The Late March Roundup

What you see here is the result of my current "carting" efforts at work. $65.50 in quarters since February 28th, seventeen days of work in total. I'm really wondering what to do with the quarters. I don't think it will take me that long to fill up the jar--at the very most three or so months. However, assuming I say at this job for a while I could fill it up several times--and I don't have any desire to just keep filling up jars and jars without any end. I might wait until the jar is filled once, and then just save quarters for a month. It certainly would be great to go to a bookstore once a month with my quarters and go crazy buying books! :-) Speaking of book buying, I had fun today.

I recieved some money for my birthday, so naturally I decided to spend it on something fun! Tonight I spent several hours in the local Borders bookstore. Yes, I spent several hours trying to pick out three paperbacks to buy! But if you know me very well or have ever visited a bookstore with me you won't be surprised at all. I'm am definately a biblioholic (by the way that is an excellent book--Mark, get it! and I intend to blog about it soon) and quite unrepentant about the whole matter. Well I settled on a sci-fi novel rather quickly actually. It is apparently a debut novel, and from the back description and the prolgue I was intrigued. Over the course of my time I also read a bit more, and it stayed good--so that book was good to stay, Phobos by Ty Drago. (You might like it Mark, 'tis a mystery as well as sci-fi) A bit later I settled on a fantasy novel by Simon R. Green, a British author. I'd purchased the first part of his Deathstalker series years ago and partially finished them. Then during the last year I checked them all out from the library (including the most recently published which finished up the series) and read them all. They are definately an excellent epic series, if somewhat lighthearted (i.e. not hard "good phsics" sci-fi) and bloodthirsty space opera. Anyway, I knew he had written other books and so I decided to get the first of his Hawk and Fisher series, Swords of Haven. (Don't go for it Mark, pure fantasy, ;-)). Now we come to the good part.

I spent a couple more hours pouring over the bookshelves that I'd already spent hours in back on the first of the month (when I first got my Borders Rewards card--more on that later). I went back and forth around the sci-fi/fantasy section. I didn't want to just buy books that I need to complete a collection, or experiment with just the first book of a fantasy trilogy. Then I realized I was near the mystery section and I tried to remember one of Mark's favourite authors. I knew I'd read her Turing Harper novels, and that Mark was always trying to get me interested in her other books. Finally on the back shelf (the first alphabetically) I stumbled upon the Donna Andrews novels. I was quite excited to discover that each of her books had not only a normal mass market paperback edition, but one priced at $3.99 as well! After reading the first two chapters of We'll Always Have Parrots I was definately hooked. (Mark, do I read Amazon right, you haven't reviewed this book?!) So I picked up that (the first) and the second, Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon.

Right now I'm going back to an experiment that I tried last year with Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever and Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I'm reading a chapter of Phobos, and then one of We'll Always Have Parrots. I find it increases the tension, and keeps me in two books at once. The experiment did go well the last time, hopefully it will this time as well.

I was almost ready to close off this posting when I realized that I do have more information to post! It just snowed early this week! I had Tuesday off from bigg's since I was supposed to help conduct training at the museum for some new staff. I haven't yet been so glad not to be out with the carts! We had several inches of snow Tuesday morning before the sun rose, and it kept drifting down (though not much at once) all throughout the day. The roads were somewhat nasty that morning, but thankfully I didn't have to go anywhere all day! :-) Of course, as always seems to happen after a snowfall I was a bit late the next day, so I didn't appreciate the time needed to scrape snow and ice off my windshield. I can only figure that the snow partially melted and then refroze right on the windshield--and hadn't warmed back up at all when I went in to work yesterday morning. But I can't really complain, I wasn't late or anything like that.

Well I'll leave you with a picture of what the front yard looked like earlier today, :(.

~Matt

PS I'm done posting from Picasa. I finally discovered I can add multiple images directly from Blogger with the same options. It is much easier, and I can save drafts in case anything threatens to go wrong.

Long Overdue

But at least there aren't any fines for late blog posts, eh? Not like the library, but I don't get free books for blogging so perhaps the library is better after all :-) When you read the Superheroes and Villians episode LIV you should notice a reference to this period (or unperiod?) of my blogging. ;-)

Well I have several items of note, I'll start with the most recent first. My birthday was this Tuesday. I've now been residing on this terrestrial ball for twenty-four years! *sigh* I feel old (I know I'm not objectively old, I just feel like I am), I'm sure 25 will feel quite strange.

Along with that comes news of a couple birthday presents. The first is pictured to the right and below. When I moved out I left my mom with some of my favourite shirts that I didn't really have any reason to wear any more. After all I've been out of high school for six years this June, why would I want to wear a senior shirt from my high school anymore? Especially when it is on the other side of the country. Well my mom and dad went the extra mile and made me this quilt/bedspread for this birthday. Wow, I was quite surprised when I opened the package. I hadn't expected anything like this! Included are all of my school shirts--from my elementary schools, junior high, high school (including Academic Decathalon, PE, and my senior class shirt!), as well as several of my favourite Habitat animal shirts and a couple others. (I just realized that many not know about Habitat shirts. Their factory used to be located in Colorado--before they moved to Mexico--and we would buy "damaged shirts there." Usually there was little wrong with them, but the prices were great. Their shirts feature all kinds of wild animals and they usually make shirts for companies like Bush Gardens and other similar venues. All of the animals you can see on the quilt/bedspread are from Habitat shirts) You can also notice that she took smaller logos from the shirts and put them between the other squares, 'tis wonderful!

Oh, and the second picture is a bit messy because I just threw it on my bed for a picture, no thoughts being directed towards neatness at that particular moment.

The second "present" also comes from California. Last year my youngest older sister informed the family that she was pregnant. This is Erin, the one I lived near during college. Well her due date was early March, so of course I hoped for her baby to be born on my birthday. One of my nephews here was born on March 10th and I always tease my eldest sister Laurie about "waiting four more days." Well I now share a birthday with my 18th nephew! :-)

Now strawberries. Strawberries are my favourite food. I cannot get enough of them! This was fine growing up in California with stands literally just down the road. We always had plenty during the season and my parents would fix strawberry shortcake and strawberry pie. Mmmmm...delicious! Well moving to Kentucky has made finding decent strawberries difficult. Nowhere grows strawberries like Southern California, nowhere! Working in bigg's as I have I pass by the produce department every day, so I finally had to buy a box of strawberries for myself. These are huge California berries (I didn't take this picture until I had eaten most of them) that while not as good as those purchased from the stand weren't bad at all.

To make sure that my precious berries wouldn't get eaten by the rest of the family I labeled them very plainly: "Touch and Die! ~Matt" Of course then my sister had to leave her own note: "Not only did I touch them--I thoroughly licked and drooled on them : )" She is an evil person isn't she?

Okay, the job. Well they hired me telling me that I would be doing carts mainly and that housekeeping would come eventually--I shouldn't worry about such duties right now. Well of course it was housekeeping duties that I started off doing--then came carts, ;-). Now I do both fairly regularly, but they each have their ups and downs.

Carts is outside which can be good in nice weather, though it is more physical. But on the plus side I get quarters! The carts at bigg's connect to each other via small chains. To unhook a cart to use you need to place a quarter in the device on the handlebar. Once you return your cart and lock it into place your quarter pops out. It is a great way to encourage people to return carts to the cart corrals. Plus it keeps carts together when we cart people have to bring them in. Well sometimes people don't retrieve their quarters--and in that case we cart people get to keep them! My best day so far is $8.00!! My lowest was $.025 because I only retrieved one cart that day--every other day has been at least one dollar. Currently I have $45.25 in quarters in a jar. I'm considering saving until the jar is full and then I'll splurge on something, or many somethings! :-)


The other side of my duties is housekeeping. Once an hour I have to walk to about twenty places around the store and scan barcodes. Basically this ensures that I'm visually inspecting the floors of the stoor at least once an hour. In between the "logs" (as these scans are called) I go out and clean up reported spills, I clean the bathrooms, and I go out and help to bring in carts so as to retain my sanity and not just stand around bored. Sometimes I give myself a mission to find some product so that I can beter familarize myself with the store. The bad part of this job is that the store floors are quite hard (harder than the asphalt and concrete outside) and my feet are always sore after a shift indoors. I need to get new reliably waterproof boots anyway. I might make sure to get some gel insoles at the same time to help me out!



Now for some webcomic news. As you may not know I read an ever increasing number of webcomics. Yes, I definately have taste and there are many that I've tried that I'll never touch again. But I also have a good sized bookmark folder waiting for me to sort through, and if I like the comic, I want to go through and read all of the archives. I recently found three awesome strips by the same author. Nip and Tuck is about a pair of fox brothers. They're rednecks, but wonderfully sensible and conservative! Tales of the Questor is normally only published once a week I belive, but it is a larger full colour spread. It is an epic fantasy tale that often leaves me thinking that the author is a genius because he catches and plugs many potential plot holes before they can begin to leak! I've finished reading all of Nip and Tuck but I'm not quite yet done with Questor. Now another reason I'm enjoying it is because of the spiritual implications. I haven't figured out if it is true fantasy, sci-fi, or allegory--whatever it is it is awesome. Finally you have Under the Lemon Tree/Goblin Hollow (I'm not sure which is the real name). I've only started going through this one--but a while back it crossed over with another strip I read. It features Ben the bear and all the physical manifestations of his subconscious. It looks like great fun.

Please go and check these wonderful webcomics out, and if you can help the artist out by buying something. I'm very definately adding these to my list of comics I want (nay need! ;-)) to buy in book form.

Well thanks everyone for bugging me. I've been somewhat worn out for the past few weeks with many 14:00-22:00 and 15:00-23:00 shifts. Plus once I put something off like the work part of this post that action becomes habit and hard to break. ;-)

~Matt

PS Thanks to Wikipedia for the shopping cart image. The article alco contains a reference to the kind of carts that we use at bigg's:

Sometimes the customer has to pay a small deposit by inserting a coin, which is returned if and when the customer returns the cart to a designated cart parking point. Some retailers sell "trolley tokens" as an alternative to coins, often for charity. The mechanism can often be unlocked by inserting a keyinto the slot to open the lock.

We don't sell tokens, but they give them to the cart control employees so we don't have to use our own quarters to unlock and lock carts.

bigg's

I'm now employed. bigg's is a local grocery chain and I've gained employment there. 'Tis full time, which will be great, and the pay isn't that bad. The only bad part is the department--carts control and housekeeping. I'll treat it like any other job and do my best, but this wasn't what I imagined doing when I set out to find work! ;-) For now I'm going to work and build up my savings. I'll keep my eyes out for an office or other higher paying full time position as well.

Perhaps I should have posted this earlier, but for some reason I didn't. I figured it was time now as I have to be at my orientation/training in an hour. :-)

~Matt

William Henry Harrison

My first grade nephew came home today and as my sister started in on homework with the kids he reminded her that he has a report due tomorrow. Usually she asks me to help the kids with things like this (I helped my niece make her Valentine's day box) because she has already done many projects with the kids and doesn't want to do any more. For me it is the first time so it doesn't bother me as much, ;-). The report had to be on a president, but not Washington, Lincoln, or George W. Bush. Of course we could have gone with a president that was familiar like those three, but where is the fun in that? :-)

We decided on William Henry Harrison. You remember him, right? Grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president--he died after only a month in office. He was also known as Tippecanoe after the battle he wone early in his military career. If I'd thought about it a bit longer I might have gone for someone even more forgetable like Polk or Hayes, but...*shrugs* 'Twas fun anyway!

~Matt

Mañana

Tomorrow I have two appointments with temp agencies, one at 09:30 and the second at 14:00. Hopefully in between the two I'll have time to go by the agencies that I registered with here in Kentucky last January. I'm still hoping that other jobs will pan out--but if not these might get me something at least. And I'm certainly not adverse to a temp-to-hire position if I can land one. :-)

This poem I wrote a week ago yesterday at church. 'Tis an old habit of mine writing poetry during church sermons--I think I started it during chapel when I was in college actually. :-) Yes, I do still pay attention--in fact sometimes writing the poetry helps me to stay focused on the sermon.


Faith's Furnace

Burn away the dross,
- Sear the open wound.
Give to me O Lord,
- Your strength in me.

My flesh does strive,
- Against your Truth
Come to me O Lord,
- Your presence in me

Work through my life,
- Root out treason.
Live in me O Lord,
- Your assurance in me.

My mind will wander,
- Away from worship.
Lead in me O Lord,
- Your purpose in me.

Tear down my lies,
- Strike down the sin.
Grow in me O Lord,
- Your victory in me.

That is all for now, well, except that I haven't been watching as much of the Olympics as I would like. But it seems every time I turn it on I see ice skating or speed skating. Everything else I enjoy, skiing, hockey, heck even curling--but those two aren't my favourites. *shrugs* I still have a few days left to change my bad habits--especially with CBS only airing rereuns.

~Matt

Sorry, no pictures please

This is just a quick post. I just updated my list of blogs (down on the left side of this page). I think I've got all of the blogs I read down there. But if I forgot you somehow drop me a line and I'll go in to change things. I just realized yesterday that my old list had been up for far too long without editing. Enjoy!

~Matt

Snow is Beautiful

Well perhaps not when it is sticking to the roads and making driving insane, but otherwise it is definately a beautiful sight. Right now I'm sitting at the library and watching as snow comes down in the courtyard outside. There is just something beautiful about this white stuff falling.

It isn't anything like hard rain pounding down or an assault of hail. At times the flakes seem to be driven downwards by the wind. Othertimes they drift gently with the breeze, falling gently to their rest amid the ground's white blanket. (Yes, I deliberately deleted the space between other and times, it just seemed to work)

Really it is amazing how much snow can change a landscape, even more than fallen leaves. Snow comes down and blankets everything. It muffles colours and rounds sharp edges. It looks so soft and so wintery. It just seems right to see the snow fall down.

The picture above is from the driver's seat of my van facing the rear before I left for the library today. That is my brother-in-law's truck behind, the one Chris usually drives.

~Matt 

Interviews

Well I know that I just said that I hate job searching--I still so, somewhat. ;-) I've had two promising interviews now, and hopefully they'll both lead a bit further so I can make a decision. Though honestly I'd rather not make a decision, I'd rather pick and choose, take features from one job and combine them with the other, ;-).

The first interview was on Wednesday with a copier company (they don't make copiers, just distribute and service them). The position is data entry in the warehouse behind their offices where they keep many parts on-site so they can conduct repairs as soon as possible. The pay is definately good, nearly what I would need to live on my own--I wish I knew somebody I could room with (somebody in Kentucky that is, ;-)) and it includes benefits. I'm waiting for the warehouse manager to get back to me so I can go in for a real interview--on Wednesday I just spoke to the hiring director briefly. The place is a bit far (about twenty miles north, but that means it is out of downtoan).

The second interview was today--it was for a local financial services firm. The position is in the mail room of one of their subordinate companies. The pay would probably be less than the other job, but I might like it more--and the benefits are great. The core company is an insurance firm, so health insurance and such are in-house and heavily subsidized by the firm. They also have private parking garages with rates better than normal public garages (which you have to use, it being downtown and all parking is paid in structures or metered) as well as an in house cafeteria with breakfast and lunch free for associates. There is also a fitness center free for associates before and after work hours. I'm scheduled to go in and speak with a man from the other company Monday morning, today I spoke with a woman from HR for the main company.

At this point I'm going to go forward with both opportunities if I can--I hope the copier place contacts me soon (or I guess I can call them by Monday). Then hopefully I'll be able to decide between the two, but if one offers to hire me and the other doesn't I'll definately take the job. So I'm just hoping that at least one offers. :-)

~Matt 

Job Searching

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate looking for work? Well on the off chance that I haven't, I'll say it again--I hate the process!! Yes, I know part of it is my fault for not going through with a teaching credential, because I'd not really prepared myself for anything else. But I still wish that the whole process was just a bit easier. Searching through endless lists and applying again and again...all for a very low rate of return. I actually never had any solid leads my last time searching (before I started work at the museum in March) except for the Museum. Well there was one position in Covington with the city that I was going to take a test for--but I dropped that when I was hired at the museum. I've wondered how I would have done--I think it was a typing test with perhaps a bit more. *sigh*

Well I think that I mentioned applying for a position with WesternSouthern. It is full-time with benefits, but doesn't have the greatest pay. However, I'm scheduled to go in for an interview on Thursday. I think at this point that my plans are to land whatever kind of non temporary (even if part-time) job that I can and treat it as temporary. I know that seems like a contradiction, but let me explain. My problem during the last year is that I didn't look beyond the museum (except for my UPS job in December). I just kept going from special exhibit to special exhibit, when none of them paid enough for me to live on my own. This job at WesternSouthern won't pay that much either--but it is full-time. What I need right now is a steady source of income so that I can turn back quite a bit of it into savings while looking continually for a better job.

I would never say that my years at Master's were a waste, but the student loan payments are a bit of a burden now when my degree didn't segue right into a job after all. But again, that was my decision, and now I have to live with it and make things work. But of course that involves job searching...*sigh* I'll just have to keep going. Unless I find something really good I think I'll be searching for the next few months, even if I land something in the meantime. Actually, though I've applied to the History Museum in a way I don't want the job. I guess that I would take it if I had to, but that would involve giving up evening events and it would only be something I'd hold down while looking for something to pay better (unless it pays quite a bit more than the similar position in Natural History, and I doubt that it does). At this point I think I'd rather find a temporary full-time position elsewhere so that I can keep doing Evening Events and be involved at the museum.

~Matt 

Baen

Here is a map of the planet Marduk from the books that I mentioned yesterday, the Empire of Man series by Weber and Ringo. It is one of the reasons that Baen Books is now one of my favourite publishers.

For some time Baen has had its Free Library up on the internet. It is a great site where you can download completely free copies of many of their books. Now what you'll get are generally the first couple books of a series to whet your appetites for either purchasing the books in print, or at least their sequels. I've certainly enjoyed the library and downloaded several books. Oh, one more thing, you get your choice of formats, i.e. Microsoft Reader, html, and others. Personally I find MS Reader the easiest to read. Even if you don't like Microsoft you should check it out, ;-). You can download dictionaries, translation dictionaries, and even many old free books no longer in copywright. But enough of the program, back to Baen.

Baen also has a purchase program on its website, WebScriptions. Via this part of their site you can purchase books individually or as they come out, say by the month. It is part of they way they hope to hook you in with the Free Library. So far I've not yet done anything with it because I don't want to pay for eBooks at this point, but I might in the future since their eBook prices are very reasonable and far below prices for print books. But for the moment I have access to an even greater treasure trove!

In some of their recent books Baen has begun including CD-ROMs with electronic copies of the author's books. I was reading through David Weber's Honor Harrington series (the latter books checked out from the library) when I found my first CD in a book. Excited I looked at it and found that it was completely free to distribute, so long as it wasn't sold. I of course copied the CD after downloading all of the MS Reader files on it. Then I found something even better. Here you can access all of the CDs that Baen has distributed, and you can even download ISO files with which you can create your own copies of the CD if you don't want to download each individual file. The first David Weber CD that I found only had his Honor Harrington novels on it, but the later one from his newest hardcover has all of his novels, including those he co-wrote with other authors! Now I would really recomend a laptop, or a handheld (I've not yet tried a PalmPilot for reading but I think it would be good) over a desktop as you can be much more comfortable--but if you like Sci-Fi and Fantasy here is a way to read some excellent titles. Oh, and another bonus--the David Weber CDs have art galleries that include many cover images and maps and diagrams from the books.

So yeah, for all that they have done to make their books more accessible I'm really starting to like Baen, besides the fact that I like many of the books their authors publish, ;-). As I continue to read books by their authors I'll not only look for paper copies at book sales but I'm sure that I'll start buying books new (at least in paperback) in series that I'm trying to keep up with.

~Matt

47

If you've watched many Star Trek episodes you might have noticed how often the number 47 appears to appear. By this time it definately is deliberate in some aspects, and some people keep track of the appearances. Check out Memory Alpha's article. There is also a link to a list of references. Anyway, I was looking through some old pictures and I found this one.

This picture is from last December when for one of my nephew's birthdays we all went on a Polar Express themed train ride. I enjoyed this picture because it is just a close up of the train without any other distractions, and I don't get as many of these pictures as I'd like--I try, but Chris is much better at it than I.

Well I have at least one more lead lined up. I've applied for a position at a company called Western-Southern--it is an insurance firm. One of the people I work with on evening events at the Museum works there. I'm still looking for other leads, *sigh*... Have I ever mentioned how much I hate looking for work? ;-)

The weekend was a bit sparse on posts, ;-), but I didn't do much, well not much aside from reading. I've been reading through David Weber and John Ringo's Empire of Man series, including a couple in MS Reader eBook form because I don't have hard copies. I only have the hard copies of March Upcountry and March to the Stars because I picked them up at book sales recently. But with a fully functional laptop it isn't really that bad at all to read eBooks--they're very readable and the only inconvience is not being able to take them from the house easily. For that I'll need a PalmPilot or other handheld someday. I've procured many free Baen books and I enjoy their authors that I've read so far (David Weber primarily) so assuming they continue to release CDs with books in electronic format for free I'll keep reading.

~Matt 

Easy Come, Easy Go

Well most of yesterday's snow (well by now I must clarify that as Wednesday's snow) is gone. This was actually a fun snowstorm because the roads weren't ever troubled and it was quite nice to look at a blanket of fluffy white stuff over everything. *shrugs* But it wasn't very durable, and the temperatures were warm today--in the fifities. I didn't even wear a jacket when I went to work.

Yeah, I had an event to work for the third night in a row. Technically only one was mine--I supervised Tuesday night. But due to a shortage of staff available to work we supervisors had to fill in. I'm not going to complain about the extra money of course, but it was ackward the last couple nights as I forgot about the events until my cell phone alarm went off. Last night (Thursday evening) I was much better. Laurie was cooking chicken in some strange tomato sauce in the crock pot--but it was fully cooked. Since everybody wouldn't be eating until I left--and they did sit down and pray just before I left--I had to eat early.

So dinner was a piece of chicken (it was white meat--for some unfathomable reason my sister prefers white meat *shudder*) with three slices of homemade bread. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't terrible either. And honestly I'm trying not to eat as much. If I let myself I'll eat until I'm full, and when I get two or three good homecooked meals a day that isn't a good thing with the amount of exercise I do (or rather don't) get. Therefore since I'm not in the mood to exercise more just right now, or have easy means, I'm trying to make sure I don't eat too much.

Oh, a bit of good news from just a few minutes ago. The nephew that I share a room with woke up and tossed me something. It was a deck of cards that I'd let him borrow nearly a year ago--but he'd taken it to his grandma's house (my brother-in-law's mom) and lost it. Normally that wouldn't be that bad as I'd ask that he buy a new deck or just forget about it--but these were one of my card decks from my last trip to Vegas, from the Sahara. They're not exactly easy to replace from Kentucky! I'd given up on them as lost and was periodically bugging my nephew to remind him taht he owed me a deck of casino cards--I really never thought that I'd actually see my cards again. I'm definately glad that I was wrong! He told me that his grandma found them in a drawer.

Well I'm off to sleep now, better late than never, eh? And tomorrow I'm off to a library sale in Cincinnati--and job hunting. I need to e-mail the library about another position and e-mail a resume to a co-worker at the museum who will turn it in at her other job.

~Matt 

Blogging via Picasa

Okay, well I'm actually starting over with this post since I had the last version partially typed up when I navigated away to check a setting, not realizing that the text wouldn't be saved. *sigh* I won't make that mistake again.

I decided to make this post not only because I wanted to describe the new blogging features of Picasa that I'm using, but because I thought that my comments in my last post might have been confusing.

Right now I'm typing this blog post up from within Google's Picasa photo program. I've been using the program for quite a while now and I really enjoy it. It has some basic photo editing capabilities and if what I read is correct when you make changes it doesn't change the original file, only the display within Picasa! If you do any work with digital photos you'll know this is important--you don't want to change your original picture files because once you make a change you can't undo it--so you save corrected (i.e. for red eye) or edited pictures as new files--but with Picasa that shouldn't be a problem. But that isn't what I wanted to type about, ;-). I'm more interested with the e-mail and blogging features.

I've used the e-mail features frequently as Picasa will not only seamlessly mesh with Gmail but it will resize files so that I'm not attaching massive pictures to my e-mails. The blogging feature was nice, but I didn't ever use it much because I could only upload one picture at a time and I had to go to my blog and edit the post to put in a title and more than one paragraph of text--plus I could only upload one picture at a time. Well I can still only upload one picture at a time, I'm not sure if that is just because I'm not doing something right or if that is all the program can do--but several new features are making blogging much easier!

First of all the program formerly used in conjuction (Hello--responsible for several of the faults) with Picasa is no longer required. Now when I want to blog with a picture I simply select it in Picasa, click the "BlogThis" button and a window identical to the new blog post window on Blogger opens--the only difference being that it already has the picture uploaded. Furthermore you can determine if you want the picture within the text to the right (as above) or left, or you can center it above the text--much like normal placing of a picture tag does. I'm sure I could have messed with the blog's HTML and perhaps achieved this same picture-in-text result before, but I don't quite have the knowledge at this point, so Picasa is much easier. Anyway, I'm very happy with the results and I even took one older post and converted it (the one entitled Cheysuli), but that wasn't quite enough of a test so I had to type up this post! :-) If I keep up this momentum I might be picture blogging quite a bit, but I'm not sure--right now this is new and easy, we'll see what happens. I'm not yet as reliable as Mark.

~Matt

PS There is only one flaw to this interface that I can see, no save as draft setting--and if you change the settings to determine where the picture is located your text won't be saved.

Not Quite Snow Day

Well it wasn't quite a snow day today, but then it rarely is at the school my nerfs attend (the school is K-12 and everybody lives locally so it takes quite a bit of snow for them to cancel). When I left the museum last night around 23:00 the security guard told me to be careful because of the snow when I turned in my keys. I thanked him but figured that it was just a few flurries. Instead when I got out to my car I discovered that the winshield was covered with snow (not as bad as this picture here though). I was surprised because it had been raining all day and I didn't figure that snow would stick.

I planned to wake up early today as my sister made donughts yesterday and they were to be for breakfast today--but I was up a bit late and so I turned off my alarm when it woke me up at seven. It was later (I don't remember exactly when) and I was deeply sleeping, and dreaming when the phone woke me up--I'm not sure where my sister was, but she wasn't around. It was a rather rude awakening, but I was definately awake after I ran down the stairs to answer the phone! ;-)

Today I looked at the Cincinnati Library's website and found another opening at another branch within fiften miles. :-) I have a few days so I'll print out another application and turn it in.

Well that is all for now, but I still need to figure out how to post multiple pictures with Picasa--if it can be done. I'm definately happy with the new interface that allows me to type up text with the picture and type in the title--it is quite a nice mesh, easy to post. Oh yeah, and another plus is that now I can put the pictures in with the text--I wasn't able to do that just linking them in. :-)

~Matt