Happy Birthday J.K. Rowling

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I learned from my Brainiversity game that today was J.K. Rowling's birthday (who says video games are useless?). Have you pre-ordered your copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?  The Collector's Edition looks beautiful and probably even smells wonderful being leather bound.  But for mere mortals, the Standard Edition is also sure to please.

I am currently around page 170 of Harry Potter's fourth book.  This might sound way behind to all you literary types, but remember that I am reading all the Harry Potter books aloud to Adam in quiet times without Dova (she has no interest yet!?!). This book is decidedly more advanced than the first three books.  Obviously, breaking the 700 page mark allows for a much slower pace, more details and more backstory that isn't necessarily action-packed every moment.  I am enjoying it much more on an adult level and Adam is still enrapt by the series.

Have you stopped by contest bytes recently?  I have a giveaway for Tees For Change as well as a  book review on Templeton Turtle Goes Exploring and a review of the Brainiversity game. After a slow start, this contest/review site is finally going strong.

And happy birthday J.K. Rowling!

Blogging Goodness - Email Form and Mobile Site

After doing the super easy route of using Contactify for a while (and getting a handful of complaints), I decided to put a real contact form up on the site. I actually signed up with 10 services or so before I found one that met all my criteria (free, configurable, ad-free, captcha, etc.). The only thing it doesn't have is access for the blind, but my email address can still be found on my Blogger profile.  So you can benefit from all my research by going straight to 123Contactform.com for your contact form needs.

Name:*
Email:*
Subject:*
Message:*
Verification No.:*

Powered by 123ContactForm.

For the mobile version of this site, I had been using Wirenode, but I found MoFuse to be much cooler.  Their button fits perfectly in my Subscribe section and the iPhone site looks darn slick.

Thursday Thirteen - Travel Trivia

1. The average cruise ship burns approximately 1 gallon of fuel to move just 6 inches.
2. The Queen Elizabeth 2 burns 433 tons of fuel in one day.
   
3. Carnival Cruise Lines puts more than 10 million chocolate mints on their guests' pillows every year.
4. Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas is the first ship ever to have its own zip code (33132-2028).
5. Voyager of the Seas is 42,000 tons larger than the US Navy's largest aircraft carrier.
6. Voyager of the Seas features a 15,000 square foot fitness center, 9-hole golf course, 200-foot rock-climbing wall, two-story library containing over 3000 books, and a regulation-size ice skating rink.
7. The wingspan of Boeing's 747 is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight.
8. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
9. The Eiffel Tower uses 7,500,000 kilowatts each year with over 500,000 for illuminations.
10. By changing the lighting for the Jefferson Memorial to LED and metal halide, energy usage dropped from 126 kilowatts to 28 kilowatts (80%) and the illumination area was increased by 30%.
    
11. The country with the most number of islands is Finland.
12. Alaska has more coastline than the entire continental US.
13. Tennessee is bordered by eight states This is more than any other USA state KY, MI, AR, MS, AL, GE, NC, VA.

Sources: My kid's camp newsletter (1,3,4,5,6,7,12) , Budget Travel Trivia Quiz (2), Free Travel Trivia Facts (8,9,11,13), Osram Sylvania Jefferson Memorial (10).

WW - A Walk Through Avalon

"In Size Order"


"Looking Both Ways"

At Avalon Park & Preserve in Stony Brook, NY.

Silly Monkey Story - Adam is always making faces

It must be hard growing up with a camera constantly in your face, so Adam has a store of silly faces to put on. Here are some recent ones:


I'm a monkey.


I'm so bored...


I'm so ticklish.


We're tongue-curling kids.

Be Buddies Not Bullies

This awesome anti-bullying t-shirt was designed by an 11-year-old student and is sold through verimeri.com.  Three percent of proceeds from this tee go to Free Arts for Abused Children. All the tees from verimeri are designed by kids through school, camp and non-profit fundraising contests.  You can also vote for your favorite designs for their online contest.

Meri Zeiff founded verymeri with the thought of promoting positive messages for children. "As a teacher, I was incredibly surprised that I never saw clothing that expressed the joyful, whimsical things I was hearing my kids say every day.  I decided to launch a t-shirt line, using kids' designs that gave voice to their unending creativity with positive messages, beautiful colors and inspirational ideas."  So go check out verimeri.com!

Photo Hunters - Hanging

This week's "hanging" theme was a piece of cake because we must be a family of monkeys. Besides, the family that hangs together stays together right?


Here I am hanging upside down and blind-folded for a "leadership" off-site training course. For the low-down on this experience, check out this post.


Here's Doug hanging upside down at the playground.


Here's Adam hanging upside down at the playground as well. Did I mention that we were a family of monkeys?


Dova was so proud that she jumped up and caught the bar to hang from.

Tees For Change - How Green Are You?

Being green is all the rage these days, but how green are you really? The Environmental Leader Daily lists the green segments of the population according to Mediamark Research & Intelligence’s Survey of the American Consumer:

• Un-Green: These consumers place little value on preserving the environment and they put convenience and price before pro-environmental factors. They don’t buy organic food, don’t recycle and have no involvement in environmental groups.
• Green at the Supermarket: Members of this segment are Green, but not always because of the environment. They often “buy green” and eat organic foods, most likely because of health concerns - not necessarily out of concern for the environment.
• Green in Theory: Members of this segment are Green by self-description, but not in practice. They say it’s important to protect the environment and to be in tune with nature, but their choice in products doesn’t necessarily back this up. They are not involved in environmental groups or causes.
• Green but Only If: Green Shoppers think green and often act green, but their allegiance to Green causes has limits. They have positive views on protecting the environment and act on them, but
  they are not willing to give up convenience or pay more for environmentally safe products.
• Green at Their Best: Green at Their Best members think green, shop green, and live green. They are true believers in environmental causes, consistently recycling and buying environmentally friendly products, even when those products are less convenient or cost more than similar items.
• Green Advocates: Green Advocates are the greenest of the Green. Nature and the environment are of paramount importance to this segment, whose members firmly believe their actions have an impact
  on the world. Not only do they recycle, environmental impact is an overriding factor in all their purchase decisions. And they actively support environmental causes.

I fall decidedly in the "Green but Only If" category. I tend to mix being green with being frugal in terms of gas, electricity and waste disposal fees (we are charged per trash bag at our transfer station, but it is free to recycle). This means using the 43 mpg Toyota Echo, CFL lightbulbs, reusable grocery bags, recycling and composting (yes, I finally have a moldy bucket on my counter). These actions are green by creating less pollution and less waste in the landfills but they also put money in my own pocket. I usually don't pay more for organic foods or environmentally friendly products. But Tees For Change may change this. If you are or trying to be "Green at Their Best" or "Green Advocates", you really need to check them out.

Tees For Change's slogan "Sustainable Tees on a Mission" embodies many values that I believe in, being green and positive thinking. They feature beautiful clothes for men, women and babies in organic cotton and sustainable bamboo. This is my favorite tee:



And how many tees can sport these tags?


You can receive 15% off your order at Tees For Change by using the code "mommybytes" through August 31st. Also, you can win a live fully tee by entering the giveaway over at contest bytes.

This was not a sponsored post.

Fish Nibbling at Feet? Nothing New!

One of Dova's favorite activities when she visits grandma is to put her feet in the pond and have the koi fish nibble at her toes.  So when the rash of "fish pedicure" and "fish reflexology" stories went around the interwebs, it was no big deal to us. Then again, I didn't take these awesome photos, so check out these stories about the real doctor fish:


AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin.


AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin.


photo.eastday.com from CriEnglish.com.

And if you can't get enough, check out the CNN video.

WW - Dova Loves Her Kitty

Here's Dova at one month with her stuffed kitty, a Ty Isis. NWT in eBay speak (new with tags).


Here she is 53 months later with an identical replacement kitty.  We had to buy a new one a few years ago because when I washed and dried the original, it wasn't quite the same, all matted and not soft and shiny.  Thank goodness for eBay.

Autism Revealed

I'm officially one week late for last week's Hump Day Hmm but thankfully, it's hump day again. Last week's Hmm was about society's need to fix what it deems as "broken" children. While traveling, I read a fascinating article titled The Truth About Autism from Wired Magazine. Admittedly, I know very little about autism or Asperger's syndrome and this article really opened my eyes. They featured a video made by Amanda Baggs which shows her normal actions which appear bizarre to the non-autistic: flapping arms, repetitive motions and singing. But then she goes to explain all her actions in extremely articulate terms using a synthesized voice. Here is the video:


She emphasizes that she simply thinks and interacts with her surroundings differently that other people. This doesn't make her any less human, or have less value. With this video and the internet, she has communicated to the non-autistic world how rich her own world truly is, and that we simply cannot understand it. In the Wired article, neuroscientist Thomas Zeffiro said, "If Amanda Baggs had walked into my clinic five years ago, I would have said she was a low-functioning autistic with significant cognitive impairment. And I would have been totally wrong."

In another example, the article cites a paper which says that autistics generally score much higher in intelligence tests using Raven's Progressive Matrices, than the more commonly used Wechsler Intelligence Scale. The Raven test measures non-verbal abstract reasoning skills such as solving patterns or geometric puzzles. The Wechsler test is based more on learned skills such as vocabulary and comprehension. This indicates that many autistics are more intelligent than previously assumed.

Intelligence does not mean that autistic people are normal functioning members of society that just think differently. The fact is that "low-functioning" autistics do need caretakers to help them with everyday tasks. But because they are intelligent beings with genuine feelings, they need to be treated with respect. It's time to stop labeling and disparaging and to start making an effort to understand and embrace their world. Consider this quote from Jim Sinclair:

Autism is not a disease. It does not make people sick, and it does not kill people. There are different opinions about how much suffering and misery autism causes. Some people do suffer a lot from it, while for others the suffering is caused primarily by other people, not by autism.
...
Spend money for autism on special education, vocational rehabilitation, supported living, and community accessibility.
...
Autism may be many things to many people--a way of being, a way of relating, a sense of self, a sharing of culture, a strength, a challenge, a shield or a tool, a gift or an impediment. But one thing autism is not is a disease.

The overwhelming message that I hear from these autistic adults is that it is not a condition that needs fixing from the medical community, it is something that needs support from the community at large.

Tuesday Toot - Restoring my Geek Stature

Being a software engineer means that I've become the de facto network administrator at my house. Which is not usually a problem since I live and breathe computers all day. But when all the computers at home started acting up at once, it made for one grumpy admin. Last week, I mentioned that my hard drives were full on my main computer and I couldn't get another computer activated. On top of that, I couldn't get network access from the last remaining computer to my main computer, so all three computers had some kind of problem. But over the weekend, I managed to straighten all these guys out (they will yield to my command, dammit! And yes, they are guys, not gals like cars can be. Which reminds me of this creepy story about a guy who had sex with thousands of cars, but now I really digress).

In the last few years, my peripheral gadgets, the iPod and digital cameras, have driven my computer and hard drive upgrades. I was using my laptop with a 40 GB HDD as my main computer when I got my first 30GB iPod in 2005. Obviously, there was going to be a space problem at some point, as the iPod was nearly the same size as the laptop HDD. When that happened, I moved my iTunes library to my old computer, a 450 MHz Pentium III II (from 1998) with a 120 GB HDD. But then this computer started to act up in a few months, not running iTunes and not shutting down. At this point, I bought a used computer from work, a dual core Xeon and moved my 120 HDD there. Everyone was happy, I had iTunes back, Doug used the laptop and eventually, I would to set up the 450 for the kids.

On my Xeon, I had a 20 GB drive for the operating system (I know, woefully small) and the 120 GB drive for data (iTunes, pictures. etc). And at exactly the same time, both drives were full. I ordered a new 500 GB drive and in the meantime, started to work on the 450 for the kids. I reformatted the HDD on the 450 and re-ininstalled Windows XP, only to have the activation problem. And then Doug mentioned that he could no longer access our sacred car spreadsheets on my computer from his laptop. Arrgghh!! So this weekend, in between a trip to a lake, here's how I fixed everything:

• I installed the 500 GB drive, and totally forgot how to use the Windows disk manager. I finally managed to create a "basic disk" through the command line and formatted it (two hours!). Then I copied all my data over (another two hours!). In the meantime, I packed for our trip. Note to self, next time use Ghost, should go much faster...
• I ghosted the original 20 GB OS drive onto my old 120 GB drive. People always say to use your newest, fastest drive as your OS drive, but I wanted the biggest drive for my data because I TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOGRAPHS. Besides, going from the the clunky slow 20GB to the 120 GB, made my computer seem lightning fast. One computer fixed.
• On the 450, I did not have the enter the product key during the Windows installation because it was an OEM "re-installation" disk. As a last ditch effort, I re-entered the same product key at the dreaded, "Your product key is invalid" prompt, and then it activated. Whew! Stupid Windows, stop giving me unneeded heart attacks.
• The last problem was definitely a tough one. I could access the files on the laptop from my main computer, but not vice versa. I couldn't even ping my main computer. When I was setting up the 450 and looking to copy file over from the main computer, I ran into the same problem, so I knew it was some setting on my main computer and not the other computers or the new Verizon FiOS router (Ugh, I still need to swap that out with my Linksys running DD-WRT, really miss the VPN...). I spent a lot of time trying things from Google, but then it finally hit me. I had installed the AT&T Global Network Client VPN for work (because I am so dedicated that I need to access the work network even when I don't bring my work laptop home - I really can't say that with a straight face). Hidden in this client is a software firewall which they default to ON. The last time I installed this software was about two years ago and I barely remember turning it OFF for exactly this same problem. If you are here looking for the solution, go to the Start menu, All Programs, AT&T Global Network Client, Firewall Settings.

So once again, our home network is in good shape for the time being. I installed Kidzui for the kids computer and have been happy with it so far. And now I can finally upload a ton of new photographs to keep the blog going.

Photo Hunters - What Is That?

What are those furry balls? Tribbles from Star Trek of course! I was disappointed to hear that Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas is closing this fall. Sure it was cheesy, but I loved the simulation on the bridge and then meeting a Klingon:



I wonder where all these cool artifacts will end up, like this 3D chess set:


And last not but least, the Enterprise from TNG:

Thursday Thirteen #45 - Where Have I Been?

I've been pretty scarce around the blog lately, and here are my excuses:

1. Went to the beach.  Well, just once, for a whole two hours because Dova couldn't find her glasses until 2pm.  I lost it with Adam earlier in the day because he threw his Nintendo DS across the room in frustration, so he went with Dad to a car show.


2. Traveled for work.  I spent four days in Toronto last week.  Normally I blog from the hotel, but I was too busy eating smoked salmon on pizza and then sushi, and spent the rest of the time working it off in the exercise room and pool.


3. Water slide!  Speaking of pools, the Hilton Garden Inn in greater Toronto has an awesome water slide. And the kids went to a birthday party with a water slide as well.
   
   
   


4. More traveling.  Took a couple day trips to the makers of the blue pill.  By taking the Toyota Echo at 43 mpg and $0.10/mile, with expense reimbursement at $0.585/mile, I pocketed $109.  But it left me exhausted with no time to blog.


5. Adding a chart to my famous mileage spreadsheet. How do I know how the price per mile on my car?  The spreadsheet.  With gas prices rising and my excruciatingly detailed car spreadsheet, I added this price per gallon chart over the life of my cars.  This one is for regular unleaded, which is even more dramatic than the premium.
   
   
   


6. My hard drives are full.  Both my hard drives are full, which means that I can't upload any more photographs.  I have a new one, but I haven't installed it yet.


7. My other computer is broken too.  I'm such a lame geek! I re-installed Windows XP on the kids computer and when I finally got around to activating it, it barfed on me and said my product key was bad.  All this after I installed a wireless network card and failed to set it up before the activation period expired and I hauled the computer over to connect it directly to the router.


8. Celebrated my wedding anniversary.  Still going strong nine years and two crazy kids later.
   
   


9. Necessary iPhone apps.  Since I reverted to an unjailbroken phone last November, I've been app-less (as opposed to hapless?) with lots of ground to make up.  Necessities include AIM, Jott and Twittelater (I found Twitterific too confusing with too many ads).


10. Cool iPhone apps.  I also installed Facebook, Pandora, PageOnce and eReader.  I miss the book reader on my Palm although I never used it.  
    
    


11. Silly iPhone apps.  Fun but useless include iPint, TapTap and PhoneSaber.


12. Worrying about the doctor visit.  Tomorrow I get to see a pulmonologist to check out my never ending cough.
    
    


13. Sleeping.  Considering that this post is going to be published at 1:30am, this obviously means that I've been favoring sleeping over blogging!
    
    

WW - Feeding the Ducks

At the duck pond in Stony Brook, NY.

Tuesday Toot - Our Nonchalant Soccer Star

Adam takes on a different pose year for the soccer portraits. Since I'm feeling sentimental, here are all his previous soccer portraits in eensy weensy size:

I still love the first one the best, with the beautiful lighting through the fall trees.

For last year's spring soccer season, Adam at age 6, was supposed to be in the U6 (under age 6) division, because he missed the cut-off for U8 by three months. I appealed to the soccer board to allow him play in U8 because he clearly had the skills for it. It was an arduous process, getting recommendations, writing letters to the board and waiting to see if there were any spots available, etc. In the previous fall season, he was running circles around the other players, scoring six to eight goals per game. It wasn't fair to the other players who were just learning, or to him because he wasn't being challenged. And thankfully, he thrived under his U8 coach. He clearly started to learn more about the game, passing and strategy. At the end of the season, all his teammates were abuzz about try-outs for the U10 travel team. Of course, when the coach asked me about it, I had to tell him that he was only 6, so it was out of the question. And since it was such a pain to appeal, I vowed not to push for the U10 travel team before he was eligible. Besides, I want to delay having to drive him to all parts of the state at all hours of the day for as long as possible.

Fast forward to this past spring season. Now he was officially in U8 and the buzz about the travel team try-outs came again. I simply let the try-out date pass by knowing that his time would come next year. But afterwards, his new coach came up to us and said that he really felt Adam should be on the travel team and he was going to appeal for us. Really, has he become that much of a star? I actually missed most of this year's soccer season since I took him to the the early morning hockey games on the same day (he will never complain about doing too many sports). There were soccer games where he didn't score goals this season, especially against really good players, although he still averaged about three goals per game. But apparently he is getting known in our little soccer community. I still have mixed feelings about the travel team, but at least this time I don't have to do the work for the appeal (haven't heard anything yet thankfully). At his last game of the season, I watched as he made this awesome pass from half field - he kicked the ball way over all the opponent's heads and it landed right next to his teammate in front of the goal who kicked it in. Just like the professionals. Afterwards, he kept saying, Mom, did you see that pass? Did you see that awesome pass? That's my boy.

July 22, 2008 - Edited to add: We just heard that Adam is officially on the U10 travel team. Woo hoo! And so it begins.