Homegrown Thoughts
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Thursday, January 31, 2008 - How I Am Spending My Sick Days |
| Posted in My Life as a Geek |
Ok, I know, homeschool parents don't exactly get time off for sick days, but I'm trying my best! I have taken up an almost permanent position in the recliner with my laptop. I have my pillows, blankets, pets and assorted cold remedies surrounding me.
What's a girl to do when she's afraid to sleep and leave her children to their own devices, but can't get vertical without her sinus contents sloshing around in her head and making her feel like the Earth is seriously listing to the left...then to the right...then to the left?
Well, if you're me, you do something on the computer, of course! My webpage has been in need of a revamp for some time now so I decided this was a good time to tackle it. My complete lack of good judgment when I'm ill is obvious here. I'm in zombie mode and I decide to take on a project that requires me to think?!?
Fortunately, after much much much trial and error, I did manage to get it done. It probably only took me 8 times as long as it would have if I'd have waited until I was healthy. It's not completely different, but should work better for some future plans I have for the site. I converted it from HTML only to CSS-driven - which was a huge pain since a program I used before added extraneous html tags to EVERYTHING. So I've spent the last 2-3 days trying to clean all of that up and change the design for my needs by hand-coding it.
At least I know my brain is still functioning on some level. I may not be able to remember what I did 5 minutes ago, but I can code webpages. Yay me.
If anybody would like to check out the new look - or maybe see the site for the first time, if you haven't already - it can be found here: Homegrown Hearts.
If anybody has suggestions of what else I can do from the recliner to remain sane, please let me know! It's scary to consider what I might come up with on my own in my present state.
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Wednesday, February 7, 2007 - Cool tool for music lovers |
| Posted in My Life as a Geek |
I've used a couple of Internet music discovery services - Pandora and Last.FM to be specific. I like them both. I just learned about another one called finetune that lets you build your own playlist (rather than the site building it for you as the others do). You can create your own playlist of up to 45 tracks as long as you don't have more than 3 tracks by the same artist and no song more than once. It seems to randomize the songs, also, which is nice since you tend to add 3 of one artist, then move to the next one, etc.
The embedded player is a bit wide for my sidebars, so I'm going to put it in this entry to give you an example (and to see if it will work with the new site security measures). These are all Christian artists and some of my favorite songs are included. I love lyrics, so be sure you listen to the words and not just the 'tune'. Enjoy!
Jodi
P.S. - If it says "Playlist failed to load" in the box below, just reload/refresh the page and it should work. For some reason it sometimes does that. Just click on the arrow to start the stream of 45 songs. :-)
Edit: I decided to go ahead and load this in the sidebar even though it might blow it out in some smaller resolution monitor set-ups. So go play with it over there in the right sidebar. If you don't like a song that's playing (gasp!) you can skip it by going to the next track - just click on the next icon to the right. The more I use this, the more I love it. I may take the other player I have there off completely since this is so much more user friendly and stable.
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Friday, August 19, 2005 - Somebody stop me... |
| Posted in My Life as a Geek |
...I'm in 'fiddle with my blog' mode for
some reason. So now my sidebar is starting to look like my
desk. It started out so neat and tidy and now I've got a jumble
of random information over there for you all to sort through.
I've added "What I'm Reading", "What I'm Listening To", and "What I'm
Watching". I know these are the burning questions of our
time...just what is it that Jodi enjoys? Well, now you have the
answers - or at least some of them. I guess I should add a
curriculum list over there, too, but I had a hard enough time narrowing
things down to fill out on my required homeschooling forms for the
school district - I'm not up to it now. Maybe I'll add that later.
The sad thing is that I have a whole different template just sitting
here waiting for me to load it. It's been sitting here for ages,
but I haven't taken the time to switch it out. I like the current
plaid one because it matches my website design, but I wanted to use
something a little more 'creative' in keeping with my official duties
here at HSB. I can always change it back after awhile - or do
another new one. If I ever get around to it, that is. You
know the old saying about the cobbler's children having no shoes?
Well, I guess it's the same thing with me and templates. If
I'm going to mess with templates, I'd rather be making new ones for the
whole community rather than toying with my own. But I'm sure I'll
get it switched eventually. And why is this sad in relation to my
sidebar additions? Because when I change templates I'm going to
have to copy and move ALL that stuff over to the new one. If I
was smart I'd wait until I'd changed the template and THEN add new
things...but, well...sometimes I'm not in genius mode. And
sometimes *cough*, yeah I said sometimes, I'm just a touch impatient.
So I hope whoever looks at my blog enjoys seeing some of these other
'about me' items. As you can see, I'm kind of eclectic there as
with everything else in my life. I could have listed several
other "What I'm Watching" items, but I didn't want anybody to think I
just sit around all day watching tv and eating bon-bon's. I prefer
Reese's PB Cups, thank you. 
But seriously, I am a visual person and I enjoy watching tv when I have
the chance. Most of what I watch is educational and I learn a lot
of cool things that I probably wouldn't know about otherwise.
(See my comments on Maggie Hogan's blog
for a sampling of my mental inventory of what I claim are educational
gems, but others would probably put in the 'useless trivia'
category.)
Speaking of being visual, I just took this quiz, which confirms it.
You are a Visual Learner. You like to see things
for yourself, read the directions, and study
the diagrams. You learn well through reading,
and seeing pictures, models, and visual
demonstrations. You notice minute details and
are fascinated by the intricacies of the world
around you.
Take this quiz
So there you go. I'm not just making it up.
OK, I'm off to do something AWAY from the computer for awhile. Like read a book and watch tv. Where's my Reese's?
Jodi
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Monday, July 11, 2005 - My love of technology (the saga continues) |
| Posted in My Life as a Geek |
Well, there went 3 days of my life I'll never get back. Hmph!
After spending yet another day fighting this thing, I finally gave in
and called tech support. I'm not sure if I should feel vindicated
or irritated that I heard a lot of, "Hmmm...that's very strange" and,
"Wow, that is weird" on the
other end of the line. Of course after waiting on hold for half
an hour I was happy to hear anything other than the music they'd been
playing in my ear up to then. And of course I knew it was strange
and weird - that's why I called! 
It really wasn't as painful of a call as it could have been because I
could confidently tell him, "I tried that" on several occassions.
He said it was quite different talking to somebody who actually
understood what he was telling me. Ha. Of course I learned
most of it while trying to fix this problem, but I didn't let him in on
that. I learn by necessity...and I've learned a bit more than I
ever wanted to about certain topics, that's for sure - this being one
of them. The call was also made easier by the fact that he was a
native English speaker. (Yes!!!) It was almost worth not
having a toll free number - I guess I'm willing to pay for the
privelage of being able to understand the person on the other end of
the line. I enjoy talking to the folks in India, actually, but
not when I need to perform some operation where it's kind of crucial
that you can understand them. You don't want to mistake "Go buy a
red scooter" for "Reboot your computer". And does anybody really
believe their names are "John" or "Tony"? But I digress...
The state of affairs at this point is that I get to schlep this thing
out to UPS or somewhere and send it in for repair. Finally, my
penchant for holding onto every box that comes into my possession has
paid off! I still have the original box, all the original
packing...down to the black twisty ties for the cords. It's a
sickness, really. But I can ship it back safely and they can't
blame my packaging for anything. And hopefully when I get this
hard drive back (in 5-9 business days, I was assured) it won't do the
same thing all over again. He also gave me some tips (best not to
put a FAT32 partition on a USB drive and best not to have 4 partitions,
just do one), so hopefully my next attempt at this will be more
successful. Now if I can just keep from completely filling up my
remaining hard drive in the meantime. It is dangerously
close. I guess my video transfer goals will be delayed a bit
longer.
I'll be sure and let you know how it all turns
out. I'm sure you're all sitting on pins and needles in
anticipation of the outcome... Will the new hard drive
work? Will she throw her entire computer out the
window? Will she come up with a different topic to write about in
her blog someday? All remains to be seen, so stay tuned... 
Jodi
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Sunday, July 10, 2005 - Somebody remind me that I love technology... |
| Posted in My Life as a Geek |
I've spent my whole weekend wrestling
with my computer. I'm afraid I need to buy a new one and I don't
want to. I haven't been trying to do anything very difficult, but
one problem leads to another - then another - and another...
Yesterday I was almost afraid to even touch my children because it
seemed like everything else I touched either broke or misbehaved in
some fashion. (I am happy to report that no humans were broken,
although misbehaviour remains rampant). I'm pretty computer savvy
and can usually handle any 'issues' that come up, but this thing has me
baffled. I can't stand it when there is no logical reason for
things. And even worse is when I can't fix something that
*should* work!
So...I'm now trying desperately to figure out a
way to avoid buying a new computer. I'm trying some things on my
son's computer to see if it can handle what I need to do. If it
can, I may avoid the large purchase for a bit longer. If
not...can I interest anyone in some fresh raspberries? Only
$100.00 each. If I sell all that I have left, it might cover the
cost of the new computer. 
I love technology...I love technology...I love technology...
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