How Embarassing...

You Are Speed Skating

You're motivated, aggressive, and willing to work hard to win. You have what it takes to be hell on skates!

What Winter Sport Are You?

End of Yet Another Month...

Can you believe we are almost into July? Since summer is here, we planned a variety of 'one day' vacations throughout the summer and fall. Today we went downtown to the NC Museum of Science. Lucy loves seeing all the animals and dinosaurs. Myra actually enjoyed herself too--she slept most of the time! Other trips this summer include the NC Aquarium, Fort Fisher, the NC Zoo, and trips to PA and DC. Should be fun!

End of Net Radio?

How many of you listen to radio via the internet? Those that know me, know that once November 1st comes, the Christmas music gets geared up. I always did that, even in the classroom. One tool that helped me do that was AccuRadio. On this site, an online set of radio stations, you could choose between approximately 10 different Christmas stations, all year long! When in the classroom, I could use the Classical Christmas station. Other times I wanted to use the Pop Christmas to hear my favorite singers belt out their renditions of Christmas songs. And once in awhile, I wanted the Rudolph station, where different artists did nothing but sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Granted, I did not use that station often!

Also on this site, stations for all music existed. Jazz, pop, rock, country, etc, etc. The purpose, or maybe the inferred purpose, was users would listen, hear a song they liked, and go out and buy the album or pick up the track on iTunes. The radio stations (Live 365, Pandora, FineTune, etc) could generate income via advertisements on their sites. Not a huge amount of revenue, but enough to keep things going for the last 4+ years.

In walks the RIAA, or the Music Royalty Board, or the Rich Executives Screwing Their Employees (RESTE). They want to take a larger chunk of the profits generated by these online stations. Well, as you can imagine, the profit line is pretty small, but those in power (or with the power of attorney) want even that small profit. Ignore the fact that if these stations close down, many will not hear music they might purchase. Ignore that this is great for the up and coming musicians. Ignore that this will only turn an already disgruntled public against you even more. Just generate more profit. More profit. More profit.

Well, in a quite amazing show of solidarity, many of the larger radio stations will shut down today for a Day of Silence in protest. They encourage you to contact your legislators to protest and encourage them to take action. Will it work? Possibly. Probably not, but if this goes through, many of these radio stations will close, ending independent music. Will it stop there? Once these corporations take over internet radio, sites like YouTube will fall under their crosshairs next. Click the links below and contact your legislators!!!

Live 365

Pandora

AccuRadio

Re: The Linux Transformation, Part Deux

Re: The Linux Transformation, Part Deux, originally uploaded by eElementary.

>

> I continue to shift from proprietory software (i.e. Windows) to open

> source (i.e. Linux, specifically Ubuntu). I really continue to learn

> things each day, plus the open source community provides so much guidance

> and support. With the purchase of an external hard drive (Western Digital

> 500 GB), I am in the process of digitizing our CD collection and backing up

> our files, and with Linux, it could not be any easier. With my WIFI now

> working, I can easily set up a home network via SAMBA, and everything else

> is falling in place.

>

The Garden

The Garden, originally uploaded by eElementary.

You can tell by the picture, Lucy's garden continues to do well. We planted

pumpkins and sunflowers, and as you can tell, they are taking over! Lucy

loves to come out into the yard to help. Yesterday, we thatched a bald

patch of land (Grandpa would be proud!), spread some seed, and then watered

the area. She is an awesome 'weeder' too--although she says, "No green,

Daddy!"

More of My Girls

More of My Girls, originally uploaded by eElementary.

Myra showed off her Hurricanes pride during Fathers' Day. We had a great

day, with lots of time spent with my girls!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

First Life Imitates Second Life

Quite funny for those of you 'in-world'

Linux and Hurricanes

Interesting title, right? Finally have a few minutes to update the blog. I spent most of my time lately shifting our home operating systems to the Linux distribution, Ubuntu. So why am I switching operating systems? Well, awhile back I decided to try out Firefox, the open source browser that challenges Microsoft's Internet Explorer. As a loyal Firefox user, I saw the benefits of open source, when adding extensions to my browser. Now, I could not imagine browsing the internet without my web developer toolbar, weather, built-in Google toolbar, and more. It just makes sense. So then I began to use other open source software. Products such as Audacity and The Gimp allowed me to complete tasks similar to paid software, most times even superiorly (is that a word?). Then I stumbled upon the office suite, Open Office. With this software, I found it did many of the tasks in one step that I needed two or more steps with in Word. Such as saving a file as a pdf. It eliminates the need for programs such as Primo PDF that 'print' files as pdfs.

When I started the new job and choose a Macbook Pro as my laptop of choice, I decided to run a Linux distro using the loaded Parallels. Parallels allows you to run another operating system within Mac OS. While most set it up to run XP, I decided to run Linux. Of course the challenge came from deciding which Linux distro to use. Many different selections abound, from Ubuntu, to Mandriva, to SUSE, the choices are mindboggling. I finally settled for Ubuntu for two reasons. One, their venture into education, edubuntu, would be something I could recommend to school systems, and two the overwhelming support community. Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distros, so with my initial lack of knowledge, that appealed to me.

I will post more thoughts on my switch in future posts...

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Did you notice I had fewer posts recently? Compared to last year, I looked for the reason. When you look at my June, 2006 posts, you quickly see why--the STANLEY CUP. This year, as we failed to make the playoffs, I did not post as much. Two nights ago, we ended our reign as defending Stanley Cup champs, as the Anaheim Ducks beat the Ottawa Senators. Hopefully we will see better things from the Canes next year! I did enjoy the playoffs--Myra really like the contrast in the games and Lucy liked watching 'iiiiiice' and 'awkeee'. (-:

Summer In The City

The heat returneth. Looking at my Firefox extension, I see 98 for today. Phew! And me, being the less than bright one, plan a 4 mile run today. Oh well! I actually believe I run better in the heat, as opposed to the cooler days. Running, since adding carbs back to my diet, has taken off. I did the Falls Lake Dam loop last weekend (6 miles) and SPRINTED at the end. I feel much stronger physically and mentally.
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Nana and PapPap left this morning. Lucy and Myra really enjoyed their time with them. We visited the beach (see above), lots of shopping, and they treated us to ice cream. Now we prepare for a weekend visit from Grammie and Grandpa. We even may go out on Hidden Lake this weekend!

Enjoying the Summer

Who wouldn't when Nana and PapPap come down to lend a helping hand with Lucy and Myra! I hope to post some pictures soon. The girls have been enjoying their time with Cole as well. We went to a local beach this morning, then went shopping this afternoon. Fun time!
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Running is better. The carb-free diet hindered what running I could do, so I am back in carbs eating.