I love my Mac

And I love the Mac community. Mac users are just cooler people.

I just got a newsletter via email from a Mac vendor in Oregon called MacForce. I don't live anywhere near Oregon, but I love these people. They seem nice. (I am into nice these days) And they offer a lot of great tips that are just at my level. I am completely not computer smart, I just love to learn about computers and to play with new ideas. This issue of The Rocket Report (cool name. everything mac is cool. you are getting very sleepy. mac=cool.) had a nice section on Mac's new software Pages. It appears to be a part of iWork which iDontLike. I don't like work as a concept, I much preferred thinking about my Mac as an extension of myLife. But I will learn to love it as this Pages thing is cool cool cool. The Rocket Report has some tutorials on Pages and project ideas.

The other Mac vendor that I love love love is Small Dog Electronics in VT. I do buy from them quite a bit. They are a socially responsible business and take that part of their jobs very seriously. They donate all kinds of money and time to great organizations, they treat their employees like rock stars, they also send fantabuloso newsletters (I get Kibbles & Bytes and Tech Tails ) The dog thing is big. You get little plastic dogs when you place an order, and a business card of one of the employees dogs. (I am collecting Imelda cards) They have a ton of space on their site dedicated to dogs and pictures of customers dogs etc. They dress oup their dogs at Halloween. THEY even dress up at halloween and post their photos for voting. They have a bocce team. In short, they are Cool. I feel like they are my frineds. How dorky is that? But these days, I would way rather spend my money chez friends than chez businesses like, say, Halliburton?

If you are a cool business, and you are nice, and you want me to shop chez toi, tell me why and I will give you a look-see.

It pays to be nice.

Alice and Dale

I went to the library yesterday to read some comics. I had been there for about 10 minutes (half way through an old Fantastic Four) when suddenly, one shelf over, I heard a crash. I ran over to help, and that's how I ended up meeting Alice and Dale: My new best friends. They were at least 70 years old, and had managed to topple two whole shelves of heavy computer books. They explained that they had a new Dell and wnated to learn how to use it. I helped clean up and then looked at the stack they had selected to take home and read. One was about Visual Basic, and Alice thought she needed something basic. I explained that Visual Basic was a programming language with a mean name. She wanted me to explain what programming was.

An hour and a half later, here is what we covered: How to use the online catalog to search for books. How to request that books from another library be delivered to your home library. What a PIN number is. Dale was in Korea and was shot down twice. (He said I could call him Uncle Limpy)They tried to court-martial him for not doing his duties, but he was busy being held in a POW camp and couldn't quite make his next drop. Their nephew is buying a new home and wants to send pics through email. They used to live in West Virginia (no kidding, Alice said Dale and Dell the same way- with three syllables) but moved here because the VA hospital is so good. (They actually treat you like a person.) They live over in the senior apartments down the street and they would like for me to come and have lunch with them.

We had such a great time! They were hilarious, and so grateful that I helped them out. It was literally 90 minutes of my life, and it completely changed the world for them. Sure, a reference librarian might have come by to help, but old people require lots of time, and since I had plenty of it yeterday, I was happy to share. All I could think of was that if my grandparents were stuck somewhere, I sure hope someone would help them out. They were so funny and happy and upbeat, and inspirational, really. I can't imagine what the next new thing will be when I am in my 70's but I sure hope I am clamoring to learn how to use it. We exchanged phone numbers and I really hope they do call.

Hunzer's House of Hallucinations

Hunzer's House of Hallucinations Check it out! My cyberfriend Hunzer!

Young Adult ARC's

Young Adult ARC's: Now here is another GREAT use of blogging. This is the first time I have come across a blog I wanted to link up to and write about, so I just clicked on "blog me" and BOOM, a screen came up all ready to go, all coded and everything. Easier than bookmarking, and now available from any machine.

Valentine's Day and Heartbreak

Last night was about the most perfect Valentine's day ever. It was mellow and normal and peaceful and K and I did just what we always do... She came home a bit early and we went to Barrique's for our fave meal (The Wisconsin Dip: Melted Hook's Cheddar on Sourdough, mesclun greens with vinaigrette, and a cup of the soup of the day which was Vegan Broccoli) and a nice glass of wine. We went home and watched three episodes of our new obsession, the anime Initial D. And went to bed with our pooches. Perfect. This morning, I was still feeling peaceful and giddy and so I played KD Lang's Hymns album, and I was feeling so blessed and in love and happy... Switching from NPR to music on my commute has been very good for me. But then I went into the coffee shop and heard a snippet of NPR. Wisconsin is apparently 9th on the list. The list of states with military casualities from the Iraq Debaucle. The fact that there is such a list is sad enough, but that idea that MY state, this place that I have come to love and know, has lost so many people, made me physically ill. I walked right out without my coffee (yes, it was THAT bad a feeling in my gut) We have lost the ninth highest number of soldiers. And that means there are 8 states who have lost more. I have no right to feel joy.

Day 2

I am so overwhelmed with allof my responsibilities at work in the next 8 weeks, rather than attack the piles of work, I'd play here. Uh, NOT the point, but here I am anyway. I found a nice "Introduction to Weblogs It was really helpful. In fact, the whole blog was great. Off to add it to my Cool Blogs section. I am on a roll.

How to RSS?

RSS-ify

OK, I have to go back and read this and try to figure it out tomorrow- What does RSS do for me that making links (Or going through a list of Safari bookmarks does not? Why can't I just keep adding links to the sidebar and then go through and click on them? I think RSS is supposed to mean that I will see the headlines directly and that will save me from having to go to the site and surf around...

Other things I've come across that I need to learn more about:

Flickr
del.icio.us
blogrolling
furl
podcasting

And why won't the little add web link icon above add a url?

Why?

I always thought blogs were for egomaniacs, for attention whores and exhibitionists... And here I go...

But lately I've been more and more overwhelmed with the Web; the twenty minutes it took me to surf and read through my favorite sites became an hour and then suddenly all day - The list of things I wanted to keep track of and learn more about became longer and longer. I am not a natural techie, and for awhile I was intrigued by the idea of RSS, but I didn't get it beyond the fact that it meant my news would come to me. I still don't get it, but I am more convinced that I have to do something drastic to start organizing myself better. I get from the blogger help how to send mine OUT, but how do I get stuff to come home? (I am not a natural organizer either, in spite of my chosen career...) So I am hoping that this will be more of an organizer for me than the quasi-journalism and brag books that many blogs seem to be. This will be my kinda homebase.

"Two Straight Lines" means a lot of things to me. Mostly it is from one of my earliest reading (learning) memories: My dad used to read to me and I memorized (read?) this part: "In a small house in Paris, all covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they...." (and they did a whole lot of stuff, brushing their teeth, washing their faces, etc. They were ORGANIZED!) And reading and learning are why I get up every day. Oh, and to let the dogs out and to make Kathryn's lunch, that's another good reason or two to get up.