Blooms, Birds and More!

I've been meaning to post these since the end of April. So, without further delay, here we go!

Can anyone help ID this flower?

I think this is a Cosmos.

Walking trail at Bluebonnet Swamp.

Indigo Bunting

Juvenile or female Indigo Bunting.
Spring is such a confusing time for identification.

Leucy the leucistic Cardinal.

On a completely different note, do any of you like jigsaw puzzles? If so, there's an app for that! It's called...can you guess? Jigsaw Puzzle! They offer a free puzzle of the day and several other free ones to choose from. You can select the number of pieces from 4 to 400, background color, the ability to scatter pieces, show only the edges, etc. Oh, you can even choose one of your own photos. I have lost countless hours and a few bucks buying new collections. It's totally addictive! Don't hate me. You have been warned. :)

IOS Version

Android Version

Enjoy your weekend!! See y'all on Monday.

Sharing with

Saturday's Critters

Thanks, Eileen!

Thanks for the eviction notice, Google

I know there are many more important things to fret about, but Google's decision to retire iGoogle has me pretty miffed. iGoogle has been my start page for YEARS--at least 5. At a glance I can see up to ten emails, both read and unread, the weather, news headlines, and most importantly, all the latest posts from the blogs I follow. I do not care for Google Reader's layout and there is not a comparable start page with the same type of gadgets/widgets offered by iGoogle.

They've given us 16 months to find another place, but I'm not one to wait until the last minute. I've got to find something that I can live with. Dadgummit, this is like being evicted! Thanks, Google. Not.

I've tried Netvibes, Protopage and myfaves.es. So far, Protopage has more of the elements of iGoogle, but there are not as many widgets to choose from, and several I tried were no longer offered by the developer. Adding insult to injury, the gmail widget doesn't show your read emails and doesn't deliver new mail as quickly as the iGoogle gmail gadget--kind of like the post office.

Sigh.

If Google wants to put ads on my iGoogle page, I'm cool with that. Just don't yank the service away from me! PLEEEEASE!

I can live without the weather and news headlines, but I'm most worried about Google Reader. Tell me, how do you keep up with your favorite blogs? Do you subscribe and have them delivered to your email? Do you use Google Reader? Fretting minds need to know! :)

Sincerely,

Annoyed former-Google-fan in Baton Rouge, LA

Memory Lane

When Steve Jobs passed away last week I began thinking about my introduction to computers Way Back When. My first office job was in 1979 working for a small, family-owned plastics plant. My aunt worked in the Accounts Payable department and recommended me for a data entry position. 

The behemoth below is similar to what I entered data into. Back in those days computers had to be housed in a cold room; so cold that I needed a sweater in the middle of summer. I loved that! And instead of an ENTER key there was an OCK key. To this very day whenever I press ENTER on a keyboard, I oftentimes think OCK instead.

If I ever develop Alzheimer's and ask where the OCK key is, you'll know why.

I was fresh out of high school and still very immature. Several times my aunt was forced to leave her work space to come lecture me on office etiquette and using a quiet "office" voice. In those days I was a free spirit with my whole life ahead of me and not a care in the world. My objectives back then were having a good time and resist conforming to "the establishment". In my defense, this inappropriate eye chart which hung on the main wall of my department doesn't exactly scream puritan values. Actually, it encouraged a pro-sexual harassment environment which is a big no-no today.

I can't believe I was able to find the same exact chart on Google images!

So dedicated was I to this job, that I worked a few hours the day I got married.Not really. My boss offered to take photos of me in my wedding dress (actually my aunt's dress) for the local paper one Saturday afternoon. Afterwards, we decided to take some photos of me "working". He wanted to trick everyone into thinking that he was such a slave-driver that I was forced to work on my wedding day. No one, except a couple of clueless souls, believed him. Two years later he was fired. His replacement kept me late one evening, and as he helped me into my car, bent down to kiss me through the driver's window. Terrified, I fled as fast as I could in my pea green Pinto. Soon thereafter, he was fired for something else, and I was relieved.

My next job was working for a credit card processing firm. In 1987 I was promoted to Purchasing Clerk. My job was to come up with the artwork that banks embossed on their credit cards. It was mostly straight line type, but sometimes a logo was involved. For this I used a Macintosh like this one:

In 1988 I went to work for a promotional products company and I am still here. My boss sat me in front of this Radio Shack contraption where I tallied up Texas Sales Tax totals each month. All other paperwork was typed in triplicate form. Mistakes were corrected with colored white-out that matched the form color. Most times I was too impatient for the white-out to dry properly so I'd end up with gooey typewriter keys. For this reason and for my perfectionist tendencies, I tried my best to minimize mistakes.  

These 7-1/2" floppy disks only had 256kb of memory.
Disk 1 had Texas cities A-G; disk 2 had cities H-M; disk 3 had cities N-Z.

Well, that's a brief history of how my love of technology began. The only thing I miss are the frigid rooms. Currently, my eye is on the Kindle Fire, but my logical side knows it would be best to wait for the 2nd generation. Oh, it's so exciting to think of all the cool gadgets down the pike that have yet to be born! Riding the technology train is thrilling, isn't it? So much for my anti-establishment views, huh? Ha!

(images from Wikipedia or Google Images)

My Mom and the Wii

This was my mother around 1959 - the same year she married my father. Isn't she a beauty? When she married she had a 19" waist. There was no way I was wearing that dress for my wedding in 1980. Even if I wasn't 4 months "along", it wouldn't have happened. I was small-boned and petite, but not that petite.

Fast forward to 2010. After 20+ years of living with Parkinson's Disease (PD), my mother had pretty much given up hope on any kind of medication helping her. The first prescription they gave her, called Requip, made her hallucinate terribly and do some crazy things. Each day she imagined certain relatives and friends sitting in her living room. She'd ask them questions, but they wouldn't respond — just sit there like zombies. She'd call and ask me why my cousin was in her living room refusing to speak to her. The answer was, my cousin wasn't there. Although she was aware of the possible side effects, it was still unnerving.

Requip also caused her to microwave a couple of TV remote controls. Another day she spread peanut butter on all the burners of her stove and turned on the heat. The burning smell of peanut butter snapped her back to reality. Then late one night she found herself wandering outside her apartment complex. She realized something had to be done. All these scary scenarios were worse than the PD.

Her doctor then prescribed Stalevo. It doesn't cause hallucinations, but it does make her nauseous. Not every day, but most days.

A couple of years ago we were hopeful when her neurology specialist convinced her to try a patch which would deliver the medication slowly, over the course of the day. She tolerated the patches very well, but after several months they were recalled by the manufacturer and she was forced to go back to Stalevo. Since she can't take a strong dosage, her mobility wasn't that great. She still stumbled and had trouble performing the simplest of tasks, like bathing and brushing her teeth. And then there were the bouts of nausea that would set her back for days at a time.

So when my mother saw a news piece on CNN about Parkinson's patients having more mobility after using the Wii, she told me about it. She sounded excited and hopeful. I hadn't heard that kind of excitement in her voice in a long time. It was right before Christmas and I had been agonizing over what to get her. I researched it online and found that studies did indeed suggest that the Wii could be extremely helpful for these patients. I was on board immediately. The Wii came just in time for Christmas, but there wasn't anyone available to help her set it up.

Finally, her sister, J, came over to set up her "Mii" last Sunday and show her how to use it. J called me that night and said how quickly my mom caught on to the game. She said my mom's face lit up and she looked like an 18 year old swinging the remote. Her favorite is the bowling game, and after only 6 days she is playing up to an hour at a time. She's been getting strikes and spares! She is moving around much better, getting compliments from people who haven't seen her in a while. They are astounded at the improvement in her gait and the lack of shaking in her hands.

I must give thanks to God for answered prayer. Many prayers have been lifted on her behalf and I'm convinced that His answer is the Wii. I would never have dreamed that my mother, at 71 years old, with PD, would be into video games. And that the games could help her. That is a true miracle.

Phone from Hell

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you all know that I love technology. I embrace it even. I think my gadget-buying spree back in the spring proves that. The Polycom SoundPoint IP 650, however, is my first technological nemesis. From what I can gather online, this is supposed to be the latest, greatest thing to hit small businesses since computers, probably. After giving it my all the last 2 weeks, I've come to the conclusion that it's a complicated piece of crap. Either that, or Apple's intuitive interface for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iMac has spoiled me rotten.

When a call came in on the old phone for my boss, all I had to do was press the HOLD button, intercom him and say something like, "It's Bob Vance from Vance Refrigeration on line 1." If he wanted to take the call, he'd thank me and press the blinking button. If he didn't want it, I would take a message. Yeah, the message taking part was a pain, so I was really looking forward to the promise of the PSPIP 650 because it was sold as the ability of transferring those pesky calls straight to voice mail.

Sounds simple enough, right? So NOT simple. When a call comes in and I hit the TRANSFER key a recording comes on and tells me I am unauthorized to do so. If I put the caller on hold, it will not show as a blinking line on my boss' phone. Some of the phones in our office can intercom hands-free, others cannot. Mine is in the no intercom category, naturally. There is also no way to tell if my boss is busy on another line. Just basic stuff you need to know or be able to do for simple phone routing. This system is anything but simple.

Today I had the solicitor from Let Me Pester the Hell Out of You Corp. who would not give up trying to get through to my boss. Because I couldn't transfer her, I had to physically walk into his office and tell him who was on the phone. His response? "Not interested." So I told her he was busy. She asked for voice mail. I gave the TRANSFER key a try. It didn't work so I decided to just hang up on her. With most solicitors this is a very effective tactic. She called back.

The phone does have one awesome thing that our other phone didn't have: caller ID. So when she called back the screen gave me the following options: ANSWER • REJECT • IGNORE. I chose REJECT. In theory, a rejected call is supposed to go straight to voice mail. Not my phone, oh no. It rang to another phone outside my office. I ran to that phone and hit IGNORE. I returned to my desk and she rang again. This went on two more times. I thought, 'well, at least I'm getting a little aerobics in'. There was quiet for about 5 minutes and I thought I had finally gotten the best of her.

Well, Bertha from Let Me Pester the Hell Out of You Corp. was having none of this runaround, so she called back, only my screen displayed "Anonymous". I answered the phone all cheerful, suspecting it might be her, and Bertha informs me, rather nicely, that she has been hung up on three times and she needs to talk to Mr. W. I explained that we had a new phone system and I'm very sorry but it appears our voice mail transfer is not working so I will have to take a message. This woman wasted all my time (and hers) to let my boss know about an upcoming Builders and Contractors Expo going on in our area. I felt like shoving my handset down her throat. And I am not a violent person.

Google Garble

Last week I received my Google Voice invite. It's a really cool service that basically allows me to choose a personal phone number from a list of available numbers. With this new number, I can control where I receive calls, whether land line, work and/or cell. Simply tie your numbers to it, set up a contact list, and personalize where you want the calls to go.

There is a "send to voice mail" option for those annoying souls that always seem to call at the wrong time. Beautiful, right? For close family and friends, you can instruct calls to go to your work and cell. If someone leaves a message, you can listen in on the message while the person is leaving it and decide if you want to accept the call at any time during the message. Read more here.

But the COOLEST thing about Google Voice is the voice mail transcription. This cutting edge technology will send a text to your phone with a brief snippet of the voice mail, an email to your gmail account along with transcription, and also to the Google Voice account with the transcribed text and the actual recording.

I've had the number about a week only giving it to Jay, and that was simply because it came up in an email conversation. As much as I think this is the coolest thing I've seen in a while, I wasn't quite ready to send out the mass email to have everyone change my number. I was just getting my toes wet - you know - testing the water. Well, my daughter found out that Jay had my new number, so she called it tonight and left a voice mail asking me to explain why Jay had the number and she didn't. When I got the alert, this is what the transcription said:

hello apparently danny hi it's your new google order number but you're all in order to not you know i thought that was a bit of a travis he and if you gimme a call back and hopefully we can rectify that situation alright bye

When I read that I thought, 'now what kind of yay-hoo is leaving me cryptic messages on an otherwise boring Thursday evening?' When I clicked play and heard my daughter's playful voice, I fell out of my chair laughing. I laughed so hard, the dogs almost went into orbit, having never seen me laugh so hard. Here is what she really said:

SO, apparently, JAY has your new Google Voice number, but your OWN DAUGHTER does not (laughter). So, I thought that was a bit of a travesty. Give me a call back and hopefully we can rectify this situation (more laughter).

In conclusion, I highly recommend signing up for this service purely for entertainment value if nothing else. I told my daughter that whenever I'm feeling blue, I'm going to ask her to leave me a voice mail on Google Voice. Seriously, GO GET your Google Voice number!

Slacking and Blipping

Wow, it's been a month to the day since I last updated this blog. What a complete and utter slacker I've been.

Do I have a good excuse for being so neglectful? Is there some physical affliction keeping me from writing? Are cosmic forces at work stifling what little writing abilities I possess? No. No. And 'maybe'.

Between Twitter, Facebook, photography excursions, and all the new gadgets, my time seems like a fart in a hurricane. I wonder: Can A.D.D. be acquired at 48 years old? I might be a new case study. :)

Another pretty major player has entered the scene: DJ-ing online. That's right--thanks to Jay, I am now addicted to blip.fm. It's like Twitter for music, but instead of tweets, you blip songs. Create a profile, search for any song online, and click blip, which automatically adds it to your blip list. Stream the public timeline or play your Favorite DJs. Personally, I like the public timeline best because you get a wider variety of music. If you see a song you like, you can give that DJ props and/or reblip their blip. If you really like their blips, you can add them as a favorite DJ. I've found some great music and rediscovered songs that I had forgotten all about. It'll also update Twitter automatically unless you choose not to.

Check me out at blip.fm.lousianabelle!

My Head is Spinning

Help! I've fallen on Gadget Avenue and I can't get up!

A persistent, nagging headache has been with me for well over a week. My blood pressure monitor is giving normal readouts, so the only thing I can attribute it to is T.O. (Technology Overload).

I come home from work and can't concentrate on my favorite TV show because I'm thinking of all the amazing things I'm going to do on the new iMac, or all the great shots I'm going to get with my new Prime lens, or the walk I need to go on so that I can use the new Shuffle (which after one week, I still have not even used), or obsessively checking my email on the Touch. I'm like a kid that got way too many toys for Christmas. If I start throwing tantrums or acting like a brat, just slap me.

Facebook, Twitter, and all the blogs I read add to the chaos. My brain hurts. Really. Not only is my addiction causing brain pain, I now have the attention span of a gnat. If an article or blog post is too long, I will skim until I find at least one interesting word or sentence, and if I don't find it quickly: buh-bye!

Sudden realization: my life is becoming defined by a series of clicks. No wonder dog clicker training is so effective. Yes, I am simple like the dog. And that's okay.

I've never had an addictive personality. I used to smoke like a train, but quit pretty easily. If I see something starting to overtake my life, I am fairly adept at stopping it - from toxic relationships to cigarettes. I'll end whatever it is without any qualms. This love of photography and computers, though, has me a little concerned.

Gadget Overload

Yes, I finally did it. I caved and purchased the 24" iMac yesterday -- all because we were a little early in meeting my daughter and her friend for dinner.

Since we had about 30 minutes to kill, I asked Double D to stop at Best Buy so that I could purchase a pair of Skullcandy headphones for my new Shuffle. Like a magnet I flew straight over to the computer section first just to drool over the Macs.

Mind you, I had only planned on drooling, not forking over moulah.

Best Buy's marketing strategy of putting the prices in black on a bright yellow field worked. When I saw $1499 for the 24" with 4GB memory and 640GB hard drive, I went "Whoa!" I thought I remembered seeing it a few months before for $1799. I called my daughter immediately and said I might be late for dinner because I had just been drawn into the iMac vortex. She, being the ever diligent daughter, looked up the price on Apple's web site, and sure enough, the price was $1499 there also. Jay got on the phone and said it was a really good price and he also thought it had been more expensive a few months prior. My mind became trapped in buy mode and I was powerless to stop it. Double D looked at my pleading eyes and said to go for it. I figured 'ya know, I don't have a car note anymore, so why shouldn't I'?

I titled this post "Gadget Overload" because in the same week I ordered a 50 mm Prime lens for Mabel and the day after that, I purchased the iPod Shuffle for when I take my walks. The week prior, I purchased the iPod Touch. I have never made so many gadget-y purchases in such a short period of time. I'm hoping nothing new comes out to tempt me.

Jay and Autumn came over today to help me get my new baby all set up. Jay was absolutely wonderful, patient, and full of information to help me navigate this thing. Thank you!!!!!!!

Oh, I never did get the Skullcandy headphones. I think that can wait.

iTouch, iLove

Is it normal to be infatuated with an electronic gadget? To love it so much that you want to marry it?

Purchased just last Friday, a gush of love quickly developed as I stroked the face of the Touch, taking me completely by surprise. It reminded me of the early stages in a relationship. I don't want to go anywhere without it, and I think about it night and day. I need to touch it all the time. I wake up excited because I get to be with it. What beautiful music will you tickle my ears with, and what amazing videos will you play to dazzle my eyes? This thing gives, gives, gives, and I just take, take, take -- without any of the guilt.

My friend, Mickey, has the iPhone, and has always spoken very highly of it. Both of my bosses have an iPhone. I didn't really understand the draw until now. I concede: You are all right, and if I wasn't under contract with Verizon, I would buy the iPhone in a heartbeat. My patience will have to be tested a little longer. Until then, the iTouch is a more than adequate substitute. I'm pretty sure it does everything the iPhone does except make phone calls.

Did y'all know this thing plays music? I jest. Playing music is just one thing among many that the iTouch does and does well. It can act as a PDA which speaks sweet nothings to the anal organizer living inside me. I can download music and games directly to the unit, then later when I sync it to iTunes, it will download my purchases automatically. It has wifi, a Sarari web browser, clock, calendar, notepad, and calculator. The home page has shortcuts for Youtube, iTunes, Google Maps, Music, Videos, Photos, and Stocks. I try to stay away from the Stocks shortcut because it's always red and angry looking, but I digress...

There are over 1000 games -- many of them free. I've downloaded seven free different apps so far. The race car game was frustrating because I kept slamming into concrete walls. Besides, the dogs were a little frightened as I sat on the edge of the couch making circles in the air and shouting. I'm sure a more experienced gamer would have no trouble. Flixster is a cool app that plays movie clips, and will look up theaters near your current location. I can send and receive email. I can check Facebook and Twitter.

I could go on and on, but I'm missing my gadget with all this babbling, so I will go reunite with my new love and check in another time.

The Times They Are a Changin'

Below is a conversation I had with my mom yesterday. She's so cute with her cajun accent and sing-song voice:

Mama: Why was my newspaper so thin today? There was hardly anything to it.

Me: I'm afraid you're hanging onto a dinosaur. People are getting their news from the internet now. Don't be surprised if your paper bites the dust soon.

Mama: Well, how am I going to know who died? I read the obituaries every day.

Me: It may be time for us to revisit the idea of getting you a computer. The news is much more timely on the internet, anyway. By the time they print the paper and get it to your door, it's out of date.

Mama: I wouldn't even know how to work the computer anymore.

Me: Oh, yes you would. You'd do fine.

Mama: Well, we'll see. I really just want to know who died.

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Speaking of internet news, I feel as though I am overloaded with it most days, so maybe it would be a bad idea to introduce this 24/7 access to my mother. She already watches too much Fox News. It's not as easy as you might think to break an addiction to the news - at least for me. Once my blood pressure starts to go up, that's my cue that I need to step away. That's why I love Neatorama. When I become over saturated, I go to their site and find beautiful gems like this:

Poor cat. While not exactly possessing standard beauty, it still is very interesting!

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Found this youtube on Neatorama as well: Everything is Amazing Yet Nobody is Happy

The comedian, Louis CK, basically pokes fun at what a spoiled society we are. It was funny, but it also served to put things into perspective for me. We seriously need to stop and appreciate all the amazing technological advances we take for granted. It reminds me of times past when I would complain to my boss about the computer and he would say, "Well, we can always go back to the typewriter and triplicate forms." This would always make me appreciate my malfunctioning computer.

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My daughter wrote a wonderful post to specifically highlight the things during the week that brought her joy. This is a noble idea from a truly perfect daughter! I think I may have to copy her idea at some point. I just need to turn off Rush and O'Reilly first.