Happy New Year!

Happy New Year one and all. Have you made your New Year's Resolutions yet? Here's mine:

• Live, laugh and love with wild abandon
• Plant more flowers
• Grow vegetables
• Read more books
• Learn something new
• Play with everything

I hope your 2010 is your best year. I for one am happy to see this year go. It's been the hardest one yet in a string of hard ones. Looking forward gives me hope for my own future and I wish the same for you. To my unemployed and underemployed cohorts, I especially wish a better year for you. Keep your chin up!

Worldwide Moment

Worldwide Moment is a simultanious photography project for peace. On September 9th, at 9pm, people all over the world will take a picture of what they are doing at that moment and sending it to the website. You don't have to be a professional photographer in order to participate. You can use your cell phone if you wish. Just snap a picture of what you are doing. Please consider being a part of this amazing project! Follow them on Twitter.

You can also become a fan of Worldwide Moment on Facebook too!

A Pictures From The Yard

Just a few flower Pics from the yard:

I don't know what kind of rose this is. It's one of the better rose bushes in my yard. If you know  the name, feel free to drop me a line and let me know.





A recent visitor to the yard:



I love my new camera. It's a Kodak Zi6 that was given to me as a thank you for my work on PodCamp Ohio. I think it takes some really great pictures.

Updates

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. We are having technical difficulties on thei side of the reflecting pond. More like, this side of Firefox. For some reason, I can't upload pictures to blogspot using Firefox right now. I think it has some thing to do with one of my plug ins. *Sigh* That means I will have to uninstall a few of them to find out which one is the culprit.  I am posting these pics from my Opera Browser. 

Any way, I went to the Dublin Irish Festival with my sons and daughters in law. We had a good time, got tattooed, listened to some music, ate some food, you know the drill.

Hand Stamps:

Vince on the Left, Jay on the right:

Vincent tried on a utilikilt. He likes it but they didn't have on in his size in black. We tried to get Jay to try one but he wasn't game. Laura, Theresa and I tried really hard to pressure him into it. So hard that one of the guys working the both remarked to Jay that he had the best support group ever! 

Laura (far left) Theresa (middle) and me:

My mother bought the dress I am wearing and it has become my favorite. Very nice and cool in hot weather. Sorry there is no picture of the front. It has beautiful embroidery on it. The necklace I am wearing onced belonged to my friend Jean Dhayer. She passed away on July 25th of this year and I went to her memorial service the night before the festival. At the service, the family placed some of Jean's belongings on a table so any one who wanted a memento could have one. I chose the necklace and wore it to the festival. I thought she would like that. 

I have other pics and videos I need to work on getting posted. I went to the Dayton Air Show and have pics from there as well as the Arthritis Foundation's Car show which I will post on my Z blog some time soon. 

I also have pictures of some of the flowers in my yard and have been experimenting with rooting some cuttings of my roses, wisteria, lavender and passion flowers. This is my first attempt at it so we will see what kind of success I have. 

Vincent graduates this month from OSU with a degree in english and there will be a party a few days later. So look for pictures of that to come. 

I guess that's it for now. What's new with you?

The Day-Glo Brothers

One of the bloggers I follow is Redneck Mother. Recently she announced on her blog that her husband, Chris Barton, wrote a children's book titled The Day-Glo Brothers. I wish my kids were still young enough to want one of these books because I think they would truly enjoy having a copy.


The book is the history of the two men who invented Day-Glo colors. I did not know how Day-Glo came about but it is a pretty big part of our every day life now. Day-Glo is pretty much the official color that attracts attention for safety, it's the chosen color from the 60's for black light posters and the color that many kids naturally gravitate to. The book is illustrated by Tony Persiani, a very talented artist with a rather impressive portfolio. Who wouldn't want a copy of that? Hmm, maybe I'll buy a copy just for me, cuz deep down inside I'm really still just a kid. A very geeky kid, but still a kid. Get a copy of the book for your kid.

Oh and add Redneck Mother to your google reader while you're at it.

Oops! Long Time No Update

I've been pretty busy with PodCamp Ohio activities lately and that has kept me away from updating here. I did attend the Ohio Growth Summit last week as well as the Tweetup the night before. I had a chance to meet and talk to Chris Brogan who was one of the key note speakers for the summit. Unfortunately, I missed his talk because I had a job interview I needed to get to. Chris was thoughtful enough to let me do a brief video interview with him about PodCamp though. I will be posting it later today on the PodCamp Ohio website. I have a picture of me with Chris Brogan at the Tweetup on my phone but I am having troucle with my sync cable for my computer and will have to visit the sprint store today to see if I can get a replacement.

Speaking of phones, the new Palm Pre is out and I want one! If you are listening Palm, please send me one since I can't afford it. (See reference to job interview above to explain why)

If you follow me on Twitter, you will notice that I have changed my timezone and location to Tehran, Iran. Please don't freak out Mom. There is a reason for that. In Iran, several people are twittering about the events as they unfold. On Twitter, many of us have changed our location to help thwart the governments ability to search out the real Iranian twitters from others outside. They are risking their safety to try to get information out to us about what is happening. If you would like information about what is happening, there is a very good explanation of who the groups are and some of the details of what has been happening here. There are several groups of people setting up proxy servers to help hide the location of bloggers in Iran so that they may continue to get information out. To those tech savvy people: I salute you! What you are doing is important to the rest of the world.

I did get to spend time with my mother this past Saturday helping to weed the flower beds and again managed to get poison ivy. Right now it's just a small patch on one arm and hopefully, it will stay that way. We will see. Take care everyone. Hope to see some of you at PodCamp Ohio or at Ignite Columbus the night before!

Tell Me Thursday

Welcome to Tell Me Thursday! Where I give you the story behind my Wordless Wednesday post. This picture actually has a title. It's What's That Smell?



Back in 1993, my ex and I took my two sons on vacation to Glacier National Park. While we were there, we spent a few nights back packing in the Nyack Wilderness. This trip was one of the hardest we had ever done. It rained most of the time and the trails are unmaintained so simply hiking can be a chore. Hiking with a pack on your back and keeping a watch out for grizzlies even more so. One morning when we were leaving the camp site and heading to the next one, we noticed a very large bear track in the mud. Uhh... I think that's close enough for me.

In the Nyack, you have to hang your food in bear bags on a line between two trees so bears won't get into it and become accustomed to going near humans for an easy meal. The out houses at the camp sites have no "house," they are just "outs." Meaning it's the seat part only. This is done to keep animals from moving in for the shelter. To compensate for the lack of privacy, the view is beautiful. One "out" looked out across a lake with a mountain on the far end and a water fall spilling down the side of it. Who needs a newspaper? When we finally got to the car after four nights out, all of us took off our hiking boots and wet socks and just threw them into the back of the car. We were tired and hungry and ready to be done.

The day we came out, we headed to a local resturant that also provided services to thru hikers on the Continental Divide Trail and ate our selves silly. Our waitress was also part owner of the resturant and was amazed to learn that we had just spent four nights in the Nyack. She told us their cook (who had completed the Continental Divide trail) spent one night in the Nyack and decided it was too hard core for him. Hearing that, we decided that we were tough! Really tough! Bad ass tough! It was a hard hike but I'm glad we did it. It gave my sons an opportunity to see what they were made of. I keep this picture like a trophy of our accomplishment. We still talk about it and laugh.

If you would like to read more Tell Me Thursday Stories from Wordless Wednesday participants, go Here.

Wordless Wednesday

Espresso Yourself Music Cafe

This past Thursday night the Taste Casting crew was invited to the Espresso Yourself Music Cafe for a tasting and a sample of some Jazz as well as smoothies and a cappuccino.

I am back at Espresso Yourself tonight as I write this. Tonight I am listening to the rock of a young band called Barefoot Laundromat. The place is packed with friends of the band as well as parents. They obviously get a lot of support and all this is taking me back to the time when my oldest son was i a band during his high school years, but that's another story for another time.

Why have I come back here to write about my Taste Casting experience? Well to be completely honest, I couldn't get those sandwiches we tried out of my mind so I gave in and came back tonight. There is another reason as well. I really like this place a lot. I have missed these types of places where you could go and get a good cup of coffee, hang out and enjoy music or read.

This isn't Starbucks and I can't tell you how glad I am it's not!. Eric Ahlteen, the owner of Espresso Yourself created a very relaxing space with an eclectic collection of art by local artists for sale on the wall. There are book for sale here as well so you can't want for much if you would like to spend the day or evening here.

This is part of a large piece on the wall




This is a close up of some of the detail



The stained glass windows add a wonderful light and feel to the place as well. I was very impressed with how comfortable I felt here on Thursday and still feel that way tonight as well.

Tonight, I ordered the Blues-y Roast Beef sandwich tonight which is not one of the sandwiches we sampled on Thursday but every bit as good as the three we sampled that night.

If you would like to test how the atmosphere here makes you feel, take a drive up to Powell Ohio and check it out for your self. Let me know before you come. I might want to meet you here. By the way, the room just exploded into high energy as the band launched into Taking Care Of Business

Here is one more picture for you as the band starts to play Free Bird! No that's ambitious!

Tell Me Thursday

Yesterday's Wordless Wednesday picture day was one I took in front of a house I used to live in. I had planted marigolds on either side of the steps leading up to our front door. After the first year, I let the flowers go to seed so that I wouldn't have to replant the following year. This little plant came up in the crack in front of the steps leading up to the front porch. It was right in the middle of the walkway. I was so impressed by it's ability to grow there, that I decided to leave it as a reminder to me of how resilient we all can be. To my amazement, no one ever disturbed it, or stepped on it. Not even the letter carrier came close. Not only that, another marigold plant grew in the crack the following year.

Wordless Wednesday

Crimson Cup Taste Casting

This morning the Taste Casting crew met at the Headquarters for The Crimson Cup for a tour, tasting, some education on coffee and a "cupping" session. Cupping is kind of like a wine tasting only with coffee. This is a video I took of Armando Escobar the "Chief Espresso Officer" and Greg Ubert, Founder & President of Crimson Cup compare beans then, Armando and Janie Brooks "Lead Instigator" create frozen hot chocolate and strawberry smoothies for us to taste.

Sorry about the quality of the video, it's from my cell phone. :)





Here are a few pictures I took as well:



I also highly recommend the Carmel Apple Smoothie! Yum!
You can follow the Crimson Cup on Twitter too!

Taste Casting at the Suisse Shop

So you probably saw the previous video from 10 TV about Taste Casters and you know that I was at the first two events. I put together a little slide show of pictures from the Suisse Shop. You can find more information and other Taste Casters blog posts non the Taste Casting web site.

Now for the show:

Taste Casting On Channel 10

I am part of a new group in Columbus called Taste Casting. We are a group of social media users that get invited to local restaurants to participate in a food tasting. During the tasting, we tweet about our experience and later blog about the event.



We launched just last week with two events and WBNS 10 TV in Columbus did a story about it.

Look Ma! I'm on TV!

Tell Me Thursday

Welcome to this weeks Tell Me Thursday. Where I explain yesterday's Wordless Wednesday Picture.

This picture was taken several years ago on the Great Ohio Bike Adventure (GOBA) sorry to say the raccoon was road kill. It was a particularly hot day and all of the safety staff were reminding us at every turn to drink plenty of water. Someone saw this raccoon along side the road we were riding on and though it would be funny to leave his/her water bottle in the raccoons paws.

Every one was cracking up when we rode past. Funniest part was this was at the bottom of a long steep uphill. We were all laughing so hard, we couldn't pedal ourselves up the hill. Many just gave up (me included) and walked our bikes up the hill, giggling the whole way.

To see others participating in Wordless Wednesday go HERE.
To find links to other Tell Me Thursday's go HERE.

Wordless Wednesday

Remember S & H Green Stamps?

Are you old enough to remember S & H Green Stamps? All of the local grocery stores were giving them out when you bought food. A couple of gas stations were in on the deal as well and gave out Green Stamps when you purchased gas. That was way back when gas stations had attendees that pumped your gas, checked your oil and washed your windshield as part of the deal on a fill up.

When I was little, I remember my mother sitting me down with the green stamp catalog to pick out what I wanted for my birthday. I used to think of Green Stamps as birthday stamps. That was how my mother financed birthday presents for her kids. With six kids to feed, that meant a pretty expensive grocery bill, which meant a lot of Green Stamps, which meant a pretty decent birthday present.

So today is my birthday and I'm thinking I'd like another chance to perused the Green Stamp catalog to pick out my present. Imagine what that catalog might have if Green Stamps were still around today. Adult toys like ipods and mac books would be pretty cool. Maybe some blue tooth gadgets or even a big screen hi def TV?

I'd still stroll through the toys for little kids though, you never know what you might find.

My Improve From Ignite Columbus 2

As promised, Here is the video of my surprise improve on a deck of slides I had never seen before. If you aren't familiar with Ignite, go HERE.

Other wise, Sit back and have a laugh on me.

Tell Me Thursday

Here is the explanation for yesterday's Wordless Wednesday. As I wrote yesterday, those two pictures are related. The link is the scuffed up shoes. I have always been unreasonably fond of old, broken in, scuffed up shoes. Until recently, I couldn't explain why. I just enjoyed the sight of them as I put them on in the morning and tied the laces.

At my birthday party last year, my mother created a poster board display with pictures of me through my childhood and among them was the other picture you saw in yesterday's post. On the left, you will see my mother's shoes sticking into the picture. They're old, broken in and just a little scuffed up.

I love this picture of me because it always made me feel special to my mother. The idea that she thought so much of me as a baby, that she climbed up on a chair to take a picture of me. This picture, more than any of the others, gives me a sense of belonging. I am my mother's daughter, I am part of a family and I am loved. When I look at this picture, I sense that I delighted my mother as a child and so when I see my scuffed up shoes, that sense resonates in me a new.

I've been through many pairs of old scuffed up shoes and have a terrible time letting go of them when it is time. Always wanting to wait until the new shoes are worn before throwing away the old ones.

I came to this realization some months ago and held on to the knowledge of it, keeping it to my self for just a bit longer. It was my special secret that I am now choosing to share with you in the hopes that you will tell me what you have that reminds you that you are special to someone.

Wordless Wednesday

This week's Wordless Wednesday has two pictures. Check back tomorrow for Tell Me Thursday for the explanation.

Ignore This

This is a mobile blog test. If this was a real blog post you would have been instructed where to go for further information.

Sometimes Facebook Can Be A Bit Much

I think there maybe, might be just a few too many Facebook apps out there. I have 119 friends on Facebook which by some standards really isn't that many but take a look at how many current requests I have.


There are about 100 requests there! I only use a few of those applications because if I worked on accepting all of them, I'd be lost in Facebook Hell for at least a week. By accepting all those requests, I would probably be encouraging even more requests and adding even more applications to my Facebook page. I don't think it would ever end.

Now, if I could get paid by the hour to update my Facebook page and accept requests, I'd be all for it. Not meaning to slam any one, I think that a lot of brain power goes into creating these and I do think it's sweet that people think of me this often but honestly, isn't this getting a little out of hand?

Facebook is about to get put onto my top ten list of time wasters for this. Any body have a request list bigger than this? How much time have you spent on Facebook accepting or sending requests?

Tell Me Thursday

Yesterday was my first Wordless Wednesday Post. It's easy to participate, just create a post on Wednesday's of a picture.

Tell Me Thursday is where we get to talk about our Wordless Wednesday Post.

So, here it is. Yesterday's picture is one of me (one the right) with my older brother Tommy on Christmas morning. I love this picture. It's classic 50's - 60's Christmas. One of the strongest memories I have from Christmas as a child are the mixed smells of plastic and pine. As the years moved on, my parents produced even more kids (6 in all) that really created a strong scent of plastic on Christmas morning what with all those toys.

I miss those oversized tree lights and the glow they created. I also miss the tinsel. I think the next time I have a tree, I'm going to go "Old School."

Oh, like the obligatory cowboy hat my brother is wearing?

Wordless Wednesday

6 of 6 Meme

There is a little meme floating around the blogosphere. For my readers who don't know what a meme is, from Wikipedia: The term Internet meme (pronounced /miːm/) is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke.[1] The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.

This particular meme I call 6 of 6. Find the 6th picture in the 6th file on your computer and post it. Here is mine.

It's a picture of the floor I helped my friend Kenny refinish last summer. I love hardwood floors. I especially like the patterns that the grain makes.

I like wood floors that creak a little and can't understand why people go to such pains to silence the creaks and squeaks in an older home.

I have hard wood floors and I can tell the difference between the cats and dogs foot steps on the floors and stairs at night. I can tell which dog is sneaking through the house or which cat is coming up the stairs at night to climb into bed with me just from the particular creak on the floors and stairs. Most of all, I love the feel of wood floors on my bare feet.

Divine Delay

Have you ever heard of the expression Divine Delay? It's when you are delayed or made late for something only to discover that you were spared a catastrophe had you been there a minute sooner?

I can't remember when I first heard this expression but I know it when I see it. This morning, I had to get up early to pick up a friend at 5:30am and take him to the airport. Once at the airport, we were held up by traffic and people parking their cars in the moving lane. Annoying everyone else trying to pull over to the curb and drop off passengers.

After finally dropping my friend off, I headed back home. When I got to the intersection of Innis and Westerville road, I came upon a three car accident that had just happened. All three vehicles were either large SUVs or pick up trucks. That is one accident where, if I had been involved in it, would have surely come out on the loosing side of in my compact car.

Suddenly, I was much less annoyed at the traffic jam at the airport. I was divinely Delayed. I am grateful.

Pondering

I have noticed lately in the news that there have been quite a few recalls of toys announced in the news. Out of curiosity, I checked the Consumer's Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) web site to see what was on the list. What I found was really pretty quite surprising. Since September 2008, there have been over 20 toy recalls. I noticed a few things while reading through the most recent ones on the list. Out of the 20 I looked at, only one of the toys being recalled had been manufactured in the United States. All the others had been manufactured in a foreign country. Eight of the recalls were for toys that contained lead in the paint and all of those were from foreign countries. So these are the things I am wondering:

1. Does the US have a different standard in place that results in fewer toys being manufactured with lead in the paint or other hazards?

2. How much money are these companies spending/loosing due to recalls? (lost revenue, refunds, law suits, attorney's fees and settlements etc)

3. Wouldn't it have been cheaper in the long run to manufacture those toys here in the US and skip all those headaches?

4. With all the jobs that have been lost due to companies shipping jobs over seas, how much control and over sight do they have as to how their products are being manufactured?

5. Wouldn't our economy improve if we brought those jobs back here to the US?

I really want to know, so if you have any insight or thoughts on this, I would love to hear them.