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Amanda
12/31/10
I do have a question already (one of many probably) which e reader do you use? iBooks or kindle or something else?
Can you find free books, or cheap at least?
The case you have for yours, where did you get it? They are expensive! But necessary in some ways because right now it's propped up with the box it came in because it doesn't work flat on your lap!
The built-in reader -- iBooks -- is really good. I also use one called CloudReaders (free in the iTunes Shop), but it doesn't do anything more than iBooks does. I just like it for some reason. As for books, they are easy to get for free if you know where to look. I've collected thousands of 'em already (no kidding, thousands), all free. I'll get them to you, and give you some tips on finding titles you want. As for cases, yes, they are overpriced. But -- as you are finding out -- you really need one, not only for protection but as a stand. I've got two, an "every day" one that is no frills but does the job (got it through Amazon), and for more formal occasions a really cool one made to look like an old book. Very nice, but slightly more bulky. I also want to make a case by hollowing out the pages of a plain old spiral notebook, sort of like those books I made for Tristen and Teghan last Christmas. And also, I just learned that CafePress (where I make my Christmas cards and coffee mugs and such) now offers personalized iPad cases, so you can make one with your own design. I can help with that if you go that way. --Gary
Woo-hoo! You won't regret it -- it's just endless what you can do with it. Let me know if you have any questions or anything. --Gary
Merry Christmas Eve! We had Metcalfs over & the greatest gift for us all was Steve being here with us. Here was our menu:
Chicken Noodle Soup
Mashed potatoes
Chili, with cheese, sour cream, green onions, 2 cracker varieties & frito scoops
Miller & Paine cinnamon rolls
Warm yeast rolls
Mini meatballs & smokies in bbq sauce
Cheese & cracker tray
Relish tray (with celery)
LOTS of cookies & candies!!!
Pear Cinnamon Cider
Glad you enjoyed the movie. It must have been great to see it for the first time. Though I've found that no matter how often you see it, it works every time. :-) --Gary
Manhattan Clam Chowder and/or Chicken ChiliFor Christmas Day dinner:
Veggies (celery included)
Brie en croute
Swedish Rice Pudding and Swedish Brownies
Roast turkeyMerry Christmas............. (Karen, why no celery?)
Oven roasted potatoes and carrots
Garden Salad
I'll take the celery question, so as not to leave you in suspense: Some of us had noticed how often celery occurred in those historic menus. No matter what the year, celery was there. Check 'em yourself and see! --Gary
Honey glazed spiral cut ham
twice baked potatoes
corn pudding
green beans
fruit salad
rolls
ostakaka
strawberries and sugar cookies
(no celery)
Then back to class for a little work. In the afternoon it was the party. Parents come and take over, so I got to sit back and relax. Lots of snacks and very generous gifts. Just home from school and still opening gifts when one of the neighbors came by with her annual plate of goodies. Tomorrow I am out at 1 and then off for the next 12 days. Life if good.......
Good for you! Today was my last day too, til January 3. I love Christmas! --Gary
Hopefully she's better for baking on Thursday! Teghan & I did a few things last night, but we're ready for more!!!!
Feel better, Tristen! --Gary
XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOLIf you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services.
How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them.
This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you. Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.
Thanks for taking to time to support our military!
Sounds like Tristen and Teghan did a great job -- wish we could have seen it. We had a busy week-end too. Had the Nelson christmas on Saturday. The weather cooperated and it was a nice day for it. Jack came on Sat and left just today. So we all had lots of food and some presents. Kind of feels like christmas is over, but still more to come. One more day of school over -- just three more to go -- it is really dragging this year.
Yes, thanks for the treats. The pumpkin bread is more delicious than the cranberry bread, and vice versa. Thanks again! --Gary
Grandma, are you doing Tuesday night dinner? No dance for 2 weeks, so we might be able to make it, on time too! With Christmas being Saturday I wasn't sure if you'd do it or not though. And what do you think of doing some baking Thursday during the day? We're all off work & school & its very last minute & close to Christmas, but we haven't done any yet! I'm not sure of Lindsey or Olivia's schedules, but it might work out.
I've got everything wrapped & am done shopping, just waiting for a few things in the mail, should be here today & tomorrow. Bring on Christmas!!!!
Anyhow, hereís her autograph pictures, and some pictures from dinner in between shows with her friends at the Embassy Suites.
It was a GREAT day. One more performance today & Nutcracker 2010 is just a memory!
The answer of course is Teghan Metcalf, but we would also have accepted Michelle Obama. Check these photos!
I called Windstream this morning to cancel my service. I got the usual computerized menu ("please listen carefully as our menu has changed" -- which is the biggest lie since "the check is in the mail"). But when my menu choices indicated that I wanted to drop their service, I immediately got a person -- a very chatty person. "How's the weather out there in (pause) Nebraska? Cold? Yeah, it's really cold here, too. But it's supposed to be warmer next week." Etc etc. I guess they figure if we become friends first, it will be harder for me to cancel. When the pleasantries were over, she asked why I wanted out. There were many reasons, but I chose to mention their webhosting service -- how they cut features and reduced space and gave me no option to upgrade, even though I was willing to pay more for that. To that, all she said was, "We are working on that."
Then she tried fear, and guilt: "You know, when you call 911 from a landline, the operators know exactly where you are. But the newspapers are full of stories of people who called 911 from a cellphone and sometimes emergency services couldn't find them." I couldn't remember any such stories myself, but I doubted that. Also, my cellphone not only knows where I am all the time, it can tell me where the nearest Burger King is and can give me turn-by-turn driving directions to get there. Surely 911 can tap that technology? So I told her I still wanted to cancel. "...Do you have small children in the house?" No, I still want to cancel. "Well, here's an offer: If you keep your landline, we'll drop the price to $15 a month. Anyone can call you from anywhere, and you will have unlimited local service -- but you'll have to pay extra for long-distance." Not a bad deal, I thought, but that's pretty much what you've been giving me up to now, at six times the cost. So I still said no, and she regretfully let me go.
Yeah, I thought there must be a story there too. :-) --Gary
Just back from the christmas program. Oh boy! What a bomb that was.
My 8 year old daughter has a December 28th birthday & for 2 years in a row she has donated birthday gifts to Toys for Tots. I have been in contact both years with the coordinator from the US Marine Corps. This year Sgt. DeBlieck was contacted by WOWT, Omaha's NBC news channel & he shared Teghan's story with them. WOWT called me to ask if Teghan could do an interview for their Thursday (16th) night newscast because the Toys for Tots Program needs help & they hope her story can inspire others. They are 2,000 gifts behind their goal & are working hard to meet their goal to help families across Nebraska.So, please drop off a new, unwrapped toy to the nearest drop off location to help this great program obtain their goal this year! You can also make a monetary donation at Toys R Us locations, or through the Nebraska Toys for Tots website.
http://omaha-ne.toysfortots.org/local-coordinator-sites/lco-sites/local-donate.asp
Most stores no longer have collection bins out, but the toys can be dropped off in Lincoln at ROTC building down by the stadium, right off Vine Street or the Marine Corps recruiting station at 505 N 27th St Suite 1. The recruiting office phone number is 742-5255. They can answer questions about the ROTC location. Or visit the Toys for Tots site at:
http://omaha-ne.toysfortots.org/local-coordinator-sites/lco-sites/default.asp
Or contact me for more info (I can collect them too & get them to Sgt. DeBlieck)
THANKS!!!
I stayed home yesterday for the cable guy to hook me up with Roadrunner. After he was finished, I installed my router. Which means I am now completely free of Windstream/Alltel and a landline phone. I'll be calling the phone company sometime today to cancel. It feels a little weird, and it's going to be tough to forget my old number and remember my new one -- but that will pass. I hope! I'll update the contact page when it actually happens.
Quiet on the campus today. I expected some hustle-bustle as the students pack up and leave for the Christmas break -- but they must all be gone already. The sidewalks are empty, and the residence halls look deserted. I'm the only one in my office (so far) too. Feels like the University of Nebraska today is just me!
We got some snow here over the weekend, but only an inch or so. It seemed like more on Saturday when really strong winds whipped it around. It was almost a white-out at times, as I was driving around that day.
But a year ago this time...! We were deep in it. In fact, it's a year ago tomorrow that a) my car got totalled by a rear-end collision and b) the heat went out in my building, on the coldest day of the year. That was a fun day....
Very cool Gary, as always, THANK YOU for all the work you do for the page! Iíd be lost if I didnít check it everyday!
Thank you for the kind words! --Gary
and change your bookmarks accordingly. The old site on Windstream will be there a while, but I won't be updating it.
You may notice the odd gap here and there if I've forgotten to transfer a file or two. Two intentional (and larger) gaps are the Christmas page and the Reviews page. The Christmas page is obsolete now, and the Reviews page has been dormant for some time. So it seems time to retire them. I'll re-do the buttons on the front page when I can get to it.
No fancy stuff (yet!) -- the page will look and act just as it did before, until I can be sure I've got everything transferred and in place. But we have officially moved away from Windstream/Alltel, and we have a new -- and easy to remember! -- address. Let me know if you have questions.
Ha! Hope somebody got it for YouTube! :-) --Gary
Erika was stiff and sore this morning. Found a couple of bumps on her head. She did go to school this morning. I think she wanted to talk to a couple of people in her class to see what really happened.
Gary, I am happy for you and your new cell phone, I think it would be great to get rid of the land line too, I believe the Nelsons have sucessfully lived without one.
The Nelsons are my inspiration on this! --Gary
And can't wait for the new improved website if for nothing else but to get away from windstream. Oh and to maybe get our newsletter fill in box back rather than sending via email? Don't know why that bothers me, but it does. (Well sometimes it doesn't send if my mailbox isn't open & that's annoying)
I was always kind of baffled why I didn't want a cellphone, too. I guess my needs were different from a lot of other people's: I am unthrilled by the whole social networking thing, probably because my network is very small. Texting? No. Facebook? Twitter? No and no. Calling someone from Aisle 19 of Hy-Vee to ask whether they wanted crunchy or smooth? Nope. So a phone that was just a phone was, for me, just half a pound of plastic and silicon I had to lug around. The Droid was the first phone that got my attention with other features. (I actually got interested in an earlier model of the Droid, but never got it.) As to the webpage, I hope the move will allow us to use those fill-in text boxes again, but I don't know yet. Certainly, though, with the extra space we can do things like more photos -- and movies. And other stuff. --Gary
I think I have a phone now that is small enough, and awesome enough, that I will remember to keep it charged and to carry it with me all the time. In fact, this is Step 1 of my plan to streamline my communications package. I have run the numbers, and found that for just a few dollars more a month than I am now paying for cable + internet + webhosting + wall-mounted phone, I can get cable + faster internet + increased webhosting space + a really cool cellphone. I got the phone just a few days ago -- free with a 2-year Verizon plan.
I will eventually be getting rid of my landline; and eventually the website will be moved to a different host (meaning the address will change). You've probably heard me complaining about the small amount of space we currently get for our website...? Well, when I move the page to new host, the space allowance will increase by fifty times. I'll keep you posted on that.
The new phone is really growing on me, as I learn about it one feature at a time. Email is working; the camera is surprisingly good; and I played with the GPS to and from work today, letting it talk me through the route -- that was fun!
Here's the Holland House Candles site. Thanks, John!
Gary I've been meaning to mention the advent calendar, always enjoy it. But yuck, not a menu yet that I would like. Seems like celery is a big christmas treat, who knew?
Marsha, how are you? Looks like you've been getting a lot of snow. We've been lucky so far. Just a dusting last week, and maybe some this Saturday. Today is pretty nice and 40s for tomorrow and Friday.
As a former dizziness-sufferer, I welcome you to the club, Erika! Yeah, celery does seem to show up a lot in these menus. ("Celery Au Gratin"???) Some menus are definitely more appetizing than others, but all of them were served somewhere in the years mentioned. --Gary
Thanksgiving was great here. Mom made enough excellent food to last not only through the football game the next day, but for the following day too. Yum!
And Christmas is only 24 days away. Wow. I'm pretty much ready for it, I think. Looking forward to the long holiday break which for me starts three weeks from tomorrow. My office Christmas party is this Saturday night. And I'll be putting my Christmas cards in the mail in a day or two. Once again, the card is all about me -- for after all, isn't that the true meaning of Christmas?