Yeesh.
As diligent readers will know, I don’t exactly lead a hectic life. With the exception of my weekly foray to Ashburn to visit Jenn and Jim, I’m mostly a homebody. I leave the house for errands and medical appointments.
That said, this week is quickly ramping up to be full of all sorts of social, and it’s actually kind of filling up. If there’s anything you need me for this week, speak now, or wait until after Christmas.
Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day is a Scotch Thermal Laminator. I’ve had this laminator for a couple of years, and it works fantastically, especially for the deal price ($16.99). It will even handle 5 mil pouches, though you have to make sure you have it on the high setting for that. If you need a hot laminator, I highly recommend you pick this one up today.
Since I jump between computers (or, more accurately, computing devices) a good bit, I am a huge fan of Dropbox. (For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that y’all know what Dropbox is, and won’t go into a big long explanation. The short version is: It’s file storage in The Cloud™, accessible from any number of computers, phones, tablets, and probably secret decoder rings that you got in your breakfast cereal.) If you’re like me, you probably have a reasonable amount of paranoia about putting your Stuff out where other people could conceivably get to it, and it makes you somewhat twitchy. You’ve turned on all of the “email me when a new device (app, secret decoder ring) is linked to my account” settings, but still wonder if you could be doing more. (more…)
Today is National “I Love to Write” Day. And by ‘write’, they mean actually taking a writing implement and applying it to paper or some other suitable surface, not moving your fingers over a keyboard.
Writing letters is a dying art form, and that’s kind of sad. Your kids are never going to be able to go through a box they found in the attic full of the love notes you and your significant other shared with one another. I don’t think it’s going to be the same to have them print out your old emails — or worse — read the archived SMSes in your Google Voice account. There’s just no romance in that.
So celebrate today by taking some time to sit down and write a letter to someone. It doesn’t have to be long. Just long enough to let someone know you’re thinking of them and wanted to share a few minutes with them. Then find an actual envelope and stamp, and mail it. Or, if that’s beyond you, write to someone in your household, and hand-deliver it.
We all like getting letters, but seem to forget that receiving a letter means someone took the time to write one out. Let it be your turn, and write a letter today.
They Might Be Giants is sharing a free song in honor of the elections taking place in the US today. Download Vote or Don’t now! (Direct link to MP3.) You can also check out the video.
Driving home this morning (having spent last night at Jenn’s), I intentionally drove past my polling place to see how long the lines outside were. To my surprise, there weren’t any. Upon arriving home, I double-checked that my polling place hadn’t moved due to some bizarre storm-related damage or something similar, and it had not. Armed with this knowledge, I grabbed my knitting and headed back out into the world.
I didn’t even get a chance to open the knitting bag. There was no line. I’m hoping that this is because all of my neighbors got their voting in early (and often, of course), and not because of a general lack of voter turnout. However, given the lines I was seeing at the early voting polling place (which is just across the street from my house), I tend to think it’s the former, and not the latter.
So, if you’re eligible to vote, get out there and do it.
A few days ago, I was talking with the son of a friend from high school. Today will be the young man’s first voting experience. He was asking me some questions about what he should do and how he could be prepared. Here’s part of what I came up with, in a more presentable form. (more…)
If you are the sort to have an occasional drink, it is a good idea to keep around a knitting project that you can safely work on after having a drink or two. There is, in fact, a whole book
Having had a drink, I think I shall put away the Terribly Intricate Project for the evening, and pull out a nearly-fool-proof project.
Warning: Very long. TL; DR included at end.
I was responding to a friend who has been tenaciously trying to get me out of the goddamned house and to have food and drink and see friends and whatnot. He’s even offered to brave the Beltway to come get me and – presumably – return me home. As I was trying to write up, for the nth time, why his attempt wouldn’t work, I realized that I probably owe a similar message to several people who I have not seen in [some large time span, ranging from several months to several years].
For those of you who like Apress‘s books, they’re currently having a sale on their entire ebook catalog. The sale runs through 2012.09.03. To take advantage of the deal, use promo code LDW12 at checkout.
(And yes, bma, I’m working on that default logo thing.)