Category: Uncategorized

Supposedly, if you see her spinning clock-wise you are right brained and therefore more creative.  Spinning counter-clockwise?  You’re left brained and logical.  My problem?  She spins one way for a couple of seconds and then all of a sudden she’s spinning the other way and there’s a little skip.  I think the picture changes.

Picture linked from i-am-bored.com.

 

The Right Brain vs Left Brain Test If you see dancer rotating clockwise, you are right-brained (creative), counter-clockwise, left-brained (logical).

I just think this sofa is really cool.  The Unclutterer blog pointed me at it.  It’s a sofa during the day and a bunk bed at night.  I think it’d be ideal for a small apartment or living space.

(Via Furniture Fashion.)

I have a standing weekly appointment with someone and 80% of the time she calls to reschedule.  I thought I’d share some of the excuses.  I believe they are all real – I just can’t believe they all happen to one person!

• Looking for son’s dog that was stolen.  (They found the dog.)
• Granddaughter slipped on the ice and broke her nose and has to be taken to the emergency room.
• Car got stuck in the snow three times on the way.  (We had lots of snow this year in Colorado!)
• Babysitter didn’t show up.
• Has a court date.
• Daughter had surgery yesterday and is throwing up violently today and needs to be taken back to the doctor.
• Has meetings with teachers.
• Has jury duty.
• … and then the normal "I’m sick."

What’s the best excuse you’ve heard or used?

Photo "The Dog Ate My Homework" by mygothlaundry.

I have to admit I’m guilty of calling 411 a lot more than I’d like.  You’re driving around and you need directions to a store or you want to call a restaurant and what do you do, you call 411 for the number.  Then you get your cell phone bill and realize you paid a dollar a call!  Well now there’s a free 411 service if you are willing to listen to a 20 second ad.  I found this on Real Simple:

800-FREE-411

Another solution is to keep a phone book in your car. 

Jim Gray disappeared while sailing last week.  Now you can help find him.  As the CTO of Amazon writes, they have satellite photos from Thursday.  The photos have been broken down into small images that are available to everyone to look at.  You login into Amazon Turk (with your Amazon login), accept the task (i.e. hit), look at five images and check whether there is anything worth looking at more closely.  From what I understand, Jim’s boat would be about six pixels long in the images.  You can look at as many images as you want.

This is a great way to get lots of eyes on these images!  Very clever use of technology.  Let’s hope it helps us find out where Jim Gray is!

I found this great idea about how to make a calendar for a preschooler. Kristen made a one week laminated calendar and then she tapes pictures of each of the activities to the right place in the week: pictures of school, pictures of the sister at dance lessons, pictures of visitors, etc:  Homemade ‘calendar’ helps preschoolers understand their weekly routines: Parent Hacks.  I tried to do this for our six year old a couple of years ago because he has two homes and constantly asks questions like, "how many days am I here?"  I wasn’t very successful though as I never came up with a good way to distinguish between days at Dad’s house and days at Mom’s house – I think the pictures would have made a big difference.

This is the school house Grandma went to school in. She walked a mile and a half up hill to school everyday. (It was downhill on the way home!) Grandma turns 90 in February.

I like this picture from our recent pheasant hunting vacation because you can tell how much fun everyone is having being outside on this gorgeous October(!) day in South Dakota.

If you can combine two skills, you can come up with some interesting career options. Robert Tinney, BYTE Cover Artist and Microcomputer Illustration Pioneer:

Being a talented artist is sort of like being a talented speaker: it’s a nice talent to have, but it isn’t easy to find someone who’ll pay you just to do it. You need to combine that basic talent with another skill to really have a marketable service. If you’re a good speaker, combine that with a law degree to be a trial attorney. If you’re an artist, acquire an expertise in 3-D modeling and move to Hollywood for a career in special effects.