me the run around for months since no one seems to be ultimately responsible.

My main problem was I knew nothing about these people. So I finally found 2 more contractors that people in the neighborhood had used and liked or at least their roofs hadn't leaked. I got one bid today.

The City of Orem requires an over-the-counter permit for putting on a roof. They told me it would cost about $50 and an inspector would come out and look at the roof as it's being put on to make sure it was OK.

Anyway, that's where things stand now.

Children's story: Sir Duck and his Noble Companions

Once upon a time, a duck was flying over a forest when he was shot by a hunter. The duck managed to fly to a castle where the princess nursed him back to health.
"I wish there was something I could do to help you," said the duck.
"There is," said the princess, "A magic spell prevents me from leaving the castle. The only way to break the spell is for someone to plant the magic flower outside the castle gate."
"I'll do it," said the duck.
"It will be very dangerous and you cannot yet fly."
"I can walk and swim," said the duck.
"Then take this map, it will show you the way to the magic flower. You will know it because it smells like lemons."

The next morning, the duck swam across the moat with the map tucked under his wing and some rope around his neck. He followed the map and soon found himself following a path in a dark, enchanted wood. After he had gone a few miles, he heard a strange sound, "Awooo, Awoo" and the sound was coming closer. At first, the duck wanted to run away, but then stopped himself. "Help comes from unlikely places," he said to himself, "I'll wait and see what is making that noise." The duck quickly climbed up a tree and waited. He looked down and saw a large dog howling in the most pitiful manner. "The princess has always been so good to me. I'll never find the magic flower to save her. What ever can I do?" The duck, thinking quickly, jumped down from his branch.
"Ahh!" shrieked the dog, "Who are you?"
"I, too, am seeking the magic flower. But I have a map to show the way. Would you like to join me?"
The dog agreed and two continued down the path.

After they had gone a few miles, they heard a strange sound, "Meow, Meow" and the sound was coming closer. "It's a monster," said the dog. "Perhaps," said the duck, "but let us wait and see what it is. Help comes from unlikely sources." The duck and dog quickly climbed up a tree to see what it was. They looked down and saw a cat howling in the most pitiful manner. "I want rescue the princess and now I am lost. I'll never find the magic flower. What ever can I do?" The duck, thinking quickly, jumped down from his branch.
"Ahh!" shrieked the cat, "Who are you?"
"I, too, am seeking the magic flower. But I have a map to show the way. Would you like to join us?" The cat agreed and three set off.

In the same way the duck was joined by a sheep, an ox, and a pig.

The duck looked at his map. "The map says to be careful because a band of thieves roams in this area."
"Ah," said the dog, "Thieves are nothing. Leave them to me."
They traveled on. Suddenly, the dog began to bark and growl ferociously. The animals heard sounds of running as the robbers ran away. "That takes care of that," said the dog.

It grew dark, and the animals were tired and hungry. The duck looked at his map. "Ahead there is a barn full of food for any traveler who needs it." They entered the barn ready to eat, but it was full of rats and mice selfishly feasting on all the food that hissed at them as they approached. "Ah", said the cat,"Leave them to me." With a loud meow, the cat jumped among the rats. The rodents fled, leaving plenty of food for the other animals.

Well fed, they laid down to sleep. As the night drew on, it became colder and colder. The animals began to shiver. "There are no blankets here," said the duck. "Ah, " said the sheep, "Leave this to me. I am made of wool. If you will all cuddle close to me, I can keep you warm." Warm and content, the animals slept.

The next morning they continued their journey. The path ended at a swift river. Duck knew he could swim across, but the water was too swift for the other animals. "Ah," said the duck, "Leave this to me." He swam across the river and tied his rope around a tall tree. Then he swam back. "Now hold onto the rope and we can cross." But even with the rope, the river was still too swift.

"Ah," said the ox, "Leave this to me." He began to pull and strain on the rope. With a loud crack, the tree fell over making a fine bridge. The animals all crossed and found themselves in a field full of magic flowers.

There were thousands of flowers and they all looked the same. "Ah," said the pig, "leave this to me." She began to sniff the air. "This way," she called as she ran. The other animals followed her lead. Suddenly, she stopped. "Here is the flower." They all smelled it and agreed it was the one. The dog carefully dug it up, and they began their trip home.

Soon they were at the castle. They planted the flower and the spell was broken. The grateful princess came out of the castle. "In return for you bravery," she said, "I dub all of you knights and grant you one wish."

"We wish to have a farm where we can all live together and help each other."

So the princess put them in charge of the royal farm and everyone lived happily ever after.

(c) 2006

Restaurant Review: Tucanos

restaurant Name: Tucanos
Location: 4801 North University Ave Provo, Utah (Riverwoods shopping)
Website: http://www.tucanos.com/
Type: Brazilian with lots of meat
Average Meal: $11 lunch ($17 dinner)
What we ate: churrasco, Brazilian lemonade
Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)
Kid friendly: Mostly, children eat free
Review: I love Tucanos, but due to its cost, we only eat lunch there. It is a Brazilian style resturant. There is a central salad bar with lots of different types of salad. Then you sit at your table and the waiters bring skewers of grilled meat, vegatables and fruit to your table. If you want some, you get some. You can eat as much as you want. My favorites are the garlic sirloin, the grilled pineapple, and the grilled pineapple. My husband really likes the brisket. The lemonade is pretty good, but I wouldn't buy it (I had a coupon). This restaurant gets busy so come early. (On a random note, they play Brazilian music in the bathroom. It's great.)

Restaurant Review: Shoots

restaurant Name: Shoots
Location: 4801 North University Ave #820 Provo, Utah (Riverwoods shopping)
Phone: 801.225.0445
Website: http://www.shootsutah.com/
Type: Chinese
Average Meal: $8-10 per person (Sat. lunch)
What we ate: pot stickers, broccoli with spicy garlic sauce and beef, kung pao chicken (meals also included egg drop soup and egg rolls)
Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars
Kid friendly: Mostly, no children's menu, but willing to accommodate (let us use plastic cups and a take out box for our 19 mo. old that likes to throw things)
Review: This is a great restaurant. We'll be coming back. The service was excellent and waitress very willing to help us. We enjoyed almost all the food. The egg drop soup was really good. The egg rolls were also good. The only thing we didn't like were the pot stickers we had gotten for our kids. The pot stickers were very heavy on ginger. No one in our family liked them. But the kung pao chicken was great. The first bite wasn't quite what I expected, but was still good. The broccoli with spicy garlic sauce and beef was excellent. It was a little spicy, on the spicy end of mild. The beef was excellent, very tender and the sauce delicious.

One word of caution, if you are using Riverwoods gift certificates there, they will give you your change in a gift certificate for Shoots. That annoyed my husband and I since now we have to go back, but other than that, we loved it.

Diamond in the Rough

The other day at Wal-mart, I saw some SkyDiamond kites for $1. I bought some on impulse. It was one of the best decisions I've made recently.

These kites are the traditional diamond shape, but they really fly. It was trivial to get them up in the air (unlike many of the other kites I've tried.) My almost-four-year-old daughter could get and keep hers up with a little help.

In the interest of full disclosure, these kites have two quirks. First, their tail is really long, like ten feet. Second, when you put the kite together, their is a black piece that can flip around and be backwards, so if your kite isn't wants to fly upside down, flip that piece around.

We went back to Wal-mart yesterday and got some more :)


Here's the kite.

Review: Bride and Prejudice

About 2 weeks ago, I saw the movie "Bride and Prejudice", a musical set in India based on the plot of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". I liked the movie, but I recommend watching it late at night with friends after eating lots of sugar. I enjoyed the songs, especially "No Life Without Wife". It was fun to watch, very colorful. If you are a Pride and Prejudice fan, definately see this one. I don't think I'll buy it, but I'd definately be willing to watch it again.

As an aside, I didn't realize the movie was a musical until I saw a bunch of men in turbans and beards break into song and dance.

My making new purse

I've been wanting a new purse. As the mother of two small children I needed to stuff in more stuff than my current purse of about 6 years could handle. I found a back pack style purse at Wal-mart for $5, too good to pass up. The problem was I couldn't organize all my stuff. So I decided to make my own purse. It turned out to be a good experience (mostly because of the kind intervention of my mother-in-law. She fixed all my sewing mistakes.)

The purse measures about 8 1/2 X 11 inches. I based my design on this free pattern I found on the web, but I have a dreadful sewing secret: I cannot sew a straight line. I'm getting better at it, but the pattern I had found had a bunch of curves. I wasn't quite ready to tackle that yet, so I decided to stick with squares. I also wanted a purse bigger than the one in the pattern.

I found a denim remnant and a cute cotton pattern remnant at Wal-mart to use for the purse. (Note: using denim is a pain because you have to zigzag stitch around all the seams to keep it from unraveling, but I was used to it since I had recently done a jean quilt.)

I learned how to install a zipper, why it is important to be careful with a seam ripper, and how to sew a corner. I also learned that having pockets go to the edge of the panels isn't the greatest idea since it meant I was trying to sew through five layers of fabric.

Anyway, my purse has a small outside pocket for cell phone, keys, and chapstick. On the back of the purse is a large pocket for holding papers.



Inside is the main pocket, great for diapers and stuff. There are two inside pockets. The one is for little items I don't want floating around in the purse proper. The other pocket I sewed to make a pen holder, checkbook holder, and PDA holder.

Here's the inside of the purse before it was sewn:

I attached the strap with two D-rings.



I am happy with how my purse turned out, but for a while it did bear a striking resemblance to a scripture case. I also hope the cloth will hold up.

I always knew the weatherman was a democrat

I was reading this article on Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2139172/), where it was talking about bias in the news. Then came this great quote:

The authors predict more bias in stories where the outcomes aren't realized for some time (foreign war reporting, for example) and less bias where the outcomes are immediately apparent (a weather forecast or a sports score). Indeed, almost nobody accuses the New York Times or Fox News Channel of slanting their weather reports.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't stop laughing at the idea of accusing a newspaper of slanting the weather report.

Hmm... I wonder if news sources who favor the current party in power tend to predict more sunny days to make people feel happier. Sort of the "is the sky half cloudy or half sunny" debate. Although it would explain why the long range weather report is really hit and miss :)

My saga with WaMu

Here is a complaint letter I tried to write to Washington Mutual. I got a CD with them because of their great interest rate here, 4.4% on a 6 month CD. That's the best I've seen in a while. The staff there was very friendly. Anyway, they have on line banking and here begins my story. I tried to set up an online banking account. I called in twice before, but it turns out I was trying to create the account too soon after it was opened. So I waited a week. Then I tried again. Here's the email I was going to send them:

I am writing to let you know of some problems I had signing up with online banking. I am using Mozilla 1.7.2 on windows XP.

The first issue was that I could not associate my CD with my user name. I only have a CD with WaMu, so I do not have a pin number. I clicked on the link that said "Access your account with other information." I filled in my other information, then it gave me an error saying my account number had to be 10 or 11 digits long. My account number is 15 digits long. This meant I had to call customer support. The customer service representative was very helpful, but I was annoyed that I had to 1) change my user name since she created a new account for me and 2) call in in the first place.

The second problem I had was after I was mailed my new user name and password, I had to agree to various user agreements. On the second agreement (I believe it was the online bill pay one), I accepted it and I got a "file not found on server" for page https://login.personal.wamu.com/enrollUpdate/enrollUpdate%5CEnrollAgreementSubmit.asp. I was able to get around that by changing the url in the browser to https://login.personal.wamu.com/enrollUpdate/EnrollAgreementSubmit.asp, but I suspect this isn't how you want the agreement accepted.

My account works fine now.

I understand that providing an error free web application is difficult, but as a new customer hitting two such errors makes me have second thoughts about the reliability of WaMu. I hope you can address these concerns so that other customers will have a better initial experience than I have had.

Thank you for your time.

Now I did not send them this letter. Why you may ask? Because they only have an email form to submit email. (Can you see where this is going?) I tried to submit it and got an error saying they couldn't submit my email and to call customer support. So I did. And the nice man on the other end typed it up for me and sent it. He also told me if I got rid of a few of the zeros in my account number that it would be the correct length. Now I had tried that, I just hadn't gotten rid of enough of the zeros. But it still remains that there was no way for me to know that about the account number.

Anyway it is all over now and my banking works, so I'm happy.

Recipe: Chocolate Mint York Peppermint Patties

This recipe is based on this one over at recipezaar. I changed it because I didn't have enough peppermint and I loved how they came out.

Chocolate Mint York Peppermint Patties
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
6 c powdered sugar
1/2 to 1 Tbsp peppermint extract (to taste)
1 1/2 Tbsp cocoa (or more to taste)
1 tsp vanilla
24 oz chocolate chips
4 T shortening

1. Mix milk, peppermint, cocoa, and vanilla together. If you have a stand up mixer, use it.
   
2. Mix in sugar until it forms a stiff, (mostly) non-sticky dough. (If you are not using a mixer, mix in what sugar you can, then kneed in the rest.)
   
3. Roll dough into mint sized balls (about 1 inch) and place on waxed paper. (These are sweet and rich, so bite sized is better.)
   
4. Let dry for 2 hours on each side (total of 4 hours). If you live in a dry climate like Utah, let dry 1 hour on each side.
   
5. Melt chocolate chips and shortening in microwave according to bag instructions. Or melt for 1 minute on high, stir, and melt in 30 second increments until the chips are melted. Use 1 Tbsp shortening to 6 oz chips. (I melted half a bag at a time. This let me use it up before the chips hardened.)
   
6. Put the balls in the chocolate and roll around until coated then remove with a fork. Set on wax paper to harden
7. Enjoy
   

We're all related

I was reading this article on Slate. Basically it was talking about how in the controversial Davinci Code, people are literal descendants of Jesus. If this were true (who knows), then pretty much anyone alive today would be related to him. The idea presented is that as you go back in time, there are fewer people, so after a few 1000 years everyone has the same set of ancestors from that time no matter where they live.

I've seen something similar to this in my family's own genealogy. From lines that go back far enough, they're all related. (Of course, my sample is skewed because there are very few lineages that go back very far because there are so few records. )

And, of course, we're all related through Adam and Noah :)

South

Last week, I read on Matt Astle's blog about the Endurance, a ship that was destroyed in the Antartic. Ernest Shackleton was in charge of an expedition, a daring attempt to cross the South Pole. Unfortunately, the ship was destroyed in the ice. The 26 people were faced with the daunting task of getting home. They first camped on the ice, then managed to sail in life rafts to uninhabited Elephant Island. Then Shackleton and five others got in the life raft and sailed an additional 600 miles across open ocean to South Georgia Island, a whaling station. When they made it to South Georgia, they landed on the uninhabited side of the island. Shackleton and two others crossed the unexplored, glacier covered interior of the island to get help. All 26 people survived.

It is that last part, that all survived, that really gets me. So many polar expeditions ended in death. For the men to have all survived and actually been in fairly good spirits through out is a testament to human determination and the hand of providence.

I read South written by Shackleton since it available for free on Project Gutenberg. I later checked out Endurance, by Caroline Alexander from the library. I loved Alexander's book because of the pictures taken by Hurley during the expedition and subsequent adventure. I also liked the bigger picture she was able to present since she was able to draw from many different sources.

One thing South brings out that Alexander doesn't is what happened to the other ship in the expedition. The idea behind the expedition was to cross the South Pole, to do that, they needed someone to cache provisions for them since it was impossible for them to carry all they needed themselves. The second ship, the Ross, broke loose from its anchor and stranded a large number of people. It took months for help to come. The party from that ship wasn't so lucky, losing three members, including the captain, before rescue.

Not too Taxing

As of this morning, my taxes are done (and there was great rejoicing.) My husband was nice enough to do them for us. He's saving up to buy a bigger telescope, so I told him that if he would do the taxes, he could have 25% of the return for his personal spending money. It was amazing how fast the taxes were done and ready to go :)

Slipping up

My basement couch needed some help. It was given to us for free several years ago from a neighbor, who got it from her parents. It was her mother's first nice couch. Anyway, it is a comfortable couch, great for napping. My kids loved to play with all 6 cushions that went with it. However, it was starting to show its age. The cushion covers were ripped. First, I thought I'd make slip covers for it. Didn't end up working out, I hate cutting things to size and I have great difficulty telling if something is straight. I didn't like the look of commercial slip covers and they were so expensive. I considered a new couch, but my husband didn't see the point.

But at last I was saved, Wal-mart had Hometrends Microsuede sofa slipcovers on clearance ($50). So I got a brown one (only kind they had). I like it so far. It has a one cover for the cushions and one for the rest of the sofa. It looks pretty good and even sort-of resembles suede. Even better, it doesn't look like I threw a sheet over the couch. Hurray!

Pride and Prejudice

Last Tuesday I went out and rented the new Pride and Prejudice. I didn't get the chance to see it in theaters, so I was waiting for it to come out on DVD. First question: Why didn't they release it for Valentines / Singles Awareness Day? Of course, no guy would buy that movie for his significant other because then he'd have to watch it :) So after my children went to bed, I watched it. I liked it OK. I'd definitely watch it again and if it was given to me as a gift I'd keep it, but I don't think I'd buy it myself. Of course, my view is tainted by the A&E version.

I liked Darcy in this one. At first I thought he was unattractive, but by the end of the movie he had grown on me. I liked Lizzie. Just the right amount of spunk. I thought Jane looked weird and didn't seem as nice as she was supposed to be.

I thought the father looked a little odd. The dad from the A&E version was much better. I did like how they made the father kinder than he was in the book.

I really didn't like Mr. Bingly. What a twit, and what an insane hair style. I also didn't find Wickham particularly attractive.

I also didn't like some of the liberties they took with the story, especially the ending after they were married. I might have liked it more were I watching it with a group of friends. Also, the letters were greatly abridged, but I can't fault them much with that because it is hard to deal with letters in a movie.

Issues with movies in general:
1) Jane is supposed to be the prettiest of the sisters. Why is the actor they choose to play Jane always less attractive than Lizzie? (Answer: Lizzie is the protagonist, but still...)

As long as I'm on the topic, I do have to recommend These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan. It covers from when Lizzie goes to visit Mrs. Collins until the end of the book from Mr. Darcy's perspective. It is the third book in a trilogy, but I have no desire to read the other two books since this one covers my favorite part of Pride and Prejudice. (Note: I had to order it online since none of the bookstores around me carried it.)

Galaxy Quest

I have always lived in moderate to large sized cities, so imagine my surprise when my husband told me that the Andromeda Galaxy is bigger than the moon (see here for a picture that illustrates it). Now I know that placed side-by-side, a galaxy is bigger than the moon, but I thought that all galaxies look like little blurry stars and of course the moon is the largest object in the sky. This is true, if you live in a city or suburb. In a dark sky, like in the mountains or the country, Andromeda is bigger than the moon, but it is dimmer so that city lights wash it out to a barely identifiable smear. I felt slightly cheated. Next time I go out away from the city lights, I am definitely going to look up.

Cell Phones Only

(Warning: Incoherent rambling below)

My husband was mentioning to me yesterday about how one of his coworkers had dropped their land line and was now using Vonage (an IP phone) exclusively. Some of my other friends have dropped their land line and only use their cell phones. I personally will never do this. I see the land line as insurance.

Insurance is why I got my cell phone in the first place. I wanted a phone to take with me (or to send with my husband) so that if something happened, I could call for help. But, I wouldn't trust my cell phone as my primary line. First, I have on occasion mislaid my cell phone, so I call it to find out where it is. I guess I'd be more careful or email my husband to call. Second, the battery life. My cell's batteries last about 2 days at best. I'd hate to need to make an emergency call and have to find the charger first. Finally, what about the babysitter? Do you leave your cell with him or her or what?

With VoIP, I'd worry about emergency situations and the internet service being down. My internet service is fairly good. It hasn't been down much at all in the several years we've had it, but I'd hate to have to trust it for a 911 call. The second issue is power. What if the power is out? In my (limited) experience with power outages, the power is more likely to be out than the phone (this of course assumes a phone that gets its power from the phone line).

I think 911 is the main sticking point. With a land line, 911 can tell where I am and send an ambulance even if I can't talk or had my 3 year old daughter dial it because I was unable to. The same can't be said for cell phones or VoIP.

Yes, there are ways around all the difficulties I've just mentioned. I'd just rather keep my land line (plus, I get free local calls :) ).

My greatest discoveries of 2005

Here's some of the things I discovered in 2005 that I loved:

1. Welch's fruit snacks - nice and chewy with a great flavor and real fruit (or so they claim)
2. Homemade Tomatillo sauce - this is the mild, green sauce you get at burrito places like Cafe Rio/Costa Vida. (The recipe)
3. Costa Vida - a great burrito restaurant, plus it is less than a mile from my house
4. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser - Gets all kinds of weird stuff off my wall including crayon

I'll add more as I think of them...

New Treat

Saturday at the store, I discovered Reese's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups. They are amazingly good, much better than their regular ones. I hope they keep them around for a while because my bag of them is almost gone.

Fakes on EBay

There's an article on the NYTimes here (subscription required) about how people are selling fake Weiss jewelry as authentic on eBay. The people in the article are mad because

1. they got ripped off (money eventually refunded)
2. this ruins the price of authentic jewelry
   
3. EBay won't do anything to stop it.

I guess I'm bad, but I don't see why eBay should be responsible, anymore than the classifieds in the local newspaper. (How do you know that those "purebred" puppies really are.) They can't determine if what people sell is real or not.

eBay has a lot of listings go up everyday. It is up to the buyer to beware. My personal philosophy is don't buy anything on EBay unless you are willing to have it be different from advertised. (Note: I have been perfectly happy with all my purchases from EBay, but I don't buy anything that anybody would want to fake.) If it will make you upset to find out it is a fake, don't buy on eBay, buy from a dealer where you can actually look at it and have it authenticated.
If eBay wants to address this problem, I think the simplest solution , for areas high in fraud or when the trademark holder asks, is to not allow anything to be sold as real, i.e. everything must be labeled Weiss-style. Another possibility is for the trademark holder to have some sort of authentication system, so trusted sellers could post that their items are authentic with a link to the trademark holder's website showing it to be true.

Recipe: Crockpot Sweet Pork / Carnitas

Here's my lame, um I mean easy, recipe for sweet pork similar to what you might find at Costa Vida/ Cafe Rio or any of those big burritto places. It is loosely based on this "real" recipe.

1 pork roast or pork chops , about 4 lbs. (I suppose the cut of meat matters, but I haven't had enough experience)
1 t. powdered onion
1 t. powered garlic
1 can chicken broth
1/4 c fresh cilantro chopped up
2 T soy sauce
1 can of Sprite or other lemon/lime drink

Brown roast in a frying pan. Mix garlic, onion, and cilantro. Pour part of the chicken broth into the crock pot. Put roast into pot and pour rest of chicken broth and soy sauce over it. Pour a little of the sprite over it (about 1/4 c, just give it a quick glurg). Sprinkle onion/garlic/cilantro over top and or rub it in if desired. Cook on low for about 8 hrs or until pork pulls apart easily. (Or do like me and cook on high for about 2 hrs and on low for about 4).

Phido the Fearless Phone

My 3D animated short is now live on google video. See it here. Watch Phido learn the value of kindness as he tries to return to his charger.

My new word: Gormishes

I've invented a new word: gormishes (yes, I know it is also a last name)
gormishes - noun decorative bumps or buttons
use: frobs, doodads, and gormishes

My husband says that his telescope has many frobs and doodads, but I thought it needed one more descriptive word, so I added gormishes.

Aluminum siding and porch lights

Today my husband was trying to install some new porch lights. He has just gone back to the store for our third set of lights. The first set didn't hang straight (manufacturing issue). The second set just wouldn't fit with our aluminum siding.

Here is what I learned, if you have aluminum siding, beware. The siding might affect which lights you can buy. Depending on how the electrical box is in relation to the edge of the siding, you might not be able to install fixtures with large "bases" (for lack of a better word). The edge of our siding juts out, so it pushes the bottom of the fixture forward. To have the fixture hang straight, you would have to leave a half an inch gap at the top. See how big the base of your current lights are and how they fit. (If the edge of the siding will hit the middle of the fixture, no problem)

So You Want to Buy a Telescope, a Wife's Guide

My husband recently bought his first telescope. I've decided to share what little I've learned (mostly from my husband) to help other women out there. (I suppose it could also apply to a man whose wife wants one.)

1. Do not buy him one. Let him pick his own, but set a budget.
   
2. If you choose to ignore #1, do not buy a telescope from Wal-mart or a department store. These have several problems 1) they are too small to see anything really interesting 2) the mounts are unsteady. This means that the scope will shake in the slightest breeze making it impossible to see anything. This is the quickest way to kill interest in a hobby. OK, maybe that's a good thing. But if he is seriously interested, he will probably return it. (My husband did buy the cheap scope, "just to see". Decent optics, horrible mount. Can't recommend it.) Plus, if he can use it, he'll just want a nicer scope.
   
3. The cheapest you can get a decent scope is around $250.
   
4. Encourage a smaller telescope. My husband got a fairly small one and it is still bulky. The easier it is to get out, the more he will use it. Also, make sure it will fit in the back of your car. Also, make sure he has somewhere to store it.
   
5. There are many different kinds of telescopes. The two main kinds are reflecting and refracting. Reflectors use mirrors and refractors use lenses. Reflectors are less expensive because it is cheaper to make nice mirrors than nice lenses.
6. Have him decide if he want to use it for terrestial viewing. That is, does he (or you) want to use it to look at the mountains in the distance? Telescopes made for astronomy show the image to you upside down (invert the image). Fine for stars, not so fine for scenic views.
   
7. Terminology: lenses are inside the telescope. What you look through is an eye piece.
8. Eye pieces are very expensive. If you buy a scope, your husband will probably want a Barlow lense next.
   
9. What the telescope sits on is called a mount. (It looks a tripod). There are two main kinds of mounts, altazimuth and equatorial. If your husband wants to take long exposure pictures, he will want an equatorial mount (so he can attach a motor). Otherwise, get a azimuth, it is more intuitive to a beginner or better yet, get a dobsonian mount. Sure you can't attach a motor to a dob and get pictures, but you can't attach a motor to a cheap equatorial either.
   
10. Telescope motors are expensive. The cheap telescope motor from Orion is not a good choice. The expensive one from Orion is not steady enough to work with a cheap equatorial mount.
    
11. Telescope.com and Telescopes.com are not the same thing. They both sell telescopes.
    
12. A good resource is http://www.cloudynights.com/
13. Another good resource is Sky and Telescope magazine. Their November issue usually features a buyer's guide.
    
14. Saturn and the moon are cool through a telescope. Most everything else in the sky looks like fuzzy blobs, unless you use a long exposure camera and/or know what you are looking at.
15. Most of the pictures you saw in your science textbook were false color/long exposure photographs. (Long == several minutes up to several hours) Most things are white to you looking through the telescope. (So, white, fuzzy blobs sometimes with hints of color.)
    
16. It is cold outside, at night, in the winter when the sky is clear. Your husband won't care. You might.
17. If you are in a city, it will be hard to see nebulas and distant stars due to light pollution. But you can see more stars with a telescope than you can with your naked eye.
    
18. There is a new telescope curse. Once your husband's scope arrives it will be cloudy for the next month. (My husband managed to beat this one with his scope, but not with his motor.)
19. You can take pictures through a scope, but it takes lots and lots of patience.
    

Just Splenda-ed, Wal-Mart's Great Value Unsweetened Apple Sauce

I have a gripe with Great Value Unsweetened Apple Sauce I bought from Wal-mart. It IS sweetened, with Splenda (which in my mind is worse than sugar). Now in its defense, it does say on the label, in large letters, "Sweetened with Splenda", but I didn't read that far. I was looking for the all natural kind, and was a little ticked that unsweetened just means unsweetened with sugar. You can sweeten it with some weird chemical and it counts as unsweetened. But, my kids ate it anyway, they don't share my qualms :) I just will be more careful next time.

(OK, yes I do have a thing against artificial sweeteners. Mostly, it's because I'm a little sensitive to them. They taste weird to me.)

Heat loss through windows

Here's the really good link for figuring out how much money your windows are costing you: http://homeenergy.org/archive/hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/95/950708.html

The story behind this:
We had a visit from a windows salseman. Now, I'd been thinking about replacing my windows with new ones since the windows had their seals broken and looked really bad. One point the man mentioned was how great these windows were at stopping heat loss. He had a demonstration involving a heat lamp and how you could feel the heat through a regular window, but not one of the really cool windows. Then he quoted us a price around $6,000 which was a lot more than I was willing to pay.

He also said that maybe the windows could knock $45 off our heating bill, cutting it in half. Now, I admit that would be nice. But I was skeptical. We already had double payned windows. So I used the info in the link above to calculate my savings if I replaced the six windows in the house that really needed it. This is just to give me an estimate if new windows would be worth it.

Here's my set up:
6 windows, 3 that are 3x4 and 3 that are 4X4 for a total of 84 square feet
we keep our house at 68 degrees F, so it is about 30 degrees F difference between outside and in
Gas costs about 1.096 per therm (as per our house bill)
I assumed my furnace had an efficency of 80%, since that is what it is supposed to have.

The results:
Assuming we have just plain double glazed windows, we are loosing $15 a month through those 6 windows.

With new and improved double glazed windows with energy coating and argon gas the energy loss would be $10.70 a month. A savings of $4.40, or about 29%.

The verdict:
Umm... $4 a month is not anywhere close to $45 dollars a month. If we had single glazed windows, the savings would be much larger. This just agrees with what I've read elsewhere, new energy efficient windows will not pay for themselves any time soon. (Hmm... it would take 125 years for these windows to pay for themselves.) You upgrade windows because you like the way new windows look, or your old windows are ugly, or you want your house to heat up less from the afternoon sun. Now one thing this doesn't take into account is that new windows might be better caulked and fit better, so there would be less heat loss around the window, so maybe there would be more savings that way.

Extracting audio files from dvds

I wanted to get the soundtrack off a DVD my sister made (i.e. she produced it, not ripped it). Any way here's a good tutorial: http://www.glump.net/content/audio_dvd_rip/guide.htm#cutting
Basically the programs used were Smart Ripper (to rip the audio from the dvd) and HeadaAC3he to convert the file to wav (you need HeadAC3he, Libmmd DLL, Azid DLL, SSRC DLL). Then I pulled it into Nero SoundWave and chopped it up appropriately. Nero Sound wave won't handle the AC3 files Smart Ripper produces directly, I tried.

(I'm putting this here in case I ever need to do this again, I won't have to google it.)

Scamps my playful pup vs Furby

This Christmas, my family came into the possession of a Furby and Scamps. Let me admit right now, I am more partial towards Scamps. I bought Scamps for myself and Furby for my 3 year old daughter. Here's a comparison of Scamps and Furby.

	Scamps	Furby
Price	$40	$30
Batteries	3 C (not included)	3 AA (I think), included
Accessories	toy, bone	spoon
Abilities	barks, sits up, lies down, sits normal, waves paw, barks	ear/eye expressions, talks, moves feet up and down
Cuteness	4 out of 5	3 out of 5 (maybe other color combos are cuter, but ours looks a little odd)
Command Examples	Sit, down, wanna treat, good dog	Hey furby... show me a dance, tell me a story, how are you
Min. Age to use semi-effectively(based on limited experience)	4 years (my 3 year old just doesn't talk clearly enough for Scamps and doesn't understand the need to wait, but her 4 year old friend does just fine making Scamps sit and lie down)	5 years (every command must be prefaced by "Hey Furby" then waiting for furby to respond, then the commands (which are long), a little tricky for 4 and younger)
Failures	Usually chalked up to being a stubborn/playful dog	Since Furby can talk, it is obvious he doesn't understand, main misunderstanding is between "sing me a song" and "play a game"
Turning off (I can't really get sleep mode to work with either of them)	Switch on bottom, when turned off forgets all training	Switch on bottom, doesn't seem to forget, but since there isn't any training it is hard to tell
Length of play (how long my kids will play with it)	10 min	10 min

Personally, I like Scamps better. Scamps has the advantage of looking like a dog, so I expect it to act like one, and it does a reasonable job. Also, as a toddler entertainer, most kids know what to do with a dog, they aren't quite sure what Furby should be able to do.

Furby has a slightly higher standard held to it because it "talks" back to you. Furby's consistent misunderstanding of singing vs playing its game is hard because my daughter loves the song (weird version of Twinkle, Twinkle, little star) but not the game so much. The only way I've found to get it out of game mode is to turn it upside down.

My earlier Scamps review.

Review: California Pizza Kitchen

Name: California Pizza Kitchen
Location: University Mall, (approx. State St. and University Pkwy), Orem, UT
What we had: Spinach Artichoke dip ($8) and a California Club Pizza ($10.96)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (It was good, if someone else wanted to go, I'd go but we probably won't go there again any time soon)
Kid-friendly: provides crayons and special menu. Also drinks in plastic cups with lids.
Review: California Pizza Kitchen was pretty good. I'd been wanting to go there for awhile because of all they hype when it opened. Service was reasonably fast. I really liked the spinach artichoke dip. It was nice and cheesy with a garlic flavor. It was served with corn chips. It was a good thing we got an appetizer because there is no way one pizza would feed a family of four (even if 2 of the members were toddlers). The California Club pizza was 10" and cut into 6 slices. The chicken and bacon pieces on it were really good, although it had a lot more lettuce then I was expecting. Sort of a salad on a crust effect. Also, the avocado slices were a bit much (I don't like avocado much, though). I liked the pizza, there just wasn't much of it. The meal left us barely satisfied. (This might be a good choice if you want to get desert afterwards, because I was far from stuffed.)

FlowerThinger v1.1 Beta Release

I've mostly finished my free gardening software game, FlowerThinger. You can read more about it at http://flowerthinger.pingerthinger.com.

Object
Grow a flower garden. This game isn't based on any point system. Plant what flowers you want when you want and enjoy watching them grow.

Features

• "Green thumb" or "brown thumb", these flowers will grow for anyone
  
• Grow up to 11 different kinds of flowers
• Enjoy watching your flowers gradually grow or have them instantly burst into bloom
• Watch as butterflies, bunnies, and birds visit your garden
• Take pictures of your garden to share with friends
• Water your garden to have your flowers grow faster
  
• Optional weeds

Icons in the Gimp

I've been trying to create an icon in the gimp. Basically, you create an image, size it to 32X32 pixels, then save it as a .ico file. I could never get my icons to come out right, they always looked messed up.

The solution? give up trying to paste in a cool image and just draw it from scratch. That worked beautifully. I think the problem has something to do with palates, but I don't care enough about it to research it now.

Classics that won't leave you Depressed

I remember from my high school days that most of the literary classics they made us read were really depressing. Here's a few classics that are happy / not totally depressing. (No guarantees anything is spelled correctly)

• A Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare
• A Mid Summer's Night Dream, Shakespeare
• The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare
• (Basically any comedy by Shakespeare)
  
• My Antonia, Willa Cather
• O Pioneers, Willa Cather
• Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyesky
• The Inferno, Dante
• Cantebury Tales, Chaucer
• Silas Marner, George Elliot
  

As you can see, the list is short. If you have any to recommend, let me know.

Lessons Learned from Indian Corn

I tried growing some Indian Corn that my dad gave me this year. Here are some things I've learned:

• End of July is way too late to plant corn in Utah
• Indian corn grows two ears per plant
• I got about 1/4 corn flour per plant (probably would have gotten more if the ears were mature)
• Don't dry corn ears on the stalks if you've picked the stalks.
• Corn ears take forever to dry (about 2-3 weeks).
• Corn dries faster if it isn't on the cob.
• Grinding corn that isn't all the way dry is an exercise in futility.
• Grinding corn that is dry is easy, much easier than grinding wheat.
  

Cancel that

This is more of a rant, but this is really bugging me.

Last Tuesday, I ordered a Furby from Wal-mart.com. A little while later, I though I found a better price else where, so I canceled the order (time elapsed about 5 min.). Wal-mart did warn that if the item was packed for shipping, they might not be able to cancel it. I later wished I hadn't canceled the order because the better price I thought I saw was exactly the same. Now, since I wasn't sure if the order had canceled, I waited a few days. Since I didn't see any change in the order status, I figured the order was canceling. Then I ordered it from Toys R Us.com. Then I got a warning from Wal-mart saying my item's shipment was delayed because it was out of stock and I could cancel if I wanted. Then on Sunday it shipped.

This drove me up the wall. Now I have two Furbies coming. What bothered me was that I canceled a few minutes after the order; they didn't have furbies in stock for at least two days, so it isn't like they had it packaged. They were just too lazy to cancel it. At least with Wal-mart I can return it to the store. (Which is what they so helpfully said in the email. Oh well, I go to Wal-mart a lot so no big deal.)

Amazon.com did the same thing to me last year. I pre-ordered a book I wanted. On the day it was supposed to be released, Amazon.com had it out of stock and they wouldn't let me cancel. It isn't like Amazon had it in a box ready to go, they didn't have any at all. It took them a week to ship it. I think when an item is out of stock, you should let your customers cancel the order.

I suppose from the retailers' point of view it makes good business sense. If they won't let me cancel then they will get my money. They are probably banking that I'll just wait for it and keep the item rather than return it. And they are probably right (except for the Furby, nobody needs two furbies). But they reduce future sales. I now know that Wal-mart's cancel button is just for show. And I will never pre-order a book on Amazon again unless it is something like Harry Potter where they swear up and down you will get it on the release day.

My Future Gardening Software II

Well, I think my gardening game is about half to three-quarters of the way done with the real coding. I can load and save a garden (inelegantly, but it works), take pictures of the garden, plant flowers in the garden, and various native wildlife will come and visit the garden. I think it's cool. I ended up using GameMaker, some free software for quick and lazy game development. It's a great program and can do as much as you need it to. I ended up registering it because it was so useful.

I still need to come up with a clever name for the program, put together all the acknowledgements for the images and sounds I used, create some more flowers, and basically polish it.

I have great fun making little gardens with it.

My future virtual gardening software

Warning: this is a thinking out loud post, so it probably won't make much sense

I'm thinking about writing a virtual gardening program, mostly to keep up on my programming skills. (I've been neglecting them woefully.) I'm still trying to figure out what I want.

• I want to be able to plant plants, see them grow over time, maybe see the seasons change.
• I want to see birds, bees, and butterflies arrive.
  
• I want to be able to water my plants, but I don't want to HAVE to water the plants.
  
• I think a 3-d program would be cool, but I don't want to have to support all the modeling, maybe I'll stick with 2-d, kind of cartoony appearance. What would be cool is if I could export to a format that one of the on-line 3D gardens programs use (like http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/design/virtualgarden_index.shtml), then I could walk around it if I wanted to.
• Grow vegies, maybe be able to pick the fruit and the flowers.
  
• I'd like the option to let the plants seed down, maybe with lame models of how they do that.
• I'd also like the option to speed up or slow down time. Basically from "one day is one day" to "one day = one second". Maybe a pause on this day.
• I'd like to be able to save the garden and load the garden.
• Also maybe take screen shots
• put in rocks, fountains, maybe a bench (the disadvantage is I have to draw all these things, ack!)
• It'd be cool if the plants would sway in the breeze, but I don't know if I'm that dedicated to the graphics.
  
• maybe some nice peaceful nature sounds (birds, crickets, bees, wind).
• I actually really like that I can grow plants in Dogz 4. That's my favorite part of the program. I'll probably end up doing something like that.

I think actually doing all that would take forever. I think I'll start with putting a few plants on the screen and watching them "grow".

Recipe: Chocolate Crazy Cake

I thought I'd post this recipe because it is a good cake recipe that is milk-free for the lactose intolerant and also egg-free (great if you're allergic or if you're out of eggs). The texture is moist, sort of like a bunt cake. I got this recipe out of a cookbook my ward put out.

Chocolate Crazy Cake

3 c flour
2 c sugar
6 T cocoa
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 c oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 T vinegar
2 c. cold water

Sift flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, soda. Place in ungreased 9X13 pan. Make 3 wells in dry ingredients. Pour equally in each well oil, vanilla, and vinegar. Pour water over everything. Mix all the ingredients well with a fork. Bake at 350 for 30 to 50 minutes.

Easy Chocolate Mint Cookies Recipe

1 chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
3/4 cup shortening
6 oz chocolate chips (half a bag)
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Mix together. Bake at 350 degrees for 9 - 12 minutes, until cookies look slightly under done. Then let finish baking on cookie sheet. These cookies will be slightly crunchy. If you prefer soft cookies, after the cookies have cooled, put them in a plastic bag with a slice of bread overnight, and they will get nice and soft.

Note: if you use a cookie scoop, you will want to break the dough balls in half so they won't take too long to cook. Also, cookies baked with Crisco seem to take longer than cookies using a generic brand.

Cold Remedies 2 - Hot Lemon Lime drink

When ever I feel a sore throat coming on, I drink this drink. I think it tastes great and does a good job cutting through the gunk at the back of my throat. The steam from the cup feels good and it warms me up.

1 c. hot water
2 T. Lemon juice
1 T. Lime juice
2 T. sugar

Mix together and drink.

If you like honey, you can try substituting honey for the sugar. (I don't like honey, so I don't).

My other cold remedy.

Pictures of Scamps my Playful Pup

Here are some pictures I took of Scamps My Playful Pup.

Scamps - what comes in the package.

Scamps - Side view

Scamps - back view

Scamps - bottom view

Scamps - at attention

Here is a movie I made of me giving Scamps some commands. (File is about 600kb). I was about a foot and a half away. I just pointed the camera and gave the commands. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it did.

Review: Fur Real Scamps my playful pup

Yesterday my husband opened Scamps for me to test him out before Christmas and make sure he works. In the 5 minutes I played with Scamps, I had a good impression. My husband wasn't quite as impressed, but it isn't his Christmas present :)

Scamps responded to my commands about half the time (same as most real dogs). It seems to go through moods, where for a while it will obey commands then it decides it wants to play or beg for a treat. A quiet room really is important. It really didn't respond well when my husband tried to give commands and my daughter repeated everything he said. There is a definite mechanical sound when Scamps moves, but I didn't expect anything else. The dog responded to sit, down, drop it, good dog, hey puppy, wanna treat, and go to sleep.

Touch-wise, Scamps is fun to pet, but not really a dog to cuddle. The fur sheds pretty bad too, so I'll brush it after I get it.

My daughter and son both loved it. Although, my 15 month old wanted to carry him around by the ear. (Good thing Scamps is fake.) He did seem to respond well to my daughter's voice. I suspect the voice chip they used is skewed towards a child's voice. My son also really liked the fake bone that came with Scamp. He sat outside the door and screamed for several minutes after we put Scamps away.

I can't wait for Christmas :)

Pictures of Scamp, including a movie are here.

My comparision with other fake dogs is here.

Chocolate Mint Brownie Cookies

(This recipe is based on this one: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/getrecipe.zsp?id=29043.)

I tried this recipe out yesterday. It tasted great, the cookies were moist and chewy like a brownie and had a great mint flavor. I ended up using 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract because the dough wasn't minty enough for me. Taste the dough after the 1/4 teaspoon and see if you think it needs more.

1 (12 ounce) package semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (to taste)
2 eggs
3/4 chopped nuts (optional)
36 cookies Change size or US/metric

35 minutes 25 mins prep

1. Place 3/4 c. chips in clean, dry microwavable bowl. Heat on high for 1 minute then in 30 second increments until chips begin to melt. (It took me 1 minute.)
2. When chips begin to melt stir until smooth.
3. Cool to room temperature.
4. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
5. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, peppermint, and vanilla in large mixer bowl until creamy.
6. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
7. Beat in melted chocolate.
8. Gradually beat in flour mixture.
9. Stir in remaining chips and if desired, nuts.
10. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons on to ungreased baking sheets.
11. Bake in preheated 350 degrees F oven for 8 to 12 minutes or until sides are set but centers are still soft. (It took me 9 minutes in my oven)
12. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove from pans and cool completely.

Updated 12/3/05:
Andes Mint variation
This variation makes the cookies look frosted
Follow recipe above, but omit peppermint extract and chocolate chips. Right as the cookies come out of the oven, place an Andes Mint on top. Wait a few seconds, then swirl the melted mint around with a spoon.

A Comparative Review of Fake Dogs

For Christmas, I got myself Hasbro's Fur Real Scamps my playful pup. It seems like a fun idea, a voice activated dog. When my husband saw it, he asked if it was for me or my daughter. For me of course, although I'll share. My daughter is really too young for it. Ideally, I wanted a fake dog to hold in my lap and pet, that would be happy when I petted it and "hear" when I talked to it oh, and would be soft and fluffy. Basically, that toy doesn't exist, so I got Scamps.

Anyway, in deciding which fake dog I wanted there were a couple of choices: One of the Fur Real dogs, Cold Nose Kisses Amazing Puppies, and Rescue Pets. Here's what I discovered. This is based on what I could glean from looking at them in the store and from websites. I don't actually own any of them except for Scamps, and I've only played with Scamps for about 5 minutes to make sure he works. If you know more and I'm wrong let me know and I'll correct it. (Most of the manufacturers' websites have the commercials so you can see what the dogs are supposed to do. Also check out Amazon.com for user reviews.)

Fur Real's newborn pup ($12)
What they do: Basically you pet them and they whimper, blink at you, and go back to sleep.
Body: fake fur over hard plastic
Manufacturer website: http://www.tigertoys.com/furreal/
Size: These pups are tiny. Approximately the size of beanie babies.
Impressions: If they were softer, I might be more tempted. You can also get a box with 2 puppies in it for $20.

Fur Real's Smoochie ($20)
What they do: Basically you touch it's nose and it's tongue moves and kisses you
Body: fake fur over hard plastic
Manufacturer website: http://www.tigertoys.com/furreal/
Size: small, about the size of a 5 lb dog.
Impressions: very cute. I didn't see any mention that the dog responds when you pet it, which was a big point with me. This model appears to be discontinued. Might find it on clearance though.

Fur Real's Scamps: my playful pup ($40)
What they do: Voice activated. As you play with it more you can "teach" it tricks, basically you say the name of the trick three times and it learns it. You can't teach it a trick that wasn't pre-programmed. It does respond to petting. It barks and can sit, and mouth its toy rope and bone. (It doesn't walk)
Manufacturer website: http://www.tigertoys.com/furreal/
Voice recognition manufacturer: http://www.sensoryinc.com/html/support/faqs.html
Size: about the size of a real larger breed puppy
Impressions: very cute, very expensive. Originally I wanted the black and white border collie looking one. I got the samoyd looking one. (I like "perky" ears, so the golden was out.) Look at them closely in the box to make sure the face is put together well and looks cute. Under the fur you can see the body line where the legs join. This is true on the 2 models I looked at closely, especially bad on the border collie one. (I suspect this depends on the dog, so look through them if you have a choice). I've read some of the dogs don't learn, so I'm tempted to try out my dog early and see if it does because I have a suspicion it might be a defect of the specific dog. Read the instruction manual first. I haven't been this excited for Christmas since I was about 12.
Updated (11/15/05): See my short review based on actually playing with it here.
Pictures of Scamps, including a movie are here.

Cold Nose Friends ($25)
What they do: Basically you squeeze it's paw and it turns on. As you pet it, it barks more and its nose gets cold. It also wags its tail and moves its head.
Body: plush fur. I'm not sure if the body itself is soft since the package was completely enclosed, so I couldn't touch it.
Manufacturer website: http://www.playmatestoys.com/html/amazing_pets/index.html
Size: small, the size you'd expect a non moving stuffed dog to be.
Impressions: very cute. Different breeds. These seem to be sold out online, but they are still available at stores (as of 11/07/05). In all honesty, this was my runner up choice. The main thing that held me back was that I couldn't touch the dog through the packaging to see what it was like.

Rescue Pets ($20)
What they do: They whimper and wag their tails. Motion sensitive, so they can tell when you are petting them.
Body: plush, soft bodies.
Manufacturer website: http://www.rescue-pets.com/
Size: small, about the size you'd expect a stuffed dog to be
Impressions: I couldn't decide if the big eyes were cute or really disturbing. When my pre-school age daughter heard it whimpering, she wanted to cuddle it and make it happy. As far as I can tell, it only whimpers and doesn't make any happy sounds. Go to the website and listen to the sounds the dogs make, because they are identical to the ones the toy makes. I'd prefer if it whimpered then made happy sounds as you petted it. Also, I'm not sure if there is an off switch. If you are shopping for a young child, this is probably your best bet.

Other kinds
Pound Puppies Here Puppy Puppy - size of a pound puppy. I wanted a more realistic looking dog, so these didn't interest me. It comes when you clap and follows its red leash so you can "walk" it. Be aware that almost all dogs that "walk" have wheels on the bottom. Web site: http://www.everythinggirl.com/poundpuppies/poundpuppies.aspx

Pound Puppies Pick Me Up - size of a pound puppy, whimpers, barks and moves its head. I wasn't too interested. See above.

(If you don't need a dog just an animated animal, the Luv Cubs are on sale for about $15 at Toys R Us, that's really good)

Vote for Who? Why local elections are annoying

Today is election day and up for election here in Orem, UT is the mayor's seat and three city council seats. Here's my beef with local elections: it is almost impossible to find out anything about the candidates. In theory, local elections are very important because you are choosing the people who will most directly affect your life, what parks get built, where streetlights go in, etc. But it is hard to find out anything about them without directly contacting the candidates. Being an introvert, I'm very unlikely to do that even in the name of doing my duty. They did have a total of 3 meet the candidate nights, but it is hard to find out when those are going on. The newspaper runs a short article about the candidates, so I found out their occupations and a 2 sentence quote and that is what I based my decision on.

Now in the current race, one of the mayoral candidates and one of the city council members had websites. It was enough for me to decide I didn't like the current mayor due to some of the things he listed as accomplishments and I considered unfortunate events. It was also enough to decide that I did like the city council member.

In this day and age of blogs and low cost web hosting, It would be nice if candidates created a free blog, post a few of his or her views, and let the city/county election commission know where it is. It seems like the candidates are wasting a great chance to let people know what they stand for.

Why I don't C.A.R.E.

Today is election day. One of the big items on the ballot (ok, one of the few items on the ballot) here in Orem, is a request to enact the ZAP tax. To my understanding, the ZAP tax was approved by the state legislature to allow cities to enact a sales tax to support zoos, museums, parks, and the arts. So Orem wants to enact the tax, it's a .01% increase. It was originally packaged as RAP and now as CARE.

I'm opposed. Here's the reason. If the money were going for parks, bike trails, and a children's museum, I'd be much more likely to vote for it. However, there is the looming specter of a new cultural arts center, theater groups, and ballet.

The cultural arts is just one area where I have no interest. I will attend a play or concert basically only if a friend invites me or if someone I know is in it. From what I've seen on the news in other cities (this is just my impression and not based on any facts), cultural arts centers are a major money sink. Construction projects like to go over budget and then what are we going to do with the thing? The fact is there are many theaters with in an hour's drive of Orem, and even some theaters in Orem. Why we need more I don't know. There are plenty of concerts available for free and for fee in Salt Lake City and at BYU.

Of course, some people will argue that all the arguments I just made would equally apply to parks and museums. Honestly, the main difference is that I would use parks and museums and enjoy having them close by. I've been wanting a low cost museum in Orem for quite a while, somewhere to take the kids (besides the mall) that is warm and dry in the winter. Plays/dances/concerts only start at certain times and usually would prefer you leave your kids at home. Hmm... if they built a children's museum with an attached theater, they might get me :)

The other reason I oppose the tax is there is a good possibility there will be an upcoming tax to support road improvements which are obviously needed. I'm not sure how many taxes I want to deal with.

Update: CARE passed. Oh well, maybe we'll get some good bike trails and a children's museum out of it.

Review: Mr Clean Magic Eraser

Product: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
What it is: a sponge that erases dirt and crayon
Where can I get it: I got it at Wal-mart and my friend got hers at Home Depot
Cost: around $2.00 for 2
Rating: 4.5 Stars (out of five, tentative)

My friend told me about the magic eraser and said it was the only product she knew of that got crayon off walls. She wetted one down, gave it to her 3 year olds and had them clean up their own mess. I don't have much crayon on my walls, but it did get marker off my cheap wooden table. It also got scuff marks off my walls and doors, and cleaned the outside of my refrigerator easily (I have one of those textured fridges, so stuff gets caught in the cracks). The local news station's customer protection guy tried it out and said it worked as advertised.

The one thing it doesn't seem to do well is grease. I get these grease spots on my wall, and it did nothing for them, but neither does anything else I've tried, so I'm not too upset. It also doesn't do well if the dirt is thick (thick as in, I really should scrape this off).

Who's that in that Picture

I received an email today in a mailing list I subscribe to talking about riya. It is a service that automatically identifies who is in pictures on your hard drive. It also appears to do some text recognition of words in pictures. This would be so cool, especially with family history photos. Imagine identifying who you know then having the program find them in other family history pictures that aren't labeled, or pictures held by other relatives.

There are two things I would worry about with it 1) keeping my information private. Yes I have information about myself posted on blogs, websites, and other internet venues, but I am careful to be vague about my location. The problem comes in with photos. Suppose I appear in someone else's photos. They don't know who I am. This program, because a friend identifies me by name, identifies me. Potentially a stalker could track me down that way. 2) keeping my children's info private. Someone else who isn't as picky, posts pictures of their kids with my kid identified (say from a school party). Now other pictures where my child appears would be identified perhaps with enough surroundings to identify where my child goes to school.

Now granted, these are only issues assuming someone is willing to spend a lot of time looking for my child in specific, but there are people who deal with issues like that.

I would feel OK using this service if I could control who could see the people I have identified. I wouldn't have a problem releasing pictures of people long dead and for family history I think that would be cool. I think I'll sign up and see if my security concerns are addressed.

Cold Remedies

In honor of my first major cold of autumn, here is my dad's nose drop recipe. This is a super-powered version of the saline spray you get at the drug store. It works great to stop a runny nose. My mother and father both swear that if you start with the drops several times a day as soon as you notice symptoms, the cold will be a lot milder and a lot shorter. Another remedy here.

Nose drops:
1/2 c boiled water
1/8 tsp. salt
2 drops regular chlorine bleach (not the super concentrated kind or the scented kind, just regular old bleach)

mix ingredients together and put into saline nosedrop bottle you can get from the store. Solution will smell like a swimming pool.

Hints:

• To get the top off the saline drop bottle, I use needle nose pliers, rock the dropper part back and forth, and pull really hard.
• optimally, each member of the family should have their own bottle, don't share!
• To use, tilt your head back and put drops down each side of your nose. Try and get the solution into all four sinuses. Some will run down your throat, this is normal.
  
• If your head hurts worse after using these, you might want to use it again. What happens is the gunk in your sinuses gets loosened and moves around. Using it again will help wash it out.
• Right before bed, put drops in twice. Put in the drops, blow your nose, and wait 5 minutes. Then put the drops in again and let them sit there as long as you can. (This is really good for stopping the flow of gunk long enough to fall asleep.) I like to put vicks on my nose after the second set of nose drops, it helps keep me breathing well for most of the night.
  
• Warning: I am not a doctor. Consult with your doctor. Be careful with bleach, it stains and only use a little bit because bleach can be a poison. Just use common sense.
  

Baby's 12 days of Christmas ... Work in Progress

(to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas)

On the first day of Christmas my baby gave to me a slimy baby binky.
On the second day of Christmas my baby gave to me 2 spit-up spots,
On the third day of Christmas my baby gave to me 3 sleepless nights,
On the fourth day of Christmas my baby gave to me 4 blown out diapers,
On the fifth day of Christmas my baby gave to me 5 far flung fries
On the sixth day of Christmas my baby gave to me 6 shattering shrieks,
On the seventh day of Christmas my baby gave to me 7 smashed up O's,
On the eight day of Christmas my baby gave to me 8 dripping bottles,
On the ninth day of Christmas my baby gave to me 9 dirty socks,
On the tenth day of Christmas my baby gave to me 10 toes to tickle,
On the eleventh day of Christmas my baby gave to me 11 minutes to myself,

On the twelfth day of Christmas my baby gave to me 12 toothless grins ... oh come here, you're so cute...you're Mommy's little angel.

Are you related to Calvin Coolidge?

My husband and I went to the Brigham Young University Computer Alumni Association Dinner last week. Dr. Sederberg (one of my favorite professors) gave a talk about some of the cool family history projects he had worked on.

One project allows you to print out a pedigree chart on a 3'X4' piece of paper. This is cool because on a normal chart, for each individual you need 2 spaces for his or her parents. This means very quickly the chart gets huge. But most people have a lot of ancestral lines that end fairly quickly and only a few that go back really far, so the program uses the space from the lines that end sooner to fit lines that go longer. (I'm not sure if that made sense, here's an example). They'll print it out for you too for $20.

The other project allows you to see if you are related to famous historical people. I found out I'm distantly related to Calvin Coolidge, FDR, William Taft (my GGM is his 6 cousin 3 times removed, who knew?) , Brigham Young, Dr. Livingston (I presume), and my husband is fairly closely related to the President of BYU (Hubby's FMMFF = Pres. Samuelson's FMMF) To use it you need an AFN number for your ancestors. You can get by finding your ancestors on FamilySearch.org . (I had to use my great-grandparents because my grandparents, parents, and I are still living, so I couldn't find the AFN number.)

What PDA / Handheld should I buy for reading ebooks?

Well, like anything else, it depends on what you want. My primary purpose in buying a PDA was to read ebooks, so I wanted good screen resolution, good battery life, a memory card slot, and low price. If this is you, I'd suggest the Sony Clie SJ-20 or the Dell Axim x30 312 mhz and wifi.

Things to Consider:

1. What operating system do you want? Palm OS or Windows Mobile. If you are going with Windows Mobile, I'd go with Windows Mobile 2003 SE or newer. If you are used to Windows on your laptop or desktop machine, Palm OS takes a little getting used to, but isn't too bad.
2. Do you want to use your PDA for anything besides reading ebooks? I use mine to check my email and read ebooks. Some people want to play games or use it as an organizer. I used my clie to keep packing lists and shopping lists.
   
3. Do you really need a color screen? Color screens drain the battery faster. If you are mostly reading, black and white is just fine.
4. Do you want Wifi /802.11? Wifi / 802.11 allows your PDA or handheld to communicate wirelessly with email and the internet (assuming you have a wireless router). I use wifi to check my email around the house (no need to boot up the desktop) and to check my RSS feeds. Be aware many websites are not Pocket PC friendly. You can view them on a Pocket PC, but it isn't fun. Some PDAs advertise wireless, but they are actually talking about bluetooth (see below).
   
5. Do you want Bluetooth? I have yet to see a need for bluetooth, but some people might want it to connect a wireless keyboard or their cell phone.
6. What kind of ebooks do you want to read? If you want to read recent releases, check the specifications for the software you want to use and make sure it will run on the PDA you want to buy. The sj20 might be too old and not have enough memory, it depends. I mostly read books in the public domain, so I use Plucker on the Clie and Vade Meecum on the Axim mostly because they are free and open source. Plucker will convert webpages or text files into something the PDA can read. If you want to read the Scriptures, there are additional choices.
   

The Sony Clie SJ-20

• My choice if you don't need wifi
• Runs Palm OS
• Has a black and white screen
• Pros: great battery life (I recharged once a week), great screen resolution, plenty of free programs
• Cons: must use graffiti to enter text, can only support the original Memory Stick and only supports up to 32M additional memory (don't quote me on that, check the manual), Screen is easily scratched
• Many reviews note that the screen is easily cracked, but this seems to happen in the first 6 months or so. If you buy a used one older than that, it probably won't crack.
• Cost: $60 - $100 used (on ebay)

Dell Axim x30 (312 mhz and Wifi)

• My choice if you want Wifi
• Runs Windows Mobile 2003 SE
• Has a color screen
• Check and double check the ebay add to make sure it has WiFi.
• Pros: battery life (I recharge overnight, you can get away with less if you don't use WiFi much), good screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, MP3 Player,
• Cons: stylus is lousy, battery life
• Cost: $200 - $250 used on ebay.
• Remember: the faster the processor, the faster it will eat your battery

Accessories you will need/want:

1. Carrying case. It will protect your PDA if you drop it.
   
2. Screen protector (I've scratched my screen several times on both PDAs before I wised up)
3. Memory card (some PDAs have limits on how big a card they can accept, so check the manual) . The internal memory fills up fast. I have a 64 Meg card for my Axim which is enough for me to store about 20 pictures of my kids, my (limited) MP3 collection, and about 35 ebooks.

A Note on Prices and Ebay
As with anything, be careful when buying. Watch the eBay auctions for awhile so you can tell what price is fair. Read the auction carefully to make sure you are getting all the manuals, CDs, and wires you need. Also, the prices on used PDAs may appear to be the same as new. This is sometimes true. In that case, buy the new. In other cases, the used PDA is coming with a case, memory card, and screen protectors and is a better deal since you don't have to buy these items yourself.

Finally
Don't take my word for anything, research this out yourself :) I like amazon.com and cnet.com for researching. Good luck.

Umm... You realize we can't sing Happy Birthday

In this NY Times article (registration required) it talks about how hard it is to make a legal documentary. One example from the article, your cell phone rings with a ring tone from a popular band. Is it legal to use it in the film? Iffy. The lable owns the copyright and to get permission can cost a lot of money (like $5000 for 6 seconds of a song). Or you want to include a clip from a movie (costs money again, anything after Mickey Mouse's Steam Boat Willie is still under copyright courtesy of Disney). Or you want to include scenes from a birthday party (happy birthday is still under copyright).

The whole extended copyright thing bugs me. Basically, anything copyrighted is copyrighted forever. This creates orphan works, works no one can use because the copyright owner is unknown.

Do I think copyrights and patents are bad? No. It is fair that when someone puts work into something, they should see the benefits from it. But it shouldn't last more than 20 years past the life of the inventor/author.

Buffalo Pal

In this article from the NY Times critics are complaining about a buffalo hunt to take place in Montana. In short:

1. Buffalo live in Yellow Stone, but, as the song implies, "where the buffalo roam", they don't stay put. Also, Yellow Stone can only support so many buffalo before there isn't enough food.
   
2. Buffalo carry a diseas that cattle can catch. Montana could loose it's disease-free status if there is a chance of contagion.
3. To control the buffalo population, Montana is allowing a hunt and trying to make the hunt fair.
   
4. These buffalo aren't afraid of people, thus a hunt isn't really a hunt because the buffalo won't hide (where would something like that hide anyway) and won't run away.
   

Stupid question, but how are they going to learn to avoid people if they aren't hunted?

Having a one ton wild animal that isn't afraid of people seems to be asking for trouble. (Although, it isn't as big a problem as a preditor that isn't afraid of people.) Unless the buffalos' fear leads them to charge unsuspecting tourists, I don't see why there is an issue with making the hunt fair. As far as I can tell, the hunters aren't going to leave rotting carcases about; they are going to eat their kill. Why is this any more of an issue than buying a buffalo steak at the supermarket? I don't know what an alternate would be other than having game wardens shoot the buffalo humanely (and then have a barbeque).

Bean there...

So I was worried about what to do with my pinto beans that are still on the plants. I've just left them outside to mature. They seem to be doing OK so far. Some of the plants are starting to die their natural deaths and their beans are yellowing. Hurray!

Updated (11/15/05): About 3 weeks ago I pulled off all the beans. (Most of the beans were at least yellow at this point.) Then I let them dry in a paper bag then shelled them. I don't have much hope that they will be any good as seed, but they look like normal beans. In the next few weeks I plan to eat them, so I'll find out how they taste.

Moon with flash

Moon with flash
Originally uploaded by rcstanley.

This is a picture my husband took with the flash accidentially on. I think it looks really cool.

Review: Costa Vida restaurant

Name: Costa Vida
Location: 1621 N. State St., Orem, UT
Phone: (801) 226-8432
Type of restaurant: big burrito
Rating: 4 stars (out of 4)
Cost: around $6.50 a plate, smothered burritos extra
Review: My husband and I have been looking for a good big burrito restaurant since the Durrangos on 800 N closed. Costa Vida seems to fit the bill. The restaurant has this cool wall of water and is sort of beach themed.

I had 2 sweet pork enchiladas with mild tomatillo sauce. My husband had a burrito with sweet pork and the hot sauce. Both were excellent. I think pricewise, the big burritos are the best deal. The tomatillo sauce was good (although not as good as the stuff I make). The sauce my husband ordered went really well with the sweet pork. For our kids, we paid $.99 for a quesadilla, be warned it is only one tortilla folded over with cheese. They helped us eat the burritos and enchiladas, too. Portion-wise, I ate about 2 bites too many.

Frosted Beans

Fall has descended once again and my pinto beans still aren't mature (I planted them late). Here in Utah we've been having frosts. The question I've been researching is, should I leave them on the plant to finish maturing or harvest them and dry them inside?

For soybeans, (from umn extension)

Frost at the R6 growth stage and earlier, assuming that the plants did not completely freeze at this time, will result in a yield reduction and damaged beans with greenish color and wrinkled seed coats. Protein content should not be affected by frost; however oil content will generally be reduced if frost occurs before R6 (full seed). Fields should not be harvested until pods have a mature color, even if a killing frost occurred when the pods were green or yellow. Studies have shown that beans on frost-damaged plants will mature and change color at least as early and perhaps earlier than undamaged soybeans, however, the frosted, dead leaves will remain on the plant, and some beans may retain their green color.

This seems to imply it is better to leave the immature beans out on the plants until they turn yellow. I have some hope for my plants because, while the gourd and corn got nipped, the beans appear to be untouched by the frost.

I also want to know if there is any chance that the seed from the frost damaged beans will grow next year if I plant it, or if I should just eat them all.

Update here.