Health care, philosphoically

Universal health care seems to be coming up a lot this election year. Several candidates support it, and I can't decide if that support is a deal breaker for me. I don't know what I think about a universal health care system. I have always been blessed enough to have insurance and also blessed to be free from any major medical problems. I've never felt the terror of having a sick child and not being able to afford to go to a doctor. I know in scripture we are commanded to care for the sick, but I'm not sure if a socialized health care is the way to do that. (Don't take anything that follows personally, I'm working through this issue.)

Insurance sucks. I know the "joys" of calling the insurance, the doctor's billing office, the insurance, the doctor's office trying to get things worked out. I wonder if the government system would be any better.

There's two ways to look at this debate 1) from me as someone who has insurance already and 2) from someone who has no insurance now. I suspect from the view of #2, anything is better than nothing, except that their taxes go up, but I don't know that for sure. For me, I have a few issues:

• How would a national health care program work? (Note to self: look into Canada's health care system.) Would doctors essentially become government employees? Would the government act as a giant insurance company? (Now from the people who brought you taxes and IRS, health care and um... HURT (healthcare for the uninsured, residents, and taxpayers, Ok, it's a stretch). Would you get credits to buy your own insurance?
• From my greedy point of view, am I going to keep paying the same for my insurance while my taxes go up to provide health care for those without. Why don't I get any benefit? Or maybe I do in the form of warm fuzzies and a reduction in total pain and suffering. One of my husband's co-workers said that we were already paying for the uninsured because hospitals have to pay their costs, so they charge others more to make up for the fact that some can't pay. So this would mean if everyone could pay, insurance premiums would go down (yeah right, sorry I'm cynical of insurance companies).
• Would this produce a two tier system where basic care was free, but any meaningful care cost extra. Sort of like the shipping at Amazon, you can get free shipping, but you'll have to wait two weeks, want it tomorrow and you'll have to pay more. If you want an appointment you can get it for free, but if you want an appointment sooner than next month that will cost you $20.
• How far would the national program go? Would there be a cap on per person spending like there is in regular insurance or would we as a nation be bound to provide extreme levels of care?
  
• Would the insurance lobby stand for any kind of real beneficial change to how health care works in America?

(Edited 10/9/08)

I've looked through Obama's plan. Basically he wants to offer a basic government health plan. Insurance companies can offer other plans, but they must be the same as or better than the government plan. Also, insurance companies can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. Not sure what I think of it. Sounds nice, but it seems to me everyone will have to switch to government plan since I can't see any reason for insurance companies to offer better plans if they can't discriminate.

My friend's getting married

I'm so excited, my friend from the good old days in the CS computer labs at BYU is getting married. I'm so excited for her. She is so wonderful, I'm glad a wonderful man finally noticed. Now I just have to pick out a wedding present.

It's funny actually, because I was really bummed I couldn't find anywhere cool to go over UEA weekend. Now I'm glad, because that's when her wedding is.

Review: Max and Cheese

Name: Max and Cheese
Location: approximately 1200 W and State St. in Orem, UT
Cost: Adult $7, child $4
What we ate: I had a BLT, my son had corn dogs, and my daughter had a hot dog
Rating: 3 stars (don't hate it or love it)
Review: I'd wanted to try this place for a while, since they advertise as being kid-friendly. I had a coupon, so my son, daughter, and I went. The decor was school/cafe. The meals came with a choice of fruit cup or apple sauce or chips. We chose chips (choice of Sun Chips or some weird/deluxe brand of chips). I added apple juice to my son's order for a quarter. My BLT was incredible, probably one of the best BLTs I've had. But after the BLT, and bag of chips, six grapes and 3 cheese cubes that came with it, I was still hungry. My son liked his corn dogs. My daughter's hot dog was cut like an octopus and came with gold fish crackers. Neither of them finished their meals. I thought the meals were pricey for what you got, but then the kids didn't finish their food, so I guess there was plenty of food for them.

The play area has puzzles, legos, a train table, and various other wooden toys. There are no play structures. My kids liked playing, but were willing to leave after 15 - 20 minutes. I wouldn't take a child older than six, I think they would find it boring very quickly.

All in all, I had fun, but I probably wouldn't go again unless I had a great coupon or my son begged to go.

Review of Razor Pro kick scooter vs. Razor A Kick Scooter

Recently I bought scooters for my children (review here). But I had fun riding their scooters and so did my husband (although he is technically too heavy for them). We decided that for our anniversary, we'd buy Razor Pro Kick Scooters.

The Razor Pro is more expensive, but it has a higher handle bar and a higher weight limit. It also fits an adult better. I like it. I can use it when I take my kids to ride bikes or scooters because it is easy for me to fold up if I need to help them.


Pros:

• Higher handle bar
• Higher weight limit
• Better lever to make scooter fold
• Rides better / faster

Cons:

• Minor assembly required
  
• Higher cost than Razor A
• Heavier (might be harder for a young child (<6)>
• Can't fit two feet on the base

Hop

This is Hop the parakeet. I got him yesterday.

My daughter has a parakeet named Skip that we've had for a few months. Skip is very shy and still is uninterested in people. My daughter wanted to teach Skip to talk. From what I've read though, a parakeet will only learn to talk if it is interested in people, and Skip isn't. Parakeets need companionship and since we couldn't provide that, a parakeet friend was probably best. I thought if we got him a friend, at least he wouldn't be lonely. Also, I thought a friendly parakeet friend might convince Skip to not fear humans as much. (In my daughter's defence, we don't think Skip was the parakeet she picked out at the pet store, just the one the keeper caught.) Skip does have a very pretty voice though and is fun to watch from a distance.

Hop seems to be just the opposite of Skip, very curious and interested in things. He climbs all over his cage. At the store, I bobbed my head at him and he bobbed back, so he is interested in people. I had one concern with him: he is an older bird, with his head stripes mostly gone. I decided to pick friendly over younger.

I put Hop in Skip's old cage. (I bought a big new cage for the two of them to share once they are used to each other and once Hop is finger tame.) Once Skip saw Hop, he seemed to take a new interest in life, climbing all over his cage just like Hop. I wonder if Hop was someone's pet before and was returned to Petco. But then maybe most other parakeets are this friendly and I just didn't know since Skip is very timid.

Today my son was feeding Hop millet through the bars. Hop decided he wanted to come out the cage door. I decided to let him out (maybe not the best choice since he isn't finger trained and probably doesn't see his cage as his home.) He explored the house and had a grand time. His favorite perch is the bottom rail of the kitchen chairs. Skip saw that Hop was out and really wanted out, so I opened his door and he flew right out and went to find places to hide. Since after an hour and a half they both showed no sign of desiring to return to their cages , I eventually had to catch them by throwing a towel over them. Hop didn't seem to mind too much. Skip hated it, but seemed relieved to be back home.

Hints on choosing a friendlier parakeet:
- pick one that is active and looks healthy
- bob your head at the parakeet and see if he bobs back. This is how parakeets say hello.
- put your hand on the cage near the parakeet, does he fly away, or just move away then look curious (your life will be easier if it isn't terrified of humans)
- try and make sure you can identify the exact parakeet you want, or inversely, make sure there are no parakeets that look similar to the one you like that you DON'T want
-more head stripes mean a younger bird. Younger means easier to tame.

Razor A Kick Scooter / Barbie Scooter review

I bought my four-year-old son a Razor A Kick Scooter and my six-year-old daughter a Barbie Scooter from Target. I bought the scooters in hopes of having something more portable than a bike and also in hopes of improving my daughter's balance since she wants to learn to ride a bike without training wheels.

My children both picked up how to ride them in a few days and were fairly proficient in a week (although they cannot use the brake). There were a few spills along the way. Nothing serious though. They always ride with helmets and I've ordered them knee and elbow pads.

I think for 4 - 6 year olds, I would suggest the Barbie scooter or the Hot Wheels scooter. The brake is easier to work and it seems easier for them to balance at first. The Barbie scooter is heavier than the Razor.

pros:

• Low learning curve
• Compact
  
• If my son gets tired and refuses to ride his scooter home, I can put him (and the scooter) in the wagon. (Try that with a bike.)
• Fun. I tried out the scooter and had a blast. (I'm not the biggest bike fan.) My husband and I have ordered Razor Pro scooters for ourselves.

cons:

• Razor A - it was defective out of the box, the mechanism to fold and unfold the scooter would bind. I eventually called Razor who told me to take it back to the store. The new one works great.
• If you hit a high crack in the sidewalk, you might go flying. So far, hasn't been much of an issue for my kids, they don't go fast enough to really biff it.
• Razor A - isn't comfortable for a larger adult. I can ride it (5'8") ok, but it is a little short. I could make do, but my husband who is taller and heavier can't ride it. (Hence the purchase of the Razor Pro which has taller handle bars and a higher weight limit.)

Overall:
I'm happy with my purchase so far. My children seem to have learned balance and my daughter is doing much better on her bike.

New cell number

Just to let my friends know, I have a new cell phone number. For obvious reasons, I'm not posting it here :)

Wooden take-along train box finished

The wooden carry-along train box I've been making for my son is finally finished:

It measures 10.25" wide, 11.25" long, and 3" tall. The back of the box folds down completely, so there is plenty of room to drive trains. The outer track circle has a diameter of 9.25" and the inner circle has a diameter of 7.7". The tracks are 3/8" wide. It also has a train shed and 2 "tunnels". This box fits the medium sized take-a-long Thomas the Train die cast trains.

I still need to fill in a few nail holes and spray shellac over the whole thing, but it is done. I gave it to my son since his birthday was yesterday. I figure I'll get it back from him in a few days and finish it up.

Making the box was a lot of work for me, but I think someone who knew what they were doing could do it a lot faster :)

If anyone else wants to try this:

• Keep weight in mind. I was trying to make this light so my 4-year-old son could carry it. He can, but probably not on long journeys.
  
• I used 3/8" pine to make it lighter. My life would have been much easier if I had used 1/2" pine.
• Make sure your hinges will fold up to 90 degrees. The ones I bought wouldn't, so I had to install them backwards.
• The outer circle has a diameter of 9.25" and the inner circle has a diameter of 7.7". The tracks are 3/8" wide. This will fit Thomas / Percy, but not Arthur.
  
• Test your circle jig before you cut with it. My tracks ended up almost too deep because I forgot to test my jig.
• Having the box slightly wider would have been nice and left more room for error. However, I wasn't going to join another piece of wood just to get an extra 1".
• This idea could also be used for hot wheels cars, but be careful about track depth. They won't work on the one I built because I had to make the tracks too deep.
  

how to convert a mythtv recording to an mp3

I wanted to rip the audio of several tv programs I had recorded with mythtv. Here's what I did

1. Find out the file name of the recording I wanted. Mythtv names its files based on date and time.
   
2. run mplayer to convert the file to wav: mplayer -ao pcm:file=thomas_weather.wav -vo null 1111_20080222143000.mpg This takes the file 1111_20080222143000.mpg and uses it to create a wav file named thomas_colors.wav
3. run lame to comvert the file to an mp3: lame -h thomas_weather.wav thomas_weather.mp3 . This uses lame to take the .wav file and create an mp3 file
   

other searches: mythtv rip audio, mythtv extract audio

Stepping stool

Here's a step stool I made from plans I found on the internet. I made it out of poplar and stained it. It was a fun project. It looks good too. I accidentally marred the top of the stool when I was making it, so I bought a cheap random orbital sander from Harbor Freight and it worked like a charm.

Wooden toys

I've been experimenting a little with woodworking lately. Here's a toy dog I made for my daughter and a toy train for my son. The dog has a string you tie around its neck and you can take it for a walk. (You can get the plan for the toy dog here.) The train is to go on his tracks, but the train is a little too long for that, so it will have to be a carpet train.

jig saw blades

This post is probably completely useless to anyone but me, but these are the bosch jigsaw blades I own and what they do:

T101AO - Wood blade, specifically for curved cuts, splinter free. 5/64" - 3/4" material. (6.05/5)
T101BR - Wood blade, downward cutting (splinter free on top surface.) 3/16" - 1 1/4" material. (8.49/5)
T101DP - Wood blade, specifically for angled cuts. 1/4" - 2 3/8" material. (8.36/5)
T118A - Metal blade, basic straight cuts. (7.00/5)
T118G - Metal blade, straight cuts in thin material. 1/16" - 3/64" material. (6.97/5)
T123X - Metal blade, fast and long life, Progressor toothing for use in thick and thin material. 3/64" - 3/4" material. (9.78/5)
T144D - Wood blade, straight and fast cuts. 1/4" - 2 3/8" material. (7.87/5)
T234X - Wood blade, straight fine cuts. Progressor toothing for thick and thin material. (9.02/5)
T345XF - Wood with nails or metal blade. Progressor toothing for thick and thin material. 3/16" - 3 5/8" material. (13.89/5)

thanks to the cat guy on amazon for compiling this.

FoodThinger - free food storage planning / tracking software

FoodThinger a free (GPL) software program to keep track of food storage or an emergency supply of food. It will generate a food storage plan based on your family size. Then you can track your progress as you add more food to your supply, where the food is, and when it expires. It also generates reports to allow you to see your progress and what you still need to buy.

You can download FoodThinger and find its full documentation here. This program is released, but should be considered beta (in English: this program will work most of the time, but might have a few glitches. Let me know if you have problems.

(No Linux version as of yet, but all it would really need to get it to work is a linux sqlite dll.)

Eek, where's my money

I had my first experience with identity theft this past month. My PayPal account was compromised and someone was helping themselves to my money. What was annoying and a little frightening was that that account was tied to our debit card and so was actually taking our money out of checking. I found out when I checked my checking account to see if my economic stimulus package had bee deposited yet.

The thing that was very frightening was that I received no notice from PayPal that this was happening (not PayPal's fault by the way). Either on purpose, or by unhappy coincidence, @paypal.com had been added to my blocked senders list in my hotmail account. This meant that any message from PayPal was automatically deleted. I still don't know if my hotmail account was compromised as well. Of course, I have since changed both passwords.

Fortunately, no other information was changed and I was able to regain control of my account quickly. PayPal determined in about 5 days that the charges were fraudulent and refunded my money.

morals: do not use a debit card on line, do not have the same password to your email account as to PayPal.

utah car seat / booster seat law - finding the data

From my previous post, it is obvious that I don't like Utah's new safety seat law, but I'm willing to be wrong. Maybe the car seats offer an amazing improvement over lap and shoulder belts. Let me be clear, I plan on keeping my children in car seats until they are 8. The question is, what risk am I taking having them only restrained by seatbelts (for example, an emergency). What I want to see is the hard data. I want to see if the numbers being quoted in the news media and by proponents are fair.

What I'm looking for:

• How many restrained children between the ages of 4-8 were injured in car accidents (both seat belts and car seats)
  
• How many restrained children between the ages of 4-8 were injured in car accidents in ways directly attributed to seat belts.
• How many restrained children between the ages of 4-8 were in car accidents and not injured (restrained by seatbelts and also car seats)
• Injury rates at different car speeds
  
• As a control, the injury rates of adults sitting in the back seats of cars that were properly restrained.

Well it looks like the state farm survey answered my questions. It is very technical so this link might be more readable. Most interesting fact: while booster seats help, the single best thing you can do is have your child in the back seat. That is, children in the back seat in seat belts or booster seats did better than children in the front seat.

If you believe the surveys done by CHOP, state laws are how most parents decide how to restrain their children. That is, many parents believe that it is safe and preferred to use just a seat belt on a child over the age of 4 if the state does not mandate otherwise. I guess in that case the law is a good idea, I just wish they made more provisions for emergencies.

Other sources:
KSL - http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3187493 - mentions State Farm and Philadelphia Children's Hospital safety study
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2808436
fact sheet put out by partners to child passenger safety with sources: http://stokes.chop.edu/programs/injury/files/PCPS_Reports/CPSIR_3.pdf
The big state farm/ children's hospital study : http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/289/21/2835
bunch of pdf charts of various things like injury rates, booster seat compliance, etc.: http://stokes.chop.edu/programs/injury/educational_advocacy/reports.php
a bunch of statistics for 2007 of injury rates for children based on where they were, how far from home, etc: http://stokes.chop.edu/programs/injury/files/PCPS_Reports/2007_TraumaLinkRptEnglish.pdf
booster seat ratings: http://www.nhtsa.gov/portal/nhtsa_eou/info.jsp?type=booster

Watermellon cake

Here's the watermellon cake I made for my baby's first birthday. I think it turned out reasonably cute.

Utah Car Seats - May 5, 2008

I'm slightly peeved at the Utah State Legislature for passing HB 140. Starting on May 5, children under the age of eight will need to be in a car seat. (This is a change from the age of 5. If your child is over 57 inches, before age 8 they don't need a booster.) What bothers me about this bill is I heard nothing about this bill until it was passed. Usually bill sponsors are out there trying to get people to write to their legislators to support their bill. In this case, nothing, maybe because they knew they'd get a lot of annoyed parents. And yes, I know I should keep track of what the legislature is doing, but I didn't this time.

Now, I intended to keep my child in a car seat until she was tall enough for a regular seat belt, but it bothers me that now I have to. It makes emergency pickups of children very difficult. For example, I have a friend who cannot drive, so I occasionally pick up her son. Now I have to have an extra car seat all the time or juggle the car seat back and forth between us?

The other thing that bothers me is the statistics cited. Now that I've waited this long to complain, I can't find them again, but there was no source cited for the statistics. It was something like 2,000 kids a year die or were injured that wouldn't have if they were booster seats. I'd really like to see where those statistics come from. Is a seat belt really that much more dangerous than a booster? If anyone can point me to the orgin of these statistics I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll get over my current annoyance after a while.
Here's the only news article I could find.

April Fools

For April Fools dinner, I made a faux berry pie (really a shepard's pie) and shamburgers for dessert (really cookies). My kids weren't too thrilled by the pie, but they really wolfed down the hamburgers.

(edited 4/5/08 to add recipe links)

Roomba 510 review: Initial thoughts

Buy.com was running a deal I couldn't pass up, the Roomba 510 for around $140 (after a google checkout rebate). I guess the 510 has been discontinued, so it is available at a good price. I've been wanting a Roomba. Actually, that isn't true. Recently I've really been hating vacuuming and sweeping my floors. I read on-line reviews and decided I had to have one.

The Roomba 510 is an entry level Roomba. It wanders randomly over the floor and vacuums. It doesn't dock, schedule, or use the lighthouses. It will use the virtual wall. I do wish it could charge itself, but I wasn't willing to pay $100 to get a model that would do that. I figure for $100, I'll pick it up and plug it in.

The Roomba was bigger than I expected. In my head, I pictured something the size of a dinner plate. This is larger than that. It is about 3" tall. It feels sturdy (read heavy) when you pick it up. It isn't as loud as I had feared.

I charged the Roomba overnight like the directions said. Then I pressed the "clean" button twice and off it went. (Actually, my three-year-old son pushed the button. He'd been begging for the honor.) The first area it cleaned was the "L" shaped main level of my house consisting of my dining room (parquet floor), kitchen (vinyl), and front room (carpet). It did a great job. It was able to get under my dining room chairs and get the crumbs under the table. It was able to handle a few, small, welcome mats I have scattered around. It also went under my couch (brave robot). I was worried it would get stuck because it can only barely fit. It did get stuck once, half in and half out, but the rest of the times it manged to get out just fine.

It is much quieter than my vacuum or my my dust buster. It does have a high pitched motor noise that is a little obnoxious, but if I go up stairs, down stairs, or shut the door, I can hardly hear it.

While it was cleaning, I emptied its dust bin when I noticed Roomba seemed to be having trouble picking up dirt I could see on the floor. Boy was the bin full...three times. I comfort myself by thinking most of it must have been under the couch :) I don't anticipate having to keep an eye on its bin now that the first cleaning is done.

I quickly learned that, when emptying Roomba's bin, I needed to be holding Roomba over the trash. Dust goes flying. I also learned that everything I read in the forums is true: open the bin over the trash, clean the filter, and clean the hair off the edges of the brushes. I didn't think I'd have the "hair around the edges of the brushes" problem since I don't have pets, but I must shed more hair than I think I do, because Roomba found plenty.

I've run Roomba on every level of my house. It did a fine job. I am cautiously optimistic. I am happy with my purchase so far. I don't think it could fully replace a real vacuum, but it will keep my house cleaner. I think I will also keep my house less cluttered, since I don't want Roomba to bump into things. And now I don't have to pick up AND vacuum.

Problems:

• Stand up fan - I have a big stand up fan that has a sloping base. Roomba climbs up on that and gets stuck
• Bathroom rugs - the rugs in my bathroom move around easily. Roomba got suck in my bathroom because he pushed up the rug and thought it was a wall. I think this problem only happens with rugs that move. If rugs stay put, he handles them just fine.
  
• Used fabric softener sheets - I had a bunch of these on the floor of my room since I fold laundry on my bed. The sheets fall down and I don't always pick them all up right away. Roomba got these stuck in all sorts of weird places, including one jamming its wheel.
  
• Couch - My couch has a curved W shaped bottom. Roomba can fit under one side, but just barely. He got stuck one time, but has made it out several times.
  

Successes:

• Couch - My couch has a curved W shaped bottom. Roomba can fit under one side, but just barely. He got stuck one time, but has made it out several times. Sitting on the couch while Roomba cleans underneath it is a weird experience.
  
• Under my bed - I haven't cleaned under there since about 2005. It went under there and industriously cleaned.
• Stairs - It is so fun watching it go right up the edge of my stairs and turn around.
  
• Best find in Roomba's bin - small orange plastic frog about 1.5". It also found a pin from one of my husband's shirts. I'm grateful Roomba found it and not my foot.
  
• Best find - Roomba pushed out from under my bed the case to my children's Uno cards. I've been looking for that for a month.
  

Crock pot bean soup

This is a recipe I came up with. The red beans will make their own broth that "feels" meaty.

1 c small red beans
1/2 c pinto beans
1/2 c garbanzo beans (or chick peas)
1/4 of a bunch of cilantro, tied
1 small can diced green chillies
1 med onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp chilli powder
1 sprinkle crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 can beef broth

night before (optional): put beans in crock pot and cover with about 1" water.

next day: add all other ingredients and cook on high 2 hrs. or until beans soften, then cook on low until dinner time. Remove cillantro bundle and discard. Garnish with chopped cilantro if desired.

You can also just start this the day of. If you start beans around 1:00 on high, they will be done by dinner time. pre-soaking just speeds up cook time. Watch this recipe because if the beans absorb all the water, there won't be any broth for the soup :)

Americanized version of Baba's Cabbage Soup

This is based on a recipe I got from my grandmother of a soup her mother (Baba) used to make. I simplified it and left out things I hate like sour kraut and lima beans :) It involves pork ribs, cabbage, beans, and potatoes and is a great comfort food. My kids eat it like crazy.

Baba's Cabbage Soup (Americanized)

1/2 bag Coleslaw mix
4 med potatoes, pealed and diced
1 can white beans (great northern, etc.), rinsed and drained
1 med onion, diced
1 can chicken broth
later: 1 pack pork ribs (bone in preferred)

mix ingredients in soup pot and let simmer until potatoes are tender, about 30 min. - 1 hr.

mash potatoes, I just stick a fork in the pot and squish some of the potatoes.

Add in pork ribs and cook an additional 2 hrs. Add additional broth or water if needed.

Pepper to taste.

This soup will be very think, more like a stew. Add more chicken broth if it is too thick.

Mother's Day Vase with cute flowers

I made the cutest Mother's Day presents for my mom and mother-in-law. (If you are my mom or mother-in-law stop reading now, unless you really want to know what you are getting.) I made a flower arrangement of grandchildren. This was one of those projects that actually came out as cute as I had hoped. I got the idea from a Paper Crafts magazine. I also lucked out because Michael's had a big sale, so I got the vase and rocks at a great price. See the finished product here.

materials:
vase
river rocks
rub-ons for the vase
bamboo skewers (like the ones you grill with)
ribbon
scallop punch
2 circle punches that nest in the scallop (or a colluzzle) (1 3/4" and 1 1/4")
pattern paper and coordinating card stock (I used pretty in pink, real red, bashful blue, apricot appeal, and wild wasabi from stampin' up)
pictures of people small enough to fit inside the smallest size circle punch
optional:
small ladybug or butterfly stamp

Directions
1. Apply rub-on to vase. Put rocks in vase, you'll want it about 3/4 full unless you are putting Styrofoam at the bottom. Tie ribbon around jar neck.
2. To make the flowers, Punch scallops out of pattern paper. Punch larger circles out of coordinating cardstock. Punch out pictures using smallest circle punch.
3. Glue picture into circle, then the circle onto the scallop.
4. Cut the bamboo skewer to the desired height. (I used a pair of garden shears.)
5. Glue flowers to skewers. (I used glue and a glue dot.)
6. Make leaves by punching out circles with either size of circle punch then cutting in half. Glue the halves together at an angle so they make a wide "V". Attach leaves to skewer.
7. optional: Stamp ladybug or butterfly and cut it out. Glue it to one of the flowers.
7. Place flowers in vase as desired.

My Stampin' Up haul

My friend and I hosted a stampin' up party about a week ago and our goodies have arrived. I got a few stamp sets, watercolor crayons, and a mat pack (oh, and new blender pens). I really like the watercolor crayons so far. The main thing I don't like is that using them is like coloring with crayons, so it is harder for me to be precise, but I can handle that with a blender pen. The main thing I love is that everything I color looks so much better because all the colors in one family go together. I'm looking forward to playing with them some more.

Spinach Garlic dip

I made this for my stampin' up party yesterday. It was so good. It is based on this recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/118103

Ingredients

1/2 large package frozen spinach , thawed and drained (about 200 grams)
1 (250 g)package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup onions , chopped
4 garlic cloves , minced
1/2 cup cheddar cheese , shredded

Directions

Blend all ingredients in food processor, except cheddar cheese, adding as much milk as necessary for a smooth and creamy consistency. (I used one clove of garlic and the rest garlic powder. I used a garlic press and crushed the clove over the cream cheese then added garlic powder until I liked the taste)
Spread in pie plate and top with shredded cheddar cheese.
Bake at 375F for 20 - 35 minutes or until heated through and cheddar cheese is melted.
Serve with pita crisps, crackers or tortilla chips.

I made this ahead of time and let it sit uncooked in the refrigerator until it was time cook.

Cute Baby

My baby is now nine and a half months old. She is starting to babble. I was worried because she wasn't babbling for quite a while, but I think that was because she was perfecting her pincer grasp. Anyway, here's an exchange we had while I was changing her diaper:
Me: You're a wet baby.
Baby: wababa
Me: Yes, you're a wet baby.
Baby: wababa
Me: Now you're a dry baby.
Baby: dababa

Babies are so fun. She also grabs by hands to play pat-a-cake. She won't clap her hands, apparently mine are much better.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

My kindergartener said something interesting the other day. She mentioned how her teacher hadn't been born when King was alive. The same is true for me. This means the civil rights movement is now in the time of grandparents. I remember going to school and some of the older teachers had marched in the demonstrations, my parents remembered the times. Those events didn't seem that long ago to me. To my children though, it will seem forever ago, like World War II seemed to me when I was young. Equal Rights for African Americans, to my daughter, won't seem like something recent, but the way things have always been. And maybe that is the way it should be.

Utah Republican's Worst Nighmare

I've been watching the caucus results in various states (huckabee will win...no wait McCain will win...wait Romney will win...) and I've come up with the worst possible combination for my voting: Hillary vs. Huckabee. I don't think I could vote for either of them. I've never liked Ms. Clinton and Huckabee lost my vote when he started underhandedly attacking Romney over religion. If those are my choices, I may have to vote for Dave Barry. I think he's running again this year as a write-in candidate.

review of the nokia n800

I'm typing this review from my Nokia n800's thumb pad and so far it isn't too bad. Far better reviews than mine have been written, so I'm going to list the pros and cons. I am running os 2008.
pro:

- screen is nice
- handles flash reasonably well-I can watch Chuck previews
- much more stable than my Dell Axim- couldn't run that pda without it running out of memory
- on-screen thumbpad so I don't have to type with the sylus
- runs blogger, mostly
- plays flash games on PBSKids (actually, this is probably a con since my children think it is cooler to play on mom's n800)
- battery life is reasonable
- can use autocomplete as a spell checker
- charger is a cell phone-like plug-in charger (much better than dell's weird plug)
- can run a bunch of Palm software with its emulator

cons:
- my thumbs must be small because it doesn't autodetect I'm using my thumbs. (but I can push the button in the center of the dpad to make it come up)
- video has to be re-encoded to play well on it
- no equivalent of jawbreaker available for it yet (Update 12/31/07: found one that runs on Garnet VM)
- lots of cool software, but a lot of it is in beta (but then in linux you come to expect that
- no always visible clock/time/date
- a little too big. This was the trade-off for a larger screen. In its case (see hint below), it doesn't fit in my purse, although I expect it will some day when I don't have to keep a diaper and a pull-up in there.

hints:
Wal-mart has a case for the Nintendo ds lite that fits the n800. It cost me $7. Take your n800 with you since not all ds lite cases will fit.

Nokia n800 links

This seems to be the easiest way to keep track of random things I want to remember about the nokia n800:

• Good forum: http://www.internettablettalk.com
• how to video call/ video conference: http://www.rahulnair.net/blog/2007/05/02/video-chat-on-the-nokia-n800-internet-tablet/
• how to turn off auto-capitalization on n800: http://madabar.com/techblog/2007/12/08/updating-the-n800-to-os2008/ (short answer) Panel->Text Input->Languages->Settings->Auto-capitalisation

this is a test from my nokia n800

I bought a nokia n800 and really like it so far. The thumb keyboard is ok for short messages, but I wouldn't want to write “War and Peace” on it

Circuit City ships fast

I've been pleasantly surprised at the speed of circuit city's free shipping. I bought a christmas present for my husband and it was here in three or four days. I ordered a present for me on black Saturday and it is here by Wednesday. That means it got here in 5 days with a weekend in there. To me that is really good.

Upgrade my PDA? on finding a portable wifi media device

I'm considering upgrading from my Dell Axim x30. I like it. But it has been flaking out recently. (Note: since I've started looking at other devices it suddenly decided it had 2 more megs of memory and has stopped crashing so much.) I really do like my Axim. It does everything I want it to, at least most of the time. Since it is older it has started having trouble with flash-based webpages (ebay crashes it almost every time). With Christmas and my birthday coming up, I decided to take a look around and see if there were any devices worth upgrading to. First thing I learned was that Dell has stopped making Axims. Oh well.

The devices I came across that mostly fit my needs were the nokia n800, the iPod touch, the Asus 626, the archos 605, and the Sony mylo.

I've noticed I really don't use the PDA functions of my Axim much. It might be because text entry is such a pain in the fanny. The hand writing recognition just doesn't work for me, so I'm typing on the little key board with the stylus. This means I use it for reading email, but not responding.

Features I want:

1. can read ebooks
   
2. Wi-fi
3. email
4. rss
   
5. general web browsing
6. flash support
7. resonable text entry
   
8. decent battery life
   
9. internet videos (like homestarrunner.com and nbc.com)
   
10. music and movies
11. can add on programs
    

Here's the devices I've found so far that might work. They all fall in the $200-300 range and have WiFi:

1. Nokia n800 (internet access device)
2. iPod touch (media player)
3. Asus mypal a626 (PDA)
4. Archos 605 (media player)
5. Sony Mylo

Note: please be aware that except for the Axim x30 I do not own any of the above mentioned products. I'm basing my reviews on my needs and the reviews of others.

Products in depth:

Product Name: Dell Axim x30
Size: 3 in x 0.6 in x 4.8 in
Screen Size: 3.2, 240 X 320
Weight: 4.9 oz
Battery life: 4 hrs. 30 min, or 2.5 hrs according to mobile review
opperating system: Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition
memory: 64 MB, 64 mb ram
memory expansion type: SD
browser: Pocket Internet Explorer
flash: sort of
formats supported: mp3, wma, .txt,
text entry: stylus
quirks:
websites: cnet



1. Product Name: Nokia n800 Internet Tablet PC
Size: 5.7 x 2.95 x 0.5 inches (WxHxD)
Screen Size: 4.1 inch (800 X400 pixel)
weight: 7.27 oz
Battery life: 3 hours
opperating system: Maemo
memory: 256 MB flash, 128 MB RAM
memory expansion type: SD (2 slots, 2 gig limit)
browser: Opera
flash: flash 7
formats supported: AAC, AMR, MP2, MP3, WAV, WMA, Real Audio
text entry: stylus, touch screen keyboard
quirks: video play back issues, lots of free programs available, video camera
websites: cnet, amazon

2. Product Name: Apple ipod Touch
Size: 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.31
Screen Size: 3.5 inch,
Weight: 4.2 ounces
Battery life: 6 hours
opperating system: apple
memory: 8 gig
memory expansion type: None (no extra slots)
browser: safari
flash: no
formats supported: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible 2, Audible 3, Audible 4, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, mpeg-4
text entry: touch screen
quirks: can't paste text, you tube player which means safari can't handle youtube
websites: cnet, amazon

3. Product Name: Asus mypal a626
Size: 2.8 x 0.6 x 4.6 inches
Screen Size: 3.5-inch TFT LCD touchscreen with 65k colors, 240 x 320-pixel resolution (QVGA)
Weight: 5.57 ounces
Battery life: 4.5 hrs
opperating system: Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0
memory: 128 MB Flash ROM and 64 MB SDRAM
memory expansion type: SD
browser: Pocket IE
flash:
formats supported: MP3, WMA
text entry: Stylus
quirks:
websites: zdnet, mobile review, amazon

4. Product Name: Archos 605
Size: 5.1 x 3 x 0.65 inches (W x H x D)
Screen Size: 4.3 in, 480 x 272
Weight: 9.5 oz
Battery life: 4.7 hours
opperating system:
memory: 4 gig
memory expansion type: SD
browser: Opera (extra $30)
flash: yes
formats supported: MP3, WAV, WMA, protected WMA, JPEG, BMP, PNG, MEGP-4, and WMV
text entry: touch screen
quirks: have to pay for other features, doesn't appear to do email
websites: cnet, amazon

5. Product Name: Sonly Mylo
Size: 4.8 in x 0.9 in x 2.5 in Screen Size: 2.4-inch LCD display (320 x 240 resolution),
Weight: 5.3 oz
Battery life:
opperating system: linux (closed source)
memory: 1 Gig
memory expansion type: memory stick pro duo
browser: opera
flash: no
formats supported: MP3, WMA, ATRAC3
text entry: keyboard
quirks: for college students, doesn't seem like it will do ebooks
websites: cnet, decent review

Conclusion:
if I upgrade, it would probably be to a Nokia n800 or the asus mypal 626

Birthday list 2007

OK, it's November, here's my birthday list (it's much shorter thanks to all the early birthday presents):

• Sound of Music DVD
• spectrum pad (stamp pad with multiple colors)
• aqua painter size medium or large (it's a pen that holds water for watercoloring)
• stamp scrubber and stamp cleaner
• metalic colored eyelets
• buttons (all shapes/sizes/colors)
• flying cow (http://www.handhelditems.com/slingshot-flying-with-sound-p-5064.html)
  

I can dream (aka really expensive):

• willow creek nativity
  
• winter carols nativity
• breadmaker that will make 2 lb loaf
• trip to hawaii

Utah School Vouchers

This is an unorganized post of me trying to think my way through the whole school voucher debate. Currently I'm undecided, so I should be relatively neutral. (Although if they keep running those stupid anti-voucher adds all the time I'm going to vote FOR the vouchers) here's my areas of research:

Why would vouchers hurt schools?
The voucher money isn't coming from the general education fund.(1)
How do schools get money in the first place?

What happens now if a child goes to a private school? If a child is home schooled?

How does this change with the vouchers?

If vouchers pass:
If, as a blog post I've seen seem to imply, that vouchers don't really help the poor, does that matter?
Yes, the voucher doesn't pay the full amount of tuition. It does pay part which means that people that were close to being able to pay can now pay.
How many children are currently enrolled in private schools? (I will assume that all of these will apply for vouchers.)
How many children go to private schools for a while (less than 5 years), then come back to public schools? or conversely, how many children go to private schools for their entire education? See, after five years, the public schools loose the extra money from the vouchers. If a child returns during that time, the school gets the full amount of money.
Will more people put their children in a private school now with the vouchers? Will home schoolers switch to private schools?
If they make vouchers and no one "new" switches to private schools then does it matter if the bill passes?
Is it constitutional that public money can go to religious schools?
The ACLU thinks this is wrong, but then, as the anti-voucher supports point out, a voucher won't cover the full cost of tuition. Does this mean that the public money can go to the public part of the education and the parent's money can be seen as paying for the religious part of the education? :)
If no one uses vouchers, is it better to have them to let people have a choice or is it better not to have them and reduce bureaucracy and cost to the state?

Most obnoxious claims

• Vouchers will help reduce the burdon on public schools -- this bugs me. Since we have decided public schools are a good thing, it is up to the legislature to make sure all children can be educated and not push it off on private schools.
• More than half of utah counties do not have access to private schools (2) - yes, but the majority of Utah's population is only in a few counties. Assuming that the counties that don't have private schools are also the least populus, those counties have a population of less than 15,000. Also, anti-vouchers shouldn't point this out because this means the arguement of "parents can already send their kids to private schools if they want" doesn't hold true in half of Utah's counties. Thus, vouchers wouldn't change anything in those counties, except maybe encourage a private school to start.
  

Thoughts


Useful facts:
The bill is HB 148
The ammendment is HB 174
Sources

1. KSL's analysis of annoying adds.
2. daily herald
   

No-sew Felt Pea costume

I've been wanting to make my baby daughter a pea costume, but I didn't want to buy one. Here's what I came up with:On Halloween she'll be wearing a green onesie or blanket sleepers. Here's it again without the baby (the hat isn't attached to the body of the costume, it is just sitting on top):


Here's basically how I did it:
materials:

• 3 pieces dark green felt
• 2 pieces light green felt
• 2 foam balls
• small pieces of Velcro
  
• hot glue gun

for the hat:
I measured my baby's head height and circumference. On the felt I drew a half circle that high and half the circumference long. I cut out both halves of the hat at once so they would match. For the stem, I cut out a small rectangle of dark green felt and folded and glued it in half. I put the stem inside the hat and glued the two halves of the hat (wrong side out) and the stem together. I turned the hat right-side out. I cut four, slightly curved triangles out of light green felt and glued them around the hat.

For the Pod:
I took a piece of dark green felt and folded it in half lengthwise. Then I cut out a curved shape. When unfolded, it makes the pod shape. I cut out two rectangular pieces of felt and glued them at the top of the pod to form straps to go around the baby's neck. I glued on a piece of Velcro to attach the straps behind the baby.

For the Peas:
I took some foam balls I got on clearance from wal-mart and wrapped a piece of light green felt around each one. Once I was happy with how the "pea" looked, I cut off the excess felt and glued the felt directly to the ball. (I only covered the top and sides of the ball since the bottom wouldn't be showing.) Then I glued the "pea" to the pod.

total cost: $3

Shark Steam Mop review

So yesterday I bought a Shark Steam mop. I had seen the infomercial and I too wanted to clean my floors without toxic chemicals. Also, my current (non-steam) mop has been on the way out for about a month and I needed to replace it. Why not replace it with something that costs ten times as much? What a great a idea I thought. I dragged my children down to Sears and purchased the coveted item.

This morning I got to try the shark steam mop out. (I did read reviews found here before I bought it.) It was easy to assemble. I washed the microfiber pads as directed. Then I mopped my floor. Mopping with steam is fun. I wasn't sure if I would like the "steam as you push forward" feature, but I actually do like it. I just need to remember to pull back hard. In my usual mopping I do most of the cleaning pushing forward, but that doesn't work as well on this mop. I also need to buy some distilled water for it since the water here is very hard. I have a small kitchen, dining room, and two small bathrooms that I mopped. I used both pads and had to refill once. I saw some spots afterwards that I went at with my regular mop and it couldn't get them up either, so it did an OK job. As one of the reviews said, this will clean about as well as a regular mop, although I like it better since it picks up all the dirty water instead of the water staying on the floor like it did with my old mop.

The pads need to be washed separately from other laundry. I tried wrapping them in a pillow case and washing them with everything else, and they still came out covered in weird little things the microfibers picked up from the other laundry.

Pro:

• Floor is dry almost instantly because the steam evaporates quickly.
• Relaxing hissing sound from the steam
• Arm workout since I am pushing forward and back more than I usually do. (This is good since most of my mopping consists of "the floor is wet, that must mean it is clean".)
• Cord is long.
• You can refill the reservoir without waiting for the mop to cool.
• Works well on my wood floors.
• Got a big glob of dried yogurt up off the floor. (I had to go over it a few times, but at least I didn't have to get out my putty knife like I usually do.)
• Mop stays more sanitary since I will clean the microfiber pads every week.
  

cons:

• Does not work well on my upstairs bathroom vinyl flooring. I'm not exactly sure what the deal is since the shark mop works fine in the kitchen and other bathroom, both of which have vinyl flooring. I think the texture might be giving it problems. My regular mop doesn't like that bathroom much either.
• It can sanitize, but I'd have to mop very slowly.
• It would be nice if the handle could turn, then I could store it against a wall.

I'll add more later after I've used it a few more times.

Update (11-17-07): So I have mopped with it a few more times. A few more things I've noticed. One of the pads seems to mop better than the other one. I'm not sure what the difference is. Also, I think my mop is slightly broken, but I think the problem is easily fixable (my best guess is a little part at the base popped out). I just need my husband to look at it to confirm my suspicions and help me pop it back in. I'm waiting for the mop to cool down. Also, if there is water in the mop and you lay it down or turn it upside down, it will leak water.
Update (12-04-07): I don't think the mop is broken. Still mopping away with it.
Update (12-17-07): Still mopping away. My final verdict is I'm not sure it is better than a regular mop, but mopping with steam is cool. I'd feel bad if I had spent budget money on it, but since I used my own spending money I like it just fine. I've also found a way around the upstairs vinyl problem...I just mop that with a rag under the steam mop instead of one of its mircofiber pads. Seems to work just fine. I'm wondering if my pads have shrunk (I did run them through the dryer once.) I'll have to remember to check my mom's and see if hers are slightly larger.
Update (10-17-10): my steam mop died several months ago.  It no longer heats the water.  I'm back using a regular mop.  I miss the quick drying time, but I don't miss it enough yet to go back and buy another one.  (Unlike my roomba.  When it died, I replaced it with in a month.)

My dream house

Your home is a Magic Coder's Manor Your study has every language reference book ever written, including now-useless titles like Learn Javascript 2.0! and C++ Programming for Windows 95. (Why are you keeping those?) Below is a snippet of the blueprints:

Build YOUR Dream Home!

I like "Chuck"

The other night I caught the season premier of "Chuck" on NBC. (Disclaimer: I majored in computer science.) What a great show. I thought it was funny, action packed, and sweet. Who doesn't like a nerd going out with a hot CIA killer who wears poisoned hair chopsticks (sorry don't know what those are really called) and a bomb being defused by a downloaded computer virus? I hope the writers can sustain it because the first episode was a blast.

lunar eclipse -- totality

lunar eclipse -- totality
Originally uploaded by rcstanley

My husband is really into astronomy and photography. I decided to take a picture of the lunar eclipse through his telescope.

Irresistible

Irresistible
Originally uploaded by rcstanley

Well, by definition....

febreeze

I finally tried out febreeze. I kept seeing comercials for it and finally had a coupon. Anyway, it seems to do a good job of elimating odors. I sprayed it on one of my jackets that I'm not sure will wash well and it seemed to do OK. Of course, now that I have it I can't think of anything that really stinks to try it out on. But the smell (I have like spring flowers) is just fine. I'm pretty smell sensitive and get sick of smells quickly, but I think this smells nice.

As Time Goes By

OK, if this show is on where you live you have to watch it. "As Time Goes By" is a british comedy on PBS that I stay up late for, or rather if I'm up and start watching it I stay up even later. Basic plot is (I missed the first few shows so not exactly how it starts) but an older, successful business woman meets her old wartime sweetheart and they rekindle their romance, get married, etc. It is very funny and sweet. Unfortunately it isn't on digital tv yet, so I can't record it on my computer. The tragedy!

I've now seen more movies in the past 3 days than I've seen in the past I don't know, about a year. Since my sister was in town, I celebrated by going to see "Evan Almighty" and um... Pixar's rat movie..

Evan Almighty was OK, fairly clean, but not worth full movie price. It was interesting from the perspective of "What could it have been like for Noah?" See this review for a good description of what to expect.

Pixar's rat movie was pretty good. Sarah and Josh thought it was too scary. Considering I don't like rats or France, the movie exceeded my expectations. I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but I wouldn't pay for it. Philosophically, I don't think I could eat food a rat cooked, even if it was good.

Summer Movies

There are rarely any movies I want to go see. Now that I have a little baby and can't really go, there's a whole summer full of movies that look interesting. Guess I'll have to wait until they come out on video.

Here's my list:
Shrek the third
Nancy Drew (June 15)
Evan Almighty (June 22)
Pixar's Rat Movie (maybe, I like most of Pixar, but I don't like France, or rats)
Harry Potter (July 11)

I'm a professional photographer

Today my husband pointed out to me that one of the pictures I've taken is in wikipedia (and I didn't put it there :) ). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevier_River

It's a girl

Very early Monday morning, my little daughter was born. She weighed 6lbs 1 oz and was 19 inches long, not bad for being only 35 weeks. We're both doing well.

After some initial concern about her blood sugar levels, she was able to maintain it and came home Tuesday evening.

My new stamp sets

My friend and I placed a big order for stamps this past week, so now I have a bunch of new stamps. I think I actually have enough that I can convince myself not to buy any more for a long time. I have the coolest snow flake set (Provo Craft), a flower set (watercolor minis), the most beautiful tree set which will work for Christmas and for doing scenes (lovely as a tree), a set that has a frog, a goldfish and a flower (all wrapped up) which is great for kids birthdays, and a cute bear set (favorite teddy bear) that will work for birthdays/Christmas/Mother's day.

I've slowly been trying out my new sets. I only have favorite teddy bear left to try out.

Tonight I was making Christmas cards. I've been trying to come up with one that will work for the ones I will send out this year and one that will work as a present. My plan is to give out sets of handmade cards for Christmas. I made 3 different cards, 2 of which I really like. I need to remember though to keep my fingers out of the versimark when I am embossing or I end up with a bunch of embossed fingerprints. At least people can tell they are hand made :)

Ug Doug

I have come up with a lame poem based on various expressions my husband uses (and some he doesn't use). My children think it is funny and recite it when he uses the expressions.

Ug, ug, my name is Doug.
When folks say hi, I just shrug.

Ack, Ack my name is Jack.
When folks say hi, I smile back.

Oh no, my name is Joe.
When folks say hi, I say Hello.

How does all natural soap taste?

My husband showed me this great article (Warning, some harsh language) about this man who tried various all-natural products like soap, deodorant, etc. I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while.

Dang it, Intellectual Property Strikes Again

So I have my new hobby of making cards which I have enjoyed quite a bit. I go to this site called splitcoaststampers where they have various forums. Today I came across a post talking about CASEing (basically copying someone else's idea) and where the line was, when was it now your idea and when did you need to attribute. Honestly, it had never occurred to me that someone might post to a public forum like that and not want their work duplicated and/or be very touchy about attribution.

I don't knowingly make an exact duplicate of someone else's card for a few reasons:

1. I think it is almost impossible for me to exactly duplicate another card. Stamps stamp differently, I don't have the right color paper, I dislike the colors they chose, etc.
   
2. Half the fun is playing around with layout and design elements. My cards almost never turn out the way I envisioned them.
   

But I can understand the distinction. It is one thing for me to copy someone else's card (let's say exactly for the sake of argument) to give to my friend and another thing to sell the card or teach it to others for money or enter it in a contest. Once money and prestige gets involved people get very touchy.

I think the only way around this is for people to say what they want done with their ideas, something along the lines of the creative commons license. That way people like me can say "do whatever you want with it" and people who are professionals and want reimbursement can say that. I expect the whole thing would be on the honor system since there really isn't any way to know someone copied your idea or if they came up with it independently.

If someone copied one of my cards I would be flattered. If they actually charged money for one of my cards I would be shocked (and maybe open an eBay account and do the same). But one of the things that attracted me to stamping was what I perceived as a more laid back, willing to share attitude among hobbyists, and I would be saddened to find that untrue.

Catastrophic consequences

Here's my new favorite news story: http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_065192011.html

An Idaho man who was driving a truck full of explosives when it overturned and blew a crater in a canyon road pleaded guilty to causing a catastrophe, a misdemeanor.

I just laughed to see that causing a catastrophe is a misdemeanor. I'll keep that in mind if one the holes my son likes to dig causes a volcano.

My new hobby

I've started a new hobby, stamping and making cards. A friend invited me to a Stampin' up party then to stamp at her house the next day and I was hooked. I don't like scrapbooking, but I do like making cards. Here's a link to some of the cards I've made: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=112942

It's been fun, plus my kids like to play with my stamps too, so we have fun making cards together.

Baby #3

Here's an ultra sound of the latest addition to our family due at the end of May. 

Tantrums on a Plane

I saw this news article yesterday about a family that was kicked off an airplane because their 3-year-old daughter was having a tantrum and would not stay in her seat thus delaying departure time. The airline refunded their money and also offered them free travel vouchers.

I have a toddler and a preschooler, so I am very familiar with tantrums. Take a three-year-old, maybe missed her nap, and put Mom and Dad in a high stress situation and a tantrum tends to ensue. The plane was delayed for 15 minutes trying to get the girl to stay in her seat. I feel for the airline because this is going to look bad for them, but in all fairness what could they do? FAA regulations require 3-year-olds to have their own seats and be seatbelted. Some preschoolers can have 2 hour tantrums especially if they have an audience. I don't think it would be fair to ask the other passengers to wait it out. No one thinks very clearly when a child is screaming bloody murder. What I don't understand is why the mom and dad didn't put the daughter between them in a middle seat, belt her in, and physically hold her down. (I haven't tried this personally on a plane, maybe they tried and it didn't work, but I know I can get my kids in full tantrum into their car seats eventually(defined as under 15 minutes).) Yes, she would scream, but that wouldn't prevent the plane from taking off (although it might earn you the undying hatred of all other passengers.) On most flights you only need to have your seat belt on until the plane reaches cruising altitude the girl could go sit on Mom's lap like I assume she wanted to.

I feel bad for the family because they were forced to take a later flight, become a national news item for something embarrassing, and have clueless bloggers like me comment on them.

I'll be Sienna tomorrow

My husband and I recently bought a seven passenger 2007 Toyota Sienna CE. It wasn't intentional. We meant to buy a 2006 Sienna since they were pretty much on clearance and also had a cash back offer. We wanted the CE with Option Package #1 (basically includes cruise control). The dealership we went to had the perfect van: good color, right price, seven seats (my husband didn't want the eight passenger). Got ready to deal and found to our surprise (and the salesman's) that it was a 2007 which meant no cash back. (What, we have 2007s?) Eventually, the salesman made us a deal we couldn't refuse. My husband was the best negotiator, he just looked like he wanted to leave and forget the whole thing and the dealer would drop the price again.

So here's my review/thoughts of the 2007 Toyota Sienna CE:

Pros:

• Looks- I like the way it looks. My husband thinks it looks ugly. I wonder if Toyota styled it to appeal more to women since it seems to me women would be more likely to be pushing the purchase of a minivan.
• Big engine - the engine is bigger than the 2006. I like the power it has (at least compared to my 2000 Honda Civic).
• I like the lay down seats in the back, although I haven't yet had occasion to use them.
• The gear shift (don't know what else to call it) is on the dash and in a funny pattern. I used to think it is weird, but now I like it. My civic lets you pull straight down to shift gears and occasionally I would end up in Neutral or 4 instead of regular drive. Since each of the gears is in a different place on the Sienna, this doesn't happen
• The doors lock when the car is taken out of park and unlock when it is put into park. I can think of situations where I wouldn't want this behavior, but right now I'm finding it really convenient.
• Day time running lights - The Sienna CE doesn't come with this option by default, but with some simple work, my husband made them work.
• Cruise Control - I found the cruise control a little weird to work, but I got used to it and like having it.
• Air bags everywhere. Have to be careful that people don't rest their heads against the side of the car while riding since the side air bags will deploy and could hurt them if they do.
  
• Door lights that come on to light the door way.
  
• Front seats are very comfortable.
• Plenty of cupholders and storage areas. Couldn't find a good place to put my maps though. Toyota probably assumes everyone uses one of those GPS based systems these days.
  

Cons

• The thing is a boat. It is huge. It drives well and is very maneuverable, but still... My one advantage is that I have no clue how big a car really is. This means that entire time I was driving my Civic, I thought it was as wide as a minivan, so driving an actual minivan isn't that much of a change :) I think it stems from having a Chevy Impala as my first car as a teenager.
  
• Visibility - it is a little hard to see out the back window when backing up. I've come to depend a lot more on the side view mirrors. Maybe this is the same in all minivans, I don't know.
• Gas mileage - coming from a Honda Civic (got 30-something), getting 22 mi/gal isn't that great. It is good for a minivan though.
• My 2-year-old can't get into his carseat by himself when the seat is in the middle row. I have to lift him in. He could manage the back row OK I think, but I don't want to have to get back there to buckle him in.
• The one door makes a dragging sound when it is closed. I need to look at it and see if something is dragging that shouldn't be.
• The breaks have seemed to grind a few times, I'll keep an eye on this, but I'm not too concerned.
  

All in all, I like the minivan. I think it is fun to drive and I like being able to invite friends to go places with me now.

Chocolate Dipping

The other day I took it into my head to try and make some of those chocolate orange sticks. I've made gummy things before using jell-o and a lot of gelatin, so I figured I'd use orange jell-o then dip it in chocolate. Worked pretty well and tasted great. I still had plenty of melted chocolate, so my sisters, kids, and I dipped plenty of other things.

Other Things I dipped

• pretzels
• strawberries (actually at a pretty good price right now considering it is February)
• tangerine (clementines)- these were surprisingly good. Chocolately goodness with a burst of citrus juice
• bananas - ok, but I'm not a big banana fan
  

Panasonic DMC-FX01 - initial review

Yesterday I got my Panasonic FX01 digital camera. It seems to be everything I want (or at least would settle for) in a camera: small size, image stabilized, decent pictures, good movies, low cost, and a starry sky mode for my husband. I have taken some excellent, sharp pictures with it along with a bunch of mediocre to terrible pictures. Now I just need to learn how to increase my number of good pictures.

First Impressions
The camera is small. I keep accidentally putting my finger in front of lens when turning it on. I find the interface intuitive (or at least not too bad after reading the manual). My husband thinks the interface is laid out well, but he gets thrown by needing to use the arrow keys to go "deeper" into menus instead of selecting set. That part of it doesn't bother me. As a lot of other reviews have said, the pictures can be noisy although this is mostly in low light situations. I got the white camera, which looks fine to me. It was the cheapest of the color choices. Here are some pictures I have taken:



I did take plenty of pictures of my kids and family, but I don't usually post those publicly. I'll see if I can get a few pictures of myself that I don't mind posting.

The movies are great. They look really good to me, very smooth and clear. The sound sounds OK to me as well. No zoom during movies though.

Starry Night mode (long exposures 15, 30, or 60 s) seems to work OK. My husband tried it out last night on 15 seconds. It looks pretty good.


Here's the moon taken by my husband through his telescope (astrophotography) exactly as it came out of the camera. There's some chromatic aberation, but all in all it looks pretty good. (click on the picture to see the full sized image):




Hints

• Set PICT ADJ to natural or change iso sensitivity (otherwise your pictures will be noisier than they should be)
• If your pictures are coming out darker than you see on the LCD, check the exposure compensation and also change the Slow Shutter setting to be longer. By default it is at 1/8 s but you can change it up to 1 s. (If it picks a longer exposure, you'll need a tripod or table to stabilize the camera)
  
• Use Mode 2 for image stabilization
• If you want to take movies, get a 1 GB or 2 GB card. (FX01 can't handle any bigger than 2GB.) I have a 512 MB card right now and I can fill the thing up in a couple of hours if my kids are being cute.
  

Reining in

I bought my husband a leash this week or rather a cell phone, he calls it a leash. I've had a cell phone for a while now and it's been great to be able to call when ever I want. He's never wanted one and has actively resisted getting him one. I was planning on getting my husband a prepaid phone in a month or two when it was close to the time for the baby to be born. His work doesn't have individual phones since all the developers have cell phones. I wanted to be able to reach him if I went into labor while he was at work. I am not driving myself to the hospital.

Tuesday night my husband went out to take pictures at night and his car broke down. Fortunately, he I had given him the cell phone before he left, so he was able to call for help. That made me speed up my phone purchasing schedule.

I bought him a Virgin Mobile Oystr. I don't think we'll use that phone much, so the higher per minute rates won't affect us as much. Virgin Mobil uses the Sprint network (the same as my "real" cell phone) so we knew it would work everywhere we needed it to. The phone looks like a storm trooper and has no decent ringtones, but I think it will do the job.

Hurray for frilly dresses*

My husband and I are expecting our third child at the end of May. Yesterday we went and had an ultrasound done. Everything looks great: brain, spine, heart, kidneys... and we found out the baby's gender. It's a girl. This means I can start shopping for something cute and extremely useless for the baby to wear. (Not that I don't still have a huge amount of clothes from when Sarah was a baby, but I want this one to have a few new things.)

* Not that I wouldn't have been just as thrilled had it been a boy.

Ultra Compact Digital Cameras for a busy, cheap mom

I've been wanting a little camera to take places with me. My husband has a great camera that takes very nice pictures, but it is larger than I want to deal with. Here is my feature set:

• Small -When I'm out with my kids with my purse and a diaperbag I don't want to have to haul a third bag for the camera. I want something that will fit in my purse or pocket and not add a lot of weight.
• Decent movie mode - I want something that takes at least 30 fps at 640 X480 (this is TV resolution so it will look good (instead of blurry and shaky) on the family DVDs I make). Our camcorder uses minDv and it is a pain to capture the video to the computer. Basically it takes as long to capture as it does to play and I have to babysit the capture program to make sure it doesn't suddenly start not capturing. With a digital camera, the movies are copied much faster.
  
• Image stabilized - I blur photos in low-light situations because I can't hold the camera still. Also, this is great for movies so they aren't bouncing. Unfortunately, this requirement threw out a majority of small cameras. The choices were Canon and Panasonic. (I think Sony had one too, but cost way too much.)
  
• Not way expensive - I know this is relative, but I have kids and I will be sticking this camera in my pocket. I don't want something that costs so much that I'm scared to take it with me or totally depressed if it gets scratched.
• Fast - I want to have it up and running quickly to catch my kids being cute.
  

The contenders

• Panasonic dcs-fx01 - price $200 , ultra compact
  
• Canon SD700 - price $300, cute elph
  
• Canon a710 - not compact, but good movies and zoom, $320, compact, about the size of a regular point 'n shoot
  
• Canon S2 - this thing is the size of my camcorder, but it kicks butt in taking cool pictures and good movies. It also has a 10x zoom. (most regular cameras have a 3x zoom.) Cost $270. A lot of people who have a dSLR get this camera so they have something more portable, but the thing weighs over a pound. It does zoom during movies, unlike most other digital cameras.
  

I ended up choosing the Panasonic fx01. It had the features I was looking for and the price was what I was willing to pay. I wish the S2 was smaller, because that is a cool camera, but I really didn't want to lug a large camera bag around.

So here are the pros and cons of the FX01:
Pro

• price
• image stabilized
• good movies
• small
• will do long exposures (up to 1 min) (This is a feature my husband would like)
  

Cons

• Image quality (some lowlight pictures just look noisy. Check out some of the reviews to see if this bothers you.) To me, it seems this would only become a problem if I wanted to print an 8X10 of a picture, which I don't usually do. I print 4X6s or watch them on TV.
• Movie sound is mono, it will not sound as good as a camcorder, although I didn't think it sounded bad.
• Movies are stored in QuickTime (.mov) format. This means that Windows Movie Maker will NOT handle these files. I own Nero 6 which will grudgingly handle .mov , so I'm OK.
• proprietary battery - (all ultra compacts do) this means if your batteries die while you are out, tough luck. The battery from Panasonic costs around $35, but I can get ones on eBay for $20 if I need to.
  

So the camera is now on order and should ship today. I'll review it after I get it.

If I didn't care about the image stabilization, I would have probably gotten either a canon SD600 or one of the Casio Exillims. (Exillims are very cute cameras.) If I didn't care about size, S2. If I didn't care about price, SD700.

Resources:
http://www.dpreview.com
http://www.dcresource.com

A Philosophical dilemma

I love shopping on the Internet. I can get great deals, check out features, read the user's manual in advance, etc. Here's where my dilemma comes in. One day I ordered something from an e-tailer on Saturday and they packaged and shipped it on Sunday. Now, because of my religious convictions, I believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy and that includes not shopping on Sunday. I don't want to do anything that would encourage companies to make their employees work on Sunday, so I've tried to avoid ordering anything late Saturday.

Here is where the dilemma comes in: I ordered from a store that said they ship Mon, Tues, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sun. They don't ship Saturday which implies someone is perhaps Jewish and is keeping their Sabbath holy by not working. So the issue is, if I order from them and they fulfill the order on Sunday, but had Saturday off, have I broken the spirit of the Sabbath?

(This isn't really a huge deal to me, but it is interesting to think about.)

(Another thing about this store is that they take 24-72 hours to process the order, so even if I order on Thursday there is no guarantee it won't go out Sunday. Prices are great though.)

Hurray for the Holidays

I'm excited for Christmas. Right now, I've got all my Christmas shopping done. I got my husband the most random, cool gift, of course I can't say what it is. I'm just excited for Christmas not only for the family and traditions, but also because I get to play with my children's new toys.

Crying Wolf

So with in the past few months, there was a news story about how some US Forest Service employees called to be evacuated after hearing wolves. Most of the story then goes on to ridicule their fear. Basically the consensus among experts is: "Wolves don't kill people." I don't believe them. Experts also said that mountain lions don't eat people. Until they ate several people in Colorado. Hmm... let's list top predators, cougars kill people, bears kill people, dogs kill people (not exactly a top predator, but similar to a wolf) but wolves just don't? It doesn't make sense to me.

The issue is that aren't enough wolves yet. Once the population gets big enough, younger wolves will get pushed into areas where there are people. Already the rather small population of wolves gets press for killing ranchers' stock. This means wolves are in contact with people. Fortunately (in terms of wolves eating people), this type of contact tends to be fatal for the wolf which means wolves retain their fear of people. The problem comes in when the wolves are protected and loose their fear of humans. Of course a wolf would prefer a nice fat deer, but if deer are in short supply, why not start scavaging people's garbage? And what if deer are in high supply, but in the suburbs where there are lots of people who don't hurt the wolves? Any animal will attack if it feels cornered. All it takes is a wolf stuck in a back yard or some hiker coming too close to some pups, and people will get hurt.

Now, I'm not saying kill all the wolves, but people killed the wolves in history for a reason, mostly that they didn't want to compete with them. Once there gets to be enough wolves, the problems will resurface. Of course, I think the forest service employees might have overreacted. Wolves far from people making a kill are well fed and probably still fearful of people, so not a real danger. But then, I wouldn't have waited around to find out either.

(More wolves might solve the cougar problem. Historical evidence suggests cougars and wolves don't get a long well, so they'd probably keep each other in check.)

FoodThinger is feature complete

I have finished up the last of the obvious code for FoodThinger. Now I have to go inventory my food storage and see how it works. Then I get to write documentation and create an installer. Fun times to be had by all.

note(added 6/2008): FoodThinger is now released. Go to http://www.foodthinger.com

Spinach artichoke dip

I found a great recipe for cheese spinach artichoke dip. It's great, and I didn't have to go to restaurant. My two kids loved it.

Lesson learned: canned artichokes are expensive.